Reviews by wotanmjolnir

Bostin’, mah mayte!

The sound of a French primary school teacher warbling over someone blowing a kazoo into a biscuit tin.

This is ok - nowhere near as bad as a lot of reviews have it. Vaguely Cohen-sequel alt-rock, but it’s not very exciting.

I’m no fan of rap and hip hop, but of all the albums on this list it’s the Wu Tang adjacent ones that are the best. This is ok.

The first of the golden age Maiden albums - Invaders is a bit of a slow starter, but it just ramps up from there.

Everything But A Memorable Album.

Ok, let’s be honest - this is pretty bad. Tainted Love is now the standard, and Say Hello, Wave Goodbye is a good tune, but the rest of it is pretty much uniform shit. I’m almost tempted to add a star for the total insanity that is Sex Dwarf, but I don’t think it warrants it.

Yeah, this is fine, I guess. Karma Chameleon is part of the cultural furniture, and Church of the Poisoned Mind and That’s The Way are great 60s Soul throwbacks, a feeling a lot of the album has. Beyond that, though, it’s not really standing out.

This is just such an unmemorable, bland album. Musically it’s … fine, I guess - at least there was nothing too upsetting that I remember. And there’s the problem, because I don’t remember ANYTHING about the album.

Really good soul album, really good live album.

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I like New Order a lot more than I like Joy Division, but I don’t really like New Order either. It’s ok, non-descript, and I’m not listening to it again.

Let’s be honest - Iron Butterfly are known for one song, and that song is half of this album. And, really, that one song is only good for maybe a couple of minutes (although the drum solo in the middle of this album version is pretty ok, honestly). I feel bad for not liking this, but it’s just not good enough.

I never got The Jam. Sure, it’s fine but it’s not very exciting - I know the singles but literally everything else I could live without, though. Have to say that this may be the most bass-forward album I’ve ever heard - it’s the anti-…And Justice For All!

I quite like The Fall - this project has shown me how much I like Punk and Post-Punk stuff, and The Fall sit nicely in that niche for me. This album is a bit samey, however, and while I enjoyed it there is some growth for the band to come.

I’m from Coventry don’t is the law that I like The Specials. And, whilst I hate reggae, ska is not reggae even if it has the same bouncy-back-beat rhythms, and there is some authenticity to this bunch of West Midlands boys doing West Indian influenced music that raises it above the likes of The Police. I don’t think it’s amazing, but it’s pretty good, and you can see why The Soecials left the indelible mark on the British music scene that they did.

This is ok - eclectic but fine, with a bit of a punk / hardcore sensibility.

Missy Elliott: I’ve been thinking about all of my contemporaries who have died, and realised just how serious life is, and we should make an effort to do something worthwhile with our lives as they may be over tomorrow.

Also Missy Elliott: here’s a song about how good my cunt is.

Fucking shite.

This is one of the better rap records I’ve heard, but it’s still not my thing.

Guns ‘n’ Roses. Guns ‘n’ fuckin’ Roses. G’ ‘n’ f’ ‘n’ R’ …..

This band frustrate the shit out of me. They are the dangerous band that it’s safe for normal people to like. They are the band that people who don’t listen to rock music think are a good rock band. They are the favourite band of people who like to bust loose and listen to Planet Rock instead of Radio 2 on the Friday night drive home.

A band who has had a decades long career based on three great songs and two-and-half albums of filler. One of my friends who is not a rock fan watched their Glasto headline set from a few years ago and said they were “sporadically brilliant”. I guessed it was Paradise City, Sweet Child O’ Mine and Welcome to the Jungle where the brilliance lay, and he somewhat sheepishly admitted I was correct.

Ok, the album - well, it has those three great tracks but the rest is just ok, no better or worse. It’s fine, but despite having owned a copy of this album for nearly forty years, I have listened to it a handful of times.