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Fri Oct 06 2023
Head Hunters
Herbie Hancock
Starts out with a clavinet and doesn't let up on the early 70s funk for the next 40 minutes, only four songs so you know you're getting a god bang for your buck.
Standout Track: Watermelon Man
5
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Sat Oct 07 2023
Remain In Light
Talking Heads
People come for Once In a Lifetime, but stay for the absolute, unrelenting, forward velocity of The Great Curve.
4
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Sun Oct 08 2023
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
Even nearly 25 years later, this still be flipping in the ghetto on a dirty mattress. Bonafide timeless classic, a standard Miss Lauren couldn't dare to achieve again.
5
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Mon Oct 09 2023
21
Adele
Powerhouse of an album that shot Adele to superstardom. Still listenable as it has a timeless sound, still relatable, still raw in many ways.
5
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Tue Oct 10 2023
Highway to Hell
AC/DC
Bon Scott's last album and it's in their top three albums, but it never really hit with me. It has Highway to Hell (obviously) but the rest is just .... there
3
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Wed Oct 11 2023
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Derek & The Dominos
I don't know how this got extended to a double album, it has one good song, and even that is good not because of Eric Clapton, but Jim Gordon's piano in the coda. The rest is filler.
2
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Thu Oct 12 2023
Since I Left You
The Avalanches
Come for Frontier Psychiatrist but stay for the rest of the album, especially the title track, it's just the epitome of early 2000s sunny dispositions. A ton of samples all layered together to weave a tapestry of feel good vibes, shame the world would come crashing down less than a year after this debuted and feel good jams went on the back burner.
4
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Fri Oct 13 2023
Kollaps
Einstürzende Neubauten
Run from it, hide from it, deny it, it comes all the same...
If this Einsturzende Neubauten album is truly one of the 1001 you have to listen to before you die, its probably best to make it your last. It's a full on sensory assault. An harsh dose of unadulterated, raw, violent, uncut sonic sodomy, from the first sound of a sledgehammer wrapped barb wire smashing your into your face to the death rattle of the rusty power drill that's being used to perform trepanation in order to release the pressure that's built up in your brain over the interminable 38 minutes required to listen to this magnum opus of German industrial revolution.
Now it would be easy, too easy, to preread the reviews and decide that a 1 is all that's required and move on with your day, but stop and appreciate the chaos, even if only for a few fleeting seconds. Maybe you'll appreciate the nuance of future industrial tools usage like Lee Ranaldo using power tools at the start of Sonic Youth's The Burning Spear....
2
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Sat Oct 14 2023
All Directions
The Temptations
Wild album in that one song takes up over a third of the runtime, outside of the truly great "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" it feels like a disjointed EP...
4
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Sun Oct 15 2023
2112
Rush
What can I say? Overindulgent mid-70s prog rock where pushing song lengths was a sign of creative wankery. But it's pretty much middle of the road alright and parts of it have a *very* good vibe like "The Temples of Syrinx" section of the overarching 2112 suite and "The Twilight Zone" in the second half would be great after popping an edible.
3
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Mon Oct 16 2023
Countdown To Ecstasy
Steely Dan
Starts out with a banger but kinda fizzles out like a bottle rocket when really it needs a good diesel engine to carry this along. It'll excite, in moderation, but rarely thrills.
3
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Tue Oct 17 2023
Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
"You go back, Jack, do it again, wheel turnin' 'round and 'round. You go back, Jack, do it again..."
Two days of Steely Dan in row, really starting to feel like this was some grand conspiracy to turn me into a hardcore Steely Dan fan. It's like being given a hit of a potent drug without a warning. Like, yeah, I was gonna probably do this shit anyways, but I'd rather initiate it on my own terms.
4
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Wed Oct 18 2023
The White Room
The KLF
"KLF is gonna rock ya"
I remember this from 1991, and it's aged like piss...
2
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Thu Oct 19 2023
The Colour Of Spring
Talk Talk
New Wave, Post Punk, Art Pop, whatever... Mostly bland but effervescent in places, rises to high at times but very few and far between
3
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Fri Oct 20 2023
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple
[Review pending as author listened to this album, got up, opened his front door, and walked all the way to Brooklyn to offer himself at the altar of the witch coven Fiona Apple surely created through the power and majesty of this album alone]
5
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Sat Oct 21 2023
The Köln Concert
Keith Jarrett
It's scored more about the lore behind the album than the actual album it's self. A series of unfortunate events befell this show and the fact Jarrett was able to perform is a massive miracle.
Long solo instrumentals aren't my thing, but you can throw this on as background music and be pleased with yourself
4
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Sun Oct 22 2023
Bitte Orca
Dirty Projectors
If this album was a colour, it would be beige. Offensively beige.
2
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Mon Oct 23 2023
Sticky Fingers
The Rolling Stones
I mean, its one of the greatest albums of all time, the track listing could be a greatest hits for lesser bands... Sure "Brown Sugar" hasn't aged well, but it's wall to wall classics here, including my particular favourite Stones track of all, "Bitch". It's just a non-stop groove and your life is emptier without this.
5
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Tue Oct 24 2023
Hunky Dory
David Bowie
The album before THE album, starts with "Changes" and you can tell Ch-ch-ch-changes is coming and that's enough to make it 4 stars for me, add in "Kooks", "Oh! You Pretty Things", and "Life on Mars?" and you have a solid album. Good in it's own right, but you really had no idea about what was about to come
4
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Wed Oct 25 2023
Pearl
Janis Joplin
Excellent album but ultimately depressing due to the whole "what could have been". Janis and her band lay down a half hour of power, soul, longing, desire... Raw and uncut, flesh and blood. One of the quintessential american albums.
4
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Thu Oct 26 2023
Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
Dexys Midnight Runners
I guess you have to be in the mood for a horn section, I was not.
3
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Fri Oct 27 2023
Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Pure 80s heaven, how this album produced so many memorable songs is basically criminal.
4
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Sat Oct 28 2023
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips
Personally this album was like a gateway drug into a whole new world of sound, back in 2002 I randomly heard "Do You Realize??" on the car radio and it just instantly clicked with me, I knew I had to seek out the origin of it. What I found was a sonic soundscape that felt like a straight up rebirth, gone was my beloved 90s indie/alternative straight jangly guitar music and what replaced it was music with depth and crunch and searing screams of electronic madness.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time, that post millennium haze, where life seemed simpler and find this album for the first time all over again.
5
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Sun Oct 29 2023
Real Life
Magazine
Never mind the Buzzcocks, here's another post-punk, new wave, arty power rock band... This surprisingly hit me just right.
4
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Mon Oct 30 2023
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
I mean, it's literally what you think of when you think of classic rock, late 60 blues born from traditional folk songs, not as good as the discography that would follow it, but a solid foundation with some serious grooves.
4
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Wed Nov 01 2023
The Sensual World
Kate Bush
Just wasn't feeling it, but it's one of her weaker albums.
3
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Thu Nov 02 2023
Rattlesnakes
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
Bland, uninspiring, basic. I'm struggling with this one as it's just so by-the-numbers that all the songs sort of bleed into one amalgamous blob of jangly guitar music with no real substance.
2
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Fri Nov 03 2023
Fromohio
fIREHOSE
Like a mashup of the worst parts of R.E.M. and Cake, which is a shame because I love both those bands, but I hated this...
2
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Sat Nov 04 2023
The Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald
Gonna be brutally honest, I love Ella Fitzgerald, but ain't nobody got 3 hours to listen to non stop Gershwin songs. She doesn't even song for the first 15 or so minutes. I understand the reasoning behind it and it's part of the larger overarching "Ella sings the whole ass complete American Songbook" that last for around 15 hours, but I'm not American and I have no connection to it and it's all very old and tedious...
2
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Sun Nov 05 2023
Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
As soon as the organ hits on the first song (Like a Rolling Stone), you know you're in for a treat but it's the title track that gets me every time with the opening lyrics of "Oh God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son' / Abe says, 'Man, you must be puttin' me on'"...
But, yes, I think it can be very easily done
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61
5
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Mon Nov 06 2023
Murmur
R.E.M.
Debut album from a small up-and-coming band from a sleepy college town the the south, I see big things from them...
3
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Tue Nov 07 2023
Born In The U.S.A.
Bruce Springsteen
Not his best album (that'd be "Darkness on the Edge of Town"), not his breakthrough album (that'd be "Born to Run"), but probably his most iconic... A track list that plays like a greatest hits (12 songs, 7 (SEVEN) singles), and contains one of my absolute favourite Springsteen tracks (that'd be "Bobby Jean").
Just a near perfect album...
5
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Wed Nov 08 2023
Automatic For The People
R.E.M.
I had Murmur a few days ago and joked that I expected big things from this up-and-coming band... Well this was them at their peak. A phenomenal album that felt like a seismic shift in the culture, loaded with anthems for weird kids everywhere. Starts with "Drive" and rarely gets you go.
5
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Thu Nov 09 2023
...Baby One More Time
Britney Spears
First things first, not my jam... I had to listen to this in headphones at the dead of night so no one would catch me. Obviously it's the monster debut album from the preeminent pop star of the 21st century, starts off strong with the title track but then dips when the second song "You Drive Me Crazy" comes in as it's not the far superior single version. Song three, "Sometimes", is pleasing enough for a mushy pop ballad but thereafter is far more misses than hits and full of emotionless generic pre-millennium pop beats that could have been lifted from a preset library. She would go into better things as far as her career was concerned, but was this as good as it got? It was definitely the biggest commercial success she'd experience but it just felt so empty out with a few fleeting moments.
2
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Sat Nov 11 2023
Power In Numbers
Jurassic 5
Just a funky chilled album, cut from the same cloth as the likes of Black Star, big beats and big vibes from the verbal herman munsters, the word enhancers.
4
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Sun Nov 12 2023
Smokers Delight
Nightmares On Wax
Very chill album that straddles the gap between trip hop, electronica, and lofi. I LOVED the follow up album ("Carboot Soul") but never really gave. this one a listen, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to tonight, it was a good soundtrack to my mundane tasks, enough to make me stop and bob my head now and then.
Good listening on headphones while you're laying back in the cut.
4
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Mon Nov 13 2023
The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
I guarantee that there are very few people in this world who could recall (let alone quote) this, but once upon a time, I actually said to someone, "I used to listen to NIN - Pretty Hate Machine was the best. But Trent sold out, man. The Downward Spiral Sucks."
I look back upon those days and I simply wish there had been a wiser man around who could have caned me for my ignorance. I have to admit that of all the things that shame me in my life (and there are quite a few), this was one of the big ones. However, as usual, I am going off track.
