Reviews by tipula

I only know “Back in Black,” so this was an interesting new listen. It’s like she takes all the boring late-50s ballads and puts an edge on them. Not my favorite style of music, so I doubt I’ll listen to it again, but her singing style is very compelling, so I enjoyed this listen at least.

You know, I think I’ve never actually heard this record its entirety before. It’s definitely U2, but several of the songs have a less polished sound than what I remember from their later albums, which I thought was good.

Everyone knows “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “New Years Day,” and “Two Hearts Beat as One” because of constant airplay, and I was tempted to skip them on this listen. “Sunday,” at least, was a powerful song when it first appeared, and still is, with the drumming and fiddle beating a rhythm behind “I’ll wipe the tears away.”

For the rest of it, I was surprised when “Seconds” came on just now because I’ve always liked that song and honestly had no idea it was U2! The other tracks were definitely U2.

I loved this record in the 90s, played it all the time, and still love it. It’s so chill and beautiful, the record that got me into trip-hop. Of course we all recognize “Sour Times” from the first jingly chord at the beginning, but it’s a popular song that I’ll never get sick of.

I love trip-hop, it’s so rhythm-forward and yet stripped-down and chill at the same time, with all that good stuff from dub and reggae throughout. So of course I think this is a great record.

Well yes, this is an Elvis Costello album, with songs that sound very much like Elvis Costello, because everything Elvis Costello does sounds vaguely alike to me because I was just never into Elvis Costello. (I laughed when a song called “This is Hell” popped up. Come on, it isn’t quite *hell* to have to listen to this, Elvis Costello is a good songwriter.)

It’s a perfectly fine album, just another one of those instances where I’d prefer to hear the songs interwoven in a radio set with other stuff instead of having to sit through an indigestible brick of Elvis Costello.

This isn’t as unpleasant as I thought it was going to be. Oh wait, yes it is, it’s another one of those records where the music is a solid and fun but the vocals are irritating. Is there a karaoke version of Linkin Park that I could listen to? I might enjoy that.

lol the end of this track where he’s going “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” is making me laugh. YES PLEASE DO THAT

I loved this record when it was first out, but hadn't listened to it in quite a while. I still liked it, there are some solid songs ("Nightswimming," e.g.), but on listening to all of R.E.M. in retrospect recently I have to say that I prefer their earlier jangly, incomprehensible stuff better. But this is nice.

I grew up listening to this record - my parents had a copy, and my dad played it a lot. For me this record is all about the rhythmic complexity of “Blue “Rondo à la Turk” and “Take Five,” of course, but the rest of it works just fine around those two standouts. Hearing those two tracks all the time as a little kid is probably a lot of why I like the complicated and unpredictable music I do now.

Oh good, it’s the one with “White Winter Hymnal” on it. This song always surprises me when I hear it around Christmas - I mean I’m happy to hear it, since it’s a great song and a useful antidote to all the forced holiday wholesomeness, but I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one who’s ever paid any attention to the lyrics.

The rest of it is indie rock/folk, kind of like a less-nerdy early Decemberists. I think we have this CD here somewhere, but I’m ok with just hearing “White Winter Hymnal” on the radio once or twice during the holidays and leaving it at that. It’s a good album of music like this for those occasions when you want to hear music like this (which I don’t very often). I think it deserves a 4 because of “White Winter Hymnal”; it’s competent and not annoying in any way.

Well ok then: I thought I was going to be bored to death by this record based on what Adele I’d heard before, but this record at least has drums and a lot of energy. And she has a really good voice. I’m not going to go back to this anytime soon (ok, ever), but at this point I’m going to have to admit that I’m not a total Adele-hater anymore.

Ooh I really like this: soaring vocals, interesting synthy beeping thrumming stuff, clicking beat.
Way more experimental than I expected this to be.
“Hours” was almost frightening - I pictured here as a glowing supernatural creature looming up over the horizon, approaching the city in her dazzing, terrifying beauty. Do we want her to kiss us for hours? Yes? Yes? No? Yes
Yeah any record that messes with my mind this much, especially in the guise of “pop” music, gets a 5.

I’d had no idea who D’Angelo was until I heard that he’d died last year, though on hearing this now I realize that I have actually heard a lot of these songs here and there. This is pretty mellow soul stuff, which is not my usual choice of what to listen to, but in this case there’s a steady funky beat behind it all that makes it work. Some of it is pretty sleepy, though. I feel like I’m in one of those lush bars that sell $25 cocktails, slowly sliding down out of my chair
Best song title: “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker”

"There is no dark side of the moon - matter of fact, it's all dark"

And here is what was once my favorite album in all the world, at least until they released "Wish You Were Here."

