Epinions Recent Reviews for taylor-mayed

Something Happens

Tue, 19 Jun 2001 20:55:33 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - I have to confess I wasn’t really overly familiar with Del Amitri until I bought this album. I’d heard “Nothing Ever Happens” many times on the radio down the years and had always liked it, but I’d never gotten around to seeking out any of their other...

Sheer Class

Mon, 18 Jun 2001 14:19:12 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - This is it, this is the big one. Although the first two albums had certainly had their moments – with songs such as “Keep Yourself Alive”, “Doing All Right” and “Seven Seas of Rhye” – for me, this is the album where Queen really came of age as a group...

Heirs to the Throne

Sat, 16 Jun 2001 07:31:33 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Every band has to begin somewhere. In many cases, the first album a group or artist ever produced is never usually regarded as one of their best, being seen more as an experiment, a test, a chance to prove that they could cut it in the musical world...

White Elephant (As it Is)

Thu, 14 Jun 2001 14:16:24 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Every band has an album that is so vastly overrated by the die-hard fans of that group that most others are left totally bemused as to what they see in it. For The Beatles it’s “Revolver”, for David Bowie it’s anything much apart from “Let’s Dance”, and...

Was it all worth it?

Tue, 12 Jun 2001 14:35:33 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - After their acclaimed 1986 album “A Kind of Magic” and the resultant European stadium tour, which proved to be their last, the members of Queen took a break from group activity. Freddie Mercury recorded the solo album “Barcelona” in collaboration with...

"You can be anything you want to be"

Fri, 8 Jun 2001 09:21:22 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - By the time of their 20th anniversary year in 1991, Queen were already musical legends. They’d sold millions upon millions of records all over the world, released perhaps the most iconic single of the popular music age, had hits in all kinds of musical...

CD Bloody CD

Fri, 8 Jun 2001 03:53:52 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Few rock bands have divided critical and popular opinion as much during the course of their careers as U2 have done. Some see them as one of the most important, influential and gifted bands of the last twenty-five years if not of all time. Others see...

The flies can keep it

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:27:37 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Almost all authors of serious adult literature have some kind of a vision, some set of ideas or values or beliefs, a kind of message or warning that they want to use their book to explain to the readers. Some do this quite explicitly by use of characters...

Forty-two and then some

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:24:24 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - When Douglas Adams died earlier this year, it caused shock and sadness amongst thousands, possibly millions of fans of his work all over the world. The fact that he was so well known and so loved at the time of his passing is almost entirely due to the...

Bob - Can He Fix it?

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:20:12 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Bob Dylan is possibly unique amongst musicians in that he has become famous all over the world and earned the respect and admiration of his peers without ever really aspiring to achieve mainstream commercial success. He writes and performs songs about...

Hysterically Good

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:16:58 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Heavy rock is perhaps the most underrated of all the musical genres, and Def Leppard possibly the most underrated of all the heavy rock bands, in the UK at any rate, which is perhaps strange given the fact that it’s their home country. In the USA,...

Gunning for Glory

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:14:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Guns N Roses didn’t last as long at the very top as most of the other first rank heavy rock bands such as Aerosmith, Queen, Def Leppard and so on have done, but while they were there they certainly made an impression. This, their debut album, was one of...

Monty Python's Blackadder Shakespeare

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 08:39:15 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - I was not really sure what to expect from this film when I first saw it, as I settled down in my seat in the illustrious surroundings of Worthing's Connaught theatre, carefully balancing a small tub of ice cream, a box of MatchMakers chocolates and a...

Love and War

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 08:34:04 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - “Snow Falling on Cedars” is, it has to be said, a mightily impressive work. When you look at all the elements it contains, you cannot help but be impressed by the way in which Guterson has skilfully weaved all the elements of his powerful plot together...

God's Lonely Man

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 08:31:06 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Any media text, and perhaps in particular film, is a product of the time and culture in which it was produced. This may sound like something of an obvious statement to make, but when Martin Scorsese directed and Paul Schrader wrote Taxi Driver, they were...

Wells's forgotten classic.

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 08:26:47 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - HG Wells is perhaps one of the best-known English authors of the late nineteenth century. Along with his contemporary Jules Verne, he laid the groundwork for the genre that is now known as science-fiction, and wrote some of that genre’s most famous...

Bowie's Best

Thu, 7 Jun 2001 08:21:17 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - The career of David Bowie is an intriguing and sometimes frustrating enigma. Here is a talented musician, capable of producing classic, well-known songs such as “Space Oddity”, “Starman”, “Changes”, “Heroes”, “Ashes to Ashes” and so on. And yet here also...

A splendid time is guaranteed for all

Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:33:10 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - This is the big one. Everyone but everyone knows of Sergeant Pepper. At the very least they know he/it is something to do with The Beatles – an album, a single, a film or something like that. Ask anybody what the first thing that comes into their heads...

Good, but not THAT good

Tue, 5 Jun 2001 21:19:27 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - This album is often lauded not just as the best Beatles album ever, but perhaps the greatest album of all time. Thus there is a temptation just to try and be different and shoot it down in flames for no reason at all. While I certainly would not try and...

1 for all

Tue, 5 Jun 2001 21:14:09 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Whatever your own personal taste in music or opinion of the The Beatles, you have to admire their abilities as the most consistent hit makers ever. For virtually the entirety of the 1960s they were able to continuously churn out a parade of smash hit...

Happiness?

Tue, 29 May 2001 19:15:26 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor was always one of the band’s best song-writers, coming up with massive international hits such as ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘A Kind of Magic’ and ‘Heaven for Everyone’, as well as being mainly responsible for three of the band’s number...

The Last Man in Europe

Tue, 15 May 2001 16:27:16 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - The problem with writing a dystopian vision of the future is that it is almost certain to be outdated within, at the most, a couple of decades of its original publication. This is in no way the fault of the author – unless they have a time machine,...

Sex and Violence

Mon, 14 May 2001 20:11:09 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - Powerful? Undoubtedly. Violent? Certainly. Well-written? Unquestionably. A masterpiece? Well...... possibly.

Anthony Burgess's best-known work is one of the most talked-about novels in the English language in the past 50 years, but this does...

The Best of one of the Best.

Mon, 14 May 2001 17:51:30 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - With any artist as popular and successful as George Michael, it is perhaps inevitable that they will come to release a greatest hits package, and even more inevitable that this will be a great success. Michael is one of the top solo singers of the last...

Notes on a good book

Wed, 9 May 2001 16:38:44 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author taylor-mayed - I had been hearing good things about this book and Bill Bryson's work in general for a few years before I was finally given this book as a birthday present back in February. I'm not sure quite what I expected from it - whether to read it as an honest...