1001 Albums Summary

I once had a friend compare Kanye to Beethoven. I like this album, but I’m not sure it merits being broadcast in deep space as the best humanity has to offer, despite the inclusion of the song Spaceship on the album. Jesus Walks is a good early example of Kanye’s transgressive combination of of sacred/religious themes and profane language and themes, which I find interesting as a religion scholar. Also, knowing some of his nonsense since 2004, including support for Trump, the sort of victim mentality in that song of “oh now no one’s gonna play my record because I mentioned God” is both sort of funny and irritating (because obviously millions of people played his record—it’s on this list, after all). KIMYE out

Meh

One of the interesting things about having to rest during Covid is that I actually sat and listened to this album *without doing anything else*. I haven’t done that with an album in a long time. Really a different experience than listening to music while doing other activities, even driving. An album of its time, in some ways that aren’t amazing. But when the album shines, it shines bright. “Run for Your Life” and all its “little girl”s is pretty irritating in its typical 60s music discourse about women. But I do actually really like the song “Girl”—the Greek style of the song saves it for me. And In My Life and Norwegian Wood are brilliant and favorites and always lovely to listen to.

Okay, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I didn’t love today’s album. I guess I’ve never listened to an Arcade Fire album all the way through, and while I’ve considered myself a casual fan in the past (have some of their songs on playlists, etc.) and am impressed by their multi-instrumentality…I thought this album was pretty boring to listen to. After the first few songs it just all sounded pretty much the same to me. So, there you have it. A person who didn’t like the 2011 Grammy-winning Album of the Year

I really liked this one a lot! I thought the rhythms were interesting and varied, and I liked what I could catch of the lyrics. It felt more like a cohesive album than some of the other recent ones. I might explore some more of her music