This was absolutely the tits. Surprised at the things it did, and it did them well. Good news.
Oh hell yes. There was not enough Tori Amos in the main list. While I would probably have to say that Liite Earthquakes is a better album, this has the benefit of better production - the piano sounds genuinely incredible here. I firmly believe that Boys for Pele should also be listed - could easily remove half a dozen David Bowie albums to make way. Enough about Amos' other stuff though - this is meant to be about Under the Pink. As a 14 year old boy, who'd just gotten his hands on a sound sampler, Cornflake Girl would have been one of the songs I sampled, I loved it. So unlike any the in the charts at the time, and loaded to the earballs with glorious, sumptuous piano. Sure, there's synths too, and a somewhat pedestrian drum going on, but the star of it is her keys. Clean, forefront and delicious to hear. It makes me wonder, when Professional Widow from her next album got a dance remix, why Cornflake Girl didn't get a wonderful Tribeca loft bar house take done. If anything could be said about Amos' vocals is that she is less powerfully vulnerable here than the preceding album - there's an edge and an anger that didn't really come through in Earthquakes.which kinda contrasts with the delicacy and easy confidence of her piano. Still has the ability, thirty years later, to make me want to immerse myself in the sound, wrap myself up in it and live it completely for nearly an hour - and that makes me happy.
This is going to be a tough review. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this, never having heard of it, or her. When it started up, I was genuinely pretty intrigued. And then she started singing, and oh my very god, I hate her vocal style. Justin Vernon is grand - and Greg Brown is better - but when the primary artist has a voice that drives you nuts, it makes it very hard to work through. It really is a shame, because in almost every other respect, I actually really quite like this. I say "almost every" because there's that fingernails-on-a-blackboard "bwap-bwap-bwooow!" of country guitars every so often too. God. I really can't express how much I hate her vocal affectations. In "Flowers", 'red' becomes 'Ray-ee-aye-eh-hed' - utterly piss-boiling, especially as it's clear she's actually got a voice in her. If it wasn't for her indie-girl, cursive singing nonsense, I think I'd actually say this was one of the better entries on the list - easily top 100 - but I'm afraid I really am gonna have a ding a star for it.
This is the second time I've listened to this album in a fortnight - and it's actually pretty good. Very poppy, although I do question whether this album will have staying power. It's just a shame that so many people are latching on to it being new. The fact that we've regressed to the point that campy excess is considered to be innovative really is heartbreaking. I guess it's a fight we have to have again and again and again.
Oh yes! I was so tempted to suggest something by Type O Negative myself. When reviewing the Sisters of Mercy for the main list, I suggested that they "were kind of like Type O Negative, without the fun". It is very important to remember that Type O are a band that's all about fun. Yes, goth metal is an unlikely vehicle for it, but these guys, and most everyone I know who like them, are having an absolute blast. Type O are goth camp. The dials are turned up to 11 and and we're having the time of our lives. Also in my Floodland review, I mentioned the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhing around me. Type O pastiches this, and I'm totally here for it. While there is clearly a 2020s reinvigoration of goth, thanks in part, let's be fair, to Jenna Ortega, I think we should go further. Pass me the eyeliner, get me in some leather trousers and a frilly shirt and let the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhe around me.
This is really good. One of those collections that I'm sure I've been aware of in the past, but never really arrived into my conscious mind as something. There's quite a lot of quite a lot in here - and it is very clearly contemporary to the likes of Thievery Corporation and Nightmares on Wax. It reminds me a bit of Mr Scruff's selections in places, and the four-to-the-floor disco revival of late 90s Moloko in others. Naturally, anyone who had this playing in their bars in the late 90s was aiming for a cosmopolitan, too-cool-for-school Tribeca warehouse kind of feel. And I get that - I totally do. It's not something I'd want to sit down and actively listen to for over 2 hours really. It's absolutely, 100% the sort of thing that should be playing in the background while Martinis are mixed for you. You need to be chatting up people with way better fashion sense but way less money than you. You'd have looked into the production of this album, and you'll have interesting facts prepped about it - like did you know that Jazzy Jeff was involved? Yes, that dude that Uncle Phil kept throwing out in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. You absolutely won't have pulled, but at least you'd be charitably waved at by the immaculately dishevelled young thing you were trying it on with next time you went to that warehouse bar. You see - this is the difference between the 90s and the 00s. This music is funky, relaxed, effortlessly cool and makes you think that you can do everything. Even get a number from someone dressing for the cover of Vogue from charity shop finds and dumpster dives. The equivalent to this in the 00s was angry, aggressive, cynical and overconfident to the point of arrogance. You definitely would get that number in the 00s, but you'd also have woken up with them, covered in kebab and chlamydia. And that's the difference. In the 90s, it was OK to be optimistic, because there just wasn't anything left to worry you. In the 20s there are hints of optimism coming back through in music, but it is (rightfully) imbued with a sense of responsibility. This is absolutely a record of its time. After The End of History but before Dubya. It represents a world that genuinely didn't think it had anything to worry about, and I like that. Sure, I appreciate the maturity and the compassion of 20s music, and I'm glad that we're less naive about who we have around us. We can reflect on the sheer fucking hubris of the 90s with a degree of guilty shame. But holy god damn I miss how good it felt to be this amount of cool.
One hour seventeen minutes of heavy guitars and terribly fatiguing bass? Well, this is probably gonna be a struggle. So far I'm up to H. and I'm bored witless. The best track on here is "Intermission". It's the only one that isn't relentlessly doomy- oh so edgelordy. Only heavily strummed bass guitars can describe my anguish. I bet he sings with his eyes closed. Yeah, I'm really glad that people like this, but it isn't for me
Sounds like the kind of music you try and ignore when you accidentally turn out to an open mic night at a pub. You just wanted a jaunt out, good chat, few beers, maybe talk to some people you've never met before... and then some eejit with an acoustic guitar starts strumming away and singing, which ruins your plans. But it turns out OK because actually he's got some talent and hey, he finishes eventually. The barman is wearing a hand-plaited friendship bracelet and he prefers making coffee to pulling pints. I think the best thing about The Mountain Goats is that I always confuse them with an album called The Mountain Dogs by Stealing Sheep. The thing I like least about this is the deliberately janky recording.
Cliffy Biro.
I've actually really enjoyed this. Surprised to have, but there's definitely something about this that appeals. Glad I listened.
An enjoyable antidote to grunge - by far and away less self-destructive, and definitely a fresh take at the time.
This is great, why didn't I listen to this in the 90s? Or any of the 3 subsequent decades? Shameless is The Tits.
Rootin' tootin' country rock dreck. He's got a nice (if you like that sort of thing) voice and I've not immediately wanted to turn it off, which is pretty high praise for country, but it's still country. Bleh.
I guess this is what you'd call nerd rock? Definitely strikes me as the sort of thing that people who like TMBT or Jonathan Coulter would be into. I didn't mind it, but would be in no hurry to listen again.
Delightfully bonkers, although that gets tired after a while, so could do with being a bit shorter.
So many hints of their antecedents! The vocal delivery sounds a bit like I, Ludicrous. The music has nods towards New Order. Like many other reviewers have opined, this is a grower. Not something I'd have stuck with without the framework of this project, and I'm quite glad that I did towards the end of The Lotts. Liberty Belle is a hoot.
