Thread, I have named thee "Rewrite an AMG Entry"

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don't mean to pick on AMG, which I use all the time. but now's the time to redress wrongs on that esteemed database, review-wise. (other reviews are also fair game)

― Neudonym, Thursday, 10 July 2003 17:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Oops.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 10 July 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

not Ned's, though, or Sean's

― Neudonym, Thursday, 10 July 2003 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Really? What about Ned's legendary Lothar Meid blunder in his review of Amon Duul II's "Phallus Dei"? That will live long in the halls of infamy....... or something.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 10 July 2003 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

careful there...

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 10 July 2003 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought their review of the new blur album was way too biased. You'd think Damon had impregnated his sister...

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Thursday, 10 July 2003 18:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll step up:

Pizzicato Five, Happy End of the World (five stars)

This album is a HUGE leap forward, not just for the Japanese duo who made it, but for all recorded music. Not only is this record blissfully, greedily in love with all genres ever (check the song titles: "World Is Spinning at 45 RPM," "My Baby Portable Player Sound," "Collision and Improvisation"), but it's not afraid to use those genres, leading to smashups like the harpsichord/Burundi/Bond theme "Tokyo Mon Amour" and the lengthy downtempo suite "Porno 3003," which uses ambient washes over the bubbling beat from Ann Peebles' "I Can't Stand the Rain," with slow sexy string builds to underscore Maki Nomiya's monologue; when the darkness breaks about seven minutes in, and the hidden house melody leaps to the fore, you will cry happy tears and realize that if God existed he would be dancing his dizzy ass off to this perfect song. Nearly every song has some kind of striking surprising moment, and many of them are impossible to predict, even after you've memorized the whole record; the cheerleaders chanting the letters of the group's name are the best special guests an album ever had.

Truly a triumph for Konishi Yasuharu, who proves here that he is Phil Spector crossed with Alex Patterson multiplied by Mozart. Anyone who calls this epic feat of music-making "laid-back" or "low-key" or "a little too long" should have his damned ears taken from him and sent off in the corner for a long nap until he loves music again.

― Neudonym, Thursday, 10 July 2003 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Despite the fact that Tom refers to Blur as one of the best singles bands ever, and despite the fact that he owns all of those import singles, he is secretly biased against them. (It's been a long-running gag around the office.) He finally snapped and could no longer keep the bias under wraps, which Bill just pointed out.

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 July 2003 19:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick Cave, The Boatman's Call (rec'd 4.5 stars from AMG in orig. review, gets two in rewrite)

You can sit around and wonder all day if it somehow had to come to this; one can't stay young and angry forever, and it's good and healthy to branch out. What's neither good nor healthy, though, is to lace Starbucks-counter melancholia with half-assed melodies and the least interesting lyrics of Cave's entire career and hawk it as some sort of bold and "personal" step into piano balladry. What these songs share with good piano-based songcraft is one thing only - to wit, the use of a piano - and anybody peering any deeper into that pond will find his nose pushing mud around within a couple of minutes. What's most lamentable is that Cave's gift for phrasing seems to have left him entirely on this record; clunky deliveries of already uninspired phrases like "Down in the lime-tree arbor," "direct you into my arms" (direct? direct?), and "Ah, but that's just bullshit, babe" induce wincing, play after play. NPR sure loved it, though. The second star in the album's rating is because it's Nick Cave.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Thursday, 10 July 2003 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

just to clarify: I don't want to rip Mr. Erlewine's ears off

― Neudonym, Thursday, 10 July 2003 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I like a lot of his reviews, and I think he's a pretty good writer! I just think The Boatman's Call chows down on huge helpings of ass three times a day.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Thursday, 10 July 2003 19:54 (twenty-two years ago)

does anybody know how Mike Erlewine got booted out of his own company?

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 10 July 2003 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

J0hn: You've got the albums mixed up. Nocturama's review was re-written by Tim, not Tom. Tom wrote the review for Boatman's Call, which is still there.

