User Albums Journey
Exploring beyond the book, one album at a time
View 1001 Albums Summary393
Albums Rated
3.14
Average Rating
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1960
Favorite Decade
World
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
45
5-Star Albums
25
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
Top Styles
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
A Live One
Phish
|
5 | 2.49 | +2.51 |
|
Savage Sinusoid
Igorrr
|
5 | 2.77 | +2.23 |
|
Sunbather
Deafheaven
|
5 | 2.79 | +2.21 |
|
Les deux doigts dans la prise
Les sheriff
|
5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
|
Psychic
DARKSIDE
|
5 | 2.86 | +2.14 |
|
Vedergällningen
Garmarna
|
5 | 2.89 | +2.11 |
|
To Be Kind
Swans
|
5 | 2.9 | +2.1 |
|
Live in San Francisco
Thee Oh Sees
|
5 | 2.94 | +2.06 |
|
Atrocity Exhibition
Danny Brown
|
5 | 2.94 | +2.06 |
|
Maestro
Kaizers Orchestra
|
5 | 2.96 | +2.04 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Enema Of The State
blink-182
|
1 | 3.37 | -2.37 |
|
Boxer
The National
|
1 | 3.32 | -2.32 |
|
Daisies Of The Galaxy
Eels
|
1 | 3.27 | -2.27 |
|
People
The Burning Hell
|
1 | 3.18 | -2.18 |
|
Get Fucked
The Chats
|
1 | 3.12 | -2.12 |
|
My Brain Hurts
Screeching Weasel
|
1 | 3.08 | -2.08 |
|
Puzzle
Biffy Clyro
|
1 | 3.07 | -2.07 |
|
Frosting On The Beater
The Posies
|
1 | 2.95 | -1.95 |
|
Separation Sunday
The Hold Steady
|
1 | 2.93 | -1.93 |
|
Forced Witness
Alex Cameron
|
1 | 2.91 | -1.91 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor | 2 | 5 |
| King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard | 2 | 5 |
| TOOL | 4 | 4.25 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| The 1975 | 2 | 1 |
| The Hold Steady | 2 | 1.5 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| Daft Punk | 5, 4, 2 |
5-Star Albums (45)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Songs: Ohia · 3 likes
5/5
I think this was a more even experience, but had lower highs compared to Magnolia Electric Co. Rock solid either way.
Deltron 3030 · 3 likes
5/5
This was great, I loved how hard they committed to the bit here. "The album's story casts Del in the role of Deltron Zero, a disillusioned mech soldier and interplanetary computer prodigy rebelling against a 31st-century New World Order. In a world where evil oligarchs suppress both human rights and hip-hop, Del fights rap battles against a series of foes, becoming Galactic Rhyme Federation Champion. Del's lyrics veer from serious social commentary to humor to epic sci-fi battles, while producer Dan the Automator creates an eerie and dense atmosphere," as wikipedia puts it.
The thing *moves* too! It clocks in at around an hour, and didn't have me looking at my watch at any pont. A+ work, fellas.
Les sheriff · 2 likes
5/5
This was a *bold* choice for a user submission, but it was a good one, this kicked ass. Rare long punk album, and on top of that it kept it interesting the whole time.
The original list + the user albums have really elevated how I feel about french music, all of their stuff has come across really well
Phish · 2 likes
5/5
Lol the people here are such babies about Phish.
Phish is a band that wasn’t on the original list at all. They deserved to have *exactly* one slot on there, and this is probably the best one to represent their whole deal, given the live-experience tape sharing schtick they had going on during their peak. It's got the arpeggios, it's got the distinctive guitar sound, it's got the white guy funk passages. The arrangements are complex and varied enough to pass the 2+ hour length of this *way* faster than a lot of the 75-minute entries from normal 90s bands. Sorry you guys met an annoying hippy once.
Weezer · 2 likes
3/5
Trying to figure out how to express "this is good, but insanely overrated" without getting pelted by tomatoes. Deserves to be on the main list, but the reason I think that has more to do with its status as Cultural Phenomenon than actually connecting with the music any kind of way
1-Star Albums (25)
All Ratings
Haley Heynderickx
3/5
*Very* reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, who's an artist that I never really quite got the hang of during the main run. I feel like I prefer singer-songwriter stuff when the arrangements are piano-based instead of guitar.
MF DOOM
5/5
2004 was a really good year in music, this clearly included. Super fun! Seems like a lot of people get annoyed by the cartoon samples, but honestly it's like listening to someone laying the groundwork for how to do a youtube poop (this is a compliment).
Amadou & Mariam
4/5
Appreciative of people putting more actual world music on the users list, especially for something like this where it’s truly a broad international collaboration
Marillion
2/5
Cannibal Surf Babe tricked me into thinking this would be a much better time than it was.
Roky Erickson
2/5
A lot of fun ideas and moves in this, all of which fail to transcend the extremely stale production sensibilities of the time
Graham Parker
2/5
Fucking outrageous, it's like he's doing an Elvis Costello impression for some reason. On the one hand, I guess mission accomplished from the original project that I can pick up on that now. On the other hand, all of Costello's six albums on there sounded identical to each other. The People wanted more of that in the feed?
Death
3/5
Shares some DNA with the Korns and the Slipknots of the world, elevated by having decent production/mixing
INXS
3/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFyCPicGbXM
Honestly for coming out late 80s, this sounded relatively fresh
Billy Squier
3/5
Go! Go! Power Rangers
Arthur Russell
3/5
My head’s turned into an empty cavern. Sole occupant: one cello. Fun headphones listen, did not need to be over an hour.
4/5
Pretty solid alt-rock, and from decently early on, as far as that specific scene goes
Tally Hall
3/5
Wasn't really sure what to do with this until learning that the Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf guy was part of this group. It's ~EcLeCtIc~, you see.
I was a TMBG guy back in my youth, probably would have gone wild for this shit if I'd heard it when it came out
Earth, Wind & Fire
5/5
Get up and DANCE! Music that puts me in a very good mood
Ty Segall
4/5
Midway through the 2010s was a really strong period of Garage/Psych rock. King Gizzard’s kind of evolved in the last ten years to take up Phish’s torch, but the rest of them for some reason haven’t really broken their Scene containment into much of a mainstream.
This one is very much part of all that stuff; space alien vocal affect aside, it leans lots more Garage than Psych. Pretty fun!
Phish
5/5
Lol the people here are such babies about Phish.
Phish is a band that wasn’t on the original list at all. They deserved to have *exactly* one slot on there, and this is probably the best one to represent their whole deal, given the live-experience tape sharing schtick they had going on during their peak. It's got the arpeggios, it's got the distinctive guitar sound, it's got the white guy funk passages. The arrangements are complex and varied enough to pass the 2+ hour length of this *way* faster than a lot of the 75-minute entries from normal 90s bands. Sorry you guys met an annoying hippy once.
Death Cab for Cutie
2/5
Man this era of soft boy indie rock has been nonstop whiffs as it comes up. Flaming Lips couldn’t do it for me, these guys had no chance
The Sound
2/5
New Wave-adjacent. Gothy, but not in a fun way. It's like halfway between Joy Division and The Cure, and not as good as either
Adam Green
3/5
Pretty big gulf between what I thought this was going to be, and what it actually was. Kept me interested through the whole thing. Not minding what this scamp is getting up to
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Pretty glad to have drawn this one on a dark, quiet, rainy morning.
Jimmy Eat World
4/5
Very fun album, which is weird because I hated Green Day, and this doesn't seem all that different. Mysteries for the ages
Slowdive
3/5
On the better end of stuff I've heard from shoegaze: a genre I don't care for very much
The Burning Hell
1/5
I get that Whedon Voice hadn't yet worn people down in 2013, but this is insufferable in 2025. Lyrics are clumsy and trying too hard for "colloquial," and the vocalist can't pull off the Cake thing he's aiming for.
Honestly after checking the wikipedia for the band, "Trying Too Hard" is just kind of the issue in general. I like Trying Too Hard bands when they're applying that effort to the sound production & musicianship, but Mathias Kom's whole deal seems to be an overeducation in the *social* production of music, and the end result comes across like something like The Oatmeal, or any of those other comics that wants very badly to be relatable, so that you'll share it with your facebook friends (in 2013). More SEO than any kind of artistic statement. And apparently a lot of people like that kind of thing! I find it offputting.
Ian McDonald
5/5
Didn't recognize the people on the cover or their names, but the vibe of the album cover had me bracing for like a simon & garfunkel sound. But no! It's a couple of King Crimson members doing a quick side thing! Good stuff.
Courtney Barnett
4/5
Solo acts/singer-songwriter music living or dying for me based entirely on the backing music. She did good work here
Charli xcx
2/5
Makes me think less about "the club" and more about being drunk and taking an uber home in NYC. I don't really care for this kind of music, but later book editions definitely gotta dip into some of their Techno budget to put more stuff like this in there.
Joan As Police Woman
2/5
Solo acts/singer-songwriter music living or dying for me based entirely on how interesting I think the backing music is. This one bounced off me.
Garbage
5/5
I loved their debut. This one's still grungy, but leans a lot more industrial on the B-side & has a kind of euro dance/pop stink on the A-side. Both directions are very Produced, and it's worse than what the first album was doing. Still liked it a lot!
