Reviews by mitch058

Steely Dan is one of those artists that this project really should have considered breaking their no-compilation/best-of-album rule, even if it means losing the chance to hear the hits in their natural habitat, and conversely to hear rarities and back-catalog songs altogether. I've enjoyed listening to Steely Dan over the years, and I appreciate hearing a lot of this album for the first time (pretty much everything except the opening "Rikki don't lose that number"), but I remain unconvinced that we needed to hear four Steely Dan albums and a bonus Donald Fagen album before we collectively die. That said, I kind of wonder if *this* should have been the lone Steely Dan album--it's very solid and consistent, and while it would be a shame to miss out on some of their big hits on the other albums, this one seems like they found their groove and sound (with the exception perhaps of the vaudeville version of Duke Ellington's "East St. Louis toodle-oo").

Move along, there's nothing (new) to hear here. Much like "S&M", this album does *not* belong in this collection, and I'd be surprised if the band even felt that this was some exemplar of their art. They're clearly in fine Metallica form throughout the extremely long album--apparently they hadn't decided to make short-form ear bleeds quite yet, one of the many reasons they never really made the airwaves--but I'm hard-pressed to say that there's anything particularly distinctive or noteworthy, although the "Fade to Black"-adjacent "One" was a decent choice for a single (with their first video!) on this album. As I listened to each too-long track, I couldn't shake the feeling that they made this album knowing that they were in this whole music-business-thing for the long haul, and they just had to turn out something every year or two, and then go on tour to play whatever they wanted. (Perhaps a bit too cynical, I suppose, since apparently a number of reviewers felt they had insightful lyrics, but I've always had a really tough time understanding much of what James Hetfield belts out, so I can only go on hearsay that they delivered smarter-than-average thoughts.) A shame to read about how the other band members basically mixed out the bass lines altogether--not the nicest way to treat their new bassist. And I *did* appreciate reading how Metallica was in its prog-metal phase, as it never occurred to me that that's exactly what they were doing, not that anyone really asked for a metal version of prog-rock....

The highlight for me, however, was reading about the absolute tragedy that befell them with the 1989 Grammy Awards. I laughed out loud to read that somehow Jethro Tull's "Crest of a Knave" beat out not just "...And Justice for All", but also Jane's Addiction's "Nothing's Shocking", AC/DC's "Blow Up Your Video", and (oddly) the song "Cold Metal" by Iggy Pop, for the Grammy Award for "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental". I laughed even harder when I sampled some of what the good old "Aqualung" boys offered up on "Crest of a Knave", which left me agreeing with all the rage heaped on the Academy for even including Jethro Tull at all in that category. But kudos to both bands for having a (sort of) sense of humor about it all, with Jethro Tull advertising in Billboard with a picture of a flute as a "heavy, metal instrument", and Metallica thanking Jethro Tull in 1992 for not releasing an album that year so Metallica could win a Grammy. Good times!

I wish I was more of a Wu-Tang Clan fan (or even afficionado), but there's something about each album from the Clan in this collection that just doesn't click for me. In some ways, though, "Fishscale" might be one of the more accessible and entertaining of the Clan-related albums so far, and I enjoyed his plentiful 60s throwback samples throughout. It's far too long (at least twice as long) for what it delivers, which seems to be de rigor for most of the hip-hop albums in this collection, and the skits are just annoying and useless, unfortunately. The highlights for me among the 20+ tracks are probably "Kilo", "Whip you with a strap" and "Be easy" (both versions).

The first Stooges album of three in this collection (first for me, last chronologically of the collection), and I must admit I'm a little disappointed that we got more Stooges and less solo Iggy Pop, if this album is much like the previous two Stooges productions. "Search and destroy" is an interesting choice to start off the album, as it set me up to expect that the album would be kind of a harsh proto-punk sound, but other tracks are mildly more entertaining--"Gimme danger" has an almost Doors-like sound (assuming the Doors chose to record in a wind tunnel from far away), and "Penetration" is another promising direction. Unfortunately, despite Bowie's efforts to recover from Pop's apparently abysmal mix, the production quality is really mediocre (even with the 2023 remastered version), so much so that it distracts from the music, such as it is, and I'll admit I would never have guessed that Iggy Pop was singing the songs (except for "I need somebody" and bits of "Death trip", he sounds a lot more like Darby Clash from the very recent Germs album, which isn't a good thing). I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and an extra star (and respect the apparently unanimous critical love of what this album represented) if there weren't two more Stooges albums ahead of me (and one Germs immediately behind), so two it is. Sorry, Stooges!

