Reviews by stevey_

A new kind of Brit Rock for a new millennium. I remember how fresh “Clint Eastwood” and the music video were when it came out… Not that I had the language to describe what I was hearing back then. As a teenager, this was alt enough that it didn’t feel weird to like it, but popular enough that people would know who you were talking about.

I’ve been in a surprise Beatles rabbithole lately, so it’s fun to check in with ‘The Stones’ to hear what they were up to in ‘66. So which version do we listen to - UK or US? Maybe that depends on your affinity for “Paint It, Black”, which is a very conspicuous difference between the two versions.
The UK version is a good Blues/R&B record, but once you know PIB could be on this record, it’s tough to feel like it’s a full-strength record without it (I have a similar complaint about several Beatles records). “Under My Thumb” is strong but it wasn’t gonna move units in America on its own. Also, I’m pretty curious about how “Stupid Girl” managed to be track 2 on both versions, because yikes.

Pop music for goth kids fits firmly into that ‘alt pop’ category that’s just a little too weird for the mainstream but is just a little too bubblegum to be counter-culture. It’s like a cheat code for alt kids like I was, that let me listen to pop-adjacent music without the icky sellout feelings attached to anything you’d hear on that end-of-the-dial pop radio station.
Listening to this today, it feels pretty dated and I’m struggling to decide if it holds up. Ultimately. I can listen to this whole record, but I probably wouldn’t choose to.
(It’s the morning after, I tried to do a relisten this morning before writing my notes and only made it through a few songs before I decided I’d heard what I needed.

“The Boss” is apparently my mom’s very favorite artist (I never would have guessed), so I try very hard to connect with his music. I spent most of this album contemplating the overall concept before finally reading the Wikipedia blurb and realizing the concept is just “dude, the demos ARE the album”. I guess it’s fitting even Bruce was so bored by this record that he couldn’t bother to re-record it with his band or tour on it. Or maybe he was just really feeling himself and his singer/songwriter chops? I kinda hope it’s not the latter; Bruce’s best songwriting is when he gets out of his own damn way and lets someone from the E Street Band rip a perfect not-guitar solo.
Anyway, sorry mom. Bruce has his moments but I don’t feel like this is one of them.

Oh golly. I’ve been listening to a lot of shoegaze on my own time lately, so it’s probably a good time to get this as homework. I wasn’t blown away, but it sounded surprisingly relevant and modern for a band who’s been doing it since the 80s and took 15 years to record this (12 years ago). Maybe shoegaze is one of those genres that just - nah, nevermind, I’ve listened to plenty of older shoegaze records that don’t stand up anymore. Listen, good on them for nailing this. I wish more songs had defined percussive guitar melodies like “only tomorrow”, without things like that shoegaze starts to kinda run together a bit.

Like I said, not blown away but if someone told me MBV was their favorite band, I don’t think I’d judge them too much.

Two Metallica albums in the same week? Sweet, let’s get ‘em all over with! My ungenerous initial take is that it’s just non-Christmas Trans-Siberian Orchestra. My ungenerous second take is that Silverchair’s Neon Ballroom (an album of new songs recorded with a orchestra) was recorded in the summer of 1998 (Australian winter) and released in March 1999 , the month before this album was recorded. Must have been something in the pre-millenium water.

I remember when this came out, but I don’t remember knowing that it was a live album; that adds a slightly more interesting element I hadn’t expected. I always thought this would probably be my favorite Metallica album, but that's not saying much. Certainly, the nearly 2.25hr runtime will not help its case. That's a lot of Metallica.

Final thoughts: If you’re going to do a live ‘best of’ album, this is a fun way to do it. I wish other bands - ones that I like more - would engage in similar projects. Who's a good example? Let's say Deftones. A Deftones + Symphony album could crush. 5 stars for that imaginary record, 3.5 stars for this real one. Sorry, gotta charge the Metallica tax.

22% of this album is “Good Times”, and the rest is just good times; I had no idea that song was 8 minutes long. I always thought disco was dead by 1979, but maybe that was just an aspirational dream (or revisionist history) here in America. Certainly, this feels much more like peak disco than the last gasp of an already dead genre. I'm not sure there's a bass player alive who hasn't at least attempted to learn the bass line to "Good Times" as an intro to playing disco/funk. That's an enduring legacy all on it's own.

I listened to this because I'm a completionist, but I did not need to hear all of it to know how I feel about it. It's one of the most important metal albums ever, and contains several of Metallica's all-time classics. Sadly, it's impossible for me to divorce my feelings about the music from my feelings about the band, and can only care for Metallica from a musical anthropology perspective. To that end, I watched the VH1 Behind The Music more times than I could count when it came out in the late 90s, but I've never owned a Metallica record. As a guitar player, the only things that ever interested me about the band are the classical guitar intros that they like to dabble in (I also mentioned this on my "...And Justice For All" review). In this case, that's primarily "The Unforgiven" and "Nothing Else Matters".

