Reviews by mitch058

I mainly know of Steve Earle from his "Copperhead Road" fame, so it's fun to get a full album without a single mention of Copperhead road, although I'll admit he doesn't have a huge range, so all of his songs kind of blend into each other to some degree (although "Little rock 'n' roller" unfortunately distinguishes itself as being atrociously syrupy). The strongest tracks on this album are also the singles, especially "Guitar town", "Hillbilly highway" (just down the way from Copperhead Rd, I'm sure), and "Someday" (very Bruce Springsteen-esque, down to the video). I'm also impressed that he wrote (and played) "My old friend the blues," which I first heard by The Proclaimers, and I still prefer their version. Overall, though, nice to have Steve Earle in this collection.

I'm not a huge U2 fan, but it's hard to deny that they made a big jump forward with "War", especially their three big singles. I'm not all that familiar with the other songs on this album, so it was also nice to hear new-to-me and decent U2 songs like "Seconds" (especially having The Edge singing vocals), and the somewhat uneven tracks "The refugee" and "Surrender". Watching the video for "New Year's Day" reminded me again how similar Bono and Sting look (although the video itself is weird and not very interesting or well-done, and I still don't really get the connection between a love song and the Polish Solidarity movement). It's also funny how the "1001 Albums" entry is right next to Police's "Synchronicity", almost a handoff from a megaband to one about to enter that limelight.

Hm. I guess the project's editors must *really* like Joy Division/New Order, given that they included both of Joy Division's albums and then two New Order ones too. So I guess I'm now three-quarters done with that sound, with only Joy Division's debut album ahead. And much like the New Order albums, I don't really find "Closer" a particularly compelling album or sound, although I appreciated the somewhat more raw sound of this album than in New Order (presumably at least in part influenced by Ian Curtis, who didn't survive the band). I'm guessing Cure fans enjoy this album too (likely far more than I did). But pretty cool that they paid homage to J.G. Ballard's "Atrocity Exhibition" with the same-named track, and sad to read about Ian Curtis' precipitous decline and suicide as they finished this album.

I'm vaguely familiar with The Jam (mainly their big hit "That's entertainment"), but I'm pretty sure I haven't heard anything from this album. They're definitely not in your face with their music, but I was impressed how solid the album is, with nearly every track having some sort of hook or insightful lyric (except perhaps "English rose"), even though their style is pretty laid back overall and at times reminded me of The Clash or Squeeze. I particularly liked "Mr. Clean" and the ending pair of songs, "'A' bomb in Wardour Street" and their single "Down in the tube station at midnight"; and an honorable mention to their cover of "David Watts" (I was impressed how their version isn't all that different from the Kinks' original, yet sounds exactly as if The Jam had written it in the first place). I can't put my finger on why exactly, but this is a much better album than I expected it to be.

Although accordions (sorry, bandoneons) and vibraphones aren't really to my taste, and I know nothing of Astor Piazzolla and his controversies, I appreciate the variety represented by this album in this collection, and also for what appears to be a very well-recorded live performance at the 1986 Montreaux Jazz Festival. I felt a little adrift without a Wikipedia entry for the album at all (and the 1001albumsgenerator link to YouTube Music was *not* to the right album), and the "1001 Albums" entry had little context as well, so I just floated along in the very *un*-tango-esque sea of Burton's vibraphones and Piazzolla's concertino virtuosity. It was a bit hard at times to avoid feeling like I was in some casino in the 60s with this mellow lounge music playing, and at other times in some Godard mystery/thriller film, but there are far worse ways to spend an hour. (And fun to hear Gary Burton go wild on "Vibraphonissimo".)

Aside from the three singles from this album, which I recognize immediately from years of radio play, I doubt I've ever heard anything else before from this ambitious rock opera. And so I'm glad I've finally listened to the album and finally understand the context for Tommy the pinball wizard. And I have a much bigger respect for Pete Townsend, knowing now that he largely wrote the entire opera (lyrics, at least), but I'll admit that the Wikipedia entry is incredibly helpful at filling in the blanks between the songs and forming a more complete picture of Tommy's past and later role as (somewhat rejected) guru. (Apparently Townsend gave an incredibly long interview with Rolling Stone that described the storyline and the connection to Meher Baba's teachings in excruciating detail, and while I'm not sure I need that much backstory, perhaps the "1001 Albums" reviewer should have read this first before writing a strangely misinformed and misleading review in the book.)

