still wagering whether this is me coming off as an insanely pretentious snub, but goodness, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter is nothing short of a transcendental experience; a wildly bizarre (such is the craziness of this record that i had to place two synonyms back-to-back to describe it) journey into the depths of folklore and mythical treasures that are deeply evocative and original in their take. they tell the tales of sea shanties and minotaurs and innocent children in mysterious but beautiful villages, and speak of every single one as almost religious, that you can’t help but feel its sacredness oozing off every single syllable. none of it makes any real sense, and yet it manages an odd relatability that even i cannot understand. of course, this is music made by a band who were higher than the heavens; whose minds conjured half-baked fables that they smoothly pass off as real (a song about a children-eating part-man-part-bull creature should not be as alluring as it is, and yet). their buzzed state not only shows up in the lyrics (equal parts sloppy and mind-bogglingly brilliant), but extends to the music itself, where they layer vocals and stuff a menagerie of instruments into every song. they run the gamut here, pulling influences from Gaelic, Sikh, Indian, and Scottish music, combining them into such softly psychedelic compositions that have no other effect but to hypnotize. the music is so complex — rich in texture, blitzing through space and time — but the ethos of The Incredible String Band is so deliriously simple: to make music that feels like flying… and gosh look how high they soar.

we are nothing, if not a mosaic of the places and spaces we inhabit; history is a documentation of the skin we shed on our journey to purpose, and the ground we walk on is filled with the dust of the bodies of previous generations now long decayed. Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, a bombastic musical extravaganza about its titular state, is a beastly museum where the personal and historic collapse into, and inform each other, and are woven into a pointed take on the human condition. the second (and last) of Stevens’ purported 50 states project, Illinois soars because the titular area it highlights is merely a backdrop for more poignant tales on love and loss; innocence and regret; faith and death. Stevens’ songwriting is laser sharp, almost deliriously so, that reading through his poetry is to pierce your own heart and bleed out. you think of a song like “Casimir Pulaski Day” and feel the emotion of losing a loved one in death (and the grappling with faith that immediately follows it), but Sufjan’s strength here goes beyond just the words: his lush orchestral instrumentation is ethereal and moving — it evokes and complements the largeness of his stories, sure, but there’s a paradoxical intimacy in the compositions too. every sound is so perfectly placed, tied closely to the sound before and the sound after. you combine the sounds with the words, and what you have is a juggernaut: songs that sound like life itself, that trace the very idea of being, from birth to love to death and even beyond. this is such a human album — challenging and complex and difficult to digest, but also light and jovial and ultimately rewarding. it is a tribute to the spaces that make us who we are; and just like a literal geographical location, it is vast in scope and scattered, but also raging with passion and romance — a glass-stained cornucopia of details and people and laughter and tears and bodies and monuments and buildings that, at its very core, just sounds thankful to be alive.

i think the mind-numbing vapidity of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication is well captured in its eye-rolling title: a tongue-in-cheek, silly portmanteau that would blow the mind of a failing ninth grader in the 90s because its innuendo sounds clever, when it’s really just plain stupid. all of Californication plays exactly like that — an overwhelmingly inane, juvenile collection of cheeky songs that pride themselves in their clever innuendos and double meanings, when really those lyrics are just “Ding ding, dong dong, ding ding, dong dong, ding ding” (a direct quote). there’s nothing of real substance to grab onto here, and despite being described as Red Hot Chili Peppers’ introspective and personal album, the music is as personal as a teenager scribbling on the walls of the stall at school as he ditches class (you can see the recurring theme i guess. give the band an A for consistency). the songs are fairly popular — the title track, as well as “Otherside” ended up being songs i recognized — but they’re stuck in their own time, never transcending over into timelessness. like a severe case of arrested development, RHCP’s Californication is the sound of a pubescent kid suddenly discovering his new found concupiscence. naturally it’s all aged like milk.

Manu Chao’s “Clandestino” is a really fascinating tapestry of cultural and geographic musings that fall into each other without really ever clashing. Chao, a polyglot, sings in up to four languages on the album, and with each language, he pulls influences from the respective cultures, making the album a melting pot of ideas and sonic structures that are still cohesive. probably because Chao is selling a message of universal oneness and peace. but that cohesion, a few songs in, begins to breed repetition, till the music blends into itself. the album is light and breezy, sure, but that lightness begins to work against it: all of it fades into the background, with nothing truly lush enough to stand out. though i admit this is not music i would naturally gravitate towards, i can appreciate the courage in Chao’s ideas and thematic leanings; how he not only sings of unity, but strives to sound like it too. but the music just lacks the gusto to really hold itself together — and maybe that alone says a lot about the world it’s hoping to unite.

oscar wilde once said, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…” but people often forget the second half of wilde’s saying “…that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” listening to jamiroquai’s obnoxiously derivative record Emergency on Planet Earth, that second half of wilde’s saying is ringing so loud and true. of course the results of a white man cosplaying stevie wonder is staunch mediocrity; such ugly middling nothingness that overstays its welcome and overshoots its ambitions, ending up an unseasoned pot of tunes that have been done better a million times before. all this isn’t to say jamiroquai’s brand of acid funk and jazzy tunes is completely without merit (influence is a beautiful thing, and there’s maybe a brief argument to made about his appreciation of the genres), but gosh it’s all so uninspired; this is a drugstore take on a sound made luxurious by funk pioneers who delicately carved a sonic style out of callused hands. it makes sense they never had any crossover success in the US: their music is borderline caricatural, and i’d rather listen to stevie wonder, thank you very much. [“Revolution 1993” is however, a banger…]

even in spite of the jazz influences and instrumental breaks that create an effortlessly cool, meandering tempo, In The Court of The Crimson King, King Crimson’s seminal debut that practically changed the face of progressive rock, is a bubbling pot of endless urgency that quietly brews underneath the skin of each song, so that by the time the album comes to an end, the slow walk has become a full blown sprint. it does make sense that jazz and rock — ripped from the same cloth in how they both yield to unexpected twists and turns, and yet are wholly different in pace and structure — would be sonically matrimonial, but King Crimson refuses to exist in the equilibrium. each song sounds as though their influences are clashing; their key elements here are flipped, contrasted, and then juxtaposed, designed to be at war with each other. and like an actual battle, there is no knowing where any of this songs are headed. this is most prevalent on opener “21st Century Schizoid Man”, where all sense of musical predictability is thrown out the window, and every song that follows it is just as burdened with a similar volatility: they change time signatures with almost no sense of reason; random pauses and brief silences appear out of nowhere in the middle of songs; they introduce instrumental breaks when the songs begin to climax (the flute solo in the middle of the title track is some of the most sublime); and then build frantic polyrhythmic drum sections that grate and grind. what results is a carefully orchestrated battlefield where chaos rules supreme, and the only casualties are those left playing catch up to King Crimson’s madness.

