Reviews by stevey_

I’d rather this than Frank Sinatra. I listened through it twice in a row and, while I think it’s too long, I was entertained. Seriously, how does 50min feel so long?

The album starts off pretty fun and upbeat, but ends on a real downer in “Mama Liked The Roses”. If this was an actual concert, that’s an awful way to send your crowd back out into the world.

I do like that Hagstrom he’s got on the cover though.

A David Bowie classic, if only because of the iconic album cover. The music within is fine. It's pretty standard early 70s glam rock, a la Elton John or any number of other acts. It feels very rock opera, with elements of some Rocky Horror cabaret, which is something I struggle connecting to when there's not a visual story to follow along. Bowie apparently called this 'Ziggy Stardust visits America', so there was at least a vague attempt to tell a cohesive story.
This list has succeeded in making me care about David Bowie, and maybe that's why I feel a little disappointed with this record. I know he's made Honky Dory already and he will make Young Americas, both albums I've rated highly...What did I rate Heroes? Maybe this gets the same. I suppose every great journey spends some time in the middle of the road.

"Watch That Man"
"Panic In Detroit"
"The Jean Genie"

Is it St. Patrick’s Day already?

I am never annoyed to listen to The Pogues, but I don’t know that they’re a band I ever actively seek out (except maybe in mid-March). I listened to this 3-4 times and found it incredibly compelling. I’m not sure if an Irish band making anti-English music is more punk or folk, really. Either way, I like this version.

“A Pair Of Brown Eyes” stood out to me every listen

Nothing against Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, but this was a tough listen. At least trying to listen to the “Love & Devotion” double album version on Spotify.

I’m sure this is really good qawwali music, but I don’t have any kind of reference point to measure against. Admittedly, a blind spot in my world music repertoire.

I respect Bob Dylan, but I don't seem to connect with much his music. I thought this album got better in the back half (from "Meet Me In The Morning" on) but still just not my thing. Maybe with a few more listens I'd learn to like it but we'll never know.

I "came of age" in the late 90s and missed this album by a few years. I remember my childhood best friend's older sister had it, but that's as much as I knew about it at the time. I do have distinct memories of the Lauren Hill and Wyclef Jean solo albums, and owned the former. I always wanted to circle back to this record because I understood it was a big deal, but never could justify spending money on this few-year-old CD when there were newer things I also wanted. The pitfalls of being a young, broke, hypebeast, I guess.

Sometimes this list serves you albums in a way that seems like it's intentionally helping you build context. In this case, I got The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill last week, and Liquid Swords by GZA earlier this week. The Lauryn Hill connection is obvious, but the GZA piece is interesting. I tend to think of the mid-90s as being prime 'gangsta rap' era, but between WuTang, Fugees, and I'm sure plenty others, the roots of 'alt hiphop' are also here. The Chinese restaurant skit on "The Beast" really helps underscore the spiritual connection to GZA/WuTang; but let's all be glad the skit era is over, right? Still, if I have to pick a cringiest moment here, it's "No Woman, No Cry" - I appreciate the intent but, at the end of the album, it just feels kinda corny and beneath them. "Killiing Me Softly With His Song" is the showstopper that I think "No Woman, No Cry" wanted to be; there's no doubt these tracks switched position on the live setlist.

Anyway, I didn't just listen to this one time (one time), but two times (two times) and really enjoyed it; I get the hype. I'd buy it on vinyl, but only if you promise the bonus versions of "Fu-Gee-La" won't be included. The bonus tracks really make this feel long in the tooth; let's just end it with "Manifesto/Outro" like they clearly intended.

220-something record in and finally a Beatles album! And an early one too! I’m glad I can have some semblance of chronology for a change.

Like I've said in other reviews, it's a little unfair to compare a record to the same band's later works. The Beatles became a phenomenon on the back of this record, but they didn't become THE BEATLES(TM) for the songs here. So, let's put aside the fact that they will become the biggest and most influential band in the whole world (forever and ever, probably) and look at this like any other mid-sixties pop album. By that measure... it's totally fine. If you're a person who seeks substance in everything they listen to, look elsewhere. But if you want a fun record you can still put on, turn up, and dance around the house like a goofball - this record is for you! There's not even a song on this record long enough to justify skipping - at 3:01 long, "You Really Got A Hold On Me" is the second longest song in the whole first half of The Beatles' catalog. Fun fact, at 3:09, "Ticket To Ride" from Help! is the longest song on the first seven Beatles records!

