948
Albums Rated
2.76
Average Rating
87%
Complete
141 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
2010s
Favorite Decade
Soul
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Perfectionist
Rater Style ?
23
5-Star Albums
17
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post Orgasmic Chill | 5 | 2.99 | +2.01 |
| Life's Too Good | 5 | 3.07 | +1.93 |
| If You're Feeling Sinister | 5 | 3.18 | +1.82 |
| Fetch The Bolt Cutters | 5 | 3.19 | +1.81 |
| Rain Dogs | 5 | 3.2 | +1.8 |
| Here, My Dear | 5 | 3.21 | +1.79 |
| Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman | 4 | 2.22 | +1.78 |
| Emergency On Planet Earth | 5 | 3.27 | +1.73 |
| Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables | 5 | 3.27 | +1.73 |
| Wonderful Rainbow | 4 | 2.28 | +1.72 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Odelay | 1 | 3.46 | -2.46 |
| Urban Hymns | 1 | 3.35 | -2.35 |
| Hysteria | 1 | 3.21 | -2.21 |
| Rubber Soul | 2 | 4.12 | -2.12 |
| Underwater Moonlight | 1 | 3.05 | -2.05 |
| At Folsom Prison | 2 | 3.99 | -1.99 |
| Psychocandy | 1 | 2.94 | -1.94 |
| This Nation’s Saving Grace | 1 | 2.89 | -1.89 |
| Elephant | 2 | 3.86 | -1.86 |
| Siamese Dream | 2 | 3.83 | -1.83 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Kendrick Lamar | 2 | 5 |
| Tom Waits | 5 | 4.2 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| The Fall | 3 | 1 |
| Beck | 3 | 1.67 |
| The Verve | 2 | 1.5 |
| Bee Gees | 2 | 1.5 |
| Def Leppard | 2 | 1.5 |
| Public Image Ltd. | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Jesus And Mary Chain | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Kinks | 4 | 2 |
| The Byrds | 5 | 2.2 |
| The Rolling Stones | 5 | 2.2 |
| Talking Heads | 3 | 2 |
| Beastie Boys | 3 | 2 |
| Echo And The Bunnymen | 3 | 2 |
| The Stooges | 3 | 2 |
| Blur | 3 | 2 |
| My Bloody Valentine | 3 | 2 |
| Morrissey | 3 | 2 |
| Roxy Music | 3 | 2 |
| Elvis Costello & The Attractions | 3 | 2 |
| Metallica | 4 | 2.25 |
5-Star Albums (23)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Mekons
1/5
Best Song: None.
Worst Song: Chivalry. What in the 8-bit cowboy is that background instrumental?
Overall: I will be surprised if there is a worse vocal performance on this list. This sounds like your milquetoast colleague who always wants to go to karaoke, so you assume they must be able to sing, but when they get on stage they just start loudly talking with the music. And it's interspersed with amateur theatre? Even better. This album is one of the 1001 ways to tell that you've actually already died and you were sent to the bad place.
25 likes
The Verve
1/5
Best Song: Bittersweet Symphony. Even though the song is overplayed, it felt like the only song on the album that woke up and came to play.
Worst Song: Catching the Butterfly. Slow, meandering, with a kind of nasal drone.
Overall: Not entirely sure what there is to like about this album. The massiveness of Bittersweet Symphony overshadows the rest of the album, which comes off as sleepy and uninteresting. It doesn't even have the decency to be short.
12 likes
Joy Division
2/5
Best Song: Interzone. Finally something mildly uptempo.
Worst Song: Day of the Lords. When WILL it end?
Overall: This sounds like music created by and for people on Valium. Really don't see the appeal here. I like the prominence of the bassline throughout the album, but the vocals sound like a tranquilized Jim Morrison.
5 likes
Dire Straits
2/5
Best Song: Your Latest Trick. Rarely do you get an opportunity to listen to a sleazy saxophone solo like this.
Worst Song: Money for Nothing. Absolutely everything in this song sounds dated, from the expired references to MTV and colour TVs, to the entirely out-of-pocket use of homophobic slurs.
Overall: Overwhelmingly medium music. Nothing very interesting here. Instrumentals are obviously slick, but the vocals are weak and the lyrics stink.
5 likes
Jamiroquai
5/5
Best Song: Too Young to Die. Dancy, groovy, with a hint of melancholy lyrics. Absolute jam.
Worst Song: There isn't one.
Overall: May more lyrically interesting than I expected, full of dark gems mixed with funky, high energy music that makes you want to move. Feels like the dance album for the apocalypse.
"Death can seem to bear no relevance
Bet you wished you'd danced to the music
What you want to do is kill yourself
Still you don't dance to the music"
5 likes
1-Star Albums (17)
All Ratings
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3/5
Best Song: Carry On. Kicks the album off with ethereal harmonies and a driving tempo.
Worst Song: Helpless. Neil Young solo vocals do not stand up against the harmonies of the other songs.
Overall: Meh. Starts with an interesting, "revolutionary-hippie" vibe that dies off for a slower atmosphere for the latter half of the album
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Best Song: Travelin' Band. Short and high tempo.
Worst Song: Ooby Dooby. Because the chorus is "Ooby Dooby".
Overall: More blues-y than I expected. Several songs that overstayed their welcome.
2/5
Best Song: Australia. Kind of catchy and fun lyrics.
Worst Song: Yes Sir, No Sir. Lyrically cliche, slow and plodding.
Overall: I can feel the influences that this album must have had, but it feels REAL dated.
Queen
3/5
Best Song: '39. Topic is unexpected for what I know of Queen.
Worst Song: The Prophet's Song. The layered vocals/canon thing that takes up the entire middle of the song is horrible.
Overall: I could never listen to Bohemian Rhapsody again and die happy.
The Doors
4/5
Best Song: Waiting for the Sun. Maggie M'Gill. Psychedelic, with moments where Morrison lets loose.
Worst Song: Land Ho. The whole song sounds restrained.
Overall: Bluesy, with a sort of drugged and drunken swagger. Is at its best when Jim Morrison is wild and uninhibited, and at its worst when he tries scatting.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Best Song: Man in the Mirror. Perfect merge between pop and gospel.
Worst Song: I Just Can't Stop Loving You. The last thing this album needs is a slow ballad in the middle to absolutely kill the vibe.
Overall: The hits are fucking Hits, but the middling tracks are just okay. Can't believe anyone ever thought "hee-hee" was an acceptable musical adlib.
Various Artists
2/5
Best Song: Sleigh Ride. Feels like the distillation of a Christmas movie montage.
Worst Song: Frosty the Snowman. I think I just find this song obnoxious, regardless of version.
Overall: Well-produced Christmas music, but still just Christmas music.
The B-52's
2/5
Best Song: Hero Worship. No male vocals, and an uninhibited/chaotic/amateurish vocal performance.
Worst Song: Planet Claire. Just a goofy start to the album.
Overall: The female vocals far outperform the male ones. In a not altogether bad way, it sounds like an alien's conception of what rock music is,
The The
4/5
Best Song: Infected. Bombastic and actually lyrically interesting.
Worst Song: Heartland. Not terrible, but it really feels like the author is performing a monologue in an amateur theatre on this one.
Overall: Liked it much more than I expected. Feels like what the B-52s want to be, but cooler and more true-to-self. Rare that I like 80s music like this.
Dirty Projectors
3/5
Best Song: Stillness in the Move. Best vocals of the album.
Worst Song: Temecula Sunrise. Really don't like the instrumental spasm they do right before the words "Temecula Sunrise".
Overall: Fun looping and layered instrumentals that just ultimately wasn't for me.
Belle & Sebastian
5/5
Best Song: Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying. I love anything that places dark and melancholy meaning within an upbeat presentation.
Worst Song: Like Dylan In The Movies. Not a bad song, just the least interesting lyrically of an otherwise excellent album.
Overall: Fantastic. Exactly my type of muted, lyrically poignant songwriting.
The Verve
1/5
Best Song: Bittersweet Symphony. Even though the song is overplayed, it felt like the only song on the album that woke up and came to play.
Worst Song: Catching the Butterfly. Slow, meandering, with a kind of nasal drone.
Overall: Not entirely sure what there is to like about this album. The massiveness of Bittersweet Symphony overshadows the rest of the album, which comes off as sleepy and uninteresting. It doesn't even have the decency to be short.
The White Stripes
2/5
Best Song: Hypnotize. A song that leans forward the whole way.
Worst Song: You've Got Her in Your Pocket. No one is here for attempts at a ballad. Really disrupts the punchy, staccato flow.
Overall: Not as good as I expected/remembered. For such a raw production style, I expected more passion and intensity in the lyrics and the pacing.
Beck
1/5
Best Song: Where It's At. Succeeds (partly) in instilling the chill vibe that I think the rest of the album is striving towards.
Worst Song: High 5 (Rock the Catskills). Unironically sounds like a Kid Rock song.
Overall: Slow and monotonous droning that absolutely is not for me.
Manu Chao
4/5
Best Song(s): Luna y sol. Malegría. Upbeat and high tempo songs that wake you up out of the otherwise relaxed atmosphere.
Worst Song: Lágrimas de oro. Just wasn't a fan of the "rapping" near the end of the song.
Overall: Really fun album that seamlessly transitions between chilled out café music with outright lively dance songs.
Blue Cheer
2/5
Best Song: Second Time Around. Good drum solo near the end.
Worst Song: Doctor Please. Not terrible, but it just felt like a jam session that wasn't particularly interesting relative to any other.
Overall: An altogether "alright" proto-metal album that seems to be on the list for reasons relating to legacy, rather than the overwhelming quality of the music. Also, the stereo-mixing is strange, and had me wondering whether my headphones were broken for half the album.
Depeche Mode
4/5
Best Song: World in My Eyes. Groovy, bombastic intro that sets the tone for the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Blue Dress. Weird and overly long outro.
Overall: Better than I expected. Feels like an odd combination of dance music and Buffalo Bill style murder monologues.
David Bowie
3/5
Best Song: Cracked Actor. Fun rhythm, song didn't take itself as seriously as the rest of the album does.
Worst Song: Aladdin Sane. Really didn't like the piano solo.
Overall: Had some vocally interesting tracks, but mostly the instrumentals felt overly theatrical. I cannot doubt that there are other (better) Bowie albums on this list, so I have to wonder why this one also needed to be included.
Moby
5/5
Best Song: Find My Baby. All the vocals looped throughout were excellent.
Worst Song: Porcelain.
Overall: Excellent collection of songs with great sampling and mixing. Track ordering is sometimes weird though, resulting in heavy tonal shifts between tracks (e.g., the transition from Rushing to Bodyrock). Last third of the album also slows down considerably.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
Best Song: Stairway to Heaven. For a song so famous, it still delivers. Maybe because it isn't as overplayed on the radio as other similar mega-songs.
Worst Song: Four Sticks. Not bad, just boring.
Overall: Hard to listen naively given how ubiquitous this album is, but even under that weight it feels monumental.
Eels
2/5
Best Song: Susan's House. Down-earth lyrics that don't tread so heavily on cliché ideas.
Worst Song: Beautiful Freak. Cheesy and massively overplayed lyrics. I think the writer thought the juxtaposition of "beautiful" and "freak" was a lot more unique and poetic than it is.
Overall: Sounds like the soundtrack to a movie I wouldn't like. Feels as though the music derives its whole purpose from believing it is counter-culture.
The Electric Prunes
1/5
Best Song: Sold to the Highest Bidder. Best song musically, although it does have some woefully misogynistic lyrics.
Worst Song: Quarter to Nine. An utterly failed attempt at sounding suave.
Overall: Lyrically dated songs that sound like they were written by a bunch of high school horndogs, all backed by pretty ho-hum instrumentation. Feels like a waste of the otherwise cool phrase "i had too much to dream last night". The album's best quality is its brevity.
The Specials
2/5
Best Song: A Message to You Rudy. Just a classic.
Worst Song: Too Much Too Young.
Overall: A weird album for me. The whole thing feels too sleepy and laid back. There's nothing unpleasant about it, nor is there anything exciting.
Sinead O'Connor
3/5
Best Song: Black Boys on Mopeds. Soft instrumentation with haunting, socially conscious lyrics that still feel relevant.
Worst Song: Nothing Compares 2 U. This might just be me punching out against the obviously most famous song on the album, but although sung beautifully, the whole song has this sort of weepy, damsel-in-distress, helplessness that undercuts the strong voice and individuality of the rest of the album. There are better songs about failed relationships on this album.
Overall: A fine collection of soft, poignant songs. I would have preferred more of the politically charged songs and fewer of the purely relationship ones.
The Pogues
4/5
Best Song: A Pair of Brown Eyes. Rousing, rolling song in a singalong style.
Worst Song: A Pistol for Paddy Garcia. A just okay instrumental song with a Old West vibe.
Overall: Rough, raw, danceable music that also manages to tell stories with each song. Excellent folk punk.
The Soft Boys
1/5
Best Song: Insanely Jealous of You. An actually intense song that concludes in an interesting crescendo.
Worst Song: I Got the Hots. Sounds like a sociopathic, wannabe cowboy learning how to play scales on guitar.
Overall: Wholly boring, with the audacity to think I want to listen to 40 songs of very nearly the same song repeating. Would fit well in a book called "1001 Albums It's Totally Fine to Miss Before You Die."
The Cure
2/5
Best Song: A Strange Day. Good emo lyrics with a groovy swing behind it.
Worst Song: Pornography. Bland, brooding background music.
Overall: It's emo. I can feel its influence, but that doesn't mean I'll like it.
Jamiroquai
5/5
Best Song: Too Young to Die. Dancy, groovy, with a hint of melancholy lyrics. Absolute jam.
Worst Song: There isn't one.
Overall: May more lyrically interesting than I expected, full of dark gems mixed with funky, high energy music that makes you want to move. Feels like the dance album for the apocalypse.
"Death can seem to bear no relevance
Bet you wished you'd danced to the music
What you want to do is kill yourself
Still you don't dance to the music"
Skunk Anansie
5/5
Best Song: On my Hotel TV. The intensity of the lyrics caught me off guard, and the vocals were phenomenal.
Worst Song: I'm Not Afraid. Not terrible, but weak compared to the rest of the album.
Overall: Good instrumentation and sampling turned great by the addition of powerhouse vocal performances on every track. This album lives entirely on the strength of that killer voice, where each song is sung with a passion and intensity that is uncommon.
The Fall
1/5
Best Song: No song is good enough to be the best of the bad bunch.
Worst Song: Rebellious Jukebox. Everything about this sounds like a high school band's first performance of the second song they've ever written. Their classmates are nonplussed.
Overall: Short (thankfully). Nothing exciting nor interesting here. Another example of when this list degrades into "1001 albums and older British man remembers from his youth."
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
Best Song: Jellybelly. Tipped over into heavier territory, which I wished they would do more often.
Worst Song: Bullet with Butterfly Wings. Despite all its plays, the nasal voice will still just annoy me for days.
Overall: Something about this album, and Billy Corgan specifically, just annoys me. The egotism and lack of self-awareness it must have taken for Corgan to write such a wandering double album, forcing us to listen to him whine out "Love is Suicide" over and over and over.
Pixies
2/5
Best Song: Where is My Mind? Obviously the most well-known track on the album, it also feels like the most (only?) that was really constructed as a thoughtful song.
Worst Song: Broken Face. A chorus that seems designed to annoy.
Overall: Chaotic, spastic, and not in a good way. The kind of music that feels like it would be fun to listen to and bounce around with at a grime-y live show, but as a piece of written and recorded music? Meh.
Green Day
3/5
Best Song: Jesus of Suburbia. Upbeat bop that really leans into the pop-punk aesthetic.
Worst Song: Wake Me Up When September Ends. September isn't even that bad of a month. Has he ever met November? January?
Overall: Better than I expected... They sure know how to write a catchy hook. Politically it is fairly milquetoast and "edgy" in a way that always feels safe, if not slightly corporate. The album is much more pop than punk, but the punkier songs are enjoyable and sound like an even more pop-ified Bad Religion, but the attempts at slow ballads really drag the album down.
Tom Waits
4/5
Best Song: Heartattack and Vine. Gritty and caustic blues-soaked track that kicks the album off well.
Worst Song: In Shades. I don't listen to Tom Wats albums for instrumental tracks.
Overall: For a big fan of Tom Waits, this feels like a transitional album, bridging between his earlier melodic stuff and his later grit-and-gravel delivery. For that reason, when he dips into softer tones (like on "Saving All My Love For You" and "On the Nickel") it feels a bit off. Like watching someone use the gnarliest motorcycle to go grocery shopping. Sure it'll get you there, but that's not what it was made for. In all, a good album, but not the Tom Waits album I'd have chosen to appear on the list.
Alanis Morissette
4/5
Best Song: All I Really Want. It feels like lurking behind every lyric and note is a barely unspoken "Fuck You."
Worst Song: Hand in my Pocket. I like the lyrical theme of "I'm one thing but I'm also juxtaposed opposite thing", but the conceit of "I've got one hand in my pocket and the other..." is so silly it takes me out of the song every time. ESPECIALLY when the other hand is playing the piano.
Overall: A really good album that feels raw and adventurous, but occasionally gets in its own way with lyrics that try too hard to be clever and just come off as goofy. I won't beat the dead horse of the song "Ironic", but it hinders an album that otherwise runs with such an intensity it feels like it might come off the tracks at any moment. Also, this was my first time hearing the a cappella outro to "You Oughta Know" as the final track of the album, and it really demonstrates how incredible a voice Alanis Morissette has.
Lenny Kravitz
2/5
Best Song: Mr. Cab Driver. Feels like the root of a decent folk song, even if it isn't totally successful here.
Worst Song: Freedom Train. Took until nearly the end of the song for me to realize what he was even saying. Why is it mixed like he's singing from inside a suitcase?
Overall: Not good. Largely feels like is co-opting a sort of hippie, "free love" aesthetic and presenting it in this smarmy, overly "cool" fashion. The album sounds like Kravitz has cornered some 19-year-old in the corner of a bar and is saying "we should all love each other", but it's pretty clear he doesn't mean all, and he probably doesn't mean love either. Gets weirdly religious towards the end. Combined with Kravitz occasionally pulling this vocal technique where he sounds like he's singing with every ounce of strength he doesn't have, its hard to believe this was a breakout debut.
Arrested Development
3/5
Best Song: Fishin' 4 Religion. Lyrically kinda whack, but the heat behind that beat is undeniable.
Worst Song: Natural. The lowkey production and slow delivery means the goofy lyrics have nowhere to hide. "Cause I want to travel with you
Travel in your mind 'cause you seem like a virgin". Sure.
Overall: A really tough album to review. The beats are the star here, providing a diverse range of groovy, dance-y rhythms. The vocal delivery is also spot-on, if not quintessentially '90s. It's just the lyrics that far too often stray from righteous topics of justice and solidarity into classic, early hip hop corniness and religious preaching. This album is better the less you listen to the lyrics.
The White Stripes
2/5
Best Song: Fell In Love With A Girl. This is how I wish all White Stripes songs sounded.
Worst Song: This Protector. It just sounds amateurish? I understand their aesthetic is this kind of street performer vibe, but this really feels like a first or second rehearsal of a song, not a recorded track.
Overall: Jack White's mewling cat vocals occasionally work here, but the general simplicity of all the songs makes it blend together very quickly. Each song feels like snippet of an idea that was considered for a moment before they cranked out the song and moved on to the next one. I do like the raw vibe though, and if they just played faster and with a little more life, I would actually like the album.
The Cure
2/5
Best Song: A Forest. Driven by a bassline that keeps the song chugging at a decent clip, with interesting mixed and layered effects.
Worst Song: Three. Sparse piano and unintelligible whispers that progresses into a Michael Jackson-sounding beat.
Overall: Nearly the whole album seems content to sit in its own sleepy sadness. It isn't even sad in an interesting way. Just dull. Don't know what context I would ever want to listen to this.
3/5
Best Song: Ziggy Stardust. Might be worth it just for the line "Making love with his ego".
Worst Song: It Ain't Easy. Not bad, just forgettable.
Overall: Very theatrical. Certainly one of the albums on this list that feels most cohesive as a single concept.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Best Song: John Wayne Gacy, Jr. Dark, haunting subject matter told with a gentle presentation.
Worst Song: Jacksonville. Feels like a relatively ordinary and safe song you might hear in a clothing commercial.
Overall: Great to listen to. Really enjoyed the choir sections, particularly the female vocalist. Lyricallly interesting throughout.
Kanye West
5/5
Best Song: Gorgeous. Obviously Runaway stands out, but Gorgeous feels like it has Kanye in his rarest form. Lyrically might be the best of the album, and the whole seems tense and ready to attack.
Worst Song: So Appalled. The chorus is not good enough to repeat as often as they do. The song also suffers from having a somewhat sleepy production and trying to immediately follow Nicki's verse on Monster.
Overall: Expertly produced. The beats are fantastic, the samples scratch itches you didn't know you had, nearly every feature works. Kanye even has his lyrical ducks mostly in a row, but still throws in the occasional goofball bar.
John Prine
2/5
Best Song: Spanish Pipedream. Halfway decent lyrics.
Worst Song: Far from Me. That mewling cat instrumental in the background is not helping.
Overall: Not great. Really repetitive rhythm and rhyme schemes, drawled in what feels like an imitation Dylan affectation. Why listen to this when Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot have done it so much better?
Waylon Jennings
2/5
Best Song: They all mix together in a continuous stream of the same, country-flavoured mush. It may have been fresh when it came out, but that doesn't make it interesting.
Worst Song: Old Five and Dimer (Like Me). Are we at the country bear jamboree?
Overall: I think I just have a predisposition to dislike any music where the singer refers to themselves as a "good old boy." Lyrically uninteresting, musically repetitive.
Willie Nelson
2/5
Best Song: Down Yonder. Nice rousing piano tune.
Worst Song: O'er the Waves. Mega sleepy guitar solo.
Overall: Honestly, this is the third consecutive country/western album the algorithm has given me, so it has all begun to blur. This is not my genre, although of the three albums, I could see why someone might like this one.
Talking Heads
2/5
Best Song: The Book I Read. Romantic in that creepy vibe that the Talking Heads give off.
Worst Song: Psycho Killer (Acoustic). It isn't terrible, but why is the song twice on the same album? They didn't even put the repetition at the end?
Overall: It really just feels like more of the same of this pop punk, alternative rock. Never seems to put any gusto behind any of the songs. Feels like a slightly better version of the B52s.
James Taylor
3/5
Best Song: Sweet Baby James. A smooth introduction to the album, where his voice is really able to shine. Interesting lyrics about religion as well.
Worst Song: Steam Roller Blues. It just doesn't feel like he has the right timbre of voice to grit out this kind of song. His voice is altogether too clean, even if I do like the backing instrumentals.
Overall: Not my typically preferred style of music, but the concise and well-written songs, in combination with Taylor's gentle and smooth voice, works as well as it can for me.
Little Richard
3/5
Best Song: Long Tall Sally. Each two line verse feels like Little Richard is ripping it directly out of his soul. You can feel the recording technology (and his voice) struggle against everything he throws at it.
Worst Song: Miss Ann. The vocal performance is good here, but I prefer the tracks with a faster, more urgent tempo.
Overall: Little Richard comes off as absolutely electric here. The whole album has this manic feel, like it might fall apart at any second.
Beastie Boys
2/5
Best Song: Get It Together. Carried by Q-Tip, although it really does remind you that you could be listening to A Tribe Called Quest instead of this.
Worst Song: Heart Attack Man. Unfunny and noisy.
Overall: I wasn't a fan of the Beastie Boys coming into this, and the album did little to change that. Tracks like Sabrosa and The Update prove that they can make slick, jazzy jams, but more often than not they just descend into noisy lo-fi mumbling.
Bee Gees
1/5
Best Song: Trafalgar. Nice harmonies.
Worst Song: The Greatest Man In The World. Sappy, weepy, corny, with way too much vocal vibrato.
Overall: Why did I think the Bee Gees were fun? This was melodramatic, overly serious, and self-important. Should feature as Figure 1 in the textbook on over-singing.
The Avalanches
3/5
Best Song: Frontier Psychologist. The selection of vocal tracks work really well together to tell a story, mixed well with nice use of drums and scratches.
Worst Song: Flight Tonight. If you're going to repeat a sample that much, make sure you've picked an interesting sample.
Overall: A good background album that feels almost more like a live DJ set than a recorded album. Nothing really stands out as high- or lowlights; instead the entire production works as a single flow. Feels like great music to have in the background while cooking or working.
Arcade Fire
3/5
Best Song: Rococo. I really like the way he plays with the stresses on the syllables of the word "rococo" to generate rhythm in the chorus.
Worst Song: Wasted Hours. Sleepy song that sounds like old blues standard instrumentals. Not a terrible song, but doesn't fit with the rest of the album.
Overall: Well-produced, thoughtful, stylish indie rock-pop? It's definitely very well done, but still ends up feeling somewhat heartless to me.
AC/DC
3/5
Best Song: Beating Around The Bush. Has that slightly rawer feel that benefits the intended vibe.
Worst Song: Walk All Over You. The backing vocals come off really weak here.
Overall: Obviously the title track commands a lot of the respect here. Many of the lesser known tracks even lose a bit of the AC/DC edge and feel like they verge into hair metal (Touch Too Much sounds like it could be a Def Leppard song). Also, has to be one of the worst album covers of all time. It looks like its taken from the perspective of a young woman who just asked if she could join her high school's D&D group.
Adam & The Ants
2/5
Best Song: Dog Eat Dog. Punkish rolling beat with overlapping vocals. High energy.
Worst Song: Don't Be Square (Be There). Elements of this sound like they are intending to sound bad, as if that amounts to punk rock. Absolutely inane lyrics too.
Overall: Another album seemingly pulled from a very specific time and place in England that doesn't belong on this list. I easily could have died having never heard this.
Electric Light Orchestra
3/5
Best Song: Night in the City. Wonderfully layered and uplifted vocals. Almost ruined by the brief cowbell interlude.
Worst Song: Jungle. Much too droning and repetitive of a rhythm, especially balanced against the rest of the album.
Overall: Very theatrical feel. Fits nice in the background, but there are too many slow moments and extended transitions to enjoy a really focused listen.
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
Best Song: Good Golly, Miss Molly. That speed and intensity are in full force here, and Lewis pushes his voice into a gravelly breaking point.
Worst Song: Your Cheating Heart. This album lives and dies based on its speed, and it absolutely dies here.
Overall: A strangely varied album for its 22 minute runtime. It makes you roll your eyes when Lewis tries to croon and play the ragtime standards, knowing there are plenty of other singers who could do the same better. But when he decides "fuck it, this piano has no brakes" and hits the gas, it rivals even the best that thrash metal has to offer.
Suede
2/5
Best Song: The Asphalt World. Progressive feel with nice multi-layered vocals and a gloomy lyrical feel.
Worst Song: The 2 Of Us. Pure melodrama. The sparse instrumentals, particularly those that close the song, as nice, but they can't overcome the full cheese vocal performance.
Overall: A totally average British band cosplaying as David Bowie.
TV On The Radio
3/5
Best Song: DLZ. A more industrial, almost NIN sound.
Worst Song: Dancing Choose. The nasally tendencies of the vocalist stick out more in the chorus of this one.
Overall: Pleasantly busy music that jumps genres within the album. Vocals are the weak point, but the production is clean.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
Best Song: Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall. Whimsical lyrics with excellent use of rhyme.
Worst Song: Homeward Bound. Not terrible, but feels like the kind of song that would play in a coffee commercial.
Overall: A very short album, filled with short songs. Pleasant to listen to, but leaves nothing particularly memorable.
Aphex Twin
4/5
Best Song: Ageispolis. Groovy and bloopy.
Worst Song: Green Calx. Sounds a bit too much like a rave inside a malfunctioning office printer.
Overall: It is excellent at what it aspires to be. This feels like the pinnacle of what "ambient" music can be. Lacks the busyness/aggression of some of Aphex Twin's other work. Great music to read or work to.
Happy Mondays
2/5
Best Song: Step On. Their most listened to song, probably the best on the album, but the lyrical patterning in some sections seems pretty derivative of The Beatles' "Come Together", so it's not even that original.
Worst Song: Bob's Yer Uncle. Why does the title invoke an uncle, but the song contains lyrics like "Can I take you from behind and make you live?" Was this song supposed to sound so predatory? Perhaps the least sexy attempt at being sexy I've ever heard in a song. The flute/sax combo was nice though.
Overall: Bland and basic. Sounds something like an amalgam of U2 and a Bowie cover band. The backing instrumentals were nice and funky in sections, but not enough to make up for the rest of the album. Another album that was gratuitously added to reach a nice number like 1001.
Air
3/5
Best Song: All I Need. The female vocals were a nice addition. Really chill track.
Worst Song: Remember. The reverb on the snare doesn't sound great.
Overall: A good chill album to have on in the background. Sunday morning coffee type music.
Gary Numan
2/5
Best Song: Cars. Don't even know if it's better than any of the others, or if it just benefits from the fact that I recognize it.
Worst Song: Observer. Exactly that chunky, slow, 80s synth style that I dislike.
Overall: Not my style. Sounds like big hair and neon clothes. It just feels like so much emphasis was placed on using weird and space-y sounds, rather than having them sound good and fit together in any cohesive way.
Koffi Olomide
3/5
Best Song: Qui cherche trouve. Slow groovy dance rhythm yeah.
Worst Song: Dit Jeannot. A bit too far out in space, instrumentally.
Overall: Optimistic toe-tapping music that does nothing to grab your attention, for better or worse. Beautiful mess of an album cover though.
David Holmes
3/5
Best Song: Radio 7. The bit about Bond was great, as was the play on his theme.
Worst Song: Head Rush on Lafayette. Because the preceding songs started with (what appear to be) candid recordings of people talking, the spoken word here ends up feeling forced in comparison. Give me more of those realistic, bizarre slices of life.
Overall: Nice relaxed beats interspersed with strange street interviews. Nothing stands out all too distinctly, but overall the album does a good job of maintaining this sort of "hardened mellow" flow. Good background/working music.
a-ha
2/5
Best Song: Take On Me. Always feels lame to pick the big target as the best song, but it really is the only choice here. So unique, with much more adventurous vocals than the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Hunting High and Low. Sounds too much like the song that plays during a movie montage, where the animated protagonist is literally looking high and low for their missing friend.
Overall: Coming into this having previously only heard "Take On Me", I honestly expected more. The rest of the album is just this squeaky clean, super-sanitized pop. Also, I don't usually care about the cover art, but the decision to choose this tricep-popping picture is an interesting one.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
Best Song: Seven Seas. Somewhat energetic, liked the gang vocals.
Worst Song: The Yo-Yo Man. Really just sounds like a budget version of The Doors here.
Overall: Put another one on the growing pile of English mediocrity. Is this "1001 Albums to Hear before you Die" or "1001 Albums One Man Heard On His Local Radio"?
The Band
2/5
Best Song: I Shall Be Released. Sounds almost like the Bee-Gees here. Nice falsettos backed by a good military-style snare.
Worst Song: In A Station. Ponderously slow and self-indulgent.
Overall: Although not bad, I just wonder who gets excited about music like this? It's not particularly thoughtful or evocative, nor does it seem to have an ounce of passion. This album came out a year before Led Zeppelin 1. Given that context, I can't understand how this music persevered. Everything about them, down to the name, feels like a placeholder.
Paul Simon
3/5
Best Song: I Know What I Know. Nice storytelling style to communicate a very slice-of-life ordinariness, while being backed by some great South African music.
Worst Song: Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. Sometimes writers can enjoy the sound of a lyric they've a little too much, and repeat it to the point where it loses its lustre. This is one of those times.
Overall: Quirky little album, with Simon telling these quaint little stories over varied African rhythms. The juxtaposition didn't really feel like it added much though, and the whole was no more than the sum of its parts. I often found myself wondering why I wouldn't just listen to the African artists themselves, without Simon overtop, as they were often the most interesting part of the music.
Miles Davis
4/5
Best Song: Moon Dreams. Although I usually prefer my jazz upbeat, this song is the absolute definition of cool.
Worst Song: Venus De Milo. A just okay track sandwiched between two far better ones.
Overall: Sometimes an album title just fits. This whole album is undeniably cool, suffused with a sort of suave but understated confidence. This is lean back, pour a stiff drink type jazz.
Dusty Springfield
2/5
Best Song: Son Of A Preacher Man. The one song I'd heard before. The only one where the singer (or her vocal object) seems to have an ounce of agency. How did this righteous song end up in the middle of all this wrist-wringing?
Worst Song: So Much Love. Real weepy and pathetic lyrics that feel like they are entirely undone by the very next song.
Overall: Entirely forgettable except for the one song that managed to escape the melodramatic clutches of the rest. Each song is dripping with cheese and sounds like it is intended to be listened to while staring forlornly out of a rain-covered window. I also dislike how none of the songs know how to end, instead just fading out into nothingness.
The Clash
2/5
Best Song: White Riot. The best pure punk song on the album.
Worst Song: Cheat. Absolutely sounds as though he's "cheep cheep-ing" like a bird.
Overall: At a certain point, we have to admit that The Clash is the AC/DC of punk. All of their songs sound the same. It lacks the conviction and passion of something like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, or Bad Brains. Just the same bouncy rhythm on every track.
Missy Elliott
4/5
Best Song: Pussycat. Has to be one of the best R&B choruses out there, in a track that manages to be both absurd and legitimate at the same time.
Worst Song: Back In The Day. Get Jay-Z outta here. The choppy beat is good, but wasted on Jay-Z's low energy input.
Overall: Missy crushes it with her self-aware and funny lyrics. Timbaland crushes it with some production that is maybe peak-Timbaland, with layers upon layers of clipping beats. Honestly, the features here are the weakest parts (especially Jay-Z and Beyonce). Missy's presence is so big, and she's so uniquely playful and creative, that it feels a waste to have her share the stage.
The Black Crowes
2/5
Best Song: She Talks To Angels. I know it's more than a bit overwrought, but it gives me nostalgia for this specific period in my childhood wherein this song was so perfectly melodramatic that I would listen to it and imagine singing this song as a eulogy for a friend taken by drug addiction, despite my not being able to sing and not knowing anyone with a drug problem. Nevertheless, there wasn't a dry eye at that imaginary funeral.
Worst Song: Sister Luck. Too slow with too much forced sincerity.
Overall: If ever there was an album that felt like it was explicitly written for radio, it's this one. Entirely safe rock, where the basis of each song seems to be the nature of the (oft-repeated) vocal hook. I like the vocalist's style, but don't like how often he over-sings.
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
2/5
Best Song: Parchman Farm. Nice and high tempo. Harmonica is the star here.
Worst Song: What'd I Say. Not terrible, but just a needlessly lengthy drum solo. Also weirdly positioned within the album. I feel like a solo like this is best placed near the album's finale, not a third of the way in.
Overall: This kind of blues is not my genre, although I could see how some would like it.
Afrika Bambaataa
3/5
Best Song: Looking for the Perfect Beat. That perfect level of retro-futuristic sound.
Worst Song: Really weird that they chose this as the leadoff song (let alone named the album after it), because I found it by far the most annoying on the album. Part of it is just that this style of hip hop has aged really poorly, so this track sounds a bit like the DK rap.
Overall: Today I learned that RATM's 'Renegades of Funk' is actually a cover. Although I think this is one of those cases wherein the cover really elevated the song.
Cheap Trick
3/5
Best Song: Need Your Love. The rhythm section really carries here. The latter half of the song is a real nice driving groove, which smartly dips in intensity before grinding forward into a stronger climactic end. It is also devoid of any vocals, which doesn't feel like a coincidence.
Worst Song: Big Eyes. Whiny sounding hook.
Overall: Feels odd to have a live album here. Is Cheap Trick notably worse in studio? Even as a live recording, the audience almost sounded fake, so I don't think the live atmosphere helped the cause here. Regardless, whenever the vocalist entered the fray it just sounded like fairly standard, Big Hair Rock. Better left as a hard rock instrumental group.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Best Song: Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Doesn't matter how long it is, this track feels absolutely ethereal. Completely in outer space.
Worst Song: Isn't really a worst song here. Everything flows into everything else, and it all works.
Overall: This album just feels so expansive. Every note has so much space. I think part of it is the patience with which everything is delivered, but part also comes from the way its mixed, as though the band is actually far away from the microphone, floating in space, and the microphone is just drifting around them.
Prince
3/5
Best Song: When Doves Cry. I really don't think anyone other than Prince could make this song work. Everything about it is killer: the layered vocals, the introspective lyrics, that slow grinding groove.
Worst Song: The Beautiful Ones. Too sleepy and synthy. Doesn't meet the energy of the songs that come before or after. I do like the raw vocals at the end though.
Overall: It's hard not to love Prince's goddamn charisma. The best songs on this album sound like pure Purple energy. Prince sounds like Michael Jackson if MJ had a soul. Even still, there is a pretty sizable gulf between the massive heights that the singles reach and the comparatively far weaker songs that fill the rest of the album.
The La's
2/5
Best Song: Timeless Melody. Nice, pure 90s sounding hook. A good enough song that I went back and listened to it again specifically after the album ended.
Worst Song: Freedom Song. This waltz ain't workin'.
Overall: There's really one hit wonders in this list?
Lauryn Hill
5/5
Best Song: Ex-Factor. The latter half of the song, when the vocals start to layer and the choir joins in, is good enough to be spiritual.
Worst Song: I Used To Love Him. I just find Mary J. Blige over-sings on this track in a way that clashes with Lauryn Hill's laidback delivery.
Overall: Beautiful, soulful album. Lauryn Hill's voice is pure honey. The lyrics manage to be both romantic and anti-romance. Even the clips with the kids are perfect at exemplifying the broader themes of the album.
fIREHOSE
2/5
Best Song: In My Mind. Nice rolling guitar and drums.
Worst Song: Time With You. Sounds like a high school band.
Overall: Likeable high tempo music made uninteresting with boring vocals. Would have preferred an instrumental version.
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
Best Song: Can I Kick It? There's a reason this song is so popular. The laidback, slow-drip lyrical flow is about as good here as it is on the rest of the album, but the backing instrumentals here stand above.
Worst Song: Mr. Muhammad. The beat is most obtrusive on this track, getting in the way of the flow. Sounds almost Beastie Boys-ish (in a bad way).
Overall: Groove personified. This album isn't right for all situations but it's perfect for some. Phife and Q-Tip are on their game for the whole album. The beats are solid, predictable head-nodders, which provide the best canvas for the vocals layered over top.
The Stooges
2/5
Best Song: Search and Destroy. Liked the wild ending.
Worst Song: Gimme Danger. Feels like Iggy Pop is cosplaying as Jim Morrison here.
Overall: Plodding, punkish music that slips frequently into different genres and attempts to do what others have done much better.
Mekons
1/5
Best Song: None.
Worst Song: Chivalry. What in the 8-bit cowboy is that background instrumental?
Overall: I will be surprised if there is a worse vocal performance on this list. This sounds like your milquetoast colleague who always wants to go to karaoke, so you assume they must be able to sing, but when they get on stage they just start loudly talking with the music. And it's interspersed with amateur theatre? Even better. This album is one of the 1001 ways to tell that you've actually already died and you were sent to the bad place.
Astor Piazzolla
3/5
Best Song: Nuevo Tango. Very uptempo, jazzy tango. Not what I imagined tango to be.
Worst Song: Little Italy. An alright song that has its moments, but overstays its welcome with an overly long, slowly diminishing outro.
Overall: Some much appreciated diversity in this list, even if it isn't music to which I would typically listen. Still, I will definitely consider it for background working or dinner music.
Elvis Presley
2/5
Best Song: Suspicious Minds. At least this one seems to have a bit of hubris? it isn't just more of Elvis's overwhelming "you'll love me no matter what" ego.
Worst Song: Only The Strong Survive. The chorus of "only the strong survive" is wholly undermined when the verses reveal that he's actually talking about girls not loving him, not any actual hardship.
Overall: Maybe Elvis is a "you had to be there" type of talent. Listening now, I just find myself thinking that there are so many better musicians who can produce this type of music with much more authenticity. Elvis's music sounds like it was stolen, overproduced, and then sold back as a safe and sanitized version of something that ought to have been more raw. He sings like he's playing with house money.
Sam Cooke
5/5
Best Song: For Sentimental Reasons. When the crowd starts singing along and Cooke still soars over top... To be in that room.
Worst Song: Twistin' the Night Away. Just not a fan of the twist.
Overall: The live setting really works well here. The recording sounds very close, as if the band is grouped tightly together in the corner of a small bar or club. And there's just something about the way you hear idle chatter in the background, the way Cooke rambles and adlibs these little bits. It feels like the audience isn't all stuck, shoulders squared to the stage, watching the music, but are letting themselves enjoy the music and each other. It feels like I can hear dancing. A surprisingly romantic album.
Burning Spear
2/5
Best Song: Jordan River. I like the rolling chorus. Feels like a song that would be nice to listen to while going down a river.
Worst Song: Give Me. I don't even know why.
Overall: I think this is just a genre that doesn't work for me. The plodding pace, the strong reliance on repetition. This could be great reggae, but I can't overcome the trappings of the genre.
Buck Owens
1/5
Best Song: Streets of Ladere. If I close my eyes, I can imagine I am a child. It is a hot day in Florida, and we've just stepped inside the Country Bear Jamboree.
Worst Song: Wham Bam. Jesus this is the corniest shit I've ever heard.
Overall: Was not expecting an unironic use of the word "buckaroo".
Jorge Ben Jor
3/5
Best Song: Taj Mahal. Upbeat, joyous music. One I will definitely go back to.
Worst Song: Cavaleiro Do Cavalo Imaculado. I like the tempo, I don't like that high-pitched honking in the background.
Overall: Decent groovy music. Not terribly memorable, but something I can easily imagine listening to on occasion.
SAULT
3/5
Best Song: Wildfires. The best straight song that I could imagine listening outside of the context of the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Don't Shoot Guns Down. The lyrics were a bit too on-the-nose to be poetic.
Overall: An intensely political album that feels at time like spoken word poetry. This isn't music that can (or probably was intended) to be listened to in the background. It demands your attention. At many points it feels closer to theatre than music.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
Best Song: Mausoleum. Really enjoyed the melody for the chorus.
Worst Song: This is Yesterday. No one asked for this slow down in tempo in the middle of the album.
Overall: Even though I've never heard them before, I can definitely here their influence on bands I have listened to. Although the album starts a bit slow, it picks up relatively quickly into the upbeat, dancey pop/punk/rock that it does well.
Soul II Soul
3/5
Best Song: Back to Life. Angelic singers serenading you with soul.
Worst Song: Feeling Free. Feels like a dude just talking over a beat in front of a captive audience.
Overall: The music grooves, the backup singers are killing it, it's honestly just the main male vocals that drag the album down. The male vocals sound really dated, and are delivered with a sort of impassivity that doesn't jive with the rest of the output.
Cypress Hill
2/5
Best Song: Hole In Your Head. Something about the grating voice really works on this kind of schoolyard bullying track. And you can't tell me "Scooby dooby doo y'all" isn't a fun lyric.
Worst Song: Stoned is the Way of the Walk. So choppy in the delivery that it makes me feel like English isn't my native language.
Overall: For some reason, I've always thought that Cypress Hill was the rap version of The Smashing Pumpkins. I think it might be because both vocalists sound like they were born without mouths and have to sing exclusively through their noses. The beats are solid, in-your-face, 90's fare, and the lyrics are alright, but I just cannot cope with that voice.
Wire
2/5
Best Song: Tough to find a standout in this list of noisy snippets.
Worst Song: Three Girl Rhumba. It legitimately sounds like his mouth is numbed for this song.
Overall: Really not that much to pick out here. Doesn't have the tempo or emotion of good punk or rock, instead just kinds of sits in this middle space of mediocre noisiness, as if being abrasive were its own virtue.
The Notorious B.I.G.
4/5
Best Song: The What. If there was anyone who can fit Biggie's flow it's Method Man, who elevates this track.
Worst Song: Fuck Me (Interlude). It's funny, but it means you can't just throw this album on with other people around
Overall: Nobody did it like Biggie. His voice is butter, and you can feel the storytelling in each track. Surprisingly dark. Biggie toes the line between bravado and vulnerability, but he does it with such straightforward lyrics its equally easy to ignore the message and focus instead on the musicality of his flow and the relentlessly heavy, bouncing beats.
Def Leppard
1/5
Best Song: Run Riot. Only because around the three minute mark there is a brief guitar solo that reminds you that music can be fun and interesting.
Worst Song: Love Bites. Why this one over the dozen other nearly identical soulless entries? I don't know. They're all bad.
Overall: This is a low water mark in rock music history. Def Leppard lacks the edge of other hair metal bands like Motley Crue, the vocal talent of groups like Boston who could actually pull off these kind of ballads, and the passion of literally any other band. The instrumentation is uninteresting. The vocals sound like sick cats stage whispering from the far end of a wind tunnel. The lyrics are so dumb they feel like parodies. "Don't Shoot Shot Gun"? Kill me.
Willie Nelson
3/5
Best Song: Unchained Melody. Given that most versions of this song are intentionally and forcefully oversung, I enjoyed this more mellow rendition.
Worst Song: Blue Skies. Too much reliance on the piano, and I wasn't a fan of the chorus.
Overall: Sometimes the title and cover of an album sets an expectation of how the album will sound. Here, I expected an acoustic album, one you might expect to hear alongside a campfire under the stars. For that reason (and therefore perhaps unfairly), I was disappointed by the electric instrumentation on much of the album. I think the album would have been better if it were allowed to be more sparse so as not to draw away from Willie's often meek and subdued vocal delivery.
Jungle Brothers
2/5
Best Song: Doin' Our Own Dang. The female vocals were more interesting than anything else on the album.
Worst Song: Feelin' Alright. Scatting is something that can work really well if used sparingly. It just goes on too long here.
Overall: The backing house-style instrumentals are nice. It's got a dance-y groove. Clearly influential, but hip hop aesthetics have changed so much since this era, so it is really difficult to listen to these simple and repetitive flows and rhyming patterns and get excited. I think it's the over-enunciation of each syllable that really kills it for me.
Dire Straits
3/5
Best Song: Sultans of Swing. It really lives up to its name. Has spawned several really good covers while still holding up as the original. Obviously the guitar is the star here.
Worst Song: Setting Me Up. Gettin' a little too honky tonk over here....
Overall: Outside of Sultans of Swing, the rest of the album is only okay. Sweet smooth guitar licks, sure, but at times the vibe seems so relaxed it starts to feel sleepy. Nevertheless, the instrumentation is fantastic throughout.
The The
2/5
Best Song: Uncertain Smile. Unoffensive in that coffee-commercial kind of way, but with a really enjoyable piano solo.
Worst Song: I've Been Waitin' For Tomorrow (All of My Life). Really bizarre song to start the album. It sounds like each person was told to play a different song and they didn't realize until after they mixed it.
Overall: Another cottage in the industry of Bowie impersonators. Also peppered with oddball, edgy lyrics. "While I'm being raped by progress / Tomorrow's world is here to stay / They wouldn't have it any other way..." Yikes.
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
Best Song: Cherub Rock. This is the band at their most Smashing. A grungy, gritty groove that does a great job of kicking off the album.
Worst Song: This is the band at their most Pumpkins. Corgan just absolutely squeezing out how he "used to be a little boy," sounding like he's trying to sing while someone fits him for a corset that's two sizes too small. Add that to the layered vocals when he sings against/with himself and it's all just too much.
Overall: This album, like the other Smashing Pumpkins albums I've listened to, is bloated, self-indulgent, and rooted around a central sound whose appeal I just don't understand. There are better, realer, rawer grunge records out there. Your time is much better spent listening to any of them.
Fred Neil
2/5
Best Song: Sweet Cocaine. Absolutely did not expect a love letter to cocaine in the back half of this album. That alone is worth the price of admission.
Worst Song: Bad-Di-Da. A bit of a forced melody made worse by the ancient mixing which threatens to blow out your speakers with each "di-da".
Overall: This album's alternate title is "Old Man Cowboy." I'm not even sure if that's derogatory. Also, a bit strange that the whole album foists this okay-ish voiced Rootin' Tooter to the fore to sing ballad after ballad, but then the album ends with this long and meandering instrumental desert jam. I actually liked that bit better than anything else here.
Miles Davis
3/5
Best Song: Shhh. These rules make less sense for an album like this, but the early portion of the album sounds almost alien and ethereal in its use of these technical blips and bloops.
Worst Song: None.
Overall: Definitely different from the Miles Davis I've listened to previously. The electric elements and rock fusion style definitely make it more easily listenable, but it also doesn't feel like it hits the same heights as Kind of Blue.
The Flaming Lips
2/5
Best Song: The Spark That Bled. The rhythm changeup that hits in the middle of the song is nice.
Worst Song: The Spiderbite Song. The plodding pace, along with the basic rhyme scheme, makes this song almost feel like a Dr. Seuss book put to music.
Overall: Thoughtful, well-produced music that doesn't sound as old to me as it apparently is. The vocals are almost too nasally, but they remind me of John K. Samson from the Weakerthans, which helps.
Steve Earle
2/5
Best Song: Guitar Town. Really hits you in the mouth with the twang, but it's early enough in the album that it feels like a nice novelty rather than a ludicrous affectation.
Worst Song: My Old Friend the Blues. Call me cantankerous but I really don't think "the blues" should be sung as sweet-faced as this. The blues are gritty, not this saccharine stuff that feels like it should be playing at closing time in a rib restaurant.
Overall: You'll only find long vowels in this ol' giddyup. Feels like it has a classic rock feel in parts, almost like Bruce Springsteen or Bon Jovi, but also devolves into modern pop-country crooning. I don't really like the genre, but when I do it is at least has some raw and rough qualities. This kind of polished country feels like an oxymoron that's antithetical to the best parts of the genre.
Lucinda Williams
2/5
Best Song: Can't Let Go. Nice rolling rhythm. Reminds of me of KT Tunstall's modern (and extremely popular) "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree."
Worst Song: Concrete And Barbed Wire. Whatever cleverness the title might have had was entirely wrung out by the excessive repetition of the phrase.
Overall: She has a sweet voice, but I just find the music inoffensively bland.
The Mars Volta
4/5
Best Song: Inertiac Esp. The true kickoff to the album, this song launches like a rocket and never slows down.
Worst Song: Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of). Very atmospheric, but slower than I want from this group.
Overall: Chaotic music with a progressive edge, constantly cutting in with fits and starts. Complex enough to always be interesting and nostalgic enough for me that I have a sweet spot for it.
Milton Nascimento
2/5
Best Song: Cravo E Canela. Dance-y and uplifting.
Worst Song: Me Deixa Em Paz. Without knowing the content of the lyrics, this feels like a religious proclamation that I needn't be a part of.
Overall: A bit of a fever dream, although sadly one that went on long enough for me to want some medicine.
Van Halen
3/5
Best Song: Hot for Teacher. Often times, songs are either funny or musically interesting. This is the rare case in which it's both. This song is positively sweaty.
Worst Song: I'll Wait. Sometimes, David Lee Roth just sounds like a poor man's Phil Collins.
Overall: Van Halen elicits a very specific feeling. You're near a body of water. The sun is setting. Your entire body is slick with lotion. You've lost track of how many beers you've had, but you have the vague notion that you're halfway to wherever it is you're going. A feeling of existential dread begins to push on you from the periphery. Is this it? Is this what life is? You belch and crush your beer can, grabbing a cold one from the bucket. Too Hot For Teacher comes on. As quick as it came on, the feeling of dread is gone, replaced by the need to Air Drum.
Carole King
4/5
Best Song: Way over Yonder. Really powerful vocal performance.
Worst Song: Home Again. This just feels entirely plain, especially following the previous songs wherein King really showed off her vocal prowess. Also has some weak lyrics. "Snow is cold, rain is wet."
Overall: Really soulful performance. Has a few slow moments, but overall the package is delivered with such a passion that you can't help but feel like a natural woman.
The Streets
2/5
Best Song: Blinded by the Lights. Interesting and introspective description of a drug trip, helped massively by someone else taking over the vocal hook.
Worst Song: It Was Supposed to Be so Easy. The chorus sounds like a failing student in an adult education centre trying to read aloud to the class. Lyrically, the song is just on the line of self-awareness so I can't actually tell if it's satire. Even if it is, that doesn't redeem the song. Just explains it.
Overall: The stream-of-consciousness, intensely sincere, story-telling lyrical approach is (at times) really interesting here. Sadly, literally everything else isn't. The lead singer would have been better off writing dialogue for movies and TV than trying to cut it as a rapper.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Best Song: Born to Run. A classic, surely, but I wonder if the instrumentals are doing more of the work here than Springsteen.
Worst Song: Night. I guess never realized that this is how Springsteen's voice sounds. Like he's shouting through a mouthful of peanut butter.
Overall: Kinda tough to tell why this album is considered a bit deal.
Jane Weaver
3/5
Best Song: The Architect. Give me more of whatever those background blips and bloops are.
Worst Song: Loops In The Secret Society. A disappointingly generic rock groove.
Overall: An chill and psychedelic album, although leans a bit too heavy on the chill at times. Just groovy enough to keep you interested, and just relaxed enough that it can be put on in the background without feeling intrusive.
Dire Straits
2/5
Best Song: Your Latest Trick. Rarely do you get an opportunity to listen to a sleazy saxophone solo like this.
Worst Song: Money for Nothing. Absolutely everything in this song sounds dated, from the expired references to MTV and colour TVs, to the entirely out-of-pocket use of homophobic slurs.
Overall: Overwhelmingly medium music. Nothing very interesting here. Instrumentals are obviously slick, but the vocals are weak and the lyrics stink.