I listened to it twice today, for the first time at all in quite a while, and had a great time with it. I tend to think of DSOTM as something I've heard SO many times and therefore am no longer really interested in anymore, but there is so much interesting stuff on here. The combination of the simple piano and the great vocals on "Great Gig in the Sky”; the cacophony of clocks at the beginning of "Time”; the synthy stuff on "Any Colour You Like”; the lyrics of (and singing along with) "Brain Damage.” Even "Money," which I figure everyone at some point has got sick of, has good stuff in it.

Though I’m still more interested in “Wish You Were Here" and "Animals," I found this to all be good. I just need to take a break from it every couple of years in order to remember how to appreciate it again.

I had some of his stuff in the 70s, but then I started listening to King Crimson or whatever so I never looked back. But while post-1980 Bruce never really penetrated into my little punk/prog bubble, I have new respect for him because of the song he released last year, "Streets of Minneapolis." So here goes.

This is fun good-time rock music with some introspective, sometimes dark lyrics. Still not really the kind of thing that I like anymore, but I can see why it's popular.

3 stars

Pink Flag!

This is one of those essential albums that I'VE NEVER BOTHERED TO GET A COPY OF for some reason that I can't pinpoint at the moment, so anyway here we are.

I love grindy, noisy, melodic punk like this. I guess I was waiting for a day when this album would be exactly like the exact kind of music that I like? And that's today! Time to finally buy a copy of this album!

5/5

A band from 1978 that I've never heard of? Oh wait, this is the "Another Girl, Another Planet" record. I never knew what band did that song, just that it was that "Another Girl, Another Planet" song. Anyway -

Wow, I had no idea this was going to be this good. The singer has a weird singing style that makes this much more interesting than most music categorized as "power pop." It reminds me a lot of Television, with other things from that period thrown in too. It's really more adjacent to punk or No Wave than what I usually think of as power pop, which is a good thing, since I think most power pop is boring. "Another Girl, Another Planet" is of course fun, but I kinda liked the rest of it more, especially "City of Fun" and "The Beast."

This is the sort of music that I like; I'm definitely going to listen to it again and check out their other two albums. I predict that I will complain that one of these should be swapped for one of the many Elvis Costello records here.

I didn't know this record existed since I never really paid attention to Beck after his two big 90s hits. I'm quite enjoying it.

It is a lot of sad, but was made more interesting because of his choices for the instrumentation beyond his guitar, like the strings behind "Paper Tiger." I was occasionally reminded of some of the stuff on Radiohead's "A Moon-shaped Pool” (which was coincidentally also produced by Godrich, but of course came out 14 years after this album).

On hearing the whole thing I can say it's consistently good, and varied enough to be more interesting than the standard sad-guy-with-a-guitar material by other artists. You wouldn't think while listening to "Loser" that he would eventually come out with music like this - I'll listen to it again.

4 stars

I'll start this off by saying that I LOVE South Asian music and am pretty familiar with it: traditional music from various regions, Bollywood soundtracks, you name it.

Unfortunately, the first couple of tracks started this off badly for me. It's not the European/American influences that bothered me, since the 60's/70's Bollywood music that I like best mixes 60's rock stuff with classical Indian instrumentation all the time. The problem I guess is that the pop music that Shankar leans into here isn't the kind of pop music that I like. For me the first four songs were too much like Indian-flavored easy-listening music, and I didn't enjoy them at all.

But ending the first side, "Metamorphosis" was nice, and then all of the second side was lovely. "Sagar" is a gorgeous, 13-minute-long piece that seems to have a quiet little bass line in the background at times. "Dance Indra" felt fusion-y and interesting, and "Raghupati" was toe-tapping.

If I were just reviewing the second side of this album I'd give it 4 stars, but my attitude about the first side brings it down to a 3.

Ah yes, there was a time when I lived for this record and its contemporary, "Lumpy Gravy." It’s some of the usual Zappa silliness, with great music interspersed with it all.

So much of this feels contemporary, or maybe it's just that I happen to listen to lots of records with random noises sprinkled here and there nowadays? A couple of the tracks, like "Concentration Moon," and "Mom and Dad,” which were written about young people being oppressed for not being “normal” at the time, made me think about what it’s like for young trans and queer folks now, and it was chilling.

Yeah, 5 stars because while there are a couple of off moments here and there in it, it sure was important to me in the 70s and has some great music.

Like I said in my review of Seventeen Seconds last year, I always liked (most of) The Cure, but never owned any of their records except for one comp. So I'm looking forward to this one, especially since it was characterized as a return to their earlier, Goth-y sound.

This record gets better and better as it goes along, becoming more intense and mesmerizing; the title track is great. I actually think that the least interesting songs on here are the two I’m most familiar with, Lovesong and Pictures of You. That’s probably partly novelty bias about the rest of it and also that those are both more conventional songs, and I tend to go for stranger things.