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Mon Jan 23 2023
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
The Artic Monkeys debut is a fine modern punk pop album. I fail to see what all the fuss is about. They are fine.
2
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Tue Jan 24 2023
The Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest
One of my all time favorite hip hop albums. I don't know if it was the first, but it was the first one I noticed a real Jazz influence in. This was the peak of golden age beats and lyrical invention.
5
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Wed Jan 25 2023
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
Very excited. Never heard of this artist, always up for some international music.
The singing is beautiful on this album. As are the melodies. I hope to spend lots of time with it.
The English songs are not as successful as the ones in her native language but a good listen all the way around.
4
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Thu Jan 26 2023
Pink Flag
Wire
Punk started shifting here. I dig the groovier stuff over the more by the numbers punk stuff. From reading up on the band, will be checking out their catalog at some point.
4
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Fri Jan 27 2023
Exodus
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Not much to say about this one. It's pretty perfect. For my money, their best studio work.
5
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Mon Jan 30 2023
Pink Moon
Nick Drake
This is one of those highly revered cult albums that lives up to its hype. It's haunting, simple, and beautiful. An album I always feel like I don't spend enough time with from an artist I know I haven't spent enough time with.
5
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Tue Jan 31 2023
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips
Yoshimi is the sweet spot between the reserved Soft Bulletin and the utter batshit crazy of the rest of The Flaming Lips catalog. It had an amazing structure and some of their strongest songs. Nature versus machine being told against a backdrop of audible maturity and pure creativity. It’s all pretty much perfect.
5
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Wed Feb 01 2023
The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monáe
Metropolis Suite: The Chase was a fully realized statement from an artist who arrived confident and ready to change music. The concept was continued into The Achandroid which, unlike The Chase, is not concise and a little half baked. Its one real problem is it’s long. Metropolis feels like the elevator pitch and ArchAndroid plays like the three hour blockbuster and two hours in your bladder is really begging you to do something about the gallon of coke you drank. You kind of have to disengage but you don’t want to. Also like that summer blockbuster it’s a little all over the place. Like Coldwar really fits the concept but does Tightrope? It never lacks in inventiveness or swagger though. Like their idol Prince, Monáe actually does need a little editing and I think Diddy just threw them the keys to the studio. He was probably all like I’ve got this train wreck over here I’m trying to figure out, I don’t have time to edit your whole space thing. I don’t even know what Genorape means but you do your thing.
4
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Thu Feb 02 2023
Here Come The Warm Jets
Brian Eno
Crazy glam rock. I don’t hate it.
3
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Fri Feb 03 2023
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
an all time classic full of classics. It's a bit long, but it's all gold!!
5
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Mon Feb 06 2023
Here's Little Richard
Little Richard
Fantastic early rock rave up!
4
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Tue Feb 07 2023
Music in Exile
Songhoy Blues
Joyful music. Milan music with a western guitar flare. Highly listenable.
4
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Wed Feb 08 2023
Tidal
Fiona Apple
A strong debut from an exciting and emotionally complex performer.
4
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Thu Feb 09 2023
Leftism
Leftfield
House music that works from home with an album that doesn’t just slog on. Solid stuff.
4
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Fri Feb 10 2023
Forever Changes
Love
Quite simply, this is the sound of the Summer of Love coming to a close. Flower power is losing its allure and the Manson murders are just over the horizon. This is the madness and the drugs, the love and the hate all encapsulated in one time capsule that has been open to us the whole time. It is astonishing in its emotion and it's sophistication. Peak psychedelia in all of its glory and insanity.
Hell, the title itself, LOVE FOREVER CHANGES, is poetic and profound given the subject matter and the moment in time.
5
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Mon Feb 13 2023
Wonderful Rainbow
Lightning Bolt
Controlled chaos. Really dig this.
3
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Tue Feb 14 2023
Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
A hodgepodge of rock and folk. Proto hipster swagger.
4
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Wed Feb 15 2023
One Nation Under A Groove
Funkadelic
Fuzzy, psychedelic, funk rock. Pretty damn perfect.
5
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Thu Feb 16 2023
1984
Van Halen
After I'll Wait, the album drops off, but before that this is Van Halen at its most poppy catchy and infectious. Eddie is in great form throughout and Dave is having a lot of fun. The end of an era and they go out in style.
4
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Fri Feb 17 2023
Thriller
Michael Jackson
The singular 80s record. A new standard in just about every way. An onslaught of hits.
4
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Mon Feb 20 2023
The Sun Rises In The East
Jeru The Damaja
Beats are great. Lyrics are mostly nonsense. Flow is alright. Not a great record.
3
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Tue Feb 21 2023
Time Out
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
A landmark jazz album, many a person has found this to be a key in their jazz appreciation.
5
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Wed Feb 22 2023
Heaven Or Las Vegas
Cocteau Twins
Pleasant Dream Pop that is engaging. It is easy to see why the band is so lauded and why they are often imitated.
4
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Thu Feb 23 2023
Night Life
Ray Price
Honky Tonk goes Music Row. A slick slice of the seedier life by a master of singing.
5
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Fri Feb 24 2023
Rid Of Me
PJ Harvey
Hate the dynamics, should probably revisit at some point. It is an excruciating listen for this exercise though.
2
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Mon Feb 27 2023
You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
One of the best albums about death ever made. A man towards the end screaming at the void.
5
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Tue Feb 28 2023
She's So Unusual
Cyndi Lauper
A fun album, it's by no means perfect, the Prince cover is pretty bad and the last half is lackluster, but when it hits, it does so hard. 80's new wave fun with a LOT of personality.
3
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Wed Mar 01 2023
Devotional Songs
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Powerfully spiritual music performed by great musicians.
4
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Thu Mar 02 2023
Spiderland
Slint
Interesting heavy music.
3
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Fri Mar 03 2023
The Modern Lovers
The Modern Lovers
Seems nice enough. Solid Velvet Underground like rock.
3
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Mon Mar 06 2023
Something/Anything?
Todd Rundgren
It starts pleasant enough, then it gets a little weird, then it overstays its welcome.
1
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Tue Mar 07 2023
Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder had started his own path with Where I'm coming from and Music of My Mind. Talking Book refined his new freedom. Innervisions through Songs in the Key of Life is when he really set sail, realizing his potential. Great stuff.
5
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Wed Mar 08 2023
Arise
Sepultura
Interesting heavy music.
4
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Thu Mar 09 2023
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
The album where the Cure became the Cure.
3
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Fri Mar 10 2023
Lady Soul
Aretha Franklin
Perfect. As were the two albums before this one.
5
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Mon Mar 13 2023
KIWANUKA
Michael Kiwanuka
My favorite album of 2019. It is a masterclass of progressive R&B. It recalls the past and paves a way forward.
5
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Tue Mar 14 2023
Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
a r&b hang out record. Acension is still one of the best songs of the past 30 years. His voice is silky smooth. The height of neo-soul.
5
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Wed Mar 15 2023
Billion Dollar Babies
Alice Cooper
GOTH GLAM FUN. Not something I want to listen to all the time, but a good time regardless.
3
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Thu Mar 16 2023
Group Sex
Circle Jerks
I've been on this personal punk journey for a bit now and I really like this album (first time listening to it). Hardcore is hit or miss for me. This is hit. Makes sense as I really appreciated the Black Flag stuff with Morris as a front man, even more so than the Rollins stuff. This is going to make me check out Redd Kross and give Bad Religion another look. Very enjoyable, short and succinct.
4
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Fri Mar 17 2023
Garbage
Garbage
"Vig explained that as in his opinion 'the most exciting bands are those who incorporate all those elements of punk, funk, techno, hip hop, etc.' Garbage would attempt to do the same and 'take those influences and make them work in the context of a pop song.'"
That is from the wikipedia article on Garbage.
You guys know that I'm not a big fan of the "genre" of "grunge." Not, mind you, that I dislike Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, etc. I think the genre is some stupid marketing ploy to convince people that this disparate music that came from a scene is somehow linked by a unique sound which is utterly preposterous bullshit.
That being said, Garbage is a record that is "grunge." It's a pop record with bandmates made of a production team that was en vogue and very instrumental to that scene's rise. They got bored, started dicking around making remixes and then said shit, we should be a band. We can take all these different sounds we love and combine them into a pop behemoth.
Over the years, there have been many disparaging remarks from many of the type of folks who enjoy this band's music about bands like Coldplay and Muse being corporate entities playing to the lowest denominator. I've always found that to be a particularly weird thing to say of a band. Certainly, there have been corporately produced bands throughout the years, The Monkees and NSYNC immediately come to mind. Not to say that these bands were not talented, hell Neil Young auditioned to be a Monkee and in an alternative reality, he made it and the course of history and music is very different in that timeline. We all know that Justin Timberlake is a very talented musician as well. But to say these modern bands that made it big were somehow created and to use that as a way of demeaning their fans and music was just odd to me.
