"Hi, site admin? Yeah, I just listened to Stevie Wonder's 'Songs in the Key of Life', and I need you to take all of the 5 stars I've given up to this point and just toss those out because those albums don't deserve them anymore." Apparently this was Stevie's EIGHTEENTH album? Like, I think by the time you hit eighteen you're allowed to start phoning it in a little bit, you know, you've got to be running out of material, right? Not for Stevie Wonder; this magnificent bastard must have gone "Oh, actually, this one's going to be a double album because I'm just that damn creative. Actually, can we squeeze in three MORE songs on an EP and ship them all together? I need to get some of these tracks out of here, they're really cluttering up my house." That's what blows me away; despite the hour forty-five runtime, the songs never grow stale, and not a single track doesn't carry its weight. There's a scene in the Iliad where Hephaestus crafts a shield for Achilles, and the book spends like four pages detailing the intricate scenes that the God of the Forge is able to shape into this shield. Problem is, you'll never see that god-crafted shield, and words will never be able to adequately describe its divine beauty. With that in mind: you *can* listen to this album. 6 out of 5 stars.

Base score: 5 stars. This was an excellently crafted and performed album that undoubtedly succeeded in its intentions. PERSONAL BIAS DEDUCTIONS: I do not enjoy the Chili Peppers' sound: –1 star The 73-minute runtime subjected me to the equivalent of two albums' worth of Chili Peppers content: –1 star I already hated the song "Suck My Kiss" and never wanted to hear it again: –1 star I already hated the song "Give It Away" and never wanted to hear it again: –1 star Oof, that's a shame. I really would have loved this album if everything about it was different.

"Hey, this is a pretty solid album so far, I'm really enjoying it. I sure hope they don't do something stupid like put in a seven-minute-long track of a single screeching, cringe-inducing guitar halfway through."

I saw a few reviews wonder what it must feel like to come into this album cold, to listen to it with fresh ears in today's musical landscape without it having been an ever-present fixture in one's life. Hey, I'm your guy. I was born in '88. The only Beatles song I can confidently claim to have listened to the whole way through prior to starting this project was "Twist and Shout", which, upon only just now thinking to look into it, was actually a cover. They don't come any denser than me. The eponymous intro track is a perfectly bombastic mixture of rock and orchestral that really sells the idea that this album is going to be masterful. That the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is going to be an experience. It's excellent, and sends you straight into the next track on a huge high. I straight-up love this strategy. The first true track in question is "With a Little Help From My Friends". To me, this felt like the kind of cute, feel-good ditty you would find to close OUT the show. What is it doing here, smack at the beginning? Tonally, it's a little jarring from the solid intro that pitched to us the notion that we'd be listening to a well-oiled machine; but by itself, it's not necessarily a portent of ill omen. This could still potentially work as an opener. But "Lucy in the Sky" is next, and here is where things are looking rough. The chorus is repetitive and musically inert, and probably isn't the focus of the song. The verses have a psychedelic bent to them, and this is my hangup. 166 album ratings in, and the 60s as a decade is sitting a solid 0.68 points below my second-lowest-rated era. It's the only decade that falls below a 3-star average for me, and this right here is why. I don't understand what is supposed to be appealing about psychedelia. Is this because I've never done drugs? Is that the key that would unlock an entire musical generation for me? That is followed up by "Getting Better", which is rather appropriately-named, because this is more of a return to their roots and is actually pleasant to listen to. That said, it's also a fluff piece, hands-down. "Fixing a Hole" has a good guitar riff, actually, although I didn't notice it right away. That's about the best I can say for it; otherwise it's basically filler. "She's Leaving Home" would really be a perfect track to mellow us out... except we haven't been amped up since the intro, so it's not accomplishing anything here. Er, now hang on, that's a point. Wasn't I sold an experience? Because from my point of view, after that intro faded out, nothing has truly landed for me so far. We're halfway in already, and every single song has either been put sorely out of place, or should be functioning as the glue that would string along and prop up the memorable tracks—which are inexplicably absent. The rest of the album plays on in a similar manner; I'm already checked out, and that was supposed to be the GOOD half. Eventually, the Club Band reprise outro comes crashing in, acting like that was a hell of a show you just heard. Honestly, it's so confident in its approach that I could almost imagine it was true. But if you compare the intro/outro to the rest of the album... I don't know. It's discordant; it doesn't match the tone at all; it makes me wonder if the opening and closing act knew what they were opening and closing FOR. Maybe if my expectations had been different, I could have found more merit here. But the only thing louder than the hype from this album's introduction is the hype from the wall of 5-star reviews, many of which proudly proclaim "What can you say about this album?" But I suppose somebody in that mix should say *something*, because there are still a few dense people like me out there who just don't understand how to appreciate this work.

