The Nightfly
Donald FagenThis album gave me both diabetes and high blood pressure.
This album gave me both diabetes and high blood pressure.
It's Sabbath, and I'm a metal head. Having said that, it's not a brilliant album, and you can tell its the birth of metal as a genre. There are some excellent tracks, but it could use some refinement. It us still a good album, just not one of the very best.
This is perfectly pleasant, if not very exciting, and does feel like an incredibly long 36 minutes. Having said that it is certainly not worth stabbing myself twice in the chest over.
Frank Sinatra really can sing. I wish he fucking wouldn't, though. Boring bollocks.
This album gave me both diabetes and high blood pressure.
The musical equivalent of the word 'meh'.
This album would be so much better if they just turned the overdrive down a but, but then I guess it wouldn't be a Jesus and Mary Chain album. It's OK.
I was torn between 2 and 3 stars on this, but thinking about it there isn't really a bad track on the album, just that all the tracks are very, very samey. It really doesn't need to be an hour long, either.
I don't know if this is a bad album or not, it just bored me too much to decide.
I was not expecting much from this album, but boy was I wrong. If you like the gentle semi-psychedlic pop of the late '60s then this could be just right for you. I loved it.
I wanted to hate this album because, well, Clapton, but it's actually really good. Yes there's filler, and yes it does go on a bit, but there's enough here to really enjoy. Still, what's the difference between a toddler and a bag of coke? Clapton wouldn't let a bag of coke fall out of a window.
Wow. This was dreadful. Imagine Ross from Friends playing the music Mario puts on when he's railing Princess Peach and you won't be far off. As for the bestbthing on the album, I'm torn between the cover, and the bit where they make cat noises (which happens more often than you could ever expect).
So. Many. Memories. This album was huge in the UK when I was at university, and I connect so many good memories with these songs. It's not perfect by any stretch, but for me it's pretty close.
Reading other reviews of this I was expecting this to be terrible, but it wasn't. It's not good, not by a long stretch, but its perfectly pleasant bland boring background music - but that doesn't make this an album I either want to ever hear again, or indeed deserving of its place on this list. It's like listening to clear broth when you wanted to hear mulligatawney.
OK, the songs are classics, and the singer is legendary, but fuck my hat is this album boring. The nature of this beast (and beast it is - three-plus hours for the full recording) is that there is very little brand new, and for me this just dragged. And dragged. And dragged. And dragged - and I only listened to the best of version of this.
This is what I'm doing this for. I knew of Talking Heads, but had never listened or been interested in listening to them, but now I've listened to this I have found a new favourite band. This is just a really great album, start to finish.
They say that, in jazz, the notes you don't play are the important ones. This is definitely true, as the bass player here elected not to play any notes that weren't a little bit sharp.
It's not awful, but it's not good, and like a lot of hip-hop records it is overly long (75 mins) and has the weird spoken word segments and skits between some tracks. I don't get it.
This is just such an unnecessary album. It's not terrible, hence why not 1 star, but it brings absolutely nothing interesting to the world - it just ... exists. Utterly, utterly bland and forgettable but performed and produced very well. It's like a paint-by-numbers painting of Munch's 'The Scream' - you know the painting is good, but you don't see the point of it having been made.
An utterly joyful album. Made me smile from start to finish.
This album would be improved out of all recognition if it was just Paper Planes eleven times. It would actually be less repetitive and boring, too. Rubbish.
I was a child in the 80s, growing up in the UK, and I remember the huge hype there was surrounding Adam and the Ants. I went into this expecting nostalgia, and lots of Burundi Beat. I was disappointed. Both in terms of nostalgia, and a surprising lack of what I, and probably most casual listeners, consider their signature sound. There's only a handful of tracks with the Burundi Beat, and that left me feeling really flat because I really like that. Still, it's not terrible, but I have no desire to listen to this again. 2 stars, but a high 2 stars.
I was in my early twenties when this came out. Bittersweet Symphony was everywhere, and the follow up singles were on heavy rotation also, but I had never listened to the album so was looking forward to this. To open up with the best known, and best, track on the album followed by another big single made me happy ... but then you start to hit the album tracks. And it doesn't start off too pretty.The Rolling People is, frankly, shit, and while they do improve they still aren't great. Ho-hum, three stars it is. And then you get One Day. My god, that is a jaw dropping track. Outstanding musically and lyrically, and really elevated the album for me as well as making the hair on my arms stand up, which is always a great sign for me. It doesn't get it up to five, but it rescued a strong four stars.