Garbage's record has some undeniable hits. Stupid Girl, Queer, Vow... they're good pop songs. Very of their moment and time. Hell production wise, they might even be a bit cutting edge. The album does take the sonics of the burgeoning Trip Hop scene of the time (Portishead, Massive Attack) and brings it to the alternative scene. It's all very marketable and pretty much manufactured that way. This is a band of producers who found a unique singer who was otherwise failing and gave her a platform of polished sounds of the times.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that. If you like it, you like it. It is what it is. There is nothing even bad about this record, you could even point out several things in this write up that show this album deserves to be on this list. It is an album of its time, it kind of sums up the total of the hip pop music scene of the mid 90s and hell, that's important in and of itself.
As a long time consumer of critical writing, I know that a lot of people look at the score before they read or decide to read a review and if you've done that, you probably wonder why the score seems so discordant to the words written here.
The thing is, it is completely a record of the moment, not just in the sound presented as a snapshot of the totality of music at the time it was released, but in that it is fleeting and ultimately unmemorable. Moments after even Stupid Girl plays, it fleets from the mind. I think the fervent fans must have been so enamored with the lush sound that they played it on repeat by pressing that magic button on their discman until it did become the earworm it so desperately wants to be. None of it makes any mark on me. Just as Spooner and Anglefish ultimately did not make a mark on music other than being previous projects by the two biggest talents involved in this.
Manson is a capable singer, who desperately wants to be a Beth Gibbons but beyond her striking looks, doesn't find the sound or content to compete. Vig is a producer of some talent. Love him or hate him, he had his finger in the pulse of the music of this time - maybe so much that he made a record that showed how fleeting that actual pulse is. It's remarkable that he did get to work with bands who did make remarkable records under his watch and he even gave them a little of his own thing to help define a sound, an alternative to the pop rock, glam metal, glossy r n b, etc. He helped make Punk poppy. Which is a double edged sword, good and bad. The music was brought to the masses and changed everything much for the better before the internet came along to emancipate the populace from their corporate music industry shackles. Ultimately, this is the sound of that freedom and maybe that's why it doesn't make the impression that it should. It's an important record that five hundred years from now (assuming man has not destroyed itself) will not be remembered. Utlimately, Garbage, Manson, and Vig will be footnotes to musical history much like Antonio Salieri.
2
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Mon Mar 20 2023
Dummy
Portishead
Moody spy music that makes you think about dancing while chilling at the house. Pretty perfect music, all said and done.
5
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Tue Mar 21 2023
Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
I don't think it was really my first exposure to Neil, but this was the first album I owned. Neil being Neil. Introducing some of his best songs through the live setting. Showing off his acoustic chops and being influenced by the punk movement of the day. Great song writing, great playing, great singing, great heart.
5
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Wed Mar 22 2023
Casanova
The Divine Comedy
Lounge music for sociopaths.
1
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Thu Mar 23 2023
The Real Thing
Faith No More
This is where they hit the map. Bringing on Patton and setting MTV on fire with Epic. I think Angel Dust is a better album, but this was an intro for a lot of folks and brought their weird but infectious vision of progressive funk metal to the masses.
4
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Fri Mar 24 2023
Siembra
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
Awesome Samba! Great stuff, makes me want to dance. Very groovy!
4
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Mon Mar 27 2023
The Blueprint
JAY Z
One of my favorite MCs. Reasonable Doubt and this one are easily his best. Just the way he laughs in the beat to the first track shows his skill.
5
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Tue Mar 28 2023
Kenya
Machito
Competent Afro-Cuban Jazz.
3
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Wed Mar 29 2023
Funeral
Arcade Fire
Good patiche of all the pop rock that came before it. Solid release. Too bad about Butler.
4
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Thu Mar 30 2023
Rubber Soul
Beatles
My favorite Beatles record. A folk pop classic.
5
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Fri Mar 31 2023
Destroy Rock & Roll
Mylo
Good hang out at the house techno. Mellow, with a variety of genres to keep it interesting.
3
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Mon Apr 03 2023
Court And Spark
Joni Mitchell
What a singer, what a songwriter, what an album.
5
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Tue Apr 04 2023
Dig Your Own Hole
The Chemical Brothers
This is really a collection of club bangers loosely forming an album. It's really to hype for general at home listening but for a work out or the club, it is pretty awesome.
3
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Wed Apr 05 2023
Pictures At An Exhibition
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
noodly prog music at its stereotypical height. only resembles the piece presented occasionally. Also, an awful recording.
1
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Thu Apr 06 2023
Mama Said Knock You Out
LL Cool J
More dates than I remember, when it hits it’s great but there is a lot of clunk going on too.
3
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Fri Apr 07 2023
Risque
CHIC
I don’t think the sequencing in this album is great. That being said, it’s a great record to get lost in. Deceptively complex. Dark brooding themes with butt wiggling beats.
4
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Mon Apr 10 2023
Songs Of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Debut records don't get much better. Stunning lyrics. Great accompaniment and a singular voice.
5
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Tue Apr 11 2023
Marquee Moon
Television
glam art punk. This has been a grower for me. I like it more each listen.
4
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Wed Apr 12 2023
Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth
Perfect art rock, art punk pretty much never got any better.
5
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Thu Apr 13 2023
Back In Black
AC/DC
All time classic. Hard rock doesn't get much harder.
5
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Fri Apr 14 2023
Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Aphex Twin
Brilliant. One of the first touchstones in electronica. Still sounds as amazing today as it must have in 92 (this was hard to get back in the day). Ambient music was not just sleepy chill at home music at the time, but could easily be played at the Rave. This album shows that. Brilliant stuff, hard to believe it came out in 92 and that some of it was recorded as early as 85 and all in his bedroom long before computers made it really easy. A revolutionary album on many fronts.
5
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Mon Apr 17 2023
New York Dolls
New York Dolls
Glam gets gritty. Great protopunk.
4
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Tue Apr 18 2023
Sound Affects
The Jam
Very good post punk pop.
4
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Wed Apr 19 2023
Songs The Lord Taught Us
The Cramps
Fun punk rockabilly. Sounds like a deranged Elvis.
3
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Thu Apr 20 2023
James Brown Live At The Apollo
James Brown
A legendary performance and album.
5
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Fri Apr 21 2023
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel are part of my musical DNA. My Grandfather and Mother talk about seeing them in Cameron Stadium when my Grandfather was a Duke Divinity student. Half of my full studio album discography on vinyl once belonged to my mother, including this album. While Cecilia, The Boxer, and Baby Driver were favorite songs, I did not hold this album in very high esteem until I listened to the 2020 season of The Opus on the album. I spent quite a bit of time with the album when I listened to that season in 2021. I came to love it during that period and it is probably my favorite album by them now. Part of it was probably a reaction to overhearing the title song (especially covers, Jesus, like Hallelujah, I could go the rest of my life without hearing a new version and they should set the songwriting royalties at such an exorbitant rate as to discourage people from singing it). But as I came to really understand the album and its place in time, I even over came that hurdle to love that song once again as I had as a youth. The album is like a minibiography of the band taking you from their humble beginnings with Bye Bye Love to foretelling Simon's solo stardom with The Only Living Boy in New York. It is nigh perfect by one of the greatest of singer songwriting teams. It's a beautiful swan song and probably should have been left as their last testament as opposed to numerous attempts to rekindle the flame rather through artistic desire, nostalgia, or money.
5
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Mon Apr 24 2023
Electric Warrior
T. Rex
Galm rock pretty much perfected. Really need more time with it.
4
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Tue Apr 25 2023
Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
Thank god the producer convinced Fagen to be the singer moving forward because I'm not a fan of Palmer. Do It Again and Reelin' in the Years could have been on any of their other albums. It's a tentative debut, there are glimpses of what would come, but there is a lot that doesn't quite work as well. Not a bad album, but not great.
3
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Wed Apr 26 2023
Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Brilliant noise pop.
5
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Thu Apr 27 2023
Bone Machine
Tom Waits
Dark and brilliant.
4
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Fri Apr 28 2023
Rapture
Anita Baker
an undeniable talent and great band but it all feels… sterile.
2
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Mon May 01 2023
No Other
Gene Clark
A hidden gem in the early development of country rock. Ambitious and sprawling.
5
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Tue May 02 2023
Country Life
Roxy Music
Seems like pretty decent Glam, would need some more time with it.
3
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Wed May 03 2023
Histoire De Melody Nelson
Serge Gainsbourg
Creepy lush music.
2
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Thu May 04 2023
69 Love Songs
The Magnetic Fields
nothing stuck out as bad. Quite a few songs stuck out as exceptional. It's really long and this was a first listen, will need more time with it.
