The Dean of American Rock Critics!!!
Jailbreak [Mercury, 1976]
The proof of how desperate people are for new Springsteen is that they’ll settle for this–even “The Boys Are Back in Town” is the sort of thing that ends up in Bruce’s wastebasket. If Irish teen traumas are as boring as Phil Lynott’s descriptions of them, it’s no wonder they have trouble maintaining their birthrate. And if Irish teen traumas are as secondhand as Scott Gorham’s guitar lines, the Irish will probably end up preferring Springsteen too. B-In the Court of the Crimson King [Atlantic, 1969]
The plus is because Peter Townshend likes it. This can also be said of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Beware the forthcoming hype–this is ersatz shit. D+Black Sabbath [Warner Bros., 1970]
The worst of the counterculture on a plastic platter–bullshit necromancy, drug-impaired reaction time, long solos, everything. They claim to oppose war, but if I don’t believe in loving my enemies I don’t believe in loving my allies either, and I’ve been worried something like this was going to happen since the first time I saw a numerology column in an underground newspaper. C-Lateralus [Volcano, 2001]
What am I supposed to say about the latest in meaning-mongering for the fantasy fiction set? That they are not as good as King Crimson? That I do not like my Billy Cobham comp even less? That this is not progress? That I am not a virgin? All of the above. Plus I never liked Crimson much to begin with. CMy War [SST, 1984]
Depleted by the kind of corporate strife I thought these guys were too cynical to fall for (which may be why they did), Henry Rollins’s adrenalin gives out. The consequent depression is so monumental that even Greg Ginn succumbs, adding only one classic to his catalogue of noise solos (“The Swinging Man”) and grinding out brain-damaged cousins of luded power chords behind the three dirges that waste side two. But things do start off manically enough, with the title tune (refrain: “You’re one of them”) and five minutes of Henry explaining why he smiles so much (which I never noticed). B-Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables [I.R.S., 1980]
I do want there to be more punk rock–I do, I do. I do want there to be more left-wing new wave–really. By Americans–I swear it. But not by a would-be out-of-work actor with Tiny Tim vibrato who spent the first half of the '70s concocting “rock cabaret.” Admittedly, I’m guessing, but I’m also being kind–it sounds like Jello Biafra discovered the Stooges in 1977. C+Godbluff [Mercury, 1975]
Inspirational Verse (from Peter–note spelling–Hammill, yet): “Fickle promises of treaty, fatal harbingers of war, futile orisons/swirl as on in the flight, this mad chase,/this surge across the marshy mud landscape/until the meaning is forgotten.” D+
αυτό που λένε “τον δικαίωσε η ιστορία” :lol::lol:
