Would have preferred Stadium Arcadium but this is solid. Anthony has kind of an annoying affectation imo and I've heard some parodies I cannot unhear so this is docked a bit for that lol. Would go 3.5
Had never heard these guys. The close harmonies are rock solid and the melodies are pretty classic gospel-roots Appalachia/trad country and I understand they're pioneers of a sort. A bit repetitive to my ear in 2023, not sure how much relevancy/staying power the album has almost 7 decades later outside of the legacy of canonizing this style of music, but it made the tedious tasks I had to do today a bit more bearable. 3 feels too low and 4 too high for my subjective experience of it.
Stevie has 4 perfect albums and this is one of them
I deeply respect Beyonce but I never actively choose her music to listen to. Doesnt quite click with me, but then again I am very much NOT the target audience and thats ok. Her newest album is the only exception.
The title track pulls a lot of the weight but BOY does it.
The man is an absolute asshole but this is his best work
My gen-x former boss would fire me if she knew but Muse is overrated imo. Too navel gaze-y for me. Arpeggios are fun but what else you got?
I LOVE Bowie's plastic soul era
Back before he went off the rails
My best friend listened to this album SO much when it came out that I went from loving it to being so familiar with it the style became annoying. Its totally subjective but I have so much trouble listening to an album I could not avoid. It likely deserves better but the highest I'll go is three. Jon shouldn't have hyperfixated it on it in middle school!!
Would have preferred Stadium Arcadium but this is solid. Anthony has kind of an annoying affectation imo and I've heard some parodies I cannot unhear so this is docked a bit for that lol. Would go 3.5
Is it dumb? Kinda, but its so TIGHT and it knows exactly what its supposed to be. I think you only need one accadacca album to get the whole picture, but this is the one
This album to me is perfect
One of the GOATs
I listened to the shit out of this in high school and it's still doing it for me. I feel like they don't get enough credit.
Ahh the favorite album of my middle school bullies/former close friends! As skilled as Eminem is at his craft his influence and legacy both broadly and on me personally from those shitheads worshipping him docks this down quite a bit.
It's no Thriller but its still a good time
Rudy is a classic. Stupid Marriage is hilarious. First concert I ever saw was in this genre, first non school band I played trumpet in we did songs from the generation inspired by the specials - streetlight manifesto and RBF. Costello's fingerprints are all over this. That being said, it's not really the sort of thing I really seek out much nowadays. It's completely listenable and I appreciate the historical context and the whole checkered flag racial harmony ideals, but subjectively if this is for albums to hear before I die, I can't go higher than 3.5 out of 5, which for me is solid. 3 means if I heard it in the wild I wouldn't skip. A 4 has to have some special spices and a 5 would need to be something I immediately want to hear again. The half point is for stupid marriage, that was so fun. PS the chord changes and instrumentation in Little bitch is almost exactly the theme of the game show Cash Cab. Dunno how to feel about that.
"Diana dried her eyes and was surprised, for I was in the NEWD" is definitely a statement. I think if I were British and not an infant in 1993 I would likely have a higher rating but alas, the Pet Shop Boys are corny in the unaware way that brits veer into so often. I mean they're always the guy in the big Pharell hat and not-Peter-Gabriel to me - and his voice is too nasal for my taste. It feels like what Mr. Bean listens to when he's in a funk. Nothing about the album is BAD necessarily, it just made me wish I was listening to more interesting synth pop, and it feels dated to my ear in a way that Duran Duran;s best stuff for example does not. My REAL hot take is that Future Islands is basically Pet Shop Boys 2.0. Objectively its closer to 3 but subjectively it was a bit of a chore for me, like eating boiled vegetables, so a 2 from me.
