Joshua B's Reviews

It's alright. Named after a Roxy Music song. They're next album succeeds a bit more at this kinda dancefloor-driven Kraftwerk sound. There's some good stuff on here and then they evolved to a really great band later on. I think it's good. Yeah, it's pretty good. I'd listen to it and then relisten a few months later to remember "Oh yeah, I like this album." But mostly it's just there for people who might be eurotrash music snobs to say "I like them but the first album was so much better before they got too commercial"...or something. What do I know? I'm just a average joe who likes to listen to different kinds of stuff.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

One of the better Phish studio releases is contained within this disc. It is clearly a settling down of the more wacky songwriting on the first few releases and is defined by the clean production from Steve Lillywhite (who also produced fellow H.O.R.D.E. tour dudes Dave Matthews Band). This is less a band of merry pranksters and more a radio-friendly jam band a la American Beauty...with radio-friendly song lengths. And to that end, if I may editorialize for a moment, I don't "get" live Dead and that is my cross to bear. Live Phish is more relatable as a unique and enjoyable undertaking. And I understand there's a whole "thing" with the live experience for Jerry and Trey. But if I'm not at the show then it probably doesn't make sense to listen to the show unless it's a straight-up nostalgia trip. So Dick's Picks #4,321 and Slip Stitch and Pass are going to take a backseat to American Beauty and Billy Breathes every time for me. It's like Junie Jones said to Grandpa Miller, "You have five dollars. I need five dollars. BOOM! Do the math!"
Review Date: 11/23/2020

Pure pop. Bubblegum pop. Not a solid album from front to back. Fans of Debbie Gibson will find things to like. It has a very popular song on it from 2012. If you have 3 daughters there's no way you will play this and not be instantly popular in their eyes. It doesn't really sound as good 6+ years down the line. Not like the follow-up album, which is a stone-cold classic.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

If story-songs and singer-songwriters are your thing then this will very much make a good impression on you. And maybe it will broaden your horizons from more boring run-of-the-mill folk rock. It's cool that they signed to a major label but stayed good...for awhile. I didn't think I'd like this but now I think I like it more than the first and second albums. If it's not your thing then I will not try to convince you otherwise. It ain't Nickelback and stuff.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

This is the most punk album of all time. Now, when I say this album is "punk" you might be thinking "Well now, I think Dookie is the punkest album of my lifetime. Or Maybe Enema of the State." To which I say that you need to reorient what makes something punk. Merriam Webster defines punk as "doing the thing that is not cool or popular." That might not be true, I didn't actually get out the dictionary but if you hung out at a skate park listening to Rancid as a kid you probably thought you were super punk. YOU WEREN'T!!! You were a dude-bro and you just didn't know it. Antony was living somewhere like Tulsa or Lincoln and he was listening to like Siousie Sioux and the Kronos Quartet and getting beat up at the bus stop. But one day a bully was messing with Antony, he was let's say 14, and the bully was like 16 and was about to steal his milk money and Antony just flipped out and grabbed bunches of grass and weeds (but the kind with pretty flowers on them) and hopped up on the kid's shoulders and started shoving dirt and grasses in his ears and mouth and hair and screamed about joining him in the next world during the twilight of the shadows. He got a beat down but, yo, that's PUNK. The lights go out and then "10 years later" over black and then he pops up on the screen and you're watching Antony wearing a feather boa and some crazy blouse in downtown NYC and he's proven that punk is not a sound but an ethos. And that is what this album is...it subverts your expectations not with crunching guitars but with emotion and stuff. You might say "hey that's not punk...Fugazi is PUNK!" And I would normally agree with you. Technically Fugazi is punk because they subvert the norm in other ways and shout about inequity, but Antony and the Johnsons are sooooo punk man. They are just so freakin' punk! DEAL WITH IT!!!
Review Date: 10/17/2022

This is good for what it is and some people might like it. Others might not. It's country-ish rock and/or southern rock. It was not my cup of tea.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

doesn't compare to raffi's "singable songs for the very young (great with a peanut butter sandwich)" as far as melodicism and sheer ballsiness but it's better than dan zane's "house party" by a mile. if you listen attentively to a record store clerk go on and on about how you must hear this album if you're a fan of the putumayo series or he recommends harvey milk's "life…the best game in town" be advised that he's making fun of your taste in family-friendly jams. my child screamed in terror upon hearing "mescaline arms" for the first time on a road trip. by the time we made it to "crazy woman dirty train" 45m later she was sucking her thumb and blinking in morse code to end it all. you might ask why i didn't turn off the cd the moment the singer screamed about "molten rats" but i just thought that it was a sort of going to start out loud and simmer down over the running time…much like "free to be you and me." thanks a lot record store clerk, jade tree records, and loud angry fellas in these arms are snakes. you've successfully made my maine road trip a hellscape of feedback and child-ear endangerment.
Review Date: 8/19/2014

