The Batlord

The Replacements: Let It Be

The Replacements are yet another band that I'm familliar with but not that familiar with. So, yeah, enough with the dull intro...




If I had to compare this to something it would have to be London Calling. They're both albums that are making the transition from punk to pop, the vocals are notably similar, and they just, well...kinda sound alike. I'm not the biggest fan of London Calling, but this album is pretty fantastic.

First of all, this album's punk influence isn't dulled to the extent that it is on London Calling. LC lacks a certain energy that this album has in bags, which makes it's pop hooks even more infectious than LC's.

Secondly, I think that the "experiments" on London Calling are rather shallow and only serve to add some extra personality to the pop songs. Let It Be is more organic though. It adds country and power pop to the punk in a way that is seamless and never feels like a gimmick.

Finally, I never quite noticed it before, but listening to The Replacements made me realize it. Without the anger and energy of early Clash, the political lyrics fail to arouse anything but indifference. Not that I cared in the first place, but it sort of makes me disconnect from the album. Paul Westerberg, though his voice sounds sort of similar to Joe Strummer, has a voice that expresses emotions effortlessly, and along with his much more personal lyrics, really makes you relate to the album. From an emotional standpoint London Calling just feels two dimensional and dull in comparison.

It might be weird to review one album by bashing another one, but it's just the way it came together in my mind. So, whatevs. All you need to know is The Replacements > The Clash.

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The Batlord

Judas Priest: Jugulator

This is one of the most maligned albums in all of metal. This was Judas Priest's first album without Rob Halford and the first with Tim "Ripper" Owens. Obviously no matter how good a vocalist he is the fans were gonna hate this album to some degree. I never listened to the whole album, but I always loved the title track, so I'm gonna see if the hate is truly justified...




Pretty much this is Painkiller mixed with Machine Head's Burn My Eyes. On paper this should be awful. A trad metal band trying it's hand at thrash/groove metal? Gag. And I can't say I'm the biggest fan of either of those albums anyway. Burn My Eyes is just too samey and I'm just not a big groove metal guy in the first place. Painkiller was great when I was younger, but it's lost a lot of its charm with repeated listens. Yet weirdly enough, I think that Jugulator actually manages to make those elements work. There really are some truly kickass songs on here, and Judas Priest are almost, dare I say it, brutal at times. There's a lot of neo thrash style chugging riffs that may not be to everyone's taste (they're not usually to mine either), but Judas Priest's grasp of dynamics gives this an energy that keeps the energy flowing so that one is never really bored. It also helps that Owens' vocals aren't nearly as dull as Robb Flynn's. Hell, I think his vocals on here are better than Halford's on Painkiller. Rob Halford's vocals on Painkiller sometimes feel they're being high pitched just for the sake of being high pitched and I end up being a little bored as a result, whereas Owens' vocal style actually suits more aggressive metal in a way that Halford's just doesn't. I imagine that if I were in the same room as you people that I'd being picking cabbage from out of my hair by now, but I'm the Guardian of True Metal here and you're just peons, so kiss my ass.

Aside from the fact that it doesn't really sound like a Priest album, I think that the main charge that could be laid on this album would be that it's mind numbingly dumb, and it certainly is. It's one of the dumbest albums you'll ever hear in fact. I mean, Jugulator? Really? But you must know me well enough by now to know that cheese and stupidity are no barriers to me. Seriously, if you can't love a song that uses "jugulate" as a verb, or that says, "Jugulator killing time now/Reaches in and rips your spine out" then you are a boring person and we are not friends. It's not like Judas Priest were ever the most intelligent band in the first place. The video to "Breaking the Law" had the band robbing a bank with the power of metal for god's sake. If that isn't jumping the shark then I don't know what is. So, if you complain about this being stupid then you must have a skewed view of Judas Priest in the first place. I think the cheesiness works in its favor actually. It keeps it from descending into brainless tough guy dullery like Pantera or cliched, dark, fuck-the-world lyrics like Machine Head.

So, in closing, Jugulator rules, and you don't.

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Trollheart

You said it here.

I am but a humble, half-retard metalhead, so I can't comment on just how good "Sister Ray" is, but I still loved it

Only joking man of course...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Unknown Soldier

Nice review of Jugulator there and it's actually an interesting album in a lot of ways. I always find it interesting when as you say, a traditional metal band tries to do a current metal sound, which was the thrash/groove thing at that time. Personally though, I think Robb Flynn a perfect vocalist for the Machine Head sound.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

Well then, you're a penis.

It suits it, but his voice is still somewhat boring. I find Phil Anselmo's voice boring and an Anselmo impersonation is going to be likewise boring to me. He's gotten better over the years but his base sound is just kind of meathead.

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The Batlord

The Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stones

I'm sorta art rocked out for the moment and I had no idea what to listen to today, so I ended up settling for some straight up old school rock'n'roll. Everybody and their mother has listened to the Rolling Stones obviously, but I never gave more than a cursory listen to any of their actual albums.

P.S. I'm doing the English version, because fuck America.




This is definitely at its best when it's going all out. Songs like like "Route 66", "Carol", and "I Just Wanna Make Love to You" are full of more energy than any band has any right to have on a whole album. When they slow things down it's more of a mixed bag. While "I'm a King Bee" is suitably badass and is made even more badass with a harmonica (harmonicas fucking rule) songs like "Honest I Do" and "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)" are rather dull ballads that sound like the sort of songs that only a sixties teenager could love. Luckily these songs are few and far between and for the most part you have some truly kickass R&B. Not a whole lot else to say about this album, since it's not exactly the most complex or "arty" album ever made, but it certainly shows that an album made up almost entirely of covers can be pretty fantabulous.

