Reviews by tipula

So I’ve always preferred the first side of this record, which I bought at the time because of “Synchronicity II despite not really liking The Police. There’s less of a focus on Sting and more interesting ideas in the lyrics and music on the first side.

While “Synchronicity II” is cleverly written, with its chilling metaphor of the lake monster emerging from the slime as the violence stirring within the man in the song, I like “Mother” best (possibly because it’s the track that sounds the least like something by The Police). Who can resist the great repetitive guitar and Andy Summers losing his shit at the end? And the rest of the first side is interesting too, with the thrumming in the background of “Walking in your Footsteps,” the instrumental break with the sax on “O My God,” and “Miss Gradenko”’s excellent guitar and engaging lyrics.

Second side? Meh. Confession: I skipped “Every Breath You Take” and listened to “Mother” twice instead. I’m in between a 3 and a 4 on this one - what do you do when you really enjoyed one side of an album but were bored by the other? Give it a 3, I guess.

When this record came out I was still convinced that I couldn’t stand Kate Bush, but a friend was so insistent that I was going to like this that he bought me a copy and badgered me until I finally listened to it. Of course he was right, and this became one of those records that I listened to constantly in the mid 1980s. I love the combination of the compelling percussive background and blended rock/trad/whatever kind of musical ideas, her introspective, meaningful lyrics, and the occasional creepy background voices and effects.

Amusing “Hounds of Love” memory: watching the 1950’s sci-fi movie “Curse of the Demon” at some point in the deep past and realizing that that’s where the “it’s in the trees! it’s coming!” bit at the beginning of the title track comes from.

Pavement: one of those bands from the 90s that I had always intended to get into but never have other than hearing a song or two on the radio from time to time (like “Range Life,” which is on this record). It’s nice noisy indie rock with guitar that could be defined as jangly if it were faster - maybe twangy and off-kilter is better. The vocals are odd, occasionally poignant, and enjoyable, and there was an unexpected instrumental excursion into Dave Brubeck territory, which I really enjoyed.

I predict that paying closer attention to the lyrics will be rewarding, and I’ll have time to do that later because I’m adding this to my “I Bought This Album Because of Robert Dimery” list.

The guitar of course is immaculate, it being Jimi Hendrix. Some of it is like the jazzy end of soul, some just blistering rock guitar. And of course there are a couple of great, familiar songs, “Little Wing” and especially “Castles Made of Sand.” This is good road trip music - just buzzing along the highway, the drums rolling along with the wheels.

Huh, I found this album to be more interesting than the other two that I’ve had here - it’s rougher, a little more to the punk or soul, and less to the Irish pub band. The horn section is very enthusiastic. Still not really exciting, but I’m glad at least that I had this last rather than first, since the others would have been a bit of a letdown.

This is a great record (ok, with one exception). While her voice is a strongly consistent part of the album, it isn’t monotonous, shifting from the electronic background of many of the songs to things like the Asian subcontinental flavor of “Venus As a Boy” and the loose, jazzy take on “Aeroplane.” I’m not usually one of these people who comment on production, but I can see that these songs are spacious and have deep layering, that they benefit from a good set of speakers or headphones. (The exception: I absolutely cannot stand “Like Someone in Love.”)

Side note: this has never occurred to me before, but “Human Behavior” sure reminds me of Radiohead’s “There, There,” with all the drumming and such. Even the two songs’ videos are similar, with Bjork/Thom running through the forest, hedgehogs, etc. Ah, I see from a quick search that I’m not the first person to notice this, but anyway, huh. This album came first, of course.

I’ve always loved “This Corrosion,” with its tension between the dark lyrics and celebratory music. So while this isn’t the most original album, it has lots of the kinds of songs that I like (threatening/incomprehensible lyrics, a solid beat, and vaguely North African undertones). I definitely enjoyed this, but then I've always been a bit of a Goth.

How many thousands of times have I listened to this record? I was an insufferable little Yes fanatic in high school and the beginning of college, so I was thinking I’d give this a 3 out of sheer overexposure. But wait - while the vaguely mystical vocals are a little irritating, I’d forgotten how good the bass and guitar are.

This is great; a lot of it sounds like what The Ventures would be like if they were a Latin/soul band. And the rest is just solid; horns and Latin percussion and such - super fun stuff. I see that this is actually the soundtrack for a completely deranged-sounding movie (The Thing With Two Heads, which makes me want to find this film. It reminds. me a bit of the soundtracks for Bollywood movies during that period.

Not as enamored of the covers (In a Gadda da vida and Satisfaction), but the rest makes up for that.

This is amusing proto-punk. At times it reminds me of the Flo and Eddie era of The Mothers of Invention - irreverent goofiness mixed with competent playing, especially the faux-naive cover of “I Got You Babe.” Some of the lyrics didn’t age well, but I doubt they had a classic for the ages in mind when they wrote them. This isn’t one of those records that I want to listen to over and over, but it definitely is part of the lore, and therefore belongs in the book.

HOLY SHIT this is a great album.

