Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
Taylor Swift's 1989 : Deep Retro-Pop Fun
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 28, 2015  |  29 comments
Taylor Swift’s 1989 released in October of 2014, sold 1.27 million albums in its first week and debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. By the end of the year it had sold 3,660,000 copies, remaining at the top of the chart for most of that time.

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Album Reviews
Taylor's Midlife Crisis
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 01, 2012  |  1 comments

Dad did love his work, more than his family and marriage to Carly Simon, or more accurately put,  forced to choose between the two by Simon, he chose the road and his career.

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Album Reviews
Tears For Fears Exhibit a Consistently Timeless and Innovative Nature on the New Abbey Road Half-Speed-Mastered 40th Anniversary 180g 1LP Reissue of Their Synth-Centric 1983 Debut Album, The Hurting
Mark Smotroff  |  Jun 29, 2023  |  7 comments

Tears For Fears’ synth-centric March 1983 debut album The Hurting set the stage for the broader scope of their ensuing worldwide mega-breakthrough. This key album is now being properly feted with a 180 1LP reissue from Mercury/UMC, as half-speed mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Read Mark Smotroff’s review of the fine new 40th anniversary edition of The Hurting to see just how Tears For Fears laid the groundwork for their still-innovative soundscapes. . .

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Album Reviews
Tennis Anyone?
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2007  |  0 comments

A friend told me that Blonde Redhead purists simply hate this album, or at least they’re disappointed by the New York based group’s 7th. Disappointed by what they claim is overproduction, over-thinking and artifice in place of substance.

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AAA Vinyl
The "Chirping Crickets" Is Rock'n'Roll's DNA
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 16, 2017  |  18 comments
When The Crickets' "That'll Be the Day" exploded on the radio in 1957 and the absolutely geeky looking 21 year old Buddy Holly and group appeared December 1st on The Ed Sullivan Show, a generation of kids were moved the way the next one was by The Beatles. You didn't have to look like Elvis. Anyone could be a rock'n'roll star. In fact, "That'll Be the Day" was the first demo cut by The Quarrymen, the skiffle group that eventually morphed into The Beatles.

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Album Reviews
The "Mason-less" Traffic Debut Reissued in Mono
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2010  |  0 comments

I once pissed next to Dave Mason in the Cambridge Boathouse bathroom back in 1970 something. That has nothing to do with this review except that it’s a review of a Traffic album and Dave Mason was in Traffic but you wouldn’t know that from the cover of their first American album.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
The 200g 45rpm 2LP UHQR Edition of Steely Dan’s Katy Lied Sounds As Good As Any Vinyl World That It’s Welcome To
Mike Mettler, Mark Smotroff, Ken Micallef  |  Feb 20, 2025  |  6 comments

Who are these children / Who scheme and run wild. . . No, that’s not a comment on the youth of today, but rather a piercing lyrical couplet of sorts that can only mean one thing — it’s time for us to dive deep into the just-released 200g 45rpm 2LP UHQR edition of Steely Dan’s March 1975 treasure of an LP, Katy Lied. Read Mike Mettler, Mark Smotroff, and Ken Micallef’s combo review to see if the UHQR version of Katy Lied meets and/or exceeds the standards set by its companion SD releases in this all-important reissue series. . .

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Album Reviews
The Abbey Road Half-Speed Mastered 180g 2LP Reissue of The Who’s Tommy Is an Amazing Vinyl Journey, Delivering A Dramatically Improved, Rounder & More Robust Listening Experience
Mark Smotroff  |  Aug 26, 2022  |  20 comments
In May 1969, The Who’s Tommy was a near instantly iconic release which — in a make-or-break moment — stabilized the then-precarious career of Britain’s now legendary rockers. As one of the first rock operas — and still one of the best and most successful of them — Tommy caused quite a sea-change in the pop/rock music world by opening new doors and possibilities for composers, producers, and fans alike, and its impact is still felt to this day. The good news is, Tommy has just been reissued by Polydor/UMC in a quite wonderful half-speed-mastered 180g 2LP edition. Read on to find out exactly why this version of Tommy belongs in your collection and on your turntable, post-haste. . .

