Duran Duran - Big Thing


"Big Thing", like its predecessor "Notorious" was one of those interim Duran releases that kept the band going in the late '80's. John, Nick, and Simon kept the faith (with Warren Cucurillo adding guitar) with their fans by producing some nice, edgy tunes here, mainly the two hit singles "I Don't Want Your Love" (which went Top-10 in the US) and "All She Wants Is". Other notable tracks include "Do You Believe In Shame?" (included in the Mel Gibson/Kurt Russell film "Tequila Sunrise") and the slow-tempo spacey tunes "Palomino" and "Land". A good album, and still very listenable.

Beck - Odelay

If the artists that emerged immediately following Nirvana's breakthrough in the early '90s, none were more adequately labeled than Beck, whose music was easily the best example of "alternativeness." Whether amassing all of his musical facets into a single work (Odelay, Midnite Vultures) or distilling them into so-called "departures" (Mutations, Sea Change), Beck's irreverence has always been unmistakable. 1996's Odelay found Beck collecting the grooves of generations past and reshaping them into a postmodern tapestry, merging countless samples and styles into one cohesive whole. The resolute confidence with which he accomplishes his sonic experiment becomes all the more important when considering the album's cultural implications: Odelay isn't just the product of one artist, it's a defining statement of an entire generation in the throes of finding its own voice.

Pearl Jam - Vs.


After Ten, Pearl Jam’s hugely successful debut album, expectations for Vs. were massive. Vs. sold nearly 1 million albums in its first week released, but many fans of Ten were actually disappointed. Many were looking for the echoey, polished sound that is present in Ten, when Vs. is much harder and raw. I love Ten, but in my opinion, Vs. is even better. Pearl Jam proved that they weren’t going to cash in on Ten remakes, but that they were going to make music that they wanted. Vs. has an explosive and focused energy that in my opinion shows that they were better than their contemporaries Nirvana and Soundgarden, whose sound had yet to mature.

Smashing Pumpkins - The Berlin Bullet

bio: Of all the major alternative rock bands of the early '90s, the Smashing Pumpkins were the group least influenced by traditional underground rock. Lead guitarist/songwriter Billy Corgan fashioned an amalgam of progressive rock, heavy metal, goth rock, psychedelia, and dream pop, creating a layered, powerful sound driven by swirling, distorted guitars. Corgan was wise enough to exploit his angst-ridden lyrics, yet he never shied away from rock star posturing, even if he did cloak it in allegedly ironic gestures. In fact, the Smashing Pumpkins became the model for alternative rock success -- Nirvana was too destructive and Pearl Jam shunned success. The Pumpkins, on the other hand, knew how to play the game, signing to a major-subsidized indie for underground credibility and moving to the major in time to make the group a multi-platinum act. And when the group did achieve mass success with 1993's Siamese Dream..

Nick Cave - From Her to Eternity

While there is a twisted thread of continuity between Cave's work with the Birthday Party and his first solo affair, FROM HER TO ETERNITY's murky, labyrinthine depths seem to be the polar opposite of the Birthday Party's raging discord. As evidenced by the opening track, a compelling deconstruction of Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche," Cave is mining a far more introspective lode here. Despite the manic energy of the album's title track (the album's only real "rock" song), ETERNITY is the most artistically unfettered (and, admittedly, unstructured) recording of Cave's career. Listening to these artfully misshapen tunes, one has the feeling of peering into the journal of a madman with an unrelenting creative streak. Poetic, unsettling, rambling, moving, ETERNITY makes a case for Cave as the James Joyce of Goth-rock.

Tom waits - Alice


This is indeed an unusual output from Toom Wiats, somehow underrated after its release and definately requires some patience whilst digesting. Still many of the songs are remarkeably well-written, and the overall result is excellent. One of the best albums from the "third period" of Tom Waits' music output. Notice 'Kommienezuspadt' and 'Poor Edward' in particular. The two songs sum up much of either side of his remarkeable musicianship.

