Reviews by stevey_

I struggled to connect with Either/Or when I listened to that record, but this one is a little easier to access. It’s still a very sad album and maybe I don’t want to connect with it *too much*, but I’ll figure it out. Musically this is a lot more interesting, and we're creeping ever closer to the establishment of Emo music (exciting!). The fuller sound here naturally begs all the “what if” questions about the music we might have gotten if ES lived longer. All the pieces are here, it just needed a some more development to be great.

My biggest criticism of this album is that Elliot's voice sometimes limits these songs. It works great for the acoustic stuff, but when the arrangements get bigger, his voice doesn't seem to rise to meet them. I'm sure you can think of someone you know whose normal voice is barely above a whisper, and whose version of shouting would pass as a normal conversational volume for everyone else... Well, that's how Elliot sounds sometimes; like he can't open up his chest and stop singing through his nose. The resulting vocals can almost sound off key. "Son Of Sam" is a notable exception here, and serves as proof that he was actually capable of singing with his chest.

"Pretty Mary Kay" & "Better Be Quiet Now" - these are so Beatles coded you could convince me they're covers.

I don’t feel like this one is as revolutionary as Odelay! but Beck continues to test the limits of genre mashing here. From that perspective, the most popular tracks “E-Pro” and “Go It Alone” are a few of the safer songs on the record, but that’s not entirely surprising.

This record does feel like it gets darker than I recall Odelay! getting, which was interesting to hear. I know "Broken Drum" was written about the death of his friend (and fellow musician), Elliott Smith. Even before I found that out, I had it flagged as one of my standout tracks.

I’m not surprised at all that the first four tracks (“Beautiful Day”, “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”, “Elevation”, & “Walk On”) were singles… the rest of the album is, unfortunately, pretty bad. Like, notably bad. It’s true that I don’t like Bono, but let’s remember that I was able to look past that to rate The Joshua Tree highly. I’m telling you that, personal opinions about Bono aside, I also don’t like this album for completely separate and equally valid reasons.

From “Kite” onward, I kept hoping they were just in a bad streak and we’d get another secret banger but it never happened. Almost every album needs a little filler, right? This one shoulda been a EP. One of the most disappointing songs was “Peace On Earth” because you can’t name a song that and not go all-in to make it an anthem, right? You probably need a big choir for backing vocals, some orchestral embellishments, a big producer to be brutally honest with you about the song, and really throw everything you have at it, right? The vocal performance is trying to be that song, but they didn’t do any of the other work to get it there. It probably does well in an amphitheater full of U2 nerds, but it’s not going to bring the world together.

Overall this is a disappointment. 13years after The Joshua Tree, the singles prove that they still have it, but the other songs suggest that there are two strikeouts for every homerun.

I didn’t expect to say this, but I’m less annoyed by this than I was the debut album. It’s certainly not because Jim Morrison sounds any less arrogant (I mean, the whole album is named after him this time!), but I guess he’s actually earned some of it by this stage of his career. His audible disinterest has the effect of making him sound more like a lounge singer than a pompous a**hole here, and I think that’s kinda fun.

“Peace Frog” - this was the most fun I had here, what a nice funky track

“Land Ho!” - Morrison is audibly bored except when he shouts “Land Ho!” with half his chest and only sounds indifferent.

Is this the perfect music for a chilly Thursday morning in the American midwest? Today it is. It only took 1/2 the album to decide that I wanted to live here forever.
Maybe I'd find a reason to rate it lower if I understood the lyrics, but I'm not burdened with that problem today. I listened to it twice and then spent the rest of the morning in his discography. Brazilian music will always have a place in my heart, shut up and take my five stars.

I had no idea I needed an album of African music married to American Blues, but I did and now I have it. Sometimes, the list delivers.

I feel like I've been a student of blues guitar for a major portion of my life and I'm a little ashamed that I'd never come across Ali Farka Toure before today. To compensate, I've spent the day dabbling in his catalog. This album shines when AFT takes the lead and we get his style of mellow African blues, but there are times when (I assume) Ry Cooder takes the reins and we get a bolder version of 'American South' Blues. Those are my least favorite moments because they kill the momentum of the album for me. Don't get me wrong, I love the blues, but I'm here to listen to Ali Farka Toure be "the African John Lee Hooker" not Ry Cooder trying to be John Lee Hooker. The collaboration is successful in eliciting more blues than AFT typically employs on his own records, and that's a plus even if it's overdone at times.

