Reviews by mitch058

Thanks to a very unpleasant hallmate in college who would play this album constantly, I developed a somewhat intense and completely unwarranted aversion to REM. I'm still not a huge fan, but I'd like to take a moment to thank this collection for helping me to slowly rehabilitate and learn to better appreciate the hoary sounds of the boys from Athens (GA). It's also funny that I vaguely recall nearly every track on this album (at least the first side), despite trying to crank up whatever I had on hand to drown out that a**hole's life (not an easy feat, as he had a decent stereo and I had some wimpy little thin-profile faux-boombox shaped thing that had a dockable cassette player, all courtesy no doubt of K-Mart or Jafco or whatever bottom-barrel place I could afford); sadly, my rehabilitation just can't extend to actually enjoying "The one I love", even though it's really a decent song. And kind of cool that they borrowed "Strange" from Wire's "Pink Flag" album (previously heard in this collection, and I'm impressed that I noted "Strange" sounded familiar for some reason), plus deciding that there's a weird through-line from "Subterranean homesick blues" to "It's the end of the world" to (Barenaked Ladies') "One week".

Although I've never really enjoyed ABBA all that much, it's easy to see and hear why this was their breakout album. They seemed to have nailed down a distinctive sound on this album, especially with all the mega-singles--including "Fernando", which strangely only appears on the Australian and New Zealand versions of this album--but also in the not-so-memorable remainder of the album too. It's not nearly as impressive as, say, "Rumours", mainly because the filler/vacuous tracks like "When I kissed the teacher" and "Dum dum diddle" bring down the average quality of the tracks by a lot, but still an impressive production from the Eurovision winners, and I'll always have a soft spot for "Money, money, money" and memories of my brothers and me singing along to the chorus and probably playing air-guitar with tennis rackets.

I feel badly writing this, but I've never really warmed up to David Bowie's styles and sounds across the decades. And while I often fault this collection for over-binging on a few artists (like David Bowie, Nick Cave, Neil Young, etc.), that's actually worked well for my exposure to Bowie; before I started this collection I think the only tunes I knew of his were the uber-singles, which is hardly a way to figure out if a band or artist is interesting or worth diving into. So, nine Bowie albums in (and this is the last one!), I can now say much more definitively that I can see why people have lauded him, but I just don't particularly enjoy his music. Album-wise, this also seemed fairly average for him, so three stars it is.

It's still a mystery why we get the pleasure of *two* Alice Cooper albums in this collection, but that could be said of a lot of artists and bands, I know. I was kind of hoping that this album would feel a bit more polished or something than "School's Out", but while there's a bit more continuity across the quasi-quirky tracks than on their earlier album, and it definitely sounds more like a rock album, it still feels like a weird attempt by a perhaps-talented-but-not-very-tight-or-focused band to be both rock-n-roll and campy soundtrack. It's kind of fun, though, to see and hear the elder statesman of campy/glam/makeup rock doing his thing again (apparently for the last time with the Alice Cooper Group), and at least there's a refreshing change of pace after Anthrax's nearly hour-long sonic assault (the previous album). At the very least, it sounds like the tour for this album pulled out all the stops with props and gore and gallows, which would have been fun to watch and hear. I also kind of wonder if Rob Zombie was inspired--visually at least--by Alice Cooper and this album in particular?

I knew we were unlikely to escape this collection without a little taste of Anthrax, and here we are. Pretty much what I remembered from high school, for good and bad. They always felt like the younger brother to Metallica and Megadeath, and perhaps the chippy cousin to Slayer, and really the only one of the four where you can (somewhat, sometimes) understand the lyrics. I don't think I ever heard this particular album, and I liked reading that the album title and the dedication were for the recent death of Metallica's Cliff Burton during Anthrax's supporting tour, and lots of props for the Judge Dredd references in "I am the law". I'm *severely* disappointed, however, that the "1001 Albums" editors didn't choose their album with what I considered (and still do, to some degree) the most mind-blowing rap/metal collaboration I'd ever heard, joining with Public Enemy for "Bring tha noize", although now that I've looked this up, I guess I can give the editors a pass, since it only appeared on their 1991 b-sides /outtakes compilation album "Attack of the Killer B's", and further digging reveals that I've heard that track in this collection thanks to the inclusion of PE's "Apocalypse 91".... But back to *this* album, this is perfectly fine thrashy metal, but nothing particularly distinctive, and reminded me of a kind of less-compelling mix of Iron Maiden's screaming vocals and twin lead guitars (especially on tracks like "A skeleton in the closet" and especially "Indians") and early Metallica's driving thrash. (And kind of sad that their non-standard-metal tour wear of shorts and t-shirts, and their slight embrace of hardcore sounds, brought out calls of selling out or not being "serious" enough....)

