ITT: /mu/ in 1988
kinda wishing Aerosmith and Heart didn't come back and had all died in a plane crash in 1980. just sayin' is all.
>>130468128
>>130468128Bot thread
>>130468128Pretty shit year for white boy music
>>130468189Oh fuck you, Jon. Just...just fuck you.
>>130468234In a sense, '87 had a more interesting crop of albums.
>>130468266>>130468189hey, hate 'em all you want but their concerts were a necessity back in the day if you wanted to get laid. you weren't going to find any girls at the Testament or Slayer gig unless they were hamplanets.
when's this glam metal bullshit ever gonna go away?
Aw fricking yeah! I was born in 1988! Let’s gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
>>130468395Hello, so was I.
Why did you let Horton out of jail so he could rape again, Mike? Why did you let him out of jail?
>>130468403Hello, fellow year of the dragoner
I is born.
Unlike Kraftwerk's, definitely a reference and a rip, Bootsy and Laswell's beats bite but not so as to tear anybody limb from limb. Sometimes vocalist Sugarfoot should stick with the Ohio Players. As for Herbie's contributions, I know fusion when I hear it and so does he. Guess he actually likes the stuff. C
>>130468513if only your Southern goober trailer trash parents could into abortion clinics.
I ith born
>>130468556Your mom. Also this way to the abortion clinic before it's too late.
>>130468532the music video for the single was turbo cringe. Herbie was totally washed up by this point.
The good part is that it's more self-aware than Puppets, which is inevitable when your stock-in-trade is compositions rather than songs. The bad part is that it's also longer than Puppets, which is inevitable when your stock-in-trade is compositions rather than songs. Just ask Yes. C+
>>130468128Saw Kissinger on David Brinkley the other night. He said don't trust Gorbachev, all Soviet leaders are the same and don't think the USSR is going anywhere any time soon.
>>130468699Where's my bass and what did you do with it, Lars?
>doesn't like the venue>storms off the stage after 15 minutesYou're welcome.
Huey offered the title song to the Democrats, who rejected it after finding its call for a kinder, gentler planet too vague and non-specific. Then he offered it to Bush, whose campaign also rejected it ("It just doesn't rock hard enough" an unidentified Harvard pollster complained). So instead, Huey took it to the radio. C
>>130468826Huey Lewis was such a corny mompop guy.
Betwixt the thematic if hardly definitive "Cold Metal" and the humorous if hardly hilarious "Squarehead" Mister Big Dick makes like the gargoyle he is, crooning in his ghastly Vaughn Monroe baritone when he isn't asserting his tenuous connections to HM, which whatever its sins is at least popular, and punk, which whatever its sins is at least artsy. If Bowie can't save him and Laswell can't save him, maybe he gone. C
The Dream Syndicate revisited a/k/a Alice Cooper in the age of metal worship. Of course it took Alice three albums to get good, but then again his third also had "I'm Eighteen" on it and these newcomers aren't even humble enough to try for one of those. Or lucky enough, for that matter--as Alice has spent his life proving, luck didn't have a lot to do with it. But if they keep at it like the skilled pros they are I'm sure they'll eventually land a "Only Women Bleed." C
Guns & Fuckin' Roses, baby!
>>130468936This album invented the 90s. Nuts to you, Bob.
>>130468947And fuck all you gay little Bon Jovi and Poison queers.
it's been a rough decade. so many good friends of mine lost since AIDS came and we have literally evil politicians owned by Jerry Falwell laughing at the grim death toll.
>>130468961Hey now, I love Runaway
>>130468975don't you have a show to be getting ready for, Halford? you'll be late.
Just copped it, bros.
The brutal truth is that sexism has never kept a good rocker down--from Muddy to Lemmy, lots of powerful rock has objectified women in objectionable ways. But rotely is not among them. I mean, these guys have never known how to throw a party. Sure, their costumery was good for a laugh but Brian Johnson has always screamed too much and his voice has grown hoarse with the encroaching years. Their reunion with Vanda and Young no more signifies a desire to resume making good albums than does Elton John's reunion with Bernie Taupin--it signals panic and commercial desperation, and unlike Elton they're unlikely to reverse their long-term downward sales arc. I await their retirement and the inevitable best-of that follows. C+
>>130469006we have Jane's Addiction now, who needs these washed up bums? yeah they rocked 8-10 years ago but that was then and this is now.
What a time to be alive. Heck, even the cartoon themes were rockin
>>130469025FUCK YEAH
By the usual standards this isn't terrible--frontman Dave Mustaine doesn't pomp, he doesn't preen, he allows himself but a single "bitch" on a 34 minute album (she sounds like she deserved it). His rage against nuclear war and the PMRC and lying scumbags seems genuine. But where's the big guitar? Where's the big voice? Where's the big deal? Oh well, props to Mustaine for his small contribution to the world of heavy metal. B
>>130468975Four more years of Republicans. Let the purge continue, buttfuckers.
>>130469035>I hate all the oversinging and ebic guitar solos in metal>wait why doesn't this album have enough oversinging and ebic guitar solos? son i am disappoint.
>>130468370Uh, I wouldn't be so sure of that. Plenty of attractive girls liked Testament at least. Though you're probably right that Slayer gigs were sausage fests.
