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I See a Darkness Average Customer Review:  Audio CD (19 January, 1999) list price: $14.97 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review "Prince" Will Oldham has always threatened to make a completely devastating album and this is it. Brooding and strikingly intimate, I See a Darkness picks through the abandoned camps of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, finding lonely tales and ragged melodies strewn about. The magic comes in the light Oldham is able to shine on these songs, rendering them both gorgeously baroque yet starkly modern. --S. Duda ... Read more Reviews (18)
I would say that 90 percent of this album sounds exactly like my thoughts throughout a normal day.It's sadly beautiful and hopeful simultaneously."I See A Darkness" is the type of song that makes you want to reflect on life and your inner thoughts.It's an ode to life. These songs are sung with such heartfelt beauty and passion that's almost immeasurable to compare this with any other artist.Will shares a lot of his thoughts and feelings with us in his music.He has a "no-holds barred" approach that is sure to catch any listener's attention. All the songs on this album are part of something bigger.One listen and you'll know that you've found an album with integrity and purity.It will probably get you through a lot of times in your life if you allow it to.Either way, this will be an album that you will not soon forget. "Death To Everyone" is one of the most powerful tracks on this album.It also happens to be one of my favorites as well.If it absolutely doesn't pierce your soul, you may not have even been listening and don't deserve to go any further with this album.I would assume that most fans have heard Will's other work and most put this at very least towards the top.Oldham has really paved a path for what he wants to get across in his music.I would venture to say that people will study this work for many years to come. If you've heard of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy/Will Oldham or are intrigued by what you've heard about him in general, this is definitely an album you should check out.Of course, he's got so many I guess you could start anywhere.Are any of them bad? No.My opinion would be to start here.If you don't become instantly fond of this work, you may not need to get anything else by him.
This is a really brilliant record. Will is the kind of artist that is a rare find among all the commercial shuffle of today's big money pot that is the music industry. His music is more for him than for a "target audience". And those who are interested can come along for the ride. (and what a ride) In other words He's not trying to sell records, he's making beautiful honest music for the love of music. This is a true masterpiece from a true purist. Oh yeah, and Johnny Cash covered the title song "I See A Darkness" on his last album. If that's not an honor what is? ... Read more Asin: B00000HYSN |
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The Velvet Underground & Nico Average Customer Review: Audio CD (07 May, 1996) list price: $9.98 -- our price: $7.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review When the Velvets recorded this debut, they were best known as the protégés of Andy Warhol (who designed the sleeve), and as a grating, combustive live band. Fueled by drummer Moe Tucker's no-nonsense wham and John Cale's howling viola, some of the straight-up rock & roll and arty noise extravaganzas here bear that out. But before Lou Reed was singing about sadomasochism and drug deals and writing lyrics inspired by his favorite poets, he was a pop songwriter, and this album has some of his prettiest tunes, mostly sung by Nico, the German dark angel who left the band after this disc. Even the sordid rockers are underscored by graceful pop tricks, like the two-chord flutter at the center of the classic "Heroin." --Douglas Wolk ... Read more Features Reviews (204)
Asin: B000002G7C |
$7.99 |
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The Essential Dolly Parton One: I Will Always Love You Average Customer Review:  Audio CD (28 March, 1995) list price: $15.98 -- our price: $14.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Despite its all-encompassing title, the first of RCA's two essential Parton titles doesn't encapsulate her most inspired period, though it provides an obliging overview of the commercial payoff that came on the high heels of her initial creative rush. This 20-song best-of set consists of sides cut between 1976 and 1984, including "9 to 5," "Islands in the Stream," "Two Doors Down," and the overblown 1982 remake of "I Will Always Love You." In contrast to Volume Two, most of the songs here come from hired guns; the winning sincerity Parton brings to her own material is much missed, though she remains an irresistible vocalist. The arrangements frequently stray from her country-folk roots into radio-friendly pop (listen to "Rear Love" to hear '80s production at its most hackneyed). Still, this album provides a useful snapshot of Dolly the superstar. Just make sure you buy Parton's second Essentials set before the first. --Steven Stolder ... Read more Reviews (12)
