Reviews by socksonfire

As Kendrick took over the zeitgeist I’ve tried a few times. I have, so far, always walked away with the same opinion. He tries to jam so many musical ideas into every track that it’s distracting. I can appreciate the creativity and message intellectually, but a dose of restraint might be the missing piece that is preventing it from entering…my heart.

I love a brief album. This reminded me of suckling on a butterscotch hard candy. An odd, smooth, rounded sort of taste that is inoffensive and lacks any kind of edge, but it becomes kind of addictive the longer you suck it.

I like songs that talk endlessly about pussy as much as the next guy, and I’m down with a slick, vibey R&B album to soundtrack an evening. A bit of autotune nonsense was distracting, but otherwise I had good time with this one.

It was a CD store find. A fresh release, being played by the establishment for the browsers to browse to. I had to ask, and ended up adding Le Tigre to my stack. Over the years This Island got a lot more spins, but nothing ever really compares to your first.

I’m going to name a few things. You pick out the one that doesn’t belong.
Slavery
The Holocaust
Genocide in Rwanda
This sex is on fire

Just kidding. They’re all inhumane abominations.

This guy’s commitment to swiping Cat Steven’s schtick is notable. Even down to the level of vocal mimicry. Cat did it better (and shorter). Still, a handful of definite highlights save this one froma completely dire rating.

These short punchy little 60’s psych-rockers have themselves a tidy little corner. I won’t mention this album in my memoir, but it will be in The Book with all our other 1001 album reviews alongside my project partner’s excellent memoir..

Sometimes Leonard Cohen, brilliantly initialled LC, is better in my head than in my ears. At one point as I listened to Songs From a Room I moaned with a sob, “hurry uuuup. Pleeeeeeze.”

Though i never knew Bird on the Wire was his song. I still like the Neville’s Bird on A Wire 100 times better.

Still, not terrible.

My heart. My mind. My joint.

Gee, this wee britty bastard can write the dickens out of some ditties.

My 13 year old son observed that the piano lines sounds like they were played by my 10 yr old son. This reminded me a lot of Super Furry Animals, but I like SFA a lot better.

Some bad-assery is just well-executed. I am also sexually intimidated.

This came out almost on my birthday in 1994. Never appeared on my radar at all. None of my friends played it, and we were a music-obsessed bunch. This album must have seemed woefully out of touch in 1994. G’n’R we’re done. 80’s hard rock was a joke. But it also sounds on the leading edge of some atrocious bands like Collective Soul and Live, especially those first couple of atrocious tracks.

If this had been in my collection in 1990 it might have been one of my favourite albums at the time. From today’s version of me, once it gets past those bum openers I liked it, especially in headphones.

Age 14, as I nudged into the dating world, I began dating a girl who used apple-scented shampoo. We were both quite smitten until she went to summer camp. I mooned around while she was away, gazing at her photo and counting the days until her return. When she finally got back it was awkward and weird and she cut me loose shortly after.

The entire incident taught me a lot about dating, and the ineffective nature of me asking “but…why?” during a break up. Anyhow, this girl’s mother loved Simon and Garfunkel, and that mother had established enough of a family culture of loving Simon and Garfunkel that this girl I dated also loved Simon And Garfunkel. I listened to quite a bit of Simon and Garfunkel during and after our affair. I’ve both subconsciously and consciously associated S&G with that girl ever since, generally in an appreciative way.

While Sounds of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water rank pretty high up, I’ve generally thought of Bookends as overrated. Not as catchy, too many duds…that sort of thing. This time though I would say the album really opened itself up to me. I found to arc of it to be melancholy and wistful in a way that came as a surprise. I had to revise my opinion upwards.

Maybe, much like that girl who tormented my summer way back then, I’ve gotten older and wiser.

Because she’s real old and wise now too.

I despised this.

Bit of a hatchet job this one. I was pretty excited once I read up on what this album is, but it is one of those spins that really isn’t available on my part of the world. Even the you tube full album setlist was listed as “unavailable” a first for that particular barrier.

I finally cobbled it together from bits and pieces. It isn’t perhaps at the leave of Nick Cave’s peak albums, but I was very charmed by the diy tone and it reminded me of albums my friends have made. Imperfect but all that much the better for it. A couple did tracks, but some sly grooves in the mix. Too bad it’s so hard to find.

28 minutes and 55 seconds of blood death and holicaust deviltalk delivered in exactly 10-tracks. Yes this is a substantive review. When they rule, the 80’s really rule.

This album has a powerful Vigin Records Megastore vibe. Rank upon rank of white scorpion-riddled cd covers on flashy display racks . Echoes of a bygone era. This thing was all over the place as music stumbles out of the grunge era into the musical hellscape of the late 90s. This was a stepping stone. A pretty mediocre album, but we’ve heard far worse on this journey.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion falls into a particular blues-rock bucket in my mind occupied by such luminaries as George Thorogood, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and grandpapa Jimi. I can't fault the skill and passion, and vaguely nurture the feeling that "this would crush live". I always expect to love this stuff more, but get caught by a kind of shallowness to the whole affair. Talent galore, but not saying all that much. I don't know. Maybe it's there and I need to listen more to find it. Til then: 3 stars

I was initially thinking it would be hilarious to write a review discussing how i had put the exact same Suzanne Vega track on two back-to-back setlists once, and how I could never give her a fair shake after that. But I had to acknowledge that the background needed to appreciate that particular joke is far to arcane for the average user.