My User Albums Journey

User Albums Journey

Exploring beyond the book, one album at a time

View 1001 Albums Summary

498

Albums Rated

3.15

Average Rating

Rating Distribution

Rating Timeline

Taste Profile

2010

Favorite Decade

Jazz

Favorite Genre

Top Origin

Perfectionist

Rater Style ?

5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

Breakdown

By Genre

Top Styles

By Decade

By Origin

Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
World Of Echo Arthur Russell	5	2.5	+2.5
Weighing Souls With Sand The Angelic Process	5	2.63	+2.37
Diorama Silverchair	5	2.68	+2.32
Harbor Lights Bruce Hornsby	5	2.69	+2.31
Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau Chris Thile	5	2.83	+2.17
Grace And Danger John Martyn	5	2.9	+2.1
22, A Million Bon Iver	5	2.91	+2.09
Emotional Mugger Ty Segall	5	2.94	+2.06
Feed The Animals Girl Talk	5	3.03	+1.97
Crack the Skye Mastodon	5	3.08	+1.92

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
The Grass Is Blue Dolly Parton	1	3.26	-2.26
Paid In Full Eric B. & Rakim	1	3.24	-2.24
Body Talk Robyn	1	3.09	-2.09
God Shuffled His Feet Crash Test Dummies	1	3.01	-2.01
Once Nightwish	1	2.75	-1.75
Power Corruption and Lies New Order	2	3.62	-1.62
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Neutral Milk Hotel	2	3.59	-1.59
Fashion Nugget CAKE	2	3.5	-1.5
Give Up The Postal Service	2	3.46	-1.46
The Rocky Horror Picture Show Various Artists	2	3.46	-1.46

Artists

Favorites

Artist	Albums	Average
Bon Iver	3	4.67

5-Star Albums (22)

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Popular Reviews

When you order Undertow-era Tool from Temu.

I was looking forward to hearing this album, but the more it went on the more it grated on me. Just found it wimpy and the dude's thin voice became an endurance test. Made pop-rock nerds Weezer seem like death metal.

The perfect musical accompaniment to cooking curried sausages whilst battling the flu. Merci Daft Punk!

When you ask AI to create a band that sounds sorta like Arcade Fire.

Corny cash-grabbing pop country with a slick American sheen and all smooth edges.

1-Star Albums (7)

All Ratings (498)

Silly schlock rock. Lots of notes that don't quite fit, minor pentatonic guitar noodling. Just average forgettable 70's rock.

Nope.

Silly precursor to prog-rock. Great musicians, but just not playing great songs here. Reminds me of some of Peter Gabriel's sillier songs.

Zesty!!!

Fairly melodic stuff, but the singer has such a yowly-splatty voice that it's definitely not something I'd revisit often, if ever.

If Sublime, Reel Big Fish, NOFX, and Temu had sexy time, nine months later they may give birth to something like this.

I find it hard to believe that someone listened to the 1001+ albums, then thought "You know what's missing? That Nik Kershaw album!"

What a great lyricist this guy is. I really enjoyed living inside the world created in this album. Definitely an artist to explore further. Thanks!

If Jimmy Barnes had a jam with the rhythm section of AC/DC, and asked Slash to play some sick solos from time to time. Great stuff!

That time that Ed Sheeran and David Gray jizzed into a baguette on top of the Eiffel Tower.

When you order Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica albums from Temu, and they send you this instead.

Juvenile, emotionally disturbed music for the angry 12-year-old boys of the 90's. 100% gimmick music.

That time that Tom Waits had a jam with the cast of Sesame Street.

When Jim Morrison had a singalong with the members of Joy Division, Television and U2.

Super technically proficient, but a style of music and humour that doesn't fit these ears. I get the hype surrounding these dudes (Les Claypool in particular), just not for me.

Corny cash-grabbing pop country with a slick American sheen and all smooth edges.

Happy & lively nasally cartoon songs for people who wanna rock a little bit, but not too much.

The opening track is pretty good, then devolves into computer nerd bloops and bleeps.

