Reviews by simonh

Is this hip-hop?. Genuine question cos I don't know?

If it is, then this is the hip hop I like. It doesn't seem heavily laden with samples, it's musically mature, and it's foot-tappingly cool. The fact that there appear to be a band behind this and they actually seem to be playing instruments is a big plus for me, lifting this far above the pop-gun knob twiddling "gangsta" exponents of the genre.
Might be my highest ever rating for hip-hop, if this is, in fact, hip hop?

[Ed. no you've given a 5 to Beastie Boys before now]

I quite liked this. Which, having read a little about Bobby Womack’s life and times, surprised me.

I didn’t know that Bobby isn’t actually the Womack from Womack & Womack. THAT Womack is his brother Cecil — who married Bobby’s former stepdaughter, who Bobby himself had already shagged whilst married to her mother.

Nice family.

Anyway, the songs are good, the production is good and the singing is good — shout-out to the backing singers too. I even liked the very ’80s use of synth in places. And the. lyrics? "Just like some good old Kentucky Fried Chicken / And all of it was good enough to be finger lickin'". He really IS The Poet.

Well, whaddya know. The ink is barely dry on my Buddy Holly review, in which I claimed he had more talent in his little finger than Elvis, and the list immediately throws me an Elvis album as if to prove me wrong.

The statement stands. Although I should probably qualify it.

Elvis had no MUSICAL talent. The talent he DID have was looking good, wiggling his hips about, and making 13 year old girls damp. And if you can do that then you can sell them any old shit.
(Harry Styles will attest to this)

I love a good show, and I’d genuinely like to have seen Elvis live in the ’50s to understand what all the fuss was about.

But this is an album list, and Elvis Is Back! is an album of bad covers and boring dross, written by other people and seemingly designed to keep teenage girls thinking about Elvis until the next concert.

Whatever magic Elvis had, I’m not hearing much of it here.

12 songs. 25 minutes. Wham. 2 minutes a pop and on to the next one. But then of course nobody knew anything different back then.
Songs are all perfectly reasonable even if the lyrics area little basic.
Buddy Holly had more talent in his little finger than Elvis Presley. Shame about the plane crash.
3½

What a nasty trick to play. I don't know EXACTLY what I was expecting, but it sure wasn't this.

The Byrds 'Hey Mr Tambourine Man' jangly 60s feel has gone and been replaced by this horrible wet turd. It can't be the same band surely? Ah I see there have been some "musical differences" between then and now. And the introduction of Gram Parsons explains the flat singing on the tracks he's permitted to sing on...and also the common denominator between this and his solo album. I couldn't wait for both to end.

Nasty.

Party central..
Who says music shouldn't be fun.
Fred can't sing. But so what -with the two girls alongside they make a fantastic vocal combo.
And who would dream of making a party playlist without the full 6 minute version of Rock Lobster on it? (or Love Shack for that matter!).
Ok some of the songs share the same licks but who cares. This is an album to goof about to.

Wonderful variety of really good songs - I mean even a bit of harmonica can't spoil them.
Superb production quality.
Ferry's voice is brilliant as usual.
And then to top it off - throw in some half naked ladies on the album cover.
=5

Normally albums grow on me, but if anything, this one soured a little.
Tracks are over worked and instead of one "Dirge" there ends up being multiples
I'm still not sure after 3 listens where my feelings lay with this. album
But I'm not listening again to find out so it will have to be a 3.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I've always had a downer on this band since seeing them in the flesh and them seeming so uninterested and therefore uninteresting.

Objectively though - this is a solid album of rock tracks. 'Sex On Fire' I'm totally over, but some of the other stuff I recognised and is ok, and the tracks I didn't recognise followed the standard popularity formula.

Altogether a fine example of bog-standard pop rock .

I quite enjoyed this romp through some memorable past hits and other influenced and influential foot tappingly decent stuff.
And having now read some of the top rated reviews on here - and on further reflection - I ENJOYED IT EVEN MORE! Music has been influenced by what came before since medievel times and even earlier than that. Everyone takes from everyone. And who are you to say what music "belongs" to who. So from someone with dubious dental care - go fuck yourself.

Good on you Malc!

