ITT: /mu/ in 1979
It's over.
>>130298936Wow, glad I missed my plane flight in Chicago last week. That would have ended badly.
Make sure you don't do anything but fill the thread with Cuckgau reviews. We shouldn't go a day without reading his sniveling nonsense.
FUCK DISCO
Rock kiddies hate disco chads because we actually have shit to do and girls to lay on Saturday nights while they're stuck sipping piss water behind the bleachers and fapping to lingerie catalogs.
>>130299159depends on the rock but safe to say nobody who listens to this band has sex
I went to buy a loaf of bread and it was $3 more than last week. Fix this shit, you fucking peanut farmer.
>>130298936paid $80 to see Aerosmith last week and they were so high they could barely play and the set only lasted 30 minutes. i want my money back.
can't believe Dylan went all Christian. i'm done with him.
Fairly funky, I suppose, though not on the slow ones. But if this is 'delic, then so was the Strawberry Alarm Clock. B-
>>130299216we have new, better Aerosmith now
>>130299172This band's audience are 11 year olds so I would hope not, anyway.
I must say, I admire the perverse riskiness of this music, trading disco bounce for demented falsetto abstractions--less love-man than newborn kitten. And I also admit that I'm genuinely fond of the many small moments of madness within, such as the way the three multitracked voices echo the phrase "living together." But obsessive ornamentation can't transform a curiosity into habitable music and there is not one song on here that equals anything on the first side of Saturday Night Fever. C+
For a typical dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic this isn't too bad, certainly unlikely to arouse much pity or contempt, anyway. The music is alright, too--minimalist-maximalist kitsch complete with speech fragments. But the story is muddled, "mother" and "modern life" make for unconvincing villains, and if the recontextualization of "Up against the wall" is intended ironically, I don't get it. B-
>current tour flopping>lots of cancelled shows and half-empty venuesAs a certain former president said, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."
I don't even care that Foxy's Get Off is the only song I seem to hear on the radio. I want it to keep playing.
wanna burn some disco records with me?
A million bucks is what I call obsessive production, but for once it means something. This is like reggae, or Eno--not only don't Lindsey Buckingham's swelling edges and dynamic separations get in the way of the music, they're inextricable from the music, or maybe they are the music. The passionate dissociation of the mix is entirely appropriate to an ensemble in which the three principals have all but disappeared (vocally) from each other's work. But only Buckingham is attuned enough to get exciting music out of a sound so spare and subtle it reveals the limits of Christine McVie's simplicity and shows Stevie Nicks up for the mooncalf she's always been. Also, it doesn't make for very good background noise. B+
>>130299474Peter Criss was done after being smashed up in a car accident.
Cool album but it'd be even cooler if we put it on a t-shirt.
>>130299474not music
Not as country-rocky as you'd expect--these guys are pros and they adapt to the times by making the music tough. I actually enjoy a couple of these songs until I come into contact with the conceited, sentimental woman-haters doing the singing. I mean, these guys think punks are cynical and antilife as they proceed to put down the "king of Hollywood" because he won't suck John David Souther's dick? C
>>130298936>disco slop, disco slop, and disco slopone wonders if the music industry was showing signs of rot this early
All I'll say is if I'd never mistake them for Foreigner I'd never mistake them for Free anymore, either. And are those syndrums on "Evil Wind"? Naughty, naughty, naughty. C+
>>130299669>>130299599whoa. put down the moonshine jug there, Billy-Bob.
The evasive satire and not-funny-enough instrumentals on side one had me convinced they'd made their arena move before there was an arena on Earth that would have them. But the cover of "Secret Agent Man" and "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprize" on side two are as bright as anything on the debut, and the arrangements are full of surprizes. B
Went down to the Radio Shack to look at speakers and they have this personal computer stuff on display? What can you do with a computer anyway? Get back to me someday when they're able to display photo-real Playboy centerfolds.
The lyrics are indifferently crafted, and while their one-dimensionality is winningly perverse at a time when his old fans will take any ambiguity they can get, it does serve to flaunt their theological wrongheadedness and occasional jingoism. Nevertheless, this is his best album since Blood on the Tracks. The singing is passionate and detailed, and the pros behind him--especially Mark Knopfler, who has a studio career in store--play so sharply that his anger gathers general relevance at its most vindictive. And so what if he's taken up with the God of Wrath? Since when have you been so crazy about the God of Love? Or any other species of hippie bullshit? B+
This one opens with a promising song titled "No Surprize", about the band's career. Then they inch towards the dull tempos, flash guitar, and stupid cover versions of heavy metal orthodoxy. No surprise. C
>BUSH ON STAGEFor many more tours to come
Time to retire, El. Your pipes have seen better days.