David Bowie - Young Americans


David Bowie abandoned the glam/sci-fi personae of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs with this radical departure. Recorded at Sigma Sound Studios, the home of Philadelphia International, it featured the label's crack house band and, as a result, confirmed the singer's growing love of soul and R&B. Pulsating dance grooves abound, in particular on the disco-influenced 'Fame', which topped the US singles chart. The song was co-written with John Lennon, a compliment Bowie repaid by reinventing the Beatles' 'Across The Universe' as a dancefloor classic. Such self-confidence abounds throughout this album which shows the singer firmly in command of yet another musical direction.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

If there's one argument that I love to make against all those crazy people who reliably inform me that "modern music sucks", it's found in 5 simple words. The Elephant 6 Recording Company. Oh, what's that? Most of you have never heard of them? That's unfortunate, but in a way, I genuinely envy you. Like the parent that now gets to watch their children open their presents on Christmas morning, knowing how much they're going to enjoy them, you're in for a real treat once you start listening to the various projects that fall under the loose confederation of the Elephant Six Recording Company. Just in case any of you guys haven't worked this out all by yourselves yet, Neutral Milk Hotel are one of the bands that fell into this group, of which their frontman and creative mastermind, Jeff Mangum, was one of the founding members, along with members of The Apples In Stereo and Olivia Tremor Control. While this group never got the mainstream attention that they so obviously had earned, during the late 1990s their fanbase pretty much defined "cult following", and never more so than with this album, the final release from Neutral Milk Hotel.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

Loveless is an absolutely essential album,melodic guitar noise combined with exquisite vocals and intelligent lyrics. This is music of passion and of strange beauty - of you're at all enamored by ambient music with a pronounced romantic stripe....
Sometimes
Blown a Wish
When You Sleep and others

Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted

Slanted & Enchanted is a left-field classic, a record that came out of nowhere to help establish a new subgenre of rock & roll. Pavement had already sketched out their sound, as well as their amateurish lo-fi aesthetic, on a series of indie singles before recording their debut, but Slanted & Enchanted is where they pulled all of their disparate sounds together into a distinctive style. At first, the primitive sound of the record is the most gripping thing about Slanted, but soon the true innovations of the record appear through the songs themselves. Stephen Malkmus and Spiral Stairs subvert conventional pop structures, turning melodies inside out, reinterpreting and reworking older songs, and bending genres together. It's a complex, enthralling record, filled with fractured riffs, strong melodies, and cryptic melodies, and with all the hiss and static, Slanted & Enchanted sounds like listening to a distant college radio station -- melodies and hooks keep floating in and out of the mix, with individual lines instead of full lyrics surfacing through the murk. This unique song structure as much as the sound of the album itself makes Slanted & Enchanted an individual, signature work and one of the most influential records of the '90s.

Nick Cave - Grinderman (2007)


Foul-mouthed, noisy, hairy, and damn well old enough to know better, Grinderman are Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos. On 5th April 2006, Nick, Warren, Martyn and Jim
entered RAK studios, London, for a week with producer Nick Launay and recorded new songs. It was mixed in September at Metropolis Studios. Calling themselves Grinderman, the album is set for a March 2007 release.

