(1973)

While I always thought of Slade as the best band to match Big Star's condensed pop with Bolan's sexuality and Bolan's love for the fleeting/superficial and Bolan's hair and clothes, I guess, and Nazareth's Loud 'n' Proud (which is actually pretty good, I swear), I can't think of them that way any more 'cause the records Sladest steals from came out before and at the same time as #1 Record and all of that's well before Loud 'n' Proud. So did they forge power pop all on their own without any debt or influence? That doesn't excite me like it should, they still sound like a braver Cheap Trick to me only their Surrender is Cum on Feel the Noize and their Big Star is The Who or The Rolling Stones or Chuck Berry or Otis Redding and as far as I know they don't have a convenient/well-rounded Live at Budokan. Still, dude screams like a maniac. Hooks rule. Ugly dudes. Fuckin Slade.

A-

here

$World$

Not his best or anything but it's my kind of record- arrangements left to Mick Ronson and Tony Visconti, real artsy with cool heavy guitars and Bowie sorta on top of rather than inhabiting it all with stories about freaks and prophets. Killer concept rock rather than visionary singer-songwriter. Fucking genius

A+

ha

Black Bananas - Rad Time Xpress IV (2012)

Album cover of the year. No doubt. Jennifer Herrema's (Royal Trux) new "non-exclusive opposition rock" project (need to remember that, couldn't describe Royal Trux's appeal better myself!). Taking their/her ideologies and pushing them further by encompassing more styles than ever before to achieve total highbrow kitsch, or smartass kitsch, or subversive rock that rocks, or, fuck it, "non-exclusive opposition rock." As big, dumb, colourful, and funny as the cover- tacky vocal manipulations, Eddie Hazel guitars, early 2000s distorted synths, fuzzy riffs, funk basslines: "all the shit you don't like, woven into all the shit you can't live without." Essentially glam: block it out for a minute and come back and there's no denying things sound like Electric Warrior by way of Funkadelic performed by some dance-punk. There are good moments where they reach the same levels of camp as their sources, and brilliant ones where they go "camp" instead a la Ween. Me, I like the shit they bring in and admire the project of an all-inclusive rock band, but could go without ever listening to this again. Sounds mean, but it's not meant to be. I get what they're going for and think it's rad. I admire it. I wish I liked it. But I don't. There's no denying how good it is- if I were a critic I'd have to give it an A or an A minus. But I'm not a critic, and so I'm standing by the could go without ever listening to this again conclusion.

C+

grooveshark
buy

David Bowie - Hunky Dory (1971)

'Cause why not. Bowie's best and one of the best albums ever. From chambery art pop with surrealist lyrics to punk rock with occult lyrics to Bowie's creepy masterpiece below

Whether it's insanely lyrical or just nonsensical, the inspiration for each bit of nonsense has lyrical and/or conceptual origins/intentions and so works on whatever level you want it to

A+

spotify