>>130299873and then she decided she didn't want to be Joan Jett or Suzi Quatro after all
"Morality is what I can do and live with myself afterward," this advocate of the fuck-around-and-fib-about-it school of post-monogamy told her publicist recently. Carly dedicates her latest to Anaïs Nin and for that I think she's selling herself short--at her best she's sharper than Anaïs, and if she could keep up the vengeful-to-bemused pace of the first three songs for the entire album she might even make a case for her questionable ethical theories. But after that she mostly sounds confused. Anaïs would be proud. C+
>>130299581I fuckin' hate the Eagles, man.
Not as sodden as you'd expect--these guys are pros and they adapt to the times by speeding up the music. I actually enjoy a couple of these songs until I come into contact with the dumb woman-haters doing the singing. I mean, these guys complain that punks are cynical and antilife as they moan that the world is all madness and lies and then proceed to rhyme "science" with "appliance" and don't intend a joke. C-
>>130299897She became a TRUE AUTEUR
The Christagu/album cover spambots makes these threads unbearable
>>130299963utter trash meant to fill out a record contract
A punk-disco fusion so uncompromised it will scare away fans of both genres, which share a taste for nasty girls that rarely extends to females past thirty with rat's-nest hair and last night's makeup on. The raw dance music isn't exactly original, and sometimes the offhandedness of the lyrics can be annoying, but I like this even when it's pro forma and/or sloppy, or maybe because it's pro forma and/or sloppy, like Dylan when he's good. "Why'd ya spit on my snatch?" indeed--the music's harshest account of a woman fending with the world. A-
>>130300046>utter trashbut that's ELP's entire discography
>>130299449moron
>B-But disco's dying...WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
>>13029919566 years of the (((Federal Reserve))) finally catching up causes things like that. Off shoring the electronics industry doesn't help. Those japs can't make a TV as good as a Zenith.Have a beer.
ooh babe
This makes it in the end, but not by much--a tour de force like Parallel Lines it ain't. The soft focus of the lyrics remains more evasive than profound or mysterious, and a lot of what replaces the diminished popcraft either wanders ("Sound-A-Sleep") or repeats experiments we've heard before ("Victor"). Then again, "Sound-A-Sleep" probably ought to wander, since it's about insomnia and the pushy organ hysterics of "Victor" are a gutsy move for a group that's supposed to have gone AOR. I don't like the overarching fatalism--me, I hope to die old and get ugly--but I do like the way the lyrics depart from pop bohemia to speak directly to the mass audience they're reaching. And Debbie just keeps getting better. A
WE ARE FAMILY, I GOT ALL MY
>>130300078that guy just might be a nonce. just a hunch i have.
Let no one say formalists can't change--in the wake of Kiss and Boston, this is heavy metal that's pure, fast, and clean with a minimum of mypothea and bombast, while the guitar features strictly as that. So why then don't pure formalists love the shit out of these guys? Not because they're into dominating women, that's for sure. C+
Ike did nothing wrong
Whoops.
>>130300961One a greatest blues rock guitarist acts of all time now just a footnote in history as a woman beater. It is fair I tell ya
>>130298936I fucking hate disco.
wonder if the Beatles are ever getting back together? tf is John even doing these days? no one's heard from him in four years.
I'm not _wishing_ for Barry Gibb to get debilitating vocal cord cancer, but...
>>130301030dude this is Christfag slop. please don't listen to it.
These guys got off the road for real--sounds as if they spent all three years playing the blues on their front porch. The strident arena technique is gone, every song gives back a verbal phrase or two to make up for the musical ones it appropriates, and to vary the trio format they not only learned how to play horns but figured out where to put them. I've heard a shitload of white blues albums in the wake of Belushi & Aykroyd. This is the best by miles. A-
spent six hours in line to buy sausage at market. local commissar apologized for lack of meat and assured us CIA agents sabotaged this week's shipment and it has nothing at all to do with utter retardation of planned gommunist economy.
>>130299656you're supposed to be listening to this one while cruising down the highway in your Camaro, the wind blowing in your mullet
In which an up-and-coming professional entertainer tricks up Britain's latest rock and roll fashion with some fancy chords and gets real intense about the perils of romance. Well, better "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" than "Sunday Papers," the social-criticism interlude, which inspires fond memories of "Pleasant Valley Sunday." B
>>130301295>England can have its own Boz Scaggs, right guise? XD
>>130301284Bob is a city rat, he can't relate to "Evil Wind."
Blame what's wrong with this record on the late trite Van McCoy, one of the most tasteless arrangers ever to produce an LP. What saves it is that McCoy didn't control half of these songs--arrangements by Richard Gibbs and Arthur Jenkins (rhythm only) and Zulema Cusseaux and Skip Scarborough (rhythm plus orchestration) provide frequent relief. Aretha contributes two sisterly originals, which are really fine, and one loverly original, which isn't. Because McCoy keeps intruding she never gets a flow going. But there haven't been this many good cuts on an Aretha album in five years. B
>>130301202booba. at least the female on this cover is of age.
