Little Richard's unique voice is obviously the most striking thing about this album. Other than that, it's slightly repetitive, with all of its 50s era bopping simple blues pattern. I felt like I heard 4 or 5 songs, some of them 4 times.
The majority of the album feels like 80s electronic dance club music, although the final song, King's Cross, stands apart from the rest of the album. The electronic music is tolerable, but feels a little corny to me. King's Cross is a more serious song, and stylistically much more like the "serious songs" that respected rockers like Phil Collins or Don Henley produced during that era.
It's Prince! That's a statement by itself.
Prince set the bar in his own variety of extremely suggestive funk. It is undeniably extremely fun and catchy. All of the radio hits retain are just as fun as ever, and songs that are less often remembered, like Something in the Water, are just as fun as the radio hits.
Perhaps I'm more prudish than most, but I didn't see the "genius" in the sex obsession in Prince's music. I just felt like the music was shallow, approaching lecherous. But even if don't consider this to be a good moral code, you can still enjoy the album intensely. I did.
Disclaimer: This album requires several focused listenings to appreciate. I'd like it more, the more I listen.
This album is embarrassed in the company of genuinely great Metallica like the Black Album. Musicianship and lyricism appear at several points, but much of the middle of this album is simply aggression, without substance to back it up. The album sets the tone early, with Battery, an impressive song, but also a good case study in the difference between technically impressive music and good music.
Orion would have been a good conclusion for the album. It's a good song on its own, and it also returns to the theme of Battery.
Every guitar solo on this album is worth hearing, in context, so you should listen all the way through, if only to appreciate the guitar solos.
This album would be much better if Destruction Inc. were dropped from the lineup.
Maybe I just don't appreciate it, but I found it hard to pay much attention to a whole album of the same thing. I enjoyed the sound a little bit, but didn't see all that much to see in it.
Intolerably boring.
Obviously, I'm not the biggest fan of punk. I've heard more unpleasant noises, but never such boring noise. By the second half of the album, I couldn't even get through most of the songs. The Ramones at least had the decency to impart enough "oomph" that you'd have something to listen to, love it or hate it.
The title track is one of my favorites, and frequently wins radio station polls. The rockers are always fun, and make this one of my top picks. The Eagles reliably deliver the full, polished sound of a real rock band, even in the songs where they're whining instead of rocking.
I appreciated the slow songs more this time, since I listened more consciously than I usually do. All in all, I greatly enjoyed the album.
I was a little exasperated by Don Henley's perpetually bleeding heart, but that might just be a lack of patience with his slow ones. I loved every song on the Boys of Summer alblum, and I don't have as much trouble with Rufus Wainwright's bleeding heart.
I can't believe I'd heard so little of Donovan before this!
This album leans heavy on psychedelic, but it does so much more, and it shows a lot of the sound that I'd thought was a Doors trademark. Donovan clearly deserves to be remembered as a first generation innovator of rock music, rather that the also-ran, hanger-on to the Beatles and Bob Dylan that I'd thought he was.
I really enjoyed this, and I don't do Hip Hop in general.
The entire album communicates a great sense of humor and a positive worldview. It's also catchy enough to engage me even though I don't really like rap. My understanding of the history is that Run-D.M.C. created that punk-rap sound that makes Rock Box distinctive, although the idea was actually Rick Rubin's and they'd never heard the punk backing when they recorded their vocals. It clearly influenced the Beastie Boys, and led the way to their other guitar backed tracks, like their Walk This Way collaboration.
It's fine, but I don't see how it could hold your attention for that long. I found it uninteresting.
Always love ZZ Top. They and Flea were the reason I started playing bass. This is a mature version of an otherwise immature band. They have all the power of arena rockers with all the grit of the Texas Blues sound that built the band.
With that said, as I get older and fussier, a full album composed mostly of lechery starts to feel more disgusting to me, so enter at your own risk.
Wasn't unpleasant but plain enough that it was hard to stay interested. The vocals sound like a man who doesn't want to wake a kid sleeping in the next room. Rococo Zephyr had a richer sound than the first few tracks.
Overall, I wouldn't mind hearing it again, but I would never put it on deliberately.
When I bought this CD, I listened for two weeks every time I drove, and loved it more each time. But it's a bit of an acquired taste. I grew up in Philly, which loves Metallica.
You will need to tolerate some abrasiveness, since this is metal. The vocals transition so well, from normal speaking and singing, to subtle growling, to shouting and screaming. Every song will have, in addition to the song itself, at least one complex solo or instrumental passage which is also worth hearing.
Very interesting and fun. Very accessible too. I'm not much of a techno, dance or electronica enthusiast, and I was jamming out in my car while I listened. If there's something to "understand" or feel on a deeper level, then it blew right by me, but I think that if I listen a few more times, then I'd really come to like this album.
Life is too short to listen to this kind of garbage. I couldn't finish the opening track, and ended up skipping three of the first four.
I actually liked "Wail". It sounded like some Talking Heads style absurdism. But the quality didn't hold and after trying two more tracks, I bailed on the album.
This starts on the wrong foot. The first two tracks have none of the innocent fun feeling that made the Beach Boys, and none of the beauty or technical proficiency of the obvious contemporaries, like the Beatles.
Even when it's not terrible, this music is all awkward and self-conscious.
Feel Flows and Lookin' At Tomorrow were more of a trip. All in all, the album improved enough that it's worth a listen.
I've always been a sucker for Zeppelin. It would get 5 stars, but I understand that if you haven't cultivated the taste for it, you might find Robert Plant's voice a bit whiny.
This is when mainstream rock got a lot more aggressive. Obviously, the bigger hits are going to be more accessible, so The Lemon Song might be harder to get into.
Some songs on the album are tolerable. I got halfway through Hamlet (Pow Pow Pow) and that was enough for me.
Imagine if Tom Waits displayed no musical talent and a genuine desire to make his shows extremely irritating without redeeming artistic value.
