Interestingly, although this is the second AC/DC album I've reviewed as part of my 30 Years On project, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap in fact originally came out before Back in Black. This album was released in Austrailia in 1976, and only came to the `states in 1981, after the 1980 release of Back in Black.

I suspect that AC/DC was a major inspiration for the 1984 mockumentary (that I think is brilliant) This Is Spinal Tap. In fact, I think a straight line can be drawn from AC/DC's song "Big Balls" to Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom". If you enjoy Spinal Tap, you're likely to enjoy AC/DC and this album.

Most of what I said about Back in Black can also be applied to this album. AC/DC is fun band to listen to if you're in the right mood. However, because the songs on this album don't quite get the same airplay as those on Back in Black, this album is worth checking out at least once.

Here's a quick and simple review of Winelight by Grover Washington Jr.:

• Every time I listened to this album I felt over-dressed. No, I never listened to it wearing a tuxedo or a three-piece suit. I mean that wearing any clothes at all is being over-dressed for this album. It's that kind of album.
• It has only one song on it you've ever heard, Just the Two of Us, and likely only because you saw it in Austin Powers 2.

In summary, if you're naked, go ahead and listen to the album. Or, you can watch Austin Powers 2 and hear the only song on this album you care about, but see some funny stuff happen at the same time. What's funnier than little people?

Face Dances was the first album put out by The Who after the death of Keith Moon. I'm not familiar enough with The Who to know if that had an effect on this album. I'm guessing it probably did. The best I can say about this album is that the songs are all very "poppy" and the lyrics and melodies stick in your head very easily. But overall, it's a fairly unremarkable album and probably got on the top-10 due only to the strength of their previous albums. The fact that the band disbanded two years after this album came out is a good sign that they were already on the decline as a creative unit.

According to the Wikipedia page, the cover artwork was commissioned from various famous artists. Judging from the top and bottom rows, it looks like the artists were handed the same photos. The bottom row is the most disappointing - three of the frames are basically identical, and I'm guessing they filled in the fourth with random icons to break the monotony.

Edit: Anyone want to proffer a guess what the middle-row, left-column icon is?

My recommendation is that this album is not worth checking out.

The album Another Ticket by Eric Clapton is mostly a blues album with only a few rockish songs. That's pretty typical for Clapton. Curiously, the first 3 (of 5) minutes of the title track is instrumental, which is unusual for album title tracks in my opinion. The only hit single off this record is "I Can't Stand It". According to Wikipedia, this song sometimes gets played during interludes on Bill O'Reilly's radio show. I cannot confirm this, for obvious reasons, but I imagine that Bill does not use it for its original meaning of an ahem troublesome woman. He must want to share something in common with one of his heroes.

I generally like Clapton, and this is a decent album. The only legitimate knock on the album is its bright red cover.

Springtime in Boulder is a tumultuous time. Most evenings the clouds get blown down off the mountains and it rains, and a few times it's turned into snow overnight. The days are blustery and mild, but not what I would call warm just quite yet. The album Arc of a Diver by Steve Winwood does not fit well into my seasonal or geographical mood. If I were in Florida sipping a fruity drink on the beach, I think it would be more appropriate. It would help if I was older and fatter, too. I'm trying to say that if you are in the right place and frame of mind, this album could be quite pleasant. And sometimes pleasant is all you need.

I'm going to try to catch up completely this week.

Luckily for me, I will not draw the ire of any Canadians with this review. In fact, I already had the album Moving Pictures by Rush before this review because I like it. The songs are well made, a couple are catchy, and it's not too long. Go ahead and check out the album yourself!

I wasn't looking forward to Captured by Journey. I've already listened to two albums like this (1, 2) and I was thinking that this album would bore me. I have to admit that I wasn't bored completely by this album, which surprised me. This album is a live album, made up of recordings from several different performances. I think that the energy of the live performances makes the music less soporific, which is good.

If I have one complaint, it's that this album is a bit too long in duration. By the last few songs I was getting kind of tired of Journey. But it took until the end of the album to get there, so that's a small amount of praise. Nonetheless, this is an album you can skip.

I am way late on this review. Many weeks. In my defense, I did some traveling, and the gap that was only going to be 3 weeks just grew and grew. So in the interest of getting back on time, I'm going to do some quick, short reviews until I'm back in sync.

The album Celebrate! by Kool & the Gang has exactly one song you will ever hear: the title track "Celebration". And that's all you need to know. The rest of it is not very exciting.

I will remark that the second song on the album is about divorce. Either it's intentionally ironic to follow a song like Celebration with a song about divorce, or fantastically incongruous.

The album Paradise Theater by the band Styx does not include their song ["Mr. Roboto"][4]. For most of you, that is your signal to stop caring about this review and move on with your day. The brave, the steadfast, and the bored may continue on!

