A lot of people remember the experience of plugging in a casio keyboard for the first time and wanting to try out all the presets and features all at once. Most of us don't try to call that an album though.

This album is excellent - absolutely masterful production. I kind of knew earlier in a vague "not-her-target-audience" way that Taylor Swift deserves more credit than "pop icon on TV", but I'm very glad to have taken the time and listened to this full album. The poetic sensibility is brilliant: faintly classical in the construction and certain word choices, but naturally modern in overall tone at the same time. There are moments where I think this highly creative lyricism gets in the way of the musicality a tiny bit, but that is really the only flaw - and in the context of so many modern artists who provide nothing of value lyrically, I can't really say that caring about the narrative and poetry of a song just a little bit more than the melody can be seen as a downside at all.

Yeah, this one's really confusing to me. The composition, production, lead guitar, percussion, effects (especially effects) are all incredible. So slick and yet somehow so raw - ahead of their time, for the time. But I just can't get past the vocals - the guy's voice annoys me so much. The rhythm builds into a verse and you want him to belt, at least hold a god damn note for half a breath, but he does some weak ass affectation instead and ruins what could have been a powerful moment. The lead ascends into some wonderfully engineered break as if anticipating a climax in the arrangement, but the singer just steps in like his day job and follows it with some low energy repeat of the same chorus in the same tone as the last one. But you know, his accent is cool or something. It's not like he can't hold a note (life's a gas utilises his tone just right) or command a stage (rip off shows that)... Which implies he just doesn't want to - or maybe it's the studio effect and I'm feeling his apathy from singing the same song 20 times in a row. Or he fucked up his voice in the preceding years when he could still sing like a lead vocalist. Could he? I don't know him. Whatever it is I can very easily imagine a five star version of this album where each song is recorded with a different vocalist who can actually sing like they fucking mean it. Can't listen to this one unfortunately, despite the fact everything else about it is excellent.

I'm too old to waste time listening to this fucking guy yell at me for an hour. Beats are interesting I guess.

I love Radiohead when they are producing thoughtfully, but I feel like a lot of what gets onto the albums subsequent to their attaining fuck you money is just them messing around in the studio and might not necessarily end up in the final production if they had to think about the listener a bit more.

Slick production and hugely influential - if a little formulaic in the middle. If I ever get a job as a long haul trucker this album will help keep me fired up through the twilight stretches.

I understand why this group was so popular - they knew their sound and they stuck to it and stuck to it well. It's not really my jam, but I can see how the album is perfect for someone whose jam it is.

Like most people (I assume) I really just knew two songs from this album: Hard to handle, and She talks to Angels. I'm cool with that to be honest - the rest of the album is just good, not amazing like those two songs. On the other hand, I'd say The Black Crowes are an example of a band who have developed a lot since their early album, and have a sound that comes across best live - so it's worth checking out footage of their live shows.

Absolutely brilliant. You can feel the influence dripping off every note in this album and it doesn't take much to trace that influence directly or indirectly to every other album by any other group since. The power of not giving a fuck what's expected.

So nice. Makes you want to go fishing all day on a row boat. Fire and rain is one of my favourite songs, but have never really listened to the others.

Totally iconic of course. Personally I prefer later Beatles. Hard day's night has a couple of their best songs obviously, but feels like it's passed out with a lot of forgettable clichéd filler that doesn't show the personalities and talent we know from hindsight that had to offer.

A lot of people remember the experience of plugging in a casio keyboard for the first time and wanting to try out all the presets and features all at once. Most of us don't try to call that an album though.

The nostalgia value is strong, and it's pretty easy to consider the sergeant pepper vibes and saucerful of secrets vibes. Unfortunately, for me these comparisons put Pretty Things in an unfair position because it becomes glaring that they're simply not as good as the other bands they influenced and we're influenced by - nowhere near it. Personally it comes down to the lyrics and vocals (musically I think they can keep up, but if your front man only has one tone of voice to bring to the table or makes it difficult to show your diverse ability as a group). The style of lyrics would be fine for one iconic song, but across a whole album you realise the words are just so simplistic and often clichéd or forced while the beatles and the stones were exactly in this period moving away from this sort of canned shit, and Pink Floyd never did it.

