Reviews by mondo-kun

There are albums that, after listening to them, you simply don't know how to rate, because the only way to describe them is with the phrase "sometimes thick, sometimes thin."

For example, here's an album by Silver Jews, a band I'd never heard of before. Half the album is boring, semi-acoustic indie rock, like Wilco, the other half is pleasant, sensual music, like The National. The lyrics are sometimes good, Dylan-level, and sometimes, on the contrary, a bit hackneyed. The vocalist sometimes sings well, but sometimes it feels like he's incapable of it.

What's definitely undeniable about this album is its superb mixing. It's a unique case: sometimes the technical part is more enjoyable to listen to than the musical one.

At the same time, it's been on the list of "1001 Albums" since the very beginning, and it seems it's here to stay. Should I give it two stars? Well, it's not that bad. Three stars? That's a bit much... Maybe just a light one.

This is actually The Beatles' sixth album, but in some ways, it can also be considered their first true album.

Let me explain: before this, the band's songs were simpler (boyish polyphony with two stomps and three claps, pure K-pop), and they wrote two albums a year based on contractual obligations, and they weren't above having half a record of cover versions... Basically, a typical producer strategy of the early '60s.

Rubber Soul, on the other hand, is both the last album of those carefree Beatles and the first work by adults, despite the fact that it was recorded in a month. Blues, soul, psychedelia, and sitar are already evident here. The songs are still about love, but the lyrics are more complex than "I'm your boy, you're my girl." Even the title and cover photo were chosen consciously for the first time.

Basically, if it weren't for this album, there wouldn't be a bias towards Abbey Road, Let It Be, and "White." And it's good on its own!

Has everyone seen "Odyssey" yet? Then it's time to listen to "Odessey."

Yes, the artist who designed the cover simply made a typo, and the band and label either didn't notice or didn't care, so the album was released with that title. That's some 60s indifference! I also can't help but see the drawing at the bottom of the album of Super Saiyan Goku from Dragonball Z preparing to battle; apparently, the artist saw the future under the blotter.

Now about the album itself. It's baroque pop through and through; almost every song (with the exception of one) relies on a calm piano and is connected by the theme of love in all its forms — shared, unshared, breakups, reunions, etc. Quite sweet, but a bit boring.

The last song that really gets this whole thing to a three stars is the one you've clearly heard, but didn't know the name or the composer. Believe it or not, check it out.

Musicians fall into two types: poets and composers, and very few manage to combine these two qualities.

Leonard Cohen is first and foremost a poet, and a very good one at that (no joke: sixty years on stage), and that's the problem with this album. The songs here are primarily poems, in which the seasoned lyricist reflects on his life and prepares to pass away. The music here is merely a backdrop for these lyrics, very simple, a bit monotonous in places, but never overwhelming.

After the announcement of this album, Cohen announced that he would soon die, but at the album's release event, he declared that he intended to live forever. And a couple of weeks later, he actually died; either the universe heard him, or he truly knew something. Thus, 2016 began and ended with the deaths of two masters.

I'll listen to this album again in forty years, but for now - three stars.

I've always associated Frank Zappa, the owner of a massive mustache, with extremely experimental, challenging music, though I can't recall a single song by him offhand.

Overall, I can say that expectations were met. While this solo album doesn't feature much psychedelic trash circus, it does offer some very interesting experiments with jazz, blues, and classical music. The album is almost entirely instrumental, with only the second song featuring Captain Beefheart's slight wail; however, the wails are more than offset by Zappa's seven-minute guitar solo that follows. The album also features saxophone solos, a diverse rhythm section, and an overall festive atmosphere.

A diverse, upbeat record; despite their length and complexity, the songs don't feel drawn out. Perhaps the best entry point into Frank's discography!

To be honest, I only knew one Scissor Sisters song before today, "I Don't Feel Like Dancing," so I expected a pop sound like ABBA from this album. Or maybe Duran Duran, since another song by the band we recently failed to guess in a quiz (millennials will understand) sounded similar.

But it turns out their debut is an incredibly danceable, funky affair, a bastard child of Prince, Bee Gees, and Franz Ferdinand. Also there's a fair amount of guitar glam here, feels like Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie. But there are no oversmart ten-minute progressive passages here, as the cover might suggest, unless you count the unusual but interesting disco cover (imagine that!) of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb."

A good, energetic album, like straight out of the early '80s, a great discovery; I'll be listening to it again!

Bruce Springsteen is another artist whose status and greatness can only be understood if you're American.

To everyone else, he's simply a good musician, and this, his most popular album, is packed with radio hits. I was a bit skeptical at first, but the record really does sound good — echoing drums, crisp keyboards, and all this over rock 'n' roll passages with lyrics about the hard life of the average American worker (you don't even need to imagine the faces of people in all the other countries listening to this).

And to make the song of the same name a symbol of American patriotism for forty years now, even though anyone who reads the lyrics would understand that it's saying the exact opposite — that was quite an achievement!