This is *exactly* what I feared all of the punk albums in this collection would sound like, so it's a credit to this project that this is the only truly painful and unlistenable album (for me)--at least so far, as there's still a couple hundred left to prove me wrong. It's funny that this was apparently as clear/coherent as their fans would get, as it's just a muddy album to me; according to the Wikipedia entry, "the album's clarity [thanks to recording engineer Pat Burnett and producer Joan Jett] redefined the Germs for California audiences, who had only seen the band thrash around onstage while an intoxicated [Darby] Crash avoided singing into the mic as much as possible." For me, "Land of treason" is probably the best example of how bad this album is, and Crash is still largely incoherent despite the "clarity"; on the other hand, "Lexicon devil" seems to be vaguely familiar, but they could have just been riffing off of someone else, I guess, and just downright weird to get a 9+ minute punk track at the end. Sad that leadman Darby Crash died of an apparently intentional overdose not long after the album was released, and weird that guitarist Pat Smear went on after this to join another suicide-plagued band (Nirvana). Regardless, I see no redeeming value to this album aside from perhaps its claim as the "first" full-length hardcore punk album.

Fun to get another Beta Band album in the collection, and while fewer of the tracks here made it to the "Best of the Beta Band" compilation, it's still a very solid album, and sadly the last from a talented band that couldn't quite stick it out together. My favorites are probably "Assessment" (with a fun video), "Lion Thief" and "Easy", and "Simple" (with a sad but well-done video). I also liked the homage to Siouxsie and the Banshees in "Liquid bird" (and way more homages packed into the somewhat-too-clever video for "Out-side"). A shame they went their separate ways after this, as they could have made several more good albums.

It's (mildly) interesting that the project editors decided to have two Orbital albums in the collection, especially since they didn't include Orbital's debut, and also because Orbital's musical range isn't really wide enough to differentiate their albums all that much (at least these two). Just as I wrote with "Snivilisation", I enjoy their music overall, but more as background music than an active listening experience. It's hard to pick out any highlights on the album--especially since the tracks largely blend into each other, and are effectively all instrumentals--but somewhat counter-intuitively it feels like their longer (9+ minute) tracks have the best balance and progression, despite that this album is too long by half. I also enjoyed the amusing and *very* British flea-market video to accompany "Lush 3-1".

What a bizarre album, in both a good and not-so-great way. I'm not sure I entirely get why this was so mind-blowing to so many music critics, and I'm also not sure I'd describe this as a "rap opera", but either way it's a pretty unique style and sound and album. It feels like listening to some weird mashup of "Trainspotting" and a failed Eminem-wannabe white "rapper", and at times Mike Skinner's (and several other collaborators') absolute lack of rapping/hip-hop skill is maddeningly distracting and unpleasant, but some tracks are thankfully trending towards music (like the pairing of "Blinded by the lights" and "Wouldn't have it any other way", as well as "Dry your eyes"), which helps redeem it some. And despite all the failings and weirdness, it's easy to get caught up with the storyline and find yourself hoping that Skinner's character can find a way to beat the odds and rescue his lost £1,000 as well as his direction in life (in other words, the happier ending in "Empty cans"). (And in case you find your mind wandering mid-script, the Wikipedia entry has a great (and concise) breakdown of the main plot points in each track.)

What a nice surprise to get this album in this collection! I know her voice puts a lot of people off, but thankfully I'm not one of those people, and I've listened to this album many times outside this project and always enjoyed the songs and the stories, although it's probably 2-4 songs too long overall. (I'm also struck by how much I associate this album with similar ones by Daniel Lanois and T-Bone Burnett.) My favorites are probably the title track, "Concrete and barbed wire", the very Steve-Earle-influenced "I lost it", and "Joy"; and the only real dud would probably be the strangely bitter "Greenville". I'm not entirely sure it deserves a full four stars, but I feel like this album is impressively solid and serves as a great stand-in for all of the very worthy acoustic/folk/alt-country/country-rock/Americana artists that sadly *aren't* here.