Green Onion, an instrumental only covers album by Booker T. and the M. G., is a chill, bluesy trip through the best and grooviest songs of the 60’s made even funkier by the band’s meticulous reimagining with not much else but an electric guitar and hammond organ. they leave no stones unturned here, covering hits from Ray Charles to Mary Wells and The Top Notes. The instrumentation is surprisingly minimalist (especially when contrasted with the massive songs they were covering), but the detailed variations of the already known and loved songs do little to stop Green Onion from sounding like the music of a cover band at one social event or the other (or dare i say, music heard in a quiet elevator) — the individual tracks stand out on their own (“Behave Yourself” and the title track proving deliriously funky and memorable), but listened collectively, they begin to blend into each other; the majority of the highlights are stacked at the top of the track list, and as you listen through, the album collapses into a samey, monotony that slowly begins to exhaust. But I can’t help but feel like this is what a Sunday morning should sound like — a toe-tapping, whistle-inducing cornucopia of beloved soulful hits that affect just as much as the sweet aroma of mother’s cooking in the kitchen.

rock music has never been my thing (at least in the traditional sense — art rock, chamber rock, and psychedelic rock have consistently displayed the ability to move me with their simultaneous scale and intimacy). Foo Fighters’ self titled debut, though richly crafted, does not at current seem to be the pure rock album to assuage (??) my predispositions (??). formed following the suicide of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, Foo Fighters (the work of fellow Nirvana colleague Dave Grohl) doesn’t manage to sustain the intensity or inventiveness of the works that birthed it, but is still something fairly neat all on its own. it aspires for a similar grunge leaning sound that turned Nirvana into a beast, but is also performed with a certain restrain that leaves its bite feeling weak. Grohl evokes great emotion with his voice though, and there are true gems to be found here: “Floaty” sounds like the sort of pop-rock that many a teenage girl-next-door would wield to masterful effect, and “Big Me” is rich with enough heart. not a record i see myself returning to much, but a good enough one nonetheless.

The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots feels like a time capsule to a rich time in pop culture when everyone was obsessed with the future. they tackle a rich, scientific world undercut with an overarching theme of love and mortality in the face of a growing detachment in society bred by technological advancement. their titular character, Yoshimi, is a stand-in for our haunting relationship with the growing technology in our lives. the album, however, is quick to ditch the concept of Yoshimi, instead opting for more universal inquiries on the tidal nature of emotion — they cover love and hypocrisy, death and fulfillment. the music itself is a jumping pad for that dissection: robot voices, heavy synthesizers, pumping bass-lines and distortions cushion the lyrics, but underneath are sweetly romantic acoustic guitars and violin that tug at something more existential. the record is playful and light (Yoshimi ripped from the pages of a manga), but also deeply philosophical (on “Do You Realize??” the fear of death and desire for love looms large), and all those tiny little contrasts gives the album a brilliance that overwhelms, even when its concept loses its footing.

at a time in music when every other band fell entranced by the novelty of grunge — parents everywhere constantly on edge that their sweet teen of yesterday would set a guitar ablaze and dye their mohawk green — with Nirvana hot on their success (and, even the Foo Fighters’ debut album reviewed a couple days ago soon to come), REM felt the weight of their adulthood creeping in ways most of the bands riding the wave of teen angst would be too late to capture. Automatic for the People, then, is thematically (and literally) an album of aging while everyone around you celebrates the infinite possibilities of youth. there’s a painful blow of reality that the record carries on its shoulders, sure, but it also wears a sheen of hope that’s comforting to the point of saccharine even. “Everybody Hurts,” a song i recognized as a Glee-era masterwork, is a cry to the youth to hold on, even in the midst of struggle. and “Find the River” is a sweeping bookend to an album that sees REM accept mortality, not as something to fear, but as something to cherish. there’s a nowness on the album that helps it transcend time itself — it’s not too focused on the future, and even its ruminations on the past are not melancholy. Automatic for the People suggests that the best time is now, but when tomorrow comes, it’ll be glorious.

goodness do i love to hear a guitar ripped to shreds, fingertips calloused and splintered from the intensity. Yes deliver on that front and then some with their record The Yes Album, a complex body of work filled with deliriously meticulous instrumentation and melodramatic performances that gives rock music its verve. the music is borderline operatic — Yes does not care for subtlety, and they overlay their oft minimalistic compositions with loud guitar and bass moments that holds the music together. all of these elements feel best coalesced on the seminal “I’ve Seen All Good People”, a near-perfect mission statement that would drive Yes to the fore of a progressive rock movement still echoing in the ears of musicians today. their intricate melodies draw inspiration from jazz and folk music, which is what gives it rich personality, and Jon Anderson works his falsetto to the bone, all the emotion pouring out of him the second he takes a breath. the album is simple and restrained, but it isn’t until it ends that you actually realize how far it’s flown.

i don’t know — maybe my genre bias is showing (it’s not), and i’ve fallen out of step with what’s considered cool (i’ve not), but i don’t know that i buy into Melody A.M. as being anything more than a collection of vibey nothings that blend into the background; a footnote in the story of the endless youtube stream “lofi beats to relax/study to”. it’s not innovative enough to stand out from the rest of the wave of downtempo hip hop instrumentals (though tracks like “In Space” and “Röyksopp’s Night Out” make a valid enough argument for the existence of the record altogether, who are then followed immediately by nondescript low points like “A Higher Place”). Melody A.M. is not boring enough to hate, but is not interesting enough to truly like.

Despite my overall affinity for, and obsession with folk music, i still find myself unable to warm up to Bob Dylan, inarguably the king of folk itself. i know that “Like a Rolling Stone” is one of the greatest songs ever written — a jeeringly cynical take on the humanistic inclination for individualism — and yet, i don’t know that there’s any songs on Blood on the Tracks that attempt to match the heights of that masterwork. i can hear the brilliance: “Tangled up in Blue” is a hell of a way to open an album — ruminations on love don’t get any more searing; “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” is rich and evocative in its descriptions of romantic pain; and if any song thus far could even attempt to challenge “Like a Rolling Stone”, “If You See Her, Say Hello” might have a chance. Dylan is a brilliant songwriter, heaping pages and pages of story in a single stanza, playing with words like a swiss blade. but i still struggle to connect here — maybe it’s because nothing on here sounds novel to me as they clearly did in 1975, or maybe this is the wrong Dylan album to start with as someone who’s never listened to much of his work beyond “Like a Rolling Stone” (and the masterful “Murder Most Foul”, a late-era Dylan that ripped me to pieces, minute after minute). there’s a bounty to love on Blood on the Tracks, but it’s obvious my Dylan journey does not begin here.

they simply do not make boy bands like this anymore — a group of adrenaline-pilled, disillusioned 20-somethings who pour all their vigor, joys and sadnesses, anger and anxieties, into a 30-song double album that’s as thematically concise as it is sprawling. the Beatle’s colloquial White Album is an overly indulgent, disjointed epic inspired by any and everything, reeking of the brewing dysfunction that would lead to the Beatles’ eventual disintegration. it’s also a brilliant masterwork. not for nothing, The Beatles were not afraid to just have fun. songs like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, “Why Don’t We Do It in The Road?” and “Dear Prudence” showcase their ability to write wildly and comically, and the joy is incredibly infectious. but The Beatles also know when to bow their heads for a moment of somber introspection. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (easily one of the best songs on the record), “Blackbird”, and “Julia” expose the underbelly of a band who masked visceral emotion with hip-swinging tunes about stupid nothings. they show their disdain for a political climate fueled by greed (even though their political inclinations are toned down here), but then follow them up with pastiches of people in their lives and made up individuals. it is pure chaos rolled into an album that, listened front to back, tells the story of a group of people who constantly sought the beauty in the mess and horror of a dying world around them. this is not a funeral for that world, mind you — it is a celebration of its contradictions, and its strength exists in its non-singularity.