One of the genuine surprises of the original list was the absence of INXS. I'm looking forward to listening to it. So yeah, it's a good album. Not a great album, but a good album with some great songs on it. It starts and ends wrapped around Need You Tonight, the obvious stand-out, with a couple of highlights. So slide over here. And give me a moment.
Not as terrible as the edgelordy name would suggest.
The Sound From The Lion's Mouth - Is it a roar? It'll be a roar, won't it? Well no. What it is us surprisingly unknown early 80s that fits right in with its contemporary stuff, but apparently never got anywhere. Bizarre! I'm glad to have heard it, but it just makes me wonder why nobody else did either.
I can see what the end goal is here, I just think it has been done better by other people. That being said, it's a fairly bold attempt.
Gotcha. Moderately surprised at how early this was - would easily have expected it to be a self-produced effort from the late 2000s. Self produced because the production values are utterly garbage. Half the time it sounded like live album played in a pub. The other, well - some of it is funky and highly listenable. On the other hand, there is also "any better love" and "money", which are hot effluvia. I view this as an interesting distraction from a country that has otherwise only given us gabber and 2 Unlimited.
Hypnotic beats with a synthy edge. Very easy to get lot in, and seldom outstays its welcome.
Well, this sure is Malian music. It's pretty good too.
My initial reaction to this was "What on earth is this tosh?" It's performance art for the sake of performance art - I see little merit in it, apart from being able to stroke your beard contemplatively at the impressive juxtaposition of this, to that, and the counter-play of the meta-dichotomous plurality of the tripe and the bilge working harmoniously with the pretentiousness and the codswallop. This occupies exactly the same space as Throbbing Gristle. My final reaction to it is "should I listen to it again? Am I missing something?" - a question that can easily be answered.
Absolutely delightful. While I'm not as keen on the slower numbers, it's still a great album from the dying days of disco.
Oh man, I love this album. I've loved it for - omfg - nearly 30 years. Sure, the lyrics are horrifying and most of the music is flagrantly stolen from other artists, but it sure is a great vibe that this puts out.
You could hotswap with with any of their contemporaries and not be any the wiser. Is it The Coral? Is it Razorlight? Could easily be. It's not terrible, it's just nothing exceptional from a period of music that had completely lost its way.
Well, these guys are talented. But that is no excuse for a live album. Nobody needs to hear the audience. The music is funky, and I'm glad I've been introduced to Vulfpeck. I look forward to listening to their studio-produced stuff that doesn't have the chore of the crowd noises or the audience interaction. A lot of these tracks sound like the opening themes to early 90s sitcoms. You can easily imagine (despite the audience noises) this playing over montage shots of Greg Evigan and Paul Reiser.
Well, this sure sounds like music for middle-aged white guys. As with many offerings from prog, it is overwrought, hugely overindulgent and also incredibly long. Sure, the music is pretty decent (and abundant) and the production is pretty good - but for crying out loud, this 100 minutes of prog, and that's more than anyone needs. 3 stars only because I fit exactly into the target demographic.
Wow, three votes so far, at the time of writing. Must have only been suggested a couple of days ago, tops. Anyway. Here's vote four, review three. After the first track I was prepared to go on rant about how The Cure shouldn't be shoegaze. Sure, a load of shoegaze massives would argue that The Cure was one of their primary inspirations, but The Cure are not shoegaze in the same way that The Beatles are not britpop. Blimey though, this is a really shoegazey record. Fortunately, it is also The Cure. The thing about The Cure is that they are excellent. Robert Smith can conjure feelings out the wahooey, and that's exactly what this record does. Conjures feelings. I'm not as old as Smith - he's got over two decades on me - but the feelings this music inspires - ageing, slowing down, loss, reflection, a curious lack of anger, despite protests of injustice and unfairness - are every bit as powerful to middle-aged me as the mournful optimism and hope of Pictures of You were to me in my teens and twenties. I mean, even now as a cynical and jaded curmudgeon in his mid forties, Pictures of You can cut through the shield of my bitter and calloused shell. We will have to leave this album to brew for thirty or so years to see if anything from it will hit as hard. On just one listen, I suspect probably not, but it's not really fair to ask anyone - even Robert Smith - to try and equal Robert Smith. It is, to be sure, an absolutely excellent album and I suspect that I'll listen to it a lot...but I agree it is maybe a bit young still to be in the pantheon. Mind you, Kiwanuka is also very young and that definitely needs to be on the list, so I'm willing to allow it. For the moment.
OK, so TMBG are musical nerds who make music for nerds who are not musical. I'm not saying that the Venn diagram of people who listen to TMBG and people who play tabletop games is a perfect circle, but if you were to add TMBG listeners to an n-dimensional Venn diagram that includes tabletop gamers, folk who solve maths problems for fun, people who care about the numbers in the model of a graphics card, anyone who has been to a comicon or anyone above the age of 19 who cares what a pokemon is, you'd have very little negative space in the TMBG portion. Now, bear in mind that I've just talked about something being n-dimensional... I get the nerd bit! But TMBG are just a bit too... too for me. There's a few tracks here and there (Cloisonne) that I really quite enjoy, but added up, it's just too much twee for me. Maybe it's an overstimming of the nerd bit? TMBG do what they do very well, and I can't fault them for keeping nerds entertained for 40+ years, and yeah, there probably should be a TMBG album on the list, so why not this one? You probably should listen to one of theirs because, why not?
This is the second time I've listened to this album in a fortnight - and it's actually pretty good. Very poppy, although I do question whether this album will have staying power. It's just a shame that so many people are latching on to it being new. The fact that we've regressed to the point that campy excess is considered to be innovative really is heartbreaking. I guess it's a fight we have to have again and again and again.
I'd say this is absolutely, 100% unique in the list - it's the only real dance (using the term lightly) with classical I've come across so far and although I've still got 150 or so user-submitted albums to go, I get the feeling I won't be hearing another like this. Definitely worth including, and I thank the person who suggested it for thinking a bit different when it comes to the type of music expected of the list.
Music for the iPod generation. I found the lyrics to be cynical, often veering towards misogyny. The mid 2000s was a desolate wasteland for music, and while this isn't the aggressively bad worst of it, it's not something I would ever actively choose to put into my earballs. I say at the top of this review that it's music for the ipod generation, because it sounds like it has been mastered to listen to on cheap-end earbuds, which was the style at the time.
This reminds me a lot of David Gray.
This is actually pretty decent. Way more experimental that it appears at first.
This seems like perfectly average blues from a 20-year old lad. Sure, it's competent enough, but strays into country a bit too often. I guess he's young and he might improve with age.
Oh boy, am I looking forward to a live album from a band I've never heard of, with unpleasant album art. OK. So the album isn't that bad. What it absolutely is though, is live. Which means that while the band might well have been reacting to and vibing with the audience for the full 15 minutes and 55 seconds of "Contraption" - or even the miserably over-long at half the length "Sticky Hulks", we sat in the comfort of our own homes are growing increasingly irritated at the continuation of this repetitive mess. Get these guys into a studio, give them a decent producer and I'll come back to them. Until then, wipe the slobber off your chin, guys, I'm not going to go to one of your gigs and I don't want to listen to a recording of one.
