1001 Albums Summary

If it were a little catchier I'd give it a 5. There's so much to like here. Yes are geniuses where it comes to rephrasing a passage they've played earlier in a totally new musical context - they run a clinic on it in "I've Seen All Good People", and there's delightful examples in "Yours Is No Disgrace" as well. Their sense of musical color is impeccable - the backing vocals are super-lush on practically every track, and their use of the organ, especially the interplay between organ and guitar on their instrumentals, is consistently on-point. I get chills when the organ comes in on "I've Seen All Good People". I'm a big fan of Andersen's vocals (especially when he has the band backing him) and Howe's guitar, but what stands out to me on repeat listen is how adventurous they are with the bass - it's everywhere on a few tracks, especially the opener, and they get great sound out of it. There's also just a wonderful variety of sound here, ranging from jazz on "Perpetual Change" and bluegrass on "The Clap" to straight-ahead rock-and-roll. And the whole thing is just impeccably produced - for an album that came out in 1971 it sounds remarkably fresh and modern.

I had never heard of this album or this band before, but this is quite good. A good comp would be "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", and it stacks up reasonably well against that, although not quite as strong (high bar). But as creepy, dark, sad, somewhat folky indie rock goes it's up there with the best of them. I'm a sucker for albums with instrumental interludes too. It's a little low-energy relative to some others in the style, and the 2nd half starts to drag a bit, and it doesn't have the same caliber of hits as a YHF / 13 Tales / Yoshimi, but still very enjoyable.

I really tried to like this. I'm just not sure what we're supposed to enjoy about e.g. the 2nd half of "The Individual", or most of "Cop Shoot Cop". There's some cool sounds on here, but even the stuff that's interesting, like the free jazz instrumental on "No God Only Religion", is simply not what I'm looking for in a rock album. As an actual listening experience, the singer's got a grating voice, the album's way too long, and there's not enough going on. Each song tends to be a single idea, and often they just get into a groove and sit in it (e.g. "I Think I'm In Love" repeats the same roughly 3-second phrase over and over for 8 minutes). Bottom line, it peaks early with a cover-ish of an Elvis song and is downhill from there.

If you think about what this record is, it's all the songs Harrison wrote between roughly 68 and 70 that John and Paul didn't think were good enough to put on a Beatles record. "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun" were good enough. So was "I Me Mine" (yeesh). So basically what you're listening to is a dump of B-sides that weren't quite as strong as "I Me Mine". And it sounds like it. Harrison's solo material is missing a couple of the really critical things that makes the Beatles CDs work. One is that they have two exceptionally talented lead singers, neither of whom is George. Another is their incredible production - Harrison uses some instrumental diversity here, but generally the sound is kind of monotonous, and nowhere near as creative as peak Beatles. And last is their relentless, infectious optimism - the Beatles records are so joyous and fun that little children instinctively sing along with them, even if they've never heard rock and roll before. But this record is generally a downer, and aside from being less fun to listen to as a result, that also puts it into an extremely competitive bracket (early 70s downer rock music being some of the best ever made). I don't even think it holds up on its own merits, but certainly not relative to contemporaries. There are some nice songs here, generally the more upbeat ones. "Wah-Wah", "What is Life" and "The Art of Dying" are all fun, if a little unremarkable. But some of the other hits like "My Sweet Lord" and "Isn't It a Pity" are just whiny and slow - for whatever reason Harrison must've liked "Isn't It A Pity", it appears on the record twice, despite being one of the weaker tracks. And the whole thing is really chock full of filler and waaay too long - this album took me two days to get through. That plodding feeling is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of the songs themselves are long and slow. "Beware of Darkness" kicks off the 2nd CD at a rollicking 65 bpm clip - many of the others are in that neighborhood. The wheels just totally come off towards the end ("Johnny's Birthday"? Alternate versions of "Isn't It a Pity" and borderline of "My Sweet Lord"?? Four consecutive 12-bar blues instrumentals???). Harrison employs some nice harmonic tricks on a lot of these songs, but he doesn't do much creatively with the production, and the pacing, moodiness and his own weak voice kind of drag it down.