>>130301334oh my god, he hated Van McCoy so much he literally killed him with his hate
>>130301334thus ended her time at Atlantic
Sexy, dancey pop music of undeniable craft, and it doesn't let up. But as we all know, they could be doing a lot better. B
Like most great popular composers, Wonder is an appalling "serious" one. With their one-world instrumental flourishes and other sound effects, the presumably synthesized "orchestral" passages that dominate the first two sides are like bad (!) David Amram at their best (!) and some justifiably anonymous Hollywood hack at their worst. (Major exception: "Race Babbling," especially when it glances a presumably synthesized horn riff off presumably synthesized voices and ostinatos.) And only two of the four songs on side three, which defenders of this album admire, are worthy of Key of Life. But on side four Wonder's indomitable open-heartedness finally breaks through the mawk. "A Seed's a Star and Tree Medley" is even more foolish philosophically than most of the rest of the album, but its elan makes Stevie's vitalism palpable, so that even the presumably synthesized orchestral passages that wrap things up sound ardently schmaltzy instead of depressingly schlocky. Still, next time I hope he aims lower. B-
anyone got Van Halen tix?
You tend to suspect anyone who releases three double-LPs in eighteen months of delusions of Chicago, but Donna is here to stay and this is her best album. The first two sides, four songs per, never let up--the voice breaks and the guitars moan over a bass-drum thump in what amounts to empty-headed girl-group rock and roll brought cannily up-to-date. Moroder makes his Europercussion play on side four, which is nice too, but side three drags, suggesting that the rock and roll that surfaces here is perhaps only a stop along the way to a totally bleh total performance. Me, I still love my Marvelettes records. A-
>>130301486if you went to a girl's house back then and she had this album you knew not to hit it unless you wore three layers of condoms first because your dick would probably turn colors and rot off
White boy reggae chads...our response?
MOSKAU!LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!HO HO HO HO HO HEY!
>>130301511Yeah that one just screams "Pregnant 16 year old" -core.
>>130301528Look at these clowns.They’re worshipping the very thing that beat the shit out of them more than 30 years ago.That being said, the frontman is too good for this nonsense.
What's the best album to snort cocaine to? People say it's habit forming, but we all know that's a meme, it's not like we're smoking it or anything lol.
>>130301534>>130301030of course if the chick had Amy Grant albums she was probably homeschooled and wouldn't do anything but missionary sex with the lights off
Musically this is a step towards schlock that knows its name--a couple of smarmy melodies mixed in with the horns and synthesizer furbelows. Lyrically it's both sophomoric and disgusting--programmatic misogyny rooted in sexual rejections that were clearly deserved. Visually it's sadistic--the two women on the Hipgosis cover wear black veils that barely conceal their warts, bruises, and blemishes. What is it they stencil on street corners? "Castrate art rockers"? D
>>130301556idk, ask Steven Tyler.
Don't know why anyone tolerates synthesisers, they're so fake and cheesy sounding, it's not even real music
>>130301528This is gold.I hope they don’t get banned from performing at the Olympics next year because commies can’t understand them.
i got 120,000 points on Space Invaders last week. top that one.
>>130301592>Lyrically it's both sophomoric and disgusting--programmatic misogyny rooted in sexual rejections that were clearly deserved.so much projection
>>130300056YER LIKE A BLOOD STAYNEYA GO AWN AND AWN AND AWN
Fond as I am of the pop junk they recycle--with love and panache, like the closet ecologists they are--there's something parochially suburban about turning it into the language of a world view. So I'm more delighted with their rhythms, which show off their Georgia roots by adapting the innovations of early funk (a decade late, just like the Stones and Chicago blues) to an endlessly danceable forcebeat format. Also delightful is their commitment to sexual integration--Cindy Wilson is singing more and more, although her voice occasionally gives out before her ambitions do. Major worry: only one of the copyright 1979 songs--my favorite track, "Dance This Mess Around"--is as amazing as the 1978 stuff. A
>>130301625hey you heard they're coming out with a version of it for the VCS. that sounds awesome, you can play the game at home.
>>130301659Fuck "Rock Lobster", I hate that song.
