Reviews by mitch058

What a strange album, but in a refreshingly good way. I'll admit that as I listened to the opening track "Wesley's theory" (and misunderstood what it was about), my kneejerk reaction was that at album #932 I've kind of lost patience with listening to the interchangeable hour-plus hip-hop albums by artists who seem more interested in feuding with anyone and everyone rather than making a genuinely musical album. But even the next track made me realize that this wasn't that kind of album; "For free?" is perhaps the highlight of the album, and encapsulates so much of what makes this a surprisingly complex album, with a crazy video and crazy "Birdman"-style free-jazz riffing and insane lyrics. The tracks that have impressively cinematic videos to accompany them are probably the best of the album ("King Kunta", "God is gangsta" (a mashup of "U" and "For sale?), "Alright" and "I"), although I'm not sure how I feel about "These walls" (despite a great cameo by Terry Crews), and "How much a dollar cost" is a great video-less song. Interesting to read that a big inspiration for this album's contents was a trip to South Africa not long before the album was recorded. Especially with the musical experimentation, I was reminded of Janelle Monáe's "The ArchAndroid" album, although Lamar's relentless focus on social and political commentary definitely takes this album in a very different direction ("The blacker the berry" a great case in point). After hearing his previous album in this collection, I didn't have much sense for Kendrick Lamar; this album completely changed my sense and respect for him as an artist (even if his voice never quite matches the power of his lyrics). This was easily a five-star masterpiece if he hadn't ended on the weak (and too-long) "Mortal man" faux interview with Tupac Shakur.

Such an impressive "comeback" album in every respect--production quality, band quality and Muddy Waters' performance. "Mannish boy" starts it off with a driving bang, and the ensemble never really eases up the whole way through; my favorites were probably the opening track, "I want to be lived #2" and the one-two punch of "Deep down in Florida" and "Crosseyed cat". Apparently we have Johnny Winters to thank for the fantastic and live-sounding recording and production, so thank you Mr. Winters! (I'm also glad for The Gun Club that this album came *after* their "Fire of Love"; even though I largely enjoyed the latter album, I suspect it would have gotten a two star rating after hearing some *real* blues....)

I'd never heard of the band or album before today's selection, and I'm glad I have now. Although I'm not sure I'd necessarily listen to this again, I can totally see why this became a cult favorite as well as a favorite among the likes of White Stripes and their ilk, and you can hear echoes of this album in later 80s and 90s bands like Meat Puppets or Wilco. They may have belonged to the punk scene, but this is *so* much more interesting and listenable than most of what we've had from that genre, and largely because of the strong blues focus. An odd pairing but it largely works, especially when they play their own interpretation of traditional blues songs ("Preaching the blues" and "Cool drink of water"), but also on some of their originals (especially "Promise me", "For the love of ivy" and "Goodbye Johnny"). Too bad they couldn't repeat the magic on later albums.

A welcome break from a string of very US-centered and pop- and rock-oriented albums, although I'll admit that I'm a poor judge of jazz albums and know nothing of the recently-deceased Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim (outside of the fairly anemic Wikipedia and "1001 Albums" entries), nor much about Cape Town/South African jazz traditions. I enjoyed the range of styles and tempoes of the album, though, and thought the opening track "Mandela", "Tuang guru" and "The mountain" were highlights; nice too to hear a version of his anti-apartheid-anthem "Manenberg" on the album.

I've been wondering for some time if/when we'd get any Dr. Dre, so it's nice to finally have my question answered, and with a classic album. Overall, I think I'm more of a fan of his role producing other people's music, but it's fun to hear the original g-funk soundtrack in full and to appreciate how Dr. Dre helped open up the range of mainstream hip-hop sounds, not to mention steering away from heavy sampling and backbeats. And thankfully there are still some decent tracks here that aren't just straight up fights with former NWA team members, ridiculous skits, glorified gang violence or outsized misogyny, like "Let me ride", the big hit "Nuthin' but a 'G' thang", and the Donny-Hathaway-inspired "Lil' ghetto boy" (and the first two have fun videos featuring ridiculously young-looking Dre and Snoop Dogg and various cameos), with a nod to the monster-beat-Led-Zeppelin-backed "Lyrical gangbang" (too bad the lyrics don't match the power of that amazing and ubiquitous beat) and the fun Parliament riff "The roach".

