This "album" was a medley of singles that each half of the duo was working on before deciding they might as well paste them together with transitions (because that's all an album is any ways, right? A mass of sounds that doesn't share any themes or connecting threads pasted together with little vision?). Beyond the lack of any obvious theme in the music (which I suppose I could overlook) is the length. Holy fuck, why are all these songs so long? Is the point to make me want to stop listening before it's over? Is this performance art? "Around the World", "Rollin' & Scratchin'", "Rock'n Roll", and "Burnin'" account for just under 30 minutes. Despite this combined length, they do not even make up half of this album (sitting at 74 minutes). Who needed this? Who asked for this? I want answers because I want to know whose name I should be cursing as I doze off to sleep trying desperately to forget this album. There's some funny joke to be made about "Teachers", a song that pays tribute to their musical heroes while managing to be bad music. I certainly don't have the energy to make it after being bombarded by seventy. four. fucking. minutes. of these repetitive noises. Not all of it's bad, although even the good comes with bad. The first three minutes or so of "Revolution 909" is catchy and interesting (but it overstays its welcome). The first half of "Indo Silver Club" is a real ear worm (but it overstays its welcome). "Alive", although admittedly not as good as the previous two songs, is pretty good for the first little bit (but it overstays its welcome). I guess both Daft Punk and I were wrong, there seems to be at least one theme that combines much of this album, its desperate need for an editor or any form of quality control. The only songs I found good all the way through were "Daftendirekt", "Da Funk", and "Fresh". However, my favorite song is "WDPK 83.7 FM" just because it is the only song on the album whose length I won't have nightmares about.

Synthesizer-laden, bustling songs that perform an incredible sleight of hand of taking themes (and even songs) and shift the focus ever so slightly to the narrator’s perspective, whose voice barrels through the instrumentation. We get songs like “Money Changes Everything” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, the former a song by the Brains about a man whose girlfriend leaves to be with a wealthier man and the latter a song written by Robert Hazard about his girlfriends. The Brains’ song is retold from the perspective of the woman (a defense of women chasing money) and Hazard’s song is reworked into a statement about the right of women to have fun. All of these changes are dressed in the sort of new-wave noise that infects the whole album, resulting in bouncy songs that defy expectations, propelled along by Lauper’s undeniably powerful voice. “When You Were Mine” is a perfect cover, taking the spirit of a song and inflecting it with something new, something unique to the new voice performing it. Lauper deftly does that, not improving but completely transforming Prince’s song. “Time After Time” and “She Bop” are the first original songs on the album and, lest it be worried that all Lauper was capable of was covering other’s music, both are incredible. I am partial to “She Bop”, a stunning song intended as a double entendre (although, I’m not convinced a song that references a gay porn magazine is being sly). Nothing much more needs to be said about “Time After Time”, simply a classic song. The second half of the album really begins to fall flat. I didn’t love either “All Through the Night” or “Yeah Yeah”. The former just feels out of place in the album, it also drags a bit. I am not sure what it is about “Yeah Yeah”, but Lauper’s voice feels flatter than anywhere else in the album and toned down––something is just lacking in it. However, I do love the little voice that whines in the background during the verses and I think the dolphin noise she makes is incredible. It’s a song I really want to love, but just can’t give myself completely to. “I’ll Kiss You” is frantic, loud, and feels like it’s literally coming off the tracks the length of the song. I get the sense that if “Yeah Yeah” sounded more like this, I would be able to love it. Overall, an incredible album. I love the way Lauper crafted a decidedly feminist new-wave sound, using preexisting material (“Money Changes Everything”; “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”) and without that material (“She Bop”; “I’ll Kiss You”). A near perfect debut. I would give it a 9/10 if I could, but a 5 will have to do on here. Also, it isn’t lost on me that I described the Cardigans as punk in a prom dress and Cyndi Lauper (a new-wave phenom drawing from all sorts of punk and post-punk acts) is literally wearing a prom dress on this album cover. I tried to think of a way to continue the analogy without making it convoluted. this is the best I have: Lauper is the sort of punk that goes to prom in a punkified prom dress. It’s not perfect, but I also think this is a fucking stupid analogy to keep up.

