Reviews by stevey_

We need a scientific study of this album. It’s only 35 minute long, but every one of the 9 songs feels like it lasts 5 whole minutes. The math just doesn’t math and I need answers.
If you like guitar rock and/or Steven Tyler's voice, you'll enjoy this one.

Prior to this list I hadn’t spent much time pinning down exactly when certain music happened. To me, who was unborn until the mid-80s, this is classic "80s Metal" and it's wild to realize that it came out in 1980, was their SIXTH album, and they were already kinda famous. So I guess this is actually late 70s Metal and that puts JP squarely at the forefront of the genre. Some of this feels more like "Hard Rock" by modern standards, so it's a good place for the Metal-curious to start.

The genre is obviously defined by its crunchy distortion and 'widdly-wah' guitar solos, (this album is no exception!), but I'll also mention the new-to-them drummer, Dave Holland, who puts in a nice tight performance here on his debut JP record, and JP’s forever bass player, Ian Hill, who lays down a few really fat (almost funky?) baselines I wasn't expecting (like the intro to "The Rage"). I don't picture myself working this into my normal music rotation, but it's a pretty good occasional listen!

"Living After Midnight" > "Breaking The Law"

PS: The track order doesn't make a lot of sense in a post-vinyl world, but "United" was originally the last track on Side 1 of the record. That's great placement because you're always gonna get up to turn that bullshit off anyway, so you might as well flip the record while you're doing that. Pure genius.
"Red, White, & Blue" is pretty awful too.

The singles from this album sell Sheryl as a country-adjacent singer songwriter, which is broadly accurate, but doesn't tell the whole story. Sure, there’s plenty of twang here, but it's all from the guitars and not the vocals. Where Shania Twain's story will be "Country goes Pop", this album makes Sheryl's feel kinda like "Pop goes Country". I'm sure I'm missing plenty of context for the state of pop radio in 1993, but this sounds like it might be an important milestone for country/rock crossovers. Would Shania’s crossover been as successful without this? What about Faith Hill or Taylor Swift? I won’t commit to giving Sheryl too much credit, but it feels kinda true.

Half of this album ended up as singles, so you've probably heard a good portion of this record already. Those singles are enough to keep you busy, but if you're interested in going deeper, I have two recs:

"Solidify" - this is pretty funky and I love the organ. It totally doesn't fit the rest of the album, but that's what makes it so fun.

"The Na-Na Song" - also a departure from the rest of the album. It borrows from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" in the same way that Beck's "Loser" (also 1993!) does. Loser is probably the better song, but I enjoyed this too.

The singles (in release order):
"Run Baby Run" - this didn't hit in 1993, but feels like a Sheryl Classic now.
"What I Can Do for You" - you probably don't know this song because it was released before Sheryl started to break through, but it should have been a bigger hit.
"Leaving Las Vegas"
"All I Wanna Do"
"Strong Enough"
"Can't Cry Anymore" - It's clear that they were courting country radio with this one. But, hot take: if they held "What I Can Do For You" until after Sheryl started breaking through, it could have been released here and this song wouldn't have been a single.

I intended to be pretty standoffish about this, but I’ll be damned if the saxophone didn’t start winning me over 45sec. into the first track. Sadly, the sax is only a part-time contributor on this record; I guess a little bit is better than nothing though.

I'm not sure I absolutely needed to hear this album, but it was fun. It's predominantly early 00s indie rock (think Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, The Strokes, etc) with some heavy nostalgia for classic rock of the late 60s and early 70s. IDK whose friend the saxophone player is or how they got involved, but it's an endearing addition to the sound. They seem to wander around from hard rock to folk rock and everywhere in between. That approach is probably useful when you're playing small clubs and trying to win over as much of the audience as possible, but it doesn't lend itself to a totally coherent album.

On paper, Elvis Costello should check all the right boxes for me… but here I am, once again, writing a think piece about his voice. It’s kinda bad, right? I can tell he tries and he clearly writes songs for someone who can sing, but he always sounds just a little bit flat when he’s chasing notes. Sometimes it’s only a half step, but other times it feels like half an octave. I think maybe I’d like him more if he embraced his range and just did less. Maybe not. But his voice is literally all I can think about when I listen to his records, and that’s a shame. There’s a line in “Blue Chair” where he says “it’s your turn to cry and my turn to sing” and that feels like the most relatable lyric on the record.
I think I liked this more than Imperial Bedroom, but I’m still pretty apathetic about it. He’s got 33 studio albums, I’m sure there’s one out there for me.