It's tempting to say that this record is only 5 or 10 years old - but no, it's coming up to thirty years since this hit the shops, and I remember it well. Well. I remember Shirley Manson. "Garbage" (by Garbage) is an album that I listened to a fair bit back in the 90s, and, it turns out, I listened to Version 2.0 a lot more, because putting this on for the first time in years was like slipping into a warm friend. The first track is nothing special. Manson's voice sounds almost like it's coming from underwater, with pretty heavy vocoder effects. Things get much better, though. The vocals definitely become cleaner and clearer, and that's brilliant.. Because when they do, especially during "Hammering in my head", those vocals are dirty, urgent and delicious. The second half of the album is as tellingly placed in the late 90s as any music could be. I grew up with it, and going back to it is great. This is actually a much better album than Garbage, so I'm happy with it being suggested.
I wasn't at all sure what to expect but I certainly didn't expect something from 2003, the nadir of music, to be this good. John Zorn, behind one of the worst-rated albums on the original list, is credited on this, and I can see why some folk might find his stuff objectionable, I really enjoyed Spy vs Spy so I was more than prepared to find out what was going on with this. It's a delight! One of the main problems I have with metal is that it so often outstays it's welcome. This album is brilliantly designed to limit your exposure to it, so it actually has an impact without rapidly descending into the fatigue that so plagues the genre. This is jazzy, ambient - in parts contemplative, in others outrageous. I liked it a lot, thanks for the recommendation!
Well, this isn't a bad album, but it is also a thoroughly unoriginal album that contributes nothing but a fun 40-ish minutes to your life. Yes, the album is 51 minutes long. It gets tired after 40 though.
'kin weeb. I genuinely love the fact that the user recommendations are straying further away from the eleventy million Bowie albums, identical-sounding British NME belle-du-jour acts of the 2000s and albums by Bob Dylan that would more usually be included in lists of things banned by UN convention as being cruel and a violation of fundamental human rights. This jpop offering is just that - poppy nonsense. The Wikipedia entry for it reads like a Patrick Bateman review. It is trashy pop and it's a diversion, purely disposable. And that's OK.
A collection of songs you know from other places - but executed brilliantly by an acknowledged master. What isn't there to like?
I'm quite surprised at how many of these seem vaguely familiar, and given that most of this stuff hasn't been in the public consciousness since about 1985, that's quite astonishing. I can't claim that anything from this album will enter my regular rotation, but I did quite enjoy Shame on You's vocal, er... sound, I guess. I wonder what influence (if any) Mr Kershaw had on Camille - it's a similar kind of beatboxy thing to what she does, although I'm genuinely not sure if beatboxing is the right term for it. Anyway - yeah, better than I feared and actually quite a fun bit of otherwise disregarded 80s in a virtually untouched time capsule.
I have no really strong views on this, either way. I mean, asides from shifting the definition of "brat" a lot closer to "basic bitch", this is broadly a disposable pop album that'll disappear from consciousness as quickly as, say, P!nk's "the truth about love". The vocal effects are distracting to the point of mild annoyance, but the basic poppiness of the album means that it is only mild. I guess I'm absolutely not the target demographic for this. Picture Lucille Bluth saying "Good for her!" and you're probably about where I am on this.
They don't 'alf sound like they want to be Dire Straits.
Oh yes! I was so tempted to suggest something by Type O Negative myself. When reviewing the Sisters of Mercy for the main list, I suggested that they "were kind of like Type O Negative, without the fun". It is very important to remember that Type O are a band that's all about fun. Yes, goth metal is an unlikely vehicle for it, but these guys, and most everyone I know who like them, are having an absolute blast. Type O are goth camp. The dials are turned up to 11 and and we're having the time of our lives. Also in my Floodland review, I mentioned the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhing around me. Type O pastiches this, and I'm totally here for it. While there is clearly a 2020s reinvigoration of goth, thanks in part, let's be fair, to Jenna Ortega, I think we should go further. Pass me the eyeliner, get me in some leather trousers and a frilly shirt and let the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhe around me.
This is going to be a tough review. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this, never having heard of it, or her. When it started up, I was genuinely pretty intrigued. And then she started singing, and oh my very god, I hate her vocal style. Justin Vernon is grand - and Greg Brown is better - but when the primary artist has a voice that drives you nuts, it makes it very hard to work through. It really is a shame, because in almost every other respect, I actually really quite like this. I say "almost every" because there's that fingernails-on-a-blackboard "bwap-bwap-bwooow!" of country guitars every so often too. God. I really can't express how much I hate her vocal affectations. In "Flowers", 'red' becomes 'Ray-ee-aye-eh-hed' - utterly piss-boiling, especially as it's clear she's actually got a voice in her. If it wasn't for her indie-girl, cursive singing nonsense, I think I'd actually say this was one of the better entries on the list - easily top 100 - but I'm afraid I really am gonna have a ding a star for it.
Look, I'm sure this is great and that, but it's just too country, and country is universally rubbish.
I was about to say that while I listened to this just yesterday, I have absolutely zero memory of it, but trying really hard to pluck up some memory, there actually are some flashes of recollection. The main one that comes up in amateurishness. The vocals especially had me wondering if it was a live gig, because surely no recording engineer or producer would have said "Yep, that's it, that is perfect!" and put them into the final mix? That being said, I liked the varied nature of it, and nothing really offended me. Just kinda feels like the sort of album that has a personal connection to the suggestor, rather than something that's going to change the world for anyone. Who knows, they might have excellent stage presence that doesn't really translate into a produced album. Either way - middle of the road for me.
Fun, disposable pop in a language I don't understand. Fair enough!
Sure, was there in the late 90s when this was apparently popular - but in a different country - but despite this, I just don't get it. Sure, they're mostly inoffensive, occasionally repetitive, but they fail to gripper me in a way that has me questioning the gripperedness of the people who love 'em. Sure, you do you I guess. Everyone is entitled to their opinion - I just can't help but feel like I'm looking in from outside at a cult.
Early - and very definitely influential, by the sounds of it. Several times I found myself thinking "Whoa, that's where ... must have gotten it from!" Decent.
Nice. First time I've listened to a whole album through by Tame Impala, and - I'm not going to lie - probably the last, too. I like their tracks, but 51 minutes of it just seemed like too much. I do approve of what's being done, but was just a little tired of it by 3/4 of the way through.
Beautiful, low, wobbly bass.
Just because you can do something experimental and different, it doesn't mean that you should. I can appreciate the production, but this music leaves my boxes unticked.
I'd originally misread the release date for this wrong - thinking it was a 90s album - which made me question all kinds of things about the sanity of the person submitting. As a 90s release, it's all kind of tired, done-to-death 80s rock, with multiple tracks that could easily and seamlessly have been slotted into the 1986 film masterpiece / toy advert "Transformers: The Movie" without anyone noticing. As an early 80s release - well, it may well have been an introduction to the style. Given some of the other reviews on here, it might well have been. Personally, I thought it was OK. There is no danger at all of me listening to it again - I'm sure not going to fit into the requisite skinny jeans - but it was nice to hear something from someone who was clearly very popular and influential at the time, but since has pretty thoroughly vanished from consciousness. Not my thing, but I can see the value of it and why it's gotten a nod.
