Reviews by z_e_q

better than the chronic bc it’s more fun. "ain't no fun" is funny. i still got bored around "doggy dogg world."

"Gz and hustlas" perked me back up with some new sounds. but it's all still pretty dweeby.

bye snoop, go play a trump crypto ball. take martha stewart with you.

soundtrack to a world ready for rock and roll.

listened like 10 times in a row in an airport and on a flight. delivers on its promise. slowly and persistently works its way into your head.

pretty much reflects my experience with u2. sunday bloody sunday is their best song and the one i can leave on when i hear it. they made a cohesive album, but it does basically nothing to move me personally, least of all bono, who rarely shushes up. never understood that dude. it’s not bad, but it doesn’t move me.

i prefer modern songs in country and western music. a little less orchestra? but ray is always great, no matter what’s playing alongside him.

excellent noise, excellent bass. gets even more hypnotic as it goes.

the last two songs stink and wasted time doesn’t need a reprise, but face it: everything else is tight, hooky, and cohesive. this is low hanging hater fruit. kneejerk hate. easy hate.

yeah, i’ve heard these songs too many times too, and it ain’t my favorite either, even as a JOE WALSH GUY, but there are waaay worse albums on this list.

“step on” is way better than the other songs, like those were all practice. a lot of it isn't bad though, especially the last three.

kinda ham handed with too much corn in some cringe choruses (“yippee yippee ay ye ye ye”; “do what you’re doing…”).

it’s all right.

not a salsa (music) expert, but this sounds pretty damn good. i like the disco bits too. i also like when the singer shushes up and lets the band work, like on “ojos.” and i like those babies.

nico “tolerable in small doses on the VU debut” warhol hisses and hoots her way through a whole album of orchestral folk.

“these days” is all right; the orchestral freakout on “it was a pleasure then” is cool; and “chelsea girls” hits that “all tomorrows parties” sadness, but it’s too long.

can’t say i totally understand nico. something tells me if she looked like mama cass, nico wouldn’t have happened. which is no shade on mama cass—if anything, it speaks to her greatness. i guess there’s a certain tragic beauty to this, but i’m not sure it’s for the reasons those involved intended.

apparently she didn’t like the flute. listen, nico, the flute ain’t the problem.

can't help it, i love it. one of several essential doors albums with the debut and probably strange days and definitely LA woman...

jim becomes the growling blues oaf he was always destined to be. i don't care if his lyrics are hack-poetic or whatever. in fact, i don't give a shit what he says. jim makes the doors sound like the doors, and i love the doors. he sounds like a blustering, untrained drunk, and that's what he was. this is where he tips the scales into "BE[ing] [a] drunken buffoon, which MAKES [him] poetic." thanks almost famous, lester bangs, philip seymour hoffman, and the guess who.

robby's playing is spidery and agile. manzarek's circus organ often gives way to boogie keys, but is spooky at times, staccato at others. densmore plays the drums, baby. someone even plays bass. the second half has fewer radio hits, but smolders and flares.

fell in love with them in high school, burned myself out on them in college, was too cool for them in my 20s (but always knew i had a youthful love back there), and hit a listening renaissance in my 30s, running back through all of it, collecting it, and appreciating them for what they always were: a great LA band and a great american band who sounded like no other.

no dude, never

thought this was an album named “the divine comedy” by the guy on the front who called himself casanova. so i was gonna write, “lol what an asshole.” but it turns out it’s an album named “casanova” by a band named the divine comedy. either way, it stinks.

makes me want to sit on a porch with a dog or sweat in a basement or run through a brick wall.

the song from clueless (on which the chopsticks piano riff and lounge guitar let the vocal cheese work).

goes right through me. no ebb and flow. unearned expenditure of energy.

makes me feel like the face on the left. like i know this was intended to be fun and rocking, yet i just ended up constipated. or maybe like the face on the right, exhausted and baggy-eyed from a night of torrential diarrhea. can't decide which. and the more i look at this album art, the more it annoys me.

also, weirdly sequenced. they change it up a bit with the last three, but it's too little too late. by then i don't believe them.

cosplay rock

read in a youtube comment section that the bassist looks like every beatle combined which is true and this is a five.

a lot of tension, almost enough release. damn near. talking man is better than singing boy, although they’re worthy counterpoints. singing boy is surely an acquired taste, like the album. more listens has made for deeper appreciation.

i hope no one saw me listening to this.

sometimes it works, sometimes the wheels spin. sometimes hypnotizing, other times monotonous. gets better as it goes. favorite track is “hold hands.” give me that caustic guitar.