Reviews by urthstripe321

Perfectly pleasant record but kind of wafts by me harmlessly. Only track that really makes me perk up is Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and maybe 49 Bye-Byes.

On most days (and this day is no different), this is my favorite Floyd record.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the goth scene. Bless those weirdos and their style and their freaky dance parties and the scene they've built for themselves. Wish I liked the music a little more. In small doses, sure, throw on a Bauhaus or SoM song and I'll be excited. But a full album like this is too much for me.

Some of the best vocal harmonies ever put to record, at least in the country scene. Three legends knocking it out of the park. Wish it mixed it up on the tempo a little bit, while these numbers are gorgeous, they are all pretty downtempo for the most part.

A solid debut, just the right amount of raw but plenty of the seeds that she would develop out into more robust work. A great record in its own right, but grading slightly on a curve because I prefer several other PJ Harvey albums.

"Prince is me, Michael Jackson is me, The Beatles was me, all of em are me." - Richard Wayne Penniman

Since this is so obviously a five star record, let's dive into the mixes.

Bowie: sounds like punk, tinny, recorded in the garage, ear shredding.

Iggy: bassy, full, sounds like how it would sound at a gig, a little muddy, but loud, with vocals more up front.

I think I prefer the Bowie mix, it just has that sense of we didn't know what we were doing but we ripped this shit out anyway that influenced so much of later punk. But both are good. Just like this record!

Two and half years. That's all it took for CCR to build pretty much their entire body of work (the less said about Mardi Gras, the better). Incredible. Kinda shocked all 6 of those records aren't on the list. I wouldn't call this my favorite (Graveyard Train is kind of a slog, and way too long), but this has Proud Mary on it........... so.......

Did I have this CD in my car in high school? Absolutely. Did I wear that shit out? You better believe it. If this came out in the LP era, would its side one rank among the best sides ones of all time? Not a single doubt in my mind. It's arena rock from a band that immediately knew that they dreamed of playing arenas, and I can't hate them for that, although many did when the "cool bands" of the era would never cop to admitting they had such aspirations (and they certainly did). It's a big, dumb record, it has a weak back half, it's better than most other bands' greatest hits records, I can't rate this a five, but in no way am I too cool to not rate this a five.

On one hand, we wouldn't have had Dropkick Murphys without The Pogues, one the other hand, they're the fuckin Pogues and I can't really blame them for the shitty copycats. RIP Shane, a true poet of the gutter.

The Bends may have my heart, and I may have overplayed this one in high school, but any album that has Let Down on it has to get five stars, that's just how it is.

Not a Yes man, their brand of prog just isn't for me. They certainly aren't bad by any means, they do what they do and they do it well, I just can't connect. Oh well.

Motorhead makes one song, and it's a great song, and I do suppose it's either best listened to live or in a live recording. But the recording quality isn't great here and I don't think I've once wanted to sit down to listen to 45 minutes of Motorhead. Maybe when I'm driving. But bless em, sprinkle in one of these songs in a hard rock playlist, and I'll be head banging with the rest of you. Great band, Lemmy RIP, they don't make rockstars like you anymore.

Haven't ever dug into Captain Beefheart beyond Trout Mask Replica and kinds just wrote him off as a avant garde weirdo in the Zappa sphere. You know, appreciate what he's doing but it's not for me. But... this is fantastic. The right mix of experimentalism and just good, solid tunes. What a fun listen! Quite the revelation for me.

Pavement may not be the best band of the 90s (although a strong argument could be made), but they are definitely the most 90s band, at least of guitar based music. They still sound great though, and their first three records are unimpeachable masterpieces.

This album kicks so much ass, and it's somehow not the best Kinks record (in my opinion, of course)??? May Sir Ray Davies live forever.

As much as I love the Zep, they don't really have the stylistic variation to sustain a double LP. Some really good tracks on here, but the project as a whole kinds just wears on and too much Robert Plant can kinda get to be a bad thing. I like my more concentrated doses of Led Zeppelin, thank you.

I've been an unabashed Lizzy Grant hater from day one but haven't checked in with her since Ultraviolence, so I was willing to give this one some due diligence knowing that artists evolve and can start pretty bad and then later put out good work. Nah, this shit sucks. Good on her for giving the last word to Weyes Blood though, as a reminder of who you should be listening to instead.

Love any excuse to listen to Polly Jean. What a consummate artist. I really don't listen to her enough, to be honest. This is a fantastic record, by far her most accessible, and she loses little by going a little more tuneful, a little more direct. Thought I may prefer, her noisier, artier outings, this fits right into her discography. Not quite a masterpiece, but PJ can do little wrong in my eyes.

It's a Very Good record, just not as much variety as I'd like to justify the length. But the songs are so agreeable, I don't mind they gave us a whole bunch of them to chug through. If you're going to say farewell to the bluesy roots rock style that made you famous, it's hard to do it better than this.