Reviews by x-minor_miracle-x

Heard Before?
Well I was alive in 2011...

Notes:
- the most famous voice of the 2010s. i can't really add anything to the conversation.
- the instrumentals are shockingly simplistic, which works great on the high-energy singles, but drags down the already droopy ballads.
- backing vocals really elevate the proceedings. they are sorely missed when gone.
- slightly more technical songwriting than i remembered. I'm a sucker for a pre-chorus.

Verdict:
Tries but ultimately fails to transcend the singles+filler formula.

Listen Again?
The singles are, for better and worse, truly unavoidable.

Heard Before?
Sad but true.

Notes:
- it's almost amazing how every song can sound so meticulous and phoned-in at the same time.
- horn parts on "My Old School" gave me a half smile.
- some of the keyboard work is cute, but i wanted to stab the guitarists.
- all in all, in the face of truly intense competition, this is the worst Steely Dan album.

Verdict:
Like when flipping through the Restoration Hardware catalogue, I get twinges of envy amidst the desperate ennui.

Listen Again?
Lord save us all.

Heard Before?
Woohoo! Something entirely new to me.

Notes:
- clearly a producer album, and sure enough the production is mostly stellar.
- the 1999 standard issue trip hop drums are lame but forgiveable once the other, cooler, percussion comes in on "homelands".
- the samples and use of multiple languages really bring the whole album to life.
- plenty of stylistic variety from song to song, although individual tracks usually have only one idea.
- only "Immigrant" is a true clunker, sounding like a direct-to-video Disney ballad.

Verdict:
Never truly thrilling, but always intriguing. Like a survey of late-90s production styles.

Listen Again?
Most likely. Or at least I'll investigate their other work.

Heard Before?
Yup!

Notes:
- all the reviewers on this site are correct: there are WAY too many new wave albums on this list. sadly this sours the enjoyment of gold like this.
- perfect production and balanced arrangements. almost too perfect because it gives the songs a sameness they don't necessarily deserve.
- vocals (both solo and group) are an obvious highlight despite their obvious limitations.
- i may have unconsciously played air bass several times while listening.

Verdict:
All fun, all the time. It's got beauty, it's got the beat. I feel like getting a stupid haircut, a ridiculous vintage outfit, and going out dancing.

Listen Again?
I don't really need to, but it might come up again next time the new wave urge hits.

Heard Before?
Well, yeah.

Notes:
- like most Cure albums, it has only one idea, but it's a good one.
- production is vague and foggy, and i mostly hate the drum sounds.
- arrangements lack all the space that made their early albums so arresting, with lots of (i hate to admit) unnecessary synth pads.
- at least we get lots of space (and extra emotional weight) with long instrumental passages and marvelous interplay between parts.
- the album is too long. i get the long songs, but it would have more impact with fewer tracks.
- that said, this is probably my favorite Cure record. i may get older, but my inner goth-poser sure doesn't.

Verdict:
Extra fun to sing along to if you replace all the lyrics with "I've got feeeeelings!"

Listen Again?
Well, yeah. I've got feelings too, you know.

Heard Before?
Yup. One of the several times I've tried to get into Bowie.

Notes:
- production is more or less perfect. great sounds, well placed.
- so many ingredients i love: lots of keyboard work, cheesy sax, group background vocals, long vamps, false endings, compositional variety.
- so why don't i care?
- the problem, as often, lies in how despite my heart admiration for Bowie's stylistic risks, everything he did was done in a more interesting way by someone else.
- i take that back about the long vamps. these songs are mostly underwritten and endless. kind of grating.

Verdict:
Bowie Bowie Bowie. And more Bowie. Your mileage may vary.

Listen Again?
Nope.

Heard Before?
Certainly feels like it.

Notes:
- more variety than I expected, despite having heard all these songs before.
- multiple vocalists are always the key to my heart.
- rough-edged production suits the material. arrangements are unremarkable but make sense.
- in general I find this easy to admire but hard to love. it's truly great but I just don't care.
- the organ on "Country Girl" grabbed me.

Verdict:
Hippy dippy baloney with cheese.

Listen Again?
Like so many in this list, I don't really need to, despite the obvious quality.

Heard Before?
Maybe? I've heard a lot of Elvis.

Notes:
- songs range from serviceable to brilliant, mostly ok.
- arrangements are powerful and creative.
- band is on fire and Elvis is in decent form.
- but lord up in heaven, what is going on with the mix??? bass, snare, and ride waaaay in the front, everything else buried in mud and Elvis singing into what sounds like a grain silo.

