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.

Kind of primed to dislike this - the overlong, cryptic title and whimsical pencil sketch cover art. But I liked most of it and some very much. A vocal style I feel is kind of limited, though it held surprisingly well up at considerable length. A lot of the music was kind of nondescript folk guitar, but some really interesting stuff interspersed. Lyrics were the strongest point to me evwn if theybdid get a little too cute at times. Overall felt the good very much outweighed the merely OK.

This one meant everything to me in some stretch of the middle 1990s. I'm sure Hitchcock's peculiar arch-wierdery will not be for everyone. But for me, in a narrow alt-rock genre, it is about perfection, and in my opinion Hitchcock's masterpiece.

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 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.

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.

Solid, energetic indie pop - nothing particularly groundbreaking but I listened happily and would again.

Way too edgelord for me. They certainly rock hard but whole lyrical package is super skeeze.

Heavy Pink Floyd vibes (a little too much if I'm finding faults) and that operatic, declamatory vocal style wears thin for me - but it pulled out from that as it went along, and the music overall was strong and inventive enough to bring me around.

Never a big fan of this group, though some of my college friends were, and so I heard a whole lot of them in the early 90s. I think we also had the science-themed kids album when my child was of an appropriate age. I liked this fine, the novelty act aspect toned down a lot, clearly they've settled into a solid workable sound. Nothing here really reached out and grabbed me personally but I would listen to more without complaint.

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.

Not sure this adds much musically to 90s era indie rock sound, but it's solid, and gains point for variety and the effectiveness of the dual vocals.

I listened to The Wall a ton in a certain phase of life and the similarity of vibe with this sort of overshadowed it as a standalone object. This more pedestrian lyrical material doesn't suit that operatic sound so well as The Wall's tour through history, politics, conformity and madness (the fact that it's become one of my least favorite phases of Pink Floyd overall doesn't help). There are some strong moments but it didn't quite gel for me. I don't regret having listened to it though.

Amiable frenetic pop with all modern trimmings. The reviews led me to expect something a little more over the top. The dopiness of some of the lyrics detracted from the overall quality for me.

Pretty interesting. A bit much of that British post-punk vocal affect that I just don't dig, but at least quite a bit of variety in the vocals.

Classic-est of Classic Rock. I can't help but feel a little that the Muscle Shoals R&B rock sound was SO dialed in it renders things a touch generic, especially in the deeper cuts. But I can't drag too hard on something with this many iconic classics of the era/style.

I'm a fan of Glover in general but sometimes feel like the music trends to style over substance, though maybe I haven't given the lyrics sufficient scrutiny. And the style is very stylish indeed.

Huge Sufjan Stevens fan going way back and no complaints with this offering. Very understated but of course that suits the material.

Heard to a lot of this around when it came out, courtesy of bass-playing college friends. Primus always came off a little too stunt-act for me, though with that Zappa complication of doing it all with extremely competent musicianship. Maybe a little more tolerable to me as their lyrical shtick had more of Beefheart's madcap zany energy than Zappa's aggressive absurdist sneer (the rather serious American Life coming in as something of a non-sequitur amidst it all). The vocals don't do much of anything for me though, and now, as then, I find it overall a little exhausting.

This is so utterly exemplary of this era/genre/vibe, yet none of these hit me as true instant-recognition ubiquitous hits. It's all just too played out for me to be into it much. Nothing against it but I don't really need to listen to any more of this kind of music for this lifetime.

A very amiable listen. Some interesting things going on musically - while country rock influences like Skynyrd and Allman Brother were evident, I detected shades of Zeppelin, Eagles, even Steely Dan in some of the jazzier sections. The lyrics, though functional, were kind of basic and leaned heavily into cliché.

Fine, but didn't particularly grab me. Not getting much out of the lyrics with my very rusty high school/college Spanish. Otherwise the music seemed like pretty straightforward pop, and I wasn't a big fan of the lead singer's vocal stylem

Introduced to this band in the early 80s, again courtesy of my brother's precocious (for growing up in a small Midwest town pre-internet) musical tastes. I guess this is considered part of New Wave, though they have always seemed like a genre unto themselves to me. The heavy affectation of the male vocals is the kind of thing I usually complain about and I guess it's what's worn thinnest for me. But it holds up, the unabashed wierdball lyrics over engaging lyrics jangly mutated pop rock.

