Reviews by mitch058

I first heard Bob Mould's music with one of his early solo albums, and knew about Hüsker Dü but never really listened to them (then or now), so it's nice to get another piece in the Bob Mould music puzzle (not that Hüsker Dü is only a Bob Mould vehicle, of course). I was a bit disappointed to see that the album went over an hour, as I suspected (correctly, as it turns out) Hüsker Dü couldn't hold my interest for that long, but that's always the roll of the dice with these albums. I largely enjoyed the album overall, mainly as a time capsule for a certain brand of music in the later 80s, but none of the songs really stood out to me, and I was struck by how similarly muddy-sounding this album is to the Bob Mould solo album I listened to fairly regularly way back when ("Workbook"). I guess the muddiness/flatness of the mix is intentional, but it makes most of their tracks all sound both similar and not-very-memorable. And the whole Mould-hates-Hart-and-vice-versa drama is not only uninteresting (to me), but equally invisible on the album (although very sad that this rivalry resulted in their manager committing suicide not long before this album). That said, I did enjoy "Standing in the rain", "Bed of nails" and "You can live at home" the most of the lot, and I liked the Pogues-like "She floated away" too.

Although I know there are far too many Elvis Costello albums in this collection, I'd definitely vote for this one to remain in a more-reasonable 1001 albums collection, and would be perfectly fine if this were the only one, honestly. There's a lot of great energy and variety in the tracks, and I enjoyed the songs I'd never heard before as much as the hits on this album. (And what great (early) videos/promo films for "Pump it up", "(I don't want to) go to Chelsea", and "Radio radio", although I feared for Elvis' poor ankles throughout.)

I also enjoyed reading that Costello managed to piss off Lorne Michaels of SNL by playing "Radio radio" instead of what they agreed to, and got banned for 10 years from SNL. And while the Wikpedia entry for this album is at least twice as long as it should be, I appreciated how it captured how the album was received when it first appeared, as it's often hard to get a feel for what a nearly 50-year-old album sounded like when it was just born. And I completely agree that the Attractions really don't get their due as one of the great backing bands. It makes me curious to listen to the recent version of this album, "Spanish Model", with all lyrics sung by Spanish-speaking singers (but the Attractions remain).

A great album cover, and a great-sounding jazz album inside too (at least to someone who's definitely *not* a jazz afficionado). I feel like I've heard at least parts of "Blue rondo a la turk" everywhere, but never realized it was from Dave Brubeck, so it's nice to finally place a name to a tune; the same with "Take Five". "Kathy's/Cathy's waltz" is also kind of trippy for the way the percussion eventually has a different time than the rest of the instruments.

And I'm really intrigued that the inspiration for this album and its pieces came from a (US) State Department-sponsored trip through Eurasia; I guess it was musical diplomacy? (Ah I now see courtesy of Wikipedia that he was one of the US' jazz ambassadors--well done!) Either way, if this is indeed "cool jazz", I think I enjoyed this more than Miles Davis' "Birth of the cool" from earlier in the collection (in my rotation).

I've never heard of Calexico, and I don't think I've ever heard anything by them, which is always a fun/uncertain aspect of this collection. It's definitely on the fun side, and I was really impressed with the band and album's range of sounds and the atmosphere of the album. (And very bummed that I couldn't figure out how to access/play the pregap instrumental before "Sunken Waltz".) I liked nearly all of their songs, but if I had to pick favorites, I particularly enjoyed "Quattro (World Drifts In)", "Pepita", "Woven birds" (plus its companion "The book and the canal"), and "Guero Canelo"; I'd also request perhaps two or three fewer instrumentals.

They have their own distinctive sound, of course, but I was reminded of a curious combination of Daniel Lanois and Alejandro Escovedo, with a touch of Los Lobos. I'm disappointed that this is our only sampling of the band in this collection, as it sounds (from Wikipedia at least) like they continued to evolve and develop in interesting ways after this breakthrough album. Not that it should stop me from seeking them out, as I'd definitely be willing to hear more from them, and I'm curious to see what their former band Giant Sand has in store in this collection.