I am only 23 years OLD and I LOVE LOVE LOVE Dolly Parton.She is a classic.I thank my parents for giving me the chance to listen to a legend such as her.Very down-to-earth and earthy songs.Trust me, if you're a country fan, you'll love it. Dolly rocks! 5 stars
Certain things about this album were a disappointment.First, several songs on this album were remixes of the original songs-the worst being a solo version of "Real Love" as well as "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind", "Don't Call It Love" and "Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You" which spoiled an otherwise perfect collection-thus not a five-star compilation.Still, several previously unavailable songs were finally on CD on this first of two long awaited collections including the top ten country hits "Single Women" and "Heartbreak Express" (from "Heartbreak Express"), "You're The Only One" (#1 for 2 weeks) and "Sweet Summer Lovin" (from "Great Balls of Fire"), "God Won't Get You" (from the Rhinestone Soundtrack) and the Donna Summer penned "Starting Over Again" (#1 ; from "Dolly, Dolly, Dolly"). No doubt, a career as expansive by such a talented singer as Dolly Parton could never be compiled in just one CD, but to write off anything she did after breaking away from Porter Wagoner as just pop-flavored garbage is an insult to true fans.Dolly truly has a unique sound that nobody can even begin to match and the majority of songs featured on this album are among some of her best including the stunning remake of Kenny Rogers & The First Edition's hit "But You Know I Love You". Some things to remember about the anthology is that two major Dolly hits were remakes of other artists' work including "Two Doors Down" (written by Dolly but originally a top ten country hit for Zella Lehr) and "Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You", originally a #14 country hit for Joe Sun in 1978. So don't be led into believing this is not worth it-over 20 years of number one hits as well as two #1 pop hits will ever prove the critics wrong.She is by far the best female vocalist Nashville has ever had.Take this from someone who did NOT grow up on Porter and Dolly. ... Read more Asin: B000002WS3 |
$14.99 |
Missed Opportunity
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Unknown Pleasures Average Customer Review:  Audio CD (25 October, 1990) list price: $11.98 -- our price: $10.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (80)
Asin: B000002LGL |
$10.99 |
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Feels Like the Third Time Average Customer Review: Audio CD (23 May, 1995) list price: $13.98 -- our price: $13.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review The gals in Freakwater sometimes get faulted for placing emotion ahead of execution on their list of singing priorities, but vocal perfection on these songs would be like putting an Armani on a coal miner. Indeed, Janet Beveridge Bean, Catherine Ann Irwin, and David Wayne Gay are all about life's imperfections, its unfairness, and the misery and apprehension that often accompany these blemishes. Their embrace of traditional country comes without the winks and nods that sink so many other modern bands. Here they offer seven originals (six by Irwin) and another group of well-chosen covers that range from the songs of Woody Guthrie to Conway Twitty to Nick Lowe. But Irwin's incisive originals are what truly set them apart, and the final two songs provide ample proof. "Are You Ready" uses a timeless gospel melody to demythologize the hope of salvation in death, while "Lullaby" seeks to comfort and console a child by telling her how lucky she is that she doesn't have her mother's troubles. --Marc Greilsamer ... Read more Reviews (2)
Asin: B000004B2H |
$13.98 |
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Johnny Cash - The Man in Black: His Greatest Hits Average Customer Review: Audio CD (02 March, 1999) list price: $24.98 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review A more affordable alternative to the three-CD Essential package, The Man in Black is a well-chosen, double-disc collection that includes a good number of Cash's highlights, but leaves behind the accoutrements of the box set (no liner notes, discographical info, and so on). On the other hand, it includes various cuts--duets with Dylan, Kristofferson, and the Highwaymen for example--that Essential leaves off, although Essential does a more-thorough job of sampling the Sun years and the prison records. As a summary of Cash's many frames of mind, this compilation is not a bad place to start at all. --Marc Greilsamer ... Read more Reviews (7)
Asin: B00000I73G |