Radiohead - OK Computer

Ok Computer is Radiohead's third album since their debut with Pablo Honey, and boy have they progressed through the years. It is no wonder they were nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for Album Of The Year and won the 1998 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance with this album. Imagine, a rock band... a great rock band. They go forward into the realm of techno/electronica without sacrificing their instruments. Instead they get the desired effects with the guitars and bass and drums, as well as adding a hint of synthesizer and sound effect samples. This album is where music is headed, and there is no better band to lead the way than Radiohead.
Although from my above description, it may sound like just a techno album, that is not the case. It is firmly grounded in rock. There is no techno beat or overuse of samplers - these are merely added for effect in a few spots on the album. The majority of the electronic sound is from the style in which the guitar is played. Thom Yorke's voice is a haunting, mysterious one, that fits Radiohead's musical style to a T. This is one band in which the greatness of the music lies not in just one single member, nor with the entire band. Instead what we have here is each single member, working together with a certain texture, to achieve a climax of musical piety, with Thom Yorke's cracked-throat voice in the center of it all.
The songs on the album are not all your basic 4-minute pop rock tunes like those being pumped out by the rest of the music industry currently. "Paranoid Android", the first single from the album (you may remember the music video with the little cartoon), is an epic musical masterpiece. It includes tempo changes, mood changes, wild (but not gross) shifts in dynamics, all topped off with the fits of anger and melancholic depression we can expect from singer Thom Yorke. This song in itself is a modern symphony. These days, it is difficult to find all of the aforementioned styles on one cd, let alone one song. Better yet, Radiohead succeeds in pulling it off beautifully in just over 6 minutes. Keep in mind, this is just one song on the album - there is an another 47 minutes to go.
About halfway through the album we are greeted with an eerie track which probes the value of our lives and where we place our values. This track, "Fitter Happier", includes no actual vocals, but instead a computer voice reading off phrases over a piano led background track. It ends with this phrase "fitter, happier, and more productive. a pig, in a cage, on antibiotics".
Yorke's lyrics are directed towards a a look at the future. Not only in the musical sense, but in a philosophical style as well. He delves into the minds of the listener, grips their psyche, and questions its worth before moving onto his next patient - himself. This is done in a less-straitforward, more artistic style which Yorke excels at. It makes the listener think, and the meaning behind them relies on the listener above all else.

Magic Numbers - Magic Numbers


This is the best album released in 2005, its highly original, cannot be compared to anything else. Its Highly original and refreshing, especially to release this kind of sound where everybody goes arctic monkey or coldplay shit....sweet sweet voice, great melodies, emotional, funny, and the best thing is the songs sound cheerfull where the lyrics are pretty depressing....now thats humour...gotta listen and listen again...

Slint - Spiderland

More known for its frequent name-checks than its actual music, Spiderland remains one of the most essential and chilling releases in the mumbling post-rock arena. Even casual listeners will be able to witness an experimental power-base that the American underground has come to treasure. Indeed, the lumbering quiet-loud motif has been lifted by everybody from Lou Barlow to Mogwai, the album's emotional gelidity has done more to move away from prog-rock mistakes than almost any of the band's subsequent disciples, and it's easy to hear how the term "Slint dynamics" has become an indie categorization of its own. Most interestingly, however, is how even a seething angularity to songs like "Nosferatu Man" (disquieting, vampirish stop-starts) or "Good Morning, Captain" (a murmuring nod to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner") certainly signaled the beginning of the end for the band. Recording was intense, traumatic, and one more piece of evidence supporting the theory that band members had to be periodically institutionalized during the completion of the album. Spiderland remains, though, not quite the insurmountable masterpiece its reputation may suggest. Brian McMahan softly speaks/screams his way through the asphyxiated music and too often evokes strangled pity instead of outright empathy. Which probably speaks more about the potential dangers of pretentious post-rock than the frigid musical climate of the album itself. Surely, years later, Spiderland is still a strong, slightly overrated, compelling piece of investigational despair that is a worthy asset to most any experimentalist's record collection.

Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Maybe it's the recent spate of backwards-glancing Bob Dylan projects—Chronicles, Vol. 1, Martin Scorsese's masterful No Direction Home, the recent Rolling Stone collection of interviews—or maybe it's the general feeling that the world is heading nowhere fast, but Dylan's 44th studio effort Modern Times might be the most upbeat feel-bad album of 2006. It's a melancholy record steeped in uncertainty and the wear of years, crafted by a man whose art has always kept reality at bay. Fusing blues, jazz, and rockabilly, Dylan continues along the same thematic wavelength previously heard on Time Out Of Mind and Love And Theft—morose, defiant, and, as always, lyrically oblique but somehow trenchant. Over the course of these 10 tracks, produced by Dylan and cut live in the studio with his touring band, a faint sense of foreboding builds, but with lovely works like "Spirit On The Water" and "When The Deal Goes Down" (both of which distinctly evoke the work of Daniel Lanois), the apocalypse is rendered palatable. Lining each song with his determined, gravelly tenor, Dylan spins out tales of unrequited love and hard-luck lives, allowing his backing band several chances to shine, which gooses the record with a palpable sense of vitality. Aside from name-checking a Chaplin classic, Modern Times feels like an icon weighing in on the events of the day, relying on sounds from the past rather than a spot on evening cable news.

Damien Rice - 9

Damien Rice has a lot to answer for. With 2003’s ubiquitous glossy radio remix of the already mild “Cannonball,” he pretty much invented James Blunt. Super-blandster Katie Melua has expressed admiration of the way in which he “has become successful on his own terms” (as long as the sleeves of all those remixes and re-releases say they weren’t your idea, they don’t really count, right?). Radio adverts for his second album proclaim him “the most influential singer-songwriter of his generation.”

Before all this, Rice emerged as quite the promising talent. O had its overwrought moments, but just as many of striking intimacy and beauty. It was great to hear someone ape the ambition of Jeff Buckley—rather than just his sound. Before the effects of promoting the album for nigh-on four years took their toll, his gigs were amazing, inspiring reverence for good reason.

But after the long promotional slog, you might have to forgive Rice for making an album that paints him as unhappier than ever. When he catches himself singing a song that isn’t mired in gloom, “Rootless Tree,” he tears it to shreds with its chorus: “Fuck you! Fuck you!” It’s merely disconcerting at first, but soon quite annoying. Unfortunately “Rootless” is probably 9’s most representative track: almost every song is slow and pained, starting almost inaudibly before stretching to a bombastic climax. It’s one way to make an impact, but over ten (long) tracks it gets exhausting.

The biggest problem might be Rice’s vocal technique. On O, he had a tendency to endearingly strain for notes he couldn’t reach. Now, it sounds like he’s purposefully written songs to allow him to overextend his thin voice. “Elephant” shows him actually sucking in his breathe in pain, and in the deeply ugly “Me, My Yoke and I,” he all but whips himself as he decries his sexual desires. It’s a theme that pops up again and again throughout the album, which is a shame: Rice’s lyrics are too tiresomely egotistical and alienating to allow you to ever sympathize with his self-loathing. Essentially they range from the pointlessly vague (“She gives / I get / Without giving anything to me”) to the embarrassingly crass (“You can lie between her legs / And go searching for / Tell her you’re looking for her soul”).

There are some moments worth saving. “The Animals Were Gone” is gradually taken over by a beautiful cello before drifting away on a blissful sea of distorted choral voices. Single “9 Crimes” is bleaker stuff, but benefits from a light touch and the soft, gorgeous voice of Lisa Hannigan. Given credit alongside Damien for last year’s charity single “Unplayed Piano,” Hannigan’s been relegated to just another member of the band, though, and barely gets another look in. It’s a shame, not least because another voice might have done something to break up 9’s interminable navel-gazing.

Cure - Greatest hits

This album was a great start line for a novice Cure fan, slightly like myself. Greatest Hits was simply made for the newcomers to Robert Smith's perennial music. Once again, these five British geniuses, slighty misunderstood, have created a sweet and sour, effulgent page turner. A group so innovational, so original, one's mind is blown. The lighter side of goth is represented here, to the liking of many, but probably not so much for the more intense fan who lives in the gloom-dipped, sombre moments. More well known songs are picked out, with up most care. From the zestfully enthusiastic 'Why Can't I Be You', to the opposing and unhurried 'Love song', this compilation has them covered. Resulting in giving the new boy a segment of The Cure's mammoth-range of songs. Smith's unpredictable vocals give a fine touch to the band and puts a stop to the non-believers of The Cure.
Many reviews I have read, have been centered about the lack of songs Greatest Hits has, which I am sure Cure lovers are all in one unanimous ride together. However, this compilation is a satisfying, nineteen-track treasure and one for the keeping. The icing on the cake, the bonus acoustic hits, are of course a major reason for purchasing Greatest Hits, giving the songs a more relaxed and light-hearted approach to them. This being the first stepping stone to converting anyone to a more wholehearted and devoted Cure lover and thus buying infinite amounts of Cure albums. As well as the two new inclusions; 'Just Say Yes' and 'Cut here', which really completes the album and would absorb anyone into The Cure's blissful music world. Don't be disillusioned by your first glance at it. Indeed, it may miss the more mature-Cure songs, though its relentless efforts of wanting others to enjoy the bustling music it spills, makes up for it.

