Reviews by mitch058

I'm not sure I can say I really enjoyed this album, but I'm really glad it was included in the collection, because it's always interesting (to me at least) to get an attempt to do something a bit different. I like their early use of electronic music (sorry, electronic sounds), mixed with very academic-inspired leftist lyrics, and suffused with what I've always imagined "psychedelic rock" is supposed to sound like, all played by a fairly average-sounding band that didn't last very long after the album was released. They didn't exactly succeed in hitting any of their targets, I think, but they get an A for effort/intent. And I love it that there's an adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh's "Cloud song" nestled amongst various diatribes against American capitalism. Living the USA dream!

I was excited to see Finley Quaye show up, as I was pretty sure that I had an album by him, although I couldn't recall either the name of the album (turns out to be "Much More Than Much Love" (2003)) or what exactly he sounded like, which turns out to be completely different on my album than this one. I enjoyed this album, but in a kind of pleasant background music sort of way rather than an engaging listen; it seemed like he was sampling various chill sounds and styles, reminding me of debut albums by Norah Jones or Amy Winehouse, where it's like they were testing out different voices and hadn't quite found their way yet. The highlights for me were probably "Sunday shining" (although not the video so much; actually none of the videos did much for the songs), "Ride on and turn the people on" , and "Supreme I preme".

I remember checking this album out of a local library when I was a kid/tween, wanting to enjoy it more than I did, and mystified why there were so many flutes on a rock album that everyone seemed to revere. I might have wondered if this was some crossover album by Cat Stevens or something (especially with tracks like "Wond'ring aloud"), and never did recognize that this fell into the prog rock camp just as much as my beloved Rush (especially their earlier albums). I don't think I ever listened to the whole Jethro Tull album then, or since, so it's kind of nice to finally revisit it, warts and all.

I've always been a bit haunted by the opening lyrics of the title track, but aside from the opening and closing sections it's not nearly as great of a song as I'd long imagined; I'd say the same of "Cross-eyed Mary" and "Locomotive breath", although they're a bit stronger throughout. I also enjoyed "Up to me" and "Hymn 43", although the whole album just seems a bit tedious (and a bit long-winded, lyrically and flute-ally).

A nice contrast to some of the recent albums in my rotation (Steve Winwood, GZA, Aerosmith, M.I.A), and also nice to finally get the other Temptations album in this collection. I enjoyed the album, but not as much as their later "All Directions", probably because they were only dipping their toes into the Family-Stone-style sound with "Cloud Nine". I really enjoyed the title track and the epic "Run away child, running wild", but most of the rest was less engaging, even their slightly funkified version of "I heard it through the grapevine". This would have been a much stronger and more interesting album if they'd stuck with the style of Side A and ditched the more traditional fare on Side B, but I suspect that would have been a hard sell to either Motown Records or their diehard fans.

I know it's not really fair to slight him for going solo at exactly the wrong moment musically (i.e. the synth-drenched early 80s), I *do* feel like poor Steve Winwood could have done so much better than this near-easy-listening album. I give him credit for performing all of the instruments on the album, but also fault him for this, given how few artists pull this off well (in fact, Prince and Trent Reznor are the only ones who come to mind). But at least it's not a particularly long album, and it was somewhat entertaining to see the awkward video of glowing pyramids and gymnastic tumblers for "While you see a chance". The rest of the lot is *very* forgettable, sadly, although I kept thinking how much he sounds like Phil Collins.

Whenever I see that we're getting an album from the Wu-Tang universe, I feel like I managed to live blithely through their rise and fall and somehow missed out on something critical to appreciate these revered artists. That's not to say there's anything wrong with this album, but it didn't do much for me. I liked the whole "cinematic" approach, and the kung-fu-movie samples, but I found it challenging to track what's going on with the lyrics, and it felt like there was more relentless drum tracks than anything else musically; the highlights were probably the title track, "Shadowboxin'" and "B.I.B.L.E". My loss, clearly--sorry GZA!

Although I haven't really heard much early Aerosmith before, I feel like I could have lived and died without necessarily digging into Aerosmith's obscurities. And outside of their epic hits "Sweet emotion" and "Walk this way" (which I always enjoy hearing, the latter with or without Run-DMC), the rest of the whole album seems pretty deep in the obscure realm, although also more enjoyable the further you get into the album (except the painful last track "You see me crying"). Odd that it remains their most successful album, but I guess that speaks more to my ignorance of all things Aerosmith than anything else. And hilarious that "Young Frankenstein" was the inspiration for the title of "Walk this way".

I know we can't exactly fault this project for including albums that were dropped by the "1001 albums" publication, but this is definitely a debut album that probably shouldn't have ever been included, despite the utterly glowing review in the 2005 edition right after this album came out.

I know Maya Arulpragasam has a compelling visual-artist/activist background, but I for one don't find her choice to create an entire album with almost exclusively a sequencer and her voice (and next to no musical background) a particularly good one. "Pull up the people", "Bingo" and "U.R.A.Q.T" are perhaps the best of the lot on a remarkably monochromatic album, but not enough to even get to three stars, I'm afraid. I've always enjoyed her later track "Paper planes", so I hope that album ("Kala") is a more satisfying experience than this is.

