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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 18, 2020 11:28:26 GMT
The Saints - Eternally Yours (1978) - 10/10
The .......greatest.......Australian Rock album........ever.........still.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 19, 2020 10:56:30 GMT
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic (1989) - 7.5/10....... "What do you call a person who hangs out with musicians? .........A drummer."
That (mean) joke was never more at the heart of a bands sound than on this album - they had used drum machines before (on the superb Darklands album) but never had they seemed this inorganic. Here they are booming foundations for the Reid brothers to lay guitars over and even "pretending" to have a real "drummer" in their videos from this record and for the tour . They take this almost robotic sound to extreme levels and as a new template for a more direct sound - more like "Sidewalking" (fake drums too) than "Just Like Honey" this time. The difference is they have cut back on the guitars dissonance which made them endearing and more human. It only works for half the songs on the appropriately named Automatic.......but when it does work they are sensational and ominous sounding like on this this one which mixes this sound with their newly discovered lyrical obsession .......heroin: "if you're talking for real, then go cut a deal, you're facing up to living out the way that you feel" ...Yikes.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 20, 2020 10:44:36 GMT
The Beatles - Beatles For Sale (1964) - ~ 8/10
The best way to "not get" The Beatles is to just elevate them to geniuses - that part is arguable but a limiting mistake too. It helps to "just" see them as a band in the context of their era/peers/rivals - The Who, Rolling Stones, Kinks. That not only humanizes them it makes their work - much of it extraordinary anyway (especially 65-67) - far easier to comprehend ........before re-evaluation, revisionism and rethought or now that "phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust" as The Clash so memorably/cynically put it 40 years ago.
This album is often called their worst but that's a relative thing and not only do I find much to love here and to defend........I think some of my favorite artists did too - The Replacements live album is called "For Sale" too after all.......and the Alex Chilton of Godlike Radio City lifts a whole lot of his sour love song/bittersweet template from this record.
Look at that f'n cover - everybody's in black or grey, no one's smiling or looking cute, they're the biggest thing in the world and they ALL look dead serious or like they're about to cry ...... they''re writing there own revisionism themselves in real time thankyouverymuch.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 21, 2020 11:43:09 GMT
The Connection - New England's Newest Hitmakers (2011) ~7.5+/10
One of the very few traditional Rock bands in the early 2010s era of any note at all - that's why this band is so beloved (they broke up a few years ago) by garage Rock fans today even though they never really made a great album......they left a lot of fun songs in the right style .........and were tremendous live.
If they evoked anyone in their sound it was maybe a 2010s (lesser) version of Rockpile - where they could also imitate anyone in cover versions and yet do their own songs in a way that made you think it was a cover.....this record, their cleverly titled introduction - a mini-album (8 tracks) - is the best thing they ever did - short, catchy and unlike some later records left you wanting more.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 22, 2020 11:04:29 GMT
Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death (2020) - 8+/10Easily and firmly in my top 5 for 2020 unless some great stuff comes out in the next month ........ Fontaines D.C. are the only successful band this year with much heaviness on their minds at all - loss of identity, loss of connection and time ......the world shifting beneath your feet and ......Death. A lot of people who loved their debut - which is nearly at a Strokes/Libertines level at its very best - really hate this 2nd record because it's a bummer.........it's a beautiful one though....and a logical and coherent one. No rock band besides them could pull this song off right now for example and you may call it pretension, but I'd call it ambition and one of the only Rock records this year without an expiration date on it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 23, 2020 10:48:30 GMT
The Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols - (1977) ........... Well......at least a 9 .......There are (almost) no more important albums in Rock than this one and done/one of a kind record.........and there is no greater vocal performance by anyone than what John Lydon does on this album - his performance is one of the best "acted" vocal performances ever - and he saw himself as an actor too (Olivier in Richard III is an influence on him). He means it, maaaaaaaaaaaan. The slight problem is that the singles overwhelm the album......... the historic and best songs - those 4 singles ......are some of the best singles ever cut (in 2 cases especially (Anarchy in The UK/God Save The Queen)) and those were already out.....on the other hand EMI is nearly their equal. When there's no future, how can there be sin?