The Style Council
2/5
Best Song: My Ever Changing Moods. Like a budget Billy Joel.
Worst Song: A Gospel. Sounds like an alternate take on the Ghostbuster's theme.
Overall: One of the least cohesive albums I've ever heard. None of the songs seemed to have even a passing similarity or relationship to one another. There were some alright (albeit overly 80s) takes here, but they're tough to appreciate while you're getting musical whiplash.
Kid Rock
1/5
Best Song: Wasting Time. Only for the soulful chorus sung by not Kid Rock.
Worst Song: Only God Knows Why. This has to be the worst ever use of auto-tune. T-Pain is
Overall: I have too many teeth and too few wallet chains to enjoy this music. Almost nothing of worth here. Kid Rock's lyrics are monumentally bad. He knows exactly one rhythmic pattern, into which he dumps whatever trashy ode to beer or women he's barfed out. Everything is vulgar without being interesting, delivered with this unearned bravado and confidence that suggests Kid Rock thinks he's a badass because he says bad words into the microphone. This album sounds like how cheap beer smells.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Best Song: The Partisan. Haunting lyrics paired with sparse instrumentals, further assisted by the French chorus, which contrasts and elevates Cohen's ruddy, nasal voice.
Worst Song: Story of Isaac. Lyrically beautiful, but this is Cohen, who can have a tendency towards vocal timidity, at his most quiet and disinterested in his delivery.
Overall: Although I prefer Cohen's later work, when his voice was coarser and his lyrics darker, this is a good entry into Cohen's canon. Cohen's music is best listened to intentionally, not as background music. Quiet, contemplative poetry set to music. One of the best singer-songwriters of our time.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Best Song: Amelia. Something about the lyrics and the subject matter really works here. "Like Icarus ascending / on beautiful and selfish arms". Very hippy aesthetic in the instrumentals as well.
Worst Song: A Strange Boy. The story-telling style here begins to deviate into rambling. And some of the lyrics are too on-the-nose (e.g., "drunk on love").
Overall: A wild and uninhibited set of stories that fluctuate between seemingly stream of consciousness to deeper, more poetic observations. The album feels very "free", but at times I wished it had more structure.
Screaming Trees
2/5
Best Song: All I Know. Nice alt-rock chorus that feels radio-friendly in a not unpleasant way.
Worst Song: Traveler. Nothing here sticks out here as singularly "bad", just generally boring, so this song wins by virtue of being slightly more boring than the rest.
Overall: Perfectly ordinary music that I can't imagine a single person getting excited about. An album whose highs are as medium as its lows.
k.d. lang
2/5
Best Song: I'm Down to my Last Cigarette. Nice sultry song that suits her voice.
Worst Song: Sugar Moon. I just really don't like that old-timey, everything is rosy aesthetic for a song.
Overall: I enjoy K.D. Lang's voice, but this kind of crooning music is just not my style.
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
Best Song: Everyday People. A lot of great songs on here, but the iconic vocal delivery edges this one out above the rest.
Worst Song: Sex Machine. Not to say that this prog-y groove is bad, but especially after "Everyday People" it feels somewhat out of place and kills the energy of the previous song.
Overall: Great, groovy music with a political message. That second song is a heavy hitter. Definitely will be returning to this.
Alice Cooper
3/5
Best Song: Billion Dollar Babies. I'm of the age where this song makes me think of the version from Guitar Hero (or was it Rock Band), so chalk this like up to nostalgia for basement dwelling and video gaming.
Worst Song: Raped and Freezin'. Bold choice to put "raped" up there in the title. Especially of an otherwise entirely bland song.
Overall: A couple poppy, classic rock hits in here, but it does feel kind of laughable that anyone ever found this guy edgy. From a modern perspective, he feels entirely tame.
Elton John
3/5
Best Song: Levon. Only now did I realize the song isn't titled "Leave On". Good song though.
Worst Song: Rotten Peaches. A little too Elton in this one. Elton's swooning voice, his raucous piano playing, and the twangy guitar all feel like they're competing for attention, not melding together well.
Overall: Elton John has a very singular voice and presentation that makes it hard to compare him with other artists. Who can even be said to be his peer? That isn't to say it always works, and the album sags and flumps on occasion, but I can't help coming away having enjoyed the uniqueness of it.
2/5
Best Song: Chemical World. Like a spooky children's party descending into madness.
Worst Song: Colin Zeal. Lots of sustained vocal notes to make sure you're acutely aware that these fellas can't sing.
Overall: An album that almost seems designed to annoy. Take the guitar flutter on Oily Water. I'm all for variant or raw musical styles, but with headphones this just sounds like the onset of a migraine. And sure, the album hits these nice instrumental rock grooves every so often, but those are offset by the times when anyone here is singing. Like many of the British bands from this era, one I think would have been better off as strictly instrumental.
Massive Attack
3/5
Best Song: Be Thankful For What You've Got. They really got a brilliant vocal track here, that they gently augmented with the chill backing beats.
Worst Song: Daydreaming. Nicely quirky, but ultimately with too much going on, leaving the whole song feeling scattered.
Overall: Just good grooves that are suitable both as background and foreground music. Could use a bit more direction at times, but that chaos also helps drive its underground feel.
Fever Ray
4/5
Best Song: If I Had a Heart. The only song on the album I knew prior to listening. Dark and brooding, it builds satisfyingly towards this sort of sombre crescendo. The lyrics also feel heavy and mysterious, lending themselves well to the overall tone of the track.
Worst Song: Now's The Only Time I Know. Lacks the grit and edge of the rest of the album, sounding more like a generic pop-rock song.
Overall: Atmospheric, dark, with interesting lyrics and neatly layered instrumentation. The male and female vocals provide an excellent stylistic counterpoint to one another. For rainy days, dusk and dawn.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
3/5
Best Song: The Grave and the Constant. Full lean-back chill. The drums are the star here.
Worst Song: Bombin' the L. Blaring "classic rock" guitars absolutely killing the mood that had been developed up to that point.
Overall: The rapping isn't always top notch, but the hazy, atmospheric vibes mean those lyrical misses matter less. There is a tendency to repeat each song's hook too often that at times feels forced. For the most part, a purely leisurely album that seems designed as an intentionally slow burn. Would be improved by removing the boisterous tracks and leaning fully into the relaxed vibe.
Black Sabbath
3/5
Best Song: Black Sabbath. I can only imagine that in 1970, first hearing this track would have felt like a tectonic shift.
Worst Song: Wicked World. This is the kind of slow, plodding tempo that I think bogs down some of this old metal. Plus that super jazzy hi-hat really clashes with the rest of the aesthetic.
Overall: A historical monument that still has that heavy, bluesy swagger. Obviously what we think of as "metal" has developed significantly since this album, and it does feel dated at times, but there are moments of brilliance. Ozzy's voice is somehow captivating in spite of itself, but I think it is the guitar work that really stands out. A relatively tame starting point, from which better music came.
The Youngbloods
2/5
Best Song: Trillium. Sunday morning coffee music.
Worst Song: Sunlight. The lead singer seems seconds away from crying.
Overall: Musically I really want to like it, but the vocalist just sings so goddamn softly. The whole album I just wanted him to let loose, grit his voice up a bit. Show a little passion goddamnit.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Best Song: To Here Knows When. It sounds like I'm eavesdropping on a fever dream that someone else is having.
Worst Song: Blown a Wish. There are limits to how ethereal a song I can appreciate, apparently.
Overall: A very sleepy, droning album. While listening, I never felt all that annoyed, nor that interested. This feels like an album for the inebriated.
Grateful Dead
2/5
Best Song: Truckin'. The layered vocals are nice here, and the rhythm is real rhythmic. Despite the name, doesn't actually feel like driving music. Driving montage music, maybe.
Worst Song: Candyman. So slow. So staccato. So wispy in the vocals.
Overall: I'd never listened to the Grateful Dead before. All I knew was that they had a cult following unlike any other band. If this album is indicative of what their stuff is like, then I really don't understand. It isn't bad, but it certainly isn't interesting enough to warrant a cult. Sleepy dad rock.
Rage Against The Machine
5/5
Best Song: Killing In The Name Of. The song, its political message, and its musicality all make it a great song. What makes it an iconic song is when De La Rocha switches the lyrics in the final minute of the song to "fuck you I won't do what you tell me." The way it takes the heated and passionate political tone of the song and cranks it higher, when you thought the dial was already as high as it could go, is perfect.
Worst Song: Settle for Nothing. Trends a little too far towards prog-rock with its meandering guitar solo, which doesn't really add anything to the track.
Overall: It's killer. The whole album sounds youthful, smart, and talented. Takes the best of both rap and rock and mashes them into a rare fusion that actually works. Zack De La Rocha raps like a man on fire. If I close my eyes I can forget that Tom Morello is shilling NFTs now and remember when his guitar work was pure alien madness. This album is political and musical brilliance.
The Auteurs
2/5
Best Song: American Guitars. Droning, but the most likeable of this relatively boring bunch.
Worst Song: Junk Shop Clothes. Intentionally and unintentionally sleepy.
Overall: Nothing of note here. Really just dull, milquetoast offerings. I[d forgotten most of the album by the next day. I'll probably lose recognition memory within a month.
Tears For Fears
3/5
Best Song: Mother's Talk. Nice percussion that gives a worldly, dancey feel.
Worst Song: I Believe. Eighties ballads might be the worst variety of ballad.
Overall: Not bad for what is some painfully 80s fare. Even still, by the end I had started to grow tired of that 80s vocal affectation that makes it sound like they're singing in a big, empty warehouse.
The Offspring
2/5
Best Song: What Happened to You? I like the ska-style rhythm. It feels like it channels the band's rambunctious energy into a more productive direction.
Worst Song: Bad Habit. Odd choice to focus so heavily on the voice of a guy who can't sing. Also, the whole lyrical schtick of being a badass
Overall: It feels as though I've heard all the big songs on this album hundreds of times on the radio, and still I struggle to see the broad appeal. Is it because it has a certain everyman quality? Listening to this, you can imagine that, with minimal effort, you could probably make some kind of generic music that would be on par with what's available here. So you sing along and, as your caterwauling mixes with the sounds from the radio, you are able to vicariously live your rock star life.
Iggy Pop
2/5
Best Song: Dum Dum Boys. I liked the opening dialogue, leading into a warped and stretched opening that almost sounds like Pink Floyd.
Worst Song: Tiny Girls. There is no world in which this song isn't creepy. Also, why is his voice like that? Is he singing from atop a working washing machine?
Overall: Discordant in an ugly way. The latter half of "Mass Production" seemed almost designed to annoy.
DJ Shadow
4/5
Best Song: Mutual Slump. One of the more bombastic tracks, it provides a nice contrast to the more chilled-out tracks that surround it.
Worst Song: What Does Your Soul Look Like - Pt. 4. Just wasn't a fan of the croaky vocal sample.
Overall: Pretty perfect background music for working or writing. Nice mix of hip-hoppy beats and more ethereal soundtracks. Will definitely return to this.
Beatles
3/5
Best Song: All My Loving. I actually prefer several covers of this song, but the original still holds its own.
Worst Song: Roll Over Beethoven. Only because I can imagine the live shows in which the crowd, determined to match the energy of the studio recording, clap their hands bloody and raw for the entire goddamn song.
Overall: If this album is here, should I just assume that all Beatles albums are on this list? Surely one day all this phony Beatlemania will have bitten the dust, right? One thing that struck me while listening to this album was the way nearly every track immediately wriggles its way into your brain and sticks there like some not-entirely-pleasant drug. But then, for as fast as the dopamine hit of each song comes on, it peels off even faster and by the end of each (already short) song, you're grateful that it's finally gone. Paired with these inane, cheeky-cheesy lyrics, you're stuck with this album that feels so sugar-coated it should come with its own insulin shot.
Ian Dury
2/5
Best Song: Plaistow Patricia. Pure cacophonous filth.
Worst Song: Wake Up And Make Love With Me. This sounds like if Lenny from Of Mice and Men tried to write a song to woo Curley's wife.
Overall: I hope one day the creator of this list encounters a globe so they can fully appreciate the size of the world they ignore in favour of including the work another bloke who just happened to grow up in the same backyard.
Serge Gainsbourg
3/5
Best Song: Melody. I don't know what's being said, but I like the way he says it.
Worst Song: Ah Melody. Almost like a waltz? Didn't suit the brooding voice well.
Overall: An engrossing and appealing voice quietly and powerfully delivered, although the arrangements of each of the songs on the album starts to feel a bit similar. I did quite like the strange vocals on En Melody however, with the suggestive laughter backed by some more forward instrumentation.
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
Best Song: Brooklyn Took It. Excellent flow, vocals drip feed a the perfect rate.
Worst Song: Da Bichez. Kinda disappointing that a song this misogynistic slaps so hard.
Overall: A lot of older hip hop has a short shelf life, if only because the genre changes and transforms so frequently, but this still works decades later. Great voice and a great collection of beats.
The Go-Go's
3/5
Best Song: How Much More. I'm a huge fan of upbeat songs with bleak or melancholy lyrics, and this fits that theme perfectly. The use of repetition really amplifies the song here.
Worst Song: We've Got The Beat. Despite being clearly the most popular song here, it really just comes off as overly bubblegum in a way that quickly becomes annoying.
Overall: There are brief moments here where the music transcends the sterile, saccharine 80s trappings, but ultimately it ends up descending into that sugar pile. An album that is okay to listen to once, but you need to brush your teeth immediately after.
Slint
2/5
Best Song: Nosferatu Man. Nice and noisy grunge rock.
Worst Song: Don, Aman. The reliance on whispering for dramatic effect really just comes off as melodrama. Plus, the whispered bit sounds like the introduction to a song that never comes.
Overall: This album is angst personified. It isn't necessarily bad, but I think you might need to be pubescent to get its full effect.
The Young Rascals
2/5
Best Song: Sueno. The Spanish inspired instrumentals helped alleviate the otherwise dated quality of the record.
Worst Song: If You Know. Real school choir vibes coming off of this one.
Overall: This is part of the sweet, cliched romance cohort of 60s music. Even when they sing "I don't love you anymore" it sounds like schoolkids who have broken up at lunch and will be together again by recess. I think this genre of forced wholesomeness has aged quite poorly, even if the music is (occasionally) groovy.
The National
4/5
Best Song: Afraid of Everyone. In an album of excellent lyrics, this song still stands above the others.
Worst Song: Can't say there was one. Everything was very cohesive, and each song felt like it belonged.
Overall: Intoxicating. Between the deep and resonant vocals, the moody and melancholy lyrics, and the expansive instrumentation, the album feels very well-rounded.
Steely Dan
3/5
Best Song: Aja. It almost doesn't feel like a song, more like a showcase of each band member's soloing abilities, but they're damn talented.
Worst Song: Deacon Blues. This just felt a bit dull. Ho-hum, without the blistering musical prowess from the previous track.
Overall: This was my first (that I know of) foray into Steely Dan. For some reason, maybe based on the name, I assumed they were boring dad rock. Turns out I was half right, because this is actually some pretty compelling dad rock. The musicality is top-notch here, but like many bands of this era, there is a sense of bloat as each song takes far longer than it needs. Still, a relaxed and groovy album that was fun to listen to.
Buzzcocks
2/5
Best Song: I Don't Mind. Not great, but it at least breaks through the monotony of the other songs by trying something marginally different.
Worst Song: Moving Away From The Pulsebeat. Just another guitar solo born or nothing, going nowhere.
Overall: Just a mish mash of noise, mixed poorly, that rarely deviates from the continuous droning line that drives ever onward. In what context does someone listen to this music? When so absolutely knackered that the musical drone mirrors that kind of stumbling myopia of heavy inebriation. Maybe then I would like it. Sober it's an absolute chore.
Mike Oldfield
3/5
Best Song: Tubular Bells Pt 1. Particularly the spot around 12:30 where the instruments harmonize together.
Worst Song: Tubular Bells Pt II. The part where he begins to sing(?). I'm not certain that what this album needed was traditional rock drumming and non-traditional vocal shouting. It doesn't sound bad, necessarily, but it deviates so heavily from the musical themes set up in part one that I feel it ought to have been placed on another album entirely.
Overall: Tremendously weird. The instrumentation is fantastic, and all of Part 1 is engrossing and interesting, genre-defying music. It is only in Part 2, when the weird gets turned up a bit too high, when the progressive elements take over and the album feels like it starts to lose its mind a bit, even if it retains its soul.
Bruce Springsteen
2/5
Best Song: Highway Patrolman. I'm a sucker for these kind of simple, storytelling songs and this one's not bad, although sometimes the syllables don't line up well and it feels like he needs to rush or drag to finish a particular phrase on time.
Worst Song: Reason to Believe. I would have liked something more dramatic to conclude this otherwise sleepy album, not a sort of religious diatribe.
Overall: I appreciate that this has less of the over-the-top bravado that characterizes much of the other of Springsteen's work that I am familiar with, but still, I just find his voice largely uninteresting.
Ministry
3/5
Best Song: Jesus Built My Hotrod. Now see, this is exactly the kind of silliness I appreciate in a metal album. Leaning fully into the "scatting" works well here at utilizing the metal vocals as an "instrument", but even still it gravitates a bit too close to Kid Rock's "bawitdaba" here.
Worst Song: TV II. Everything here comes off very flat, and the repeated stopping and starting means the song never feels like it has room to take off.
Overall: I like metal, but I've never heard this before. Very industrial. Feels like excellent music to work out with, preferably under a dilapidated bridge or in an actively working factory. Like a lot of this sub-genre though, it really just functions as this continuous, vaguely aggressive background music without ever stepping outside itself to provide you with anything that really grasps your attention.
Ice Cube
3/5
Best Song: The Nigga Ya Love to Hate. Such a groovy blastoff into this album, that still hits hard lyrically despite being so upbeat musically.
Worst Song: I'm Only Out For One Thing. No song has ever been improved by including Flava Flav.
Overall: Yeah it's good, even if it does have some lyrical work that has aged pretty poorly. Also far too long for what's on offer, and could have used some editing before release.
Elvis Presley
2/5
Best Song: Dirty, Dirty Feeling. It was surprisingly difficult to identify anything in this album that was better than the rest, as it all felt very slow and sleepy. This one wins by sounding the least "Elvis", and having an upbeat, (safely) raunchy theme.
Worst Song: Soldier Boy. As difficult it was to pick a "star", it was equally difficult to pick a low point in this album. I think this wins because what patience I had for these bloated, self-indulgent ballads had been worn thin by this track.
Overall: With music like this, it is very hard to understand how Elvis came to be as famous as he was. Call it a change in tastes, but everything here is rich and overdone, but starting to sour like like milk that's gone bad. To punctuate how terrible it was, after the song ended Spotify automatically transitioned into playing a Little Richard song, which was so fiercely singular and alive that I got whiplash from the juxtaposition. I firmly believe that Elvis is only interesting to people for whom some slightly gyrating hips are considered scandalous.
Baaba Maal
2/5
Best Song: Salminanam. I liked the vocal hook, whatever it was.
Worst Song: Bibbe Leyde. Felt a little too much like religious prayer for my taste.
Overall: A difficult album for me to rate. On the one hand, it is far more sparse and folksy than the music I typically like, and I find the lead singer's nasally delivery grating at times. On the other hand, some of the instrumentation is quite nice, and the fact that it is not in English means that it is something I can listen to in the background without getting distracted. Overall, happy to have heard it, not sure how often I'll come back to it.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
Best Song: Parallel Universe. Not a full ballad but still slow enough that Kiedis needs to sing, not rap, which I prefer. Also a track that didn't reach the stratospheric heights of the other singles here, so it doesn't feel so overplayed.
Worst Song: Porcelain. Why include such a slow, lullaby-style song in the middle of the album?
Overall: No one else sounds at all close to how the RHCP sound, but sometimes they don't sound all that good. Despite Kiedis not having a conventionally strong singing voice, I really prefer his singing to the kind of staccato, Beastie Boys-esque rapping that he favours. Although I was a bigger fan of them when I was younger, listening to them now I can't help but feel like they are the musical equivalent of the TV show 'Friends': difficult to hate (unless you're outright trying to be contrarian), but also so strongly of an era that they become less relevant with each passing year.
Slayer
2/5
Best Song: Raining Blood. A recognizable riff that launched a thousand video game rock band simulators.
Worst Song: Necrophobic. The whole song it felt like the lead singer was struggling to keep up with the pace of the rest of the band, giving the whole song a sort of back-foot awkwardness that makes everything feel off balance in a bad way.
Overall: Given how passionate, how dramatic, how intense metal music can be due to the freedoms of the genre, I am always disappointed to find an album that's so boring. Try something different! Be weird! But don't just plod along with this morose seriousness. This album is like a drive through the worst kind of rural highways, maybe somewhere in Saskatchewan. Sure, the drive might be a little faster than the posted speed limit, but there isn't anything interesting to look at along the way. The road doesn't even bend or turn. It just goes and goes until you find yourself wondering "are we there yet?"
Faith No More
3/5
Best Song: From Out of Nowhere. I really like the unconventional, somewhat whiny voice in this style of rock. A nice kickoff to the album.
Worst Song: Epic. Truthfully, it might just be because this was the only song that I had heard before, so the others were improved by the novelty.
Overall: Like a palatable Smashing Pumpkins, or a less interesting Porcupine Tree. Little bit grunge, little bit rock, and even coming close to the precipice of a rap-style delivery. Likely not something I would seek out to listen to again, but relatively interesting for a first spin.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Best Song: Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. A nice vocal hook that doesn't meander as badly as some of the other tracks.
Worst Song: Down the Highway. This lacks the political or story-telling elements that set apart Dylan's best songs. Instead it just feels like a bit of a stuttering mess that never gets off the ground.
Overall: I expected more. I think Bob Dylan is really good when he focuses on a particular topic and tries to tell a tight story. Something like is song Hurricane. Here, too many songs have no clear point and just kind of circle a vague topic before unceremoniously ending. Also I find his rhyme sequences are often simple over-enunciated, as if he's really leaning into the rhyming word to "bounce" off it for emphasis, which gives an almost Seuss-like quality to some tracks.
David Bowie
3/5
Best Song: Life on Mars? It has a nice ethereal quality that is reminiscent of Pink Floyd, but suitably Bowie-d up.
Worst Song: Andy Warhol. Bit of an annoying intro and the rest of the song is quite boring.
Overall: Maybe Bowie just isn't for me. I find most of these songs rather boring. His vocal performances aren't particularly exciting either. I wonder how much of his success is attributable for his persona and the cult of personality that is built around him. Stripped of that, and with no personal nostalgia towards his work, this feels just okay.
Pulp
2/5
Best Song: Sorted for E's and Wizz. Nothing more to say than that I really just enjoyed the melody of the chorus.
Worst Song: F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. What is it with every disco-rock male artist from the 80s that requires them to produce at least one song that makes them sound like a serial killer. Every one of them is at least 1% Buffalo Bill. Who thought this husky whispering was the sexy vibe of the decade?
Overall: More Brit male mediocrity. Nothing particularly exciting here, nothing weird, nothing musically interesting. Much ado about nothing.
The Young Gods
3/5
Best Song: Longue route. Nice heavy groove that really epitomizes the industrial sound they are going for.
Worst Song: Ville Notre. Without knowing the context of the song, it just sounds like it is taking itself too seriously.
Overall: A nice surprise. I liked how experimental it got with songs like "Les enfants". At times the experimentation got in its own way and I found myself looking for a consistent rhythm or theme, but generally the vibe here was a good industrial grind.
Orange Juice
2/5
Best Song: A Million Pleading Faces. Funky, dancey, beautifully layered vocals... I can get behind this.
Worst Song: Mud in your Eyes. Whiplash from how awful the vibe and vocals are here relative to the dance bomb of the previous track. This song never had a chance.
Overall: If the whole album was composed of those upbeat dance numbers, I'd have instantly loved it. Unfortunately, the fun songs are the minority here, poking out of an otherwise stock-standard set of predictable 80s rock.
Aretha Franklin
3/5
Best Song: (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. The most impressive vocal performance on the album, paired well with powerful but sweetly romantic lyrics.
Worst Song: Niki Hoeky. Just felt like more of a standard R&B song that didn't take advantage of Franklin's vocal abilities.
Overall: Obviously she has a strong and icon voice, and there is an offering of great R&B cuts here, but it also feels a bit more upbeat and (dare I say) disco-adjacent than the soulful stuff I was expecting.
The Smiths
2/5
Best Song: Nowhere Fast. A short song that hits the marks it needs to and then leaves, kicking along at a decent pace that serves as a useful counterpoint against the sleepy, echoing vocals. The lyrics also have an existential melancholy that I wish more of these wispy 80s vocalists would dive headfirst into.
"I think about life and I think about death, and neither one particularly appeals to me."
Worst Song: That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore. Everything about this song sounds whiny. For everything that was right about the previous song, it is wrong here.
Overall: Back in the British 80s I see. Not much to like overall. There is the occasional interesting track, but it's mostly just that big, echo-y vocal affect over top simple and straight forward instrumentation. I also don't understand why bands leave their longest (often most bloated) tracks to the end of the album. When the last few songs are significantly longer than the others in the album, it makes the album feel like it's dragging on and that the artist was padding for time.
Beatles
2/5
Best Song: Nowhere Man. Even if the vocal harmonizing feels a bit annoying at time (and honestly, a bit like a cult), the lyrical weirdness is enough to make this one stick out.
Worst Song: If I Needed Someone. Only the worst here because it is, like much of the rest here, boring. By the end of the album, my taste for these hyper-sweet melodies had long expired.
Overall: Fourteen songs that absolutely sprint past, each one dangling a slightly different jingle to try to grab your attention before its near-identical twin shoves it out of the way to offer its own wares. Everything about this is commercial in the worst way. This feels like an album that you like after you've already decided you like the Beatles.
Sex Pistols
2/5
Best Song: Bodies. I appreciate the shock value that a song that so explicitly discusses abortion must have caused when the album first came out.
Worst Song: Problems. Holy shit that droning "Prawwblemm" at the end of the track is one of the least musical things I've heard on this list. And I can't even give the group credit to think this might have been an intentional choice. I think they legitimately didn't know better.
Overall: Imagine if you took punk music, stripped it of all its lyrical intelligence, its musical creativity, and its political authenticity. An album with neither a heart nor a brain. An extraordinary long 39 minutes.
Eric Clapton
2/5
Best Song: I Shot The Sheriff. It is a chilled out classic, with good vocals and tight guitar playing.
Worst Song: Willie And The Hand Jive. You can't tell me he's not saying "handgina" over and over.
Overall: It mostly just feels like Clapton playing with his guitar, more than it feels like a cohesive album with a heart and soul. Admittedly, the guitar work is pretty damn good, but it all starts to blend together halfway through the album.
Nitin Sawhney
4/5
Best Song: Homelands. The mix of traditional songs and instruments comes together beautifully here.
Worst Song: Pilgrim. Not a bad song, per se, but it definitely doesn't fit with the vibe of the rest of the album.
Overall: This artist was totally new to me, and I found myself really enjoying this album. A great mix of samples and chill instrumental beats. Perfect for working or cooking, but also interesting enough to listen to outright (i.e., not just in the background).
Tangerine Dream
2/5
Best Song: Not applicable.
Worst Song: Not applicable.
Overall: This is ethereal space music. I'm not sure whether it is good ethereal space music, but that is what it is. It feels like music that would be best listened to while absolutely blitzkrieged in a planetarium, but when just sitting at work, staring at spreadsheets, it comes off as a little tedious. Context is key for this one.
Nirvana
4/5
Best Song: Smells Like Teen Spirit. Brilliant kickoff to the album. It truly sounds like angst personified. This song in particular might be the high water mark for grunge as a genre.
Worst Song: Stay Away. This is the bad side of angst that makes me cringe. Although I like the instrumentation in this track (especially the driving drums), the lyrical choice to continuously scream "stay away" has the energy of a teenager whose mom has just reminded them that they need to clean their room.
Overall: This has to be one of the most front-heavy albums I've ever seen. The first half is full of hit after hit, only for the album to tip off a ledge somewhere near the midpoint into fairly forgettable grunge tracks.
PJ Harvey
3/5
Best Song: Rid of Me. A totally raw and bold kickoff to the album. For whatever reason, the "rough around the edges" quality that is put off here feels more authentic than it does for a lot of other bands of the era.
Worst Song: Man-Size Sextet. Not bad by any means, but it definitely feels more like a performance art piece than a regular "song".
Overall: Had never heard (nor heard of) her before, but I was impressed with the quality and authenticity of the music. Felt like a good example of what benefits this raw style of musical production can have.
Muddy Waters
3/5
Best Song: I Can't Be Satisfied. I don't know, something about the humour/melancholy of the song tickled me right.
Worst Song: The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll. I just find the meta-approach of music about music to be kind of annoying, even if the musicianship in this track is top notch.
Overall: This is a difficult album for me to review. I do know that this style of music wasn't made for me. I don't know enough about the blues, I can just recognize it when I hear it. I don't know or appreciate why standards (ranging from the level of song down to individual riffs) are so prevalent in the genre, but I do know that as a result of these standards, the music starts to feel familiar or repetitive very quickly to me. The instrumentation and vocals are great, but I just can't get past the trappings of the genre.
Best Song: Stay with Me. It might be just because this song has a hint of familiarity, but I think Rod Stewart's otherwise frustrating voice works here.
Worst Song: Love Lives Here. I absolutely despise these kinds of "look how much I care" ballads that seem so popular from this era.
Overall: There is something about Rod Stewart's voice that I just don't like. To me, it sounds "flat". Like butter scraped over too much bread. It feels like it's missing some resonant, bass-y quality. Beyond that, the rest of the album is your pretty standard classic rock. Nothing to hate, nothing to love.
Dr. Dre
3/5
Best Song: Deeez Nuuuts. Can't go wrong with features from Warren G and Nate Dogg. Smooth as hell.
Worst Song: The Doctor's Office. I know it's not fair, this is a skit not a song, but it really doesn't work for how long it takes up from the album. And I just hate when rappers include lengthy "sex" skits in their albums.
Overall: It's definitely an overall strong album, with no weak points apart from the skits. Seminal work, surely, but time keeps moving. Hip hop keeps developing. And what's here feels more like a relic of the era than something that still has something interesting and meaningful to say today.
The Doors
4/5
Best Song: Break on Through (To the Other Side). Such an immense kickoff to the album. Showcases Morrison's unique vocal qualities, with the keyboard accompaniment that really signifies The Doors.
Worst Song: The Crystal Ship. I don't want to hear Jim Morrison croon and romance. I want the Lizard King. I want noise and passion and bravado.
Overall: It's good. Weird and good. It still feels like they haven't totally nailed down their aesthetic here, and there are a few too many forgettable filler tracks, but that is easily overcome by the long, meandering, drug-fueled tracks like "Light My Fire" and "The End". Morrison's simple poetry and the unique blend of backing instrumentals just work well together. Ambitious but accessible.
4/5
Best Song: Knights of Cydonia. Although there are many great tracks on this album, I have to give it to this one, largely because of how unique it is, and the intense feelings of nostalgia I have for it.
Worst Song: Soldier's Poem. Amidst the epic, grandiose tracks that begin and end this album, this sleepy lullaby in the middle falls short.
Overall: Muse somehow is able to create this epic and expansive sound that doesn't come off as cheesy or self-important. The vocals always carry this slightly ethereal wisp and the instrumentation feels both science fiction and fantasy. For reasons that I can't fully articulate, this music feels like hymns for the space age.
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
2/5
Best Song: Oh Boy. Classic wholesome horndog music. Personally I like to imagine that the "Oh Boy" is meant to be taken literally, and this is a progressive anthem decades ahead of its time.
Worst Song: It's Too Late. This sleepy weepiness is not what I need right now.
Overall: I'm sure this was the absolute bees knees back in the day, but today it just feels like the kind of music they play at a church function to make everyone feel a little bit rock and roll. I do appreciate the influence Buddy Holly had though, including explicitly on Don McLean's 'American Pie' and Weezer's 'Buddy Holly'.
Ray Charles
3/5
Best Song: Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying. A really beautiful lyrical theme, in a song where Ray Charles is just the right mix of laid back and freewheeling. Also features what is (in my opinion) the best piano solo of the album.
Worst Song: Alexander's Ragtime. The backing band is turned up so loud that each of their entries just comes out as a blaring blast of sound.
Overall: Surprisingly, I ended up liking the quieter, more subdued tracks on here. Although usually I like the more bombastic additions, I think problems with the mixing caused the quieter songs to stand out more.
Hüsker Dü
2/5
Best Song: Charity, Chastity, Prudence, and Hope. Over the course of the song, I went from disliking the vocal chorus to having it drilled so far into my brain I couldn't help but like it.
Worst Song: Actual Condition. The Elvis affectation isn't working.
Overall: 20 songs straight from the inoffensive middle ground. Painfully straightforward, after the first track you have a pretty clear idea of what the next 19 are going to sound like.
Justice
3/5
Best Song: D.A.N.C.E. The "childish" vocals ordinarily seem like the kind of thing that would just annoy me, but they really do work well.
Worst Song: Valentine. The carousel-style music did nothing for me.
Overall: Nice working music that definitely doesn't have as much of a "dance" feel as the track names would imply. Leans a little too heavy on the deep, bass-y "wah" sounds to generate contrast, but overall a pleasant, groovy listen.
Fatboy Slim
4/5
Best Song: Praise You. Even though this is one of the three big songs I'd heard before, the vocal sample here is just too good, and used too effectively, for it not to be the number one.
Worst Song: In Heaven. You can just tell that the artist thought that the vocal sample was cooler and edgier than it actually is.
Overall: One thing that I found Fatboy Slim is the master of on this album is holding things - notes, patterns, looping samples - longer than I feel many artists have the courage to hold things. The effect is that often, for these extended repeated sequences, I found myself going through this entire trajectory of liking whatever new sound he introduced, growing tired of it and wishing it would end, but then pushing through to some point where it felt like it had wormed itself fully into my brain. I know this idea obviously isn't unique among electronic artists, but I think that Fatboy Slim does it tremendously here.
R.E.M.
2/5
Best Song: Moral Kiosk. I think I just like this song lyrically and the drums bounce in a pleasant way.
Worst Song: 9-9. A spastic song that never goes anywhere.
Overall: I know a handful of R.E.M. songs that I kind of like. None of them are on this album. Not sure why this album was included, but it really gave the impression that R.E.M. has only one speed, and that speed isn't particularly exciting.
The Police
2/5
Best Song: Mother. Now this was interesting and weird. A song written from such a perverse, bizarre perspective is uncommon. The music, lyrics, and vocal performance all worked together well to create this tortured, crazy result.
Worst Song: Wrapped Around Your Finger. The unnecessarily longest song of the album. What about this orchestration needed more time?
Overall: I'm just going to say it: I don't like Sting's voice. Even when he's singing powerfully it has this intense nasal whine. Sure, it kind of works in songs like Synchronicity II, but I found myself growing so tired of it by the end of the album.
Elliott Smith
4/5
Best Song: Between the Bars. A perfect encapsulation of a particular type of melancholy. The lyrics here are excellent, full of clever double entendres.
Worst Song: Cupid's Trick. I found the instrumentals mixed too loud relative to Smith's voice. The drums were fine, but the guitar seemed at odds with the tone he was portraying.
Overall: I don't think there's an artist that can sound so vulnerable, and make the listener feel as vulnerable, as Elliott Smith. It is difficult to even articulate what it is about the combination of his whispered vocals and sad, poetic lyrics that is so compelling. It sounds like the coming of a peaceful but inevitable tragedy. Many have imitated, but none have come close to duplicating.
Sly & The Family Stone
3/5
Best Song: Family Affair. The male and female lead voices provide the perfect contrast for one another. The female vocalist in particular has such fantastic intonation on the line "it's a family affair" that I'm glad it's the last the thing the song leaves you with as it fades out.
Worst Song: Just Like a Baby. Too slow for my taste. The vocal scatting which seems to imitate a baby's cry at times is impressive in how it's able to scrape something musical out of such a non-musical thing, but it's a lot of cleverness for not much payoff.
Overall: A long, meandering jam album that takes its time to hit all its marks. That relaxed delivery somewhat depreciates its value as something to be actively listened to, but makes it a good candidate for background music.
Wilco
2/5
Best Song: Radio Cure. A slow but thoughtful pace that had enough of a forward-facing, driving tempo to keep it interesting.
Worst Song: Heavy Metal Drummer. This song stuck out for me. After all the slower tracks that preceded it, I didn't believe that they wanted to play this fast. It felt coerced.
Overall: Music I've never heard before that sounds like a lot of music I've already heard. Not bad, not memorable.
Public Enemy
3/5
Best Song: Can't Truss It. Chuck D's performance here is the best on the album.
Worst Song: I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo Niga. Why? Flavor Flav.
Overall: I fucking hate Flavor Flav. I know it's not exactly a hot take, but his presence diminishes the value of everything he touches. I get that's he's supposed to be like a comedic counterpoint to Chuck D, but that would require him being funny.
Gorillaz
3/5
Best Song: Clint Eastwood. The woozy, laidback flow works excellently here. The chorus feels like it perfectly encapsulates that moment when you're at the pinnacle point of inebriation and you feel like your every move is brilliant, even as you know the train might come off the rails at any moment.
Worst Song: Man Research (Clapper). Is it possible to overuse a vocal sample? Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah.
Overall: The album has a groovy, melted wax quality that makes it overall enjoyable as this kind of relaxed, thick, slow jam. It's too long, and several tracks could have been removed to keep the theme more on point, but maybe that isn't the point of an album like this.
Heaven 17
3/5
Best Song: Soul Warfare. Give me more of that bassline, please.
Worst Song: Decline Of The West. There is a jangly little audio snippet in here that sounds like a compression fragment... I don't know what it is trying to be but it sounds awful and is used liberally.
Overall: Really weird album. What started as an interesting, disco-inspired groovy pop thing suddenly took a radical turn at the end, turning into a (failed, in my opinion) attempt at industrial music. The result feels very fractured, but highlights were sufficiently interesting that I could see myself returning.
Donovan
2/5
Best Song: Season of the Witch. I like songs that slowly build like his one does. Plus it has a cool title.
Worst Song: Legend of a Girl Named Linda. I'm sure there's a delightful little story hidden in this ballad, just as I'm sure the lead singer had a +1 with girls named "Linda" for the rest of his life. Doesn't mean I want to hear it though.
Overall: Going in, I knew only two of the songs, although I didn't know who had performed them. Coming out, I understand why I knew only those two, as the remainder were a bunch of dry duds. I do respect the audacity of having a song called "Guinevere" be immediately followed by "Fat Angel".
The Byrds
2/5
Best Song: Mr. Tambourine Man. It has the one trait that really helps these old classic rock songs succeed: familiarity.
Worst Song: All I Really Want To Do. The lyrics just seem like that kind of predatory whining of a "Nice Guy".
Overall: Very many very short songs which do little do differentiate themselves. I'm sure it was influential, but today it's just a bit boring.
Cocteau Twins
2/5
Best Song: Iceblink Luck. Nice groove. Nice rhythm.
Worst Song: Wolf in the Breast. At a certain point, this sleepy temp starts to lose its lustre.
Overall: Relaxed music that is at times too wispy and ethereal for my tastes. I can understand how some might like this style of music, but I don't.
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
Best Song: Dig Your Own Hole. Incredibly funky. Could imagine it as the soundtrack of a chase scene in a Matrix-era movie.
Worst Song: Get Up On It Like This. The song closes out with a repeating vocal sample that sounds JUST like the sound Baby Mario makes when you take damage in the SNES Yoshi's Island game, and that sound is permanently associated with anxiety and trauma.
Overall: Good background and working music. Not as exciting as much of the other electronic music on this list, but still pleasant to listen to.
Arctic Monkeys
4/5
Best Song: From The Ritz To The Rubble. Something about the rapid-fire lyrics of the intro really sticks with me. Paired with the layered vocals, this sounds like a perfect song to hear live.
Worst Song: You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me. Not a bad song, but the inclusion of other vocals really just reminds you how great Alex Turner's vocals are.
Overall: A classic album that I'd already listened to extensively before this. As a Canadian, that commitment to the accent sounds incredibly attractive and endearing. The music behind it rocks too, creating this fun and cheeky album that feels like an icon for post-2000s indie rock.
Run-D.M.C.
2/5
Best Song: It's Like That. Really just a nice lyrical hook.
Worst Song: Hollis Crew. It's like a worse version of "It's Like That".
Overall: Some things just don't age well, although I'm not sure how excited I would have been to hear this back in the day. Everything is delivered with this plodding rhythm, to the point that it feels like the tracks have been artificially slowed.
The Pharcyde
3/5
Best Song: Passin' Me By. The most technically impressive rapping performance, that also manages to tell an interesting story and has a nice musical hook. This song feels very "of an era", but in a good way. Close second for "Otha Fish".
Worst Song: 4 Better Or 4 Worse. The "deranged phone call" character from the latter half of the song seemed like it was somehow actually going to work, but it overstayed its welcome into a weird, sexually aggressive territory that kind of undid whatever cool there was. I did like his slow, stilted delivery though.
Overall: A good album that sometimes feels dated, but still holds up to a modern listening. A lot of Hip Hop ends up aging poorly, so I was happy that for the most part the age of the album doesn't get in the way of enjoying it. I liked the chill backing instrumentals, but the real star is Pharcyde's ability to consistently flip and mix up his flow.
Sepultura
4/5
Best Song: Ratamahatta. I really like the intense staccato delivery. It pairs well with the metal backing, and isn't something you often see in the genre. Close second to Itsári.
Worst Song: Straighthate. I'm not a big fan of when metal artists try to cram this "edgy" lyrical content into their songs as a way to, I don't know, gain credibility? The music is heavy enough to stand on its own without the cheesy lyrics.
Overall: Pleasantly surprised by this album. There was a diverse enough set of sounds to keep an album this long interesting (which isn't always the case in metal, where bands can tend to be a little one-note). I think the name "Roots" is fitting, and I most enjoyed the parts of the album where the band took inspiration from traditional/aboriginal Brazilian music. These elements felt really unique, whereas some of the more typical, English-language tracks were a bit boring.
Sigur Rós
4/5
Best Song: Viðrar vel til loftárása. I really liked the crescendo at around 8:00, and then the sort of cacophonous descent into madness at the end of the song.
Worst Song: Hjartað hamast (bamm bamm bamm). That feedback audio at the end of the track almost blew out my speakers, and really didn't fit with the rest of the song (or album).
Overall: A difficult album to rate. I can tell that my enjoyment would really depend on my mood at the time of listening. Feels like an excellent album to listen to while reading, or otherwise just relaxing. Best suited for evenings and rainy days.
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
Best Song: Billy Jack. A real soulful introduction to the album, with this current of funk that is disappointingly less-prominent in the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Jesus. I love me some gospel music, but the falsetto became a bit too much, and the guitar solo in the middle just felt like Eric Clapton was trying to butt himself into the track, uninvited.
Overall: A lovely soul/funk/R&B album. I don't know if I'd heard Curtis Mayfield before, but he has a beautiful voice. I also appreciate that the album is short; at 37 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome. Perfect for relaxed settings. Music to cook and eat to.
Talking Heads
2/5
Best Song: Born Under Punches. I really wasn't expecting that futuristic sound. Felt fun and dance-y.
Worst Song: Seen and Not Seen. Although I like the attempt at this kind of spoken word track, it ultimately doesn't work here for me.
Overall: This album felt like a bit of a bait and switch. It kicks off with these killer 80s dance tracks, and then before you even reach the midpoint the style totally changes into a heady, serious, ballad filled album. I wish the whole album had been like the first four songs.
Massive Attack
3/5
Best Song: Weather Storm. Nice instrumental chill track. good for relaxing or reading.
Worst Song: Spying Glass. I became annoyed at the warble that was put at the end of each delivered vocal phrase. It felt like a weird call-out to reggae that didn't capture the best elements of reggae.
Overall: Like the other Massive Attack album I've already had on this list, it feels like a chill but ultimately directionless collection of beats and slow jams. I will say that the vocal tracks were better on average here than on the other album, but still found myself getting bored at times.
Pixies
2/5
Best Song: Rock Music. Maybe it is a product of my low expectations coming in, but the visceral, aggressive sound of this song took me my surprise.
Worst Song: Blown Away. Not spectacularly worse than the other songs in the album, but just a kid of dull, plodding track.
Overall: My opinion of the album generally was reduced by the difference between the song "Rock Music" and all the other tracks. I would have loved an album full of "Rock Music", and knowing that they could produce that style of music, what was on offer felt lukewarm, without that same punch and passion.
Overall:
The Rolling Stones
3/5
Best Song: Wild Horse. even though this song has attained a sort of cliché status, it really holds up. I find the main lyric of "wild horses couldn't drag me away" is really evocative, and Mick Jagger's giant personality is sufficiently under control here.
Worst Song: You Gotta Move. Absolute travesty of an blues take.
Overall: Having not grown up in the heyday of the Rolling Stones and instead knowing the group as a bunch of (impressive) geriatrics, they sit in a weird spot for me. I don't find their music particularly interesting, but it is very familiar. It's largely that familiarity that succeeds for me here.
Dwight Yoakam
2/5
Best Song: I Hear You Knockin'. It has a certain toe-tapping quality that I can't deny.
Worst Song: I Sang Dixie. The funeral dirge of someone I care nothing about.
Overall: This ain't my genre. Maybe this is the Mozart of this shit, but I wouldn't be able to tell. All I can tell is that the production is decently slick, and what's here sounds as listenable as its likely to get for me.
Michael Kiwanuka
5/5
Best Song: You Ain't The Problem. Incredible mix of retro-sounding soul and modern mixing elements. Immediately loved it. Close second to "I've Been Dazed".
Worst Song: None.
Overall: This one really surprised me. I knew nothing about it going it, and it completely blew me away. It was soulful yet modern, with beautiful lead vocals and what feels like a perfect mix built around those vocals. One of my favourite personal discoveries from the list thus far.
Johnny Cash
2/5
Best Song: San Quentin. It was tough not to like it given how much the audience appreciated the song.
Worst Song: Darlin' Companion. The song is just okay, and the prolonged talking goes on way too long.
Overall: I understand times were different, but I cannot fathom why in 2022 I'm listening to hard, censored beeps over every bit of profanity. Were the originals lost? Regardless, the live setting here doesn't really help the overall presentation. It certainly feels like everyone at the show was having a great time, but the whole schtick of "they tried to tell Johnny Cash what to do but he don't listen to authority" just comes off as cheesy. The "casual" mentions to dope and song stealing also come off as pandering.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Best Song: Lose My Breath. The vocals are really dreamy here, in a way that works for me.
Worst Song: Feed My With Your Kiss. The mixing is really frustrating to listen to, with the vocals dialed way too quiet. It feels like you have to strain to hear them, but even then aren't well rewarded for the strain.
Overall: Second album of theirs that I've had on this list and my reaction is about the same as the first. Very "one note", wherein after you've heard a song or two you've heard them all. A constant drone with little dynamic change.
Kate Bush
4/5
Best Song: Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God). I'm writing this review in a post Stranger Things S4 world, which undeniably changed the impact of this song. Still, I'm glad this song was given a spotlight as it really is excellent. Everything works here: the strong vocals, future-synth sounds, and interesting lyrics.
Worst Song: And Dream Of Sheep. There is only so much ballad I can take, and this song is too much ballad.
Overall: Other than the effect of Stranger Things, this was my first exposure to Kate Bush's music. I was really impressed with the diversity and creativity of music on offer here. From elevated, 80s-style anthems to weird and interesting tracks like "Jig of Life". There are a few slower, forgettable tracks in the middle, but overall the breadth covered here impressive. Combined with Kate Bush's unique and powerful lyrics and vocal performances, I can understand why she has such a significant following.
Barry Adamson
3/5
Best Song: Something Wicked This Way Comes. The right amount of chill while still being energetic. Pretty major deviation from the sex-obsessed nature of the first track. Good music for working.
Worst Song: It's Business As Usual. I actually somewhat like this song as a bit of art. It certainly made me uncomfortable, and I think both vocalists/actors did a good job of conveying their respective emotions, but would I ever want to listen to this track again? Did it fit within the context of the album? Nah.
Overall: It's weird. And it doesn't feel like a single album. From a starting track that is unspeakably horny, through muted jazzy rhythmic songs in the middle, plus the occasional spoken word theatre, I don't really understand what the artist was going for here. Some of the individual songs sound nice in isolation, but listening to the album front-to-back just gives you whiplash from the tonal changes.
The Who
3/5
Best Song: My Generation. Iconic rock song. In retrospect, it's actually kind of surprising that the "stuttering" effect works as well as it does here.
Worst Song: Happy Jack. Lyrically, all I can imagine is "Simple Jack".
Overall: Significantly more boring than I expected. Not a lot exciting here, especially given that this ought to have the added energy of a live concert. Also, The Who's tendency to write story-based tracks seemed really cool to me when I was younger, but now that I've heard it done so much better by other bands, I find these a bit lackluster.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2/5
Best Song: American Girl. Something sort of works here with Tom Petty's kind of retrained, desperate sounding voice.
Worst Song: Fooled Again (I Don't Like It). This song wasn't all that much worse than the others, but it was just boring enough, just late enough in the album to be the tipping point for me.
Overall: Really as stock-standard as classic rock gets. To me, nothing here sticks out as noteworthy, none of the songs feel that differentiated. Sure it works fine as bland, rock-flavoured background music, but beyond that I can't imagine listening to this earnestly.
The War On Drugs
3/5
Best Song: Suffering. Thoughtful lyrics and this drawn out, echoey musical style. really feels like the distillation of the melancholy feeling that the rest of the album is going for.
Worst Song: Eyes To The Wind. Leans a bit too heavily in the bluegrass/country domain for my tastes.
Overall: Music to drive/stare out the window of a moving vehicle to. I can see how some people would love this, but it just doesn't match the type of music I typically like. It is inoffensive and pleasant to listen to, but doesn't do much to grab my attention.
The Cars
2/5
Best Song: Just What I Needed. More for familiarity than anything.
Worst Song: All Mixed Up. I don't like the falsetto portions.
Overall: The lead singer sometimes does this overly 80s affectation with his voice that actually makes it sound like he's emulating a baby voice. Don't like that. As for the rest, it has that kind of singalong quality that makes it somewhat enjoyable, but it's all wrapped up in that 80s aesthetic that I find unpalatable.
Cyndi Lauper
3/5
Best Song: Time After Time. It's an impressive feat to have a song this slow also feel entirely danceable. I like the way the song ramps up into the chorus each time.
Worst Song: He's so Unusual. I don't even know if this counts as a song, but I'm baffled that it was included in this album. Why the baby talk? Why did it only come out of my right headphone? Was it a skit or a song? Why does it seem like the album is (almost) named after this song? Nevertheless, it sounds gross and should've been cut.
Overall: Each song here, even the slow ones, seems designed to get people up, dancing and singing along. Sure, the general synth-y quality that pervades all these 80s albums is a bit much for me, but I can see the appeal of this more than a lot of other 80s albums.
N.W.A.
4/5
Best Song: Fuck Tha Police. Timeless, perfect track that manages to be both clever and anthemic. One of the best examples of righteous anger in a song.
Worst Song: 8 Ball. The rhythm + rhyme-scheme felt a little too Dr. Seuss.
Overall: The rapping is great, with each member bringing their own flavour that sounds distinct without any obvious weak links or outright stars. The selection of beats here are also good and groovy. The whole album feels a bit long, but it's tough to complain when the whole runtime is actual tracks and not inflated with skits, like a lot of other albums of its era. Still, maybe the best rap album of its decade.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
Best Song: Relax. It feels like the distillation of all the best parts of the rest of the album in a single, normal-length track. Silly, almost like video game music. And something about the way he cries out "hit me with those laser beams" just gets to me.
Worst Song: San Jose. Silly little smooth jazz number that feels at odds with the rest of the album.
Overall: Such a weird album. The tone is all over the place, and there are random, just alright covers interspersed throughout? Some individual songs are okay, but the whiplash from all the tonal changes means you can't really just throw the album on in the background and enjoy. Also, as in the song "The Ballad of 32", I think I'm done with artists putting moaning and other sexual vocalizations into a song as if that instantly makes the song edgy and sexy. It doesn't. It makes it awkward.
Everything But The Girl
3/5
Best Song: I Don't Want to Talk About It. She has pleasant voice. It sounds like the kind of song that could be played at a wedding or a funeral.
Worst Song: Tears All Over Town. A bit too slow, and the backing instrumentals make it sound like an R&B slow jam, which doesn't vibe with the vocals.
Overall: I kept expecting to dislike this album but then I just... didn't. With each new song, I still found the main vocals charming. Sure, it's not altogether exciting music, but she has an undeniably lovely voice. I could care less about most of whatever music is going on in the background, but the strength of the vocals really sticks out here.
Steely Dan
3/5
Best Song: Barry Town. Feels like the kind of song that plays at the beginning of a movie as the main character parades down the main street of their town, greeting neighbours, before anything bad happens. It feels like a song where nothing bad CAN happen.
Worst Song: East St. Louis Toodle-Oo. My favourite part of this album is the vocals riding along with the instrumentals, not the instrumentals masquerading as vocals. Wah wah.
Overall: I really like the vocals here. It feels like what bands like Def Leppard aspire to be. Still, the guitar wankery gets a bit obnoxious at times, even in an album this short. I'd prefer they focus more on the buttery hooks and less on the (probably technically very sophisticated) musicianship.
Pavement
2/5
Best Song: No Life Singed Her. On the border of punk, provides some much needed energy to the album.
Worst Song: In The Mouth A Desert. Sounds like a high school band whose members listen exclusively to Weezer.
