"You can look for answers / but that ain't fun" seems to summarize Kid Rock pretty well. Is this album a sincere contribution to rock, rap and country music or a cynical costume hat thrown into the ring of 1998's highly corporate music charts? Unlike DB Cooper (who Rock references favourably in the opener, Bawitdaba), I don't know that even Kid Rock knows his own Identity. Though he expresses an affinity for those of the underworld -- thieves, hustlers, sex workers, addicts -- and a disdain for authority ("all those bastards at the IRS"), it's unclear what alternate world the lyricist proposes. That's the nadir: any claims to authenticity from Kid Rock would be seated in either his musical choices or his lyrical content but the latter consists entirely of boastful self-aggrandizement, references to drug use and sex and expressions of admiration for various criminals and CEOs. The latter is particularly confused as the references to hustlers, including sex workers, tend to be positive until turned toward himself (he's careful to advise you that he, himself, is not a "ho") and also his references to authority are disparaging unless coupled to wealth (he's seemingly rather proud in I Am The Bullgod of the respect he now receives from record company CEOs, despite implicitly disrespecting their contemporaries by earlier mythologizing DB Cooper who stole millions from corporations in 1971). The hard rock edge of the album (it's not metal by any reasonable standard) is palatable but a thin veneer - it consists entirely of distorted guitar riffs and has none of the bite, showmanship or technical panache of a dedicated hard rock or metal album. The song forms and vocal delivery are all borrowed from country and rap. No speed, no interesting keys, no groove, no difficult time, no instrumental solos and, while serviceable, no virtuosity. Even the guitar tones feel half-finished -- dedicated guitar players tend to carefully curate the particular sound of their instruments, but this is neither here nor there, like he plugged into a ProCo Rat and never fiddled a knob. The most authentic seeming reference in all of this work is the tie to country music. The chord structures and song forms (as well as the occasional, unexamined disdain for the government) are all lifted right out of southern rock. The echoes of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd are throughout and there's no explicit callout (apart from the general vibe of Cowboy). It stands to reason that the one thing that shines through naturally is the true heart of his music; the strangest part is that he's not at all from the South or any place country-centric: he's from Detroit. All the same, the most authentic part of this album is the country heart of Kid Rock's songwriting. In the end, the rapping is competent if a bit stock, the rock production is the same and the more country bits are actually the best. Only God Knows Why would be a fabulous ballad about the pitfalls of fame if it weren't thematically gutted by the rest of the album. Should I believe that's the real Kid or is it the asshole screwing over his family and his production team at the end of Fuck You? It doesn't really matter: this is a surprisingly decent Southern rock album with hard rock production and some elements of rap, but written without a soul. Genre mashups sometimes get labeled as posing -- toe-deep dalliances with no respect for the history and context of the costume they're donning for a lark. In some cases it's unfair, but you don't need to deeply consider the lack of lyrical content beyond boasts or the Boss MetalZone guitar sounds to peg Kid Rock as a poser. You don't even need to know that he's the son of a car dealership tycoon in Detroit and not a kid who rose from the mean streets. You just need to know that he probably isn't both the plaintive, regretful soul of God Knows Why and also the Bullgod on the same album; he's an asshole in a mask. He's faking something and I don't care what -- and I'm pretty sure he knows it's obvious. You should probably listen to Devil Without A Cause. It's surprisingly listenable but it's important to keep an eye out for just exactly how empty it is. This music is a perfect example of the state of mainstream culture in 1998 and by better understanding that, we can undo all the harm done by fakers like Kid Rock. This is perhaps the single greatest act of poserism in the modern history of music.

This is an utter masterclass in infectious, compelling, completely fun electronic dance-pop. It's no wonder that Norman Cook is also a bass player. There's not much to say here (and that's coming from a guy who wrote 750 words about a Kid Rock album I found to be mediocre). You've Come A Long Way, Baby isn't terribly challenging (apart from the occasionally profuse cursing -- see In Heaven for a high-cadence string of F-bombs) is immediately accessible and never overstays its welcome. I'm not well-educated in this genre of music but this record connects directly to the reward centre of my brain and shuts off the part that knows I can't dance. One of the best things from the 90s.

Ok. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor" is a good song and the rest is forgettable, insincere-feeling Britpop. Not enough ire to be punk, too loose and loud to be polished pop, too many words and too little melody to be notable in any way. Guitar player writes really repetitive stuff, but just obtrusive enough that you can't forget he's there. If there are two of them, it's a crime against imagination. Musicians like Coltrane were widely lauded for the notes they didn't play -- their sense of space. I don't think the vocalist is familiar with that idea.

Well, it's the Wrecking Crew working under the intense direction of the profoundly talented Brian Wilson, so I'm not sure what more you can ask. Not everything is an earworm single here but the lush harmonies of the Beach Boys married to one of the most storied session groups of the 20th century (see also: The Funk Brothers, Booker T & The MG's and The Swampers), married under the direction of a genuine musical genius. Just imagine writing all of these parts in your head, which Wilson did. God Only Knows is, alone, a masterpiece. But why read my views on this? It's one of the most famous albums in the history of modern Western popular music. You don't need me to tell you about it.

Ok. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor" is a good song and the rest is forgettable, insincere-feeling Britpop. Not enough ire to be punk, too loose and loud to be polished pop, too many words and too little melody to be notable in any way. Guitar player writes really repetitive stuff, but just obtrusive enough that you can't forget he's there. If there are two of them, it's a crime against imagination. Musicians like Coltrane were widely lauded for the notes they didn't play -- their sense of space. I don't think the vocalist is familiar with that idea.

Good arrangements, lovely in the fullest sense of that word. Excellent bass and keys (Rhodes?) tones. Drums competent; good beat, no groove. Varied somewhat, stylistically, but not at all in terms of melody or dynamics. Ultimately: highly polished, tight, laid back and unobtrusive to the point of being pretty boring. Really well made but I just don't care. Best track: Sweet Life. It's almost catchy -- starts to groove in the outro when Ocean stops singing.

Competent, very much of its time. Poetic and literary in the way that Stipe was famous for, tight and exactly appropriate in the way the rest of the band has always been. Overall, a somewhat dark and menacing tone here, despite the manic exuberance of "The End of the World As We Know It". I always find R.E.M. missing some kind of emotional release, whether it's Peter Buck's relatively mild overdrive sound or just a tendency for the band to end songs without harmonic resolution. I feel that R.E.M. build their work to the edge of catharsis and then leave me without release. An important stone in the grand building of Rock & Roll, but not one I'll frequently return to.

Catchy, folky, punk-y, radical, familiar. This album calls back to Jonathan Richman while also injecting some existential or political rage into that rarely-revisited formula. Not a perfect album by any means, but a rare and well-executed torch bearer for a singular form of proto-punk that we'd all do well to remember. Worth revisiting now and then for both fun and for reference.

Psych-blues. End of the sixties. Iconic. I'm coming around to the importance of the Doors, but they're less psych and less blues than their contemporaries. You could listen to Little Feat, Canned Heat or Eric Clapton if you just wanted some white guy blues or a more trippy rock band (Jefferson Airplane?) if you wanted the psych. This album also reinforces that one of the things they're most famous for -- lack of a bass player -- is a fault, not a virtue. Jerry Scheff (Elvis's bass player) shines here and it's a real insult to him to jam to this album while wearing a "No Bass" T-shirt. Every rock fan should listen to this album, though. Yeah, it's loose in deliberate ways that don't benefit it ("LA Woman" is at least two minutes too long), Jim Morrison seems subscribed to his own fan club and there are frankly much better blues outfits from any era, but there was never a blues more psychedelic, doom-y and downright weird as this. There'd be no Sabbath or QOTSA or all kinds of modern, polished, focused doom-y stoners playing what's ultimately a gussied-up version of Black music from the Delta without these weird white dudes on acid.

