2025 in 2025: Day 59

Dream Police - Cheap Trick

I should really get the whole album, because I only have the title track and it is brilliant. In fact, I have not really heard much Cheap Trick at all. I should correct that in 2026...

10/10

Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture - Various Artists

Anyone who knows me would know how much I love that Motown sound. And musicals. So a musical based on Motown? Featuring Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson - who can sing awesome as hell like Boyz II Men - and Beyoncé pre-whateversheisnow? Patience is the most hilarious mish-mash of What's Going On? and We Are The World. Gawdam someone get me a 4K UHD of this movie ASAP

Highlights: I Want You Baby, And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going, Steppin' to the Bad Side, Cadillac Car, Love You I Do

8/10

Dreaming Out Loud - OneRepublic

This dude has a very solid voice and it is all very listenable, if not a bit same-samey and... safe. And Timberland's version of Apologize is better, IMO.

Highlights: Apologize [Timbaland version], Mercy, All We Are

6.5/10

Dressed to Kill - Kiss

My favourite Kiss studio album. If I didn't have another 18,000 songs to listen to, you better be sure I would be listening to this again and again.

Highlights: The WHOLE ALBUM

10/10

Drunken Confessions - Whiskeytown

What better way to follow that up than with a collection of badly-recorded demos of relatively average alt country songs... 

Highlights: It ended

4/10

Dude Ranch - blink-182

For all the complaining I do about Tom's voice now and after the self-titled album, it sure was completely terrible on this album. I have always enjoyed how much their drummer can't maintain that fast beat in the intro for Josie - he clearly loses timing at one point. Punk rock, yo! I realise they were still kids, so I give them a pass for writing stupid songs about Star Wars. I would probably do the same. Not about Star Wars, because I'm not a complete loser, but maybe something cool like RoboCop or The Last Starfighter. I have class. 

Highlights: Dammit, Waggy, Enthused, Untitled, Josie

7/10

dumping swimmer - シナリオアート

These cats are one of those bands that I always forget I even have in my library, but when I put them on I am instantly like 'oh wow this is so good!'. I need to listen to this more..

Highlights: カオティックダウナー, シニカルデトックス, プライドモンスター, ナイトスイマー

7.5/10

The Dunes - Ghetto Birds

One of Ryan Adams' internet radio albums. This one is short and dreamy acoustic numbers with weird lyrics. Well, at least it starts that way; about halfway through it just turns in to silly acoustic numbers and then that last song is definitely one of his 'DJ Reggie' songs that he put on the wrong album, because he ends it by saying "DJ Reggie is going home.". So, yeah.

Highlights: DJ going home...

5/10

Dusty in Memphis - Dusty Springfield

Of course I am a nerd and only have Son of a Preacher Man. Classic song. But more importantly, did Dusty see Elvis while she was in Memphis?

10/10

Duty - Ayumi Hamasaki

The first half of this album is kinda dark. The last half is super pop . It is all full of big beats and massive production and is simply perfection.

Highlights: Perfect Album

10/10

Dynamite - Jamiroquai

Return of the funk masters! I have massive love for Ken Harris' guitar playing; dude comes up with the funkiest riffs and licks that just blow my mind. Actually, the whole band are groove-meisters. It is just that the original band were so fantastic, it is hard to really appreciate them (original guitarist was a completely different style to Ken Harris, so easy to NOT compare).

Highlights: Feels Just Like it Should, Seven Days in Sunny June, (Don't) Give in to Hate

8/10

The Dynasty: Roc La Familia - Jay-Z

This a pretty much Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek. You know, dudes that would have no career if Jay wasn't looking out for them. Never going to work, Jay. Doing a song with R. Kelly called Guilty Until Proven Innocent seems like a poor choice all around. 

Highlights: Streets is Talking, Stick 2 the Script, Holla, Squeeze 1st

7.5/10

Dynasty - Kiss

Kiss does disco, but not really - A.K.A. The Rise of Ace Frehley. Dirty Livin' is so incredibly groovy and it is hilarious that I almost forgot it existed! Also hilarious is the idea that Peter Criss could have played drums on this album, when they sound absolutely nothing like him.

Highlights: I Was Made for Lovin' You, Sure Know Something, Dirty Livin', Ace Frehley being awesome

9/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 474

Music Talk: Kiss Goodbye - Day Two

So Kiss had their "final" concert the other day, which has led me to making this a bit of a Kiss week on the ol' iPhone playlist. I was originally planning on a full-fledged Kissathon III: the timing felt very appropriate, because it was about 10 years ago I did the original Kissathon blogging, and it being the end of Kiss and their 50th anniversary, it just felt it was time to take an expert-level approach to this and include a whole bunch of stuff that I skipped last time and has been released since, such as Eric Carr's "solo album" and all of Gene Simmons' solo work (yes, even including the dreaded vault - 8 discs of demos that would likely make me laugh or die of boredom)... but then I realised that I really don't have the patience to deal with Tommy Thayer again.

