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Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (soul): To me there are two styles of Stevie Wonder: The upbeat 60’s hits, and the 70’s funky Wonder. After that, Stevie Wonder tragically died in a plane crash and was replaced by an evil robot that cranked out crap like the “Woman in Red”. Originally released in 1971, this album focuses on the upbeat 60’s Wonder sound. This was one of many Motown albums that spent a lot of time on our home stereo when I was a kid, and I not only know every note by heart, but I feel them. And even though I can’t hear this album without feeling like I have to clean the house before I can go outside, I had forgotten about it until someone sent me one of the tracks from the album in his Expose Yourself compilation. This is one of the albums that makes me want to punch people in the face when they say that Stevie Wonder sucks. While I agree that Evil Stevie Wonder robot sucks, this is the real Stevie. This is the Stevie Wonder that people should know. Thanks for the reminder, Brian. A-

Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits (soul): Remember those phases of Wonder, kids? Released in 1968, this also focuses on the 60’s Stevie. It starts off with 60’s hits that I know and descends into very early Little Stevie Wonder material that is almost 50’s Motown sounding. Unfortunately, it doesn’t elicit the same response from me that Volume 2 does. While it has some awesome harmonica moments, I lose interest quickly after the first five or six tracks. C+

The Haunted - The Dead Eye (metal): Have you ever heard a Commodores album without Lionel Ritchie? It’s fucking awful. That’s how I felt after listening to The Dead Eye. I honestly don’t know what the hell happened, but the band has completely lost that brutal drive that marked One Kill Wonder and …Made Me Do It. It doesn’t even sound like the same band. This is the second album since the return of the original singer, Peter Dolving, and it is dead boring. The only explanations that I can come up with for this dramatic change are 1.) Dolving’s return somehow ruined the dynamic of the group, or 2.) the group has gotten fat and lazy at the top of the Scandinavian metal pile. Because I was so excited about this album, I found myself more disgusted with it than if the band had always been boring. Let me explains again, in prafectly clear English: I wants the Haunted flies in on a dragons, okay? Nots to jumps the sharks. How many times I got to tells this peoples? I hope they either swap Marco Aro back in or get off their asses and make some metal because if this is the way that the Haunted is going, consider the shark jumped. D

Ol’ Dirty Bastard - Nigga Please (rap): If you call yourself Ol’ Dirty Bastard, there’s probably something wrong with you, right? Well, what if you then decided that you wanted to trade the name in for “Big Baby Jesus”? It’s a little bigger than PDiddy wanting to be called “Puffy”, isn’t it? This was the second of four solo albums made by ODB before his death in 2004. The style is as loose as if they gave an insane, homeless person a microphone, and yet so tight that the homeless guy would have to have been an evil genius to pull it off. The volume changes and the insane lyrics are just awesome. At one point ODB screams, “YOU WHITE MOTHERFUCKERS CAN’T EVER TAKE OVER!!! YOU JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP! THAT’S WHAT YOU DO!!” and in the same breath at a normal volume, “Huh? Can I get a beer?” You’re just never sure if it was calculation or insanity with the ODB, and that’s what makes it so awesome to listen to. I can’t get through this disc without busting out laughing a few times, yet his lyrical style was something to be appreciated. A

All That Remains - The Fall of Ideals (metalcore): When I picked up my first All that Remains album in September (review), I had the same perception of the band as I do now. The music is crunchy, tight metalcore, but there are unfortunate periods of singing to wade through to hear it. If they eliminated the Killswitch Engage-style vocal interludes, I would like them a lot better, but the music outside of those periods gives me enough of a reason to just roll my eyes and wait for it to pass. If they made more tracks like track three, where the vocal growl sounds like someone sucking through a straw in an empty cup, this band would be right on the money for me. I just need them to keep swinging toward the metal end of the spectrum and leave the girly vocals behind. B

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Have a Ball (punk): I’m not usually a great fan of covers or 70’s super hits, so there is no reason that I should be interested in a disc full of 70’s super hit covers. Actually, I would normally prefer to hit myself in the face with a two by four packed with rusty nails than to listen to a disc of 70’s super hits. Maybe it’s the sped up, punked out format, but I have to admit that this CD has become one of my favorites and gets ample time in the CD player. If a band can keep me from throwing up during Barry Manilow’s “Mandy”, then there’s something special there. Because covers are all that MF&TGG do, they packed enough fun into the songs that I actually found them enjoyable. It’s just a purely fun disc. A-

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