Still a perfectly good album and sounds good, to boot. It's pretty easy to see why this took off in '56. Presley makes a good vehicle for rockabilly: his phrasing, sense of dynamics and his deep, easy and well-controlled vibrato make him a really great vocalist. I still find most of his ballads boring, but I can see the talent. Still listenable after almost 70 years and it shows its influence with little digging. It's also a pretty quick listen.

This is an all-time great. Innovative use of samples and synthesizers and reverb and whatever studio techniques aside, this is a profoundly emotional album. Where psych records can often feel muddy or just stoned, Dark Side is immersed in a clear feeling of longingv for or grasping at something, not in spite of but amplified by its dreamy nature. The reverb and production and sampling and bouncing pans all give the feeling of bewilderment, while the lyrics and the composition drive the clear emotional content. Breathe longs to relax. Time vacillates between a dead and a yearning regret. The overall theme lends itself to the oft-stated theme of mental illness (or the pressures of being a young band expected to both rebel against society and also comply with its wishes for more music). The hearts of the songs exert themselves to express something totally clear, but the echoes and the voices clamour for our attention, too. In the end, bursting through the sonic maelstrom and the deeply felt malaise, Brain Damage/Eclipse makes triumphant peace with itself, and perhaps with the band's relationship with its industry, and even their old friend, Syd: "If the band you're in starts playing different tunes, / I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."

Varied, ambitious and both of its time and tied to its past and present personally, it drags for a stretch in the way many double-albums do, but I have to respect the conceit of a hip-hop/rap concept album (or two?). Slight preference for Speakerboxxx over The Love Below, but the latter's themes of a player investing himself too far into The Game to accept love when he finds it shines -- and stands in critical contrast to many of its contemporaries at this time. Both albums stand out from the male-dominated misogyny of rap at the turn of the millennium -- at least questioning it, if not breaking that mold totally. This is also a watershed moment for the Atlanta scene in terms of artistic achievement, reinforcing the commercial success of contemporaries like Nelly. I think, anyway. I dunno, I'm still learning my history on these things. Not going to be a regular listen, but well worth a dive.

Among the guitar production (Search & Destroy features fuzzy leads over overdriven rhythm), the throwback song structures (fairly short, punchy, blues-based, verse/chorus structures), Iggy Pop's vocal delivery (usually smooth, occasionally raw shouting) and the themes of alienation from mainstream society, this is the punk template -- just as much as Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner. At the same time, this album sounds just as vital today (2023, as I write this) -- thanks in part to its profound influence and also in part to the garage revival at the millennium's turn. It's also of its time: there's a sort of acoustic number (Gimme Danger) and Penetration plays a sort of glockenspiel-like keys lick on repeat, giving the song a clear Doors connection. Of course, Iggy also makes angry cat noises through the whole of Penetration, just to remind you that they're still weird. This doesn't sound 50 years old (unless you're a real nerd; some instruments have a beautiful vintage sound and the production techniques have some pre-Loudness Wars, pre-synth tells).

Sounds like a pop album from 1988. Everything is fine, the songwriting is competent, the arranging is good, the playing is professional and I'm sure this band has a healthy group of fans. I did not need to listen to this before I died; I don't know what broader influence this band had on popular music, but it's not self-evident from a listen.

Some lovely and interesting compositions paired with rightly-lauded production. Varied, arguably progressive. Album opens with a two-part in Summer's Cauldron/Grass that feels as warm as that season's sun, complete with some birdsong. I'd describe it as baroque pop. The album closes with a run of varied tunes on introspection that sound a bit more like pop jazz (The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul), a modern composition of English trad folk (albeit with 1986 production - Sacrificial Bonfire) and a 60s folks protest song written to God instead of the government (Dear God). It's an effective album, and I can hear its influences now. Having said that, it remains somewhat ephemeral -- perhaps just a little bloated in the middle. Unlikely to get another full listen, but I'm glad I visited Skylarking.

Blue-eyed soul. A perfectly cromulent album, but I'm unclear on why this is in here alongside the Motown and Stax stalwarts. Maybe this is the specific, idiosyncratic lens that translated the sounds of Black soul to mainstream music, but it seems unremarkable, otherwise. I won't revisit it and wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless I learn some earth-shattering context about these guys. This is just thirty minutes of not displeasurable noise from 1967. Summary: better than Pat Boone or nails on a chalkboard (the two compete mightily).

Weird and dark. World music influenced (We Will Fall seems to draw some of its key, chant and hurdy-gurdy drone from India, but it's hard to say), introspective and navel-gazing. Fuzzy guitars are fully incorporated. Songs are more rambling and less focused than '73's Raw Power, but the march toward punk is fully underway. The writing is simple and draws on 50s pop and rock structures, including chord progressions, call & responses and lyrical content in many places (seemingly teenage love, for example). There's no effort to keep the vocals or guitars clean, though.

A band demonstrating their considerable musical powers. The Allman Brothers pack more American popular music innovation into a single live album here than most bands manage in whole careers. It's subtle: we're talking about the seemless fusion of the sonic roots of blues-based rock & roll to the structures, methods and theory of jazz. Two lead guitar players, two dueling drummers and a lot of improvisation. It's not for everyone. Jams meander by their nature but the Allmans and their band keep you hooked because of the infectious grooves they lock in. The melodic and harmonic ideas they elaborate on throughout their extended improv sections are entirely accessible and diverge very gently from where they begin. This is a very pleasant listen, and one that rewards but does not demand close attention throughout. Anyone who likes rock music should really listen to this at least once. Not just for its technical showcase (at every spot in the group) but to hear why twin guitars caught on, and why double drumming survived beyond James Brown's insistence on having a backup, just in case he had to fire one. Maybe not an everyday listen, but essential homework for every blues lover, jam hippie, metal head and guitar noodler out there. No Polyphia without the Allmans.

Great voice, pretty good songwriting. Sort of pop-blues, for the most part. A surprisingly American-sounding album for a Londoner (mind you, the same was surely said of Clapton, from Surrey). Good studio playing (you get what you pay for, here -- names like Pino Palladino get the job done). Good Cure cover. Autobiographical and confessional but written generally enough to be a massive pop record. I'll put on my folk/rock hat for a moment and say that a more specifically confessional current and a less-produced sound would have let her own voice shine through (in both ways) -- more like Someone Like You -- but might have sold less. As it stands, she's a titan economically and a supremely capable performer, but can't hold a candle to the intense confessional work of Lucinda Williams or the drive and verve of work by the Arethas and Brittany Howards of this world because they live inside a genre, a tradition -- Adele writes music that floats above those genre conventions, broadening her appeal to the whole pop world, but leaving her work less fully-felt. There's a flirting with real authenticity here that never quite culminates. The music feels slightly veiled; the groove never fully forms, the catharsis never builds. But this is surely how you make a hit record -- keep it just vague enough to be universal; just enough blues or folk or rock to be spicy, but not enough to stake your claim to a piece of a real tradition.

This album opens with a pair of tracks that explain immediately how tied to the punk movement the Pretenders are. The mix and the thin guitar sound bely how aggressive and straight-ahead the rhythm playing is. Heavy modulation on the guitars throughout (phaser? flanger?) really sets this in the 80s. Vocals mixed high. I see Chrissy Hynde getting criticism for the sing/talk delivery but, to me, she deserves placement in the Lou Reed and Iggy Pop school of vocalists. It suits the genre they came up in. Some song conventions that depart from the spare, classic 50s & 60s songwriting formulas (guitar solos, certain kinds of key changes) offer a bit more ornament than the punk scene which these four grew from -- the effect seems a direct line to Cheap Trick. Stop Your Sobbing has a more Cyndi Lauper feel -- a more marketable pop ballad -- and Private Life wears its reggae influence on its sleeve. This was a band confident of its diverse influences from the beginning. I think that the 80s production techniques of mixing down the band and lavishing them with reverb does a disservice to the music; the record feels more detached and less emotionally direct because of it. That's no fault of a group making their first record, though. I also usually hate that production style typical of the era anyway, so it's a boilerplate objection. In all, a great album. An interesting contribution to the theme that punk didn't fizzle out after a few short years and magically reappear later in the 80s, but evolved as a scene into bands like the Pretenders and Talking Heads, subsumed into the mainstream as many subcultures inevitably are.

