Thomas Dolby - Aliens Ate My Buick
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Free Music Notes for Aliens Ate My Buick
Free Music Review: Cover Looks Crazy, Music Sounds Great!
Hit: 4 Stars
Even though every one else raves about "The Key To Her Ferrari", it's my least favorite song on this. I saw Thomas Dolby live at a small club in Washington DC (the 930 Club) when this CD was out. It was great - just like this CD. "Budapest By Blimp" IS very good, like everyone says-it's unlike anything you've ever heard. It's kind of like floating on a blimp yourself. I also Love "The Ability To Swing" which sounds like an old fashioned nightclub jazz tune. "May the Cube Be With You" was not on the album I bought back in '88, and I was pretty upset. It's a very funky and danceable song. "My Brain Is Like a Sieve" and "Pop Culture" have a reggae tinge. "Hot Sauce" is a lot of fun, with slightly dirty lyrics, as is "Airhead". I have always enjoyed this CD, and you will too.Free Music Review: Top Ten Audiophiles Sleeper Album
Hit: 4 Stars
This album is frequently pointed to by people in the music industry as something to reference for great production, arrangement, and performance. The musicianship is superb, the engineering is superb. The tracks are recorded brilliantly and the engineering is part of the musical arrangement. It was out of print for a while which just goes to show that even the record labels and distributors do not have a clue or care for what actually is quality and should be preserved in the music industry.If you are producer of pop or engineer buy this album for reference to what sonically works and what you should look for out of musicians to make the material work the best it can with the proper performers and production.
Free Music Review: Really really good.
Hit: 4 Stars
I've really enjoyed this album ever since it came out. On my first LP version of this album, "the Cube" was not included. In all frankness, I feel that it was a better album without it. Still, the inclusion of that candy-coated dud still does not diminish the quality of the other songs.
It has swing, its got groove. It has its good moments, its great moments, and everything in between. Just another album of good music to enjoy. What more are you expecting?
Now I'm really looking forward to his new material!
Free Music Review: When Earth and Wireless collide
Hit: 3 Stars
...Or The Americanization of Thomas Dolby.Thomas Dolby took a long sabbatical between his second and third albums. He produced artists as wide ranging as George Clinton, Joni Mitchell and Prefab Sprout, scored a couple of movies (including the legendary disaster, "Howard The Duck") and moved to Los Angeles, where he recorded "Aliens Ate My Buick." The Hollywood influence not only seeps into his lyrics (sample from "Pulp Culture": "There's not a lot of people there, but an awful lot of cars"), but into the music as well.
The album kicked off with a great hard-swing ride up and down the 101 (Los Angeles drivers will catch that reference) on "The Keys to Your Ferrari" and then strikes a very "Wireless" tone on "Airhead." But after that, things get confusing. "Hot Sauce" was a leftover from the George Clinton sessions, and, sad to say, while Thomas Dolby may be talented enough to produce and play with Clinton, he ain't very funky. Same goes for the sterile sounding "The Ability To Swing." While a great song in its own right (Patti Austin wisely recorded it better for 1994's "That Secret Place"), Dolby is out of his depth as a vocalist here on his own song. And the less said about the dopey "May The Cube be With You," the better.
Still, I doubt I'll ever give this CD up. "Budapest By Blimp" is the kind of greatness that would have fit perfectly on "The Flat Earth," and is just what you would be hoping for from a Dolby disc. Same for "Airhead" and "Ferrari" (especially that Robin Leach intro!!). It's just that, when it comes to an artist whose debut CD would fit onto my desert island disc list short list, "Aliens Ate My Buick" seems just a little too pre-chewed.
Free Music Review: Clever lyrics let down by tunelessness
Hit: 3 Stars
The album opens with Key To Her Ferrari, a jazzy, orchestral piece with spoken vocal parts. Airhead is a mid-tempo ballad with some pop appeal and Hot Sauce falls within the same style, somewhat tepid although the arrangement is complex and interesting. Pulp Culture is an exemplar of the the lack of melodicism that makes this album lukewarm in comparison to his better work. The slowly lilting love song My Brain Is Like A Sieve is mildly appealing, as is the atmospheric The Ability To Swing. Budapest By Blimp is another slow ballad with atmospheric vocals and evocative instrumentation. Overall the album is disappointing, lacking the catchy hooks and quirky charms of Dolby's best tracks like Hyperactive and She Blinded Me With Science. I recommend The Best of Thomas Dolby: Retrospectacle for the most enduring work of this talented musician.