Overall, Ali Farka Toure is a big thumbs up from me!

This is punk-adjacent indie rock, and they sound very nostalgic for The Clash at times. But there is a splash of new wave here too, and some more mainstream brit-rock creeping in (also some errant horns and harmonica!). The vocals are...bad? I'm sure they work when mixed down on stage, but it's hard to hide in the studio. All in all, this is kind of a choppy experience and you never know what the next track will give you. Some tracks, like "Music When The Lights Go Out" can't seem to pick a tempo to last 3 minutes and vacillate back and forth between frenetic and meandering. If Carl & Pete's relationship was the same way, it's no wonder they broke up.

Part of my thinks I would have enjoyed this if I heard it in 2006, but I don't think it would have made it into my CD rotation for the same reasons it won't today. But I probably would have seen them live.

“Can’t Stand Me Now” - The big hit, based on the Spotify streams. A solid, slightly new wave, opening track with a surprise harmonica appearance in the outro.

"Don't Be Shy" - Nobody should write songs with high notes that they can't hit. Especially in the chorus.

"What Katie Did" - even on this rollercoaster, I didn't expect a 'shoo wop' song.

Starting a Monday morning with “Monday, Monday” is kinda fun, but otherwise I wasn't excited about this one.
Based on some of the other album selections on this list, the fact that this record contains the Billboard number 1 single of 1966, "California Dreaming'", is probably enough to warrant its inclusion. However, even if you throw that one out, you still get "Monday, Monday" "Go Where You Wanna Go" and "Do You Wanna Dance"(admittedly not the most iconic cover of this song) along with a slew of other smooth 60s pop-folk songs. Not quite my thing, but it's hard to argue with the reach and influence of this album and of the group.

I've mentioned before that I don't really care for Brian Wilson, so I was pretty pessimistic about this album. It starts like a pretty standard BW/Beach Boys project and even includes a rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" which really threatened to send me over the edge. Immediately after that though, is "Cabin Essence" which gets a little weird - to the point that it almost sounds like they lose the rhythm at one point before recovering. From there it continues to stay a little strange, even when it threatens to straighten out and be bland there's a subversiveness to arrangements.
The whole album feels like you took drugs and then pushed play on a Beach Boys album... which is probably exactly what Brian Wilson was going for. A fun concept but I wish it was done by an artist I like more.

Female rappers have a hard time breaking through in America, so it’s easy to miss an artist like this if you’re not really plugged into the hiphop underground. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very plugged into in 2019 and missed this. Much like Leikeli47 or Angel Haze, Little Simz has some bangers here that I’m frustrated more people don’t know. I haven’t dug into her other albums yet, but I’m sure there are other gems in there too.

Added to my playlists:
“Venom” - based on Spotify listens, this was the big single.
“101 FM” - this was the track that popped out at me on every listen through the album.

Besides whatever personal/political reasons people don't like Morrissey (I haven't bothered to look into it), I just don't like his voice. On paper, this kind of post-punk new wave should be a big hit with me... except for that one important detail. If there is an album of instrumentals, or other bands covering all of these songs, I may be interested in those, but I just can't suffer Morrissey's whining for more than a few minutes without wanting to also start whining.
My favorite part of the album is the last ~2min of "Barbarism Begins At Home", which is a fun, funky, bass-heavy instrumental jam. It's also followed by the 2 minute intro of "Meat Is Murder" which means you get almost 4 whole minutes without Morrissey singing. Who could ask for more?

The most psychedelic thing about this album is how it feels like you’re doing drugs when you listen to it. It starts with the actually quite good and normal psych-rock hit “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” and then over the course of the album gets more strange until you end with a ragtime nightmare ride on “The Toonerville Trolley”.
The song order doesn’t make a lot of sense, so the album has no flow from track to track. Since so much of this album feels tongue-in-cheek, maybe they did that on purpose? The band name and inceptional album cover art both feel like an intentional jokes, so I’ll assume they’re leaning in as much as possible.

Nick Cave is an artist I hear people talk about all the time but I've managed to stay completely ignorant of for my entire life (plus 3 years). Going into this, I know he's got a devoted fanbase but I have no concept of what his music sounds like. And now I get to find out with a double album, that's kinda fun!

His voice has a lounge singer bravado/sleeze - a dark theatricality -that I do occasionally find compelling (The The, Electric Six, some Tom Waits, The Oogie Boogie Man in Nightmare Before Christmas, Dracula in Jason Segel's Dracula Musical "A Taste For Love", Richard Cheese, etc). It's compelling here, but it begins to wear on me over the course of the first disc. Thankfully, it's muted on the second record as they shift into more downtempo songs.

