ITT: /mu/ in 1980
The fuck happened to Aerosmith!?
You want to know everything about 1980?You want to listen to over 400 songs by over 400 artists, one song per artist?You want to listen to people who have less than 50 monthly listeners up to over 50 million monthly listeners?Heres the playlists.https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXADvQ6PqJ9EE-iCq9ImSAYpiFUM1DIWUhttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/0MBjmumsH2jWInZKoW3kaa?si=PE02mA2JTZyLeCdmH4JIPw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=uy80YYFtRBaTR&sci=spotify%3Acard-config%3A057KCgHKD4ZTQPY2NlcuYm
Whoops.
KISS who? Totally forgotten now except in Australia where this generated a hit single.
https://youtu.be/nReGpFYNNUk?is=ss6ZozEzr-zlljVl
This economy bites the big one. Fuck you, peanut farmer.
>>132097490>1967holy nostalgia for 13 years ago, Batman
These threads are just an excuse for the Christgau discord to spam his reviews.
>>132097351>>132097483old news. new decade, new bands.
>>132097412WHoa poppy
The diy instrumentals of McCartney bespoke an appealing modesty and newfound sense of freedom. This one was recorded on a sixteen-track with an engineer in attendance. Its songs are mere sketches, doodles, and unfinished demos from a man who occasionally scores a hit in order to prove he's a genius. Which he isn't. C
>>132097611TEMPORARY...
>>132097611nobody cares about 60s Zayn and his garbage demos he's passing off as an album
https://youtu.be/bCa28vA_GsA?is=bSOdAZoF_t0GfSzYhttps://youtu.be/Haqa6Jbyjsc?is=J5t7EBOPOh8Qjy8cThere's been a lot of Kungfu movies lately, I can't believe all the drive in theaters around me are closing though
This record proves that the real hero of Slow Train wasn't Jerry Wexler or the former R. Zimmerman or Jesus Christ, it was Mark Knopfler. May Bobby never indenture soul sisters again. C
YOU GOT ME RINGING HELL'S BELLS
>>132097412Cool
it's over, man. the actor won in a landslide. capitalism and reaction won. all the dreams we had in the 60s are dead forever.
The self-production sounds more like license than liberation to me--she was better off with Richard Rudolph telling her what not to do. Maybe she could sing the telephone book and make me like it, but compared to the telephone book, "You make love like springtime and I can't control my passion/You make love like springtime even when love's not in fashion" lacks serendipity--especially after five minutes, with seasonal changes for variety and a jazzy 3:20 reprise for excess measure. C+
>>132097654real shit
>>132097725t. Jan Wenner
star wars sucks
In which David Byrne conquers his fear of music in a visionary Afrofunk synthesis--clear-eyed, detached, almost mystically optimistic. First side's a long dance-groove more sinuous than any known DOR that climaxes in the middle with the uncontorted "Crosseyed and Painless" but begins at the beginning: when Byrne shouts out that "the world moves on a woman's hips"--not exactly a new idea in rock and roll--it sounds as if he's just discovered the secret of life for himself, which he probably has. Second side celebrates a young terrorist and recalls John Cale in his spookiest pregeopolitical mode but also begins at the beginning: with "Once in a Lifetime," the greatest song Byrne will ever write. It's about the secret of life, which even a woman's hips can't encompass. A
>>132097765>star wars suckswait until 35 years from now when Disney buys it if you want to see how much it can truly suck
I'm not saying they deserve the biggest seller of their crummy era. But however meaningless the results, they do know something about the hook and the readymade. My favorite is "Tough Guys," which will never go top forty because it features this Inspirational Verse: "They think they're full of fire/She thinks they're full of shit." B−
>>132097765You're just afraid of strong female characters.
>>132097804ugh, the worst.
>>132097804if it weren't for that slightly pro-feminist song the album would get a C-
>>132097804released late '80 but more associated with '81
JOHN WAYNE WAS A NAZI
So Nancy Wilson breaks up with her fella, soundman Mike Fisher, who naturally departs the band, along with his brother Roger, who happens to be the guitarist. And whether it's the absence of pomp-rockish Roger, stripping to a five-piece, or what hell hath no fury like, suddenly they're lean and mean and playing to the sisters--title cut's a fan letter to the female Johnny B. Goode, who I guess is Nancy, now playing a lot of lead. Take note, fellas--as Zep rips go, this one is something special, and not just for its sexual politics. Unfortunately, things go gushy at the end with an Ann-penned love song. Men--who needs 'em? B+
...
>>132097328ah yes the year when Cuckgau's wife cheated on him while he was spending months working on Consumer Guide to the '70s
>>132097948Nobody cares that 60s Nick Carter just got filled with lead.
10.50!!! Never again dudes, Never paying this much for a show again. I thought Pink Floyd lost it at 9.00$ but 10.50 is absurd.
>>132097948imagine being Mark Chapman. imagine wanting to spend the rest of your life behind bars over a washed-up children's musician from the 60s.
>>132097885i could never get into their albums
>>132097412Thanks for your service
The end. About fucking time already.
>>132097963also reminder that his wife said Paul McCartney should have died instead
>>132098123they were really never that good anyway
Peter Gabriel on Atco gives way to. . .Peter Gabriel on Mercury, replacing diy DOR with pessimistic art-rock minidrama, while side two opens with "Biko," about a different kind of Africanism, and closes with "Games Without Frontiers," about a different kind of internationalism. Either he underestimates his own strengths or his audience or both. B-
They're back...and tf are they doing hiring that Rainbow midget?
>>132098246SING ME A SONG, YOU'RE A SINGER
The midget queen is back (on the country charts) after another three year break. This time it really is just country without disco strings and it sounds like she's channeling Reba McEntire this time around.
I went down to Radio Shack to buy a pair of headphones and they had these computers on display. What can you do with a computer except write a program to fill the screen with the word "boobs" anyway? Get back to me when they can display actual boobs.
ALL IN ALL, YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL
>>132097556anyway...
GENERALS AND MAJORS AH AHTHEY'RE NEVER TOO FARFROM BATTLEFIELDS SO GLORIOUS
Slow songs about love alternate with medium-rocking songs about sex. Title, concept, and lead single: slow song about the futility of life, just in case you think he's "sold out" or some such. C
>>132097948>born 1940 "Liverpool Hospital">died 1980 "John Lennon Murder site"is he stupid? why would he go there
>>132098516Bob Seger sucks.
Yes, there are bright spots--a funk trifle with Re on piano, an autobiographical reminiscence speeded up Vegas-style, her voice. But the guidance she gets from new corporate mentor Clive Davis is typified by the vamp she adds to "What a Fool Believes." "Get the funk, get it now," she murmurs valiantly over a rhythm section anchored, as they say, by Louis Johnson and Jeff Porcaro. And who do you think plays the sax outro? If you guessed David Sanborn you get the picture. [Catalogue number: AL 9358.] B-
>>132098594Clive giving her the old Tony Bennett treatment I see.