So instead, I made the bold choice to just do a Monday of the OG line-up. From the self-titled album through to the solo albums. And with a nice strong matcha, I gotta say... I had a great time. A great reminder of why I love Kiss so much. If I hadn't been exhausted from being awake for almost 24 hours and walking a millions kms, you can bet I would have picked up my guitar and jammed out to Dressed to Kill before bed. And I don't really need to talk about those first 12 albums, because 10 of them are pure awesome, 1 is pretty decent, and the last just hilariously awful. But I will reiterate that self-titled to Alive! is gold. I'm really hoping that Kiss can put together some type of awesome box set to commemorate that period next year. And maybe finally give Hotter Than Hell a remix while they're at it?

Of course, I am still waiting for my Diamonds and Pearls box set to arrive (well, not anymore - it arrived while I'm typing this), so I had to plan for another day of Kiss greatness. Which actually works for me, because then I can tick off the fake OG line-up albums.

So this morning I started things off with Destroyer {Resurrected}, which is now my official "go-to" whenever I want to listen to Destroyer. Honestly, I love how alive the mix is; the whole thing just lifts the energy to a higher level. Plus, it's great having an actual Ace Frehley solo on there instead of Bob Kulick and Dr. Wagner. Which leads me to my current listen... the Destroyer 45th Anniversary box set.

Not doing 100 hours of demos was a great choice. Because these demos are dumb. Admittedly, I do enjoy hearing Paul Stanley sing God of Thunder, and maybe It's the Fire could have been a decent song if they had finished it off, but the rest are either songs that eventually became better songs, or just Gene making a lameburger.

Now I'm on to the 3rd disc, which consists of single versions and remixes. And the real highlight - Ain't None of Your Business, an actual studio outtake from the sessions. It's some cover song? And was going to be Peter's song on the album before he gave them Beth. Kisstory would be completely different had that not happened; this album might not have been such a success, Kiss might never have reached the heights they did, and Ace Frehley might not have spent 40 years incorrectly thinking he had won a Grammy! Anyways, Ain't None of Your Business is actually much more like Peter's songs on their earlier albums, but doesn't fit in with the style of Destroyer at all. So I like it a lot.

Finally, we get a disc of the band live in Paris on the Destroyer tour. It's hilariously terrible quality. Almost has hilarious as Paul Stanley's guitar playing. But it's high energy fun that I can only wish I was watching instead of just listening to. Every time I listen to this box set (this would likely be the 3rd, at best) I convince myself I could never justify purchasing it at the exorbitant Kiss-style price tag. Then I see that atmos mix of Destroyer and the big silliness of the box set and I think to myself  'ooh I should get that next time I see it on special'.

Yes, I'm a moron.

Then we move on a 1977 concert from the "Off the Soundboard" series. This is better quality than the '76 show - which you would expect from a soundboard recording. I'm a fan of any live set that opens with I Stole Your Love, so this one is an immediate win for me! In fact, this setlist is almost completely songs from Destroyer to Love Gun, so that makes this quite different. Again, that is a plus! For some reason, the bass disappears every so often. Since this is a soundboard recording, I can only assume that means Gene hadn't yet learned the art of miming to backing tracks....

On to Double Platinum. I talked about that before. It's a Kiss compilation, but with added stuff to make the songs... more... something. And then we're on to Dynasty and Unmasked to close out the day. Maybe Greatest Kiss as well, since that's a full-on awesome compilation of the original line-up. All of this is awesome.

Prince may have to wait another day so I can action another day of Kiss.

DYNASTY (1979)

Celebrity Squares were suffering a serious budget crisis...

Kiss does disco!

Well, sort of. Definitely not your standard Kiss rock album. I Was Made For Lovin' You is so awesome everyone loves it. EVERYONE!!! Sure Know Something is also kind of disco, but like a disco ballady-type thing. Kind of. Dirty Livin' is the struttin-est Kiss song in the ever. Then the middle patch is such ho-hum mediocre goofiness. Luckily Gene discovers how to make cheese fun again with X-Ray Eyes, before Ace closes the album with the most badass track people never care about. I'd totally do a cover of this song if I had a band and could play guitar and could sing and was super awesome and a famous musician that people cared about my playing in some degree.

Oh the song is over.


Highlights:
I Was Made for Lovin' You, Sure Know Something, Dirty Livin', Save Your Love

Lowlights:
Nothing overly terrible, except for the nonsense of lyrics like "What is my charisma?". How does that even begin to make sense to anyone??


Verdict = 4 Smoking Les Paul Guitars