Reviews by richardwiggins

There might be some mid-1980s context that I’m missing that makes sense of Planet Rock, but I struggle to find anything redeeming about it. It is compositionally poor, never managing to coalesce around a pleasing melody. The vocals and samples are frequently at odds with each other. It’s zany, rambling music which never gets to the point. It grates and frustrates from beginning to end.

Steely Dan’s debut shows off their enviably smooth flow as they cycle through a roster of hits. I can’t help but feel this band is deeply underrated nowadays, or at least I’ve been sleeping on them. It’s very listenable, beautifully composed music with a very high hit rate.

A very influential, idiosyncratic record which was never replicated. Sex Pistols have a nicely off kilter approach to throughly commercial punk music which has kept it at the centre of culture for 50 years. When it hits it hits - the singles off of this LP are as big as they get, but the more numerous album tracks are just the same as the singles but worse. It’s this that stops Never Mind the Bollocks being the all time classic you feel it should be, but it’s no less iconic as a result.

Good luck having this record on in the background if you’re trying to have a conversation with me. It's so majestic that it polyfills all the gaps in my brain and stops it from fully functioning.

The Cocteau Twins’ tickle a special, rarely accessed part of my consciousness. Elizabeth Fraser’s soprano singing is so show-stoppingly, heart-thumpingly, mind-expandingly ethereal that it's difficult for my focus to ever get beyond them. Has any vocalist ever been more successful in bottling up musical equivalent of pure unadulterated joy? Because the lyrics are there purely to enhance the melody, rather than make any kind of sense there is a freedom at play which is missing from most performances. "Pomoke / hokidomi cannot care / hocus pocus do nimoka / Annapurna donima."

Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde provide a gorgeously sequenced, perfectly smudged orchestration of different sounds, all drenched in slowly unfurling reverb. It’s so accomplished that it's difficult to accept that they are using the same conventional instruments that are available to everyone else.

I wouldn’t have thought I knew any songs by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, but working my way through Welcome To The Pleasuredome I felt familiar with large chunks of the tracklist. Granted, some of these are originals and other covers, but it all culminates in a very listenable, peppy, and finely curated 1980s mixtape. It is all very of the time, but the epic pop drama of the decade is still appealing.

The fact that Alice Cooper’s music is not for me is no reflection on his ambition or talent. He is there to entertain listeners with an amusing, flamboyant, glam form of hard rock. It is my dislike of hard rock that makes it hard for me to fully get onboard with what he is doing, but I have to admit there were multiple points across the tracklist where he made me smile and I was impressed at just how elaborate the performance was.

A very gutsy and forceful album with a fantastic vibe. I love when Courtney gets properly angry on the mic towards the end and the contrast with the popper vocals. I can hear the influence on several bands from my teenage years. Because of the relative lack of hits it doesn’t quite match up to Celebrity Skin for me, but I could see why it would be their top album for many. Certainly it’s their most iconic.

I’m not a mosh pit kind of guy, but I’d like to witness the pit at this show from a safe distance.

I am a big fan of singers growling and shouting incomprehensibly over the top of manically crunching guitars with relentless pummeling bass and drums. This series of incredibly short punk songs are to my mind the quintessential punk sound, given this comes from 1979 I now know who was responsible for it!

My main criticism is that the last third of this record really drags. For the first 11 songs it's a thrill ride, then from The Other Newest One onwards it felt like they had nothing new to say.

A fascinating record. Often ugly and abrasive but fearless and endlessly interesting. I suspect it satisfies neither fans of 80s Madonna; Ray of Light era; or Confessions on a Dance Floor era, though I reckon it’s been influential years later on hyperpop artists who’ve been able to tweak elements of its sound in a more thought out way with better branding.

I’ll admit I got motion sickness as the ill-advised and extremely quirked American Pie keyboard cover kicked off the end of the album, but even in this I found a bizarre, awkward charm. Certainly a moment I won’t be forgetting any time soon.

This is immensely fun, good time music which you should “feel” rather than think about too much. It’s a rush of joyful silliness with extreme amounts of flair. I laughed a lot at the audaciousness.

The bass playing is terrible though. I’ve heard of a walking bass line, but never one with a limp! I can’t imagine how boring it would be to perform these parts in a band that makes such a thing out of extra flair and plays for attention.

