Ugh I love David Bowie's voice so much. I love his weird lyrics even when I have no idea what he's talking about, and I love the way he builds a song. At some point in college Life on Mars was my favorite song of all time. I still am awed by the piano arrangement every time I listen to it, and how perfectly it works with his singing. Changes and Oh You Pretty Things are also classics. I wish I could give half stars cause this is a 4 1/2 for me. There's too many songs in the back-half that are a little underwhelming and there's other Bowie albums I like better.
I've always heard of Rod Stewart but never really knew what kind of music he made or what era he was popular in. My sense going into this was that I wouldn't like him but I didn't have a solid reason. Sad to say my suspicions were confirmed! So many of the songs repeat the same lines over and over again and are way longer than they need to be. The sound of the band is uninspiring and bad. And his voice, eh, it's fine. I'm so confused by all these people on the internet saying he has one of the best voices in rock history. It's just...raspy. Doesn't make him a good vocalist. A couple lovely moments with Amazing Grace and Mandolin Wind. Maggie May is a great song but Melissa Etheridge sings it better check it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGv3LTgpRrU
My fav Taylor album since Fearless and probably her most sophisticated storytelling. I love the banjo on Willow and the harmonies with Haim on no body, no crime. Evermore gives me chills when she starts singing with Bon Iver. And weirdly, tolerate it is just one of those songs that is comfortably stuck in the background of my head on a consistent basis. Still, quite a few skips, and I’d probably rate this like a 3.7
A side note. Good album art for me can actually make me like an album better. This album has that. Its cover perfectly conveys the feel of the songs on it.
Agreeing with Jacob, this album was the most British thing Iʻve ever heard. Probably too British. There were some songs I liked, David Watts and Waterloo Sunset for instance. Death of a Clown was entrancing, and Two Sisters had the kind of baroque pop feel of some Belle and Sebastian (possibly my fav all time band). But damn is there a lot of cheeky British humor that just does not do it for me. Combined with marching band sounds and some real whiny vocals from Ray Davies, there was some truly unpleasant material on here. 3/5
Yeah this was a bust for me. I get the feeling this would have been a fun album to hear live, but coming out of my office computer speakers as I'm submitting a Walgreens photo order is just not the mood. I also feel the need to mention that 4/5 of the albums weʻve listened to so far have been by British artists, so thatʻs... interesting. This had some moments but overall I kinda despised it. Not enough catchy hooks and a lot of the songs sound exactly the same kind of bland garage rock. Also Iʻm very hungry and the walgreens website is malfunctioning, so that may be feeding into this negative opinion..
A complicated album for me to review. John Lennon is one of my favorite musicians of all time. He is probably my favorite male vocalist. When I was younger I saw footage of people mourning him after his assassination and I remember crying my eyes out. He has been an icon to me. Heʻs also from what Iʻve read later in life, kind of a huge asshole and physically violent person to both men and women earlier in his life, before he (mostly) repented. I wonʻt go into depth on this front but suffice it to say that itʻs enough to really taint his legacy and recently has made it hard for me to fully put that shit out of my head when listening to his music. But for the sake of this review Iʻll attempt that. Anyway, this album is wonderful, but still a huge drop in quality from his previous album, Plastic Ono Band, which is one of the greatest of all time. Imagine (the song) is extremely overplayed, but it's still a classic. Oh Yoko! has been a favorite of mine for years, ever since I heard it in the Wes Anderson movie Rushmore. Gimme Some Truth is just a brilliant verbal assault on hypocritic politicians. I have a really fond memory of my aunt rap-singing "I'm sick to death of seeing things/ From tight-lipped, condescending, mama's little chauvinists" to me when I was kid. I love how vulnerable and open he is on this album, he really bares his soul in many songs like Jealous Guy and Oh My Love. His love for Yoko inspires so much beauty in his music. A dark spot is How Do You Sleep, a scathing takedown of Paul McCartney that always felt unnecessarily cruel to me. A reminder of just how fucked up he could be in one moment while in the next being this revolutionary, life-giving force of music.