Never heard of this and came in with no expectations (or maybe low expectations sheerly on the genre label: a lot of "post punk" is not to my tastes). But I liked it a lot. The influences come thick and diverse, but it manages to stay ahead of becoming just a pastiche or mash-up. The lyrics were a little too uniformly Dark and Serious.

Always aware of this band as a thing without any sense of what they're about or sound like. Pretty sure I had this same experience with them with an album on the main list and clearly didn't make an impression that stuck. It's decent music but it feels too studio-assembled to me, layered and sweetened and punched up into the typical post-rock sonic sludge. Happy to listen to it but it just doesn't leave a lasting imprint.

I think there was another album by this band, I can't recall I'd it was on the main list or contributor submitted. I also think my reaction was similar. Clearly a lot of talent here but a dominant ratio of it lands in this kind of zone... proclamatory, almost operatic vocals, music on a kind of rising swell... like it's all climax. It wore me out.

Lyrics about 2X too clever for me, and delivered in that alt-dude near monotone not quite sung style that rarely does it for me. I didn't hate it but not for me.

Definitely interesting, eclectic maybe to a fault. The vocals intermittently got on my nerves, getting into some caricaturish modes, too much nasal sawing, not enough melody.

Kind of actively disliked this lyrically for the most part. Sort of absurdist stream of consciousness when it wasn't being casually dirty, but not in an interesting way. Musically solid enough if frequently kind of dull. The faster, harder driving numbers worked best for me.

Good lyrics and flow - the music though felt very generic, functional but dull. Better beats and some creative use of samples could have bumped it up a star.

Strong start, a real interesting sort of melange, though I feel like it got bogged down in the middle. Ended well though, and merits an extra point for being such a strong debut.

This one could easily have replaced a number of selections in the "official" list. Rock solid, soulful, tons of stellar musicianship.

Somewhat notorious band I've been hearing about for years but never really listened to. Seemed like pretty straightforward hard-core kinda dirt bag rock. Not completely my cup of tea but I didn't mind it at all.

There's an easy flow here to groove to though I lost a lot of the lyrics with the loose, mumbly rapping. The relentless crudity wore thin. I didn't dislike it but doesn't hit the standard of other Madlib collaborations like Madvillain.

After several years this list is still exposing me to things I'd likely not hear otherwise. Certainly interesting, not exactly my thing, and throughout I was pondering whether this was really synthesizing its various styles or just mashing them up. Worth the listen though. An extra point for being so unabashed about its wierd ouerve.

Strong Springsteen vibes, it benefitted when it diversified beyond that sound. Quite a bit of it followed kind of a monotonous vocal/metric pattern that wore thin. I liked it generally but not quite great for me.

Clever and well-executed, but I always find this band a little too precious too me (particularly with its deep inflection of that New-Yorkiest of white hipsterism).

Just deep, foundational reggae.

I enjoyed this, it seemed well-executed though I'm not much of a judge of jazz quality. As always with heavily improvisational jazz it drifts sometimes into what feels like kinda just busy noodling, but I might just be a low brow.

Very pop, with that particular Japanese flavor. Strong vibes of watching anime opening sequences, except when she switches to the English parts you can tell that she understands what she's singing. I didn't dislike this.

Representative of a very particular genre of English bloke-rock. Typically the vocals are the weakest link. An amiable enough listen but nothing really stood out for me.

Another band with an immediately familiar name that I realized I'd absorbed zero information about previously (didn't know it was a Danny Elfman project, or that they made the Wierd Science song). Pretty solid alt-new-wave fare.

Actually have an old LP version of this to pull off the stacks. A bit of a cultural artifact but you know, all good fun.

Wikipedia says this went triple platinum and when it came out I was smack in the middle of high school in the rural Midwest so it must have been UBIQUITOUS but I have to say nothing was really familiar - I mean the sound and style were all immediately familiar, and I certainly remember Debbie Gibson being A Thing, but none of these songs had that instant recognition factor for me like a lot of songs of similar provenance would (Walk Like an Egyptian, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, I Think We're Alone Now...). I've got nothing against this, but nothing particularly for it either, it is highly polished white girl pop of its era. It was a very peppy jam for my evening workout. After this I listened to somel late-stage Nico, so that was a contrast.