Another incredible Steely Dan album. I prefer Countdown to Ecstasy/Pretzel Logic/Katy Lied, but this album hits all , the right notes and has some amazing songs. “Deacon Blues” might be one of my favorite Steely Dan songs, and it might well be a paradigmatic Steely Dan song. They write about losers and castaways and shady, shitty characters down on their luck and this song captures that ethos so well (“They’ve got a name for the winners in the world/I, I want a name when I lose/They call Alabama the Crimson Tide/Call me deacon blues”). “Peg” is another song about a figure with aspirations down on their luck, this time an aspiring actress who ditched her boyfriend for her dreams of stardom. “Black Cow” is about some down on his luck schmuck confessing about his faithless girlfriend. However, this album has more of Steely Dan’s cryptic songwriting on it than albums past, and less of their sardonic wit. The title track is almost impenetrable, it seems impossible to make meaning out of it (although the instrumental break that punctuates the middle of the song is hypnotic). The three closing tracks stand over the end of the album like a riddle, each growing more convoluted than the last. There isn’t much hope of finding a consistent story in any of them, but they’re fun to listen to and the lyrics can provoke a response even when they fail to cohere into a story. An incredible album, I love it. 9/10.

I’m aware that Nick Drake felt the sounds of Bryter Layter were too full, but it’s my favorite of his three albums. Pink Moon occupies a sort of singular space for the sounds he was able to create, but this album takes what was truly great about Five Leaves Left and elevates it with compositions that compliment Drake’s forlorn voice and searching lyrics. I love this album. 9.5/10.

Does this bump in the whip? No. Does this make me stare out onto the road, my skin itching as I slowly drive into the gray amorphousness that swallows me, suspending me in space while time is slowed to the point where I can feel each millisecond seep into my skin, settle into my bones before it slides up my throat as I croak out the melodies to these songs, my body stretching forward as I feebly try to make contact with my loved ones, who sit just outside of this slow-time and no space as the grayness slowly digests me, breaking down each of my memories until I the only things that occupy my minds are the words to these songs? Yes. 
 This music seems to have its own temporality, like a voice is reaching out from somewhere I’ve never been, but somehow know, a nostalgia that feels more like an eerie horror than an old home. From the off-kilter percussive throbbing of “Earthquake” to the murmuring introduction of “Sailing” to the moaning that punctuates the beginning of “Basement Scene”’s chorus to “Helicopter”’s clacking which seems to rebound into itself, so much of this album feels like it is enlisting me into its own slanted rhythm, a rhythm just off beat with mine. At certain moments, it feels like I’m touching a time completely different from mine, not in the sense of a past or future, but a different sort of present, a present that moves slower, labors over every moment. Even the faster songs, like “Don’t Cry” and “Revival” and “Desire Line”, feel disjointed, feel like a world of their own. The closing song seems to me to sum up the whole of the album in its final seconds, which simply cut away just as it feels that the song is building to a conclusion, a demonstration that the music is ever so slightly distended, just a shade out of sync, recorded in a margin of time that suddenly closes itself off before we get the chance to hear what the music is fading towards. A beautiful album. 9/10. Fucking incredible.

A protest song can be good, even great; a protest album, not so much. The album can drag, it is practically one frantically shouted note (not that it doesn't reach for the softer sounds, only that those reaches feel like needlessly clumsy gropings in the dark).

An album that lives up to the expectations of a band named after a steam-powered dildo in "Naked Lunch." In some moments, they are taking something seriously enough only to cut it apart, whether it is the new-age spirituality of the West-coast (Bodhisattva) or its excessive consumerism (Show Biz Kids). In other moments, they offer up vignettes of life's losers (The Boston Rag; My Old School; Pearl of the Quarter). And, at their very best, they are offering up an often impenetrable statement on the state of their world (Razor Boy; Your Gold Teeth; King of the World).

Good production, bouncy songs, great album. The second half really sets the album apart. The production on songs like "Yearnin' Learnin'" and "Reasons" is amazing. "Happy Feelin'" is a great song that immediately puts me into a good mood, as so many songs on this album do. However, it has some flaws. "All About Love (First Impressions)" drags for too long and contains some strange, new age proselytization about looking at trees unlocking the peace of the world. Also, Phillip Bailey's falsetto, while beautiful when used in conjunction with other vocals ("Happy Feelin'"; "The Way of the World") becomes the weakest part of any song on which it is the lead vocal ("Reasons").