Not a brilliant album, but it is perfectly.good. Simple, straightforward tunes delivered with high energy- and if you don't like a particular song, don't worry there'll be another one along in two minutes.
This was unexpected. On paper I should hate this album - 21st century R&B really is not my bag at all and I was not looking forward to this, but it's actually OK. It's not something I'm likely to revisit, but it was perfectly listenable. Plus, the drum sound on the first few tracks is incredible.
For many years I have said I like old school hip hop. But then, having come across a good number of hip hop albums during this project and not liking any of them, I started thinking I was wrong, and actually I only liked a handful of tracks rather than the genre. This album vindicated my original thought. This is a good album. Catchy, political, angry, articulate, and simply enjoyable - I really enjoyed this. It's not quite 5 stars, but this is definitely going to end up in rotation for me.
This is not at all what I thought I was going to get from the Beach Boys - it's an album of songs that are trying too hard to be serious and political, but it comes across as the band being a bit out of its depth and all feels forced. It's very 'I'm 14 and this is deep'. It's not bad - it's OK, just bland and takes itself too seriously. The album cover is great, though.
It's Sabbath, and I'm a metal head. Having said that, it's not a brilliant album, and you can tell its the birth of metal as a genre. There are some excellent tracks, but it could use some refinement. It us still a good album, just not one of the very best.
This is by far the best rap album I've been presented with so far. I'm not a massive rap fan but it's clear to see that Biggie really had talent. Class, maybe not so much, but talent for sure. I enjoyed this album, and would not be upset to hear it again. I still don't get the skits, though.
This is lift music for people who think they are better than lift music. Boring, bland, beige album, although Ray of Light is an absolute cracker, and saves the album from being one star.
This was OK. I started off really enjoying it, it gave off some nice Sigur Ros and Flaming Lips-type vibes, but it all got very samey. Its nice enough.
This album disappears so far up its own arse that every time John Cale brushes his teeth he pokes himself in the eye. Venus in Furs and I'll Be Your Mirror are good, though.
What an obstinately, aggressively bland album.literally nothing stands out, and everything goes on for far too long. Dire.
This is a very variable record. Head over Heels and Everyone Wants ... are objectively good songs. Mothers Talk and Listen are not. I Believe sounds like a Sade version of Shipbuilding, The Working Hour has elements that remind me of Genesis' The Brazilian. Its on OK record, good in parts, but I'm not going to hurry back.
Not a good album, but, like so many, not awful. This Is The Day is packed full of accordions with bontempi organ backing and sounds like charmless zydeco. Also, the organ player wishes he was Ray Manzarek. He isn't. On the plus side, The Twilight Hour is quite good, and the last half of Giant is a blast. Still, it's just not engaging for me.
Fantastic album. Blues is a strange beast - it can be seen as formulaic, all twelve bar repeating rhythm figures and pentatonic scales, but it's so much about feel and emotion, and this album really captures it at its finest. Wonderful.
Texturally, this album is all over the place. There are tracks that have strong Beatles vibes - To Be Someone riffs off Taxman, for example - then there are some weird, angry almost punk stuff like Mr Clean. Also, Weller 'singing' "if I get the chance I'll fuck up your life "is the least threatening thing I've ever heard. Then you've got ballads like English Rose which is pretty, but nothing amazing. Overall its OK.
I'd never listened to a Country album before, and I enjoyed this. Good songs performed well, and Wille Nelson's voice is great. Definitely one to revisit.
A good album, but very pretentious. For every excellent Christmas there's an indulgent Underture, but on the whole it's a strong work. One thing though - where's the book, Pete?
This was a challenge. The first 6 minutes are just some weird soundscape, no real melody or anything, but if you treat it like an orchestra tuning up you can get through it, and it improves, marginally. The rest is ...fine (and I like prog), but I really wouldn't want to hear this again. It's over long, not interesting enough, and Robert Wyatt's voice, which works really well on Shipbuilding, does not really work here.
