Obsessively chronicling one person’s exploration of popular music
Welcome to Aphoristic Album Reviews, where I discuss highlights from the last sixty years of popular music. I write album reviews, highlight my favourite albums, blog regularly, and make lists.
Recent Album Review Pages
Marillion
Keeping the flag flying since their 1980s neo-prog days
M.I.A.
Rapper and activist with Sri Lankan heritage
Nilüfer Yanya
Eclectic Chelsea singer-songwriter
Albums Ranked From Worst To Best
What’s Tom Waits’ least impressive album? What’s Kate Bush’s best record?
Recent Blog Posts
Book Review: The Show That Never Ends – The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by David Weigel
David Weigel is a journalist – he’s known for his coverage of the conservative movement in the US. He once riled Donald Trump enough that the then-president called for Weigel’s firing from The Washington Post. Weigel’s also the author of…
Nuggets: Primitive by The Groupies
Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965-to 1968 and…
Music Quiz: 1970s Bands by Member
Congratulations to KingClover, who scored the only 10/10 in last week’s quiz. A lot of contestants, including myself, didn’t recognise Motown’s Mary Wells. This week there’s a list of members from 30 well-known 1970s bands that you need to identify.…
10 Biggest Snubs from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
If I were in charge, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame would have capped membership years ago. There’d be a small and select field of fifty entrants, limiting it to household names like Elvis Presley, James Brown, and The…
The 10 Best Songs by The New Pornographers
Canadian power pop band The New Pornographers are often described as a supergroup. Leader A.C. Newman disputes this, pointing out that neither Dan Bejar’s Destroyer, alt-country vocalist Neko Case, nor his former band Zumpano were famous when the New Pornographers…
Music Quiz: Singers Who Died in the 1990s
Congratulations to EclecticMusicLover, who scored the fastest perfect score in last week’s Signs quiz. There’s just a brief quiz this week, with ten questions: I only answered 8 of those 10 questions correctly – I didn’t recognise a couple…
Popular Blog Posts
10 Worst Songs of the 1980s
When I was a teenager in the 1990s, the 1980s were often reviled as the decade that taste forgot. But I think this list is far less heinous than the 10 Worst Songs of the 1970s – the corporate vibes…
10 Worst Song Lyrics of All Time
Unless you’re Leonard Cohen or Gil-Scott Heron, lyrics in popular music are a secondary concern. Normally I’m happy to bop along to the music, and don’t mind if the lyrics aren’t profound. But sometimes the words are too jarring to…
Taylor Swift’s Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
Taylor Swift is a mega-star, and her profile as a celebrity can overshadow her musical abilities. Opinions on Swift are wildly diverse – in some quarters she’s dismissed as disposable music for teenage girls. In others, she’s highly respected as…
A Listening Biography in 10 Albums
I recently participated in an album draft, run by Hans from Like everyone else I picked 10 albums, but I used mine to also tell a story about music fandom. Here are ten albums that broadened my horizons about…
When Do Bands Peak?
It’s easy to find lists of great debut albums, but personally I often prefer a band’s later records, where they stretch their wings, becoming more diverse and more comfortable in the studio. Bands’ debut albums are often the most pure,…
10 Best Jessie Ware Songs
UK’s most likeable pop star, Jessie Ware is charming where other mainstream acts leave me cold. She has a gorgeous voice, but she’s closer to the sophisticated poise of Sade than the vocal histrionics of Celine Dion. Ware’s body of…
