Reviews by pops

It's my third Doors album and I still don't really get it. Every song feels like it's eight minutes long, even the ones that clock in at less than four.

Fun glam punk that doesn't take itself too seriously - although they could have taken another leaf out of the Ramones book and kept it a bit shorter.

I saw Cornershop around the time this was released, and they were probably the dullest live band I've ever seen. Maybe they were just having an off-night but I do wonder if that lack of charisma held them back because this is such a fun, genre-hopping album that they deserve to be known as more than one-hit wonders. (The gig didn't put me off though - I also bought and loved the follow-up album, Handcream for a Generation.)

It's only a couple of weeks since I had Younger Than Yesterday by The Byrds and this album has a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses. Mainly, you can have great songs and you can have musical experimentation, but you can't have both on the same track.

I’ve done It's Tricky on karaoke, so I can confirm that not everyone can rock a rhyme that's right on time. Run DMC make it sound easy though on this album - and so much fun.

This is so late-night FM radio coded - it made me feel like I was drunk in the back of a taxi at 2am. Sweet Love is a tune and she has a great voice but it’s a bit too smooth for me.

Proof if proof were needed that “everything was better in the old days and why are people taking so many photos all the time?” aren’t new complaints. And the songs are really great too - Starstruck is now firmly stuck in my head.

There's probably an argument that if you've got the Folsom Prison live album on the list, you don't need this too. However, they're both fantastic – and if I have to give one the edge, it's San Quentin. (Cash is pretty funny here, but the real comedy genius might be the prisoner who shouts "get on with it!" during the intro to Walk the Line. Did he have somewhere better to be?)

I know it's not like anyone is checking, but I always listen to these albums in full. (Original track listing only – reissued bonus tracks don't count.) For some reason though, Spotify is missing the last two tracks of New Forms and it came as a bit of a relief that I had a valid excuse not to see it through to the bitter end. I think an album that tries to expand the artistic possibilities of drum and bass is more interesting in theory than in reality.

Due to my anti-Clapton bias, I was bracing myself for this to be two straight-up bangers (Strange Brew and Sunshine of Your Love) followed by a load of old blues wank. So, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that while Disraeli Gears is a tad patchy, it's not boring.

This is such an achingly sad, heart-piercingly beautiful album, I feel weirdly guilty for not giving it five stars. I just found it a bit much to listen to in a single sitting, in more ways than one.

Although I love The Velvet Underground And Nico, I’ve never really listened to any of their other albums. Listening to this made me wonder why - I liked it a lot.

You know in the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall where Jason Segel’s Dracula musical for puppets is described as sounding “like a dark, gothic Neil Diamond?” I have to imagine it sounded like this. I’m not going to lie though, I’m into it.

So this is why I’m so glad I signed up for the generator. I’ve always meant to listen Joanna Newsom because on paper she seemed like an artist I would like but because she’s not on Spotify and I’m basically bone idle, I never did. Now the generator has motivated me to go to the huge effort of firing up YouTube, I can say I loved this ambitious, individual and beautiful album.

For a band that seem to provoke strong feelings in a lot of people, I find The Eagles ... meh? I wouldn't ask a taxi driver to turn them off (a la The Big Lebowski) but I would't actively seek them out either. It just sort of slides by.

This feels like a transitional album. There are pointers to the more country sound that was coming as well as David Crosby's work with CSNY, while some of the production choices straddle the line between experimental and gimmicky. It all adds to the sense of a band who are throwing a lot of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. The best song though is still a relatively straightforward Dylan cover - My Back Pages is the standout track for me.

Was there a better year to release an album called Fetch the Bolt Cutters than 2020? It really resonated with me during lockdown, but it still sounds extraordinary when I don’t feel like I’m being held prisoner. (Although if I need to feel frustrated again, I could just remember that one of the highest-rated reviews for this album seems to suggest that a successful female artist in the 2020s couldn’t possibly still experience sexism before speculating that Fetch the Bolt Cutters only got rave reviews because male music critics fancied Fiona Apple in the 1990s.)

What in the MOR jazz rock is this? That version of God Bless the Child sounded like if Joe Cocker had been the guest singer at the gymnasium dance in West Side Story. There’s certainly a lot going on but I don’t feel like any of it really gelled.

Fair play calling this 1984 because it really couldn't get much more 1980s. Or maybe it could - it's fun, but I must admit I prefer the synths of Jump to the guitar pyrotechnics.

I listened to this album a lot when I was living alone during lockdown, which could be why Rainbow still gets me a bit misty eyed. I think I needed someone to tell me it would all be alright, and Kacey Musgraves was as good as anyone. But I also think this is just a lovely, well-crafted country album that weaves in its indie and even disco influences in a subtle, skilful way.