Jerk Music Critic: Earth Wind & Fire, All 'N All

Slap a UFO on that publicity photograph and you've got Mothership Connection -- and heck, when I saw those pyramids I thought immediately of Parliament's hilariously overwrought "Prelude" from Dr Funkenstein -- but Maurice White continues to provide R&B of uncompromising quality even while studiously adopting Geo. Clinton's syncretic showmanship. This is funky without being stupid ("Serpentine Fire," "Magic Mind"). This is thoughtful without being superficial ("Be Ever Wonderful"). This is sensual without being phony ("Love's Holiday," "I'll Write A Song For You"). Every hook and groove is skillful and fast, the horns dance, the bass gets down and bouncy. The downside is the instrumentals; the little interludes are well-crafted, but they drag me out of the exultant place the vocals take me and disturb the album's flow like rocks in a great honey river, and "Runnin'"'s otherwise competent performance succumbs in spots to overly gratuitous experimentalism. These are, however, only small quibbles against the greatness of a true soul music landmark fusing R&B and samba into something greater than the sum of its parts, just as the album name might imply. The reissue adds three tracks, including a beguiling demo version of "Love's Holiday" that's actually good for something, but the original mix of "Runnin'" adds little and it's rare that I find a live version I like better than the album (and that goes double for "Brazilian Rhyme"). (Content: mild sensuality.)

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Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

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An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

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A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

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Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

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Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

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Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

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How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.