Reviews by verlainemorrison96

'The man whose eyes were sore from obscenities / Kept on looking.' Like a e'en darker, more Bowie-inspired Joy Division, Bauhaus keeps it real but no less keeps it listenable. 'The Passion for Lovers' is an authentic gothic hit - almost an oxymoron - & tho Mask suffers from pretentiousness ('Of Lilies and Remains'), it's got humor too, especially instrumentally. I mean, I don't know how you could take Peter Murphy too seriously, who's goofily dark & darkly goofy at the same time. 'Dancing in catacombs / Dancing in tuxedo drag / Dancing in dark rooms / Dancing on all your flags / In the Vatican.' Q: do we think Robert Smith would e'er dare to dance? I don't, which is why I think Bauhaus is the more classic & necessary band. A very good record.

'Let me tell you a secret / I've been secretly banging your homeboy.' Is it so easy to call SZA the female Frank Ocean that I shouldn't bother? & yet, it's so true: the same sexually charged lyricism, the same urgency + ennui, the same vocal sophistication + almost childish inflections, & the fact that, like Channel Orange, Ctrl is the definition of a modern classic. After releasing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010, Kanye would pass the torch to a trio of new hip-hop/r&b ambassadors: Frank, Kendrick, SZA. Tyler, Earl, & Acid Rap Chance are candidates, but those initial three are most crucial. I know I am neglecting Beyonce, but she comes into her own in the 2010s, meaning she'd been around for a while. Ctrl is lovely, smart, addictive, & pregnant.

I think Abbey Road is the Beatles' finest moment, but Revolver is probably my favorite, 'Yellow Submarine' notwithstanding. As an experimental work of rock, pop, folk, & classical, Revolver is both balanced & outlandish. It's the masterpiece of transition that Rubber Soul commenced. It's funny tho. People speak of the Beatles as if essentially all their songs were hits - that most people walk around w/ just about all their tunes permanently etched in their brains - but Revolver in particular is full of deep cuts, obscure cuts, strange numbers, & unhooky tracks. Out of the fourteen songs songs that make up the record, only 2-4 of 'em are instantly recognizable. This is why I love the album above all the rest actually. Revolver is the Beatles in detail.

I don't know why, but this shit sounds & looks & feels American, almost tho not quite Americana e'en. Britpop, not really, more like Brit pop country, or something along those lines. But it's not good Americana & well, that's b/c they're fucking Brits. In another way, this actually sounds like an American band doing their best imitation of Britpop & failing. What I mean to say is it is a big mess. I had hope w/ the first track - 'Natalie's Party' has a hook & a bounce I sorta kinda like - but as the record progresses, it stagnates utterly & spectacularly. In other words, I don't think I've heard potential collapse so rapidly. This is a bad album w/ bad songs, bad vocals, bad melodies, & bad vibes. Nowhere near The Stone Roses, The La's, Suede, Oasis. Shite.

'We're trying not to be sick again / & holding on for tomorrow.' Something 'bout Blur feels, tho not nauseatingly, unfavorably engineered. I mean this precisely - not 'manufactured,' as if Blur were merely a product of industry, but 'engineered.' That's part of their 'genius,' I guess: they're masters of a pop aesthetic they can lay claim to. 'Colin is a modern retard / W/ a love of bombast.' & w/ lyrics like that, they're a somewhat memorable bunch. But the songs on Modern Life Is Rubbish are ne'er very impressive or banging, e'en when the instrumentation hits hard & the melodies are palpable (e.g., 'Star Shaped'). Better than Parklife but not at the level of their self-titled gem, this is probably their most signature record, hence my ambivalence.

'Yes, he's free to be put in a cage in Harlem, New York City / & he's free to be put in a cage in the South Side of Chicago & the West Side.' Sorry, but like Mark Twain, Newman knew what the fuck he was doing. 'Rednecks' is a brilliant, biting, strangely uplifting track that's undoubtedly a kind of salve for our America: 'Well, he may be a fool, but he's our fool.' Good Old Boys is more than that opening tune, however. Newman is very obviously one of our best songwriters, something like Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, McCartney, or any other wit of the industry, but he's got that real blues thing also. My only problem w/ Good Old Boys is my problem w/ all of Newman's best - I don't love his voice. I like it, I e'en admire it, but I don't love it. It gets old.

