David Bowie has an unusual voice, somewhat unrefined compared to todays modern over-processed pop singers, however it’s full of character and passion for what he’s singing.
There’s a bunch of very recognisable songs on here (Changes, Life on Mars).
Unfortunately, there’s a few that now feel pretty dated or don’t seem like they should be taken seriously (Kooks, Fill Your Heart)
On the flip side 'Queen Bitch' and 'Bewley Brothers' are full of unusual tones and ideas.
Songs like ‘Song for Bob Dylan’ sung in exactly the way Bob Dylan sings sums up Bowie well, a chameleon always pushing boundaries and trying out new ideas.
7/10
What a distinctive guitar tone these guys have. I could only term it ‘plastic guitar’ superlatively overdriven smooth blues.
Most of the songs on this album can be taken as seriously good tracks apart from the final track (mothers lament), which did make me laugh, as I remember being sing it as a kid.
Though the guitars are wonderful, I find the vocals a bit weak and characterless though.
Still a very good album though.
There are some seriously good guitar licks on this.
Several other albums I've listened to in this journey feature a strong album spoilt by one or two songs that are obviously a parody/joke song - which might be funny the first time you hear it, do not stand up to repeated listens.
This is a solid, well thought out collection of songs - Clapton's guitar playing is a good as you have heard - not just technical, but balanced. Quiet and supportive during the tender moments, and fast, powerful and dynamic during others.
8/10
This is an album of two distinct sounds.
Light indie-style guitar-led songs, and then songs full of synths, samples and programmed beats. It’s like catching New Order in the middle transitioning from one style to another.
This makes the album all the more interesting to listen to, as you are surprised when the style changes so suddenly.
The singer has a very pleasant voice full of character and very nicely produced.
There’s a few samples that sounds a bit raw and dated, but in the end, a very nice album.
7/10
This album has some really great songs on it, solid indie guitar rock.
The only thing is that the singer has a style I don’t really like, a weird ‘squeaky’ voice. Charismatic, but not something I enjoy.
The songs are good though.
7/10
There's a lot of 'lazy' two word reviews for this album floating around - "its great" or "it sucks".
In my view - it's OK, not amazing, but certainly not rubbish.
I'll attempt to give a bit more justification for my rating.
Firstly - it's an electic mix of lo-fi chill soul/rnb and funk, with live drums mixed together. it works, it's easy to listen to and interesting enough
Secondly, it's a mix of actual 'songs' and then short poetry based skits. It's unusual, so I see why it's highly rated.
The songs themselves are mostly well written and produced, the lyrics are a current topic, and though the overarching theme is clever, the actual music and lyrics aren't particularly ground-breaking.
It's a chill out with a glass of red wine at 11PM whilst thoughtfully overlooking the city lights with this in the background kind of album.
It's a innovative idea for an album, and executed reasonably well. 7/10
This was pretty good. But weirdly interesting and forgettable at the same time.
Holy SYNTHS Batman!
Fascinating topic and lyrics. It’s very atmospheric.
Surprisingly since it uses REALLY BASIC synths off what seems like a CASIO keyboard, it’s really well produced and doesn’t sound dated.
Though the songs are fascinating and have bizarre lyrics, there is a bit of reliance on repetition - I don’t mind that, but I can understand some not liking that - it can make the songs feel quite long compared to your standard 3 minute pop fare.
There’s a couple too many songs that are a bit too long and repetitive though…
I like this album as it’s so different, but would skip a few tracks on repeat listens 6/10
Initial impressions - how disappointing.
For a band called T-Rex, they certainly don’t have any bite.
It’s light rock and roll country styled sound, which is fine, if not a bit forgettable, but I personally did not enjoy the voice of the singer, his voice is not particular distinctive, even weak and dreary at points
‘Get it on’ - the hit song from this album stood head and shoulders above the other songs.
‘Rip off’ is pretty noisy and heavy, a welcome change from the other songs.
‘There was a time’ has some good string accompaniment.
