ITT: /mu/ in 1986
SHOT TO THE HEARTAND YOU'RE TO BLAME
SHE SEEMS TO HAVE AN INVISIBLE TOUCH YEAH
EVERYBODY GONNA WANG CHUNG TONIGHT
>>127705883Fuck you, Jon, just...fuck you.
Hip, punky wardrobes, hip airline and very hip record label, generic pop dreck. The only good Brit is a good Brit. C-
I generally ignore charges that political content is commercially motivated but with James I buy 'em. The real Rick was the moist, romantic fop of Glow and when his self-expression didn't get off, he churned out some lines at the Rock, honing his craft by the by. C
>>127705981lol is that a left wing Rick James album?
>>127706004>>127705981>Rick thinks he's Bonohow cute
Sure, seven million teenagers could be wrong but their success does carry with it a documentary certainty. What it does prove is that youth rebellion has become so toothless that it can be simulated and marketed. But then who the hell thought youth was dangerous in the current climate anyway? Would you prefer the band market patriotism instead? And are you really immune to "Livin' On A Prayer?" B-
>>127706129>And are you really immune to "Livin' On A Prayer?"Yes.
I would call this the weakest album they've put out so far, but its still very good. Love these Metallica lads. Cliff really came into his own on this one too, I cant wait to see what he comes up with next.>>127706129Fair review
>>127706148>>127706129>>127705981>>127705939why so much red/black/gray this year?
Unsurprisingly yet more red, gray, and black.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, he decides he has a right to be doing this, thereby surrendering the aura of vulnerability that was Valotte's one redeeming quality. When this one stiffs I bet he follows up with a song about people who criticize. C-
>>127706307this is Varg's favorite album of all time. i fucking hate Varg, though.
>>127705939total garbage. proto-The 1975.
Go Mets!
I'M YOUR TURBO LOVERTELL ME THERE'S NO OTHER
Not that they want you to know it, but these hateful little twerps are sensitive souls and they've been moved to create this horrible racket by the pain of the world, which they've learned chiefly from reading fan mail and bondage magazines. This is the brutal guitar machine thousands of lonely adolescent cowards have heard in their heads. They deserve credit for finding each other and making their obsession a reality. But not for anything else. B
>>127706383This is the year the Sox win. Buckner is my man.
>>127706412Steve reads a lot of dirty magazines and some may well have bondage stuff in them, but I don't think the ones he reads can be legally purchased anywhere.
Dreaming of solo glory, Mick doesn't have much time for his band these days--just plugged into his Stones mode and spewed whatever he had to spew, adding lyrics and a few key musical ideas to tracks Ron and Keith completed before the star sullied his consciousness with them. And I say let him express himself elsewhere. For once his lyrics are impulsive and confused, two-faced by habit rather than design, the straightest reports he can offer from the top he's so lonely at, about oppressing and being oppressed rather than geopolitical contradiction. In the three that lead side two, always playing dirty is getting to him, as is his misuse of the jerks and greaseballs and fuckers and dumb-asses who clean up after him, yet for all his privilege he's another nuclear subject who's got no say over whether he rots or pops even though he'd much prefer the former. Especially together with the hard advice of "Hold Back," these are songs of conscience well-known sons of bitches can get away with. Coproducer Steve Lillywhite combines high-detail arena-rock with back-to-basics commitment and limits the melismatic affectations that have turned so much of Mick's late work in on itself. Let him have his own life and career, I don't care. What I want is the Stones as an idea that belongs to history, that's mine as much as theirs. This is it. A
>>127706498Uggh, one of his single most retarded reviews ever and even worse he wrote an entire essay about the genius of this album. Nah Dirty Work sucks and you suck, Bob.
I'm not about to check out the complete works of Venom to see if you can't do better, but anyone wondering what gets Washington ladies up these days is advised to beg, buy, or borrow this collection of, quote, speed satanism, un quote. Rick Rubin focused, CBS passed, guitar's quicker than a theremin on reverb. And to top it all off, "Jesus Saves" mauls the enemy, which as we all know isn't Jesus, or Satan for that matter. B+
>>127706526well, except for the very last movie she did you can still keep that one
I feel at a generational disadvantage with this music, not because my weary bones can't take its power and speed, but because I was born too early to have had my dendrites rewired by progressive radio. The momentum of this band can be impressive and as with a lot of fast metal (as well as some sludge metal) they seem to have acceptable political views--antiwar, anti-conformity, even anticoke--fine. Problem is, the revolutionary heroes I envisage aren't male chauvinists too naive to know better, they're not Arnold Schwarzeneggar as Conan the Barbarian, all flowing hair and huge pecs. That's the image Metallica conjurs up and I feel no more obliged to summon their strength of my own free will than I do the 1812 Overture's. B-
>>127706480this is neat because it's basically garage rock, they didn't have any time to do post-processing on it so it sounds completely raw with no 80s production glop anywhere
I scoffed at Janet's claims of autonomy--figured Jam & Lewis wrote her in as collaborator for a price she could afford. But she must have had some input--otherwise what would be not to like? Great beats here, their deepest ever. If her voice ever changes, she may even live up to them--and convince the world she's her own woman. Till then she's just playing, which does have its entertainment value. B
>>127706383hey wanna play Hardball on my Commodore 64?