David Berman's voice is not for me. I thought I could get past it like I can with Kurt Vile, cuz I appreciate a lot about these songs. Hearing the female vocal suit Tennessee so much better just blew out the contrast. The vibe is solid and the lyrics have depth and humor, the sound is familiar because it's Pavement, who I like. Berman just cannot sustain a note, and his tone doesn't compensate enough for the experience not to feel consistently grating to my ear. I honestly wish I could get past it cuz I feel like there's worthwhile stuff here. Transylvania Blues felt like an oasis in the desert. Unfortunately, it's overshadowed by other faults, namely what I feel is a critical lack of momentum or real differentiation between the rest of the songs in the first half of the album. I guess I can appreciate that you need Silver Jews before you can have the National but this is not one I'll be returning to. 2 feels fair for me. "Goodbye users and suckers and steady bad luckers"
So angsty and heavy!! I know they pivoted to the more radio-friendly version we all love after this album but I really appreciated hearing them go through the crucible of this record. It could have all crashed and burned, but I think you can already hear the potential for the sound they would go on to dominate, especially in the second half. A Strange Day feels like the perfect prequel to Friday I'm in Love. The album feels like it would have been appropriate to accompany a film like The Crow. Straight-up gothic. Not necessarily my taste but definitely the album I've enjoyed the most since I joined this journey with you all. 4
I absolutely love Little Richard. Since before I was old enough to stand up and support my own weight. An icon. There's no rock and roll, no Prince, no modern blues era without Little Richard, and luckily the album itself is as impactful and enjoyable in 2023 as the legacy of the man. The man has made songs as infantile as the Itsy Bitsy Spider into absolute toe tappers, and these are arguably his biggest hits. His "manic" energy is infectious and calculated. And unlike a lot of the albums I've heard so far, it sounded great even out of my shitty laptop speakers before I was able to connect it to my actual ones. A masterclass in doing your own thing in a way NO one else can. This made my Monday better. Album absolutely deserves to be on the list.
Knew next to nothing about the middle Wilson other than that he had a tough time and he drowned before he hit 40. I dig the edgier, horn-heavy sound, mixing in the softness of Brian with stuff that reminded me of Elton John and Ry Cooder at times even. I don't know that any of these songs particularly stand out but its listenable and enjoyable and different from my expectations for a Beach Boy. Appreciated the exposure, though I'm finding this list overall is pretty subjective to a particular guy's kind of taste haha. Would love to see more diversity to justify these being albums we need to hear before we kick the bucket. This is really a 3.5 for me in terms of impact, but I'll go 4.
Sorely tempted to make a snide comment hinting at James's Little Richard review and say "all these songs sound the same" (which made me laugh out loud cuz it's not WRONG) but it equally misses the point with the Adverts! Cuz just like Little Richard, these songs are a quintessential example of their genre, which happens to also feature 4-on-the-floor relentless shouting energy that sound great in shitty speakers and rarely surpass the 3-minute mark - 25 songs but just over an hr (I stopped after the original 13 due to time constraints). Interestingly I definitely hear some parallels to something Bowie leans into later (think On the Roof here in 78 vs the lyrical phrasing in Modern Love off Let's Dance in 83). Enjoyed it more than I expected to being an extremely casual fan of Punk music. 4
Gahh the hardest thing for me to be succinct about is reviewing a true middle-of-the-road pick. As much as I appreciate finally getting an album featuring a woman at the forefront the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have never really connected with me. It fits into that category with Audioslave and alt contemporaries of this era where I don't see any faults, per se, but it just doesn't really elicit much of an emotional response for me. The album has a lot of 4-chord, driving straight eighths under meandering/syncopated vocals and it doesn't feel as deliberately thoughtful of a choice for example as in the adverts punk context. The simplicity is definitely accessible but I don't know that I buy the "greater than the sum of its parts" argument for this one. Maybe this is just a product of the genres I grew up on and gravitate towards than criticism, but yeah this is DIRECTLY in the middle for me. If I hadn't been exposed to Heads Will Roll 5000 times since 2009 would I like it as much? I'm not sure. It still doesn't elevate it above 3 for me. I will add however that I didn't notice til halfway through I accidentally had the album on shuffle and I acknowledge that sequencing can be pretty important to the listening experience and so I may be missing the "je ne sais quoi" of It's Blitz. HOT TAKE If this were an EP of just Dull Life, Heads Will Roll and Hysteric I think it would be just as, if not more effective. Odd that it didn't end with Skeletons?!