It's so interesting to hear the blues influences throughout this album and consider what a point of difference or is to the earlier stuff - and how again this is going to transform into entirely new just a few years later. Holy shit, "run for your life" doesn't age well does it?

This album honestly blows my mind. Growing up for some reason I was taught that listening to Rod Stewart had to be a somewhat ironic activity - taught that he was on one hand a relic of an older period of crooners and cheese and yet somehow also not a legitimate legend in the same vein as the other crooners before and after him. They were wrong. This album is pure genius start to finish, it holds up to anything attributable to any of those other artists that seem to be treated as more authentic in some way. 1971 - consider the productions going on at the same time and you'll find yourself comparing this album favourably to the most lasting classics (maybe not equal to some of those in some respects, but certainly in the playing field). Maybe it's just my experience and other people were shown from the start he is a legitimate classic artist, but this really is a revelation to me. It holds up to any other album of the late 60s early 70s without a doubt, but also unlike many of those contemporary records, fifty years on, it feels immediate and current throughout. This is why I joined the site! I would have never known.

Yes! Easy 5. Especially listening to it on duckduckgo. Problem is - this is an album of carefully crafted transitions that need to be fully appreciated on hard media, not via YouTube with ads dividing every fucking track. Keep that in mind while experiencing this album in a format that's kind of antithetical to it.

Yeah, this one's really confusing to me. The composition, production, lead guitar, percussion, effects (especially effects) are all incredible. So slick and yet somehow so raw - ahead of their time, for the time. But I just can't get past the vocals - the guy's voice annoys me so much. The rhythm builds into a verse and you want him to belt, at least hold a god damn note for half a breath, but he does some weak ass affectation instead and ruins what could have been a powerful moment. The lead ascends into some wonderfully engineered break as if anticipating a climax in the arrangement, but the singer just steps in like his day job and follows it with some low energy repeat of the same chorus in the same tone as the last one. But you know, his accent is cool or something. It's not like he can't hold a note (life's a gas utilises his tone just right) or command a stage (rip off shows that)... Which implies he just doesn't want to - or maybe it's the studio effect and I'm feeling his apathy from singing the same song 20 times in a row. Or he fucked up his voice in the preceding years when he could still sing like a lead vocalist. Could he? I don't know him. Whatever it is I can very easily imagine a five star version of this album where each song is recorded with a different vocalist who can actually sing like they fucking mean it. Can't listen to this one unfortunately, despite the fact everything else about it is excellent.

I don't know. I used to like them a lot, still dig the overall tone and the boundless creativity behind it all. But I'm old now, some of this just hurts my head, and honestly if I paid money for an album of music based on some tracks I like and found out later it was half full of donkey noises and shit I would not be happy.

Absolute classic.

Yes

Didn't know this guy before, but the sound is very familiar. Grew up with a lot of bands in this wheel house, some of my favourites, so I can see this album deserves the recognition.

Paul Simon is the real deal and always was.

This album is excellent - absolutely masterful production. I kind of knew earlier in a vague "not-her-target-audience" way that Taylor Swift deserves more credit than "pop icon on TV", but I'm very glad to have taken the time and listened to this full album. The poetic sensibility is brilliant: faintly classical in the construction and certain word choices, but naturally modern in overall tone at the same time. There are moments where I think this highly creative lyricism gets in the way of the musicality a tiny bit, but that is really the only flaw - and in the context of so many modern artists who provide nothing of value lyrically, I can't really say that caring about the narrative and poetry of a song just a little bit more than the melody can be seen as a downside at all.

Oh for fuck's sake. The music is what it's all about, and the music is so good, especially when you put it in context of the time and influence. But I just want Johnny to shut the fuck up. I really think he ruins every song. The lyrics are 90% moronic drivel, and he just sounds like a pretentious twat the whole time, the whooole fucking time. I know he's an important part of the genre and bla bla, I just don't care, all I can picture is Rick Mayal jumping around on a stage trying to be edgy for the sake of it. Just fucking shut up, Johnny, and let me listen to the rest of your band because they're actually talented.

Yeah. Ok.

Surprisingly liked this more than the "classic" stones sound - probably because this sounds more raw and authentic before they became icons.

I'm too old to waste time listening to this fucking guy yell at me for an hour. Beats are interesting I guess.

It's ok. I was told he's a great story teller in his songs, but the lyrics didn't really convey that. The music was good though.

All the good things