Overall: I have to assume that this was influential for later and greater bands, because nothing here seems particularly interesting to me. Just that plain, droning noisiness that takes few risks and accomplishes little. Songs to be angsty in the 90s to.
CHIC
3/5
Best Song: Good Times. A social classic, that if nothing else gets people making goofy disco dance moves.
Worst Song: My Feet Keep Dancing. The entire 6:30 song sounded like an outro.
Overall: A very repetitive disco album that always feels like it's building up towards something that never comes. It's pleasant as sort of groovy background music, but that's about it.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
Best Song: The Dark of the Matinee. I enjoyed the dynamic volume/tempo.
Worst Song: Tell Her Tonight. The vocals sound raw in a bad way.
Overall: Apart from the few (by now massively overplayed) hits, this feels pretty forgettable. It sounds a bit like a mix of LCD Soundsystem and the Arctic Monkeys, but is inferior to both. Not bad, but just the kind of nondescript music you hear during breaks at a sports arena.
Joy Division
2/5
Best Song: Atrocity Exhibition. I like the bouncing drums, and that's about it.
Worst Song: Isolation. The man is just talking over stock standard 80s sounding beats.
Overall: This man cannot sing. Sometimes that's okay, and the song feels like an odd arthouse take on what is music, but mostly it just feels like someone snatched the microphone at the company Christmas party and is subjecting everyone to their talent.
Nas
5/5
Best Song: N.Y. State of Mind. That low, droning melody that repeats throughout the song is so iconic, and Nas is on another level through the whole track.
Worst Song: Life's a Bitch. It's not a terrible song, but maybe a bit overplayed in movies, and it has this spirit of nihilism that I feel very much is not fitting with the rest of the album.
Overall: I mean, this is maybe as good as it gets in this genre of rap. Great flow, great features. There's a reason it's considered such a classic. Sure, there are a few slurs that haven't aged well, but I don't think that's enough to sink what is otherwise such a thoughtful and iconic album.
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
Best Song: Chan Chan. Such a pleasant, dance-y kickoff to the album.
Worst Song: Pueblo Nuevo. I just didn't find the extended, ragtime-style piano that interesting.
Overall: My first time hearing them. Based on the name, I assumed it was going to be a standard indie band... Instead I was pleasantly surprised. Beautiful Latin melodies, always interesting instrumentation. Will definitely be returning to this.
Deep Purple
3/5
Best Song: Child in time. The best vocal performance on the album, that perfectly hits that sweet point between singing and screaming. Plus a killer guitar solo.
Worst Song: The Mule. Excessively long drum solo that even the crown didn't seem interested in.
Overall: The music is good, but the live setting doesn't add much atmosphere beyond apparently giving the band permission to draw out each song into these long, drawn out solos and musical interludes while the audience quietly watches. The result is an album that feels a little "look what I can do", and lacks the cohesion of a regular album but also the passion of a live setting.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
3/5
Best Song: Suite: Helplessly Hoping. Here is where the layered vocals sound necessary, religious even, with muted background instruments and the voices on full display.
Worst Song: Long Time Gone. Definitely feels like they're trying to mimic "harder" rock artists here.
Overall: This might just be a me thing, but I find that this kind of music, where the vocalists sing everything in this perpetual vocal harmony, as cultish. Like you're being indoctrinated by a group wearing robes and they're trying to get you to join their collective consciousness. For that reason, no matter how pleasant the the harmonies might sound, it eventually just ends up grating my nerves, sounding unnatural.
Neil Young
3/5
Best Song: On the Beach. The guitar solo that makes up the bulk of the middle of this song is excellent.
Worst Song: Revolution Blues. Young's voice just isn't cut out to sing the blues.
Overall: I can never decide whether/how much I like Neil Young. His voice is always teetering on the edge of annoying, but it also has moments of possessing this sort of haunting beauty. I wish he stayed further away from trying to be a rock star and gravitated more towards a Willie Nelson, or even an Elliot Smith aesthetic.
Run-D.M.C.
2/5
Best Song: It's Tricky. Guaranteed to get the whole room going along with the chorus.
Worst Song: Hit It Run. Are those straight up fart adlibs?
Overall: Hasn't aged that well. Every song kind of blends together with that staccato, in-your-face delivery. This style had its era, but once the DK Rap came out on the N64, I think it just reads as corny now.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
3/5
Best Song: Blue Rondo a la Turk. I especially liked the intro melody with the piano with the bass layered behind it.
Worst Song: Kathy's Waltz. I just don't really like the rhythm of a waltz.
Overall: Pleasant little bit of background jazz. Obviously Take Five has become a high school band staple to the point of not being altogether that interesting anymore, but the rest is nice to have on in the background.
Nick Drake
3/5
Best Song: ' Cello Song. The bongos (?) added a nice element to the soft, almost sultry aspect to his voice.
Worst Song: Way to Blue. Seems like the introduction to a theatre production, rather than the fourth song into an album.
Overall: It was raining while I listened to this album, which I think significantly helped its appreciation. A mildly melancholic feel with a talented but muted vocal performance. The album feels candlelit. Good for quiet dinners and being sort of sad.
CHIC
3/5
Best Song: Happy Man. That walking bassline and the in-your-face, golden-retriever naivete of a chorus that's just "I'm a happy man" make this track a standout.
Worst Song: Chic Cheer. Pretty rough start to the album. Not a fan of "cheer" as a musical form, and the use of a ref's whistle as an instrument just feels a bit lazy. Also, by the end of the song, it sounded to me like they were saying "Sheep, Sheep".
Overall: The groove is undeniable, but is it altogether that interesting? Not really. Toss it on in the background and you'll waggle your shoulders some, but won't bust out and dance.
Elastica
2/5
Best Song: Hold Me Now. Nice, short, to the point alt-rock track. Almost has a grunge feel.
Worst Song: 2:1. Never felt like the song landed on a decent rhythm.
Overall: Neither offensive nor interesting. I imagine it must be a historically relevant article, but to me it mostly just feels like a standard, rather dull alt-rock album.
The Velvet Underground
2/5
Best Song: After Hours. Pleasantly innocent, with a sort of naive feel. Very sweet.
Worst Song: The Murder Mystery. I get it's a bold artistic choice to have different audio playing in the left and right ear, but goddamnit it sounds awful.
Overall: I can maybe see how some people might like it, but the whole thing is too understated for me. Everything felt like a warm-up. I appreciated the thoughtful lyrics, but there are more poetic singer-songwriters out there, and nothing else really held my interest.
Radiohead
3/5
Best Song: The National Anthem. Explosive, bombastic, with a wide range of instruments that always kept things interesting.
Worst Song: Kid A. The heavily vocoded voice sounds more Stephen Hawking than Daft Punk.
Overall: For an album that I'd heard so much about before actually hearing, I found it kinda... boring? It has its moments of excitement and uniqueness, and the production is really good overall, but the vocals just drag the whole thing down. They're so often mumbled that I can't even tell if the lyrics are interesting. Maybe I have heard too much of the music that was influenced by this album for it to feel fresh on its own, but I was underwhelmed.
Meat Loaf
2/5
Best Song: Bat Out Of Hell. The song takes like 2 minutes to get started, "ends" three or four times, and yet is still somehow the perfect amount of camp and energy to really rip.
Worst Song: You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth. That scripted intro must be the most cringeworthy thing I've heard in this list. Good god, like the opening plenary to a furry convention.
Overall: Apart from the two standout tracks (Bat Out of Hell and Paradise By The Dashboard Light), which are brilliantly campy and theatrical, everything else is a bit boring and plain. The middle of the album almost sounds like a poor Elton John impersonation, which is disappointing given the creativity in the two aforementioned tracks.
Dolly Parton
2/5
Best Song: Early Morning Breeze. The deep, strolling bass serves as a nice contrast to Parton's high and floaty voice. Hearing this song, it strikes me that she needed more of this contrast throughout the album.
Worst Song: The Mystery of the Mystery. Classically cheeseball religious lyrics that come off as particularly vacuous while trying to seem deep.
Overall: Very much not my type of music. The slight warble that she puts on man of her notes is off-putting. Lyrically it is nice, and Dolly Parton seems like a lovely person, but this isn't my style.
Morrissey
2/5
Best Song: Why Don't You Find out For Yourself. Slightly more upbeat than the rest of the album. Feels like a break from the (somewhat) monotonous melancholy.
Worst Song: Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning. I understand that the whispering was a clear artistic choice, but that doesn't make it sound good.
Overall: Not terrible, but I felt like I was forgetting it as quickly as I listened to it. I guess this is a sort of proto-emo? It feels like it's probably wrought with emotions, they're just communicated in this muted and sleepy way.
The Stranglers
2/5
Best Song: London Lady. Has a stronger punk element than the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Ugly. Everything about this song is ugly, from the lyrics to the singer's attempts to sing on rhythm.
Overall: Big English oof. Another contender for British band I'd do find to not know about. The fact that this album is included on "1001 albums" is, quite frankly, offensive. There's life outside your borders, goddamnit.
ABBA
3/5
Best Song: Dancing Queen. Sure it's a bit much, and it doesn't seem that great when listened to quietly at home through a set of headphones, but that's not what it's meant for. It's meant for the dance floor, a large group, and everyone belting it out together.
Worst Song: My Love, My Life. I'm just not here for slow ABBA ballads.
Overall: When I fashioned myself an edgy teen, I think I decided that I didn't like ABBA because they were too safe and clean. I'm old enough now to see the error of my ways. It turns out they are safe and clean, but in a good way. It's dance-y, the vocals are harmonious. Honestly, their biggest fault is that they're overplayed, making songs like "Dancing Queen" come off as a bit cliche. Still, it's really just the hits here that still hit, and there is a fair amount of tedium around the middle.
David Crosby
3/5
Best Song: Cowboy Movie. Something about the way this is mixed makes the low-end sound incredible. It's as though the bass is strumming inside of my brain. The rest of the song almost falls away in the face of the deep rhythm of it. Honorable mention to: Song with No Words, which was also excellent.
Worst Song: Orleans. I actually like the vocal melody, but I don't like the choice to play the vocals as a harmony. Just let Crosby sing it in a single voice.
Overall: Excellent musicianship, where the playing felt impassioned and thoughtful. It's not in-your-face music, and everything has this kind of quiet timidity to it. The album also comes off the rails at the end, transitioning into what sounds like a sort of pseudo-religious offering. I'm here for the understated folk rock, gimme more of that.
Paul Revere & The Raiders
3/5
Best Song: I'm Not Your Stepping Stone. I can see, especially when the vocals get rawer and more akin to a growl, how this track would have gone on to influence a lot of the bands that came later.
Worst Song: Melody for an Unknown Girl. The song itself is fine, whatever, but those spoken word sections are appalling. Jesus, self-awareness was a different beast in the 60s.
Overall: Definitely seems like an album caught in a transitional period of music, with one foot in the future for progressive songs like "Stepping Stone", and one foot in the past with the more tempered, rock-and-roll beats that make up the rest of the album. They can't decide if they want to be Led Zeppelin or the Monkees. More of that future-oriented music would have made this album much better for me.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
Best Song: Happy Death Men. I actually liked the noisy and cacophonous outro.
Worst Song: The Pictures on My Wall. For several songs on the album, it feels like the vocalist is doing a bad Bowie impression. This feels like the worst of those cases.
Overall: Just dull. Not sure why this stood the test of time, or why it's considered noteworthy now. Inoffensive and generic.
Hole
3/5
Best Song: Northern Star. I'm a sucker for any song that slowly builds in this perpetual crescendo to hit a big climax, and this song does that well.
Worst Song: Boys on the Radio. This feels like they were writing a song to try to have it appear in a rom-com, maybe abandoning their rougher roots.
Overall: I'd heard of Hole, and heard the song "Celebrity Skin", but never put the two together. I was actually impressed at how Courtney Love has the perfect, almost proto-typical alt-rock voice. Poppy enough to be approachable, but with a decently raw edge to make it alternative.
Digital Underground
2/5
Best Song: The Humpty Dance. Yeah it feels silly, but it's still better than the rest of the awkward, overly serious (and overly long) tracks on the album.
Worst Song: Freaks of the Industry. My campaign against sex moans as background music continues. This shit is just awkward, not interesting. Like, did at any point during writing/recording did this group of dudes question themselves as they went through line after line of corny sex poetry?
Overall: What is it about hip hop from this era that always sounds like it's being performed by Snagglepuss? The best parts of this album are its samples.
Janis Joplin
3/5
Best Song: Cry Baby. A nice midpoint between rock and an almost gospel quality.
Worst Song: Get it While You Can. A bit too sleepy of a gospel track.
Overall: Janis Joplin fits into that category of artist that I'd heard about far more than I'd actually heard their music. I can understand the hype, as she's got such a powerful voice (which she pushes to the limit in nearly every song). Still, the songs begin to blur together somewhat, favouring more formulaic tracks, rather than letting Joplin rip loose and be weird.
Beatles
3/5
Best Song: A Hard Day's Night. Up-tempo, nice percussion in the background. Paul's voice is used well here (within its limits).
Worst Song: I Should Have Known Better. Most bands not called "The Beatles" would be skewered for that failed high note. Overall just a needlessly strained vocal performance.
Overall: Obviously there are some well-written songs in here, but they make up at most half of what's on offer. And more fundamentally, even for the songs that I did quite like, I could think of covers that I like as much or more. So yeah, the Beatles had a knack for writing pop hits, but often those songs are better performed by others. Three Beatles albums in and I'm still unsold on their position as inarguable music gods.
The Strokes
4/5
Best Song: Last Nite. Sure, it's the most famous from the album, but it feels justified here. The way, as the song progresses, the line "Last Nite" starts to feel like it's being torn out of him. A truly melancholy dance song.
Worst Song: Take It Or Leave It. I dig the vocals here, but the instrumentals seem to be turned too quiet, and don't quite match the vocal intensity.
Overall: This is what alt rock should be. Musically talented, with this unique sound that doesn't fit the more classic rock sound. That raw, slightly degraded audio quality, particular on the vocals, gives the whole album a garage feel. Each song is as short as it needs to be, and full of hooks.
Simon & Garfunkel
3/5
Best Song: A Hazy Shade of Winter. Refreshingly uptempo, shows that the duo can pull off more energetic songs than their typical ballads. Would love an album full of songs like this.
Worst Song: Old Friends. Sounds much too much like a theatrical song from a stage play than a song I want to just listen to, on an album.
Overall: Beautiful voices that are mostly under-utilized singing simple or uninteresting songs. Everything sounds "nice" and fresh and clean, but also a little sanitized.
Jean-Michel Jarre
3/5
Best Song: Ethereal and bloopy, while still being short enough to be a traditional song.
Worst Song: Can't say there is one... the label barely applies here.
Overall: Nice easy listening. Very clearly "proto-" electronic, but it feels interesting listen to where the genre came from, in contrast to the places it's gone since.
The Jam
2/5
Best Song: To Be Someone (Didn't We Have A Nice Time). Very typically classic British rock.
Worst Song: In The Crowd. Bit of an overly long jam session that never went anywhere interesting.
Overall: Seems like the kind of music that goes over great in a pub as background to a round of drinks, but listened to outside of that context it's just another band on the pile of classic rock, indiscernible from most of the others.
The Byrds
2/5
Best Song: Tribal Gathering. A nice, jazzy, pseudo-psychedelic track.
Worst Song: Space Odyssey. Imagine my disappointment, thinking that I'd hear a version of Bowie's classic before him, only to be met with this 60's SciFi church hymnal.
Overall: An album that shows its age, with all the positives and negatives that entails. I liked the psychedelic aspects that pop up here and there throughout the album, but it also had that element of uniformity that feels true for a lot of older rock. Also, the album was probably a solid 3 before track 11, after which it dropped clear off a cliff. Why include these half-baked tracks to leave a bad taste in the listener's ears?
Radiohead
3/5
Best Song: Paranoid Android. Really wide reaching song, that feels (in a good way) like three independently good songs crammed together into one.
Worst Song: Fitter Happier. Just as in Kid A, I think the band thought this robo-voice was way cooler than it actually is. Barely intelligible, and ugly to listen to.
Overall: Fine, it's good. I get that it's important, and I feel the weight of its influence while listening to it. Still though, for whatever reason, it's just not my jam. I'm sure much of the music I like wouldn't exist without Radiohead, and for that I'm grateful, but the source does little for me. There are a few standout tracks here (Paranoid Android and Karma Police, specifically), but the rest starts to get a bit lost in the sweeping instrumentals and nasal whine.
Keith Jarrett
3/5
Best Song: Pt. II C. These terms don't really apply here, but it's the shortest, and most "song" length.
Worst Song: N/A
Overall: It's pleasant to listen to, but I don't think I know enough about classical music to appreciate why this particular album was selected over any other. Nothing stood out to me as ground breaking, but it's certainly something I could imagine returning to for chill reading atmosphere.
Jimmy Smith
2/5
Best Song: Back at the Chicken Shack. Nice blues/jazz fusion. Really enjoyed the sax here.
Worst Song: Messy Bessie. Overlong, without much to show for it. The piano (organ? Harpsichord?) took way too much of the stage here.
Overall: To my uneducated ear this is entirely serviceable, utterly unexciting jazz. Probably full of sick cuts I'm too dense to understand.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Best Song: The Wind Cries Mary. The album is full of examples of Hendrix setting fire to tracks, burning it all down as he plays these iconic guitar solos that everyone's become familiar with now. What I like about this song is how gentle he sounds, both in voice and guitar.
Worst Song: Red House. Sounds a bit too much like a standard blues track.
Overall: Feels like the best that classic rock has to offer. Mildly psychedelic, marked by Jimi's excellent voice and 9bviously virtuosic guitar playing. Maybe too long, it's got a bit too much fat on it to warrant a 5 from me, but still phenomenal, obviously.
Blondie
3/5
Best Song: Hanging on the Telephone. Just enough of that gruff quality to the vocals, and everything is quick and uptempo enough to stay interesting.
Worst Song: One Way Or Another. Maybe it's just overplayed, but I find the chorus (especially the getcha-getcha-getcha) very grating.
Overall: The vocals are the best part here, and they're best when pushed into a throaty, rock direction. Unfortunately, those rock moments are not as frequent as the plain, fairly basic era pop. Also, the album absolutely didn't need to be 16 tracks.
The Smiths
4/5
Best Song: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. Something about the specificity of the chorus ("double-decker bus"), and the way the rhythm and rhyme matches up, is pleasant to the ear. Angsty, perhaps, but enjoyably so.
Worst Song: The Boy with the Thorn in His Side. Morrissey's strengths are in his lyrics, so him scatting the melody alongside the guitar did little for me.
Overall: Morrissey's soft, silky voice works here with the vaguely dark and introspective lyrics. The real star here might be the rhythm section, which gives most of the songs an upbeat bounce to it that provides a counterpoint of life that juxtaposes well with Morrissey's understatedness.
Gene Clark
3/5
Best Song: Some Misunderstanding. A lengthy, epic of a song that goes places I didn't expect.
Worst Song: True One. This feels like the genre standard that I expected. Solo vocals for the loss, as well.
Overall: Although I don't typically like this kind of music, I found it quite compelling here. I think the inclusion of choral vocals added some excitement that would have otherwise been missing.
Joan Baez
3/5
Best Song: House of the Rising Sun. I just love this song. I love the original, I love most covers. Her voice fits nicely, turning it into a somewhat more haunted version than others.
Worst Song: Mary Hamilton. This song exemplifies some of the problems with self-editing in the album. The song is overly long, lingering long after it has made its point, and is the tipping point for the same regarding the album in general.
Overall: What felt charming and ethereal at the beginning gave way to tiresome as the soft vibrato continued relatively unabated for 16 long tracks. I might have loved a shorter version of this album, trimmed of its fat.
2Pac
3/5
Best Song: Young Niggaz. I prefer Pac on these higher tempo tracks. Feels politically charged, simultaneously realistic and aspirational, all with a little bit of funk and soul.
Worst Song: Dear Mama. This level of intense (forced?) sincerity ends up feeling a bit awkward. The content of the song is clearly intensely personal, but it isn't produced or performed that way.
Overall: I've never really listened to Tupac before this (Changes notwithstanding), and it's definitely real solid. His lyrics are always interesting, more storytelling than Biggie, and the production is decent. It feels a bit dated now though, more than Biggie does, although I can't quite put my finger on why.
Radiohead
3/5
Best Song: Life in a Glasshouse. The jazz brass instrumentals really helped ground the music, and served as a good background for the vocals. Maybe Radiohead really ought to be a jazz band.
Worst Song: Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. I actually quite liked the bassy instrumentals, but the real experimental vocals did nothing for me.
Overall: As technically competent and musically experimental Radiohead might be, I'm always left feeling like I've listened to an album with absolutely no soul. Like music written by a melancholic AI.
Randy Newman
3/5
Best Song: Rednecks. Imagine my surprise when Mr. Toy Story kicks the album off with liberal use of the N word. And it's funny, while still being listenable? Sign me up.
Worst Song: Marie. Too slow, too conventional.
Overall: Newman really shows his creativity here. Most songs tell a story, and most of those stories are interesting and unlike the standard material sourced for song lyrics. I didn't expect this level or sarcasm and satire. His unconventional voice is also pleasant to hear. Unfortunately, too many of the middle tracks eschew that creative energy for fairly standard love songs.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Best Song: Into the Fire. I'm a sucker for any gospel-style song, even if lyrically this one is about as milquetoast as it gets.
Worst Song: Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin). Just feels creepy and predatory.
Overall: Bruce Springsteen is the epitome of serviceable, inoffensive yet unexciting music. Listening to a Springsteen album, it's easy to forget that you're even listening to music. It is room temperature water. It sounds the way store-brand hot dogs taste. You're not mad to have a hot dog, and hey everyone likes a barbeque, but you're not asking for the recipe.
Public Enemy
3/5
Best Song: Fight The Power. There's a reason it's the most popular off the album. Pure righteous fury.
Worst Song: 911 is a Joke. Great, a full Flava Flav song.
Overall: Flava Flav thankfully takes little airtime on the album (although still more than he's due). Chuck D has such a buttery smooth flow which, when paired with his political lyrics, make compelling songs. Still, some of the production is dated, hindering its listenability in the modern day.
XTC
2/5
Best Song: Dear God. Simple but earnest lyricsc, with a nice build towards crescendo in the end.
Worst Song: Season Cycle. Sounds like the opening to a sitcom I wouldn't like.
Overall: Other than a few highlights, a big bunch of British boredom. Certainly doesn't belong on this list, for how little reaction it manages to elicit in its nearly hour long runtime.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Best Song: Sympathy For The Devil. By far the most adventurous and unique song on the album.
Worst Song: Parachute Woman. Jagger can't sing the blues. That's all there is to say.
Overall: It's mostly just kind of dull. The Stones seem to have occasional songs that stick out as unique, but the brunt of the album is just cheap, generic rock. Maybe it hits better live, where Mick Jagger's charisma can elevate the performance, but on recording it just falls flat.
Radiohead
3/5
Best Song: Sit Down. Stand Up. I really like the flurry of chaos that happens around 3:00 in. I wish the album were full of more moments like that.
Worst Song: Scatterbrain. Melancholy caterwauling. One of those songs where I don't have an emotional reaction, despite the vocalist's attempts to emote really hard.
Overall: Probably my favourite of the three Radiohead albums I've had thus far, if only by a small margin. Still, I'm left wishing their songs were on average more adventurous than they end up being.
D'Angelo
4/5
Best Song: Shit, Damn, Motherfucker. I already thought this song was great with the funky intro, and then when the chorus hit I was in with both feet. GotDAMN this song is good.
Worst Song: Higher. A little too much gospel in my R&B.
Overall: Shit this is smooth. My first exposure to it, and I'll definitely be keeping it in the rotation. So slick, with no real low points. Just a perpetual groove.
Soundgarden
3/5
Best Song: The Day I Tried To Live. I think Cornell really lets his voice run in this track. Obvious honorable mention to "Black Hole Sun", but that song suffers somewhat from being played so much.
Worst Song: Half. Far too meagre a mostly instrumental track to have this late in the album.
Overall: It's pretty good. Cornell's voice is the obvious star here, but everything surrounding it is good and grungy. The main knock against it is its length. At a little over an hour, I don't think the album tries enough different things to really stand out, and gets bogged down once you get past the hits.
David Bowie
3/5
Best Song: Fame. This track feels like it does the best at portraying Bowie's grandiose, larger-than-life persona. Super recognizable, super funky backing instrumentals too.
Worst Song: Across the Universe. This cover makes no improvements (or really any significant deviations) from the original.
Overall: Apart from the two big hits, it feels like relatively standard 70s fare, which means it's not much for me. I'm really starting to think that a lot of Bowie's music has a "you had to be there" quality, as it doesn't elicit much so far after the fact.
AC/DC
4/5
Best Song: Shake a Leg. I've always liked the guitar riff, and it's strangely the most danceable AC/DC song.
Worst Song: Let Me Put My Love Into You Babe. Absolutely one of the grossest euphemisms to come from a band that kind of revels in gross euphemisms. Also, "Don't you struggle, Don't you fight, Don't you worry cuz it's your turn tonight"? Jesus H.
Overall: A massive album full of great rock songs that I'd be happy never hearing again. Perhaps unfair to call them a victim of their own success, but the amount that I've heard these songs played at every sporting venue and outdoor event means I can't stand to listen to them any more.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
2/5
Best Song: The Curse of Baba Yaga. Absolute psychedelic nonsense, but I'm kind of here for it.
Worst Song: The Old Castle. Complete atonal whining at the beginning, that does eventually transition into more interesting but that ultimately
sounds like someone strapped a microphone to a hyped up mosquito.
Overall: Not sure I understand the appeal. I think there are far better ways to listen to Mussorgsky than this.
John Lennon
2/5
Best Song: How Do You Sleep? I liked the eastern influences in this song.
Worst Song: Imagine. Imagine liking this track.
Overall: This is the supposed Magnum Opus of Britain's greatest songwriter? First of all, can we finally admit that the title track is straight trite cheese? If there was ever any doubt, the celebrity rendition at the beginning of the pandemic illuminated what the actual context of the song is: wealthy privilege wistfully singing "imagine there's no hunger" while never being the least bit hungry themselves. The song is the pinnacle of pandering, and I hate that it was ever considered a poetic masterpiece. The rest of the album is totally forgettable as well.
Elliott Smith
4/5
Best Song: Everything Means Nothing To Me. The repetitive chorus, as the instrumentals swell in the background, creates a really nice effect. The choice to place this song immediately after "Everything Reminds Me Of Her" also feels like an impactful, meta-song choice that I dig.
Worst Song: Bye. Elliot Smith and his vocals are the point of admission.
Overall: As always, Elliot Smith's quiet, vulnerable delivery and poignant lyrics are excellent. The album is heavier (more electric) than I would maybe prefer to pair with Smith's voice, but there's still no denying the quiet presence Smith instills.
The Cardigans
3/5
Best Song: Lovefool. Never knew this was the group that did this song. Even though I've heard it dozens of times, it's still fun, bouncy, and with a playful chorus that you just feel like you have to sing.
Worst Song: Heartbreaker. Almost a waltz, can't say I liked how sleepy this one sounded.
Overall: Perfectly serviceable pop-alt-rock. Like the sound of her voice, like the brevity of the individual tracks and the album as a whole. Nothing overstays its welcome. Just quietly pleasant 90s rock.
JAY Z
3/5
Best Song: Izzo (H.O.V.A). Real funky dance track, that sounds like an extended intro but in a good way.
Worst Song: Girls, Girls, Girls. It's really just Jay-Z obnoxiously shouting "Girls" over a mediocre beat. I guess at least it's as advertised?
Overall: For a guy who seems like he's such a big part of pop culture, this is by far the most Jay-Z I've ever in one sitting. Turns out the best parts of the album are the parts that aren't him. Many of the beats, most of the samples... Great. It's when he starts "yeah"-ing overtop those samples that things start falling off. Lyrically, not exactly heavy hitting either. Never, while listening to this album, do I think, "I'm glad Jay-Z said that thing, and I'm glad that's the way he said it." Can't believe lyrics like "I can't see 'em comin' down my eyes" made it past being shown to literally anyone. And am I wrong to say that "Renegade" is an Eminem song with a Jay-Z feature, rather than vice versa?
Brian Eno
2/5
Best Song: Blank Frank. Here Come The Warm Jets. Consistent, inundating groove. Why wasn't this the album?
Worst Song: Driving Me Backwards. The effect placed on the vocal track makes it sound like a group of drunk friends is trying to sing a song together, but the knowledge of the lyrics is split evenly amongst the group so they all just try to sing what the others sing.
Overall: Pretty obnoxious, apart from the title track. Some of the tracks (looking at you Blank Frank) seem designed to annoy.
The Who
3/5
Best Song: Pinball Wizard. That guitar melody which pops up throughout the album makes its presence most known here. It also feels the most "rock" of all that's on offer.
Worst Song: Cousin Kevin. Is it just me, or does it sound like some of the vocals are really off-key?
Overall: I always applaud weird and avant garde choices in art, and a rock opera about a deaf, dumb, and blind kid who becomes a pinball savant is certainly weird. Sadly, in the effort to present a continuous narrative, the actual music becomes less interesting. Would probably be interesting to watch a stage production, but it struggles to hold my interest over such a lengthy album.
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
Best Song: A raw and somehow melancholy dance track that builds in a satisfying, continuous crescendo. Good stuff.
Worst Song: Time to Get Away. Probably the weakest vocals on the album, especially in the upper register.
Overall: An electronic album that feels personal and sad and uplifting and authentic. It feels like the moment on a night out when you suddenly remember that there is a broader world out there, and that in the morning you have to do whatever obligations you might have to do, but you keep partying anyway. Only now, the party feels tinted, if not tainted, with that knowledge that it's only for a little while longer.
The Flying Burrito Brothers
2/5
Best Song: Hot Burrito #2. At least things are starting to get somewhat interestingly electric here.
Worst Song: Sin City. Bit too honky tonk for me.
Overall: Sometimes you see a combination of a band name and an album name that seems like it might be interesting, but then the artists absolutely fumble the bag. Why give yourself such a silly name to just go out and sing sad little country ditties?
R.E.M.
3/5
Best Song: Man On The Moon. Nice chorus, lyrically interesting. If you believed...
Worst Song: Everybody Hurts. Listen, I get that this is a big song. Iconic, recognizable. But it's aggressively whiny. Cloying. I actually kind of like the central lyrical theme of "everybody hurts", but then they don't go and do anything interesting with it. Is that good and unifying? Is it the tragic reality of life that everything, in the end, is pain? Give me more than just "everybody hurts".
Overall: Tremendously okay. Fantastically alright. There are sounds on this album that can, undeniably, be categorized as music. Of all the albums in the world, this is one of them.
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
Best Song: The Theatre. Unexpectedly grandiose dance music.
Worst Song: To Speak is a Sin. The song that plays as you realize your Tinder date was being unexpectedly literal when they said you were looking like a snack. Patrick Bateman's ringtone.
Overall: Consuming, expansive, complex dance music that comes at you as a wall of sound with absolutely no soul. But hey, I mean there are times when I don't feel like having a soul. Whenever that happens, I'll listen to this album.
Todd Rundgren
2/5
Best Song: Breathless. Sad to say my favourite track on the album is the one in which he isn't singing.
Worst Song: It Takes Two to Tango (This Is For The Girls). That chipper voice is really starting to grate on my by this point in the album, and the dated "boys are from Mars, women are from Venus" lyrical theme isn't helping.
Overall: Seems like one happy little drug man's personal project to make an album he loves. I can't really begrudge him for that, because it really does sound like he's having fun. But Jesus, there's some weird shit in here. I'm forced to believe the man has no idea what a viking is. Not to mention a song called "intro" in the middle of the album that's just him fiddling with recording equipment? To paraphrase Hemingway: "Record inebriated, edit sober".
Joy Division
2/5
Best Song: Interzone. Finally something mildly uptempo.
Worst Song: Day of the Lords. When WILL it end?
Overall: This sounds like music created by and for people on Valium. Really don't see the appeal here. I like the prominence of the bassline throughout the album, but the vocals sound like a tranquilized Jim Morrison.
Linkin Park
3/5
Best Song: In The End. Exactly the right amount of angst, with a chorus that just asks to be sung in chorus.
Worst Song: Papercut. Pretty rough start to the album. Really makes me realize how much their music can be classified as "rap rock". Don't know how I never made that connection before. It feels obvious now.
Overall: When I saw this come up I was excited because I thought I love Linkin Park. After listening to it, I realize I actually just kind of like Linkin Park. That approachable "edginess" and angst was really evocative to me when I was listening to this in my teens, but now I can see the parts that are a bit shallow, or a bit cheesy. Not to say that I think current Me has the accurate read on the quality of this album, but I think it needs to be appreciated by someone at a very particular phase in their life. This would be Holden Caulfield's favourite album.
Solomon Burke
3/5
Best Song: Cry to Me. Bombastic, with an impressive vocal performance.
Worst Song: You Can't Love 'Em All. The choir is just shouting. At this point in the album, I've also grown very tired of the "lovey-dovey" subject matter. There are other topics.
Overall: The vocals really stand out here, even if a lot of the songwriting shows its age. If he had sung about more interesting things, I think I would have liked this album a lot more.
Songhoy Blues
3/5
Best Song: Irganda. Pleasant upbeat dance rhythm.
Worst Song: Jolie. Don't know why. Not significantly worse than the others, but the melody didn't hold my interest much.
Overall: Really nice stripped down blues. I don't understand the lyrics, but the musicality is sufficient to communicate emotion and tone. My inability to understand it also makes it good for having in the background while working. Music for driving at sunrise/sunset.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Best Song: Them Belly Full (But We Hungry). An almost sombre slow dance song. Really soulful in a way that almost forcibly compels you to sway in time.
Worst Song: Talkin' Blues. Something about the backing vocals don't work for me here. The vocals themselves are fine, they just seem like they come from a cover version of the song that just happens to be playing at the same time.
Overall: Reggae just isn't my genre, regardless of who's performing it. It wasn't unpleasant, but it feels like I need my consciousness blunted to enjoy that continuous, bouncy rhythm. Given the right weather, and the right inebriation, maybe I can come to enjoy it.
Suicide
1/5
Best Song: Ghost Rider. The backing groove is kinda nice.
Worst Songs: Girl. Mother of God who the fuck wants to listen to this horny, desperate mumbling? Also Frankie Teardrop, for being one of the least musical songs I've ever heard.
Overall: What at first seemed like some marginally interesting groove tracks descended into absolute hell due to the vocals layered overtop. The absolutely non-musical screaming, blowing out the mic? Insane, paranoid "lyrics"? If you played this song to an enemy combatant it would count as a war crime. I read they declined to play this at Abu Ghraib, citing it as too cruel.
Drive-By Truckers
2/5
Best Song: 72 (This Highway's Mean). I like the coarseness of his voice here.
Worst Song: Moved. Sometimes a song can be too stripped down.
Overall: This is a large quantity of country music, but I felt like I'd heard all that it had to offer by the end of Disc 1. It mostly sits in that safe spot between pop, rock, and country, but occasionally has some interesting diversions, like in "Three Great Alabama Icons". There might be a compelling skeleton in here, but if there is it's buried under a mountain of fat.
Joni Mitchell
2/5
Best Song: Blue. Feels the most poetic and artful on an album full of poetic, artsy songs.
Worst Song: California. Lots of that upper register stuff here...
Overall: I like that Joni Mitchell makes the music she does, but I'm not sure that I like the music. The songwriting and lyrics are thoughtful, but the vocals (particularly the upper register) just sounds grating to me. I feel like would rather read a book of Mitchell's poetry than listen to the performed versions.
Fela Kuti
3/5
Best Song: Zombie. The song is very wide-ranging, but I liked the part with the choral vocals of "zombie".
Worst Song: Mr. Follow Follow. By contrast, the vocals here did not work for me at all.
Overall: It's a nice jam, but doesn't do much to hold my attention. I can imagine throwing it on in the background while I cook or clean though.
Yes
3/5
Best Song: Roundabout. A song I'd heard the opening riff to without realizing it. This feels like a prime example of the best elements of this era of classic rock: broad, sweeping, with every instrument (including keys) given an opportunity to stand out.
Worst Song: America. Too long, with that prog-rock tendency to never stay long enough on a particular musical theme for it to make an impact.
Overall: The music feels thoughtfully produced and technically impressive, but, like a lot of classic rock, favours grandiosity and scope over passion and soul.
Bauhaus
2/5
Best Song: The Passion of Lovers. The least Buffalo Bill of all the tracks.
Worst Song: Muscle in Plastic. I guess that was intended to be a jazzy interlude, but it just felt like noise.
Overall: An hour of overly serious 80s nonsense. None of it is very good.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Best Song: Help Me. Iconic, memorable, with a nice vocal performance.
Worst Song: Raised on Robbery. I just don't think this kind of rock n' roll fits her style.
Overall: For whatever reason, I like this offering much more than the previous Joni Mitchell album that I've had on this list. Her vocals are less all over the place, putting the focus more squarely on her lyrical strengths.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Best Song: There She Goes, My Beautiful World. Cacophonous in a good way, with perfect use of a backing choir. Upbeat in a way that feels like it might fall off the rails at any moment.
Worst Song: The Lyre of Orpheus. Lyrics were fine, but the "oh mama" chorus was not good enough to be repeated as frequently as it was.
Overall: Lyrically dense, musically diverse. My first serious foray into Nick Cave's music and I really enjoyed it. I will definitely be returning to this album. Very nearly 5 stars for me, but the double album runs a bit long with a few too many weak points (surprisingly, both title tracks) that I feel it would have improved with more stringent editing.
Fairport Convention
3/5
Best Song: Crazy Man Michael. Really dialing up the fantasy, medieval elements here.
Worst Song: Reynardine. A four and a half minute intro to a song that never arrives.
Overall: It's better than the majority of its contemporaries. The vocals are nice, as is the tendency towards folkish sounds. Feels equal parts 1869 and 1969.
The Go-Betweens
2/5
Best Song: Was There Anything I Could Do? Sweeping, sort of theatrical sound.
Worst Song: Dive for Your Memory. Nothing quite like sending off the album with an absolute sleeper.
Overall: I was about to write that this was another example of British mediocrity padding the list, but then I found out that the band is actually Australian. Who knew. Humdrum knows no borders.
Van Morrison
2/5
Best Song: The Way Young Lovers Do. The most interesting and dynamic instrumentation, especially on the bass.
Worst Song: Astral Weeks. I swear to God, at 3:22 it sounds like he's trying to sing with his tongue sticking fully out of his mouth. Like a goat. Man's out here bleating.
Overall: What I initially thought was just a brief glimpse of accidental goatiness in the opening track, I came to realize that it's just how the man sings. Unfortunate. Doesn't help that he sings like he's the most important thing in the room, when the surrounding instrumentals were actually my favourite parts. An exercise in over-singing.
Peter Frampton
2/5
Best Song: Baby, I Love Your Way. Often, when listening to these older albums, I wonder if I coincidentally like the most famous song or if I just enjoy recognizing it. This one's no different.
Worst Song: (I'll Give You) Money. Generic classic rock that could have been produced by absolutely anyone.
Overall: It's not bad. Not great. Just is. And what it is, it is a bit too long.
Syd Barrett
2/5
Best Song: Octopus. At least it has a sort of raw, silly quality that is kind of endearing.
Worst Song: Terrapin. Good god if this wasn't the sleepiest introduction I've heard in a while.
Overall: I hope it was influential because good god there is little of value here to a modern listener. It never exceeds what feels like the author's first attempt at each song given.
Eurythmics
3/5
Best Song: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This). Call it nostalgia, but it feels like there's a reason this is the song people instantly sing along to when it comes on, be it on the car radio or at a bar. Honourable mention to "Wrap It Up" for being the safe sex anthem I never expected.
Worst Song: Jennifer. I'm really not looking for such a ballad in the middle of these other dance tracks.
Overall: Pretty groovy throughout, with soulful vocal performances on top of some decently dance-worthy beats. Would have been rated higher with some better editing, as the album didn't need to be this long.
Black Sabbath
3/5
Best Song: Supernaut. That perfect Sabbath mix of ethereal vocals and deep, proto-metal grooves.
Worst Song: Changes. Don't get me wrong, this is a great song. It just isn't a great Black Sabbath song. Nearly every cover I've heard feels better and more natural than this version.
Overall: Pretty solid album. Ozzy is in near-perfect form, and that kind of pitchy shout-singing contrasts well against the instrumentals. Conversely, the pacing/track order is a bit bizarre: "Laguna Sunrise" seems better suited as an opener or closer, and as it is sits really awkwardly in the middle of the album. Also, and maybe this is just my more modern sensibilities pushing in, but I often find myself wishing Black Sabbath played at 1.25x their default speed (more like the latter half of Snowblind) to drive the intensity and pace further forward. Alas, baseline slow Sabbath is alright.
Nirvana
3/5
Best Song: Heart-Shaped Box. After two directionless opening tracks, finally we have one that channels Nirvana's interpretation of angst into an angry little ditty worth listening to.
Worst Song: Rape Me. Musically it's alright, but that absolute edgelord choice to just shout "rape me" over and over really undermines my desire to ever listen to this track.
Overall: Overall a much less focused project than "Nevermind". A lot of just scattered screaming that never feels all that cohesive or purposeful, with a few solid tracks interspersed throughout.
The Jam
2/5
Best Song: But I'm Different Now. I have a soft spot for songs that come and go in a flash but are able to leave an impression in that time.
Worst Song: Music For The Last Couple. Clearly experimental with that bizarre intro, but that pseudo-reggae vibe wasn't for me.
Overall: Bouncy 80s rock album. Had never heard any of it before. In the end it was better than my low expectations, but it also wasn't something that I feel excited to return to.
David Bowie
2/5
Best Song: TVC15. Seems like a post-apocalyptic ad for the best rocket launcher money can buy.
Worst Song: Station to Station. Maybe it's just my mood right now, but I can't stomach the choice to kick off the album with a 10 minute song that could've been 5.
Overall: It certainly sounds very Bowie, but is that enough to warrant the inclusion of all his albums on this list? Surely the rest of the world combined has produced at least a few albums that are better than this.
King Crimson
3/5
Best Song: 21st Century Schizoid Man. Great song, has been sampled well to great effect. Sufficiently prog without overstaying its welcome.
Worst Song: Epitaph. It isn't bad per se, but it does certainly take it's time, feeling like a lengthy mourning for someone I don't care much about.
Overall: An almost medieval feeling fantasy prog album that is more often atmospheric than it is in-your-face rock. The opener is the best track, but also feels at odds with the rest of the album, resulting in a listening experience that feels a bit scattered. The sparse jazz of Moonchild feels like it doesn't belong in the same album as the raucous electricity of 21st Century Schizoid Man.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Best Song: Proud Mary. Like the lyrics suggests, the song just rolls along nicely, with a sweet, singable chorus that gets people moving.
Worst Song: Bootleg. CCR tends to have an enunciation problem, and it feels like it is at its worst here. Lots of southern-sounding gibberish.
Overall: CCR has some iconic songs, although not many are on this album in particular. For lovers of the genre, I'm sure this album really slaps, but the bluegrass grows a little long after a while. It turns out I prefer CCR when they take on more of a rock approach, with a stronger political tone with tracks like "Fortunate Son".
Genesis
3/5
Best Song: The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging. Equal parts futuristic and theatrical. Very cool.
Worst Song: Hairless Heart. I'm here for the vocals, plain and simple. This sounds like the music that plays over the credits of an awful coming-of-age film.
Overall: The whole album feels indulgent, from its production to its unnecessary length. That saccharine luxury surely overstays its welcome, and you end up wishing for some kind of raw emotion halfway through this monster album.
Supertramp
3/5
Best Song: Bloody Well Right. Iconic vocal track that still has the weird, jazzy qualities of the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Asylum. Although the theatricality is part of Supertramp's appeal, songs like this swing too hard into actually sounding like theater, which feels one step too far.
Overall: Supertramp has a very idiosyncratic sound, and that can become tiresome after an entire album. I like the diverse use of instrumentals, and the nearly-whiny vocals, but sometimes the tracks here come off as grandiose without being all that grand.
Prince
3/5
Best Song: Adore. The actually legitimately sexy song to conclude an album full of songs trying to be sexy.
Worst Song: Housequake. The beat is sufficiently funky, but the vocals here have a kind of chipmunky quality that I can't quite get behind.
Overall: It seems like this whole album is centered around the thesis explicitly defined in "Slow Love". Maybe I didn't have enough candles playing while listening to this album, but I consistently wished to hear more of the upbeat, dance-worthy songs that I know Prince is capable of. Instead, it's full of Love so Slow it might be sleeping.
Nirvana
4/5
Best Song: Where Did You Sleep Last Night. The perfect, explosive end to the album. It feels like the entire album's quiet pressure culminated in this one loud, painful song.
Worst Song: Polly. I've always thought this song sounded too much like Nirvana intentionally trying to go a more skate-pop route.
Overall: This is the perfect example of how a live album can elevate the material well above the studio versions. The stripped down instrumentals, Kurt's seeming reticence to even be there, the personal asides the musicians make between songs. All while channeling Nirvana's often impotent-feeling rage into something quieter and more concentrated than their noisier studio stuff. If not for a sleepy section in the latter half, it would be an easy 5.
Randy Newman
2/5
Best Song: Old Man. A nice, quiet sort of lullaby.
Worst Song: God's Song. This is really more of an interesting poem than a listenable song.
Overall: Pretty one note. And that note is extremely nasal.
The Doors
4/5
Best Song: Been down so long. Raw, violent, expressive, explosive, sexual. This is what I think of when I think of Jim Morrison and the Doors.
Worst Song: Love Her Madly. Too much of a surf rock song for my taste.
Overall: This is the Doors at their best. Jazzy interludes that feel like pleasant, albeit safe drives through the American countryside that suddenly and inexplicably descend straight to hell as the Lizard King takes over. Jim Morrison plays probably the best Jekyll and Hyde in all of music that it doesn't matter when the quality of his singing deteriorates as he plummets into madness.
Pretenders
3/5
Best Song: Tattooed Love Boys. That crunchy rhythm with the little solos in the middle of the song was nice. Real nice.
Worst Song: Space Invader. Definitely a jam track that snuck its way onto the album.
Overall: Totally inoffensive 80s pop rock, with all the pros and cons that that entails.
The Sonics
3/5
Best Song: Have Love Will Travel. Nice groove, nice solo. Perfect encapsulation of that kind of hippie-love vibe.
Worst Song: Good Golly Miss Molly. Not terrible, just not one of the better renditions of this song that I've heard.
Overall: High energy, low polish early rock. The songs are quick and spastic, but they don't really do much to differentiate themselves.
Jeff Beck
2/5
Best Song: I've Been Drinking. The only song where I felt like the singer felt what he was singing.
Worst Song: You Shook Me. It's got all the trappings of blues without the soul and authenticity.
Overall: Relatively flat and uninteresting blues. Didn't help that I had Jeff Beck confused with Jeff Buckley, so this really clashed with my expectations. Regardless, can't imagine turning to this when actual blues music exists.
Motörhead
3/5
Best Song: Ace of Spades. This song hits you like a truck to kick off the album, and then drags you through the gravel of Lemmy's perfect thrash metal voice.
Worst Song: Jailbait. Unless I'm misunderstanding what he means by "jailbait", this song is creepy as fuck.
Overall: High speed, killer bass, legendary voice. Honestly, apart from that random pervert interlude in the middle, this album is pretty good, even if it does feel like it starts to lose steam at the end.
Tracy Chapman
4/5
Best Song: Mountains O' Things. The non-standard instrumentals (triangle and xylophone?) really pair well with the vocals here.
Worst Song: For My Lover. A touch too close to a country vibe.
Overall: Vocally and lyrically, this album is a stunner. Although I'd heard Fast Cars before, I'd never heard anything else by Chapman. Enough to make me a fan.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Best Song: Where The Wild Roses Grow. Excellent contrast with Kylie Minogue.
Worst Song: Henry Lee. I think PJ Harvey is a nice counterpoint to Nick Cave, but I find the la's a bit annoying after a while.
Overall: Lyrically very dense. Clearly poetic, which I think will require several listens to extract their meaning. Cave knows how to use his voice within the confines of what it's capabilities. Definitely feels like it is striving for (and succeeding at) being Art with a capital A.
Kacey Musgraves
3/5
Best Song: Oh, What A World. Love the use of the vocoder. It gives the song this ethereal, progressive feeling that is missing from the rest of the album. A song for breakfast with people you really like.
Worst Song: Butterflies. Completely forgettable bubblegum pop.
Overall: Mostly quietly pleasant coffee shop music, with a few standouts (e.g., High Horse) that stretch genres a bit. Strangely, this feels like the type of music that is just okay to listen to on recording, but if heard live would make you want to follow her to the ends of the Earth.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Best Song: You Make Me Feel So Young. It sounds theatrical in a good way.
Worst Song: Too Marvelous For Words. Sometimes (often) Sinatra dips heavily into the cheese for his lyrics, and this is some of the worst. I get that it was a part of the style of the times, but damnit if it doesn't make me cringe.
Overall: This is probably the effect of a retrospective lens, but a lot of this is just (both lyrically and musically) exceedingly saccharine. It's like a big piece of cheesecake from a chain restaurant. When you first taste it, it seems sumptuous, but the more you eat the more you realize it's just one thin note propped up by too much sugar and fat.
Rod Stewart
2/5
Best Song: It's All Over Now. Mostly because of the piano.
Worst Song: Only A Hobo. Only a shmuck would be suckered into feeling sympathy for this grade school, sickly sweet attempt at a parable. Special thanks to Rod for explicitly reminding us that this is a "sad song". Might have missed it otherwise.
Overall: Rod Stewart seems determined to convince the listener that he's a good person. I don't know that he isn't, but its his determinedness that makes him a little suspect. Musically, it's that same "shout whisper" that I expect, on top of some otherwise uninteresting classic rock.
New York Dolls
2/5
Best Song: Personality Crisis. Kicking the album off aggressively, before you realize that this is the only setting this band has.
Worst Song: Looking For A Kiss. I hate this desperate, clingy, girl-harassing motif common to music of this era.
Overall: Noisy in an ugly way.
Arcade Fire
3/5
Best Song: Keep The Car Running. I like when a song's lyrical themes match well with the feelings imparted by the music itself. Here, both the lyrics and music give a feeling of haste and urgency that works really well.
Worst Song: My Body is a Cage. Overly whiny, verging on Smashing Pumpkin's "despite all my rage..."
Overall: Extremely well-produced, but still lacks the soul I'm looking for. Everything feels very polished, well-thought out and constructed, but lacks some internal something necessary for me to actually care about it.
Roxy Music
2/5
Best Song: Ladytron. At first this sounded like futuristic for a future I never want to visit (Mostly because of whatever instument (recorder?) carries the melody throughout the song). Eventually though, the part picked up by the rhythm section carried an energy that won me over.
Worst Song: If There Is Something. Man went full sheep on this one. Bonus points for one of the worst solos I can remember hearing.
Overall: Really quite awful. Theatrical in a cheesy way, over-indulgent, manic, blegh.
Beastie Boys
2/5
Best Song: No Sleep Till Brooklyn. The Beastie Boys' boisterous attitude actually channeled towards something that feels worthy of that dumb energy.
Worst Song: Girls. In an album full of obnoxious songs, this song out obnoxiouses them all.
Overall: The Beastie Boys are the chihuahuas of music. All impotent energy and rage. The vocals are garbage, blown out frat boy shouting that sounds like it's coming through a fast food drive-thru speaker, and then the beats, which are the main thing on offer here, aren't that great either. Even when the beats are good, it's probably just a barely altered version of some other song. This music does nothing well.
Robert Wyatt
2/5
Best Song: Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road. At least the brass instrumentals were nice.
Worst Song: Sea Song. That warbled singing is not a strong way to kick off an album.
Overall: I respect the weirdness of this album, even if I mostly didn't enjoy it. The laboured breathing through the entirety of Alifib? Interesting choice that's awful to listen to. Followed by Alife, which sounds like the soundtrack to someone's sleep paralysis? Bold. Painful, but bold.
Finley Quaye
3/5
Best Song: It's Great When We're Together. The chorus here is excellent, and repeated in an almost mantra-like fashion to great effect.
Worst Song: Supreme I Preme. Too sleepy for me.
Overall: Pleasantly chill background music that I can definitely see myself throwing on in while cooking or reading. For someone who typically doesn't like this genre of music, I found it pretty compelling.
Jethro Tull
3/5
Best Song: Aqualung. A decent song, but one that definitely comes from that classic rock school of song writing that basically begins and ends with coming up with a cool riff.
Worst Song: My God. On overly long song that thinks it's being overly clever.
Overall: My only knowledge of Jethro Tull prior to this was that they're the classic rock band with the flute. Turns out that is in no way reductive: that's exactly who they are. Granted, the flute is a nice occasional reprieve/contrast to everything else going on, but they're still fundamentally an okay rock band with a gimmick.
Crowded House
2/5
Best Song: Fall At Your Feet. I must have heard this in some sitcom or romcom... It has that hint of familiarity that makes it more enjoyable.
Worst Song: Whispers and Moans. That falsetto is not nearly as sexy as I think the singer intends.
Overall: Utterly forgettable pop rock. Also, some absolute childish album art. Nothing to note here.
TLC
3/5
Best Song: Waterfalls. I fucking love this song. The hooks, the lyrics, that chorus. I legitimately think this is a perfect song.
Worst Song: Case of the Fake People. This kind of diatribe against "fake people" feels really dated now.
Overall: Some brilliant tracks on here, but the album is weighed down by the unnecessary and too-frequent interludes. Either expand them into full songs or leave them out, in my opinion.