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 24, 2020 11:06:22 GMT
Joan Jett (1980) - Bad Reputation - ~ 7.0 (or less)/10 Maybe the most questionably "talented" female in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - which is quite an achievement in itself if you think about it....Joan Jett has gotten a big movie made about her first (and mostly awful) band - The Runaways, produced records better than her own (The Germs), written songs with Westerberg no less and got famous off a COVER song. That is because she's at times, impossible to resist - she's America's own blissed out lucky af version of Billy Idol. Her black Chuck Taylor's and good taste by itself influenced every rocker girl with a guitar. The downside to this album is you remember it being far better than it actually is......everything good is on side 1 - the rating IS for side 1. But as she so memorably sneered it .........why should she care about a bad reputation....... anyway.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 25, 2020 10:15:23 GMT
The Jam - Sound Affects (1980) - 10/10I haven't given a "10" to a Rock album in years.....but in 1980 I'd give that rating to at least 3 records just off the top of my head....damn. The Jam's best record - edging 1978's merely great All Mod Cons - in an unfnckwithable discography. This track is one of 2 stupendous UK Punk songs that equated the "Supermarket" with Hell on Earth (The Clash's Lost In The Supermarket being the other) - what's going on in British food stores? An incredible and varied record that could have come out in '66, '76, '86..... heck Blur and Oasis both tried to make it somewhere in 1994. 95, and 96 too ....... The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys (and more) tried even later .....this album is some timeless stuff and not only is there not anything close to a bad song on it......there's not even a single note out of place
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 27, 2020 10:02:20 GMT
Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks (1975) - 9+/10Not only is it not the "best ever" Dylan album (Highway 61 Revisited) - OR the best album made for 1975 (Big Star Third) OR released IN 1975 (Neil Young's Tonight's The Night) - it's not even the "best Bob Dylan" album released in 1975 (The Basement Tapes - especially just the Dylan parts of it at least). Now having said all that it's absolutely amazing/heart-wrenching/nearly perfect except for the wtf-ish wayyyyyyyyyyy too long story song/ turd in the middle of the punchbowl momentum killer "Lily, Rosemary and The Jack Of Hearts" which is his version of Too Far Down/Hardly Getting Over It on Candy Apple Grey (Um....)..... Also it might not even actually be the last great album he made which is .............well you get the idea......
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 28, 2020 11:09:09 GMT
The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978) - ~8.5/10
How great did people (or critics at least) think The Clash were in '77-'79 - well, this album - by any standard, one of 1978's very best records (top 10?) was considered a disappointment because it wasn't really considered by anybody as "the" best. The next year - after London Calling - it would somehow be considered worse because it wasn't London Calling.
Still, not a bad song on it (though Stay Free is clunky despite its charms), some of it has tremendous power and some sense of humor too (Julie's Been Working For The Drug Squad, Cheapskates) which is often cited as missing in their work (It's there, but you have to look).
........and it started like gangbusters too:
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 29, 2020 11:09:11 GMT
Geoff Palmer - Pulling Out All The Stops (2019) - ~7.5/10When this guy names his album THAT you think - this is it, this is finally his masterpiece ......until you realize that he's Geoff Palmer - aka Geoff Useless - and he can't edit himself much and it includes too much filler. But you don't listen to him for consistency .....and the coolest songs are about him now actually being older and messing up. Songs like "Velcro Shoes" - a hilarious tribute to aging, getting fat and getting lost EVERYWHERE he goes.... This record starts out fantastic doesn't exactly end that way and then illogically adds 2 bonus tracks (Punker Than Me, That's What You Do) that are better than how it just ended (wtf Geoff) - that's very typical of him, and maybe not a bad place to start getting to know his maddening catalog.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 6, 2020 10:08:13 GMT
Arctic Monkeys - Live At The Royal Albert Hall (2020).........7/10
Very generous (and looooooooooong), career overview ........unless you're not totally into this band, which I never was except for albums 1 & 2 which were contenders for 2006/2007's very best ........and less so the also fine album 5.
Energetic versions ..........but albums 3,4,6 were always iffy and they're iffy here too even with the high points cherry-picked and with nods to their dilettante forebears (the Bowie-isms of "Four Out Of Five" etc.) .....still there's some absolutely ripping high points and the expected wit but it's just too long (almost an hour and a half!) for me ..........and where are the covers or something to make the band seem more down to Earth and less like a pummeling audience pleasing machine?
Ah well, that's maybe the next live album, cheeky bastards....