Jimi Hendrix opens his sophomore record with a faux interview about UFOs, and it’s obvious from the rest of the music that follows, that he’s on a mission to concoct an otherworldly musical experience. to some degree, he succeeds: Axis: Bold as Love is a groovy, complex work that puts on display Hendrix’s devilish talents. his guitar is his breath, and it is hot and heavy — songs like “Little Wing” and the gorgeous gorgeous “If 6 Was 9” see Hendrix rip and shred to astonishing effect, perfecting a psychedelic musical vision that was way ahead of its time. his infusion of rock, jazz, and blues (“Spanish Castle Magic” for example proving itself such a balanced mix of all those genre sleights) make the album a rich experience. still, Hendrix is no wordsmith; his lyrics are light to the point of vapid, and there are no songs here that truly stand out above the crop, nothing truly memorable. Hendrix was clearly a one-trick pony, even though he galloped and blitzed past his contemporaries with that singular trick. this album is loaded with a lot of filler that only exists as a showcase for Hendrix, which is great, except there’s not much to return to.

Fetch The Bolt Cutters — Fiona Apple’s latest album and grand statement released in 2020 — sounds less like music and more like a missive: a feral, angry documentation of one woman’s deep, visceral feelings. i have never heard music as heated and vengeful in its tone and perspective. listening to Apple’s debut album Tidal, it’s obvious that her anger has been brewing for a very, very, VERY long time, and for good reason. Tidal is the pain of an 18-year-old woman (!!) personified; alone and aggrieved by a world that refuses to see her as more than just the sum of her body parts, Fiona Apple has nowhere else to put her feelings, so she throws them into song. and her collection of ten on Tidal blitz through heartbreak, depression, apathy, and even joy. Tidal is a statement of her resilience, one that would continue to grow and thicken, making her future music richer and more profound. even in the moments when the album seems to lose steam, sounding slightly samey, Fiona’s lyrics continue to punch through and devastate. Apple would go on to make music that’s harrowingly searing and unfettered in honesty and authenticity. but for now, on Tidal, she’s just a girl, and gosh does she have a lot to say.

The Last Broadcast — like many a pop-rock album swarming the airwaves in the naughts — is a majorly bland, cookie cutter collection of overly saccharine songs masquerading as something deeper. don’t get me wrong, none of the songs are bad: “There Goes the Fear” is a show-stopping seven minute long beast born of the most innovative country-tinged rock compositions. “Pounding” also feels like the kind of song that informed a generation of faux rock bands (the Coldplays and Imagine Dragons of the world). but beyond those high points (and trust, they are deliriously high), The Last Broadcast is burdened with terribly trite lyrics that border on infantile. Doves’ brand of sunshine positivity doesn’t land as often as it should, and each song overstays its welcome for minutes longer than they ever should. even at just 53 minutes, the album feels sluggish; but even in all that needless fluff, Doves still manages to produce some gems that rise above their indulgences. this here is an album that’s been done many times better before, and just as much as after.

Manu Chao’s “Clandestino” is a really fascinating tapestry of cultural and geographic musings that fall into each other without really ever clashing. Chao, a polyglot, sings in up to four languages on the album, and with each language, he pulls influences from the respective cultures, making the album a melting pot of ideas and sonic structures that are still cohesive. probably because Chao is selling a message of universal oneness and peace. but that cohesion, a few songs in, begins to breed repetition, till the music blends into itself. the album is light and breezy, sure, but that lightness begins to work against it: all of it fades into the background, with nothing truly lush enough to stand out. though i admit this is not music i would naturally gravitate towards, i can appreciate the courage in Chao’s ideas and thematic leanings; how he not only sings of unity, but strives to sound like it too. but the music just lacks the gusto to really hold itself together — and maybe that alone says a lot about the world it’s hoping to unite.

igh, The Eagles begin to walk their way back to something more meaningful. they fall in and out of love (“Wasted Time”), reconnect with old friends and lovers (“Pretty Maids All in a Row”). they’re willing to try any and everything to give life meaning again (spoiler alert: love. love is the balm, the glue that holds the fickle heart of bruised nomads together). by the end of the album, on “The Last Resort”, it’s obvious that the idea of paradise, that idyllic wonderland, is in itself a toxin, and yet… the cycle of creating an all-consuming facade is set to begin again. humans are victim to their own proclivities — the greed and consumerism, drugs and promiscuity, it’s all rosey and alluring. set to soft rock and light, country-tinged power ballads, The Eagles place a mirror before those desires, moments before they lead to the demise of the ones who stoked them in the first place. gosh this is a breathtakingly stunning album. a cautionary tale and reckless advertisement all at once. truly astonishing.

The Temptations’ All Directions feels to me like a quietly brilliant encapsulation of a specific era in music, one that succinctly wove the political with the mundane; one that treated love as do-or-die (a specific thematic concept that boy bands for decades to follow would run and soar with). of course the album is anchored by the breathtaking “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”, a funk-filled soul monolith that would wear an entire generational story in its transcendental bassline, but i keep finding myself returning to The Temptations’ ruminations on love and life: “Run Charlie Run”, for one, is an evocative telling of weaponized whiteness, and “I Ain’t Got Nothing” as well as the borderline perfect “The First Time I Saw Your Face” are love songs so touchingly sweet and moving that love itself would be proud. The Temptations are not afraid to challenge their sound here — they open the record with psychedelic and funk inclinations that rear their heads throughout the album, but the jazz and soul (that sunday morning soul, you know the sound) glisten with powerful effect. here’s a generation-defining sound bottled up in not even 40 minutes, and time has no hold on it whatsoever.

