Favorite album that's been roasted by critics

[Davey]

This might be a fun little b<e>itch session. What's the last album you can think of that you've really enjoyed only to see some bozo in the press try to make you feel like an idiot for not hearing how mediocre it is? Hehehe, I was just listening to one of my favorites from this year by that great collective of musicians known as Willard Grant Conspiracy, and thinking no matter what the similarly sounding Nick Cave comes out with later this year, <i>Regard the End</i> will very likely trump it in my mind. I completely, and really without reservation, love this album. I would never call it a perfect album and there are things I would change if I could to make it even better, but it's still mighty damn fine just like it is. So just for fun this morning, I type "Willard Grant Conspiracy" and "Nick Cave" in my little Google bar and out pops a few reviews that I hadn't seen before, including a real roasting of it by the good folks over at the <a href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/willard-grant-conspiracy/regard-the-end.shtml">Fork</a>. The review I was most familiar with and which I have previously posted was the rave last year at Uncut magazine, which was their album of the month and subsequent top 5 album of the year. But the Fork only rates it a 3.9 and says in the last paragraph...

<font size="-1">Rarely has a genre sounded so tried and tired, so forced, formulaic and reliant on its own mythology as country music is made to sound on Regard the End. Though its application and musicianship is admirable, its lack of lyrical argument or narrative leave us with a canon of paceless funereal laments that conjure endless feelings of enforced sadness without explanation. In a field full of fellow lovesick souls, these are failings we simply shouldn't have to accept.

-Neil Robertson, March 9th, 2004</font>

Ouch! I feel so ashamed now. How will I ever be able to love it again knowing of all the unacceptable failings? Oh well.....I did get it used for a very good price (actually it was free since one of my good buddies here bought it for me :)).

I guess you can probably find similar reviews for just about every album you like, but that one made me smile today since I had just played it.

[tentoze]

I seem to recall commenting on that lambasting about the time I bought the cd, something to the effect that Pitchfork clearly had an anti-twang bias...............off to the airport for a rare visit to my real stereo in FL for 10 days............YIPPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

[Dusty Chalk]

That's easy. Songs from the Witchblade: A Soundtrack to the Comic Book got trashed by AMG (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jgngtq2zmu46), and it easily made my top 10 from 1998. And now I can't listen to the conversational bits between the songs without thinking of another review (that I can't think of right now), which somewhat ruins it for me, but not completely. The rest of the album is so good, that I soon get over it.

It's got a lot of variety -- some neo-punky stuff ("riot grrrl"-ish), some industrial, guys from all over the place -- Type O Negative, Megadeth, Nine Inch Nails, etc. -- contribute, in some cases just lead vocals, in others whole songs. A nice little ballad, an instrumental suite with the occasional vocals, some "normal" songs. It's one of those in the genre that I've taken to calling "e-Metal" -- hard guitar-based rock with synthesizers and other keyboards seamlessly blended in (Stabbing Westward, Curve, Garbage, Collide, God Lives Underwater, Gravity Kills, et al).

[kexodusc]

Hmm, I don't usually pay enough attention to reviews, but 2 I think often get overly criticized are:

1) Tori Amos - Boys for Pele - In my opinion this was really led to her growth as a songwriter, expanding on her traditional sounds and moving away from pop/folk blends...It didn't get bashed to hard, but it was considered a let-down after her first 2 albums. IMHO it was every bit as good, if not better.

2) Rush - Vapor Trails - This isn't anywhere close to their best album, but considering all the band went through, it's a pretty darn good effort. Hearing the songs played live helps too. There's a bit of filler and much of the album shares the same tempo, but it ain't bad all-in-all. There's some great stuff on Vapor Trails, lyrically, it's as good as Rush has ever been, and it's certainly got a darker, more reflective feel to it. I think many people mistake crappy production and studio work with crappy song-writing. I've heard Rush is "re-mastering" this already to address this problem, hopefully this will help change people's minds.

[Slosh]

Hey Davey,

I went to The Arcade Fire site and downloaded the songs from the new album and listened a bunch of times this week and am not getting the hype. What's wrong with me? (wait, don't answer ;) ) Don't get me wrong, they are good, solid songs but . . . nothing I haven't heard before. Now that you've had the album for a bit, howz ya likin' it? Maybe I'll just snag the new Giant Sand instead.

I just can't seem to find much new (or new-to-me) music anymore. Has this just been a slow year or is there a direct correlation with the lack of comp trading lately? Hmmm...