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The Rye Bears a Poison Average Customer Review: Audio CD (31 December, 2002) list price: $15.98 -- our price: $15.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Ali Roberts makes spare and spindly music that sounds as though it could have been written beside a hearth in Colonial America rather than in front of a two-bar heater in a late-'90s Scottish bedsit. Like his idol Will Oldham, Roberts finds great breadth of expression by using the simplest of tools. A graceful guitar, a viola, and an autoharp serve as the bittersweet backdrop to these songs of natural beauty and slow-moving emotions. A breaking voice adds an aching touch of solitude to each. As "Our Sea" imagines two lovers on an icy walk through town, one asks, "If we bought a house / What would be embedded in the walls? / Lambswool cloths and bullets of the old war." At about 20 beats per minute, this music is the total opposite of the "extreme" music used to advertise soda pop and acne medicine. And that is a comforting and peaceful change. --Lois Maffeo ... Read more Reviews (3)
I like this music so much. It make me happy and I want to run and play in the sun in my cardigan sweater and pick those flowers that blow apart in the wind. The best song by far is the one for Lassie because as they sing the song I can close my eyes and picture the dog running through windy grass on a hot afternoon going to lie down with he master. Lassie was a goo dog and he even got he own show. Nice folky songs. Pretty good for any mood.
Asin: B0000019SD |
$15.98 |
Creepy drug-folk
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Happiness Average Customer Review: Audio CD (02 October, 2001) list price: $14.98 -- our price: $14.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review This is the fourth album proper (discounting 1998's Sevens and Twelves) for the pioneering London-by-way-of-Putney post-rocktronic trio. Doing away for the most part with the sampled second-line beats and found textures prevalent on EPH, the etudes on Happiness work the band's collection of quasi-exotic instrumentation (kalimba, xylophone, and glockenspiel to name but three) through subtle digital reconstitution schemes, resulting in a far more intimate and inviting sound field. Cheeky song titles delineate the combinations: the blissed-out "Cut Up Piano and Xylophone" wisely works a reverse-skidding effect, unfortunately ending far before the listener can achieve the intended alpha-state; "Harmonics" strums open chords underneath an involved polyrhythmic pulse built out of sampled acoustic guitar picking; "Tone Guitar and Drum Noise," with its endlessly skidding percussion manages to hip-check Milford Graves and Augustus Pablo simultaneously (not an easy feat). The occasional detour (such as "Drums Bass Sonics and Edit") does little to destroy the reigning pastoral mood. Results overall are nothing short of gorgeous, the lengths gone to pierce a new angle through the rock-trio aegis ultimately pay off in a unique offering, contemporary and ages old.--Keith Fullerton Whitman ... Read more Reviews (6)
Asin: B00005Q6OU |
$14.98 |
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Wonder Wonder Average Customer Review: Audio CD (17 July, 2001) list price: $14.98 -- our price: $14.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review A gifted songwriter with a knack for sad, ethereal countrysongs, Edith Frost stands apart from the No Depression pack withher willingness to experiment. Her first album, Calling over Time,suspended her tender melodies and drawling vocals in an oddly detachedcelestial haze; 1998's Telescopic replacedthe haze with a thick layer of electric fuzz. On Wonder Wonder,the fog lifts, and what emerges is Frost's most straightforward andfocused album to date. It's tempting to call this a return to basics,but that's not entirely accurate; indeed, with more than a dozensupporting players, it's certainly her most ambitious production(thanks to Rian Murphy). Frost's songwriting is as reliably strong asever, with a noticeably lighter touch to even the most melancholysongs. The title track has a nicely jaunty feel (complete with aclarinet break), and the upbeat, ornate "Cars and Parties" sounds likea hit single for a better world. Edith Frost has long occupied her ownunique space somewhere between the country and indie-rock worlds, andWonder Wonder is another worthwhile addition to her impressivecatalog. --Mike Applestein ... Read more Reviews (4)
As it turns out, Frost's music is only close to Wright's quietest music on her first record Flightsafety.Edith Frost's voice is actually more like Julie Doiron or Lisa Germano's, with loose pitch and a distinct flavour, and her songwriting remains in a dreamy, melancholic blur, gorgeous in a tired way.The feeling is that of an artist who feels no need to show off, letting a soft bed of instruments and whisper-soft vocals speak her mind. Forst never scales the dizzying heights of Shannon Wright's more ferocious material or baroque song structures and melodies, but there's a quiet power in the mournful cello parts, tinkling piano and drawn-out vocal murmurs of "True", the wry percussion and sarcastic vibrato singing of "Wonder Wonder", the sparsely apocalyptic, guitar distortion-coloured "The Fear", country rock in "Further", and a buoyant garage-rock romper in "Cars and Parties", which is very atypical of this record. I don't play this record often, but it's well crafted, with good songwriting and a dark detached mood that's fascinating.Recommended for fans of brainy, unusual music.