I like it that I've never heard of Magazine (although I *have* heard of Howard Devoto's earlier band The Buzzcocks), and definitely haven't heard anything on this album before. My first thought with "Definitive gaze" was that I'd stumbled onto a Roxy Music/Brian Eno side project, but thankfully other tracks have their own sound, off-kilter as it is. They definitely sound more polished than many debut albums seem to be in this collection; and although I'm not sure their keyboard-heavy tracks really work as well as they'd hoped, I appreciated that they mixed it up a bit with more analog-heavy songs (like "Shot by both sides") and a few tracks blend the two nicely (like the Bowie-inspired "Burst" or the more mainstream and non-Devoto-penned "Parade"). Overall, I wasn't all that sure what to make of this somewhat experimental post-punk album, which could have really worked in their favor if they'd managed to sound less punk and more genuinely experimental rather than just dada-esque punks (more like PIL I suppose), although I was impressed at the relatively high-fidelity recording quality for the late 70s.

There's undoubtedly too much Springsteen in this collection, but it certainly seems appropriate that the project editors chose to include the album that launched him into the stratosphere. I feel a bit guilty that I decided in my early high school years, and based solely on how popular this album was, to hate Bruce Springsteen without ever really even giving him a chance (plus probably some envy that my best friend seemed to idolize the Boss). Consequently, I was impressed at how many of the tracks I recognized and remembered, given that this is probably the first time I've actually listened to this album. And while I knew it was too much to hope that every song didn't follow their tried-and-true style and sound, I kept wondering with each new track if we might get glimpses of other sides of Springsteen and the E Street Band; highlights for me were "Darlington County", "Downbound train" and "My hometown" among the non-singles, and the wonderfully-misunderstood title track and the Johnny Cash-inspired "I'm on Fire" for the singles. It was also fascinating to read that Columbia pushed for so many singles on the album (seven), with a handful accompanied by videos directed by big names like Brian de Palma and John Sayles, with an impressively young-looking Springsteen (and an equally young Courtney Cox as the fan in "Dancing in the Dark"). He's still not a go-to artist for me, and overall I think I prefer his more quiet and introspective albums that we've had in this collection (especially "Nebraska"), but this is a very solid album and one that *actually* fulfilled his "Born to Run" billing as the next big thing, at least to his legions of fans (many of whom likely didn't really understand or necessarily agree with his blue-collar heartland folk inspiration).

I'm not sure I've really ever heard anything from TLC outside of their megahit "Waterfalls", so this is all new to me, which is always a nice proposition. I'm not really a fan of 80s and 90s pop music, so this wasn't really how I'd prefer to spend an hour of my life, but we've definitely had far worse from this collection, and "Case of the fake people" and "Switch" are pretty catchy tunes. I was kind of hoping the rest of the too-long album would be able to capture the sort of playfulness of "Waterfalls", but aside from the semi-playful but decidedly un-funny interludes interspersed across the album, most of the tracks (and especially their other singles) weren't all that fun or playful, and seemed more like lite-style lyrical-hip-hop. (And after watching the video for "Waterfalls", I now realize I never really paid attention to the song's not-at-all-playful lyrics or message.) Not that there's anything wrong with that style of music, but the album overall doesn't feel very original or distinctive, despite--or perhaps because of--Puffy Combs' contributions. But Lisa "Left-eye" Lopez' misadventures with the Bills' Andre Rison, especially how she burned down their mansion after setting fire to his shoes in a bathtub, and then spent time on probation and in a halfway house instead of in the recording studio, provide a certain amount of comic relief, although very likely not for her.