>>130468717I heard that Fukuyama character is supposed to write something big soon
Free at last from Mr. Gordy's tyrannical plantation, James gives it up for that begged, borrowed, or stolen funk, "Loosely's Rap" being the highlight. But he still can't resist ballads, a big mistake for a guy who spells L-U-V as C-U-M. Docked a notch for peeping as the girls are going down and then for suggesting a "devil lesbian" go straight by reaching into his trousers and fishing out his dick. C+
>>130469000These guys got a little jazzy for my taste. Where's the hits?
They're back.
>>130469088ha ha, Rick was beyond washed by this point. the Roxanne Shante cameo was a classic "how do you do fellow kids" desperation moment.
>>130468532That looks like the world's biggest cigarette
>>130468532it's bad 80s TV commercial music
>>130468379I heard somethings going on in Seattle you should check it out!
I must say, I admire Jon Jon's transparently pseudo-Springsteenian desire to improve both his artistic reputation and his platinum count at the same time. You could do one of three things. You could sit back and enjoy its giant hooks while identifying with the masses all the while. You could learn to love "Livin' On A Prayer" as I did during nonstop rotation at a community pool. Or you could lose your lunch. Now pass the barf bag this way. C
>>130469006>>130469108>>130469088>>130468872Hear me. All ye washed up boomers from the 70s need to fuck off (Aerosmith and Heart really should too, but fuck you Dave Geffen)>>130468532And, well, 60s in his case.
>>130469179Americans tried it, didn't like it, and gave it back to bongs and Aussies to have all to themselves.
At a historical juncture we can only hope isn't a fissure, a time when no sentient rock and roller could mistake extremism in the defense of liberty for a vice, the anarchic doomshows of Our Antiheroes' static youth look moderately prophetic and sound better than they used to. But they don't sound anywhere near as good as the happy-go-lucky careerism and four-on-the-floor maturity Our Heroes are indulging now. Whatever exactly their lyrics are saying--not that I can't make them out, just that catch-phrases like "You've got it" and "Just say yes" and "It's total trash" and "You're so soft you make me hard" are all I need to know--their discordant never-let-up is a philosophical triumph. They're not peering into the fissure, they're barreling down the turnpike like the fissure ain't there. And maybe they're right--they were the first time. A
RIP Janet (they were the '50s version of the Go Go's for you kids out there)
If Debbie Gibson already has platinum imitators, there's more to the world than is dreamt of in Madonna's philosophy. This unthreateningly dusky disco-dolly-next-door plays the field romantic-metaphorwise, with a weakness for can't-help-myself. She's less imitator than imitation, short on tokens of self-creation--her only writing credit is also the only time she threatens to play around. C
>>130469608she's a fucking Janet Jackson clone not a Madonna clone, you tard
>>130469006>The brutal truth is that sexism has never kept a good rocker down--from Muddy to Lemmy, lots of powerful rock has objectified women in objectionable waysi hate male feminists, i really do
>>130469608Paula is hot but the music is basically useless.
>>130469588thanks, Uncle Al
She's known since "Rapture" where the dance action was, which is why Nile Rodgers produced KooKoo. So this last-ditch two-LP disco-targeted repackage, half of it totally extraneous 1988 remixes of group and solo titles by Jellybean, Coldcut, and lesser mortals, proves that knowing it ain't doing it. The spare-to-wimpy electrotrack of the original "Rapture," for instance, is decisively more graceful than Teddy Riley's new beats. DOR was her destiny. And new jack is a new generation. C+
Forget the careerist compromise, dazed ennui, and soggy despair, and take this hustle for what it pretends to be and at some level is: four diehard hippies expressing themselves. Poor old guys can't leave politics alone--there's more ecology and militarism here than when they were figureheads of pop revolution, and though the rhetoric is predictable, the impulse has a woozy nobility. Not that that's ever been reason to pay Graham's ditties any mind, or that Stephen's steady-state egotism is redeemed by stray references to judges and changing the world. But while David's cocaine confessional makes "Almost Cut My Hair" seem self-abnegating, his "Nighttime for the Generals" sure beats Sting. And Neil lends musical muscle and gets commercial muscle back. So, not as horrible as you expected--nor good enough to give a third thought. C+
>>130469908>So, not as horrible as you expectedactually it's much worse
My gf was smoking clove cigarettes with some guy dressed like Robert Smith. I'm going to go do burnouts in a Circle K parking lot
>>130469957>>130469908oh god...American Dream is so bad. so bloated, such cheesy 80s production, David Crosby still sounding like death after coming back from addiction and jail time, and as usual Neil only puts shitty songs on here while saving the good stuff for his own albums.