Although I know I've heard many times two of their hit singles from this album ("Breathe" and "Firestarter", both with great videos), I'm not sure how I neglected to buy a single Prodigy album all these years, especially because I've always enjoyed this kind of sound from the likes of Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, even Fatboy Slim. Aside from the aforementioned singles, I also enjoyed "Funky Shit" (with its Beastie Boys reference) and "Mindfields", and was surprised that "Smack my b**ch up" wasn't quite as horrible as the title might suggest (although it's definitely not a title or lyric that was *ever* a good idea, no matter how inflammatory they wanted to be). I'm not entirely sure that we need two Prodigy albums in this collection, but I'm glad we got this one.

Although I hadn't ever heard of Orange Juice before, it was pretty clear from the get-go with "Rip it up" (and the very dated time capsule of a video that accompany it) that this was an early 80s British band influenced by the likes of The Specials, Joe Jackson, Talking Heads and/or Elvis Costello. Not horrible, but not all that distinctive either, and largely entertaining in a sort of ersatz Muzak sort of way (but with actual lyrics and a more lively tempo), and kudos to them for including a song titled "Tenterhook".

I'm guessing they got included because they're a Scottish band?

Interesting that we get two T. Rex albums in this collection, given how...ho-hum...I (and many other listeners, it seems) found their previous album "Electric Warrior". In fact, although I don't recall too many details from that other album, this albums almost seems like it could have been part of an expanded "Electric Warrior" double album, minus any sort of hit single like "Bang a gong/Get it on" (although they did their best to copycat "Bang" with "Telegram Sam"). It's also funny to read that this was considered a "heavy" rock album, mainly because it's striking in 2025 to hear how plodding each track seems, both pacing and lyrically, and you never really get to any sort of payoff with all the repeating refrains and riffs. I kind of liked "Spaceball ricochet" and the Zeppelin/Bowie mashup "Chariot Choogle" more than the others, but not by a lot, I'll admit, and I loved the *incredibly* kitschy video for "Buick Mackane"--it was as if a quartet of clearly clueless and surprisingly un-photogenic dudes decided to play air guitar/bass/drums/congos to a song they weren't even sure they knew the lyrics and tune to. Kind of like much of the album, come to think of it....

I've listened to this album too many times to be able to hear it as if it's my first time, but I hope first-time listeners enjoy it as much as I did and do. :) Whenever I hear songs from this album, particularly "Jane says", I think of when I got convinced by a friend to see some unknown (to me) American band playing in Edinburgh (apparently on October 1, 1990), and I was floored by how much everyone was into the band and singing along and the whole experience. And "Mountain song" also conjures up a long drive back from a fun but exhausting mountain bike ride in the not-quite-Cascades hills south and east of Seattle, and a friend played the song in the car's crappy stereo system, and the driving bass into fit the setting and mood perfectly.

I'm confident that the songs, and the album as a whole, aren't nearly as great as I want them to be, but it's hard to hear the voice of reason when you're cranking up "Standing in the shower...thinking", "Pigs in Zen" and its ilk. In fact, I'd have given this album a rare five stars, except that I just now read a new height of asshattery by Perry Ferrell related to this album, where he demanded 50% of the royalties for all the lyrics, and an additional 25% of the remainder for his "musical" contributions. And Warner Bros. caved and utterly screwed over the rest of the band. It's a bit shocking that "Ritual de lo Habitual" even got made, frankly.

I was a little shocked to see that this was the only Janis Joplin album in this collection, but then was relieved to see that we'll get another dose of her with the earlier Big Brother and the Holding Band album. I'm not all that familiar with her work, aside from her distinctive vocal style, so it was nice to hear an album of hers that contained nearly all-new (to me) material. And fun to hear how well she and the Full Tilt Boogie Band meshed on the album--I imagine they were even better live. I particularly enjoyed "Move over", "Half moon", and her great version of "Me and Bobby McGee", and it's definitely moving to hear the instrumental "Buried alive with the blues", still waiting for Joplin's vocals to fill it out.

I'm not sure I've much of or perhaps anything by Prefab Sprout, so it's kind of funny to read about how much press they got from music critics for their elaborate wordsmithing and songwriting, when all I really heard was very bland love(ish) songs with surprisingly dull music elements, with "Appetite" and "When love breaks down" probably their nadir on this album (despite their multiple attempts to get the latter to stick as a re-re-released single). I wish there were more songs like "Bonny" and even "Horsin' around". It sounds like part of the credit and blame for their anodyne sound goes to Thomas Dolby's antiseptic production of the album, but that can't entirely explain the relentlessly joyless attempts to sing pop songs by a band that didn't seem to want to play pop songs.

Although I still wish we could have gotten different RHCP albums in this collections than this one and "Blood Sugar Sex Magick", I *am* glad that I heard this one after "Blood Sugar", as it definitely improves on the latter, both musically and lyrically. It's a bit hard on this album to hear the band that were infamous for wearing nothing on stage but socks on their privates, but it's nice too to see that they managed to evolve a bit from the frat-rock hollow they swam in for years, and songs like "Get on top", "I like dirt" and "Purple stain" are nice homages to their funk past. The only songs that really stood out for me were "Otherside" (in large part due to the silent-movie-style Kafkaesque video) and "This velvet glove" (Frusciante's guitar work is particularly distinctive here). But I can see why their singles were impossible to miss on radio in the late 90s, even if the title track is far too unsubtle for its own good. And while I don't really feel like they earned four stars for this album, I'm happy for them that they managed to find a way out of the rut they had fallen into before this came out.

Hm. I'm honestly not sure why we get two The Verve albums in this collection, and while it sounds like this album was far more anticipated than their later "Urban Hymns", I was pretty underwhelmed by it (much as I felt about the later album, to be fair). There weren't too many tracks I found particularly interesting (and some were atrocious, like "Drive you home"), but "So it goes" was pretty entertaining, as was the laid back "Life's an ocean". The Wikipedia entry for this album is ridiculously long and remarkably poorly written, but it *did* have an interesting quote from a reviewer that this album could have been a modern Led Zeppelin album, and that resonated a bit with me. But I'm pretty sure I could've gone to my grave without listening to this album.

I could have sworn this album already came up in this collection, but I guess I was just confusing it with the solo Lauryn Hill album, and perhaps also because I own this album. It's been a long time since I listened to "The Score" in its entirety, and I'm surprised how the experience was a bit...disappointing. Their singles continue to shine, especially "Ready or not" and "Killing me softly" (which ranks up there for me as one of the best covers of all time, although Roberta Flack's cover version is also pretty good too), but the rest of the album doesn't come all that close to matching those hits, aside from perhaps "Zealots" and their cover of "No woman no cry".

Having now heard so many other rap/hip-hop albums from the same time period in this collection, I'll admit to feeling over-saturated on hour-length albums that are comprised mainly of driving beats and half-spoken lyrics, although Lauryn Hill does a nice job mixing it up with genuine singing, and the instrumentation and samples on the album are at least more varied and interesting than much of the contemporary fare. And full credit to them for creating a through story-line of sorts on the album, even if I'm not sure it's as coherent as Lauryn Hill's description of it as "a hip hop version of 'Tommy'". I'm torn between three and four stars for this album, but it only feels fair to lean into four stars given how well they steered away from gangsta rap (apparently the reason Enya didn't sue them for appropriating "Boadicea" in "Ready or not").

It's been ages since I've listened to this album, so I'm glad it came around in this collection as it's been too long and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed most of the songs on this strangely unique album (then and now). It's always seemed a shame that Tricky didn't give top billing to Martina Topley-Bird, though, because her voice really makes this album shine, but I'm glad to read that she also collaborated with Tricky on at least some of his follow up albums (sadly not nearly as good as this one). My favorites are probably the opening track "Overcome" (a remake of Massive Attack's "Karmacoma"), "Black steel" (which I never realized until now was an amazing cover of Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"), the very Portishead-like pair of tracks "Hell is around the corner" (which I think I'd vaguely ascribed to Portishead all this time) and "Aftermath", and also "Strugglin'" (sort of). I was surprised by how many of the tracks had videos associated with them, but aside from "Overcome" (which seems to consist mainly of film footage, but I'm not sure what movie) they're fairly nondescript. I also wonder if Massive Attack regretted not letting Tricky shine more with them after they heard this album? I certainly do.

Hm. Ever since I heard Ministry's "Jesus built my hot rod" on a college radio station while working at a bike shop many moons ago, I've always had a soft spot for (interesting) industrial acts. And there's been some pretty good ones in this collection, particularly Laibach. I'm not entirely sure The Young Gods are quite at the level of Ministry or Laibach (at least for me), and I'm not sure I'd necessarily call them industrial exactly (much like I wouldn't call Pere Ubu industrial), but they're definitely on the more interesting side of experimental/avant-garde music, as opposed to, say, Einstürzende Neubauten. And props to their producer for helping them make space in the tracks instead of just a wall of drums and noise. I didn't find any of the tracks particularly notable, although "Charlotte" sounded an awful lot like a hoarse Tom Waits (if such a thing is even possible), and there was something a bit more engaging than the others with "Crier les chiens".

Despite that this album apparently made it into various Top 20 charts in the US and UK, and apparently headlined the U.S. Jazz charts for 20 weeks, I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I've probably never heard anything from this album or The Crusaders in general. My initial impression was also that this was more easy-listening than jazz, but I'm no aficionado, and I'll admit that the title track seems like a strong inspiration for the likes of Jamiroquai, so I'm not entirely sure why this album didn't do much for me. But while it didn't really grab my attention, beyond maybe the tight sounds in "The hustler", it was also a very pleasant 40 minutes overall, which is far more than I can say for a number of other recent albums in this collection.