>>127706631Shut up, nerd.
>>127706619BUT WHAT HAS HE DONE FOR YOU LATELY?
>>127706619it's virtually the same album as Jody Watley's S/T a year later
I wonder what all the guitar mavens who thought Eddie's face-melting pyrotechnics and balls to the wall hooks equaled Van Halen will say now that video star David Lee Roth has given way to one of the biggest schmucks in the known business? No musician with something to say could stomach Sammy Hagar's call and this album proves it. C
By deigning to play a few tunes and eschewing both dirge and breakdown for minutes at a time, these media heroes work up a credible representation of the avant-porn clichés that mean so much to them--you know, passion as self-immolation, life redeemed on the edge of death, and (last but not least) it was only a dream. The deliberately stoopid title, misspelled frontwards and misapprehended backwards, captures the loopy tone they've achieved. In fact, the good parts are so good that for a while there I thought I was enjoying the bad parts. Guess I must have been woolgathering. B+
>>127706721oh so now _after_ their fans tried to set him on fire he starts giving them good grades
Imagine Sgt. Pepper if McCartney hadn't needed Lennon--if he hadn't been such a wet--and you'll get an inkling of what these insular popsters have damn near pulled off. Granted, there's barely a hint of overarching significance, but after all, this isn't 1967. With Todd Rundgren sequencing and twiddling those knobs, they continue strong for the first nine or ten (out of fourteen) songs. Only when the topics become darker and more cosmic do they clutter things with sound and whimsy; as long as they content themselves with leisurely, Shelleyan evocations of summer love and the four seasons, they'll draw you into their world if you give them the chance--most enticingly on a song called "Grass," about something good to do there. A-
...
Goodnight sweet fat lady.
>>127706810I feel someday she'll be posthumously cancelled for recording a problematic song once.
The soundtrack to the Stephen King movie Maximum Overdrive works well by concentrating on songs and keeping the sexism muted (of ten cuts here, Bon Scott appears only once, on the tired "Ride On") while two of the three new cuts are instrumentals. I only wish they'd opened with the band's one true masterwork, the drum-hooked fucksong "You Shook Me All Night Long." But this is their most presentable collection nevertheless. B-
Goodnight sweet prince.
>>127706846>>127706810i'm sure my grandma will be broken up over this now pass the Slayer cassette
Critics flock to her uneven product the way liberal arts magnas flock to investment banking--so desperate are they to connect to a zeitgeist that has nothing to do with them that they decide a little glamour and the right numbers add up to meaningful work, or at least "fun." I'm not saying her flair is pleasureless--the generosity she demands in the inexhaustible "Open Your Heart" is a two-way street and then some. But she doesn't speak for the ordinary teenaged stiff any more than Reagan speaks for union members (that's called "selling to," folks). And while the antiabortion content of "Papa Don't Preach" isn't unequivocal, and wouldn't make the song bad by definition if it were, the ambiguity is a cop-out rather than an open door (or heart), which is bad. In a time of collective self-deception, we don't need another snow job. B
>>127706874the synths on Live to Tell sure didn't age well
BEAR DOWN, CHICAGO BEARS
I is born.
>>127706910Same
>>127706910Let's talk Kendrick's mom into the wonders of family planning before it's too late, no?
>>127706264WHADDYA MEAN I DON'T PAY MY BILLS?WHY DO YA THINK I'M BROKE?
