Slam! Music Reviews That PWN

[sadchild]

The front cover is NSFW so here's the back cover.

The Slits
Cut (1979)

Rating: 1 Star
"After being together three years, this English all-female group finally made a record; it reveals no singing ability, a rudimentary handling of musical instruments and rather poor reggae-influenced songwriting. Yet this do-it-yourself incompetence is precisely the point, claim the group's admirers. Obviously, then, for hard-core Anglophilic ass kissers only." (Wayne King, 1983 RS Record Guide)

 

[sadchild]

'Babe I'm Gonna Leave You' alternates between prissy Robert Plant's howled vocals fronting an acoustic guitar and driving choruses of the band running down a four-chord progression while John Bonham smashes his cymbals on every beat. The song is very dull in places (especially on the vocal passages), very redundant, and certainly not worth the six-and-a-half minutes the Zeppelin gives it.

(John Mendelsohn, 3/15/69 Review)

 

[sadchild]

Beatles
Abbey Road (1969)

"Garbage"

What's it like? Well, I don't much like it, but then I have a thing about the Beatles. Since Revolver I've been buying their albums, playing them a couple of times, and then forgetting about them. The last album was, admittedly, exciting in places, but I still don't play it much because there's still too much stuff on it that should have been edited. Of course, the Beatles are still the Beatles, but it does tread a rather tenuous line between boredom, Beatledom, and bubblegum.

It is tempting to think that the Beatles are saying with this album that the only alternative to 'getting back' for them is producing more garbage on this order, and that they have priced it so outrageously so that fewer people would buy it.

(Ed Ward, 11/15/69 Review)

 

[scotchandcigar]

Beatles
Abbey Road (1969)

"Garbage"

What's it like? Well, I don't much like it, but then I have a thing about the Beatles. Since Revolver I've been buying their albums, playing them a couple of times, and then forgetting about them. The last album was, admittedly, exciting in places, but I still don't play it much because there's still too much stuff on it that should have been edited. Of course, the Beatles are still the Beatles, but it does tread a rather tenuous line between boredom, Beatledom, and bubblegum.

It is tempting to think that the Beatles are saying with this album that the only alternative to 'getting back' for them is producing more garbage on this order, and that they have priced it so outrageously so that fewer people would buy it.

(Ed Ward, 11/15/69 Review)

Haha, that might be the all-time most off-the-mark review ever! What a rube. I bet he wasn't a reviewer much longer after that.

 

[HecticArt]

I guess he got a job writing for 007.

 

[sadchild]

Santana
Santana (1969)
"No real content" "terrible" "incompetence"

Maybe it's just a coincidence that Santana and speed become popular at about the same time. Maybe not. At any rate their 'long awaited' album is definitely a speed freak's delight – fast, pounding, frantic music with no real content...

Santana apparently noticed that rock audiences inevitably go beserk at the slightest sign of a drum solo. Why not triple their pleasure? Give them drums plus congas plus timbales! The fact that all of them are terrible will never be noticed. The incompetence of each will cancel out the incompetence of the others...

Gregg Rolie contributes his share of redundancy with some organ solos which sound like Earl Grant rejects. His tone reminds one of nothing so much as the noise made by that guy in junior high who used to scratch the blackboard with his fingernails.

Langdon Winner and John Morthland, 10/18/69 Review

 

[sadchild]

The Stooges [Iggy Pop]
Fun House (1970)

This is one messed up review!!

Why do you look so pale, my friend? Why, that's only tenor saxophonist Steve Mackay vigorously fucking drummer Scott Asheton, dog-style...

[Iggy] should be behind that door, in that room. Perhaps, if we're lucky, he might be spreading peanut butter upon his phallus. Why, sometimes, he'll lock himself in there for days screaming, 'I feel all right!' at the top of his lungs until he passes out. And then, it is said, before he can arise again, a 14-year-old girl must perform oral intercourse upon his comatose body.

(Charles Burton, 10/29/70 Review)

Funhouse

Check out our album review of Artist's Funhouse on Rolling Stone.com.

www.rollingstone.com

 

[scotchandcigar]

The Stooges [Iggy Pop]
Fun House (1970)

This is one messed up review!!

Why do you look so pale, my friend? Why, that's only tenor saxophonist Steve Mackay vigorously fucking drummer Scott Asheton, dog-style...

[Iggy] should be behind that door, in that room. Perhaps, if we're lucky, he might be spreading peanut butter upon his phallus. Why, sometimes, he'll lock himself in there for days screaming, 'I feel all right!' at the top of his lungs until he passes out. And then, it is said, before he can arise again, a 14-year-old girl must perform oral intercourse upon his comatose body.

(Charles Burton, 10/29/70 Review)

Funhouse

Check out our album review of Artist's Funhouse on Rolling Stone.com.

www.rollingstone.com

Messed-up is right! It's rare to see a review on paper that's more fucked-up than the band itself. It appears that the reviewer is trying to make a point; but in doing so, has eclipsed the very thing he's criticizing.

 

[HecticArt]

Dayum!!!! Harsh much?

 

[sadchild]

File under "Condition Terminal"

Melody Maker reviewed the single with the four words "Stutter Rap, Utter Crap"

 

[sadchild]

Commercially, Beauty Stab was not an outright disaster, reaching #12 in the UK album chart and selling over 100,000 copies, but it was a big disappointment after such a successful debut. Acclaimed music writer Simon Reynolds even went as far as to call it ‘one of the great career-sabotage LPs in pop history’.

 

[sadchild]

Funkadelic
Maggot Brain (1971)
"Who needs this shit?" "Horrible mush" "Garbage"

"Who needs this shit? That said, we can progress to a more balanced appreciation of the third Funkadelic album. In it, the group continues their rather limited exploration of the dark side of psychedelia – a shattered, desolate landscape with few pleasures...With the exception of the two long showcase cuts - one awfully muddy and jumbled, the other a fine sweet-and-sour dish - the music on the whole is more competent than exciting. At best. Side two, culminating in (or descending to) 'Armageddon', is a horrible mush. Such dead-end stuff. Funk for funk's sake becomes merely garbage." (Vince Aletti, 9/30/71 Rolling Stone Review)

 

[sadchild]

Jane's Addiction
Nothing's Shocking (1988)

As guitarist David Navarro and the lumbering rhythm section work themselves into a dull sub-Led Zeppelin metallic stupor on the rambling Nothing’s Shocking, Farrell screeches smugly self-obsessed lyrics — repeating favorite lines over and over — as if his idiotic free-form musings were somehow significant.

 

[scotchandcigar]

Jane's Addiction
Nothing's Shocking (1988)

As guitarist David Navarro and the lumbering rhythm section work themselves into a dull sub-Led Zeppelin metallic stupor on the rambling Nothing’s Shocking, Farrell screeches smugly self-obsessed lyrics — repeating favorite lines over and over — as if his idiotic free-form musings were somehow significant.

He's not far off... But it's still good music.

 

[HecticArt]

Music critics are the same kind of people that look at Picasso paintings and say "That's nothing. I can do that!"

 

[sadchild]

Some I worked with at Shaw's (supermarket) in 1989 lent me his Nothing's Shocking tape. I wasn't into it. Perhaps a little ahead of its time, perhaps a little not that great. I figure a bit of both. Kinda like Nirvana's Nevermind vs Bleach. If I'd heard Bleach before Nevermind came out, I wouldn't have been very impressed.

The last two (real) songs on it were the only ones I thought were ok ("Jane Says" which is boring but alright, and "Pigs In Zen"). Later I bought the "Been Caught Stealing" CD single which has the demo version of "Had A Dad", which I think is better than the version on Nothing's Shocking.

 

[sadchild]

Wings
(About 90% of their songs)
"half-assed arrangements", "unrealized mess", "laziest records in the history of rock & roll"

London Town was an irritating mélange of lyric fragments, squandered melodies and clever but half-assed arrangements, the whole unrealized mess packaged with a slick, unctuous flair that would have reduced an idea like “Eleanor Rigby” to a two-line roundelay.

Since his solo debut in 1970 with the casual, albeit totally original, McCartney, this ex-Beatle has been lending his truly prodigious talents as a singer, songwriter, musician and producer to some of the laziest records in the history of rock & roll. With the exception of Band on the Run and some relatively cohesive material on Venus and Mars, McCartney’s work with Wings has proven to be as scattershot as it is puerile, each abortive rock snippet and silly love song feeding the mounting bewilderment about his direction (or utter lack of it) as an artist.

TIMOTHY WHITE
Rolling Stone
AUGUST 23, 1979

 

[Channel98]

I can resurrect my old joke: When did Paul McCartney write Silly Love Songs? Frrom 1957 to 2023.

The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has sold an estimated 32,000,000 copies worldwide. In a 2018 poll conducted by BBC Radio 2, Sgt. Pepper's was voted the best album of all time.

Here is what New York Times critic Richard Goldstein wrote on June 18, 1967: "The sound is a pastiche of dissonance and lushness.The mood is mellow, even nostalgic. But, like the cover, the over-all effect is busy, hip and cluttered. Like an over-attended child, Sergeant Pepper is spoiled. It reeks of horns and harps, harmonica quartets, assorted animal noises and a 41-piece orchestra; on at least one cut, For the first time, the Beatles have given us an album of special effects, dazzling but ultimately fraudulent."

"Reeks." "Ultimately fraudulent." Hey, Richard, I can say the same thing about your review!

 

[sadchild]

Listening to Howard Stern 6/24/2002. He's about to put "The Losers" (his radio crew) up against Corey Feldman's band, so he's reading a review of Feldman's recent live performance.

"Forget about the star power in the Feldman name. His band deserves an opening slot for a mediocre local act at best. Even then, I'd show up late to miss most of the set. Most of the folks felt the same way. 'Man, I expected some redeeming values,' said a woman at the bar who had showed up to see the former child actor. Just a few songs into the set, the crowd was over it. Dozens of tabs at the bar were closed and attendance dwindled by half."

 

[HecticArt]

I saw him on the Today show a few years ago. His shtick was pathetic and I was embarrassed for him. He was dressed like a low budget Michael Jackson. His “band” were reject models from a late-night local car stereo tv commercial dressed like the Robert Palmer Addicted To Love bimbos with rented Victorias Secret angel wings.

The song was prerecorded in his basement and was a ripoff of the MJ song where he blows up the car or whatever. If he was going to try to copy his rapist hero, he should have fully committed and taken the propofol too.