Reviews by richardwiggins

The Killers first album could have been more killer less filler had they settled on a shorter tracklist and moved the running order around a bit. My memory of this album was very warm, given how flawless the many era defining singles are, but the second half is chock full of b-sides. They have a tendency to stretch out and make the most of every idea - which is great when things are working, but when they’re not it gets a bit wearing.

Regardless, its a fact that the first four tracks are some of the very best songs to come out of the indie era.

There is a great deal of experimentation on Loveless. They pioneered a new use of synths, overdrive pedals and washed out forms production to create a blanket of all encompassing sound. You can hear touches of Cocteau Twins at points, but they’ve taken elements of that sound and dialled it up the greatest possible extreme. At this time, My Bloody Valentine displayed an exceptionally rare quality - an ability to innovate and create their sound from scratch, similar to what Kraftwerk did in the 70s.

I Only Said is a clear example of how My Bloody Valentine’s approach to production differs from a typical rock band. The mix of every instrument is smudged together to create this completely new sound. Only the lead synth line cuts through apart from the rest of the instrumentation.

The sound, image and feel that My Bloody Valentine have crafted on this record is a clear influence on countless records, including a teenage fave of mine - The Horrors’ Primary Colours, which is still one of my favourite records. (The track names on that album even look the same!)

When I was younger it was the more melodic first half which grabbed me the most, but I now find the subtler moments on the second half LP equally grab me. This is an album I’m sure I’ll return to throughout my life.

This is a low key brutal album. I’m impressed with the propulsive, rough and tumble energy PJ Harvey is able to create with such a barely-held-together-with-sticky-tape sound. In 1992 she must have been at the forefront of this slightly distorted, lo-fi approach. I feel like I’ve heard various artists aping this style since - and not in nearly as accomplished a way.

The chaotic, confessional lyrics pack a punch, and when the instrumentals decide to kick in there is a big whoosh of energy. PJ pulls so much focus that it’s easy to forget the band, but the hefty, relentless bass playing in particular must be applauded.

Sheela-na-gig shows that if she wanted to be radio friendly she absolutely has all of the pop sensibilities required. I like that for the most part she chooses to cannibalise that into something a bit rawer, a bit more unsightly. But my god, once again - how many artists nowadays are ripping off and softening this exact sound in the pop sphere?!

Every R.E.M. album stirs, to differing degrees, a complex mix of both positive and negative emotions. Their two most popular albums on RYM sit on opposite ends of the spectrum in this regard, with Automatic being their darkest record and Murmur being their most joyful. Both are both, but Murmur wins the prize for “R.E.M. album most likely to get you out of a funk.” Without being sugary or overblown it leads with an open, welcome heart. It is a stunning and uplifting debut.

Murmur does not rely on any prominent, anthemic singles to wow its audience. Instead you have a series of spookily cheerful and melodic songs which the band beautifully mumble their way through. There is something quite special about how restrained and obscure a song like 'Pilgrimage' is. You could imagine a stadium version of "take a turn! (take a turn)" but instead R.E.M. dial everything down and get beauty out of the subtlest of moments.

'Laughing' manages to speed along at mid-high tempo without the band getting overly grand or carried away with themselves, it is personable and cute. More notably, the structure of this song feels mad. Like on their Chronic Town EP (1982) R.E.M. have built twists and turns into their music - random sonic shifts from the verse to the chorus to the bridge. Each section has its own distinct personality which compliments the sections around it.

It's impossible to listen to the infectious 'Catapult' without singing along with the indecipherable "Catapult! (Catapoh?!)" call and response vocals. Whilst 'Sitting Still' has a touch of the melancholy to it overridden by a sense of hopefulness and determination - these feelings are conveyed purely through the musical performance as the lyrics are complete nonsense:

This name I got we all were green
See could stop, stop it well rid
We could bind it in the scythe
We could gather, throw a fit
Up to par and Katie bars the kitchen signs, but not me in
Set a trap for love, making, a waste of time sitting still"

But they are not meant to make sense - the band are deliberately trying to obscure and confuse their work.

I was able to listen to this record three times in a row without getting tired. It’s a buoyant, cheerful listen with some stellar pop singles which had me singing along at several points. She does sincerely come across as an unusual presence, especially when she gets slightly more freaky on the mic.