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 10, 2020 12:00:55 GMT
The White Stripes - Greatest Hits (2020) 8+/10Like many bands labeled "great" - and they truly were at their best.....they only had 2 real special albums - Elephant and the even better White Blood Cells. This record pulls from the 4 other albums too so it has some headscracthers - formula borefests like Blue Orchid and My Doorbell instead of Effect & Cause and Black Math (?) - wtf. Still, this is a 26 track victory lap and perfect for people who just want mostly high points of which there were many. They were also stupendous in Rock's last notable run (ever?) where it could be fun, loud, smart, and crucially sexy. They ended in 2007 and things haven't been exactly fantastic in Rock and Roll afterwards have they?
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 13, 2020 0:04:17 GMT
Various Artists - Strum & Thrum : The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987 (2020).......8.5/10
Pretty remarkable collection from a few bands I never heard of either who basically sound like they heard Chronic Town and went insane with inspiration, style and ideas.
This whole album is on Youtube and is a must listen to a secret history of 80s Rock......only a couple of weak or fey moments - this is a real eye opener album. Highly recommended......one of the years best reissues and I'm updating my Best of 2020 post and slotting this at number 3.....after the Mats and Costello .....
The Windbreakers - All That Stuff:
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 13, 2020 22:50:46 GMT
Various Artists - Girls Go Power Pop! (2020) ..........7/10
Should be totally awesome - I really like girls........I really like Power Pop......... but alas this compilation didn't get the best tracks by the stellar lineup here (Juliana Hatfield, Holly & The Italians, The Primitives, The Pretenders and many others).
Kicking off with a great 1-2 punch: slutty no talents The Runaways with their one classic (Cherry Bomb) and underrated singles band/goody-two shoes The Go-Gos with one of their few classics (We Got The Beat) it then gets shaky and dips a little later on.
But some great gems pop up throughout - and my beloved Kim Shattuck appears twice here with The Muffs and The Pandoras.
The Pandoras - That's Your Way Out (1986)
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Post by Joaquim on Dec 14, 2020 4:51:06 GMT
I dug this a lot, I’ll give it an 8/10. Also checked out their follow up album, not as great but still good stuff
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 16, 2020 13:58:24 GMT
Sunnyboys - self titled (1981) 7.5/10
Extremely catchy Australian Power-Pop sort of like a lighter Plimsouls or maybe a less charged-up/obvious The Knack ........this debut is the best thing they ever released and a sort of minor classic of the genre in the sense that you don't skip anything but not all of it (or any of it?) turns your head.
Still, pretty charming .....
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 17, 2020 12:40:01 GMT
The Pixies - Doolittle (1989) - 10/10
The original Pixies made just 5 records - first 2 are pretty magnificent.........last 2 are hit or miss (and overrated) to me where their formula starts to pay off less.........but this one, in the middle is one of the very best of its year....... and of the whole decade, a legit classic.
The 2nd side lags compared to the absolutely unfnckwithable side 1 which is a non-stop barrage of noise, humor, pace, and inventive ideas......but the 2nd side also never drops the ball either and gets weirder in such a way that you never have any idea how the next song is going to sound at all.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 18, 2020 10:45:51 GMT
The Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane (1988) - ~8.5/10Maybe my favorite Rock album in a (mostly) shitty year where I can't even really find any albums that I love all the way through.......though plenty of people do - Daydream Nation, Bug, Surfer Rosa and even Green all have spectacular high points in '88 to name a few - in a way you wish that this tighter album did. But that very scary consistency is what always stopped the mighty Go-Betweens in general - and this album specifically - from being all-time classics. Ten love songs all done as Pop - with incredibly good taste and songwriting and pristine production that starts to sound like the band could do this in their sleep and makes you wish they were far messier and fncked it up a little more so that you didn't think they were just a really really good version of Hall & Oates (um) .....and it should have sold a ton, and of course didn't ........not in the US at least..... Oh.......and that's a shitty album cover too guys:
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 19, 2020 10:43:57 GMT
Sonic Youth - Goo (1990) 8.5/10
Tone deaf hipsters who had been around for nearly a decade before getting better than good - here to me peaked although the previous album (Daydream Nation) hit the higher points, this one puts it in concise songs and a more palatable total form.
The Thurston Moore songs are now coherent, tight and exciting and the Kim Gordon songs are more divergent and quirky and odd - and Pop culture fascinated.
