Adolescent pop music pretending to be awfully grown up rock n roll.
What David Bowie sounds like in front of a great rock band, The Spiders from Mars. Particularly enjoy Mick Robson’s guitar and Mike Garson’s barking mad piano on the title track .
It's good. But is it great? I'm not sure.
I’m not the target demographic to be fair
First time I've ever heard a complete Eminem album and I'm not sure I will ever do so again. At least, not in my own home.
Noisy!
Wonderful sound
Quite entertaining
I'm supposed to like Zeppelin, but, to be honest, they set my teeth on edge
Yeah, it’s good
Good songs
I’m afraid this very quickly became background. I was listening to it while working and it was easy to ignore.
Didn’t finish it.
Odd to listen to this at 2 in the afternoon. Great songs and a great feel.
I must have known this album from back in the day.
I can see where many of the bands I listened to in the 70s got it from, but this does all seem rather self-indulgent. It’s some far out ideas set to numbers.
It’s never been cool to like Dire Straits. “It ain’t what they call rock n roll.”
But Mark Knopfler’s guitar is peerless.
Sultans is the outstanding track, of course, with some vocals to set up the guitar solos.
Interesting. I enjoyed it. It’s a bit sprawling and eccentric but there’s some good stuff there.
Imagine loving the single ‘Street Life’ and thinking, ‘I wonder what The Crusaders sound like without Randy Crawford? I’d definitely listen to an album of their stuff!’
Because that’s what you get.
The rest of the album sounds like the muzak you get when your favourite corporation puts you on hold.
No offence. These are 10,000 hours jazzers. It’s sophisticated. But there’s nothing beyond the silky groove. As each track fades you know they could have just kept playing it until someone at the studio switched the lights off.
This is what a Rock ‘n’ Roll band sounds like - a bit of blues, a bit of soul, a bit of gospel, a bit of country. The recording sessions were legendary and it’s all a bit of a mess, but glorious.
Great guitar work and some great songs, including ‘Summer Breeze’, which must be on everyone’s summer playlist.
Almost the perfect AOR album. Every song’s a banger and it still sounds great after all these years.
They didn’t make this album for me. I was interested to hear it but it won’t be in my regular rotation. I quite enjoyed listening to it but can’t get my head around rapping gritty lyrics over a jolly backing track.
You see the title and think, great! An album of sun-kissed Beach Boys classics! But none of these songs made it on to their greatest hits album. Instead, it’s the Beach Boys entering the 1970s with a social conscience.
Some good things here - ‘Disney Girls (1957)’ is sweet and poignant - but some - ‘Student Demonstration Time’ - leave you cringing.
I like Elvis Costello, but only really know the first few albums and ‘Painted from Memory’. So, I enjoyed this, hearing some EC songs that I didn’t know. Great songwriter, but I have to admit, I do get tired of his singing after a while.
Good songwriting and no-nonse rock ‘n’ roll.
Great album. Some great songs, including Suzanne and others that he was still performing to the end.
Interesting listen. It sounds great and there’s plenty of surprises. Not really my taste but I enjoyed listening to it.
Not my thing, really. I’m not the right age. I don’t like the sound they make - guitars or vocals. Some good riffs and good songs though
I wanted to love this album, really I did, but they seem to have taken ‘inoffensive’ to another level. It sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom. Softly strummed acoustic guitar so as not to disturb the neighbours. Well, neighbour, I was undisturbed.
Proper rock album with great songs. American influences to the fore - blues and country.
Good songwriting. It turns out, that’s what I like. An enjoyable listen.
I’m sure there’s a time and a place for this album. Sunday morning in my kitchen is not it. I never want to listen to this again. Never.
I’ve known this album for 50 years. It’s still a great listen, but sounds a little bland to e today,
I hate the Beastie Boys. I don’t care if they are celebrating or sending up the ‘fight for your right to pa-a-a-a-rdy’ attitudes, but I don’t want to hear about it.
Some good tracks - songs you can identify from the bass line alone, even if you’re not in the room where it’s playing.
This album had completely passed me by. To be fair, I probably only really know the Kinks as a singles band. Ray Davies, of course, is the great English songwriter.
