Reviews by mitch058

Wow. I'm not entirely sure how the "1001 Albums" editors dug this odd relic out of the hinterlands of American singer-songwriter land, but I'm supremely impressed that they somehow found an American analogue to the weird orchestral Icelandic music we've been subjected to (mainly Bjork, but also Sigur Rós). I'm not sure I'd seek out Joanna Newsom after having heard this (or for that matter Van Dyke Parks, although his work with the Beach Boys is inescapable), but after an initial recoil from the creepy album cover, ye olde tyme opening strings, and her distinctive and not particularly appealing warble, I ended up finding this album far more palatable than I expected. I'm not sure if this would have been even better if she was *actually* singing about legends and times of yore, but I suspect that the contrast between the courtly sounds and old-fashioned lyrics and what seem to be more modern content is what makes it more interesting than not. (To be honest, though, it's not that all that interesting to me.) Either way, I was very impressed to read that she played all the harp content, and I'm also glad to finally find out via Wikipedia where the name "Ys" comes from--a legendary Breton city that I'd only encountered before as the name of a series of really fun Japanese action-based RPG games (which might have had the legend in them but I never picked up on it).

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I've never heard this album before, probably because they pivoted to this genuinely heavy sound after I'd moved on from my teenage crush for heavy metal. Because of this, I'd always associated the name Pantera with the never-ending army of hair metal/hard rock bands of the later 80s, so I *will* say that I was impressed with the opening crunch of "Mouth for war" that almost never lets up throughout the nearly hour-long album.

I'm sorry for them (and me) that this album came right on the heels of Slipknot's "All Hope is Gone", as it doesn't really give Pantera enough breathing room to either distinguish itself or particularly impress me. I can see why they saw Metallica's "Metallica" album as the opening for them to go hard where Metallica went softer, and they *did* fill that gap, apparently much to the delight of disaffected angry white guys who wanted faster and harder power chords and double-bass drums, although I'll admit that it felt like I was listening to unfamiliar early Metallica songs for much of the album. I trust both Wikipedia and the "1001 Albums" entry that this was a powerfully influential album, and that Dimebag/Diamond Darell pioneered groove metal and was a metal guitar genius, but as I listened to blast after blast on the tracks I mainly just felt (a) continued ear fatigue left over from yesterday's Slipknot onslaught, and (b)relief that I hadn't actually missed much by not sticking with the metal scene into the 90s. It was also kind of disturbing to see in their videos (which seem to be mainly of their concert performances) all these almost skinhead-looking white teens and men thrashing about and chanting along like they were in the final scenes of Pink Floyd's "The Wall". But fun to find out that Christian Bale was drumming to "By demons be driven" in that "The Big Short" scene.

Although this album is perhaps modestly better (maybe?) than their debut album, there's really *no* justification for including two Slipknot albums in this collection, and since I've already heard their debut album as part of this project, I feel fine downgrading an already-borderline album, especially since including this too-long (but apparently 2nd shortest), quasi-Megadeath-meets-Metallica-meets-Slayer inspired collection of tracks means that we *don't* get more-worthy bands in this genre and time period (I lamented Disturbed's absence in my earlier Slipknot review, and now I'm even more annoyed that they got passed over in lieu of a second round of the horror-show masked-metal guys).

Album-wise, I was a bit surprised that they'd seemed to have mellowed out the degree of their in-your-face shock-metal, and at times almost sounded a bit like a harder-edged Linkin Park, at least with the choruses that hinted at harmonies (this is perhaps only true of their efforts to be more mainstream on singles like "Sulfur", "Psychosocial", "Dead memories", and the almost-embarrassingly balladic "Snuff" (although impressive that they convinced Malcolm McDowell and Ashley Laurence to star in the video/film)). In fact, even the videos seemed a bit more performative with cinematic production; it's kind of hard to figure out who their target audience is, weirdly. I'm not entirely surprised to read that many of the (surviving) band members considered this their least-favorite album, making me wonder why the project's editors included it, even if only in two editions?

Weird to have such a *huge* gap between Velvet Underground albums in the collection (first one was at #43, now this one at #888, and still one more to go). And quite a contrast to their debut/Nico collaboration album (and apparently a huge contrast to the yet-unheard "White Light/White Heat" album too), largely in a good way, as Nico's style and voice never really seemed to align with the band. But this album is also helping me understand that I really missed out by not listening to bands like this--and this one specifically--in my formative teenage years. This seems like a decent album, and in many ways more straightforwardly musical than their debut (either despite or because of John Cale's absence and the experimentation he brought), but it doesn't really speak to me, and its contemplative and near-acoustic style becomes a bit monotonous at times, "The murder mystery" excluded. I enjoyed the balance of percussion and guitar running through nearly every song, but there aren't many highlights for me--maybe the very Lou-Reed-inflected "Some kinda love" or "I'm set free"? I'm also beginning to suspect that Lou Reed wasn't all that gifted of a guitarist, which is kind of disappointing, but not entirely surprising. Did I need to hear this before I die? Probably not, but I'm glad to have more exposure to Velvet Underground.

