Reviews by uergsel

"Sheet Music" is the second album by the British band 10cc. They are rightly regarded as one of the most creative and innovative bands of the 1970s, capable of effortlessly transforming the most complex structures into hit songs. If there was such a thing as the Beatles of the 1970s, then it was indeed Lol Creme, Kevin Godley, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman. Whilst the band had merely hinted at their potential on their self-titled debut, it was here that the full breadth of their style unfolded for the first time: progressive pop in all its guises, spiced with intelligent, often highly ironic and pointed lyrics. The only other band that springs to mind is Gentle Giant, where all the musicians were accomplished multi-instrumentalists who could step into each other’s shoes at any time. The album features “The Wall Street Shuffle”, one of the band’s biggest hits, but the best tracks tend to be deep cuts such as “Clockwork Creep”, "Somewhere in Hollywood" and “Silly Love”. Maybe it isn’t even the best work from this four-piece line-up – which was soon to split into 10cc and Godley & Creme – but it surely is an impressive testament to the band’s boundless creativity.

I’d actually been hoping a bit that the album would disprove my preconceptions about ‘indie rock’, but unfortunately that’s not the case. Admittedly, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” has even been labelled “art rock”, which I can sort of understand given the experimental sounds here and there, but essentially Jeff Tweedy and his band remain true to the cliché of music without catchy hooks, featuring lots of self-centred lyrics and poor vocals. To be fair, I’ve heard worse, but over the course of a whole album, it does end up boring me. Critics regard the album as “one of the most experimental”, but if that’s the case, I’d rather not be listening to “the least experimental” tracks. The standards for indie rock are clearly not very high. For me, despite a few quite decent tracks, it’s just not enough.

"The Slim Shady LP" established Eminem's reputation as an exceptional rapper. In the role of his alter ego Slim Shady, he tackles controversial topics such as violence, drugs and sex, usually in a highly exaggerated manner. In doing so, he employs direct, at times vulgar language and misogynistic, violent clichés, yet a certain ironic distance from Shady’s posturing is clearly evident. If one wishes to peer into the hopeless, embittered, brutalised soul of the marginalised ‘white trash’ in the American heartland, this album offers an excellent insight into a social class that has been left to its own devices for years. Drugs, violence, sex, and hatred of everything and everyone are portrayed here in very graphic terms. In doing so, Eminem proves himself to be a highly skilful wordsmith who has far more to offer than just a string of swear words. Musically, however, it naturally remains rather limited. A few beats, a bassline, a couple of funky chords – none of it is worth mentioning. But I understand why this album was so important and why it remains highly relevant even today. But musically speaking, though – and for me, despite all the street poetry, this is what matters most – there simply isn’t much to be found here.

‘The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady’ is widely regarded as the masterpiece of Charles Mingus. It was released in 1963, which was perhaps Mingus's most creative year. During this period, he also recorded and released ‘Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus’ and ‘Mingus Plays Piano’. Musically, it is classified as 'Third Stream', a fusion of jazz and classical music. Even more than 60 years after its release, the album still feels avant-garde. There are hardly any successors to the album, not even from Mingus himself. Whilst he continued to work on a fusion of jazz and classical music, he never returned to this particular musical language. Free improvisations (or is it composed improvisations?) alternate with chamber music-style moments and big band sequences. With this album, Mingus set himself apart from his mentors, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington, whilst also creating a sound that was entirely different to that of John Coltrane or Miles Davis, for example. As unique as Mingus is, and as unique as this album is, I find it difficult to fully appreciate it. I like individual sequences, but the free-jazz passages leave me somewhat at a loss. There's simply too much happening at once for me to take it all in. Ultimately, it's perhaps another one of those great classics that everyone raves about but very few can truly understand or appreciate. It's a milestone, but like The Brothers Karamazov, it's a classic that I don't get much out of.

"De-Loused in the Comatorium" is the debut album by the American band The Mars Volta. And what a spectacular debut Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López delivered. Just as the new wave of progressive rock bands were settling comfortably into a quiet niche, The Mars Volta shook up the prog establishment. No one had charged forward in prog so loudly, so drastically, so fast and so garishly for a long time. "De-Loused in the Comatorium" is a single, full-throttle ride through tempo and key changes, unexpected twists and unheard-of sounds, all delivered with a self-assurance and energy that progressive rock had lost since the days of the legendary King Crimson in the 1970s. The band thus shot straight to the top and made it rather difficult for themselves to top their debut. For ten years, the band constantly reinvented itself, until they split up in the early 2010s and took a decade to reunite. As a debut album, "De-Loused in the Comatorium" is certainly one of the best, most radical and most successful prog albums of the 21st century so far.

