Brian Boyd
One for the headphones. But a rather muted goodbye all the same.
3y
It's a 100-metre sprint of punk, blues, garage and country, with enough va-va-va-voom to leave the opposition in the blocks.
4y
Paradoxically, without Brian Eno on board, this is Coldplay's most Eno-sounding album: a muted, sad ambience hangs like a melancholic miasma over eight of the nine tracks.
5y
Having now “cleaned everything up” with this collection, it will be interesting to see which fork in the road they take.
3y
On their third album, Vampire Weekend (one of the most interesting bands around) serve it sunny side up, even if they remain as idiosyncratic as ever.
5y
This is music for daytime radio that doesn't sacrifice any of its principles. Impossible to pin down but impossible to resist.
3y
There is never a sense here that Green Day have overstretched themselves, and you can only but admire their knack for guitar pop/rock. Not quite back to basics, then, but the collection has a garage-rock sound that feels "demo". Recommended.
5y
At times The Killers nudge towards overwrought, but they probably have points to prove, so you can forgive them their slight over-earnestness. No problems, though, with pulling singles off this fine collection.
5y
With Dirty Projectors you never get the same song twice and, while parts of this album may be challenging, there’s a pop heart still beating at their core.
5y
It all just seems so effortless for Coldplay. It’s as if they wanted an album whose individual songs could be played at any time of day on any radio music station. They still shine on.
5y
4 ... is a bold musical statement, even if you can't escape the feeling that her label took control of the second half of the album to try and rein in the giddy adventurousness of the first half for the sake of radio play.
5y
Helplessness Blues is riddled with doubt, insecurity and a bespoke organic, neo-hippy angst.
5y
This is the real deal, magnificent in its composition and execution. Not everything on the album works, but when it does it’s some of the best music you’ll hear this or any other year.
5y
At times, Jackson's unique musical genius still shines bright.
10mo
The Beginning doesn't pack the wallop of previous releases, but there's still some state-of-the-art stuff here.
5y
The pop core of this album may be a bit more buried, in comparison to the debut, but there is a sense of a group flexing more musical muscle and experimenting with different tempos. A shade darker, then, but more accomplished and better thought out.
5y
Finishing with the archly titled Sprawl I and Sprawl II, which drip with childhood nostalgia, there's just time for a poignant a cappella reworking of the title track before they drift back to the city again. Very big and very clever.
5y
Very much a portrait of someone on the ropes who's swinging out wildly and more often than not connecting, Recovery shows that Eminem's best defence is a full-frontal attack on most everyone and everything around him.
5y
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