When I got this I didn't know what to expect. I knew of Heaven 17 and assumed they were just very lightweight synth pop. Then I looked at the score and reviews, and was kind of dreading it - 1 and 2 star reviews, average below 3 ... but its really not as bad as that. It's not great, but it's perfectly pleasant and more political than I expected, but I quite enjoyed it. Not enough to seek them out again, but if I had to hear it again I wouldn't be upset.
What a brilliant album. I'd never listened to any Zappa before, but I definitely will be now. Absolutely amazing from the first note.
A perfectly nice album, even if towards the end I started checking my watch a little.
It's Christmas songs, it's Christmas - it's OK. I have no desire to run across it again, but it passed the time while cooking the dinner
This is OK I guess - hard to tell, really, as it left absolutely no impression on me whatsoever
Nirvana are hugely important for modern music, but are also massively overrated in my opinion. I think they are good, but they aren't amazing - and this sums up this album too. It has some outstanding moments, notably The Man Who Sold The World and Where Did You Sleep last Night (neither are Nirvana songs, notably), but the three Meat Puppets songs, especially Plateau, are just completely forgettable.
It started badly and got worse. And why does it have to be so long. And so bland. And so samey. This is so safe and non-threatening that I suspect the 'Midemeanor' in her name probably relates to jaywalking or some such stupid shit. Rubbish At least it doesn't have the skits that so many rap and hip-hop albums have.
For a 35 minute album this feels like a very long listen. There is nothing bad here, in fact So In Love and Hard Times start off sounding really interesting. And that's the problem- tracks either start off sounding interesting, like So In Love, and just don't go anywhere with no progression or structural interest beyond the first few measures, or they start off sounding interesting, like Hard Times, and then are over really quickly. It's OK, but there is nothing that is fully satisfying. It feels like they have come up with a cool idea or riff and gone "right, lets keep doing this for 4 more minutes and call it done" - plus this album is solely responsible for the global wah-wah shortage of 1975.
I say this a lot on these reviews, but I'll say it again. This is OK. It's not amazing, and it's not bad. It's very OK. This came out when I was buying a lot of music and reading a lot of music magazines, and so I listened to this at the time - and it was OK then, too. Like so many other albums here I wouldn't be upset to listen to it again, and I'm also unlikely to seek it out for another listen. It's OK.
This is perfectly nice, easy folksy-poppy-pleasantness (as long as you ignore the incredibly inauthentic blues of Steamroller and the plain fucking weirdness of Sunny Skies. Oh, and you can get rid of Oh Susannah, too). Several times I thought "oh, Fire and Rain, I know this one" and it turned out to be a different song though, so read into that what you will. This is a nice, easy, unchallenging album to while away 30 minutes - it's very hard to hate, but also to love.
This is a completely uncomplicated rock album - verse / chorus / verse / chorus / solo / verse / chorus and on to the next track - but its very good at it. Yes, some of the lyrical content are crass or pretty objectionable, but this is Motorhead, and they play rock and roll.
I can imagine Patrick Bateman loving this album.
This may be a perfect album. Start to finish there is barely a misstep, if there are any at all. Phenomenal.
It's all very nice, but I half expected to find out I was in the concourse of a huge marble concourse of a top-tier hotel, or the middle of some video game like Journey or My Time At Portia. Can't fault it, but I doubt I'm going to rush back - but I could be wrong about that.
I have been disappointed with most of the rap and hip hop I've had so far - so many of them are over long, uninteresting, and plagued with those skits that I just don't get. This, however is different - its only 42 minutes, and is right, and clear, and the flow is great. My heart sank a little this morning when I saw another 21st century rap album pop up, but I enjoyed it.
I was 16 when grunge hit, and I still think that living through the 90s as a late teen / early twenty-something was a great time, possibly only beaten out by the mid-late 60s. I didn't catch on to Mudhoney at the time, but I knew of them, but listening to this really shows where grunge came from. So much of the energy, anger, garage-bandness clearly influenced much of that scene a few years later. This brings back memories of a good time, even if the music is (mostly) new to me.
“Does that mean it’s more whimsical? Is it any more whimsical?” “Well, it’s one more whimsical, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten...Where can you go from there? Where?” “Why don’t you make ten a little more whimsical? Make that the top number and make that a little whimsier?” “These go to eleven.” But I fucking loved it.