This is a breakthrough for Petty because for the first time the Heartbreakers (his Heartbreakers, this L.A.M.F. fan should specify) are rocking as powerfully as he's writing. But whether Petty has any need to rock out beyond the sheer doing of it--whether he has anything to say--remains shrouded in banality. Thus he establishes himself as the perfect rock and roller for those who want good--very good, because Petty really knows his stuff--rock and roll that can be forgotten as soon as the record or the concert is over, rock and roll that won't disturb your sleep, your conscience, or your precious bodily rhythms. B+
What's wrong with most of these songs is that Taylor is singing them. He can sing, sure--the "Day Tripper" cover and "Is That the Way You Look" show off his amused, mildly funky self-involvement at its sharpest and sexiest. But too often the material reveals him at his sharpest and most small-minded; John Lennon might get away with "I Will Not Lie for You," but JT's whine undermines whatever honesty the sentiment may have. C+
>>130301776yay, James goes disco
Crazy Little Thing Called Love is a nice Elvis tribute.I hope Freddie doesn’t become a massive flaming faggot next year.
Best rock music from 1979Live at the Witch Trials [I.R.S., 1979]After dismissing this as just too tuneless and crude--wasn't even fast--I played it in tandem with Public Image Ltd. one night and for a few bars could hardly tell the difference. Of course, in this case the heavy bass and distant guitars could simply mean a bad mix, but what the hell--when they praise spastics and "the r&r dream" they're not being sarcastic (I don't think), and in this icky pop moment we could use some ugly rebellion. How about calling it punk? B+
>>130301752I heard that song made John Lennon want to write music again because it reminded him of his wife’s horrible “singing”.
If this be social satire, then how come its only targets appear to be individuals whose particular weirdness diverges from that of the retentive gent at the control board? Or are we to take his newfound fixation with buggery as a symptom of approval? Makes you wonder whether Frank's primo guitar solo on "Yo' Mama" and those unique-as-they-used-to-be sounds and textures are as arid spiritually as he is. As if there was any question after all these years. C+
too much discoslop. no wonder everyone chimped out and blew up disco records.
Americans sample J-Pop, don't really like it much.
You didn't really think she wanted to be the Supremes (much less the Toys or the Chiffons), did you? Nah--she wants to be Diana Ross, albeit without show tunes. Buy the single. C+
>>130301811I have my copy of Catcher In The Rye and a snub nose revolver ready for when John Lennon leaves after finishing his new album (which I assume will be sometime in 1980).I, Mark David Chapman will put that hippie fucker who hates our Lord and Savior down and become a legend for it.
their answer to punk or Van Halen or whatever before going full-out AORslop
>>130301867fucking one hit wonder bullshit (also the hit is very very annoying). wonder what record suit she fucked to get it?
You think they'd give a damn about exploding Pintos if some 50 year old Mexican guy died instead of a couple of teenage white girls?
>>130301893Album's a Gary Richrath showpiece mostly so it's all guitar and not as much vocal melodies. You could call it their answer to punk in a sense.
shakedown
In which fast-stepping Michael J. and quick-witted Quincy J. fashion the dance groove of the year. Michael's vocabulary of grunts, squeals, hiccups, moans, and asides is a vivid reminder that he's grown up, and the title tune suggests that maybe what makes Stevie Wonder (who contributes a good ballad) such an oddball isn't his genius or even his blindness so much as the fact that since childhood his main contact with the real world has been on stage and in bed. A
>>130301993this is the last time Michael just sounded like a kid having fun instead of trying to be the biggest pop star on the planet
Cognoscenti I know tend to couch their belief that this is the Anticlash in purely technical terms--harmonies treacly, production punched up, and so forth. Bullshit. I too find them unattractive; if they felt this way about girls when they were unknowns, I shudder to think how they're reacting to groupies. But if they're less engaging musically than, say, the Scruffs, they have a lot more pop and power going for them than, say, the Real Kids. In other words, "My Sharona" is pretty good radio fare and let's hope "She's So Selfish" isn't the next single. Face it, this is a nasty time, and if the Stranglers are (or were, I hope) Sgt. Barry Sadler, these guys are only Freddie and the Dreamers. Docked a notch for clothes sense. B-
"We are facing a crisis of confidence."
hey did you hear Sabbath ditched Ozzy? wonder who they're gonna replace him with.