Their own description of 'rock with horns' is fairly apt. The jazz influences are there plain enough (chordal choices, the changes, etc.). The progressive label that gets attached is interesting; fitting insofar as their compositions are more ambitious than always writing 3-minute verse-chorus-verse pop. Drummer Danny Seraphine is a real highlight, outside of the obvious horn section, which is also tight enough to sound like a single instrument. 'Maximalist' is a good word for Chicago. In today's terms, they're a lot. Surprisingly, it never seems indulgent on an individual level (save for the nearly seven minutes of Terry Kath's Free Form Guitar) -- every player contributes interesting, memorable musical ideas, whether melodic or rhythmic hooks. Vocals are good but not standout, but that's the whole conceit: they're a seven-piece band that sounds completely cohesive and in-sync. The downside of a cohesive seven-piece prog-jazz-rock band writing ambitious 6- to 7-minute songs is that it can get a bit dense. That's not to say that Chicago is impenetrable on this debut, but it's hard to recall anything after it's happened. It needs and merits further listens. It's catchy as heck from the get-go, though. Give this a spin: you get some danceable jazz-rock driven by the horns in the first several, some singable radio rock in the middle, utter (talented) nonsense when Kath goes Free Form (probably inspired by Hendrix, at a guess) and by the time you're at South California Purples, you could be listening to a groovier Sabbath tune. It's a trip.

Band work typically loose for Dylan. Works well on the (in)famous Rainy Day Women; apparently about getting baked, sounds like the band is declining into a ganga-infused stupor -- really, it's about being persecuted, leaving the declining feeling of the song more metaphorical than the average radio exec realized. Pledge My Time feels like a similar blues pastiche but isn't as interesting. Some quality melodic folk entries -- Visions of Johanna has some lovely imagery and Dylan's determined, propulsive strumming that give him such a unique quality as a writer about love. Dylan's vocal delivery, it just be said, is an acquired taste. He writes lovely melodies and is perfectly capable of hitting his notes. His voice tends to have a breathy hoarseness, but that's effective, too. He often ends lines with an unfocused-feeling glissando, sliding down off of the closing note, past the 'blue' note and off into oblivion. Sometimes it's not just the end. Whether he's doing it on purpose to ape the unsophisticated airs of his hero, Guthrie, to disarm the common folk listener and dissuade the snobs or maybe just plain lazy about singing will remain a debate we can all choose to indulge in or not. I choose not to -- that's just what Dylan sounds like. Frankly, I think his protest music remains his most lasting and emotionally-accessible work, but this album is has a well-deserved reputation as a classic of Western popular music. Listen to this with a lyrics sheet at least once, just to see if you buy the hype about Dylan as a poet.

I'll start with Art. Possibly the greatest math-teacher-turned-vocalist in American history. Garfunkel is the oft-reduced half of this iconic folk rock duo and is an excellent singer with a delicate voice and a great ear for harmony. Paul Simon rivals Dylan as the best songwriter to emerge from the 60s NYC scene. Whether you want a hand-clapping sing along about a romantic interest you just can't figure out (Cecilia), a meditation on the struggles and traumas inherent to selling our labour to get by (The Boxer) or a surreptitious bossa nova-tinged farewell/tribute to Mr. Garfunkel (So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright), Paul Simon can write it all. To boot, it's snappy. If a song's not for you, it won't last long. Not Simon's best album, but a worthy and accessible entry into his life's work.

This album has some funk. Not for nothing, but Bernie Worrell of Parliament/Funkadelic played with the band on the ensuing tour. It also draws on producer Brian Eno's ambient work (there's a straight line from Music for Airports to the atmosphere of the sound m album's closer, The Overload). It's a lot and it's often weird -- and you should listen to it. Thanks to Eno, Talking Heads take this album to explore rhythms, melodies and structures common to West African (especially Fela Kuti) and North African music (Arab influence, in particular). Bearing in mind that these four came up through the same New York scene at CBGBs that incubated New York Dolls and the Ramones (keys/guitar man Jerry Harrison previously played in the Modern Lovers), you need to imagine this as a close relative of punk, even if it may not seem so immediately. It's just less-distorted and departs more from the early rock & roll song structures. Tina Weymouth she Chris Frantz kill it all record long. They're an underrated rhythm section outside of the New Wave world. Singer, guitar player and chief songwriter David Byrne is in fine form as well, pushing the envelope of that a front person does in popular music. Remain In Light does occasionally drift far enough into experiment to lose its emotional resonance. The record drifts out on a pair of songs that communicate dread, but you'll need a few listens to start feeling the what and the why of it. Talking Heads polished up a product that sits in the middle of a Venn diagram with bubbles for West African dance, King Crimson and CBGBs. It's weird. Not every track is a banger. But everything has a purpose here and you should listen to this if you wonder what kind of creative bravery went on as the NYC punk scene faded from the popular eye. A classic, but a challenging one.

I've always found it hard to peg Costello to a genre. There's something to it that feels more Americana than that. This is a record that's varied, catchy and has something to say. Definitely worth checking out.

A diverse and dreamlike record from a truly great folk singer-songwriter who stretches on this one. Not her catchiest work, but a good example of her jazzier stuff if you're uncertain.

This album is very good and an interesting snapshot of some musical trends from California in the last years of the nineties. This is the best lineup of the band, without qualification and the most vital and tight thing they produced together. John Frusciante is the perfect partner for Flea -- the heart of the band on bass -- to the point where it's often difficult to tell their parts from one another. They are capable of such utter fluidity together as to justify the worth of rock and roll entirely. Chad Smith is a great compliment and support to them on drums, filling out any style they flit to, even briefly. Never obtrusive; always solid. In a band with wild flights of goofy fancy, Smith remains a stable platform from which the others can launch. And then there's lead singer and lyricist, Anthony Kiedis. I'll paraphrase Lester Bangs for this: Anthony Kiedis is a drunken buffoon posing as a poet. Songs like Californication and Scar Tissue are genuine contributions to the modern canon, but his unseriousness as a musician, his frequently silly but uninteresting lyrical choices and his generally lackadaisical affect all hold back not only him but the entire group. The frustrating part about Kiedis is that the great songs suggest there is so much more there. Worth a listen or ten, but this isn't the best music produced in the 90s.

Not my thing. I think I'm missing some context for where this fits in the history of rap and hip-hop, but the record generally lacks in interesting melodic ideas and groove. In both ways, it's very much of its time for successful pop. The Next Generation isn't bad, but I nearly quit during Love Ghetto, which uses a baseball metaphor for its refrain but seems to misunderstand how a home run is talked about in that sport. Not a godawful record, just a bit boring to my tastes.

Smooth and sultry, this is as easy to listen to as anything you'll hear. It might fly right past you that this is about Gaye's divorce from his first wife. It starts out very, very slow -- not inherently bad, but slow R&B trends not to be my thing, so there's my bias upfront. There's some funky guitar here, some very smooth sax (When Did You Stop Loving Me jumps out) and you just cannot beat a Motown rhythm section. Gaye himself is extremely introspective lyrically, but it never descends into navel-gazing and it remains emotional and compelling. His vocal work runs from silky and seductive through howling and plaintive. He's one of the greats, period. Check out Anger for a grooving, seething jam about being pissed off (and possibly about a cocaine habit, apparently). I can't begin to list all the musicians on this record, but as Gaye writes in the liner notes, they're all superstars. Listen to this record even half-attentively and you'll frequently catch a player laying down something completely infectious behind a whole band that's busy with something else.