Chuck D is so full of shit Chuck E can dis him: "You know Public Enemy are punk rockers, 'cause they bitch about rock crits and airwaves so much." To which I'll add: "And make art about conflicts with the law that as a scion of the middle class (albeit an Afro-American and a second-generation leftist) D's avoided in real life." That said, the leader gets points for oratory, political chutzpah, and concealing his own asininity. If I'd never encountered him and Professor Griff in the public prints, I'd still figure them for reverse racists--last cut boasts that "Black-Asiatic man" got here first as if he should therefore inherit the earth. But their "freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude" wouldn't in itself have clued me to their contempt for the black audience, because these dense, hard grooves are powered by respect: musically, no pop in years has reached so far while compromising so little. Bill Stephney, Hank Shocklee, and Terminator X juice post-Coleman/Coltrane ear-wrench with the kind of furious momentum harmolodic funk has never dared: the shit never stops abrading and exploding. Yet it holds fast, a revolutionary message D's raps have yet to live up to--which isn't to say that isn't a lot to ask or that they don't sometimes come close. I mean, me and Chuck E like punks--D's not the first talented asshole to front a great band. In fact, he's in a grand rock and roll tradition. A+
Not that they give a shit, but trading Dave for Sammy sure wrecked their shot at Led Zep of the '80s--master guitarist, signature vocalist, underrated rhythm section. They wouldn't have made it anyway, of course. Eddie's obsessed with technique, Roth's contemptuous of technique, rhythm section's got enough technique and no klutz genius. But Sammy . . . like wow. If I can't claim the new boy owns them (property rights they protect), you can't deny he defines them. Not that they give a shit. C
>>130469676once you've heard one you've heard them all
Where Paul Simon appropriated African musicians, David Byrne just hires them, for better and worse--this is T. Heads funk heavy on the horns, which aren't fussy or obtrusive because Byrne knew where to get fresh ones. What's African about it from an American perspective is that the words don't matter--it signifies sonically. The big exception is the glorious "(Nothing But) Flowers," a gibe at ecology fetishism that's very reassuring in this context. B+
Like the tour it documents, this is supposed to show that Floyd doesn't need "Another Brick in the Wall." Like A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which contributes five songs to a disastrously dreary opening, it proves instead that no matter who's the nice guy, Roger Waters is the writer. C
Can you believe that retard Lars cut out the bass from the entire AJFA album what the fuck is wrong with that idiot
A new name with a pedigree--she brought her family's upmarket Irish folk concept Clannad into the synthesizer age before leaving to pursue her own economic interests. Whilst humanizing technology, perpetrating banal verse in three languages (I'm guessing about the Gaelic after reading the English and figuring out the Latin), and mentioning Africa, the Orinoco, and other deep dark faraway places, her top-10 CD makes hay of pop's old reliable women-are-angels scam. At least the Cocteau Twins are eccentric. At least ELP were vulgarians. D+
>>130470693>her top-10 CD makes hay of pop's old reliable women-are-angels scamyou were almost redpilled for a moment there, Bob
>>130468549There was only a single abortion clinic in the whole state of MS (bare minimum to comply with Roe v. Wade) and it was firebombed by glowies posing as pro-life activists twice a year.
The Cure is an industry plant The Smiths will be back together by next year
Anyone else think it's weird the Beach Boys are still just playing Beach Boys music? Kokomo sounds like it could have been released 20 years ago, they haven't evolved at all
>>130470814>Kokomo sounds like it could have been released 20 years agoExcepting the horrible 80s production.
Axl's voice is a power tool with attachments, Slash's guitar a hype, the groove potent "hard rock," and the songwriting not without its virtues. So figure musical quality at around C plus and take the grade as a call to boycott, a reminder to clean livers who yearn for the wild side that the necessary link between sex-and-drugs and rock-and-roll is a Hollywood fantasy. Anyway, this band isn't even sex and drugs--it's dicking her ass before you smack up with her hatpin. (No wonder they want to do an AIDS benefit.) "One in a Million"--"Immigrants and faggots/They make no sense to me/They come to our country/And think they'll do as they please/Like start some mini-Iran/Or spread some fucking disease/They talk so many goddamn ways/It's all Greek to me"--is disgusting because it's heartfelt and disgusting again because it's a grandstand play. It gives away the "joke" (to quote the chickenshit "apologies" on the cover) about the offed girlfriend the way "Turn around bitch I've got a use for you" gives away "Sweet Child o' Mine." Back when they hit the racks, these posers talked a lot of guff about suicide. I'm still betting they don't have it in them to jump. E
>>130470838oh god, he was this mad about OIAM
>>130468128while every genre is having a drought, industrial music is back, babythe genre looks promising, hopefully nothing wrong happensunderground W
>>130470693This is accurate. Enya is just background noise for 40 year old moms to do yoga to.
>>130470891you're a bit right, i do find '88 to be a weak year aside from metal. it wasn't as good as the two surrounding years.
In which the Van Halen parody of his debut LP gives way to the Vegas parody yeah-sure of his predebut EP. Instead of speed-metal, speed-Sinatra: while Steve Vai and Brent Tuggle make noises that once employed whole phalanxes of AFM members (brass and strings, respectively), Dave shares with us the wit and weary wisdom gained in his career at stud. C+
>>130470917It was the last year of Reagan, pop culture was in a holding pattern waiting to see what happened with the presidential election and where to go when the new administration was in office next year.
