1001 Albums Summary

Love the overall tone and style of the album, feels like I’m in Nashville with a band jamming out. The main highlight of the album is the band that backs Janis, they are highly talented shown in the track ‘Buried Alive in The Blues’. They were strong throughout even on slower tracks like ‘A Woman Left Lonely’. This album has a lot of vibes from Jimi Hendrix to The Doors, it makes the album fun. The worst part of the album was Janis Joplin herself her vocal capability was mixed throughout it shows on the worst part of the album ‘Mercedes Benz’. Overall, I believe that Janis Joplin could be replaced and I’m interested to research if they stuck together or worked with other artists.

Love this album, when Ghostface starts on ‘Bring Da Ruckus’ you’re in for a wild ride. The group helped make New York Hip Hop and this album is some of the best. It shows with tracks like ‘Method Man’, C.R.E.A.M. and ‘Da Mystery of Chessboxing’, these should be in any Hip-Hop Playlist. Method Man and Raekwon are especially good in this album along with Ghostface and GZA which are always consistent. The only issue I have found with this album over time is that I normally skip some tracks for example ‘Can It Be All So Simple’ seems out and place, it by far the weakest track/skit. It leads to the album feeling especially long with the skits before or after some tracks. Overall, this album will always be one of the best Hip Hop albums along with Wu-Tang as they have a unique style.

Overall, the album was ok, I have had one or two tracks before, but not the whole album. The sound of the album with country and rock ties made the album very fun to listen through as every track was different. You can tell that this band helped inspire others and riffs taken by other bands i.e., Led Zeppelin. If I saw the Creedence Clearwater Revival I would have been amazed. The main issue is the way this album has been mixed and produced at least on the Spotify version it sounded very flat. Multiple albums in this time area sound much better even album I have had on this site like Pearl by Janis Joplin. Great albums came out in this period like Paranoid, Kinks & Led Zeppelin. I hope to see a remaster or find a cover version of this album that fulfils the punch this album should have.

Like The Who and the tracks in the album, but live albums are terrible.

I love the start of this album you get a mix of noise, psychedelic, pop mix especially with the female voices starting in the track ‘Tunic’. The album felt very fresh even over 20 years after release, it seems like it was very experimental for the time (not sure if other Sonic Youth albums are similar). Even the heavy noise tracks like ‘Mildred Pierce’ and ending with ‘Titanium Expose’ were fantastic for keeping the dark & psychedelic mood of the album. The only track that felt massively out of place was ‘Cinderella’s Big Break’ as it was more upbeat than the track before and after, it felt like a massive jump in the movement of the album.

Overall, I enjoy this album mainly as I have fond memories of play EA games, who loves indie bands like MGMT, ‘Time to Pretend’ and ‘Kids’ were even used. It was the first album I heard that tried to combine Britpop with a synth-pop over the top, at the time it was very original. It led to the album being very fun and feeling fresh when it came out in my childhood and this showed how popular ‘Kids’ became. I still like the album now, but it feels very early and underdeveloped on other tracks especially ‘Pieces of What’ which was the weakest unoriginal album in my opinion. As stated, the album is fun and takes me back, but I don’t feel like most of the tracks stand out meaning the whole album is forgettable. Without ‘Time to Pretend’ and ‘Kids’ I don’t think I would have even known or listened to this album much, it is original but still in an ep/learning state.

The album was very different from the normal music I listen to it not even close, even so, the lack of instruments wasn’t missed. The start of the album was very strong especially the second track ‘Hello My Baby’ which had a more upbeat backing and vocals. The issue for me was similar tracks in the middle until ‘How Long?’ which was a nice change of space, but after this track, they sounded very similar again. It might be me expecting more as I’m not experienced in Cappella, but the group are talented as shown in the more dynamic track ‘Wawusho Kubani?’ by far the best track on the album, but left me wanting more of the overall album. I might look into some of the newer albums and see if they fulfil a dynamic album that I would be looking for to dive into Cappella.

Nina Simone is a pleasure to listen to even if you only know her through being sampled all over the place. She makes you feel the struggles and torment of black Americans through this album. She didn’t have a bad track; her vocal performance was outstanding and very track felt new. The Soul, Jazz vibe was so fun and it's clear why artists use her work, the most famous being Jay-Z using the beat and vocals from ‘Four Woman’. The album didn’t stop on this great track it also had soulful powerful vocals on ‘Break Down and Let It All Out’. Overall this album was amazing, I will defiantly come back in the future.