So much incredible material, when they're on they're really on. But like any double album, also a fair amount of filler. In particular the whole 2nd half outside of "Ten Years Gone" and "The Wanton Song" is pretty dudly. Which overall means this has a lower hit rate than either I-IV or Houses of the Holy. This might be the best double album ever made, but that is to say that there aren't any double albums that aren't loaded with filler, certainly nothing as tight as II or IV. But this is close, and if they had cut this down to a single album it might be their best, and one of the best ever made.

An incredibly fun album. I generally think people get too much credit for being "first" in a space as opposed to being "best". And this is a better record than either "Franz Ferdinand" or "Silent Alarm". It's more consistent top-to-bottom, Turner is a more charismatic frontman, and they basically never take their foot off the gas. But it's pretty close, and AM quite shamelessly copied Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party's playbook, and no single track on this record is as infectiously catchy as either "Take Me Out" or "Helicopter". I don't think that's too much to hold against them - AM were the best of the 2000s UK indie rock bands, and if it weren't for other AM records (I like "Favourite Worst Nightmare" better, for the added polish and ambition) it'd be the best 2000s UK indie rock album too. I'd have given them five stars if they had opened up this style rather than closing it down. And I'd have given them five stars if they made a slightly more polished record with a little more depth of sound (which they would about a year later).

They're kind of fun, but I have a hard time getting over just how bad their lead singer is. He's comically awful, and it makes it so that songs that should be easy sing-alongs are not, there's no tune to sing along to and you can't tell what he's saying anyway. All their songs kind of sound the same to me too. Relative to the other albums on this list, this has something of a novel sonic palette with all the traditional folk instruments on it. But they're not actually doing anything new - they're just playing Irish folk with a drum kit and electric guitars, and guys like Fairport Convention do that same thing better.

This is a wonderful album. It's short, breezy, and pleasant. And yet it manages to pack in so much creativity. Their vocal harmonies are consistently on-point, and their lead singer has a voice that's so easy to listen to. He doesn't even really stretch it until "This Will Be Our Year", but then just absolutely crushes that. Half the songs are super-catchy sing-alongs, but with a surprising amount of compositional sophistication. The modulation to the m3 / m6 mid-verse on "Care of Cell 44" is jarring but works perfectly, as are the similar chromatic lines to conclude the chorus of "Time of the Season" and the verses of "Beechwood Park". And I'm a total sucker for repeated themes, which they have both writ-small and writ-large - nowhere better than the section of "Changes" that re-quotes "Flowers for Emily". The production isn't perfect - it was 1968, which is a reasonable excuse, although in a somewhat unfair comparison, contemporary Beatles records had better sound quality and more lush instrumentation - but it's got a dreamy sound (leaning like a man with one leg on that Leslie organ) that works perfectly for the style.

I'm going to try not to hold it against Mr. Young that I was required to listed to this record on YouTube, with intermittent advertisements, rather than cleanly on Spotify, solely because of his distaste for Joe Rogan. In a just world that is worth at least one star, it really sucks the energy out of Crazy Horse's performance to have some jackass from Liberty Mutual wax rhapsodic about a crotcheted dog backpack in between songs. I will also note that none of Gary Glitter's collected works has been removed, nor Billy Preston's, etc. (and I'm not sure they should be). I love Neil Young, but basically everything that works about his peak albums is missing here. "Deja Vu" is propelled by the beautiful vocal harmonies. "Harvest" has incredible sound quality, diverse instrumentation, and a few incredibly catchy singles. And "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and "After the Gold Rush" have some of all of that, although not quite so abundantly. But this album just doesn't have those things. The title tracks are in my opinion dull, very simple and very coarsely produced, with no interesting harmonies (shouting "Johnny Rotten" in the background is funny but kind of mindless). And most of the album has no accompaniment at all. So what are you left with? 1/2 singer-songwriter open mic night with a guy who's neither a particular strong singer nor a special guitar player (I would use the word "unique" except that NY is a little unique in his willingness to stick with the note he likes for an entire solo) and 1/2 garage-rock live album. Young is capable of writing and playing songs that work in that format (e.g. Needle and the Damage Done), but these aren't really them - there just isn't a ton of compositional creativity here. It's not like it's totally unpleasant. "Pocahontas" is a lovely song, and has one of the few interesting harmonic turns on the record with the modulation to conclude the chorus. I like the riff on "Powderfinger". "Welfare Mothers" is a fine rocker with another neat change at the end of each chorus. But overall it's kind of weak.

