Reviews by nirutam2

Definitely my kind of music, absolutely influential on music I listen to today, but I’m less certain it’s an album I would actually play on any given day. There are certainly moments where I thought, “Great, this is 90s techno made ahead of its time in the 80s, but do I really want to listen to 90s techno today?” At the same time, there are some songs that are just transcendent. They feel like minimalist classical compositions up there with John Cage and all those fellas.

By the way, I shared the impression of many reviewers that Aphex Twin was dark stuff I would not look forward to, even though I knew he was cited as an influence by many of my favorite artists. Maybe that’s a consequence of the image he presents to the world… in any case that impression is gone now and I am eager to learn a lot more about him and his work.

Perhaps a 3.5 upgraded to 4 by nostalgia.

When we had Sirius satellite radio, my default station was Lithium, the 90s alternative station. They used to have an ad that said, “If Nirvana hadn’t written the song Lithium, what would we have called this station? Rooster?” Followed by a short clip of a tortured vocal from the Alice in Chains song.

That’s pretty much how I’ve always thought of Alice in Chains, as a kind of backup to the grunge acts of my youth. My wife confirmed it when I showed her I had Dirt this morning and asked what I thought of them. “Those are the kinda good songs they play between the really good songs,” she said.

So I tried to explore them here as more than 90s grunge radio filler. And I found a lot to like. I agree with many reviewers here that the first three songs are a great series of riffs, maybe more metal than the stuff I knew from the radio. And I definitely enjoyed running through the hits again, especially “Down in a Hole.”

But overall I don’t know that it changed my mind about these guys so much. I love the sound but am only so-so on the songwriting, particularly because it stays in such a narrow emotional range. I think music can be dark, heavy, brooding, Gothic, whatever, but still give you some room to breathe, and I did not feel that way by the time I got to “Would?”

It’s easy to dismiss this as just “pop” Beatles or the distilled essence of Beatlemania. But at some point I realized that every element that makes up the later more adventurous Beatles albums is there in the early ones, and sometimes even in a purer form.

This time I noticed it in a kind of dark wistfulness of the ballads, best exemplified by Paul's "Things We Said Today." Paul's ruminations temper some of the violence of John’s lyrics, which I always notice and try to look past. Both must have been necessary to make Lennon-McCartney. How might it have looked if the darkness was the centerpiece of the album?

Here’s a hint. Listen to Dylan singing “Things We Said Today” in 2017: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YV2k-GAfT0w

I bet he knew how dark it was in 1964. I read elsewhere that he first thought the countdown at the beginning of "I Saw Her Standing There" was "One two three fuck" which is an incredibly punk rock thing to think at the time.

Now imagine the album is called THINGS WE SAID and it’s all about the gap between public image and immediate desires. The Beatles were very much dealing with that at the time. For an appropriate core sample see this laudable collection or anecdotes involving Paul’s girlfriend Jane Asher: https://withthebeatlesgirls.tumblr.com/post/629985790874746880/pauljane-excerpts-within-the-context-of-beatles/amp

Before Yoko, before LSD, John is trying to get Paul’s girlfriend to talk about masturbation very much against her will. Paul says “You can’t do that!” So perhaps that song, always heard as a possessive boyfriend, is actually John's memory of Paul reining him in. Certainly the song isn't just about cheating, but the IMAGE of cheating. "Everybody's green / 'cause I'm the one who won your love / But if they'd seen / You're talking that way they'd laugh in my face." Don't think this is about the girl, John -- and aren't you married?

The next line in "You Can't Do That" is "Please listen to me if you wanna stay mine." IF. 

And IF does even more work in "If I Fell." An incredibly beautiful song in melody and harmony, one I sing when I'm rocking my kid trying to get him back to sleep, but doing that also makes you realize how weird the lyrics are. The conclusion of the song is about making a former lover cry out of jealousy, presenting this new love as an act of revenge -- red flag much? But also the entire thing is happening in the singer's head because of "If." And he isn't in love with her -- he is contemplating what it MIGHT be like if he fell in love with her.

To be clear I'm not trying to ruin anyone's rah-rah Beatles experience -- these songs are all the more profound for all this emotional turmoil and subtlety. I'm just trying to argue that they aren't straight up love songs, they're the lads seriously struggling with themselves and their relationships with others.

