Catch a Fire review

The 5th album by Bob Marley and the Wailers. By this time, the band had become international stars and this is the start of their more critically acclaimed stuff.

Tracks:

1. Concrete Jungle: 9/10 great title, catchy tune, thought-provoking lyrics. A slam dunk.

2. Slave Driver: 8/10 don't let the catchy, somewhat upbeat-sounding melody fool you: this is a serious, thought-provoking song that packs a wallop.

3. 400 Years: 9/10 this hard-hitting song have may have appeared previously on Soul Rebels, but that doesn't reduce its impact at all.

4. Stop That Train: 8/10 pleasingly simple and very easy to enjoy.

5. Baby We Got a Date (Rock it Baby): 8/10 highly enjoyable if merely diverting rather than definitive.

6. Stir it Up: 8/10 it's too long, it's repetitive, whatever! The amazing instrumental makes any flaw irrelevant.

7. Kinky Reggae: 6/10 catchy even if it's completely meaningless.

8. No More Trouble: 9/10 typical but quality Marley fare.

9. Midnight Ravers: 8/10 it doesn't make an awful lot of sense, but that doesn't detract from the song particularly and it closes the album on a high.

Best song: Concrete Jungle
Worst song: Kinky Reggae

Summary: Overall, an excellent reggae album. The main problem I've had with Marley in the past has been repetition. There wasn't so much of that in this one. It's also a successful combination of hugely enjoyable reggae instrumentals and Marley's soulful, political lyrics. As a result, the album is a very accomplished mixture of art and entertainment. It doesn't have any 5 star tracks, but it also doesn't have a single bad song and it's easily the best Wailers album so far.



Final rating: 9/10

Help! review

Back to the beginning of the cycle of the 15 (Formerly 16) artists I'm running through. Help! is the 5th album by The Beatles, and is a bridge between their more conventional earlier stuff and artier later stuff. The fascinating music they produced later begins to show here for the first time.

Tracks:

1. Help!: 10/10 the perfect mixture of catchy music and serious lyrics, this is one of the best explorations of the dark side of fame ever.

2. The Night Before: 8/10 it admittedly feels like stuff we've heard before, but it's got a mature and dark edge to it as well.

3. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away: 8/10 slightly vague but soulful and pleasingly stripped-back.

4. I Need You: 8/10 this one earns ratings for harmonies and emotion, if not for originality.

5. Another Girl: 7/10 you'll most likely enjoy this without caring about it particularly.

6. You're Going to Lose that Girl: 9/10 combining an interesting narrative and great melody, this one stands tall among the other tracks on the album.

7. Ticket to Ride: 8/10 a perfectly good break-up song. I really don't know why everyone raves about this one so much though.

8. Act Naturally: 7/10 it approaches its subject from a very interesting angle, but it's not energetic enough to truly soar.

9. It's Only Love: 8/10 a pretty catchy one that's certainly an enjoyable song if not a definitive work.

10. You Like Me Too Much: 8/10 a cool love song. Nothing special.

11. Tell Me What You See: 6/10 mediocre at best.

12. I've Just Seen a Face: 8/10 this manages to stand out among some of the album's other songs and maintains more energy than many of them do.

13. Yesterday: 10/10 a titanic, shattering song that may only involve one of The Beatles, but is still one of the best things that ever had The Beatles' name attached to it.

14: Dizzy Miss Lizzy: 8/10 this hugely energetic song is a rocking good time.

Best song: Help!
Worst song: Tell Me What You See

Summary: This is definitely the most overrated album by The Beatles. This was my second listen and I still didn't think that much of it. When people rave about it, they're thinking of the 2 Beatles giants- Help! and Yesterday, which are of course brilliant songs and for some reason Ticket to Ride. It's as polished as ever and has some great moments, but before those moments there's always another phoned-in song to sit through before that. This one just doesn't do it for me particularly, although it's better Beatles For Sale.  


Final rating: 7/10

Hunky Dory review

The fourth album by David Bowie. This is regarded as one of his best works and contains several of his most well-known songs, so this should be pretty epic.

Tracks:

1. Changes: 9/10 this song proves a fascinating take on a familiar theme and is enhanced by Bowie's trademark hybrid of alien-weirdness and human poetry.

2. Oh! You Pretty Things: 8/10 I'm not sure if this is about an alien invasion or growing up. Either way, it makes the grade.

3. Eight Line Poem: 7/10 just a random short poem about a cactus basically. Intriguing and well-written, if rather pointless.

4. Life on Mars?: 10/10 the question of extraterrestrial life, especially concerning martians, has been asked many times. However, if it's ever been asked in as a brilliantly entertaining and enthralling a way as this surrealist masterpiece asks it, I'll eat a guitar.

5. Kooks: 5/10 there's a difference between being weird and being about something and being weird and not being about anything much. This song falls firmly into the latter category although the instrumental is perfectly nice.