>>130302012>and if the Stranglers are (or were, I hope) Sgt. Barry Sadlerfor those who don't know, they sent Cuckgau a threatening letter or something
Cut for cut, this may be the greatest rock and roll album (plus limited-edition bonus single) ever manufactured in the U.S. It offers ten of the fourteen titles on the band's British debut as well as seven of the thirteen available only on forty-five. And the sequencing is anything but haphazard; the eight songs on side one divide into self-contained pairs that function as extended oxymorons on careerism, corporate power, race, and anomie. Yet the package feels misbegotten. The U.K. version of The Clash is the greatest rock and roll album ever manufactured anywhere partly because its innocence is of a piece--it never stops snarling, it's always threatening to blow up in your face. I'm still mad the real thing wasn't released two years ago, and I know for certain (I made a tape) that the singles would have made a dandy album by themselves. Nevertheless, a great introduction and a hell of a bargain. A
I enjoy a hooky album as much as the next guy, so when this one elicited vague grunts of pleasure I looked forward to listening in detail. But the lyrics turned out to be glib variations on the usual Star Romances trash, and in the absence of a vocal personality (as opposed to accurate singing) or rhythmic thrust (as opposed to a beat), I'll wait for this material to be covered by artists of substance, say, Tavares or the Doobie Brothers. C-
For the decade's greatest rock and roller to come out with his greatest album in 1979 is no miracle in itself--the Stones made Exile as grizzled veterans. The miracle is that Young doesn't sound much more grizzled now than he already did in 1969; he's wiser but not wearier, victor so far over the slow burnout his title warns of. The album's music, like its aura of space-age primitivism, seems familiar, but while the melodies work because they're as simple and fresh as his melodies have always been, the offhand complexity of the lyrics is unprecedented in Young's work: "Pocahantas" makes "Cortez the Killer" seem like a tract, "Sedan Delivery" turns "Tonight's the Night" on its head, and the Johnny Rotten tribute apotheosizes rock-and-roll-is-here-to-stay. Inspirational Bumper Sticker: "Welfare mothers make better lovers." A+
In which Brown relinquishes the profit-taking ego gratification of writing and producing everything himself. Those credits go to Brad Shapiro, Millie Jackson's helpmate, who thank god is no disco man himself. Sure he likes disco tricks--synthesized sound effects, hooky female chorus, bass drum pulse--but he loves what made JB, well, the original disco man: hard-driving, slightly Latinized funk patterns against the rough rap power of that amazing voice, which may have lost expressiveness but definitely retains its sense of rhythm. Plus: disco disc of the year, "It's Too Funky in Here." And a renunciation of "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World." A-
Aunt Rosie keeps the spirit of jazz alive, and fortunately didn't cop to making a disco album.
The Cult's identity has been deteriorating for years, but this is a quantum leap into anonymity--songs for slick (what happened to dense?) hard rock band by five different musicians and their numerous collaborators. Only "In Thee," a farewell to Patti Smith by Allen Lanier that deserves to become a standard on the order of "Alison," is more than marginally interesting. C
Since "To Love Somebody" isn't exactly Hank's kind of song, I guess he disavowed the Ray Ruff-produced side of this. On the other hand, "Family Tradition" (guess who that's about) leads off the other side, and it is exactly Hank's kind of song. Exactly. That's not so great either. C
>>130302274ugh, HWJ was the father of modern buttcountry. 2/10 album.
dude disco XD
fortunately that fucker didn't review this one given his takes on a number of other Dolly albums
Here's where they start showing off. If "Lost in the Supermarket," for instance, is just another alienated-consumption song, it leaps instantly to the head of the genre on the empathy of Mick Jones's vocal. And so it goes. Complaints about "slick" production are absurd--Guy Stevens slick?--and insofar as the purity of the guitar attack is impinged upon by brass, pianner, and shuffle, this is an expansion, not a compromise. A gratifyingly loose Joe Strummer makes virtuoso use of his four-note range, and Paul Simonon has obviously been studying his reggae records. Warm, angry, and thoughtful, confident, melodic, and hard-rocking, this is the best double-LP since Exile on Main Street. And it's selling for about $7.50. A+
Predictions that these art-schoolers would turn into art-rockers no longer seem so cynical. Their gift for the horrifying vignette remains. But their tempos are slowing, sometimes to a crawl, as their textures venture toward the orchestral, and neither effect enhances the power of their vignettes, which become ever more personalistic and/or abstract. B
What's always saved this band for me was the jokes, but this time they're just not in the grooves, and there's only so much you can do with funny hats on the cover. A good heavy metal band, sure--be thankful for the fast tempos. But probably not a great heavy metal band. And you know what happens to good heavy metal bands long about the fifth album. B-
>>130299014>Wow, glad I missed my plane flight in Chicago last week. That would have ended badly.?
I used to think Bowie was middlebrow, but now I'd prefer to call him post-middlebrow--a habitue of prematurely abandoned modernist space. Musically, these fragments of anomie don't seem felt, and lyrically they don't seem thought through. But that's part of their charm--the way they confound categories of sensibility and sophistication is so frustrating it's satisfying, at least if you have your doubts about the categories. Less satisfying, actually, than the impact of the record as a whole. A-
In which La Suprema passes a crash course at the Ashford & Simpson School of Total Adult Fulfillment, although not with As. It's her house, she wants your good lovin' once in the morning and once in the evening, she'll compete and regret it, she'll cooperate and be glad, and she shall survive, because she's the boss. Quite smart, quite sexy, but sometimes dull--it doesn't do much for A&S's crash material that there's only one singer. B
Bob Geldof has a journalist's gift--he'd make a terrific topical songwriter if only he believed in something. Instead, he's taken to dramatizing the usual alienation from the usual inside. Too bad. B-
>>130303096but "I Don't Like Mondays" was a topical song?
Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers proved on Sister Sledge's "Lost in Music" that hedonism and its discontents, the inevitable focus of disco's meaningfulness moves, is a subject worth opening up. Here, "Good Times" and "My Feet Keep Dancing" surround the sweetly romantic "Warm Summer Night" in a rueful celebration of escape that's all the more suggestive for its unquenchable good cheer. Side two's exploration of romance and its agonies also has a fatalistic tint, but in the end the asides and rhythmic shifts (as well as the lyrics themselves) give rue the edge over celebration. Subtle, intricate, kinetic, light but not mindless--in short, good to dance to. A-
Well I'll be. The inventor of rock and roll hasn't made an album this listenable in fifteen years--no great new songs, but he's never written better throwaways (or covered "Ozymandias," either). Both Berry and Johnny Johnson--the piano half of his sound for a quarter of a century--have tricked up their styles without vitiating or cheapening them, and the result is a groove for all decades. Minor for sure, but what a surprise. B+
The tuneful synthesizer pomp on side two confirms my long-held belief that this is a real good art-rock band, and their title for the first ten minutes or so, "Carouselambra," suggests that they find this as humorous as I do. The lollapalooza hooks on the first side confirms the world's long-held belief that this is a real good hard rock band. Lax in the lyrics department, as usual, but their best since Houses of the Holy. B+
The rockers are a little lightweight, the final cut drags halfway through, and that's all that's wrong with this record, including its tributes to "the Lord." You might get religion yourself if all of your old powers returned after years of failed experiments, half-assed compromises, and onstage crack-ups. Like that other godfearing singer-songwriter, Morrison has abandoned metaphorical pretensions, but only because he loves the world. His straightforward celebrations of town and country are colored and deepened by his musicians--especially sprightly violinist Toni Marcus (feh on Scarlet Rivera)--and by his own excursions into a vocalise that has never been more various or apt. The only great song on this record is "It's All in the Game," written by Calvin Coolidge's future vice-president in 1912. But I suspect it's Van's best album since Moondance. A
Where some "eclectic" rock and rollers brim with sheer experimental joy, Benatar is sodden with try-anything-once ambition. From showbiz "hard rock" ("Heartbreaker") to big-beat "cabaret" ("Don't Let It Show") to received "futurism" ("My Clone Sleeps Alone") to fake-Blondie "Eurodisco" ("We Live for Love"), she shows about as much aesthetic principle as Don Kirshner. Though she does have a better voice than Kirshner. C+
>>130300837Impossible, he's just a big kid deep-inside, besides, it's not like he's going to any award shows holding hands with some 13 year olds or something, right? kek
Greatest album ever made coming through
I WANNA SEE SUZI'S QUATRO
>>130303812despite what Cuckgau claims, If You Knew Suzi was a 1978 release not 79
>>130303812she was always a lot bigger in Europe than here to the point of eventually marrying a Brit and moving to England
I quite like the electronic disco extension of "Here Comes the Night," but more as an oddity than a pleasure. The chief pleasure--Brian's "Good Timin'"--is not a new song. What is new is the pop orchestration on "Lady Lynda." C+
>>130303837i'll take Pat Benatar's too
>>130303857that was when he reviewed it not the release date
The Crusaders' songwriting doesn't peak the way it did on B.B.'s 1978 collaboration with the L.A. topcats, but that's OK because it doesn't dip either. The Crusaders jam, B.B. jives and raps, and the result--give or take some background vocals and a few overworked horn charts--is the topcat equivalent of the kind of wonderful blues-bar album Bruce Iglauer of Alligator has been getting out of less accomplished musicians throughout the '70s. A small delight. B+
David Byrne's celebration of paranoia is a little obsessive, but like they say, that doesn't mean somebody isn't trying to get him. I just wish material as relatively expansive as "Found a Job" or "The Big Country" were available to open up the context a little; that way, a plausible prophecy like "Life During Wartime" might come off as cautionary realism instead of ending up in the nutball corner with self-referential fantasies like "Paper" and "Memories Can't Wait." And although I'm impressed with the gritty weirdness of the music, it is narrow--a little sweetening might help. A-
This isn't Roxy at its most innovative, just its most listenable--the entire "West Side" sustains the relaxed, pleasantly funky groove it intends, and the difficulties of the "East Side" are hardly prohibitive. At last Ferry's vision seems firsthand even in its distancing--he's paid enough dues to deserve to keep his distance. And the title track is well-named, apparent contradictions and all. A-
Hooks are mechanical by nature, but the affectlessness of these deserves special mention; only listeners who consider "alienation is the craze" a great insight will find much meaning here. On the other hand, only listeners who demand meaning in all things will find this useless. Cold and thin, shiny and hypnotic, it's what they do best--rock and roll that is definitely pop without a hint of cuteness. Which means that for them "alienation is the craze" may be a meaningful statement after all. B+
>>130304069took that long to get to it?