Soft Machine's "Third" is widely regarded as a progressive rock classic and a blueprint for the jazz-influenced Canterbury sound. Although I have an extensive Soft Machine collection, I have always felt somewhat at odds with this supposed masterpiece. With four long compositions originally spread across four LP sides, I tend to lose the thread. In particular, I find the first two tracks, “Facelift” and “Slightly All the Time”, aimless and haphazard. 'Moon in June' is certainly the highlight of the album. Robert Wyatt sings improvised lyrics about summer and his longing for rain and retreat. Even though all the tracks on the album were very roughly edited, the vocal passages lend the song more structure and create a summery, melancholic mood. 'Out-Bloody-Rageous' is reminiscent of the music of Terry Riley, the highly influential founder of minimal music at the time, and feels more self-contained and thoroughly composed than the first two instrumental tracks. "Third" marked a radical departure for Soft Machine, moving away from the psychedelic proto-prog of the first two albums towards jazz. It would be in the years and reincarnations that followed that the band would more fully return to its rock heritage. I prefer almost all of the band's other albums, even though I find this radical shift in sound revolutionary.

Many consider "Synchronicity" to be the high point of The Police’s discography. However, I have a slightly different view and have always felt somewhat at odds with the album as a whole. Even compared to its predecessor, "Ghost in the Machine", the band had moved away from the post-punk, white reggae (Regatta de Blanc) new wave sound of their early albums, experimenting instead with synthesisers, sequencers and new forms. Driven by the egos and rivalry of three very self-assured alpha males, this experimentation escalated into hubris that culminated in "Synchronicity" and subsequently imploded. If you listen closely to the album, you realise just how much Sting, Summers and Copeland play against each other rather than with each other. They had nothing left to say to each other. Added to this is the crystal-clear yet cold production, which makes it difficult for me to connect with the album. While the album features some of the band’s best tracks (Synchronicity I & II, King of Pain and Wrapped Around Your Finger), it also contains some dreadful ones (Every Breath You Take, Miss Gradenko and Mother). Listening to the album from start to finish, it seems so cold, passionless and self-indulgent that you almost freeze to ice. In fact, 'Synchronicity' was probably the last good album this trio could have produced before things turned sour. It contains some of their best songs, as well as a lot of self-indulgence.

"Pretzel Logic" is probably the Steely Dan album that I play the least. In fact, I play it even less often than their somewhat uneven debut. It is the final album by Steely Dan, a band that gradually fell apart during the recording sessions. From then on, Becker and Fagen worked on perfecting their sound with a variety of studio musicians. At the same time, it’s an album that looks to the past with tracks such as the Duke Ellington cover ‘East St. Louis Toodle-Oo’ and the re-recorded early Donald Fagen track ‘Barrytown’, and jumps back and forth between genres: Blues, jazz, rock and pop. The best tracks are somewhat hidden on the album. These are certainly not the well-known single 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number' and the very popular B-side 'Any Major Dude Will Tell You', but rather the deep cuts 'Night by Night' (a blueprint for Toto, featuring a very young Jeff Porcaro on drums), the proggy (!) 'Charlie Freak' and the short and sweet 'Through with Buzz', which, with its string arrangement, almost sounds like an US version of the Electric Light Orchestra. Perhaps the most quintessential Steely Dan track on the album is the walking blues track 'Pretzel Logic', which already hints at the band’s future sound. Interestingly, the predecessor “Countdown to Ecstasy” sounds closer to the future SD sound than this album does. Overall, "Pretzel Logic" was a commercial breakthrough, at least compared to its less successful predecessor, but I just can’t bring myself to love this album unconditionally to the very end. What it has in common with all Dan albums is the perfect sound, the musical mastery, and – which should by no means be overlooked – the fantastic solos by Walter Becker, Jeff Baxter and Denny Dias.