From Shadowland to this is a significant step-down. lang can still obviously sing - like Adele, this isn't really up for debate. What's up for debate is the quality of her artistry, which on Shadowland is quite high but on Ingénue is not. Perhaps it's her self-conscious turning to a cabaret-style that rubs me the wrong way. Everything is too serious &/or too cool on this record, i.e., it's boring, cheesy, slow-going, & no fun. 'Your kiss / Has hindered my day / A longing / That won't go away.' Points are annexed for sheer talent, but I can't say I enjoy these tracks very much at all, so points are deducted too. Honestly, Ingénue is so performative that it underperforms. I cannot tell if lang wants to be Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell. Let's stick to Patsy Cline.

As I see it, there are three great fall-apart-at-any-moment records - three great albums of existential collapse - notably Skip Spence's Oar, Big Star's Third, & Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue. The mind is coming to its end on this release. There's a whole lotta soul on this thing - a whole lot. It yet hasn't the angelic quality of the best of The Beach Boys/Brian Wilson. The only consolation here is a cathartic one, i.e., e'en w/o reading the lyrics, it's just about as dark & broken as anything you'll come across. & then you do read the lyrics, & it's all farewells, goodbyes, see-ya-laters, & it's-been-nice-know-yas: 'Oh I want to see you again / Farewell'; 'Thank you very much / For everything I've ever wanted.' This shit is a mess, a loving mess.

'Crying, crying, crying, oh, oh / Can you climb, climb, climb higher?' What are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs good at? That is, what makes Fever To Tell & It's Blitz! essential to any record collection? Well, those two albums - the first being more punk-focused, the second far more dance/elctro-focused - are addictive encounters w/ gritty upbeat sentiments: they make you feel a lot, & the overwhelming emotion is one of a down-&-dirty happiness. I am, in the end, partial to It's Blitz! b/c that plucky optimism is on fuller display. It may be the best pop statement by a New York-based band since Blondie's Parallel Lines - yes, better than The Strokes' Is This It. 'All the fortune on the floor / All the fortune on the floor.' Add to that some artsy shit & I'm in.

Storytelling is a crucial element of hip-hop, but Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is a step beyond e'en the most adventurous & virtuosic hip-hop releases that center on the fable. 'Check the status / Soon to see me at Caesar's Palace eating salads / We beating mics / Sending keys to Dallas.' It's not merely a matter of just how many details Rae & Ghost have in their back pocket, or the cinematic landscape that RZA (at his absolute best) engenders, or how true-to-life the imagery is, tho all that is indeed critical. Nah, it has to do w/ the fact that when you're digesting The Purple Tape you're consuming so secretive a language that it feels like you're being initiated into another way of life. Right, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is aptly titled: only an elite will get it.

You know what's wild? The first four Zeppelin records came out in a two-year period. I ne'er recognized just how absurd that is. But it's true. Their fourth has been praised as their very best since it was first released, & tho you may disagree, or you may simply have your favorite that isn't this one, there's no denying the iconicity of Led Zeppelin IV. Some of the tracks, like 'Black Dog' & 'Stairway to Heaven,' have been played to death, but like so many overplayed songs, when they're heard in the context of their album, they tend to inspire a new appreciation. The unsung gem is 'Four Sticks,' the unsung feature is Sandy Denny, who does her best Grace Slick on 'The Battle of Evermore,' & its most brilliant moment is 'When the Levee Breaks.'

'Johnny's in the basement / Mixing up the medicine / I'm on the pavement / Thinking 'bout the government.' & so, rapping was invented. No, no, that's not actually true, but you can't tell me those aren't some hard bars. I think of Chuck D: 'I got a letter from the government the other day / I opened & read it, it said they were suckers.' Anyhow, Bringing It All Back Home is a formidable classic, Dylan's first '65 release that may just be better than that other & more renowned second release. I love many of its minor tracks, like 'Love Minus Zero,' 'Outlaw Blues,' & 'On the Road Again,' occupying a meaningful center of the album, & there's an overarching levity that Highway 61 lacks. But comparison of the two is probably fruitless. We're lucky to have both.

'Isn't it peculiar how the chatter fails to offer any solace in the light of the truth?' I don't know if Empty Hands is poppy metal or just pop that goes real fucking hard. As if Avril Lavigne & Slipknot had a child, Poppy is certainly poppy, but she's also unafraid of the dark & lays it all out. 'When all the gods lose faith / The city's laid to waste.' This is a well-produced record. It's also a pretty fun album. It's yet not my kind of pop. I'm not being at all controversial when I say that the best pop record of 2026 is You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl so in Love. It's simply the truth. & it makes Empty Hands seem like an interesting experiment & nothing else. I actually liked it more than I expected, but (big surprise here) nu metal has its limitations.