Back on topic Kill The Moonlight kinda got panned but only by Rae and Stone so I suppose that doesn't count :p

NP: tentoze's Poll This (me likey)

~Slosh - I want my threaded view

[Davey]

Hey Davey,

I went to The Arcade Fire site and downloaded the songs from the new album and listened a bunch of times this week and am not getting the hype. What's wrong with me? (wait, don't answer ;) ) Don't get me wrong, they are good, solid songs but . . . nothing I haven't heard before. Now that you've had the album for a bit, howz ya likin' it? Maybe I'll just snag the new Giant Sand instead.
Yeah, I wanna hear that new Giant Sand too. I did hear one song on the Uncut sampler from a coupla months ago and it's great. I haven't really listened much to the Arcade Fire since I've only had it for a couple days. OK, maybe 3 days. It is a good album but I don't think it lives up to the hype at this point for me, although it's probably not fair to call it hype when it's just a little bitty Montreal indie band being talked about on mostly amateur internet sites. I will say that those two songs on their site in no way do the album justice overall, but they do give you a taste for what the band is about. The album is much more varied stylistically than those two songs, both of which are a bit on the fluffy pop side, although that Rebellion (Lies) song that comes late on the album is a pretty damn fun song with lots of the old disco sound. Love that Disco Inferno "Burn Baby Burn" chorus rip :)

But yeah, not exactly the most original album you're gonna hear this year, although I do like it and can imagine it becoming one of my favorites. Just haven't listened enough to know and might not be quite in the mood to really go for it yet, but I'll keep you posted. And if you snag that Giant Sand definitely keep me posted. Not much besides the Fiery Furnaces that has really struck me as truly original this year, but I'm pretty happy with what I have heard.

EDIT: Oh yeah, should've mentioned that there's a couple more songs from the album that you can stream from the Merge site at http://www.mergerecords.com/media.php?query_band_id=98 that point to their early David Bowie appreciation and general glam rock leanings. Definite similarities to the similar leaning New Pornographers and to a lesser extent, Broken Social Scene. Again, nothing that new but it does show that they have more than one kind of beer in the fridge. Did someone say beer? Answering in my best Homer Simpson voice, "Mmmmm, beer." And switching back to Davey, "Is it time for a Samuel Adams yet? Can I switch to UK time, just for today?"

[mad rhetorik]

The Mars Volta's <b>Deloused In The Comatorium</b>. Pitchfork panned it and gave it a 4.9. Despite its occassional proggy excesses, I think it's a pretty great album. A natural evolution of what At The Drive-In was doing on <b>Relationship Of Command</b>, but still quite different and outstanding in its own right. Way better than Sparta (the other ATDI spinoff, which is rather boring screamo-type nonsense).

Aside from being an unintentionally hiliarious source of pretentious indie-kid insider nonsense, I rarely rely on Pitchfork. When it comes to album shopping, first stop for me is usually Amazon. I've had surprisingly few misses from customer testimonials, though I tend to take them with a grain of salt (especially the ones in which English appears to be a second language for the reviewer in question ; P ) and realize that it's quite subjective; though Pitchfork (and most other music critics) are hardly paragons of objectivity themselves.

[Pat D]

The Penguin Guide certainly didn't like the set of the 9 Beethoven Symphonies with Otmar Suitner conducting the Berlin Staatskapelle on Denon. Actually, it is quite a decent set with some outstanding performances, especially Symphonies Nos. 4 and 9, along with a nice No. 6 (Pastorale) and the others are quite passable. I think this is the first CD set of the Beethoven Symphonies.

As well, the 1959 recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition with Ernest Ansermet and the Suisse Romande Orchestra has been underrated, too, getting *(*) in the PG. Indeed, no one seemed to like it except the customers, who kept buying it for many years.

[Slosh]

And if you snag that Giant Sand definitely keep me posted.

OK, only one spin so far but that's enough to let me know Giant Sand Is All Over The Map (love that title . . . as I do The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified) will easily be one of my favorites of this year! :) And it also tells me I need to get off my ass and get me some more Giant Sand. What solo Howe I've heard has been great and pretty much everyone associated with Giant Sand makes killer records so it comes as no surprise to me that I'm diggin' this too. Reminds me a lot of Son Volt, but like I said, I'm only one spin into it. I didn't play it on my big system yet but nevertheless its sonics sounded pretty nice as well, which of course is always a bonus. The store I got it from doesn't do vinyl but the CD sounds just fine to me.

NP: arrg, my pounding head :( (Damn you Sammy A.)

[Davey]

OK, only one spin so far but that's enough to let me know Giant Sand Is All Over The Map will easily be one of my favorites of this year! :)
Hey, that's good to know. "Flying around the world with remarkable speed" is the song on the sampler and it's a lot of fun. Not exactly ground breaking but highly entertaining guitar rock. I've said it many times before under the cloak of many different monikers, but <i>Chore of Enchantment</i> is a very nice album and probably the best that Howe and company had done to that point. One of my favorites from 2000, in retrospect a very good year for Davey-type music :)