Reviews by mitch058

Well, I'm glad to be done with this one. It's impressive how much sheer noise the two Brians are able to create with (in theory) just drums, guitar ("bass guitar"?) and horribly distorted vocals (apparently with a contact mic taped inside an S&M fetish hood). While this might qualify as art, it's not my idea of music, and despite the "1001 Albums" entry reviewer's note that it has some "welcome diversity" thrown into the mix, this just seems like a far less interesting version of the likes of Ministry or other industrial groups, and honestly sounds like a bunch of kids literally banging away (even though I know this takes a lot more technical skill than that to sound that way). Not only did I not need to hear this before I die, I really wish I hadn't. But two stars because (a) it's not nearly as execrable as other 1-star albums, and (b) these Rhode Islanders seem very earnest in whatever it is they think they're doing.

Although I'm guessing this album got included largely for its asterisk-infused birth-of-punk status, if I hadn't read about the band's formative influence on the nascent "Punk" magazine's editors, I would have simply guessed that this was yet another album in the line of Meatloaf and other flamboyant-esque novelty music (The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Mott the Hoople, aspects of Kiss and Alice Cooper, etc.), albeit without the rock opera aspirations. I'm also struck how musical their flavor of punk-like music was, with actual sung lyrics, and chord progressions and the like; "Master race rock" was probably the closest to the punk stylings to come. Highlights for me were their cover of "I got you babe", "Back to Africa", and "Weekend". Kind of underwhelming overall, but also mildly entertaining, and kudos for the fantastic album cover--that Handsome Dick Manitoba is quite a catch!

Nice to finally have something from Iceland in this collection that has nothing to do with Bjork! And it's an interesting(ish) album, kind of a Scandinavian iteration of the Cocteau Twins in some ways, but far more cinematic/soundtrack oriented. (I belatedly discovered that part of that impression was because several of their songs were used in "Vanilla Sky" and one in "The Aquatic Life of Steve Zissou".) The video for "Svefn-g-englar" of Downs Syndrome angels is as mesmerizing as the music; the sad tale of forbidden love in "Vidra vel til loftarasa" isn't quite as good, but still a bit riveting with the soundless slow-motion.

Gauging from this album and the infinite number of Bjork albums in this collection, there must be something about being a musician in Iceland that seems to create a need for weird, ethereal and sometimes truly unintelligible music, and this album delivers this in spades (especially the tracks with their made-up Vonlenska/Hopelandic). Kind of like the northern lights of music. Enjoyable, and really well-produced, but better perhaps in smaller doses than this album's one-hour-plus runtime.

I'll admit that I don't really get the whole Britpop thing, nor why exactly this collection seems to want to trace every nook and cranny of its seemingly short-lived life. But this post-Suede band/album seems like a more interesting choice than some of the other Britpop jetsam, and it's nice to finally have a name behind that incredible 90s ear-worm "Connection". (Interesting too to have Damon Albarn feature in various tracks as "Dan Abnormal".) The rest of the album is fine, and while there weren't too many other standouts besides the very catchy "2:1", I appreciated the admirably brief tracks with no filler; plus some truly odd videos for "Line up" (quasi-Peter-Gabriel stop-motion) and "Car song" (some sort of weird Tokyo-ghostbusters-themed storyline). I also appreciated having a largely-female band that seemed to be focused on making an impression by the strength of their music and lyrics.

A curious album, especially with the band's semi-reputation as punk, as this is definitely *not* what I think of as traditional punk (sort of maybe). At times it feels like the soundtrack to a harder version of something Meatloaf might have created, or even Rocky Horror, (or even what "Repo Man" might have wanted if it were set in the UK), but other times it's just it's own thing, kind of intriguing and kind of off-kilter. But definitely distinctive, certainly for a "punk"(ish) album, and impressive production quality, especially for 1979. I thought the best tracks of the lot were the opening track "Love song", "I just can't be happy today" and the gonzo "Plan 9 channel 7".

It's a bit surprising that this is the only Damned album we get, as I've always had the impression that their journey beyond punk really came into its own with their next album, "The Black Album". But like so many selections in this collection, it's pretty inscrutable what makes the cut and what doesn't.

