this one gets a lot of hype and to be honest, i agree with the hype. just a well made album overall, great melodies, a fun somewhat aggressive take on the britpop sound. i'd never listened to this one in full but knew a lot of the songs and i can say i will definitely come back to this one in the future.
a fun little new wave album. it gets a bit unabashedly horny at times (i'm looking at you 'sex dwarf') but honestly from the title, i don't know how you couldn't expect it. the production is very dated but in a charming way? like it's very silly and of the era, but i found it fun. the big song off here ('tainted love') is clearly the highlight, but there are other fun tracks here. i thought 'chips on my shoulder' was a fun little romp. but yeah, outside of the hit, nothing particularly mind-blowing here, but still fun.
yeah this was pretty great. i'm not a big rap guy but there were several songs on here i already knew before this. the quality of the rapping and the beats/production were great. the skits were kind of corny - we don't have to talk about the restaurant one... but otherwise OK. overall, I really enjoyed my time with this album!
man there is a part of me that really genuinely likes arcade fire's music. has it become super cliche of this era of indie music? yeah probably. is it insufferably pretentious? yeah probably. idk there's something about it that just draws me to it. but then also, win butler is an asshole. and fuck win butler.
I had never listened to Leonard Cohen until previously on this journey, I received "You Want It Darker," an album that I don't think should have been my first foray into Cohen's work. Now this, this is the exact kind of album I think should have been my first foray. I have listened to a lot of Leonard Cohen's contemporaries and loved them, and this definitely feels along the same lines as a work of Bob Dylan or Paul Simon. The album feels so familiar, and I was not surprised to find it was produced by John Simon, who had a hand in Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends" which I adore, and think feels pretty similar to this album in some respects. He also produced many albums by The Band, so now it's all starting to come full circle. This album is soft, pensive, dark. Something that maybe does not feel monumental in a contemporary sense, but at the time definitely had to have been. This is an album I think I will come back to, something about it feels so familiar and lovely and I would love to get lost in it again.
what can I say, this is one of my favorite albums of all time. foundational. this was an album i fell in love with in college when i was feeling particularly sad and lonely and it really hit the spot. nowadays, i find a lot of comfort in this album. it's been through the bad and good times with me. this album was also one of my gateways to joni, laura nyro, james taylor, and by extension, gordon lightfoot, jim croce, and 70s singer-songwriters as a whole, one of my musical happy places. plus, is there a better 3 track run to open an album? bonus points for cat. favorite songs: the whole thing
boy howdy i do not get this one. to be clear, i think the album is fine. even well made. i think the appeal of reggae is one i can appreciate as an outsider but it has never really been my thing, and perhaps unfairly, is something i just associate with that one guy in your college dorm who's got a hackeysack collection. i think this one is just too laid back for me. but i will still keep an open mind and hope that something in the genre clicks for me! favorite song(s): stir it up
even though pink floyd is adjacent to a lot of the "classic rock" music i got into in middle school, they are one band that i really have somehow avoided until now. my parents just weren't really into them, so i never got exposed and i think a lot of what they play on the radio was just so overplayed that i never really gave them a fair shot. despite that, for years i told myself and others that i didn't like them at all. well here is a shot at it for real this time. i actually did enjoy this album. i can't say i like it as much on the first listen as people seem to rave about it, but i can see myself enjoying it more with repeated listens. i think the quality of songs here are better than the typical radio fare that gets played. just interesting, progressive stuff. it's cool. even the title track, which used to bug me for it's overplay on radio really works well in the sequence of the album and i was able to listen to it with new ears and appreciate the sentiment of it more than i ever have before. fun stuff. favorite song(s): Shine On You Crazy Diamond (both) Have a Cigar Wish You Were Here
for an album from a member of a band i like that is an homage to an era of music i like, i really did not care much for this one. it was fine. nothing really stood out to me. it was not aggressive enough for me to like it as arctic monkeys-adjacent, and it didn't grip me enough as much of the music of the era it is an homage to does. really felt middle of the road for me, and not in a good way.
boy i don't think this should have been my introduction to leonard cohen. i'm not familiar enough with his music, so the whole "released while he was dying" thing does not really hit for me and personally, this was a bit of a slog. god i'm sorry this album is so boring for me. and boy i really can't get past his voice on this one. it feels like he's barely singing at all. look, i know, i know! i think it's just not for me.
this is a foundational album for me. although i love all the beatles' music like my children, i am going to get a little real here. the draw of the beatles is their songwriting and their innovative production - so from that standpoint, this album is one of the lesser beatles albums. it is before they hit their creative stride, and almost half of the album being covers does not really help. the covers are not even bad covers, they're just covers and i don't think anyone really listens to the beatles FOR the covers. but this album is really of it's time, that's just how it was done. that all said, i do still really love this album
my first experience with a prince album in its entirety, and to be honest, i am really digging this one. fun and funky and you can tell that he was functioning on a different plane with this one. just very creative and interesting and I feel like this album holds up incredibly well, despite it being 35 years old at this point. favorite track(s): housequake the ballad of dorothy parker starfish and coffee if i was your girlfriend i could never take the place of your man adore
an fun album for sure. a handful of these tracks are iconic for good reason. that being said, outside of that handful, there's not a lot that i feel is incredible. not bad! just not the upper echelon. obviously a lot of the production of this album sounds like raising hell from run-dmc, and i find myself mentally making that comparison, and i feel like i appreciate run-dmc's flow better. idk there's just something about the party boy rap style that i just can't get past. also boy there are a few references that do not hold up in a modern context and feel pretty immature. still i thought it was a fun listen! favorite song(s): rhymin and stealin girls fight for your right slow and low
not the biggest fan of this one. not really the target audience for this album, and that's ok. none of the songs really resonated with me all that much and i found it hard to connect with. part of the problem i had was the production, which wasn't bad, but is a lot more clean and shinier than i prefer. overall, i thought it was alright, but really not for me.
yeah this is a good one. it just all really flows together to tell a narrative. i really enjoyed the quality of the songwriting (catchy hooks) and the style. listening to it really shows why it is a pillar of classic rock. this was the only bowie album i have ever listened to in full, so i am excited to explore more of his back catalog! favorite song(s): five years moonage daydream star hang on to yourself suffragette city rock n roll suicide
this is such a weird thing to say but this is an album that i love that i haven't really gotten that into. in my opinion, it's a great listen, one of the pinnacles of 00s indie, and yet i haven't really come back to it all that often. but it was an important album to me during my sad boy era. in particular, "jesus, etc." is one of my favorite songs of the last 20 or so years. it was nice to revisit this album, like seeing an old friend. favorite song(s): i am trying to break your heart war on war jesus, etc. i'm the man who loves you
pretty cool album. very chill, serene, and calming. not something i would ordinarily listen to but i am glad i did. this is the sort of thing i am participating in this project for, to be exposed to music i ordinarily am not. that being said, i don't necessarily think this one is going to be one i go back to often, but i can see myself listening to this in moments where i need a mental reset. as this was my real first exposure to hindustani classical music, i'm not sure how to properly rate it - I have listened to a lot of music that was inspired by this kind of music in western music, but not the real deal. so i'm not sure if this is considered an all-timer of the genre, but i think it was a great first listen to a genre i am woefully ill-exposed to.
this is an album i have heard of for years and have never dove into. i think a big part of it is the runtime, and boy howdy, yeah... this is a long one. obviously the concept is interesting, especially with the length involved, but i think due to this, the quality is a bit hit or miss. i mean, realistically, how could you write 69 incredible songs in such a time period for one project? but yeah the length of this one is what kills it and kills my interest.
this is an album i have never been able to really get into. i don't think it's awful but for some reason it has never clicked for me. i am a pretty big simon and garfunkel enjoyer and i really like paul simon's early solo output but i have never really gotten this one. the songs, to me, are not as good as on some of his other records and i really cannot get past the production and the, quite frankly, really corny world music schtick he employs on this one. i don't know who is going to paul simon as a source of world music. maybe it's peoples' gateway to it but to me it just comes off as pompous.
this was a real nothing album to me. I found this album to be boring and a bit of a slog. a lot of these songs felt like they were just background music with nothing particularly interesting going on. I was expecting maybe something to build or like this album to go somewhere but it really didn't. I don't even hate this kind of music, per se, I just think this felt so uninspired and had no oomph. sorry, can't say I am a fan. I can confidently say I will never listen to this one again.
i think if i had listened to this album around the time it came out, i would have been very into it. this was the kind of music i was into at the time, and i'm surprised i missed this one. where i stand now is i appreciate it, but it maybe did not hit as hard as it may have back then. i still enjoyed the sort of atmosphere-y approach to the heartland rock sound. maybe not my favorite as it stands now, but still a fun listen for me.
i found this one to be very enjoyable. definitely understand the hype and why it is so celebrated. very refreshing mix of r&b and hip hop with great production and smart lyrics. personally i could take or leave the classroom "skits" (although i get that it is part of the whole experience/artistic vision) but otherwise it was a great album that i enjoyed a lot.
my first bob marley experience left a little to be desired. but we are turning a new page with bob marley experience #2. not sure if i am in a better mood today or what, but i much preferred this album to my first listen, catch a fire. this album is a fun listen! it's got that classic reggae feel but feels a bit funky too, which is something i appreciate. feels a little more upbeat and less lethargic. I can see myself listening to this one again in the future, it feels more in line with what i like stylistically.
some really great, classic funk grooves here. to be honest, i feel like for a lot of people, this album might be boring, but this really just hits the spot for me. i knew cisco kid and the title track before listening to this album, so I kind of had an idea of what I was getting into, but the album cuts on this one really cemented it for me. just a good, groovy album.
admittedly i am a pretty big stevie wonder guy so this is not a new album to me. i went through a pretty big stevie phase in college, but i haven't actually listened to this one in full for a long time, so it was nice to revisit. prior to this listen, i think this one ranked, for me, as maybe his least out of his "classic" 4 album stretch from talking book to songs in the key of life - not saying this one is bad, but just what happens when you have a stretch of remarkably high quality music. but on this listen, out of context of that stretch, i actually enjoyed this album a lot more than i think i previously have. i do feel it is a bit more low-key than his other albums of this time period. that being said, i think beyond the two singles off the album, there is a lot of really great stuff, but i don't think it quite gets to the upper echelon of his output. still a really great album.
yeah, there's a reason why this is considered a classic. very consistent and interesting throughout, the musicianship on this album is terrific! very complex and coordinated things going on. i am a fan of this era's sound, and this is one of the more iconic bands, to me, in terms of sound. i was never much of a prog rock fan but have been more open to it recently, this is one that i will definitely listen to again.
this is a terrific, influential album. i love the balance it has between radio friendly hits and more "album cuts". the instrumentation is great and at the time, there was not a whole lot that sounded like it. just a great album through and through. i think a lot of the criticism of this album has to do with the One Song (you know, that ONE song) and you have to remember from a historical perspective, what was going on in the united states in this time period, that song was a pretty provocative political statement. and for that, i think it makes it an important historical "document"
this was a real mixed bag for me. i actually liked a lot of the songs and arrangements. the sort of sparse, alt-country vibe is something i really like and appreciate. that being said, i had a really hard time getting over the singer's voice. it was pretty grating and not enjoyable to listen to. i am not opposed to unconventional singing voices, but i felt like the effort in singing was so lackluster, it really took away from the album. so ultimately, i feel like this is a bit middle of the road for me.
this album is such a fun listen. such intricate arrangements, you can tell a lot of thought and love was put into the instrumentation. just a very chill, interesting adventure of an album
a perfectly pleasant album, but to me, ultimately, nothing really to write home about. it's a very good vibe album, very chill, but unfortunately just not incredibly interesting songwriting-wise or otherwise. i can't see myself listening to this one again, unless i am really in need of some chill-sounding background music, and even if so, i think there's other stuff i would prefer to listen to.
a nice, sparse, quiet, sad boy alt-country album. not bad, but not my favorite. a lot of really pleasant moments but nothing that stood out to me as being incredible. still a good listen, especially if you're in the right mood.
to me, this is THE van morrison album. i've listened to astral weeks before and i have never truly gotten it. but this album is a lot more enjoyable for me. the first side absolutely goes, the second side leaves a little bit to be desired. definitely a front loaded album. but still very enjoyable. the jazz influenced arrangements mixed with the laid back, acoustic feel of the album makes for a pleasant listen.
yeah, I didn't quite get this one. i'm not saying it was bad, just really not my cup of tea. the songs can be quite lengthy without much variance (but i guess that's the point). i just think you need some amount of club drug in your system to enjoy this one fully.
yeah this is a pretty great album. of course, the first two tracks are the standouts, but i think even the album cuts are pretty good. i think the quality declines a little bit towards the end of the album, but otherwise, just terrific stuff. he does late 70s paul mccartney better than late 70s paul mccartney!
i'm sure this is fine but this is really my first exposure to metallica in full, and i don't know if i appreciate the symphonic aspect of it considering i know that a lot of these songs just don't have it. so to me, it is, at the same time, unnecessary flourish because i know this isn't how the music usually is, but also the only way i've heard most of these songs. so i'm not really sure what to make of this, as someone who is unfamiliar with the source material. it was fine but really was just lost on me.
yeah this was a great listen, just super high quality beats and lyrics and flow. consistent throughout, never a dull moment on the album. just front to back really really good.
look, i gave this album an honest shot. i think really i just do not get the appeal of the "dying old man sings sad acoustic songs" album. the covers on this album are all steps down from other versions, whether original or other covers. they are mostly slow, quiet, boring. his voice is not great, but i gather that that is "the point". a lot of the covers, i actually wanted to laugh. some of these are absurd. danny boy? yeesh. for a guy who is so known for being cool, this album is the opposite. i honestly do not get why people love it so much. the entire time i listened to this album, i was just thinking, man, just go lie down or something. not for me. sorry!
this was a great album. terrific grooves and awesome feel. david bowie in his prime was just operating on a whole other level. i particularly loved 'golden years' which has an infectious, really interesting hook that has been in my head ever since. but lots of very cool moments on this one. this is an album i see myself revisiting in the future!
i'm sure there are a lot of important and interesting beatmaking ideas going on here, but i think if there are any, they are lost on me. the beats are nice enough but a whole album of them is a little much for my taste. to me, this works well as background music but not so much as active listening. and that's kinda what it feels like, an album of background music at some trendy clothing store or something. not bad but just doesn't interest me much.
elliott smith and i, i think, are cut from pretty similar cloth. a lot of his musical influences are things that i adore and so his music tends to be pretty compatible with me. i find that he was a great lyricist with a knack for a catchy melody, and overall sort of dour, sad boy type vibe. a bit lo-fi, which i always appreciate. an album that effortlessly balances the line between quiet and intimate & loud and intense. i think this is the sort of music that you have to have been a bit depressed to listen to and appreciate, and if you found elliott during those times, you have an affinity for his stuff. that goes for me as well. i've listened to some of his other stuff but never this album in full. i've been meaning to for a long time, but never got around to it and i am so glad i finally did. as i suspected, i really liked it. a great album to curl up and mope around to (and i mean that in the most positive sense) favorite tracks: ballad of big nothing between the bars say yes
a pretty good mid-00s indie rock album. despite it's relatively short length, there's not a lot of variation here. a lot of the songs sound the same and are sort of the same tempo and feel. it's not bad, but it doesn't make for a super compelling album. i had never listened to one of their albums before, so this was a new experience. i can't say that listening to this one is going to amount to me going out of my way for more, but it wasn't awful. it's in the realm of the music that i liked back then and still like, but it just doesn't fully click for me.
A pretty cool album dealing with the tumultuous history of Lynyrd Skynyrd. A good story put to some good tunes. I particularly liked the moments of reflection on the rest of the world's impression and stereotyping of the south, an issue that is quite nuanced and I think paints a good picture well with its example of George Wallace, even though I personally find it a little misplaced. All in all, a good listen, pretty interesting, and a cool rock opera, as the title of the album advertises.
I had never listened to Leonard Cohen until previously on this journey, I received "You Want It Darker," an album that I don't think should have been my first foray into Cohen's work. Now this, this is the exact kind of album I think should have been my first foray. I have listened to a lot of Leonard Cohen's contemporaries and loved them, and this definitely feels along the same lines as a work of Bob Dylan or Paul Simon. The album feels so familiar, and I was not surprised to find it was produced by John Simon, who had a hand in Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends" which I adore, and think feels pretty similar to this album in some respects. He also produced many albums by The Band, so now it's all starting to come full circle. This album is soft, pensive, dark. Something that maybe does not feel monumental in a contemporary sense, but at the time definitely had to have been. This is an album I think I will come back to, something about it feels so familiar and lovely and I would love to get lost in it again.
Admittedly, I am extremely biased about this album, as it already is one of my favorites of all time. I love the Byrds as a whole, but this album holds such a special place in history and in my musical journey. I think what is lost about this album on most people is the context of this album, a rock band (who had dabbled in country before) going full country, with one of early country rock's seminal figures, Gram Parsons, joining in and putting forward his most iconic song, Hickory Wind. Ultimately, is this the most mind blowing album now? Most likely not. In fact, I think at this point, I prefer Parsons' output with the Flying Burrito Brothers more. But it was very groundbreaking at the time, and is one of the most important albums of the genre. I mean, Gram Parsons, Roger McGuinn, and Chris Hillman? It doesn't get much better than that.
This was a fun listen! Obviously not an album that takes itself very seriously, but was still fun all the same. Kinda raucous, kinda dirty minded. But a fun romp throughout. In a weird way, it kind of reminded me of the New York Dolls and the Replacements, very similar energy. I'm not sure I feel like it is a particularly important or influential album, but still fun all the same.
this was a fun surprise! i had never heard of this band or album so didn't know what to expect. but i found a pretty fun punk record that i felt combined the sensibility of the clash with the hooks of the ramones. it didn't absolutely floor me, but was still a fun listen!
I am very familiar with the work of Led Zeppelin, they were my favorite band from middle school up through college. I think this is sort of the "cool" pick for peoples' favorite Led Zeppelin album, but it's not mine. It's still good, though. I appreciate it's more country/folk feel as compared to some of their other albums, but I still feel like the track listing ends up being a bit weighed down by "That's the Way" and "Hats off to (Roy) Harper". That being said, it is still a great album.
This album was a fun surprise! The songwriting was pretty good and sometimes reminded me of the storytelling of John Prine. Dwight's voice is very nice, you can see that he sort of became the blueprint of sorts for lots of modern country music. The production is VERY 1980s, and it shows. The duet with Buck Owens was nice, sort of bridging the gap between different eras of country music. That being said, nothing particularly mindblowing for me here, just a pretty alright album.
going to be honest, didn't move me. it was fine, but like i'm not sure, i just kind of assumed a ska album would be more fun? a lot of this is just sort of uninteresting Walter Wanderley-esque lounge music mixed with ska and, although undoubtedly something different, does not make for a particularly interesting album in my estimation. once again, it wasn't bad, it just kinda did nothing for me.
I guess I am going to add this to the list of "acclaimed records that everyone seems to love that I really do not get" the songs were fine, albeit a bit boring. you can see how influential this album really is, because so much music after it lifts sounds and feel from this album. the singer's voice i did not find compelling and at times it felt like a bad jim morrison impression. i see people find his vocal delivery to be meaningful and i do not want to detract from that, but it just felt off in a bad way for me. sorry! not for me. i want to give this album another listen sometime because it is just so acclaimed that there has to be something i am missing. for now, i just sort of shrug, hoping it will click in the future.
yeah, this is it. to be honest, this album felt like one of the purest forms of music. all killer, no filler. just a bunch of dudes playing the blues in its purest form. a blast to listen to!
this one was a bit middle of the road for me. the production was clean and nice sounding, but overall i felt like the album just doesn't fit my vibe. i found it a bit dull. sort of reminded me of sitting in the waiting room of a therapist's office. not bad but definitely felt like background music to me. ultimately, it's not something i hated, but definitely something i would not ever seek out on my own.
so i am a bit biased on this one as i had discovered this album when i was in college and fell in love with it. it's not a "typical" 60s psych rock album but i would say it's adjacent - very similar to contemporaries such as jefferson airplane, the grateful dead, etc. i love every song on this album. the vibe is fun and the songwriting has hooks for days. just a very catchy counterculture album.
i was pleasantly surprised by this one! obviously i knew bitter sweet symphony before listening to this album, but didn't know what to expect from it. would it be mostly filler and the big track, or something more? well, i think it was something more. and perhaps every song on here is not as lofty as bitter sweet symphony, but it is a very fun of-the-era britpop album. I do feel like the first two-thirds of the album are very good and the last third really grinds the album to a halt, feeling very lethargic, and not in a great way. but overall, i liked this one, and am glad i gave it a listen!
obviously i know a lot of these songs from my years and years of listening to classic rock, but i can't say i was really a fan of zz top going into listening to this one. i was hoping that some of the album cuts would change my mind. unfortunately, that was not the case. this album is so same-y, i think if you listen to one song off of it, you've heard the whole album. the production is not my favorite and the songs are just really uninteresting. the kind of vibe you would expect some lame middle aged dude to really get into. i can get past the guitar tone but the underlying synth throughout the whole thing is so bad. but don't worry! on the second side, the seinfeld bass starts! god this album kinda sucks. i can't imagine the type of person this resonates with. sorry. not a fan.
yeah this album was pretty cool. i've never really listened to this sort of music but it was full of energy and this album was just balls to the wall nonstop. not to mention the musicianship is very good. very fun, very angsty, not generally my cup of tea, but definitely a fun listen.
yeah this is not an album for me. i'm sure this album was a very influential album but i think it's influential for a lot of musicians that i am not particularly fond of. i don't mind dissonance and noise, but just the way these songs are laid out just does not do it for me. there's something about the lyrics that i cannot take at face value, like they are so over the top and corny. look i am a sad boy through and through but my sad boy tendencies are not this angry. this is just eye rolling to me. this resonates with people? go take a walk or something. yeah, not my thing.
the way i would describe this album is finding organization in disorganized noise. unfortunately, my brain is very much not compatible with this. i... uh, had a bad time.
i really like this album. i would say this album is pretty abrasive, but i think it's also pretty fun to listen to. the problem i have with a lot of other abrasive albums is that i don't find them fun to listen to, but i appreciate sleater-kinney's approach to songwriting and the apparent meaning behind their songs. i love that their music does not cater to the typical notion that music made by women needs to be soft, elegant, pretty. their music can be harsh, noisy, aggressive, and that doesn't make it any less womanly. good stuff.
lol i mean, maybe i should have expected this from the album title and cover, but this album is so horny. like obnoxiously so. i like the beats and the samples and the flow is nice, but also like oh my god. from the first track, i was actually kind of expecting to be really into this one, even if it was a bit corny and sexually charged. i didn't mind it at first but starting at "Gutfest '89" which is the so cringey and obnoxious, that it really started bothering me a little. especially with the length of the album, i'm not sure how you rap about sex this much. there's only so much sampled "oohs" i can take.
i am a bit biased when it comes to this album, i like the white stripes a lot and loved this album when it came out. even though i think seven nation army has been played to death at this point, i think the whole album still sounds fresh and as good as i remember it did upon release.
i found this a fascinating listen. it's clearly something i would have not ever listened to, or even found out about. i could barely even find a copy of this album to listen to, but thanks to youtube, i was able to find it. i found myself really intrigued by the music. obviously a little challenging but reminds me a lot of other similarly european torch-music-esque stuff, like edith piaf. what i found most fascinating was taking the time to read about the composer of all the songs, hanns eisler, who was exiled from nazi germany to come to the united states, where he was once again facing persecution from HUAC. this music really put this into context for me. seems like a very fascinating person and wrote very interesting music. will i go out of my way to listen to this one again? probably not. am i happy to have listened to something that exposed me to something i ordinarily would not have with an interesting backstory? absolutely
this is an album that i have been meaning to listen to for years and just haven't gotten around to. based on what i've heard, i figured it would be right up my alley. and, yeah, it pretty much was. this felt like the jangle of REM or the Smiths meets the psychedelic pop of the Beatles or the Zombies. which, if you know me, sounds exactly like music i would enjoy. no surprises there. a fun one!
a pretty cool album. nick cave is a name i've heard for a while and never explored, so my intrigue was high. you can definitely see that this album was really ahead of its time in terms of production and sound. i liked the arrangements more than i cared for the lyrics, which at times felt clunky to me. but overall, i felt this was a good listen.