Eddie VH's quicksilver whomp earns the Hendrix comparisons, and he's no clone--he's faster, colder, more structural. David Lee Roth adds a wild-ass sophistication to the usual macho--no mortal arena singer would even think of the goofy country blues takeoff that provides the title. But the message of the music isn't the exuberance of untrammeled skill, it's the arrogance of unchallenged mastery. Without being pompous about it, which is a plus, these guys show as little feeling for their zonked, hopelessly adoring fans as Queen. They're kings of the hill and we're not. B
>>132097948Music is saved.
>>132097948>claimed he was just chilling in his New York apartment being a good dad to Sean>in fact he was mostly just strung out on heroin>Paul showed up at his apartment a few times with a guitar and was like hey man, wanna jam? and he was like fuck off
I want there to be more punk rock, I do, I do. I want there to be more left-wing new-wave, actually. By Americans, I swear! But not from an out-of-work cabaret actor with Tiny Tim vibrato who spent the first half of the '70s inventing rock cabaret. And it sounds as if, although I'm being kind here, Jello Biafra discovered the Stooges in 1977. C
https://youtu.be/2vRsEC65NTA?si=wz6cxtHyTr8k5LFX
Replacing Aerosmith as the band of choice for heavy machinery-admiring primitives, these Aussies are a big too archetypical for my tastes. Angus Young does come up with some killer riffs, although not as often as a refined person such as myself would hope, while newly-recruited singer Brian Johnson sings as if he has a cattle prod at his scrotum, just the thing for fans who can't tell if their newfound testosterone is agony or ecstasy. Songs such as "Shake a Leg", "Given (sic) The Dog a Bone", and "Let Me Put My Love Into You" concern all the unimaginative sexual acts you'd imagine, while "What Do You Do For Money, Honey?" has fewer answers than the average secretary would prefer. My sister is glad they don't write science fiction, and if you're male, feel free to share in her relief. Brothers are more deeply implicated in these matters. B-
This is a nice album. I especially love Another One Bites The Dust. I wonder if they’re as good as they were the last time I saw them.>sees that Freddie Mercury has become a mustached faggotYou know what, never mind.
>>132098801why does he always highlight all the filler tracks?
I don't understand why you retards are posting links.This guy already posted everything.>>132097412
>>132098833just trying to be different
>>132098801great. and we hoped Bon Scott's demise was the end of them. welp...
The tardy top-forty success of "Crusin'"--plus maybe, who knows, an evocative title à la A Quiet Storm--has created the impression that the follow-up album's the comeback, but commercially and artistically that was last year's Where There's Smoke . . . Smokey's songwriting has sharpened, but not so it isn't enhanced by a nice ersatz medium dance tempo. Granted, you'd probably enjoy these songs just as much if all you did was make out to them, which seems to be the idea. But that's expecting a lot of the old marrieds he plays to these days. B+
Their youth, their serious air, and their guitar sound are setting a small world on fire, and I fear the worst. No matter where they're starting off--not as big as Zep, maybe, but not exactly on the grunge circuit either--their echoey vocals already teeter on the edge (in-joke) of grandiosity, so how are they going to sound by the time they reach the Garden? What kind of Christian idealists lift their best riff from PIL (or from anywhere at all)? As bubble-headed as the teen-telos lyrics at best. As dumb as Uriah Heep at worst. C+
no Zappa albums this year after he buried us in his drivel last year
With Lionel Richie turning his attentions to inspirational numbers varying the theme "Got to Be Together," with "Jesus" joining William King's "Mighty Spirit" for the finale, this is an improvement. For one thing, most of the brotherhood anthems--which avoid the gender-specific, actually, with lots of "people," "folks," and "y'all"--have a somewhat more rousing beat than "Three Times a Lady." And on the fond "Old-Fashion Love" and the cold-hearted "Sorry to Say," the brothers remind Lionel that this is still supposed to be a funk band. B
>>132098896five of the goddamn things
The problem's not immersion in formula. The problem's not exhaustion of formula. The problem's boredom with formula. This is longer, slower, and denser as well as older, with lyrics that skirt social commentary and music that essays textural pretension. Its peaks are "Touch and Go" and "Up and Down." Savor the rhythm of those phrases, Ric, and grow no more. B−
Hey now, don't blame me--I was making fun of them back when your roommate still thought they might be Important. Now that that's taken care of itself, we can all afford to sit back and giggle a little. Robot satire, indeed--if they ever teach a rhythm box how to get funky, a Mothersbaugh will be there to plug it in. B+
>>132098976Why can't he ever give these guys an A
Dylan went full-out Christfag, I can't believe it.
>>132098896He'll be back next year with another load of bad classical music with poop and pee jokes, trust me.
>>132097412BADASS
>>132098999>Warner thought "Girl U Want" would be the hit singleboy they guessed wrong
The sound is dry postpunk, with touches of Wire's spare, arty melodicism, more Pink Flag than 154. Never pretty, it's treated with a properly mnemonic pop overlay--scan the titles and you'll recall a phrase from all but a few of these thirteen songs. Intelligent phrases they are, too. Yet what are we to think of a band whose best song is based on Albert Camus's The Stranger, a book that was holy writ for collegiate existentialists before Robert Smith was even born? The last thing we need is collegiate existentialism nostalgia. B+
>>132099033It was because GUW was more rock-driven while Whip It was dance pop so Warner thought Americans would go for it more while the latter might go better in Europe
>>132097948My mom and her entire family were at her nephew's birthday party when the news came over monday night football. She said during the shocked silence her brother, who never much cared for the Beatles, very loudly and sarcastically said "well, I guess that settles whether or not they're getting back together!"
All the standard objections apply. His beat is still clunky, his singing overwrought, his sense of significance shot through with Mazola Oil. He's too white and too male, though he's decent enough to wish he weren't; too unanalytic and fatalistic, though his eye is sharp as can be. Yet by continuing to root his writing in the small victories and large compromises of ordinary joes and janies whose need to understand as well as celebrate is as restless as his own, he's grown into a bitter empathy. These are the wages of young romantic love among those who get paid by the hour, and even if he's only giving forth with so many short fast ones because the circles of frustration and escape seem tighter now, the condensed songcraft makes this double album a model of condensation--upbeat enough for a revery there, he elaborates a myth about the fate of the guys he grew up with that hits a lot of people where they live. A-
>>132099118>He's too white and too male, though he's decent enough to wish he weren'tso much projection
The right-every-which-way "Upside Down" and all-purpose gay lib pep song "I'm Coming Out" are only the highlights: not since Lady Sings the Blues has Ms. R. been forced into such a becoming straitjacket. Her perky angularity and fit-to-burst verve could have been designed for Rodgers & Edwards's synergy--you'd swear she was as great a singer as Alfa Anderson herself. And Nile is showing off more axemanship than any rhythm guitarist in history. A-
>>132099208Diana finds her way back. she'd also never heard of Chic until her kids introduced her to them. the other thing was she had the album re-mixed to push her vocals more up front than what the original mix used but she kind of had to because her thin voice would have been buried by the instrumentals.