A wonderful debut album. The highs are very high ("Criminal"; "Never is a Promise"; "Carrion"), but the lows can really drag ("Shadowboxer": "Slow Like Honey"). Overall, there are just too many songs that feel like they fade back into the album without managing to contribute to an overall picture of the album. In short, the sum is NOT greater than its parts, and might well be worse than some of its best parts. I would say something between a 3-4, but closer to a 3 than a 4.

At its best, it reminds me of things I would rather be listening to; at its worst, it reminds me how bad of a decision it was to listen to this instead of those other things. Maybe Oldfield didn't understand that announcing instruments doesn't make the theme they're riffing on sound any better, it only makes me regret that I have to listen to another round of it before I can finally finish the album. I only two things notable: the sequence in Tubular Bells Pt. II with the grunted vocals and the fact that a child-rapist used the first minute as a theme for his movie about demon possession. The former only happened because Oldfield got himself drunk enough to accidentally do something interesting. The latter's what brought us here, listening to an album that makes me wish some priest could exorcise the memory of this bland music out of my fucking head.

The first half of the album is good. "Inspiration Information" is a great single, but very little else in the album stood out to me. The second half of the album (the instrumentals) sort of faded into the background.

It was a good album. I don't have much to add mainly because it isn't the sort of album that appeals to me at all. I'm sure the content was really meaningful, but it was just packaged in a way that I didn't like. Meh.

It was an album. I don't like live albums, I don't really understand them. But, I had to listen to this one.

Reminds me a lot of the twee/anorak pop from groups like Tallulah Gosh, Marine Girls, and Heavenly (sans the school-aged imagery that followed around these twee as fuck bands). However, unlike those groups, The Cardigans manage to be even more sugary sweet, hiding all the bitter bite of their punk in their lyrics. The album is swimming with sweet-sounding songs about heartbreak ("Your New Cuckoo"; "Lovefool"), sardonic songs lampooning the facile images of a woman in love ("Been It"; "Step on Me"), a great song about a one-night stand ("Heartbreaker"). What's more, The Cardigans always seem to pull away from the sweetness at just the right moment, preventing the listener from feeling overwhelmed by the saccharine sound of the music. If twee pop was punk in a school uniform, The Cardigans is punk in a prom dress, the very poofiest one. Between a 3 and 4, but closer to a 4.

In "Gotta Get Away", Dexter Holland shouts "Life is like a riddle and I'm really stumped". Replace life with music, songwriting, or art and you get the thesis of this album: a group of guys stumped about making music, but for some God-forsaken reason trying to do it anyways. Sometimes the songs aren't half bad ("Come Out and Play (Keep 'em Separated)"; "What Happened to You?"). But, those songs hardly redeem this album. "Bad Habit" sounds like a Bleach C-side where Holland has a quarter of Cobain's charisma and none of his songwriting ability. I assume "Genocide" was some sort of protest against the Rwandan Genocide, but it is filled with trite cliches and meaningless words that are supposed to convince the listener of what exactly? If it wasn't meant as a protest song to the Rwandan Genocide, then these guys are fucking tone deaf idiots. Judging from "It'll Be a Long Time", they probably are. The song says nothing meaningful, and is filled with truly poetic lines like "Superpowers flex their wings/Hold the world on puppet strings". Someone should tell Holland that protest songs are supposed to say something meaningful about the present day (a la System of a Down) and that sarcasm is only effective if the writer has an interesting point to drive home (a la Green Day).

