Grand Slams (Four Great Albums in a Row) & The Strokes Review

Sound Opinions celebrates baseball's Opening Day with musical Grand Slams: four knockout albums in a row. Plus, they review the new record from New York  garage rockers The Strokes.

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Grand Slams (Four Great Albums in a Row)

With Baseball's Opening Day around the corner, Jim and Greg team up with Len Kasper, TV voice of the Chicago Cubs, to pay homage to their version of a Grand Slam. We all know how this works in baseball (though sports-phobe Jim DeRogatis is still getting the hang of the rules). A batter hits a home run with bases loaded, sending four players to home plate. In music, Jim and Greg define a grand slam as four masterpiece albums in a row. Which artists have achieved this rarest of rock feats? Jim and Greg sit down to compare stats.

Grand Slam Allstars

Greg

Jim

Comedown Machine The Strokes

Comedown Machine

It's been 12 years since The Strokes debuted with Is This It, but they appear to be going back in time rather than forward....to the 1980's to be exact. The new album, Comedown Machine, is packed with references to that era-everything from Flock of Seagulls to Technotronic. The result, according to Greg, is a chilly and overproduced album that sounds more like a Julian Casablancas  solo project than that of an actual band. He says Trash It. Jim calls Comedown Machine a "dreadful record," and wishes The Strokes had been able to parlay their minimalist formula as well as Jack White has. Sad, but true: The Strokes gets a double Trash It.

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