Fuzz
ChuckleheadI liked this pretty well, I think it needed some slower jams to round it out. Even the mellower stuff had a pretty frenetic pace. Extra point for ending so strongly though, the last song is a banger.
I liked this pretty well, I think it needed some slower jams to round it out. Even the mellower stuff had a pretty frenetic pace. Extra point for ending so strongly though, the last song is a banger.
Heard about this one a lot and some of the songs but never actually sat and listened to through. It mostly lived up to the hype for me, musically engaging and lyrically interesting.
Couldn't come around on this one, just synthesizer noodling.
Weezer gets some hate but 30 years on I have to say the hits hold up (as insubstantial as entries like the Sweater Song are) and the deeper tracks on this aren't filler. Solid Pop.
This one is my upload pick, so obviously I like it a lot. I Am the Black Gold of the Sun/It's Alright, I Feel It are among my favorite things in music. I'll allow that it is a little uneven, with some dull patches, and that in its eclecticism it doesn't totally come together as a unified album. Still a ton of iconic music that has found its way into a whole lot of samples and remixes.
In the post folk lo-fi kind of world this is minor royalty and I own it and like it a lot. I can see where some will find it pretty intolerable, and I've slammed entries in different genres for similar issues - the affected singing style and baroque and cryptic lyrics. But it works for me.
I think I get the concept - kind of ultra-smoothed down, edgeless pop. But although I'm assuming the sound is intentional, I had a hard time hearing much of the production as anything other than extremely muddy. The extended sections that sounded uncannily like the cheap department store cassettes I used to own in the dozens as a teen - when they started to wear out - were a particular slog. Still, I was wondering over by several songs.
Heard about this one a lot and some of the songs but never actually sat and listened to through. It mostly lived up to the hype for me, musically engaging and lyrically interesting.
Garbage has mostly seemed like straight ahead rock and roll - good and I don't mind listening to it, but I'm not sure it was distinguished by much more than syle.
Strong Pearl Jam vibes, particularly in the vocals which are delivered sincerely but a little lacking in emotional range. I liked it well enough but didn't feel like it brought anything particularly notable to its grunge/heavy rock genre.
Kinda peak self-important Goth, so dark, so serious. I don't mind it as music, though.
Started out strong for me (definitely in my wheelhouse as a Bon Iver, Sufijan Stevens fan) but feel like he doesn't find enough range and it all sort of fades together. The vocals only come in one tone and temperature and the music is so understated as to almost vanish at times.
Couldn't come around on this one, just synthesizer noodling.
Someone I'd never heard of, and really interesting. A lot of Prog DNA but shades form Rush to CSN&Y. Didn't do a ton for me lyrically but they did the job.
I enjoyed this, but it's hard not to compare it to similar-vein greats like Prince and find it lacking.
I don't know that I ever sat down and listened through a Jimmy Buffet album before and it was a congenial experience. Not really my genre but he definitely carves his own niche somewhere along the axis of Country and Southern Rock.
This odd phenomenon of Scandanavians sounding like some variety of American pop singers... still I liked this a lot, other than the spoken word bits that felt a little pasted on and pretentious to me.
I haven't actually listened to much of this group, aside from the singles that hit true cultural saturation. I always felt the purist hate Matthew's sometimes attracted was unnecessary, though I will allow the particular affectation of his vocal style wears very thin for me at length. This went wierder and darker than Id have expected, both to its benefit.
I knew this band name but I can't remember why. It's always encouraging that something this wierd can exist and even thrive. I don't know I'd pull this our every day but listening was a worthwhile experience.
Weezer gets some hate but 30 years on I have to say the hits hold up (as insubstantial as entries like the Sweater Song are) and the deeper tracks on this aren't filler. Solid Pop.
As always with music in a language I can't speak I feel limited in judging it. Are these lyrics rad or super dumb? Who knows? (Norwegians). I liked the sound anyway, interesting elements of rockabilly and even surf.
More Norwegian country/folk with the signers sounding remarkably like they came out of the American Midwest. An enjoyable listen, though the lyrics came across a little clunky for me.
My usual issues with Zappa- you can't argue with the musical ability but it fails to engage me at some emotional level. I'm happy to accept my sonic palate is insufficiently refined for it. The writing is so unserious though, but not quite hitting the true quill craziness of similar acts like Captain Beefheart at their best.
