Reviews by mibbiesaye

I liked the second and third from them at the time but never went back to this. Should have done.

Recognizably 00s scratchy electronic sound

What has this process done to me? I hated the other two Steely Dan albums when I got them early on but this sounds OK to me. Gah!

I sort of want to like The Auteurs more than I do because I like Luke Haines' writing so much. His column in Record Collector is great.

The glam rock revival label has never rung true to me. This sounds very arch 80s indie to me with the light unobtrusive instrumentation and acerbic storyteller lyrics. The drawback with a lot of this stuff is that often the melodies aren't quite strong enough.

I read about the inspiration for Idiot Brother. Are Fire Records the most hated UK indie label of the 80s/90s?

I knew as soon as this one popped up it would average less than 3 and the top reviews would be 1 star reviews complaining about the amount of Britpop, with Britpop being used to cover all UK music from the 80s onwards. This album and the list of bands in the top review are the clearest possible illustration that the UK and US may share a language (erroneous use of Britpop aside) but our cultural overlap is not so great. There's a nice irony in the song American Guitars on this not being a put down.

Peter Gabriel's fake working class are an absolute brass neck but this album still sounds so great.

Tony Banks loved showing off on the keys didn't he? Sometimes, I worry that he found himself doing silly dances in videos for pop songs about bad dancing and had quiet bitter desperate moments of pining for the old proggy days. I guess the money helped.

Probably Steve Hacket's best stuff is on here.

If you get a chance to see The Musical Box perform the original tour set of this I recommend it. I was a bit sceptical when I agreed to go with a friend because it was the one Gabriel era Genesis album I never really got into. It was entertainingly silly and bonkers with all the Gabriel costumes and the triple screen slide show more complete than Genesis themselves ever managed. The original used mechanical slide projectors which were always breaking down. Much easier to do digitally of course. Anyway, it belatedly turned me into a fan of this over wrought over stuffed monster.

It feels very typical of the book to go for the big statement properly long double concept album as a Genesis pick rather than Foxtrot which for me in Supper's Ready has the pinnacle of that brand of whimsical showing off English prog. As I'm not a fan I'm happy enough that there are no Phil Collins era Genesis albums or indeed any of his solo stuff, but all that stuff was massively popular all over the world, and the big gated drums on Face Value are inarguably influential.

Better than I remember. I was a bit anti-retro at the time.

I sort of hate how this now gets labelled trip hop just cos it influenced so much of the stuff that got placed within that genre. It's got so much more going on in it and in some ways is way more pop. I like Daddy G's description of "dance music for the head, not the feet". I also agree with him that they were never stronger.

The Gamma Band

Tracks 2 to 4 are kind of awful but if you hang in there it's sort of ok.

The spiritual cousin of Leonard Cohen's Death of a Ladies Man, both featuring the same curdled 70s Spector production and attendant struggle through the recording process. This is the nicer cousin but the songs aren't quite as strong. Nor does it have Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg singing backing vocals about boners.

His vocals are fantastic though, especially on In and Out of the Shadows.

It's Bowie in Berlin, it's great, but maybe a little redundant in the list when Low is already there. If the book's editors had a little more imagination they would include an album by Cluster or Harmonia (both Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius) who Brian Eno copped most of his initial ideas from for his solo career second act as an ambient artist/in demand producer. Cluster's Sowiesoso or Harmonia Deluxe would be my choices if you're looking for recommendations.

Always nice to look at the cover for this alongside Iggy's The Idiot.

My first rehab poetry collection.

Why won't the horribly multitracked singer shut up for a minute so we can at least get a break and tune into the mediocre riffs?

I guess the generation 10 to 15 years younger than me should have been allowed their own go at Indie Rock.

I was really glad I was up the back when I saw Faust live in a small club venue in the late 90s when they started using an angle grinder off the edge of the modified for the purpose stage. Amazing sound but a face full of sparks for those down the front. Not exactly healthy and safety friendly (and let's be honest, a bit edge lord). Now that I think about it I was furthest from the fire exits.

I think I read somewhere that they viewed the track Krautrock as a pisstake of the UK music press's conception of that genre category and what it should entail. Thing is it still rocks. The bass on Jennifer is the all time greatest aural representation of being thoroughly stoned.

A lot of Faust's music, especially on this and So Far, really repudiates the idea of Krautrock as a genre. Lots of it fits with the complex proggy stuff going on all around Europe at the time and something like The Sad Skinhead sounds a bit like Slapp Happy.

I didn't used to believe in guilty pleasures but then this project made me listen to a couple of Eagles albums.

Better than expected. It does have a bit of a MOR noughties Indie feel, especially in the vocals, but there is something charming to the songs and the simultaneously lush and wayward production. I'll be a wee bit generous with a four.

I suppose it makes sense them picking this one for Madness. It seems more important because of it being a bit conceptual and having more complex arrangements. Really you could have any of the Barson ones from their original run.

It's Alright!

Defines a pretty big chunk of my 20s. Seemed like everyone in the 90s was trying to form a band influenced by this record. Not one I ever feel the need to revisit these days so it was nice to be forced into it.

So many tritones. I love the way you expect Don, Aman to explode and it never does. Washer is still very much the centre piece.

There's a perfect mix of dread and looseness that I don't feel anyone else captured. Too many post rock groups were too focused on the form and not the feel. Other 90s contemporaries/followers like Radiohead are way too bombastic and melodramatic for my taste.

I appreciate that this process has taught me the difference between the softer more innovative early 50s Sinatra and the brasher glib later 60s version that I feel more familiar with.