Mike's generally positive (for a change) reviews - May
Arctic Monkeys – Oh those wacky Brits. Every year or so its another band that’s going to be the second coming. Oasis, Blur, Teenage Fanclub, etc have all worn the crown for a year and fallen by the wayside. This year’s model is Arctic Monkeys, a one trick pony relying on a formula of spunky punk and reggae tinged songs of bravado. Sometimes the formula works really well, particularly on “I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor” and “A Certain Romance”. Other times the formula sounds, well, like formula, noticeably on 3-4 tracks cushioned in the middle of the disc. The disc feels awfully long for 40 minutes, a result of the lack of variety. Singer sounds uncannily like early David Bowie. The high points are good, but there are not enough of them. I suspect the rest of the group will be falling over themselves praising this one, but I’m not quite buying into the hype. 2 ½ stars
Okkervil River – I listened to this one once or twice when it came out last year and it didn’t do much for me. However, it has grown on me significantly since I started listening to it again. Vocalist reminds me of Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes in how at times he sacrifices vocal perfection for getting across the emotion of the song. Also pulls off the neat trick of tying the sunniest melodies to the darkest lyrics, notably on “Black”, which turns a childhood abduction tale into a statement of faithfulness. Nice mix of musical styles from the shuffling two-step of “For Real” to the funeral dirge of “So Come Back, I Am Waiting”. Can’t tell if this is a concept album, but there is certainly a unifying feel to the disc, both musically and lyrically. 4 stars
Echo & The Bunnymen – A hit and miss collection of Brit-dream orchestral pop. “Silver” and “The Killing Moon” are examples where the heavily layered orchestration works really well. “Nocturnal Me and “Ocean Rain” are examples where the strings feel like overkill. I liked the two simplest songs “Crystal Days” and “Seven Seas” better than the rest of the disc, straightforward 80s new wave pop without the fru-fru string sound. Vocalist (Echo?) uses too much echo and has the prog “everything I sing is seriously important” thing going on. A couple of keepers, but overall an average disc. 2 ½ stars
Donna the Buffalo – Its been a while since we had any twang in this group, so this is a welcome submission. Tight band, great vocals, hint of reggae here and there. A good Friday night, firing up the grill with a cold one kind of disc. A lot like Alison Krauss & Union Station in that when Tara sings, the results are good, when the fellas carry the lead vocals, the results are not so good. The re-do of “Man of Constant Sorrow” is the only really bum note. Not remarkable, but steady and enjoyable throughout. 3 stars.
Police – Well its an old cliché about “the whole is better than the sum of its parts”, but the Police were exactly that, as evidenced by this collection. This band never made a bad record in its existence, and walked away at the top of its game. Damn few bands can make those claims. Amazing to me the levels of suckiness Sting sunk to in the last 20 years given what a brilliant writer, musician, and singer he was in the 80’s. Stewart Copeland would be in my list of the top 5 drummers of all time, and although I know Neil will vehemently disagree with me, I think Andy Summers was a great guitarist within the confines of the band. The disc itself is a little too heavy on the Synchronicity stuff at the expense of the first two records, but that is really splitting hairs. I think it warrants mentioning that the band has never stooped to a cash-in reunion tour, which surely would have brought them all gobs of $$$.
Discussion Question
Hate to pick on my fellow Midwesterner, but I’m throwing a penalty flag on this one. The very premise of the question is bogus. Taste by definition is subjective. Is my taste better than my wife’s who likes Styx, Journey and Stevie Nicks? No, my taste is more educated and certainly more adventurous, but saying it is better implies a baseline of taste that doesn’t exist. I doubt any of us would state that our taste in music is bad (guilty pleasures notwithstanding); and Neil wants us to use our own preferences to assign value to someone else’s. I believe that the root of Neil’s question really is “whose taste is most like mine or least like mine”, which is an answerable question.
I guessed that Jay’s taste was closest to mine and Byron’s was least like mine. However, when using measurable data to answer this question (Ken’s spreadsheet with everyone’s scores) my anticipated results did not happen.
According to the hard data, Ken’s taste is most like mine. 26% of our review scores have been identical, and 72% of our scores have been within the range of +/- 1 star. I’m a little surprised at this. I perceive Ken as giving significantly higher scores than I do in general, particularly on new music. Jay wasn’t far behind, we matched on 24% of our reviews, and 70% were within +/- 1 star.
I was surprised that Mike had the taste least similar to mine. Only 10 percent of our review scores were identical, and over 51 percent were outside of the +/- 1 star range. Byron was not far behind, though I found it amusing that we had exact matches on 16% of our reviews, a higher percentage than I have with Neil and D’Arcy, who have tastes I consider closer to mine than Byron’s. However, Byron and I had a 50% total on reviews that were outside the +/- 1 star range.
Again, I think the premise of the question was faulty to start with. Taste is subjective, and I don’t think it can be measured on a good/bad/better/worse scale. I really think that everyone in the group brings something a little unique to the table, and that is what makes it work as well as it does. Of course it would work even better for we outsiders if certain people would post their freaking reviews to the blog….
