1/5. There's very little on this record that I can enjoy. All of the songs have the same plodding, druggy tempo with a somniferous vocal delivery to match. Synthesizers are used in a basic way: neither mixed low enough to just add depth to the sound or distinctive enough to make the arrangements richer. Guitars are bluesy and noodle across many of the numbers - even giving some parts a west coast desert vibe that reminds me of The Eagles. The lyrics are pretty crappy which is surprising since your average boomer will call modern hip-hop a trash medium and then defend their position with Pink Floyd... a band who rhymes "school" with "fool" or "guitar", "steak bar" and "Jaguar".

Music for a blue collar bar in a suburban strip mall. Hot, Blue and Righteous stands out as a sweet song to end side A on an otherwise greasy collection.

Listening to this album feels like I am consuming all of what became "alternative rock" in the decades that follow its release. I hope that if I was a teenager in 1979 I would have been cool enough to like The B-52's. The kitsch dial is turned up near maximum on this recording but the songs and performances are just too fun to ignore. If the vocal harmonies don't make your spine tingle, do you even like music?

Slim Shady does not give a shit. So edgy. Is it supposed to be funny? If it is, then maybe it’s not just my kind of jokes. If it’s real then it’s super cringy for an adult to stick with the same character for a second record and keep up with the same childish, angry verses. The beats sound pretty childish too. This is a time capsule of the MTV TRL era and it sucks.

Up-close vocals and laid back instrumentation make this effortlessly cool in the way Roxy Music could never pull off. The tracks that don't sound like Bowie are better than the Bowie-esque ones and the album as a whole is yet to be thoroughly mined for 21st Century Hipster Cinema soundtracks.

Music for a blue collar bar in a suburban strip mall. Hot, Blue and Righteous stands out as a sweet song to end side A on an otherwise greasy collection.

Listening to this album feels like I am consuming all of what became "alternative rock" in the decades that follow its release. I hope that if I was a teenager in 1979 I would have been cool enough to like The B-52's. The kitsch dial is turned up near maximum on this recording but the songs and performances are just too fun to ignore. If the vocal harmonies don't make your spine tingle, do you even like music?

You can't deny these riffs. The songs and sounds on this album share a lot more in common with the grunge bands I believed were far superior as a teen. As timeless as the music may be at times the lyrics get a little too "on the nose". The earnestness of grunge is its legacy rather than the fashion or even the sound. The production on the remastered version sounds great but Side B is hiding some real clunkers. For one reason or another I think I prefer Megadeth. Ye-yeah!

The songs are loud, poppy, urgent, timeless. The collection is as artistic as it is consumable making it the pinnacle of the bands career. You could even argue this was the pinnacle of punk rock. Listen to the Albini version unless you're a Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.

It's jazz, I guess? Many of the tracks are film noir sketches between lush piano, bass, and drum numbers that highlight Waits' voice which sounds great on this live recording. The lyrics are poetic and very clever. "Purina checkerboard slacks" from Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street) recalls the funny parts of Alice's Restaurant but in a much hipper presentation. Evocative stories taking place in the gritty parts of LA. Cars, tough personalities, drugs and booze. This should have been a hip-hop album.

Whatever this album is, it's one aspect of Cool Britannia that never made it across the Atlantic. And it's for a good reason. The duo are not The Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack, Orbital, or even Sneaker Pimps. I guess you had to be there.

What can be said that Yasi Salek hasn't already explored? The episode of Bandsplain about RHCP really did change my view of the Peppers but this album is a solid work from a band that has evolved so much over the decades.

Cringe-worthy pop rap. The Slim Shady persona is that disruptive kid you knew in eighth grade who tried to come off edgy by telling tall tales on the bus. He was annoying and nobody's friend but unexpectedly shined in the one class he cared about. This record might be a victim of the aggressive posture that popular performers took in the late 90s. I wonder what persona Eminem would have created had he come up in the Soundcloud/emo rap era. Maybe he could have painted with colors other than "Fred Durst backward red baseball hat" red.