This album is not terribly dissimilar from last week's album, which is somewhat disappointing. I was not thrilled with REO Speedwagon, and this album isn't any different for me, if I'm honest. The most I can say about this album is about one song, which is the only one that made an impression on my brain. The song "She Cares" has the line: "she treats me like a human", which is such a vacuous (*) statement that it needs to be commented on. How else might "she" treat the singer of the song? Like a dog? A teacup? A 1953 Studebaker Commander Starliner? I can understand the need to rhyme in a rock song, but that line is insulting to either "she" or the singer, and definitely to the listener's intelligence.

My recommendation for this album is identical to last week's album: skip it, and if you must, just listen to bad radio and Styx will come on eventually. "Mr. Roboto" is kind of fun, so if they play that, consider yourself lucky. Note that the content of the top-10 albums list does not change for three weeks, which is how long it will be until my next review.

(*) I wanted to pick a good synonym for "stupid" to describe the line in the song, so I went to the Mac OS X system Dictionary application which includes a thesaurus. The entry on "stupid" synonyms has a bonus section apparently unique to this word titled "Choose The Right Word" that advises which synonym is appropriate for each situation, and how to avoid insulting someone unnecessarily. I think the next iteration of IBM's Watson should include the ability to scan an email for misuse of "stupid" synonyms. Think of all the marriages and friendships that might be preserved!

Named for a precursor of the pickup truck (the O stands for Olds, who also founded Oldsmobile), REO Speedwagon reached the zenith of their popularity in 1981 with the album Hi Infidelity.

If you do not know what REO Speedwagon sounds like, think of the band "Journey", and that will be close enough most of the time. One exception is the song "In Your Letter", which sounds like 1950's bubble-gum rock, and even includes backup female doo-wop singers. I have to admit that for one of the hits on the album, "Take It On The Run", I had previously only heard covers of the song. I think I like the covers better.

The main problem I have with this album is that it is the kind of music I hear played incessantly on the worst FM radio stations across the country. These are mostly owned by Clear Channel, including Jack FM, which I loathe. REO Speedwagon isn't awful music, it's just bland, and it gets played by radio stations that purport to have wide variety, but don't.

Therefore, my suggestion is to not listen to this album. If you need your dose of this music, there is almost certainly a Jack FM in your town, and REO Speedwagon will be played eventually.

The album Autoamerican by Blondie contains some good examples of popular musical styles in the beginning of the 1980's. It has disco ("Live it Up", "Do the Dark"), a rap song (!; "Rapture") that includes the often used line "hip, hop, and you don't stop", songs that sound like the B-52s ("Walk Like Me"), and a genuinely popular reggae/ska hit in "The Tide is High". It is not a boring album in the sense that there are some interesting musical choices in a (nearly) instrumental opening in "Europa" and a incongruous 30-second intro into "Angels on the Balcony".

An aside about the cover: I don't care to figure out which band member it was, but one of them was relegated to being depicted on the album cover as white pants, a black shirt, dark hair, and no facial characteristics. Sure, Blondie deserved to be up front, but if I were that last guy, I'd feel a bit insulted at being completely anonymized.

Because it isn't boring, and has the several of the contemporary musical styles represented, and the songs are generally entertaining, I think this album is a good one. So I will recommend to my readers that they check it out!

My next album review will be in two weeks because next week's top-10 chart has no albums that I have not already reviewed.

I am of two minds about Gaucho by Steely Dan. In one mind, I think the melodies are entertaining and high quality, combining Jazz, Funk, Rock and R&B. The instruments, drums, and lyrics are very tight, a result of the perfection demanded by the band. This forced the production of the album to take two years. In the other mind, I dislike the manner of the vocals. The vocalists, including a previous nemesis Michael McDonald in a backup role, do things that annoy me. Imagine Yogi Bear trying to sing, and that is what I hear in my head when I listen to this album. Unnecessary pitch bending and weird transitions from a nasal- to diaphragm-driven voice.

I am a few months into this project, and I am observing that nearly all of the music I've liked I had heard previously. I think that this is natural for a few reasons. First, I seek out music I like over music I dislike, meaning that the albums I've listened to that I disliked never entered my mind because they are in a genre I generally dislike. Of course, I couldn't have truly known I disliked them until I listened to them, but there is some personal selective effects going on. Second, and this is definitely inflating the value of my own opinions (so throw some salt over your shoulder), but it seems that music I dislike has proven itself over time to be less popular and inferior to music I do like. When was the last time you heard a Yoko Ono song on the radio? Or a Barbra Streisand song from Guilty? However, Bruce Springsteen is still making records and selling out arenas, and AC/DC is still selling records and getting airtime.

If you can get over the vocal style of this album, or indeed if you even like it, I would recommend this album for its melodies. However, that is a very qualified recommendation. Listen at your own risk.

The album The Jazz Singer by Neil Diamond is the soundtrack to the 1980 film remake of the 1927 film adaption of the 1925 broadway musical. The 1980 film has a very low rating as judged by the critics, so I'm not going to bother seeing the movie myself. Diamond's performance was so poor that this movie is Neil Diamond's only acting credit on IMDB where he's not playing himself.

