Epinions Recent Reviews for Daniel_Rf

Joss Stone: Not As Bad As Jet, But Then, What Is?

Wed, 7 Apr 2004 11:23:06 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Not a review of the entire album, but rather a review of its lead-off single, which epinions does not list. That guitar riff is pure Blues, and in a more sparse environment, it could possibly be cool and haunting as all Hell. But with the rest...

Bummed Out Road Trip

Fri, 11 Oct 2002 21:53:59 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Up until now, the thrills that one got from Beck’s music were intellectual, not emotional. Not that one could ever doubt his sincerity (“ironic” is as misplaced an adjective for Beck’s work as “innovative” is for Radiohead), but...

The Greatest Movie Ever Made

Fri, 11 Oct 2002 21:45:59 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Fellini’s dissertations of male/female relations. Hitchcock’s travels through the darkest corners of the human psyche. Ford’s search for the true spirit of America. Bergman’s desolation, Fassbinder’s realism, Spike Lee’s political...

Riff! Riff! Riff! Marketing!

Mon, 8 Jul 2002 20:51:05 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Yeah, so the 70’s are back- for about the 18th time since 1990, when Rhino first released the godawful (and wonderful) ”Have A Nice Day” series. 70’s revivals, while not as omnipresent as 80’s revivals (I swear, there’s a new one every...

How Did He Do That?

Mon, 8 Jul 2002 20:43:44 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - It’s a daring comparison, I know, but it’s true—what The Beatles were to the '60s, Stevie Wonder was to the '70s. No other artist from that decade managed to maintain such a high level of quality whilst at the same time balancing it with commercial...

Maximum Overkill- but the quality still shines through

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 22:00:59 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - I don’t give a fuck, I’m standing by this album: I like my American flags upside down and my Kennedys dead and, right now, Ryan Adams seems to be the best man for that job. One could hardly accuse him of being innovative, of course (in fact, this...

The Importance Of Being Earnest (And Looking Depraved)

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 21:35:47 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Even if it isn’t one of the most influential pieces of Pop ever written, “The Bogus Man” is certainly one of the most prophetic. The monotony of the beat predates Disco, while the song’s theme (a darkly humorous account of a rape) would pop up again a...

Put your platform boots on, it's David Lynch!!!

Sat, 18 May 2002 12:20:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - “It’s like a dream” people kept telling me before I went to see Mulholland Drive, the latest critically lauded David Lynch extravaganza “A trip to the subconcious...you have to discard all ideas of continuity and logic...just let the movie...

The American South-Booze, Naked Men, Etc...

Sun, 7 Apr 2002 12:22:52 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - As is the case with most singer/songwriters (Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello), there are people who just don’t “get” Randy Newman. In fact, I have heard throughoutly intelligent individuals state that Randy Newman’s songs sound like, and I qoute, “slobbering...

No man, that’s somethin’ else!

Sun, 7 Apr 2002 12:17:40 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Ok, I’ll admit it: I’m an unrepentant anglophile and nostalgic, and any record that talks about Waterloo sunsets and afternoon teas automatically has me on it’s side. Still, I think that even foregoing my obvious bias, ”Something Else By The...

Yes, It's Essential. So What Else Is New?

Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:27:35 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - “Calculated” is a bit of a swear-word in music in general, and R&B in particular. However, ”Otis Blue” (widely acknowedleged as being the best album Otis Redding ever released) is calculated in the best possible meaning of the word: every...

Back when snot was the coolest thing on the block...

Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:22:56 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - It is widely acknowedleged as one of the few albums from the Hippie era that avoids the genre’s many pitfalls, but ”Forever Changes” by Love does indeed, succumb to all of them- excessive naivety, bland finger pointing and a way of making things...

The Strokes- Better Than Toto?

Fri, 28 Dec 2001 20:17:57 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Bands may b itch and moan about how much of a drag hype is, but the plain truth is that it hurts the average music consumer even moreso than it does the band itself. Thus, while The Strokes were busy trying to live up to a hype so enormous that even if...

