Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician (1987)

Rating: A

An album as chaotic and disturbing as this could only be the work of the legendary "Butthole Surfers". Just the band name is a good reflection of the album. Strange and memorable. Plus the album artwork is enough to scare the Asian right out of Troy! If I had to choose one word to describe "Locust Abortion Technician" it would be: Fucking Obscure. I don't think I will discuss the album in depth, because that would ruin the surprise! And half the fun of listening to this album is the unexpected twists and turns it takes you on. It opens with a Black Sabbath parody, has a bizarrely epic ending, and both the second and second last song are called "Graveyard". Anyways, Nevermind the Review, Here's the Butthole Surfers!!!

Tom Waits- Mule Variations (1999)

Rating:A

I was always a sucker for lo-fi, dirty recordings. This album feels like a film noir meets spaghetti western, where you can't tell who the bad guy is. Listening to Tom's vocals makes me want to take pictures of service station bathrooms, in a good way. The great thing about this album is you would never mistaken any other artists work for this. Every song is a story. One of my teachers told us about the time he almost committed suicide and he said "My life was a Tom Waits song, I was broke, living in a gentleman's hotel, picking out what tie could hold my weight when I hang myself from the water pipes. That was christmas eve, I got a call about fifteen minutes before I did it. That call was a job offer."Of course, like that story, these songs often have happy endings that are just happy enough to make you grin and keep on keeping on. This album is book of short stories that you would read on a road trip. I like it. Probably my favourite track was "Big in Japan", but honestly, every track was significant for me. enjoy

The Kills - Midnight Boom (2008)

Rating: B
The 3rd album by The Kills, and the only one I've actually heard, was worth a couple listens but somewhat forgettable. The female vocals and garage-y sound reminded me of a combination of The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The Ting Tings. The album as a whole was a somewhat repetitive. I found lyrically there was a lot of repetition, and not a lot of variation between like tempo and speed between songs. However the songs were all pretty short and as an album under 35 minutes it's pretty quick and easy listen. Songs for song, my favorite song was Tape Song, second favorite being What New York Used To Be. Sour Cherry was decent too.  There were a few songs that felt like fillers (MEXICOCU, Alphabet Pony)(Feel free to disagree).  Overall, I liked the album. The choruses were catchy, the Sleight Bell-esque guitars were not too light but not to heavy, and the vocals were just different enough to stand out. I'll defiantly be checking out other work by these guys.

Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart (2010)

Rating: A

It's difficult to explain the atmosphere this album creates. It's one of those albums you can just sit there and listen to from start to finish, and totally become lost in the music. It's very simple, yet deep and layered. Black Sabbath meets The White Stripes. It's my favourite album released in the new millennium and it has restored my faith in new bands and the future of music. When the next music revolution begins, it will be Black Mountain helping lead the charge to overthrow the shallow, immature, watered down sound of Top 40 music! My personal favourite track is probably, "Let Spirits Ride". It's the perfect album to listen to when you're stressed out, as it tends to clear the mind and I always feel refreshed after the last song. Give it a chance, I think you guys might actually like it.

Panic! At The Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005)

Rating: A
Let me start off by saying that I've chosen this album because of it's influence on powerpop music in the last half a decade. Since Panic! At The Disco released this album, every powerpop band in the business (Names like All Time Low, Hellogoodbye, Cobra Starship, Metro Station) have shown similar styles in their music. However, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out stand alone because of it's somewhat mature themes (Marriage, religion) and well put together album. The album is split into 2 halves, kind of like a theatre show, with the song Intermission separating them. I loved the first half of the album because of all the synthesizer utilized, but the 2nd half still really impressed me. Hopefully you guys will see what I mean.

Nirvana - Hormoaning EP (1992)

Rating: B

This is the follow up release to Nevermind, released only in Australia and Japan. I found the first three songs to be boring and sound too similar. But then the fourth track came around, "Son of a Gun", and it totally grabbed my attention. I listened to that song again and again, and it's perfect. It's short, it's catchy, the lyrics are innocent and happy, and it's fun for the whole family. It's also a cover song, originally by The Vaselines, one of Kurt Cobains favourite bands. I really like the fact that it's a cover, Nirvana didn't try to imitate the original song or steal it. They played the song in their own way. Not only did they pay their respects to The Vaselines, but they also introduced Nirvana fans listening to this EP to a really cool obscure band that they may not have found otherwise. This is a reoccurring theme on the album, four of the six songs are covers, and all of them are tastefully done and in my opinion better then the original. "Mollys Lips" is another upbeat Vaselines cover, "D-7" is a really cool and surreal song (The Wipers), and "Turnaround" is originally by Devo for some reason. Whip It. Snap. The two Nirvana written songs are awesome as well. "Aneurysm" is probably about Courtney Love, and "Even In His Youth" is maybe about his childhood, both songs sound good to my ears and I think they have personal value to Kurt Cobains life in the lyrics. It's a great collection of B-Side songs, and introduced me to some really cool bands.

My Contributions

Good morning readers and fellow music enthusiasts, I am "Music Before it was Cool".

This blog is all about sharing our music tastes and broadining our audial pallets. I won't retell the purpose of the blog because I assume you have read the introduction.

Yes I read pitchfork and often like the music that they like, but that is not going to be the basis for any of my reviews or evaluations. In fact, I will not be giving any album a numerical score because I don't not believe I have the ability, accuracy or the experience to rate a piece of music out of ten. However, I will be giving you music to listen to and thoughtful ideas and feelings about the music recommended to me.

I hope you like my reviews and my pics.

Enjoy