Pantera
2/5
Best Song: A New Level. I liked the rhythm of the riff best here.
Worst Song: Live in a Hole. So sluggish and weighed down, with a solo that is comically at odds with the rest of the song.
Overall: Pantera always seemed to me like a slowed-down version of some other, better metal band. I bet this sounds decent at 1.25x or 1.5x speed, but at its current pace it just meanders around these bloated, overly serious tracks. Boring metal is a sin, and this is as boring as it gets.
Iron Maiden
5/5
Best Song: Hallowed Be Thy Name. Sprawling, epic, with beautiful vocals and a riff that is arguably more memorable than anything else on the album.
Worst Song: The Number of the Beast. Not a bad song overall, but I've always found the theme a bit too cheesy and on-the-nose.
Overall: I love Iron Maiden. They were one of my first favourite bands, and unlike many other bands I once liked, I've never stopped loving them. The combination of Bruce Dickinson's soaring vocals and what must be one of the best rhythm sections in metal, you get this band that feels both epic/ethereal and blisteringly paced. Iron Maiden at their best makes me want to sing and cry and run and fight all at once. Their songs, especially lengthier epics like Hallowed Be Thy Name, also somehow manage to have a "live" quality to them, even in studio recording. As good as this era of metal ever got.
Mudhoney
2/5
Best Song: Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More. Had a decent groove to it, even if the lyrics were a bit suspect.
Worst Song: Halloween. Somehow the most amateurish of the whole lot.
Overall: Massively overlong. Feels like a garage band saved up for some studio time and decided that if they paid to record something then it was going on the record.
Jazmine Sullivan
3/5
Best Song: Pick Up Your Feelings. Classic bouncing R&B rhythm with a great vocal performance.
Worst Song: Price Tags. This song loses the subtlety and nuance of the other tracks and just beats you over the head without innuendo. Anderson .Paak was good on it though.
Overall: Pretty solid R&B that is excellently produced. The "tales" which set up each track are actually really well done in communicating the general vibe of the upcoming song in a concise way. Not a big fan of the materialist thread that runs through sections of the album, but thankfully that thread doesn't touch all tracks.
Orbital
3/5
Best Song: Halcyon On and On. The use of the female vocals as another instrument works really well here.
Worst Song: Time Becomes. I get that it's more of an album intro than a song, but it is such an awful repetition that it makes you not want to see what else the album has to offer.
Overall: A halfway decent electronic album that goes in heavy on repetition. This works, mostly, during the instrumental tracks, but I've never heard electronica that handles verbal content so poorly. Anything with someone speaking words is almost unlistenable, and yet Halcyon On and On works very well. Go figure.
Billy Bragg
3/5
Best Song: Birds and Ships. The female vocals served as a great counterpoint to the main male vocal track.
Worst Song: Hoodoo Voodoo. Sounds inauthentically silly. Like irreverence cooked up in a board room.
Overall: Subdued, bluegrass-y folk. The star here is the lyrics, which is not surprising given that they're apparently all old Woody Guthrie lyrics. The rest is not bad, country roads type music.
Solange
4/5
Best Song: Mad. Solange's vocals absolutely stand up on their own, but Lil Wayne adds something special to this.
Worst Song: Borderline. Q-Tip didn't really add anything, and the backing trip beats detracted (and contrasted) with the rest of what's on offer.
Overall: Refreshing, solid modern soul, without any real slow points on the whole album. Can't definitely see myself returning to this. Candlelit dinner music.
The Isley Brothers
4/5
Best Song: Summer Breeze. The song feels like the ecstasy of a summer breeze. Light and rolling, but with just heavy enough guitars to give it some substance, and a pace that feels like summer could end at any moment, and you've got to enjoy it while it's here.
Worst Song: Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight. Not bad, but after that heater of an opening track it was difficult to pump the brakes hard enough to appreciate this one.
Overall: Exactly what I come to this list for. A band I'd only heard of, with a brilliant combination of funk, soul, dance... Musically talented with incredible vocals. Somehow it is able to sound both retro and modern at the same time. Really, really good.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Best Song: Comfortably Numb. Lyrically and instrumentally, this stands well above the crowd.
Worst Song: In The Flesh. The main guitar riff just seems cheesy and overwrought.
Overall: It's good, sure. I like how expansive it is, how seamlessly one track flows into another while still having pockets of uniqueness throughout. However, it feels needlessly long, sticking around well after it has made its point.
Tom Waits
4/5
Best Song: 16 Shells From a 30.6. The vocals here are absolutely perfect: energetic and dragged across a backcountry gravel road.
Worst Song: Dave the Butcher. The insistence of placing instrumental tracks on a Tom Waits album never ceases to astound me.
Overall: More expected excellence from this period of Tom Wait's career. The mix of often gentle music and Wait's unique grit, all around compelling lyrics, makes this work.
Metallica
3/5
Best Song: Welcome Home. The guitar riff in the latter half of the song is really quite good.
Worst Song: The Thing That Should Not Be. That boring, overly serious trudgery that I expect from Metallica.
Overall: Metallica is the plain Cheerios of metal. Not that heavy but not that melodic, not that fast but not that sludgy. They're inoffensive, but certainly metal should aim to do more? It really gets quite boring towards the end of the album.
Mj Cole
3/5
Best Song: Sincere. I like the slow jam atmorphere here.
Worst Song: You're Mine. The presence of the female vocals throughout the album led me to believe that she was here to stay. Removing her just made this track feel like it was missing something.
Overall: Music that is unexciting, but might also not be designed to excite. Relatively simple, straightforward, vocal-dominant electronic. At times it feels as though it's trying really hard to be soulful, and not always landing.
Sarah Vaughan
2/5
Best Song: September in the Rain. Nicely melancholy, although could do without the recording industry intro.
Worst Song: Stairway To The Stars. A prime example of the syrupy, over-indulgence that plagues a lot of this genre of music.
Overall: She's got a nice voice, but I'm not sure it's so wonderful to havie the staying power necessary for me to want to listen to this today. Hearing her sing about Ella Fitzgerald just made me wonder why not listen to her instead?
Ramones
2/5
Best Song: Blitzkrieg Bop. I can't even tell if this is the best song, or if I just like it more because it is at the beginning of the album and you hear it first before realizing that the band can't write any other type of song and you're about to hear the same thing 13 more times.
Worst Song: I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You. It's just so fucking dumb.
Overall: Every song is the exact same. It starts at full speed, with no ramp up and continues unabated at the same uninteresting pace for 2-3 minutes while the band shouts some random phrase (probably the title of the song) over and over. Its only gift is its brevity.
Beach House
2/5
Best Song: Silver Soul. One of those quietly rising and building songs that feels like it has an element of inevitability to it.
Worst Song: Norway. I'm not musically literate enough to fully explain what it is that I don't like here, but something about the backing instrumentals feels... off.
Overall: It's fine. Very sleepy, kind of quiet background pop. Not worth paying close attention to, but serviceable to throw on while having a quiet night in.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
2/5
Best Song: Whirly-Bird. High intensity, nice solo, killer bassline.
Worst Song: Duet. Too slow and plodding for my liking.
Overall: The rhythm section really shines here, but unfortunately it's just not the style of music that I like, so I can't stomach much more than the album's (short) runtime.
Prefab Sprout
2/5
Best Song: Goodbye Lucille #1. The opening guitar sequence was really pleasant. Rest of the song was just okay.
Worst Song: Horsin' Around. Sounds like a rejected soundtrack for the in-universe sitcom from Bojack Horseman.
Overall: Another day, another boring British band. I like a pop band that uses sad and melancholy lyrics like those found here, but I still need the music to be more interesting.
Chicago
3/5
Best Song: Beginnings. Hits a fever pitch crescendo, where the many layers of instrumentals coalesce in a really nice way.
Worst Song: Free Form Guitar. I wonder if at any point in planning, playing, recording, or mastering, anyone asked whether someone would actually want to listen to this.
Overall: A group of highly talented musicians that sometimes seem more motivated in trying to show off their talent than to write songs people want to hear. Everything here - at the album level but also at the level of individual songs - feels like it is in desperate need of an editor to pare things down and trim the fat.
The Louvin Brothers
2/5
Best Song: Knoxville Girl. The vocal harmonies are nice I guess.
Worst Song: Satan Lied to Me. How can you squander such a cool title with such a dorky little song.
Overall: Even if this album was highly influential, it's so obnoxious to listen to that I assume I'd dislike anything it influenced.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
Best Song: Bad Moon Rising. Exactly what we come to CCR for. A quick song that gets in, makes its point, and gets out without wasting anyone's time. A good mix of white man's blues and rock.
Worst Song: Wrote A Song For Everyone. Slow and cheesy.
Overall: The high hits are great, but the rest of the album does end up feeling relatively flat and one-note. The vocals are so excellent here, I can't help wishing they would use more variability in tempo and intensity.
Frank Black
2/5
Best Song: Speedy Marie. I appreciated the slower, more thoughtful production on this track. The singer has a really nice singing voice when he sings low and slow.
Worst Song: Sir Rockaby. Didn't need the lullaby here.
Overall: Another one of those alt albums where the artist just throws everything at the wall and hopes something sticks. It feels like they thought if they wrote a song, it needed to be on the album. That kind of desperate energy does little to improve the overall experience, which is 22 songs of just okay.
Carpenters
3/5
Best Song: Help. Perhaps not fair, as much of the heavy lifting is being done by the Beatles' songwriting, but the female vocals really elevate the song.
Worst Song: Crescent Noon. Far too slow and plodding given the vocal talent that's on display here.
Overall: Pleasant music that is equal parts hippie free-love and cult indoctrination.
Otis Redding
3/5
Best Song: My Girl. The most soulful of the songs on offer here.
Worst Song: Respect. Not terrible, but just an example of when a different version of the song is so excellent that it eclipses all other attempts.
Overall: I wish these renditions of these songs skewed more towards the "soul" side of the spectrum (and less on the rock & roll), but there's no denying Otis Redding's voice.
Simple Minds
2/5
Best Song: Promised You A Miracle. Just the right amount of 80s pomp and cheese to make me think it's funny-good not funny-bad.
Worst Song: Somebody Up There Likes You. Yawn.
Overall: Another British album better off left to the annals of history.
Herbie Hancock
4/5
Best Song: Watermelon Man. Manageable. Frenetic, but manageable.
Worst Song: Vein Melter. A disappointingly chill departure from the madness of the previous songs.
Overall: Absolute musical madness. This whole album feels like it's running at full speed at all times, teetering on the precipice of coming undone but somehow always staying on track. Blistering and chaotic in the best ways.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Best Song: Paint It Black. Wow, does the kickoff really give you an inaccurate estimate of what the rest of this album will sound like.
Worst Song: Stupid Girl. Goddamn did this song ever age horribly.
Overall: Starts strong and ends extraordinarily weak, on an 11 minute bloated bumpkin song with a guitar melody that competes with the chorus to see who can be more annoying. They both win.
The Pogues
4/5
Best Song: Bottle of Smoke. The raw, biting, polk-funk atmosphere is thickest on this track.
Worst Song: Fairytale of New York. Cheesy and overwrought. This feels like the sentimentality of a drunk at the end of a long night, when they think they're being thoughtful and articulate and sweet but really they're just being cliché.
Overall: A bit too long, but nicely broad ranging, with a mix of folk classics and heavier originals. Works best when the energy is high.
Radiohead
4/5
Best Song: Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. That guitar work is beautiful. It really feels like it takes up all the space in your brain.
Worst Song: Nude. Aptly titled, as Yorke's voice is laid a bit too bare here, and with nothing to hide behind it sounds extra warbly.
Overall: Compelling, clearly "indie" music that always feels crunchy and unique. I really like how much is going on in each track, which gives an intoxicating sense of complexity to the whole album. Probably the most I've liked Radiohead.
John Cale
2/5
Best Song: Macbeth. Real dancey rock and roll.
Worst Song: Hanky Panky Nohow. The lyrics aren't as bad as I expected, but still the phrase "hanky panky" is insurmountably bad.
Overall: This was certainly a collection of songs. Breathtakingly average.
Fugazi
3/5
Best Song: Merchandise. Feels like a song I'd listen to while I play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.
Worst Song: Two Beats Off. I didn't come to this punk show for people to whine.
Overall: Nice and crusty proto punk. Not my genre, but good for what it is. I can imagine it'd be great in a live show. In my headphones, not so much.
Queen
3/5
Best Song: The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke. That piano (harpsichord?) sounds really nice, and the vocal harmonies aren't so over-the-top to distract from the song entirely.
Worst Song: Nevermore. Needlessly self-indulgent piano interlude.
Overall: This might be the album that solidifies for me that Queen is just okay. They're not some mythic superband that can do no wrong. They're not infallible. They made some good songs (all of which have since gone on to be massively overplayed) and a bunch of mediocre ones.
Jeff Buckley
4/5
Best Song: Lover, You Should've Come Over. This might be the perfect ballad.
Worst Song: Eternal Life. This sounds like Stone Temple Pilots, not the angel-voiced Buckley.
Overall: Jeff Buckley has a knack for singing with (what feels like) genuine emotion. His vocal range is incredible, and he sings with this endearing vulnerability. There is also a sort of quiet and honest simplicity to his lyrics. And his cover of Hallelujah competes with the original for quality.
Minor Threat
2/5
Best Song: Little Friend. Juvenile and noisy in the right way.
Worst Song: Cashing In. The spoken word "Wizard of Oz" bit probably sounded more artistic in their heads, but it just sounds amateurish.
Overall: The sound of largely impotent (directionless?) rage. Everything sputters everywhere, briefly. It honestly doesn't feel like there's even enough here to comment on. It's nice and noisy, but not so interesting.
Einstürzende Neubauten
1/5
Best Song: None.
Worst Song: All.
Overall: The Wikipedia page credits one of the musicians for "noises". This album has to be an abstract art piece, not actually intended to be listened to. This is anti-music. The sounds contained herein appear to have been carefully curated to be as obnoxious, abrasive, and a-musical as possible. It is the senseless but intentional bucking of trends and norms - not to prove some interesting or intelligent point - but just to seem interesting by being contrary. This is low effort trash. My day is worse for having listened to this. The only positive is that I think I now appreciate all other music more for at least having the fucking courage to earnestly try.
Duke Ellington
3/5
Best Song: Skin Deep. Who doesn't like a drum solo?
Worst Song: Pt.1 - Festival Junction. That solo at the end is just needlessly shrill.
Overall: This really feels like a time capsule that's difficult to appreciate in the modern era. The jazz is nice, but the crowd seems to be losing their goddamn minds over it. Had they just never experienced anything remotely progressive/transgressive before? It gave the strange sense that I was missing something when I heard how extreme of a reaction the crowd had to the music.
Mylo
4/5
Best Song: Muscle Cars. I feel like I've never heard a song that's so blippy-bloopy while also being on such a low register. I like.
Worst Song: Musclecar (Reform Reprise). The lyrical conceit of "listing a bunch of topical things" was already exhausted in "Destroy Rock & Roll", making this song feel less original.
Overall: Really enjoyable electronica album from a band I've absolutely never heard of, but feels like they must have influenced groups that I have. Perfect for background music, cooking especially, as it's got just enough energy to dance to.
Living Colour
3/5
Best Song: Which Way To America. Almost metal in its intensity.
Worst Song: Desperate People. This band is too talented for such a slow and plodding track.
Overall: Slick rock that has a very classic feel. The music feels very technical (at times to a deleterious degree) and something about the guitar tone makes it sound dated. Still, good classic rock is good classic rock.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3/5
Best Song: Buscando Guayaba. I think it is the background chorus that really set this one apart.
Worst Song: Siembra. I'm not sure if it was actually the worst, or if I'd just exhausted my interest in this level of latin music. Given my ignorance of the genre, it all started to sound very similar by this point in the album.
Overall: Not my genre, but nice and enjoyable all the same. I could imagine it for cooking and eating particular meals. It is danceable, but in a way that I don't know how to dance to.
Yes
3/5
Best Song: Starship Trooper: a. Life Seeker, b. Disillusion, c. Wurm. This is what I want when I listen to prog rock: expansive, meandering rock that takes its time to get anywhere, and goes some weird places along the way.
Worst Song: Perpetual Change. That tempo change at around the 5 minute mark is exactly what is annoying about a lot of prog. It happens absolutely out of the blue. The whole song changes in an instant, without foreshadowing or any built anticipation. Why is this the same song? Why isn't this the next song? These kind of harsh cuts make listening to the music feel disjointed. Chaotic for its own sake.
Overall: Music to stroke shag carpet to. Nothing here is particularly revelatory, even if all the band members seem musically quite talented. It just suffers from that heartless musicality that seems to plague a lot of prog rock.
Os Mutantes
2/5
Best Song: Adeus Maria Fulo. Really cool mixture of instruments with a pleasant, bouncy melody.
Worst Song: Baby. Feels like they're really trying to cosplay as the Beatles here.
Overall: Overwhelmingly okay. Seems pretty derivative of other big bands at the time (the Beatles in particular), so nothing feels particularly exciting here. Can't imagine that I'll return to this.
Judas Priest
3/5
Best Song: Rapid Fire. A nice (relatively) high-speed kickoff to the album.
Worst Song: United. Just pure cheese. Can't imagine what kind of dorks there must be standing in a crowd, chanting this song with their whole hearts. Ditto for "Red, White & Blue".
Overall: I find that Judas Priest really suffers from the significance of their influence. They - along with Motorhead - inspired a lot of modern thrash metal, and one thing those modern derivatives have done is really crank up the speed and intensity of the genre. The effect is that going back to listen to the progenitors of the genre feels like listening to thrash metal at half-speed, and I kept waiting for each track to kick into a higher gear. The music is still alright, and I can appreciate Halford's theatrics, but it kind of feels like an old man's version of speed now.
Underworld
3/5
Best Song: Rowla. Like I'm running through the Matrix.
Worst Song: Banstyle / Sappys Curry. The drum beat got really fatiguing after a while.
Overall: The first two songs were so overly long that I found I had grown tired of the concept after those first two. It's a bit of a shame, because I think the artist showed some interesting rhythms on their shorter tracks, but are just in desperate need of some self-editing.
Lorde
3/5
Best Song: Green Light. This song fucking rocks. The piano is fantastic, the backing vocals bring the energy, and Lorde's sultry voice fits very well in the main stage.
Worst Song: The Louvre. Sounds like a Taylor Swift song, but like in a bad way.
Overall: This album had such a strong start that I was ready to love it, but a fairly weak middle section left me feeling significantly less excited for it. Although it ended on a fairly high note, the middle was far too placid, ordinary pop music that sat in this superficially melancholic space without seeming to actually plumb all that much lyrical depth. I would have preferred a whole album of pop bangers like Green Light, or a more headlong dive into sadness.
Stereolab
3/5
Best Song: Cybele's Reverie. The overlapping vocals were really pleasant.
Worst Song: Emperor Tomato Ketchup. This track has one of those rhythm sections that is so repetitive that it oscillates between catchy/bouncy and grating/mind-numbing. By the end of the song, it landed fully on the latter.
Overall: I always like to see pop that feels unique and experimental. Not everything works here (sometimes the rhythms are downright annoying), but damnit I respect them for being weird. Has a nice jazzy feel. Well suited for background music.
Guided By Voices
2/5
Best Song: As We Go Up We Go Down. Mildly enjoyable hippy whimsy.
Worst Song: Ex-Supermodel. Is someone snoring in the background of this song?
Overall: What even if this? I don't think it feels right to call these songs. None of the tracks certainly feel like they can stand on their own, but it also isn't as though the tracks ease consistently into one another to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is just a disorganized collection of ideas, jumbled together and picked blindly from a hat. It has the feeling of going to a library, grabbing a book and opening it to a random page, reading a paragraph or two, and then tossing it over your shoulder to grab a new book.
Slipknot
2/5
Best Song: Snuff. It isn't a good sign that the least metal song on this ostensibly metal album is the best one.
Worst Song: Psychosocial. Really didn't expect (nor enjoy) the emo-esque melodic vocals.
Overall: Really just boring, repetitive metal. None of the heavy tracks did much to catch my attention. There's a lot better metal out there.
B.B. King
3/5
Best Song: You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now. Probably the best vocal performance on the album.
Worst Song: Worry, Worry. I've just never been a fan of the "relationship advice interlude" that seems so common in blues music.
Overall: B.B. King is obviously King here. Instrumentally and vocally everything is really great here, although I do wish that some tracks were more stripped back to let King's vocals stand more prominent.
Beatles
3/5
Best Song: Eleanor Rigby. The best lyrics on the album, but the star is the impeccable string section.
Worst Song: Love You To. Overall creepy vibe whose only efforts at originality seem to come from using the sitar.
Overall: This is, without a doubt, another Beatles album. There are a few gems in here, but also a whole lot of filler. I find it difficult not to assume a contrarian position, but surely this list doesn't need to include EVERY Beatles album. Is it not possible to have an assessment of popular music that doesn't treat the entire Beatles discography as gospel? It's been 50 years, I think we can admit as a society that some of their music is just okay.
Elvis Costello
2/5
Best Song: Blame It On Cain. Nice blues rhythm, nice energy.
Worst Song: (The Angels Want to Wear My) Red Shoes. I hate when I can tell that the artist thought that a particular lyric was going to hit harder than it does. That repetition at the end is just annoying.
Overall: This sounds like the kind of music that gets old people BUSTLIN' on a wedding dance floor, while everyone under 50 takes the time to refill their drinks. I'm sure he must have been raucous at one time, but to me he just kind of sounds like a slightly more energetic Randy Newman.
Marvin Gaye
4/5
Best Song: If I Should Die Tonight. I love this style of soul, with multiply-overlapping vocals, wherein each vocal track feels like it's conveying the same lyrics with a starkly different emotion.
Worst Song: Just To Keep You Satisfied. It is fitting that the comedown song on this sex album is the least interesting.
Overall: This has to be one of the most sexual albums ever recorded. It's impressive what levels of eroticism he was able to cram into 8 tracks, but it also severely limits the companies and contexts in which you can play this album. He might have done too good a job at making a Fuck album.
The Who
3/5
Best Song: The Ox. I found the sheer musicality (in particular the piano) really entertaining. Kind of would have preferred a whole album of this track.
Worst Song: The Good's Gone. I never understand what compels a dynamic band like The Who to try such a monotonous song.
Overall: Gotta say I expected more. It's fun enough, but it's mostly just fairly typical British rock without much unique to make it stand out. It's not unpleasant, but just a bit dull.
Q-Tip
4/5
Best Song: ManWomanBoogie. That bassline is killer.
Worst Song: You. A bit too corny compared to the rest of the album. Also, the transition between this song and the next one is so severe it will give you whiplash.
Overall: Goddamn this is good. So chill, Q-Tip has an unreal flow, amazing production. Great variability of beats. This is my first time hearing any solo stuff from the Tribe Called Quest gang, and it really demonstrates why that group is so successful.
Steely Dan
3/5
Best Song: Reelin' In The Years. Like butter. The chorus kills it, the solos are great. This song is so fun.
Worst Song: Fire in the Hole. Musical theatre with an okay piano solo.
Overall: Peak smooth Dad Rock. It's not gonna knock anyone off their feet, but damnit it'll get them grooving in their seats.
Public Image Ltd.
1/5
Best Song: Annalisa. It almost resembled something poignant or grungy.
Worst Song: Religion II. I thought Religion I was bad, and then for this song they decided to play different, equally shitty, songs to each ear.
Overall: This is fucking awful. Musically this obviously sounds like shit, but maybe more embarrassing is how you can tell the artists really thought they were making something politically/socially/artistically meaningful, but they came up with this grade school garbage.
Sugar
2/5
Best Song: If I Can't Change Your Mind. I could easily see this playing over a montage in a 90s movie where the guy is trying to convince the girl he's been pining over to fall for him.
Worst Song: Man on the Moon. Might not have been the worst (although that breakdown was awkward), but I was definitely tired by the whiny drone by this point.
Overall: It's just a bit boring, isn't it? Certainly not so notable to make a list like this. It sounds like a popular local band that never made it big.
3/5
Best Song: The Look of Love, Pt.1. Pure theatre, with a rather catchy melody.
Worst Song: All Of My Heart. Much, much too sappy.
Overall: Firmly in the "Buffalo Bill" style of 80s music. At times the theatricality was able to overcome the camp, but at other times the camp wins. An album that toes the line between catchy and annoying.
Frank Zappa
3/5
Best Song: The Gumbo Varieties. I like the mix of jazz with just plain weird.
Worst Song: Willie The Pimp. It just sounds like a jazzier but worse Tom Waits.
Overall: Not great, not terrible either, although there are few circumstances in which I can imagine myself listening to this again. Maybe while cleaning? I don't know... There's better jazz and weirder prog rock out there.
John Martyn
3/5
Best Song: Small Hours. A beautiful and gentle song that uses sparsity and quiet to great effect.
Worst Song: Big Muff. Awful title, longer runtime without doing much with it.
Overall: A nice, quiet little album. The vocals are pleasantly raspy, a bit like Ray Lamontagne. Nothing particularly exciting, but also probably no designed to excite.
Sepultura
2/5
Best Song: Meaningless Movements. Not much more interesting than the other tracks, but at least sufficiently heavy.
Worst Song: Orgasmatron. Slow, plodding, with dumb lyrics. Winner winner.
Overall: Maybe this was more influential than I'm giving it credit for, but this feels really "paint-by-numbers". I suppose if you like heaviness for heaviness' sake then this album might be for you, but otherwise it feels a bit safe.
Paul Weller
3/5
Best Song: Wild Wood. Has that compelling, folk campfire quality to it.
Worst Song: Shadow Of The Sun. Not terrible, but it sounds like he's really imitating Bruce Springsteen here.
Overall: More generic, inoffensive dadrock. Can't exactly hate it. Music to barbeque ballpark franks to.
The Specials
2/5
Best Song: Enjoy Yourself. If for nothing else, it at least seems like the artists are taking their own advice and really enjoying themselves.
Worst Song: Stereotype. The soft singing really puts his weak voice center-stage.
Overall: I'm happy for them, but goddamnit I just find this music annoying. Why not listen to reggae? Everything is just so nasal and dorky.
System Of A Down
4/5
Best Song: Sugar. A perfect encapsulation of the quirkiness of SOAD.
Worst Song: Mind. I've never been a fan of their slower tracks (even when the slowness is only a component that serves as a foil to the forthcoming speed). This one contains an entirely needless "intro" before the song proper that could have been cut for no loss.
Overall: I like how distinct and unique SOAD feels. They are unlike any other metal band, so even when their artistic choices don't pan out, I'm still appreciative that they tried something interesting. This isn't their best album, but the impressive vocal ranges and the chunky, spastic rhythms still work.
Nina Simone
4/5
Best Song: Lilac Wine. Quiet, poetic, and powerful.
Worst Song: Wild is the Wind. Despite being the title track, it felt too mournful, and the vocal warble (vibrato?) was too much for me.
Overall: Haunting, thoughtful music. Feels so personal and subdued, making it difficult to listen in all contexts, but good for quiet afternoons and reading by a rainy window.
Richard Hawley
3/5
Best Song: The Ocean. Beautiful, sonorous voice. This song would fit well in any Leonard Cohen album.
Worst Song: (Wading Through) The Waters of my Time. Not a fan of this sleepy rockabilly. Seems like it was made for old people to sway along to, slapping their thighs out of rhythm and trying to forget death.
Overall: An alright album that toes the line between listenable throwback and parlor room camp. Wouldn't go back and listen to the whole album, but there are a few choice tracks that aren't bad.
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
Best Song: Last Bongo in Belgium. Maybe it's just because I live in Belgium now, but these bongos really did speak to me.
Worst Song: In A Gadda Da Vida. There is zero reason to listen to this over the original.
Overall: This weird blend of covers and samples of existing songs mixed with iconic original drum beats that have gone on to be sampled all over hip hop. The covers are categorically worse than the original versions of the songs. There are bits here and there that really snap, and I can see why so much has been sampled since its release, but more often than not it ends up feeling more like a bunch of ingredients than a cohesive, complete album.
The xx
4/5
Best Song: Crystalised. I think this song imprinted on me when I was younger. It feels like it is a certain part of me.
Worst Song: Fantasy. So chill it's just sleepy.
Overall: Maybe the perfect chill music. The male and female vocals compliment one another so well, and the backing instrumentals are always fantastic. I love the sultry, almost whispered quality to the vocals. My only criticism is that none of the tracks seem to end in a satisfying way. They either limp off into the distance or just end abruptly.
3/5
Best Song: America. That bass (guitar? idk I'm musically ignorant) solo in the back of the song sounds awesome.
Worst Song: Close to the Edge. It isn't all bad, but it's very much that prog-rock thing wherein it's actually 5 or 6 different songs mashed together, often with awkwardness at the points of connection.
Overall: Pretty standard prog-rock, whose main selling point seems to be that predictable unpredictability of the genre. Nicely spacey at times, but mostly just frustrating in its inability to maintain a coherent thought.
Beck
2/5
Best Song: Paper Tiger. The one song that doesn't sound like it's on life support.
Worst Song: Side of the Road. So sleepy it doesn't even sound like he wants to be singing it.
Overall: Music to overdose to.
John Grant
3/5
Best Song: Sigourney Weaver. Slightly rocking with quaintly specific lyrics. Feels real indie, in a good way.
Worst Song: Silver Platter Club. The lyrics are overly simplistic and a bit too on-the-nose.
Overall: Some pretty nice singer-songwriter material here, but it doesn't reach that same echelon as like Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, or Leonard Cohen. Not to say its bad, but it's hard not to compare it against much stiffer competition. The lyrics here also often seem to default to snappier, "cleverer" sounding lines than something deeper or more profound.
Rufus Wainwright
3/5
Best Song: The Art Teacher. Beautifully sad. In an album of lovely lyrics, these are the loveliest.
Worst Song: Old Whore's Diet. This song feels totally at odds with everything else on the album. It's louder, longer, and has no interesting lyrics - just endless repetition.
Overall: It feels a bit like if they took Elliot Smith and told him to play rock and roll. The lyrics are nice, but the delivery is so nasal that at times I imagined his nostrils opening and closing like little mouths to sing the song themselves. Plus, the production is often too busy to appreciate the songwriting itself. Oh and goddamn if he doesn't have the spittiest, raspiest inhale that he does straight into the mic after half the line deliveries.
Rod Stewart
2/5
Best Song: Maggie May. It has by far the most listens on spotify. Is that why I liked it most? Honestly, probably.
Worst Song: That's All Right. What an awful, buzzkill ending to that song.
Overall: It honestly feels like a big prank that Rod "singing through a wind tunnel" Stewart ended up having the career he did. His voice sounds like it's perpetually raspy from some amazing performance the night prior. I wish I could hear that Rod Stewart.
George Jones
2/5
Best Song: Our Private Life. Slightly upbeat. In the right mood, this could honk my tonk.
Worst Song: She'll Love the One She's With. Painfully slow song with lyrics that get more uncomfortable the more you think about them.
Overall: I'm not attending a high school prom in the deep American south in the 1970s, so I don't think this is for me.
The Divine Comedy
2/5
Best Song: If... It turns out the true Divine Comedy was him making two horse-based love metaphors in a row - one about cleaning up his horse-lover's poop and the other about riding his horse-lover all night long - and deciding to lead with the poop one.
Worst Song: Timewatching. Grossly theatrical melodrama.
Overall: It's not terrible, but it mostly just sounds like the soundtrack to a dinner theatre show. Hopefully the food was better than the show.
Destiny's Child
4/5
Best Song: Survivor. The perfect head bobbing tempo. The righteousness. The motivation. This is also one of the tracks that takes most advantage of the trio, layering their vocals beautifully. Cut that last 10 seconds though, goddamn.
Worst Song: Brown Eyes. Every other track on the album is so uplifting, and then there's this mundane love song in the middle. It's a sweet song, but it doesn't belong at this spot of this album.
Overall: This is so good. The three all sound fantastic, even when Beyonce stands out as something else entirely. Listening to this album feels having a squad of ladies behind you reminding you not to take no shit. The beats are early 2000s gold. A beautiful time capsule.
Cocteau Twins
3/5
Best Song: Pandora (For Cindy). Bubbly and ethereal. Sounds like fairies singing in a language no one understands.
Worst Song: Otterley. It turns out you can be too atmospheric.
Overall: Music that feels completely alien, but at least the aliens seem kind of friendly? At least not immediately violent. It really feels like the artist is experiencing an entire range of emotions that I don't even know the names of. sleepy rain music.
The Mamas & The Papas
2/5
Best Song: California Dreaming. Undoubtedly I picked this one because I've heard it used in a hundred movies.
Worst Song: You Baby. The definition of saccharine. Gross.
Overall: Exactly what you'd expect. 60s drivel with a nauseously "happy" style that never lets up. Music for cults.
Kanye West
4/5
Best Song: All Falls Down. Easily the most iconic samples on the album, and Kanye is restrained enough to not bungle it with too ridiculous bars.
Worst Song: Get Em High. This would be a great Snoop song, but it's a pretty weak Kanye song. Both features are just okay too.
Overall: A big album full of huge hits, but given its runtime it inevitably has a few duds. None of the features are that interesting (Jamie Foxx notwithstanding), and some of the tracks linger too long on beats that aren't worth that much time. Feels like a mid-2000s time capsule.
Kelela
3/5
Best Song: Enough. Beautifully layered vocals. Busy/noisy in a good way.
Worst Song: Truth or Dare. A bit too contrived in its sweet/sexy theme.
Overall: Nice, chill background R&B, although there's also nothing that really sticks out or feels memorable about it. I could imagine throwing this on in the background for a relaxed vibe, but not for targeted, intentional listening.
Beth Orton
3/5
Best Song: Stolen Car. Lovely lyrics, nice soft alt-rock.
Worst Song: Central Reservation (Original Version). Not terrible, but I think the second version is just better, making this one a bit odd to include.
Overall: Easy listening. Could imagine turning this on in the background while working or commuting.
The Beach Boys
3/5
Best Song: God Only Knows. The best use of layered vocals in the entire album.
Worst Song: Pet Sounds. We're here for the vocals, not the rhythm jams.
Overall: It get that it's an iconic pop album, but it just does the same thing over and over. Granted, it does that one thing really well, but I can't pretend that the lilting melodies and well-sung harmonies were exciting at the end of the album as at the beginning.
Bad Company
2/5
Best Song: Bad Company. This is the second best song I know of where the song is the album is the band.
Worst Song: Don't Let Me Down. Worse than the Beatles version in every way.
Overall: Uninspired dad rock. At its best, it feels like a poor imitation of CCR. Can't imagine ever returning to this.
Duran Duran
3/5
Best Song: Rio. Danceable in a creepy, Buffalo Bill way.
Worst Song: The Chauffeur. This is the kind of flat,, hyper-polished that feels like it doesn't have a soul.
Overall:
Amy Winehouse
3/5
Best Song: In My Bed. Something about that chorus just scratched some deep itch. Groovy, sultry, with busy enough background instrumentals that Amy doesn't feel the need to over-sing.
Worst Song: Amy Amy Amy. Too slow, too waltz-y.
Overall: This is a difficult album to appreciate, because Amy Winehouse's singing style was so (poorly) imitated in the years following her success, and the genre was so saturated with this kind of indulgent "over"-singing, that going back to listen to this feels like revisiting Patient 0. As though the more modern imitators have put a blemish on the whole style. Regardless, her singing ability and individuality shine through, and the album is still highly listenable.
Boards of Canada
4/5
Best Song: Telephasic Workshop. Cacophonous space robot noises.
Worst Song: The Color Of The Fire. That child audio was unpleasant to listen to. Odd artistic choice to have the kid give so many different versions and intonations until they begin to sound like a robot who doesn't understand the meaning of the words.
Overall: Atmospheric, ambient, ethereal. Really compelling blends of sounds, although I found almost all of the vocal samples decreased my enjoyment of each track on which they were used.
Adele
3/5
Best Song: He Won't Go. Didn't expect such an almost R&B sound out of Adele, but here we are.
Worst Song: Rumor Has It. I think this one was overplayed when this album first came out, and the faux blues don't feel very believable.
Overall: An odd mix of songs I've heard a million times before and ones I've never before encountered. I found myself liking the unfamiliar tracks for just their sheer novelty given how massively popular the other tracks once were. Take altogether though, the songs aren't particularly novel or exciting, it's just that Adele has such a powerful and commanding voice that it is easy to listen to.
Incubus
2/5
Best Song: Drive. The most popular, most chill song on the album.
Worst Song: I Miss You. Straight from that era of corny, melodramatic "rock" ballads. I bet if this song has a music video, someone looks forlornly out of a rain-covered window.
Overall: Honestly, kind of dull. Doesn't do anything that a dozen other bands don't do better. It's incredibly 90s, so nice for the nostalgia but not much else.
Booker T. & The MG's
2/5
Best Song: Twist and Shout. Honestly, I liked that I could recognize it.
Worst Song: Stranger on the Shore. Unbearably sleepy.
Overall: Evidently this is not the genre for me. Without any vocals, this just felt like the blues that was missing one key element.
SZA
4/5
Best Song: Pretty Little Birds. SZA is at her best here, and Isaiah Rashad provides the best feature on the album.
Worst Song: Drew Barrymore. Just felt like way too basic of a song, especially after all the spice that came from the previous track with Kendrick saying "pussy" forty times.
Overall: When it's good, it's good. Sexy, spirited. The non-musical asides are great too. There are a few weaker tracks near the middle, but otherwise a great album.
Bee Gees
2/5
Best Song: I Laugh In Your Face. For some reason I like the mean-spirited nature of this one. The gang vocals also make it sound like a very theatrical form of bullying.
Worst Song: Black Diamonds. Nobody asked for that vocal warble.
Overall: Maybe the longest hour-long album I've heard. Boy did this take a while to end. Sure there's some slick songwriting throughout, but does it ever feel like it has a heart? It feels like any potentially interesting imperfection was polished out ages ago, and for some reason they're still polishing. There might actually be more polish than substance now.
Steely Dan
3/5
Best Song: King of the World. The guitar lick here is so buttery that you can't care that it's being performed by a music robot. Rock for AI dads.
Worst Song: Pearl of the Quarter. Is that French in the chorus? Not helped by the honky tonk guitar.
Overall: Technically proficient, soulless music. Maybe it's the vocalists weird "whisper-shout" singing, but it feels like the whole album is one element short of being something great.
Public Enemy
3/5
Best Song: Bring the Noise. Upper lip stanky.
Worst Song: Mind Terrorist. Fitting title.
Overall: Another Public Enemy album, which means another conflict between the brilliance of Chuck D and the everything of Flava Flav. I can understand the utility of a hype man, but to me he's not even good at that. He's just obnoxious and it sounds like he raps all of his bars through his nose. And Flava Flav is way too present on this album.
Grizzly Bear
3/5
Best Song: Two Weeks. Pleasant contrast between the main vocalist's voice and the higher, more lilting, backing choral voices.
Worst Song: Hold Still. I actually really liked the vocals, but that guitar lick that interrupted was really jarring.
Overall: Quietly interesting. Nice for rainy mornings and evenings reading.
The Zombies
2/5
Best Song: Care of Cell 44. A nice and bubbly start to the album.
Worst Song: This Will Be Our Year. Sounds like a song sung by highschool freshman at a school assembly to kick off the new year.
Overall: Competent but largely annoying early rock. The Golden Retriever Energy starts to become unpalatable by the second half of the already short album. Far surpassed by all of their contemporaries.
The Crusaders
3/5
Best Song: Street Life. Long and winding, but the vocal performance really ties the track together.
Worst Song: The Hustler. Too sleazy for my liking. Feels like it should be played over casino and strip club montages from some middling late 80s movie.
Overall: Nice background jazz that would be great for driving around at night. Alas, I don't have a car, so I can't imagine when I might otherwise listen to this.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
2/5
Best Song: My Human Gets Me Blues. Just a great blues track. You can really hear how Beefheart's vocal stylings will go on to influence so many others.
Worst Song: Hair Pie: Bake 1. Seemingly intentionally a-musical. Also, weird Blair Witch vibes at the end. Wonder if that woman survived the encounter.
Overall: An album that somehow manages to be neither as good nor as bad as I expected, it alternates between refreshingly weird and stubbornly opaque. I like the abstract poetry rambled over gritty blue, but I don't like the intentionally atonal and weirdly polyrhythmic stuff that seems to exist just to be different. There's clearly a core of something brilliant here, but it seems mostly obscured by Captain Beefheart's ego and resistance to editing. Everything that is introduced on this album has subsequently been better channeled and refined by Tom Waits, including the voice.
Peter Gabriel
2/5
Best Song: Solsbury Hill. It's like I'm living in a coffee commercial.
Worst Song: Excuse Me. Nobody wants this parlour circus silliness.
Overall: Exceedingly humdrum. I expected much more. This was the genesis of nothing.
Dion
2/5
Best Song: (He's Got) The Whole World in His Hands. I like Spector's wall of sound technique that is present here.
Worst Song: Make the Woman Love Me. Such desperate, pathetic, stereotypically "nice guy" lyrics. The song is also just slow and sleepy.
Overall: In a word: boring. Not all that interesting vocally, lyrically, or instrumentally. No reason to ever return to this.
New Order
2/5
Best Song: Elegia. Very Stranger Things. As much 80s as I'm willing to tolerate.
Worst Song: Sooner Than You Think. No all that worse than the other tracks, but that "solo" at the end really sucked.
Overall: Classic 80s fare, in particular with its focus on a busy synth background and a lead vocalist who can barely sing. It is no coincidence that my favourite track is the one where he doesn't.
Dolly Parton
2/5
Best Song: Wildflowers. Lyrically quite nice. Made me want to be a wild little flower.
Worst Song: To Know Him. Diabetically saccharine.
Overall: Absolutely not my kind of music. Painfully slow, preoccupied with desperate, romantic themes. And what's more, the central conceit of the three singers harmonizing always felt worse than just Dolly Parton singing on her own.
Bob Dylan
2/5
Best Song: Tryin' to Get to Heaven. I just like the lyrical conceit of someone racing to heaven before it closes.
Worst Song: Make You Feel My Love. The contrast between the beauty of the lyrics and the nasal voice is just too much. This is a great song, sung by anyone else.
Overall: Not Bob's best offering. I found myself wishing for his more youthful energy, or just the darker tones of a Tom Waits. This languishes too much in the middle.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
Best Song: Backseat Freestyle. In an album of great tracks, this one has an elevated intensity that makes it stand just above the others. Honorable mention to Money Trees and Poetic Justice.
Worst Song: Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe - Remix. Jay-Z adds nothing transformative to this already great song.
Overall: Such an incredible, wide-ranging album. This might be Kendrick at his best. It is amazing to see how he is able to transition from a lean-back, apathetic anthem like "Swimming Pools (Drank)" directly a meandering story telling track like "Sing About Me, I'm Dying". Every track feels iconic, most every feature feels like it brings a complementary energy. Even the skits serve to fit the theme and elevate the surrounding tracks.
Rocket From The Crypt
3/5
Best Song: Used. I might just be a sucker for gang vocals, but I liked the blend of punkishness and doo-wop on this track.
Worst Song: Heater Hands. Proof that you can over-repeat an outro.
Overall: This album is the most 3/5 an album can be. Was it full of fun, bouncy little rock ditties? Yep. Did I enjoy listening to it? Check. Will I remember an ounce of it in even one week's time? Absolutely not. The embodiment of "we're here for a good time, not a long time".
2/5
Best Song: Morning Will Come. I'll take a prolonged crescendo any day.
Worst Song: Love Has Found a Way. A mediocre song that they just never finished, choosing instead to abruptly stop in the middle.
Overall: Totally ordinary 70s duderock. I imagine history is littered with dozens of bands exactly like this, whose songs were good while they lasted, but now carry a bit of a stink from being past their expiration date. Doesn't need to be brought back.
Fishbone
2/5
Best Song: Bonin' In the Backyard. This sounds like a beach party of a bunch of disjointed actors, somehow coming together for a brief bit of positivity and fun before it descends into some kind of bro-filled debauchery.
Worst Song: Slow Bus Movin'. Really just feels like frat boy attempts at politics over a waltzy beat.
Overall: This feels like music that needs to be listened to on a board. Sometimes it's a skateboard, sometimes it's a surfboard. There might even be a snowboard track in there somewhere. Suffice it to say, I don't stand on enough boards to like this album very much.
Tim Buckley
2/5
Best Song: Make It Right. More than anything, I just liked the guitar lick.
Worst Song: Sweet Surrender. It's full of that cheap, hippie horniness common to the time. The song is well-produced, but it is so of its time that, with a modern listening, it sounds cheesy and overwrought, rather than romantic or sexy.
Overall: It's funky, but always in a way that seems more accessible than exciting. I would have liked to have heard something bigger, or something that took more risks. Knowing what other funk is out there, I can't imagine myself returning to specifically this.
Bert Jansch
2/5
Best Song: I Have No Time. Quiet and contemplative.
Worst Song: Casbah. This, along with the other just random guitar strumming songs, felt like they provided nothing to the overall album.
Overall: A short, sleepy album that feels like it wants to desperately live up to visions of Bob Dylan. It doesn't, and if you subtract the large number of unimpressive acoustics songs from this already short album, there's really not much left over.
Lightning Bolt
4/5
Best Song: Dracula Mountain. Absolutely hellacious groove that somehow sounds exactly like I would imagine something called "Dracula Mountain" to sound like.
Worst Song: Duel in the Deep. A kind of dull and drudging end to an otherwise electric album.
Overall: After the first 30 seconds, I really didn't expect to like this album at all, but with each successive track I was amazed at how the music was so quickly able to get under my skin and agitate, scraping around under there until suddenly it felt like my whole body was resonating with the noise. The album does sometimes linger too long on amusical, cacophonous noise, but it really shines when it sinks through that noise to some primal groove underneath. I think you need to be in a very particular mood to listen to this album, but when you are it fucking goes.
The Vines
3/5
Best Song: Outtathaway. Imagine if the whole album were played with this forward-leaning intensity?
Worst Song: Mary Jane. Protracted, weepy-sounding chorus. Oh, and it's one of the longest songs on the album? Nice.
Overall: Very middle of the road. It seems like the band can't decide whether they want to be a ripping cool rock band or a top 40 chart chaser. Ultimately they take the average and end up sounding kind of uninteresting. Immediately after this album finished, a Queens of the Stone Age song came on and it felt exactly like what The Vines wanted to do, but better.
Taylor Swift
3/5
Best Song: coney island. I think the addition of The National really elevates this one, providing a really deep, sonorous contrast to Swift's voice.
Worst Song: marjorie. Sometimes you can really feel - in a negative way - the effort behind Taylor Swift lyrics. This is one of those tracks, where it feels like an over-emphasized attempt to be deep and meaningful results in some pedestrian, kind of try-hard-sounding poetry.
Overall: Taylor Swift is kind of unavoidable, so I had heard a number of these tracks (it also feels like she stays within a particular niche, so I might have heard different tracks that sound like these tracks). She does have a very pleasant and personal songwriting style, but it just gets a little boring over a while. Not my style of slow, mild music, but I get why it's popular.
Blur
2/5
Best Song: Song 2. I mean, obviously. Really doesn't even feel like the same band.
Worst Song: Look Inside America. An example of this (especially British) era's tendency to focus on singing loud and long more than singing well.
Overall: Remarkable how one mega hit can raise the estimation of an entire album or band. Beyond the admittedly quite good "Song 2", the rest is just bland, bouncy shout rock. It feels like music that was designed to be sung loudly by a gaggle of drunk bargoers, and the lead singer had the decency to not even try to outperform them.
Liz Phair
3/5
Best Song: Fuck and Run. I like the almost spoken-word quality that this song has. It feels very raw and indie. And nothing beats a chorus of "Fuck and Run".
Worst Song: Soap Star Joe. Really just didn't like that chorus.
Overall: It's okay. It comes from that genre/era where the singer seems to be doing their best to seem as though they're too cool to try all that earnestly, instead sort of sitting back and letting their vocals roll out onto the floor. It feels like live music for a dive bar, in good and bad ways.
The Kinks
2/5
Best Song: Waterloo Sunset. This is an obvious choice. It has easily the most pleasant melody, and it has a kind of quiet innocence about it that isn't present in any of the other tracks.
Worst Song: Harry Rag. It feels like they don't have the chutzpah to really push into the more intense direction that it really needs. I could see a band like The Pogues pulling this song off, but not these guys.
Overall: Music that was probably important but does not hold up to modern listening. Overly long, with nothing that interesting to say.
Sonic Youth
2/5
Best Song: Eliminator Jr. A high energy punk track, far better than the rest.
Worst Song: Total Trash. Nominative determinism. Over 7 minutes of guitars caterwauling.
Overall: Boy am I glad that's over. Everything - from the songwriting down to the production - has this sleepy, muffled quality to it. It felt like a head cold and too much codeine. None of the songs really stood out from any of the others, just one endless drone.
Billy Joel
3/5
Best Song: Only the Good Die Young. Nostalgic (for me), with the catchiest chorus in an album of catchy choruses.
Worst Song: She's Always a Woman. An absolute Iowa field's worth of corny.
Overall: Great little storytelling songs sung by a voice that's very easy to listen to. Music that feels safe in a good way. Like Ol' Billy's just having a good time playing music, and he wants you to have fun too. And I did. I did have fun.
Isaac Hayes
3/5
Best Song: Café Regio's. That guitar is smooth as butter.
Worst Song: A Friend's Place. Feels too much like a song from a movie, and I know that it's a song from a movie.
Overall: Very slick, upbeat soul. I can imagine having it on in the background while cooking, or a low-key gathering with friends, but not to listen to directly. It's a soundtrack: it was designed to augment something else.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Best Song: Beyond Belief. The busiest and most dynamic song on the album, which isn't saying much.
Worst Song: Kid About It. The way he interrupts himself to close-whisper "kid about it" sounds predatory.
Overall: He's just a less interesting Randy Newman. I really don't understand the appeal.
Jurassic 5
4/5
Best Song: What's Golden. That lower register, group male vocal chorus is something that you just do see in rap anymore, and yet it doesn't feel at all aged here.
Worst Song: I Am Somebody. The chorus feels like it comes from a song that was intentionally written to hype up crowds during breaks of a sporting event, complete with graphics on the jumbotron that tell attendees to "Make Some Noize".
Overall: Goddamnit it slaps. Funky, bouncy, retro without feeling aged. The beats are great. The rhymes are great. Will be returning to this one in earnest.
The Charlatans
2/5
Best Song: You're A Big Girl Now. This is the length of song that they should be writing. Snippy little bits under 3 minutes.
Worst Song: Rob's Theme. A weird, pointless jam song that sounds like it was recorded through a closed door.
Overall: Absolutely perplexed how this forgettable album by a band lost to history made it on this list. How many people, even when they're in the mood for this genre, are reaching for a record by The Charlatans? Who did this go on to influence?
The Who
4/5
Best Song: Behind Blue Eyes. This one ekes out the victory only because of the absolutely perfect way that Roger Daltry sings the line, "And if I swallow anything evil, stick your finger down my throat.
Worst Song: My Wife. Bit of a dud in an otherwise stacked album.
Overall: The best Who album by a mile. Feels like the prototypical "classic rock" album. Absolutely chock full of hits, all with a unique and characteristic style. All the band members are also flying high here, giving the sense that you're listening to four musicians at the peak of their abilities.
Mike Ladd
3/5
Best Song: No. 1 St. Nice chill, relaxed flow over a sweeping backing instrumental. Nice.
Worst Song: Takes More Than 41. Sometimes a song can be so lo-fi that it just sounds underbaked, and lemme tell ya, this puppy's raw.
Overall: It's pretty nice lo-fi hip hop. Does some nice weird conceptual stuff, but never gets too outlandish that it becomes unlistenable. Best for chill, background music.
Orbital
2/5
Best Song: Kein Trink Wasser. I liked the piano at the beginning.
Worst Song: Forever. Sure, let's just end the song with a full 30 seconds of the sounds of pissing. Was that supposed to be rain?
Overall: Some glimpses of interesting material here and there. The division of songs seems partly arbitrary, as the genre can radically switch within a single song, but also some songs (e.g., Quality Seconds) seem so wholly out of place that I wonder what they're doing here. It feels like an album in desperate need of careful editing, but I'm not sure what would be left once edited.
Napalm Death
2/5
Best Song: Born On Your Knees. Finally, a discernible and likeable riff.
Worst Song: You Suffer. I hate that they even thought this was clever.
Overall: It's really a feat to have an album of 28 songs, each only a minute or so on average, and yet have them all be so boring that you find yourself wanting to skip ahead halfway through each one. The album is fine as a sort of musical embodiment of rage, and it would serve as a good soundtrack for the physicality of bouncing around, but is pretty garbage to try to listen to casually.
Megadeth
2/5
Best Song: Hangar 18. This song was in either a Guitar Hero or Rock Band, and the memories of being a pretend musician really amplifies the nostalgia. I might as well have written this song myself.
Worst Song: Dawn Patrol. Who asked for this weirdly whispered vocal fry?
Overall: A totally mediocre metal album whose listening experience was greatly influenced by my having just finished listening to Napalm Death. Sits firmly on the "boring" shelf of classic metal.
David Gray
3/5
Best Song: Please Forgive Me. That upbeat and running rhythm in the background gives a nice energy to this song, but sadly set an expectation that the rest of the album didn't uphold.
Worst Song: This Year's Love. Romantically comatose.
Overall: It's not bad, but it definitely feels like a sort of budget Bob Dylan. He's got a cleaner singing voice, but nothing near the writing chops. The album also gets really sleepy in the latter half.
