The Trammps - The Best of the Trammps: 8 (A-)

The Morwells - Presenting The Morwells [honorable mention]

:-)

Bonnie Raitt - Just Like That: 7 (B+)

# [blues] [upped from honorable mention] [five listens]

Doja Cat - Planet Her [honorable mention]

:-)

Cheekface - Emphatically No

:-|

Dillinger - Cornbread: 8.5 (high A-)

Excellent album. With Sly & Robbie, and Chinna on guitar. I am in the market for any LP with this cover on it (basically UK, US, or Jamaica). All other countries have other covers and look unauthorized. Right now, I can't find this for a reasonable price, but I'll keep looking. There is a CD I can get new from Amazon UK, but it's ~$30, doesn't seem to be remastered, and is from a shady label. It is probably a needle drop on vinyl, and I'm not risking that. I'm also in the market for CB 200 and Bionic Dread. Ideally on that Hip-O Select release.

Eugene Chadbourne - Volume Two: Solo Acoustic Guitar

:-( [If I really wanted to give him the fairest chance possible, I'd put There'll Be No Tears Tonight into rotation. That one seems to be generally lumped in with this one as his best. I'll stop here, given how little I liked this.]

Bob Vylan - We Live Here (Deluxe) [honorable mention]

:-)

Sleaford Mods - Live at Nottz Arena [EP] [honorable mention]

:-)

Bob Vylan - Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life [honorable mention]

:-) [four listens]

Chaba Zahouania - Nights Without Sleeping [honorable mention]

:-) [Not as propulsive and varied as the best rai]

Break Bread - Break Bread [EP]: 7 (B+)

[McEnroe and friends]

Serengeti - Saal [honorable mention]

:-) [I'm 99% sure I owned this at one point and sold it back. Or maybe it's still around here somewhere. Either way, I'm not purchasing/re-purchasing a physical on this at honorable mention, even for Serengeti.]

Bonnie Raitt - Slipstream: 7.5 (high B+)

# [blues/covers]

Moby - Moby [debut]: 7.5 (high B+)

# [electronica/dance]

Stevie Wonder - Where I'm Coming From [honorable mention]

:-) [Looks like it was only released on CD twice, very early in the CD era - so first generation no doubt]

The Cure - Boys Don't Cry [honorable mention]

:-) [A little rudimentary. I listened to this three times, instead of Three Imaginary Boys (which is still a single listen), because it was the US debut version, because Christgau gave it a B+ (the highest they ever got from him, except another B+ for Staring at the Sea), and because this is the one people seem to talk about. Of course, this contains 8 of 13 tracks from Three Imaginary Boys.]

Henry Threadgill Sextet - You Know the Number [placeholder]

Not sure what to grade this. But # [jazz/experimental jazz] anyway.

The Third Mind [Dave Alvin] - The Third Mind: 7.5 (high B+)

# [jazz fusion?]

Selo i Ludy Performance Band - Bunch One [honorable mention]

:-) [Four listens. Digital only. No idea how Christgau could call this the number one album of the year – other than the obvious political reason that he likes that war.]

Stro Elliot - Black & Loud: James Brown Reimagined: 7.5 (high B+)

Digital/vinyl-only [4 listens. Upped from honorable mention.]

Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball [honorable mention]

:-)

Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul - Topical Dancer: 7 (B+)

# [Belgian/Caribbean electro pop] [upped from honorable mention on fourth, year-end listen]

Jon Batiste - We Are

:-|

Serengeti - Race Trading [honorable mention]

:-)

Bonnie Raitt - Dig in Deep [honorable mention]

:-)

Serengeti - Noodle-Arm Whimsy [honorable mention]

:-)

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - Strangers From the Universe [honorable mention]

:-) [Might be a 7 (B+), or even a 7.5 (high B+), but used CD's of this are not in the reasonable price range, so I am not sweating the distinction here.]

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

:-( [Dirge-like and depressing]

Radiohead - Pablo Honey

:-| [Sounds like a mediocre U2 impersonation]

Girl Talk / Wiz Khalifa / Big K.R.I.T. / Smoke DZA - Full Court Press: 7.5 (high B+)

Digital-only [and imported/limited edition vinyl] [4 listens]

Queen - A Night at the Opera: 7 (B+)

Upped from honorable mention and shelved. I bought this and played it alot when it came out.