Getting a lot of the last studio album of an artist who died tragically early lately. I had never given Figure 8 a proper listen til today. The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel and Elvis Costello/Marshall Crenshaw influences are really apparent here. Loved the strings throughout, which I dont know that Ive noticed on earlier albums? I feel like the Shins took Smith's sound and ran with it. Man knows how to make chord changes stir distinctive and different emotions, the melancholy indie darling. Perfect record for a road trip. Can't think of anything that takes away from it. 5
Was so engrossed I didnt take notes. Love GSH - weird that this album isn't on Spotify anymore. Did Kendrick sample one of these tracks?
Ooooh one of the Berlin triptych, honestly Eno never really does it for me but this collab is a worthwhile listen. Bowie is one of the few artists I've gotten since joining so far whose entire discography I've listened to previously, so I feel a bit more confident evaluating it. Not my absolute favorite album of his but I CAN appreciate why its included in the list, and I appreciate that he knows not to make the songs overstay their welcome. Listening to these three records and Black Star as it came out while walking around Berlin in 2013 is a treasured memory for me. Low is def my fave of this era. Sound and Vision is obviously the stand out but Be My Wife is great and I find especially the second half of the record gets better the more exposure you have with it. 4
If there is one famous MTV unplugged it's this one, which is ironic considering they are technically plugged in. Technically we get Bowie two days in a row so I'm thrilled. Hard to think of a reason why this shouldn't be on this list. Hard to also think of something to say about this that hasn't already been said. I've only ever watched the Nirvana performance before, not listened to it solely as an album, so that was cool. Hearing Kurt's easy banter all these years later is def a bit heart-wrenching, clearly such a self-effacing down-to-earth charismatic person. Crazy to think that besides the covers, their own songs they chose to play were lesser known at the time. This band and this performance have such a legacy. I mean even that Batman movie last year used the hell out of Something in the Way. 5
God this takes me back immediately to freshman year of high school, which may be upsetting to our 2 resident dad reviewers - Borat had just come out and Justice came out of nowhere. Dunno what it is about electric funk/dance but its biggest records are always produced by duos, invariably European, and tend to not have follow ups of the same magnitude for YEARS if at all (thinking Daft Punk and the short lived duo Oliver). D.A.N.C.E was inescapable and is still really fun today but I think this whole album is sequenced really well and maintains an interesting variety of textures - which makes sense coming out of DJ culture. It's one unimpeachable set. I'm definitely biased because Funk/Dance/Disco is one of my favorite genres (My parents fed me a steady diet of Tower Power, Earth Wind and Fire, MJ, Isley Brothers, Brothers Johnson and loads of disco greatest hits compilations) and exposure to records like this led to one of my current faves Flamingosis who chops and screws samples in a similar spirit. But yeah its really hard for me to find anything to be critical here. This week really satisfied!
I love Al Green but the title track is pulling a lot of the weight. It's GREAT stuff but doesn't quite hit 5 stars for me.
I didn't really give Rush a fair shake until the movie I Love You, Man and I am not ashamed to admit that. They are fun! Not SUPER my taste but there's lots to appreciate. Neil was insane, Geddy is utterly unique.
Love ray, no one like him. Dunno that we needed two disks
Nobody does it better
Had never heard these guys. The close harmonies are rock solid and the melodies are pretty classic gospel-roots Appalachia/trad country and I understand they're pioneers of a sort. A bit repetitive to my ear in 2023, not sure how much relevancy/staying power the album has almost 7 decades later outside of the legacy of canonizing this style of music, but it made the tedious tasks I had to do today a bit more bearable. 3 feels too low and 4 too high for my subjective experience of it.
