Reviews by mitch058

A nice treat--this is one of my favorite Van Halen albums, and even though I know they're not to everyone's taste I always feel like this album is worth a listen (and not just for the greatest solo track of all time, although "Eruption" *is* a masterpiece). It's tough to pick out favorites from this mighty album, so I'll just note that my least favorite tracks are probably "Atomic punk" (it always makes me think of a couple of Police tracks on their earlier albums where they try to show their punk-like roots, and fail) and "Little dreamer", although "Ice cream man" probably should be there, but it seems like such a quintessential David Lee Roth (cover) song it's hard not to smile (and think of brown M&Ms). And I have to say their cover of the Kinks' "You really got me" is inspired genius. I think what I love about this album, and the band, at least in the David Lee Roth era, is that they did one thing, they didn't pretend to be more complex than they were, and they did it with style and confidence, and they were entertainers par excellence.

I've never been much of a Rod Stewart fan, and I'm still a bit resentful that our sole Jeff Beck album was the one that had Rod Stewart singing, so this is a hard album to judge fairly. It seems fine, with a few radio hits (mainly the title track and "Maggie May"), and the rest sounding largely similar but less popular, although the lyrics on the non-cover songs are a bit more interesting than many early 70s bands; I feel like the Dylan cover "Tomorrow is a long time" and the Temptations cover "(I know) I'm losing you" are better than most of the original (non-radio-hits) songs on the album, ironically. Nothing offensive, and the Faces backing band seem pretty solid, but also nothing particularly notable, and not as enjoyable as when he sang on Jeff Beck's album. Sorry, Rod!

I'm guessing this must have been a very popular album at some point (it seems due mainly to the Beatles and George Harrison), but it still feels like a weird selection in this collection, especially with the opening "Introduction". It's almost a meta-musical-tourism experience, as we're getting a clearly talented Indian musician's sampling of a specific musical form in a specific musical tradition in a huge, sprawling country with an enormous diversity of musical traditions, yet ambiguously labeled "Sounds of India". I appreciate it that Ravi Shankar is making an effort to educate Western audiences to a very old and established musical style (and apparently the liner notes are extremely extensive); I'm not as sure that this album necessarily belongs in "1001 Albums" (but given that it is, it's surprising that the book editors were off on the release date by a full decade). But that said, it's a fine experience, and I'm pretty sure I haven't heard any of these tracks before.

Ah, yet another David Bowie album. I like it that this is from a different period than so many other Bowie albums in this collection, and it feels like an interesting direction for him. And so *many* videos! That's probably the highlight of this album, frankly, and so many odd videos too; "The next day" probably takes the cake with its harsh take on Catholic clergy and Gary Oldman fitting right in, but "The stars (are out tonight)" also has a bit of an oddness to it (and great to see David Bowie and Tilda Swinton side by side, almost like a Bowie version of "Only Lovers Left Alive"), while "Where are we now?" is really well done and completely mesmerizing (and the whole time you expect the female head of that weird conjoined doll thing to sing); "Valentine's Day" was the only fairly normal video, and a correspondingly less interesting song; and I'm not really sure whether the video for "I'd rather be high" is an actual Bowie video or not, but if it is, only sort-of interesting. I also felt like the album started to fade off about 2/3s of the way through, maybe from "Dancing out in space" onwards (excepting "(You will) set the world on fire").

I've never been a big David Bowie fan, and so always have a hard time evaluating whether any of them are one of his better/great albums. I enjoyed listening to it, and appreciated it that it wasn't just a rehash of his earlier music. I give it 4 stars simply on the fact that he's managed to continue to make music for so many decades and not sound completely repetitive.

I enjoyed getting to listen to a band I've never really heard of before (although I definitely heard plenty of "Our House" on the radio), even if this isn't a particularly great or memorable album or band. Lots of effervescent pop sounds--I'm not sure why they're labeled ska, unless my understanding of "ska" is very flawed? ("Tiptoes" was the only track that seemed ska-like.) Outside of "Our house", I'm not sure there are many other tracks that were all that distinctive for me; maybe I'd call out "Tomorrow's (just another day)", "Mr Speaker gets the word", and the Talking-Heads-reminiscent "That face", plus the fun video for "Calling cards". (I really wanted to like "Blue skinned beast" given the political skewering of Thatcher, but the song got in the way of my enjoyment.)