Somebody greatly overestimated how long I'd like to hear a bunch of white kids shout brags at me.

Bossa nova. Kind of old-school swanky, but hard to listen to.

Strong blues, "long, hazy summer day" vibes.

Disappointing! War Pigs and Paranoid together made a tremendously strong, energetic start from out the outset, but all my enthusiasm was lost by the time Iron Man came on—at which point the album descended into lyrics that were edgy but shallow, and settled into that unfortunate aimless, rambly guitar/drum combo that seems to have dominated rock in the years prior. An easy five stars if the momentum had carried through, but as it stands, three is being generous. Recommended season: Winter

The music was... fine, but nothing stood out as remarkable. Currently trying to figure out whether I am more baffled by "Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go)" or "2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song)". Recommended season: Spring

Wait, you're telling me that Epic is the band's most popular song when it's the biggest dud on this album? I... I don't get it. The rest of the album bangs hard, but Epic completely kills off the early momentum. You slot it into spot four or five on the album, then maybe it works, but it's not a track two. No way. Five stars despite this ludicrous oversight.

Eclectic album. Starts off with the slowest, most emotional song, and gets you comfortable with the idea that the rest of the album will carry that catharsis forward. It doesn't; it becomes largely cheery and folksy, dipping back down into more introspective territory occasionally as welcome breaks. It shouldn't work, but it does. Recommended season: Autumn

"Hmm, an experimental album from the 60s. I am not going to like this." It's fine. It gets a little hard to listen to toward the end, but for the most part, the album maintains direction and melody. Those, alongside the more traditional Celtic underscore, really help; it prevents the experimentality from seeming too indulgent. Still, I don't think I need to listen to it again. Recommended season: Spring

Original, emotional, introspective, magical. Recommended season: Autumn

The songs are a little hit or miss for me, but a solid album overall. Recommended season: Summer

I can't think of a better album if you want to dance and cry at the same time. Recommended season: Spring

Hey look, an album from '69 that I actually liked! Recommended season: Summer

I came into this feeling like I kinda didn't like Soundgarden, but I was mostly basing this off of a dislike of Black Hole Sun. Besides, I've listened to some podcasts lately talk about what the music scene was like in their time—I was a little too young for them—and how influential they were, and I thought, okay, I'll give them a fair shake. For a little bit there, at the beginning, I thought maybe, just maybe, I was getting it. I thought, yes, this is emotional and strong and *I'm getting it*. ...Problem is, usually when you want to convey emotion, you have an emotion in mind. "Noise" is not an emotion; but eventually, I realized that's what I was being given. The rock was too aggressive to be melancholic, but not aggressive enough to be angry. It's right in a vague middle ground that says "I want to be heard but I don't actually have anything to say." So now I am, in fact, feeling an emotion, which is "pissed off at Soundgarden", because these angsty, entitled, self-indulgent creeps decided we needed to hear this whiny, single-note noise for over *an hour*? No. You're not as important as you think you are. Take your rambly 6-minute-long songs and get over yourselves. And stay out of my birthday, too. You picked the wrong day to mess with me.

Pro tip: If you're copy-pasting the same rhythm to make up the majority of the track, then it probably doesn't need to be 7 minutes long.

I recognize there is some hypocrisy in praising this album when it hits a lot of the same criteria that I nailed Soundgarden to the wall for just last week, not to mention all the "psychedelic" rock I've lost patience with. Album longer than it needs to be? Probably. Tracks that run well past five minutes without much tonal distinction? Sure. Lyrics that are trying to be deep, but don't seem sincere? Very objective, but I could see it. I can't tell you what the difference is here. Maybe it's the exceptional production. Maybe it's the track titles that inject the perfect amount of levity and bring you in on the joke. Maybe it's more palatable to my Millennial tastes, alongside a recognition that maybe rock isn't an appropriate genre for every application. Whatever the case, this album worked hard for me.