He who lives by the putdown shall die by the putdown, so Newman's first nonsoundtrack album in almost six years is unlikely to increase his renown or his financial holdings. And indeed, it's half mishmash, replete with compulsive irony, rap parody, and spare, hooked love songs that are equally unbelievable happy or sad. But there's a new pitch of displacement to the pseudo-autobiographical triptych at the outset, and a new pitch of bitterness to the scabrous putdowns that highlight the close. The airplay hit "It's Money That Matters" and the "We Are the World" answer song "I Want You To Hurt Like I Do" are the attention-getters. The cruelly laid-back supply-side boogie-woogie "Roll With the Punches" and the symphonically overstated going-to-school reminiscence "Four Eyes" are the strokes. Inspirational Verse: "Here's your little brown shoes, can you tie them yourself?" B+
Where five years ago Baker was a soul singer who honored the traditional soul audience's lounge leanings, now she's an arena-lounge singer manufacturing generalized intimacy for 26-to-45s. Rid of funky minor-label producer-songwriter Patrick Moten, she composed two tracks for Rapture and worked on a third. Here she's down to two collaborations as the credits edge toward El Lay--if Britten-Lyle and the Perris have anted up, can Carole Bayer Sager and Toto be far behind? She's not a total loss yet--despite the universal lyrics and inflated choruses, three tracks make something of her established standards. But unless she suffers reverses I wouldn't wish on Frank Sinatra, she'll never risk an interesting album again. C+
>>130471221Rick James called her the most stuck-up bitch he'd ever met.
>>130468936one of the more completely moronic reviews he wrote, as opposed to his regularly moronic reviews and occasionally insightful ones.
>>130471239dddid yyyyou say Rick James? the same Rick James who subjected women to non-consensual BDSM sessions while high out of his mind on drugs? nobody should listen to anything he had to say, nobody.
SWEEEET CHILLLLDD OOOOO MIIINNEEEEEE
>>130471221I'm not really into the arrangements and production, but this bitch can really pipe
No matter how much aid and comfort it gives the enemy, there's no point denying "Don't Worry, Be Happy" unless you're tin-eared enough to think it doesn't capture a feeling or deluded enough to think poor people never share it. Title tune's the real Republican lie--McFerrin's celebration of 6 a.m. wakeup neglects to mention that his morning is unencumbered by a j-o-b--and even that's probably a tragic consequence of some fundamental mindlessness. Passing as an Artist on skill and fluidity alone, he's a vocal Keith Jarrett come down with the cutes--or maybe a musical Marcel Marceau. B-
>>130471221It's background noise to play at Macy's while you're shopping for pillows.
>>130470672there are actually people who have taken this band seriously. just let that thought slowly sink into your head.
>>130469179>>130469284"I Should Be So Lucky" sounds like bad 80s TV commercial music. Thumbs down.
Her Suzanne Vega voice is jazzed up with glowing slips and slides that recall Jo Mama's long-forgotten Abigale Haness. Her well-named boys are nuevo-hippies with chops, also like Jo Mama, a braver band they probably never heard of. Her lyrics are escapist as a matter of conviction--"Don't let me get too deep," she implores, as if she could if she tried. I await the Jo Mama CD. B-
>>130471447Kylie just couldn't compete on American airwaves with Madonna, Janet, Paula, Debbie, Tiffany, Taylor, Whitney, and Jody all at the same time. The fact that her music sounded like it belonged in a shampoo commercial might have also been a reason for it.
>>130471463ah yes one of the first alt rock albums to break top 40, a sign of things to come
Is the Christagu poster a bot?
What made Brian's utopian fantasy so believable was the guileless hypocrisy of the simpletons fate and family tied him to--his shy, sincere, goofy, subtly tortured lyrics took off from the cheerful hedonism of the Beach Boys' secular chorales and white-boy soul. Solo, the pain in his voice is all too unmediated, and he isn't deep enough to make something of it--he sounds like the sincere, talented, mildly pretentious nut he is. What's more, his multiproduced million-dollar return is weighed down by a collective Phil Spector obsession--comes off incredibly labored. Of course, Smile was probably kind of overwrought too. B-
>>130471353>No matter how much aid and comfort it gives the enemy, there's no point denying "Don't Worry, Be Happy" unless you're tin-eared enough to think it doesn't capture a feeling or deluded enough to think poor people never share it. Title tune's the real Republican lie--McFerrin's celebration of 6 a.m. wakeup neglects to mention that his morning is unencumbered by a j-o-b--andhow can you be so cucked and redpilled all at the same time?
>>130471463Yeah this chick was pretty dum plus she kept dating and fucking old men.
>>130471353>>130471512for those who don't get what's referenced there, it was that the Bush campaign used "Don't Worry, Be Happy" in an ad and McFerrin stroked out and was like nnnooo you can't do that fooken dese Republicans I swear
>>130471548yes as we all know gay black men were/are a habitual Republican voting bloc
This spinoff seemed like a good idea at the time because a good idea was all it was. As a career alternative that lets them feel useful when David goes off on a tangent, it's product. The Arthur Baker-coproduced late-'88 stuff is arch, subfunctional dance music that transmutes "Wild Wild West" into "Wa Wa Dance" without the writing credit Sugarhill ceded "Genius of Love" way back when. The late-'87 is minimalist Europop, and in that it's not charmless. C+
>>130471616hey got a pretty good groove, what can i say?
