Reviews by stevey_

When I refreshed my 1001AG page this morning (Sunday, Nov 2nd), I saw the cover of this and - knowing absolutely nothing else - said to my partner 'Oh great, looks like I get to listen to some turn-of-the-millenium techno wanker today', and that's exactly what I did with the extra hour daylight savings gave me today. There's not a lot more for me to say about this one. If you like repetitive dance music, this is for you.
It's also fun that his watch says 12:14 which is 2x 6:7. An easteregg 26 years in the making.

I don't talk about Prince very much, but I probably should. He certainly deserves to be in the Funk/New Wave conversation I've been having for the last few months. This is just as weird (or more so) than Talking Heads, it's even more out there than The The, and I love that.

This album is a party? Maybe that should be a statement. Like, this would have come out in a time when it was hard to buy compilations and there was no way to easily build your own playlist, so I'm convinced this record was built to be a 'press play to party' record. That's kinda neat, Prince is the right guy for that.

Maybe I'll revise this rating up in the future, but let me see how I feel about the rest of the Prince catalog.

I swore I already listened to one, but apparently this is my first R.E.M. album from the list. I'll admit that, for reasons not fully known to me, I've never particularly cared for Michael Stipe. Maybe I saw him acting too self serious in an MTV interview once upon a time or something. With the exception of the unavoidable radio hits (a few of which are featured here), my prejudice has kept me away from the R.E.M. catalog for most of my life. I'm willing to put that to rest and see what I've been missing... but does this list really need four R.E.M. albums? let's find out!

I'm obviously jumping into the middle here. This is the band's fifth studio album and I'm coming in with basically no context for the four prior albums. My first impression is that the lyrics are very punk rock, but the overall sound is... not. If punk rock is cheap beer, this feels more akin to a cheap coffee. It's an interesting juxtaposition. "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" bridges the gap a little bit and I appreciate that. For the sake of belaboring a dead horse, we'll say there's whiskey in that particular cup of coffee.

There's a thread here that extends forward to "August And Everything After" by Counting Crows (not on the list), which was/is an important touchstone album for me and would be at the top of my personal 'required listening' list. For that influence alone, I probably owe R.E.M. more deference than I've ever given them. R.E.M. deserves to be on this list, but I'm still undecided if I need to do this three more times.

Classic tapedeck country music. I’m sure a lot of these lyrics don’t age all that well, but I can’t be bothered to listen that closely. I don't need the specifics to know Dwight is vaguely sad and that's really all I need from my country music.
Dwight Yoakam was a borderline-unfortunate looking guy in 1988, and time hasn’t blessed him in that respect. Fortunately, he can sing and play enough guitar to support himself. I trust that he’s experienced with heartbreak and things not going his way, so these songs sound genuinely autobiographical to me.

This could be a top tier album if it wasn’t for Flava Flav. Sorry, I said it. The hype man stuff is one thing, but they give him one track, “Cold Lampin’ With Flavor”, and it’s the absolute low point of the album.

You know the big hits, so I’ll skip those. My surprise tracks include “She Watch Channel Zero?!”, and “Party For Your Right To Fight”.

Generating this album on a rainy day during Halloween week is a cheap ratings ploy but the joke's on you, 1001albumsgenerator, because I'd probably rate this favorably anyway! And then I'd complain that I didn't get to listen to it closer to Halloween. There's a campiness here that I can't quite decide whether they were in on or not. If not, the sense of earnestness is endearing. Other reviews mention this sounding like Meatloaf collaborating with The Cure, or like Dracula tried to make a New Wave album, and I can hear both. It's fun!

Goth New Wave probably spawned a lot of dark Industrial music and influenced much of the music I listened to at the end of highschool. It's hard to say Sisters Of Mercy were a direct influence on Type O Negative (TON started as a very Metal/Thrash band), but I do think they settled down into a similar kind of 'Industrial Metal Shoegaze' sound later in their run; their album October Rust (a personal favorite October listen) definitely has echos of this album throughout. If you're looking for more contemporary influencees(?) this album calls to mind bands like She Wants Revenge or Heavens.

I'll probably only listen to this album one month out of the year, but I can see myself absolutely basking in it for that month.

A classic.
The skits and interludes wreck the flow of an otherwise pretty great album. Like many other reviews, those are gonna cost this album a full star. The misogyny (all over this album) doesn’t age well, but we’d go a long way towards cleaning that up if we just threw out those skits/interludes. I’d like to believe Biggie would have grown up and done better if he lived longer, but the recent Sean Combs (Puff Daddy, Puffy, P-Ditty, et al.) court case suggests he probably wouldn’t have.

Subject matter aside, Biggie’s flow is silky smooth and the production is impeccable. This is on a similar level to Nas’s Illmatic in the pantheon of great hiphop debuts, but I only have one of them on vinyl (and I have two copies of that one).

I totally didn’t know what I was pressing play on here but… female punk with saxophones?! I did nothing to deserve this gift.
I've circled back to this one a few times in the last week because it's so fun and novel and I can't believe I don't hear it get talked about more. We saw a lot of "girl bands" in the 80s (The Bangels, The Go-Go's, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, etc), and it feels like Poly Styrene and the gang could have really hit it big if they weren't 4-5 years ahead of their time.
We need more saxophones in punk rock (that ISN'T ska).

This album started well enough. I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t awful.. even if I came into it with prejudice because of how synth pop killed new wave. Unfortunately, after 4-5 songs it starts to fall apart. Track 5, “Sex Dwarf”, is simultaneously a high and low point, as it's both pretty funny and pretty awful. I can’t think of a good reason to recommend anyone even bother with side 2 of this record.
Only a true masochist would listen through the extra tracks on Spotify to go the full 1hr 14min. I did it, but I was on the train home from Chicago after riding my bike 350 miles in 2.5 days to get there.

“The Weight” is a classic - how many movies have had their happy ending set to this song? But the rest of this felt very monotonous (in the “monotone” sense more than the “long and tedious” sense). If you’re going to be THE Band, I need you to do more. The other standout for me would be "I Shall Be Released", but the Neil Young-esque falsetto vocals don't work for me here.

For the most part, this is solid (if totally ignorable) background music.

Unfortunately, by 1966, the British had already come. I'm sure this was good in its time, but outside of "Kicks" and "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone" I don't remember anything that stood out (and I tried listening to it 3 times). Much like the New Wave albums - I like Psych Rock, but I don't think I need to hear EVERY record in the genre before I die.

This was ok until the narration stuff started on side 2. I saw a few reviews that mention this is like a Monty Python parody of psychedelic rock, and it’s hard to disagree. The only reason I’d come back here is to share the absurdity with someone who’s never heard it… so, in that way, I guess it makes sense that it’s on the list of albums you must hear before you die.

As an album, this isn't very cohesive and I'm not sure I can speak about it as one thing. There are moments here that I really like, and some that I don't have any feelings about.
This was recorded during the time when Bowie was living and working with Iggy Pop in Berlin - Bowie would record three albums, produce two for Iggy, and tour as Iggy's keyboardist. Wild. I'd love to say you can hear all of that extra-curricular punk rock in this album but I don't know that you can - if anywhere, "Joe The Lion" and the intro to "Black Out" show the most influence. I'll also mention Robert Fripp (the founder of King Crimson) who played guitar on this album. I mention prog rock in my notes below, and I wrote that before I knew about Fripp's participation. I think that says everything.

"Beauty and the Beast" - The lead-off track is a great callback to the plastic soul on 1975's Young Americans (the last Bowie album I reviewed).
"Joe the Lion" - this feels like it started as an Iggy Pop song but then Bowie kept working on it until it was his. A great example of how punk became post-punk.
"Heroes" - ended up being one of Bowie's most enduring classics.
"Sons of the Silent Age" - Feels like a callback to 1969's "Space Oddity".
"Black Out" - If there's any lingering doubt about Bowie's influence on establishing new wave as a genre, convince me this couldn't be a Talking Heads song.
"V-2 Schneider" - A little bit prog rock, a little bit new wave, a bold amount of saxophones. Basically an instrumental but they sing the song title a few times.
"Sense of Doubt", "Moss Garden", and "Neukoln" are a real departure from the first side of this record. These are all kinda strange instrumentals that go in different directions.
"The Secret Life of Arabia" - We finally get lyrics on side 2! After the instrumentals, this was a good palate cleanser for me.

This is a much more dynamic album than 1978's "Dire Straits" (previously reviewed). But I'm not sure if that means it's better. If Dire Straits was a bunch of songs all iterating the same idea, this album is a bunch of ideas competing for album time.
"Money For Nothing" and "Walk Of Life" were big 'ol hits, so this album sold a lot of copies. Then there's tracks like "Your Latest Trick" which starts with a long saxophone intro that's a little reminiscent of a Herb Alpert bossa nova trumpet part... uh, what? And African flutes and a lot of Pink Floyd vibes on "Ride Across The River". Despite all of that, the album still just feels lethargic. As unimpressed as I was with the self titled album, I think I preferred that to this?

If you told me this morning that I’d end up listening to this 4-5 times today, I would have called you a liar to your face… and then I would have acted against my own self interest and non listened to it that many times even though I kinda wanted to. That’s just the kinda person I am, and maybe that contrarian impulse is exactly why this (objectively weird) pop album resonates with me.