3
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Fri May 05 2023
Penance Soiree
The Icarus Line
competent noisy rock.
3
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Mon May 08 2023
Heroes
David Bowie
An uneven album by one of the all time greats.
4
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Tue May 09 2023
Trans Europe Express
Kraftwerk
Undoubtedly influential album that just feels like noodling to me.
3
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Wed May 10 2023
This Nation’s Saving Grace
The Fall
Solid post punk, would like to spend more time with it.
3
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Thu May 11 2023
The Köln Concert
Keith Jarrett
Emotional. Sprawling. Epic. An improvisational feat!
5
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Fri May 12 2023
Legalize It
Peter Tosh
Very good Reggae. Will spend more time with it.
4
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Mon May 15 2023
The Doors
The Doors
One of the all time great debuts. A dark fully realized and original album.
5
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Tue May 16 2023
Buffalo Springfield Again
Buffalo Springfield
The Neil songs are great, the rest is uneven and doesn’t meet the high bar of the first album.
4
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Wed May 17 2023
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
This is a solid album by one of the most consistent bands in American music. I mean Power Pop wasn’t even really a thing yet but you had Petty, Big Star and Dwight Twilley making it a thing. This album is a concoction of southern sensibilities and Punk aesthetic. They made better albums for sure but the sneer was never the same & there was never the same sense of urgency. Sure, almost 50 years later this sounds like classic rock radio but this was fresh and new and slightly dangerous in its day. If nothing else, it has Breakdown and American Girl which are stone cold classics. It’s amazing to think they were this fully realized from the get go.
4
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Thu May 18 2023
Ingenue
k.d. lang
I don’t think I’m capabale of thinking about this album critically.
She had been a country artist before this album. She was quirky and strange, her songs full of humor.
In the three years between Absolute Truth and Twang, she came out as a lesbian and to further alienate herself from a still very conservative musical genre - she became an outspoken animal rights activist.
With this album she transitioned to an adult contemporary artist. She was suddenly doing music that more closely resembled what you would hear in nightclub and more likely some seedy French place. The production and vocals immaculate.
The album itself is very much about unrequited love and is an emotionally complex work from an artist who not only reinvented herself but stepped out with new confidence and a bit of a cavalier devil may care attitude not accepting compromise with her audience. It is an artist saying this is who I am and my desires and if you don’t like it, I don’t really care.
5
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Fri May 19 2023
Mothership Connection
Parliament
This is peak George Clinton to me. While One Nation is Under a Groove is great, it isn’t quite the sound I associate with Clinton. Aqua Boogie is my other fave and the far out sound I associate with Parliament. This album is more of a direct lineage from James Brown’s funk but is reaching for that spaced out sound. What really struck me today is how clean the production is… I’ve always thought of Clinton’s sound as cacophonous but this album has presence of stage depth and the instruments are distinct and separate. There is a cacophony but if you listen clearly you can hear everything. And it grooves!
5
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Mon May 22 2023
American Idiot
Green Day
Sometimes you have to check your biases. This was not as bad as I expected it to be. Actually quite enjoyable and more so with each listen. Even the singles started not to annoy in context.
3
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Tue May 23 2023
At Mister Kelly's
Sarah Vaughan
Stunning
5
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Wed May 24 2023
Play
Moby
Ubiquitous and catchy. A little long.
4
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Thu May 25 2023
The Bends
Radiohead
My favorite album by one of the best bands of the late twentieth and early twenty first century/. A band at the cusp of reinventing rock. It’s epic.
5
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Fri May 26 2023
Drunk
Thundercat
Space noodling jazz funk. Odd and brilliant.
4
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Mon May 29 2023
In A Silent Way
Miles Davis
My favorite not live release of the electric/fusion period. This is considered Miles' first fusion album, he had been headed that way for a minute adding electric instrumentation to Miles in the SKy and Filles de Kilimanjaro. Even further Sorcerer and Nefertiti had shown a shift from modal music to a more moody groovy music. In many ways, Nefertiti feels like Silent Way. The biggest difference not just being the augmentation of acoustic instruments but the addition of the work of Teo Macero. The music begins to be composed after the studio work is done... having many takes cut together to form a new composition different then even the free flowing takes in the studio. This would not only be a big deal in the music Miles would make for the rest of the seventies, but in music in general. It is a piece of the puzzle that became EDM and Hip Hop. @jamieanderson1968 says the Laswell work is sacrilege to some, but I think it shows that he understood what this was. Panthalassa is worth a listen and a fitting tribute to this period of not only intense experimentation in the music, but in how it was released. This is not only just a masterpiece but one that still challenges musicians today to do better. A top notch band expanding the possibilities of the music and a top notch production that expands what music actually is. This album is a vibe.
5
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Tue May 30 2023
Moon Safari
Air
Cinematic infectious booty shaking kitsch.
5
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Wed May 31 2023
Highway to Hell
AC/DC
I didn't really know the Bon Scott story until recently and now I find this album sadly ironic. I also find the idea that the difference between this and Back in Black is filler funny. AC/DC is nothing but lean. Which is part of their problem, they created a formula for their sound and went with it. The filler is just stuff that they didn't release as singles, because I don't think the quality of songs ever lets up on this album.
This is basically a call for help from Bon that wasn't heard. It actually fills me with a bit of dread now. Ultimately, it is fun. It is one of two for sure essential albums by the band, the other being Back in Black. Sure the fans will throw Dirty Deeds out as well and honestly, I think through Let There Be Rock they are very solid (and Powerage mostly suffers from them straying from the formula.) Anyhow, this band made these two unequivocal masterpieces.
AC/DC is an important band though. Mutt made them marketable and by extension created a world where Hair Metal ruled the airwaves, GNR dominated sales, and ultimately - when combined with the indie movement in the eighties - allowed the harder music when Punk broke to be palatable by the masses and marketed as Alternative. If this album had not been a monster followed by a behemoth none of that happens the way it did.
5
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Thu Jun 01 2023
Selling England By The Pound
Genesis
A band I’ve always meant to spend more time with. I’ve always had a copy of Invisible Touch (just picked up an OG the other day) and I know the Lamb Lies Down very well. HUGE fan of Gabriel’s solo stuff and a fan of Collins’ solo stuff but never dug into the rest of their catalog. I mean I’ve heard this but never gave it the time it probably deserves.
I have a feeling this is exactly the kind of music that people who hate prog rock are talking about when they say they hate prog rock. It’s very English. Very noodly. Very full of itself. I’m honestly not sure where I fall half way through it.
I’m still mixed on my third listen. There are parts I really dig then there are parts where it makes me want to stuff things in my ears. I have a feeling this is not the best starting place.
3
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Fri Jun 02 2023
1977
Ash
A heck of a lot of fun. Derivative but fresh. Will revisit.
3
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Mon Jun 05 2023
Document
R.E.M.
A very good album by a very good band.
4
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Tue Jun 06 2023
Illinois
Sufjan Stevens
Illinois is one of those albums that I forget is great until I am listening to it. Like @dbarila , I get much more out of the experimental stuff, but I feel like that disparages this a bit, because it's not like it is your typical singer songwriter fare. It is very much of the same ilk as Age of Adz and Seven Swans - melodically and thematically, it is just the bridge between. I imagine that this is the kind of music that Tim DeLaughter and Brian Wilson hear in their head.
4
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Wed Jun 07 2023
Life Thru A Lens
Robbie Williams
Not for me. Seems vapid and the singer seems pretentious.
1
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Thu Jun 08 2023
Bad Company
Bad Company
Every other song is a slog. But the half that doesn’t is awesome.
3
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Fri Jun 09 2023
Kings Of The Wild Frontier
Adam & The Ants
I would like to check out at some point I. The future. Not feeling it today. Struck me as an unfocused Cure.
2
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Mon Jun 12 2023
OK Computer
Radiohead
The album where Radiohead became Radiohead. Essential listening.
5
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Tue Jun 13 2023
Africa Brasil
Jorge Ben Jor
Afro-Brazilian Samba Funk!!!!
4
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Wed Jun 14 2023
Palo Congo
Sabu
Nice, didn't really get to dissect it the way I want to. Love Brazilian music so will probably return to it some day.
3
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Thu Jun 15 2023
The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell
Complex musical settings for her lyrical brilliance. To a certain extent, it feels like she is fully an artist for the first time.
4
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Fri Jun 16 2023
Vento De Maio
Elis Regina
Very nice vocals with nice accomplishment. Will want to come back to.
