Reviews by tipula

I hoped that listening to an entire Oasis album would improve my opinion of them, I really did. I already knew (and disliked) "Wonderwall," of course, but I had to give the rest of the album a chance.

But sadly, no, this just wasn't interesting enough to get my attention. It wasn't even engaging enough for me to be able to describe what it is that I don't like about it other than just "it was irritating."

2 stars

I love how this all starts off, with some great dissonance and interesting interweaving rhythms. There are occasional smoother jazz moments, but soon enough it gets weird and complicated again, coming apart with the saxes and other good stuff before coming back to the melody.

I'm glad there are no vocals on this record, which would distract from the subtle, interesting stuff happening with all the instruments. This isn't background music, it rewards close listening, so I put on the headphones and dialed in. I've always known of Thelonious Monk and how important his work was, but I think I never paid close enough attention to it before. I was sorry when this record ended.

5 stars

This record started out slow for me. I've always been annoyed by "My My Hey Hey": I have a thing about songs that are self-referential about "rock and roll." And a couple of the other songs had me reacting to the lyrics with "WTF is this?!" So, I lopped off a couple points for those.

But it improves in the second half with "Powderfinger," and then continues to get better: I could have mistaken "Sedan Delivery" for Television or something if I wasn't listening too closely. And the reprise of "My My Hey Hey" at the end was fun with the fuzzy noise (sure, the lyrics are still annoying, but here they're masked by lots of nice fuzzy noise, as annoying lyrics should be).

The structure of this album feels to me like it's making a point about the evolution of rock music from the beginning of the 70s into the influence of punk by the end of the decade, though Neil might argue with that.

Favorite: "Sedan Delivery," which was a BIG surprise. I ended up playing it a second time after the record was over, in fact. It is now the second song on my "Neil Young Songs That I Like" list.

3 stars

Oh fun - I remember loving "Super Fly" and "Freddie's Dead" when they were on the radio back in the day. The intro to the title track is great, Mayfield has a wonderful voice, and this is solid music, all this soul stuff with little Latin touches like congas in the background.

Some of the songs sound a little too much alike to me, so as an album I think this stuff is better as singles to hear on the radio from time to time. But the songs are great.

3 stars

First track got my attention right off the bat with the bass & synth then shifting into kind of a 70s r&b sample weaving into it before he starts singing. This chill vibe continues on throughout, occasionally with gospel-y and political parts.

I thought "Testify" was particularly good, the way the different parts of the story interweave in the song. And the other song with the bit "Go! go! go! go! go! and on the count of 3" is very catchy.

I had heard of Common, but this is the first time I've heard any of his work.
Probably won't listen to it much again, but I enjoyed the whole thing - 4 stars

Nina Simone is one of the greatest vocalists of our time, and I've always admired her when I've heard individual songs. But I'll admit I was a little worried about how I'd respond to an entire record of this mid-60s material, largely voice and piano.

But on hearing it: Wow her voice, and her sense of timing as she interprets these songs. "Four Women" stands out in this collection, an incredibly affecting song.

4 stars - the romantic songs aren't my favorite, but the rest was very powerful.

What I liked best about this record were the weird little 1-minute tracks in between the actual songs. I think I would enjoy a short collection of those; that would be fun.

The rest of it? I didn't like it at the beginning, but it started growing on me with "Pyramids" and the rest of the second half. The imagery in the lyrics started to catch my attention and it all seemed to get a little more complex.

I doubt I'll revisit this album anytime soon, but I'm glad I heard it.

3 stars

Hey I recognized one of these songs, "Wood Beez," an innocuous dance track that I used to hear on the radio that obviously didn't really get my attention since I wouldn't have been able to tell you what band it was at the time.

This stuff isn't terrible, just uninteresting to me, maybe a bland version of Michael Jackson.

Meh, 2 stars

I suffered through most of this record. The first song was interesting, at least, since about a third of it was a pleasantly discordant orchestral break. I'll admit he's an interesting lyricist, but I just can't stand syrupy music like this. At least it's only 31 minutes long.

2 stars

There was a time when I experienced this record as pleasant but slightly boring background music, so I'm grateful that I've become more attuned to jazz recently so that I was able to listen more carefully to this great record this morning.

There's a reason "A Love Supreme" is considered to be one of those must-listen, classic jazz albums - Coltrane makes that sax go through and around and back and then on the other side of the rest of the melody. And the top-notch combo he's assembled here is amazing - the piano, the drumming, that long solo bass bit in Part III! Yep, I get this album now. It's sparse but deeply immersive at the same time.

5 stars

So this is a good record, but I'm rarely in the mood to listen to Simon and Garfunkel much. I do really like "America," though. Amusingly, I heard the Yes cover of it long before this original - the original is better, more deeply felt.