Synthesizer-laden, bustling songs that perform an incredible sleight of hand of taking themes (and even songs) and shift the focus ever so slightly to the narrator’s perspective, whose voice barrels through the instrumentation. We get songs like “Money Changes Everything” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, the former a song by the Brains about a man whose girlfriend leaves to be with a wealthier man and the latter a song written by Robert Hazard about his girlfriends. The Brains’ song is retold from the perspective of the woman (a defense of women chasing money) and Hazard’s song is reworked into a statement about the right of women to have fun. All of these changes are dressed in the sort of new-wave noise that infects the whole album, resulting in bouncy songs that defy expectations, propelled along by Lauper’s undeniably powerful voice. “When You Were Mine” is a perfect cover, taking the spirit of a song and inflecting it with something new, something unique to the new voice performing it. Lauper deftly does that, not improving but completely transforming Prince’s song. “Time After Time” and “She Bop” are the first original songs on the album and, lest it be worried that all Lauper was capable of was covering other’s music, both are incredible. I am partial to “She Bop”, a stunning song intended as a double entendre (although, I’m not convinced a song that references a gay porn magazine is being sly). Nothing much more needs to be said about “Time After Time”, simply a classic song. The second half of the album really begins to fall flat. I didn’t love either “All Through the Night” or “Yeah Yeah”. The former just feels out of place in the album, it also drags a bit. I am not sure what it is about “Yeah Yeah”, but Lauper’s voice feels flatter than anywhere else in the album and toned down––something is just lacking in it. However, I do love the little voice that whines in the background during the verses and I think the dolphin noise she makes is incredible. It’s a song I really want to love, but just can’t give myself completely to. “I’ll Kiss You” is frantic, loud, and feels like it’s literally coming off the tracks the length of the song. I get the sense that if “Yeah Yeah” sounded more like this, I would be able to love it. Overall, an incredible album. I love the way Lauper crafted a decidedly feminist new-wave sound, using preexisting material (“Money Changes Everything”; “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”) and without that material (“She Bop”; “I’ll Kiss You”). A near perfect debut. I would give it a 9/10 if I could, but a 5 will have to do on here. Also, it isn’t lost on me that I described the Cardigans as punk in a prom dress and Cyndi Lauper (a new-wave phenom drawing from all sorts of punk and post-punk acts) is literally wearing a prom dress on this album cover. I tried to think of a way to continue the analogy without making it convoluted. this is the best I have: Lauper is the sort of punk that goes to prom in a punkified prom dress. It’s not perfect, but I also think this is a fucking stupid analogy to keep up.

The progenitors of frat rap, however, I try my best not to hold that against them. Undeniably catchy, but utterly uninteresting to me. "Brass Monkey" makes my ears itch in the worst of possible ways, and I have never liked "Fight For Your Right". However, I do like "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" and I think the two album closers are interesting songs (definitely the most interesting on the album).

A protest rock opera that protests... something? I understand the thrust of songs like "American Idiot" and "Holiday", but "Jesus of Suburbia" seems like a protest song without a cause and more of the album resembles the latter than the former. An album that claims to protest the state of America, but magically omits any mention of race or gender or class is probably not a very effective protest album. The protagonist (the aforementioned Jesus of Suburbia) just comes off as an edgy kid with no political consciousness. At the very least, it sounds a lot better than The Offspring.

The weakest of Led Zeppelin's four self-titled albums. "Immigrant Song" is one of my least favorite songs on the album and definitely my least favorite Zeppelin opening. The punchy parts of the music feel less powerful on this album. In a lot of cases, they just disappoint (like on "Celebration Day" and "Out on the Tiles", which both feel diminutive and repetitive). The softer sounds of the album are a mixed bag. "Friends" is utterly forgettable, toned down to the point of the drone of Plant's admittedly beautiful vocals but with little else to occupy the attention. That being said, the highs on this album are what should be expected from Zeppelin. "Since I've Been Loving You" is the first truly good song on the album, and it is one hell of a song. The centerpiece of the album (both sonically and emotionally), Plant is at his very best as he shouts and sputters through, over, and under the banging drums and sharp guitar. Utterly mesmerizing. The final three songs on the album almost succeed in matching the heights of "Since I've Been Loving You". "That's The Way" is one of the acoustic songs that realizes its potential; it is astounding (amplified by the fact that it follows "Tangerine"). Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is incredible fun and the repetition never grows dull. "Hats off to (Roy) Harper" is shocking; it captures the beauty of those early blues recordings whose crackling and cuts seem to come alive. If "Since I've Been Loving You" is Zeppelin's very best extrapolation of blues on this album, it's fitting that the second best song here so perfectly captures the uniqueness of early blues. If it were only these two songs the album would deserve a 5. However, they are weighed down by the failings of the rest of the album.