Calibro 35
4/5
Reminds me of the Barry Adamson albums from the original list, but with more of a dub/trip hop flavor & less circus brass
Porter Robinson
3/5
Stinks to live in a world where the wikipedia on this thing is talking about how this is a very emotive & personal album for Robinson, but all of my associations with this kind of music is, like, cab rides and twitch stream intermissions. The background radiation of overstimulating situations. New generation of elevator music. I didn’t even dislike it, I think I just have negative associations with where I’m likely to hear stuff like this out in the world
Joe Cocker
2/5
An hour-15 of pretty decent blues rock. I don't think this brought much to the table that the original list didn't cover, and there wasn't enough variety in the runtime to stop it wearing out its welcome
Crash Test Dummies
3/5
There was a lot of stuff I’d missed in the 90s that I knew I was ignoring at the time. Crash Test Dummies is a weird one because I only heard about them last year, but everyone was talking like this was a big deal band at the time. Had to be there, apparently
Bon Iver
3/5
Comes in swinging, and then settles into kind of a "Dreamy" space. Would have preferred the alchemy lean harder toward the first mode, but overall it was pretty decent
Shudder To Think
1/5
I guess grunge lasted long enough that someone tried to get proggy with it. It's not a good match, this was a chore.
Bob Mould
3/5
Ed Balls.
Hüsker Dü guy's solo work. Middle-of-the-road 90s alt-rock, doesn't have much new to bring to the table, and the new stuff it *does* bring gets a bit grating
Tori Amos
4/5
I really like Tori Amos music : )
Singer-songwriter stuff is so much better when it's piano-based
Les sheriff
5/5
This was a *bold* choice for a user submission, but it was a good one, this kicked ass. Rare long punk album, and on top of that it kept it interesting the whole time.
The original list + the user albums have really elevated how I feel about french music, all of their stuff has come across really well
Angelo De Augustine
1/5
God I can't stand this kind of breathy vocal delivery. Awful headphones experience.
The Postal Service
4/5
I was about to be very annoyed about these 00s indie singer guys all sounding the fucking same, but then I looked it up and it is literally the actual Death Cab guy. Forgiven.
I'm liking way more than Death Cab, it's got good beeps & boops
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Not minding it! Springsteen’s an artist where the original list was actually really helpful for learning to appreciate him a lot more.
Chappell Roan
4/5
WAY more personality than brat.
Feminomenon is one of the most annoying songs I've heard in my life (writing "get it hot like papa john" into the CHORUS?! what is WRONG with you), but I actually liked the rest of it! Roan's one of the more interesting acts in pop music right now, and the original list should have more of this kind of thing on it.
THE SPORTS
2/5
Just kind of standard rock, with a bit of new wave sensibility creeping in. Sorta the general sound of 1979 distilled into 40 minutes. I dunno that this has brought much new or interesting to my life
The Marcus King Band
3/5
Perfectly fine bluesy soulsy
Primus
3/5
Felt like it took the album a little while to figure its situation out. The second half was more what I was expecting out of Primus, but the early songs were all over the place
Damien Rice
2/5
Sad man with a guitar. Heard a million like it.
Gurrumul
4/5
Super cool pick! Between showcasing an aborigial artist, and the orchestral arrangements of the thing, it's hitting a huge density of music that the original list gave short shrift to
Chucklehead
3/5
Pretty fun, but also sitting in an unfortunate time period where it's *way* late to the party on this style of funk, while also not far enough forward from it to be at the right time for the callback
Teenage Fanclub
2/5
I remember nothing about this one day later
Men I Trust
5/5
This was just lovely. A+.
I think this is not actually shoegaze but it's what I feel like shoegaze *should* be trying to sound like
blink-182
1/5
Bratty in a way that charli xcx could only dream of achieving. It's a masterfully-executed vision, but it is so goddamn stupid
Dave Matthews Band
4/5
Oh man, this is an easy band to make fun of, but I actually really liked this.
Obligatory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Matthews_Band_bus_incident
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
5/5
Never listened to these guys before, and this wasn't at all what I was expecting (Thought it was going to be, like, black metal or something). Instead, it's a masterwork of ambient, atmospheric soundscaping. Super cool!
Ani DiFranco
3/5
Having a tough time figuring myself out on this one. The music’s Good and the vocal style’s not bad, but the two really really clash in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s on purpose
Joe Jackson
3/5
Some of the original list’s Costello budget should have gone to this, but it is also in the same family as Costello
Freddie Gibbs
3/5
Mid-10s rap. Didn't really make me feel any kind of way, but seems like it was fun to make.
Bad Religion
3/5
Solid example of some 90s punk, but also most 90s punk doesn't really do much for me
Alexisonfire
2/5
Falls somewhere between evanescence and let the bodies hit the floor. Thinks it's rougher & tougher than those, but it's wrong about that. I like the album art, though.
The Decemberists
4/5
Apparently I had no idea what The Decemberists' deal is. I was bracing myself for Flaming Lips style soft boy indie music, and instead I got a rock opera! Very good submission, I feel like Meat Loaf was the closest the original list came to allowing Theatre-adjacent stuff into it
Vulfpeck
3/5
There's some flashes of fun & creativity, but mostly it's like if the weather channel didn't have commercials
Roger Waters
2/5
I usually like Waters & Pink Floyd, but this is off-the-charts Boomer Midlife Crisis art
Sublime
3/5
"Ska Punk" but really it comes off sounding like a less-funky RHCP. More interesting than I thought it'd be, but still not really a fan
Debbie Gibson
2/5
Just the most boring, twinkly over-produced type of late 80s pop music. Complete snoozefest.
The Lumineers
2/5
This one didn’t have their famous song, but all the other songs sound exactly like the famous song. 2010s Coming of Age Movie sound. Of a very specific time, and I wasn’t really into them when the time was right, either.
Weezer
3/5
Trying to figure out how to express "this is good, but insanely overrated" without getting pelted by tomatoes. Deserves to be on the main list, but the reason I think that has more to do with its status as Cultural Phenomenon than actually connecting with the music any kind of way
Madvillain
4/5
MF DOOM having a hell of a year in 2004. It was fun to listen to him on something where the production was less gonzo than "Mm..Food," but I also think I liked the gonzo stuff more.
Anaïs Mitchell
4/5
Endless respect to the submitter for putting theater kid stuff onto the list. I remember the Hamilton fans liking the Broadway show of this, but it didn't break Musical Theatre Containment in the same way.
This was pretty fun, but tbh I think I'd have been more impressed by it if I hadn't gotten that Decemberists album last week, in terms of theatric rock opera fare.
Steven Wilson
4/5
Familiar with this guy from a couple of prog album remasters he did. Wish I had a better vocabulary for it, but this kind of has the same vibe as the Todd Rundgren stuff from the main list. Something about Producer guys and their musical sensibilities
Amyl and The Sniffers
3/5
Punk doesn't always have a ton of syncopation, and for some reason that started bugging me on this one by the time it ended. Very marching
Harmonium
4/5
The trick is that I don't understand what British prog guys are saying, either
My Chemical Romance
5/5
I never listened to much emo back when it was big. This is the first one I've heard that I unabashedly love. They absolutely nailed the alchemy on this, way more verve than any of their peers
Biffy Clyro
1/5
The original list and user submissions are both trying their hardest to convince me that Franz Ferdinand was the only good rock band to ever come out of Scotland
Neutral Milk Hotel
3/5
Bugs me that it's basically a coin toss whether I'll like one of the audience favorites. Gave it a couple listens, and there's definitely stuff I liked in it, but I can't access whatever gets people enthusiastic about it
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
5/5
9 years since it released! Their full discography's so big that I tend to underrate this one, but it still fucking rips. Sounds like it's being played by a swarm of angry bees.
Great pick from the submitter, the garage rock sound's a good entry point to King Gizzard's stuff
Mogwai
5/5
Great stuff, falls along the ranks of “stuff I might have underrated before I learned to like Radiohead,” which tbf is basically post-rock in a nutshell
Snarky Puppy
5/5
Was not expecting from the artist name that this was going to be funky jazz fusion! Rare music that's good for both working and cooking
Nightwish
3/5
ohhhh man. Haven't thought about these guys in a minute.
I like Nightwish probably more than they deserve. This one's weird, because it's both the first album I'd grab to explain their whole deal, and it's catching them at an awkward stage, moving from "sneaking Mozart-style arpeggios to an audience that thinks it doesn't like classical music" to them trying out more poppy and folky sounds.
I had high hopes when they hired a bagpipes guy full-time, but they've never quite been able to overcome the Muse disease that makes them sideline their more creative ideas in service of Deep and Epic Thoughts. Also doesn't help that their audio mixing is mediocre, which is really not what you want when your arrangements lean on the "symphony" of Symphonic Metal.
Anyway, makes me a little sad that the top reviews are all "wow this sucks," because I'm kinda charmed by the goofy aspects of the band... but also I don't really have a pitch to bring a general audience around on them. "Imaginaerum" would probably hit for some of the rock opera fans in the crowd.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
3/5
It’s extremely funny that they decided to sex up the album cover that much. I went in expecting something at least a little bit raucous from the brass band, but they somehow got trumpets to make smooth patio music.
Childish Gambino
3/5
He was on a real hot streak during the 2010s. Not quite what I was expecting, it's baseline R&B, but he's bringing in a lot of old-timey funk influences. Kinda sounds Diet Prince at points. In conversation with different things than I thought it'd be.
Maldita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del 5to. Patio
5/5
Wow, what a fun pull! Posing a very important question of “hey if what makes ska fun is the latin influence, why not check out the uncut version?”
Scraping Foetus off the Wheel
3/5
Back before "eclectic mix" albums were irredeemably nerd-coded. Kinda coming across like a clunkier NiN
TOOL
4/5
Never actually sat down to listen to TOOL before.
I'm into it, kind of falls in between "weight lifting music for intellectuals" and "stoner sludgy," depending on the song.
Nik Kershaw
1/5
I have zero appetite for more of this kind of bullshit after living with the main list for three whole years
TOOL
4/5
Good & moody, but I liked what was going on in this one less than Lateralus. Little bit too much metal of the era, not enough weird basslines
John Martyn
2/5
This guy came up a couple times on the main list, where everyone said his stuff sounded like porno music. Gotta say, I liked the porno music better than the "heartfelt divorce album" that's going on here.
