Reviews by mitch058

I only know of Garbage from their radio hit singles "Only happy when it rains" and "Stupid girl", and while I always enjoyed hearing those songs I never really thought much about them even back then. I think I sensed that they were only a pop-oriented band playing at being hard-edged, not knowing anything about the pedigree of the band's members, especially Butch Vig's involvement. I'm so glad this collection let me correct the error of my ways: this album is the product of a collection of talented and creative artists who found a way to blend heavy (enough) rock with samples and electronic music really well, especially for the mid-90s. There are, in fact, very few if any real duds on this album (maybe "Fix me now"), and lots of well-produced dark highs. What an impressive debut--I look forward to hearing their subsequent albums when this project is finally over for me. (And why in the world did this album only make it into one edition of the "1001 Albums" book (2010)?)

Well, now that I know (courtesy of Wikipedia and the "1001 Albums" entry) that George Jones is one of the great country vocalists, and this is likely his best album, I'm somewhat more appreciative of getting a chance to listen to his golden tonsils. But I'll also say that this is *not* the kind of country music that I find enjoyable, attractive or worthwhile. All polish, no burrs (or spurs for that matter), with the possible exceptions of the somewhat salty "The weatherman" and "Our private life". But I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised that this was kind of disappointing, given how spotty and random this project's country-music selections are; after all, if we get this kind of syrup, why not include a much more interesting Kenny Rogers album, especially given that Rogers at least wrote much of his own material?

I'm really glad we got an album by David Gray in this collection--I remember hearing him on the radio many decades ago (probably "Babylon" and/or a radio version of "Please forgive me" from this album) and then trying to time my BMG Music Club purchases to get one of his albums on a mega-sale before BMG quietly folded. I don't think I was ever successful in that quest (or at least my ripped collection doesn't have any of his music), so this is the next best thing. Highlights for me were the first two tracks (his hit singles "Babylon" and "Please forgive me"), the title track and his single "Sail away" (nice that it's a different version than the radio single I remember hearing), with honorable mention to his other single "This year's love" (especially the interesting video) and the creative cover of Soft Cell's "Say hello wave goodbye". I'll admit "White Ladder" isn't quite as exciting or fun as I imagined it would be (perhaps too much drum machine at times...), but I still enjoyed hearing his distinctive voice and the album overall, and then remembering my frugal quest. I'm also really impressed at how successful this album was in the UK, and even more impressed that it remains the top-selling album in Ireland.

For those heretics among us who aren't huge Zeppelin-heads, there are simply too many of their albums in this collection for a fairy-rock band (really, any band). And despite the classic opener "Immigrant song" (awesome, especially set to Viking cats), this is really one for the cutting-room floor. Definitely Zeppelin in transition from straight up rock to something more iconic and acoustic-focused, and it's mildly interesting to hear the addition of synths/strings at times and to see the days of olde slowly creeping in (with the likes of "Gallows pole"); also interesting to know that they listened to Bert Jansch as they worked on the album in the quaintly rustic Bron-Y-Aur cottage. The best of the lot (for me, at least) are the radio classics--the aforementioned "Immigrant song" and "That's the way"--and perhaps also "Celebration day" and "Bron-Y-Aur stomp". A solid album for the completists in this project, but not their best, and frankly not really worth including in this collection (hence the two stars).

Hm. I like it that we get a rare album from the 2010s, but I wish this one sounded like it was from 2016 and not 2006 (or earlier). Why Skepta? Because it's a revival of grime? More likely, I suppose, because it won the 2016 Mercury Prize, and to his credit he beat out David Bowie and Radiohead for this honor. I also enjoy occasionally hearing British hip-hop, mainly because it often has a different orientation than US-based artists (fewer guns, perhaps a bit less misogyny, different kinds of braggadocio), although "Konnichiwa" doesn't really showcase this. I'm hard-pressed to call out many tracks as highlights--perhaps "It ain't safe", "Numbers" (primarily because of Pharrell Williams' involvement) and "That's not me"? Overall, surprisingly forgettable, fam.

