Big derri&egrave;re, don't care
587078
Wish these were slightly larger in the bottom. I have to hike them up so high that it gives me a bit of an unflattering front wedgie, but I don't care because I finally have pink workout pants!! YAY!
705025
To guy who gives one star who didn't say buy Exile or Beggar's Banquet, which are great as well. (I don't understand his review on this one, it's one of the great Stones albums so if you like the Stones, you should like this, I certainly do.) No, the other guy, please disregard him completely, look at his list of what he gives one star ratings, he doesn't appear to like any kind of music that I could gather, besides Will Smith, who is an alright actor, but not particularly regarded for his musical ability, I don't think, but I don't listen to that particular genre anyway.  But besides that he doesn't like other rap that I have heard regarded highly by people who listen to rap, so I can't figure it out.  He makes a couple of references to punk, so I am guessing he probably likes some kind of whiny skater type music or something, which should never even be mentioned in the same breath as Stones. (Crap, I just did.)  All I can conclude is that he is too cowardly to put up what he likes for derision, but he feels fine deriding everybody else, and according to me, he has terrible taste as far as I know, so don't pay attention to him, he's just dumb.
1407861
You know the classic stories: a guy finds a letter from  his lover in their house, and it says that she can't be the person she was for him anymore and she's moving on to bigger things. Then he sees her on T.V., being wooed by hundreds of suitors, adored by everybody, and he sits there -- angry because the person everybody is loving is not the person he was in love with. The person he loved is now dead and gone, and what he sees on T.V. is the "shell" that was once his all. No one is concerned with who she used to be. If they find out about her glamourless old life, they mock it. No one is concerned with those she left behind to claim her 15 minutes of fame. And those she left behind watch the old home movies, look at the photo albums, and remember the times when she was a good person.
I, much like many other people, felt the same way when this album was released. "Hello, we're Jimmy Eat World, and we're more concerned with money and prestige than self-respect, artistic expression, and fan loyalty. We named this album 'Bleed American' and later re-named it 'Jimmy Eat World,' but understand that for a long time we considered naming it 'Giving our true fans the finger.'"
This album gets two stars from me because "Hear You Me" is actually a pretty darn good song and "Bleed American" isn't too bad. The rest is the biggest travesty ever to be committed by a band of this type. And if you like this album and this review angers you . . . well, good.
1304610
It is remarkable see the appearance of such a retrograde biography. Nothng new except the cover.  "How many times do we have to hear....?"

Tomaline's work is not really the fruit of research. It rehashes all that Millgrate had covered and leaves out (!!!!) all that has been found of interest since Millgate's biography.  We hear nothing of Hardy's first wife's hatred of him...didn't she leave a multi-volume diary entitled "Why I Hate My Husband"? No, instead Tomaline gives us the wife that made the man a poet. We get nothing of the control freak whose alter ego was "Will Strong," the prinipal character from an unpublished first novel.  Hardy was such a control freak that he wrote his autobiography in the third person (imagine spaking about yourself as "he" and suggesting motives to yourself as though to another!) and then had his second wife publish it in her name after his death to make it seems a biography? There is so much that is newly interesting about the author that it is indeed surprising that Tomalin's rewriting Millgate (by the way, a quite Hardean strategy of overwriting which made his novels palimpsests of notable quotation), made its way to the press.  Same ol' same ol.  Ho hum.
2290623
Why order a documentary about where Dylan is from if you don't care where the man came from. This DVD focuses on Dylan's childhood and where he went directly after that. It's information not music. Here's a thought for all you one star people -- put it on the TV and turn the volume down and listen to your Dylan CD's while you watch it. This might make more since to you since you don't give a darn where Dylan came from anyway!
402730
Banville is just the latest in a long line observers on a righteous crusade to discredit a writer that they clearly have never read.  Banville uses the hero of this book to brand Paul de Man as an unrepentant Nazi because of articles he wrote, when he was twenty years old, for the pro-fascist and anti-Semitic Belgian newspaper Le Soir.  Banville doesn't bother to mention that the scholarship for which De Man became famous was quite clearly anti-fascist.  In the opening pages of _Allegories of Reading_, the author's most famous book, de Man sets the terms of his argument by mocking the very embodiment of American racism at the time of his writing: Archie Bunker.  In his dishonest attempt to associate Nazism with the critical method known as "deconstruction," which de Man helped to articulate, Banville fails to mention the first project of deconstruction: a dismantling of the concept of "pure origins."  Not only does he fail to point out that de Man pillories the racism of Archie Bunker and its demand for pure origins, he does not cite any of de Man's scholarly work at all--even as he grinds his axe against it at every turn.
It is certainly true that de Man had not the bravery to call attention to the anti-semitism of his youth, which was so at odds with the "anti-essentialism" he later made famous.  But there obviously was a reversal in his politics and philosophy, as anybody who has read his post-juvenilia knows.  _Shroud_ argues that such a shift in the man, this emergence into wisdom, is actually impossible.  Banville insists that the man's real scholarship is irrelevant, because he can do nothing to alter his "essence."  He is beholden, in other words, to precisely the moral philosophy on which fascism is grounded, and which deconstruction dismantles at every turn.
There was a time when an argument ad hominem was understood to be illogical.  That time, apparently, is no more.
3892867
Fine, we get it.  Some of you hate Vampire Weekend.  Great, don't listen.  I don't understand why the haters feel the need to go on a crusade against the band.  Just leave Vampire Weekend alone, and leave us alone to listen to this great band.