The trumpet feels loose and untethered, but is boosted and restrained by a mind-boggling percussion section. The echoing trumpet and piano bit at the end of the second track is wonderful. The sax on the third track, the piano throughout. It took me many years to get into this album, but now I’ve gotten to the point with jazz where this is perfect - frenetic, not sleepy, always surprising. Wonderful album.

This album was on constant rotation in my house and my office and my car and all my friends’ cars when this record first came out. We were all obviously in a bit of a mood.

I hadn’t listened to it in ages, though, until she died a few years ago, and started picking it up again from time to time. The personal (and political) force behind these songs makes them so compelling.

Favorite track: “I Am Stretched On Your Grave,” an old Irish song that by her feels literal, especially how she sings it with just the marvelously harsh bass and drums until it breaks into the trad fiddling. I’ve now got it stuck in my head and I think it popped up in a dream last night. Great record.

Another band that I didn’t get into at the time (and now I think I see why).

I liked this in bursts, but unfortunately the vocals made me think of maybe ELO or something, which for me = ick. I did appreciate some of the impenetrable lyrics, and all the nice garbled fuzz in some of the songs. And while he wasn’t singing I kept imagining it could be a 4; I liked “(A) Touch Sensitive” a lot, for example, but guess what, it was an instrumental. I guess if I could do decimals I’d give it a 3.5. I managed to resist turning it off before it ended, at least.

I’m happy to get to hear a Spacemen 3 record that I hadn’t heard before; I’ve always liked what I heard of them before. This is nice blurry shoegaze-psychedelia spacey kinda stuff. Just my kinda thing.

Fave tracks: "Revolution" and “Suicide,” which remind me of my favorite stuff from the Velvet Underground (and, in fact, Suicide). And "How Does it Feel," which reminds me of the Spacemen 3 track that I know best, their later 45-minute-long “Dreamweapon,” which I recommend to anyone who also gave this album five stars but hasn’t heard it.

Will listen again and I bet it’ll end up downloaded on my phone.

I first heard Chic because before I quit and went to work at a record store, I was working as a switchboard operator at an answering service, and this woman Darlene who sat next to me LOVED “Le Freak.” She demonstrated the dance to us while singing it over lunch break one day, which is one of those musical moments from 1978 that is fixed in my mind.

People complain about disco (or at least they used to in the 70s), but some of it is fun. I found this record compelling mainly because of Nile Rodgers’ guitar, which underpins the songs with a solid rhythm.

One BIG surprise about this record: “At Last I Am Free.” I had no idea that this was a Chic song — I know it as a Robert Wyatt song from the early 80s, and didn't know it was a cover (and certainly not a cover of a Chic song). The original ends with the same extended repeating of “At last I am free, I can hardly see in front of me” just like the Wyatt version does, and it’s seven minutes long. Amazing.

This is almost like early-60s lounge-singer or girl-group type music, but Amy Winehouse’s strong, distinctive voice, the way she approaches these songs, and the lyrics themselves make it feel modern and compelling. I’ve found so much of this to be sadder now since her death, but still, they’re great songs, and it’s a great record.

Yesssss, I love this record. It has a dreamlike atmosphere that starts at the very beginning and then continues with that level of intensity. It’s a sad, dark, threatening dream, but a dream nonetheless. The guitars, the vocals, the percussion: mesmerizing throughout the entire album.

Until I started doing this project, the only Cure album I had was that comp “Staring at the Sun,” so I already knew and loved “The Hanging Garden” (the drumming! the imagery!). New favorites on this album? Well, the whole thing, really, but especially “Cold” and the intense, chaotic title track.

So the first song was ok; it made me think that it could be a good record for a road trip where you’re trying to stay awake and hopefully can get to the next rest stop and get another cup of coffee before you get too stupid.

Oh but no: then the second song is “Breakdown,” which I’ve never really enjoyed; my experience here was a combination of having heard it too many times and being annoyed by his voice, which grates. And the rest of it doesn’t improve much on that, unfortunately.

Summary: Robert Dimery, why are you making me listen to American midwestern homeland teenage music. I like some of this later stuff, but this isn’t interesting.

There are a couple of songs on this album that get airplay from time to time and I really like: “David Watts” and “Waterloo Sunset.” Do the rest live up to those?
Yes indeed, these are fun, quirky songs; probably more impactful in England in 1967, but I like the lyrics to a lot of them. “Two Sisters” is touching. “No Return” surprised me with its bossa-nova-adjacent tune. On the whole, a pleasant, toe-tapping album. Very English. The percussion section is fun.

Another album that improved for me as it went on. The beginning felt a little too emo, but later tracks were more instrumentally heavy (while also being lyrically heavy). It just got very heavy as I read the wikipedia article, hearing that the poor lyricist had been suffering and disappeared shortly after this came out.

There are some marvelously intense postpunk moments and incisive lyrics (when I could catch what he was saying), and the title and intro of the second track made me nod approvingly. Knowing too much about it made it a sad rather than an angry listen, though.