I'm not sure I can say I really enjoyed the album, but I'm impressed at how much better this concept album works than anything else like it in this collection (so far, at least). I also admired that they created this album so it could be played live, in contrast to how the Beatles and Beach Boys were focusing on studio-only productions, and then that they resuscitated the band (and eliminated their debt) by touring the whole album live. And it was fun to hear the big singles from the album, although the album versions aren't the same as what I've heard over the years on the radio, I'll admit. I was also struck with how much "Christmas" sounded more like the Beatles than anything else. And it was fun to read about all the weird and often-celebrity-filled opera/symphony/film/theater "incarnations" of Tommy.

What a blast from the past! I'm not sure I've ever heard most of the songs on this album before (or all that much from Queen Latifah in general), so it's nice to reacquaint with her fairly distinctive style. The videos for "Dance for me" and "Come into my house" were fun to watch, largely because it reminded me of a fashion era that hopefully will never get repeated, but also because those are two of her more accessible and energetic songs. I also liked it that De la Soul collaborated on the album, although "Mama gave birth to the soul children" is definitely *not* a great track on the album, sadly.

Overall, the album starts off really strong and distinctive, but fairly quickly decays into that monochromatic rap/hip-hop sound of looping beats and generic rhyming rhythms, from about "Latifah's law" onwards (sorry, "Wrath of my madness"), although some of the subsequent tracks with featured artists inject a little more variety (mainly "The pros" but also "Ladies first" and "A king and queen creation" and "Evil that men do" somewhat). It *does* end on a strong track, "Inside out", and kudos to the queen for both writing and producing the album.

Although I think I recognize a few of the tunes on this album (mainly the opening track "It won't be long" and "All my loving", maybe?), I haven't heard most of the tracks before on this early Beatles album, so that's kind of nice, I suppose. I like it how short and sweet both the songs and the overall album are, but I'll admit that most of the songs are pretty forgettable and rarely show any evidence of their later musical talent and exploration, not to mention that nearly half the songs are covers (and not all that great at that). A few were kind of distinctive, like "Till there was you", and some tracks were fairly painful (like "All I've got to do"). I'm sure this album is a must-have in a Beatles heritage tour collection, and perhaps distinctive in that it had no Beatles singles, but I'm not sure I really needed to hear this before I die.

I really like Damon Gough's moniker as Badly Drawn Boy, although I'm not sure I've ever heard anything by him, especially from this album. It's a pleasant enough listen, and there's a fair amount of musical variety across the hour-long album, which is always a positive in my book. I was a bit disappointed that his music seemed to be lacking a lot of depth (likely from the lack of a band, although impressive that he played many of the instruments on this self-penned, self-produced album); the highlights for me were probably "Everybody's stalking", "Another pearl" (in part due its strange clown-themed video) and "Disillusion" (also in large part for its quirky human-taxi video). (The video for "Once around the block" was amusing, but the song just wasn't all that interesting.)

I'll admit that overall this isn't the most distinctive album, and given that the Wikipedia entry notes that most reviewers compared him (somewhat unfavorably) to Elliott Smith and Nick Drake, for whom we get five albums in this collection, I'm a little puzzled why this was included in the collection.

I've always had a soft spot for Donovan, largely because as a kid I loved his hit single "Mellow yellow" (without knowing any of the more adult themes in the song, although I just discovered now that "mellow yellow" was a reference to a banana vibrator, not a reference to smoking banana skins; and weird to find out too that Coke released their Mountain Dew competitor "Mellow Yellow" only a few years after Donovan's album came out). I was bummed to see that his defining hit wasn't on this album, but the title track is definitely familiar, as is the distinctive "Season of the witch", and it was kind of fun to hear very *un*familiar Donovan tunes on the rest of the album. I'll admit it was a bit disappointing to realize that Donovan indulged in that weird sort of mythical England genre (e.g. "Legend of a girl child Linda", "Guinevere"), as well as lots of Indian instrumentation on tracks like "Ferris wheel" and "Three king fishers", but this *is* a 60s album, after all. Not quite the album I'd hoped for, and a bummer that we couldn't get masterpieces like "Mellow yellow" and "Hurdy gurdy man", but still enjoyable enough, and the last few tracks are a nice way to end the album.

