Yesterday I gave Incubus a 1.5 rounded up. Today I’m giving this a 1.5 rounded down. Here’s the difference: if I were out and about and incubus were playing in the background, I would barely notice it. If this were playing in the background I would say “What is this. Why.”
There’s a whole world out there eh? This guy sold 80 million records and I never heard of him until now! This is good and cool, except for the Imagine cover. Can’t get away from that song.
I believe this is the first album so far, where I knew right off the bat that I wasn’t going to subject my family to it. Either way, I liked it alright, I think it’s cool that it exists, and I think every single person who one starred it is a huge nerd. I’d much rather listen to Napalm Death than another Elvis Costello.
Future editions should cut every English and American psychedelic album from 1966-1970 and replace it with a repeat of this. It was a really weird experience to look at the cover of this and think “Oh God, more of this,” and then actually listen to it. It has a lot of the musical trappings that make the last five hundred sixties psych album on this list sound similar, but it also sounded creative and fresh and worthwhile and interesting. I can’t believe how sick this was! I can’t believe I had to listen to an entire record by the Zombies to get here!
Probably would have knocked a guy on his ass when it came out! Liked it about the same as the other one from this list, but they had definitely hit their stride a bit more on that one. Docking a star here and putting it on a Run DMC curve.
Better than my baseline opinion towards U2. Impressive 3 song run to open the album. Bono undeniable, but also just Too Much.
Aggressively busy and noisy. Never lets you forget you’re listening to it. Very cool.
Good stuff. A balance of known commodities in the front, and some wonky and weird synth pop stuff in the back. Rounding down from a 3.5.
This was a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be.
One thousand times in my life, I’ve expressed that I am something of a Beastie Boys hater, and someone has replied “You should listen to Paul’s Boutique.” Well I have now, and I’ll be damned if they weren’t right. I stand corrected.
Couldn’t possibly sound more like a British super group from 2008 (bad thing).
This one knocked me on my ass. Wow. What a record.
This was a positive Kraftwerk experience. More smooth and musical than some of their other stuff. I liked it pretty good. It was really funny how the album opened with like 90 seconds of synth and then the first word spoken was “Europe!”
Does Nick Cave always sound like pirate music? This surprised me. I didn’t expect it to sound like pirate music. I probably could like a Nick Cave record, it seems eerie and weird. But not this one.
It’s the Stooges!
Hey this was pretty cool.
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this one, you probably can.
This thing is so bonkers and so good. I’m not sure I had ever listened to it in its entirety before, and now that I have. I definitely will again.
Super cool guitar stuff, and she sure finds weird and nice melodies over it. Liked this one a lot, didn’t know I was a Joni fan.
It rocks. It’s not their best, Cliff Burton isn’t on it. But it’s good and it rocks.
Frank Zappa seems like a guy where if you were spending a day with him you’d be saying a lot of, “Ha ha, ok, let’s settle down, Frank…” I like this one a lot.
This is an album that dares to ask: “What if there was a cool guy at a cool party in New York?” over and over for almost an hour. If Chuck Klosterman were born in 1985 he would have written a fifteen thousand word think piece about how great this album is, and you’d read it and say, “Really?” This one is very much of my time, and I liked it then. I hate it now. Gruel for millennials. Real bad stuff.
This has all the trappings of something that rocks, but it does not rock.
Astounding that the guy only did 3 albums, and this one was less than two years after Experienced. Really creative, love this one, wish we could have found out what kind of wacky crap Hendrix was doing at 50. A merman, he should be.
One day ago, the album was Electric Ladyland, which I think affected my experience listening for this one, or at least my review. I do still like this, though, it’s got a lot of interesting stuff going on. Beck’s Bolero is especially rad.
This was my favourite album when I was in junior high school and it’s my favourite album now. When it came up on the list, I didn’t think “Oh yeah, this is a slam dunk 5”, I thought “Oh nice! A reason to listen to London Calling!”
Not terrible or anything but I feel like between 2003 and 2013 I heard this same album six other times by six other bands.
Fairly cool in the way that all early proto-rock stuff is cool. Not something I would necessarily seek out to listen to again, but fine.
Waffled on which way to round this one, went up because of the last song. Cash sounds great here. Really clean production, breaking down voice. Really don’t like a lot of the song selection. Feels like Rubin picked about five cover songs that are specifically designed to become sleeper minor hits on the strength of the general sadness of the record. And hey, he got one!
