Reviews by mitch058

I know it's much more of a commentary on my ignorance than anything else, but I'm pretty sure I've never heard of The Stranglers, or heard anything by them outside their classic "Peaches". Given the mid-70s context, this debut album has surprisingly good production/recording quality, and they channel their punk aspirations quite well into a more mainstream(-esque) performance, including even keyboards, reasonably intelligible vocals, and a sense of rhythm and orchestration. The lyrics seem gratuitously misogynistic a lot of the time (especially on "Sometimes" and "London lady"), and there are occasionally aspects of Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music going on (e.g. "Princess of the street"), although it would have been much more fun if they channeled Sparks, I'll admit; my favorites are probably "Hanging around" and "(Get a) Grip (on yourself)", plus the bonus track "Go buddy go". Overall, it's a solid debut album but also fairly forgettable, unfortunately--it's like they were just missing something. Perhaps a better sense of humor?

I'm not sure why it confused me so much to see this album in today's selection, and then to realize that this is the only Stereolab album in the collection; I suspect much this was largely because I own a different album of theirs (2001's "Sound Dust"), and must have decided at some point that it was part of the "1001 Albums" project. Either way, I've enjoyed what little I've heard before from this duo, and I'm happy to get a different set of tracks to hear from them. I get the sense from the Wikipedia entry that "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" marked a transition to what I think of Stereolab's sound--sort of minimalist electronic pop descended from the progeny of Philip Glass and Kraftwerk, I guess (with a touch of Brazilian Girls, shamefully missing from the project)--and helped them get a broader audience, although it's hard to imagine that their audience was ever all that big given their niche style. Highlights for me were the opener "Metronomic underground", "Les yper-sound", and the Nico/Velvet Underground-adjacent "Tomorrow is already here", with a nod to the odd Shuji-Terayama-inspired videos for "Cybele's reverie" and "The noise of carpet" (especially because I finally got to see the person behind Lætitia Sadier's distinctive vocals). Nothing spectacular here (and a bit of a slog towards the end of the album), and I think I prefer "Sound Dust" to this album, but nice to have Streolab here. (And for some reason it calls to mind that this project is also missing out by not including the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars, who don't really sound at all like Stereolab but deserve a place at the table just as much.)

It's a shame there are too many Nick Cave albums in this collection, because this one absolutely deserves a place in this project; it would have been best to just include this one and his previous album "Murder Ballads" and leave it at that (although perhaps "Ghosteen" deserves a place too, as much as I disliked it). It's definitely not a happy collection of tracks, but it's also an incredibly solid, with only a few weak(er) tracks, probably "Lime tree arbour" and "Green eyes". I also appreciated reading that Nick Cave performed "Into my arms" at INXS' Michael Hutchence's funeral in 1997; a touching tribute to an old friend (and a somewhat annoying reminder that this is as close as INXS got to appearing in "1001 Albums", which seems a travesty).

To me, "The Boatman's Call" is what Leonard Cohen could have accomplished if he (Cohen) wasn't as unapologetically romantic; I've often wondered if the two of them enjoyed the other's music. But either way, this album remains one of my favorites by Nick Cave, although I do feel badly that The Bad Seeds get so little airtime.

Although I always feel like they never entirely got their due, this collection does *not* need two Megadeth albums, sadly. "Rust in Peace" had pretty much everything we needed from the extreme metalheads (except of course their awesome cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These boots" on "Killing is My Business...and Business is Good!"). This album is a strong Megadeth exemplar, though, and I'd kind of forgotten how much more intense and punchy they were back in the day than some of their contemporaries (especially Metallica). I like it that it's a relatively brief album, and they managed to make every track count, assuming you enjoy their style and don't mind Dave Mustaine's strangled singing style. I'm tempted to entirely agree with Lars Ulrich's pronouncement in 2004: "Peace Sells is a great heavy metal album. Nothing more, nothing less. It has stood the test of time."

I also enjoyed reading the Wikipedia entry's background of the album, especially how screwed up everything was for the band as they recorded and released the album. Apparently both Mustaine and David Elleson were homeless during much of the album's recording, and the other two band member were so strung out on heroin that they got fired soon after the album's release. Even weirder, though, was that the opener "Wake up dead" was apparently semi-autobiographical for Mustaine, who was staying with a woman at the time (largely because he was homeless, apparently), and was seeing a different woman and was convinced that if his host found out he was screwing around with someone else, she would kill him in his sleep. Funny too that Mustaine stopped performing "The conjuring" after 2001 when he converted to Christianity. What a weird trajectory for a death metal band....

