Reviews by soundowl

(10/10)

An incredible alt rock album that combines punk and power pop sensibilities in a way that's fresh and exciting <3

(Light 8/10)

A very nice folk pop album, it's got the all time classic "Me and Julio", and sees Paul playing around with different and eclectic style of music such as on the song "Mother and Child Reunion" and then dipping his toes into the blues on "Hobo's Blues". It's clear that without Art holding him back, he's able to fully bloom as a songwriter.

(Solid 9/10)

Yeah, stellar album! Duh!
The concept is compelling, the storytelling is masterful, the intentionality with the production and features list is impressive, and even more in my opinion is the ability to keep a listener enthralled for 68 minutes and not even realize that the same song has been playing for 12 minutes. This album is DEEP. There's so much awesome stuff to dig into. I think this album is pretty much on par with TPAB in terms of musicality and concept. While TPAB wins out for me in terms of overall maturity and growth as a musician and artist, this album is still really really fucking good. Even the weaker songs are still really great (also funny as hell now seeing Drake on a feature.. lmao). Yeah, this one is absolutely amazing.

(Light to decent 6/10)

Okay... maybe I'm just not into this right now, but I really don't know how to feel about this overall.

Musically, it's very minimalistic with very light synths and bass, the drum machine is very low in the mix like a rapid but faint heartbeat. There's organ sometimes (which actually takes me out of the music), and the vocals.. I think this is where it's losing me. On songs like "Frankie Teardrop" the vocals are incredibly potent. The hushed and frantic narration, the sudden shrieks that sound like they're coming from the depths of hell, it's a frightening track both in sound and subject matter. Definitely the album's highlight, although I don't know if I would willingly put it back on.

The vocals on the rest of the album are very Lou Reed-esque, with a subtle and uncomfortable closeness to the ear that really gets under your skin. The song "girl" is probably the most uncomfortable song for this reason. If the instrumental was more funky this would be Porn groove lol.

So yeah idk, I found the walking surf riff of "johnny" to clash with the mood of the record thus far, and I found songs like "rockin usa" and "che" to be kind of underwhelming. "Ghost Rider" was cool, but very short and the song didn't end up evolving into anything more than it's basic foundation. I would've liked it to build up into something.

Yeah it's quite apparent this album was very influential for a lot of reasons, I think maybe I'm not personally in a dark enough headspace to fully grasp this, but thinking about it, it's the same reason I don't really enjoy Lingua Ignota records really. The unsettling and dark despair is only so effective, and eventually it becomes a conundrum with "do I even WANT to seek this out to listen to it?" It's not like I found catharsis in this music either. So yeah really all I can chalk this up to is: This is not hitting right now, and I'm not sure when it will.

(Light to Solid 8/10)

A very fun debut LP! It's got a great blend of punk attitude with pop sensibilities. The musicianship is tasteful and proficient and Chrissie Hynde is a phenomenal frontwoman who stands out wonderfully, especially for the time. I don't have too much to say outside of this just being a great time.

(10/10)

It's arguably one of the best vocalists of all time singing old-timey feel good music! Just throw it on shuffle and let your cares melt away

(10/10)

It's a weird kind of funky but also kind of dark record that starts really energetic and enthusiastic, but devolves into a rather stark and bleak experience that feels like peeling back the layers of society and seeing the true dark within. Groovy!

(Solid 7/10)

Pretty good! I didn't realize Richard Thompson was on this, so naturally the guitar playing is really good. The Fiddle that's utilized here is also really good as well. I think what holds me back overall is that sometimes the traditional folk tunes aren't as interesting to me as the actual arrangements are, but even still I had a good time with this one.

(Solid 8/10)

While Thriller was a hit-making-chart-topping-mainstream-monster of a record, it's actual listening experience as an album was not as good to me. Bad figures this out while simultaneously delivering on monster hits. It's got dynamic range from song to song, melodies and hooks that stay with you for decades, and Michael still proves he's locked in as a cultural zeitgeist with iconic looks and music videos galore. The forward thinking production on tracks like "Smooth Criminal" and the title track just further establish this album as a worthy successor to his previous effort. In fact I would dare to say that this album tops Thriller altogether.
it's not Bad at all.

(Strong 8/10 to a light 9/10)

Honestly this album is essential listening for 90's radio-ready alt rock and pop period. Alanis brought something to the table that was open and soul baring to an industry that was all too eager to exploit. She killed it of course.

(Strong 7/10)

Speaking purely from how much I enjoyed this record, it's very good. A few songs didn't wow me as much but it's short and sweet, and the musicianship is pretty stellar. Jazz-trained indie rockers that also draw from psychedelic rock, there's really neat stuff that happens here.

Now...

My main beef that I wanted to share here on this site is my formulated opinion on the 1001 albums project. I'm only a couple hundred albums in, using the generator mainly to shuffle my listening experience. I also own two editions of the book. The 2016 one and the 2021 one. I foolishly paid 100 dollars for the newest one thinking it would be an overhaul when in reality they only replaced 5 albums with newer ones. So that felt like a scam. My other main gripe is the amount of (or lack thereof in this case) attention that the new millennium gets in comparison to the modern 20th century decades. The 60's through the 90's touch on obviously great and important albums in music history that would be required listening, but then you get a TON of filler. Like I seriously did not need to hear Paul Revere or The Electric Prunes before I died. The fact that so much of those decades are just filled with kitschy one-offs but the 2000's-2010's don't have MADVILLAINY or DEATH GRIPS or KGLW or hell ANY METAL MORE EXTREME THAN MASTER OF PUPPETS is BEWILDERING to me. The total focus on western/euro-centric music is also very disappointing. Like, they do TRY a LITTLE BIT with sprinkling some Hindustani music, Sufi Music, Hispanic and Latin music here and there, but East Asian music is hardly explored at all, African music hardly gets touched on (aside from the stuff that Paul Simon and David Byrne were hyping up), and it just feels like the potential for a book like this to seriously expand one's music taste was squandered (like the Louvin Brothers weren't THAT important were they??).