Thriller may be the show stopping block buster epic that staunchly pinned Michael Jackson on the world map, but it is Bad — his highly anticipated follow-up to that record — that would truly take him into uncharted sonic and thematic waters. shedding away the sanitized innocence of his first two albums and donning an edgier style he’d been slyly teasing, Bad is the quintessential 80’s album that encapsulates the raw, feral energy of a decade that saw perm-haired men strut confidently to women they’d weakened by their gaze alone. sure, Bad might not have any of the delirious highs of Thriller — not sure any songs on here come close to matching “Billie Jean” or “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” — but even in its weaker moments, it still feels way richer and more fully realized than Jackson’s previous work. the production is top-notch, and each song glides smoothly on synthesized bass lines that leech onto you: “The Way You Make Me Feel” and the title track give themselves over to such masterful compositions that it’s almost hard to focus on anything else. and though i couldn’t care any less for Jackson’s later era kumbaya spiel, “Man in The Mirror” stands out as a stunning call to arms with one of my favorite key changes in music. Bad is no Thriller, but thank goodness it doesn’t try to be. it’s all the better for it.

i think the mind-numbing vapidity of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication is well captured in its eye-rolling title: a tongue-in-cheek, silly portmanteau that would blow the mind of a failing ninth grader in the 90s because its innuendo sounds clever, when it’s really just plain stupid. all of Californication plays exactly like that — an overwhelmingly inane, juvenile collection of cheeky songs that pride themselves in their clever innuendos and double meanings, when really those lyrics are just “Ding ding, dong dong, ding ding, dong dong, ding ding” (a direct quote). there’s nothing of real substance to grab onto here, and despite being described as Red Hot Chili Peppers’ introspective and personal album, the music is as personal as a teenager scribbling on the walls of the stall at school as he ditches class (you can see the recurring theme i guess. give the band an A for consistency). the songs are fairly popular — the title track, as well as “Otherside” ended up being songs i recognized — but they’re stuck in their own time, never transcending over into timelessness. like a severe case of arrested development, RHCP’s Californication is the sound of a pubescent kid suddenly discovering his new found concupiscence. naturally it’s all aged like milk.

Bob Marley’s Exodus is brim-filled with songs that are ingrained into the global cultural cache that it is nearly impossible to distinguish its quality from its time-tested ubiquity. and yet, while listening to the songs collectively, it is easy to see the heart so warmly embedded into the record by Marley, a preacher of human unity who’s plea for peace can be heard loud and clear in the music — even when he is not singing. that’s really the album’s strong suit here: the groovy reggae compositions are too sweet to ignore. Marley weaves light rock and blues influences that give the oft-repetitive structure of the reggae some variety. the lyrics are rich with ideas of love and community, even though at times Marley’s writing is clunky and uneven. and so you’re forced to return to the music itself — the bongo in the background; the trumpet showing up every other beat: it all makes for a calm, vibey listen that relaxes in all the right ways.

it’s interesting that in the class roll-call interlude that opens Lauryn Hill’s masterwork, Hill herself is nowhere to be found, an absent student too outsized for the classroom. while the rest of the students are being taught by a teacher, Hill is busy being schooled by life itself, and she’s left with a rich tapestry of lessons and experiences that she collapses into a finely-selected collection of equal parts evocative and earworm-y songs. Hill’s biggest lesson here, of course, is one of healing, and that healing does not come without a cost. on the searing “Lost Ones”, for example, Hill rips and tears into an unnamed man (unnamed here doing so much heavy lifting it nearly breaks under the pressure) that had hurt her brutally. where Hill had once hidden in the silence and pain, now she gushes like a broken faucet, putting all that pain to paper (when she revisits that same relationship a couple songs later, on “When It Hurts so Bad”, there’s a tinge of hopefulness and kindness — she’s successfully separated the good from the bad, and in her closure, she holds on to the moments of love that once existed). she finds healing in her newborn son (“To Zion” being one of the greatest tributes to a child this side of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely?”), and she finds healing in the concept of love itself. the mundane and sacred co-exist here until Hill herself forgets the difference, and it is in the blurred lines that this album really soars, because you almost never know how she is feeling. Hill is no vocalist, her emotions sit pretty on her vocal chords, and they can be heard louder than anything else. the vitriol in her voice that first starts the album slowly begins to fade away, and Hill reveals a softness that only rewards those who stick through the bitterness in the onset of her therapeutic journey to peace. listening to this record, it makes sense that Lauryn Hill never put out another: what more is there to say when all your wounds are healed and all your chapters have been neatly closed? every student eventually has to graduate, and in this school of life, Hill has finished at the top of the class.

come for “Mr. Big Sky” — a popular song i found i fairly knew, despite having no inclination whatsoever as to whom it was performed by (this could’ve shown up on an album by The Beatles or Coldplay, and i would’ve been none the wiser) — and stay for the rest of Electric Light Orchestra’s cornucopia of melodramatic chamber and soft rock songs that evoke a fist-pumping, wide-grinning sort of emotion. probably because ELO shoot for ambitious grandiosity and score even farther than they might have ever expected themselves. what results is an album that sounds capital-B big: Out of the Blue soars in its complicated string compositions and loud drum sections with which some of the finest pop songs are formed. and when those pop flourishes prove insufficient, ELO reaches elsewhere, finding influences from the boom of late-70s disco and the burgeoning synth-wave that would swallow the 80s whole. Out of the Blue is the kind of record that exists so perfectly of its time, and yet still works because it managed to encapsulate multiple timespans in its length. sure, it has some midsection bloating (kind of expected for a double album), but not once does it lose its verve. once the band starts going right at the beginning, they never stop; and at the end, all that’s left is the silence of you struggling for breath.

still wagering whether this is me coming off as an insanely pretentious snub, but goodness, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter is nothing short of a transcendental experience; a wildly bizarre (such is the craziness of this record that i had to place two synonyms back-to-back to describe it) journey into the depths of folklore and mythical treasures that are deeply evocative and original in their take. they tell the tales of sea shanties and minotaurs and innocent children in mysterious but beautiful villages, and speak of every single one as almost religious, that you can’t help but feel its sacredness oozing off every single syllable. none of it makes any real sense, and yet it manages an odd relatability that even i cannot understand. of course, this is music made by a band who were higher than the heavens; whose minds conjured half-baked fables that they smoothly pass off as real (a song about a children-eating part-man-part-bull creature should not be as alluring as it is, and yet). their buzzed state not only shows up in the lyrics (equal parts sloppy and mind-bogglingly brilliant), but extends to the music itself, where they layer vocals and stuff a menagerie of instruments into every song. they run the gamut here, pulling influences from Gaelic, Sikh, Indian, and Scottish music, combining them into such softly psychedelic compositions that have no other effect but to hypnotize. the music is so complex — rich in texture, blitzing through space and time — but the ethos of The Incredible String Band is so deliriously simple: to make music that feels like flying… and gosh look how high they soar.

genuinely perplexed as to how this record passes as anything more than just overdone, overwhelming, and ultimately tiresome sensationalism for no other reason than shock value. the production is insanely good: Dr. Dre is a proven maestro, and he really works his magic here, mixing that hardcore hip-hop with a light funkiness that makes the music sound like nothing else in its time. but beyond Dre’s masterful compositions, there’s nothing to hold onto. maybe i’m missing something here (i’m not), but Eminem’s contributions all just sound stupidly immature and sloppy. there’s talent, don’t get me wrong, but the lyrics are cartoonishly insensitive at worst, and eye-rollingly cringe at best. even with the “story” Eminem attempts to tell here, all i could feel was bored. come up with something else, i guess.

