Reviews Supplemental

20 Aug 2014: Paul Simon/"Graceland" (1986)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/07/owner-of-content-heart-by-yes-men.html

THE /mu/ ESSENTIALS LIST LIVES ON
I hate myself, by the way.

The Boy in the Bubble would probably be better without the tuba.
I Know What I Know would be a lot better without the annoying chipmunk-ass backing vocals (female edition). They are 100% the worst in the history of music. Not even fucking exaggerating.

You Can Call Me Al is legitimately a good song. That's always great.

Honestly, I'm impressed. This album is actually pretty good, with few sore spots.

20 Aug 2014: Beastie Boys/"Paul's Boutique" (1989)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/07/tightly-un-loose-by-foot-un-loose.html

This album is on the /mu/ essentials list. Wow.

I'm finding it more fun trying to identify the samples than actually listening to the album properly.
That sample in The Sounds of Silence is DEFINITELY The End. Like, OH YEAH ALL RIGHT type shit. And that sample on Hey Ladies is Ballroom Blitz.
There are others I recognise but can't place.

The final track is a twelve-minute medley that is easily the low point of the album.
Overall, the album was pretty good, though.

21 Aug 2014: Otis Redding/"Otis Blue" (1965)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/07/tearing-open-with-jaws-of-life-by.html

The /mu/ essentials list? Never heard of not doing albums from it.

You know, I'd never heard the original version of Respect before. Much better than Aretha's.
The cover of I Can't Get No Satisfaction is just brilliant.

Honestly, I wish I'd started with this one. It's so much better than The Dock of the Bay, it's crazy.

21 Aug 2014: Big Black/"Songs About Fucking" (1987)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/07/lemon-numel-by-camerupt-and-fruits.html

This album marks my first completed row on the /mu/ essentials list.

This album is very unremarkable. It's all kind of the same throughout. It's not bad, but eh.

22 Aug 2014: Wilco/"Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (2002)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/07/holding-hands-and-crying-by-ohioians.html

I've reviewed a Wilco album before (and thought it was good), but THAT ONE WASN'T ON THE /mu/ ESSENTIALS LIST

I don't know what to say, really. The songs are all different, but they don't seem too far removed from eachother. Some songs are just long stretches of the same shit, but others are pretty good.

22 Aug 2014: The Human League/"Dare" (1981)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/gaining-gains-that-are-gained-by-gainers.html

/mu/ ESSENTIALS DOG

Every song on this album sounds exactly the same, aside from the one slow song. If you like new wave bullshit, you'll like it all. I sure do.
It ends on the best two tracks, though, which is nice.

23 Aug 2014: Dirty Projectors/"Rise Above" (2007)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/holding-onto-frayed-ends-of-this-thread.html

Hipster bullshit. I bought and loved Bitte Orca, and absolutely adored Swing lo Magellan (giving it five stars and everything), so I decided it's probably past time to listen to more of their music.
Apparently, this album was an attempt to rewrite a Black Flag album entirely from memory. This guy's memory fucking sucks, let me tell you.

Six Pack has the best riff of any hipster bullshit I've heard.
The album really loses steam toward the end, but it's a fun ride until then.

23 Aug 2014: KISS/"Animalise" (1984)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2014/02/holding-for-holders-insurance-by.html

After 1983's EARTH-SHATTERING reveal of THE TRUE FACES OF HALF OF KISS AND ALSO TWO OTHER GUYS tied to a just okay album, we get this. The cover art is an iconic image of, uh. Fur. Yeah.

The album starts with I've Had Enough and Heaven's on Fire, which are pretty '80s, but they're done very well.
Under the Gun roars out of the gate with a solo, and I respect the shit out of that.
Murder in High Heels has a nice riff, if nothing else.

Like most KISS albums, Stanley's tracks are the highlights, and Simmons's are just there for the most part. It's a better album than Lick it Up, though, definitely.

24 Aug 2014: John Mayall/"Bluesbreakers" (1966)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/happy-birthday-by-to-not-me.html

R.I.P. GHG
You could have told me this was a Cream album, and I'd have believed you. The vocals aren't as strong as Bruce's, but Mayall's still got that blue thing going for him.

You know, that's how I'll sum this up. It's like a Cream album with nothing that makes Cream good.

24 Aug 2014: Loverboy/"Get Lucky" (1981)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/when-night-is-okay-by-nightlights.html

Working for the Weekend and all that.

Does it get more '80s than Working for the Weekend? I don't know if it can. I mean, there's music released in the '80s, then there's '80s music. This is unapologetically 100% the latter.

The album retains its unapologetic '80sness throughout, but the quality dips considerably after Working for the Weekend. It's not bad by any means, but it's not very memorable.

25 Aug 2014: Pat Benatar/"In the Heat of the Night" (1979)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/mega-men-and-mega-dudes-by-mega-guys.html

Benatar's first album, which features Heartbreaker. Big fan.

The album starts with Heartbreaker, which is a great move. It's got everything you could want from a song.
There's a cover of The Sweet's No You Don't, which is surprisingly good.

While the album never reaches the high of Heartbreaker again, it's surprisingly good.

25 Aug 2014: Weird Al/"Running with Scissors" (1999)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/09/gaining-gains-in-gainful-world-of-gains.html

The album begins with a song recounting the plot of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, to the tune of American Pie. Yeah. It's pretty impressive, really.
I'm legitimately impressed at how Weird Al managed to make a song called "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder" work so well. Like, damn.

Pretty Fly for a Rabbi only works because the "UH-HUH UH-HUH" was replaced by "OY VEY OY VEY". It makes the whole song. The other Jewish phrases and pronunciations are just icing on the cake.
Jerry Springer just works on every level. The fact that Weird Al was able to make a song with such rapid-fire lyrics into a song about Jerry Springer is just impressive. Nevermind the accuracy of the lyrics.

The Nine Inch Nails style parody is less successful. I get what he was going for, but the lyrics aren't that great.
Polka Power! nails it immediately with Spice Girls' Wannabe. And Al doing the Backstreet's Back harmonies is just too good. AND TUBTHUMPING HOLY SHIT 10/10 Then Semi-Charmed Life's high note and holy wow

In It's All About the Pentiums, the line "What kind of chip you got in there? A Dorito?" makes it fucking excel.
I'm not sure that making Truck-Drivin' Song about a woman or cross-dresser (it's hard to tell) was a good idea.
Grapefruit Diet is another song about being fat, but Al makes it work somehow. I'm really not sure how he manages it.

BUT FUCK ALL THAT SHIT
The album ends with Albuquerque. The classic. The absolute classic. The 10/10. The 100%. The best, the best, the best, the best of you.
What even can I say about it? It's perfect in every way. The lyrics, the pacing, the instrumentation. It's fucking perfect, and I will fight you if you don't agree.

ANOTHER HOME RUN HOLY SHIT HOW DOES HE DO IT

26 Aug 2013: Molly Hatchet/"Flirtin' with Disaster" (1979)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/yaks-by-herding-hernias.html

Starting off with a song as generic as Whiskey Man was a great move, let me tell you.
And then they do a generic cover of a The Rolling Stones song. Nice.

The title track is memorable and high-energy. Exactly what every other song wasn't.

26 Aug 2014: Roy Orbison/"In Dreams" (1963)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/since-because-of-way-you-move-by-girl.html

I reviewed Crying a while ago, and wasn't the biggest fan. RYM says this one's better, so we'll see.
The album's got a lot more going for it than Crying, with much better songs overall. I'm all for it.

27 Aug 2014: Ted Nugent/"Ted Nugent" (1975)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/having-all-of-good-by-okay.html

I think this is just something I had to do. Granted, Nugent isn't the first guy to come to mind in any situation, but he's still one of those obvious guys I should do an album from.

The album starts with Stranglehold. It's completely ruined by Nugent just wanking all over it. If it were just the parts with singing, it would be pretty good.
Aside from that, it's remarkably average. At least it ends on the best song.

27 Aug 2014: Huey Lewis and the News/"Picture This" (1982)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/sales-on-best-of-things-by-selling.html

Between the debut and Sports, there's this.

Do You Believe in Love is such a blatant rip-off of ELO's Sweet-Talkin' Woman, I can't even.
The album as a whole is even more generic than Ted Nugent's self-titled, and it, too, ends on its best song.

28 Aug 2014: Social Distortion/"White Light, White Heat, White Trash" (1996)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/deli-meats-by-delights.html

More out of curiosity than anything else.

If you've only heard the GH3/RB2 songs (Story of My Life, I Was Wrong), you've only heard the outliers of what this band sounds like.
Unfortunately, those two tracks are more memorable than the majority of this album.

Speaking of I Was Wrong, the version on this album is different than the RB2 version. It's worse, actually.

I will admit that either the album got better as it went on, or I got more into it, but it's nothing special, really. Better than Huey managed yesterday, by a lot.

28 Aug 2014: KISS/"Asylum" (1985)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2014/03/julio-and-case-of-missing-pancakes-by.html

So, what's left to say about KISS after twelve albums (plus the four 1978 solo albums)?

