Reviews by ultraclear

Outstanding side A existing in tension with kind of a dull side B. I dunno, this one really excited me at the start, but I didn’t end it with the same enthusiasm

This was an interesting one for me; I consider myself a huge Talking Heads fan, but also their big deal albums for me all come from their middle/later years, like Remain in Light onward. So even having grown up with their stuff around, I never really checked out their earliest offerings.

I’m slowly triangulating my reggae taste, for the most part this was pretty good, didn’t stand out very much, but a couple of the songs (”Signing Off”, “Reefer Madness”) are long instrumental pieces that I thought were really cool and engaging

There’s a review of Spring Breakers that I really like, where the reviewer points out that it’s a movie that makes more sense now, in hindsight, because instead of getting Harmony Korine’s hot takes on America’s youth, you get a dead-on time capsule of a very specific time & place--a zeitgest, over now, that at the time didn’t seem aware of its own mortality.

I was thinking a lot about that when listening to Oracular Spectacular; I was actually pretty shocked to see it’s as old as 2007, because the era I vividly remember it from was 2011-2013 aka my college years aka a time when the hits from this were ubiquitous instead of showing their age. It’s another one of those where exactly half the songs on here got way too much exposure, while the other half you’ve never heard in your fucking life. Most of the unknowns were actually pretty fun, with the exception of “Youth” which was so awful it single-handedly knocks the whole thing down a rung of my esteem. Fun trip down memory lane!

lol I have a soft spot for SOAD, they feel like they should be grating, but instead I’m just having a good time

Clearly very influential! This was really cool, but I think I’m zeroing in on liking 80s-era punk more than 70s and 90s. Violent Femmes and Dead Kennedys were more interesting to me

Steely Dan’s come up a few times on the list now, and I have the same issue as always. It’s really close to the kind of thing I like, but it feels empty

God damn I really like Chuck D’s voice

I’m generally pretty positive on this one, “Nude” kind of brings the thing to a screeching halt

I don’t think there’s ever been a better album opener than “Tutti Frutti”

It’s rare that I’ve been blown away by what they’ve got. On this one, “Sympathy for the Devil” was good but overstayed its welcome. Out of their stuff that’s come across the generator so far, I liked Let it Bleed more

Title song’s irredeemably scuffed up by The Celebs, but I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. I imagine (heh) it was probably pretty difficult for people to have normal reactions to beatle solo work back when it first released

Not as iconic or joyful as Trans Europa Express but still a lovely time. Always bears repeating that it is ridiculously impressive how far ahead of their time Kraftwerk were

The only Massive Attack I’d heard before was “Teardrop” (yeah, yeah, because it was the House MD theme, yes), so I was very surprised to put this album on and get british hip hop (or I guess “trip hop”, apparently? not familiar with that one). Way more fun than I expected!

At first it reminded me a lot of sega genesis music (compliment), but then the vocals started kicking in and the effect was ruined

Punk that passes the time just fine

“Shoegaze”, eh? The second half starts doing some interesting stuff, but the first few tracks don’t have enough stuff going on with the synth loops to hold my attention

I like his voice, and I *really* like the variety of stuff he’s doing in this

The bones on this are fine as far as folky rock goes, but the songs go on way too long for how simple + repetitive they are, and not much variety between them.

*Immaculate* production, excellent sound, boosted Snoop into the mainstream, all of which put more tension than usual on finding the themes kinda dumb & gross.