my least favorite thing about an album lacking in innovation is how little it even attempts to give any semblance of life to that well-beaten path it treads. Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is standard country fair, with flourishes of roots and americana, and yet all i can hear is monotony. the lyrics are the strong suit here, but they fall flat once backdropped against the formulaic compositions and lackluster instrumentations that don’t care to offer anything else beyond basic structural decency. even the themes Williams tackles — evocative as her writing may be — have all been done well enough before and after, that her album presents nothing dynamic. in the end i guess it clears the bar for what makes a not-bad album, but the only thing truly worse than a bad album is one that’s just mediocre. it’s unmoving, repetitive, and mostly unforgettable stuff.

hailed as an alt-country masterwork, one can’t help but be amazed at how gracefully Wilco’s Being There oscillates between the brashness of rock with the mellow vulnerability of folk and country. the music is performed with an infectious urgency, such that even in its more downtempo moments, Being There still manages to maintain a singular pace. the production feels rich, and Jeff Tweedy has a voice that continues to carry emotions louder than the powerful compositions. but Being There’s pace and agility are bogged down by a length that forces it to drag, giving itself over to tedium even before you reach the album’s halfway point. with none of the songs standing out from each other (even in spite of their seeming sonic diversity), all we’re left with is a bloated, exhausting record whose length overwhelms any semblance of feeling it may evoke. Wilco is usually said to be some grand name in the world of alt-rock music, but on Being There, it mostly sounds like they’re soiling a wall for too long, with very little of it truly sticking.

listening to Willie Nelson’s Stardust — a collection of pop standards from the great american songbook — and one is instantly reminded of the devastating myopia of a book termed 1001 Albums to Listen to Before You Die, published, of course, with an overwhelmingly westernized perspective. Nelson has a calming, buttery voice, and the production by Booker T. Nelson is smooth and airy and almost weightless, but there is nothing here that is interesting enough to consider it essential listening, unless one is already familiar with said “standards” and how Nelson is revitalizing them as it were. the record is front-loaded, which makes its second half a bit of a drag, but i can appreciate Nelson’s dedication here — the songs are performed with a lot of love (love that’ll most likely be amplified through the listening ears of someone who, again, already knows and loves those standards). it’s easy listening, music that thrives in the background of a quiet conversation, but i can’t find much else to latch onto. Stardust, according to Wikipedia, is Nelson’s 22nd album, and he has gone on to release 53 records since — i cannot, for the life of me, understand why THIS is the one i have to listen to before i die, but alas.

fairly brave of Bobby Womack to name his album “The Poet”, as i’m not sure i can hear in his collection of love songs the kind of passion and dynamic lyricism befitting for its title. the songs are well composed, don’t get me wrong, and Womack has that throaty, cigarette-singed voice an r&b crooner should possess. but the songs are downright cheesy and often times surface level, especially in comparison with his contemporaries, who were lassoing the sun for their lover and professing their emotions in a pool of their own blood (you don’t coexist in the same space as Barry White, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, or Luther Vandross and then expect to pass off The Poet as anything holding any true potency). i will say, however, that Womack’s brand of lightly funky r&b is quite pleasant to listen to; and the song “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” feels like the only song with any real personality. not much i feel i’ll be returning to here — put on the Richie, please and thank you.

Fiona Apple has been angry all her life — and why shouldn’t she? as a woman whose mind and body have been exploited in an industry that’s constructed a wild game without informing her of the rules — but never has her anger sounded so assuredly stubborn and liberating as it does on her grand masterpiece, Fetch The Bolt Cutters. this is music unrestrained by the very constructs expected from music itself, and — in extension — from women. it is messy and wackily edited, and it is deliriously free. every word is a searing swiss blade; every surface is a percussive instrument Apple strikes right after her words do; and no subject is safe from her ruminations. in one fell swoop, Apple begs for love and affection (“I Want You to Love Me”), and then critiques an ex for sexually assaulting her (“For Her”). it is a brutal listen, one in which Apple sets the world around her ablaze — the sly, toxic men; the nasty high school bullies; the clout-chasing wannabes — and then holds out her hand for solidarity to the others who manage to survive the forest fire. on songs like “Newspaper” and “Ladies”, she seeks to protect the women who have been equally maltreated by men; she sings high praises to the one person in school who defended her on “Shameika”, while showing off the person she’s become in the face of mean girls. in its rawness, Fetch the Bolt Cutters truly soars. Apple had come far from the days of Tidal, where a girl and her piano made a way with her words. here, Apple spews those words with venom, and you can hear in her voice, the veins lifting on her temples and neck; you can hear the tears in her eyes and blood dripping down her nose. she flips the piano and stomps on it to make a beat. only Fiona Apple could’ve made this album, and goodness, what a phenomena it turned out to be.

two albums into the Red Hot Chili Peppers (with Californication being one of the most abysmal first listens of my life), and i am confounded as to how they managed to pass as anything truly listenable, unless done with the greatest amount of irony — a band people would love to laugh at, not with. there’s hardly a lyric here worth paying attention to: the most consistent thing about RHCP is their shallow, oft banal wordplay that is so grating, causing brain cells to dissipate at a rate faster than the time it would take to roll one’s eyes. the album clocks in at 79 minutes, and gosh they are excruciating. every song has a pace that drags, and six songs into the record, all i want is for it to be over. granted, Blood Sugar Sex Magik has more going for it than Californication — it’s compositions more assured, and the bass more lively, and it manages a semi-decent song in “Under the Bridge” — but it is such a deliriously low bar to clear that it doesn’t ring as a complement in my mind. Californication came years after this, and it’s insane how RHCP clearly never evolved past their frat-boy, pubescent style of songwriting. i just hope i never have to undergo the torture of listening to even one more word out the mouth of Kiedis ever again.

“Walk on the Wild Side” — the most popular and commercially successful song off Lou Reed’s seminal second solo album (and one i already knew) — is a song i consider to be borderline perfect. Reed perfectly creates a mood peppered with tranquility and light nostalgia as he recalls experiences of close friends walking on the wild side. it is a testament to Reed’s quietly epic writing and David Bowie’s rich production that the rest of the album surrounding that centerpiece manages to hold up lyrically and sonically. Reed doesn’t reinvent the wheel here, but the music on Transformer still feel particularly otherworldly in how they ebb, so non-intrusively, that you don’t realize how much of a punch they pack until you’re square on the ground. Reed’s greatest strength here is his ability to evoke: on “Perfect Day”, for example, he pens a tune that so succinctly feels like the contentment and peace derived from a sweetly mundane day; on “Andy’s Chest”, his humor shines through as his words bleed care and affection for a dear friend; and then there’s “Satellite of Love”, a beast of emotional turmoil and pain that genuinely threatens to eclipse “Walk on the Wild Side” with its simple descriptions and comparisons. there are some songs that break up the album’s tight pace and let some steam off the top, but one can’t ask for a better representation of an era of music that just wanted to see people feel to the fullest.

