Reviews by stevey_

I was initially put off at the idea I should listen to any artists 'late era' work... Let's face it, these albums are more about the extra paycheck and feeding ego, right?

Well, maybe not. Somehow this album sounds contemporary for 2016, while also calling back Bowie's spacey Ziggy Stardust days. I like the noir jazz stuff (“Lazarus”, “Dollar Days”), more than I like the parts that attempt to be ultra modern (“Girl Loves Me”). There’s a lot about this album that I really like, but I’m sorry to say the vocal performance isn’t at the top of the list. I think my chief complaint is that it’s missing the fullness and presence of a younger singer. I appreciate Bowie’s vision here, but I wish he could’ve tackled it in an earlier era.

My first listen of this was super early in the morning… sometimes I wake up and “pre-listen” to the day’s album while I snooze. Incredible move! I haven’t had a hallucinatory experience like that since college, and this time I was completely sober!

I understand all the critiques about the repetition here, there is a great deal of drum jamming here that not everyone will appreciate (if that’s you, skip “Asabache”). I’ll admit I got frustrated during “Simba” because it has a certain “guy makes bird noises with road construction in the background” quality to it that I couldn’t connect with for 6 minutes.

Aside from those two notable outliers, this album is very proto-Buena Vista Social Club and I'm glad to have heard it. I also appreciate that we're holding strong on the original 1957 Blue Note recording of this and there aren't a bunch of remastered versions out there. I'll add this to my ever-growing fantasy vinyl collection.

Imagine how many times your favorite musicians had to play a song in the process of writing, practicing, recording, and touring with it. Now imagine them being excited about doing it again with music that sounds the same. For that reason, I can't really fault artists for choosing to take big swings and making something different... unless different = more boring, I kinda don't love that (*cough* The Velvet Underground *cough*). This is certainly not more boring than 1972's "Something/Anything?".

This album is a freight-train on a rollercoaster track; Todd really indulged himself and chased his dreams here. 56 minutes is a very long single album, but it moves quickly and covers a lot of ground. If Todd died after making this album, I could see it held up as his masterpiece and him talked about like a legendary visionary we lost too soon. As it stands, he's continued to live & work and gave us the smash hit "Bang the Drum All Day" in the 80s - building a very different narrative for his career. I listened to this record twice today but probably need 5-6+ more spins to get my head around the whole thing. Much to my own surprise, I'm willing to make that investment in a Todd Rundgren album.

I'm starting to wonder if the late 70s & early 80s was my ideal musical era and I was born twenty years too late. Saxophone Punk(TM) makes me lose my mind every time I hear it (even if X-Ray Spex did it better). At some point I’ll need to start complaining about the volume of post-punk and new wave albums on this list, but not today.

This album probably isn't required listening unless you're a genre fan. Spotify defaults to the original UK track listing which stacks "Dumb Waiters" and "Pretty In Pink" right up front. The result is an album which, unfortunately, starts to sound pretty same-y through the middle, and then ends with a mellow double-whammy of "All Of This And Nothing" and "She Is Mine". The US order makes for a slightly more engaging listening experience and I'd recommend that - it's the version that starts with "Pretty In Pink".

While we're taking about it, "Pretty In Pink" became the most notable track from this album because there was a John Hughes movie named after it and (a re-recorded version) was featured on the soundtrack. Listening to it today, I'm struck by how much the vocals sounds like something that could have come out of a band like Orgy or Deadsy in the early 00s.

The song "Let's Stay Together" is a library-of-congress-level classic, but this album isn't serviced by putting it first. All the following songs kind of blend together without much definition and I wish they put "Let's Stay Together" further back in the track list. Don't get me wrong, Al Green has a great voice and every song here is smooth, sexy, and immaculately produced; it's just hard to tell them apart when they're all stacked on top of each other. "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" barely stood out to me, and only because it's already in the zeitgeist (it seems like it's used in tv/movies more than the original Bee Gees version). The only other song I remember with any distinction is the last track, "It Ain't No Fun To Me"

I like this as much as I’ve liked any of the African music I’ve heard in this list so far (not as much as Ali Farka Toure, more than Koffi Olomide). I’m happy to listen to it, but didn’t realize when the album ended and Spotify radio took over. It’s perfectly fine, but unremarkable without a deeper understanding of its context within Senegalese music history (which I don’t have).