My cousin sent me this record in the mail. Is this like a secret Buddy Rich record or what?
>>130303812pseudo-50s throwback slop
>>130304206Also she'd ditched the leather bodysuits by then for mom jeans.
Boy, people are getting bored with these guys _fast_--if they don't watch out they're gonna last about as long as Looking Glass or the Lemon Pipers. Just another case of "substance" as novelty, I guess--doesn't sound bad, but they'd better up those beats-per-minute. B-
The idea is to fuse Sting's ringing rock voice and the trio's aggressive, hard-edged rock attack with a less eccentric version of reggae's groove and a saner version of reggae's mix. To me the result sounds half-assed. And though I suppose I might find the "synthesis" innovative if I heard as much reggae as they do in England, it's more likely I'd find it infuriating. B-
>>130299811Dylan also goes disco.
The heartening sense of overall conviction here doesn't extend to many specifics, with the surprising exception of Gregg's rough yet detailed vocals. But Ronnie Van Zant himself couldn't breathe life into these songs, most of which Dickey Betts was saving up for the third Great Southern album--now never to be heard, which is one good thing. C+
The voice is still magic--I even get off on her overdubbed backups--but who wants to listen to it through all this mush? Wait till the collaboration with Barry Manilow dries up, after two or three albums. Betcha Clive tries reuniting her with Bacharach-David around then. And around then they just might be in the mood to do it right. Maybe. C+
>>130304377>>130299811It's kind of cute on "Serve Somebody" where he rattles off all the different archetypes of people that existed in 1979 America and realize that if it was archetypes of 2020s people...well, I'd rather not even think about that one.
Whew. Sixteen titles on an untimed LP that must run forty minutes if not fifty--or seventy-five. When he's on, Paulie's abundant tunefulness passes for generosity. Here he's just hoping something will stick. C
>>130304426OnlyFans stars?
>>130298936eh...maybe it's just me but i prefer the two surrounding years to '79
In which Harrison returns to good old commercial rock and roll, he says, presumably because he shared songwriting on one track with Gary "Sure Shot" Wright and let Russ Titleman produce. Well, there is a good song here--"Faster," about a kind of stardom. He remembers! C
Cohen's arrangements are even more detailed and surprising than John Lissauer's, and Jennifer Warnes is the most valuable backup singer since Emmylou Harris. "The Traitor" is a minor masterpiece. And in general this record's take on courtly love in the swingers' era packs more ironic intelligence than you would have thought possible. Or necessary, unfortunately. Cohen's gift for elementary hummables seems to deteriorate as his writing evolves from the conversational toward the allegorical. Irony or no irony, "rages of fragrance" and "rags of remorse" sound suspiciously like bad poetry even when they're sung, and that's not now it's supposed to work. B
>>130304569>>130304517>caring about what the former members of 60s Backstreet Boys are doing almost a decade after it broke up
>>130301887Based, now go get the other 3.
Beep Boop Beep Boop
Some doctrinaire new wavers see the rapid success of this Jacksonville sextet as a reactionary portent, but as an old Skynyrd fan I can't get upset. They do boogie better than, let's see here, Missouri, Bama, Crimson Tide, .38 Special, Wet Willie, Atlanta Rhythm Section, or (mercy sakes) the Charlie Daniels Band. Really, they sound pretty good. Only one thing missing: content. C+
Murray's third album with Jim Ed Norman continues her gradual revitalization. Norman does clean, honest, Nashville-quality work, Murray gives forth with the old sensible spunk, and the singles break country and cross over just like they're supposed to. But the potential a few of us perceived in her five years ago is gone. Then Murray seemed to have a shot at women's pop, in the honorific way that term was used after Warhol and the Beatles--a Canadian gym teacher who could rock and roll, a militantly ordinary audience with a lesbian fringe. Now she's just quality MOR, singing the El Lay songbook (only two Canadian composers here, one of whom is Jesse Winchester) like a down-to-earth Emmylou, or Linda without charisma. Which means that exactly how good her records come out no longer matters. B-
Gone too soon.