U2 - U2 18 Singles

bio: Through a combination of zealous righteousness and post-punk experimentalism, U2 became one of the most popular rock & roll bands of the '80s. Equally known for their sweeping sound as for their grandiose statements about politics and religion, they were rock & roll crusaders during an era of synthesized pop and heavy metal. The Edge provided the group with a signature sound by creating sweeping sonic landscapes with his heavily processed, echoed guitars. Though the Edge's style wasn't conventional, the rhythm section of Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr., played the songs as driving hard rock, giving the band a forceful, powerful edge that was designed for arena rock. And their lead singer, Bono, was a frontman who had a knack of grand gestures that played better in arenas than small clubs. It's no accident that footage of Bono..

Freddie Mercury - Very Best of (antology)

On the occasion of what would have been the Queen frontman’s 60th birthday, this digitally remastered anthology collects all of Mercury's solo hits, peppered with special remixes and rarities! While Mercury dedicated the major part of his creative energy to Queen, he still had creativity to spare that could not be expressed within the confines of the band. He channeled that energy into a solo recording career that allowed him to experiment with and grow his innate musical talent.

Goo Goo Dolls - Let Love In

Folks who were digging the Goo Goo Dolls back in the early ‘90s have grown to find the band they once loved rendered virtually unrecognizable over the past decade or so. The Buffalo, NY, trio, led by John Rzeznik, always had pop smarts, but it took a couple of hit singles for their smarts to be put on full display. At the beginning of their career, they were sort of an agreeably messy pop/rock band, much like their idols, the Replacements (who I discovered partially due to the Goos). Of course, after the ‘Mats signed with a major label, their sound underwent a gradual transformation from messy to shiny, and the Goos have done the same, albeit with significantly more success. Each album since their 1995 breakthrough, A Boy Named Goo, has sounded cleaner and been more ballad-heavy than the one before it, culminating in their eighth studio album, Let Love In, a fairly decent set of mid-tempo guitar pop that’s likely to be blaring from an Adult Alternative radio station near you every time you turn the dial.

By no means is Let Love In a bad album. Rzeznik is certainly capable of writing a pop/rock anthem, as earlier smashes like “Name” and “Iris” prove. There’s no grand-slam hit on this album that matches up to those, but nearly every song on this album has a chorus that practically leaps out of the speakers and jumps through your ears. Case in point: the anthemic title track, the chorus of which I was humming to myself constantly after only one listen. Additionally, the Goos songs typically have a timelessness to them. It’s very easy to picture many of these songs being hits ten or even twenty years ago, in the heyday of Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi (hey, they both made a couple of good songs, right?). However, the album teeters on the edge of overproduction, thanks to studio vet Glen Ballard. Ballard literally polishes down any sonic imperfection this album could possibly have, sucking the life out of a couple of tracks in the process. The album’s sheen is occasionally detrimental, particularly on the slower numbers, all of which have a very similar quality to them. Ultimately, Let Love In is a mixed bag, but it’s the natural progression in terms of the band’s musical arc.

