Reviews by similartie

I'm only on track eight, but it's time to call it folks. Stop. He's already dead.

The title track is pretty good, but the rest of it is just okay and the two goofy songs — Allergies and Cars are Cars — almost bring this down to a two.

The song Blueberry Hill is great, but the rest of the album is pretty standard early R&B. There are a lot of entertainers from that era that could blow you away, but this is a pillow fight in a mattress factory.

I'm sort of begrudgingly giving this one a four. This album came out around the time I stopped listening to new mainstream bands. They're also one of the first huge bands whose members were younger than me, so at the time I wanted them to get off my lawn, but listening now I have to admit that this is pretty good.

This is awesome.

I don't mind the Dead. I don't mind long, drawn-out jams. I don't mind okay-ish live albums. But put them all together and it's not for me.

Pretty good work by Paul Simon. The blusier stuff doesn't hit as hard as the folkier stuff, but it balances the album out nicely. The vibe is denim overalls. And a puffy coat with fur trim.

I'm usually pretty certain about my rankings, but I'm a little stuck between a 4 and a 5 for this album. It's an incredible album. Not quite a wall-to-wall masterpiece, but certainly better than 90% of the list. I'm currently at 34 five-star albums out of 395, or 8.6%. So it's somewhere right in there.

I liked it. Their sound seems easy to trace, as others have mentioned. So it has a nostalgic feel to it but the production is not as screamingly 80s as the bands they sound like, which gives them a more timeless quality.

This album is a tour-de-force. (Whatever that means.)

It's never a good sign when the most boring parts of the album are also the best parts of the album. I thought this stuff was cheesy when I was 12 years old and I still do.

Not really my thing. Nothing bad though.

I was vibing on this for sure. Easy listening.

This is such a chore to listen to. I guess this is what happens when you can't stand their one song.

I've been listening to Billy Bragg for a long time. I discovered him through the Mermaid Avenue project. I also love the album he did with Joe Henry.

His solo albums are little more obscure for me. I tend to think he has a few gems on each album and a lot of stuff that kinda runs together. Really sitting down with this one is a rewarding experience, however. Billy, or whoever he was working with, was able to flesh it out a bit and keep it interesting.

This is an album I've never heard, which I have now enjoyed, and I thought it was pretty good.

I think I prefer Detroit Jack to Nashville Jack. There's something about the production on this album that doesn't feel right and I wish I had the technical knowledge to arcticulate why. Something to do with compressors or mic placement or EQ, right? The effect is stifling as opposed to the unbridled sound of the best White Stripes songs.

T. Rex is one of those bands that has always seemed to be just outside the periphery of the pool of music I listen to. I've probably come across their name or read about Marc Bolan's guitar playing hundreds of times. But each time I thought maybe I should check them out, I would see that their hit song was Bang A Gong and I was like nope, I'm good.

Fortunately, it's probably the worst song on the album?

The rest sounds like unused John Lennon solo tracks with a bit more swagger and a bit less eccentricity. Which is good, actually.

Yeah, this was pretty great. Never heard of the band, but I enjoyed that. Listened twice. Urban beardos weren't making this kind of music stateside in 2008.

Is jazz my favorite genre? Not really. Do I pull this album out very often? No.

But it's beautiful and clearly the work of a master.