I know his name and (to some degree) his legacy, but I haven't previously listened to an album by him, so this was a nice introduction to the former Wailer. A mellow listen, but with something to say on a number of the songs (including the title track, despite also being one of the weaker songs on the album). "Burial", "Ketchy Shuby" and "Igzabieher" are probably my favorites of the lot, the lattermost mainly because it's pretty cool to get a religious prayer set to reggae.

A freebie for today, as I own this album and love it. It's too long by about 30 minutes--some of the songs really don't do all that much--but such a great sound overall and several fantastic songs ("Fell on black days", "Mailman", "Black hole sun", "Spoonman", "The day I tried to live", "Just like suicide", to name just a few). To me, the album brings me back to my days in Seattle and a pretty powerful period in its music history. The only sad part is that it makes me think of Chris Cornell and his untimely death many years later...

I'm not sure I've actually heard all that much by Al Green, but this album is solid from start to finish, and definitely full of soul. The title track is a great song, sung really well, and the cover of "How can you mend a broken heart" is definitely up there with the likes of Gary Jules' version of "Mad world" as a cover that transcends an unmemorable (and maudlin) original. It's also interesting that Al Green's career seems a bit like Cat Stevens, although I'm glad they both eventually came back to (secular) music.

What a great album. And probably one of the greatest live albums I've listened to; they did a great job capturing the feel of the performance and the crowd (including the reception announcements), and it seems like a perfect touch to end the (original) album with the inmate-penned "Greystone chapel". (And what a sad story for Glen Sherley, unfortunately.) I also enjoyed listening to the unreleased "The legend of John Henry's
hammer" from the prison concert.

As a comeback album of sorts, I'm also really impressed how much better this is than the Elvis comeback album I listened to recently in this collection ("From Elvis in Memphis"). A fascinating turn in Cash's career.

I haven't heard anything by him before, and I'm completely hamstrung by not understanding Portuguese, but I can see how this became an instant classic. A fun combination of sounds, and catchy tunes. I was so intrigued by the opening track ("Umbabarauma") and the description that it was a soccer/football anthem music that I found a translation, and also listened to a great metal cover of the song by Soulfly from many years later. (The VH-1 video version isn't all that interesting, unfortunately.) Like many of the non-English albums in this collections, I find it challenging to rate this album fairly.

It's fun to get another album in this collection by a band I'd never heard (or heard of) before, especially since I really enjoyed "Different Class". Of course, this album doesn't sound as unexpected as the first album I heard did, but it's still a really solid album, and impressively darker and bleaker than "Different Class", while still entertaining. (This album reminds me of some of Blue October's music, albeit with a totally different sound.)

I was also really impressed at how much the videos added to the experience. Although even "Party hard" can't quite compete with "Common People" for sheer morbid fascination, they're all really compelling videos. The video for "This is hardcore" in particular is a stroke of genius, and adds a completely new dimension to an already intriguing song (and how impressive that Jarvis Cocker anticipated how the internet would embrace porn, and saw that in this song, yet never really address it directly). I also liked the combination of videos/songs "Help the aged" and "A little soul", as both tackle similar themes in completely different ways.

I do wish it had been a substantially shorter album, though, as a number of the later songs weren't all that memorable; and that goes double for "The day after the revolution" (at least on the original release, as a 15-minute song just doesn't really fit the album or band). A shame, too, that the original release didn't include "Cocaine socialism" or "Like a friend", both b-sides to some of their singles from this album, and much better than some of the second half of this album.

What a curious choice for this collection. When I got "Tidal" much earlier, I noted that most Fiona Apple fans seemed to think "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" and "When the Pawn..." were her best albums, so I guess I imagined that this album would be like "Tidal" but more polished and catchy. Or something. That is *not* what this album is, clearly. I really enjoyed "Shameika" (in part because of the entrancing video), as well as "Relay" (the first half reminded me of a song set to those guys outside subway stations playing 5-gallon buckets as drums) and "Heavy Balloons", but overall it feels like the sort of album that *really* appeals to Fiona Apple fans, but leaves everyone else on the outside looking in. (But given the acclaim over this album, I don't think this is an opinion shared by many...)