New to me. Stylistically kind of all over the map - I found all of it reasonably enjoyable buy as an album it didn't quite come together.
I liked this. It felt to me like the product of an artist still in formation, but a lot of talent and potential. I think she would benefit from some collaborators to fill out the sound.
I liked this pretty well, I think it needed some slower jams to round it out. Even the mellower stuff had a pretty frenetic pace. Extra point for ending so strongly though, the last song is a banger.
I liked this better than I expected to given the genre descriptors (garage + noise being a Venn intersection I rarely enjoy). It did descend into the side of noise rock I find less tolerable toward the last couple of tracks.
I don't think I ever listened to this band at length before. I've got nothing against this, it's fast, it's polished. Whenever I tuned into the lyrics they seemed pretty superficial.
Something new to me and definitely worthy. Something of a mixed bag - start out with Curtis Mayfield and you've set an awfully high bar - but all interesting, all worth hearing.
Interesting and fairly unique, some of it gave me Stereolab vibes. A little repetitious in tone though maybe that's supposed to be more design than flaw given the idea that it is meant to be one continuous loop.
I didn't dislike this but it didn't really distinguish itself for me from a lot of similar neo-old timey acts.
A little too high of a quirk factor for me, about consistent for a band with two ukulele credits. I'm also not convinced many of the lyrics meant much of anything, though I'm willing to entertain I'm too dumb or too lazy to figure them out. I can't fully trash it given the high technical acumen on display and I didn't hate it or anything.
Solid entry in the electronica/disco vein, very much of its era. The more theatrical presentations aren't really my thing but I can appreciate it.
Started on the fence with this, feeling like it might be mostly derivative, and if the lyrics were saying all that much, fast and failed though the flow might be. By the final triptych I'd it had brought me around though.
What's there to say, really: it's iconic for a reason. Peerless in its style and genre.
Pretty solid alt rock, but didn't rise particularly above the pack for me.
Noisy post-punk rock with aggressively muttery vocals, I didn't hate it but found it hard to really focus in.
Starting out I was feeling this activated my main gripe with so much on the kind of EDM spectrum in that I just find the music boring. It grew on me throughout the album though and finished strongly. As always being unable to appreciate the lyrics due to my language barrier makes it hard to fully assess.
I've often written on this list about the challenge of albums in languages I don't speak, a whole dimension of the music lost. It's almost worse in Spansish, the closest I get to a second language, but nowhere near fluently enough to get more than a fraction of this fast paced and presumably heavily idiomatic writing. It sounded good anyway. The music ran a gamut - I liked a lot of it very well but there were also a lot of pretty cliché rock chops in there.
Interesting, I think I was expecting something more traditionally folky sounding, this had a definite modern framing. I enjoyed it but I kind of all sounded the same?
I remember this (and the preceding album) being big for a while in my college radio scene in its original era (just to date myself). Hearing it now I'm not sure I'd ever actually listened to it. Not sure what I was expecting- typical alt rock of the 90s I guess- and this definitely isn't that. The kind of cabaret glam vibe isn't generally my thing but this is objectively good, if maybe a little derivative of its influences.
Seemed like pretty straight-ahead blues-adjacent rock of its era. Is it the real foundational stuff better known acts are actually derivative of? Somebody knows, not me. Some interesting musical detours among the standard blues with extra drums and distortion. Lyrics nothing to merit much attention.
Really liked this. Eclectic but centered, I wish I could understand the language but beautifully sung regardless.
I don't feel like I have a very knowledgeable or sophisticated ear for dub and reggae but even I can tell this is the real original business of this era. I felt like it lost me in the back half with its many stripped down, mostly instrumental pieces and heavy-handed reverb and delay effects.
Found this a little perplexing... the sort of 80s yacht rock/new wave feel of the music, periodically jarring in combination with the casually profane lyrics. Not the strongest singer, though his vocals get the job done. It was unique, I didn't dislike it, but I'm not sure it's something I'd seek out.
I would listen to any of this any time without complaint. I do think he puts his limitations on display in the cover of Bold as Love. In spite of having by many measures a better overall signing voice, he just can't match the emotion and subtle inflection Hendrix brought to the original. Likewise Mayer's perfectly competent, serviceable lyrics don't have anything to match the wild imagination of Anger's "shiny metallic purple armor". Very good, but a little basic.