I don't know all that much about Ryan Adams beyond the much later (than this album) seeming comeuppance of a musically-gifted jerk/asshole/manipulative/possible-pedophile. None of this is really apparent in this album, of course, but it's still a bummer to feel like you have to separate the art from the artist. In this case, the art is fine, but nothing particularly earth-shattering, and certainly not enough to anoint him with Robert-Downey-Jr-like repeated absolution. Highlights for me were probably "The rescue blues", "Nobody girl" and "Enemy fire" (sort of). I know this album kind of propelled him into the alt-country stratosphere, but I'm not entirely sure I understand why? (Maybe there was a Ryan-Adams-shaped hole up there that was just waiting for him to fill it?) Kind of a bummer to realize that there's *another* Ryan Adams album awaiting....

It also seems a bit grim/ironic/something that he had an upside-down US flag on the album cover--complete with Springsteen-style pose and what seems to be a Patriots jersey--declaring himself to be a Democratic Socialist that "really do[es]n't care" about the US, and then dedicates his "New York, New York" video to those who died, and those who tried to rescue, in the 9/11 attacks. Either way, though, it's very weird to see that video as one of the last pieces of footage before everything fell apart. (Start with "Enemy Fire")

Hm. My first impression with this album, and Solange, is that I had no idea why the project editors chose this artist or album. It took me about halfway through the Wikipedia entry to realize that Solange is Beyonce's sister, which at least explained why Solange was included in the collection. But while I know it was a popular album, I must admit I didn't find anything particularly distinctive or compelling on it, and the interplay of interview-style "interludes" and very slow/mellow/soul tracks reminded me of previous albums in this collection, especially Erykah Badu's "Mama's Gun". Fine, and kind of a weird experience of feeling like you're hearing music played underwater, but not really all that interesting to me.

I have to admit I still prefer "Fear of a Black Planet", simply because I heard the former before this album, which made "Fear" my touchstone for what Public Enemy did to rap/hip-hop. But it's hard to deny the power and innovation and audacity of "It Takes a Nation of Million to Hold Us Back", even now nearly 40 years later, and if anything this album has even *more* layers of noise and samples and sound, an impressive feat. Much like "Fear of a Black Planet", there are very few duds--or even lulls--in this hour of Chuck D and Flava Flav's tag-team duels of social commentary and whatever it is that Flav does. My favorites are mainly from the first side--the original (pre-Anthrax) version of "Bring the noise", the eternal "Don't believe the hype", "Louder than a bomb", and the classic "Caught, can we get a witness?" But side two has several great tracks too: the Anthrax-anticipating "She watch channel zero?", "Black steel in the hour of chaos" (which I feel like we got in some different form on some other album in this collection...), "Rebel without a pause", and the always-unsettling anthem "Party for your right to fight". Hard to imagine improving on this, I'll admit.

I'm not entirely sure, but I *think* this might have been one of possibly two Led Zeppelin albums that my older brother owned, which likely means that I've listened to it at least once, many decades ago. If so, I guess it didn't make as much of an impression as I thought it had when I saw what today's album offered up, as I didn't really recognize most of the tracks outside of their epic hits that fill up side two, namely "Houses of the holy", "Trampled under foot" and "Kashmir"; even "In my time of dying" didn't ring any bells, oddly, although I definitely recognized "Down by the seaside" and "Ten years gone", and of course "Boogie with Stu", although that's likely more from decades of classic rock radio. I've never been a huge Zeppelin fan, though, so I'm not all that surprised either. (Also a little disappointed to realize there's still another Zeppelin album awaiting us (III).)

Regardless, I'm very torn about how to rate this album. I can see why Robert Plant declared this was his favorite Zeppelin album, and you certainly get a *lot* of pretty classic Zeppelin sounds over the course of an hour and a half. But I also feel like double albums have a pretty high bar for a good rating, as that's a lot of music to try to sustain high quality and creativity, and I don't feel like they really achieved that here. In fact, at times it almost felt like they were trying to sound like a Zeppelin version of the Rolling Stones, which isn't a great combination (especially given some of the limitations of Plant's style). And some songs like "The rover" felt like they were just rehashing a bunch of their favorite riffs all into one track. Of course, given that they went platinum eight times over in the US alone, I don't think all that many people shared (or share) my lack of enthusiasm. And it's hard to deny the sheer greatness of John Bonham's drumming.

Such a nice change of pace from his later "I'm Your Man", as well as a nice counterpoint to his more romantic tendencies on other albums. I can see why several tracks on this album have remained among his canon over the years--especially the opener "Avalanche" and "Famous blue raincoat" and the closer "Joan of Arc"--but it's hard to point to any real weak points across the entire album; the weakest songs are perhaps the duo "Dress rehearsal rag" (apparently beautifully covered by Judy Collins before this album even came out) and the strangely rough chant "Diamonds in the mine" (which still has some appeal), plus aspects of "Sing another song, boys".