Had no idea Chapman was so politically radical (in both senses of the word). Hard for me to get past the super slick late 80s early 90s singer songwriter sheen, from a sonic taste perspective, but it was doable, and this is a good one. Pulls no punches.
This makes me feel out of touch, but not in a way that makes me mad. Layered synths very nice to the touch, good sparse vocals, introspective themes: these are footholds that make sense to me, and they’re all well executed, and it’s nobody’s fault but my own that I’m 15-20 years too old.
This one is more fun than it has any business being. It sounds exactly like its cover, in a good way. I never got much into gothy stuff but maybe I could.
This exercise is really opening my eyes to funk. Not sure why I neglected it.
This sounds like the soundtrack for a musical that doesn’t exist, which makes it very unappealing to me. Impressive vocalist, can imagine someone loving this, but not me.
Maybe I am just not able to put myself in the shoes of a 1960s folk revival purist, but oh man: imagine going to see Bob Dylan, and he does a great set, and then he comes out for a second set with a band, and the band is The Band, and you’re like “Wow, this sucks.” So many people did that. Anyway, Bob Dylan is pretty much always good, right. This is neat, good time capsule sorta thing. Not the best live Dylan I’ve listened to, and nowhere even close to the worst.
Since the last time I had listened to this in full, I became a dad. I thought, maybe I’ll get the fuss about the Eagles now. I didn’t.
When I was a teen, we frowned on 80s sounding music. Too old to sound current, too recent for retro appeal. It’s now very rewarding to go back and discover how much absolutely sick stuff was going on in the new-wave-adjacent world. This rocks! It’s weird and aggressive and sweaty as hell. My understanding is that The The covers a lot of sonic ground over the years. I’m going to check out more, but I sure enjoyed this one at least.
I finally got into At The Drive-In, over the last couple years. Remember Mars Volta being a big deal to people, and I always assumed they’d be more my thing. Turns out they aren’t, or at least not this one. It’s good, kinda like a better Coheed and Cambria, but not as good as I hoped and anticipated.
Every British guy loves to sing songs about old world creatures like fairies and monsters. Guys in Queen no exception. It’s good though.
I feel pretty positively about the Who in general. First listen of this one, and boy. They did know how to rock, but they really didn’t know how to write a musical. And why would they? They’re the Who! This is maybe an interesting example of the impulse to believe that innovative pop music guys were some sort of creative geniuses, able to do more or less anything, when really most of em were just cool pop music guys.
It’s really odd to look back and remember that this was sort of critically acclaimed when it came out. I guess it’s part of a cycle, every 8 years or so some band comes out that sounds vaguely like Led Zeppelin or something and all the rock guy cranks are like “ROCK AND ROLL IS BACK BABY”. This is just a particularly funny one. Imagine The Darkness had actually kickstarted a revival or whatever this is, in 2003? Real silly.
I feel like I’ve seen Lucinda Williams live a half dozen times and never listened to a studio album. This is nice.
Coincidentally got this not long after Tommy. I ripped The Who for biting off more than they could chew… only to hear the Kinks do something kinda similar and, I think, do it a lot more artfully.
Definitely didn’t expect to love a Randy Newman record as much as I did this one. Political Science especially good.
I found this sort of neutrally pleasant to listen to. Sort of surprised it was from 2018… sounds very 2004 or so to me.
I listened to this and thought “dang Stan Getz sounds cool” so I texted my father in law (jazz guy) and he recommended a bunch more Stan Getz for me to check out. Gonna become a jazz guy now
Probably a lot of lost creative potential with this guy right? Have listened to this record many times, always struck by the guitar work.
Very nice one. Emmylou Harris sounds great. Gram Parsons was just a name to me before, this will be a re-listen for sure.
Not really my thing here, but there was some stuff I liked about it. I’m coming around to some reggae for the first time in my life, but I guess I’m just not quite ready for British dub.
One time I saw Ice Cube open for Snoop Dogg at an arena show, and during his set he went on this prolonged rant about how even though he’s in family movies, he’s still hard. Personally I think it would have been more wise to not repeatedly remind the crowd that he’s in a bunch of family movies, and just sorta let them suspend disbelief. Anyway it’s neat to hear his stuff from before, when he’s still got this legitimate piss and vinegar about him. Not my favourite, but good.
I really like Run DMC and this record in particular has a lot of very sick songs on it. It can be a bit hard to get past how often their cadence sounds like “My name is [name], and I’m here to say,”
I’ve listened to the Stooges so much but never much Iggy Pop beyond the singles and a few other songs here and there. Big mistake?? I liked this better than most of the Stooges stuff I know!
I was kind of grumpy at this one for the first half. Familiar with it already, and it was the sort of dull English singer songwriter from the early 2000s sound I remembered. Won me over a bit by the end though, there’s some fun and different stuff in the back half. A favourite, no. But worthwhile!
Last time I had a Joni Mitchell album, it was Blue, and I admitted to myself after decades that it turns out I actually like Joni Mitchell a lot. Holds up here. So much of this cuts to the core. Really beautiful stuff.
I like Emmylou’s voice a lot, but I liked her a lot more on a 70s Gram Parsons record than I do here, with a 2000s country sheen that is hard to get past.
Lots to like here, nice voice, nice production, nice songs.
Can imagine liking this one more than I did. It’s got a good edge to it, pretty aggressive. For whatever reason it’s so hard for me to get past that drum sound that in so much 90s rock. That was the case here, and that’s what brings it down.
Just can’t do it with the rock drums and the shiny finish. Sorry Bonnie.
I still don’t believe I could fully embrace being a Prog Guy, but this is the second King Crimson album this list has provided, and the second I’ve enjoyed.
I was like “Ya I like Billie Holiday, I know what to expect, this will be good.” Two songs I was like “what is happening??” and by the end I was floored. Have since read a bit about the production of the album. Amazing. One of a kind.
Went into this feeling cynical about Michael Jackson. Hard to detach him from his place in the zeitgeist, for better or (much) worse. But with each passing song I was like “Well, shit.” It’s not all good with Jackson, but this record, and a couple others that I’m sure are on this list… my god. Who will ever top this guy from a straight pop perspective?
Easy one for me to love. Lifelong fav, one of the best voices there ever was.
Have come to appreciate Sinead. Real heavy stuff on this one, nice record.
This is my favourite Elliot Smith. I think he shows off quite a lot in it, but comes off as bashful anyway. Usually haven’t been drawing attention to individual songs while writing these, but Junk Bond Trader must be the softest song to ever rock real hard.
I know it’s influential, but with all this time between then and now, it kinda sounds like 32 minutes of Spinal Tap’s Listen to the Flower People. I did like the prolonged Bo Diddley bit quite a lot though, that was cool.
Motörhead is of course a bit “if you’ve heard one you’ve heard em all”. But it’s still plenty of fun to listen to this whole record. I believe the “know I’m going to lose, cause gambling’s for fools, but that’s the way I like it baby I’m not gonna live forever” is the hardest rocking 10 seconds ever committed to recording. And don’t forget the joker!
This thing has the most deranged energy. The back and forth between Cash and the audience is friendly and tense at the same time, and like 40% of the whole thing is the back and forth. If a live album’s aim is to capture a moment that happened, this is one of the most worthwhile live albums there is.
A Prog Guy friend said this one is the best entry point into Rush. I can see it. Being a Canadian, I’ve heard their singles a million times on the radio, but associated their overall work with long, drawn out epic type prog. Was delighted this was 40 minutes long and all but one song was to-the-point. Still not exactly my thing, but a fun listen. Great bass stuff, too.
Lukewarm on Elvis Costello, but don’t think I can go as low as 2 for this one. Lots of songs I liked, some filler. Wish it was 45 minutes instead of 60.
This sounds like every kinda-indie movie from 2000-2008. Not in a bad way, and there were a couple songs that sort of grabbed me, but it just doesn’t do much for me overall. Tempted to round up to 3 because it’s so funny that the cover says “French Band” on it, which I like.
The community average for this one is so high, too high. Realistically this could round up, but I know there are at least two Zeppelin records I like a bit more, so I’m leaving space for them. Misty Mountain Hop is a cool song, especially when Plant isn’t going “OoooOOOOOh Yeah!” I do like the rhythm section in the band, too bad how overshadowed they always are.
Odd to think of these guys as a late night house band, and I guess that is how they would be widely known at this point. This is a very cool record.
Whenever an album comes up and it’s Of My Time, I tense up and expect it won’t hold up that well. Pleasant surprise on this one. These guys seem to have sort of faded behind the other *The* bands that came out, but I think this is a decent record. Was especially tickled by Factory.
I know these guys are pretty well regarded, especially Homme as a guitar player. Not 100% sure what my expectations were, but I definitely did not expect it to sort of just be Butt Rock.
I’m a big Beatles Guy and I lean heavily towards Paul. But on these early records, you really hear John’s value. He’s so good at this kind of borderline-gritty early rock thing. Not my favourite of their records, the later the better for me, but it’s a Beatles record. Of course it’s good.
When I saw this album cover I thought “Cool an early 70s cult following singer songwriter thing” and then three songs in buddy is singing a song about sailing ships, and putting on a little sailor voice to do it, and then a couple songs later a song opens with “THE NIGHT… BECKONS HER WITH ITS CALL” or something, and then I’m certain I’ve been tricked into listening to some sort of Theatre Guy album again. I listened to the whole thing, but I can’t give stuff like this more than 1 again. Can’t do it. Ute Lemper is got lucky, 50 albums back.
In recent months I’ve really tried to give fresh chances to artists I’ve had it out for, Paul Simon included. There are times on this record where guest musicians are really getting into it, going somewhere, and then Paul Simon starts singing again and I snap back to reality. These are still Paul Simon songs. It’s not gonna happen for me.
I wonder if there are a lot of Bob Marley records on this list. Like many white guys, I mostly just know Marley via greatest hits collections or whatever. This album has (I think) just the one song that is usually on those? Anyway I thought this one was real nice to listen to as a whole.
Lots of records have good songs on them, not that many records have all good songs on them. It’s not all GREAT, but there’s no stinkers here. Good stuff from Blondie.
Not the only guy on this list to be subject to art vs artist on this list, but a uniquely egregious, conclusively awful, and of-our-time one. Had time for this once, but pop music is not sacred and I have no hesitation to leave West behind.
After the first song I thought, “Huh that was pretty cool!” and then it got increasingly dull from there. I was disappointed because I remembered liking another album from this band, but then I remembered that one also started strong and then petered out. That’s all. This one was fine.
It’s good. Won’t belabour it here, but I just don’t see this band the way people seem to see this band. I just think they’re pretty good.
This was a good time. I don’t have much of an ear for hip hop, but I know this was sparse, creatively sampled, and every song had a place.
1001 Emmylou albums to hear before you die. Like this one considerably more than the early 2000s one we got a while back. Same voice, just a production difference I guess.
I don’t have a lot of patience for Christmas music, but this did sound pleasant in a Spector-doing-his-thing way, and my kids did have a fun time dancing around to it, so I guess it did its job. Not bad!
Cohen’s songwriting was always good and his instrumentation varies a lot over the albums and was pretty much always good too. He has one wild variable that makes him different from a lot of others, which is that the older and gnarlier he got, the better his voice sounded. This is as old and gnarly as it gets for him, and it’s fantastic.
Boy a lot of this is so cool and creative, shame the whole thing is set to Default Chill 90s Hip Hop Beat. That sound is pervasive on this list!
Maybe I am becoming (or just am) an aglophobe. Thought this one started off fine and interesting, and then a few songs in it was just another super British guy singing in a silly voice about a butcher from the olden times or something, to 60s psych rock backing.
I don’t remember Green Day fondly, and I think it’s because this album was the first time I really felt a band I liked Changed. I saw them on the tour for this one and it sucked, I almost never listened to them again after that. However, after listening to about one hundred 1960s Brit Rock Operas on this list so far, this actually doesn’t seem that bad.
I can’t stand this stuff.
I know these guys, I like these guys. This isn’t their best one, it’s maybe 15-20 minutes too long, maybe a little too samey by the second half, but it’s still a Hüsker Dü record and it’s still good to listen to.
Know this one, knew it rules. Thought maybe a 4 star, by virtue of it not being my absolute favourite Neil. On note solo in Cinnamon Girl convinced me not to be so precious.
Imagine listening to the whole hour of this, the whole time knowing that the last song is called Didgin’ Out. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel, Didgin’ Out.