Argh--I just re-discovered that this is only #2 of 5 Sonic Youth albums in this collection. And sadly, my enjoyment of them isn't much changed from listening to "Daydream Nation" (or for that matter owning "Dirty"). This does seem like a better album overall than "Daydream Nation", with a little less sonic wall overall, but it still doesn't hook me the way I know it should. This album has a shocking number of videos for most of the tracks (all but one, in fact), nearly all of which I don't really recall having heard before, although with Sonic Youth it's a bit hard to tell at times--I feel like I might have heard both the Karen Carpenter-homage "Tunic" and the LL Cool J diss track "Kool thing" before, but they sound like so many other Sonic Youth tracks, it's hard to remember (although kudos to them for getting Chuck D to do the call-and-response on "Kool thing"). This definitely seems like one of if not the best Sonic Youth albums; I just wish I enjoyed them more than I do.

I'm a pretty loyal Tom Waits fan, but I'll admit it's a shame that there are so many of his albums in this collection (five all told), as it kind of dilutes his appeal even for me, and I can't imagine non-fans' reaction to yet another Tom Waits album. Of the three I've heard so far (this one, "Nighthawks at the Diner", "Bone Machine"), this is by far the best, and while I can see keeping "Bone Machine", I'd easily axe "Nighthawks". But no one asked me, I know.

I was really impressed how strong nearly every track on this album was, and I particularly enjoyed the opening pair "Singapore" and "Clap hands", as well as the title track and "9th & Hennepin" (mainly because I liked the Minneapolis reference). And impressive how many people have made covers of his "Downtown Train", although it feels like his is in many ways the best version, complete with a video that includes Jake LaMotta. I also enjoyed finding out that Keith Richards played on three of the tracks ("Big black Mariah", "Union Square" and "Blind love"), and that this led to Waits' contributing on The Rolling Stones album "Dirty Work". And even though it didn't seem like one of the stronger tracks on the album, I was also struck by how much "Time" sounded like a Leonard Cohen song. I can definitely see why this album was ranked among the greatest albums of the 80s.

It looks like this is one of two Ali Farka Toure albums in this collection, and yet another Malian desert-blues contributor in this project (in addition to Songhoy Blues). I feel no more qualified to assess Ali Farka Toure's place in the Malian blues than I was with the Songhoy Blues album--other than I'm pretty sure Ali Farka Toure is Mali's most famous musician/artist--but that didn't stop me from enjoying the album, despite not understanding any of the lyrics; I particularly enjoyed the title track, and was amused that "Hanana" sounded more than a bit like a Frank Zappa song. And while it appears from the Wikipedia/1001-Albums entries that this album is a blend of traditional Malian styles and some Western influences, I was glad that it seemed rooted in a specific culture and context and didn't really have any of that homogenizing world-music sound.

Although it's hard to rank highly an ambience-type of album, this is definitely one of the better ones in this collection, with a nice European touch of accordions blended with electronic-oriented music. I'm pretty sure I haven't really heard anything from Gotan Project, or this album in particular, so it was fun to hear these tracks for the first time; I particularly enjoyed "Epoca", "Triptico" and "El capitalismo foraneo", as well as the video and music for "Santa Maria (del Buen Ayre)" (although I was also struck at how similar this track sounds to their excellent remixed version of "Whatever Lola wants" on the 2003 album "Verve: Remixed 2"). I'm a bit confused by the fact that Gotan Project is listed as a France-based band, as everything seems to be in Spanish, but maybe that's just a Euro-thing? And I suppose also due to their focus on Argentinian tango as the driving force (and why they're named the tango-anagrammed "Gotan").

It's hard to find too many faults on an album with 11 compact tracks lasting only 30 minutes. And a fine choice to start out the gates with their big hit "Kicks", although a bit disappointing that they didn't actually write the lyrics to that song and a few others on the album. Their overall style isn't really to my taste, but I enjoyed a few other songs aside from "Kicks", especially the 1-2 combo of "Ballad of a useless man" and their version of "(I'm not your) Steppin' stone" (which isn't as good as the Monkees' version, I'll admit, or even the much later version by The Farm; same for "Take a look at yourself" vs The Monkees), as well as "Get it on". And I liked the backstory to "Louie, go home" as a sequel to "Louie Louie", probably more than the song itself; too bad they didn't use their far-better-and-much-more-creative single version of this song on the album. Thankfully, though, there aren't too many serious duds, and none of them last more than 2-3 minutes in any case (although "Little girl in the 4th row" felt like an eternity).