But Wonder Wonder stands independently, rising from the sky blue of her Texas home and reaching into the bleak cityscapes which are defined by pavement rather than greenness.Her vocals are more challenging than ever, and her voice soars and dips, taking us right to the edge of safety and revealing it's edges, before bringing us back to center.Less difficult tonal passages could have been taken, but the vocal stays true to the emotional range of her beautifully crafted material. Wonder Wonder also stands alone in it's aural moodiness as the first album by Frost that has a truly upbeat tone.(I found it the perfect party album during a low-key holiday gathering.)This isn't to say that the numbers aren't at times sorrowful."Blue," the first track on Wonder Wonder, is as classic a Frost tune as any you will find, but the step into the upbeat 2nd track ("Cars and Parties") lets the listener know that this album is going someplace new.It's like a breath of fresh air, and with creative instrumentation and a real sense of humor, Frost sounds liberated as she sings about the subject that she frequents most often: meditations on the nature of love. As a songwriter Frost has always been ahead of the pack, composing songs with enough complexity to hook the listener early on, and enough lyrical mystery to keep our minds filling in the blanks as we replay them over and over in our heads.Somewhere between the Beatles and Elliott Smith is the zone that Frost inhabits musically, and she's never let us down when it comes to musical composition. However, there have been times on prior releases when the guest musicians were not as polished as Frost's songs deserved.This is not the case with Wonder Wonder, which sounds more complete and full than any other Frost album to date.And yet, unlike some of Elliott Smith and the Beatles works, Wonder Wonder does not get bogged down in overproduction.Just enough boost is provided by the guest musicians to allow the songs on Wonder Wonder to really pop. How long Edith Frost will remain exclusively a college radio queen is unknown.Her talent equals if not surpasses that of Carly Simon and Phoebe Snow, and Frost has already written more truly great songs than both of them combined.Too bad commercial radio today is so lifeless that an artist with talent as vast as Ms. Frost's has to remain an underground phenomenon.Iam certain that the world at large would appreciate her music, lyrics, and her vocal delivery. As a resident of New York City, I relish the line in the Wonder Wonder track, "Further," where she sings of the "brave fireman" who "reaches out" - it's comforting to be able to singheartfully about firemen these days.It just feels right.