OK it's Queen, but it's early Queen, and there is a lot of growth to be done. Seven Seas of Rhye is an absolute banger though
It's a classic, just notcreally my thing. The voice is impeccable, and there are some great songs, but as a whole it's ... OK. I won't seek it out, but I also wouldn't turn it off.
This has that early 2000s slightly breathless, retro, twee feel - it kept reminding me of The Magic Numbers , or Corinne Bailey Rae. It does have some pretty dark lyrical imagery, but that is offset by the melodies and (over) production. It's perfectly nice, but I'm not sure it deserves a place on the list. Having said that, the falsetto on 'The Distance From Her To There' is really shit.
I really enjoyed this. Being a British child in the 80s I knew of the band, but had never heard anything that I remembered by them. This album though, from note one, was just really good. Really, really good. Monitor especially stood out for me, but it also showed the tendency that this album has that makes it 4 not 5 stars - that song could live with being a minute shorter, and it's not the only one. Voodoo Dolly especially did nothing for me, and it did it for over seven minutes. It's not enough for me to not like the album, but it's enough to knock it down a point. It's staying downloaded in my Spotify library, and that says a lot.
Genuinely thought the opening line was "You smell like a punchbag", which on continued listening may have improved things. Angryman sounds a bit like if Ian Brown had been asked to soundtrack a blaxploitation flick. I kept waiting for Zia to do what it clearly wanted to do and turn into Time by The Alan Parsons Project, but was left disappointed There's nothing wrong or bad about the album, but it's not groundbreaking, and I can't see it being influential. I fully expect at least one of these tracks to have been on Made In Chelsea. I can't really give it a 2, but it's a very, very low 3.
I like the White Stripes, and I REALLY like The Raconteurs, byr I'd never heard this album before. Needless to say, I liked it. There is no real standout track, but it's solid JackWhiteMusic from start to finish. Good album.
DUNH-DUNH Tss Tss Tss DUNH-DUNH Tss-tss-tss-tss-tss-tss DUNH-DUNH Pock-pock pock pock pa-pock pock DUNH-DUNH Pock-pock pock pock pa-pock pock DUNH-DUNH BAM-BA-RATTAT RAT-TAT-DIDDLY-DIDDLY-DIDDLY-DIDDLY And then the world changed.
"Please can you make it stop! They've been playing the same 7 notes for 10 minutes!" "I'm sorry son, that's just how it is." "Oh, thank god, they've stopped ... oh shit, no its just an exaggerated pause! They're doing it again! Even the singer wants to stop - he's screaming and screaming in agony!" "No, son - you've got it wrong again. That's just Ian Gillan." By the Christ do this bunch love the smell of their own farts, or what? Technique is incredible, and sound quality and production is great for a live album, but there's maybe 20 minutes of good album here. The thing is over two hours long. The fire at Montreux didn't go far enough.
ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK! You can imagine this album popping up as the soundtrack to a Dudley Moore film from the 80s, but holy hell it makes me want to move my feet.
There really is not much memorable about this album. It's very early-90s British music scene, but that shouldn't be a surprise. You can pick up elements of where they were going with little bits foreshadowing Country House popping up on Chemical World (which is really good), and other bits smelling of Tracey Jacks and other Parklife stuff. It's fine, if you can live with Damon Albarn having the cock-er-nee turned up to 11. Chemical World and Villa Rosie stand out.
When i was a kid my parents had a tape of a Stars On 45 Medley of Beatles songs, and that is where I know most of this album from. I'm not a huge early Beatles fan, but those memories are good, so it's OK. Also, Any Time At All has the same George Harrison guitar sound as Fish On The Sand from Cloud 9, which was the very first CD I ever owned. I was a precocious 11 year old.
'What the fuck is this ridiculous devil's haircut bullshit?!' 'Oh, mate - wait until you get the bit about having a cigarette on each arm and a carburetor tied to the moon. I must have been so fuckin' high when that came out of me!' This album is as 90s as tamagotchis, OJs tiny glove, and Mr Fucking Blobby (which is his legal first name).
