CD Cleanup: Review #3

Arsenals - Stomp (1995)

I made it through this disc about 3 times yesterday. That was enough.
Stomp was a completely average - below average, actually - 3rd wave Ska album, in a sea of better, and more polished Ska albums to come out in the mid to late '90s.

There are no great songs on the album. There's nothing on here that you'll find yourself humming in the shower. The two "just alright" songs on the disc, 'Beer,' and 'Hypocrite' barely register before you're assaulted by the absolute worst cover, ever, of Steve Miller's 'Joker.' It's bad. It's beyond bad. It's "take the CD out of the player and throw it away" bad. To make matters worse, there's a dub version of the song at the end of the CD, which is mercifully without lyrics, but still painful in its reminder of the abomination that occurred seven or eight tracks ago.

2/10

CD Cleanup: Review #2

The Aquabats - vs. The Floating Eye of Death (1999)

When I first purchased this album ten years ago, I hated it. Well, maybe I didn't hate it, but I certainly didn't like it. It was too much of a departure from their previous album, The Fury of the Aquabats, which I loved. While Fury was a more traditional 3rd-wave Ska album, Floating Eye was more of a synth-based Rock album. Apparently not my thing at the time.

But now, I love it.

On the appointed day I listened to the album three times from start to finish, and really enjoyed most of it. In fact, I liked it so much that instead of writing this, and moving on to the next CD, I listened to The Aquabats vs. The Floating Eye of Death for three more days. All said and done, I've gone all the way through it probably a dozen times, with specific songs getting skipped to, and repeated.

There is something to like about every song, especially on a first listen. Most of the songs are pretty catchy, and all of them have some creative, clever, and humorous lyrics. The shining star of the album for me is 'The Ballad of Mr. Bonkers' which is just a fantastic, fantastic song. Other good ones include, 'Giant Robot Bird-Head,' 'Anti-Matter,' & 'The Thing on the Bass Amp.'

I did find that after a couple of times through the CD that there were a handful of songs that I didn't enjoy as much, and I'd skip them to get to the good ones. The skippers: 'Sequence Erase' (which is unfortunate, as it's the first song on the album), 'Monsters Wedding' & the unintelligible 'The Man with Glooey Hands.'

All in all, it's a fantastic Rock album, even if it's not the Ska album I was looking for when I bought it.

8/10

CD Cleanup: Review #1

I decided recently that I have too many CDs that I don't listen to, (who am I kidding? I don't listen to CDs anymore!) and I ought to get rid of some of them.

Rapidly on the heels of that thought came another: Set an arbitrary number of CDs to keep or get rid of, listen to every single CD all the way through, at least once, and then get rid of the ones that don't cut the mustard.

That said, the number I arrived at wasn't so much a number as much as however many I have to get rid of to get the remaining CDs to fit into my CD tower.

Now, I don't have a huge number of CDs - probably a miniscule collection compared to a lot of people - I know at least one friend who has a collection of over 5000 CDs. I'm in the sub 500 range - I'm not sure exactly how many I have.

So, armed with a plan, I'm going to be talking about some (most? all?) of the CDs as I listen to them, working my way through the collection.

First up:
Apollo Four Forty - Gettin' High on Your Own Supply (1999)

I listened to the album 2.75 times today - on my way to work, from work, and during my lunch.
I bought this while I was in my 'techno' phase, back in '99. The album is just alright, with a couple of noteworthy songs - Stop the Rock, Heart Go Boom, & Stadium Parking Lot - but on the whole it's pretty forgettable techno-pop-rock audio-mud. Lots of drum and bass with odd squeals and whistles. Honestly, I don't know why I liked techno so much in 1999.
I'm going to give this album a 5 out of a possible 10.
(That's a good place to start, I think - lots of room for better, and worse albums!)