Reviews by mitch058

I feel like I've heard of Japan before, but since I imagined that they were in the spectrum of other one-word bands like Journey, Europe, Boston, Asia, etc., I suspect my memory of them is a bit suspect. Either way, they somehow met my already low expectations and yet *still* disappointed me. I think part of my disappointment was due to the video for their opening/title track, which seemed to be a studio "concert" performance of their song, with what appeared to be a whole cast of female zombies as the crowd (they weren't dressed or looked like zombies, mind you, they just literally didn't move at all, not even a little sway back and forth to the song), and the band seemed to have glam-rock-style clothing and hairdos, but everything just moved as if it were a (bad) dream underwater, with almost no affectation from anyone. And that low-low-low energy seemed to permeate the entire album, like they were dialing it in. (Although the opening part of "Despair", up until the French lyrics, sounds like a dead ringer for the opening music of the modern (Lisa Joy) "Westworld" TV series, which was kind of interesting; sadly, no Bjork-style videos for that song of milky bulls or robots or anything.) I didn't really have any favorites from this album, sadly, but the best of the lot seemed to be "In vogue" and maybe "Halloween" (just for its relative energy), with a nod to their cover of "All tomorrow's parties", which didn't do a lot for me but definitely wasn't as derivative as I'd feared it would be (but a bummer that they didn't replicate Nico's "potties" in the refrain).

I'm not at all surprised that Japan had a hard time finding a particularly receptive audience in either North America or UK/Europe; it *does* surprise me that Japan (the country) embraced Japan (the band), perhaps simply for the name? I can also see why some compared this album's version of Japan to Roxy Music, but that didn't really occur to me until I read it in the Wikipedia and "1001 Albums" entries.

Between the oddball band name and the cryptic (ahem) album cover, I had no idea what to expect from this mid-90s album. I guess I wasn't really expecting a punk-with-horns variant, although thankfully they're not identical to the likes of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, etc., all of whom I've enjoyed, but they're kind of interchangeable. It was fun to watch their three videos to their (Europe-only?) singles "Born in '69" (intentionally cheesy 50s B-movie romp with alien vampires), "On a rope" (with completely irrelevant but adorable puppies and young farm animals, plus a strange assortment of lollipops growing on trees), and "Young livers" (the weakest video of the lot, with a sort of greaser-gang motif playing buttball), and the album in general is an impressive collection of tight, quick and pretty rocking tracks. It's a shame that the Interscope execs nixed their concept of filling in the space between tracks with woodwinds and strings.

Judging from the Wikipedia entry, it sounds like Rocket From the Crypt's real attraction was in their live performances--carnival games, German variety shows (in Europe), progressively more elaborate stage costumes, etc.--so I'm sorry I never got a chance to see them play. This album may not count as a particularly refined music experience, but they get more than an "A" for effort and energy.

It's interesting to get a few albums close to each other that I've owned a long time and really enjoy listening to, and also wondered when they'd arrive in the generator sequence. This album is how I (along with a few million others) became familiar with Beck's musical stylings, and even though it was relatively early in his career, I still feel like it encapsulates a lot of what makes him so distinctive and also enjoyable, even though he's moved in various directions since then. And nice to read that he enlisted the aid of the multi-talented Dust Brothers for the album.

Listening again to the album, I'm really struck at how strong this album is throughout, and I also enjoyed seeing the videos to his singles for the first time (Drugstore-cowboy-evoking "Devils' haircut", Monkees'-esque "New pollution" (with a fun appearance by Mary Lynn Rajskub), and the somewhat uncategorizable video for "Where it's at" (but kudos to Beck for including William Shatner and Captain Beefheart tributes)), as well as how *young* he looks from this album's era. The only tracks, in fact, that seem a bit weaker than the others are "Novacane" and "Minus", and each are followed by some of my favorite tracks ("Jack-ass" and "Sissyneck", respectively). Well done, Hansen!

Given the seemingly random inclusions and exclusions in this collection, I'm happy to see Daft Punk was included, but also a bit mystified that we'd get "Homework" rather than "Discovery", since the latter has better songs and considerably better exposure, but I'm guessing the project's editors included "Homework" because it's their debut album. Too bad, as I'd have loved to listen yet again to "Harder, better, faster, stronger" as part of this project, but of course I can always do that on my own.