For better or worse, Bad Company’s sounds will always be related to Free. This is largely the fault of the band. They sounds like they’ve all taken a light dosage of Xanax and are trying to write Free-esque songs and play a Zeppelin sound. On the whole, it comes out feeling cumbersomely heavy, slow, and hallow. It strikes me as a poppified version of Free (and it seems they were somewhat successful, given the relative successes of the two bands). The first half of this album is just bad. “Can’t Get Enough” is slow, the guitar is week, the drums barely register. It sounds like Paul Rodgers is trying his damndest to give song energy with his voice alone, but he is failing. The “solo” makes me weep, it is so paltry and powerless. “Rock Steady” and “Ready For Love” sounds like parodies of this genre, as if a band took all the most cliched aspects of this blues-inspired rock and turned them up to 11. Maybe I feel this way because they also just strike me as utterly uncreative. The sax on “Don’t Let Me Down” fucking depresses me. I get viscerally sad when I hear it, and the transition from that sax to the guitar solo makes me lose hope. “Movin’ On” is so repetitive, although the solo is better on this song than any song in the first half. The second half of the albums (sans “Movin’ On”) is a massive improvement. “Seagull” is a really interesting song, Rodgers’ voice immediately hooks me on each listen. The acoustic guitar is perfect accompaniment for his voice on this song. The lyrics are wonderfully cryptic. “The Way I Choose” is also a great song. It builds into the chorus slowly and deliberatively. Also, the effect on Rodgers’ voice (I assume it is just an echo on the mic, either that or some sort of overdubbing) produce this haunting choral sound that is incredible. I could do without the sax at the end, but it is better than “Don’t Let Me Down”. The title track is at the very least interesting. It is the song that does the sort of guitar driven rock that they are so well known for the very best on this album. The piano is pretty nice, a great opening for the song, and the payoff of the heavy sounds feels earned (although, the guitar does feel slightly denuded. The drums sound crisp, though). If it were just the first half of the album, it would be a 2 or even 1 out of 10. With the second half, it is a 3 or a 3.5 out of 10. I wish there was more acoustic on the album and I wish the non-acoustic songs sounded more like the title track.

This "album" was a medley of singles that each half of the duo was working on before deciding they might as well paste them together with transitions (because that's all an album is any ways, right? A mass of sounds that doesn't share any themes or connecting threads pasted together with little vision?). Beyond the lack of any obvious theme in the music (which I suppose I could overlook) is the length. Holy fuck, why are all these songs so long? Is the point to make me want to stop listening before it's over? Is this performance art? "Around the World", "Rollin' & Scratchin'", "Rock'n Roll", and "Burnin'" account for just under 30 minutes. Despite this combined length, they do not even make up half of this album (sitting at 74 minutes). Who needed this? Who asked for this? I want answers because I want to know whose name I should be cursing as I doze off to sleep trying desperately to forget this album. There's some funny joke to be made about "Teachers", a song that pays tribute to their musical heroes while managing to be bad music. I certainly don't have the energy to make it after being bombarded by seventy. four. fucking. minutes. of these repetitive noises. Not all of it's bad, although even the good comes with bad. The first three minutes or so of "Revolution 909" is catchy and interesting (but it overstays its welcome). The first half of "Indo Silver Club" is a real ear worm (but it overstays its welcome). "Alive", although admittedly not as good as the previous two songs, is pretty good for the first little bit (but it overstays its welcome). I guess both Daft Punk and I were wrong, there seems to be at least one theme that combines much of this album, its desperate need for an editor or any form of quality control. The only songs I found good all the way through were "Daftendirekt", "Da Funk", and "Fresh". However, my favorite song is "WDPK 83.7 FM" just because it is the only song on the album whose length I won't have nightmares about.

Does this bump in the whip? No. Does this make me stare out onto the road, my skin itching as I slowly drive into the gray amorphousness that swallows me, suspending me in space while time is slowed to the point where I can feel each millisecond seep into my skin, settle into my bones before it slides up my throat as I croak out the melodies to these songs, my body stretching forward as I feebly try to make contact with my loved ones, who sit just outside of this slow-time and no space as the grayness slowly digests me, breaking down each of my memories until I the only things that occupy my minds are the words to these songs? Yes. 
 This music seems to have its own temporality, like a voice is reaching out from somewhere I’ve never been, but somehow know, a nostalgia that feels more like an eerie horror than an old home. From the off-kilter percussive throbbing of “Earthquake” to the murmuring introduction of “Sailing” to the moaning that punctuates the beginning of “Basement Scene”’s chorus to “Helicopter”’s clacking which seems to rebound into itself, so much of this album feels like it is enlisting me into its own slanted rhythm, a rhythm just off beat with mine. At certain moments, it feels like I’m touching a time completely different from mine, not in the sense of a past or future, but a different sort of present, a present that moves slower, labors over every moment. Even the faster songs, like “Don’t Cry” and “Revival” and “Desire Line”, feel disjointed, feel like a world of their own. The closing song seems to me to sum up the whole of the album in its final seconds, which simply cut away just as it feels that the song is building to a conclusion, a demonstration that the music is ever so slightly distended, just a shade out of sync, recorded in a margin of time that suddenly closes itself off before we get the chance to hear what the music is fading towards. A beautiful album. 9/10. Fucking incredible.

