Reviews by tipula

Ah ok, so this is what Hot Chip sounds like (and why I have no memory of it despite inevitably having heard them at some point).

There are bits that are good here and there, and I like electronica as a genre quite a lot, so I have no problem with it from that angle. But this record isn't very surprising or interesting to me. Maybe I would prefer their earlier stuff? Wikipedia says they're influenced by Roxy Music and Royal Trux, which I'm kind of baffled by on the basis of this album alone.

2 stars

This album is rather precious with all this British country nostalgia, isn't it. I recognize that it's a little tongue in cheek, but still. I guess "Big Sky" is a bit more interesting with its spoken word bit, and I've always liked "Animal Farm." And of course these songs all have the advantage of being very short.

But on the whole I like the garage-y sound of the earlier Kinks record that I had yesterday better. I'll admit that I began counting how many songs were left after "Animal Farm."

3 stars

I enjoyed these fourteen short toe-tapping tracks; it's a fun, bouncy, slightly chaotic record. All I knew from this album until this point was "Sunny Afternoon," and I enjoyed that, plus the rest with the harpsichord and guitar jingling away in the background and lyrics making fun of rich people and such. This was entertaining, I didn’t realize how much I liked The Kinks.

4 stars

TV On The Radio is another one of these bands that I hear on the radio from time to time but have never listened to an entire album of, which is the sort of thing I’m doing this project for.

I'm guessing I've never followed up with these guys because a lot of these tracks are smoother than what usually gets my attention. But it's a tuneful, enjoyable rock album with bits of funk, interesting vocals, solid percussion, and strings and horn sections adding to the sound here and there, so what's not to like. I might check them out for a repeat listen.

Favorite tracks: "Red Dress," "Love Dog"

4 stars

Just like the San Quentin record I had a while back, this is another amazing record. I'm sitting here crying to "The Green, Green Grass of Home"; I'd never really paid attention to the lyrics before.

I can only imagine how it felt to hear these songs to those guys in that prison. I love his amusing attitude about this being recorded by a record company that won’t let him cuss on the record, his sympathy for the folks in the audience, and how simple these songs are, either just him and the guitar or the accompaniment of June Carter and the band.

I’m not really into country music at all, but these Johnny Cash prison records are a strong exception.

Tell me where the party at! Where the party at! Where the party at!

I liked the Missy Elliott record that I had yesterday, and I like this one too. There is some more tuneful r&b kinda stuff on it, but it doesn't slow it down. There's always a solid beat happening in the background; the repeating beat in "They Don't Wanna Fuck Wit Me," for example.

I particularly enjoyed "Pass the Blunt" with its amusing quotes of "Pass the Dutchie" by Musical Youth. Again I don't know how often I'll go back to this record, but I'm really enjoying it now - 4 stars

Well I didn't really expect to like this too much, but guess what. When I'm done with this project I'm going to say that the main thing I've learned from it is how much I like hip-hop.

Hearing Missy Elliott's voice in the intro was so nice - she's from Tidewater Virginia and her voice reminds me so much of the voices of a lot of the folks here at home in DC.

Every one of these tracks was great - both her fluid rapping and that of the guests like Ludacris. I was originally like "ok I'm just going to listen to one track now and finish it later,” but then I didn't want to turn it off. I don't know if I'll buy a copy of this and listen to it all the time, but I certainly enjoyed it today.
4 stars

JAMC were on the alterna-radio a lot back in the day, but never grabbed me enough to buy any of their records. Did I make the right choice at the time? We shall see.

This stuff is tuneful, but not very exciting. I liked "Happy When it Rains," though, and some of it feels almost like some of the slower Velvets songs, which I appreciated. Maybe if I were following the lyrics more closely, it might be hitting me with some poignant feeling that the music seems to call for but doesn't quite evoke.

But this sounds so much like other bands from this period. Their drum machine is making me tap my foot, but most of these songs aren't hitting for me.

3 stars

Where it's at? I got two turntables and a microphone
Love “Devil’s Haircut,” "The New Pollution," and “Where It’s At” from the radio, of course. Car radio, mid-90s
A very enjoyable genre-hopping mess. Hip-hop played at the wrong speed, noises popping off here and there, sampled bossa nova, all united by Beck's lyrics that veer between some kind of open road Americana and - what. It feels very much of its time, and/but a fun listen. This review is just as disjointed as the record, which is to mean that I'm enjoying it.
Am I going to give this crazy record 5 stars. You just watch me, I just might.

My general rule is "all krautrock gets 5 stars!" but surely I can write a more objective review than that.

