Crowded House, Intriguer

What impresses me most about this album is how, like a boat deftly piloted between hostile cliffs and crags, it brings you some dramatic scenery without smashing on the rocks. There's enough alternative edge without veering into grunge ("Inside Out"), enough texture without getting caught up in snobbery ("Saturday Sun") or moroseness ("Archer's Arrows," "Either Side of the World"), and sunny beats without drowning in sugar ("Twice If You're Lucky"). Heck, there's even a touch of country without being clichéd ("Elephants"). The slashed wallpaper cover unnerves me and the lyrics sometimes seem better on paper, but Neil Finn's earnest vocals never back down, and the guitar, melodies and luxurious backing deliver especially with Yank import drummer Matt Sherrod coming into his own after Time on Earth. Easily their best work since their first life in the late '80s. The deluxe version DVD includes the music video for "Saturday Sun," some live concert film from Auckland and an extended studio recording session, but unless you've got a jones for a Kiwi concert and don't want to buy a plane ticket, only the live cut "Don't Dream It's Over" gives you something new. (Content: no concerns.)

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Joy Division, Closer

Somewhat more of the same, and even against the throes of Ian Curtis' suicide I'm sorry to say I really expected more than that. The dirges and muddy vocals which seemed so original and organic on Unknown Pleasures come across as almost cynically deliberate the second time around — as an example, lead-off "Atrocity Exhibition" still oozes the same claustrophobic feel but the poppish "Isolation" right after it feels forced and its faux peppy electrobeat incongruous. I mostly blame Martin Hannett for this, but the band went along with it, so it can't all be his fault. And, in fairness, the recording's better this time; the presence of some actual technique makes it a bit more listenable. Fortunately the second side largely redeems the first: "Heart and Soul" manages to groove without being cloying ("A Means to an End" to a lesser extent), Curtis sings deeply and honestly amid piano and drums fed with gritty reverb in "The Eternal" and "Twenty Four Hours" makes the most of its grim milieu with his tunelessly emotive vocals sunk almost unintelligibly into a sharper, stronger rollercoaster riff. These all set up "Decades" well to close it out, even if its somewhat abrupt transitions can't carry itself the full way. One wonders what would have happened if there had been a third album, and he never had to meet his sad demise; New Order doesn't really seem an appropriate sequel nor stylistically its next logical step. The 2007 remaster includes a second live disc, as throwaway as most are, but it does include a solid rendition of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" which really should have made the album instead of banished to a single. But a great single, to be sure. (Content: intense emotional themes.)

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Pink Floyd, The Wall

The decline of the classic lineup started here, along with Roger Waters' terminal ego-driven navel-gazing. It's very difficult to gin up much sympathy for a self-absorbed rocker's unilaterally imposed barrier between him and the world, even if his daddy did die in the war, but minus the wacko fascist flourish the album asks you to treat it as an unalloyed tragedy and it just isn't. Plus, a few shining exceptions like "Comfortably Numb" and maybe "Young Lust" aside, the hulkish pretense of the whole thing means no song stands well on its own (as a single "Another Brick in the Wall Part II" gave schoolkids a great stick to beat their teachers with, but absent its context it's hardly sophisticated criticism). What gets the album past this is its sheer theatricality, one of the few records — let alone double albums — to really meet the concept of "concept," with peerless production values and some genuinely satisfying catharsis. But the rage is too unfocused to be meaningful ("One of My Turns" indeed) no matter how acute, and while your humble jerk critic and every subsequent angsty generation will listen to it for awhile non-stop, eventually you'll grow out of it just like Pink did and I did and Waters didn't. Come for the self-inflicted psychological wounds, stay for the art. The movie (because it was inevitable there'd be one) adds some Final Cut-like linking songs that work well and an excellent extended "Empty Spaces" in the form of "What Shall We Do Now?", though Bob Geldof doesn't really hit Waters' vocal range and the omission of "Hey You" is glaring. Overall the movie version is an improvement, but issuing "When The Tigers Broke Free" as a single had the same issues "ABITW Part II" did, and the soundtrack has yet to appear in its entirety on any re-release even though it's obviously ripe for it. (Content: violent imagery, S-bomb in "Nobody Home" and "The Trial.")