Asin: B00005LMZ4 |
$14.98 |
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Moon Pix Average Customer Review: Audio CD (22 September, 1998) list price: $11.98 -- our price: $10.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, has created an album, Moon Pix, that somehow manages to be both complex and difficult as well as stark and spacious. It's an interesting contradiction mirrored in Marshall's vocal and lyrical talents; her voice soars and croons, sometimes trading melodies with a wandering flute line, while her lyrics are powerful, inscrutable, and fiercely intimate. Two of the Dirty Three evoke a subtle instrumental landscape upon which she wanders, a place less haunting than haunted; specters of lost friends, lost loves, and unrealized dreams abound. There is beauty here, but the kind of beauty found in the crushed shell of a bird's egg or a cemetery in fall. Not an easy listen, but a necessary one. --Tod Nelson ... Read more Reviews (62)
Spooky and off-kilter, this album is maudlin the best way. Chan Marshall (is that her name?) adopts a kind of child-visionary persona, delivering an idiosyncratic mixture of surreal, direct, and insinuating lyrics that are enough to rend your heart the more you hear them. Her voice is husky yet pure at the same time, and she's at her best with minimal instrumentation, just stark vocals and a muffled guitar, sounding like the saddest, most hopeful person on earth singing to herself in an empty room. If you know what I mean... Asin: B000009VOL |
$10.99 |
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Can the Circle Be Unbroken?: Country Music's First Family Average Customer Review: Audio CD (04 July, 2000) list price: $11.98 -- our price: $10.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Like so many Americans during the Depression, the Carter Family found themselves forced to stay in motion throughout the 1930s. Rural economies, the locales where country music had taken root, were hit unusually hard by the economic crash. The Carters left their original record label just prior to recording the first 17 of the 20 tunes on Can the Circle Be Unbroken, joining ARC for long enough to prodigiously churn out material they'd previously recorded. The 17 ARC songs here were recorded over 3 days in May 1935, and all reveal a Carter Family growing musically comfortable with their execution on these tunes--especially the slight dronelike quality in Sara's voice, which sounds settled and at times almost languid. Maybelle's voice and guitar emphasize the appropriately unhurried pacing (this was the Depression, after all). As for the closing trio of tracks, they come from a post-Decca session during their short tenure at Columbia, and all bear the mark of greater vocal harmonies between Sara and Maybelle, as well as an increased pitch in the vocals that quickens the pace a tad. These are vitally important recordings, to be sure, a fine, more multihued complement to the band's '20s-era recordings. --Andrew Bartlett ... Read more Features Reviews (10)
The recordings on this CD are from their latter years, mid-1930's, and are superlative; among their best.The tempo is slower than their first records, and Sara's (lead singer's) natural pitch has dropped to alto; both very suitable to the music. The recording quality wasn't great in 1930, but the `78-record effect', quickly becomes unnoticeable.Sara's got The Voice, and Maybelle, of course, the guitar Style. Pure diamond from southwest Virginia!
Asin: B00004RC8J |
$10.99 |
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Where Did You Sleep Last Night: Leadbelly Legacy 1 Average Customer Review: Audio CD (20 February, 1996) list price: $16.98 -- our price: $14.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (9)
This collection is a great starting point for Lead Belly's music. It includes some of his most memorable songs: "Irene", "Grey Goose", "Cotton Fields", "Sylvie", "Rock Island Line", "Green Corn". The recording quality is great considering the age of the recordings. Included are plenty of Lead Belly playing his legendary 12-string guitar along with some a capella tracks. The CD booklet has a good biography and extensive track notes, along with quotes from Lead Belly himself about selected songs. If you're curious about Lead Belly this CD is a great introduction to his music. If you want more, this series has 2 additional excellent volumes.
Leadbelly is among the top three most influential musicains of the 20th Century. A distinction he shares with Son House and Robert Johnson (Son House: The Original Delta Blues and The Complete Robert Johnson are both essential cds). The seeds that Mr. Ledbetter planted when he recorded his music went on to sprout plants in the fields of popular music from (probably) every country on earth. You know the story: From blues came rock'n'roll and jazz. A friend once said to me, "Good artists borrow ideas, great artists steal them." This is particularly true concerning the relationship between Leadbelly and the other Led. Don't get me wrong. Zeppelin were pioneering geniuses in their own right. But little did I know that the Led Zeppelin records that I blasted full volume deep into my profoundly stoned highschool cranium were really written in large part by dirt poor black men way before World War Two. The song 'Black Betty' by Ram Jam which recently enjoyed some nostalgic exposure through the Blow Soundtrack (a fine collection) was originally a Leadbelly tune. And it may well have been Leadbelly's ghost that killed John Bonham and Hendrix and Morrison and Joplin and Brian Jones, seeking revenge for royalties never paid. Cobain, too.
