Opinions of record for August/September

Faith No More – Some bands just annoy me. This is one. Hard to pick out a specific reason, but here’s my biggest gripe. It seems as though about halfway through most of the songs Patton either gets bored or decides that his original musical idea just wasn’t very strong and then off he goes in some other direction for awhile. And I also get the idea he sort of thinks he’s Frank Zappa. And he’s not. Some will call it complex and praise his genius, but I think it’s a mess and I say the emperor has no clothes. This gets an annoying 1.5

John Doe – I probably never gave his solo stuff a chance because it wasn’t X, a band I would probably put in my top 10 bands all time. This, though feels different. Don’t know if it’s the guests or he’s just writing better songs, but this is a great record that starts off with a bang and never lets up, even when it slows down. And it doesn’t appear to be as quiet an album as he’s put out in the past. 4 stars

Wire Train – Don’t know anything about these guys and this didn’t suck, but again, I just don’t see anything overly interesting here. 2

Buffalo Tom – a fifty fifty disc for me. I really liked half the songs and the other half I was just indifferent about. They sound better on the faster, shorter songs and there weren’t enough of those. 2.5

Brendan Benson – Obviously, I like him. His strength is his ability to combine multiple hooks within a song and every song is catchy. You have to overlook some dopey lyrics and I really wish more girls liked him, but he is a five star artist and Lopalco, his second record is a pop classic.

Most overrated album – It would be easy to pick just about anything by the Doors, the most overrated of all rock bands, but I think I’ll go in another direction. There seems to be this feeling among critics and many fans that Exile on Main Street is the Stones Best album. I can name four legitimate releases – Sticky Fingers, Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed and Get Your Ya Yas Out – and the Live in Brussells Bootleg that I’d rather be stuck on a desert Island with. Exile just has too much junk and the one song that everyone points to as a classic – Tumblin' Dice – is about their 25th best song of all time.

Also getting votes - Every Beatle album after Revolver, Aja by Steely Dan and any REM album that anyone thinks is any good except Murmer.