A clear progenitor of modern English blue-eyed soul icon Amy Winehouse, Dusty Springfield performs the kind of smooth, delightful 60s pop that at worst is entirely fine and at best is utterly infectious. She didn't invent this musical genre, but this merits inclusion in the soul canon. Lighter and breezier at times than Motown, the musical rudiments and the chops are nonetheless here. Solid production work, too -- everything sounds good. Apart from the excellent vocal work here, keep an ear out for the rhythm section just killing it.

This is probably the first Stones record that, throughout, you'll recognize as quintessentially them. A couple country tunes (Dear Doctor) that are a bit on-the-nose, some straight but totally respectable blues numbers (Parachute Woman and the excellent Prodigal Son, especially), an acoustic ballad about the working class that builds smoothly up to a choir (Salt of the Earth) and two of their utter classics: Street Fighting Man and my personal pick for best Stones song of all, Sympathy For The Devil (Gimme Shelter is second, but won't come till their next album). Jagger wails and pouts and pleads on the vocals. He even shows himself capable of literary artifice and metaphor on Sympathy. He's dynamic, rangy and powerful -- yet gentle in places where it suits. Richards plays basically all of the guitar parts on this -- Brian Jones was famously unreliable and scattered during recording -- and his work is competent and varied throughout. For a guitar icon, Keith Richards plays few solos. His work is often severe and terribly effective, spare and to the point. Rarely ornamented, but his gifts for melody, for hooks and for arranging chord structures are all evident here. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts are inimitable here. Watts is so tasteful that when he does go for something elaborate, it's often so smooth that you miss it. Wyman plays the bass both rhythmically and melodically; his work on this album is prototypical of what great bass playing brings to the table. It reinforces the beat while driving the feeling of motion by adding additional rhythmic elements -- swing, syncopation, just a little interest. It's said that the band brought some Cuban and African influences to the fore in this record and so much the better -- rock and roll music has always included those in the mix, but feels dry and stilted when they are forgotten. Wyman and Watts deserve credit for holding into that legacy. Last, Nicky Hopkins plays piano for them on Beggars Banquet and his work deserves its own mention. It's not everywhere, but even just his work backing up Sympathy in place of a rhythm guitar is inspired. If you are curious about the Rolling Stones, start here. And when you've listened to a bunch of other rock music and you're not sure what it even means anymore, come back. This is the level set for the whole genre.

A fascinating entry into the early years of the British progressive rock movement. Songs here are derived as much from Western orchestral music as they are from the blues. It's experimental and it rocks a bit less than something straight-ahead, but it's still listenable. The are only five songs, originally: 21st Century Schizoid Man is the most accessibly 'rock' tune, doubling its guitar riff with a horn section so seamlessly that you might not notice. I Talk To The Wind is a sweet tune driven by a flute melody, lovely two-part harmonies and really interesting drumming. Epitaph is gloomy and bass/keys driven under Greg Lake's best vocal performance of the record. Moonchild is highly atmospheric and a really interesting composition for rock instruments, but ultimately more a mood than a song. You might love this but you're unlikely to hum it. In The Court of the Crimson King sounds like the reprised overture from a suite, but it stands alone. No two are the same. Robert Fripp (whose control of this band later became absolute) does weird and interesting guitar things, Greg Lake kills both the bass and vocals, Michael Giles is a terribly skilled drummer (often playing in odd time signatures just so the band could show off) and Ian McDonald does just about everything else. The album is maximalist, overwhelming, thoughtful and meandering. But in 1969, this was a planted flag claiming what you could do with the instruments from a rock & roll band (plus McDonald standing in for a whole orchestra). It's not always an easy listen (though it is thoroughly, inescapably musical, unlike other albums that are described that way), but you should listen to it at least once in your life.

Not terrible, but also not compelling. Suffers in places from some of the early 90s production stalwarts (a nigh-suffocating amount of studio reverb, instruments mixed into the background beyond the point of notice). In general, it's pretty rare to get ear-catching tone choices from instruments in this era of music production; guitars sound anemic, the bass disappears and the drums are just ok). The best sound is late in the record on Dixie Drug Store and Grace, where the producer relents just a little on the overbearing reverb. All the same, the whole thing lacks texture. Grant Lee Phillips himself sounds like he's taken influences from Bob Dylan and Eddie Vedder -- two talents to be sure, but idiosyncratic in their vocal delivery to say the least. Lyrically, the effect is a bit indistinct at times and less emotive for it. The overall feel is more of the darkness and angst of Alice in Chains than Dylan or Pearl Jam. He's got talent (Phillips's range comes through a bit better with the closer, You Just Have to Be Crazy, but it's too late by that point). In all, nice to hear some truly alternative voices from the early 90s, but I'd rather listen to Sloan or Thrush Hermit. There's talent here, but not enough drive to compel further listens. With that said, I'll remain curious to hear more from this group, even if I'm not returning to Fuzzy for a full listen.

A pretty good entry into the "classic" blues-rock canon. Lord & Paice prove themselves as perhaps the most vital part of the band on this record, keeping most songs in the groove and in time. Ian Gillan is a perfectly serviceable hard rock vocalist but lacks the fireworks or the attitude of a Plant or a Mercury. Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord are supremely talented (guitar and keys/organ, respectively) technicians and pretty good at melodies, but they can tend a bit toward the baroque, eventually. Machine Head is a tremendously competent album and a big influence on heavy rock to follow, but after twenty minutes of the gymnastics running from Highway Star through Never Before, it's pretty refreshing to arrive at Smoke On The Water, which feels downright restrained in context. Lazy is a great, fairly straight blues if you wade through the first five minutes of it. Space Truckin' is a bit more riff and rhythm based (almost like slow motion Helmet, thirty years early). Ultimately, for all their influence on what was to follow, Deep Purple are a band better at playing music than writing it. Machine Head is a masterclass in playing, but you're unlikely to hear something new in the composition. Listen to this once and understand its importance, but you already know the best two songs on the disc. Unless you really love guitar solos, you're probably not coming back regularly.

And interesting and somewhat diverse post-punk entry from the late eighties in middle America. Mike Watt (bass, vocals), Ed Crawford (guitar, vocals) and George Hurley (drums) built a brisk (30 minutes!) and catchy one here. In particular, the rhythm section of Watt and Hurley keep things both steady and infectious. I hear things in this album that were clearly still resonating when I was actively consuming my local punk, jam and rock scenes in the early 2000s. Don't sleep on the vocals or the melodies, either. Good album. For sure worth at least a full listen.

Strange, atmospheric, dense, elusive. Bowie's final album sounds like Radiohead but a bit less dark. His voice shows both the same depth and strength it's always had but also the character and wear of age. It's strange to be so vital, experimental and interesting so late in one's career -- let alone such a mainstream successful one. Bowie is rightfully acclaimed as an innovator and explorer, but he deserves as much credit for seeking out great collaborators, embracing their strengths and often applying lessons from them long after the collaboration ends. There are very clear Brian Eno influences here and he's not on this record at all -- only safely embraced up in Bowie's own head. There's no hyper-catchy Modern Love sort of single here. It's beautiful, though -- reverb-drenched, overdriven rhythm guitars backing wild, clean saxophone solos while Bowie emotes just to the side; that sort of thing. It's unlikely to be your favorite David Bowie album, but you should listen to this. It's poppy electro-jazz by way of rock music's greatest chameleon frontman and it's a lovely, fitting, challenging swan song. A deserving entry into one of the great bodies of work in modern popular music -- even as it stretches those pop confines.

Surprisingly diverse (it's all rock music, but it certainly doesn't all sound the same) and thoroughly effective. If you've ever wondered what the big deal about Iggy Pop is, listen to Raw Power by the Stooges, then go immediately here. You can hear some punk and some swinging drums (Lust For Life, right off the hop), whatever reflective bop The Passenger is (bonus Bowie backup vocals) and then there's a sort of choral opening to Tonight. The album sounds carefully-crafted (Pop wanted to differentiate himself from his friend and producer Bowie), yet spontaneous and authentic (the lyrics of Success are largely improvised and it works). Bear in mind also that the year this came out, 1977, is widely considered the watershed year for punk, a movement with which this album should absolutely be considered. Pop's writing, composition, arrangement and, especially, vocal performance are diverse, committed and effective. He's a dedicated, professional musician, provocateur and weirdo, with the order of precedence varying as needed. This album is both influential and excellent. It's a stone cold classic as vital was it was the day it was released.

