Reviews by mibbiesaye

I listened to this album so much at the time I almost sickened myself. Also with age and familiarity the lyrics seem a little silly. But I sat and gave it a proper listen for the first time in years and it is an amazing piece of work. From a UK perspective it felt revelatory at the time ushering loud guitars back to a level of popularity after years of jingle jangle.

Some simple four piece bands just have a special magic when they meet and Pixies had that on the first few records. They were also great live.

This is also the record that cemented Steve Albini as a celebrity recording engineer. It still sounds extraordinary and arguably neither PJ Harvey or Nirvana were able to fully repeat the trick when they asked him to record their Surfer Rosas later.

I like this a lot more than I did her first album. I like the percussion, sounds a bit like Tune-Yards in places. Overall I find the music a lot more appealing and that draws me into the undeniably excellent lyrics which cover a lot of emotions and mental states.

The range of styles in this is great. I think that's mostly how a double album should be rather than just a really long single album focusing on one or two styles.

I think Alex Harvey was one of the great rock and roll voices. He sings with such abandon. They are a weird group with the range that they cover. I don't hear much glam in this. Old rock and roll, touch of prog and a heap of theatricality. Gang Bang is deeply unpleasant if delivered with brio. That pulsating synthetic at the start of The Faith Healer is at least a decade early.

The title track is my favourite Brel English cover. I wish he'd done an album of Brel tunes. He has an earthy grasp of the humour, tragedy and desperation unequalled by Scott Walker, David Bowie or Marc Almond. Even the original translator Mort Schumann.

I had a great day letting this album weave its way through everything I did. I have a friend who loves this group. Now I know what I was missing.

A fun listen and fun to read about the Bakersfield Sound and its influence. Also I'm a sucker for song genealogies vis The Unfortunate Rake/Streets of Laredo/When I Was On Horseback

The musical expression of many Scots' not so secret wish that they were Irish.

A grim coincidence. I was listening to this on the day she died. It was getting five stars anyway. If you like this and don't know her later stuff I recommend Give My Love To London.

The one star boors griping about this album only being here because of context make me laugh. As if context isn't relevant to all creative endeavours. The Rolling Stones were fairly talented young men who had the context of a social revolution to raise them up and The Beatles to light
a fire under them. Since they ran out of interesting context and ideas some point in the 70s they've been serving up drivel album after album, give or take a Start Me Up or an Undercover of the Night. Marianne on the other hand made consistently interesting records with a range of collaborators since this one.

And yeah she may have been related to European aristocracy a few generations back but she grew up in a terraced house in Reading.

Some folk can't stand a woman that survives heroin or Mick Jagger. Or maybe it's the in your face naked rage of Why D'Ya Do It they struggle with.

I want to like Bill Callahan more than I do because I think his lyrics are interesting. However, there are a few stumbling blocks. His voice is just too blank for me and when he combines it with such tastefully dull alt country arrangements as he does on this album it compounds the problem. Finally, his melodies are mostly only passable to my ears.

I was once criticised for playing bass like a lobotomised Peter Hook. This was inaccurate. I was playing bass like a lobotomised Steve Severin. I think he is so underrated.

I always felt they were one of the indie bands from that generation that had a bit more about them. I had forgotten just how much they were indebted to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on that first record.

The start is incredible but as a whole album I can see where Dr Dre is coming from. It always felt like the poor cousin to Public Enemy to me.

I liked this more than I expected to. I just have memories of laughing at how terrible Ironic is and flinching at how nasal her voice is. But I ended up liking how she uses her voice and she doesn't seem to have other lyrics as bad as Ironic.

This and 4 are his peak. So much so that the live album just after is my favourite Peter Gabriel record even if it does miss all the signature production sounds.

I found myself wanting to here the TCB band playing some of this stuff live, except In The Ghetto of course.

The Beach Boys head for the mountains but forget to bring their hooks. White Winter Hymnal is good.

The start of a perfect run to Scary Monsters.

You can hear why there is mutual appreciation with Elvis Costello. Supposedly the lyrics are great but the production was too off puttingly bland to make me want to listen again yesterday.

I'm going to have a proper Kinks phase one of these days I tells you.

From the 90s onwards it seems like the book relies a lot more on sales figures in either the US or UK ( or both) to determine its picks. This album was middle of the road enough to reach double platinum in its day but it isn't exactly earth shattering.

I had to take a star off because it played on a loop in a pub I worked in on moribund weekday shifts.