Reviews by stevey_

Neil Young in the glory of his fully resplendent falsetto. Sometimes that really works for me, but the subdued accompaniment on the title track really doesn't serve him well (in my opinion). Overall, a solid record though.

Anyways, he really pissed off Lynyrd Skynyrd with this one, which is fun. I spend part of my youth on their side because I hadn't yet learned to appreciate Neil Young's superior songwriting and social consciousness. "Southern Man" is a banger and I'd probably be salty if someone dropped a blistering diss track like that on me in the 70s too. Go get 'em, Neil.

I could be swayed to bump this up, but it's like a "3+" on first listen. Not at all what I expected when I hit play, and it was a pretty wild adventure that made housework more bearable. Will have to circle back at some point.

I absolutely couldn't care. I listened twice and it didn't win me over.

Alright, so I kinda dismissed this album before I actually listened to it. We know this list has a British bias, so I expected this to be here solely on the strength of “Bittersweet Symphony”, but that's not totally true. In the Brit Rock hierarchy, I’d put this under Oasis but probably on par with the Blur record on this list. Maybe slightly higher.

If…. IF, I had a complaint about this record, it would be that the A side and B side should be flipped for the best listening experience. I understand why that’s not the way they did it, but in a modern setting, it’s a far better listen. Otherwise, no notes. It’s the greatest rock & roll band of all time at their absolute peak. If you have it on vinyl, please listen to it this way, it’s so much better.

This is my first Ton Waits album on the list, and I’m glad to have it. He's certainly not for everybody, but I think that's something everyone should decide on their own. I think this is a good middle ground between his most strange and most normal work, and a good place to start.

Ok, as a thirty-year-old white male in 2016, I'm keenly aware that this record isn't "for me", per se, but that hasn't really stopped me from loving it. Maybe part of that is because I'll always think of a story when I think of this album.

Years ago (some context clues suggest it was around 2019), I was at home on a Friday night minding my own business, cooking dinner for myself, and planning to just spend the evening at home. I put this album on while I was cooking, and didn't think anything of it; I was cooking a normal meal for me, and just felt like listening to some chill R&B. It was either R&B or Bossa Nova, and I just felt a little more contemporary this particular evening. I'm a true "I listen to a bit of everything" person, so none of this is strange to anyone who knows me. While I was cooking, a friend of mine (black male, also early thirties) texted me to see what I was up to so I grabbed my phone to tell him exactly what I was doing. Somewhere between typing "Listening to Solange and making chicken and collard greens." and his "Bro wtf" reply, I realized the strange optics of this whole situation and had to laugh. What is my life? I know none of this is very funny to you, a stranger, but that's your loss.

Anyway, this album slaps and it's been on my personal "you must hear before you die" list ever since that night.

"September In The Rain" really started this strong, and I thought that I was going to really get into this record. She has a wonderful voice, and if you're into slow jazz this feels like a must-have record. I'd love to say that I can see myself putting this on for a quiet Saturday evening at home, but I kinda doubt it would beat out other records in my collection.

The album cover is exactly my aesthetic though, it's almost worth buying on vinyl just for the display. Maybe I'll do that.

3.5 Stars

I appreciate that this is a departure for them and this record probably did a lot for Hardcore as a genre... I just can't really seem to get my teeth into it. It's totally fine and I could easily listen to it regularly, but I don't have a reason to do that. It's missing a hook for me, it's not enough in any one particular direction for me to develop strong feelings about it.

I feel like I need to spend more time with this one, but will I ever do it?

A good time, but I don’t listen to a lot of funk on my own

More early 90s Trip Hop I don’t know that I needed to hear. That one song, sure. But not the whole album.

The sparse accompaniments really push her voice forward, and that can be a really great thing. She has a wonderful voice and I tend to like Bjork, but this album was a bit of a chore.

I was given this CD as a kid. Probably one of the first CDs I ever had and the only one I was given where nobody could really tell me what song was the big hit. So I'm not sure I ventured much past "This Is A Call", "I'll Stick Around", and "Big Me" as a kid.

Between the title and the cyclops-esque cover art, I feel like someone is trolling a little bit here.
This record is funky and soulful, but in a way that wouldn’t have been too abrasive for white audiences. I feel like 1973 was peak Funk crossover and I’m sure this album helped that quite a bit. I’d spin this if I had a copy, but I’m not sure I’ll seek one out.

Points for proto-punk, but this feels more like an academic listen just to understand that influence more than something that’s on the list because people genuinely enjoy it. I probably would have enjoyed it if I was around in 1965 though.

I always wonder what an Alice Cooper record (and this record in particular) sounds like to the uninitiated, and now I have a whole review section to find out!
This record feels like it was made for an accompanying live show, and really plays more like a rock opera than a studio album. The school theme holds this together while they go off musically and explore the whole big wide world. There’s blues, there’s jazz, there’s an orchestra… it’s a trip, man. The undeniable standout track here is “Blue Turk” and I won’t be taking questions.

I expected this not to totally live up the the hype but it does. I’m not sure I can handle a full album (any album) without getting tired of Mick Jagger being Mick Jagger, but otherwise this was a great blues rock record. I’m sure it’s directly influenced almost all of the music I really like.

Ughhhh. Look, it's probably his masterpiece but I cannot make myself care about Paul Simon. I promise I've tried and I don't think any amount of trying harder is going to change the outcome.

Is this album bad? Yes.
Is it also good and important? Maybe also yes.
In isolation, it’s easy to call Nico a bad singer and dismiss this record, but we have plenty of albums on this list from men who can’t sing so let’s set that metric aside. I've recently been served albums by Astrud Gilberto and Patti Smith, and I'll be damned if this record doesn't feel like it falls directly in the middle of those two. As an incremental step to whatever version of Punk Rock that Patti Smith was working on. In that sense, I guess Nico is doing double duty in Punk Rock origin story. Still, all that context still only does enough to earn her a "meh" rating.