I haven't listened to this album for many years, largely because Kid Rock turned out to be such a jerk, but despite all his unfortunate baggage I have to say that this album still works nearly 30 years later. He managed to blend rock and rap much more effectively than the nu-metalheads, and for the most part his braggadocio isn't too annoying. My favorites were and remain the two opening tracks (and deserved singles) "Bawitdaba" and "Cowboy", "I am the bullgod", "Only God knows why" and (for some inexplicable reason) "Where U at Rock", but really there aren't many duds in the hour-plus playtime, which is impressive (the weakest tracks are probably "Roving gangsta" and "I got one for ya"). I'd forgotten that fellow Detroiter Eminem made an appearance ("F*** off"), probably much to both of their dismay as they went in very different directions in later years.

It's hard to believe that this appeared in the last 100 albums of this massive collection! I don't think I've ever really listened to this album from start to finish before, but I'm not really all that shocked to discover that I'm familiar with nearly all of the tunes (except "Fixing a hole", "Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite!"). I do wish the Wikipedia entry wasn't quite as exhaustive and endless, but the album is such an icon I guess it makes sense, and I'm struck with how tight and perhaps even unified they sound across a wide range of styles (such a far cry from next year's White Album on onwards). What a classic and excellent album that sounds far ahead of its time, and that's from someone who's not a big Beatles afficionado.

At long last, the last Morrissey (solo) album in the collection! (Sadly, still one more Smiths album to go, though.) Not too much to add beyond that factoid and sentiment, honestly, other than this album didn't seem to be all that distinctive or different from the others. Oh, and each Morrissey infliction revises my Cure estimation upward.

I generally enjoy the prospect of a quirky album in this collection, and I think this one largely delivers, down to the fact that Brian Eno was the executive producer. It doesn't seem nearly as clever or subversive as I suspect they thought it was 50 years ago, but I definitely agree with Brian Eno's choice to release it on his "Obscure" label, and a few of the tracks work well at blending various styles and instruments, especially their long (and overly long-named) track "The sound of someone you love who's going away and it doesn't matter". I'm not entirely sure this album belongs in the collection, but I guess it's no weirder than that they produced multiple albums and appear to have had a bit of a fanbase (although I can totally see how they opened for Kraftwerk not long after this album was released), and I found listening to this pleasant enough.

Although there's not a lot of musical variety on this classic album, it's hard to imagine a better way to kick it off than the title track. And nice too to see it was the first album to explicitly credit the timeless Funk Brothers. I think I kind of expected too much from this political concept album, as I kind of felt like the non-singles tracks largely fell flat as songs, even if the overall themes of compassion and disillusionment in Vietnam-era America is pretty compelling. It'll be interesting to see what the third Marvin Gaye album has in store.

I can see/hear why this early acid-house/rave album made it into the collection, but more for genealogy reasons than anything else (at least for me). I'll take the "1001 Albums" entry reviewer for their word that this album lent respectability and musicality to the rave scene, but to my untrained (and non-UK) ears it doesn't sound all that distinctive or ground-breaking, but perhaps that's because of all the artists that followed that incorporated their sensibility? Regardless, I can sort of see how this album worked magic on the UK/Manchester dance floor scene, especialyl piled high with drugs and glow sticks, and the two big singles ("Pacific 202[State]" and US-only "Cubik") didn't seem as interesting as "Ancodia" and "8080808".. The rest sounds a bit to me like an instrumental version of Weird Al Yankovic practicing, honestly (and that's not really fair to Weird Al, I know).