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, in my browser the TBC review is credited to Stephen Thomas Erlewine: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=10:21:05%7CPM&sql=A3pkzu3qhan2k

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Uh er, I wasn't clear.

You posted this:

Nick Cave, The Boatman's Call (rec'd 4.5 stars from AMG in orig. review, gets two in rewrite)

...and then quoted the text from the Nocturama review.

(Never mind if this was your intention.)

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

(and it was Nocturama that had the change of review/rating)

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Oops! I thought you were quoting the Nocturama review, but you were obviously re-writing it. Apologies! (Some of the text looked similar.)

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll get me coat.

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

This exchange will doubtless kill this thread, but I haven't even read the "Nocturama" review. Here's how the Boatman's Call one appears:

Murder Ballads brought Nick Cave's morbidity to near-parodic levels, which makes the disarmingly frank and introspective songs of The Boatman's Call all the more startling. A song cycle equally inspired by Cave's failed romantic affairs and religious doubts, The Boatman's Call captures him at his most honest and despairing -- while he retains a fascination for Gothic, Biblical imagery, it has little of the grand theatricality and self-conscious poetics that made his albums emotionally distant in the past. This time, there's no posturing, either from Cave or the Bad Seeds. The music is direct, yet it has many textures, from blues to jazz, which offers a revealing and sympathetic bed for Cave's best, most affecting songs. The Boatman's Call is one of his finest albums and arguably the masterpiece he has been promising throughout his career.

But I think I am missing the point of this thread. I thought the point was to take an AMG entry with which we disagreed and rewrite it.

xpost ha we are clear! Except that I love Nocturama. I was writing a review to replace the one for the Boatman's Call, since that one is misinformed as to how much ass the Boatman's Call insists upon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

All of the above was really just my elaborate way of destroying this week's AMG thread. Carry on, etc.

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (original review gives four stars and the condescending closing line "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is undoubtedly a major statement, but just what it's saying is anyone's guess")

New review
This album will break your heart in order to save it. In addition, it will drive back the inexorable destructive forces of progress and save you, just as it did the musical saw.

― Ess (Ess), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

ZZ Top – XXX ****

SIMILAR ARTISTS – Butthole Surfers, Melvins, Eyehategod, Saint Vitus, Brujeria, Boredoms, Acid Mothers Temple, Merzbow, Royal Trux, Shania Twain, ARE Weapons, Roky Erickson

This one belches out more toxic radiation than a dangerously unsafe Matamoros chemical plant and the guitar squeals like Karla Faye Tucker getting the needle. The band goes back to their roots in psychedelic roots here – Texas-style, which means crazed gun-wielding bikers, diabolical peyote-pushing shamen and rapacious desert life-forms add to the fun to be found outside the your trailer on the I-35, assuming you haven’t already keeled over from the 180 degree heat and one two many mescals. “Beatbox” is an approving sideways nod at the tsunami of Jap blooze-guitar sludge, and the album as a whole is like finding the wreck of an overturned beer truck on the freeway – an unwieldy, ugly mess, but after a while the stench of gasoline and the screaming coming from the cab serve to heighten the intoxication.

― dave q, Sunday, 13 July 2003 14:23 (twenty-two years ago)

ZZ Top – Tejas - ****1/2

MOODS: Ominous, nocturnal, cynical, druggy, conspiratorial

SIMILAR/RELATED – Jim Thompson, Tobe Hooper, Malcolm Lowry, Paul Bowles

Making their evolution into a new-wave band appear in retrospect the logical next step by foregrounding the country rhythms. The Top turn off the Interstate for a tense night drive through the hinterlands, where lonely oil rigs loom over the landscape like all-seeing pteranodons and it isn’t safe to pull over until you reach the Darien gap. “Arrested for Driving While Blind” is the last exit to civilisation – after that, the law is the least of your problems. To quote ‘The Sheltering Sky’, “nothing is ever lost in the desert”, and that applies to ‘lost weekends’ too. Abandon hope. Fill ‘er up.