Pretty straightforward blues rock from the beginning, of course with excellent playing from Beck - one of the Old Masters of the mid-century white blues revival. The surprise if you're into guitar-based blues or rock music with the guitar player as the headliner is that Beck leaves tons of space for his collaborators, here. So much the better: the band (a young Rod Stewart singing, Ron Wood on bass and Micky Waller on drums) sounds as cohesive as you'd expect of three guys who had already been in bands together in various combinations. Stewart is an excellent choice, rasping and wailing to great effect. Ron Wood on bass (soon to return to guitar when he joins The Faces alongside Stewart) is a surprise standout, playing a very riffy four-string style reminiscent of Zeppelin's John Paul Jones (who shows up later on Beck's Bolero), but keeps lovely, groovy time. I'd never heard of Waller before this but it's clear why he featured prominently in so many bands of this genre - he's an ace. A note before I continue: I often identify music like this as "white blues"; it's not a put-down, but an acknowledgement that this is a branch of a musical family that was founded almost entirely by black musicians in the American South. Their work (hastily or scantly recorded, often) was not widely available or heavily promoted to mainstream (in its time, that means white) audiences, especially in the UK where Beck (and Clapton, Zeppelin, the Stones, Deep Purple, etc) was working. Players like Beck made important and valid contributions to the tradition, as well as helping within their means to popularize artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Most knew their place in the scene and revered the originals but I feel it important to implicitly call out one of the things that helped Beck and his contemporaries break through to the mainstream: they were white, and so perceived as more marketable by record companies. Little Richard and Hendrix and others did break through, but Beck and Clapton et al had an unquestionable leg up. Mind you, Beck was a supreme talent. Naturally gifted, relentless in practice and a highly creative blues disciple, he continued arrangements, techniques, recording ideas and much more to the blues, to popular music and to the culture of guitar playing, writ large. This album features creative use of guitar effects, a spectacular sound from Beck's famous Stratocaster and wonderful arrangements of old and/or traditional tunes ("You Shook Me", "Old Man River", "Bolero"). Beck's Bolero is the first real departure from the blues roots (an adaptation of Ravel's famous composition). Everything works. And if you've listened to guitar-based music for more than a few years, pay attention on Truth -- you'll hear when more than a couple things you take for granted were invented. Innovative, engrossing, immensely listenable and *maybe* under the radar in 2023 as I write. Give this a few spins, as soon as you can.

The Reid brothers wrote something here that sounds somehow both sad and not despondent. Dark but hopeful. This is pop in the vein of the Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman and Elvis Costello. It's rhythmically straight ahead (no heavy syncopation or West African polyrhythms, here) -- melodically pleasant, familiar and harmonically just a bit darker than those predecessors. It's layered: the arranging and production give it a Cure or Smiths feel but the Jesus and Mary Chain are more hopeful than either of those. It's dead-on, masterful pop with 80s layers, fuzzy guitars and a depressive but sunny edge. This is the gentlest application of cliched 80s production I've ever heard. The slightly-overdriven, chime-y, reverby guitars and very reverb-ed drums (particularly the snare) are mixed to precisely the levels where it's unmistakable but not irritating. All that said, while this is an album well worth a listen, not a single song stuck with me when I was done. I'll probably come back eventually but I wouldn't assume that everyone will. A good album and an influential entry into this pop tradition, but not an essential full of sing-along bangers or mind-blowing epics.

Made no impact on me at all. Possibly the least compelling work of the punk/new wave/post punk movement that I've been exposed to. I forgot to write a review and could scarcely remember having listened by the time I got to it.

A strange experience. Melodies emerge from chaos, grooves underpin mayhem and suddenly you're whistling something despite the dissonance it's being played against. Bitches Brew is a challenging listen, though remaining pleasant if you're adventurous. Unlike Trout Mask Replica, I still have faith that other people do enjoy this -- as do I. I'm not a jazz nerd (just every other kind), so I can only marvel at the swirling maelstrom of sound and how the band pulls it together. The record seems determined to test the limits of how rule-breaking a song can become while still being compelling and enjoyable. Ultimately, though, it is compelling and enjoyable. It asks much of the listener, but rewards just as much. Must listen.

Dramatic, narrative, often dark but always compelling, Hounds of Love by Kate Bush is a masterwork. Conceptually, it's split into two: the first five (ending with Cloudbursting) comprise Hounds of Love while the final seven see subtitled The Ninth Wave - a concept suite said to be about a woman drifting alone at sea. The album is dense with ideas, not only musical but of production and storytelling. Rich with textures, melodies and rhythmic ideas, it leaves an emotional mark. Bush's vocal work is vulnerable and powerful and there's little more you could ask of a singer. Throughout, I was continually reminded of the concept albums of progressive bands like Pink Floyd, or more modern entries from projects like Ayreon and Dream Theater. The song Under Ice should feel familiar to any metal fan, even without distorted guitars. It really is fair to say that everyone ought to listen to Hounds of Love at least once.

"You can look for answers / but that ain't fun" seems to summarize Kid Rock pretty well. Is this album a sincere contribution to rock, rap and country music or a cynical costume hat thrown into the ring of 1998's highly corporate music charts? Unlike DB Cooper (who Rock references favourably in the opener, Bawitdaba), I don't know that even Kid Rock knows his own Identity. Though he expresses an affinity for those of the underworld -- thieves, hustlers, sex workers, addicts -- and a disdain for authority ("all those bastards at the IRS"), it's unclear what alternate world the lyricist proposes. That's the nadir: any claims to authenticity from Kid Rock would be seated in either his musical choices or his lyrical content but the latter consists entirely of boastful self-aggrandizement, references to drug use and sex and expressions of admiration for various criminals and CEOs. The latter is particularly confused as the references to hustlers, including sex workers, tend to be positive until turned toward himself (he's careful to advise you that he, himself, is not a "ho") and also his references to authority are disparaging unless coupled to wealth (he's seemingly rather proud in I Am The Bullgod of the respect he now receives from record company CEOs, despite implicitly disrespecting their contemporaries by earlier mythologizing DB Cooper who stole millions from corporations in 1971). The hard rock edge of the album (it's not metal by any reasonable standard) is palatable but a thin veneer - it consists entirely of distorted guitar riffs and has none of the bite, showmanship or technical panache of a dedicated hard rock or metal album. The song forms and vocal delivery are all borrowed from country and rap. No speed, no interesting keys, no groove, no difficult time, no instrumental solos and, while serviceable, no virtuosity. Even the guitar tones feel half-finished -- dedicated guitar players tend to carefully curate the particular sound of their instruments, but this is neither here nor there, like he plugged into a ProCo Rat and never fiddled a knob. The most authentic seeming reference in all of this work is the tie to country music. The chord structures and song forms (as well as the occasional, unexamined disdain for the government) are all lifted right out of southern rock. The echoes of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd are throughout and there's no explicit callout (apart from the general vibe of Cowboy). It stands to reason that the one thing that shines through naturally is the true heart of his music; the strangest part is that he's not at all from the South or any place country-centric: he's from Detroit. All the same, the most authentic part of this album is the country heart of Kid Rock's songwriting. In the end, the rapping is competent if a bit stock, the rock production is the same and the more country bits are actually the best. Only God Knows Why would be a fabulous ballad about the pitfalls of fame if it weren't thematically gutted by the rest of the album. Should I believe that's the real Kid or is it the asshole screwing over his family and his production team at the end of Fuck You? It doesn't really matter: this is a surprisingly decent Southern rock album with hard rock production and some elements of rap, but written without a soul. Genre mashups sometimes get labeled as posing -- toe-deep dalliances with no respect for the history and context of the costume they're donning for a lark. In some cases it's unfair, but you don't need to deeply consider the lack of lyrical content beyond boasts or the Boss MetalZone guitar sounds to peg Kid Rock as a poser. You don't even need to know that he's the son of a car dealership tycoon in Detroit and not a kid who rose from the mean streets. You just need to know that he probably isn't both the plaintive, regretful soul of God Knows Why and also the Bullgod on the same album; he's an asshole in a mask. He's faking something and I don't care what -- and I'm pretty sure he knows it's obvious. You should probably listen to Devil Without A Cause. It's surprisingly listenable but it's important to keep an eye out for just exactly how empty it is. This music is a perfect example of the state of mainstream culture in 1998 and by better understanding that, we can undo all the harm done by fakers like Kid Rock. This is perhaps the single greatest act of poserism in the modern history of music.