Baby One More Time (the song) is undeniably a masterpiece. Britney slays the vocals, the piano has attitude, the classic 90's drum beats. I love this song fervently. And with the slight exception of a couple other tracks that's about where it ends for me in the praise department. Nothing else comes close to it on this album and a lot of these songs sound seriously phoned in. Sometimes has possibly the most awkward key change I've ever heard in a song. Email My Heart may have aged worse than any song we're likely to review. The Beat Goes On really shouldn't. When I listen to this album I feel like I'm trapped in a chair at the dentist's office. 2/5.
Gonna strongly recommend the music of Rina Sawayama here. She's inspired by a lot of the production and vocal stylings of Britney but is a much better and more interesting songwriter. Check out her EP Rina
Ok this wasnʻt bad! I was nervous going into it with the 1h14m playtime and the hardcore genre being pretty inaccessible to me in the past. But thereʻs quite a bit to like here. Itʻs extremely genre diverse. There are cool jazzy rhythms and strange spoken word lyrics. These guys are skilled instrumentalists. Nothing was too grating or off-putting. Nothing blew me away either, but I appreciated the experimentation and the way they completely shifted their sound between songs. Like Jacob was saying, I definitely need to sit with this one for a while longer, especially to digest the lyrics. Some great lyrical gems stood out, including: "I stand for language. I shout for truth. I stand for history. I am a cesspool." Some incredible titles here also: A Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing, God Bows to Math, and The Big Foist. Also I canʻt wait to show my mom the song Toadies, cause thatʻs one of her favorite words. We learned it together when I was studying vocab for the GRE. 3.3/5
Darkness on the Edge of Town is one of the greatest albums of all time. This is music that has a raging, desperate heartbeat. I am so excited to talk about this album.
Bruce had almost an impossible task writing this album. How could he possible come up with anything to match Born to Run, one of the most commercially and critically successful rock albums of the 70s? The answer was to be the most insane perfectionist in rock history. For three years he wrote, penning over 70 songs for his next album in the most inspired and brilliantly creative period of his career. Many of the songs he wrote and discarded became classics for other artists, most notably Because the Night by Patti a Smith. In the end, he had 10 songs. No filler, nothing that didn’t perfectly fit the feel of the album he wanted to craft.
I love the journey this album takes you on. It opens with a banger that blows the freaking roof off the place! Badlands is one of the most electrifying tracks the Boss ever wrote. It surges with optimism and that classic gonna get out of this place at all costs Bruce energy. By the end of the first half of the album we have Racing in the Street, a somber, beautiful, bleak as hell ode to finding something that just barely makes life worth living and the people still in search of that. One standout line as the narrator describes his girlfriend: “She stares into the night with the eyes of one who hates for just being born.” And then he jolts you back to life with The Promised Land, probably the catchiest song on the album, even more explosive in its energy and passion than Badlands. Listen to Steve Van Zandt whip up a beautiful melody on his guitar solo that turns out to be a mere assist for Clarence Clemons to demolish that sax solo! I love the image of the dogs on Main Street howling as they cheer Bruce on. This is about as uplifting a song as I’ve ever heard.
But ultimately that’s not what this album is all about, at least not to me. Darkness on the Edge of Town, the last song, really sums it all up for me. In the second verse Bruce sings about the burdens we carry with us, the regrets, the secrets and shame, whatever it is. “Til someday you just cut it lose, cut it lose or let it drag you down” he wails as the band surges behind him. This is music about doing whatever you have to do to live with yourself, to survive. I’m in awe of this song every time I hear it. How lonely and isolating it is while being empowering and life affirming. That’s Bruce for me. 5/5
Gotta be honest I didn’t love this one as much as I was expecting. A lot of nonsensical lyrics with a few gems. One that stood out was something like “what if the sandwich eats you?” Honestly that was probably the highlight of the album for me, along with that guitar solo Jacob mentioned. I’ve enjoyed other P-funk albums way more than this, especially Mothership a connection.
