Jerk Music Critic: Al Stewart, Modern Times

For my money this remains his finest work: Alan Parsons' production is tight in the right places and sumptuous when it matters, and Stewart didn't lay it on too thick with the lyrics or his usual obscure historical fetishes. (They're still obscure, mind you, but this time around at least he doesn't wallow in it.) While "Next Time" is a bit wan and is easily the album's one weak track, "Not The One" is a moving story of relationships with a strangely satisfying twist, "Apple Cider Re-Constitution" has a peppy beat against a benignly apocalyptic setting and the title track is a deft, musically complex comparison of nostalgia's simultaneous pleasure and pain. There's also the character study "Carol" with useful neologisms such as "a cocaine holiday," and besides being great to sing along with "Sirens of Titan" rewards you with just enough literary indulgence to feel sophisticated without feeling stuck-up, which is always a solid balance to strike. The 2000 and 2007 reissues add various B-sides and retreads; they're neither as compelling or memorable as the main album, though the pleasant Beatle-esque charm of "Elvaston Place" does stand out. (Content: mild adult themes in "Carol" and "Modern Times.")

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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

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

🌟🌟🌟🌟
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.

🌟🌟🌟
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.