Zapp & Roger, All the Greatest Hits

Mmm, no: don't call it a compilation because it's not. Instead, Warner, wisely realizing the weakness of the source material (with the exception of Zapp II, here represented by just two tracks, "Dance Floor" and "Doo Wa Ditty"), grabbed some of Roger Troutman's solo work as wood filler to shore it up — no coincidence he was billed as producer. That's fine so far as it goes (especially "I Want To Be Your Man" and "So Ruff So Tuff"), plus the best parts of début Zapp are here and the inclusion of "Computer Love" means you're spared listening to the rest of The New Zapp IV U, but the three "'93" remixes are unwelcome and the final track is nothing more than a showboat rehash of the previous ones. You might be better off treating this as the do-over album they never got to do, and in that sense it's better than what they started with, but its flaws aren't easy to ignore. (Content: mild adult themes.)

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DJ Khaled, God Did

Can you really call this gospel rap when the man at the helm's a devout Muslim? Well, why not? And he makes good use of his vocal talent squad: having Kanye sing the Lord's praises in "Use This Gospel" might not have been all that inventive given his recent output, but having Eminem rapping over it certainly was. Some of the, uh, "secular" tracks work fairly well too, especially the R&B-smooth "Beautiful," even if Drake's "Staying Alive" feels more like auto-tuned Rick James than the Bee Gees. But the title track is more about the glory of Jay-Z and Lil Wayne than God's (ditto for Quavo and Roddy Ricch later on), I didn't know tats and b*tches got you closer to heaven, and an unoriginal mix with 58 minutes of copypasted beats definitely doesn't. So I guess that's why not. (Content: F-, S- and N-bombs, adult themes, violent imagery.)

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Art of Noise, Below the Waste

From the inexplicable gatefold doubling as a speaker advertisement to the bizarre tracklist, this album just confuses me at every turn. AoN could be weird, and could be good at being weird, as long as they gave the long ones a beat and cut the rest when they'd overstayed their welcome. This explains the shorter tracks on Who's Afraid, for example, because they're only just enough to be interesting. But here they drag on ("Yebo!", "Back To Back"), trip over their own cleverness ("Dan Dare") and make you wonder what they're even doing on the disc ("Finale"). Their better tracks recall their earlier days: "James Bond Theme," no "Peter Gunn," is basically Monte Norman mugged by "Close (To The Edit)" but still has its spartan charms, and "Catwalk" takes a while to get going but gets there. Still, even the otherwise beguiling "Island" and "Robinson Crusoe" are practically remixes of each other, and with the partial exception of "Spit" guest vocalists Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens don't add enough to their three tracks to make much difference. More proof that scum always floats to the top. (Content: no concerns.)

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Tower of Power, East Bay Grease

Out of print for many years, Tower of Power's début finally got a reissue on Rhino. And it's certainly an unusual gem: six long-form tracks, a different vocalist (Rufus Miller on most, his only recorded appearance), and some very high quality funk riffs with superb brass leads. For all those reasons I think I love every single one of the tracks ... about halfway, that is, because by then there's nothing new to hear, no scatting the lyrics can do to punch it up, no jam they can hit to get your attention back. If they'd cut the songs down and turned this into an EP, I think it might have stood the test of time; instead, we have an earnest but indulgent LP that'll test you instead. There's a lot of raw talent, but raw is the chief impression, and even fans will probably hit the skip button regularly. (Content: no concerns.)

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Portugal. The Man, Woodstock