I have to give the Dead credit for sounding completely original and unlike any other band, even if I don’t always love their sound. I’m not a huge fan of Jerry Garcia’s voice and the arrangements sometimes have this washed out, sleepy sound to them that leaves me underwhelmed. But this album has so many classic songs on it I can’t be too hung up on it’s shortcomings. Ripple might be one of the most beautiful melodies ever written by any band, Friend of the Devil is such a fun and catchy tune, and Attics of My Life arrives completely unexpectedly, like a loving hymn. The harmonies on it are transcendent. I go into a happy trance every time I listen to it. 3.8/5
Eh, I will never listen to this again. And I'm sad I listened to this album as much as I did for this review, cause it's not going to be a very good or thorough review. Everyone else pretty much already summed up what I don't like about this album. Kind of baffling this made it into this list tbh.
This album had me at
When I grow up
I want to be a forester
Run through the moss on high heels
This was a very pleasant listen as I worked on a late night job application. Some songs that were easy to get lost in, but none that floored me.
Weee I'm back baby!! This album is pretty good! The Queen is Dead is one of my all time favorites and they have some great compilations, so I was really looking forward to this. My favorite song is definitely Girlfriend in a Coma, which I've known since Hannah Lipstein put it on a mixtape for me sometime in the late 2000s. Truly, a tastemaker. And I love the growling sounds Morrissey makes on "A Rush and a Push and the land is ours." Those are probably the only two songs I will seek out from this album in the future. Still, gotta love some of those sweetly sociopathic lyrics on other tracks: "I still love you, only slightly less than I used to my love."
When I started listening to this album I had a lot of conflicting feelings. First off, it sounded like a completely unknown sound to me. I couldn't figure out this genre! cwm described it best, some kind of a mix between punk and disco and krautrock. Truly an original and unexpected sound, so props to the team for coming up with that one. But damn, do I dislike her voice. I read up on Marianne Faithful and the 70's was not a good time for her. She was houseless, addicted to heroin, suffering from laryngitis. When she surfaced with this album, her voice had shifted in some raspy ways. A lot of people loved it. I find it extremely grating. Not even the sick album cover can save this one for me.
Opens with one of the greatest songs of all time. Ends with a great song. Some very good to passable material in between. Truly, a sandwich with some fucking family heirloom sourdough starter bread right there. Let's go back to the first song. This is one of those songs that packs the same punch as an hourlong session with your long lost childhood therapist. Whenever I hear that drum intro and piano glissando I am on my feet and ready to play the air saxophone. Beyond a 5 star song, elevating the whole rest of the album.
So much music history lore in this one! Brian Wilson placing a flaming log in the middle of the studio for the recording of the song Mrs. O'Leary's Cow to evoke the Great Chicago Fire caused by the aforementioned cow, then a fire randomly starting in the building next door, causing Brian to freak out. Heroes and Villains being the most expensive single
the band ever recorded, consuming months of the band's attention, then having a lackluster release and sending Brian into a nervous breakdown. The whole album being shelved for 35 years until Brian could finally return to it and see his vision through to the end. There are moments of true greatness on this album. The line "And sonny down scruff I'm alright" from Heroes and Villains; the mournful interpretation of You Are My Sunshine, some of the most beautiful use of the harpsichord in rock music, the unbelievably angelic harmonies on Surf's Up. And going back to Heroes and Villains, that is simply one of the most beautiful uses of the human voice I've ever heard in music. Much of the absurdism and goofiness is a little bit lost on me (Vega-Table). And there are moments when Brian's age shows in his voice, making me wonder just how good this might have sounded if it was released all those years ago when it was first written. Which begs another question- obviously this album would have been super revolutionary and cutting edge if it came out in 1967. But released in 2004, so much has changed in music that it feels like this weird relic that finally made it to the party long after the other guests left. It's an important album in the sense of it being this grand vision of this brilliant man that finally got its cathartic ending. There is a beautiful poetry in that. Is there more significance to it than that?
