Anti-Climacus

Adventures in Cultural Consumption, way behind edition:

My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
D'Angelo, Voodoo
Loveless is every bit as good as they say, and all the clichés are true: it's a quiet loud album, etc etc. It's the synthesis of much of the good indie music that came before, and it's a clear influence on much of what came after: "Only Shallow" is every Smashing Pumpkins song, minus Billy Corgan's whine; Yo La Tengo took a lot from them; that Bob Mould got it into his head to start Sugar after hearing this album is no surprise. My complaint, such as it is, is that the best song is at the end of the album, and the next-best at the beginning: the only other album I can think of that has this problem is Led Zeppelin IV, and it's weird when it happens there, too. Voodoo sidesteps this problem, since every song is immaculately constructed; it's included here because it is the Loveless of R&B: the source to which all others aspire.

Tame Impala, Lonerism
Recommended in a video by Paul Weller, of all people. I hate the Beatles and Beatles-imitators, I'm not too keen on Pink Floyd (and their imitators are worse), dislike the overuse of phaser, don't care for prog-y elements, and yet: this is a great album that has and does all those things.

Yo La Tengo, Fade
The best since ...and then nothing turned itself inside out. "Cornelia and Jane," people.

Iggy and the Stooges, Funhouse
The best, except for "L.A. Blues," which I can rarely make it all the way through: dissonance and saxophone solos over one chord? Absolutely. Two instances of it in a row? Pass.

Love, Forever Changes
The Cure, Disintegration
Disappointing, in their separate ways: there are no other songs as good as "Alone Again Or" or "A House Is Not a Motel." No shame in that, since both are among the best singles of the 60s, but it does make for some disappointment.
The Cure, on the other hand, are such obvious phonies I find them painful to listen to. These people have never been sad in their lives.