3
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Mon Jun 19 2023
You've Come a Long Way Baby
Fatboy Slim
I feel like You've Come A Long Way, Baby is music nerd music made by a music nerd. What's better is it makes your butt shake. Can't find fault with it, it does its job well. Unlike Dig Your Own Hole, the other Big Beat record we have reviewed, this one is not fatiguing in the home setting. It feels like an album, I'm not sure if that is because of the interstitial pieces, fades, better programing. I feel like it is a little of all. Like the Chems, Fatboy Slim came up doing dj sets, he applies that knowledge to his first two albums. The Chems never really got that their albums should flow until Surrender, which interestingly enough was after they released a dj style set mixtape (Brothers Gonna Work It Out).
5
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Tue Jun 20 2023
Aftermath
The Rolling Stones
I’ve never really listened to early Stones before besides the hits. I have to say I find both versions more enjoyable than the likes of early Beatles. There is personality in spades. The UK version is a little long, suffers from not having paint it black but feels more like a thought out album starting in psychedelic territory and ending more traditional blues oriented. The American version is short, has Paint it Black but doesn’t really gel quite as well as an album.
I agree that their later work is better and more important but this is a solid album which is slyly altering the sound of English Pop Blues.
4
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Wed Jun 21 2023
Lazer Guided Melodies
Spiritualized
Slow plodding atmospheric music. They are obviously talented, but this is music for bed time.
3
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Thu Jun 22 2023
The Last Of The True Believers
Nanci Griffith
Superb songwriting. Great performances. Masterful.
5
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Fri Jun 23 2023
Modern Life Is Rubbish
Blur
This album is like a stroll through a history of British Pop music through the lens of Brit Pop. quite enjoyable.
4
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Mon Jun 26 2023
Homework
Daft Punk
Housey fun!
5
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Wed Jun 28 2023
My Generation
The Who
Straight up British rock. Enjoyable, nothing mind blowing. My Generation does have an urgency that would not really be replicated for a few more years. Moon is the stand out here. He was fully cooked with his primal abandon even at this point. Townsend is neither the songwriter or force on guitar he would become. Daltrey eventually becomes one of the better rock singers but isn’t there yet. It’s funny, the apple blurb states the band didn’t like it much, feeling it was rushed which may be some of its charm. In reality, except for a few exceptions (Who’s Next), The Who are a band I like on paper more than I do in reality. Almost every album feels like it is lacking compared to the various compilations or their live sound which gets at that unhinged urgency of My Generation or It’s Not True. It does its job well though and they are a competent enough band.
3
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Thu Jun 29 2023
Manassas
Stephen Stills
Solid album. Definitely Stills lead but you can hear Hillman’a influence bringing in that Byrds/Burrito Brothers sound. A wide swath of music with a country blues foundation.
4
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Fri Jun 30 2023
Guitar Town
Steve Earle
A perfect blend of songwriting and delivery that brings straight ahead country with a nice blend of 80’s heartland rock.
5
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Mon Jul 03 2023
Grace
Jeff Buckley
A stellar voice, influence abounds even if he is a little full of himself.
4
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Tue Jul 04 2023
Dookie
Green Day
Dumb pop punk fun. Full of hooks and memorable choruses.
4
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Wed Jul 05 2023
The Age Of The Understatement
The Last Shadow Puppets
Fleeting but enjoyable.
3
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Thu Jul 06 2023
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West
All the shine is gone. It's fine I guess. When I pay attention to the lyrics, I'm overanalyzing them in the context of who he became, which probably isn't fair. The production doesn't seem as great now either, but I imagine that is due to his techniques being used by others a million times since this was released. Power was the highlight of the album. He does seem like a much better emcee in the age of trap and mumble. That being said, he still has a corny forced flow that isn't helped by cadences that are slightly beyond his ability. Wish I could listen to it in a vacuum without him as baggage
2
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Fri Jul 07 2023
Elephant Mountain
The Youngbloods
I was unfamiliar with this group. I quite liked this album, while they were a Boston group, it seems they had relocated and this sounds to me like a bridge between the Laurel Canyon folky rock singer songwriter scene and the emerging psychedelic Bay area scene. It could be a little more focused, but is very charming.
4
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Mon Jul 10 2023
The Wall
Pink Floyd
A well thought out concept album that can slog a bit but is filled with some of Waters era Floyd’s best songs.
5
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Tue Jul 11 2023
This Is Fats Domino
Fats Domino
That was diverting. It’s fun. It felt a little … reserved… I’m not sure how much of that is a crappy YouTube upload which made it feel like the production was all over the place which may be the case as it may have been recorded over a number of dates. Blueberry Hill is a classic. I love the horn hit at the beginning of each bar in Honey Chile. Trust in Me was another highlight. Wished the levels were up a bit on the piano cause that sounds like it was smoking.
3
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Wed Jul 12 2023
Moondance
Van Morrison
I’ve never thought about ranking Van Morrison. Most of the run from Astral to Fleece is basically perfect (Hard Nose being the good not Great album in the run). I’d say I reach for this one more often and that’s certainly true, even last fm agrees with me. It’s a warm blanket of an album.
5
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Thu Jul 13 2023
Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
The other day I had a discussion about gatekeeping in Nashville and how that basically lead to Americana as shorthand for Country music that doesn’t get airplay on the radio. How important forward thinking artists like Margo Price and Jason Isbell are basically exiled from the Country charts because they are too liberal.
The Byrds debuted this new sound (spearheaded very much by Gram Parsons) at the Grand Ole Opry and neither Country or Rock wanted anything to do with it.
The Rolling Stone review is conflicted saying it’s too pretty to be country and too country to be rock. The charts weren’t kind to the album either. No one knew what to make of it.
It would build over the years and become considered a masterpiece. It was the opening salvo of Parson’s Cosmic American music. It was a sign of things to come and the last great Byrds album. They had come a long way from the Dylan disciples bringing his message to the masses. In a way it marked the end of the folk revival.
The Parsons songs are the highlights. A bright shining star that flamed out all too soon. He would take Hillman and start the Flying Burrito Brothers. This left McGuinn to carry the band (an all new band) forward.
The Grateful Dead would see some success with a more Country Rock sound in the seventies. Lynard Skynard would distill the sound into Southern Rock and really make some waves with it. Artists like Uncle Tupelo would expound on the idea many years later. And then there are all them “Americana” folks from earlier (Isbell and Carlile and company) who can find a niche outside of Nashville because of a failed album by the Folk Rock titans.
5
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Fri Jul 14 2023
Jazz Samba
Stan Getz
Boss’s Nova and America start right here (vinyl sounds real good)
5
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Mon Jul 17 2023
Abbey Road
Beatles
A perfect album by my favorite band.
5
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Tue Jul 18 2023
Ys
Joanna Newsom
Poetic. Straddling a folk sound and classical. Never quite what you expect with a voice that calls from long ago but echoes the sixties. A demanding album.
4
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Wed Jul 19 2023
Songs In The Key Of Life
Stevie Wonder
Man, in 1971, Stevie Wonder released Where I'm Coming From and didn't really let up until 1980's Hotter Than July. That's a full decade of once in a lifetime level albums. This is pretty much the apex of it all. A remarkable run from a remarkable musician.
5
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Thu Jul 20 2023
Colour By Numbers
Culture Club
Pop music was king in the 80s. This was one of the cream of the crop, a New Romantic masterpiece. Unavoidable in it’s time. While definitely of it’s time, its themes (at times heavy despite the infectious sound of it all.) A rare band that not only seemed driven by the front man, but allowed the back up singers and instrumentalists shine. Really love the slick Motown update of Church of the Poison Mind.
4
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Fri Jul 21 2023
C'est Chic
CHIC
Most of the songs a little too long. At last I am Free is dreadful. However, it grooves. The musicians are talented and the album is sequenced well.
3
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Mon Jul 24 2023
The Atomic Mr Basie
Count Basie & His Orchestra
Really dig this. It’s fun. It swings!
4
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Tue Jul 25 2023
Reggatta De Blanc
The Police
Energetic and fun. Not only presenting two big hits but through them the sound that would define them and be felt in all of pop during the 80’s.
4
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Wed Jul 26 2023
Chelsea Girl
Nico
A sophisticated and complex 60's pop record. Her voice is challenging and her harmonies are interesting. Hearing the core of the Velvet Underground in an orchestral setting is pretty cool. It is folky and Baroque and brilliant.
4
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Thu Jul 27 2023
Bitte Orca
Dirty Projectors
I enjoyed the inventive harmonies and complexity of the compositions. Will seek in the future.
4
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Fri Jul 28 2023
The Message
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
I have a big stupid smile on my face. It’s Saturday morning. Cartoons are done, gonna watch Soul Train and then some Kung Fu movies. Wishing that I had a Defender machine in my house because the Atari version sucks.
Honestly, the programming is bizarre and brilliant at the same time. Like musically You Are is out of place. Thematically, it makes perfect sense.
