This album sounds quite a bit different from Helmets first two outings.
To Hard Harry412 'Betty' sounds like Helmet trying to copy the Melvins! And that is a good thing!
'I Know' sounds like it could have come off of the Melvins Houdini album.
The drumming on 'Betty' sounds totally Dale Crover-esque to me, all bottom-endy and stuff. I just like the drum sound on this record too. It may be one of my favorite 'drum albums', up there with 'Surfer Rosa' with its legendary drum sound.
The rest of the album sounds good too. Whereas 'Strap It On' and 'Meantime' feature a more direct metal assault, 'Betty' has way more dynamics and slow parts in songs. Helmet were really trying to grow as song-writers on this one and I think they were successful because this is one heck of a good album.
Ever since watching the video to 'Sleep to Dream' on MTV back in the day I have been captivated by her. 'Sleep to Dream' kicked ass. It has this total retro-70s style going on, but the vibe still seemed very '90s-ish (note the lack of yellow smiley face...)
She has a musical style that is all her own that features piano-jazz mixed in with musical arrangements that feature some very unorthodox instrumentation. Stuff like bells and chimes sometimes enter to help to create a fantastic atmosphere (one of my favorite things about her songs actually).
Normally I listen to guitar-driven rock, but occasionally I want something different and thank goodness that Apple is there to help fill that void!
In fact I like her so much that i saw her on tour in like 1997!
In fact there is a whole host of reasons I like Apple. She is the same age as me and well, us Gen. Xers need to stick together, who else is going to listen to our music? Boomers? To ask is to laugh! Millenials? They are too much into Pop Tarts like Britney or Christina or dare I say it FREAKS like Lady Gaga (listen I am basically a Libertarian who thinks folks should be able to do what they please, but even Hard Harry412 has limits!!!)
Oh and also it doesn't hurt that Apple is totally crushable too with beautiful long hair and beautiful fair skin. Sort of a Zoey Deshanel of the '90s one could say.
Then there is a whole 'nother reason (this post is getting long) and that is Apples general attitude. She is sort of a miserableist like myself and Morrissey too. Just read, and really listen to some of her lyrics!
Plus she TALKS HARD! Just watch the video of her legendary speech at the MTV music awards in 1997!
'Tidal' is a mighty debut which features song after song of goodness. Dang even most of the music videos are good too! (Hard Harry412 has been meaning to link to more music videos....:)
There are really only two songs I dislike on here:
The first one, ironically is 'Criminal'. Hey I was into Fiona Apple from seeing 'Sleep to Dream' on like 120 minutes way before 'Criminal' was ever released as a single. I just don't care for the bass line (which seemingly makes up the majority of the song). Then there is the mega-controversial video. It has a very similar style to 'Sleep to Dream' but was just over-shadowed by the this controversy and hey I dislike the actual song too as well so am just not into it.
The other song I don't really care for is 'The First Taste'. That is ok though because I just kind of class it as a throw-away B-side and hey it was an attempt to make a cross-over dance-type song, it just kind of fails with me at that is all.
A live compilation of odds and ends that didn't make it onto L.C.s last album.
There are some good tracks on here! I like 'Heart With No Companion' as 'Various Positions' is one of my favorite L.C. albums.
Also the version of 'Avalanche' on here is interesting compared to the other songs. It is played very similar to its studio version, without any of the musical sound-scape and new arrangements that the backing band play on many of the other songs.
Also 'Lover, Lover, Lover' is pretty good. I have never liked the studio version or even really cared for that song to be honest, but the live version on here has caused me to re-think that and I like this live version that sounds a little slowed down and more groovy.
After the disaster that making 'God's Foot' turned out to be, Juliana Hatfield returned to releasing full length albums a few years later with 'Bed'
How did it turn out? To me 'Bed' is a return to form as she seems to combine the popier sounds of 'Hey Babe' with the noise rock of 'Only Everything' on one album. Personally I like the combination because it is very dynamic and features one of my favorite things about Juliana, her 'Guitar Goddess' persona as he metes out some totally grungey riffs worthy of J Mascis on here!!
Also lyrically Juliana is progressing as well. She is no longer the virginal young woman of her older albums, as the adult female sexuality of 'You Are the Camera' attests to (YES!)
The worst thing about this album though is the cover! What the heck? Is she sleepy? Zoned out? Just don't like it. Album covers that I strongly dislike are a major pet peeve of Hard Harry412. The music inside might be totally good, but one is just slightly repulsed by the cover!
'Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye' from his very first album was a welcome surprise set-list selection. Also 'Take This Waltz' was another wonderful surprise. The back-up band did a terrific job with this song, just really bringing it to life.
Speaking of the back up band they are awesome on here! Many of L.C.s songs are transformed into magnificent multi-layered sound-scapes by this crew.
Still one wonders... Where is Jennifer Warnes? Did she retire? Well that has been in the back of my mind for some time.