"Get Ready For Love" - Starting the album with an in-your-face blues/rock song definitely makes me feel like I'm joining a conversation already in progress; there's no chance to get my bearings before getting the full force of NC&TBS directly in my face. It's their 13th album, so I guess they've pretty well established their sound and can expect you to know what you're getting into when you press play.

"Cannibal's Hymn" - so close to being an earnest version of the Jason Segel Dracula Musical "Die. Die. Die. I Can't" that it hurts.

"Nature Boy" - I missed this one initially, but on second listen this one stood out for me like "Supernaturally" did on my first pass.

"Supernaturally" - this is the fourth-to-last song on the album, but it's the track that finally swayed me from "this is fine" to "this is pretty good".

"O Children" - this must be the hit, because it has almost 200M more listens than any other song on the record. The backing vocals and harmonies were one of my favorite features of "Supernaturally", and they're back in full force here.

From limited pop culture references and context clues (ok, they were mentioned on an episode of How I Met Your Mother along with a clip of "We Rule The School"), I expected B&S to be a variation of quiet acoustic folk music. Upon listening to this, I'm pleasantly surprised to discover there's more to the story. It's not even just a duo of someone named Belle and someone named Sebastian! All of these songs were written by lead singer, Stuart Murdoch, and originally performed solo but they've been developed further to utilize a full band (including strings, brass, and woodwinds!). The album is much more indie rock than it is folk, and it's hard to imagine what the solo versions would have originally sounded like. I came in expecting Simon & Garfunkel, but got something more akin to a Paul Simon solo album.

Without a specific nostalgic reason to love this album, I don't. It's fine, but it doesn't wow me and I'm not at risk of making this my whole personality. I understand there are more B&S albums on the list, so we'll see if my opinion changes after those.

"Electronic Resistance" - feels like the biggest experiment on the album. It's a nice little New Wave bop nestled into the middle of the album and if I have to choose a favorite song, this would be it.

"I Could Be Dreaming" - I felt a little crazy when the female spoken word part started fading in. It's like listening to a song with a police siren when you're in the car - except you're not looking for cops, you're looking for a schizophrenia diagnosis.

"We Rule The School" - the song that formed my whole opinion of this band. It's pretty non-representative of the album/band, so I'm a little disappointed that HIMYM chose this song.

In the 90s, this set was reverently mentioned like it was The Beatles playing Ed Sullivan. Even the phrase "MTV Unplugged" just kinda meant THIS set (never mind all the other artists who appeared on the show). As someone who only got 'plugged in' to Nirvana after Kurt Cobain's death, these tracks were always just part of their catalog of hits to me, even though most of them were obscure album tracks or covers.
It's a little crazy to think about them doing this and NOT playing the hits; the fact that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" isn't part of this show is a wild (but very punk rock) move! I have deep respect for the consideration that went into this setlist, it's clear that they considered which of their songs would fit the setting instead of just strumming out their classics on acoustic instruments.
Recorded just months before Cobain's death, this would be Nirvana's final act; a requiem for their short reign at the top of rock & roll. If anything, I think the earnestness of this set helped cement Nirvana's legacy - before Unplugged they were easy to dismiss as a bunch of angsty boys making noise, but this evening revealed a deeper musicianship that nobody really expected. And with no follow-up albums, this just pours gasoline on the "what could have been" fire.
Had Kurt lived, I wonder what would have happened next. Maybe Nirvana break up anyway and we get Lennon/McCartney 2.0 where Dave Grohl goes off to do Foo Fighters and Kurt Cobain starts a new project too. What would that have looked like? I guess we'll never know.

Wire apparently refuse(d) to call themselves punk, so I guess we’ll call this post-punk. In reality, this album is so close to punk that I wouldn’t make that distinction on my own.

If you listen to much punk rock, you’ve probably heard a few of these songs: “Mannequin”, “Three Girl Rhumba”, and “Ex Lion Tamer” are most likely, and “Lowdown” is also a possibility.
The standout track for me is “Pink Flag” because it’s almost 4min long and has a very “set-ending” breakdown towards the end - a weird thing to put int he middle of your album. I looked it up and this track would have ended side one of the vinyl, which helps explain the placement.
Their resistance to being called punk has me curious how their sound develops on future records, though not curious enough to dig in today.