Where Self-Portrait was at least weird, splitting the difference between horrible and hilarious, now he's forever professional--not a single remake honors or desecrates the original. All he can do to a song is Dylanize it, and thus his Danny Kortchmar band and his Steve Jones-Paul Simonon band are indistinguishable, immersed in that patented and by now meaningless one-take sound. And yet, and yet, there's a glimmer--the Dylan-Hunter throwaway "Ugliest Girl in the World," guaranteed to remind the faithful how much fun the one-take ethos used to be. C+
>>130471616They're turning into boomers alright. This album would have sounded current in 1981.
>>130471463I always saw her as a Janis Joplin knock off, and the record itself sounds very 90s for something released in 1988.
>>130471532My dream woman. I'm turning 44 next month.
>>130471463i don't get the vega comparison>>130471965she's more into the "on the brink of death" senior citizen types anon
>>130471950>and the record itself sounds very 90s for something released in 1988some argue that the 90s were really 1988-96, but in any case 88-89 were when alternative rock starts getting big and hair metal is definitely past its prime and running on inertia.
>>130469908I think my dad owned this record.
This package of "11 digital cartoons" is improved by the balloons, which distract momentarily from its retro-electro sheen. In case you were wondering (hadn't given it much thought lately myself), the Devo Philosophy has a lot in common with the Playboy Philosophy--as the Bard put it, to thine own self be true. Note quotes from John Lennon, Elvis Presley, and T.S. Eliot--quick, before the retro-electro comes round again. C+
>>130471973Dammit. I guess i have to wait until I'm 60 and my wife is Gen Beta or something
>>130470031Plus it's not 1970 anymore, 18 years have passed and the four guys and the world at large are totally different things now so you can't go back, as they say.
"It's not about a salary/It's all about reality" they chant as they talk shit about how bad they are. Right, it's not about salary--it's about royalties, about brandishing scarewords like "street" and "crazy" and "fuck" and "reality" until suckers black and white cough up the cash. "Fuck tha Police" is a fantasy, "Fuck with me I'll put my foot in your ass" an exaggeration, "Life ain't nothin' but bitches and money" a home truth, and I bet Ice Cube gets more pussy now than when he copped the line. Somehow DJs Dr. Dre and Yella, who's also got the brainiest rap on the Charles Wright rip that busts out of their ghetto, drive the three M.C.'s past their own lies half the time. It would be poetic justice if both of them departed for greener pastures. B
great records
>Don’t Worry, Be HappyGOT NO JOB NO GF FUCK YOU
>>130472143that song is annoying
No no no, last time wasn't serious, that was just PR--you didn't buy that Rubber Soul malarkey, did you? This time, though--this time they're serious. They wrote all the songs themselves. Got two about suicide, one about a complicated girl, a historical thing about glitter, and eight, well, love songs. But serious--"Lately I dream that I'm in your arms," "I'll do anything you want me to," "All I ever really want is you." Really. B-
I suppose I should feel overjoyed that Intelligent Young People are once again espousing naive left-folkie truisms, but "Fast Car" is so good and she's such a natural that it's almost a shame she lends her name to such begged questions as "Why?" and "Talkin' Bout a Revolution." You're better, girl. B
>>130472239"Fast Car" is just Bruce Springsteen. I don't get what the big deal about it was. A black girl doing Springsteen was apparently some kind of achievement?
I'm glad this self-made aristocrat has a human side, but I prefer her image: now that she's singing billets-doux, she's even further from rewarding the concentration she warrants than she used to be. Touching your beloved with a few true cliches is hard enough. For an audience you have to come up with something that doesn't fade into the background like the new age jazz she went pop with. B-
>>130471480Also fuck her desecration of "The Loco-Motion."
Maturity doesn't become her--exchanging schlock-rock remakes for still more Hollywood readymades, she's hellbent for biz divahood and may well get there. But she hasn't shed that husky Valley-girl drawl quite yet. B-
>>130472143He's got no job, he's got no gurl...gooned so hard he almost hurl. Don't worry. Be happy
does anybody wanna go see the replacements with me
>>130470484that album cover is just a bit racist
Plant's two earlier solo albums were striking and forgettable--bankable self-indulgences that turned a profit on brand loyalty alone. Because they had the virtue of existing, they inspired loose talk about who "really" led his former band, probably from people who secretly believed pomp made the band artistic. This time he looks to solidify his future by imitating his past--even sampling it, an idea he says he got from Rick Rubin (what a card), or hiring his former band's guitarist for a solo. At its best, it's far from forgettable. Overall effect is a cross between his former band and the Cars. B
Give me a qrd on these threads. Do you guys larp as 80s era adults or were any of you actually old enough to remember the 80s?
>>130472455it's neither or. Plant was responsible for the folky/concept side of Zeppelin and Page was the blues buttrock side of the band.
>>130472473A little movie called Poltergeist ring any bells?
>>130472500Something about the light and Indian burial grounds?