I'm glad to see The Jungle Brothers in the collection, and also happy to get a different experience of their music from the lone JB album I own ("V.I.P" from a decade later). I can see why this album, and even themselves, went largely under most people's radar; they're more polished than De La Soul but also not quite as playful, and far more eclectic than A Tribe Called Quest but also less focused. Even so, I like how they incorporated more, and more varied, musical styles and sounds than their fellow Native Tongues members; the highlights for me were probably "Feelin' alright", "U make me sweat", the title track, "Tribe vibes" and the collectively-performed "Doin' our dang". It's too long by about 15-20 minutes, and gets bogged down at times with a bit too much lecturing (e.g. "Acknowledge your own history" or "J. Beez comin' through"), but still nice to get a little bit of the Jungle Brothers this afternoon.

I'm pretty sure I've neither heard of nor heard anything by The Coral before this album, which always adds a bit of mystery to the prospect, and thankfully a rewarding experience. It's all over the place musically, which works in a quirky way, although I'd have enjoyed a little more range than just 60s-inspired songs, and perhaps a little fewer far-ranging styles within a single song. But they do it all really well, and if the videos for their singles are any indication ("Dreaming of you", "Goodbye" and "Skeleton key"), they seem to be genuinely having a good time making fun music. My favorites were probably the opener "Spanish main", "Simon Diamond", "Waiting for the heartaches" and the hidden track "Time travel", but more importantly there aren't any duds across this impressive debut album. (I'll admit I kept hoping to find out they were from the Isle of Wight--the land of fun and quirky bands, it seems--but instead they came from the exotic wastelands of Wirral Peninsula in NW England.)

Unless you're a die-hard Traffic fan (or even a Traffic enthusiast), I suppose, I see no reason to have this album in addition to "Traffic" in this collection, even if this album may be slightly better taste of the band--or at least less fragmented version, although Dave Mason's absence seems kind of obvious with all the prog-style jamming and excessive flutes (but Jethro Tull was probably happy). I liked it that it clocked in at a brief 35 minutes, although the opening and closing tracks did seem a bit interminable. And while in theory I appreciate their take on an old folk song about beer, it's about as out of place as everything else in this weird mish-mash Steve Winwood vanity project (which was apparently meant to be a solo album but then Winwood decided to rope in fellow former Trafficers Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood).

This album confirms my suspicion that I clearly don't understand the Britpop phenomenon at all. Far more than the other Super Furry Animals in this collection, I would have guessed this fit neatly into the Britpop category, with its largely retro-pop orientation (and that several of the songs reminded me strongly of Blur and Pulp, especially "God! Show me magic" and "Something 4 the weekend", and maybe "Bad behavior"). Weird too to read that the band thought the album would be an antidote to Britpop's backwards-looking musical vision, since that's pretty much describes *all* of the songs I've heard so far by them.

Regardless, although I was skeptical that having another Super Furry Animals in the collection was going to add much, I think I enjoyed this album a bit more than "Rings around the world", and also appreciated it that the few tracks that had videos were at least seemingly connected to the songs.

If this album had managed to keep the intensity and hooks of "Love is a stranger" and the title track across the rest of the songs, this would be an easy five stars from me. Sadly, but not surprisingly, they weren't able to pack a full album that way (and probably couldn't have produced equally great videos either), and only a few other tracks live up to the promise, mainly "Jennifer" and the Talking-Heads-inspired "This is the house". Nonetheless, there aren't many songs as widely covered as "Sweet Dreams", and both of their big hits are still instantly recognizable and still sound great more than forty years later (I was shocked to see that their official video for "Sweet Dreams" had 1.1 *billion* views in YouTube).

I've never actually heard (or watched) this performance before, and it gives me an even greater appreciation for both Kurt Cobain and the band. I'm not sure it's objectively a five-star album, but I see no way *not* to give this the full rating. There's no way to really know if this was the new direction Cobain was hoping for from the band, but every single song--theirs and others'--sounds incredibly natural and right, even if many of their song selections were already largely acoustic pieces in the first place. (And hilarious that Cobain even admits to the audience that "Dumb" and "Polly" really *are* the same song.) Amazingly, there is absolutely no filler on this album, and while a few tracks are even better than the rest--"Come as you are", "Something in the way" (aside from the extra bits at the end as they got the Kirkwood brothers ready), the Meat Puppets cover "Lake of fire" (one of my favorite MP songs), and the stunning Lead-Belly-inspired closer "Where did you sleep last night (in the pines)"--I could easily put this album (or video) on repeat and enjoy it all over again. Sad that this was their swan song, but at least they went out strongly, and even with a little help from some friends.