Asin: B000001DIA |
$14.99 |
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Murder Ballads Average Customer Review: Audio CD (20 February, 1996) list price: $13.98 -- our price: $13.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Nick Cave's been writing songs about killing and other evil things since he first surfaced in 1980 as the Birthday Party's pale, skinny, goth-punk Jim Morrison. But the murder ballads that provide this set's title are different, tantalizingly deliberate. Sure, there's plenty of trademark Cave here, but Murder Ballads is a fascinating concept album that uses the narrative ballad form of the English folk tradition to tell of murder: random deaths, passion crimes, and killing sprees, all in one package.Cave clearly thrives in this genre, and he produces some of his sharpest and most facile writing to date. "Song of Joy," a genuinely scary campfire mystery of a murdered family and an unnamed killer, chillingly weaves clues into the lyrics, while "Where the Wild Roses Grow" is a narrative duet in which killer (Cave) and victim (pop star Kylie Minogue) reveal parallel tales. Cave even shows his knack for adaptation on Bob Dylan's "Death Is Not the End": he recontextualizes a song of heavenly comfort into a sort of zombie "We Are the World" (featuring Minogue, PJ Harvey, Shane MacGowan, and others) in which "death is not the end" of pain and suffering.Above all, Murder Ballads should be heard as a work of pulp fiction--as sensationally funny as it is harrowing. The already violent traditional song "Stagger Lee" becomes gangsta folk, so ridiculously packed with obscenity and brutality it would make the Geto Boys cringe. And Cave's (unintentional?) point to would-be censors--that bad-ass songs existed long before rappers polluted the airways--should not be missed. --Roni Sarig ... Read more Reviews (49)
Asin: B000002N5S |
$13.98 |
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Horse Stories Average Customer Review: Audio CD (10 September, 1996) list price: $14.98 -- our price: $13.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Though they're a small band--with only three members, that is--Australia's Dirty Three play music about big things. Are these songs really, as the title suggests, horse stories? (For that matter, was Ocean Songs really about the sea?) Well, the tunes don't gallop, or even canter. What they do is swirl and gouge and slope and crash, in part because guitarist Mick Turner has an impeccable sense of his instrument's mood-setting powers, in part because violinist Warren Ellis cuts through the air with long, thick-toned phrases, and in part because drummer Jim White holds the band together with sensitive, swishy percussion here and banging chaos there. This is proof positive of the jazz axiom that instruments can tell a story at least as well as language. And while this isn't equine stuff, generally, it's sure got the snort and the kick and the pull and the dogged strength of any four-legged wagon-pulling pal on earth. --Andrew Bartlett ... Read more Reviews (9)
These songs are faster than those included on their follow-up albums so the sadness doesn't hit you right away. However when it does it strikes you as the most intense, violent despair that ever crashed through your speakers and threatened at any time to become a palpable manifestation of itself. This is epic tragedy converted to audio, this is the pain of existence. There is no real way to write about a Dirty Three album convincingly, there is just too much emotion on all of them to ever put into words. This is the sound of the longing for the garden of eden at the moment we were kicked out of it. Like all great love affairs, if you give this reocrd time,the rewards are endless.