6. Quicksand: 8/10 essentially just loads of bizarre imagery. It's great bizarre imagery though.  

7. Fill Your Heart: 9/10 a pretty awesome song that shouldn't be forgotten when considering this album.

8. Andy Warhol: 9/10 as fascinating and delightfully strange as ever.

9. Song For Bob Dylan: 9/10 whether this is a tribute or a criticism of Bob Dylan is never entirely clear, but it's still brilliant.

10. Queen Bitch: 9/10 this song, which is a tribute to The Velvet Underground, may be hard to get but it's so good it actually surpasses many Velvet Underground songs.

11. The Bewlay Brothers: 8/10 an overlong but highly enjoyable song which closes the album in style.

Best song: Life on Mars?
Worst song: Kooks

Summary: Hunky Dory is easily the best Bowie album I've heard. Most of the songs are so layered, mad and entertaining they could easily be sci-fi short stories. Bowie's guitar playing and writing is at a stratospheric peak here. Occasionally the songs are weird but they're weird in the best possible way and the entire album is so delightfully unconventional and alien, yet so ridiculously fun. This album alone proves Pink Floyd don't have the monopoly of brilliant weird music, and I'll be impressed if Bowie has ever topped this.


Final rating: 10/10

Combat Rock review

The 5th album by The Clash and also their highest-selling album. It was also the last one to feature the classic line-up, since both Topper Headon and Mick Jones left after the album's completion.

Tracks:

1. Know Your Rights: 8/10 this outstays its welcome, but it's undeniably very clever and is filled with smart political commentary.

2. Car Jamming: 6/10 a bunch of interesting metaphors in search of coherence and meaning.

3. Should I Stay or Should I Go?: 8/10 while one of their most uninteresting songs in terms of subject matter, this has enough punch and swagger to justify its position as one of the band's most well-known songs.

4. Rock the Casbah: 8/10 it once again doesn't represent the band and what they do best very well, but it's a good representation of their musical skills.

5. Red Angel Dragnet: 4/10 aside from a cool Taxi Driver reference, this is more confusing than 2001 A Space Odyssey and noticeably short on charisma.

6. Straight to Hell: 8/10 on a musical level not entirely interesting, but it's filled with thought-provoking and intelligent writing.

7. Overpowered By Funk: 6/10 the banging funky baseline enhances this otherwise weak song.  

8. Atom Tan: 7/10 a perfectly competent Clash song which displays the rawness and interesting lyricism that can be expected from them, albeit with more opaque messages and less entertainment than before.

9. Sean Flynn: 8/10 a quietly affecting war song with an intelligently minimalistic baseline. Some more lyrics would have conveyed the message better though.

10. Ghetto Defendant: 8/10 as a song, moderately interesting. As a piece of bleak poetry, it's a firecracker.

11. Inoculated City: 6/10 there's some intelligent stuff here, but it feels empty.

12. Death is a Star: 6/10 another load of entertaining imagery without a real point.

Best song: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Worst song: Red Angel Dragnet

Summary: Clearly The Clash's best days were behind them at this point. I wouldn't rank any of these songs among my favourites by them. The music itself feels muted and some of the writing is irritatingly pretentious. It's certainly in no way an incompetent album. It's fine and still has the punchy lyrics and some of the energetic instrumentals that were in the other Clash albums, but one can't help but feel The Clash have just lost interest.


Final rating: 7/10

Between the Buttons review

The fifth album by The Rolling Stones. As usual, the American version is the good one so I'm reviewing that. Thankfully, after this they seem to have stopped doing different versions for the UK and US.

Tracks:

1. Let's Spend the Night Together: 7/10 for a fairly straightforward love song, this is absurdly intense, but these flaws in tone don't extend to the quality of the vocals or the tune.

2. Yesterday's Papers: 8/10 an interesting mix of instruments and good message make this a very enjoyable song.

3. Ruby Tuesday: 9/10 here the Stones calm down a bit and deliver one of their best songs, containing a central character fascinating and developed enough to carry a feature film.

4. Connection: 8/10 this contains familiar material but it's carried by a great tune.

5. She Smiled Sweetly: 8/10 despite its restrained nature, this one is unexpectedly touching and is a break from all the angry rebellion The Rolling Stones normally display.

6. Cool, Calm and Collected: 7/10 this one is very well composed, but the unique choice of instruments is the main interesting thing in this formulaic song.

7. All Sold Out: 8/10 this one is good. It's pretty satisfying although The Rolling Stones still aren't The Beatles.

8. My Obsession: 8/10 this one has quite a bit of sting even if it's occasionally confusing.

9. Who's Been Sleeping Here?: 8/10 ditto.

10. Complicated: 8/10 backed by a great tune, this one is an album standout even though it doesn't break any new ground.

11. Miss Amanda Jones: 7/10 this one can be summarized as an energetic instrumental compensating for weak material.

12. Something Happened to Me Yesterday: 8/10 still confusing, but this time perhaps that was the point. An absolutely solid album closer and really quite enjoyable.