I don't think I've heard much from this album outside of their big hits "Da punk" and "Around the world", so it was fun to hear more of their earliest stuff. The video to "Revolution 909" didn't really add much to a fairly benign song, but it was definitely an odd storyline in the video (a girl escapes the clutches of cops raiding a rave party after noticing what appears to be blood on the cop's collar but turns out to be homemade tomato sauce from his mother). Likewise, the Spike Jonze-directed video for "Da punk" was both weird and had seemingly no connection to the song (a fullsize dog-man wandering NYC with a boombox playing "Da Punk" at deafening volumes), and the same for the firefighter-fantasy video for "Burnin'". Thankfully, the hypnotic dance video for "Around the world" more than made up for the others, with amazing choreography and set work with a freakshow cast.

I *did* find myself wishing that more of their songs weren't strictly looped instrumentals, with few if any lyrics/spoken word phrases/something non-digital (more "Teachers", less "Fresh"/"Rock-n-roll"). Given how much less dynamic this album is than their next one, it makes me wonder if the "1001 albums" editors felt compelled to include Daft Punk but weren't really all that enthusiastic about having to do so?

I liked the fact that I hadn't heard of Sebadoh before, but was disappointed to discover that there was likely a good reason for this. It's hard to imagine a more generic and largely bland version of late 80s/early 90s alt/indie music than this album, sadly (and I was not at all surprised to read that one of Sebadoh's founding members was the rejected bass player from Dinosaur Jr). On the positive side, though, I was grateful that they'd chosen to avoid having the ubiquitous wall of noise on most of the tracks completely overwhelm the vocals; a bit of a shame that the surprisingly intelligible lyrics weren't particularly interesting or insightful. I also appreciated the brevity of most of the tracks--that definitely helped their forlorn medicine go down without too much aftertaste (and a bit bizarre to read that this album marked a phase of *longer* songs). My choices on the album were probably "Happily divided", "Sacred attention" and "Forced love" (plus kudos for the Soul Asylum lookalike "Bouquet for a siren"). It's a bit hard to believe that this was already their fourth album, with more on the way....

A nice treat from the collection, as I've owned this album for a long time, and have always enjoyed listening to it. It's also impressive hearing the difference between this much earlier album and recently getting their later "Third" album from after their long hiatus; "Dummy" is definitely more what I think of Portishead sounding like, but now I can appreciate both albums better I think.

It's hard to pick just a few favorites from the album, as I enjoy nearly every track (although I'm quite partial to "Roads" as the highlight, and "It could be sweet" and "It's a fire" are probably the relative duds on the album), and I also enjoyed seeing the three videos, the well-produced Bond-like "Sour times" (apparently taken from a 10-minute film they created, "To Kill a Dead Man"), the somewhat disturbing home-movie-esque "Numb", and the final track's noir-nightclub "Glory box". I also really appreciate the almost steampunk-like/film-noir-like vibe to the entire album, and I'm really impressed to read that they created their distinctive sound by recording various instruments and sounds on vinyl, introduced a bunch of static/noise by walking all over the discs (and playing through a broken amplifier), and then recorded the samples on a record deck (in addition to their samples from vintage albums). I'm a bit torn between whether this is four or five stars-worthy, but I think the fact that this was their debut album, it earned all five stars.

What a great choice for the sole UB40 album in this collection. I expected to hear an album of songs like "Red red wine" or "I got you babe", and instead we get a much more nuanced and thoughtful album from the ambassadors of British reggae. I'll admit that I probably wouldn't have noticed or heard the stinging and political commentary in most of the songs if it weren't for the Wikipedia and "1001 Albums" entries highlighting them, so I'm glad I read up as I listened to their mellow beats.

I enjoyed much more of the album than I expected, but my favorites of the lot were "Tyler" and its critique of America's justice system, imperial failures in "Burden of shame", the Band-Aid-prescient "Food for thought", and the admittedly overlong "Madame Medusa" (I always have a soft spot for any and all songs that skewer Thatcher, and they do a great job here). I definitely have much more respect for UB40 now, even if they left their fire behind long ago.