I don't want to listen to something like this every day but I miss there being stuff this wierd in the at least semi-mainstream. The musical theater/operatic bombast side by side with the rock chops and occasionally cheesy effects, all worked for me.

Something fully new to me, which is always nice. I sort of vacillated over whether I felt like the old timey vocal style was too much of an affectation. It seems like she probably came by it honestly and I ended up feeling like I generally liked it, but that it might wear thin at length. The instrumentation did the job but a lot of it felt fairly nondescript.

This one meant everything to me in some stretch of the middle 1990s. I'm sure Hitchcock's peculiar arch-wierdery will not be for everyone. But for me, in a narrow alt-rock genre, it is about perfection, and in my opinion Hitchcock's masterpiece.

Another band with a very familiar name that I don't recall ever really listening to, though I must have crossed paths with them given their era's intersection with my college radio days. I liked this, alt rock in somewhat in the vein of Hüsker Dü or Trip Shakespeare. It's got a bit of that male alt-rock vocal issue, but overall better than most.

Always down with some St. DOOM. This is pretty much pure fun.

Reminded of this line in Neuromancer about a character's plastic surgery-constructed face being a "blandly handsome blend of pop faces". Didn't really find the added value on its influences for me. I did listen to it at length without particular complaint. Not one of those songs needed to be longer than 4 minutes, though.

Very late 90s UK break beat fare, and enjoyable listen though as typically with this kind of thing I find the repetetiveness wears thin at length. Guest artists and some credible rapping kept it on the brighter side of that flaw for me.

Recall this being huge in its scene in the mid 90s which were my just-post-college era. I could never quite get past the particular perpetual relationship angst tone of all of her work. Forgot how much kind of almost rap-adjacent stuff was going on in a lot of the vocals, a common sin of those times.

Couldn't find the full album readily, leaving me with an album of remixes and questionable YouTube playlists, so maybe I just got the flavor here. Kind of a broken record on the Afropop, I like it but of course can't understand any of it, so it kind of drifts into the background.

I thought this was actually pretty wierd for what was apparently a successful pop album. New wave adjacent but kind of its own thing. I liked it OK, it was a good workout jam, but a little too far on the soft side for me and certainly dated.

I could just paste in any of a half dozen of my micro-reviews of jazz albums: I like jazz but don't feel like I have the sophistication to really "get" it. I liked this. Guy had a tough life. Heroin is the worst.

This was fine but to me sounded like a whole lot of post-punk/hardcore fare (Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr., Pavement and so forth) without adding much anything new.

I'm all about Mr. John Darnielle, going way back to the mid 90s - though with the common caveat that I'm not that cool, this is another one I was introduced to by my brother. Saw him perform in a tiny bar venue in Uptown Minneapolis around '95, '96 (with Rachel Ware on bass) and just a couple years ago with the band, packing the First Avenue mainroom with an impressively cross-generational crowd from Z to X and probably a few Boomers in the mix. The home recording on the early stuff has its charms though it is ultimately limited, and as a musician at that point his playing served its purpose but was nothing to write essays about, but as a lyricist in the modern idiom he has few peers in my opinion.

Another very interesting thing I likely would never have encountered without this project. The combination of classical and traditional aboriginal signing and instruments really worked for me.

I have never quite meshed with the vibe of this guy, though on paper the music mostly checks my boxes. I didn't dislike this at all but it never really grabbed me.

This didn't do a lot for me. I didn't dislike it but it's a female vocal style I'm not particularly inclined to and the whole chanteuse thing has never been a genre I favored.

I likes this a lot, though it was swinging the Art stick pretty hard (some numbers like The Name of the Next Song getting into full performance art territory - though I also found it pretty funny). I like it though - unabashed wierdo art, pretty ahead of its times. The artist's young death a sad coda when researching this. I'm in my 50s so I lived through it, but it can be easy to forget (now that it is mostly tamed if not outright cured... if, I suppose, you can access and afford and manage the care regimes) those bad year when AIDS was cutting a horrifying swath through a generation.