I'm a huge fan of the Dead but mostly listen to their classic live material and hadn't heard this CD start to finish in a while. There's some incredible songs on here. But a lot of this material is just OK in the recorded LP format. "Operator" at least is mercifully brief. Overall the album has a bit of a thin sound and is awfully ballad-heavy. Their vocal harmonies on songs like "Box of Rain", "Ripple" and "Attics of My Life" carry through well, but the instrumental sound on most of the ballads is not that strong. The three rockers ("Sugar Magnolia", "Till The Morning Comes" and "Truckin'") all get a nice full sound, as does "Friend of the Devil" (the mandolin counter-melody on that one is delightful), but the others are mixed practically like A Capella. And overall the album lacks energy, in part from the mix, in part from how few rockers it has, and in part from how little Jerry's guitar is featured. I would've given "Europe 72" a 5. For whatever reason it's not on this list (there's a Grateful Dead / "before you die" joke to be made in there somewhere). I thought about giving this one a bump up as a make-up call but doesn't seem sporting. As recorded it's an average-quality album.

This is so cheesy and Newman's voice is so silly that I can't tell whether it's supposed to be treated as a joke or not. But as a serious piece of music, it just doesn't do it for me. Part of what makes great music great is the depth of sound, and especially the interplay between different instruments. I hate to damn an entire genre based on missing just one aspect of musical performance, but it's a really important one, and it's just very hard for one guy singing with a single accompanying instrument to match that kind of color. The singer-songwriter style often work well as a change-of-pace track to break things up on an otherwise full-sounding album, but this is an entire record of Randy singing over his own, fairly light piano accompaniment. "Political Science" is probably the standout track, in part because it's clever, but mostly because it actually has some solid sound behind it. And there's some other nice compositions on here, but the thin production and Newman's voice just don't do them justice.

The sound of this record is immediately unenjoyable. About halfway through "Cindy Loves Me" I was finally thinking to myself, for the first time (on the 4th track), that this was actually kind of a pleasant song. Then that swarm-of-cicadas sound came in and just completely took over. That proved to be the high point of the album. Being weird for the sake of being weird is at least interesting, but there's a very high bar to make it work. This falls well short. Most of it is unlistenable noise. That which is not is largely pretty by-the-numbers New Wave garage rock.

I had expected very rough punk but was pleasantly surprised. This is, by any reasonable definition, a classic rock record. And look, they’re not virtuosos- Pavarotti and Django Reinhardt don’t have to be looking over their shoulder for Television. But they do get good sound quality, and the album is very well-produced. This is especially clear relative to other proto-punk, which often has a DIY aesthetic (read: shit production). And on songs like “Friction” and “Torn Curtain” they do show a willingness to take one or two steps off the beaten path in their composition. They especially get a lot of mileage out of their two-guitar attack- nearly every song is based around it, and you can really hear that influence (plus the late 70s disco beats the use on e.g. “See No Evil”) in early 2000s indie. There are some flaws. The title track really drags. The singer is not especially good. They’re a little slow-paced overall, lacking some of the manic energy of their 70s punk contemporaries. But overall a fun listen.

This is a great album. Love has a dark, complex sound. Their standard template is minor-key folk guitar, usually finger picked, backed by dense vocal harmonies, occasional splashes of color from orchestral instruments, and very light, very low-mixed drum and bass. That template works beautifully, but when they for example want to just rock out on "A House Is Not a Motel" or "Maybe the People..." they're perfectly capable of doing that too. One key to their sound is having multiple strong lead singers - the guy who sounds white has a bit of a reedy voice, but with excellent range, while the guy who sounds black is just a great singer. That combo gives them a lot of melodic variety, but the other key to their sound is their unusual harmonies. Every song has an interesting harmonic twist - witness "Andmoreagain", where you get both the shocking jump to major as a tease to start each chorus, followed by immediately by slinking back into one of those dark, open, slightly-off-key chords they like so much, all with perfectly on-point orchestral backing. This album isn't perfect. It's very light on bass, which isn't necessarily a flaw (Love make it work for them), but it does make the sound a little thin. There isn't much you can sing along to here, in part because it's so complex. And they don't have a ton of variety in their sonic palette - they stick with the style that works throughout. But there's so much to play with here musically, more and more comes out every time I listen to it.