>>132098808>Brian May hasn’t changed at allGee, I wonder if he’ll look the exact same about 40 years from now, except with white hair?
>>132098808from tracks 1-3 i'd say they've been hitting the video arcade lately lol
After going gold in 1979 as an utterly uncrossedover falsetto love man, he takes care of the songwriting, transmutes the persona, revs up the guitar, muscles into the vocals, leans down hard on a rock-steady, funk-tinged four-four, and conceptualizes--about sex, mostly. Thus he becomes the first commercially viable artist in a decade to claim the visionary high ground of Lennon and Dylan and Hendrix (and Jim Morrison), whose rebel turf has been ceded to such marginal heroes-by-fiat as Patti Smith and John Rotten-Lydon. Brashly lubricious where the typical love man plays the lead in "He's So Shy," he specializes here in full-fledged fuckbook fantasies--the kid sleeps with his sister and digs it, sleeps with his girlfriend's boyfriend and doesn't, stops a wedding by gamahuching the bride on her way to church. Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home. A
IS THE title of the latest Rush offering meant as a deliberate dig at the new wave of heavy metal currently sweeping the country? Whatever the answer, this does emphatically show that Canada's (perhaps the planet's) premier heavy trio aren't going to be swept aside by any of the younger bands. Lee, Lifeson, Peart and co-producer Terry Brown (almost the fourth member of the band these days) deliver a set of six modern, battle hardened epics which exhibit enough technical proficiency to satisfy Yes fans, contain sufficient lyrical talking points to win over Floyd freaks, yet never become overbearing or stifling. If they don't do anything for you, then go back and wallow in the sounds of boredom from Genesis and The Eagles. You deserve nothing better. However, should you decide that maybe this band aren't just overblown incompetents then be bold and listen to 'Jacob's Ladder', 'Entre Nous', 'Different Strings', and 'Natural Science'. I can guarantee you'll get a warm welcome wherever the stylus falls. For those who are already acquainted with Rush, I have to point out that this doesn't quite reach the classic heights of Hempispheres, but nonetheless Lee, Llfeson, and Peart have come up with half a dozen persuasive reasons for breaking out the champagne and celebrating the new decade. - 4.5/5., Malcolm Dome
>>132099397>track 8was that the one i think it was where she's singing about giving a dude head?
Welcome back, Kotter.
>>132099486>one of the "trilogy" is a concept disc about exploring the solar systemi can tell Gordon Jenkins found his grandson's Styx and Rush albums and was like "hey, I can do that."
Only Neil would make a deliberately minor record about war and peace after three successive masterworks about himself. Its music fragile and sometimes partial, its length under 30 minutes despite throwaways, it divides less neatly into "dove" and "hawk" sides than the packaging advertises. Side one's haltingly lyrical "Little Wing" and shaggy head story "The Old Homestead" can be read as hippie paradigms, side two's rallying cries for old marrieds and union stalwarts as middle-American anthems. But Young's working men are from the American Federation of Musicians, and the confused "young mariner" who finishes off side one with a half-swallowed "I hope that I can kill good"; doesn't sound much like a hippie to me. So what I want to know is whether the DEW-line boys in "Comin' Apart at Every Nail" launched a missile or let one slip through. Some joke on the Pentagon either way. A-
>>132099298what a review
>>132099486START SPREADIN' THE NEWS
>>132097538Wait, you werent kidding, what's going on?
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.
>>132099255I said heeeeeey goodbye to romance, yeah Goodbye to friendsAND. TO YOU goodbye to all the past... I guess that we'll meet we'll meet in the end
>>132099037>>132099118>>132099208>>132099298>>132099345>>132099525Christgau poster.A little birdy told me this guy's playlists uses pazz and jop end of year lists included in the song selections>>132097412
The latest propaganda emanating from the P-Funk ministry is calling him Slick Rick. Slick Lame is more like it. Here, he makes do like crazy with the free-love smarm, returning to what he calls funk only on the title cut, while "Mary-Go-Round" takes a decidedly utilitarian view of a woman living the free-loving life. C
>>132099604fuck you bob, just wait till next year
>>132099604this album really wasn't very good and after two LPs in barely six months he was kind of exhausted
>>132099649oh god no
>>132099662he hasn't even reached his true power level yet. wait and see.
First they wanted to be machines, now they want to have roots--it's new, it's different. "A European legacy, a culture for today," sings former Rich Kid Midge Ure through a signifying synthesizer, and he's not being ironic--new Europeans may be jaded, but they avoid irony except in totally frivolous contexts. So they buy electronic instruments, rendezvous in Köln with Conny Plank, and manufacture dance music for the locked pelvis. One strange thing, though--sounds like "Western Promise" should be called "Algiers." C
GETTIN' DOWN TO FUNKY TOWWWNNN
>It all happened at the beginning of that turbulent decade known as the '80s. Those were idealistic days. The candidacy of John Anderson, the rise of Supertramp. It was an exciting time to be young.
Nelson's groove has resembled a rut since he hit paydirt with Stardust, so give a cheer--maybe he's out of it. Country standards gone vaguely Western swing (in Nashville, without horns), this is nothing startling, but the false steps and lackadaisical jams of the live doubles and the Leon Russell job are gone. Price, who tends to posture in countrypolitan settings, thrives on the relaxed atmosphere. People who don't know the originals are going to fall in love. B+
>>132098669>exuberance of untrammeled skill, it's the arrogance of unchallenged masterywow. He has a point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGbb8-j1SuoHAVE YOU SEEN JR'S GRADES?????
>>132099397>track 4eventually to be pilfered by Sheena Easton's songwriting team and...ok, so Dolly Parton also steals one of her biggest hits from...this is getting weird.