I was wondering when we'd get the New Jersey rockers, and here we are. It's a good selection for them, especially given how many hits this album produced (and shocking to read that the album's been certified 18x platinum--that's a *lot* of albums), and I'm also glad that this is the only Bon Jovi addition in the collection, as they seem best in limited doses. And as much as I scoffed at Bon Jovi in high school, considering them even greater posers than the likes of Motley Crue and Quiet Riot, I have more respect for them now, as they (like Aerosmith, Guns-n-Roses and Metallica) all seemed to decide that they wanted to stay in front of large crowds, and found ways to do that over and over. The album overall is surprisingly solid--possibly benefiting from the audience-polling that they did to figure out the right tracks and order for the album--and about as vacuous, formulaic and still entertaining as I expected. Aside from the four massive hits, everything else is fairly forgettable, but nothing feels painful or out of place (aside from perhaps "Without love"). I guess they were right in claiming 100M fans can't be wrong....

Sadly, the best I can say of this is that it's the last of the three Tim Buckley albums in this collection (for me at least). Like the other two albums, there's nothing wrong with "Goodbye and Hello", but there's also nothing all that great or distinctive, and despite the rave review in the "1001 Albums" entry, I have no idea why this is here. The best of the lot might be "Pleasant Street" and "Once I was". By far the worst of the lot (excluding the just-painful songs like "Knight-errant" or the title track) is the incredibly lame not-even-an-apology "I never asked to be your mountain", apparently written to explain his absence to his estranged wife and son; it leaves me incredibly *un*impressed with Tim Buckley, but also very impressed that Jeff Buckley had the grace to play this song (among many others) at a Tim Buckley tribute concert decades later.

Although I *really* don't enjoy easy listening/pop music like this, this was clearly a very popular album and helped make them into a big name; despite knowing they were loved worldwide, it's still shocking to read that their albums sold over 100 million units. It might have been more interesting if more than a third of the album was actually (co-)written by a Carpenter, but I'm not sure that was the point, and their two big hits (both by other songwriters) kind of dominate everything else. Funny to read that Ma Carpenter was angry that Karen didn't get to play the drums for the album, though, and even funnier to read that "Mr. Guder" referenced Richard Carpenter's and John Bettis' boss at Disneyland who fired them because they kept playing modern tunes when park customers requested them. (Also not at all surprising to find out "We've only just begun" started off as a bank jingle.) But overall, this really didn't work for me, and I'm not sure I needed to hear the rest of this album beyond their very familiar singles.

Ugh. A bunch of covers by a band that hadn't found their groove yet. I know this project seems to insist on including debut albums above all else, but given that there are five (5!) other Rolling Stones albums in this collection, all considerably better than this one, I don't think this album belongs here. Sorry Nanker Phelge!

This album is another bizarre and unexpected surprise from the twisted minds of PIL. While I'm a bit disappointed that the Wikipedia entry for "Second Edition" (aka Metal Box, or maybe vice versa) isn't nearly as strange and random as the entry for "First Issue", the album itself definitely goes much further into the strange, experimental realm, without any real hint of punk at all (in part thanks to Jah Wobble's pulsating bass, I suspect). It's *way* too long by yards, and some of the tracks could have been easily left on the cutting room floor without any great loss; this seems particularly true of the opening track "Albatross", which doesn't really need Wikipedia to let us know that they recorded it in one take, with the band making it up as they went along, and John Lydone "improvising" the entire set of lyrics. Of the lot, I think I appreciated "Swan Lake" (remixed version of their "Death disco" single), the Guy-Ritchie-style plot of "Careering" and the over-the-top oddballness of Lydon on "No birds" more than the others.

While I enjoyed the imagery of PIL fans frantically changing out the three original 12" 45rpm discs to listen to the entire album, and I respect John Levene's choice to use an aluminum Veleno guitar for its harsh screech, I'm not sure I could say I enjoyed the actual music overall. But I'm glad to have heard the album, and I'm glad both of PIL's first two albums were included in the collection.

Finally! The last of the seemingly interminable number of Elvis Costello albums, and it seems fitting to end on his debut (sans Attractions, at least in the studio (and band name)). I'm a little bummed that this collection overloaded so much on Elvis Costello, because as much as I enjoy his music, at this point I'm not sure I need to listen to him recreationally for quite a while. As for the album, it's a really strong debut, so much so that I find it hard to even try to imagine how people must have thought when they heard Costello for the first time. And while he definitely hadn't hit his stride either style- or lyrics-wise (perhaps in part because he apparently kept his day-job as a data-entry clerk while recording the album, plus not great chemistry with Huey Lewis' Clover band members in the studio), there are some fun tracks on here, mainly "Blame it on Cain", the perennial classic and album-title-toting "Alison", "Less than zero" and of course the bonus/single classic "Watching the detectives" (avec Attractions, sort of). It's probably not the best overall from Costello, but as a debut album it soars.

