Reviews by nevele

It's an album that keeps balancing on the spaces between genius, madness, beauty and pretentious wank. I find it hard to pin down, even after 4 listens

When I was growing up The Cure were always in my periferie, but never front and center. That had to do with a lot of people that revered this band.
They tried to get me to listen, because it apparently was music that was fully up my alley, aka 'beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.'

And I don't know what happened but it never clicked. And the people who loved this band turned musically into very closed-off people. With only 1 genre and nothing else.

So The Cure has been synonymous to these people, that genre.

The 1001 album challenge has now served me 3 Cure albums and I can truly say how wrong I've been. All three have brought richly layered beautiful melodies, incredible lyrics and a brooding dark atmosphere. I now, in my 40's, can acknowledge that The Cure has made some of the best albums I've ever listened to.

I might be the only person, but I really like 1980's Leonard Cohen so much more than 1960's Leonard Cohen.

If this album were to be judged purely on the 80s production alone, it would get an insufficient score for me, but the songs hold up more than well in a different arrangement (live in London), so my final assessment is more about the songwriting and lyrics so is more than good.

Only the subpar Jazz Police is out of place here, but otherwise all 7 are wonderful songs, which Cohen throws into the world with a great sense of irony and even cynicism. That lyrical venom in songs like Everybody Knows and First We Take Manhattan always works an extra degree for me to make the man even be more appreciated.

The minimal accompaniment to the songs eventually forces you to absorb the lyrics and there is some brilliant ingenuity woven into it. I like it.

Listen 1: What in all that is holy have I just listened to?

Listen 2: Hey, those are some pretty neat melodies behind that overdubbed voice

Listen 3: Why am I liking this? What is wrong with me? Let's see if that preserved and extended version has some bonus material that might be interesting

Listen 4: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Guilty pleasure or serious pop-rock artist? Or a little bit of both? And does it really matter?

Life Thru A Lens is a good first album by Williams and Chambers. The seemingly Oasis and Britpop inspired music by Chambers goes well with the clever lyrics from Robbie. And it makes for a fun listen, with some very underappreciated songs ("South Of The Border", "Old Before I Die") and a single that in the time never made it further than the tip parades ("Let Me Entertain You") but which I still appreciate and has been the opener of many of my DJ sets.

The album after this one ("I've Been Expecting You") was a step up from this one with the writing skills of both Chambers and Williams taking a massive step forward, and the songs "Karma Killer" and "No Regrets" made Robbie Williams fully in the spotlight for me.

It's a 3* album. But I'll mark it as 4* for the non-inclusion of his (better) sophomore album.

The first 3 songs will already give you the full overview what this double album is going to bring for the next 2 hours: Slow intermissions, Songs that perfectly balance the line between kitsch and art (a line they will unfortunately cross many times later in their career) mixed with full on guitar and drums driven 'Siamese Dreams'-style rockers.

Not all songs are of the same quality unfortunately and the album suffers a bit from the 'more is less' syndrome. It could have done with culling about 30 minutes of material, make it 2x 45 minute sides and have a perfect album.

4.5*

This is such an amazing album. The songs showcasting every member to perfection. The incredibly warm and intimate production that captures the essence of the songs. The musicianship and blended harmonies.
There's just nothing wrong on this album.

What a delightful album. Glad I discovered this so far in my life.
The new wave, rock & post-punk started here it feels. Some songs come straight from the punk (Shot By Both Sides, Recoil) and others are proto new wave.
Getting better with every listen.

Update after full listen 3: Also great lyrics

It's a fun album, and the first song is absolute killer. After that amazing opener, the album faults a little bit in songs that are eerily similar, but it's a party in my headphones regardless, and you're all invited.

Third album of Neil Young that has come past on this list and the first that finally made me understand why Neil Young is so revered. This realy was a great album.

This is excellent stadium rock.

I wonder if people who didn't grow up with MTV Unplugged remember how massive and important MTV once was and the calibre of artists that did one of these Unplugged sessions.