The autobiographical songwriting feels very akin to a Taylor Swift album but where Taylor can feel like musical theater, this feels more like open mic poetry reading. The lyrics are raw, personal, sometimes dark, and sometimes darkly funny. The instrumentation and song structures feel very improvised which I’d later find out is because they were. I spent at least two full listens debating what genre this actually was, and if I’d classify this as jazz. Apparently someone decided it’s just pop, so well just stick with that.

I went into this cold, without the backstory or the circumstances of the recordings or anything. I still don’t know the stories behind most of the lyrics, but I now understand that this was recorded at Fiona’s house over a period of about 5 years with a few collaborators and edited entirely with GarageBand.

I knew I’d have to listen to this at some point and here we are. The Eagles are very boring, but I guess that appeals to a lot of people. I was impressed by the bass/percussion on “Hotel California”, I feel like I’ve only ever listens to the guitar/vocals and missed a redeeming quality of the song. “Life In The Fast Lane” is the anthem for office workers who need to feel like their life is still exciting. "Try and Love Again" is also fine. Beyond that, idk, I fell asleep (honestly).

This is quite a rebound from 1988’s Surfer Rosa. Outside of “Where Is My Mind?”, that album is a pretty abrasive record. Clearly Pixies learned their lesson and shifted a little more to the center here (or they just grew up a little more, who knows).

If "Where is My Mind?" was a pop-leaning outlier on Surfer Rosa, then "Here Comes Your Man" is Doolittle's unabashed attempt to storm the mainstream. Where as WIMM? is arguably the saving grace of Surfer Rosa, HCYM feels like the pockmark on an otherwise pretty lovely pre-grunge record. Songs like "Debaser", "Monkey Gone To Heaven", and "Hey" would have been plenty to anchor this record had it been released in the Grunge(TM) era. I guess that’s the pitfall of being ahead of your time. Based on the album art, Pixies seemed to know "Monkey Gone To Heaven" was the track to hang their hat on and I'd have to agree.

On my “Bands That Influenced Nirvana” list, Surfer Rosa put Pixies well below Fugazi, but this record might pull them even. Still can’t compare to The Shaggs though!

Other call-outs:
"I Bleed" - imagine being a diehard Weezer fan, then you hear this and find out your whole life is a lie.
"There Goes My Gun" - it’s like they said 'let's redo "Here Comes Your Man" but more punk and make the harmonies bad. Yeah, that'll show 'em!'
"Silver" - when you only have 36min of material recorded, I guess you let Kim channel her inner Yoko Ono to write an extra filler track.

I don't know much about shoegaze, and I wouldn't have initially classified this as such at first. The album opener, "Seagull", has some moments that sound like Nirvana or mid-90s Green Day and I would have leaned into the Indie/Alternative label. As it progresses, the album does begin to meander in slightly more ethereal sounds and we start the shoegazing. There are whispers of The Cure all over, and lots of vocals that sound like they were recorded in a bedroom at 12pm while trying not to wake the parents.
We get sparkly U2 guitars on "Dreams Burn Down", which I enjoy more when decoupled from Bono's vocals.
Overall, I think I agree with the Spotify listener public... "Paralysed" and everything after "Taste" aren't very riveting and I understand why they all have sub-1M listens.

Piano Jazz isn't exactly my wheelhouse but if I'm going to listen to it, I think this will be the record. This is the non-Christmas background music you want for your winter dinner party, or a cozy night at home with a fire going.

This was the final performance with bassist Scott LaFaro, who died in a car accident 11 days later. His bass work is intentionally showcased here as tribute, and even without the backstory it's hard not to notice his performance. Bill Evans has called this the best version of 'the Trio', and I'm not bold enough to question that.

Secretly, I wish it wasn't a live album because the occasional applause breaks pull me out of my cozy solitude. However, I don't think you'd get the same magic in a studio recording. I'll cope.

Right here at the beginning I'll be very clear that I don't think it's fair to dedicate so much of this list to deep-diving the history of punk/new wave. Clearly the original author, Robert Dimery, has some bias, but I realize the list isn't called "The 1001 Most Influential Albums Of All Time", instead it's basically the "Hey, you should listen to these 1001 albums" list. Fine, he covered his bias. On balance, I don't know if this really belongs on a list like this, but I'm a fan of punk/new wave and don't mind being given this album as homework (even if I'm not as Brit-centric as Robert).

In the grand scheme, this album is pretty unremarkable. If you're not already excited for post punk then I don't expect there's anything here to grab you. I hear pieces of all the post-punk that preceded this album, and seeds of the new wave that would follow it. Not enough to be convinced that this was an outsized influence on later bands, but enough to understand why you'd make it a reference point in your thesis about the history of new wave.