Opposed though I am to universalist humanism, this is a pretty damn universal record. Within the democratic bounds of pop accessibility, its biculturalism is striking, engaging, unprecedented--sprightly yet spunky, fresh yet friendly, so strange, so sweet, so willful, so radically incongruous and plainly beautiful. For Simon, the r&b-derived mbaqanga he and his South African sidemen--guitarist Ray Phiri, fretless bassist Baghiti Kumalo, and drummer Isaac Mtshali, all players of conspicuous responsiveness and imagination--put through their Tin Pan Alley paces seems to represent a renewed sense of faith and connectedness after the finely wrought dead end of Hearts and Bones. The singing has lost none of its studied wimpiness, and he still writes like an English major, but this is the first album he's ever recorded rhythm tracks first, and it gives up a groove so buoyant you could float a loan to Zimbabwe on it. Despite the personalized cameo for Sun City scab Linda Ronstadt (a slap in the face to the ANC whether he admits it or not) and the avoidance of political lyrics elsewhere, he's found his "shot of redemption," escaping alienation without denying its continuing truth. It's the rare English major who can make such a claim. A
IT'S JUST ANOTHER MANIC MONDAY
Even when it's this sumptuous, there's a problem with aural wallpaper--once you start paying attention to it, it's not wallpaper anymore, it's pictures on the wall. And while as a wallpaper these pictures may be something, they can't compete with the ones you've hung up special. That's why I prefer my aural wallpaper either so richly patterned you can't see past the whole (Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians) or so intricately worked you can gaze at the details forever (Eno's Another Green World). In between I'll take Julie London. B
You could point out that The Idiot and Lust for Life were cut with the Bowie of Low and "Heroes" while Blah-Blah-Blah was cut with the Bowie of Let's Dance and "Dancing in the Streets." Or you could surmise that copping to conscience did even less for Ig than finding true love did for Chrissie Hynde. C+
Having listened far more than natural inclination dictated, I've become actively annoyed with this vocal watershed. From its strong lounge-jazz beat to its conscious avoidance of distracting lyrical detail, it's all husky, burnished mood, the fulfillment of the quiet-storm format black radio devised to lure staider customers away from white-bread temptations like soft rock and easy listening. God knows it's more soulful, and sexier, too, but that's all it is--a reification of the human voice as vehicle of an expression purer than expression ever ought to be. B-
>>127707079at least it's more lively than the album after it where she really turns into mall sound system music
Cheap sentiment plus star-budget video make the first side so disheartening that the second isn't much more than a relief. Just as the sensitive relationship songs retreat from the perils of triads and the pleasures of jerking off, "What's Going On" is a nostalgic generalization after the first album's confrontation with capital. Girls just want to have money--and no fun changes everything. B-
It's both her curse and her achievement that from listening to this album you'd think she never went anywhere and she remains as brash and flippant and insouciant as ever. But with the charts now filled with cartoon sexpots singing DOR in the style she pioneered, she struggles to stand out from the pack. But also because her heyday was the late '70s. Not too many icons get more than one of those. B-
>>127707129the album cover is definitely way ahead of the time it looks like the 2000s
>>127707108yeah yeah she was the world's greatest one album wonder. we know.
Thanks, Ron Nevison for turning him into hair metal slop. We appreciate it.
The wisecracking arrogance of this record is the only rock and roll attitude that means diddley right now. With the mainstream claimed by sincere craftspeople and the great tradition of Elvis Presley, Esquerita, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Sex Pistols, and Madonna sucked into a cultural vacuum by nitwit anarchists and bohemian sourpusses, three white jerkoffs and their crazed producer are set to go platinum-plus with "black" music that's radically original, childishly simple, hard to play, and accessible to anybody with two ears and an ass. Drinking, robbing, rhyming, and pillaging, busting open your locker and breaking your glasses, the Beasites don't just thumb their noses at redeeming social importance--they pull out their jammies and shoot it in the cookie puss. If you don't like the joke, you might as well put your money where your funnybone is and send a check to the PMRC. A+
>>127707108nothing offensively bad about it, but it's thin on decent hooks compared to the debut
So Christa McAuliffe told her husband "Ok, so while I'm in space you feed the dog and I'll feed the fishes. Got that?"
>>127707129Again, nothing offensively bad but short on good hooks compared to the classic 76-80 albums.
>>127706957>sold out to hair metal faggots>there's actually girls at their concerts nowit's over, boys
funny how your feet in dreams never touch the earth
ok
Some great records
Last time he said bad is bad, this time he says hip is square, and there you have the difference between a straight-shooting album and a conventional one, between one that catches your elbow and one they ram down your throat. B-
Everyday I get up and pray to JahAnd he increases the number of clocksBy exactly oneEverybody's coming home for lunch these daysLast night there were skinheads on my lawnTake the skinheads bowlingTake them bowling
Gabriel's so smart he knows rhythm is what makes music go, which relieves him of humdrum melodic responsibilities but doesn't get him up on the one--smart guys do go for texture in a pinch. Like his smart predecessor James Taylor, who used to climax concerts with the clever macho parody "Steamroller," this supporter of good causes reaches the masses with "Sledgehammer," which is no parody. Where is "Biko" now that we need it more than ever? B-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhe7XCYGY_ghe's got at least fifty years' of unreleased material.
>>127705697
Hidden away on this rock bellyflop (which must be scandalizing 'em in Nashville) are hints that he may still be a crazed genius--the hook on the otherwise more-than-predictable "Drifter," the urban neurosis of "Pressure," and especially the broken yet still encouraging "Hippie Dream." But from straightforward confessional to brand-new drummer, it's the dullest record he's ever made. C+
These antiwar songs give him plenty in common with Holly Near--he even puts nueva canción musicians on the title track. While Browne goes in for higher octane folk-rock, I'll pass on the remixes if you don't mind. The difference is that Browne shouldn't be doing this--however goody-goody his fans or political his recent rep, he's a pop star who's stretching his audience and endangering his market share merely by making such a statement in 1986. And he's thought hard getting here--not only does his way with words render these lyrics somewhat deeper than Holly Near's, but his moralistic put-downs have that edge of righteous anger nobody's yet found the formula for. B
>>127710181anyone ever noticed that political protest albums magically disappear whenever a Democrat is in the White House and proliferate when there is a Republican administration?
