Garry Bushell - The Clash - London Calling - Sounds - December 15 1979

Resuming the series of reviews in which a critic is wrong-footed in real-time, with Garry Bushell giving a measly two-stars to the record that Rolling Stone would later anoint as Best Rock Album of the Eighties (even though technically it came out in the 1970s, at least in the band's native land, and at the very end of the decade, the last weeks of '79).

But, thinking about it, I don't even like London Calling. And all the reasons why Rolling Stone would rate it so high are exactly the reasons why Gazza finds it so boring - the relapse into Presley-Stones-etc rock's rich tapestry-ism. 

And within five years Strummer himself would be in resounding agreement with Gazza and would attempt to restage The Clash debut with Cut the Crap. 

Yes, despite various attempts over the years, I've never clicked with London Calling, apart from the title track single, and "Lost In the Supermarket," which I find affecting. 

The rest bypasses me....  it's like the Clash submitting belated candidacy to be part of the Last Waltz line-up....   a truce between New Wave and Old Wave.  (Getting Guy Stevens to produce - the man who more or less created Mott the Hoople - is totally the Old Wave into New Wave truce move).

I prefer Sandinista...  on points....  but also because they sound confused and dispirited...

The spiritedness of the Clash is one of the things I find least appealing about them - probably why I never clicked with the debut either. 

(That's why I'm endeared towards "Lost in the Supermarket" - a Strummer song, and Strummer sentiment-admission of frailty - even though it's Jones who sings it, with trademark wetness).

Dave McCullough - Siouxsie and the Banshees - A Kiss in the Dreamhouse - Sounds - November 6 1982

 

Continuing the series of reviews where critics get wrong-footed in their real-time reactions to an album, here is Dave McCullough mystifyingly underwhelmed by Siouxsie and the Banshees's A Kiss In The Dreamhouse. If not indisputably their best album, it's certainly right up there, and it's definitely their most expansive and experimental effort - but here it gets a measly three stars and is judged to be a misfire..

I also found it puzzling that he harps on about John McGeoch as the record's star and saving grace, because it doesn't leap out to my ears as a guitar-dominated record...  McGeoch is much more the forefront dominant on Kaleidoscope and Juju, I'd have said. 

(Check out the continuously ever-expanding Dave McCullough Archive)

Rose Rouse - Kate Bush - The Dreaming - Sounds - November 1982

Continuing the series of critics getting it wrong in real-time, not divining the significance of a release or artist... here's Rose Rouse in Sounds underestimating Kate Bush's The Dreaming.

Still, in mitigation, it would have to be said that Rose was not alone here - in fact Bush had almost zero critical support from the thinking person's press at this time - that all came with The Hounds of Love

And as slag-offs go, it's well argued and even somewhat convincing. 

John Mendelsohn - The Stooges debut album - Los Angeles Times - 1969

Well, we can't always be right. I have a few like this (dismissing Nirvana not once but twice - the first time for being too fussy-sounding, the second for their knackered war-horse riffs)

John M appears to have changed his mind at some point because he was the one wot played the Stooges to David Bowie when the latter was over in America touring - with world-historic consequences

I seem to be one of the only people in the world who enjoys "We Will Fall"  - even fans of this album think that that tune is its sole doldrum