Reviews by socksonfire

Everyone I hung around with played this album a lot, and I did. It was on the juke box where I worked. Patrons liked to play it. I heard it again and again and again. And again. Metal grunge. Heroin withdrawal depression music. Great time!

Always interesting reviewing an album I know very well. I think I’ve owned it in every format since QT made Son of a Preacher Man super-famous in the ‘90s.

So imagine my utter bamboozlement to learn last night that Dusty Springfield is a Brit! A Brit? Anyways, now I need to recalibrate the last 30 years of my life.

When your album cover is this hilarious your star-rating can’t go below 3. Add a few groovy tunes, and you may be on to something.

One thing it’s nice to think is that an album’s biggest mass hit is kind of the worst song on the album.

Beatles albums are so f’ck’n awesome. They make it seem like anyone could do it.

ABBA holds an intriguing space in my heart. My folks had ABBA’s Greatest Hits on vinyl when I was a child and I was obsessed with this thing. I must have spun it 100 times or more between the ages of 7 and 12. I ever after had a soft spot, but as greatest hit compilations grew in quality and scope, those remained the albums I would pick up on cassette, then CD. So I have curated a huge love for those songs.

But then comes their albums. The hits remain killer, but the rest remains filler. I want to love it all the same, but they are the definition of hit and miss.

I think this is a sweet album, and the hits are almost the best of the best. Still. Padded with filler. But I can’t go lower than 4.

How to review and rate an album that was pretty good, I liked it fine, but it constantly reminded me of other earlier albums like Cheap Thrills and In-a-gadda-da-vida. It sounded ok, it just wasn’t anything special. It didn’t feel additive.
Sounds like a 3.

Funny-looking band who put on a really great show. How to assess something that’s both dirty and harmless?

Did Elton John love country music? This album sort of reminds me of country music, if Meatloaf did country music. That there was a time and place where Indian Sunset seemed like an awesome idea is a testament to progress.

All that probably sounds like I didn’t like it.

Korn is bad for the digestion, both going in and coming out. It doesn’t help that it sounds like Jonathan Davis is singing while sitting on the can. If it was 60 minutes shorter I might give it a charity star because of this tidbit from the Wikipedia: “According to Wright, Robinson went to extreme lengths to agitate Davis in the vocal booth, including punching him in the back repeatedly.”

Call the mandatory minimum 1-star I’m required to select the charity star.

This one caught my attention for several reasons, even though I’d never heard it before.
1) The album cover. A welcoming collage with lettering both quaint and unusual.
2) The release date. Spotify put it at Sept 1,1974. Whether that is accurate or not I do not know, but on Sept 1, 1974 I was only hours old.
3) The Byrdhouse. When we had the Byrds assigned a while back, it was Sweetheart at the Rodeo, an album that absolutely did not work for me. The Gram Parsons influence was too much, and it had no relevance to what I thought the Byrds were all about. Now, reading about Gene Clark, I’m starting to connect the dots around that whole Byrds thing, and No Other tells me all I need to know about why Sweetheart at the Rodeo was wholly unlike the earlier Byrds I am more familiar with.
4) The legacy. Any time an album faceplants miserably out of the gate and the artist “never recovers”, only for that album to reappraised a masterpiece years later, well, always worth giving that album a bit of time.
5) The songs. They seemed so familiar. I guarantee I’ve never heard any of them before, but they just were connecting with me hard. I founded I wanted to sing along real bad, but unfortunately didn’t know any of the words or any of the melodies. Like that nightmare about being in a play but different.
6) The production. Sounds like the team spent some dough to make this album, but I found the mix incredibly crisp and clear. Every instrument was transparent, and balanced in a way where nothing was overpowered. It enables the ear to really wander around the instrumentation.

So to cut to the chase, today was a wonderful 1001 listen.

No band has ever committed harder to the simple ethos of sex, booze and rock and roll. Partying.

An easy breezy low-stakes album stuffed with bangers, this one. It reminds me of eating cereal and reading comics for some reason.

Prog rock can seem like a bit of a chore, but time and again I sort of like it when it’s happening. A bit weird the prevalence of the violin on this one, but endearing. Not sure this one will pop up much more in my life, but glad to give it a chance today.

ThIs is the kind of weird little hidden gem that really makes me love this project. If the album had a smidge more variety I may have rated it even higher.

First repeated band assignment. There was a time I’d point to In Rainbows as a personal favourite Radiohead album. I enjoyed the revisit, with some very high highs, but the lustre was a bit off the full package.

My Miles fandom is limited to a few very cherry-picked albums. This was not one I’d been introduced to before, but the musician lineup is incredible. And it really blew me away. It will be getting a lot more time in my earholes for sure.

I kind of hoped I’d be more into this, but my listening experience went steadily downhill in a linear fashion between the first minute and the last. Luckily it started pretty good.

This one makes me very curious the criteria used to make the list. Here we have a band with a bunch of incredible albums, and today we are offered on of their very mediocre titles. Why? Maybe The Cure have several on the list, and it will all make sense in the end.
I admit, it sounded pretty good on headphones.

Outdated soft rock for lame dads or sexy proto-yacht rock for sexy daddies? Well, I’m pretty hot, and I like it.

Bonus star for the Pointer Sisters’ cover of Dirty Work being a high point for all music. Guess what? It didn’t need the bonus star because I already love this record.

I have a turbulent history with R.E.M. it’s undeniable their early albums inspired me and greatly opened my mind to new kinds of music. But I turned against them hard as they grew into superstars. Green hangs right in the nexus of those two feelings. Some parts turn me on, some parts turn me off. But it definitely transported me to a different phase of my life. I really really want to give it 3 1/2 stars. Both 3 and 4 seem too extreme to me in opposite directions..