Reviews by therealab

Like a blue-eyed soul Beach Boys....it is scratching some of my itches. I bet this is Billy Joel's favorite album. What's Wrong.....that title says more than it meant to when it was written. It's better than the worst Beach Boys...but not much. This album is very uneven....even some of the songs. There's a Steely Dan feel to this album that I do not like. It just got really Steely Dan on You and I. This sounds vaguely like every 70s album rolled into one, Joe Walsh now. Pacific Ocean Blues is the best song though. The one thing I'll say is this album is very short.

I Feel the Earth Move was a hit for her off this album. She does have a sultry voice. So Far Away was another big song off this album. My mom loves Carole King, maybe I never gave this a fair shake, it's certainly better than I thought it was going to be. She's like folk Janis Joplin, they both have very soulful voices. This is a pretty solid start, It's Too Late was another huge song for her. Home Again is maybe the best song so far though. This album is good, bordering on great. And there's You've Got a Friend...I like this much better than James Taylor's version. The back half of the album isn't quite as good as the first half, but still much better than I anticipated. This is a "cover" because The Shirelles did it first, but she wrote it...so I'm not sure if that counts. Not going to lie though, The Shirelles did it better. I'm thinking the same is going to be true of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. The title track leaves something to be desired. Aretha did it better.

This is the music the Rock Horror Picture Show people rejected for the actual show. Rock musical music is exactly the genre Meat Loaf resides in. That people in the 70s and then the 90s took this seriously, and that it made this list, makes me question humanity. The intro to You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) is like the dialogue from a werewolf musical too! I hate musicals and rock musicals especially. This is one of the worst albums I've ever heard. And now stupid baseball play-by-play as part of one of the most overrated songs ever performed. Eight and a half minutes of terrible, corny rock about having sex in a car. This is the worst album that is not made up of noises and sounds.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is the hit and was an even bigger hit for Al Green. Not disco Bee Gees is not great. Israel is better than How You Can Mend a Broken Heart. It's funny that the difference between a hit song and an album track is someone choosing what is going to be a single. Easy listening 70s hits are just not for me. Remembering sounds like the soundtrack to the animated Hobbit. It feels like an Australian critic needed to get some Bee Gees albums on the list because this feels like a collection of derivative songs. You can hear echoes of the Beatles, clearly, but also Bowie and The Who. Trafalgar could have been off Sgt. Pepper's and I wouldn't have known it wasn't the Beatles. This is not good. There's a pop folk vibe running through some of these songs (When Do I) that sounds like the guy playing guitar on the stairs in Animal House. Where is Bluto when you need him? This isn't torture like some of the albums rated as ones, but it is also not very good in it's own special way. Walking Back to Waterloo is one of the best songs on the album, solid closer for a bad album.

This is like the serious version of Flight of the Conchords. This guy is the lead singer from The Teardrop Explodes, another terrible album on this list. East Easy Rider and Promised Land are improvements. It's growing on me. Safesurfer is both the best song and the worst song at the same time. Is that possible? The sci-fi noises are not adding to the song. This is like a shitty Oasis album. The length of this album is a major issue. It doesn't feel like a coherent album either. Lenny Bruce clips set to vaguely reggae music probably felt edgy at one time. You sounds like the music to a cheesy spy series from the 60s. Not Raving but Drowning is the best song, the music is actually pretty cool, but the lyrics are nonsense. Jemaine Clement definitely loves Julian Cope. Urge Overkill too. This album cannot end soon enough.

The lead singer's voice is not great, but I like this. They kind of remind me of Talking Heads. Marquee Moon is a good listen. I don't have a lot of thoughts on this album...it feels very average. I bet The Eels loved the song Guiding Light...something about it reminds me of their album. There's a similarity to the Clash I can't put my finger on with these guys. Torn Curtain is maybe the best song on the album, strong ending.

This is going to be a long 42 minutes. New Wave music sucks. I think this is the soundtrack to a crappy 80s movie. Yeah, America is the UK's bully, America sucks, fuck the US, message received. Sweet Bird of Truth is terrible. Every UK band from 1978 until 1991 was ska influenced. Twilight of a Champion is the worst song so far, and that is saying something on this album. This is a terrible album. If an American did this list, it would look very different.

I.G.Y is the most 80s song imaginable...and I'm realizing that the crappy 80s pop song is basically all Steely Dan's fault. This is like if Huey Lewis and News lost their edge, which is really saying something. The synth on this is overwhelming...this is like if 80s Stevie Wonder was a middle aged white man. Rock critics, even when it's just one guy, they can't keep their boner down for Steely Dan. This is just a Steely Dan album without Walter Becker, sounds the same, same vibe. It was the 80s because the music has a Michael Jackson feel as well. This is awful, this album makes Steely Dan look like the Rolling Stones. Thankfully this album is less than 40 minutes long. Maxine is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. If someone told me this was a joke album I would believe it. This is like Randy Newman with synthesizers. The Goodbye Look sounds like the marimba setting on a keyboard. Seriously, Walk Between Raindrops has a preset melody from a keyboard too. I bet Donald Fagen programmed all of them. This is aggressively white music.

