One of the reasons that those two albums are disliked is because of Virgin records and the creation process. Both were released without Beefheart's permission, the executives pressured Beefheart to come out with a product quickly, and in turn Beefheart had a lot of help from studio musicians and producers writing the music. They're not particularly bad records, but to picture the disillusionment of Beefheart fans that those two records brought, imagine if Tom Waits started making inoffensive smooth jazz. It's not atrocious, but it's not all that great either and Waits could easily be spending his energy doing something else. The way I see it, Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams have a couple of good songs here and there, but there are no good Beefheart songs on it.
I'll get a review up today.
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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.
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