[...]

Total garbage.
2861826
A purist may think of himself as a "believer", but in truth he believes only in naysaying. As in Brian Setzer's "desecration" of two Glenn Miller classics on this album--"In the Mood" (Setzer's retitling is a bit confusing) and "Pennsylvania 6-5000". Personally I'm sure that Miller would have been thrilled back then at the idea of men not even born yet making current but faithful recordings of "Pennsy", even down to the crowd still serving as backup vocalists on the phone number. Mostly I think a lot of people find a loud guitar in place of Miller's trombone or Goodman's clarinet a bit grating--as long as there is rock, there will always be anti-rock. But I've seen those old black-and-white "big band era" movies too, and the environment depicted even there was "partying"--even if they didn't use that word as a verb back then. This "dumb fun" aspect of the original swing is something a lot of pseudo-classicists are ignoring, but it was passed on to the disco era and is still on tap for the new generation of swing people. Setzer's habit of ending a song with a rockabilly hook, then capping it off a second later with a titanic big band chord that doesn't seem to fit may be a bit of an aw-come-on, but it's more of a "burlesquerie" than a grotesquerie"--sort of a "P.D.Q. Rock". A true music lover would grin, not wince--I laughed my head off. I'm not too impressed with the other side of the fence either--the crowd that says that even keyboards in rock "desecrate" that genre. Setzer wasn't the first rockabilly guitarist who backed himself with an orchestra--Duane Eddy did it quite a lot, as did Jack ("Tuff Jack") Marshall, who used Krupa's "Sing Sing Sing" as the B-side of his self-titled single in the early '60s. I don't know that Setzer will ever have the historical stature that Miller and Goodman now have, but as one reviewer put it--he's having a hell of a lot of fun at it. If someone did a gangsta rap version of "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place", THAT would be a desecration. Setzer doesn't even come close. As Robert Plant put it in "Tall Cool One"--lighten up, baby!
402789
Being a fan of Megadeth is not an easy thing.  It is a love/hate relationship that has been lingering for nearly two decades.  Strange that when it comes to either being a Metallica fool or a Megadeth nut, I find myself divided.  I prefer some of each.  Now, as things go, we are faced with the "Remixed & Remastered" catalog of Megadeth in its less-than-entirety.  Hmmmmm.  If you go the Ozzy route to remastering, where you're pissed off at previous band members, so you just record over them with hired guns, that's fine.  I won't buy it, but get down with your bad self.  I don't think Dave Mustaine did that, although these recordings of Megadeth's 2nd through 8th albums sound very different in some places.  Reflecting upon their composition, maybe Dave would have been better off just coming out with a box set with the hits and the rarities.  Demos do nothing for me, so I don't know why they bother.  The kick-you-in-the-face feeling of some of these classics is missing, or been retoned, and it's not the same.  Symphony Of Destruction should push you down and kick you in the teeth, but it doesn't.  Neither does Holy Wars . . . The Punishment Due.  Now.  I digress.  The earlier works such as Peace Sells and SFSGSW really benefit from the retooling, but a simple remastering would have done that to boost the EQs.  It has been said that Dave had to re-record his vocal tracks on several songs due to the fact that Capitol lost the original master tapes.  So . . . should this be called original "Remixed & Remastered" or should this be called "Re-Recorded"  or better yet . . . Dave Mustaine's Obsessive Reconstruction of Megadeth's Catalog.  I'm not sure that these discs are essential.  As I said . . . a simple remastering would have greatly improved some, if not all of the recordings.  The exclusion of KIMB and Hidden Treasures makes this set eerily incomplete.  Overall . . . Capitol Punishement had the remasters of a few Megadeth classics, but this set soundz too different to be called original.  Stick with the past.  I gotta give it four stars, just because there are enough cool tune here to listen to, but you don't need to have this set.  If you've got the extra cash and you wanna explore the avenue of: How things could have been?  Go for it.  If not, you're not missing anything essential.
143143
When I saw "The Greatest Music Never Sold" in Borders yesterday, I was really curious. As something of a lover of obscure and little-known music, I was hoping for some details of, in&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Richie-Unterberger-s/dp/0879305347/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Richie Unterberger's</a>&nbsp;words, "artists who never got to record at all".