This one's too tied up in some memories to give it an impartial rating. A neutral 3 you get!
So lovely. A truly unique sound. When I listen to this album I feel like I'm walking through the forest in a timeless autumn. The album cover and the lyrics on songs like Tiger Mountain Peasant Song place me in some medieval land, but then I'm jolted back to modernity with "O brother, where do you intend to go tonight? I heard you missed your connecting flight." Robin Pecknold's voice is the golden goose that keeps on giving. 4.4/5
Definitely grew on me. At the end of the day though, this is just not the music for me. It's just too...much...80s! I am what I am!
That said, the song Seconds breaks free of the mold and is quite a lovely song about someone killing someone else (the storytelling isn't really the point here). The synths shine spectacularly, it's not overproduced, the vocal melody gives me the repetition that my basic brain craves. I'm into it. The rest, not so much.
Three Days? Felt more like three weeks amirite.
This album actually works best for me when Perry Farrell isn't singing. He's got a very unique voice, but maybe there's a good reason for that. The band is tight, and the arrangements are experimental and not what I'm used to hearing from 90s rock. I mean damn, we've got some fucking klezmer on Of Course! This is probably my favorite track on the album. I think I just am much better able equipped to accept the guy's voice when it's paired with a gorgeous, explosive violin. And Been Caught Stealing is just pure fun. This went from a 2 to a 3 over the course of writing this review.
Wow I have been missing out with ABBA! What's up with these moody synths on the title track? Head Over Heels blew me away with its spooky, plucky synths! One of Us is a soaring, emotional masterpiece. I keep being struck by what sounds to my untrained ear like some truly inspired chord changes. What is happening! What a joy to discover this band and why did I never make an attempt to find them out before. I feel like when I watched the Ken Burns Country music documentary and heard a whole genre open up before me.
As good as so many of these songs are, one stands a cut above the rest. The Day Before You Came. Sweet Jesus this is a lyrical masterpiece. Listening absentmindedly to this song the first time it is just a list of mundane everyday tasks and activities with some anecdotes atypical enough in pop songwriting to catch your attention: "I stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go." This Chinese food line piqued my interest, and looking up the lyrics my immediate impression was oh ok, this woman was living a boring existence before this man showed up in her life, transforming her days of watching Dallas and reading the morning paper into something unbelievably beautiful. Since the man plays such a small and mysterious role in the song, this would be an interesting enough concept on its own. But it's not the whole story, and there is more written between the lines. Why? Because if that's where it ended this would be a happy song.
Instead, the vocals are tinged with sadness and there is a soft wailing over minor chords after every chorus. The narrator wouldn't be so fixated on what she used to do before the man showed up if he was still around. But he's left, and she is confronted with the lonely life she had before. For me, the saddest part of this is that she was once content with the things she used to do, but after this love, it all just seems like filler. Listening to the song with this interpretation, you hear a broken-hearted woman who is wracking her brain, retracing the steps of her life to how things ended up here, trying to piece together how she ever made it through the day at all. So much is left unsaid in this song but conveyed through Agnethaʻs gorgeous and evocative vocals. So much is left up to interpretation and speculation. It is a haunting, spellbinding song. I will cherish this song and this record. 4.6/5.
Freaking tough transition going from listening to ABBA all day to this. Definitely not in the right frame of mind and wanting some pop schmaltz, but regardless I still think I'd find a lot of these songs kind of lacking and treading into some real unseasoned pumpkin GOULASH. A couple listens in and I'm appreciating the vocals and guitar work on several tracks. Disarm is powerful. What a monster of a song. Love those bells. They are a masterful touch.