Although it's not nearly as cohesive or interesting, I can see why the "1001 Albums" editor likened this album to "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society", as there's a sort of snapshot element to many of the songs. And I *will* say this was substantially more interesting to listen to than, say "Simply Red" or "Pet Shop Boys" (who I feel like have some affinity to Madness).

I wasn't sure if we were going to get other Van Morrison albums than "Moondance", and I was also equally unsure whether that would be a good thing, as good as "Moondance" is. I really appreciate it that this is an earlier album, before Van Morrison's descent into sad and extremely unsettling ranting behavior. I haven't heard most of the songs on this album before (at least knowingly), but I enjoyed many of the songs all the same. My favorites are probably "Astral weeks", "Sweet thing", "Cyprus Avenue", and "Madame George" (and particularly didn't enjoy "Beside you").

It's hard not to compare this to "Moondance", and I'll admit that "Astral Weeks" pales in this comparison, sadly, despite the wider range of styles he explores on this album and a clearly more personal approach. Fine but not as satisfying compared to what you get with "Moondance", and I'm kind of bummed to discover we'll have yet another Van Morrison album before the collection is done. (I'll admit, though, I kind of enjoyed reading about the insane mob-related craziness Van Morrison and various other people had to deal with in the course of getting him out of the contractual obligations to a dead man...)

I appreciate it that this collection is doing its best to give us all more exposure to Stevie Wonder, and so far the albums seem like good exemplars. But for whatever reason--age, experience, musical preferences--I'm just not that big of a fan. Still. Nonetheless, an interesting album by Mr. Wonder, with his penchant for early synth sounds on full display, and an intriguing balance between easy listening and insightful lyrics and some harder-edged music as well. And while this album is about twice as long as I'd have preferred, to his credit there's not too much filler. (I'll admit I wasn't quite tolerant enough to listen to the 4-song EP that accompanied this double album.) My favorites on this were probably "Have a talk with God", "Sir Duke" and "Pastime paradise" (mainly because of Coolio's adaptation, I know). (I really wanted to enjoy "Village ghetto land", but the synth strings/organ-sounds *really* didn't work for me. And I'm not sure I'd call it a favorite, but I appreciated "Contusion" mainly for the Jeff Beck "Blow by Blow" vibe. Lastly, I appreciated what he was doing with "Black man", but it just feels a bit too long to make more than honorable mention.)

I feel badly giving the album only 4 stars, especially given how much acclaim it's received, as well as being so influential to so many different types of artists, but it just doesn't work for me the way I wish it would, so I'm compromising between my experience (3-star enjoyment) and great-album status (presumably 5-stars). Sorry Stevie!

I'm kind of shocked that this is my first Rolling Stones entry after listening to nearly 250 albums, especially given that there are 6 Stones albums in this collection. A fun selection, too, as this has some great classics/radio hits, and several I'd never heard before. I've never been a big Stones fan (or listener), but it's hard to feel too critical of them with songs like "Sympathy for the devil" or "Street fighting man". Woo woo! (And what a shame that "Jumpin' Jack Flash" wasn't included on the album.)

Very sad to read about how this was the last real contribution from Brian Jones to the band he founded, and I'll say that his slide guitar in "No expectations" really makes this a surprisingly deep and enjoyable song. (And only makes the bizarre and painful falsetto in "Dear doctor" all the more mystifying.) Also very amusing that Paul McCartney basically tanked the album's release party by playing "Hey Jude" and upstaging the whole event.

I always enjoy listening to Jeff Beck, and even have the classic "Blow by Blow" as well a couple of his later albums, so this was nice to get a different side of Jeff Beck. I'm not sure if all of his later work were solely instrumentals, but the three albums I own are definitely in that vein, so it was a bit of a surprise to get very lyrics-based songs/tracks on this album (and even more surprising to hear Rod Stewart belting them out). This is definitely a lot less funky and experimental than what I was expecting (and not nearly as interesting as "Blow by Blow"), but it's still an enjoyable set of tracks, with a few great moments of guitar-licks and overall a great relaxed vibe (and "Ol' man river" is truly inspired). I'm not sure this really ranks as a great Jeff Beck album, but it's probably Rod Stewart's finest moment. :) And while I would give the book's editors negative-100 stars for making this the only Jeff Beck album in this collection, I'm not going to take this out on poor Jeffrey Rod.