I kind of wondered if I'd heard of (or heard) The Shamen before, and then realized I had with their massive hit (and opening track of the US 1991 release) "Move any mountain", which I enjoyed as much today as I did back when it was ubuiquitous (and in case that sounds ambiguous, I actually *did* enjoy it). It was also fun to see the video for this now-venerable song; I wonder if the Red Hot Chili Peppers were inspired by this video for their slightly later "Breaking the girl"?

Unfortunately, the remainder struggles under the weight of their huge single that sounds quite different from much of the rest of the album. (And curious that "Move any mountain" didn't really appear on their UK release, except as the earlier "Progen (Land of Oz)" track, although it sounds like the "Move any mountain" version was the result of touring with Orbital.) Despite a number of interesting remix artists contributing to various tracks, little else stood out, although I enjoyed "Possible worlds", "Make it mine" (although the UK "v2.5 Evil Ed" remix seems better than the US "v1.3 Lenny D Vox" version), and maybe "Hyperreal Orbit". Too bad they couldn't have figured out a way to mix (literally) their earlier psychedelic rock with this album's excessively repetitive rave/acid-house tendencies. And a bit confusing to try to figure out which tracks to listen to, as I got the US 1991 issue on YouTube Music, which has a number of extra tracks as well as different mixes from the UK vinyl (as well as the UK CD/cassette, but in different ways).

What a strange choice for the second/later of Dusty Springfield's albums in this collection, especially given how much this bombed when it was released. To me, there's nothing really wrong with the album, but the songs just don't really do much either, and I can see how it might have fallen flat in 1969 as musical tastes and trends went elsewhere.

On the other hand, her version of "Son of a preacher man" is a timeless and nearly perfect classic, even if it sounds totally different (and much much better) from the rest of the album. I feel badly rating this album only three stars given that one track, but the rest is so...average...it makes it hard to boost the score (and I'm mystified why I gave her other album five stars, other than because it was one of the first albums I listened to in this collection).

Interesting...exactly two months after the first Rufus Wainwright album ("Want One") comes the other half of his not-exactly-double-album. I didn't enjoy the first half, but that ends up helping with "Want Two" in that my expectations are pretty low. It also helps that the album is a bit darker in tone (at least according to Mr. Wainwright himself), and I thought the opening track "Agnes Dei" was curiously compelling in that regard (and interesting that it was used in the depressing film "Trade" about sex slaves), and the long closing track "Old whore's diet" was also a bit distinctive. His style is still not to my taste, though, and there aren't really any other tracks that grabbed my attention, other than perhaps that "Peach tree" seemed to be a Radiohead-wannabe song, and I'll take it on the "1001 Albums" entry author's authority that both "Gay messiah" and the Jeff Buckley elegy "Memphis skyline" have insightful, provocative and/or powerful lyrics.

I knew we'd eventually get another Baaba Maal album, so it's good to get that done with. And much like the other album ("Lam Toro"), I don't really feel well informed enough to really judge either this album or Baaba Mal's music (or Mansour Seck for that matter). I *did* appreciate it that this album has a more grounded feeling than "Lam Toro" and doesn't sound as much like it's trying to be a world-music album--I'm guessing that could be in part because this album was earlier than his later collaboration with Simon Booth (who went on to form Afro Celt Sound System), and so there's fewer generic (and largely electronic) world music samples interspersed. (The "1001 Albums" entry was also helpful in noting that Mansour Seck was a blind griot that mentored Baaba Mal, and the two of them produced this album during Mal's period in France studying music, focusing on simple and traditional music and lyrics.)

Much like "Lam Toro", I didn't understand any of the lyrics, so my appreciation is limited to the sounds; my favorites on the album were the opening track "Lam Tooro", "Muudo Hormo" and the apparently very poignant tale of forced migration in "Maacina Tooro".

I've enjoyed The Beta Band over the years, so it's nice to get one of their albums (one of two in this collection, it appears). I'm also impressed at how many songs on this album are also in the compilation album that I own--this is almost a greatest hits album on its own (it probably helps that they only produced three albums, though). I suspect their sound isn't to everyone's taste, but at least they can judge the band on a really solid album. My favorites are most of the tracks that I'm familiar with from the compilation album--the opening track "Square" (and its fun accompanying video), "Human being", "Gone", and "Broke"--plus "Dragon", the highly eclectic "Quiet", and "Life". A shame that they never really got the breaks they deserved to make it and stay big.