It's hard to say that I really enjoyed much of anything about this album, but I *do* appreciate having finally gotten the excuse to listen to something by the Butthole Surfers. I was always scandalized in high school (and a bit intrigued) whenever I saw the band's stickers on various skater-punk boards, and assumed (wrongly, apparently) that they were in the same ilk as "Repo Men" bands like Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, etc. So in that sense, this was a much more interesting album than I'd initially feared. It does not, however, have a lick of taste or restraint. which kind of moderates the interesting factor, especially when it just sounds like noise *meant* to sound annoying and non-musical; the album also suffered somewhat from listening to it a day after after the equally experimental and much superior Mars Volta album "Deloused in the Comatorium". But there are plenty of odd and intriguing moments throughout, from the maniacal Black Sabbath "Sweet leaf" adaptation in "Sweat loaf", to whatever exactly is going on in the industrial-adjacent "U.S.S.A", and even the lightly manipulated version of the Thai vintage pop song "Klua Duang" ("The Fear") as "Kuntz". And while one could argue "Hay" is an improved (and reversed and sped up) take on "22 going on 23", there's an undeniable morbid fascination to the latter track, sadly.

I think I'd seen the name Mars Volta before, but no idea then (or now) what they sounded like, so this was a complete unknown to me today. And what a pleasant surprise to get a bizarre, eclectic and wide-ranging hour of music experimentation. Aside from the frantic "Drunkship of lanterns" and the semi-Incubus-sounding "Eriatarka" and the surprisingly intelligible "Televators", I'm not sure I could isolate any other specific tracks as highlights, but the whole is indeed greater than the parts, despite that--and this is probably the only criticism I might offer up--there's not much delineation between the various parts of this apparently concept album (and semi-biography of an artist friend of the band) of a guy who spends a week in a coma after overdosing on morphine and rat poison (or at least that's what Wikipedia tells me; I doubt even many many repeated plays of this album would ever really make Cedric Bixler-Zavala's lyrics actually intelligible).

I've never heard anything by Bixler-Zavala's and Omar Rodríguez-López' previous band At the Drive-In, but almost from the beginning of this album I suspected these guys had hardcore roots but wanted to *really* experiment on this album and with this band. It reminded me of the weird Mike Patton connection between Mr. Bungle and Faith No More, although I guess in reverse. Either way, though, while this album isn't the easiest listen in the world, it's definitely an album I'm grateful to have heard.

I'm not really familiar with Sarah Vaughan's albums, or really the whole genre of jazz singers, but even in my ignorance I can tell she has an amazing voice, and I'm equally impressed by her band's talents as well as the incredibly clear recording quality for a live album from 1957 (even down to the occasional blips (audible and lyrical) in tracks "Willow weep for me"). I enjoyed the album, and appreciated getting to hear one of the greats of yesteryear, although not quite enough to seek out the 1991 reissue with twice as many songs from her weeklong stay at Mister Kelly's).

This is very much *not* my cup of tea, but it's clearly well composed and produced/recorded, and I can understand why it sold so well, especially since the BBC commandeered the opening track "Light flight" for the theme to a popular TV series. And nice to get another sampling from the apparently very influential Bert Jansch. One thing going for it, but probably also a weakness depending on your tastes, is how much more mainstream this album is than the likes of Fairport Convention. And tracks like "Springtime promises" and to some degree "Train song" (the highlight of the album for me) showcase their influence over artists like Donovan.

For all the many times I've seen references to Aphex Twin, this is the first time I've listened to anything by Richard James' (I guess he released albums under various names, but this seems to be his most famous pseudonym). I can see why this made waves in the early 90s given the context, and even in 2026 it's a pretty distinctive sound, especially when you find out about his technical mastery of synthesizers and sampling and recording from a pretty early age (and hilarious to read that many (all?) of the tracks on this album were recorded to cassette and a cat damaged it). It's far too long, at least for non-fans, and there's not a lot of variety across the tracks, and the focus on ambient sounds/music makes it *really* hard to focus on the music for any sustained period, unsurprisingly. But despite all its shortcomings, I'm glad I finally had an excuse to hear what all the hype was about nearly 35 years ago. (Too bad we didn't get to hear his more foregrounded tracks like "Digeridoo", though, although I guess "Green calx" kind of counts.)