In that context, the happy songs hit different. In "When I Get Home" could be John rehearsing the talk he needs to give his main chick while he's still with his side chick. "Can't Buy Me Love" is a pleading negotiation. "A Hard Day's Night" offers the usual patriarchal transaction -- I work so hard that you should "give me everything." Do I even need to explain that "I'll Be Back" is a threat? What exactly is the emotional tenor of "You could find better things to do than to break my heart again" ... because I think it's just devastating.

But it's something peppy, something happy, something up-tempo, something snappy, as Tom Hanks says in "That Thing You Do." There's nothing dark to see here, no contradictions, nothing to make you want to cry "Help!"

It’s interesting going through this list as a hip hop novice. I’m familiar with stuff played on the radio and a few big names, but can feel totally lost when I encounter something off the beaten path. That was definitely the case with this — had zero knowledge of Kool Keith or any of his many pseudonyms.

Musically, it instantly worked for me… trip hop is the most natural connection between hip hop and the music I like best. Loved the jazz foundation. Loved the spooky sci-fi sounds and samples.

The lyrics were definitely a shock having no idea what I was heading into. I’m used to gangsta rap braggadocio but wasn’t quite sure what to make of dinosaur farts and violating medical exams and Donald Duck giving head amidst the more accessible sci fi and horror tropes.

Honestly I was a little disturbed that I was so into it. I think it all worked for me because once upon a time I was a historian of medicine, so I know that the vast power we give to doctors is pretty contingent. Right below the surface are all the weird mad scientist tropes and the juvenile violence of cutting people open just to see what’s inside. I like that true character of Dr. Octagkn blows all those subtle distinctions apart.

Yeah, asometimes it’s silly or a little sick. And agree with everyone who says most rap albums of this era could be shorter. But I also appreciate that this era allowed for stuff that got sooo weird.

I have an endless appetite for Frank Black’s weirdness, so I don’t mind that this is a double album. I appreciate the way it takes Los Angeles/Hollywood/California as its backdrop without letting it dominate the album… “Calistan” and “Ole Mulholland” in particular make you think about the crazy and beautiful Golden State. “Pixies go to the beach” is an apt descriptor, though it doesn’t quite reach the transcendent madness of the best Pixies albums.

“Used to be sixteen lanes / Used to be Nuevo Spain / Used to be Juan Wayne / Used to be Mexico / Used to be Navajo / Used to be yippy-ay-i-I don’t know”

To me this is weirdly a kind of anti-album. I know all the songs, love many of them, and appreciate the sound when it wanders into my life. But I almost never play the album, nor do I see it as one I’ll share with my kids one day (whereas I’ve already found moments where I’ve decided it’s time for them to bear Help! or Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots). It’s not just that I like other Paul Simon records more… it’s something about how when you put the 80s pop Africana sound at album scale, it becomes more grating. The accusations of appropriation become more salient, even though I’ve never known what to think about all that. So it’s a 4 for Paul and Ladysmith Black Mambazo and a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires, but not so much for Graceland.

This band was ubiquitous when I was in college so I come in with a bit of a chip on my shoulder against them, a feeling that I've heard it all before. And the same goes for their lyrical themes... suburban alienation in the 2000s, I lived it, man! But actually listening to this as a complete album won me over a bit. "Keep the Car Running" captures the Springsteen dimension of the band well, "No Cars Go" feels like a fragment remembered from a dream amped up to 11, and I was weirdly affected by "Windowsill" ... even though it has just the same themes I said I was tired of, I felt like I heard them in a new way, sort of the same way I feel listening to Phoebe Bridgers. Anyway, I'm not ready to give this one a 5, but it makes me think it might be time for me to admit how good Arcade Fire actually is a decade or more too late. Inevitably I'll listen to some of their other albums over the next few days.

Side note: Weirdly, the only album from them I really got into when it came out was "Reflektor." Maybe because of the Bowie cameo? More Régine Chassagne? Pretending to be a different band?

As a child of the 80s raised on 60s pop, I never quite knew which story to believe about the Monkees. And I’m not sure I really care, I like the songs. Yes they are Beatles imitators but 1) aren’t we all and 2) at their best, they are a bit more relaxed than the Beatles, letting out a different side of the sound. This album is just a 3 for me because I don’t hear anything absolutely essential in it, but I enjoy it nevertheless.