I recall the practice session my old band had when our keys player Brittany discovered the effect he uses on "Remind". On her keyboard the setting was called "Solar Flare". Everyone thought it was awesome and we briefly contemplated building an entire song around it but quickly decided this would be much too thin a concept for an entire song. Mssr. Orbital has concluded differently. I have no way of judging this on its own terms, and while it's pleasant enough to put on as background music, it's not that interesting and I wouldn't have picked it for myself. Just a two things to note. One, the CD takes 4 minutes to even get rolling - why did they think it would improve the listening experience to have you sit around listening to nonsense noise for 4 minutes before playing some music? Two, it's very monotonous - I think the artist may have been going for that, but on an hour-long CD it really wears on you.

This album has a great sound, and the only reason I didn't give it a 4 is that it's sooo slooow. There isn't a single uptempo song on the whole record. The opener is at about 90 bpm, which is slow but tolerable for moderate rock, and based on that I expected that'd be about the average, some faster some slower - it turned out to be pretty easily the fastest track. Mayfield's voice is incredible, he projects such power at the top of his range. Although I do wish he would drop out of the falsetto a little more frequently - every time he does it on the record it's to amazing effect, often gives me the chills, but he only does it for a few brief moments. He's clearly the star, and his vocals just make this CD work. The sound is extremely consistent throughout - at times it often feels like a single long song. You've got a fat-and-lazy funk backbeat, heavy wah-wah guitar comping and providing a little color, very light bass, a little organ, a little chorus backing vocals, and the occasional horn. Plus Mayfield's falsetto, and he sticks to roughly the same register on every track. It's a formula that works, but I do kinda wish they'd mixed it up a little more. Overall though I enjoyed it a lot. I don't listen to a lot of soul music, but after this I might.

This CD is fine, but it's very poorly produced. He's straight-up getting audio clipping on the vocals on "Sunshine Superman", where it damn near ruins the song, and then slightly less distractingly on "Bert's Blues". It doesn't seem like an intentional choice - certainly it doesn't suit or improve those songs - and if so, that's a total novice mistake. The mix is also super-inconsistent from track-to-track - I'm gonna leave "Sunshine Superman" out of this because I think it's so totally botched, but compare how loud the vocals and orchestral instruments are in the mix on "Legend of a Girl Child Linda" against how quiet they are in the mix on "Ferris Wheel" (an otherwise similar light ballad) and "The Trip". Again, I don't think this is an intentional artistic decision, I think it's a mistake. And you could say, that's just how it is, but as a listening experience it's jarring, distracting, and unpleasant - you want to get lost in the music, not be jolted awake and then two minutes later have to struggle to hear. They also get pretty crummy instrumental sound on a few tracks - like seriously what is making that crackle in the background of "Season of the Witch"? That noise appears throughout the song in the background on the 2- and 3-and beats, and I think it's a really shitty-sounding guitar, but I honestly don't know. The guitar and drum sound is weak and thin on a couple other tracks as well. And on several songs here's super-heavy electric bass with no kick drum behind it - e.g. "Ferris Wheel", where's there's no kit at all, or "Season of the Witch" and "The Trip" where there's a kit but either he's not using the kick or it's been totally mixed out - maybe they were going for that, and they kind of get in the pocket on "The Trip", but overall it just sounds thin and out-of-sync. This isn't necessarily Donovan's fault, and this was recorded in 1966 - technology was worse back then, and that's some excuse. But overall this CD sounds more like The Troggs than e.g. contemporary Beatles recordings. Much of that is the actual production, but Donovan is pretty limited as a composer as well - "Bert's Blues" and "The Trip" are basic and kind of weak, and I'm not a huge fan of the vaguely-Eastern stuff either ("Three King Fishers" / "The Fat Angel") - the Beatles at least had the decency to limit the vaguely-Eastern tracks to one per album. And Donovan's got a nice voice, partly limited by the production, but there's just a curious lack of backing vocals anywhere on the record - there's basically none anywhere, and he's not really making up for it with instrumental depth. I didn't outright dislike it though, I'm more just frustrated at how poorly put together it is.