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Album Reviews
The Airplane's Self-Indulgent Studio Extravaganza Improves With Age
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2006  |  0 comments

Considered a sprawling, self-indulgent mess when first released in 1967 (RCA LOP-1511 mono/LSO-1511 stereo), and a warning to other bands and to record executives footing the bills for unlimited studio time (even the extra dollar added to the list price couldn't have paid for the studio time), After Bathing At Baxter’s has worn remarkably well, and in retrospect is a powerful, smoldering document reflecting a chaotic, violent and dangerous time in America—the kind of time we’d be having now if people would fucking wake up and smell the fascism.

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Album Reviews
The Album That Changed Jazz and Rock
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009  |  0 comments

You can bet this blistering, groundbreaking jazz-rock fusion album from 1971 spun Jeff Beck’s head around big time, turning him from heavy metalist-rocker (his version of The Yardbirds’ “Shape of the Things to Come” on the Jeff Beck Group’s album Truth is arguably the first “heavy metal” rock arrangement) to the jazz-fusionist he became on Blow By Blow. Others followed too, of course.

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Album Reviews
The Alternative Universe of Wayne Shorter's "Emanon"
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 25, 2019  |  5 comments
Darkness into Light, Evil into Good, Ugliness into Beauty, Ignorance into Knowledge, Confusion into Certainty, deliverance from oppression (and the other way around) and simultaneous alternative realities are familiar transformative comic book and biblical themes (Shorter is a known comic book fan; not sure about his biblical proclivities).

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Album Reviews
The Analog Revolution Leads A New Blues Renaissance
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 01, 2006  |  0 comments

Decide for yourself whether The Lovin’ Spoonful took their name from Mississippi John Hurt’s “Coffee Blues” (not to mention the tune for “Darlin’ Companion”) but fans of Taj Mahal will have no doubts about this gentle soul’s influence on Taj when you hear this earlier take on “Corrina, Corrina” and compare it to Taj’s on The Natch’l Blues (CS9698).

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Album Reviews
The Beach Boys Deliver a Great Twenty Ninth Album
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 23, 2012  |  7 comments
Watching the aged PBS fund raising audience creep ever closer to my demographic has been a thirty year creepy creep. First it was fund raising aimed at the WWII big band consuming generation.

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Album Reviews
The Beach Boys: The First Five Analogue Productions Reissues
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 20, 2015  |  68 comments
Only one of them had actually ridden a surfboard. They weren’t hot rodders or drag racers and by the time the group formed in 1961 lead vocalist Mike Love was already 20 years old and arguably more a man than a “boy”. Al Jardine was 19 as was Brian Wilson. Brothers Dennis and Carl were, respectively, 17 and 15, so they qualified as “boys”.

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Album Reviews
The Beach Boys’ Triumphant Sail On Sailor – 1972 180g 5LP+1EP Limited Edition Vinyl Box Set Paints a Beautiful Portrait of a Hungry Band Finding a New Voice, Both in the Studio and Onstage
Mark Smotroff  |  Dec 09, 2022  |  6 comments

Two often overlooked albums by The Beach Boys are the main focus of a fantastic new 180g 5LP+1EP box set, Sail On Sailor – 1972, which features the band’s landmark 1973 album Holland plus 1972’s under-appreciated and much misunderstood Carl And The Passions – “So Tough” to form the heart of this excellent new collection buttressed by a previously unreleased, complete, of-era 1972 live performance from Carnegie Hall. Read Mark Smotroff’s thorough review of this truly special box set-cum-document of an artistically transformative, often powerful, and at times remarkably hard-rocking period for a quintessential Southern California band looking for — and ultimately reaching the summit of — some creatively fruitful new horizons. . .

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