Musically, this talented minor band's fastest-breaking album represents no significant departure from the past, though just how many recapitulations of their lyricism one needs is clearly beginning to trouble those who took it too seriously in the first place. The players still make them and the singer-lyricist still refuses to define them, and while his projection has improved, it's hardly crystalline and wouldn't tell you anything you didn't know if it was. I mean, this is music for mushheads, and that it retains an undeniable if rather abstract charm only proves that there's a little mushhead in all of us. I give album four the nod over number three for its compelling snare sound and dynamic cover version. And insist that any normal person can make do with number one, when all this was a tad more spontaneous. B+
Automatic horns and Dylanettes echoing every chorus, covers and collaborations--sounds like something he threw together in a week and away forever. But throwing it away is how he gets that off-the-cuff feel, and side two is great fun. Tough rocker with Tom Petty, lissome popper with Carole Bayer Sager, and with Sam Shepard one of the greatest and most ridiculous of his great ridiculous epics. Doesn't matter who came up with such lines as "She said even the swap meets around here are getting corrupt" and "I didn't know whether to duck or run, so I ran"--they're classic Dylan. And on side one we have automatic horns and Dylanettes echoing every chorus, covers and songs he wrote all by himself. B
At least Jane Wiedlin's solo was a well-meaning failure. This one's pure El Lay, vacuous would-be CHR with chief songwriter Charlotte Caffey spelled by numerous ringers. The best you can say about the best of these songs--namely, "Band of Gold"--is that you've heard it before; the best you can say about the rest is that once in a while you think you have. C
>>127710398the coke was starting to get to her by this point
Around the time when he literally almost died of extreme cocaine abuse.
>>127691564And here you have it.
>>127710306>>127710113Both Bob and Neil were totally washed and directionless at this point.
Right, they're maturing into a less derivative pop synthesis, as if that means shit these days. Like the Raspberries before them, they're brilliant when they emulate the Beatles and mature popsters when they don't. And for what it's worth, the four most striking tunes here are the four nonoriginals--every one, for what it's worth, written by a guy. B
The title signifies something cruder than coverees Hendrix, Richman, and Beach Boys, who aren't likely to show up on WNCN or WPAT themselves, and its moral certitude is what you have to love about her. She's a bit simple, our Joan, but so undoubting she can get away with transporting Route 128 to the West Side Highway. And even though only three or so of these selections--"Good Music," "Black Leather," maybe "Just Lust" or "This Means War," none of the covers--will be on her song list in 1990, it's heartening to know she'll be there in 1990, and that she'll sound like she did in 1982. B+
A year and a half in the making, and don't think he didn't pour heart and soul into it. It's just that he's . . . well, I hate to put it this way, but the guy is cursed: emoting love poetry from under enough Keith Forsey echo to fill Carlsbad Caverns, he still can't sing without sneering. That he gets off the occasional good one even so only reveals his essence d'Elvis for the plastic pop franchise it is, and don't blame him for the bullwhip on the sleeve--the devil made him do it. C+
the economy is great and there's white people everywhere!
>>127706957>Halford spent several weeks in the winter of 1985-86 in drug rehab after his homosexual lover committed suicide in front of him. The Fuel For Life Tour saw a revitalized and cleaned up Halford take to the stage as the band toured their new LP, which saw them adopt a more light glam rock sound with colorful outfits and guitar synthesizers. The band saw an increased popularity with female fans, which had not been a significant part of Priest's fanbase so far, and they also dropped their pre-Hell Bent For Leather songs from the setlists.
Cockburn's a very smart guy with as tough and articulate a line on imperialism as any white person with a label deal. Few singer-songwriters play meaner guitar, and as befits an anti-imperialist he knows the international sonic palette. Unfortunately, his records never project musical necessity. The melodies and/or lyrics carry the first side anyway, but though I'm sure Cockburn has some idea what the synthesized pans are doing on the cry of politico-romantic angst and the vaguely Andean fretboards on the Wasp dub poem, what the world will hear is the oppressive boom-boom of four-four drums. B
>>127706686this kills the Van Halen
>>127710987Poor Tony, totally lost and has no clue what to do except grind out mediocre AOR slop for coke money.
Maybe his youthful lyricism, meaning his knack for the tearjerker, is abandoning him. On Greatest Hits "Just the Way You Are" and "She's Always a Woman" are every bit as alive as "Movin' Out" and "Allentown," but here he's best when he's brassy and literal: failed wise guy in "Big Man on Mulberry Street," Ray Charles's coequal on "Baby Grand." And even at his most rockin' he's seventy-five years retro whether he likes it or not--whenever he doesn't hit it just right you want to quarantine him for life in Atlantic City. B
>>127706686>given way to one of the biggest schmucks in the known businessLMAO. Well said!! couldnt have said it better myself. >EAT'EM AND SMILE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>5150https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtwBJycUihw
>>127711132Joel's least known album I guess because it didn't produce a single. The feminist putdown on Modern Woman is kinda cool though.
