231
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2.73
Average Rating
21%
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19
5-Star Albums
33
1-Star Albums
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You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Rise & Fall | 5 | 3.05 | +1.95 |
| Hysteria | 5 | 3.21 | +1.79 |
| The Band | 5 | 3.37 | +1.63 |
| Nilsson Schmilsson | 5 | 3.43 | +1.57 |
| Bat Out Of Hell | 5 | 3.45 | +1.55 |
| Blue | 5 | 3.49 | +1.51 |
| Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere | 5 | 3.55 | +1.45 |
| Document | 5 | 3.57 | +1.43 |
| Black Holes and Revelations | 5 | 3.59 | +1.41 |
| Superunknown | 5 | 3.66 | +1.34 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight Outta Compton | 1 | 3.51 | -2.51 |
| Violent Femmes | 1 | 3.5 | -2.5 |
| Blue Lines | 1 | 3.38 | -2.38 |
| You've Come a Long Way Baby | 1 | 3.35 | -2.35 |
| Fear Of A Black Planet | 1 | 3.34 | -2.34 |
| You Want It Darker | 1 | 3.34 | -2.34 |
| The Chronic | 1 | 3.33 | -2.33 |
| Nebraska | 1 | 3.32 | -2.32 |
| GREY Area | 1 | 3.24 | -2.24 |
| Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black | 1 | 3.23 | -2.23 |
5-Star Albums (19)
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Popular Reviews
Lana Del Rey
1/5
I assume this is something of a diversity pick - the curator wanted something from 2021, so they picked something. Now, the obvious solution is - if there aren't any good CDs from 2021, then don't pick any. My personal opinion is that no strong rock CDs have been released since 2019 (I'm writing this in 2022) but I'm not monitoring every genre.
Let's start with Lana's voice. It's extremely weak. If you're an apologist you could say breathy, thin, range-bound and timid is the aesthetic she's going for. I'm not - compare her vocals with Grace Potter or (even closer) Emily Haines from Metric. Haines can do Lana's style better than she can but then can also open up and just belt it, and I think she probably has more range on the high end too (low end is a foregone conclusion). I don't know if Lana can't really sing, but the fact of the matter is that on this CD, she doesn't. She starts to open it up a bit on "Let Me Love You Like a Woman" and "Wild at Heart" but doesn't keep it up.
Then there's the pace. This CD is extremely slow and down-beat, and never gets above about a 3-out-of-10 on the excitement scale. The easiest way to put together a good pop CD is to have a great lead singer. Failing that, be fast, fun, and loud. If you don't do either of those things, you're in a really tough position - the last recourse is to have genius composition and production.
This CD ain't it. It's pretty basic singer-songwriter stuff. Half the songs sound like demos. Easily the most sophisticated composition is the Joni Mitchell cover (also probably the best song overall), and that adds basically nothing on the production side relative to Mitchell's version, it's pretty much a by-the-books cover.
6 likes
Kate Bush
2/5
Kate Bush has a nice voice, but this is a little slow, light, and basic for my taste. Only the first song is a real standout, and it's even kind of slow. There's too many songs that are just total start-to-finish duds, like "Mother Stands for Comfort" and "Under Ice", neither of which really does anything. There's not a lot of diversity, and even some of the stronger tracks, like "Cloudbusting" and "Running Up That Hill" sound exactly the same throughout, they just don't develop their main idea at all. This CD seems like it's supposed to function as a vocal showcase for Bush, but she's not quite a good enough singer to make that work well, and on some of the songs most devoted to that concept, like "And Dream of Sheep", she never really takes over and fully opens her voice up, she's content to be just another background instrument. That leaves the overall sounds kind of rudderless and drifting - so fine background music, but not something I'd put on again.
2 likes
Fun Lovin' Criminals
3/5
I'm not sure I can really appreciate this kind of stuff on the level it's supposed to be appreciated, but relative to a lot of the other hip hop this list has given me, I liked this one a lot. Thinking thematically about this + "Three Feet High and Rising" + "People's Travels..." vs. "Fear of a Black Planet" + NWA, I seem to like stuff that emphasizes the instruments over the rappers. This CD has, in relative terms, great instrumentals. It starts kind of slow - the first song is a bit of an intro, and didn't immediately grab me - it's fun, but one of the more rap-driven tracks. But each of "Passive/Aggressive", "Scooby Snacks" and "Bombin' the L" I liked immediately, and a few of the slower, funkier tracks were really nice too. They generally keep everything pretty upbeat, do a good job of featuring a few different instrumental moods, and seem to not take themselves super-seriously. I would play this again.
1 likes
1-Star Albums (33)
All Ratings
Fatboy Slim
1/5
3/5
The Byrds
2/5
Lambchop
2/5
Pleasant but kind of dull
Michael Jackson
4/5
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
I hated this album in high school, though it was too twee. Either I matured or the album got way better. Super-lush, impeccably produced, surprisingly fun.
Cat Stevens
3/5
Pleasant, a little dull. Has most of the Cat's hits on it though, that's nice.
The Smiths
2/5
Kind of cute recommending it the day the queen died. But mediocre album, just not that exciting.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
She's clearly got a really nice voice. After listening to the album I listened to her top couple hits, those are better songs and none of them's on this album.
The Auteurs
3/5
This is the first one of these I’d never heard before. They’re kind of fun, basically Blur but a little slower paced. Think I like Blur better though.
De La Soul
3/5
Really fun and really creative. Kind of quirky. Sort of a hip-hop version of Joe's Garage, complete with the weird framing device. I don't usually like hip hop but enjoyed this one. Note it's not on Spotify.
A Tribe Called Quest
3/5
Another solid hip hop album. I like that they really have three distinct quality voices on the record, none of whom (ahem NWA) actually suck.
Eric Clapton
1/5
The biggest problem with this record is Clapton’s voice. It’s thin and reedy, and generally weak. The 2nd biggest problem is it’s aged horribly. Several of the filler 12 bar blues tracks sound like exercises for children first learning to play guitar. It’s dull and dated. And Clapton’s supposed to be a guitar guy, but he doesn’t do anything interesting on guitar either. Plus the best song is a cover of a song that had JUST come out, and the original is way better anyway.
Van Morrison
3/5
Van’s voice is amazing and carries this. It’s otherwise a pretty straightforward soul album. It’s a little light for my taste, and the 2nd half isn’t as strong, but an enjoyable listen.
Peter Frampton
3/5
With rare exceptions I think live albums combine the sound quality of a rock concert with the excitement of listening to a CD alone in your bedroom. This isn’t one of those exceptions. The star here is Framptons guitar, and he is good- not flashy, but with nice melodic touch. Problem is he’s not really featured, and then also there’s a laundry list of his contemporaries I think are better. Contrast this with Europe 72- Jerry’s a better guitar player, their whole performance caters to letting him carry, and they translate that better to the live album format.
I’m being a little harsh because this always appears on a bunch of best-of lists. It’s a fine album, I listened to and liked the whole thing. Just wouldn’t have picked it out of a crowd (on a list of say 101).
The War On Drugs
3/5
They have a wonderful sound. The combination of ultra-precise machine-like backbeat and canyon-sized echo on all the treble instruments really works. First half is extremely strong, but they’re kinda lacking in variety, so drags a little on the back half.
Aerosmith
3/5
I nearly gave this a 4. As advertised, it rocks. Has a very modern sound, and immediately recognizable as distinctively Aerosmith. Tyler's vocals are on-point throughout, and they do a great job getting mileage out of their 2-guitar attack without bashing you over the head with it (similar to Mick Taylor-era Stones). Just lacking a little on the songwriting, only a couple are really catchy.
Happy Mondays
1/5
This album has very little going for it. It's pretty simple stuff, the singer has a grating voice (and isn't a great singer), the songs are weird for the sake of being weird without doing anything interesting musically, and none of them are all that catchy. And it's slow to boot. "Lazyitis" is the closer and one of the singles, but it's the same damn 2 chords repeated over and over in a sleepy trance for 3 minutes. None of the others are much better ("Wrote for Luck" is a little catchy, but no less simple). I could see how this might be considered the seminal influence for the 90s Britpop wave, but the most important fact is that all those other guys made way better music.
Pixies
3/5
Joyous, fun, and chaotic, but a little rough. My sense is these guys have the reputation they do because all the good grunge bands liked them so much, but they actually sound kind of nothing like the grunge bands, and I also don't think they're as good.
The Doors
3/5
It's a fine blues record, and the front half is very strong. The back half is a little dull, and overall they're not doing anything all that innovative. Beyond the first four songs it's pretty slow and also very treble-y. Morrison has a pleasant voice but doesn't show a lot of range or, after the first track, a lot of excitement.
Violent Femmes
1/5
Very, very rough, and outside of the lead track surprisingly un-fun and low energy. Their singer is horrible. The usual punk rock playbook is to cover up for lack of ability with manic energy and winking mockery (self + otherwise). They really don't have either - it's just slow, sad, and low-quality. Contrast this with "Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables", which came out around the same time and is also not going to make anyone forget Ludwig van Beethoven. There's barely a track on there clocking over 3 minutes or under 180 bpm, and Jello is at times downright funny. Violent Femmes fall way wide of that mark.
David Holmes
1/5
I did like this one better than the Fatboy Slim record. The best track is the James Bond remix. That song works because (a) it adds drums to James Bond, and drums almost always make things without them better (b) anyone who knows the song already knows what it's building up to, so there's the pleasure of anticipation. Mr. Holmes just deserves very little of the credit for that track relative to the composer of the Bond theme.
Beck
2/5
This has a very pleasant sound. And the sonic palette is distinctive relative to most of what else was coming out at this time. But it's not new, it's not that exciting (in fact it's downright soporific), and while it has a more "adult" sound, it's not really that sophisticated. Beck has a really limited vocal range too - a pleasant voice, but very limited. Serious question - if I'm in the market for adult alternative soft rock, is this really better than Five For Fighting?
Burning Spear
2/5
Perfectly pleasant to listen to, but very slow, nothing exciting going on.
Public Enemy
1/5
The generator just gave me albums from Tribe and De La Soul that came out around the same time. And those are way better. Those guys are more creative with their beats, more natural with their flow, generally more playful, and more upbeat and positive. A fair amount of the solos on Fear of a Black Planet are kind of stilted, and it just really beats you down to listen to a whole hour-long record that is so overwhelmingly negative. When they're not on - and most of the record aside from really the last half of the last song is not - they're really off.
Abdullah Ibrahim
2/5
This is a perfectly serviceable jazz album. I'm not sure what else to say about it. It's fine background music, not that exciting. Even among jazz I would not have picked it out of a lineup. There wasn't one solo that made me catch my breath.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
This is great record to listen to, in part because it's pretty consistent quality from top to bottom, there's no real weak points. I'm aware of the reputation as the best Stones album and one of the supposed best records of all time. But I like "Sticky Fingers" better, and other than being a fun record I don't think it's all that remarkable. "Tumbling Dice" is magic, but aside from that, no individual song measures up to the three singles off "Sticky Fingers". And it doesn't really do anything innovative - it's just a pretty by-the-books roots rock record, albeit one with no obvious flaws. There's about a dozen others from this same time period I could name that I think are equally good, and plenty that are better (off the top of my head, both of the first two Band records, Harvest, and Europe 72 come to mind). It's also fairly long, and because all the songs are in a similar style and kind of consistent throughout, it tends to run together a little. Enjoyable with no clear flaws gets you a four - to get a five, you need either transcendent peaks or to change the game, and this doesn't cut it.
The The
2/5
I have a hard time getting over the cheesy 80s sound. This just has not aged well. None of the songs is really that catchy, and they're not really doing anything interesting. The woman they have singing on some songs has a nice voice, but the man alternates between abrasive and breathy, neither that compelling. Their songs are extremely repetitive - "Slow Train to Dawn" is the same riff over and over again for the entire song, and "Heartland" is awfully close. And it's just low on excitement generally. Fine easy listening, but not much going on.
Slayer
2/5
This starts out very rough and gets better and better as the album goes on. It peaks at the very end with the transition from the strong "Postmortem" into the excellent "Raining Blood". But overall that means something like 20% of the album is of good quality. I think it's helpful on this one to compare it to Metallica, because they're sonically very similar. Metallica got better and better with their composition, sound quality and production value on each of their first four albums, and with the sound quality and production value on Black Album as well. Relative to that trajectory, I'd locate "Reign in Blood" somewhere between "Kill 'Em All" and "Ride the Lightning", and closer to the former than the latter. It's played largely like punk rock - they basically get into a super-fast thrash groove in 5th gear and stay there. There's nothing with either the depth of composition or change-of-pace that e.g. "Fade to Black" provides. Until the last two tracks, they don't really play around too much with even multiple grooves per song, let alone varying the sound. And their production quality is low - the singer is just OK, the sound quality is DIY-level poor, and they don't do hardly anything with the instrumentation. It sounds like they got in the studio and just banged it out - which is an aesthetic, but not one I like. The last two tracks were a strong finish though.
Willie Nelson
3/5
This is not what I expected. The album really doesn’t sound like country music at all. It has kind a dreamy, jazzy quality, enhanced by the use of orchestral instruments, drum brushes, and jazz changes. The sound is also much fuller than I had expected. Nelson’s voice is pleasant even if his range is a little limited, and for the songs he performs it works well. I came in expecting Waylon Jennings but this honestly has more in common with Elton John. The album overall is a little light and a little slow but an enjoyable listen.
Elvis Presley
3/5
Elvis' voice is so amazing that he can basically carry anything. And this is a nice easy listen. But it's not terribly interesting, and it doesn't have any of The King's strongest material on it.
Soul II Soul
3/5
Just based on the name I was bracing myself for the worst. But this CD is awesome. I'm not sure the singers they get on are officially part of the band or not (there's several of them, always listed with separate names) but they're all very good, like A-level talent. This CD is a testament to how far you can get with just a stable of incredible vocal talent and not much in the way of good material. The songs are basically just open-ended templates for the singers to solo over - little more than drum beats with a little bit of light harmony (typically hanging on one chord for the entire song). "Back to Life" is the highlight, and while it eventually does add in drums, the first few minutes are straight a capella and it works perfectly well that way. "Feel Free" and "Holdin' On" are other high points. I'm probably not putting this in my regular CD rotation - for one thing, the songs without vocals like "Feelin' Free" and the two "Dance" songs are in my opinion just total duds - but I liked listening to it.
Pentangle
3/5
This was a fine album but I wouldn't have picked it out for myself.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
I actually really like the sound of salsa music. It has a very full sound - dense percussion, active harmonic lines from the keys, nice color from the horn section, strongly featured vocals, and nice backing chorus. And I'm the last person to insist that I understand what the singer is talking about - generally I don't care about lyrics at all, and some of my favorite bands I have no idea what they're saying most of the time. So salsa is kind of a natural fit. The main issue for me is that like any very-strongly-genre'd style, all the songs basically sound the same to me. Which is fine - it's a nice sound - but the lack of diversity and small-c conservatism (not really pushing the envelope) keep any strict genre-work like this from getting top marks.
I did enjoy listening to it, and would like to learn more salsa. But I wouldn't put it on for myself, except for my only Dominican friend (who prefers bachata anyway).
Lana Del Rey
1/5
I assume this is something of a diversity pick - the curator wanted something from 2021, so they picked something. Now, the obvious solution is - if there aren't any good CDs from 2021, then don't pick any. My personal opinion is that no strong rock CDs have been released since 2019 (I'm writing this in 2022) but I'm not monitoring every genre.
Let's start with Lana's voice. It's extremely weak. If you're an apologist you could say breathy, thin, range-bound and timid is the aesthetic she's going for. I'm not - compare her vocals with Grace Potter or (even closer) Emily Haines from Metric. Haines can do Lana's style better than she can but then can also open up and just belt it, and I think she probably has more range on the high end too (low end is a foregone conclusion). I don't know if Lana can't really sing, but the fact of the matter is that on this CD, she doesn't. She starts to open it up a bit on "Let Me Love You Like a Woman" and "Wild at Heart" but doesn't keep it up.
Then there's the pace. This CD is extremely slow and down-beat, and never gets above about a 3-out-of-10 on the excitement scale. The easiest way to put together a good pop CD is to have a great lead singer. Failing that, be fast, fun, and loud. If you don't do either of those things, you're in a really tough position - the last recourse is to have genius composition and production.
This CD ain't it. It's pretty basic singer-songwriter stuff. Half the songs sound like demos. Easily the most sophisticated composition is the Joni Mitchell cover (also probably the best song overall), and that adds basically nothing on the production side relative to Mitchell's version, it's pretty much a by-the-books cover.
Black Sabbath
3/5
This album takes a little while to get rolling. "Supernaut" is a crushing track, and from there they kind of get their feet under them. I like the experimentation on the 2nd half, "Laguna Sunrise" in particular is a nice change of pace. And boy this one is heavy.
CHIC
3/5
Fun and funky. I'd heard a couple of these before, including the lead track. An enjoyable easy listen.
Richard Thompson
3/5
The title track is great- catchy, lush sound and production, nice harmonies. But the rest of the album is just ok. Generally the woman who sings is much better than the man- the man (Richard Thompson) has fine range but his voice is kind of whiny. I didn’t especially like any of the songs he sang. And outside of the title track, the rest of the album is heavy on slow and sad songs or very spare, simple production. There’s some nice stuff in there but it’s not as gripping as the title track.
2/5
Their sound works on the kind of twee Britpop songs, especially Victoria and Driving. But most of the album is really like lo-fi blues rock, and they just don’t do that that well. In particular, relative to their competition they’re really lacking in instrumental and vocal talent- their singer straight-up sucks, he’s constantly flat- but they still heavily feature vocals and mediocre guitar solos. Even the twee stuff, which they do much better (the more developed instrumentation covering for their shortcomings elsewhere), and which better suits their harmonic style (heavy on somewhat abrupt key changes) is not as good as their contemporaries (eg Zombies).
Miles Davis
3/5
This has an amazing and totally distinctive sound. I'm not sure I'm even totally qualified to appreciate what they're doing. This isn't what I reach for in most circumstances, but I would play this again. The thing is though, it's not easy-listening background music - it's dark, intense, and strongly dissonant - you really have to be paying attention to enjoy it, it's not the sort of thing you can just leave on and bop along to. But it's also kind of meandering - the songs are consistently moody, but other than that rough guide they don't have a ton of obvious structure. So it doesn't really fit as a focused listening experience either. Generally it's just tough to find a spot for. It's also very, very long - when I'm in the mood for jazz, I'm usually in the mood for 30-40 minutes of jazz, and it's just so much easier to reach for "Birth of the Cool" or "Kind of Blue" in those moments. So this might not be the fairest review in the world, nor the one that most appreciates this record on the level it's supposed to be appreciated, but for me this is just average.
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
This is a lovely album. S&G of course have terrific vocal harmonies, that's their calling card. But the songs on Bookends just have a super-lush sound overall. The orchestral additions on e.g. "America" and "Old Friends" just give them real depth. And this CD is also really short and finishes super-strong with "Mrs. Robinson" and "Hazy Shade of Winter", both of which are tremendously catchy (although I think I prefer the Bangles version of the latter). Catchy, short, pretty fast-paced, interesting sound- this isn't generally my style musically, but that's a four.
Brian Eno
1/5
The sound of this record is immediately unenjoyable. About halfway through "Cindy Loves Me" I was finally thinking to myself, for the first time (on the 4th track), that this was actually kind of a pleasant song. Then that swarm-of-cicadas sound came in and just completely took over. That proved to be the high point of the album.
Being weird for the sake of being weird is at least interesting, but there's a very high bar to make it work. This falls well short. Most of it is unlistenable noise. That which is not is largely pretty by-the-numbers New Wave garage rock.