I will always commend Nirvana for this concert. Even though they were not my favourite grunge band at the time, this concert highly surprised and delighted me. A year earlier Pearl Jam had set the tone for Grunge bands playing the Unplugged concerts, but Nirvana went in a complete different direction. Instead of playing their hits, almost half of their chosen songs were covers or a bit lesser known Nirvana songs that suited the evening a lot better than the louder songs of their repertoire.

I also remember being incredibly confused when they said: "We've invited some friends to play with us." And everyone was thinking other huge artists at that time coming on, Mark Lanegan, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or someone. And then the Meat Puppets came out. With especially Lake Of Fire becoming one of the highlights of this album.

This was Nirvana at their high point doing something different than their peers and themselves. Great album.

I genuinely have the feeling I'm missing something. It's good, but not great. Some songs are better than others. Would love for someone to explain some day why this album is so revered amongst its peers.

That was an incredibly pleasant album. The combination of Senegalese drums with the jazzy rock influences makes this a great listen. And happy.

I've never liked the major singles that came of this album, which I now have noticed are all front-loaded on here. "Beautiful Day" and "Elevation" are supposed to be the bangers, but they only annoyed me on release. It sounded like an old rock band phoning it in. "Stuck In A Moment" never did anything to me, not even the hopeful lyrics. The only decent single that came of this album was "Walk On."

"Kite," "In A Little While" and "Wild Honey" are all very decent but also incredibly safe songs. A little trumpet here and a couple of strings there in the background to fill the sound out.

After that, I think this album is like chewing gum where the nice taste disappears too quickly.

I did not dislike this album as much as so many others here seem to do.
It's hypnotising and at times terrifying industrial avant-garde. Pretty? No, not at all, but that doesn't seem to be the goal of the album.

I was pleasantly surprised with this album, balancing between Pet Sounds and Sgt Peppers, with an amazing singer, but a few mediocre songs unfortunately, in amongst the brilliants.

Music that hugely influenced my musical taste, part x of n.

When we get to 1993 and I'm soaking up all the music around me. My taste was quite eclectic and I listened to Rock, Dance, Rap, Electronic, it didn't matter. Grunge was big, but I never really got into Nirvana back then. The album that made me dive deep into the guitar sound of the early 90's was from the one band NOT from Seattle: Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dreams.
This album, and especially the fantastic multi-layered bombastic track "Geek USA" drew me in. It was teenage angst, emotionally draining, music that ebbed and flowed and every note was amazing.

Why this album, besides being one of the defining albums of the decade, was so influential to me, was because it made me listen more to the grunge of the era. Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden (who would release their best album a year later) and a whole, whole lot more.

An album worth revisiting time and time again. A Masterpiece.

I'm really on several different thoughts with this album and I'll try to put them in line.

The Good:
- It's a great collection of Metallica material. Some old, some newer, but all good songs.
- The band and orchestra are in superb form! James' voice is clear, Kirk never loses control anywhere, we can actually hear the bass and even Lars keeps rhythm.

The Bad
- It sometimes feels if the Band and Orchestra are more in each others way than playing together and other times the orchestra steamrolls over the band
- Not all songs benefit from this supersizing. A lot of these songs really didn't need an orchestra fill and become bombastic due to it.
- If you make an album with an entire symphony orchestra, why not write new material instead of rehashing everything? Or do it half/half?

Apparently this is a good introduction into metal for a lot of people. But for me it was too full with filler.

This record is a landmark. After years of listening it's actually the slower, darker songs that still stand among the best songs I know.

The Day I Tried To Live might just be my favourite songs of all time. Those amazing drums of Matt Cameron that keep pushing the song forward combined with the low sounds of the bass. The sliding guitar sounds of Kim Thayil and the out of this world voice and lyrics by Cornell. It's a league of its own.
But also some of the 4th of July, Head Down and painful last song Like Suicide.