I get the criticism. Like many others, I didn't think too highly of the music or the lyrics. But there will come a time—it wasn't today, but it will be some day, maybe even years from now—when I am going to need this album, and only this album will do. On that day... it will be perfect.

"Hi, site admin? Yeah, I just listened to Stevie Wonder's 'Songs in the Key of Life', and I need you to take all of the 5 stars I've given up to this point and just toss those out because those albums don't deserve them anymore." Apparently this was Stevie's EIGHTEENTH album? Like, I think by the time you hit eighteen you're allowed to start phoning it in a little bit, you know, you've got to be running out of material, right? Not for Stevie Wonder; this magnificent bastard must have gone "Oh, actually, this one's going to be a double album because I'm just that damn creative. Actually, can we squeeze in three MORE songs on an EP and ship them all together? I need to get some of these tracks out of here, they're really cluttering up my house." That's what blows me away; despite the hour forty-five runtime, the songs never grow stale, and not a single track doesn't carry its weight. There's a scene in the Iliad where Hephaestus crafts a shield for Achilles, and the book spends like four pages detailing the intricate scenes that the God of the Forge is able to shape into this shield. Problem is, you'll never see that god-crafted shield, and words will never be able to adequately describe its divine beauty. With that in mind: you *can* listen to this album. 6 out of 5 stars.

"Hey, this is a pretty solid album so far, I'm really enjoying it. I sure hope they don't do something stupid like put in a seven-minute-long track of a single screeching, cringe-inducing guitar halfway through."

"Oh come on! This is the fourth Talking Heads album I've rolled in two months. I didn't like any of the other ones, why would I like this one." ...Damn it. This album is legitimately good. UGH I mean everything about this is smart and intentional and well-executed. Everything. This album needed to exist and it deserves to be as influential as it was. Still, though. Damn it. I'm angry at how good this is. Argh.

Truly, the greatest tragedy here is that this album was generated for me on Friday, and for an entire weekend I was cursed with the knowledge of how amazing this album is; and yet anybody who happened across my stats page would pity me for either never having experienced it, or for not recognizing it as a masterpiece. At last, Monday has come, and my anxiety can finally be dispelled.

Listen to the monologue at the beginning of "Jesus Built My Hotrod". They chose not to use a pop filter on the microphone when they recorded it. That had to be deliberate; nobody in the audio industry would make that mistake. That means that this album was intentionally created to be difficult to listen to. Good job guys, you pulled it off.

An hour-long album was a bad call here. You trim off the twenty minutes of fat that is monotonous beats and shallow rhymes, you'd have something truly tight.

The word that came to mind as I listened to this album was "juvenile". Which, yes, is an oversimplification; but the mental image I was left with was of a group of kids who broke into a studio at night and made it to the recording booth—which they never expected to pull off, and thus didn't have a plan when they actually made it that far. Maybe this would have landed if I'd heard it when I was 14 or so, but that only furthers my point. Now, some people will be quick to point out that the tone was intended to be farcical or done as parody; but comedy as an art form can be hit-and-miss, and it ages very quickly—parody doubly so. In the end, any brilliance in the mashup of genres or talent in sampling is vastly overshadowed by unimpressive-at-best lyrics that grow grating through the constant shouting.

This must have fallen victim to the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" phenomenon; it was something so influential in its time that everything else aimed to emulate it, and now it just sounds like the most generic Classic Rock ever. I guess we Millennials are killing Classic Rock then too. Anyway it was fine, but I'm docking a star because it wasn't fine enough to merit the double album length.

Wow. This was truly an experience. I'm glad I already rolled a couple of Cohen's earliest albums before I got this one. I hadn't found either particularly remarkable, but having heard them made "You Want It Darker" all the sweeter. Cohen had grown better with time, apparently; his music was now more varied, yet more cohesive; his lyrics were finally engaging; even his voice grizzled into a seductive register that perfectly matched the tone. And the end result: this album—his final album—the story of a weary, bitter man, who is finally confronting the mistakes that have haunted him all his life. He doesn't demand your sympathy; he doesn't even want it. But you give it to him, because you're still human, after all; and then it's over, and he's gone, and somehow you feel both entirely empty and overwhelmingly full. I'm going to need some more time to mentally process this one. But that's okay. It's going to stick with me the rest of my life, and I'm perfectly happy for it to do so.

