So far four songs in. It’s... ok. Definitely not bad. But not mind blowing yet. Surprised how rod stewart only sounds like what I think of rod Stewart occasionally. Ok “stay with me” is pretty solid. I think I’ve heard it before. But yea cool song. “Debris” is pretty cool. Maybe the second half of the album picks up. The vibe I’m getting from a lot of this album: if I was still going through my classic rock phase or if I was around when this first came out, it would be a very top notch album. But I think I’m just kinda “over” classic rock a little. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great genre, but it now takes a lot to blow me away within the genre. Pretty dope slide guitar on the last track though.
What can be said about this album that hasn’t been said already? It’s a perfect album. 5 stars. Just beautiful, lively, haunting, full of emotion. Recorded beautifully.
So far I was underwhelmed until “it’s not up to you”. Still not blown away though. Maybe I’m too marinated in a culture affected by bjork to understand why she’s so revered and respected. Ok “undo” is pretty dope too. Maybe I like the more lush songs over the minimalist early 2000s beeps and boops. End of “undo” with that bitcrusher. Not a big fan of that aesthetic. Maybe because I grew up on aol dial up. I feel like I might be missing out on lyrics too. Iirc she’s known for her emotional lyrics and when I listen to music, especially on first listens, I tend to ignore lyrics for the instrumental. My ear more naturally gravitates there. “Pagan poetry” seems like one where I’m missing out by not gravitating to lyrics. “Aurora” would be a great song to walk around somewhere cold outdoors to. Finishing up the album now. Better than how I felt at the beginning but still not blown away.
So far again underwhelmed. First song to catch my ear is the bossa influenced “no return”. But mostly for the bossa. “Love me till the sun shines” is alright. One thing I can say I do particularly enjoy about this album is the drumming. Really nice grooves going on. “End of the season” was nice. I like the nature sounds lol. But also a nice short song that feels summery. “Waterloo sunset” melody sounds so familiar but I can’t place it. And that’s the end of the core album. The rest are bonus tracks. I have a problem figuring out what a 2 and 4 rating sounds like. I know a 5. I stick a lot of stuff in 3. And 1 I assume would be crap. But I’m torn on this album. I think ideally I’d give like a 2.5 or 2.7 or something. I guess 3 will be fine.
2nd album I’ve gotten that I’ve heard before but that’s cool. This is a decent album. Preemptively predicting I’ll give it a 4. I think this is a good example possibly. “Break on through” is a classic for a reason. “Light my fire”. Another great song. So far the songs I already loved stand out and the others are... eh not bad not amazing. “The end” is a spectacular song. Great vibe. Also lol at “the west is the best”. It feels like such a weird brag about where Morrison lives in an otherworldly song. I mean I think I get where he’s coming from but looking back at how that movement died out... it’s just pretty silly.
“Were the last British people you will ever know” sounds pretty sus when you remember Morrissey’s racist shit.
It’s funny. I’ve always known SoaD as a metal band but all the songs I’ve heard from them always seemed to almost transcend the genre. All genres in general. But from this intro track, I definitely feel the metal description. Also very cool opening riff. Ok I know it can’t be but the lyrics to “sugar” sound like “THE KOMBUCHA”. This is some solid metal. I can’t imagine me listening to it a lot since I’m not in that headset but this stuff is pretty good. “Soil” is a rad song. Cool lyrics and guitar. “Peephole” is another dope song. I kinda feel like this would be a 5 star album if not for being a genre I don’t love. The glitchy/tremolo distortion backing vocal is a cool ass effect. I might steal that for something. Ok now I’m just to the bonus live tracks. Great album. If I could do decimals this would probably be a 4.5ish but I might fall back to 4 just because I’ve definitely heard better albums so I need to reserve those 5s. But damn... still a great freaking album. Glad I listened to it.
I’ve never been a big Elvis guy. Let’s see how this is. “True love travels on a gravel road” is a decent tune. What was with that fade out and back in on “suspicious minds”? I liked the horn arrangements most of all on this album. “Mama liked the roses” was a nice song.
Not bad so far but I just feel like I'm trapped in the 90s. Which obviously sounded fresh at the time. But I'm finding a lot of these albums sound very stuck in their time. Which is probably self fulfilling: these eras sound this way because these defining albums came about. But I have trouble listening to something that, to my fresh ears, sounds almost like parody of an era's style. Welp... TIL about Sheela Na Gig. Interesting. "Joe" has a cool intro. Funkier than I expected. The album itself feels a bit thin though. Like it's EQ'd/mastered weird. But it could also just be my headphones/laptop. I'm using bluetooth from my laptop which isn't my norm so I don't want to judge it on that.
Yea... I guess a 3? It wasn't bad. And I see how it probably sounded great in the 90s. Especially for women. But it doesn't do much of anything special for me in 2021. Again, with decimals, I'd maybe give it a bit higher. But I don't even know about a 3.5. Maybe slightly below that.