Brian Eno
2/5
This is certainly way better than “Here Come the Warm Jets.” A fair number of these tunes are catchy and fun- my wife was dancing along to “Kings Lead Hat”, which could easily be a Talking Heads song. Overall though I think this is a pretty mediocre CD. Most of the songs stay in a single groove the whole time, which gets stale. There’s some funny noises employed, but overall it lacks depth and complexity throughout. It’s also pretty slow, especially the 2nd half, which for dance music is really very slow and sad. I also don’t love Eno’s voice- although it sounds like he might be joking half the time, I’m never sure when he’s being serious.
Eagles
3/5
This CD is ok, but it’s aged incredibly poorly. “Take It Easy” is a fantastic song and a fantastic way to start an album. But it goes off the rails almost immediately- “Witchy Woman” and “Chug All Night” have an extremely dated, very 70s, very by-the-books working-class-blues sound, with some awfully misogynistic undertones in the lyrics. That theme mostly continues uninterrupted for basically the rest of the CD- every song is either a dull ballad (and it really does have too many of those) or a genre I call “mediocre 70s rock”- that basic, self-satisfied style that assumed that 12-bar blues, backbeat, riffs based on suspended 4ths and a twangy voice singing about girls would be enough to make it to the top. The only thing that really distinguishes the Eagles is their vocal talent, and they really do have a lot of it- they have at least two distinct strong lead singers on this CD, maybe more, and strong (and reasonably interesting) vocal harmonies throughout. It’s just the rest of it is so weak, that alone can’t carry. They do kind of regain their footing at the end- “Peaceful Easy Feeling” is a great song, and the two “Easy” songs (which are quite similar and sung by the same guy, which makes me think he must’ve written one, realized it was a hit, then immediately tried as best as possible to rewrite it to churn out another hit) would’ve made a stellar double-A-side. But the whole thing makes just a mediocre album.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
3/5
I'm not sure I can really appreciate this kind of stuff on the level it's supposed to be appreciated, but relative to a lot of the other hip hop this list has given me, I liked this one a lot. Thinking thematically about this + "Three Feet High and Rising" + "People's Travels..." vs. "Fear of a Black Planet" + NWA, I seem to like stuff that emphasizes the instruments over the rappers. This CD has, in relative terms, great instrumentals. It starts kind of slow - the first song is a bit of an intro, and didn't immediately grab me - it's fun, but one of the more rap-driven tracks. But each of "Passive/Aggressive", "Scooby Snacks" and "Bombin' the L" I liked immediately, and a few of the slower, funkier tracks were really nice too. They generally keep everything pretty upbeat, do a good job of featuring a few different instrumental moods, and seem to not take themselves super-seriously. I would play this again.
Bert Jansch
2/5
This is almost the complete opposite of what I’m looking for in a CD, but it’s not outright bad. I like virtuosic, ambitious, exciting, and rich sound. Jansch has kind of a weak, thin voice, with limited range, and while he’s a fine guitar player, he doesn’t do anything that noteworthy there either. Those are the only two instruments. The songs are pretty standard blues-folk, and I’d say he was influential on that style except that it’s crazy old, way older than any other part of rock music. It’s not the least bit exciting- most of the songs are played at a reasonably fast clip, but with no big moments, no real surprises- it’s at a slapped-out 4/10 the entire time, he never really turns it on. And the CD has no instrumental variety, no depth of sound. There’s a reason bass and drums are on damn near every rock CD- they work, every time, and removing them comes at a massive cost.
The Streets
1/5
I wasn’t entirely sure if this was supposed to be a joke or not. It’s like the very dumbest kind of hip hop. Some of the rhymes are so corny and stupid that I think maybe it is supposed to be a joke, but it would only be funny if he dropped the act halfway through. He never does. There’s nothing to recommend any aspect of this CD.
The Band
5/5
This is one of my very favorites. The Band have such an incredibly full and diverse sound. The opener, "Across the Great Divide", is a romp based almost entirely on the brass section. The very next song, "Rag Mama Rag", is driven by the interplay between the ragtime piano and fiddle. Also, by the way, with lead vocals sung by an entirely different person. And the next song, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", is an all-time classic ballad based around a descending-scale minor-key piano chord sequence, plus barbershop backing vocals on the choruses. I mean by this that every song is a new experience, distinct from the one before, and it's like that throughout the CD. I believe that every band member except the organ player (who quietly is the lubricant that makes the whole machine go) sings a song on this CD, and they're all pretty good. They harmonize well with all that vocal talent too - the one that really stands out as being anchored by it is "Jemima Surrender", but it's omnipresent throughout the CD. This record just has everything - it's fast, fun, diverse, smart, super-creative, and just a joy to listen to. I do just that cover-to-cover about once a year. Easy 5.
Talking Heads
4/5
Talking Heads is truly a genre. Any song of theirs, whenever it comes on, is immediately identifiable as them, even if you’ve never heard it before- and if it ends up being someone else, you can always say, “wow, they sound exactly like Talking Heads” and everyone will nod in agreement. Which is a polite way of saying all their songs sound the same.
That lets-call-it-consistency is on full display on this CD. Until the last track it basically sounds like one long song. Typically I find that kind of dull and I did not consider myself much of a Talking Heads fan. But this CD is just so infectiously fun that I can’t help really enjoying it.
Their singer is not very good, but their drummer really is, and this CD is very tight rhythmically and much more rhythm- vs melody-driven. That’s not my style but they absolutely make it work. And the big thing is just that this is so fun and joyous.
Neneh Cherry
2/5
- [ ] This really isn’t my style, but it’s fine pop music. I do think the novel 80s pop trends (drum machines, synth, sampling) have aged incredibly poorly. And this CD is super-long on them. But like peak MJ, there’s enough of classic R&B here to make it worthwhile. Nehneh herself has a nice voice, although I don’t care for her rapping, and there’s too much of that. The opener is the strongest song, a nice upbeat pop hit, with fairly effective use of sampling (although instantly dateable in a not-totally-good way). The rest is similar, barring a couple just totally-garbage all-rap songs like “Next Generation”- it’s just not as catchy, which is the only goal here. On a list of 1001, this almost certainly gets a boost for early influential female rap-pop plus Latin crossover, which I don’t care about at all (wrong kind of influential). And I’d never pick it for myself, but I actually thought it was a nice listen, or most of the songs at least- just a few too many duds, and not at the next level like some other comparably 80s pop (eg Whitney).
Bob Dylan
1/5
This is a totally arrogant CD, in the worst possible way. First of all, let's get this out of the way - Bob Dylan has a horrible singing voice. Like a 1 out of 10. He has a fairly large backing band around him - anyone with an ounce of humility would've included, as one of those band members, a competent singer. Far from it, Dylan downright features his vocals, which are the single-worst aspect of the sound. More broadly, this CD nearly defines white male privilege - it's the same super-basic, neither-particularly-good-nor-novel 70s blues, sung really slow because he's an old man on this recording, and about 30 years too late. And why do we care? Because he has a famous name? Oh, and it's 70 minutes long, because obviously we want more of anything Mr. Dylan has to offer. Far from there not even being one good song on this CD, there aren't really even any fun songs. Pass.
Donald Fagen
4/5
I absolutely love Steely Dan, and would be game for a Steely-Dan-like product containing 25% less Dan and 50% more binders and fillers. But this is actually really good. It of course has all the SD tricks - smooth sound, consistently moderate pace with a strong syncopated backbeat, every extension known to man (check where the harmonies end up on that "W-J-A-Z"!). And some of the changes are generally positive - I like adding more female backing vocals, it just makes their already strong backing voice even stronger. It's a little more piano- and synth-heavy vs. Steely Dan, which I guess makes sense if this guy is the keys player. But otherwise very comparable.
Apart from the fact that it's super-smooth, two of the things that make this so easy to listen to and enjoy are that (a) it's really short, at under 40 minutes and (b) it's stronger on the back half, with the two strongest tracks ("New Frontier" and "The Nightfly") on the back half. Not game-changing, but I liked it so much I listened to it 2-3 times.
Elton John
3/5
Elton John has a lovely sound on this CD. His compositional skills are great, with some lovely harmonic flourishes, and he has a serviceable singing voice, but the real star here is his production. The opener, “Tiny Dancer”, is a clinic in how to introduce varied sound (in rough order, slide guitar, drums, electric guitar, female backing vocals, beat-you-down orchestral strings, and then chorus backing vocals). He nails the other half too, which other guys with a similar build-up technique often leave wanting- that is, he motivates the draw back to a more sparse arrangement on the verses just as well.
The main knock I have on this CD is it’s a little slow. It’s very ballad-heavy, and generally operates in the double-digits bpm. That’s not a flaw, but it’s not my style, and it does make it a little less fun and a little more of a chore to get through the whole thing. John’s voice is a little thin for how big the arrangements are too, and he has the funny affectation of trying to sound like Southern country, which comes off as very forced. If he just used about the same dose of backing vocals on every song as on “Tiny Dancer” it wouldn’t be a problem- but on the climax moments of e.g. “Levon” and the title track (which is also probably his worst abuse of the cowboy voice) he just hasn’t got enough power and projection on his own to carry it over the top, so those moments fall a little flat. The song structures are a little monotonous as well- he’s got a style, and that’s fine- but even guys with a style typically don’t have every song built the same way (starting slow with a single harmonic instrument, then vocals, then building to a monster chorus). He’s obviously capable of composing in a different style- he doesn’t do it much on this CD, but e.g. “Crocodile Rock” is quite different structurally (faster-paced rock, launches right into it).
Apart from the opener, I think I liked “Holiday Inn” the best, precisely because it avoids some of these pitfalls- it used a more varied sonic palette (heavy on mandolin), it’s faster-paced, and it has big backing vocals on the chorus. If about half the songs were like that, I’d give it a 4, but it’s almost the only one like that. Enjoyed listening to it though.
David Bowie
2/5
This feels like Bowie trying to do a soul album, and it kinda doesn’t work, in part because it doesn’t have the things that make the early Bowie albums work. Too many songs are just kind of aimless, noisy grooves- tracks like “Right” and “Somebody Up There Likes Me” just get locked into a pretty simple groove and then muddle through with scattered vocals and directionless sax. It’s not clear what you’re supposed to get out of them. At its best, like on the title track and “Fascination”, this can be a joyous, fun, chaotic, mess- which works perfectly well. But too much of it lacks even enough structure and intent to do that. The sound is also pretty monotonous- by limiting himself solely to the sonic palette of soul (sax, funky treble guitar, female backing vocals, wah wah) he creates a cohesive sound, but it gets old- especially relative to the incredible diversity on “Ziggy Stardust”.
This is an unfair comparison, but compare the songwriting on this CD with “Life on Mars”. The latter is so focused on building up and motivating the punch of that first chorus- that’s what everything is working towards harmonically and in the arrangement. And that moment where it lands is magical. This CD doesn’t have that, or anything close- there are no peaks to motivate.
Let us leave aside the cover of “Across the Universe”.
Astor Piazzolla
1/5
Fine, but very light. The feature instrument is something like vibes and just has a very smooth, flat sound with little attack. It’s an odd choice of instrument to feature on an all-instrumental album, because it leads to an extremely low-energy, slapped-out vibe that, there’s no way around it, sounds like elevator music / being put on hold. Nothing wrong with what they’re doing, just anything that’s this close to 0/10 on excitement factor isn’t for me.
4/5
This CD really dials up the prog relative to some of their earlier work. I love Yes and enjoyed this one too (if not quite as much as Fragile, Yes Album, and Time and a Word), but this is getting close to the limit of what I can do prog-wise. The first song is 19 minutes long, and it does a lot of the stuff Yes does so well (lovely backing vocals, lush instrumentation, motifs quoted and requoted in many different contexts) but also does a fair number of things they don’t do as well. In particular, not all of the dissonance works well, although it runs the gamut. The dissonant opening passage is a slog, the color on the “I get up…” piano section is nice, and then the dissonant instrumental interlude at roughly the 15-minute mark is somewhere in between.
The title track is both literally and figuratively the majority of the CD- but since there’s only 3 tracks, I’ll mention them all. “And You And I” is actually more like classic Yes and is of a piece with their earlier work in terms of quality. The contrast in tone between the super-bass-heavy and acoustic-and-vocals sections is really nice. And “Siberian Khatru” is the rocker on the CD (they all have rock sections, this one just more consistently), and also very much in the style of classic Yes.
Consistent with a lot of similar prog, I liked this more on repeat lessons. It’s well put-together, ambitious, diverse, and at times very beautiful. I gave Yes Album a 4 on my other list I think- that was probably too low. This is a 4, their earlier CDs 5s.
Little Simz
1/5
I wish I could appreciate this on its own terms. But I cannot. Maybe this is good in some way. Whatever. I’m too old for this shit.
Justice
2/5
I liked some of these songs in college. But I really did not like it on repeat listen, and overall as a CD it’s not very good. They’re just way too long on truly unpleasant sounds- songs like “Let There be Light and “Party” are so tremendously unpleasant to listen to. “Dance” is still fun and catchy, but hardly anything else is.
There’s two main reasons why I didn’t like it this time. One is the distortion- now I’m a fan of a little distortion. But every track has these massively over-saturated lead lines on it- it sounds like a guitar novice who doesn’t know how to use the amp, and it’s a thoroughly ugly sound. That sound pollutes the entire album- I guess they liked it, but not for me, and like I say, distorted guitar never bothered me. The other is how repetitive it is- it’s dance music, so I guess that goes with the turf, but every song is basically one idea run into the ground, and I like a little more variety.
Kate Bush
2/5
Kate Bush has a nice voice, but this is a little slow, light, and basic for my taste. Only the first song is a real standout, and it's even kind of slow. There's too many songs that are just total start-to-finish duds, like "Mother Stands for Comfort" and "Under Ice", neither of which really does anything. There's not a lot of diversity, and even some of the stronger tracks, like "Cloudbusting" and "Running Up That Hill" sound exactly the same throughout, they just don't develop their main idea at all. This CD seems like it's supposed to function as a vocal showcase for Bush, but she's not quite a good enough singer to make that work well, and on some of the songs most devoted to that concept, like "And Dream of Sheep", she never really takes over and fully opens her voice up, she's content to be just another background instrument. That leaves the overall sounds kind of rudderless and drifting - so fine background music, but not something I'd put on again.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
I'd listened to the first few Manic Street Preachers CDs and like them quite a bit, especially Holy Bible, but had never heard this one. Originally I liked it quite a bit, but it didn't hold up as well on repeat listen, certainly not as well as Holy Bible. The big change vs. their earlier work is that it's much less punk - slower, less aggressive guitar and drums, less aggressive vocals, and more orchestral instrumentation. That's normally OK by me, but the shift just doesn't suit their style as well, and in particular the lyrics are still fairly dark and the tone pretty nasty, so I think a more stripped-down punk treatment would've worked better. The biggest issue I have with the composition is that the translation from lyrics to melody lines is really clunky, the singer ends up delivering a fair number of lines in a very forced style that doesn't sound at all conversational. I don't know if that's related to the fact that this is their first CD without their original lyricist, but it makes the sound overall a lot less smooth. Then they also use a fair number of poorly-motivated harmonic sequences - a great example is on the lead track, where they change keys for a couple bars mid-verse (possibly into two different keys) and then suddenly back again with little in the way of motivation either in the bass or in the extension. That's colorful at least, but it's a little sloppy, and I just think it would've worked better for a punk-rock treatment.
This CD is certainly far from all bad though. I liked it quite a bit on the first listen. The more upbeat tracks, especially "Kevin Carter" and the title track, are great, very catchy, and you can hear the influence on later British garage rock. And their singer doesn't have the greatest voice but he does have the courage to really go for it, which works to his advantage. Solid but nothing special.
Buena Vista Social Club
3/5
This CD is not my style but it's immediately likeable. Cuban music is just a formula that works - lots of instrumental diversity, fun polyrhythms (and a bunch of unique-sounding percussive instruments), decent pace and tight composition, and interesting harmonies. I think it'd turn a lot of people off because they don't understand the lyrics, but I truly don't care. This isn't really doing anything unique or innovative, but I'd listen to it again.
Jefferson Airplane
2/5
This is a nice CD, but they have made some obvious blunders in it's recording. Their female singer is a total powerhouse, she destroys every song she's on. And for some reason, they only have her sing lead vocals two songs, which not coincidentally are easily the two best tracks on the CD. What were they thinking? They were handed a gift and threw it in the trash. Their other singers aren't awful, but they're just nowhere near the same kind of class.
They're also quite strong on rockers - each of "Somebody To Love", "3/5 of a Mile" and "White Rabbit" is a wonderful, fun, up-tempo rocker. But the CD is loaded up with dudly slow numbers - especially "Today" and "Comin' Back To Me". If they'd just focused on what they did well, this would be a much better CD.
That said, it's still actually pretty good. Jefferson Airplane have a nice but very, very sixties sound, with a mix of very trebly guitar, lots of echo/reverb (on "White Rabbit" it sounds like the whole band fell down a well), lovely backing vocals, and thumping but very simple four-on-the-floor drumming (often subbing tambourine for a full kit). I happen to like that sound a lot - and while this is as good an illustration of the style as anything else, it's not actually as good music as the high-water-marks of that era. Overall, very strong singles, but the rest of it is mediocre.
The Byrds
3/5
I really like this sound overall, generally a sucker for super-trebly 60s psychedelic power pop. And it seems like this CD predates guys like Love (who I think are better), not to mention the follow-ons like Big Star that I really like. So some credit is due there as the innovators. This CD though is a little slapped-out - the singer just seems like he must be on mood stabilizers or something, he just has no excitement in his voice. That plus the overall slow tempo is kind of a dealbreaker for me - it's perfectly nice music to listen to, I just cannot get excited about it.
Then there's the question of how much credit The Byrds deserve for an album that is 1/2 or more covers, including all the hits. On "Mr. Tambourine Man" itself, The Byrds have picked the ideal song to cover - one where the composition is nice but the initial performance and production are god-awful - and really do a very nice job cleaning the song up and bringing it to life. But overall I can't give them as much credit as I would a composer.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
I really struggled with this one, partly because there’s so much to say about it and I’d never heard it all the way through before. But also partly because I’m aware of it’s stellar reputation but didn’t think it lived up to it. It’s not that it’s bad- in fact in many ways it’s brilliant- but it’s not my style, and in my opinion has some flaws. Had to listen to it a few times, and I do t have a coherent review but here’s a few thoughts.
Wonder himself is a brilliant singer- he has a wonderful timbre and powerful projection in the middle of his tenor range. And he can extend that pretty well into the upper registers. This CD mostly features strong backing vocals throughout, and they complement Stevie well- I especially like the rich backing parts on “Have a Talk with God” and “Pastime Paradise”. Curiously, though, on some places where he could really use it- like the chorus of “Sir Duke”, which stretches his range to the max and lacks the deep instrumental color of the verses- the backing vocals are totally absent. They’re also absent on some of the other singles (“My Wish” and “Isn’t She Lovely”, the latter of which Wonder carries just fine by himself), which is just an odd pattern- rich chorus on the deep cuts, none on the hits.
There’s also some really superb composition and production throughout. Starting with the production, the album has a deep, crisp sound with a very diverse sonic palette. Every song seems to feature a different instrument - from the electric guitar on "Contusion" to the (I think it's a) kazoo (??) on "Isn't She Lovely." And Stevie just has a wonderful way with musical color - "Sir Duke" is a clinic on it, he even manages to successfully (one might even say "brilliantly") employ a slide whistle about halfway through. "Sir Duke" is probably the strongest track in terms of harmony and composition, but virtually track has some interesting turns - lots of jazzy extensions, lots of transpositions into minor (e.g. on "As").