Fats has a great voice and his creations provided enough material for groups to mine well into the next decade or more. The songs are not corny like Elvis and more danceable than Buddy Holly. All in all there isn't enough to grab the attention of modern listeners but it's still a cool nostalgia trip.

When this album came out, rock music was in a bad place. Groups like The Hives emerged to bring rock 'n' roll back to its roots by mining early garage rock and punk sounds while adding better songwriting and cleaner dirty production. This is a compilation album which gives me mixed feelings but if Singles Going Steady and Hatful of Hollow can get away with it, so can Your New Favourite Band.

Aggressive. Sounds like video game music. Very danceable grooves. Must have been a genre-defining album upon its release.

I have so many questions. Where does this album fit between punk and The Kinks? Is this New Wave? Are these guys working class (Oasis) or not quite (Blur)? The album exhibits top notch production; the recording sounds great and highlights how tight the band is. Set the House Ablaze is a standout track. The album verges on earning a 5-star mark but the lyrics leave me wanting just a little more.

Instrumentation and production adds a filmy 1970s residue that obscures the songs and performances a bit but not in a delicious Stevie Wonder kind of way. On subsequent listens it may fade away but hearing this recording for the first time, I can't help but get distracted by it. Fortunately that is the only criticism I have.

I LOL'd. Then I tried to give myself a chance to "get" it and never did. When Jazz Police came on, I LOL'd again. The backing tracks are certainly stylized but they are interesting in the way Ween's tracks are interesting. I don't find the lyrics particularly poetic or deep, however. I must be missing something but I won't be back to find it.

cowboy music. longing vocals. twanging guitars. I much prefer Willie Nelson.

I love The Beach Boys. At least three of the songs on this album sound like The Eagles. I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man. "Thoughts of You" kind of reminds me of Eels which was interesting at least.

When I first picked up the guitar, I didn't know anything about technique. Early on I stumbled my way into palm muting and said to myself, "that's the Metallica chug-chug thing!" The riffs on this album have a harmony and beauty that isn't found as much on The Black Album. The production hides the lyrics a little better on this release, too, which is an overall benefit. (For what it's worth, I listened to the remastered version.)

The most punk of the British Invasion bands (except for maybe The Kinks) though you can't really hear it on this album of mostly R&B inspired songs. Not the strongest collection of tunes.

This was the sound of the times in which is was released. Alarmingly quotidian lyrics delivered with a highly-stylized affect create a contrast with the futuristic electronic track reminiscent of Kraftwerk. See also/instead: Grimes, Santigold, Karen O.

Upon hearing the first song, I thought maybe this was the missing link between VU and Devo! I should love this, right? The rest of the songs kind of sound like Sparks. I like the use of synthesizer and Mellotron. There are interesting sounds and a pleasant variation of tunes but nothing here quite sticks to my palate for longer than the length of each song. On occasion it veers into Rocky Horror Picture Show territory and that's where I begin to lose my appetite.

I'm going to tell my kids this was The Police. I really wanted to give it 4 stars. The diversity of styles is simultaneously a strength and a weakness. The quality of tunes is steady across the album but the sounds are disjointed in a way that keeps me from getting fully absorbed.

Quincy Jones production. Absolutely stacked with hits. I have to give it top marks even if it is a disco record.

"Vocal" albums are at the bottom of my list of popular music interests. The production on the vocals is over the top for my taste but she sounds great. Because she is great. The tracks take old sounds and make them sound modern. I didn't care for the cover song.

This is an album for people who adopted Fight Club as their whole personality. The songs and performances give off the "international band opening for the group you actually came to see" vibe. It's not bad but nothing really sticks on a first shallow listen. I have to give it two stars because -- while I didn't hate it -- I did find myself hoping the set would end soon so they could get their crap off the stage already.

The production is pretty bad. The record-scratching noises are totally unnecessary and the album is missing the art of other heavy bands like System of a Down and Deftones. Also missing: Korn's grooves or Nine Inch Nails' lyricism. I believe these guys do have something to say and came up with a new sound. There are fragments of songs that wander -- maybe accidentally -- into interesting territory.