What happened to this band? How much did they get to sell out? In the Mountain in the Cloud was a singular vision, a couple solid singles, more sophisticated than the other hipster pop around that time, but it went to hell in Evil Friends (literally?) and this one isn't any better. The major problem is the revolving door of producers, yielding a kitchen junk drawer of tracks cynically intended to be chopped up as singles. The best are the two Asa Taccone came in on ("Feel It Still," the album's best track, and secondarily "Keep On"), which both play to the band's strengths with a sparer, simpler mix plus just enough sweetening and just enough bounce; of a similar, if more gauche, ilk Stint-cow-orked "Tidal Wave" gets an honourable mention, maybe "Easy Tiger" too. Then it goes downhill quick: Danger Mouse didn't learn anything from their last album and keeps trying to make his tracks into the next Gnarls Barkley ("Number One" is a bad way to start, but Fat Lip on vocals for "Mr. Lonely"? Say what?), and the other John Hill ones are the worst, overweight pop bilge tarted up in the studio like an aging drunken teenybopper trying to balance on stilettos. I mean, "Live in the Moment" isn't irredeemable, but "Rich Friends" isn't as clever as it thinks it is, and the rest seem like they came from some other band entirely. I guess we should be glad the cover's not a dumpster on fire. (Content: S-bombs in "Mr. Lonely" [and F-bombs] and "Noise Pollution.")

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Eric Johnson, Ah Via Musicom

A slight effort from a man whose skill should imply a better result. When he rocks he really does: not just "Cliffs of Dover," an incomparable virtuoso artifact worth all the airplay it's ever got, but also its junior reprise "Righteous" (apropos) and the undulating sparkle of "Trademark." Unfortunately the slower instrumentals have a little trouble taking off ("East Wes"), "Steve's Boogie" is way too short, and his ill-advised four vocal tracks are inoffensive at best. It's not a total writeoff, but I just wish the lows on this album weren't as low as the highs were high. (Content: no concerns.)

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Jethro Tull, Stand Up

Stand up and pull their finger out is more like it. There are fun moments (the sludgy blues of "A New Day Yesterday," the Bach redo in "Bourrée") and deep moments ("Reasons for Waiting") and at least one heavy rocker ("We Used To Know," chiefly), but the Celtic affectations get old fast; much of the album are songs in perpetual neutral (the chronic rhythmic tease of "Back to the Family" comes to mind) while we wait for them to cut the crap and get to it. Even the snark in "Fat Man" can't save it from the noodles and molasses, and the album's generally tinny mix doesn't help. "It's not easy singing sad songs," warbles Ian Anderson, but he forgets it's not necessarily a good time listening to them either. The 2001 single-disc remaster improves this by including their two 1969 singles, the excellent "Living In The Past" and the superbly menacing "Sweet Dream" on the A-side, and while B-side "Driving Song" is perfunctory the other B-side "17" transcends its flat recording with actual rock and an actual beat. See, they can do it when they want to, so why didn't they on the album? The three-disc 2010 and 2016 releases largely just add extended live sets and are best left to the obsessed. (Content: no concerns.)

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Roger Waters, Radio KAOS

In his continued multi-album rant against Thatcherism, he decided to transplant the next concept album to Southern California mostly to get some digs in on Reagan. If that were the extent of his efforts, that would have been fine and even expected from the man who rendered us The Final Cut. But his libretti still need work, because why would his chosen vessel for "all those who find themselves at the violent end of monetarism" be a twentysomething disabled Welshman tinkering with cordless phones and speaking like Stephen Hawking on the radio? The music isn't terrible even if the production's a trifle overwrought, "Radio Waves" is a fun little opener which Waters' hoarse vocals kind of make charming, and while "Sunset Strip" is a tad too transparent as an L. A. radio pastiche, for being hip enough to sample-check KMET it's not that far off the mark. Likewise, "The Tide Is Turning" (allegedly demanded by Columbia because "Four Minutes"' nuclear climax was too bleak) has that great combination of maudlin and meaning to be an instant pop anthem. Too bad about the rest of it, then, because the effort demanded from the listener is just too great. How does the everyman identify with a figure like this? You don't understand where he's coming from, why he does what he does and why this means everything's got to change. More critically, the album doesn't just need you to put the story together: you have to actually care about the protagonist too, and really nothing about this record causes me to do that. (Content: no concerns.)