The album is well produced, and has a good variety of instruments featured, and for the 1970s, I can see that it’s well regarded - with a different singer, I could have quite enjoyed it, but as it stands I found this album quite a chore to listen to really.
4/10
The only song I know of Deep Purple's is Smoke on the water. I should probably know more as I am a fan of rock music.
Highway Star is a great introductory song - it rocks. And the singer (in contrast to yesterdays 'TRex' album) has a GREAT voice - very soulful and strong - what a range.
As a live album - for 1972 - the mixing on this is pretty great, it could well be a studio album - I've been to many concerts, listened to a lot of soundboard captures, and this one pretty perfect.
I was impressed by the smooth transition from Highway Star to Child in Time.
Now - issues - there's a lot of 'instrument-wank' on this - maybe that's just Deep Purple, I don't know. As a fan of Iron Maiden - I don't mind, but I can see why others would be put off. Some of the 'solos' were too long (like the drum solo 'The Mule') - personally - a great technical drum rhythm is far better than a long speed roll. There's a couple of stupid 'gimmick' things on this also, interjecting segments of a comedy song, or the call/reply part on Strange Kind of Woman. Skillful - but not really that fun to listen to.
The crowd are fairly muted.
All in all - it's great sound, Deep Purple are an obviously great band - but it's spoilt somewhat by the overly long instrument solos and gimmicky bits.
I can't really judge this album - as i don't know hiphop that much.
I know Dr Dre, Eminem, various other more well known artists, but nothing about Ghostface Killah.
What I got was that it was average production, some OK rapping, but nothing amazing, and fairly basic loops. it's OK
This is a solid brit-pop brit-rock album. These guys were definitely up there with Oasis.
I like, but don't LOVE brit-pop, but even so - this album is pretty darn good, and there's a few songs I have taken from it (With No Shoes and One to Another)
Victoria - what a tune - added straight to the playlist.
However - immediately followed by 'Yes sir, No sir' - which is one of those type of songs I roll my eyes at - a 'novelty' song. Featuring lyrics from a nursery rhymes, whimsical melodies, and even interjected 'laughter'. These type of songs just don't stand up to the test of time in my view - which is a shame, as it could have been seriously thoughtful song.
'Princess Marina' also falls foul of this also - just a silly topic that might be funny on first listen but just seems a bit childish all these decades later.
'Some Mothers Son' has a very contradictory tone . It's a serious lyrical subject played to a tune that could have been a Beach Boys song. I'm not convinced it totally works.
Australia shows where it does work though - some great sounds - with a wonderful outro that goes on for a couple of minutes.
Listening to more of the songs, they all come across as fun sounding, catchy tunes - very upbeat, lots of harmonising and bouncy melodies - it's pretty good stuff.
The Kinks have a really good tone, at points you can see their musical intelligence shine through - yet, the album is spoilt by just a couple of what a term 'novelty' songs.
7/10
First things first - Lemmy aint going to pull of any beautiful acapellas in this album.
But - in the context of the rock and roll that Motorhead play - it works well.
Now - obviously - Ace of Spades is a superb song and opens the album. And then we get Love me like a Reptile - which has some questionable pretty cheesy lyrics - as does 'Jailbait' - but - picking up again from 'Shoot you in the back' - it's apparent, every song has a singular focus and thematic lyrics, sometimes drawn out to being cheesy.
It's pure unapologetic hard rock and roll - speeding down the highway on a Harley. It's a short album - good at what it does, a fast hard punch.
However - there's not much dynamics to this, it's ALL loud and fast - and sometimes that can get a bit tiring to the ears. To be truly effective, sometimes, you need to give the listeners ears a rest.
7/10
American wid-west road-bar music is how I’d describe it. Honky tonk pianos, accompanied by brass and guitar with a gravelly voice singing about sitting’ easy.
I know OF Bruce Springsteen, obviously have heard a few songs, but have never sat and listened.
It’s alright. I can see where people like Cher and Meatloaf have been influenced, but I’m not a fan of either of those two really - and this didn’t really sit with me that much either.
