What's his best review?
The most obnoxious band currently making a killing on the zonked teen circuit. Not to be confused with Mahogany Rush, who at least spare us the reactionary gentility. More like Angel. Or Kansas. Or a power-trio Uriah Heep, with vocals revved up an octave. Or two. D
KISS Dressed To Kill>actually being sexually intimidated by those makeup-wearing dorks
50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats [Beggars Banquet, 2004]To pin down those poet rumors once and for all, I availed myself of my freenet privileges and read his verse online whilst hearkening to its musical realizations off. Don't believe the hype. Mark E. Smith is a carper, a haranguer, a ranter, best comprehended in alienated snatches. But so what? Almost all of these well-culled "songs," which include half a dozen already singled out on 1990's Brixified 458489 A Sides, catch his Hyde Park cadences at their most barbed, annoying, and possibly prophetic, with the groove muscling up after the middle-period keybs go away. Unique, minor, forever eternal. A
none. he wasn't fair at all. guy's a fucking asswipe.
Captured Live at the Forum [Dunhill, 1969]I once had hopes for this group, but success ruined them too, encouraging all of their most vulgar plastic-nigger excesses. Each of the (only) nine renditions is more flaccid than the studio version (that's right, no new material) and the "Tenderness" which closes the set, admittedly an exciting climax live, doesn't work any better than it did the first time it was recorded. D+>not his only n-word review
>>131500409Isn’t this guy a literal cuck? Like his wife fucks other guys
>>131503676Sounds hot
Anka [United Artists, 1974]Sure, "(You're Having) My Baby" is kind of cute. But the rest of the album is the usual abortion. C-
The review for Would You Lie With Me (In a Field of Stone) is one of his all time biggest doozies.
>>131500409Ersatz shit.
Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom [Sire, 1989]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+
>>131500409Shit sandwich.
Vespertine. That one is absolutely nauseating.
Pieces of the Sky [Reprise, 1974]Abetted by Brian Ahern, who would have been wise to throw on some Anne Murray schlock, Harris conducts herself with a pristine earnestness that has nothing to do with what is likeable about country music and everything to do with what is most suspect in "folk." Presumably Graham Parsons was clever enough to either play off these tendencies or ignore them altogether, but as a solo mannerism it doesn't even ensure clear enunciation. I swear, the chorus of the best song on here sounds like: "I will rub my asshole/In the bosom of Abraham." C
>>131500448This is accurate btw. Rush sucks dick.
New Arrangement [Columbia, 1975]As an American songwriter who has escaped the confessional mode, and as a woman who can sing about subjects other than men, DeShannon exemplifies several healthy trends. The main thing this well-made record reveals, however, is an intelligent professionalism that matters about as much as a surge in enrollment in creative writing classes or women's liberation for female executives. B−
Stooges for airports.
>>131503995and that about perfectly sums up her post-1964 career. now go put on "Needles and Pins" instead.
Live Album [Capitol, 1970]They have a great, even a grand audience. But an audience and an album aren't the same thing, not at all. C-
>>131504065Most live albums in the 70s were doctored because it was tough to get a decent live recording. Grand Funk decided to go all "no ripoff" mode here and put out a completely unmodified live album, but unfortunately it sounds like shit.
>>131503995we forgot to post this review in the /mu/ in 1975 thread, although the album was posted
>>131503676no, that's actually your political dad
Machine Gun [Motown, 1974]The first side is good straight hard funk, topped with some surprising social consciousness from labelmates Gloria Jones and Pam Sawyer (they complain that girls are banned from football and boys from sensitivity). The second side is acceptable straight hard funk. But you know something else? I like my hard funk a little bit crooked. B
>>131504147true, he was right that they always did sound a little too calculated and "product" compared to a lot of their peers
Wish [Fiction/Elektra, 1992]Maybe they're SoundScan scammers like Vince Gill and Skid Row, reaping unwarranted cred from a revamped accounting system. Or maybe they're cool alternatives like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, poised to prove the sales appeal of self-dramatizing pessimism. Maybe they're even riding the actual-hit "Friday I'm in Love," which actually sounds cheerful, though by Sunday it's over, actually. In any case, let it be noted that these new wave survivors, a specialized taste of undiscriminating undergraduates for years, have just now scored their biggest album ever, a redolent 13 years after they didn't actually kill that Arab. I ask you, where were the Moody Blues after 13 years? (Riding their second--and final--No. 1 album, since you didn't know.) C+
>>131504147Think how many rap tracks plundered from this thing.
Kettle Whistle [Warner Bros., 1997]As its members' current projects crumble from irrelevance to negative cash flow, a group that never made money or music commensurate with their legend sees fit to deluge an already shock-sated marketplace with this collection of demos, outtakes, B-sides, and rarities. Chutzpah has never been Perry Bernstein's problem. C
>>131504200Well thank God they had Christgau to tell them about it
>>131504248did he just make an anti-Semitic joke?