It's "medium loud" shoegaze. Great sixties-inspired vox, muscular bass, jangly guitar. There's a little bit of The Smiths in here and possibly some Stone Roses. Very pretty arrangements and some really catchy moments in as well. The sounds on the record are great but the cover of this album put it over the top. Incredible!

A couple of massive singles among a collection of genre-defining dance numbers.

Dreamy but not dream-pop. Orchestral but it doesn't sound like an orchestra. Ágætis Byrjun is easier to describe in terms of what it isn't than to describe what it is. I can say that it is a wonderful piece of art but as an album -- a listenable collection of tunes that you want to hear on repeat -- I'm left looking for something to grab onto. Perhaps this is better consumed as a score than a pop music album.

Funny that the album opens with some banter about Morrissey. Heartbreaker shares some jangly-Americana influences with Mozza's early solo albums. In addition, both vocalists have exhibited some behaviors that force fans to separate the tunes from the performers' personalities offstage. It's an alright album if you like Bruce Springsteen. The quiet songs are OK when they sound like Sufjan Stevens or Elliott Smith.

Remember the first Kings of Leon album? That was like a modern reboot of the original Creedence universe. This album isn't the strongest collection of songs which makes me wonder why it's included in the book. The production, however, is incredible. It really sounds great and keeps me chooglin'.

I don't know if this album defined metal but it certainly took metal to the masses. The 2012 remastered version sounds great and highlights the album's tunes and performances. I find that I have a lot of similar opinions as Robert Christgau but I don't get his distaste for Black Sabbath. Sure, some of the lyrics are a little naff, but they don't deserve the roasting he gave them.

Her voice sounds weak - almost to a point of distraction. The songs sound old fashioned and sleepy -- like the songs that we only listen to during Christmas. This music isn't really my thing.

So many great Lennon vocals on this album! I love two minute long songs as well. The 2009 remaster sounds so good.

This isn't a three star review. It's a blended four star / two star review. The two stars come from the weird sex songs. I'll admit to being slightly prudish about this kind of stuff but they stand out to me as an unpleasant listen. On the other hand I enjoyed the rockers and especially the "slice of life" numbers that sound like a barely-literate Billy Bragg or working class Kinks.

I liked it. It sounds really new.

sucks

This album still sounds cool more than a half-century after its release. Like a west coast Velvet Underground.

Practically flawless. A solid collection of songs with some real standouts.

More songs about cars and working. Overly emotive vocals usually turn me off. So do incessant honking horn sections and dorky glockenspiel parts.

Awesome performances; great production; varied songs that kept me interested throughout the whole album. But I'm left wishing for something more. "You Said Something" is my favorite track.

Beatle-based mid-70s soft rock. This album sounds like a Time Warner "AM Radio Gold" collection.

I have a theory that Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Fishbone are actually the same band but they originated in different dimensions than ours.

The lyrics are not great. The oboe is a welcome contribution on the second track and the Mellotron sounds divine. I ended up liking this more than I thought I would. Robert Christgau called it "ersatz shit" which I love but don't really agree with.

I was not familiar with this album before today though I have listened to newer Belle & Sebastian albums a lot. I don't think this is their best material but if this is the record named in the book then we'll just go with it. 5 stars for the album because it is representing an amazing band.

It's OK. The title track gives me Steely Dan vibes. I also get some McCartney-esque pastiche vibes. Nothing here is as offensive as Springsteen but I'm not really inspired by the characters Joel creates.

This album made no sense when it came out but the singles were huge hits. I listened to this when it was first released and but didn't dig much deeper than the singles. There are some good tunes here but its a little too long. Typical Billy Corgan production that seems to be improved on the 2012 remaster.

Absolute madness. Sounds like Art Rock that actually kind of rocks. "Amateur Hour" is a great tune and the whole album has aged remarkably well for something that came out in the mid 70s.

Great recording. The novelty songs are kinda weird (what the hell is "Jamaica Jerk-Off"?) and the sappy songs ("Candle in the Wind") aren't my thing at all. More mid-70s pastiche. What was happening with pop music during this time? More than a few of the filler songs on this double record sound way older than the release date suggest. Billy Joel did it. Paul McCartney did it. But why?