3
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Mon Jul 31 2023
Live At The Regal
B.B. King
A masterclass in blues and live showmanship.
5
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Tue Aug 01 2023
Doolittle
Pixies
A noisy band with pop hooks that influenced a lot of bands. A landmark album.
5
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Wed Aug 02 2023
Connected
Stereo MC's
The first song is pretty cool and could be the part of a 3 or 4 star album easy. The music if it were the soundtrack to a heist movie with a 90's house vibe could be a 4 or a 5. However, the rapping is awful - the cadence, the silly rhymes, the lack of content. It drags the whole thing down.
1
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Thu Aug 03 2023
Peter Gabriel 3
Peter Gabriel
This is the moment that Gabriel took control of his solo career and forged the path forward. It is the first accomplished album he produced after leaving Genesis. It is a landmark album in its style and impact on music for the next decade. He would only reach higher with subsequent projects both in ambition and popularity. I'm not quite sure that I agree with the general consensus that it is his masterpiece. I would probably give that to Us. However, it is brilliant and perfect, especially given its difficult subject matter.
5
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Fri Aug 04 2023
Ace of Spades
Motörhead
Fun. crunchy. fast. makes me want to kick stuff in a good way.
4
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Mon Aug 07 2023
Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix at the height of his powers and free. Brilliant.
5
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Tue Aug 08 2023
Transformer
Lou Reed
First time listening to this entire album.
I did not know before reading the RS review that Bowie produced this which made the sound of Vicious and Hangin' Round make a lot more sense. The first half of the album sounds like T. Rex and The Velvet Underground made a record together (well besides Perfect Day where Reed does his best Sinatra by way of Cohen) and I'm here for it. Once A Walk on the Wild Side hits though, it all gets a little more interesting. That Sax and then the Tuba on Make Up.
He has a really unique voice. It isn't quite as evident in the Velvet Underground stuff probably because there is just a lot more noise. He makes interesting choices vocally.
This was my first time listening to this album and I will be sure to return to it.
4
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Wed Aug 09 2023
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
This feels like a Velvets morning acoustic jam after a long night. Dolly and riveting.
4
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Thu Aug 10 2023
Odessey And Oracle
The Zombies
Time of the Seaon alone places The Zombies in the pantheon of 60’s British psychedelic rock. The album basically didn’t exist until the song surprisingly became a hit two years after its release and the band had broken up (although now they play the oldies circuit and I believe still release material).
It is one of the oddest albums in the classic rock canon. It plays like some twisted Kingston Trio album of songs The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd collaborated on and never released. It’s all Mellotron and harmonies and deeply deeply strange. But then again these guys wore capes to their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Prime British weirdness.
3
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Fri Aug 11 2023
Straight Outta Compton
N.W.A.
N.W.A. built on the foundation laid by Ice-T and Schooly D. Cube’s hyperbole and sense of humor combined with Dre’s beats were aided by the antics of the PRMC and a formal introduction of rap to white audiences through the unprecedented popularity of the Beastie Boys resulting in a real zeitgeist moment for the group. Without airplay, it became a big hit, made gangsta rap a viable product for the masses, and put the West Coast on the map.
Dre would go on to be a better producer (with a hell of a business acumen) and Cube would go on to add a bit of social commentary to his angry street persona (and make many a dumb comedy), but this remains the collective’s most powerful statement together or apart.
There are cringey moments.. rap more than any other genre seems to date itself not only through the prolific time stamps throughout its history but by being a record of the mentality of its auteurs.
The album would be important beyond the hype given its subtle political message- young black men in America were mad (righteously so) and this was, if nothing else, a way to express that anger without the fear of incarceration. Unfortunately, through both the mechanisms of a society that was censorshiptastic (which was oddly directed with more penalty at African Americans - systemic racism at its finest) and other’s attempts to be real (even if they weren’t), gangsta rap wasn’t a healthy or prison free outlet for very long.
They weren’t the first or even the best gangsta act, but they were the big bang and the album is a landmark for hip hop, in both positive and negative ways.
4
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Mon Aug 14 2023
The Genius Of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Genius
5
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Tue Aug 15 2023
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
The Smashing Pumpkins
Long but solid.
4
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Wed Aug 16 2023
Blunderbuss
Jack White
This album is fine. Jack White is fine. The White Stripes are important, but his solo work just feels like treading water. There are some nice moments and his guitar work is always great.
3
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Thu Aug 17 2023
The Next Day
David Bowie
An artist known for looking forward looks back. The icon was human. Pretty great stuff.
4
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Fri Aug 18 2023
There's A Riot Goin' On
Sly & The Family Stone
The end of two years of deeply rooting in himself, his thoughts and his addictions. An answer to Marvin Gaye. A complicated messy album that still resonates today.
5
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Mon Aug 21 2023
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
A Tribe Called Quest
Brilliant debut.
4
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Tue Aug 22 2023
Blue Lines
Massive Attack
Great singing. Great production. Great music. Great songs. Atrocious rapping.
4
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Wed Aug 23 2023
The Idiot
Iggy Pop
Like the lost transition from the Glam to the Berlin Trilogy, a brilliant inward look at a rocker.
4
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Thu Aug 24 2023
Winter In America
Gil Scott-Heron
I do not think one listen is enough to fully process a Gil Scott-Heron project. Really dug the music though.
4
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Fri Aug 25 2023
Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Tortoise
Real cool post rock. Will revisit.
4
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Mon Aug 28 2023
L.A. Woman
The Doors
Not much to say here. They went out with their best set.
5
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Tue Aug 29 2023
Urban Hymns
The Verve
The singles are great. The rest of it just kind of meanders.
2
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Wed Aug 30 2023
Third
Portishead
Dark. Brilliant. An album that is showing a band ready to transcend Trip Hop.
5
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Thu Aug 31 2023
California
American Music Club
Pretty solid americana adjacent music. Weird mix of 80s style vocals and more countrified vocals. Like this alot. Reminds me of Counting Crows.
4
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Fri Sep 01 2023
Fire Of Love
The Gun Club
Bluesy, grimy, jangly, dark. Love this. Will revisit often.
4
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Mon Sep 04 2023
The Chronic
Dr. Dre
Great beats, changed the game. Cringey.
4
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Tue Sep 05 2023
Low-Life
New Order
This album bounces and feels like life.
4
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Wed Sep 06 2023
Tuesday Night Music Club
Sheryl Crow
All I wanna do is have some fun. Decent pop. Nothing spectacular.
3
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Thu Sep 07 2023
Live At The Witch Trials
The Fall
Enjoyable punk/post punk.
3
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Fri Sep 08 2023
461 Ocean Boulevard
Eric Clapton
A little incohesive. It has it moments.
3
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Mon Sep 11 2023
Protection
Massive Attack
Good stuff
4
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Tue Sep 12 2023
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
A landmark album. I mean how many albums can be directly pointed to as the point of a major genre?
5
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Wed Sep 13 2023
Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Peak 80’s fun.
3
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Thu Sep 14 2023
Murmur
R.E.M.
An influential and important album. It’s not perfect though. A couple of songs are as grating as anything they ever did and Stipe mumbles throughout the entire album.
4
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Fri Sep 15 2023
Red Dirt Girl
Emmylou Harris
REally nice, will need to spend more time with.
4
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Mon Sep 18 2023
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
David Bowie
A great album, doesn’t hold its concept the whole way through, but it never slacks off. Pretty much the acme of glam.
5
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Tue Sep 19 2023
Come Away With Me
Norah Jones
A vibe if an album, equally great for a morning with coffee or a light night. Excellent musicianship and production.
4
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Wed Sep 20 2023
Band On The Run
Paul McCartney and Wings
His most poptastic entry and one of the better post beatles efforts from any of the fab four.
5
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Thu Sep 21 2023
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Pink Floyd
Brilliant debut. A landmark for psychedelic music. Madness intertwined with childlike lyrics.
5
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Fri Sep 22 2023
The New Tango
Astor Piazzolla
Masterful and passionate music. Two beasts surprisingly making widely disparate music sound like it was meant to be. Will revisit.
5
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Mon Sep 25 2023
There's No Place Like America Today
Curtis Mayfield
Mayfield was a master. This is smooth and funky and I will return to it.
4
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Tue Sep 26 2023
Odelay
Beck
Countrified hipster funk from the mad folky and the dust brothers.
4
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Wed Sep 27 2023
E.V.O.L.
Sonic Youth
Noisey art punk. Great stuff. Need to spend more time with the band, always.
4
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Fri Sep 29 2023
Too Rye Ay
Dexys Midnight Runners
I think this may be my favorite thing that I did not know (I mean, I knew Come on Eileen, but that was it) before the project. It is fun and a wonderful mash up of soul, punk and Irish music. Like nothing else. Will for sure return to it.
