Here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name…
Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“This album worries me. It worries me because so much of the music here is so blatantly lacklustre compared with the exhilaratingly high standards already set by (…). By most other standards, this album would be almost brilliant, but for (…) it is easily (their) worst album to date.”
Tonight? 😉
Arf!
Strangeways Here We Come?
Interesting…
Exile on Main St.
Also interesting…
Revolver.
Yoiks! Keep that up and they’ll revoke your Afterword privileges!
It couldn’t possibly be Revolver because of the language.
The more ‘… a rollicking top-sider, with the the flip more for the balladeers’ review it is, the more likely you are to be in the Golden Age.
People – OK, ‘MEN’ – only got busy on the intellectual stuff AFTER the Golden Age.
Don’t tell ’em, for God’s sake, they won’t thank you for it!
Righto! Err…
It’s true, check out the NME in the 60s. Go on… they’re probably online.
It’s absolutely true
Ray Davies didn’t like it:
https://beatlessongwriting.blogspot.com/2014/01/ray-davies-reviews-relvolver.html
I can neither confirm or deny any of the excellent answers above…
I’ll be away from my computer tomorrow, so I’ll post the answer on Thursday evening GMT.
For me it describes Tales from the Topographic Oceans rather well.
Talking of The Yes, check this out.
Shame, KFD – TFTO remains one of my favourite albums. However, I take your point – probably NOT a big fave at the NME!
I think it’s Nick Kent’s review of Katy Lied.
Which is why I never bothered to listen to it at the time.
Interesting…also interesting that Nick Kent held such sway at the time.
There was also the fact that I didn’t know anyone who had a copy of it – unlike the first three.
I don’t ascribe others’ lack of enthusiasm for the album to NK.
Up – R.E.M.
I was going to suggest R.E.M. too, but something earlier, “Automatic For The People” maybe?
Automatic “blatantly lacklustre”? Huh?
AFTP had a full-page rave review, as I recall.
If it is REM, it was Monster that got the kicking.
Critical kicking or not, I like that one more than Automatic For The People
Led Zep – In Through The Out Door
Is it The F*cking C*nts Treat Us Like Pr*cks by Flux of Pink Indians?
The follow-up to much-loved debut Strive to Survive Causing Least Suffering Possible.
Surely the biggest anarcho-punk act to come out of Bishop’s Stortford?
You know, I’m sure you might have suggested this one before, Mr F…
Local lads. The Bishop’s Stortford one-way system would have anyone effing and blinding.
They – well, not Flux, but Stortford Boys school – once thrashed us at rugby. They took it so seriously. Half of us oiks spent the half time interval smoking on the touchline.
It is the eponymous Echo and the Bunnymen album from 1987.
Abbey Road.
I was thinking Let It Be (following Abbey Road) and the ‘but for’ being Yellow Submarine. It could also be the White album or even Sgt. Pepper, but the word ‘already’ is a bit odd.
Were the NME in that period known to be critical of The Beatles? I didn’t read it then – but I would have assumed the inkies were all over these records like a rash…
I think it could well be Abbey Road.
It’s got to be ABBA!
INamely, The Visitors: the Swedish super-combo’s divorce album.
With both marriages coming to an end, the jolly pop era was over and replaced by introspection and regrets.
While the music on The Vistors wasn’t lacklustre as such, as you say more soaked in introspection and regrets, I can’t imagine an NME staffer getting away with admitting this was a worry to them, back in the heady days of 1981!
They were doing ‘introspection and regrets’ from SOS…keep up, lad!
My apologies @Black-Type. As a Swedish citizen, I really ought to be impeccably knowledgeable about the Fab Four’s waxings.
To be awarded my citizenship I had to pass a very difficult exam including many questions about ABBA, Strindberg, Bergman, Surströmming and the IKEA catalogue.
Nothing about Björn Borg? 😉
Is it Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter ?
I see what you did there.
Rumours?
Pet Sounds?
The reveal:
The album being reviewed was indeed Katy Lied
The journalist was indeed Nick Kent, writing in the NME in April 1975
…and we have a winner! @Carl wins the white carnation!
I shall wear it with pride, until it wilts.
Frame it and keep it in a good light…
Well done, Carl! And well done Fitter for keeping us on the edge of our seats.
That was fun!
I came across another quote which would be perfect for one of these – but maybe too soon for a second round?
Told ya it wasn’t Golden Age.
Yes, you did – well done, well done.