So what's not to like about it? The main thing is the pacing - it's way too slow and way too long. It opens with three straight slow ballads followed by an instrumental (granted it's a banging instrumental). That's way too much lead-in, we need to get to the action faster. And it really has a ton of ballads - I get that Stevie is a piano-based singer, and piano-based singers love slow ballads, but this is way too many. On a 17-track, hour-and-a-half CD, there's really only three rockers totaling about 10 minutes ("Sir Duke", "I Wish", and "I Am Singing"). I'm sorry Stevie, but 80 minutes of slow ballad just cannot hold my attention that well. Even some of the hits like "Isn't She Lovely" are simply way too long - that song just drags on and on long after it's made it's final point, and both "As" and "Another Star" are longer still and have fewer interesting musical points to make. "Sir Duke" it totally brilliant, a 10/10, and "I Wish" and a few others are good as singles as well, but when you get right down to it, even for a double-album (which have inherent problems) it has a pretty low hit rate. Wonder should've probably cut half the songs on here. I liked listening to it and reviewing it, and I can see the qualities, but for me it can't get a perfect score.
Kid Rock
1/5
Just- no. I did actually listen to some (not all) of this. It doesn’t merit a response.
The La's
3/5
This CD is kind of legendary among power-pop fans- a lone genius comes along, records one amazing album, then vanishes. And it’s fine, but I don’t think it lives up to the hype. For starters, relative to a lot of the best power pop, it’s very rough and poorly produced. The instrumental sound is kind of poor- echo-y drums, clipping bass, frazzled guitar. And the Las don’t use hardly any instruments outside of the core garage band kit- I can’t swear there’s any at all on here. The composition is also nothing to write home about, generally fairly simple stuff. And Mavers voice is fine but very nasally and lacking power (part of which is likely how he’s recorded). That’s a perfect use case for constant backing vocals, which for some reason are rare on here. Really the only this that elevates it above a mediocre garage band CD is “There She Goes”- that song is beautiful, and it corrects all the flaws I listed above. It has tremendous backing vocals, less nasally lead, great treble sound out of both the lead and rhythm guitar, and crystal-clear sound quality. I’m not totally sure how to average a 5 on “There She Goes” with a 1-2 on the remainder of the CD- but the simple fact of the matter is that as a full CD, it’s just Ok. They kind of catch their feet on side 2 with “Feelin” and “Doledrum”, but it’s kind of average overall.
Earth, Wind & Fire
3/5
EW&F have about as much vocal talent as anyone else, and I especially like Phillip Bailey's voice, think he's one of the best singers ever, the projection he gets in that super-high register is just absurd. And I basically like all the up-tempo tracks on this CD ("Shining Star", "Happy Feelin'" and "Yearnin' Learnin'"), plus the ballads that allow Bailey to take over (that's really just the title track - he's lead on "Reasons" but doesn't turn in such a great performance). But the other ballads don't grab me, and it's really a pretty ballad-heavy CD. The 2nd half in particular is pretty light. Fine listen though, would put it on again.
AC/DC
5/5
It is only a modest exaggeration to say that this CD formed me as a musician and my musical taste. I remember precisely where I was when I heard it for the first time- in my friends car, literally still wearing a suit, directly after junior high graduation, driving up to the Bronx for a graduation party. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before, and every subsequent 70s/80s hard rock/metal album I’ve ever listened to I assess in comparison to this one (which should but doesn’t stop me from liking more of them).
The best single word I can think of to describe this CD is “flawless”, as in literally without flaws. Starting with the sound quality, this CD is truly the gold standard- the recording and mix is perfect and simple, with few superfluous bits and nothing misplaced- so much so that many modern sound engineers use it to test the sound quality in a new studio. Everything about this CD is precise and machine-like- not that they’re tame, they’re not (although neither funky nor particularly adventurous)- just that they’re right in the fucking pocket on every beat of every track.
Their production has a very precise formula and they do not deviate from it- bone-crushing rhythm guitar, fat-and-lazy thumping backbeat, screaming lead vocals and lead guitar as far up the register and as loud as the damn thing will go, basically no other instruments or backing vocals, and bass mixed so low you begin to wonder if it’s just some secondary resonance from all the guitar and drums. Mids and trebles is where all the action is, why screw around with the rest of it? Each composition has two focal points- a chorus, typically not a lyrically complex one, and a massive guitar solo. I don’t think either Johnson or Angus is an especially virtuosic player at their respective positions (although I absolutely love Angus’ solos on the title track, “Shake A Leg” and most of all “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution”, and his work throughout is standout), but they fit the role perfectly. Johnson has a very distinctive voice and performs throughout with an energy that is difficult to match and simply propels the CD.
AC/DC is not exactly progressive rock, and they don’t push the envelope much in terms of harmonic or lyrical sophistication. These are 3- or 4-chords rockers, and in fact it’s mostly the same 3 or 4- they only very rarely play something that’s not one of the canonical sharp-key cowboy chords except as a special treat (e.g. the sharp 9 in “Shoot to Thrill”). And best not to go looking for metaphor and hidden meaning in the lyrics of “Let Me Put My Love Into You”. But they do what they do extremely well, and seem to be having a very fun time doing it. The times where they do mix it up (e.g. the funky breakdown on the title track) they just absolutely crush, giving the impression that they save those moments for when they actually need them.
Part of what makes this such a great listening experience is that they never fuck up- again, machine-like precision. And part of it is that aforementioned energy- this isn’t the fastest-paced CD ever, it kind of hovers in the moderate-rock zone- but it’s short, it never slows down, and the intensity never slips, like Johnson is basically screaming on the entire CD. And many of the hits are just insanely catchy, especially “Shook me All Night Long” and the title track. I now, 20 years later, don’t primarily listen to music like this anymore- and I’ve heard every song on here dozens of times, possibly hundreds for the ones that are played at every football and basketball game in America. But they just never get old, in contrast with some of the many bands who attempted to ape this formula. This CD is just the gold standard for this style, and as Johnson said, rock n roll is just rock n roll.
Ozomatli
4/5
Really fun album. I've never listened to these guys but they've got a great sound. Funky, cool latin rhythms, classic old-school hip-hop, it just works. They're creative and playful with their sound and structures, and just sound like they're having a really fun time on the album. They're not my style overall, but I'd listen to this again anytime.
Prince
2/5
This CD has such an amazing reputation, and it's fine, but just not for me. Partly it's that it's just such an enormous wheel of cheese - the heavy synth, machine-like drums and endlessly-repeating riffs just have not aged well. It sounds like dance music for dance styles that don't exist anymore, like cotillion. Like on something like the last 3 minutes of "Let's Pretend We're Married", it sounds like something is supposed to be happening, but then it doesn't - that's probably dancing. It's not actively unpleasant to listen to, but I wouldn't put it on again.
Amy Winehouse
2/5
It's fine - basically by-the-numbers soul music done 40 years after the peak for that style. I don't think Winehouse is a particularly strong singer, this CD adds virtually nothing to the standard formula (indeed, it somewhat subtracts in that it's so light on backing vocals), and it's kind of slow and dull (generally very down-tempo for pop music).
Mike Ladd
1/5
Well, I listened to it.
Aimee Mann
4/5
This is really nice power-pop. I'm a sucker for jangle under any circumstances, and she just has a great sense for catchy hooks and fun harmonic touches. It starts a little stronger than it ends (the first song is easily the best), but pretty consistent quality. Lots of nice backing vocals, little flourishes on the organ, good stuff.
Faith No More
3/5
I love the opening - hard to think of a more abrupt kick in the ass than "From Out of Nowhere". And Patton just has an amazing voice. The first three songs are great, but this album loses steam in the middle. I do really like the cover of Sabbath at the end though, that's a 5/5 cover.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
5/5
One of my very favorites. Completely raw, like it was done at a home studio in a single take, but also very delicate. The falsetto and backing vocals combo on "DBTR", "Cowgirl" or the title track give me the chills every time
Mudhoney
1/5
I wanted to like this, because I like a lot of adjacent music (angsty 90s grunge). But it's just not very good. It's kind of just dull garage punk, without the thin coat of polish that makes the major-label contemporaries work. Their singer also isn't that good. "Good Enough" is a nice song, but it sounds like basically a Social Distortion B-side, and there's a ton of what sound like straight classic-rock ripoffs on here.
Badly Drawn Boy
3/5
I had never heard of this album or this band before, but this is quite good. A good comp would be "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", and it stacks up reasonably well against that, although not quite as strong (high bar). But as creepy, dark, sad, somewhat folky indie rock goes it's up there with the best of them. I'm a sucker for albums with instrumental interludes too. It's a little low-energy relative to some others in the style, and the 2nd half starts to drag a bit, and it doesn't have the same caliber of hits as a YHF / 13 Tales / Yoshimi, but still very enjoyable.
Beastie Boys
3/5
This is a fun CD. All the songs are short and they kind of flow into each other, with a very live-album feel. So it sort-of functions like an overgrown suite, similar to Smiley Smile or something like it. That makes it a really easy listen, and feel shorter than the one-hour runtime.
That said, it's not earth-shattering. The virtuosity is pretty limited (almost intentionally so on the most well-known track, "Sabotage). They're a rap band, but the best actual rap is done by the guy on "Get It Together", who's probably not in the band (he doesn't appear on any other track). And while the CD functions well as a cohesive whole, there really aren't any highlights or clear peaks. That's OK.
Traffic
3/5
These guys have a nice sound, and it's a fine CD, but just doesn't grab me. The first track is a long instrumental - instrumentals are fine, this song is fine, but it's not a gripping start. The second song feels more like an "opener" initially, with a zippy pace and a cool minor progression, but the hook is almost intentionally dull, the all-descending melodic line just makes it a real downer. That becomes a theme - a few of the other stronger tracks (notably "Empty Pages") nail the verses but have weak choruses. Partly that's because while they have a full and diverse instrumental sound, they basically never use backing vocals, and Winwood's got a nice voice but he can't carry these alone. Perfectly pleasant CD, but not exceptional.
The Divine Comedy
3/5
This certainly is different. It's like a cross between rock and a lounge act. It often feels like kind of a joke, e.g. the inclusion of the instrumental "Theme from Casanova" as the penultimate track. But it's actually kind of nice to listen to. Not my style, probably won't listen to it again, but it was quite interesting.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
I think it's telling that I've listened to a LOT of music from this era but have never heard any of the songs on this CD. With a couple exceptions, this is extremely generic, middle-of-the-fairway 70s rock. Songs like "Violence" and "Drivin' Sister" are in fact SO generic 70s (with a couple usurpations of expectations) that I thought they might've actually been making fun of the style. In turn, I now realize exactly what "Rocky Horror Picture Show" is mocking, and they're mocking Mott the Hoople. The first half of this CD is OK, although they're held back by the fact that, there's no way to put it, their lead singer sucks - he's got limited range and a crummy voice. He doesn't help his case by frequently performing in a mannered voice, like whispers or unsung plain-voice. The 2nd half, starting with "Violence", which is such a bad song that I almost couldn't finish it, just completely falls off the rails. If you just really like standard 70s rock, maybe this is for you, but it's not for me.
Talking Heads
3/5
Talking Heads are just always fun. This one isn't their best - it's a little light on hits - but I enjoyed listening to it and would put it on again. "Life During Wartime" is the highlight, that's a great song. But anything that's primarily rhythm- and groove-based is good music to have on in the background, and this fits the bill.
Beastie Boys
3/5
This isn't the most virtuosic CD I've ever heard. But it's just fun. They sound like they're having an awesome time. A lot of the best moments are the "skits" (for lack of a better term for them) - the first half of "Sounds of Science" and "5-Piece Chicken Dinner" (the latter of which caused me to laugh out loud), for example. It's also super-fast paced - they just launch into it and barely set the mic down for the rest of the CD. The beats are pretty good too - definitely a step up in quality vs. previously-reviewed "Ill Communication". I especially like what they do on "Egg Man", and of course it's impossible to object to what I think are two distinct Beatles samples on the 2nd half of "Sounds of Science".
I have a really hard time giving a high grade to a piece of music where half of it, including all the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements, has been written and performed by someone else. But I liked this and would listen to it again.
Bruce Springsteen
1/5
I think I understand why he made the album this way. He wanted it to seem "intimate" and "personal". But the end result is that it sucks. It's slow and boring, the sound is thin, and the songs are all very similar to each other. There's little-to-no variation throughout the CD in tempo, intensity or instrumentation. And I love Springsteen's early work, but while he's a great frontman, he's not a great singer, and it shows here. Especially on these breathy acoustic recordings, his tendency to mumble at a very low register makes the whole CD sound like someone talking in their sleep set to acoustic guitar.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
2/5
I'm not totally sure what to say, to my ears it's pretty standard big-band jazz. Maybe it was noteworthy in 1958. It's fine, but I wouldn't put it on again as anything other than background music to talk over.
Jimmy Smith
2/5
This is a 100% by-the-numbers blues instrumental CD. Think "Green Onions" but not as recognizable. Now 60 years later, it really just sounds like you've been put on an interminable hold by an associate at Comcast customer service. It's not actively bad, and if somebody made me list 1001 listenable CDs we might eventually get here.
Travis
4/5
I had never heard of the band or the CD but this is amazing. It's exactly the sort of trebly, jangly power-pop I love, and released when I was actually paying attention to new music - total oversight on my part.
They are just a full bag of delightfully melancholy melodies, kitchen-sink harmonies and endless fun tricks. Their singer isn't the best, but he gets everything he can out of his voice, and they just have a huge sound behind him. The chorus on "Trying To Reach You" has high-delay guitar, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, organ, backmasked guitar, and enough reverb on the lead vocals to choke a horse. They forgot cello, but make up for it on "Why Does It Always Rain on Me". Their sense of timing is impeccable too - witness the way he stretches his voice just a touch on the pre-chorus to "Why..".
This is just short of a 5. But it's gotten me to listen to the entire rest of their discography.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Joni Mitchell has such an amazing voice, she could carry anything. And this CD starts really strong - the first song is fun, fast, and weird in a way that just works. And the rest of it is nice, but the energy level just really loses steam after the first two songs. And that's fine, it's a perfectly nice listen, and she can make whatever CD she wanted to make. But for my taste, this would've been another star or two up if every song had the pacing of "In France They Kiss on Main Street."
The Smiths
3/5
This was quite a pleasant listen, although it's a little light for my taste. It's very well-produced, they get an excellent and varied sound. The production does an especially good job with Morrissey's voice, which I've never liked, but with enough echo it works pretty well here. That said, the songs are quite simple, they're not a virtuosic group, and while the tempo is upbeat throughout, it feels kind of low-energy, I think partly because Morrissey's voice just sounds so distant. And it's very short too, which helps make it an easier listening experience. I liked it well enough.
The Kinks
3/5
I'm a sucker for theme albums. The riff on "Picture Book" is like a solid 9/10 riff, it just works. But the way they convert it to minor on "Village Green" is a stroke of brilliance, straight 10/10 - that one's a beautiful touch. That said, the rest of the album is just OK. They don't have a lot going on rhythmically (that's part of the theme, I think) and have a real habit of just hanging on one chord of or one set of I-IV-V changes for just a hell of a long time. Nice listen, but a little plodding beyond the first couple songs.
This CD starts with a tremendous bang, the first four songs are amazing. But it progressively loses steam over time. The middle is weaker than the beginning (but still fine), and the ending (starting from "Peace on Earth", the first real dud) is downright weak. Those last four songs are a good chunk of the album, they're longer songs, so that's nearly 1/2 the runtime. If they had just cut everything after "Wild Honey" this might be a 5/5 (albeit short) album.
I haven't really listened to any U2 cover-to-cover before, and was quite impressed overall. Bono doesn't have the world's most amazing voice, but he just GOES for it, which damn near makes up for his shortcomings. And they just have a really solid, balanced sound.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
I love Neil Young, his style just works. The combination of light acoustic, melancholy falsetto, strong backing vocals and thumping hard-rock is just a winner, and it has worked for him and for several other artists. This isn't my favorite NY CD, but it rocks.
The standout here is probably supposed to be the two-part intro and reprise. They mirror the composition of the CD overall, with a more acoustic A-side and hard-rock B-side. On each half, I like some other songs better, particularly "Pocahontas" on A and "Welfare Mothers" on B.
I don't love the production. Stripped down and raw is almost certainly what Mr. Young was going for, but I prefer polished till it gleams.
Dr. Dre
1/5
When you point out to people who like this stuff that the music part of the music sucks, they typically point to the poetic quality of the lyrics. So I think it's kind of funny to note that the poetry on this CD includes such intricate meter as:
"Eazy-E can eat a big fat dick
Tim Dog can eat a big fat dick
Luke can eat a fat dick"
Yeah, so this guy rhymed "dick" with "dick" twice consecutively. Pass.
The Psychedelic Furs
1/5
Ugh. Damn my completionist morals, I really wanted to turn this off. The singer has a truly awful 1/10 voice. He at times sounds like he's a trolling drunk at karaoke seeing how many people he can get to close out and go to a different bar. And it's just a monotonous CD overall too - few exciting moments, long stretches stuck in the same moment, nothing interesting sonically and not much variety. I have a pretty high tolerance for offensive, but I'll also point out that a handful of songs, like "I Wanna Sleep With You" and "Into You Like a Train", are more offensive lyrically than I think anyone who might potentially like this kind of music would enjoy, and not really in the service of any kind of redeeming message.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
It's nice, it's jazzy, a pleasant listen. But my overall thought is similar to the earlier Joni Mitchell CD, which is that beyond the opening track it's not that strong overall. Mitchell's voice is so good, she just makes anything work. It's a little light and slow for my taste, but the times when she does rock ("Raised on Robbery") are pretty awesome.
Kraftwerk
3/5
I know these guys only by reputation and came into this kind of expecting to hate it. It's still not my style, and I probably won't put it on again. But it's actually alright. It's nice as background music, and they actually do some interesting stuff. I liked the mostly instrumental pieces (e.g. "Spacelab" + "Metropolis") quite a bit better than the vocal-oriented pieces, which are a little cheesy. The do a nice job of developing themes, it's like very solid nuts-and-bolts composition. But just much too light and sparse for my taste. There's a reason why so much of pop music is focused on a talented solo instrumentalist, usually a singer.
Meat Loaf
5/5
This is one of my favorite CDs of all time, it's just a killer. Let's start with the big man - Mr. Loaf is like a 9/10 on just range alone (check the note he hits on "shine" at the end of "Heaven Can Wait" tho). But when you combine his projection, his presence, his emotion, and a pile of bone-crushing backing vocals ("Paradise.." is the one that's known for it, but "Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth" is the ace in that regard) he's an easy 11/10. The title track is the most exciting 10-minute song in the entirety of recorded rock music. It just never - lets - up. And it's got amazing guitar work to go with it - this isn't really a guitar album, but some of the licks on the title track give the other 70s shredders a run for their money.
There's basically no weak points throughout. The production is incredible, all the composition is amazing, it's funny, and just loaded with bleeding-heart emotional moments. That's the essence of rock music right there. The coda, "For Crying Out Loud", is probably the standout in that regard, it's just chilling. But the humor is important too. This is really a very theatrical CD - it's a massively over-the-top paean to middle-American teenagers with nothing to do. And it does all of those things flawlessly.
Gorillaz
2/5
This came out when I was in high school and all of my friends really liked it. We listened to it a lot. Re-listening to it now, I don't really understand the appeal. Its generally kind of down-beat - not exactly depressing, but much of it is really slapped-out, like someone on prozac. That's kind of what Albarn's voice sounds like all the time. A lot of the supposed "high points" of many of the hits are a guest solo rap, which I generally find to be uninspiring. And the back half of the CD is terrible, just has some real duds on it. It's whatever.