George Harrison has always struck me as the too-quiet and more-interesting-than-he-gets-credit Beatle, so it's nice to get one of his solo albums. Not so nice that it's a double album (I guess even a triple album?), I'll admit, but at least we get a wide sample of what he wanted to play and sing. (A little frustrating that the YouTubeMusic version of the album seems to be based on various remasters/reissues with tons of extra songs and outtakes, clocking in at nearly 3 hours if you chose to listen to it all...) My favorites on the album are mostly the ones I've heard before, like "My sweet Lord" and "What is life", although there were a few that I hadn't heard before that were fun ("Wah-wah" one of these, and not just because it's named after a guitar effect; also "Let it down", "Beware of darkness" and the Beatles-esque "Art of dying"). I also enjoyed the occasional forays into slide-guitar he incorporated into the album; they made me think of a very different version of Leo Kottke.

It's also incredibly impressive to read the names of all the contributing musicians on this album; quite a who's-who of late 60s rock, and what a strange and fraught connection with Eric Clapton. Overall, it's not really my kind of album, but I'm glad we got a chance to hear George Harrison's voice and sound without McCartney and Lennon drowning him out.

Ah, the Stone Roses. I knew several people in high school/college that were absolutely fanatical about The Stones Roses, but I couldn't really ever get into them despite their popularity and success. I think it's mainly how nearly *everything* sounds like it's been put through some sort of flange/reverb effect, which (to me) doesn't add depth but instead makes it all sound the same (and perhaps is also the cause of the poorly-mixed-and-thus-nearly-incomprehensible lyrics?); I'm very reminded of the Happy Mondays album "Bummed" in this collection, which I felt was equally meh. My favorites/preferred songs are probably "Bye bye bad man", "Sugar spun sister", and "I am the resurrection". (I had high hopes for "Elephant Stone", since it strangely wasn't included in the YouTubeMusic playlist for this album, but aside from more interesting drum/rhythm sections, it wasn't much different.)

It's kind of amazing that at least one person ranked this album as #11 all time (Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums, according to the Wikipedia info). But they certainly had a loyal and widespread following, and I'm intrigued that the Flaming Lips reworked the entire album in 2013 with their "The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down… What a Sound" (admittedly, not so intrigued to listen to that other album now). And I'm really impressed to find out that the album cover is by their guitarist, and inspired by both Jackson Pollack (which is pretty evident) and the May 1968 Paris riots (not so evident), plus a tie-in to their song on the album "Bye bye bad man".

I know I'm horribly biased, having grown up in Seattle in the midst of the explosion of Nirvana, Soundgarten, Pearl Jam and others, but I can't help but revere this album and all the memories associated with it. (One of the odder memories is becoming the owner of this CD when I borrowed it in college to listen to, but somehow left it on the dinner tray in the dining hall, and while I eventually recovered it, the disc insert was hopelessly soiled and warped, and so had to buy another copy of it for my friend. The CD still played just fine, though, and has been played many many times.) I'd be hard pressed to identify any songs I didn't like on this album, although "Oceans" isn't one of my favorites, and the album kind of loses its edge a bit towards the end.

They put on a great show at Lollapalooza the year I saw them (1992, the same year as the album), and I've always been impressed by the whole band's dedication to playing great shows and to their fans. (I've also admired how they did their best as long as they could to avoid the Ticketmaster stadium price-gouging.) I've never seen any of the videos from this album until now, and I loved seeing that the video to "Even Flow" was filmed in a great historic theater in Seattle, Moore Theater; although I never saw them play in Seattle, I remember going to the Moore Theater as a teenager to be a crowd extra for a Queensryche music video. And not having seen the videos, I also was unaware of the bizarre story of the "Jeremy" video having had the gun suicide edited out when it first appeared, and only *un*censored a few years ago.

I'm disappointed, but all that surprised, to see that this is the only Pearl Jam album we'll get in this collection. They deserve more ears than just one album, frankly.