If the retarded tempos and professional musicians mean this isn't rock and roll, then what the fuck do you call the Shirelles? Speed and crudity aside, the pleasures here recall Germfree Adolescents--nursery-rhyme melodicism and tongue-in-cheek versifying superimposed on an image of provocative, charming plasticity. And if you believe that means she's "plastic," just what exactly is your beef? Are you a hippie or something? A-
>>132097556let's not think about their future devolution into syrup rock for 12 year old girls and enjoy them while they're still pure
Sad. The best cut is "I'm Affected" (note double-edged title); the second best is a Ronettes remake (Joey outsings Andy Kim); the third best is a ballad about their manager (now departed). They also remake two of their own songs--"Judy Is a Punk" (good sequel) and "Rock 'n' Roll High School" (unnecessary Spectorization)--and one of the Heartbreakers' (inferior). And take on the Sports and Joe Jackson with a song about the radio that would be the worst they'd ever written were it not for "This Ain't Havana" and "High Risk Insurance," in which the group's reactionary political instincts finally escape that invisible ironic shield (bet Johnny provided worse-than-Barry-McGuire rhymes like "on your way to life's promotion/You hinder it with emotion"). Phil Spector doesn't make that much difference; his guitar overdubs are worse than his orchestrations, and they're not uncute. But this band sounds tired. B+
>>132097556I feel like they've always lacked something, even in their stripped down albums...maiden mogs them hard
>>132099839i feel track 9 might come to be regarded as problematic
Merely by copping to the magic concept "rockabilly," Cash can kick up comeback talk. And comparison with his rockabilly rockabilly for Sun (where he was always the countriest) establishes that by the standards of an ordinary mortal he's a better singer now--more flexible physically, more expressive emotionally. But the technique is a cover for what's lost, probably forever--stolid depth as immovable presence. Same goes for the arrangements--defiantly understated for Nashville, they're customized rock-country up against the austerities of the Tennessee Two. In other words, an honorable country album with some pretty good songs on it. B-
>>132100002a lot of word salad to say a 48 year old legend with big budget production has better musicality but somehow doesn't sound as hungry or passionate as he did at 25
It's not fair for punks to pick on him--rock Hollywood has spawned worse corruption, after all, and his band is a lot tougher and cooler than the Stranglers ever were. But he doesn't do himself a whole lot of favors, either. He didn't have to include a poster of all the hotels he's trashed. He didn't have to repeat the phrase "Kill my wife" for the umpteenth time (someone tell Britt it was all a joke). He didn't have to invoke passion as a universal solvent like some surly asshole at a bar where all the women are taken. He didn't have to bury "Oh God, I Really Wish I Was Home Tonight" on an album nobody will remember a year after it goes platinum. He might have provided real songs after side two, cut one. He implores his sweetie to save her best naughty bits for him on a postcard. But I remember the young stud who was good enough for "Maggie May." C
>>132100052ugh, the worst
>>132100052>He didn't have to repeat the phrase "Kill my wife" for the umpteenth time (someone tell Britt it was all a joke). He didn't have to invoke passion as a universal solvent like some surly asshole at a bar where all the women are taken.so much projection
Let Pa's ghost rest in the ground already, kiddo. Sheesh.
No concepts, no stylistic excursions, no avant collaborations--this songbook may be the most conventional album he's ever put his name on. Vocally it can be hard to take--if "Teenage Wildlife" parodies his chanteur mode on purpose the joke's not worth the pain, and if you think Tom Verlaine can't sing, check out "Kingdom Come"--though anyone vaguely interested has already made peace with that. Lyrically it's too facile as usual, though the one about Major Tom's jones gets me every time. And musically, it apotheosizes his checkered past, bringing you up short with a tune you'd forgotten you remembered or a sonic that scrunches your shoulders or a beat that keeps you on your feet when your coccyx is moaning sit down. B+
A decade ago now, Boz joined a struggle--the struggle to prove a white man could sing not merely the blues, but their pop equivalent. Between his hippie pipes and his tendency to take things easy, it was hard, but determination shone through his most laid-back music--he stood out partly because few white guys were trying anything so contemporary, and partly because he had to go that extra inch lyrically to make his point. Since Silk Degrees, however, his only struggle has been to stay on top of the new white pop hegemony he helped create. Though he writes better material than Michael McDonald, the difference isn't degree, just taste. And though he's learned a lot about singing--maybe too much--McDonald has better pipes. B-
>>132100108contains the stupidest song ever
>>132100119did anyone else notice that "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" pokes fun at this album?
>>132100122Side 2 is their absolute worst
It says something for these pioneering funksters that unlike James Brown or George Clinton, they've adapted painlessly, nay, profitably, to disco. All of which goes to show their funk was as bland as you'd suspected. Even the platinum-plated title cut isn't disco as transformed by bizzers (cf. "Fame", "Guilty", or even "The Original Disco Man"), it's disco as transformed by marketers which means disco without a cult and therefore disco without an audience. C
>>132097815Fuck off, I played “Keep on Loving You” in a bar full of zoomers at Halloween and it had the place poppin.
>>132100173>they've adapted painlessly, nay, profitably, to discthey figured it out but they had two totally lost years during 77-78 before they did. and thank you, i do hate "Celebration" very very much.
>>132100108Not to be confused with Regatta de Blanc, I don't think, this is where the latest vanguard of musicianly postminimalist abandons all pretense of pop (or reggae) mindlessness. Stewart Copeland's rhythms skank plenty while looting the whole wide world. Andy Summers's guitar harmonies are blatantly off-color, his melodic effects blatantly exotic. And Sting's words are about stuff--itchy general, teacher not petting with teacher's pet, plus, ahem, the perils of stardom. Summing it all up is their first true hit and only true masterpiece: "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da." B
Anybody who thinks his first Brad Shapiro album was mechanical should get a load of what a real assembly line sounds like. Original Disco Man was a labor of vanity, and when it didn't hype his career the way he'd been told it would JB went back on automatic. Shapiro & Co. respond in kind. C+
>>132100084before it all went to shit...
>>132100149Same as with Cash's album. More adult and professional than the old days 20 years ago but lacking the same sense of necessity.
This isn't rock and roll, sez here--it's "sexmusic," a/k/a "antmusic," heralding Arapaho (Apache) (Kiowa) (pirate) warrior ideals as a futuristic reaction against Brit-punk nihilism. The scam has whole subcultures working for it in England, but here it's the sex and the music that'll determine whether Adam is David Bowie or Marc Bolan (or Gary Glitter). The sex is your basic line-drawings-of-spike-heels stuff, redolent of Sex, the haberdashery once owned by Adam's ex-manager. The music, needless to say, is rock and roll, a clever pop-punk amalgam boasting two drummers, lots of chanting, and numerous B-movie hooks. Especially given Adam's art-schooled vocals, I find that the hooks grate, but that may just mean that when it comes to futuristic warriors I prefer Sandinistas. B
https://youtu.be/GND7sPNwWko?si=RvkuNr7EOGS_4Azp
Hard to believe almost ten years have passed since JB had the wherewithal to release a live double--not the new tunes, which he mostly skips for old stuff, but the commercial credibility. Hard to believe this one's so different--busier, relying on band and backup rather than the acuity of Brown's singing. Hard to believe it's so alive--until you play the damn thing, which only slackens to make room for the latest edition of "Man's World." B+
>>132100355>Hard to believe this one's so different--busier, relying on band and backup rather than the acuity of Brown's singingwould tend to assume that's more likely than not because his voice isn't what it was 15 years ago
>>132097506Ford's campaign slogan was Whip Inflation Now. Nixon and Ford started the recession and there is nothing you can do about it.
Soon...
>>132099525Neil did everything right in the '70s and not much in the '80s.
these guys never made a complete album, but they made great records with some fillers.