I don't listen to Procol Harum a lot but when I do I'm always struck by how singular the sound is. Nothing else quite like it. Lyrically very interesting as always.
Very interested in the blend of influences like punk and Ska in a Mexican idiom. Was even able to pick up a fair amount of the lyrics with my mediocre Spanish, a rare treat with these non-English selections.
Post-punk hit a whole lotta years before 2019 and I'm not sure this is bringing anything much new to the table. The music was decent, the lyrics interesting, but I had a hard time getting past the vocals - that nearly monotone UK Oy Oy Oy yawp.
DOOM fan going a long way back (thanks to my brother, as is the case with almost all my hip hop exposure), but I'd actually only heard bits and pieces of this. The density and intricacy of lyrics makes it a tough nut to crack without repeated listening as usual but great regardless.
Another interesting band from this era and strata of English rock I'd never heard of. There was a lot of it in this album and I thought it was a little patchy and all over the map stylistically, but the best of it was very good.
I'm generally a King Crimson fan but my reaction to this was fairly lukewarm. I didn't dislike it, it had some solid high points but also some places where it lost me entirely.
Never actually listened to any Phish at length. I've got nothing against this, solid jam-bandy rock, and some interesting material in the lyrics.
There was a blink-182 album on the official list and I feel like that was a sufficient amount. Why not pony up some less mainstream post punk material, something in the vein of Operation Ivy or Bad Religion I hadn't heard of already? Aside from that I certainly don't hate this - musically it is very adept, the lyrics are serviceable if not particularly deep. A surprising amount of it is pretty standard love or breakup songs, and the title and cover photo are kind of the edgiest thing about it.
A lot of talent here (cut depressingly short from following the Wiki links), but the music really lost me as it went on, a sort of glam-industrial Electronica that just isn't for me.
I liked this pretty well in its solider moments. The cover of Running Up That Hill did highlight the limitations in the singing. Serviceable but no Kate Bush. And then there were some extended intervals of really intolerable BS noise.
I liked this a lot, neo-classical electronic in the vein of Meredith Monk.
This one is my upload pick, so obviously I like it a lot. I Am the Black Gold of the Sun/It's Alright, I Feel It are among my favorite things in music. I'll allow that it is a little uneven, with some dull patches, and that in its eclecticism it doesn't totally come together as a unified album. Still a ton of iconic music that has found its way into a whole lot of samples and remixes.
First of the user-selected albums I was really surprised was not on the official list (though I think the band did feature there, presumably in an album more favored by the critics than the hoi polloi). This isn't all killer but it's all good, and what is killer are some pretty damn iconic rock hits.
Another band recalled from my college radio days of the early to mid-90s, that I'd completely forgotten about. Surprised to discover the stuck around so long, only to be Me-Too-ed out of existence. Found most of this inoffensive but not that impressive, kind of a slacker, grunged-up Byrds vibe with pretty weak singing. The last song is very strong though.
Getting hit hard with the college radio days nostalgia lately. I actually saw them touring this album at First Avenue in Minneapolis - opening act none other than pre-breakout, scrappy up-and-comer punk band Green Day. I always like Bad Religion, my only objections being the range of their sound is a little narrow (always solid but kind of much the same) and Graffin's lyrics sometimes sacrifice lyricism for smarty-pantsness.
I feel like I'm always struggling with this Krautrock whether it is actually self-satire. I liked this OK and some of it very well but a little too much faffing around for me.
I couldn't get past the consistent downbeat tone of gloom. It needed some variety to move the down around. I could see myself being into it in some moods - but I wasn't in that mood yesterday.
No real objection to this other than like most music that is entirely produced by a single person, there is a manufactured feel to it - lacking something of the dynamic energy of the a collective effort. I'd be interested in hearing some live versions with his touring group.
Never a big Tool fan... Maybe that staticky ancient com system microphone voice wasn't a huge cliché back in 1996, along with many other kind of hacky dark rock tropes. Not terrible, not half bad really but not something I need a lot of in my life.
I like Ska, though I don't choose to listen to it a lot, but I've long felt like it is a kind of limited (and limiting) genre. The added punk flavoring and laid back California thing helps it break out of that mold a bit. A lot of the lyrics are pretty puerile and the political-ish stuff is laughable but it does that punk trick of refusing to wear out its welcome, and overall it lands.
