| 5.0 classic |
| Al Green The Belle Album |
| Al Green Call Me |
| Al Green Greatest Hits |
| Archers of Loaf Icky Mettle |
| Guitars screeching every which way, beats speeding and hesitating and slamming chaos back into the box, twentysomething boyvoices whining and arguing and drawling and straining, it's the world according to indie rock: a tantrum set to music as sharp and self-contained as a comedy routine. Aurally, this is now--one now, anyway. If it has zero to say about tomorrow, why don't you just worry about that then? A |
| Archers of Loaf Vee Vee |
| Aretha Franklin Young Gifted and Black |
| Aretha Franklin Spirit In The Dark |
| Beck Mellow Gold |
| Big Star Radio City |
| Billy Bragg and Wilco Mermaid Avenue |
| Here's this Brit folksinger, a punk by heritage and a pop star by ambition whose most salient talent is how guiltlessly he mixes up the three. And here's this middle-American alt band, folkies by sensibility and pop pros by ambition whose most salient talent is a musicality they don't know what to do with. With the wisdom of half a century's ripoffs behind them, both are more resourceful melodically than the icon whose thousands of unpublished lyrics they were chosen to make something of. So be glad he kept the tunes in his head. Because while the words are wonderful and unexpected--author of several published books and reams of journalism, Woody Guthrie might have made his mark in any literary calling--it's the music, especially Wilco's music, that transfigures the enterprise. Projecting the present back on the past in an attempt to make the past signify as future, they create an old-time rock and roll that never could have existed. Finally--folk-rock! A |
| Blondie Parallel Lines |
| Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks |
| Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Natty Dread |
| Bonnie Raitt Give It Up |
| Bonnie Raitt Home Plate |
| Brian Eno Another Green World |
| Brian Eno Here Come the Warm Jets |
| Bruce Springsteen Born to Run |
| Bruce Springsteen Born in the U.S.A. |
| Bruce Springsteen Tunnel Of Love |
| Cadallaca Introducing Cadallaca |
There's a Cadallaca interview in which Corin Tucker confuses the Ronettes with the Shirelles, and even if it was a "put-
on," as young people say, that's all you need know about how much this side project has to do with classic girl groups
and the rest of that rot. It's just a song sluice for an irrepressible talent--somewhat gentler and less conflict-purging,
with Sarah Dougher's organ replacing Carrie Brownstein's guitar. The one noir period piece is the one misstep;
elsewhere they imagine 1942 and dis a booker and invent new romance tropes the way they would in any other band. I
love Brownstein. But Tucker could end up eclipsing Polly Jean Harvey herself if that was the way she thought about the
world. And one of her strengths is that it isn't. A |
| Canibus Can-I-Bus |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) |
| Cornershop When I Was Born For The 7th Time |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Cosmo's Factory |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle, Vol. 1 |
| David Bowie Station to Station |
| David Bowie Changesonebowie |
| Derek and the Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs |
| Donna Summer On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II |
| Elvis Costello This Year's Model |
| Eric Clapton 461 Ocean Boulevard |
| Fleetwood Mac Rumours |
| Funkadelic One Nation Under a Groove |
| Garth Brooks The Hits |
| George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars Dope Dogs |
| Gogol Bordello Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike |
| Gogol Bordello Super Taranta |
| Gogol Bordello Pura Vida Conspiracy |
| Graham Parker Squeezing Out Sparks |
| Graham Parker Heat Treatment |
| Gram Parsons Grievous Angel |
| Harry Nilsson Nilsson Schmilsson |
| James Brown Star Time |
| James Brown Sex Machine |
| Janis Joplin Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits |
| Jimi Hendrix The Cry of Love |
| Jimmy Cliff The Harder They Come OST |
| Joe Ely Honky Tonk Masquerade |
| John Cale Guts |
| John Lennon Imagine |
| John Lennon John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band |
| John Prine John Prine |
| John Prine Sweet Revenge |
| Joni Mitchell Court and Spark |
| Joni Mitchell Blue |
| Joni Mitchell For the Roses |
| Kanye West Late Registration |
| Kanye West The College Dropout |
| Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin IV |
| Lou Reed The Blue Mask |
| Lou Reed Legendary Hearts |
| Lou Reed New Sensations |