Several of my favourite Radiohead songs sit in Hail to the Thief. There, There is an awesome single, it’s amazing the feeling of urgency they summon with a few simple chords and eerie pacing that’s neither fast nor slow. Wolf at the Door is similarly powerful in its low key delivery of an anxious, twisty turny melody. The high power moments also play out beautifully, 2+2=5’s “PAYING ATTENTION!” quickly transitions into Sit Down, Stand Up’s “AND THE RAIN DROPS!” In my opinion these two freak-outs make for the best opening moments of any Radiohead album.

I find that it falls short of the upper echelons of their discography due to its length and diversity. For example, I find The Gloaming to be a stylistic hangover from Amnesiac which I would prefer wasn’t revisited. In Rainbows has a similar sonic set up to my favourite aspects of this album, but is then laser focused on what it wants to achieve. Every time there is a bit of energy loss though, the band will hit you with another “must have” classic song, so it easily holds its own.

Fans may disagree but the stripped back production sounds more sophisticated to me than the embryonic plunderphonics of Fear of a Black Planet. I l already liked the rapping, but here it comes together as the full package: dancier, looser, more fun. Previously I thought I wanted to hear them go harder, tougher, meaner, but in fact through adding more funk, soul and joy into the mix that they have captured my imagination. A nice mix of politics and humour as well, paving the way for the unrepeatable, hilarious backing vocals on I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo N*. You’d have to be pretty stone faced for this record to not to raise a smile. It doesn’t particularly dip at any point in quality, but if there was any trace of an energy slump, the closing Anthrax rap rock collab certainly wakes you up!

I feel lame for not checking out Black Sabbath before the age of 32. Whatever I imagined they sounded like, it wasn’t this, because Paranoid is incredibly cool. It makes excellent use of dynamics throughout - a nice mix of heavy songs with creeping, quiet ones. Most surprisingly of all (for me at least) is the consistently sinister, psychedelic edge to their writing. They don’t sound safe or normal. I can only imagine the faces of worried parents in 1970 as they heard this weird music emanating from bedroom doors.

American Idiot was released at the perfect moment for me, just as I was getting into music. Unfortunately, I was getting into completely different music and was ideologically opposed to all forms of pop punk and emo. This meant that I wasn’t able to appreciate the classics released across my childhood. As I’ve aged I’ve matured enough to appreciate the music from my adolescence.

Looking back, it was audacious for Green Day to channel their creativity into multi-stage, prog-like song structures with clear political messaging. These songs are nothing like the super short nihilistic ones that made up Dookie. They are linear, longform and operatic.

I would love to know if they took any nods from NOFX’s War on Errorism, released the previous year. Even when American Idiot is not overtly political, it sums up the experience of a young person in Bush’s post-9/11 America. Both bands proved that pop punk could handle themes more complex than teenage angst and skateboarding. Although they remained indispensable in soundtracking a PlayStation 2 rendered Tony Hawk.

American Idiot is possibly the most memorable and iconic pop punk record of all time with crossover appeal that spilled into mainstream, non-teenage angstridden culture. These big pop songs pleasingly still hold up.

If I hadn’t read that Paul Weller was behind this I would never have put two and two together. There’s no point comparing this to The Jam, because the aims are so different. It’s an interesting ensemble piece with plenty of variety that would play well in a cafe. Some songs have stood the test of time better than others but never really gets better than “cute” or “listenable” for me, and at points “boring.” Overall I couldn’t work out why Weller went down this route at all.

A monumental step up from her debut EP. A tremendous amount of work has been put into this far stretching range of songs. Her “suite I” compositions were very densely detailed, but here that is pleasingly dialled up to eleven. Her songs have become maximalist creations, some with a frenetic pacing, others with dreamy, reflective qualities. Throughout the record there’s an “anything goes” sense of play and experimentation. You could never guess what’s coming next, but it all works well together.

