Reviews by wotanmjolnir

This album could be twenty minutes long and nothing would be lost. It’s not terrible, but it’s dull and incredibly repetitive. Its only strength lies in the quality of a handful of the samples, and that’s not enough for me to like this.

It does bring back memories of clubbing at university though - Norman Cook was omnipresent in the late 90s, and some of this music really soundtracked my mid twenties so it’s not all bad.

Enjoyable, but hangs around too long, and I’m unlikely to ever think of this again.

One of the greatest voices of all time, and good tunes … but it doesn’t really excite me. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t particularly love it.

This is a completely fine album - very of its time, and as such very dated, and it’s all a bit samey, but it passed 45 minutes (with the god-bothering extras on the end) painlessly.

A lot of the buzz when this came out seemed to be that Justine Frischmann was Damon Albarn’s other half. I didn’t think much of it at the time, and not much has changed really, although it’s better than I remember. It’s not quite punk enough, and is a bit smug but it’s ok.

You may or may not be a fan of Taylor Swift, but it is really hard to deny that this is simply a really, really good pop album.

This is the first Taylor Swift album I’ve ever listened to, and honestly it won’t be the last. I may be a rock and metal head at heart, but I’ve always recognised great pop stuff, and this is totally that.

It’s fine, but if I wanted to listen to something that sounded like Talking Heads, I’d listen to Talking Heads.

I am in no way a usual fan of EDM, but The Chemical Brothers have a different take on it, and it’s one that I really enjoyed. There’s much more of a rock-style sensibility to this than the usual “doof-doof-doof-doof”, and it works for me. At times it felt very Screamadelica-y, and that is one of my favourite albums, so today was a good day.

Les and his Bontempi keyboard from Vic Reeves Big Night Out finally released an album of uninteresting noodling. I will never even think about this album again.

This is ok, a pretty run-of-the-mill early 2000s indie rock album, and there is no mistaking it for anything else. It’s perfectly pleasant.

I cannot remember a single thing about this album.

What a weird bunch of bollocks.

Really good, authentic punk album. The Undertones seemed to never really get the credit they deserved.

I loved this album for a long time, but this was the first listen in a while, and it hasn’t aged wonderfully well. I don’t think it’s fair to level cultural appropriation at it, as this is largely collaborative with full credit to the artists, but the production is very 80s with the gated reverb on the drums and the synth sound is not great. Having said that, the actual writing is really strong, and You Can Call Me Al, Boy In The Bubble, Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes, Crazy Love and The Myth of Fingerprints are all really, really good songs.

I’ve never been a Jackson fan, even before the raging noncery became apparent, but there is no denying that this is a good album even if it’s not my kind of music. Best ever made? Not even close. Good enough? Sure, why not.

Pretty Young Thing, though? That’s right officer, this one right here.

Perfectly good protocol-psychedelic rock. Assed the time.

This is fine, if unremarkable. I couldn’t hum you a single note from it, but I didn’t dislike it.

I’m no fan of rap or hip-hop, but this is pretty good. It’s not all good by any means, but there’s some really good stuff here. It’s generally the more angry tracks that feel more authentic to me - and the fact that the anger comes from a point of frustration, oppression and a real feeling of injustice in society gives it a real edge that hits. I’m not likely to go back, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

An hour and a quarter of unmemorable blandrock.

Steely Dan are absolutely shit.