2025 in 2025: Day 188

YAH! YAH! YAH! HELLO SCANDAL - SCANDAL

Debut EP and indie release? Like, I can kind of hear it - but it just sounds like SCANDAL! Not modern SCANDAL by any stretch, but early idol band SCANDAL for sure. Which is a lot of fun.

Highlights: スペースレンジャー, 恋模様, 恋の果実

7.5/10

Yeezus - Kanye West

Let me break this down, lyrically; Kanye West is a genius and he does not care about anyone else, because you are all beneath him, and all the women want Kayne West's penis and he happily gives it to them and all these women are also hoes that are not worth his time. Musically, some of this stuff is still ground-breaking as hell. But fuck Kanye West.

Highlights: New Slaves, I Am A God, Hold My Liquor, Guilt Trip

7.5/10

YELLOW - SCANDAL

The last album of the girls being girls. Lots of great hooks and just fun times all around.

Highlights: LOVE ME DO, Stamp!, Sisters, 今夜はピザパーティー

7.5/10

Yellow Submarine - The Beatles

Half The Beatles, half George Martin trying to re-establish himself as a "serious" producer. George Harrison legit has the greatest song on the album.

Highlights: It's All Too Much, All You Need is Love, Hey Bulldog, All Together Now

9/10 for the actual songs half

Boredom/10 for the rest

Yellow Submarine Songtrack - The Beatles

This was the first instance of The Beatles getting a remix and remaster. And instead of it just being the old soundtrack, they decided to do something new and compile all the actual songs used in the movie. This is much more of a fun listen.

Highlights: It's All Too Much, All You Need is Love, Hey Bulldog, All Together Now, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

9/10

Yesterday's Hero - John Paul Young

This is only the wonderful Love is in the Air. About the cheesiest love song on the planet and I love it all the more for that reason.

8/10

Yield - Pearl Jam

This was seen as a return to form back in 1998 - a bit more rocking than the previous couple of albums. I don't know, the whole thing is enjoyable in a radio rock kind of way, I guess. Eddie Vedder's voice is pretty annoying, though.

Highlights: Faithful, Low Light, In Hiding, Given to Fly

7/10

Yolo - The Lonely Island

Possibly the best comedy song ever - that beat alone is just far too good. Plus, lyrically, it sums up how I live!

10/10

YOU AND I - Park Bom

Oh random K-Pop brings me an ex-2NE1 member! And it is a very 2NE1 type of song. 

8/10

You Can't See Me - John Cena & Tha Trademarc

Musically this is all pretty harmless and fun in parts. Listening to the lyrics is pretty much a laugh a minute - Cena himself rhymes like the whitest white dude with the corniest nonsense and it is fun. It is also funny hearing him swear so much. WWE money must have at least paid for some above average (not Mike Sanders) producers?
Highlights: The Time is Now, Bad Bad Man

6/10

You Could Have It So Much Better - Franz Ferdinand

Much less awesome than their debut album - nothing that really stands out the way half of that album does - but still very enjoyable. I can see they were certainly trying to get a couple of songs to catch the way Take Me Out did, but they just do not catch.

Highlights: Do You Want To, The Fallen, This Boy, You Could Have It So Much Better

7/10

YOU NEVER WALK ALONE - BTS

I could be wrong, but this feels like the turning point where they just went harder into pop - there is barely any hip-hop on here at all. Like, it is not Permission to Dance levels of pop, but still much more accessible. The last half is almost perfect.

Highlights: 봄날, Not Today, Am I Wrong, A Supplementary Story : You Never Walk Alone

7.5/10

You Want It, You Got It - Bryan Adams

Is this technically the first CD LOGMAN bought? Absolute 80s pop rock - very light on the rock. Very typical radio music from 1981 and almost works as a good companion piece to Unmasked by Kiss (just because some of the cheesy stuff sounds very similar, not that BA was involved with that album) or even Peter Criss' solo albums.

Highlights: Lonely Nights, Fits Ya Good, Last Chance, Don't Look Now

7/10

You Wanted The Best, You Got The Best - Kiss

I have written about this before. It is "live" Kiss. It is a guaranteed good time!*

*At least, when Tommy Thayer is not involved

Highlights: Take Me, Let Me Know, Room Service, Two Timer

9/10

You've Come a Long Way, Baby - Fatboy Slim

Classic late 90s UK techno rave dance business. This dude is like The Chemical Brothers with a sense of humour. 

Highlights: The Rockafeller Skank, Right Here Right Now, You're Not From Brighton, Gangster Tripping

7/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 1890

FREE PALESTINE

Music Talk: Kiss Goodbye - Day Three

I'm kicking my day off with MTV Unplugged. This was actually a tough decision; I wasn't sure if I make today the last day or increase to four, and add a day of all the 80's and 90's stuff. And then the question would be where to put that in my journey - do I do it today so that I end tomorrow on great stuff, and I can sandwich it between good times? In the end, I decided to continue my focus on the original line-up by kicking it off with their reunion. And, quite honestly, this is the best fucking album and a great way to start a day when you just want to sleep but have to get up and do life.

The only downer to this approach is I'm pretty much going to just be listening to live albums, so I'll just be hearing the same songs all day. But these are all great live albums and they are playing great songs, so it's not that bad. Then we hit the fun "live" compilation of You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best!! I've already listened to, like, 80% of these tracks on day one, but this was an excuse to crank up Room Service and Two Timer, because I just love those tracks and these fake live versions are great. No one does fake live better than Kiss. 

