Reviews by mibbiesaye

Such a rock critic choice of Abba album to include. 'We'll have no pop hits here thank you'. Still very good mind you.

Not bad but I think for middling 60s psychedelia I prefer the twee English variant.

Aw man my 60s beat music has been rehashed so much it has turned into grey sludge.

I didn't know this at all but I liked it. Like a few reviewers are adding it probably sounded a little dated, a little late 80s, when it came out. But so what? From this distance who cares? A bit of non gangster 90s hiphop is always welcome.

I wish more artists made albums like this that aren't afraid to range wildly on the genres used. Plenty of this album doesn't sound like it should belong together but it does. Andrew Weatherall did so much heavy lifting on the non Stonesy ones.

Around the time of this album Bobby Gillespie did an interview claiming they all moved to Brighton for the rave scene. Apparently, the real reason is his partner got a well paid job in a bank down there and of course he wasn't yet raking it in. Fair enough. The prosaic truth behind rock n roll.

Poor old Dexys getting a hammering on here. I remember as a 15 year old reading a rave review but taking one look at that sleeve and thinking "Yuppies!? No thanks". Which was a shame. It's such an imaginative and intriguing album.

I'm just delighted this album exists because it means I got to see them live having missed them first time round. I think it might be my favourite of theirs. Loveless was more ground breaking and influential, certainly deserving of its slot in the book, but m b v has more twists and turns, more charm for me.

These guys were considered pretty uncool by their Eric's contemporaries in Liverpool. I don't think the pretentious sounding name helped. A shame really cos this record is pretty good.

Indie rock is such a hidebound genre. Production aside this could have been made at any point after punk. Sonically it's all a bit so what.

I loved the follow up Snivilisation at the time. They were talked about as one of the few dance acts making albums for headphones as well as the dance floor. This sounded OK.

I can't be the only one that immediately thinks Superman II whenever they see this album cover?

I love 70s stuff and this is so 70s but it is too lumbering and ponderous for me. I don't get its popularity at all. Needs replaced with some Van Der Graaf Generator.

Of all the late 90s albums on here that soundtracked my pub working days this is the most Proustian for me. It is a rush of memories in all kinds of mind states and situations. It was so multi purpose. It could nurse everyone's post clubbing Sunday morning hangovers, it could soothe the nerves of tired weekday lunchtime shoppers and office workers, it could level out depressed or elated Saturday afternoon football supporters, it could turn your scabby round the corner pub into somewhere much cooler on a Friday night if you also dimmed the lights just right.

When Air came to town a bunch of us went along, essentially on a staff night out. They had giant banners hanging from the ceiling featuring the Sexy Boy ape. At the end of the night one of the more daring girls got on the shoulders of a particularly light fingered colleague and tore one of the banners down while the rest of us stood about nervously expecting the venue security to accost our friends at any moment. But they never did and we all spilled laughing out of a fire escape door.

We took our trophy to a nearby bar with a late license and talked about which club we thought might let us in for free, for being from a bar that carried their fliers. Plans were discussed to persuade our manager that we had to hang the banner in the main window of the pub. More drinks were consumed, a club was selected and yes the banner was forgotten and left behind in the late license bar. Nearly thirty years on my light fingered friend who we later learned used to nick the pub's CDs, including this one, will still rage at himself for forgetting that banner.

I like Shirley Manson. She seems smart, funny, opinionated, flawed, etc. But I always think in Garbage she is let down by the dull as dishwater dead music and deader production she is singing over.

Every early 80s post punk or UK pop record is met with a chorus of bleats from Americans on here about it hurting their ears or being obscure. But America, if this is the best of the dross you were serving up what do you expect?

It is not an issue but I'm not really hearing much Afrobeat in this regardless of what Wikipedia claims. Very likeable none the less. Charts a different mellower route through 70s jazz than the more obviously dedicated almost academic fusion stuff or Miles Davis' wild live albums from the time.

The reacton to this album is amusingly over the top. Sure, club music doesn't really translate to the album format comfortably and it is a bit long but the way some folk are carrying on you'd think they'd either been subjected to three hours of gabba techno or three hours of shopping channel background music.

Fair play to the editors trying to represent UK Garage even if it wasn't really an album based genre. With my limited knowledge I'd say this was a good example.

Another soundtrack to late 90s bar shifts. I remember this one cos the boss bought it for the pub and one of my colleagues later admitted to nicking it. Back when music had a monetary value. Crazy times.

Anyway, this is way more fun than the Chemical Brothers or Fatboy Slim.

Attaching a full string section to such a loose funky band is undeniably impressive.

I get that Loveless is like the perfection of what Kevin Shields was trying to achieve but I prefer the sound of this album where you can more clearly hear a band at work.

I like how Soft As Snow sounds like a whitey. The whole album is whitey adjacent and yes that is a good thing.

In this century of musical abundance it is very easy to not really take something in. I definitely listened to this at the time because it got so many rave reviews but it didn't really make an impression and I moved on. So today it was great to give it a proper chance and I have to say I regret missing out all these years. It reminds me a little of Randy Newman in how the music can seem simple and maybe a bit cheesy at times but the lyrics are full of sharp barbs and commentary.