Verdict:
Forgettable except for the truly awful mix. A sin and a shame.

Listen Again?
Yikes! No way!

Heard Before?
Sure have, although it didn't make as much of an impression on me as III or Bakesale.

Notes:
- I don't always go in for strum-and-hum sadboi ballads, but "Think" was lovely.
- scummy, vivid, tape-hissy production is just right.
- front half is a little guitar-wanky for me. I would rather hear song-experimentation.
- multiple vocalists is always a magic secret for making a good band great.

Verdict:
Energetic stylistic-collage rock. Perfectly encapsulates the 90s dirty slacker ethos.

Listen Again?
Maybe. I saved a few songs for later.

Heard Before?
Yes.

Notes:
- production is warm and intimate - like a candlelit recording studio.
- arrangements are restrained but varied.
- excellent use of a slow 6/8.
- lyrics are typical Nick Cave of the period - darkly sentimental.
- that said, it truly suffers in comparison to his other work. I would much rather hear Birthday Party or even Grinderman.
- also "Green Eyes" might be the worst song he ever recorded.

Verdict:
Why are we listening to the 8th best Nick Cave album? It's fine, but unremarkable.

Listen Again?
No, except I saved "People Ain't No Good" and "West Country Girl".

Heard Before?
Yes oh yes, my favorite album as a twelve year old.

Notes:
- forget for a moment what an irritating twit Jeff Lynne is. ok, a long moment.
- also try and forget that the word "classical" was ever used in connection with ELO. whatever the sawbox brigade is doing here, it ain't classical.
- the simple melodies and "insert-lyrics-here" help keep the focus on the overblown production.
- I can't think of any other analogue album with this degree of production complexity that sounds so clear and beautiful.
- part of that is the masterful arrangements that highlight just the right parts at the right times.
- seriously I think the album started as a list of must-include studio tricks. I can’t imagine that these songs mean anything to anyone except jealous studio engineers.
- so with nothing at stake emotionally, there's no real bad songs, only different flavors of cheese.
- "jungle" did make me laugh, however.
- more vocoder, Jeff. always more vocoder.

Verdict:
Glitz, glamour and excess. Too much of everything, which is here mostly a good thing. Disco-prog was a real thing, kids.

Listen Again?
Not the whole thing. A better pick for this list would be Discovery.

Heard Before?
Obviously.

Notes:
- chock full of his typical genre pastiche (or cultural appropriation depending on your outlook). this mostly works.
- almost the archetype of a lyrics album. thoughtful, clever, subtle, emotional.
- at the same time, so many cool sounds: the flutes on "Duncan", the dobro on several tracks, the cuica on "Julio", etc.
- for me, however, the middle stretch sags heavily with unremarkable arrangements and hushed production.
- I didn't remember "Paranoia Blues". it's a gem.

Verdict:
Lots to love and to learn from, but fails to fully embrace experimentation across the whole runtime.

Listen Again?
I can forsee a Paul Simon discography crawl sometime in my future.

Heard Before?
Yes. Many years ago a friend told me they were "the real deal". He wasn't wrong.

Notes:
- usually I judge music by how well it achieves its own goals. This album certainly succeeds on that count but the real magic of the Louvin Brothers is their total lack of self awareness. By treating tragedies minor (light nostagia) and major (brutal murder) with the same deadpan candor and deep melodrama, they enter an uncanny valley of emotional resonance. In addition, they completely avoid any inquiry into systems or causes, leaving the listener infinite room for interpretation. They would never themselves question God or country or patriarchy, but these songs boldly display the failures of these and other ideologies. It's downright transcendent.
- the awkward everything-hushed-then-suddenly-loud production, zingy mandolin playing, and eerie harmonies only amplify the bizarre goings-on.
- they also intuitively grasp the raw power of keeping everything in 2/4 or 3/4. nothing more evil than a murder ballad that's also a waltz.

Verdict:
Most appropriately titled album ever. Not for the faint of heart. Only those lacking in irony, or completely steeped in it, need apply.

Listen Again?
Yes. But if you want to hear the real batshit crazypants fundamentalism, drop everything and listen to their next and best album "Satan is Real".