Fiona has a great voice that never waivers through the whole album. The backing tracks are lush with great keyboard arrangements (piano, mellotron, etc.) The production on the whole record is top-notch though I don't like whatever effect is on the vocal track for Criminal. The singles from this album are amazing. If the whole album had tunes that good, it's an easy five star record. The lower tier cuts are still solid three-star material. I was debating between a three star review and four stars. Considering this was her debut and recorded when she was a teenager, I'll give it the edge toward the higher score.

I don't like crooners. It's not that I don't like modern music that sounds like old music. I really dig lots of bands that do new tunes that sound like music from my parents and grandparents generation. But there's something about crooners that turns me off -- even if they sound a little bit like Mark Lanegan. Hotel Room stands out a decent track. Born Under a Bad Sign is a sweet tune reminiscent of Petula Clark swinging 60s pop.

Super cool hipster music with dual vocalists. I'm not a fan of Croft's stilted cursive singing style and not a single lyric stands out enough for me to know what they are singing about. The spartan, atmospheric tracks are begging for a more evocative vocal performance but we never get a chance to hear one. I'm begging to hear Kele Okereke's voice and words here. All of the songs sound the same.

WTF is this? Lush, orchestral pop songs about sexual violence? It's certainly a unique concept and the performances are solid. It's exactly what I expect to be included in a list of 1001 Albums. There are a variety of songwriters on the album and Ute's skill as an actress is put to good use. She fits her voice to styles of Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and others. If this album was meant to have a single, "Split" might be it. Ute's voice sounds great and it's upbeat.

Does working class New Wave exist? If so, this might be the album that defines the genre. A temporary stop on the evolutionary timeline between The Specials and Fun Boy Three. The production isn't great. I find the lyrics hard to make out and Rowland's vocal delivery doesn't help. The record has its moments with a few good tunes that are held back by the rough sound and a dodgy singer.

Smiths records always sounded bad to me but the 2011 remaster goes a long way to improve that. In my mind The Smiths are a singles band to the detriment of their albums. The Queen is Dead is a good enough album with about half of it being singles-worthy cuts.

Combination of the Two: great groove I Need a Man to Love: blues, I guess Summertime: more blues - bad vocal Piece of My Heart: the single Turtle Blues: oof. blues. Oh, Sweet Mary: some psychedelia Ball and Chain: BLUES

Jimi Hendrix recordings have always sounded otherworldly and chaotic - much like the tunes themselves.

"It's got a good beat and you can dance to it" Do you love a massive synth bass sound? I fucking do and this album starts with one a great one. However... the rest of the album sounds like LCD Soundsystem. "i used to" has some more cool synth sounds that remind me of the artists and albums that the band seems to draw inspiration from: British character-driven-post-human rock from Bowie and Numan and German robot bands like Can and Kraftwerk. What I find missing in this album -- and other work by LCD Soundsystem -- is a compelling narrator for the trip we are taken on throughout the course of the record. Maybe I'm distracted by the music and the way all of the instrumentation is mixed so carefully to create lush tracks that demand attention. The final song is the exception to this rule and fits well as an album closer.

Still haunting after so many listens. A chilling work of art for the ages. Can I give this one six stars?

sexy vocals - genre-defining. perhaps multiple genres. talented songwriter with a unique vision and lyrics that have something to say. does something absolutely post-modern before anyone was ready.

Sounds like Sonic Youth but more pop. Another foundation of alternative rock. How many albums would not exist if these songs weren't recorded? A lot, probably.

I liked it more than I thought I would. The lyrics are pretty bad throughout and the whole production sounds like the 1970s. There are moments that make me really excited but nothing here is edited in a way that keeps the album moving forward. Seven minutes of tuneless guitar noise is perhaps excessive but I prefer it over a blues jam of the same length so there's that.

Sounds kinda old and kinda new at the same time. Kelela has a great voice which sounds mercifully natural for an album recorded in the last decade. Stylistically the album doesn't fit well in any category. You can imagine these songs getting remixed into any number of electronic genres. For my tastes I think I would like to see the material contorted even further into rougher electronic versions but I understand why the choices were made to let Kelela's songs retain their origins in R&B.