>>130472513Son, sure. Yup
At first I took this for that most painful of embarrassments, a failed sellout. Was she unwilling to waste her hard-won politics on weirdos? Proving herself a fit mother by going AOR, only she hadn't heard any AOR in about five years? Sad, sad. But soon I was humming, then I was paying attention, and now I think of this as the latest Patti Smith record. If she doesn't sound as unhinged as last time, she probably isn't, but as matrons go she's still out there. Her prophetic rhetoric is biblical just like always, with a personal feel for the mother tongue I wish more metal Jeremiahs knew to envy. The music is a little old-fashioned and quite simple, controlled but not machined, and the guitars sing. Her Double Fantasy, suggests a Detroit Smith named RJ. Only we don't formalize our equality by doling out turns, adds a Detroit Smith named Fred Sonic. A-
>>130471379I mean, the 80s version of them never pretended to be more than a dumb frat rock party band. It was Rick Rubin that tried to make them into a serious alt rock band.
The "air" side combines the bite of their realest rock and roll with the shameless beauty their cult once lived for--it's funny and/or serious and/or rousing and/or elegiac right up to "The Wrong Child," a title that speaks for itself and heralds the shit to follow. Which they dub the "metal" side, with heavy tempos and dubious poetry that make good on their intermittent moments only during the funny, serious, elegiac "I Remember California." B+
>>130472407sure. need a relief from all that power ballad slop on the radio.
A European best-seller from the Francophone capital of the Western Hemisphere, Cohen isn't the grizzled folk-rock parvenu we take him for. He works a far older and more honorable tradition, that of the French chansonnier, the singing poet who'll cheerfully appropriate any simple music that fits his meter without giving a second thought to how authentic or commercialized it might be. Because words are his stock in trade, Cohen's music rarely obtrudes no matter how classy or schlocky its usages. So despite what some consider a misguided attempt to yoke stark instrumentation and femme chorus, his latest recording seems no more or less natural/unnatural than his previous offerings, and the poems are his most consistent in a decade. Envoi: "But you'll be hearing from me, baby, long after I'm gone/I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song." A-
>>130472753>LC's best-selling album at age 54 and 21 years into his recording career>four years after CBS declined to release his last album in the US as they thought there was no demand for it
Those who detect surer songwriting and tougher guitar amid the eccentric horns are right, but the horns render such details irrelevant if not unlistenable--their sour blare mimics Young's crude guitar sound all too crudely, and the charts lack that spontaneous spark, as charts generally do. Grabber: solo blues, with solitary trumpet fluttering in the background. B-
>>130472852the last album of Neil's 80s malaise period
>>130471480+Belinda +the Bangles
Somewhere in here they warn of "a mountain made of sand," which gets at their problems neatly--their shared sense of sisyphean impotence and their big music no one can get a grip on. B-
The slower tempos will please their target audience and diminish their joke appeal for outsiders. The lyric sheet will please their target audience and make outsiders laugh at them. (Two consecutive lines: "Impulsive habitat./Bastard sons begat your cunting daughters.") For guitarniks, anti-abortionists, and target audience only. B-
>>1304684342k heredragon toowe da real niggas brahi love king crimson discipline sooo gooooodd ohoh don't forget about pink floyd's syd barret era oki thanks thank uuu ^_^
Like that other girlie-voiced rapper Dana Dane, Rick masks insecurities about his masculinity by dissing the opposite sex even uglier than the ugly competition. From the clarion "Treat Her Like a Prostitute" through this bitch and that cocaine dolly and the fake virgin "with a yay-wide gash" and the one who meant yes when she said no and ended up marching a tribe of Indians out her cunt, this man hates women. His ballad is keyed around the refrain "Don't hurt me again" and is directed at all treacherous females, not just one. His anticrime warning closes with a convincing imitation of how bad you groan the first time you get cornholed. C+
>>130473109>Rick masks insecurities about his masculinity by dissing the opposite sex even uglier than the ugly competition>this man hates womenso much projection
>>130469134>ha ha, Rick was beyond washed by this point.but prince wasnt? lol
lol
This Nine Inch Nails album in one year from now will be great!
>>130469165The C grade was too generous.
"I might be a woman beater but I'm not a pussy eater," boasts this man's man, and that sums up his wit and wisdom right down to the way he hides behind Richard Pryor when he says it. Reason is, there's not much music for him to hide behind--Eazy the label owner doesn't get the real good shit out of his boys. Only the video. C+
Break up? Them? Nah, that was just a sabbatical, and to prove it here they are, crafting that platinum as craftily as they know how to justify their brand new advance. Daryl's stiff had nothing to do with it. Of course not. 'Cept that both records do overdo the overdubs, less fulsomely on this very model of second-hand black than when Daryl calls all the shots, but fatally nevertheless. I dare you to make out hitbounds like "Missed Opportunity" and "Rockability" or talismans like "Downtown Life" and "Keep On Pushin' Love" in the time it takes a music director to push reject. The album came out in May. It's dropping out of the top 200. It's not platinum. Justice abides in the world. C+
>>130473292>The album came out in May. It's dropping out of the top 200. It's not platinumAfter 16 years and about 45 albums it was going to happen one way or another.