Thee Oh Sees
5/5
Love when one of these is an album that I already recreationally listen to, though I am also the kind of werido that prefers the album version of some of these songs. OhSees rule.
They Might Be Giants
3/5
Interesting to pick a TMBG from the 2010s, which I think is around the point most people sort of stopped paying attention to them.
I've been pretty mixed on a lot of the eclectic nerd albums that people have been putting forward, but I kind of feel like "eclectic" is something that's kind of uncharacteristically missing from this one, at least compared to the TMBGs that I have nostalgia for
Killswitch Engage
2/5
Copy/Paste review I've got of every american aughts metal release: too goddamn long, and just does the same shit each song. This one's better than the slipknots that have come up on here.
Boy Azooga
5/5
Solid work from what seems to be a pretty obscure Welsh indie act. This is the kind of album that I'd be raising an eyebrow at if it were on the original list, but that I'm actively hoping to draw for the user albums.
The Chats
1/5
2022 release?! Man, I know this kind of bare-bones punk always is going to have a core of fans, but this breaks *no* new ground. Music for an audience that just wants the same thing served up for eternity, if I'm being judgemental about it
Fontaines D.C.
3/5
On a streak of throwback albums release within the last 10 years. Not doing a ton that I couldn't get from other post-punk offerings
Jimmy Eat World
3/5
"Wistful," which is interesting that I'm feeling that, since I didn't really listen to these guys growing up.
Rachel Stevens
3/5
This one's interesting, because it wouldn't really stand out if not for having been released 2005. Feels really ahead of the curve in terms of where pop music was going.
Oingo Boingo
4/5
Found my way to this one when I was younger, via Danny Elfman's film score work. It's very funny to have the vocabulary to now contextualize it as having short flashes of absolute genius, but mixed in with a lot of forgettable New Wave sensibility.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
5/5
Fun for most of the duration, but does start to lose me during the final piece. 4.5 rounding up, though
Chromatics
4/5
There's been a couple examples of this kind of thing coming up in the user list. Very produced, "dreamy" vocals. I tend to like that style because the backing music is very krautrock-adjacent, but it does lack that certain *das weiß ich nicht*
Sunny Day Real Estate
2/5
The user albums have had a hot streak of emo music, but I think this one’s pretty boring
Vampire Weekend
2/5
Damn, in hindsight these guys were a huge omen for Imagine Dragons-type music coming down the pipeline
Igorrr
5/5
Unhinged in an extremely good way. Was very unsurprised to learn the guy's French
Jeff Rosenstock
3/5
Absolutely nails the throwback 90s angst sound, which makes all the lyrics about social media and data mining really stick out. Kind of drifts too clever for its own good, in that way, I don't need this kind of music to be self-aware
Savages
3/5
Kind of gives me Siouxsie, but the singer sounds like she's doing a Rush impression, kind of? I dunno if that makes any sense. Pretty fine post-punk thing
Noname
3/5
This flavor of "chill" hip hop normally puts me to sleep, but I did like the amount of plinky keyboard sounds in the mix. Made it good for the rainy morning.
The War On Drugs
3/5
Not as good as the one on the main list. Seems like it'd be good nighttime driving music, if that were a hobby of mine.
Operation Ivy
3/5
I always forget with these guys that "ska-punk" means that the Punk part is actually *very* present in the alchemy. All-timer of an album cover.
Kaizers Orchestra
5/5
Weird and fun one! Norwegian band, good alt-rock bones, but then they've mixed in the right amount of whackiness to be interesting instead of annoying. I like the cut of their jib. Soft 5.
Bon Iver
3/5
Very mellow, but not boring in a way that drags down what I'm doing when using it for background music
Wussy
3/5
Had me worried at first because I'm usually lukewarm-at-best on folky indie rock, but a benefit of releasing pre-2010s is that it remembered to actually be rock music in some way
Faith No More
2/5
I feel like this one must have been held back a bit by its release era. Real pearl-jam sounding vocals, which was distracting.
The Upsetters
3/5
I think this is my first Dub sighting on either of the lists. It's adjacent to the kind of thing I normally gravitate to (sparser and lower BPM than I prefer), but really enjoyable.
Refused
4/5
Proggy punk has come across this thing before, but these guys actually got the goods.
Strong offering, although it does show off a little bit that punk was not spared from the album-too-long-disease that was plaguing metal during the CD era
Unwound
3/5
I think I'm starting to hit post-rock saturation on this list
Björk
5/5
It's great, but it did take me a couple tries to fully get it. Had to swap away from my cheap headphones, and clear away distractions before I could settle in. Definitely not a background music for work album.
Switchfoot
2/5
The Christian angle is the only remotely interesting thing about this. Super boring sound.
Mylène Farmer
2/5
If not for the fact that it's in French, indistinguishable from movie end credits music of the era
Richard Dawson
4/5
Better hit rate than I'm used to from folky fusion, but then again, the English version of that usually works better for me than American-style.
Jóhann Jóhannsson
4/5
Slow Orchestral's a very nice change of pace from most of the rest of the list.
Tame Impala
3/5
Confident I'm the only person who will make this comparison:
They remind me of the Arctic Monkeys, where they're in the same scenes as bands I like, check a lot of the right boxes, people who know my tastes keep recommending them to me, etc... and I just can't get into them. Refuses to click for me.
Josh Ritter
3/5
Singer-songwriter stuff isn't generally my cup of tea, but I'm glad that he can at least sing. Probably also hit a lot better back when it released in 2006. Would have been fresh air for that era.
Sufjan Stevens
5/5
I *really* disliked that other Angelo de Augustine album that came up on this, so I was surprised by how much I liked this. If I remember right, my problem was a vocal delivery thing, so he's probably helped in that regard by having a partner on the thing.
I feel like Sufjan Stevens is one of those where I'm going to have to do a deep-dive listen to a bunch of his stuff in a row someday
HELLYEAH
2/5
Lowest average rating on the users list, which got me disappointed when it just ended up being mediocre nu-metal. I was hoping for something actually heinous
Protomartyr
3/5
Checking off a lot of post-punk boxes, shades of your Joy Divisions, your Falls, etc. Singer's kinda doing a Nick Cave impression sometimes.
Johnny Winter
3/5
I'm *very* curious about what kind of reception this got when this came out. It's doing like self-aware throwback (relative to the 70s) blues rock. I have no familiarity with Winter, so I wondered at first if this would have been a nostagia-bait thing, but from reading his wikipedia, seems like it's more of a last call for a fading star situation.
Dead Boys
2/5
70s punk band, your imagination can do most of the heavy lifting.
One of those things where if you were checked into their particular regional scene back in the day, I could maybe see getting attached to them, but when blitzing through all this stuff on streaming, it doesn't stand out even a little bit
The B-52's
4/5
The original list had their debut on it, which I think was both the right amount and the right choice of album for them. That said, I mean come on, it's the B-52's, they're a great time. I'm happy someone submitted this one.
Bloc Party
4/5
Somehow missed these guys back when they were around. Fits right into the alt-rock of the era, with a little extra boost to their percussion section. Liked it!
Songs: Ohia
5/5
I think this was a more even experience, but had lower highs compared to Magnolia Electric Co. Rock solid either way.
Backstreet Boys
2/5
Era-defining sound.
I think I'm always going to resent this one, though, because I was pretty young when it released, and it was the first of many times I would get bullied for not having heard of the current trendy thing yet. Made worse by the fact that once I did finally listen to it, I hated it & thought it sucked.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's got an all-timer of an opening track, but most of the stuff that didn't make it to the radio deserved to stay in obscurity.
Jimmy Buffett
3/5
I only really know him from memes, so I was surprised that this was twing twang country-sounding, rather than Island.
The Beautiful South
3/5
Starts off real smooth, so that it can then start talking dirty at you. Fun enough.
GAS
4/5
Is it good, or just good for working to? Dunno! Got the job done all the same
That Handsome Devil
3/5
Injected some novelty into the day, but also went overboard into Annoying territory. Like I dunno, at least Dr. John was actually from New Orleans.
TOOL
5/5
Man, I didn't used to know TOOL's stuff very well, but I think the list is making me a fan. They're 3 for 3 so far.
Robyn Hitchcock
1/5
Yet another "sardonic songs and stories from a cheeky lad" kinda entry. He may use folky instrumentation, but get this! He mentions blowjobs sometimes!
He also keeps belting without working to make his delivery less nasal. Completely obnoxious album.
Gotcha!
3/5
Dutch funky hip hop kind of thing. Bit of a LARP job, and contender for most annoying band name/album title combos across both lists.
Fontaines D.C.
4/5
Wasn't too hot on Dogrel when it came up earlier, but I liked this one a lot more. Holding down the fort in the modern day
Hombres G
2/5
Being in spanish is a novelty to me, but it's really just kind of a generic 80s soft rock thing at the end of the day
Kano
3/5
Been a little while since a UK rapper came across my desk. Definitely a scene that the original list liked more than the user albums. This one's better than a fair number of the original list's picks, though.
Pink Floyd
5/5
They had more than their fair share on the original list, but also come on it's Pink Floyd, they're never unwelcome.
Wishbone Ash
4/5
Straight down the middle prog rock. Toe to tip, this is a Tarkus!
Streetlight Manifesto
4/5
I got a personality disorder that makes me like this style of ska more than the Operation Ivy type. Gimme less punk, more haunted house music played on brass instruments.
Enter Shikari
2/5
Kinda reminded me of that Ministry album from the main list, where the production was way more sample-loopy than I would have expected.