This album feels a lot like an extension of The Beatles, at least compared to the post-Beatles McCartney albums I’ve heard. George Harrison played guitar on some of it, so that probably helped. If you’re a Beatles fan, this one might be for you!
I’m glad the whole album doesn’t demand the same gravitas as the title track, but putting “Imagine” first kinda starts things on a somber note. I’m sure John made that choice because he wanted people to hear his important thesis first; that’s SO John. I know it’s supposed to be hopeful, but I’ve always found that song to be kind of a bummer and would rather hear it at the end of the record. He also included a Paul McCartney diss track (“How Do You Sleep?”), which is definitely not weird at all!
I don’t think I’ll be seeking out a vinyl copy, but this was fine.

The Zombies’ sound blends elements of The Beatles, The Monkees, The Beach Boys, and at times, early pieces of Queen. The harmonies are impeccable and they cover a wide range on this album - from classic barbershop-style pop to ominous psychedelic rock. Not really ‘fuzzy guitar’ psychedelic rock, it’s more the organs, glockenspiels, and woodwinds kind.

I had high hopes for this album after the Young Rascals album I reviewed a few weeks ago. This album is a perfectly cliche late 60s pop/rock album, but it leans more pop and that's not what I wanted. “Time Of The Season” is a classic, and there’s a reason it’s used so often in tv/movies to quickly establish a scene in the late 60s, but beyond that, there's not much here for me.

My previous review of Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs (1970) was less than generous, and this one won't be much different. I always thought I respected Eric Clapton as a musician, but I'm learning that maybe isn't true (even without considering the personal/political reasons he's fallen out of popular favor in recent years).

When we last left off, Eric (Derek), wrote a whole album about how much he loved his best friend's wife and really made things weird for himself. After that didn't go exactly as he'd hoped, he decided to love heroine instead and disappeared to explore that relationship for ~3 years. His emergence in 1974 might be one of the great heist stories of our time... He recorded this album of cover songs, and he finally started living with Pattie Boyd (the Chekhov's Best-Friend's-Wife we met in Act 1). I guess he had to get sober on his own, but he probably would have stolen that too if he could have.

This album (again, of mostly cover songs) really shows Clapton struggling to figure out who he is and experimenting with different musical styles. He still manages to keep things pretty middle-of-the-road, with no ambitious swings and no virtuoso guitar soloing. He did write two songs for this album: "Get Ready" with guest vocalist Yvonne Elliman, and "Let It Grow" which he later admitted is basically a rip-off of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven". The former is a highpoint of the album, and the latter could be a good song as well if it wasn't for the stolen valor of it all.

The big hit from this record, a cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff", was a track that Clapton apparently didn't even want to record or put on the album. It's certainly a standout track and, in my opinion, marks a turning point in the album. Whereas the songs before ISTS feel lively, sometimes almost jam band-y, the back-end of the album feels a little darker/muddier. For the sake of my Spotify algorithm, I refuse to listen to this album a 3rd time to validate that opinion, but that was my impression on the 2nd listen.

Sometimes I listen to these albums and then explore the rest of the artist's catalogue, but today I put on Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive (1976) as a palate cleanser. It is a good match to the tone of the first 1/2 of 461 Ocean Boulevard, and somehow Frampton's guitar playing succeeds in sounding more like Clapton than Clapton's does on this record.

Music historians love to talk about three big events that melted people’s minds: Elvis Presley gyrating his hips on The Milton Berle Show in 1956, The Beatles playing The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, and Bob Dylan plugging in an electric guitar in 1965. Oh, and Woodstock in 1969, I guess, but there seems to be considerably less hand-wringing about that.
Like his shows from this time, this record is split into two sections: Disc 1: classic Bob sitting on a chair playing guitar and harmonica, and Disc 2: Electric Bobaloo. I think it’s important to note that electric instruments didn’t just change the musical delivery, they completely changed the sound. Disc 2 is very much a blues/folk rock record, and it’s understandable that people who like Chair Bob would resist Electric Bob. My hot take is that Electric Bob is the better Bob; all that extra noise really helps mask his objectively-not-great singing voice and adds some much needed flair. Again, plenty of people didn’t want that, and they showed up to the concerts to boo and cry about it.
I’ve never really been a Dylan fan (of any era), and I can’t listen to Bob without hearing Dana Carvey’s SNL impression. But I actually enjoyed Electric Bobaloo, and the back-end of Disc 1 (from “Desolation Row” on).