Well, at the very least I'm glad that we get more Janis Joplin in this collection than just the one solo album. And it's hard not to enjoy the over-the-top R. Crumb album cover, especially since he allegedly refused to be paid, saying "I don't want Columbia's filthy lucre." The music itself is...OK, I guess? But at least now I know who Dan Akroyd and Jim Belushi wanted to sound like (or at least in the same zip code), and they did a pretty good job in many ways. I wish the production quality was substantially better, but I suspect they liked the *very* lo-fi sound with overblown vocals and amp hum and hiss, so I hope they liked how this album turned out. The highlights for me were "I need a man to love" and the radio classic cover "Piece of my heart", with a nod to the other two covers, the lone truly-live track track "Ball and chain" and the somewhat creative version of "Summertime". This would have been four stars if it sounded better, and if Joplin's backing artists didn't sound so much like a (high school) garage cover band trying to sound like Blue Oyster Cult.

Argh--I thought I was done with Radiohead back about halfway through the collection (given that there were five albums already), but apparently not. I think if this was the first or second Radiohead album I'd heard, I'd probably feel more charitable in my rating or review, but at #6 I question what this particular album adds to this project aside from a more explicit political perspective. It's fine, I suppose, especially if you're a Radiohead fan, given how much it sounds just like what you'd expect from Radiohead, but it doesn't feel like it adds much to their range or style. The best of the lot for me was probably "Sit down, stand up" (despite a very boring video), "Backdrifts", "A punch up at a wedding" and "A wolf at the door", with honorable mention to "Go to sleep" (despite the very dated CGI video). Overall, though, I could definitely have lived without necessarily hearing this album, and I'm tempted to agree with the band (at least according to the Wikipedia entry) that it seems overlong and unfinished; but, still, a solid album.

I feel like this album lies somewhere between the scathing contemporary reviews and the far-too-glowing later retrospectives and the cult fandom this album accumulated. It is indeed very sloppy-sounding and almost half-assed at times, much what one might expect from a heavily (self-)medicated musician who lost his girlfriend in a car accident and wanted to heal by collecting a lot of big-name musician friends all jamming together in a San Francisco studio. But it's also a somewhat compelling meditation piece, floating away in a hazy-but-ever-so-harmonious grief; I can see how enjoyable this might be for someone who's a bigger fan than me of his voice or style(s). The highlights are probably the opener "Music is love", "Laughing" and "What are their names"; the rest isn't really all that memorable aside from wanting "Orleans" to turn into a Queen production number. Some day either we'll hit the end of the project or we'll finally get the last of the innumerable CSNY-related albums; I don't think today is that day, though, even if this would be a good sendoff.

Given when this was released, I can see how this was considered fairly groundbreaking for a full-length house/dance album. I like it that there are so many echoes here of contemporaries like Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Orbital, even Enigma and others, even if there's not a huge amount of variety or range across this too-long album. (I can see both why it got a Mercury Prize nomination and also lost to Portishead's "Dummy".) Highlights for me were apparently all the tracks that started with vowels: "Afro beat", "Original", "Inspection (check one)" (which might have influenced Chemical Brothers' fantastic "Push the button") and the classic "Open up" (still hard to believe that's Johnny Rotten on vocals). A bit too ambient-dance for my tastes at times, but still a solid "album" of previously released singles, and even more impressive that "leftfield" appears to now be an entire genre of music.

I've never heard of Ozomatli, and I'm pretty sure I'm never heard anything from this album, aside from perhaps their (justifiably) breakout hit "Saturday night". Regardless, I really enjoyed their eclectic mix of world-beat styles with a Latin flair (as well as the occasional Balkan/Middle East sound), and I can see why the "1001 Albums" entry described them as a 21st century Los Lobos (a great description, only marred by the tragedy that this collection doesn't include a single Los Lobos album, or even a more rock-oriented Los Super Seven album). My favorites were probably the opening duo "Believe" and "Love and hope", "(Who discovered) America?", "Ya viene el sol" and the very Los-Lobos-sounding "Cuando canto"; really, the only bumps in the album are probably "Te estoy buscando" and "Nadie te tira", and even those are pretty fun tunes. The "1001 Albums" entry noted they put on great live shows (the video for "Saturday night" gives a pretty good sampling of this), and while I doubt it's quite the same experience in 2026 as it must have been in the early 2000s, I'd definitely listen to more by them.