| Lou Reed Ecstasy |
| Lynyrd Skynyrd Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd |
| Lynyrd Skynyrd Street Survivors |
| Lynyrd Skynyrd Gold and Platinum |
| Mahavishnu Orchestra The Inner Mounting Flame |
| Manfred Mann's Earth Band Manfred Mann's Earth Band |
| Michael Jackson Off the Wall |
| Miles Davis Jack Johnson |
| Miles Davis Agharta |
| Mississippi John Hurt Last Sessions |
| Neil Young Rust Never Sleeps |
| Neil Young Tonight's the Night |
| Neil Young After the Gold Rush |
| Neil Young Time Fades Away |
| Neil Young Decade |
| Neil Young Comes a Time |
| New York Dolls New York Dolls |
| New York Dolls Too Much Too Soon |
| Ornette Coleman Dancing In Your Head |
| Parliament Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome |
| Patti Smith Horses |
| Paul Simon Paul Simon |
| Paul Simon Greatest Hits, Etc. |
| Pere Ubu Dub Housing |
| R.E.M. Out of Time |
| Hiding political tics behind faux-formalist boilerplate, pop aesthetes accused them of imposing Solidarity and Agent Orange on their musical material, but in fact such subjects signaled an other-directedness as healthy as Michael Stipe's newfound elocution. Admittedly, with this one beginning "The world is collapsing around our ears," I wondered briefly whether "Losing My Religion" was about music itself, but when Stipe says they thought about calling it Love Songs, he's not just mumbling "Dixie." Being R.E.M., they mean to capture moods or limn relationships rather than describe feelings or, God knows, incidents, and while some will find the music too pleasing, it matches the words hurt for hurt and surge for surge. The Kate Pierson cameos, the cellos, and Mark Bingham's organic string arrangements are Murmur without walls--beauty worthy of DeBarge, of the sweetest soukous, of a massed choir singing "I Want To Know What Love Is." A |
| Ramones Rocket To Russia |
| Ramones Ramones |
| Ramones Leave Home |
| Ramones Road To Ruin |
| Randy Newman 12 Songs |
| Randy Newman Good Old Boys |
| Rod Stewart Every Picture Tells A Story |
| Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols |
| Steely Dan Can't Buy a Thrill |
| Steely Dan Pretzel Logic |
| Steely Dan Countdown to Ecstasy |
| Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food |
| Television Marquee Moon |
| The B-52s The B-52's |
| The B-52s Time Capsule - Songs for a Future Generation |
| The Beach Boys Love You |
| The Beatles The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl |
| The Beautiful South Blue Is The Colour |
| The Chills Submarine Bells |
| The Clash The Clash (US version) |
| The Clash Give 'Em Enough Rope |
| The Coup Steal This Album |
| The Jimi Hendrix Experience Electric Ladyland |
| The Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced |
| The Kinks The Kink Kronikles |
| The Mothers of Invention We're Only in It for the Money |
| The Rolling Stones Exile on Main St. |
| The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers |
| The Rolling Stones Some Girls |
| The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground & Nico |
| The Velvet Underground Loaded |
| The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground |
| The Velvet Underground VU |
| Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City |
| Van Morrison Moondance |
| Van Morrison His Band and the Street Choir |
| Van Morrison It's Too Late to Stop Now |
| Van Morrison Into the Music |
| 4.5 superb |
| Aerosmith Rocks |
| Aerosmith Get A Grip |
| There are no rules. Obscene megabucks, boring rehab, song doctors, turning 40, minuscule interest in doing something new--nothing stands between the world's greatest hard rock band and their best album since Rocks. The drugs long gone, they show a strong professional commitment to rebellion and an undiminished relish for the fleshpots. If the song doctors prescribed "I'd rather be O.D.in' on the/Crack of her ass," not to mention "It's like gettin' head from a guillotine," they were worth every point. And though at first you may miss the killer cut, the "My Fist Your Face" or "Janie's Got a Gun," in fact the midtempo, classic-rock, love-as-pain "Cryin'" should prove irresistible to anyone who doesn't equate good art with doing something new. A- |
| Ahmad Ahmad |
| Air Moon Safari |
| As a rock yeoman in good standing, I direct postrock chauvinists to Simon Jeffes's Brian Eno-sponsored Penguin Cafe Orchestra, whose similar (albeit unamplified) hipster kitsch can now be found in the New Age bin. For the nonce, however, the comfy-funk bass, space-age sound effects, and moments of cool femme treacle on this moist piece of patisserie are good-humored enough to win over even an old-ager who remembers when easy listening was worth hating. A- |