State-of-the-art rock and roll traditionalism. Steve Jordan and Ivan Neville aren't just schooled in the verities, they're cocky enough to teach the verities new tricks, and the songs really do have a near-classic, half-remembered feel. It isn't just the late date that prevents them from going that extra mile, though--it's that Keith is singing, and Keith wrote the words. He's the soul of the Stones, fine. But as the Stones defined it, neotraditionalism takes concept, and no matter how fucked Mick is, concept would seem to be his department. B+
He's a talented little guy, and this has plenty of pizzazz. But I'll take The Black Album's fat-bottomed whomp over its attention-grabbing beats and halfway decent tunes any day, and despite appearances it sure ain't where he explains why sexiness is next to godliness--lyrically it's sloppy if not pseudo if not stupid. This is doubly bothersome because added religious content is what it's supposed to have over its not terribly shocking alternative. Leading one to the obvious conclusion that the real reason the little guy made the switch was that he was scared to reveal how, shall we say, unpop he could be. B+
From my pinnacle of disinterest I can attest that this solo move is neither here nor there. Vini Reilly doesn't have a unique sound like Johnny Marr, and autonomy does encourage the camp grandiosity of a guy who tries to make "I love you more than life" live: though he may think it's funny for "Late Night, Maudlin Street" to go on for 7:40, in fact it's as boring as you'd expect despite the great line about his revolting nakedness. But the Smiths rarely if ever came up with a hook as must-hear as "Everyday Is Like Sunday"'s and in general the monotony factor has decreased. The artiste is no longer a kid, and he likes it that way. Essential for acolytes, educational for the rest of us, just like always. B
That these silly middlebrow hacks should hang in long enough to become stars is the usual biz fable. That they should do so with danceable rock and roll that sounds smart in the background is one more sign that the world is coming to an end. B
Didn't Don Henley kill a girl?
>>130473339Nah he just committed statutory rape.
>>130473337FUCK YEAH GUNS IN THE SKY BANGER RIGHT OFF THE RIP INXS DOS
Welp, so much for that comeback.
>>130473328Morrissey is the personification of Reddit.
By general consensus the Amerindie find of the year, and I'll say this for them: they're OK. Aurally articulate but certainly not clean, much less neat, with guitar riffs you actually notice and a strong beat that doesn't owe any subgenre. Feature a woman as equal partner--no separatism or blatant gender aggression. If I was on the lookout for contemporaries who proved my world wasn't coming to an end, I might overrate them too. In fact, maybe I still do. B
A few songs--the just-minding-my-own-business-sucker "Funny Vibe," the Mick Jagger production/tribute "Glamour Boys," and "Middle Man" if it's as unironic as I hope--are smart enough, but while it's momentarily exhilarating to hear this all-black band come power-chording out of the box, after a while the fancy arrangements and strained soul remind me of, I don't know, Megadeth. Like any New Hendrix, Vernon Reid is only as good as his last context, and I'm not positive crossover metal is a good idea even in theory. B
>>130473319ha ha, prince was beyond washed by this point.
You know what "Produced by Rod Stewart, Andy Taylor & Bernard Edwards" means? It means he's elected to replace Robert Palmer in Power Station. And you know why Jim Cregan, David Lindley, and Lenny Pickett are on the record? Because he didn't have the guts to go all the way. C
Having floundered imitating themselves, they come back imitating Journey. Or is that Richard Marx? Billy Squier? C
>>130473492how was Prince finished in '88? it wasn't really until around 92-93 that he was done.
>>130473504Now this guy is washed with a capital W.
>>130469254>Hear me. All ye washed up boomers from the 70s need to fuck off (Aerosmith and Heart really should too, but fuck you Dave Geffen)Heart were on Capitol though?
>>130473559lovesexy FLOPPED. it was his worst selling album ever. the black album that was supposed to be released before it sucked so bad the record company shelved it. batdance sucked. prince was a one album wonder, that being purple rain. he was done after 1985 from 86 on he was running on fumes and by 1990 his fuel pump gave out
yo anyone seen this new OVA Heldensagen vom Kosmosinsel? the entire soundtrack is recordings of classical music, weird gimmick, it'll never catch on
Like Neil Young's Old Ways a few years ago, this features a resurrection of a '50s schlock pop classic and neither are up to the originals.
>>130473579funny because this was his most successful album of the 80s selling 2 million copies in the US alone. he had multiple big hits and his videos were played constantly on MTV
>>130473238>"I might be a woman beater but I'm not a pussy eater,well no because he prefers to take it in the ass instead
>>130473634>>130473504And not a single person is gonna say ah this sure beats TRSA or Gasoline Alley.
>>130473647That happened in the 80s all the time with boomer rockers. Their new album would hit #1, get played like hell for a few weeks, and then vanish as nobody anywhere thought the shit was even close to their 60s-70s albums.