Iggy Pop
2/5
Wow, I had no idea "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" was a cover. Apart from that realization though, this CD doesn't have much to offer. I don't really like garage rock that much overall, and this is as stripped-down as it gets. Witness "The Passenger", which appears to be the single - it's literally the same 3-second unit repeated for the entire song, with no development. Many others are similar. Pop is also, objectively, a bad singer - he's got very limited range, kind of a boring delivery, and fairly low energy. The only thing that makes "Raw Power" work is just that, and it's missing on this CD.
Janis Joplin
4/5
This CD is awesome. Janis has a powerful, powerful voice and uses it on every song. It's also fast, fun and exciting. They're clearly enjoying themselves, as on "Mercedes Benz". But they still bring a ton of raw emotion to songs like "Cry, Cry, Baby". And they've got a nice sound overall, especially with the organ filling everything out.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
I had heard half the songs on here before but had never listened to the whole thing. It rocks, and some of the best tracks are ones I hadn't heard before ("Ramble Tamble" and "Run Through The Jungle" especially). The by-the-numbers bluesy roots-rock deep cuts are whatever, but if you're trying to fill out 40 minutes, they're a perfectly pleasant way to do it. But there's just a bunch of really strong hits on here with just a really groovy vibe. Nothing flashy, but just strong backbeat, solid riffs, strong lead vocals, strong bass. It's rock done right.
One thing that really grabbed me, this album has kind of a dark, sinister sound to it that really mixes it up a bit. Each of "Jungle", "Ramble Tamble" and "Grapevine" has a long minor key section, and "Who'll Stop The Rain" (probably the strongest overall song) is just dark throughout. They're not slow - just dark. Creedence has a great sound overall, and it just gives the CD as a whole a lot of diversity.
The The
3/5
I usually don't like synth-heavy 80s. But this was kind of nice. Partly because it's short and fast. "This Is The Day" is really a very nice song. Overall it's very upbeat and very light. I wouldn't be likely to put the whole thing on again though.
The Beta Band
1/5
Ugh.
Rush
3/5
I love Rush, but this CD isn't the #1 (or #2 or #3) example I'd pick of what makes Rush Rush. To modern ears, possibly the most distinctive thing on here is the Chinese music theme on "Passage to Bangkok" - if they'd tried to release this in 2024, the collective internet universe would probably disown them and they'd get heckled in public.
For a CD where the opening track is a 20-minute overture, this is sonically much closer to middle-of-the-fairway 70s arena rock than to what Rush later evolved into. You can hear bits and pieces of "Moving Pictures" era Rush, but you can also hear a shitload of Mountain and Nazareth. Rush is better at it - they're loaded with talent and very tight, and I actually really like Geddy Lee's voice (not the majority opinion). But it's still a very unsubtle style without the lush production and intricacy of some of their other CDs. Still a fine 70s rock CD.
The Magnetic Fields
2/5
I really tried to make it all the way through this, but, and this is probably by #1 criticism of the CD, it's WAY, WAY, WAY too long. It's not bad, not exactly my style, whatever. Big picture though, if you're gonna make me sit through 3 hours, you better have a LOT to say. I don't think they clear that bar.
The other thing that really stands out here is that despite having a lengthy roster of singers, basically all of them are bad. Male or female, tenor or baritone, they all kind of stink. The music itself alternates between very stripped-down stuff (you could call it garage rock but 1/2 of it is more like guy-with-a-guitar) and super-cheasy way over the top lounge rock.
I see the influence. In particular, "Thirteen Tales" almost seems like a sequel. But it's shorter, better, and more fun.
I liked "When My Boy Walks Down The Street". That's a cool song. 1 for 69, not bad.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
This CD is great. The Wailers have a wonderful sound, heavy on bass, keys, rhythm and backing vocals. Between Bob and the strong backup singers they have a lot of voices on here, all of them quite good. And it's just fun, light and breezy. It's a relatively short CD and all of the songs are pretty good, there's nothing obviously weak on here. The back half is better than the front, which I think is the best way to put a record together, end strong. And it really is strong - between "Jamming", "Three Little Birds" and "One Love" the back half is truly loaded. It also generally gets faster and lighter as it goes on - the slowest and darkest songs are "Natural Mystic" and "Exodus", while the last two songs end on an incredible high note. That progression is truly uplifting - like you feel better when you come to conclusion of the CD.
There's an amazing universality to Bob's lyrics too. I don't think he uses a word with more than two syllables in it on the entire CD. And it's obviously very religious, religious themes dominate throughout. But that simplicity creates a connection that is just palpable. Everyone will get and everyone will like what Bob's saying.
I listened to this a couple times in a row. It's the first CD I've gotten on this list that I hadn't already heard but have no negative things to say about.
Eagles
4/5
This CD starts off absolutely crushing, with the inimitable title track and two solid hits. And it's quite good overall - like The Dude, I enjoy hating on The Eagles as much as anyone, but they really were very good. But after the hits, it kind of loses steam. The 2nd half is pleasant enough, but it's kind of light and has nothing near the dramatic turns of the title track.
Overall though, lush backing vocals, crystal-clear production value and some really pretty badass guitar makes for a good listen.
Deep Purple
3/5
As an actual listening experience, taken on its own, this is great. But that's because it's effectively a greatest-hits CD. There should be a rule on this list against greatest-hits CDs, on the basis that they're unfair, and I think it should extend to live albums if they contain the same material.
That said, it's great. I love Blackmore's guitar, he's one of a kind. And their organ sound is great. I wish they could've cut it a couple years later and included some of the material on Burn. But I'm only gonna give it a 3.
Nina Simone
2/5
I'm not totally sure what to say about this. It's totally not my style, and I really didn't enjoy it. It's just so archaic and so different from what I'm looking for. I think she's supposed to be an ace singer, but to my ear she's just OK - she's got a very smooth voice, but doesn't show a ton of range or emotion. I think that's just her style. I think this CD probably does a fine job of doing what it set out to do.
Boards of Canada
2/5
My immediate thought on rolling it was "oh no, not another one of these." But this is considerably better than the Fatboy Slim kind of stuff earlier in the list. It's still too ambient and light for my taste, but I got through it and didn't mind listening to it.
You can hear the influence some places, like I can especially hear it in Radiohead. It sounds a lot like early-2000s Radiohead, although pretty much just the songs that I don't like that much.
At the same time, I'd just as soon listen to some mid-tier dungeon synth.
N.W.A.
1/5
We face here something of a German Tank Problem with respect to early West Coast gangsta rap: conditional on there being 1001 albums on this list, and having gotten now 3 in the first 111, how many should I expect to be on the list as a whole? If it's really 30 (as one might expect), I've half a mind to stop now, because they've all sucked so far.
Mr. Dre (I refuse to employ his honorific, clearly undeserved) has himself appeared on two of these. Oddly, he doesn't appear to be one of the three best rappers in this group, which brings up the question of how he got to be such a big star.
Relative to later hip hop (especially East Coast) this CD is pretty basic and raw. The rhymes are slower and more stilted, with less rhythmic variability in the delivery. The beats are extremely repetitive. And it's very, very crude (that's clearly part of their appeal). So the obvious conclusion is that this was chosen because it's influential, because later rappers took it as a template. But my general impression (not an expert) is that the good hip hop is from guys who left this kind of stuff in the dust, and that all the guys who went on to copy this style also kind of suck.
I could not listen to "If It Ain't Ruff", there's some sub-sonic bass note they're getting on it that hurt my ears. Aside from this song, the first 1/3 of the CD is actually OK, if extremely crude. Starting with "8 Ball" the wheels just completely fall off. "Express Yourself" is OK, but solely on the basis of music that NWA did not themselves record. "Something 2 Dance 2" isn't unpleasant, but it's also largely just a beat. This isn't the worst thing I've ever heard, but I'm gonna give it a 1 anyway.
Def Leppard
5/5
I had heard some but not all the songs on here, and listening to it as a cohesive whole, I actually loved it. For context, I'm a pretty big fan of 80s metal, but had never been that much of a Def Leppard guy. Relative to most of the similar product I like (esp. GnR, Skid Row, Metallica) it's way lighter, way more glam, and in many ways more polished. Honestly the best comp for it is probably Boston. And it has that same effect as the first Boston CD, where you feel like you've just witnessed the sonic equivalent of watching a video where someone flawlessly peels a dozen hardboiled eggs in 30 seconds using some ridiculous stupid trick. You know, like, when they've had a massive four-part chorus, hand-clapping, a complete stop-and-restart, and modulated up a whole step for the coda, you have to wonder what else they've got in the bag. But of course Def Leppard's got more ammo. Vocal solo over the refrain on "Animal". Calling out all the members of the band on "Rocket". They literally have every trick in the book.
And yes, it is a bit much. In fact, it's WAY, WAY, WAY too much. That's the point. This CD is a science project in how to create the perfect rock album, like the woman in "Weird Science". It's so polished you could do dental surgery using the reflection it casts. I still don't totally know how they get that massive vocal chorus effect on the refrain (which refrain? Why, all of them of course). I think probably the triple-tracked the entire band singing together in a closet with the echo set to 10. Who cares though, Def Leppard did it so the rest of us don't have to.
The CD is a little weaker on the back half, but honestly, who cares. It's so overwhelmingly loaded on the A-side that it doesn't matter. Anyone who reached the weaker tracks on the 2nd half (roughly starting with "Don't Shoot..."), man or woman alike, will already want to sleep with any and all members of the band by that point. And that's the point, isn't it?
The Byrds
3/5
This is a marvelous example of a 60s rock CD, right down to the one god-awful song being an Indian sitar track. Let's dispense with that one first - "Moog Raga" sucks, I had to skip it after 30 seconds.
But the rest of the CD is great. They've got two really winning modes. One is their own style of psychedelia, which a few other guys (e.g. Beatles) can do also. It features very spacey, sound, heavy droning bass, jangling trebly guitars, lots of open guitars, and maximum-echo backing vocals. That's kind of the formula behind "Goin Back" and "Wasn't Born To Follow", and it just works. The other is more like country/western, replacing some of the amplification with fiddle and mandolin, and they do that pretty well too.
The wheels kind of fall off after "Old John Robertson", capped by The Notorious Moog Raga. But it's a a nice CD, I'd put it on again.
R.E.M.
5/5
Another of my very favorites. This is the most rocking REM CD. "Finest Worksong" kicks it off right on a heavier note, although with the usual classic REM backing vocals. And while there's plenty of lighter moments throughout, all the standouts are harder rockers. "The One I Love" and "End of the World..." really pop, they're just amazing rock songs in every way.
The latter shows so much of what makes REM incredible. Weird stream-of-consciousness lyrics, checks. Plaintive backing vocals, check. Jangly treble guitar and jacked-up backbeat snare, check. And then that breakdown bringing in the piano and the vocal countermelodies, it's just flawless.
I like basically every song on here, and it's fast, fun, and functions as a cohesive whole.
Blue Cheer
1/5
I know this CD by reputation as an influence on early-developing hard rock and heavy metal. But boy is it rough. It makes some garage bands I know look like Van Halen. Some of their guitar solos sound like someone making fun of terrible guitar players. From the perspective of a 21st century listener, it's basically only a historical curiosity, like a museum exhibit showing a proto-mammal that laid eggs and had scales.
Leonard Cohen
1/5
This may be the best rock CD recorded by an octogenarian that I've ever heard. But it is, you know, recorded by an octogenarian. Leonard Cohen wasn't exactly an intense, fiery performer in the early 1980s, and that was 30+ years ago, things haven't gotten better. It isn't actively bad, but it is slow, dull, and monotone, there's just not much to recommend it. I should note that to my mind Leonard Cohen at his peak was always just a C- grade singer, and the vocal performance on here is just awful, now that he's gone there's no reason to pretend otherwise.
King Crimson
2/5
King Crimson was always the 70s prog group with their heads the furthest up their own ass.
I considered leaving the review there. The big contrast between this CD and the first couple Yes albums or whatever is that this one is zero fun. It's really just an exercise. I'm pretty on-board with instrumentals, and this is almost entirely instrumental, but it's also very noise-based, fairly repetitive (at least within "passages") and has long, long stretches where absolutely nothing happens. When you roll the CD, for example, nothing happens for close to four minutes as Fripp's head ascends yet further and further into his rectum.
Pearl Jam
3/5
I'm a huge fan of angsty 90s rock. And this CD would be on Mt. Rushmore for that style (along with Nevermind, Dirt and Superunknown). Of those four though, it's probably the weakest, and there's a handful of other less-canonical CDs from the era that I also prefer.
Starting with the CD itself, the real problem is that it gets very weak down the stretch. Really only the first three songs are good rockers (and boy are they good). But after that it declines steadily, and beyond "Jeremy" it straight falls off a cliff. The last four minutes of "Release" kind of get a pass (CDs where the end loops back into the beginning are just cool), but even absent that, there's a lot of C-grade material on the back half. Of the two endlessly-radio-repeated ballads, "Jeremy" is quite strong but "Black" is really just OK. So that's four really solid songs for about 20 minutes of runtime on a close to one-hour CD.
What makes "Once" and "Even Flow" work so well is the frenetic energy imported from Mother Love Bone, it's the same formula that makes "This is Shangri La" work so well. Even by "Alive" though they've mostly dropped that, as if the two MLB guys brought those two songs with them and the rest were wannabe 70s anthems written by Vedder.
And this does seem like a bit of a 70s arena rock retread. Of the big Seattle four, Pearl Jam clearly took the most influence from those guys (as opposed to AIC and Soundgarden from metal and Nirvana from punk). They're heavy on huge singalong anthems for their choruses, big finishes (as if they were playing live) and endless riffing. Those tendencies, those influences, and the fact that Vedder (unlike Cornell or the duo of Staley and Cantrell) has a very middle-range and easily imitable voice has meant that Pearl Jam has spawned the most wretched array of imitators, basically a whole genre of crap (see e.g. Nickleback, Shinedown). That's not their fault, but I think this one gets way more credit than it's due.
David Bowie
3/5
Kind of interesting. The guy can barely sing at this point, but he still put together some neat songs that work around his limitations while letting the good parts shine. It's got a very trebly jangle-pop sound, which is pretty different from his 70s output (I don't know if that's what he spent the 40 years in between working on). And it's got very nice production and a couple of cool flourishes. It's a little drony at times, tends to hang on a chord for a while on many songs, and while it's got more energy than you might expect from a 70-year-old, it's still a a little low-energy.
Fatboy Slim
1/5
Less awful than the first one. At least he had the good taste to keep his mouth shut on this one.
Massive Attack
1/5
Considering this to be Massive Attack's music is absurd.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2KvUzdKxcvGEHYcUgb9Nkc
Devendra Banhart
2/5
It's kind of interesting, but to me it just sounds like he's trying to be weird but is actually extremely conventional. This is not Claypool or Coyne, a guy who's actually from Mars. He's just got a nasally mannered voice.
Part of what I don't like is that the sound is actually quite conventional. He's using only a small set of instruments, basically all acoustic. And he doesn't do much to alter that sound.
It's fine. I would've never picked it out of a lineup.
Michael Jackson
5/5
I really enjoyed this one. It's just fast, fun, and super well-produced. The teamup with Stevie Wonder on "Just Good Friends" is amazing. I'd never heard that one before (I've heard most of the hit singles on here, and boy does it have a lot of them), but that's the highlight of the CD. Jackson already has an amazing voice (or did at this time), but pairing him with Stevie, who also has an amazing voice (but very different) is just a winner. And everything is just perfectly put together - wonderful backing vocals on most tracks (esp. "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Smooth Criminal"), funky rhythms, nice horns for color (if at times synth), and impeccable sound quality.
There's some stinkers on here. "Liberian Girl" is regrettable. Few albums are flawless.
I probably should've given "Thriller" a 5 as well, they're both great. But I liked this one better.
Fela Kuti
3/5
I'm probably not gonna put this on all the time, but it was a nice listen. It's basically very chill jam music. But it's pleasant, has some nice rhythm, nice sound.
Dolly Parton
4/5
The style is a little cheesy. But boy can she sing. She's got a fair amount of restraint but opens up and belts it at least a couple times on every song. And she transitions between those moods so casually and effortlessly that you can tell she's like a real 10/10 singer.
This CD also has that other really crucial thing for an intro to a style I had not previously cared for - it's short. Like really short.
I still don't really care for the style. But this is just good.
Scissor Sisters
4/5
I actually really enjoyed this. I love over-the-top glam, and this is over-the-top as it gets. They're not virtuosos, but they're fast, fun, exciting, and totally uninhibited. That's what rock's all about.
And they've actually got some chops. They have two competent lead singers with very distinct voices, and they use that versatility - that's always nice. They have big choruses with a lot of backing vocals. They've got a pretty varied sound palette (can do piano-forward, or conventional rock, or more electronic).
And they use a couple of fun tricks on this one. The stray minor chord on "Mary" is clever. A lot of the color they inject is really nice. Just a good CD.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
It's like a fine indie rock CD, pleasant enough to listen to but not really exciting or noteworthy. The sound is a little dated, a little 80s, but not bad. And they're not an especially talented group - the singer's just OK and has limited range, and they don't do anything instrumentally that pushes the envelope.
The Notorious B.I.G.
2/5
I think at one point in my life I would've found Biggie mimicking having loud sex right on the album really funny and awesome. Not anymore. This CD is stupid and crude. It's modestly less unpleasant than the truly awful West Coast stuff I'd gotten earlier.
Spiritualized
1/5
I got this one on my other project previously, so I've now had to sit through it twice. Still don't get it. Best I can tell, it sucks. Maybe it's sophisticated in some way, but if so, went right over my head.
Lightning Bolt
1/5
I like a lot of dissonant, abrasive music. But my god this is just awful. I couldn't get through the whole thing. Just a completely unpleasant chore to listen to. I get that it's cool to try something different and to try to push the envelope, but you gotta do that while also maintaining a minimum standard of not completely sucking while doing it.
Madness
5/5
This album is amazing.
They have a really cool sound. The opening title track sets the tone - it's quite dark overall, focused on minor chords/scales, but with a very punchy upbeat rhythm and timbre (I think they're featuring a glockenspiel). That's just a winning combo for me. The CD overall maintains that theme pretty consistently, but with enough diversity in sound to keep it interesting. They've got a lot of voices on here - horns, lots of backing vocals, lots of keys, on top of the standard rock palette. They're also not at all afraid to try stuff - witness the jarring breaks between the major and minor segments on "Blue Skinned Beast". And you see a lot of experimentation with rhythm and meter, e.g. on "Sunday Morning", it's borderline prog.
The most complete song might be "Our House", which I had actually heard before (but had not recalled the name of the band). It really puts all the pieces together - wonderful and prominent backing vocals, a fun upbeat singalong chorus (complete with a set of jarring key changes towards the end), and super-abrupt changes between the very minor verses and the major chorus.
This album really blew me away, having never heard of the band before. Their main limitation is the singer isn't very good, but the best way to cover for that is with a wide range of instrumental voices and/or backing vocals picking up the slack, and they do that in spades.
Note that this album is not on Spotify in its entirety, only one or two songs are on there. Total shame.
The Cure
3/5
This is sort of fine indie rock, but I really don't care for the singer's voice. It's also really, really 80s. It's alright, but I wouldn't have pulled any of their work out of a lineup.
Genesis
4/5
I had tried this before, but this was the first time it clicked for me. It's a wonderful prog CD. Just a great diversity of sound, very well-produced, very creative.
It is not especially catchy. Only "Firth of Fifth" and "I Know What I Like" are what you could really call "catchy", and then even only to a prog rock fan.
It also drags a bit on the 2nd side. I like that material, because I like the style, but it's definitely not as exciting as side one.
Good CD though, going in the rotation.
