Reviews by tjehl

Trent Reznor said: “I’ve written this techno-inspired metal album about a person’s suicidal downfall. Why not dance?”

Ok, he might not have said those words exactly.

But dance we did.

Horrible cover, ridiculous name.
Now that’s out of the way.

I went into this album fully expecting to love every second of it. Their harmonies are beyond wonderful and “California Dreamin’” is one of those songs that I could play on repeat forever and never grow tired of.

Unfortunately I don’t feel the same towards the rest of the album. It’s quite good and I really do like those harmonies a lot. It just rarely moves me.
It’s as if it’s too polished for its own good. Too far removed from the original emotions of the songs.

NEU!? Don’t you mean: “NEIN!”?

Unfortunately this German piece of krautrock history is excellent, so my otherwise well-thought-out joke falls flat.

If we could only pretend “After Eight” wasn’t part of the album, NEU! 75 would be the flawless masterpiece it deserves to be.

A series of charming murder ballads by the brother duo perhaps best known for their amazing cover to their Satan Is Real album.

The harmonizing has become iconic but the whole vibe of this albums becomes one-sided rather quickly as the Louvin Brothers reveal that their tricks, effective as they might be, are not that diverse and many.

Clever, conscious and organic 90’s hip hop album. Quite the contrast to the eras dominant gangsta rap.

The skits are on a minimum as well - but 3 Years… is still too long and meandering at times.

My second favorite Arrested Development in entertainment.

Led Zeppelin sing about sex, love and Tolkien as time just flies by.

Legendary rap trio, De La Soul, utilizes some great samples, innovative sound and a handful of guests on this albu…. Ok, who am I kidding?

3 Feet High and Rising is basically the birthplace of the 90’s hip hop skit craze. And that’s just unforgivable.

I don’t really get ballet.
What I do get is Mingus.

The grand ol’ angry man of the double bass tests your patience on this experimental piece of jazz history that seems years ahead of even some of his great contemporaries.

Metallica might just be the quintessential “12-years-old-and-discovering-metal”-album.

It’s been a while since I heard it.
It’s still heavy, it’s dense, it’s filled to the brim with classics. It’s Metallica quitting their faster, thrashier and more complex sides in order to finally emerge as the biggest metal band ever.

And overplayed, as some songs on this album are, this is a landmark album.

There’s really nothing special about this Specials album.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Here’s the Buzzcocks.

There’s absolutely no cohesion on this schizophrenic Moby album.

Starting with the glorious “Porcelain” the album reveals its qualities for a while and I start to think that we just got off on the wrong foot after the horrible opening tracks.

But after “Bodyrock” and “Machete” I’m forever lost and just kinda waits for the album to be over.

There are glimpses on light shining through the cracks of the tunnel along the way.
But Play ends up being quite a long walk.

A constant reminder that while Collins was a great successor as a lead singer, Gabriel brought along much more than just his unique vocals.

So is filled with great rhythms, grand ambitions and all-round complex pop.

“Red Rain” is as great an opener as they come and you just feel overwhelmingly safe in the arms of Peter Gabriel. There’s a few songs that doesn’t quite live up to the heights of the highs.

Nevertheless, So is still an album to be reckoned with.

Oh, you wanted “Smells Like Teen Spirit”?
Well, here’s “On A Plain” and a bunch of songs by the Meat Puppets that Cobain can barely sing.

This unplugged live album is the essence of Nirvana. Heck, it’s not even unplugged.

There are glimpses into what Nirvana could have been in the future. Where they were heading.

Of course, we’ll never know.

All we have is Cobain screaming: “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”

I take some kind of comfort in that.

The Chemical Brothers take you on a journey of their electronic home planet on this, their almost soundtrack-like debut album.

I find it hard to stay engaged through it all, but my head keeps bobbing and their sound is just classic.

The father of afrobeat puts on a phenomenal show accompanied by one of the greatest drummers of all time!
Ginger Baker also appears later on.

The first album where Led Zeppelin truly embraced the folk nature behind their sound.

John Paul Jones emerges as the multi-instrumentalist he would be known for later on. In many ways LZIII is almost his album.

While not remaining as interesting as their previous efforts all throughout, kicking things off with “Immigrant Song” is extremely iconic - and Led Zeppelin is just always fun.

Considering the significant airplay a lot of these songs received, 21 feels almost like a best of. A collection of some of the greatest pop songs of the last 20 years.

There are bangers such as “Rolling In the Deep” and “Set Fire To the Rain”, beautiful piano ballads in “Turning Table” and “Take It All” and then there’s the funky “Rumour Has It” and “He Won’t Go”.

The piece that finally convinces me that this is as good a pop album as they come is the cover of the Cure’s “Lovesong”. Once in a while a cover comes along that sounds so convincing that it could easily have been the original - take the Johnny Cash cover of “Hurt” as an example.

Adele’s “Lovesong” is one of those.

Ladies Love Cool James?

Nah.

Men Love Cool James.

While Ram was the first indication of the longevity of McCartney’s post-Beatles, Band On The Run was the album that cemented the fact.

There’s a handful of legendary tracks, McCartney’s vocals and musical playfulness is fully intact - and opening and closing with “Band On the Run” and “Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five” is just pure magic.