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Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik |
| May 10th, 2009 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: 1 ]
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Released: 1991
Tracks: The Power of Equality; If You Have to Ask; Breaking the Girl; Funky Monks; Suck My Kiss; I Could Have Lied: Mellowship Slinky in B Major; The Righteous & the Wicked; Give it Away; Blood Sugar Sex Magik; Under the Bridge; Naked in the Rain; Apache Rose Peacock; The Greeting Song; My Lovely Man; Sir Psycho Sexy; They’re Red Hot
Best track: Breaking the Girl
Tracks to skip: Funky Monks, I Could Have Lied, Mellowship Slinky in B Major, Give it Away, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Naked in the Rain, Apache Rose Peacock, Greeting Song, My Lovely Man, Sir Psycho Sexy
This album never sat well with me. I love Mother’s Milk, but for some reason I just never got into this one. I certainly heard it plenty enough while in high school. I swear for 6 months this album was all my friends ever listened to. I generally just sort of turned my nose up at it whenever it’d come on. I finally figured out why! Anthony Kiedis annoys the hell out of me and I wish he’d shut up. When he stops singing/rapping/talking/whining this album is quite good to listen to. Most everything underneath the vocals is great too. I just can’t sit through this thing. I actually did for this review, but it’s hard. I guess in smaller doses he can be tolerated, but this album is REALLY long. It’s 73 minutes long, just about the maximum that could fit on a CD in 1991. WAY too long. Frankly the album could have ended after Under the Bridge and it would’ve been fine. Yes, songs that I skip are all over this thing, but the last 20-25 minutes of this is torture. Sir Psycho Sexy is absolutely the worst song on here and for it to last 8+ minutes is horrendous.
There’s so much negative stuff I could say about this album, but I’d rather not waste my breath. In general Kiedis’ lyrics are awful and his voice is horrible. If he shut up, I’d probably like this album (and band) a lot more. I think Flea, Chad Smith & John Frusciante are all great musicians and their contributions to this album are stellar. Esp. Frusciante, he absolutely *owns* this album. He’s got great guitar solos throughout – If you Have to Ask, Mellowship Slinky. The music on Righteous & the Wicked is great. There are 3 songs on here I think are excellent, all throughout: Under the Bridge, Suck My Kiss and especially Breaking the Girl. It’s definitely one of my favorite RHCP songs and certainly the highlight of this album. I absolutely love how Flea waits to come in on Under the Bridge. He’s such a great musician and he knows exactly what to do. I love the transitions & song sequencing on this album. All of the songs flow perfectly into each other and the album’s completely continuous. From a production standpoint everything sounds great.
Yes, there are a ton of songs I skip. Really, I only like those 3 songs. The rest I could do without. And yes, I skip Give it Away. I’ve always hated Give it Away. I think I’m the only one in the world. Funky, yes, but the song is incredibly stupid. I could do without ever hearing it again. I like the band in isolated moments and I think Mother’s Milk is a stellar album. This one isn’t though. Too long and too much Kiedis here for me to get into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the only one who has this opinion, as most people seem to think it’s a classic. For them it may be, for me the vocals & lyrics ruin what could be a solid album.
Rating: 65
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The Doors - The Best of The Doors |
| May 10th, 2009 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: 1 ]
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Released: 1985
Tracks: Break on Through; Light My Fire; The Crystal Ship; People Are Strange; Strange Days; Love Me Two Times; Alabama Song; Five to One; Waiting for the Sun; Spanish Caravan; When the Music’s Over; Hello, I Love You; Roadhouse Blues; L.A. Woman; Riders on the Storm; Touch Me; Love Her Madly; The Unknown Soldier; The End
Best tracks: LA Woman, Break on Through, The End, Light My Fire
Tracks to skip: Spanish Caravan, Five to One
This is one of the many Doors compilation albums out there and it’s probably still the most famous. The iconic picture of Morrison certainly doesn’t hurt it at all. When this came out in ’85 it was definitely the best compilation that had come out by then. Much better than “13”. This album capitalized on the success of Apocalypse Now and its use of The End. When I was in high school in the early 90’s, this album was once again the Doors album that everyone had, thanks to the Oliver Stone movie about the band. I saw that it was even reissued 5 or so years ago and my thought was “why”? Both discs total just over 80 minutes, so you’re not getting a lot for your money here. That’s the primary drawback. It was good in ’85, but now there’s so much more room on the media of choice.
