We want the world and we want it now! The counterculture in NZ
It was us against them and the dirty longhairs were going to overthrow (or at least throw up on) the establishment. GARY STEEL looks
Recent releases – April 1990
GARY STEEL was listening on an album-release conveyer belt back in 1990. Here are some mini-reviews he wrote for RTR Countdown magazine.
Polytown – a polyrhythmic classic that improves with age
Musicianly wank or an effing great album by three musicians at the top of their game? Total classic, proclaims GARY STEEL.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Run DMC’s awful comeback
Does hip hop get any worse than the execrable comeback album by Run DMC? MATT KELLY thinks not and explains why.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – eyes wide shut
Widely considered their worst album, MAT KELLY somehow manages to listen to all 74 bloated minutes of the Yes album that nobody likes.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe
MATT KELLY somehow manages to get all the way through the very worst of Yes and the answer is a definitive 'No!'
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Elvis’ Greatest Shit
MATT KELLY listens to a collection of Elvis Presley's worst songs and ends up finding it quite endearing, in a naff kind of way.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Black Lace’s The Blue Album
MATT KELLY has finally met his match in an album that he declares to be the worst he's ever heard... ever!
Margaret Urlich – 1989-style
As our wee tribute to Margaret Urlich (24 January 1965 – 22 August 2022) GARY STEEL revisits a piece he wrote around the release
Albums Of 1972 – EL&P’s 50-year-old Trilogy an unheralded classic
Progressive rock came of age in 1972 and one of its greatest achievements was Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s wonderful Trilogy, writes GARY STEEL.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Black Lace’s Greatest Ever Party Album
MATT KELLY is rattled by an album that demands you not think, that you just shuffle mindlessly onto the dance floor at your cousin’s
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Uriah Heep’s Equator
MATT KELLY points his shit-o-meter at an album that's bad to the bone, and 'dem bones are wracked with early-onset osteoporosis.
Hallelujah – a flawed film about a songwriting genius and just one song
REBEKAH DAVIES reviews a fascinating but problematic film about a songwriting genius and a song covered to the point of meaninglessness.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Uriah Heep’s Conquest
Conquest was a Heep album in name only writes MATT KELLY, who can't find a nice thing to say about their turn-of-the-decade excrescence.
The year The Doors released their best and worst albums
From the epochal genius of LA Woman to the sad drudge of Other Voices, both in 1971. “How the heck?” asks GARY STEEL.
RTR Countdown Magazine Best Albums Of ’89!
GARY STEEL's “countdown” of the 10 best albums of 1989 from the February 1990 issue of RTR Countdown. Oh-ho-ho!
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Pat Boone’s In A Metal Mood
In a rare move, MATT KELLY actually recommends smooth crooner Pat Boone's bizarre heavy metal monstrosity.
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Stevie Wonder’s Characters
MATT KELLY on an album that offered up Stevie Wonder as a spent force whose dull songs sounded like offcuts and just went on
Summer of drugs
The psychedelic revolution flamed into the Summer Of Love in 1967 and Barry Miles was in the thick of it. GARY STEEL interviews the
1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear – Killing Joke’s Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
Killing Joke's striking early albums really meant something but this mid-'80s album is a synthpop washout, writes MATT KELLY.
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