Salsa feels like a pretty solid intersection of the Buena Vista Social Club record I reveiwed last week, and the classic Bossa Nova records that I'll sadly never get to review for this list.
I don't speak enough spanish to understand what they're talking about, except the part of "Pedro Navaja" where he says "La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
I like to live in America". Overall, a fun record to fill the salsa sized hole in your collection.

Traditional country music is just fine with me. I can handle it for the length of the album and a little longer… but not long enough to listen all the way through twice back-to-back; that’s just too much yodel & twang for me.
Despite their squeaky clean appearance, this album leans into some sad and dark subject matter that helped hold my interest longer than I expected. This is a good place to start if you’re looking for some background in traditional country and western music, so it's worth a listen from that perspective.

Some of these tracks are literally “we have Bob Dylan at home” songs. And others sound like they were written by whatever teenage guitar shop employee first taught Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) how to play guitar licks. Then there are times like “Where My Love Lies Asleep” where I can hear exactly how Neil Young would sing the song in his signature falsetto, but Gene Clark doesn’t have that kind of dynamism. If you think all of those artists are OK, then this middle-of-the-road folk album might be the OK-est way to aim all of that apathy at one record.
Folk music for people who have only ever said “scrambled” when asked how they want their eggs cooked.

Ironically, the song “Tears Of Rage” started playing while I was wrapping up the thoughts above (yes, I’m only 1/2 way through my listen). Quite apropos.

Edit: I’ve now heard his version of “Stand By Me” and feel completely vindicated about my previous notes.

My introduction to BVSC was the release of the live at Carnegie Hall record in the late 00s. At the time, I didn’t even know an earlier studio record existed, but I embraced the Carnegie Hall album completely (I even own the vinyl). It wasn’t until humiliatingly recently - like two weeks ago - that I fully realized this album existed and listened to it for the first time.

Obviously I'm a fan of BVSC and this album. There’s a little bit of magic in the live album that you don’t get here, but the studio clarity creates a richer mix of every musician’s contributions. Some of the compositions, like “Pueblo Nuevo”, seem built for a in-person jam and don't play so well in a studio recording. I'll also note (as others have) that the album seems to get tired as it goes on. It starts very energetic, and then slows down into ballads and piano tracks that don't bring the same energy. The live album seems to carry its energy longer so, I guess, just know your mood before choosing an adventure.

I've mentioned before that I watched a lot of VH1 Behind the Music in the late 90s and early 00s, and the Fleetwood Mac episode was on frequently. I'm well aware of the soaps-opera lore of Fleetwood Mac, but I've never made myself delve all the way into this double album before.

My first impression is that it's... a lot. Twenty tracks split between three different lead vocalists makes this feel more like a playlist than an album. FM was hardly a unified band by 1979 and this album lays that bare.

I'm interested by all the talk of 'incorporating post-punk' to their sound here because I struggle to hear much of that in my first listen. Mostly, I hear a lot of lethargic/ethereal motifs that don’t make a huge impression. It’s an hour and fifteen minutes long, but after it’s over it doesn’t feel like it took that long. I guess that’s good? But it also means my brain immediately omitted a large portion of the album from memory. I appreciate them putting the title track, “Tusk”, second to last though, at least that track will stay fresh on my mind.

I mentioned that I like weird things in my review yesterday and I should have known the algorithms were listening. From the reviews for this, I expected this to be way weirder than it is. It's certainly manic and there's a lot going on, but it's not The Residents or Lightning Bolt. This really leans into psychedelic rock, but with some heavier rock mixed in... Overall, their sound is kind of like a store brand version of Queen without the stellar harmonies or the charisma of Freddie Mercury. There's an occasional Pink Floyd quality too, but picture all the things Pink Floyd does in an 8 minute song condensed down to 3-4 minutes. If you had ADHD in 1974, it was probably fun to find an album that matched your frequency.