I say all this, because listening to White Denim today made me realize that the mission statement of the author and the editor was largely ignored and this became a collection of personal staff picks with some Western Culturally Important albums sprinkled in. This album is good, but it's not really anything new or boundary pushing or reinventing a worn-out genre. Music from the past 20 years is full of creative and dynamic and inspiring music, and Robert Dimery kinda just glosses over it without really taking it seriously. If the author dared to consider more extreme versions of metal, more electronic music, more underground Rap and Hip Hop, or even PUNK and EMO, you could EASILY fill out the past 20 years to a sizeable chunk that gives it the proper amount of time and dedication it deserves to have.

I think if Dimery wants to wait a few more years just to sprinkle a few more albums in and charge his readers 100 more dollars, he should instead start over, cut down the filler, keep it as NECESSARY as POSSIBLE with as much objective picks as you can. For when new music comes out that you feel needs mentioned, just release a new book for like the past ten years titled: "101 more albums from the past decade you must listen to before you die: A supplemental entry by Robert Dimery". Like, idk I think music fans who find this project interesting would probably appreciate that better, or at least I know I would.

So yeah, all that to say, this album is good! Just uh.... idk not "sitting on my death bed so glad I heard this album in my lifespan" good.

(Strong 7/10)

A great album is hidden amongst the vast quantity of material here. It starts off incredibly strong with a string of hits that are amongst him and Taupin's best, and then the rest of the record is a bit of a hodgepodge of great song ideas mixed with awkward writing and a handful of pastiche to go along with it. I think if this record were trimmed down more and the tracks rearranged, this record would be phenomenal. Sadly, that seems to be how it goes with the Elton John records I've heard thus far. His best albums to me always seem to be his greatest hits records. That being said, the only song I really didn't care for was "Jamaican Jerk-Off", everything else was pretty good or amazing.

(Strong 7/10)

A concept record that satirizes hippie culture and mocks conservative political stances and even crticizes the kent state shooting. It's quite an amazing thing to come out at this time, and also for it to be as well-loved as it was.

I think conceptually the album succeeds where some of the music kind of gets lost in the absurdity. The sound collage and music concréte that separates some of the tracks gets a bit too silly and off putting for me, but honestly that's Zappa for you. I think there's other stuff from him I enjoy better overall, but this one is pretty solid.

(Strong 7/10)

Pretty fun record! The lead single "Cisco Kid" is fun but I heard it a lot on the radio as a kid and it kinda wore off for me. The track that really blew my socks off was "City, Country, City". That jam was stellar and the way they play off of each other was super cool. The psyched out dirge of "Four Cornered Room" brought it down a bit for me, but really this album is just a good time. Will definitely grow on me more the more I hear it.

(Light 4/10)

Yeah idk, his vocals don't really command a ton of the presence that his poetry would require. There's some really neat stuff going on with the beats, but really at the end of the day this is not a memorable album and only a couple songs felt like they stood out. "Bladerunners" was pretty good actually, but I sort of attribute that to the featured artist. " To the Moon's Contractor" is actually a pretty mesmerizing instrumental, that on it's own is pretty fantastic. In the album though it sucks the progression through the floor and just makes this album DRAG. Idk, this is one of those confusing 1001 album entries and frankly, not having Deltron or Aesop Rock or El-P in the book is really really confusing when you listen to this.

(Light 9/10)

A very fun record with superb highlights and a kind of witty lyricism and "out there" chemistry that was very predictive of the conscious hip hop sub genre. For me the skits kind of chop up the album flow in a way that isn't very flattering to the project overall, but when it's good it's VERY good.

(light 7/10)

it was good
could have been shorter
I prefer Fela's approach to afrobeat I think

(Light to decent 6/10)

I'm not a movie buff, nor am I a film score enthusiast. I think that's why these albums don't click for me. Granted, this album has a lot more going for it than Moss Side Story did for me. I love the darkly disturbing sounds of "Business as Usual" and "Dirty Barry", and "Miles" sounds like something from the Spyro soundtrack. Everything after this; however, was extremely hit or miss. I really didn't care for the awkward Jarvis Cocker feature in the opening track, and Nick Cave's song was just OK. There were songs that didn't do much beyond paint an atmosphere, and songs that just coasted on by without as much of a memorable moment or hook or anything really. A lot of this album ended up sounding like musical wallpaper. Eh, at the end of the day I can see why the David Lynch's of the world would find this mesmerizing, just not me.

(Light 9/10)

If Sgt Peppers was Beatles at their peak creativity, White album is them at that same level but with no holds barred. This is what happens when an artist has unlimited reign to do whatever they want, and at this point in their career what better time to do so.

It's a bit scattershot, very bloated, but contains amazing gems and by the end of the record it's an experience you'll want to revisit.

(Strong 6/10)

I think the cultural significance of this record outweighs the impact of the music for me, frankly. It's pretty by-the-numbers for Bruce as far as the songs go, the actual thing of note would be his pretty radical difference of perspective following the 9/11 attack. Instead of rising up against a monolithic enemy, he instead calls for community and even offers a different perspective on the lives of people on the other end of the conflict. Even going so far as to try and get a glimpse into the mind of a terrorist on the song "Paradise". I think this record isn't bad by any means and I admire Bruce's willingness to tackle this subject in such a way that isn't blindly nationalistic and patriotic, I just think the music itself got bland after a while during the album's 72 minute runtime.