4
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Tue Nov 14 2023
Catch A Fire
Bob Marley & The Wailers
I get that this is supposed to be influential, the greater introduction of Bob Marley to the masses and all that, but, honestly, nothing jumped out at me. Telling that with nearly every posthumous compilation, this album accounts for nearly nothing in the tracklistings.
2
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Wed Nov 15 2023
Low
David Bowie
Start of Bowie's Berlin period, the first "side" of arty krautrock synthesiser inspired jams flys by, aided by timely fade ins and outs, and contains the excellent "Sound and Vision" which sounds like it could go on for far longer than its posted 3:03. Try and listen and no have the do-do-do-do-dooos in your head for days.
Side two slows down more than a little with the bleak as fuck "Warszawa" and the rest is ambient instrumental music. Truly a tale of two albums smashed together, but it works, mostly.
Less than a year later he'd release "Heroes", madness.
3
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Thu Nov 16 2023
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
How have I never heard of this before??? This is my jam, folksy earnest singer songwriters with great melodies and harmonies. It's very Band of Horses-ish vibes and I loved it wholly.
5
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Fri Nov 17 2023
16 Lovers Lane
The Go-Betweens
Very much alright, nothing really stood out apart from some songs sound like Badly Drawn Boy, "The Devil's Eye" especially.
3
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Sun Nov 19 2023
S.F. Sorrow
The Pretty Things
Proto Prog Psychedelic Rock Opera, pretty dull despite its best intentions.
2
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Mon Nov 20 2023
Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney
Proto-grunge and obviously a huge influence on the Seattle bands that would soon follow. In your face distortion is the order of the day here, and if you don't like that then your in for a fairly miserable ride here.
3
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Tue Nov 21 2023
Be
Common
Smooth as silk, un-Common-ly good... The "They Say" song with Kanye and John Legend is just peak mid 00s vibes, great soul sample, twinking keyboards, again smooth as all hell. Kinda crazy that the beats Common turned down ended up making Kanye's "Late Registration", think how much better this could have been...
4
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Wed Nov 22 2023
Songs Of Love And Hate
Leonard Cohen
Music to listen to while curled up in the fetal position in that closet under the stairs, rocking back and forth...
3
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Thu Nov 23 2023
Actually
Pet Shop Boys
There's a point about 1:30 into the second song where Neil Tennant muses "what have I done to deserve this?" and it hit me light a bolt from the blue, what have *I* done to deserve this??? I mean, I signed up for this 1001 albums thing to shake up my algorithm mix way from the same tired old songs, and here I let Pet Shop Boys sully it, We're not at the "how am I gonna get through?" part and I'm questioning how am *I* gonna get through...
"It's a Sin" still goes hard though, this was enough to push it up to a mid level album
3
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Fri Nov 24 2023
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Iron Butterfly
One of those albums where they, the The Beatles did on many an occasion, took stereo sound to extreme lengths, where nearly every instrument is placed in the far reaches of your aural capacity, except the bass that just grooves along somewhere near the middle. I've never been a fan of 60s music that has, say, the drums only in one earphone (for example) and the wah-wah infused guitar in the other, its so disorientating, and annoying of you need to take one earphone out to talk to someone quickly during one of the many drum solos.
Anyway, this is the longest 33 minute album I've ever listened to, mainly because the 17 minute title song *never ends*... Such a drag. And it's not even that good outside the god tier riff. Hell, Nas got more use out of that riff as a sample for "Hip Hop Is Dead" in 2006 and that only uses like 6 seconds of it.
I'm yet to 1 star anything (and I've already gotten "Kollaps" by Einstürzende Neubauten), but this came *really* close, it's like 1.5 stars on a good day.
2
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Sat Nov 25 2023
Fear Of Music
Talking Heads
"Fear of Music" is perhaps an apt title, that or, as the excellent "Life During Wartime" repeats, This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This might be the album that signified the glammed up 70s were dead, long live the post punk, new wave, fuck your disco 80s?
Anyway, this is my second Talking Heads album, and I'm a convert, a true believer. Every song brings something new and different from what came before it. This is a truly great album and anyone who says otherwise is a cop. I said what I said....
5
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Sun Nov 26 2023
Parallel Lines
Blondie
A perfect Pop Rock album? Definitely a solid track list with timeless classics like "One Way or Another" and "Heart of Glass" but solid gold behind it like "Hanging on the Telephone" and "Sunday Girl", though for that song you should make sure you get the Frenglish version that inexplicable s'est mis au français à mi-chemin. Pourquoi? Je n'en ai aucune idée, c'est vraiment super mimi et bien plus tard Zooey Deschanel a repris cette chanson avec She & Him et elle correspond parfaitement à son esthétique. Mais je m'égare...
4 étoiles
4
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Mon Nov 27 2023
Olympia 64
Jacques Brel
Oh merde! J'ai terminé ma dernière critique avec une touche française, et cela m'a valu un album français en retour, alors je suppose que c'est une chose maintenant?... Anyways, I like the first song, or chanson, called "Amsterdam" as Brel puts his full chest into it, but there after is very hit or miss. The recording is also very rough around the edges, applause fades in and out and sounds like basic stock audio clips inserted between songs, and the overall feel has the taste of half smoked Gauloises and Gitanes cigarettes.
3
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Tue Nov 28 2023
A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
Its hard to imagine 2002, but when this came out, Coldplay were still a small band... They played in bingo halls and high school gyms on the relentless tour for this album that would make them global stars, they played shows to 600 & 800 people early in the tour in Boston and Philadelphia respectively. That's insane...
Now, this album is good to great, yes it's played out because how worldly popular the band became, but it was all built off hard work, they pounded the hard yards to be hated by millions and richer than god, with a smile on their face. Screw the haters, put this on and remember a simpler time where you could see a band on the cusp of megastardom for less than $10 in a sweaty ballroom or gymnasium playing the best music you had heard at the time.
4
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Wed Nov 29 2023
Devotional Songs
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Me (glancing at the title): Love & Devotion, sweet, ready for some Depeche Mode, feeling that...
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it was not Depeche Mode, not even close, not even the same continent, and that disappointment soured this listening instantly. *Sigh*
So yeah, Islamic Devotional singing isn't for me even with my initial disappointment. But I applaud the attempt to break away from the western anglicized norm (though I have had French and German music tossed my way already) and throw in something that's pretty much guaranteed to give you a strong reaction one way or the other. This is my first 1 star, but it is more a solitary star for my personal ignorance.
1
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Thu Nov 30 2023
Signing Off
UB40
I only know them from their easy listening reggae infused covers of "Red Red Wine" and "Can't Help Falling in Love" that my mum used to like, so imagine my surprise at full blown political discourse against Maggie Thatcher and the fucking Tories... Get it right up you.
2
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Fri Dec 01 2023
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Pavement
29(!) years ago, I remember skipping school classes so I could buy "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" on cassette and listened to it all afternoon. I was 16 and I’m confident it altered the trajectory of my life. I can still remember the feeling of turning over to side two and being met with "Gold Soundz" and it hitting me like a shotgun shot to the soul.
Because you’re empty
And I’m empty
And you can never quarantine the past
This is when Alt Rock became Indie Rock and the too cool for school kids pontificated about Midwestern rock bands from California like it was a secret only to be whispered on street corners. You can never quarantine the past!
5
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Sat Dec 02 2023
Is This It
The Strokes
90s Rock was officially over in 2001, we'd survived the few years dalliance with Nu-Metal and bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Vines, and Kings of Leon were here to bring the garage band style cool back. Low production values are the order of the day here, make it sound like it's recorded in one take on a busted 4 track in some guys 3rd floor walk-up in the Lower East Side (in reality it was in a basement in the East Village, but who counting here?).
Julian Casablancas is dripping in understated coolness, Albert Hammond and Nick Valensi have serious guitar duels throughout, Fabrizio Moretti brings a tribal drum feel but my MVP is Nikolai Fraiture and his driving bass, it kicks in during the title track and then I knew what I wanted to do, I wanted to play bass like that.... But I never could.
Anyway, this is a classic, stone cold classic garage rock revival, biblical!
5
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Sun Dec 03 2023
Tidal
Fiona Apple
I could listen to Fiona Apple any day, you don't need to tell me to do it. Hard to believe she's less than a year older than me, in 1996 I was still young & dumb yet she sounds wiser beyond the ages we are now some 27 years later.
5
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Mon Dec 04 2023
Aha Shake Heartbreak
Kings of Leon
Their first album was so good that this was so disappointing in comparison, so disappointing that it would take them a few years to even come close to the highs of that first album in their 4th album. This just sounds to bland and by the numbers that absolutely nothing stands out or is relistenable and I'm shocked that many critics rated it so highly.
2
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Tue Dec 05 2023
Home Is Where The Music Is
Hugh Masekela
Very easy to listen to, good background music in a wine bar style vibe. Nothing really stood out but the whole package was a good feeling overall.
3
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Wed Dec 06 2023
Here's Little Richard
Little Richard
"A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!" is the first thing you hear and its still feels as invigorating as it must have felt 68 years ago... Dirty blues classics with a side of boogie-woogie and you're done in under 30 minutes, having had some fun tonight.
4
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Thu Dec 07 2023
Melodrama
Lorde
Better than I thought it would be going in as I had only heard a few Lore songs prior to this album. Almost every song bar "Liability" was laden with heavy beats and not quite mumbley vocals, and only a handful stood out to me like the aforementioned "Liability" and it's reprise, "Supercut", and "The Louvre" but nothing felt like it overstayed its welcome.
3
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Fri Dec 08 2023
Reggatta De Blanc
The Police
White boy reggae, and it's literally advertised as such. I mean, this is the kind of stuff my dad used to listen to so I'm pretty numb to the staccato reggae chords and fake Caribbean patois they're doing here. But still, massive cultural appropriation by the colonisers, not cool.
2
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Sat Dec 09 2023
Jazz Samba
Stan Getz
Smoother than the slithery smooth backbeat that runs through the first track "Desafinado", downright tropical vibes ooze out of every nook, close your eyes and just imagine you're walking down Copacabana Beach in the 50s, cocktail in hand. Jazz is a misnomer as this is Bonito Bossa Nova, and your hips will sway sitting in your chair.
4
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Sun Dec 10 2023
Tom Tom Club
Tom Tom Club
"Genius Of Love" is the song that has that sample you head a million times before, from Grandmaster Flash to Mariah Carey to Paramore, for that alone this is a solid 3 star album.
3
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Mon Dec 11 2023
GREY Area
Little Simz
I'm skeptical whenever an album outside the original 1001 comes up, and having one so relatively recent is another eyebrow raiser, but god damn this was brilliant. Hard hitting from the first few seconds when the bass kick in and doesn't let up for the full 35 minutes, probably about as perfect as you'll come across in this list.
5
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Tue Dec 12 2023
Live At The Star Club, Hamburg
Jerry Lee Lewis
Short concert, stolen music. The performance is energetic, but, much like Elvis, the cloud of "white man popularising the black man's music" hangs heavy here. Classic rock & roll, albeit distilled.
2
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Wed Dec 13 2023
Group Sex
Circle Jerks
Loud, obnoxious, mercifully short.
1
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Thu Dec 14 2023
Cosmo's Factory
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Peak Creedence Clearwater Revival, the absolute height of their collective powers. Simply put, it's one of the best albums ever commited to tape anywhere at any time. So good that most of it was released as double A side singles, imagine "Up Around The Bend" and "Run Through The Jungle" being paired together. Their definitive compilation album, "Chronicle" has SEVEN songs off this, 7 out of 20...
Impossible to hate
5
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Sat Dec 16 2023
Grace
Jeff Buckley
"Eternal Life" is a very apt song to describe Jeff Buckley, one killer album and then literally dipped into the Mississippi to leave behind a shrouded enigma behind that one album that would live forever.
4
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Sun Dec 17 2023
Odessey And Oracle
The Zombies
Breezy psychedelic pop tunes float on by wanting to be a Pet Sounds or a Sgt. Pepper, and truthfully there's not a bad song on this album, but theres also not a lot of great ones either, they're all perfectly serviceable as a single listen through, but only "Time of the Season" stands out as a relistenable, and thats really about it... As middle of the road as psychedelic pop can be.
3
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Mon Dec 18 2023
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Raekwon
Built ONLY 4 Cuban Linx, and I'm nowhere near Cuban Links... 18 tracks of mid 90s braggadocio hip hop, if that's your thing. Features nearly every member of the Wu-Tang Clan in some way shape or form and it's widely know that they are nutin' to fuck wit, so I won't.
2
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Tue Dec 19 2023
Cheap Thrills
Big Brother & The Holding Company
Four gentlemen and one GREAT, great broad! A great band just cutting loose so nearly an hour, Janis at her most raspy begging you to take another piece of her heart, and you want to... But mainly they are gonna knock ya, rock ya, gonna sock it to ya now.
5
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Wed Dec 20 2023
Hot Shots II
The Beta Band
I remember the original Beta Band buzz and how it was unfulfilled promise, so I went into this with a little trepidation, and was immediately blown away by the opening track, "Squares", but that might have been more to do with the "Daydream" sample/interpolation and how it reminded me of another song that also came out around this time.
Where was I? Oh yeah, they close the album with a song called "Eclipse" about questions and answers and people lying but proclaim "And the music we make is not particularly good" and I'm undecided if they deserve the pizza or not.
3
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Thu Dec 21 2023
Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
Listen up people, we're now knee deep in the neo-soul smoothness, and there's only one way out, make peace with whatever deity you choose to believe in (or not, free world) because Maxwell is gonna take you there. Where? That wet spot on the bed, that's where...
3
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Fri Dec 22 2023
Rubber Soul
Beatles
But seriously, "Drive My Car", "You Won't See Me", "Nowhere Man", "The Word", and those are just the choice picks of Side A. Side B has "I'm Looking Through You', "In My Life", and "Run For Your Life", so for those counting along at home, that's 7 classic rock staples. It truly changed the game musically, laying the foundations for what would come later, and influencing everyone else to be better... Without this we don't get Beach Boys "Pet Sounds, we don't get Velvet Underground, we don't get evolved pop music...
Add in the fact this album was thrown together in around 90 days from start of the writing process after their 1965 August tour of America to pressed vinyl being in people's hands in early December, just an unreal creation in that span of time, and it was their second album of 1965 after "Help!", and 3rd album released within 365 days after 1964's "Beatles For Sale!" was released barely a year before. These mad kids were just chugging along like a well oiled machine, cracking out classic after classic like many normal people draw breath.
Despite me gushing over this album, it's not my favourite Beatles album, its barely in the top 5, but it's still an absurdly easy 5 stars and it's about as filthy as the fuzzy bass on "Think For Yourself". It's almost perfect, but I can't abide with "Michelle", a wholly terrible song from Paul McCartney that's only matched by "Ob‐La‐Di, Ob‐La‐Da" and "Wonderful Christmastime"...
5
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Sat Dec 23 2023
Oracular Spectacular
MGMT
The day I learned to play the electronic riff from "Kids" on a Stylophone, the mystical allure of MGMT was gone forever.
3
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Sun Dec 24 2023
After The Gold Rush
Neil Young
Whenever I listen to this, I think of many things, the beauty of the music and lyrics and how unfortunate it is that Neil Young did both, how mad Lynard Skynyrd were about one song, and how the Jimmy Fallon skit where he, as Neil Young, sings a cover of Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" on his Late Night show still lives rent free in my head 13 years later...
Oh well, time to hop up out the bed, turn my swag on.
4
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Tue Dec 26 2023
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
A Christmas gift for me? Got the gift receipt? I'll keep the songs by The Ronettes and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love though...
3
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Wed Dec 27 2023
Songs From The Big Chair
Tears For Fears
Some monster hits, and surprisingly strong outside of "Shout" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", such as "Mother's Talk" and "Head Over Heels". I was really into this, it has a bit of everything for everyone.
4
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Thu Dec 28 2023
Club Classics Vol. One
Soul II Soul
You got "Keep On Movin'" and "Back to Life" and a shit ton of absolute surplus filler, a classic example of when an LP should definitely be an EP...
2
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Fri Dec 29 2023
Here Come The Warm Jets
Brian Eno
You can hear the sounds that would make it over the crevasse into his collaborations with Bowie in Berlin, the drum sound on "Needles In The Camel's Eye" for instance. It's a real hodgepodge, but ahead of its time.
3
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Sat Dec 30 2023
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
I like Queens of the Stone Age, but no Nick Oliveri, no party... even if he does appear at the very end. Subsequent albums (Rated R, Songs for the Deaf) would be much better, and there is a still more than a little Kyuss stank hanging around here, but it's perfectly adequate for what it is (or was).
3
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Sun Dec 31 2023
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Pink Floyd
Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, so super simple rhymes over psychedelic swirls and overdubs that makes it sound like the most transcendental shit ever laid down on tape. It shouldn't work, but it does...
4
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Mon Jan 01 2024
O.G. Original Gangster
Ice T
Classic early 90s west coast gangster rap, braggadocio is the order of the day as Ice raps about people being bitches (both genders), gangster hustle shit, and guns going bang. Plenty of mid song skit style breakdowns but Ice changes things up with the hard metal "Body Count" that would be spun off into a legit side project by the same name. They are, of course, infamous for the "Cop Killer" song, but then Ice-T would spend the last 23 years playing a cop on TV, really makes you think...
Oh, and fuck Tipper Gore and the PMRC
4
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Tue Jan 02 2024
1999
Prince
I was dreamin' when I wrote this so forgive me if it goes astray... An absolute party of an album, a party where Prince fucks you with the funk, and then makes you pancakes for breakfast the next morning. Your purple badness is here giving you the full business.
5
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Wed Jan 03 2024
Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Lana Del Rey
I don't get the Lana Del Rey vibe, naver have. This is just a whine/drone/white noise generator for people who think they like the 1950s style idea of America that never was. Anthems for day wine drinking bored housewives who can't manage the cadence for the anti-melodic lyrics like "Down at the Men in Music Business Conference"
I only mention it 'cause it was such a scene.
2
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Thu Jan 04 2024
To Pimp A Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar
This was my favourite album of 2015 and it's no less potent, vitriolic, and on point almost 9 fuckin' years later. A roaring treatise on our fucked up society that really goes to show that ain't nothing changes but the date.
5
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Fri Jan 05 2024
Transformer
Lou Reed
The first time I really remember hearing a Lou Reed song was during the 1993 leg of the U2 Zoo TV tour, Bono would start singing "Satellite of Love" and a pre-recorded video of Lou would duet with him and it was cool. Then came the "Perfect Day" scene in Trainspotting at it was harrowing. And "Walk on the Wild Side" has always been around, I just never knew it as a Lou Reed song. So imagine my delight when all three are on this album. Just a wonderful listen from start to finish.
4
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Sat Jan 06 2024
Hot Rats
Frank Zappa
Psychedelic jazz, man. The in sound from way, way out
3
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Mon Jan 08 2024
Foxbase Alpha
Saint Etienne
Early 90s indie dance crossover that brought us the angelic, divine Sarah Cracknell, who's shimmery silver dress at Glastonbury 1994 *awakened* something deep inside that lives on to this day. "Nothing Can Stop Us Now" is an effortlessly cool summer jam that evokes visions of driving in a top down convertible through villages in Cote D'Azure, scarf billowing out the back. They would go on and make better music, but sometimes it's nice to remember those early days...
3
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Tue Jan 09 2024
Exodus
Bob Marley & The Wailers
By now Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer were long gone and Bob was on a tear spreading the word of reggae. This might be the crowning achievement, a classic album of memorable songs, "Jamming" and "Three Little Birds" being the obvious highlights, but the whole album is a solid groove.
4
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Wed Jan 10 2024
Gasoline Alley
Rod Stewart
OK-ish album, "Gasoline Alley" and "Cut Across Shorty" being the stand outs, but they also sounded much better when he did them unplugged some 20 years later...
2
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Thu Jan 11 2024
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Much like Jerry Lee Lewis, the cloud of "white man popularising the black man's music" hangs heavy here. Classic rock & roll, albeit distilled.
2
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Sat Jan 13 2024
The Slim Shady LP
Eminem
I loved this in 1999 when I was 20, I'm horrified by this in 2024 when I'm 45. I can appreciate the craft and all that, but this was a 3 to 4 star album at best back then, it's not that any more 25 years later.
2
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Sun Jan 14 2024
The Healer
John Lee Hooker
Hooker gets a second life here using as many collaborators as humanly possible, semi-ironically one of them was Carlos Santana who would run this play back 10 years later... Still, it's the blues by the preeminent bluesman, and the song with Bonnie Raitt "I'm In The Mood" is just pure filth, and I mean that in the best way possible.
3
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Mon Jan 15 2024
Kings Of The Wild Frontier
Adam & The Ants
New Wave Romanticism abound, sitting in that weird space between outright punk and the likes of Duran Duran. The singles ("Dog Eat Dog", "Antmusic", and "Kings Of The Wild Frontier") are generally good, the rest doesn't hold up to the same caliber...
2
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Tue Jan 16 2024
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
OK, I get it, it's a masterpiece, but it's also *four songs long*, and one of those songs is split into two to make it a 5 song "long play" album.... Snark aside, its prog rock at its finest as suite of 9 movements encompasses the aforementioned split "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" bookends, then the 3 songs in the middle are just great, title track being the pick of the bunch but don't sleep on "Welcome To The Machine" (an anthem for disaffected youth that resonates way more than "The Wall") and "Have A Cigar". It's truly an album made for listening all the way through as opposed to individual songs.
Absolute aside, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a great karaoke song as you get 8:45 in before you even need to sing, and it's pretty anthemic when you do...
5
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Wed Jan 17 2024
Arise
Sepultura
I always struggled with Sepultura, I dunno why... I enjoyed Max's Soulfly project that came later, this just didn't move me.
2
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Thu Jan 18 2024
Kick Out The Jams (Live)
MC5
Raw uncut punk energy, the jams were, indeed, kicked the fuck out
3
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Fri Jan 19 2024
Let's Get Killed
David Holmes
David Holmes produces a few good songs, but his albums always feel lacking, this is no exception
2
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Sat Jan 20 2024
This Year's Model
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
"Pump It Up" alone makes this a great album, and it's just that, great, catchy, infectious...
3
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Sun Jan 21 2024
Pacific Ocean Blue
Dennis Wilson
Obviously strong Beach Boy vibes, a very strong album (first 12 songs if you can only find the 30th anniversary 2CD edition) that gently breezes along without too much effort for the listener, it goes from soulful pop to dirty funk with amazing ease.
4
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Mon Jan 22 2024
Cafe Bleu
The Style Council
Paul Weller's jazz days, and we don't talk about Paul Weller's jazz days... We ESPECIALLY don't talk about Paul Weller's rap days.
2
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Tue Jan 23 2024
Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth
Teen Age Riot takes me bak to simpler times, and this whole album just makes me want to go out and shoot skate videos with fisheye lenses...
5
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Thu Jan 25 2024
The Message
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Only people who don't love their mothers could hate this. Classic old school hip hop that you'll think you heard elsewhere because most of it was eventually resampled.
4
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Fri Jan 26 2024
In Our Heads
Hot Chip
I struggled with Hot Chip 10/15 years ago, and I still struggle today, because nothing really stands out.
3
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Sat Jan 27 2024
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Hard Heavy Metal, kicking what was left of the 60s in the face. Like nothing you had heard before...
4
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Sun Jan 28 2024
Surf's Up
The Beach Boys
Well, this was an unexpected trip, part environmental psychedelic rock/part bubblegum pop? Brian Wilson was in his decline at this point, Dennis Wilson was half insane also so Carl Wilson and Mike Love stepped up to take some of the load and it shows, the final product is just so disjointed. Aurally pleasing because, hey, it's the Beach Boys in 3 part harmony, but it just doesn't hit like they used to.
4
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Mon Jan 29 2024
Slippery When Wet
Bon Jovi
Big, brash, bombastic, hair metal. Starts out with distorted feedback and classical organ style synths just to make sure you're ready to fuckin' rock. Has the hits, no filler and sold more copies than you've had hot dinners. Love it or hate it, its exactly what it sets out to be...
4
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Tue Jan 30 2024
Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
The album that compelled Fleetwood Mac to successfully queer heterosexuality. They were all drugged up to the eyeballs and fucking each other six way from sunday (except John McVie, poor sod, he had to play bass on all Christine's songs about him) and holed up in a studio with next to no windows and still produced a stone cold top 3 album of all time instead of systematically killing each other for sport.
Any song on here would be an apex mountain pinnacle for any other band not called The Beatles, take your pick. In fact it's CRIMINAL that they left Stevie Nicks beautiful "Silver Springs" off the track listing (thank you to The Dance and deluxe editions for restoring it), and I like to sometimes think that somewhere, in a CVS, Lindsey Buckingham is at this moment waiting for his quarter mile long receipt to print while the store PA plays "Silver Springs" and all he hears is "you'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you"
They never could get away from that sound...
50 stars if they would allow it.
5
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Wed Jan 31 2024
Let England Shake
PJ Harvey
"Goddam' Europeans! Take me back to beautiful England", transposing this album 13 years later takes on a very strange story in the post-Brexit landscape, while Polly was influenced by classical poetry while creating some of her own, the tone of the English nationalism seeping through is hard to avoid. It can be likened to the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics where its a throwback to when Britain, or England, was actually Great, now its a sad reminder of whole isolated we feel, by choice.
4
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Thu Feb 01 2024
Reign In Blood
Slayer
Thrash Metal at its finest? I dunno, it certainly upped my energy levels for the half hour or so it lasted. First track hits hard and it doesn't slow down, all gas, absolute gas, no brakes.
3
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Fri Feb 02 2024
Seventh Tree
Goldfrapp
Good old Goldfap, slow and sensual, borderline AMSR, it's gonna take you places you never knew existed...
3
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Sat Feb 03 2024
Aftermath
The Rolling Stones
That weird transitional period for the Stones, from when they were releasing an album of mostly old blues covers to what would become The Rolling Stones we know and love. And this is made muddier by having two separate UK & US releases (I listened to the UK edition, it's the artwork provided above) where you have two seperate track listings with two good good songs (UK: "Mother's Little Helper" & "Under My Thumb"; US: "Paint It Black" & the aforementioned "Under My Thumb") and a lot of filler... Sometimes overly long filler like "Goin' Home" which is just an 11 minute long jam session.
Brian Jones is a tour de force here, he'd pick up any old thing laying around and make it work, so for that this album represents a more mature Stones sound. But 1966 was a hard year for many bands, we got Revolver by The Beatles and Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys and everything else was fighting for a very, very distant third place.
3
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Sun Feb 04 2024
MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana
The Nirvana unplugged set, the infamous Nirvana unplugged set, the anti-unplugged while driving MTV producers mad as fuck Nirvana unplugged set, the oh but he's really plugged in and heres some feedback Nirvana unplugged set, the play *anything* but your biggest hits Nirvana unplugged set, the put some shine on the Meat Puppets Nirvana unplugged set, the WTF cover of a fucking Vaselines song and also do a little Bowie and end with a Lead Belly song and there will be no encores Nirvana unplugged set...
Bittersweet, but emphasis on the sweet, because this is Kurt Cobain is, by far, at his sweetest here. Far removed from the frenetic live shows Nirvana would usually perform, there would be no diving into the drum set on this show. Instead it would be the swansong of an icon who would be gone less than 6 months later.
It's a great live album, the best of the released Unplugged albums, and I could listen to this and shiver the whole night through...
5
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Mon Feb 05 2024
Technique
New Order
New Order, but with a lot more "utz-utz-utz-utz", very of it's time as the acid house/alternate dance scene was sweeping the nation... There no "Blue Monday" or "True Faith" level banger here, but it's tight as all hell and, again, very of it's time.
4
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Tue Feb 06 2024
Moondance
Van Morrison
Van the jazz man, just lay back, smoke a bowl and let it wash over you like fresh irish spring water. Pair this with his preceding album, Astral Weeks, and you might never be able to function in regular society again... Every song hits just right, every note is crafted with laser precision, even it sounds like Van turned up and recorded this with no thought about anything, just improvising like a demon.
Shame he descended into fucking Eric Clapton level madness during COVID, exposing himself to be a raging antivaxer and skirted with a little antisemitism because if you're in for a penny, you may as well be in for a pound. But, that said, people say it’s not the artist, it’s the art and "Into The Mystic" remains an absolutely perfect song...
5
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Wed Feb 07 2024
Our Aim Is To Satisfy
Red Snapper
Surprisingly generic turn of the millennium beats, is this really something that worth listening to? Something worth recommending that someone listen to? I'm honestly not sure it is...
2
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Thu Feb 08 2024
...The Dandy Warhols Come Down
The Dandy Warhols
This felt like it was right in my wheelhouse, 90s alternative with driving guitars and great vocals. Started off slowly but built as it went along, I was almost sad when it finished. Standout songs are "Be-In" "Minnesoter", and "Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth", but don't sleep on the instrumental "The Creep Out".
And I just want a girl as cool as Kim Deal...
4
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Fri Feb 09 2024
Tuesday Night Music Club
Sheryl Crow
This ain't no disco, its Sheryl Crow... She's very hit or miss, but when she hits its amazing and there's a few tracks on this album that vibe just right. I'd argue the first 4 tracks are ("Run Baby Run", "Leaving Las Vegas", "Strong Enough" and "Can't Cry Anymore") amongst the strongest start to an album at any time, add in the ubiquitous "All I Wanna Do" and that's pretty much half the album accounted for. So basically the singles bopped, the rest is ok but don't quite rise to the same level.
Solid middle 3 star album, a good way to pass 50 or so minutes.
3
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Sat Feb 10 2024
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
How did this come out in 1983? It's got 1990s written all over it. Acoustic punk rock is probably the most punk punk could be, and this is a timeless classic. Everyone knows "Blister In The Sun" but there's not a bad song on here, everything has its own groove and hook like "Add It Up", "To The Kill" and "Gone Daddy Gone", and everything sounds like it was recorded in one straight shot as stripped back as everything feels. Real garage music energy.
5
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Mon Feb 12 2024
Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
Nah, took much work... like trying to solve an escape room before you're allowed to listen to it
2
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Tue Feb 13 2024
Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
Joy Division makes me feel old.
I never felt old, like *old* old, until I listened to Joy Division, it was harder music to listen to compared I was listening to before, thematically definitely, it was grown up music... I finally saw what NME, Q, and Melody Maker gushed so profusely about. Finally I was a man.
But then I didn't listen to Joy Division for a long time, and then decades later had a chance to see Peter Hook perform the Joy Division albums and being the kind of person I am, I went to experience it. It was an interminable 3 hours standing in a small club venue, my back and legs were killing me, it was way past my bedtime, and those feelings of not being the young man I used to be soured the whole night.
Joy Division makes me feel old...
4
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Wed Feb 14 2024
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
The Smashing Pumpkins
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, well it certainly feels like it'll last forever. Double albums are usually a big ask, a couple of hours is hard to give to something you weren't planning on listening to and the link through on this went to the 92 song dep deluxe edition that runs for nearly 6 hours.
FUCK. THAT.
I hadn't really heard much outside of the monster singles this thing produced and I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at times, but it was mostly that nostalgic trip back to the mid-90s of my youth, and all I really came away with was that Billy Corgan is a madman when he's inspired, but that mad Billy Corgan could really use an editor.
4
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Thu Feb 15 2024
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
One of those Springsteen album you either love or hate, its insanely stripped back as it's literally dems that got released. A departure from the E Street Band sounds of The River, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, and Born To Run that preceded it, and radically different from the Born In The U.S.A. that would follow, its solid Springsteen storytelling, but you need to be ready for the bleakness that come from it.
4
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Fri Feb 16 2024
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Very mid-80s sound, bass is non-existant and everything sounds reverb-y. Now Suzanne Vega, I mean I like her next album that had Luka & Tom's Diner, but this one sounds like another artist I'm struggling to remember, maybe all mid-80s albums just sounded the same, you could tell me this was Carly Simon in her Coming Around Again era and I'd probably believe you
3
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Sat Feb 17 2024
The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem
I'll paraphrase my review of The Slim Shady LP from a month or so ago:
I loved this in 2000 when I was 21/22, I'm horrified by this in 2024 when I'm 45. I can appreciate the craft and all that, but this was a 3 to 4 star album at best back then, it's still that 25 years later even if most of it hasn't aged well at all.
Gone are the real childish antics and guests like Royce da 5'9" and MC Get-Bizzy and replaced with a far more polished production but somehow angrier about everything and now has guests guests like Snoop Dogg. It's crazy to look back and remember how generation defining this album was to the angry white boy demographic, add in Limp Bizkit and 1999/2000 really set us up for the 25 years of simmering hatred and insanity we've had since...
3
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Sun Feb 18 2024
Lady Soul
Aretha Franklin
Classic lady doing classic shit. 1968 was a fire year for Aretha between this release and the later Aretha Now and the fabulous Aretha in Paris live album. Easiest 5 stars yet..
5
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Mon Feb 19 2024
Medúlla
Björk
Medulla... Oblongata? Bjork always had weird albums, but this may be the weirdest. It's almost borderline inaccessible.
2
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Tue Feb 20 2024
Neon Bible
Arcade Fire
Overly pretentious, maybe, but "Keep The Car Running" in a jam...
4
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Wed Feb 21 2024
This Nation’s Saving Grace
The Fall
Mark E. Smith doing Mark E. Smith things.
3
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Thu Feb 22 2024
Suede
Suede
Early proto-Britpop (predates Oasis debut by a year) but let's make it queer coded and goth-y sexy, basically pop an Amyl Nitrate and let yourself relax in to the couch...
4
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Fri Feb 23 2024
Slanted And Enchanted
Pavement
Debuting Pavement sounded a lot like an electric Violent Femmes, definitely not a bad thing. A solid opening album, and fulfills the early 90s criteria of fitting on one side of a 90 minute cassette with plenty of time to spare.
4
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Sat Feb 24 2024
Bryter Layter
Nick Drake
Ethereal, sad, post-60s-hippy folk music perfection. Nick Drake really was built differently, this is everything Cat Stevens wished he could be, instead Drake makes it all sound so effortless.
5
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Sun Feb 25 2024
Duck Stab/Buster & Glen
The Residents
I don't really know what this is, or tries to be, but it ain't it...
1
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Mon Feb 26 2024
The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips
Yoshimi was my gateway into the Flaming Lips discography, and this is just a lush sound that really ended the 90s on a high. I hate that I never got to hear it when it came out as summer 1999 was a transition for me from college to "working adult" and this really captures my vibe perfectly.
5
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Tue Feb 27 2024
Graceland
Paul Simon
A musical and cultural renaissance for Simon here, some may call it appropriation of South African street music but I feel like it was shining a light on artists like Ladysmith Black Mambazo who would have never seen the light of day due to apartheid and the cultural boycott on South Africa.
It's a good to great album, it passes time effortlessly, I wouldn't argue if you gave it 5 stars, on another day I might have too. I just found most of it semi-forgettable as I went about my day while listening to it, like a half-remembered daydream.
4
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Thu Feb 29 2024
Kimono My House
Sparks
Sparks doing Sparks things, influential and years ahead of the rest.
4
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Fri Mar 01 2024
Melody A.M.
Röyksopp
Mostly mid beats over funky basslines, surprisingly bouncy for 9am when I choose to listen to it
3
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Sat Mar 02 2024
Play
Moby
Ubiquitous barely begins to describe this album as basically every track appeared in an advertisement or movie trailer of some description over the years. People hate this because of that overexposure, but it's a solid album, some tracks hit with a vengeance but it's the more chilled guitar instrumentals that resonate with me.
4
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Sun Mar 03 2024
Rain Dogs
Tom Waits
Name an instrument, any instrument.... Go ahead... Chances are this album contains it. I realised this during the Marimba infused "Clap Hands". It's really an eclectic mix of weird as fuck songs, hard to get into but harder to put down. Like riding the Alice in Wonderland ride at Disneyland while tripping.
3
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Mon Mar 04 2024
Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson
That was the Partridge Family's "Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted?" followed by Edison Lighthouse's "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes", as K-Billy's Super Sounds of the '70's weekend just keeps on truckin'
4
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Tue Mar 05 2024
Sound of Silver
LCD Soundsystem
I often wonder how recency bias feeds into the whole "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" schtick, because we've come across more than a few 2000s era album that have, unfortunately stank like shit. This one doesn't, thankfully, but it's also nothing close to a must listen, its just a lot of mid 00s angst over mid beats...
3
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Wed Mar 06 2024
Superunknown
Soundgarden
I liked "Black Hole Sun", always have, but Soundgarden as a whole was always difficult for me to really get into and this is no exception. It's long and meandering at times, and you really need to be in a particular mood.to appreciate it fully.
3
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Thu Mar 07 2024
Morrison Hotel
The Doors
Psychedelic Blues is apparently the way to my heart, "Roadhouse Blues" goes without saying, but the rest of this album was just a straight up groove on my frequency. Very little of the greatest hits appear here, but in some ways it was The Doors at their tightest.
4
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Fri Mar 08 2024
Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
As others have mentioned, beautiful music by a reprehensible human. And, like other case, you're supposed to separate the art from the artists but....
5 stars for Phoebe Bridgers (and boygenius), and Mandy Moore, and everyone else this monster tried to destroy.
0 stars for him, 3 stars to split the difference
3
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Sat Mar 09 2024
Moving Pictures
Rush
Hey, it's got "Tom Sawyer" and "YYZ", it's great!
4
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Sun Mar 10 2024
Buffalo Springfield Again
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield would go on to arguably greater things via Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and this album is just kinda here... Folksy rock and down tempo is the order of the day here, and it can be pleasant at time, great at others but overall it feels like its less than the sum of its part.
3
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Mon Mar 11 2024
Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine
Cee Lo Green
This is just bad (not 1 star bad, but pretty bad), probably why I hadn't heard of Cee Lo before Gnarls Barkley.
2
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Tue Mar 12 2024
Stand!
Sly & The Family Stone
The funk gonna get you, whitey.... Just a masterclass in grooves and vibes.
4
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Wed Mar 13 2024
Metallica
Metallica
Polarising Metallica album, to some they sold out, to some it was the gateway to metal. It was my gateway to metal, so my judgement is pretty clouded. I loved this as an early teenager, they wouldn't sell out till Load in my eyes, but this was epic, brash, loud, deep, meaningful, meaningless. As soon as "Enter Sandman" kicked in, I knew loud guitars was that which I desired (not fuel not fire), not the indie dance and acid house rave scene that was sweeping the nation. Grunge hadn't come around yet, Britpop was years away, so metal was my jam, much to my parents derision.
The aforementioned "Enter Sandman" lets you in to what this album is all about, it gently lures you in before Lars bass drum kicks you in the gut, Kirk and James guitar play is a shock to the system and they let Jason be heard... Bob Rock's production can be problematic but he's in his element here.
It's a fucking monster of an album in every sense...
And it lost the Grammy to Jethro Tull.
5
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Thu Mar 14 2024
Low-Life
New Order
Not their best work as they veer more towards the synthesizer sounds of the mid to late 80s, only "The Perfect Kiss" stands out...
2
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Fri Mar 15 2024
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
5 Stars, no questions asked, no response needed.
Simply one of the best albums ever by one of the best bands ever.
This is the one, everything else is just amateurs.
5
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Sat Mar 16 2024
Back To Black
Amy Winehouse
The tip of the spear for the British new soul singer revolution, Adele and Duffy would soon follow, but while the vibe feels right, the whole package just comes off as somewhat unauthentic. Sure Amy has the look down with the beehive so and smokey eyes, but it's hard to look past the near constant tabloid sensationalism about her much storied drug abuse and fractious relationships.
They tried to make her go to rehab...
It's genuinely a good to great album, but in a post Amy world is hard to listen to and not wonder what might have been if she had gone to rehab.
4
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Sun Mar 17 2024
My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Brian Eno
I liked all the Talking Heads albums this this thrown at me, I liked the Eno album too, so logic dictates I should like this.
I did not.
2
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Mon Mar 18 2024
Tragic Songs of Life
The Louvin Brothers
As I listened to "Knoxville Girl" I couldn't help but think that Nick Cave would eat the shit out of this, so imagine my delight when, if fact, he had eaten the shit out of that. He did it better...
2
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Tue Mar 19 2024
Born To Run
Bruce Springsteen
Just a great album, perfect length, bookended by absolute killer songs in "Thunder Road" and "Jungleland" and it feels like the whole album tells a story. Sure it's not an impeccable production, but its a history alerting tour de force by this debuting classic-era E Street Band line-up. Timeless, and AMAZING live.
5
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Wed Mar 20 2024
Heroes to Zeros
The Beta Band
Oh great, The Beta Band... Again. Clearly the author of 1001 bought into their hype and wasn't saying no to any editorial comments.
Below average at best, God awful at worst.
2
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Sat Mar 23 2024
Out Of The Blue
Electric Light Orchestra
I can take or leave ELO, Jeff Lynne wishing to be the fifth Beatle? Whatever. This is mostly moderate stuff and even it's highest high in "Mr. Blue Sky" has been watered down in recent years to the point that I almost hate to hear it.
2
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Sun Mar 24 2024
In A Silent Way
Miles Davis
2 tracks, side A and side B, of improv jazz. Chilled out background music, just a serious vibes album. The trumpet man is gonna take you to the unknown destination, and we're gonna have fun along the way.
4
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Tue Mar 26 2024
Hail To the Thief
Radiohead
It feels like another Radiohead album I'm supposed to like... And I mostly do, but sometimes I'd rather listen to The Bends, you know?
4
View Album
Wed Mar 27 2024
25
Adele
Has an album that promised so much ever delivered so painfully little? After the monster 21, it was always going to be a hard act to follow and while I openly adored 19 & 2, I listened to this once in 2015, the day it came out, and here we are just over 8 years later and I finally gave it my second proper listen and I'm still as let down as I was back when.
I hope we don't have to review 30 later on, because there's only so much I can bear, let's just pretend Adele blew her vocal chords completely out at that last note of her Albert Hall concert, never to sing again... Shall we?
2
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Fri Mar 29 2024
Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
Meat Loaf may be singing here, but rest assured this is all Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf is merely the conduit these song chose to make their way into our world.
4
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Sat Mar 30 2024
The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monae is just a different species from the rest of us, we're just here living our humdrum lives and she's out there absolutely LIVING. Nothing is beyond her level and this album, this DEBUT album, just gives and gives...
5
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Sun Mar 31 2024
Who's Next
The Who
You can't give an album that has "Baba O'Reilly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" anything less than 4 stars just for those two songs alone, but "Behind Blue Eyes" makes it an easy 5.
5
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Mon Apr 01 2024
Dirty
Sonic Youth
Is this Sonic Youth at their most accessible? Most mainstream? They're still doing their own crazy thing but maybe the rest of the world finally caught up with them? Maybe they were still streets ahead of the curve?
4
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Tue Apr 02 2024
One Nation Under A Groove
Funkadelic
Again Psychedelic [whatever] proves to be my weakness, and Psychedelic Funk should be a crime, and George Clinton should be put on trial for being far too funky for the rest of the world to stand.
5
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Wed Apr 03 2024
Eliminator
ZZ Top
A few good well known sons but its 90 low tier rock, proof that a memorable music video can make a middling song better.
2
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Thu Apr 04 2024
Permission to Land
The Darkness
First things first, how the fuck is this pile of shit 20 years old? Retro glam rock wankery thats good for 1 song and they somehow made a career out of it. Where's the justice in THAT? I mean, sure, it was probably better than the sludge that was bubbling around in 2003, but let's be honest, if Justin Hawkins didn't have a glammed up onesie split down to his taint in the video for "I Believe In A Thing Called Love", would anyone really care?
2
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Fri Apr 05 2024
Mothership Connection
Parliament
I had Funkadelic a few days ago, now I get Parliament and that means George Clinton is responsible for me being *at least* 72% more funky this week. I'm super funky, fresh and fly, y'heard?
5
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Sat Apr 06 2024
Straight Outta Compton
N.W.A.
You gotta boil it down to the essentials. It's like Cube says, "Life ain't nothin' but bitches and money."
4
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Sun Apr 07 2024
Dry
PJ Harvey
Pure unadulterated rawness here, usual artists take time to grow into who they want to be.... Not Polly, she's kicking arse right out the gate.
4
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Tue Apr 09 2024
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
Would Sir care for a starter of some garlic bread perhaps?
No, thank you. I will proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs, please.
3
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Thu Apr 11 2024
In It For The Money
Supergrass
This album introduced me.to the wonder of the Theremin via "Richard III", and "Late In The Day" still hits the right notes, the rest of the album is mostly forgettable though.
2
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Fri Apr 12 2024
Rip It Up
Orange Juice
If Orange Juice has a rancid or off flavor, then it's gone bad... Applies to this too.
2
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Sat Apr 13 2024
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Give this lady her flowers, long overdue.
5
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Sun Apr 14 2024
Either Or
Elliott Smith
A beautiful album that might have been *too* good in retrospect. The start of the Elliott Smith downfall can be traced here, bigger acclaim and bigger visibility leading to a bigger record deal and bigger expectations that leads to bigger problems.
But let's just accept it for what it is, a beautiful album.
5
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Mon Apr 15 2024
Me Against The World
2Pac
Tupac is always a weird one for me, I didn't really hear much until he was dead, and the last album was all very much Gangsta Rap and I was past all that. This one is more mellow in that regard, more introspective? Mostly dull.
2
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Tue Apr 16 2024
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
The bassline on "A Certain Romance" floored me in 2006, and still does in 2024...
Oh, in five years time, will it be "Who the fuck's Arctic Monkeys?".
5
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Wed Apr 17 2024
Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul
Otis Redding
This is the good stuff, a slew of killer covers like The Temptations "My Girl" and Rolling Stones "Satisfaction" and, weirdly, Aretha Franklin's "Respect".... via a quirk in the space/time continuum, apparently he recorded this two years before the superior original came out, go figure.
4
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Thu Apr 18 2024
Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Psychocandy, qu'est-ce que c'est?
3
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Fri Apr 19 2024
Doggystyle
Snoop Dogg
I'm finding that a lot of these early to mid 90s rap albums are not aging particularly well, it's hard to not view these through a modern prism and find them utterly reprehensible. I mean, I loved this 30 years ago but now it either horrifies me for its graphical content or repulses me for its childish immaturity, how can I really be objective?
3
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Sat Apr 20 2024
Are You Experienced
Jimi Hendrix
I dunno, should I give a bonafide classic 5 stars just because it's a bonafide classic?
Should I weigh the pros and cons of each track though a modern prism and say things like "Fire" is some basic ass lyrics; it's just "let me stand next to your fire" over and over...
Should I say something inflammatory like, while Hendrix's guitar playing was revolutionary at the time, he's really just a cut rate Jack White and can't hold a candle to The Edge.
No, that would be foolish, because this is a bonafide classic and it deserves its 5 stars, deserves and earns.
5
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Sun Apr 21 2024
Homework
Daft Punk
Repetitive? Yes. Did it need take up an entire CD runtime? No. Worth it? Absolutely.
4
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Mon Apr 22 2024
Vespertine
Björk
I believe Billie Eilish awes a lot to this album, so its no coincidence they both came into the world around the same time period. This marks the time where Bjork went full weird, 90s Bjork was at least accessible. 2000s Bjork just went off the deep end sonically.
2
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Tue Apr 23 2024
Hot Fuss
The Killers
This is, by far and away, the glamorous indie rock and roll Brandon Flowers croons about...
5
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Wed Apr 24 2024
Run-D.M.C.
Run-D.M.C.
Without this there would be no Run-D.M.C., and without Run-D.M.C. there would be no Beastie Boys (seriously, Rock Box was basically proto-Licence To Ill), and no Beastie Boys would make me sad... THis whole album hits hard and is wheelin', dealin', got a funny feelin', and rocks from the floor up to the ceilin'
And it's like that, and that's the way it is...
3
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Thu Apr 25 2024
Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
Opens with "I Wanna Destroy You" that sounds like it's a cross between The Byrds and Cheap Trick and not a million miles away from Gigolo Aunts, and all I could think of was how good it would be for an odd throuple 2 camera BBC Two 90s sitcom starring two hideous guys and a blonde bombshell. It would run for 3 series, so around 18 episodes, and then a christmas special reunion episode years later when one of the guys has a huge tax bill to pay after his bid to transition to America failed spectacularly...
But I digress.
3
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Fri Apr 26 2024
All Things Must Pass
George Harrison
Starts off strong with "My Sweet Lord" and "Wah Wah" inside the first few tracks but then it just gets drawn out, like does track 4's "Isn't It A Pity" need to be 7 minutes long with an album ending-style coda? And then the actual album ends on a series of instrumentals that play like 12 bar blues...
It could have been 5 stars, but it just keeps dragging itself down
3
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Sat Apr 27 2024
Zombie
Fela Kuti
This is a trip, the story behind it and the aftermath of it is wild, critique of military juntas and politically motivated deaths aside, this album is a straight up party groove. It's a strange juxtapose to be reading the wikipedia entries on the album and, indeed, Fela Kuti's life while chair boogieing to the beats they laid down.
4
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Sun Apr 28 2024
Heroes
David Bowie
I've already had Low and rated it 3 stars in the past so it's time to have a day of reckoning about David Bowie in Berlin. It wasn't all that great... Don't get me wrong, the first half is stupendous but, like Low, the second half falls apart as Brian Eno gets a little too involved and it's all new agey ambient instrumentals all over again.
If you took the first half of Low and the first half of this and smooshed them together it would be a top 5 all time album.
Bowie in Berlin was more than the sum of its parts.
3
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Mon Apr 29 2024
The La's
The La's
One good song, and a lot of jangly guitars. Worse bands that this have done a lot more with less...
3
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Tue Apr 30 2024
Guero
Beck
Not Beck at his best, but not at his worst either. A few stand out tracks like the Rock Band video game banger "E-Pro" (that glomps on Beastie Boys "So What'cha Want") makes it rise above plenty of other releases, but we're far from peak Beck here, but thats ok.
3
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Wed May 01 2024
Suicide
Suicide
They'd get better in the second album with songs like "Dream Baby Dream", but this... this ain't it. Basic, monotonous, beats straight from a Casio keyboard and the blown out screaming in "Frankie Teardrops" is enough to plunge this into the depths for me.
1
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Thu May 02 2024
Step In The Arena
Gang Starr
Good to great, you can't deny its impact.
4
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Fri May 03 2024
Blood And Chocolate
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
The end of The Attractions, Elvis would ditch them for a solo life of being an international art thief... Says it all really.
2
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Sun May 05 2024
Armed Forces
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Now, I grew up in the West of Scotland and I've heard 1,001 names for Irish catholics that would make your blood boil and your toes curl, and the N word WAS NEVER ONE OF THEM.
"Accidents Will Happen" is a bop though, as is "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding"...
3
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Mon May 06 2024
Maxinquaye
Tricky
Trip Hop, but not quite... Not quite Massive Attack, not quite Portishead, Not quite Sneaker Pimps, somewhere in between but not quite.
3
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Tue May 07 2024
The Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks
Breezy british pop rockers with a surprisingly long album that never outstayed its welcome. 15 songs crammed into a pacy 40 minutes means most are sub 3 minutes, perfect song length. Otherwise it's a wholly unremarkable album, it just is, it feels super cozy and warm but I'd not consider it a *must listen to* album.
2
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Wed May 08 2024
Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
I like Queen, but... Confession time.... I've been alive for 46 years nearly, and never actually listened to one of their albums. I grew up on the Greatest Hits albums, and some of those appear here, but the rest are just kinda meh?
3
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Thu May 09 2024
Trafalgar
Bee Gees
This sucked, not a one star level of sucking, but it sucked all the same
2
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Fri May 10 2024
No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (Live)
Motörhead
Never really got into Motorhead, everyone knows that one song "Ace of Spades" (I knew it from an episode of The Young Ones, dating myself a bit) but I couldn't name another by them, so a long ass live album probably isn't the best way to ease yourself in... Hard rock but hard listening too.
2
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Sat May 11 2024
Tapestry
Carole King
Classic singer songwriter doing classic songs shit, loaded with songs you know/knew but couldn't put your finger on. Also it's the emphasis for the "Beautiful" Broadway show, how many albums can say that?
5
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Sun May 12 2024
Pelican West
Haircut 100
Painful plain 80s British New Wave band playing painfully plain music for the masses. The 80s was a dark time, you can't tell me otherwise...
2
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Tue May 14 2024
Van Halen
Van Halen
This might have the best opening combo punch of any album, "Running With The Devil" followed by "Eruption" followed by a cover of "You Really Got Me" on a debut album to, what a way to make a mark.
4
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Thu May 16 2024
The Blueprint
JAY Z
One f the few albums I remember getting released on 9/11, its alongside Ben Folds "Rockin the Suburbs" and They Might Be Giants "Mink Car" with the latter being one of two acts of terror put upon the American public that particular day... This was alright Jay Z, but it would get exponentially better when he would perform the best bits of it on MTV Unplugged...
3
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Fri May 17 2024
The Joshua Tree
U2
I wasn't a fan of U2 in the 80s, my dad was, I became a fan of U2 in the 90s through Achtung Baby and the retina searing intensity of the Zoo TV tour. "Where The Streets Have No Name" is an experience played live with the dark build up and soft red lights all cascading towards the crescendo when the house/stadiums lights are turned up and everyone goes fucking bananas, so that was my vision when I started listening to The Joshua Tree in the 90s.
And the album version of Streets doesn't live up to that memory, core memory, its flatter, the bass is dead in comparison, its just so overproduced. Same goes for the other songs I knew so well like "Bullet The Blue Sky" and "With Or Without You" but instead of being down that these versions just didn't live up to the later interpretation, I realised that age and wisdom had made them that much better.
(Tangentially they d a different composition of "Even Better Than The Real Thing" when they play it live nowadays and its fucking sick and I would have killed a man for spouting such heresy back in the day)
So, myself being advanced in age and wisdom, a relisten to this was like meeting an old friend, things have changed, but its comforting all the same. It has an absolutely killer side A.... "Where the Streets Have No Name", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", "With or Without You", "Bullet the Blue Sky", and "Running to Stand Still" is a HALL OF FAME WORTHY run of hot shit after hot shit AND THEN you get "Red Hill Mining Town and "In God's Country"
You people don't deserve to be this close to perfection.
5
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Sat May 18 2024
Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand
There comes a point where eventually you stumble into someone you know, maybe not well nor personally, but you're kind of acquaintances all the same. You know each other on a first name basis but you're not pals who hang around. Well, this is my storey about such a person.
The Time: Spring 2001. The Place: Glasgow...
I was a fairly recent dropout from college, I was unemployed and as part of my burden on society, the jobcentre offered me a place at a little college 3 days a week to learn how to build PCs and assorted IT related menial tasks because I told them I was a web designer (go figure). Now for those 3 days over a few months we had different people come in and show us the ropes, like Pico (real name unknown) taught us how to built networks, how to crimp cables and put the appropriate connector on them and wire it all up properly; Ken taught us how to put things together in a PC chassis while regaling us of far fetched stories of how a crunchy keyboard really meant you had a bajillion spider eggs in your keyboard instead of, say, toast crumbs; and finally Alex, he was a cool younger guy who didn't try to bullshit us, he took everything Pico and Ken taught us and tied it all together, he also had a million music recommendations because he ran open mic night at a music pub in Glasgow.
One of his recommendations was Carboot Soul bu Nightmares On Wax and to this day it remains a favourite of mine for comfy lofi beats, but I digress.
After a few months I got a job not doing PC builds and left the course to become a functional member of society and within a few years I had up and moved to America to follow my dream. So now we're in 2004, and firstly, THIS WAS NOT 20 YEARS AGO, how dare you, and secondly we're invited to go see a fun little show run by local alt radio station 99X at The Masquerade in Atlanta. Killer lineup, literally because it was The Killer co-headlining with one Franz Ferdinand. The Delays, The Whigs and Scissor Sisters were also on the bill so eat that people.
Glorious night, went down in Masquerade lore, floor almost collapsed but you could have put me straight through the floor when Franz Ferdinand came on and the singer introduces himself.
Its fucking Alex Huntley from Anniesland College.
So I give him a knowing nod and he ignored me and that's how we've remained to this day...
4
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Sun May 19 2024
Master Of Puppets
Metallica
Not my favourite Metallica album (that'd be the Black Album) but it's perfectly ok to me. The last of the classic line-up and has great bangers on it list the title track and "Battery". Absolutely overindulgent though as no song clocks in at under 5 minutes.
3
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Mon May 20 2024
Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)
Bob Dylan
I'll be contrary, Side A sucks, solo Bob Dylan with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica is a blight on humanity. Side B is literally electric in comparison and the (as yet not named) Band are tight and being a judas never sounded so good.
3
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Tue May 21 2024
Smash
The Offspring
The Offspring were always just there, doing their thing, neither too offensive not too bland, just doing their thing. "Come Out And Play" and "Self-Esteem" still bang 30 years later.
And I'm always interested in albums released around specific dates (see Jay-Z's Blueprint entry a few days ago), and this one came out the day they found Kurt Cobain's body, weirdly morbid...
3
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Wed May 22 2024
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
A return to the classis Blood Sugar Sex Magik lineup, and the Chili Peppers are locked in a groove alright, but outside of the 4 or 5 singles this thing spawned the rest is kinda middling. RHCP are good as a "greatest hits" band, you loved the radio friendly songs you've heard a lot of, but any deep cuts are just not hitting the same.
3
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Thu May 23 2024
Arular
M.I.A.
It aint no "Paper Planes", I'll say that much.
2
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Fri May 24 2024
Djam Leelii
Baaba Maal
Finally something different, after 2 weeks of stuff I pretty much already owned, we get into something that I wouldn't normally stumbleupon. This was so relaxing, just a peaceful vibe.
Stuff like this is why I signed up for this
3
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Sat May 25 2024
Queen II
Queen
I said for Sheer Heart Attack "I like Queen, but... Confession time.... I've been alive for 46 years nearly, and never actually listened to one of their albums. I grew up on the Greatest Hits albums, and some of those appear here, but the rest are just kinda meh?" and this can be echoed here. Hard to believe this is the same band as 80s Queen.
2
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Sun May 26 2024
Elephant Mountain
The Youngbloods
Psychedelic Appalachia, a little bit country, a little bit bluegrass, a little bit rock and roll, and a good ol' time.
4
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Mon May 27 2024
Rocks
Aerosmith
Rock really never sounded so dirty as it did in the mid 70s, and this album is borderline proto-hair metal, so its practically dripping with the sauce...
3
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Tue May 28 2024
Tommy
The Who
Overtures, Undertures, themes and motifs.... Nerdy theatre kids would eat this up. Most gravitate towards "Pinball Wizard" obviously, it's the showstopper, but the ending sequence of "We're Not Going To Take It" with the extended "See Me, Feel Me" & "Listening To You" motifs repeated from "Go To The Mirror!" is just superb.
Doesn't feel as long as it is, and honestly, it's only 74 minutes...
4
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Wed May 29 2024
Peace Sells...But Who's Buying
Megadeth
Dave Mustaine and the lost art of holding a grudge
3
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Thu May 30 2024
Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
A mixed bag, no one particular style, a mish-mash of everything really. Solsbury Hill remains an all timer though.
3
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Fri May 31 2024
Roger the Engineer
The Yardbirds
Jeff Beck lifts this up, but it's still fairly generic psychedelic tinged rock pop, 1966 was loaded with this style.
3
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Sat Jun 01 2024
Parachutes
Coldplay
Solid debut, some genuinely good songs like "Everything Is Not Lost" and "Yellow" always makes me smile. Pretty sucky that people have basically review bombed this based on their unbridled hate of the band now
3
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Sun Jun 02 2024
Alien Lanes
Guided By Voices
Proto-Flaming Lips and about 100 songs long, but rarely going over 2 minutes per track, quite a trip. LoFi taken to the absolute lengths of low fidelity as it sounds it was recorded on a handheld tape recorder.
3
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Mon Jun 03 2024
She's So Unusual
Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi either has a voice you love or hate, but how you can hear "Time After Time" and say you hate that voice is beyond me. Classic mid 80s pop, hits all the right notes, ticks all the right boxes.
4
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Tue Jun 04 2024
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
4 all time songs in "Candle In The Wind", "Benny And The Jets", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)" amd, frankly, I've given other album 5 stars for much, much less...
5
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Wed Jun 05 2024
Red Headed Stranger
Willie Nelson
I love the lore behind some the albums on the list, like this one. Willie was tired of the overproduced Nashville sound, holes up in a new studio in Texas and laid this down in under a week, including mixing. Like, how? More talent in his pinkie finger...
4
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Thu Jun 06 2024
The Dreaming
Kate Bush
Urgh, my second Kate Bush album, both either side of the excellent Hounds of Love, both unmitigated shite...
2
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Fri Jun 07 2024
Golden Hour
Kacey Musgraves
My one abiding memory of Kasey Musgraves was her killer Coachella 2019 performance that included this great bit of banter during the live rendition of "Velvet Elvis"
"When I say 'yee,' you say 'haw.' Yee! (Haw!) Yee! (Haw!)"
"When I say 'yee,' you say 'haw.' Yee! (Haw!) Yee! (Haw!)"
"When I say 'yee,' you say 'haw.' .....! (Haw!) ... I didn't say fuckin' Yee!"
Played them like a fiddle...
Started real, ended weird, par for the course when you used to do shrooms at Bonnaroo I guess.
4
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Sat Jun 08 2024
Boston
Boston
Your favourite rock band's favourite rock band... Soaring guitar solos, epic drum fills, driving bass and organ, and a falsetto voice to die for. Speaking of Rock Band, Foreplay/Long Time was so much fun to play on that game
4
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Sun Jun 09 2024
At Mister Kelly's
Sarah Vaughan
Absolutely stunning. Wasn't sure what to expect but this left me awestruck, tight three piece drum, piano and bass jazz band and Sarah has the range, good lord does she have the range.
5
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Tue Jun 11 2024
Tea for the Tillerman
Cat Stevens
Anther artist I had previously enjoyed through their greatest hits release, and more than a few appear on here. This felt absolutely stripped back, just one man and his guitar, everything else melts away. Every song hits just right, warm feelings, even in the sad songs.
5
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Wed Jun 12 2024
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
Dylan met the Beatles in late 1964, decided to turn electric, then proceeded to record this album in the space of 2 days (TWO FUCKING DAYS) in early 1965 and released it months later, to call it a seismic shift in the musical landscape is an understatement.
Shame so many people just go "oh shit, another Dylan album" and proceed to downvote each subsequent iteration, but fuck, this has "Subterranean Homesick Blues" with its proto-rap lyrical flow (Dylan was an OG MC not Kurtis Blow) AND "Maggie's Farm" that set Newport aflame, its a great album.
5
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Thu Jun 13 2024
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Soft Cell
Doesn't even have the version of "Tainted Love" that segues into "Where Did Our Love Go?", and the rest is pretty down and dirty sleaziness... Minimal beeps and boops make up the soundtrack to a thousand nights in gay clubs across the land.
3
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Fri Jun 14 2024
Calenture
The Triffids
Bad, and not in the 80s "bad meaning good" way, just.... Questioning how this made it onto this listing.
1
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Sat Jun 15 2024
You've Come a Long Way Baby
Fatboy Slim
Very much of its time, this was the sounds of the summer of 1998 for me, but 25 years later (almost) I was fully expecting it to have aged badly, but by the time I got to the fourth track, "Gangster Trippin", I was fully invested and chair boogying...
It's a layered cake of repetitive banging beats, pitched sequenced sounds, repetitive sampled vocals, I can certainly appreciate the craft that went into it, moreso that it was done without the modern tools people take for granted, I mean he produced it using C-Lab Creator on an Atari ST that was already pretty old by 1998 standards (watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLjgXPDzeZo to see how homebrewed his studio was).
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, but I enjoyed this trip down memory lane, though it does get a little weak in the back end aside from "Praise You".
4
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Sun Jun 16 2024
São Paulo Confessions
Suba
Electronic bossa nova? Not quite as good as I hoped it would be. Alright background music but nothing you'd seek out to listen to.
2
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Mon Jun 17 2024
Third/Sister Lovers
Big Star
Slow and melodic for the most part. The Spotify version was incomplete so that might go against it, only real standout for me was the cover of "Nature Boy"
3
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Tue Jun 18 2024
The World is a Ghetto
War
War? What is it good for? The funk apparently...
3
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Wed Jun 19 2024
Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
"Street Fighting Man" and "Sympathy For The Devil" aren't enough to lift this mediocre Stones album up to the pantheon of later releases. Brian Jones would be cycled out before his unfortunate death, so in many ways it's the end of one era and the start on a new...
3
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Thu Jun 20 2024
Crime Of The Century
Supertramp
Honestly, only really heard their Breakfast In America album before, and the lonesome harmonica this opened with really belies the shit you're about to get into. Yes, its MOR Prog Rock, but it is very well produced MOR Prog Rock, its not pulling itself at the seams like some Prog Rock of the 70s was doing, nothing overstays its welcome, its quite punchy in comparison to the 10 minute+ sweeping epic songs Pink Floyd and Rush were doing
4
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Fri Jun 21 2024
Black Monk Time
The Monks
I had to find this album, the digital equivalent of digging through crates of vinyl, simply because it's nowhere to be found. Not on Spotify, not on Apple Music, not on YouTube Music, only available as a YouTube video of the whole album.
And it's weird as fuck, fuzzy everything, Doors-like keyboards, seemingly random lyrics, basic beats that Meg White would be proud of. Actually, this is the birth of The White Stripes 30 years early.
4
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Sat Jun 22 2024
Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths
"Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before"
Urgh, Morrissey. The original incel?
3
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Sun Jun 23 2024
Planet Rock: The Album
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa. Zulu Nation. Touching little boys since the early 80s. I know, separate the artist from the art, but the artist is so vile...
"Renegades of Funk" now belongs to Rage Against The Machine, listen to that version instead.
2
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Mon Jun 24 2024
Chelsea Girl
Nico
Nico thought of herself as a bit of a chanteuse, many others did too. Warhol liked her, she was a bit of a muse of sorts, so he insisted she sing for The Velvet Underground, but she'd still go solo and the Velvet Underground were along for the ride but this would not be anything like a follow up to that album.
We're in for avant garde shit here, that's to say we're in for some shit here. Shit production. Shit voice. Shit everything. Not 1 star level shit, but not far off...
2
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Tue Jun 25 2024
Coat Of Many Colors
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton is a saint! Marvel in her technicolour deam coat.
4
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Wed Jun 26 2024
Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Who said it was open mic night? Because that's what it sounds like
2
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Thu Jun 27 2024
Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
"Crosstown Traffic", "All Along The Watchtower", "Voodoo Chile" YES! The rest? Ehhhhhhh ... Still a classic though
4
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Fri Jun 28 2024
Mermaid Avenue
Billy Bragg
I can appreciate Woody Guthrie, I can appreciate Billy Bragg, I can definitely appreciate this.
4
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Sat Jun 29 2024
The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
Honestly, doesn't live up to the 5 star album cover
3
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Sun Jun 30 2024
Killing Joke
Killing Joke
So the Killing Joke is an iconic Alan Moore/Brian Bolland Batman graphic novel that explores the origins of the Joker, how Batman wrought him onto the world, and how a cycle of systematic revenge, physiological torture, and, basically, man's inhumanity to man, is really just an ouroboros and those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
It's a 3½ to 4 star Batman story and a 2½ to 3 star animation adaptation.
This has nothing to do with anything I just said, but I hope you find what I said more enjoyable than this album.
2
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Tue Jul 02 2024
Ten
Pearl Jam
My favourite album of 1991, one of the most important years in music history that included (but not limited to) the following albums:
Nevermind by Nirvana
Achtung Baby by U2
Screamadelica by Primal Scream
Loveless by My Bloody Valentine
Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest
Blue Lines by Massive Attack
Foxbase Alpha by Saint Etienne
Apocalypse 91 by Public Enemy
Dangerous by Michael Jackson
Black Album by Metallica
Out of Time by R.E.M
Use Your Illusion I and II by Guns N’ Roses
Its just that good. Every song is utterly timeless.
5
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Wed Jul 03 2024
American Idiot
Green Day
Had Rock Opera, so why not a Punk Rock Opera. Simultaneously too short and yet some songs feel too long. 20 years later and I'm still surprised Green Day had this in them
4
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Fri Jul 05 2024
Frank
Amy Winehouse
If you come looking for Back To Black style stuff, you'll be disappointed. There are hints of the future, but its all oversexed, after party vibes
3
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Sat Jul 06 2024
A Girl Called Dusty
Dusty Springfield
As with a lot of 60s artists, their debut is basically a lot of covers and while it all sounds really good, its still cover versions.
2
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Sun Jul 07 2024
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Charles Mingus
Experimental, Avant Garde Jazz... So you know they're just making this shit up
3
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Mon Jul 08 2024
Gorillaz
Gorillaz
I like the singles, but the rest is just kinda .... I dunno, there. I applaud Damon Albarn pivoting far away from the jangly guitars of Blur to try something absolutely different.
3
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Tue Jul 09 2024
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen
Absolutely perfect, 10 songs, under 45 minutes, ranges from moody personal stories to sweeping epics, and contains an amazing amount of Bruce live show staples like "Badlands", "Racing in the Street", "The Promised Land" and "Darkness on the Edge of Town".
The Boss at his best, and, by this point, the classic E Street Band line up were just clicking
5
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Thu Jul 11 2024
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
Much like Jerry Lee Lewis & Elvis Presley, the cloud of "white man popularising the black man's music" hangs heavy here. Classic rock & roll, albeit distilled.
2
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Fri Jul 12 2024
Strange Cargo III
William Orbit
Whats with all these so-called "super producers" making bland as fuck albums? Eno does it too...
I can kinda hear the sounds Madonna must have heard when she wanted Orbit to do Ray Of Light with her, but on its own it just sounds so.... I hate to say bland again, but definitely dated
2
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Sat Jul 13 2024
White Blood Cells
The White Stripes
I can remember the moment I was introduced to the White Stripes, they appeared on Jools Holland on BBC2 and banged out "Hotel Yorba" and I was all in, 2 minutes of insanity. The acoustic version on the single I bought days later sealed the deal. Simple garage rock that somehow sounds amazing.
And this is a Meg White appreciation post
4
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Sun Jul 14 2024
Illinois
Sufjan Stevens
This was the sound of 2005 indie folk-y rock at its absolute zenith. It has everything you could possibly need, a cohesive narrative, both the meta "an album a state" project and indeed the Illinois stories that made up the songs. And for a brief shining moment, it seemed like Sufjan Stevens was your favourite artists favourite artist, even getting name checked songs by Snow Patrol (that felt so mid-2000s to even type), everyone loved it, NPR, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Rolling Stone, and every blogger with a pulse.
And, most importantly, it still holds up nearly 20 years later. a true timeless classic.
5
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Mon Jul 15 2024
Modern Life Is Rubbish
Blur
I'm still Team Oasis 30 years later, Modern Life Is Rubbish? Well, yeah, and so is this album...
2
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Tue Jul 16 2024
Imagine
John Lennon
A ok to good album that's weighed down by history, A few really good songs like "Jealous Guy" and "Gimmie Some Truth" and the title track is good if you're a teenager looking for greater meaning to life, but for Lennon is was absurd hypocrisy since he was bigger than jesus and richer than god. And then Gal Godot had an idea....
3
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Wed Jul 17 2024
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams was one of those artists I had never heard of until I moved from the UK to the US, being introduced to this was a revelation. To me Country music was either old people from the 70s or earlier like Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson and Tammy Wynette or Loretta Lynn, or mediocre 90s pop crossovers like Faith Hill and LeAnn Rimes, so to encounter the in-between space that Americana genre existed in with artists like Lucinda and Emmylou Harris was an eye opening experience. This album moved me, it's downright filthy in so many ways with songs like "Right In Time" and "I Still Long For Your Kiss" but it's the consecutive punches of "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten", "Drunken Angel", "Concrete And Barbed Wire" and "Lake Charles" that keep me coming back.
You should also listen to her 2005 Live @ the Fillmore album
4
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Thu Jul 18 2024
Tusk
Fleetwood Mac
How *do* you follow up one the the greatest albums of all time? Apparently ask the record company for somewhere between $1m to $1.4m, spend most of it on blow, hire a university marching band, and record enough stuff to make a double album... Though it's a bit telling that when they eventually made a Greatest Hits album, only "Tusk" and "Sara" made the cut from here.
3
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Fri Jul 19 2024
Pink Flag
Wire
A cool Post Punk, Proto-Grunge, Sonic Youth sounding. Digging it. Gimmie that distortion,
4
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Sun Jul 21 2024
Close To The Edge
Yes
Utter Prog Rock wankery, 3 songs, 37 minutes long. Rick Wakeman just banging his fingers to nubs on any keyboard he could find. Acquired taste, and I fear this exercise of listening to 1001 albums has led me to acquire that taste.
4
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Tue Jul 23 2024
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
The Pogues
Honestly, not my kind of music, but it has the utterly timeless "Fairytale of New York" and that alone rises it above a lot of other things.
3