Originally a punk band in the vein of the Ramones, Let It Be saw The Replacements incorporating new instruments (acoustic ones!) into their music along with some slower song structures (Unsatisfied, Sixteen Blue). The result is still raw and mostly very loud but really displays the heartfelt sentiment behind many of their tracks. It's technically competent (no small feat given the DIY feel of the record) but the impact goes beyond any particular drum fill or bass groove. It's been said that this band invented alternative rock and the similarities to a host of later groups are as plain as day. Paul Westerburg's singing has obvious influences on the grunge movement (Eddie Vedder especially) and the whole band deserves respect for their own contributions. Listen to this front to back and you'll hear just where a lot of song conventions came from. Seminal.

Epic, spacey, emotional and intimate -- all from a band who sings in Icelandic (or occasionally their own, invented dialect), which I do not understand. Less doom-y than Godspeed You! Black Emperor, more delicate than Explosions In The Sky; this is perhaps the most accessible entry point into circa-2000 post-rock. You won't dance to this record. You likely won't sing along much. Some pieces are long and some meander. I'd encourage everyone to check this out, though. There's a reason this has been used in countless movie scores since its release: there's little music out there that contains more sheer feeling than Sigur Rós's masterwork, Ágætis Byrjun.

This is an utter masterclass in infectious, compelling, completely fun electronic dance-pop. It's no wonder that Norman Cook is also a bass player. There's not much to say here (and that's coming from a guy who wrote 750 words about a Kid Rock album I found to be mediocre). You've Come A Long Way, Baby isn't terribly challenging (apart from the occasionally profuse cursing -- see In Heaven for a high-cadence string of F-bombs) is immediately accessible and never overstays its welcome. I'm not well-educated in this genre of music but this record connects directly to the reward centre of my brain and shuts off the part that knows I can't dance. One of the best things from the 90s.

Solid British guitar pop with a little creative edge. Bye Bye Bad Man is a 60s pop tune in the vein of the Beatles or the Kinks but it's got an 80s sensibility to it -- reverby, phaser-ed guitars and a melodic line to the guitar hooks that's clearly informed by Island Records. Waterfall/Don't Stop presents the first real album-oriented creativity of the record. The first presents some guitar ideas (a certain blend of overdrive, slide, blues progression and pocket playing) that they'll revisit to great effect on their 1994 hit, Love Spreads. They transition seamlessly from there to Don't Stop where the drums (Alan "Reni" Wren) and bass (Gary "Mani" Mounfield) start you out in a perfectly stable groove only to be joined by the guitar player (John Squire) with a wicked reverse-delay riff that leads into Ian Brown bringing in his vocal melody with some more reverse-time effects. It's a clever piece of effect/production engagement of an arrangement and something still rare in pop and rock music -- it's interesting and catchy and prominently strange. They show their diversity by repackaging Greensleeves on Elizabeth My Dear and the record does not sag after that point, including some longer and more technically showy tunes later (see the multi-movement, style-hopping, 8-minute jam of I Am The Resurrection). This is a clear pillar upon which the 90s Britpop movement was built -- and perhaps a quality to which it rarely again rose. This beats Blur any day. Give it a go. The Stone Roses are well-remembered by the music geeks of the world but deserve more widespread acclaim than they got in the end. If you've ever wished Oasis were just a better band and better writers, this is that.

Gloomy but pleasant, post-punk but with a punk energy, Joy Division is ironically named but worthy of knowing. Closer is worth a listen at least for the clear influences on a number of bands (from the 80s onward) but it's genuinely enjoyable in its own right. Highly recommended.

Competent but fatally overwrought. Way too much reverb, just so that you know it was made in the 80s. Many blame Peter Gabriel for this studio sound. Nothing compelling.

One of the clear links between punk generations. Hüsker Dü sound much like the 70s originals, their 80s contemporaries and you'll hear some stylistic influences on 90s bands like Green Day here, too. They also occasionally sound like REM, among other things -- evidence that this is a later album, less hardcore punk than their beginnings. It's a double, but it goes quick.

A solid carrier of the fun and personal side of punk at an ebbing moment guy for the genre in the 80s. Sounds almost as much like surf or the B-52s at times as it does the Ramones. Good songwriting, very good vocals (nice harmony work) and solid playing throughout -- especially Gina Schock on drums and Kathy Valentine on bass, providing the heart and backbone of this band. Not an album that blew me away, but certainly one that I enjoyed and one that I'm sure got plenty of kids -- especially girls -- starting bands of their own. That's a legacy worth honoring with a listen. Standout tracks are the singles (Our Lips Are Sealed and the evergreen We Got The Beat) and Can't Stop The World. The Go-Go's might not become your favourite band but don't skip this one!

Ambient, morose and beautiful. This album owes as much to Brian Eno as it does any of its contemporary guitar bands. Its descendants are more Sigur Rós (see: Treefingers) than any British rock bands that followed. All that is just staggering in contrast to The Bends (one of the great records of the grunge and post-grunge genres). It's not all electronic texture. The glassy soundscape of Treefingers gives way to the decidedly more analog Optimistic. The National Anthem sits between the beeps and boops and the crunchy to jangly stuff, chugging out an angular bass groove that unsettles and ensorcells in equal measure. Weird but accessible; critically acclaimed and wildly popular; haunting and beautiful, this album is an utter masterwork.

Particularly cool if you're into heavier rock music. Blue Cheer get mixed credit for the specific legacy of this album (it either is or isn't one of the very first heavy metal albums, depending on the critic you ask), but the groove-heavy, blues-informed (it has a B.B. King cover, after all), fuzz-drenched power trio sound went far. You'll still hear this sound today in bands like Sleep and Queens of the Stone Age. Peterson (vox, bass), Stephens (guitar) and Whaley (what better name for a drummer?) thunder through music descended from the blues and 50s pop, but in a way that predates the relentlessness of punk (this is 1968, after all). Every piece of the band is audible, they have a genuine sense of dynamics and they start stop on a dime. It's psychedelic as hell, mind you: they meander and jam, they take liberties with covers (Summertime Blues opens the record in stellar fashion) and they write very clear drug anthems (Doctor, Please). Is it an utter masterpiece? No, it falls short there - sometimes a little less compelling, sometimes too focused on the guitar noodling and while Dickie Peterson is a capable singer (and genuinely screams to good effect at times), he's a little limited in range and not exactly Paul McCartney with the melodies. It's good. You should check it out. But for most people, it isn't Sgt. Pepper's -- just another important incremental step in the grand history of rock music.

Pure groove. Hancock brings some of the prevailing funk of 1973 into this record and spends most of the effort playing some electric keyboard (be it a synth or a Fender Rhodes). Everyone in the band kills, here. Know that this is an instrumental jazz album and they're definitely not playing standards but the groove is solid and the rhythm is hot (at least listen to Sly). It meanders - they explore a bit for sure. But this is a fun effort from a jazz chameleon.

