Woof. The vocals in this first song are atrocious. If the rest of the album follows suit, this is going to be a tough one to finish.
"Hard to be Human Again" was a welcome change in the sound once it started playing. Not my favorite type of music, but seems like it's much more in this band's wheelhouse.
The rest of the album had a couple of other spots that piqued my ears a bit, but it was overall a relief to finish the album and move on to something better - I think there's a very good reason that some of the songs had less than 7K plays on YouTube Music.
Never been the biggest fan of "Indie Pop" and this record is a great example of why.
For what it is, I respect the effort and talent that creating something like this requires, but to me it sounds like a lot of the same. The songs all melt together, nothing really stands out, and there's just not a lot of variety in the sound.
I had never heard of this band, which is exactly why I'm here on this site - to listen to and learn about artists that I'm not familiar with.
Musically I found the indie/country/whatever-you-wanna-call-it vibe of this album very well done & interesting. The lyrics had some bright spots as well, but I really, really struggled with Berman's vocals.
I actually think a second listen would shine more light into some solid songwriting as Berman seems to be very well regarded in that field, but as it is, this is probably not something I'll ever listen to again. That being said, I don't feel like the last 35 minutes were a waste of time either.
This album is all over the place, and kinda in a good way. I'm familiar with Gabriel and his years in Genesis but other than a few hits, don't think I had heard much of his solo stuff. This being his first solo album, seems like a good place to start...
And what a start. The first song reminded me of something that should be playing in the background at a Halloween party. It's followed by Solsbury Hill, which is definitely the best song on the album but also a significantly different sound from the first track. The rest of the album has quite a variety in sound which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. Waiting for the Big One stood out a bit more than the others.
I hadn't listened to this album in ages - probably literally decades - and forgot how great it is. Some of Santana's most popular and best tracks on here, but the whole album is great from start to finish.
Carlos Santana's tone on guitar is unmistakable and he's on fire for this entire album. The rest of the band is also impressive with some fantastic percussion & organ that stood out to me on multiple tracks - all incorporating a Latin Rock/Jazz/Funk feel throughout.
This is one of the few \"Albums of the Day\" recently that I immediately went back and listened to again.
Not much to say that hasn't already been said by all these other positive reviews. I did read that this is the highest rated album in this list, which I'm not sure I agree with, but there's no doubt that this is a 5 star album. Hell, it's 2024 and this recently popped back into the Billboard Top 200 - nearly 50 years after it was released!
This is probably the first Mariah album I've listened to from start to finish apart from her Christmas album and while it wasn't as unpleasant as some of the other stuff that I've been subjected to on this list, it was overall pretty forgettable.
I am admittedly not a big Mariah Carey or pop/R&B fan, but as a teen of the 90s, I am very familiar with her music having heard it all the time and I did enjoy some of the nostalgia that came from hearing this album. I respect the slight change in sound on this album from her earlier hits and that she wrote and produced every song, but it's still not my jam overall. A lot of songs sounded the same, and while there's no denying she has a beautiful voice, there's too much OooOoohs and whatnot for me. After a while, it all starts to blend together which doesn't work, no matter how good your vocals are.
This is a tough one for me as I am a DBT fan (particularly the Isbell years), but I do think this album is a bit overrated and is definitely too long. The "southern rock" sound is in full force which I think was part of the point, but some of the songs are just unnecessary and not very good. I feel like this could be a 4 star effort with about 6-8 fewer tracks on the album which would really help highlight the stronger ones, but that's not the route they took here, so 3 stars it is.
I'm a big fan of the blues so might be being overly critical of this album, but it's not anywhere close to John Lee Hooker's best - though it was his most commercially successful. The collaborations had a lot to do with both of the above points I think. I can't fault him for wanting to record some songs with some friends and for likely selling a few more albums by having their names on it, but there's just nothing exceptional here like there is on some of his "solo" albums.
Simpler times here. Just a guy and his guitar singing prison love songs, songs about bugs, and one that he learned from Rev Gary Davis, a blind street singer in Harlem, about cocaine.