Emmylou Harris
3/5
This is nice. To me it's almost indistinguishable from the Dolly album. I think I like Dolly's voice a little better, and of course Ms. Harris ripped off one of her songs. But it's a pleasant listen.
Black Sabbath
3/5
This is a "classic", and it's obviously enormously influential (reasonable people can disagree if that's in a good way or a bad way). Somebody's always going to reference "Helter Skelter" or Link Wray's "Rumble" or whatever, but with the benefit of hindsight, this is obviously Mitochondrial Eve for modern heavy metal.
But, in a way entirely consistent with that legacy, it's fairly crude and primitive. The recording quality is rough - not bad, just a little rough. And there's clearer through-lines to the blues rock that Sabbath spun off from than you would see in later metal (e.g. the harmonica on "The Wizard", or basically all the licks after the title track). It's more like a hard-blues fish with lungs than a real heavy-metal reptile.
And it's perfectly listenable rock, if a little basic. But faced with a choice between eponymous Sabbath and any of dozens of later albums their style evolved into (including several by Sabbath themselves) I'd just never put this on. The POD has a fairly expressive voice, but he's not a great singer, and his lyrical lines are often kind of stilted. The best moments on here are usually instrumental, partly for that reason. It holds up fine though.
Def Leppard
4/5
This is a really fun album but it's not quite brilliant the way "Hysteria" is. I just like their style a lot though, they're going for it. They have a good singer, good sound, nice pop sensibility, a bunch of incredibly catchy hooks, what's not to like? I hadn't heard a couple of the deep cuts on here before, but some of them ("Die Hard the Hunter" and "Action Not Words" in particular) are nice songs.
Dinosaur Jr.
2/5
I'd never really liked these guys, but thought this was pretty pleasant on repeat listen. That's probably a sign that my tastes are rejuvenating.
They're a little harsh, a little sludgy, but that suits me. That said it's pretty rough. I think there's better guys doing this same kind of thing (e.g. Sunny Day Real Estate). And the song "Don't" is so unbelievably unpleasant that no reasonable person would sit through it.
Primal Scream
3/5
I was skeptical going in, having never heard of the band, but this was pretty good. It's moody and kind of heavily instrumental, but it's a nice psychedelic groove CD. There's some creativity and diversity in the sound. It's too low-energy for my taste, and I probably wouldn't put it on again, but it was kind of nice.
Coldplay
2/5
This CD is dull. I've heard all the singles before. And they're nice enough, if what you want is some very light piano-forward pop. But way too many of the songs are just endlessly repetitive with no obvious payoff moment. Put "Daylight", "Warning Sign" and the title track in that bucket (you could just as easily include the entire back half the CD). It's also quite long and quite slow. The fastest song by far is "Clocks", and it runs at 130 bpm. That would make it slow by the standards of most contemporaneous rock.
The two singles ("Scientist" and "Clocks") were insanely popular at the time. In retrospect I'm not sure why. They're sort of an endless slow build, nice enough, but I wouldn't have picked them out of a crowd. But the rest of the CD is a snooze.
David Bowie
2/5
This album starts off alright, but I just have no idea what this guy was thinking with the back half. Side two just completely jumps the shark. The tone of the album shifts completely. "Moss Garden" and "Neukoln" are pointless filler, and the others are a little better but not quite what you'd call "good".
The EP that is side one is fine but nothing exciting. It's awfully drony - "Beauty and the Beast" hangs on the same two-bar phrase and same beat the whole time. Even the title track is kind of long and dull.
I thought pretty hard about giving this a one, but it's not quite that bad.
Common
2/5
My buddies listened to this a lot in high school. It's definitely more pleasant and mellow than pop radio rap from the same time period. But it's a little serious. It's just not as much fun as ATCQ or De La Soul. Fine but not exciting.
Cream
2/5
There's a lot of iconic songs on here, but by modern standards this is very primitive. I don't especially like Bruce's voice or Clapton's guitar, which is part of the problem. But these guys just sound really, really dated, probably even by the standards of a couple years later.
The last song though is hilarious. Had never heard that before. Great way to end it.
Nirvana
2/5
There's some good stuff on this album, but it's just a real shame because there's also some absurdly low low points on it. I've listened to it cover to cover quite a few times before, know most of the songs, and at times I found myself singing along to the chorus of "Pennyroyal Tea" or "Heart-Shaped Box". But also found myself covering my ears or getting really close to hitting skip on a bunch of songs. Songs like "Milk It", "Scentless Apprentice" and "Tourettes" are, no other way to say it, they're trash, they should've been cut.
I'm gonna lay a lot of the blame at the feet of Steve Albini. This isn't the first CD Albini has fucked up, although it might be the one with the highest potential had he not been involved. It's telling that the best songs are the ones where he had the least involvement.
The Beta Band
3/5
I liked this a lot better than the other "Beta Band" CD earlier on the list. It's kind of interesting and weird. It does sound almost exactly like Ween at times. And I wouldn't have picked it from among a list of best-of-2004 output. It's just not catchy enough. But it's OK.
The Cure
2/5
This is fine, but it's quite dull. It really sounds like one super-long song, in part due to overuse of the drum machine, in part due to their tendency to hang on a four-chord sequence for a hell of a long time, and in part due to the consistency in their timbre. They just don't have a lot of variability, and to me it really sounds like they're not having any fun. I'm not looking for wild improvisation here (although that's cool too), but like they don't even stray off the beat at all, it's super-square.
Here's a simple test: play the first fifteen seconds of any song on this CD and see if you can tell which one is which.
I thought hard about giving this a one. At the end of the day though, it's so light and inoffensive that it doesn't really merit it. But make no mistake, this CD sucks.
Prefab Sprout
2/5
This is a fine rock CD, but I would've never picked it out of a crowd. It's just a little light and soft for my taste. Which is fine, it's pleasant background noise. But it lacks any real haymakers that would make it a good active listen. The highest-tension moment is probably the chorus on "Bonny", and that maybe gets to a 4/10 on the excitement scale.
Wilco
3/5
I quite liked this. It's just good roots rock, pretty basic but gets the job done. It's a little long, but comes in kind of just below the length where it would be real slog to finish it. Wilco has kind of a weird side that keeps it interesting throughout. I'd put this on again.
Pulp
3/5
This is nice, but it's very, very similar to the Cure. The big-ticket tracks ("Common People" and "Disco 2000") are really catchy, but the rest of it is pretty ordinary. It's also a bit long and very heavily mannered, but not in an especially fun way (like e.g. Bowie). The guy's not that good a singer, and they don't quite have the sonic diversity of Travis to cover up for it.
Bottom line: actually pretty Common.
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I liked this better than I expected. It’s fun and kind of clever and very well produced. Some of the songs, “Wouldn’t Normally Do…” and “Go West” are very catchy. When I see “electronic duo” in the band description I now immediately brace for the worst, but these guys are good musicians.
Miles Davis
4/5
I don't know if I'm really qualified to review this. I like it better than most jazz, but it's also more rock-like than most jazz. The middle section of "In A Silent Way" is basically two long stretches of them just hanging on a riff. It's got more in common with "Band of Gypsies" than with Duke Ellington. But it's cool, it's really cool. It's got a lot of strange, strange sounds - lots of atonal stuff, wide diversity in voices (with the guitar and organ and all that added in). But then there's also very pacifying sequences with a very smooth sound. It's disorienting, in a good way.
I listened to this a couple times, in part because it's short and because it's good background music for work. It definitely rewards repeat listens. There's a lot there.
Moby Grape
2/5
Pretty rough recording. It basically sounds like the very earliest Dead CD, but with less energy and less polish. I'm also not 100% sure I listened to the whole thing. It's not available on Spotify, and the YouTube I found for it was awfully short. Not what I'd call one of those quintessential 60s CDs.
Deep Purple
3/5
This is pretty much a league-average early 70s rock CD. But there was just a ton of great music being made back then, the average product is pretty good. Purple have a pretty good singer (he's more enthusiastic than virtuosic - boy can that guy scream) but they get most of their highlights from some really great performances from Blackmore and whoever the organist is. You get a taste of that right on the first track, when the real hook (coming just a minute or so in) is an extended instrumental between those two. Aside from those two's instrumentals, it's pretty by-the-numbers heavy riffs (although Blackmore's riffs are solid) and thumping drums and bass.
What it's not is catchy - in part because vocals are not emphasized, there aren't a ton of great hooks. Even the standout track, "Child In Time", is substantially Blackmore solos. Which is great, I love Blackmore's style, but it doesn't make for as good an active listen. Still a quality CD.
Boston
5/5
I'm gonna run out of superlatives to describe how good this CD is. It sounds like a good band's greatest hits CD, every song is just a banger. Anyone with a car and a radio has heard the first three tracks a dozen times, but it just goes 8 deep. I love "Something About You" and "Smokin", and there's just no dud numbers on here, basically not even a down moment.
"Something About You", as close as Boston gets to a deep cut, is a great illustration of the formula that makes this CD work. Delp is a criminally underrated singer who can just crush high notes - he does it late on "Something About You" (beginning "Gotta to have you..."), he also does it on "More Than a Feeling". Scholz has some crushing licks - his tone and penchant for grace-note trills are recognizable from miles away and totally unique - and where he comes in with the solo right after Delp's climactic belt is chilling. You combine those two with massive pop hooks, huge backing vocals, persistently fast tempo, and lyrics that elegantly straddle the line between human universals and banality, and you've got a formula for one of the greatest CDs ever recorded.
There's a lot you could say about Boston's influence on rock music - Scholz literally built the sound of 80s rock - but it's unnecessary. This CD is a temple, and if he'd never done another damn thing it'd still be a 5/5.
Motörhead
2/5
This is a lot more like punk rock than most metal. That's kind of an interesting change of pace, but it's not my style. This is a pretty rough record, the production is fine but very stripped-down, and nobody in the band is really a strong instrumentalist. Lemmy in particular, while having a very distinctive voice, is quite a poor singer.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
This is quite a pleasant classic rock CD, but it lacks the firepower of Exodus. It's just more stripped down - not as rich a sound, not as deep - and just not as catchy. In particular, a good chunk of the 2nd half is very repetitive. "Bend Down Low" is literally the same 2-bar lick throughout, that might be the low point.
This on-record version of "No Woman No Cry" is the hit, but a couple other songs from the first side are better songs in this version. I especially like the lead off track.
It's nice overall, I'd play it again. Just doesn't stand out as much.
Brian Wilson
4/5
I actually really enjoyed this CD, although I was tempted to give it a one on the sole basis of the fact that no CD, no matter how good, should take 35 years to produce.
It's weird. It's more like a collection of ideas than a collection of songs. But it has the unmistakable magic of classic Beach Boys and some absurdly high high points. "Surf's Up" would've been a top 5 peak-period Beach Boys song (Wikipedia says the Beach Boys actually did record it, but I've never heard that version). It's absolute magic - lushly layered vocals, chilling high notes, perfect counterpoint. "Heroes and Villains" is sort of a microcosm of the CD, it almost has a few separate songs contained within it - but you could say much the same of it as well. Beautiful locals, instrumentation deep like the Grand Canyon (prominently featuring a slide whistle!), and it just sounds like everyone is having fun. And it's hard to give the guy full credit for this alt version of "Good Vibrations", but on the other hand, he did write it and the main version probably isn't going to crack the 1,001 anywhere else (no discussion of the merits of "Good Vibrations" is necessary, although this version is clearly inferior the Beach Boys version).
The rest of the CD, even outside the highlights, is just fun and breezy. I'm not sure how much effort it took to put this version together, but the guy should've just half-assed it in 6 weeks and put it out. It's good!
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
I've heard this before, as well as several other Zappa albums.
A big part of Zappa's whole project is that he's different from other mainstream rock, he's almost defined in contrast to prevailing rock. But this CD was released in 1966, and rock has evolved outward in every direction since then. At this point, listening to it near 60 years later, if you're not a rock historian it's impossible to notice that this is not the same as "You Really Got Me" and "Satisfaction". In fact, sonically, it's much more similar to "You Really Got Me" and "Satisfaction" than is mainstream rock from even the mid-70s that was consciously trying to rip those guys off. Recording and amplification technology just evolved, songwriting techniques evolved, and it leaves all that mid-60s stuff sounding very dated (in some cases good, but clearly of that period). For a guy like Zappa, that kind of defeats the purpose. It doesn't help that many of these songs ("Go Cry On Somebody Else's Shoulder" the most obvious) are lampooning aspects of pop culture at the time that would've been familiar to contemporary listeners but are now just completely buried, as if he was making fun of insider details of a Cotillion ball.
Then there's the music itself. Even on his good songs, Zappa is not a good singer. He's got just an OK voice, and on many songs he's not even trying, partly for comedic effect. The Mothers have nice vocal harmonies on many songs, but nearly as often they're intentionally abrasive - the chorus of "Who Are The Brain Police" I think is supposed to be a musical joke, and it is kind of funny, but it's also as ugly a harmony as you can possibly come up with. Even some of the nicer backing parts they'll often just subtly screw up, like on "Wowie Zowie", and I think they're doing it for comedic effect, not due to incompetence, but it's tough to tell and either way it sounds terrible.
Some of the songs are pretty funny though.
Incredible Bongo Band
2/5
So the genre this falls under, which probably isn't included in the tags for 1001, is "gimmick". It's basically funk instrumentals, including some absurd covers ("Satisfaction" the most absurd), featuring bongos prominently. Think the middle part of "Jungle Boogie" where the only lyrics are "Jungle Boogie" over and over again, but slightly less organized. Which is fine, it's not unpleasant to listen to, but it also doesn't have much to offer except, says it right there in the band name, bongos.
Harry Nilsson
5/5
I absolutely loved this. This whole album has such a lush sound. You get almost the full spectrum in the first couple songs - marching-band brass textures on "Gotta Get Up" (probably the best individual song), a really solid guitar solo AND a modulate-up key change on "Driving Along", mournful blues on "Early in the Morning".
Every song on here is good, and Nilsson just does everything right. He's got nice melodies, great harmonies (the backing vocals on "Without You" are chilling"), and a wonderful diversity of sound. The pacing is impeccable - it's short, all the songs (save one) are themselves short, and even the slower songs have a steady backbeat keeping it moving. Nilsson just doesn't waste any time at all in a musical sense. And he himself is quite a good singer - he's not A+ level, but when he stretches (like on "Down") he's a solid B+.
I feel like this CD also just gives you a great sense of what Nilsson himself is like, it lets you know him. That's pretty rare for one CD, and maybe this is just an act, but he really comes through. And what this CD says is that Nilsson is a fuckup and a bit of a goofball. The first few songs are consumed with the fact that he stays out all night, can't get to work on time, can't hang on to a girlfriend, and kind of can't figure out what to do with his life. That dovetails nicely with both the cover art, which is amazing - it just instantly evokes a guy who can't his shit together - and the title. And he's pretty funny too, especially on "Coconut", which stands out as being quite different from the rest of the CD, yet still kind of ties it all together.
Blur
2/5
This starts out pretty well, but within a couple songs it completely falls off the rails. Songs like "Theme From Retro" are a disaster - slow, boring, and grating, the triple-whammy. After that point it never recovers. "You're So Great" they should've only used the demo as a template to record the real song, rather than putting the demo on the CD. "Death of a Party" the hook is funny but the song itself is once again the triple whammy. "Chinese Bombs" is a more-unpleasant cover of "Territorial Pissings". And every song thereafter has one or more of all those same problems.
So what you've got is like 4 pretty good songs totaling 15 minutes and a huge pile of crap totaling 40 minutes. This is a great example of a CD that would've been OK if it were only 35 minutes long, only relative to that OK CD they've doubled the filler and left the killer unch.
I would've given this a 1 except for "Song 2", which buys it a 2. I really like "Song 2".
Cee Lo Green
2/5
This is pretty standard fin-de-siecle R&B. I wouldn't have picked it out of a lineup, and I don't like it any better than the groups doing the same kind of thing in the late 90s. Cee-Lo has a nice voice, quite distinctive, but he doesn't really open up and let rip like on some of his later hits.
I was surprised to see that one of these songs, "I'll Be Around", has been played something like 100x as often as the next-most-played song. To my mind that one kind of sucked. I must be missing something that true Cee-Lo fans are picking up on.
The best songs in my opinion are the two with Pharrell, "When We Were Friends" and "All Day Love Affair", which both put the most emphasis on Cee-Lo's singing and give him the most space to work. I didn't like any of the ones with a guest rapper, they're just not what I'm here for, and I don't think they play to his strength. This could've been a decent 25-minute soul EP, instead it's weak a 1+ hour hip-hop CD.
The Police
3/5
This is an odd CD, because the back half is way, way stronger than the front half. I actually don't care for "Every Breath You Take" that much, I think it's kind of slow and dull, but there's no denying it was a hit. And a number of the other songs on side 2, especially the title track II, "King of Pain" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger", are just great pop music. And "Murder By Numbers" is extremely clever with it's complex rhythms, it's songs like these that give Copeland his reputation.
The first side is really a slog though. Personally, I like a strong finish better than a hot start, but ideally you have both.
Don McLean
2/5
You can see why the title track has about 500x as many listens on Spotify as almost all the other songs on here. It really is very different and way better. "American Pie" is an upbeat rocker, if about twice as long as the usual upbeat rocker. The rest of the CD is guy-in-a-coffeeshop acoustic folk. One other song I hadn't heard of ("Vincent") also has a ton of plays, but it's much more like the rest of the CD than it is like the title track, I wouldn't have picked it out of a lineup. In fact if I was gonna pick another song as a winner from among the rest it'd be "Everybody Loves Me, Baby", which is a nice song, but the collective Spotify universe has shown it little favor.
Guy-in-a-coffeeshop acoustic folk is fine, but bottom-line, this guy is a one-hit wonder. This isn't the worst one-hit wonder CD I've ever heard, in fact it's fine, it's just awfully light, and also kind of slow and dull.
The White Stripes
3/5
This CD, with the faces of Mr. and Mrs. White, would be in the dictionary next to "Garage Rock". They define it, both because they're incredibly stripped down and basic and because they manage to be pretty good while doing that. The "pretty good" part is mostly from Mr. White, who has gone on to have a further career as a musician. Someone needs to inform Mrs. White that there's an "-and-" beat in between the four main beats in each bar.
Their template is basically Ramones, it's a bunch of really short 2-3 minute fast rockers with one or two 2-3 minute slow acoustic rockers. But they bring a ton of raw energy to it. My rule of thumb is if you can't be good, at least be fast and fun, and this is a great example of how to execute on that strategy. It's fast and fun! Not virtuosic, not groundbreaking, but fast and fun.
There's no backing vocals of any kind and extremely limited instrumental depth (Jack White seems to play a little keys on a couple tracks - I think Meg could've played the piano part on "Union Forever"). And as mentioned there's zero variability in the rhythm. But they've got some cool riffs ("Fell In Love With a Girl" stands out), and JW's not a good singer, but he brings a lot of energy. Solid B.
I don't usually like to mention influence, but since I was around when this came out and felt it, will give a quick shout-out. The early 2000s were the peak of corporate music, CD sales peaked right about the year this came out (led by the likes of Britney Speaks and NSYNC). The White Stripes, and this CD in particular (plus "Elephant" and the work of a few other bands) blew that whole thing up, both in terms of what kind of music was made and how it was disseminated. I happen to think the later indie rock bands that had 2-3 extra coats of polish were better. But White Stripes were first.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
I absolutely love this CD. The trilogy of early 70s Stevie Wonder CDs (this + Talking Book + Songs in the Key of Life) are all straight-up magic. They're immediately recognizable as Stevie with his unique sound, consistently high-quality, and loaded with hits. But this is probably the most complete of the three, more polished than Talking Book and not as bloated as Songs in the Key of Life.