Best song: Ruby Tuesday
Worst song: Cool, Calm and Collected

Summary: This is a solid album overall. I'm not the biggest Rolling Stones fan but they're still a talented band with plenty of style and raw energy. This certainly isn't short on energy and effort, and the songs here are pretty consistent. Most of the songs won't go down in history, but overall this is a thoroughly acceptable record and an improvement on Aftermath.


Final rating: 8/10

Amnesiac review

The 5th album by Radiohead, and the sister album to their masterpiece Kid A. This contains more of the insanity from Kid A, although it's a bit less experimental.

Tracks:

1. Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box: 8/10 not only does it boast ingenious experimentation galore, it's actually not completely miserable for once.

2. Pyramid Song: 9/10 it's difficult to know quite what to make of this one to be honest. One thing's for certain though: this mesmerising, haunting and hypnotic track mercilessly sucks the listener in like a black hole and never lets go.

3. Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors: 8/10 the lyrics being so muted doesn't add anything to the song, but the music sequencer instrumental is fabulous.

4. You and Whose Army: 7/10 first half? Mostly bland and Thom Yorke just singing 'Come on'. Second half? Awesome.

5. I Might Be Wrong: 9/10 this gets off to a slow start, before slowly hooking the listener with one intense, mesmerising beat and one brilliant vocal after another.

6. Knives Out: 9/10 utterly terrifying. Thom Yorke should really try writing a horror film.

7. Morning Bell: 8/10 with a better and more layered instrumental, this is better than the version on Kid A.

8. Dollars and Cents: 7/10 this one feels generic and overdone, although it's perfectly competent since it's Radiohead. In such a daring, experimental album this feels out of place but it's still pretty good.  

9. Hunting Bears: 6/10 just a bunch of random guitar chords. Interesting, but what exactly is the point?

10. Like Spinning Plates: 9/10 a particularly arty track, this one actually features vocals sung backwards. It's admittedly self-indulgent and possibly alienating to casual listeners, yet it's so completely brilliant. I don't know how they do it either.

11. Life in a Glass House: 9/10 like Kid A, this album closes on an emotional and shattering note. This one has a nice bit of jazz thrown in too.

Best song: Pyramid Song
Worst song: Hunting Bears

Summary: Amnesiac is a very strange album, but also a magnificent one. It's an overwhelming, haunting and oppressive record, but in the best possible way. Brilliantly experimental, beautifully executed and truly haunting, this insane, intoxicating album perhaps isn't quite as good as Kid A but still knocks it out of the park. To appreciate it fully however, you'll probably need to be in the right mood while you listen, as this one is pretty crazy.


Final rating: 9/10

Morrison Hotel review

After a bad year, The Doors released their 5th album in 1970. This went back to basics and was seen as a return to form by many. Well, as long as it's better than their last album all will be well.

Tracks:

1. Roadhouse Blues: 8/10 although what this is actually about isn't particularly clear, it kicks the album off with a very entertaining and well-played burst of utter madness.

2. Waiting For the Sun: 9/10 mixing Jim Morrison's poetic lyrics with a brilliant organ-based rock instrumental, this shows The Doors at the peak of their powers.

3. You Make Me Real: 8/10 despite its lack of substance, the sheer, raw energy of the song makes this a hugely entertaining track.

4. Peace Frog: 8/10 one good metaphor doesn't always extend to an entire song, but this is another thought-provoking blast.

5. Blue Sunday: 8/10 it may be short, but it packs a lot of great notes and lyrics in and has a great title as well.

6. Ship of Fools: 7/10 very weird indeed. Still, it's best just to go with it and you'll have a good time.

7. Land Ho!: 6/10 a load of moderately entertaining nonsense.

8. The Spy: 9/10 more punchy, smart and hypnotic psychedelic rock.

9. Queen of the Highway: 8/10 this contains yet more self-indulgent and overly weird lyrics, but they're given life by the excellent music.

10. Indian Summer: 6/10 not that this it particularly bad or poorly done, it's just a case of zero effort.

11. Maggie M'Gill: 6/10 it's got some nice instrumental moments, but it's too uneven and lyrically idiotic to match the epic finales of some of the other Doors albums.

Best song: Waiting For the Sun
Worst song: Indian Summer

Summary: This still isn't up to the standard of the first 2 albums, but then again The Doors did produce 2 excellent albums at the start of their discography. This is absolutely solid, even if this is mostly lacking in Doors classics and features Morrison's lyrics at their most idiotically weird. Still, all flaws are compensated for by the superb instrumentals and general audacious feel to the album, proving The Doors are still an excellent band even after a couple of disappointments.


Final rating: 8/10