This album utterly baffled me. I was excited to see Everything But The Girl made it into the collection, especially since I was a fan and have several of their albums, but then didn't recognize *anything* from this painful 80s "sophisti-pop" album; I probably couldn't have even said I recognized Tracey Thorn's distinctive voice if I hadn't seen the band name first (except perhaps on some of the second half songs like "Shadow on a harvest moon" or "Tears all over town"). I've also never seen any videos by them (or from her solo work), so I was also flummoxed by how both of them look, or at least looked forty years ago. For whatever reason, I imagined a *very* different looking Thorn, perhaps more along the lines of Dido, I guess. I'm not sure it ruined anything for me, but I suspect it will influence how I hear/visualize their songs from now on.

I'm *very* glad that we also get their breakout album from a decade later, with a very different sound, but aside from the sort of shock value this current album makes with its contrast to "Walking Wounded", I'm quite confident that I never needed to hear this at-times-insipid effort from a very talented duo.

I'm glad to finally hear the album behind their epic single (get it?), as it's a lot more interesting than I expected, or that the opening track "From out of nowhere" would lead you to think. I can understand why the band resisted being labeled metal (at least in the Mike Patton incarnation), as they're a lot more varied than and certainly not as hard-driving as most contemporary metal bands. I'm impressed that Mike Patton was only 19 or 20 years old when he got recruited to anchor the album, and watching the album's singles' videos reinforces how *young* he was (and very much *not* dressed or acting like a metalhead, or even a rocker; Boy George comes to mind at times).

I still think Patton was even more suited for his work with Mr. Bungle, but it's kind of fun to hear echoes of that bizarre experiment in the longer tracks like "Zombie eaters" and "Edge of the world" (and perhaps the title track). Who cares a lot? Mike does!

I know this is in some ways a novelty/gimmick album, but I'm really impressed how much fun it is, not to mention having the breakout single "Apache", the all-time most sampled track *ever*. I'm not sure I've ever heard anything else from this album before, and certainly never seen "The Thing with Two Heads" (apparently the impetus behind the album and the origin of "Bongolia" and "Bongo rock"), so it's nice to get a blast of funky bongos and tunes that sounds fresh and new to me. I'm also struck by how *modern* the beats and effects sound, especially given that it's over 50 years old. I'm really torn between three and four stars, but notwithstanding the all-instrumental (and cover) aspect, and the fact that not even Michael Viner could remember who played on the album, it's got a groove and sound that few bands seem to have matched. It also make me kind of curious about watching the documentary "Sample This".

Ah, Bjork before her solo career. She's still there, of course, but I like how it's not all about Bjork, sort of an Icelandic version of The B-52's, I suppose, but a decade too late, and no "Rock lobster" to catapult them to eternal fame, although this album definitely put them on the music scene, especially in the UK. It's actually really nice to get this album *after* all the (5) solo Bjork albums, to clear out all of the seemingly serious and self-important and artistic wanderings and get a more playful and interesting sound. I didn't really have any favorites on the album, and was a bit disappointed that the various singles videos weren't nearly as interesting as her later solo work videos, but I *was* impressed at how much better the Jesus and Mary Chain remix of "Birthday" was ("Birthday (the Christmas mix"); somehow the combination of these two somewhat flawed bands created a masterpiece.

Wow. What a disaster, on so many fronts, and given how doleful everything turned out with this album, it's a little mysterious why it got included at all. From having lost their original guitarist in the midst of this album, and then one of the Gibbs soon afterward (Robin, whose vibrato is really annoying), all from tension and "artististic differences", I guess this could have been their version of "Rumours", but instead it just seems like a ridiculously overlong and aimless so-called concept album that no one seems to have liked, including most of the remaining band members. The curse seems to have extended even to the album itself--the flock sleeve with gold letters apparently caused so many allergic reactions in the record factory workers that they had to go back to a cardboard sleeve. (I love it, though, that the dysfunction that surrounded the album seemingly extends to the Wikipedia entry, which is one of the most confusing and poorly written entries of the entire collection; thankfully the "1001 Albums" entry helps fill in a lot of gaps.)