(Oddly enough I visited Highgate Cemetary this week and saw MM's grave. I didn't realise he was dead! )

Pretty much the whole of the first side is like a 'greatest hits' album, which is quite astonishing for a debut album. Of course the rest of the album *has* to be an anticlimax, but the initial heights make this a 4.

I'm getting essence of Betty Boo and shades of Shamen in here. I guess they were all mixed and poured from the same pot. Not bad.

I quite enjoyed the first five minutes, and it was a pleasant change to be exposed to some world music. The vocal harmonies are undoubtedly outstanding. But, perhaps because I’m not accustomed to this musical style, it quickly turned from pleasant to monotonous. So much so that I needed to listen to the album in two sessions, three days apart, to finish it.

By the end, the individual songs had merged in my mind into one long track of chanting, clicking and lip-trilling.

I can imagine enjoying five minutes of this from time to time, but a whole album is not going to be something I return to very often.

He can obviously write a song, but I’ve never been convinced that sounding like Bob Dylan is necessarily the best way to perform one.

This is an uneven album. At its best, it’s outstanding: beautifully written, emotionally sharp and full of songs that justify the reputation that precedes him.

But there’s a noticeable dip in the middle, where several tracks feel lazy and repetitive and outstay their welcome.

Meanwhile, his mouth organ remains an instrument that often sounds as though it has crashed in from a child’s playroom.

But perhaps that’s all part of the point. Bob will be Bob, and by the end I wasn’t merely tolerating him; I was very much enjoying him—and, on at least one occasion (Idiot Wind), even his mouth organ.

Maybe we naysayers just have to resign ourselves to the fact that a Bob album wouldn’t be quite the same without that voice, the “harmonica” or the idiosyncratic vocal phrasing he applies to practically every other word.

A nice collection of songs by the gravel voiced faux-Scot.

The distinction between him and The Faces is a hazy one for me. The only difference seems to be that he fronts every song on his own albums rather than occasionally letting Ronnie Lane have a go.

The two early Rod albums on the list have given me a new respect for him. My previous impression was mainly of a cheesy, easy-listening lothario, more famous for his hair, the leggy blonde on his arm and his leopard-print trousers than for being a genuinely terrific singer.

3½

It's got some good tunes and good production, but, a bit like listening to Billy Bragg singing about socialism for an hour, it's great is you identify with the subject matter but is a little repetitive when you don't. I definitely prefer this way of delivering a message to the hip hop method though

Bored bored bored bored bored.
After the first, actually, quite decent track 'Billy Jack', the album plods aimlessly.
The high tenor falsetto becomes more and more annoying.
The keyboards sound like they were made by Fisher-Price.
Some great funky guitar work is the only thing that redeems this album. Slightly.
Is it finished yet?
(My production advice would have been to release Billy Jack and Hard Times as an EP and dump the rest in a skip)

Well.
That's different.
I can't say I wasn't entertained
But some tracks entertained me more than others.
Some stuff was catchy.
Other bits were a real chore.
Nothing really grabbed me enough to bother listening again

I used to love ABBA before I grew up and saw the light. And by 'saw the light', I actually mean 'succumbed to peer pressure'.

By 1981, I was into metal, and an ABBA patch on my denim jacket would have been a bit of a fashion faux pas — assuming the denim jacket wasn't already one.
And anyway, Agnetha had acquired a dodgy perm, which also reduced my… ahem… interest.

So, by the time The Visitors came out, I’d moved on and pretty much ignored it.

What an idiot.

This is a seriously good album. Maybe their best? It’s darker, more reflective and packed with brilliant songs, perfectly arranged. *

The title track is an absolute cracker. It also opens the ABBA Voyage show in London, which has made it even more memorable for me. Dark, dramatic and instantly atmospheric — those ABBA boys knew exactly what they were doing.

It turns out I hadn’t seen the light at all. I’d just been blinded by my peers and too much denim.

* Provided you listen to the album as intended, rather than wading through the “bonus” bloat Spotify insists on stapling to everything.

(Listens : 5 yes seriously 5!)

Who's the daddy!?

I've been waiting for some Kraftwerk. And I have to be honest - I didn't love this as much as I thought/hoped I would.
I enjoyed the structured melodic stuff, Autobahn and Kometenmelodie2.
The more random noise, Kometenmelodie1 and Mitternacht were a bit of a struggle
But this has to be on the list. It's the daddy of so much.