Overall a weird album. Didn’t love most of the songs. Feels like everything’s been slowed down, like maybe this is what the world feels like when you’re on tranquilizers (which I suppose they were when they recorded this).
I don’t consider myself a big folk music fan, but this album is absolutely fantastic.
Some tracks have great backing, some tracks have great rapping, but all in all not my cup of tea.
Thoroughly enjoyed this album. Reminds me of a decent amount of post-punk music I’ve listened to that came out more than 30 years later. Not every track is great but some (Spellbound, Monitor, Night Shift) are what I’m always in the mood for listening to. Great singing, great guitar and bass. Had never listened to Siouxsie before and this definitely exceeded my expectations. Not giving it 5 stars because it’s not perfect, just good, but 3 seems too low so 4 it is.
To be honest, this album is kind of boring. Very minimalistic, with songs that chug along repetitively. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s a landmark of electronic music, but I’m not going to sit and listen to this every day.
Fiona has a fantastic voice. Great album. The first 4 tracks (through "Criminal") are very strong, but it's weaker through the midsection. "Carrion" is a great finish, though.
I don't know if it's really worth 4 stars, but it's worth more than 3 to me, so I'll just have to go with 4. If you had told 1996 me that I'd give a Fiona Apple album 4 stars, I would probably have laughed at you, but here we are.
Oh also, this is surely a better album on headphones than on speakers in a crowded room. Easier to hear the great production.
"Shining Star" and "Africano" are great songs, mostly for different reasons. The rest of the album is fine, but not great.
This album is really long, especially the 2009 multi-disc version. The original stops at “Las Vegas Basement” so I’m counting it done at there.
First few songs don't do much for me.
"Hanging Out And Hung Up On The Line" is a good song, it has energy that the first few don't.
Overall, I think this isn’t a coherent album. I like Cope’s musical style, though he tends to excess, and that’s my general problem with this album. He needed editing. When he’s good he’s great but a lot of it is mediocre. Also, maybe you have to be English for the lyrics to resonate but they just didn’t do anything for me.
I agonized over what to rate this, and I guess I’m settling on 2 stars. I’d be willing to give another Cope album a shot because I like his musical style in general but this is not to me a great album.
The songs I like on this album are really great. Others are okay and grew on me over time. Overall, okay album.
This album is really good. Much better than later Foo Fighters albums. It’s amazing to think that Dave Grohl played and recorded this all by himself.
I started out listening to this thinking I liked the darker tone of Mezzanine better, and after finishing it I still think that stands. But other aspects of this album - Tricky’s rapping in particular - are better. Solid 4 stars.
This album feels like the kind of light jazz/downtempo that you heard in every coffee shop in the late ‘90s through mid 2000s. I’m not a samba expert but I feel like this is pretty good. It’s listenable and Bebel has a nice voice. I guess I’d give this 3 stars.
When I first started this album, it didn't really grab me. But it grew on me as I worked through it, and there are some legitimately great songs on here.
I like the interesting instrumentation, and the song structures are experimental without being too far out there. I can also see a through-line from this to the modern-day psych rock and fuzz folk that I have listened to, which makes this interesting historically as well.
So, even if I didn't really *enjoy* listening to it, I did find it interesting, and that's worth a couple of stars.
This was a really good album.
So far this is fine. It's not really my style. I guess the songwriting is decent, and the singing is good, but it doesn't do anything for me in particular. After a few tracks, I feel like I wouldn't listen to this again.
After a few more tracks, I like the ones that are kind of more funky but for the most part this is like generic '70s pop. It's not *bad* but it really doesn't grab me.
I went into this not sure how I’d feel about it. I haven’t heard much of Morrissey’s music, but I’ve gotten the general impression that he’s kind of a dick. After listening to most of the album, I was inclined to give it 2 stars because it just seemed kind of generic and didn’t really do anything for me. Sure, Morrissey has a good voice, but he uses it to do this kind of mopey crooning that’s just blah. But, Margaret on the Guillotine convinced me to bump that up to 3 stars. That song is great and a perfect way to end the album.