When I got this album today, I was surprised to realize I'd never listened to it in its entirety. Yet, I was confident in its quality — it was truly a breakthrough for the band; all their major hits are from here.

And what about beyond the hits? Things aren't so clear-cut here. Parallel Lines thrives on a blend of opposites: assertive punk rock and the soft sound of '50s female vocal groups. It's very interesting at first, but then you discover that not a single song, other than the singles, is memorable. If you think you're listening to a Buddy Holly cover, you're not imagining it — I suddenly discovered that there really is one here.

But the record is still very good. Energetic power pop, the hottest woman in 80s rock, Debbie Harry, without whom there would be no No Doubt, no Paramore, and a bunch of other bands... However, all this does not reach the expected five stars.

The first thing that associates with ZZ Top is, of course, their gorgeous beards. The second is their desert-blues sound, as if made on the Mexican border.

That's always been the case, but blues is a delicate thing: it's fashionable today and gone tomorrow. So Billy Gibbons twisted and twisted his blues until it was in keeping with his times.

The resulting album, the genre of which I would describe as "disco blues": old guitar riffs and a raspy voice sit alongside synthesizers and even a drum machine.

Older fans naturally cried "Sellout!" but the result is an extremely stylish record that even today would be a joy to listen to, whether for young people at a disco or their fathers sitting in the nearest dive bar. And it won't be out of place on the road, especially if you're driving an old coupe that looks like it came straight from this cover, with a cigar in your mouth.

Punk rock is a truly amazing genre. It was born in the mid-70s, but by the end of the decade, it had both died and been reborn.

It seems like just four years ago, the Ramones were making silly chants like "Hey! Ho! Let's go!", but at the beginning of the new decade, artists are slowly starting to recite incredibly caustic, satirical verses to similar melodies.

Dead Kennedys are one such band. The entire album consists of very fast, energetic, and at times even funny music and very angry lyrics, of which "When Ya Get Drafted" at least feels like it was written yesterday. Everything was recorded and mixed very poorly, but no matter how you look at it, it's punk rock the way it should be!

Well, if the sound quality still prevents you from fully appreciating these songs, then the main hits from here were re-recorded for the compilation "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death".

I usually try not to spoil the albums that appear on this list - it’s more interesting that way.

But when you find out that the editor-in-chief of the book is from England, it immediately becomes clear that this album will definitely be there.

In this battle of two Britpop giants, I am always on the side of Blur, but I cannot help but admit: if the first great British band is The Beatles, then the second is definitely Oasis. From the very first record, the lads crushed the entire British proletariat, and if a person lived in Manchester at that time, then it was absolutely impossible to avoid their songs.

What can I say, thirty years later it is still a rock and roll stadium block. Liam Gallagher's boorish voice is balanced by Noel's groovy yet calm guitar parts. One word: anthems!

And yes, Supersonic is the best song here but the live version (from Familiar to Millions) is inferior to it.

After listening to the album, I wanted to write a story. The plot goes like this: a time-traveler to late '60s England convinces The Beatles not to release their album "Magical Mystery Tour," which is too clownish for a band like them, and pits Deep Purple against their cover version of "Hush." ​​Upon returning to his own time, he discovers that Britpop doesn't exist in his world.

This entire album is Britpop squared; it's built on these two works; it's the quintessence of the genre, sometimes taken to the extreme, like Oasis on energy drinks.

And it works! Overall, all the songs here are imbued with the English spirit; Britpop is multifaceted, you know? There's acoustic psychedelia, '70s rock, and semi-hip-hop beats of the fading Madchester wave — all the right elements are there.

So, even though we've heard it all before, the album deserves its meager three-star rating. That is, of course, if you're even remotely close to the British guitar wave of the 90s.

I always thought The Afghan Whigs were an indie-folk band. I'd listened to their last album, but I didn't remember it at all.

But this record turned out to be magnificent: sort of grunge, but also something closer to emo and post-hardcore, with a touch of soul and — surprisingly — keyboards. It's a stepping stone between Pearl Jam and Bush, and while the album starts off light and even dreamy, like Lush, it soon takes on the feel of Thrice or early Placebo, with all the lyrics being the self-examination of a man going through a relationship crisis.

This is exactly the kind of man depicted in the Nan Goldin's photograph, which became the inspiration for the album cover. And on the cover itself is the innocent boy who lives somewhere deep within every such man.

If this work makes such an impression now, I can't even imagine how I would have perceived it at seventeen.

I'm sure everyone has a favorite band that once wrote interesting, unconventional music, but over time succumbed to trends and became almost indistinguishable from their peers; in other words, they went downhill.

In Utero is a rare case of a band returning to their roots. In the case of this album, context is important: two years ago, Nevermind was released, literally lifting Nirvana from rags to riches. The dilemma was whether to make the next album equally radio-polished, to please the label and millions of new fans, or to make it the way the musicians wanted it to be?

