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.

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.

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.

Pleasant but kind of dull

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.

Pleasant, a little dull. Has most of the Cat's hits on it though, that's nice.

Kind of cute recommending it the day the queen died. But mediocre album, just not that exciting.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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’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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Perfectly pleasant to listen to, but very slow, nothing exciting going on.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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' 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.

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.

This was a fine album but I wouldn't have picked it out for myself.

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).

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.

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.

Fun and funky. I'd heard a couple of these before, including the lead track. An enjoyable easy listen.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

- [ ] 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).

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.

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 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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Just- no. I did actually listen to some (not all) of this. It doesn’t merit a response.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Well, I listened to it.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ugh.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Less awful than the first one. At least he had the good taste to keep his mouth shut on this one.

Considering this to be Massive Attack's music is absurd. https://open.spotify.com/track/2KvUzdKxcvGEHYcUgb9Nkc

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Well, I listened to it, although I believe that I could've died a happy man had I never.

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.

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.