Stevie's key trick is in melding jazz-like or classic Tinpan Alley songwriting techniques with the complex rhythms of mostly groove-based soul and funk. Sometimes it's alternating songs in each style, but on the best tracks he marries both. The lead track, "Too High" is a great example - he's got that great ascending-riff groove for the rhythm that he just hangs on a while, and he mixes in a short descending line in the bass over those jazz harmonies on the chorus. Top it off with the bouncy, jazzy vocal riff ("doo-doo-doo" bit) and you've got a song that feels like a real journey with all the ups and downs. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be an Easter egg or not, but he also has a harmonica solo, which to me sounds like a joking allusion to his 60s years as Lil' Stevie (it's a pretty good musical joke).
Honestly there's too many good things to say about this CD for one little writeup. Stevie's a brilliant songwriter, he's a damn good singer, pretty much A-level at this stage in his career, and he fills it out with a wild diversity of harmony and sound. The CD is brilliantly paced - it's almost exactly the right length, the intensity peaks right in the middle with "Higher Ground", and it perfectly alternates more exciting and more relaxed tracks. Some of the transitions, like "Visions" into "Living For The City", are flawlessly executed in a way that, like the best concept albums, makes the CD itself feel like a single cohesive unit.
I'm just going to list a bunch more things I really like about the CD:
-The way he throws his voice to appear to be a different character on the 2nd half of "Living For The City", while also sharpening the contrast with his duet partner/backing vocalist, yet still hits every damn note
-Wonder's note on "All is Fair in Love" at 1:13-1:18
-The first time he opens up on the chorus of "Don't You Worry Bout a Thing"
-The bongos starting with the solo on "Golden Lady"
-The modulation up in the fade out on "Golden Lady"
-Really "Golden Lady" the whole song
3/5
This is really solid classic rock. I'd never really listened to Spirit before, I just know them as the guys that probably wrote "Stairway to Heaven". This is pretty different from what I anticipated - more power, more psychedelica, less folky finger-picking.
"Morning Will Come" is the standout on here, and it's just a bruiser - big brass, big backing vocals, fat boogie-woogie. I like it better than at least three of the four sides of "Exile", it just does the same thing better. They have a couple that are just like that, mostly on the back half. "Mr. Skin" is another great example, thumping white-boy funk with a whiff of psychedelic weirdness, sort of like proto-Phish. And "Street Worm" and "Animal Zoo" have touches of the same flair, although they stay a little more within the lines for standard 70s rock.
It's kind of funny, the first half of the CD does kind of have some of the self-serious folk-rock that I sort of picture when I think of Spirit. That includes by far the most-listened to song on here, which is "Nature's Way" (not a good or noteworthy song). But it's almost like that was some kind of act for the label and they dropped it halfway. Should've just done Mussel Shoals-esque R&B on the whole thing.
The Band
4/5
This is a "classic", but I don't think it's as good as The Brown Album. It's their first CD, and it just lacks that polish that they'd later develop.
The Band's strength is their diversity of sound. They've got three different lead singers, all with very different voices, wonderful vocal harmonies from basically everyone in the band except Garth, and in addition to their regular instruments, each of them plays a handful of random museum pieces (more than a handful in Garth's case). They can really mix it up in terms of musical dynamics too - when they're firing on all cylinders, as on "Caledonia Mission", they're incredible. Between verse and chorus they essentially swap out every instrument, the lead singer (there's so much backing on the chorus that it's unclear who is "lead"), and the entire vibe of the song. With each passing verse or chorus they insert a new instrument to enhance the color, whether it's fiddle, organ, or (the novelty!) electric guitar. And they make all that really work.
Everyone knows "The Weight", and that really shows off the depth of vocal talent they've got. But truly the secret weapon on this CD, and the guy who just makes every good song except "The Weight", is Garth, he straight crushes some totally unique parts on "Chest Fever" and "We Can Talk". I've never really understood Robinson's reputation as a strong guitar player, fact of the matter is the guy barely does anything. But Garth totally makes up for it, leaping between registers for as close as the band gets to Organ Hero moments.
I listened to this a couple times and really the only thing I don't like about it is "Tears of Rage". It's an awful way to start - very slow, fairly long, and very sad - which is pretty much the opposite of the typical opener (the contrast with, among others, "Across the Great Divide" is quite stark). They could've subbed in a number of other songs from this CD, like say the next song in sequence ("To Kingdom Come"), or even a couple from Basement Tapes. Then the mix on that song on the trombone is just way, way off, as if the trombonist were attempting to deliberately sabotage the song. The whole thing is just confusing. There's some weaker material towards the end as well ("Long Black Veil" and "Lonesome Suzie"), but mostly they find their footing after the first track.
Fela Kuti
2/5
Another Fela Kuti! So far we've seen 2 Fela Kuti's but nothing from The Beatles, Elvis, or Led Zeppelin. 1001 is a long list, so let's see how it looks at the halfway point.
But that seems like too many, or at least too many relative to the dearth of entries for the best-selling musicians of all time.
It's fine, pleasant enough, I didn't regret playing it. It's not exactly jazz, more like fusion. It's basically just groove music, they get an idea going and just hang on it, then there's some vaguely jazz-like soloing. The lack of changes and the fact that generally only one instrument solos is in my mind what makes is not exactly jazz.
Even when searching for something like this, I probably would not put this on again. Maybe this an unfair comparison, but I don't really see what the advantage of this is over e.g. Herbie Hancock or Chick Corea. I guess if you're listening to this all day maybe those other guys get boring.
Jane Weaver
1/5
This is awful. The bull-case is it's watered-down breathy 80s synth, a la Kate Bush, with fewer real instruments and more uninhibited self-indulgence. But on top of that, it's just frequently unpleasant. "Loops in the Secret Society" is just dissonant crap, and not in the clever way. The back half is almost unlistenable. Even the apparently well-received songs, like "The Architect" and the title track, are a boring drone. Straight pass.
Keith Jarrett
3/5
It's kind of interesting and nice background music but not really my style. The whole thing sounds completely improvised, I'd be surprised if there was any real plan. It's got a very modal jazz feel to it too - the guy gets onto a short pattern, sometimes even just a single note, and kind of hangs out playing little riffs off that starting point for minutes on end.
I had it on at work and would run it again as work background music, it's good for that. But there's just not enough there to make a good active listen.
X-Ray Spex
1/5
This is really, really rough. I usually use Ramones as my exemplar for unpolished garage-rock by guys (and gals!) who lack traditional musical training. But this CD is even less polished and the musicians even less well-trained, so I probably have to switch to insulting bands by comparing them to Germfree Adolescents (note: I like Ramones).
The singer is awful. Aside from the (?!?!) saxophonist, nobody in the band can really play their instrument above an intermediate level. None of the songs are the least bit noteworthy in terms of composition. The best cover for those sorts of deficiencies is to be fast and loud - and they are indeed fast and loud (it gets a little slow towards the end).
On that basis I thought about giving them a 2. But I really didn't enjoy the CD at all, it's not very fun, and moreover, I can't even count how many punk CD's I'd have to put on here before this one is worthy of inclusion. 1001 is a lot, but I bet I could get there.
Soundgarden
5/5
This is one of my very favorites, and the crown jewel of the entire 90s grunge period. It is a fucking powerhouse, could not be described accurately without that profanity.
Soundgarden's ace is Chris Cornell's vocals. He isn't the most technically gifted singer ever, but he's quite good, and he just gets every ounce out of what he's got. They get it going early - his scream at about 2:30 of the lead track ("Let Me Drown") leading into the solo is the sort of moment other hard rock bands just dream about. The coda of that song shows off what a versatile weapon he is. Cornell uses double-tracks to harmonize and fill with himself in multiple parts of his register and with multiple different timbres, namely his gentler melodic timbre with his unique, one-of-a-kind scream. That diversity in vocal sound just creates an incredibly lush and textured sound palette, even while otherwise using a standard power-trio instrumentation.
The lead track is a good example, but it's not the best on this CD, or his best performance. The title track and "Limo Wreck" are two of the very best vocal performances in all of recorded rock music. His vocal solo on the title track, or the final chorus on "Limo Wreck", those moments just send chills down my spine.
And this CD is full of them - Cornell puts on a fucking show, repeatedly - on "Fell On Black Days", on "The Day I Tried to Live", he's simply incredible.
Soundgarden are a good band, and this CD has other strong aspects, in the end it's quite a cohesive product. But simply put, Cornell is the superstar. In the hands of an average-quality singer giving an average-quality performance, this CD would not be special, it'd be maybe a 3 out of 5. That in and of itself is part of the mystique, because it's so difficult to cover that it remains forever and indelibly Soundgarden's material.
So what to say about the other three guys in the band, or about the CD as a whole? They're pretty good - even without Cornell this would be one of the better CDs of that era. Soundgarden was always the heaviest and proggiest of their cohort, and it shows here. Even when they're not good, they're definitely unique, and they show a willingness to experiment with all kinds of weird stuff - odd time signatures on "Limo Wreck", "Spoonman", "Black Hole Sun" and "4th of July", and funny open tunings pretty much everywhere (notably on the title track). They stay really tight on the odd signatures, a sign of a strong rhythm section, and I really like Thayil's guitar style, he's got a very unique (although quite dissonant) sound. His solos on "Fell on Black Days" and the title track are fantastic and truly their own thing, and he does a nice job of mixing subtle evolution into his licks (as on "Fell on Black Days").
This CD is a touch the long side, but that's largely a consequence of being absolutely stacked. In the final analysis, it just has a ton of really great songs on it.
Public Enemy
1/5
Well, I listened to it, although I believe that I could've died a happy man had I never.
Louis Prima
3/5
This was kind of interesting, I enjoyed it and am glad I was forced to listen to it. But I'd never put it on again. It's a very archaic style, and not my style. I'm not super up on the history of swing bands, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was something of an archaic style in in 1956 when it came out. Parts of it are funny - "Banana Split for My Baby" for example is just a funny song, and "Just a Gigolo" is kind of funny too - but a lot of what makes it funny is just how different the conventions were at that time.
I was surprised to learn from the Wikipedia entry that Prima actually composed "Jump Jive an Wail", which apart from one standard ("Body and Soul") was the only song I actually knew on here. That's a nice song.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
This CD is amazing, I've heard it many times before. It feels in many ways like an experiment, a prototype that would lead Zep from their perfection of hard-rock blues on I-II into the new terrain of IV and "Houses of the Holy". And like any good experiment, not everything works - but overall it's a success.
The CD opens strong. In fact, "Immigrant Song" is like the gold-standard of a strong opening. Listening to it again, I noticed there's a connective thru-line between the first three songs - "Immigrant Song" is connected to "Friends" via the odd sort of "radio-static" production flaw, and then "Friends" just segues into "Celebration Day". Between that and "Since I've Been Loving You", which is probably the most emotionally powerful song on this CD, side one really hooks you in before you even have a chance to think too hard about it.
Side two is the more experimental, with the exception of the solo on "Tangerine" it's pretty much all acoustic. I love "Gallows Pole" and "Bron Yaur Stomp", they just inject so much passion and energy into the arrangement.
It's almost an afterthought what makes Zep good overall. Plant is at the peak of his vocal prowess here, and he's the gold standard for 70s rock vocalists. Page's lush overdub forests really expand on this one vs. I and II, so on e.g. "Celebration Day" he manages to weave together what sounds like about a half-dozen different lines. Of note, this CD is, like all of Zep, pretty guitar-dominant, but on only one song ("Tangerine") does Page actually just lazily strum cowboy chords (despite lazily strumming cowboy chords being hitherto the bedrock of most rock music). He does something unique and interesting, rhymically or harmonically, on every song, even when (as in the case of say "Gallows Pole") the underlying structure is very straightforward. They've got the tightest rhythm section you can imagine. There's also quite a wide diversity of sound, both in terms of instrumentation (like on "Friends", "Celebration Day" and "Tangerine") and recording techniques, toggling between amplified and acoustic, lo-fi and hi-fi.
I can't quite give it a five though. It just doesn't peak high enough.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
This is a nice pop CD, I know a lot of people who really love it and have listened to it before. Something about it just doesn't do it for me though.
Even relative to other New Wave acts it's got three features that to me kind of drag it down. One, it's pretty lyrically-focused - that's his style, that's fine, but I don't really care too much about lyrics. On something like "Chelsea" he's spitting out words machine-gun style like Bruce Springsteen, but the harmonies and melodies are unexciting. Two, and this is related, Costello is a relatively poor singer - he's got limited range and kind of a reedy voice. The most excitement he generates with his voice on the whole CD is on "Pump It Up" where the whole band shouts the hook all at once - that's fun, but it's like a cover for his limitations. And last, for a power-pop-y CD, it's just not that lushly orchestrated. Compare it to Cars eponymous, which came out the same year and is obviously part of the same musical movement. Costello doesn't have the same depth of sound, the same wonderful vocal harmonies, the same massive hooks.
I like "Pump It Up" a lot though. That's a winner.
The Specials
2/5
This has nice energy, but it's really sloppy. The singers are mediocre, to the point where on e.g. "Too Hot" or "Do The Dog" it's like kind of a joke. The best vocal performances they get are when the whole band is shouting in unison, e.g. on "Concrete Jungle". The production quality, even down to the quality of the recording and the mix, is pretty poor - it's good for DIY, just not that good for major label. And the band is sort of one step above punk rock for musical ability.
So I don't really like that style, but DIY quasi-punk really needs to be graded on it's own scale that ignores major aspects of the actual sound. And yeah, it's kind of fun, although neither especially fast nor especially loud (unlike e.g. Sex Pistols, which it is a cut above in terms of quality). The energy comes more from the feeling the band seems to be having fun when they play. I would still take almost every other late 70s DIY-type album that's been put on this list first.
2/5
I get why these guys are considered a joke band. On one hand, yeah, it's a real rock CD, if one that is pretty sparse lo-fi garage rock. On the other hand, they don't sound like they're taking themselves seriously at all. "Mongoloid" and the title track are clearly intentional parodies of trends in prevailing self-important hard rock (to me, they most clearly sound like someone making fun of Blue Oyster Cult). Combined with the absurdist cover of "Satisfaction", you just get their impression that the entire raison d'etre of the CD is to point out what idiots other rock bands are. And it's not like they're wrong, I'd just rather listen to like an actual very strong rock performance. And this isn't it - it's more like slow Ramones with not as compelling a singer (although about equally talented).
Also for what it's worth Zappa had been doing this for a while when this came out, and I think Zappa does it better.
Madonna
3/5
I quite liked this, it's actually really solid pop. Madonna has a beautiful voice, and that + good pop composition is just kind of tough to screw up.
She occasionally tries. The worst moments are when the CD strays from that formula. "Shanti.." for example is a blunder. But when they're on, with fast thumping beats and Madonna pushing her register, it just clicks. I especially liked "Sky Fits Heaven", which might be the most poppy song on there, and I was surprised it did not have the playcount of some of the hits.
There's a bit of a 60s feel on here too, it's kind of tough to put a finger on though. There's some drone-like sequences that sound a bit like raga. Moody synth plus slapping backbeat always sounds vaguely psychedelic. And the guitar tone, where it's used (e.g. on the title track) is always kind of jangly, Rickenbacker-esque.
Sex Pistols
2/5
I have a special place in my heart for this CD, but it is simply not very good. Sex Pistols are like a 10/10 for enthusiasm and a 1/10 for ability. Rotten just straight-up can't sing, and even the fairly simple instrumental parts on this CD tend to strain the limits of what the other members can accomplish. I had forgotten this since my last listen, but there's actually a guitar solo on "God Save the Queen" at about the 2-minute mark - or you can kinda tell it's supposed to be a guitar solo if you listen closely, but I just imagine whichever poor Pistol was assigned guitar as his instrument shaking and sweating buckets at the stress of having to pull it off. Most of the songs are, let's just be honest, they're terrible. If you're not naturally inclined to think the stuff they're singing about is cool just in and of itself (a criteria which would disqualify "God Save The Queen" and "Anarchy in the U.K."), likely the only enjoyable song is the opener, which really is a pretty good song (and really doesn't try to do too much, it leans on that one good riff like it's life depends on it). But that leaves another 35 minutes of essentially filler, and filler it is - most of the deep cuts are borderline-unlistenable.
This gets the 2nd star for something like "lifetime achievement".
Lauryn Hill
4/5
I knew the reputation of this and had heard a couple of the singles before, didn't think much of it. But listening to this again now I really enjoyed it, played it through 3 or 4 times in a row.
Honestly I could do without the rap - the CD works best as just killer R&B. On "Ex Factor", for example, they just replace what might ordinarily be a freestyle with a guitar solo (a pretty good guitar solo!), and it works perfectly - that might be the strongest song.
It's not a guitar CD though, the feature is vocals. Hill is a strong singer - a high B to low A - and she's complemented by some wonderful backing vocals. Witness e.g. the chorus on "To Zion" (another standout), where you get real belting from Hill and heavy gospel backups, perfectly executed.
That's in contrast to e.g. "That Thing", which I'd heard before, and yeah it's kind of catchy, but I think it would be a better song if they cut the rap and skipped straight to the truly lovely choruses (there's also a quasi a-capella bridge that works wonderfully as well).
Among the songs that are really rap, the best to my mind is "Everything is Everything" - not coincidentally because it dispenses with a relatively short freestyle early, and is mostly oriented around the very catchy hook. And I'd take "Forgive Them Father", with those lush backing vocals, over the main single as well. But the real highlights are the all-singing tracks, including the title track, which features Hill as a soloist most completely.
I'm also just a sucker for concept albums or albums with a framing device. The teacher skits in the intro and the end of "To Zion" and "That Thing" don't really do anything for the music. But they tie the whole thing together, they give it a narrative - it just makes it more fun to listen to as a unit.
4/5
I liked this quite a bit better than the other, later Blur CD. It's a little more grungy, and the twee British (I believe this is the correct twee British term for it) "rubbish" is reserved as a bit of color, e.g. the little jingly intro to to "Advert", before he hits you over the head with overdriven guitar.
There's some cool tricks on it too. They've got nice backing vocals on most songs, not too over the top. And for such a bone-crushing guitar sound, they do really well covering the treble end of the register, in a variety of different ways.
"Colin Zeal" is a really nice song. Ripping grunge guitar, soaring backing vocals, snide lyrics. Couple others on there are nice too. I'd listen to it again.
The Black Keys
3/5
This is a nice CD, I listed to it a bunch when it came out and saw Black Keys on this tour. But I wouldn't have said it's one of the best CDs of that era. Really, as superlatives go, it's more like the most-normal good CD of that era. Not that it's bad, but I'm more just surprised the guy put it on this list. For starters, he seems to be kind of an Anglophile, and most of the best music from this period is from the British bands.
This came out kind of at the tail end of the indie rock period and was sort of a bridge between that style, with the raw stripped-down hard-rocking sound, and the bullshit Disneyland Americana of The Lumineers and Mumford & Sons that would come later.
Listening to it again now, it opens strong, the first five songs or so are bangers, but it really loses steam at about the halfway point, after "She's Long Gone". To the extent that a band that is to a first approximation a Doors cover band ever had anything at all to say, they definitely didn't have 55 minutes worth of stuff to say. This would've made a better 35 minute CD.
It's not really new, it's not really virtuosic, but it's solid within-the-lines rock. I didn't mind putting it back on again.
Doves
2/5
So my first impression of this CD is that it sucked, and I think that's largely because the beginning of the CD really does suck. But the back half is significantly better than the first.
It's another of those fin-de-siècle somewhat genre-less British CDs that this guy really likes, in the same vein as Travis and Badly Drawn Boy. Relative to those two it's generally gloomier. I don't like it as much as Travis, but it's on-par with BDB.