It's Buzzcocks. What else can you ask for?!

"Been It" fucking slaps. The vocal and the lead guitar sound so good together. There's also a bouncy, melodic bass which I fall for so easily. This could be a Jellyfish song. "Losers" is another strong tune. The tumbling vocal and drums in the chorus contrast with the dreamy verses. The "Iron Man" cover is weird. I bought this album when it was first released after becoming enchanted by the song "Carnival" from their previous record. I never gave this album too deep of a listen back then and I'm surprised to see it on this list. All in all, it's a solid alternative rock/pop album that captures where popular music went after grunge yielded to other sounds.

Major Elliott Smith vibes and really bad cover art. Even the sounds of the instrumentation makes it sound like he sat down in the room where an Elliott Smith recording had just taken place to put down a few of his own tunes. That being said, I still like it.

It's hard to have a strong opinion about this one. There are a lot of really pretty songs on this one and its hard to get mad about that but some tunes do lack a little bit of substance. They can't all be singles but you also don't expect filler on a record with ten tracks.

I just really like it.

Cringe vox and songs. Sounds like Kiss without the disco. The guitar brings amazing melody, harmony, and rhythm to some otherwise lame toolbox rock tunes.

So cool. The coolest. 😎 The recording is crappy, the performances aren't super tight and Nico's voice is hard to listen to but does that really matter?

I like the aesthetic a lot but nothing here stands out as a classic. If only it was just a little more... something. Anything. Louder, quieter, sadder, prouder.

Hippie music generally gets a "pass" from me, but this is just too poppy to for me to ignore. It's really, really good.

The rhythm section on the opening track is next level. The rest of the songs didn't spark much interest.

An album following the Big Swedish Pop Tunes (tm) formula. Listen to the highly processed vocals. Each song employs a melange of trendy and modern sounds. Lyrics engineered to engage listeners in the target demographic.

Name a better lyricist than Elvis Costello. Pro-tip: you can't. The way he blends interpersonal strife with world politics is on great display here as evidenced by the title of the record. New wave music brought new sounds but this album does not depart from The Attractions sound: chirpy keyboard, muscular bass, and tight, anxious drums.

Sounds like 1968. Bluesy acoustic guitar and flute. It's OK, I guess. I file this under "Sunday morning household chores" music. There are a lot of stories here - not unlike a Bruce Springsteen album I was forced to endure earlier in this project.

The recording sounds great and the vocal harmonies are as good as they get but I find the lyricism and songcraft lacking.

Peter Tosh's songs stand out along with "High Tide Or Low Tide" on the expanded version.

Sounds like Limp Bizkit.

Never gets old. OK - the covers are actually a little tiresome.

Is this really an album? Definitely. Are these songs? More or less. Is it art? For sure, but not really pop/rock in the usual form. There are some catchy moments and the noise experiments are interesting.

Sounds like a hip-hop record without rhymes. The only MCs on this tape are in the form of recordings of conversation which set a mood of real street level humanity. The sounds are all over the place but cohesive enough to make a good album. At first I thought this might be a house album but I was pleasantly treated with some synth tunes, jazzy beats, etc. More Moby than Aphex Twin but still an enjoyable listen.

This might be the first "alternative" album I ever heard. I thought it was the weirdest thing I had ever heard. Was this guy serious? Is he actually angry or not? I hadn't heard punk before so the attitudes and forthright emotion confused my 12 year old brain. I thought a lot about the lyrics in a way that I had never analyzed the records I liked from C+C Music Factory and Culture Club. When I was exposed to this record I also heard Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The vocals on those records were hard to make out at times but the vocals on Violent Femmes are so clear.

Cool sounds. Evocative in a way that fulfills the mission to be both a film score and a standalone album.

Downtempo electronica with blues and gospel samples. It was a pretty novel idea in the 90s - especially to mainstream American audience who didn't listen to any of these genres much. The way Moby as producer puts his own vocals on tracks between the gospel ones keeps the collection interesting throughout the hour-plus runtime. I thought the Mission of Burma cover was going to be on this one.