Notables (for various reasons):
"The Wall Street Shuffle"
"The Worst Band In The World"
"Silly Love"
"Somewhere In Hollywood"
"Baron Samedi"
"Oh Effendi"

In college I helped a fraternity brother "acquire" this album (and Ocean Rain) from the internet because it wasn't readily available on the popular apps all the kids were using. I know I listened to this album once I had it, but it didn't make much of an impression. Twenty years later, I have a better understanding of post-punk and new wave, but this still didn't make much impression.

This sub-genre of shoegaze-adjacent post-punk/new wave still isn't my thing. It's fine, but I don't really find anything sufficiently weird or infectious enough to grab my attention. I like more punk in my post-punk, and more funk in my new wave. Rather than a bunch of guys with avant-garde haircuts playing unremarkable music, I'd prefer dudes with unremarkable haircuts playing more avant-garde music. I'm going to put this firmly in the "Fine" zone, where I won't visit it for another twenty years.

I always forget how quickly “More Than A Feeling” ramps up. One minute in and it feels like it’s already the middle of the song and the solos are coming. It’s an intense way to kick off an album (and a debut album, at that).
Even if you’re under 40, you’ve probably heard every song on side one of this record. Side two doesn’t provide as many bangers, but all the songs sound a lot like side one and it’s not hard to imagine a world where they’re all hits too. Any maybe that’s my complaint about the record; it’s all a bit “one note”, isn’t it? Fortunately, it’s a pretty fun note.

Before I listened to this, I saw that this guy was convicted of statutory rape (of a 15yo backup dancer). That makes it difficult to separate art from artist, so I won’t.
This sounds like the kind of cliche music that White Lotus would use to establish the scene for a new season set in Congo (or, if we’re honest, anywhere in Africa). It’s the kind of carefree and danceable music people look for when they’re dabbling in World music, and I’m sure there’s another, less controversial, musician that sounds just like Kofi Olomide whom I could listen to without the inner conflict. I genuinely don’t care if it’s just a cover band either, as long as they’re from Africa and not sex criminals. Let’s maybe find them for the next list update?

It’s uncomfortable to declare cultural appropriation on someone of another culture who’s appropriating a third culture. A Ghanaian Scot making pop-adjacent Reggae (with a fake Jamaican accent?) is a British colonial fever dream I didn’t have on my bingo card.

I appreciate that this album sold well in the UK in the 90s, but it didn’t make a splash in America. In fact, if you exclude Ska, I don’t recall Reggae as a genre having a meaningful moment in America in the 90s. I understand America isn’t the center of the universe, but I’m trying to suggest that this was a very regional success that didn’t have any impact on the broader music industry. Putting it on this list is like me finding my copy of Sugar Ray’s hit 1997 record “Floored” in my CD case and deciding the whole world needs to listen to it because I remember liking it when I was 11. Or insisting that this list include an album by The Urge because they were huge in my city in the 90/00s.

For the most part, this is a nice, relaxing, ‘feel good’ record but it doesn’t make a lasting impression (except for the cultural appropriation). It should be firmly below the cut line for the next list update.

Yesterday I got Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark, and after the album ended Spotify played “Shadowboxer”. I guess Spotify and 1001AG had the same idea as I’m being “forced” to listen to this album today. So let’s pretend like I didn’t listen to it yesterday (or several times a few weeks ago) and talk about it.

In her own words, Apple says this album "was more for the sake of proving myself; telling people from my past something. And to also try to get friends for the future." Which are things she doesn't seem to concern herself with in later records. You can hear her trying a little too hard in some parts, but I know enough about the late 90s record industry to guess that likely wasn't all her fault. The machine needed things that sounded like Alanis Morrisette's juggernaut album, Jagged Little Pill (1995), so there's no way this record was shipping without a few songs that leaned more alt-rock madgirl than jazz-pop sadgirl. To satisfy the former we get "Shadowboxer" and "Criminal", and those are followed by "Slow Like Honey" and "The First Taste" which are prime examples of the latter. If you only have twenty minutes for this record, those four tracks are #3-6. [insert several winking emojis]