This one is a hard one to figure out how much I appreciate. Is there any song that exemplifies cliche better than wonderwall? The songs themselves are good, but its hard to not feel like a bit of a tool blasting the hit singles off the record through speakers in 2023 - it just naturally invites judgement. I think whats tough is that for people my age, these songs were already overplayed by the time we learned to read. I didn't have a chance to be wowed by their impact. To me the legacy of the album has fully overshadowed the record itself on its own merit, which is a shame!
I had never heard them before so that was cool! Didn't really make a big impression on me one way or another though, and to me that's a bigger sin than being bad. These are albums to hear before I die and this felt forgettable - would much rather have had a Little Feat album if I were to choose a record from this genre and era, even better would have been something from an underrepresented category.
I mean its an unimpeachable record. The songs that aren't massive hits are so short you can't tire of them before they're over. 5 easy
This was a total blindspot for me and I really enjoyed learning about Burning Spear (and the attempted whitewashing of this album). I wish this entire list was made up of stuff like this. I love that he lyrically pulls no punches, some great guitar riffs, the Black Disciples are tight as hell as the backing band. I'll def be coming back to this.
To Marty's chagrin I've never been a huge deadhead but I do appreciate them! That being said I feel like a different live album would have been better suited for this list. Nothing to dislike, just nothing exactly blew me away? Eminently listenable just not as memorable as others I've heard from them!
While I would have preferred or expected originals, I can't exactly be mad! Willie is great and these are great arrangements of classics perfectly adapted to his sensibility.
The who is really hit or miss for me!! And besides Pinball Wizard this rock opera feels more self indulgent than interesting to me. Controversial but I'm more with James here.
Enjoyed this WAY more than I expected to?
Like a surprising number of us, I'm not a huge Iggy Pop fan but this had more appeal than I expected. I was not even bothered by the 10 min long song. Maybe its cuz I decided to listen when I was already pretty worn out and it was mellow in a way that felt sympatico? Idk if any of you know the Aussie band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard but they definitely take a lot of inspiration from this Stooges album
No notes
Grew up on this album. I know it intimately. Yes that song is about Dave Coulier. Yall can dock it a point all you want but its a 5 from yer boi.
I admittedly could have given the lyrics a closer listen but I don't feel too embarrassed I hadn't heard of him prior to today. He's like if the Silver Jews and the National (I know, I know, they came after) had a step child. I think he's drawing a bit of inspiration from Astral Weeks (the strings and general arrangements, the pastoral imagery and overexposed treatment of the album art, some chord progressions) but it doesn't have the emotional weight for me. It's pleasant enough but I think I likely wouldn't have kept listening if I stumbled upon it on my own. I don't mind his voice as much as Marty but I also don't find anything crazy memorable here. I appreciated getting a different texture on "My Friend" but I dont know if that lifts it to a 4. Invocation was a HARD listen. I dont see what the dissonance added. Ended well enough though
This was pretty cool! Definitely hadn't heard of them but brit art rock can be fun. A couple of tracks I'd def revisit. I thought it started strong, ok middle, decent finish.
This is the kind of thing I had hoped this entire list would be like! This was great. Wish I spoke the language but the wiki was helpful context.
I appreciate Thom York and the gang but much like Beyoncé it isn't ever really something I choose to put on when left to my own devices. Would give it a 4.5 if I could! Hard to think of critiques or praise of this album that hasn't already been said ad nauseum. It's probably a reverse recency bias but I found myself appreciating the back half of this album more this time around
Are the Police a reggae band? This album says yes. Everyone knows the title track and it slaps but everything about it's been said. I think the real star of this album, for me on this listen through, is Copeland's drumming, it really elevates my connection with the material. Can you honestly say It's Alright For You is an interesting song without the momentum he injects? And for the rest of the album, where the songs stand on firmer shoulders, it adds an extra element. On deathwish its so locked in with the guitar it feels like one instrument.
