Category Archives: Classic Album Review
“And I Remember my Birthdays…”
So this week, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the gargantuan double CD by the Smashing Pumpkins, is old enough to get its driver’s license. If Mellon Collie were a person, it would probably feeling a lot of the angsty lyrics of Billy Corgan and this album would chronicle his life from its birth in [...]
“Shit’s Changed in a Decade!”: Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti
During the summer of 2002, I was a 17-year-old music enthusiast who lived off of “the classics”: classic rock, punk, grunge, jazz, among others. I also thought that I wanted to be a journalist and live out my 20s trying to write for magazines like SPIN or Rolling Stone (Jesus, why would I ever?). [...]
Retrospective: Van Halen (Part Two: The Hagar Years)
In late spring 2010, I reviewed the Van Halen saga with David Lee Roth, which you can read if you go back a few pages. I told you all that as soon as I got some extra Pepto-Bismol kicking around, I would review the Hagar era of the band too. As I was born in [...]
Black Tambourine – s/t (Reissue) (Slumberland, 2010)
Silver Spring, Maryland’s Black Tambourine were only around for a couple of years in the late ’80s/early ’90s, coming off the 80s wave of twee pop (or indie pop; whatever you wanna call it). They were in the same vein as The Pastels and the Jesus and Mary Chain, combining minimalist production, song structures that [...]
Retrospective: Van Halen (Part One: The Roth Years)
I’ve been listening to Van Halen a lot lately to satisfy my classic hard rock urges. That and even before I started this blog, I wanted to do some sort of album review website, in the same vein as Mark Prindle or John McFerrin, but with more of Robert Christgau’s edge to it (and overall [...]
Retrospective: Stone Temple Pilots
I reviewed the latest album by Stone Temple Pilots sometime last week, and decided to revisit my youth. I listened to their first four albums (I never bothered with Shangri-La De Da and don’t intend to), and found that while STP never equaled many of their alternative/grunge contemporaries, they released some worthwhile material throughout the [...]