What I found - these sounds are orchestral - I.e, there’s a lot going on, but there isn’t a typical verse/chorus structure, so it’s easy to miss the hook. I found the songs passed me by without me being able to really remember what the tune was.
Man - these guys hit a homerun with this album out for sure.
They managed to pioneer a sound all of their own, and managed to perfectly distil the feeling of political and societal dissatisfaction into a musical artform.
This is quite an attention grabbing bizarre album.
This is almost a live 'jamming' session album, I couldn't really describe the genre, wiki calls it 'experimental rock' - experimental is right, rock - not so much, it's more modern classical folk singer-songwriter jazz?
Anyway - there's lots of surprisingly elements, off key measures, tempo changes or skips - it could ALMOST be background easy listening music except for the injected surprise elements draw your attention back constantly.
Unfortunately, not a fan of the singers - who sounds like a less controlled 'Mika' - high pitched, shaky, something I guess you need to get to like.
I can understand the ideas behind the album, though it's not really to my personal taste.
I can't wait to play track two at dinner parties and wait for people to go "wait - did he just say....!?!?"
Anyway - this is funky - some James Brown inspired goodness.
And - the surprising origin of 'Everyday People'.
The only track that wasn't really enjoyable was the 13 minute log 'Sex Machine' - purely because it didn't really go anywhere over those 13 minutes.
But other wise - this was some good stuff - enjoyed alot of this...
The title track sums up David Bowie immensely. A chameleon. It’s a slow lanscapey synth number - with drum and bass backing. And saxophone. And it’s 9 minutes long. And totally changes half way through.
I’m not a massive fan of Bowies voice - but even so - I LOVE the music . It’s so wonderfully brilliantly bizarre. What did I just listen to?! Lazarus is a BEAUTIFUL song.
On another note, a lot of people say that Trent Reznor must have been inspired by Black Star when writing EP Bad Witch - now I’ve listened to it - too right!!!
I can't decide whether I love this album or not. Leonard Cohen has a pretty depressing dreary voice - but most of these songs are most poems/stories, and extremely beautiful. I don't know what they are about but I was captivated.
This was a really fun album. I don't normally find Bowies voice that enjoyable, but certainly have huge respect for his musical talent and creativity. This album however - his voice works really well. It's a straight up bluesy rock album.
Beegees are all happy and jovial right?
Wrong. This album is REALLY personal and introspective, with songs like "Don't want to live inside myself" and ones about missing an ex-wife. It's almost depressing at points. But wonderfully so.
I almost LOVED this album. But - there's a couple of songs where the Gibbs try and hit REALLY difficult notes with their voices - they are competent, but aren't exactly amazing singers, so it fails at this point, songs like 'Dearest' and 'Remembering' I almost had to skip because the singing was too bad.
But songs like the lead 'Mend a broken heart', 'Don't want to live inside myself' and 'Walking back to waterloo' are really good. 3/5
Mmmmm. Jazzz. Niiiiiice.
But not for me.
This is lo-fi US punk. It’s pretty low production quality really, bordering on bad at points. I suppose that taps into the ethos of punk in a way.
The songs and lyrics are OK, but I don’t know anything about these guys, having read their backstory - they are cited as a big influence on subsequent bands - including (you can hear it) - Foo Fighters.
I think the low mixing/production quality spoils this unfortunately.
5/10
This is a pretty good album, very well put together, some massive singles. not everyone loves matt Bellamys voice (i don't really) - but song composition is very good.
SOUL!
Straight off the bat - this hits good - I wanted to get up and start grooving.
One thing that spoils it is the final Ginger Baker drum solo. He's not really that good.
This is a big album - i.e., a milestone for Van Morrison, with a lot of well known songs.
The problem is - I don't like Van Morrison at all - I find his voice too grating - his high notes sound like a small baby crying....'whaaaaaaaa'
So - as an album - it's good, personal enjoyment zip though.
I love the music - it's really funky old school rap. And the rap is pretty good as well. However - a personal pet peeve of mine is albums that have actual filler on them - comedy tracks, tongue in cheek tracks, and the worst offenders of them all - SKITS and INTERLUDES. I'm never going to relisten to these stupid things - so they are literally a waste of time.