Raekwon
4/5
Best Song: Heaven & Hell. That soft backing vocals provides a nice contrast to the Wu. My favourite of Ghostface's verses from this album are on this track.
Worst Song: Can It All Be So Simple. After such a dramatic intro, the song never lived up to the hype and the drama.
Overall: This might as well be the Godfather of hip hop. Even when it feels dated in parts (namely the misogyny and homophobia), it's immediately obvious how it's influence spread and went on to drive how the genre changed in the decades that followed.
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
2/5
Best Song: Bomba. Every female vocalist on this album is 300x better than the male one. Why would he set himself up to fail like this?
Worst Song: Rising Above Bedlam. Aimed for weird, landed on boring.
Overall: It isn't unpleasant, but it feels like the "Taco Bell" version of world music. Everything superficially resembles the kinds of dishes you're expecting, but everything tastes a bit flat.
Cee Lo Green
4/5
Best Song: The Art of Noise. The way all the layered vocals and instrumentals dance around one another is incredible. Busy and dancey.
Worst Song: I'll Be Around. In an album full of honey-dipped, sugary production, Timbaland's brash and staccato production clashes. Plus the chorus tips itself so far into explicit sexuality that it loses its attempt at being sexy.
Overall: Damnit, it's fun. I don't know if it's deep, and maybe it's a little bit bubblegum at times, but goddamnit it moves and it makes you want to move with it. Oddly, Cee Lo's vocals end up almost as an afterthought to the craziness of the production.
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Best Song: On the Level. The juxtaposition of Cohen's gruff voice with the soulful backing vocals is perfect.
Worst Song: It Seemed the Better Way. This feels like Cohen at his most sombre, almost religious, and without the counterpoint of some intrumental levity or the backing female vocals, it trends towards morose.
Overall: Cohen sounds otherworldly here. Like some kind of ancient titan. Like the voice of an old mountain. I enjoy that he acknowledges that his own singing chops are not spectacular (and honestly, not why people listen to him) and so the majority of the musicality comes from the backing vocals and instrumentation, leaving Cohen's lyrics and rough delivery to stand on their own. An excellent culmination of Cohen's career.
Neneh Cherry
3/5
Best Song: Inna City Mamma. Nice synthy little singalong.
Worst Song: My Bitch. Seems like a really odd choice to have a man come in at the end of this solo female album to call the artist a bitch. And the song sucks.
Overall: Very dated, for better or for worse. I enjoyed it enough while listening to it, but I doubt I'll ever have reason to return (let alone remember having listened to it to begin with).
Pavement
2/5
Best Song: Stop Breathin. Even though I found the chorus a bit annoying, I liked the instrumental breakdown at the end.
Worst Song: Range Life. Sounds like Beck in the worst way possible.
Overall: Music that sounds "indie" without sounding like anything else. Plucky. Earnest. Boring.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
Best Song: It's a Sin. Decent song with great meme potential.
Worst Song: King's Cross. Nice, a slow and somber number to close out the synth dance album.
Overall: I found myself growing bored with the half-talking, half-singing approach that dominates the album. At least the other Pet Shop Boys album I've had on the list had some more theatricality to it. This one just feels like monologues over synths.
The Byrds
2/5
Best Song: Eight Miles High. A prototypical 60s rock song, but one with enough focus to actually stay coherent.
Worst Song: I Come and Stand at Every Door. It feels disingenuous to just drop in a song about the bombing of Hiroshima into an otherwise peppy rock album. Such a weird departure from the rest of the album to make such a brief pass at such a serious topic.
Overall: Grandpa rock. There are a few tracks in here that are alright, but it's lost in the mix of "experimental" rock noodling. Also, I find this style of aggressively stereo mixing really awful to listen to on headphones. It feels like trying to listen to two conversations at once.
Nico
2/5
Best Song: These Days. The lilting melody of the guitar goes really well with her somewhat husky voice.
Worst Song: Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams. Not nearly dynamic enough for a song this long. Basically just the same upwards melody repeated over and over, each time landing on the same sustained note.
Overall: Desperately muted. All of the songs tend to blend together as they all exist in the same, relatively monotonous space. Not good enough that I'll imagine ever returning to this.
The Teardrop Explodes
2/5
Best Song: Reward. Honestly, I'm mostly here for the brass section and the surging baseline.
Worst Song: When I Dream. Way too long for what this band seems capable of, and that "scatting" at the end was awful to listen to.
Overall: Lively and high energy, but also with a penchant for doing annoying little prog/psychedelic deviations that almost always end up just detracting from the song overall.
The Darkness
3/5
Best Song: I Believe in a Thing Called Love. Absolutely dripping in cheese. Decadent. Boisterous. Doesn't take itself seriously but still manages to rock pretty hard. The definition of a fun song.
Worst Song: Holding My Own. No one's here to hear the Darkness sing slow songs.
Overall: Hard not to like the glitz and glamour of it all. Nothing else reaches the stratospheric heights of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", but it's still entertaining enough to keep you mostly interested for its full duration.
The Associates
2/5
Best Song: Club Country. Some kinda groovy, safe funk in there.
Worst Song: Party Fears Two. It literally sounds like he's trying to over-sing for comedic effect.
Overall: Exhibit A of why the 80s were the most annoying genre, culturally. Nothing of substance, just flash. Layers and layers of boring synth with a bubble-throated man alternating between theatre-style singing and screeching falsettos. Bam, 80s hit-machine.
Genesis
4/5
Best Song: More Fool Me. The prototypical "ditty". Everything about this song seems ethereal. Fairytale. The musical equivalent of sitting in a windy field of wild grasses, with nothing to do but sit.
Worst Song: The Cinema Show. It's not that it's bad, it's just needlessly long, without anything that interesting to say.
Overall: This feels like an album that understands the utility of vocal harmonies and - maybe more importantly - uses them judiciously to maximize their effect. The vocals feel like the obvious source of interest, but the backing instrumentals really fucking jam, sometimes. Feels like tall Hobbit music.
The Sugarcubes
5/5
Best Song: Birthday. I cannot remember the last time a vocal performance struck me like this. To cover the range - not just of actual notes but of emotions - that she covers in this song is unbelievable.
Worst Song: Blue Eyed Pop. This feels like it could be a B-52s song. Give me more Björk.
Overall: This is my first exposure to Björk and it is fucking revelatory. I'd heard of her as being a controversial vocalist, and I don't know if she jumps the vocal shark at some point later in her career, but this is incredible. Literally the only downsides of this album are when the male vocalist inserts himself with some random nonsense. Dude, get out of the way. You're blocking Björk.
Paul McCartney and Wings
3/5
Best Song: Band On The Run. Even though it seems like it takes forever for the song to start, it has the best and most iconic chorus.
Worst Song: Mamunia. Just a boring little ballad.
Overall: Paul's songwriting - and more specifically his guitar playing - are nice here. Nothing outstanding, nothing altogether very interesting, but listenable. For times when you want Diet Beatles.
Wild Beasts
3/5
Best Song: This Is Our Lot. I really liked the slick bassline in the background..
Worst Song: Underbelly. It was kind of pleasant, but then it stopped so abruptly to drop into a heavy kick of the following song that it lost all its groove retroactively.
Overall: I mean, it's alright. I can imagine putting it on as chill background music while cooking, but that's about it.
Jack White
3/5
Best Song: Love Interruption. The most interesting song on the album, lyrically.
Worst Song: I'm Shakin'. I'm sorry, but Jack White just cannot sing the blues.
Overall: I actually found this more palatable than his work with The White Stripes, probably because each track felt a bit more coherent and polished than the punctate little blitz tracks he makes there. And I do have to give him credit for his ability to write a catchy riff.
Morrissey
2/5
Best Song: Margaret on the Guillotine. I just like the chorus of "When will you die?"
Worst Song: Little Man, What Now? Whose idea was it to have a washing machine on in the background of the recording?
Overall: An especially sleepy album from an already sleepy man. At times poetic, but mostly just emotionally overwrought.
Pulp
2/5
Best Song: Like A Friend. This song rocked the hardest (still meager) and was a signal that the album was almost over.
Worst Song: Seductive Barry. A prime example of this album's meandering, unedited efforts. This song makes no use of its over 8 minute runtime except make awkward, patently unsexy attempts at being flirtatious.
Overall: The audacity to call such a milquetoast album "This is Hardcore". Literally none of this album fits any definition of hardcore. It's all just your stock standard British fare of the time, bloated to a runtime that exceeds an hour. Couldn't wait for it to be over.
Public Image Ltd.
2/5
Best Song: Socialist. At least it grooves.
Worst Song: Bad Baby. Just an absolutely fucking dreadful vocal performance.
Overall: Mostly junk. Marginally more listenable than the other Public Image Ltd. album on this list, but only because of a few nice (but not extraordinary) riffs. It is a mess of barely conceived ideas haphazardly slapped together. The musicians seem uninterested in playing well or together, and everything just kind of dithers about until it ends. I hate the hubris of these dorks who dispassionately fuck around on their instruments for an hour and call it a day. Aimless. I just don't get it. Which drugs are necessary to enjoy this junk?
Traffic
3/5
Best Song: Freedom Rider. Excellent use of the flute, nice uptempo instrumentals.
Worst Song: Glad. There just isn't quite enough there without the vocals to make this interesting.
Overall: Definitely dadrock, but not terrible. I could imagine myself hearing this at a barbecue and having it augment the taste of a hotdog.
Blur
2/5
Best Song: Girls & Boys. Something catchy to sing along to.
Worst Song: The Debt Collector. This kind of oom-pah-pah only works ironically, and I fear the artists were truly serious here.
Overall: Although I respect how diverse the music on offer here is, I also feel like not a lot of it is that great. The end result is an album that feels a mile wide but an inch deep.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Best Song: Machengoidi. I'm just a sucker for gang vocals. I like the rolling rhythm of this one too.
Worst Song: Savane. Just too long to drag on that soulful guitar solo...
Overall: A breath of fresh air in this often stale playlist. That being said, I don't know how often I'll come back to it. Very relaxed, lay outside type of music.
The United States Of America
3/5
Best Song: Garden of Earthly Delights. The female vocals are by far better than any of the male ones on the album.
Worst Song: The American Metaphysical Circus. I like a weird intro as much as the next guy, but this is just downright discordant in a way that I don't want to listen to.
Overall: That ordinary brand of 60s era rock weirdness. Sometimes the weirdness is refreshing, often it gets in the way of itself. A time capsule of a particular time that doesn't really need to be revisited.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
3/5
Best Song: Yaad-E-Nabi Gulshan Mehka. Don't ask me why.
Worst Song: Mast Nazroon Se Allah Bachchae. Don't ask me why.
Overall: Lively, joyous music that I can definitely imagine returning to. Being unable to understand the lyrics leads me to appreciate the rhythm of the language. Otherwise, I feel like I completely lack the vocabulary to properly evaluate/appreciate this music.
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Best Song: Sparrow. Something about the contrast between Marvin's slow, methodical vocals being contrasted with the spastic solos in the background just really worked.
Worst Song: Here, My Dear. Wasn't digging the spoken parts. Felt like a too on-the-nose intro for the album.
Overall: It's actually a shame that some of Marvin Gaye's name has become synonymous with some of his more outlandish songs (e.g., "Sexual Healing"), because damn if he doesn't have a consistently great catalogue. Each track was funky, or soulful, but always buttery smooth.
The White Stripes
3/5
Best Song: Blue Orchid. Jack White's ability to occasionally construct an absolutely chunky riff rears its head once again.
Worst Song: The Nurse. Why play one bad song at once when you could instead play three bad songs at the same time?
Overall: A classic White Stripes album in that it's packed full of bite-sized bits of "okay". A couple iconic riffs, a few nifty little ditties, and a lot of forgettable thrashing in between.
The Stooges
2/5
Best Song: I Wanna Be Your Dog. I guess it was high energy enough to be interesting.
Worst Song: Real Cool Time. This sounds like a drunk guy who has cornered you at a bar and is wetly and vehemently letting you know about the "good time" he's about to give you.
Overall: Pretty awful. Nothing stands out as unique or interesting. No reason for this to be on the list or to ever listen to it again.
Neil Young
3/5
Best Song: Tonight's the Night (Pt. II). This song rocks the hardest on the album, and I want to see Neil rock.
Worst Song: Mellow My Mind. Neil's voice really struggles during these mellow, softer songs, and there are some really difficult sections here.
Overall: Listening to this was a nice mix of nostalgia - having heard so much of Neil Young's music on the radio in my youth - and frustration at his inability to at times understand the limits of his own vocal ability. Still, can't help but respect a man of such conviction. Mewl on, Neil. Mewl on.
Big Star
2/5
Best Song: Feel. I liked the brass, even if it gave a false impression of what to expect on the rest of the album.
Worst Song: In The Street. Perhaps unfair, but after hearing the cover version that's used as the theme song for That 70s Show, this version just feels weak and wilted.
Overall: Music that sounds old. Like the Eagles but worse? Without That 70s Show, would likely have faded into oblivion.
Janelle Monáe
4/5
Best Song: Dance or Die. I didn't realize that Monae had such a killer rap flow, so this track was a pleasant surprise.
Worst Song: Sir Greendown. I just don't think there's a need for such a lowkey, buzzkill song in the middle of such upbeat tracks. Kind of kills the energy.
Overall: An incredibly well-produced, slick, wide-ranging album. Sometime the range feels a bit too wide, with the slower songs dragging down the album somewhat, but overall it's refreshingly diverse, with a consistent groovy theme underlying it.
Nanci Griffith
2/5
Best Song: One Of These Days. Something about the simplicity of the storytelling worked best in this one.
Worst Song: Love At The Five & Dime. Budget Dolly Parton singing cliches.
Overall: It's not unpleasant but it's also not for me. Relatively one-note. I felt like I'd heard the general gist of the album after the first few songs.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Best Song: Walking The Dog. In a crowded place, I would clap along to this if everyone else was doing it.
Worst Song: Honest I Do. I hate this white boy blues.
Overall: Why would you have a song called "Now I've Got A Witness" occur earlier in the album than a song called "Can I Get A Witness"? That kind of lazy oversight is emblematic of what I find wrong with most of this album. There really doesn't seem to be more thought put into it than to take a classic bluesy sound and bleat it out with big British bravado. Oh and don't forget to pepper the lyrics with clumsy and oblique sexual (not sexy) references, as in the awful "I'm a King Bee". Can't believe these geriatrics became billionaires off of lines like "I can buzz all night long".
Pixies
3/5
Best Song: Debaser. Really just a wild, slightly unhinged start to the album that, unfortunately, the rest of the album didn't quite live up to.
Worst Song: No 13 Baby. The vocal performance got a little too experimental on this one.
Overall: Refreshingly chaotic. Spastic in a good way. Even if not every song worked, what worked for me is that it was apparent that the group was playing with their whole hearts. Spirited music.
Deerhunter
3/5
Best Song: Helicopter. I liked the loopy reverb when paired with the dreamy vocals.
Worst Song: Revival. This just sounds like any other indie rock band of the time. The band's strength is in its more muted, leaned-back outputs.
Overall: An album so sleepy I kept forgetting I was listening to it. Not bad, but an album to played only at the end of a long day.
Skepta
3/5
Best Song: Lyrics. Perfect example of that harsh, bouncy rhythm that you don't hear as much outside UK rap. Stanky.
Worst Song: Crime Riddim. Definitely feels the most like a character. The song isn't great and the skit/spoken audio is pretty shit. If you're going to include banter on your record, wouldn't you want it to be good banter?
Overall: The album starts strong, carried by Skepta's flow and knack for hitting a good rhythm hard, but is bogged down by a set of features that are all significantly worse than the main event. I love the harshly staccato delivery of Skepta, so it's disappointing that we have to weave through weaker entries just to appreciate it.
KISS
2/5
Best Song: Detroit Rock City. Ignoring the annoying, protracted intro, this is lively and kind of fun, with a nice chunky riff.
Worst Song: Beth. This might be one of the worst songs ever written. Why are these corny, "sell their grandmother for a few more dollars" ultra-consumerists doing pretending they have the soul to sing anything approximating a ballad? Boys, you sold those souls a long time ago; stop singing in that ugly falsetto.
Overall: The definition of style over substance (although it should be noted that I also think this particular style is also trash). If they existed today, people would deride Kiss' brand of unbridled, soulless capitalism as tasteless, and would view the band members as inhuman, Zuckerbergian lizard people, and yet in the 70s they were lauded. Fucking wild. Congratulations on all the lunchbox sales, boys.
Neil Young
4/5
Best Song: The Needle and the Damage Done. Haunting, helped by the fact that Neil literally sings like a cartoon ghost. Probably his best poetry, and I actually prefer him when he's more folk than rock.
Worst Song: A Man Needs a Maid. Weak writing and way to "upper register" for ol' Neil. He needs at least some guitar oomph to contrast his voice.
Overall: The older I get, the more I appreciate Neil Young for doing exactly what Neil Young wants to do. He's got legitimately great songwriting skills, and even his nasally manner of singing has really grown on me. Aged like a fine whine.
Pere Ubu
2/5
Best Song: Life Stinks. The one song that was appreciably punk.
Worst Song: Non-Alignment. Who decides to kick off an album with such an insufferable noise? "Hey, you know how we should start the album? How about a metro train screeching into the station, but worse?"
Overall: Not every obnoxious art project is accidentally great art. This is mostly just directionless, uninspired nonsense. I bet they had fun making the album, and I love that for them, but it sure isn't fun to listen to.
The Birthday Party
2/5
Best Song: Dead Joe. Marginally better than the rest of what's on offer.
Worst Song: Big Jesus Trash Can. Talentless shouting.
Overall: The music is shit. The album art is shit. The name of both the band and the album are shit. Why am I listening to this?
The Byrds
3/5
Best Song: Everybody's Been Burned. It's got a sort of suave, Bond-song energy to it.
Worst Song: C.T.A. I bet that alien bit at the end was fire back in 1967, but now it just sounds goofy in a bad way.
Overall: An old album from the origins of rock that sounds more important than it sounds good.
Best Song: Beautiful Day. Even though by now this song has been co-opted by a million commercials and sitcoms, it still does go pretty hard on its own.
Worst Song: Peace on Earth. Something about that kind of preachy, "can't we all just love one another" vibe from Bono always felt somehow disingenuous. And even if it is earnest, this song is just cheesy.
Overall: After a strong start, it's just soft rock and Bono wailing. That isn't to say it's bad, it's just so very milquetoast that there isn't really much more to say about it.
Al Green
4/5
Best Song: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. This song is the perfect combination of powerful and gentle.
Worst Song: It Ain't No Fun to Me. A bit too rock and roll for me. Too much of a deviation from what made the rest of the album so great.
Overall: Really good soul like this always amazes me at how it's able to simultaneously sound so tight musically while presenting such a loose and relaxed vibe. Nothing feels out of place, every decision feels intentional, and that meticulousness sounds as the perfect backdrop for Green's softly delivered vocals.
Elis Regina
3/5
Best Song: Aprendendo A Jogar. Something about that vocal rhythm at the beginning really tickles me.
Worst Song: Outro Cais. The solemnity wasn't what I was looking for here.
Overall: I kinda like it. It's upbeat. She's got a nice voice. The instrumentals are pleasant. I doubt I'll remember it in a week's time, but I like it while it's here.
Queens of the Stone Age
3/5
Best Song: I Was a Teenage Hand Model. Even though the softness runs contrary to the energy that I really like from QOTSA, it shows that they really can sing.
Worst Song: You Can't Quit Me Baby. Here's where the stoner wandering schtick starts to lose some of its lustre. It's a fine groove, but that speeding crescendo at the end fizzles into a disappointing nothing, leaving you to wonder what was the point.
Overall: This is Queens of the Stone Age before they had really refined their sound, and it shows. The elements are their - the guitar tone, the slick sleaziness - but you can tell they're still working things out. There are better QOTSA albums that should be here instead.
The Damned
3/5
Best Song: Anti-Pope. Dug the lyrics, and somehow the hyperactive vocals meshed well with the slower, more thoughtful rock instrumentals in the middle.
Worst Song: These Hands. I never care for these kind of corny gimmick tracks.
Overall: A rarity in the British punk that frequents this list in that the music is actually interesting and it isn't just noisy bouncing. Still nothing to write home about, but not so actively annoying that I wished it would end.
Red Snapper
3/5
Best Song: The Rough and the Quick. Often songs that are this sexually explicitly just come off as cheesy, but this one somehow manages to stay sexy.
Worst Song: Belladonna. Too atmospheric for what the rest of the album contained.
Overall: Better than I thought. Best when it has an interesting vocal sample to go along with it, but overall interesting enough to return to.
Talking Heads
2/5
Best Song: Thank You For Sending Me an Angel. It is the best because it is the shortest. Less is more here.
Worst Song: The Girl Wants to Be with the Girls. That little doorbell ringing is like water torture.
Overall: One continuous, bouncy string of songs. It all blurs together pretty quickly, until all that you're left with is the ever-presence of this staccato rhythm that flicks you on the brain in steady 4:4 time. Music to (rhythmically) beat your head against the wall to.
T. Rex
2/5
Best Song: Buick McCane. I like the groove here.
Worst Song: Spaceball Ricochet. The only thing worse than amateur scatting is when the notes that make of the scatting are just breathy exhales.
Overall: Is glam rock the worst of all rocks? I struggle to think of a worse one. Everything is so cheesy, all the vocals sound like their sung through plastered-on smiles. Soulless music. Music performed by animatronics.
George Harrison
3/5
Best Song: My Sweet Lord. The catchiest, most clear and resonant chorus. Glad the best song was the second track in a 2 hour long album.
Worst Song: Behind That Locked Door. Just not interested in this plodding honkytonk.
Overall: Albums this long annoy me. Were all of these songs good enough to make it onto the album? This listener says "No". Sure there are a few decent tracks littered throughout, but it mostly just sounds the same as one continuous note, and it betrays a disdain for editing that I don't like. If you're going to put out a project this large, make it cohesive and grandiose. Try to do something really difficult with it. Don't just bulk upload to increase quantity.
The Hives
4/5
Best Song: A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T. Hellacious pace, and a killer chorus that makes you want to sing (but is actually difficult to get out at the speed they do).
Worst Song: The Hives Are Law, You Are Crime. Lacks some of the energy and intensity of the rest of the album. Really lacklustre way to end the album.
Overall: Spirited, youthful, brash. It's very flashy, but its high energy makes it endearing. A far better incarnation of this type of sound than what was attempted by the Ramones or the White Stripes.
The Police
2/5
Best Song: Message In A Bottle. It's the most iconic for a reason. Especially like the rhythm of "Sending out an SOS".
Worst Song: On Any Other Day. I was just beginning to think that Sting's voice was starting to grate on me when this song came on and proved me wrong. Without Sting, there's nothing here. This is bunk.
Overall: One hit song and a bunch of otherwise boring tracks. Hard to believe that the same band who brought that energy in the beginning of the album just rested on their laurels for the remainder.
Roni Size
3/5
Best Song: Railing. Makes me feel like I'm wearing neon wraparound glasses and absolutely thrashing in an abandoned parking garage.
Worst Song: Matter of Fact. This kind of music only works for me insofar as it is unabashedly in-your-face. Here it attempts to do this wishy-washy background thing, which just comes off as annoying.
Overall: I liked some of the boomboomclaps and not other boomboomclaps, but I lack the vocabulary to describe what makes some better than the others. As a listener naive to this genre of music, it initially felt like it had an exciting speed and energy to it but I found that I quickly acclimatized to the speed and was left finding it too repetitive.
Alice In Chains
2/5
Best Song: Would? This track has a darker, brooding quality that is absent from the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Down In A Hole. I just find all these kind of power ballads annoying. It feels antithetical to everything else that the band produces and just feels like an excuse to have a "lighters up" song. Slow and skippable.
Overall: If a whine were a musical instrument. Mostly just one (whined) note, resulting in a really repetitive listening experience. There are better grunge bands by far.
Bob Dylan
4/5
Best Song: Like a Rolling Stone. The song that spawned so much. I like how loud Dylan is here, bucking the folk music trends to really belt this one out.
Worst Song: From a Buick 6. Not terrible, but sounds too much like he's trying to write a song for people to dance to. The harmonica still rips though.
Overall: Really great storytelling tracks here. For the most part the music hums along at a decent clip, and each song tells a new and varied enough story to keep things interesting. Not Dylan's best, but pretty damn good.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Best Song: Mama Said. An almost impossibly catchy earworm. And I like the symmetry of the chorus.
Worst Song: All Cried Out. I can't really get behind a track whose principle emotion is "weepy".
Overall: This album is full of songs that I instantly recognize. I don't know (nor particularly care) whether they're all originals or some are covers as well. Sadly, despite the recognizability, that doesn't make the tracks all that much more interesting
Madonna
2/5
Best Song: Ray Of Light. Always nice when the titular song is the best song on the album.
Worst Song: The Power of Good-Bye. Not only are the lyrics painfully cheesy, she's not even singing them with particular conviction.
Overall: Not unpleasant, but it feels too slick and over-produced. Lacking any soul, it ends up just being a boring run through some run-of-the-mill 90s pop. And I don't care if she designed the mill; it's still boring.
The xx
3/5
Best Song: I Dare You. Feels like the most similar to their earlier work.
Worst Song: Brave For You. Melodramatic and emotionally overwrought. I find their schtick more enjoyable when it's more subtle and subdued.
Overall: Not as good as their earlier stuff, which I'm more familiar with. This feels like more standard indie pop. Nevertheless, the interplay of their two voice timbres is always nice.
Primal Scream
2/5
Best Song: Movin' on Up. This song prepared me for an album full of plucky, go-get-'em uplifting tracks. Unfortunately, this song is unlike anything else on the album.
Worst Song: Don't Fight It, Feel It. That gym class whistle isn't doing anyone any favours. Just an obnoxious sample to repeat ad nauseum.
Overall: A bit of a boring mix that mostly sounds like B-sides from the Rolling Stones.
Slade
3/5
Best Song: I Don't Mind. It's got that in your face bravado that really fits the raw nature of the musicians.
Worst Song: Gudbuy Gudbuy. Do they think the dumb spelling thing is cute? Does it make sense to have a song that's just repeatedly screaming "Goodbye" over and over anywhere but the end of the album?
Overall: Another contender for worst cover art on this list. An album from that early 70's era where you didn't need to be particularly talented or attractive to be popular. You just needed to sing really hard and that eagerness would take you pretty far. That being said, I like how hard he sings.
The Saints
2/5
Best Song: No, Your Product. A slightly more likeable Ramones.
Worst Song: Private Affair. I mean he's literally just talking in this one.
Overall: Who is out there campaigning for this forgettable album's inclusion in this list? Is anyone truly excited by this fairly paint-by-numbers punk band? It's just so extraordinarily okay.
Sabu
2/5
Best Song: Tribilin Cantore. Nice guitar work.
Worst Song: Billumba-Palo Congo. It turns out you can repeat a vocal phrase too many times in a single song.
Overall: Pleasantly rhythmic but unpleasantly repetitive. Something about the relatively raw vocals repeating certain phrases for minutes at a time did not work for me.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
Best Song: Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance. Even tough this one is also annoying, at least it's a catchy annoying.
Worst Song: The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny. This is basically just noise.
Overall: Mostly just annoying. Can't really impart much impact in 19 songs over 40 minutes. Each snippet just feels like frivolous hippy fart that didn't need to be put to tape.
Bonnie Raitt
3/5
Best Song: Love Letter. Something about female artists of this error just grants them the ability to sound righteous in a non-sanctimonious way.
Worst Song: I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again. Too effortfully cheesy.
Overall: Better than I expected, but still not great. She's got a pleasant voice, but the songs aren't particularly interesting.
Spacemen 3
2/5
Best Song: So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears). The only song that's been edited down to include just the good parts.
Worst Song: How Does It Feel. Even if it does get to an interesting place by the end of the track, is it work having to sit through such an annoying introduction?
Overall: It's just altogether too wispy, isn't it? It never feels like it settles into anything crunchy enough to wrap your ears around, and mostly just floats along in this liminal "jam" space. Meh.
Simply Red
3/5
Best Song: Holding Back The Years. A nice, laidback, gentle soul track. Well-measured.
Worst Song: Heaven. There are limits to where blue-eyed soul will take you, and this cheeseball mess is mashed up against that limit.
Overall: More soulful than I expected, less than it could (should?) have been.
Saint Etienne
3/5
Best Song: Nothin Can Stop Us. Has a nice retropop feel. The woodwinds are a nice touch.
Worst Song: Stoned To Say The Least. Sounds like the soundtrack to a boring video game level.
Overall: Pleasant but very mild electro-pop. It does nothing to excite, but also nothing to offend. Perfectly fine music to put on in the background.
The Beach Boys
2/5
Best Song: Dance, Dance, Dance. This is the kind of mindlessness that they're suited for.
Worst Song: Don't Hurt My Little Sister. What in the brotherfuck is this song?
Overall: The Beach Boys feel like a band that over-indexed on their ability to sing perfect harmonies. Great, you've got a big group that covers a broad vocal range. Congrats. Do something more interesting with it. Each song just sounds like they're soullessly singing a bunch of loosely connected sentences.
Fleet Foxes
3/5
Best Song: White Winter Hymnal. A song that comes exactly as advertised. The title is its descriptor.
Worst Song: He Doesn't Know Why. Sounds like an overly medicated Mumford and Sons.
Overall: A song that verges on too sleepy at times, but still is altogether pleasant. A quiet album for quiet settings.
Ute Lemper
3/5
Best Song: The Case Continues. Suave, sultry. Sounds like it could be a Bond song.
Worst Song: Die Dreigroschenoper: Tango Ballad. Far too campy for me. Also, much of the lyrics seem wholly unfit for the instrumentals, so the vocalists have to rush the phrasing to finish in time.
Overall: Nice vocals paired with nice songwriting here, although (seemingly be the nature of the project) the songs are really eclectic, which detracts from any sense of cohesion the album might have.
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
Best Song: My White Devil. The best vocal performance on the album.
Worst Song: Higher Hell. The canon just didn't work for me, dawg.
Overall: I swear, half the 80s British music on this list sounds exactly the same. I feel as if I've heard this exact album a dozen times already, and I've long since learned that it's not for me.
Ella Fitzgerald
3/5
Best Song: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off. It just feels very playful, especially the part about "calling the calling off off".
Worst Song: Just Another Rhumba. Overly long, and the schtick of tossing an "-a" on the end of every word to fit the rhyme is annoying from the onset.
Overall: Real odd inclusion into this list. 3 hours of music feels impossible to compare against the other conventional-length albums. It kind of feels like the author knew they needed to give flowers to Fitzgerald, but didn't know enough of her catalogue to narrow it down and therefore picked the largest project she had. Nevertheless, the music is fine to listen to. Obviously Fitzgerald has a great voice, and many of the songs are quite fun (but, due to sheer volume, many are also quite dull). I can't imagine that even Ella herself intended these 3 hours to be listened to at once or viewed as a single, immutable album.
Def Leppard
2/5
Best Song: Photograph. The "sitcom theme song" style of rock.
Worst Song: Die Hard The Hunter. Is there anything worse than someone doing something so dumb when you can tell they think they're doing something really cool?
Overall: I fucking hate Def Leppard. I hate everything they stand for. There's no humility, no self-awareness. All their songs seem like they were written with the presumption that they'd be played in stadiums. Can you imagine them trying to play to - and connect with - a small, intimate crowd? Impossible. The worst band is metal's worst genre.
Laibach
2/5
Best Song: Opus Dei. Sometimes a song can be so bad it's good, and I think that might be what's going on here.
Worst Song: The Great Seal. Sounds like it should run over the end credits to a late 90s computer game.
Overall: 95% cheesy pomp, 5% substance. I like that it's weird, but I just don't like this flavour of theatrical weird. It's difficult to tell what, if any of it, is tongue-in-cheek, so it all comes off as a bit goofy.
Ryan Adams
3/5
Best Song: Come Pick Me Up. Never underestimate the melancholy qualities of the harmonica and a well-placed "fuck".
Worst Song: Shakedown on 9th Street. He'd built a nice, thoughtful vibe, only to undo it with this White Stripes rockabilly. A fine enough song, but one that doesn't belong on this album.
Overall: A quiet and contemplative album. This album is best when it's at its most raw and stripped down, relying only on sparse instrumentals and pained vocals. Its deviations into "rock" are wholly unnecessary and detract from the vibe of the rest of the album.
The Pretty Things
2/5
Best Song: Loneliest Person. The lyrics were cute and clever.
Worst Song: Private Sorrow. The kind of song that just sounds like someone trying to be subversive in the sixties.
Overall: Early progressive music can sometimes come off feeling "wacky" as the artists throw dozens of disparate ideas at the wall to see what sticks. That is absolutely what is happening here. Despite this ostensibly being a rock opera, there is absolutely no musical cohesion to tie the whole album together. No idea sticks around long enough to make much of an impact.
Donald Fagen
3/5
Best Song: New Frontier. I think I just liked the bass the best here.
Worst Song: Ruby Baby. The instrumentals were fine, but the doo-wop-y vocals killed it for me.
Overall: Is it possible for music to be too smooth? Everything in this album feels so polished it's frictionless. Slips one ear and out the other. Music by and for sexy robots.
The Flaming Lips
3/5
Best Song: Do You Realize?? The best lyrics on the album.
Worst Song: It's Summertime. It was about this time that the album lost it's interesting indie edge and became sort of bland.
Overall: Better than I expected. It was fun and felt creative throughout. A bit like a more upbeat Radiohead. The question is whether I want to listen to a more upbeat Radiohead.
Bill Callahan
2/5
Best Song: Faith/Void. Although verging on overlong, it felt like this was an actual opportunity for the songwriter to tell a story with depth.
Worst Song: Invocation of Ratiocination. Don't know what that old-timey ghost was doing on this record, but get her off of there.
Overall: Extraordinarily plain. The lyricism is indeed nice, but his voice is not so interesting as others (e.g., Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen), to really keep you interested.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
3/5
Best Song: Bitches Crystal. That piano is killer on this track.
Worst Song: Jeremy Bender. Too harsh a cut from the 20 minute epic that preceded it.
Overall: A wild and romping classic rock album. This definitely felt like a distillation of the best, most creative, and most technically competent elements of the era. Doesn't overstay its welcome, and does some impressive stuff while it's there.
CHVRCHES
4/5
Best Song: By the Throat. My favourite part about CHVRCHES is the way the play around crescendos, and this song does that particularly well.
Worst Song: Tether. Something about the male vocals didn't gel as well here.
Overall: Although the album starts to feel a bit formulaic over its runtime, something about that formula works for me. The groovy synths + the angelic, innocent-feeling vocals feels right. I prefer other CHVRCHES albums, but I still can't help but like it. Music to dance to alone.
Kanye West
3/5
Best Song: Black Skinhead. The samples and the narrative are the best on the album.
Worst Song: I Am A God. Kanye's ego taking over here, and his lack of editing on full display. "Hurry up with my damn croissants" is just never going to hit as hard as he thinks it's going to.
Overall: Less cohesive than Kanye's better work, with the main through line (for me) being the overall heavy/noisy production on the album. Everything crunches and screeches and booms, sometimes successfully, but too often not. Lyrically, it's still just Kanye. I don't know. Not his best.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
Best Song: Shame On A Nigga. I just love the rhythm of Method Man's part on this track.
Worst Song: Clan In Da Front. It kind of felt like an intro to a song that never came.
Overall: Iconic, this album is absolutely jam-packed. It feels crowded in the best way, where no matter who is on the mic it seems like everyone else is waiting just to the side, eager to jump on.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
Best Song: The Blacker The Berry. I love Kendrick's eager, aggressive, forward-leaning flow on this one.
Worst Song: Hood Politics. "Boo boo".
Overall: Grandiose with a story to tell. This album feels huge, sprawling. Kendrick shows so many different aspects of his talent here, with a particular emphasis on his lyricism. On top of that, all the features are fantastic, Thundercat's influence can be felt throughout. It's not as immediately accessible as "good kid, m.A.A.d city", but once you get into it you see it's just as good.
k.d. lang
2/5
Best Song: Constant Craving. Love a good accordion. Best vocals on the album, too.
Worst Song: Season of Hollow Soul. sounds like a local church's edgy gospel.
Overall: Some pleasant cabaret instrumentals. Half the tracks sound like they could (with a bit of modification) serve as alternate-universe Bond songs. The other half are Bond's lullabies. Overall, too sleepy for me.
The Stooges
2/5
Best Song: L.A. Blues. I liked the jazz chaos of it.
Worst Song: Dirt. Iggy Pop doing his best impersonation of a vacuum cleaner on this one.
Overall: Mostly noise. The wikipedia page indicates that Jack White considers it one of (if not the singular) greatest rock albums of all time, which should have given me an indication of what I was getting into. Aggressively meh.
Suzanne Vega
3/5
Best Song: Small Blue Thing. Really like the self-reflective, almost ethereal vibe on this one.
Worst Song: Neighborhood Girls. This song feels like it eschews the great lyrics, which are the highlight, in favour of some honkytonk guitar.
Overall: Pleasant singer-songwriter stuff. The songs have a warm, simple poetry to them. Sonically it all sounds kind of the same, but the lyrics do a good job of carrying the weight here.
Morrissey
2/5
Best Song: You're The One For Me, Fatty. The use of "fatty" here just really took me off guard.
Worst Song: Certain People I Know. The whole song was outro.
Overall: Starting to realize that all of Morrissey's music (solo and with The Smiths) sounds like the exact same flavour of melancholy. I thought it was kind of enchanting the first time I heard it, but now it's kind of lessened by my understanding that it's all he's able to do.
Sade
3/5
Best Song: Hang On to Your Love. Really dug the groovy vocal rhythm.
Worst Song: Cherry Pie. I like actual cherry pie as much as I like any of the myriad songs that reference it, which is to say not much at all. Sing about pumpkin pie if you want my interest.
Overall: Liked it a lot more than I thought that I would. Soulful, poppy. Easy-listening that works well for cooking or lounging.
Jacques Brel
4/5
Best Song: Amsterdam. I love a song where the singer has so much energy they're almost shouting, and it feels like he's musically shouting here.
Worst Song: Le tango funèbre. It felt like some of his energy was wasted in this tango, which never matched him for intensity.
Overall: Goddamn if he doesn't sing with conviction. I like the passion with which he sings, even if sometimes the arrangements show their age in their theatricality.
Love
3/5
Best Song: Alone Again Or. A nice snappy, melodious start to the album.
Worst Song: The Red Telephone. Here's where that wonky 60s experimentation rears its ugly head.
Overall: I'm often annoyed by these 60 rock albums because they're typically filled with this kind of directionless experimentation, without any real sense of purpose or cohesion. Here at least the tracks seemed thoughtfully written. More entertaining than I expected.
Lou Reed
3/5
Best Song: Walk On The Wild Side. Here I am learning that not only does "Can I Kick It?" sample a Lou Reed song, but that the original is actually pretty damn good.
Worst Song: Satellite of Love. This felt like a failed Bowie impersonation.
Overall: Better than I expected, but still not as good as the other "gruff male singer-songwriters" that I inevitably compare him too, like Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Cave.
The Everly Brothers
2/5
Best Song: Love Hurts. It's a great song, but this still manages to be one of the worst renditions I've heard.
Worst Song: Sigh, Cry, Almost Die. Whiny lyrics paired with a nasal delivery. Lovely.
Overall: Antiquated and boring. Societally, I think we've aged out of this kind of stuff. Music for funeral homes.
Christine and the Queens
3/5
Best Song: Follarse. I like the slight Michael Jackson affectation that's being put on here.
Worst Song: Bruce est dans la brouillard. The staccato delivery wasn't working for me.
Overall: I listened to the French version, because that somehow seemed more "original", even if the two were released together. Good but not great modern pop that sounds like a slightly worse version of CHRVCHES with its big, atmospheric sound and a sort of retro-funk feel. Good to play in the background, though.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Best Song: Higher Ground. That wobbly funk is so fun to listen to. A palace of funk built on a foundation of jelly.
Worst Song: Visions. Kind of boring for the (nearly) titular track.
Overall: There's just something about Stevie Wonder's voice. Even songs which start slow and seem as though they'll never end up anywhere interesting have at least a moment where his voice takes off and it makes it feel like the whole song was worth it. Sadly, it does feel sometimes that his voice is carrying the whole album, and the rest of the musicianship really doesn't rise up to meet him.
LL Cool J
3/5
Best Song: Mama Said Knock You Out. "Don't call it a comeback" is a killer line to come flying in with.
Worst Song: Milky Cereal. You know, the cereal metaphor did not land as hard as he hoped it would.
Overall: Inoffensive, slightly goofy, very 90s rap. Nothing to hate here, but similarly nothing to get all that excited about.
Ryan Adams
3/5
Best Song: Answering Bell. The maximum permissible quantity of indie vocal warble.
Worst Song: Wild Flowers. Horribly overwrought singing. I cannot believe you're this close to tears for the song's entire runtime.
Overall: "Hey babe, pour yourself a lukewarm beer, crank that stereo to 5, and throw on that Ryan Adams records: we're about to have a real medium time."
The Jesus And Mary Chain
1/5
Best Song: Cut Dead. At least they cut off the fuzz for this track.
Worst Song: You Trip Me Up. Love a song where feedback and distortion take centre stage and the musicians are relegated to just background players.
Overall: Just toneless talking over an unending, annoying buzzing. The musical equivalent of trying to maintain a conversation with a heavily self-medicated hitchhiker as your car hurtles down the highway with all the windows open and no, no matter how much you ask, he won't speak any louder. Music for people who hate dynamic range. Music for wasps.
N.E.R.D
3/5
Best Song: Jump. Never thought a Benji Madden collab would be this danceable, but here we are.
Worst Song: Thrasher. This feels like Limp Bizkit cosplay.
Overall: Knowing Pharell's penchant for production, I really expected more here. He definitely excels more in the pop, rap, and hip hop spheres than this half-rock stuff. Just alright.
Super Furry Animals
3/5
Best Song: Something 4 The Weekend. Campy and theatrical, but in a fun way.
Worst Song: For Now and Ever. A bit self-indulgent of a finishing track, isn't it?
Overall: Even if it wasn't great, it certainly was fun. I bet they put on a killer live show.
Ravi Shankar
3/5
Best Song: Dádrá. The highest tempo track on the album.
Worst Song: Bhimpalasi. Can't say exactly why... Maybe it was just too slow for me?
Overall: Music that I am not well versed in, although I did appreciate the brief explanatory notes at the beginning of each track. Not unpleasant, but also can't imagine I'll be returning to this.
Cornershop
3/5
Best Song: Brimful of Asha. Even though the lyrics got weird in parts, the cadence of the chorus was quite pleasant.
Worst Song: What Is Happening? The laziest level of socially-aware music.
Overall: Aged and annoying electronics with some occasionally interesting alt-rock interspersed. I like that it's varied but many of the variations just aren't that interesting to a modern listener. The features were consistently good though.
Goldfrapp
2/5
Best Song: Human. Hate that this is the standard, but this really does have "Bond Song" vibes.
Worst Song: Deer Stop. An actively obnoxious song. I don't know if the distortion around the vocals was supposed to sound "haunted", but it just comes off as though someone is fiddling with dials they aren't supposed to.
Overall: The whole thing is just achingly slow and understated. I spent the whole time waiting for something interesting to happen, but nothing ever came. It feels like it's an album of songs intended to be played in the trailers for mysterious movies. On their own, they're far too sparse though.
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
2/5
Best Song: Weighted Down. Has a sort of mid-career Leonard Cohen vibe going for it, which I like.
Worst Song: Grey/Afro. Lightly whispered rock is not for me. And what was that cacophonous, scattered ending?
Overall: Mediocre early rock that at best feels half-baked. Nothing particularly coherent or interesting here.
Green Day
3/5
Best Song: Longview. That rolling bassline is a nice, pleasant groove.
Worst Song: All by Myself. Baby talk looks good on nobody.
Overall: Dumb in an endearing, golden retriever sort of way. It's all riffs and upbeat gang vocals, but sometimes that's all you need.
The Blue Nile
2/5
Best Song: A Walk Across The Rooftops. "Least bad song" would be the better descriptor. The bass was alright I guess?
Worst Song: Heatwave. I'd really grown annoyed with the whole package by this point.
Overall: I can't exactly pinpoint why, but the main feeling I get when I listened to this album was "pathetic". Maybe it's because the lyrics had this desperate, yearning, "pick me" quality to them, but I wished he'd grown a backbone before the album ended.
Country Joe & The Fish
3/5
Best Song: Love. This one had that hectic energy that I like from early rock.
Worst Song: Porpoise Mouth. I've never really liked a waltz.
Overall: Respectably decent early rock. Sounds no different from most of the genre and I am all but guaranteed to forget both the band name and album title immediately after listening. But while it was here, it was alright.
The Cure
3/5
Best Song: Lovesong. It emos the hardest.
Worst Song: Homesick. Homeboy was feeling himself a little too much on this one. Hella melodramatic.
Overall: None of it's bad, but it really all blurs together into this singular emo pastiche, to the point where it felt like I was barely recognizing where one song ended and another song began. A good album for getting into your feelings I guess.
Rush
4/5
Best Song: YYZ. That bassline is pure adrenaline to my Canadian soul.
Worst Song: The Camera Eye. This kind of expansive pseudo-epic is fine, but it lacks the energy of the tracks that preceded it so it has the overall effect of grinding the album to a halt. It's a fine song on its own (in fact the guitar solo at the end really rips), but it's undermined by its own placement.
Overall: Grandiose, proggy but not too proggy. Each member of the trio really has their opportunity to shine here. Good shit.
Goldfrapp
3/5
Best Song: Caravan Girl. I liked the buzzier, more electric feel here.
Worst Song: Cologne Cerrone Houdini. Just sounds like some standard radio fare.
Overall: It is evidently possible to be too wispy and ethereal. Some of this takes too much from the Bob Dylan school of articulation, but the good parts do have a nice flowing softness to them. Music that forcibly places itself in the background.
Deee-Lite
3/5
Best Song: Groove Is in the Heart. Super dance-y melody AND there's a Q-Tip feature? What's not to love.
Worst Song: What is Love? The spoken bits by the female vocalist were just too corny for me. Combined with the fact that the main sample sounds like a kid playing with a plastic ruler, this one's a miss for me.
Overall: Mostly middling dance offerings with a couple straight earworm jams in there that results in a volatile but average album.
Iggy Pop
3/5
Best Song: The Passenger. There's something I've always loved about a gruff voice singing a simple "la la la". It's a pleasant little juxtaposition.
Worst Song: Turn Blue. Iggy unfortunately does not have the vocal abilities to perform this son, and it feels like he knows it. He resorts to just barking out phrases sometimes. And the slowly spoken, semi-sexual monologue just comes off as cheesy. Maybe Bowie could have pulled this off, but not Iggy Pop.
Overall: Learning that this was a collaboration between Iggy Pop and David Bowie helps explain what I felt was wrong with this album. It felt like the vocal performance was often at odds with the way the songs were written, as though the songs weren't organically built around Iggy Pop's particular strengths. What results is an album that ends up sounding like someone doing a cover of someone else's better work.
Beatles
4/5
Best Song: While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Even though I wish the song reached a more dramatic/raw place with its extended crescendo, I can't deny that everything just works really well here on this track.
Worst Song: Julia. This is the exact kind of droning, lifeless tracks that I like the least from the Beatles. This song is great as a lullaby for people named "Julia" and not much else.
Overall: For me, probably the best Beatles album. There are so many individually great and iconic songs here that it's tough not to find something to like. "Individually" is a key point though, as the album as a whole lacks any cohesion or flow, with the order of songs so odd that it's hard not to get tonal whiplash as the album alternates between heartfelt ballad and whimsical ditty with nothing in between. Directly related to this is the fact that the album needed to be edited down, as it's full of forgettable middling tracks that just water the whole experience down. Is anyone actually excited when "Honey Pie" comes on?
ABBA
3/5
Best Song: Head Ove Heels. This has that catchy, singalong quality that I think ABBA can excel at.
Worst Song: I Let The Music Speak. Honestly, feels like a song cut from Phantom of the Opera.
Overall: This is probably on me, but I really expected more. Having not heard so much ABBA, I expected things to be a lot more fun and upbeat, but instead it was largely slow, theatrical, cheese-covered ballads.
Steve Winwood
3/5
Best Song: Night Train. Groovy enough to make me want to work on a night train.
Worst Song: Secondhand Woman. Weird lyrics, and despite my usual preferences, it feels like Winwood works better with more time to musically noodle, so this song actually feels too brief.
Overall: This era of super slick, technically impressive rock often strikes me as somewhat soulless. I get that it's good, but it lacks some spark of originality or raw authenticity that makes it end up feeling somewhat robotic to me.
Motörhead
3/5
Best Song: Overkill. Will always be my favourite Motörhead track, because it has the most aggressive and blistering pace. Love the way it constantly feels like it's building to an explosion, even when you think they can't push it any harder.
Worst Song: Capricorn. The worst Motörhead song will always be the slowest Motörhead song.
Overall: Although I'm sure it was amazing to be there live, I feel like the live atmosphere here didn't add anything over the studio recordings (and actually detracted a bit in terms of sound quality). Beyond that, it's just a greatest hits collection. Still, these boys clearly know how to rock and put many of their popular contemporaries to shame.
Elvis Costello
3/5
Best Song: Kinder Murder. I like when he starts to lean into a heavier rock vocal.
Worst Song: Still Too Soon to Know. I don't know if it's possible for Costello to sing this song any harder.
Overall: Bland rock. I was really fatigued with Costello's voice by the end of the end of this one. Really just a consistently middling offering.
Method Man
3/5
Best Song: Release Yo' Delf. I love the creativity of this kind of half-way cover chorus.
Worst Song: Tical. Bit of a weird intro and too slow and plodding a beat to really draw you into the album.
Overall: I will always maintain that Method Man has the best voice and flow of any of the Wu-Tang Clan, and this album only reinforces that opinion. Overall a fun album, even though it never did all that much to elevate to hit that next level like their collaborative work.
Buffalo Springfield
2/5
Best Song: Mr. Soul. Love me a good Neil track.
Worst Song: Sad Memory. A song so muted it's almost nonexistent.
Overall: It's never a good sign when, while listening to an album, my ears eventually perk up and I think "Ooh that's a good one", only to realize that the album ended and Spotify just played some related other song to continue the trend. That happened here.
Tom Waits
4/5
Best Song: The Earth Died Screaming. What a ripping way to start off an album. A song that feels like it's in perfect accord with the album art.
Worst Song: All Stripped Down. Dips a little too far into the "noise rock" genre for me.
Overall: Love me some Tom Waits, so I love a lot of what's here. Definitely deeper into his experimental stuff (which I prefer), but there are still some duds floating around that make it less cohesive than his greats (e.g., Rain Dogs).
3/5
Best Song: The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore. Apart from having the best song title on the album, this one is delivered with a certain stankfaced edge that I really like, especially in the final crescendo.
Worst Song: This Mess We're In. For reasons I can't fully explain, Thom Yorke's presence here detracts from the vibe being constructed.
Overall: Moody and broody, while still fairly palatable. Nothing altogether exciting, but also nothing outright bad. Highly forgettable.
Marty Robbins
2/5
Best Song: El Paso. Love me a storytelling song.
Worst Song: Saddle Tramp. I might have disliked this one just because I had reached my saturation point on cowboys.
Overall: Sure it was annoying when it started, but by the end of the album my leg was kinda jangling and I could imagine myself attending a jamboree. The album's definitely too denim to authentically enjoy, but as almost a parody of itself it kind of slaps.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Best Song: Suzanne. Iconic, pleading, romantic. His best early-career song.
Worst Song: Teachers. Has a kind of repetitive droning that Cohen already has a negative tendency towards.
Overall: I always love Cohen's lyricism, and I've listened to him enough that I've come to appreciate his no-frills style of delivery. The songs here have a youthfulness to them, and although I prefer his work from later in his life, this is still an excellent offering.
Madness
2/5
Best Song: Our House. Oh that's why this album's on the list. The coffee song. I mean, it's a fun ditty if you divorce it from the corporate clutches it represents now. Especially the parts later in the song that never made it into the commercial.
Worst Song: Blue Skinned Beast. That piano was distracting and kind of annoying, even if the chorus was mostly catchy.
Overall: Mostly dull, highly repetitive alt(ish) pop rock. They definitely know how to write a catchy hook and then ride it into the ground until all you want is it to transition to the next song. If your friend was in this band you'd think "good for them", but you wouldn't be worried that they'd make it big and leave you for a life of fame and fortune. You'll definitely see them next Friday, same as always.
Kate Bush
3/5
Best Song: Love and Anger. That belting voice really shines here. I love the rolling drums in the background, which add some tempo and intensity to the ethereal vocals.
Worst Song: The Fog. Far too slow and plodding for a voice this powerful.
Overall: A spectacular voice that unfortunately too often feels caged in overwrought ballads. I want to hear her belting out every song, with backing tracks that provide the energy needed to compete with that voice.
Rahul Dev Burman
2/5
Best Song: Baby Let's Dance Together. Bollywood thrash jazz. Rips around at a nice pace to keep it interesting.
Worst Song: Aaina Wohi Rehta Hai. The vocals too shrill and the audio recording too poor.
Overall: It's not for me, and honestly I'm not really sure why it's for this list. It's a soundtrack, so I feel like listening to it here doesn't make much sense, and the Wikipedia page doesn't seem to indicate that the movie was all that important in its genre either. What gives.
Gang Of Four
2/5
Best Song: Not Great Men. It's got a decent groove and the guitar sounds like it probably influenced the genre.
Worst Song: Guns Before Butter. In an album of amateur-sounding tracks, this sounded the most amateur.