hey no age, look at you struttin'!
Review Date: 3/3/2015

Good ol' indie rock with a sense of humor and an understanding of what it knows and what it doesn't know. It's classic because there were no expectations and so it exceeded all known female indie rock at the time. Once the expectations were there, it got worse. But you should definitely give this a spin and with proper understanding of sound recording (lo-fi vs hi-fi) in the 90s you'll be like "Yeah, you crushed this"
Review Date: 11/4/2020

this is a really good cd/album. great pop. it's much, MUCH better than both the verve pipe and r.kelly. i would even say it's better than the linkin park album where they rap with jay-z. it may not be better than the white album but they give it a run for the money.
Review Date: 7/2/2014

Dance pop meet up with DFA noise groove. Well done and just pretentious enough without sacrificing credibility. I say that with all due respect and love and humility. If you came here from the first album, you'll probably not be happy with what they do here. Approaching with a sense of context for the cool downtown grooves that lay in the heart of the cheesiest disco and funk would behoove you very much.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

for fans of bedhead and the new year and, even then, for the strictest kind of completists among those people. this is instrumental/incidental music for the movie "hell house" and is not in any sense a set of "songs." even though these 8 pieces are titled and separated out into tracks some are extremely slight while others are pretty and repetitive. there doesn't seem to be enough music here to soundtrack an entire 90 minute documentary but, despite that, some of the music is very interesting and, you would assume, perfect for rumination about God, the devil, american christianity in all it's forms, and a community of bible-thumping texans' ill-conceived form of proselytizing. still, it's not bad - just slight. wish it was longer than 18 minutes because the kadane brothers are geniuses of understatement.
Review Date: 6/8/2017

Hmmmm. You will probably not enjoy this. But you MIGHT. Unlikely though. Give it about 12 listens (not in a row...space them out a little) and then revisit your opinion. I'm only on the 3rd listen and it's...a LOT. Just very much a lot of stuff going on. And for that I must say, "You do you, The Boredoms! I'll be over here spending my entire life trying to decide if I like you or just 'appreciate' what you're doing." I will only add one other thing: This is a very close approximation of what you’d imagine the river bottom nightmare band combined with dr. teeth and the electric mayhem would *actually* sound like.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

Oof! I like it? But I sort of am embarrassed to say I like it? I don't know...it's not as cool as Wolf Parade. It definitely has a saturday afternoon LARP'ing in the park feel to it. But, hey, LARPers need a good soundtrack too!
Review Date: 11/4/2020

Yeah, Taylor Swift can do no wrong. Just like Carly Rae Jepsen, I have to give credit to these pure pop ditties. Good example of songs that just really dig in and get stuck in your head but you don't feel mad or bad about it. Maybe my favorite Taylor album? It's definitely up there. Also I have 3 daughters...so you know...this is my wheelhouse.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

This CD is punk music from a long time ago but it is basically better than most everything that has been released since 1990. Take that, Green Day, Blink -182 AND My Chemical Romance!
Review Date: 1/18/2022

This is ambient canon. It's also not in my top 5 ambient albums. It's quite good like in the way that the Beatles or some band influenced a lot of good stuff but isn't super-your favorite thing. But you will definitely want to keep this around to remind yourself of how ambient and idm music is cool and paved the way for some of your MORE favorite stuff of 10 years later...like maybe Stars of the Lid. Way to go, way-pavers!
Review Date: 11/4/2020

Sometimes your parents are right. It's not easy to say that and there's no way they don't co-sign on this idea. Sometimes the people who adhere to things such as "spiritual teachings" or "gurus" happen to be right about keeping the focus on what matters. Words like spirit, transcendence, centered are triggering for a great number of people. But if you ignore everything about the lifestyle associated with this music and listen to it with no prejudgement you will mostly likely walk away a little happier. This is most definitely "your parents' new age music." But sometimes your weird hippy uncle from Ojai is spot on. And we all have to stop and acknowledge that the youngs out there in your Portlands, your Austins, your Bushwicks...they are just as kooky as your kooky uncle from Albuquerque with his energy stones. Where do you think the phrase "feel all the feels" comes from? Stuff like this. Ray Lynch is both a great composer and a cheeseball synth wunderkind. He CAN be both and this album can be both a guilty pleasure and also a relaxing trip inward...some time to check in with YOU. People can appreciate Botch and Debussy. That's the beauty of life. You can enjoy Erik Satie and Lil Nas X. I wouldn't suggest a playlist of strictly Cannibal Corpse and Jorge Ben...but when you open yourself to a new world you are saying to the planet and your consciousness "I will advance myself and I will embrace the unknown and this will make me better."
In other words, don't yuck other peoples' yums
Review Date: 4/28/2021