Pretentious? Eux? Naturellement, mais that ain't all. Over the years they've melded Americana into their Old World riffs, and while Bono's "Play the blues, Edge" overstates this accomplishment, their groove is some kind of rock and roll wrinkle. This partly live double-LP is looser and faster than anything they've recorded since their first live mini-LP, with the remakes of "Pride" and "Silver and Gold" and "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" improved by both practice and negligence. A good half of the new stuff could knock over unsuspecting skeptics, the B.B./Hendrix/Dylan cameos are surprising and generous, and as a token of self-knowledge Bono concludes a lecture on South Africa with a magisterially sarcastic "I don't wanna bug ya." Yet as usual things don't get any better when you decide to find out exactly what he's waxing so meaningful about. B+
Hard rock trash as radio readymades, these cheerful young phonies earn their Gene Simmons cover art. A residue of metal principle spoiled the top 40 on their debut, but here they sell out like they know this stuff is only good when it's really shitty. "Nothing but a Good Time" and "Back to the Rocking Horse" are clubby arena anthems, "Look but You Can't Touch" mocks cock-rock with a self-deprecating gesture, and the Loggins & Messina remake has been waiting to happen for 15 years. B+
XTC as computer nerds rather than studio wimps--change for chord change and beat for irrelevant beat, they're actively annoying even if intelligence is all you ask of your art-pop. Except maybe on the antiboomer "Purple Toupee," side one's hooks begin and end with "Ana Ng," a beyond-perfect tour de force about a Vietnamese woman they never got to meet; until "Kiss Me, Son of God," which closes the album and could be anti-Castro if they let it, side two's are cleverness for cleverness's sake. And damned clever they are. B+
>>130473741oh right, i forgot when this retard convinced himself that Poison were somehow an ironic deconstruction of hair metal (as if Brett Michaels could possibly be that clever)
>>130473674except it didnt. the majority flopped>>130471115>>130471506>>130471876>>130472753nobody was listening to this shit in the 80s not even boomers. dennis wilson... lol all this shit FLOPPED>>130473312>>130473382you think that rod stewart album is bad listen to mick jaggers primitive cool album from a year earlier. boomers even gave up on the stones because they couldnt get to number 1 ever again in the 80s after 82
>>130473815https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen_discography#Studio_albumsI wouldn't call IYM a dud.
>>130473802Lots of dumb people do that when it's an album they like in a genre they hate. I've heard people swear that Motley Crue, Ratt, Cinderella, etc weren't really hair metal. Same goes for a lot of nu metal bands.
>>130473843the album didnt even chart once in the USAafter being a musician for 20 years he couldnt even crack the Billboard Top 200 album list. lol the last time he even cracked the Billboard Top 200 was back in 71 and even then, he only made it to number 145. what an irrelevant nobody propped up by jewish critics
>>130473843Euros love the guy so much more than USA. I guess his whole bohemian poet schtick appealed more in France.
Dreaming, fabulizing, playing the ingenue, speaking for the displaced Native American, preaching about materialism and ecocatastrophe and the engines of war (and abortion, though not so's you can tell where she stands), she's matured into a sententious liberal. Give me the Poet of the Me Decade any day. At least Joan Baez is a sententious radical. C
>>130477047>nobody cares about Nu Joni>she once again falls back on the lame schtick from DED which is that if she rattles off a bunch of AI generated liberal cliches she'll hopefully get a Grammy
>>130479056https://desuarchive.org/mu/thread/130388616It occurred to me that we completely forgot APH in the 1984 thread last week although it had one of her biggest hits on it.
>>130470951There are some great tunes on that album that get lost in the eat and smile hype. Vai still shreds all over that albumhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzopTKMMD4w
>>130479112I actually don't like that song very much, >>130479056 the title cut here is way better. Classic 88-89 pop when everything sounded really watery. It's also got a lot more punch than Paula Abdul's album which is pretty flat.
>>130479168"Sugar Walls"? That was a classic Prince grossout song. I don't think he was good for pop in the long run for normalizing really explicit lyrics.
>>130473856>Lots of dumb people do that when it's an album they like in a genre they hate>Yeah, this band isn't really X genre>Yeah, this band is actually a satire of X genre they don't really mean it
>>130469785yeah she had an IQ around 90 and that's a generous estimate
>>130469179It wasn't until that one 2000s album that anyone in the US paid any attention to her again.
>>130479426You think maybe that Kylie just wasn't very good, never had interesting production or melodies, or anything aside from being hot.
>>130471616>>130471902https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc0daL2-qhsReally, it's impressive how much absolutely nothing evolved since the first TTC album and it's still the same doomy early 80s recession/New Wave/Super Freak-sounding bullshit that belonged in the Smithsonian by '88.
>>130469692my buddy seems like her a lot. Paula, not Madonna that is
>>130469715you're tellin me!>>130472379I was a Debbie Gibson guy when I was a kid, more of a Tiffany guy now that I'm 44. its the big hooters and red hair.
>>130479461she reminds of an ex or mine or her sister
>>130473072underrated desu>>130473008Die Kreuzen's less gothy sibling, but closer to the Replacements.
>>130469108Unfortunately they already used “Oh No It’s Devo!” for a different album, but it would’ve been perfect for this.
>>130470031The title track was actually pretty good in its original solo acoustic version. They made him shit it up for the album.https://youtu.be/90enpIBkCZY?si=JwbcmDhaTzpn5R5N
>>130473520This was their “give us a hit or we’re throwing you out on the street” album.
>>130473072another incomprehensible gibberish Cuckgau review
>>130471480You'd have to go back to the 50s for the last time there were so many pop girls (even if some of them were really more MILF territory) on the charts.