Focusing on the actual music, though, you get a really good overview of the Doors’ music. You get all of the hits, you get the epics and for most people it’s all they’ll need. Light My Fire, lyrical strangeness aside, is still such a great song. It’s catchy, yes, but the music is solid. I think the older I get the less I relate to the lyrics and the more I drawn in by the music. Morrison is what is he is, but for me it’s the other three guys that MAKE this band (Robby Krieger, John Densmore & Ray Manzarek). Their playing is highly inspiring and no one else really sounded like them. I love that transition from Unknown Soldier > The End. Great sequencing there. The End continues to be a great song. I really couldn’t care less about what Jim Morrison’s singing about, but the music is incredible. I love what the band was able to do here. My other favorite song here, at least on this particular listen, was L.A. Woman. I love this song and it has such a great vibe to it. A truly classic song and one I never get tired of hearing. There are a couple of songs I don’t dig too much on here, but I can get kind of picky sometimes. Spanish Caravan has some good guitar playing, but the song itself is really aimless. It’s a pretty poor composition to me. I’ve never got into Five to One. It just kind of plods along to me. I can tolerate Touch Me, because it’s not a bad song, it’s just that the strings and horns on there sound very dated and make the song really cheesy.
As I said earlier, there are better Doors compilation albums out there. I think that Legacy: The Absolute Best is the best one, but I think there’s even been another 2-disc one that’s come out in the past few years. And there will be more, I’m sure. Still, for what this is, it’s solid. This is a great overview of the band’s career and you get a lot of great songs here. The band had a short run, but the music is still relevant today and this is a nice, broad picture of the band’s work.
Rating: 90
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Rush - All the World’s a Stage |
| May 2nd, 2009 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: 1 ]
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Released: 1976
Tracks: Bastille Day; Anthem; Fly By Night/In the Mood; Something for Nothing; Lakeside Park; 2112; By-Tor and the Snow Dog; In the End; Working Man/Finding My Way; What You’re Doing
Best tracks: Fly By Night, maybe the middle bit of By-Tor
Tracks to skip: Something for Nothing, In the End, In the Mood
This was Rush’s first live album and it’s a nice summation of their first few years as a recording band. It was also a good place to take stock of themselves after the unexpected popularity of 2112 from earlier in the year. One of the things I really love about the band, and on this album in particular, is that the sound is always full, even when Alex Lifeson is soloing. It’s a testament to how great of a bassist Geddy Lee is that he admirably fills the space, but doesn’t ever overshadow Alex’s solos. All three (Lee, Lifeson & Neil Peart) sound particularly great here. I mean, they’ve always been a great a live band, tight, but aggressive. They don’t disappoint here.
Bastille Day is a great way to open the show and through the disc they manage to hit the highlights from their first 4 albums. One of my peeves, though, is their infernal use of medleys. They’ve done this for their whole career and as a fan I just can’t stand it. I want to hear all of Fly By Night, dammit! It’s such a great version on here, but they cut it drastically short and go right into In the Mood, which is a horrible song. Geddy wrote some awful lyrics to this one. The other medley comes near the end of the disc with a back and forth version of Working Man/Finding My Way. Working Man is a *much* better song, since FMW has some more awful lyrics from the bass player. Thank goodness Peart came in the band and took over the lyricist role. Then again, his words on Something for Nothing are bad too. I just can’t stand this song, I never have. Anyway, when listening to Working Man I forgot there was a drum solo. My first thought was “dammit, I want this song to end!”. In reality, it’s not a bad solo at all. Even at this early in his career, Peart was a better drummer and soloist (especially) than most drummers. It’s a pretty good solo, not his best, but there are some good moments in there. He’d definitely improve on it in the upcoming years.
My only other complaint is that In the End is played too slow. It nearly put me to sleep. I mean, it’s a pretty stupid song anyway. Ugh, that echo on Geddy’s voice at the end is really annoying. Really, the only songs I outright skip are In the End, Something for Nothing and once the greatness of Fly By Night moves over to the boredom of In the Mood, I hit the fwd button. The rest of the album is solid and the band sounds great. Really nice rendition of Lakeside Park and that leads wonderfully into a shortened version of 2112. I’m still not impressed with the later sections of the song, but there’s no denying that the 2112 Overture is one of the coolest things the band’s ever composed. Strangely, I was not annoyed by By-Tor and the Snow Dog, a song I usually dislike. Maybe it’s just the studio version? The middle section of this song (improvised?) is really cool and was certainly a surprise the first time I heard this.
I alluded to this up in the first paragraph, but the sound on this album is really good. The mix especially is great, with everyone’s parts being crystal clear. Overall this is a good, but not perfect, document of Rush from early in their career. At the time I’m sure this was viewed as amazing, and while some of it still is, it’s not the best live album they’ve put out. I’ll get to the others soon enough (as in, I’m about to put in Exit, Stage Left), but I love that they consistently improved themselves over the years. Both in terms of songwriting, but also in their performances. This is a solid album, but they get even better.
Rating: 87
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