Reviews by simonh

A classic live album containing some fabulous versions of Deep Purple staples — Highway Star, Child in Time, Smoke on the Water and Strange Kind of Woman in particular.

But it could all be so much tighter. This isn’t an album I could listen to over and over again without skipping some of the extended solos, particularly The Mule drum solo, which I don’t even think is a particularly good one.

There are parts of Made in Japan that are nailed-on 5/5 material, but there are also sections I’d rate as low as a 2. As a document of Deep Purple as a live band at their pompous zenith, it’s a must-have album.

But, like quite a few live albums, I only really want to dip regularly into about half of it.
3½

A trippy, trancy album of background chill, ruined in places by the pointless inter-track clips of incomprehensible city chatter.

The Bond-theme-inspired track was particularly dreadful — mainly because the whole 007 thing had already been done to death — but the rest worked reasonably well as general background music.

I can’t imagine this was genuinely pioneering for the genre, which does make me wonder why it’s here. Overall, it’s OK if you skip the skits.

Immersive and trancy. The group of friends I was listening to this with hated it. I quite liked it. And it's me who awards the stars

Like an Albert Hall ‘Beach Boys Prom’, this has the feeling of a symphony about it. It sounds almost like a recorded live performance, with songs and fragments flowing into each other rather than feeling like a conventional collection of separate tracks. It wasn’t until after I’d listened that I noticed it was actually split into three movements, so it seems Brian felt that symphonic vibe too.

It’s a really great collection and, if there were ever any doubt, shows where much of the musical imagination in the Beach Boys came from.

Although it’s never been my favourite Beach Boys track, closing with Good Vibrations was a great choice. After everything that comes before it, it feels like the natural grand finale. Jusdt a shame it had to fade out though.

Sounds like a world-weary Coldplay at times. But not as good. Most of it has the air of a depressing dirge.

After three listens — and, OK, I admit it didn’t have my full concentration on any of them — I just couldn’t get into it. I wouldn’t say it was dreadful, but neither did I find much to inspire me.

I hate to use this word, but… kinda meh.

It sounds like someone just walked into a small club with a tape recorder, pressed record at the beginning of the night and let it run until fading it out near the end.

The crowd interaction, the songs and, above all, Cooke’s performance are exceptional. The whole thing moves at a frenetic pace. Bang, bang, bang. Banger after banger. There’s barely time to catch your breath before he launches into the next one.

I’d heard Sam Cooke was good, but I hadn’t realised he was this good. Raw, powerful and totally in command of the room.

Why the record company kept a recording this good locked away for more than 20 years is anybody’s guess.

The more I hear his stuff, the more I like it.
This is proper good — warm, soulful, jazzy and a great listen.

Am I softening up to folkier stuff? Or is Van Morrison just getting good at sneaking it past me?

Standard, quite unmemorable, indie fayre.
I'm sure I've reviewed a Pixies album before and lo and behold when I look through my history I see this is the third Pixies album I've listened to.
And strangely enough I made similar comments for each of the others. Nothing special. Forgettable.
So maybe it's me?
Or maybe it's them!

Id prefer it if each track was shorter and there was no singing.
A few nice melodies here and there, but ultimately it's a wailing din.

I have every respect for those who have grown up with Indian classical music and are naturally attuned to its drones and melodic structures. But to my ears, while pleasant enough in small doses, listening to a whole album becomes something of a chore.

Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I’ve also developed an unfortunate tendency to associate this kind of music with a mouth-watering Chicken Bhuna.

I listened to this immediately after Everything But The Girl’s *Idlewild*, and *Ingenue* inhabits much the same cocktail-bar world. The songs are better, though, which helps.

What doesn’t help is KD Lang's insistence on having her name written entirely in lower case, which is the sort of self-conscious affectation that winds me up. Therefore 3★ -1 for being up her own backside.

The author definitely loves EBTG, and I have absolutely no problem with that. If I'd written a book of 1001 albums there would be 8 Genesis albums and at least 6 Rush albums on it, so they can put on it whatever they like.

As for EBTG, she has a lovely voice but this is really is background music for a sleasy cocktail bar. And I'd much prefer to be listening to it in a cocktail bar, especially if the cocktails were free and I can get slaughtered.

It's not awful, but they wrote and recorded better stuff than this collection.

2½

I usually like my metal with a bit more melody, but I’m a sucker for that growling bass and guitar sound Metallica made so popular, so this worked for me.

I also like the fact that the frontman sounds like he’s not taking himself too seriously. There’s a sense of fun to it that makes the whole thing more enjoyable.

I know of Jah Wobble from the early days of punk and PiL, so this wasn’t quite what I expected. It’s a really good sound, though, and an enjoyable listen. And, as you might expect, the bass is excellent throughout.

This album brings back a lot of memories. It's definitely a record that sounds completely different depending on how loud it's played.

I absolutely agree that there isn’t a huge amount of stylistic variation between the tracks, with the same relentless bass, distorted guitar and barking vocals running throughout. And some of the lyrics are very much of their time, but Motörhead albums were always primarily a menu for their live shows, where they were imperious.

I'm not surprised that Lemmy was pretty hard of hearing by the time we lost him.

4 for the album. 5 for the shows.

Shoe gaze?
You’re making it up, right?

There are some good melodies buried in here, but they’re smothered under so much distortion that most of the time it just sounds like my turntable and amp are on the blink.

1½

I’m hoping this isn’t the only Bee Gees album on the list because it surely cannot be their best.

Trafalgar is like a menu of “songs wot we wrote”, performed in the hope that someone slightly more famous will pick them up and record them. It would be interesting to know how many *have* been recorded by other artists (though not interesting enough for me to look it up).

They are all pretty good songs, starting with the best. But what’s most noticeable is the declining quality of the performances - as if they wanted to sell the first side of songs, but weren’t that bothered about the second.

The performances of ‘When Do I’, ‘Dearest’ and ‘Lion in Winter’ are excruciating in their awfulness, and knock this down from an average 3 to 2.

Fucking hell !!

Starts bluesy then gets gloriously wacky.
So much better than Trout Mask Replica.
You can see the direction they're headed though.

I wish I’d appreciated The Smiths more at the time.

The lyrics are sharp and witty, and the music is beautifully crafted. The Queen Is Dead is an excellent collection of songs, bar one dud: Frankly, Mr. Shankly.
My one criticism might be that Morrissey’s vocal delivery shows relatively little variation across the record. Then again, that distinctive style is a large part of what made The Smiths sound so unique.