I think this was a more even experience, but had lower highs compared to Magnolia Electric Co. Rock solid either way.

Sad man with a guitar. Heard a million like it.

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.

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

Go! Go! Power Rangers

*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.

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).

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

Cannibal Surf Babe tricked me into thinking this would be a much better time than it was.

A lot of fun ideas and moves in this, all of which fail to transcend the extremely stale production sensibilities of the time

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?

Shares some DNA with the Korns and the Slipknots of the world, elevated by having decent production/mixing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFyCPicGbXM Honestly for coming out late 80s, this sounded relatively fresh

Go! Go! Power Rangers

My head’s turned into an empty cavern. Sole occupant: one cello. Fun headphones listen, did not need to be over an hour.

Pretty solid alt-rock, and from decently early on, as far as that specific scene goes

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

Get up and DANCE! Music that puts me in a very good mood

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!

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.

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

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

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

Pretty glad to have drawn this one on a dark, quiet, rainy morning.

Very fun album, which is weird because I hated Green Day, and this doesn't seem all that different. Mysteries for the ages

On the better end of stuff I've heard from shoegaze: a genre I don't care for very much

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.

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.

Solo acts/singer-songwriter music living or dying for me based entirely on the backing music. She did good work here

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.

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.

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!

Reminds me of the Barry Adamson albums from the original list, but with more of a dub/trip hop flavor & less circus brass

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

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

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

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

I guess grunge lasted long enough that someone tried to get proggy with it. It's not a good match, this was a chore.

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

I really like Tori Amos music : ) Singer-songwriter stuff is so much better when it's piano-based

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

God I can't stand this kind of breathy vocal delivery. Awful headphones experience.

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

Not minding it! Springsteen’s an artist where the original list was actually really helpful for learning to appreciate him a lot more.

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.

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

Perfectly fine bluesy soulsy

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

Sad man with a guitar. Heard a million like it.

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

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

I remember nothing about this one day later

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

Bratty in a way that charli xcx could only dream of achieving. It's a masterfully-executed vision, but it is so goddamn stupid

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

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!

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

Some of the original list’s Costello budget should have gone to this, but it is also in the same family as Costello

Mid-10s rap. Didn't really make me feel any kind of way, but seems like it was fun to make.

Solid example of some 90s punk, but also most 90s punk doesn't really do much for me

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.

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

There's some flashes of fun & creativity, but mostly it's like if the weather channel didn't have commercials

I usually like Waters & Pink Floyd, but this is off-the-charts Boomer Midlife Crisis art

"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

Just the most boring, twinkly over-produced type of late 80s pop music. Complete snoozefest.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The trick is that I don't understand what British prog guys are saying, either

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?”

Back before "eclectic mix" albums were irredeemably nerd-coded. Kinda coming across like a clunkier NiN

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.

I'm floored that someone had an appetite for more of this bullshit after living with the main list for three whole years

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

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.

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.

Interesting to pick a TMBG from after the 2010, 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

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.

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.

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

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

"Wistful," which is interesting that I'm feeling that, since I didn't really listen to these guys growing up.

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.

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.

Fun for most of the duration, but does start to lose me during the final piece. 4.5 rounding up, though

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*

The user albums have had a hot streak of emo music, but I think this one’s pretty boring

Damn, in hindsight these guys were a huge omen for Imagine Dragons-type music coming down the pipeline

Unhinged in an extremely good way. Was very unsurprised to learn the guy's French

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Very mellow, but not boring in a way that drags down what I'm doing when using it for background music

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

I feel like this one must have been held back a bit by its release era. Real pearl-jam sounding vocals, which was distracting.

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.

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

I think I'm starting to hit post-rock saturation on this list

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.

The Christian angle is the only remotely interesting thing about this. Super boring sound.

If not for the fact that it's in French, indistinguishable from movie end credits music of the era

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.

Slow Orchestral's a very nice change of pace from most of the rest of the list.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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!

I think this was a more even experience, but had lower highs compared to Magnolia Electric Co. Rock solid either way.

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.

I only really know him from memes, so I was surprised that this was twing twang country-sounding, rather than Island.

Starts off real smooth, so that it can then start talking dirty at you. Fun enough.

Is it good, or just good for working to? Dunno! Got the job done all the same

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

They had more than their fair share on the original list, but also come on it's Pink Floyd, they're never unwelcome.

Straight down the middle prog rock. Toe to tip, this is a Tarkus!

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.

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.

A bit Bon Iver-adjacent, for lack of better reference points? Little bit floaty ambient. Inoffensive, but not groundbreaking.

Bounces and bumbles between weather channel funk and disco throwback. Weirdly uncohesive for it

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.

Soothing Folky Lullaby kinda sound. Nice for the right time & place, but made for poor working music

They’re 2 for 2 in good album covers, and 0 for 2 on making music I like

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

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.

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

*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

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.

A very long string of pretty alright jazz organ jamming

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

Soft Pop for a new generation

Shucks Howdy

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

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

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. It is interesting on paper, though, in showing off how thoroughly mainstreamed this scene had gotten. This is pop music.

90s American Suburb rock, as depicted by some guys that really really seem to like Queen

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

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

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.

"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"

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.

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

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.

I think the wikipedia entry basically gets it right—you'll get more out of listening to their peers & influences

Extremely fun time. Tons more personality than R&B usually brings, casting a wide net of influences

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.

Spanish punk rock. Fun, but does have a bit of that 90s/00s "album too long" disease

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.

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.

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.

"Avant-Garde Metal" but really it's pretty standard post-rock that sometimes screams at you.

More Post-Hardcore. I'm softening on the genre with repeated exposure, but would still never ever listen to it outside of this context

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

Bog fucking standard pop punk

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.

Above-average piano-based country music. Really demands to be played in a car, imo

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

"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.

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.

Core album from an important band in the "eclectic mix by & for weirdos" realm. The People's White Album.

"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