Heard Before?
Certainly

Notes:
- one of the most notable guitar tones of the era, if not ever.
- this obscures the fact that the whole mix is quite lovely, with well- placed drums and warm yet punchy bass.
- glorious harmonies and stellar solo vocals.
- the title track is simultaneously one of my favorite covers and one of my favorite album openers.
- and yet and yet. none of these wonderful ingredients can fully disguise the weak lyrics and cribbed-from-Lennon/McCartney songwriting of the "love" songs.
- but at least those songs are short. the painfully cheesy "Chimes of Freedom" seems interminable.

Verdict:
A beautiful sounding record in need of more variety and better songs.

Listen Again?
Probably not. Give me "Turn Turn Turn" or "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" any day.

Heard Before?
Only "Seven Seas of Rhye".

Notes:
- the production is probably the best thing about it - a bit muddy in spots but VERY dynamic, with great use of overdubs.
- all the performances are committed and well-executed, if restrained by Queen's later standards.
- while an interesting novelty to hear precious prog and proto-metal from Queen, it really suffers by comparison.
- it doesn't help that there are zero great songs, although side two was silly enough to hold my attention most of the way through.

Verdict:
From this distance, it's a very well made fan-only curio.

Listen Again?
Nope.

Heard Before?
Yup, but I remembered it all wrong.

Notes:
- two of the cheat codes to convince me a good band is actually great are multiple vocalists and 2 minute songs. this has both.
- clever lyrics rescue the sometimes overly-simple songs.
- so many fun basslines.
- raw, bare-bones production keeps everything up front and exciting, but also casts a pall of sameness.

Verdict:
Too much of the time, "punk" still means "knucklehead hardcore" or "pop rock posers". X is here to remind us that punk has many ways and means.

Listen Again?
Right now? Yes! Later? Probably!

Heard Before?
That's the crux of the problem. The impact of the Beatles on post-1964 music is like the impact of the Bible on pre-20th century literature: inescapable. We are all born essentially having heard the Beatles already. But yes, I've heard it.

Notes:
- nothing that hasn't already been mentioned thousands of times.
- I listen to music in order to learn and (occasionally) to be surprised. It's not the Beatles' fault, but there is none of that here.
- I will say the sequencing stuck out this time, and I would always rather listen to whole Beatles albums than the 30 biggest songs over and over.

Verdict:
It's the Beatles. But if (like me) you enjoy self-indulgence and short songs, there is plenty of both here.

Listen Again?
Who knows? But it's a big world and there is so much I haven't heard a thousand times over.

Heard Before?
Well I haven't been living in a pit my whole life.

Notes:
- the beat switches on "The New Style" are still somehow exciting.
- no shortage of inspired samples throughout the album.
- "Paul Revere" made me laugh.
- that said, Beastie Boys improved in every conceivable way after this. only "To the 5 Boroughs" is weaker.
- the beats are as punchy and distinctive as ever BUT
- of course, it needs to be said that no one should be writing incel anthems, even as satire. someone is always going to take it seriously and run with it.

Verdict:
For better and (mostly) worse, the ground zero of white rap.

Listen Again?
I don't think so. But I still enjoy later Beastie Boys.

Heard Before?
Yes, but not in forever.

Notes:
- starts with a bang, ends with a whimper, mixed results in between.
- fiery, complex guitar, acrobatic, sometimes jazzy drums and rock solid bass. a power trio in every sense.
- just-right production keeps things raw and wild, even (on "Wind Cries Mary") pretty.
- sparse overdubs emphasize just the right things (like the background vocals that add horror to "Hey Joe").
- lyrically he mostly comes off as a teen creep, and his delivery doesn't help.
- "Third Stone from the Sun" is the silliest, but by far my favorite - a mostly instrumental psych workout that lets all three players run wild.
- where is the songwriting? I went looking and couldn't find anything to grab my attention.

Verdict:
From my memories, I expected this to be an easy five star. But this time around I couldn't find a single song that really did it for me.

Listen Again?
Nope, although it was at least interesting to revisit.

Heard Before?
Nope, although it certainly seems familiar.

Notes:
- what if we formed a band after only hearing the first Strokes album and nothing else?
- what if we saved learning how to write songs for later?
- production is crisp but somehow hollow, as if the engineer couldn't find the interesting parts. to be fair, I couldn't either.
- extra sadly, there's not even anything bad enough to be funny, although "Razz" comes close.

Verdict:
Why would anyone choose to listen to this over anything else? Shockingly derivative and amateur. I don't enjoy their later career, but they at least got more competent and gathered a few more influences.

Listen Again?
A resounding no. Life is short.