I had heard of Ramblin' Jack as he's a well known influence cited by many "bigger" artists but don't think I have listened to much (or any) of his music so I was happy to see this pop up. The picking and guitar playing is great. The overall sound of the recording has a wonderful old timey feel to it where you can sort of hear the air in the room he's playing in. But the lyrics are pretty vanilla and Jack's vocals are more ramblin' than singing.
While I enjoyed it and am glad to have finally listened to Ramblin' Jack, I don't think this is one I'll be revisiting
This popped up this morning and I was slightly excited - I had heard of The Smiths since at least the early 90s and knew that there were a lot of people that absolutely love them, and I remember seeing them cited as a very influential band of their time. I knew the music wasn't exactly my jam, but I was still excited to hear something that's undoubtedly played a role in influencing some music that I do like, having never really listened to them at all.
Boy oh boy could I have not been more disappointed. This was terrible. Just absolutely brutally boring. I'm committed to finishing each of these albums in full as they pop up, but I think this one set the record (so far) for the number of times I checked to see how many tracks were left so I could be done with it. I tried to find something, anything to take away from this, but all I heard was extremely simple musical arrangements paired with some melancholy lyrics and a voice that really rubbed me the wrong way after about 2 songs. It all sounded the same, and not in a good way.
Why is there so much 80s British pop in this list?
This was another band I wasn't familiar with until today. And another 80s British pop album that underwhelmed, though not to the extent of some of the others.
The positives I found here are that this album is extremely well played & produced. There's some solid depth to what's actually going on in the music with multiple layers of sounds on several songs - much more so than a lot of the other albums from this genre that I've listened to. That at least kept me from counting down the tracks until the album was over, and I didn't really hate it as much as I expected to. But, it's not something I'll ever come back to.
I was expecting to enjoy this more than I did, leaving it solidly between 3 and 4 stars for me. There's some great tracks on here (the Neil Young ones) but also some real duds that drag it back down, and a few others that are pretty okay. Tough one to rate overall but I'm going to round down.
Despite "knowing" a bunch of their music, I think this is the first Sabbath album I've listened to from start to finish, and I gotta say - I'm a fan. More so than I expected to be. I actually listened to this one twice which is rare for me in this daily album endeavor. I'm taking half a star off for a couple of weaker songs (FX??!) and rounding down because I just don't see this in the very top tier but I am very pleasantly surprised at this and look forward to the next Sabbath album that comes along.
I really, really try to give all of these albums a chance and sometimes that leads me to forcing myself to listen to music that is just not enjoyable (to me), but I still power through and give each song a chance, in full, on the album to give me something.
I was not able to do that with this album. There were several songs where I skipped to the next one after a minute or two, which is the first time I can remember in a long time where I did that. Musically, it's not bad - there's some decent beats and riffs and layers and whatnot, but once the singer starts singing, the whole song falls apart - it's like a knee jerk reaction to find the "next" button.
I usually wait to read other reviews until I've finished an album so I don't taint my own view, but admit that I jumped the gun a bit on this one and took a peek - very surprised to see this have so many 5 star ratings and an average over 3. Just goes to show how diverse all of our musical tastes are....thank God this one is over, though.
I had not idea this album was almost as old as me and was released in the early 80s. I remember Blister in the Sun being popular in the late 90s after being in a movie and at the time assumed that it was "new" music. But turns out these guys were about 15 years ahead of the time, which is phenomenal.
After Blister, I found the next couple songs a little boring as they're not much different musically from Blister, but then Add it Up sucked me in and I've really enjoyed the rest of the album. They absolutely nail the folk-punk thing, which is really fun, the bass is killer, and I like the rawness of the recording. I think this is one I'll go back to.
More mediocre 80s pop music - yay!
So this album made it into the top 35 in Australia, Sweeden & New Zealand and that's it? I know commercial success isn't everything and that there's some incredible albums out there with minimal commercial success (and vice versa), but I'm more curious how the author of this list even discovered this album in the first place? Was it just to give us all a taste of the Australian version of mediocre 80s pop music? If so, mission accomplished.
