Amazon.com One-Star Reviews - Part 2: Music

This is the second installment in a three-part series on One-Star Customer Reviews at Amazon.com (hat tip Johnny Dee).

Below are excerpts from dozens of Amazon.com Customer Reviews of noteworthy rock albums. In each critique, the author ascribes a lowly One Star to an album that normally maintains Five-Star status in the artistic canon. It's worth noting that most of these critical non-professionals would have eagerly awarded zero stars if given the opportunity.

Without question, each of these critics has their reasons, and objectivity is trumped by taste at every turn.

In almost all cases, the syntax and spelling of the original review has been carefully preserved throughout.

Amazon.com One-Star Reviews - Part 1: Books
Amazon.com One-Star Reviews - Part 3: Movies
Amazon.com One-Star Reviews: The Beatles Remastered


Music

Rubber Soul
These songs are all available without buying this CD. You can hear these at your dentist's office or in most elevators over the muzak system.

"Drive My Car" is a totally dumb song, Beep, Beep a-beep beep yeah! Sorry. Doesn't work for me.

Think For Yourself: A Goerge Harrison Song. That means it's Rubbish and Horrid.

I prefer Jim Nabors...his voice and styling is superior to the Beatles...and a much better actor.


Revolver
Revolver is the Beatles' weakest album, worse than Yellow Submarine.

I Want To Tell You - truly horrific peice of mid-sixties nonsense.

Tommorow Never Knows - Space Music. This song might sound good in a telescope.

I hate Revolver with the same passion that I hate Nsync, the Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears.

The best thing I can think about The Beatles is that they came from Liverpool. But given that none of them even cared about football, never mind Everton, I won't even say that's a good thing.

A candidate for the worst album of all time by any artist.

This really is elevator music. My ears basically started bleeding.

Revolver does the Beatles' reputation irreparable damage, and it was also their least influential work.


Blonde on Blonde
Dylan's so twisted it's very difficult to tell what he's really saying/meaning.

What kind of music do you make with hair like that?

Vocals that make Keith Richard sound like a opera singer.

This was a 5 star harmonica record. Subtract 1 star for Bob Dylan's drunken-old-man singing (he sounds homeless). Subtract one for this being made so long ago. And subtract one more for the title, which doesn't make any sense.

Anyone want to buy a barely used copy of Blonde on Blonde?


Are You Experienced?
Words cannot describe my intense dislike for Jimi's guitar "skills". This guy is a HACK.

I was surprised that MTV didnt play any videos from this album, I wonder why? Probebly cause the MTV crowd know this music is tired and boring.

How could anyone in their right mind say that this Hendrix guy is good?

His solos are just a bunch of noise and his sound is dated, unlike good bands like Great White and Skid Row.

There's no good music here. He's boring, talentless and he whines.

I would have to go against the grain and proclaim him as the perhaps the worst guitarist that ever lived.


The Doors
The 60's were a whacked-out era, and this piece of solid gold crap is a time-machine to the scene of the crime.

One of the most hilariously overblown, psuedo, pieces of nonsense to come out of a 60's recording studio, and oh boy did it have some competition.

There is no rock here. They're boring. They whine.

The highlight is the howlingly funny The End, it needs a Mike Myers to really do it justice.

"The End" is a mindless rant that wouldn't make the cut on "The Wiggles".

A collectors item for those who have a taste for kitsch.


Velvet Underground and Nico
What's not to love? Well, everything.

Pretentious lyrics, painful melodies, mediocre musicianship, and an album cover that Andy Warhol spent five minutes designing.

This is one of the worst albums I have ever heard in my life. More to the point, it was and is unmusical.

The album starts off with a little toy xylophone. A TOY XYLOPHONE! Come on! How the hell can your name sound like "Velvet Revolver" and you put little tinkly xylophones in there?

The guitars and Nico's and Lou Reed's singing are very, very much out of tune, and no one here knows how to play his instrument.

OK, so they hung out with Andy Warhol who survived getting shot, but he got shot by some lady, it's not the same as when a Gangsta shoots you.

John Cale's violin screeches offer the final proof that this is one album you cannot listen to for pleasure.

If you like this album, you deserve it.


Led Zeppelin IV
I tried eating a grass stalk when I was a kid. It was horrible. I tried getting into this album as well. It was horrible too.

Stairway to Heaven was never that great but it was at least listenable the first oh 700 times.

Anyone who can sit through a whole Led Zeppelin song should pack up and move into the woods and live alone with their dog, using wood for heat and moss and bark for food.

Thank you Led Zep! You, this album, and the bloated "Stairway to Heaven" created the pompous arrogance that gave punk something to rebel against.


Dark Side of the Moon
If you were born after 1965, don't even think of wasting money on this. It's music for old people.

Easily the worst CD in the whole wide world! I'll take Prince's Around the World in a Day or Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits Volume 2 any day!

My first listen was like being splashed with cold lamb fat. My second was like being doused with cold lamb fat. My third was like being drowned in cold lamb fat.

The electric pianos sound like the ones anybody's grandma plays for hootenanny festivities. Sha-la-la, take your partners, that kind of thing.

The Great Gig in the Sky tries to compete with great bands like Tavares and Village People but fails miserably.

This cacophony of commie buzz words and simplistic, condescending communist ideals both offends me as an American, and as a music listener. Should've been called Red Side Of the Moon.

They have their spot reserved in hell for making this music.

I have my dady who is a lowyer sue this peoble whoo havesays this Cd is good. I never have herd sutch bobbycock. -- J.L., Wichita Falls age 6

I don't understand what the big deal is. Kevin Federline owns these guys.


Exile On Main Street
I really wish the Rolling Stones would have polished this album up before releasing it.

This sounds like the type of crap that any garage band can throw together in a few weeks.

I'm putting this one at the bottom of my CD collection and poppin in the latest Mariah Carey album. That's good music.

Listen to some REAL music that actually requires talent - like Nickelback!


Rumours
Fleetwood Mac were so good in the late '60s, why did Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have to ruin it??

Stevie Nicks' vocals are so high, he sounds like a girl.

Lindsay Buckingham should find a way to sing with his mouth tightly shut.

Mick Fleetwod looks like he should be panhandling on a street corner somewhere.

Oh, and another thing wrong with this album is that there is no 'U' in 'Rumors.'


Thriller
The music video of this traumatized me as a child, as well as the movie Annie.

Michael Jackson sound like he mad in most songs. And sometime he sound out of breath. He grunt on songs too.

Songs not making sense. "Baby Be Mine" not about a baby, it about something else.

I couldn't help but laugh at the song "Human Nature". It almost sounded like a song from the 2000s, trying to make fun of the 80s.

Asinine and vapid are the nicest words I can use.


Born in the USA
As soon as I saw the cover of this record, I knew it was going to be bad.

I recently heard the song "I'm Goin' Down" on the radio and I counted the number of times Bruce Springsteen sings the word "down". Quite honestly, I lost count at 70.

"Born in the U.S.A". has to be one of worst songs ever written. It ranks up there with "Feelings".

Without the powerhouse band and ocean of reverberation, perhaps you can now hear what this song should really be called, "Bored in the USA!"

As for the subject matter bein' about somebody dying in a war?... well it don't sound like no sad song to me.

Bruce Springsteen is living proof of P.T. Barnum's quote, "Nobody ever went broke underestemating the intelligence of the American public".


Amazon.com One-Star Reviews - Part 1: Books
Amazon.com One-Star Reviews - Part 3: Movies
Amazon.com One-Star Reviews: The Beatles Remastered