Combination of the Two is great. This is psychedelic rock I can get behind. Feels like it could have been a Wilson Pickett song. I Need a Man to Love lets Janis Joplin's voice shine. There are better versions of Summertime, it's not terrible, but i don't love it. Piece of My Heart is the hit from the album. Albums used to be a thing so it makes sense that there weren't a bunch of singles off this album, but I think there are better songs on the album. Blues/psychedelic rock is the best psychedelic rock. I guess if I have a complaint it's the phony crowd noise. This is the yacht rock challenge, is music in its purest form live in front of a crowd or in a studio? A glass breaking is too much. I do really like Turtle Blues though. Oh, Sweet Mary is more straight psychedelic music, it could be a Jefferson Airplane or Doors song. All of these San Francisco bands have a similar sound. 5 blues songs and two psychedelic songs, that's a more palatable way to take some acid rock. Ball and Chain is maybe a mix too. Janis just makes everything feel like a blues song, gone too soon. There's a definite Screamin' Jay Hawkins vibe to this.

There is a lot of Bowie on this list. This is definitely not glam rock. Heroes is the hit, one of his biggest over a career with so many. It is a good song with great lyrics. Sons of the Silent Age is a major come down off the high of Heroes. But there's something very familiar to David Bowie's music, a thread that runs from Space Oddity through Blackstar. It feels a little bit like he was ahead of trends, creating them maybe even, glam and new wave jump out. That might explain why he's such a critical darling, every critic who liked a particular genre of music can look back and see Bowie as one of the pioneers. Or maybe everything he's ever done is just a different version of "art rock" which is the rock music critic equivalent of a bunch of bananas to a troop of monkeys. Back-to-back instrumentals is starting to lose me. Now, back-to-back-to-back, I'm out. This is two albums. One is decent. The other is terrible. One side is a Bowie album. The second side is a Brian Eno record and Brian Eno albums are not good. The Secret Life of Arabia is like a disco song an idiot wrote.

Hells Bells is a great into to this album. Hells Bells sound a lot like church bells, I'd think that's the last thing Satan would want to hear. I understand the criticism of all AC/DC songs sounding the same, at least their repetitive sounds awesome. Also, thematically very consistent as highlighted by Let Me Put My Love Into You. They say write what you know so I think it's safe to say these guys know women, partying and rock and roll, in some kind of order. There are a lot of AC/DC's greatest hits on this album. Hells Bells, Back In Black, You Shook Me All Night Long, Have a Drink on Me and Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution....that's a good lineup of singles. AC/DC and ZZ Top feel like mirror images of each other, one is more rock and from Australia and the other is more bluesy and from Texas. All I know is I like them both. Brian Johnson is like the poor man's Robert plant. Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution is an underrated AC/DC song.

You can hear the surf rock roots of psychedelic rock in You're Gonna Miss Me. The noise in Roller Coaster is super distracting. It's like the worst possible use of the organ in Baba O'Riley. This was the first band to designate themselves as "psychedelic rock"...thanks for nothing. Amplified jug is the instrument driving me insane. They had an "amplified juggist". I bet Daniel Johnston loved this band, not only does his music sound like theirs, they are both from Austin. Confirmed, he did a 13th Floor Elevators cover on his biggest album. Janis Joplin and the lead singer of this band have a similar wail. I'll bet Big Brother and the Holding Company heard them and thought they could do the same thing, only with a woman as the lead singer. Monkey noises on Monkey Island, I guess it delivers what it promises.

Music critics love Steely Dan and I'm paying the price. Rikki Don't Lose That Number is the hit off this album and maybe one of their biggest hits. Night By Night sounds like porn music. Any Major Dude Will Tell You is one of the stupidest titles of a song ever. This album may have launched easy listening as a genre. They say these guys aren't technically "yacht rock" but if that's the case I'm not sure what yacht rock is. These guys make The Eagles look like Megadeth. East St. Louis Toodle-Oo is terrible, Walter Becker and Donald Fagan are the most fart-sniffingly pretentious "rock" musicians ever. They want to travel the Southland in a traveling minstrel show? Maybe they could play East St. Louis Toodle-Oo?!? This album is short and feels like it goes on forever. Rock musicians, but particularly rock musicians I don't like, love cowboy themed music.