I saw a few reviews wonder what it must feel like to come into this album cold, to listen to it with fresh ears in today's musical landscape without it having been an ever-present fixture in one's life. Hey, I'm your guy. I was born in '88. The only Beatles song I can confidently claim to have listened to the whole way through prior to starting this project was "Twist and Shout", which, upon only just now thinking to look into it, was actually a cover. They don't come any denser than me. The eponymous intro track is a perfectly bombastic mixture of rock and orchestral that really sells the idea that this album is going to be masterful. That the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is going to be an experience. It's excellent, and sends you straight into the next track on a huge high. I straight-up love this strategy. The first true track in question is "With a Little Help From My Friends". To me, this felt like the kind of cute, feel-good ditty you would find to close OUT the show. What is it doing here, smack at the beginning? Tonally, it's a little jarring from the solid intro that pitched to us the notion that we'd be listening to a well-oiled machine; but by itself, it's not necessarily a portent of ill omen. This could still potentially work as an opener. But "Lucy in the Sky" is next, and here is where things are looking rough. The chorus is repetitive and musically inert, and probably isn't the focus of the song. The verses have a psychedelic bent to them, and this is my hangup. 166 album ratings in, and the 60s as a decade is sitting a solid 0.68 points below my second-lowest-rated era. It's the only decade that falls below a 3-star average for me, and this right here is why. I don't understand what is supposed to be appealing about psychedelia. Is this because I've never done drugs? Is that the key that would unlock an entire musical generation for me? That is followed up by "Getting Better", which is rather appropriately-named, because this is more of a return to their roots and is actually pleasant to listen to. That said, it's also a fluff piece, hands-down. "Fixing a Hole" has a good guitar riff, actually, although I didn't notice it right away. That's about the best I can say for it; otherwise it's basically filler. "She's Leaving Home" would really be a perfect track to mellow us out... except we haven't been amped up since the intro, so it's not accomplishing anything here. Er, now hang on, that's a point. Wasn't I sold an experience? Because from my point of view, after that intro faded out, nothing has truly landed for me so far. We're halfway in already, and every single song has either been put sorely out of place, or should be functioning as the glue that would string along and prop up the memorable tracks—which are inexplicably absent. The rest of the album plays on in a similar manner; I'm already checked out, and that was supposed to be the GOOD half. Eventually, the Club Band reprise outro comes crashing in, acting like that was a hell of a show you just heard. Honestly, it's so confident in its approach that I could almost imagine it was true. But if you compare the intro/outro to the rest of the album... I don't know. It's discordant; it doesn't match the tone at all; it makes me wonder if the opening and closing act knew what they were opening and closing FOR. Maybe if my expectations had been different, I could have found more merit here. But the only thing louder than the hype from this album's introduction is the hype from the wall of 5-star reviews, many of which proudly proclaim "What can you say about this album?" But I suppose somebody in that mix should say *something*, because there are still a few dense people like me out there who just don't understand how to appreciate this work.

A compliment sandwich. Good: "Tago Mago" is very fun to say. Bad: I could have used that hour or so to catch up on podcasts. Good: "Aumgn" is the perfect onomatopoeia for human moaning. I will not speculate why the track needed to contain four minutes of human moaning, because this is supposed to be a compliment.

Depeche Mode knows that if you're going to use "again" to rhyme with a word ending in an "ane" sound, you need to pronounce it "a-GANE". I'd be tempted to give it five stars just for not cocking it up like everybody else. Thankfully the album is also very good.

My cat didn't really like it, but I did.

It's another cold Monday morning at the office; but as I sip my tea and put on this album, I'm transported to a place cozy and warm, and my concerns and frustrations with the mundanity of life evaporate as I lose myself in the music.

About a decade ago, a coworker told me there was only one good Metallica song, and I laughed it off. I never asked which song that was, but I'm starting to think she might have been right anyway.

An excellent effort by an average band.

My wife had a rough holiday weekend, so I'm making sure to treat her right this evening: I've got this album, I've got a dozen roses, and I've got a boxed macaroni and cheese dinner for two.