It's always a bit of a tossup when we get very early entries (chronologically) in this collection, especially given all the technical limitations with pre-60s recording and production quality. I'm not entirely sure if that was an important factor for why this album didn't really do much for me, especially since I felt like I must have gotten a remastered edition since there seemed to be a fair amount of stereo separation; I suspect the more important aspect is just how unfamiliar I am with Cuban music styles. Sabu Martinez certainly seems like a very capable drummer, and it sounds like he gathered a very impressive crew for this album, including the apparently legendary Arsenio Rodriguez playing a whole mish-mash of instruments. I'm not sure I had any favorites, but the call-and-response in "Bilumba" and "Simba" seemed a bit more distinctive (to my untrained ear), and I was really struck at how African-sounding the drumming was in many of the tracks (especially "Bilumbra", "Asabache" and "Aggo elegua").

A little ominous to discover that at #923, this is only the third of five Led Zeppelin albums in the collection, so I suspect there's a lot of Page, Plant and friends in the near future. And given our surfeit of fairy rock riches (thankfully largely absent in this album), I kind of question including their debut album in this project, except perhaps for completeness' sake or part of the evolution of "heavy" rock? Unlike albums "IV" and "II", this one's pretty light on timeless/classic Zeppelin fare (aside from the eternal and fantastic "Good times bad times"), I suspect largely because nearly half of the songs aren't theirs, but I enjoyed "Your time is gonna come" and their classic "Communication breakdown" more than the rest, as well as Bonham's fantastic drumming throughout (especially on end track "How many more times"). I'm also impressed to read about how technically proficient Jimmy Page was, both guitar- and recording/production-wise, even this early in his career; also interesting to read that this album was largely panned when it was first released, and only achieved greatest-album status after a few decades. To be honest, I'm kind of inclined to agree with the contemporary reviews, and regardless, this is definitely before Zeppelin found their groove.

Likely the shortest album in this collection, which is kind of nice given that there's already a full-length Mudhoney album in there as well. And much like "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge", I just can't seem to get into my hometown's original grunge band. On the other hand, I *do* appreciate their relative sense of humor given that most of their ilk's songs are either heavy or caustic (or both); I particularly enjoyed the lead-in sample from "The Wild Angels" for the well-balanced rocker closer "In 'n' out of grace" (in part because it anticipated Primal Scream's similar usage in "Loaded" a couple of years later). As much as I applaud the project's editors for paying homage to a band that set the Seattle scene for later and greater acts, I'm pretty confident that we don't need to hear this enticingly brief album before we die (or at least I know *I* don't), although I can imagine this was a fun band to hear in the midst of a mosh pit.

It's funny how much Brian Eno is everywhere--in life, in this collection, meddling with other bands and artists with his oblique-strategies cards--yet we only get a handful of his albums (thankfully), and they've been somewhat hit or miss. This one largely hits more than misses, though, and it's nice to hear him graduating from his Roxy Music days, with a hint of what probably attracted Talking Heads (really, mainly David Byrne I suspect) to work with him; pretty funny that "King's lead hat" is an anagram for Talking Heads, too, and the track definitely feels inspired by them. If I hadn't read the Wikipedia entry, I'd likely have no idea that the album's 10 tracks were winnowed down from literally over 100 compositions, nor that he managed to recruit so many other artists to collaborate on various songs. Although there's something a bit 70s-soundtrack to the album as a whole--especially in the much more atmospheric-leaning second side--it still works well overall, with the highlights (for me) largely confined to the first side, especially the opening track "No one receiving" and "Kurt's rejoinder", although side two's Pink Floyd-esque "Spider and I" is strangely compelling too. Given that rave reviews this album has generated over the years, I feel kind of badly only giving it three stars, but there's something a bit too cold and detached to really draw me in.