Instead, too much of "The Greatest Music Never Sold" deals with albums by mainstream artists who were past their commercial prime and could not have what they wanted released by major labels. Of these, the albums by Seal, Mick Jagger and David Bowie are most especially superfluous and offer absolutely nothing that will be remotely interesting to the serious music historian. The last Style Council album, whose rejection is very well-known and was actually hardly unexpected after "Confessions of a Pop Group" was a major commercial failure, is even less interesting. Even the Jungle Brothers' story seems too much like the probably common rejection by major labels of radical music following a major musical revolution and has very little that is interesting. The same is true of Brian Wilson, whose career since leaving the Beach Boys has been full of rejected recordings.

Adam Ant's "Persuasion" and Chicago's "Stone of Sisyphus" are much more interesting, especially the conflicts between band members involved in both the making and ultimate rejection of them.

The most interesting story, Juliana Hatfield's "God's Foot", really shows the difficulties major labels have had since the tightening of budget occurring simultaneously to the "punk revolution". The way in which Atlantic asked such a high price for "God's Foot" that there was no means for Hatfield to have it released, despite very lengthy efforts to find a label is something that would make "The Greatest Music Never Sold" worthy.

Unfortunately the sidelights at the back of the book add as little as most of the chapters to a book claiming to represent the greatest music never sold. I imagine any serious critic would have grave doubts about such a claim.
2702538
I'll tell you what this is: It's a flaming pile.

Once upon a time, there was a pretty cool LA punk band named Fear, back when punk was still kind of scary. Fear were always too smart for the room, and beneath the dangerous facade, there was a knowing wink. But it was all good. (Trivia note: I worked with guitarist Philo Cramer for a couple of Summers at a job where he put his physics degree to good use).

Anyway, Fear put out several albums over the years, but it's only the first one that most really care about. It was (and is) a classic of the era: Fear: The Record. (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Record/dp/B00004YLAP/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Record</a>) (It came out in 1982, on Slash Records, they good ears folks of LA who also brought us early X, Germs, Los Lobos and Blasters, among others.)

Three decades have gone by since Fear: The Record came out. The band split up and the members have cast to the wind, mostly, as good ex punks are won't to do. The original release has become a very quiet catalog release that sells whatever an artifact release like this might sell, which is probably not a lot. Certainly not a lot enough to keep any of the original members swimming in dough.

So Lee Ving, original lead singer has been recruited to form a new version of "Fear" and re-record the original album. Because that's just what the world is waiting for. Or not. Perhaps, and by perhaps I mean assuredly, there was a modest check in it for him proffered by some huckster with a plan: Call the new album "The Fear Album" instead of "Fear: The Album" and lure a bunch of suckers. Oh, and make the cover kind of similar, too, just in case.

So that's what you have here: A paycheck masquerading as some kind of relevant release. I don't need to tell you that this doesn't sound like Fear, and that even if it did, it would sound like Fear after Fear got fat and happy and more concerned with making the mortgage than with instigating the gobsters in the front row and hanging with fast living hipsters.

This is atrocious, unnecessary and unworthy.  It's everything that punks spat on back in the day.