The music is well-recorded and crisp, but the dude just intoning a range of about 3-4 deep notes just isn't enough to warrant a memorable album. Melody is everything.

A fascinating background music vibe.

When Conor Oberst has been listening to a steady diet of The Replacements and Mumford & Sons.

Gross.

Silly music with a dreadful singer. Not deserving of the hype surrounding it.

When Mumford & Sons watched a bunch of Disney films and got obsessed with those earnest male & female ballads.

Brilliant music, but the voices are not really that pleasant on the ears. A shame really, as with a better male singer these songs could soar to new heights. Probably worthy of a relisten though.

Nope.

Oh fuck yeah! Fantastic album!! Thank you!!!

Nice poppy melodies. And a perfect closing track.

Stupid music, though I love Dallas Green's City and Colour project.

Some music and some words.

Cartoon rock.

Aerials is a 5/5 perfect song, and I've loved it since it was released. But... everything else on here is a form of audio insanity. Nuts music. Like a mental breakdown set to weird atonal riffing guitars.

A slightly more unhinged clone of Robbie Williams.

When you order R.E.M. from Temu.

Nope. Stupid music.

Listened to the first few tracks with open ears, then my younger self kicked in and I just felt it was cheesy tunes written by committee with the sole intention of feeding the commercial money machine side of the music industry. Corny stuff. Glossy and empty.

The perfect musical accompaniment to cooking curried sausages whilst battling the flu. Merci Daft Punk!

Cheesy and dated songwriting.

No. A full album of scratchy record static with strains of the Coronation Street theme does not an album make. 2/5 stars, but bonus point for some killer cover art. If I'm craving ambient music, my go-to is the series Brian Eno made in the 70's. An interesting listen though.

Gross.

Melodic generic pop in a world already filled to the seams with melodic generic pop.

Chill background music for an upmarket burger joint. Melodic, groovy, and immediately forgettable.

An album that has lived in my DNA since 1993. I hadn't listened to the album, or much Pearl Jam, in the last few years, but I sang along to every lyric and guitar fill when I listened to this again. Definitely their creative peak, with such a great blend of the melodic and the raw. Each subsequent album from here on had less and less of that fire and fury. I'd have given this a 5 back in the '90's, but these days it's a 4.

Yeah nah. This arty experiment does not make an album. Definitely something different, but not something that works for my ears.

Ah I’m sure the frontman has something interesting to communicate in his lyrics, but I just couldn’t get past the grating sound of the vocals by around the 4th song. Such an odd thing, to be a singer who can’t actually sing. Cool cover art though.

Great guitar playing, but the keening vibrato-laden singing dates this music as a product of its era.

Fuck yeah that was a great listen. I really liked how the singer had a strong emphasis on melody. Guttural sounding guitar and rhythm section, but with strong hooky melodies over the top. Sucked in from the 2nd track onwards. Definitely a band I'm looking forward to exploring further. Thank you to whoever submitted this album :-)

Video game music meets desperately trying to be cool/modern/popular. All flash and no feel.

The title track has genius level piano playing in it (that intro!) and a guitar solo by Pat Metheny that is its own masterpiece. Bruce Hornsby is a genius level jazz pianist cleverly straddling the line between pop hooks and jazz harmony. Been a fan of his for years. Fantastic stuff.

Upbeat, melodic pop rock. Song after song after song. A formula repeated from first track to last.

Run of the mill glossy country stuff. Chord progressions that could be predicted a mile away, standard guitar and fiddle stuff. No rough edges, and that twangy country vocal style. Americans sure love this shit. I don't.

When you order R.E.M. from Temu.

Goddamn that’s some cheesy country music. This stuff all sounds so same-ish, artist to artist, album to album, song to song.

Part of the DNA of my kiwi adolescence, Shihad are NZ's best hard rock band. On this album they combine battering ram rhythm section intensity with super hooky melodic vocals. Fuck yeah!

Silly goofy stuff. Not my cup of tea.

The angry-white-boy soundtrack for when you're 12 years old, and your mom grounds you and takes away your video game console.