The hitherto unknown world of platinum selling Canadian francophone pop? A little on the easy listening side though maybe if I could understand the lyrics I'd find out it's hard AF. I liked it pretty well overall.
Very much the example of heavily produced mainstream Pop. Which is fine but not particularly, you know, special. Can this person really sing? Did they have anything to do with these lyrics or were they written by one of these teams of Swedish savants? Not quite interesting enough to bother looking into.
Just solid soul and funk, nothing to complain about here
My general issue with the Decemberists has been finding them too faux old-timey and leaning too heavy on affectation and quirk. The lyrical and musical leitmotifs and harder rock edges in this album did a lot to temper those tendencies, though my eyes still rolled a bit at some of the more bombastic murder-ballady stuff.
I have a great fondness for the first three releases, I kind of had stopped following at this one. Some of this seems verging at (I think intentional) self-parody, certainly it seems a rebellion of sorts. I don't hate it and like some of it pretty well but overall it doesn't quite seem fully baked. In all though I'd rather see someone forging into new territory, even if not fully successful, than circling over the same oground.
A band I just have not been able to get into. The lyrics are a little too clever (sometimes at the expense of metrical rationality) and too trending into "the woes of being a great big star" territory. While this neo-lounge music is a departure from what else I've heard it still didn't do a whole lot for me.
This was one of those kinds of albums, I listened to it a ton when it came out and then it just dropped fully out of my rotation. I'd forgotten some of the interesting musical curves the deeper cuts took. Still very good.
Some interesting stuff here, but for me somewhat afflicted by the one-man-band syndrome that happens when the full product is generated electronically by a single artist. A little overly manufactured and uniform. Some collaborators and real instruments wouldn't go amiss.
I liked this a lot, an artist I'd probably never have heard of outside this. Interesting lyrics, some unusual and subtle stuff going on with the music. Admittedly pretty arty, but we'll executes art and attracting a lot of talent. To me it was perhaps mellow and low-key to a fault, and could some faster paced intervals of funk or jazz or something elements.
I always like this band just fine but it does seem like very much a Springsteen shtick with not as talented a vocalist.
I can see how someone could love this. It put me in mind of some of Tom Waits - that gritty burlesque - or Reverend Horton Heat (but without the frenetic rockabilly speed). It did not quite land for me, but I think that's a matter of personal taste. Certainly unique and not boring.
Something about this very reminiscent of something but what? Vic Chesnutt? Neutral Milk Hotel? Something else, something English. I wish he'd do the sound but with less of the faux old-timeyish thing in the lyrics.
This was pretty good, but there is a distinct danger in wearing your influences so much on your sleeve - when those influences are absolute titans in the genre. Also not sure the hip-hop elements really added much.
Some strong Bon Iver vibes, which I have nothing against, and it asserts its own distinct sound. Really interesting and promising stuff.
Above average garage-y West Coast rock and roll from a band I hadn't listened to before. Though not universally true by any means, I feel like live rock tends to be a blunter instrument, and I may check out how the studio product compares. No complaints anyway, it was a good workout jam.
On paper it seems like this band would be a good match to my tastes but I just can't get into them. The musicianship is good, I don't doubt they're doing just what they're intending to do, but I'm not a fan of the lyrics or singing.
I'm a big Springsteen fan going a long way back but interestingly I don't think I ever sat down and listened to a live album before. Found this good but not amazing, I suspect this band's lightning being of a particularly "difficult to get in a bottle" variety. Happily listened to a bunch of classics though, and the cover fragments scattered through some renditions and medley toward the end were interesting.
I cringe a little when I spot the "screamo" tag but this kept a decent balance, seemed like just solid hard-core to me.
Well executed hard rock, but I couldn't really find anything special in it. This is a sound that was more or less settled in the 1980s, and no particular innovation here 30 years on. Similarly the lyrics are perfectly functional and fit to purpose but pretty meathead.
A little on the fence on this one. Well crafted and performed but to me dull in parts. The stronger material sustained it though.
I liked this pretty well, interesting lyrics. The music was very competently performed, a little too soft a touch for me though, it needed some more edge and texture.
I kind of expected to hate this but found it to be very good and interesting. Misses a top rating for me because I just really couldn't get into the vocals.
Serviceable rockalong jams but kind of low on variety throughout.