What about Leonard Cohen himself? Well this was recorded when he was around 73 years old and I must state that for a man of his age he performs quite well! There are a couple of songs where the band over-powers him, but then there are other songs (such as 'Everybody Knows') where his older, deeper, huskier voice actually seems to give him more presence as the lead vocalist! It is actually pretty cool to behold!
I am going to have to get a copy of this on DVD as well!
This is a total bummer! Hopefully Moz gets better, his band gets better, and they put out another album soon! (I have heard that he wants to retire sort of soon-ish *sniffle* )
Let's break down Metallica first four albums with my favorites going first:
1.) '...And Justice For All' - After listening to this one, which I hadn't heard in years I am convinced this is the best of them. The songs themselves are long and epic, much more so then on 'Master', but also seem to capture some of the 'brutal' rawness of their first two albums. Hetfields vocals on here are by far his best as well! Then there is Lars bass drum, which sounds awesome. When one adds up all the good things about 'Justice' it just over-whelming appears to take the top spot.
2.) 'Ride the Lightning' - This album has that raw 'barely produced' sound that I like, but it is not AS raw as their debut and not as polished as 'Master' either. Sort of a 'golden mean' as it were. Plus 'Ride the Lightning' has some really awesome songs on there that I like such as 'Fade to Black'. In fact I don't think there is a track on here I dislike.
3.) 'KIll 'Em All' - This thing is so raw and powerful! The only real drawback is some of the lyrics are frankly dumb... 'Phantom Lord'? not really all that scary! Still this is a sick debut. Why doesn't it get more credit? To much of the mainstream out there wants their tunes to sound all produced and stuff. In my mind this is right up there with some of the best debuts in Rock/ Hard Rock/ Metal such as Guns N' Roses 'Appetite for Destruction' It is that good in my mind!
4.) 'Master of Puppets' - Well sadly something had to come in last. I look at this as sort of transitional record to the epic achievement they would make on their next album. I just don't really dig the title track, never have and I have heard it on the Metal Radio stations countless of times. Still this record is by no means a failure! It has one of my favorite Metallica songs on it: 'Disposable Heroes'!!
Just recently re-listening to this album blew me away!
Hard Harry412 had forgotten just how good this album is!
The best part about it is Lars bass drum, it sounds deep and sweet on this record! It still sounds good almost 20+ years later! James Hetfields vocals are outstanding! He is aggressively barking out lyrics here on some of these songs in a way unheard of in the last three albums.
The only real drawback with this record is the guitar sound. It just sounds like thin, certainly different then their last three records, but after 2-3 songs in one gets sort of used to the sound and it sorts of fades away.
When it comes to Metallica 'Classic Quartet' of albums this one is going to rank pretty high!
YES! Another Gen. X classic. Have always liked this flick and even saw it in the theaters when it first came out.
There is a lot of filler in 'Singles', but there is also a lot of particularistic awesome-ness to be enjoyed. Thanks to the innovations of big screen televisions and DVDs most of these 'small things' can be fully viewed now without being missed!
O.k. so lets get the one major thing that is wrong with this flick out of the way before moving on... that is the entirety of the A-plot with Linda Powell and Steve Dunn. As Troy Dyer from 'Reality Bites' would probably describe them, they are "yuppie cheese-heads!"
Alright but the B-plot with Janet and Cliff is awesome! There are many people out there (on the internet) that hate Cliff for some reason, but come on at least he is trying to be creative and stuff! I give him some credit for that!
Then there is Janet. She is this totally cool down to earth '90s Alterna-girl/ dream-girl! I love her style! It was great when chicks used to be like this!
If only chicks now-a-days would wear more grungey and less well... slutty clothes! Sadly the glut of Pop Tarts (Britney, Christina...) have had a negative effect on the Millenials
Now for the bestest parts of the flick... all the musicians who had cameos! There is no other flick that has Alice in Chains and Soundgarden in it performing! THIS IS FRICKING AWESOME! And they were recorded playing live! No studio over-dubs! This flick is for real!
Also Pearl Jam has a bit part playing the role of the legendary band 'Citizen Dick'!
Thanks to the internet there is now all this cool stuff from the movie out there like this Citizen Dick poster and even their single 'Touch Me I'm Dick' is now out there! Hell I have a MP3 copy of it now!
It is totally bad ass how all this stuff is out there now, that until like a year or two ago I didn't even know existed till I started searching for stuff on the web. Singles Forever!
Another album from the The Smiths box set 'Complete'!
This one is mostly a compilation of live recordings and some singles. It is a good mix however, not just some jumble forged together at the last minute.
This album may be my favorite Smiths album! It has some of their best songs on here! 'How Soon is Now?' is probably my favorite song of theirs! It is some 30 years later and it still sounds cool! I can't believe that Moz laid down the vocals in like only two takes! I wonder how many Millenials have never even heard the original and have only heard Love Spit Loves version from 'Charmed'? Bet there are quite a few out there!