Rory Gallagher - Irish Tour '74: 7 (B+)

# [blues rock/live]

Wet Leg - Wet Leg [honorable mention]

:-) [five listens]

Mick Taylor - A Stone's Throw [honorable mention]

:-)

Kae [Kate] Tempest - The Line Is a Curve

:-|

Korn - Korn

:-(

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Barn: 7 (B+)

Bonnie Raitt - The Bonnie Raitt Collection: 7.5 (high B+)

# [blues; best of] [I'm a bigger fan of her Capitol-era work.]

Yoome - The Boredom of Me [honorable mention]

:-)

Negativland - Helter Stupid: 7.5 (high B+)

Got this one on cassette, where it will stay.

Camper Van Beethoven - Vampire Can Mating Oven [EP]: 8 (A-)

Camper Van Beethoven - II & III: 8 (A-)

Camper Van Beethoven - Telephone Free Landslide Victory: 8 (A-)

Camper Van Beethoven - Cigarettes & Carrot Juice: The Santa Cruz Years: 8.5 (high A-)

This includes the first three studio albums (Telephone Free Landslide Victory, II & III, and Camper Van Beethoven); the rarities compilation Camper Vantiquities (which includes the EP Vampire Can Mating Oven); and a new live set, Greatest Hits Played Faster, mostly recorded in 1990. I have graded the studio albums and EP individually.

Camper Van Beethoven - Take the Skinheads Bowling [EP] [placeholder]

The title track is on Telephone Free Landslide Victory, and "Cowboys From Hollywood" is on II & III. So, besides two tracks entitled "Epigram" (#2 and #5 on CD reisssue of Telephone Free) which total 30 seconds, I'm only missing "Atkuda" and "Colonel Enrique Adolfo Bermudez," both of which I heard on Youtube 3 times and are not worth buying the EP used for (or the Telephone Free CD reissue which has the whole EP). Plus, it was only issued in the UK.

Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie: 8.5 (high A-)

I have the remastered digipack version with bonus tracks from 2014. The exception to the rule that the bonus tracks are garbage.

Peter Stampfel - Peter Stampfel's 20th Century in 100 Songs: 7 (B+)

# [folk/covers] [If it were a 7.5 (high B+), I would buy it anyway, just to have it.]

Afel Bocoum - Linde [honroable mention]

:-)

The Kondi Band - We Famous [honorable mention]

:-)

Robson Banda and The New Black Eagles - Soweto: 8 (A-)

Vinyl only reissue. Might even be an 8.5 (high A-), but given that it's vinyl only, I'm not going to try to make that call.

Killah Priest/Chief Kamachi - Beautiful Minds: 8 (A-)

Used prices are prohibitively expensive.

Trak Trak - Sur Sur [honorable mention]

:-)

Jedi Mind Tricks - batch review

Hard to pay any attention to them with the extreme gay-bashing. All four of these rate musically at 7 (B+) or 7.5 (high B+). For some reason, I already have Legacy of Blood, and since it actually seems like the best of these by a hair, I guess I'll keep it. I looked up several of these, and they are ridiculously priced used anyway.

Psycho-Social, Chemical, Biological & Electro-Magnetic Manipulation of Human Consciousness
Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell
Violent by Design
Legacy of Blood

For a normal band, the best of is how I would deal with this, but the bashing is hard to condone. Maybe I'll buy it anyway to patronize the others involved. I would give it an 8 (A-) musically.

Nova Twins - Who Are the Girls? [honorable mention]

:-)

Gonora Sounds - Hard Times Never Kill: 8 (A-)

Digital/vinyl only. [four listens]

Stevie Wonder - Conversation Peace [honorable mention]

:-)

audiobooks - Now! (in a minute): 7 (B+)

audiobooks - Astro Tough: 9 (A)

Dennis Alcapone - My Voice Is Insured for Half a Million Dollars: 7.5 (high B+)

 

# [toasting/best of] [Almost bought this anyway, but the CD reissue version adds 10 tracks to the original 15, which is a little much, and used vinyl is way overpriced. Sampled Universal Rockers and considered anthology Guns Don't Argue but at 2 discs and 55 tracks can't imagine how it's not too much if the 25 track reissue version of this is too much (anthology repeats all but 8 tracks of reissue version).] [four listens (to original 15 tracks, 3 for reissue tracks)]