Tracy Chapman’s wildly powerful and emotionally heavy debut album Fast Car is nothing if not a portrait of a battered and bruised world filled to the brim with injustices and inequalities. and there is not a whiff of idealism to be found — this is stark realism that’s almost painful to listen to as it unfolds: how Chapman writes about violence and pain (“Behind the Wall” is a searing account of domestic violence from a neighbor. there’s nothing colorful hear, only the bleak reality), but also quickly creates room for hope (“Fast Car”, the album’s centerpiece, being a wistful prayer for a more hopeful future that winds up leaving the protagonist right in the damning situation they started in) that’s informed by each situation. she never lets herself fly to high — each time, she counters herself with material truth, and there’s enough of it to bring her back to the ground: hunger and poverty and brutality and and and. but ultimately, Chapman’s optimism wins the battle here: the album’s final three songs reveal her desire to feel love and to find wholeness in the arms of a lover, especially in a world that refuses to grant her the wholeness she deserves. in that way then, Chapman so perfectly paints the human experience in eleven songs and 36 minutes, in indelible ink — and it was her first try too. just all around amazing!

not much to say about this album really — The Incredible Bongo Band more than deliver on their name, and their mission is a great success. Bongo Rock is a rich instrumental album which places great emphasis on the vibe more than anything else. what results is a meaty, illustrious collection of funkified tunes that feel light and catchy. this is the kind of background music that eats at you until you have no choice but to pay attention to it. and thank goodness for the meticulous detail and beautiful compositions of each song, so that when you finally give it your rapt attention, all that you hear are delicious bongos, reverberative trumpets, sublime pianos and organs; all of which tie together without ever feeling overwhelming. of course the bongos are the real star here — not once do they pull focus, but are also never left in the dust. even without any vocals, the bongos speak for themselves. “Wipeout”, “Kiburi, Pt. 1”, and “In a Gadda Da Vida” are the most evocative here — where the bongos scream freedom, desire, and passion all at once. and you can’t help but feel these emotions alongside.

insanely obsessed with just how ragingly british this entire record is: how they perfectly capture the joyful gloominess of life on the isles — a collection of songs that serve as a capsule for a particular era in time that you can almost smell the wetness and humdrum; the aspiration amid the growing anti-institutionalism; the contradictory disdain and pride loudly oscillating; and maybe most of all, the humor. indeed, british artists have always had a much more defined sense of humor than their counterparts stateside, and this is a very funny album. Parklife is so english that Blur sing in a way that over-exaggerates their accent (each time they say ‘Tracy’ on “Tracy Parks”, they sound like children mid-burb… isn’t that the most comical thing you ever did hear?); and the growing americanization of british culture breeds cynicism in them (“Magic America”). but for all the humor, Parklife just sounds kind of stale — in its capsulation of that era of music, it sounds like a relic; it sounds dated. no part of this sounds truly interesting in the year of our lord 2023, though i can see how this would be the cream of the crop in the 90s. the maximalism now sounds clunky, and the verve abrasive. but idk, maybe it’s just because i’m not british…

The Notorious Byrd Brothers is at its best when it allows itself just go off the rails, face first into psychedelia, with Roger McGuinn doing some astonishing guitar work. but in the same breath, that spontaneity breeds clunkiness, especially as the record progresses further. there’s a softness to the record that leaves it feeling light and airy, and their voices are smoothly harmonious, but after a while the songs slowly blend into each other — albeit interspersed with momentary bursts of brilliance that bring you right back into the overall beauty of the album. no true standout tracks here (though argument could be made in favor of “Wasn’t Born to Follow”, “Goin’ Back”, or “Change is Now”), so its strength lies in its overall uniformity (a blessing and a curse i guess). The Byrds are brimming with ambition and weighty ideologies, and they lay it bare on here that you almost don’t notice how hard you’ve been hit.

cultures converge on Santana’s rich largely instrumental album “Abraxas”, where their sultry latin music is met with and bolstered by delirious guitar segments and psychedelic tendencies that metamorphose into something new altogether: what results is a groovy journey that fuses jazz, rock, funk and chicano, so that when you listen, it sounds like sunshine on a bright beach day (throwing bongos onto a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman” should never sound so good, and yet here we are). Santana plays the guitar with so much flavor that it evokes powerful feeling — you think of a song like “Samba Pa Ti” (arguably the album’s best track), and it feels transformative in its texture; the song is light and breezy, sure, but riddled with an underlying melancholy that balances out its sweetness with something much more interesting. and then there’s “Hope You’re Feeling Better”, where Santana feeds off that manic 70s sound, shredding like there’s no tomorrow. of course, Santana is a talented show-off, and some of the songs linger long enough into indulgence, but at a tight 37 minutes, Santana still knows when to reel himself in. Abraxas feels like a crash course on music — its genres and history — seen through the eyes of one latin band. it is music whose beauty is not lost in translation.

the good and the bad of REM’s fifth record Document are easily encapsulated by one song: “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, a fist-pumping pop-rock hit that stands out from the rest of the album as a highlight. the song (and, by consequence, the rest of the record) is pure fun — the lyrics are humorous and stuffed with pop culture references that wield in making points about larger society. there’s a rawness to the sound, sure, however that doesn’t mean it isn’t groovy enough to get your feet tapping. but goodness the album as a whole is so steeped in the style and lore of its era that it unfortunately doesn’t transcend into timelessness. this here is a record that was released in the 80s, and there’s no escaping that — whereas their later work (particularly the masterful Automatic For the People) managed to overcome the constraints of time, Document just sounds dated, and that sonic disconnect is deeply prevalent now, almost 40 years later. it’s not a bad record by any definition, but it doesn’t amount to much than just a relic.

not sure that i buy much of what Joe Ely is selling on Honky Tonk Masquerade (not that he has that much to offer in the first place): the record is loaded with corny evocations of lower class midwestern quirks that Ely beats to the ground until they become indistinctive. it starts off strong, with its first three songs rich and full of color. “Boxcars” is the best thing on here — it fully captures the Ely’s vivid storytelling and complex country rock compositions. but every song following that is cheesier than the one before, and eventually they all begin to droll along. there are some last minute highlights, of course, like “Fingernails” or the title track, where Ely just goes off and has the time of his life. but as a non-country fan, Honky Tonk Masquerade unfortunately does not prove itself to be the record to make me a convert, but oh well…

caught in the crossfire between the mind-looping psychedelic of the 60s and the burgeoning fancy glam rock of the 70s edgy art scene, Todd Rundgren shields and dodges, and with A Wizard, A True Star, he makes an album that finds an astonishing middle ground. what results is a tonal and stylistic mesh that’s equal parts nonsensical and soul-stirring — Rundgren has said that the album came to him while under the influence of various psychedelic drugs, and it shows: the songs, even at their best, clash and bang, and Rundgren fills every empty space with some well-intentioned (if sometime alarming) detail — loud barking dogs and hysteric whistles (“Flamingo” being a high point of fuzzy sounds); brash synths (“Just Another Onionhead”) and puzzling vocal choices… and that’s all before he embarks on a sudden ten-minute long blues tangent (the medley of blues covers comes out of nowhere, and yet it feels so perfectly situated). i’m perplexed by the fact that the album even works, but goodness does it work — the record is overlong and ridiculously indulgent, but Rundgren is humorous and quick on his feet, and his charisma holds together a body that otherwise should’ve crumbled. and yet, with each silly little sound and silly little lyric, A Wizard, A True Star pulls you in slowly, until you’re forced to give up and give in to its craziness.