This wasn't what I expected. Based on "School's Out" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the only Cooper songs I know, I expected something like a proto-punk record. But this is almost straight glam rock - it sounds more like Sweet than Stooges. Cooper has the temperament and confidence for that style, but not the voice - simply put, his voice is extremely limited. He can't just take over a song the way Bowie or Freddie Mercury can (but oh boy does he have the willingness to try). As mid-tier American 70s hard rock goes, I'm not even sure this rates as especially noteworthy. The album generator gave me "Rocks" by Aerosmith recently - that's a pretty good comp I think, and "Rocks" is way better. Tyler's a dramatically better singer, Perry's a better and more creative guitar player than Cooper's guy, Aerosmith gets better sound quality and gets more out of their two-guitar style, they're more fun, and more inventive as composers. This isn't an awful album, it's just not one that I think really belongs in the annals of history. On a list of 1,001 maybe it makes the cut, but there's just a great number of CDs that do the same thing better.

I had never heard this before but quite enjoyed it. It's fun and very fast-paced - they start with a quick tease as the intro, but then get right to it. For basically a punk rock CD this has a fair amount of diversity of sound - witness how much the mood changes between the "closed" and "open" sections (sonically) of the title track, which is probably the strongest. And they can get heavy and sludgy on "Re-Ignition" or light and fun on "Secret 77", depending on what's required. Make no mistake, this is still punk rock - but it's fairly sophisticated punk rock. To me this really sounds most like Fugazi, but I think it compares well, certainly against early Fugazi, and probably against their overall catalog. I also think they're better instrumentalists than most of their contemporaries - their singer is good (not a world-beater, but good), with a very solid voice and decent range - and they actually have a couple nice instrumental solos, e.g. on "She's Calling You" especially, and also on "Hired Gun" (none that are going to make you forget Van Halen, but capable and fitting the sound well). Nothing is super-catchy, but I was nodding along the entire time. You can definitely hear their sound on the early Seattle stuff - in particular Mother Love Bone and early Soundgarden.

I confess I was a little worried seeing the cover and the 1998 release date, but this is not what I expected- it’s really very nice. For starters, I’m a sucker for CDs where all the songs bleed into each other- check- and this CD does it extremely well too, with a consistent mood that evolves slowly, like a single long track. There’s also strong consistency in the sound, which is lovely- very heavy echo, strong bass (the bass is excellent, and carries a few tracks), light acoustic Latin guitar and Latin percussion. And the smooth transitions plus the consistent sound make it feel like a concept album, which I love. He mixes it up just enough to keep the listener interested and surprised throughout- e.g. adding electric guitar, chorus vocals, and horns on “Luna y Sol”, which is probably the gem of the CD overall. I’m not sure I’d call any track except that one super-catchy, in part because he’s not as focused on melody, in part because I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying. But they’re all fun, and he does rockers like “Malegria” and ballads like “Desaparecido” about equally well. Very solid.

This CD starts pretty strong, the first two tracks are good. But it loses steam fast after that- generally, the rest of it is too slow and too basic. The random psychedelic sounds kinda cover it up for a bit, but this is basically garage rock. The drumming is especially bad- I think they might’ve been going for this, but there’s a whole songs at a time where the drum pattern is slamming the snare right on every quarter-beat, and really right on the beat. When they’re doing it, I assume it’s some kind of deliberate choice, the drummer’s clearly capable of showing more variety- but it makes it sound like they’ve hired a trainee who only knows how to do one thing to play drums. They also don’t use any vocal harmonies, which is rare for music of this era- and while they do get a little playful with non-standard instrumental sound, they don’t use it for multiple overlapping parts (each is a one-off), and it doesn’t really cover up for the lack of backing vocals. Like imagine how much more lush “Obie” would be if it were performed by The Beach Boys. The big thing though is that beyond the first two songs, which both have interesting harmonic twists (“Bangles” drops into 3/4 too), there’s just nothing unique going on here- it’s just light, stripped-down psychedelic garage rock.

This CD starts very poorly. The first couple tracks are no good, and kind of slow. This band is noisy- like what the hell is that sound like an EKG they have going 24-7 on “Of Lillies and Remains”? Just about every song has some kind of unpleasant, vaguely identifiable noise in the background, which is more distracting than anything. That’s exacerbated by their singer, who’s very limited, with an abrasive, shouty voice. About midway through they start to find their footing- “Kick in the Eye” is the first solid track, a fun, fast, white-boy-funky danceable tube, only mildly marred by dissonant sound effects. That must’ve been the start of side 2 on the original record, but they should’ve put it first (probably should’ve had side 2 first, it’s better). Even that runs out of steam too though- “Muscle in Plastic” is incredibly unpleasant noise. I’m right on the fence for giving this a 1- but it does have the core of some decent indie garage rock, if they’d just cut all the noise rock impulses.

