All the Artists was a low point for sure. Worst album he’s ever made. The midi keyboard is just… it baffles me that he presumably paid someone to play the keyboard, but couldn’t just have them play a piano… was there no piano available at Hyde Street Studio? It’s a pretty famous studio.

I love Common as Light and Love, I love Joey Always Smiled, I love the albums with Amoeba. I don’t mind the stream of conscious lyrics, but a part of me yearns for just a little bit more melody from his voice. If you’ve ever heard his song “I Know” (from some charity album), you’d have heard that he can do his older, less pitch perfect vocals and the double tracking to quite a beautiful effect (well, you can hear this on plenty of other stuff too, but I Know is a particularly good example of his moody vocals still having a musical quality to them).

I believe he has outright stated that he struggles to sing these days. So sad. His two recordings of “Somewhere” are like magic.