| Al Green Let's Stay Together |
| Al Green I'm Still in Love With You |
| Albert Collins Ice Pickin' |
| Alice Cooper Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits |
| Ann Peebles Straight From The Heart |
| Ann Peebles Part Time Love |
| Archers of Loaf All the Nation's Airports |
| Archers of Loaf White Trash Heroes |
| Average White Band AWB |
| B.B. King Live in Cook County Jail |
| Backstreet Boys Backstreet Boys |
| Bad Religion All Ages |
Maintaining a sonic constancy that makes the retirees in the Ramones seem chameleonic by comparison, these Valley
boys are monotonous enough to benefit from a best-of, but don't think they've ever settled for a duff album--they're
too focused, and too brainy. No doubt a better writer would find a simpler, more eloquent way to say, for instance,
"Culture was the seed of proliferation/but it has gotten melded/into an inharmonic whole." But a) the song bashes like a
motherfucker anyway. And b) the big words are a hook. If their antipolitical ecopessimism isn't spreading like wildfire,
which is just as well anyway, give them credit for aiming to challenge, not convince. And believe that where most bands
with a message for the masses wind up looking like bigger fools than they already are, Ph.D candidate Greg Graffin and
departed homeboy Brett Gurewitz aren't just better informed than their fans--they're probably better informed than
you. A- |
| Beck Odelay |
| Beck Mutations |
| Belle and Sebastian The Boy With the Arab Strap |
| Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister |
| Belle and Sebastian Tigermilk |
| Belly (USA-MA) King |
| Big Brother And The Holding Company Be A Brother |
| Big Star 3rd |
| Bikini Kill Pussy Whipped |
| Bikini Kill Reject All American |
| Bikini Kill The Singles |
| Bikini Kill Bikini Kill |
| Bis The New Transistor Heroes |
| Biz Markie All Samples Cleared! |
| Black Star Black Star |
| Blake Babies Sunburn |
Sure this trio has its own sound, kind of--jagged, perky, sprung. And more important, songs. But so many indie bands
have sound and songs that they flop or fly on content anyway, and here content means Juliana Hatfield. For their
varying gender-based reasons, some men and some women find her too cute, but I say she's a former girl who's willing
to be winsome and has her gender-based beefs regardless, e.g. "I'm not your mother." Later, probably with a different
guy, she pops the big question: "If I called on you from far away/Would you say the things I want you to say?" I would,
Juliana, I would, whisper a million (or anyway a couple thousand) lonely fellows. But when it came down to cases they
probably wouldn't. A- |
| blink-182 Enema Of The State |
| Blondie Eat to the Beat |
| Blondie No Exit |
| Bob Dylan New Morning |
| Bob Dylan Planet Waves |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Live! |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Kaya |
| Bob Seger Night Moves |
| Body Count Body Count |
| Bonnie Raitt Bonnie Raitt |
| Bonnie Raitt Takin' My Time |
| Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees |
| Bran Van 3000 Glee |
| Brand Nubian One For All |
| Brian Eno Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) |
| Brian Eno Discreet Music |
| Brian Eno Before and After Science |
| Bruce Springsteen Nebraska |
| Bruce Springsteen The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle |
| Bruce Springsteen The River |
| Bruce Springsteen Devils & Dust |
| Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball |
| Built to Spill There's Nothing Wrong with Love |
| Buju Banton 'Til Shiloh |
| Buju Banton Inna Heights |
| Burning Spear Marcus Garvey |
| Buzzcocks Singles Going Steady |
| Canned Heat Future Blues |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Lick My Decals Off, Baby |
| Carole King Tapestry |
| Chic Risqué |
| Chris Bell I Am The Cosmos |
| Coolio Gangsta's Paradise |
| Cornershop Woman's Gotta Have It |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Pendulum |
| Culture International Herb |
| Curtis Mayfield Superfly |
| Cypress Hill Cypress Hill |
| Daft Punk Alive 2007 |
| Dave Alvin King of California |
| David Bowie Hunky Dory |
| David Bowie Lodger |
| Delaney and Bonnie On Tour with Eric Clapton |
| Derek and the Dominos In Concert |
| Donna Summer Bad Girls |
| Dr. John Dr. John's Gumbo |
| Earth, Wind and Fire The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 |
| Earth, Wind and Fire Open Our Eyes |
| Eddie Cochran Somethin' Else: Fine Lookin' Hits of Eddie Cochran |