Oh baby I grew up on this album so that's gonna bias me, my parents generously gave me their vinyl after I moved out. Its just excellent. The title track was the first song that got me to appreciate long songs in general (I was truly just out of toddlerdom, and it gets to the good stuff immediately and then just keeps going) but the whole record is what defined my general sensibility when it comes to both funk and jazz. It's one of the reasons I took up trumpet. A former coworker of mine who mostly just listens to Radiohead says he cant stand jazz funk and I truly don't understand him as a person. That's the kind of derangement that happens if all you've ever heard are Joe Sample's imitators and not the real thing. Besides the OG Trio I also need to shoutout David T Walker on guitar, who has gotten some overdue recognition from my generation thanks to Vulfpeck. Randy's vocal is insane. I love that they started with Street Life instead of ending with it. Give the people what they came for and them wow them on your own merit. Kind of insane also they started playing with each other in the 50s as literal teens and they didn't achieve commercial success until this album, 30 years and as many record later. A jazz record at 18 on the pop charts? This is definitely the one to pick for this endeavor. If I have to be critical I would say Night Faces is a bit sleepier but it's also the last track and what an easy feeling send off. I'm so pleasantly surprised to see it here. Next time you're driving at night throw this on and tell me you don't feel like a million bucks.
The only weak point of this album for me is Eight Line Poem. Changes, Oh! You Pretty Things, Life on Mars, Warhol, Dylan and Queen Bitch have all been covered so extensively that from a legacy standpoint I'm not surprised to see this album make it, given the other albums we've seen. Hunky Dory is his first absolute hit parade of an record, being preceded only by Space Oddity and the Man Who Sold the World, which don't do much for me outside of their title tracks. This is where the magic sauce starts. It's no Ziggy or Let's Dance but it's his first truly accessible pop album that just feels good to listen to. At this point I'm throwing out the rule book on what "deserves" to be on this list or not and just ranking based on my personal degree of joy in experiencing what the list has for us on a daily basis. And on that level this is another fully satisfactory experience.
This is a wild choice out of all the amazing Beatles records to pick their 2nd that's still almost half covers, before they found their unique voice and call it a necessary listen. Come on Robert Dimery, you call this editing?! If any later albums are MISSING and this is included the guy is deranged. It's like 1 of 3 that I'd argue are skippable for your average casual listener. I would argue most are gonna be underwhelmed by anything before Help!, but even BFS has gems and Hard Day's Night has the iconic film. I've been in a stressed out headspace and I'm a Paul over John guy so that's gonna affect things but this would have felt like a chore today if the songs weren't so short, which was disappointing to realize. Like eating lettuce out of the bag instead of a fully dressed salad, I found myself wishing I could at least 'follow the sun' but stuck in 63 we are - not yet at the "much more than the sum of their parts" stage of the fab 4. But it's still the Beatles and Paul's vocal on Til There Was You is really lovely.
The tricky thing about edge-lord style satire is that if it goes over your head, you may take away exactly the wrong lessons from it. While it's clear from the very beginning with disclaimers like public service announcement that Marshall was self aware enough to understand this risk (in later albums he turns the premise on its head and doubles down), unfortunately a certain type of suburban white appropriative douchebaggery was inevitably birthed out of the success of the Slim Shady LP. The vessel of toxic masculinity becomes heralded earnestly instead of exposed, like American Psycho and Fight Club before it, and so many after. Granted there are other elements that don't hold up outside of this, but I don't hold him uniquely culpable for the moments I winced listening. Now to the positives - on the whole I really respect just how deliberately this record was made in order to create a world of its own... the man knows how to Emcee. It feels more like a radio play than an album - it's borderline histrionic, with characters sharply defined, centered around a deeply compelling, if often violent and pyschosexual story - a formula he would refine and repeat to great success across many subsequent albums. The gritty loops undergird the atmosphere of terror and paranoia he wants to elicit - it's like a nightmare you can't (and don't quite want to) look away from, and his passion really comes through. He's acutely aware of how he will be received and executes his vision so so clearly from a production and lyrical standpoint and that's commendable. At the same time, I think it's completely fair and in fact more interesting to rate these records based on how much they resonate with with us as individuals vs an attempt at impartiality, and for me the second half of the album starts to blur together. I think it would have been stronger with fewer tracks!