Obviously knew Mmmm mmmm mmmm from when it was new, but I think this might be the first time in thirty years that I've even considered that they'd have done anything else. Listening to it, I have the question forming in my mind of if CTD invented the indie girl / cursive style of singing. It's OK. Nice variety of styles, a step away from the "mainstream" of the early 90s. Definitely worth a listen.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy this immensely. Was really not expecting to hear such a mashup of stuff, it very much appeals to my sensibilities, and while I'm not a fan of accordions generally, the presence herein did not offend me too much. Good choice, good selection, good album.
Took a very long time to get started.
Not reading anything about Stromae before diving in, I was prepared to accept this entry as being a really jolly good fun French hiphop album. Scrolling down the tracklist though I see the track "moules frites" and instantly this becomes a Belgian album. With that in mind, it also becomes a surprisingly excellent Belgian hiphop album. At least, until Merci, it was an excellent Belgian hiphop album. Merci just blew me away. What a take. The influence of Italo-disco on a thoroughly modern interpretation of piano-driven house, diverting in the second half to full synth - just great and I'm here for it. It takes this album up to an extraordinary Belgian hiphop album. Yep, solid choice for the list, and I am definitely going to pay more attention to Stromae.
My heart verily sinks when I see "2003" as the release date, and when you combine that with never having heard of Switchfoot in all my puff, it does not add up to a hopeful picture. Starting to actually play it completed the trifecta - this album met my expectations exactly. There are very few albums that will get a DNF, and this one joins them in ignomy.
28 years ago, when the singles from this were being released, I absolutely hated all of them. Just that visceral reaction of "Oh for fucks sake" when you heard that "bap bap badow ba bap bap" in a nightclub and you knew it was time to go to the bar to get another pint of three point something percent lager and wait for that intermimable tripe to stop. Nearly thirty years later, I can't think of many things from the late 90s that I miss less than Shania Twain. It was everywhere, which didn't help, but then so was cigarette smoke and that literally gives you cancer.
The Smashing Pumpkins of the mid-2000s. Yes,i do mean it like that.
Listening to this morose motherfucker on what was meant to be a cheering spring morning walk was absolutely a mistake. Reading (with increasing bafflement) all the glowing reviews, I see that another The National album made it to the main list, which I had apparently blotted out of my memory. Re-reading my review of High Violet, I can say that this album is better than that one - at least this one doesn't have the overworked grandiosity of High Violet - but don't mistake that faint praise for me liking this album, because I absolutely do not. It's like Death Cab For Cutie without the charm, optimism or likeability.
Oh hell yes. There was not enough Tori Amos in the main list. While I would probably have to say that Liite Earthquakes is a better album, this has the benefit of better production - the piano sounds genuinely incredible here. I firmly believe that Boys for Pele should also be listed - could easily remove half a dozen David Bowie albums to make way. Enough about Amos' other stuff though - this is meant to be about Under the Pink. As a 14 year old boy, who'd just gotten his hands on a sound sampler, Cornflake Girl would have been one of the songs I sampled, I loved it. So unlike any the in the charts at the time, and loaded to the earballs with glorious, sumptuous piano. Sure, there's synths too, and a somewhat pedestrian drum going on, but the star of it is her keys. Clean, forefront and delicious to hear. It makes me wonder, when Professional Widow from her next album got a dance remix, why Cornflake Girl didn't get a wonderful Tribeca loft bar house take done. If anything could be said about Amos' vocals is that she is less powerfully vulnerable here than the preceding album - there's an edge and an anger that didn't really come through in Earthquakes.which kinda contrasts with the delicacy and easy confidence of her piano. Still has the ability, thirty years later, to make me want to immerse myself in the sound, wrap myself up in it and live it completely for nearly an hour - and that makes me happy.
You know what, I am actually quite glad that I've listened to this. There is precisely zero chance I'll ever listen to it again, but I do appreciate the effort of putting it together.
This is very competent, well put together music that I don't really want to listen to. Sure, it's technically adept and the production is unbelievable for the age of the record, but one cannot help but know that somewhere behind the music there's a bunch of insufferable white guys. Is it a good example of British 60s rock/blues - yes. Could it replace one of the many, many doubled-up artists from the same era? Yes - but would I rather have something that wasn't white guys from 60s British artists instead? Also yes.
I'm very glad that this came so soon after such an obvious 60s British rock album. Very much appreciated the approach of taking pop, rock, metal and a whole grab bag of other genres and just saying "Yeah, this music is Mexican now pendejo!". That's it. That's the whole venture. I mean, it ain't much but it's honest work.
Enjoyable punk, but I think I'd like to write more after another listen.
It's incredibly tempting to rate this as 3-stars, because the middle-of-the-road stuff on here is absolutely, purely and comprehensively middle-of-the-road. However. The opening track (Table For Glasses) is excruciatingly awful. A snare drum every 3 seconds and a twiddly guitar accompanying a whiny dirge. Oh hey! Some dude's been given a glockenspiel! The upbeat stuff is, by way of relief, a joy in comparison, but when looked at outside the context of the juvenile emo-ish dirges, it's literally just OK. It is because of these dreadful over-long couple of tracks that this has to get dinged. Sorry. Bleed American is a way better album.
Despite the trepidation of a 2000s album from a group I'd never heard of before, and despite a slightly awkward start, this turned out to be a really enjoyable ska punk offering. Thoroughly enjoyed this, and will recommend to friends.
Tell me you're an elder millennial without telling me you're an elder millenial. Naturally Blink 182 started out kinda X-y but this album particularly has to be one of the signifiers, stating that Gen X had truly passed. I think that the start of the changeover is probably pretty easily tied into the 1995 Amy Heckerling fillum Clueless. Clueless featured the dying strains of X - Bowie, Radiohead, Coolio, for real X-gen stuff. But notably tete was also some No Doubt and Mighty Mighty Bosstones, whose ska-punk ushered in the millennials, and Blink 182, The Offspring and Green Day all jumped into new, more poppy and rocky variations, but all very noticeably shifting from a late X sound to a discernibly different Millennial one. Naturally, as one of the last of X I find Blink 182 to be mostly juvenile and overhyped. That being said, a couple of tracks on here are genuinely pretty good. And they do very much exemplify the change of an epoch. So there's that.
Back in the late, 90s, early 2000s, a mate of mine followed the Eels round Europe on one of their tours and ended up meeting them after a security guard noticed he'd been following them. That dude is now a music journalist, published in the NME, the BBC, Q, and a huge geet long list of other notable organs. Dude's now living in New York City and for all I know might still be mates with Mr E. I'm sure he's a better writer on the subject of Eels' third album, but I'll give it a stab. Daisies is unfortunate in that it starts off with Grace Kelly Blues. Unfortunate because while it isn't entirely terrible, it is a very bad introduction to the album. It has that awful Country-sounding guitar - intolerable - but the main thing is that Daisies is a bit of a departure from the wallowing, nerdy melancholy of nearly everything they'd done previously. I don't really think Daisies really picks up until I Like Birds - but from there on its just cracking. Eels definitely deserve a second spot in the list, and Daisies just edges out over Electroshock Blues.
Yep I can get behind this.