This is all very nice and pleasant, but a bit more variety or texture would be nice. I wonder how much of the shine from Nick Drake's star is down to him being the tragic hero of the British Folk Revival (cf. your Buckley of choice, perhaps). There is nothing not to like about his stuff, but after a while it does get a little boring.
Woah. OK. This is an awful lot poppier than I expected, and that's not a bad thing. I grew up through the birth of grunge, and I knew who Bob Mould was but never listened to either Sugar or Husker Du. I think I missed out.
This cover of Jerry St Clair's 'Brimfull od Asha' isn't a patch on the original. More authentic than Kula Shaker. Not as good as Kula Shaker.
It's 60s torch song stuff, which is fine, if a bit dull - but Son of a Preacher Man is outstanding. The Windmills Of Your Mind, however, is an entirely unnecessary cover - the sort of subtle Bossa Nova inflection really doesn't bring anything and makes me want to hear the Noel Harrison version.
If the first or last track had been made by a bunch of public school boys from Hertfordshire it would be called overblown prog wankery. It's OK.
I thought my phone alarm was going off during Penetration. Wouldn't be the first time that happened, to be fair.
I'm unsure if he's singing or he's simply shagged out after a nine hour struggle with a particularly recalcitrant and pointy shit. It's also nice that he clarifies he doesn't want to fuck his mum. I'm sure she'll be glad to hear it.
"Tone, Tone mate - are you ever going to change these stupid place-holder lyrics? We're in the studio tomorrow!" "Ding dong deng deng dong."
I had Maggot Brain 4 days before this and didn't think much of it. This, though ... what an album. Stephen Hawking's medics should have had this on his rubbish laptop rather than the terrible synthetic and that little bugger would have been back on his feet in no time. To quote notable 90s androgynous croon-metallers Extreme, if you don't like what you see here, get the funk out.
I know A Tribe Called Quest are hugely respected and influential, but all I know of them is Can You Kick It. This falls into the two tropes of hip-hop albums I don't like, being overlong and having interstitial skits, but it does it with a charm that is hard to resist. It's not one of my favourites, but it's OK.
First thing to get out of the way - Neil Young's voice. I like Neil Young, but there is no denying that sometimes his voice sounds not unlike Richard Dreyfuss doing a Kermit impression, but most of the time it works. Second thing - Neil Young's principles meaning that his work is not available on Spotify, making me fuck around with YouTube and it's shitty ads. OK, beyond that this is a really good album. Some great stuff such as Southern Man, but also some less good, like Cripple Creek Ferry. The good hugely outweighs the leas good, and this is going to be one I keep coming back to. I do think Harvest is better, though.
This is perfectly pleasant, if not very exciting, and does feel like an incredibly long 36 minutes. Having said that it is certainly not worth stabbing myself twice in the chest over.
What the fuck is happening?
Attempting the Led Zeppelin approach to song writing, but without the charisma, chops, or outright bombast. Now, for some reason, I feel the urge to buy a Toyota. And some Tampax.
There's nothing wrong with this, but I don't feel I'm ever likely to listen to it again. It was ... OK.
Can someone wake me up when this is over, please?
The 70s produced some of the greatest music ever made. Todd Rundgren was there, too.
Like most people I knew nothing of Dexys Midnight Runners beyond Geno, Jocky Wilson Said and its legendary Top of the Pops performance, and of course Eileen and her spunky adventures. This album is better than I expected, but the horn arrangements are so overpowering that a lot of the tracks are a bit samey, and Kevin Rowland's delivery is ... interesting.
Really, really good album. I'm biased because this was around during my late teens / early twenties but I never listened to the band at that time, and as such I don't really have any Rose tinted view of it - it's just a superb album. Also, I don't get people hating on Billy Corgan's voice when there are plenty of other things to dislike about him
It's nice to have politically angry albums that sound as chilled as this. Loved it.
I'm British, so Country is not a genre I'm familiar with or particularly understand. This is OK, it sounds nice enough, but I'm not remembering a single track, and I only listened to it 20 minutes ago. It's a low 3, but still a 3.
Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog after the War saved my marriage. No joke. My then girlfriend and I were on holiday and it had not been good. We were in bad mood all the time, and I had got to the point where I just didn't see the point in the relationship and was going to end it when we got home. And then one night neither of us could sleep, and we just sat there on the balcony in the middle of the French Alpine summer night, listening to our iPods, being with each other - and that song came on. I listened to it over and over, loving the story of two people deeply in love and living their own life as the world around them did its thing, and I realised that I could have that with the woman I was sitting next to, and that that was what I wanted. We've been married now for 11 years. Cars Are Cars is one of the shittest things I've ever heard though, and the fact that it is the next song on the album is a fucking insult. What's that you're saying Paul? Cars are the same all over the world, but people are different? Well, fuck me up the bum with a cat's paw but aren't we quite the philosopher! Idiot.
Music for boring porno flicks set in department store elevators.
The working title of this was apparently 'Music To Die Slowly In A Care Home To' but they decided to go with something less on the nose.
It's OK, but so much of this sounded like an intro waiting to become a song. I've never been blue-balled so hard before. Well, maybe once or twice ...
I can't deny the instrumentalism is great, and the production is top notch, but its just so repetitive, very of its time, repetitive, and repetitive. Not a high point.
I don't think there has ever been a case of white boys doing reggae that was anything other than at best a bit crap and at worst dreadful- D'yer Mak'er by Zeppelin, Jamaica Jerkoff by Elton John, the career of The Police for example. Credit, then, to The Vines for giving us Factory. Sorry, not credit, that was a typo. It should have read 'Fuck The Vines for giving us Factory'. If you like Jet you'll think this lot are not quite as good as Jet.
... and the music keeps on playing on and on ... Doesn't it fucking just. Thos like being at an office party in a job you don't care about, and Cliff from accounts is on the wheels of steel.
There is nothing easy about easy listening...
I'm old, white, British, and middle class. This music is not meant for me.
I'm thinking that with Ms. Mitchell's professed admiration for German wine, she and Alan Partridge would get along famously.
I enjoyed this when it came out - I was a full on metalhead in the 90s, and Sepultura was about my limit. Listening today for the first time in probably 25-30 years, and it's OK. It's not as extreme as I remember, and it is a bit samey, but it's OK. I do prefer when they lay off the blast beats a bit and give the music some groove and space to breathe, but that's not really the nature of the genre here.
I have been on a run of albums I really have not rated (two-plus weeks of albums averaging low 2 stars, with only a couple of 3s in there). When this popped up I thought "oh for fuck's sake, more shit!" I've never been an EDM / house / techno fan, to the point that I don't even know if this is one of those genres, but it's what I imagine they are. And in a shocking twist, I actually quite enjoyed it! Yes, it's repetitive, and I don't really think it belongs on the list, but the hooks are pretty good, and the sound quality and production is crisp as anything. I genuinely may revisit this, and I really did not expect that this morning.
Years ago I went to V Festival. Standing waiting to get a beer I overheard the following conversation: "I've just seen Hard-Fi." "How was that?" "They did a cover of Seven Nation Army. They used a kazoo." "Fucking hell - what was that like?!" "What do you think?"
This is a completely fine album. Nice enough to pass 40 minutes with, nothing bad or unpleasant, but also nothing that really stands out. A high 3, but still a 3.
Frank Sinatra really can sing. I wish he fucking wouldn't, though. Boring bollocks.
The musical equivalent of the Steve Buscemi 'how do you do, fellow kids' meme.
The soundtrack to a million prosecco-fuelled tirades against low-quality men by women who know they deserve better. Obviously she can sing, but it's like playing Cotton-Eyed Joe on a Stradivarius - bollocks music on an extraordinary instrument.
It's quite hard to be objective with this album. The singles from this are so huge, and (certainly in the UK) so regularly played that they sort of interrupt the flow of the album. It is impossible to fault the production and performances, and most of the songwriting, too. Knowing the back story does make this a brutal album, and whilst Knowing Me, Knowing You probably takes the lead on being the most well known break-up song, but some of the lyrics in My Love, My Life are just heartbreaking.
This is exactly the kind of thing this project is for for me. I would never even have heard of this band let alone listened to the album if it wasn't for the project, and whilst it isn't the best I've listened to it was really enjoyable bluesy rock. A perfectly good way to pass 40 minutes, but maybe not one I'll rush back to.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! 4 stars.
Nothing to dislike, but nothing too mind-blowing. The opener is a classic, obviously, but the rest is unmemorable pleasant.