When the song composition is at its sparsest, both in sound and time, this album is engaging and lives up to its admittedly alluring title. However, the album is often too full and too long for its own good (and the good of its listener). This is probably best explained by the transition from “Tonight, Tonight” (a full, well-balanced power ballad) to “Jellybelly” (a confusing, thrashing, grating, nasally (oh so very, very nasally) song whose lyrics are drowned by the fuzzily mixed guitars and frantic drumming). This transition encapsulates my mixed feelings about this album; I love the “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” and “Tonight, Tonight”, I hate “Jellybelly” and “Zero”. If “Jellybelly” is too loud and grating, “Zero” is just quiet enough for me to hear Corgan’s truly awful lyrics (“Emptiness is loneliness/And loneliness is cleanliness/And cleanliness is godliness/And God is empty just like me” sounds like the scribblings of some teenager whose angst has driven him away from his childhood religion; it is genuinely painful to listen to). And that seems to be the story of this two hour long album. For the most part, the music is fuzzy, grating, and far too long (the songs average more than 5 minutes). When I can actually make out Corgan’s lyrics through the screaming guitars and the nasal inflection, I feel like I am listening to poetry he wrote when he was a teenager. However, the album is punctuated by truly beautiful compositions (“Tonight, Tonight”; “To Forgive”; “Cupid de Locke”; “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans”; “Take Me Down”; “1979”; “Thru the Eyes of Ruby”; “Beautiful”; “Lily (My One and Only)”). Unfortunately, for the most part these beautiful songs are exhausting to listen to because they are sandwiched between other exorbitantly long songs. “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” sums this up perfectly. It is the longest song on the album, but when I listen to it without all the build up of the previous 12 tracks, I don’t feel its length in the least. However, put it back in the context of the album and it becomes laborious to get through. Further, not all of the softer ballads are winners. “By Starlight” stands out as a song of soft instrumentation punctuated by the infantile lyricism. This is an album that needed to be cut in half. It feels like Smashing Pumpkins included every song they finished in the recording studio because they couldn’t decide which they should cut. The connecting theme seems to be Corgan’s lyrics, which are often corny, superficial, and painful to anyone who has grown up beyond their teenage years. Frankly, it is a chore to listen to the whole thing. This is an album whose rare, far-reaching heights are overshadowed by the far more consistent lows of Corgan’s lyricism and voice, the grating instrumentals, and the exhausting length. 3/10.

Incredible. The two longest songs are exceptional and deserve to be every second as long as they are, not a single track feels like a miss, and Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower" is phenomenal. 10/10.

I am, admittedly, not a fan of metal. That being said, I find some of the songs on this album interesting and engaging. But, like so much metal music, I find it difficult to get past the puerile and heavy-handed lyricism. The opener is a shrine to handling a hard topic poorly (Is Mustaine warning the IRA against "killing for religion" or the Protestant Brits in "Holy War...Punishment Due"? Or is he warning both? Why am I unable to tell no matter how many times I read the lyrics?). I can't help but feel that there is a formula at the heart of many of these songs. I'm not convinced the formula is bad, but it makes listening to the whole album a bit dull since the songs start to run together after a little bit. I am also willing to admit that I might not have the sort of ear that can distinguish the nuances of the songs, though. In all, I don't think I'll listen to it again. 3/10 (but closer to a 2 than a 4)

The album feels like an inside joke. Maybe other listeners are in on it, maybe only the artist is in on it. I don't know, but I do know that I most certainly am not in on it. There are parts that I like, but there is no song that I like all the way through. "Rockafeller Skank" is probably my favorite track on the album, but it is almost three minutes too long for my taste. I probably won't listen to any of it again. 2/10.