As far as essential pop albums go, this probably should be near the top of the list. I know people will make up their minds about this based on their opinions of Taylor Swift, and that’s a disservice either way. Whatever you come into this album expecting is probably what you’ll find.

The album title is a reference to Taylor’s birth year, but also the musical era she was taking inspiration from. 80s music was having a moment in the 2010s, kickstarted in part by the Vaporwave heavy soundtrack to the movie Drive (2011). The opening track of 1989, “Welcome To New York” is heavy with vaporwave style synth and sets that 80s tone for the album. In fact, there are a lot of keyboard forward tracks here, which is a striking departure for an artist who had previously been known for writing her music on guitar.

This album relaunched Taylor as a pop artist. It’s pretty close to being a “no skip” album, but not because I think all the songs are bangers. Instead, I think they’re mostly perfectly fine pop songs (“All You Had To Do Way Stay” stood out as a track that I could live without). I had to listen back to the non-singles a few times just to remind myself what they sounded like. This is a very good album, and I can’t fault anyone who says it’s their favorite TS record. I’m gonna hold back my rating a little bit as I think Reputation may actually represent Taylor’s peak career-to-date pop songwriting (even if it’s more hit-or-miss).

This was a huge record for Billy Joel and, by extension, for rock & roll history. At least 5 of the 9 songs here (see below) are Billy Joel classics you're guaranteed to hear on any greatest hits album ever made (or on easy listening radio on any given day). I totally appreciate the craftsmanship here but it's not my thing. I passively hear these songs so often, and might even sing along sometimes, but that makes it hard to CHOOSE to listen to this record, ya know? We don't have to be strangers, but I don't think we're gonna be friends.

Hit List:
"Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)"
"Just The Way You Are"
"Vienna"
"Only The Good Die Young"
"She's Always A Woman"

I haven't reviewed any of the 7 Beatles albums, 6 Rolling Stones albums, 5 Led Zeppelin albums, or 4 Pink Floyd albums on this list, but this is my 2nd Aerosmith album in less than a month. As someone who lived through Aerosmith's resurgence in the wake of the movie Armageddon, I've had enough Aerosmith. And I swear to god if I get a Bon Jovi album next...

Even casual Aerosmith fans will already know 1/2 of this album and the other half sounds essentially the same and will go down just as smooth. Aerosmith is basically the original version of Buckcherry - remember Buckcherry? It's just kinda raunchy hard rock party music and I really can't think of anything else to say about it.

Aerosmith hits heard here:
"Love In An Elevator"
"Janie's Got A Gun"
"What It Takes"

The band name, album cover, and release year lead me to guess that I'd hear some corny synth-pop new wave (prejudging albums by their covers is my favorite morning game). I was pleasantly surprised to get something a little different when I pressed play.

Side one is a pretty straightforward jazz record. Not experimental jazz, it's the kind of basic smooth jazz you learn when your teacher doesn't trust you to play outside of 4/4 yet; the kind of jazz I learned to play when I was 14 years old. Jazz is complicated - you show off too much and you sound pretentious, you don't show off enough and it also sounds pretentious, but in a way that makes you look like a poseur (pretend-tious? let's coin that). On second listen, I could be convinced that "Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse" shows off enough to prove their jazz chops; I don't care enough to dig deeper on it though.

Side two is a little more dynamic and maybe could have been a separate album. "A Gospel" (Track 8) is a rap song that I never need to hear again, but after that we get some jazz new wave fusion! I was unaware of the concept of jazz new wave, but it seems inevitable that someone would try it. Whether intentional or not, this record does capture that plastic soul quality of the early Bowie new wave recordings. I do feel like these guys were genuinely trying and didn't mean to leave it so soulless.

This was a side project from Paul Weller (of The Jam) and Mick Talbot. I previously reviewed one The Jam album and was thoroughly unconvinced that it was doing anything new/different/exciting; I guess I can't say the same about this record. I still just can't get over all the pretense here. Even dropping the "The" and calling the band "Style Council" might have done loads to lighten things up, but I get the feeling that's not what they were going for. Wherever I land on my rating, know that it got a full star removed for "A Gospel". If I owned a physical copy, I might intentionally scratch it in a way to make that track forever unplayable.