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Mike + the Mechanics, Living Years

I couldn't bear to listen to this album anymore when my father was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, but when COVID-19 finally killed him in whatever wave this benighted country is on now I decided it was time to dust it off again. To be sure, my relationship with my dad was evidently better than Mike Rutherford's in the title track, though I'd have liked a few more living years to tell him I loved him too. Still, other than that and the single "Nobody's Perfect," this record still comes off on balance to me as too slickly hollow. Much like the singer's smashed avo worldview in "Seeing is Believing" or the airbrushed Horatio Alger type of "Poor Boy Down" or even the unsubtle anti-war anthems of "Blame" and "Why Me?", it's all so machined and polished down that everything gets melted together and the whole thing feels unreal (the simplistic lyrics and 1980s-heavy synthorock don't help). The first two tracks brought tears to my eyes and "Beautiful Day" is largely a solid cut from the album's remaining morass, but overall writing this review turned out to be more therapeutic than the record itself. I just wish I could hug you one more time, Dad. I really do. (Content: no concerns.)

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Lil Nas X, Montero

Mostly a gritty Auto-Tune mess exploiting the same tired riff; there's no genre-busting this time. Dollar signs and fronting was so last decade, and this man is no gangsta. And just because he's not heteronormative doesn't mean he's not a chauvinist (notably ugly moments: the title track, "Scoop," "Dolla Sign Slime"). But when he slows down and stops the preening, he can be contemplative, even complex: "Lost in the Citadel," "Tales of Dominica" in particular, and I dug the sweetly yodelly falsetto of "Void" but also his candid self-reflections in "Sun Goes Down." Clearly he has talent. Why doesn't he use it? (Content: F-, S- and N-bombs, adult themes.)

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Anthrax, Persistence of Time

I'm not sure if the title is an accidental observation on the album's length, but too much of it ends up being an unstable long-form slog that doesn't quite capture the energy of their earlier releases. The shiftier time signatures make it harder to get into instead of drawing you in, and the barer production doesn't showcase their strengths. There are solid cuts: "In My World" has a punchy punk lead-in and great galloping drums, "Intro To Reality" is superb prog metal with almost Queen-like guitars (leading into the paranoia-fueled "Belly Of The Beast" and its grimly literate grind) and closer "Discharge" finally pulls its finger out around two-minutes-thirty. Plus, of course, there's their wonderful headbanger cover of Joe Jackson's "Not The Time," a raucous improvement on the original and probably the high point of the disc. That said, though, most of the tracks just don't reward you enough for sitting through them, and the tracks that are good are mostly too short (or maybe that's why). This album doesn't know what it wants to be and sadly its identity crisis isn't interesting enough to make it worth it. (Content: violent imagery, F-bombs on "Discharge.")

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The Killers, Pressure Machine

The barbed wire on the cover makes it plain: there's no fun to be had here. Frankly, quarantine pop as a whole has turned out to be a real collective downer at exactly the time we don't need to be any more depressed, and this album, like a vinyl Eeyore, just wallows in it. We're a long way from Hot Fuss when the headliner track is a gay teen circling suicide ("Terrible Thing"), or songs of the family black sheep ("Cody"), or domestic violence and adultery ("Desperate Things"). It's not all grim ("Sleepwalker" is reflective without being overwrought) and it's not all molasses (the crazed Cure vibe of "In the Car Outside" has a beguilingly unbalanced appeal), but it feels to me like Brandon Flowers wanted to rip the scabs off his hometown and record the bleeding and the bruises, right down to the spoken word interludes, and turned in the disc as such. As catharsis or social commentary, it's understandable. Heck, I've spent some time in the purgatories of eastern Utah myself, so I get it. But this album is too parochial, too ponderous, and dare I say it, too preachy. Records like this are where keeping it real goes wrong. (Content: F- and S-bombs in "In the Car Outside.")