I wish I could hate this album because Marty Robbins is a racist little piss baby. Sadly, this album is great. All of these songs are these odd americana tragedies. “Big Iron” manages to relay the story of an arrogant gunslinger killed by a lawman; “Cool Water” is a prickly, off-kilter, upbeat song about a man dying of thirst; “They’re Hanging me Tonight” is a song about a jilted lover murdering his former lover and her current lover; “El Paso” is about a man who basically condemns himself to death by trying to win his love. It is amazing that Robbins can make songs so easy to sing along to that are all so comedically depressing. But, there is also something really poetic about how little this music is sanitized. There are exceptions, of course (and the exceptions are often the very worst parts of the album). But, it is a western album that can’t even manage to romanticize the western front. Talking about sanitization, “A Hundred and Sixty Acres” is so boring, a man just enjoying farming. It sounded like white bread tastes. “The Master’s Call” was also a really uneven song. It’s not that I hate the message, just that it feels tonally out of sync with the rest of the album. Plus, the narrator is pretty hard to identify with, he sounds like a real jackass so I’m none to partial to him getting a miracle and the cattle dying. I love the closer, it really seems to encapsulate the really comedic tragedy that marks so much of this album. All in all, I would say a 7/10.

A bouncy album. The songs are long, but I was surprised at how short they feel when I’m listening to them. It might be partially due to the constant shifts in the sound that spans each song (and that spans the album, really). No one song sounds too much like another, but the sounds aren’t so disparate that the album lacks cohesion. There are definite highlights (“Crying”; “Golden Age”; “Family Tree”; “Shout Me Out”) and the best of the album outruns the album’s worst parts (“Red Dress”; “DLZ”). And, like every album on the cusp of being great, this album has songs that I can’t figure out if I like regardless of how many times I listen (“Dancing Choose”; “Love Dog”). All in all, a really great album. 7.5/10.

I enjoyed this album much more than I thought I would. One thing that makes it hard to rate an album like this is that the music seems not to be made for casual listening. This is music for dancing. Because of that, I feel like a lot of my gripes might fall a little flat. The songs can run too long, the music can slide into repetitiveness, the beats can sometimes feel a bit too simplistic. However, in some ways that might be a strength of the music as the artists conceived of it. Regardless, I liked the album, although the songs are a bit too long for my liking. Further, the more I listened to it, the harder it became to pay attention to each song. It's almost as if the album just runs together. Still, a fun listening experience. 6.5/10.

I've never really felt that I understood Willie Nelson or his appeal all that much. This album feels like background music to me. The parts I like the most ("Georgia On My Mind"; "On the Sunny Side of the Street") sound like riffs on artists I prefer (Sunny Side sounds like a Randy Newman composition, but with none of Neman's charisma). All in all, the album just feels a bit dull to me, although I'm sure there is something in it that I am just not connecting with.

This album is uneven. Sweet Jane has none of the charm of the original. Momma’s Little Jewel is fascinatingly layered, and it never lets up—pushing through the stammering, sputtering vocals. All The Young Dudes sounds like a Bowie knock-off performed by a high school cover band, with none of Bowie’s humor or charisma. Sucker feels the exact opposite of All the Young Dudes: it’s humorous, the vocal performance is top notch, the percussion verges on the off-kilter without ever failing to propel the track forward. Ready for Love/After Lights is cliched rock at its worse. I like the album, but I can only listen to so many tracks on it more than a couple times. I am very partial to the closer, which I feel best showcases the sort of vocal talent that Ian Hunter had. That being said, having your album’s title track written by another, better musician can’t be anything but bad. 5.5/10

This is such an incredible listen. There isn't a single song that I skipped through in all my listens. There is a quality to Bob Marley's voice that reggae artists since have seemed incapable of emulating (and that all of the exaggerated imitations do absolutely no justice to). The album hinges on Marley's performance—the airy themes that might otherwise be a bit unbearable, the repetitions that could start the grate—but Marley never seems to fail. A truly incredible album. 9/10.