I say spit on this.
622878
Resurrects the BIG LIE of "the CRA, Freddie, Fannie did it" mythology.  As other knowledgeable reviewers have already noted that myth is entirely based on AEI's Peter Wallison lonely dissent of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission which in turn was based on the now-obvious (infamous) flawed research (some would say outright lies) of Wallisons AEI colleague Edward Pinto.  With just a modicum of use of a web search engine, one can quickly unearth the fact that Pinto greatly pumped up the number of bad loans attributable to govt programs.  For example, most of his 2.24 million high-risk loans Pinto attributes to CRA were not even eligible for CRA credit.  Similarly, Pinto attributed 12 million  subprime and equivalently high-risk loans to meeting Fannie and Freddies affordability goals but critical analysis later showed two thirds (65 percent) of  the high-risk loans originated did not even meet Fannie/Freddies criteria.  That just scratches the surface, with the biggest sin of Pinto/Wallison being their complete omission of the real cause of real estate bubble and its devastating amplification by mortgage securitization and credit derivatives run amok  i.e., laisse faire govt oversight and regulation of the financial sector.

What is interesting is the number of people who so willingly buy into the BIG LIE.  It is hard to decide which is funnier  the ones that insist bankers are organically conservative in their lending behavior or the ones who got sold on Calomiris/Harbers non-political dispassionate documentary-like elixir set-up for the BIG LIE.  Why do people so easily succumb?  Its because a frustrated, beaten down middle class needs to scapegoat somebody.  It might be those who actually are causing their misery, the financial elites, but those elites are working hard to make sure the anger is placed elsewhere.  Its exactly why poor Southern Whites, against their own economic self-interest, went to slaughter in 1860s in an attempt to protect the horrid institution of the plantation elites that also served to keep those poor Whites in their place  one rung up from abject slavery.

Buy this book.  It provides a litmus test.  If you see it as just another effort to resurrect the BIG LIE, then you are an informed critical reader.  If instead you see it as confirming your deep-seated beliefs, well, then at least you know what you have become   sheeple.
4446680
Dr Hook put the magazine on the map with their 1972 hit single Cover Of Rolling Stone, but still they're left out here and also excluded from the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock.
They were cool enough to promote your rag, but not to mention in any of your publications, huh?
Shameful and ignorant!!!
1098417
I've noticed a lot of the negative reviews have cited this album as a "sell-out" record (such people also think the same of Midnite Vultures).  They want Beck to stay pigeonholed into his alterna - b-boy - funk - punk - lo-fi mode.  Beck, however, records what he feels, what he likes, what he's influenced by, which is the exact opposite of being a sell-out.  Selling out is recording music that you don't believe in, just because it will sell, a la Limp Bizkit (come on, can you really compare "Rollin'" and "N2Gether Now" to "Counterfeit" and "Stuck"?) and Sugar Ray (hey, Mark McGrath admitted it).  Beck's influences on the Stereopathetic S.M. was mostly punk and country.  One Foot... was folk/country, Odelay and Mellow Gold were all of those, hip-hop and funk.  Midnite Vultures is Beck moving into some R&B (see his current collaboration with Timbaland).  But Mutations spans songs written over the past many years, that he just hasn't seen as fitting into the flavor of the other albums (could you imagine "O Maria" sitting in the middle of Odelay?).  But they have a wonderful continuity in and of themselves, and they have found a great home in "Mutations", which is neither lo-fi (see One Foot & Stereopathetic), nor excessively worked upon (see Midnite Vultures & Odelay).  With a multitude of instruments, moods, and styles, this album, recorded in about two weeks, captures a sensitive singer/songwriter/musician who had songs in him that he wasn't interested in pusing onto the airwaves.  Think of it as a gift to the fans.  Thanks, Beck.
4200485
We should probably all get over _Roll With The New_.  Rock's most classic bits all come from that CD, and it won't be topped anytime soon.  Even with that in mind, I find _Never Scared_ to be almost a total waste of time. There are some funny bits, but much of the album is Rock expressing anger or other negative emotions in a non-comic way.  It really feels more like venting than comedy.  Bottom line: few laughs.
276110
A cleaner version of the original, I won't even put in the title, it's offensive.
2064493
time & go with the audio(albeit abridged) version. I figured it would be light & easy. Not that Gleen isn't smart. It's just that there is no pretense to the man. His stories are interesting if his delivery leaves something to be desired. They reveal little about the inner man. It is a standard, straight ahead autobiography of a man who isn't a writer. He was sucessful in several different fields then retired to do the best part all over again. Hero is an overused word today. But he's a real one. That's a go. So are his memoirs.