>>132100419she was way more popular than she needed to be
>>132100463they are 100% completely freakin' washed
>>132100489>she was way more popular than she needed to beNo chick with an Olive Oyl build should get that popular. Hello where's the boobs?
"Wow, what an ending! Who would have thought Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father?"
>>132099839Punks have never bought his leather jacket and indie connections because Lemmy Kilmister's grizzled-biker-born-to-rock is metal without the heavy--no preening solos or blow-dried bullshit. I recommend the bit where he promises to get fast and loose with his latest receptacle as soon as he finishes the song about it (not her, of course not), and note that his writing is more one-note than need be, wit and all--fucking for the hell of it can drive anybody into a rage, and tuneless fucking for the hell of it is really pointless. Anthem: "(We Are) The Road Crew." B
"The difference between you and us is that we have brains," Mark Smith announces to what the written notes call an "80% disco weekend mating audience" at the top of forty-three minutes of rant. The difference I notice is that the band is getting paid, but never mind--I'm so hungry for punk these days that I'm a sucker for the overall sound, maybe even the attitude. Yet though the minutes are divided officially into ten song titles, I confess I have trouble telling one from another except to point out that "Roche Rumble" is pretty fierce momentumwise. I also enjoy "Choc-Stock" (sounds like "pop star") and "That Man" (sounds like "Batman"). And almost any time Smith revs his delivery up toward squeal. B
https://youtu.be/9YnxXEE-fvU?si=Ufw7ulCdJJY5kKju
If you can't abide her unnaturalness--her plastic, opportunistic willingness to belt out any well-fabricated sentiment--then this rock move will turn your stomach. Personally, I delight in the synthetic perfection of the thing, from pop sin to schlock redemption. Here a night predator, there a card-carrying Christian, she epitomizes the fervor people invest in received emotions. She loves a good hook the way she loves her own child. And you can (still) dance to her. A-
>>132099710>Livin' After Midnightfor one scary moment they turned into Foreigner there
How you respond to this quasi-concept album about (of all things) work, which offers exquisitely sung standards from Mel Tillis, Merle Travis, and (I swear it) Woody Guthrie as well as Parton originals almost as militant as the title hit, depends on your tolerance for fame-game schlock. I'd never claim Johnny Carson's damaged her pipes or her brains, but that doesn't mean I have to like Music City banjos and Las Vegas r&b. B+
https://youtu.be/ulZQTrV8QlQ
Produced by Gibb-Galuten-Richardson, and Barbra Goes Disco ain't all. Somewhere in their success-addled minds Barry and Robin saw a chance to return to heartthrob ballads like "To Love Somebody" and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" But after years of writing fluff--great fluff, occasionally, but fluff--they can't match that standard. Lucky for them Streisand doesn't oversing every time out, even floats some of the uptempo stuff--music of the spheres if you consider her voice a platonic ideal, polyurethane disco if you don't. But most of the time she oversings. And when she dramatizes a soap like "Life Story," the mismatch is ridiculous. C+
>>132100707i hate Streisand, i really do
New originals: 0*. New covers: 1**. Rerecording quotient: -.2***. Spontaneity quotient: -.5***, *"Life's Been Good" doesn't count. **Washed-out "Seven Bridges Road." ***On a scale of +1 to -1. C-
For the first time in eight years there's no Styx album. To quote a certain former president, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is finally over."
>>132100755
>>132100755>On November 19, 1980, Los Angeles police responding to a report of a teenage runaway stopped at Henley's home. Inside they found the missing 15 year old girl and a different 16 year old passed out naked on the living room floor. Henley subsequently plead guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
In a special message for all the ignorami who think he never should have married the pretentious bitch, John turns the professional rock he hacked his way through when they were separated to the specifics of his life (and genius) as it's now constituted. In a special message for all the ignorami who think pretentious bipeds should stay out of recording studios, Yoko keeps up with him. This is an unfashionable piece of music--only Poly Styrene, of all people, has gotten away with anything remotely similar all year. But you don't have to be married to hear its commitment and command. I hope. A
From the straight-up hubba-hubba of "You May Be Right" to the Rick Wakeman ostinatos of "Sometimes a Fantasy" to the McCartneyesque melodicism of "Don't Ask Me Why" to the what-it-is of "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," it's all rock and roll to him, but to me it's closer to what pop meant before ironists and aesthetes, including yours truly, appropriated the term. Closer than any skinny-tie bands, that's for sure: gregarious, shameless, and above all profitable. Of course, if it doesn't make up in reach what it lacks in edge, ironists and aesthetes needn't notice it's there. And beyond "Sleeping With the Television On," I couldn't tell you thing one about side two, which I just played three times. B-
>>132100889nobody cares about 60s Nick Carter and his lame ballad duet album with his homewrecker screeching bitch cunt wife
>>132097556Indeed. Time to hang it, guys.
F
And they didn't bother putting it out in America.
It's odd at best that the two hits and the two high points are the two songs predicated on black sources--the resourceful reggae cover "The Tide Is High" and the genius rap rip "Rapture" (which stands, let me assure my fellow Flash fans, as the funniest, fondest joke she ever told on herself). Elsewhere power pop turns power cabaret and Sgt. Pepper turns white album, only without Lennon-McCartney, or even McCartney. Debbie sings better all the time, but a better singer than she'll ever be couldn't save "T-Birds," or "Faces." They got what they wanted and now what? B-
>>132100906this shit sucks
>>132100889oh well at least he's dead now
The absence of must-hums brings into stark relief the magnitude of their debt to Steely Dan. Michael McDonald, of course, but more significantly Skunk Baxter, now departed and and you can't even tell, so sedulously do the other guitarists emulate his virtuoso harmonies. The Doobies are now socially responsible artists, stopping at nothing in their battle to let the radio audience taste musical quality in the breaks. If the songs themselves had any content, well then obviously there'd be no chance to enlighten the masses. Don't dare ask them to abandon this mission. B-
This is sheer product--hard uptempo sessions with the pickup band that featured Glen Matlock and Ivan Kral. But the formula serves him well; he can apparently generate satirical energy over a clean rock bottom at will. Play this a few times and in two years you'll still recall five songs when you put it on again: "Dog Food," "I Snub You," "Loco Mosquito," "I'm a Conservative," "Play it Safe." And all the others will sound pretty good. B+
>>132101129weird how he didn't mind Iggy putting a Reagan campaign ad on there but gave the Ramones shit for doing the same
Leaping from mediocrity to wretched excess, they throw two discs on the market when they don't have the material for one. The lead cut/single, "Let Me Talk," is too political in its fluffy way to break down the racism to today's top 40, and after that they never top the Doobies rip on side three--certainly not with the title number, which I blame on the fools who think they abandoned their principles when they gave up ersatz jazz. C+
>>132100486If any up-and-coming rock-and-roller aspires to auteur status it's Mark Knopfler, and among those with a taste for his rather corny plots (Romeo and Juliet, fancy that) this establishes his claim. Me, I note that this third album closes with his second gay-baiting song, and that I wasn't surprised. Better he should work on somebody else's stories--his guitar has emerged from Eric Clapton's shadow into a jazzy rock that muscles right past Larry Carlton and ilk. Steely Straits, anyone? Or would that be Dire Dan? C+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLcWQK-yI-Y
Eighteen fucking years of this and no end in sight.