I liked this album quite a lot. I had heard of Traffic but I’m not sure I’d ever actually listened closely to any of their music. My favorite parts were the jazz improv parts of “Glad” and “Freedom Rider”, and honestly after “Glad” I was disappointed to hear Steve Winwood’s voice, which to me personally is the weakest part of the whole thing. If I could do half stars this would be 3.5 but since I can’t I’m rounding up to 4 in this case. Would listen to more jazz-rock in the future.
I definitely recognized Womack's great voice from his work with Gorillaz on the song "Stylo", so I was interested to hear this album. But though he's a great singer, these songs are mostly not doing anything for me. "Stand Up" is the only exception. Great use of synthesizers, funky rhythm, just a good, danceable song. Everything else just strikes me as relatively generic soul/R&B, and I'm not really a fan of R&B from like the '70s onward. It's not unlistenable, but it doesn't do anything for me.
This album just blew me away. The production is phenomenal and is the perfect complement to the incredible, complex rapping. I think this is probably the best thing I've heard while doing this so far.
I’m not sure I initially liked this album as much as Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, but the more I’ve thought about it the more it strikes me that this album is just so well crafted and has such good songs on it and is just so *interesting* that I’m going to rate it just as high even if I wouldn’t just pick it up and listen to it whenever.
I would have thought that I would be *totally into* an album with a 20-minute long song about a giant armadillo that got transformed into a tank. But it just doesn't work. Parts of the title track are good, but the random prog-rock interludes feel like filler. Emerson noodles up and down the same scales, showing off how fast he can play on 3 different keyboards at the same time, but there's no actual musical value to it and it doesn't go anywhere. Also, frankly, it's not even that great of a technical showcase as the band falls slightly out of sync at various points especially in the first couple of movements of the song.
The tonal difference and contrast between the a side and the b side is almost unbelievable. The b side starts with a jaunty almost ragtime-y piano melody in a song that's like 2 minutes long compared to Tarkus' 20.
I want so badly to like this but honestly the whole thing feels hollow, like a monument to excess without meaning.
This album is tough to judge. It has some very good tracks and some that don't do anything for me - and I'm not sure the ones I like are the ones that are critically acclaimed. Definitely not my favorite Simon & Garfunkel, but still worth a listen.
With the exception of “Common People”, a thoroughly unremarkable album. I thought I liked Britpop when I lived through it in the ‘90s, but it’s been 25 years and Times and tastes change.
This was a really interesting listen. I wasn't sure what to expect, and it's probably good I didn't have solid expectations because this album is all over the place. I liked it. I’m giving it 3 stars instead of 4 because I didn’t love all of it but I’d definitely listen to more Miles Davis in the future.
SPIDERLAND is one of those albums that’s been with me for so long it’s like it’s woven itself into my musical DNA (and maybe even my sense of self). It’s hard for me to review objectively, and I’m not even really going to try. While some of the lyrics are (as noted by at least one other reviewer here) kinda cringeworthy, so much of the album of so good - the soft-loud dynamics, the use of interesting time signatures, the energy at the album’s high points - that I’m more than willing to give them a pass.
The title track of this album is obviously a "sexy song" meme at this point, but damn is it fantastic. The whole rest of the album is also great, with a couple of weak points in the middle that are still at least pretty good. Amazing vocal work from Gaye that showcases his whole range.
I don’t really have time to write a detailed review here, but I liked this album and would listen to it again. If half stars were a thing I think I’d give it 3.5, but since they aren’t and I’m feeling generous today I’ll round it up to 4.
I feel like an absolute 2000s millennial hipster stereotype saying that Johnny Cash is the only country artist I actually like listening to, but damn this album is so good. I don’t know if this is the “definitive” Johnny Cash recording, but if it isn’t it’s got to be close.
The Legacy edition is worth a listen, specifically, because it feels like a recording of the whole concert straight through, without the weird abridged version of Folsom Prison Blues cut out of an outro medley that was originally included on the album.
Eh, this album is okay. Nothing great, nothing terrible. A couple of tracks stand out. My favorite is the second half of Chemical World.
I wanted so badly to like this album, but I just couldn’t get into it. Björk can clearly sing but the songwriting on this is mediocre to bad and the backing tracks sound extremely dated.
This album was fine. Nothing exceptional to me. I do like synth pop but I don’t feel like there was a standout great song on this album… the base quality was better than average, though, so 3 stars.