Problem is I liked the Industrial Metal fusion going on in Psalm 69, but I sure as hell don't like screamo.
Sampha
3/5
A bit Bon Iver-adjacent, for lack of better reference points? Little bit floaty ambient. Inoffensive, but not groundbreaking.
Nuyorican Soul
3/5
Bounces and bumbles between weather channel funk and disco throwback. Weirdly uncohesive for it
The Amazing Devil
3/5
Demonstrates that theater kid indie folk and fantasy nerd power metal have some unexpected overlap in the venn diagram. This is really cheesy, and while cheesy can be really fun, they don't quite have the goods to pull it off successfully.
Susanne Sundfør
3/5
Soothing Folky Lullaby kinda sound. Nice for the right time & place, but made for poor working music
Alexisonfire
2/5
They’re 2 for 2 in good album covers, and 0 for 2 on making music I like
The Mountain Goats
4/5
This went down a lot better for me than Neutral Milk Hotel, in terms of lo-fi offerings. These guys are *very* well-regarded in the circles I follow, but I'd bounced off of their more recent stuff a few times.
I liked this one a lot, though! Plenty discography left to dive into
New Model Army
3/5
UK post-punk again, with some stylings that are giving me some kinda Hungover New Wave flavor. Definitely above average, but not exactly blowing my mind.
The Avett Brothers
3/5
It's dipping a toe in the same waters that brought us music like Mumford & Sons, and a little bit of The Lumineers. 2010s well-produced folky throwback kind of thing
The Alan Parsons Project
4/5
*WOW* what a good a pull! APP's overall career hit rate wasn't the best (a lot of their 1980s work was just kinda mediocre soft pop, Woolfson's beautiful voice notwithstanding), but there's definitely some gems in them hills.
Far as this one goes, I've never really been able to not get bored during the House Of Usher sequence, but the entire run of songs preceding it is some A+ art rock
1/5
The production's a little more scattered and intricate, but it really is a basic pop album at the end of the day, right down to devolving into crappy ballads by the end of the thing.
Medeski, Martin & Wood
3/5
A very long string of pretty alright jazz organ jamming
Jack Johnson
4/5
Sometimes the stuff I’m not usually into just comes up and catches me at the right time. Ended up being really nice music for a slow work day
The 1975
1/5
Soft Pop for a new generation
Guy Clark
3/5
Shucks Howdy
Sparks
4/5
Kimono My House was on the original list, but it was one of the earlier ones, and I don't remember much about it. Might have to revisit it, since I enjoyed myself with this one. Transitioning out of disco, onto something almost like LCD Soundsystem
Chris de Burgh
3/5
It's a dead sound, but it's fun to revisit? Reminds me a lot of something else that I can't quite put my finger on. He sounds almost like if Meatloaf sang for Supertramp
Avicii
1/5
E-sports intermission music. I think I complained on some of the original list's 90s techno entries that the electronic music representation basically hard cut at Moby... but this isn't really what I had in mind for what should go on there.
Jellyfish
3/5
90s American Suburb rock, as depicted by some guys that really really seem to like Queen
Olivia Rodrigo
3/5
I'd probably get tired these songs *fast* if I were constantly hearing them in the wild, but thankfully I'm not on tiktok. Not bad, though! I think Chappell Roan's still probably the more interesting act in terms of the 2020s girl pop that people have been submitting
Shania Twain
2/5
Was about to write that it's like the perfect distillation of 90s country pop, but I think what I must mean is that my parents definitely owned this album and I heard the songs on it in my youth without knowing who I was listening to
Spose
1/5
A fun glimpse into the world of post-Hamilton white rapping. Healthy to have reference points that aren't just Eminem.
I don't care for Spose and I didn't like this album, but I do prefer drawing this kind of thing to when people just sent in FotM pop music.
Hikaru Utada
4/5
"Don't just say it reminds you of Kingdom Hearts music Don't just say it reminds you of Kingdom Hearts music Don't just say it reminds you of Kingdom Hearts music, god damn it's not the music's fault you don't know J-pop at a—Oh wow this is actually the literal Kingdom Hearts singer"
Beyoncé
4/5
Alright, this is making more sense to me now. Self-titled was on the original list and it felt like the most by-the-numbers bland R&B I'd heard in a minute. This one has an actual personality, and I liked listening to it.
Os Mundi
4/5
I've been drowning in pop music this last week, so I'm very grateful for this avant-garde latin-chant krautrock thing turning up. As can sometimes happen in that sphere, the noodling gets grating sometimes, but it's a small price to pay for how interesting the rest of it is
Neil Cicierega
4/5
Man, it's a hot one. Heroic use of a patreon user submission; I think op now has a responsibility to submit Astro Lounge when they finish the project in 3 years.
This one's the most one-note out of Neil C.'s Mouth series, but if you're only going to send one of them in, it makes sense to go with this one. It showcases a surprising number of songs that showed up in the original & user lists—I lost my mind when I realized the intro song was the same tune from ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition.
Polvo
3/5
I think the wikipedia entry basically gets it right—you'll get more out of listening to their peers & influences
Jon Batiste
5/5
Extremely fun time. Tons more personality than R&B usually brings, casting a wide net of influences
Bon Iver
3/5
Geez, the people here really like Bon Iver, huh. This is the third one from them that I've drawn. This one's probably the best one so far, but getting tired of them.
Reincidentes
3/5
Spanish punk rock. Fun, but does have a bit of that 90s/00s "album too long" disease
Deltron 3030
5/5
This was great, I loved how hard they committed to the bit here. "The album's story casts Del in the role of Deltron Zero, a disillusioned mech soldier and interplanetary computer prodigy rebelling against a 31st-century New World Order. In a world where evil oligarchs suppress both human rights and hip-hop, Del fights rap battles against a series of foes, becoming Galactic Rhyme Federation Champion. Del's lyrics veer from serious social commentary to humor to epic sci-fi battles, while producer Dan the Automator creates an eerie and dense atmosphere," as wikipedia puts it.
The thing *moves* too! It clocks in at around an hour, and didn't have me looking at my watch at any pont. A+ work, fellas.
Café Tacvba
4/5
I'm really loving the varied archive of spanish-language albums that's accumulating here, and this one in particular is kind of the mishmash of all of them. It's long and meandering, but manages to do it in a good, cozy way.
blink-182
3/5
I really fucking hated Enema Of The State when that came up earlier, so I was surprised by how much I didn't mind this one. Wikipedia says they all became dads before making this one? That tracks. I guess all along I just wanted those damn kids to grow up.
Jokes aside, though, I do genuinely appreciate that they're trying out a lot of things on this one, getting a little less one-note.
Kayo Dot
3/5
"Avant-Garde Metal" but really it's pretty standard post-rock that sometimes screams at you.
Touché Amoré
3/5
More Post-Hardcore. I'm softening on the genre with repeated exposure, but would still never ever listen to it outside of this context
The Caretaker
4/5
Very cool take on ambient music—sounds like it's being recorded and played in a smoky lounge that's in a deep underground cavern for some reason
Screeching Weasel
1/5
Bog fucking standard pop punk
Valerie June
4/5
Not surprised when reading up on it that someone from The Black Keys was involved in producing this.
This slots very cleanly into that wave of folk rock revival that was going on during the 2010s, made more interesting by ditching the rock angle and just going for straight singer-songwriter instead. I liked it.
Mary Chapin Carpenter
3/5
Above-average piano-based country music. Really demands to be played in a car, imo
Jai Paul
3/5
Super cool choice to put forward a demo album that has Lore attached to it. The music was pretty interesting as-presented, and I honestly do think I'd like it way less if it were fully completed & polished up
Modest Mouse
5/5
Man, it's been a minute since I put on Modest Mouse. Things have been going pretty good in my life the last couple years, and I haven't felt the pull as much. Which I'm only half-joking about, a fresh listen to this is really helping make some connections, a big one being that I understand better why other disaffected white guy genres (emo, nu-metal) don't work for me. It's like I've already sworn a Wallowing Oath, and my loyalty's spoken for.
It also helps that there's lots of different things firing off during the runtime—this one's long even by CD standards, but feels like it goes by pretty quick, because there's a lot of variety within the sprawl, and they're generous with giving central grooves to zone out to.
System Of A Down
5/5
Unquestionable top of the heap when it comes to the nu-metal era, they're the only one of those acts that I actually enjoy listening to. In addition to demonstrating an actual sense of humor, I think the music itself is way more interesting than what their peers do. There's an actual range on display, instead of them hitting the same chords for the entire runtime.
Boards of Canada
4/5
Starts you off on the chill beats to study & relax to, but then as the thing goes on it starts weaving in weirder samples & more intricate structures. Very fun capital-A Album experience
Frightened Rabbit
2/5
I always feel a little guilty when I dislike an album, and then all the context on it is "oh it's really heartfelt & meaningful to the artist." Didn't care for it, though! This particular era of folky indie grates on me
Stromae
2/5
Well, I guess not every French album on here was going to be a winner.
Something might be getting lost in translation, or from some other lack of cultural context, but on first listen, this just strikes me as a lot of crappy club music.
Cluster
4/5
"Rote Riki" irritated me a bit (sounded really wet, somehow? bad headphones listen either way) but beyond that one, this is some nice krautrock
Real 2007-era Cracked dot com ass band name & sense of humor. The folk-"punk" works pretty well, though—it was very frantic and hyperactive, which made it more interesting than most indie folk of the time.
4/5
Educational! It's a big deal album, but only within genres that I don't tend to fuck with. I like it least when it's being club music, but I like it a lot when it's doing distorted glitchy nonsense, and that distortion seems to seep right into the track sequencing—the opening track is very misleading for what the rest of the album's going to do, and dropping from that immediately into Ponyboy is so goddamn funny.