It wasn't inevitable that the return to form heralded in the trades should accompany the waning of whatever made them mildly interesting to the so-called consumer press, but the coincidence is worth noting. Except for "Kiss on My List" (number-one singles are laws unto themselves), the mildly interesting stuff is commercial filler: gently clever like "Big Kids," secretly dark like "Diddy Doo Wop (I Hear the Voices)." And for all the hoo-hah surrounding Daryl and his "repressed" solo album, his singing is as pallid as his partner's: "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" is the greatest thing to happen to oldies stations since Grease. C+
Never hep to his jive, I'm less than shocked by the generalized sentimentality disillusioned admirers descry within these hallowed tracks, though the one about the late great Lowell George (think it's him, any other El Lay rocker die recently?) is unusually rank. I grant that the sincere vocals and rising organ chords do make my heart swell in spite of itself once in a while. But I wonder whether the lost kids (i.e., Lost Kids) in "Boulevard" wear mohawks, and whether JB will ever find it in himself to sing to them. Inspirational Line: "That girl was sane." C+
Who needs another live double? A master guitarist whose studio albums have been cited by Sominex for unfair trade practices, that's who. All your AM and FM favorites served up hot, cold, raw, or all of the above. A
At least she looks like a rock star again instead of Bonnie Tyler.
Having walked out on three different bands led by this dame, I have the credentials to certify this funny, sexy, accidental little record. Half the time she exaggerates her flat Cleveland accent into a hickish, dumb-and-dirty come-on or parody of same, and half the rest of the time she plays her foolish nihilist poetry for laughs, which leaves a quarter of the time when she's the nihilist fool I'll walk out on till the day she dies. Pat Irwin's big-band atonalisms suit her city-of-night shtick perfectly. And "Spooky" is the cover of the year. B+
>>132101450it's a new decade and Joan Jett is about to take over this niche
In which former three-chord savage J. Lydon turns self-conscious primitivist, quite sophisticated in his rotten way. PIL complements Lydon's civilized bestiality by reorganizing the punk basics--ineluctable pulse, impermeable bass, attack guitar--into a full-bodied superaware white dub with disorienting European echoes. Much of the music on this double-LP version of the exorbitant three-disc, forty-five r.p.m. Metal Box is difficult; some of it fails. But the lyrics are both listenable and readable, and thanks to the bass parts even the artiest instrumentals have a leg up on, to choose a telling comparison, Brian Eno's. Don't say I didn't warn you, though--it may portend some really appalling bullshit. No matter what J. Lydon says, rock and roll doesn't deserve to die just because it's twenty-five years old. J. Lydon will be twenty-five years old himself before he knows it. A-
Not counting the lovely revamped "Don't Ease Me In," the best song here is a Garcia-Hunter trifle called "Alabama Getaway." It grieves me to report that it isn't about dope dealers fleeing the troopers. 'Cause without hippiedom, they're lost. Utter wimp: new keybist Brent Mydland. C
>>132097948>beat the shit out of his wife>abandoned his kidsGOOD RIDDANCE
>>132101489this is not a band and never was, it's a front for drug trafficking
Smiling corpse or committed cuckold or drunk peering over the edge of the wagon, a sinner is what he am, and he's never sounded so abject or unregenerate--the twenty-years-in-five thickness of his Epic voice only intensifies the effect. If Billy Sherrill's chorales signify his helplessness, their unobtrusiveness-in-spite-of-themselves prove his triumph. And remember, it was Sherrill who found him these songs. A-
>>132098246what are they doing? turning into 80s buttrock it seems.
Starting to take over Styx's place as the most obnoxious band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqpi1Lm8fKE
More cluttered than Off the Wall, partly because Michael's brothers are butting in, partly because Quincy Jones isn't. But most of the clutter is sheer, joyous muscle-flexing--hated the chorale that opens "Can You Feel It" at first, but now I chuckle at their audacity every time it comes on. Anyway, you know about solo albums--the songs do improve when the group butts in. A-
>>132099486Most of his graying peers are off napping this year; for example no Rosemary Clooney Concord jazz release and Ella and Sassy also nowhere to be seen.
Waylon's fifth #1 album. He only didn't make six in a row because last year's LP made #2 on the country chart.
As for Loretta, still riding pretty high with a couple big country singles here although you have to overlook how track 10 sound faintly unbelievable coming from a woman who's pushing 50.
>>132099397Reba's third LP but she hasn't had any real success yet, it's not until the second half of the 80s that she becomes one of country's biggest names.
>>132101316With Tosh and Bunny departed, he rose to power as a bandleader rather than a songster, writing well enough while he mastered groove and sound and interplay. Except for "Jamming," a title that sums up the period perfectly, nothing since his solo-with-band debut Natty Dread has had the instant-classic immediacy of two very different offerings here: the dancy pop shot "Could You Be Loved" and the spirit anthem "Redemption Song." "Real Situation" ("It seems like total destruction/ The only solution") and "We and Dem" (need dey say more?) are apocalyptic enough to scare the bejezus out of Babylonian well-wishers, "Coming in From the Cold" and "Forever Loving Jah" mellow enough to hold out hope. Pray for him. Pray for all of us. A-
Beefheart is an utter original if not some kind of genius, but that doesn't make him the greatest artist ever to rock down the pike--his unreconstructed ecoprimitive eccentricity impairs his aesthetic as well as his commercial reach. Only don't tell grizzled punks now discovering the boho past, or avantish rockcrits who waited patiently through the cleansing storm for musicianship to come round again. In synch with the historical moment for once, Beefheart offers up his most uncompromised album since Trout Mask Replica in 1969--never before have his nerve-wracking harmonies and sainted-spastic rhythms been captured in such brutal living color. Me, I've always enjoyed his compromises, which tend to be crazier than normal people's wildest dreams, and wish he'd saved some of his melodic secrets for the second side. A-
>>132100507oh did you see the Popeye movie too? kinda sucked tbqh.