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Yellow Magic Orchestra, BGM

Those guys from Tokyo are at it again. With a frankly fraudulent title and a more idiosyncratic style (even, incredibly, a fashion of rap), BGM rewards the active listener despite its name with unusual textures and harmonies and early use of the famous TR-808. There's not much sampling here, either, which may have been due to the limits of the technology but also gives it a stronger musical identity. Some of the tracks are a little loopy for the casual interest ("Happy End," "Camouflage") and the vocals are as weak as ever (except for the Bowiesque "Cue"), but there's startling studio craft ("Music Plans," "Loom") and lots of layers ("1000 Knives") to geek out on, and electronica nerds won't be disappointed. (Content: no concerns.)

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Curtis Mayfield, Super Fly

Oh, for the era when soundtracks were albums, and vice versa. Mayfield is much more direct in his anti-drug message than the movie's ambiguous flirtations with it, and the lyrics consequently come off too obvious ("Pusherman," "Freddie's Dead"), but the two instrumentals are rich without relying on unseen cues, especially the incredible "Think"'s soulful groove and reedy melody. The other slower moments are a mixed bag: "Eddie You Should Know Better" is meditative and forthright yet "Give Me Your Love" feels lazy and reads worse. Still, "No Thing On Me (Cocaine Song)" is proud, Black and positive without being snide, sour or stereotyped, and "Superfly" somehow manages to stay classic without being dated. The CD reissue adds two single mixes of questionable value, though I'm sure they made a profit for the Man at Rhino. (Content: N-bombs in "Pusherman," drug references.)

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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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Danny Elfman, So-Lo

Not so much a contractual obligation album as a contractual supplication one after getting dropped by IRS, this Oingo Boingo album in all but name was Elfman's only official solo effort until his quarantine release in 2021. It's still not their best: trapped in their A&M malaise until Dead Man's Party, it was an acknowledged low point for the band (Kerry Hatch and Richard Gibbs departed and only appear on one track, a leftover off Good For Your Soul) and their previous energy and subterfuge just aren't consistently apparent. Still, "Gratitude" in its several incarnations was a credible radio hit (and even made the soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop), "Cool City" is just seamy enough and "Tough as Nails" and "Everybody Needs" still have their old caustic tang. Other than "Gratitude" none really stands out but at least none really sags. So low, indeed. The various reissues have alternative edits of "Gratitude," not always to the song's benefit. (Content: adult themes.)

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Jimmy Barnes, Soul Deep

In the context of Cold Chisel a solo soul covers album makes some demented sense. Not that Joe Tex lead-in "I Gotcha" has aged particularly well, but it serves Barnes' bad-boy aesthetic, and he's got sufficient range and groan to match the male vocalists he apes ("(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" and his duet with John Farnham in "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" in particular). His girl covers are less accomplished: the Supremes retread "Reflections" is a little by-the-numbers and "River Deep Mountain High" is just leaden. Similarly, "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" doesn't have enough runway to take off. But even if he doesn't really do anything new with these songs, what's here is cromulent and competent, though any added artistic value seems slight. (Content: mild adult themes in "I Gotcha.")

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Deodato 2

Continuing almost straight on from Prelude, Deodato hews again to a careful mix of original works and redos — and, unlike many of his contemporaries, actually succeeds. Though some of the covers let it down, it's not his classical stuff that does: his arrangements of Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Princess" and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" are sumptuous, super and right on point (I like Walter Murphy's arrangement of the latter best but this one is still outstanding), and the two original pieces on the LP, "Skyscrapers" and "Super Strut," are entrancing jams with lots of jazz and depth to get lost in. Instead, it's the more modern rearrangements that fall flat; on the original LP cut, this was "Nights in White Satin," which lost its sexiness along with the vocals and runs like emasculated Muzak, and his replay of Steely Dan's "Do It Again" on the CD reissue analogously flails. But the CD reissue also adds two more excellent original tracks ("Latin Flute" and "Venus"), so no matter which one you've got, you're getting a lot of good music. (Content: pure instrumental.)

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Funkadelic, Maggot Brain

For as many choice moments as it offers this album's awfully hard to wrap your head around. Oh, sure, it starts out strong enough with Eddie Hazel's incredible guitar on the title track (notwithstanding George Clinton's grim musings of Mother Earth being pregnant for the third time ... by us), but then left-turns into pleasing but incongruous flower power gospel with "Can You Get To That" and then acid heavy funk in "Hit It And Quit It" (and we know what). Analogously on the flip side, I dig the Jimi vibes of "Super Stoopid" but I can't reconcile it with the dorkily appealing "Back In Our Minds" nor the scatological long-form "Wars Of Armageddon," clearly aspiring to the Beatles' "Revolution No. 9," except bereft of class, quality of production or any sort of internal structure. And then there's the gatefold itself: on the front the Afro-personification of allegedly knocked-up Mother Earth, teeth glistening and bared, either emerging from or sinking into the loamy soil (if the back is any indication, sinking), along with unsettling liner notes from no less than The Process Church of the Final Judgment concluding that "the tide will not ebb until all is destroyed." It's still worth a spin for all that, and the extended solo in "Maggot Brain" is not to be missed, but lurching aimlessly from amiable funk to menacing cacophany one does wonder whom, exactly, Geo. Clinton et amis considered their audience to be. (Content: adult themes and drug references, S-bombs in "Wars of Armageddon" and "Maggot Brain.")

