Reviews by tealedfleet

Unapologetically violent, crude, and insane. Just the way mama likes it.

Good lord, this was trying to reap all the goodie points of being a female icon without putting in the actual work. Putting in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of the foundational voices of Black Feminism in your album while you've got literal sexual perverts alongside her is some downright bad optics.

The doctor diagnosed me with bees in my rectum.

It's good, decent beats and great flow. Once you get my head bobbing, it's a good rap album.

It insists upon itself, Lois.

Pretty alright and inoffensive. Anyway, how's it going?

When you call an album 'Lolita-esque', there's a fine line you have to walk on. You can certainly bring to light the shocking, dangerous, and horrifying aspect of pedophilia, as it is sadly a part of humanity's darker facets. But you can't glorify it. You can't be fascinated or enamored by it.

Lolita is written in a way where you're grossed out and obviously have to treat the protagonist as an irredeemable piece of shit. While there are some lecherous guitar jams in here, there's a strange... romanticizing of the relationship between Melody and the Rolls Royce driver.

So no. I don't think this is Lolita-esque. It's just creepy.

All I know so far is that this lady has a rocky relationship with her partner. But without diving deeper into it, she keeps on singing along and trying not to dwell too much on the fact that she's living in a deeply unfulfilling relationship.

It's ok country music. For me, ok country music is still meh music.

Hmm. This is mediocre compared to Doolittle. I can agree with the book's blurb that this album is when the band have lost their stride and tensions started to crop up. It feels like the beginning with Vellouria and Is She Weird they're revving up the tempo, but then it just peters out into an 'okay' rock album.

OH SHIT ITS KANYE

Putting that aside, this is an excellent hip-hop album. Good vibes, rhymes, and powerful messages. Just the way mama likes her conscious hip-hop.

Diogenes of Sinope is often rejoiced in online communities for being the ancient greek madlad. Didn't give a shit (unless he wanted to throw them at his detractors) and was a founding father of the cynic philosophy.

I wonder though, whether those near Diogenes really admired him or were sick of his shit. Because though his ideas are in concept great, being at risk of getting urinated on does not sound like he's a fun person to hang around with.

All to say that I get the same feeling about this album. In concept, mocking the Beatles and satirizing the hippie subculture is great. But having to listen to it is something else. With satire, you're walking the fine line between being a chuckleworthy cynic or being an insufferable twat. I think the Mothers of Invention have pissed all over the line like Diogenes did in this blaring, noisy, and annoying album.

"Whatever" is a good title for what is just a lukewarm, poppy album. But Aimee's vocals are nice to listen to with their urbane, folksy quality that make you feel like you're at a friend's house. After my first listen though, I did not feel the need to analyze a specific song for its lyrical complexity. It was just ok.

I am so confused by this album cover. It's like Adams didn't know if he wanted to be pop punk or straight up yeehaw country. Anyway.

WAY too damn long for some watered down songs. Any musical flourish is mostly done in a very cautious, 'don't rock the boat too much' way. Simping after Sylvia Plath is unique, at least, and I will give credit to his songwriting. But I have no intention to revisit this drawling, tedious mess.

Aaaand we're back in the realms of the forgettable. Buckley's nice to listen to at least but this is not my cup of tea. The songs are all pleasant, samey fare that you'd listen to at a garden party. Which is fine if it's in the background, not so fine if you have to actively listen to it. Not much meat on the bones.

To be fair though, I've heard far worse on this list and this album is by no means the worst.

The book blurb says that he died of an accidental heroin overdose. Sheesh.

This was hauntingly beautiful. This was hauntingly beautiful. Long before Lil Nas X, John Grant was singing about the struggle of being queer in a homophobic society. But there's a hopeful resilience within the melancholy that I can't help but feel inspired by.

'Chicken Bones' feels like Bruno Mars' 'The Lazy Song' with a sharper bite, while Sigourney Weaver is just straight up funny. 'Where Dreams Go to Die' covers an obsessive, perhaps even toxic love with such vivid imagery. "Your lovely carcass caught my eye" is such a stellar line. And 'What Time?' just perfectly caps off this album that I didn't think I'd like so much.

Beautiful vocals, beautiful piano... Just a straight up wonderful experience.

I think I've got the same issue here that I have with 'I Should Coco'. It's decent when they start shredding the guitars, but overall it still blends into a forgettable experience. I could not tell you a single song that I remembered after hearing it.

But I will say that in contrast to the debut, it's a lot more lively with a can-do attitude. I did appreciate that!

You know, I was pre-emptively worried that I wasn't going to like this.To a modern ear, most of the classics feel overdone and played to death. I've already been spoiled by many renditions over the radio.

The doors, however, do feel like a breath of fresh air. They don't stick to one formulaic song beat: they experiment and let the music carry them onwards. Alabama Song is my favourite, it's just so -out- there. And the End isn't the 11 minute slog I was dreading it to be.

But, it still suffers from some of the prosaic lyrics of the time. Overall though, quite good!

Much more pleasant and evocative than Hejira. I do follow some of the comments on here that claim that Mitchell would be a better poet than a singer. Her lyrics are rich in meaning and deeply storylike. It makes you wonder what went through her head when she composed the songs. Her pleasant vocals are still a-okay, though. No complaints from me.

Bad Company? More like completely forgettable company. Gottem. Bet they'll care about that anonymous zinger.

Again, there's not much I can tell here other than that it was -perfectly fine-. But the flip side of that coin is that it also wasn't much to write home about. The lyrics are all about hankering after a woman, and the guitars are your general rock n' roll that you've heard a hundred times by now. If you skip this album, you're not missing out.

Maybe it's called the White Room because of all the pretentious critics' spaff on the walls when they talk about this album.

Crude jokes aside, this is perfectly fine. Is it an album that I -must- listen to before I die? I don't know, I don't think my life has improved marginally better. I still feel depressed. I still feel like I'm an imposter in a human skin. But at least it wasn't grating to the ears, eh? That's a good bar to reach.

Indie Pop seems like such a contradiction. You want to be independent of the big record companies and do your own thing... But still make your music as commercially viable as possible.

Tangent aside, this was better than their more recent album on this list. The R&B influences are mostly prevalent in Croft's vocals, while Sim's vocals are more... monotone.