Since I've never heard of Blue Nile before, when I listened to the opening title track, I wondered if this was some underground David Byrne solo album long before he went solo. It didn't take too long I could hear how Paul Buchanan doesn't sound exactly like Byrne--and really at times more like David Bowie, particularly in "Tinseltown in the rain"--but the similarity to both of them is a bit uncanny (to me at least).

All that aside, I enjoyed this seemingly obscure album much more than I expected to. They make a lot out of just a few people and instruments, and their sound is both solidly 80s and yet also more modern-sounding. I'm not sure there are any great standout tracks--maybe "From rags to riches" (despite a very derivative "Teenage wasteland" keyboard riff tucked inside) and "Automobile noise"--but they created a very solid album (more the first side than the second, but still). And even more impressive that they were all self-taught musicians.

I'm not sure whether it was intentional that this album came on the day after Brian Wilson died (presumably for anyone who hadn't already gotten all of the Beach Boys albums), but I appreciate the timing regardless. I also appreciate that this is the least Beach-Boys-sounding album of the lot in this collection, as it makes the experience a bit more interesting. I'm not sure I can point to any great songs on the album, but I'm impressed at how they tried to be more relevant and modern and insightful on tracks like "Don't go near the water", "Long promised road" and "Student demonstration time". I'm not sure how successful they were in this effort, at least from the perspective of listening to it in June 2025, but I'll give them credit for trying. (And it felt like this was largely offset by more-classic and cringe-inducing numbers like "Take a load off your feet" and "Disney's girls", not to mention the painful dirge "A day in the life of a tree".)

Although I didn't really care for "'Til I die", it was very poignant to get that track when Brian Wilson died at 82. RIP.

I really only know The Charlatans (UK version) from their much earlier Madchester phase and their popular single "Indian Rope", so I was a bit surprised that the "1001 Albums" editors chose this later album to represent them. It's a solid album, and I can still hear their earlier roots in some of the songs, but I'm not entirely sure their British R&B style on a lot of the songs works all that well with Tim Burgess' voice. But it's still a largely entertaining album, with "One to another" probably the best of the lot, at least in part because of the Chemical Brothers' contributed opening loops; I also enjoyed "Area 51", which directly pays homage to Rob Collins' keyboard playing and indirectly salutes their earlier years, and "How high" too.

The Wikipedia entry for this album is overly long, and oddly detailed at times (e.g. citing the almost invisible influences for each track, yet not crediting the very obvious Dylan mimicry on the opening parts of "Get on it"), but it's also very helpful in setting the context for the album's creation in the midst of them losing their keyboardist to a car accident (of his own making, sadly, and just before he was about to get canned). And kudos to Primal Scream's Martin Duffy for filling in on the album after Rob Collin's death, and to the band for the great tribute final track on the album (including Rob Collin's aunt's recording of him at 3 years old). I'll admit, though, that I'm not sure I get the comparisons to Patti Smith or Neil Young with this album.

Ah, yes, I always seem to forget that there's nothing quite like The Cure, is there? I never listened to them back in the day, aside from their inescapable radio hits (none of which come from this album or Cure era), so in my mind they're largely interchangeable with The Smiths, full of pouting and tragic gothic sounds. But this album is a great reminder of their dark, angry, misanthropic wall of wailing guitars and strangely empty but pounding drums all but drowning out Smith's plaintive wailing, a far cry from the likes of Morrissey's self-pitying chip on his shoulder. And judging from the Wikipedia entry, it sounds like this album in particular channeled all of Robert Smith's suicidal and self-destructive tendencies into the music, which thankfully kept him alive (and somehow the band made it out largely intact).

I'm not sure I can point to any favorites on this album, as I *really* don't enjoy listening to The Cure, either in their earlier dark-gothic phase or the later pop-gothic sound, but if I had to choose something, I *did* enjoy the relatively straightforward "The hanging garden", especially for its awkward and very 80s music video. But I'm also glad to have heard this earlier Cure album, as I think I have a better feel for why a long-ago co-worker loved them so much and often claimed they were unique.