I'm not going to sit here and act like I am going to listen to this one all the time, but I had a fun time. kinda goofy, kinda cool. kinda camp, kinda serious. the instrumentation is really cool, but also there is literally a section where he starts calling out specific instruments and they start playing ("tubular bells" hey, that's the name of the album!). Overall, not something I can see myself going back to very often, if at all, but an enjoyable listen.
this album is pretty neat. it's got that classic 80s synthpop sound, but is very interestingly sparse sounding. and i don't think that detracts from the music, it gives it more of a pleasant, ethereal feeling. i particularly enjoyed the hooky synth lines and the sound of the singer's voice, i found it particularly calming. enjoyable!
yeah this one was not really my thing. the problem for me is that this album seems like it was made to be unpleasant sounding and i think that's the point. unfortunately for me, unpleasant to listen to is not something that i enjoy listening to. a lot of the music is dissonant. the vocals are a bit nonchalant, but also have a bit of a sneer. that's fine. it just doesn't resonate well with me. not my thing
this was a great album. obviously knew the two big songs off of this one already but didn't know the rest. I mean, it's not like it was out of left field, if you know what tom petty sounds like, then you know what tom petty sounds like. but I appreciate his style and his influences, so overall, I really enjoyed this one
yeah this was pretty great. i'm not a big rap guy but there were several songs on here i already knew before this. the quality of the rapping and the beats/production were great. the skits were kind of corny - we don't have to talk about the restaurant one... but otherwise OK. overall, I really enjoyed my time with this album!
ok i will admit up front that even though at the current place in time, i find eric clapton pretty morally reprehensible, particularly after the last handful of years, not to mention all of the questionable-at-best stuff he's done in his past. but i also was a HUGE cream fan in high school, so even though i dislike him, i do have a little bit of a soft spot for some of his music. that being said, this album is so blah. it starts off with a bang, with motherless children, as much of a facemelter as eric clapton has ever made, and then immediately gets sedated into the most mind numbing, boring, middle tempo bullshit you've ever heard, including two TERRIBLE non-blues covers - the most limp-dick cover of willie and the hand jive you will ever hear, and i shot the sheriff, which like, just listen to the original. don't go to eric clapton for reggae (to be fair, it is not even closest to the worst clapton reggae song i've ever heard - that award goes to his cover of knockin on heaven's door, which is abysmal). let it grow is the longest song on the album and it sounds like a carpenters song! lmfao. this album has no balls whatsoever keep in mind, this is his studio follow up to derek and the dominos! apparently this is his first album after kicking a heroin habit. i guess he also kicked making interesting music too. if you want to listen to good clapton, seek it elsewhere. this is not it.
i've been aware of system of a down but i've never sat down and listened to them. i didn't know what to really expect, but i came into this one pretty reserved because similar music doesn't really tend to be my thing. however, i was really into this one! fun and loud and aggressive and kinda goofy in the right way. never a dull moment, just a fun thrash throughout. i definitely feel like i could listen to more of them!
what can i say, this is a classic. by today's standards, it's a bit antiquated and dated, but in my estimation, this is one of the foundational building blocks of rap. and although i am not a huge fan of rick rubin's production in general, it is undeniable how dynamic his early rap productions were. these songs are bombastic and in your face, and that makes for a really fun listen.
the thing i really like about lou reed's music is that is just oozes cool and has a really biting sarcasm that adds to it. i think the production here is fairly plain, but i think that just amplifies his singing delivery and his lyrics. i knew the big song off of this one and a handful of the album tracks, but had never listened to this one in full. i really appreciated this album. i don't know how to describe it fully, but i feel like things lou reed touched just have this inherent coolness, and the combination of lou reed and david bowie just works so well and accentuates this.
what can i say, it's a stone cold classic. it's hard for me to give proper analysis and takes because i've listened to the beatles my whole life and i am extremely biased. but i love this album. lots o tambourine, lots o organ, some of the beatles' most underrated songs are on this. one of my favs!
a pretty serene album, but really in my estimation, nothing to really write home about. the instrumentation is nice, but nothing special. nico's vocals are an acquired taste and i don't mind them, i don't shy away from unique singing voices, but i just feel like her voice gives this album a monotonous feel that might have been manageable, except for the two 7+ minute long songs that did not need to be that long. don't get me wrong, there are some nice moments on this album - the fairest of seasons, these days, i'll keep it with mine - i just think there are better folk albums from the era that are more interesting. in my mind, the only reason this album is relevant at all is her connection to the velvet underground/andy warhol, because i don't think its merit is necessarily based on the quality of the album.
this album is another well travelled album for me. i think pretty much every song on this album is at least solid, i don't think there's a bad song of the bunch. it's still as fresh as i imagine it was when it came out. the famous songs are great, and i think the album cuts are also great. just a fun album from front to back.
a pretty fun, danceable album. i knew d.a.n.c.e. beforehand, but nothing else on the album, so i was hoping it would be along the same lines - and it was. was fun, not particularly mindblowing for me, but a fun time overall.
yeah i mean this was fine. pretty mid. not particularly mindblowing mid-00s indie. not bad, alright to listen to. not something i think is particularly interesting. it's actually so not particularly interesting that i am wondering why it's even on here to begin with. like i said, not awful, but i can't imagine anyone listening to this and thinking this is one of the top 1001 albums of all time.
based on their big song off this album, i always kind of thought that their style was kind of ironic, distilling the most over the top parts of 80s rock to it's most brash and flamboyant, much like their delivery on 'i believe in a thing called love' with big wailing guitars and soaring falsetto. in listening to the album, this came across less ironic, more like an actual, genuine tribute to this sound. it's a lot less goofy than i was anticipating, something i've always sort of felt about 'thing called love.' that's not necessarily a bad thing, just not what i was expecting. that being said, the big song is the best song on the album by a long shot, the rest are alright but really just come across in a 'get born - jet' kind of way, that early 00s retro fetishism sound. which, as i've said, is fine, but just purely fine in this instance.
before listening to this, i knew 'highway star' and obviously 'smoke on the water' - 'highway star' is as killer as ever, i think it's a very good song. but unfortunately, that's where it ends for me. the rest of the album did not do much for me. it's not bad, i just found it fairly uninteresting. i don't mind bluesy hard rock, but this was pretty formulaic to me, not much going on. the organ playing throughout the album, however, was great and fairly unique. but otherwise, i feel like there wasn't of much interest to this one.
not really sure why this album gets the hate it does. sure, on its face, it is pretty nonstandard, but it's not totally out there and the sounds on it are pleasant and i find the time signatures pleasant and engaging. overall, i found it a pretty alright listen. something i could see myself coming back to in the future. i think to appreciate this album, you need to be willing to be challenged (only just a little bit imo), and i found the challenge to be fairly fulfilling. not my favorite album of all time, but an interesting and fun listen for me.
yeah so i think this one isn't for me. i am not adverse to folk, or weird voices, in fact, a lot of the music i enjoy fits those categories. there's just something about the songwriting here that does nothing for me. mostly i don't think it's awful, but sometimes the songwriting made me make a (not good) face. just not for me, i think
i'm not normally an electronic music person but, yeah, this was pretty fun. i went into this feeling pretty cynical as most electronic albums i've run into so far have been really not my thing, but i was pleasantly surprised by this. engaging throughout and fun to listen to.
hey i gave it a shot. did not enjoy my time with this one. this really was not for me. just really the antithesis of music that i like to listen to. the growly noises, the vocals, the instrumentals. mr raggedy man, lmao seriously? i feel like half of this album's lyrics were literally just like "fuck you, you [slur]" there really is nothing for me here. sorry!
This album was alright, there was something about it that didn't quite move me. Not sure, maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it today. It was fine enough, good even, but some of the lyrics were kind of vulgar in a childish way - something that rubbed me the wrong way a little bit? Not sure. I'm not a prude, but I felt like it detracted from the music a bit. Still, all and all, an alright time to be had.
yeah this was pretty great. his flow is pretty unmatched and you can tell the amount of effort he puts into his craft, it really pays off. the production on this album was also great. dr. dre has still got it. overall, a very enjoyable listen. i can see why this album is so highly regarded.
i'm a bit biased, i am a huge motown fan, so yeah, i adore this album. it is really the first truly great motown album, its first and marvin's first politically conscious effort. so much of this album is still relevant today, more than 50 years later. and it has aged beautifully. the production sounds timeless, marvin gaye is, of course, one of the greatest singers AND songwriters of all time. the musicianship is incredible. just a great soul record, very jazzy at times. one of those albums that truly gives me goosebumps when i hear it. this is the stuff!!!
i am a huge beach boys fan, so of course, i was pleased to give this one a listen again, as it had been a while. pacific ocean blue is, in my opinion, one of the pinnacles of the beach boys, and is the climax of dennis wilson's rise to, undoubtedly, the best songwriter in the group. and what's more, it doesn't sound like a beach boys record, it sounds like its own thing, which is something I don't think any of the other beach boys really accomplished on their own. overall, i really love this album.
I adore this album. Of course, everyone knows the big one off of this, but I think the rest of it is excellent as well. The songwriting is top notch and catchy. The whole album, to me, is like the Beatles meets the Who, meets the Violent Femmes. Just a great time front to back.
Yeah this was pretty nice. Obviously a very talented rapper and had some cool beats and production. I know this is a really highly regarded album, but something about it didn't quite click with me all the way. I would like to revisit it again sometime and maybe it will click for me a bit more next time.
playstation 1 racing game music (derogatory) this album definitely hits a lot of problems i have with the electronic music i've experienced so far in this project. the really upbeat stuff is very repetitive. the "slow stuff" is very... nonchalant and subdued. like i feel like the music should be more energetic? and it's not downbeat, but it just feels like... a lethargic upbeat. if that makes sense. anyways, the ceiling here for me is "mid background music" and the floor is "really boring music played in the dressing room of the clothing store your mom dragged you to in middle school" - either way, i was quite uninterested by this.
hey look, you've got one of the greatest singers of all time singing some of the best songwriting of all time, arranged by one of the most iconic jazz arrangers of all time. this stuff hits. my only knock is that the entire album is... LONG. it is a COMMITMENT. but it's worth it. you're listening to the best of vocal jazz.
this is my first real experience listening to nick drake after i gave his album "pink moon" a listen about a decade ago, and felt pretty lukewarm about it. going into listening to this one, i was weary that i would have a similar experience, but i found myself pleasantly surprised by this one. the main difference to me is the addition of other instruments, which i think enhances his songwriting, and makes it a lot more interesting and listenable for me. cool, pleasantly subdued folk music. it's even jazzy and soulful at times. a really interest combination that works pretty well. this album reminds me a lot of fairport convention meets donovan (which like, fairport convention is obvious as several members contributed to this one). but yeah, overall, i found this one to be pretty enjoyable. i am (cautiously) looking forward to revisiting "pink moon"
my second beastie boys experience, and somehow i managed to get their first two albums in chronological order. i liked this one a bit better than their debut, i felt like it felt less like an obnoxious party and more refined. i thought the beats were better and more clever. their rapping still felt a bit... raucous, we'll say, but that's sort of the point there. but yeah, overall, i felt like i enjoyed my time with this one.
i would say i had an alright time listening to this one. it wasn't my favorite, and nothing really stood out to me. i'm not really a fan of all the noise, that was sort of unpleasant. just not really something i would ordinarily listen to and something i'm not sure i'll really come back to.
i've listened to a lot of bob dylan in my day. i don't know if i consider myself a huge fan, i've gone majorly hot and majorly cold on him over the years. i have been majorly cold on him for a long while now. this is the first i've listened to an album of his in a bit. back when i was a lot more into him, this was my favorite bob dylan album. and, after listening, i think it still is. this sort of re-awakened my interest in his music. i know it's kind of cheesy, but he really is a terrific songwriter, there was not a lot of people contemporaneously writing songs like him and he was dragging culture forward. that influence is really felt on this one.
man there is a part of me that really genuinely likes arcade fire's music. has it become super cliche of this era of indie music? yeah probably. is it insufferably pretentious? yeah probably. idk there's something about it that just draws me to it. but then also, win butler is an asshole. and fuck win butler.
i fell in love with this album well over a decade ago when i heard "earn enough for us" on the radio. i went out and bought the album immediately. the songwriting is very fun, very beatle-esque at times, and of course, we love a todd rundgren production. to me, the todd production pushes it over the edge and gives it a great energy.
of course, kate bush is brilliant. this is a really great album in general, showing off that brilliance. i find it to be a bit more subdued than some of her other earlier stuff, and to me that makes it a little less interesting. i am a bit more of a fan of the more off-the-wall stuff she did on earlier albums. that being said, this is still a very good listen!
if you like this album, quite frankly, you know ball
i like REM a lot, but this is not my favorite album by them. it's not bad by any stretch, I just think it doesn't quite get there for me. the quality of the songwriting is there, the instrumentation is as good as ever, it's just that for some reason, the total is slightly less than the sum of the parts.
i've never dug too deep into the smiths and related albums, although what of the smiths i've heard, i've liked. this however, did not move me. it was fine. the quality of the songwriting, to me, was not incredible, although not awful. morrissey's lyrics are as fine as ever. i think this is just a case of me realizing the importance of johnny marr.
man this album sounds so good. the production is top notch. jay-z is at the height of his game. this is one that has aged really well - it sounds of its era but you can tell how influential it was upon subsequent rappers and producers. good stuff!
man i really wanted to like this one. le freak and i want your love are bops. the rest are alright at best and snooze-fests at worst. at least i am free is SO boring. oh my god. i thought this was supposed to be a disco album but i guess we had to get some slow dance numbers in there. the instrumentation is great and of course they have an iconic sound, but boy this album is really uneven.
i am of the age where the white stripes were very popular during my formative years, so of course, i have listened to them a lot in my life, this album included. ultimately, i don't think this is my favorite white stripes album, but it's still pretty great. as fresh as ever, but being nitpicky, i think the songwriting on this one is not as strong as on others. i still love this album a lot!
what can i say, monk is the man. there's no one like him and there will never be. his playing is a style of its own, and maybe an acquired taste, but i love how off-kilter and nonsensical his solos can be. just really cool. and of course, he has a great band here as well. never listened to this one before and i'm not the world's biggest jazzhead out there, but i really enjoyed my time with this one!
i'd never listened to an album by Lorde, but I have heard several of her singles over the years, some on this album, so this was not a surprise to me. I do really appreciate her songwriting and production style - I think even though this album is 6 or so years old, it still feels fresh and you can tell how influential her songwriting and style is on a lot of modern pop music. definitely a nice listen.
my second arcade fire album in as many weeks. i used to like this album a lot but on this listen, it was not nearly as revelatory to me. i think this album is a quintessential mid-00s indie rock album. i still like it, but maybe not as much as I remember. and i will say it every time I have to review an arcade fire album, fuck win butler.
man, i didn't know what to expect from this one. i'd never heard of the album or the artist, but looked it up on wikipedia and saw brian eno's name. with that all the information i had, i plunged in and, boy, i suspect that this album is not going to be everyone's bag, but i really enjoyed my time with it. very serene and chill, a bit avant-garde at times, some really enjoyable play with dissonance. definitely feels like a small chamber orchestra at times. just a really cool vibes album.
some great musicianship here, especially some top-tier vibraphone playing. however, i feel that even though the musicianship is high, the music itself is not quite for me. i felt this one was a bit middle of the road. pleasant and nice enough, but not quite to the level of 'interesting' for me.
Another classic hip hop album that I had never listened to. And another album that is deserving of the hype it gets. Great beats and production, great flow. Truly poetry in motion. Good stuff!
gorillaz was really big when i was in middle school (showing my age) and for better or worse, gorillaz reminds me of middle school. i think it's a fun evolution of rock music that combines elements of hip hop. is it mind blowing at this point in time? not really. but is it fun? yeah kinda!
i suspect this is probably a lot of peoples' first exposure to pre-disco bee gees, which might be a big shock. I actually adore a lot of early bee gees stuff, but i've never really dug into this particular era of their evolution, which is a lot more soft than their early psych-ish stuff (bee gees' 1st, idea, etc). based on already liking their early output, and it being a rainy day, i think this album hit me particularly nicely today. not mind blowing by any stretch, but nice enough.
man i have listened to this album probably half a dozen times over the years and i truly do not understand why people adore this album so much. i keep coming back because i clearly have to be missing something. this album just does nothing for me. it's even more mindboggling for me because i love so much adjacent music to this. i find myself wondering if i am listening to the same album as everyone else, the way people talk about it. i don't find the songwriting particularly compelling, i don't find the arrangements mind blowing, the vocals and harmonies are subpar to me. just a really middle of the road soft-psych record, that quite honestly, is a bit boring. i really have tried to give this album a shot, i just truly do not get why it is so acclaimed. i hate to use the word but... overrated.
this one gets a lot of hype and to be honest, i agree with the hype. just a well made album overall, great melodies, a fun somewhat aggressive take on the britpop sound. i'd never listened to this one in full but knew a lot of the songs and i can say i will definitely come back to this one in the future.
this album kinda sounds like that bar band that a bunch of your friends' dads plays in (derogatory) not awful but really nothing super interesting for me here. weirdly horny? and not in a fun way. the production is alright until 'last of the teenage idols' in which the entire song just pans hard left??? everything is in your left ear. and then the song picks up panned hard right. and then it evens back out. this feels intentional. and bad. can't say i am a huge fan
not sure how i feel about this one. i know it is very acclaimed but i am not feeling that very much. i don't think it's bad, but i don't think it rises to the level of quality i expect from something so acclaimed. not very interesting and the songwriting didn't really move me. ultimately, a pretty average listen for me.
i can't tell if it's because i have been inundated with these songs my entire life or if i genuinely dislike this stuff so much, or both. but i'm sorry, this sucks so bad. i usually do not mind non-conventional singing voices but axl rose's voice is so shrill and awful. the music is so beyond cliche and the production is so flat. the only people who are into this are teenage boys and middle aged men longing to be teenage boys again. no in-between. i can't imagine listening to this and thinking it's awesome. it just is the antithesis of what i like in music. no thanks.
zappa is an acquired taste and i have acquired that taste. this album is really smart, really funny, really wild, and genuinely a fun, frenetic listen. zappa pushed the limits on what rock and roll music was, and is. i suspect that most people will not get this album or will find it annoying and weird, which, fair enough. i appreciate zappa's zanyness, his avant-garde flair, and the point he was trying to make about how society handles social issues, which i think still stands true to today.
yeah this was a pretty fun time. my second tribe album and it did not disappoint. the trademark flow and beats are there, and i really appreciated the sampling on this one. some really fun tidbits here!
this album has divorced parent energy. i can't explain it. this is the type of album my dad would have listened to on trips between his house and my mom's. vaguely sad, vaguely uplifting, vaguely everything. which means that this album does not hit in any particular way. not unlistenable, but insufferably boring.
I didn't know how to feel about this one going in, just because Frank Ocean is a name I've heard but had no association with what his music sounded like. But I actually found myself enjoying this quite a bit. Very chill, cool production. Frank's voice is great! I feel like I remember this album getting a lot of hype at the time, and I think it's deserved. Even a decade later, you can see how much of an impact he had on the course of popular music. I feel like I hear this DNA in a lot of what I hear today in general.
having been obsessed with moby grape's first album in college, and looking online to find more of their stuff, I saw how widely acclaimed this one was, and this was my next venture into the moby grape-verse. that was over a decade ago and I was really disappointed by this album then. no more was the frenetic energy, the harmonies. I didn't get it. now a decade later, my second listen. I think I appreciate the sound of this one a little bit more than back then but I still find it pretty disappointing. every once in a while you get a glimpse of what I love about moby grape's debut, but it's few and far between. maybe I should be listening to it more like it's outsider art or something but I can't help to still be a bit let down by this one.
just a really fun romp. of course a couple of classics on here but I think the album cuts are just as good. bowie and iggy in berlin, two creative dudes making a really fun album. great stuff!
this album was alright. it reminds me a lot of the general quality and sound of a lot of this era of musician making music in the modern era, to me it is fairly akin to what Paul McCartney has been doing lately. not so much at the forefront and pushing the limits of culture, but comfortably finding his own niche. as compared to his classic work, i don't think this holds a candle to it, but in its own right, it's pretty solid.
pleasant enough record but doesn't really speak to me much. i think if i gave it a few more listens, it would grow on me, as it is similar to the type of stuff i typically like. nice melodies, good musicianship. production is a bit bland. but otherwise, pretty alright.
yeah this album didn't really move me. it's fine enough. not my preferred type of music but listenable. but uhh,,, the band name??? i had never heard of them, it seems like it's supposed to be ironic, at least according to wikipedia (based on what their other choice was) but then they made up some dumb story about no it's fast and dark! like our music! and i think that makes it worse somehow. antiracist or not, it feels like maybe not something we should go to the norse for.
this was alright. not so much my cup of tea, but not unlistenable either. you can definitely hear the influence of this album on many punk/hardcore artists that would follow it.
this is an album i fell in love with about a decade ago during a bad spat of depression. this album is so cozy to me, and i adore it. it got me through some tough times. if i can be a little overly critical, a lot of the songs are pretty samey. side one is great, side two is not as great. but! it's still a great album that i love very much.
this album has its moments, some really great stuff, but i think ultimately it is balanced by some less interesting stuff. it's highs are high, but its lows are... boring. and that's ok. but ultimately, not my most favorite listen out there.
this was an album i fell in love with a long time ago during a very difficult period of my life, so i will always have a soft spot for this one. i think nowadays, i am not as into it as i was back then, but there's still a lot of really great stuff on here. i know that james taylor is not everyone's bag, and that's fine, but for me, this album is almost therapeutic. just a really great folk-rock album, with some country twang. and nothing is better than james taylor's voice!
wow! what a great surprise! i knew the big song off of this one, but nothing else. to me this is like if oasis was primarily influenced by the kinks instead of the beatles. really fun, really eclectic, really frenetic. just an all around great, intense romp. kind of trails off at the end, but i think the rest of the album makes up for it.
pleasant enough and chill but not really anything remarkable here for me. just okay. nice acoustic country/americana-inspired background music, but nothing more.
this album reminds me a lot of the 90s alt-psych revival stuff that i like from around the same time period. in particular, it reminds me a lot of the stuff from elephant 6, especially the olivia tremor control, which i adore. so yeah, this album is a pretty cool, fun, psych-y time.
this felt to me like the white stripes' wacky older brother. some pretty good garage rock that takes some kind of insane turns. not my favorite, but a fun time.
what can i say, dave grohl is dave grohl. there's a reason he is a legend these days. this album is a lot more rough around the edges than other foo fighters stuff i've heard, and i really like that about it. of course, i know the backstory of this one and the raw edge it has makes total sense. just a really great album.
look, i mean you have three of the best country singers of the 20th century singing together. it cannot get better than this. this album has the best harmonies you have ever heard. sometimes the material they cover is a little less than desired, but the pure beauty of these three voices together is enough to carry any song. incredible
this was a pretty cool listen. i, of course, know them from 'come on eileen' but this album is really nothing like that song at all. very horn heavy, very blue-eyed soul. the production is very, very clean, which is not totally my favorite but overall, it's just a very fun, new wave-soul romp of a time.
yeah this is the stuff. everyone in king crimson is firing on all cylinders this entire album. really is just a pinnacle of progressive rock. i'm not that big of a prog rock fan, but this is just a truly great album. the only song i am not full throttle all about is moonchild, but i do appreciate its ambiance. just a terrific, complete album.
i am a bit biased in the fact that i already love this album. i will admit, towards the middle section the songs are a bit lesser, but i think on the strength of cinnamon girl and cowgirl in the sand this album is a 5 alone. everyone likes to poke fun at the one note guitar solo but i fear you are not a fun person if you don't think it's sick.
hey there is nothing better than aretha in her prime. this album is very 1967 soul, so probably not mindblowing for most people, but this album, to me, cemented aretha as the legend that she became. obviously one of the best singers of all time and with classic production and the session musicians from muscle shoals, you really can't go wrong
there really is no music that just oozes cool more than isaac hayes. his voice, the vibe, the orchestration and production. when i listen to this album, i feel like i am the coolest motherfucker on the planet.
look there's a reason that boomers fawn over this album. the production is incredible, there might not be a better sounding album out there. the songwriting is great. everyone in this band is firing on all cylinders. the first side is definitely stronger than the second side. the weak points to me are two of the christine mcvie tracks, songbird and oh daddy. they're not bad, just kind of boring for me. i'd like to be a contrarian about this album, but on the strength of all the other tracks (hell, this album is basically a greatest hits of fleetwood mac on its own) i just simply can't.
yeah this was pretty cool! i always appreciate listening to music that is outside of my norm, that challenges my conventional, or in this case, american music sense. this album is pretty listenable for the north american ear. the rhythms are great and the music is really interesting. youssou n'dour's voice is compelling and i felt actually pretty uplifted by listening to this. fun stuff!
it's a christmas classic for a reason. i am an absolute fan of this era of music and a lot of the girl groups and adjacent groups, especially the work on philles (despite the monster in charge). everything on this album is great, with the exception of when the convicted murderer and serial abuser, phil spector, speaks directly to you at the end. that aside, the sound is iconic, and some of the best sounding music made of all time. i'm not a huge christmas music fan and this is still tops.
i'm finding throughout this whole project, i am really enjoying this era of hip hop. it's not something i ordinarily listen to on a daily basis but i really enjoy the bars and the sampling/beats. this album is no exception, really good beats and bars - not my favorite of the era that i've heard so far, but pretty good!
woah. pere ubu is a name i've always seen at record stores but i've never listened to them before. i had no idea what to expect. holy shit does this stuff rock. i'm kind of floored. it's very noisy, a bit unconventional in that sense, a lot of atypical instrumental choices (noise, an instrument i am learning is called the 'musette') but juxtaposed with that is some killer rock. really really cool stuff!
pretty cool, chill album. nice retro soul sound and feel, with some tinges of psych. was a nice pleasant album to have on, although i don't think it was particularly mind blowing.
this album and i go way back. i really do like this album but ultimately, i think it's too long for its own good. what big boi and andre 3000 were able to achieve here absolutely can be great, but there's a lot of chaff they left in here and it could be a lot neater. i understand that was not the "creative vision" or what the situation was when they were making this album, as it is basically two solo albums in one, but this album would easily be in the conversation as their best if it was a little slimmer.
to me this album kind of reminds me of like, the beatles' revolution 9 meets the beach boys' pet sounds. really cool, orchestral stuff mixed with a lot of noise. makes for an interesting album. i think if i gave this more listens, i could get into it, but it didn't totally blow me away on first listen. still, pretty cool!
i'm a huge byrds fan, so no shock that i love this album. although i don't think it is their best effort, it is their first and arguably, their most monumental. although really, the credit goes to the title track, this album shifted the direction of popular (rock) music from british invasion merseybeat style stuff to something brand new, folk rock, taking the songs of folk music and combining them with a then-modern rock sound. in modern contexts, perhaps this album does not sound impressive or is particularly interesting, but within context, this album is a watershed moment in 20th century popular music.
wow! i didn't really know what to expect going into this because i didn't quite mesh with the first joy division album, but I really liked this one! just a really great sounding, catchy synthpop album. not sure why i liked this one so much more, but i think it's because a lot of the songs are hookier, catchier, and more bombastic to me. a fun listen!
this album was alright. it had its moments, although i do think it was a bit samey to its detriment. pleasant enough indie synthpop, but not anything to write home about for me.
i really didn't know what to make of this album going in, it's not a band i've ever heard of and the album cover didn't really let on to what was going on. I had a really fun time with this one! front to back, really nice, catchy tunes. definitely very 80s in sound. cool stuff!
to be honest, i'm a todd fan. i haven't dived super deep into his greater discography, but this album is one i have loved for a long time, ever since i heard "I Saw the Light" on the radio one time and was mesmerized. i think you have to be a certain type of person to really enjoy todd and i'm that type of person. he is terrific at crafting catchy melodies and doing lots of studio wizardry. he plays most of the album himself! that is never not an impressive accomplishment, especially because YOU CAN'T TELL BY THE PLAYING. to me, this album is sort of like his version of the beatles' white album. is it overly long? yeah. is it a bit uneven? yeah. does it get kinda weird? yeah. and, like the white album, i appreciate how off kilter it is. although, still not my favorite album of his, and definitely not his most off kilter, but still very much up there for me.
nothing mindblowing here, obviously i knew the hits on this one and i felt like the rest of the album was pretty in line. maybe it was a lot more novel at the time, but i think at times it comes off as a generic 80s pop record. overall, it was fun enough. not a deep record, but has its moments.
i am usually pretty open to "world" music. usually i find it pretty fulfilling to hear music outside of my norms. this album was fine, i have no qualms with it. it didn't wow me, but it wasn't awful either.
i have pretty limited exposure to the entire discography of velvet underground - really my entire experience is their first album, so this was an interesting listen. a very subdued, folky album, very different from the other music that i've heard. i really like that it has a different sound and feel than their other stuff. i think i could grow into liking this one a lot, on first listen i definitely appreciated its style.
i've never been a big green day fan, i'm not so much a pop punk person in general, but there's just something about this album that is so damn nostalgic. fun all the way throughout, aggressive, yet tongue in cheek. really well made. just an all-around good time!
i've never been the hugest eagles fan, but this one has always been my favorite of theirs. i much prefer their earlier output to their more radio-friendly later albums. obviously there are some tracks on here that are still played regularly on classic rock radio, so i think a lot of the context is lost for when this was released. starting off as a country rock supergroup of sorts, this album is a bit of a shift of the country rock genre towards the mainstream, away from the gram parsons-esque relative obscurity it started in. the songs that still get played on the radio ("take it easy" "witchy woman" "peaceful easy feeling") are classics for a reason, they are pretty good songs, although due to the constant overplay, i am pretty much sick of them to death at this point. the rest of the album, however, is a pretty consistent progressive (in terms of evolution, i'm not saying this is prog) take on the country rock formula, although a bit heavier on the rock than the country. my favorite of the bunch is album cut "nightingale" which has that classic eagles sound but is at least not played to death. overall, it's a solid enough album, not my favorite country rock album, but i think it's the album from the eagles i appreciate most.
a pretty solid effort from a punk rock band that I had never heard of before this. not my favorite in terms of punk sound, but still fun enough.
this is not usually the type of music that is in my wheelhouse. and also today I am road tripping, so I think this album did not land for me twice over. I don't think it was bad, but I found it to be a little dull, and it does not make for good road trip music. not my thing!
admittedly, this is one of my favorite albums of all time going into this so i am really biased. this album is perfect from front to back! one of the pinnacles of ray davies' genius :)
think this one is a grower and not a shower. i really liked a lot of it but it is a little off the beaten path for me. i think if i listened to this again, i would like it more. as it stands, it's still pretty good!
yeah this album was pretty sick. i really enjoyed listening to it. just some really fun ska. i particularly enjoyed elvis costello's production and the energy that the album had. good stuff!
back to front, this album is classic, classic, classic. not a bad track on this thing. great sound, great instrumentation, great songwriting/song choice, and sequencing. one of my favorite albums of all time!!!
front to back, this one is a stone cold classic. every song on this slaps and is just a wild jazz rock ride. love it!
there is something about beach house's music that i feel so deeply inside me. i got into a lot of their music in a long bout of depression and there is something i can't place that finds this music so comforting. whatever it is, i just really love this album! very chill, great songwriting.
full stop, you do not have rock n roll without little richard. bands for decades have been trying to emulate this. from front to back, non-stop energy. this isn't a cornerstone, this isn't a foundation, this is the whole damn building.
look i love this era of music, i truly do. and i love paul revere and the raiders. but paul revere and the raiders were not an album band. this album is not BAD but it's not very remarkable. there are a few album cuts here that i think are kind of cool ('all i really need is you' has a '66 psych-tinged stones/beatle-esque feel) and the singles off of this one are great, but really i'm mostly confused as to why this album is listed amongst these other ones. i don't mind it, but i think most people will not enjoy having to listen to this one.
ray charles is great, but i sort of swing back and forth on his music. his up-tempo r&b stuff is great and i love that, but the more slow, ballad style of songs he does sort of leaves me a little cold. not that it's bad, but just not my thing. this album is mostly the latter, not the former, so for me it was not the most exciting album, although the quality of the album was high. still an enjoyable listen for a monday morning.
my second experience with solo morrissey, after listening to 'vauxhall and i' - and i can't say i am any more impressed with it than the first time. here, i find his lyrics are a bit more cringey, maybe not less biting than i've heard him write before, but certainly a lot more bold-faced. once again, even with how i feel about his lyrics, they are better than the music, which is down quite a few pegs from his smiths days (more of a glowing review of johnny marr than anything). so yeah, not very impressed with this. it was fine, but i can't say i would ever seek it out again.
great grooves, great playing. some cool stuff here. ultimately, maybe not the most interesting record i've ever heard, but still quite cool and a unique combination of its era of jazz and r&b.
cocteau twins is a name i've heard but i don't know if i've ever experienced their music before this. really cool stuff. very atmospheric and the vocals are haunting. i could see myself absolutely falling in love with this album if i give it another few listens, but as it stands right now, i am extremely impressed. very compelling and stark. another album during this project that i had no idea what to expect and am just blown over!
a pretty fun spin on the electronic/dance genres. definitely has an indie tinge, which i appreciated. and what's most important to me, it feels human, which i find a lot of electronic music lacks. just a really fun time!
another group that i have heard the name of but didn't know anything about except that they were "punk" - holy cow I was not expecting this. I absolutely loved everything about this album. it's like a mixture of 60s garage rock, surf rock, and punk. it feels slimey and grungy and just everything it ought to be. excellent stuff!
i try to go into every album with an open mind. christina aguilera's music is not really in my wheelhouse - even when i was a teen in her hitmaking era and more interested in pop music, her music never quite did it for me. that being said, i was pleasantly surprised by the first disc. like i said, it's not really my type of pop music, but its sound is extremely nostalgic to me. some of these songs i heard on the radio or vh1 at the time, but also this is some of the music that dictated pop music's sound at the time. her voice is unquestionably great, the "throwback" production of the first side - i.e. sampling of retro instrumentals - is fun, albeit a bit dated sounding at this point. but the peaks of disc one are really fun. then we hit disc two. starting off with the circus song, it then becomes a hyper-sexualized throwback to old-fashioned cabarets. i can't say i really enjoyed this part. her voice is still great but this part of the album is just too over the top. she's moaning the whole time, saying stuff like "now spank me" - i don't even really care about sexual content in music, but this is so over the top, it almost feels like it is forced by an executive or something. or maybe it's the opposite - the executive forced the normal pop music while she really wanted the over-sexual burlesque schtick. quite simply, it's just really cringey. just very bizarre. also, because of the two disc format, this album is BLOATED AS HELL. had they split the two discs into their own albums, i think it would be ok. or even if they made a one disc combination of these two concepts, i think it could potentially work. honestly, the two of them together is a chore. i really think the album's length detracts from the overall quality. she really had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
dave brubeck was a phenomenal pianist. of course, 'take five' transcends jazz music and is one of the most famous jazz compositions of all time. i love 'blue rondo a la turk' - another in the vain of 'take five' that really tickles my receptors with their uncommon time signatures. beyond that, the rest of the album is pleasant, but a lot of time amounts to music that is reminiscent of vince guaraldi's work with charlie brown. not to say that is a bad thing, the album is very good, calming, and pleasant. but ultimately it does not amount to much mind-blowing outside of the non-standard time signatures exhibited, and lacks the grit or edge i normally enjoy or look for when listening to jazz. still, it's an all-timer for a reason!
not generally my cup of tea, but i thought this album was fairly interesting. i felt like the structure of a song being led in by a "tale" was neat and gave the album a pretty good narrative flow. the music, production, and performances were alright, but ultimately this just isn't totally my thing. i still appreciate what it was going for and am happy i got exposed to something outside of my normal bubble.
so full disclosure, i opted to listen to 1989 (taylor's version) - not sure if that is in standing with the spirit of this project or not, but as i understand it, i think taylor swift fans consider the "taylor's versions" canonical now over the original releases. and so i think it's fair to listen to the artist's "preferred" version over the original. and i'm not familiar enough with the original to really know a difference one way or another. all that aside, this is just a good pop album. taylor swift is not usually my kind of music but it is undeniable that she has a knack for writing a great hook. this whole album is just hooky as hell, from front to back. clearly this music resonates with a significant portion of the population, it doesn't quite with me, but i appreciate the artistry here. there's a reason she is the most famous person in the world.
listening to this album, you can tell sonic youth is cool. they are too cool for me.
this one put them on the map. you have three immense talents working together at really a creative pinnacle. to me, what sets them apart from their contemporaries are the harmonies. their voices together just make such a great blend. just a great counterculture folk rock album. i'll admit i am biased because i adore this album to pieces and have for years, but there is a reason i have come back to it countless times in my life.
this was an interesting one. i'm not the hugest world music person, but i definitely keep my mind open. language barriers don't usually dissuade me, and it was the case here. this album was not mind blowing to me, but had some really interesting moments. at times, it kind of felt a little new-wave-y??? which was cool, but otherwise nothing that stood out above anything else I've heard from the continent of Africa so far in this project.
the best i can say is i gave it a shot. it's not the worst thing i've had to listen to but i can really say it is not my favorite to come across my desk. really, it is just bottled up angst that is reflected in a way that my angst was not. i find it pretty unrelatable, and although i can be convinced on a lot of metal instrumentation, the growl vocals are something that never suit my music preferences. sorry to all my depressed friends from middle school but i didn't get it then and i still don't get it now.
yeah this is extremely my shit. i don't know what it is, but zappa's music just really scratches an itch in my brain. it's complex, yet clearly doesn't take itself seriously. just some really cool stuff here - i especially love the first track, but the standout to me on this listen was the track with captain beefheart singing. just really cool, fun stuff.
a pretty fun synthpop album. i liked the juxtaposition of the upbeat instrumentals with the more subdued and dour lyrics at points. the production is not my favorite but i found it still enjoyable!
this is a pretty crazy punk record. i thought it was pretty fun. obviously a lot of ~noise~ going on on this one - if that's not your thing, i get it. but to me i really enjoyed the chaotic energy of this one. definitely a vibe album.
just a great album, front to back. of course, i've listened to this one countless times and know it back to front. the only song on here i am always iffy on is 'meeting across the water' which never has really landed for me. but the rest of the album is just balls to the walls great, that it easily overcomes that one blip. it's a classic for a reason!
i am a pretty big REM fan, especially their earlier stuff. this album, to me, is a vibe album. kinda off kilter, really catchy rock music, very smart lyrics. i just really enjoy diving into this one, even though it may not be their most consistent album. i particularly love songs like 'catapult' which is more indicative of their overall sound, and 'we walk' which has some unique instrumentation from them and a slightly more sinister sound. overall, perhaps not my favorite from them, but i do really love it regardless.
this was a strange album for me. i think the first half i was sort of adjusting to this album. it's a little off-kilter. by the second half i was really enjoying myself, especially with the songs that had a horn section. not an album i think i would have expected lou reed to make given my previous context on him listening here, but still, a fun time, a little challenging, but i could see myself listening to this album a few more times and really appreciating the quirkiness.
second slipknot album in a week and my opinion hasn't changed much. i think as a baseline, i appreciate the instrumentation, in particularly the drumming. the guitars are played well too. i just really cannot get past the vocals, and really the lyrics. it really does not resonate with me at all. i've had my fair share of angst in my life, but it's never manifested like *this* so this is pretty unrelatable for me. i have listened to and listen to a lot of musicians with non-standard voices and that doesn't bother me, but for some reason the growling never lands for me. and what makes it all worse for me is this album is an hour long! i could probably stomach this a bit better if they knocked a handful of songs off, but man this thing sort of went on for a while, huh? oh well, i gave it another shot. just not for me.
so once again, i am totally biased as a life-long beatles fan. last year i listened to every officially released solo beatles album, and this one is definitely near the top of that list. although i am definitely more of a paul guy than a john guy, i still really love this album. to be honest, i find the title track very overplayed and a bit overrated - i don't think it's miles better than anything else on this album. highlights for me include 'jealous guy,' 'gimme some truth,' and 'how do you sleep' to me, this album is an exercise in growth for john. his previous album is very raw, very emotional, very bitter. that bitterness still seeps through on this one at points (especially in the paul diss track 'how do you sleep'), but this album is overall a lot more thought out, at peace. he was a complex person, both good and bad, and i think this album highlights that conflict pretty decently. overall, i think this crop of songs is pretty consistently good. as i said, i am a bit biased, but this is one of my favorites!
not sure what to make of this one. i liked parts of it, other parts i found dull. overall it was a decent enough listening experience. i particularly liked the 50s throwback sound - particularly '(wading through) the waters of my time' - i find a lot of this album has a retro feel. sometimes it works well and sometimes i found myself uninterested. was this an album really must hear? probably not. was it alright? yeah!
this was a pretty fun album. I had always heard of Roxy Music but have never really given them a shot. the sound of this album has aged really well and has some pretty engaging sounds. i particularly enjoyed 'out of the blue' with the heavy flanging. overall, a pretty cool album that i could see myself getting further into upon additional listening.
I had never really listened to George Michael, but am marginally familiar with Wham! so I kind of knew what to expect. this album was pretty pleasant. not something I ordinarily go for, but was nice enough to have on as I went about my business. it didn't resonate with me fully but i enjoyed the sound of it.
this is an album i have known my own life, through my dad. this album hit my dad really hard in his life and has been a constant favorite in his life. so i have learned to love this album through him, and i still do to this day. for me, i just really love the sound of this album. it sounds so great. very soft, yet aggressive at times, with a touch of sinister at times. the bass playing is unreal, as is a lot of the musicianship. another biased review, but yeah, i love this album a lot.
a pretty fun album! obviously i knew the big song off of this but didn't know what else to expect. it's a fun, sleek, pop rock album. very clever and the arrangements are great! i loved the sound of this one. the cover of iron man i could have done without, it was goofy and i felt like it didn't fit the rest of the album, but otherwise, i had a pretty good time!
so i think my taste in electronic music is very particular. a lot of the stuff i have been presented so far i have not really liked and hasn't really given me a sound that i really like. this album did. i had a lot of fun listening to it, i thought the songs felt dynamic and interesting. i still think it gets relegated to background music, but at least it's kinda fun background music.
yeah this is extremely my shit. not a dull moment on this one. just the most exquisite grooves you've ever heard. wall to wall funky goodness. the rhythm section is on another level, the guitars are funky. just knocks the vibe out of the park. ga ga goo ga, ga ga goo ga, ga ga goo ga ga, indeed!
this is my second endeavor listening to lana, after hearing people rave about her music for years. my first was her newest, "Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd" that I listened to outside of this project to listen to this past year's Grammy Album of the Year nominees. as compared to that album, i liked this one better, but it has a lot of the same issues that I had with her most recent, which is mainly that her albums just bore me. I don't mind soft, acoustic, ballad-y music, but her music just ends up dragging for me. i like the songwriting on this one better, i actually think it's interesting and catchy at points. i really liked the joni mitchell cover! but that shows me that i think her songwriting isn't for me - when she's covering songwriters i love, it works really well. but overall, i can just say that i'm getting the sense her music isn't for me. i don't find it particularly haunting or beautiful, it just feels very middle of the road to me. it isn't bad, i just find it a bit boring.
i had no idea what to expect when i went into this one. i am actually a bit floored because listening to this album, it sounds like it is from the 90s - contemporaries of bands like pavement or ween, but this album is really ahead of its time. it must have been insanely influential on bands like those. album is a bit rough around the edges, definitely not your easy listening fare, but i enjoyed the way it weaves between a punk-ish sound and a country twang. were it a little bit more coherent, i think i would have more fallen in love the first go around, but i think this is more of a grower to me. definitely can see myself enjoying this more if get more acquainted with it.
i'm only really familiar with marianne faithfull as being related to the rolling stones, with her hit cover of the stones' song "as tears go by" - in a lot of respects she reminds me of nico, in style and not necessarily in relation to a band. that being said, i didn't know what to expect from a new wave album from her. and what i got was not really all that much. her voice is not your stereotypical "nice" voice, which is alright, but the instrumentation here is so middle of the road new wave that her voice does not really carry this album. the songs are ok, nothing special. her john lennon cover is pretty dull and repetitive (although that's a bit on the source material, but maybe a song that is entirely a folk ballad should not be a new wave song). mostly i just feel like this album doesn't bring anything bombastic or interesting, as i would expect from a new wave album. a lot of her contemporaneous new wave artists were doing very creative, forward thinking things and it just isn't happening here. this album sounds like if you had a really watered down elvis costello album. her vocals are vaguely interesting but not good enough or fascinating enough to make this album worth listening to again. sorry, didn't care for this one.
a really enjoyable, chill "soft" jazz album. i really enjoyed the vibe of this one. i don't know if i would consider this album mind blowing in any capacity but it was certainly a nice album to listen to at the office on a friday after a long week. i found it to be pretty zen-like. nice stuff
yeah i mean i am totally biased when it comes to this album. it's a contender for my favorite album of all time. i fell in love with this album when i discovered it in middle school, and although i know a lot of this album gets played to death on classic rock radio, it has not killed my adoration for this one. the songs are great, the musicianship is top notch, and what puts it over the top for me is the production. this album sounds so fucking good. my god. all timer for me!
this is an album i have grown to love over the years. i didn't like it at first - it's one of those albums that people rave about but i think the goofy second half really gets to people, me included. i'm still not a fan of the narrator, but if you can get past him, it truly is a great psychedelic rock album that has some really killer songs and sounds great to this day. high energy, great riffs, just an all around great album. not to mention, the title track into 'afterglow' is a truly killer one-two punch to open an album. the small faces really fit my musical sensibility so this one is definitely up there for me.
a bold-faced political statement. i thought the first handful of songs were fun and aggressive. not really totally my cup of tea, but i was on board with what they were cooking. for me, sustaining this for the entirety of a 53 minute long album was a bit much. i like what they were going for and i think it works, i just think that it ends up being a little bit too much and too same-y for me. after a certain point, it does feel a little bit like, "yeah, we get it" that being said, i still think the messages on this album are still relevant today and i did enjoy myself a decent amount.
yeah i mean this one is a classic. not a bad song in the bunch. it's not my favorite springsteen album (that would probably ultimately go to Born to Run) but it's close. if i can nitpick a little bit, i would say it ultimately is a bit samey. i tend to like the more upbeat tempo songs than the ballads, but i'm on fire is an all timer. just a great album by a great songwriter.
this album is pretty great. outkast are some of my favorite rappers and i think this album is one of their pinnacles in terms of rap, flow, and beats. the skits i could take or leave, they don't do much for me but i know skits and rap albums go hand in hand so it doesn't bother me much. some of the songs are a little less than stellar, but the really great stuff massively outweighs them. it's a light 5 to me, but a light 5 is still a 5
this album is interesting insofar as it sounding like an 00s indie version of glen campbell's music - a little like sufjan stevens meets "by the time i get to phoenix" that's where my interest in this album ends. an interesting idea that i don't think is executed well. the songs are sort of whatever and the vocals are not great. i think they missed the part where what makes glen campbell's music great is the arrangements AND his incredible voice. the vocals here are your typical 90s/00s alt "slacker" vocals and they really do not work for me when they are juxtaposed with the intricate arrangements. it makes it sound like your quirky uncle is singing karaoke. what the fuck is up with the vocals on "what else could it be?" ???????? it's like instead of lambchop, they channeled porkchop (from the cartoon Doug) to sing this song. lmao really horrid stuff. he should be banned from singing a falsetto. it's not beautiful or charming or nice. it sounds like a bad cartoon character. crazy. once the falsetto hit, that was the moment i could not take this album seriously at all. the arrangements are nice, but rest of it is lacking and uninteresting at best. sorry, really didn't care for this one.
I really adore this album. it is one of the greatest songwriters and musicians of all time firing on all cylinders. he's playing most of the instruments on this album himself! it's crazy! my only critique is that I think that we could have trimmed this one a little bit. I don't know if this album needed to be 2 albums and an EP, there are some songs that aren't up to the same quality as a lot of the heavy hitters here (I'm looking at you, 'if it's magic). but overall, this album hits and it hits pretty much the whole stretch.
whoa this album was pretty cool. i really enjoyed it. pretty dark sounding, a bit aggressive - but not overly so. i didn't expect to really like this one because i know siouxsie has a tendency to be "goth" and that is not my vibe. but this album was pretty cool. I would definitely love to return to this one in the future!
not the most mind blowing album i've ever heard, but at least it's fun. i like cee-lo's voice and the vibe he gives off on this one is definitely one of a partier. it's a fun enough romp, but it does not verge into the territory of an all-timer for me
prime aretha is some of the best music of all time. her voice is unparalleled and the production by jerry wexler is iconic. aretha could have touched any song in this time period and turned it to gold. maybe not even gold, but platinum. unobtanium. whatever. it's fantastic stuff.
i'm not adverse to weird or avant-garde music but it has to hit me the right way. this one didn't really do it for me. it's pleasant enough at points, but mostly i found it a bit dull. his voice also doesn't do much for me, but i think that matters less on this one. it toes the line between somewhat avant-garde prog and jazz, but i don't think it does anything here particularly interestingly. drab jazz meets drab prog. the culmination is just pure drab. not for me!
album started fairly strong, i enjoyed the unconventional cover of neil young's "only love can break your heart" despite me being slightly offput by how different it is from the original. but that's sort of where my interest in this album stopped. the rest of this album is... fine. but honestly a bit boring for me. i thought i would like the combination of twee sounding oldies inspired music and dance music but for some reason this album just became a practice in lethargy. not my favorite.
i had fun with this album at first, a cool combination of a more bluesy/jazzy sound with hip hop. as we got towards the end of the album, i felt like it was kind of one-note. felt like i was just listening to a variation on the same thing for a good portion of the 50 minute runtime. it's not that i thought it was bad, i just got a little tired of it three quarters through the album.
god this album is so sick. not my first time listening to it, and it won't be the last. there is just something about it that just oozes cool and is exactly my speed. the whole album is great, but i think the pinnacle here is the title track. its length might be off-putting to some, but just great stuff. cool guitar riffs, great instrumentation, all-time production. it's an album that i don't usually associate with my all time favorites, but i really should. i love it that much.
what can i say about this one? this is already one of my all time favorite albums so i cannot be unbiased here. i love early neil young's songwriting and it is at its best here. i don't think there's a bum song in here, they're all great. the album is mostly stripped down, vulnerable, stark, melancholy. when it is at its loudest it is angry ("southern man") which is probably most peoples' familiarity with anything on this album. but the softer stuff on this album is what makes it shine. i know his voice can be hard to deal with for a lot of people, but his voice has never bothered me and i think gives the music character and uniqueness. it's just an album i adore through and through!
this album was pretty cool. i knew a couple of songs off of this one beforehand, but have never listened to the album in full. pavement is a band i've heard a lot about but never fully experienced, and i can say that i am looking forward to my next experience with them. normally, i am a bit iffy on slacker vocals, but they work really well here, especially in juxtaposition with the more upbeat, raucous sounds. my favorite track on this one was "cut your hair" which is a perfect example of this. i would say the strength of this album is not necessarily in the musicianship, but the crafting of a sound. and i really enjoyed the sound!
so this is my first real experience listening to radiohead after hearing people rave about them for years. i can't say i really knew what to expect, but i knew that this is not one of the albums i hear people rave about. and... i liked it. it's nice. i like the production on it especially. it can be a bit sparce at points and that's cool. i was not totally blown away, but i got an inkling of why people like radiohead so much.
that was a pretty fun time. great 90s r&b. not anything particularly mindblowing for me, but still a fun enough time. i felt the album was consistently good, and the andre 3000 feature on the last track was a pleasant surprise. overall, i enjoyed this one.
I'm a big fan of 60s psych, but 'Piece of My Heart' is overplayed to death and it's not nearly my favorite psych track out there. I didn't really know much else about Big Brother and the Holding Company except "Janis Joplin" and I had never listened to this record out of spite because my out of touch boomer parents loved it. well, DAD, i've finally listened to it and... it's alright. I don't think it's anything mindblowing or particularly progressive in the realm of 60s psych, but it is nice enough. there's some good musicianship here and Janis Joplin sure can wail. for some reason, John Simon, whose productions I usually like, decided to make this studio album sound like a live album with fake audience noises and having it sound more "live" and i think it's a kind of bizarre choice to make but whatever.
this album and i go way back, in a sense. my mom bought me a used copy of this on CD when i was in elementary school and starting to really get into music. i listened to it back then and was only interested in the two big songs on this one (walk this way, sweet emotion). growing up in massachusetts, this album and band is unavoidable, and i'm not sure if my relative ambivalence is because i have been inundated with these songs for years or if i just simply do not really care for this stuff. it's not /bad/, like i think most of these songs are fine enough. but this album just really comes off as a big meh for me, even with the big songs included. it's just one i do not care for. i don't hate it, it's just whatever to me. there are a million other rock bands putting out stuff in the same time period that is more interesting, more thought out, more worth listening to, in my opinion.
i always like to point out my bias when giving my reviews and there is no other album where my bias shines than this one. i have been a beatles fan since birth (maybe even before birth) and this is maybe my favorite album of all time. this album represents a seismic shift in music, into the experimental, into the unknown. this is a collection of some of my favorite songs, from the trippy and rough around the edges 'i'm only sleeping' to the shining guitar lead on 'and your bird can sing' to the psychedelic freakout of 'tomorrow never knows' this album is just a 5 all the way through for me. yes, even yellow submarine. can't help it, i just adore this one!
a pretty apt album to listen to in advance of st patricks day. if anything, I would liken this to something of modern Irish folk music. a fun time!
this was an album i was pretty into when it came out but i haven't listened to it in quite a while now. listening to it now, it feels like an old friend, but also not anything crazy here. i think a lot of it just sounds like "music jack white would make" and doesn't stray too far from that - there are some unique flourishes here (some woodwinds etc.) but it still kind of sounds like all the music he's ever made. the standout here for me is "sixteen saltines" but, once again, this feels like a white stripes song. and i'm not complaining, i quite like jack white's style and production/sound, but i don't know if this is anything more special than any of his other work, especially in the sense of "i have to hear this before i die"
i'm not a huge jazz guy, i would say i am somewhat jazz inclined, but not widely interested. this is my preferred style of jazz - especially the more uptempo bebop style jazz. obviously the musicianship is phenomenal and i appreciate that nothing goes on for too long (a problem i have with a lot of the longer-form jazz). thumbs up from me!
once again, my old nemesis, playstation racing game music. look this stuff isn't bad, it just isn't my bag. everything sounds like old video game music and not in a good or fun way. certainly not anything i cared to listen to 20 tracks of. not for me!
at its best, a decent arctic monkeys soundalike, at its worst, a slightly discordant mess. i much preferred the uptempo stuff than the downtempo stuff. don't think it ends up being as evocative as a lot of their contemporaries' works and i think that lowers its esteem in my eyes. a bit of a crapshoot.
there is just something about T. Rex's sound that is so fucking cool, man. like this shit just oozes cool. i can't explain it. this was my first time listening to this album in full and i enjoyed it! i think overall, i prefer 'the slider' because i think the sound is more fleshed out and the crop of songs is stronger, but this one is still a fun time.
after hearing the name fela kuti for years, i finally have the opportunity to listen to him, and man this album is fucking cool. great grooves, great vibes. super cool stuff, i would love to hear more from him!!
i had a pretty good time with this one. i had never listened to the flaming lips in full, but know a handful of their songs, two of them being on this one (yoshimi pt 1 and do you realize) and i adore 'do you realize' so i figured, i would probably enjoy the full album and... yeah, i did. as a fan of a lot of early 00s indie music and as a fan of psychedelic music in general, this combined two of my favorites into one and i had a great time! a great sonic bath of fun music.
yeah sorry not a fan of this one. it's not bad but lord it should be illegal to have an album this long with not that much going on. everything on it is really middle of the road with the exception of a handful of songs that are sort of interesting. but nothing really grabbed me at all. i just found myself bored for two hours. honestly it felt a little like a waste of two hours for me :( sorry :(
the musicianship here is great. this is, i think, my preferred method of listening to the allman brothers, just because it's raw, it's live, it's the pure distillation of their skill. just an incredible group of musicians firing on all cylinders LIVE. incredible.
i think this project is actually radicalizing me against electronic music. i like to think i have an open mind, and then i get presented with over an hour of the most mind-numbing static beats with barely anything else going on. this sounds like the soundtrack to an abercrombie and fitch 25 years ago. there's a reason i never shopped at abercrombie.
a really solid album. catchy songs from front to back. i think people who are around my age (read: millennials) overrate 'mr. brightside' to a frustrating degree - it's a catchy, good song, but not as good as people tend to make it out to be. that being said, i still like it and the album as a whole. solid stuff
i'm a decent fan of bruce and this one, i think is my favorite of his, at the end of the day. although it doesn't have the same peaks as 'born to run' i think the crop of songs are more consistent, and i love the dark, more aggressive sound he employs on this one. of course, his songwriting on this is top notch, as it almost always is. just a great album through and through
this is another album i cannot be unbiased about. this album is in my top 10 of all time and it ain't 10. one of the middle points of a stretch of albums by the kinks that i think are perfect albums, this album employs a narrative that the others do not. songs focusing on the affects of war and british society and austerity, all through the lens of the titular character, arthur. ray davies knocks it out of the park with this one! i suspect this isn't everyone's cuppa tea because it is very twee, like much of ray davies' work, but it truly is a brilliant effort and album.
the beats on this one are really cool. i feel like i can take or leave common's rapping, sometimes it was pretty good, other times clunky as hell. the production really saves this one for me. j cole and questlove really knocked it out of the park. a wicked cool sounding album, just wish that the bars did more for me. and you know, the whole conscious rap thing while saying slurs and having a skit where you hit a woman (?) idk, i don't know how well it's aged as a whole but it at least sounds great.
i find i really enjoy this era of rap. the beats and the rapping are bombastic and aggressive, and that really appeals to me for whatever reason. so i did enjoy myself with this album. the only thing is that a lot of the lyrics and verses are pretty dated by today's standards, like 'it's a man's world' - a song based on an argument with ice cube playing (?) a sexist. even if it's for show or to prove a point, it still leaves a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
my problem with this album is two-fold: 1) i don't prefer the eagles, but if i am listening to them, i am listening to early period stuff, as i find the blatant country-rock stuff more interesting. this era of eagles does not move me at all 2) the only "compelling" song here is the title track, which i have grown to despise over the years due to excessive overplay and the general populace's insistence that it is a classic. this song genuinely makes me roll my eyes. i hate its shitty reggae beat. i hate its dumb "story". the guitar solo is its only saving grace. it's very overrated. the rest of the album is so run of the mill. and that's not to say I just outrightly hate the eagles - like I said, i don't prefer them but there are a handful of songs of theirs that i do genuinely like. i am not an "eagles hater" as much as i am an "eagles realist" - i do know them at their best. this is not that. apologies to all the boomer dads out there.
i've wanted to listen to this one for years and have never gotten around to it. i can safely say now that it's sort of exactly how i expected it. no surprises here. really fun, catchy tunes with a surf rock edge to them. there were some fun moments on here that i didn't expect, some really cool non-standard chord changes and some cool time signature moments, but overall, nothing that super blew me away. it still was a lot of fun. good stuff!
i know this is a really important album in the history of hip hop, but oh my god this album is so corny and bizarre! i kind of love it a lot for how corny it is, but it's a little hard to take it seriously. especially the excessively saccharine "dreamin'" which is a tribute to stevie wonder (maybe it's ironic? i don't think so... but they're singing about being in love with stevie wonder like they are... actually... in love...). and the strange 'you are' which is a love ballad... to Jesus? I think? this album is confusing. 'the message' is an all-timer and the album opener is a surprisingly cool funk number, but the rest of this album is a little bizarre. not sure how to feel, all things considered. it's quite the eclectic album, and i honestly think that is to its detriment. an unquestionably important album, but a great album? not really.
quite frankly, one of the most run-of-the-mill r&b/ rap albums I've ever heard. there's not anything here that is terrible, but there's also not anything here that is worth spending your time listening to it. it sounds like r&b music from a Disney channel movie. if you told me that this was music made by the Cheetah girls, I'd believe you. except somehow, the Cheetah girls have more interesting music than this.
another album that I, quite simply, cannot be objective about. this is one of my favorite albums of all time, it may even very well be my favorite album of all time. what is remarkable about this album is that it is the progenitor of stripped down, bare bones , hit you right in the damn heart music. I suspect for a lot of people, this album does not sound remarkable but in an age where it is expected for musical artists to be authentic, and where artists get flamed for being too fake , this album Nexus in a time period where it was quite opposite- where a lot of music was superficial and this was one of the first albums to come along where a stark level of authenticity was unexpected. as a grown man, I am not ashamed to say this is one of the albums that gets me crying every single time I listen to it. the starkness met with the beautiful songwriting and The poetry of Joni's lyrics is just absolute perfection. I cannot say enough good things about this album, I truly think it is perfect.
there are moments on this album where it kind of sounds like a French version of Tom Waits. The rest of this album it does not jive with me very well. I'm really not a fan of the sound of industrial music, and although there are moments where it sounds like a fucked up French carnival (which, for some reason, I'm fine with), but the rest of it sounds like how my panic attacks feel, so no thanks!
i had never heard of this album or band before, but oh my is this album prescient! this album sounds and feels like an album that swarths of 1980s college rock/alt rock bands listened to. you can hear the blueprint being made for bands like REM. a very cool album. i particularly enjoyed the tinge of psych rock that it had at points, especially the sitar on "positive vibrations" it's wild to go from never hearing of an album to "i need to buy a copy of this" but that is how i'm feeling about this one!
