You Picked It! – Joni Mitchell – “Blue” – Album Review

Alright…You Picked It! And this one was probably the closest one yet. It wasn’t until Uncle Meat Cast his vote that we had a winner as I was sitting with a three way tie at first . The one you picked was Joni Mitchell’s album “Blue” which I had never heard before. The votes were as follows:

  1. Joni Mitchell – ‘Blue’ – 6 votes
  2. Ozzy Ozbourne – “Bark at the Moon’ – 5 votes
  3. Phil Collins – “Face Value’ – 5 votes
  4. Outkast – ‘Stankonia’ – 4 votes
  5. Durbin – ‘The Beast Awakens’ – 4 Votes

Thanks to all for participating. The April choices will be up on Saturday!

Joni Mitchell – ‘Blue’ (1971):

You people are not making my life easy by picking some of the most famous albums of all time for me to review. It puts so much pressure on me for two reasons. One, if it is one of the greatest albums of all time, will I like it and if not, look like a fool for no. Two, with it being one of the greatest albums of all time, will my write-up do it any justice. Can it live up to those standards. I know it is my fault because I have been putting them on the list and I do enjoy stretching outside the box to do the best I can on these reviews. But it is exhausting at the same time. Enough complaining, on to the review.

Continue reading “You Picked It! – Joni Mitchell – “Blue” – Album Review”

You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in March?

You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

New Release – Durbin – ‘The Beast Awakens

Never Heard Before – Joni Mitchell – ‘Blue’

Not My Normal Genre – Outkast – ‘Stankonia’

From My Collection – Ozzy Osbourne – ‘Bark at the Moon’

From My Collection – Phil Collins – ‘Face Value’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in March, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!

You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in February?

You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

  New Release – Wig Wam – ‘Never Say Die’ – Their back!!

 Never Heard Before – The Velvet Underground – ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’

Not My Normal Genre – Chris Stapleton ‘ Starting Over’

  From My Collection – The Rolling Stones – ‘Tattoo You’

  From My Collection – ZZ Top – ‘Eliminator’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in February, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!

You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in December?

You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

  New Release – AC/DC – ‘Power Up’ – a lot of my fellow bloggers will be reviewing this one, so it is up to you if you want to hear my take on it as well.

Never Heard Before – The White Stripes – ‘Elephant

 Not My Normal Genre – Janet Jackson – ‘Rhythm Nation 1814’

  From My Collection – The Stooges – ‘The Stooges’

  From My Collection – Oasis – ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in December, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!

You Picked It! – The Police – ‘Synchronicity’ (1983) – Album Review

Alright…You Picked It! And here it is. The one you picked was The Police – ‘Synchronicity’.  The votes were as follows:

  1. The Police – ‘Synchronicity’ – 11 votes
  2. Patti Smith – ‘Horses’ – 7 votes
  3. The Struts – ‘Strange Days’ – 3 votes
  4. Lauryn Hill – ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ – 1 vote
  5. Prince – ‘Purple Rain’ – 0 votes (this surprised me)

And thanks to being on The LeBrain Train live stream a couple weeks back, we had 2 write-in votes for Tommy Lee’s ‘Andro’ based on my absolute disdain for this new album. The write-in votes are a first for this series and if there was enough votes, it technically could’ve won!!

Thanks to all for participating.  The November choices will be up on Saturday!

THE POLICE – ‘SYNCHRONICITY’:

It turns out, I wrote about this album some 3-4 years ago. I think I need to keep better notes. But, you guys voted for it anyway and therefore I will update my review where my thoughts might have changed or where I have better information.

My first album for The Police was ironically their last.  MTV had played their previous songs quite often and I loved “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” and “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”, but it wasn’t until “Synchronicity II” that I finally decided to actually buy one of their records.

I picked up the cassette for ‘Synchronicity’ back in 1983 and later I did pick up their entire collection on CD by buying their box set which had all their albums.  I have since sold all the previous copies and when I was out vinyl shopping several years back, I found ‘Synchronicity’ and snatched it up.  It cost $8 which was about the same price I probably paid for the cassette back in the ’80’s.

Continue reading “You Picked It! – The Police – ‘Synchronicity’ (1983) – Album Review”

You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in November?

You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

  New Release – The Struts – ‘Strange Days’

  Never Heard Before – Patti Smith – ‘Horses”

Not My Normal Genre – Lauryn Hill – ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’

  From My Collection – Prince & the Revolution – ‘Purple Rain’

  From My Collection – The Police ‘Synchronicity’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in November, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!

You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in October?

You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…note: I tried to throw in a couple non-obvious choices to make things a little more interesting. I have to admit, there are some heavy hitters on here for this selection.

  New Release – Dokken – ‘The Lost Songs: 1978-1981′

  Never Heard Before – The 13th Floor Elevators – ‘The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

  Not My Normal Genre – Miles Davis – ‘Kind of Blue’

  From My Collection – Led Zeppelin – ‘Led Zeppelin IV’

  From My Collection – Queen – ‘Innuendo’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in October, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!

You Picked It!: Stevie Wonder – ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ – Album Review

Alright…You Picked It! And here it is. The one you picked was Stevie Wonder’s ‘Songs in the Key of Life’.  The votes were as follows:

  1. Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life – 7 votes
  2. Genesis – Genesis – 4 votes
  3. Funkadelic – Maggot Brain – 3 votes
  4. Adelitas Way – Shine On – 3 votes (one vote was a Like on Twitter by the band)
  5. Mr. Mister – Welcome to the Real World – 2 votes

Thanks to all for participating.  The October choices will be up on Saturday!

STEVIE WONDER – ‘SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE’

I don’t know what I was thinking when I picked this album to add to the You Pick It ! post. I had completely forgot what a daunting task this would be as this album is considered the best Stevie Wonder album, one of the best albums ever and it is a double LP with 21 songs and at a run time of 1 hour and 45 minutes, it is a lot of ground to cover. When the album easily won the vote count, I became a little freaked on how I was going to do this album any justice. There is really no way I can go song by song as this post would be way too long and you would get bored. So, I am only going to go through what I found to be the highlights of this album which is still quite a lot.

Continue reading “You Picked It!: Stevie Wonder – ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ – Album Review”