oscar wilde once said, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…” but people often forget the second half of wilde’s saying “…that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” listening to jamiroquai’s obnoxiously derivative record Emergency on Planet Earth, that second half of wilde’s saying is ringing so loud and true. of course the results of a white man cosplaying stevie wonder is staunch mediocrity; such ugly middling nothingness that overstays its welcome and overshoots its ambitions, ending up an unseasoned pot of tunes that have been done better a million times before. all this isn’t to say jamiroquai’s brand of acid funk and jazzy tunes is completely without merit (influence is a beautiful thing, and there’s maybe a brief argument to made about his appreciation of the genres), but gosh it’s all so uninspired; this is a drugstore take on a sound made luxurious by funk pioneers who delicately carved a sonic style out of callused hands. it makes sense they never had any crossover success in the US: their music is borderline caricatural, and i’d rather listen to stevie wonder, thank you very much. [“Revolution 1993” is however, a banger…]

we are nothing, if not a mosaic of the places and spaces we inhabit; history is a documentation of the skin we shed on our journey to purpose, and the ground we walk on is filled with the dust of the bodies of previous generations now long decayed. Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, a bombastic musical extravaganza about its titular state, is a beastly museum where the personal and historic collapse into, and inform each other, and are woven into a pointed take on the human condition. the second (and last) of Stevens’ purported 50 states project, Illinois soars because the titular area it highlights is merely a backdrop for more poignant tales on love and loss; innocence and regret; faith and death. Stevens’ songwriting is laser sharp, almost deliriously so, that reading through his poetry is to pierce your own heart and bleed out. you think of a song like “Casimir Pulaski Day” and feel the emotion of losing a loved one in death (and the grappling with faith that immediately follows it), but Sufjan’s strength here goes beyond just the words: his lush orchestral instrumentation is ethereal and moving — it evokes and complements the largeness of his stories, sure, but there’s a paradoxical intimacy in the compositions too. every sound is so perfectly placed, tied closely to the sound before and the sound after. you combine the sounds with the words, and what you have is a juggernaut: songs that sound like life itself, that trace the very idea of being, from birth to love to death and even beyond. this is such a human album — challenging and complex and difficult to digest, but also light and jovial and ultimately rewarding. it is a tribute to the spaces that make us who we are; and just like a literal geographical location, it is vast in scope and scattered, but also raging with passion and romance — a glass-stained cornucopia of details and people and laughter and tears and bodies and monuments and buildings that, at its very core, just sounds thankful to be alive.

listening to Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction, and i get the sense that there is greatness baked into the essence of each song (take for example the anthemic “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, which brims with kind of triumphant thumping that would easily soundtrack any moment of jubilation; or the raucous of “Welcome to the Jungle”, and opening song that so clearly affirms the album’s mission statement, directing the flow of emotions long before the record even settles into itself), and yet, when taken together, it just feels… burdensome? of course it’s the kind of burden that positively overwhelms: these are expertly crafted songs, and Axl Rose manages a contagious ferocity. every song is so insanely familiar, and now — almost 40 years later — it is such a glaring disadvantage. there is so much life to be heard here: the individual songs are overflowing with it. but then you make one journey through the album, and suddenly the songs begin to cancel each other out, each song snuffing the life out of the one before it; and so it goes that six songs in, the monotony in style, tempo, and theme becomes overbearing. but tear them apart, however, and the richness begins to shine through.

i can hear the strokes of brilliance layered all over In Rainbows — the tender compositions contrasted against Thom Yorke’s existentially probing lyrics. right from the album’s opening, the thesis statement is clear: death is always around the corner, waiting, lurking, but there’s still beauty to be had too. and yet, for some reason, no matter how many times i try (and goodness, have i tried and tried), i can’t seem to connect with the music. as an album eternally hailed as perfect, maybe the music is too perfect to the point of sterility (?). there are a couple songs here that do rise above that perfection and cut to the bone: “House of Cards” is a lush take on unrequited love, and the run from that song to “Videotape” is sublime. and yet, there is a sense of something missing, an elemental detail that should’ve given the record a touch beyond technical perfection. or — i don’t know — maybe i’m not big-brained enough to get it. and so we rest, only to try again another day.

instrumentally quiet and airy, the secret sauce of Nick Cave & The Bad Seed’s The Boatman’s Call exist in its dense lyricism, equal parts somber and romantic, as though there were some newfound symbiotic relationship Cave were excavating between the carnal and sacred. of course there isn’t — these are parallels that artists in all forms have drawn since the dawn of any sort of critical thought, but Cave writes about it with such profundity that it seems entirely novel. in a style beholden to people like Leonard Cohen, who spin paradoxically intimate and extravagant tales of soul-baring conviction (or the lack thereof), Cave queries his faith in God and in people, and finds solace in the strength of his unwavering love (which is in turn threatened by his doubts in life and humanity). when he opens the record by questioning the existence of God, while in the same breath beseeching God’s help in leading the object of his attraction to him on “Into My Arms”, you can see that symbiotic relationship warring with infinite casualties. “Into My Arms” is a hell of a way to start a record though — a bulbous monolith of a song that taps into a higher realm of romance altogether; whose composition — equal parts sparse and heavy in the way jazz-adjacent songs are wont to be — give Cave’s lyrics so much texture you are swallowed whole into its universe. it’s a very very VERY high bar to set, which is why it’s all the more frustrating that none of the subsequent eleven tracks (comprising of 45 minutes of the record) clear that bar. some come close to be fair — “People Ain’t No Good”, “Far From Me”, “Black Hair”, and even the closer “Green Eyes” have touches of greatness that allow them stand alongside “Into My Arms” like planets to a sun. but with the high achieved so early in the record, the rest of it sort of drolls on, paling in comparison to that initial brilliance.