Tears are Falling is absolutely atrocious. It has no redeeming qualities, and it doesn't mesh with the rest of the album at all.
Other than that, it's a solid album. I'm looking forward to KISS XIV.

01 Sep 2014: "Por Siempre Beatles" by The Beatles

We all live in Argentina, right?

This album is full of what were then officially non-album tracks. At this point, we'd know half of the album as half of Magical Mystery Tour.
The selection here is sub-par compared to most compilations. Tracks no one cares about like Blue Jay Way or The Inner Light waste space that could have been given to classics like From Me to You and She's a Woman. Or Hey Jude.

p.s. Strawberry Fields Forever is still shit.

04 Sep 2014: Maroon 5/"V" (2014)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2014/08/julio-and-case-of-missing-bullshit-by.html

I've been busy playing Layton vs. Phoenix, but it's all over now, and I'm back with this thing.

The album's title isn't the letter V, but the Roman numeral V, referring to the fact that it is Maroon 5's fifth album. I'm already filled with confidence.
Honestly, it would have been better to call it "5" or "Maroon 5" or "Maroon 5 5" If the next album isn't called "Maroon 6", I'll be disappointed.

The first two tracks sound exactly the same. If the "MAP TO YOU" hadn't been changed to "ANIMALS", I wouldn't have noticed the difference.
The title "Unkiss Me" is probably the worst ever. Adam Levine, you are not black. "Let go" doesn't rhyme with "disrespectful", no matter how much you nig it up.

New Love is so annoying. The chorus sounds like Levine is going through puberty, with his voice cracking on "forgive ME".
Feelings has the most annoying falsetto in history.
Gwen Stefani guests, but she's not unbearable somehow.

Other than New Love, Feelings, and the Gwen Stefani song, every song on this album sounds almost exactly the same. It's not a bad sound, though.

04 Sep 2014: Gordon Lightfoot/"Sundown" (1974)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/tonights-night-by.html

Can you believe I haven't done a Gordon Lightfoot album? I can't. Honestly, why was I doing a thousand Incubus albums when I had so much else to do?

So, I think I finally get why "singer/songwriter" is frequently considered a genre, despite the fact that both words refer to people.
It's all the same shit. Lightfoot has a great voice, but you could honestly have swapped his and James Taylor's lyrics sheets and no one would have noticed.

If it's going to be a genre, it needs a better name. "acoustic sounds-the-same"
This genre's defining feature (aside from the sounds-the-same part) is that the singles are far and away the best parts of the albums. This album's draw is the title track, and that's about it.

04 Sep 2014: The Beatles/"Revolver" (1966)
This one doesn't get a Could be Better entry, since my rules forbid it completely. THE BEATLES EVERY MONTH IS STILL A GOOD THING

Out of every "canon" album The Beatles ever released, only three sit in my ratings under a 4. Revolver, Yellow Submarine, and Magical Mystery Tour. Yellow Submarine because half of it is orchestral film bullshit. Magical Mystery Tour because half of it is just bad or unimpressive. For every The Fool on the Hill, there's a Blue Jay Way.
Revolver because, uh. Hmm.

Revolver is frequently called "The Beatles' best album" or even "the best album of all the times". I always have a problem with this. Call it "Rust in Peace syndrome" if you must. No matter how good a thing is, if I don't think it's the best and everyone else does, I hate it. I hate it more and more every time someone says it's the best. Rust in Peace, Revolver, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, it doesn't matter. The more people say their flaws aren't flaws, the more I hate them. The more I focus on the flaws and disregard what makes it good.
When I think of Revolver, I think of how much people love it when it doesn't deserve it. I don't think of I'm Only Sleeping or For No One.

I also hate the cover art. Putting real-ass pictures and real-ass facial features over the sketches makes it look absolutely horrible. I hate "art" like this, but that's something for another day.


BUT WAIT THERE ARE SONGS ON THIS ALBUM HAHA

Taxman doesn't have anything going for it apart from the guitar solo, which fades out. Everything else from it, I could get from a better song, like Roll Over Beethoven or even I'm Happy Just to Dance with You. The lyrics don't interest me.
Paul's vocals on Eleanor Rigby just sound bored. I can't get past it, and it makes me not enjoy the song at all. David Cook did it better.

I'm Only Sleeping is one of the band's best songs. John's vocals are perfect, and the music behind him sounds sleepy and lethargic enough to work without it being overbearing.
Love You To is just a more boring version of Within You, Without You, which itself was the worst song on the near-perfect Sgt. Pepper.