The enduring impact of this record forces me to rate it higher than if I were rating purely on personal preference. One of the longest hour long records in recent memory. My review of "...And Justice For All" said that I wasn't really annoyed to listen through that record, but I don't remember if that was just because it caught me on the right day or what was going on. I certainly feel a little annoyed to listen through this today, so I'm gonna price that in.

I liked this one. It feels like disposable vaporware-adjacent 2010s pop music more than an enduring classic, but I'm going to embrace it anyway. It's certainly of its time, but not quite as 'of its time' as a few of the other records from this time on list (The XX, so much landfill indie, etc) I was interested to see that I already had "Recover" saved to my Spotify "Liked Songs" and I still believe that's the standout track on this record. "The Mother We Share" was the big hit and should be familiar to anyone who lived through this era, but it's not the better song.

For the most part, I knew what to expect here (which isn’t a bad thing). Nevertheless, I did get one surprise at the end: I’d never head “Once I Had A Love (AKA The Disco Song)” before. It’s pretty transparently an alt version of “Heart Of Glass” and I might like it more? Maybe that’s because I’ve heard HOG so many times that this just feels fresh. Who knows. Unfortunately I can’t listen to “One Way Or Another” without hearing Angelica Pickles from Rugrats, and that spoils one of this album’s anchor tracks for me.

Anyways, as a fan of punk history, I think this is great and wish there were even more women in punk. Not quite enough saxophones to be on the same level as X-Ray Spex, but pretty close. Also, that Angelica thing really kills my ability to play this record start-to-finish.

I listened to this record back when I reviewed Atardust a few months back. As a whole, I like this album more than that one… even if it didn’t spend ten straight years on the billboard charts. That said, I can’t say I’m particularly enthralled with either. Sleepy country ballads just aren’t my jam.

It’s a foggy morning in late February and you do what you always do - wake up about an hour before you’re supposed to log in for work, check your phone for any “important” overnight notifications, then see what your music homework is for the day. Suicide by Suicide, you've heard of them before but have you ever actually heard them? Is it gonna be hardcore punk? Let's find out. You hit play and listen while you start moving through your morning routine. It's definitely not hardcore punk. Bathroom, put on your robe to go downstairs for coffee, you glance at the pill-minder full of vitamins on the kitchen counter to see what day of the week it even is (it’s Thursday). While you drink your coffee you read a mix of the highest rated reviews for today's album and the Wikipedia article about it. Everyone seems to hate this record for reasons you don’t fully understand yet. Your main takeaway is to brace yourself for “Girl” and “Frankie Teardrop” - noted. You’re listing to “Johnny” now, you check the queue, those songs are next. And it's right about now that you realize something interesting: somehow, this album is perfectly auralizing the repetitive psychosis of living alone and working from home. You chew on this thought while you sip your coffee and start writing album notes. today you'll tell a story instead of just dryly pontificating about the grand meaning of the record you've been assigned. Buried way down the page on a niche website, nobody is going to read it anyway. Ok, so maybe this whole thing where Frankie Teardrop wants to kill his family doesn’t fully resonate (at least not as much as the album title), but the back half of the song, with all the whooping and screaming, seems to perfectly mimic the way your soul has been desperately trying to escape this isolated winter prison it’s been trapped in these last few months. You continue writing. Somehow "Johnny" is playing again. You need to go shower, you only have 13 minutes until you're supposed to start working. But be sure to make your daily Emergen-C before heading back upstairs; you don’t want to get sick. Remember that tickle in your throat over the weekend? That was a close one. You're really behind schedule now, you haven't even logged into the company wellness app to track your daily stats. You’ve really let this morning get away from you. How do you even rate an album that makes you feel all of this? I guess the whole purpose of art is to make you feel something, right? Do we rate solely on that metric today? How do you explain to someone that you don't really like it THAT much and you only gave it five stars because it came to you on the perfect morning to trigger an existential crisis? I guess we’ll find out.

I confess that I knew nothing of Brian Eno’s work before this morning. Sure, I’ve heard his name mentioned countless times over the years, but I’ve never once felt compelled to listen to his music - and if I had, it’s highly unlikely I would have picked 1975 as my entry point.

This album is weird. Not in an unapproachable way, but in a slightly disorienting “out of its own time” kind of way. Parts of it feel very much like late 60’s post-Beatles psychedelia, and other parts - the electronic elements - feels very advanced for 1975. Without looking, I might house this loosely under the ‘prog rock’ umbrella when describing it to other Eno newbies. The combination doesn’t feel forced or overly complicated, it just feels like a natural evolution of the psychedelic sound - if The Beatles kept making music together past 1969, I think we could have gotten a few tracks similar to “I’ll Come Running” or “Golden Hours”. Still, the instrumental tracks feel new and freshly experimental; Eno is making his own art and not just channeling influences.