Aside from their one-hit-wonder smash "Come on Eileen", I'm pretty sure I've never heard anything else by the illustrious Dexys Midnight Runners (although apparently "Geno" and "The Celtic soul brothers" were also hits in the UK, so I guess they were only a one-hit wonder on the US side of the pond). I like it that the rest of the album is recognizable as the same band as their big hit, but not much else on the album really stood out. ("Let's make this precious" sounded to me a bit Cure-like, curiously.) It was a good move that they added strings to their sound, making them a bit more distinctive than other early 80s rock/R&B bands (particularly noticeable on "All in all"); a shame that the horns and string players left the band after recording the album, though. I thought it's pretty funny that after opening for The Specials a few times, they decided they needed to have outfits, and chose "donkey jackets and woolly hats" to look like they came out of "Mean Streets" (and very evident in their quirky video for "The Celtic soul brothers"; I have no idea what look they were going for in the video for "Come on Eileen" with the denim overalls). I wish that their cover of "Jackie Wilson said" was a bit less derivative of Van Morrison's original, but I liked the energy.

I'll admit that I'm a bit mystified that there's another album by Dexys Midnight Runners in this collection--it's not clear to me that Kevin Rowland and company are really *that* interesting or important to warrant two albums. But then again, that could easily be said of a lot of artists and albums in this project.

I know it shouldn't really be a mark against an artist or album, but it was *extremely* annoying to have to search for this album online and weed through playlists that either were missing some of the tracks on the album, or was just one long uninterrupted 41-minute "track", and ultimately having to settle on a YouTube playlist that had all of the tracks as separate tracks, but listed in reverse (and as far as I can tell didn't have the stereo separation that the original recording contained, sadly). It makes me think that either just this album or John Zorn isn't all that popular and/or accessible, and certainly listening to the unremittingly wailing, screaming, frantic versions of a similarly-unknown-to-me artist/composer wasn't the most pleasant experience, I'll admit. I give credit to this project's editors for including "thrash jazz" in the collection, and I admire the technical aspects of the performances by Zorn and his band members, but this is *definitely* not my idea of a good/fun listen, and I'm pretty sure I could have gone to my grave just as happy without having endured this.

It's kind of shame the collection included her debut album, given how much better this one is--more self-assured, tighter, and chock full of strong songs that long survived her. I've never heard this album in its entirety before, so that was nice, and fun to see her (many) videos from her singles; "Rehab" and the title track were the best of the lot, but all of them have impressive production quality (although "Just friends" doesn't do much for me song- or video-wise). It's funny how "You know I'm no good", and to some degree "Back to black", has more than a hint of Portishead to it. A shame that her impressive transition from jazz singer to British soul was so short-lived; she clearly had a lot more in her than she was able to release before her untimely death. (I liked the quote in the Wikipedia entry for the album that Amy Winehouse was a Nirvana moment for British female singers, as it captures so many facets of Amy Winehouse's remarkable and brief trajectory.)

When I heard their other album in this collection (the later "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain"), and didn't particularly enjoy the experience, I wrote that I couldn't "really capture in words how excited I am at this prospect [of hearing their debut album]." I will try, however, to capture my reaction in words; namely, "Pavement blows". Actually, that's not really fair to them, and my expectations for this album were so low that the experience wasn't nearly as disappointing as it was for the other album. That said, I'm not sure I could really identify any song that either stood out or was particularly interesting, beyond perhaps the punk-adjacent "Two steaks" (while "Chesley's little wrists" was the opposite of interesting); I am utterly baffled that Rolling Stone has "Summer babe (winter version)" in its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

And since I gave them three stars for their later album, I feel very comfortable giving this album only two, as that's all it deserves from my perspective (which appears to be in the tiny minority, gauging from the effusive praise of reviewers on the Wikipedia entry).

Although this feels a lot like a one-hit wonder sort of band and album, even with the relatively popular single "I want your love" proving that "Le freak" wasn't the only flash in the pan, it's still a modestly fun disco listen (with some driving basslines). I liked it that the rest of the album doesn't sound utterly different from their two singles, but the other songs seem much more appropriate for background listening (especially the instrumentals like "Savoir faire"), and the slower ballad-types tend to drag it all down a bit.