1001 Albums Summary

More of a passive listen, given that it's a film soundtrack. Even so, each track is dripping with funk and evocative beats. It all feels very iconic; weirdly so given that I've never actually watched the movie all the way through.

Lots of classics - most of the songs I'm familiar with are from this album. The ones on it that I'm NOT familiar with are either cheesy, slow jams that just don't do it for me (the /doggone girl is mine!/ lmao) or up-tempo..also love songs. Though the beats found there are much more infectious than the slow jamz. All that being said, the songs I do know are just too fucking good to give this album less than a 4.

So. This album is considered "easy-listening" and while I don't think I've ever really considered exactly what that genre entails I feel like I got a crash course in it today. A very comfortable, gentle crash. I've actually heard a few of these songs before (even beyond the title song), so it was interesting to be able to put an artist to them - particularly since I've also heard the group's name so often and somehow completely avoided listening to their music; I have my music snob parents to than for that, I suppose. All said, decently poppy, non-challenging music that was a suitable fit for a long bike ride on a windy day.

This is album is apparently huge for glam rock but personally I found it to be a bit boring. Other than a sudden sax in a track or two, every audio track sounds dull and flattened and in every song on the album the sum of these always a similarly washed-out kind of beige nothing. Good on them for being the forerunners of a genre I know nothing about - that kind of provenance is always neat - but I can't say I feel particularly interested in those that followed them based on this album. Get It On is a cool little track though.

Incredibly interesting album. Really enjoyed the selection of instruments on a lot of the tracks. The whole thing had a very in-between feel, in a way. Not entirely new wave but a progenitor of a sort.

Pretty cool album! I appreciate the vibes on a lot of the tracks and have actually already given the full thing a few listens.

Super funky album. Disco wasn't so bad huh?

Good album. It's weird but I somehow couldn't shake the feeling that the lyrics were nonsense. Maybe something about them being so literal made me feel that way. Honestly I have no idea. His cover of Cruisin' is pretty damn good though.

Excellent album. Excellent moods. Seamless movement from expression to expression and every instrument contributing in a way that makes them each stand out on their own and yet somehow simultaneously get lost in a blend that is something infinitely more than the sum of those parts. Something approximating the music a rat might hear when they trying cheese and grapes together.

I listened to a little bit of these guys when I was in high school and had no idea they'd been around for so long. The sound here is definitely a bit different from what I knew of them but still equally not totally my taste. The whole album flows well enough - the songs are all fairly similar - but I couldn't shake this cloying grunginess that I felt throughout the album. Made the rainy weather here that much dingier.

Holy shit this album. I had the misfortune of being born after the Beastie Boys heyday but I still felt their influence in pop culture throughout the entirety of the nineties. I don't know what I USED to think about them, but I do know it wasn't a critical or thoughtful opinion. This is the first album of theirs that I've seriously listened to all the way through and I'm just fucking blown away. The influences and styles they've managed to wrap up in this album are just wild - every track feels completely new but still connected to the previous track. I've seen complaints about the runtime but honestly it feels perfect to me. Through this album alone I've been convinced not only of the magnitude of the Beastie Boys' impact on hip-hop, but of the sheer sickness of the group itself.

That FUNK. And those FART sounda. But no joke that shit was good as fuck. I dunno how many times I played it front to back.

Whoa, I've actually heard one of these songs before! A radio cut of Dominion got a lot of play on my hometown rock station in the 90s. The kind of play that makes you think these dudes made exactly one good song and made knowing the name of the artist useful literally only for pub trivia purposes. Pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed the whole album. It scratched a dark, almost gothy rock itch that hadn't been scratched since I last hung out in the garage listening to the radio with my dad while he drank Buds and worked on his motorcycle.

God damn what an album. Every song is varied and yet fit together excellently. Her voice seems to add something different to every single track. It's one of those albums where as soon as you try to think of your favorite track, a small part of the first track to naturally pop into your head - maybe a specific rhythm, an interval, an instrument, the tempo, anything - reminds you of another equally good track, which then reminds you of a third, and so on until you've gone through every track and returned to the first one again. And you can do so many such loops because every time a track pops into your head you identify a new aspect of it that you liked.

This is another example of an artist that I've heard every song by but rarely if ever as an album. I had no idea what songs would come up but enjoyed guessing based roughly on the feel of the other songs (and what knowledge I DO have of certain songs and their albums). Anyway, excellent listen all the way through. Particularly enjoyed a lot of the (like 3) songs I had never heard before - particularly Thank You. It feels wrong to NOT give it a 5 but there was some stuff that I was a bit on the fence about (lyrics, specifically). Otherwise pretty impeccable.

Pretty great album! Tons of variation across the whole album as well as within each song. Lots of 90s nostalgic alt rock sounds but with a lyrical and musical complexity a cut above his contemporaries. Hearing another cover of Lilac Wine was also a pleasant surprise - my previous album was the Nina Simone album with her cover of the same song. These albums ARE random, right?

My first album that I knew absolutely nothing about and it wasn't bad! Definitely a lot of psychedelic and 70s rock influences mixed in with a bit of early 90s Brit pop. Was a good listen for just walking around aimlessly.