Bruce Springsteen’s Born in The USA — a hard-thumping, fist-pumping collection of concert-ready mega pop songs — is an extravagant, yet devastatingly honest summation of the oft-coveted american dream: the feelings of freedom and superiority, wind blowing in your hair; the short-lived sense of existential victory; the repetitive doom of capitalism; the fear and tension bred by race and politics; and — maybe most important to the success of this record — the sheen of optimism that shields the decay underneath. every song is more vivid and vibrant than the one before — which is saying a lot, as the opener is full of life from the second the synths kick in. there are moments of quiet longing for more than the glorified american dream: on “I’m On Fire,” he yearns for romance, and then opens the b-side of the album with an ode to long-lasting friendship on “No Surrender”. there’s more to be had than the desire for a fast-paced, fist-pumping life — the darkness begins to rear its head in the latter half of the album, oppressive sadness and regret ooze out of the rapturous joy like sweat on skin, but the way they coexist so seamlessly is a testament to Springsteen’s acerbic storytelling. by the end of the record, you get the sense Springsteen has found the perfect, sweetest dream, and it’s a blast to join him on the ride.

i know that Marvin Gaye is insanely talented, and the instrumentation here is incredibly sublime (look no further than the album centerpiece “When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You?”, which bursts with rich saxophone above a tender bongo beat), but gosh, thematically and lyrically, the album gives such loser energy that it made me cringe so bad. some of the sarcasm is fun and biting, sure, but overall the majority of the lyrics are underbaked and overly trite. all of it gets better towards the end — “Everybody Needs Love” is a turning point for the record lyrically, that sees Gaye delve deeper than his spite — but by that point a lot of what makes the album good is lost in its length and annoying self-pitying. i know that Gaye has many more revered records, and thank all for that, because i do not think i’ll be revisiting this one.

Springsteen’s Nebraska is a harrowing collection of fireside songs that expose the underbelly of society in a way that mainstream music generally shies away from. within its somber 40 minutes are found tales of murderers and gamblers; alcoholics and deadbeats — you know, the kind of blue collar people just trying to keep their head above water and will do anything to survive. not once does Springsteen cast any judgement on their character — this here is an objective documentation of humanity at its lowest and darkest, which makes it the most honest depiction you could ask for. sure, this isn’t flashy like Born in the USA, the album Springsteen is best known for. but what it lacks in anthemic flare, it more than makes up for in atmospheric elegance. you can hear it in how the tone and style of each song reflects the tale being told: how “Highway Patrolman” sounds like the guilt of watching a loved one make terrible decisions, unsure whether to scold or protect them; how “Johnny 99” (by far the most alluring song to be found here) carries an anxious pace as the character faces a bleak future behind bars. Springsteen’s pen is sharp and searing, and you get the sense that even after the record comes to an end, the stories continue beyond.

1989 — Taylor Swift’s self-acclaimed first foray into pop (though the synths and bass on her previous record, Red, beg to differ) — is a manifest confection; a flamboyantly anthemic collection of 80s-influenced synth-heavy thumpers that scream of a certain hedonistic self-assuredness that Swift’s prior work would’ve been jealous of. she briefly trades her diaristic tales of heartbreak and lost love for big city extravagance and cheeky jabs at voyeuristic haters who’ve refused to see the talent beyond Swift’s personal life. she’s funny and scathing in ways that were borderline taboo in her music before (she’d always sung about being the underdog, sidelined for the kind of girl who “wears short skirts [and is] cheer captain.” on 1989, she doesn’t envy that girl, she becomes her) — she wears sarcasm well on “Blank Space”, tongue-in-cheek as she prepares her next lover for the slaughter; and on “Style”, she’s flagrant about her desire, shedding away her sanitized persona for something more confident and unwavering. sure, some of the songs are sanded down to the point of near fatuity as many a radio hit is constructed to be (“Shake It Off” and “Bad Blood” being particularly egregious), but underneath the stadium-ready escapism, Swift’s signature lyricism and potent storytelling still exist, waiting to be excavated after the bulbous energy has tired you out. there’s love and doubt and regret and sorrow still lurking here, but Swift’s mission is to shake it off for now, dance the night away, and let the fantasy wash over you for even just a moment.

is there anyone who knows and so perfectly writes about the pain and sorrow of the mundane quite like Matt Berninger? The National have carved a specific lane for themselves as brooding everyday men who are nothing, if not exhausted. you can hear that exhaustion scattered throughout the record, sharp inhales taken at every turn: on album highlight “Sorrow”, Berninger croons about a depression that threatens to wash him away. he laments the anxieties of new fatherhood on “Afraid of Everyone”, and dreams of escaping the mundanities of life in “Lemonworld”. these are such everyday worries, and the instrumentation by the rest of the band more than match the emotions Berninger displays, piling on the anxiety and dissociation. The National have never switched up their style, and for good reason, i guess, because why fix what’s not broken? the brilliance of High Violet, then, is in how they make small variations to their signature sound to keep it sounding alive and agile — they bring in friends such as Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver, who color The National’s typical sad-guy somberness with something sweet and ethereal. but the problem of High Violet, in the same breath, is how quick the music falls to monotony once removed from the tiny little, sometimes missable flairs of variety. a lot of the tension the songs build dissipate with no real pay off, and soon enough the whole thing feels like it’s crumbling into a singular dirge. but gosh when the songs soar (see: “Sorrow”, “England”, “Bloodbuzz Ohio”), they soar.

maybe this is my age showing (and as open-minded as i’d like to claim to be about the arts, my tastes are of course still a product of time and place), but the overt theatricality and glamorous flamboyance of Queen’s A Night at The Opera did not speak to me at all. it’s all at once extravagant and melodramatic, the consequence of classically trained musicians flexing their creative muscle in making music so technically precise even in its seeming compositional spontaneity (they leap-frog through genres and make stylistic decisions that confound and allure at the same time), but the emotions don’t overcome the flare. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is undeniably a shape shifting masterwork, one of such overwhelming influence it is awe-inspiring, and it contains within itself the kind of brilliance to shoulder the extravagance. but everything else just sounds too big for its own good, and the theatricality feels unearned. maybe the record is one that’ll click on future listens, but for now i’m left just a tad underwhelmed.

Nostalgia is a truly incredible thing because it only exists, unprocessed, in the mind of its bearer. Transfer and transmit the memory, and suddenly it bears a different meaning altogether. The beauty of Teen Dream — Beach House’s seminal third album — is how the band offers up a collection of quaint, coming-of-age reminiscences that transmogrify over and over depending on the listener. The songs are wistful and sweet, but lined with a crushing sadness that fit with the melodramatics of youthful exuberance. Though my first brush with Beach House, there is a whirlpool of melancholia that hits you on multiple listens, after having been drawn in by the warmth of its rhythmic compositions. The lyrics don’t always make sense — like reading someone else’s diaries, filled with turns of phrases and cheeky nods that make sense only to the writer (again, the metamorphosing of nostalgia rearing its head) — but the feelings are never lost in translation. The instrumentation is lush and rich, very summery in style, and vocalist Victoria Legrand possesses a voice so ethereal, it sounds almost fantastical. The album gives voice to the sense of longing and yearning that characterizes the best of teenagehood. But it also shows all the other facets of teenage years too: the secrecy and sensuality, the shedding innocence and rebellion, and all the boredom. All the passion and pent-up emotion keep bubbling throughout the core of the album, but Beach House never lets it burst, never let adulthood threaten its haze. Legrand and keyboardist Alex Scally were 29 and 28 respectively when they wrote the album, and it is obvious that Teen Dream is nothing but an immortalization of those sweet summer afternoons with all the passion and rebellion and yearning and lust. And like the most enduring emotions, it is best consumed in small doses, lest the music drown you and sweep you into the ocean, where you become one with that nostalgia all at once.