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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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Green Day, Dookie

You know what you're getting into from the title. The lyrics are sophomoric and none too sophisticated ("Sassafras Roots" was the dimmest bulb) and some of the riffs ring samey, but it starts hard ("Burnout"), goes fast and doesn't really stop. Plus, for as simplistic as the themes are, their tongue's in their collective cheeks enough that the joke might be on me ("When I Come Around" and "Longview"). This brand of punk has a little too much bubblegum for the hardestcore ("Pulling Teeth," "She") and their intermittent slower moments don't quite connect (especially "F.O.D.", though I salute the venom), but those are brief and a matter of degree. It's iconoclastic, ebullient and irreverent, the kind of album that really sticks to the wall. (Content: S- and F-bombs, adult themes.)

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The Jam, Snap!

What made The Jam really stand out was, for all the neo-Mod trappings and punk class consciousness, its fundamentally optimistic blue-eyed soul basis throughout. Paul Weller may have been a jaded observer of humanity in the form of all the best punk bands, and sometimes the style leaks through, but don't confuse that sort of societal mirror with nihilism (cf. Sex Pistols, etc.): if society could be shown its wrongs, it could change them. That means the thuggery in "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" or the bitter ennui in "Smithers-Jones" or even the hoarse defiance of "Going Underground" are rooted in a very different outlook that this collection shows truly evolving, peaking in piercing social studies like "Town Called Malice" punctuated by pop-friendly cuts like the evergreen "Start!" or the resigned acidity of "The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)." Indeed, it's their earlier, more proto-punk efforts that are the weaker tracks on this exquisite compilation, though only by degree. Originally a double LP with a special 4-track live EP in the earliest pressings, for years fans contended with Compact Snap!, a 60-minute bowdlerization which eliminated eight tracks and all of the EP to boil down to a nearly complete singles pack. Universal corrected this indignity in the 2009 rerelease, even throwing in the EP, but I'll say for my money that the twelve missing tracks were good but hardly essential. There's something to be said for getting straight to the point. (Content: mild expletives.)

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Mark Ronson, Uptown Special

Get your friends together and groove because it's a funk party throwback album in 20-freaking-15, and all Ronson's buddies are coming here to jam. Sure, you have Bruno Mars and the chart topper "Uptown Funk," and it's so fun and fresh you can almost forgive the heavy rotation it gets. And yes, two Stevie Wonder artsy-fartsy bookend collabs smacks of stunt casting, and the callback in "Crack in the Pearl" was unnecessary. (Plus: Mystikal on "Feel Right" needs to chill the heck out.) But for as plastic and commercial as the production comes off, the Kevin Parker tracks ("Summer Breaking," the unironic use of the word isosceles in "Daffodils," and especially the gauzy, glittery edges of "Leaving Los Feliz") have real emotional heft to them, and "In Case of Fire" and "Heavy and Rolling" run silly, smooth and sparkly in suitable measure. Not consistent enough ("I Can't Lose" - oh really?) nor long enough to win that fifth star, but he certainly didn't send his guest performers home in the morning with nothing to show for it. (Content: F- and N-bombs on "Feel Right," mild expletives on "Uptown Funk," drug references in "Leaving Los Feliz.")

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David Bowie, (The Rise and Fall of) Ziggy Stardust (and the Spiders from Mars)

Compare with Lou Reed around this time: Bowie had some of the same challenging subject matter, definitely a similar milieu, clearly cross-pollinated styles, and yet delivered a cleaner, clearer product with actual performance value. (Thought question: whose fault was Transformer, performer Reed or co-producer Bowie?) The turbulent early 1970s still ring true in "Five Years," but the net effect is more carefully constructed, and even prattly nonsense like "Soul Love" and throwaway tracks like "It Ain't Easy" or "Suffragette City" (a good glam bopper, at any rate) rub shoulders with richer productions in "Moonage Daydream," sharp character studies in "Lady Stardust" and of course gorgeous crown jewels like "Starman" and the title track. Even though his lyrics (and for that matter the bare wisp of a concept) aren't always on point, when they are they cut deep, even literally in closer "Rock'N'Roll Suicide" which manages to be sensitive without being (too) maudlin. Not all Bowie's contemporaries learned the artistic lesson this album teaches — maybe Ian Hunter, but probably one of the few — and definitely to their detriment. (Content: adult references and mild language.)