Based on my prior ideas about Suzanne Vega, I expected to rate this a 4 or even a 3. I liked her pretty well and put on her greatest hits about once a year, but also kind of slotted her into the category of music made by people who listen to NPR for people who listen to NPR. Which is me of course, but I also expected it to be sort of cerebral and narrow in the way NPR can be.

Nope, she fooled me. When you pay closer attention, her lyrics are dark and savage, yet still delivered in that relatively narrow range. It disarms you. I had heard an undertone of menace before in her more popular songs like “Tom’s Diner,” and obviously “Luka” has its sublimated violence. But sit with this long enough and you realize you are listening to a poet who takes no prisoners in her portraits of others and herself. I have to give the self-titled a 5 for convincing me she is a dark genius and deciding to check out all her work.

There may be a longer essay in me somewhere about the sound and the lyrics and where they fit into my impressionistic history of folk music. I don’t have the energy to make the whole case tonight, but I feel like her sound is a sort of yin companion to the yang of Paul Simon. Paul Simon adopted various sounds after S&G but they all make you feel positive about most anything, even if it’s whatever the hell happened to Julio down by the schoolyard.

Suzanne Vega also has this quasi-commercial 80s folk sound, but she somehow twists it in a way that everything she says is a little bit unsettling, even though it sounds perfectly lovely. It’s how I felt the first time I heard “Tom’s Diner” without the dance beats… you think, “Oh, maybe this isn’t the cheerful slice of life that I thought.” I think so many of her songs here do that, even though by all accounts she’s a perfectly lovely human.

A friend and I once took a trip up the Pacific coast and played lots of our favorite music. When we got to Led Zeppelin IV, I asked what he thought the worst track was. We reluctantly concluded that it's "Misty Mountain Hop" ... reluctant because we both loved the Middle-Earthy side of LZ, but it just doesn't have the same soul as the other tracks.

I had never heard Jethro Tull before this (except maybe "Aqualung" ... I certainly knew that riff). But I kind of had the same feeling I had on that car ride... dang, I want to like this as much as everything else in its category, but I just don't. It sort of feels like the kind of rock and roll you would grow if "Misty Mountain Hop" was your stem cell. Maybe an interesting experiment, but not the one I would perform.

Anyway, I'm down with flutes and prog and social commentary, but it just didn't come together for me in a way I relate to. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who have "Misty Mountain Top" as a favorite song and this as a favorite album, and power to them...

Just so happy listening to this tonight, thinking about how it influenced so much of the music I love today but how it also stands on its own. If I didn’t know what I was listening to I might imagine that it is dream pop from today with 80s throwback elements. But there they were, imagining this kind of sound before I was even born. I’ll admit I hesitated about the 5 because I’m not sure it affects me as deeply as, say, Beach House… but certain moments certainly do, and this is my first listen to the entire album. Anyway, giving it all five stars because I feel like I am truly in these folks’ debt because of their influence.

Conflicted about this one. Love the Byrds, love their sound, love the influence they had on so many others. Yet I’ve always found myself a little lost in their albums and rhe same is true here. Couldn’t quite find anything that made me say, “Heck yes, so glad to listen to this song at this very moment.” Putting it down as a 3, expect I’ll rate other albums of theirs higher.

It might sound silly, but this is a sort of sacred music to me, even though I never owned the album or anything by them. When I was 17, this was my girlfriend’s music.
I pretended to like metal and she pretended to like Bob Dylan. Now we are married; I actually came to like metal and she DEFINITELY doesn’t like Dylan.

I didn’t know it when this was in the air in 2000, but I was in the process of becoming part of her family as my own family fell apart… before too long, both my parents would divorce another set of stepparents, with more relationships abandoned and shattered. They both died alone.

Meanwhile I became more and more like an adopted kid at girlfriend’s house, forming my own relationships with her mom and dad and all her siblings. I remember all of us sitting together and crying after 9/11. She was a middle child and by the time we were together her tastes were being shaped from the older and the younger siblings. Her older brother brought the Metallica and Zeppelin… her younger brother brought Linkin Park and Fall Out Boy.