I had wondered with "Bryter Layter" if the other two Nick Drake albums would have a similar vibe and sound as that album, and that certainly seems to be the case with "Five Leaves Left" (and I'm guessing will be true of "Pink Moon"). With his melancholy whisper-song voice and (very accomplished) backing acoustic band, I'm still not entirely sure I understand why he became such a cult figure long after his death, but he clearly resonated with a lot of people. I found this album as hard as "Bryter Layter" to really foreground the songs, so I can't say I really followed the lyrics all that well, but I enjoyed the sort of sad and possibly profound folk-ness of much of the album, especially "Three hours" and "Day is done" (although the latter felt like some acoustic cover of a Blue Oyster Cult song somehow); the only track that kind of seemed off was "Way to blue", maybe just because of the overly dramatic strings. Another fine and pleasant addition by Nick Drake, although I kept wishing he'd included a few duets with Richard Thompson just to spice things up a bit.

I'm not sure this collection needs two Depeche Mode albums, but this seems like an acceptable choice behind their even better "Violator", and it kind of reminded me of a weird cross between krautrock and The Smiths at times (the former especially with "Pimpf"). I don't think I've ever heard any of the songs on this album, and while overall it didn't really affect my indifference to them, I thought a few tracks were interesting, mainly the pair "Little 15" and "Behind the wheel", but perhaps also the kind of oddball "Strangelove" (whose video sort of teased a vague connection to the movie, but didn't really come through on that). I can see why the production value of the album, and their tours promoting it, resulted in the blockbuster live album "101", recorded at a sold out Rose Bowl in 1988; they seemed to have graduated to the big time with this one.

What an impressive album, and not just because it immediately followed Ice Cube's "The Predator". While I hadn't actually heard about half of this album before, the entire album hits hard and relentlessly--it's easy to see why this is the definitive old-school-hip-hop album. A few tracks sound somewhat dated (like "Perfection" or "Hit it run"), but whenever they inject the guitars and samples it's remarkable how *un*-dated a lot of the album sounds. And of course the mind-blowing "Walk this way" (with a great video) catapulted them into the stratosphere; I can still remember hearing that song on a high school bus and wondering who that was. I also really liked the (new to me) tracks "Peter piper" and James-Brown-homage "Proud to be black".

I'm pretty torn about this album. Although I definitely agree it belongs in the collection, and Ice Cube almost rises to Public Enemy's level of social criticism--albeit without any of PE's musical or lyrical creativity--it's also hard to ignore Ice Cube's troubling blind spots on this album that became more and more obvious as time went on. "Wicked" is probably the worst of the lot, a well-done song whose video (and lyrics) sadly conflates the real and deep-seated anger triggered by the Rodney King trial and police violence with (literal) imagery of Korean store owners robbing Black bystanders at gunpoint, and Red Hot Chili Peppers gleefully participating in local store looting and demolition. It's hard to avoid feeling (especially with his previous and future excursions into antisemitism and anti-Asian rhetoric and conspiracy theories) that Ice Cube isn't just channeling the rage that fueled the Rodney King riots, but is instead mired in a sad and largely self-destructive perspective that takes aim at entirely the wrong targets, a sort of transferred aggression that dogs can't help doing, but humans *should* have more self-control than that.

It would be easier to temper (or perhaps just ignore) Ice Cube's dubious politics if there was more music on this album than there is. As it stands, though, you're pretty much left with his messages, which doesn't do as well for him overall as he probably thought it did (although his blistering critique of law enforcement's embedded racism and violence remains sadly relevant 35 years later). I'm also annoyed at myself for having such a negative response to this album.

It's funny how much you can hear Talking Heads in this album, and also why Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth might have made this band and album as a reaction to David Byrne and his obsessive control over Talking Heads. It's definitely more beat oriented, and nice to get female vocals, but the lyrics aren't nearly as interesting overall as Talking Heads material. I'm also really struck by how different their two big hits from the album are from each other; "Wordy Rappinghood" has always seemed like an incredibly embarrassing white-person version of rap (sort of like how ads in the later 80s and 90s tried to capitalize on rap's popularity with incredibly un-fun spoken rhymes that even Dr. Seuss would have cringed at), while "Genius of love" has held up so much better and was sampled extensively by rap/hip-hop artists. The rest of the album isn't quite as distinctive, but still a fun and largely positive album (and "On, on, on, on..." is a particularly catchy anthem). I'm impressed that the Weymouth collective and others involved in this album made several more albums over the years, hopefully releasing the kind of creative energy that infects this album.