Reviews by ron_penis

sweaty butt crack music

a guy that I've been vaguely aware of for the last few years but I've never actually given a listen, and mama mia I've been missing out. this is what all the stuff in our current old-meets-new retro-futurism era aspires to be, the blending of modern production with psychedelic, soul, funk, everything gels together so well and the whole thing is a pleasure from start to finish, 50 minutes that feel like 30. you've got a new fan michael!

there's a lot working against this album: the general corniness of the whole thing, Billy Joel's goofy voice, my usual distaste for this sort of pop/soft rock, my hatred of long island, but all of that is meaningless in the face of a taut, tight 42 minutes of non stop undeniable bangers

much love to the prefab sprout fans in my life but they just don't do anything for me

i think we can all agree that the mark of truly great music is that it's enjoyed almost exclusively by people under the effects of a drug that increases your pleasure and energy, and we are blessed to live in a world where all of England's most insufferable head trauma victims produced an apparently inexhaustible supply of this stuff in the 90s. I'm just curious why these hard working dolts thought they had to make every album 70 excruciating minutes long, when you could just play the first track from any of them on repeat and none of the people rolling in the club would be able to tell the difference anyway, hell I'm sober and I can't tell the difference!

exhausting album, exhausting to think or talk about britpop anymore. this is maybe the worst britpop album on the list which is saying a lot. who cares

astonishingly unremarkable jazzy folk rock, steve winwood continues to baffle me with his sustained success

i like the grateful dead more because i love throwing on a messy fun set and luxuriating in it for 3 hours but this is perfect for encapsulating that into a tight studio album, which the dead of course were famously not great at

histrionic vocals, embarassing lyrics, straight-ahead boring instrumentation? where do i sign!

there's nothing for me to say about this one that you can't read elsewhere. just hit play again

beck for guys who spend all their time whining about their "bitch" girlfriends

i think it's probably pretty dubious to have ever included this in the book, but it's right up my alley so I'm not complaining

margo timmins has a beautiful voice and the production and sound quality is very good and warm, but it's a little too far into what i usually call "weepy music" for my tastes. weepiness isn't necessarily about tempo or volume, it's more about this just being more sad and mellow and understated than i would like. for all of the covers here, i can think of versions i prefer that have either higher energy, thicker instrumentation, or more varied registers and sounds. this is a pretty good album, but it's offering something I don't particularly want

i agree, she is supa dupa fly

fuck off

thank you new order for not only being one of the only good new wave bands but also only of the only english acts to heavily incorporate electronic music that didn't all get their heads bonked by coconuts and forget that melody exists

before you die, you MUST listen to Love's fairly generic and uninteresting second album which was less successful and is universally held in less esteem than their third album, which you also must listen to, and which is itself just fine! you simply must!!!

just absolute dog shit. i see a band I've never heard of and "post-punk" and I'm marginally interested but no, it's somehow a surprise SIXTH fucking nick cave album. "Dead Joe" is horrifically unlistenable, i mostly tuned it out after that, I'm done listening to, thinking or talking about nick cave

honestly, i never knew Bjork had a career prior to her solo work, and i dig this so much more than her later stuff. all of her solo stuff is undeniably cool and well crafted but it's always felt pretty abrasive and unapproachable to me, more like a piece of fine art you appreciate but don't necessarily "like." this is much more of a daily driver for me. is it super groundbreaking or artistic? not necessarily, but it still has enough funky flourishes and weird stylistic seasoning to keep it interesting, and the tradeoff is that it's much more listenable, and lives up to the promise of her vocal talent much more to me than her solo work

totally unfamiliar with the youngbloods prior to this, and what a shame. this is the exact kind of music i like: pulling together a bunch of different elements and sounds and combining them with a little wit, talent and brevity to produce something engaging and exciting. the addition of (actually decent) jazz (probably thanks to drummer Joe Bauer) and bluegrass to the standard folk/psychedelic/rock cocktail is very welcome and i salute these crazy white boys for taking a swing at it