One of 1990s very best records and the only one of the big records that year that was forward thinking and not a reconfirmation of past glories too.....they never got closer to selling out than this record which was in their case a very good thing.
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Post by themoviesinner on Dec 19, 2020 17:29:44 GMT
Since pacinoyes is the only guy that keeps this thread going, I've decided to contribute as well, as frequently as I can. I usually listen to an album or two each day, but most of the stuff I listen to isn't very appealing to most on here, so that is the main reason I haven't posted here before. Rotting Christ - Genesis (2002) -- 8.5/10Rotting Christ is a very unique band. They have a very distinct sound that no other band has tried to replicate, even though they have generally influnced the black metal scene in a huge way, but also every single album of their's somehow manages to feel and sound quite different from the others. Genesis was released in the middle of their more Gothic period, and is among their most dense and layered. It feels like a mixture of conflicting aspects playing all at once. It is both stripped down and bombastic, both aggressive and elegant, both primeval and contemporary. It is singular in it's combination of operatic sounds, religious chanting, industrial and tribal rythyms that are constantly mixed together in the background under the crushing, but melodic guitarwork. This album is generally considered as their weakest and with good reason, as it is probably their most difficult to get into and the whole experience can get somewhat disorientating, especially on first listen. But it's a very unique and overwhelming musical experience, another great addition to the band's spotless discography.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 20, 2020 10:46:46 GMT
Patti Smith - Horses (1975)- 8.5/10
There was never anyone - certainly not a female - like Patti Smith prior to her. She was straight (ostensibly) but everything about her suggested maybe not - not in her look, or in her subject matter or presentation. Her closest Rock precursors were maybe Jim Morrison, Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Lou Reed.....she appropriated something from each but arguably more from poetry.
On some level I should rate this higher since it's THAT important ..........on the other hand there are 2 loooooooooong songs on here that I never play so there's that - and that's 18+ minutes. But everything else is aces - terrific Rock and Roll first and foremost........and on "Redondo Beach" she shows you the value of words - a death mystery (metaphorically?) set in sunny LA that is completely the opposite of the happy, bouncy music.
If you play the song without reading the lyrics you'd never know it.......or really hear it........or get it.
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Post by themoviesinner on Dec 20, 2020 18:16:44 GMT
Paradise Lost - One Second (1997) -- 8/10
This album signaled a massive change, musically, for Paradise Lost, as it's mostly an Alternative Rock album with a lot of Depeche Mode like electronic influences, far removed from the Doom/Gothic metal the band previously played. But, the spirit of the band remains there, as it is an album that is still dark, melancholic and gloomy, even though the guitars are much lighter. The synths are generally pretty great and provide a moody atmosphere and the simple but effective guitarwork gives each track the required energy. Not everything is perfect though, as there are a few tracks, especially in the back end of the album, that don't work as well as the others, but, overall, it's a very strong release and one of the better Alternative Rock albums of the decade. It is definitely Paradise Lost's best Rock album.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 21, 2020 9:49:06 GMT
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago - (2007) - ~4 or less/10Played this - a certified "classic" dontchaknow and my gf's vinyl copy - and I may as well have stabbed myself in the eyes with a dull spoon tbh. Always hated it ........still do........I often make fun of Rock music that's labeled "beautiful" ......well For Emma isn't Rock music but its themes appeal to Rock fans at their most sensitive and self-involved and "artistic".....and not necessarily to pacinoyes whole likes you know, corny shit like you know, drums. Hard pass.......
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Post by themoviesinner on Dec 21, 2020 16:57:07 GMT
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago - (2007) - ~4 or less/10Played this - a certified "classic" dontchaknow and my gf's vinyl copy - and I may as well have stabbed myself in the eyes with a dull spoon tbh. Always hated it ........still do........I often make fun of Rock music that's labeled "beautiful" ......well For Emma isn't Rock music but its themes appeal to Rock fans at their most sensitive and self-involved and "artistic".....and not necessarily to pacinoyes whole likes you know, corny shit like you know, drums. Hard pass....... Yeah, I just don't understand how this album is considered a "classic" (or even good for that matter). It's a completely vapid, lifeless experience. There are acoustic rock/metal albums out there that are way better than this, but are shrouded in obscurity. This is just dull, uninspired music and there is nothing "beautiful" about it.
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