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Badfinger, Timeless ... The Musical Legacy

This band suffered, at times unjustly, and they suffered bad. Their compilation producers aren't doing them any favours either. The obvious and deserving hits made it ("Day After Day," "Come and Get It" and "No Matter What") plus at least one worthy B-side ("I'll Be The One"), and the group's (well, more) Beatlesque days as the Iveys are at least somewhat represented by "Dear Angie" and the beguiling "Maybe Tomorrow." Unfortunately their irritating original version of "Without You" shoots itself in the head early (any of the covers are superior), "Baby Blue" was a dopey choice for a single (the George Harrison-produced tracks from that album like "Name of the Game" and of course "Day After Day" are better) and "Believe Me" is as good as it is only because it's actually interpolating "Oh! Darling." Still, this collection gets the nod over 2000's The Very Best of Badfinger for completeness, especially the inclusion of Ass, though there was probably good reason in earlier attempts to leave off the aimless "Apple of My Eye" and the dreary, overstuffed seven-and-a-half-minute excess of "Timeless." Two of their Elektra tracks also made it, paragons neither one, but they're here ("Dennis" from Wish You Were Here takes a little while to get where it's going, while Airwaves' "Love Is Gonna Come At Last" never does). The most accurate compilations capture a group's aesthetic clearly, and while listening to this one it's hard to shake that as unfair as life was to the members of this band, they weren't entirely blameless for it either. (Content: no concerns.)

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Zapp

The world did not need a third P-Funk clone after the artificial bifurcation of Parliament and Funkadelic, nor did said clone need to be produced by Bootsy. The music's good enough in a basic sense, I suppose, but notable mostly in its quantity than their quality ("Coming Home" in particular could have been twice as good if it were half as long) and its repetitiousness drags the 40 minute runtime out into six sometimes interminable tracks. I like a 12" as much as the next guy, but give me something new to listen to. Still, "Funky Balance" on, er, balance manages to exceed its unnecessary length with a legitimate if repetitive groove, "Be Alright" is a solid R&B outing, and of course the classic "More Bounce to the Ounce" — almost stylistically out of place with its enthusiastic new wave funk — starts the album off strong. The chief issue is that it goes downhill from there; no amount of juice can save it from its own self-cannibalization. (Content: mild adult themes.)

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Patrick & Eugene, Postcard from Summerisle

It's got a big helping of British whimsy but that gimmick dies quick. Lead-in "The Birds and the Bees" is a genuinely zippy earworm that deserves all the airplay and ad spots it's wound up in (like the one with VWs multiplying like, er, Rabbits), and "A Dog's Tale" is a cute little number from the view of man's best friend — even if it rips off the same basic hook. On the other hand, most of the rest of the album is afflicted by overwrought style pastiches that are skillful but don't really gel ("Circus Train" and "Tribal" in particular but also the ponderous Flanders-and-Swann wannabe "Old Times"), and they have rather suspect choices in covers: the retread of Kylie Minogue (!)'s "Can't Get You Out of My Head" bops along credibly enough but their version of the "59th Street Bridge Song" is pedestrian and their Beyoncé (!!) cover of "Crazy in Love" is obnoxious. Despite the obvious instrumental and engineering talent here it didn't really seem to translate into anything very engaging. CD issues include a single "pop mix" of "The Birds and the Bees" plus another interminable instrumental "Garden of Love," though there are a few impressively atmospheric moments of note. (Content: mild adult themes in "Crazy in Love.")

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Sparks, Halfnelson

They later billed themselves as Englishmen; they were not. They billed themselves as Halfnelson; that didn't stick (in fairness Albert Grossman was largely to blame). They billed themselves as good; their début wasn't. All the pieces were there: Russ Mael sang like a 12-year-old with tight pants, Ron Mael had his stache, the lyrics were wacky and the wit was undeveloped but present. Unfortunately, the melody lines are all over the place, self-savaging otherwise better tracks ("Wonder Girl," "Simple Ballet") and dooming others ("Biology 2"), and producer Todd Rundgren left too much to the band who resorted to stripped-down mixes and studio jams because of their inexperience. The rock sort of works ("High C," "(No More) Mr Nice Guys") but doesn't really play to their strengths, and the more competent slow jams like "Fletcher Honorama" are listenable but hardly stand out. But glimpses of the future show up now and then: "Saccharin and the War's" war sacrifice motif for weight loss is only let down by the flat recording and "Slowboat" might have fallen off a better album yet to come. That album wasn't the next one A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing, either, which reissuer Edsel put together in a two disc set. The production under Thaddeus Lowe is richer, but the same problems persist, and it wasn't until they jettisoned the Mankeys and went to Island Records that they really took off. The most curious inclusion is a earlier mix of "I Like Girls," practically a demo tape, and nowhere near as fun as the fully realised version from Big Beat. About the best I can say is they got better. (Content: mild adult themes.)