However, on the subject of covers of songs on this record, I stand firm in my opinion that The Lemonheads' version of "Mrs. Robinson" is better than this original. Or at least I like it more; "better" is subjective, after all.

3 stars on this one for me because it's an old record that I've heard a whole lot of times

This is nice: horn and piano, drums: jazz but always with a solid beat lurking underneath.

As always I like the faster bits the best, but even the slow parts work for me on this one. It feels like a soundtrack for a gritty, wistful movie about an imaginary city.

I like it and will revisit this record when I'm in the mood for something calm and yet also lively like this.

4 stars

So sometimes I forget about tropicália and start thinking that Brazilian music is all just bossa nova, those records that my dad had in the 60s: slow, boring music for endless afternoons.

But no, there's also stuff like this. There are keyboards, guitars, drums, even a sitar on this record! And Caetano Veloso has a great voice. This record has that nice warm sultry feeling that you get from bossa nova minus the part that puts me to sleep.

The cover is interesting. Did they think there were dragons in Brazil in 1968?

4 stars

I've never been into Metallica, or metal in general with some exceptions, so here we go. I'm told that this is the proggiest Metallica album, so that probably makes it a good first attempt at this band for me. And yeah, several songs had moments that made me be like "wait, is this Genesis...? (lol no, it is NOT Genesis - commence headbanging)

I really loved the music on this record, all the brutal bass lines, drum, and interesting guitar bits. There were great extended instrumental sections on quite a lot of the tracks; I especially liked the slower, heavy sludgey stuff, but the fast stuff of course was marvelous.

Unfortunately, I found the vocals to be consistently annoying. But still, looking forward to more Metallica as I get deeper into this project.

4 stars

Bought this record when it was new and have loved it ever since.

Yeah this is a GREAT album. A great combination of ska and punk - the guitar, the horns, the vocals, the drums, all great stuff. The songs that were on the radio a lot here ("Message to you Rudy" and "Monkey Man") are the best, of course, but really the whole thing is fun.

RIP Terry Hall.

5 stars

Ray Charles! I liked the tracks like "It Makes No Difference Now" that were mainly him singing with a horn section, and the others with him on piano. As we all already know from other stuff he recorded, he was an incredibly gifted musician.

However, I just couldn't deal with the strings and backup singers on a number of the songs. If I had a higher tolerance for the droopy music of the 50s and early 60s I'd give it 4 stars for the songs and its importance in the context of the period, but what can I say.

So, 3 stars. Looking forward to other records by him.

Another record that I only know from the singles, since I never had a copy and wasn't ever really into Stevie Wonder at the time.

It was great to hear "Boogie On Reggae Woman" again for the first time in a while. I love that funky bassline, it sounds kind of like an electronic tuba. And "You Haven't Done Nothin'" sadly still hits pretty hard today. A great funk track.

Some of this was more mellow than what I usually like, but hey, if you have to have mellow music, it might as well be this, right? There's not an off note in any of it; the arrangements and harmonies all work well and are all varied enough for the record to be interesting as a whole.

I have a friend who saw Stevie Wonder in England last year, and she said it was a great show. So good to see he's still at it.

I know Isaac Hayes best from "Theme from Shaft," which I've always loved since hearing it on the radio when it was a hit in the early 70s. Plus the wikipedia article says that this is one of Henry Rollins' favorite records. So hey, let's go.

This is everything that I liked about "Shaft" but stretched out, sometimes with an almost improv kind of feeling. I did not expect these instrumental bits! The crazy long end of "Hyperbolicsyllablecsesquedalymistic" reminded me of Can. (Or maybe better to say that the bass on "Tago Mago" reminds me of "Hyperbolicsyllablecsesquedalymistic," since this came out 3 years earlier.)

What interested me most when I first saw the tracklist was this 18-minute-long version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." What? I didn't know what to expect with this, an 18-minute soul version of what I remember as a lightweight Glen Campbell song from when I was a kid. But damn, his long intro that created a story around why the guy in the song was doing what he was doing caused this version to be pretty heartbreaking.

4/5

HARDCORE PUNK YEAH

In 1980 I was still listening to lots of prog and such, so it took me a while to get a real appreciation of this kind of stuff. I didn't really get it at the time, but I love it now.

So here we have 14 tracks, none of which is more than 2 minutes long - the perfect length for songs like this. This record makes me want to jump around.

5 stars because FUCK YEAH

This is a great record. I think Bragg's political sensibility made him a good match for Guthrie, and while most of these songs aren't political, still, it feels right. And though I don't really know Wilco much though I appreciate them, I like Billy Bragg, with his political British punk/folk work.

Of course I'm sure part of what I'm enjoying about it this morning is nostalgia for listening to it all the time when it first came out. I was listening to less noisy music in the late 90s, lots of British and Scandinavian folk and world music kind of stuff. And "California Stars" is still one of my favorite songs; it makes me cry for some reason.

4/5