Confession #2 - I’ve recently watched The Beatles Anthology and I’m in the process of watching Get Back (2021) so I am DEEP into Beatle lore at the moment, which no doubt has colored this review.

In highschool (early 00s), there was a faculty band called “The Barely Ables” that would occasionally play at school events and my memory is that like half of their set was CCR songs. They’re about as Classic Rock(TM) as you can get. They have a stripped-down, bluesy, grit about them that I should really embrace, but for whatever reason it's never quite taken. I know the big hits here, "Green River" and "Bad Moon Rising", and "The Night Time Is The Right Time" was a fun little bop to end the record. Actually, I'm kind of surprised it didn't end up as the second-to-last track on a Van Halen record (where they always seemed to stick a blues cover); maybe if Dave had stuck around another album or two. I see a lot of people calling out "Lodi" as their favorite CCR track, and I guess I get it but it just feels like a distillation of so many of their other songs that it doesn't feel all that fresh or original. If you had to explain this band to someone with one track, it's probably a great choice.

Would I listen to it again? Sure. Would I buy this and play it? I doubt it. I have a suspicion that a greatest hits record would give me all the CCR I need.

As haunting an album as I've ever heard, even before I understood the tragedy of his life and short career. I could never have placed this record in 1969; how does one manage to sound timeless and still ahead of their own time? What interesting instrumentations and arrangements, this has the feel of someone who has spent immensely more time doing studio recordings than a kid recording their debut record. Just when you think it's all acoustic guitar and strings and woodwinds, you get the understated twang of an electric guitar chopping right through the mix.

This is my first Nick Drake album, and I'm happy to be able to start at the beginning. I understand that his other two albums are also on the list and I look forward to hearing how his output develops (or not) over his brief career. I wish this album came to me on a day where it matched my mood better, but I'm still able to appreciate it today. Perhaps revisiting in the right headspace will deepen my appreciation in the future.

I remember a time in my 20s (the late 00s) when it seemed like I’d always run into dudes who needed you to know about their favorite rock & roll band that they definitely liked way before guitar hero, and it was always QOTSA, Muse, or Wolfmother.

I appreciate that QOTSA made sure rock & roll stayed alive through the nu metal era, but a part of me has always felt like they were destined to be future dad rock. 20something years later, I don’t think I was wrong.

Admittedly not my favorite Pink Floyd work, but it’s got great moments. Like how much of 80s culture was built off the intro to “Run Like Hell”? Or how often do you still hear “Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2”, “Comfortably Numb”, or “Hey You”? But it feels bloated compared to Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, or Animals. I appreciate the themes and what they were trying to to do but the double album just doesn’t totally do it for me.

I actually didn’t realize this came out as late as 1979, and the movie was 1982; I assumed both were earlier in the 70s. I would have put this nearer to Dark Side in their chronology, not after all three of the records I mentioned above. I don’t know if that really changes anything for me… I guess their prime years were later and lasted longer than I thought? Or maybe my version of their prime years doesn’t include this record? Is that sacrilegious? Idk, I think I would have been underwhelmed by this after Animals.

I’m sorry, there’s no reason that side one can’t just be seven separate tracks; doing that would have made this present like a shockingly normal rock & roll album. I don’t begrudge them their sci-fi future opera, I just think they could make a single attempt to not appeal only to nerds.

I'd never listened to a Jack White solo album, but it turned out exactly how I thought it would. He's not doing anything radically new here, mostly just evolving his (by now) signature sound into larger arrangements and occasionally throwing some twang on it. Somehow those changes make it feel kinda tired to me. After 15 years of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather, I'm sure he was a little tired so maybe it makes sense.

It's palatable, rootsy rock & roll that would please a crowd at any big music festival or state fair (He's gotta have a few White Stripes songs on the setlist too, right?). It has its moments, but I don't know why it's received so much praise over the years. It's like Taco Bell releasing a new menu item that just combines their existing ingredients in a new way but somehow people still lose their minds about it. I was always more of a Del Taco guy anyway, so I'll cleanse my palate with some Black Keys now.

I'm starting to lose track of how many albums on this list feature a white guy who can't/won't/doesn't bother to sing. Lambchop may be a masterful songwriter and composer(?), but this vocal style immediately lulls me into a sense of indifference. I guess I'm just trying to match the artist's energy.

This record feels like Bill Callahan or Giant Sand and the guys who made the Virgin Suicides soundtrack got together to make an album. It's lovely, but it's the lowest energy background music I can imagine; it's like a soundtrack for being snowed in a remote mountain cabin for a week. Sure, it's beautiful but, my god, please make something exciting or different happen! To that end, I guess "What Else Could It Be" offers an upbeat mid-record reprieve from the monotony, and on "You Masculine You" he uses a forced falsetto to underline the mockery of his message. So I guess I'll give him credit for being clever. Still, it's not an extremely exciting record.