For as much as nu metal occupies a seriously bleak backwater in (western) popular music, and to some degree rightfully so, I'm still glad we got this band and album in this collection. I remember buying this album not that long after it was released, and being incredibly impressed at how strong this young band's debut album was, and still is. True, they don't have much variety across the album, and at times they feel like they're channeling a more mainstream version of the likes of Korn or even Nine Inch Nails, but it also feels like they managed to create their own hooky take on rap metal/rock. I also give them credit for (a) playing 324 shows in 2001 to support the album, and (b) following up this impressive album with an equally if not even more impressive remix album "Reanimation", which apparently and justifiably stands as the 4th most popular remix album of all time. (I'm partial to Bush's "Deconstructed", but I agree that "Reanimation" is an amazing accomplishment--just check out the likes of "Enth E Nd", "Plc.4 Mie Haed", "Ppr:kut" or "1Stp Klosr".) It's very sad, though, to read that lead singer Chester Bennington killed himself in 2017 just a couple of months after Chris Cornell's suicide; apparently his demons never really lost their grip on him.

I can't believe there's only one more Stones album after this one (appears to be "Sticky Fingers"), although I definitely lost track at number 4 or 5 in this collection. This album definitely has the hallmarks of early Stones--thin sound, somewhat shrill aspect to Jagger's singing, less bluesy sound, etc.--but what a great move, at least in the US edition, to open up with the classic "Paint it black". Perhaps not so genius, though, to follow that with the truly asinine and extremely dated "Stupid girl" followed by the Zeppelin-esque ballad "Lady Jane". Thankfully, there are other classics on the album, especially "Under my thumb" and (UK only) "Mother's little helper", plus the semi-classic "Goin' home", to make up for the fairly weak and unsettlingly misogynistic filler songs throughout (apparently prompted by a lot of offstage drama involving fame, egos and puerile competition amongst the band). I guess it's good that Brian Jones was more involved on this album than its predecessor, but I've never been much of a fan of the sitar/dulcimer/psychedelica flourishes he brought along as well. Interesting, too, to read that concerns about the band's (or at least Jagger's) misogyny and cruelty towards women appears to have been largely an American concern, with the Brits seeing and accepting this as part of the 60s London "modern life" aesthetic, or (less plausibly) that this was a sophisticated social critique of sexual inequality. Overall, this strangely flawed album is a bit tough to rate, as it has some great Stones songs on it, completely offset by equally atrocious ones (and all of them written by the Stones), and it's all so far removed from 2026 that I have a hard time evaluating whether this was truly ground-breaking in 1966.

I'm not sure if it's fair to call Sister Sledge a one-hit-wonder band, but I *do* know I've never heard anything else besides the title track from this album (or from any of their other albums for that matter), but what an iconic hit single. The rest of the album definitely sounds in keeping with "We are family" (and apparently the opening track "He's thegreatest dancer" was a pretty big hit too), and it's fun to see the various videos for their other singles--such impressive 70s era sparkling outfits and coordinated dancefloor moves. I was also reminded of another band and album in this collection, Chic's "C'est Chic", and then noticed I wrote a very similar-sounding review for Chic, although thankfully Sister Sledge's ballads aren't quite as much of a drag as Chic's. And *then* I discovered through the Wikipedia entry that Sister Sledge recruited Chic's Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers to write and produce this album; kind of disappointing that my insight wasn't all that insightful or subtle, but a smart move by the Sledge sisters even if some of them understandably balked at how they got spoonfed the lyrics and music in the studio.

Given how little daylight there is between them (spirit-wise, that is, not temporally), it's kind of a bummer to get Nick Drake and then Elliott Smith in back to back order. And much like Drake's music, I'm a bit hard-pressed to distinguish between the two Smith albums in this collection, although I *think* this one is a bit less retro-inspired? Overall, though, it seems like a fine album, well-produced, and strangely (sadly?) forgettable, with the exception perhaps of "Pictures of me", "Cupid's trick" and the impressively bleak "2:45am". However, apparently Gus Van Sant was far more impressed, given that he put four different Smith songs--three of them from this album--in "Good Will Hunting". How do you like them apples?!