And SKITS and INTERLUDES seem to have found a home on pretty much all rap albums. Just stop it.
Outside of this - I like this album - it's pretty good.
Boring. And really basic. These guys have a pretty unmoving songwriting formula. Flip between two chords endlessly for the versus, and maybe a third for the chorus. And pretty much each song uses the SAME pattern. Didn't really enjoy this very much.
A beautiful vibe. It's really chilled - I can imagine lying in a grassy field of daisys under an old oak tree whilst looking up at the sun and the birds floating between the powdery clouds, sipping from a lemonade. It's a bit 'repetitive' though, repeat listens gets a bit boring.
Kooky funky jazzy hip hop
This is class.
Hip hop without talking about hos or using the n-word or having half the lyrics be explicit.
This is very early dance music. A good example of the origins of dance music - BUT, the songs themselves are pretty basic, very repetitive. And the first track and last track, Time Becomes and Input Out are gimmicky audio sync experiments that you'd never listed to more than once.
It's OK - but dance music progressed and became way more sophisticated after this.
I understand that Kendrick Lamar is viewed an an intellectual great of the hiphop world.
Which makes this album really difficult to review.
Musically - this is a great album, varied, well written.
Lyrically however - this album is so mixed.
Some songs are clever, witty, thoughtful.
And then others just dive into the stereotypical hiphop tropes of bad language, niggaz, hos, drugs, gang-life and the hood.
Yeah, I get it - this is your life.
But the point of bad language and slurs is to accentuate the impact of other words. But on certain songs, when almost every other word is a racial slur, cuss or such - it just becomes annoying and cringe.
This was really quirky rap/rock/metal.
4/5
I really enjoyed this.
I don't know much about Morrisey apart from what I hear - a moany old git.
However - listening to this - I'm surprised by how much i like his voice, and how fun this album is.
Its the blues. it's fine - but honestly, people who listen to the blues - don't you get bored of the I – IV – V chord progression eventually? If you think about it - blues is one of the LEAST creative or imaginative genres out there.
I was somewhat weirded out by the 'Little Girl' song -
"You're gonna be mine, little girl
You've been through 18 years of pain
You're gonna be mine, little girl
You've been through 18 years of pain
I'm gonna give you a love, child
You won't feel bad again"
Yeah - nope.
Musically, it's fine.
This is jazz I can listen to.
Contrary to some of the other 'jazz' albums which are just the players furiously wanking their instruments dry, talented but with no actual song for the listener to follow, this feel more like a soundtrack without words.
Songs with structure, identity, melody and hooks - and emotion.
This makes me think of how a jazz club SHOULD feel - sitting at a round table in a darkened corner with friends, and whiskey, the players illuminated at front through the cigar smoke, feeling the electric excitement of NYC.
I like that the first and second half of the album are different - the first half is american jazz - the second half is more african music - and it's refreshing!
More country.
And this time around - pure yokel hick moonshine ridin' mah horse country.
And if you can get over the ridiculous singing style - it's pretty fun.
Apart from Running up that Hill from Stranger things - i've never listened to Kate Bush before. What a treat - she's got such a disticnt voice and style.
A pleasure to hear 'Cloudbusting' - which I recognised from the Utah Saints cover from the 90s.
She's pretty ecletic, this felt more like some form of modern opera-piece that anything else. Very descriptive song writing.
punks just a bit repetative
Very nice. As soon as it started playing, i felt relaxed, and taken on a journey.
However - because these tracks are 26 minutes, 18 minutes long - it loses one star.
Urgh. Bob Dylan.
I'm scarred for life - in school, our English teacher, Mr King used to occasionally do an assembly, and to get his message across, he would pull out this godawful hearing-aid-beige cassette player, connect it up to the PA system, and put a overly worn Bob Dylan tape in, and play it. Because - poetic lyrics and all that.