I was a little dismissive about this when it popped up this morning. I was only half paying attention to the first few tracks, but it managed to pull me back in the second half. I gave it a more intentional listen and, to my surprise, I enjoyed this more than I did Blue. I understand that this came out later but hearing this first might have positively changed my mind about Blue and Joni as an artist.
The production is very good across the album, and there's a lot of depth to explore - there are additional instruments and subtle layers that are easy to miss if you're not listening for them. I think her songwriting style (unstructured, unbothered to tie itself to choruses) lends itself to jazz and the album really comes alive when it gets jazzy in the backend. Overall, I prefer the second half of this album but that doesn't look like a popular opinion, based on the Spotify listen counts.
It’s got everything I'd need in a ‘weekend morning’ record and I’d consider putting it in my rotation.

Daft Punk's Discovery (2001) was the first electronic album I ever bought. That was my entry point to the genre and, in many ways, the measuring stick I use to judge all other electronic music. This record isn't quite as tight as Discovery, and the back half really seems to drag on forever... but it does have "Da Funk" and "Around The World" on it, so it's not a total write-off.

I was instilled with a healthy respect for Kraftwerk when I was in highschool. I never really listened to them, but I understood that they were the seed from which modern electronic music grew. Listening to this in the same week as that Les Rhythmes Digitales album (Darkdancer) really highlights how much this genre developed from 1977 to 1999. By comparison, Kraftwerk sounds like a collection of demos still looking for a producer/collaborator to step in and punch them up. This album has “good bones” but just feels undercooked by modern standards.

The vocals in particular feel like placeholders. Where you’d use a sample or bring in a real singer to belt out your vocal tracks today, Kraftwerk vocals are mostly just a guy speak-singing in a flat-toned German accent. It’s charming, for sure, but not a recipe for pop success. Have you seen that viral clip from the show X Factor where the guy (Beck Martin) sings the “It’s Friday Night” song? Go look it up. Kraftwerk vocals feel kinda like that. A few tracks, "Europe Endless" and "Endless Endless" do feature more distorted/digital/robotic vocals, but the rest of the album feels very unfinished in this respect.

I expected this to be weird and nerdy, but was surprised that it didn't go as far as I thought it would. At least not until side two.

The first track, "21st Century Schizoid Man", throws you right into the deep end with its distorted opening chorus, 'hard rock' guitars, and wailing woodwinds. The way they don't build it up makes it feel more like a reprise than a first listen, which is quite a way to start the first track of your first album. I've mentioned this on other records and my usual note is "it's like you're joining a conversation already in progress", but usually the band has put out a few records and has some expectation that the audience knows their sound. It moves pretty quickly from that chorus into jazz-style soloing without much segue. "21st Century Schizoid Man" feel like King Crimson's statement piece and it's no wonder it gets sampled pretty often (probably most notably on Kanye West's "Power").

They back off somewhat (but keep the woodwinds!) for "I Talk To The Wind". This feels like a much more approachable starting point for most people in 1969. It's pop and psych-rock, with a little bit of jazz - a far cry from the onslaught of sound in the first track.
"Epitaph" wraps up the first side of the record, and does well to combine the sounds we've already heard into a single (nearly 9 minute long) opus. The cinematic soundscape paints an expansive and optimistic picture for the bleak lyrics to trample over, if you let them. This is probably my standout track of the record, but I don't think you should go into it without warming up with the preceding songs.
Side two is where things feel firmly prog rock-y. "Moonchild" seems to borrow more from experimental jazz (think "Bitches Brew" era Miles Davis) than from anything in rock & roll. It's the album's least played track on Spotify and not hard to guess why. "The Court Of The Crimson King" is an appropriate title track for the record. It collects all the pieces into one track and gives us the classic 'renaissance fair rock' sound that defines early prog-rock for me.
In my review of David Bowie's "Heroes" I mentioned that David Fripp (the mastermind of King Crimson) was a collaborator, and it makes a lot of sense why they got along. I'm sure Bowie had heard this record, but I wish he and Fripp could have connected during the Ziggy Stardust era.

There are 5 tracks and I like 3 of them, and maybe an extra half point for overall concept, brings me to a 3.5/5