That wonderful kid died unexpectedly of a chronic condition when he was 21. So for us his music especially is a sort of portal not just to when we were all together, but also to the pre-9/11 time when the world order didn’t not seem quite so savage. Yes, it’s all pretty angsty depressing music but it also came from a world where teenagers could get depressed about relatively normal things as opposed to society falling apart at the seams.

No, it’s not a 5 album to me and I don’t listen to it that often. I get the various ways in which it is overproduced and corny. However, I think folks also sell it short by judging it against youmuch more accomplished metal. I think it makes more sense to view Linkin Park as an emo band incorporating metal, hip hop, pop, and electronica as it suited them. That’s the side of them that still appeals to me, anyway, when I go back and listen to them. It’s all a little overwrought, a little over dramatic, and for some moments it’s exactly right.

This is the first album I’ve encountered here that actually made me angry.

I recently noticed that Rihanna is not in the book, which has led me to say about every album I encounter, “Do people really need to hear this before they die more than they need to hear Rihanna?” My wife said, “I didn’t know you were such a big Rihanna fan” but the point is that I’m not — she’s just an example of a very popular artist with some interesting things to say who is emblematic of a certain time AND is not in the book.

So why is Woodface here and not Rihanna? I couldn’t find anything in the sound. It’s a kind of warm jangle pop I usually enjoy but there are a dozen other bands that do the same thing. Is it the songwriting? Nope, I didn’t hear anything particularly original. Is it emblematic of a certain time in music history? If so, not in any way I understand… you could just have plausibly included Dave Matthews or Letters to Cleo or the Gin Blossoms or Third Eye Blind or any number of reasonably pleasant bands that broke through on 90s radio.

I can see from reviews that some people love it and I hate to yuck anyone’s yum, but I honestly feel there are so many better choices.

The generator god is mocking me, since I just complained about how live albums feel unsatisfying. And “God loves those whom he corrects” … I was actually kind of into this one, possibly because my expectations were so low. I knew next to nothing about the band… my impressions would have been “older British metal band with a stupid umlaut.” But I found the sound surprisingly engaging. Reading on their Wikipedia page, they say they never exactly thought of themselves as a metal band, but a rock and roll band that fit in well with their contemporary punk cousins. And that’s exactly what I hear, a bunch of guys having fun drawing on elements of all three genres while also celebrating the ace of spades. I’ll be curious to see if I like the studio version more or less than this.

Guys, I don’t know what it is about these live albums. This one had everything going for it yet somehow I felt less musically educated by the end. I think it had to be something about the form itself. It’s almost a kind of pornography to me, a genre that promises intimacy but in the end just reminds you of an experience you aren’t actually having. I don’t want to hear other people root for an encore fifty years ago. The one love album I’ve gotten that I could relate with to was the Dylan “Royal Albert Hall” one, but that’s because I processed it as the historian I once aspired to be. For the rest I just feel like answering “no opinion.” It all gets me a little down, looking forward to what’s next.

This is pure 80s comfort food for me, but every time I hear it I also wonder if it is anything more than comfort food. I love every track as well as the production… critiques of commercialism be damned, everyone needs a “Let’s Dance.” But unlike that album or other Gabriel tracks, there isn’t a moment that turns me inside out and make me wonder what life is all about.

Some days that’s okay though. It’s a particularly good time for “Don’t Give Up” with our good friend Kate.

“I can’t believe the news today
Oh I can’t close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?”

I’m not a huge U2 fan - I get on a kick where I play their hits or The Joshua Tree about once a year. I had never listened to this album. But this is the U2 I am here for — still raw and morally urgent. And particularly poignant as we in America face our own Troubles.

First album I’ve gotten that genuinely made me say “what the heck is this noise?” Yes, along the way I could hear echoes of plenty of other bands I like with a “noise” sound from Fugazi to Deftones to White Stripes, but not to the point that I could find my way through this more abstracted form. Maybe if I really studied it I could discover more, but not today.

After decades of neglecting hip hop, i started with this album a few years back. I’m still not educated enough to explain why, but you can feel from the first moment that it’s a masterpiece — the perfect combination of cool and calculating with pulsating, dynamic, and alive. Returning to it this time I felt how much I jazz is in it… made it harder than the first time to pick a favorite track and so I just go back to the beginning and start again.