I’m not sure I know why but this album just ticked every box for me. Dark, moody synthesizers, driving beats, interesting multipart harmonies, it all just works. I enjoyed this way more than I was expecting to.
This was an interesting listen. I had no expectations going into it, and was pleasantly surprised. Cherry is a decent rapper and a better singer. I do think this album would’ve benefitted from some editing - every song seems to be trying to do everything, and some of them are all over the place. “Buffalo Stance”, “Manchild” start the album off strong, then it’s weaker through the middle with a strong finish on “My Bitch”.
Oh also, it’s interesting that a couple of members of Massive Attack helped write “Manchild” - it sounds almost like a proto-Massive Attack song.
Nothing wrong with this but it wasn’t my cup of tea.
I enjoyed this album. It's not perfect, but I liked it - I prefer this kind of old-school folk to the Bob Dylans of the world.
Tried but couldn't get into this album. Don't know why it's on this list. It's not awful but it's not for me.
This album is so good. Not every song is perfect, and a couple of the more experimental ones kind of drag on, but the imperfections are outweighed by some really great tracks.
This album was alright. I've heard a bunch of the Fall before and while I like Mark E. Smith's vocal style most of this album doesn't do that much for me. But it's not bad either. Would probably do 2.5 but I'll round it up to 3.
I really enjoyed this, particularly with the voiceovers Ravi does to provide context to the songs to those unfamiliar with Indian classical music. I listened to some Western classical music on the radio the other day and I was struck by how much work the host was doing to set the stage for the music that was being played - the context really helps me understand and get into the music.
Also I've heard sitar before (including live performances) but these were particularly good.
I think this must be my favorite Radiohead album. The whole thing works and flows beautifully, and it has my two favorite songs ("Bodysnatchers" and "Reckoner") - plus "Videotape" is such an amazing and haunting song to end on.
This is the best Queens of the Stone Age album because it sounds the most like a Kyuss album.
As a person who existed in the US in the ‘90s and listened to the alternative rock radio stations, I of course have heard “Stop” and “Been Caught Stealing” many times before. But the rest of this album is really very good, and if “Been Caught Stealing” wasn’t generally kind of overplayed I probably would have listened to it before. I’m not sure it’s quite on par with some of my other 5-star ratings but I really have enjoyed it so there you go.
This album is alright. The songs everyone really knows were super overplayed in the late 2000s.
I know people really like Prince but in general I've never really liked a lot of his popular songs and haven't tried too hard to get into his work. Because of this I was genuinely surprised by how much I liked this album. Even if I didn't really like the lyrics (pop lyrics just don't do anything for me), the instrumentation on the album is really interesting and varies between spare and very dense, and there's some cool experimenting going on that works really well. Prince is also clearly an incredibly accomplished and virtuosic musician, and that's on display throughout.
So, while in some ways it's dated and not really my cup of tea all the time, credit where credit is due. This is at a minimum a 4 star album, and I'm only subtracting that last star because it's not for me.
Love "Dance to the Music", "Everyday People", and "Thank You", but the rest of the album doesn't do that much for me. This would probably be 3.5 for me normally but the regular issue with half stars applies. Today I'm feeling like rounding this down.
There's a lot to like about this album. The music is good; great production value with lush orchestral arrangements, and on top of it all the vocals are a rich baritone (which I always like). But what drags this album down are the absolutely idiotic lyrics, which I can't get over (example: "If you were a tree / I could carve my name into your side / and you would not cry / 'cause trees don't cry... If you were a horse / I'd clean the crap out of your stable / and never once complain."). The orchestral interludes are really great... it's a shame because this would definitely be a 4-star album for me if not for those lyrics.
OK Computer was one of my first great album purchases and I listened to it over and over again in middle and high school. Formative experience for me. As soon as the opening riff on "Airbag" started I was suddenly taken back.
This album has it all. There are awesome, face-melting rock riffs ("Paranoid Android", "Electioneering", "Climbing up the Walls"), beautiful multi-part harmonies (basically every track), tender melancholic songs ("Subterranean Homesick Alien", "Let Down"), pop hooks ("Karma Police", "No Surprises"), and weird experimental stuff ("Fitter Happier"). And every song gives me the feels in some way.