Even though I've never listened to this album in its entirety before now, I'm really impressed at how many songs I *have* heard over the years, and I can certainly see/hear why this seems to be generally considered The Beatles' best album, and one of the best albums of all time. I don't really agree with that latter estimation, but I'm also not a huge Beatles fan so I'm probably not a good judge of that. I feel like there are just as many duds on this double album as good songs, and only a few great songs: "Dear Prudence", "While my guitar gently weeps" (I didn't realize until I read the Wikipedia entry that Clapton guest guitared on this, which makes this probably *his* greatest song too), possibly "Happiness is a warm gun", and the beautiful "Blackbird". I also enjoyed a few not-so-perfect tunes that were more gimmicky but still appeal to me, especially "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da", "Rocky raccoon", and "Helter skelter". Regardless, though, there's no denying the immense influence of this album and its place in Western music history, despite the kind of incoherent eclecticism that hovers over the whole album and paints a picture of a band desperately pumping out the remainder of what they could manage to put together (and often only in pieces, given how few tracks have all four of them playing together).

I never really got into Judas Priest in my headbanger years, but I always respected them, especially Rob Halford's distinctive voice and vocal range, so I'm glad to see them in this collection. (I also respected Halford even more when, many years later, he came out as gay on MTV, and despite his fears of being shunned by metalheads everywhere, he also got a lot of support.) And while this album doesn't really have many of their enduring hits, it seems like a good selection of the (limited) range of Judas Priest's heavy-hitting spiked leather metal, and of course the long-time classic "Breaking the law" (with a pretty amusing bank heist video) and the hard-hitting anthem "Living after midnight". Long live the long-lived elder statesmen of metal!

I like it that Mylo grew up on the Isle of Skye (Scotland), and that this album is kind of an homage to the 70s/80s soft rock that he listened to as a kid on the lone radio station you could hear on the island (Ireland's Atlantic 252). I also like it that he managed to sample the screed in "Destroy rock & roll" from a BBC interview when he was temping for the BBC.

I'm not sure there's much else to like on this album, despite the "1001 Albums" entry for this album boldly stating "Everybody loves Mylo". (Maybe the reviewer actually meant that delicious chocolate beverage Milo?) It's not even bad, really, just incredibly forgettable and repetitive and uninspired. Even the supposedly massive hit of 2003 ("Drop the pressure") is neither familiar-sounding nor all that memorable, except perhaps as a much weaker version of a Daft Punk tune. Sorry, Mylo.

As much as I avoided Boy George and co. as a kid/teenager, it would have been strange *not* to have gotten this particular Culture Club album since it really put them on the map. Their sound has never really appealed to me, and not just because of the flat and insipid 80s production style, so none of the tracks really stood out. I *hadn't* seen any of the videos to their singles before, and was impressed how over the top they were/are (and intensely technicolorful), but much like the songs themselves, if there's a storyline to any of them I completely missed it, or in the case of "Karma chameleon" and its riverboat theme, I'm not sure how the video relates to the lyrics.

It doesn't really detract from this album, but seeing the fairly weak music of Culture Club get included in this collection, but *not* getting the likes of contemporary bands like Midnight Oil or INXS, who had much more to say and play, really highlights the arbitrary nature of this project.

I've always had a soft spot for Billy Bragg ever since a professor in an "Early Modern Political Thought" class played Bragg's version of "The world turned upside down", so I was excited to get one of his albums. I guess it's pretty much what I expected, but it didn't do much for me, and while I appreciate his long-lived activist voice, the 80s production quality was a little much to bear (at least with headphones). I enjoyed the video that accompanied the somewhat vapid "Greetings to the new brunette", and there were bits and pieces throughout that were interesting especially "Train train"), but overall it felt like yet another British singer/songwriter who sings primarily about the plight of the working-class, with a bit of weirdly campy songs thrown into the mix too. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Wow. I think this album, more than any of the roughly 700 albums so far, is a powerful testament to the power of John Peel's BBC radio show, both on fans and apparently this project's editors/reviewers, and it makes me (sort of) wish I could have listened to his show at the time. This is in no way the worst album we've had in this collection, but there is *no* way that this could ever have been an album that charted *anywhere* for 21 weeks, or achieve a #5 spot, at least without Peel's outsized influence. (And very telling that it never even got close to even the cul-de-sacs of exurb neighborhoods leading towards US charts.)

I'll admit, though, that there's something compelling about this album, almost like how it's hard to look away from a gruesome accident (and it definitely helps to listen with headphones, so you can get the random conversational nuggets interspersed throughout). At times there were hints of Cat Stevens, or of Richard Thompson, but they took the Rennaissance Festival vibe to a whole other dimension, especially on tracks like the painfully eternal "A very cellular song".