Listen, I like the album version of Highway Star. It's not trying to do anything deep; it just wants to be a face-melting metal classic, and it does it very well. It's fun. In this live rendition, however, all the joy and spirit they'd put into the recording is gone. This is a shell-less husk of a song, devoid of soul or enthusiasm—and this absence carries through the entire album. Because what we are listening to is not a band performing for a crowd. It is a band who has showed up for work. It's not difficult to believe that even the sections of endless guitar-wailing and drum solos are scripted, played the same way from show to show as the band autopilots its way through the tour. At one point following a song, the vocalist engages the crowd, but even this is lacking at first; you can actually perceive the moment he mentally reminds himself that the crowd wants him to scream at them, that he needs to give them energy to feed off of. Maybe it was one of those "you had to be there" kind of things, but nothing in this album is convincing me that going to see a band who is touring, playing the same show over and over for groups of people too large to comprehend, is the best way to experience music.

Base score: 5 stars. This was an excellently crafted and performed album that undoubtedly succeeded in its intentions. PERSONAL BIAS DEDUCTIONS: I do not enjoy the Chili Peppers' sound: –1 star The 73-minute runtime subjected me to the equivalent of two albums' worth of Chili Peppers content: –1 star I already hated the song "Suck My Kiss" and never wanted to hear it again: –1 star I already hated the song "Give It Away" and never wanted to hear it again: –1 star Oof, that's a shame. I really would have loved this album if everything about it was different.

Look, I don't think this is good music; but if this is what you needed to get you through the tumultuous years of adolescence, then, fine, I'm not going to begrudge you. But if I finish this project and don't come across a single pop-punk album to satisfy my own angsty teenage nostalgia, then I'm gonna be very unhappy.

Half a song in: "Man, this fun, Old Beatles are way better than new Beatles." Seven songs in: "Wow, all these songs are entirely forgettable, no wonder everybody loves New Beatles."

Somebody get that damn piano part an MVP award for carrying the rest of the album.

This album is like the Mona Lisa: maybe it's an incredible technical and artistic masterpiece, but it's also a little too ugly for me to want to hang in my living room.

Somebody greatly overestimated how long I'd like to hear a bunch of white kids shout brags at me.

The depictions of violence in this album were legitimately emotionally distressing and I was not prepared for it.

"Not as unlistenable as I had expected!" —Cover quote I think track 5, "Dead on Arrival", is the one that really solidifies what this album is trying to do. This is when the previously-ungraspable mixing board of sounds coalesces into something melodic, in its own way. The difficulty is, sitting at nearly ten minutes in, it's all too easy to have already checked out by the time it starts up. Yeah, weird one to rate. I didn't hate it. But if I wanted to listen to music, I'd still go with any of the albums I one-starred before I opted for this.

I drive a bog-standard Prius and the bass still blew out a couple of my neighbors' windows.

You could get away with playing this album at your wedding reception and not have to pay the DJ for forty minutes.

I came so close to rating this album 2 stars just so I wouldn't have a blatant anus spoiling my otherwise nice summary page, but I can't in good conscience give this album that high of praise.

Yes, Metallica, we're all very impressed with how you gamed the system by using an orchestra to win me over into actually liking this. Take your stupid five stars and go home.

Leonard Cohen is incredibly divisive, but at least we can all agree that the 80s were a mistake.

Me twenty years ago: "This album is so overrated." Me now: "I need to add all of these songs to my library."

Blues for Boomer Dads: The Album

This album is the audio equivalent of ranch dressing. It's a unique flavor and I completely understand why some people would dig it, but I can't imagine a single food where some other topping wouldn't fit way better.

"Wow Eminem, you've been blessed with this great gift! What are you going to do with it?" "Well, you know, I've thought really hard about this. And I have to say, I'm feeling drawn to produce an album that can only be truly appreciated for what it's worth by teenage boys. Like, right in that 13-15 range? I've always felt that these are the kind of people I truly connect with, and I'd really like to lean into that."

Do I understand some of the criticism here? Yes sir I do. Do I honestly want anything more out of an album than an insanely tight 30 minutes of high-energy rock? No sir, I do not.