David bowie - Hunky dory

Bowie brought twisted futurism, the English music hall and the Velvet Underground to the touchy-feely Singer-Songwriter genre on his first truly great album. Ignored on it's initial 1972 release, "Changes" became a hit single years later, while "Life on Mars," "Queen Bitch," "Pretty Things" and others deserved the same fate.

The Killers - Sam's Town

Good Points
I do think 'When You Were Young' is a good track. There's a good pace to it, and
it takes you back to the sound used all over 'Hot Fuss'. Not too much else really, and there's nothing that's really offensive to the ears...

Bad Points ...
just nothing to really enjoy. I struggled through the album. It's predictable, and even boring for the most part. The vocals don't seem to work as well, with the sound being less 80's disco in this album. In fact, they're almost annoying in places. The song writing has taken a step back too, and all the energy that made the first album so popular has gone.

General Comments
There's no wonder why the radio stations have been completely unenthusiastic about the album since its release. It's not very good. I've read people saying "they couldn't just bring out another album like Hot Fuss, and they had to move forward". Why? Hot Fuss was a masterpiece of writing and production. There was energy and a roughness that made you excited to hear it. All but two of the songs on that album were Killer, and those 2 were hardly filler. What's wrong with that formula? I had high hopes for this album; they'd taken their time writing and releasing it, and the single was promising. Trust me, it's a let down. As for comparisons to Springsteen, that's nonsense. Poor effort boys. Nice tash in the vid though.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Gold - Remastered

Yet another Lynyrd Skynyrd compilation -- as if there weren't already plenty -- not that there are that many available anymore, since CDs go out of print so quickly now. Gold is a bit different, though, in its bid to become a definitive double-disc overview. First of all there is the sound. Everything here has been remastered in 24-bit digital, so it's wonderful. Next, of course, is the track listing. "Free Bird" has a version on each disc. On disc one, the original studio version appears; on disc two, at the very end, is the extended live version issued on One More from the Road. The live version of "Gimme Back My Bullets" that's here was issued only on a white-label promo. OK, everything the somewhat-more-than-casual Skynyrd fan would want is here, from "Sweet Home Alabama," their first hit, to the still-startling read of J.J. Cale's "Call Me the Breeze," to the original recorded version of "Comin' Home," which was originally issued on The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd. "Workin' for the MCA," is here, as is "Saturday Night Special," "Swamp Music," "What's Your Name," the live version of "Whiskey Rock-A-Roller" from One More from the Road, there's the really killer demo of "Four Walls of Raiford" that was only released on the box set, so more casual listeners will get a chance to hear this wonderful cut. But then the rest of the hits are here too: "Tuesday's Gone," "That Smell," "You Got That Right," and more. Bottom dollar is this: as a two-disc Skynyrd comp, this will be the one to beat; it's solid top to bottom with a few goodies thrown in for measure.

Phil Collins - Both Sides

According to Phil Collins, his first solo LP since the dour ... But Seriously (1989) is so deeply personal that he cloistered himself in his 12-track home studio to record it. A veritable one-man band, he laid down each of the album's 11 songs track by track. This solitary process has spawned a record even more deadly serious than Seriously itself.

Collins is one of pop's great paradoxes: an avuncular superstar who has made morose ballads his stock in trade. There's an honorable sincerity in Collins' effort to grapple with his vulnerability and social concerns on record. But courage and conscience don't guarantee depth, and Both Sides' message music is barely more trenchant than its lot of inarticulate love songs.

True to form, Both Sides is chockablock with drum-heavy dirges, droning synths, ominously ticking rhythm boxes and wailing, double-tracked vocals – all of which are now sonic clichés for the world-weariness, heartache and self-absorption that has become Collins' recurrent and emphatically one-sided story.

Certainly, the hits are here – "Every-day" virtually announces itself as this album's smash single. Still, too much of the music is fragmented, the melodies underdeveloped. An album whose very title advocates dialogue, outreach and the exchange of feelings, Both Sides fails to make its case.