The last Nick Drake album in the collection (and chronologically). I'm not at all sure why the project editors were so obsessed with him, but I'm glad I enjoyed all three albums more than I feared, and his weird vocal style never really wore thin either. The opening/title track sets a great tone for the album, and it continues throughout, although much like all of his albums I'm hard pressed to distinguish between all the breathy, warbly and largely incomprehensible songs (although there's something particularly compelling about "Things behind the sun"). My best guess is that they're all parts of a single, massive, melancholy and introspective poem. Maybe that's giving him more credit than he deserves, but each of these albums deserves a little sympathy and compassion for a guy that barely outlived them and seemed to avoid the spotlight as much as possible; it's a bit poignant to read that his tombstone has a line from the final track "From the morning": "and now we rise, and we are everywhere". Very sad, too, to read that by the time Island Records wanted to do a cover for this album he was in such bad shape and unable/unwilling to speak--at least to them--that the cover designer had to infer that Drake wanted a pink moon on the cover and they found a Dali-esque painting by an artist friend of his sister (apparently he looked so horrible that everyone quickly dismissed the original idea of a photo shoot of Drake for the cover). And how weird to find out that Drake got a new generation of fans thanks to a VW Cabriolet "Milky Way" ad campaign in 1999.

Given how incredibly prolific Elton John has been across the decades, it's a total mystery why there are only two of his albums in this collection, both from the early 70s (and hopefully only coincidentally from before John officially came out). At least this one (unlike "Madman Across the Water") is one of his best albums--both commercially and critically, it seems--and has an impressive number of enduring singles on it too, not to mention an amazing run with the first four tracks as huge fan favorites. And while a lot of the songs definitely herald from the 70s, they don't sound nearly as dated as a number of other albums in this collection; I also really enjoyed watching the much (much much) later video for "Bennie and the Jets", the winner of a 50th-anniversary Taupin/John competition that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It's definitely not a perfect album, and the non-hits are kind of all over the map, but it's still an impressive--and impressively rocking--album overall.

Although I don't really know their sound and discography aside from what this collection served up, it seems to me that this album is probably the only one we really need from Echo & The Bunnymen. They managed to balance the Smiths/Cure sounds of "Crocodiles" and the U2-like punch in "Porcupine" into something more distinct to them. The 35-piece orchestra occasionally gets a bit too intrusive, but on tracks like "Nocturnal me" the strings and percussion actually help (perhaps not so much on tracks like "The yo yo man", though); on the othe rhand, I was struck by how much "Thorn of crowns" seemed like a riff on the Doors' more maudlin stuff. And while the album can't entirely escape sounding like something from the 80s, a lot of the album doesn't sound nearly as dated as a lot of the fare from the 1980s in this collection. And of course how could anyone deny Richard Kelly's 1980s-era soundtrack genius for "Donnie Darko", where "The killing moon" gets marquee treatment (although Gary Jules' cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad world" is easily the best piece in the film)?

What a great gem from the strange hinterlands of this collection. Aside from his crazy Basque/Cuban/Spanish/Galician/French history, Manu Chao probably wins the award for the longest name in this collection (José Manuel Tomás Arturo Chao Ortega). And I can totally see how this album found a home in backpacker/budget hotspots around the world at the end of the 20th century, especially given how he compiled and composed most of the album in the midst of wandering through much of Latin America. I enjoyed nearly every track on the album (and the many videos too), and was often reminded of Gorillaz (more in spirit than sound, although tracks like "Welcome to Tijuana" or "El viento" get close); my favorites are probably the title track, the "Bongo bong"/"Je ne t'aime plus" medley, "Luna y sol" and "La vie a 2". I'm almost tempted to see if I'd enjoy his previous band (Mano Negra) as much as this, as well as his followup albums (after this project eventually ends, I suppose).