5
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Mon Oct 02 2023
Stand!
Sly & The Family Stone
The apex of what sly started with this band. It is optimistic and hopeful. The band is starting to be overtly political and it grooves.
5
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Tue Oct 03 2023
Pretenders
Pretenders
Embarrassed to say that beyond Brass in Pocket, I did not know this. But it is great. Swagger for days and plays like a survey of 80s rock from punk to new wave to pop.
5
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Wed Oct 04 2023
Two Dancers
Wild Beasts
Decent music. The singer has a grating voice. The lyrics are bizarre at best, and stalkerly at worst. While I find the music interesting, the content will keep me away from this group’s work.
2
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Thu Oct 05 2023
Illmatic
Nas
A undisputed classic. Phenomenal flow and lyricism. Production game changer.
5
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Fri Oct 06 2023
Led Zeppelin III
Led Zeppelin
Zep adds acoustic guitars. Magic happens.
5
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Mon Oct 09 2023
Back To Black
Amy Winehouse
More than a throw back to the motown it is an update. One can only wonder what we might have had if she had stayed with us longer. The producers and the Dap Kings add a lot.
5
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Tue Oct 10 2023
Appetite For Destruction
Guns N' Roses
A tough one. A landmark of 80s metal to be sure. The glam genre taken to its furthest extreme. It is full of excess both in hedonism, layered big arena music and grime and hate. It’s that hate - hate of women and other that drags it down. A double edged legacy.
3
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Wed Oct 11 2023
Music
Madonna
A solid later album from Madonna. Not the heights of the album directly preceding (Ray of Light) or Confessions after, but fun and well made. Could be sequenced better.
4
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Thu Oct 12 2023
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
A dark and personal, gritty album from one of my favorite songwriters. While it isn't the one I reach for the most, it is with out a doubt his best work.
5
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Fri Oct 13 2023
At Budokan
Cheap Trick
So... I listened to this three times today and it really doesn't do anything for me. It's not bad. It just doesn't excite me. I do really like "I Want You to Want Me"
3
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Mon Oct 16 2023
Brothers
The Black Keys
The Black Keys stop being spaced out weirdos but don’t quite make their triumphant return to form. It has great moments (Everlasting Love) but mostly feels a little reserved
3
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Tue Oct 17 2023
Lust For Life
Iggy Pop
Iggy sort of returns to his former glory. It’s easy to understand why this is the record people gravitate to.
4
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Wed Oct 18 2023
Brown Sugar
D'Angelo
An outstanding debut from a singular voice. Muhammad, Saadiq and Powers are a heck of production team. It’s layered into some kind of futuristic version of Sly’s late 70’s sound. It’s also very of its moment and as such transcends space and time. It’s also glorious booty call music.
5
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Thu Oct 19 2023
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Aretha Franklin
The album where Aretha became ARETHA. One of the greatest soul records ever recorded.
5
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Fri Oct 20 2023
Golden Hour
Kacey Musgraves
This is a solid pop album with a hint of a twang and a lot of Country attitude. I think the two albums preceding this one are much better.
3
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Mon Oct 23 2023
Superunknown
Soundgarden
Way too long. Too polished. A handful of great songs though.
3
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Tue Oct 24 2023
Queen II
Queen
Queen was an odd art metal prog band. This album is nifty, you can see the band they would become starting to form.
3
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Wed Oct 25 2023
BEYONCÉ
Beyoncé
A defining and landmark album both for the artist and for how albums are released.
5
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Thu Oct 26 2023
Shaka Zulu
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Simple beautiful. The voices. The harmonies. The melodies. The acapella rhythm.
4
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Fri Oct 27 2023
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
The hits - Spinning Wheel and Happy are outstanding. And When I Die is weird. The rest is okay or just meandering.
3
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Mon Oct 30 2023
Blonde On Blonde
Bob Dylan
It’s a bit of a mess and all over the place but the highlights (Johanna and Memphis) are some of his best songs. Of course, Rainy Day Women is his worst.
4
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Tue Oct 31 2023
Parklife
Blur
A solid bit of britpop but as I know more of their catalog, the less impressive it is.
4
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Wed Nov 01 2023
Be
Common
Common is in top form here, as is Kanye. Dilla is just the cherry on the sundae. I like One Day… and Chocolate better but this is a highlight of this era of rap/hip hop.
5
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Thu Nov 02 2023
I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail
Buck Owens
My love for Buck Owens is an example of the full circle I’ve had with Country.
Hee Haw was a Saturday evening staple in my house when I was a kid and I hated it. At the time it just seemed lame but I think maybe my subconscious knew that playing the South as full of Bumpkins was offensive. We’ve tackled the peculiar nature of Southern Pride elsewhere, but that’s certainly what I don’t like about the show and it’s legacy now.
What I did enjoy as a kid were the musical guests. Basically anyone who was anyone in Country music did a performance on Hee Haw. It was hosted by Buck Owens and Roy Clark who would tell bad one liners dressed in overalls and straw hats. I didn’t realize as a kid that these guys were titans of Country Music.
As I got older, I started to despise country because of Hee Haw, the conservative politics of the genre as a whole, and because I was ashamed of my heritage. Mind you, this was before I understood the systematic way racism was downplayed and further institutionalized in school.
In college, the punk kids all respected Cash and the other outlaws and I started to reevaluate the genre as a whole. But even then it was another decade before I let my affinity for Country music (and R&B) be something I was comfortable enough to openly display and talk about.
I’ve really come to know the Bakersfield sound in the last decade and have become obsessed with Owens, Haggard, and especially the songwriting of Harlan Howard. A lot of this comes from a tribute album by Vince Gill:
www.allmusic.com
Vince Gill, Paul Franklin - Bakersfield Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic
Discover Bakersfield by Vince Gill, Paul Franklin released in 2013. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
www.allmusic.com www.allmusic.com
Those old deep seated biases against Owens and the politics of Haggard late in his life kept me away from the music far too long. Fortunately my admiration for Gill as a guitarist (he’s a bit vanilla as a singer) changed that.
What’s really interesting is when it came time to really start exploring Owens is just how much of this album I knew. Many of the songs like the title song and Streets of Laredo were burned into my brain from that younger age (and probably countless covers) and those earliest memories of actually enjoying the music before I allowed outside influences (including my Dad who displayed an open dislike of the “old timey” music, specifically Hank Williams and Bob Wills, that his dad had liked - which is a topic for another day as Bluegrass … through its first exposure to me in high school… would play its own role in me accepting my love of country music).
This album has as much to do with the sub genre becoming popular as any other. Years before Outlaw became a crossover thing, Owens and the gang from California added rock to the country sound. This is its own cyclical thing in that both the Beatles and the Stones would play Bakersfield music which in turn influenced their sound and we know how influential both those acts were.
It’s a great record and if you think you hate country music, you should maybe check that bias at the door before listening.
5
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Fri Nov 03 2023
Yank Crime
Drive Like Jehu
I really enjoyed this. It’s noise the way I like it. Will return to it.
3
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Mon Nov 06 2023
Hotel California
Eagles
Meh. The hits are great. The rest not so much. There’s nothing wrong with the Eagles. They aren’t pushing anything forward and maybe that’s why they are so popular.
3
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Tue Nov 07 2023
Metallica
Metallica
Of their core albums before they helped numetal gain a strong hold, this is their weakest. It is also the most popular. It certainly catches a couple of zeitgeist type topics and has become anthemic for various reasons.
3
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Wed Nov 08 2023
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Frank Sinatra
Two masters as the height of their powers. A great album and collaboration.
5
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Thu Nov 09 2023
Fever Ray
Fever Ray
A perfect winter album… cold, slightly detached, dark, and also utterly exhilarating and captivating.
4
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Fri Nov 10 2023
OK
Talvin Singh
I enjoyed this quite a bit. The Indian elements, the drum n bass and oh my gosh the low end is something.
4
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Mon Nov 13 2023
Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin
An all time classic. Not a bad song in the bunch
5
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Tue Nov 14 2023
White Blood Cells
The White Stripes
Jack White at the height of his powers, on the precipice of fame. Still hungry and completely garage. A solid listen.
3
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Wed Nov 15 2023
The Undertones
The Undertones
Fun punk pop.
3
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Thu Nov 16 2023
Murder Ballads
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Astonishingly violent. Astonishingly captivating. Will return.
4
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Fri Nov 17 2023
Tellin’ Stories
The Charlatans
1st half boring same old same old brit pop. 2nd half this organ shows up and stuff gets funky and interesting.
3
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Mon Nov 20 2023
Oracular Spectacular
MGMT
Fun modern pop that is quite a bit exceptional.
4
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Tue Nov 21 2023
More Songs About Buildings And Food
Talking Heads
A great album by a great band.