This sounds like the 90s version of T. Rex, modern glam rock. Glam rock voice, standard 90s alternative music. They sound like Death Cab for Cutie. This feels like a band that wanted to be Oasis very badly. This is Death Cab for Cutie's favorite band. Meh. This isn't terrible, but neither is it memorable, no real highlights or lowlights. The last song is like two songs.

A 40 minute album with 4 songs....not an auspicious beginning. This sucks, I can tell one minute in this is going to be a one star album. Background noise and accordion on an album?!? It's too good to be true. I bet they used Future Days as placeholder music for the theme music of PeeWee's Playhouse. This is more like a jazz album than anything. If your album/band has the following words often associated with it I am probably not going to like it: experimental, avant garde, art, noise, found sound. This is still not the worst thing I've heard, at least the second song is mostly music, but it is still terrible. Moonshake is the best song simply because it's the only song under 8 minutes. It is also the best song anyway. Bel Air is like the soundtrack to a detective-themed porn movie from the 70s. No one actually likes this. These guys heard Sun Ra and thought he was a little too weird.

Band on the Run is like three songs rolled into one. It's too bad the "If I Ever Get Out of Here" part wasn't more developed because I always loved that part of the song. British people love ska music, you can hear it's influence everywhere. Band on the Run is much better than the other "hit", Jet. I do like Paul McCartney's voice, that still sounds good. Mrs. Vanderbilt is the best song so far. Paul's right, what's the use of worrying. Let Me Roll It is good too. The title track is overrated and everything else is better than I anticipated based on only knowing that song from this album. Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me), and the reprice of Jet buried in it, is another song with two really disparate parts, the difference is I like both of these parts better. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five is a good song to end the album on.

I Love Your Lovin' Ways is a great R&B song. Four Women is as dramatic a shift in tone and content from I Love Your Lovin' Ways as is possible. What More Can I Say then moves to this jazzy song full of longing. It has the same feel as I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good) vibe. She does this so well. I have to relisten to Jeff Buckley's Grace because he covered Lilac Wine on it and I like this version and it feels very memorable and I have no memory of that version. The selection of songs doesn't seem to have a lot of rhyme or reason, no real theme to the album, almost like a greatest hits. Wild is the Wind is amazing, an all-time great song. Her voice has such a sense of yearning in it, you can feel her in the song. Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair is one of her most famous songs, not my favorite. Her piano playing is great as well. It's amazing how some artists can pull off just their voice and an instrument. Either Way I Lose is strange but I like it. An eclectic album from an eclectic personality.

The premier "gay" album of all-time. Take Your Mama Out is a great song. I wouldn't recognize Comfortably Numb as the Pink Floyd song and, even though I'm not a big Pink Floyd fan, I know this is much worse. This album is the alternate soundtrack for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Lovers In the Backseat sounds like a reimagining of She Blinded Me With Science. You can't see tits on the radio should have been my Senior quote. You hope for more from the song based on the title. Filthy/Gorgeous was the second single....that's a pretty big drop from Take Your Mama Out, still the second best song on the album so far. Everything after Filthy/Gorgeous is too much of a change from the feeling of the album up to that point. Old glam rock is better than new glam rock.

Looking at this album, I'm reminded of Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill. There were a million singles off the album and all of them were hits that you could not escape. Rolling in the Deep is a great song. Rumour Has It is another great song. Turning Tables wasn't as big a hit as the other singles off this album, but it's terrific too. Don't You Remember is the first album track. She just kills everything she does. Set Fire to the Rain was huge and it's one of my least favorite Adele songs. He Won't Go is one of the best songs on the album. One and Only is another amazing song that was not released as a single. Joss Stone listens to Adele and wonders what could have been. I've forgotten how good some of these songs that weren't released as single were. Lovesong is not as successful a cover as Make You Feel My Love from 19. Someone Like You is another great song. Adele can convey hurt without sounding weak better than anyone. The whole album is a great reflection on two people moving in different directions, the hurt, the anger, the coping, the coming to terms with what happened. Someone Like You is a perfect encapsulation of the whole album.

Pink Moon is a beautiful song. Place to Be is another great song. He has a haunting voice. Probably because he had so little output compared to so many singer-songwriters, but Nick Drake is tragically underrated. The songs are so short they really leave me wanting more at the end. This is a beautiful album, an album full of these little beautiful clouds that dissipate as soon as you try to grab hold of them. I'm surprised Zach Braff hasn't scored one of his movies with just this album. It feels like something is going on with the guitar on Know, almost like the strings weren't quite tight. From the Morning is such a nice way to end the album. It's just an album of Nick Drake singing and playing guitar. I wish there was more, more songs, longer songs, something.