There was mega hype when this came out and to me it signaled the end of the "first wave of indie rock." I wasn't too thrilled with the songs back then but I closer listen two decades later and I get the attraction. There is something about the vocal performances that turn me off still but the instrumentation and songs are solid.

Terrific production. Especially the drums. What can you say about the grooves on this record? Anything but the highest praise is short shrift to what the P-Funk collaboration created for these songs.

I don't know what these songs are about. I cannot identify with them at all. Is there some Taylor Swift lore that I need some background on or are they purposely obtuse? The lyrics remind me of those AI-generated bro-country anthems from the radio. The duets sound artificial. This album is just bad.

Frenetic breakbeats. Samples from metal songs and TV shows. The first side is a little bit monotonous for my tastes. The second side has some great variety.

Beach Boys tunes recorded to sound like The Velvet Underground.

This must have been a pretty wild recording back in 1958. I really like the guitar.

The recording quality is more than listenable for a live album from the early 80s. Solid performances and a good selection of songs.

Some of the tunes border on novelty song territory and that turns me off. Other songs are tuneful punk singalongs that I can totally get down with.

1/5. There's very little on this record that I can enjoy. All of the songs have the same plodding, druggy tempo with a somniferous vocal delivery to match. Synthesizers are used in a basic way: neither mixed low enough to just add depth to the sound or distinctive enough to make the arrangements richer. Guitars are bluesy and noodle across many of the numbers - even giving some parts a west coast desert vibe that reminds me of The Eagles. The lyrics are pretty crappy which is surprising since your average boomer will call modern hip-hop a trash medium and then defend their position with Pink Floyd... a band who rhymes "school" with "fool" or "guitar", "steak bar" and "Jaguar".

Madonna's voice has never been the main attraction but the top tier production on the album brings out the best of it. The singles are all massive songs. Pop perfection. The rest of the album is a mix of solid synth pop and softer ballads. All in all its a great collection at an important junction in Madonna's career.

This album could benefit from some tighter focus. The medieval or renaissance-sounding instrumentation is really cool but there is some folky Dylan-esque guitar as well. The lyrics also switch time and place with references to Christian themes as well as pagan and Hinduism. It's an interesting melange and it kept my interest throughout but nothing stood out as amazing. Other artists have taken influences from early music and done more with it. The Wicker Man album art is 5/5. For the tunes, it's a solid 3/5.

This is one of the albums ever made. There's a song about a motorcycle.

Great beats and the MCs put on a rhyme clinic throughout. The mix of tempos, sounds, and flows keep the album moving and interesting for the whole hour.

Sounds like a 60s rock album with vocal harmonies, plenty of production effects, and mystical lyrics.

sad songs. Some of the lyrics come off a tad overemotional. Even The Smiths threw us a fun one every once in a while. There is something about the effects on the instruments -- guitar and organ I guess -- that creates really harmonious, beautiful, emotional sounds.

My second favorite Bowie record. The arrangement on Life on Mars sounds like a Beach Boys song. The words to Kooks are so sweet. Queen Bitch might be the crunchiest three-chord tune ever recorded. Songs 5/5. Performances 5/5. Recording 5/5.

Vocal pop isn't my thing. I imagine this is similar to Barbra Streisand? The production on the remastered version sounds very crisp and expensive like a modern Christmas song. Freedom 90 is funny. It's one of those songs that plastic pop superstars eventually deliver as fan service to tell the adoring crowds that their new persona is finally the "real" person. There are some parallels between this album and the Taylor Swift albums on this list. There is some skillful songwriting on the record but the lyrics just do not offer me anything I can identify or empathize with. Final thought: Wouldn't an acoustic cover of Heal the Pain by Alice in Chains sound amazing?

Before there was post-grunge, there was grunge.

Slim Shady does not give a shit. So edgy. Is it supposed to be funny? If it is, then maybe it’s not just my kind of jokes. If it’s real then it’s super cringy for an adult to stick with the same character for a second record and keep up with the same childish, angry verses. The beats sound pretty childish too. This is a time capsule of the MTV TRL era and it sucks.

