The Story Of Rock and Soul Music: Album Reviews and Lists 1960-2016 by Scott Floman

When I first started this website, almost twenty years ago, I was an obscure part of a community of amateur music review websites. Some only lasted a while, while some like www.markprindle.com gained notoriety. But in hindsight, the best site to emerge from the movement was perhaps Scott Floman’s. Floman was a little older than most of the other writers, and was mature enough to treat the music with respect. He covered a broad swathe of rock and soul music, from Shuggie Otis and Frankie Valli to Vampire Weekend and D’Angelo.

Of course, websites are an ephemeral format, so Floman collated his site into an e-book. It’s a great reference work to browse through. At over 1,500 pages, it covers plenty of ground, and it’s lovingly written. As well as covering heavy hitters like Bowie and The Beatles, it also features artists that snobbier critics would overlook in this type of project, like Ratt and the Dave Matthews Band. As well as album reviews, the book ends with a series of lists, like “10 Supremely Underrated Rock Guitarists”, and Floman’s choices for his personal Rock and Soul Hall of Fame.

As a preview, here’s Floman’s review of one of his “Essential” albums – The Cure’s Disintegration.

Disintegration (Elektra ‘89) Rating: A
After trying out everything on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Robert Smith decided to do the polar opposite on Disintegration, which maintains a singularly cohesive mood throughout. What both albums have in common is that this is another double album (on vinyl) that’s too long (p.s. this has been the case with every Cure album since), maybe even more so in this case since these songs all tread within the same style, with lush synthesizer washes, big doomy drumbeats, and layers and layers of gorgeously intertwining guitars meshing with Smith’s weepily intense vocal delivery. It’s a good thing that most of the coldly beautiful music here is so amazing, and in many ways Disintegration stands as the band’s masterpiece (albeit a flawed one), a brilliantly atmospheric, utterly mesmerizing mope rock landmark that’s perfect for a lazy day. These melodies are trance inducing, as the songs slowly take their own sweet time (it’s not uncommon for Smith’s vocals to enter only after along instrumental introduction), allowing their haunting yet soothing soundscapes to mysteriously swirl in mournful ways. Indeed, many of these songs crawl along well past the five-minute mark, but what songs! “Pictures Of You” is only one of my all-time favorites, with its hypnotic groove, gorgeously encircling guitars, and sad lyrics that portray an all-encompassing sense of loss. Call me a wimp, but more than once has this song reduced me to near tears, so sad is its tale and so perfect the musical accompaniment, while “Lovesong,” written by Smith as a wedding present to his wife, became a surprise #2 smash, despite sounding as moody and depressing as everything else surrounding it! The gorgeously sumptuous album opener “Plainsong,” the warmly atmospheric “Closedown,” the hooky “Lullaby,” the intensely rocking “Fascination Street” (another stunning single), the mysterious, haunting “Prayers For Rain,” and the funereal “The Same Deep Waters As You” (music to be played at 3A.M. or at a wake) are among the other wonderfully seductive tunes that compelled the South Park creators to famously proclaim this “the greatest album ever.” Such hyperbole aside, it does have some lulls, as its almost ambient reliance on atmosphere makes it a “mood album” that sometimes works better as background music than when listened to attentively. Still, complaining about an occasional lack of hooks and the album’s overly long length seems like nitpicking given the high overall quality of the music, as Robert Smith and company continue to produce major work. Though they’ve yet to be accorded the proper respect for which they are due, I for one have no problems in claiming that The Cure are a great band, and Smith himself felt that Disintegration “was the end of the golden period.” Note: This is supposedly a sequel of sorts to Pornography, but I find this addictively depressing album to be uniquely its own entity, even within The Cure’s singular catalogue.

If you’d like a copy, you can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Rock-Soul-Music-1960-2016-ebook/dp/B071JQ27WC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

14 Comments

  1. Twenty years? Holy cow, that’s a long time. I’ve been doing it for two. Wouldn’t even have occurred to me back then. Ebook not a bad idea. I’d consider doing one myself if I thought anyone would even read it.

    • I did it between about 2000 and 2007, then restarted halfway through 2016. So I haven’t been doing it for 20 years.

      It’s always alluring to want to preserve your work for future generations. Maybe you could make a few copies of an actual book for your kids or something?

  2. I might have found my people! I have just launched Vinyl Burn which is a blog where I post my reviews of albums in my vinyl collection as I digitize them. I have been posting the reviews to Facebook but my friends are probably getting sick of my posts. Hence the blog. Anyway I am going to follow others’ blogs that are similar and I can see which ones Aphoristic follows which I will check out. Cheers.

    • Yes, I think you may have found your tribe. I started my own blog two years ago because no one – I mean no one- on FB was interested unless I posted about a dog or grandchildren. Utter waste of time. We are music lovers and that’s what we wanna talk about.

      • Thanks Jim. I have had some interest on FB because some of my friends are really into music but it’s hit and miss. Anyway it’s more about me liking to write about music and how it connects to parts of my life and to people in my life.. Having read a few of your excellent reviews, I have a lot to learn. But it is fun.

  3. 20 years? Dude, I thought the KMA was an old-timer at 12 years this year! Well done! I like the idea of making up a book of all our stuff, but I said to James it would be all his awesome and then about 2000 posts of me goign Wahoo I liked this! Haha oh well.

  4. This looks interesting and I’d like to read it. I will also mention I have written a song about a music critic. It’s not a real critic. It’s just a song. I think music critics take a lot of heat and are very knowledgeable. Even if we disagree with them, they still do some great work. I appreciate sites like this and All Music, and learning all about music artists and history.

    My song is about an artist who always gets bad reviews. They get a 5 star review from a critic and are so thrilled they kind of go overboard. Not just thanking the critic, but becoming a little obsessed with them. After I wrote the lyrics for it, I was horrified to realize it had a kind of Every Breath You Take vibe to it. I probably won’t record it or give it to anyone to record. ?

    • That’s an interesting premise for a song. I always think of my site as intended more for listeners than for artists. I wouldn’t really presume to tell artists how to improve or anything. It’s more about letting them follow their own course and this site acting as a guide for listeners about what I find interesting.

      • Thanks so much. I thought it was an interesting idea, too. Maybe I can fix it a bit. I’m a huge fan of music, but I write and play as well. I love to learn about artists and music on the internet. You have some great stories and articles on here, which is just what I like. ?

Leave a Reply

About

Aphoristic Album Reviews is almost entirely written by one person. It features album reviews and blog posts across a growing spectrum of popular music.

Default image
Aphoristical View Profile
Graham Fyfe has been writing this website since his late teens. Now in his forties, he's been obsessively listening to albums for years. He works as a web editor and plays the piano.

Review Pages

Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:

Blog Posts

I add new blog posts to this website every week. Browse the archives or enjoy these random selections: