Very instrumental heavy, like the vocals
I like the punk rock vibes with the keyboard combo
The highs are high, and the lows are LOW
10/10! Probably the best album I’ve listened to so far (including albums by the Beatles and Aretha Franklin).
This is tremendously creative and expansive in sound for a debut album. You can tell Monae was inspired by older artists (felt like Parliament and Prince were inspirations here), but not so obviously to sound like a copycat. This album is all her own.
Favorite songs: Oh, Maker (favorite overall), Sir Greendown, Dance or Die, Make the Bus (this one sounds unlike anything else on the album, kinda like a blend of Bowie and MGMT)
I was convinced I hated the Velvet Underground before lol. I liked this album more than I expected. It’s a solid 3.5. Favorite song is probably The Murder Mystery.
I found almost nothing redeemable about this album lol.
Strong 3 near the beginning, close to a 1 at the end
Revolver is a better album. Rubber Soul is a better album. The quality of songs on this isn’t really consistent. But Come Together, Something, and Here Comes the Sun are the best known songs from this album for a reason. I also really liked Carry that Weight and Because. I also love Octopus’s Garden. Controversial opinion, but I sang it as a kid for a pre-school program so it holds a lot of sentimental value for me.
It’s not that the other songs are bad, they just don’t stand out (except Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, which I don’t know how to feel about because I don’t really like the British Music Hall/Baroque pop sounds common on Paul songs, but I like it when the bang bang part comes in). And there too many filler songs.
This album is the one I’m most unsure about. I really like the production, but hate the lyrical content/themes. Sometimes Dr. Octagon’s flow works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. The lyrics and some of the samples made uncomfy enough to make this a 2.
This a pretty solid album with a lot of interesting songs. I was familiar with songs like High and Dry and Fake Plastic Trees and they kinda turned me off a little bit from this album because they were a little too soft/empty sounding for me.
My favorite song was definitely Black Star. I also liked The Bends, Bones, and Just.
How is the person with the name on the album the worst part of this album? It’s alright when Dr. John isn’t really on the song that much, but I don’t know. Dr. John probably loves New Orleans blues but it does seem this is the kind of blues that white people find to be acceptable. Idk sonically Dr. John is giving Vanilla Ice.
It’s an alright album. If I hadn’t heard Jump and Panama a million times, I don’t think anything about this album would really stand out.
This is truly the most mid album I’ve heard so far. Like I don’t know how to describe it as anything else. Bobby Jean stood out to me. I don’t know, I know Bruce Springsteen is a liberal but I feel like the people who LOVE this album would call me a slur lol. That being said, I think (ignoring the conservatives who don’t understand this album’s message), I’d give it a 3. It’s not my cup of tea but it’s alright. Dancing in the Dark is a bop.
Yet another mid album. I’m not sure if I listened to the right one because there a sixty different track lists for this album. I listened to the Director’s Cut. I liked “No More Tears” and “Justified and Ancient”
Ok. This is the 36th album I’ve received. Out of those 36, only 3 have been by women (Lady Soul, ArchAndroid, and Little Earthquakes). I’ve had to listen to a barrage of boring dad rock albums or uninteresting 90s alt-rock albums by “edgy” male artists (like this one). For every 5th boring ass album by a male artist I get, I’ll write a companion review for an album by a female artist that’s not on this list. I give Spiderland a 2. It’s not something I’d want to listen to again, and nothing about it stood out to me, but I didn’t hate it.
Today, I’m also gonna review Whitney Houston’s self-titled debut from 1985. I was familiar with classics like “How Will I Know”, “Greatest Love of All”, and “Saving All My Love for You.” I have to admit, I’m ok with Whitney’s dance pop and quiet storm songs from the 80’s but I prefer her R&B sound from the 90’s (think the Bodyguard soundtrack and My Love is Your Love). Of the songs I hadn’t heard before, I really liked Thinking About You. Take Good Care of My Heart is also pretty good. This album suffers from being made in the 80’s and having bland and dated 80’s production. But Whitney’s voice is so beautiful even on her first album so I’m giving it a 4.
Reasons why Whitney Houston (1985) should’ve been on the 1001 list: besides being the introduction to one of the best singers in all of recorded music, it was the first album by a female artist to reach number 1 on the Billboard year end chart. It was also the best selling solo album by a Black woman in history (until Mariah Carey broke the record with Music Box in 1993). I don’t think a Whitney Houston album even appears on this list which would be shocking if I didn’t already know that this list has a strong rock bias (and Robert Dimery admits this in the book).
I didn’t realize how much I didn’t like Elton John’s voice until I played this album all the way through. The instrumentals are alright, but they don’t make up for having to hear Elton John sing. I liked the refrain at the end of Rotten Peaches though.
It’s alright. I don’t know enough about jazz to give this a fair rating.
This is what I thought all indie rock sounded like before I listened to more indie. It’s quite literally the most stereotypical indie music I could think of
It’s not bad, but I also don’t think it’s great. The singer’s whiny voice is very annoying, but the instrumentals/production is cool.
Discount Radiohead is alright. They just feel a bit derivative (especially with the reference to Wonderwall in the first song on this album). I like it, it just doesn’t feel like this belongs on the list. Especially when Radiohead (and presumably Oasis, I haven’t looked) are on here too.
Ok. Fifth album by a male artist in a row since I’ve been counting. I’ll review Dookie, but I’m also going to review album by a female artist that’s not on this list (the album that is. The artist may or may not have a different album on this list). That album will be Where Did Our Love Go by the Supremes.
For my review of Dookie, this album is tremendous pop punk. An iconic 90s album that also inspired some of my favorite artists in the 2000s (no matter how much 2000s pop punk artists like MCR, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and Panic are disparaged, I still love it. I love Olivia Rodrigo’s revival of pop punk today. Those artists also owe a great deal to Green Day). The transition between Chump and Longview is amazing. I think though that having heard songs from this album and Green Day for years, it doesn’t really come off that fresh to me (and the songs that stand out the most of the popular ones like Longview and Basket Case). I don’t know if I’d play this who album unless I was in a really specific mood to do so. I’ll give Dookie a 4.
Where Did Our Love Go is of course another certified classic with iconic hits like the title track and “Baby Love”. Of the songs I hadn’t previously heard, I really loved “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes.” But every song on this album is perfect 1960s pop. I know the Supremes didn’t have Motown’s first number one song, but they did more to popularize the Motown sound than any other artist on the label. And in the 1960s, no other artist (besides the Beatles) rivaled their chart success. This album obviously deserves to be on this list for popularizing the Motown sound, the dominant sound of R&B and probably the most imitated sound in music during the 1960s. The charts of course aren’t everything, but the influence and legacy of the Supremes on musical landscape can’t be understated. They transcended the “race music” that was commonly applied to Black artists before the 1960s and allowed Black artists to finally get credit for their contributions to music (instead of having tepid covers of their songs by White artists gain more popularity like in the ‘50s). They’re the most commercially successful vocal group of all time. They also inspired my favorite musical film Dreamgirls. Every girl group (Destiny’s Child, TLC, Spice Girls, etc.) AND boy group (Boyz II Men, *NSYNC, One Direction, etc.) that came after them is forever indebted to them. Where Did Our Love Go is a 5.
This album was such a slog. It doesn’t deserve to be on this list. While it’s not as sonically displeasing as some of the other albums I gave a 2, it’s not good enough to be pleasant background music or interesting enough to stand out.