― dave q, Sunday, 13 July 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

ZZ Top – El Loco ****

SIMILAR/RELATED – Talking Heads, Cars, Devo, Cramps, Madonna, Captain Beefheart, B-52s, Contortions, ? and the Mysterians, Flying Lizards

The clotted post-punk rhythms of “Heard it on the X” are now being quantified and heat-sealed in the forensic lab like Neil Peart did to Keith Moon’s, except Beard it doing to his own, and the beats obviously osmosed whatever chemical substance they were jammed into the evidence locker with. The bass is phased and more high-rangy than usual, which is presumably intentionally disorienting combined with the vari-speeded voices and involuted, hermetic guitars on the top end – Gibbons has now retreated deep into a bunker of babble, dispensing gnomic paradoxii and ostentatiously cryptic cadences like a bearded L Ron Hubbard skippering on a sea of sand – yet when it pterodactyls (there they are again!) back down to Earth like on “Pearl Necklace” (which blows a load all over the Cure’s “Forest”) you’re blown away like a beloved house pet in a Gulf Coast hurricane. Viva la raza!

― dave q, Sunday, 13 July 2003 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

these guys need a bio

― ron (ron), Sunday, 13 July 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

God, if AMG reviews actually read like dave's that would be the greatest fucking thing ever.

Unfortunately, they prefer to stake out bland meaninglessness.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Sunday, 13 July 2003 22:24 (twenty-two years ago)

*cries*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 13 July 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

*gives Nedman a 'kerchief*

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Sunday, 13 July 2003 23:01 (twenty-two years ago)

*embarrassed, notices t'wasnt a 'kerchief in the pocket, but undies*

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Sunday, 13 July 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Unfortunately, they prefer to stake out bland meaninglessness.

When we did the survey, we found that 97% of those who ticked the "I know everything about every form of music" box found our site to be "pointless, of no use". It was then that we realized we had really painted ourselves into a corner.

― Andy K (Andy K), Sunday, 13 July 2003 23:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Andy K, dude, I feel really bad for starting this thread now, because I didn't really want to just piss all over the place; notice that I didn't say "let's re-write EVERY entry" or anything like that. But AMG, like any other database/compendium, has some entries that are gold and some that are tin(-eared), and I wanted to give myself and others a chance to fix some inequities.

I'm actually glad that AMG doesn't aim to be all 'edgy' and 'hardcore' in its entries; that's what other sites are for.

― Neudonym, Sunday, 13 July 2003 23:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, come on. I love the AMG. I use it constantly.

I just like teasing you guys, is all.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 14 July 2003 00:34 (twenty-two years ago)

We make sport of ourselves all the time, so no offense taken.

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 14 July 2003 00:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, now that we got that all taken care of, let's go back to rewriting some entries. Mr. Andy K, I'm working on your Frankie J review as we speak. Don't you realize how AMAZING this album really is?

― Neudonym, Monday, 14 July 2003 02:06 (twenty-two years ago)

SCORPIONS – Fly to the Rainbow ***1/2

SIMILAR/RELATED – Can, Neu, Faust, Amon Duul II, Guru Guru, Kraftwerk, Nico, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Allmann Brothers

FOLLOWERS – Accept, Turbonegro, Brainbombs, David Hasselhoff, Senor Coconut, Primal Scream, Nirvana