The big thing that gets me about this CD is how repetitive it is. I think he’s making this stuff with a sequencer, and it feels like it. Every song is an endlessly-repeated 4-bar sequence, sometimes (on the more diverse tracks) about a minute of one followed by a minute of another. And there isn’t a ton of evolution of inventiveness in them- be really tends to stick with the same sequence, as originally presented, for the whole song. “Please Forgive Me” and “My Oh My” the phrase is actually two chords, back-and-forth, with brief B-sections. And the drums are clearly a machine, there’s no drift at all. It just means that there’s very little for the mind to play with here- far from revealing more on repeat listens, I get bored midway through each song (partly that’s that they’re slow and sad too). It’s a shame, because he actually has quite a nice sound- he’s got a pleasant, soulful voice, with decent power and projection, and the combination of basically sad country music with piano rock is a little novel. Bottom-line, I didn’t hate this, but if this is on here, he better have EVERY Coldplay CD, because they just do the same thing better.

I had never heard this before but loved it immediately, it's the first new (to me) CD this thing has recommended that I can say that about. The vibe here is very much slow, sad, and relatively simple songs, but with an incredible diversity of instrumentation and sense of musical color that allows each melodic/harmonic idea to effectively be played a half-dozen different ways and gradually evolve over the course of a single track. In that way this is a very close comp to "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", which seems like a clear inspiration. Let's get out of the way first what this album does not do well. It's not happy - very much the opposite - although it is at times fun, fast, and surprisingly danceable. Many songs feature or at least include a segment with a dancy drum beat, and despite the overwhelming somber tone it's actually played pretty fast (generally in the ~120 bpm range). And there aren't any really catchy singles, although it's of strong and consistent quality throughout. It's also not virtuosic - their singer has a fairly unique and pleasant voice, but with a very limited (and very low) vocal range, and there aren't any other discernible melodic instrumental solos on the CD. So they mostly deserve an "incomplete" there. Their singer's voice does suit the mood of the songs pretty well, with his sleepy and unexcitable baritone evoking the generally depressing tone, but the key to their success is that they have so much melodic instrumental color backing him up, it's everywhere on every song. So then to their strengths. This album is impeccably produced and so chock-full of wonderful little moments that I had to listed to it 3 times just to form a real opinion, and I'm still not sure I got the majority of it. Just to give some concrete examples, "Terrible Love" adds (in order) string counter-melody, distorted guitar harmony, shakers, a dance-beat, piano arpeggiated harmonies, an alternate-melodic bridge, more piano harmonies, Beck-like cooing backing vocals, and then more string counter-melody. Then it blows up, playing everything at once, including what I believe is an alternate minor chord on the conclusion of every line of the alternate chorus, and then it disintegrates just as completely into a danceable indie-rock frenzy. Every song is like that - there's just so much stuff to play with, and every song evolves in a unique and fascinating way. I'm not totally sure where to place it. On the one hand, I find it fascinating and lovely. On the other hand, it's missing one big thing - catchy singles - and I don't think it's quite as good as YHF (a very touch comparison). And generally, because I'm looking for novelty, I tend to over-rate things that are new to me at any level of quality and under-rate old hat. So I'm on the fence about 4 vs. 5, but fuck it, I'll give it a 5. I might listen to this a dozen more times.