With Seven Nation Army as the first track, this album has a very strong opening - that riff is a classic. (US fans singing it all the World Cup in 2026)
‘Where are we now?’ Is a five star album all by itself.
I like the sound that the band makes but have never enjoyed the vocals.
Not a bad listen, if you like being shouted at by a very angry person. Some good grooves.
Great album. Punchy songwriting.
Quirky, quaint, and full of detail. Just what you want from an English songwriter.
A track starts and you think, ‘I quite like that riff’. Then you notice that it’s 7 minutes long and nothing changes from beginning to end. Then the next track starts. And it’s the same.
All very clever - difficult time signatures and all that - but not exactly easy listening. I realise that not everything has to be easy to listen to, but there does have to be some reward for me to want to listen to it again. Which, in the case of this album, I won’t be.
I think I’m too young to get the mystique around Jim Morrison, but I guess he invented the rock star life as a piece of performance art. A good sound, though and good songs.
Yes, I enjoyed this. I think I should have been more into them at the time.
An enjoyable listen. Probably should have paid more attention.
An enjoyable listen. Probably should have paid more attention.
I’m an intellectual, so I’m bound to like Pere Ubu. A couple of listens was probably enough. And now I know where David Byrne got it from.
A cool album.
I was surprised to learn that the song, Hotel California, is the opening track on the album. I would have thought it was the closer.
Very accessible and listenable, early Miles
OK. I think they’re better when they are Bob Dylan’s The Band, but some good songs.
Far out man! I’m not sure I needed to listen to this. I’m sure it was very influential and all…
Obviously, this ought to be a Five Star album. Except that not all of it has aged well. Famously, Lennon’s ‘ Run for Your Life’ is a horrible song, that I think he later disowned. The Ringo and George outings are also backward looking - although the rockabilly ‘What goes on’ would be great on someone else’s album by someone else.
The negatives might have dragged this down to three stars, but the album also contains some stuff that is timeless - ‘Nowhere Man’ and ‘In My Life’ - so it’s four stars from me.
I may have found my new favourite band!
Echo and the Bunnymen passed me by and I can’t get excited by them. I don’t like the sound they make.
Yeah. They’re so cool! But I don’t care.
Great album.
This album wasn’t made for me. It was meant for some other motherflipper.
I don’t know who The Replacements sound like but it isn’t The Replacements .
Some great tunes and an undeniable groove. Also, as least one song I mustn’t sing along to.
Spotify gave me the extended deluxe edition - alternative (longer) takes! - which was frankly unnecessary. All the songs sound the same. Inevitably, some songs (‘Jailbait’) haven’t aged well. But they make a good noise and the beat is good.
I’ve never warmed to Richard Thompson. He always seems a bit po-faced. But he’s written some great songs and he’s no slouch on the guitar.
Good guitar sounds and riffs that drive the song. Very good!
Classic rock from my youth. Actually, I was 10 when this was released and I caught up with it later, having decided I was a hairy.
Great guitar riff driven songs.
Yeah. Quite good.
Don’t know why I’d never heard of these guys. Oh yes. They’re Australian. But their acoustic strummy songs would have been quite to my taste.
Yeah. Not for me.
The crossover you never thought you needed. Willie Nelson sings Hoagy Carmichael and the rest of the standards songbooks. And the result is charming. Willie brings tenderness and vulnerability to the songbook.
Yeah. No.
I couldn’t get in to this at all.
Some great songs. I have some resistance to Lou Reed because he’s so… unmusical. I suppose you’d say he’s anti-musical. It’s all about the art and not the craft.
And then there’s stuff like ‘Andy’s Chest’:
‘Cause you know what they say about honey bears
When you shave off all their baby hair
You have a hairy-minded pink bare bear.
How stoned do you have to be to think those are good lyrics?
It’s a shame that this album is now the epitome of elevator music. But Sinatra and Jobim is a good combination.
I understand that this album was highly influential and culturally significant, and very well done, but it’s not for me.
I admire PJH but it’s not really what I want to listen to. And I’m sorry about that.
Interesting and intelligent.