I said in my review of In Rainbows that I thought it was my favorite Radiohead album but I may have been wrong. This is a really, really fantastic album. 5 stars.
I like Leonard Cohen’s songwriting quite a lot, even if I don’t love the style of music. When I think of it as poetry set to music - as maybe Cohen would like - I like it more. 4 stars.
Despite what my other ratings here might indicate, I am not a huge fan of singer songwriters. And yet I feel compelled by this album and its sense of calm loneliness. The spareness of the recording - literally just Drake and a guitar on everything except the title track where a bare tinkle of a piano is sprinkled in - really adds to that. It's very evocative of a certain kind of quiet contemplation, where I can just almost see a young man hunched over an acoustic guitar, focused on finger picking, mop of hair gently swaying, breathily singing out lyrics that only really mean anything to him.
Almost every song on this album is a classic, and the ones that aren’t are still good. Not only that but it also represents - almost entirely on its own - a significant pop culture turning point. As a child of the ‘90s who listened to a lot of Nirvana, I am required to rate this 5 stars.
The first side of this album is incredible, with a bunch of classic song - anything that starts with “Black Dog” and ends with “Stairway to Heaven” is going to be good. For me the only weak point is “Rock and Roll”, which isn’t really a bad song but has just gotten so overused in car commercials that I don’t really want to hear it anymore.
On the other hand, side 2 is a mess. “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Going to California” are meh for me at best (and that’s being generous) while “Four Sticks” is straight up bad. But then the side ends with “When the Levee Breaks” which I think is actually probably the best Zeppelin song.
As someone who has listened to classic rock basically my whole life and considered myself at least a casual Led Zeppelin fan for most of it, I really want to rate this album 5 stars for the absolutely iconic tracks on it. But it doesn’t really work as an album, and the unevenness in the back half is really making me think this is a 4 star album at best.
Of course I know "Don't You Want Me", but I'm not 100% sure I had ever heard another Human League song before. I went into this expecting it to be alright (they are, after all, referenced in LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge" so they have to be decent) but I was pleasantly surprised by an all around excellent synth-pop album. The only real complaint I have is that I feel like this mastering doesn't sound "big" enough except on "Don't You Want Me" where the synths really punch through and there's more bass. I can't bring myself to give it 5 stars but it's a very solid 4.
This is a hard one to rate because at the same time Eminem is shamelessly provocative, over the top homophobic and misogynistic, and just out right ridiculous while also doing some of the greatest rapping of all time on immaculately produced tracks. I’m going with a gut feeling of 4 stars.
Such and incredible album, every track just stays with me. Amazing production from RZA, outstanding rapping from GZA and the rest of the Wu Tang Clan. To think I originally listened to this the first time because of a really stupid meme involving Joe Biden (https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/joe-biden-liquid-swords-tweet).
And the extended version on Apple Music has instrumental versions of all the tracks!!!
Incredible album from start to finish. I don't know how much I have to add beyond that.
This album gets 5 stars because it's dope, period.
"War Pigs" (which is what the album should have been titled) and "Iron Man" are legitimately two of my all-time favorite songs. Even with those as standouts, the rest of the album is really solid. I don't know how well it works as an *album* - "Rat Salad" and "Jack the Stripper / Fairies Wear Boots" feel kind of tacked on - but knowing that this came just 4 months after their debut album was released it's pretty impressive they were even able to field an album worth of songs at all, let alone some of the GREATEST RIFFS OF ALL TIME. PRAISE IOMMI, HAIL GEEZER!
Fast and furious and often funny. A classic of hardcore. Though as far as Black Flag albums go I think I like "My War" better, probably because of the B side that alienated all their fans.
I had heard of The Knife before but was under the impression they were a sort of Euro-dance group so I was a little apprehensive about this. But I was wrong, and very pleasantly surprised! This album was great. Incredible synth work, and great vocals too. Karin Dreijer's vocal style seems to owe a debt to Bjork but in some ways I like it more here on this album.
While this isn't quite a 5 star album for me it is at least good enough that I wanted to listen to it again the same day.
I ended up liking this more than I expected. Organs and horns add a lot to the Stones' sound and work beautifully on the album. Great guitar work as usual from Keith Richards.
