Stream of Consciousness & Music Reviews

    I'm not gonna try to fluff this out with my usual prose and expounding, I don't like this album. I'm sorry but it's just not that good. Firstly, Springsteen cannot sing; he just isn't a good singer and it kinda muddied the whole experience. Not to rag on it too much, but it sounds like his mouth is full of cotton and he doesn't know what words are next and is reading them on the spot. On top of that the instrumentation just isn't much of anything, it's just sort of there. It feels like... nothing, I can't find a way to describe it, that's how little of an impact it left on me. I will say that Clarence Clemon's performance on saxophone is really phenomenal though, easily the best aspect of the music. Along with that, I did like some of the lyricism at points; it had moments where it had really vivid imagery and brought the scene to life. Aside from that, the music is mostly just nothing to really talk about with moments of great stuff, whi...

      A Fifth of Beethoven is Walter Murphy's debut album and is a grand showing, which is a surprise given how unknown this album is. Seriously, I couldn't find the lyrics anywhere save for one song on Genius and all the tracks have pretty low play counts on Spotify. Chances are that you might have heard the title track in Saturday Night Fever but not much beyond that, which is a real shame considering how good this album is. It's no wonder why I like this so much; the gimmick is that it takes orchestral elements and themes and mixes them with 70's rock and disco flair (ringing any bells?) and I think that it's done masterfully. The tracks that utilize the classical theming use the familiar motifs in a way that gives them a breath of new life through a disco-ified medium. The quality is reflected in the songs that don't go for the classical music angle and instead focus on being purely disco, with a touch of jazz and funk to give it some real depth, and it all ...

      It's time for another of my rare forays into metal with what I've been told is a thrash classic. Reign In Blood is pretty similar to what I've heard from Metallica but not quite as inventive. That's really all I can compare it too since my experience with this genre is very limited as of time of writing. This album shares the same general sound/vibe and song structure with Metallica but oddly the tracks are a good deal shorter, averaging around 2-2:30 minutes. I feel like this really limits what the band can do on each track and doesn't allow for much exploration of each song individually (although maybe I'm just too accustomed to bands that lean toward the much longer side of things). As a result of this most of the tracks sound samey and blend together, which isn't always a bad thing, but here I think that it holds back the larger work. Some upsides are that what traits that it exhibits can be pretty good. The rhythm and flow is generally really good...

      This is Steve Miller Band's 8th album and I don't really have any interest in listening to anything prior to this (except maybe one album, shh) since this is where the band took off and all of their popular material follows from here. That being said, there's not much else to say. This is truly just good blues rock; nothing more than that, just good. Everything is at least ok or decent so there's nothing much to really dislike here. It mostly sounds good with interesting texture and instrumentation, good enough lyricism, and a surprising amount of versatility within it's limited range of typical southern rock. It's creative enough to bump it over the median for me but it's nothing to really go out of your way to listen to, but will be a good listen nonetheless.      Highlights: Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma, Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash, The Joker, Something To Believe In. Rating: 4/6.