I'm not totally well versed in the entire discography of the smiths, but I am familiar enough with the "big songs" - familiar enough to know I like the smiths a lot, but haven't had the chance to dig in on them. needless to say, I enjoyed this one! although I find his modern incarnation a bit insufferable, morrissey's vocals and lyrics in this stage are iconic and the musicianship in general is great, but the smiths would not be the smiths without johnny marr's guitar playing. I can confidently say that I am becoming a smiths guy.
this is another heavy hitter from my middle school days, when i first started exploring music more widely. i think this album is brilliant and fun. there's some goofy "old fashioned" sounding stuff ('lazing on a sunday afternoon', 'seaside rendezvous', 'good company') but, like some later beatles, i think it's fun and charming. of course there's the big song on here that everyone knows, but my favorite songs on here have always been the biting 'death on two legs' and the immense 'the prophet's song' with it's amazing "vocal round" middle section leading into one of my favorite queen moments of all time ("god give you the grace to purge this place..."). of course it's widely regarded as an all timer, and i have to agree. to me, this is one of the world's most famous bands firing on all cylinders.
not bad, not bad. i knew the two singles off of this beforehand, the smash hit title track and 'vincent' both of which i think are great tracks. the rest of the album is a lot more like 'vincent' than 'american pie' - more slow, pensive folk-ish music, as opposed to folk-ish rock. that's not to say that there aren't more rock-y moments on this one, but it definitely is a lot more subdued of an album than the title track would lead you to believe.
what i love about laura nyro is her songwriting. particularly i adore how her songwriting sort of meanders left and right, switching up tempos all the time, almost as if the music is going with the wind. so many of these songs will start off slow, soft, intimate, and then explode into an uptempo soul groove - or vice versa. not only that, but her melodies are incredible and so is her voice. the arrangements on this one are equally spectacular. i understand if you don't dig the brill building vibe of this one, it's definitely a bit dramatic, but to me this is truly one of the pinnacles of songwriting on display. sophistication at its finest!
man i'm sorry, i just don't really jive with this. growing up being forced to listen to these songs in the car will do wonders for not wanting to listen to this album at all. i'm not the hugest fan of janis' voice and i don't really get the appeal of this one. the music is fine, but nothing mindblowing. the production on this is so sterile, it's hard to get any energy from the recordings at all, even ending of the big track "me and bobby mcgee." I understand that she passed away during the recording of this album, so it may not be "finished" but it still gets heaped tons of praise on it anyways. i dunno. nothing remarkable here for me, very middle of the road. dare i toss around the "overrated" word?
god i'm sorry this album is SO FUCKING COOL MAN. i've known it for a long time now and every time I come back to it, i am continually blown away by the feel of this one. it's an all time vibe album for me, nothing sounds like this album, nothing gives off the vibe of this album. Gris-Gris is a singularity. you're not here for the quality of the lyrics, this album is VIBES ONLY and the vibes of this one are IMMACULATE. it sounds so dark, and so folk-y (in the sense that it's very rough around the edges). to me it perfectly matches the cover of this album, it feels like music being played at some sort of voodoo ceremony.
a perfectly pleasant, laid back album. there's nothing here that's technically bad, it's all copacetic, as they would have said back then. when this album is firing on all cylinders, so to speak, it's a great album. tracks like 'box of rain,' 'friend of the devil,' 'till the morning comes,' and 'truckin'' are all great, blissful hippie fare. where this album has issues is with the album cuts, which tend to drag a lot, like the painfully slow 'attics of my mind.' these tracks are not awful, per se - but they tend to drag the pacing to a slog. otherwise, the musicianship here is very nice and the dead's harmonies are vastly underrated, in my opinion. overall, a good, not great, fairly inconsistent album.
what I think stands strong about the sole sex pistols album to this day is the frenetic energy and the sneering attitude. i don't know if it's the punk album that is technically the best, but it is a lot of peoples' first punk album and it is a great intro to the classic punk sound. every song here is fairly searing and i think it holds up decently well. one thing i will say is that if you are a person who likes variance in their albums, you are probably not going to enjoy this one, especially with the lesser-known album cuts, it gets a little same-y. but i'm not sure if there's a record that captures the energy of the nascence of british punk more than this one.
i'm a bit torn about this one. i used to be very into the black keys about a decade ago and this was my absolute favorite by them. nowadays i am not a huge fan of their music, so at this point in time, i don't really feel like giving them a score of what i probably would have a decade ago. overall, i still think this is a good album. i don't think it's anything mindblowing and i think a lot of their contemporaries make music that i think feels more genuine and sounds better. the album still has a bunch of bops on it - and i can't get tired of 'tighten up' and their cover of jerry butler's 'never give you up' - what i think are highlights of the album.. the production on this one feels a little stale but when they are loose, i think this album can borderline rip. the musicianship on this one is pretty good and i think the songwriting is solid. to me it sounds very early '10s commercial now, which i didn't at the time (but this sound has been co-opted by truck commercials for years). i think at the time it felt a little more novel than it does today. honestly, i still have a little bit of a soft spot for it.
my exposure to tom waits is fairly limited - i've listened to his first two albums on my own, but haven't explored him much further. i know his album gets a little more avant garde and challenging to listen to, but i found this one to be a fun listen. it's a fun jazz record with a live audience environment, it really gets the 'jazz club' aesthetic down. the musicianship is great but not very showy. waits' songs are fun and very off-kilter and wacky. probably not everyone's bag, but i appreciate the sort of sleazy vibe he was going for. definitely one i think i could appreciate more with additional listens.
i usually try to have an open mind, especially when i'm presented with an artist i've never heard before. i was excited to listen to this one based on the genres given on wikipedia, but unfortunately i was a bit disappointed in this one. although i think the songwriting was fairly intriguing and the lead singer's voice was very strong, i can't get past the production on this one. i imagine if this album was produced more like a folk-y album, and not an 80s pop album, i would have liked it more. the production feels dated and not in a fun or good way, and doesn't feel like it fits the songs or the album. it took me several pauses within listening to listen through this one. sorry, not a huge fan!
i went through a decently big stones phase and i really like this album. it's not my favorite of the stones' 'classic period' but i think it's a really interesting showcase of their transition into roots-focused rock. of course, the two big songs on here are stone-cold classics for a reason, but i've always loved the more country stuff on here - especially 'love in vain' and 'country honk' if i have any complaint at all, it's that this crop of songs is not as strong as other albums they released in this general time period - but to say this album is not good because it's not 'sticky fingers' or 'exile' seems unfair. those albums are extraordinary in their discography, and although that technically means this album is more ordinary, i still think it's a great album.
when I saw this album influenced bruce springsteen, i was intrigued. but boy i could not hear that influence at all until i listened to the track 'frankie teardrop' which you can tell bruce was directly inspired by for 'state trooper' that aside, the album is interesting. it's described as a punk album but because of the sparseness of the arrangements (just keyboard and vocals) it doesn't have the unabashed loudness you expect from a punk album, but a more subdued, yet still energetic form of music. from that standpoint, i enjoyed a completely unique take on a genre in it's naissance more than maybe some of their other contemporaries in the punk scene. that being said, the songwriting here is pretty barebones (it is punky after all) and if you don't have the loud, bombastic instrumentation from that, you focus on the songs more and i don't know if i think the songs are strong enough to carry this album otherwise. it's a cool album, but i'm not sure i'll come back to it again.
I know a pretty decent amount of the isleys' hits from listening to a lot of old pop/r&b music so i figured this would be in line with a lot of my music taste. boy howdy, i think that was an understatement. this is a fantastic album! the big hit off this one, 'that lady' is an all time banger, but all of the album cuts are great too. i especially enjoy the covers on here - in particular, their cover of 'listen to the music' is an awesome funk version of the doobie brothers classic. not a dull moment on this and the musicianship is top notch! excellent stuff!
yeah this was difficult for me. i like challenging myself with music, but not like this. the music is aggressive but i can't get past nick cave's growling and howling on this one. it made it very hard for me to listen to. i actually liked the instrumentation but after a while it felt more and more like "ok, i get it, i get it." if i can give the album artwork some credit, it reminds me of garbage pail kids and the music on this album i think definitely fits the vibe of garbage pail kids. unfortunately, garbage pail kids is not my vibe.
i'm a huge fan of 60s psych, and this is a cornerstone album in that genre. i used to have a kneejerk reaction to not like this album because it was forced by my boomer parents down my throat but after falling in love with so many of their contemporaries' music, i have come back around on this one. the songwriting is great and the production sounds great for an album from 1967 - when 'hi-fi' as it currently stands was a distant dream. i still can't believe how good and clean 'embryonic journey' sounds for something recorded in this era - it honestly sounds like it was recorded a decade later. grace slick's vocals on this are iconic. it is a really great package altother. and although i still want to have a kneejerk reaction to this one, i have to admit, it's a classic and important album for a reason.
i didn't know what to think going in but have always heard great things about d'angelo. i enjoyed this! super smooth r&b. his voice is incredible and the production is fairly solid. at times, it has a little bit of a jazzy feel - although the jazzy feel of 'when we get by' does, at this point, feel pretty dated and funny due to its use of synthesized jazz instrumentation (it kind of sounds like a nintendo 64 game song lol). i particularly enjoyed his cover of smokey robinson's 'cruisin'' which i think even though it was recorded 15 years prior, fits the sound of this album very well. you can definitely tell that d'angelo and the other producers of this album have a lot of reverence for old school soul music, which i think is what i appreciate about this album the most. it feels like a natural progression from the likes of smokey robinson or perhaps al green. just a solid, chill album.
i've never listened to motorhead, with the exception of the odd song incidentally over the years (playing rock band, etc). i'm not usually a huge metal guy but i enjoyed myself here. this album whips ass! the album is hard rocking and frenetic, like a huge runaway train barreling down the tracks. i don't know if i'm sold on the lead vocals themselves, but they certainly add to the aggressive nature of the music and i do much prefer them to a lot of the more modern, growly vocals i've heard from more modern metal bands. in particular, i really enjoyed the musicianship exhibited here. the drumming is precise and clean, while having an aggressive, loose feel. the guitar work here soars, and the bass playing holds everything together while managing to be high flying and exciting. you can tell everyone here is in sync with one another and firing on all cylinders. i think i could really start to enjoy this album on multiple listens. good stuff!
pretty decently fun album. instrumentation and vocal performances are fairly strong. unfortunately, despite there being some moments onto his one that I enjoyed, I felt ultimately it was a pretty middling experience. on the good side of middling, but there wasn't anything here that stood out to me. in particular, I felt the songwriting just did not hook me at all. not a bad album, but not anything that I feel I will go back to
another album on this list that i unabashedly adore. ccr's run in the late 60s into the early 70s is pretty unmatched in terms of quality of album, in my opinion, and this one might be my favorite of theirs. short, sweet, to the point, and not a bad track on here. john fogerty's songwriting is top notch as always, with the exception of the album closer, 'the night time is the right time,' a cover of the ray charles classic. the instrumentation here is all great and sonically, the album still sounds great and swampy. it's truly a document of a great band at its peak firing on all cylinders.
this was a good album but i don't think it reaches the upper echelon for me. the two big songs on here, the title track and 'shining star' are fantastic, great mid-70s r&b songs. the rest of the album is not quite filler but is not equal to those two songs. don't get it twisted, i enjoyed the rest of these songs to a certain extent - particularly enjoyed 'reasons' (which i could swear i have heard before... it doesn't look like that was a single but it sounds so familiar). the rest of the album is ok but feels like it's mostly r&b ballads, which are nice, but not anything special to me. the ending of 'all about love' is a bizarre mishmash of synthesizers which feels out of place. so yeah, not an all timer for me, but decent enough.
i have a deep fondness for 60's garage rock and psychedelia, and this album is really important in the merging of those genres. the first track, 'you're gonna miss me' is one of my favorite songs of this era. there are lots of great tracks on here like 'reverberation' and 'roller coaster' and it is rightly considered a classic of this era - HOWEVER, i think as many point out, the big "feature" of this album is an "electric jug" which is prominently displayed on every track. i think it's actually a very psychedelic "percussion" instrument choice to include, but its welcome is worn out very quickly. i can handle it in spurts listening to 'you're gonna miss me' but an entire album's worth is a bit much. i don't think it makes this album unlistenable, but is undeniably present and will wear on you.
i like the police a lot but i think often they get a little too pithy for their own good. on this album, i think this ring the most true. like all their music, the musicianship and instrumentation is unreal, but at this point in their career, i feel sting is getting a little too full of himself. don't get me wrong, there are some stone cold classics on this one - 'every breath you take,' 'king of pain,' 'wrapped around your finger,' and 'synchronicity i' are masterpieces, but nothing else on here gets close to them. it's not that the rest of the album is bad, it's just the rest of the album feels very... pretentious at points. i do want to like this album a lot more than i do, but i'm not sure i'm ever going to totally see eye to eye with a lot of people about it.
i get really torn about this album. if you can separate the art from the artist, this is a really great 12/14ths of an album (i am not a fan of 'i am yours' and 'thorn tree in the garden' at all). that being said, eric clapton is a big ol' pile o' shit (and he continually loves to announce this to the world) and this album's origins are so bizarre (falling in love with george harrison's wife and writing an album about how much you love her, and then subsequently marrying her yourself). patti boyd was not the only thing eric clapton lifted from george harrison, as a very good portion of this album sounds like a hypothetical 'all things must pass 2' all that said, i still think it's a pretty great album, and even though i am (un)officially part of the Eric Clapton Resistance Force, this one still holds up - i mean 'bell bottom blues' is such a great, emotional track that i can forgive its weird origins.
i think is album is more important for its concept than it is for being a truly great album. don't get me wrong, i did enjoy it and it is up my alley. i think upon multiple listens, i could really get to liking it, but to me upon first listen, it feels like it's more notable for being "the first rock opera" than the actual quality of the music. either way, there were some cool psych-tinged moments on here and there wasn't a bad song in the mix.
i'm a big fan of motown in general, but it's obvious that, production-wise, the temptations truly were at their best with norman whitfield at the helm. this album is the pinnacle of that. of course, as always, the temptations' vocals and arrangements are top notch, the production, as previously mentioned, is great and although not as groundbreaking as the temptations' 'cloud nine' with this production style, but is a continuation and elevation of that style. whitfield's trademark lush orchestration and funk instrumentation is incredibly important and still great to this day. i think what prevents this album from going from good to great is the crop of songs. the first side is great and funky - especially with what may be the temptations' magnum opus ('papa was a rollin' stone'). the second side is a lot slower and ballady and, even though i know the temptations were very fond of soft, sensitive ballads, i don't know that i like them as well from them as opposed to their more upbeat fare. their cover of 'the first time ever (i saw your face)' is, quite frankly, kind of boring. i can deal with the rest but it does feel like it kills the pacing of the album.
three things that i love about this album on first listen: 1) willie nelson's voice is so soothing. 2) this album is so chill and calming. 3) this album is 'short and sweet: the album' - 15 tracks and the album isn't even 35 minutes long. i will say, i am not very well versed in the greater world of country music, only where it seems to touch my other musical interests. i'm not sure what i expected out of this album, but i know it wasn't this. i had no idea this was even a concept album with a story. this is one of the albums i've listened to in this project where i was kind of floored? this is the good stuff, man.
this album was really neat and i loved being exposed to music that i normally do not get exposed to. you could tell how joyful the music was from the singing and from the instrumentals here. just a very chill, jubilant album to kick off a weekend morning. cool stuff!
really cool record! i have heard pj harvey's name forever but have never explored her music. i greatly enjoyed this album. in some respects, it reminds me of sleater-kinney (who would follow) but in other respects, it reminds me of grunge like nirvana. really cutting, biting lyrics, aggressive instrumentation. great songwriting and great musicianship exhibited here. awesome stuff!
i went into this project never having listened to the beastie boys in full. this is my third beastie boys album and what i can say across the board is that my favorite part of their music is their production. this record is no exception, and may be my favorite of theirs from that standpoint. the production on this album is superb - it sounds so damn good. tracks like 'futterman's rule' are funky, groovy, and sound live and loose. just really cool stuff. my issue, like other beastie boys albums is that their vocals don't really do it for me at all. i would say at times they are grating and annoying to me. in fact - i think q-tip on 'get it together' is my favorite part of this record. the production is phenomenal, and i can't help but think if someone else was rapping on the entire rest of the record, it would be a slam dunk 5/5 for me. either way, i still enjoyed it well enough.
there are some nice songs on here and christina's voice, as always, is incredible. but honestly i found this album a bit boring and same-y. the hits on here are great pop songs, but the rest of it is very generic early 00s pop music that does not stand out in any way. very middle of the road for me.
obviously a classic album, one that is still iconic of its time and still has a presence in culture. i really go back and forth on the doors as a whole, sometimes i really can't stand them and sometimes i do appreciate them. right now, i am feeling more positive towards them. what i appreciate most about this album is the sound - nothing sounded like it before, or really since. what is particularly important to me is ray manzarek's keyboard playing, which is, in my opinion, what makes the doors music special. without him the group does not stand out from the crowd. his playing is proficient and is incredibly important to the sound of this album. of course, jim morrison's vocals are iconic and the guitar playing and drumming on this one are underratedly good. between 'break on through (to the other side),' 'light my fire,' and 'the end,' you have a trio of terrific late 60s psych.
yeah i'm afraid this one wasn't for me. i appreciate the effort here - the combination of electronic music and indian music is an interesting one, but i knew halfway through the first track this was going to be not my thing. i can see how this is music that you can get lost in, but unfortunately i don't really get lost in it - i more just get bored. the repetitive rhythms don't do much for me and to be honest, there's not a whole deal more here besides stilted vocals every so often and some muted trumpets (and such). just not my thing.
another album i cannot be unbiased about. to me, pet sounds is the alpha and the omega. this is brian wilson firing on all cylinders. i think a lot of people miss the fact that what makes this album so special is the time period it was made in. nothing sounded like this in 1966 and nothing ever sounded like this again. it went on to influence countless contemporaries and future musicians. the arrangements are so superb and so complex that you don't even realize how complex they are while listening to the music. the structure of the songs was so progressive for the time. the vocals are impeccable, obviously the strong suit of the beach boys. the one thing you have to keep in mind is that because it's 1966, all of these were done pretty much live and recorded on four tracks, as compared to today where everything can be recorded on infinite tracks. it's just an incredible achievement of recording engineering, production, and songcraft that, in my opinion, has never been matched.
sorry to say, i didn't really care for this one. i thought the sound they crafter here was interesting and on track for something i could see myself liking, but i think the songwriting here and particularly the vocal performances here were lackluster in an amateurish way. sounds like i'm listening to a local bar band at points, and not in a good way.
another album that's a classic for a reason. the clash here take their punk sound and elevate it to new heights, something that is more progressive than their contemporaries, yet also a little more poppy. the attitude is still here and the musicianship exhibited here is pretty dang good. nitpicking a little bit, but not all of the songs here are amazing songs (i'm looking at you, 'jimmy jazz') but the vast majority of this album slaps hard.
from a musicianship standpoint, you do not get better than this. miles, trane, cannonball, and evans all on the same record should rightfully be praised. some of the greatest to ever do it. and as such, the musicianship on this is incredible. my problem with this album is purely a me thing - i really don't like cool jazz. i much prefer miles' bebop stuff. cool jazz just doesn't do it for me. i, quite frankly, find it a bit boring. so despite the classic songs, the incredible playing, and the all-timer status, i actually really didn't enjoy myself listening to this a whole lot. once again, i admit, this is fully a me thing. if you love this, go off kings. it's just not for me.
i so badly wanted to love this album - i generally like talking heads and, of course, i am very familiar with 'genius of love' (which i adore) and so i was hoping for more of the same. unfortunately a lot of this album did not resonate with me. it still has a lot of the same quirkiness of 'genius of love' but really not to the same level of quality for me. i found myself a bit underwhelmed and disappointed. that being said, 'wordy rappinghood' is a fun romp but outside of that, i didn't really feel a whole lot here.
i think ultimately, this album in the grand scheme of things is not very important, but i adore it a lot. i don't know if it has aged very well - it definitely sounds like a mid-late '60s album and modern listeners may find it mundane, but i was raised on this album and the rascals in general. i think the crop of songs is great, the sound of the rascals, at the time, was fairly groundbreaking, and the musicianship here is extremely underrated, especially the drumming of dino danelli (some of the greatest fills of all time!). is this a monumental album from 1967, in hindsight? maybe not. i still love it a lot.
look i am biased about this one, this is one of my favorite albums by one of my favorite musicians. in a lot of respects, i think this is mccartney at his greatest as a rock music craftsman. every song on this is hooky and catchy. of course he had been writing iconic hooks and melodies for over a decade at this point, but here it especially feels like music that was made to be as hooky and catchy as possible. songs like 'jet' and the title track 'band on the run' are classics and rightfully so. the musicianship on here is great, but of course the highlights are paul's musicianship (sorry linda). if i could make one nitpick about this album, it's that i love almost all of the songs, but i think if you replaced 'picasso's last words' with almost anything else (i honestly think it overstays its welcome, but hey, it's kitsch, it's paul) it's an even stronger album. but i do unabashedly love this album regardless.
i am perpetually conflicted about the doors. last week, i was given their first album and i love it a lot. this album is always the other side of the coin for me. where their first album feels fresh and energized, this album feels stale, stagnant, depressing (derogatory). jim morrison's nearing death here and he is very obviously riddled with his various vices. his vocal performance is, at points, atrocious. this seems to be a hot take but his vocal performance on the title track is actually borderline unlistenable to me. it's not good. it's not cool. it's not A Vibe. it's just sad. he was never a singer's singer, always fueled by attitude, but on this album it's not attitude as much as an imbibed stupor. the crop of songs here are also not very strong. my favorite of the bunch has always been 'love her madly' which i think is classic doors fare, but not too much more than that. what i think saves this album from being a complete disaster is the musicianship by the rest of the band. and, as always, i will give a special shoutout to ray manzarek, whom without, the doors would be nothing. his keyboard playing is spectacular and iconic on most everything he touched.
not quite my thing. in a lot of respects, this reminds me of arcade fire's music, but seems a little less accessible. the instrumentals here are fine and i liked them, but i had a hard time getting past the vocals. they sort of sound like a cartoon vampire. idk, i know it's supposed to be ~artsy~ but it sort of falls flat to me.
i like a lot of neil young's stuff and have always enjoyed this album, but it's not quite to the level of some of his other work, particularly the two or three albums that precede this one. half of this album is songs i love (like the title track, 'revolution blues,' and 'vampire blues') but the other half doesn't quite do it for me. just feel like the crop of songs is not as strong as on some of his other efforts. it's not that i think the album is bad, i just think it could have been workshopped a bit more.
despite being a relatively big neil young fan, i have not listened to a breadth of his music, including this one. what i really liked about this is that this album has a nice balance between neil's acoustic side and hard rock side, which culminates in the bookended versions of 'my my, hey hey' i also enjoyed the fact that it sort of toes the line between live album and studio album. sometimes it feels like it's a studio album, and then the audience noise starts bleeding in. i know neil young can be a bit divisive, but i tend to land on the positive side rather than the negative, and i greatly enjoyed my time with this one.
this is one i've been meaning to listen to for a while now. listening to this album, you can tell its dna has been passed on to many modern artists, particularly the women-driven indie rock of the last decade plus. it has a rawness that i think was unique for the time but has been emulated for decades at this point. from a standpoint of production, i did enjoy the slightly raw sound. i thought her lyrics were honest but i did feel like not all of the songs landed with me. that being said, there are a few on here that are fantastic, such as, 'never said' - which i think is an all-timer. all that being said, for me, this one is good, not great. i think with time, i can definitely grow to love it, but as it stands right now, it was not out of the park for me.
every yes album i have encountered just has the air of 'coolness' - the production, the musicianship, the performances just sound cool. on this album, they employ a lot more acoustic music than i would normally associate with yes, but it still works well and i love seeing their versatility and having it succeed. of course, the famous track on here ('i've seen all good people') is great, but to me the stars of this album are the bookends ('yours is no disgrace' and 'perpetual change') which are great early prog gems. look, you pretty much know what you're in for with yes, and i am totally on board with it.
i'm not really a big metal guy at all, but i appreciate this era of metal a lot more than the more modern sound. i love the rawness of it. particularly the energy of the guitars and the drums. this album does this well, but i don't really care for the overdramatic spin on this one (edgy? not really, maybe for the time). also none of the songs stood out to me in any way. so, ultimately, like the sound, don't really care about the music that's here. not bad, not awful, not great.
pretty solid album but i think it's a little too serious and pretentious for me. i do enjoy this era of synth-driven music, and i greatly enjoyed the sounds on this one, as well as the production, but i found the sounds themselves a bit lacking. still was enjoyable, but not really my favorite.