Kinda late but here goes. This is not up my alley at all so far. I feel like this is what right wing school shooters listen to before doing their thing. Especially that bush 1 “nwo” sample. Feels like what an asshole listens to. “Just one fix” reminds me of a Metallica song so far. Scratch that. Wiki says du hast. And yea that’s it. Sounds the same. “Hero” does sound thrashy so far. This is admittedly more thrashy than I thought. That’s probably a good thing even though it’s not my fav genre. It’s better than what I expected from “industrial metal”. The guitar tone is pretty vibey on “scare crow”. Listening in my iPad speakers right now but I can kinda feel the buzz from them. Pretty cool there. Not to sound like a grumpy old person but the last two tracks are almost pure noise. Not that that’s a bad thing necessarily but it feels very different from the rest. I had to take a pause before them to celebrate my moms bday and what I came back to sounded like a whole different album.
When it hits highs, it's a pretty high album. But there feels like a decent amount of fillerish that just doesn't live up as high. I think if I could do decimals I'd do 3.5-3.7 but I think it's fair to round up to 4. If only for "What's Golden". Banger.
“Stuck in a moment you can’t get out of” sounds familiar. I don’t know if I’ve heard this song before or if it’s similar to something else. It’s better than expected though. “Beautiful” is just corny at this point. “In a little while”, while not *funk*... definitely funkier than what I’d expect from u2. I’m def not calling this a 5 star and probably not a 4 either but this album is surprising me. I thought it’d be a lot more... Bono being Bono. “New York” is cheesy. And it’s pre 911 which makes it even cheesier. Honestly, I’m a bit confused at how bad some of these songs are. I knew u2 wasn’t my flavor but some of this just feels like... unfinished. Like a demo take. I think a 3 is fine. But honestly I hate rating albums. I just like listening.
The outro to “death of a disco dancer” is pretty cool. I read on wiki that marr wanted to avoid the jingle jangle of previous albums but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want some jingle jangle. But Marr is still a great guitarist. “Unhappy birthday” sounds like a spoof done by someone mocking like an incel or something. Wtf is this. Marr with more great guitar on “paint a vulgar picture”. Spotify automatically went into another smiths album and I didn’t realize and I was thinking “finally a little jingle jangle on this album”. But nope. Eh. I hate rating and I’m thinking of starting to give everything a 3 unless it stands out in one way or another. I guess I’ll give this one a 3 I don’t know. Didn’t love it but it didn’t offend my ears either. I want more jingle jangle.
Not gonna lie. Every time jay says “jewels” I think he’s saying jews. It’s the blueprint. Not much more to say. It’s a great album. I think it falls short of 5 stars for me because you have albums like mm food. And some of the lines sound dated but it’s easily 4 stars.
Shit my notes didn't save. Great album. "Piece of my Heart" and "Ball and Chain" are the highlights. Great fuzz tones on guitar. Makes me want to be in warm weather walking around aimlessly.
Not my type of album but hell, here’s a 3. It helped me to discover “big cheeseburgers and good French fries” by blaze foley.
I’m reminded how much shorter albums are enjoyable. At 36 minutes this feels digestible. Also weird al is deeply ingrained in my psyche. I keep thinking of his version of American pie. Also also, the piano on the title track is underrated. Bluesy and great. “Till tomorrow” is a surprisingly short and sweet song. “The grave” is an eerily beautiful song. “Babylon” is another eerily beautiful song. Very good album. One I might return to that I wouldn’t have otherwise not for this project. 4 stars. Maybe even more if decimals were allowed.
“Get a grip on yourself” has some great synth stuff. But this is definitely not what I was expecting. Doesn’t feel as punky as expected. Almost feels 60s ish rock. Maybe with extra synth. I’m giving this a 3 but I fully admit I didn’t pay enough attention. Sorry.
Way less chili peppers esque than I expected. I know Navarro was only in the band for a bit and I think he’s not the main creative outlet in JA (not sure why I have that assumption. It’s totally based on nothing but stereotypes about lead singers and frontmen doing songwriting). But yea, I expected more funk rock stuff. But definitely not a bad album by any means. It sounds “dated” but not in a corny way. Just like oh yea I can tell where they were influenced and where they were influencers but without sounding like in living in a time capsule. Which is nice. I’d probably give it a 3.5 with decimals. But I’m hesitant to go 4 here. So prob 3? I don’t know. Nothing personal to them. I’m just bad at rating.
Fuck I forgot to listen to this. Default 3. Sorry ghost.
So far not the best thing. "Revival" is a nice change of pace. Best song so far. "Desire Lines" was also nice. So far they're also the two most popular songs on the albums if Spotify play count is to mean something. Hopefully that means I'm in for at least another 2 songs I like. Eh. Not my cup of tea. Too drippy reverb. I get it... it's fun to play that stuff. But it just doesn't do much for me as a listener anymore.