4
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Wed Nov 22 2023
Immigrés
Youssou N'Dour
Was nice.
3
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Thu Nov 23 2023
Dry
PJ Harvey
Solid and powerful alt rock.
4
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Fri Nov 24 2023
G. Love And Special Sauce
G. Love & Special Sauce
Boring and amateurish.
1
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Mon Nov 27 2023
Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós
Very nice ambient music that I will probably return to.
3
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Tue Nov 28 2023
Live At The Harlem Square Club
Sam Cooke
One of the all time great live albums and another side of Sam Cooke that most do not know.
5
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Wed Nov 29 2023
Teenage Head
Flamin' Groovies
Was unfamiliar with this. Would like to return to it, like a countrified Stones.
4
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Thu Nov 30 2023
Arc Of A Diver
Steve Winwood
so... this is like some adult contemporary nightmare where Billy Joel and Phil Collins have merged into the same dude who happens to think he is Stevie Wonder. The cover pretty much tells you what you are getting into.
1
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Fri Dec 01 2023
Maxinquaye
Tricky
This is one of the all time great albums. It actually makes it hard to listen to most other trip hop. It still sounds like the future three decades later. It’s a world of its own and mind blowing.
5
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Mon Dec 04 2023
Led Zeppelin II
Led Zeppelin
Si this is really when Zeppelin becomes the band that takes over the world. The first album is just not quite as confident.
5
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Tue Dec 05 2023
Morrison Hotel
The Doors
half of the album is great (see Peace Frog and Roadhouse Blues), half the album is obnoxious. So you know, it's a door's album.
3
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Wed Dec 06 2023
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen would take his edge further with Nebraska but this is a defining album for him.
5
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Thu Dec 07 2023
The Holy Bible
Manic Street Preachers
An awful cover hides an intelligent and emotional bit of post punk meets metal. Absolutely brilliant. Will be exploring this discography.
5
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Fri Dec 08 2023
Street Signs
Ozomatli
over produced, but there is music worth listening to here. Saturday Night is the beginning of it settling in and it gets a little better through to the end.
2
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Mon Dec 11 2023
Pearl
Janis Joplin
One of the all time great voices. Honestly, the album doesn’t quite feel finished, but it doesn’t really suffer because of that.
5
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Tue Dec 12 2023
In Rainbows
Radiohead
Tweaked out future soul.
5
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Wed Dec 13 2023
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
George Michael
Entering his adult contemporary phase, Michael ups the vocal difficulty and thematics.
4
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Thu Dec 14 2023
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
The best of the early folk stuff.
5
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Fri Dec 15 2023
american dream
LCD Soundsystem
Not as inspired as their earlier work but an enjoyable listen.
3
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Mon Dec 18 2023
Coat Of Many Colors
Dolly Parton
When Dolly became DOLLY.
5
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Tue Dec 19 2023
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Psychedelic folk rock at its best. Amazing harmonies.
5
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Wed Dec 20 2023
Public Image: First Issue
Public Image Ltd.
All the chaos, anger and politics of The Pistols, but with a more musical slant. Jah Wobble was a genius from the offset. Keith Levene's guitars influenced a generation. This is post punk before it was a thing. It is confrontational and provocative. A great album.
4
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Thu Dec 21 2023
Kenza
Khaled
This seems a little slickly produced and trying to bring in as wide an audience as possible. However, it was a great entry point for the artist and I have listened to his self titled album which seems more accomplished and exciting. I look forward to exploring his catalog and the Rai music genre.
2
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Fri Dec 22 2023
Cafe Bleu
The Style Council
inconsistent and two much. reading other reviews there are a lot of these two songs are good, doesn't make up for the utter amateurishness of the whole endeavor and nothing makes up for A Gospel.
1
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Mon Dec 25 2023
At Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash
One of the all time great recordings by one of the all time great artists.
5
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Tue Dec 26 2023
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
An all time great Christmas album full of bangers.
5
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Wed Dec 27 2023
A Little Deeper
Ms. Dynamite
Not bad, not great. Seems like Amy Winehouse with hip hop production.
2
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Thu Dec 28 2023
Survivor
Destiny's Child
The hits deserve the attention: the rest is a mess of meandering runs over beats probably better used elsewhere. A mess.
2
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Fri Dec 29 2023
The Last Broadcast
Doves
An interesting album that resembles what might happen if Coldplay and a Radiohead joined forces. Worthy of possible future listens.
3
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Mon Jan 01 2024
Guero
Beck
A hip danceable modern rock pop thing. A lot of fun.
4
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Tue Jan 02 2024
The Score
Fugees
An all time great rap album that sort of reset all the gangster rap and made everything a little bit more palatable.
5
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Wed Jan 03 2024
Trio
Dolly Parton
Great songs sung by three great voices with beautiful harmonies. Perfect record.
5
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Thu Jan 04 2024
Home Is Where The Music Is
Hugh Masekela
Simply stunning. The musicianship and composition are perfect. The blend of spiritual jazz, hard bop and African sounds is infectious.
5
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Fri Jan 05 2024
Goo
Sonic Youth
The stereotypical sonic youth album. Following up their best album (and one of the best albums ever) and getting signed to a major there are tracks that show why they got there intermingling with art noise. A complicated messy and utterly compelling work.
4
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Mon Jan 08 2024
Hard Again
Muddy Waters
Raucous and inspired. Winters, Waters, and company quite literally caught lightening in a bottle with this record.
5
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Tue Jan 09 2024
1989
Taylor Swift
The moment I started paying attention to Ms. Swift (actually it was Ryan Adams' cover of this album). On top of fully embracing pop, she actually writes more about herself (instead of relationships) and seems to have more substance as a result.
4
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Wed Jan 10 2024
Kimono My House
Sparks
Like operatic new wave. Zany and infectious. Will be returning, for sure.
4
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Thu Jan 11 2024
Larks' Tongues In Aspic
King Crimson
Noodly prog. Then the guy sings and it’s like a renaissance rom com. It all sounds well played and very intricate, but it’s doesn’t really groove or grab you.
3
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Fri Jan 12 2024
Hot Shots II
The Beta Band
This plays like DJ Shadow Muzak. Chilled out The Books. Radiohead except all beats instead of guitars and vocal aerobatics. It doesn’t live up to the hype of High Fidelity.
2
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Mon Jan 15 2024
The Slim Shady LP
Eminem
This is decidedly not for me. I recognize Eminem’s talent as a rapper. His flow is untouchable and he’s obviously very intelligent. The Dre lead music is awesome. The lyrical content is at best problematic. He’s shocking purely to shock and the amount of anger is astonishing. I find it very unheroic that there is a censored version that bleeps the curse words as if that is the problem with the content
2
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Tue Jan 16 2024
Surfer Rosa
Pixies
This album was (and is) a bomb of aggression and noise. All neatly tied with a keen sense of poppy hooks. It reverberates through music to this day.
5
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Wed Jan 17 2024
Marcus Garvey
Burning Spear
Essential roots reggae.
5
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Thu Jan 18 2024
Inspiration Information
Shuggie Otis
Was not familiar with this before listening and am now obsessed. It is remarkable that so much of what Maxwell and Cody ChestNutt would do was done before in 74 by a basically forgotten musician. Great stuff that I will continue to explore.
4
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Fri Jan 19 2024
Physical Graffiti
Led Zeppelin
Not my favorite and a little long but pretty awesome.
4
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Mon Jan 22 2024
The Stranger
Billy Joel
This is an accomplished but of pop music. Joel has a way with melody and also for creating characters that feel like they are real.
4
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Tue Jan 23 2024
Let It Bleed
The Rolling Stones
Prime stones.
4
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Wed Jan 24 2024
The Specials
The Specials
This was quite the revelation. There is not OG Ska worth listening to.
4
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Thu Jan 25 2024
Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Bill Callahan
This was outstanding. Dark. Melodic. One of the more emotional singers I have ever heard. I will be revisiting this and his catalog.
5
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Fri Jan 26 2024
The Gilded Palace Of Sin
The Flying Burrito Brothers
A touchstone of country rock. Having already created one classic with The Byrds, Parsons defined a sound with this album. Gritty and lo fi and perfect in every way.
5
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Mon Jan 29 2024
Live And Dangerous
Thin Lizzy
This is one of those things, on paper I should love it, but it just doesn’t do anything for me.
2
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Tue Jan 30 2024
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
It’s uneven and weird but one of the most important releases ever.
4
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Wed Jan 31 2024
Out of Step
Minor Threat
Pretty important east coast diy punk. MacKaye grew up to be a powerhouse of the scene.
3
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Thu Feb 01 2024
Better Living Through Chemistry
Fatboy Slim
Fun upbeat dance music that isn't awful to listen to while doing other things.