Overall: Maybe they inspired other people to make better stuff than this, but there's absolutely no reason to listen to this album unless you have nostalgia for it.
Sparks
2/5
Best Song: This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us. It sounds like a band trying to cover the bigger bands at the time, but the theatricality of it is fun.
Worst Song: Equator. Obnoxious falsetto and a vocal exercise that just goes on way too long.
Overall: Another dime-a-dozen British glam rock band. An entirely worse version of Supertramp. An album I didn't need to listen to. Also funny to notice that the number of plays for the songs on this album on Spotify drop linearly across its track list. It's a literal measure of people dropping out of this boring album before it finishes.
Hole
3/5
Best Song: Doll Parts. I like how raw and wracked her vocals were here.
Worst Song: Rock Star. A nice vocal performance, but lyrically just way to corny. Probably great for edgy high schoolers though.
Overall: A pleasant album that's rough-around-the-edges in a good way. It's definitely dated, but it has a certain likeable authenticity.
The Who
2/5
Best Song: I Can See For Miles. It's the best song on here, but it must be one of the worst singles for The Who. It sounds, ironically, like a song created for commercials and it lacks any of the true musicality or rock oomph that can make The Who interesting.
Worst Song: Heinz Baked Beans. Difficult to tell if this should even count as a track, but Spotify does so I will too.
Overall: I don't get it. Is the whole thing a gimmick? Is it tongue-in-cheek? Does it matter how self-aware it is if the advertising thing sounds annoying either way? Definitely felt like the weakest album from The Who that I've heard.
Lou Reed
2/5
Best Song: Oh Jim. I liked the driving rhythm on this one.
Worst Song: The Kids. It was definitely a choice to close this song out with the sounds of children crying. Good thing they also blow out the microphone.
Overall: I find that I like the idea of Lou Reed more than I like the reality of him. I'm a big fan of other of these artists who can write but can't sing, but something about Reed's droning vocals make it harder for me to appreciate the writing.
Dinosaur Jr.
3/5
Best Song: Raisans. Great guitar solo and the right balance of noise and angst.
Worst Song: The Lung. A totally ordinary jam.
Overall: The noisy and grungy variation of dad rock. Music to wear flannel, sip beer, and nod your head along to.
Bill Evans Trio
2/5
Best Song: Gloria's Step / Take 2. Probably just because the album was new and I was ready for jazz.
Worst Song: Jade Visions / Take 1. I had now grown tired of this whole jazz thing.
Overall: I feel too ignorant to truly rate this album. I don't know enough about jazz. I don't know why there were two takes of each track. I don't even know if the two tracks were nearly identical or radically different because I can't even hold the idea of the jazz constant in my head. That isn't to say it's bad, but for me it's just good enough to leave on in the background while I cook.
David Ackles
2/5
Best Song: American Gothic. There was a macabre quality to this one, both lyrically and musically. Like an emo Gordon Lightfoot.
Worst Song: Blues for Billy Whitecloud. Wholly uninteresting blues.
Overall: This sounds neither particularly good nor influential. The sombre singer-songwriter vibe is nice at times, but too often it dips into this hokey theatricality that just comes off as cheesy.
Hugh Masekela
3/5
Best Song: Part Of A Whole. An upbeat start to the album that left me with unmet expectations for the rest.
Worst Song: Unhome. Sometimes jazz can be just too jazzy, you know? And this was really jazzy.
Overall: It's not altogether unpleasant, nor is it particularly interesting to me. Maybe it's great for all those jazzheads out there, but I find it difficult to discern what makes this album more worthy of praise than any modern jazz record. The opacity of the genre makes things difficult for me. That being said, I'd throw it on in the background if I needed to appear sophisticated, and I wouldn't be hating it the whole time.
Van Halen
3/5
Best Song: Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love. Even though Eddie Van Halen's virtuoso guitar playing obviously contributes a huge amount to the band's success, and Eruption is an iconic track, I've always felt like David Lee Roth brought the heart necessary to make the band actually interesting. And on this track, his voice really soars.
Worst Song: Little Dreamer. David Lee Roth is far too subdued on this one.
Overall: Sexy in a dumb way. Music for and by big, dumb, beautiful, technically-proficient beefcakes.
Johnny Cash
2/5
Best Song: Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog. I mean, that's just a fun name for a song.
Worst Song: The Long Black Veil. Too melancholy, and the extended request for water was just uninteresting to any audience that isn't literally captive.
Overall: The live setting contributes about as much as it detracts. The laughter and hooting adds a nice element, but the conversations just drag the whole thing down. At the end you're just left with some ordinar, straight-down-the-middle Johnny Cash.
William Orbit
3/5
Best Song: Water From A Vine Leaf. a long and interesting song that goes many different directions, but all of them listenable.
Worst Song: Deus Ex Machina. What the hell was this, a radio play?
Overall: Pleasantly surprised, but not overwhelmed. Good background music that'll make you bob your head, but interspersed with too much non-musical junk so that you never sink fully into the chill vibe.
Talk Talk
2/5
Best Song: Happiness Is Easy. Like for a lot of these middling records, I think I default to liking the first track most because it at least has some novelty for me. After that, it all goes downhill.
Worst Song: April 5. This is less a coherent song and more just vulnerable, vaguely-musical moaning.
Overall: Feels like a church cover band of U2. There's a song or two that might get my hands in the air, but I'm not putting anything in the collection basket.
Death In Vegas
2/5
Best Song: Dirge. If I had a car, this would probably be good driving music.
Worst Song: Aisha. The vocals detracted severely from an otherwise interesting electronic track. It starts in pure edgelord territory, but by the end it literally sounds like Elmo is screaming.
Overall: Why do so many electronics albums of this era struggle to limit themselves to just interesting music? They need to bookend each track with some kind of analog noodling before "landing" on some rhythm as if they've just found the ghost in the machine. That kind of device is interesting once, not on every track, where it just becomes clutter that gets in the way between the listener and the track they want to listen to. That being said, some of the grooves on this album are pretty good.
John Lee Hooker
3/5
Best Song: Cuttin' Out. Nice cacophony of talented musicians.
Worst Song: Rockin' Chair. This song feels far too sparse to have been recorded and listened to on a pair of headphones as you go about your day. This song feels like it is meant to be heard live in an intimate setting.
Overall: Blues feels like deeply personal music to me, that often does translate as well to recording as do other genres. Also, as such an intrinsically moody and emotional genre, how good it sounds really depends on if you're feeling the blues at that time. I'm sure in times in which I am, this'll be great, but it's kind of relegated to a very particular vibe.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Best Song: People Ain't No Good. I really like when a writer articulates themselves not just through complexity (metaphors, symbolism, etc.) but also throws in simple, unassailably "plain" bits. "People, they ain't no good" conveys at least as much in its simplicity as the verses do in their complexity.
Worst Song: Green Eyes. This is a weird one, because although I liked the lyrics and the sung and spoken versions of the songs independently, the overlaying of the sung and spoken vocals totally detracted from the track for me. It was a jarring device to use only once, snuck in at the very end of the album.
Overall: Great songwriting with heady and brooding lyrics. Pleasantly melancholy. Definitely an album to come back to.
Can
2/5
Best Song: Paperhouse. In particular, the solo at the end was great.
Worst Song: Peking O. This is the prime answer to the question: "Can you go too prog?"
Overall: What is it about these 60s and 70s musicians who clearly show aptitude with their instruments and then produce these bloated, meandering albums in which they seem to do everything in their power to NOT play said instruments? Like sadly too much prog, this is more often annoying than it is interesting.
The Roots
4/5
Best Song: Break You Off. Black Thought at his best here. Slick, sexy, but with enough lyrical intensity to be interesting as well.
Worst Song: Something In The Way of Things (In Town). Too long and too experimental. Really grinds the flow of the rest of the album to a screeching halt.
Overall: Black Thought is one of the best to ever do it, and the rest of The Roots always rises up to meet him. I love the contrast that you see on an album like this, between moments where Black Thought is ripping at top speed and there is this staccato intensity, but then it all fades (seamlessly) into laidback tracks full of jazz and R&B musicianship. Not my favourite album by them, but still great nonetheless.
U2
2/5
Best Song: Mysterious Ways. Something about the groove, the lyrics, and the weird singalong quality of this song makes it feel like white gospel music.
Worst Song: Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World. A perfect encapsulation of U2's penchant for coming off as preachy, desperate, and whiny. "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle". Bono you make me sick.
Overall: Music made for melancholy moments in sitcoms. Fake emotions melodramaticized. Meh.
Michael Jackson
3/5
Best Song: Wanna Be Startin' Something. This is the only song where he feels like the King of pop. The production is tight, his delivery is full of iconic Michael-isms, and it's got an upbeat dance vibe throughout (especially the last 90 seconds). The African-inspired chant at the end of the song is the best part of the whole album.
Worst Song: The Girl Is Mine. The combined forces of Michael Jackson can't make the word "doggone" cool. Would it have killed them to say goddamn? They both come off as dorks for this whole song.
Overall: Not as good as I expected for an album that's so lauded. There are quite a few middling tracks here, and even some of the great ones are undercut by having some gimmicky aspect at the end. The album is also tonally all over the place, full of way more forgettable ballads than creative experiments like Thriller.
Big Star
2/5
Best Song: Kangaroo. Feels like a decent David Bowie impersonation.
Worst Song: Kizza Me. Ignoring the absolutely godawful lyrics, that wispy voice is doing the already bad song no favours.
Overall: The musical equivalent of a baby bird singing. It feels intensely vulnerable, but not in an interesting way like Elliot Smith, instead in a sort of pathetic way. It's never good when the primary emotion an album evokes is pity.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Best Song: Sir Duke. Something about this song just sounds joyful.
Worst Song: Have A Talk With God. I just don't find this kind of soft, hymnal ballad all that interesting, especially considering what Stevie shows he's capable of on this very album.
Overall: The highest are real highest - the real pinnacle of this genre of soul/pop/R&B - and it is packed with so many good, upbeat, soulful dance tracks. The only thing that brings it down is that in that massive runtime, there are a few slow duds that bloat an otherwise excellent experience.
3/5
Best Song: Mongoloid. As whack as the lyrics are, there's no denying that melody.
Worst Song: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Really wonder what compelled them to release a cover that was worse than the original in literally every facet.
Overall: A scientific experiment in trying to find the line between "catchy" and "annoying". And goddamn if they don't find the line on nearly every track.
Can
2/5
Best Song: Spray. I dunno. It moved and shook a bit more than the others?
Worst Song: Moonshake. I mean, at least commit to a full album of sprawling prog. Don't insert a normal song smack dab in the middle.
Overall: Very medium. Lots of it is directionless prog, but at least it doesn't waver into those obliquely experimental trends that are noisy or erratic just for chaos-sake. Okay for occasional background listening.
Metallica
2/5
Best Song: Fuel. It's my favourite Metallica song, made no better or worse by this live setting.
Worst Song: No Leaf Clover. In an album full of dorky, overly-dramatic tracks, this might be the dorkiest and most overly-dramatic.
Overall: Nothing says "Metallica" like a music that's bloated beyond all belief. Everything here plods along at the standard Metallica tempo. The symphony doesn't add much, and actively detracts in some areas. Opening with The "Ecstacy of Gold"? It's a great song, but opening your own album with one of the most famous modern classical songs is one of the most "look at me bro, I'm an intellectual"-moves I've ever seen. The whole thing just feels so soulless. After "Enter Sandman", one of the musicians shouts "Thank you very much, fans", and I can't think of a duller, more impersonal way of referring to your audience than that.
Michael Jackson
4/5
Best Song: Off the Wall. On top of being a good dance track, I just love the stank he puts on the line "We're the party people, night and day".
Worst Song: She's Out of My Life. I just feel like a weepy ballad like this undervalues what Michael is capable of.
Overall: Fun disco that actually works a lot better for me than some of his later records.
Richard Thompson
3/5
Best Song: The Little Beggar Girl. I really liked the intonation on the chorus.
Worst Song: The Great Valerio. Not terrible, but I don't like when albums end with an overly-long and slow song.
Overall: I was pleasantly surprised by this album. Sentimental folk with interesting lyrics, an appealing dynamic between the pair. Would listen to again while walking through a forest.
Femi Kuti
4/5
Best Song: Live For Today. The musical equivalent of getting in your car, getting on the highway, and putting your foot through the accelerator. All gas no brakes in the best possible way.
Worst Song: Changes. Understandable, but had maybe the lowest energy of any track on the album.
Overall: Most bands wish they had an ounce of the energy of this album. Every track has a frenetic, get-up-outta-your-seat energy that roils in this perfect groove, extending into 9 minute songs that still end up feeling too short. If this doesn't make you want to dance, you're already dead.
Fiona Apple
4/5
Best Song: The First Taste. Even though I loved the slower, more understated tracks, something just hit when that jungle beat came in on this one.
Worst Song: Carrion. Felt too disjointed, like it was really two or three songs that mashed together. Not the strongest close to the album.
Overall: Beautifully flowing tracks, with relaxed but insightful lyrics. The vocals are the star but the instrumentals really augment as well. Definitely one I'll be coming back to.
Malcolm McLaren
2/5
Best Song: Punk It Up. The strength of this song lies entirely in the female vocals, so it begs the question how much this can be considered one of Malcolm's successes.
Worst Song: Legba. When I was a kid, we had a shitty electronic keyboard. I would put the keyboard on my bed, put on whatever atrocious backing rhythm tracks came preloaded on the thing, and play random notes over top while fiddling with different audio settings. This feels like it came from my "space" era.
Overall: I didn't like it. Scattered ideas, no clear delineation between skits, radio DJs, and music. And the worst part is: I bet this inspired a lot of terrible music that came later. This gave us the Beastie Boys, didn't it?
The Zutons
3/5
Best Song: Zuton Fever. A catchy, Arctic Monkeys-esque riff with some nice indie-rock vocals.
Worst Song: Long Time Coming. It wasn't outright bad, but it just felt really ordinary, which landed as a disappointment after a relatively interesting opening half.
Overall: A decent indie rock album that felt like it used up all of its interesting ideas in the first half. Falls off pretty dramatically in the second half.
Anthrax
3/5
Best Song: A Skeleton In The Closet. The double-kick drums set a blistering pace, especially on the back half of the track.
Worst Song: Indians. I get that it's lyrically well-intentioned, but Jesus if this doesn't come off as patronizing.
Overall: Anthrax has some of the best instrumentals of any of the Big Four thrash metal bands, but often has some of the worst vocals. It's a shame, because otherwise this has a decent groove, but the vocals just never meet the intensity of the rest of the music.
Ray Price
2/5
Best Song: Let Me Talk to You. Something about the audacity of its unironic commitment to the pathetic/stalker/incel is almost endearing.
Worst Song: Lonely Street. It is bordering on absurd to me that anyone ever thought this kind of "street called loneliness" metaphor constituted good writing.
Overall: Thank god this shit was short, because I couldn't stomach another honk nor tonk. Lyrically blegh, musically woof.
Coldcut
2/5
Best Song: Not Paid Enough. Probably had the best samples on the album, even if the scratching in the latter half became tedious.
Worst Song: What's That Noise? The worst aspects of sampling, where it feels like the artist can't let a sample linger long enough to sink in before they jump to something else.
Overall: Maybe this was influential in the sampling world, but it certainly isn't particularly interesting to a modern listener.
The Allman Brothers Band
2/5
Best Song: Hot 'Lanta. Brief. Hits the points it needs to hit in a short enough time span (even thought it could be an easy minute shorter with nothing lost).
Worst Song: Whipping Post. I was sure that this song (and the album) was done at 11 minutes in, but boy was I deceived.
Overall: Music that's meant to be played in the background, preferably live, while you're in a park drinking beer. Occasionally you realize that music is still playing and you ask, "Is that still the same band?", to which the one guy that's listening to the music says, "It's actually still the same song."
Mudhoney
3/5
Best Song: Broken Hands. Has a sort of dudebro, singalong vibe that's halfway charming. Loved the solo at the end too.
Worst Song: Good Enough. Commercial music for a melancholy Walmart ad.
Overall: Ever wondered what grunge would be like without any of the angst and charm? Look no further. It's got a certain dive bar appeal to it, but it lacks the heart necessary for this genre to work. The second half was better than the first, though.
Le Tigre
4/5
Best Song: Let's Run. Killer performance where the vocalist really shows her strength. Even the "woohoo" part of the chorus, which could easily be annoying, somehow isn't here.
Worst Song: Friendship Station. I'm here for the energy, not this laid-back coolness.
Overall: Pure fun. High energy, punctate tracks that burst into the room, give it all they've got, and then just as quickly recede. I was thoroughly impressed by this one, even if it did begin to lose its intensity in the last few tracks.
The Replacements
3/5
Best Song: We're Coming Out. That good, tight punk energy.
Worst Song: Androgynous. This feels like a first draft of a better song. Well-intentioned but cheesy.
Overall: Juvenile, but in a fun way. A sort of silly, punkish rock that doesn't seem to take itself too seriously. Still, a boisterous first half gave way to a comparatively slow and dull second half.
The Shamen
3/5
Best Song: 666 Edit. This makes me want to Mortal Kombat, even if the stuttery bullshit in the middle made me thought I was having an embolism.
Worst Song: Lightspan. "Life is never enough."
Overall: Older electronic music that is sometimes interesting, sometimes sounds vaguely vampiric. Fine enough for the background, I suppose.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
Best Song: Layla. An iconic riff that's just smooth as butter.
Worst Song: I Am Yours. I just really don't like this kind of "beach-y" guitar riffing.
Overall: Overly long. Everyone knows that Clapton can play the guitar, but he also (to my admittedly ignorant ear) doesn't feel like he has a ton of variability or even originality. His solos are incredible, but the rest of the songs feel largely uninteresting. Every Clapton guitar track sounds the same, and that sameness is sleepy.
The Band
2/5
Best Song: King Harvest. There's almost a funky quality to this track... why'd they tuck it away at the end of the album?
Worst Song: Rockin' Chair. This just sounds like a worse Randy Newman song.
Overall: Boy did this feel a lot longer than 43 minutes.
Metallica
2/5
Best Song: Enter Sandman. Maybe the only track on this album that actually rocks. Also I used to say that "Now I lay me down to sleep" prayer when I was a kid, so it's got some nostalgia going for it.
Worst Song: Wherever I May Roam. Classic Metallica: Overly long, slow, and meandering.
Overall: My metal hot take will always be that Metallica is hugely overrated. So ploddingly slow for a band that was so heavily marketed as "thrash". It feels like music that's best suited for toddler-stomping in a wide circle. Music for people who unironically view throwing up "devil horns" as a form of counterculture.
Scritti Politti
2/5
Best Song: Perfect Way. If you squint, you can almost imagine that Michael Jackson is performing a better version of this song. Also, you can't tell me that the piano at around 3:00 isn't straight out of Yoshi's Island.
Worst Song: Absolute. The buzzing effect is extremely weird. It sounds like I'm being courted by hallucinogenic bees.
Overall: Music that seems to have scrubbed itself completely free of any discernible soul. This is the epitome of that heartless, bubblegum aesthetic of the 80s that I can't stand. Music for cosmetic surgeons.
Bon Jovi
3/5
Best Song: Livin' On a Prayer. If nothing else, then for that key change at the end of the song.
Worst Song: Social Disease. Cheesy sex noises to kick off the track? BJ, I thought better of you...
Overall: If there exists a genre of dadrock, for reasons that I can't explain Bon Jovi has to be the pinnacle of momrock. Every song feels anthemic, which is bold for a debut, but as a result the hits have been so callously overplayed by now in crowd settings that it's hard not to find the music obnoxious. Bon Jovi is the inoffensive rock they pipe in during pauses of sports games to keep the fans nominally enthused. The worst thing is: the less popular songs aren't different or more interesting, they're just failed attempts at anthems.
Ice T
3/5
Best Song: New Jack Hustler. I like the uptempo rhythm, the scratching is good, and Ice T has a relentless, downhill kind of delivery here.
Worst Song: M.V.P.s. Feels weird to have this kind of shoutout track fully in the middle of the album. Close it out with the credits.
Overall: It's pretty good, if not dated. Things like the skits feel very "of the era", but at least the skits are largely funnier than a lot of its contemporaries.
Germs
2/5
Best Song: Strange Notes. I liked the bassline.
Worst Song: We Must Bleed. Just nasal whining. I prefer my punk more political and less despondent than this.
Overall: Nobody expects good vocals out of a punk band, but I at least want something that's excitedly or passionately bad. This is mostly just mediocre, which brings down the whole production. And that bloated mess of a last track shows that very little editing went into this whole album.
FKA twigs
3/5
Best Song: Kicks. This really felt like the culmination of all the best parts of the album: the strongest vocal performance and the most ambitious production.
Worst Song: Closer. The only song on which I found the production annoying. Kind of sounded like Baby Yoshi was jumping on the track.
Overall: Excellent production, and I thought the vocals were mostly interesting but I did start to fatigue on that how much of the vocals sat in that upper register.
The Sabres Of Paradise
2/5
Best Song: Theme. Feels like it could be a theme song to a middling 80s cop movie.
Worst Song: Flight Path Estate. The aural experience of someone banging different size forks against a metal countertop and comparing how they clang.
Overall: This was a weird one, because even though I often liked the composition of any given track, the individual sounds used to create those compositions were almost always annoying. Everything was tinny and metallic when I wished it would be rounder and more fluid. Very experimental in the sense that most experiments fail.
Rush
4/5
Best Song: Something For Nothing. Of the more standard rock tracks on the album, this one rocks the hardest. I really like the shrieking nature of the vocals on this one.
Worst Song: Tears. Basically a ballad, which given everything else here is quire boring.
Overall: A really fun progressive rock album. What I like is that they give the best of both worlds: a 20-minute sprawling prog adventure and also a side of well-curated, hard-rock tracks. Good stuff.
The Triffids
2/5
Best Song: Holy Water. Just a real joyous chorus. Those church bells almost swing the whole production into "Hallmark-movie-cheesiness" levels, but it just manages to toe the line.
Worst Song: Open for You. Sounds like a song from a children's album that's trying to teach me about how doors work.
Overall: Pretty stock-standard alt-rock. You've got your occasional catchy chorus amidst a whole whack of forgettable tracks. Slightly below medium music.
Oasis
3/5
Best Song: Married With Children. I think I would have preferred a whole album of stripped-down tracks like this.
Worst Song: Shakermaker. Every part of the song feels like it overstays its welcome.
Overall: A bit slow and plodding. Not bad, just boring. As a non-Brit, the only thing that really stuck out to me was the unapologetically strong accent in the vocals.
Supergrass
3/5
Best Song: Sitting Up Straight. I like this kind of sharp, burst of a song. Exactly as long as it needs to be.
Worst Song: Sofa (Of My Lethargy). Not altogether "bad", but this music excelled in its brevity and so I don't think this album needed a random prog diversion in its final moments.
Overall: Quintessentially medium music.
Talvin Singh
4/5
Best Song: Butterfly. The drums at the end had an compelling, driving rhythm.
Worst Song: Disser/Point.Mento.B. A weird synthy track that contains none of the interesting percussion from the rest of the album.
Overall: A rolling and spirited album. You can tell that the artist principally trained as a percussionist because the percussive rhythms were consistently the best parts throughout the album. Especially when the rapid intensity of the drumming was contrasted with something softer and smoother from the woodwinds. The whole album was a pleasant surprise.
Thundercat
4/5
Best Song: Uh Uh. Pure funky fun.
Worst Song: The Turn Down. Just a bit of a boring track sitting at the end. I expected more from Pharrell.
Overall: A fun album that seemingly goes all over the place while managing to retain its core funky groove. It does drop off a bit in quality in the latter half, but it's still a good time regardless.
Badly Drawn Boy
2/5
Best Song: Bewilderbeast. Sad that the best song on the album is an instrumental one, but here we are.
Worst Song: Fall in a River. Was the prolonged underwater outro necessary in a song this short?
Overall: Relatively generic singer-songwriter fare, but unfortunately the lyrics too often detract than elevate the ho-hum instruments. For example, in the beginning of "Pissing in the Wind", I think the fairest interpretation of the opening lyrics is that he's just pissed in his own face. Because of that, I failed to appreciate the rest of the song's attempts at sentimental sincerity.
Mariah Carey
3/5
Best Song: Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise). The combination of the absolutely alien notes she's hitting and the pure 90s groove makes this track a winner.
Worst Song: Whenever You Call. Obviously vocally impressive, but also like the dictionary definition of a diva track.
Overall: Clearly well sung, but after a certain point the vocal runs all start to fade together and lose their appeal - and when that happens there's little else on the album worth listening to.
Funkadelic
5/5
Best Song: Maggot Brain. I don't know if the Maggot Brain album appears on this list, but if it does that'll be the best track on that album too. I don't think I've heard anything that instrumentally strikes such a deep cord with me as this track.
Worst Song: Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad. It's funky as hell, but the people all speaking in unison just doesn't work for me. It's like they're not unified enough.
Overall: I mean the whole thing if fucking bananas. It's weird and all over the place, while also being fun and musically tight. What happens when you combine the perfect amount of talent with the perfect amount of drugs.
Jane's Addiction
2/5
Best Song: Been Caught Stealing. The high-pitched vocals really lend itself to the childish, petulant vibe of this song.
Worst Song: Three Days. These boys weren't built for writing 10 minute epics.
Overall: I just don't see what this band does better (or even as good) as its contemporaries. The music is less interesting, less sincere, and less fun than all the more famous bands of its era.
The Black Keys
3/5
Best Song: Everlasting Light. A great, groovy kickoff to the album. More of this would have been better.
Worst Song: Howlin' For You. This might just be that the song is a victim of its own success, but I've heard this song more than enough for this lifetime. I find the buzzy quality of the guitar that goes with the singalong really grating.
Overall: The album started on a high note, but ended up receding to a relatively boring, plodding middle-ground. Also, the disappointment I felt when I finally reached "Never Gonna Give You Up", only to realize it wasn't a Rick Astley cover, really soured my opinion of the album.
Cowboy Junkies
3/5
Best Song: Dreaming My Dreams With You. Beautifully understated in a way that makes you want to lean in to hear her better.
Worst Song: I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. Sometimes, even in the pursuit of melancholy, you can be a little too on-the-nose.
Overall: Extremely stripped down. Did not help that I had a head cold while listening to this album, but it did feel like it was trying to put me to sleep. Nevertheless, the vocals were quite nice and I came to relish the quiet of it all.
Korn
2/5
Best Song: Children of the Korn. I guess Ice Cube was a nice contrast?
Worst Song: All In The Family. The combination of Durst literally just speaking garbage rhymes and then the Korn fella shouting random homophobia. I have nothing in common with anyone who likes this track.
Overall: That bark-like scatting that they do on nearly every track is so obnoxious. It has this "not matter what I do, its music" hubris that I just find annoying. Music for people who think loud is an emotion.
Teenage Fanclub
2/5
Best Song: Star Sign. I liked the extended guitar thing at the beginning.
Worst Song: Alcoholiday. An especially whiny track on an album chalk full of whiny tracks.
Overall: No one is getting excited about this, least of all the singer. Everything delivered through a relatively unemotional monotone. The musical equivalent of hospital fluorescent lights.
3/5
Best Song: With a Little Help From My Friends. The best vocals on the album, for sure. That punctate, bouncy rhythm really suits the uplifting feel of the song as well.
Worst Song: Getting Better. The Beatles have an uncanny penchant for making songs that are maximally annoying with minimal runtime. Just inane repetition of a hook that wasn't interesting the first time.
Overall: Maybe this is just my modernity, but for an album that's touted as being so weird an experimental, this sounds fairly ordinary. Sure there are a few tracks that are a bit more out-there, but I don't see it as being a grand departure from what the Beatles had already been doing. It may have pushed the industry to allow freer, more experimental music, but experiencing it as a modern listener is anything but revelatory.
Emmylou Harris
2/5
Best Song: I Don't Wanna Talk About It Now. The one song with a bit of a rock energy behind it.
Worst Song: My Antonia. I don't know why, but the random dude's voice was a jarring, unwelcome addition to the album.
Overall: For its genre, it's good. The problem is that I don't really like this genre. The breathless wispiness starts to grate by the end of the album.
Sheryl Crow
3/5
Best Song: All I Wanna Do. The sheer dorkiness of the storytelling on display here is nothing if not endearing. And the chorus is nice and catchy too.
Worst Song: The Na-Na Song. It felt like she was going for something quirky here, and honestly just never quite reached it.
Overall: A pleasant collection. I particularly liked the two stripped down tracks that close out the album. Quiet and contemplative without being melancholy. Springtime music.
The Monks
3/5
Best Song: Blast Off. The rising crescendo gimmick was fun.
Worst Song: Shut Up. It's got a "pump up the crowd at a sports game rhythm", and the vocals aren't doing it any favours.
Overall: It's got that spastic, unfiltered 60s rock energy, which is fine, but all these bands from this era sound altogether too similar. Nevertheless, I appreciate the silliness and that the band doesn't seem to be taking themselves too seriously.
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Best Song: Girl from Ipanema. This song has such a playful rhythm to it that it's difficult to find faults with it.
Worst Song: Dindi. Tonally just too far a contrast from the preceding track.
Overall: I really felt like there was a bait-and-switch after that first fun song. Everything else that followed was much more understated, and although slick and buttery, I still think I would have preferred a bit more energy. Music for dark rooms and steakhouses that haven't updated their decor in 40+ years.
Kings of Leon
3/5
Best Song: Soft. My favourite vocal performance of the album, particularly as he starts to unwind towards the end of the track.
Worst Song: Day Old Blues. I just don't think their musical aptitudes suit this soft-sad ballad.
Overall: I can't help but respect how much they've carved out their own little niche with this album. Previously, I was only familiar with Kings of Leon's megahits and wrongly assumed that kind of overwrought dramatism was their M.O. Colour me pleased to find out that they have a rawer, more indie-rock vibe. In particular, I really like how they weren't afraid to use unusual vocal rhythms and melodies.
Black Flag
3/5
Best Song: TV Party. Something about this total bro the middle of the hardcore punk album makes me laugh.
Worst Song: Spray Paint. I am of the opinion that these sub-60 second songs that punk bands like to make always suck. And the shorter they are, the worse they probably are.
Overall: A solid punk album that doesn't take itself too seriously. Nice alternation between groovy, silly rock tracks like "TV Party" and angry political tracks like "Rise Above". It does suffer from that punk problem of having so many short tracks (all of which run at full speed from start to finish) that it all starts to blend together.
808 State
2/5
Best Song: Pacific 202. The most upbeat and dancey track.
Worst Song: Cobra Bora. Sometimes a song can try to do too much, and goddamnit is there too much going on here.
Overall: Even if any particular song has one or two interesting elements, the album never gives you enough time to enjoy it as each track is overloaded with a trillion elements, switching between them with absolutely no warning.
Pink Floyd
4/5
Best Song: The Great Gig in the Sky. I have always loved the emotion of this track. It feels like a vocal Maggot Brain. I only wish that it was bookended by tracks that were more complimentary.
Worst Song: Any Colour You Like. It's just the most uninteresting on the album, dominated by a guitar solo that's just okay.
Overall: Expansive and creative. I wish that it were a touch more cohesive as a singular concept, and that they dove more into experimental tracks like The Great Gig in the Sky, but it remains a fun and interesting album nonetheless.
Harry Nilsson
3/5
Best Song: Coconut. Just a beautiful trainwreck of a song. What possessed him to put on that weird vocal affectation? Who prescribed him this medicine? How many limes did he put with the coconuts and drink them all up before performing this song?
Worst Song: Without You. How is this overwrought ballad the most popular track on this album?
Overall: From the album title to its artwork, Ol' Harry Nilsson seems to have a heavy dose of self confidence. The result is an album that's fun while it's here, but largely forgettable.
Ray Charles
3/5
Best Song: You Are My Sunshine. I like hearing what someone as talented as Ray Charles is capable of doing with a song that everyone knows like this.
Worst Song: No Letter Today. What an energetic dump after the preceding song. Total snooze.
Overall: Obviously Ray Charles has a lot of talent, but I prefer to hear him in a more stripped-down setting, where his own soul and talent shines through more. I could almost imagine Frank Sinatra using these arrangements, which I feel undersells what Ray Charles is capable of.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Best Song: Three Little Birds. Although borderline cheesy to listen to now, it has an uplifting, undeniably kind quality.
Worst Song: Jammin' - 12" Version. Why not listen to the real version?
Overall: In many ways, Bob Marley is a victim of his own success. His music is so prevalent, and often to tightly coupled to a particular "vibe", that it's hard to appreciate it without all the baggage that comes with it. It's good music though.
Little Simz
4/5
Best Song: Venom. An obvious hitter. Big fan of the sparse, percussive production, which give plenty of space for the vocals to bounce overtop with a beautifully staccato rhythm.
Worst Song: Boss. I really don't like that blown-out vocal effect.
Overall: She's got a helluva flow. I'd never heard this album before, but I get now why it had such a strong response. Really impressive, and one I'll definitely be returning to.
ZZ Top
2/5
Best Song: La Grange. One of the few tracks on the album that felt like it had an original sense of personality.
Worst Song: Hot, Blue, and Righteous. The absolute last thing this album needed was a bluesy ballad.
Overall: Really only one or two interesting tracks, with a real large, boring gulf in the middle. Feel like the gimmick of the beards contributed at least half of this band's popularity.
The Lemonheads
2/5
Best Song: Mrs. Robinson. Hey, I recognize this song. Almost certainly the reason this entire album is on this list. It has a kind of fun, jump-up-and-down energy to it.
Worst Song: Rudderless. I often like a recursive or self-reflective lyric, but the cyclical "a ship without a rudder is like a ship without a rudder" seems to serve absolutely no greater metaphorical purpose.
Overall: It's unfortunate that the most evocative, emotional aspect of the entire album is the brief clip of a woman shouting at the beginning of "Bit Part". For an album whose lyrical content suggests that it has an emotional story to tell, that 90s patina of noisy monotony undercuts any impact it might have.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
Best Song: Free Bird. The way this song progresses is brilliant, capturing perfectly how freedom can feel both vulnerable and powerful. Musically explosive, all parts played with an eager forward lean. For a song that could easily be a cliché, it feels like it has enough of a soul to remain relevant and listenable years later.
Worst Song: Things Goin' On. What idiot decided to follow the one song with an ounce of sincerity and introspection with this candy-striped, ragtime bullshit?
Overall: An immensely frustrating album. These boys are clearly talented, as they have a few songs where they drop this Confederate flag-waving, honky-tonk bullshit and tap into something that feels uniquely, positively southern American. Simple Man feels earnestly humble and has a haunting vocal track, and Free Bird has this electric, on-the-road-to-freedom feeling that is almost unmatched in rock. Such a shame that they cock it up everywhere else.
Metallica
2/5
Best Song: One. The concept is decent and the guitar work is good, but it also really exemplifies that James Hetfield can't sing to save his goddamn life.
Worst Song: To Live Is To Die. Holy shit that transition from the acoustic guitar at the beginning is so ugly and discordant. Why was there not even an attempt to align the tempo or timing of the incoming and outgoing tracks? It's just a wholly different, incompatible song.
Overall: Metallica proving once again that they're the kings of bloat. The album is too full of songs that are always at least 50% longer than they need to be. Combined with that classically plodding Metallica rhythm, listening to this album is an exercise in wishing they'd hurry up and get on with it.
John Lennon
2/5
Best Song: God. I at least like the ambition of this song, even if his selection of things to not believe in seems a bit specious. But, this song really appealed to me when I went through my contrarian atheist phase in high school, so I have a bit of nostalgia for it.
Worst Song: Remember. A forgettable track that ends in a dumb, arbitrary explosion. Whoopee.
Overall: I maintain that John Lennon is one of the worst popular lyricists of all time. He's just so incredibly obnoxious. From the appearance of his primal therapy with the child-like shouting at the end of the opening track, to the thoughtless and tuneless screaming throughout tracks like "Well Well Well", to fluff like "Love is Real, Real is Love", it feels like Lennon has drank his own Kool-Aid with this one. It gives the impression that he thinks he's doing something "primal" here, but really it's just basic and ordinary, intermixed with brief moments of spastic childishness. Nothing here seems to have any thought, purpose, or effort put behind it. Lennon sings as though no matter what he does, it must be art. The central tenet is voiced explicitly by Lennon in God - "I just believe in me."
Coldplay
3/5
Best Song: Clocks. This is what I think of when I think of Coldplay. Big, arena-style pop-rock.
Worst Song: Warning Sign. The whole thing comes out in one kind of pleading bleat.
Overall: I know this is the hacky thing to say about Coldplay, but they legitimately are so inoffensive and slide into the background so easily that several times over the course of this album I forgot that I was even listening to anything. Truly the room-temperature water of the music industry.
Peter Gabriel
3/5
Best Song: Not One Of Us. Carried by a catchy chorus and one hell of a bassline.
Worst Song: Games Without Frontiers. Really feels like Pete is going for what he feels like is a deep metaphor here, but it's not really landing.
Overall: Sounds very dated and self-indulgent, but also doesn't feel good enough to warrant that grandiosity. Weird in a safe and ultimately boring way.
The Beau Brummels
2/5
Best Song: Are You Happy. I almost thought it was going to turn to an interesting, melancholy direction. But alas, it did not.
Worst Song: It Won't Get Better. He's just extolling the virtues of dating young women over a sparse drum beat. Might as well rename this trash song "The Ephebophilia Stomp".
Overall: Annoying proto-rock that might have served as a stepping stone for the genre as a whole, but today offers nothing interesting enough to warrant going back to listen to.
Coldplay
2/5
Best Song: Yellow. It's big and catchy.
Worst Song: Parachutes. Does this even count as a song? Why was it here? Why was the album named after it?
Overall: Room-temperature water strikes again. Somehow sleepier than the other album of theirs on this list. Real snoozy. Music for fading into and out of anesthesia.
Fiona Apple
5/5
Best Song: Cosmonauts. I changed my mind about which song was the best several times while listening to this album, but I think the enunciation of "we'll be like a couple of cosmonauts" wins it for me.
Worst Song: Can't find one.
Overall: Really brilliant stuff. I can't remember an album on this list that is so successfully heterogeneous. There are so many unique forms that the tracks here manifest, with the main through-line being Fiona Apple's poetic, passionate vocals. I feel like her vocal phrasing is just incredible, with each enunciation feeling like the perfect way of saying something. I also love how a lot of the arrangements have this chaotic, kitchen-sink feeling. Every addition to a track felt like managed to feel like both a random addition - something that someone just decided to spontaneously insert through love of the music - but also that same seemingly random addition often felt like precisely what the needed, in retrospect. The result is an album that feels both expert and amateur, and the distance between the listener and the music feels as thin as possible.
Dinosaur Jr.
2/5
Best Song: Freak Scene. By virtue of appearing at the beginning of the album, I had the benefit of having not heard 9 other soundalikes just prior.
Worst Song: Pond Song. Channeling a real poor-man's Neil Young on this one.
Overall: Boy if that wasn't the same song 10 times in a row. One single flat line of grungy rock. Music for driving through flat topography. Also, what a terrible idea to place a cacophonous, screaming noise track second to last, just to ensure that whatever catharsis might have been on the horizon gets immediately wiped away as we turn to the regularly scheduled programming of happy-go-lucky grunge.
Eagles
2/5
Best Song: Take It Easy. Recognizable, and lyrically it fits their woefully laidback style.
Worst Song: Take the Devil. Why not just listen to some actual blues? The solos in here are so painfully slow and unemotional.
Overall: I don't think I like the Eagles. I feel like the vocals lack the oomph necessary to pick up enough from the perpetually laidback style. Everything is too slow and sparse. There are far better bands from this era.
Grateful Dead
2/5
Best Song: Turn on Your Love Light. At least some of the musicianship is groovy here, and stays focused long enough for you to actually get into it.
Worst Song: Feedback. I'd be hard pressed to even call this a song. This is awful. And based on the Spotify listen count, even Deadheads agree.
Overall: I just don't understand what the point is in recording a jam band. I'm sure it "feels good" to be there live, but why go through the work of preserving this on wax? It feels a bit like lying down to do some cloud watching, but then taking pictures of the clouds. Who is going to look at the pictures? Just let the ephemeral be ephemeral.
Iron Butterfly
2/5
Best Song: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. An encapsulation of an era, with a super iconic sound. This is the level of cool that they tried and failed to reach in the first 5 tracks in the album. Sadly, even it succumbs to the prog-rock monster of bloating a cool idea, spreading what was interesting to cover an unnecessarily large area.
Worst Song: My Mirage. The light, warbly vocals were not doing it for me.
Overall: Functionally two albums: a boring and uneventful first half, full of scattered, forgetful tracks, and then In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. In my opinion, there is absolutely no reason to listen to the album in its entirety. Go ahead and skip to the last track.
Ghostface Killah
4/5
Best Song: Back Like That. Smooth as butter, sweet storytelling, killer chorus. Action Bronson wishes he could.
Worst Song: Beauty Jackson. It feels like a weird inversion to have a song function as the setup to a skit, instead of vice versa.
Overall: This was really good. Ghostface's flow is so smooth, lyrically everything is on point. The features are great, production is high. Will definitely return to this one.
Terence Trent D'Arby
2/5
Best Song: I'll Never Turn My Back On You. I liked the staccato delivery.
Worst Song: Dance Little Sister. The Michael Jackson impersonation trying its hardest (and failing) here.
Overall: This feels a bit like a poor man's Michael Jackson. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, but I also don't know when or why I would return to it. It's also full of a lot of really 80s production choices, that just sound a bit annoying now.
New Order
2/5
Best Song: Fine Time. This one is enjoyable as a sort of parody of how awful 80s pop music is.
Worst Song: Dream Attack. I really hate that classic 80s guy "talk-singing". I don't think it's ever sounded good.
Overall: The whole thing is just a blended slurry of dated samples and 80s dance vocals. Nothing altogether original or interesting.
Roxy Music
2/5
Best Song: Out of the Blue. The instrumentals at the end went in a really explosive direction that I wish the rest of the album even slightly approximated.
Worst Song: Bitter Sweet. Goddamn I hate this campy, talking-over-circus-music nonsense.
Overall: I will always struggle through these theatrical albums that don't actually come from theatre. There's no drama here, no storytelling. I feel like sometimes weaker artists of this era leaned on a theatrical presentation in an attempt to hide their inabilities.
Miriam Makeba
3/5
Best Song: Suliram. This song really shows off the angelic quality of her voice. Honorable mention to "The Click Song", which was just pure fun.
Worst Song: Where Does It Lead. I find these kind of long, painfully slow songs unenjoyable.
Overall: A really fun album. She clearly has an extraordinary voice. The songs are short and varied, so it feels fresh through the entirety of its short runtime. The only downside is some of the slower songs, which drag down the mood of the album considerably. Also, even though I usually love most covers of "House of the Rising Sun", I felt the cover on this album was really lacking.
2/5
Best Song: Greenman. Ooh, fuck me Papa Greenman.
Worst Song: Your Dictionary. Easy contender for corniest song on this entire list. Jesus.
Overall: What if a Beatles cover band adopted 90s alt-rock sensibilities. I'm sure this really slapped for a single afternoon in 1999, but beyond that it really doesn't carry much weight.
Dead Kennedys
5/5
Best Song: California Uber Alles. The driving rhythm on the drums and bass really elevate this one.
Worst Song: Forward To Death. This one feels a little too "ordinary" and straightforward relative to the rest of the album.
Overall: Does punk get any better than this? Political, fast, in-your-face, smart, and technically brilliant. Like a downhill sprint through A Clockwork Orange, each song gives you barely a second to wonder "wait, what the fuck did that guy just say?" before you've barreled through the next intersection and you're into some new scathing satire in the next track.
3/5
Best Song: Don't Look Back In Anger. I like a song that knows it's designed to be sung-along with.
Worst Song: The Swamp Song. Who put this random southern rock instrumental in the middle of this album?
Overall: There are exactly three good songs on this album, and from the play count numbers on Spotify, everyone agrees which songs those are. Everything else is completely forgettable British indie rock drone.
The Monkees
2/5
Best Song: Randy Scouse Git. Goofy rock and roll with goofier scatting. Sure.
Worst Song: Zilch. This sits in an ugly purgatory between skit and song, and succeeds at neither.
Overall: This certainly didn't hold up. Sometimes the past is best left in the past.
David Bowie
2/5
Best Song: Warszawa. Brian Eno's influence is really appreciated here. Delicate and ethereal.
Worst Song: Subterraneans. Nothing brings the hype like closing the album with a meandering sax solo.
Overall: I don't get the hype. Are people really falling over themselves for this from Bowie? Sure it's kinda weird, but not excitingly so.
TV On The Radio
3/5
Best Song: Ambulance. The best vocals on the album, for me.
Worst Song: Bomb Yourself. Far too downtempo for me.
Overall: For some reason, I expected more. There is a groovy, fresh feel to the whole album, and I think the polish and production is really clean, but it didn't do anything to really grab my attention. It felt like the musicians were containing themselves too much, and I wanted more explosive energy.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
2/5
Best Song: Extended Souvenir. I liked the blippy-bloopy bits. They sounded like a relaxed videogame's pause music.
Worst Song: Sealand. Sparse in an unpleasant way. I liked the rolling nature of it, but the actual specific sound samples used sounded like old midis and that drum pattern extended into annoying noise.
Overall: The kind of music that gives experimentalism a bad rap. Random elements added with seeming no regard to whether they make the track sound better. Actual noise. Can't imagine the context in which I would want to listen to this album. It makes for a very long hour.
Marianne Faithfull
2/5
Best Song: Broken English. Her fractured, breaking vocal quality is quite nice and original, and I felt it was most on display for this song.
Worst Song: Working Class Hero. How dare you make me spontaneously think of John Lennon.
Overall: She has a pleasant voice, sure, but nothing extraordinary. Plus, all that surrounds the voice is pretty standard fare for the time, so this really doesn't feel like it warrants inclusion on this list.
Grant Lee Buffalo
2/5
Best Song: Jupiter and Teardrop. The electric guitars brought some much needed energy to this one.
Worst Song: The Hook. Just an objectively worse song than the one by Blues Traveler that uses the same gimmick.
Overall: Kind of generic, sleepy-sludgy alt-rock. I can't imagine that this was very revelatory when it came out, and it's even less so now.
Weather Report
3/5
Best Song: Birdland. What a joyful, upbeat track. Helluva way to kick off the album.
Worst Song: The Juggler. Most of the other tracks were so lively, which made this one feel sparse and uninhabited.
Overall: Fun, varied, bass-heavy space jazz. I enjoyed this more than I expected, and I can definitely imagine returning to it for some fun, playful background music.
Big Black
3/5
Best Song: Kerosene. This feels like proto-grunge, in a good way.
Worst Song: Bazooka Joe. Boy was that intro ranting not as cool as I bet they thought it was.
Overall: Has a lot of the qualities of good punk that I like: loud, fast, aggressive, and angsty. The sound is sometimes too muddy though, and I get the distinct sense that this would be a lot more enjoyable live than it is over headphones.
Björk
4/5
Best Song: Pagan Poetry. Understated in a way that feels like it can explode at any moment. A track beautifully full of tension.
Worst Song: Frosti. The gentle, dollhouse style was actually quite pleasant, but a purely instrumental song simply cannot compete with Björk's otherworldly vocals.
Overall: Flawless production, a cohesive auditory experience, all built upon Björk's unbelievable vocal ability. Each album of hers that I've come across seems independently revelatory. Her music feels endlessly thoughtful and creative. I may regret not giving this a full 5 stars, my only reasoning is that I wished she expanded and exploded her vocals like she's shown she is capable.
M.I.A.
3/5
Best Song: Come Around. I'm just a sucker for that Timbaland influence.
Worst Song: Mango Pickle Down River. Good for these kids getting featured on an album like this, but I'm really not interested in listening to this kids bop stuff.
Overall: A fun and banging album that, thankfully, knows exactly what it is. No mid-album slow down breaks, no random ballads. Just upbeat, bombastic pop hop. Unfortunately, some of the chosen beats and samples miss the market, registering more as annoying than enjoyable.
Portishead
3/5
Best Song: Glory Box. This is purely based on the quality of the chorus and the breathless, smoky quality of the vocals.
Worst Song: Wandering Star. The extended outro did nothing for me. The vocals really were what most intrigued me about this album, and there were too many extended instrumentals here.
Overall: A chill, relaxed album. I had never listened to Portishead before, and I don't know what I expected but it wasn't this. Enjoyable for evenings and rainy days.
Sister Sledge
4/5
Best Song: Lost in Music. The whole song is a beautiful vibe, down to the fact that they're singing "Lost in music". I feel like a lot of artists would've been compelled to write it as "lost in the music", but that seemingly subtle matters a lot, to me at least.
Worst Song: Somebody Loves Me. What a waste of the energy from the previous song, that it just has to spill into this overwrought ballad.
Overall: The best disco - which this inarguably is - has an undeniable element of joy to it. There's just a beautiful brightness to the whole album that makes it so enjoyable to listen to. Music for when you're feeling alive.
2/5
Best Song: Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle). I feel like for this song, Durst just said "Fuck it, let's make the song 90% chorus", and honestly it kind of works. A song that'll leave you wondering, "why shouldn't we keep it rolling?"
Worst Song: The One. Somehow, in an album called "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water", this seemingly earnest attempt at a love ballad comes off as the most pathetic. If you're looking for a song to make you cringe, this could be the one.
Overall: It's just so dumb. They're clearly trying to be edgy and confrontational, but for some reason it just comes off with the energy of a golden retriever acting out. Sure he's digging a hole in the garden in a place that he shouldn't, but at the end of the day he's still just a golden retriever.
Bebel Gilberto
3/5
Best Song: Bananeira. That chorus is just beautifully catchy.
Worst Song: Close Your Eyes. A weirdly abrasive and overly percussive track to close out the album. Especially with the English, this feels like an attempt to garner more international appeal.
Overall: She has a lovely voice, and the arrangements are all pleasantly calming and quiet. Perfect after dinner music.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Best Song: Oliver's Army. Gotta respect the cajones of a white man throwing the N-word into a song and getting away with it.
Worst Song: Sunday's Best. The boy sure can whine when he wants to, and he always wants to.
Overall: I've never heard an Elvis that I liked. I especially dislike the whiny, but staccato delivery that features on most of the tracks here. He sounds like an altogether worse version of Randy Newman.
Queen
3/5
Best Song: Stone Cold Crazy. Freddie Mercury needs this kind of intensity and vocal difficulty to really show off what he's capable of.
Worst Song: She Makes Me. A soft, slow, uninteresting ballad. This might be the Eagles, for how it sounds.
Overall: This list has really shown me that Queen's songwriting technique seems to be to wrap each track around some different theatrical gimmick. Occasionally, this experimental breadth means they land on something interesting and unique and it blows up into one of their mega hits, but it also means that their back-catalogue is full of annoying, forgettable tracks where the concepts doesn't hit.
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
Best Song: I Don't Love Anyone. Really clever songwriting. I especially liked the uplifting crescendo of repeated "I don't love anyone" at the end of the song in a way that simultaneously feels tongue-in-cheek, earnest, honest, and sarcastic.
Worst Song: Electronic Renaissance. The strength of this group for me is in their lyricism and melancholy presentation, and so converting that into an 80s style electronic song really undoes everything I like about them.
Overall: A mildly disappointing album for me, given how pleasantly surprised I was with the previous Belle & Sebastian album I listened to on this list (the first I'd ever heard). For whatever reason, the lyricism didn't feel as incisive as in "If You're Feeling Sinister." Nevertheless, I still like their vibe.
Ice Cube
3/5
Best Song: It Was A Good Day. Iconic with a fun message for this era of rap. It's just likeable.
Worst Song: Don't Trust 'Em. I think it was at this point in the album that I began to grow tired with the repetitive bouncing flow. It also loses points for sampling Flava Flav.
Overall: It's not bad, but it's also very one-note. It feels like it has said everything it has to say by "It Was a Good Day", but it continues with needless repetitions of the same themes, delivered through the same flow.
Shivkumar Sharma
3/5
Best Song: Stars Twinkling Within. Really pleasant gentle flutes.
Worst Song: The Prophet into the Mountain. Might have been the song with the most steel drum.
Overall: It really did feel like the album, and indeed each raga, took a nice journey. Each felt more like a story than a traditional song. Overall, I liked the orchestrations, although I'm really not a fan of the sound of the steel drums. The flutes in particular, however, were lovely.
Doves
3/5
Best Song: There Goes The Fear. A nice distillation of that classic, early 00s rock feel.
Worst Song: Friday's Dust. I really hoped for less of this kind of forlorn navel-gazing, and more of the fun 90s rock from the beginning of the album.
Overall: A bit all over the place, although all distinctly late 90s early 00s (and therefore a bit dated). Truly nothing that stands out though, making its inclusion on this list a bit strange.
Beyoncé
3/5
Best Song: XO. This felt like the kind of pop anthem that Beyoncé really excels at.
Worst Song: ***Flawless. I like the general theme of the track, but samples of children are really tough to get to work right, and it sure doesn't work here.
Overall: It's really cleanly produced, but it also feels like each track tries too hard to be its own "story", pulling from various samples so much that it lacks any predictability or flow. You never have enough time to enjoy any particular groove before the whole track has moved on to something else.
Lambchop
2/5
Best Song: Up with People. The choral sections did a lot to take over from the otherwise lackluster main vocals. That combination of a sort of gospel with the trumpets was really nice.
Worst Song: The Distance from Her to There. Cut it with that falsetto, goddamn.
Overall: Largely uninteresting, although occasionally dipping into annoying. The vocals seemed to be both the focus of the album and its weakest part. I think I can understand why this one was lost to time.
