hobbit

Well, I would say there are great songs like Paint it Black (my favorite from the Stones), Under My Thumb, and the sweet Lady Jane (which you left out of the review). Then there are others that are at a good level, such as Mother's Little Helper, Out of Time (by the way, these two were only on the English edition), Stupid Girl, and maybe Doncha Bother Me and Think... but the others feel like fillers. It's still an album based on 4-5 key songs; we are far from Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed, truly complete records. Although the early Stones tracks taken individually are, in my opinion, better than the later ones, the albums mentioned above feel more like "albums" and bear less of the weight of age... PS: my rating for the album is a 3.5...

America, on the other hand, isn’t so bad… and L.A. Woman is stunning… you say it’s nothing new? Well, what’s better than listening to a song that brings back the old glories of Light My Fire? It’s definitely the most “Doors” song of all along with Hyacinth and Riders... hypnotic, mystical, mysterious, almost supernatural... without taking anything away from the excellent blues that defines the others.

terrible and pompous review. it certainly doesn't make me want to listen to soft machine... lower your ego, good-looking!

Oops, I made a mistake voting too... I mixed up the review and the album. Sorry, Grass, we compromised your average.

Mythical Neil! I agree with your view on the heavy symphonic arrangements of those two songs from Harvest (for example, "A Man Needs a Maid" could have been a beautiful echo of "After the Gold Rush" if Jack Nitzsche hadn't ruined it with those unnecessary strings...) but in my opinion, the songs from Harvest are slightly superior to these... apart from the title track, which is a true masterpiece, one of my all-time favorite songs (by the way, download the live cover by Thom Yorke... it’s just like the original...). In general, I would say it’s an excellent preparation, since it contains songs with the same style, for the subsequent masterpiece: the country emerges from the blues psychedelia of "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and offers extraordinary melodic gems, always with some return to electricity like those that Grass mentioned... but anyway, I’ll stop rambling, the review already says enough... "look at mother nature on her own..."

Sorry, I changed my mind, maybe I hadn't listened to it properly before... I just listened to it again and it definitely deserves a solid 4/5... despite heavily drawing from Television and Joy Division (the more punk ones from the first album, Unknown Pleasures), it maintains its originality, even creating a rather peculiar sound, with catchy melodies contrasted by frantic and hysterical guitar riffs... and the first track, besides Reptilia, is amazing...

Claudio, do you happen to like Dire Straits?

a continuous repetition of "disorder" by Joy Division... so not bad... it doesn't thrill me much except for Reptilia which is a really great song

But is this a collection of singles, b-sides, and unreleased tracks, or is it a proper album?

what a terrible mess I've made of my life...