Musically this isn't the worst thing I've found on this list, but it's pretty boring. I made it through the whole thing and there were a few very fleeting moments of something that caught my attention, but overall way over-produced and cheesy. I'm sad that Google Music is now going to consider this in my history when recommending new music to me.
Fun album. I enjoyed listening to it, but was also happy that it was only 30 minutes long. The songs do get a bit repetitive, but as noted by many historians, musicians, and reviewers here, this album was revolutionary. I get the hype and influence from a historical and musical-innovation perspective and am giving this an extra star just for that, and while this is fun music, I don't think this is an album I'll be seeking out again, despite my above average rating.
My first exposure to The Black Keys was in 2008 when they opened for My Morning Jacket at Red Rocks. I went in not knowing either band and left with my mind blown. What an incredible night - afterwards I dove deep into both bands' catalog. I had The Black Keys first 5 albums in my regular rotation for months afterwards and was stoked when they released Brothers 2 years later. At the time, I remember listening to it quite a bit, talking with friends who were also fans about it, etc.
But now, 16 years later, it doesn't strike the same chord, which I'm kind of surprised about. I hadn't listened to this in years and was excited to see it pop up today, but I'm leaving underwhelmed. Yes, it's still good. But I think this album was the beginning of the end of my regular listening of these guys. I saw them again in 2012 and left disappointed to see a band that was once raw and unpolished, which was most of the appeal for me, playing a repetitive stadium tour with the exact same set list every night. What a bummer.
This album is the perfect representation of just that - a band that started with a raw and unpolished sound that evolved into one that's overproduced, cookie-cutter, and redundant. It is what it is - very representative of the "Black Keys" sound, but it all sounds pretty much the same. I think that personally the luster has worn off and the fact that they've just released more of the same after same stuff has soured me a bit on these guys. Don't get me wrong - this isn't music that I immediately turn off when it comes on - but it's not something where I look forward to listening to an entire album of anymore, and in my opinion, not anywhere close to The Black Keys' best.
I respect that this was somewhat groundbreaking and 1977 and that's probably why this is on this list, but it was another one that was hard to finish. The first song was alright. Second song, not too bad. But as another reviewer mentioned - it's like each song is worse than the one before it. The last few were pretty unlistenable, and a 10 minute "Frankie Teardrop" was....something. Girls might still be worse - can't say for sure, and I'm definitely not going to listen again.
Not sure what to think of this one...which is great!
On one hand, it's not a very good album. Lots of noise for the sake of noise it seems. I found myself checking to see how many songs were left on the record multiple times - which is generally a sign of an album I am not enjoying.
But on the other hand, there's some catchy stuff here and there, and this being the first Sonic Youth album I've listened to, I can see the musical influence they had on several bands to come after them - several of who I do enjoy quite a bit more. So there is that feeling of "if not for this, then...." that I felt way more listening to this album than I do listening to someone like Robert Johnson, for example - even though I'd much prefer his actual music.
In the end though, I found it more boring and tedious to finish than exciting and interesting, so while 2 stars is maybe a bit harsh, I think it's fair.
This list is "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" - which is not the same thing as "The 1001 Best Albums of All Time."
I try to keep that in mind when listening to some of these that don't resonate with me. Surely there's something I'm missing, or something influential about the album or artist that makes it something worth hearing before I die.
Sometimes I find that whatever-it-is. Sometimes I don't. This is a case of not finding it. There's nothing spectacular here. It's boring. There are moments where something catches your ear and you want them to lean into that more and then they go right back to being boring and uninteresting. Kind of a frustrating listen, honestly, because it's not terrible or one of those albums where I found myself counting down the songs until it ended, but I sure was relieved to put something else on when it ended.
The musicianship is there, but clearly based on the fact that the latest Remaster includes 50 tracks and is over three and a half hours long, the focus was not. I didn't listen to the full remaster - I stopped at the end of "Fragile Happiness" which was the end of the OG 2001 release - and even that was too long.