Meat Puppets
2/5
Best Song: Aurora Borealis. It's not great that my favourite track on this punkish album is the instrumental, guitar-wankery one but here we are.
Worst Song: Lost. I really just think that this punkabilly genre isn't for me.
Overall: One commonality I've noticed for (some of) these early punk bands is that even though they will cram 20 two-minute tracks into an album, each of these short songs feels too long because they lack any sort of dynamism. Each song is at most a single idea, and so it is easy to get tired of them even within their relatively short runtimes. There's better punk, folk, and Americana out there. Go listen to that.
Soft Cell
2/5
Best Song: Tainted Love. By far the tightest, most refined song. Also has a considerably shorter runtime than the other tracks, which to me means they actually trimmed the fat off this one.
Worst Song: Facility Girls. I really hate when these songs get so slow that the singer just starts theatrically talking.
Overall: Definitely fits squarely in that 80s vibe of "murder dance", perhaps most strongly in tracks like "Sex Dwarf". Sadly, beyond a few "out-there" tracks, there's nothing really of interest here.
Johnny Cash
3/5
Best Song: Hurt. A heavy hitter with an emotional impact. I still have nostalgia for when I first watched the music video.
Worst Song: Personal Jesus. It sounds like Cash is struggling to keep up with the tempo here. I think they could have slowed it slightly to allow him to make the song more introspective while also not giving the feeling that the singer might stumble off the tracks at any moment.
Overall: A sweet, melancholy album that sometimes slips too far into "sleepy". It's refreshing to see Cash stripped here of his usual bravado, forced by age to show a more vulnerable and interesting side of himself.
Björk
3/5
Best Song: Human Behaviour. Björk does a lot of the lilting, rolling, and growling that I find so enchanting about her voice.
Worst Song: The Anchor Song. A not altogether bad, jazzy song, but it feels more like a performance than a song.
Overall: I'm once again struck by how powerful and diverse Björk's music is. That being said, this album has less passionate, revelatory music when compared to the previous ones on this list, and sometimes degrades to relatively standard club music.
Television
2/5
Best Song: Marquee Moon. An actually engaging, sprawling rock track. I like that it didn't just waffle off into the ether, but actually came back to the original groove to close itself off satisfactorily.
Worst Song: Torn Curtain. We didn't need another 7 minute, meandering track to close out the album. It already felt like a long 45 minutes.
Overall: Certainly okay. Undoubtedly alright. Definitively existent. Nothing particularly exciting about it, nor is there anything offensive. I will forget about this one quickly.
Travis
2/5
Best Song: Why Does It Always Rain On Me? A decent, sing-songy, melancholy track.
Worst Song: As You Are. For reasons that I can't articulate, this song felt like fake angst. Something about his pained "scream" felt forced and theatrical.
Overall: Very whiny early alt-rock. The kind of music that pads the radio between the good stuff.
Quicksilver Messenger Service
2/5
Best Song: Who Do You Love Pt. 1. Certainly the most "alive" part of the album.
Worst Song: Where You Love. There's barely any song here. It's just random noises, mostly.
Overall: Is it just that I lack the experience/vocabulary for this old prog rock? What makes this album noteworthy over any of the others? From my naive listening, it doesn't go in any particularly interesting direction, it doesn't seek to maintain focus on a particular theme to do something cool with it, it just kind of dithers around for a while and then moves inexplicably on to a new thing. I'm sure if I was in the same (psychoactive) headspace as the musicians I'd have a better time, but this album imply sounds boring to sober ears.
Dr. John
2/5
Best Song: Mama Roux. Its got a certain undeniably raw funk.
Worst Song: Croker Courtbullion. Pure self-indulgent guitar noodling.
Overall: Two or three decent tracks, but otherwise is the kind of raw, "jam" style that feels like it doesn't need to be immortalized on an album, let alone on this list.
Caetano Veloso
2/5
Best Song: Tropicália. Some fun, bouncy rhythms in here.
Worst Song: Ave-Maria. Real discrepancy between my expectation of a song based on its title and the reality of it.
Overall: It's just a blitz of Brazilian samplers, where it felt like no song settled enough into a rhythm to be appreciated. This might just be my ignorance to the genre, but I didn't glean a lot memorable from this one.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Best Song: Dancing In the Dark. Lyrically it's just a mess of mixed metaphors but it's got a feel-good, pumped-up quality to it.
Worst Song: Born in the U.S.A. Maybe you have to be American to enjoy this song but I just find it annoying.
Overall: He doesn't have a great voice, the songs aren't particularly interesting or innovative, and - most frustratingly - the drummer's idea of rhythm is just slapping the absolute piss out of the snare drum. And yet, despite all this, it has sort of naïve American hubris to it that stops me from hating it for some reason.
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Best Song: Ramble On. Classic Zeppelin, in that it feels like a perfect merger between soft folk elements and harder, more bombastic rock.
Worst Song: Bring It on Home. Just a real sleepy way to end the album.
Overall: Most Zeppelin is good Zeppelin, and even though this clearly isn't them at their best - with quite a few forgettable tracks strewn about - the character of their sound is still plenty compelling to make this a fun listen.
Scissor Sisters
3/5
Best Song: Take Your Mama. I really dug the hippie funk vibe here.
Worst Song: Lovers In The Backseat. Just an annoying chorus repeated ad nauseum.
Overall: Pleasant but also kind of forgettable. Feels like good summer drinking music. Porch music. If not beach music, then at least beach montage music.
Joanna Newsom
3/5
Best Song: Only Skin. As pretty as Newsom's vice is alone, it lingers so much in that wispy upper register that the introduced contrast of a deep male voice was a revelation.
Worst Song: Cosmia. By this point, I think I had grown tired of the production here.
Overall: Densely lyrical, with a sort of Joni Mitchell style production. The vocal delivery grew grating at times, and the lyrics were so dense that I really don't think that I could appreciate them on a single listen. Would like to return to this one. Nicely quiet and melancholy.
Neu!
3/5
Best Song: E-Musik. There's a kind of relaxed rodeo vibe to this that kind of works. Something about that chugge-chugga ends up worming itself into your bones, turning would could have been an annoying song into a groove.
Worst Song: Hero. I thought that the first half of the album was so sparse as to be almost absent until I heard the man sing and I realized that it was much better sparse. The album should have been wholly instrumental.
Overall: An album that is only as good as it is quiet. Every attempt it makes at making noise or causing a ruckus comes off gritty and a bit annoying, but the calmer instrumentals are really enjoyable.
4/5
Best Song: The World is a Ghetto. Sprawling in a positive sense. The solos feel inspired and the funk rhythm that underpins the entire track is excellent.
Worst Song: City, Country, City. Not a terrible song, butlong enough to just overstay its welcome.
Overall: This was, for me, an unexpectedly great, groovy album. I often don't like albums with these kinds of slow and plodding rhythms, especially when the song lengths are as long as they are here, but for whatever reason the groove really grooves here. Perfect for putting in the background and setting a particular vibe.
Pearl Jam
4/5
Best Song: Black. Lyrically by far the best on the album. Close second to the brilliant follow-up in Jeremy.
Worst Song: Release. A fine song with an unnecessary 4 minutes of underwater noise appended to it.
Overall: Up there with the best that grunge has to offer. I was obviously familiar with the hits, but even the B-sides were really good. The whole albumalso has an introspective, self-aware quality that I feel is missing from a lot of grunge music. Much of grunge is about a frustration with living in a seemingly uncaring and insincere society, but I feel like Pearl Jam is one of the few bands that ever looks at the other side of that disharmony. They have the humility to ask whether we (the grunge audience) have our own failures to blame for contributing to this incompatibility.
The KLF
2/5
Best Song: Last Train to Trancentral. Good house music needs a good chorus, and this one's got it.
Worst Song: The White Room. Some of the instrumental interludes came off as more annoying than anything.
Overall: Fairly fun and rhythmic, although it frequently dips into that early 90s annoying reliance on echo and reverb. Certainly nothing exciting. Quality really dips off in the latter half too.
Roxy Music
2/5
Best Song: In Every Dream Home A Heartache. The prolonged intro was nice because it gave me the hope that it was going to build into some kind of interesting crescendo. Alas, the band squandered that opportunity pretty quick.
Worst Song: Strictly Confidential. Ugh, more pomp.
Overall: This band is extremely not for me. Everything about this (and the two other albums of theirs I've had the misfortune of listening to on this list) has been bloated, theatrical, and self-indulgent.
2/5
Best Song: Like A Rolling Stone. I just like the song, even if this isn't the best rendition.
Worst Song: Just Like A Woman. Absolutely hate the infantilizing nonsense of the lyrics here. "You make love like a woman, but you break just like a little girl"? Sure it's got this "Catcher in the Rye", "There's a bluebird in my heart..." kind of quality to it, and had the song been gender neutral I could have maybe accepted that, but the choice to specifically gender the lyrics brings in a bunch of weird baggage. Creepy.
Overall: Oh he's real mumbly here. Every vocal phrase sounds like it starts with someone physically squeezing all the air out of him. The album also does not benefit from the live setting in any way. Not sure why someone would choose this form to listen to these tracks.
Klaxons
4/5
Best Song: Gravity's Rainbow. Quick hit little ditty with a catchy chorus.
Worst Song: Forgotten Works. More like "forgettable works", am I right?
Overall: I like it. Punchy, punctate tracks with an upbeat and dance-y rhythm. Noisy in a nice way. The whole album is fun and feels like a party.
The Cult
3/5
Best Song: Bad Fun. Exactly the kind of rolling rhythm that works with this style of music.
Worst Song: Born To Be Wild. This cover is truly awful. It strips the original of all its speed and intensity (i.e., its wildness) and turns it into a plodding stomp. Born to be Mild.
Overall: It isn't bad, but it also just kind of sounds like AC/DC if they rolled around in the dirt for a little bit.
Bobby Womack
3/5
Best Song: If You Think You're Lonely Now. The oddly threatening lyrics mixed with the beautiful production make this a treat. A weird treat, but a treat nonetheless.
Worst Song: Secrets. I just think has the most boring chorus. Love the bassline though.
Overall: The album starts weak and takes some time to find its groove, but the back half is full of great, soulful tracks.
Haircut 100
2/5
Best Song: Kingsize (You're My Little Steam Whistle). Excellent solos and nearly entirely instrumental.
Worst Song: Love's Got Me In Triangles. The instrumentals sadly sit as second fiddle to the man yelling "LOVE" and "TOBLERONES".
Overall: Further evidence that most 80s bands would have been much better off being instrumental bands. It felt like with every track, what could have been some fun or interesting musical arrangement got torpedoed when Buffalo Bill got on the mic and the vibe instantly changed from "hot jazz club" to "afternoon cruise ship entertainment".
Adele
3/5
Best Song: All I Ask. I like the way she has the piano mirroring parts of her vocal melodies.
Worst Song: Sweetest Devotion. Don't know that it's the worst, but it just really didn't need to be here.
Overall: She obviously has a powerful and impressive voice, but I found myself sometimes wishing that she reigned it in a bit more. This probably isn't a fair criticism, because that vocal power is a big part of her appeal- and I get it - but sometimes that it felt too repetitive knowing that each song was inevitably going to soar to some towering height. I wish there were a few totally soft-sung songs here to break up the consistency, and let the big songs sound bigger through the contrast. That said, her voice is great and the production is solid throughout.
Hawkwind
2/5
Best Song: Master of the Universe. A more standard rock track with some ripping instrumental sections.
Worst Song: The Awakening. This sounds like it feels much more profound than it really is, which is just a mildly German man rambling in monotone.
Overall: You have to be be inordinately into space to enjoy this album. Musically it's got some interesting prog rock sections, but lyrically it sounds like a grade school student who only remembered on the bus ride into school that morning that they had to give a presentation on "space" to the class. There's better prog albums out there.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Best Song: Waiting for You. This is where I think Nick Cave shines: extremely minimal production and a simple chorus around which he can weave more verbose stories in the verses.
Worst Song: Hollywood. I don't like Nick Cave's falsetto.
Overall: Can an album be too understated? This album feels so lyrically dense - even more so than the other Nick Cave albums I've listened to - that it almost feels like this album should be read more than it should be listened to. The sheer density of it does work against it as an album, as the moment you stop giving it sufficient attention to hold its lyrics in mind, the album drops easily into the background and out of mind.
Todd Rundgren
2/5
Best Song: Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel. He's got a really great chorus here. I might like an album full of tracks like this.
Worst Song: Dogfight Giggle. I don't care if this doesn't constitute a song, it doesn't belong on this album. It sounds like utter shit, it's a weird turn to take immediately after unique awful "Rock & Roll Pussy". Irredeemable.
Overall: A strange album in that there are these occasional glimpses of decent pop-rock songs, but they're hidden under piles of weird, directionless blips of noise. Listening to this, I get the feeling that the artist had a particular idea of what they wanted to do with this album, but that I simultaneously have no idea what that idea might be.
My Bloody Valentine
2/5
Best Song: who sees you. This had at least a sort of appreciable energy to it that I could get behind.
Worst Song: if this and yes. Fully put me to sleep.
Overall: Stop making me listen to these albums. It's all so tremendously monotone. I can only imagine wanting to listen to this while coming into (or out of) anaesthesia. Otherwise, this style of sedate and prolonged music does nothing for me.
Tom Waits
4/5
Best Song: Eggs and Sausage. A perfect example of what is possible in this genre of music. An elevation of ordinary materials to something that feels, lyrically, like more than the sum of its part.
Worst Song: Nobody. Far too sleepy and repetitive this late in the game.
Overall: The jazz-club motif is so strong here that the album feels like it has the intensity and energy of a live recording, while maintaining the production of a studio setting. This is also a sweet spot for Waits in his career, where maintains some of his soft-boy aesthetic from earlier in his career but he hasn't fully dived into the grit-and-gravel voice that dominates his later records. The album also has a pleasant sense of humor that is really difficult to capture in a record like this. Really my only complaint is that it gets a bit long in the end
Rufus Wainwright
3/5
Best Song: Beautiful Child. I really liked how big everything in this song was: the vocals, the arrangement.
Worst Song: Pretty Things. His nasal delivery really became grating by this track. The audio mixing also felt off, as I could constantly hear him swallowing and preparing to deliver a line.
Overall: Such an odd vocalist. Sometimes he sounds like he's channeling Radiohead or Muse with these big, alt-rock tracks, but other times he's a sad Billy Corgan whining his way through songs, nasal cavity first.
Parliament
4/5
Best Song: Give Up The Funk. Classic, iconic, pure, funk.
Worst Song: Night Of The Thumpasorus Peoples. Too little of the funk vocals and a bit too much of a reliance of that deep bass effect.
Overall: What I love about P-Funk is that it always sounds like they're having fun, and that feeling is very infectious. Great, uplifting music that is suitable for so many contexts.
Lupe Fiasco
3/5
Best Song: Daydreamin'. I think the addition of Jill Scott really elevated this and her other tracks.
Worst Song: The Instrumental. Something about this feels like it's verging on Nu Metal. Shades of Limp Bizkit.
Overall: A solid album, one in which I can tell a lot of thought and effort went into it, but it still felt like it was missing something that would elevate it to a good or great album. Nothing really stood out.
Elton John
3/5
Best Song: Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting). The soundtrack to the dumbest possible theatrical dance fight (in a good way).
Worst Song: Jamaica Jerk-Off. This song is so absurd, I can hardly believe it's just sitting in the middle of these other iconic mega tracks. "Do Jamaica jerk-off that way?" I really don't know what was even being attempted here.
Overall: Sure there's a couple really massive songs here, but there's also a sizeable gulf of relative duds in the middle. Moreover, I get the feeling that if I want to listen to a virtuoso piano-playing singer, why wouldn't I just listen to Stevie Wonder instead? He's got the soul that is missing from a lot of Elton John's music.
Boston
4/5
Best Song: Foreplay / Long Time. All three opening tracks are bangers, but the use of the instrumental intro to build tension really sets this one apart.
Worst Song: Something About You. This song could be deleted off the album and nothing of value would be lost.
Overall: I think no band has better arena-rock vocals than Boston. The soaring quality of his voice, paired with the guitar parts which often mirror the voice, feels like it was designed specifically to fill stadiums. The album is pretty front-loaded (excluded the absolute ripping finale to the last track), but this is about as good as classic rock gets.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Best Song: Listen to This. The only song short enough to not wear out its own welcome.
Worst Song: Knowledge of Beauty. Just a woefully long, saccharine ballad.
Overall: So much of this is just inane conversations over unexciting looping music. What's worse is when he starts singing, I kind of wish he went back to just chatting. Completely not for me.
White Denim
3/5
Best Song: Street Joy. Pleasant and laidback. His voice really shines here, even if the overall production is relatively ordinary.
Worst Song: Bess St. A bit too chugga-chugga for me.
Overall: It's fine, but it also feels like a slightly less interesting version of the Black Keys, so I can't imagine when I would want to come back to this album specifically.
Doves
3/5
Best Song: Catch The Sun. Very classically late 90s/early 00s melancholy.
Worst Song: Melody Calls. Far too much harmonica for me.
Overall: A very consistent alt-rock drone. Feels at times like a more muted Porcupine Tree. The whole album has this sort of melodic homogeneity that allows it to kind in the background of your mind, never being good, bad, or interesting enough to demand your full attention.
Robbie Williams
3/5
Best Song: Let Me Entertain You. I would have really liked this album if it was all as big and high energy as this track.
Worst Song: Clean. On some tracks, he uses this really nasal singing voice. The whole song is just a string of loosely connected "eeeee"s.
Overall: A couple really fun mega hits in here, surrounding by otherwise pretty dull ballads. He's obviously got a nice voice, but it feels like the songs are too often orchestrated to perpetuate a sort of pretty-boy aesthetic that I could do without.
MGMT
3/5
Best Song: Electric Feel. A bit overplayed, but the rolling rhythm is really nice.
Worst Song: Pieces of What. This album absolutely did not need an acoustic Brit-rock song in the middle.
Overall: Really feels like (at least) two incompatible albums here. You've got the pop-electronic first half that's decently catchy, but then it just kind of devolves into random, more experimental directions that never feel all that purposeful. Would have preferred that they had stuck with what worked in the first half.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
Best Song: Tears Dry On Their Own. This feels like the biggest and most ambitious production on the album, and some of the phrasing that Amy uses are just undeniably catchy.
Worst Song: Just Friends. I really wasn't a fan of the "oom-pa" rhythm that ceaselessly ran in the background.
Overall: Beautiful voice, with songs that drip with an undeniably individual character. The production is great, and the whole album carries this air of almost joyous melancholy that I can't remember hearing elsewhere.
Madonna
3/5
Best Song: Express Yourself. The perfect soundtrack for an uplifting beach party in a world where nothing bad has happened or ever will happen.
Worst Song: Promise to Try. Based on how fun and upbeat the first few songs were, why was there a need to slow things down for this ballad in the middle?
Overall: Despite a really fun start, it felt like the album devolved into the kind of repetitive, surface, bubble-pop that characterizes too much of 80s music. Nevertheless, this feels likes the best of a genre that I don't like.
Gene Clark
2/5
Best Song: With Tomorrow. There is a haunting quality to this track, and the repetitive rhyming really works here.
Worst Song: Opening Day. I was fully done with the album by this point.
Overall: Not wholly unpleasant, but the entire album does end up blurring into relatively monotonous string. I felt that I'd internalized the vibe of the album before it was half over, but I was left to listen to the rest.
Neil Young
3/5
Best Song: Southern Man. Neil finally bringing the energy to play. The way his unique vocal qualities mirror that of the guitar are fantastic.
Worst Song: Cripple Creek Ferry. They've just gotta stop with this "Cripple Creek" business.
Overall: I've learned to love me some Neil Young, but a lot of this album harkens back to how I felt when I didn't quite "get" him. I think he sometimes gets stuck in this awkward middle ground, where he doesn't rock as hard as he's capable, nor does he recede into the muted and melancholy singer-songwriter that he also excels at, and instead lands in a relatively boring middle. This album has too much of that middle.
Tina Turner
2/5
Best Song: Steel Claw. I liked the more rock elements here, especially the quick and staccato delivery.
Worst Song: When I Was Young. Once again I just tired of what was on offer by this point.
Overall: There are a few standout tracks, but mostly I found myself just bored and waiting for it to end. To that end: it's also much longer than it needed to be.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
2/5
Best Song: Cocaine. I only like this because I like songs where the vibe and the lyrics don't match.
Worst Song: Grey Goose. Sounds like someone found a guitar and just tried to noodle with it as something to do while they shouted incoherently. Beautiful.
Overall: This is not good. There's this unpleasant, presumptuous naivete about the whole thing, as if I'm listening to a child playing with their tape recorder. The audacity to think I needed to listen to the 'ramblings' of some country bumpkin's id.
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Best Song: Take This Waltz. A classic from the king of melancholy. I also always like when Cohen contrasts his deep and sonorous voice with a higher register female vocalist.
Worst Song: Jazz Police. Hard to believe this song isn't a parody.
Overall: As much as I love Cohen, I am not a fan of this era of his, when his voice (and more importantly, his lyrics) are constantly drowned out by overproduction. Proof that the 80s made even good artists worse.
Miles Davis
3/5
Best Song: Blue in Green. Extremely laid back and relaxed. The bass is really the star here for me.
Worst Song: There isn't one, everything kind of blurs into a somewhat familiar pastiche.
Overall: Can an album be too smooth? It feels like it slips right out of my eardrums as I listen to it, bypassing my attention entirely. Pleasant and inoffensive in the background, certainly something that sets a mood, but not an album that stops you and confronts you with anything novel or particularly interesting.
The Libertines
3/5
Best Song: Campaign Of Hate. Punctate and punkish. Wish there'd been more of this.
Worst Song: Don't Be Shy. This sounds musically and lyrically like a drunk man pestering a sober stranger to join him on the dance floor.
Overall: Standard British fare, but this time in a fun an irreverent-enough manner that it is kind of endearing. Listening to this album feels like hearing some proto-Arctic Monkeys. It's not bad, but I'm also not that excited about it.
Khaled
3/5
Best Song: Trigue Lycee. Loved the energy, loved the brass. Give me more.
Worst Song: Imagine. I hate every incarnation of this godforsaken song.
Overall: A mix of interesting and upbeat tracks and slow, uninteresting ballads. Overly long, but tracks like "El Aadyene" make the overall experience enjoyable enough that I can imagine returning, albeit while skipping some of the slower tracks.
George Michael
2/5
Best Song: Freedom! '90. It doesn't even matter that this song has become so heavily commercialized. Something about the naïveté of pretty boy George Michael singing a faux-gospel track about freedom is just pure dumb fun.
Worst Song: Waiting (Reprise). Might as well be "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Saccharine suck.
Overall: Exactly one megahit song intermixed with a bunch of dated ballads. Half the songs feel like they're written with the express intention of having the audience wave their lighters in the air and sway.
Snoop Dogg
4/5
Best Song: Gin and Juice. Iconic song, great chorus, beautifully sparse production.
Worst Song: Serial Killa. Decent song that fully doesn't fit the vibe of the rest of the album. Weird choice to have this angry, Public Enemy-style track in the middle of an otherwise leaned back, chill album.
Overall: Goddamn did I not give Snoop enough credit before. I was really only familiar with his mega tracks that went busters in the early 2000s, and otherwise I had this vague idea that he was a bit of a gimmick/novelty. Gotta admit I was wrong. From the slick, bass-heavy production to Snoop's smooth, honey-slow flow, this albums slaps.
Gil Scott-Heron
3/5
Best Song: The Bottle. A song with one of those rhythms that feels unbreakable and somehow inevitable. Groovy.
Worst Song: Peace Go With You, Brother. Took a little too long for the album to get off the ground.
Overall: Groovy, soulful, political. Lots to like, although it has enough meandering moments that it doesn't leave as strong an impact as I wish it would.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
Best Song: Lipstick Vogue. The bass in this song might be the highlight of the whole album.
Worst Song: Hand In Hand. Ending the song with an ad nauseum repetition of the title isn't the choice that I would have made here.
Overall: I really don't understand the appeal that Elvis Costello has to warrant so many places on this list. His exaggeratedly staccato delivery really starts to grind on me after a while, and the instrumentation around it is just okay. Inoffensive and unexciting.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
2/5
Best Song: The Sound of Someone You Love Who's Going Away And It Doesn't Matter. Maybe the most "coherent" track on the album. Feels buoyed by its title, which really does evoke a very specific emotion that you can then try to interpret from the track.
Worst Song: Zopf: Milk. You can really feel the "experimental" here. This is music in a technical, literal sense, but is also just sucks to listen to. Chaos for chaos-sake.
Overall: Not altogether unpleasant background music, even if it does take an ugly and unnecessary descent into experimentalism in the middle. Can't imagine in what context I would want to listen to it again though.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Best Song: Spellbound. I liked the pounding percussion as a counterpoint to high and lilting vocals.
Worst Song: Head Cut. The "spooky" effects and howling vocals felt more like a gimmick than an earnest effort.
Overall: Better than I expected. Some tracks gave me a vibe similar to The Doors. The vocals are by far the reason to listen.
Throwing Muses
3/5
Best Song: Vicky's Box. In an album full of great lyrics and vocals, this track still stands above the rest.
Worst Song: Rabbits Dying. Too upbeat of a hoe-down rhythm for me.
Overall: The type of beautifully raw punk that I like. Lyrically interesting, great vocals, and a production that isn't too egregiously noisy nor clean. A decent listen.
The Chemical Brothers
3/5
Best Song: Three Little Birdies Down Beat. Just a truly undeniable groove.
Worst Song: Playground for a Wedgeless Firm. I really didn't like that buzzy background sound that permeated the whole track.
Overall: Pretty fun electronic album. Nothing too novel, but still great at quickly and efficiently diving into chunky, toothsome grooves. Great music for focus, working, exercise.
The Rolling Stones
2/5
Best Song: Gimme Shelter. The guest vocals are by far the best part of this album, and more than likely the best part of The Stones' entire oeuvre.
Worst Song: Love in Vain. Not sure if it's outright the worst, but the drop in quality from Gimme Shelter to this is gargantuan.
Overall: Apart from the two genuinely great songs that smartly bookend the album, the middle is just a gulf of meh. Mick Jagger's appeal comes from his energy and zeal, not his singing ability, and this album has a lot of just listening to him sing.
George Michael
3/5
Best Song: Faith. Apart from the entirely unnecessary church organ intro just a catchy as hell song with an infectious rhythm.
Worst Song: I Want Your Sex. It turns out that repeating the words "sex" and "sexy" does not a sexy song make. Who could have guessed.
Overall: Like a lot of pop albums from this era, this one feels annoyingly prone to alternating between goofy pop and saccharine, cheese-ball ballads. I don't get it. Why were they always afraid to have unabashed fun? Or at least segregate the different styles to their own albums to prevent the tonal whiplash you get listening to the album straight through.
Missy Elliott
3/5
Best Song: The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly). Such a great sleepy/dizzy sound.
Worst Song: Friendly Skies. Ginuwine trying desperately to replicate the success of "Pony" and falling short.
Overall: A much more muted, less boisterous offering than Missy Elliott's later (and in my opinion, better) stuff. Still, there's a certain laid-back appeal here, and the production is undeniably slick.
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
Best Song: White Rabbit. There's a reason this song is so beloved. It feels so refreshing to hear a song that eschews traditional formats and just rises in this inevitable-feeling crescendo. A rocket launch of a song.
Worst Song: My Best Friend. This just feels like cosplaying as The Beatles. There is already an over-abundance of these corny, sugar-sweet harmonies in this era of music, this album would have been better without them here.
Overall: A few truly fantastic songs, surrounded by a greater number of just okay ones. I can't help wish that they'd leaned harder into some of their more creative, experimental tendencies, and that they'd given their female vocalist more opportunity as her vocals stand above the rest.
4/5
Best Song: Kick Out the Jams. Full of energy, great vocals. I wish that they had condensed more of their other tracks to this sub 3-minute length to really concentrate the impact.
Worst Song: Starship. There was no reason to take things in this unfocused, proggy direction after such a tight, punctate album.
Overall: The perfect example of how to do a live album. Rather than trying to emulate a studio performance in a live setting, the goal here seems to be to provide a raw and energetic show. Music that gets in your face. Music that makes you appreciate live music. It fuckin' rips.
Sisters Of Mercy
3/5
Best Song: Dominion/Mother Russia. An undeniably catchy chorus, and a good use of choir vocals.
Worst Song: 1959. I truly don't how anyone can like these dorky piano ballads that all these 80s pop singers try to do.
Overall: A typically 80s combination of decently catchy dance tracks and exceedingly annoying ones where the singer seems content to monotonously drone over the the beat.
Devendra Banhart
3/5
Best Song: A Sight to Behold. Pleasantly melancholy.
Worst Song: Tit Smoking in the Temple of Artesan Mimicry. Just a not particularly interesting guitar workshop in the middle of the album...
Overall: A fine, if not all that exciting, album. Quite and unobtrusive. Good for background music while reading or cooking, I suppose.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Best Song: Spanish Castle Music. By far the grooviest track on the album, and also probably the one on which Hendrix sings best.
Worst Song: If 6 Was 9. Feels weird to have a flute appear only for a spastic and chaotic outro. Had the the flute featured more prominently (and calmly) in the rest of the song, it would have felt like it at least earned the ability to go off like that.
Overall: It really is staggering how Hendrix's guitar manages to feel like such a prominent voice in his music, not just an instrument amongst all the others. The soulful tone and softer, psychedelic nature of this album is also great, giving it both a relaxing and invigorating quality.
Ride
2/5
Best Song: Today. At least it builds up in a crescendo to the album finally being over.
Worst Song: Dreams Burn Down. A flat and shrill song that occasionally jumps into almost unlistenable levels of shrill for contrast.
Overall: Although the album seems somewhat interesting at the beginning, the constant monotonous volume of noise without meaningful variation or interruption begins to wear on you and you're left with an endless stream of swirly guitars and shrill, snarling chords. Eventually you're left with the feeling of being trapped tumbling in a washing machine, the water filling your ears, while just outside two cats are fighting.
ZZ Top
2/5
Best Song: Sharp Dressed Man. I don't even know if this is the best, or if it's just familiarity that makes it feel a bit better.
Worst Song: Thug. Another boring jam track on an album of mostly boring jam tracks.
Overall: No matter how technically proficient the band is able to sound, they lack an ounce of soul. In a way that is difficult to articulate, ZZ Top has always felt flat and passionless to me.
Mercury Rev
2/5
Best Song: Opus 40. There's a soft of uplifting quality to the orchestration here.
Worst Song: The Happy End. Why have this discordant track three quarters of the way through the album? Nothing about this is happy or the end.
Overall: Really weak vocals, which also seem to be the focus of the album? Not a great combination. Otherwise, completely ordinary and forgettable. If I heard a song from this album again in one month, I doubt I'd even recognize it.
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
Best Song: The Chain. A palpable tension between the two vocalists that perfectly mirrors the lyrics. I also love how the guitar and bass take up the argument in the song's final minute.
Worst Song: Never Going Back Again. Stevie Nicks is just such a powerful part of the band that a whole ballad without her influence feels like a waste.
Overall: A few wonderful, ethereal masterpieces of songs. Few albums are able to cultivate a "vibe" so distinct as what is on offer here. The best songs, in which Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham play off one another, are as good as this genre offers. Sadly, there are also too many B-siders, where each vocalist goes solo, that prevent the album from being truly transcendent.
Daft Punk
4/5
Best Song: Da Funk. Although "Around the World" might be more iconic, the deep groove of "Da Funk" is for me more emblematic of what Daft Punk does best.
Worst Song: Teachers. Ignoring the fact that this protracted list of influences doesn't sound good, I find it such an odd decision to plunk it in the middle of the album. Surely the boring credits come at the end?
Overall: Although the album does have some fun parts, hot damn is it too long. This easily could have cut a few tracks to be a tighter experience. Also, I've listened to their live 2007 album so many times that hearing many of these tracks outside of that remix feels weird.
The Thrills
2/5
Best Song: Big Sur. Short and punchy, and occurred early enough in the album that the vocals hadn't yet worn me down.
Worst Song: Til The Tide Creeps In. Hiding stuff at the end of an album is mostly annoying. Here is is annoying.
Overall: It feels like this album might have gone on to influence more modern indie groups that I do like, but I didn't really enjoy this. Lyrically it was that kind of played-out earnest honesty, but it was really difficult to get past the severely nasally vocals.
Basement Jaxx
2/5
Best Song: Red Alert. A decently funky groove, buoyed by a great vocal sample.
Worst Song: Same Old Show. A terribly unsexy attempt to make a sexy song.
Overall: I can't remember the last time I heard an album that so freely alternated between decent grooves and the worst, most annoying beats imaginable. The duality of bro.
Aerosmith
2/5
Best Song: Back In the Saddle. Stephen Tyler at least lets loose here and stretches his voice in a compelling way.
Worst Song: Home Tonight. This feels like the kind of song that would be sung by a cartoon cat in a direct-to-streaming children's movie. Which is to say I don't like it.
Overall: After a moderately interesting opening track, it was fully downhill from there. A short, uninspired album of mildly bluesy rock. Weird inclusion on the list, as I feel like Aerosmith has (at least marginally) better albums.
Peter Tosh
3/5
Best Song: Legalize It. I mean, what's not to love about a song so earnest?
Worst Song: Ketchy Shuby. One of those highly repetitive songs that somehow always sounds like its own outro.
Overall: I mean, it's fine. Not my genre, but not unpleasant. Fine background music for me.
Miles Davis
3/5
Best Song: Sanctuary. Succeeded where the previous song failed. Rambunctious while still being coherent.
Worst Song: Miles Runs the Voodoo Down. This felt cacophonous in an unapproachable way. I never felt like the song had its legs underneath it, and the rhythm felt too fast and chaotic for how long and meandering the track was.
Overall: Jazz always feels a little outside my realm of understanding. Maybe that's the point, I don't know. Nevertheless, it makes an album as long as this a challenging experience, and one that I don't know if I am particularly enriched by. A fun struggle, but one I doubt I'll return to.
Spiritualized
3/5
Best Song: Broken Heart. This felt like the kind of emotional track that would accompany the climactic scene in a good movie. Maybe the characters are saying goodbye, where you hope they might see each other again even though you know they won't. But you still hope.
Worst Song: Cop Shoot Cop. Sure, let's take the relaxed vibe instilled by the penultimate track and fuck it all the way up with chaos.
Overall: Not something that I can imagine being in the mood to return to frequently, but if I want to be sad in lo-fi, I know where to go now.
Japan
2/5
Best Song: Quiet Life. Just enough energy and synth to be mildly interesting.
Worst Song: Despair. Slower than hell, but not even melancholy enough to evoke an emotion.
Overall: I've never heard this album before, and yet I feel like I've heard it 100 times over the course of this list. Another forgettable British band to throw onto the pile.
Shack
2/5
Best Song: Comedy. Sounds like two friends singing at an open mic at a local pub. In a good way.
Worst Song: Lend's Some Dough. They tried to get too cute with the lyrics here.
Overall: Fully meh. Does not belong on any list of 1001 anythings. Also, even if individual songs are okay the album is made worse than the sum of its parts through some truly baffling song order decisions. The transition (or lack thereof) between "Streets of Kenny" and "Re-Instated" was so ugly that I assumed that either my headphones or Spotify itself had broken.
Tom Tom Club
2/5
Best Song: Genius Of Love. The light vocals contrast nicely with the heavy oomph of the bass.
Worst Song: As Above So Below. Repetition of a neat phrase ad nauseum.
Overall: Half the songs were absent on Spotify - and seemingly most streaming platforms - but unless there was some absolute gold hidden in those missing tracks, I'm grateful for the reduced runtime. It wasn't terrible, but it just feels like that minimally psychedelic mush that came out of the this era. Not experimental enough to be interesting, nor pop enough to be catchy, it just wallows in a disappointing middle.
The Residents
1/5
Best Song: Constantinople. This got a brief chuckle out of me before I realized that this was by far the musical and comedic highpoint of the album and it was all downhill from here.
Worst Song: The Booker Tease. This is literally just noise.
Overall: I appreciate experimentalism as much as the next guy, but I feel like too often experimental bands really just have an aversion to editing. This album is stuffed with dozens of tracks (and according to Wikipedia, this album was one of the first of 40+ presumably similar offerings), and I just wonder if any thought or curation went into any of what is presented here. Sure there's a few moments that give a sort of funny-itchy feeling, but everything feels like a first draft, thoughtlessly created and equally thoughtlessly consumed.
Animal Collective
3/5
Best Song: Brother Sport. Really nice finale for the album. I think I preferred it to the others because underneath the (many) high layers of sound, this track had the strongest, most fundamental-feeling bass to keep everything in check.
Worst Song: Daily Routine. I wasn't a fan of that high-pitched ringing that permeated much of the track.
Overall: Refreshingly experimental but sometimes prohibitively dense. Each song here feels almost overstuffed with overlapping and intersecting layers, to the point that I found myself getting fatigued with the overwhelming fuzziness by the latter half of the album. Nevertheless, it's fun and novel enough to warrant listening to more to explore those layers.
Eagles
2/5
Best Song: Hotel California. Despite being overplayed, this song still feels like a perfect match of interesting storytelling, great lyricism, and wonderful guitar work.
Worst Song: The Last Resort. A cringe finale to end it all off.
Overall: Nothing in the rest of the album comes anywhere close to approaching the heights of the opening track. Technically proficient, but it still feels soulless to me.
Megadeth
3/5
Best Song: Peace Sells. Sort of interesting, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and a decent tempo.
Worst Song: The Conjuring. That kind of chugga-chugga rhythm that I really dislike from this era of thrash.
Overall: It's okay. Sadly, like some early eras of rap, I think early thrash has been totally eclipsed by what came later. This may have been very influential for its time, but with modern ears it just sounds slow and dated.
Pentangle
3/5
Best Song: Light Flight. Very hippy in a pleasant way.
Worst Song: I Saw An Angel. The female vocals were the best part of this album, so their absence here was very disappointing.
Overall: Pretty standard folk rock. The female vocals were really nice, but the rest was just okay. Didn't hate it, but don't know when I would return to it.
Cat Stevens
3/5
Best Song: Wild World. A song I've heard many times before, often as covers, so it was nice to hear the original.
Worst Song: Longer Boats. This starts to cross to far into sounding kinda "cult leader by the campfire".
Overall: Not bad, but absolutely not my kind of music. Would probably be nice to listen to live in a sing-along fashion, but as an album it's just okay.
Portishead
3/5
Best Song: The Rip. Nicely understated, and I like how it transitions into the heavier electronic section.
Worst Song: Small. The distortion was really unnecessary here and clashed with the vocals.
Overall: Very nice. Very background. Promotes a particular chill vibe without being too forward or laidback.
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
Best Song: Everything Must Go. Always like when the title track is tops. This song had the best pop-punk vocals of the lot.
Worst Song: Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky. From the title to the lyrics to the delivery, it feels like they really think they're doing something deep and emotional here, and I just don't think they're pulling it off.
Overall: Inoffensive and normal pop-ish, rock-ish, punk. The kind of music that it feels difficult to have a strong opinion on, because nothing here really warrants that great of a response.
Sebadoh
2/5
Best Song: Think (Let Tomorrow Bee). By forcing themselves to do something understated, they've actually made something listenable.
Worst Song: Fantastic Disaster. Just because you give your train wreck of a song a tongue-in-cheek name doesn't absolve you of having made the disaster in the first place.
Overall: Greasy jam music that never should have left the garage it was written in. Not all music need be distributed for mass consumption.
2/5
Best Song: There's Always Room on the Broom. That chunky-funky riff at the beginning was really pleasant (even if they buried it under a high-hat for the majority of the song.
Broken Witch. What a stuttering, arrhythmic way to start the album.
Worst Song: Broken Witch. What a stuttering, arrhythmic way to start the album.
Overall: More noise than rock. It's very abrasive (clearly intentionally so), but it does so in that upper, buzzy register that means I can't imagine when I'd want to listen to it. It's not heavy enough to satisfy the desire for heavier music, and it's not melodic at all. I struggle to imagine in which contexts or moods I would listen to this album.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
Best Song: Maps. Yeah it's the mega-hit, but in this case there's a good reason. Something about her vocal delivery in this song just feels ethereal.
Worst Song: No No No. I think the rest of the album really didn't need this prog-rock excursion.
Overall: Genuinely quite fun, up-tempo rock music. Reminded me (in a good way) of the Strokes, but minus the brooding. That said, it isn't altogether that memorable (aside from Maps, which has a sort of transcendental quality).
The Incredible String Band
2/5
Best Song: A Very Cellular Song. If you're going to go hippie-experimental, at least go whole hog like this track.
Worst Song: Witches' Hat. Ahh, I see we've dipped in the subgenre of psychedelia that can be best described as "being annoying, but musically".
Overall: This would be an excellent album to listen to with a group of like-minded individuals, having just smoked any- and everything that grows in a square kilometer around us as we wait for the aliens to land. Your tummy starts to hurt but the Grand Poobah insists he sees something in the stars.
Dexys Midnight Runners
2/5
Best Song: Come On Eileen. Everything about this song works, from the weird "tru-ra-lu-ra" pre-chorus to the crescendo in the latter half of the song. Just great.
Worst Song: All In All (This One Last Wild Waltz). I feel like these modern waltzes by pop bands are always too gimmicky.
Overall: They really are victims of their own success, because each song felt like "the 'Come on Eileen' guys doing something kinda different". And what's worse is none of the other tracks made me feel anything other than wishing that I was instead listening to "Come on Eileen".
U2
2/5
Best Song: Sunday Bloody Sunday. A nice, simple song with a catchy, singalong chorus. This is where U2 belongs. The drums are really the star here.
Worst Song: The Refugee. Bono cannot pull off the punk energy t hat this song demands.
Overall: Apart from the opening track, woefully boring. The definition of safe rock. Music for malls.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
2/5
Best Song: Will The Circle Be Unbroken. I don't know if I actually liked the song or if it comes from a sort of Stockholm Syndrome after I waded through 2 hours of bluegrass to hit the supposedly famed title track.
Worst Song: The End of the World. How fitting a title, because this song makes me want to die.
Overall: I can stomach this kind of appalachian bluegrass in small doses, and sadly this is a lethal overdose. Unnecessarily lengthened by the inclusion of the folksy chit-chat so you can also feel like you were in the room, impatiently waiting for them to get along with it. The occasional finger-picking bit of gold interspersed here are not worth the two hours spent panning through the silt and mud.
Love
3/5
Best Song: Seven and Seven Is. I always love when older rock tracks like this have such a relentless rhythm riding underneath them.
Worst Song: Revelation. After such a focused and "cool" album, this sprawling, messy track felt like it undid a lot of the precision of what came prior. That being said, I bet it went absolutely mad during live shows.
Overall: Solid, Doors-ian style classic rock. Nothing here will knock anyone's socks off in [current year], but it's a fine little jam to throw on in the background if you're looking to cultivate a dadrock vibe.
Britney Spears
3/5
Best Song: ...Baby One More Time. Iconic. Perfect encapsulation of an era. This song is untouchable.
Worst Song: I Will Still Love You. First of all, get this other dude out of here. Second of all, after the first half of the album showed that she can make such great pop anthems, why bother with this
Overall: This was so much better if it had just been upbeat pop albums. The wispy, wannabe R&B stuff just doesn't work, and it makes the album feel overly long. I will say though, that "E-Mail My Heart" might be the best song title included in this whole list.
The Velvet Underground
2/5
Best Song: Heroin. Cacophonous in a nice way. I liked the repeated crescendos and the sort of descent into shrieking madness towards the end.
Worst Song: Run Run Run. I found the chorus really annoying. And somehow, each time it came around, the whole band seemed unprepared for it.
Overall: Mostly a sort of monotonous dull drone, with occasional sparks of something more distinct. Not something I can imagine returning to.
Turbonegro
3/5
Best Song: Prince of the Rodeo. The guitar work and overall pace of the track was great, and what I had hoped would be the standard from the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Rock Against Ass. Proof that a song can be torched simply for having stupid lyrics.
Overall: Decent punk that sounds every bit as old as it is.
Laura Nyro
4/5
Best Song: Poverty Train. Soulful and powerfully sung. Really great.
Worst Song: December's Boudoir. Too theatrical and campy for the end of what had felt like an otherwise rooted album.
Overall: This unequivocally rocks. She has a brilliant voice and she's not afraid to stretch it in interesting directions. Her voice is, to me, the perfect combination of powerful and emotive. Strangely, I feel like I can hear many of the artists she's clearly influenced, and yet I'd never even heard of her before.
Baaba Maal
2/5
Best Song: Gidelam. Lovely little shuffling rhythm.
Worst Song: Minuit. Felt more like a monologue than a song.
Overall: It's pleasant to listen to, but I also feel unequipped to even begin to evaluate it, let alone appreciate it. That said, it's fun and fine for background, but also not particularly exciting for me.
Frank Sinatra
2/5
Best Song: In the Wee Small Hours Of The Morning. I truly can't tell if I liked this more or if I just hadn't spoiled on Sinatra's grossly saccharine style yet.
Worst Song: Can't We Be Friends? Frank Sinatra with the OG incel track.
Overall: Basically the same song 16 times in a row. And that one song isn't even that good! Don't understand why this album would be chosen, given that there's already an abundance of Sinatra on the list. I just don't want to Sinatra wimpily singing about his made up woes. Stop crooning about how you now need to order orange juice for one and write something interesting.
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
Best Song: Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth. Finally a song that seems to want to have a little fun.
Worst Song: Pete International Airport. Boy was the latter half of this track unpleasant to listen to.
Overall: Inoffensive but fairly dull, droning music. Everything has this drippy, medicated quality to it, but it also doesn't have the lyrical depth to truly lean into the melancholy. It feels like an album made to make teenagers feel a low-level, disembodied sort of angst.
The Beta Band
3/5
Best Song: Outside. This had a funky, space-y feeling that could have benefitted the rest of the album.
Worst Song: Space Beatle. I really dislike this oppressively affectionate kind of lyrical conceit.
Overall: Not bad, but also seemingly quite ordinary. The funkier, upbeat tracks were nice, but when they took their foot off the gas it sounded like it could be any of a dozen post-U2 rock bands.
The Smiths
2/5
Best Song: A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours. I like the chorus, even if it's lyrically a bit of a mess.
Worst Song: Death at One's Elbow. What are we cosplaying a western for?
Overall: If you've heard one song by The Smiths, you've heard them all. A brisk 30 minutes that ends up feeling long just because of how repetitive it is. The only thing that happens the longer you listen, is you start to get the sense that Morrissey is bitterly unrelatable. "Has the perrier gone straight to my head?" C'mon now.
Pere Ubu
2/5
Best Song: On the Surface. Owner of perhaps the only melody on the whole album.
Worst Song: Thriller! Pure distortion and feedback, to little/no creative payback. Lovely.
Overall: Good golly is this shit not fun to listen to. It's all drones and noise and buzzing, without any larger sort of musical coherence to make it feel like it's every going somewhere with all that messiness. Not for me.
Stan Getz
3/5
Best Song: The Girl From Ipanema. There's a reason it's so famous. There's a joyous sort of frivolity to it that just feels whimsical.
Worst Song: Para Machuchar Meu Coracao. I just preferred the more upbeat tracks.
Overall: Lovely. Perfect for dinner or cooking on a relaxed evening.
The Clash
3/5
Best Song: London's Calling. Foreboding, intense, smoky. Way cooler than the rest of the Ramones-esque offerings.
Worst Song: Jimmy Jazz. This kind of slow jam really exacerbates all of The Clash's worst features.
Overall: I don't get why it's considered iconic. To me, it just reads as a fairly goofy, boppy little bit of (what I would consider by modern standards) pop punk. Also, what a wild disconnect between the album cover and what the music actually sounds like.
Bob Dylan
3/5
Best Song: Mr. Tambourine Man. Dylan's voice has a nicely haunting sound on this track. It really exemplifies the quality that he is able to embody on his best tracks: that of a little boy, completely alone, shouting music directly from his heart.
Worst Song: On The Road Again. Nothing like a folksy little ditty about how much a man hates his wife. Will hold this song up when people uncritically laud Bob Dylan's writing.
Overall: Bob's feeling particularly electric and his enunciation is on its best behaviour, so this album's got a nice vibe going for it. He does rely a bit heavily on the same, extremely simple rhyme and meter for track after track, which gives the album a sort of Seuss-ical quality to it after a while, but you can ignore that if you don't focus too closely on the music.
3/5
Best Song: Where The Streets Have No Name. The driving rhythm really sets this track apart from the others. Unique amongst the other tracks, it actually feels fun.
Worst Song: Running To Stand Still. Blandly weepy.
Overall: I think what I find most annoying about U2 is how emotionally over-wrought everything is. Every song feels like it comes with Bono peeking at you out of the corner of his eye to check if you're having adequate emotional reaction. Coupled with how BIG every song is, the end result feels inauthentic. Music for crying in a stadium.
Leftfield
3/5
Best Song: Afro Left. Grungy, groovy, although the use of "African-sounding gibberish" feels strange.
Worst Song: Open Up. Jesus those Sex Pistols vocals are atrocious.
Overall: Compelling collection of house music. As a complete outsider to the genre, it mostly felt good, although the discrepancy in tone between one track and the next was often jarring. The vocals were also not of equally quality, and detracted from the songs as often as they buoyed them.
Shuggie Otis
4/5
Best Song: Inspiration Information. Pure, shining, good-feeling vibes. What a musical ray of sunshine.
Worst Song: XL-30. Completely unnecessary track. Felt more like a warm-up ritual than something that should be sitting dead center in the album.
Overall: Interesting mix. It's great when the funk is funking and the grooves are grooving, but unfortunately those hit tracks are interspersed among too many quiet, sparse songs. I also felt like his vocals were such a tremendous addition to the mix, that I often ended up liking the purely instrumental tracks less than those with vocals.
Paul Simon
3/5
Best Song: Mother and Child Reunion. I kind of wished that the whole album was reggae.
Worst Song: Armistice Day. This felt cacophonous in a distracting way. Like there were three different songs playing at the same time, competing for my attention.
Overall: He's got a great voice and clearly decent songwriting chops, but the album also feels like it needed more editing to come up with a series of songs that made sense with each other (and that even sounded internally consistent).
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
2/5
Best Song: Television The Drug Of The Nation. A fine, albeit overused chorus.
Worst Song: Famous and Dandy (Like Amos 'N' Andy). When people say that old hip hop is often too corny, this is exactly what they're talking about.
Overall: Given modern hip hop standards, this actually sounds like it's being played in slow motion. There's not much to get excited about here with the exceedingly preachy lyrics rapped laboriously over generic 90s beats. This was clearly added to the list by someone largely unfamiliar with the best of what hip hop has to offer.
Tortoise
2/5
Best Song: Glass Museum. Nicely proggy in a way that didn't overstay its welcome. I especially liked the xylophone(?) as the counterpoint to the heavier guitar rhythms.
Worst Song: Djed. Sounds like a dystopian cartoon war played out on an old CRT TV.
Overall: Another example of an album that feels like it needs to be "experimental" so badly that it can't tolerate to linger on an interesting. With an album like this, I always wonder what its fans are doing while they listen to it. What situation is enhanced by this?
Thelonious Monk
3/5
Best Song: Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are. I lack the vocabulary to describe why I found this nice.
Worst Song: I Surrender, Dear. The piano alone make this track feel too empty relative to the rest of the album.
Overall: Pleasant, unassuming jazz for the background. Not particularly exciting, bordering on too sleepy. Fine music for reading.
Joan Armatrading
3/5
Best Song: Love And Affection. My enjoyment of this song was almost ruined by that man's voice coming in with the entirely unnecessary, cartoonishly deep bass, but the rest of the song was really lovely.
Worst Song: Somebody Who Loves You. It didn't feel like her voice was allowed to resonate as well in this track as in the others.
Overall: She's got a really pleasant voice and the songs feel really accessible. Nothing that'll blow your socks off, but I also get the sense that that wasn't the goal. Will definitely be returning to this for good Summer/Fall background music.
4/5
Best Song: Good Old Days. Started out with a killer groove, had a great bass solo, descended into a satisfying cacophony, and then came back to land on that groove again.
Worst Song: Space Church. This one definitely felt like one of those songs that was all wailing intro and outro, but with no actual song in the middle.
Overall: This is pretty fucking rad. Sure it sometimes sounds like noise, but it's always a very musical noise. I can imagine that your perception of this album really depends on your mood at the time of listening, because it sometimes feels like it's equally optimized to both induce and relieve anxiety, but when you're in the right mood it feels like someone pressure-washing the inside of your skull, finding all sorts of nooks and crannies that you didn't even know existed, let alone needed to be scratched. Factory reset music.
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
Best Song: Bonde. I liked the quicker tempo and the overlapping vocals here.
Worst Song: Amandrai. Truly just far too long of a singular groove to maintain interest.
Overall: I'm not a big enough fan of the blues to feel like I've really grasped the heart of this. For me, it's just okay, and a bit overlong.
Depeche Mode
2/5
Best Song: Behind The Wheel. I liked the driving energy of the track, aligning with the lyrical themes.
Worst Song: Little 15. Call me puritanical, but I immediately balk at any pop/rock songs sung by middle aged men about under-aged girls. Whatchu singing about them girls for?
Overall: Music from this era of synth-pop must have the greatest gulf between how sexy it is desperately trying to be and how sexy is actually is. Combine that with how Super-Serious everything is presented, it's hard not to find the whole album unintentionally goofy.
The Byrds
2/5
Best Song: I Am a Pilgrim. I like country music insofar as it seems like it could be sung around a campfire. It's music that needs to be humble to be worth it.