Ray Davies hasn't rocked so hard since his power-chord days in the mid-'60s, and often he shores up sloppy burlesques like the title cut just by trying harder. But I don't find his poor-mouthing crassness--the fusion of syndrum and macho-flash guitar on "Superman" or the schlock hooks from "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Jesus Christ Superstar"--at all charming, and anyone who detects irony in "Catch Me Now I'm Falling," his threnody for "Captain America," is too worried about the ayatollah or the Russkies to think straight. With his ceaseless whining about strikes and shortages, the plight of millionaires and the cruelty of prostitutes, Davies has turned into the voice of the middle-class ressentiment he's always been a sucker for. No, Ray, you don't have to be a superman just to "survive." Especially if you've got a song catalogue. B-
>>130310275this album hasn't aged well, it's as much of a late 70s period piece as it gets
>>130310289>>130310275despite Cuckgau's faggotry, one should have reminded Ray of the old saying "If you were to pick up a newspaper from 200 years ago and replaced the names and dates with modern ones, the headlines would read exactly the same."
I almost went to Morvi but didn't, thank Brahma for those.
>>130310329t. George Harrison
I sure hope John Lennon doesn't die next year
>>130298936it's only 20 years until Sabrina Carpenter is born. enjoy it while it lasts.
This has more content and feeling than Little Criminals. But as with Little Criminals its highlight is a (great) joke--"The Story of a Rock and Roll Band," which ought to be called "E.L.O." and isn't, for the same reason supergroupie radio programmers have shied away from it. Hence, the content comprises ever more intricate convolutions of bad taste; rather than making you think about homophobes and heavy-metal toughs and me-decade assholes the way he once made you think about rednecks and slave traders and high school belles, he makes you think about how he feels about them. Which just isn't as interesting. B+
Lou is as sarcastic as ever--the lead cut is called "Stupid Man," and in a typically acid rhyme he links "capricious" and "death wish." But due in part to the music's jazzy edge and warmly traditional rock and roll base (special thanks to Marty Fogel on saxophone) he also sounds . . . well-rounded, more than on Street Hassle. The jokes seem generous, the bitterness empathetic, the pain out front, the tenderness more than a fleeting mood. And the cuts that don't work--there are at least three or four--seem like thoughtful experiments, or simple failures, rather than throwaways. I haven't found him so likable since The Velvet Underground. B+
wasn't this around when Gene Simmons was fucking her?
When they were still a rock and not a pop band.
I believe this double LP was made available so our hero could boast of being outclassed by Cheap Trick, who had the self-control to release but a single disc from this location. Although it's amazing how many of the twenty-two songs--twelve also available on one of the other two live albums Dylan has released since 1974--hold up under slipshod treatment. And not only that, lyrics and poster are included. C+
Needless to say, he also outsings Kristofferson, and without much extra in the god-given department, though the high note that climaxes "Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends" is a doozy. But his inborn tact is wasted on this material. As Al Green, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, and even Ray Price have proven, the way to put such arrant corn across is to pull out the stops. B-
This collection of ten collaborations with outlaw old-timers, country-rock phenoms, Staples, Tammy, and someone named Elvis has low points, as you might expect. But its quality has more to do with what's being sung than with who's singing it where. James Taylor, harmonizing from New York on his neo-classic "Bartender's Blues," sounds fine; Emmylou Harris, chiming in from El Lay on the lame "Here We Are," fares only slightly worse than Johnny Paycheck does on poor old "Proud Mary," which comes complete with made-in-Nashville interaction. Must-hears: "I Gotta Get Drunk," with Willie Nelson, and the amazing "Stranger in the House," which gives an unexpected clue about who taught Mr. Costello to sing. A-
Like his predecessor, Bob Dylan, this ambitious tunesmith offers more as a phrasemaker than as an analyst or a poet, more as a public image than as a thinking, feeling person. He needs words because they add color and detail to his music. I like the more explictly sociopolitical tenor here. But I don't find as many memorable bits of language as I did on This Year's Model. And though I approve of the more intricate pop constructions of the music, I found TYM's relentless nastiness of instrumental and (especially) vocal attack more compelling. A good record to be sure, but not a great one. A-
My reservations about this tuneful but willfully eccentric pop are ideological. With its playful clash of cross-currents (crossed wires, really, to go with the jingle drums) it's just a "Complicated Game"--like everything else under the sun, Andy Partridge believes. This idea is an attitude rather than an analysis, and it assures that the music's underlying passion will be strictly formal. But I like games, especially three-handed hearts or this record--which require concentration but not lifetime dedication, and Partridge and Colin Moulding are moving toward a great art-pop mean that will set standards for the genre. Catchy, funny, interesting--and it rocks. A-
>>130298936https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdYwglFL6iM
>>130301849?
>>130316385what he said. Pink Lady was a J-Pop group they tried selling to Americans but it just amounted to them poorly reciting English lyrics they didn't understand over generic shitty disco.
>>130316455>genericDon't think so
>>130298936RIP
>>130302109>Cut for cut, this may be the greatest rock and roll album ever manufactured in the U.S.ooof
>>130299987>and then proceed to rhyme "science" with "appliance" and don't intend a joke. C-boy this guy would HATE modern top 20