I'd kind of wondered if we'd get Rage Against the Machine in this collection, and I'm glad we did. I really enjoyed this album when it first came out, and have listened to it quite a bit over the years, without *too* much embarrassment. I think what's always intrigued me about the band and the songs is how much tension there is between the very white-mosh-pit-college-crowd vibe of the music and the unsettling antiestablishmentarianism of most of the songs. It's very weird, even now, to see the video for "Killing in the name of" (a really powerful song, in my opinion) and all the mosh pit action by people and fans that very likely are or will become the target of the song's eviscerating social commentary; I'm also very ambivalent about the subtitled commentary in the video for "Bombtrack" (about the violent repression of Peru's also-violent Shining Path movement), one that I suspect few of the typical Rage fans pay much attention. (The "Freedom" video, on the other hand, tells a truly compelling story about Leonard Peltier, yet I wonder how much most people who love Rage have ever paid attention to that story.) All that aside, some of my favorites from this album (in addition to "Killing in the name of"): "Settle for nothing", "Know your enemy", and "Wake up". Too bad that "Bulls on Parade" isn't on this album too.

I've always felt like Rage Against the Machine is what the Red Hot Chili Peppers could have been if (a) they chose a more political stance, and (b) stuck with more interesting music and lyrics. (On a side note but somewhat related to this comparison, I'm bummed to find out I missed seeing Rage Against the Machine at Lollapalooza by one year, and instead got the (very very very late) Red Hot Chili Peppers in addition to a number of great acts before them.) I'm also constantly surprised that, as far as I know, no presidential campaign has foolishly and unwittingly adopted any of Rage's anthemic songs for its campaign (I'm thinking particularly of a recent former president). Perhaps their use of the upside-down American flag kind of dissuades the more perceptive ones....

Aside from the radio hits, I don't think I've ever really listened to the Pretenders, so it's nice to get a full album of their music. It's not really my thing, and wasn't at the time either (or at least a few years after the release, when I had at least a hope of musical preference if not taste), but I like it that Chrissie Hynde wrote most of the (non-cover) songs, and the A-side has a bit more edge than later new wave music (including their later stuff); the B-side definitely has a strange Police vibe to it. I think the most interesting songs to me were "Precious", "Brass in Pocket", and "Mystery achievement" (so mainly the radio hits). Kind of a bummer that their main single on the album is a Kinks cover ("Stop your sobbing"), as I want them to have made a splash on their own craftwork (but it's a decent cover, and pretty cool that it ended up getting Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde together, and even a little sobbing baby to boot). And what a bummer about the short-lived lives of half of the band not that long after this album came out...

Another Stevie Wonder "classic" in this collection! A great title and album cover, and very mellow hits, all a great combination for Stevie Wonder fans (which I don't really count myself in, although I'll admit I simply haven't listened to him much). "Smile please" is a great start to the album, "Boogie on reggae woman" has a nice mellow funk to it, "You haven't done nothin'" is easily the best song on the album (and strangely relevant to today despite being about Nixon), and I like it that George Michael did a cover of the somber "They won't go when I go" . I'm not sure, though, this is as strong as the other Wonder album I've heard in this collection, "Talking Book", but I did like the occasional combination of country styling and heavy (and early) synth sounds.

It's not every day you sit down to listen to Brazilian 60s music, and for that I'm quite thankful. I think the combination of not understanding a word he's singing, and a Euro/Latin pop musical style I've never really enjoyed (which seems also always fated to mysteriously *atrocious* recording quality, even in the remastered version of this album), and that horrid turtleneck on the album cover, all conspired to make this a somewhat tedious listening experience, with a partial exception to the brief but kind of catchy "Superbacana", as well as the oddly Spanish-titled "Soy loco por ti, America". And although it's probably not fair to either Caetano Veloso or his album, I'm dinging a half-star each for (1) the fact that Veloso himself said that this album was "amateurish and confused", and (2) the Wikipedia entry used the term "artistic cannibalism" as a seemingly distinctive trait of Tropicália music, when it just seems to be describing eclectic influences. Even the "1001 albums" book entry doesn't have much to recommend about the album itself, sadly (although I did enjoy reading that artists like Beck and David Byrne really enjoy Veloso's music).