If you're not into prog-rock or experimental jazz, the first three minutes of this record are going to be a real challenge for you. I don't think you'll like anything after that either, but those first three minutes are definitely going to take you "Close To The Edge" of your mental fortitude. The title track is eighteen minutes long and takes up the entire first side of the record, even though it feels like five different songs. Only "And You And I" and "Siberian Khatru" made up the original B side, and then there are four bonus tracks for anyone who still hasn't had enough. Those bonus tracks do contain a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "America", which might be enjoyable for casual listeners.

The instrumental landscapes are expansive and exciting, and the tempo stays pretty high so it really feels like you're on an adventure! However, the vocals start to wear on me after a while. It's like the adventure has a tour guide who keeps squawking facts and anecdotes over the PA while you're trying to look at the scenery and there's nothing you can do about it. I guess it's hard to plead for a "less is more" vocal approach in a genre built on ornate sonic excess.

Prog rock is for nerds! But this is an important listen to appreciate context for the backlash that gave us a lot more low-brow rock and roll (and punk!) in the 70s. Ironically, I hear the roots of post-rock in prog too, but that won't develop until the 90s as a reaction to all the low-brow rock and roll (and punk!) of the late 70s and 80s. A fun ouroboros to explore in a (quite nerdy) future discussion!

Joan must be one of those “if you know, you know” artists and I’m embarrassed to admit that I had absolutely no idea before today. It’s possible that I’ve heard Joan Armatrading's name in passing, but I can’t say I recall hearing her spoken about in a meaningful way and that feels wrong. She’s been nominated for Grammy Awards in 1980, 1983, and 2007, and that doesn’t feel like enough recognition. She’s also still making music, which is incredible.

I keep having to remind myself that this came out in 1976 because it feels like it could have come out in the late 80s or early 90s. Knowing this was at least 10-15 years earlier, and she just went ahead and kept evolving right on through the 70s, 80s, 90s, until today... it kinda blows my mind. Listening through the rest of her catalog only bolsters my opinion of her work. There's folk, there's funk, there's country, there are all the things (including new wave in the 80s!). I have a sense that Joan quietly influenced so many of the singer-songwriters who came after her and I’d highly recommend hearing this record at least once (and then maybe check out some others)!

“Down To Zero”
“Love And Affection”
“Join The Boys”
"Like Fire"
“Tall In The Saddle”

PS- if anyone knows where I can get a t-shirt with this album cover on it, please let me know. I'm a Large.

Ella has a beautiful voice and the Gershwin brothers wrote some modern classics that absolutely deserve to be called "standards", but 3.25hrs of homework is an unreasonable amount of homework for a purely recreational project like this. This is “final boss” level music homework and should only be given out as album number 1001. I guess I should be grateful we weren't given Ella's entire Great American Songbook series. Or are the other pieces still coming?

This is a textbook on singing and I can easily see this used as a benchmark by which all other female vocal performances are measured. She also won a 1960 Grammy for "But Not For Me" from this record. This is fantastic work, but I don’t think I’ll be sitting through it again. My rating represents the quality of the work here, but accounts for my disinterest in engaging with it again. It’s the highest 3.99999999 I can give.

Van Halen’s Balance Tour (June 1995) was my first concert ever, so I’ll acknowledge my bias right here at the top. If this album - arguably their second best - is on the list then I have to assume their self-titled 1978 debut is also here somewhere. If not, Mr. Dimery and I need to have some words.

This was David Lee Roth’s last album with the band (we’ll ignore that 2000’s ‘Old Halen’ era album out of respect) and it was a nice return to form for the band who had struggled to recreate the smashing success of Van Halen 1. Commercially, they certainly did it with 1984, but I’m not sure there’s any comparison in a musical sense. It’s got all of the signature screeching guitar work you’d expect from 80’s era Eddie Van Halen (which again, doesn’t match the more mid-range smoldering/smokey tone he used on VH1, but I’ll stop comparing now). And a bunch of very 80’s keyboard work that I never really needed, but further demonstrate how much EVH brought to the table. I should mention that David Lee Roth also contributed a lot, like when he did SO GOOD at jumping in the “Jump” music video. Gosh, what an irreplaceable legend. For me, the best part is hearing EVH experiment with some different guitar tones in the later tracks.

Regardless, 1984 is a fun and pretty lightweight 80’s hair metal album that gave us a solid chunk of any “best of” Van Halen record you’ll ever hear.