Journey is back after three years, we further learn that Steve Perry's voice is shredded.
Having survived his brush with death, his defection to rock, and his obsession with his daddy, whom he now outsells, Williams rests on his laurels as professional braggart and secondhand showbiz legend. He's one of the few country artists who goes gold at least partly because he's not really country--like rock both '50s and post-Allmans, country's just grist for a macho vaudeville that on this album blows even harder than usual. The tip-off's "Bocephus," a return to unabashed me-me-me. But let us now overlook the ill-rhymed polka about cowboy hats, the Leon Redbone-styled "Harvest Moon," and the novelty rag about pretty girls whose "pig" friends interfere with the workings of Junior's dick. C
Annie Lennox's rich, lustrous range and diction threaten to overwhelm these stripped-down arrangements, bringing such odious Annies as Haslam and Wilson to mind. But while you'd never call her enthusiasm natural, it's not forced or foolish either--this is rock and roll as sheer performance, its basics paraded with pride and a glint of humor. If only it was all side-openers like "Missionary Man," recommended to Pat Robertson, and the V-8 airmobile "Let's Go." B+
>>127711235I swear Ann Wilson lives rent free in his head.
Sorry, but my fond belief in Kate & Cindy as postmodern girl duo has just gone the way of my fond hopes for Joan and Chrissie as rock and roll future. Except for the postfeminist "Housework," they contribute watercolors posing as Kenny Scharfs--not only don't "Summer of Love" and "She Brakes for Rainbows" redeem anybody's '60s retro, they don't even take off on it. So Fred's abrasive camp saves the day, and talk about satiric justice--he gets off a credible nudist anthem, a credible psychedelic fantasy, and (get this) a credible ecology song in the process. B+
After disliking their other albums instantly, I was confused enough by my instant attraction to table this one, especially since I had no stomach for the comparisons I knew an investigation would entail. And indeed, I still can't stand the others. But here Morrissey wears his wit on his sleeve, dishing the queen like Johnny Rotten never did and kissing off a day-job boss who's no Mr. Sellack. This makes it easier to go along on his moonier escapades, like when he reveals that looks and fame don't guarantee a good social life. Which gives you time to notice the tunes, the guitars, the backup munchkins. B+
>>127711280>>127710652Poor Bob dreaming of the idealized feminist rocker that never materializes.
>>127711105washed up
Rosie the grand old lady of jazz.
Not a James Brown album--a James Brown-influenced Dan Hartman record, with James Brown on vocals. Unlike Brad Shapiro, who manufactured good music this way in 1979, Hartman takes his humdrum copyrights and urges the great one to go for the expressiveness he hasn't commanded in over a decade rather than the rhythm he'll take to his grave. Don't believe me--just compare any of Polydor's most recent compilations: James Brown's Funky People (featuring Lyn Collins, Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and James Brown), Dead on the Heavy Funk 74-76 (salvaging a total of zero good LPs), or In the Jungle Groove (long-promised, worth-waiting for, full-length, '69-'71 dance classics). Hartman would love every one. C+
>>127711378Beyond washed up.
Nothing if not modest, less interpreter than pure medium, Strait lives and dies with his material. On this album "Nobody in His Right Mind Would've Left Her" passes for a witticism, and while I know it's not saying much to observe that the Western swing "White Christmas" on his brand-new Merry Christmas Strait to You cuts anything here, would you believe "Frosty the Snowman"? C+
These songs were conceived for a movie, rarely an efficient way to initiate an aural experience. Yet they're real songs, not detached avant-garde atmospherics, and honest though David Byrne's sympathy may (I said may) be, they leach their vitality from traditions that demand more heart than he ordinarily coughs up. Interesting they remain. But no way the rhetorical gris-gris of "Papa Legba" or the evangelical paranoia of "Puzzlin' Evidence" or (God knows) the escapist solace of "Dream Operator" is gonna fascinate like "Crosseyed and Painless" or "Slippery People"--for one thing, Byrne lets us know what the new songs mean, which ain't much. Do they rock, you want to know? Oh yes they do. B
Formally, this is generic live double: four prev unrec tunes, most of the ten remakes a minute or two looser. But Vaughan wasn't made for the studio--live is the only concept he has any feel for. His material blooms with a little weeding, his big throaty moan gathers head under a spotlight, and the dumbfounding legato eloquence of his guitar rolls mightily down his band's expert arena-boogie groove. As a bonus, he ends up by reminding his yahooing Texans about Africa: "I may be white, but I ain't stupid"--vamp, vamp--"and neither are you." A-
As a struggling front man he had a weakness for bathos; as a disappointed Nobel laureate he makes me miss Harry Chapin. On and on he blathers, a Bowie clone with glossomania, rolling out additional songs and verses for cassette and CD because they can't be squeezed onto twelve inches of vinyl. Though he knows far more about world suffering than you or I, he's almost incapable of writing about it. All he proves is that when you dwell on suffering you get pompous, something all too many rock-and-rollers have already noticed. C
rock is death...