The picture on the front would be the worst cover art in history if it yielded to any explication whatever. Then again, the back cover is almost exactly the same, except that the propellered clown with the Shriner hat is bending over and the band personnel is printed on his butt. This is produced by Mack of Musicland Munich fame so at first you think all the eugenic-experimental-reject caterwauls are early analog synths but they’re indistinguishable from the tremopileptic seizures of Uli Roth who plays guitar like Ian Curtis would talk on a chat show with somebody flashing a strobe light on him. Uli sings on some tracks too and is a vocal photocopy of Bobby Gillespie (even yells “Shine on!!” repeatedly at one point with K Meine doing the high bit), except ‘Give Out’ didn’t have as many cowbells as “Speedy’s Coming” which also has an excellent double-tracked compressed-to-insectoid Klaus Meine vocal saying “You like Ringo St-ah-ah-ah-ah-rrrr?” like he’s kerb-crawling in his Mercedes right before Uli (in drag, or at least in his ‘Tokyo Tapes’ gatefold-pic get-up) produces a Walther PPK from ‘her’ purse and wastes him and leaves behind a note saying ‘The capitalist machine will sacrifice itself, victory to the Stammheim starving, He’s a Voman, She’s a Man!! Ha ha!!” “Far Away” is kind of like “Lithium” except for the end where it goes all Daft Punk, except with nylon-stringed flamenco guitars. Or maybe that’s the beginning of the next one?

― dave q, Monday, 14 July 2003 11:09 (twenty-two years ago)

SCORPIONS – In Trance ***

SIMILAR/RELATED – Silver Convention, Giorgio Moroder, Cerrone, Alec Constandinos, Patrick Hernandez

FOLLOWERS – Daft Punk, Motorbass, Dimitri from Paris, Bob Sinclar, Brazen Hussies

The Baader-Mindless (just kidding, joke!) excursion into austere Speer/Mies-ian geometry, perhaps inspired by the brutalist architecture across the Wall, is only partially successful due to Uli Roth (the group’s Albert Hoffman) still appearing to believe he’s in Primal Scream, and even though he only sings on two songs they put one of them (“Dark Lady”) at the beginning! Whatever…but it’s still Herr Uli’s uli-lations that make the standout tracks here, which as usual with the Scorpions are pretty easy to distinguish from the ‘other ones’ (ie the ones that show up over and over on one 'compilation' after another, only April Wine seem to have more). And those standouts are “Robot Man” which is 2.50 of Cylon-castrato lied and no-wave atonal percussive gtr scratches, and the title track’s micro-inversion of Abba’s “Eagle”’s macro-weltaanschaung. I think that’s the word anyway. The cover pic is a woman about to position herself atop a guitar enabling vaginal contact with either the pickups or the whammy bar. Well why not? It’s gotta be more fun than doing it with whoever actually played the fucking thing, considering what most guitarists are like

― dave q, Monday, 14 July 2003 11:32 (twenty-two years ago)

SCORPIONS – ‘Virgin Killer’ ***1/2

ROOTS – George Grosz, Max Ernst, Hermann Nitsch, Rudolph Schwarzkogler, Otto Muehl

FOLLOWERS – Whitehouse, Burzum, Mayhem, Coroner, Emperor, Diamanda Galas

Everybody knows about the cover to this one, originally it was a tasteful homage to the TVM ‘JonBenet – Born Innocent’ which of course was an allegorical arty metaphor for the corruption of civilisation, but some genius decided to substitute a picture of the band en masse staring menacingly at the viewer like slavering Serb irregulars which makes the title even more ‘offensive’ when you think about it. Doubly a shame because the original cover’s primal barred-from-Eden transgression was nicely juxtaposed with the ‘computer’ typeface of the band’s logo – an interesting choice itself, as the band’s named for an organic arachnoid life-form with strikingly mechanical characteristics like impermeable skin and a techno-ingenious method of dispatching its prey. Like the ‘Tarkus’, or Six Million Dollar Man’s ‘Venus Probe’ except real. This isn’t as wildly inconsistent material-wise as some of their other albums (although "Backstage Queen" makes one wonder why "Celebration Day" was even worth copying) but as usual SOMEBODY had to fuck up and this time it’s the drummer – Rudy Linners just isn’t as good as Jurgen Rosenthal, and sometimes (the title track esp.) it’s just frustrating when Meine’s yin-screech and Uli’s yang-klang start to whip around each other like when you pull the cord all the way out of a vacuum cleaner then let go!, and meanwhile the drummer sounds as lost as Cedar Walton did on “Giant Steps”, unless that was Tommy Flanagan.