Some of the music here is calm but toe-tapping, and some has a slightly doomier vibe. There’s also a serious piano piece accompanied by something that sounds like a ticking clock or a metronome, ocean waves, and whispering. The electronica is as mesmerizing as the more-familiar tracks from their first album like "Hallogallo,” except that there's also some great deranged singing that sounds a bit like strange bands from later in the 70s like Chrome. Woo incoherent dance party

I have to add that I liked the wiki's mention of how Neu! used the German term Unterhaltungsmusik, or “entertainment music” to describe what one of the tracks was *not*. I'm now going to go around saying "ugh, Unterhaltungsmusik," if someone asks me my opinion of Sabrina Carpenter or whatever.

This is a marvelous album; easy 5 stars since I love this record; it’s exactly the sort of thing that I like.

Usually I've at least heard of the popular UK bands of the late 90s, but I had no idea of the existence of Travis.

So - I think if I were familiar with this record I might be enjoying a little, simply out of 90s nostalgia or something. I mean it's better than a lot of other things, right? But it's just not very interesting. I was particularly surprised when I read that Nigel Godrich produced it - I thought "yikes, what would this be like if he hadn't."

3 stars

I have a vague memory of this band as something from the radio in the late 80s/early 90s, but don't know this album.

I enjoyed this, it’s a pleasant soundtrack for the text on dragonfly habitat selection that I’m reading for a presentation I have to do next week. There’s some great repeating noise here and there - organ, or synths of some sort? Plus some bluesy guitar - the playing is good.

Favorite track: ”I am the Resurrection,” which is a little 60s-ish, but much more interesting than actual 60s music. Well, especially once that track went off into that nice long riffy breakdown at the end. That track is the best thing on the record IMO.

BUT OF COURSE the song I like best by this band ("Fools Gold"), with its funky bass and guitar and interesting muted vocals, was only on the US release. I'm listening to it now anyway, ha: take that, 1001 Albums.

4 stars

Is she weird? Is she white? Is she promised to the night?

This record doesn’t really stand out for me the way Pixies’ earlier stuff does, but I’d rather listen to Pixies than a vast array of other rock bands, so it had that going for it at least. And hey, starting off with surf music is always a good idea. “Is She Weird” is fun, “Havalina” is a great closing song, and there’s sufficient sonic weirdness here and there to keep my attention. So yeah, that was fun.

4 stars

It’s been so long since I’ve heard this record that my opinion of Rod Stewart was affected by how much I dislike his later song “Tonight’s the Night.” But I soldiered on despite.

This is a nice record, with lots of bluesy guitar and folky fiddle and mandolin. I don’t love Rod Stewart’s voice, but it works here. “Maggie May” and “I’m Losing You” are well-regarded songs for a reason, but the thing that affected me most on this listen was “Mandolin Wind.” I think I never really listened closely to that song before - or maybe you need to be older to really be able relate to what it's saying.

4 stars

I had no preconceptions about this record - all I remembered about Quicksilver was that they were somehow connected to the Airplane. When I saw it, I thought “ok, another 60s album, I’ll probably give it a 3.” But instead….

Remember when I whined about The Beau Brummels being called “psychedelic”? THIS is what I mean by psychedelic music. Endless unfocused weird noodly jams that cause you to sit staring at the floral sofa upholstery for a half hour and whisper to yourself “Are those flowers alive?”

Kind of a mushy live recording, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Oh hell yeah, it's the BEAST-IE-BOYS

This is a ridiculously amusing album, I love this stupid comedy record. Only downside is I've had "You've gotta fight - for your right - to paaaaarty" stuck in my head for the past 24 hours

Foo Fighters are a band that I somehow have never paid much attention to.

I found this to be tuneful commercial alterna-punk, which of course owes a lot to Nirvana, but feels very watered down in comparison. I didn't need to turn it off at any point, but I also wasn't really into it.

3 stars

Sometimes I wonder why music like this is called "psychedelic." I mean I've taken my share of psychedelic drugs, and this is absolutely not the kind of music I would have chosen at the time. Maybe it's because their heads are sprouting out of flowers on the record cover? I could see myself being into that (while listening to a different record).

The band is competent, with some interesting bits, but the vocals were annoying. And while the lyrics had their strange moments, in the end they weren't strange enough to be interesting.

2 stars

I'd never heard the entire album at the time it came out, but of course I know "Without You" (a.k.a. "Ken Lee," for those of us who spend too much time on the internet), and "Coconut," both from Top 40 radio when this record first came out. "Without You" I can do without, but "Coconut" was fun.

Early in the Morning, his cover of an Afro-Cuban song from the 1940s, had nice simple instrumentation. It got me to dig up the original on YouTube, which I'll admit I prefer, but Nilsson's version was a good take on the original.

Favorite track: "Jump into the Fire," with its manic jam at the end. I hear this song way more often nowadays than I ever did in the 70s, which is fine with me. "We can make each other happy! We can make each other happy! We can make each other happy!"

I've never heard this one before. I like it better than the earlier stuff of hers that I'm more familiar with, because she's got a lot of complex musical accompaniment, much of it not very traditionally country-sounding.

Enjoyed listening to this today and probably will return to it in the future.

4 stars