My heart sank when I saw this today, but it is way better than the reviews suggest. It in no way deserves to be on the list, but it's perfectly fine in a twee sixties pseudo folksy way. This album is better than anything by Steely Dan (except Dirty Work because that is a cracker), and loads of (American) people think they are great.
I like Tom Petty, with or without the Heartbreakers, I really do. I was lucky enough to see them live on one of the relatively few (I believe) UK tours they did (the Into The Great Wide Open tour I think it was called), and the music has some real high points. Having said that, there is also a lot of very humdrum, standard Southern rock / boogie rock / by-the-numbers rock on this album. Its nowhere near bad, but it's not amazing.
Jazz is shit.
I really don't know what to think of this album. It would be very easy for it to be the most pretentious wank-fest of a muso album, but it honestly doesn't feel like it - it feels like they couldn't give a shit if anyone listened to how fucking clever they are being, they are just super happy to have done it. I don't think I'll ever seek the album out as one to actively listen to, but I can absolutely see myself just passively zoning out in the woods with this on headphones.
Another rap album, let me just go over my list: Over long - check. Skits I just don't get - check. A bit of a grind to listen to - che... wait, no, this is OK actually. Rap is never going to be my thing but I can recognise really good rap, and for me this is it. I'm not going to seek it out, but it passed the (still overly long) time.
I didn't really know what to expect, but this was rather enjoyable. It really does seem that 60s psychedelic rock is entirely my jam.
Now, THIS is heavy metal. Sludgy, doom-laden, brutal riffing ... proper primordial stuff. Tony Iommi has probably the heaviest guitar sound ever recorded, and Bill Ward is such a powerhouse drummer. Really, really good. I could live without Changes and FX, though - they don't fuck the album enough for me to drop a star, though.
This may be an absolutely flawless album, start to finish. Start to finish this is absolutely spellbinding stuff - even the 'weakest' track (in my opinion), 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts', is still a brilliant story-telling song. I keep forgetting how good this album is, and then I'll rediscover it again and be transported.
Possibly the most 3-star album I've ever heard. It's rock music, it's fine, it's nothing spectacular. I quite like Foo Fighters - they are nice and easy to listen to, entertaining enough, but unlikely to make me sit up and go 'holy shit!'
Great album - some of the lyrical themes seem a little dated, maybe, and Young's voice is, clearly, an unusual instrument, but this is packed with quality start to finish.
Way better than I expected - nice, straightforward poppy melodies with some pretty interesting production choices and sounds. Enjoyed this.
I have never been a reggae fan, although that is mainly based on shitty white-boy cod-reggae like UB40 or The Fucking Police. I knew the Bob Marley standards and always found them to be OK if nothing more, so was looking forward to actually listening to one of the great reggae albums. Meh.
It's a Muse album, so you know what you are going to get - I like Muse, though, so I don't mind that their albums all sound the same. Knights of Cydonia is an absolute cracker.
I'm not much of a hip-hop fan, but of all the hip-hop that I'm not really a fan of, I'm most a fan of this sort of hip-hop. It's OK.
What a fantastic album. I knew of the Super Furries but had never listened to an album before. Error.
This is pretty good - dirty swamp rock (even if it is more than a bit inauthentic, but so are a lot of classic rock bands) that infects you with something other than malaria. Graveyard Train hangs around a bit too long, but Born On The Bayou (really, John?) And Penthouse Pauper are great.
Eeeehhhh - it's not bad, but it's not exciting. I can see how it might have been mind-blowing in 1957, but we've had Ziggy Stardust and 'So What' by Anti-Nowhere League since then. Maybe I'm a little jaded.
It's a perfectly good album, but it didn't set me on fire. There are some great songs, particularly The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore and You Said Something, but it's not one of my favourite albums. I'm borderline on whether it's a 3 or a 4 - it's really on the cusp for me.
Decent hip-hop is decent. This is one of the very few hip-hop albums I had heard before, and it's pretty good. It's never going to be my music of choice, but it's totally listenable to.
As far as debuts go, this is one of the very, very best. King Monkey and his court absolutely killing it, start to finish. As a bonus, the Spotify version linked here also has Fool's Gold tacked on the end, which is epic.
This may be the most American thing I have ever heard.