| Elton John Honky Chateau |
| Elton John Rock of the Westies |
| Elvis Costello Armed Forces |
| Faces A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...To a Blind Horse |
| Fairport Convention Unhalfbricking |
| Fiona Apple When The Pawn... |
| Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac |
| Fleetwood Mac Kiln House |
| Funkadelic Let's Take It to the Stage |
| Funkadelic Hardcore Jollies |
| Garth Brooks Ropin' The Wind |
| Garth Brooks In Pieces |
| Gary Stewart Out of Hand |
| Gary Stewart Your Place or Mine |
| Gavin Bryars Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet |
| It's 1971 in the streets around London's Waterloo Station. With halting certainty, an old homeless man--"tramp," the term was--sings one stanza of a hymn a cappella. Takes about 25 seconds. The stanza is looped, with "classical" accompaniment that grows gradually grander. In the original 25-minute version it repeated some 50 times; this CD lasts 74 minutes, so make that 150 or so. Doesn't matter--if you're like me, you never get tired of it. You hum it to yourself, murmur the words, eventually sing it aloud, unable to resist a show of expression that reveals only your own banality. Some complain that at this length the piece is overblown, but as a devotee of ordinary voices, I much prefer it to Bryars's 1995 expansion of the B-side, the "classical" documentary The Sinking of the Titanic. I'm ready to swear the "composer"'s--really arranger's--writing never once obtrudes on the voice or the conviction it embodies. Even Tom Waits bellowing along in a star-time cameo does the tramp's song not the slightest violence. My only regret is that we never get to hear the whole hymn. The tramp is the true star, and he deserves his say. A- |
| George Clinton Hey Man, Smell My Finger |
| George Jones My Very Special Guests |
| Gogol Bordello Multi Kontra Culti Vs. Irony |
| Gogol Bordello East Infection |
| Graham Parker Stick To Me |
| Grateful Dead American Beauty |
| Green Day Dookie |
| Green Day Insomniac |
| Harry Nilsson Pussy Cats |
| Henry Cow Unrest |
| Finally released in the States five years after it came out in Britain, this demanding music shows up such superstar "progressives" as Yes for the weak-minded reactionaries they are. The integrity of Cow's synthesis is clearest in "Bittern Storm Over Ulm," based on the Yardbirds' "Got to Hurry"--instead of quoting sixteen bars with two or three instruments, thus insuring their listeners another lazy identification, they break the piece down, almost like beboppers. Though the saxophone is still second-rate and the more lyrical rhythms flirt with a cheap swing, the band is worthy of its classical correlatives--Bartok, Stockhausen, and Varese rather than Tchaikovsky and predigested Bach. A- |
| Howard Tate Howard Tate |
| Iggy Pop Lust For Life |
| Iggy Pop The Idiot |
| James Brown Hot Pants |
| Janis Joplin Pearl |
| Jimi Hendrix Hendrix in the West |
| Jimi Hendrix Rainbow Bridge |
| Joe Cocker Greatest Hits |
| Joe Ely Joe Ely |
| John Cale Fear |
| John Cale Slow Dazzle |
| John Lee Hooker Never Get Out of These Blues Alive |
| John Prine Diamonds in the Rough |
| John Prine Common Sense |
| Joni Mitchell Ladies of the Canyon |
| Kanye West Graduation |
| Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak |
| King Crimson Red |
| Kraftwerk Trans-Europe Express |
| LaBelle (USA) Nightbirds |
| Led Zeppelin Houses Of The Holy |
| Lee Dorsey Yes We Can |
| Leonard Cohen Songs of Love and Hate |
| Leonard Cohen The Best of Leonard Cohen |
| Leonard Cohen The Future |
| Linda Ronstadt Heart Like a Wheel |
| Loretta Lynn Writes 'Em & Sings 'Em |
| Lou Reed New York |
| Lou Reed Rock 'n' Roll Animal |
| Lou Reed Set the Twilight Reeling |
| Lou Reed Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed |
| Lou Reed and John Cale Songs for Drella |
| Love False Start |
| Lynyrd Skynyrd Second Helping |
| Lynyrd Skynyrd Nuthin' Fancy |
| Lynyrd Skynyrd One More From the Road |
| Mahavishnu Orchestra Birds of Fire |
| Mandy Barnett I've Got a Right to Cry |
| Manu Dibango Soul Makossa |
| Mark Chesnutt Greatest Hits |
| Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On |
| MC5 Back In The USA |
| Merle Haggard A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today |
| Michael Hurley Armchair Boogie |
| Michael Jackson Forever Michael |
| Miles Davis Bitches Brew |
| Miles Davis Live Evil |
| Miles Davis Get Up with It |
| Miles Davis Big Fun |
| Millie Jackson Caught Up |
| My Bloody Valentine Loveless |
| My Bloody Valentine Isn't Anything |
| My Bloody Valentine Tremolo |