Now it's time for a an actual reunion-era concert, thanks to the "Off the Soundboard" series - it's Kiss Live at Donington 1996! I have some bootleg video of this that sadly is not pro-shot, but I should totally sync the two up and watch some time. I've seen enough to know they all get a bit samey-samey, but goddamn I do love me some reunion tour stuff. And this is a very good concert that I enjoy a lot.

And we're now in the Psycho Circus! Ok, fine, I will listen to some Tommy Thayer. At least here I can kind of pretend it isn't him... and we do get Ace and Peter on one song, so that's something? I threw in It's My Life from The Box Set, because it was recorded around this time and it's actually a very cool song. And that bonus disc of live stuff is great as well.

Now we hit The Millenium Concert from the Alive box set, which I will forever label as Alive IV. I'm digging it today; I kinda like the slower tempo a lot of the songs have been given (even if some of the tempos are a little inconsistent), and everyone sounds in good form. It is so obvious Beth is not live that it is just downright hilarious. And just when I'm saying the slower tempos are cool, here they go and throw me the most pedestrian version of Rock'n Roll All Nite that probably only makes you want to party every other day...

And that will do me for today. I was going to finish off with Live in Tokyo from the "Off the Soundboard" series, but I don't have time. So instead, I will give Dressed to Kill another spin. Because I can.

PSYCHO CIRCUS (1998)

I always wondered why it was so easy to fade out Ace and Peter's faces on this '3D' cover...

Kiss are back!!!

The first album from the original line up in almost 20 years!!! Except it turned out Ace and Peter were barely allowed to be involved. But hey, their faces and names got to be plastered on the cover so that meant something...

The opening track is actually pretty darn awesome. Very much classic Paul, complete with him doing a cool ass solo. Within sounds like it came straight from the Carnival of Souls reject pile. Paul keeps going for his anthem thing with I Pledge Allegiance to the State of Rock'n Roll. Damn, that is a long ass song title. Ace gets in on the action with Into the Void and it is all kinds of awesome. Just classic Ace rockin' out styles. Then Gene decides he needs to cheese this shit up like it's his solo album in 1978 with We Are One. This song is where you realise you are not really listening to a Kiss album because there is no way Ace would play on a cheese ball sandwich like this. Hilarious lines like "You are me, I am you/What you see is all true". Apart from the credits to this album that say Peter Criss on drums, right Gene?

Shit gets even sillier with You Wanted the Best; everyone just spouts off lines about how much they hate each other and stuff, but then Gene says 'Hey the fans want us as a band so let's just play music and make them happy!'. SO MUCH FUCKING IRONY

Raise Your Glasses is Paul actually hitting that bullseye on the anthem target. I love this song so much I've ripped it off for one of my own. Just remind me to come delete that sentence when I become a big famous rock star and make millions off that one song. From the best song on the album, we go immediately to the absolute fucking dirge that is I Finally Found My Way - the schmaltziest, corniest, most terrible fucking ballad anyone in Kiss has ever even attempted. I pity Peter Criss for being saddled with this poor excuse for a song and being expected to make something of it that didn't resemble a pile of shit. I get that Paul Stanley just wanted another Beth, but he should have written something better. Or just used one of Peter's old songs. Nobody bought Let Me Rock You - just redo Let It Go as a band and it would have been one of the best songs on the album. Instead, we got this. Just no. NO. Fuck, no no no NO NO NO!!!

Dreamin' is some sort of dark brooding lost love song. So not Kiss, but Paul Stanley makes it work. Then we close off with Journey of 1,000 Years, which is some weird mess filled with strings and horns and Gene being boring and singing about crowds roaring. But because I play on a hard level, let's have that bonus track In Your Face, a song written by Gene but with Ace on lead vocals. It's nothing special.

Just like this album.


Highlights:
Psycho Circus, Into the Void, Raise Your Glasses

Lowlights:
I Finally Found My Way, Tommy Thayer getting to live out his dream and pretend to be Ace Frehley



Verdict = 3 Smoking Les Paul Guitars

YOU WANTED THE BEST, YOU GOT THE BEST!! (1996)

You know in Futurama when that weird thing broke through the sky and was basically making love to everyone with it's tentacles? Insert witty joke about that in relation to Kiss here...

A live compilation!

As the best possible way to cash in on the reunion, they put together this compilation of songs from the first 2 Alive albums, plus some previously unreleased 'live' songs. And the vocals on those totally don't sound like they have been re-recorded in a studio or anything...

Album kicks off with Room Service. I love Room Service and this version is pretty cool as well. Even if the modern vocals stick out like a thing that sticks out super obviously. Then we get Two Timer - so they are just running through Dressed to Kill? I wouldn't complain about that in any way whatsoever... but sadly that's about all we get from that album. It's a crime they don't play more songs from that or Hotter Than Hell. Let Me Know is really groovy live; a bit slower and I really like the ending. I've scoured the internet for bootlegs and can't for the life of me find any live concerts where these songs have been performed.

Makes me think maybe something is up here...

I question the wisdom of putting Rock Bottom on here when the live version is nowhere near as awesome as the unplugged version. Some random live version of Take Me makes a random appearance as well - a very welcome appearance, no less. It's an awesome song that should appear on more Kiss compilations. Otherwise, it's all just Kiss classics from the live albums so they are great.

Easy mindless but enjoyable cash in attempt? Absolutely. But when has Gene ever been about anything else?


Highlights:
Room Service, Two Timer, Let Me Know, Take Me (the rest of the album is solid as well, for obvious reasons, but these are the standouts - for further obvious reasons)

Lowlights:
The super obviousness of the vocals on the 'previously unreleased' tracks



Verdict = 4 Smoking Les Paul Guitars and a thumbs up