This is in my opinion one of the greatest CDs of all time. No discussion of it can start anywhere other than Freddie Mercury's voice. It soars, with incredible range, rich timbre, and tremendous power even at the limits of his range. He carries no song as completely as "You're My Best Friend", which might not work with any other singer, ever. Queen's virtuosity on this record is not limited to Mercury's lead vocals - they get incredible contributions from every other member. May's guitar is amazing throughout - he gets such a thick, liquid sound out of his guitar, it sounds like literally no one else, and his solos on "Death on Two Legs" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" are momentous. Their backing vocals are omnipresent and note-perfect - I think many people would say overbearing, but in my opinion the upper limit on how much backing vocal is acceptable is very, very high and Queen get nowhere near it. They actually get solid performances out of their secondary vocalists as well - in part because of how much the backing vocals can carry, the other singer on "I'm In Love With My Car" is able to make an otherwise workmanlike performance that would otherwise just be a change-of-pace into a high point of the record, and the performance on "Good Company" works well there too. And Queen's composition and production is simply unrivaled outside of a handful of the greatest records of all time - every song has incredible sound, tremendous diversity, and intricate, unique harmonization, all working perfectly well in one package - an achievement repeated writ-large in the diversity yet incredible cohesion of all the songs on the record. One thing that's really notable about this CD is how strong a sense of comedy-in-music Queen has. I've now heard this cover-to-cover dozens of times, but the first time I heard the guitar solo come in on "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" I burst out laughing. It's an incredible comedic moment - the whole song has been this kind of Vaudeville acoustic bit, with little flecks of color like the bicycle bells aping Freddie's piano line, and just as it's wrapping up, Brian May launches in with a face-melting blast of electric guitar. "Seaside Rendevouz" and "Good Company" have similar silly moments - the whole kazoo sequence on "Seaside Rendevouz" is ridiculous, in part because of how well it works (they end it with a slide whistle!), and the ending woodwind solos on "Good Company", backed up by a shredding mandolin, functions similarly. Several tunes are funny as songs too, most notably "I'm In Love With My Car", and some of the more overwrought lines from "Death on Two Legs" make me chuckle as well, although maybe they're meant to be taken seriously. And then there's "Bohemian Rhapsody". It's a towering achievement, and it has all of the above - soaring vocals, rich, complex harmonies, an incredible diversity of moods and sonic palettes, incredible comedic moments (like when the drums kick in), virtuosic guitar work, dominant backing vocals, everything. If this CD had "Bohemian Rhapsody" and 40 minutes of animals making barnyard sounds I'd give it a 4. The actual score is a foregone conclusion.

I would never reach for this just because it’s not what I’m looking for in a rock/pop record. But it’s nice music- Jones has a lovely voice, and the best songs feel like standards out of the Real Book. They’re generally a little on the simple side, and the CD overall is slow, sad, quiet, unexcitable, and a little light on instrumental depth and variety. I think that’s intentional- the focus clearly here is on Jones’ voice, which really is good. There’s only so much of that I want in one sitting, and not too many sittings where I want that either, but it’s a nice CD.

I reviewed Eagles eponymous yesterday on my other thread, and this is just a perfect comp to it. Perfect in that they're so similar - I gave Eagles a 3, and this is discernably worse on every dimension. The key similarities are (a) super-famous band (b) with one of their early releases (c) containing exactly two of the hits that made them famous (d) and basically no other noteworthy or really even enjoyable songs (we will discuss "Salt of the Earth") (e) mostly because all of the balance of the CD is super-basic working-class 70s blues rock. "Sympathy for the Devil" is great, and "Street Fighting Man" is iconic (listening to it again for the first time in a decade, it's really kind of a crummy song), but until we get to "Salt of the Earth", basically the entire rest of the CD sucks. Songs like "Factory Girl" and "Dear Doctor" are not just unpleasant to listen to, in the modern context they're really pretty offensive. And the rest of the CD is just a bunch of stale, by-the-books blues rock. Relative the Eagles version of the same, the Stones (a) have much less vocal talent - the Eagles have at least two singers with stronger voices than Jagger's, and also get way more out of their vocal harmonies - and (b) have dramatically worse sound quality, I mean in the sense of how well the sound is recorded. Many 60s CDs have fairly crude recording quality, but typically from earlier in the decade or from less famous bands - I'm surprised at just how poor the recording quality for a world-class band in 1968, I mean if you compare this to contemporary Beatles / Band / Motown is just sounds sloppy and amateurish. "Salt of the Earth" is joyous and fun, and in trying to understand why I liked it so much, when I did not enjoy the rest of the CD, the clear thing it has that the rest of the CD (outside of "Sympathy") is missing is a voice other than Jagger's - it's the female backing vocals that make the song. And while Richards' very by-the-books blues licks and somewhat crude tone works at times (like on "Sympathy", where it provides a real burst of color with a distinctively different sound from the rest of the song), it's kind of a flop relative to how full the Stones' two-guitar attack works on the Mick Taylor-era CDs. All of which is to say - most of what listening to this CD made me wonder is - are the Stones mostly considered good because, shortly after recording this CD and continuing into the early 70s, they recruited as members basically an entirely different band centered around Mick Taylor and a rotating cast of strong female vocalists?

