Amazon had a Black Friday sale. Albums, good albums, for a buck ninety-nine. I didn’t get Arcade Fire because I already own it and I didn’t get a Lennon compilation for essentially the same reason.
I got these three.
Though if I’d really wanted em in total I would already owned em. So I bought em because they were too cheap not to buy em and I skimmed just to see if I was missing anything. I dunno if this is a weekly occurrence but whatever it is, I appreciate the loss (Amazon surely ain’t making money on it) and will absolutely check in again.
And here is my $1.99 take on em.
Sir Luscious Left Foot… The Son Of Chico Dusty – Big Boi – People overestimate Outkasts. Live, they were okay not great, recorded they built towards and away from Stankonia with “Hey Ya” an anomaly. The reviews of this were huge, but nobody else really listened to it. Failing to nail down one single single didn’t help and the songs that are there throw everything at you and throw it well but they don’t really stick. I remember when “General Patton” was streaming, with its Hosanna chorus on the backing track like a mix between a song of praise and a Hitler Youth rally, plus a pretty good, rap, Idda loved to love it but it never quite fit together. It is too busy marching nowhere. It’s a David Blaine of an album disappearing before your eyes and waving from you outside the . Grade: B
Hurley – Weezer – Yeah, yeah, “Smart Girls” was cute but Rivers has nailed me once too often with a cute single hooking a crappy album. I didn’t buy. And guess what? A song here and a song there but this is awful thin gruel. Grade: B-
Kaleidoscopic Heart – Sara Bareilles – I know, I know: I have something of a blind spot when it comes to mid paced singer songwriters. It’s like they are all Carole Kings without King’s songwriting chops. If forced at gunpoint to listen to this album there are lots of pretty touches -a violin here, a back up vocal there. I said at gunpoint. Grade: C