Boys Don't Cry [Fiction, 1980]The sound is dry post-punk with spare flourishes and wit abounding, and nearly every cut on this album gives up a phrase or two. Intelligent phrases they are, too. But what are we to make of a group whose best song is a reading of Camus's The Stranger, a book that was holy writ for collegiate existentialists since before Robert Smith was born? I mean, do we really need collegiate existentialism nostalgia? B
test
>>131504139“Anyone who doesn’t like Cuckgau must be a Trump supporter!!!”
The Concept [Cotillion, 1978]Pioneering funk acts such as P-Funk and the Commodores largely stayed within the realm of traditional black music styles. The younger ones on the other hand more closely resemble third-generation rock groups. Unless you prefer Kansas to the J.B.'s this is not a compliment--lyrics such as "What is now will be forever" may as well grace the back of a Starcastle album. This is very much a Starcastle kind of band, too, right down to the general derivativeness and pretensions to content. Still, if interesting sounds, shapes, and textures are your thing, then black is still beautiful. B-
>>131504512He's right. Lots of 70s bands but especially prog groups had those kind of gibberish lyrics that 16 year olds thought were really deep.
>>131504467afaik this was a US comp and their first studio LP was UK only but i can't be bothered to look it up
>>131504512I think since Bob is a city rat he never really "got" bands like Kansas. Yeah the fantasy lyrics are kinda dumb but they made sense in the Midwest where it's boring as shit and you can afford to let your mind wander sometimes and imagine unicorns 'n sheet. They don't work when you're in NYC and there's constant stimulation all the time.
Wonderful [Reprise, 1988]Free at last from Mr. Gordy's tyrannical plantation, James gives it up for that begged, borrowed, or stolen funk, with "Loosely's Rap" being the highlight. But he still can't resist ballads, a big mistake for a man who spells L-U-V as C-U-M. Docked a notch for peeping as the girls are going down and forcing a "devil lesbian" to go straight by reaching into his trousers and fishing out his dick. C+
>>131500409The Biggie Smalls one where he says some corny thing like "as a white man from as we say the nabe"
>>131503995>The main thing this well-made record reveals,that was kind of CBS's thing in the 70s. they loved folk and singer-songwriters and any of those acts were always considered high priority and got big budgets.
>>131504598Rick was definitely washed by this point and the Roxanne Shantae cameo was a pretty lame how do you do fellow kids moment. That said, it wasn't really until the 90s that R&B producers got past that ancient meme that half of an album had to be ballads.
The Essential Ride '63-'67 [Columbia Legacy, 1995]Fronted by a Mennonite conscientious objector and the only garage band to live up to their legend. While some garage acts' discographies never lived up to their best song and others never had best songs, these guys sunk their teeth into professional smashes such as "Kicks", "Steppin' Out", and "Just Like Me", while also teasing the previously unreleasable frat-orgy "Crisco Party/Walking The Dog." They covered "Louie Louie" before the Kingsmen got to it. Eventually they also learned to wimp out. Fortunately, unlike their vinyl best-of, this 19-song CD is programmed to cut out first. B+
Exmilitary [Third Worlds download, 2011]Death-metal hip-hop for El-P fans who secretly wish the Insane Clown Posse wasn't so dumb ("Blood Creepin," "Klink")
Turn On the Bright Lights [Matador, 2002]They bitch because everybody compares them to Joy Division, and they're right. It's way too kind, and I say that as someone who thanks Ian Curtis for making New Order possible. Joy Division struggled against depression rather than flaunting it, much less wearing it like a designer suit. What's truly depressing is that, just as the hairy behemoths of the grunge generation looked back to the AOR metal they immersed in as teens, these fops tweak the nostalgia of young adults who cherish indistinct memories of much worse bands than Joy Division, every one of them English--Bauhaus, Ultravox, Visage, Spandau Ballet, Tears for Fears. At a critical moment in consciousness they exemplify and counsel disengagement, self-seeking, a luxurious cynicism. Says certified British subject Peter Banks: "Emotions are standard and boring. I'd like to find another way to live." That's thinking either big or very small. C+
>>131500409Ween - Pure Guava [Elektra, 1992]It's to the half-credit of these Bucks County wise guys that the studio amenities of their major-label debut impel them toward fucked-up sounds, which come hard, rather than fucked-up songs, which they write without thinking (and how). But I don't buy the claim that they'll do anything for a laugh. Ever since they went on about pussy for nine minutes (good idea) in a Princey blues-minstrel drawl (bad one), I've assumed they were the kind of rec-room gigglefritzes who enjoy a good nigger joke when they're sure their audience is sophisticated enough to enjoy it. And to be perfectly honest, I don't hear one of those here. C+