The Beatles maybe exist on their own pop music plane a bit. Like how if someone says “Who’s the best hockey player there ever was?” that question either comes with the assumed implication of “Well, other than Wayne Gretzky,” or it’s a pointless question. Anyways, I think middle period is kinda my least favourite Beatles period, which gives me the uncomfortable opinion of not liking Rubber Soul that much. It’s cool hearing them start to really put it together, but I like them more when they’re already totally put together, and also more when they’re right at the end of being Just A Rock Band. They’re best when they’re at the stage of having mastered something, rather than when they’re frickin around (but also White Album is my favourite, which is maximum frickin, so who knows). It’s still obviously a great album though, duh. (Also, this list has given all sorts of 60s British rock, contemporaries of the Beatles, and I’ve disliked a lot of it more than I expected to. Beatles just head and shoulders and another set of shoulders above the rest of that stuff eh?)
Mike Watt can do no wrong? Maybe?
Nothing I don’t like here just not something I love either. Crowd noise adds a lot
Came into this one with some pre-conceived notions (probably based on hearing the same two singles every day of my childhood on the alternative rock station), and ya know what? Pleasant surprise. Not sure I’d like every thing they did, but this one is good. Radio station shoulda played some of these ones instead.
I read a ton of music magazines as a kid, and especially liked Uncut because it came with a CD every month. One time in the early 2000s there was a big write up on Robert Wyatt because he had a new record coming out. I read about him and was fascinated. Downloaded all the albums etc. This one is an obvious stand out because of its place in the guy’s life. Much greater than the sum of its parts, even though the sum of its parts is quite good on its own.
Three songs in I knew this whole thing absolutely stunk but I powered through. Next time someone tries to tell me Eminem is good, I can ask “When’s the last time you listened to a full record?” and I’ll have them beat. Even if not for the rancid lyrical content (listen to Bonnie and Clyde and ask yourself, “Why and when would anyone ever decide to listen to this song?”)… the whole thing sounds bad! This may be peak Dre, but if it is, he should have spent this time working with someone who doesn’t sound like they’re making fun of their own voice. Also: people say this guy is uniquely talented at rhymes? Buddy did not invent internal rhyme schemes. Those have been around for a thousand years. God this shit sucks.
Felt momentarily Cool when this one turned up. I thought “Hey, a new one that I know, and know I like!” then realized that 2010 was 14 years ago. Still like it nonetheless. A 3.5 rounded up because my kids have a Sesame Street DVD that features Monae, and her segment is maybe the only one on there that I don’t mind hearing repeatedly.
The positive thing about this, is that when I think of a 90s pop record, I think “two or three singles and 35 minutes of filler”. This record is an hour long, and most of the songs could pass for late 90s singles. The negative thing is that it sounds like two hundred people made this album, and not one of them had any creative care towards it. Completely dispassionate. There exists a line at which Art becomes Commerce in full. Good radio pop music often gets close to the line but doesn’t QUITE cross it. I don’t know exactly where it is, but it’s way East of this one. Not to mention the fact that there’s an actual human teenager in the mix being dragged around and exploited (look at the fuckin cover man, Jesus Christ) so that this can make a lot of people a lot of money.
This is maybe the definitive 3⭐️ experience to me so far. This had some interesting stuff, songs I enjoyed, good overall sound, but I’m not sure it’ll stick with me.
This one snuck up on me. Went in thinking “I know a couple of their songs, probably a 2.5 rounded down to a 2.” Gave it the ol’ honest listen, and nope. An easy 4. Very good stuff to me.
Independently rediscovered this one a couple of months ago. Really interested in West African blues as a genre, guess this is the jumping off point.
Hard to nail down my own perspective on this, think I’m just aging out of the world. Just not a lot of a foothold for me. Pretty musically interesting, and feels distinctly Cool from start to finish.
Willie’s got more musical layers than I realized. Instrumental stuff on this one really beautiful too!
I thought I would enjoy this more than I did. I guess my whole life I never listened to more than two CCR songs in a row, which it turns out is as many CCR songs I can enjoy in a row.
Probably would have knocked a guy on his ass when it came out! Liked it about the same as the other one from this list, but they had definitely hit their stride a bit more on that one. Docking a star here and putting it on a Run DMC curve.
This album cover looks familiar have I seen it somewhere before
How could someone possibly make something so beautiful as this. 5.5⭐️
There’s only room for one punk band that sounds spiritually similar to Vincent Price saying “Ghouls and goblins! Spiders and snakes!” and they’re called the Misfits, and even they aren’t that good.
Not falling out of my chair for this one or anything. But ANBA is not a group I think of when I think of Bands Trying Something Different, and they do here, and is pretty cool/pretty good.