This album is the audio equivalent of going to a restaurant named "Top Chef Fine Dining" and ordering a meal called "Taste Bud Explosion" and then being served boxed spaghetti with Ragu from the jar.

Hang on, the Byrds used to be good? What the hell happened?

This is the least-cool thing I have ever heard. I think that's supposed to be the point, but it still doesn't make me want to listen to this.

Is nobody going to talk about how the guy in the center of the album cover was clearly the inspiration for Han Solo?

For something I hated listening to, it wasn't that bad.

Damn I really dug the first three seconds of this album.

The Beastie Boys are BACK If it ain't broke DON'T FIX Pushing THIRTY but still SHOUTING 'bout OUR DICKS

It's too early in the morning for this shit.

Didn't really care for his collab work with Bing Crosby and Ogden Nash, but this album kinda slaps.

You know you're in for a bad time when you check your progress after what feels like 45 minutes just to find that you're only halfway through track two.

Bland-ass classic rock rips off REM to stay relevant

You threw enough British electronic albums at me, I was bound to like one of them eventually.

Bold debut album strategy to make the listeners think you've exhausted all your original content by track two.

I have, at this point, completed 730 albums. Long gone are the days where each morning provided promise of something exciting and new. I now trudge blindly through the endless desert sands of indistinguishable guitar riffs, noodled by equally-indistinguishable men, that dominated the late 60s and early 70s. I hear nothing. I feel nothing. I yearn for water. But there is only Happy Trails.

I played this during my morning commute and now I am SO HYPED for writing INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL for SOFTWARE

Sometimes I get too busy to really focus on listening to music, so I appreciate an album that actively encourages me to tune it out.

Look, all the tracks on the album sounding the exact same is only a *bad* thing when the songs stink.

This is just plain fun, and anybody who is going to be a snob about not liking it is not worth having in your life.

"Now hang on," I can hear you say. "You rated Led Zeppelin's fourth album 5 stars, but Led Zeppelin II was a 1-star album for you? Are you an absolute lunatic?" The answer is likely yes, but I can justify it in one sentence: The rest of the band decided to show up. From what I've gathered, much of Led Zeppelin's strength lies in their guitarist. The first couple albums seemed like little more than excuses to showcase a string of guitar solos. Now, if you're into killer guitar solos, Led Zeppelin is your band. If you're not... well, those albums don't have much else for you. By the time you get to Led Zeppelin IV, you can tell the rest of the band has figured out where they fit into the picture. That's not to say the stellar guitar work is gone; it still dominates throughout. But now the album feels like it has intention and clarity, and it makes all the difference.

Joel, this album really isn't very good, is it?

For somebody who claims not to be into Lynyrd Skynyrd, I sure do like a lot of their songs.

Suddenly I understand why all the other boys in my grade were the way they were.

This feels like what would happen if Microsoft's marketing department produced an album to promote diversity.

"I wrote a new song that doesn't have any substance and could be about any prison really but you're going to like it anyway because I wrote it for you. Also despite it clearly being the weakest song in the set I'm going to play it twice." I don't know. The man has a few good off-the-cuff lines between songs, but the crowd seems to be feeding on an energy that isn't being brought by Cash, who sounds like he's just going through the motions. Maybe you just had to be there.

I'm sorry, is that a PUNK SAXOPHONE?! Talk about things you never knew you needed in your life...

Sure, it was a decent punk album that pretty much gives you what you'd expect. But at such a short runtime, I had plenty of time left over to tackle another album, so now I'm going to review Diamond Life by Sade, which I also listened to for the first time today. Maybe it's on the 1001 Albums list, but if it's not, it should be. It's silky-smooth 80s pop that relies on the saxophone, but doesn't insist upon it, which is an important distinction. The balance is perfect and makes it a quintessential album for this era without opening itself to parody. 5/5 stars.

Hell, I'm so burnt out on indistinguishable 4-piece rock groups from this era that even if this album was just an hour of some guy playing a mildly-impressive kazoo, I'd still be looking up vinyl prices right now.

It only now occurs to me, as I'm about to rate an album I've heard so often, maybe I should have taken this opportunity to try listening to literally anything else Boston has done. Whoops.

This album truly is analogous to America. How on earth could something with so many good ideas behind it turn out so cringey?