| My Bloody Valentine Glider |
| Neil Young On the Beach |
| Neil Young Zuma |
| Neil Young Live Rust |
| NOFX Punk in Drublic |
| Ohio Players Gold |
| Ornette Coleman Body Meta |
| Paolo Conte The Best of Paolo Conte |
| As befits the cosmopolitan rou? this old Italian guy is already pigeonholed as, he writes lyrics worth translating. How about "Maybe by now I have forgotten my colleagues/Locked in the bathroom"? Except that "I sing everything and nothing/Music without music" is the point. Assuming he isn't apologizing for his operatic shortcomings (Italians are weird), I assume this refers to the pidgin English "'swunnerful" and "happy feet," to the harelip scat of "Come di," to the half-stifled laughter that actually gets him laid. And to his music. Steering his piano closer to vaudeville vamp than fancy-pants boogie-woogie, commandeering trad-jazz, world-pop, and Euro-schlock colors with panache (not to mention brio), he's a modernist middlebrow and a natural wit who enjoys cynicism too much to let it go to his heart. A- |
| Parliament Mothership Connection |
| Parliament Motor Booty Affair |
| Parliament Up for the Down Stroke |
| Patti Smith Easter |
| Patti Smith Radio Ethiopia |
| Pearl Jam Vitalogy |
| Pearl Jam Yield |
| Pere Ubu The Modern Dance |
| Pete Townshend Who Came First |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here |
| R.E.M. Monster |
| R.E.M. New Adventures in Hi-Fi |
| Rage Against the Machine Evil Empire |
| Rancid ...And Out Come the Wolves |
| Rancid Life Won't Wait |
| Randy Newman Sail Away |
| Richard Hell and The Voidoids Blank Generation |
| Robert Ashley Private Parts |
| Rod Stewart Never a Dull Moment |
| Rod Stewart Gasoline Alley |
| Roxy Music Siren |
| Roxy Music Manifesto |
| Ry Cooder Paradise And Lunch |
| Slade Slayed? |
| Solomon Burke The Very Best of Solomon Burke |
| Steel Pulse Tribute To The Martyrs |
| Steely Dan Katy Lied |
| Talking Heads Talking Heads: 77 |
| Talking Heads Fear of Music |
| Television Adventure |
| The Allman Brothers Band Brothers and Sisters |
| The Apples in Stereo Tone Soul Evolution |
| The Auteurs New Wave |
Deeply cynical, deeply tuneful, lead everything Luke Haines reconceives the Pet Shop Boys as a guitar band, writing
about what he knows--the bedsit-bohemian fringe. He housesits, he parks cars, he goes to the library, he disses
astrology and thrift shops and his low-rent showbiz family. All that's missing is a temp job in word processing. He ain't
heavy, he's your brother. A- |
| The Beach Boys Sunflower |
| The Beatles Let It Be |
| The Beatles Hey Jude |
| The Beautiful South Carry On Up The Charts |
| The Beautiful South Welcome To The Beautiful South |
| The Beautiful South 0898 |
| The Blasters The Blasters Collection |
| The Bottle Rockets 24 Hours a Day |
| The Bottle Rockets The Brooklyn Side |
| The Breeders Last Splash |
| The Breeders Safari |
| The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole |
| The Chemical Brothers Exit Planet Dust |
| The Chi-Lites (For God´s Sake) Give More Power To The People |
| The Chills Soft Bomb |
| The Clean Vehicle |
Sporadic semipros in an Anglo enclave so remote it evades ordinary patterns of formal exhaustion, these three New
Zealanders are garage Velvets--even their "eclectic" folk-rock delicacy and speed-pop buzz make the connection.
Fortunately, they're too tasteful to pretend they're jaded when they're not--10 years after their first burst there's still a
boyish strain about them. And if I remain utterly suspicious of garage exotica, I'm a proud sucker for this quick, hard,
flat, lyrical sound--professional no, clean and how. A- |
| The Cranberries Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? |
| The Doors L.A. Woman |
| The Jam In The City |
| The Lonely Island Incredibad |
| The Lonely Island Turtleneck and Chain |
| The Move Message From the Country |
| The Offspring Americana |
| The Pretenders Pretenders |
| The Raspberries Starting Over |
| The Residents Duck Stab |
| The Residents Buster & Glen |
| The Rolling Stones Black and Blue |
| The Spinners Spinners |
| The Stooges Fun House |
| The Velvet Underground 1969: Velvet Underground Live |
| The Velvet Underground Another View |
| Todd Rundgren Something/Anything? |
| Tom Verlaine Dreamtime |
| Tom Verlaine Cover |
| Tom Verlaine Tom Verlaine |
| Tom Verlaine Flash Light |
| Toni Braxton Secrets |
| Toots and The Maytals Funky Kingston |
| Van Morrison Saint Dominic's Preview |
| Van Morrison Tupelo Honey |
| Willie Nelson Stardust |
| Willie Nelson Phases and Stages |
| XTC Drums And Wires |
| ZZ Top Degüello |
| 3.5 great |
| Ace of Base The Sign |
