Reviews by ron_penis

simon i love but once you get garfunkel in the mix? that's my time to catch a little shut eye

pretty nice to clean the house to

i had never heard of Skunk Anansie but this was a super pleasant surprise: funky, hard edged or beautiful as needed, and just plain cool sonically, with an amazing voice from Skin. will absolutely be checking out more of their discography

honestly I wasn't expecting much but this is pretty cohesive and pleasant, with some pretty beautiful portions. plus who doesn't love a Manson family connection!

probably neat when it came out but now it just makes me think "why am i not just listening to either the Beatles or CSNY?"

not bad, definitely overlong and it steps a little too much into perhaps my most hated genre, electroswing, but overall pretty enjoyable

I've always found the national to be kind of dull, pretentious and certainly quite overrated. I don't think you could really call this "bad" but it's absolutely not for me

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that every album by a black woman that hasn't been formally inducted into the """canon""" gets poor reviews on this site

an evil creep with some admittedly catchy/hooky stuff here buried under a ton of mediocre shit, in addition to being way way too fucking long (do you really expect me to buy this as some kind of 'masterpiece,' marilyn?) and as always his shtick is just so performative and lame. considered in a vacuum it's probably actually a 2 but I'm feeling particularly ungenerous towards it

finally, an answer to the question: "what if the rolling stones were good?"

kind of conflicting, the beats and production are so cool and ahead of their time, but the lyrics definitely leave quite a bit to be desired. they're just kind of lame, without that much interesting to say and one thing i can never stand in hip hop of any era is an over reliance on repetitious lyrics. I'm not all that bothered by the content-- he's playing a character, 90s hip hop had a lot of content like this, whatever-- but the character is the only thing there, he's not saying anything novel or interesting, he's just inhabiting a marginally interesting character. but if i just threw this on and paid no attention to the actual lyrics, then that's some good music

what do you think the odds are that Robert Dimery was a teenager/young adult during the new wave and britpop eras?

just one black mark here: nick cave's abysmal and out of place performance on "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," but Fiona Apple on "Bridge Over Troubled Water" more than cancels that out

i hated this immediately, but unfortunately, a twisted compulsion to give every album a fair shake and listen to them in full means i have subjected myself to a shockingly self indulgent 3 hours of twee nick cave demos

this is the worst album on the list so far by a wide margin. any jazz musician should be able to legally kill Stephin Merritt for Love Is Like Jazz. they would have played this at gitmo, but then they wouldn't have anybody left to torture after it killed everyone

enjoyable, interesting, impressive, and actually fits the definition of an album you "should listen to before you die." probably won't be throwing it on all the time but I'm richer for having heard it

me and my 8 awful smelling housemates recorded an album this summer. none of us had ever touched an instrument before and we all think we're the smartest person in the world. hope you enjoy it!

on the one hand, it's self evidently really good. on the other hand, 3 hours of it is way way too much and i will die on the hill that this is not an 'album.' split the difference and call it a 3

exhausting

starts out strong, gotta give it up for Enter Sandman, despite its overplayedness, then Sad But True is good and later on Wherever I May Roam kinda goes... besides those you're left with 45 minutes of forgettable to serviceable music

as a self identified britpop disliker and somebody who didn't like their first album on this list all that much, i was pretty amazed at how good and eclectic this is. basically every song is good, while covering a lot of territory but still coming together in a pretty cohesive and tight package. definitely one of the most pleasant surprises for me on this list!