Music Nerds member page: NathantheCynic

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco (2002)

Written by NathantheCynic (5)

So you're a Wilco fan. Well, maybe not even a fan at the moment. But it's 2002 and you've been following Jeff Tweedy and his band of down-home intellectuals for the past number of years. The 'alt-country' stuff that Tweedy had helped bring to fruition with Uncle Tupelo was keeping you pleasantly entertained. And Being There was pretty good, right? Everyone liked that album. And many loved it. But you got a weird feeling during Summerteeth. It might have been those dark lyrics... [read the rest]

Let It Be by The Replacements (1984)

Written by NathantheCynic (5)

In the late eighties, just as The Replacements were starting to disband, an interviewer asked frontman Paul Westerberg about the band's reputation as a live act. "It seems like you guys just can't win!" said the interviewer, referring to the often drunken, shambling live performances of the 'Mats who played rocked-out versions of seventies pop and buzzed through their own songs while falling down and off-key. Quoth Westerberg: "Our basic problem is that the people who love our slower, quiet... [read the rest]

Dirty Mind by Prince (1980)

Written by NathantheCynic (5)

When Prince released Dirty Mind at the dawn of the eighties, he had clearly hit his stride. His previous two albums, the forgettable and generic For You and the admirable (but still generic) Prince made him known around his hometown of Minneapolis, true. But with Dirty Mind, Prince announced his eventual takeover of pop music in a quietly forceful way that is present in every track of his third album. With a black and white cover that shows Prince himself staring... [read the rest]

Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath (1971)

Written by NathantheCynic (5)

By 1971, Black Sabbath were already revered amongst those still clinging to the hippie philosophy, though Sabbath presented something different. Instead of the routine optimism of their colleagues -- if you could even consider them 'colleagues' -- Black Sabbath had been operating on their previous two albums with a sense of otherworldly bite and menace, though not in the obtuse, artificial sense of other bands of the time trying to present a pessimistic worldview. Master of Reality... [read the rest]