of course, i knew the big song off of this album before listening, but i kind of wish the whole song was as fun as it. 'groove is in the heart' is so infectious, catchy, and upbeat, it makes the entire rest of the album feel kind of lethargic and uninteresting in comparison. the sampling and production here is cool and i think the vocal performance from lady miss kier is pretty good but the sum of the parts here is just kind of blah. i really was hoping i would like this more.
i never listened to ac/dc in middle school so this music really hasn't resonated with me. it's funny to me that the only song on this album i knew ahead of time was the title track and, quite frankly, it's the lamest song on here. the rest of the album really doesn't do it for me a whole lot. solid enough hard rock. the sound is better than i feel the songs are. just really makes me feel like music a middle schooler would like. ah well, i gave it a shot.
i would say in general, deep purple tends to be music i don't really care about - i first encountered 'machine head' in this project and wasn't wowed by it. it just really isn't my music. so going into this one, i was sort of expecting more of the same, but i think ultimately, i like this one better. to me it's got more of a raw rock energy that machine head doesn't. it feels a little more rough around the edges, which i like. to me, it sounds like if you put the doors on steroids. just very frenetic, and i appreciated it more than what feels like the more premeditated 'machine head'
what can i say, cube does it again. i really jive with the production on ice cube's records. really cool, really funky. ice cube's rapping is aggressive and he sounds cool as all hell when he's rapping. i think as with a lot of other rap of this era, it is a little bit dated in terms of "acceptible" terms etc. but the content of his rapping is still on point and still extremely relevant 30+ years later. whereas 'ameriKKKa's most wanted' gets a little too caught up in the whole "ice cube is a sexist" thing, i think this one is a lot more focused on the political statements, etc. which i think makes for a better, harder hitting experience.
oh my god? talk about an album that i never would have been exposed to otherwise that i was absolutely blown away by. every second of this is a fabulously funky fusion of funk and brazilian music. there is not a bad moment on here, it is just dripping in sweat in the best kind of way the entire length of the album. i will definitely return to this one! really awesome stuff.
marvin may not be at his best here but he is pretty damn close to it. the vast majority of the album is great as hell and the only "bad" parts are okay if you can deal with some prime early-mid-70s explicit moaning. only thing i will say is i'm not sure why 'keep gettin' it on' is so close to the title track, but i guess it bookends the sides, so it's alright. but yeah, front to back this is a classic for a reason. and it's a lot shorter than i remember!
yeah sorry, this one just ain't for me. i think it's a case of "you had to be there" - or maybe "you had to be a depressed and angry kid in middle school when this came out." in general, i think the production is pretty solid on this one. the musicianship is definitely there. i'm just not very into the vocals here, either the screaming or the rapping. the scream-singing is technically better and i think evokes a lot more emotion, but the rapping is baffling, since it is not particularly well rapped, written, or, quite frankly, good. then we get to the lyrics which are really, REALLY not my bag. i understand a lot of people are attached to this stuff and it resonates with them, but for me it's the opposite. maybe i am too privileged to have never had my angst manifest in this direction, but to be honest, i find it quite alienating. even at my worst, i don't think i've ever felt quite like the vibe that this album gives off, maybe i'm just lucky, but man it just does not resonate with me.
boy, this is a bit of a mixed bag. sometimes i can't get past the lead vocals, sometimes the instrumentation is a little too avant-garde for my liking, sometimes the songs are really cool. the ending of the final track sounds like a cat is jumping on a keyboard. i still think overall, i liked it, but it is definitely a bit of a mixed bag. maybe it would grow on me with repeated listens or maybe only partially.
this was a really fascinating album. obviously a lot of it is voices and altered voices (nearly all of it?) and the music can be a little bit challenging at times, but i found it all fairly compelling. it's an album that sounds cool. although i think at points it's definitely difficult to listen to. i had never listened to bjork before and often i hear her spoken in the same breath as yoko ono, and honestly i do not see the similarity between this and yoko's works (i do enjoy yoko as well) beyond "woman with unconventional voice is making weird music" - all that being said, i did enjoy my time with this one.
the first three songs are all-timers. there's a reason they get played to death on classic rock radio. the rest of the album, in my opinion, is good, not great. nothing bad here, but nothing as special as the opening three tracks. pretty good album overall, but it feels pretty formulaic after a while. the musicianship here is great, in particular the guitar playing is iconic. the production here is impeccable. brad delp's vocals are incredible. it might be one of the best sounding records of all time. all that said, a very good album front to back, if not a bit cliche.
this, in my opinion, is the stones at their best. the album has all of the qualities of what makes a great stones album without none of the bloat of some of their (one of their) highly acclaimed albums. the album comes out with a blaze of aggression and keeps the attitude going. 'sway' is one of my secret favorite stones songs, and 'wild horses' is one of my not-secret favorite stones songs. even when the album downturns to the more acoustic "traditional" blues sound, like "you gotta move" the album doesn't quit. what makes the stones the stones is the oomph their albums give, and this is one of the oomphiest albums around. one of my favs!
a really hit or miss album for me. when this album is at its best, it's really firing on cylinders. when it's not, it's just kind of a bore. i think the performances here are very good but i think especially the slower material bogs this one down a little too much for my liking. the more uptempo stuff is great, i just think the downtempo stuff is too boring. it's pleasant enough but not enough for me to love it entirely.
the highlight of this album is the production - nile rogers and bernard edwards knock it out of the park, as they often did with this era of disco. the title track is iconic, catchy, and still holds up incredibly well. i also enjoy the hit 'he's the greatest dancer' which holds up nearly as well. the album cuts here are not as strong, with the exception of the production (at least they all sound good), but the songs can be a bit repetitive or uninteresting at points (although it IS disco, i would imagine they would play very well in a dance club). overall, a pretty good, not great album.
the greatness of elvis costello on full display. although it is not my favorite album of his, it's pretty damn near the top. from front to back, it's oozing with cool. snide, clever attitude is dripping from this thing. the production is great, the now-iconic sound of the organ on this one holds up quite well. elvis' lyrics and songwriting are top notch and fun, sometimes with a bitter underside. just a great album overall.
man, i didn't know what to expect from this one going in. i wasn't familiar with the name but saw that damon albarn and danger mouse were attached, so i was cautiously optimistic, knowing that both of them have made some quality stuff. i really didn't care for this one. it wasn't bad, i just really found it a bit boring. i felt like the pacing didn't suit my liking and the quality of the songs i didn't care too much for. the musicianship here was good but there were not very many moments that stood out to me. i did enjoy the title track and how it built, but other than that, nothing really stood out to me.
elvis costello's third effort is a little bit more hit or miss than his first two, but i think the highs vastly outweigh the lows here. to be clear, the lows of this album are still very good, i just don't think it's as consistent as some of his other records. still, songs like "accidents will happen" and "oliver's army" are great (man, i should have been keeping track of how many slurs i've run into on this project... a surprise one here!). i also thought the second half of this was at least a little more consistent than the first half - the swing from the first three songs of the first side to the last three sides of the first side is a bit of a swing, quality wise. that all being said, i still greatly enjoyed my time with this album.
i am a big joni mitchell fan and, on a good day, this may be my favorite joni album. there truly is some brilliance here, as with much of her music. her songwriting is as top notch as ever. clever, funny, emotional, great. this album has her starting to move in a direction she would continue to follow in the later part of the 70s, with it being a little more sophisticated and jazzy at points. we're not at 'Mingus' territory here yet, but it truly is her firing at the pinnacle of her powers. not only does this have great singles, like "help me" and "free man in paris" (all timers, in my opinion), but has incredible album tracks such as 'people's parties' and the title track, as well as the rocker 'raised on robbery.' because of the shift to jazzier music, she includes some fantastic musicians on here. i also love how well curated the sound of this album is. nothing really sounds like this album and it all sounds consistently great. really, this is a moment of transition for joni, but ultimately, this might be the sweet spot for me.
yeah i can't say i'm a fan of this. i don't know if i can say it's bad but it's pretty uninspiring. there's really nothing interesting here going on. i remember them being a big band but with music as, at best, middle of the road as this, i can't imagine the bland type of person who this resonates with. not for me.
i am a huge simon and garfunkel fan, honestly i think their body of work is some of the strongest of any group. this album is not my favorite of their output, but i still think it is very good. for my money, paul simon is at his best when he is writing quiet, contemplative music, and this album definitely has its fair share of that - "homeward bound," "the 59th street bridge song," and "for emily, whenever i may find here," amongst others. it also has two terrific covers - "scarborough fair/canticle," and "7 o'clock news/silent night" as bookends (get it?) to the album. overall, i think the rest of the album is not quite filler, but still enjoyable. as i said, it's not my favorite of theirs, but in the grand scheme of things, i still love this album a whole lot!
man this album is pretty much it. so funky, so effortlessly cool. particularly the first side is iconic. the musicianship from herbie, as well as the entire ensemble is so great. the part of chameleon where it goes out of tune is unfathomably cool. the whole thing is just cool. cooler than cool jazz. front to back.
boy i don't really know how to feel about this one. it was out of my comfort zone. it is really beautiful, haunting. it is out of my comfort zone. it is also a lot of electronic noise. it is out of my comfort zone. i found it very relaxing. it is out of my comfort zone. it's not music i would ever seek out. it is out of my comfort zone. i really liked it? it was out of my comfort zone. but i liked it?
a bit mixed on this one. there are parts of this album that, for me, verge on unquestionably great. songs like, 'today' and 'geek u.s.a' are fun and definitely the highlights for me. a lot of the album is... fine but not really my thing. especially when the album tends to be quieter. i really like this album more when it's cooking than when it's soft. that being said, there's nothing bad here, just really not totally my thing. ultimately, i liked it, but didn't love it.
i have to preface this by saying that i am a huge beach boys and brian wilson fan and have been my whole life. i've listened to pretty much every album they and their members have ever released. i adore the music of SMiLE, but this is not the best version in my eyes. I remember how revelatory this release was at the time, the mythic album finally coming to life! you can hear the long-lost greatness! and, yeah, it's pretty good! unfortunately for 'brian wilson presents SMiLE,' the recreation of this album on the subsequently released 'the smile sessions' blows this one out of the water. to hear the then contemporary recordings of this music is astonishing to me, and this recreation some 40 years later is very good but not the same thing. as i said, i love the songs here, but unfortunately something that i think plagues brian's later career is the production, which almost always comes off as flat, stale, surgical, cold. i think that the way this album sounds does the source material a disservice, which is why i will always prefer the production of brian at the height of his powers in the 60s over this album. it's still a great time, i think it's brilliant music. just not the best it can be.
super bombastic "fun" album - fun in quotation marks because i understand the political nature of the album and the message is not a fun message, but fun to listen to. the rapping is pretty great, although i think chuck d is way better than flavor flav. the beats are great and raw in that late 80s way. in terms of all the rap from this era i've listened to, ultimately, it's not my favorite but i would still say it's pretty consistently good.
sonic youth is a tough one for me because i like a lot of music that is adjacent to them, but for some reason i can't for the life of me get into their music fully. i'm not sure what it is - i think it tends to be a little too noise-y for my taste? that being said, i did enjoy this album. especially songs like 'dirty boots,' 'mary-christ,' and, 'kool thing.' i think i liked this album more when it was raucous and chaotic more than when it was more avant-garde and noise-y. either way, it was a good time. i just wish i liked it a little bit more.
on the right day, gun to my head, this is my favorite queen album. it's certainly up there for me. to me, this is the album where queen truly becomes queen. although i think they perfect the queen sound on their next album, 'a night at the opera,' this is really the bridge between the early queen sound and the 'iconic' sound they developed. you do get pieces of it with songs like 'killer queen,' but what i love about this album is the harder rock songs - songs like 'brighton rock,' as well as, 'now i'm here.' i also love the 'in the lap of the gods' duology, and of course, with that classic queen sound, you get a queen granny song like 'bring back that leroy brown.' just a really great album that i adore.
yeah this one is an all timer to me. in my opinion, this is bob dylan at his peak (maybe a controversial take? maybe not). his songwriting here is top notch. i think this may be his best crop of songs on an album. i also like the sound of this album. it's sort of the midway point between 'bringing it all back home' and 'blonde on blonde' - you sort of get a good feel for where he's going but it's still pretty folky at points. my favorite tracks are the standout, 'like a rolling stone,' as well as, 'ballad of a thin man.' overall, just a great record.
obviously there's one really big song on this album and it's pretty great. it holds up. i think the hidden gem on this album is 'the sun always shines on tv' which i think is fairly lost to history (at least here in the states). the rest of the album is pretty solid but fairly unremarkable at times. still, i think the sound is fairly iconic at this point and overall, it's a fun enough listen.
a pretty solid late 60's folk album. i found it to be a bit uneven at points, but really enjoyed songs like, 'no man can find the war,' and, 'pleasant street.' tim buckley has a pleasant voice and clearly is a very solid songwriter. his voice, at times, reminds me of mickey dolenz from the monkees (not an insult). i don't know if this is tim buckley at his best, but i can imagine an album where his talents converge and he created something truly great. i'm not sure this is that album, though.
i would say strictly a good album, not a great album. the lead singer's voice is very good and i think the songs here are solid enough, but the production is quite dated in a not-so-charming way and nothing here jumps out as an amazing song or performance. it's better than average, but nothing super special either.
although i don't think this is necessarily bob dylan at the height of his powers, this is a terrific album and one that shows essentially where he started from. maybe the most pure folk album he ever released (outside of his debut) and there is some terrific stuff on here. this album really showcases him as a pure folk singer, which i think is very important in his history, but in his relation to the evolution of popular music in the 20th century. if i can nitpick, not all of the songs are 10 out of 10 bangers, but most of them are great and there are some all-timers on here. safe to say, it's one of my favorites of his and an overall great album.
this wasn't my favorite. i think the production was pretty decent but i think has aged worse than a lot of the older first or second wave rap albums. 50's rapping is alright but just really isn't my thing. there's something about his flow that is a little too singsong-y for me. most of the songs here are fine but in my opinion not very memorable. there are a couple on here that are fun, like 'in da club,' and ,'p.i.m.p.' but other than that, i'm not sure i liked it enough to explore it further.
although i'm not as familiar with the "greater" nirvana discography, i have listened to 'nevermind' and some select works that dave grohl did afterwards. this was my first time listening to this album in full, and i have to say, i think i like it more than 'nevermind,' - which i'm not sure is a hot take or not. although obviously their breakthrough album is an incredibly important album for the evolution of popular music in the 20th century, i actually find this album more appealing with its more rough-around-the-edges sound and kurt cobain's more personal lyrics dealing with his experiences with fame. outside of the songs that i would consider "famous" from this album, my favorites were, 'serve the servants,' 'frances farmer will have her revenge on seattle,' and, 'radio friendly unit shifter.' to me, this album is one that takes the momentum of their first album and combines it with a more rough around the edges sound that works extremely well.
what always draws me to this album is the folk-punk sound they created. it's biting, it's aggressive, it's... soft? i love that about it. the lyrics and songs remind me a little bit of the modern lovers, another band i like a lot. the whole album is just really fun, and a great take on a genre that can be a bit hit or miss.
i really enjoyed my time with this one. i've not explored teenage fanclub's wider material, but it's always been a name that i've heard and have been interested to listen to. it reminds me a lot of the power pop that i love - big star, particularly. big guitars, catchy hooks, a teeny bit of noise. very fun stuff!
i am a big joni fan, but i have not listened to a lot of her non "big" albums. this was my first time with this album and i really liked it. what i thought was interesting is that clearly it is an evolution on the style from 'court and spark' adding a lot more jazz feel to it than her music before. also included are a few instances of abrasive synthesizers which i was not expecting at all. her songwriting is still great. what i think made this album stand up lesser than her others that i adore is that it feels like a lot of the "pop" joni is gone from this one. in a lot of her earlier music, there is sort of a sing-songy-ness that i didn't realize i was so attached to and i didn't get the same sort of feeling from this one. obviously it is an evolution to a more mature sound, but i'm not sure i particularly enjoy this stage of the evolution in full.
yeah i don't know about this one. i'm not even a rap hater or disliker, i'm just not really a fan of whatever this is. the bars are corny as hell at times (i audibly laughed at a bunch of them and i don't think they were supposed to be funny) although skepta's flow is pretty good. the production here is what kills me though, i don't think it's technically bad, but the beats give me absolutely nothing and sound to me like something someone just threw together in garageband or something. and the skits? like am i supposed to take them seriously? is this supposed to make him sound hard? is it supposed to be corny as shit? who knows. to me, i couldn't take it seriously. it looks like this album is pretty well esteemed but i don't know why, there was so much better stuff coming out at the time of this release. not a fan, sorry.
a really cool foray into cuban music! i don't know if i ever would have gone out of my way to listen to this album, but i'm glad i did. the album is very passionately played and sung. you can tell that a lot of care went into this. i'm not familiar with the group, but it looks like there is a documentary that is sort of in tandem with this album that i may check out. really cool stuff. although i did enjoy myself, i'm not sure it's an album i would really come back to all the time, but it certainly is an album i enjoyed outside of the scope of the music i normally listen to and i really do appreciate it for that.
it goes without saying that tina turner has an incredible voice. her voice is the reason you listen to this album. the production is violently mid-1980s and has not held up particularly well. it sounds really clunky and cheesy. there are a handful of old overs on here that i don't think are amazing covers, just sort of whatever. nothing here stood out to me as great, but was solid enough. pretty middle of the road.
pretty decent album. i enjoyed k.d.'s voice and the songs were pleasant enough. there was nothing here that really blew me away. the highlight here for me was 'constant craving,' which i thought was far and above the best song here. all in all, good not great.
really fun punk album. it's energetic, aggressive, obnoxious. everything here works really well, the sound and the instrumentation is classic 90s punk. to me the highlights are the "big" songs - 'come out and play' and 'self esteem'
so i suspect most people aren't going to enjoy this one. pop music from over 20 years ago from a figure that has ended up a bit divisive and unpopular in the modern context (as of writing this, he notably was arrested for DWI about a month ago). that being said, i was expecting the worst going into this. justin timberlake doesn't tend to be my kind of music but honestly, this album was alright! the two songs i remember off of this - 'rock your body' and 'cry me a river' are honestly two of the more unremarkable songs here for me. i enjoyed the first two tracks 'seniorita' and 'like i love you' and also the incredibly stevie wonder-esque 'nothin' else' it's not my favorite album ever, but it's better than i expected.
pretty decent 00s indie album. definitely a little on the artsy side, if you're into that. i felt like it started with a bang but quickly sort of fell off. the first third of the album is a lot better than the last two thirds, in my opinion. but the album is pleasant enough and i feel i could grow to like it upon additional listens.
a starkly beautiful album. i suspect people will not be able to get past her voice, but i think it's quite interesting and love the timbre in contrast with the harp and orchestrated instrumentals. very fun, playful music. calming. really great!
cannot be unbiased about this one. been one of my favorite albums for most of my life. the production on this one is immaculate, to this day it still sounds amazing. the songwriting is incredible - john, paul, george, and EVEN ringo firing on all cylinders. this album is really the pinnacle and the perfect ending for the beatles as a group. just a tremendous accomplishment of an album, despite the fact that the band was perhaps at its most splintering.
honestly i probably haven't listened to this one since it came out. it was huge then, at least at school and so i heard most of it from my friends. it's a pretty solid album! a lot of fun, some dated lyrics, not just a straight punk album which i wasn't totally expecting. it's still green day and it still sounds like green day, but it sounds like an evolution of where they were in the 90s - or perhaps a de-evolution (it does feel a bit more 'classic rock' at points than punk). either way, it's a fun enough time and i enjoyed it.
decent enough album. i felt my interest in this one waned as the album went on. nothing here was bad, just strictly down the middle for me. i'm not sure i totally enjoyed the sound of what they were going here for - funk-metal? i guess? sounds pretty corny and not totally for me. but that being said, still listenable.
pretty good album here. the highs were certainly high - i particularly enjoyed 'sleep to dream' and 'criminal.' the production on this one is still pretty sharp. i thought particularly towards the middle of the album it got a little dull. i know that fiona apple's music is widely acclaimed, especially after this one, so i am eager to listen to more of her music because i could definitely see moments of brilliance on this one. it was just a bit uneven at points for my taste.
an interesting album. proto-gram parsons, in a way - country folk mixed with psychedelic pop. in terms of the album, i think it works better when it's leaning more into the country sound than the psychedelic sound. the country sound was novel for the time and feels a bit more adventurous than the somewhat milquetoast psych sounds here. it's not a bad album, but leaves a little more to be desired. there is something interesting about the album, though, that was pretty progressive for the time.
listening to the first two tracks of this album, i was actually pretty excited. a proto-new wave album? awesome! track three is where this thing kinda grinds to a halt. the fun new wave sounds end and are replaced by boring to middling songs that go on for too long. the production is nice and the rest of the album is fine, not awful, but i don't know if i've felt more teased by a beginning of an album before.
an interesting one for sure. scott walker's voice is underratedly great in general, and that definitely applies here. it's a 60s pop album but has a little bit of sophistication to it. pleasant production with a bit of grandiose 60s baroque-ish inspiration. definitely has its dull spots but i don't think there's a truly bad song in the bunch. for me, this was good, not great.
honestly i think this one is my favorite album of his. it's not as bloated and i think all the songs here are, at a minimum, really good. really every song here is great, my least favorite being the final track. what boggles my mind about stevie wonder in this period is that he is 1) 23 years old and 2) playing the majority of the instruments on this album. so not only is he writing, singing, but he is almost the entirety of the album. it is all him. at age 23. insane. guaranteed you were not pulling off anything this great at age 23.
a really fun, off kilter, energetic romp of an album. this is definitely not everyone's bag, but if you know 'whip it' you may have an idea of what you are in store for. it's an album that definitely goes against the grain, and that's kind of what i love it for. 'uncontrollable urge' is one of the best album openers of all time, and i also adore 'jocko homo' and 'gut feeling/(slap your mammy)' - not to mention their odd cover of the rolling stones' 'satisfaction.' the production is great and it sounds as bombastic today as it probably did in 1978.
i am always a little bit on the hesitant side when an album shows up on one of these lists that was made in the last 5-10 years because i feel like it's not fair to the new albums as they have not had as many years of esteem as the other ones. a lot of them seem like they are "hot takes." i didn't know what to expect from this one, but i was pleasantly surprised. a really fun modern rap album, but the star for me here was the production. feels modern but is definitely heavily influenced by old soul music. i think it's a great pairing between old school and new school. lil simz' verses are pretty great and there are some highlights here for sure - 'offence' and 'flowers' being my favorites of the bunch, but it's all really solid and sounds great.
cool album. beck is an artist that i've obviously heard about for years but haven't delved into, so this was an interesting experience. i loved how eclectic the influences of this album was. a touch of hip hop, 60s rock, even some fun noise here and there. song-wise, i enjoyed the entire tracklist, but nothing here totally stood out as incredible. just a really solid, well made album.
man i love this album front to back. not only is it, in my mind, basically a perfect debut album, it still holds up. i have to echo what my parents and people of my parents' generation said about this album, which is, "it's basically a cars greatest hits!" which... it is. the whole album is great and i have not gotten sick of it yet. it's got some of their iconic songs and the album cuts are pretty great too. great stuff!
i am pretty new to motorhead, but what i appreciate about this live album is that their sound, their energy translates INCREDIBLY WELL to a live setting. in the studio they are great, but live they are HUGE. this is just a balls to the wall live album, no holds barred. the playing is aggressive yet incredibly well done. and lemmy's vocals are iconic. just a great example of motorhead in their purest form.
solid album with a great soundscape. the production was cool and you can tell a lot of craft went into creating it. on the other hand, i felt like a lot of the songs dragged on and some of them had the tendency to drift into dull territory. that being said, i can see myself relistening in the future and having this one grow on me. as it stands right now, i felt it was good, but not great.
another doors album, another real mixed bag here. there are great songs on this record that i like a lot, 'roadhouse blues' and 'queen of the highway,' there are some decent, pretty good songs here as well, 'waiting for the sun' and 'peace frog,' and there are songs that are, quite frankly, kind of dull, 'indian summer' and 'ship of fools.' just imo a pretty uneven album from a band i can never decide where i stand on them. sometimes they are great, sometimes they are not. as always, the musicianship here is great. the songwriting and the vocals have the biggest sway in quality. the more i listen to the doors, the more i land in the middle on them, which is where i feel this one lands as well.