Asin: B0000019LR |
$13.99 |
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Curtain Hits the Cast Average Customer Review: Audio CD (13 August, 1996) list price: $15.98 -- our price: $15.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (13)
"Curtain" contains some long-time Low favorites -- at almost any Low show, you'll hear requests for "Over the Ocean" and "Lust".If you're just starting to get into Low's later records, this is a great place to start to introduce yourself to their earlier sound. ... Read more Asin: B000000A42 |
$15.98 |
this is a desert
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Magnog Average Customer Review: Audio CD (01 April, 1996) list price: $14.98 -- our price: $14.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (5)
Asin: B000001PVZ |
$14.98 |
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Essence Average Customer Review: Audio CD (05 June, 2001) list price: $13.98 -- our price: $9.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Few artists in recent memory have been able to wring more from less than Lucinda Williams. The hauntingly beautiful, wistful, and often breathtaking Essence is another case in point of how far raw emotion and honesty can carry an artist. Williams's singing is at its paralyzing best throughout 11 bare originals, an incredibly affecting vocal performance by a woman who was not blessed with exceptional tone, range, or pitch. Throughout, her voice is incredibly naked, vulnerable, and wrought with feeling. "Blue" and "Broken Butterflies" are gorgeous anti-lullabies whose simple melodies belie their poignant ruminations. The title track is a sultry and susceptible sex-as-drug come-on while "Reason to Cry" has all the hallmarks of a classic country lament. The only departure from the subdued mood is "Get Right with God," a rousing gospel tune that practically begs for salvation through punishment and is the rare acknowledgement of a world beyond Williams's own fears and desires. More meditative than the personal narratives found on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Essence is ultimately more powerful. Williams wallows in sorrow and weakness, and the result is moving and disarming. --Marc Greilsamer ... Read more Reviews (169)
Asin: B00005B8GS |
$9.99 |
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To Bring You My Love Average Customer Review: Audio CD (28 February, 1995) list price: $13.98 -- our price: $13.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review After fumbling around with producer-from-hell Steve Albini on Rid of Me (1993) and signing with U2 manager Paul McGuinness, Polly Jean Harvey is ready to live up to her lethal early promise at last. With its growling bass tones, "Meet Ze Monsta" sets the stage early on as Harvey explores her feminine psyche with an intensity and raw power unheard since Patti Smith's heyday. Unlike the terminally inconsistent Smith, however, Harvey plots a brilliant course through slippery laments ("Working for the Man"), corrosive testifying ("Long Snake Moan"), and fuzz-toned menace ("Down by the Water"). Skeptics who think Harvey can't outgrow her art-punk base are advised to cue up the flamenco-inflected, string-caressed "Send His Love to Me."--Jeff Bateman ... Read more Reviews (89)
Asin: B000001E7T |
$13.98 |
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Mi Media Naranja Average Customer Review: Audio CD (19 November, 1997) list price: $14.98 -- our price: $13.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Listening to Labradford's Me Media Naranja is like eavesdropping on the dream music of the American cowboy. Echoing, watery guitars float over the open, dusty range of the mind. A waxy organ and percussive bells flesh out the atmosphere while each song seamlessly carries on the soundtracklike tradition of its predecessor. The small, whispering voices and relaxing, risqué melodies survive in the soul long after this eerie music has ceased. An absolute ambient classic. --Karen Karleski ... Read more Reviews (9)
As wonderfully atmospheric and emotive the guitar music is, there is an extremely high-pitched pinging tone that is played constantly through most of the tracks.Not "high-pitched" as in chimes, but high-pitched as in "only dogs are supposed to hear squeals like this".Some reviewers have called this an artistic alternative to conventional rhythmic accompaniment, I call it ear-splitting annoyance. Now I am no stranger to dissonant compositions, having a decent collection of cacophonous 20th century classical works, but this element completely ruins the album for me.I suppose one could eventually learn to tolerate the noise, but you would never be able to listen to it in the company of others.My hopes are that eventually, with old age, my hearing will deteriorate and I wont be able to hear noises that high in frequency.Either that, or you could go through the long process of copying the album to a computer, digitally stripping the upper frequencies and copying it onto CDR. Potentially magnificent music, but BUYER BEWARE!
Asin: B0000061I3 |
$13.99 |
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f#a# (infinity symbol) Average Customer Review: Audio CD (20 May, 1999) list price: $14.98 -- our price: $13.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review On first listen, Montreal collective Godspeed You Black Emporer sounds familiar, like sonic-landscape architects the Dirty Three. But pay closer attention to this debut full-length and you'll find something much more compelling: G.Y.B.E. mix found sounds, voices, lilting string sections, and musique concrète into structures that tell a story. With each listen, a new plot twist is unraveled, a new movie sample identified--you start to listen closely with headphones to pick up new subtleties you couldn't hear previously. Three tracks, a bit over an hour, of great music that defies categorization. --Jason Verlinde ... Read more Reviews (79)
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