Very divisive for me. I just recently got into Phish and I will come out and say it...I was looking forward to some wicked noodly jams but these longer jams are not my faves. The ZZ Top cover is mostly blues-rock. Not as, maybe, psychedelic as I was hoping. I am a fan of the band now that I've heard them but for the limited amount of time on a CD, we didn't really need a straight-up Talking Heads cover or Hello My Baby. Weekapaug Groove is maybe my fave here. A Live One is a better representation for my taste. Taste is a good song too
Review Date: 11/4/2020

is this album good? yes. is this album great? yes. is this album sweeter than grapes on the vine? yes. is this album better than sliced bread? no, but you also can't sprinkle cinnamon sugar on it - false comparison. is there flow? yes, i feel there is flow but the songs might not hang quite as well as on aquemini. it requires a little patience because it's dense - there is a lot going on in these tracks.
Review Date: 1/20/2016

I think it's hard for Phish fans to objectively look at the band's output. As a person who did not grow up listening to them, this one has sweet jams, song regular songs, and also some weird experiments. Not sure if this is the best Phish album, but it's top 3 for me.
Review Date: 1/19/2021

i like this cd quite a bit. it's like the source family meets UP WITH PEOPLE! when you absolutely need to hear upbeat choral indie pop with a touch of wistfulness then you should come here first instead of hitting up that imitation choral indie pop band that pretends to know how to ooze positivity and general vibiness. this has a lot more going on than the first album. more horns, more hooks, more time….just more more. haven't watched the dvd but i imagine they keep it pretty much in the same wheelhouse. don't get this album if your thing is swedish black metal and/or straight outta compton og gangsta rap. you will be sorely disappointed.
Review Date: 7/29/2014

A smart person once said that 311 is the "Live Laugh Love" of the head shop. I never thought of it this way because I myself am not a peruser of the head shop or a user of their paraphernalia. But I cannot agree with this sentiment more. There's a hemp necklace with a little alien head charm dangling from it inside the hearts of all 311 fans. These are not the aggro boys of Limp Bizkit or the angry anarcho-leftist ilk of Rage Against the Machine. They like to trip the light fantastic and mix it up in the mosh pit. But if one of your brothers or sisters falls down, do not stomp them with your doctor marten! Pick them up and keep their mellow unharshed. 311 has some reggae and hip hop roots as well as some prog and metal bona fides. However you feel about this combination says as much about you as it does them. It was a sing of the times for the 90s and they are simply conduits for a combination of sounds that goes beyond what you or some record label defines as "rap-rock" or "alternative". We are in the year 2022 and we have fully satisfied the desire for micro-niche bands to find their tribe and like all other things...people love all the genres of music at once. Ahead of their time, perhaps. No one in 1997 was prouder to enjoy 311 than the person who would not feel shame for liking everything and loving everyone. That is not to say 311 has all the best ideas. There's a bit of a post-Sublime hangover lingering in some of the more questionable dub experiments. But when you say you like pre-Amber 311 you are hanging with the people who are not afraid to sit down and look inward. You accept people as they are and, yes, be their guide through a acid, skittles, and orange juice-fueled trip to Jupiter. Or maybe you just a Michelob Ultra.
Review Date: 11/18/2022

This is DEFINITELY the "cool" music from when I was in college. I hated it for a long time because of how "cool" it was. Just so darn cool. But if you dig in and give it a chance it is also fun. The very first track burns super-hard and just goes for 15m of awesome grooves. But at the same time all the songs feel like they hold you at a distance...because you aren't cool enough to truly hang. Like if you say this album at a party at a downtown loft and you walked up to it because it was talking to your friend and you said, "hey, i like you. you groove well!" The album would turn to your mutual friend and say, "yo man, who's the narc?" (referring to you, of course). And you walk away being pissed that you like the album so much.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

Very VERY good post-rock. It moves, it grooves, it also drones in an ambient way. It's like if Brian Eno and Tortoise had a baby and gave it a swift kick in the behind. I am fairly certain this is essentially the rhythm section of Broken Social Scene...which makes sense.
Review Date: 11/4/2020

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