Calenture is a misleading album. It opens with a pillowy, power pop ballad that belongs more in the opening montage of a Disney movie about some orphaned animal adopted into an interspecial family than it does the opener of a post-punk Australian outfit's LP. However, as the album progresses, cracks appear in the facade of this simple, straightforward, sickeningly sweet pop. “Kelly’s Blues” is peppered with indecipherable lyrics that sound like the scrawlings of a maniac in love with his hostage; “A Trick of the Light” reinforces this image of mania by recounting the story of a man who sees some lost love, perhaps, but it also hints at something much darker (with lyrics like “I was beating on her Iike an anvil…With that same old panic caught on her face”); “Unmade Love” seems to narrate scorned love gone wrong; and on and on. Suddenly, “Bury Me Deep in Love” sounds more like a warning covered over by its pillowy instrumentals. It isn’t just the story being narrated by the band that chips away at the album’s first impression. The sudden shift to the dark, uneasy instrumentation in “Unmade Love”; the strings that linger off-kilter in the background of “Blinder By the Hour” are almost anxious-making; the pulsing percussion of “Vagabond Holes” paired with the McComb’s vocal performance produces a song that feels desperate (although I wish both the vocals and the instrumentals in the chorus were less polished, rougher like they are in the verses of the song); the title track is an incredible punctuation of the album. My biggest complaint is the closer. The album overstays its welcome with “Save What You Can”. Not that it is a bad song (although I don’t think it is a particularly good song), but it ruins what would have been an amazing closer with the title track. The album can also drag in some places. I find my attention begins to wander when I listen to songs like “Hometown Farewell Kiss”, “Open For You”, and “Holy Water”. I also think “Jerdacuttup Man” lasts a beat longer than I wish it did (although I really love most of the song). I would give it a 7/10. It would almost certainly be a higher rating if the album ended with Calenture, but it probably wouldn’t be too much higher of a rating.

I don't really get it. The album manages to be good, interesting, bad, and bland. Unfortunately, none of good parts are very interesting and all of the interesting parts are bad. The very best of the album sounds like it belongs on a better album.

This album is a reminder of why people could have claimed Coldplay as their favorite band at a time and place while still being taken seriously. That being said, this album already shows some of the worse that Coldplay would become. I think it’s a reminder how difficult it is to listen to this album with fresh ears in a world where Coldplay has become all that they are, with the myriad of knock-offs and sell-outs who have copied the formula that is in its early stages in this album. Songs like The Scientist and Clocks are really difficult to place in this album because I have heard them so very much outside of the album. That shouldn’t be a negative, but it makes it hard to appreciate the album as it is. 
 All in all, it is a good album with some pretty great songs (among them are both The Scientist and Clocks). I don’t think it is the greatest album ever and it still lapses into the sort of hyper-simplified pop balladry that Coldplay has since become well known for. 5/10

A classic, near-perfect album. The title track alone is worthy of 5 stars.

I’m aware that Nick Drake felt the sounds of Bryter Layter were too full, but it’s my favorite of his three albums. Pink Moon occupies a sort of singular space for the sounds he was able to create, but this album takes what was truly great about Five Leaves Left and elevates it with compositions that compliment Drake’s forlorn voice and searching lyrics. I love this album. 9.5/10.

Another incredible Steely Dan album. I prefer Countdown to Ecstasy/Pretzel Logic/Katy Lied, but this album hits all , the right notes and has some amazing songs. “Deacon Blues” might be one of my favorite Steely Dan songs, and it might well be a paradigmatic Steely Dan song. They write about losers and castaways and shady, shitty characters down on their luck and this song captures that ethos so well (“They’ve got a name for the winners in the world/I, I want a name when I lose/They call Alabama the Crimson Tide/Call me deacon blues”). “Peg” is another song about a figure with aspirations down on their luck, this time an aspiring actress who ditched her boyfriend for her dreams of stardom. “Black Cow” is about some down on his luck schmuck confessing about his faithless girlfriend. However, this album has more of Steely Dan’s cryptic songwriting on it than albums past, and less of their sardonic wit. The title track is almost impenetrable, it seems impossible to make meaning out of it (although the instrumental break that punctuates the middle of the song is hypnotic). The three closing tracks stand over the end of the album like a riddle, each growing more convoluted than the last. There isn’t much hope of finding a consistent story in any of them, but they’re fun to listen to and the lyrics can provoke a response even when they fail to cohere into a story. An incredible album, I love it. 9/10.

I found the synthesizers lifeless, the lyrics banal, and the vocal performances to be uninspiring. The songs felt super empty. Maybe this is just a bias I have against dance music, but I can’t imagine being in a place where I really want to listen to this music. “Round and Round” is really the worst offender on this album, I don’t know if I can make it all the way through without distracting myself from the music somehow. It just sounds awful, from the truly terrible lyrics, the strange off-kilter and off-beat way he's singing, the clashing synthesizers that aren’t mixed well, the odd echoes on the lead’s voice, the strange sounds just tossed into the composition. This is the bane of my existence as a musical listener. There are some highlights on the album (although, not that many). “All the Way” and “Dream Attack” are pretty good. But so much of the album really sounds like the soundtrack of an 80’s movie in the very worst way possible. 3/10.