Full props to her that she not only composed all of the songs, but also recorded pretty much every sound on the album in her home. I do wish she'd had a little more restraint in either the number and/or length of the songs (or maybe became more proficient with GarageBand before recording tracks), as an hour is a bit much for a non-fan to listen to her largely successful musical experiments.

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I've never really enjoyed listening to Elvis Presley, nor really understood why he was such a sensation. But I know this is *my* problem, and so I'm glad to get another chance to correct my Elvis deficiency, and this seems like a pretty good album with which to work on. Well, sort of, because as much as I get it that this is a more mature and experienced Elvis with a more soulful sound, it's still very odd and unsettling to have an album from 1969 sound so much like a modified version of his 1950s style, as if he had basically found a way to time warp and ignore all the music innovations and other massive cultural changes all around him. (For comparison, I just got done listening to this collection's Dr. John / "Gris-Gris" from 1968, and it's nearly impossible to reconcile that album and "From Elvis in Memphis".) Although I *did* enjoy "Power of my love" and "In the ghetto", I guess I need to keep on trying to find a way to enjoy Elvis....

Despite knowing about him for decades (and knowing that he was in the Rocky Horror Picture Show), I don't think I've really listened all that much to Meat Loaf, and certainly not to a full album. It's impressive how few of the songs on this album are radio-friendly (due to length), given how this is clearly his most popular album. I feel like this is what you'd get as a mashup of Jack Black and Billy Joel, and it's fun to listen to (although I also can see the comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, especially since that's a lot more contemporary than Jack Black, and several E-Street Band members played on the album).

It's interesting that the Brits, Aussies and Canadians embraced Meat Loaf and this album long before the US did; maybe it was just too puzzlingly campy and unserious for US music executives, I guess? I also really like it that the album was based on some songs from a Peter Pan-inspired musical written by Jim Steinman, and then years later a musical came out of the Bat-from-hell series of records--the circle is complete!

I have to admit that I've never been able to become a Beach Boys fan, so this is a tough one for me to enjoy for its own sake. And while I guess I can (sort of) see how this album is a departure for the Beach Boys from surf and car music, it doesn't really sound all that different from all of the other Beach Boys songs I've heard. Well, except for all the somewhat insipid ballads on the b-side. And of course the bizarre ending track... (3)

Quite a contrast between this and most of what I've been listening to in this collection. I've never heard of Dr. John (the night tripper), nor Mac Rebennack, nor anything from this album, so it's all new to me, which is always a hopeful positive. And I enjoyed more of it than I ever would have guessed--my least favorite tracks were "Mama roux" and "Jump Sturdy" (mainly because they didn't fit well with the rest of the album), and my favorite is probably "Danse fambeaux".

I'm kind of reminded of some of Tom Waits' material--mainly the gritty voice, the atmospheric experimental sound, and the occasional spoken-word presentation--but I'm not sure there's all that much connection between Dr. John and much else, for good and bad. But I definitely enjoyed the almost immersive experience of the album (even down to the bizarre liner notes, detailed in the Wikpedia entry), even if I'm also quite happy not to live anywhere near whatever inspired Dr. John and his New Orleans entourage.

This is probably my favorite Peter Gabriel album (or at least the most consistent and solid for his style and sound), so I'm really glad it's included in the collection. I also feel like somehow he and Phil Collins both got caught up in the same weird Genesis-inspired let's-go-solo-and-write-very-listenable-and-almost-mainstream-music-but-include-very-repetitive-lyrics-that-don't-really-make-sense-no-matter-how-closely-you-listen-to-it. But despite that, there's just something about nearly every song on this album that I really enjoy and am perfectly happy to listen to repeatedly. I guess it's just a guilty pleasure, as I know so many people that can't stand Peter Gabriel's music; I'm glad not to have caught that particular bug.