| Aerosmith Get Your Wings |
| Alice Cooper Killer |
| Alice Cooper Love It To Death |
| Alice Cooper School's Out |
| Alice Cooper Welcome to My Nightmare |
| Angry Samoans The Unboxed Set |
| Ann Peebles Tellin' It |
| Ann Peebles The Handwriting Is On The Wall |
| Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II |
| Aphrodite Aphrodite |
| Aretha Franklin Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky) |
| Aretha Franklin You |
| Bad Company Bad Company |
| Bad Company Run With The Pack |
| Bad Company Straight Shooter |
| Badfinger Straight Up |
| Bee Gees Spirits Having Flown |
| Billy Joel The Stranger |
| Billy Joel 52nd Street |
| Bis Social Dancing |
| Bis Intendo |
| Bjork Homogenic |
| Black 47 Home Of The Brave |
| As he'll be happy to tell you if only you ask and probably even if you don't--at great length, all the gory details, plenty of asides, with bells on--Larry Kirwan has been around. The Major Thinkers, Turner & Kirwan of Wexford, God knows and I've forgotten what and who else--failure after failure, always with Kirwan struggling against the injustice of his continued obscurity. And though he's finally landed a major-label contract and three pounds of clippings, he's still struggling, for in truth now, Black 47 hasn't exactly eaten SoundScan for breakfast. Kirwan has plenty of brains and the gift of gab, but he's always overdone it, and these 16 songs last 70 minutes, the better to undergird their hefty arrangements--guitar-bass-drums, pipes and whistles, horn section, arena-jig beat, colleens, gad. Worst of all are Kirwan's vocals, soul-as-melodrama rockism with a brogue. The Irish immigrant underground is a great subject, and Kirwan knows its stories even if he overdoes those too. Maybe some laconic guy with an acoustic guitar will cover a few when the smoke clears. B- |
| Black Box Dreamland |
| Blue Oyster Cult On Your Feet Or On Your Knees |
| Bob Dylan Desire |
| Bob Dylan Hard Rain |
| Bob Seger Stranger In Town |
| Bob Seger Beautiful Loser |
| Boney M. Nightflight to Venus |
| Boston Don't Look Back |
| Boyz II Men Cooleyhighharmony |
| Boz Scaggs Slow Dancer |
| BR5-49 BR5-49 |
| Brandy Never Say Never |
| Bruce Springsteen Chimes Of Freedom |
| Bruce Springsteen Live in Dublin: With the Sessions Band |
| Bruce Springsteen Magic |
| Built to Spill Keep It Like a Secret |
| Bush Sixteen Stone |
| Cake Fashion Nugget |
| Can Soon Over Babaluma |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Unconditionally Guaranteed |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Bluejeans and Moonbeams |
| Cat Stevens Tea for the Tillerman |
| Cat Stevens Mona Bone Jakon |
| Charlie Rich Behind Closed Doors |
| Cheap Trick Dream Police |
| Chuck Berry San Francisco Dues |
| Chuck Berry Chuck Berry |
| Chumbawamba Anarchy |
| Clem Snide You Were a Diamond |
| Commodores Movin' On |
| Coolio My Soul |
| Counting Crows August And Everything After |
| Crack the Sky Crack the Sky |
| Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young So Far |
| Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Deja Vu |
| Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young 4 Way Street |
| Curtis Mayfield Roots |
| David Bowie Pin Ups |
| David Bowie Young Americans |
| David Bowie Black Tie White Noise |
| Dead Boys We Have Come For Your Children |
| Devo Duty Now for the Future |
| Diana Ross Diana Ross 1976 |
| Dire Straits Communiqué |
| Dolly Parton Jolene |
| Donna Summer I Remember Yesterday |
| Donna Summer Once Upon a Time |
| Earth, Wind and Fire Head to the Sky |
| Eddie and the Hot Rods Life On The Line |
| Elton John Tumbleweed Connection |
| Elvis Presley Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old) |
| Elvis Presley Moody Blue |
| Elvis Presley Today |
| Elvis Presley Good Times |
| Eric Clapton Unplugged |
| Eric Clapton From The Cradle |
| Eric Clapton No Reason to Cry |
| Eric Clapton Backless |
| Eric Clapton E.C. Was Here |
| Fairport Convention Liege and Lief |
| Fanny Fanny Hill |
| Fleetwood Mac Heroes Are Hard to Find |
| Frank Zappa Apostrophe |
| Funkadelic Free Your Mind...And Your Ass Will Follow |
| Garth Brooks No Fences |
| Genesis The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway |
| George Harrison Thirty Three & 1/3 |
| Gong Shamal |
| Gram Parsons Sleepless Nights |
| Grateful Dead Wake of the Flood |
| Grateful Dead From the Mars Hotel |
| Isaac Hayes Live At The Sahara Tahoe |
| J.J. Cale Okie |
| J.J. Cale Troubadour |
| Jackson Browne Late for the Sky |
| James Brown Get On The Good Foot |
| James Brown I'm Back |
| James Taylor Sweet Baby James |
| Jeff Beck Blow by Blow |
| Jeff Beck Wired |
| Jefferson Starship Red Octopus |
| Jethro Tull Benefit |
| Jim Croce You Don't Mess Around With Jim |
| Jimi Hendrix People, Hell, And Angels |
| Jimmy Buffett A1A |
| Jimmy Buffett Volcano |
| Jimmy Cliff Give Thankx |
| John Anderson Seminole Wind |
| John Denver Greatest Hits |
| John Entwistle Mad Dog |
| John Lennon Walls and Bridges |
| John Lennon Rock 'n' Roll |
| John Prine Pink Cadillac |
| Johnny Paycheck Take This Job & Shove It |
| Joni Mitchell Miles of Aisles |
| Joni Mitchell Don Juan's Reckless Daughter |
| Junior Brown Semi-Crazy |
| Junior Brown Long Way Back |
| King Crimson Larks' Tongues in Aspic |
| King Crimson Lizard |
| King Crimson Three of a Perfect Pair |
| KISS Alive! |
| KISS Rock And Roll Over |
| Kraftwerk Autobahn |
| Leo Sayer Silverbird |
| Leon Redbone Double Time |
| Leon Russell Carney |
| Leonard Cohen Death of a Ladies' Man |
| Linda Ronstadt Hasten Down the Wind |
| Lou Reed Transformer |
| Lou Reed Rock and Roll Heart |
| Lou Reed Live |
| Mahavishnu Orchestra Inner Worlds |
| Mariah Carey Rainbow |
| Marvin Gaye Live At The London Palladium |
| Marvin Gaye Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits |
| Metallica Master Of Puppets |
| Michael Jackson Music & Me |
| Michael Jackson The Best of Michael Jackson |
| My Bloody Valentine m b v |
| Nils Lofgren Cry Tough |
| NOFX White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean |
| Osibisa Heads |
| Osibisa Woyaya |
| Pere Ubu Lady From Shanghai |
| Peter Frampton Frampton Comes Alive! |
| Peter Frampton Wind Of Change |
| Peter Gabriel Scratch |
| Pink Floyd Meddle |
| Pink Floyd The Wall |
| Prince For You |
| Queen A Night at the Opera |
| Quicksilver Messenger Service Just for Love |
| Radiohead OK Computer |
| Rancid Rancid |
| Richard Buckner Devotion + Doubt |
| "So after all those months we're splitting up, and it had to happen, but I'm feeling like shit. We pack the U-Haul, and of course everything in the kitchen is hers except these big jars of oregano and garlic powder I bought in a dollar store to spice up my pizza. It's so late she stays over, and I watch her sleep, you know? God. But she wakes up pretty early and we kiss goodbye and she gets in the car and then what do you think happens? The U-Haul breaks free and there's dishes all over the road. It seemed awful at the time, the mess and the delay had me stressing, but I gotta laugh about it now. And you know the funniest part? Without her noticing I kept some of those dishes--you're eating your pizza off one right now. More oregano?'' Well, that's how I'd replot the best song here--in Buckner's version it's ditches all over the road, and he still thinks the whole thing was awful. And of course, he has just the sensitive baritone to make awful seem awful romantic to sad sacks and the women who love them. B- |
| Ringo Starr Ringo |
| Ringo Starr Goodnight Vienna |
| Rod Stewart Smiler |
| Rod Stewart Foot Loose & Fancy Free |
| Santana Caravanserai |
| Santana Santana's Greatest Hits |
| Soft Machine Six |
| Spirit Feedback |
| Steely Dan Greatest Hits |
| Ted Nugent Free-For-All |
| Ten Years After Cricklewood Green |
| Ten Years After A Space in Time |
| The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East |
| The Allman Brothers Band Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas |
| The Bats Fear of God |
| The Beach Boys Surf's Up |
| The Beatles Live! At The Star-Club |
| The Black Crowes The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion |
| The Boomtown Rats The Fine Art of Surfacing |
| The Byrds Byrdmaniax |
| The Coup Kill My Landlord |
| The Cranberries No Need to Argue |
| The Cranberries Bury the Hatchet |
| The Dictators Bloodbrothers |
| The Hollies Hollies |
| The J. Geils Band The Morning After |
| The J. Geils Band sanctuary |
| The Jackson 5 Third Album |
| The Kinks Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround |
| The Kinks Low Budget |
| The Kinks Preservation Act 2 |
| The Kinks Sleepwalker |
| The Knack Get the Knack |
| The Move Shazam |
| The Police Reggatta de Blanc |
| The Raspberries Fresh Raspberries |
| The Rolling Stones Hot Rocks |
| The Stooges Ready to Die |
| The Suicide Commandos Make a Record |
| The Tubes The Tubes |
| The Tubes Young And Rich |
| The Velvet Underground Live at Max's Kansas City |
| Thin Lizzy Jailbreak |
| Todd Rundgren A Wizard, A True Star |
| Tracy Chapman New Beginning |
| UFO Force It |
| Uriah Heep The Magician's Birthday |
| Third-hand heavy metal fantasies, like Led Zep only more literal, hooked to some clean, powerful arrangements, and a good melody or two. Okay stuff. B- |