Except for the all-embracingly Afro-pan-American "Master Blaster" and maybe the birthday greeting to Dr. King, there's no great Stevie here, but he does know how to have fun doing his job. Great advertisement for the political potential of oral culture, too. Between his free-floating melodicism and his rolling overdrive, his hope and his cynicism, he seems more and more like the best thing the '60s ever happened to. Sure outlasted Jerry Garcia, now didn't he? A-
I keep waiting for number two to come through on the dance floor the way the debut did, but "Party out of Bounds" and "Quiche Lorraine" are expert entertainments at best and the wacko parochialism of "Private Idaho" is a positive annoyance. Only on "Devil in My Car" and "Give Me Back My Man" do they exploit the potential for meaning--cosmic and emotional, respectively--that accrues to the world's greatest new-wave kiddie-novelty disco-punk band. B+
The orchestrations are Kurt Weill meeting Lionel Newman at the Firesign Theatre, and the actor-vocals are as overheard as a Robert Altman soundtrack. Composer Harry Nilsson hasn't worked this hard since Schmilsson; arranger Van Dyke Parks hasn't worked this wisely since Song Cycle. So although nothing will appease my hunger for the glorious and inexplicably omitted "Everything Is Food," which I trust Neil Bogart will release as the B side of a disco disc, this beats Xanadu, Flash Gordon, and Urban Cowboy combined--as a movie, and as a piece of vinyl. A-
>>132101892>this beats Xanadu, Flash Gordon, and Urban Cowboy combined--as a movie, and as a piece of vinylNo it doesn't. Also Robin Williams was never funny at any point.
Although she's grown into her jazzy pretensions in a distinctively pop way, replete with borderline banality and wretched excess, her distinctive pleasures aren't available on the pop surface. You have to concentrate to hear her outcomp Leon Pendarvis on "Clouds" or remold the melody of "So Naughty" or bop the funk on "All Night's All Right." But what you're concentrating on isn't the song per se--it's transcendence of the song. Like I said, she's grown into her jazzy pretensions. B+
Accurate title, Ray! And an up-and-at-it first side! "Ophelia" is a great Robbie Robertson cover, too! Somebody buy this man a copy of The Band! B+
>136 on the BillboardI don't think so, Graham -kun.
1977–1989 was the ONLY time that has ANY good music starting with From Here to Eternity by Giorgio Moroder and ending with The Scene by Marlin Seven
The hippies took this from you. Reagan is bringing the 50s-early 60s back, make America great again.
>>132102954Fuck is that shirt the boy's wearing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsKBGDMMZdU
Sorry ozzyheads, Dio just proved he was the least important member of sabbath
>>132103840>>132098246already posted
>>132099471>1975
Lurching from hip to bathetic in his doomed pursuit of the let's-get-wasted market, he needs an editor more than Jack Kerouac ever did. But Kerouac rarely came up with tropes as axiomatic as "I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of Scotch" or "If you don't get my letter, then you'll know that I'm in jail," neither of which ought to spend their lives buried in overgrown verbiage and stentorian second-line. And sometimes he gets away with his shit, as in the tearfully tuneful "Jersey Girl" or the blisteringly bluesy "Mr. Siegal"--or "Heartattack and Vine," which could make you hope he's getting tired of getting wasted. B
The name of the leader is Lindsey Buckingham. His milieu is the studio, his metier pop. So the lax arrangements on this two-LP profit-sharing plan must have pained him almost as much as trying to fill solo space better suited to the likes of Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. I wonder whether any of the five songs not on their three big LPs will see daylight again after this sorry beginning. And not counting the Brian Wilson chorale--just the composer to do live, right?--I wonder whether Lindsey will mourn any of them. C+
No one will ever mistake this for a great Stones album, but I bet it sounds more interesting than It's Only Rock 'n Roll should we take the time to compare and contrast in our respective retirement communities. The mid-'60s charm of such tossed-off tropes as "Where the Boys Go" and "She's So Cold" goes with music that's far more allusive and irregular and knowing: for better and worse its drive isn't so monolithic, and the bass comes front and center like Bill was James Jamerson. Looser than you'll ever be. B+
At $9.99 discounted, figure sides five and six as a near-freebie sweetened by great cuts from Timon Dogg and a grade-school duo. Compare "Apple Jam" (you know, on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass triple, now there was a prophetic title) invidiously to the run of their dub ramble. Listen to Sandinista Now!, the promo-only one-disc digest Epic has thoughtfully provided busy radio personnel, and note that you miss (in my case) "Rebel Waltz" and "Let's Go Crazy" and "Something About England" (and who knows what in yours). Note that you also miss the filler and assorted weirdnesses which provide that heady pace and/or texture. Then note as well that the many good songs aren't as consistently compelling as on previous Clash albums, though God knows "The Sound of Sinners" is a long-overdue Christer spoof and words about reading are always apt and the romanticization of revolution is an inevitable theme. And conclude that if this is their worst--which it is, I think--they must be, er, the world's greatest rock and roll band. A-
From poet-turned-chanteuse Exene to junk-guitar journeyman Billy Zoom, these aren't mohawked NME-reading truants who think Darby Crash is God or the Antichrist. They're sexy thrift-shopping bohos who think Charles Bukowski is Norman Mailer or Henry Miller. This may not be exactly the aura they crave, but combined with some great tunes it enables them to make a smart argument for a desperately stupid scene. Of course, when they're looking for a cover (or a producer), they go to the Doors, prompting L.A. critic Jay Mitchell to observe: "Their death and gloom aura is closer to the Eagles, which is to say it is all Hollywood." But only in L.A. is that an insult, elsewhere the distinction between a city and its industrial hub is more like a clever apercu. A-
this must be one of those three or so albums he didn't remember a thing about because he was too spaced out on drugs
For a while, the jumpy drive and axiomatic simplicity of the Stevie Wonder-composed and -produced title track got me into the skittish banality of the others (including the two Stevie ballads). Now I recommend the single, seriously. B-
The title weeper's a cut above the rest, but new producer Eddie Kilroy doesn't push Jerry Lee the way Bones Howe did on Jerry Lee Lewis. In fact, all that rescues this record from boredom and arrogant excess are two ancient throwaways--"Alabama Jubilee" (1915) and "Toot, Toot, Tootsie Goodbye" (1922)--plus an obscure BMI copyright called "I Only Want a Buddy Not a Sweetheart" that also evokes prerock tradition. His voice is on its way out and he's lucky if his spirit shows up on alternate Thursdays, but if he wants to tell us he's a classic I'll nod my head. And pat my foot. B-
From the time they stormed a jaded--hence novelty-hungry--CBGB two or three years ago, they've been a joke that wears thin before it's over. "TV Set" and "Garbage Man" and a couple of others are everything they're supposed to be--archetypally rockin', outrageously funny. But when the songs are neither or even only one, the band's inability to sing, play, produce, or prance around your living room detracts significantly from your pleasure. Then you stop listening altogether. B-
>>132104691>takes the number one spot from MJ on the billboard
>>132105016>>132105005whoa. put down the moonshine jug there, Billy-Bob
>>132104911>the band's inability to sing, play, producei thought cuckgau liked punk lol
>>132105053also apparently not when it was the Plasmatics
>>132099486https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_in_musicNot even listed here for some reason.
>>132105127the albums released list there is mostly rock/pop/R&B and doesn't really include jazz, country, etc.