So yeah, the first half is awful. It opens with a long, boring instrumental. I honestly can't for the life of me understand why you would do that. Even once they get to the point, the first several songs are incredibly monotonous. "Here It Comes" and especially "Sea Song" are really the same thing over and over again for 5 or 6 minutes. They're a 1-of-5 straight slog.
The band really starts to find their footing with "Melody Calls", which is the first borderline-normal song. Thereafter the whole CD is pretty solid. "Catch The Sun" has some really clever changes and a very cool sound - it's just a catchy song. That's the standout highlight.
Overall though this is like a 3-4 on the back half and a low 1 on the front half. I prefer that order over the reverse, but all-in it's still just OK.
Beastie Boys
4/5
Ok, yeah, I get it now. This CD is incredibly fun. I've heard all the singles before. But hearing it now as a cohesive whole (a couple times) I totally get it. Its loud, dumb, and super-fun. Like, super-fun. Also super-dumb. Parts of "Girls" are pretty blatantly misogynistic, and the CD overall is incredibly juvenile in terms of themes ("Fight For Your Right" is clearly written from the perspective of a kid living with his parents). But I could rock out to this all day. They sound like they're having a really fun time, sampling Led Zep riffs and complaining about their moms.
David Bowie
4/5
Opening with an instrumental and then ending it with a fade out! Like he was gonna peace out after one song! What a bold choice! And this CD is full of bold choices, not the least of which is that it's effectively two entirely different CDs on sides one and two. 1001 had previously assigned me "Heroes", which also had that setup, so I was not entirely caught off-guard (although I was surprised to see it again). I still don't think it's a great idea, but my thoughts on the two halves are so different that I need to take them in turn.
Side one is kind of like bizarro sock-hop. The basic template is like bluesy boogie-woogie plus weird synth. Bowie seems to have a thing for hanging on long, extended boogie-woogies, he does that a lot on "Heroes" too. I don't love that style, basically I think it's boring, but he does a better job here mixing it up with strange synth sounds. I especially like whatever weird noise comes in around 0:52 and 1:31 on "Breaking Glass", it just takes what had been kind of a staid blues rocker and turns it upside and shakes it to make sure you're paying attention. But overall, the first half is kind of standard, not-especially-inspired 70s rock.
I loved side two, and I'm not totally sure why. I did not like the equivalent section of "Heroes" one bit, I thought it dragged the whole thing down. Relative to that, this is much more melodic, it has much more of a narrative, vs. on "Heroes" the instrumentals are mostly kind of atmospheric. I don't know what it is about it, but I found myself listening to the 2nd side over and over again. You probably don't enjoy it unless you're also a fan of dungeon synth, but it is simply the worst greatest dungeon synth CD ever made. I would play any video game with "Warszawa" in the background ad infinitum, no matter what the game is.
Overall I'm kind of confused about why I like this CD so much, I can't explain it, but I really just do. I'm giving it basically a 3 for side one and a 5 for side two.
Guns N' Roses
5/5
"Oh my God." That's Axl's first line, before "Welcome to the Jungle" gets rolling. It's probably the best 3-word description of this CD.
It is an "Oh My God" CD. Right from the get-go, it's extremely intense. Axl is a class-A singer, and he's on his game the entirety of this CD. Just on the opening track, "Welcome to the Jungle", he displays incredible range - in just the bridge and the last chorus, he nails lines over multiple octaves and totally different timbres. And of course he's an incredible showman - too many examples to count, but just witness the moaning at the end of Slash's main solo. Slash himself is as good a lead guitarist as Axl is a singer - he has multiple solos on several tracks, all of them stellar, and his lead lines are often just breathtaking. The conclusion of his solo on "Rocket Queen" before the outro gives me the chills every time, as does solo during the double-time section of "Paradise City".
The rest of the band brings it all together to make a really "cool" sound. Steven Adler is the unsung hero here - he brings kind of a funk sound to the band just by having a fat, slow, and lazy guitar style. It's easier to appreciate once you hear earlier demos where they play at warp speed just how much better this makes their band. The segments where he just lazily bangs a cowbell, like the solo on "Mr. Brownstone", just perfectly anchor the chaos happening elsewhere, and it just sounds cool. The rest of the band, both rhythm and lead, just fills in the sound with so much syncopation and so much raw noise that you need a drumming style like that to even it out. And it works, it works perfectly.
So many songs on here have become radio staples, even on the strength of those alone this is a five. But literally every song on here is pretty good, and some stretches of this CD are just incredible. I especially like the conclusion, with "Sweet Child of Mine", "You're Crazy", "Anything Goes", and "Rocket Queen". Several of those are in fact part of the canon, absolute bangers, but even "Anything Goes" is really fun, with funky riffs and a very novel vocal solo.
I loved this album growing up. In almost every respect, it totally holds up. Re-listening to it now as an adult, is does stand out to me though just how crude the lyrics are. "Its So Easy" is blatantly, blatantly misogynistic. "My Michelle" appears to be airing the dirty laundry of a particular person that the band and their friends knew in the LA shithead scene circa 1987, probably a whore (I wonder if she knows she's the girl and now tells her grandchildren with pride, "I'm the whore in My Michelle"). "Out to Get Me" is incredibly juvenile and anti-social, and "Mr. Brownstone" blatantly advocates taking heroin. And then of course there's the mock orgasm in the middle of "Rocket Queen" (or maybe it was a real orgasm and they just recorded it right there in the studio, you never know with these guys). The mock orgasm does kind of work for that song, and it's an amazing song (they all are), but it's still pretty dumb. I don't really care, I'm not a lyrics guy. And some of the lyrics are nice - especially on the big hits ("Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City", all of the lines in "Rocket Queen" from after the fake orgasm). But they're not what you'd call positive or inspirational.
Whatever. I'll take it any day.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
I've heard a few of these songs before, but had never listened to the entire album. It's incredibly cohesive, it feels like one 35-minute long song. I'm a total sucker for that kind of theme album. And I'm also a sucker for singers with a really strong falsetto. So this really fits the bill.
Gaye has the full toolkit, he's just got an amazing voice, but the falsetto is his secret weapon. My favorite vocal performance of his on this CD is "What's Happening Brother", which I'd never heard before - the first chorus there gives me the chills, as does his line when he asks "How in the world have you been?". He's just an A+ singer, full stop.
This CD just has a wonderful sound too. Despite the cohesiveness from song-to-song, there's a real diversity of voices. Gaye himself has a couple vocal modes depending on how much he relies on falsetto. On top of that there's backing vocals, keys, plenty of horns, bongos, usually a little weird stuff like glock, and the occasional funk guitar. The CD is impeccably produced too - listen to the deep echo on the drum sound on "Flyin' High" and how different it makes that feel vs the rest of the songs.
Here's the real test - I listened to this over and over again, and every time I just wished there was more of it. It's incredible.
Madonna
3/5
The title track is exquisite pop, but it gets pretty thin after that. A couple other songs begin to approach that level - I'm a real sucker for the maudlin 6th on "Till Death Do Us Part" - but nothing else feels like a song I haven't heard before, either by Madonna or otherwise. And a lot of the deep cuts, especially the slow, sad ones, are just straight duds.
End of the day though it's fine pop, if not exactly inspired. I enjoyed listening to it.
Frank Ocean
2/5
I know this one by reputation, it was popular and highly-regarded when it came out, but I've never heard it before, and can't swear I've heard any of the individual songs before either. It has kind of an interesting structure, sort of like Smiley Smile, a collection of short snippets and suites. The whole fits together well, but I don't really like any of the individual pieces. In particular I can't understand why it was noteworthy. It's fine R&B, closer to the 90s Boys 2 Men-type style than to Marvin Gaye. Ocean has a fine voice, but not enough to carry the CD, and there's basically nothing of interest going on musically. I guess you're supposed to get really into his lyrics - I don't typically do that, but would submit that there's nothing of interest lyrically on songs like "Crack Rock" either. I quote:
"Crack rock (Ooh)
Crack rock (Ooh)
Crack rock
How you feeling, girl? (Ooh)
How's the gutter doing?
Crack rock"
Whatever. Post-2010 the pickings get real slim, if they want to include this one as their representative of the post-good-music era, fine by me.
The Saints
2/5
This is fine garage punk, but nothing special. They basically sound like Stooges, but not as catchy. They're not terrible, but I can't think of a reason I would ever put this on again, and I could've died contented having never heard it. My thoughts on this are kind of similar to "Germ-Free Adolescents", who in fairness I thought were way worse - they make sense on this list if you've already included like a half-dozen Ramones CDs and want to mix it up, but really not otherwise.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
I don't love Elvis Costello generally. I think his voice is pretty poor, like C-grade, and he's fine garage rock but doesn't do anything really exciting, novel, or virtuosic. I hadn't heard this before, but nothing about this CD really changes my mind on that. Even relative to the other Costello CD on here I think this one is kind of dudly - it doesn't have a single really strong pop hook on it, his voice seems to have gotten worse (he's older on this than on "This Year's Model"), and the composition is even more by-the-numbers. It's not awful (although his voice can be grating at times), but I'd never put it on again.
Miles Davis
3/5
For whatever reason, when I "picture" jazz in my head, I picture this sound, and in many instances this album. It's roughly as different from the bebop that preceded it as 60s Miles is from it. But with all the big-band instruments and the slightly slower tempo, it just sounds classic.
I've heard this many times and like it quite a bit. Having just listened to a few others from 60s Miles, I do prefer those though. In particular, this CD has very short solos, and the longer-form solos on e.g. Silent Way give a lot more room to experiment and develop ideas. It's nice though, I'd put it on anytime.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
I love noisy loud-soft-loud early 90s alt-rock and so have repeatedly been recommended this CD, and have repeatedly tried (mostly without success) to enjoy it. My overall take has been that the first song is a banger but the rest of it pretty much sucks. This time though it kind of clicked for me listening to it at work. It's generally a background-music CD, not an active listen. It's really just the first song ("Only Shallow") that makes sense as an active listen. That first song is a classic of the loud-soft-loud genre, no question. The rest of it is basically all ambient, with only vague structure and lyrics. And that's pretty good music to work to.
I still don't think it's great, but at this point I at least see where it makes sense.
Fred Neil
2/5
I didn't think this was great, it's kind of a rough recording, not especially exciting or novel, and Neil isn't a very good singer. Anything released 1966 or earlier gets a bit of a pass on that. And one thing that really does stand out is a bunch of guys I really like must really have liked this CD. I know the Midnight Cowboy / Nilsson version of "Everybody's Talking" (which is way better production), but it's a nice song, so if this guy wrote it, kudos to him. And there's ust a ton of Grateful Dead easter eggs in here, I have to imagine the Dead were ripping this guy off. "Sugaree" is a Jerry song, but it's got a clear influence (unless that was a common saying at the time that I've never heard before). "Faretheewell" is too similar to "Brokedown Palace" in parts to be a coincidence. And there's elements of "Cocaine" and "Everybody's Talking" that find their way into Dead as well.
Interesting enough listen as an artifact, but I'll probably never put it on again.
Nirvana
3/5
The live unplugged format has both benefits and drawbacks for Nirvana.
On the one hand, it makes them sound super-creepy, which I think is part of their appeal. Songs like "Come As You Are" (better in this rendition than on the record), "Man Who Sold The World" and the intense closer "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" just convey an especially uneasy feeling with this lighter sound and intimate delivery, removed from the massive over-production of "Nevermind".
On the other hand, Cobain is really not a good singer, and that massive over-production was the only thing that got him to sound passable. Live acoustic just renders all of Cobain's limitations in startling clarity, along with all the other notes they play. That's how it works! And that's why producers (and listeners with pop sensibility) tend to like massive over-production. Those limitations are obvious within a few minutes of starting the CD.
The best comp for this is "Jar Of Flies", which I hope makes the list. "Jar of Flies" is also a creepy, largely acoustic grunge CD, but on every conceivable dimension it blows this out of the water. The singers are better, the songs are deeper, the depth of sound and recording quality are better. Not to say "Unplugged" is bad - in a list of 1001, not everyone can be first. But even for this approach, it's not best-in-class.
And this is the killer - it misses the thing that makes "Nevermind" so enduring and so captivating, which is the insane raw emotion in every track. So much of that comes through the palpable anger in their electrified delivery, and it's just lost here.
Even at that though, there's only so bad a Nirvana greatest-hits CD can get.
Neu!
3/5
I listened to this at work, which was definitely the right call. It's good work music, upbeat but not intense, varied enough to keep me engaged, but not so clever as to intrude on the clever work thoughts that take precedence over it.
At the same time, the genre it belongs to would be most-accurately described as Muzak or Elevator Music. It is inspired Muzak, yes, but Muzak nonetheless. If they put this on while waiting for my Liberty Mutual representative to pick up the phone, I would say "what nice call waiting music they have". If I listened to at work I would say "what nice background music this is". But there's a limit to how far that can take you.
The Beau Brummels
2/5
It's fine, but kind of cheesy. I'd never heard of the band before, so that's interesting. They're very standard early-60s rock, if somebody put them on side-by-side I'd have a hard time telling them apart from the Hollies. As with a lot of recordings from that era the production quality is pretty rough too, they had not quite figured out how to make pristine recordings yet. They have some nice songs on here though.
LCD Soundsystem
2/5
They're very popular, I know a lot of people who like them, but I've never gotten into them. This was the first CD of theirs I listened to start to finish, trying to like it. It's OK, they get a pleasant enough sound. But they're so dull and repetitive. For me this is just a drone, albeit a drone with a fun beat.
Finley Quaye
3/5
Had never heard of this guy before, but this is really nice. It's just really good reggae. I especially like "Sunday Shining", with the dark backing vocals and psychadelic jangle. The opening track and "Ride On" are also very strong. Towards the end the wheels start to come off a bit, it gets a little spacey and slow. But the front half is very tight. Couple of these are going in the rotation.
Suicide
1/5
This is cover-your-ears awful. I couldn't quite get through the whole thing, broke down and turned it off halfway through the last track. It's kind ambient, echo-y garage rock with a singer who can't sing at all. And as it goes on it gets less and less serious, to the point where by the last few tracks it's like an extended album-length version of the part of the Doors song "The End" where the wheels just completely fall off.
Buck Owens
3/5
I had never listened to this guy before, but I actually enjoyed the CD. My only touchpoints coming in are:
-He's referenced in a CCR song I like ("Lookin' Out My Back Door")
-The Ringo-sung cover of "Act Naturally" from one of the early Beatles CDs, which I didn't realize was a cover
It's a bit of an archaic style, and for that reason I'm unlikely to be listening to it all the time. But it's just fun, breezy, well-executed rockabilly. I'm glad it was assigned.
Joni Mitchell
5/5
I loved this CD. I've heard plenty of other Joni Mitchell but not this one. Her voice is incredible, and this CD is really just a vocal showcase for her. Most of the songs are just Joni on vocals and either guitar or piano (her accompaniment is quite nice too). Even the few with prominent backing vocals, like "Carey", I get the impression it's Joni overdubbing the backing parts.
Her vocals are the highlight, and she's just an A+. It actually took me a couple listens to get used to them, because she's so mobile - she jumps up and down the register and between scales in ways that I think most singers just can't physically do, so when you hear someone actually nail it, it sounds too different to process. On "My Old Man" she's repeatedly cycling through different scales, like a jazz soloist - I've never heard someone pull that off. On the chorus to "California", probably the best song on here and the most chilling moment, she jumps sequentially (I think) down a 4th and then up an octave, which I simply can't do with my voice. While not in as rapid succession, on other songs she demonstrates an even wider vocal range, there have to be three octaves on here. And she's just got every possible trick in the book - long sustained notes on the title track, energetic mobile melodies on "My Old Man", opening up and belting at the end of the same, it's just an absolute showcase.
Her guitar and piano work is neat too, she's got some creative harmonies. But she could've sung these melodies over an endless loop of the "whomp-whomp" sound from Charlie Brown and I'd still give this a 5.
John Grant
4/5
I've met some very, very weird people in my musical career. I think being a musician tends to attract them, even more so than other vocations that also attract weirdos like morticians and congressman. But for every legitimate freakshow weirdo like Beck, who's actually just an extremely strange person, there's a half-dozen guys who think that affecting a persona of extreme weirdness is good for their cachet. I kind of suspect this guy might be the latter.
I'd never heard of him before (and I was following music closely when this came out), so I read his bio. Then I listened to some stuff from his first band. Those songs all have pretty staid lyrics, certainly nothing even remotely close to the exquisitely crafted strangeness of "Marz" or "Sigourney Weaver" (with emphasis on "crafted").
But whatever, I actually don't give a rat's ass about lyrics and certainly not about whether a guy's a poseur. Many of my favorite bands are poseurs, and in fact my favorite band from this era (Foxy Shazam) the lead guy is posing (fraudulently) as an ambiguously-sexed weirdo.
I'm also writing this much about the CD because I like it - if it really sucked, I'd just give it a 1 and move on. It's exquisitely-crafted pop, and the weirdness gives it a real nice twist.
Grant himself is a very capable singer. He's got kind of a low, limited range, although there's moments he soars - the vault to an upper register on "Jesus Hates Faggots", perhaps the most deeply personal track, and then into falsetto on the chorus, is the best example. Even in his lower register he has an extremely expressive tone, for example on the chorus of "Where Dreams Go To Die" his voice is butter-smooth.
But the real strengths are the production and the instrumentation. Grant uses basically every trick in the book here, and it's brilliantly crafted. It's really got everything - operatic backing vocals, strings, horns on "Silver Platter Club", cool synth, and just enough hard-rock touches to keep it interesting. I just love his melodies too, this CD is brilliant pop songwriting.
I considered giving it a five, but it's a little long on ballads, many of which (beneath the surface) have a very similar feel to them. I get the subject matter is sad, but if it were a little more balance on up- and down-tempo, a little more lively, I'd give it a 5.
3/5
I love the singles on here, and there's quite a few of them. "Starman" has those amazing soaring vocals, featuring the full-octave jump on the first line (sounds like maybe lifted from "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", but that's just clever songwriting). The orchestration is really nice too, transitioning from glam orchestral on the chorus to that blues guitar riff, which they then double on vocals - nice trick. The title track is a classic, it just does everything right, and it could easily be the picture next to "classic rock" in the dictionary. And "Suffragette City" is just a great rock thumper, elevated by the weird bass synth riff and Bowie's "wham bam!" theatrics at the end.
But the deep cuts are B-level at best, and so as a whole the CD isn't as strong as some of the other early 70s classics. They're not bad, just, fine. "Moonage Daydream" is probably the strongest of the bunch, but it suffers from being too long and a little bloated. And in particular, the whole middle of the CD (between "Starman" and the title track) kind of sags. There is a modest diversity of sound and some nice moments in there, taken as a whole. But each individual song is pretty basic on every dimension, and unlike some of the others on here, not especially catchy or energetic.
I could've given this a 3 or a 4. I shaded to the lower end because the filler is just a little too long.
Megadeth
3/5
This is kind of fun, I like the title track. But Mustaine's voice is awful. That's the main barrier for me.
I think it's kind of interesting to contrast this with peak Metallica, which I love, because they're awfully similar. Hetfield also isn't an A-singer, but he is a bit better than Mustaine, and I like Hammett's guitar better too (they catch up in a big way on "Rust in Peace"). But mainly it's not that Megadeth is worse, it's that they're a step behind. By their 2nd CD Metallica had developed, if not nuance, then at least a 2nd gear (that gear being "sad acoustic"), which gives it some much-needed variety. And by their late-80s CDs they're a borderline-prog tour-de-force. By contrast "Peace Sells" is kind of stuck in the same developmental phase as "Kill 'Em All", that is, one-dimensional thrash.