If I was dropping acid in a German forest I'm sure I would be vibing outrageously with this. Listen: minimalist art is always challenging and there are things in the visual realm anyway I feel like I developed a real regard for and pleasure in by educating myself about their deeper context. So I'm open to the possibility that there's more to this. But my experience of it was of a (admittedly, not unpleasantly) abstract monotony that quickly receded into the background of whatever I was doing.

I liked this as music, though I remained on the fence about the sort of combination of a Folk Epic sound with twee cell-phone era romantic travail lyrics. I'll slide it an extra star for oddity and singularity.

Kind of primed to dislike this - the overlong, cryptic title and whimsical pencil sketch cover art. But I liked most of it and some very much. A vocal style I feel is kind of limited, though it held surprisingly well up at considerable length. A lot of the music was kind of nondescript folk guitar, but some really interesting stuff interspersed. Lyrics were the strongest point to me evwn if theybdid get a little too cute at times. Overall felt the good very much outweighed the merely OK.

This might be a case of having become too familiar with the descendents without ever learning about the progenitors but I couldn't pull much distinct out of this over a pretty broad swath of the post- whatever (hardcore, punk, The rockier side of new wave) - through to emo. Pretty heavy guitar rock, mumbly introspective lyrics. I didn't dislike it or anything.

This didn't do a lot for me. A lot of electronic noise drone ambient meandering, a lot of vocals in the "mumbling through a bad intercom" vein (and even some real stale tricks like running them backwards). I didn't hate it but I wouldn't seek more.

I listened to this during the evening workout and the driving beat certainly kept things moving along. I don't mind some speedy guitar either but the scream-growl vocal thing just never does anything for me, and the dark-portentous lyric vibe that seems mandatory in this genre tends to make me roll my eyes. The elements of more melodic singing and lighter instrumental interludes helped with this album. At the end of the day the metalcore is just not my thing.

Like a lot of new country this feels indistinguishable from whatever light rock/pop. Musically solid if not particularly inventive. Some of the lyrics go interesting places though.

I liked the vibe and energy with this, an enjoyable listen. A lot of that noodley jazz/jam band thing that does leave me wondering how much there is really there... but I feel like I want to check out more from this band.

I liked this a lot. Musically and lyrically interesting and the play between the two vocalists really worked. The music went in some unusual directions in the back half, particularly the last few songs, which were great as individual pieces but I'm not sure quite gelled with the album as a whole.

Not uninteresting, but I don't find the level of some of the accolades for this a little perplexing. It seems pretty fragmentary and unpolished to me. Admittedly I'm not the biggest fan of this sort of super-synthetic constructed music. Still happy to have been introduced to an artist I'd never heard of before.

Ska has never really been my thing. Big band punk is such an peculiar, specific remit to hang a whole genre on. But even if I would not seek more of this out, it is clearly a cut above, in the composition and execution of the music and in the smart and well-constructed lyrics.

People love this band and I certainly never mind listening to the music, but I do find it overly derivative without being particularly innovative. The drunk and druggy lyrics also do very little for me at this point in my life.

Straight ahead modern rock, nothing wrong with that, and certainly well executed. A little too slickly constructed for my taste, and under the gloss not a huge amount of substance, lyrically or musically.

Pretty much hardcore? Well performed, and I appreciate they are taking on serious subject matter - for once appropriate to the genre's generally self-serious tone. Just not my thing though.

One of these where I'm torn - on one hand I believe these are talented musicians making exactly the sound they are aiming at. I just don't personally care for it. My appetite for the quirk-folk/rock subgenre has never been great. Scale-tipping demerit point for abuse of T.S. Eliot, and for the line "I wonder if my seed will find purchase in your soil".

I'm a Minnesota guy so these are my people, and I always liked Low. I last saw them live in the early 2000s, actually might have been touring this album? Very sad to hear Mimi Parker's lovely voice and be reminded of her absolutely tragic, far too early death. This goddamn world.

I liked this pretty well. I'm not surenit needed to be well-versed an hour, or that it brought anything much new to this well-travelled myth, antlers it was leaning on Tom Waits pretty heavily throughout. But the music was very nice and it generally held up.

As Pink Floyd (who I like) goes I feel like this is one of their lighter-weight entries, though it certainly has its moments.