Released in between two largely accessible, high fidelity recordings, White Light/White Heat is the anomaly in The Velvet Underground’s studio album catalogue. To see what they were going for with this release I think you need to look ahead a couple of years to their 1969 Velvet Underground Live album which shows the electric clarity that could be achieved through capturing the band on tour, balancing the guttural feel of their semi-improvised performance with a crisp, clear sound. When attempted in these rushed recordings in 1967 the band overwhelmed the equipment with noise and it led to a very distorted end result, the compositions are immense but little would be lost if you listened to them through a tin can. The band were disappointed with the results, and (unpopular opinion amongst fellow fans) I also think they would have benefitted from a bit more time, but what we’re left with is a welcome time piece which could not be more different from VU’s other output.

Fans of this record can quite rightly point to the fact that the band are delivering an early form of noise rock and punk, putting them well ahead of their time. It is for this reason that it's such a well regarded album, though I would personally put LP1, LP3 and the aforementioned live album well ahead of this.

Based on the opening moments I imagined Floodland as having the familiar sonic palette to post-punk bands of the era, particularly Echo and the Bunnymen. The gothic element transforms it though, making The Sisters significantly eerier, darker and moodier than their post-punk counterparts. Despite this it doesn’t shy away from pop sensibilities, folding in hooky melodies in frequently unlikely places. I can see how they became a cult hit as they are pushing the gothic aspect of their sound further than any major acts that come to mind (The Cure, Joy Division, Nick Cave, Swans). It's a flavour that I haven’t yet heard elsewhere.

It takes a bit of time for Food & Liquor to get started but once the mission statement Kick, Push begins things are in full flow. He is a talented rapper and the production is plush, expansive and radio ready in an enjoyable way. The album’s momentum peaks in the middle but then drops off a cliff with the overlong credits / thank you track. I wish I could pretend this track didn’t exist as the album is already a tad long without it and for me it brings the whole project’s score down. The biggest indulgence of the CD era?

In his own gentle way Cat Stephens (/Yusuf) has a very strange voice. It makes what could be a series of straightforward ballads into something far more compelling. The writing is strong, but the delivery is what makes it shine. You’re hanging on his every word because you never quite know what’s going to happen next. The truncated title track is one of the coolest, bravest ways I’ve ever heard an artist close an album. Yusuf is showing off that he can just whack out a rich and fully developed idea with an incredible crescendo in just over 60 seconds.

The beats are consistently engaging. It's cool when they take more risks, like on the weirder and wilder What “U” Waitin’ “4”? and the extremely hype Tribe Vibes. For most of the track list I find Jungle Brothers’ good natured rapping limited and predictable but I appreciate how conscious they are and the variety of topics they cover. It's not all bluster and bravado. To my ears they sound best when they go hard.

The Queen Latifah record from the same year goes a bit further on both production and rapping, helped by the fact that it employs more humour which gets the most out of this embryonic hip hop era for me. Despite this I’m confident Jungle Brothers have earnt their status in early hip hop. It's confident and energising stuff.

Released just before Let It Be, this is a bit more rough and ready than a Beatles album, which isn’t a bad thing. It gives a fascinating insight into Paul’s songwriting process and sounds fresh and in the moment. Released in the modern era it might be described more like a mixtape than an album, but it’s nice to hear him play around without overly refining.

Blood on the Tracks sounds so different from early Bob Dylan. These songs do not have traditional beginnings or endings. He using his guitar to create long form canvases to sing stories over. Once the story is finished the track stops. I’d be surprised if these generally came in at a set length or if he’d play a song in the same way twice. Yet things don’t sound loose because he is playing the guitar with such purpose, and the lyrics sound particularly personal. A phenomenal record which I’ve underrated compared to his mid-60s classics.

John Barleycorn Must Die makes me realise how limitless the possibilities of songwriting and album building are. Or at least, how many needless rules songwriters usually box themselves in with. Traffic are happy to ignore genre boundaries which makes them unpredictable. I never imagined hearing jazz flute, over the top of traditional English folk music, all held together with a time signature defying proggy sensibility. If you only heard brief snippets of this LP you could easily convince yourself that these sounds came from wildly different releases. Despite how wide ranging it is, it holds together as a cohesive whole, peaking with the title track. From my perspective this is a must listen for anyone interested in songwriting.

A curious, unassuming early approach to indie rock with welcome tinges of psych occasionally peaking through. It never moves beyond being “quite good” for me and as the album went on was at risk of fading into the background. Though I'm someone who doesn't particularly rate Led Zep - so what do I know?