Another of the journey of discovery things. First thought was that this MF has obviously heard MF DOOM, but doing a bit of reading up, it actually is MF DOOM. What a delight! This is better than MM FOOD but still has that sight tryhardism with the comic book, B movie schtick.
This is fuckin garbage. Trying so hard. Yes, it avoids the androcentric aggression of earlier Arctic Monkeys, but still manages to capture the arrogance, the sneering disdain. The work of someone who couldn't separate acclaim from value. Fortunately it isn't an over-long album, although that doesn't stop it feeling both overlong and obnoxiously repetitive - four stars out of five ain't gonna happen. Sorry lads.
The cover art has my interest. Let's have a listen. I'm not usually one for "folk singer/songwriter" - but this album is the fuckin' tits, yo. The old witch sleep and the good man grace... What a track!
This is deceiving. Do not be fooled by the description as folk/indy - it's country. Dirty, mouth-harps and fiddles country. Dnf for that reason.
This is a bit of a mix up, really. Most of the tracks are a confusion between two or more different things being played at the same time, and while I really didn't enjoy it to begin with, o have the feeling that it might grow on me.
This was considerably better on the second listen.
Slightly over-indulgent, and why in the name of all things do people actively choose to have children singing (badly) on their records? Other than that, well - it's kind of OK I guess.
Dullscythe is annoying. I was pleasantly pleased that this had some really nice, poppy tracks that make you feel happy. Unfortunately it's interspersed with some experimental gumpf that sounds like a failed download. The nice poppy stuff really is quite nice though.
This caught me by surprise. I knew about the work previously, but failed to spot it as I absent-mindedly clicked through to set it away. It took me about four minutes of the first track to get irritated by the repetitiveness. About forty seconds after that, it clicked what it was and I promptly stopped listening to it. Not because I don't like it - it's an extraordinary piece and a statement of art -but because I really needed to listen to something that probably wouldn't make me cry as I was walking down to the pub. You have to approach it for what it is. Something to experience, rather than something to listen to. It's good. Someone should be doing this kind of thing. It isn't really "music" though.
Yay! More Sparks! In my review of Kimono My House, I opined that Sparks, in their 50-or-so years in the music biz, have just been there, doing great stuff. You probably never really think about them, but then you'll hear something of theirs and think "Well, this is really good!". You'll then try and think of something else that Sparks have done - and the song you'll think of will also be really good, but probably completely different... while also being very clearly Sparks. They're massively influential for a reason - and that reason is that they're bloody good. This album is more influenced, perhaps in that it takes Sparks a little bit away from pure, new direction innovation that they pushed in their previous 7 albums (SEVEN albums!). We're now layering the Brothers Mael over the top of Italo-disco. The influence of Moroder is clear, and it is beautiful. It is still new and fun, and an absolute joy 46 years later.
Some fine Gen X right here.
I definitely listened to this yesterday, but as I come to review it today, I don't remember a single solitary thing about it, and that is somewhat rare. Refreshing my earballs of it again, it filters through my consciousness as something I actually did quite enjoy, so let us accept and agree that while not memorable, it did give some entertainment, and as I listen again to "City's full", the vocals give me a little bit of a Grace Slick vibe and I'm very comfortable with that.
This is pretty good, I guess. Modern-sounding and nicely structured.
What bastard hybrid grungy shoegaze is this? Yeah, this is a dnf - just too messy.
This is inoffensive pop music. We need to put some historical context into this, because Come And Get It was released in 2005, and in 2005, music was appalling. We'd had a few years of appalling music by this point, and while there were some tiny hints of improvement, here and there, the landscape was one where the music industry was pushing out utter garbage, taking zero risks on new and different stuff. By 2005, Pop Idol had been and gone, and The X Factor (functionally indistinguishable from Pop Idol, and every other singing programme that's come since) was what people were talking about. It was utter lowest-common-denominator shite, and it pervasive and inescapable. What does this have to do with Rachel Stevens? Well. Pop Idol was a creation of Simon Fuller. Who in the parted buttocks is Simon Fuller? Well, let me tell you. He was the manager of the Spice Girls when they were very much on the up. After the Spice Girls' success, he put together a new band, through a 100% manufactured audition process that later essentially became the process for Pop Idol. The "band" he put together was S Club 7, and that's where Rachel Stevens comes in, because she was in S Club 7. S Club were campy trash, promoted out the wahooey via childrens' TV programmes and the incredibly lucrative gay scene - and they were huge for a while. Their hits were poppy nonsense, and the lowest of the low and the commonest of the common in terms of denominator. Rachel Stevens emerged from this, and worked with - as the sleeve notes suggest - some of the more talented music producers of the time. And came out with this inoffensive pop music. At a time where music, generally, was offensive by way of being awful. The fact that this is inoffensive, emerging as it did from a wallowing hippo-pool of utter tripe, is actually quite noteworthy, historically speaking. The actual music itself is disposable, but the fact it exists at all is the pearls before the swine of the music industry.
Mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Quebecois version of David Gray, but on the other hand, I couldn't help but think I was listening to the Quebecois version of David Gray. If it'd come out two or three years earlier, and therefore not right at the time that White Ladder was the biggest selling album of the forever, it'd be an incredible album. But I'm pretty sure that White Ladder got played in Montreal cafes, which makes this ever so slightly less impressive.
I get that the people who love Tool really love Tool and I'm happy for them. But Tool bore the very pants off me. DNF because I'm literally not going to learn or experience anything new.
This is truly terrible. I can't decide whether it'd be more appealing to the painfully nerdy crowd who want something edgier than TMBG or to the painfully hip crowd who want something ironic to go with their detached, latte-drinking superiority fantasies. Either way, it's terrible.
Surprisingly melodic prog-ish stuff. Surprised it isn't better known. A bit silly with all it's "warriors" kinda nonsense, but I guess it was the style at the time.
While this wasn't all that objectionable, the whole shuffling radio station thing had been done to death. And the less said about the drunken ranty voicemail message, the better.
Much as I enjoy Oingo Boingo, and Danny Elfman generally, this is just a bit too much for me. Individually the songs are decent affairs, but I can't help but feel that the pudding is overegged.
Was this really as late as 2010? I guess it must have been because it's actually pretty good, unlikely to have been from the 2000s. Listened to it loads back then! Loved it. Let's see if I still do. I do. It's nicely up-beat, takes a lot of influence from music that isn't the mass-produced pap of the previous ten years, and the label clearly wasn't afraid of "something different". I like it. I prefer the eponymous first album, but this is still pretty good and Vampire Weekend probably do deserve a spot on the list.
Satchmo doing what satchmo does. The quality of these recordings - from a hundred years ago - isn't always the best, but the skill sure is. Definitely worth hearing.
Oh wow. This is a strong contender for the worst possible type of music - shoegaze and doom metal. Probably the only the thing that could be any worse might be "Bob Dylan does shoegaze" or maybe 'Merle Haggard does shoegaze, with backing by the Manic Street Preachers". Oh ffs, it's over an hour long, too. Yeah, I have given this a try. I got about a fortnight into it before realising that it was never going to win me over. Euch.
Sure, it was OK.