Ween
3/5
Core album from an important band in the "eclectic mix by & for weirdos" realm. The People's White Album.
Cat System Corp.
3/5
"The news on 9/11/2001 if the attacks never happened" is a cute concept, but not really conveyed successfully unless you've read the wikipedia entry. Still, there's worse things to feed into my ears than weather channel vaporwave
Wouldn't normally stand out to me as anything other than replacement-level indie pop, except for that 2003 release date. That seems so far ahead of its time, anglo idie groups wouldn't make their way over to this sound for a solid 5-10 years, I feel like.
Carly Rae Jepsen
3/5
"Run Away With Me," rather than making me feel like I was drunk in an uber at night, made me feel like I was drunk on a boat at night, which I appreciated. The rest of it sure was some pop music from 2015. Was looking at my watch a lot as the thing went on.
I feel like pop albums, already suffering from a problem of the non-Singles usually being really forgettable, would benefit a lot from trimming their runtimes down to a 30-40 minute range instead of the 45-60 minutes they usually clock in at. Each of them usually has some good stuff in there, but they all feel very bloated
Cardiacs
4/5
Had to give it a couple listens to get my head around it, but also it deserved those listens. Overstuffed in a good way, but also weirdly bouncy the entire time, like if I let go for even a second, the entire thing would float away into the sky
Stray From The Path
1/5
The cargo-cult Rage Against The Machine vocals are obnoxious, but at least there's some interesting stuff happening in the rest of the music.
Angry music with correct politics mostly saddens me these days, because I've given up that it matters that much that they do. Feels more cloying than anything. Like even these guys themselves decided when the rubber really hit the road in 2025 that it was a good time to call it quits.
Daft Punk
5/5
Daft Punk "greatest hits" album, basically. Obvious 5, but they're also operating at that Beatles level where it's almost boring to talk about how good they are. That said, the original list had so many crappy electronica entries that it really ended up deepening my respect for Daft Punk's talent.
Daft Punk
4/5
Taking a look at the track list, I was kind of surprised this one wasn't on the main list—after all, it's got two of their biggest hits in "One More Time" and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger."
Actually listening to the rest of it though, I kinda get going for Homework, the more consistent album, instead... *if* they were limited to one slot per artist. In a world where fucking Orbital has two slots, there were plenty of ways to make room for this one.
Turnpike Troubadours
3/5
American folk music, more in the "mining town" variety than the "dusty roads" type you sometimes get.
Alex Cameron
1/5
80s-pop piss take that's very pleased with itself that it gets to use grown-up words. Complete snoozefest for me.
John Coltrane
3/5
Slow Jazz, which isn't usually my favorite, but makes for a nice change of pace
Screaming Females
5/5
The vibrato takes a little getting used to, but this is some rock solid alt-rock
Paramore
3/5
Final song "Decode - Twilight Soundtrack Version," say no more. The distinct sound of Teen Feelings in the year 2009
Arctic Monkeys
3/5
Trading in some rock for smoothness, but I still can’t quite get there with Arctic Monkeys
Type O Negative
3/5
Classic of goth albums. Good anthropology, but every song went a little too long for my taste
Aesop Rock
4/5
I sometimes struggle on rap albums because I very much tend to be a music > lyrical content listener. Always rules to get something like this where the productions is showing up extremely well
The Vaccines
3/5
A grandiose shouting style of indie rock, very of the time. Imagine Dragons sort of became the culmination of this style's direction, which unfortunately scuffs up a lot of this kind of thing for me in hindsight. It's a fun trip down memory lane, though.
Electric Callboy
2/5
Baffling experience. It's mashing up the tackiest aspects of metal and eurodance, and the combination doesn't work at all. There's not much attempt to blend the two styles either, they're just kind of existing alongside each other in the audio channels.
Bumping the rating up to 2, though, because adventure is about the journey, not the destination.
Amon Düül II
4/5
A very proggy blend of psych rock. *Extremely* reminiscent of Hawkwind from the main list.
Baroness
2/5
Most American heavy metal is kind of a chore for me, and this one's no exception.
Lady Gaga
3/5
As an album experience this follows the same pattern as every other pop lady from 1995 onward, where it opens with all the songs that were such big radio hits I got completely sick of hearing them, and then the back half that didn't make the radio was never even a little bit worth your time.
As far as the singles go, I hated how inescapable the radio hits off of it were back when this came out, but then after getting a year's break from people playing them at me, I kind of came around on them. Poker face actually is pretty fun.
The Cure
3/5
Pretty dang good for being that late into their career, but also doesn't bring much to the table that the original list didn't already showcase
Korn
2/5
Music for punching yourself in the head a lot out of self-hatred. This kind of thing doesn't really speak to me all that much, and I'd probably reach for something like Nine Inch Nails or Modest Mouse before this if I find myself in a depressive spiral. Doesn't really have any weirdo moves like "Freak on a Leash" from the other album, either.
Portishead
4/5
Completing the trio. I think I liked this one a little less than both Dummy and Third, but the three as a body of work are all-timers
Crystal Castles
4/5
Video game-inspired music that's agnostic to whether its audience has ever touched a video game
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
3/5
Hour-long blues digression
The Tragically Hip
3/5
They sound kind of like an R.E.M. that's been polished up a bit. Makes them a little less interesting than R.E.M., but still pretty good
Mustafa
3/5
Very relaxed and pleasant piano arrangements. The Sufjan influence shows, and is welcome here. Good rainy morning music
Quicksand
2/5
More like Slowsand
Pink Floyd
4/5
Between the lists, Pink Floyd's had more than their fair share of exposure, and this doesn't cover much ground that's not in the other ones. That said, I mean a two-hour live album from them's actually a pretty good time, so, y'know, twist my arm etc
Yo La Tengo
4/5
Yo La Tengo's always been kind of interesting to me. I've never developed even a little bit of enthusiasm for them, but when I actually put them on, they're pretty solid. Got nothing bad to say about them.
The Weeknd
3/5
Nighttime city driving music, but, like, trying very hard to deliver some quality nighttime city driving music. Another one of those where they have a very distinctive, well-known song ("Blinding Lights"), while the rest of it's more for occupying the background. The album's track sequencing does a really good job making that song a proper climax of the thing, though. More craft than just jamming it at the beginning like every other pop album does.
Living Colour
5/5
Most 90s rock is a chore for me, so I was really impressed with this one. Casting a really wide net of influence, really reminds me of that Fishbone album from the main list
Final Fantasy
3/5
So of course I saw that artist name and immediately thought I'd be getting the ELP-inspired synths. Instead, it's like elevated string quartet-style stuff. Not bad.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
5/5
This one really shows off one of their biggest strengths as a band: being huge music theory nerds. It's something that shows up in most of their music, but this album goes all-in on the polyrhythm theme, making it probably one of the better entry points to pitch someone on them. I think it's the most intellectual out of their albums in that way—feels way more composed and way less jammy than their usual speed
Shihad
3/5
That's sure some late 90s hard rock. Elevated a little bit by successfully doing the "sounds like it's being played in a city under the ocean" thing that Oasis sometimes manages
Karnivool
3/5
Pretty straightforward anglo metal, got a bit TOOL-adjacent at parts
Tom Misch
2/5
It’s alright music to cook to, but that’s about all I got out of it. Kind of tepid
Matthew Good Band
1/5
Brutally dull slow rock. I also give it 80% odds that M.G. wrote this one's wiki entry himself
Status Quo
2/5
Status Quo indeed. Pretty straightforward blues stuff, meaning it’s fine, but I pretty much got my fill of this sort of thing during the main list
David Baerwald
4/5
It fell off for me in the back half, but the first stretch of songs was up to some interesting things
3/5
More or less alternates between interesting vibey pieces, and boring folk noodling. Overall pretty pleasant
Yellowcard
2/5
I got a soft spot for the title song, but otherwise it's ordinary pop punk. The first couple songs had me thinking for a moment that it was going to be diet Linkin Park.
The Hold Steady
2/5
Spruce Bringsteen
Vangelis
4/5
It’s definitely a vibe. Bonus points for using the slot for a soundtrack, that’s a super cool use of the user albums list
CAKE
4/5
Little bit like if Beck had a little brother who learned to play the trumpet instead of getting really into audio engineering
There's a lot of CAKE-alikes out there, but the original is one of the few cases where that lazy vocal affectation works for the thing rather than against it. The trick is that most of CAKE's lyrics are impressionistic blather, rather than the zingers that their imitators tend to go for.
ISIS
3/5
"Post-metal" which basically just sounds like post-rock with screamier vocals. Above average in terms of American heavy metal sensibilities.
Nujabes
3/5
Dippin' Dots Elevator Music of the Future
R.E.M.
4/5
R.E.M. is both good, and already pretty well represented on the main list
65daysofstatic
3/5
Instrumental Post-Rock's got a pretty high floor as a genre
Q65
3/5
Could swap one of the original list's 60s psych acts for this, for the sake of getting some Dutch representation in there, but imo it doesn't bring much to the table that the other 60s psych acts didn't
WHY?
2/5
Making another tally mark under the "Alternative Music By and For Sardonic Geeks" column, which has kind of become one of the flagship genres for the users list.
Hamilton Leithauser
3/5
It was fine. Was surprised to learn about the Vampire Weekend connection, wouldn't have picked up on that on my own
DARKSIDE
5/5
I was really into this one. Ambient-adjacent, and hit a real sweet spot of making good background music, and also rewarding close listening. Rounding up the 4.5
Gang of Youths
3/5
Won me over once it stopped aping Springsteen and specifically The Killers, and mellowed out some, but man that all had made a horrible first impression.
Pearl Jam
4/5
Like all 90s rock, it wildly overstays its welcome, but honestly way better than I was expecting from them
Yeasayer
5/5
I submitted this one. A pick inspired by Django Django on the main list, of all things. You guys remember "Django Django" by Django Django? It was one of those entries where they were flailing for something from the 2010s and went with a random British indie group. And honestly it was pretty fine! I gave it a 4/5, but nothing from it made the cut for my highlights playlist, you know the type.
The reason "Django Django" reminded me of Yeasayer, though, is that listening to it finally resolved a long-standing cliffhanger in my life. Back in 2012, I was visiting Portland, Oregon with classmates, and became obsessed with the idea of going into a music store and buying some indie music, like I'd heard about "the hipsters" doing. I picked up Yeasayer's "Fragrant World," and the clerk suggested I should check out Django Django. I then proceeded to not listen to Django Django for over 10 years, until they showed up on the albums list. And once I'd listened to it, I came away thinking "that was pretty good, and I get why that guy thought to recommend them to me, but also any of Yeasayer's first three albums could have pretty easily gone into Django Django's spot on the list."
All of which to say, that was my favorite type of experience I got from the main project, and I felt like submitting Yeasayer's most consistent album to the user list was a good way to pay that forward. Breaking from the audience consensus here, I think this one opens *and* closes extremely strong, but meanders a lot in the middle. It's also interesting the number of reviews contextualizing them as part of a larger Brooklyn Indie scene—I'd just stumbled across these guys by accident, without knowing anything about that, and just kind of latched on.
Vampire Weekend
3/5
Not my preferred indie flavor. I’ve never really been able to muster up an opinion on these guys one way or the other
Tosca
4/5
Austrian trip hop kinda thing. Pretty good stuff, the use of voice samples for rhythm was interesting, but kinda grated on me. Non-ideal headphones experience
Paul McCartney
4/5
Honestly pretty solid, but he's also the Beatle whose post-Beatles career I'm least interested by
Procol Harum
5/5
I was really surprised by how much I vibed with this one. Mild & relaxing, and I really like the fuzzy guitar tone they have going on it.
Various Artists
4/5
As far as the movie goes, it's a great time for about 2/3 of the thing, but it blows its biggest song ("Time Warp") *extremely* early and runs completely out of steam by the time it gets to "Eddie." That stretch of all the slowest songs at the end is an absolute slog to get through.
The soundtrack here follows that basic pattern, but since it clocks in at about half the length of the movie's runtime, it's less of a crippling issue.
Barenaked Ladies
2/5
Occupies a middle ground between R.E.M. and something along the lines of They Might Be Giants. Holds up worse than either of those examples, though.
Malibu
3/5
Ambient's got a pretty high floor as far as genres go. Rare instance of feeling like I'd prefer longer than E.P.-length
Savatage
3/5
Now *THERE's* an album cover!
Extremely stupid cheesy 80s metal, which is usually a coin toss whether that'll be very fun or very annoying. This one is fun!
Espers
4/5
Proggy psychedelic music, of the "sacred altar in the haunted forest" variety
Margot & The Nuclear So And So's
3/5
Indie Rock of the whiny guy variety
Daft Punk
2/5
Didn't hold up as well as I thought it was going to.
Like in context of the movie, sure, it's the only worthwhile part of the thing. But on it's own, it only really shows some signs of life for "Derezzed," and the rest of it is just variations on That One Motif over and over and fucking over. Further demerits for said motif sounding way too close to Ennio Morricone's "The Ecstasy of Gold"
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
3/5
A titan of oldies radio. Agreed with people that this could easily bump something off the original list, but I'm not exactly Invested in the fight
No Doubt
4/5
I'm not quite able to get past how bloated the album is as a whole, but *man* that opening stretch of songs is just hit after hit. Bands really gotta start playing around with brass instruments again, we were wrong to leave that behind in the 90s.
Soul Coughing
3/5
Wish I were better able to get past the vocals sounding like an obnoxious mashup between CAKE and Smash Mouth, because there's a lot of very fun things happening in this on the music & production side.
Weezer
4/5
*Much* more fun than the blue album. Departing from 70s & 80s aging rocker attitudes, it takes the position that there is nothing even a little bit cool about being sleazy
Beyoncé
3/5
Fundamentally it's coffee shop music that talks dirty to you, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't pretty fun
The Notwist
3/5
German rock/electronica hybrid, comes a little bit close to trip hop a lot of the time. Good rainy morning music
Yoko Ono
3/5
Put it on the main list, cowards! It's so, so refreshing to finally draw an audience un-favorite that's actually weird and difficult, instead of just boring.
I was actually pretty into the first disc—"Mindtrain" in particular is an extremely cool song, and Ono's weird vocals throughout honestly don't bug me the way they seem to for most others. "Toilet Piece" also made me laugh a lot. Like for most of this thing, she seems to be in on the bit.
Disc 2...is admittedly a bit much, though. Very much not a fan of the 22 minutes that the title song took up.
Mr. Bungle
4/5
The 90s truly were a golden era of white funk. Sounded like the experience of channel surfing
Robyn
4/5
Really interesting experience. Swedes basically invented the production for american pop music, so we have here something that's unmistakably That, but also something where I've osmosed absolutely none of it from hearing it out in the wild. Pretty fun for a single listen, and I'm grateful that I can escape it by just pausing it and walking away—nobody's out there cramming it down my throat
Wet Leg
4/5
Oh no, music styles that I have nostalgia for are now acceptable retro mining!
Oh no, Chaise Longue is already extremely dated as an earworm, I'm late to the party on the retro mining too!
Depeche Mode
3/5
Depeche Mode beach episode. A fun diversion, but I like their moodier stuff better
David Allan Coe
3/5
Above replacement country music. I actually grabbed a couple songs off here for the highlights playlist, I don't normally do that for the country entries
Louis Armstrong
4/5
Hard to sum up in a star rating. Runs into the same issue as a lot of the pre-1960 albums from the original list, where it's *really* not meant to be listened to in the same kinds of settings & contexts as I tend to play an album... but also Louis Armstrong was an absolute titan, and deserves recognition for all time.
Ex-Easter Island Head
3/5
Hits an interesting energy level. It's busier than most ambient out there, but not nearly as frenetic as most english electronica seems to aim for
Charly García
3/5
Down-the-middle 80s rock, which can sometimes drift a little too sleepy for my liking. Thankfully, this sidestepped that.
Agalloch
3/5
Pretty decent folky prog metal/post-metal kind of thing. Wore out its welcome a little bit toward the end
Porcupine Tree
3/5
Grading on the curve of Steven Wilson works, I liked his solo album on here better. Grading on the curve of “keeping the torch of prog rock lit during the 21st century,” I like Mars Volta better
Nic Jones
3/5
UK Folk Music > American Folk Music for me, and Nic Jones has a better singing voice than most of what the original list had to offer for this sort of thing
Jaco Pastorius
3/5
Bass showcase album. Some nice sunny day jazz, overall
Marillion
2/5
It's an interesting historical artifact, if nothing else. Demonstrates that 80s production really, really screws up the vibes when trying to cargo-cult Gabriel-era Genesis. Phil Collins & co. definitely made the right move in pivoting to pop music
Bright Eyes
2/5
A very lyrics-forward album, which can be tough for me. It's not enough to overcome my distaste for slide guitar
Extrechinato y Tu
3/5
"Poems with backing music" but the music is chugga wugga metal. I had fun with this one.
Spinvis
3/5
Kind of an indie pop sound, wore out its welcome as it went on
Yello
3/5
Unmistakably 80s, more of a "weird moody" flavor than most new wavey stuff of the era
Arca
4/5
Arrakis Sandworms Walk Without Rhythm guide. It’s good when experimental music actually gets out there and experiments
Ween
4/5
Second thing from them that I’ve heard on here. A little bit more reined in than Chocolate and Cheese. I dunno, I kind of want to like these guys better than I actually do, I think.
Bran Van 3000
2/5
Ranges from “fine” to “actively annoying.”
Weirdly I think I’d like it more if I *didn’t* understand the lyrics
Pedro The Lion
2/5
Maudlin Indie, sung by someone who sounds like he's flat even when he probably isn't
The Jesus Lizard
3/5
Argle Blargle aggro music. Honestly might be kinda great for something like lifting weights
Bo Burnham
2/5
I remember watching the thing when it first released. Wouldn't exactly say it aged well. Or, well, the ways in which it's interesting in hindsight don't quite overcome that it's just kinda obnoxious.
There's a kernel of Something in there, though. It's an explicit piece of COVID Lockdowns Art, which *sounds* like it should be more interesting than all the media that elides that era... but in hindsight this thing's really more about just being generally insecure on the internet. But then one of the big legacies of quarantine time is more people getting flushed online & mainlining all of this stuff.
I dunno! It's probably healthy for Burnham to be working through all this stuff for his own sake, but I'm not all that charmed by the end result.
John Mayer
3/5
Rainy Day singer/songwriter. Drags a bit, but passes the time just fine.
Talking Heads
5/5
An offering from my preferred Talking Heads era, and more deserving of a slot on the original list than most of their actual entries. The film's definitely worth your time, but even the album on its own has a lot to offer. Really shows off that they were a great live band. The middle section is mostly songs from Speaking In Tongues, which was one of their more mediocre releases, but the live versions one here really bring them all to life and make them sound like some of their best work.
Michael Hurley
2/5
Snoozefest of a folky album
Titus Andronicus
3/5
Lo-fi indie punk, and a fun enough concept for the concept album. Warmed up to it as it went on.
Khruangbin
4/5
Mellow bluesy jamming. Didn't stand out or really make the cut for highlights playlist at any point, but made for pretty good working music
Freestylers
3/5
After going through the original list, "...the debut album by the English electronic group..." is a traumatizing series of words to see on a 90s entry, but thankfully this one's from the *late* 90s, meaning it's a little bit funky, a little bit whacky, and sounds like it was made by cartoon characters.
Horribly dated, but that's what's kind of charming about it.
Powderfinger
2/5
Slow rock that slid directly off my brain. Few too many ballads
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
2/5
Man if all you've got is biting from 60s psych rock, you should make an album that's half as long
Dolly Parton
3/5
I don't really like Dolly Parton's music as much as I just kind of enjoy her as a public figure. Similar to how I feel about Snoop, honestly
Swans
5/5
Man, right when I was starting to feel bored with all the post-rock/adjacent on here, this completely gets me back on-board. Outstanding album.
Vince Guaraldi Trio
4/5
Gold standard of Christmas tunes, which is maybe damning with faint praise a bit. Very nice arrangements, though, with the exception of Christmas Time is Here, which is a terrible song and a miserable slog.
The Peanuts cartoon was a little while before my time, so the only exposure I really had was the holiday specials. I remember the music always being the notable highlight of those.
Emicida
3/5
Forgot to read up before playing, and spent the first third or so trying to figure out what language this was in lol
Psyche Origami
3/5
Sounds older than it is, which is mostly mean as a compliment. Tough to keep listening as it goes on, though; it’s long, and doesn’t have a ton of variety
Zamilska
4/5
Extremely solid moody droning music, though it does fall off a little bit toward the end
Shpongle
3/5
Obnoxious name/album title. Above-average 90s UK Electronica, the world music angle is refreshing, but ultimately this one would be right at home on the original list (derogatory)
Harry Styles
3/5
Some of the songs made the cut for my highlights playlist, which I didn't expect from him. I do generally prefer something like this or CRJ for casual pop music, but it's not a genre that I have a ton of enthusiasm for
BABYMETAL
3/5
This one is interesting not just on its own merits, but also helps make sense of what that Electric Callboy album from earlier was trying to aim for. Bit of a meme band though, they're a very fun departure from usual listening, but the bit gets old pretty quickly.
Wilco
2/5
"Alternative Country" AKA a bunch of Chicago guys LARPing. I don't even like the real version of this kind of thing very much.
Amália Rodrigues
3/5
Not super familiar with Fado and what it does. As a compilation that spans a fairly long career, this kind of runs into the same issue as some of the pre-60s albums, where there's different rules for how to best listen to it
1/5
It’s better than the one in the main list, but that’s about the only nice thing I can say about it
Low
4/5
Started pretty strong, but fell off for me near the end. I wanted more glitchy from it than it ended up delivering
Ornatos Violeta
3/5
Down-the-middle rock music
of Montreal
3/5
Indie rock/indie pop. It's of the Adventurous variety, meaning that I mostly like it better than the folky and maudlin ones, but it does unfortunately veer over into being annoying a lot of the time.
Imogen Heap
4/5
Hot damn, manages to evoke not only nostalgia for '05, but amazement that something that sounds like this is as old as '05
The Tragically Hip
3/5
Leaves the same impression as the last one of these that I got served up: biting so much from R.E.M. that it renders them boring
Brand New
3/5
Modest Mouse at home, which isn’t the worst thing a band could be
Times New Viking
3/5
It's interesting and a little baffling to me that this one's one of the lowest-rated on the users list, but Aeroplane Over The Sea's a crowd favorite. I don't consider Aeroplane to be very different from this, and honestly, Times New Viking's even a little bit less grating, because the mix doesn't spotlight wildly flat singing
Mac DeMarco
3/5
short & sweet, if a little sleepy
Rita Ora
1/5
I tend to get a little bit excited when I draw pop music from someone whose name I don't recognize, because there's sometimes interesting surprises in there. Not this one, though. 33 minutes long, and it feels like 90. The only song that I enjoyed even a little bit was the fatboy slim one.
This is straight-up not meant to be listened to straight through as an album, it's meant to be crappy filler music for coffee shops gyms, and football game commercial breaks
Pop Will Eat Itself
4/5
An incredibly precise snapshot of the 90s starting to hatch out of the shell of the 80s, meaning it's a little bit stupid & annoying, but also somehow extremely charming.
Also since I complain a lot about album length, especially on releases from around this era, I'd like to shout out that this one actually would have completely fallen apart if they had cut it to 30-40min. It really needed this amount of runtime to simmer properly.
Vampire Weekend
3/5
Internal tension of being absolutely exhausted by all the Vampire Weekend albums showing up on here, but also liking this one quite a bit more than I usually do for them
The Stooges
2/5
A very Inside Baseball album. More interesting historically than musically.
Bruce Cockburn
4/5
Above-average Singer-songwriter work for me, because it actually has what I always want more of from those: musical arrangements that aren't just one guitar
3/5
Midnight City's the only one on here that ever really broke containment. This whole thing's highly representative of that specific indie pop kind of sound that the 2010s were dabbling in.
Roy Harper
3/5
First song had me worried I was going to like this less than I did. Above average for singer-songwriter fare.
My Morning Jacket
2/5
Turned to grey sludge by the end. No personality.
The Posies
1/5
Total slog start to finish
TOOL
4/5
Gonna echo others here. I know the current full "submitted albums" list isn't really made prominent on the site proper (can be found at https://1001albumsgenerator.com/user-albums if anyone didn't already know & is curious), but for this to be a late-career release after years of no activity from the band, the fourth TOOL album sent in, doing nothing new, and having been submitted later than the other three on here, I feel like I gotta dock it at least a little bit.
Still leaves it as a 4/5 for me, though. TOOL Good.
Duncan Dhu
2/5
Endless desert of soft rock
First Aid Kit
3/5
Spent most of this thinking it was above-average american folky. They got me! It was Swedish all along!
LaBelle
3/5
Agreed with people that this one could probably have bumped one of the Chic albums from the main list. On its own terms, kinda felt like each song started good, but went on too long
Turnstile
3/5
Very reminiscent of Jane's Addiction. Nice & novel for what the list has been giving me lately
Chico Science
3/5
90s funk as global phenomenon
Avenged Sevenfold
1/5
Sitting at an unfortunate halfway point between whiner boy depression metal, and cheesy power metal, it would benefit a lot from just picking a lane. As someone who's not really a fan of either, but who prefers the power metal over the whiny stuff, I think American bands aren't capable of doing power metal right. They get too self-conscious too quickly to hit the necessary flamboyance.
Ornette Coleman
4/5
I could have sworn we got this one on the main list, but looks like I was remembering the John Zorn thing that shouted out Coleman. Loose & fun, although I think on the whole I liked the experimentation of later jazz even more
Queen
4/5
It's Queen, you already know what they're about. I don't know if I fully get why they're naming their albums after Marx Bros movies like this.
Warren Zevon
5/5
Big nostalgia record for me, top shelf Dad Rock. Also extremely good hangover music imo.
This one was a contender for my album submission, so I'm very happy that somebody else sent it in.
Porcupine Tree
4/5
Liked it better than Blank Planet, but that's about all I got
The National
1/5
Sometimes it hits the right level of Moody that it seems to be aiming for, but for the most part this is just really boring.
Deafheaven
5/5
Probably first shoegaze-adjacent thing that I legitimately liked
Counting Crows
2/5
I mean it just kind of is what it is. Mid-tempo, a little bit whiny, production holds up pretty well, but the thing's just really boring to me. No peaks, no trenches. Not helped by all the times I've heard stuff from here in the wild is, like, shopping for clothes.
Modern Life Is War
1/5
I am so goddamn tired of hardcore on here
Jason Isbell
3/5
Pretty decent country singer-songwriter work. People have been sending in pretty good ones with this kind of thing
Zero 7
4/5
Moon Safari at home, which still comes out to a strong offering
Mac Miller
2/5
Another one where reading up on the context makes me feel vaguely guilty for not liking it very much
Eric B. & Rakim
3/5
Music so dated that it's looped back around to being cool again
The Civil Wars
2/5
Started as pretty decent sleepy music, but got more Generic Country as it went on
Lizzy McAlpine
2/5
Slid off my brain, two weeks later & I remember nothing about this one
Lady Gaga
5/5
DotA epic moments fan reel ass. A dispatch from that brief fever dream of an era where pop producers were making the talent get in on this "dubstep" thing that was sweeping the clubs. I like that she committed 110% to it, though. It shows its age more than most of her stuff, but that kinda makes me like it more.
I'd fully missed this one when it came out, and I really am floored by how much I liked it. I only recognized one song off of here and it's a pretty long album, but, like, most pop albums ("The Fame" absolutely included) have a problem where they're super long & everything that's not an iconic single is useless throwaway filler. This had way less of that.
Tyler, The Creator
4/5
Probably the first hip hop thing that clocks in with this particular mild tempo, that I actually enjoyed instead of thinking was boring
The Ike Reilly Assassination
2/5
It's a rock album that didn't stick to my memory at all as I write the review two days later.
Garmarna
5/5
Rounding up the 4.5, I'm in a good mood & this one put me in a good mood. I'm buried under two feet of snow as I write this, it fits the morning. Most of it's pretty straightforward folk rock, though the opening couple tracks had a lot of electric stink on them that I was hoping would continue for more of the thing. Very cool submission.
Tom Petty
3/5
Better than the one on the main list, but it's still pretty much just oldies radio to me
Current 93
2/5
I enjoy a good "up its own ass" album every now and then, but this one's not my preferred flavor
The Who
3/5
Despite basically inventing the indulgent concept album as we understand it, I’ve always liked The Who’s overwrought output less than the overwrought output of Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, etc. Even Jethro Tull making fun of this kind of thing with “Thick As A Brick” is more engaging to me.