I used to ask my parents what the Sixties were like but I never got a satisfying answer. This album is what I was looking for.

This must have been a seriously groundbreaking sound in 1978. At this point there were still 15 years or more of solid punk records to make but PiL were ready to move on. Lydon is so pissed off and I love it. “Theme” could be an unfinished Nirvana song. “Public Enemy” sounds a little like the Pixies. This album must have been a big post-rock influence of the alternative bands who would make it big decades later.

The keyboards on this record sound great and Stevie's distinctive voice does as well. Top-tier songcraft is supported by lush arrangements that keep revealing more complexity after repeated listens.

I'm so annoyed. This is not for me at all. I actually like music so this album was a chore to get through. Everything about it is absolutely "mid" except for the lyrics which are awful. Like Squeeze awful. Like Chicago awful. Note to self: when you need to reset your rating gauge, consider returning to this album as it is the ultimate two star clunker.

60s orchestral vocal pop with naughty lyrics. I still don't like crooners.

I didn't know Bob Dylan had a sense of humor.

Crisp production and catchy, tight songs. Castles Made of Sand, Wait Until Tomorrow and Little Wing are almost pop songs.

Achingly poetic lyrics and totally original song structure and arrangements... are not what you will find on this album. What you will find are the vibes that will make you believe that Cool Britannia was a real thing.

This album is from an era -- that might only exist in my head -- where American bands competed with each other to see who could create the most EARNEST songs. Earnestness is a feeling that I get a lot when I listen to Husker Du and it's what attracts me the most to their tunes. Maybe it's Bob's plain voice or his first-person lyrics. I'm not sure but I know that I'll never not like anything that sounds like this record. There's a lot of Husker Du songs I love but they aren't on this one.

Great songs and blistering performances highlighted by Steve Albini's engineering.

I heard this album a decade before I'd ever heard a Led Zeppelin song so it was surprising to discover the original cuts when I get around to Led Zep's catalog. I really like hip hop and The Beasties but this one is just OK. While it was a landmark release at the time, the beats and rhymes don't hold up.

Solid lyrics. The production is lush and buries Love's vocals in some cases. (We're talking ELO level of production on this one.) These are her songs and I would have preferred to hear more of her performances. Auf der Maur's bass sounds great. All in all, as good as the singles are the rest of the album is pretty generic.

The song selection sounds like its a B-Sides compilation instead of a proper album. We get one inventive, artistic song in Sympathy for the Devil and then some odds n sods blues/country rock tunes. I guess at the time of its release, this album would stand out because of its straight-forward acoustic guitar and piano sounds. I kind of like Jigsaw Puzzle but Salt of the Earth is truly shit.

Great production that balances the fuzz with clear vocals and punchy drums. "Good Enough" is my favorite track. The songs are average. There is some variation in instrumentation which is cool but I find the collection as a whole to be somewhat monotonous.

The sounds are all here but the songs are not quite developed to the heights that The Cure would eventually achieve. "A Forest" is really the only standout track from Seventeen Seconds. The album that came out a year later is the real masterpiece of early Cure.

Great rhymes and the classic Beastie flow with three MCs trading lines like they have been doing this since they were teenagers. Musically, Ill Communication fits so well between Check Your Head and Hello Nasty in the continuing evolution of the group's sound. At the time, this record sounded like the end game for the Beastie's style - especially because it would be four years until they released a follow up album. When this record first came out I thought the noisy/scratchy beat samples sounded so cool. In 2022 they still sound cool. Ill Communication also mixes in jazz instrumentals and hardcore tracks which would be completely out of place on a hip hop record but somehow they work.

There are a handful of five star songs and a couple of two or three star numbers. The production balances a lush full band with Badu’s vocal performances to make a great sounding headphone record.

One massive single with some solid synth-pop after. I don’t particularly like the dramatic parts. I might listen to the record again but synth pop isn’t really about albums, is it?