That makes it fine but not great. I spent a fair amount of time with it, because I like Metallica so much but hadn't listened to this one cover-to-cover before. Part I think of what makes the title track stand out so much is that it's so much more fun that the rest of the CD, which is kind of an unfortunate combo of self-serious, abrasive, and not-quite-good-enough. So that title track really does shine, but I'm mostly selling the rest of it.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
This is alright, but it's kind of basic, and it's thin beyond the singles. It came out in 1966, which is really early for rock history, and the bar for what constituted innovation at that point was pretty low. On the two strongest tracks, "Paint it Black" and "Under My Thumb" (both pretty nice songs) that innovation is just using an atypical instrument, sitar on the former and glock on the latter. That'll do it.
Outside of that, it's pretty basic early-British-invasion stuff, and I don't think it stands out of a crowd. This is sort of an unfair comparison, because these are two of the greatest CDs ever recorded, but compare it to "Rubber Soul" or "Pet Sounds", it just doesn't have anywhere near the depth. And because rock music quality improved markedly between the early 60s and roughly 1970, it's only the very best stuff from the earlier part of that period that can hold up head-to-head against later material.
Two things that I think are noteworthy. One, the lyrics have a really, really nasty tone to them - "Stupid Girl" is cruel, "Under My Thumb" is misogynistic, "Paint it Black" is nihilistic, it goes on and on - despite some upbeat major-key numbers, no song is what I would call "positive", very much unlike many other 60s contemporaries. The other thing is it has a real diversity of sound - they've got some basically country ("High And Dry"), some weird British musical hall ("Lady Jane"), some kind of standard classic rock, and then some "other". It's nice diversity, but it also makes it feel kind of scattered.
Overall it's fine, but not one I would've pulled out of a crowd.
Nick Drake
3/5
This is kind of interesting, he's got a bit of a weird, sinister sound. But a good comparison is to "Blue" - Drake is doing the same kind of music, basically just guitar and voice, but he's a best-case B-quality singer, and the songs are nowhere near as fun and catchy. He plays some odd harmonies but a lot of it is pretty drone-y, he hangs on the same thing a lot. Overall it's not unpleasant, but I wouldn't put it on again.
5/5
I loved this CD in college, and Muse was one of my favorite bands. I saw them on the "Resistance" tour and thought it was sick - that was like the first time I could afford a ticket to see a big-name band. I knew (and could still hack thru) the guitar parts to "Supermassive" and "Knights of Cydonia". Just based on his preference for somewhat twee British rock, I could've probably guessed our host was going to pick this one.
Re-listening to it now, there's two important things to know about context from 2006, when this came out:
1) There was a widespread fear (it turned out, 100% justified) that the US was descending into a police state and that the internet would become a tool of mass surveillance.
2) Histrionic heavy rock was pop music at the time - Fall Out Boy had had the biggest CD of the year the year prior with multiple top-10 hits, and "Black Parade" became a sensation later that year, with a #1 single - it's funny to think about now because there's been a complete 180 in pop, but this style would've seemed almost normal back then.
Re-listening to it now, this CD really holds up. The thing I had not remembered is how strong it is on the back half - "Assassin", "Exo-Politics", "City of Delusion" and of course the closer are some of the strongest tracks. I had remembered it as being weak beyond the singles, which are the first three plus the closer.
At the time they called this "prog", but it's not especially progressive. Stylistically it's mostly rooted in pop-punk, and there's a strong undercurrent of sequencer-heavy Euro Dance in it too. Bellamy isn't the greatest singer, but he injects a ton of passion (see the later choruses on "Exo-Politics"), he's got a killer falsetto with which he slays "Supermassive Black Hole", plus the band backs him up really well. Mostly the sound is about whomping on the ride with a bunch of bone-crunching guitars, but it's a very full sound and they mix it up - the aforementioned sequencing, which totally elevates "Take a Bow" to another plane, plus the occasional dash of color, like the gitano sound on "City of Delusion". They'd eventually go a little overboard with that, but this CD is a really solid middle-ground, and their peak, between the all-angry-guitar "Absolution" and the more navel-gazing "Resistance".
I had thought my tastes might've evolved since freshman year of college and I would remember this fondly but but as a relic of a simpler time. Nope. This CD's a banger, start to finish.
Shivkumar Sharma
2/5
This isn't actively unpleasant, but it's totally not for me. My main takeaway from listening to it is even less respect for George Harrison. So I guess in addition to claiming sole authorship of the worst 5 Beatles songs recorded, he also plagiarized all of them?
The Doors
3/5
This is one of those capital-C "Classics" that I've never really liked all that much. I listened to it again now, and I sort of get why it was compelling, but it just sounds very dated. At the time it probably did sound pretty fresh, but their style is kind of easily-imitated, and it's been done to death, so it doesn't hold up like the lighter side of 60s rock.
There's a few main reasons for that:
-Morrison isn't really that good a singer - his voice has a nice timbre, and he does some crazy shit sometimes (those are his best moments), but he's got kind of limited range
-Their songs are pretty basic - really The Doors are early blues riff-rock, but without the transcendence of a Hendrix behind them - and I just don't like that as much as the folk-psychedelic stuff, I don't think it holds up as well
-The sound itself is really dated - there's nothing wrong with hard rock that features electric organ, like I think I gave "In Rock" four stars, but even their organ sound is kind of tinny
The best moments are the ones the ones where either Morrison freaks out (late in "The End", for example, or on "Backdoor Man") or when they incorporate a little more variety in the sound. I love the Threepenny Opera cover - the oomph-pa beat, all the glock sounds, it's probably the best song on here. And the blues rockers like "Break On Through" and "Soul Kitchen" are nice, catchy rockers, the former basically rock canon. But I've never liked "Light My Fire", I think it's a boring song, and aside from the freakout so is "The End".
It's fine, but I don't think it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as e.g. the Beatles apogee, or peak Band, or a few others.
Blur
3/5
I quite liked this, in contrast to their self-title. It's just good indie rock. I'd heard "Girls and Boys" before, and that's a fun song, but I really enjoyed some of the deep cuts on here. "Magic America" has some really neat harmonies, a fun sonic palette, plus that huge chorus. When they're on that's what they do - dark grungy guitar, bit of a dreamy hurdy-gurdy sound on top of it, catchy choruses, and some music-hall tricks like heavy use of major thirds. There's a few others on here with that formula - "London Loves", "Tracy Jacks" and "End of a Century" stand out. There's a decent amount of filler on here though - a few too many slow songs, three basically throwaways (the two transition songs in the middle plus one at the end), and I didn't really care for the title track one bit, it strays a little too far into twee. But unlike those first two Blur assignments, you can kind of hear on this one a fully-developed version of the Blur formula, the one that they'd use for Country House and all that.
Maxwell
1/5
It just kind of sounds like a caricature of music to have sex to. I can't swear to it I haven't heard this come on in a bunch of network TV shows right at the start of the (all-PG) sex scene. Apart from the humor of that, there isn't a whole lot going on here - it's basically muzak.
Janelle Monáe
3/5
I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. It's not exactly groundbreaking, and there's probably stuff released in 2010 that got cut that I would've preferred. But it's a fun CD.
There's a fair number of nice things you can say about Monae, but near the top of the list in my book is she's got really good taste. For someone in the postmodern phase of pop music, that's pretty much all you need. The quote of Stevie Wonder on "Locked Inside" is really elegantly done. So is the quote of Claire De Lune on "Say You'll Go". That + 90s hip-hop is some serious diversity. It would've been better if she had, you know, composed this music, but this is worth some partial credit.
She's also just a very strong singer and makes some really nice pop songs. "Cold War" is really good pop. So is "Wondaland", although all the best moments there come from the backup singers.
John Coltrane
4/5
My father used to play this CD all the time. I'm honestly not sure I'm qualified to have a real opinion on it, but I like it a lot. Coltrane's style here is wildly emotive, almost desperate. Listen to his expression at about 3:50 on the first track - he obviously knows (and demonstrates repeatedly on this CD) how to get perfect sound out of the instrument - he's just doing that to convey raw emotion. He does similar at about 6:35 on the third track. There's a lot of guys with surgical precision on sax, those moments for me are what makes the difference with Coltrane, you can tell he really feels it.
I like the piano player as well, listening to it again now especially, I hadn't realized how much he's featured. His solos on the 2nd and especially on the 3rd track are really very strong.
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
I remember when this CD came out. It was a pretty big deal, but at the time is was very much of it's era. It got a lot of hype, but I remember thinking that they were just a rougher version of Franz Ferdinand, who had hit it big in the US about a year earlier.
The Monkeys eventually far surpassed everything their contemporaries were doing, with a stellar sophomore album, a huge hit in "AM", and the criminally-underrated "Suck It And See". Bit it's this CD that really sticks with people, I guess because it's the first.
And it's fine, but it's just fine. It's basically CBGB-style 70s punk on steroids, keeping all the lo-fi sound but quintupling the word count and depth of vocabulary. The first three songs are the ones everyone remembers, and they are quite good, but it gets really thin after that. And it's also very dependent on liking Turner's wordplay shtick, which I don't really care about.
I hope they put "Favourite Worst Nightmare" on here too.
The Vines
2/5
These guys just don't know on which side their bread is buttered. I had heard three songs from them previously - "Get Free", the title track, and "Ride" - all of which are banging rockers. The first two are really the only rockers and the only bangers on this CD - in contrast to my expectations based on those three songs, this CD is loaded with boring slow ballads. It's especially strange because (a) the singer seems like a real screamer and (b) my stereotype of Australian rock bands is they don't know how to play anything slower than 140 bpm.
Aside from those two singles, the only other track I really like is "Ain't No Room", which is less inspired but at least it's fun and fast. If they'd written just a CD's worth of material like that, this would be a fair bit better. I do kind of like the 60s psychedelic feel, it's drone-y in the style of "Rain" - but just can't get over the slow pace. Their producer really dropped the ball on this one - all he'd have to say was "Lads" (I assume he would address them as "lads"), "your rockers are great, let's do away with some of the ballads now, roight?"
Kanye West
1/5
God, really? I did try to listen to it. Astonishingly unpleasant.
ZZ Top
2/5
To me this sounds like what you would get if you asked AI to compute the average of all rock music released in the decade surrounding it. That makes it basically replacement-level rock. It's got steady backbeat, thumping bass, crunchy guitar riffs, pithy vocal lines, and zero creativity.
The front half is pretty good, that has all the singles. But it really drags on the back half, there's nothing much worth listening to there.
I like Billy Gibbons' guitar style generally, although on this one he sounds like he's fully embraced the Rockman-amp-style sound, he's got a bit of a tinny tone.
Isaac Hayes
2/5
Hayes has a nice voice and overall it has a pleasant sound, but it's just absurdly dull. The whole thing is pretty slow, really the only excitement is from the backup singers when they do that crazy made-up word. But the last track is just ridiculous - I got about 10 minutes into it and had to give up. It's just him with a bunch of echo effect telling some aimless story. I need something with a little more going on.
Hot Chip
2/5
This is kind of nice pop, it's fine, but I'm not totally sure what it's for. It's this odd mix of melancholy, slightly monotone vocals with upbeat disco. Relative to the other monotone-vocals bands from that time like The National (it truly was a genre back then, maybe two genres if you distinguish the ironic-monotone from the that's-what-my-voice-sounds-like monotone), it's just not quite brilliant enough to be really noteworthy. And obviously if you actually want to dance you'd never put this on, it's strictly a pantomime of actual dance music.
"The Warning" came out when I was in college and I listened to it quite a bit at the time. By 2012 I'd kind of moved on though, so never listened to this. I think there was better stuff made at that time (although this is when it started drying up) and I probably wouldn't put it on again.
Pere Ubu
2/5
This one caught me completely by surprise. Based on the name of the artist plus "Dub" in the title plus the presence of 2 prior Fela Kuti albums, I expected something more like world music / reggae, and for "Pere Dubu" to be the name of a person from a part of the world where that's a totally normal name for a person.
Not so. This is basically proto-Talking Heads sans a couple coats of polish. The guy even kind of sounds like David Byrne.
I'm not really sure what to make of this. It's kind of like Zappa or Captain Beefheart, the sort of album that's deliberately weird for the sake of being weird. I didn't really enjoy it per se, but it was kind of interesting to listen to. They are at least doing something different, if maybe not in the most pleasant way (a lot of the difference is just that they play tons of "wrong" notes).
I was pretty much set to give this 3 stars, with the 3rd star for "unique", but then I listened to it a second time, and liked it even less on repeat listen. It is just really quite bad in terms of being something that one can listen to and enjoy.
Anthrax
2/5
I like metal, but this is not very good. It's just strictly dominated by Metallica - tries to do the same thing, but does it less well in every way. In particular, they have no change-of-pace of any kind - although that's probably a virtue for their fans - and they have fewer soaring moments, with less focus on instrumental virtuosity overall. Basically it's sludgy. Not for me.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
This was always gonna be a 5, didn't need to listen to it. But I did, a few times, 'cuz it's an absolute banger. This is on top of watching "Becoming Led Zep" a few weeks ago, which is largely the story of how Zep 1 was created, and plays half the songs on the record in full. I'm that obsessed.
First things first, "Good Times Bad Times" and especially the introduction thereto is one of the most incredible entrances in rock history. It is a Kool Aid Man-sized introduction. Which is fitting, because this CD is basically Zep rapidly advancing straight to what at the time was the frontier of rock music (which they'd blow past within a couple years). The huge guitar riff, Bonzo's amazing drumming, Plant's soaring vocals about becoming a man, it's all just a big fat "here we are, world".
Every song on here is good, and a few moments are amazing. JPJ's mellotron intro to "Your Time Is Gonna Come" presages so much of what would eventually make Zep the band of the decade. Page has a number of classic riffs and solos, none better than on the opener. The band is incredibly tight, especially on display in the moments where they transition into rock mode, e.g. on "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" and "How Many More Times". And Plant just crushes every line, he's an incredible weapon at peak physical ability on here.
So it's a five, it'd be a six if they had sixes. I'm gonna pick on the bits that kind of suck though. First, as a I mentioned, it's not quite past the frontier yet - there's a fair amount of by-the-numbers blues rock on here that, while it's still generally better (in some cases a lot better) than Cream and The Doors, is pretty much the same kind of stuff as Cream and The Doors.
Second, and this is something I noticed more this time around, the tone is awfully misogynistic. Each of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", "Dazed and Confused", "Your Time is Gonna Come" and "How Many More Times" has really fairly explicitly misogynistic lyrics throughout, and the tone on all the other tracks (absent "Black Mountain Side", which doesn't have any words) hints in that direction, if less explicitly. These guys were in their early 20s at the time, and it was the 60s, we'll give them a pass just because the record is so amazing.
And finally, what the documentary makes more clear is that Page was completely obsessed with how much smarter he was than everyone else. I've never liked the breakdown on "Dazed and Confused", just because it's dull, but seeing him on video really brought it home for me. When he's actually wanking with the violin bow, if I'd been there at his shows in 1969, I might've thrown a beer can. It's just dumb, and he thinks it's amazing. I'm not sure if he wrote the more vile lyrics on here or not, but I think he did, and you can kind of see all the pieces come together - the lack of quality-control starting with "Physical Graffiti", the mindless self-indulgence on later tracks, the allegations of plagiarism, it all kind of tracks. He's an incredible guitar player, a real innovator, and I've learned a lot of his parts, but you can tell this is a guy with his head firmly up his own ass.
Whatever. 5 stars.
Roni Size
1/5
Ugh, another of these fin de sicle electronica CDs. This whole genre aged like milk. They should cut every one of these for the next edition. This isn't even one of the better ones from among that set. Just remarkably unpleasant to listen to. The only bits that are somewhat tolerable is when it gets really quiet, in which case it's just a blended-average of crap and silence.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
2/5
This nice enough, but it's very primitive, both in terms of the composition and the recording quality. I can't tell whether it's actually a live album, it sounds like a couple tracks are live and a couple are studio. But even the studio recordings are pretty rough. Janis sings with a lot of energy and passion, and I know a lot of people like her, but my feeling is she's a great frontwoman and a just-OK singer. I love "Piece of My Heart", that's the standout. But even there, it's a little garage-rock. Mostly they're getting by on pure enthusiasm, which is fine, but not my style.
Calexico
4/5
I really enjoyed this. It's like a dark, creepy take on alt country. They have a pretty wide diversity of instrumental sound too, lot of novel instrumentation. It's heavy on instrumentals and mood, but I like it. Listened to it a number of times.
Coldplay
3/5
It's pleasant enough, but a bit sedate.
There was a real Radiohead vs. Coldplay rivalry when I was in high school and college. I'm a huge Radiohead fan and was always on Team Radiohead, to the point where I'd never even listened to this album in its entirety. It really does not sound very much like Radiohead (except for "Spies" at roughly the 3:00 mark, which sounds EXACTLY like the bridge from "Creep", so much so that it must clearly have cribbed from it), and it especially sounds nothing like either of the two very distinct Radiohead CDs bracketing its release.
They've got a nice and kind of a "big" sound, more like Oasis, where they just layer on instrument after instrument (always one of the four primary rock instruments, including typically both acoustic and electric guitar) until it sounds absolutely enormous. And that's fine, but they've left out a couple things, including backing vocals (Martin likes to do his own falsetto "oohs" as the lead from time to time) and, with a few exceptions (notably "Sparks", the best track) syncopation. But it's a fine listen.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
I didn't like this at all until the very end. It has a really strong finish, particularly with "In Your Eyes" as the closer. Partly this reflects my longstanding belief that it's much easier to write songs people will enjoy if you make them fast and fun instead of plodding and slow. I think I've heard "Red Rain" before, and combined with the fact that it's the opener, it was probably a single - but that song sucks, what a total snooze. It is best-case the 2nd best song about a color of rain from the mid 1980s. But my favorite song on the whole CD, one I've never heard before, is "Big Time" - what fun song. It's a rocker, it's making fun of himself and other people like himself, it's catchy, that's a winner. That plus the closer makes for a really strong finish. But the first half is a bore, I've heard "Sledgehammer" before and it's fine but it has a totally cheesy 80s song. It's just better to finish on a strong note than to start strong and limp out.
David Bowie
3/5
I liked this, although it's not my favorite of his CDs on this list so far. It's a bit spacey and jammy for my taste, and I don't think Bowie does that so well. He's got a habit of getting into a groove and just hanging on it forever, which I think gets kind of old. "Golden Years" is a nice enough song, but it's the worst offender here - the song opens with that one crunchy riff, which then repeats with no interruption throughout the entire song. Bowie builds on it, but he never takes anything away. This, as well as some of the longer instrumental jams (e.g. on "Stay") feel kind of like typical self-indulgent 70s. He's better when he's singing throughout, as on the title track and the closer. But it's a nice CD - Bowie's got a very deep catalogue of just solid material.
The Rolling Stones
5/5
This is my favorite Stones CD. All the real musicians I know prefer Exile. But I'm after amplified instruments, a hard edge, and a run time of about 45 minutes or less.
My initial inclination was a 4 - it's good solid rock-n'-roll, but nothing transcendent, and it drags a little on the back half. But after listening to it a couple times:
a) That back half is pretty good, especially as a change of pace from side one - and "Dead Flowers" and "Bitch" are just both really good songs (and both about equally bitter)
b) There's only a handful of CDs that can match the consistent quality here
And then the big thing is that side one is an absolute thumper. "Brown Sugar" is the best song they ever wrote - it's fast, fun, exciting, and with the backing vocals, sax, and twin guitars it just sounds enormous. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" is mostly the same effect, but they pull off an incredible breakdown on it. And "Wild Horses" is a top-tier ballad.
Just super-solid, super-well-executed classic rock.