I really appreciate the range of the songs in this album, and some of them have strong storylines despite being fairly sappy in some ways. "Don't give up", as syrupy as it is, especially with Kate Bush's duet, seems like a very personal song that Peter Gabriel was willing to share, and "Mercy Street" seems like a worthy descendant of "Solsbury Hill", while "We do what we're told" always feels like an anthem of outsiders and the dispossessed. I also appreciate it that his world music infusions aren't as dominating on this album as some others, although I feel like both he and David Bryne managed to incorporate world music in a more successful and less-cringeworthy way than most artists; in that context, what a bummer that "So" lost out to "Graceland" for the album of the year Grammy, as I feel like Paul Simon's take on world music is pretty painful. And what a treat to discover that Daniel Lanois participated in this album, as I've really enjoyed his (later) solo work.

Well, not really my thing, but it seems well produced and has both attitude and humor. The video for "Sock it 2 me" is pretty impressively weird and funny, and somewhat the same for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)". It's interesting to see how much critics and reviewers talk about how pioneering this album was (for both Missy Elliott and Timbaland), and particularly how "futuristic" it sounded back in 1997. I guess it's a testament to how influential this must have been that in 2024 it doesn't sound as unusual or revelatory as it did then.

I *do* wish the album was about half as long, to be honest, but I *do* appreciate it that this project exposed me to this album.

Hm. I feel like I'm pretty tolerant of industrial/experimental music, and really enjoyed being introduced to Laibach through this collection, but this is pretty hard to enjoy and/or appreciate. I'm not sure if it's the thin/tinny sound of the mixing/production, or the fact that everything's in a foreign language, but much of the album felt like a lot of grating noise rather than songs per se. I'll give them credit, though, for creating most of the sounds and instruments themselves, and for the range of their noise-making. Most of the time I was listening to the album I felt like I had the soundtrack to an experimental stop-motion animated movie ("Mad God" comes to mind). (And to be fair, I only listened to the original album's 13 songs; I didn't have the patience or fortitude to continue on with the additional cd reissue tracks.)

It's hard to know whether to rate this as two or three stars, honestly. I didn't enjoy it enough (or really at all) to feel like it's three-stars-worthy, but it feels wrong to give an album two stars when it's clear that they knew what they were doing and had a concept going, however annoying this is to me. Kudos to them for succeeding in their avowed goal of creating "the most unlistenable album ever" (according to the 1001-albums book)!

I've always enjoyed Sinatra's (movie) acting more than I expected to, but I've always hard a hard time enjoying his singing and music as much as I know I should (in part because so many of his songs sound like they're part of a movie musical/soundtrack). I'm sure this is a good Sinatra album--in fact, both Wikipedia and the "1001 Albums" book can't overemphasize what a great album this is, how it's the first "concept" album, and even how it's the first (12" LP) album ever--but sadly too much of Sinatra's more-mature and more-emotional style are lost on me, although I did appreciate how brief and succinct the songs are. Sorry, Frank!

It's hard to go wrong with such a classic album and three epic hits! (It also makes me wonder why we also had their debut album in this collection, as this album so clearly exceeds "Black Sabbath" in most aspects, except perhaps how quickly their first album was recorded). I don't think I've heard most of this album before, ironically, and some songs are surprisingly mellow--well, really only "Planet Caravan", I suppose, especially sandwiched between two foundational metal songs ("Paranoid" and "Iron man"). I'm also really impressed at how political/topical many of the songs' lyrics are; a far cry from the average metal band's sophomoric topics.

I also enjoyed reading about the background to some of their songs, like how "Paranoid" was literally last-minute filler for the album (and then became their only top 10 hit), and how "War pigs" was originally titled "Walpurgis" after some loosely-satanic-connection to a Saint-day, but the record label felt it went too far on the Satanic spectrum. Also hilarious that the album was renamed from "War Pigs" to "Paranoid", but the album cover remained the same (odd) photo.

I'm very torn about how to rate this album, I'll admit. It seems like only a 4-star album, but the heavy metal legacy of the band and this album in particular seem more 5-star.