It’s still alright, just lower-tier in my rankings
Less Than Jake
3/5
Tony Hawk Pro Skater Soundtrack ass. A fun thing about this kind of project is that you get enough exposure to genres you don't normally listen to, that you start getting the ability to form preferences within them. This one's clocking in late to the party on ska, but right in the middle of pop punk's reign. It's worse than other ska that's come up on here, and middle of the pack among the pop punk.
BABYMETAL
3/5
Honestly the bit took way longer to wear down on me than I expected. I still kind of think of them as a novelty act, though.
Paco de Lucía
5/5
God, I love spanish guitar. This gave me a lot of that, without any distracting nonsense, A+
Lift To Experience
3/5
Opened pretty strong, but then kind of settled into regular post-rock
Slapstick
2/5
I was prepared to be very annoyed that a "-punk" act is clocking in at 54 minutes, but seems like this is a compilation album from a band that had a lot of trouble with managing their physical media releases back when they were active. That at least seems like an interesting story, if nothing else.
Anyway, I really fucking hate this kind of hairball vocals
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
2/5
Always makes me a little sad when the top reviews are a parade of 1 & 2-stars, especially when it's jam music, which a lot of people really love to hate & impress their friends with how much they hate it.
I do agree with most of the people here that this one's pretty mediocre, though. Way too beholden to Phish, but also has a much shallower bag of tricks. Very little variation in instruments, dynamics, rhythm, tempo, etc, and they never manage to pull off krautrock-style hypnotism. Felt like any time I really started to settle into a groove, they'd start doing shit like playing the Pink Panther theme and I'd get yanked back out of it.
311
2/5
Like a less polished RHCP
Danny Brown
5/5
Big surprise for this one, I thought for sure as it opened that I'd be *very* quickly getting annoyed with his voice, but it really works for him & the mood he's cultivating on this. Super unhinged, giving it a 5
Everything Everything
2/5
Had promise, but wore out its welcome. Long and boring even without getting into the extended/deluxe edition nonsense.
The Housemartins
3/5
Straightforward britpop, meaning it runs a little bit tepid for my taste
NOFX
4/5
Post-80s punk/hardcore/whatever always kind of blends together for me, and there's a lot of it on the users list. This is probably one of the better ones on here, but it suffers for me experiencing some some genre fatigue.
People are wrong to dock this for being an 18-minute EP, though, and in fact I'm bumping it an extra rank for the exact same reason. I like my Big Ideas and Politics Opinions music to be either super long epics that I can get lost in & spend the whole day on them... or short, clear, concise, wasting no time. This would have been bloated and terrible at the 50-90 minutes a 1999 album release would have demanded.
Sea Power
4/5
Hadn't thought about this group in a minute, I'd fully forgotten that they were the ones behind the Disco Elysium soundtrack. One of the better versions of the indie rock of the era. I like how fuzzy the first couple tracks come across; I'm less interested in the mellower songs closing the thing.
Transvision Vamp
3/5
Teen movie montage music. Some seriously prime-cut 80s cheese pop. Indefensible, but fuck it, I AM in the mood for this kind of thing today
Prolapse
5/5
This surprised me. With a name like that, I was bracing for some kind of abrasive punk, and instead it was a really cool art rock kind of sound. Making some really cool moves in the production, definitely going to be spinning this one up again.
STARSET
2/5
Some of the other reviews had me expecting something along the lines of Muse-style grandiose arena rock, but it's really just a guy shouting over some sparkly synth arpeggios and straightforward guitar chugs. I've got no nostalgia for this kind of thing, and I'm not a fan now.
Gaelle
2/5
Drifted as it went from lounge-style filler music to something more electric
Frank Zappa
4/5
I maybe liked the grooves more than the lyrics, but Zappa's always worth checking out. Not as good as Hot Rats, but I had fun with it
Foxing
3/5
Kind of making a lot of the expected moves from 2010s indie rock. At this point sounds like it's maybe a little on the overproduced side, but that's something that weaves in and out of fashion
The Tragically Hip
3/5
I’ve had it “Up To Here” with people adding albums from this band to the list!!!
I do like this one better than the others, though.
The Breeders
3/5
The better of the Pixies spin-off projects, but still not as good as the Pixies in their heyday
Chloe x Halle
2/5
Snoozefest of an R&B offering. Background music
Ookla The Mok
1/5
Completely insufferable & one-note. The bit was unfunny to *start* with, and they definitely didn't have the goods to sustain a full album. Might have made sense as like a series of youtube videos, if youtube had been a thing back in 2001.
I do feel a little bad hating this as much as I do, because I am capable of understanding that this album showing up on here is a kind of containment breach. It's not music that evolved to withstand this amount of exposure & scrutiny.
Cindy Lee
5/5
This was a very neat surprise. Varied, sprawling, and it stays interesting the entire time. I'm not a huge fan of that vocal filter, but it doesn't ruin the experience. Rounding up the 4.5, I liked this a lot
Self Esteem
2/5
It's some fairly standard dirty-talking pop music
Glass Animals
3/5
Does a very 2010s indie thing where it opens super bombastic, and then the rest of the songs are completely different than that. It's pretty close to my taste, but not quite there. Couldn't really say why though.
Queens of the Stone Age
3/5
Very straightforward rock. I feel nothing about these guys, but I also can't really fault them for anything either
The Hold Steady
1/5
Drunk jackass slurs at you with no indoor voice for 42 minutes (asmr)(?). All of his stories are boring.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
2/5
Another case of ramble rant man talking over decent rock music
Silverchair
1/5
Not quite nu-metal, but like a soft rock/post-grunge situation? Glam Grunge, going off some of the other reviews? Anyway it's a bunch of flavors that I don't like
ROSALÍA
3/5
Takes some big swings & drifts to a lot of different places, but it still is soft pop in its bones. Bumping it up one for ambition, but I don't want to pretend like I wasn't checking my watch a lot during the back half
Fall Out Boy
2/5
As someone with no love, affection, or nostalgia for Fall Out Boy in their heyday, I don't have the sense of personal betrayal that others seem to be experiencing. Which isn't to say I liked it, though, because this really is just thirstily chasing all the pop rock trends of the era, and coming out super bland for it. Like clearly the stuff that bands like Fun. and Imagine Dragons were doing around this time got *deep* in these guy's heads.
Grappling a bit with how I gave Lady Gaga's 'Artpop' a 5 on here, though, and I think the difference is that she fully committed to doing the dubstep album & owned it, while this feels like it's doing the opposite, if that makes sense
Black Country, New Road
2/5
A straight hour of slow rock. Every song a dirge. Instrumentation's at least got some complexity, but this one seems like one of those that people enjoy for mostly inside baseball reasons
The Fall
4/5
Man, 20 years in and Smith still had it. Always super impressive that The Fall both sounds as distinct as they do each time, while consistently being ahead of the curve on what music's about to sound like. I might gotta check out that 2017 album to see if the trend continued
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
5/5
Cut my listen short at the end of the original track listing, because I am staunchly anti-deluxe-editions for the purposes of this project.
I went in skeptical, but this really won me over. Delivers on a kind of maximalism that I feel like only could have come out of the 90s
Carla Bley
3/5
A trio of instruments that'd be at home playing live music for a fancy lounge somewhere. Fundamentally pleasant, cozy.
Gerry Cinnamon
3/5
“Singer-songwriter” entries on here haven’t had the best hit rate for me, but this was honestly pretty unobjectionable. Didn’t bore me or wear me down at any point, he’s got a good voice, and his arrangements are nicely-composed.
They Might Be Giants
4/5
I was nervous going into this one. TMBG is one of the major fathers of quirky nerd music, and I’ve been lukewarm at best on most of the other quirky nerd music that people have been sending in. It's actually a pretty big nostalgia album from my youth, but I hadn't put it on in over 15 years.
I think ultimately it’s held up pretty well, but I can sort of feel the strain of how my taste has changed over the years. There’s a handful of all-time great songs on here, but they’re separated by deserts of throwaway tracks, and it feels like there’s not a ton of intention or craft in the sequencing. Fun trip down memory lane, though.
At the Drive-In
3/5
Y2K American Post-Hardcore, which is an interesting combination of time, genre, and place. Post-hardcore's *really* not a genre that I care for (and jesus goddamn the people here love adding it to the list), but thankfully this one's making more interesting moves than most of the others that have been sent in.
It was very affirming to check the wiki and learn that some of the members would go on to form The Mars Volta—it's very proggy, and I thought I recognized the singer's voice, but he's doing a completely different (worse) style on here.
Charles Aznavour
2/5
Seems like in addition to the music sounding very Sinatra, he's a comparable cultural figure for France. Reading the wiki & other reviews, it sounds like he was a cool & interesting guy, but in terms of the album, I'm sorry but I really, really dislike crooner music on the best of days
GRiZ
2/5
Looks and sounds like a bowling alley during friday night after-dark hours. Releasing something in 2021 that leans this much into the corny dubstep elements is a move that I find endearing, rather than annoying, but... eh I think it's kind of a mess, overall
3/5
Finally some recent punk music that’s not just trying to do punk from the 1970s again
The Dear Hunter
4/5
Indie prog! Story-style concept album, it does a great job evoking the grandiosity of 1970s Genesis, without fully copycatting an outdated era like how Marillion tried to do it. I enjoyed this a lot, though I'm not sure yet if I plan to check out the other Acts of this thing.
Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera
4/5
I was pretty ready to be dismissive of more late 60s psych rock after everything we went through on the main list, but this really won me over. It’s not doing anything super fancy, but it’s executing well. Pays a lot more attention to playing interesting bass grooves than these usually do, which I’m almost always a fan of.
The Hotelier
2/5
I didn't care for this kind of thing in my teen years, either