There is an interesting parallel with this film+soundtrack and the 1992 flim+soundtrack The Bodyguard. The Bodyguard, like The Jazz singer, starred a successful singer (Whitney Houston) making her acting debut. The Bodyguard gets somewhat higher reviews than The Jazz Singer, but they are still far from positive. Like The Jazz Singer, the soundtrack for The Bodyguard did well - so well that it is the best-selling soundtrack ever. It appears that for a class of musicians (notably not rappers, of which many have made a successful transition), acting is not amongst their artistic skills. Neil Diamond and Whitney Houston made best-selling albums for their movies, but apparently they ran out of creative "juice" and fell flat as actors.

Despite its economic record, I find this album bland enough that it is difficult to form any kind of opinion about it. Which is probably not a good thing, unless you're in the mood for music that blends easily into the background. So, my recommendation is to skip listening to this album. Here's a look twelve years into the future: you can skip The Bodyguard soundtrack, too.

It is easy to imagine a teen movie plot as follows: A group of guy friends are having an amazing time during summer break. Pretty girls are everywhere and always interested in them, and every night is an adventure. Life is good. But then, one of the guys starts dating a girl who all the others despise. The others can't see what is so great about her. She has destroyed the group dynamic, and offers no redeeming qualities that they can discern. The group attempts to break up the pair to no avail (with plenty of hijinks along the way), but by the end of the movie she has proven her worth in some grandiose and unlikely way.

After listening to the album Double Fantasy by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, I think this movie plot almost describes what happened to the Beatles when Yoko Ono met John Lennon. The Beatles had a really great thing going: hit album after hit album, adoring fans, and any woman they wanted. But when Yoko Ono came on the scene, things went sour, and the group became dysfunctional. The other three did not like the effect Yoko was having on John, she distracted him and pulled him away from the group. Except there was no happy ending, and the Beatles disbanded. Unlike in Hollywood, not all guys are shallow and can tell when a woman is a bad influence on one of their friends (also, in real life friends do not stay friends forever).

In short, Yoko Ono is a talentless singer with a little girl's voice who performs songs terribly. I suppose her physical artwork might be better (which is what she was doing when she met John), but that is the kind of art she should have stuck with. As far as I can tell, on this album the songs are either sung only by John or Yoko, but never together. John's songs range from merely OK to quite good and memorable. In between are Yoko's songs, which are like audible sandpaper. Maybe John was an evil genius and realized that placing his songs next to Yoko's songs would make his songs sound that much better, but I suspect this was not the case. Love can be stupid.

The reason this album is high on the charts is that just a little over 30 years ago, in early December, John was killed. Before that, the album was poorly received and wasn't getting much traction in sales or on the radio. It is unfortunate that it took his death for the album to reach #1, but that is what happened. It is testament to his popularity that the album sold so well, despite Yoko's presence on the album.

Below are the notes I took listening to this album, verbatim. I can't make it any more pleasant and polite than this:

1 - good, you've heard it before.
2 - awful. terrible. pornoaudioic.
3 - bleh
4 - Terrible. Yoko again. Wow.
5 - John again, so not terrible.
6 - voice reverb/echo on Yoko, double terrible. "oving on" sounds like "looking on" with the "L" dropped. Speech impediment, or ESL?
7 - dreamy and OK, but not stellar.
8 - good, quality, you've heard it before.
9 - more ono, more suckage.
10 - OK, John.
11 - pointless, useless voice trembles, awful falsetto (Yoko, of course)
12 - about/to Yoko, but it's by John, so it's OK
13 - best Yoko because she is hidden behind the music.
14 - Ugh. Yoko.

It is always easier to write a negative review, and who-boy, this week was easy! I think I never quite understood just how awful Yoko was until I listened to this album, and now I think I have a better understanding of why everyone blames Yoko for the end of the Beatles. They did have some right to be angry, and that is one of the emotions I felt listening to this album. If you want to listen to this album, skip any and all songs by Yoko, and listen only to John's, some of which are worthwhile.

It's hard to over-emphasize how bad Yoko was. Check out this video made of Bill Burr talking about a time that John and Yoko played with Chuck Berry. The language is R-rated, but the point he makes is valid.

It's hard to form a fresh opinion (but I'll try!) about the album Zenyatta  Mondatta by The Police because I've heard this album many times before without fully realizing it. I've owned The Police complete box set since high school, and as it turns out, the order of the last eleven songs on disc 2 is identical to the tracks on Zenyatta  Mondatta. This means that to a large extent I formed my opinions about this album a long time ago.

The Police have roots in punk rock, which is evident from their early work (see disc 1 of the box set), but by this album, their style definitely shifted away from that. This album has a few kinds of songs: the political "Bombs Away", "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da"; the cute "Man In A Suitcase"; the creepy/literary "Don't Stand So Close To Me"; and the rare instrumentals "Behind My Camel", "The Other Way of Stopping". It is certainly a more mature style, that overall I prefer over the intellectually lighter punk songs.

In fact, this album kind of hits the sweet spot for me between their early punk and their later, extremely political work. This is due to the lead singer of The Police, Sting, who is very active in these sorts of things around the world. However, just like Christian music, too-political music stinks because it's preachy and bland.

I would recommend this album, and the whole box set, too.