Fascinating use of percussion to fill in the soundscape. The whole album feels satirical and fun, yet serious and brooding at times. Reeds voice sounds tired, but very unique and fits the style well.
Lyrical content is interesting. I had a hard time deciphering if Reed was being satirical most of the time. Really a work of art.
There's something about the repetition of Reggae that I've always had a hard time getting on board with.
The first 2 songs on this album are very well mixed, but it is interesting how deep and loud the bass is. It's not overwhelming but it is loud. There are certainly a lot of early hip-hop influences I hear.
The 3rd song kicks ass. This would be a great song to learn on bass, very technical.
Marley's vocal performance on the 4th song is great. The mixing is a bit more Inconsistent, especially noticed it in the guitars and bass. It fills the soundscape well, but my ears have a hard time deciding which guitar they wanted to listen to.
Is Reggae meant to be session music? I don't know much about Reggae to be honest, but a lot of the mixes on this album feel like they could carry on forever. None of these songs truly feel like they end, as they bleed into one another. It may be because every song starts and ends similarly: a hand drum fill into an introduction of the rhythm section, and a slow volume fade into silence to wrap it up.
Midnight Ravers has some interesting lead vocal saturation on Marley that compliments his voice so well, while allowing it to punch through the mix at you.
I listened to the original 1975 recordings and then the 2011 remastered. Initial thoughts:
- there's less noise and more clarity in the 2011 remaster. Is that a good thing? At what point does the noise stop being a characteristic of the original sound and is something to be removed?
Anyways, I really enjoyed the sound selections and Gilmour's guitar performance is second to none.
I do love Count Basie's music and I have personally performed After Supper and Splanky with the trombone in a big band setting.
The opener is short and sweet, but explosive and grabs your attention right away. The order of the album is something that I don't think enough people think about these days, and this album does it so very well.
Production-wise, it's clearly the 50s. Everything is in mono, but it is EQ'd very well. At times the horns get abrasive and the compressor activates against the wall of sound and the whole thing just sounds like mush. None of this takes away from the quality of the music itself of course, since it's so well performed.
The nylon stringed guitar on Lil' Darling was an interesting sound to add to break up the monotony. It feels almost out of place since the timbre is so much different from what we had been listening to.
Overall, I dig Count Basie's sound and found myself getting lost during sections of it. A great listening experience.
I do sense the artistry and it is well performed but I dislike this album. Everything is so washed out with reverb it sounds like mush to me.
While I was listening to it I had an itch to listen to Elton John for some reason.
From what I had time to listen to (busy week) I really enjoyed. I grabbed a guitar and started playing along and before I knew it I was writing again. Inspiring stuff. Repetitive, but I found myself really engaging with it.
I had a super hard time finding the album for some reason? I got to listen to the tune with the album title though and I did like it a lot.
Tons of early hip-hop and EDM influences I hear. The production is okay though compared to some other albums from the time period it doesn't compete for the best. Inspiring stuff.
I had a pretty hard time getting into this album until Sweet Life and it suddenly clicked. I fell in love with this project and Pyramids was an exceptionally strong track to me despite the length of it.
The Mix: 5/5
The mix sounds fluffy and warm, which makes for a very unique listening experience for this genre. The guitar tones are some of the best I've heard and I can only dream of getting such a sound out of mine.
Songwriting: 4/5
Love me some good riffs. This album had a cool blend of classic rock and grunge with a touch of metal. The only reason I rate this 4 is because I wasn't super into all of the lyrics.
Performance: 4/5
I don't love Vedder's voice, though I recognize that's mostly because I don't like the style of his singing opposed to disliking the delivery of his performances. It does fit the style, but he can sound grating at times, and some of the way he shapes his vowels can come across forced. It's certainly unique, I'll give him that though.
The guitar work was something special. Gossard and McCready's playing is incredible but more importantly they are incredible together. Their energy matches perfectly.
What's not to love about Joan Baez? Her heartfelt, soulful style and incredible voice and guitar performance on this album really put you in the booth with her. She has a very organic sound and makes me nostalgic for a time I never lived.
Production wise, obviously it's the 60s. There's like this weird panning thing going on with the mix throughout and I highly doubt it's intentional. If it is, it certainly is interesting..
This album rocks my socks.
Lyrics are fun, voice fits the style. Poorly mixed at times, but it never gets too bad
It's like if Sting and Dave Matthew's band had a 1st cousin
I like their sound but some of the songs on this album felt a little uninspired. I found myself cringing at some of their lyrics too at times.
The production is awesome, there's no denying that. Very creative and original. It's also a very long LP and it gets repetitive after awhile. Overall, not bad. It had some bangers like Sinister Kid and Howlin' for You but some of the tracks just sucked imo
Damn, Girlie-Pop has come a long way. It's a well crafted album, but I honestly cannot stand Madonna's voice. Her lack of breath control just makes for some really weak moments that almost made me turn it off.
I'm also not a huge fan of the lyrics. Part of that may be I don't find them particularly relatable, but they're still ridiculously on the nose and made me physically cringe sometimes.
I really enjoyed Till Death Do Us Part and the bowed string work of Dear Jessie. The last track was awesome and I wish the rest of the album had followed a similar attitude. The rest of it felt like Abba had a bit too much pot.
I might be a hater, but this album was not fun to sit through.