For a guy that's seemingly everywhere, it's kind of funny that there's only one more Brian Eno album left after this one, amazingly (#4 of 5), although that doesn't count the innumerable albums he participated in, influenced and sometimes kind of ruined. And while it's clearly Eno's solo album, it also definitely has a Roxy Music hangover feel to it, for good and bad (especially on tracks like (the good) "The paw paw negro blowtorch" or (the not-so-good) "On some faraway beach"). I'm not sure that "Baby's on fire" even falls in that spectrum at all, but between Robert Fripp's crazy guitar and Eno's bizarre nasal whine telling a fairly horrific story, it is *definitely* the highlight of the album; I laos enjoyed the slow-burn of "Driving me backwards" and I'm not sure what to think of "Dead finks don't talk". I wasn't at all surprised to read that Eno chose the many (many) guest artists to play for each track based on his estimation of how incompatible they were, nor surprised that he considered the experiment a success. I'm not sure it really holds up to the test of time, but it certainly feels like a great example of Eno being Eno and being more musically-oriented than most of the other selections in this collection.

He doesn't have a great voice, and there are probably too many songs with too many strings in them, but I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to thanks to some great lyrics and Newman's distinctive and sad gravel. My favorites were the title track (although I had to re-listen to it after reading about the album--I didn't get the slave trade connection the first time around (and apparently a number of people who did covers of this tune never understood that this is *not* a patriotic song about how great it is to be an American, sort of like Reagan (purposefully?) misunderstanding "Born in the USA")), "He gives us all his love", "Old man", and the OG version of "You can leave your hat on". Best of all, there's no tragic story of how Newman died soon after, or was never able to make a living writing songs that other people made famous (especially since he was a prolific movie composer).

Weird to get the first of two Jesus and Mary Chain albums so far into the project (#874), but I'm glad they're coming in chronological order (and also glad that the editors' mania for Scottich bands didn't extend to including *all* of their albums). Despite knowing their name for decades, I've always had a hard time pinning down exactly what they sound like--possibly because I usually assume that they must have sounded a bit like Alice in Chains, given the similar words in the band name. (Clearly not a very good assumption.) My confusion persisted when I heard the long-familiar opening track ("Just like honey"), and I assumed the rest of the album would have that proto-shoegaze-y sound, almost like an intelligible version of The Cocteau Twins. Of course, that doesn't quite fit the album either, although I have to say that by the end of it my head was ringing a bit from the amount of drone-like noise that seems to permeate nearly every track; the highlights for me were the few tracks that escaped this muddy sound, like "The hardest walk" the bonus track "Some candy talking". (I'm also shocked that the sonic assault of "Never understand" and the broken-Beach-Boys-inspired "You trip me up" somehow became singles alongside "Just like honey", as they're so *un*-radio-friendly.) It'll be interesting to see how much "Darklands" differs from their debut, and hopefully for the better. I feel a bit badly downgrading them to two stars, but this debut album doesn't feel like the right exposure to the Scottish lads that we (or they) deserve.

I don't think I've ever heard anything before from Erykah Badu's solo work, and overall I enjoyed the album more than I expected after the slow start with "Penitentiary philosophy", and once I made my peace with her singing style. The album itself is too long by half, filled with too many semi-lounge-act songs (even with hits like "Cleva" or the solid but out-of-place "Orange moon"), but thankfully there are some nice highlights too, including "...& on", the funk-filled "Booty" and following chant "Kiss me on my neck", as well as the Cheeba Sac mix version of "Bag lady" (with honorable mention to "In love with you"), and it's really nice to have an album that clearly made extensive use of live instruments and band members rather than samples, synths and sequencers. Also interesting to read that she'd had a child with Andre 3000 before this album was recorded and produced, as I was struck by the musical affinity these two seem to share (down to the videos), even if the relationship didn't last (apparently the inspiration for the ending track "Green eyes", as well as perhaps the entire album).

Nice to get a 21st-century album, and something completely new to me. Also nice to get a French-based album, as there's not much of that in this collection (although I'd never have guessed their nationality given that they never sing on the album), and an interesting choice by the duo to characterize the album as "opera-disco", although that seems pretty fitting somehow. I'm also impressed with their patience in using literally hundreds of "micro-samples" throughout from all sorts of genres and sources (e.g. Slipknot, 50 Cent, and Queen all in the opening track). There's definitely a lot of fellow countrymen Daft Punk on this album--especially on tracks like "D.A.N.C.E" (with an impressively hypnotic video that highlights its homage to Michael Jackson) or "Newjack"--but they seem to have crafted their own sound much of the time, epitomized by the track "Stress" with its incredibly disturbing and violent accompanying video. I'm not sure I'd seek out this album again (and definitely won't re-watch "Stress"), but I can think of far worse ways to spend 48 minutes, and I really enjoyed how the album got more interesting and varied as it went on.