I knew this was eventually going to arrive as the daily album, and I was sort of dreading it. I was a bit relieved that it wasn't quite as painful or superficial as I feared, but I think my dread was still well-founded, and not just on such obviously derivative tracks like "Gumboots" or "Homeless", or the sadly stolen jam sessions from Good Rockin' Dopsie and the Twisters ("That was your mother") or Los Lobos ("All around the world or the myth of the fingerprints"). In some ways, the best of this album are where he tones down his infatuation (and appropriation) on the opening track "Boy in the bubble" and "You can call me Al" (with a fun video featuring Chevy Chase).

"Graceland" is certainly better than the likes of Joni Mitchell's "The Hissing Of Summer Lawns", but even on the world-music-appropriation scale it's so much less interesting than Talking Heads' "Remain in Light" or Peter Gabriel's "So". I was also semi-aware of the controversies surrounding this album (especially the violation of anti-apartheid cultural bans), but reading the (largely positive) Wikipedia entry made me far more aware of how stubborn and seemingly uncaring Simon was (and likely is) about fellow artists and issues of cultural sensitivity and appropriation. This was clearly a high-water mark for him, and also re-energized him to the pleasures of music, but none of those things helped me enjoy his style of music particularly, and I still shudder at how much this album reminds of the most painful aspects of Western artists' perspectives towards everywhere else, and Africa in particular, in the 80s and 90s. It's not as bad as Toto's "Africa", Band Aid's "Do they know it's Christmas?" or USA for Africa's "We are the world", but to me it feels uncomfortably close.

Although it always feels like any 21st century selections in this collection is both random and arbitrary (especially for anything after the initial edition's 2005 publication date), I'm very happy with today's new-to-me band and album, and also very sorry to see that it was inexplicably only included in one edition (2011). I like it that this isn't their debut album, and it's a strong album from the opening track "Terrible Love" to the closer "Vanderlyle crybaby geeks" (which seems to appear in a lot of TV series' episodes, oddly). In fact, there are only a few weaker tracks here and there, mainly "Little faith" and "Lemonworld", as well as the strangely unfunny video to "Conversation 16", plus they could probably be accused of having a somewhat limited range of song styles and sounds (but I like it). For some reason, I was strongly reminded of Alejandro Escovedo's 2006 "The Boxing Mirror", even though they sound completely different, but have that same sort of unexpectedly engaging sound. (Bummer that Escovedo isn't represented anywhere in this project.) I will definitely seek out another album or two by them, probably after this project is over, though.

Hm. This is the second of three different Bakersfield-sound albums in this collection, so I guess it's good to get a non-Tennessee/non-Texas sampling of country music (although it's hard to imagine that the third Bakersfield album, Dwight Yoakam's 1988 "Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room", will really sound like this one and Merle Haggard's). Based on this very small sample, I have to admit that I may not be a big Bakersfield fan, with the weird contrast between deep blues-oriented lyrics and this upbeat music and singing style; kind of a crying clown effect, I guess? Regardless, the highlights for me were "Let the sad times roll on", his cover of "The band keeps playin' on" and "Cryin' time", although his version of "Streets of Laredo" is decent too. I also appreciated the brief playing time of the album, plus the distinctive sound of guitar-playing Don Rich. Sad to read that soon after this album Buck Owens chose to host "Hee Haw!" for a season, although I'm guessing that helped pay the bills.

Nice to get a 70s Jamaican reggae selection that's not in some way connected to Bob Marley or any of the Wailers, although I'll admit that I'm not familiar enough with either Jamaican politics/history or reggae's history to really appreciate this album as well as I might. I *was* intrigued, though, by the Wikipedia entry noting how Island Records was afraid the original Fox Records release was too raw and political and wanted to make it more mainstream/white-appropriate, and even tried a bit to find the original Jamaican Fox/Wolf imprint, but was eventually convinced by a Reddit thread that while the changes definitely outraged Winston Rodney (Burning Spear), the actual differences between the different pressings aren't all that obvious. Either way, highlights for me were the title track, "Slavery days" and the still-fraught-in-2026 "Jordan river". (And for the record, you *can* listen to the title track and "Slavery days" in their original form on the compilation album "Jack Ruby Presents The Black Foundation", and while they *are* similar to the Island/Mango versions, I can see why Rodney was upset.)