“Ace Of Spades” is one of the all-time great rock & roll songs. It is everything rock & roll should be- it starts at full force, never relents even an inch, and it’s under 3 minutes long. For that reason Motörhead will always be royalty… even though they might be the least good famous band to ever exist. Seriously, and I say this with love, Motörhead is like an even lower-brow version of Slade or AC/DC and I suppose that’s an accomplishment all on its own. That little bit of punk rock really does a lot to punch up the ‘party rock’ sound.

This is a fun album except that the ‘sex with minors’ stuff kinda dampens the vibes. Maybe you could curate a Motörhead playlist though? Please just do it better than that live Motörhead album I listened to a few months ago which sounded like 8 attempts at recreating “Ace Of Spades”. I guess that’s better than 8 versions of “Jailbait”, but it still gets tiresome after 30 minutes.

"The Passenger" is on my Lifetime Playlist (my personal Greatest Hits), but "Lust For Life" always felt like it was trying to hard to court some pop success... so right off the bat, my opinion about this record is mixed. Thankfully, this record leans more towards the former, with the notable exception of "Success" which sounds like a Rolling Stones cover built for mainstream rock radio. Despite Iggy's influence on creating punk rock, he's not really making punk in 1977, he's still just kind of doing the same brand of hard rock he was doing in 1973. If you weren't aware of his history, you might even consider calling this post-punk. You can even hear a little bit of plastic soul in the vocals on songs like "Fall In Love With Me" (thanks, Bowie!), or maybe it's an attempt to mimic Jim Morrison as I saw someone else theorize. I think the effect is the same, and you're attribution of intent probably depends on your general opinion of Iggy.

The more I learn about Iggy Pop’s history the more I get a creeping suspicion that he was more of a puppet than a proto-punk genius. Who is Iggy Pop without David Bowie? I suspect the answer exists somewhere in his discography, but I haven't gotten there yet. Regardless, their collaboration gave us some pretty great music on both sides and probably inspired an outsized portion of the records in my collection.

I didn’t really get into Wu Tang until way too late, but I could imagine a world where I listened to this record so much that it became an irreplaceable classic in my life on par with Nas’s Illmatic. Is it the best hiphop record I’ve ever heard? No. But it’s got a great laidback vibe that resonates with me more than the gangsta rap of this time period.

I have vivid memories of listening to this CD in my discman, in 1998, while I got braces put on my teeth. It’s difficult for me to be objective about the music here because it was so formative for me, but I’ll say that the re-listen highlights all the skit/interludes. By far the worst pitfall of 90s hiphop albums.
Im also keenly aware that as a middle-class white male, this record is specifically not for me (and certainly wasn’t when I was 12). Nevertheless, it’ll always be in my canon.

I let this play on loop for so long and it never stopped kinda sounding the same. It's not bad, it just kinda keeps droning on forever and ever, building towards something but never quite getting there. I guess that's the idea? I think I'd be disappointed with this record if I paid money for it, but I didn't and I'm not.

"In Your House"
"A Forest"

I bought The Very Best Of Deep Purple in highschool, which I’m sure I bought just for “Smoke On The Water”. That CD introduced me to “Highway Star” and “Space Truckin’” and the incredible impact of a well fingered organ.

The back half of this record is a total banger, and I say that as someone who’s very tired of SOTW. “Lazy” is a new track for me but it’s great. “When A Blind Man Cries” is also pretty good but technically not part of the album. Seems like I should dig into a few more Deep Purple albums.

I can understand the complaints that this felt too pretentious in 1994. If you gave this to me without a date stamp, I would've guessed it was an early-mid 80s 'post-punk' New Wave record, and that genre feels like it was well dead by 1994. If not, it certainly wasn't in the post-grunge mainstream anymore. I hear some Prog Rock influence here - like Suede was focusing their nostalgia on the early 70s (Yes, King Crimson, even some Pink Floyd and David Bowie) instead of the usual early 90s brit-rock nostalgia for the late 60s. Kinda fun to contemplate that - punk developed as a counter to prog, then post-punk developed from punk, and new wave from there, then new wave starts pulling inspiration from prog and ends up in the same pretentious place that started the loop in the first place? Interesting that even after grunge (punk 2.0) exploded, there were still bands doubling down on this kinda sound.

