Kitten Covers, Batch 1: Low-Life by New Order and Pablo Honey by Radiohead

Low-Life by New Order

I was a great fan by Joy Division, but never really fell for New Order during their heyday. The music definitely has some atmosphere, but the song writing isn’t great on most of the tracks, nor is the singing. The use of melodica was a wonderful part of the song Your Silent Face from the album Power, Corruption & Lies, but here I find it superfluous most of the time.

Number of stars: **
Will I include it in my living music library? No.

Pablo Honey by Radiohead

Sounds a lot like a band trying to imitate Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana; there was a lot of them around in the late nineties. Creep is a great song, but as we have seen from YouTube, it really needs an exceptionally talented singer. (It’s actually a very primitive song, with four chords being repeated over and over again.) To me Pablo Honey represents a proto-Radiohead—the caterpillar which eventually will be the butterfly with two marvelous album wings: The Bends and OK Computer.

Number of stars: ***
Will I include it in my living music library? Creep + perhaps some other song.

[color-box]

The Kitten Covers Tumblr blog presents legendary albums where the people of the original artwork has been replaced by kittens. As I thought the concept was genius, I decided to write short reviews of all these classic albums.

The rules are simple: I have to listen through the entire album (but if a song disturbs me, I may skip it and go to the next). There is no need to focus entirely on the music; most probably, I listen while working, doing my chores or driving.

* = Ehem, definitely not my cup of tea.
** = Well, once perhaps—but not again.
*** = OK, I could listen to this again. Maybe.
**** = Great music. Ought to give it a closer look.
***** = Wow, this belongs to my living music library.

[/color-box]