An interesting mix of flavours that you wouldn’t usually put together but definitely work and come together as a unique, cohesive sound. Red Snapper have seemed to find a route through to a totally new take on trip hop which I’m partial to.

There isn’t a particular track that I’m drawn to - the album lacks a stand out moment. I must also admit that some of the lyrics set me on edge a bit, but maybe I’m being prudish.

The multi-staged Marquee Moon is the perfect centrepiece of this record. It's head and shoulders above the rest, but only in virtue of being one of the best songs ever written. Outside of the title track there are a series of smart compositions which slowly unfold and evolve and show the band to be ahead of their time in how they play the guitar, with various tones and inflections being lifted and shifted by those who’ve come since. I could hear a bit of David Byrne in the vocals, so I was surprised to see that this LP was released six months before Talking Heads’ ‘77. A remarkable album.

Motherless Children is the high watermark on what I think is ultimately an overrated covers album. It’s remarkable that in 1974 a talented guitarist could cover some songs they love and arrive at such critical acclaim. An equivalent album today would be buried under the weight of endless content competing for attention.

A 2026 Clapton would need to be bringing more authorship to the table to make the same kind of mark on the culture. Given he had such a compelling life story at the time (a commendable recovery from heroin addiction) I think he could have put more of his own story into this. Instead he is singing I Shot the Sheriff, which feels totally detached from his own personal perspective.

This is a phenomenally chilled out performance. It’s not hit heavy, but doesn’t need to be as it gently takes you through a series of open hearted reggae performances from the masters of the art. Quality-wise I only spot two outliers which sit side by side. Stir It Up is clearly an all time classic and the awkward Kinky Reggae which immediately follows it is easily the worst of the crop.

There are a number of reasons why this is a very peculiar record, most prominently Soft Cell’s exploitative approach which doesn’t settle on a particular style. It manages, mainly through the vocals, to hang on to a cohesion despite this. They are a little darker and edgier than The Human League, sometimes with a hint of the sort of outlandish and extreme flavours you might expect from Suicide.

I don’t think that it’s a problem that my two favourite songs are the ones that deviate the most from their centre ground. The cover, Tainted Love, is a proper bop which has transcended the band. And then the closer Say Hello, Wave Goodbye is one of my favourite songs from the 1980s. It’s strangely sentimental and beautifully melancholic. After some hectic tracks it’s nice for things to resolve so peacefully.

This is a charming listen and one that is impossible to dislike. There is a dash of old school Hollywood about Count Basie’s performance which feels stylish, fresh, energetic and good humoured.

One of the joys of the last six months for me has been getting into Metallica, who I’d previously thought were beyond me. They have taken me from feeling slightly detached toward Metal to straightforwardly loving it.

Going backwards from the black album (I know, I know) I’m enjoying even more hearing them in this genre defining mode. It’s no less atmospheric than them making pop music, but there is a definite edge to the relentless crunching, pummelling and chanting. In both modes it stands out to me how focused the band are on making sure a bright melody is never too far away from poking through the mix.

It’s a fantastic mixture of fuzzy, crunchy and bubbly. I’m a fan!

Low in the register, Beach Boys style harmonies over psychedelic synths, backed by a talented art rock band. It’s a unique sound which wowed me on release and still wows me now. The album doesn’t let up - with singles threaded all the way through and, best of all, a real sense of journey.

The skill is undeniable, they are absolutely nailing what they are going for and have earnt their adoring fans. The bits that are great straight up rock or more glam I enjoy. The prog bits are not my kind of prog - the tendency to stick a flourish on top of a flourish, and the generally medieval vibe on some songs, is a genre mismatch for me. Still - it's fun to spend an hour in an unfamiliar part of town.

Blimey there is a lot of invention on this record. It is a textually dense and aggressive, but much more melodic and hooky than that would suggest. They seem invested in getting unusual sounds out of their guitars. The heavily manipulated guitar sounds on Passing Complexion deserve some kind of award. Kerosene's pitchy, chime-like guitar sounds are similarly impressive.

The flaw in the Minnesotan rug is the adolescent lyrics which are desperate to shock. Its a pity because without them I think Big Black would be far better recognised. I can hear their influence in tonnes of band's from my youth (from Crystal Castles to Battles). My suggestion for enjoying this album is: tune out the lyrics, they are not particular worth focusing on, you can just let the abrasive qualities of the vocals wash over you and assume that the content of the words are very dark indeed.