Reviews by mkw

Great album. Grooves from start to finish.

No thanks.

I have heard a lot of R.E.M., and even the best tracks have a hint of boring. Just not for me.

Absolutely nothing interesting happens on this album. Why did they tune the drums to sound like buckets? The drummer clearly knows what he's doing, som why make it sound so flat?

For some reason I looked at the rating before listening. I'm extremely surprised at the overall score for this.

This is not the most musically challenging, or lyrically complex album on the list, but everything just works. The lyrics are bleak, and the music is wistfully leaning back decades, but something just drawing me back in to another listen.

I was honestly bored. It's not bad, it's just not for me.

Just a great way to spend 40 minutes.

This is not an album crafted by a genius at the peak of his craft. This is an album stitched together by a set of producere and a clearly unwell artist. We did not need the outtakes or the coughing. Honestly I'm not sure we needed any of this.

There might be a worthwhile album hidden in there somewhere, but my lord would you have to do a lot of digging to find it.

Some of the concepts, and even some of the melodies are actually great, but the lead singer is just so devoid of skill and charm that everything stops when he starts singing. Some tracks seem to be aiming for a Lou Reed feel and are almost passable, but some appear to aiming for a weak, weak, impersonation of the later version of Cohen. The lyrics absolutely do not carry the delivery though.

Also the Spotify version I listened to was 2 hours long, but that appears to padded with remixes and bonus tracks, so I guess I can't blame them for that directly.

Okay, so. Wether you like the lyrics or not (and I don't really love them) the voice and the melodies are out of this world. The music behind the voice is really not all that amazing though. Everything has to come from Chapman herself, and while she does a lot, parts of this album still falls a bit flatterende.

The opening is actually fairly decent. Hard to hate, but nothing to really love either.

Goes completely of the rails with the examples of bad production techniques - just fix your shit man. The listener didn't hire subpar studio crew for you.

Song of the viking is somehow even worse than the complaints about his producers.

Maybe if he cut some of the completely pointless shit, we wouldn't have to suffer through 24 tracks and 90 minutes.

The music is actually pretty solid, and the bass player deserves better. The vocals are passable at best, and the writing is horrible.

Really not a fan of the Janis cover.

Very solid opening track, and then complete rubbish for the next few. I enjoy parts of this, but a lot of tracks are just trying too hard to be noisy

Lovely. Just when the opening tracks have taught you to expect guitar heavy backing and slightly rambly vocals, Perfect Day comes in to subvert everything. I will enjoy Lou Reeds solo albums more than I should, but this was just a great way to spend half an hour

This one was not for me. Clearly skilled musicians, but the end product really didn't do anything for me, except annoyance at the vibraphone that absolutely tore my nerves.

Maybe I'm lucky enough to have been born at a time where I've only been exposed to the good artists and albums from the 60s and 70s, but I just find this so generic. Nothing stands out, the vocals are fine but not distinctive.

I truly admire Willie Nelson, and I enjoy most of his work, but I'm simply not American enough to understand the appeal of this.

I actually kindda like the pre-disco Bee Gees, and some of the tracks on this are interesting. But there's just too much whiny nonsense to overcome.

If any album sounds like the 90s distilled, this is the one.
I don't think I'll ever listen to this again though.

I don't know man. My first ever Elvis Costello album, and I didn't hate it, but I also don't really look forward to the next 5.