Reviews by simonh

I like Cat Stevens.
I don't know why, since the first thing I ever heard of his was a hymn. That hymn isn't on this album (Morning Has Broken of course), but there are some other tracks I've heard before.
Good voice, good songwriting and no duds. Nice to fall asleep to.
3½

Great songs. Starts with one of his best, Tiny Dancer, but everything on here is quality. This is hungry Elton. Before he became fat comfortable Elton.

First and foremost, the tunes are undoubtedly good.
But the lyrics?
I dislike reviews that use the word ‘dated’ but I can’t think of anything other word to use. The ‘motherfucker’, ‘niggah’, ‘beyach’, and ‘hoe’ count is so great that it turns what I assume was meant to be a 1990s gritty social commentary into a 2020s hour-long comedy record. 

The inherent comedy is only exacerbated by Snoop Dogg’s cultural evolution into Grandpa Dogg, the crazy amusing uncle currently doing cooking shows and commentating on the Olympics. 

Thus, the contrast between intent and outcome is why the album ultimately made me smile throughout. It's a hilarious time capsule which wouldn’t look out of place as a SNL sketch.

There is nothing on this album would make me want to listen to it again, although there are some nice chilled out tracks towards the end. Credit to them for recording this at home. But I think they were/are destined to be a support band forever.

I'd rather listen to The Hives.

Ooh a concept hiphop album?

You know how it is... you plough through 300 albums pining for a song about rectums, then you get an album full of rectal references. He should have called himself Dr. Proctagon!

I found the theme and lyrics a lot more interesting than the usual gangster-hoe-AK47-muthafucker-I'm-so-repressed posing braindead shite (I have Dr. Dre today - oh joy). But I bet a lot of the gynae humour will have upset the Gen Z-ers.

It definitely appealed to my sense of humour though.
Best hiphop i've had album so far.

Pleasant, upbeat album. She has a great voice. The album has the air of a film score or musical theatre about it.
Standout track - Wonderland.
Lowlight - BabopbyeYa (just drags on too long)

Name: Dan Spitz
Occupation: Guitar hero
Specialist Subject : Playing the track before the current track

I love hard rock and metal but I hate this. It sounds like each band member is playing a totally different track. There’s no coherence. Just sounds like they are all racing each other and playing whatever comes into their heads
Of the 'Big 4' thrash bands, I’ve enjoyed Megadeth and Metallica. But this is shite.

I bought Night In The Ruts back in the day and liked it a lot, but I never explored their back catalogue (pre NITR) and never really followed up on them as they never toured in the uk (between 1977 and 1987) - so as far as I was concerned fuck them.
Liked this album though.
3½

There’s a tendency to brand everything that came out of the UK in the 1990s as “Britpop”. This album is a lot more than britpop. Orchestral and melodic in places, rocky in others.
I was only aware of the big 3 tracks, Symphony, Lucky Man and Drugs beforehand. I'll be adding this to my playlist. Good album

They say his music is depressing? It’s far worse. A monotonous bass drawl drone, with a lot of it not even in tune. (But with some nice guitar, granted). If I wasn’t driving I’d have fallen asleep. Utterly dull and uninteresting. Never again.

Disturbing album cover for a start. We didn’t know it at the time but maybe Jackson was trying to tell us something with the menacing look, a nonce jacket and his right hand in a wank grip.

Anyway back to this record. So it took him 5 years to follow up Thriller and this was the best he could do. A couple of reasonable songs, Bad and Smooth Criminal, but the rest is forgettable formulaic trash.
My main issue with the whole album is the annoying Tourettes-like ticks throughout.

Heee-Hee!
Hah!
Ah-hhhea!
Uh!
Shaaamon!

For fuck’s sake give it a rest. It gets so tedious.

And I’m sorry I can’t listen to this without thinking of the comedy nose jobs, the strange skin whitening and the dangling of babies over 5th floor balconies. The behaviour was whacko enough before we even knew what he used to get up to with young boys and a chimp.

Greatest respect for this album's place in history's musical pathway.
Though it's not going to be a stepping stone in mine.

If I took LSD, then I think it would be cool to be listening to this when I did.
Sounds a bit like I imagine the trip to be... mellow at the start, a descent into shite at the end (except for the jolly final track).

Eclectic. A bit rocky, a bit folky, a bit psychedelic, a bit county. A pleasant listen. I guess they were one of those 'unknown' bands that never made it for whatever reason. Sad.

When I first moved down to Bournemouth in the mid 1980’s, whenever I went into town there was a vagrant/tramp/down-and-out who used to stand on a corner strumming a beaten up old ukulele at super high speed. Just the open strings mind. 



CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!

He thought he was a legit busker and that passers by would give him cash. He was totally deluded.

CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!

Some people would occasionally give him loose change. Not because they thought he was talented, but because they wanted other people to see them do it.

But, of course, it just made him carry on. Every time I went into Bournemouth he’d be there

CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!-CHING!

Sonic Youth remind me of that old tramp guy.

I think this is as good as it gets with Stevie Wonder.

I can admit I wasn't looking forward to another SW record but this has been a pleasure. Just one track with harmonica, and even that was bearable with just clear single notes rather than the usual cacophonic mess. And even though I was getting it in stereo, at least it was all over and done with in the first track.

I'd also forgotten how good 'Don't You Worry Bout A Thing' (so the original is bossa nova? I never knew. Awesome) and 'He's Misstra Know It All' are. I'm kinda shocked to say I really like this album.

So what happened after this? A long descent to the absolute dogshite he wrote in the 80s and onwards. Stevie I think that the car crash did affect you after all.
4½

The similarity between this and other US singer songwriters , say Tori Amos, Rikki Lee Jones, Suzanne Vega show that this Apple didn’t fall far enough from the tree to be of any significance. I’ve never heard of her or her music, and I can assume she wasn’t promoted on the UK side of the pond precisely because of this.
The tracks on this album are all ok, but there’s no USP. Basically, for every US Apple we can grow 10 of our own here.
And, personally, I prefer a nice pear anyway, fnarr.
2½

Shock horror I quite liked this.
I think this is the first hip-hop album where I’ve been able to hear and understand every word of the lyrics. That’s not to say that they are all great lyrics. But I’m going to give Jay Z the benefit of the doubt and say that I’m think a lot of it is tongue-in-cheek.
I found there were a lot of ear worms on here too, even though many of the samples were quite repetitive (typically).
But on the whole this is pretty good.

I was surprised that a thrash metal album is getting so much love. But it’s not really thrash is it? Yes it has its super-fast bits but on the whole it’s just good heavy metal.
The only downside is Dave Mustaine’s voice. For me it doesn’t fit. It’s the voice of a weedy kid not a metal front-man. It may grow on me but fair to say it hasn’t after 3 listens.

I think a downside of this 1001 project is that I’m prepared to give a bit more time to albums I think I should like. Or albums from which I like some tracks but don’t know the rest. Maybe it should be limited to maximum of 2 listens. Because generally by the time I've got to a 4th or even 3rd listen, any album is going to have grown on me (with a few exceptions).



Yes I do like this. It’s that sort of miserable navel gazing album I’d have played to death in my student days at 2am when I’d tried to get off with someone down Pickwicks and failed (yet again).

For the melody and production alone it could be a 5. Perhaps for the lyrics too if I could actually hear any of them. But I can’t disagree with the general consensus, Thom Yorke is so whiny he becomes inaudible.
So that… plus the whole band coming across as humourless and up themselves loses them a star. Though to be honest, I’m sure they couldn’t give a rat’s arse what anyone thinks.