A pretty solid 60s garage rock album heavily lifted by the two singles off of it - 'i had too much to dream (last night)' and 'get me to the world on time.' i'm a fan of this era of music so i enjoyed myself, but really in the grand scheme of things this is a pretty forgettable album. still, it's not bad and is one of the more solid, less hit-or-miss garage band albums of the era.
a pretty decent country and western album from the early sixties. this one starts off with a goofy introduction from mr. price thanking everyone for how much they loved their last record and how much he hopes they will love this one - should more records start off with a personal plea to fans? maybe, maybe not. it is kind of an awkward way to start the album. sir, i just met you. anyways, i enjoyed myself with this one. a lot of songs about honky tonks and falling in love and drinking, fairly common tropes for the time period, but i don't think there's a bum song here. mr. price's voice isn't the best country voice i've ever heard but it is charming and the musicianship here is pretty good. it's not an album i see myself coming back to, really, but it's one that i was pleasantly surprised by.
i've never listened to wu-tang before but i wish i had sooner! this album was great. i am finding myself a big fan of this era of rap and this is one of the best complete albums i have heard. the production and beats on this one are so great and the verses here are witty, fun, and their flow is excellent. obviously wu-tang gets a lot of hype (we've all seen the t-shirts from hot topic and the posters in college dorms) which, i think steered me away, thinking they were somehow overrated. nope. this is great stuff!
a pretty good album. my second foray into ms. harvey's music, and i definitely would like to hear more. her songwriting is great - i just wish this album was a little more abrasive and less slow and ballady. I didn't really care that much for the two songs with thom yorke (hot take?) but nothing here is bad at all. just felt like it could have been more for me. still a good album!
i've never been the hugest rush fan, but i had a good time listening to this one. the big songs on here are the highlights to me 'tom sawyer' 'yyz' and 'limelight.' the more album cuts were fine but i felt they were nothing to write home about. as i said before, rush has never been my favorite flavor of prog, but it's serviceable enough. not great, not bad. good.
i've never listened to black sabbath in full, and am really only familiar with the staples they play on classic rock radio. i am pretty blown away by this one! i was a led zeppelin kid and listening to this, it is shocking how i never got into this. all the stuff i love about early led zeppelin is here and is even bigger and darker. the attitude and the sinister feel is great, mixed with the rock production of an era that i adore. this is one i will definitely come back to. i sort of always wrote off black sabbath as something i would never be into, and i was sorely wrong!
really enjoyed my time with this one. obviously amy winehouse was a terrific vocalist and she is putting on quite the performance here. i really loved the throwback soul sound that the production employs here - one of the songs even interpolates marvin gaye and tammi terrell's 'ain't no mountain high enough.' for me, i think what keeps this album in the good-not-great territory is the crop of songs here. there are two songs i think i would consider great - 'rehab' and the title track. the rest of the songs are somewhere between fine enough and good. nothing really stands out from the pack. that isn't to say the songs are bad, i just didn't find them interesting enough to bump them up to the great territory.
i'm a big elliott smith fan, and this album is no exception. he shares a lot of influences with music that i adore, and also i love his songwriting. often i find even though his music is laced with sadness, i find it quite comforting. i don't think there's a bad tune in the bunch here, but my favorites are 'son of sam,' 'somebody that i used to know,' 'stupidity tries,' and, 'easy way out.' just a great album from a great songwriter.
i am a metal newbie, but i enjoyed my time with this one. it's aggressive, bombastic, and pretty listenable. the musicianship here is pretty great and the lyrics i enjoyed. pretty cool!
very pleasant album. bill evans was a terrific jazz pianist, and it is highlighted here. his phrasing and chord structure is second to none - i would say, even, iconic. when you're listening to a jazz record, you know when bill evans is playing piano. the rhythm section here does its part and never gets in the way of the star of the show here (the piano). that being said, although it was good and pleasant, it never got truly incredible for me. the highs were not high and the lows were not low, it was just good. musicianship is pretty good, songs are fine.
i really do try to go into every album with an open mind but man, i am so sorry, this was like mind-numbingly boring to me. overly long electronic tracks that don't really go anywhere. it's just tedious. it's like i'm trapped in the menus of a playstation 1 racing game. help me! get me out!
pretty solid album. i like the pixies well enough but haven't explored their music beyond listening to doolittle. i enjoyed the evolution shown here but i felt like although the songs were pretty consistent, they were a little bit of a step down from doolittle. but overall, a good album with great production.
a really neat indie album. from the first little bit, i wasn't sure i was going to fully enjoy this one, but the second half of the album really picked it up for me. good instrumentation and nice songs. the sound sometimes borders on cliche indie from the time period, but never overdoes it. just a pretty nice album from front to back.
pretty solid album here. in my opinion, it sort of starts off slow but does pick up towards and through the second half. at times it reminds me a little bit of REM and similar bands from that era. definitely has a college rock feel to it. solid production and solid instrumentation. i sort of wish i was wowed by it a bit more but i can see it as an album i would be interested in returning to at some point.
most of this album is a pretty pleasant samba album from the late 60s. astrud gilberto's voice is iconic and the album, for the most part, is really calming and chill. there are two big exceptions to this: one is 'a banda (parade)' which is an old fashioned marching band song??? and sounds like a song more fit for the soundtrack of the musical, 'the music man' than a samba album. the second exception is a bizarre cover of the lovin' spoonful's 'you didn't have to be so nice' that is a duet with her young son. i guess it would be nice and sweet but the kid cannot hold a note like his mother can, and you can REALLY tell. it is pretty god-awful to listen to. i'm sure it was a nice moment for them. the rest of the album is pretty decent to good and fun to listen to, but those two tracks drag it down some.
yep, this is one that gets a lot of hype and i can say it is deserved. dr. dre's verses are great and his flow is iconic. the combination of him and snoop dogg creates a great tandem that stands above a lot of the music that was coming out in this era. what pushes this album over the top for me is the production, of which dr. dre is famous for. every song here sounds great, sounds of the era, but does not sound dated (a distinction that i think needs to be made). iconic beats, iconic verses, iconic album.
sincerely one of my favorite albums of all time. i like a lot of elvis costello's stuff but i can't say i am a super fan. but this one always stands the test of time for me. every song here, to me, is like an exercise in writing short, great, hooky power pop tunes. every song has a hook and they have all gotten stuck in my head at one point or another. of course, it wouldn't be elvis costello without his signature lyricism style, and i really do love the production here from nick lowe.
although i have not listened to his complete discography (nowhere even close), i consider myself to be a fan of neil young. i'd never listened to this one and so i didn't know what to expect because most of my neil young experience is in the 60s and 70s, not the 90s. at first i felt a little underwhelmed by the songs, but as the album went on, i found myself liking this one a bit more. it's interesting because it sounds like neil young is almost trying to find his footing in the grunge era (although, you know, he is the godfather of grunge). it's got all the hallmarks of a neil young album, abrasive guitar, lyrics with attitude. i could see myself enjoying it more on subsequent listens, i think it could really grow on me.
a really great, aggressive hard rock album. i haven't had much exposure to the stooges, but know they are held in very high regard in terms of being the bridge between 1960s garage rock and 1970s punk. lots of attitude, lots of fun. my only gripe here is the production, which is extremely flat and it looses some of the frenetic energy (although doing some reading it seems like remixes have been controversial). despite that, i had a really great time listening to this one.
historically, i am much more of a 60s dylan person than a 70s dylan person. this album in particular i've had no interest in since it was sort of force-fed to me growing up while being told it's great. that being said, i've been in a bob dylan mood lately and so i listened to this album for the first time with an open mind and, i really enjoyed it. even though his music and songwriting had evolved over the previous decade-plus, at his core, he still is dylan and his lyrics are terrific and evoke great imagery. although i think the crop of songs here may not be as iconic as some of his 60s albums, i think they are all at least pretty good, my favorites being, 'tangled up in blue,' 'idiot wind,' 'if you see her, say hello,' and, 'shelter from the storm.' i may not have been a fan going in, but i truly enjoyed it all.
i'm a talking heads newbie so i'm not familiar with their album cuts, really. this was my first time with this album and i enjoyed it! the thing that i have come to appreciate about the talking heads is that they were bringing in a unique style in an era that i think was fairly homogenous. my only qualm is that i find a lot of the deeper cut talking heads songs are a little too rough around the edges (read: dissonant) for my taste. it is interesting, but i would have to dive in on repeated listens to appreciate it more, i think. overall, a cool album!
a really cool late 60s folk album. in a lot of respects, this reminded me of fairport convention, who were one of their contemporaries in this space. very delicate folk music, very beautiful. what i liked about this one is that there is a full band aspect to it, you have drums and bass (although not used all the time) which allows for a greater range of dynamics. big moments can be big and soft moments can be soft. definitely an album i will come back to!
I think I'm becoming a fan of the flaming lips, and I really enjoyed my time with this album. fun, cookie, all around solid psychedelic Rock. I can see myself enjoying this album a lot more on subsequent listens, but as it stands right now, a lot of good songs but nothing here that totally blew me away. the two instrumental tracks were fine, but not totally my thing. and I could have done without the songs about bugs. but otherwise, a good time!
buddy holly is monumentally important in the advent of rock and roll and that is on display here. in a modern context, this is a quaint, bare bones form of rock and roll, but at the time, buddy holly changed the landscape. his songs are catchy, hooky, and fun. my only qualm with this album is that the strength of material is not totally there. the first side is a lot better than the second side. that being said, still an incredibly important album in the history of music
not only is this one of my favorite albums, but i would consider this a 'desert island' album for me. truly one of my albums i turn to if i need to listen to something comforting - it's like a warm blanket for me. i prefer this one to the debut 'music from big pink' because although i think 'big pink' has higher highs, this album is a lot more consistent. the production on here is home-y, country, kinda lo-fi. some of robbie robertson's best songwriting is on here. all five members of the band shine here at different parts, whether it's playing or singing. it just feels so homemade and so lovely. the famous songs on here are great but to me the standout has always been the closer, 'king harvest (has surely come)' which, to me, may be the most underrated band song of all time. it's an album i cannot be unbiased about, i think it's nearly perfect.
'can't buy a thrill' is an interesting first step for steely dan. of course you have the two big hits on here, which are great, but you can see the more humble beginnings at play here, with some hints of the future. i would say this album feels less unabashedly jazzy than their follow-ups would. it's still jazzy to a point, but it feels more like an early 70s rock album with some tastes of jazz. i don't think there's a truly bad track on here (minus the closer, "turn that heartbeat over again" - a song that i legitimately did not remember being on this album at all, it's that forgettable). some of the album cuts i love on here are 'dirty work,' 'kings,' midnite cruiser,' and 'brooklyn (owes the charmer under me).' just a really solid album and a great debut from one of the 1970s premiere bands.
i've never really listened to meat loaf outside of random exposures on classic rock radio. i had always automatically put it into the bucket of 'classic rock that i don't like' despite not ever really having listened to his music or being exposed to it much beyond whenever a DJ would play him on the radio. i have to say, i was actually surprised that i enjoyed this album. even though it makes a lot of sense based on the songs that i know from meat loaf, the album is really springsteen adjacent. i wouldn't say it is directly inspired by springsteen, but it definitely sounds like it is cut from the same cloth. it doesn't help that two members of the e street band play on this record, which helps give it that springsteen-esque feel. i also really like todd rundgren's production on this one (shocker, i am a fan of todd rundgren's production in general). the songs here are fun and corny, but it kind of leans into it, something that always irked me, but i didn't mind once i listened to this with an open mind.
not a bad album, but i feel like traffic has better and more interesting music to offer down the line. not yet to their progressive phase, this album comes off more as a second-rate psych-blues band with not a ton to offer in terms of interesting songs or soundscapes. the highlight here is the original version of 'feelin alright' which is not as good or as interesting as the more famous cover by joe cocker. really, this is a look at a band who has yet to find their footing and doesn't offer a whole lot in terms of novel music, as compared to their contemporaries.
a pretty solid new wave album. i had always seen this band's name in the cd racks at my local music store but never really gave them a thought beyond, "oh that's an amusing band name." I did enjoy what I heard here, although I felt like nothing here was super remarkable. not that there wasn't quality here, it just did not leave a huge impression on me. good, not great.
a solid enough early electronic album. i enjoyed the soundscape here, but really i don't have a lot to say here. it was pleasant, it sounded nice, it really gave me nothing beyond that.
i still consider myself a newbie when it comes to metal, classic or otherwise, but i enjoyed this one. it's not my favorite metal album i've ever listened to in my limited time exploring the genre, but it's solid enough. for my taste, it's not as rough around the edges as i would like but the musicianship here is good and the production sounds pretty great. overall, i just sort of wish it had a little bit more oomph to the sound, which is what i tend to like in metal. but overall, solid!
my first experience with my bloody valentine and i can say i am definitely intruigued. there's a bit of noise on this one but the music was interesting and i enjoyed the songwriting here. i felt like i liked the more rock-ier songs here rather than the more noisy ballads. but definitely an album i could see myself listening to again.
a pretty nothing album. nothing here really stands out and the production here has aged pretty poorly - a lot of 80s music still sounds great, this... does not. i've never really understood the mass appeal of steve winwood and this just falls into that bucket. let me be clear, this is not bad. it's not unlistenable. i would even venture to say that some of the songs are a tiny bit catchy. it just sounds like you are in a dressing room, circa 1980. in the most unappealing way possible.
this album is a pretty great encapsulation of why i love the temptations. their vocals are great and the production here from norman whitfield was absolutely groundbreaking for soul music of the time. although i would say that the two singles off of this are the most consequential (the title track and 'runaway child (running wild)' because of their great production and catchy, funky beats, the rest of this album is incredibly solid and really highlights the songwriting of barrett strong and norman whitfield. really, for me, the only blemish here is the somewhat pedestrian cover of 'i heard it through the grapevine' which is, unfortunately, sandwiched between two all time great temptations songs for me. but otherwise, i really love this album, and it is one of the temptations' greatest.
a fun little new wave album. it gets a bit unabashedly horny at times (i'm looking at you 'sex dwarf') but honestly from the title, i don't know how you couldn't expect it. the production is very dated but in a charming way? like it's very silly and of the era, but i found it fun. the big song off here ('tainted love') is clearly the highlight, but there are other fun tracks here. i thought 'chips on my shoulder' was a fun little romp. but yeah, outside of the hit, nothing particularly mind-blowing here, but still fun.
i really want to like bonnie raitt's music but every time i've listened to this album i have been absolutely middled by it. despite its wide acclaim, really outside of a handful of songs, this album is just really not a whole lot to me. bonnie's songwriting is pretty good at times and her voice is iconic. but, quite frankly, some of the stuff here is just boring. the highlights to me are the first three tracks (the title track, 'thing called love,' and, 'love letter') and i could take or leave the rest. it's not bad, it's just really middle of the road for me. i'm always a little perplexed why it has such a huge reputation.
interesting album. very quirky, rough around the edges, noisy in a way that tickles my brain. i did enjoy my time with this one, although i felt a little bit less impressed with it than their debut album, which i loved. still, i enjoyed moments like 'caligari's mirror' and the weird, but fun, '(pa) ubu dance party.' i definitely suspect this is not going to be everyone's bag, but i find pere ubu's music to be challenging enough while not being completely obtuse, which is a nice middle ground for me.
a decent enough prog album. for me, the highlight was clearly the 2112 suite, but for me that was a little bit hit or miss. some "movements" were kind of corny and others were pretty cool. the rest of the album didn't really leave much of an impression on me. as always, with rush, the musicianship is really great and geddy lee's voice is as iconic as ever. but overall, an album that didn't really move me one way or the other.
what makes this record phenomenal is that it captures in a bottle what makes james brown special. his studio recordings are great, but what sets him apart from everyone else is his high octane performances, his charisma, his vocal chops. he is wailing all over this thing and it is so damn impressive. i don't know how you could listen to this and not be floored. a live album of the greatest stage performer of all time, what could it be other than pure, distilled energy?
my second of two amy winehouse releases while she was alive. i enjoyed her album 'back to black' well enough so i was anticipating enjoying this one too. well, not so much. her voice is still very good but the songs and production here leave a lot to be desired. in particular, the production has not aged well and sounds really dated. a lot of the songs, i thought, were not particularly well written. it sounded like they left a few bum notes from amy on this one too, and some tardiness on the rhythms. maybe it was supposed to be more laid back but to me, it came off as sloppy. really disappointed in this one, not going to lie.
really solid album. biggie's flow is pretty damn great and always makes for an interesting listen. i also enjoyed the production on this one. it definitely sounds a lot more modern than a lot of albums that were released contemporaneously. in terms of the songs, i enjoyed the majority of them, but not too many of them gripped me immediately, but i feel like i would continue to enjoy the songs and grow to love them if upon subsequent listens.
kate bush is brilliant and to me, this is one of the biggest pieces of evidence. every song on here is dramatic as fuck and i love every second of it. her vocal range is great, as usual. everything about this album is so creative and out there, and yet, not really inaccessible (although admittedly, it's not her most accessible album). the production on here is pretty dated (full of of-the-era synth sounds that have not aged particularly well) but if you can get past most of this album sounding like an old video game, it is truly great. it's definitely an album that i'm sure most people think sounds like a cat getting its tail stepped on, but to me, that's part of the charm of kate bush. she's out of left field and unabashedly so.
to be honest, I didn't really care for this one. what I really didn't like was the production which was so bright that it felt disjointed. the songwriting here did nothing for me and overall I felt like it was a slog, even for how short the album was. not my thing!
really solid album from method man. it started a little slow for me, but after the first 1/3 of the album, it really picked up for me. consistent through this release is strong rapping with great flow, really solid production, and a dark, almost low-key feel. it's not the most in your face bombastic album, but it still has energy, even though it feels more subdued than other rap albums of the time. i particularly enjoyed 'bring the pain' and 'method man (remix)'. good stuff!
i'm really not a fan of u2 in general, partially because it was force-fed to me growing up and also because i find their typical output to be pretentious and, quite frankly, uninteresting (yeah, even their good stuff). this album is a bit of an exception for me. this album has an aggressiveness and rawness that i find a lot of their other music lacks. it has energy and doesn't bore me to pieces. is it my favorite album of all time? no. but as far as a band i am generally uninterested in goes, it's pretty good.
a decent enough synth-pop album. this one did not really resonate with me a whole lot. like the production was fine, the instrumentation here is fine. the lyrics didn't really land with me and for my second foray into pet shop boys' music, i can't say i super love the style of the vocalist. that's not to say the sum of all this album's parts are bad, but just really unremarkable to me.
genuinely one of the most obnoxious albums i've ever heard. this brand of blues-rap gen x whatever the hell this is, is such a pain to listen to. the only saving grace here is the musicianship, which is pretty alright, but yeesh man. this sounds like if the mediocre-at-best busker in the subway station got a record deal. it sounds like an alley cat getting its tail run over by a bicycle. it feels like it has to be ironic but i do think it is quite genuine. pretty awful.
on one hand, i am realizing i find ac/dc to be really boring. back in black, my second ac/dc album generated, is really middle of the road in terms of the instrumentation side. nothing here stands out. this is maybe the most generic sounding hard rock in existence. scientists have been working for years to create the most "rock and roll" sound ever, and this is it. on the other hand, i find ac/dc to be kind of obnoxious. part of it is the generic hard rock sound that doesn't offer much. the other part of it is the screeching singing that is beyond grating. not awesome. the music here is pretty horny. i dunno, i found it a bit exhausting. it gives the energy of a middle schooler or a person who never grew out of being a middle schooler.
usually i try to listen to albums with an open mind, but boy howdy, from the first track, i knew i was going to not enjoy my time with this album. the production is so badly dated and cheesy, it sounds like music from a second-tier straight-to-vhs-and-only-sold-to-libraries educational program. the world music influence added here only compounds on that, especially when it is talk-sung over by a bored sounding english man who sounds like rowan atkinson's zazu from the lion king. this really is my trifecta of dread - boring electronic music meets white dude doing world music meets woefully dated production.