They chose the latter: depressing, repulsive lyrics set to grimy, sometimes seemingly out-of-tune guitars and harsh drums. And this album was even softened a bit during production!

In the end, in an attempt to scare off new fans, Kurt Cobain still managed to write successful, hit-making songs. The irony!

Often, when listening to "unconventional" music, you think, "What did the author mean?" In this case, the English-Indian Nitin Sawhney (whom I'm hearing for the first time) outlined the album's concept right in the booklet.

It consists of a countdown from the Indian nuclear tests that took place during the album's recording to Robert Oppenheimer's quote, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." The description is interesting, but the same can't be said for the sound, as the entire album is a disjointed mess of electronics like Morcheeba, Indian chants and folk instruments, and some rap... The result is a unique piece: a concept album without a concept.

And if you browse Nitin's discography on streaming services, everything becomes clear: most of his works are soundtracks, meaning he's adept at capturing the feeling of background music accompanying the events onscreen. But it is unrealistic to perceive this album as a complete work.

A remarkable cycle: in 1991, The Smashing Pumpkins' debut album was released, unexpectedly becoming incredibly popular. Against this backdrop, Nirvana released Nevermind, a similar-sounding album, at the end of that same year, which became incredibly popular.

And after Nevermind came this album, which, of course, didn't match Nirvana in sales, but sound-wise, it blew the entire alternative scene of the time away. A superbly produced, multi-layered blend of grunge, shoegaze, metal, and progressive rock, it's hard to recall an album with such a dense guitar sound. Melancholic melodies alternate with hurricane-like ones, and all of this is just a springboard for the next album, where Billy Corgan really goes all out.

You could have called it "monumental work," but that was the case with all the band's works in the '90s. This is what healthy megalomania means!

It's always a nice thing when I come across a record from an artist or band I know absolutely nothing about on this list. No preconceptions, no thoughts of "Have I underestimated the work of geniuses?" — just pure appreciation of the music.

That's what happened with Joan Armatrading. From the cover, I didn't even immediately realize whether the singer was a guy or a girl, but I figured I was probably in for something acoustic and folk.

My hunch was right, but the folk here isn't like that of the venerable elders Crosby, Stills and Nash, but rather the kind of folk that (clearly influenced by this album) Tracy Chapman would make ten years later — with a touch of funk, disco, and jazz, mostly about relationships in a pleasant female voice. The "girl with a guitar" bio-platform, now popular among schoolgirls, was already beginning to take shape back then.

Tracy's approach, however, was somehow more soulful, which is why I'll rate Joan's album lower. But that doesn't mean it's bad!

I honestly thought, off the top of my head, that Elvis Presley had already died (or just went home) by 1969 — if not physically, then musically. It was the end of the decade, the first rock opera had already been written, punk was just beginning to emerge, The Beatles were almost breaking up, and soul and funk were becoming increasingly psychedelic. What Elvis?

And indeed, despite this album being considered one of the artist's best, being well-recorded, having some good songs, and being an incredible comeback after the deluge of bad movies with bad soundtracks that Elvis foolishly waded into in the early '60s, he looks like an old crooner compared to the youth.

It's not bad, and this short work is generally quite enjoyable, but you won't find the classic rock 'n' roll Elvis here. But it's close to the Elvis in his signature white suit who would soon play hundreds of concerts in Las Vegas hotels.

I haven't seen such polarized reviews of an album in a long time. For half of the listeners, it's a mega-influential rock masterpiece, and Patti Smith herself is as much the mother of punk rock as Iggy Pop is its father. For the other half, it's pretentious poetry over the awkward strumming of an artist who can't sing.

The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle, and despite Patti's truly not a very good singer, her vocals fit the atmosphere of the album itself: in some places, they're upbeat guitar thumpers with obscure lyrics that, however, don't evoke the scribblings of an unattractive college student, while in others, they're more poetry recitation than music (and those moments are a bit boring). It's not Joan Jett, but fortunately, it's not Yoko Ono either.

You can only classify this album as punk rock if you consider bands like Blondie or The Police punk rock. Regardless, it's really, really good!

If there's a band whose visual style least closely matches their sound, it's the Grateful Dead.

Their album covers and merchandise are full of skulls, acid colors, and smoky fonts, which the brain automatically perceives as hallmarks of psychedelic sound. This remained the case until 1970, when, after frequent hangouts with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, the band abruptly pivoted to acoustic country rock, releasing two such albums in the space of a year. This is the second of them.

And overall, the album sounds good, if somewhat repetitive — twangy acoustic instruments, interspersed with occasional guitar solos and harmonious vocals. This music clearly inspired King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, who sometimes sound exactly the same, only with the guitars plugged into amplifiers.

But why crowds of fans followed a band with such a sound on tour across the whole country is completely beyond me.