Ken Addendum Question
Self-Analysis:
The foundation for my taste is the singer-songwriter genre, Cash, Bob, Neil, Bruce, Petty, etc. My taste is twangy, I think I have a stronger appreciation of traditional country music than most. Generally don’t care for really loud bands, unless they write good songs. I have no tolerance for electronic music, with the exception of Beck. Generally, the simpler the style, the more I like it. The high-blinder label tag you’ve given me has just a hint of truth to it, as I am less open-minded than I’d like to think I am. I have a terrible weakness for girly pop (Bangles, Go-Gos, Ronettes, Sheryl Crow) and easily lose objectivity as it pertains to my favorite artists (Ken will explain mini-tweedys here). I would rate my taste as no better or no worse than anyone else’s in the group.
Okkervil River – I listened to this one once or twice when it came out last year and it didn’t do much for me. However, it has grown on me significantly since I started listening to it again. Vocalist reminds me of Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes in how at times he sacrifices vocal perfection for getting across the emotion of the song. Also pulls off the neat trick of tying the sunniest melodies to the darkest lyrics, notably on “Black”, which turns a childhood abduction tale into a statement of faithfulness. Nice mix of musical styles from the shuffling two-step of “For Real” to the funeral dirge of “So Come Back, I Am Waiting”. Can’t tell if this is a concept album, but there is certainly a unifying feel to the disc, both musically and lyrically. 4 stars
Echo & The Bunnymen – A hit and miss collection of Brit-dream orchestral pop. “Silver” and “The Killing Moon” are examples where the heavily layered orchestration works really well. “Nocturnal Me and “Ocean Rain” are examples where the strings feel like overkill. I liked the two simplest songs “Crystal Days” and “Seven Seas” better than the rest of the disc, straightforward 80s new wave pop without the fru-fru string sound. Vocalist (Echo?) uses too much echo and has the prog “everything I sing is seriously important” thing going on. A couple of keepers, but overall an average disc. 2 ½ stars
Donna the Buffalo – Its been a while since we had any twang in this group, so this is a welcome submission. Tight band, great vocals, hint of reggae here and there. A good Friday night, firing up the grill with a cold one kind of disc. A lot like Alison Krauss & Union Station in that when Tara sings, the results are good, when the fellas carry the lead vocals, the results are not so good. The re-do of “Man of Constant Sorrow” is the only really bum note. Not remarkable, but steady and enjoyable throughout. 3 stars.
Police – Well its an old cliché about “the whole is better than the sum of its parts”, but the Police were exactly that, as evidenced by this collection. This band never made a bad record in its existence, and walked away at the top of its game. Damn few bands can make those claims. Amazing to me the levels of suckiness Sting sunk to in the last 20 years given what a brilliant writer, musician, and singer he was in the 80’s. Stewart Copeland would be in my list of the top 5 drummers of all time, and although I know Neil will vehemently disagree with me, I think Andy Summers was a great guitarist within the confines of the band. The disc itself is a little too heavy on the Synchronicity stuff at the expense of the first two records, but that is really splitting hairs. I think it warrants mentioning that the band has never stooped to a cash-in reunion tour, which surely would have brought them all gobs of $$$.
Discussion Question
Hate to pick on my fellow Midwesterner, but I’m throwing a penalty flag on this one. The very premise of the question is bogus. Taste by definition is subjective. Is my taste better than my wife’s who likes Styx, Journey and Stevie Nicks? No, my taste is more educated and certainly more adventurous, but saying it is better implies a baseline of taste that doesn’t exist. I doubt any of us would state that our taste in music is bad (guilty pleasures notwithstanding); and Neil wants us to use our own preferences to assign value to someone else’s. I believe that the root of Neil’s question really is “whose taste is most like mine or least like mine”, which is an answerable question.
I guessed that Jay’s taste was closest to mine and Byron’s was least like mine. However, when using measurable data to answer this question (Ken’s spreadsheet with everyone’s scores) my anticipated results did not happen.
According to the hard data, Ken’s taste is most like mine. 26% of our review scores have been identical, and 72% of our scores have been within the range of +/- 1 star. I’m a little surprised at this. I perceive Ken as giving significantly higher scores than I do in general, particularly on new music. Jay wasn’t far behind, we matched on 24% of our reviews, and 70% were within +/- 1 star.
I was surprised that Mike had the taste least similar to mine. Only 10 percent of our review scores were identical, and over 51 percent were outside of the +/- 1 star range. Byron was not far behind, though I found it amusing that we had exact matches on 16% of our reviews, a higher percentage than I have with Neil and D’Arcy, who have tastes I consider closer to mine than Byron’s. However, Byron and I had a 50% total on reviews that were outside the +/- 1 star range.
Again, I think the premise of the question was faulty to start with. Taste is subjective, and I don’t think it can be measured on a good/bad/better/worse scale. I really think that everyone in the group brings something a little unique to the table, and that is what makes it work as well as it does. Of course it would work even better for we outsiders if certain people would post their freaking reviews to the blog….
Ken Addendum Question
Self-Analysis:
The foundation for my taste is the singer-songwriter genre, Cash, Bob, Neil, Bruce, Petty, etc. My taste is twangy, I think I have a stronger appreciation of traditional country music than most. Generally don’t care for really loud bands, unless they write good songs. I have no tolerance for electronic music, with the exception of Beck. Generally, the simpler the style, the more I like it. The high-blinder label tag you’ve given me has just a hint of truth to it, as I am less open-minded than I’d like to think I am. I have a terrible weakness for girly pop (Bangles, Go-Gos, Ronettes, Sheryl Crow) and easily lose objectivity as it pertains to my favorite artists (Ken will explain mini-tweedys here). I would rate my taste as no better or no worse than anyone else’s in the group.
posted by mphopkins @ 2:24 PM
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