I think what sets it apart, though, and also baffles me that it was included in lists of great albums, is the pervasive, incredibly poorly, and almost seemingly intentionally amateurish singing and instrument playing. It's like we're listening to an acoustic version of the worst excesses of prog rock, but played by middle schoolers. Maybe that was their appeal: everybody who listened to it and enjoyed it thought "I could probably do that!" But why? Perhaps more importantly, why subject others to this? (I keep staring at the album cover/back photo and feeling really badly for the kids, who of course had no say in participating in rural "folk" life; I wonder how they turned out?)

Given the huge amount of press and popularity for their earlier "S.CI.E.N.C.E" album, this seems like a curious choice to represent Incubus in this collection. I'm not complaining, since I just discovered that I own this album along with "S.CI.E.N.C.E", but I'll admit that the latter album made much more of an impression on me than "Make Yourself" did and does. It was probably a wise move to be a bit more accessible with this album, sort of the way that the Red Hot Chili Peppers also moved towards a more anodyne mainstream sound that was clearly a lot more commercially successful; I can also see the comparisons to early Faith No More. (Funny to read that some of their albums a decade after this album's release were basically adult soft rock/contemporary....) But there are a few solid tracks on this album beyond their three bit hits (the very RHCP-esque "Stellar", the addictive "Drive" and the biggest one of all, "Pardon me"); I found "The warmth" curiously engaging and affecting, especially the strangely hopeful line "not everyone here is that f**ked up and cold"; words to live by then as now. And plenty of credit to the band for carving out their own sound in the midst of a pretty low point for hard-rock/metal/noise bands, and for continuing to evolve and play far into the 21st century, where this collection seemingly dares not tread.

It's always a bit baffling to me how many Brazilian-themed/-based/-influenced albums there are in this collection, but I like it that this one is at the very least *not* simply a rehash of Brazilian musical traditions, and interesting too that a Serbian-born artist managed to make as much of an impact on modern Brazilian music production during his three years in Brazil. (Far sadder that Suba died in an apartment fire not long after this album was released.) Interesting too that Suba was the producer of another Brazilian album in this collection that is yet to come (Bebel Gilberto's "Tanto Tempo").

I always find it tough to call out particular highlights on albums that seem designed to be in the background, but "Voce gosta", "Na nebla", and "Abraco" stood out a bit. As with all of these non-English albums, I wish I could understand the lyrics, but that's my problem, not theirs of course.

What a pleasant surprise to get Grant Lee Buffalo in this collection, although I guess they *do* kind of fit into a profile (and time period) that seems to be attractive to the collection's editors. I've listened to (and own) their subsequent album, "Mighty Joe Moon", and while I think I prefer that album to this one, it's fun to get new (to me) songs. I particularly liked the opening two tracks ("The shining hour" and "Jupiter and teardrop"), "The hook" and "Grace", but there are few duds here, impressively (maybe "Stars n' stripes"?). I'm sure they're not everybody's cup of tea, and I'm guessing the album's lack of variety gets old quickly for those that aren't fans, but I really enjoyed this new (to me) angle on a familiar band. (I was really tempted to give this four stars because I appreciated the band getting into the collection, but ultimately this album probably isn't four stars worthy....)

Although I can see why this particular Megadeth album was included, I will always associate Megadeth with the mind-blowing (to my teenage mind, at least) cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These boots are made for walkin'", and frankly not a lot else. Megadeth always seemed a bit harder and faster than Metallica, and they get a few props for being willing to go with a goofy death mascot (a la Iron Maiden), but it didn't seem like there was all that much to them. "Rust in Peace" slightly redeems the band, at least lyrically, as there's a little more depth to some of the songs than the other gang-of-four members' ilk (Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer); but only *some* depth, and often impossible to discern with their overloaded dual-guitar duels. (Speaking of which, I can see why fans drooled over the guitar solo in "Tornado of souls" and have claimed it's one of the best metal solos ever.)

I don't think I'd ever known the backstory to how Dave Mustaine was a short-lived lead guitarist for Metallica in the early 80s, and then got booted for abusing substances (mainly alcohol) even more than the rest of them; curious that by the time of this album he had launched upon a career of speaking out against alcohol and drug abuse. I was also very amused to read the backstory to "Holy wars", of how Dave Mustaine was apparently (and to me incomprehensibly) ignorant of how inflammatory it would be to play the Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the UK" in Northern Ireland, and announce that he was dedicating the song to "the Cause", and then be surprised at the near-riot that broke out between Catholic and Protestant fans, and the band had to get quickly escorted to a bullet-proof bus that the local police knew would be needed. I'm guessing he didn't make that same mistake twice....

