Reviews by wotanmjolnir

Reggae really is not my thing at all, and whilst this is better than any of the shitty white-boy reggae I grew up with, like UB40 or The Poluce, it is still shit.

Of all the ‘why the fuck is THIS unimportant shit on the list’ moments, this may be the most WTF of them all. Bland, unremarkable, does nothing better than any of their peers. Just, why? Why is this here?

The thump of miniatures, the crunch of Doritos and the benevolent gaze of Peter Frampton coming alive tells us we have once again entered the ‘Mediocre Mid-70s Live Album’ Hut! And this week, we have bland songs, embellished with crappy effects and adequate guitar playing, all smushed together together to make an hour and a quarter of my life I’m not going to get back.

I was a Brit growing up in the 80s so Duran Duran were everywhere. I know the singles on this, but never listened to a full album before, and those singles really stand out as by far the best stuff here. One thing that gets overlooked is the musicianship on display, which is really, really good, and Simon le Bon was as archetypical an 80s pop/New Romantic/new wave frontman as Robert Plant was for 70s stadium rock. This is ok, but nowhere near a favourite.

I do not like reggae, but I especially cannot stand the inauthentic white-boy reggae of the likes of UB40 or The Police. At least this is authentic.

Still a bit shit, though.

I tried to be open-minded about this, but this is just so whiny and juvenile, and very over-long. A thirty-year-old bloke bragging about how many times he can say ‘fuck’ in a track, or whining about how Gen X is constantly ignored is hardly earth-shattering stuff - although from what I could stand to listen of the near 10 minute ‘Outro’ suggests maybe they do know how fucking ridiculous they are. The music is not terrible (Wes Borland deserved better than this) but the whole thing could have been 30 minutes lighter and no-one would be upset. Also, including a remix of one of the other album tracks seems lazy. A bit bollocks.

This is … ok, I guess - but I have no cultural connection to it so can’t really judge if it’s good or bad. I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t interest me. Meh.

The musical equivalent of a paint-by-numbers picture - no heart, soul, or emotion, just music to make money rather than music to make art.

Bollocks.

It’s very well done, and the orchestration is great … but it’s very boring after the first two tracks. You could have it on shuffle and you’d be none the wiser.

Another classic ‘what the fuck is this doing on the list, Robert Dimery?’ Moment. It’s not terrible, but they barely made a splash even in the UK, so why are they here?

Really enjoyable listen - ambient psych rock, with some more proto-punk stuff in the back end. Like. Like a lot.

Kiss are Spinal Tap, but written by Andrew Dice Clay.

This is a bit of an odd one. Sometimes the orchestra add a sense of majesty and epic grandeur to the songs, at other times it just feels really gimmicky and off. It’s a bit long, leans a bit too heavily on Load and Reload, and only one … And Justice track is criminal, but it’s still a good album, and shows how good Metallica were live.

Also, it’s Jason’s last record with the band, and he will forever be my Metallica bassist (no shade on Cliff, but my first album was Metallica, and I saw them live twice on that tour).

One time, in an attempt to curb his excesses, Sharon bought Ozzy some chickens to look after. Perhaps unsurprisingly Ozzy soon tired of this and decided to get rid of them the best way he could. That way was to set fire to the coop, and then as the flaming chickens attempted to escape he stabbed them with a samurai sword. His neighbour at the time spotted the legendary Prince of Darkness standing in a flaming wreck, samurai sword in hand and surrounded by the corpses of smouldering chickens, and delivered perhaps the most British line ever:

“Back from touring I see, John. Unwinding, are we?”

666 out of 13 - would stab flaming chickens with a sword again.

Well, it’s ok - very lush pop, but the production and arrangement is so thick that there is no space for the music to breathe. Not bad, not good.

It’s ok, if a little bit too lo-fi at times. It’s pleasant but not amazing.

I’ve never got the hype around Pixies - they have the occasional good track, and influenced a lot of later bands, but never really did it for me back then, and still don’t now. It’s ok.

Gunpowder, gelatine … what the fuck has jelly got to do with anything here? Did they really confuse ‘gelatine’ with ‘gelignite’ - at least two of these people were supposed to be scientists! And don’t say it fucks the rhyme - all they would need to do is switch the next line to ‘laser beam with some dynamite’ and it works. I accept bank transfers or PayPal, messrs May, Taylor and Deacon.

My problem with Queen is that, although they are regarded as one of the greatest bands of all time, I have a feeling that this is based on the first two Greatest Hits collections and the Live Aid performance. A lot of the albums are so inconsistent that it’s hard to pin them down - are they rock, or rock and roll, or prog, or opera, or disco, or funk, or vaudeville, or pop, or heavy rock? On this album alone they go from sounding like the Beach Boys to Judas Priest in the space of two songs. Just pick a lane - you are all excellent musicians, but I never know what I’m going to get, and I can’t really be bothered with their albums.

Let’s get this out of the way - Lou Reed seems to be one of the spikiest, least pleasant people on earth, and is also a crap singer. Further, the first track is very shit.

But then the rest of the album waddles along, and is extremely enjoyable. Really good psychedelic rock, and it fits Reed’s voice and persona well. I like this, crying children and all.

“I went to Staten Island to buy a mandolin” - yep, you sound like the kind of arsehole that would buy a mandolin.

Fuck me, it’s like Colin Robinson decided to stop being on What We Do In The Shadows and record an album instead. My ring doorbell went off about halfway through the first several months of listening to this and that livened everything up considerably.