Some nice jangly rock music to listen to while I made late night lemonade for my volunteer crew. The music is light and fun. It doesn’t challenge me or rock my world or stir up anything in me besides a slight head bop. Two favs are The Concept and December, the latter of which sounds like the beginning to that song in Shrek when they’re blowing up a frog into a balloon. 3.2/5
This album was so satisfyingly awful. I knew I would hate it going in, and every song confirmed my prejudice.
For these 1001 albums I’m giving myself a pass to abandon one album before finishing it. This is that album. I can’t do it! This music is trying to murder me. On the bright side this really makes every other song I’ve ever considered inaccessible or grating sound like singing in the rain. Props to the band for really blurring the line between what is music and what is a mean, robot weasel who wants to kill.
We’re on a bad streak here. I’m not a fan of this band. Maybe with a vocalist who didn’t sound like store brand Coldplay or with arrangements not so overblown we’d have something to work with. But this sounds like a band that takes its basic ideas really seriously and the result is just off putting. That said, it was fine background music while I made a big salad for my volunteers. And one song, Satellites I actually find pretty catchy and moving. But that’s it.
Damn. This is one club I’d love to be a part of, since it seems like you all developed such a deep connection to this album, and I want that for me too! But I am gonna have to sit on the sidelines here. Beck’s vocals just sound kind of uninspired and I’m having a hard time latching on to many of these melodies. The best element for me is the production. There are some really lush and trippy arrangements here that make me want to play this on iTunes visualizer and just stare at my computer screen. And I really like the song Guess I’m Doing Fine, which sounds like Neil Young but not in a rip-off kinda way. The line “it’s only lies that I’m living, it’s only tears that I’m crying” is a simple beauty.
A solid collection of blues songs from one of the best blues singers of all time. Blues isn't my favorite genre, and it's tough for me to listen to a whole album without being reminded of how repetitive it can get. Still, Muddy Waters is a legend. 3.7/4
Ooh I wish I had more time with this one! I love me some Irish folk-punk. I think Flogging Molly did it best but they definitely took a lot of their cues from The Pogues. Shane McGowan can sing the hell out of anything, even Latin rock?! I was not expecting this album to be such a melting pot of global music! But at its heart it's very very Irish. I listen to this album and I'm especially mad that my Finley ancestors are English. But especially glad that my mom took me on a legendary trip to Ireland when I was 20 where I got to wear a lot of tweed and meet some puffins. Getting off track here. This is a very solid album that I'll be returning to again and again.
Was not in the mood for this album but I committed multiple listens to it anyway. Some of these songs are big old slogs, plodding along without a strong enough melody to hold them together. But there are a few gems that keep bringing me back. The best is Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning, a spooky, meanspirited song if there ever was one. I love Morrissey's nearly whispered vocals, as though he gossiping about the dead girl but doesn't want to be too loud about it. With a line like "She swam too far against the tides. She deserves all that she gets" I wouldn't want to be too loud either. Morrissey is so good at writing from a dark, fucked up perspective it makes me wonder how great of a person he actually is...
Can definitely understand why this has strong appeal to the production savvy members of our club. It just sounds so crisp. And I like it as background music! But I'm not about to sit down and listen to 40 minutes straight of the sitar front and center.
Damn I really didn't like this album. My Back Pages is an excellent song, and the Byrds definitely made it better than Dylan's original. But the rest? Not so much.
I have returned! Just in time for this mediocre reggae record. Not once did this capture my attention or get my feet moving.
An extremely divisive record in my household! Mum loved it, Pa’s ears were burning. I found it pretty mellow and inoffensive for the most part, except when those weird guttural sounds bubble up in What Does Your Soul Look Like. Most songs make for great background music. I think I have trouble taking instrumental hip hop seriously as anything more than that, and this album is no exception. side note- are we seriously like 50 albums in and this is our first hip hop record?? And it’s by a white guy no less 🙄