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The Batlord

The Rolling Stones made me wanna listen to The Sonics...




Seriously. Best garage band and album of all time. If you don't love the Sonics then you are a bitch and should get the fuck away from me before I hit you in the shins with a tire iron. This is just a blast of energy that legitimately holds up today as a force of nature. This band basically just plays garage rock at as high a noise level as it is possible to do and they were doing this in 1965. This puts the Rolling Stones' first album to shame only a year after that album was released. As far as I can tell from a cursory knowledge of this type of music this album (along with their second album) might be unique in that it has no ballads. Nothing to slow things down and give all the dumb teenagers something to slow dance to. Just pure ass kicking from a band who were surely on some serious amphetamines. I would kill to be able to have seen this band live in its heyday. I'm sure they would have utterly destroyed my eardrums and given my fat ass acute myocardial infarction. The production is just perfect. It is noisy and heavy enough to level a city block. Apparently they would stick ice picks into their amps to make them sounded all fucked up. Bitchin'. There isn't a whole lot more to say other than get your bitch ass to wherever it is that you get your music and listen to this ASAP and then stick a soldering iron into your eardrums, because it's all going to be downhill from there.

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The Batlord

Dr. Feelgood: Down By the Jetty

My need for simple, badass rock'n'roll leads me to Dr. Feelood. The kickass pub rock band, not the shitty Motley Crue album.




These dudes take the lessons of John Lee Hooker to their logical conclusions. Alright, there's just the one lesson, but it's a badass one: find a toe tapping blues riff, sit on it for several minutes, end song. And if a girl takes off her top in the interim, all the better (the girl in the picture has just listened to "She Does It Right".) This is raw, dirty-as-fuck R&B worship with as much brains as a zombie buffet after closing and boy does it rule. Take the Stones at their noisiest, combine with the heavy, ultra simple blues of the aforementioned John Lee Hooker, and you've pretty much got Dr. Feelgood in a nutshell. They're one of those bands that's not original because they're actually original, but because most bands with common sense wouldn't ever think to be so myopically unoriginal. They show a dedication to their craft that has no room for innovation since it would only dilute the simplicity of their attack. You could listen to the entire album, or you could just pick a song and listen to it for half an hour. Either would be just as badass.

P.S. Props for using a harmonica. Anything with a harmonica instantly goes up two cool points.

P.P.S. People who use "an" before a word beginning with "h" are festizios. "H" is a consonant and therefore you use "a". Shit turds.

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Trollheart

You are my hero! I HATE it when people do this too! "An historic moment" --- NO NO NO NO!!! It's "A historic moment," you imbecile!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Britney Spears: ...One More Time

You bitches can lie all you want, but you know that at least once "Hit Me Baby One More Time", or "Oops...I Did It Again" has come on the radio and you didn't turn the station. Yet even someone like me who loves him some trashy teeny bopper pop has had the self respect to never actually listen to a Britney Spears album. I mean, she may have a few fun singles, but surely her albums are shit, right? We shall see...




Thank god it starts with the title track. I have no particular desire to jump right into album filler. At least now I can ease into the cluster fuck of crap that is surely to come. Then you have the other big single, "Crazy". Maybe this won't be so bad.

Oh god. Third song is a shitty ballad. I already want to smother a twelve year old girl for being the audience for this. Next song.

Hahahahahahaha! It's a wanna be wanna be (no that's not a typo) reggae song! I guess it has what some dumb teeny bopper might think was a standard Bob Marley beat with a standard electronic pop beat over that and there's even what I must assume is a severely depressed, fourth-rate reggae singer singing the chorus. The best part, it's called "Soda Pop". I don't know whether I am delighted or indifferent.

And another god damn ballad. On the plus side it's called "I Was Born to Make You Happy", so...yay for misogyny. ANOTHER FUCKING BALLAD!!! Alright, I'm actually going to listen to the whole thing for once. There must be something entertaining here...well, it's not necessarily offensive, but I really can't bring myself to care. Something tells me that with continued listening my good taste might be overridden and I might enjoy this, but one listen ain't gonna do it.

Thank god, not another ballad. It's not nearly as good as the first two songs, but I am sort of entertained. Damn it! Ballad! Alright, this is bullshit. I'm skimming the rest of the songs. Next song, not bad, but not great either. Skip. I just accidentally listened to the next ballad because I was ranting about bacteria and plants leaving my body the fuck alone on MB, but it was just another shitty ballad. Would have skipped. Although on the plus side it was called "Email My Heart". Sort of win. Thank god, last song. Another not quite boring pop song. Skip. Scratch that. On second thought I am actually sort of entertained.

I wouldn't necessarily call that a miserable experience, but if I'd been forced to listen to that album in its entirety I would have wanted to rain down hot death on Britney Spears. If you have any desire to listen to this, then I urge you to reconsider. There is nothing on here that is even close to as entertaining as the two singles. Just listen to those songs and avoid the rest unless you are just feeling very bored and whimsical like me.

P.S. I'd just like to point out that Britney Spears was sixteen on the cover of this album. So, it's nice to know that they had not just the teeny bopper demographic on lock but the pedophile one as well.

P.P.S. While I certainly have some pervy feelings towards that cover, I was like twelve when it and the video to "Hit Me Baby One More Time" came out so my underage pervy nostalgia makes it okay. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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