...is a dull dirge.

Richard Thompson

I listen to Alice more than I listen to John (love them both dearly)

in a dressing up box.

has a very irritating voice

Nirvana's career tally of one excellent single and a handful of decent album tracks puts them on the same rung of the rock n roll ladder as The Primitives, Propaganda and McAlmont & Butler.
Still, every copy of "Nevermind" you suckers buy makes Courtney Love a little richer - so it's not all bad...

are really rather good. Mick Hucknall is a fantastic singer with some cracking songs in his repertoire. Amiina are my favourite band at the moment.

..."Greatest Hits" is as good as any pop music of the last 30 years, including ABBA

Aretha Franklin's dreadful caterwauling knows no bounds.

I also really, really dislike AC/DC, who appear to be everyone's favourite cavemen on this blog.

Oh, and and I hate Frank Sinatra, but that's probably more to do with that awful Rat-Pack image stuff than his music.

And don't anyone give me that tired old cloth/tin-ears comeback, these are my opinions and I'm sticking to them.

is a grunting, mumbling chump whose earnestness induces nothing so much as vomiting.

note not necessarily my opinion

great decade for pop 45s

is a bit rubbish.

That album, you know the one reviewers cream over. Come here. No over here. Away from the others.

It's bloody awful.

He's just too chuffing lazy to bother.

is not a thing of great beauty

Sounds like some woman shouting over a Depeche Mode 12" single.

Well it doesn't

the greatest singles band and Paul Weller is the greatest British popular song writer.

Is a twat.

Overblown, operatic, shite pomposity.

Everything he has ever done is shite.

Well, ok, apart from The Laughing Gnome.

is a tad pretentious

wasn't, particularly

Get worse with every album.

I genuinely believe this. It's not high art, but as a bubblegum song yer milkman can whistle... I hold similar views about 3Lions

Better than the Clash and Pistols. Combined.

The emporers have on clothes on.

was stolen from Benny Hill

Proper shit.

are great.

Is worth more than all the albums by The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Richard Thompson combined.

Apart from write and sing a few good tunes, seriously?

I'd like to take the opportunity of this amnesty to ask, what did he ever do for us?

A classic case of perspiration over inspiration?

Lots of bellowing and posturing, but not that many great songs.

among these pages and in the magazine does little for me. I really can't get excited about Springsteen, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Van Morrison etc.

I've said before, my music tastes are closer to that of the terribly dry and humourless Wire Magazine but my taste in writing is more 'Word' and the kind of people I like to converse with are in abundance here in the Word Massive. I do try and keep my opinions on some of the sacred cows of rock & pop to myself. Fleet Foxes and Midlake are fair game though!

Neil Young really isn't as inspiring as everyone says he is. Awkward, sermonising lyrics and often dull arrangements. 'Harvest' is plain boring.

Nick Drake was certainly a special talent, but he has been elevated by some into a major national bard, and there is something precious and a bit jejune about his writing.

...were a one-trick pony, and the trick was rubbish. And don't start me on the lyrics...

Currie is a brilliant songwriter.

Marillion's back catalogue eclipses that of Genesis.

Kate Bush goes on a bit.

Aguilera is a talented singer.

Neil Finn can piss better songs than Weller. So can Paddy McAloon.

Patty Griffin is the best thing to come out of America in the last 15 years.

There's been no world-beater of a band since the Fabs.

I'll stop now.

is one of the best songs of the 1970s.

Due to some kind of drug-induced mass hallucination which overtook all rock journalists in 1969, the dirge-like Astral Weeks was accidentally declared to be the best album ever made.

It has recently been proved that this is not the case and, in fact, Moondance pisses all over it.

An EU Commission has been set up to look into this 42 year-old deception, with a decision expected to be handed down around 2015.

Warner Music shares fell several points yesterday with the expectation that the company will recall several million copies of Astral Weeks and issue refunds of thirty two shillings and sixpence in old money to each of the original buyers, many of whom co-incidentally are no longer alive.

When asked for a comment on the news that Astral Weeks wasn't really as good as we'd been led to believe for four decades, Van Morrison reportedly said "Piss off out of my garden you fecking eejit and let me get back to me potted herrings! I'm fecking famished!"

Investigators from Brussels are also reported to be looking into the great "Pet Sounds is actually really good, honest" scam from 1966.

Underated

The 60s was the only era for pop music.
The fact that they are 'always' used as the template next to which things are compared proves this.
'No 60s.....no comment'.

shocking live

Jack Kerouac's On The Road is bollocks

What's Going On is a boring album

David Soul's first album is a corker

I'm with you on Kerouac. The Beats in general are responsible for a catalogue of evils* that rank alongside those of the Third Reich.

Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get my drift.

*Jim Morrison for starters.

destroyed more good music than it nutured.

Throbbing Gristle were the only "true" punk band, creating noise from nothing and on-purposely not playing their instruments. Everybody else that picked up a guitar played pub rock. At a slightly faster speed.

Heavy metal is the people's music. Not folk.

Rap Music has engendered a hateful, worldwide misogynistic view of women, far worse than any spandex-wearing metal band.

Fairport Convention...a load of middle class geography teachers who are only ever one line away from "The Squire he came along one misty morning and a hey nonny no"
I imagine all the albums sound like variations on "Day Trip to Bangor" bet there's a song about a ship leaving Liverpool never to return ...There, i've said it..obviously "How knows....." is fantastic but i stand by the rest.
The illegitimate children of this band are the godawful Bellowhead.
Cirencester agricultural college's version of Glee. Quite simply the worst thing i've heard,They lack everything that makes music good.
Bring it on,i'm tooled up and have had 3 cups of coffee.

is better than any of The Who's albums apart from Who's Next and Live at Leeds.

I've said it before and I'll probably it again...wouldn't the world (and word) be a dull place if we all liked the same stuff.

I agree with the OP anout the Rolling Stones. Same goes for the Who, the Jam, Capatian Beefheart, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and so on and so on

A few years ago I would have said the same about the likes of Richard Thompson and anything in the least but folky. Time and tastes change.

Dave Grohl - better singer, songwriter and guitar player than the dead one. And a better drummer too.

Pink Floyd - better when they got rid of the one who wrote the nursery rhymes.

Tom Waits - did all his best work before the missus got involved.

Trout Mask Replica - unmitigated shite.

The Catcher in the Rye - Just give the snotty little bastard a slap and tell him to have a word with himself.

Blonde on Blonde - great album ruined by having the worst opening track on any album, ever.

He had a catchphrase, costumes and a nickname, ferchrissakes.

The Who (post 1966 and continuing to the present day) are like a microcosm of everything that went wrong with rock music.

...is one of the most annoying music artists on earth.

is a bit sceechy.

I've already posted this elsewhere but Right Said Fred were the most creative thing to come out of the 90's.

is really not very good at all when you listen to it now: all noodling and pomposity. And the one half-decent sounding track (Great Gig In The Sky) is ruined by the most self-indulgent caterwauling in rock history.

These are my opinions: if you don't like them, I have others.

1. Led Zeppelin were overindulgent with a lot on caterwauling over the top.
2. Laughing Len's Hallelujah is a tedious dirge whoever sings it.
3. Pink Floyd haven't made a decent record since Syd left.

I don't know what happened to Bob Dylan in 1966 but from John Wesley Harding onwards he has been replaced by a bloke who looks completely different and sings in a completely different voice.

808s and Heartbreak WAS fantastic.
And everything Thom Yorke touches turns to gold.

1. Led Zeppelin lost the plot after Physical Graffiti
2. Radiohead have not made a listenable record since Ok Computer
3. Deep Purple should have broken up after Blackmore left.
4. Bob Dylan is now a busted flush live.
5. Neil Young sounds like an old woman and is vastly over rated.
6. The new Thin lizzy is an affront to Phil Lynott's memory.
7. Lou Reed is not as influential as he and everyone seem to think.
8. Rock music as a genre of popular culture has progressed as far as it can without becoming obviously derivative, unoriginal and unexciting. There are no true heroes any more. Most of them are dead.

and 'Human Racing' by Nik Kershaw

are both really good records, with proper, thoughtful grown-up lyrics and interesting arrangements. They contain songs which are actually about something, and broadened the horizons of my teenage brain.

I also support the call for Depeche Mode to be recognised as one of the best pop groups of all time.

have spent their whole career trying to be half as good as The Beatles.

and Bernard Butler, despite being touted as great guitarists of the 80s/90s, are simply bedroom strummers compared to the proper guitarists of the 60s and 70s.

And is there anything more inappropriate or oxymoronic than The Edge on the cover of Guitar Player magazine?

were shit with Syd and shitter without

Is a genius. He has 10 times the talent of Brooooce.

**sits back, glad to get that off chest**

is one of the greatest American albums of the post-Elvis era.

Never Let Her Slip Away is a fantastic song!
( Sorry Captain Underpants )

really really rock out live.

were at least 2 minutes too long.

Is a brilliant album.

are one of the most unfairly-maligned bands in history and worthy of so much more respect than is normally afforded them. Nobody else sounds like them ("That's because nobody wanted to" - there, preempted that riposte).