― dave q, Monday, 14 July 2003 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

SCORPIONS – Taken By Force **1/2

FOLLOWERS – Wayne County, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Le Tigre, Stephen Merritt, Paul Lekakis

Another cover-switch atrocity, the original one was like ‘Master of Puppets’ except green, but I suppose the Americans thought they were being laughed at what with all those dead Yank cannon-fodder farmboys being eaten by Euro-worms while these Green-Party VW-van-driving acidheads were spending their Marshall Plan money on free porno festivals and wasting corporate pigs, so instead the cover (k-lame!!!) is the SAME PICTURE on the front and back, titles and everything like on a fifth-rate schlager comp, with band pics that are obvious outtakes from the ‘Shakedown Street’ sessions. Aside from “Riot of your Time”’s latching onto ‘Ziggy Stardust’ about 8 years late and making it (yeccch) mystical as well, the only things you need to know about this one are a) “We’ll Burn the Sky” which has a rhythmic and title similarity to FGTH’s “Black Night White Light” as well as one of those pro-thanatos lyrics that I just want to cram into the faces of sensitive people I know who understand, I really love them and care for them but I CANNOT deal with their continuing fear of death, laments over deaths of people they don’t even know etc., look, it won’t bring them back! B) “He’s a Woman, She’s a Man”

― dave q, Monday, 14 July 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Tom E., if you're lurking still, sign Dave Q up.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 14 July 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

SCORPIONS - Tokyo Tapes (Original LP versh - ****/CD reissue - ***)

Pretty much all their great stuff with loads of Uli Roth soloing! A must-have for two unavailable-elsewhere tracks, the relentless G-spot tornado "All Night Long" and the less-great-but-still-interesting "Suspender Love", a druggy "My Sharona" rip-off with tempo changes. The CD rating is because they dropped a guitar solo ("Polar Nights") but kept a 'rock'n'roll medley' of 50s covers that I, for one, am never going to attempt to listen to even once.

― dave q, Monday, 14 July 2003 15:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Spinal Tap - "Shark Sandwich"

Original review - "Shit sandwich."

New review - "Caviar sandwich."

― NA. (Nick A.), Monday, 14 July 2003 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

GUMMO OST *****

Why this didn't become the 'Saturday Night Fever' of the 90s and beyond is one of life's more dispiriting mysteries. Features the best versh of Eyehategod's best song, the leafiest sweet not by a band with 'Saint' or 'Vitus' in its name (Sleep's "Dragonaut"), some classical music to comfortably reaffirm infidel prejudices re what metalheads are 'like', and Burzum's original dubplate of "Treefingers". The only track that really bites is the Electric Hellfire Club one, understandably as anything with a trace of EBM/Industrial stigma (the 'one drop' rule applies here pretty draconianly) starts to hemmorhage quite unpleasantly the further one recedes from America/adolescence but then, considering a) the cinematic medium's demand for a slightly higher number of verisimilitude signifiers >>> one-shitty-track per OST [ie the "Maniac"/"Holding Out for A Hero" law] b) the presence of "Equimanthorn", you NEED this!

― dave q, Friday, 25 July 2003 09:18 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

Dave Q's entries here need to be reappreciated.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 18 March 2007 16:08 (eighteen years ago)

but kept a 'rock'n'roll medley' of 50s covers that I, for one, am never going to attempt to listen to even once.

bringing the humanity and honesty back into music reviewing.

― Roberto Spiralli, Sunday, 18 March 2007 21:38 (eighteen years ago)

Dave Q is an axiom of popular music criticism.

― Kevin John Bozelka, Thursday, 22 March 2007 01:43 (eighteen years ago)

I have only recently realised how fricken' genius his 'Absolution' review is. One of the finest, funniest and most wonderfully provocative pieces of trolling the internet has ever seen...

― unfished business, Thursday, 22 March 2007 01:57 (eighteen years ago)

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