They instantly got a guaranteed 3-star rating for keeping a 2001 album to a tidy 28 minutes runtime (after all, how bad could it be if they're only taking up a half-hour of your life?). And while I hate to break it to them that they're *not* my new favourite band, I also found them fine. I was struck by how similar in some ways they were to The Vines sound-wise (especially their retro garage/punk vibe), but without the disturbing out-of-control-lead-singer. I'm not really sure their early-Beatles-in-tennis-shoes look is the best fit for them (maybe ironic?), but to each their own. It's a little hard to distinguish many of their songs from each other, but I enjoyed "I hate to say I told you so" and "Untutored youth" (which I could only hear as ah-till-yoh) more than the others.

The Wikipedia entry is absurdly brief, but it does note that this is actually a compilation from earlier albums and EPs and singles, which seems like a party foul by the "1001 Albums" project (at the very least). I *will* say that if I hadn't read up on them, I would *never* have guessed they were Swedish, although I'm not sure that's a useful bit of trivia or not. And both Wikipedia and the "1001 Albums" entry note that their real appeal is/was in their live shows, which might help excuse the somewhat less-than-awesome album?

Although I don't regularly listen to any form of jazz, I always appreciate the chance to get exposed to a jazz album and/or artist. It's nice to get a distinctively different style from previous jazz albums in this collection, and I enjoyed the album and the ebb and flow of each track, although as with most instrumental-focused music (especially long tracks) I find it's sometimes hard to stay focused and actively appreciative, but not as much as I expected with this album. I could even sort of visualize the various dances over the course of the album, which even I'm surprised by (and would likely make my mother proud, as she tried so hard with my brothers and me to instill some sort of ability to appreciate classical music and the themes and storylines; in that sense, this album (vaguely) reminds me of an infinitely more interesting, mature and wild version of story-based classical pieces like "Peter and the Wolf" or "The Nutcracker Suite"). I think my favorite movement/track was "Track B - Duet solo dancers" (subtitled "Hearts' Beat and Shades in Physical Embraces"); but I also really liked the unexpected Spanish/flamenco guitar in "Mode D - Trio and Group Dancers" ("Stop! Look! And Sing Songs of Revolutions!"). I also just *really* enjoyed a completely unexpected experience listening to this "jazz" album.

I liked it that the Wikipedia entry included the subtitles to each movement; I was bummed that the entry overall was remarkably sparse on details or even narrative flow, given how highly rated this album has been for so many people. I also appreciated the "1001 Albums" entry for this album, not just for highlighting how masterful the drummer is on this album at keeping everything moving in the right direction, but also for the broader context of this almost genre-defying album.

I don't really know anything about Mott the Hoople, but from start to finish this sounds *exactly* like a musical soundtrack album. I have no idea what the plot of the musical is, but the band is really into it, and it seems to be filled with a lot of campy, knowing irony. If nothing else, it feels like Meatloaf and Pulp traveled back in time and had this as a baby. An ugly, awkward but very musical screaming baby, with David Bowie perhaps looking on as godfather. Fun, but weird. (A shame that the Wikipedia entry has literally *nothing* useful about this album, although it *does* note that Bowie did indeed have a connection to them, having offered them two songs, "Suffragette city" (declined) and "All the young dudes" (fully embraced).)

Edit: somewhat hilariously, I got about halfway through what I thought was this album (having followed the YouTubeMusic link from the project page), when I discovered that I'd been listening to "Hoople" (1974). Amazingly, when I found the correct album, I discovered my review so far remained largely the same, although I'd say that "Hoople" is if anything a bit more glam and musical-sounding, while "Mott" is a bit more Bowie-reverent.

Although I'm definitely not well-versed in classic jazz performances, I enjoyed both the album and the somewhat bizarre backstory of the concert and album. I'm also really glad to read that this performance single-handedly revived Duke Ellington's career and future as a musician; I had no idea he was ever on the brink of having to fold up shop.

I found the Wikipedia entry really helpful in understanding the significance of this album, as well as the somewhat deceptive nature of the album and recording (bummer that only 40% of the 1956 album was from the actual Newport performance). I wasn't *so* intrigued to go and listen to the entire 1999 remastered Voice of America / Columbia live recordings, but I'm guessing that would be even more amazing, especially the Gonsalves solo (edit: I relented and found and listened to the remastered version of "Diminuendo In Blue And Crescendo In Blue", and now I'm sorry I didn't seek out the entire album's songs in their remastered version). I'm also not sure how to rank this, given its seminal place in jazz history, and yet personally I found it simply entertaining. I guess a wishy-washy 4 stars?