Fuck me. Three minutes of Bob Dylan booming out across the assembly hall. We would there sniggering and cursing the day we were born with ears.
I'll normally forgive singers with shit voices if they have character in their voice.
But, you know on X-Factor when someone tries to sing, and it's the "here's the shit person, lets laugh at them" section?
That's Bob Dylan.
I don't care how good your lyrics are when you sound like an actual cigarette.
Up the Irons.
This was a pleasant surprise - I like maiden.
This has got 3 of maidens biggest hits on - Run to the Hills, Number of the Beast and Hallowed be Thy Name - so I see why this album is highly rated.
However - they couldn't quite pull out the PERFECT album - there's a couple of songs on here that I didn't really enjoy. But still, it's a brilliant album with some brilliant songs.
I've heard Don't stand so Close and Every Breath - and generally thought The Police were a light pop-ska-rock band - interesting but not exactly challenging.
Little did I realise they are actually a pretty dynamic band - with a whole range of styles and topics.
I really liked this album, i even like/disliked the weirdest song - Mother. I.e., i didn't really love the song, but i loved the ambition and change in style.
I'm sure Prince was extremely talented - but I'm not really vibing this. It's great quality stuff - but it's not something I would put on on the regular.
What on earth am I listening to?
It's blues sung by a man with a tracheotomy? I see wiki calls that a 'trademark deep and gravelley voice'. By gravelly I picture on my mind smooth like liquor, like Louis Armstrong or something - not a fucking forced-labour quarry project with 500 tonne excavators and a shit tonne of TNT blowing holes into solid granite.
In fact - some of it borders on parody of someone trying to do a deep voice.
Shame - because the music is classy.
Ok - I've heard a little bit of Led Zeppelin, thought there were going to be a soft-rock easy listening band. Instead - they rock hard, love it. really brilliant riffs and vibes.
Added bonus - these guys led me on to giants like Freddie King.
I know of Simon and Garfunkle, I know that songs like Bridge over Troubled Water are regarded as legendary - but, I really didn't get much enjoyment from this album. Maybe is a folk thing, but it's just pretty dull.
4. It's very chilled, and has some really nice sampling. Definitely say I like Q-Tip - having not known anything of him before - he seems classy, talking about decent topics without diving into the stereotypical hip-hop hoes and gangland culture.
Look, I’m a metal head, I enjoy punk, thrash etc.
I’ve heard of black flag - and I get the message. The lyrics are good, the idea are good, but the music and mixing is terrible. You thought Metallica St Anger sounded tinny?! Wait till you hear this. It sounds like it’s being played through a telephone.
The other problem is, there’s just no contrast. No light and dark, it’s just full on hard punk from the get go with no let up - and frankly, it loses effectiveness pretty quickly.
Listening to Amy Winehouse reinforces my belief - that you can train all you like to be a perfect singer, like all those XFactor contestants - but to have a voice recognisable world wide from the tiniest snippet - that’s something you are born with. And my was Amy Winehouse blessed with a voice.
Anyway - enough about the obvious.
The album is pretty good, not brilliant, but a good first album. My favourite song was ‘In my bed’ because of the awesome sample of Nas ‘Made you Look’, but there aren’t any major hits on here.
Pretty trippy fusion of electronica beats and traditional indian instruments.
I liked it. I can imagine standing in a basement club in london covered in neon with everyone around me spaced out to something talking about the 'vibes'.
however - it started to get pretty disjointed at points.
Oh damn this is heavy, I LOVE it. It's noisy, abrasive, brilliantly produced.
I'm not normally into this sort of stuff (folky) - but this is great! Really upbeat and well produced.
I wondered when we'd get to something amazing - and here it is. Literally one of the best rock and metal albums ever written, the perfect mix of heavy and commercial.
Anybody who says otherwise either can't get over the fact that it's metal or can't get over the fact it's not Master of Puppets/Lightning.
There's a reason why songs on this album have nearly a billion listens.
Well done Metallica for such a gem...
1978?! Wow - the audio quality on this is sublime. And the songs are really catchy! New fan of the Jam.