| Van Morrison Hard Nose The Highway |
| Willie Nelson Red Headed Stranger |
| XTC Go 2 |
| Yes The Yes Album |
| 2.0 poor |
| 10cc The Original Soundtrack |
| Alex Chilton 1970 |
| Arrested Development 3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days... |
| Backstreet Boys Backstreet's Back |
| Belly (USA-MA) Star |
| Black Oak Arkansas High On The Hog |
| Black Rob Life Story |
| Black Sheep A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing |
| Blur Parklife |
| Blur Blur |
| Boyz II Men Evolution |
| Bruce Springsteen The Rising |
| Bruce Springsteen Working on a Dream |
| Bruce Springsteen Live in New York City |
| Bruce Springsteen Tracks |
| Buckcherry Buckcherry |
| Buzzcocks Trade Test Transmissions |
| Chuck Berry Bio |
| Combustible Edison I, Swinger |
| Finally, recorded evidence of the more-cited-than-sighted lounge-music wave, including Nino Rota cover, stereo panning, Canadian Club vocals, and of course a vibraphone. In today's anything-goes environment, they might conceivably make music hepper than Liz Phair's or Pearl Jam's and more enduring than Leon Redbone's or Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks', only they're not talented enough. "Nothing coy here, no sly indie-rock wink, and never say `novelty.'" Right. D+ |
| Counting Crows This Desert Life |
| Crowded House Woodface |
| Curtis Mayfield There's No Place Like America Today |
| Cypress Hill Black Sunday |
| Cypress Hill IV |
| Daft Punk Homework |
| David Bowie The Best Of David Bowie 1969-1974 |
| Elvis Costello Kojak Variety |
| Emerson, Lake and Palmer Pictures at an Exhibition |
| Exuma Exuma |
| Genesis ...And Then There Were Three... |
| Harry Chapin Short Stories |
| Harry Connick Jr. Blue Light, Red Light |
| Jeff Buckley Live at Sin-é (Legacy Edition) |
| Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros Streetcore |
| Joe Strummer mellowed brilliantly in life. He raised three kids, never pimped himself and kept his ideals while modulating his anger. But he never focused that brilliance artistically, probably because focus wasn't his thing--the two-minute intensity of The Clash was an aberration. The Mescaleros' world-music wanderings proceed directly from 1981's Sandinista! and are best joined on 2001's Global a Go-Go. This follow-up was largely complete when Strummer died in 2002, only without vocals on two reportedly rousing songs that were omitted--and also, oddly, without much international color or guest flourish. Strummer is probably telling Bob Marley about its folk-rock skank right now. But there's little chance Marley will return the favor of Strummer's "Redemption Song" cover, even for the standout track "Coma Girl," a lament for a lost youth culture Strummer deserves credit for sticking with, even if he couldn't lead it down the right path. |
| King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King |
| Lloyd Cole Lloyd Cole |
| Mark Collie Born and Raised in Black & White |
| Neil Diamond Hot August Night |
| Pat Boone In A Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy |
| Peter Green The End of the Game |
| Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother |
| Radiohead Pablo Honey |
| Rush A Farewell To Kings |
| The Apples in Stereo Her Wallpaper Reverie |
| The B-52s Good Stuff |
| The Beatles Anthology 3 |
| The Cardigans Life |
| The Stooges The Weirdness |
| Tracy Chapman Matters Of The Heart |
| Utopia Ra |
| Todd Rundgren solo is a conundrum--a jaded, youthful pop technocrat whose inconsistency can be passed off as creative exuberance. Todd Rundgren bandleader is a disaster--a humorless rock progressive whose scientific know-how adds no saving details to his arid futurism. Roger Powell's circa-2001 improvements on the Hammond B-3 organ dominate as usual--it's not for nothing that Todd refers to the sun as "Ra, holy synthesizer." The first side is bad, the second unspeakable, yoking an appallingly unimaginative eighteen-minute "fairy tale" about stolen harmony to an infuriatingly impotent seven-minute preachment about Hiroshima. Why must those few rockers who espouse moral ideals do it so ineffectively? Oh, I know, mustn't criticize--just go out and achieve "Eternal Love." D+ |
| Van der Graaf Generator Godbluff |
| Inspirational Verse (from Peter--note spelling--Hammill, yet): "Fickle promises of treaty, fatal harbingers of war, futile orisons/swirl as on in the flight, this mad chase,/this surge across the marshy mud landscape/until the meaning is forgotten." D+ |
| Vic Chesnutt About to Choke |
| Wings Red Rose Speedway |