Interesting album. The sea shanty-type stuff is a good example of sea-shantying - the harmonies are good, the voices are true and that's kind of what you'd expect from a shanty. The rock-folk stuff pales when compared to equivalent stuff from around the same time (Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys - hell, even the Pogues from a decade prior!) but it's OK I guess. Nice to hear it from a Canadian perspective, which has just as much import as the Irish & American Irish stuff. Where this album falls down is the heartfelt rock-ballad stuff - looking at you "Buying Time". It's as if they've heard of Counting Crows, but don't really understand what Counting Crows actually is. At least the running time is comfortable.
Yeah, this is a distillation of the nerd energy of TMBG, Jonathan Coulton, Flight of the Conchords and the like. It sounds amateurish, and I'm absolutely not surprised to read that they were relatively short-lived, producing only two albums and a few episodes of a web TV show. I suspect that the cross-over between people who watched the web TV show and people who watched Dr Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog would have been considerable, obviously the latter with a far higher viewership. It isn't unpleasant to listen to, but I just haven't got that switch that keys me into it.
This was absolutely the tits. Surprised at the things it did, and it did them well. Good news.
This is user recommendation 106 for me, of 226 suggested so far. It's also probably also the tenth Quebecois French album. This is by no means problematic for me - I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Montreal and would happily go back, but I am really quite surprised at how well represented Quebec is in the user suggestions. I mean, my suggestion also happens to be French Canadian, from an act I loved for twenty years before ever even setting foot in the provence.. It's actual really very surprising. Anyway - this appears to be Quebecois prog. And that in itself is as surprising as the quantity of Quebecois music in the user suggestions. It suffers many of the most common pitfalls of prog, generally, in that it is massively over long at an hour and a half, and in many places it's overwrought and pompous. Those are faults of prog rather than, necessarily, Harmonium, who were working with what was the style at the time. Like much prog though, the themes, motif and execution of stand so high that one has to regard the problems described as detractions from the definition, rather than the definition. You can almost forgive the duration because, well, it's good. As other reviewers have pointed out, there may be a language barrier that makes this harder to appreciate, but I'd urge the listener to hear Serge Fiori's voice as an instrument, if you're not a francophone, as you will still gain much from him this way. I am genuinely pleased to have heard this, so merci, and let's see how much more Quebec has to offer!
Oh my, Wendy James! I'm actually super surprised to see this as a recommendation, because while I absolutely love some of Transvision Vamp's songs (Baby I don't care is an absolute masterpiece) I am very aware that they were pilloried in the press at the time, and still haven't really shaken the stigma of just plain "being Transvision Vamp". I don't really get it - I really don't - but I will look forward to listening to this. Yes, it is punky pop tosh and I'm here for it.
Most of this is entirely mid. The bits that are not are the disgustingly country bits.
One cannot overstate the technical brilliance of this album. It's also difficult to listen to, because some of it is there slapping, and other bits are there being off-the-wall dissonant and unhinged - at the same time. Yes, you should listen to it. But don't feel obliged to enjoy it.
Decent punky stuff. Fun to listen to. Not too long.
In the vast, overwhelming majority of cases where the artist says "I want this to sound like nothing and nobody else", the resultant mess ends sounding like everybody else's effort at sounding unique. Music has rules - or at least guidelines - to follow, because if one doesn't, you get something that isn't really music. Fortunately, Shudder to Think paw at the boundaries rather than flat out ignoring them, so this album is at least listenable. It is quite nice to hear what people suggest.
This may be good, but it is so far from my vibe that I simply can't appreciate it. Morose.
Hey, Death Cab for Cutie! In the grim darkness of early-2000s music, these guys managed to be "not awful", which is about as good as one can hope for from the time period.
Hey, I quite like this!
The B52s are absolutely underrated. While they could easily be dismissed as a novelty act, they've honed that act to a scalpel edge. Everything is placed perfectly, and you've got to give them credit for that. There's also quite a lot of fun to be had with that precision.
In the first two tracks, this had everything it needed to be an insufferable pile of garbage. Fortunately, it picked up and became quite energetic and punky, which I ended up very much enjoying.
Seems fairly mid to be honest. Kudos for him doing it all by himself, more than I could do.
I absolutely hate, loathe and detest this album cover. Whatever it sounds like, it's going to get at least two points docked just for having the 2nd worst album cover since that other user suggestion for Thee Oh Sees Live in SF, where the guy's snot was flying out over the audience. Grim. Having listened to a few tracks - I can safely say that with the minus 2 for sleeve art, this would be one of the few to review at a straight zero. Because it is very well produced with some nice beats, but it is boring as hell and there've been two skip tracks by halfway through. Please note that the skips are entirely because of repetitiveness. There is only so much plaintive falsetto giving way to an even higher-pitched break that one can cope with. The space synths in the background add nothing to the mix. If it had a less awful cover, it'd come out with a boring but not offensive 2. Blinding Lights is upbeat enough to dodge the rest of this whiny tripe.
I submitted this, and I finally get to review it! Hooray! Like everyone else in the 1990s, BV3k came to my attention courtesy of the Rolling Rock advert (featuring Drinkin' in La) and on the back of that, I was persuaded to buy Glee. Glee wasn't like anything I'd heard before, and it was a very strong contender for suggestion here. What Glee isn't, though, is accessible. James Di Salvio had put it together by contacting mates in the Quebec music scene, asking them for music and then throwing it all at the wall. Somehow something brilliant came out of it, but I can fully see why many people would be turned off by it. Discosis is more accessible, but I can still see why the variety and pace of it would put people off. Di Salvio used pretty much the exact same approach as he had for Glee, though instead of approaching his mates from Montreal, he went through his record collection - getting work from Curtis Mayfield, Big Daddy Kane, Youssou N'dour, Eek-a-mouse and Jean Leloup to play with. That's astonishing, and the pedigree of the performers is testament to how well Glee did with people who were in the know. Discosis opens incredibly strong - as other reviews have commented - with Curtis Mayfield's previously unreleased vocals forming the basis of a soul-lifting, foot-tapping journey, developing over it's 5¾ minute run into a fast-paced, Latinesque that feeds itself in perfectly to an all-over-the-place album. The rest of the album may not quite reach the heights, but almost everything just fits together nicely. It makes me happy in ways that few other albums do. Despite this, I agree they should have ended it with Love Cliche, as Rock Star easily whimpers out as the weakest track on the album by a country mile. I didn't know, when I submitted this (probably nearly a year ago) that there would be quite so many Quebecois acts represented in the user suggestions, however I don't have much in the way of regrets submitting this. If pressed again now I might have suggest Cymande's eponymous first album, but if I'm honest with myself, Discosis has the most play time of any album I've ever bought. So I'm sorry if you don't enjoy your experience with Bv3k. I think it's a grower, maybe give it another go, knowing it won't let you sit still and settle into a genre for very long. Set aside your expectations, be curious about where Di Salvio takes you and have fun. Don't worry about how you get there.
This is a whole grab bag of fun! I'm Gen X. It makes me very happy to find out that this is what the youth are up to. the Boy, does this mishmash of glitch, dubstep, ska punk, metal and all the other stuff it is just hit exactly the right spots. This is bv3k two decades on. And I like it. Best tracks on the first listen - Frog on the Floor and One Million Dollars.
I quite like the music - though I'm not entirely convinced by the Death Cab for Cutie vocals and the interaction between the two.