>>127706832dumb movie anyway. the potty mouthed girl has a funny sounding voice though; she should do cartoon voices or something.
>>127711561they quickly self-sabotaged when Kevin Dubrow couldn't stop ranting about glam metal bands being sellouts
>>127711199one of the guys who contributed to the ruination of country
Musically, this anything but retro fusion of Fresh's foundation and Sgt. Pepper's filigrees is nothing short of amazing. Only the tin-eared will overlook the unkiltered wit of its pop-baroque inventions, only the lead-assed deny its lean, quirky grooves, both of which are so arresting that at first you don't take in the equally spectacular assurance with which the singer skips from mood to mood and register to register. I just wish the thing weren't such a damn kaleidoscope: far from unifying its multifarious parts, its soundtrack function destroys what little chance the lyrics have of bringing it together. Christopher is Prince, I guess, but nothing here tempts me to make sure. I'd much rather find out whether the former Rogers Nelson really takes all this trouble just so he can die and/or make love underneath whatever kind of moon, or if he has something less banal in mind. A-
>>127711707tl;dr the music's cool, wish he had something more to sing about than his dick
Like the Rolling Stones twenty years ago, they're middle-class lads who are into music that's hard above all--they're street because they want to be. Granted, the analogy is less than exact. Where the Stones dramatized their streetness by becoming bohemians, Run-D.M.C. remain defiantly and even paradigmatically middle-class, a much tougher trick. Run-D.M.C. project less respect for women than the Stones, and less interest in them, too. They commit more lyrical gaffes. And their music is a lot further out. Without benefit of a "Rock Box" or "King of Rock," this is their most uncompromising and compelling album, all hard beats and declaiming voices. They're proud to be black all right, but I don't think it has much to do with George Washington Carver. They're proud to be black because it means they can do this. A-
>>127711804>Stones>projecting respect for womenWhat the fuck did I just read?
>>127706631NEEERRRDDD
>>127711361And the not so grand old lady of jazz.
Though it's customary to situate Richie square in the middle of the pop mainstream, in fact he's more austere than that, and more distinctive--his placidity and simplicity yield a lulling, almost mantralike entertainment that recalls Sade or J.J. Cale. Granted, his clichéd verse isn't always as transparent as he hopes--mawk like "Ballerina Girl" is all too noticeable. And sometimes he doesn't put his heart into the semi-fast ones. But he compensates with a knack for tune that puts him over the fine line between lulling and boring--a knack that Sade or Cale would go metal for. B+
Two catchy weirdos, eighteen songs, and the hits just keep on coming in an exuberantly annoying show of creative superabundance. Their secret is that as unmediated pop postmodernists they can be themselves stealing from anywhere, modulating without strain or personal commitment from hick to nut to nerd. Like the cross-eyed bear in the regretful but not altogether kind "Hide Away Folk Family," their "shoes are laced with irony," but that doesn't doom them to art-school cleverness or never meaning what they say. Their great subject is the information overload that lends these songs their form. They live in a world where "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" and "Youth Culture Killed My Dog." A
I never knew why their definitive electrodisco impressed me more than it moved me, and now I don't know why it has me rocking out of my chair or grinning foolishly as I forage for dinner at the supermarket. The tempos are a touch less stately, the hooks a touch less subliminal. Bernard Albrecht's vocals have taken on so much affect they're humane. And the joke closer softens up a skeptic like me to the pure, physically exalting sensation of the music. A
>>127711915meme band for people with Asperger's Syndrome
Never again can us wiseasses call it corporate rock without thinking twice. Whatever possessed Tom Scholz to spend seven years perfecting this apparently unoccupied articulation of an art-metal thought extinct years ago, it wasn't megaplatinum ambition. He's more like the Archbishop of Latter-Day Arena Rock, perfecting majestic guitar sounds and angelic vocals for hockey-rink cathedrals the world over--and also, since he's patently reluctant to venture from his studio retreat, elegiac melodies suitable to a radio ministry. If he seems more hobbyist than artist, more Trekkie than Blind Boy Grunt, that's no reason to get snobbish. And no reason to listen, either. C
What's made him the decade's premier country star artistically has been his disinclination to act like one--he's never climbed on the Nashville assembly line like Skaggs and Strait and so many smaller fry. Until now. He goes for George's intensity rather than Merle's hang-loose, but he won't convince you he thought these songs were special, and though this may mean the truth is still in him, don't bet on it--not after he yanked the difficult-to-program album he's got in the can. And just in case country radio isn't mollified, he provides a gratuitous cover of Merle's "Fightin' Side of Me." In the Vietnam era jingoistic trash at least made sense on its own neurotic terms. Who's he gonna beat up on in 1986? CISPES? Alexander Cockburn? B
Miles's endgame at Columbia was true fusion--improvised jazz-rock, pretty good of its sort, but what a sort. This is more like pop-funk Sketches of Spain, with the starperson's trumpet glancing smartly off an up-to-date panoply of catchy little tunes, beats, and rhythm effects. I cried fraud at first, and if you have no use for catchy little anythings you'll agree, but I changed my mind. Marcus Miller acquits himself in the Gil Evans role, George Duke gets off a nice lick, and Scritti Politti provides a snappier cover than Cyndi Lauper. Minor, and his best in a decade. B+
He's back.
