Somebody's got to mop up the A-1...

Collective Soul – Surprise, it didn’t suck!   To my great relief this isn’t the one with “Shine” on it, although I despise “December” almost as much. “The World I Know” is one of the best Goo Goo Dolls songs ever and “Gel” is a good little number with a wicked hook.  The rest of it is spotty.  I hereby change my opinion of Collective Soul from “They blow” to “They’re marginally competent.”  2.5 stars

Human Switchboard – Any album that features this much Farfisa organ starts with a base of 2 stars, even if the rest of it is absolute crap.  Fortunately, not the case here.  Good collection of what we old-timers called “new wave” back in the day.  I hear shades of Talking Heads, Blondie, Violent Femmes, etc.  I liked almost all of it, although some careful editing and the elimination of “Refrigerator Door” would have bumped it ½ star. 3.5 stars

Big Head Todd – It has a couple of nice moments, notably “Josephina” and “Hey Delila” where things are simple and kept brief.  There’s just not enough of that on the disc.  The last 4 songs seem to take forever and “Fear, Greed and Ignorance” is painfully bad. Too much of the white-boy neo soul and not enough flat-out rocking.  2.5 stars

DBT –The simple fact is that Mike Cooley is the best songwriter of the last 20 years. “Shit Shots Count” and “Primer Coat” are two of his best, and the others are no slouches either.  The Hood songs are without exception better than anything he put on the last 2 albums.  Jay Gonzalez’s contribution on keys and as an extra guitarist are a crucial addition, and the lack of a 3^rd songwiter gives this album a focus that DBT has been lacking for some time. When this band is on their game, there are few, if any, better.  “English Oceans” is a band on its game.    4.5 stars

Sandanista – In 1979 the Clash released “London Calling” a double album that deftly moved between genres and was, by the way, the greatest album ever made. Less than a year later they followed up with Sandanista!, a 3 album set that was just an absolute sprawling mess,  heavy on the dub and reggae and light on finished songs.  The tragedy is that there is some incredible music on that album that time has forgotten, hence my best-of. Had the Clash released MY version of Sandanista as a single or double album, they’d have had an epic record that almost stands up to “London Calling”.