The other crucial song on here is 'Heaven Knows I am Miserable Now'. The lyrics are funny as hell. I like how The Smiths and Moz can on one song be totally deadly serious and then on the next they have this total Black Humor thing going on.
There is one odd thing about this album though... It doesn't have 'This Night Has Opened My Eyes' which should supposedly be on here! I guess it is on another album on 'Complete' See there are U.K. releases and U.S. releases out there that differ so it gets kind of confusing as to what is on what!
What would happen if Leonard Cohen went back to his jazzy ways circa 'Recent Songs' (1979) and tried to make another jazz album, but with a Fiona Apple twist? 'Dear Heather' would be the result!
Having ditched the mellow soulful R&B of his last album, Cohen appears to pick up where he left off with 'Recent Songs', which up to this point was arguable his 'jazz record'.
'Dear Heather' does have some contemporary pop adornments added to it though, like the drums on some songs. It totally sounded like a mixture of Fiona Apples 'When the Pawn' mixed with 'Extraordinary Machines' to me. That is a totally welcome mix!!! Also the female background singers are much more prominent here. Frankly I think it is a welcome change! Lets give these chicks that have been singing with Cohen for years a chance to shine for once! This does not in any way reduce Cohen as a song-writer.. since he penned their lyrics for them!! It is just a different interpretation of his song-writing is all.
Sometimes I think to myself 'Nah the Melvins aren't really that Heavy' After listening to this though I am reminded how wrong I am whenever such thoughts come about!
'Gluey' is totally heavy and finds the Melvins having better production values then their first recordings '6 songs'. It actually sounds like they are in an actual studio!
Nirvana is one of the main reasons I got into Alt-rock!
To this day I can still remember being transfixed, viewing for the first time Nirvanas MTV studio performance of 'Territorial Pissings'!
Had never heard anything like that before! So fast! I went and got the cassette tape of 'Nevermind' and it must have been one of the real early ones because it did not have 'Endless, Nameless' on it:
One of the songs mastered at the session, a hidden track called "Endless, Nameless" intended to appear at the end of "Something in the Way", was accidentally left off initial pressings of the album. Weinberg recalled, "In the beginning, it was kind of a verbal thing to put that track at the end. Maybe I misconstrued their instructions, so you can call it my mistake if you want. Maybe I didn't write it down when Nirvana or the record company said to do it. So, when they pressed the first twenty thousand or so CDs, albums, and cassettes, it wasn't on there." When the band discovered the song's omission after listening to its copy of the album, Cobain called Weinberg and demanded he rectify the mistake.[22] Weinberg complied and added about ten minutes of silence between the end of "Something in the Way" and the start of the hidden track on future pressings of the album.[23]
Well 'Endless, Nameless' is assuredly on my edition of 'Nevermind Super Deluxe' and a lot more!
The best thing about this is the remastered version of 'Nevermind' itself. At first I wasn't really into it, probably since I had heard the first few tracks so many times before, but when 'Breed' came on.. well it was on! Sounded great!!!
Also 'Nevermind Super Deluxe' has complete Nirvana concert from 1991 at the Paramount Theatre on it! I like the Paramount because that is where I saw Leonard Cohen live at and also Alice in Chains have filmed a music video there as well. It is just a cool place with a lot of history!
The concert set-list is awesome! There is a lot of songs from 'Bleach' on there! I think 'Bleach' gets over-looked a lot so this is awesome. You know when Nirvana were on their 'In Utero' tour they didn't play much stuff from 'Bleach', and there is lots of live stuff from that tour out there (like MTVs 'Live and Loud') The high-light of this concert for me is the rendition of 'Love Buzz'. I can't stand the studio version, but this live version is pretty good.
As for the rest of 'Nevermind - Super Deluxe' there are some B-sides and boom-box recordings and also Butch Vigs original mix of the album, someday I am going to have to get around to listening to that. I'm glad it was included as there is so much controversy about the production of this album. Even Kurt Cobain kind of turned against it and said it was too polished essentially. Well my response to that is a hard-core Hard Harry412-ism 'So be it!' I like the album anyway!!!
The remastered version of 'Check Your Head' I have has almost another whole albums worth of B-sides as a bonus!
There are some great jams on here!
My favorite is 'Skills to Pay the Bills', which I have been familiar with for a long time since one of the Beasties VHS video tapes I had back in the day was titled 'Skills to Pay the Bills' after the song! The song is an up-tempo jam with the Beasties rapping with some distorted mics that sound cool and grungey. I wish more rappers sounded like this as I would listen to rap more often then. Heck this may be my favorite Beastie jam!
The other two songs I like on here are both just sort of fun throw-away types:
'Nettys Girl' is a humorous old-style rap that also has Mike D. singing to. It is just real humorous.
The other one is 'Boomin' Granny'. This song is off the hook! With different lyrics this could have been a hit song in the '80s! Even by the early '90s it sounded kind of old school!