I really don’t know quite what to make of all this techno. This is fine to listen to as background music, but there’s really just not much interesting going on here. I try to judge this stuff on its own terms, and I did like this better than David Gray (and also Fatboy Slim, and some of the other similar on the other thread), but nowhere near as much as some of the other non-techno records I’m giving threes to.

If this list is going to supply music I don’t especially care for, this is a good way to do it- this CD is at least interesting and different, if not particularly good. This CD has some nice aspects. It’s certainly creative, and Roxy has sort of a unique sound. It has also had a good diversity of sound- a lot of brass, lots of keys, strong rhythm section, nice mix of moods. And it’s generally upbeat and it sounds like the band is having fun. The problem is that I mostly just find it abrasive to listen to. Their singer kinda sucks, and they don’t do a good job backing him up- there’s a fairly strong emphasis on other melodic voices instrumentally, but almost no emphasis on harmony. Which means the singer is mostly just left alone out there. On the instrumental melodic bits, Roxy has a bad habit for playing some awful dissonant shit. “Editions of You” is probably the strongest track on the CD, certainly the catchiest, but the solos are awful, they just ruin it for me. And I think their singer’s strength is supposed to be his weird nonsensical lyrics (certainly not his range or timbre), but I really do not care about that- so to me he just sounds like a goober with an abrasive voice. Then their songwriting can be kind of dull. They go for more of a groove style, which I find gets really old really fast if you’re not good at it. On the 2nd half, “Every Dream Home…” and “Bogus Man” especially, they have whole songs that are 4-minute repetitions of the same 3-second phrase. Unless you’re brilliant at that, it just doesn’t work, and this CD really starts to sag around then.

This is really not my thing, but I guess it’s fine for what it is. It’s designed as background music, and I’m generally looking for a more active listening experience. Something like “Dark Messages” creates a great mood, but it has no melody, no structure, and doesn’t go anywhere. The opener, “High School Lover” and “Bathroom Girl” are probably the most song-like songs, but everything except the title track is still missing major aspects of what I think of as a song (e.g. a melody, or a B-section). It’s also a little same-y- for a mood-oriented CD, it sure sticks in the same mood a lot of the time (to whit: minor chords, descending sequences, dark), and several songs felt like the same song played once with conventional and once with electronic instruments (including the hooks to “Playground Love” and “High School Lover”, which may be intentional). I didn’t detest listening to it, but it never got me excited and I’ll never play it again.

I’ve never heard this album cover-to-cover but I’ve heard all the hits on it dozens of times. And I’m pretty familiar with Bon Jovi and their tricks. As a former songwriter myself, I’m well-versed in the “musical crack” techniques that just always make songs better- hand-clapping, modulating up a half step on the last chorus, cowbell, massive everyone-in-the-crowd-shouting backing vocals, etc. Some bands are more or less shameless about abusing these, but I don’t think anyone quite has zero shame like Bon Jovi. The big one they use here is huge chorus vocals, but all the favorites are mixed in. Four-on-the-floor drumming on the last chorus of “You Give Love a Bad Name”. Basically all of “Livin’ on a Prayer”, which is basically a clinic in how to make a monster hit. And it’s not like it doesn’t work- in fact it works spectacularly well, it’s just a little cheap. I also didn’t totally understand until hearing this CD how Bon Jovi was considered metal in 1988. Even vs similar bands like Poison they always seemed a little light. But you get more of that on here. Songs like “Social Disease” and “Raise Your Hands” are more like the other glam metal bands, they just didn’t go anywhere because they’re not that good, and all Bon Jovi’s pop hits are amazing. Which brings me to how I liked the CD. It’s OK- the top of the order is absurdly stacked, with five straight strong songs, three of them classic pop hits. And the rest of the CD is fine, but just not the same. I think part of that is that there’s sort of an uncanny valley effect with pop hitmaking- if something fails to land, it really fails hard. It’s tough to really say what it is about eg “Never Say Goodbye” that makes it not “Livin on a Prayer”, but they’re not the same, and by falling just short of sticking the landing, “Never Say Goodbye” and the ilk end up falling into a pit. Basically the whole 2nd half of the CD is like that. I really struggle with describing just what it is that fails- is it the genericness of singing about my girl vs Tammy? I don’t know. Kudos also to Bon Jovi the vocalist- he’s amazing. One of the best.