By the time this album was released, Dion’s greatest hits from his rock ’n’ roll/doo-wop era (“The Wanderer”, “Runaround Sue”, “Ruby Baby”) were already 15 years in the past, and even Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound no longer had the same overwhelming impact in the mid-1970s as it had just a few years earlier. The album ‘Born to be With You’ didn’t capture the spirit of the times and, looking back, doesn’t really convince me either. The ageing rock ’n’ roller and the megalomaniacal producer didn’t create a bad album, but neither did they create a good one – or at least a solid one. Once you’ve listened to it, nothing sticks in your mind and, to be honest, you don’t really feel like listening to it a second time.

After Steely Dan effectively split up, Donald Fagen released his solo debut album, The Nightfly, in 1982. He collaborated with Gary Katz, who had produced several classic Steely Dan albums. Fagen was also supported by many of the same studio musicians he had worked with during his time with Steely Dan. Musically, Fagen maintained the same high standards of perfection that characterised Steely Dan, yet compositionally he adopted a different approach, rebalancing the elements. The Nightfly is more jazzy than any Steely Dan album, while simultaneously featuring numerous references to the early rock 'n' roll of Fagen's youth. The result is every bit as timeless as the Steely Dan catalogue and his subsequent solo albums. Unlike Steely Dan's bitterly ironic, sombre lyrics, this autobiographical album reflects the optimism and sense of new beginnings of Fagen's childhood and youth. As one would expect from Donald Fagen, the 1982 album contains no references to contemporary music, drum machines, samples or obtrusive keyboard sounds. Even in the 1970s, Fagen and Becker weren't interested in the 'sound of the moment' and always did their own thing. This is what makes the album so timeless and so good, despite its unmistakable references to the past. It is another perfect gem in Donald Fagen’s impressive discography.

From heartbreak and break-ups to loneliness, young female singer-songwriters are shaping the themes of pop music. For some, anger, revenge, disappointment and bitterness are also part of the mix. However, I think for Lorde it stays at heartbreak and sorrow. Her music is very much of the moment. But none of that interests me in the slightest. I hate to sound like an old white boomer, but this music is as ordinary as it is trivial. Goodness, I was so bored. But I suppose I’m not the target audience either.

Nick Cave and I just don’t see eye to eye anymore. With one exception — the mournful album Ghosteen — I have great respect for Nick Cave the artist, and for his unwavering artistic and personal integrity. Musically, however, on "Henry’s Dream" Cave remains exactly the ‘backyard Elvis’ that I’ve always perceived him to be (and I don’t mean that as a criticism). He is a storyteller who looks at the dark and dirty sides of the world, but musically, it's too much rock 'n' roll for me. There's too little pause for thought and too much prose. He's a good man. But not for me. With all due respect.

I refuse to listen to music by a strongly suspected sexual predator, a peddler of absurd conspiracy theories, an anti-Semite, a racist and an admirer of Hitler, who would actually make money from it.

Alternative rock, dance-punk revival, new wave, art rock, synth-pop, dance-rock. The genre labels for The Killers’ debut album "Hot Fuss" explain my problem with the band’s sound and my lack of interest. Because, honestly, I don’t hear any new wave here (how could I? It’s a genre label from the eighties), above all, I certainly don’t hear any art rock, and terms (and concepts) like dance-rock (sic!) and dance-punk (SIC!!) are enough to put me off for good. What I hear is that typical highly agitated vocals that eventually became established in alternative rock, along with a wall of sound made up of guitars and a few keyboard sounds that clash with the singer’s bleating. Of course, Brendan Flowers can sing well, but I wish he wouldn’t yell every note at full throttle. This music lacks variety and dynamic changes; almost everything seems to be cranked up to the max. I’ve heard worse, but “Glamorous Indie Rock’n’Roll” (that’s a track on the album) is absolutely not my cup of tea.

This review is a quick one, because I’m too old for this sort of rubbish. Squealing guitars, indistinct noise, tinny drums, vocals straight out of The Muppet Show. I suppose it’s meant to be very avant-garde, but others have produced radical noise much earlier and much more consistently. Boring, annoying and pointless.

