francis

I haven't been particularly harsh for several reasons: the first is that slamming an album after just a few listens is an all-too-common and easy practice, and sometimes you miss the mark completely. For instance, "The Dark Side Of The Moon" was panned by critics in 1973. Also, I'm not one of those who keep saying that Ash died after "1977," as I consider their subsequent works to be great albums as well. However, honestly, this "Meltdown" leaves a bitter taste, especially because, as Daniele points out, the band had talked about a heavier and darker album, whereas most of the tracks from the misunderstood "Nu-Clear Sounds" were much stronger.
What makes me wrinkle my nose isn’t so much the sound of Ash, which now seems to lack direction, but rather the poor quality of many of the new songs: choruses that feel forced, mediocre solos, a sound that can’t decide if it wants to be rough or flirt with radio. It’s no coincidence that I said those three stars were given out of pure respect because, in any case, there aren’t that many outstanding things in today’s rock scene that would make you tear your hair out.

Beautiful album, unjustly underrated for years: "The Chauffeur" is the true masterpiece of the Birmingham band. What legends, the Duran.

I'm not particularly fond of Queen, although I recognize that iconographically they may have been even greater than the Beatles, and Mercury's voice (as well as his frontman skills) was exceptional. However, their flip-flops have often been dramatic, and their '80s chart-topping pop frequently fell flat. "Queen II" is an album with a few nice songs in a Led Zeppelin style ("Father To Son") and some entertaining forays into more bizarre art rock, but it's certainly not their best record. The pompous arrangements (always a hallmark and simultaneously a limitation of Queen) are not that different from those of the revered Muse, but that doesn't mean it's great music. The best things Queen did were with the next two albums, "Sheer Heart Attack" and "A Night At The Opera"; after that, they became a "single's band," not an "album band." Their countless hits place them in the same league as the Beatles, but I've always felt that Mercury and the others never took off the mask, always hiding among various genres without bringing anything innovative to any of them. Their contribution to rock history is undoubtedly more of an iconographic and popular nature than a purely musical one.

Look, I write about what I feel like, you’re not obliged to read it. Don’t like the Ash? Okay, but I don’t care. I’ll read your reviews now and let you know what I think.
P.S. Anyway, we might agree on the NME, but it still remains the most authoritative indie music magazine... but you can always buy "Rockstar," then let me know the difference.

The album is beautiful; it has marked a part of my life: I don’t quite agree with the review. The Travis have remained exactly the same even in the subsequent albums; they haven’t given up their humility and love for those sweet and melancholic pop songs that we already got to know in the first, underrated "Good Feeling."
In fact, "12 Memories" was not understood or appreciated like the previous ones precisely because of its refusal to indulge in easy pandering (as happened with the overly sentimental Coldplay) and for its coherence with the attitude that Fran Healy’s band has shown over the years.
One cannot blame the Travis for having composed "Sing" (which is, by the way, the only hit of the last 20 years that is not unpleasant or commercial), and it is also unfair to state that they have not been the same since "The Man Who." Rather, if anything, the opposite is true.
A final note about Belle & Sebastian: despite their recent efforts, Murdoch & co. have created true masterpieces, which are nevertheless a bit different from the sound of the Travis: let’s say they are two different (but equally captivating) ways of conveying emotion in music.

But where would a good record be? It’s the shameless copy of the first one, their style is always the same, they are rich kids who’ve pretended to be bohemians just for the sake of it, and there are even suckers who fall for it... well, it’s the great rock'n'roll scam. But listen to Television, because Casablancas doesn’t even know who they are! Forget about the future of rock, these are the Cars (who remembers them) dressed in Calvin Klein... their flop is unstoppable and already underway. They should go back to being trust fund kids and playing tennis; rock and talent are something else.

Even though my roots are in britpop and the sounds of bands like Jam, Smiths, Joy Division, Stone Roses, etc., as a teenager I listened to a lot of hip hop and I've always liked R'n'B, even though in the last 10 years it has become a very commercial genre, made more of gossip and models than real music. N.E.R.D, or the Neptunes, have shifted this trend quite a bit, even though they are certainly not exempt from easy cameos, but at least in their musical proposal there is a deep knowledge of music and also good talent in songwriting. Just "Provider" was worth the first album, and Pharrell, much smarter and more intelligent than the goofy image he often projects, is a great singer.
But the fact remains that this is not hip hop in the classic sense of the term, also due to the absence of samples. Rather, it can be described as a successful blend of indie rock and '70s soul, and this can only be a good thing given the visibility of this group: indeed, we can hope that precisely because of their "mainstream" essence, the things that will be played on the radio in the coming years will be decidedly more interesting than the rubbish that people like Spears produced before their arrival. Not a masterpiece but a fresh and lively album like Prince used to make 20 years ago.

Beautiful like a muse, she knocks out her friend/rival Courtney. We forgive her some naivety (after all, it's a debut album following years behind Love and Corgan), but the sound is strikingly beautiful, the songwriting isn't bad (better than, for example, Zwan), and I repeat, she is as beautiful as a goddess.

Hello and thank you all! I'm doing my best!
I should add that this album also serves as a memory of my 16 years, so I'm not very objective when reviewing it...

Let's face it.. it's supermarket pop, catchy on the first listen (but there’s better out there), nauseating on the second.