It's not at all surprising to read that Nick Cave covered "Avalanche" on one of this albums, as I kept thinking as I listened to "Songs of Love and Hate" how similar Nick Cave's style is to this album. I'm sorry we have yet another Cohen album before we're done with him, but that doesn't detract from how strong an album this is.

Another solid outing by John Martyn. I think his later "One World" release spoiled me into thinking that everything he did would be as strange and compelling as that album, and this seems more conventional and at times noodly by comparison, but it's hard to fault him for that. My favorites were probably the opener "Solid air", the first half of his cover of "I'd rather be the devil" (and all of the bonus track live version), and "Dreams by the sea". I feel like John Martyn accomplished what Nick Drake wanted to, and it didn't seem to tear his soul apart either; such a welcome respite from the tortured-artist motif (although interesting to read that he actually knew Nick Drake well and even dedicated the very sad/melancholy "Solid air" to him).

What a fantastic debut album, and not just because it has one of my all-time favorite songs--"Sultans of swing"--although that certainly doesn't hurt. It's funny to read that this album totally bombed in the UK and didn't really make an impact of any sort until the US propelled it to double platinum; all the more ironic given that Mark Knopfler grew up in Glasgow and then NE England, although I didn't ever appreciate his British origins until I read the "1001 Albums" entry for this album. (I also didn't realize that he started off as a journalist and schoolteacher before he became the massive musician/artist he's best known for.) I know there were only two singles form this album ("Sultans" and "Water of love"), but so many of the tracks from this album are really solid and some have even become later hits; my no-single favorites are their classic opener "Down to the waterline", "Six blade knife", and "In the gallery" (and somewhat "Wild west end"). I'm not sure why this laid-back sound from the late 70s works so much better for me than contemporary albums from Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Tom Petty et al, but it does, and I'm thankful for that.

Well, it seems like the rear end of this collection is just one piece of flotsam after another, although I'm sure it's just random bad luck to get Dagmar Krause's "Tank Battles" and then this offbeat offering from The Residents. Thankfully, *this* brand of weirdness is a lot more interesting to me, and far more engaging, than Krause's contextless extracts. This album feels like an ancestor to both Primus especially and also They Might Be Giants, but without any real effort to be marketable or particularly musical. My favorites were mostly from the "Duck Stab" side: the opener "Constantinople" (which undoubtedly inspired TMBG's song of the same name), the brooding and atonal "Sinister Exaggerator", and "Blue rosebuds", but also a few from the "Buster & Glen" side (mainly "Lizard lady", "Birthday boy" and "Hello skinny"). But really the album as a whole is surprisingly solid, despite being two EPs shoehorned against each other and having a lot of aspects of a novelty album; a shame that they didn't also include their fan favorite cover of "Satisfaction" in the album.

Hm. I suppose since we've gotten a few operatic-adjacent albums in this collection (although none actually come to mind aside from the various rock-operas, which this is *not*), I guess this sort of fits within the boundaries of this project? Either way, it's not at all my cup of tea, and I have no familiarity with either Dagmar Krause or Hanns Eisler, although I am familiar with Berthold Brecht (who apparently collaborated heavily with Hanns Eisler and wrote the text of the lyrics in this album). Speaking of whom, why did we get this obscure (to me) album, rather than, say, his "Threepenny Opera"? So weird, random and a bit frustrating to have this here.

WTF? I apparently mistakenly thought that "Vauxhall and I" was *finally* the last of the six Morrissey-related albums, only to discover that this debut solo album was lurking in the shadows. Such a bummer that the project editors are so infatuated with this narcissistic asshole. Ah well. Aside from the occasional musical variety courtesy of Stephen Street, this seems largely indistinguishable from all of the other Smiths/Morrissey albums in the collection, no doubt because Morrissey's whiny petulant voice overwhelms everything. "Late night, Maudlin Street" is the lone highlight of the album, although I couldn't really tell if he was actually making fun of himself or not (probably not).

Even though I hadn't really listened to *any* Bob Marley albums in their entirety before this collection, and I've never been a particularly big reggae listener, I'm pretty sure he has the highest average rating of all the multi-album selections in this collection. And what a great way to finish off the three Bob Marley albums with this one; even though it's not quite as great as "Exodus", it's a great testament to Bob Marley's strength after Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston's departures. The strongest tracks are the opener "Lively up yourself", the eternal "No woman, no cry" (even if this studio version isn't as good as others by him, or various covers even), "So jah seh" and "Revolution". It was also fun to read how Marley gave songwriting credits to various friends and family members as a way of avoiding record label contract restrictions (and providing royalty income to deserving people).

Although I can see and hear many reasons why this album didn't necessarily resonate--or even sit comfortably--with mainstream white America when it was released, I'm really glad "There's No Place Like America Today" made it into the collection. It's fun to hear something else form Curtis Mayfield besides his iconic "Superfly" soundtrack, and I really enjoy his dedication to funk in the disco era; plus of course his sobering social commentary, down to the bitter album cover. Nearly every track is solid or better, and my favorites were the opener "Billy Jack", "Jesus", "Hard times" and the closer "Love to the people". I have no idea why this particular album was chosen among his many many solo albums (and neither the Wikipedia nor "1001 Albums" entries shed much light on this), but it certainly makes me more interested in listening to more of Mayfield's solo work, especially if more of them have this album's excellent studio/backing band.

I'm not sure this collection really needs two Dinosaur Jr. albums, but at least this particular album choice isn't a complete mystery, even if it's not noticeably better or different from the other album selection. It seems like "You're Living Over Me" is probably mixed a bit better than "Bug", assuming it's important to be able to hear and understand the lyrics. There weren't a lot of tracks than really stood out for me, although a few channeled a *very* iconic Dinosaur Jr sound (like "Kracked" or "The lung" or "Tarpit"), and a few had a somewhat different style than their usual wall of sound and possibly meaningless lyrics (like the grunge-adjacent "Sludgefeast" and the quirky Lou-Barlow-penned track "Poledo"), plus the pretty amusing/fun cover of "Just like heaven" (including a strange Muppet-inspired video). And while I can't really share the sentiment, it's nice to read that this was and is frontman J Mascis' favorite album.

I was happy to hear that unlike "Skylarking" this XTC album at least sounded a bit more like the XTC I was kind of familiar with from their "Nonsuch" album, albeit with a bit (lot?) more Beach Boys inspiration than I'd have preferred. I also now realize that I'm not a devoted fan of XTC's version of progressive/experimental pop-like music; good to know, but not great for enjoying this album, I suppose. The highlights for me are probably the Beatles-channeling "I'd like that", "Greenman" and the impressively bitter "Your dictionary". Sadly, I wasn't at all surprised to read that Andy Partridge's continued asshattery led to yet another departure of the band's members (Dave Gregory) mid-album and then the kind of dissolution of the band itself a year later after the 2nd volume of this album was released (I wish we'd gotten that one instead, I'll admit). It's perversely impressive that Partridge managed to get 14 studio albums out by that point, giving how challenging it was for *anyone* to work with him.

An OK album overall, but a little disconcerting to discover that this is one of two Gene Clark solo offerings in this collection. While The Byrds definitely suffered from his absence, I kind of wonder if his solo career was all that he'd hoped for, at least based on this album; he kind of sounds like he'd like to be another Neil Young (especially on tracks like "From a silver phial" or "Some misunderstanding"), but couldn't quite corral his preferences for 70s light rock sounds and far too many backup chorus vocals that headed him more towards Fleetwood Mac/Eagles/Steve Miller Band territory. The best of the lot are the first three tracks, strangely: "Life's greatest fool", "Silver Raven", and the title track, and then it kinds of wanders around. OK but nothing special, and I'm not feeling all that enthusiastic about hearing his earlier "White Light", I'll admit, but it's pretty sad to read that this album (which Clark apparently felt was his masterpiece) was so poorly received and even subsequently canceled by the label a couple of years after it was released, consigning Gene Clark to bitterness not long before his untimely death in 1981.

It's always nice to get a relatively recent album from this collection, and nice too to get a new-to-me name and album. I don't think I've ever heard anything from this album, and likely from anything she's done over her long career, and it's a little unsettling to have nothing from either Wikpedia or the "1001 albums" book editions about this album, but the Wikpedia entry on Jane Weaver paints a pretty impressive portrait of a very active and engaged artist from the early 90s onwards; and pretty cool that soon after this album she released (under the name Fenella) a reimagined soundtrack to an early 80s Hungarian cult animated film "Fehérlófia". Her style (which I guess falls somewhere in the "folktronica" or "psychedelic folk" realm) isn't really my thing, but I enjoyed the album overall and thought the opening track "H>A>K" and "Slow motion" and "The architect" were highlights. A little weird that the project editors decided to include seemingly at random her seventh solo album, but I'm glad to have heard something by her.