>>127711879>>127712530She never did, that's either a good thing or a very bad thing depending on how you look at it.
Compact disc is a fad, it will not catch on
aw, no new Herbie Hancock this year
>>127711804odd he makes no mention of Aerosmith
I had hopes for this record, honest. I certainly prefer the show tunes of her flowering to the "rock" (and schlock) of her Hollywood phase, and I enjoy discovering musical-comedy gems my normal interests would never steer me to. But unearthing gems is not Barbra's purpose. There are only three lyricists here--Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, and the album's real reason for being, Stephen Sondheim, who sums up his aesthetic philosophy by rewriting a song about Seurat so it applies instead to that other great artiste, la Streisand. I've enjoyed all the non-Sondheim songs in less precisely wrought versions and am also familiar with a little something called "Send in the Clowns." I admire the cattiness of "The Ladies Who Lunch." The others I'll live the rest of my life without. C
#washed
Not only did we not get the live album last year, like we were supposed to, but *this* is the "new album" they were working on? Policebros, I don't feel so good.
Young modern Lou makes his electronic move, dispensing with live drums on six tracks and leaving the programming to newly anointed computer whiz Fernando Saunders. Old fart Lou works up a pretty fair head of current decrying "Video Violence" and bows to the '80s by situating evil "Outside." His most expedient album since The Bells and his worst since Rock and Roll Heart. B
My War, Slip It In, the Live '84 tape, the instrumental sides, Henry's poetry readings--it was all too much, the excess production of bohemian businessmen ready to shove any old shit up the wazoos of their presold believers. So I hardly heard the 1985 studio LPs Loose Nut and In My Head, which prove their sharpest since Damaged, with Loose Nut especially showing off Greg Ginn's fangs as lyricist and riffmaster. The demented acceleration and guitar squiggles of this live date improve most of the hottest songs from the '85 albums. And while introducing the band members by cock size may protest their belated obsession with sex too much, I can't complain when the answer to the title question is Kira, who plays bass so stalwartly she deserves all the credit she can get. A-
>>127711280cover art looks like 1994, well ahead of the time
She's in a mature relationship, she loves motherhood, and she earns her keep fronting a band. The new guys are funkier than the old guys, the tunes are up to par, and despite "How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?"--it's offensive to dis black pop when your idea of on-the-one is "Fame" cops--her lyrics are pretty mature, with a sisterly offering I'd like to hear some soul man put across. But let's face it--it's hard to make exciting music out of a mature relationship even when fronting a band is the meaning of your life. B
>>127711280>So Fred's abrasive camp saves the day, and talk about satiric justice--he gets off a credible nudist anthem, a credible psychedelic fantasy, and (get this) a credible ecology song in the process.The bad part is that you have to also listen to Fred singing.
>>127711361>>127711879Nah there's only one. Unfortunately at 69 she also sounds like it.
>>127713316this was the second to last album she ever made. yeah her voice was pretty much KO-ed by this point.
I respect these guys, really--their dedication to dementia is a rare and wondrous thing. But their claque's idea of accessibility is Iron Butterfly on bad acid digging deconstruction, yet another version of the touching avant-garde truism which holds that the proper study of incoherence is incoherent. Upped a notch or two for concept, attitude, hype, bullshit, somewhere in there. B-
>>127707027but it's Thursday can't play that one
F
>>127710995Billymania was already receding by this point.
>>127713617that was also true of Judas Priest, they always sounded exactly like the albums' release dates unlike, say, Slayer who sound more timeless
>>127710995Call it more like he sounds like he's really trying hard to force a turd out.
>>127706686this has so much corn it needs to be creamed
>>127706756yeah lol
>>127710987the absolute nadir of Sabbath
So these threads are just some retard posting Christgau reviews now?
>>127706591Enjoy your fun now, guys, because there's only a finite number of Mustaine riff tapes you can use and you'll run out of them eventually.
what the fuck is Pink Floyd gonna do now that Rog is gone? they'll never make it. they won't sell ONE fuckin' ticket.
>>127715545t. Dave
>>127712930nine years, last LP he did was 1977
>>127712825All that time and what do we get but...Boston S/T 3.0.
>>127706307not a fan of the synths
>>127715608synths rule. this is 1986, fag.
>>127707159Nevison used to be a great producer in the 70s. What happened?