New York sad-masochistic wit finds its pop representation on Lou Reed's #2 solo release. 'Yesterday, Daisy Mae & Biff / Were groovin' on the street / & just like a movie / Her hands became her feet.' Unlike Iggy's The Idiot, a very good record but ultimately touched up too much by Bowie's visions, Transformer enjoys Bowie as a producer but not necessarily as a visionary: this is Reed on full blast. +, it boasts his biggest hit e'er. Look, it's totally unfair to compare it to the work he did with The VU, which is a touchstone of twentieth-century art as far as I'm concerned. Transformer is not, in the end, a transcendent opus. It's just a solid, sometimes moving, often times clever, portrait of New York that oddly melds Paul McCartney & Tom Waits.

If you didn't know (I didn't), k.d. lang's Shadowland is a record consisting entirely of covers. It's also a country, pop-standard album (who knew?). I guess I judged the cover to be the face of an indie thing. lang is a helluva singer - this is clear ('I Wish I Didn't Love You' is an astonishing vocal track) - but she's also a great artist, i.e., she's a self-conscious throwback. This came out in '88. It both does & doesn't sound like it. That's why it's such a cool record, why it works, & why I think it's a very good release. It's hard for me to say it's an absolutely perfect album, however. Halfway thru, she ne'er stops impressing, but then again, her impressiveness stales a bit. It's not b/c she has no ideas & only a voice, it's that I stop caring for the ideas.

Tho I miss the Tim Hardin covers he touts on the first two Scotts, I have to agree w/ the majority that considers Walker's fourth Scott to be his v best. Over-the-top, yes, & that's part of not only the fun but the realness of his baroque stylings. 'City after city, granite gray as mornin' / Heroes died in subways left behind / Far behind like our love.' That's fantastic lyricism, a delicious amalgam of Jacques Brel, Cole Porter, & Paul Simon. But it's his voice that stuns most consistently, not exactly surprising since his work w/ The Walker Brothers portends that gift. Many days, nothing will do but this baritone perfection. 'I can recommend angels / I've watched as they made a man strong / Oh so strong.' It's like the only Christmas music I really love.

Very obviously one of the 'supreme' jazz recordings of all time - no list is at all complete w/o it - but what makes it so special is that it's also one of the great religious albums of all time. I use 'religious' as an open label here to the degree that it speaks to the unbelievers among us who yet hold onto some sort of spiritual or sacred truth. I count myself as such an unbeliever. A Love Supreme is yet also 'religious' in the closed sense, i.e., this is one of the great Christian - evangelical Christian - outpourings of heart & soul e'er recorded. It just so happens to be a jazz classic as well, a standard of wild simplicity (that addictive refrain) & unhinged virtuosity. In jazz, I don't think anyone had as much to say as Coltrane - who spoke so much thru his craft.

Folk-rock arrives on The Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man, tho in a sense Dylan already managed that on Bringing It All Back Home. To be specific, this is the arrival of psychedelic folk-rock. The title-track, which is the best track here, is everything a cover ought to be: an homage & a creative deviation. The eleven tunes that follow (I'm going w/ the original 31 min release) are mostly excellent as well, tho some suffer from aimlessness & thinness, the essential issues of The Byrds as I see it. The group is responsible for two absolute classic records, The Notorious Byrd Brothers & Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The debut is still essential for its influence tho, the inauguration of that sweet & psychedelic sound synonymous w/ a counterculture vibration.

Educational & influential, The Sounds of India is a deliberate attempt on the part of Ravi Shankar to introduce Indian music to Western ears. B/c I know virtually nothing about this music, I have no idea if this is the best the genre has to offer or just the most palatable for the West. All I do know is that it's really, really enjoyable to listen to. The whole experience is pretty uncanny. It's somehow incredibly frantic, decidedly improvisational, mind-clearing, thought-provoking, & fabulously peaceful. It's always & ne'er changing, it drones but doesn't drone out or fall apart. +, it succeeds in developing an interest in the music I didn't have before. Like, uh-oh, I'm now gonna have to learn all 'bout Hindustani classical music, certainly a bottomless pursuit.

Released in 2000 on my birthday (I turned 4), Like Water For Chocolate is another notch in Common's flawed but classic catalogue. The production on this thing is fucking elite: mostly Dilla, Preemo, The Roots, D'Angelo, it really is almost unfair. W/ that cast, it's guaranteed that it's gonna SOUND good. But Common the lyricist is also very much on his game, combining the conscious w/ the hardcore as the Chicago rapper at his best is wont to do. 'My train of thought is that of a hustler or a nigga w/ his shirt off / Tryin' to get his work off to customers / I rap w/ a chip on my shoulder.' Boasting one of the more underrated voices in rap history, Common commands both introspection & extroversion. W/ Resurrection, this is his must-have. Dope.