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Rush, 2112

Given that half this album is consumed by an overwrought, hackneyed high-concept space fantasy of a hapless figure struggling (having rediscovered the guitar, no less) against priestly institutionalized oppressors, what's left? Other than "A Passage To Bangkok," an amusing if hazily transparent marijuana-fueled odyssey, and the licks if not the lyrics of libertarian fetish "Something For Nothing," not a lot. The actual music is well produced and I am the last person on earth who will begrudge a prog band an artistic excess or two in their suites. But even Geddy Lee's generally on-pitch banshee impersonation goes flat at times, particularly in "Tears," and then there's the lyrics and "2112"'s story. Didn't space rock die in 1969? (Content: sly drug references in "A Passage To Bangkok.")

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The Best of Walter Murphy

If Mason Williams was too staid for you, then I guess there's this. Like most 1970s novelty acts — see also Meco — he's strongest doing disco retreads of the music you know ("A Fifth of Beethoven," "Flight '76" with Rimsky-Korsakov, and especially his gloriously gauche arrangement of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," which could rehabilitate United Airlines' soiled reputation all by itself if they ever put it in an ad). His original material, however, never quite matches up: none of it is incompetent (and "California Strut" is even fun), but none of it is special or genre-busting, and the vocals at times ("Keep Dancing" as the worst example) get incongruous. The problem is that's most of this disc. The moral of the story is always give the customer what they want, especially if you're United Airlines. (Content: no concerns.)

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Enigma, The Platinum Collection

This really isn't well thought-out: it's an instant Enigma collection for the mythical someone who really likes Enigma enough to listen to three discs of it, but doesn't already own any of their albums. Now, it's not all bad, because you get all the big hits on the first disc like "Sadeness (Part 1)," "Return to Innocence" and "Gravity of Love," though you also get a fair bit of the droney crap as well. But then again it's mostly bad, because the second disc of remixes all suck, every one. What rescues this overstuffed wannabe boxset is surprisingly the third disc, the cast-off and largely untitled "Lost Ones." While the liner notes downplay them as the equivalent of musical sketches, and some do truly seem to lack sufficient exposition, they're all well-produced and eminently listenable even if they run a little short. So let's look at the set this way: if you can find it cheaply you're getting a great bunch of unreleased ambient tracks, with some reminiscent of their hits, plus you get those hits besides and you can sharpen your garbage disposal's blades on the disc left over. There's some value there, right? (Content: no concerns.)

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The Beach Boys Love You

The chief problem with this album is the immature lyrics from a band (and a writer) then in their mid-30s; see also Adult/Child. The songs bop along ("Mona," "Honkin' Down the Highway," "Airplane") as if Brian Wilson hadn't a care since 1960, the synthesizers kind of work with the whole childlike feel (especially the purring growls in "I'll Bet He's Nice"), and some of the more whimsical pieces ("Johnny Carson," "Solar System") even evince a rudimentary sort of wit. But the intermittent fixation on young lust ruins the whole thing: when they talk about what they're gonna do "when her momma ain't around" ("Roller Skating Child"), even their attempts at something more mature ("The Night Was So Young") just feel gross, and even worse when the singing's bad ("Let's Put Our Hearts Together," "Love Is A Woman"). Even considering love as an abstract concept, with that context you wonder if the whole thing in "I Wanna Pick You Up" — apparently sung to a young kid — isn't actually one big pedophilic double entendre. This album is inappropriately entertaining in the way a lecherous old man shouldn't be, and musically it's definitely better than anything else they put out around this time, but that wouldn't be a very high bar. (Content: mild adult themes.)

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