My only real problem with it is the songs that veer more towards country/honky tonk and the use of slide guitar, which I have never liked. But even these songs are still good, and the album really works as a whole with them there.
Not bad - good rapping, good production, etc. - but also doesn't compel me in the way 2001 does.
This is a very good album, with a couple of weak points that for me prevent it from being a 5-star album in my mind. The first track, "Halfway Home", ends up being a good song but starts out too slow, and the last track, "Lover's Day", is actually probably the weakest song on the album.
(The 5-star TVoTR album is "Desparate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes" which is essentially perfect. I say this as a fan of the band since 2005ish with a poster of theirs hanging on my wall ever since seeing them live in DC in 2007.)
This album is a 5 for Voodoo Chile alone. Great blues jam, and for me the highlight is actually Steve Winwood's Hammond organ, which I think is probably the most underrated rock instrument. If you've only heard the more commonly played Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), do yourself a favor and listen to this track!
Oh, and the rest of the album is pretty much uniformly amazing, too.
I have big mixed feelings about this album. From the outset my initial reaction was "why is this on this list? it's generic alternative, surely there must be more than 1000 albums better than this." I still think that stands to some degree. But I also hear moments of greatness in this album, and wonder what might have happened if it had been pushed in a harder, less poppy direction. The multipart harmonies (which Wikipedia notes were encouraged by their producer because no contemporaries were doing it) are the biggest problem for me - the rest of the instrumentation is alternative with shades of shoegaze and indie rock elements, but then you get these tight, highly produced multipart harmonies that don't fit.
Ultimately I'm sticking with a 2 here because so much of this album is just generic and blah... but also especially in the back half I feel like I hear potential just below the surface.
Not bad but not amazing. Most of the A side is very good, but "Wrote a Song for Everyone" is weak - not a bad end to the side, but in my opinion not a good song. The B side just feels very low energy. "Bad Moon Rising" is okay, "Lodi" is pretty blah, then it picks up a bit with "Cross-Tie Walker" (which is still not amazing), then a bit more with "Sinister Purpose." "The Night Time is the Right Time" is a good way to close the album though, with a lot more energy than the rest of the side.
This album is great. Dope samples, sick beats, awesome rapping. Funnily enough the famous tracks were the ones I liked the least.
I wasn't familiar with Pavement until long after their time had passed, but in retrospect they were probably one of my favorite bands' favorite bands. This album is insanely good, and has held up really well over time.
This album was fine. I liked it okay, but not a standout to me. Pretty average.
This album was decent, but I wouldn't say great. A couple of tracks stood out for me more but not necessarily the ones that are (apparently) more known.
This album had some songs that I think I genuinely like more than a lot of the big Queen hits, but they're also kind of more generic "classic rock" tracks. All in all I liked it but it was a bit hit-or-miss for me.
Was prepared to dislike this, since Jerry Lee Lewis was a creep who married his 13-year-old cousin and abused seemingly every woman he ever met. But damn this actually really, really rocks. After just a couple of songs I'm thinking this has to be one of the best live recordings of all time (I originally said "best live rock-'n'-roll recordings" but you know what, I don't think it needs that qualifier). It feels like you're right there, and the energy is off the charts. The piano is obviously insane - Lewis famously would just *pound* on the keys with every part of his body - but I'm incredibly impressed by the guitar, bass, and drums as well.
Also, this recording! It's just ridiculous how clear everything is, for a nearly 60-year-old live recording.
Warning: the versions on Apple Music/Spotify only have 8 tracks and are 22 minutes, which is not the full album. Listened to the version that's on Youtube instead, which is not as good because the songs aren't seamless the way they'd be on the album.
I recognize that Dylan is probably one of the greatest songwriters of all time (if not *the* greatest), and taken together with the bluesy sound he explored on this album it works really well together. The thing is, though, (a) it's too long, both in overall length and the length of the individual songs, which drag like crazy and (b) I can't fuckin' STAND Bob Dylan's voice. Especially on this album where he sounds almost like he's doing an impression of himself.
The question, then, is what to rate it? I think it would maybe be a 4 star album if his voice was less annoying. Given that I had to force myself to listen to this, I don't think I can rate it higher than a 2.