Patti Smith - Exodus

bio: Punk rock's poet laureate, Patti Smith ranks among the most influential female rock & rollers of all time. Ambitious, unconventional, and challenging, Smith's music was hailed as the most exciting fusion of rock and poetry since Bob Dylan's heyday. If that hybrid remained distinctly uncommercial for much of her career, it wasn't a statement against accessibility so much as the simple fact that Smith followed her own muse wherever it took her -- from structured rock songs to free-form experimentalism, or even completely out of music at times. Her most avant-garde outings drew a sense of improvisation and interplay from free jazz, though they remained firmly rooted in noisy, primitive three-chord rock & roll. She was a powerful concert presence, singing and chanting her lyrics in an untrained but expressive voice, whirling around the stage like an ecstatic shaman delivering incantations. A regular at CBGB's during the early days of New York punk, she was the first artist of ..

Radiohead - Kid A


For an album that apparently grew out of the band trying to get away from melody, there's a lot of it here. They can't help themselves. They try to do a song with a robotic dance beat, load it up with bleak phrases like "laughing till my head comes off" and "take the money and run" and "this is really happening," call it "Idioteque" for chrissake, and what stands out are not the beat and not the phrases or the apparent concept of dance music being silly when horrible things are happening in the world, but the seven or eight different heartwrenching vocal lines and the amazing way they intertwine.

Allman Brothers Band - Ramblin' Man


Don't be fooled by the two lead guitars, the two drummers, the legendary concerts that only kicked into gear around the two-hour mark: Boogie-'til-you-puke overkill really isn't a part of the Allman Brothers' recorded legacy. Guitarist Duane and singer-organist Gregg Allman knocked around Los Angeles in the late '60s, polishing their chops in third-billed psychedelic ballroom bands such as the Hour Glass and...

Pink Floyd live at Concertgebouw, Amsterdam Holland 17 Sep 69

biography: Pink Floyd is the premier space rock band. Since the mid-'60s, their music relentlessly tinkered with electronics and all manner of special effects to push pop formats to their outer limits. At the same time they wrestled with lyrical themes and concepts of such massive scale that their music has taken on almost classical, operatic quality, in both sound and words. Despite their astral image, the group was brought down to earth in the 1980s by decidedly mundane power struggles over leadership and, ultimately, ownership of the band's very name. After that time, they were little more than a dinosaur act, capable of filling stadiums and topping the charts, but offering little more than a spectacular recreation of their most successful formulas. Their latter-day staleness cannot disguise the fact that, for the first decade or so of their existence, they were one of the most innovative groups around, in concert and (especially) in the studio. .

R.E.M. - In Time (best of 88-03)

I tend to think of REM as two different bands, from two different times. There's the IRS years...and the Warner years. While there is a little overlap ("It's The End Of The World As We Know It(and i feel fine)", for example), REM's style began to move away from garagey folk on Green.
Now, this of course is my perception of REM. Do they think that such a stylistic shift happened? Was their songwriting process different? I don't have those answers...because they don't really matter. What does matter is that I've been listening to these guys for a long time. Songs like "Radio Free Europe" and "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" will always be associated with those college nights spent listening to albums like Murmur at my friend Gene's parents house up in Bangor, Maine. The music made a big impression on me, so that time period comes along for the ride. The rest of the pre-Warner days stuff is in there too because, let's face it, does anyone really feel like an adult when they first get out of school? Not me. It took a few years. A job. A marriage. A mortgage...and then REM comes out with "Stand"...and suddenly, it appears that things have changed.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

'One Hot Minute' was good (very good, infact) but is just not good enough to compete with 'Californication' and it's majesty. This album showed the Red Hot Chili Peppers back to their usual amazing chemistery with John Frusciante and it pays off. Some of their best material ever comes off of here, most notably, 'Californication', 'Around The World', 'Otherside', 'Scar Tissue', 'Easily', 'This Velvet Glove', 'Savior' and 'Purple Stain'. There are so many good songs on here if you were wanting a really good Red Hot Chili Peppers' album it would a mistake to overlook 'Californication'.