I have no idea where the "1001 Albums" editors picked this band and album out of the dusty corners of the turn-of-the-century American musical landscape, but this is a much more fun discovery than some of the other unknown (to me) albums. The Wikipedia entry for the album is basically useless, but in some ways that's not such a bad thing, and I kind of enjoyed listening to the album without any real context (the "1001 Albums" entry is much more helpful, though, and I was impressed to find out that Giant Sand had been playing and recording for at least two decades before this album came out). The first full track, "(Well) Dusted" is really strong, and kind of set me up for a little disappointment in the subsequent tracks, but I also really enjoyed some of the later songs on the album, especially "Temptation of egg", the back to back tracks "Wolfy" and "Shiver", and "Bottom line man" (for some reason "Satellite" didn't quite do it for me). I also liked the fairly broad range in styles, at times reminding me of Magnetic Fields and/or Daniel Johnston, and the country-esque infusion in a number of the songs is an interesting take, although the album definitely could have been about half as long and been stronger for it.

I didn't think I'd ever heard of Stephen Stills before, or anything he'd done, but the opening track set me straight, at least on the latter count (and the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia entry set me straight on the former count, as of course I've heard of Stills as in Crosby, Stills and Nash/Young). I'm not sure I'll be able to remember the connection long-term, or that Crosby and Nash provided harmonies on it, but it's so nice to have a name to fit with the classic "Love the one you're with". The rest of the album is solid, especially if you enjoy the whole CSN harmonies and humming and soft rock style (which I'll admit isn't really my cup of tea); the highlights for me were probably the Jimi-Hendrix-backed "Old times good times" and "Black queen"; I was hoping the Eric-Clapton-backed "Go back home" too, but it's missing...something...much like a lot of the album. I was also struck by how Stills' solo style occasionally sounds a lot like Joe Cocker, particularly when there's a choir backing him (as on "Church (pt. of someone)"); such a travesty that this is as close as we get to getting a Joe Cocker album in this collection. And how odd that Stills got so many famous artists to join him on the album, yet overall it doesn't rock (or roll) nearly as much as you'd think it should.

Given the way this project seems to glom onto specific singer/songwriters, I'm a little surprised that this is the only Tori Amos album in the collection, but also very appreciative for the restraint. And while it's definitely too long of an album by half, it's very impressive that there were four singles from this album, all of which I remember playing frequently on the radio (especially "Crucify" and the still-memorable "Silent all these years", not sure about "China" though). Aside from the singles, I also thought "Precious things", "Happy phantom" and the utterly depressing "Me and a gun" were interesting tracks, and I was overall impressed with how solid an album this is, especially as a debut.

It seemed to me then and now that she's a bit of an acquired taste, as her voice and style are both distinctive and (to me) somewhat grating; there's more than a little urgent melodrama a la Kate Bush to her songs, but also strong elements of Alanis Morissette, neither of whom are favorites for me. I'm also stunned to read that in 2022 a graphic novel was issued on the album's 30th anniversary ("Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes") penned by luminaries like Neil Gaman and Margaret Atwood (and many other not-quite-as-luminous authors); I don't have the courage to check this out, I'll admit, but I'm intrigued what it could possibly read like?

Well, I'm now more than halfway through the Byrds allotment in this collection (#3 of 5), so that's a positive. And this is a decent late 60s time capsule, so definitely not as awkward as, say, "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", or quite as monochromatic (or as cover-filled) as their debut album. That said, despite all the styles they've blended together in this album, and new (to them) instruments, there's not a lot that distinguishes the tracks from each other (although "Tribal gathering" and the pre-Kubrick "Space odyssey" are definitely outliers on the album); I thought the semi-Pink-Floyd-esque "Natural harmony" and the Beatles-inspired "Change is now" were probably the best of the lot.

But I guess on the whole I'm not a big fan of their sound, so this was neither a disappointment or a revelation. And pretty funny to read about how David Crosby tanked his space in the band by being both a jerk and lots of "creative" differences with the other band members; I'm not sure what it says about any of them that Crosby died on the sword of wanting to have a menage-a-trois song on the album instead of a remarkably tepid cover version of "Goin' back". (It's not as if Crosby went on to be a muscial or lyrical powerhouse with Crosby, Stills, and Nash (and Young). But hey, only two more Byrds albums to go!