Reviews by prometheus

In my opinion their best album and easily the most influential album of its genre for me. The first time I heard that Moog sequencer blob about I fell in love with its sounds and still haven't gotten bored of it. Incredible record.

The name didn't ring a bell but of course I've heard There She Goes before, albeit I think as some cover version around the millennium. Well, overall it's exactly what you'd expect: early 90s alternative-ish rock. That's about it.

This would’ve just been called AOR had it come out 15-20 years earlier. But Wikipedia calls it sophisti-pop or whatever since that wasn’t cool in 2000 anymore. Well, it's okay, nevertheless.

I listened to this album and Nick Drake in general quite a bit, almost a good 20 years ago, and remember this album used to hit me a lot harder back then? Well, anyway, I mentioned not too long ago on some other album's review that singer-songwriter folk is a tough one for me because it's generally comprised of so few elements that even if one of them isn't to my taste, it ruins the whole experience. But Nick Drake luckily is one of those in who's work everything is just right for me. Having heard all the albums again during for this list, I think Pink Moon might be my favourite, but all of them are excellent regardless.

Was a bit sceptical because on paper this sounded like some sort of comedy release and that mixed with blues – which I'm not particularly fond of – sounded like a struggle. But it turned to be quite okay actually. Sort of psychedelic, rooty, experimental-ish, I guess blues, to some degree? Well, anyway, it was a pleasant surprise.

Just a mere few weeks ago I got one of Costello's albums and realise there's fucking SIX of them on this list. And here we are again. It's not really about whether he's good or bad but considering how little I ever hear about this guy in the wild, compared to, for example, certain The Beatles, it really seems overblown. Not that popularity should be a factor, but still.

Yeah, I still don't really like his voice and the music is just all right. I admit I like the production quite a bit though. Great sounding drums particularly. I guess this is were all the modern pop-punk, emo and whatnot originates from, since his vocal style is, very similar to what those artists tend to sound like nowadays. Makes me feel dirty listening to this as an almost 40 years old man, in a way I can't quite put into words.

26 tracks, fucking hell mate.

Well, there are a couple of cool samples here, I guess, but it just your average noughties American hip-hop album. Meaning, there's really no situation whatsoever where I'd actually want to listen to this album.

As with blues, my general problem with rock'n'roll of this kind is that there's basically one song everyone just plays ad infinitum. On the first listen, apart from the two slower songs, every other one on this album sounded exactly the same to me.

That being said, if you perform that one song extremely well, can you really complain all that much? Well, I guess you can, but in this case, it was actually very entertaining. Very intense and high energy all around and – quite importanly – the album length was perfect for this kind of music too. Rather leave the audience a bit hungry instead of making them bored. All in all, surprisingly good for something I wasn't expecting to like very much.

The problem, so to say, with singer-songwriter folk, such as this, tends to be that since it's build on so few elements, disliking even one basically ruins the whole experience. An album build solely on guitar and voice essentially means that you if you don't like the vocals, there's not much there to enjoy anymore. On the other hand, if both of those work, the experience can be even more intense when it all just "clicks" with you.

Well, anyway, none of this is really related to my opinion, because I thought this was... just okay. I didn't hate her voice thoroughly, but wasn't exactly fond of it either. And the songs themselves were... there? Yeah, folk is a very difficult genre for me. The stuff I like, I really do like a lot but if it doesn't hit me, it does very little for me.

Hip-hop, particularly modern hip-hop (yes, to me 2008 is modern) isn't really my thing but occasionally I still some pretty good stuff now and again. So Wikipedia calling this "progressive hip-hop" made me hopeful it probably isn't too bad. Well, it isn't, but it's not anything remarkable either. Perfectly fine and some interesting ideas, but would I ever listen to this willingly again? Well, no.

I remember getting Superfuzz Bigmuff earlier and thinking "surely, an album with such a name can't be all that bad?" but sure enough, didn't do anything for me. Thus, wasn't expecting much from this either. And yeah, I was right. Like most music labeled grunge, it's too simple in the wrong way, flegmatic, topped with the horrible early 90s production, meaning extremely dry overall sound and annoying drums (particularly the high-tuned snare, that the whole decade was cursed with). Yeah, not for me.

I've never really heard afrobeat knowingly before this list and this is my second or third album of that genre but I have to say it's quite interesting indeed. Jazzy with heavy emphasis on rhythm, I can dig that.

I've rambled on about how I can't tolerate country on this site a good amount before, but so-called alt-country has been an exception to the rule, as there's been a few bands in the said sub-genre that I've actually liked quite a bit. This honestly is even less "proper" country as the few bands I'm already familiar with. Which is actually not a bad thing. This is rather good, even. Probably won't go into further listening later on, but a solid three stars it is, easily.

Whenever I’ve liked a band or an artist that has a lot of catalogue, there always seems to be one or two albums I either dismiss for no particular reason for ages or listen to very little, despite there not really being anything wrong with them. PJ Harvey is one of those artists too. I’ve listened to her music for about 20 years by now and own most of her albums, but for reasons I cannot explain, I’ve never listened to this (nor White Chalk) before today. This, despite knowing I’d like this album too. I don’t know why it happens, I really don’t.

Anyway, this was, as I expected, really good and probably one of her few albums that actually sound somewhat similar to some other of her albums – in this case Rid of Me, which I dearly love. In short, great, dirty rock it is. I need to listen to this more, now that I finally got it out of the not-listening prison.

This might be the album I have the longest personal history with since I remember getting this in the late 90s, when I was 11 or 12 years old. Weirdly enough, I've only realised far later just how wild of an album this actually is, especially for something that was mainstream at the time of its release. Something that could've only happened in the 90s, I suppose. While most of the other material in Manson's catalogue (that I've heard) doesn't really do all that much for me, I've always had a soft spot for this album, particularly because, like said, production-wise this is quite a crazy release. All sorts of drum machines, real drums, samples, everything's distorted in the most 90s industrial way possible, relentless vocals and, on top of it, the CD release doing the good old 99 tracks thing that was all the rage in the 90s.

That said, also very 90s is the length of the album as I feel it's a bit too long and they could've easily dropped a few songs to make it a bit better as a whole. This also isn't something I'd pop in regularly, but rather once every five years or so, just for that little nostalgia kick at times. Hence, four stars should be more than enough.

I feel like just having one electric guitar track in a song isn't quite enough to make this "rap rock" or whatever it's called on Wikipedia. That said, the production is quite minimalistic in general and having just a guitar track besides the drum beat makes these songs feel weirdly empty. Still better than I remember this band being though, based on having to hear them on MTV and wherever back in the day. Horrible, extremely mid-00s cover too.

Country is one of the genres I have a very hard time tolerating at all. I can sometimes deal with so-called alt-country and MAYBE some proper outlaw stuff, but this album is basically the worst kind for me. Maybe I'll "get" it one day, but that day, sadly, isn't today.

Far too many Elvis Costello albums on this list, that's for sure.

It's alright, but I see no reason there to be SIX of his albums included. Has he been particularly influencial or popular at some point in history? Because I don't remember ever running into an Elvis Constello fan in the wild nor really seen all that much talk about his stuff in my social bubble either. Granted, that shouldn't be a reason to be on this list, but come on, six albums?

Yeah, this is just alright. But fucking six albums? Really?

Quite easy to tell exactly what this album will sound like just based on the release year and the cover, no? Well, it was exactly what I was expecting. Pretty good psychedelic rock, that's about it.

Everything about this sounded something that could potentially be intolerable for me. Weirdly enough, this was actually quite good! I like her voice, which usually is the thing that turns me off the most with female singers of this kind particularly. Not sure what the over-the-topness people in other reviews are talking about; maybe my concept of over-the-top is a bit more over the top than for some. Anyway, this was pretty nice, indeed.