Great stuff. Early days of disco, but not really truly disco yet. Some of the slower numbers were a chore, but that's only really expected from 70s albums.
I get the idea of making something like this, but that doesn't mean I like it.
Moderately surprised to see some The Beautiful South in the list. Hull's best known export (outside of chip spice) making decent music in one of their later albums. Will be interesting to listen to this again for the first time in 25 or so years. This is both better and worse than I remember. The songwriting is perhaps more ambitious than on their earlier albums, but too often that ambition results in an absolute miss. Blackbird on the wire is the first of these - it's too pedestrian, too repetitive and too sentimental to justify nearly five minutes of album time. Liar's Bar also over-eggs the pudding, this time trying to extend what should be two and a half minutes of appreciative homage into nearly six minutes of a chore. The absolute low point of the album though is the cover of Artificial Flowers, which feels like a drag after just a few seconds, and laboriously drags us to the final two tracks of the album. One God isn't that bad, but once again Alone stretches out too long. The radio play pop songs are grand.
Those vocals are incrediblely tiring.
It's to picture something as American as this, but thankfully it is not rootin' tootin' truck-driving. It's your normal, average somebody listening to this while they drive to work. It is average music for average people, done very well.
It's almost as if there's nothing there. Ambient music at its most transparent.
This is not the last album of Gen X, but it is fairly close to the end of what could be considered Gen X. The death knell and final nail of Gen X, and the true birth of the Millennials, comes with The Spice Girls/Pepsi tie-in song (you hate to read that, but the millennials who didn't get why The Mighty Mighty Bosstones were in Clueless are probably the one ones who'd truly disagree) Move Over. Weezer are still are flying the Gen X flag, but unlike their more famous and successful early predecessors and contemporaries, they managed to combine the idgaf outsider vibe of Gen X with actual fun. This stands in stark contrast to Faith no More, Pearl Jam and the like, and it makes it hold up better now. But they sold out massively by bundling the video for Buddy Holly with Windows 95! Windows 95, for crying out loud. I sure hope they got residuals for that. This album actually appeals to me. I've listened to it before - back in the 1990s I'd say - and I certainly haven't felt need to since. It holds up relatively well today as an example of its time. I think I'd rather have this than one of the multiple Soundgarden offerings of the original list. Good recommendation for the list - it is a piece of musical archaeology, encased in amber.
Good heavens, yet another Montreal act in the user suggestions. Astonishing! This is an enjoyable-ish puff piece that bumbles away in the background, never really filling the space it takes up. It skirts on the boundaries of jazz and ambient from the ambient side. It's OK - but I'm not feeling like I need to investigate further.
More of an experience than an album. I like it, but I don't think I can listen to it often.
This was tolerable, occasionally vaguely appealing pop-dance tosh. There is nothing world-changing about it, it merely exists to show that highly-polished mediocrity is still mediocre.
This is pretty decent for what it is - not my thing, but competently handled. I actually managed to listen to it all without getting too tired of it, which is proper unusual for the genre.
Top notch jazz. I'm glad I listened to it. Edited review. I had misread something and thought this was some late 90s release of top notch jazz from someone who'd been playing for decades. Turns out it's from 1959 and someone relatively new to the scene - and that turns it from being top notch to something beyond. It is amazing. Extraordinary. Remarkable.
Reasonable, but uninspiring. Sure, the guitar work is faultless, but how can faultless keep you interested?
Mid-2000s radgy indie, post britpop and would be appealing to the same sorts of people who like the interchangeable acts of the time - the Coral, the Fratellis, the rapture, the whatever. This does have the benefit of not sounding like it has the sneering arrogance of the time. I could be wrong, I'm not great at Norwegian. The lack of, or my obliviousness to, that arrogance lifts the album slightly.
I approach this with some degree of scepticism, but a willingness to give it a go. I'm struck, in the opening track, of how terrible his speak/singing is. The timbre of his voice does not compel, and the card-by-card accounting of the poker game between the Devil and God is painfully reminiscent of one of Arnold Rimmer's Risk stories. I was genuinely hoping for the moment God jammed the park of cards up the Devil's nostrils, head butted him on the nose and had the deck come blasting out of his ears. Unfortunately that didn't happen, and we go meandering on to some "an evening with" style small-venue humourous stories, complete with frequent dips into honky-tonk piano. Lord, when you're finished your poker game can you give me something to be enthusiastic about please? I get that this is a very unique example of music for the list. The closest I can think of is Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner, but that doesn't have even a percentage of this album's tongue-in-cheek, knowing wink campy theatricality. I'd pick other people to demonstrate this style. Victoria Wood springs instantly to mind. Perhaps even Tim Minchin. Hell, Richard Cheese kinda does it. Sure, it's unique and sure, musical and production values are sky high - but is this music I'd listen to for the pleasure of listening to music? Aw, no. No it isn't. 4 for variety and novelty though.
This is actually a pretty interesting platter. R&B that sounds British. I don't mean just the accents - this is British to the very core, and I'm definitely here for that in my R&B. I do enjoy the diversions, meanders and wanderings of this, but what kinda lets it down is the overproduction. I've said before now that studio producers are hugely underrated, but every now and again you find a producer who showboats, and while I think Sampha might not be the worst offender for that, there are a total of six named producers on this cutting, and it shows. The diversions, meandering and wanderings are - genuinely - enjoyable, but I think as a whole it would benefit from more cohesive production, with a steadier hand at the tiller. Definitely enjoyed, and there's aa strong chance I'll look for earlier stuff.
Hey! More Canadia representation! Not Montreal, admittedly, but still definitely from Canadia. I do love me some chiptune from time to time, and despite being adamant that "they hate videogames" and this "not being chiptune" - sorry, eh, but you named yourself after a classic videogame and used Atari hardware to create a bunch of 8-bit sounds. I guess you're making chiptune eh? This is a decent collection of aggressively electronic music, and I'm glad I've heard it.
A bit of a voyage, this one. Wasn't expecting it to be this - for some reason I imagined that it would be some minimalist ambient thing, but no - it started out being awful, lumber-shirt wearing indie tosh, obviously from before it was cool. Honestly though - it got better. I'm not going to hurry out and listen to it again, but meh, it's OK innit?
Dear lord, this is a terrible album. Sure, it's nicely produced with a fair degree of dynamic range - but it is a tepid to the point of discomfort.
Better than I remember it being - but still very much associated in my mind with teenagers in baggy trews and too much metal in their faces. Is there anyone who really, really likes this album who didn't have one of those ridiculously distended earlobes?
74 minutes of overindulgence. Sounds a bit like if Muse were trying to do long-form, and I'm not here for that. As for the selection of it - do you really, genuinely think that this stands up as an album? On its own, not being part of the series? Well I sure don't.. This is bullshit.
"Beware the friendly stranger" - this is Salad Fingers! Why is the music from Salad Fingers in the user recommended list?
OK, so Sufjan Stevens is in the main list, and has 2 (to my knowledge) recommendations in the user list. I think he's perfectly adequately represented in the main list. The two user recommendations are significantly worse than the main entry, and neither of them do anything sufficiently different to justify inclusion. Soz.
