I've never been a heavy metal fan. Guns n' Roses passed me by the first time around. Apart from the hits, I've never listened to them until now. I've spent the past two days listening to Use Your Illusion II. My favorites are Don't Cry (great vocals on the verse) and So Fine (good song despite what sounds like a man pleasuring himself at the beginning). Some of the other songs are decent (14 Years, Yesterdays, Breakdown). I read some Amazon.com reviews that had great things to say about "Estranged", comparing it to the Magna Carta and the invention of the alphabet. Yeah, not so much. A few of the songs were terrible: Civil War, Get in the Ring, Shotgun Blues, Locomotive, and My World. My World is one of the worst songs I've ever heard (socio-psychotic- is that even a real word?). One note on the guitar playing - Slash and Izzy Stradlin obviously have a real groove going on, but I can't help but wish that guitar player's with that much technical skill and time should be able to come up with something more inspired and variable. Too many of the rhythms sound the same and the solos blend into one another. If the Godfather of heavy metal guitar is not Link Wray and not Dave Davies, then it must be Jimmy Page. Listening to Slash and Izzy on this album, makes me wish I was listening to Jimmy Page. There are just not enough memorable riffs. Just my opinion.
As many of you know, Bob Dylan is easily my favorite artist of all time, even though I don't listen to him nearly as often as I used to (Christmas in the Heart definitely grew on me, BTW). There's just so much there to listen to (and for) and so much variety. With "Time Out of Mind" I just love the blunt lyrical style and how Bob uses his "broken" voice to convey the brokenness around him. This really resonated with me - the feeling of being out of place with the world. I started listening to Dylan in 1989 and back then the focus was always on what he did in the 60's. I obviously love a lot of that stuff, but with "Time Out of Mind," there was finally new music to sink my teeth into. I remember where I was standing in my bedroom when I first listened to this album (I was standing by the left side of my dresser).
The winner: Time Out of Mind
Well-spoken, my friend. I love me some TOOM, too. (Although I can't remember where I was standing in relation to my dresser when I first heard it. I think I bought it at Record Time, though. There's a shocker.)
ReplyDeleteSome men you just can't reach.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you need to hear people respond to an album to remember the not-so-good stuff about it. Like "My World" referenced above, "Unskinny Bop" -- which obviously single-handedly led Poison to its demise, and of course the entire collection of songs that make up Graceland... wait, I knew Graceland was crap the first time I heard it.
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