Here, There, and Everywhere is just kind of there. There's nothing about it that stands out in any way.
Yellow Submarine is a great example of why Ringo is so great. In a sea of overly self-important garbage, Ringo just sings a simple song about hanging out with bros under the sea. This song always makes me smile, as most Ringo songs do.

She Said, She Said would be better if it were about a key lower. The Black Keys did it better. I don't like the line "no no no you're wrong, when I was a boy", since the pause between the "when I was a boy" starting the sentence and "everything was right" ending it is far too long.
Good Day, Sunshine is pretty good, actually. People give it shit, but I don't see why. It's a nice happy song that DID NOTHING WRONG

And Your Bird Can Sing lives and dies by its riff. The riff is what makes the song memorable, and everything else is just there. Luckily, the song doesn't overstay its welcome.
For No One is one of the band's best songs. Paul's vocals are perfect, and the music behind him is interesting and fits the mood perfectly, without drawing attention away from the lyrics.

Doctor Robert is just ugh. It's the textbook definition of filler. There is nothing I can point to and say "this is good" or "this is bad". It just shouldn't be there. There's no point to it.
I Want to Tell You is a notch above Doctor Robert, because of the "I feel hung up and I don't know why" part. Otherwise, it seems like an inferior version of If I Needed Someone or Think for Yourself.

Got to Get You into My Life is one of the band's best songs. Paul's vocals are perfect, and the music behind him is cheery and uplifting without betraying the "about drugs" thing.
Then we get to the finale, Tomorrow Never Knows. The only good part of the song is the drumming. The cacophonous horns are just bad. The vocals are annoying, and I can confidently state that this is the worst song The Beatles recorded before they stopped touring. If you can even call it a song.

So, yeah. The album is completely hit-or-miss, and features far too many self-indulgent tracks that wank off to Indian culture or whatever by George and John. Ringo is spot-on, and Paul is great, aside from the lethargic Eleanor Rigby.
3.5/5 is totally justified. It's not the band's best album, and it is tied with Magical Mystery Tour for their most uneven album. Don't do drugs, kids.

i agree that Revolver is super hit or miss, but for the exact opposite reasons you stated

Love You To is my favorite song on Revolver, one of my favorite beatles' songs in general
I first heard Tomorrow Never Knows in beatles rock band in the Love version with Within You Without You, which is infinitely superior to the Revolver version. revolver version is still gr8
For No One is probably my second favorite, what a french horn line
I'm Only Sleeping has grown on me greatly over the years.

I still can't stand And Your Bird Can Sing and She Said, She Said
I can't remember a single detail of I Want To Tell You
Doctor Robert is annoying, but less so than She Said and And Your Bird Can Sing
Good Day Sunshine would be a little better with more instruments. I think it's too bare-bones. Still pretty good

In the end, I think we both listen to music for the exact opposite reasons.

05 Sep 2014: Captain Beyond/"Captain Beyond" (1972)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2013/08/ropes-and-popes-by-dopes.html

Last week, I went into a music shop in town, just to check it out, you know. The clerk (owner?) was sitting there, and welcomed me in. He was very talkative, and ended up running through a list of music I should check out. I couldn't really get around the store, since it was cluttered as shit.
Anyway, the artist he mentioned that stuck with me most was Captain Beyond. Mostly because he said "Deep Purple" and I know who those guys are.

Indeed, Captain Beyond is fronted by none other than Rod Evans. I was worried the album would be some weird-ass hippie shit, but my fears were proven unfounded immediately when GUITARS
I'm not sure if I'd have known this was Rod Evans if I hadn't been told beforehand. The weird echo effect on his voice makes him sound very different.

Myopic Void has a pretty sweet riff, as does Mesmerisation Eclipse. I never thought I'd praise songs with those titles.

This album is much better than any of Evans's albums with Deep Purple, but not as good as Deep Purple's best albums with Coverdale and Gillan. You know.

05 Sep 2014: Death from Above 1979/"The Physical World" (2014)
http://musiccouldbebetter.blogspot.com/2014/09/julio-and-case-of-missing-he-by-he.html

The album doesn't come out until Tuesday, but the internet disagrees.
Death from Above 1979 released their first album ten years ago, and it was great. This is their second. This could go one of two ways, and we'll see how it goes.

The focus of the music has shifted from LOUD AND AGGRESSIVE to LOUD AND HOOKY AND AGGRESSIVE
The music doesn't suffer from it, and I might actually like this album better than You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. It's definitely my album of the year 2014, if for no other reason than lack of competition.