It's important to know, if you've never heard this, that Steinman (the principle writer on this project) developed this material from what was originally a rock opera. It really shows -- especially in the several songs herein that sound like mini-medleys. They shift and morph and return to themes (though primarily within arrangements rather than across the record). It's downright fun. The rock & roll is in full effect here, as is the goofy camp of a musical. If you can suspend your disbelief enough to buy the drama they're selling (in the classic Paradise By The Dashboard Light, it's two teenagers deciding whether or not to get it on), several of these are absolute anthems that build to duets singing counterpoint, refrains returning, major fifths spiking and space for an obvious audience sing-along. You'll need to check your own self-seriousness at the door to enjoy any Meat Loaf, but that's true as much of the singer as the eponymous food. Just sit down and have a slice. This is the epitome of schlock masterpiece.

A solid folk effort from one of America's truly great songwriters. As an occasional Simon listener generally but a stalwart evangelist of Graceland as a top five album and The Boxer as a contender for Greatest American Song, it's no insult when I say that much of it just sounds like a bulk order of 'some Paul Simon'. The mid-record run of Armistice Day/Me and Julio/Peace Like A River is the strongest section for me but it's all worth listening. Even the low points of Paul Simon's songwriting career are worth listening to. The melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, textural, poetic and story elements of his writing are rich, deep and often unexpected. His prime influences seem to be Delta Blues and Tin Pan Alley and those are bright as day, here. Plus, it's a short one. It's not my favorite Simon work, but it's an album that most of us could only dream of writing. Check it out regardless - maybe I'll be your favourite.

Perfectly good guitar pop that presages the sound of numerous bands like Oasis and Blur to follow. Presumably, this record and the work of The Stone Roses served as catalysts for the development of that sound. I found the closing track, Failure, to be the most compelling tune. They're all decent but little stuck with me. Not bad, not great and seemed to serve to push British music back to basics at just the right time. Points for influence.

It might seem strange for a punk album to be monotonous but it's something the genre can fall prey to. The swaggering sneer throughout this record blends together as much as the straight-ahead rhythm work of guitar, bass and drums. Sonically, some ideas that echo the dark electronics of Joy Division and the jangly rock of the honky tonk side of the Stones do creep in, but they never save the album form feeling like it's dragging on.

You should know, upfront, that this is one of the first albums I ever bought. I certainly try not to let my nostalgia colour my perception but I'm not perfect. This was a good record, period. U2 drop much of the studio layering that they'd become buried in by Pop, revealing precisely what remained of their songwriting by the 2000 release of All That You Can't Leave Behind. The singles get a lot of attention (Beautiful Day, Walk On, Elevation) and while they're good efforts (Beautiful Day, in particular, is a rare sunny anthem from a band known for their songs about deathbed reconciliations and The Troubles), the second half of the album contains some hidden gems. Wild Honey recalls the acoustic bops of the Rolling Stones while In A Little While offers a soulful effort that shows each member playing with little effect support - Clayton and Mullen keeping a slow shuffle groove, Bono showing his genuine capacity for vocal dynamics and the Edge providing a deeply organic electric guitar part that relies on nothing more than artful phrasing, varied pick attack and some spot-on overdrive to achieve the song's atmosphere. U2 are a band known for their bombast and their polished, sweeping rock soundscapes but they're genuinely good writers and players. They can't resist their bombastic nature here, but the stripped down record proves perfectly that it comes from them genuinely and not just from their racks and racks of studio electronics. ATYCLB closes on some slicker numbers but the varied, infectious, affecting nature of the work remains. Unlike some of their more constructed efforts, any band could pick up this whole album and play it through with whatever gear they already have (excepting a deceptive octave effect on Elevation) and it would sound great - that's a mark of well-crafted songs. This is accessible to both the listener and to a musician following along -- you don't need three hours puzzling over an arcane chain of delay pedals to replicate the guitar sound or an ocean of reverb to get Bono's vocals. But you've gotta have some range and a delicate touch to get it right. Is it melodramatic? Yeah, that's them through and through. But is it good? Unequivocally, yes.

A great album with a well-deserved reputation as a classic. Just listen.

A tremendous vocalist and bottleneck slide guitar player, Bonnie Raitt certainly deserves consideration in the pantheon of 20th century American music -- if for no other reason than her torchbearing for blues and what later became known as Americana. This record feels a bit over-polished, however. It's good, it's stylistically varied, but it's too clean an effort to be truly interesting. I Will Not Be Denied stands out as a showcase for the Raitt with whom I'm familiar, but overall the album is a bit staid and sterile. Worth a look if you're curious but not a must-listen for general audiences.

Interesting. Rock with early mid-century influences - staccato piano, folky progressions, Beach Boys vocal harmonies with falsetto and swimming in reverb (without the slightest 80s taint). But also electronic. Sunny textures, shuffle grooves, choral-quality four-part vocal arrangements. The closest comparison I can give you is Montreal's Half Moon Run, though that's a bit obscure and they're a little more folk and a little more rock. Spare but skillful and textural guitar arrangements. Driving but delicate drums. Deft but restrained bass. Keys! But good luck catching them in the act. This is an album where everything serves the song -- no technical flourishes in the playing for the sake of showing off. Deeply dynamic. Gentle, affecting, potent, moving. Very cool.

A raging, roaring, vaguely menacing album of folk/rock tunes about dark things, sung by a songwriter with a rangy, smooth, growling baritone. The band sounds like cartoon characters hanging, flapping from the back of the runaway stagecoach that is Cave. Sounds, all at once, like Leadbelly, Dylan & The Band or an evil Leonard Cohen. Rare. The musical forms are very old and a bit theatrical but the tradition of writing ballads about dark themes like this is old. It's just not so prominent as it once was, anymore. This is very nearly a country album but absolutely does not come from that tradition (though I'm sure Cave has heard some Johnny Cash) - that distinction alone makes this a fascinating and engrossing listen.

I wanted to say, "incomparable," but even George Clinton would be more flattered by direct comparisons to Sly Stone and James Brown and to Motown. Come for the rhythm - for the syncopated in-betweens and the hard, precise thunk of the whole section when the bar comes back to ONE. Generations of bass players and drummers have studied this work (Bootsy Collins and Cordell Mosson on bass, Tiki Fulwood, Jerome Brailey, Collins and Gary Cooper all rotating through percussion roles). Everything is good. The songs can go on a bit, but the impulse to move with these rhythmic patterns is strong enough that you may not notice. Just as you may not notice in Give Up The Funk when the whole band starts singing 'ga ga goo-ga' over and over to the rhythm. The various parts diverge and reunite around that propulsive hit on the first beat of every bar in a manner (lifted from the godfather, Brown) that is at once mesmerizing, fascinating, engrossing, dense and accessible. Funk is a genre music. It is a thoughtfully constructed tradition built upon Motown and the Blues and bebop jazz but in a way sufficiently coherent as to have its own frames and strictures. It is recognizably borrowed from, having transcended being an offshoot of other things. This is funk in pure, uncut form: the raw, elemental source. Think what you want of the silliness, the psychedelia, the sci-Fi influences but come open-minded to embrace the beat. Like whisky or coffee, you may find you prefer its flavours watered down a little (funk metal? pop-funk? samples of The Gap Band throughout hip-hop? it's all there), but you should try the genuine article at least once if you love music. Funk is an oft-referenced influence by numerous musicians but a somewhat forgotten genre for contemporary fans and writers. Give it a visit: it is an utterly infectious, jubilant, kinetic musical style that deserves the reverence associated with the likes of Robert Johnson, Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. This is as important as the Beatles. A masterwork. Parliament is a well from which we continue to draw but do not acknowledge enough.

Timeless. It's worth reading a bit about The Bomb Squad's production work on this record because some of their innovations are now so ubiquitous (the density of sampling, in particular) that it's hard to imagine their invention. It's like explaining to fish that water had to be invented. It's a gem even without the context. Certainly the rapping style is different from contemporary (I write this in late 2023) trends, but it doesn't feel old -- just distinct from today's trends. Exceptional. Entirely deserving of the reputation of Public Enemy.