4
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Fri Feb 02 2024
Back At The Chicken Shack
Jimmy Smith
It says Jimmy Smith on the cover but I’m pretty sure this is Stanley Turrentine’s album.
4
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Mon Feb 05 2024
Doggystyle
Snoop Dogg
It’s a shame that what is a landmark album for hip hop is full of problematic material. The beats are nice, the features nice and Snoop’s
Flow is impeccable. If it was all Murder was the Case instead of Gs up hos down…
3
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Tue Feb 06 2024
Five Leaves Left
Nick Drake
Beautifully played and produced album. Will revisit.
4
View Album
Wed Feb 07 2024
Go Girl Crazy
The Dictators
Juvenile and in your face rock. A lot of fun.
3
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Thu Feb 08 2024
Parallel Lines
Blondie
A classic… punk grows up, goes to the disco and gets huge.
4
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Fri Feb 09 2024
Raw Like Sushi
Neneh Cherry
A very unique album blending styles into its own amorphous genre. A sort of proto trip hop affair especially when you look at the list of collaborators. Sounds just as out there now as it did 3 decades ago.
4
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Mon Feb 12 2024
It's Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A fierce dance punk record that I will be returning to.
4
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Tue Feb 13 2024
Paranoid
Black Sabbath
A leap forward from their first album with no less than three iconic riffs. The writing and production is raised. The band is great and Ozzy is in good form. War Pigs is one of the all time great songs.
5
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Wed Feb 14 2024
Want One
Rufus Wainwright
An opulent and mesmerizing album.
3
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Thu Feb 15 2024
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Albarn supergroup sounds like Albarn supergroup.
3
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Fri Feb 16 2024
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Genesis
An ambitious album that doesn’t quite meet its brief but reaches musical highs and still impresses to this day.
5
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Mon Feb 19 2024
Blur
Blur
A lot of fun. Nice shift in Brit pop
4
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Tue Feb 20 2024
Who's Next
The Who
I’ve been listening to this as long as I can remember and I think I love it more each time.
5
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Wed Feb 21 2024
Highly Evolved
The Vines
Meh… like most of this 2000 garage stuff, it was pleasant enough to listen to and completely forgotten after.
2
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Thu Feb 22 2024
Power In Numbers
Jurassic 5
I would have picked Quality Control or J5. However, this is a fine album. It threads the needle of gangster and conscious rap. The mcs are insane and have a unique interaction. NuMark and Cut Chemist are brilliant.
4
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Fri Feb 23 2024
Tago Mago
Can
Psychedelic and out there. Will revisit.
3
View Album
Mon Feb 26 2024
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
A landmark album.
5
View Album
Tue Feb 27 2024
Deja Vu
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
A pretty perfect album. Probably gonna reach for CSN or any number of NY albums before this though.
5
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Wed Feb 28 2024
Happy Trails
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Solid representation of the Bay Area Scene.
3
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Thu Feb 29 2024
Eagles
Eagles
Well it’s better than Hotel California. The country vibe works better for them.
3
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Fri Mar 01 2024
Trout Mask Replica
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
I don’t understand this record.
1
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Mon Mar 04 2024
Made In Japan
Deep Purple
Meh.
2
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Tue Mar 05 2024
Fear Of A Black Planet
Public Enemy
Not their best album but possibly the one that imprinted the group on a wider consciousness.
4
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Wed Mar 06 2024
Slanted And Enchanted
Pavement
Evidently this is a genesis of the indie rock sound. To me, it sounds like the noise of Sonic Youth brought to the hooks of Bob Mould. It’s wide ranging sounds and snippet like approach certainly inspired quite a few after.
3
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Thu Mar 07 2024
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
Evidently this is a genesis of the indie rock sound. To me, it sounds like the noise of Sonic Youth brought to the hooks of Bob Mould. It’s wide ranging sounds and snippet like approach certainly inspired quite a few after.
3
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Fri Mar 08 2024
Mask
Bauhaus
This was fantastic. Will revisit. Sounds fresh even today.
4
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Mon Mar 11 2024
Machine Head
Deep Purple
I liked this better than Made in Japan. It feels more focused but still feels like jam band meets metal and ultimately isn’t really for me. I really don’t like the screams vocals at all.
3
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Tue Mar 12 2024
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
The Kinks
Such a great album!
5
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Wed Mar 13 2024
Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine
A great and inventive band with an important message. Dislike Zach’s voice. They are kind of full of themselves and 52 minutes feels like 20 minutes too long for this kind of music.
4
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Thu Mar 14 2024
Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
Power pop with teeth and lots of psychedelics. Will revisit for sure.
3
View Album
Fri Mar 15 2024
Red Headed Stranger
Willie Nelson
One of the all time great albums. Willie free at last and showing what he can do when left alone.
5
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Mon Mar 18 2024
(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
A great debut and a great synthesis of southern rock.
4
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Tue Mar 19 2024
Either Or
Elliott Smith
Great voice and melodies
4
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Wed Mar 20 2024
My Aim Is True
Elvis Costello
A stellar debut. He would never have this much bite again, but his catchy hooks and ear for unique melodies is riddled through out.
5
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Thu Mar 21 2024
Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
Freddie is great as always. The band presents their usual craftsmanship. Killer Queen is a great track. The rest of the album never even comes close to that peak.
3
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Fri Mar 22 2024
Frank
Amy Winehouse
Solid debut.
3
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Mon Mar 25 2024
Smash
The Offspring
Not for me.
1
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Tue Mar 26 2024
The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
An amazing display of space, layering and emotion.
5
View Album
Wed Mar 27 2024
(What's The Story) Morning Glory
Oasis
Good debut. Nostalgic.
4
View Album
Thu Mar 28 2024
Metal Box
Public Image Ltd.
Solid stuff. A more out there and dancey version of Joy Division. Will revisit.
4
View Album
Fri Mar 29 2024
Green Onions
Booker T. & The MG's
The title track is a jam. The rest of the album is a definite vibe that can be grating sometimes.
3
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Mon Apr 01 2024
Ellington at Newport
Duke Ellington
A great performance by a great band.
5
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Tue Apr 02 2024
Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
Over the top theatrical rock fun.
5
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Wed Apr 03 2024
Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
Dexys Midnight Runners
Good vibe album. Love his voice. Like the ska edge.
4
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Thu Apr 04 2024
Music From The Penguin Cafe
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Yacht rock music and Eno soundscapes.
2
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Fri Apr 05 2024
The Joshua Tree
U2
A perfect album.
5
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Mon Apr 08 2024
Brothers In Arms
Dire Straits
On first listen, I thought this was a front loaded bore of an album. However by the third listen, I was beginning to respect the ksucianship and craft on display. The production is top notch. It’s a grower.
3
View Album
Tue Apr 09 2024
The Clash
The Clash
A great debut. A great album. A great band.
5
View Album
Wed Apr 10 2024
Black Holes and Revelations
Muse
A fun bombastic dancy pomp.
3
View Album
Thu Apr 11 2024
Vauxhall And I
Morrissey
Despicable human with an amazing talent. Gorgeous album.
4
View Album
Fri Apr 12 2024
Atomizer
Big Black
Post punk as Porto industrial. Intense in every way.
4
View Album
Mon Apr 15 2024
1999
Prince
Prince arrived to the mainstream with this album. A beast of an album.
5
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Tue Apr 16 2024
Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths
I disliked this album even though I have come to terms with liking both the Smiths and Morrissey’s solo work. This is self aggrandizing taken to ludicrous extremes and comes off childish at times. Morrissey also sounds ill on several tracks.
2
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Wed Apr 17 2024
Foxbase Alpha
Saint Etienne
Fun poppy dance music.
4
View Album
Thu Apr 18 2024
Come Find Yourself
Fun Lovin' Criminals
Derivative and sophomoric. Sure it’s full of hooks that not only are samples but samples that have been used a lot before this came out.
1
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Fri Apr 19 2024
Bossanova
Pixies
There are awesome peaks (Happening, Blown Away), a lot of pointless filler (first and last song) and atrocities (Hang Wire). The most uneven of their original four full length albums and unfortunately a sign of things to come.
3
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Mon Apr 22 2024
Birth Of The Cool
Miles Davis
Landmark album
5
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Tue Apr 23 2024
Eliminator
ZZ Top
A behemoth of a record. inspired by Billy digging Depeche Mode and Ministry.
5
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Wed Apr 24 2024
Little Earthquakes
Tori Amos
A gut punch record. Hauntingly beautiful at times. Always engaging. Very emotional. Perfectly executed at all times.
5
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Thu Apr 25 2024
Elastica
Elastica
90s alternative rock. Edges and fun but still feels like an Apple ad spot to me.
3
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Fri Apr 26 2024
Vulgar Display Of Power
Pantera
Prime 90’s metal.
4