What a strange album, and what a genius Ray Charles was in putting his own spin on a completely different genre than what he was most famous for. I'll admit that the most eye-opening aspect of this album is how many tunes on this album were considered "country" standards, as even the originals don't really correspond to what I think of as country/western (shows how much I know). I'm not really a big fan of the big band sound, so I'm not a great judge of this album, although I *did* feel like several tracks--"Just a little lovin'", "It makes no difference now", "Hey, good lookin'" and the bonus "You are my sunshine" from Vol. 2--are probably the most impressive transformations of slow and often boring tunes into fun and virtually unrecognizable covers by Charles and his (big) band.

It was also fascinating to read how controversial this concept was, and how successful Charles was not only in executing it, but in also gaining an even larger following, and simultaneously elevated country's profile too (at least the Nashville scene). It feels like the Wikipedia entry likely overstates the impact of this album and Charles' fusion approach to influence the civil rights movement and achieve some degree of racial harmony, but that doesn't diminish the power of Charles' vision to interpret two different genres into a single form.

Although I *really* (really really) wish there weren't nearly as many Bowie albums in this collection as there are, I'm also glad that this one *is* there, as it's definitely a different sound and feel from what I associate with David Bowie across his very varied career. This is mainly due to the very experimental and soundtrack-oriented second side of the album, and especially the haunting "Warszawa", but even the more song-oriented first side is an interesting collaboration between Bowie and Brian Eno (everywhere) and even apparently a bit of Iggy Pop.

It's impressive to read how many people and bands were heavily influenced by this album, from Joy Division's entire lifespan as an homage to "Low", to a huge range of artists finding inspiration from songs on both sides of the album. I can also totally see how and why Philip Glass created a symphony based on "Low".

I'm not sure I've deliberately listened to Bobby Womack much if at all (although I *did* just hear Gorillaz' "Stylo" which features both Mos Def and Bobby Womack), but I'm glad he was included in the collection, and this sounds like it's a great selection from his discography. I really liked it that, despite its 1981 release, it has a much warmer (and synth- and electronic-drum-free) sound than most 80s albums, soul or otherwise. I'm not sure I had any real favorites on the album (maybe "Stand up"?), but I enjoyed the listening experience and definitely recognized his big hit "If you think you're lonely now". I'm also struck at how similar Ceelo Green sounds to Bobby Womack.

Funny that I own three (!) Jamiroquai albums (including this one), and I only learned now that the band members are English--I always assumed from the heavy 70s/funk sound that they were American. Regardless, I'm happy to see that they're represented in this collection, and while I'd have preferred their later album "Traveling Without Moving" as the lone selection, I'm guessing we got their debut because the editors weren't all that jazzed by Jamiroquai (pun intended). It's a strong album overall, and my favorites are probably "When you gonna learn?", the title track, "Whatever it is, I just can't stop", and "Revolution 1993", but it's hard to go wrong with any of the tracks except perhaps the final didgeridoo extravaganza.

I *was* a bit disappointed by the videos to their singles, especially for "Too young to die" and "If I like it, I do it" and "Blow your mind"--the whole big fuzzy Cat-in-the-Hat/buffalo-man look for Jay Kay and RHCP dance moves kind of diminishes the quality of the songs. But a small quibble for a fun and strong album overall, and it took this listen to the album for me to recognize the (often ham-handed) activist messages in many of their songs.

I think this is the first time I've heard this incredibly successful album in its entirety, and I can see why only a few tracks became eternal radio hits; much of the rest of the album is pretty forgettable. But the trio of massive and enduring hits--"Thriller", "Beat it" and "Billie Jean", all with high-quality videos to go with them--overshadow everything else, and make this a probably his most impressive production over his lengthy career. I also realized as I watched the videos that that I'd never seen any of them before, even the epic and awesome "Thriller"; I can now see why this gets best-video-of-all-time awards. And very impressive that he managed to get 80 or so real-life Crips and Bloods for the "Beat it" video (although I don't think they were any of the dancers), and also got Eddie Van Halen for the "Billie Jean" solo. I've never really been Michael Jackson fan, so the songs don't really do much for me (especially the filler, and *especially* the painful "The girl is mine" made even more painful with Paul McCartney contributing), but it's hard to deny that this is one of if not his greatest album, if only for its defining legacy on American popular music and culture.