Pretty good. I liked the parts that sounded like The Angry Samoans and The Velvet Underground.

The beats are very typical of the time but aren’t as abrasive as what the Bomb Squad did on the Public Enemy albums. The lyrics are still evocative of Afro-centric cultural revolution. There are a couple of notable songs on here and the rest of the album is worth a listen.

Call me emo but this whole record fucking slaps. Now My Heart Is Full is one of a very few songs that can give me a lump in my throat. The production on the solo Morrissey albums outshines anything he recorded with The Smiths too.

This ain’t it.

I like the parts that sound like Van Morrison. I don’t like the parts that sound like Kiss. This whole record is pretty standard toolbox rock but Lynott’s voice stands out as something unique among the standard 70s hard rock sounds.

Top talent, too songs.

Pirate rock 🏴‍☠️

Like Elvis Costello meets The Damned. Great bass tone on the whole record.

SFA would reach heights beyond this record later in their career but this is still a 5 star from me. Ffa Coffi Pawb am byth.

Paul McCartney really lost his shit in the 80s. The duet here is lame but when Thriller starts it is all forgotten.

Kinda cute. Like in a Belle and Sebastian way.

2112 is not for everyone. Listen to the last 30 seconds of the opening track as that tells you everything you need to know.

I'm a big reggae fan so this album gets a 5 from me. I do wish the genre could be represented by acts that are not Bob Marley. Confidentially, I'm not that much of a Marley fan.

Cheap sounding production. Cheap references to other music acts -- and Macromedia Shockwave (wtf). Cheap dick jokes. If I was a wrestler looking for a new entrance song for an upcoming heel turn, this is the album I would start with. I like when the vocalist goes into his weird falsetto whine raps -- especially on the hokey-pokey sections of "Rollin'." There's a part of "The One" where the bass kind of sounds like The Cure. That's my favorite part of this record which I will never listen to again. "Boiler" gives some Deftones vibes but the vocals, again, are just really not good. A pile of crap at the intersection of Eminem and Linkin Park.

I like the vocal and instrumentation but the songs are not interesting.

I love the Zulu-style tracks. Since these songs are written or co-written by Paul Simon, they are as perfect as a pop song can get.

Performances are good, especially the vocals. Recording is solid. If only the Led Zeppelin albums were engineered this well. It's a great collection of songs with a couple of standout singles. After all, though, it's pastiche.

A little Simon and Garfunkel, a little bit of The Bee-Gees, too. I bet Elliott Smith was really into this record. The music is OK and the vocal performance is a lot better than I was expecting. I don't take too much away from the lyrics at all. In summary, I regard this record in the way I take that one cottage-core Taylor Swift album.

I was a big fan of this record when it first came out.

coffee shop

A dance pop album with solid production that sounds great in headphones. There are a couple of major points that prevent the album from keeping my interest. The otherwise solid vocal performance suffers from trendy cursive singing style. Further, there is not much to distinguish the music from Billie Eilish or Lady Gaga.

The performances are honestly not great. Not that it matters. This duo were on a mission to save rock music from the dire condition it was left in at the turn of the millennium.

As a smooth-brained popular music enthusiast, I don't know how to listen to this. I've watched a lot of Adam Neely videos, too, and I still can't crack the code.

An incredible concept and brilliantly executed. "Written on the Forehead" is a bop and the whole record is flawless. This is a 5+/5.

Hip hop music can mean a lot of different things but at its core its beats and lyrics. This album is just that.

This record really holds up.

The album sounds like a product of its time but the beats and rhymes are 5/5.

Beautiful opening track. Very lush instrumentation that supports Rufus' intriguing vocal melodies. (I almost called them unique but they do remind me of Thom Yorke's and Thom Yorke wanna-be Matt Bellamy.) Evocative lyrics tell personal stories. I feel the album wanders a little in the second half. More focus on the particular sounds on some of the earlier songs would make this one perfect.

There's a couple of good songs and a bunch of weird ones. It sounds like a Prince album. It's a bummer that the best song on the record is the shortest one.

The band sounds great and the album captures what must have been a very exciting night for those who attended.