Totally serviceable, off the beaten path alt rock that sounds not much like the decade it's from. The Flaming Lips have never tickled my brain in the same way that they seem to for many fans and critics but they're well worth a look for any music fan. It's built around melody and harmony, lovely chord cadences and clever lyrics. Very well made.

Ambient-with-a-beat electronica. It didn't draw me in and grab me, but it was enjoyable. Great music to work to.

Reminds me of The Doors, but less doom-y. Cool, detached early 70s California rock. Pretty good throughout; starts strong and the closing trio ends strong. Highlights are Devil Eyes and Hong Kong bar. Part of a tradition, a vibe, a signature of an era. Not a forever part of my rotation, though.

An oft-derided storyteller who leads with a strong voice and his piano. Whether modern dismissals of Joel's career (I'd call this rock snobbery) are driven by his own success and the lazy programming of North American radio (the "overplayed" school) or the fact that he's a piano player first (a professor of mine argued that Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his child cousin ruined the piano for rock music for decades; exceptions prove the rule), he deserves another listen. Melodically interesting, lyrically smart and relatable, vocally strong and rangy, Joel fills The Stranger with concise tunes influenced as much by the early 40s and 50s roots of rock & roll (jazz, Tin Pan Alley, the blues, Broadway) and largely avoids getting too bogged down by the oncoming reverb-pocalypse of the production conceits of the 80s (this is 1977, but the tremors have begun you can hear them on Just The Way You Are, which is why it's so schmaltzy). He's kind of like a more-sentimental, less-angry Bruce Springsteen. Give it a shot. Movin' Out is great, you can skip Just The Way You Are it it's too saccharine for you and Only The Good Die Young is an absolute all-time jam.

Good. Its strongest material is the opening pair - the classics, Tiny Dancer and Levon. Otherwise exactly what you expect from Elton John - lovely, plaintive vocals, good work at the piano, a strong backing band and good storytelling from Bernie Taupin. Elton does tend to run on a little but that was his style. I do think it's worth it for folks familiar only with his hits to listen through some full records. You may return to just listening to greatest hits compilations afterwards, but the man deserves credit for the fairly solid albums otherwise. It's no Dark Side of the Moon, but it's a strong collection.

Uncontroversially, this is a very good album. Not my genre of expertise but it strikes me as much sparser, samples-wise, than the most prominent work of even five years before. 2pac has an easy flow and a steady rhythm, making the tracks much easier to relax into than their subject matter might lead you to believe. I think the spare arrangements led later artists to mistake that for the central quality of Shakur's work; his writing and his delivery are stellar. On top of it, the rhythms and hooks that he does use are infectious and extremely effective -- 2pac only needs a simple beat because it's a great one and because he's plenty to hold your attention on his own. Influential and rightfully so. Probably won't convert any skeptics of rap, but if you're at all curious you should give this a spin.

Beautiful, emotional, spare, direct. My first full Waits album. I'm familiar with his gravelly voice and his reputation for strangeness but they're unmistakable. Waits is, arguably, actually a subtle artist but the rough nature of his voice and the dark feel of his composition are not. It's the loveliness of his melodies and chord progressions that are. This use of his weary-sounding voice deepens the pathos on display. Something about the natural inclination of our voices toward vocal fry when we tire lends a gravity to Tom Waits that isn't easily replicable in another way. He sounds like he has traveled continents but simply must sing you one song, give you one message before he can rest. It helps that his pitch and dynamic control are excellent in spite of what seems initially to be a classically naive voice. Make no mistake -- the gravel is natural and his skills as a singer are practiced and genuine. Both are a rare combination (though admittedly, more common as I write in 2023, thanks to specialist vocal coaches). A diverse and extraordinary album.

Well, it's the Wrecking Crew working under the intense direction of the profoundly talented Brian Wilson, so I'm not sure what more you can ask. Not everything is an earworm single here but the lush harmonies of the Beach Boys married to one of the most storied session groups of the 20th century (see also: The Funk Brothers, Booker T & The MG's and The Swampers), married under the direction of a genuine musical genius. Just imagine writing all of these parts in your head, which Wilson did. God Only Knows is, alone, a masterpiece. But why read my views on this? It's one of the most famous albums in the history of modern Western popular music. You don't need me to tell you about it.

A good album. In the grand scheme of modern popular music, this band probably served to bring funk back into the popular consciousness. On the other hand, Anthony Kiedis is and has always been both juvenile and overly self-serious, which often limits the Chili Peppers. Under The Bridge is a masterpiece, in part because he's writing something genuine, rather than trying to cram the maximum number of innuendos into his bandmates' work. For me, the combination of braggadocio and sexual reference just combine to give the impression of a creepy young man at a bar. When I hear his words, I find him profoundly off-putting. Like if Iggy Pop were a drunken frat boy. The others in the band are typically excellent here. Flea is a legend, John Frusciante is the smoothest California guitarist of the whole 90s scene and Chad Smith is the ever-morphing glue that holds them together. Good, but deeply flawed, much like the 90s themselves.

Simon has always been a brilliant writer and arranger but this one is the softest of the soft folk/rock. One wonders if the producer enforced whispering in the studio for fear that rock music might break out. It's very good. Mrs. Robinson and America are utter classics that have served all of the mountainous praise they've received over the decades. In places, it feels pretty emotionally flat (Punky's Dilemma) flat. For a concept album about coming of age, that's a problem. Critically acclaimed, though - so what do I know?

Dramatic, oppressive. The lyrics have been translated from German; this was all originally written by Hanns Eisler. Well-orchestrated, performed with skill and conviction. I nearly didn't finish it. Maybe it's just of a different time but I could not attach my interest to this.

Catchy and capable, well played and composed. A little bit emotionally cool, which feels typical of pop from the late 90s to my recollection of the time. Good, not great.

The second major label release from Eminem (Marshall Mathers, of course) is a real snapshot in time. Everything is on display here: the simple, thorough, concise production mastery from Dre, the incisive, fluid, boundary-pushing lyrics and flawless, emotionally-charged and often irreverent delivery. It also contains the stream-of-consciousness examination of fame, moral outrage and parasocial relationships that made Mathers infamous. Technically, it's excellent and the sales of the album are an indicator of its lasting influence on popular music. It's worth examining what lies beneath. Overall, Mathers seems to be outraged by outrage. By all accounts, his overtly violent, misogynistic, occasionally homophobic themes are intended to skewer attitudes he perceived in society at large. At the same time, his shock at others ascribing those attitudes to him by paying attention to his writing is hard to take seriously. It's true that the microscope under which pop stars (even the accidental ones and the ones famous *for* their bad behavior, like the Jackass crew or Ozzy Osbourne) was absurd at the turn of the millennium but for someone who observes the machine so astutely, the incredulousness must be at least partly cultivated. The Marshall Mathers LP is best experienced by stepping back and observing it as an entirely constructed artifact. Take our narrator as a character, whether constructed or genuine (or vassilating between the two), who demonstrates the toxicity in his contemporary culture. He does insult men by insinuating their homosexuality in one breath and then declares there's 'no reason a man and another man can't elope'. He both discusses his concerns that a fan will commit violence against his girlfriend and also his own violent actions. Eminem's thesis is that we're tragic players in this harmful production -- and he does not spare himself. He also wants you to know you shouldn't take him seriously. Which was very common in those days -- nobody wanted anyone else to think they wanted to be taken seriously -- and an easy dodge to criticism was to claim unseriousness. With apologies to Mr. Mathers, his influence on oughts culture is too thorough to dismiss him. He's a filthy lens though which we can examine a filthier culture of the time. A damaged, flawed human being who said some problematic things in a poetic way that sold records and pointed out that the culture surrounding him was just as bad but pretending otherwise. Eminem has deserved much of the controversy he has courted -- mostly deliberately -- and correctly observed that few who expressed outrage were righteous enough to judge him. It was the early 2000s. It was shiny, plastic, brightly coloured and it was deeply rotten underneath.