WIAB w/o- welcome to the twilight zone

Sun, 9 Dec 2001 13:17:27 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - (Note: This is an entry in the Where It All Began write off, hosted by the Almighty Officer and which also features the shit kicking coolness of Christoff, the grand Baggy anecdotes of The Divine_Cheese, the feisty fish kissing of educatedph00l,...

(BTM) He's Gone Back To His Roots! (/BTM)

Sat, 8 Dec 2001 20:27:02 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Well, ”Blonde On Blonde” it ain’t. Nor is it ”Time Out Of Mind”, that glorious gem of an album that took Dylan out of his previous “has been” position in 1997 and re-established him as one of the finest performers to walk this earth, both...

Upcoming Release [TBA] - Pulp: FYI, Epinions- it’s called ”We Love Life”

Sat, 1 Dec 2001 22:12:40 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - It has been suggested in some quarters (and the man himself has confirmed this) that ”We Love Life” is Pulp’s concept album about how much Jarvis Cocker loves the trees and the birdies. But already on the first track of their newest release, the...

Soft-Rocking the suburbs with grace and style

Sat, 24 Nov 2001 18:02:02 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Well, we always knew it’d happen eventually. There were already hints of it on Ben Folds Five’s wonderful swansong, ”The Unauthorised Biography Of Reinhold Messner”, and now the metamorphosis is complete- Ben Folds is no longer the raucous...

Moanin’ to die

Mon, 19 Nov 2001 21:45:31 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Beck’s first (widely distributed) album, ”Mellow Gold”, was a pawn shop. The follower ”Odelay” was a junkyard, and his most recent work, ”Midnite Vultures”, was a neon graffiti spray painted on a wall in some obscure back alley of a...

Best VU album; best late night album ever?

Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:13:00 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - The Velvet Underground get credited with having started all sorts of shit, but I remain unimpressed. Their greatest achievement, in my opinion, was the introduction of adult (not mature, mind you) themes into the Rock lyrics world; frank,...

God only knows what we’d be without it...

Wed, 31 Oct 2001 20:44:36 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Despite the fact that the name “Beach Boys” doesn’t immediately equal respectability in most people’s books, it is painfully easy to acertain their hip cachet. Every third Indie Pop band today sounds like The Beach Boys (hello, Elephant Six Collective);...

Second hand dreams

Sun, 21 Oct 2001 21:20:37 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - Note: Well, folks, this it...epinion #199 (not counting two rather awful reviews of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and The Clash’s “London Calling that I recently deleted). The next epinion will be Daniel_Rf’s epinion 200 extravaganza, so if you want...

Gimme Gimme Flawless Compilation!

Sun, 7 Oct 2001 21:29:20 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - ELO, kids! Ready to help consumers make informed buying decisions? Yes? Wheeeee!!!!!

The Ramones, as we all know, were the perfect bridge between the Proto-Punk of The MC5 (metallic), The Stooges (dirty) and The New York Dolls (trashy) and the...

The Prince Of Thieves

Mon, 1 Oct 2001 20:28:22 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - It’s that perfect balance between honesty and creativity, that uncanny ability to pour his heart out without ever losing his very tragically hip attitude that makes ”Blood On The Tracks” such a great album. Dylan is a liar and a thief, a...

The one no one ever mentions

Sat, 29 Sep 2001 21:18:23 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - There is alot to be said for innovation- artists boldly going where no one has gone before, discovering brave new worlds of sonic delight and leaving their audiences shocked with joy (or anger, it depends).

There is also alot to be said for a...

Carpe Diem

Sun, 23 Sep 2001 19:53:18 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Daniel_Rf - One of the trappings that is most difficult for music critics to evade is the iconisation of the deceased- from Jim Morrison to 2PAC, countless artists (ranging from the sublime to the godawful) have been overrated and turned “holy” because they are no...