When Björk released her fifth studio album, "Medúlla", I just felt I was no longer connecting with her music. I was a massive fan of her first two albums, "Debut" and "Post". I really liked the way she mixed avant-garde and pop music. I didn't find her third album, "Homogenic", as impressive. With the soundtrack "Selmasongs", she returned once more to her blend of avant-garde and pop music. The fourth album, "Vespertine", with its cold, electronic sound, just didn't do it for me. The compositions became more and more inaccessible. This idea is made even stronger on "Medúlla". The album's a departure from the cold electronic sound of the last one, and it's all about the vocals. With some tracks, it feels like the experiments with layered vocals have messed up the composition. I've got nothing against contemporary classical music, which is often more about sound than melody, but in the end, Björk's vocal talent just sounds like monotonous white noise to me. Around half the songs feel like they're just intros or outros, and you're left waiting for the actual song to begin. Even the big-name guests, like Robert Wyatt, Mike Patton and Tanya Tagaq, an Inuit throat singer, can't help. It's all very artful, but it's a bit too l'art pour l'art for my taste, an impression that would only get stronger on later albums. Some tracks really convinced my today revisiting the album after 20 years, but some just didn't. Still, it's the last Björk album I bought and kept. I think Björk is a really courageous artist with her own ideas and innovative concepts, but I just can't follow her anymore. Even I sometimes find music a bit too cerebral.

Jethro Tull were the last of the big prog bands I discovered for myself. I’d already been familiar with the other big bands – Yes, Genesis, King Crimson and ELP, even Van der Graaf Generator and Gentle Giant – since I was a pre-teen, thanks to my older siblings; I only really got to know Tull in the late 1980s; before that, I’d only heard their hits on the radio. “Aqualung” was the first proper studio album of theirs that I heard, and to this day I find this very distinctive blend of folk rock, blues rock, hard rock and progressive rock utterly captivating. The album also defines the band’s musical framework: acoustic folk numbers, riff-driven hard rock passages, bluesy solos and complexly arranged, unusually structured prog numbers featuring classical and jazz quotes, often with witty, biting lyrics. And although the album sounds hopelessly old-fashioned, it is at the same time timeless, because it has, in any case, fallen out of time since its release.

By the time "Black Holes and Revelations" was released, Muse had reached the commercial peak of their career. By that point, however, I had largely lost interest in the band. A musician friend recommended their debut album, "Showbiz", to me in 1999, and it remains my favourite of their albums to this day. This is contrary to my usual listening habits, as subsequent albums were significantly more progressive, complex and experimental than the debut, but also smoother, more bombastic and more calculated. When I listened to "Black Holes and Revelations" again today, some 20 years on, I was surprised at how much I liked it — at least a few tracks. Perhaps that’s what bothers me: Muse produce either little strokes of genius ("Take a Bow", "Supermassive Black Hole", "Assassin") or complete lead ballons ("Invincible", "Glorious"). They are a good band, but their albums are overrated and lack a clear musical direction, at least on this album. At least not if you consider exuberant vocals, fast tempi and massive intensity with extreme dynamics to be stylistic elements rather than a coherent concept.

For a crooner, Prima was too down-to-earth and too roguish; as a jazz trumpeter, he was overshadowed by Louis Armstrong and Harry James; and yet, with his Italian-American accent, Prima was a star, and *The Wildest!* brings together his best songs on one album: ‘You Rascal You’, ‘Buona sera’, ‘Jump, Jive, An’ Wail’ and, of course, ‘Just A Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody’, which was covered note-for-note by David Lee Roth in the 1980s (including the scat sequences) and was to become his greatest hit as a solo artist. Of course, the album has acquired quite a bit of patina over the years, but you simply cannot resist the rousing wildness of Louis Prima and his excellent band.

I make no secret of my disdain for the Rolling Stones. They were the ‘bad boys’ of 1960s rock music and the Beatles' wicked rivals. They were certainly important role models for anyone who found the Beatles too well-behaved. But above all, the Stones were a blues band, and I find blues rock deadly boring. For 50 years, the Stones have been the dinosaurs of rock music: a case of self-plagiarism that comes across as a bizarre caricature. However, there are certainly songs — and perhaps even albums — that even I, a sceptic when it comes to the Stones, cannot completely dismiss: "Beggars Banquet", their last album with Brian Jones (although he no longer plays a musically significant role), is certainly one of their better albums. They skilfully blend white blues with psychedelic country and folk. Furthermore, the songwriting duo Jagger and Richards produced two excellent tracks in the form of “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man” – three if you include the single “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, released around the same time but not actually part of the album. Their fusion of folk and country in particular came across as astonishingly authentic. So, if you're looking for a musically accomplished Stones album, you can't go wrong with "Beggars Banquet". Not even Mick Jagger’s dreadful vocals can completely ruin it.