a really cool folk-rock album. it starts off with a bang with the title track, which i knew before listening to this album. the rest of the album is really interesting and pretty good, but there's not a whole lot here that meets the title track for me, at least after this listen. just a really solid, enjoyable, evocative folk record.
my third pj harvey album and i have to say, i think this one is my favorite. loud, aggressive, biting. high energy. just really great through and through. i've heard a lot about pj harvey over the years and never delved into it and i can definitely say i am coming back to this one.
solid album. out of all the songs, i think the big songs on here are probably the best ones - the album cuts weren't bad, but i think they just did not leave a huge impression on me. to me, what's more important here is the attitude and impression this one left on people. starkly personal, biting. a turning point for music.
i will say that going into this, i'm not the hugest fan of elvis, but i don't hate his music either. generally speaking, i think there are better and more interesting artists that were his contemporaries, but still, you cannot argue his influence and importance in 20th century music. i haven't listened to this album in particular in a long, long time, so it was a nice refresher. it starts off with a bang with what may be his most iconic song. the rest of the album is solid enough, but in my opinion, the rockers are better than the ballads. nothing here is bad, but most of the album ranges from pretty good to somewhat dull. i do enjoy early elvis the most because of his raw energy, and this album is a pretty good example of that.
neat little album. you can tell that this is just the beginning for them. some really solid garage rock here, the highlight being the classic 'i wanna be your dog.' the two lowlights here for me were the unremarkable 'ann' and the incessant 'we will fall.' it definitely has the beginnings of the punk attitude, but doesn't totally bash you over the head with it. it's good, not great.
not a mind blowing 00s indie rock album, but a fun one nevertheless. very referential to a lot of 60s and 70s pop rock. the songs here are upbeat and catchy. in a lot of respects, it feels in the same vein as the flaming lips, neutral milk hotel, stuff akin to that, but i think those contemporaries have more compelling and essential music. the album comes off as a little bland but this is not anywhere near bad. pleasant.
what i'm finding i really like about public enemy is that their production is always bombastic and frenetic. between the beats, chuck d's strong voice and flavor flav's hypeman energy, there's just something about the music that there's nothing like it. i also especially appreciate how focused on social commentary their music is, especially when so much of it still feels relevant today. this one surprised me a little, because it's not one of theirs that i had heard of going into it, so i wasn't sure what to expect. but the entire album is a good listen. and i did love the anthrax cover/remix of 'bring tha noize.' solid album.
really cool album. part of my journey in this project is being exposed to bjork, whom i had only heard of beforehand. i had no idea she was even in a band before her solo career, so this was a terrific surprise. she is a great singer and has a quality to her voice that i am finding i adore. this album is less avant-garde than her solo output, but that doesn't mean i like it less. really great late 80s alternative album with great vocals on top. it really is the best of both worlds for me - a singer i am finding i like a lot singing a genre of music i find i adore a lot.
from the beginning of track one, i felt like i was going to be in for a miserable time. over the course of the first track, this really turned around on me. no longer did i feel like someone was cleaning out my ears, but more was intrigued about the cool soundscape that was being crafted here. usually ambient music is not really my jam, but this one grew on me a bit. i don't know if i would go out of my way to listen to it again, but i did find what was created here to be interesting and calming, in a way. i appreciate this album in the context of this list because it is decently different from a lot of what is on the list - instrumental and not totally cookie cutter, yet very listenable.
solid album. leonard cohen's songwriting is pretty great (not a hot take) and in general, this album has a very purist folk production style. i liked the songs and the production, but i felt like the mostly bare bones production didn't do much for me. it adds to the vibe and focuses on the songwriting but i don't know if i enjoyed this crop of songs enough for me to fully appreciate the focus on them. i'm fairly new to leonard cohen in general and do like what i've heard so far. i could see this one growing on me with time.
going into this project, i was not a big fan of pink floyd, but i had never really gotten the chance. early on on this journey, i was given 'wish you were here' and was a little bit blown away. this album, however, is one that i was already a little familiar with - and how could you not be? it's one of the most famous albums of all time. but because of its notoriety, i had written it off and was always annoyed by the songs from it as they came up on the radio. well, what did i think about it this go-around? i liked it. i don't know that i think it is as good as it's always made out to be, but it's good. it gets a little proggy (like, Yes proggy) at points, but is a pretty fun, straightforward album. hands down my favorite moment of the album is the closing combo of 'brain damage' into 'eclipse' but there's nothing truly bad here either. one thing i will say is that i'm not entirely fond of roger waters' melody style and that's true here too. a lot of times his melodies are sort of sing-songy in a way that i find a little incessant. but yeah, good, solid album.
not a bad album. fairly nice to listen to. i am a fan of this era of r&b and disco, but had never heard of this album or group before. while it's not bad, it's not really my cup of tea. it's definitely a "fusion" album insofar as it's a pleasant combination of jazz and r&b/disco. but because of that, it is a little bit more smooth than i tend to like my r&b. at times it feels like the music from the smooth jazz radio station that played in my childhood dentist's office. i think it's better than waiting room music, but it does have that feel to it. the musicianship displayed here is very good and extremely competent. overall, it was decent, but it's just not quite my taste.
i will give this one credit where credit's due: i'm not the biggest electronic/dance music guy out there, but i try to go into every album with an open mind. most of the time it's too ambient or too trance-y for my taste. going into this album, i was expecting a little bit more of the same, but this album is pretty fun to listen to. in my experience, it's a little hit or miss, flip-flopping between 'fun' and 'annoying' but i would rather bounce between those two options than consistently boring. and boring this album is not. it's not totally my cup of tea, but i at least appreciated it for the slightly out-of-left-field party that it brought. it's not generic, it's not boring, it is definitely its own thing, and i appreciated it for that.
a fairly interesting album. it was an unexpected combination of 90s psychedelic rock revival and 90s house music. i thought it was a pretty novel combination of sounds that i hadn't really heard much of. that being said, the songs here were a bit hit or miss, some of which were neat and some of which were a bit dreadful. but nevertheless, an interesting listen.
***DISCLAIMER***: i hate eric clapton as a person as much as everyone else and i do not endorse nor condone his personal beliefs and statements that being said, this album was extremely formative for me. while everyone else was listening to angsty numetal at school, i was listening to this. so from that respect, i will always have a soft spot in my heart for this album. on the other hand, i'm not 14 anymore and i'm years removed from that, so this album has become a lot less important to me, and due to the transgressions of a band member named above, it's put a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth here. and yeah, it's a bunch of white dudes from england co-opting a historically black form of music, which, you know, clapton made an entire legacy off of. all that aside, it's a great blues-psych album that has a huge importance in the evolution of rock and roll music in the 1960s, bridging the gap between the rock and roll boy bands of the early 60s to the advent of hard rock and heavy metal later in the decade. 'blue condition' and 'mother's lament' are detriments to an otherwise strong album. 'tales of brave ulysses' and 'SWLABR' are all-timers for me.
dusty springfield has one of my favorite voices of all time. and here, it is employed at its best. gone are her days of banal pop music and given a more sophisticated avenue. this album is soulful, jazzy, catchy. of course, 'son of a preacher man' is the big tune off of this one, but to me there are several other highlights, including 'just a little lovin,' and her version of the french song 'the windmills of your mind.' just a really great album with a classic sound that i really enjoy.
a pretty great album that is sadly still relevant today. a lot of important subjects covered here. and ice-t's flow is great - sometimes it's hard to remember he was even a rapper and not just some fresh-mouthed actor. my only gripe here is that there are a handful of songs here that are not as energetic as the others and they aren't as fun. and the rock song is ... interesting. but as a whole, I enjoyed it!
such a fun album. it really is a dance party from front to back. every song is danceable and catchy and you can definitely feel the joy involved in the music making. I had heard of Tito puente before listening to this, but I don't know if I had ever actually listened to any of his music, but I can definitively say this was one of my favorite surprises I've encountered in this entire project. classic fun, front to back.
this one was a bit rough for me. ordinarily, my interest in dance music almost entirely hinges on the beat, and unfortunately here I felt like most of the beats and production were pretty middling. this meant that a lot of the songs for me hinged on the vocals, which unfortunately for the most part were not good. what saved this album for me was the final two tracks, ' back to life' into, 'jazzie's groove' which had the album's best vocals into the album's best production. but as a whole, sorry, really not a huge fan.
a pretty cool combination of psychedelic rock and grunge. sometimes it works really well and sometimes it's a little towards middling. i still appreciated its ability to thread between the loud and the ornate. not my favorite in terms of execution, but overall a neat sound concept that i really enjoyed at points.
solid album. it's a little bit too noisey and ugly sounding for my tastes but i enjoyed how bombastic and aggressive the sound was. i found this album much more appealing than other contemporaries in its space. not really my type of music, but i appreciate that it uses the aggressiveness and rough-around-the-edges sound as a compliment to the music and not the focus.
i try to go into every album with an open mind, but i find a lot of electronic music, particularly ambient electronic music, doesn't do much for me. but still, i've heard a lot of people rave about aphex twin so i was optimistic that maybe this would be the album that would make it all click for me. i can't say i disliked this one. i also can't say i greatly enjoyed it either. for me, at best, a lot of the music was interesting but didn't grip me. at worst, it was boring. nothing here was bad, by any stretch. i did think that a lot of the music was interesting and the soundscape crafted here was very well made. it's a great sounding album, when a lot of electronic albums of 25+ years ago may sound a bit dated. but even so, still not totally my thing. i can appreciate the artistry here, but it didn't do much for me.
i was a big led zeppelin fan in my formative years and this one was my favorite album of theirs, so unfortunately, i am going to be a bit biased here. i think this album is great. it probably still is my favorite of theirs. the songs here are top notch. the playing is, as always with led zeppelin, great. robert plant's vocals are iconic. but what sets this album apart for me is the production. this album has such a low-end oomph that i do not get on other led zeppelin albums. the bass and drums sound SO good and punchy. everything here is great, but to me, that's my favorite part.
a really cool record. never have ever heard of faust before this but i was blown away by how creative i found this record. very noisey, but not offputtingly so. but it ebbs and flows, sometimes there is a lot of noise, and sometimes it subsides so that you can hear a really great 70s rock record. very neat. sounds great. i'm so glad i got to hear this one!
really interesting album. it's a bit goofy at times (get used to canned sound effects, etc.) but the musicianship here is great and the songs are so interesting to me. none of them are boring and take you every which way, which is what i loved about it.
not awful, but pretty boring. not a lot here that goes above and beyond the typical trance playbook for me. was nice as background music, but that's about it. the first couple of tracks were a bit rough but the rest of it is ok.
a pretty solid metal album. i'm pretty new to metal and i'm still trying to figure out what i like and what i don't like in the genre. what i do know is that i enjoyed the musicianship here. the music sounds pretty good, fun, and aggressive, but the clean production left something to be desired for me. the songs were alright but sometimes were a little on the light side for me. really don't know how i feel about the cover of the blues classic 'i ain't superstitious.' i also can't help but feel like i would have liked this album better with a different singer. he's not bad, but i think his voice just isn't totally my cup of tea. that being said, i still had fun listening to this one!
a really solid new wave classic. the b-52's are always off kilter and corny and they're probably not for everyone, but i enjoy their schtick. very unique sound that is beyond referential to early 60s music. the vocals are atypical and odd but to me, that's what makes them charming. the instrumentation here is really solid. nothing flashy, but good all around. the songs here are what limit this from being a 5 for me. very clearly, 'rock lobster' (their most famous song) is far and away the best song here. there's nothing bad here, but just wish more songs were as catchy as their big song. overall, it's a cool album that i enjoyed, just wish it got to more higher highs.
solid metal album. the instrumentation is aggressive in a way that i enjoyed and i didn't mind the screaming vocals, even though i tend to find i don't enjoy that style of singing. it is definitely a loud album with attitude. unfortunately, i guess the singer for pantera has a penchant for saying edgy racist things so i do have to make the distinction that i do not agree with him and it did mar my enjoyment of this album a little bit.
really solid album. catchy tunes, slow and smooth. the production sounds as bit dated at this point but the songs are decent enough to carry it past that. a good time, but not a great time.
super cool album. very much my aesthetic. love the lofi production and love the format - basically an album of little graces of power pop perfection. nothing stays longer than it has to, a lot of it goes before you want it to. super catchy. really blown away here. i'd heard of them before but never explored their music. i'm definitely returning to this one!
really great album. i enjoyed it a lot. carlos santana's prowess for guitar is chiefly on display here, which i'm sure might surprise people who only know him as the 'smooth' guy. there are some classics on here that still get a lot of play today - and i think because of their omnipresence, i am less enthused by those songs. songs like 'black magic woman' and 'oye como va' are great, but overplayed and are not my favorite anymore. to me the star of the album is, 'hope you're feeling better.' it's like nothing else on the album - face melting, aggressive in a way that stand out. the rest of the album is at least good but there are some more dull instrumental moments on here. overall, i did enjoy the album a lot!
really neat album. totally against the grain at times but completely listenable. fiona apple's songwriting is on a different plane from everyone else. very uniquely and singularly her. from front to back, i really enjoyed this one!
so i consider myself a queen fan - not a huge superfan, but i like their music a lot. i'm slightly baffled by the inclusion of this one on the list. there are some shining moments on queen ii, but mostly, with the context of where the band would be headed over the next few years, this album feels a bit underwhelming. that's not to say i think it's a bad album, but just that i know queen can be and will be better and more consistent than this. they really have not hit their stride yet on this one, which i would not consider them having done consistently until perhaps their next album. what really makes this album is side two, which almost feels like it could be a mini rock opera. the first side is a lot more hit and miss, but there is nary a bad moment on side two. an iconic band progressing and approaching their timeless sound? yes. a must-hear album? not totally.
another album that i cannot be unbiased about. i adore this record. the pinnacle of power pop songwriting. every song has an incredible hook. it's just so well written, so well performed. i love the shit out of this one. but to be a little critical, there are a couple of songs here that are a little more inessential - in particular, the closing track - that perhaps i could do without. but man, the first side of this record is pretty much perfect in my eyes.
man i truly don't know how to feel about this one. on one hand, what a bizarre album to listen to. on the other hand, i was definitely amused by it. like, it's really goofy and off-kilter and reminds me a lot of some zappa stuff. i also don't know if i would ever come back to this album again. it almost feels like a disservice to this album to rate it, because i don't think its intention is to be rated, or acclaimed. it just sort of is. weird, wonky, and bizarre, sure. but i don't know that i would even put it on the same scale as a "normal" album because it doesn't feel like it applies to the scale. either way, even though i don't know what to do with this album, i am glad i listened to it. so i am converting that gladness into a rating.
a pretty great 00s indie record. i liked the moments where it was more garage rock-y than the more artsy stuff, but i felt like the entire album was pretty consistent. of course, the big song off of this, 'maps' is great but i think it's pretty unique amongst all the other songs. it definitely stands out in that way. really liked it!
a bit conflicted about this one. on one hand, i think paul weller has a knack for catchy songwriting. i felt like a lot of the songs here were well written and catchy enough. i thought the production felt a bit dated in a not-charming way, but it wasn't awful. somehow this album feels like paul weller was just trying to sound like steve winwood and i can't pinpoint why, just that i can imagine steve winwood putting this album out. it's not bad, it just feels like a lot of the albums of rock musicians from the 70s put out at this period in time. not really anything special for me here.
this is an album i have always been perplexed by. i've always seen this album regarded in the highest standard. to be sure, the musicianship on here is great and it was a monumental moment for r&b and stax records. but, quite frankly, this album is really one note. the title track is by far the stand out song here. the rest of it is kind of whatever, even boring at times. does this album get the praise off of one song? i think so? i mean the one song is great and iconic. the rest of the album sounds like "let's make 11 other worse versions of green onions." a lot of of-the-era covers here. perhaps a lot more monumental for 1962, for modern listeners, i can't imagine there's a whole lot here for them.
honestly i had a lot of fun with this album. it's really noisey and definitely rough around the edges, but i love the way it sounds. it's a bit avant-garde, but not offputtingly so. really, it mostly feels like you took "black angel's death song" from their first album and made it an entire album. as with every velvet underground album, it just oozes cool to me. great stuff!
i just really adore this album. harry nilsson is one of my favorites and i think this is him at his most commercial and probably pound for pound his most consistent album. he's a really clever and funny songwriter, which i adore about him. he never takes himself too seriously, although this definitely is not the silliest album he has. the sound and production is similar to a lot of early 70s solo beatles stuff, which makes sense because he was close pals with john and ringo, especially in this time period. just a really great album from a musician i adore.
i was never a huge sinatra guy, but i've listened to a decent amount of his albums recently and have started enjoying his music. i will say, i tend to like the more upbeat swingy stuff he does rather than the more downbeat ballads he is famous for, which is great for me here. no only is everything here for swingin' Lovers, it's for Swingin' lovers as well. and it does not disappoint. everything here is really great, the orchestration is iconic and his voice is terrific. there are a handful of songs on here i would call classics ('you make me feel so young' 'love is here to stay' 'i've got you under my skin' 'makin' whoopee') but even the album cuts are great and catchy. it's a classic for a reason!
it's a shame because this sounds like music i would otherwise like. but i really felt like the songs were not very strong and the vocals were pretty bad. at times it sounds like the vocalist's voice is cracking. reminiscent of 90s slacker vocals, but without the coolness. it mostly makes it sound very limp. not a vibe i enjoy from music. not sure where in the middle of the road this lands, but it is certainly somewhere in the middle.
my second sinatra in 3 days. coincidentally I listened to this album outside of this project earlier this year so i'm giving it a re-evaluation. although i like both sinatra and jobim's work in general, the combination of them is a little lackluster. sinatra is great but his voice doesn't really work with bossa nova. it's not bad, but it's not great either. very middle of the road.
i've known about aimee mann for a while now but i've never sat down and listened to any of her albums, so this was a nice treat for me. i've often found her music to be nice and pleasant to listen to and i really like her voice so i expected to enjoy this one. and i was right. i got exactly what i wished for. a pleasant, well-sung album. perhaps my only complaint is that i'm not sure i found this one quite so memorable. it was nice, for sure, but i don't know if it had enough for me to come back to it.
a fun enough listen but a bit rough around the edges for my liking. the instrumentals here are great and i particularly liked them, but the vocals left me a bit cold at times. a bit too nonchalant for my taste. the big example for me was 'i'm going to spain' where the track itself i loved, and the vocals with the voice cracking and meandering really killed it for me. still, despite that, i enjoyed the album. just think i would have liked it a bit more if the vocal performance was a bit different.
my third foray into kings of leon during this project and i still do not really get it. every once in a while there is a song i enjoy, like the first track, 'red morning light' but mostly i am nonplussed by their music. i think out of the three i've listened to so far, this one is the most consistent and the one i like the best. felt more garage rock than the other ones, which is more up my alley than the more generic 00s rock they got into. still, not really my thing.
i can't say anything bad about this album. it's one of my favorites of all time. the songwriting and production are very late 60's which is maybe my favorite time period of music of all time. every song on here is catchy and lovely. of course, there's one big song on here that is a classic - 'time of the season' but i think most of these songs should be held as classics in the same vein. in particular, i adore 'this will be our year' which i think is one of the best songs of the decade. there's no world i would give this one under a 5.
part of the reason i love this project is listening to albums i ordinarily would never have. a lot of the electronic music i've run into is just that. i always go into them with an open mind, even though it's not my favorite type of music. i'm still waiting to find the album that will sway me. this was not that album. i actually enjoyed the first track, but the rest of the album did nothing for me at best, and at worst, was monotonous and annoying. i appreciate cool sampling and there were some neat samples here, but none that i felt were used in a mindblowing way. really just wasn't for me, unfortunately.
what i found interesting is that almost every song i started off thinking "wow, this one seems a bit underwhelming" but once the chorus hit, i was a bit blown away. great catchy choruses. really clean, pleasant production. vocals are pretty great. just a really nice sounding piece of music. it doesn't approach the level of a favorite, but i still enjoyed the twists and turns and the stellar production.
really good 90s rap album. i really liked the production here and jeru's flow is pretty good. it's a bit dated, but it is a 30 year old album. is it the best rap album i've heard of this era ever? no. is it pretty decent and a great example of 90s rap from new york? i think so
this is one of the coolest sounding albums of all time. like the sound is just so cool. it oozes cool. the beats here are infectious, the verses are great. listening to this genuinely makes me sad that the roots are just jimmy fallon's house band now. we could have had it all.
to me, this is THE byrds album. i know 'mr. tambourine man' gets all the attention, justifiably so, for its groundbreaking, but this album to me is the most authentically byrdsy. chris hillman has stepped into the void that was left by gene clark's depature and has stepped up brilliantly - providing some of the best songs on this record, but really what may be my favorite byrds song of all time, 'have you seen her face.' roger (jim?) mcguinn sort of takes the backseat here and it feels mostly like a david crosby and chris hillman record. and gary usher's production holds up really well in terms of albums that came out this year - a surprisingly important and underrated producer of the era. really what this album is is the byrds at a crossroads, halfway between folk rock bob dylan cover band and country rock. it's an album i adore and have adored and this listen was no exception.
look, i mean there is a reason why this album is regarded as the greatest work in jazz. the musicianship is off the chain, the music is stunningly recorded and is downright beautiful and epic (in the classical sense of the word). it is jazz at its final form. expertly sculpted, crafted, performed. complex but extremely listenable. it gets a lot of hype, and it truly deserves it.
yeah not really my thing at all. the more hip-hop-esque sections were not very stellar and the jazz-ier, lounge-ier sections were also not stellar. maybe it's because the album i had generated before this one was Coltrane, but the jazzy stuff on here feels so stale. in fact, the whole album kind of feels stale. it's like i'm listening to the soundtrack of a d-tier movie. it sounds dated in a very not charming way. and there are some unlistenable and oddly horny stretches here. but the worst sin of all is that, quite frankly, it's pretty boring.
after listening to this album, i was a bit surprised to find that it seems to be pretty unliked. not just here but on other websites, etc. i was a percussionist in a past life, so i am not afraid of a drum-forward and rhythm-forward album. this was pretty cool. the conga playing was top notch and the songs here were very fun. it felt like a party at times. the one gripe i think i have with this album is that there wasn't anything that really gripped me. there was a lot of cool stuff, but not really anything i think i would come back for more than this listen. still, i appreciated this album - this is the kind of stuff i love this project for!