This should tick my boxes. I'm a guitar teacher, love a good riff, a funky beat, and high energy music. But it just sounds like such a product of its era, including treble-heavy production and overly earnest singing. I should feel something from it, but feel nothing. Not unpleasant, but not particularly pleasant either. Definition of a 3.

When you order Undertow-era Tool from Temu.

Awww the boy with the microphone needs a cuddle.

Non.

A couple of ok singles, but very same-ish, and is that kind of rock that doesn’t really rock at all. Very safe and very plain.

The music's pretty chill, like Radiohead-lite. And the singer dude kinda sounds like he's mutter-singing in English then needs to clear his throat and hock a loogie. Then I remember he's singing in another language, and it dawns on me I have no fucking clue what he's singing, or singing about.

Awful.

I'd been wanting to listen to this album for years. I listened. I never will again.

When you ask AI to create a band that sounds sorta like Arcade Fire.

Needs some kind of melody to go with the punk angst. Just a bunch of short sameish tunes that all blend into one kinda half-sketched out thing.

Fuuuuuckin' hell I hate fiddle and banjo. Reckon there's a special place in hell that's just this kind of corny country shit played nonstop forever. Fuck no.

I was introduced to this band by the oddest live performance of the opening track on the Letterman show back when the album dropped. The singer's bobbing marionette-style movement and Kermit-meets-Morrissey-meets-death-metal style of singing made for some interesting viewing. Rewatched that clip again today and it's just as odd as I remembered. This album? Just a collection of same-ish synth-pop songs.

Ah, the springy and agile acoustic guitar playing was pretty tasty and really well performed and recorded, but I'm just not a fan of that overly earnest and keening vocal style that's the standard with this kind of folk music. Give me some instrumental Michael Hedges acoustic guitar playing any day over this, or some John Martyn. Cool to have heard it though, as I'd never heard of this acclaimed album before.

When the singer from Counting Crows decided that the vocal stylings of Van Morrison were no longer his thing, and went deep down a musical rabbit hole consisting only of Elvis Costello and Randy Newman vocals. And told his band to listen to nothing but 70's Stones, and Big Star.

When George Harrison took an industrial dose of mushrooms, and listened to his aunt's old Nursery Rhymes collection LP, and the isolated vocals of Television's 'Marquee Moon' album, on repeat.

Wobbly and twee sounding music. Just found it really same-ish, and that guitar tone really grated after a few songs. Not bad, just not great.

Yeah nah.

Music you put on your cassette player when you're 12 years old and angry at your parents and siblings. And outgrow by age 13.

White dorks. Can imagine the baggy jeans, bleached hair and soul patches. Dated cheese.

When you order albums by Dave Matthews Band, Arcade Fire, and Bright Eyes from Temu.

In my DNA. I met 6 out of the 7 band members at their gig in Auckland in 2003, and they signed my fave album of theirs, Recovering The Satellites. And Adam signed the T-shirt I was wearing. The magic sloooooowly disappeared from album 2 onwards, with a scattering of truly great tracks on albums 3 and 4, then poof. But this.. this is magic.

Run of the mill ska punk tunes with the kind of singer that has razors in their throat.

When you order The Killers' Hot Fuss album from Temu.

That was majestic! Immaculately performed and recorded, virtuosic but spacious at the same time, and tonally such a delight to listen to. Fuck yeah!

This was fucking fantastic. THE PERFECT album for an ADHD brain channel-changer! Was SUCH a thrill identifying all of the myriad samples used throughout, and you genuinely cannot predict what's gonna come next. Fuck yeah!!

Overly earnest bad singer bloke sings over his Casio keyboard demo tunes.

When you order The Stranglers from Temu.

Talking Heads on stronger drugs.

Punk meets Metal? Munk? Heavy Petal?

In early Kevin Smith films, he often used a sultry looking actress who also happened to have the talking voice of a baby, which created some cognitive dissonance in my teenage brain for sure. This is the parallel universe where that actress (whatever her name was) went into music instead of acting.

I listened to this album as I walked along my local beach on a sunny winter morning, picking up beach glass. This soundtrack made me feel like I was saving the world, rather than just the tender feet of beachgoing babies and doggies.