Worst Song: The Christian Life. I can't tell if this song is a satirical send-up of Christian Americana or an earnest instantiation of it, and honestly I don't know how much that really matters if the end result is the same.
Overall: My impression of The Byrds is that they're a band that history seems determined to label as greater than they actually are. Maybe this was once revelatory, but now it just feels like stock-standard honk and tonk.
Brian Eno
3/5
Best Song: St. Elmo's Fire. It feels like a song from a show that has puppets, but in a good way.
Worst Song: Little Fishes. This sounds like your character in an 8-bit video game about farming just ate a bad mushroom and now they're dealing with the consequences until they can sleep it off.
Overall: It's certainly got a calming quality, to the extent that it was as though I kept forgetting that I was listening to music. Slippery music. Music that evades conscious attention.
Tricky
3/5
Best Song: Black Steel. The rock vibe was necessary to bring a bit of life to such an understated album.
Worst Song: Pumpkin. The guy with the creaky vocal fry ruined an otherwise fine track.
Overall: The vibes are nice and the female vocalist is great, but boy if that dude doesn't spoil the fun every time he hops on the mic. Otherwise, the lo-fi trip-hop starts to lose its lustre about halfway through.
The Beta Band
3/5
Best Song: Squares. Nice intro to the album. Feels like it aspires to be a Bond song.
Worst Song: Eclipse. The phrasing on some of the vocals on this track seem intentionally bad.
Overall: Very unobtrusive, vaguely groovy background music. Not so interesting that I would actively listen to it, but fun enough to throw on while doing other things.
Calexico
2/5
Best Song: Quatro - World Drifts In. Fine indie rock.
Worst Song: Attack! El Robot! Attack! Like a lot of the album, just meh.
Overall: Sure, it's fine, but doesn't a title like "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" imply some degree of elevated quality or uniqueness? The list needs to be at least an order of magnitude larger to warrant this altogether okay album's inclusion.
Bob Dylan
2/5
Best Song: Visions of Johanna. The kind of evocative songwriting and delivery at which Dylan can excel.
Worst Song: Leopard-Skin-Pill-Box Hat. He's just talking over a standard blues progression.
Overall: He's really bluesy here, which isn't a great look for him. Maybe I've grown fatigued of all the Dylan, but I find it difficult to get excited about anything on this album.
Dagmar Krause
2/5
Best Song: The Rat Men. I would have liked a longer version of this one.
Worst Song: Mother Beimleim. I sense this song was intending to be unnerving, and I think it worked too well.
Overall: A weird album to rate. It feels like the soundtrack to a musical, but all of the songs are just these short little snippets that never come from nor go anywhere.
Primal Scream
2/5
Best Song: Trainspotting. Despite its slightly bloated length, I kind of dug the slowly evolving jam of it.
Worst Song: Out of the Void. I truly hate this kind of wispy, come-hither style of singing. I can't help but imagine him singing lustfully from behind a sheer curtain, stroking it softly as though he's doing something enticing.
Overall: Really dated electronic-influenced pop. Can't imagine ever having a distinct reason to return to this over any of its dozens of otherwise indistinguishable peers.
Tom Waits
5/5
Best Song: Jockey Full Of Bourbon. No one else sounds like this. To me, this sounds like good ideas, bad intentions. I love the character of this song. Very close second to "Tango Till They're Sore".
Worst Song: 9th & Hennepin. This kind of spoken word kind of interrupts the flow of the album. I think this could have been a good closer for the album, but it distracts right in the middle.
Overall: Probably my favourite Tom Waits album. Everything about this album is brilliant. The way it alternates between these moments of carnivalesque silliness to indulgent melancholy, all dripping with Waits's unique mix of booze and blues. The way that the lyrics are as just idiosyncratic and characterful as his melodies. And especially the way he dips into atonal, sometimes almost amusical choices in such a way that he somehow makes even those moments of ugliness feel beautiful. Fantastic.
Magazine
2/5
Best Song: Shot by Both Sides. There was a driving, punkish energy to this one that was fun.
Worst Song: Parade. Ahh, the classic 80s British maneuver: a man talking in a vaguely musical way.
Overall: Largely clunky and forgettable British post-punk. Not as offensively dull as most of its cohort, but also not particularly interesting.
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
Best Song: I Luv U. This is the kind of high-energy, in your face vibe that I'm looking for in a grime track.
Worst Song: Jezebel. This kind of slow and bouncy track is exactly the kind of thing I don't like.
Overall: It's fun, and there are a few songs on here that absolutely buzz, but there are too many middling tracks for it really to stand out.
The Prodigy
3/5
Best Song: Voodoo People. Just the right amount of groovy.
Worst Song: Poison. That "Yeah" sample really wasn't doing it for me.
Overall: Fine enough for having in the background while working or doing something else, but there are too few standout tracks to make it that interesting to return to.
Moby Grape
2/5
Best Song: Lazy Me. It was lyrically fun, and well-delivered.
Worst Song: Rounder (instrumental). This is just a generic jam track.
Overall: It's fun enough, but I also would have been okay with this being lost to the annals of history. I'm sure it was a great time for all members involved, but it lacks the kind of importance or interest that I would expect from a list like this.
Norah Jones
3/5
Best Song: Don't Know Why. The quintessential meet-cute song.
Worst Song: The Long Day is Over. Ignoring the petty meta-textual reason not to like this song (why have a song called "The Long Day is Over" not be the final song in the album?) it's just the album at its most sleepiness when it could really use some pep.
Overall: A lovely, quiet album. The vocals are obviously the star here, but the arrangements really help push the quality of her voice to the fore. That said, the album has a kind of sleepy sameness that makes it hard to stay excited about as it in the latter half as in the first. Still, good for quiet evenings.
Pink Floyd
2/5
Best Song: Bike. This song has a kind of appealing inanity to it.
Worst Song: Pow R. Toc. H. That intro was just annoying.
Overall: I certainly I understand that this album, among Pink Floyd's other albums, were extremely influential in how rock (progressive and otherwise) developed in the time since... But that doesn't make this all that fun or revelatory to listen to in 2025. A lot of it is cacophonous or discordant, meandering around in a dozen different directions, without any seemingly great reason for being so.
Air
3/5
Best Song: Highschool Lover. A short song with nice bass and a discernible melody.
Worst Song: Suicide Underground. This feels like it is aspiring more to be "art" than it is to be "music".
Overall: An album so understated, it sometimes seems to cease to exist. It felt like it finally started to come to life in the second half, but that only makes me wonder why it took so long to get there.
Sonic Youth
2/5
Best Song: Schizophrenia. This track had a nice compromise between the low droning of the rhythm section and the lighter, floating guitar melodies. Really wished the whole album was more like this.
Worst Song: Kotton Krown. This kind of nasal, sullen-teenager style of delivery is not doing it for me.
Overall: A sleepy, medicated album that showed basically everything it had to offer in the first three songs, but the longer you listen to it, the more it feels like you're listening to the album underwater, and you begin to suspect you drank too much cough syrup.
Santana
4/5
Best Song: Samba Pa Ti. There is a really gentle sweetness to the guitar here, especially in the intro sections, that I loved.
Worst Song: Singing Winds, Crying Beasts. Not a bad song, but it felt like more of an extended introduction to the album than a meaningful song in its own right.
Overall: I mean, Carlos Santana is just really fucking good at the guitar, but what I particularly liked about this album, relative to other "guitar-heavy" offerings, is that it felt like the non-guitar instrumentals were allowed to shine in a way that further elevated the guitar. In that way, the album didn't feel like an excuse to show off as a guitar virtuoso, but as an integrated effort to really make the instrument sing.
Hanoi Rocks
2/5
Best Song: Until I Get You. Mopey lyrics, but the layered vocals were pretty good.
Worst Song: Tooting Bec Wreck. Formulaic dork rock.
Overall: This feels like music that's intended to be played in stadiums but is written and performed by a group that can only book dive bars. The ambitions and theatrics far exceed the quality of the music, and the resulting discordance is ugly to listen to.
Common
3/5
Best Song: The Light. Great vibe, excellent chorus.
Worst Song: A Film Called (PIMP). Much too slow, and has probably the worst chorus and feature on the album.
Overall: Common has a great flow, and the whole album has a relaxed, rolling rhythm to it. That said, it is overly long, and starts to lose its appeal due to the long runtime.
Supergrass
3/5
Best Song: Richard III. Good temp, forward-leaning rock.
Worst Song: Sometimes I Make You Sad. Far too muddy.
Overall: Much better than I anticipated. This was a fun, rollicking little album. Nothing I'm likely to remember in even a day or two, but sufficiently entertaining while it's here. This sounds like music I'd be happy to spontaneously see live, but wouldn't necessarily buy tickets to see. Festival find type of music.
Kings of Leon
3/5
Best Song: Sex on Fire. I like the desperation and intensity that this track has.
Worst Song: 17. The lilting vocal inflections were so extreme on this song it felt like I couldn't understand the majority of what was said. But, since what I did understand included the kickoff of "Oh, she's only 17", I probably don't need to hear the rest.
Overall: A decent album that got massively overplayed for a while. The particular vocal schtick, which can best be described as "whiny crooning" really loses its lustre after the first few tracks.
Gotan Project
3/5
Best Song: Santa Maria (del Buen Ayre). Nice and groovy.
Worst Song: La Del Ruso. A bit too jazzy for my taste.
Overall: Very chill, relaxed album. Nice for having on in the background or while working, but also not so special that I'll come back to it often.
Tito Puente
3/5
Best Song: Hong Kong Mambo. Rarely do you get a song where the xylophone is the star, so this was a treat.
Worst Song: Estoy Siempre Junto a Ti. Just far too "big band" for me.
Overall: It's fine, although I do find it funny what constituted "Dance Mania" in this era. Ultimately, not my style of music, but music I might enjoy listening to in the sun nonetheless.
Common
3/5
Best Song: They Say. As much as I hate to admit it, Kanye's got a decent feature here, and the vibes are immaculate.
Worst Song: Testify. Although I really like the chorus, the way the female vocals compete with Common's vocals during the verses sounds really busy and clumsy in a way that makes me feel like I can't focus on either part properly.
Overall: About the same as the other Common album on this list. Something about his style and delivery feels relaxing and welcoming to me, while also not being so revelatory that I think to come back to it ever. Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type music.
Garbage
3/5
Best Song: Stupid Girl. What a great, snarky chorus.
Worst Song: Fix Me Now. The vocals seemed so turned down and fuzzy that they were barely present.
Overall: Good but not great. It has a certain dirty/grungy quality that makes it enjoyable, but it lists too aimlessly between a yearning to be raw punk and a need to be approachable, meaning that it ends up relatively milquetoast.
Fleetwood Mac
2/5
Best Song: Tusk. Finally, a song that feels lively and energetic and unique.
Worst Song: That's Enough For Me. A weirdly spastic little song that stands out egregiously in an otherwise fairly smooth album.
Overall: It is a very long album, and one which lacks many of their biggest hits. I also got the feeling that the instrumentals often felt like they were fighting for attention with Stevie Nicks' vocals, whereas I feel like her vocals ought to be the focus of any Fleetwood Mac album.
Taylor Swift
3/5
Best Song: Out Of The Woods. I like the layered rhythms and the driving chorus, but I think the writing in this song is the best on the album, from even just a purely aesthetic view. The staccato feeling of "are we out of the woods"and "are we in the clear yet" really gives a feeling of running and driving purpose.
Worst Song: Bad Blood. I really dislike the chorus, especially how it sounds like it was designed to be sung by a crowd and therefore can't stand up on its own merits.
Overall: A very solid pop album, although it does feel like a mix of megahits and forgettable tracks. Lyrically and tonally it is pretty one-note, but it does that note pretty well.
King Crimson
3/5
Best Song: Book of Saturday. Nice vocals, and maintains the prog rock feel without having to indulge in a 10 minute meandering mess.
Worst Song: Meandering Drum. A song that really thought it was doing more than it was. The titular drum was cool, but didn't play as much of a role as it ought to have. And then it concludes with this annoyingly spastic burst.
Overall: It's alright. Doubt I'll listen to it again, but I didn't hate it.
The Last Shadow Puppets
4/5
Best Song: Standing Next To Me. Loved the rolling rhythm on this one.
Worst Song: The Chamber. Not terrible, but just a bit too ordinary.
Overall: Alex Turner just has such a lovely voice. There is a wonderful energy throughout the album. really enjoyed it and will definitely be coming back to listen to it.
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
Best Song: All Along the Watchtower. Hendrix's best song, in my opinion. Truly trumps the original and has a brilliant power, especially in the vocals.
Worst Song: Moon, Turn the Tides...Gently Gently Away. This shouldn't even count as a track. It's just an interrupting series of noise that kills the momentum of the album.
Overall: Pretty quintessential classic rock. The whole album just sounds cool. Vocally, instrumentally, it just drips with this unique bravado.
Anita Baker
3/5
Best Song: Sweet Love. Nice sultry voice, with a soaring chorus.
Worst Song: Watch Your Step. I think I had maybe just grown tired of these kinds of ballads by this point in the album.
Overall: An album that feels both dated and sanitized. Something about the "softness" of the ballads undercut any attempts they made at evoking any emotion. There is a sort of quiet groove that runs through the album, but it's not enough to engage your attention for very long.
Stevie Wonder
3/5
Best Song: Superstition. Sure it has been overplayed, especially in films, but that bassline really is iconic.
Worst Song: You've Got it Bad Girl. I wasn't crazy about the staccato lead into the (lackluster) chorus.
Overall: It's got that saccharine quality of a lot of Stevie Wonder's stuff, but it also lacks a lot of the earworm catchiness of his better work. Fine to listen to if its on, but hard to imagine not picking a better Stevie Wonder album if you have a choice.
Emmylou Harris
2/5
Best Song: Boulder to Birmingham. There's some nice storytelling here.
Worst Song: Hank and Lefty. Far too honky tonk country.
Overall: I thought I liked her voice at first, but then the monotony of this slow, sad country wore me down. She seems talented, but this is not my kind of music. Music to be chaste and wistful to. Music for slowdancing alone in a barn.
The Cramps
2/5
Best Song: I Was A Teenage Werewolf. I kind of like the buzzing in the guitars, but not much else.
Worst Song: The Mad Daddy. The B-52s really convinced a whole subset of musicians that they could also pull off that stuttering vocal delivery and make it sound cool. Spoiler: they couldn't.
Overall: Another Brit punk offering of what feel like dozens of identical tiny songs. Can't ever imagine returning to this.
Ash
2/5
Best Song: Angel Interceptor. I liked the running bassline.
Worst Song: Kung Fu. This feels like a bunch of dorks trying to write what they hope will be a hit track with the mainstream public.
Overall: It's inoffensive, but it kind of just feels like discount Weezer. Music for 90s film protagonists who, despite having no redeeming qualities, are determined to Get The Girl by the end of the movie.
The Fall
1/5
Best Song: None.
Worst Song: Light/Fireworks. This one is somehow the least "song" of all of these barely songs.
Overall: Who likes this? The band is playing utterly ordinary jam music, while this guy just speaks over top of it. And, he neither speaks with even an ounce of musicality, nor does he seem to make any effort to articulate well enough that you can actually understand what he's saying. I doubt that he has much meaningful to say.
Dennis Wilson
2/5
Best Song: Time. I really liked the brass section, and the way the song built to a satisfying conclusion.
Worst Song: School Girl. I don't need this grown man to be longingly singing about school girls. Nobody needs that.
Overall: The despair I felt when I saw that this album was two hours long. It had well made its point by the 30 minute mark, yet for some godforsaken reason felt the need to repeat itself with minor variations for another 90. There's a song called "End of the Show" that takes place fully before the halfway point. There's a whole song about how love "remembers" him, which is then immediately followed by a song about how love also "surrounds" him. When paired with the album art, this feels like an album which the artist forces you to listen to in its entirety without comment, after which he gently kills you in cold blood. It doesn't even raise his blood pressure.
The Modern Lovers
2/5
Best Song: Roadrunner. It has a sort of likeable, throwback vibe to it.
Worst Song: Dance With Me. What a terrible idea to isolate and focus a song entirely on the vocals, which are clearly the worst part of the entire album.
Overall: Ahh, another song from "The Fall" school of talk-singing. Totally skippable, uninteresting droning.
T. Rex
2/5
Best Song: Get It On. It's fun, the brass is bombastic, and the line "Get it on, bang a gong" goes hard.
Worst Song: Girl. Wasn't a big fan of the do-do-do-do-do-dos.
Overall: Largely forgettable dadrock. As inoffensive as it is unexciting.
Brian Eno
3/5
Best Song: 2/1. Maybe the most "forward" of the tracks here.
Worst Song: 2/2. Sounded a bit too much like musicians warming up their instruments.
Overall: I mean, it's ambient, so it feels like there inherently isn't that much to say about it. It succeeds at what I feel like it is attempting to do. It lies gently in the background, and I think subtly augments an already relaxed setting.
Julian Cope
2/5
Best Song: You... The saxophone gave some well-needed energy to this otherwise stagnant album.
Worst Song: Hung Up And Hanging Out To Dry. Everything that happens in this song sounds like it happens accidentally.
Overall: Nothing against him, but this just sounds like a regular guy? This feels like a weekend garage project. He's got some decent, stock-standard dude rock, and I love that for him, but what about any of this is so important that it ought to be included on a list called "1001 albums to hear before you die?" Somehow, I feel like even the artist would be confused by his own entry. And for the love of Christ, 29 songs?
Aerosmith
2/5
Best Song: Dulcimer/The Other Side. The bari-sax carries a lot of the weight here.
Worst Song: Going Down/Love in an Elevator. A song whose whole existence is built around this one gimmick, and the gimmick is stupid.
Overall: The whole album feels like an exercise in missing the mark. It tries to be sexy but ends up just being horny in a way that feels sexually predatory. It tries to be slick, but it comes off as greasy. Music that makes you feel like you need to take a shower.
Abdullah Ibrahim
3/5
Best Song: Manenberg Revisited. Maybe because it had the most listens, I was biased to like this one the most.
Worst Song: None?
Overall: Extremely relaxed, background sort of jazz album. It sat so far in the background (and outside of my typical genres) that I didn't realize when the album had ended and Spotify had begun to play another artist entirely. That said, I didn't hate what I heard.
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
Best Song: tonite. LCD Soundsystem is fantastic at making songs that evoke (melodically and lyrically) the bittersweet ephemerality of just having a good fucking time.
Worst Song: black screen. It feels like he lost the plot on this one, and instead of building to any satisfying crescendo, it just languishes in this fuzzy, noisy mood. Anticlimactic ending to an album.
Overall: For how basic it is, I can't help but enjoy the melancholy of LCD Soundsystem. Some of his songs linger too long in this kind of boring "jam" space, but the slow buildups he makes when everything is hitting have this wonderful feeling of inevitability, like the internal pressure of tears that you both need and don't want to bubble up to the surface.
Killing Joke
3/5
Best Song: Change. That underlying groove had a really great tension to it. This kind of underlying, latent energy that felt ready to explode at any moment. Slight disappointment that they never really did anything interesting with it.
Worst Song: Wardance. I'm sure that vocal effect seemed cool at the time, but for me it was just annoying.
Overall: Totally ordinary punk rock. Neither hated it nor loved it.
The Undertones
2/5
Best Song: My Perfect Cousin. How lovely, a song about me.
Worst Song: See That Girl. What an obnoxious rhythm.
Overall: Yet another mediocre (at best) album that's inexplicably included on a list of only 1001 albums to hear before I die. It is incredible to imagine the mountain of creative works that were left off this list to make way for another forgettable UK band.
David Bowie
3/5
Best Song: The Stars (Are Out Tonight). A good upbeat rock song that fits Bowie's dwindling vocal capabilities.
Worst Song: Heat. I dislike the "I'm about to cry" affectation he's putting on in this song.
Overall: There is a nice, melancholy thread that runs through the album. Nothing stands out as being particularly extraordinary, but there's clearly been a great deal of work done on the production side.
The Killers
3/5
Best Song: All These Things That I've Done. I've always liked the "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier" repetition, cheesy as it may be.
Worst Song: Everything Will Be Alright. I bet this seemed like a better idea on paper than it turned out to be in practice. The excessive repetition with different intonations comes off as more inane than inspirational.
Overall: Certainly there are some songs on here that were so massively played as to be unavoidable, which makes it difficult to listen with anything approaching new ears. Nevertheless, the big songs have a pleasant sing-along quality, and the B-sides are good enough to not annoy. Pretty good pop-rock, overall.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
Best Song: Respect. It doesn't matter that this song has been played a billion times; it has such a timeless quality that I could hear it a billion more and still enjoy it. A song that truly succeeds at evoking feelings of righteousness and self-worth.
Worst Song: Don't Let Me Lose This Dream. The support vocalists end up drowning out too much of Aretha's voice.
Overall: She has maybe the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. And each song feels like it is perfectly situated, staying out of the way and letting her voice shine. Some of the best that soul has to offer.
Dr. Octagon
3/5
Best Song: Bear Witness. The scratching on this track is on another level.
Worst Song: A Visit To The Gynecologyst. Strangely, I'm not a huge fan of perverse medical Mickey Mouse.
Overall: A really weird grab-bag of ideas. Honestly, I loved lots of the sampling and scratching, and even the floating, free-association rap style was good. Sadly, a lot of the sex humour feels really dated, and you just have to kind of cringe until its over and you can get back to the good parts. Still, I appreciate this level of dedication to silliness, and it is still a listenable album.
Beastie Boys
2/5
Best Song: B-Boy Bouillabaisse: A Year And A Day. At least the instrumentals are mixed loud enough to compete with (drown out?) the vocals.
Worst Song: Hey Ladies. Screeching "hey ladies" is lyrically too on-point to match the rest of the vibe here.
Overall: For me, the Beastie Boys are so fucking annoying. There is no music more obnoxious than a Beastie Boys album. All their songs sound basically the same: a group of the worst men you know trying to simultaneously shout shit at you using only their nasal cavities will the most attention-deficit among them plays with a radio DJ's soundboard. At least it's playful, and sometimes the beats are enjoyable, because otherwise it's just an assault
Alice Cooper
3/5
Best Song: My Stars. I really liked that ascending piano run.
Worst Song: Public Animal #9. I cringe at these kinds of songs whose core conceit is "look at what a bad boy I am".
Overall: Surprisingly fun and jazzy, given the image that Alice Cooper presents. The opening track is a meme, but the rest is actually quite solid. It is funny to see how what was once considered scandalously edgy now feels like the safest of dad-rock, but we can't blame Alice for the passing of time.
Tori Amos
4/5
Best Song: Happy Phantom. Playful melodies and a great interplay between her vocals and the piano. Close second to "Leather".
Worst Song: Silent All These Years. A little too "Hallmark movie".
Overall: What seemed at first glance to be a collection of relatively ordinary pop songs in actuality turned out to be a diverse set of unique and wonderful glimpses of originality. She is clearly very talented, both in vocal ability and songwriting prowess.
The Undertones
2/5
Best Song: Teenage Kicks. I do like the punk aesthetic mixed with the most corny and saccharine lyrics.
Worst Song: True Confessions. The warble in his voice is really warbling on this one.
Overall: They're not bad, but they also kind of sound like a budget Dead Kennedy's, even down to the vocal timbre of the lead singer. And even though the album isn't particularly long, the sameness of all the little songs makes it feel much longer than it is. Just go listen to a Dead Kennedy's album instead.
Paul McCartney
2/5
Best Song: Maybe I'm Amazed. This song is so obviously better than all the others here. McCartney actually brings some vocal energy and passion to his delivery.
Worst Song: Kreen-Akore. What a brilliant way to kill all the energy of the previous track.
Overall: One of the least cohesive albums I've heard on this list. Every track feels entirely unrelated to the others, making each song transition a jarring experience. Beyond that, none of the tracks are individually very interesting.
Wilco
3/5
Best Song: Someone Else's Song. This has a nice, Johnny Cash quality to it. Sparse yet thoughtful.
Worst Song: Sunken Treasure. What a cacophonous and ugly outro.
Overall: A relatively ordinary album that's overly long. I liked some of their more creative songs, but too many just floated in this vague, uninteresting middle-space between country and alt-rock.
4/5
Best Song: Samba do Gringo Paulista. What an absolutely electric groove track. a heady, enveloping wall of sound.
Worst Song: Pecados Da Madrugada. I lack the musical vocabulary to articulate what I disliked about the tone of the guitar used on this track, but boy did I dislike it.
Overall: This was fantastic. I've not listened to anything quite like it. Wonderful production, underpinned by (usually) great vocals and instrumentation. A really exciting new find for me.
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3/5
Best Song: Helter Skelter. A good cover of an already great song.
Worst Song: Nicotine Stain. The lilting wasn't particularly working for me.
Overall: Everything has that kind of dull, 70s-rock feel to it. The vocals are great, but they sometimes have a vocal phrasing that reminded me of the B-52s in a bad way. I'm sure it was fun at the time, but not really that interesting to me now.
Pet Shop Boys
2/5
Best Song: Being Boring. I think I liked this more simply because it was the first song, before I grew tired of the schtick.
Worst Song: To Face The Truth. Another case of the Pet Shop Boys sounding like they're singing the song they sing right before they murder you.
Overall: Everything about this album feels dated. I don't like the campy theatricality of it. The contrast between big production and stage-whisper vocals never worked for me. Not an album I'll be returning to.
Eminem
3/5
Best Song: My Name Is. An iconic, quotable track.
Worst Song: Guilty Conscience. What a weird narrative device.
Overall: Definitely a lot of dated stuff here. A lot of the lyrics and the skits (especially the ones that don't even exist between songs, but actually interrupt them) are cringe-worthy. He's about as interesting as a shock jock here, as his main goal seems to be to say something gross or provocative just to elicit a reaction. This album really shows how the rap speed and lyrical cleverness that Eminem is associated with emerged later in his career. Here he mostly just sounds juvenile, in every sense of the word.
Cream
3/5
Best Song: Sunshine Of Your Love. There is a reason that this is the one song that most people have heard off of this album. It has a perfectly simple guitar lick, echoed by the bass, and overlain with some great vocals.
Worst Song: Blue Condition. What a dull and sleepy rhythm.
Overall: Classic rock that sometimes breaks the mold to do something with a bit more passion or experimentalism than some of its contemporaries. It isn't the most exciting album to listen to in (current year), but it has a certain fine-aged quality to it.
Barry Adamson
2/5
Best Song: Under Wraps. The track that is most capable of standing on its own merits.
Worst Song: Free At Last. This just doesn't make any sense as a song! It only makes sense in accompanying the imaginary imagery that no one can see!
Overall: Reading that this album was designed as the artist's attempt to show that they were capable of writing a soundtrack for a film makes a lot of sense, because it sounds like a film soundtrack, but it also makes no goddamn sense, because why would I want to listen to the soundtrack to an imaginary movie? A soundtrack exists in service of another artform. It has no value existing on its own. I want to listen to this in the same way that I want to read menus for restaurants that don't exist.
Björk
3/5
Best Song: Atom Dance. The inclusion of a second voice to contrast Bjork was welcome.
Worst Song: Family. This song felt like the first time where I could begin to understand some of the criticism people levy against Bjork. Some of her vocal phrasing has this repetitive, stuttering quality to it that makes you wish that she would just sing the line outright.
Overall: Experimental and weird. Bjork remains a cool and unique artist, even if sometimes the experiments don't always pan out into the most listenable experiences. I liked it, but less than I liked her other albums on this list.
Elbow
3/5
Best Song: One Day Like This. This song successfully manages to feel "anthemic". Everything from the opening strings, to the chorus on "throw those curtains wide...". It all just works.
Worst Song: Some Riot. This one leans with all its weight on a sense of melodrama, and the melodrama can barely sustain its weight.
Overall: Everything in this album is produced very "big", which works some of the time, but at other times it gives some tracks an inflated sense of self-importance. It has a tendency towards being overwrought, but there are some gems nonetheless.
Foo Fighters
3/5
Best Song: This Is a Call. You can see glimpses here of what went on to become the Foo Fighters recipe for success: starting soft and continuously raising the musical stakes of the song until it ends in a much louder, more blistering place than where it started.
Worst Song: X-Static. I'm very glad that the Foo didn't go in this mumble-rock direction for the rest of their career.
Overall: As someone who went through a bit of a Foo Fighters phase when they were younger, I expected to like this more. It turns out I mostly listened to stuff from later in their career. Here, it feels like Dave Grohl is still stuck a bit in the past, making a sort of Nirvana-lite (especially in the vocal department). It's not bad, but also not so exciting. Just generic.
The Psychedelic Furs
2/5
Best Song: Pretty in Pink. It has that kind of medicated, sleepy, background quality that makes it okay.
Worst Song: I Wanna Sleep With You. Would it be an early 80s British song if it didn't include a song that sounded like it was specifically written to be used in a subway murder?
Overall: Great, another 80s British Bowie impersonation. But hey, at least this one has a saxophone! And honestly, the saxophone does make the whole thing a little bit more palatable.
Röyksopp
4/5
Best Song: Eple. It just feels like surfing through clouds.
Worst Song: Sparks. A bit too slow relative to the preceding two songs, and I wasn't the hugest fan of the inclusion of vocals. The beats suffice on their own.
Overall: Really fantastic, groovy music. I mostly preferred the vocal-free tracks, but altogether the album presents a great, relaxed vibe.
Eminem
3/5
Best Song: Stan. A phenomenal example of storytelling in a song. Went on to have huge culture impact.
Worst Song: Kim. No one wants to listen to a domestic violence skit with a terribly sung chorus.
Overall: A weird album that shows Eminem's immense talent and quirkiness, but then also his immaturity on other tracks. There's a sort of irony in an album containing a song like "Stan", which expertly points out the problems with fan culture and the way that his fans in particular are prone to misunderstanding his lyrics, and then on that same album having "Kim", which never contains even a wink or nod to acknowledge that the song might be about anything other than the legitimacy of violent misogyny. Hard to blame fans for missing satire and subtext when the actual text is so loud and clear.
G. Love & Special Sauce
2/5
Best Song: Cold Beverage. If this were playing in the background of an outdoor beer festival, I would consider it apropos.
Worst Song: Fatman. There are some segments on this one where the singer (G. Love?) seems outright determined to demonstrate that he doesn't have the vocal chops to pull off the song.
Overall: The vocals aren't great for either blues or rap, which is really unfortunate for a Blues-Rap fusion album.
Fats Domino
4/5
Best Song: Blue Monday. You can really here the beautiful quality of his voice on this track, the compliment of the sax works fantastically, and the rhythm section provides a nice, energetic backing. Great all around.
Worst Song: The Fat Man's Hop. Great title, no vocals.
Overall: Great vocals. What I also like is that the album seems to be mixed in accordance with the understanding here that the Fats Domino's vocals are the most important part. He doesn't have to fight against the backing instrumentals; they simply hold him up and stay out of the way.
The Verve
2/5
Best Song: On Your Own. There's something comforting about this kind of soft, 90s boy melancholy.
Worst Song: Stormy Clouds. It was about this point in the album that I realized how done I was with the monotony.
Overall: Real generic. Nothing to hate, but not much even to like.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
Best Song: Cinnamon Girl. I have fond memories of hearing this song on the radio as I drove through the prairies.
Worst Song: Running Dry. Ol' Neil really needs a bit more tempo in his songs. This plodding pace does his voice no favours.
Overall: It's pretty good. Not my favourite of Neil Young's offerings, so I really doubt it needed to be included on this list, but it was still alright to listen to.
Traffic
3/5
Best Song: Feelin' Alright. I could imagine that this is great summertime music. Driving, countryside music.
Worst Song: Vagabond Virgin. Really failed attempt at a storytelling song. The story is not compelling, nor is the talk-singing. The flute was alright though.
Overall: Most of the vocals on here are really fantastic. I love that style of almost shout-singing. The rest is pretty standard classic rock fare, but it has enough energy to make it worthwhile.
Mott The Hoople
2/5
Best Song: All the Way from Memphis. Some actual rock and roll that sadly did not show up again for the remainder of the album.
Worst Song: I'm A Cadillac. Truly no reason for this song to linger and meander so long.
Overall: Another week, another Bowie imitator. Everything is overly dramatic and saccharine, or its just not that interesting to even warrant your attention. Supremely skippable.
Flamin' Groovies
2/5
Best Song: Whiskey Woman. The guitar work here was the best on the album.
Worst Song: Evil Hearted Ada. Nobody needs this Elvis impersonation.
Overall: This just feels like the Rolling Stones - a band I already don't particularly like - without the hits. I just can't get over how none of the tracks have any of the passion of true blues, nor any of the enery of rock. The worst of both worlds. Mostly boring while being occasionally unpleasant.
The Mothers Of Invention
2/5
Best Song: Anyway The Wind Blows. A short song with some structure.
Worst Song: Wowie Zowie. Really just an annoying chorus.
Overall: One of those albums where it feels like the musicians are probably having more fun than anyone listening to the album. Good for them, not so great for us.
The Temptations
3/5
Best Song: Cloud Nine. I liked the building crescendo to kick off the song/album.
Worst Song: I Heard It Through The Grapevine. It's just all around worse than the original and many of the more famous covers.
Overall: Pleasant but unexciting. It verged too far into the psychedelic realm for me, whereas I wished it stayed more in the Motown/soul area.
Beatles
4/5
Best Song: Oh! Darling. Perhaps the best vocal performance in the entire Beatles oeuvre. It perfectly pulls off that desperate, yearning quality in the lyrics. It truly feels like he's begging to be taken back.
Worst Song: Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Ooh they do a hammer noise, how quirky.
Overall: A great, albeit weird album. For every brilliant, genre-defining track, that is performed with precision and passion you also get some inane meme song that feels like it was written as the theme for a 60s children's television character. Why must I wander through the Octopus's garden on the way on the way to Something?
2/5
Best Song: I'm Coming Over. This is the kind of short, punchy track that the whole album should have been. Any more than 90 seconds and each other song has worn out its welcome.
Worst Song: White Girl. Who wants to listen to a bunch of white people singing about getting a white girl?
Overall: Meh rock. There's a lot better music available that makes the inclusion of this album a strange decision.
Justin Timberlake
3/5
Best Song: Rock Your Body. It's just a great dance song of the era. The call-and-response of the chorus is especially good.
Worst Song: Never Again. What a strange choice to end this pop-dance album with a weepy ballad.
Overall: Some catchy pop hits here, but there's also something grisly about the duds that never made it big. Something about this style/era of music, which is all about shooting for mega hits, that makes the failures somehow feel even more bleak.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Best Song: War Pigs. I love how bluesy this track is, and how heavily the guitars drip onto the tight, running bassline. Every member of the band manages to stand out here.
Worst Song: Planet Caravan. I appreciate the attempt, but I don't think this soft ballad was needed in an album like this.
Overall: Great. Musically great, tonally great, thematically great. Ozzy's voice is maybe at its best here, and some of the solos (guitar and drums) absolutely fucking rip. Apart from the one blemish in "Planet Caravan", an album that's meant to be played loud.
Astrud Gilberto
2/5
Best Song: Tristeza. This song had the most upbeat, forward-leaning energy on the album, so it was much needed.
Worst Song: Parade (A Banda). Outside of viewing an actual parade, I'm not sure I ever really want to hear parade music.
Overall: Alternation between quietly pleasant, albeit overly weepy, songs and then just straight up annoyingly "cute" songs. I don't need to listen to a duet with a child, telling them how good a job they're doing. Needed more teeth in the editing phase.
Gang Starr
3/5
Best Song: Lovesick. Perfectly laidback, relaxed. Chill as hell.
Worst Song: Game Plan. Don't know if this even counts as a track, but it's just 70 seconds of wasted space on the album.
Overall: Pretty decent. It feels dated in a neutral way. Definitely "of an era", but fun enough that I could imagine coming back to it.
Venom
3/5
Best Song: Don't Burn the Witch. A really solid groove here.
Worst Song: At War With Satan. Extremely corny to end with this goofy little LARP.
Overall: It is easy to hear how this album planted the creative seeds that spawned a lot of my favourite artists. That said, it suffers somewhat from the success of its successors, as their speed, vigour, and intensity work backwards in time to make this seem slower, quieter, and paler retroactively.
Janet Jackson
2/5
Best Song: Rhythm Nation. Steel drums and a danceable rhythm counts for something.
Worst Song: Livin' In A World. Who are these cheesy ballads for? When would I want to listen to this? Were people in the 80s just looking through rain-speckled windows, feeling heavy emotions?
Overall: This feels like a distillation of late 80s pop. Nothing really sticks out. It all just reads as a continuous panache of big 80s production. Some might say too big. I am some. I didn't like this.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
Best Song: Heads Will Roll. Really slick, ethereal feeling. I with the rest of the album had leaned as hard into the pseudo-electronic aesthetic as this song did.
Worst Song: Shame & Fortune. Felt like very cookie-cutter rock, wherein they felt like the guitar hook was a lot catchier than it really was.
Overall: A delightful pop-rock album. Many of the songs sounds similar enough that it starts to sound a bit monotonous, but that monotony isn't terrible in this case. Generic in a good way.
The Beach Boys
2/5
Best Song: 'Til I Die. This has that ethereal, wispy vocal quality that I expect from a Beach Boys song.
Worst Song: Student Demonstration Time. The one thing the Beach Boys are good at is their clean vocal harmonies, so why put the vocals behind a buzzy radio filter?
Overall: Based on the view count, this isn't even a popular album amongst Beach Boys fans, so why am I listening to it?
The Fall
1/5
Best Song: Vixen. At least the female vocalist can sing.
Worst Song: Gut of the Quantifier. Jesus the singer is so annoying. The song could have been good without him inanely blurting out whatever the fuck it is he's blurting.
Overall: I hate this band. I've hated the two previous albums of theirs that I've had to listen to on this list, and I hate this one too. The singer is always either just talking - which is uninteresting - or when they're singing it is just this endlessly annoying, whiny repetition of the title of the song.
Iron Maiden
4/5
Best Song: Transylvania. Goddamn this song really jumps into gear at around the 2 minute mark and does not relent.
Worst Song: Charlotte the Harlot. This track deviates the farthest from the "Iron Maiden" sound, enough that it might as well be any other band of the era.
Overall: You can definitely see the bones here of the greatness to come, but sadly Paul Di'Anno can't hold a candle to Bruce Dickinson, so this version of Iron Maiden always feels like it is lacking. Instrumentally it still rips, and Di'Anno's vocals are solid, but he's up against one of the greatest of all time.
The Divine Comedy
2/5
Best Song: Something for the Weekend. This has a lovely, rolling energy to it. Whimsical and playful. Really nice.
Worst Song: Charge. This sounds like three different mediocre theatre songs all merged together into one song that is somehow worse than the sum of its parts.
Overall: Another of those British entries that can be broadly classified as "failed theatre music". Were there just entire decades wherein "camp" was the dominant cultural trend in England?
Frank Ocean
5/5
Best Song: Pink Matter. "Lost" is great in its own right, but that verse by André 3000 is really something else.
Worst Song: none.
Overall: I mean, obviously this is really fucking good. This kind of chunkier, more electronic R&B works so well. The production is phenomenal, Frank Ocean's voice is fantastic, every feature (especially André 3000's) is incredible. An album that accomplishes exactly what it tries to do.
The Icarus Line
3/5
Best Song: Up Against The Wall Motherfucker. Compared to some of the other songs on the album, this one actually had some dynamism; it wasn't full speed all the time.
Worst Song: Meatmaker. What in the Guantanamo Bay is this torture music? It sounds like there's several alarms going in the background.
Overall: Sounds like a dozen other bands. It's not bad, it's just forgettable, and feels a bit generic to that early 00's indie rock sound.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
Best Song: Good Times Bad Times. It's just such a great kickoff to the album, and the guitar solo really sells it for me.
Worst Song: You Shook Me. It's not that it's bad, it just feels like a relatively ordinary blues track, relative to the rest of what's going on here.
Overall: It's good, but it certainly isn't Zeppelin's best. A lot is spent floundering in blues rock, without that extra energy and electricity that makes Zeppelin really work for me.
Deep Purple
4/5
Best Song: Highway Star. Something about that rumbling rhythm really does make this song feel well suited for a highway.
Worst Song: Never Before. This feels a little too chipper. Like they're trying to get pop radio play or something.
Overall: Such an original sound. So crunchy, the piano adds a lot. The whole album is better, and more fun, than I had imagined it would be.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
Best Song: Under The Bridge. An iconic song with a pleasant sense of melancholy, even if I think that the culmination with the choir is overkill.
Worst Song: I Could Have Lied. What insane whiplash to hard cut from "Suck My Kiss" to this melodrama. I feel the irony of the contrasting subject matter is lost on Kiedis.
Overall: Maybe this is in part due to how overplayed the RHCP were during my youth, but I was really struck by how annoying most of the songs here were. Everything is coated in a sort of dude-bro pastiche that often ends up sounding closer to Limp Bizkit than anything else. Some of the hits are still good, and the bass is funky, but Anthony Kiedis as a lead vocalist is mostly just a chore to listen to. The album is also horribly structured, with complete tonal shifts seemingly every other track.
Giant Sand
3/5
Best Song: Shiver. This felt like the most "musical" of these highly poetic tracks.
Worst Song: Satellite. This track really highlighted why the rest of the album had minimal production. This style of delivery does not work with a more rock-style instrumentation.
Overall: This album grew on me over its duration. The soft melancholy delivery and the thoughtful lyrics worked well. It isn't groundbreaking, but it is cozy. That said: I sure as shit don't need two continuous hours of it. No one can sustain that level of melancholy for so long.
Gram Parsons
2/5
Best Song: Love Hurts. A classic song, and Emmylou Harris is a great contribution to the track.
Worst Song: In My Hour of Darkness. I have no interest in listening to this kind of folksy hymn.
Overall: Totally not my genre, and didn't do anything to overcome my initial prejudices.
The Kinks
2/5
Best Song: Picture Book. A relatively fun, carefree song.
Worst Song: All of My Friends Were There. Not a fan of the oom-pa-pa.
Overall: Parts of it are fine, but lots of it is just that kind of annoying "quirkiness" that was unfortunately so popular in the era. Maybe they were influential, but that doesn't make them fun to listen to.
Beck
2/5
Best Song: Que'Onda Guero. It was a real funky beat that complimented Beck's weird delivery.
Worst Song: Farewell Ride. An overly moody yeehaw song about horses with the appropriate number of eyes.
Overall: This is a little bit better than the other Beck I've been offered, but I'm still not much of a fan. There's something grating about this monotone, disaffected quality that pervades all of his vocals. I listen to music to get affected. Give me something to feel for chrissake.
Django Django
4/5
Best Song: Default. I really like the trippy/glitchy elements in combination with the more standard indie rock trappings.
Worst Song: Hand of Man. Just a bit more dull, more ordinary song in the middle of the album.
Overall: Well hell, this was fun. The vocal harmonies were great, but there was also so much more than that. Very mildly psychedelic, filled with neat little bits of experimentation. A cool new discovery for me.
Charles Mingus
4/5
Best Song: Track C - Group Dancers. The flute part was especially good here.
Worst Song: None, really.
Overall: I don't know. I'm not a jazz guy, but I always seem to like Mingus's music. It is pleasantly cacophonous. There's always something interesting happening. It feels exciting, in a way.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
Best Song: Dirrty. Fuck it, it's just a lot of fun. It doesn't belong on this lame duck of an album, but it's fun.
Worst Song: Cruz. Following "Beautiful" with another emotional ballad was an odd choice.
Overall: This feels like an R&B album written and performed by someone who does not principally make R&B music. The genre trappings are there, but it feels like it is lacking a heart and soul. It's also overly long, stuffed full of power ballads, and suffers from the pop album sickness of feeling like just a connection of songs that don't flow into one another at all.
Joe Ely
2/5
Best Song: Boxcars. If the whole album was full of songs like this, it could have been merely boring instead of downright annoying.
Worst Song: Fingernails. Absolute dollar store Jerry Lee Lewis.
Overall: Why is it that the only type of tonk we ever hear of is honky tonk? I find it telling that there are no examples of non-honky tonk.
Sleater-Kinney
3/5
Best Song: Words and Guitar. This feels like one of the more experimental songs on the album.
Worst Song: Buy Her Candy. The energy of this band doesn't suit a slow song like this.
Overall: I was pleasantly surprised by this album. I had never heard of the band and my expectations were low, but it was really punchy and high-energy. The vocals were great too.
Radiohead
3/5
Best Song: Fake Plastic Trees. I would have loved a whole album of just this understated melancholy.
Worst Song: My Iron Lung. This felt like U2 trying to play Nirvana.
Overall: Obviously this is an album with a lot of history, and maybe it is under the weight of those expectations that it fell a bit flat for me. It's not bad, it's quite nice to listen to, but it also has for me a sort of ordinariness that I hoped it wouldn't have, knowing its importance.
John Coltrane
4/5
Best Song: They're all pretty good.
Worst Song: Not a song per se, but I'm not a big fan of the vocals
Overall: I don't consider myself a Jazz Guy, but I've always liked this album. It feels very approachable while still obviously being jazz. There are tons of really satisfying jazz licks, and the drums are really excellent the whole way through.
The Kinks
2/5
Best Song: I'm Not Like Everybody Else. Ignoring the "pick me" energy, there is an intriguing energy in the build-up to each chorus.
Worst Song: Rainy Day in June. What a terrible idea to have just a loud thunderclap in the middle of the song. Even if the recording technology of the time had been good enough (it wasn't), what gimmicky move.
Overall: I did not like the first Kinks album offered to me by this list. I did not like the subsequent Kinks albums offered by this list. I did not like this Kinks album. I hope I receive no more Kinks albums.
Robert Wyatt
2/5
Best Song: The Whole Point Of No Return. The mix of Gregorian-esque chants and trumpets was kind of neat.
Worst Song: Was A Friend. The exact kind of experimental music that I find most obnoxious: some dude speaking over music that itself isn't that interesting.
Overall: This definitely feels like it comes from the era and culture of music where one could get away with being "weird" or "creative" without necessarily being "skilled" or "musical". Sometimes it is lyrically interesting, but it is rarely fun to listen to.
Gillian Welch
4/5
Best Song: Everything Is Free. A very softly beautiful song.
Worst Song: Red Clay Halo. This tipped too far into (what I consider) "ordinary country" for me.
Overall: Really enjoyable folk-country. Not a genre that I typically gravitate towards, but it is clearly very thoughtfully written. Very evocative music. Her voice is wonderful, and the arrangements are just sparse enough to highlight that, but also interesting enough to hold their own.
Louis Prima
3/5
Best Song: Buona Sera. Good vibes, hard hitting instrumentation, a great vocal performance. I liked it.
Worst Song: Body and Soul. What was the point of this weird, highly referential instrumental track in the middle of the album? It wasn't bad, but it absolutely clashed with everything else.
Overall: I don't often like music of this era and genre, but I have to admit that there is a silly and upbeat energy to it that I found myself enjoying. Not for all circumstances, and there are enough slow/instrumental tracks to dull my enthusiasm, but it is definitely better than I expected.
Aimee Mann
2/5
Best Song: Say Anything. I liked the falsetto in the chorus.
Worst Song: I Know There's A Word. Excruciatingly slow and sleepy.
Overall: In the history of albums that exist, this was certainly one of them. Nothing of note, either good or bad. I can already feel myself forgetting this.
The 13th Floor Elevators
2/5
Best Song: Kingdom of Heaven. I like that it feels like the most knock-off version of Stairway to Heaven.
Worst Song: Monkey Island. A chaotic song that never seemed to have a point or rhythm to it.
Overall: If this whole list has taught me anything, it is to be wary whenever I see an album with 25+ songs. It almost always betrays an inability to edit, wherein the artists seem to have just uncritically dumped every attempted song into one big pile. This album is no different.
Marilyn Manson
3/5
Best Song: Angel With The Scabbed Wings. This had a good rhythm to it.
Worst Song: Cryptorchild. This felt really like an interlude, more than a song in its own right.
Overall: It's not bad, but goddamn if it isn't corny. Lyrically, the whole album seems preoccupied with communicating how edgy and extreme Manson is, even if the music falls into some pretty milquetoast directions.
Fela Kuti
3/5
Best Song: Ye Ye De Smell. This was nice and upbeat. The most enthusiastic song on the album.
Worst Song: Black Man's Cry. I hate to say it, but his screaming cry just doesn't sound that musical.
Overall: It's mostly good, although I feel like it lacks some of the energy that his son Femi's work has. I will say that if I am going to listen to jazz, I most frequently want to listen to the type of afro-jazz that Fela Kuti and his progeny make.
Machito
2/5
Best Song: Frenzy. With the rapid bongos, this really did feel frenzied.
Worst Song: Holiday. Seems like an aggressive amount of trumpet mute.
Overall: This feels old in a way that I cannot relate to. Maybe it is great for the genre that it represents, but I found it a long and largely uninteresting 40 minutes.
Blood, Sweat & Tears
3/5
Best Song: Spinning Wheel. A song I've heard a bunch of times but never once considered to look up who made it. Really fun though.
Worst Song: Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie. This didn't feel like an original interpretation of the work (as in "Blues, pt. 2"). It just felt like an unnecessary facsimile.
Overall: An album that feels very genre-less. It seems to go in many directions, with a lot more big band sound than I anticipated. It mostly floats between fun and forgettable, but it certainly isn't bad.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
Best Song: Stir It Up. It's got a great groove, and it is weirdly reminiscent of the Orleans song "Still the One".
Worst Song: Midnight Ravers. I think I had just started to lose the thread on all this reggae by this point.
Overall: Nothing is bad here, but I'm also not much of a reggae guy, so this amount of laidback relaxation in one location starts to make me anxious.
The Only Ones
2/5
Best Song: Another Girl, Another Planet. I could see this serving as a fine background song for a montage scene in a mediocre movie.
Worst Song: No Peace For The Wicked. Never has the phrase "no peace for the wicked" seemed less cool. Nothing about this singer feels the slightest bit wicked.
Overall: Again with the British mediocrity. The irony of them being called "The Only Ones" when they sound exactly like dozens of other groups on this list alone is not lost on me.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
2/5
Best Song: April Skies. It has a kind of dad-rock quality to it, that isn't unpleasant.
Worst Song: Nine Million Rainy Days. Just dripping in a corny melodrama.
Overall: Who is getting excited about this music? Admittedly, it's marginally better than the other album of theirs on this list, but goddamn if it isn't monotonous. Every song is the same as the previous one.
Isaac Hayes
2/5
Best Song: Hyperbolicsyllablecsesquedalymistic. Some nice piano riffs in here, I guess.
Worst Song: By The Time I Get To Phoenix. So much of this 18 minute song isn't actually a song. It's a preamble to the song, telling us how important the forthcoming song is about to me. And then when the prophesied song finally arrives, it's just alright.
Overall: I didn't see the great appeal of this one. Sure, he's got a great voice (buttery, even), but the songs aren't particularly interesting. There aren't that many, and the ones that are there are overly long.
David Bowie
2/5
Best Song: Heroes. It is a great song, but I hate to admit that Peter Gabriel's cover, which was used for the Stranger Things soundtrack, is better in every way.
Worst Song: Sense of Doubt. This isn't even a song really, it just feels like background music to an 80s thriller.
Overall: I wasn't around when Bowie was doing his thing, so in some ways I can't appreciate how iconic/revolutionary he must have been, but from a modern perspective: it hasn't aged all that well. He's singular, sure, but often in a vaguely annoying way. His enunciation and stressing of syllables ("we could be he-ROES") is reminiscent of William Shatner, and no one wants to be reminded of William Shatner. And then the latter half of the album descends into a strange Brian Eno impersonation, that doesn't feel nearly as measured as music that sparse ought to be.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3/5
Best Song: Ikhaya Lamaqhawe. I don't know what I liked most about this song, beyond the tone and emotion of the lead singer.
Worst Song: Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain. I liked the chorus, but the verses felt too much like a children's song.
Overall: Their voices are great, but there is a certain "softness" that starts to feel grating after a point. I get that the a capella is half the point, but it did feel like they would be really benefitted by some backing music.
Billy Bragg
3/5
Best Song: Levi Stubbs' Tears. There's a nice brooding quality to the guitar and the sort of hushed vocals.
Worst Song: Honey, I'm a Big Boy Now. Wasn't a fan of the ragtime piano.
Overall: There is something about this kind of "shouty" folk music that I find endearing. It is politically interesting, albeit quaint, and it's delivered with an earnestness that I can't help but like.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3/5
Best Song: Herculean. I really liked the almost "static" fuzz coming off the snare drum here.
Worst Song: Nature Springs. The protracted outro with the whistling was not for me.
Overall: Slick production, appropriately evocative of the Gorillaz. But, like the music of the Gorillaz, I find that this really only works as light background music for me. It sits completely out of the way and avoids any attention, so it almost doesn't matter how smooth or chill it is. I won't much notice.
Erykah Badu
4/5
Best Song: Green Eyes. Probably my favourite vocal performance on the album.
Worst Song: In Love With You. This feels more like a Stephen Marley song than an Erykah Badu song.
Overall: She's got such a lovely voice. What is most impressive is how she's able to (within one album) situate that voice comfortably within so many different genres. There are sections that feel more heavily R&B, or soul, or hip-hop, and some that drift down into jazz, but somehow it still all works.
10cc
2/5
Best Song: The Wall Street Shuffle. A generic rock track, that is still somehow the best in an otherwise dull album.
Worst Song: Hotel. Jeez, I hated all that whistling and gobbling in the background. Once the song turned around at 1:30 it was actually kinda fun, but that intro was rough.
Overall: Lots of corny theatrical music here. It isn't the worst, but it certainly felt like the artists would rather be performing a play than a strictly musical album.