The songwriting's sharper, but he's not. Whether their focus is personal ("Like a Rock"), social ("Miami"), or personal-as-social ("Tightrope"), all his evocations of this rock and that hard place add up to is high-grade soap opera. Between John Robinson's measured arena beat and Craig Frost's Bittanesque semiclassicisms, Seger comes on as a world-weary elder statesman, which is to say an incurable cornball. Transcending all this is "The Ring," the tale of a good marriage that didn't get it all, and too bad Bruce won't cover it. B
>>127715898looks like more glam metal trash
>>127715922Just some lame Ratt wannabees. If you're not from Texas you've probably never heard of them.
>>127715771ultimate dadrock bullshit
>>127710621oh yeah this album was fucking terrible
>>127715771world's greatest car commercial music. zoomers won't remember.
>>127711167A bit of an exaggeration perhaps but compared to the 78-83 run this one is lacking in decent melodies and the songs are forgettable.
>>127710963Joan was never brilliant but she was always reliable.
>>127707057Nobody asked for Iggy to make a generic 80s dance pop album.
>>127711050Canada was a mistake.
>>127715709people don't want that shit anymore, boomer
>all these guys pretending to hate hair metalit's 1986 not 1993
>>127716197step into a Venom gig wearing a Ratt T-shirt and see how many welcoming looks you get
>>127706686is Get Up even music?
>>127713282ah it's the nice little lady who set a record for being able to assemble 50 Famicom controllers at the Nintendo factory in one day
>>127711292>After disliking their other albums instantlyMoron.
>>127711473>But Vaughan wasn't made for the studio--live is the only concept he has any feel for.Duh?
>>127711879>>127711361man these indie jazz labels do not spend more than $20 on cover art
>>127711105This was in the period when the latest McCartney/Clapton/Elton John single would be welcomed with huzzahs, played for about three weeks, and quietly shelved with no one thinking it came close to any of their 60s-70s output.
aw man, my mom burned my Iron Maiden cassettes at the church "Burn a heavy metal album" event. again.
>>127707002"What do you know about apartheid, Paul Simon?""I know enough to be able to exploit it."
>>127707002>>127716624Apartheid was like the liberal cause celebre of the 80s if the suckers didn't know Reagan's State Department were the ones pushing from behind the scenes to pressure SA into getting rid of it.
>>127707108amazing how fast she mentally checked out
>>127707079Rick James called her "the most stuck-up bitch I ever met."
>>127711292frankly, mr. shankly, since you asked you're a flatulent pain in the ass.
>>127710398without her band she was nothing but a generically lame pop singer
If in 1973 I'd been told that thirteen years hence Casey Kasem would name a then ghettoized funk group as the top singles act of the '80s, my heart would have swelled until my head interjected that the top singles act of the '70s was the Osmond family. In this I would have been wise, and if I'd then been told that the secret of Kool's success would be a bland black singer named James Taylor, I would have observed that he couldn't possibly be worse than our white one. In this I could have been unduly optimistic. C-
>>127716762pretty hard to believe this was the same group who did Wild & Peaceful
>>127716825good enough for Jody Watley to steal the cover photo anyway
>>127716825Nobody remembers her career for a reason. G-E-N-E-R-I-C.
>>127716843Out of the whole pack only Michael, Janet, Jermaine, and Rebbie had solo hits. Only one of Rebbie's singles made the Billboard Hot 100 and it only got to #24 (two other songs of his charted on the R&B chart). La Toya never got higher than #20 on the R&B chart and just #56 on the pop chart. As for the remaining Jackson brothers, their solo careers were basically over before they even started. Marlon had one #2 R&B hit and the others didn't even chart at all. I believe Randy was lined up to be the next solo Jackson star in the 80s probably because he was the youngest next to Janet.
>>127716914>>127716825La Toya is more famous for stuff she did other than music, but meh.
>>127716914Janet released two albums that bombed before her breakout with Control. I guess Jermaine was popular for a period, but the other siblings were totally useless and never made a single remotely interesting piece of music.
>>127716976I think La Toya stood out to an extent simply because she was more noticeable than the non-Michael brothers. And although I could have sworn she had some hits at some point during the 80s, anon is right that she never got higher than #56 on the Billboard. Prior to Janet's emergence in 86, Rebbie's "Centipede" was the only hit single among Jackson sisters - and it peaked at #24, lower than I thought.Realize that I grew up in an area with a lot of blacks in it and R&B/soul tunes were played a lot on the radio here which leads one to think they were a lot bigger nationally than they really were.
>>127716914>>127717008no wonder Michael complained about his useless parasitic siblings mooching off of him
>>127717008more famous for posing in Playboy you say
>>127717008>>127717026>>127716914unfair though. La Toya's first four albums are perfectly solid slabs of 80s R&B, it's just that Polydor allocated about a $20 promotional budget to them so they didn't get airplay and nobody knew they were there
>>127707190this "rap" shit is never gonna take off