Tony Christie enters the chat. Is this the way to AmarElo? Has Emicida spent every night hugging his pillow? Is Emicida expecting Sweet Marie to be waiting for him? Crap jokes aside, this is some decent enough Brasilia hip hop, with pedestrian but competently executed beats. The flow is decent enough, but having zero grip of Portuguese clearly doesn't help. I can only assume it's quite good. Thankfully he's got enough variety in his delivery to make it listenable - obviously not including the absolutely wasted jive talks about - well, I don't have the first clue, do I? I don't understand Portuguese.
A curate's egg. Bits of it were delicious.
There is nothing particularly wrong with this album, but it honestly lacks the impact of others. For anyone else, it would be delightful. For Bjork, it's a bit of a continuation. I do think other comments are correct in that she's over-served in this list, especially as other albums hit harder.
Sounds like the soundtrack to a film where people cry a lot. Also sounds like she's singing with her eyes shut. The first few tracks disappear into the background with absolutely nothing to bring me back into the listen. Sure, she's got a nice voice. But boy, do I find this dull.
Hey, this is actually mostly pretty good.
Richard Dawson, local lad from just up the road, is really jolly good. His track "Jogging" is his stand out best, but this album is pretty good. There's little "pleasant" about Peasant - but Dawson does love to subvert expectations. If you're hearing this as anything but a deliberately considered vehicle for making you feel something, you're perhaps missing out a touch. His lyrics are cynical, the delivery designed to be deceptive. I enjoy it a lot, although I wouldn't chose to listen to very often. Great selection. If you really hate it - you can carry on with your life. If you're intrigued by it, or if you flat out enjoy it, I'd very much recommend listening to Jogging. It takes a lot of these dodges, swerves and chicanes and hones them down to perfection. I just wish I was eloquent enough to write properly about this.
This is tepid in a way that makes you think that Justin wossisface has gone out of his way to make luke-warm music. You'd expect to hear this in a chain coffee house. If you heard it in a pub, you'd leave.
This has now been a three times "did not finish" Which is odd, because I don't exactly dislike it. I much prefer the tracks which seem to rip off the John Lydon vocals over the ones that seem to rip off Damon Allbran or David Bowie. Honestly, what this album is is way too fucking long. After throwing literally everything at the wall to see what sticks, these guys went to the foot of the wall afterwards, picked up the hour-and-fifteen-ish minutes of the stuff that didn't stick and fastidiously, painstakingly glued it to the wall anyway. A lot of THAT, came unstuck, so they went back, examining all around the skirting board to make sure they weren't accidental standing on some of it, and proceeded to nail in the stuff that didn't, couldn't and wouldn't stick on in the previous two goes. I've read some of the reviews, including that of the submittor, and the positive reviews are scarily reminiscent of how I feel about Lexx. Lexx is a terrible TV show. The scripts are bad. The acting is bad. The special effects are bad. The music is bad. The plotlines are bad. Literally every single aspect of Lexx that could ever be plucked out and examined outside the context of Lexx itself is bad. No, not bad. Awful. Toe-curlingly, fist-clenchingly awful. You regret every second you spend watching Lexx, because it is unimaginably, irredeemably bad. But if you persist, if you make it through, you're left with the honest and very real sense that you've experienced, witnessed and endured somethings astonishing. I mean, you haven't. You've watched Lexx and that is objectively terrible by every measurable metric. But you I'm afraid that despite the comparison, Sing to God does not compare. There are moments of genuine interest in here. The last 3-4 minutes of "wireless" are divine. And, as previously stated I don't exactly dislike a lot of what's going on here. The vocals copy SO MANY people, and to get to true Lexx territory, all of these must fail. Dirty Boy, for example, has hints of Brett Anderson of Suede as well as Paul Draper of Mansun. Neither comparison is ill-founded - and that's my point entirely. It too good in too many places to be the hot mess that it is. Despite the final note being held for what seems like 47 years - it doesn't disguise the fact that there is good stuff there. And that's painfully unforgivable.
Hey a live album from a electronic act! Hear all of your favourite Daft Punk tracks, but lower quality! Also includes the whoops and hoots of the audience. You know, because you'd want that. I've said before that live albums can absolutely do one, and this is one of the most utterly beautiful examples of why.
Good stuff. I wish punk had turned out that shape.
This is a bit Nick Cave in places. It's alright.
I rather enjoyed this. Won't ever listen to it again, like, but glad that I heard it once.
Fun pop, although if anything should be hacked out of this for the sake of making a better, shorter album, it should be "All That" - yawn city on an album of fun, engaging pop.
Wow. The conceit of making a prog rock epic "from a woman's perspective" is frankly pretty astounding. I can't say that it lives up to its ambitions. It is frequently subject to the ridiculous ornate overindulgence of the worst of prog as a genre, while not coming even close to the highs that that genre can afford. At its best, it is competent prog. I certainly do not hate it, but I cannot for the life of my fathom it's inclusion when there's so much less wanky prog out there.
Like others, I thought this was another troll suggestion. Listening to it, it is anodyne tosh. But it does capture that segment of the late 1980s in a way nothing much else on the list seems to. Genuinely quite entertained to realise I remembered some of it.
This is really quite something. I preferred Solid Air from the main list, but this definitely a close second like.
Absolutely indistinguishable from any of the other early-mid 2000s radgy post-britpop indie bands. Wasted slot, there is nothing unique about it, and we've already had enough of this kind of dreck in the list.
This is well constructed and does what it does well. Lummy, it's not exactly perky though, is it?
This dude fingers the fret like no fret has ever been fingered. The copious string noise is to remind the gap year girls that acoustic guitar players are sexy, and that they should definitely sleep with acoustic guitar players, because girl, what else can them fingers do? It is definitely music of the mid-2000s, but also it is music originating approximately 7,250 miles from Sheffield, which is about as far away from Sheffield as one can get in the Northern Hemisphere before one has to start moving either to the southern hemisphere, or (reluctantly) back to Sheffield. And that means that it is SO MUCH BETTER than the sort of music that was so unfortunately popular in the mid-2000s, in that it isn't aggressively, sneeringly arrogant. It doesn't involve lager or kebabs or fighting. Pleasingly, it is also not crunk, nor does it involve the preposterously large buttocks of white girl with a weave attempting to alter the fabric of space/time with the clapping of said buttocks. It's just a guy fingering the fuck out of an acoustic guitar, and there's something honest about that.
This is pretty unexpected - not entirely sure what it was that I was expecting, but it sure wasn't this. Quite nice though!
Apart from the jarring country number randomly included in a collection of otherwise perfectly acceptable blues tracks, this is a fine record. Not great, as far as I can tell. But very much fine.
From what I remember of this before falling into a very deep and satisfying sleep, it was alright. When I woke up, the algorithm had shifted me over to someone called Nilüfer Yana, and I really enjoyed what I heard of her, so thanks for something that had the algo make me happy!
The metal is fairly competent, by-the-numbers metal. I'd not call it noteworthy.
Well this is very odd. The opening strains (and I do mean strains) of this sounded like they were coming from a bluetooth speaker in another room of the house. They were not. But stereo imaging is good, isn't it, and occasionally you get something like this to come along and make you feel disconcerted. When the music kicks in, you've got some interesting production choices going on. I don't know who this Tight-arse Andro-knickers is, but he's an interesting singer. The album suffers from being 15 minutes too long. I liked the less "white-noise" tracks more.