“Jump” - Hit
“Panama” - Hit
“Drop Dead Legs” - a perfect example of how VH sounds like the better version of KISS (a rant for another day).
“Hot For Teacher” - Hit
“Girl Gone Bad” - only for the guitar tone, otherwise the song is just a slowed down derivative of “Hot For Teacher”. Would love to hear the HFT lyrics over this instrumentation though!
“House Of Pain” - they put down the hairspray and end the record with 3 minutes of oldschool late-70s metal.

PS: I listened to Van Halen 1 as many times as I listened to 1984 this morning. It’s really not even a comparison. I can’t wait to talk more about that one.

Bruce Springsteen is everything electric Bob Dylan could have hoped to be. His signature Telecaster (arguably the best, but least cool, electric guitar ever produced) aids his working-class-every-man aesthetic and effortless cool. He’s a great storyteller, and all of the saxophone and keyboard solos demonstrate a selfless type of songwriting that I can respect - he doesn’t play either, but he knows the songs need them more than they need another guitar solo. My point is: Bruce is great, no matter how much I can’t make myself become a fan.

“Thunder Road”
“Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”
“Born To Run”
“Jungleland”

Leonard Cohan may be a brilliant poet and lyricist, but he has the voice of an accomplished actor who’s been given the lead in a musical… but can’t actually sing at all. No matter how hard he tries to smother himself in background singers, he just can’t hide that unflattering truth.

By the time you get through “Jazz Police”, you’ll be either a bonafide fan or a completely broken person. Or maybe I’m just not in on the joke.

“First We Take Manhattan”
“I’m Your Man”
“Tower Of Song”

Randy Newman has the voice of a disaffected Muppet and, based on this album of 2-3min songs, the attention span of one as well. Some of the songs barely even get going before they’re over, and that makes this feel more like an album of demos… even though many of these songs had already been recorded by Randy and/or other musicians before this record. Some of the songs would feel a little depressing if it wasn’t for (1) that muppet voice, (2) the fact that the song ends before the despair sets in, and (3) the next track starts with a circus rhythm.

It’s so unintentionally whimsical (and sarcastic) that it’s hard to hate. Randy Newman and Tom Waits exist on opposite ends of the same spectrum, and I’m a fan of that spectrum. I’m “as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree”.

The Wikipedia summary of this album: “Scott 4 is Scott Walker's fifth solo album. It was released in late 1969 under his birth name, Scott Engel, and failed to chart. Reissues have been released under his stage name. It has since received praise as one of Walker's best works.“ ... is proof that absolutely nobody cared about this until they found out the guy was already famous.

He’s no Engelbert Humperdinck, but I’m willing to bet Scott Walker was one of the few singers Morrissey listened to as a child. Hopefully that suggests everything you need to know about Scott's style of misanthropic crooning and I can spare us both the essay length review.

I might not be cool enough for The Velvet Underground and it feels like one of those times where even asking myself that question means that it's probably true. Fortunately, by this recored, Lou, Doug, Sterling, and Moe also seemed to question whether they were cool enough for The Velvet Underground.
Legend has it that Lou Reed pushed to make this softer/folkier/pop record instead of a more direct follow-up to 1968's White Light / White Heat. Choosing to subvert their own sound is the most punk rock think they could do, and that somehow makes this as proto-punk as their other albums. Sonically, there's nothing avant-garde here except for "The Murder Mystery" and, without the context of the preceding albums, there's not a whole lot to discuss about the record. The band all shared lead vocal duties across the album, so that adds some flavor. They must have felt similarly underwhelmed because they just let this record be self titled instead of bothering to name it. Welp, yawn to the next one!

"Candy Says"
"What Goes On"
"Pale Blue Eyes" (a cult classic!)
"The Murder Mystery"
"After Hours"

“We have Dire Straits at home” vibes up and down this record. I like it more than a lot of the synth-pop style New Wave that was destroying radio by 1984, but this… Honky Tonk New Wave? Roadhouse New Wave? Country & Wave-stern? never took over or made a big enough splash to mean much to music history… or did it? Maybe this aided the country music crossover that would eventually give us Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain, and all the bro country in the radio today? I fear I’m reaching for meaning, and also terrified to be right, so I’ll shut up.

I still need some convincing as to why we aren’t letting this one rest in peace back in 1984, but I might be re-listening to this until I get it. Woof. Absolutely not how I thought this review would end when I started writing it.

Highlights:
When Lloyd Cole says “vITimins” in “Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?” Nothing says C ountry like British pronunciation.
All of the twinkly guitar fills that help sew the seeds for Midwest Emo in the 2000s.