On the music front, this also seems like a pretty disappointing outing, although I don't know the Bee Gees well enough to know if that's par for course; certainly their other album in the collection ("Trafalgar") didn't seem very impressive either. The title track seemed to be some sort of Beatlesesque attempt for glory that falls flat, "Marley Purt Drive" seemed like a weak attempt to do a CCR song, and "Whisper whisper" was at least distinctive in its somewhat embarrassing attempt to...well, I'm not entirely sure what they were going for....and the rest was even more forgettable, sadly, with the lone exception of "I laugh in your face", which somehow manages to condense all the faults of the album and then push through to be a decent (albeit pretty derivative) tune.

When I saw today's album pop up, my first thought was that I haven't thought about her name for a long time, and assumed I also hadn't heard her in a long time. And then I realized I hadn't ever really tracked who sang those eternal hits "Strong enough" and (most especially) "All I wanna do", the latter of which I think I heard earlier this week on the radio. I never really gravitated towards her sound, and never heard this album in full before, but I remain *very* impressed at how well she did with this debut album, and how well it's aged, at least with most of the six (!) singles and about half of the rest. (It also occurs to me that Lucinda Williams probably owes quite a bit to Sheryl Crow's 90s successes, as there's an interesting similarity to their styles even if the music is fairly different.)

It's kind of a bummer to read about all the (literally) he-said/she-said arguments within the Tuesday Night Music Club about who should get credit for the music and songs on this album--some of which seems to be tied to her previous album that was apparently unfit for publication, but mired her in debt--but in the immortal words of Kurtis Blow, "these are the breaks". I'm not sure she entirely deserves four stars for this album, but it seems considerably better than the average 3-star album.

Although I'm sorry we didn't get their later "Philadelphonic" as the lone G. Love (and Special Sauce) album, I definitely enjoyed the chance to supplement my G. Love familiarity (through "Philadelphonic" and one of his solo albums "The Hustle") with their new-to-me debut album. This one is definitely a bit rougher around the edges than later albums, but it still has what seems to be their signature jam session sound with great-but-sloppy lyrics; I'm always reminded of a weird cross between Beck, Beastie Boys and Fun Lovin' Criminals (plus a little Soul Coughing). I can see why "Baby's got sauce" and "Cold beverage" got a lot of (college) radio airplay, but the remainder is also a fun listen. True, there's not a lot of variety on this too-long album, but I've always appreciated it that they seem to know where their strengths are, and they stick to it.

I don't know what their debut album has in store, but I'm quite impressed at the contrast between this album and their next one, all in favor to "Funhouse". I can certainly see why so many critics *and* artists cite this as one of their favorite rock albums, and while it's not all that well-produced/-mixed, there's so much more raw power (plus a wandering sax!) than what they produced a couple of years later. I strongly suspect this is what Van Halen hoped for with "Diver Down", and while they came a bit close, this album blows it away by comparison.

I know The Stooges are considered godfathers of punk, but it's a shame (to me) that punk didn't end up in the place this album occupies, with all the hooks and rhythms and song structure (and wandering sax) that make this album so much more entertaining and interesting--even down to the descending madness of the last two tracks--than what would enfold in the next decade. The Stooges definitely redeemed themselves to me with this album, although I can also see why this album fell flat in 1970.

While I'm glad to see that Beyonce got included in the collection, and this seems like a great choice, especially given this project's focus on albums, it also seems weird to me that the editors didn't also include "Lemonade", since that album seems to be generally considered even better than "Beyonce". But it's clearly a fool's errand to try to guess at the fickle whims of this project's selections and rejections, so at least Beyonce's incredibly successful and thoughtful solo career is represented here.

I'm not particularly drawn to her music, so I didn't have any particular favorites among the many (many) tracks (although the combo "Flawless" and "Superpower" are pretty powerful, especially in the visual versions), but as an album this seems like a masterpiece on many levels. From the industry rupture she created by releasing the entire album without *any* promotion or leaks or advance singles, to the amazing effort she put into making a high-quality "visual" album to complement the songs (and apparently nearly all of the videos were shot across the world as she toured), and the amount of work and sweat and tears she spent on every aspect of the album and production and commercial aspects, I'm not sure there's anything in this collection that quite compares as a complete package from a woman who clearly felt free to follow her own vision.