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The O'Jays, Back Stabbers

A provocative landmark of soul from title to tracks. Yes, you have the hit singles like "Back Stabbers" and the instant hook of "Love Train," but the album cuts and B-sides are almost just as solid, particularly the feel-good grooves like lead-off "When The World's At Peace" and the effervescent "(They Call Me) Mr. Lucky." Some clever lyrics are on offer here too, my favourite being the thoughtful infidelities of "Listen To The Clock On The Wall" as an interesting emotional foil to the album's more acerbic offerings (the title track for sure but also "Shiftless, Shady, Jealous Kind of People," which doesn't mince any words with its opinions). The fifth star falls off partially for "Back Stabbers"' core riff turning up too many places but largely for its carefully considerated sedateness; while this is also its strength, it also means some otherwise better cuts take longer to get cooking than they ought to ("992 Arguments" and ironically "Time To Get Down" in particular). But other than that the rest is sublime, and I've got no qualms saying so right to their faces. The 2011 remaster adds the abridged single of "Back Stabbers," and as such is largely pointless by definition, but the six-minute remix of "Love Train" is as close to a 12-inch as you'll get of a song that really deserves one. (Content: adult themes on "Listen To The Clock On The Wall.")

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Joe Satriani, Surfing With The Alien

Some of Satriani's finest technical work surfaces here but unfortunately the real problem with this arresting red beauty is compositional. Besides its questionably short length most of the tracks on the second side don't exactly know where they're supposed to be going ("Hill of the Skull," "Circles") or only noodle their way there with difficulty ("Lords of Karma," "Echo"), and the obvious splattered-on drum machine riffs don't help. But when he's on, he's on: not just the scintillating title track or the deft "Ice Nine," or the fresh and crispy "Satch Boogie," but most of all the practically poetic "Always With Me, Always With You" with its central solo waxed so heartfelt his amplifier fairly sings. Just stop listening around the halfway point unless you're bored and you'll still get your money's worth. Current reissues omit the iridescent John Byrne Silver Surfer art due to a licensing dispute with Marvel; find any of the earlier pressings if you can for the full experience. (Content: pure instrumental.)

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Jethro Tull, Thick As A Brick

If this were a prog rock concert, the high-quality production would be well worth the price of admission and I might even stay seated for the whole thing. But this is a take-home album, for goodness sake, and in the manner of a passive-aggressive orthodontist Ian Anderson is going to make you sit through all of it whether you want to or not. Only the limitations of the LP yielded the band's solitary concession to split it in half. As musings on life and childhood and art, the lyrics are creative enough (as is that famous tabloid gatefold); as a self-indulgent satire of the worst excesses of the concept album, the idea is certainly clever. But a good idea doesn't necessarily make 43 minutes of it worth continuously sitting through, even when the execution's solid. As proof, the 25th anniversary reissue includes a 1978 live performance ... that's less than twelve. (Content: mild adult themes.)

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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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Muse, Absolution

I had to check the disc to make sure I was hearing Matt Bellamy sing and not Thom Yorke, but I was, and I meant that in a good way. One of the better prog outings so far during this turn-of-the-21st renaissance, at their finest ("Apocalypse Please," "Blackout," the classical piano of "Butterflies and Hurricanes" and the paranoiac closer "Ruled By Secrecy") the vocals, rafter-high harmonies and effervescent, atmospheric orchestration (even an explicit entracte and interlude) are everything a revanchist rock mannerist would desire — with a Storm Thorgerson cover to boot. They didn't forget the rockers either ("The Small Print") nor the softer moments ("Endlessly"). The fifth star falls off for some intermittent stylistic issues; headliner single "Stockholm Syndrome" doesn't know if it wants to be symphonic or slamming and "Falling Away With You" and "Hysteria" have too much grit and not enough texture. But an album that flirts this much with religion and theology even as it includes the "Thoughts of a Dying Atheist" ("it scares the hell out of me/and the end is all I see") clearly aspires to greater thematic depths than most other pop. On that level, it succeeds handsomely. (Content: no concerns.)

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