Reviews by wotanmjolnir

God damn, but this has aged like a cumsock that has been soaked in rat milk and accidentally left in a radiator in a damp ground-floor flat.

The Mondays were massively important to the whole Baggy / Madchester thing in the late 80s / early 90s. However, they were also massively over-rated. It’s not awful, but it is structurally very simple verse-chorus stuff, Shaun Ryder is a terrible vocalist, and it is over saturated in the happy-house type of piano vibe. Yes, it gives me huge nostalgia for my uni days (I will still to this day say “ccccaaalllll the copshhhh!” any time I hear sirens) and the singles are good for what they are, but as an album … yeah, okay, whatever.

New wave gonna new wave. It’s ok, but not really my bag.

It’s ok 80s electro-pop. There’s a reason why the only a-ha songs anyone knows are Take On Me and The Sun Always Shines On TV.

Quite a confusing album. Melodically there are some genuinely really good moments, and if you just listen to the tone of the vocals there is a bit of a Beach Boys feel to some of it, as well as quite a lot of ‘Paul’s granny music’. The lyrics though … well, so much of them is just bollocks.

If you don’t listen too closely it’s pretty ok, but if you catch some of the lyrics by accident it could easily make you go WTF.

Well this is different, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not going to seek this out again, but there are some interesting ideas here, and whilst it’s experimental it’s not unlistenable (although there are some awkward polyrhythms and atonal stuff that isn’t totally comfortable). A perfectly fine record, but not more than tha.

This is fine. Bit boring in parts, but odd in other, overall … fine.

Back then, long time ago, when we was shit.

The world owes Bob Dylan and John Riley a huge debt for making The Beatles into The Beatles, rather than the band that made this bland offering.

Fucking hell, but this is a dramatically uneven album. It’s long, really long, but the first half is a really groovy psychedelic rock record. Then you get an 18 minute experimental track which, whilst a major gear change, is still pretty sound. And then it all just goes to shit a bit.

It’s not dreadful, it’s not, overall, bad - but the last part of the album isn’t good and really drags down the first half which IS good. It’s got to be bang in the middle, but towards the upper end of that 3.

This is good, although a bit front-end loaded and really does tail off towards the end. Also, despite only being 32 minutes it does feel a lot longer, plus there’s the Clapton factor. Still, Strange Brew and Sunshine Of Your Love are excellent and really lift the album.

This is ok - Doors-styled sort of psychedelia. Not exactly mind blowing, though.

God damn it, I’m British! I shouldn’t love this as much as I do!

Just brilliant - great songs, great voice, and a rhythm section that grooves harder than PFunk. What an album.

This is fine, but unremarkable.

Kate Bush is a bit like David Bowie - massively respected, but I just don’t get why and cannot enjoy their music. She has done the odd good tune, Wuthering Heights, Man With A Child In His Eyes for example, but there is nothing on this album (no, not even This Woman’s Work) and if given the choice of listening to this or nothing, I’ll take nothing, thanks.

This is fine - it’s not as good as Nebraska or Born In The USA (the two other Springsteen albums I have had on the list), but it’s still a perfectly fine, if unremarkable, record.

This may be the most boring album I’ve ever heard. It sounds like the score of a second-rate Netflix romantic drama aimed at twenty-somethings.

I really didn’t enjoy School’s Out when I got that a while ago but this is dramatically better. It tails off towards the end but before that it’s a really enjoyable rock album.

Well, this was a trial. I’ve never got Bjork, and an hour of different arhythmic/polyrhythmic microtonal craptracks that are indistinguishable from each other ain’t changing then.

You know that episode of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ when Charlie writes “The Nightman Cometh”? Yeah, this is like that. But nowhere near as good. Properly cack.

Stupid, bombastic, supremely enjoy hair metal from the band that, before they got grannies singing about bellends and ring pieces at Christmas, managed to sneak both ‘mother-fucker’ and ‘you cunt!’ onto the UK’s national broadcaster. Five mother-fucking stars, you cunt!