Anyway, I like new wave, so I listened to this record several times and grew to appreciate it. I'm not sure I love any of it enough to revisit the album in it's entirety, but it has some moments I'd circle back to. I have no other experience with Suede (or, "The London Suede" as they're also known), so I can't comment on how this compares to their other work.

Notables:
"Introducing the Band" - this could be the opening for a Pink Floyd album
"We Are The Pigs" - the second most played song according to Spotify. My favorite
"The Wild Ones" - must have been the hit
"The Power" - very King Crimson
"The Asphalt World" - more prog-rock
"Still Life" - the most pretentious song on the record, but not in a bad way? There's a bit of Phantom Of The Opera style theatrics here that I didn't expect.

I can’t explain it, but this makes me want to watch The Last Unicorn.

1973 is comfortably in the era where prog rock got too nerdy for casual listeners. Spotify listen counts tell me I'm not alone, but my favorite track is "Book Of Saturday" because it's only 3 minutes long. Also, the opening riff has definitely been sampled for some hip-hop, right? Whosampled.com isn't giving me anything, but there's 100% chance I've heard that riff in alt hip-hop before and I NEED ANSWERS. That's probably going to bother me more than the visual of a jello full of bird tongues, but I'm destined for an aneurysm either way.

I’m going to celebrate all the Bossa Nova on this list because I’m not convinced there’s enough (they certainly did Herb Alpert dirty by snubbing him). “The Girl From Ipanema” and “Corcovado” are two of the most recognizable Bossa Nova tracks in existence and these versions may be THE versions… “So nice you get ‘em twice!”
A must-buy record for your cocktail party record collection.

Van Morrison was the Saturday morning music of my childhood. I have distinct memories of waking up and walking downstairs to the sounds of Van Morrison and a vacuum cleaner as my mom cleaned the house. When I got older I bought several VM records, including this one, on vinyl and have started many weekend mornings with them.
Then the pandemic happened and we found out Van Morrison was kind of obnoxious. That’s a frustrating development that gives me some pause before reaching for those records now. Otherwise this would be an easy 4 stars.

This was a pretty large dose of guitar chaka-ing for a snowy Saturday morning. It didn’t really resonate with me on the first pass, but I think it was on shuffle and that might have disrupted the flow. The second listen proved a little more fruitful for me. To my surprise, this is a pretty good record that I wouldn’t have otherwise ever bothered with. Certainly relieved that “Red Red Wine” isn’t on here, and pleased that there were several tracks without any vocals at all. Maybe UB40 is an alright band after all.

“25%” stood out to me both times through.

This is another certified African (fusion?) banger. Why do I simultaneously love and loathe what Ginger Baker and Ry Cooder did for African music? I sure wish they didn’t, but I’m kinda glad they did. All hail white saviors!

According to wikipedia, the original album is only "Disc 1" of the remastered collectors edition on Spotify; I'm not a collector, so I won't worry about the extra credit.

Side 1 of this record pretty strong. "Fisherman's Blues" is the big hit based on listen counts, and that's followed up by "We Will Not Be Lovers" which is an early frontrunner for 'banger of the day' (but maybe a little long in the tooth at 7 minutes long). Even "World Party", the least played song on side 1 is a very solid track. The cover of "Sweet Thing" brings me great joy as someone who has too many childhood memories attached to Van Morrison. This particular arrangement also reminds me of the structure of "A Murder Of One" from the Counting Crows' August And Everything After, an album I also have too much history with.

Side 2 is a little less strong as they delve deeper into more traditional instrumentations. "And a Bang on the Ear", "When Ye Go Away", and "The Stolen Child" are keepers, but I don't need the rest. "When Will We Be Married" is, I'm sure, a traditional classic that I should revere but I don't care.

Overall, not mad at this but I don't need the whole 'original' record, and definitely don't need the second disc.