Just in case Jackson is about to turn into last year's model for good, I thought I'd mention that I kind of like his poorest-selling album. The melodies escape me as usual, but the beat is getting tougher and more resilient and the lyrics are at their best. Granted, the social comment and romantic reflections still sound smug at times, but anybody who can justify a dedication to Linton Kwesi Johnson ("Battleground") and say something new about fooling-around-on-the-road ("Biology") hasn't thrown it in yet. B
This unabashedly literate album isn't pretentious on paper--Lou's just an educated guy for whom middlebrow names like Poe and Vidal and Shakespeare and Escher mix as naturally into the conversation as dictionary words like "harridan" and "lucid" and "ore" and "encroachment." But musically he's trying too hard with no place to go--projects the opener from midway down the esophagus as if Street Hassle leads to Street-Legal, then doesn't even stick with that. Mostly these are intelligent songs that misfire slightly. The two gems are two of the simplest both verbally and vocally. In one Lou's father gives him shit while his mother dies. In the other he proposes. B
Dang it.
>>132100084This was his last good album btw.
>>132105462endless electroslop
Look, dude, it was nice to see Sinatra back after he'd been away for so long, but you not so much (well technically your last album was only two years ago but...)
>>132105513you just discovered what fusion is, congratulations
I had hopes for this album--Linda's always been underrated as a rocker--but it falls way over on the strident side of powerful. The songs could be sharper, although except for "Justine" those from Richard Perry's prefab Cretones are more than adequate, but the real problem is the basic fallacy of L.A. punk--Linda doesn't understand that the idea is to use a sledgehammer deftly. This is how Ethel Merman would do Elvis Costello, only Ethel Merman has a better sense of humor. And though the other covers sound pretty good, only "I Can't Let Go" fits in conceptually, and I'd rather hear them from Little Anthony or Young Neil or Ye Olde Hollies. B
The soundtrack to a going-nowhere flick about an over-the-hill rocker that he scripted, starred in, and of course scored is also his first true album in five years, and while it's literate, tasteful, etc., it's also--self-evidently--the work of a man who thinks he's too big for music (at five-foot-two, gosh). So if individual songs don't stand out the way they have ever since "The Sound of Silence," maybe he doesn't work as hard at them anymore. Like so many aging folkies he's devolved into a vaguely jazzy pop, and except for the lead cut and the one with Ray Charles on it everything serves the excuse for a groove. B-
Reports of George Clinton's demise are premature, but there's reason to worry about his body tone. Although the transcendent silliness of "Agony of Defeet" recalls past glories, the quotes from Bach, Brylcreem, and Mother Goose are dim echoes of the sharp confidence games of yore, and on occasion this sounds kind of like Fuzzy Haskins & Co. Hmm. B-
With Walter Becker down to composer credits and very occasional bass, Donald Fagen progresses toward the intellectual cocktail rock he's sought for almost a decade--followed, of course, by a cadre of top-drawer El Lay studio hacks, the only musicians in the world smart enough to play his shit. Even the song with Aretha in it lends credence to rumors that the LP was originally entitled Countdown to Lethargy. After half a dozen hearings, the most arcane harmonies and unlikely hooks sound comforting, like one of those electromassagers that relax the muscles with a low-voltage shock. Craftsmen this obsessive don't want to rule the world--they just want to make sure it doesn't get them. B-
>>132105789took him all this time to finally realize SD are pseud dreck
From anybody else, the second live album in under four years would have me charging unfair trade practice. From Bette it has me begging for intros--which rarely forthcome on a concert-flick "soundtrack" that plays better on screen than turntable. Streisand's claque is right--she's a sloppy singer, which without the diversionary shtick of Live at Last sometimes matters. On anything she's perfected in the studio, for instance. Or when she expresses herself all over "Stay With Me" or "Fire Down Below," good notions that suggest cabaret may be her musical calling after all. "E Street Shuffle" she can handle--maybe because it has a plot. C+
>>132097885so much wrong infohttps://youtu.be/FP7V3KBoV9I
>>132097483>>132105882>first and last albums posted in the thread are buttrocknuts to you guys
>>132098594accurate. this isn't This Girl's In Love With You by any stretch of the imagination.
>>132105648i hate to think Taylor Swift will rip off this thing some day
>>132097885Their answer to punk I guess.
Dumb unc 404s the thread in one day because he's doesn't know about the image limit
>>132098801>Brian Johnson sings as if he has a cattle prod at his scrotumlol
>>132106362>Dumb unc 404s the thread in one day because he's doesn't know about the image limitYou're right.>>132103840Tard posts H&H when it was already posted and >>132099471 an album from 1975. that was two image slots that could have been used to post additional albums.
198deez
>>132101489Never sounded the same after they returned to touring in '76 but Brent's arrival was where I got off the bus, so to speak
>>132097885that was their last good album
Kurtis Blow [Mercury, 1980]Ramones fans will claim his first-beat sledgehammer is monotonous; I enjoy its simplicity just like I do the Ramones'. Not as much, I admit--"All I Want in the World (Is to Find That Girl)" would be a retarded change of pace even if Kurtis talked it, and he doesn't. But though it bodes ill for both his rhythms and his politics, the bare competence of his Bachman-Turner Overdrive cover has special charm, and his hit metapun is a true breakthrough. B+
>>132097328compared to disco party '79 the vibe this year is a lot drier and more somber because of the shit economy and generally gloomy national mood
19gaytee
I love 1980 so neat
Nineteen eighty is the thread title
1980. 1980.
1
CRACK THAT WHIP
9
8
0
https://youtu.be/e3PZ-Mju5Hk?is=6CSO00RY7bzl7g_k
https://youtu.be/0GKqV-xsHwk?is=9U8bYIXxTOwXMt0O
AND KNOCKIN' ME OUT WITH THOSE AMERICAN THIGHS
>>132100906he mad because ISRSRTM takes a dump on critics
>>132097328wtf is up with this Black Flag band? sounds like punk but somehow worse.
what the fuck is that turd of prince? dirty mind? what? I saw it on the store the other day and i almost puked, that sexual schizo will never be a pop culture icon
>>132108863if Cuckgau likes it you know it's gonna be bad
>>132106044there were a lot of genres in ithttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S2NcS9fgeI
But you see…THE WINNER TAKES IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!THE WINNER TAKES IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
>>132097328OP will you do a thread about 1981 next or some completely different year?
>>132100108AOTYFinally white guys have evolved reggae into something else, holy cow!
>>132100486This album is definitely a step down from the last two. Though, they’re never gonna beat the debut. That’s a perfect album.
>>132097770pretentious babble but an A+ album
they act like disco is more of a 70s thing than an 80s thing, but that's not truedisco is more of an 80s thing than a 70s thing, and it survived until 1989 (The Scene by Marlin Seven) when rap killed it
>His writing is often informed by leftist politics (particularly feminism[6] and secular humanism). Long tradition of subversives as critics across all the artshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Christgau