It's a bit of a shame that D'Angelo's debut album came so soon in this collection after Maxwell's somewhat similar neo-soul debut, as it's hard not to compare the two for being in the same (emerging) genre. I can see why D'Angelo got more attention and accolades than Maxwell, and not just because his album got released before Maxwell's; he channeled Prince's total-performer/producer even better than Maxwell, he had a lot more instruments and driving beats, and it also helped him that he didn't focus the entire album on a song cycle. The highlights for me were the title track, the creative update to "Hey Joe" that is "Shit, damn, motherf***er", and "Smooth", with a nod to his cover of Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'". It's not really my style, but D'Angelo does a good job of pulling you in nonetheless. (And sad to know that he died far too young.)

I always appreciate when this project serves up an artist and album I've never heard of or from before, and this is definitely on the more interesting side than not in that regard. It's a little disappointing to find out that Les Rhymes Digitales' founder, "Jacques Le Cont", is in fact an Englishman (Stuart Price) who decided he was a frog in a limey's body; this isn't really helped by the fact that this album doesn't sound particularly French *or* British. It's a decent throwback album, though, with much better sound quality than anything made in the 80s had. The songs themselves aren't all that inspired, with "Soft machine" and "Sometimes" the highlights for me, and props too for "Brothers" and "Jacques your body makes me sweat". ("(Hey you) What's that sound?" was a disappointingly unoriginal cover/sample, but the video is pretty fun, although kind of bizarre that the Wikipedia entry for this album links to Buffalo Springfield's "For what it's worth" rather than Skee-Lo's "I wish" as the source.) Not a horrible album by any stretch, but it felt like he was trying to be like Fatboy Slim doing a tribute to the 80s, and didn't quite make it.

The last of the three CCR albums in this collection, and much like the other two, this has a mix of classic hits and new (to me) songs, although--much like the other albums--all very distinctively Creedence-Clearwater-Revival-sounding. Even though their highlight "Proud Mary" was the only single when this album was released, it was a great choice to open the album with the now-classic "Born on the bayou"; it's hard to imagine a more iconic sound and song, and funny too knowing that John Fogerty had zero experience with many of the southern settings the band played about. I also enjoyed the closer "Keep on chooglin'" (despite how much this track and "Graveyard train" had a degree of noodling that Fogerty would later avoid), but was struck with how most of the rest of "Bayou Country" kind of fades into the background; perhaps (John) Fogerty hadn't quite got his iron fist fully unfurled for this album.

I'll admit that I listened to their earlier "Casanova" so long ago (more than two years ago in fact...) that I don't remember much of it aside from what I wrote in my review, which wasn't all that glowing. I'm not sure if this album works a bit better for me simply because it's even more over the top with its retro orchestral-pop style, and maybe also that by diving so far into whatever it is they're committing to (Jacques Brel/Scott Walker? James Bond soundtrack?) makes this album sound more earnest than ironic; it's probably good that there weren't any videos this time around too. I don't think I'm any more of a Divine Comedy fan after this album, but I give them props for refining their approach and delivering it consistently, especially on maudlin tracks like "Someone", "If I were you..." or "I'm all you need". So many strings! So much drama!

Well, this is definitely easier on the ears and head than their debut "Psychocandy", and far more mainstream too. I appreciated both of these aspects, but also realized that without as much ceaseless droning and wall of noise with each track, they're not quite as distinctive either, for good and bad. The first two tracks (title track and "Deep one perfect morning") are an interesting detour from the rest of the album, in that they're slow and morose, but from "Happy when it rains" onward (with the exception of "Nine million rainy days"), it's just jangly guitars and virtually indecipherable lyrics, which apparently excited their fans, but I'm hard pressed to recall any of it, aside from their big hit "April skies". I appreciated this album more than "Psychocandy", but I'm not sure I particularly enjoyed it.

I don't think I've ever heard anything by Maxwell before, so this was a nice experience to get a dose of funk-oriented soul (apparently one of the early "neo-soul" albums of the later 90s). I'll admit it starts off more promising than it ends, especially as it gets progressively slower and occasionally verging into easy-listening mode (as the storyline descends into ballads and odes to monogamy), but it's well-produced, and kudos to Maxwell for bucking the hip-hop soul trend of the times and invoking the likes of Marvin Gaye or Prince. A strong debut album, and a shame to read that his subsequent albums didn't rise to the level of this one.