I read a bit about this one before listening to it. The background made me think, “Well this one should be kind interesting!” and then… it wasn’t. Grohl seems like an interesting and talented guy. How is it possible that every Foo Fighters recording tastes like tap water??
This is just Too British For Me.
Lots of musical value here, hard to get past a lot of the content.
For a 1995 British album called Club Classics Vol One, this wasn’t what I expected (in a good way).
A lot of this kinda psychedelic funk is really hitting a sweet spot for me. This is a great one, I think it makes a case for being a 5, but ultimately the 13 minute noodley sex machine song stands out as a slow point. Dang this is a sick record though eh
New Order has always spoken to me a bit more, but I certainly liked this more than I like most sorta gothy new wave. Second half of this had some sick songs I’m not too familiar with, but overall I think there’s a bit too much fillery sounding stuff for a classic album.
Tough one to score. Some songs easily belong on a 5 star album but some songs have way too much Silly British flavour for my liking. Ultimately going to round up here on the strength of the good stuff, and add that I think XTC might be a sleeper Band For Me.
If a guy were to go back and look at my reviews so far, they would paint a picture of a person who is realizing they don’t care for English music nearly as much as they once thought. Pleasant exception here. The Who, right out the gate, sounds so much more rough and vital and cool than most of their British Invasion peers. This rocks.
This almost felt like an album that I would immediately forget and then never think of again… but then I did think the last song was very cool.
Çe la, c’est pas ma musique.
It really rattled me to read that this was recorded in 1949/50. Is this literally the birth of coolness? Is this the first time something was ever cool? I think it might be.
Have always loved this so much, it’s such a special live record. Pretty much no hits, all these weirdo covers. I waffled between 4 and 5 while listening to it, and after it was over I decided that the tipping point is the moment where Cobain absolutely botches that big note in the Bowie song. That’s so cool. Come on. 5 stars.
I think each decade (give or take a few years) has its own flavour of butt rock. The one I’m most familiar with, because I was a kid getting a ride to school at the time, so I listened to the radio, is the butt rock that is during/post grunge. Eb tuning, Scott Stapp voice, etc etc. Sometimes hard to know where the line is between the butt rock and the real thing that influenced it. This one is certainly on the non-butt side of the line, but it sure sounds like the butt side took a lot from it. Anyway I liked it pretty good, as a thing on its own.
This is broadly my favourite stuff to listen to: favourite corner of favourite genre. I hooted when it came up in this list. I love it. Just that in the context of this exercise, I think four stars is a realistic ceiling for 80s American Hardcore. Call it the Shitty Band’s 5.
I like this, but it didn’t land the way I thought it would. Maybe I was in a bad mood, maybe it’s because while I was listening to it I read about the term “blue-eyed soul” and it left a weird taste in my mouth. That’s life.
Endlessly funny that this is a document of some dopey British blues guys sort of accidentally inventing a genre. It rocks so hard. The line “without warning, a Wizard walks by” rocks so hard.
Even at his best, to me Frank Sinatra sounds like the feeling of standing in a room that is exactly standard room temperature, drinking a glass of water that has been sitting in the same room. I did like a lot of the backing arrangements here, and I did like that it made me think of that scene in spinal tap where the limo driver gets frustrated that the band doesn’t adequately respect Frank.
I rolled my eyes when this came up but then I chastised the inner millennial crank and gave it an honest listen. It is very sappy and overwrought, but also it’s very good. Better than most of his peers who were similarly trying to be Composers instead of just Rock Guys. There’s a lot going on, it’s a bit too long, but everything works and it justifies itself overall.
Wow this was a delight. Every bit of it. What’s that he’s whaling on in track two, Flugelhorn? Rad. I was told he was part of the Graceland tour. Too cool for that if you ask me!
I like Steve, I like him more and more as he gets older and rougher around the edges. But this one is good too. My wife heard this one and said “This is Gido music”.
A while back I had a Britney Spears album come up and said that my perception of 90s pop albums was that they have a couple of strong singles and then all filler. I was surprised Spears’ wasn’t like that. This one lives up to my assumption. It’s over an hour long and 80% of it felt like generic club beats. Giving it an extra star to differentiate from Spears though, because at least listening to this one doesn’t feel kind of criminal or something.
This is (I think) my favourite Zeppelin, but still. Man. Their songs always start off so groovy, and then Robert Plant comes in with his awwwweeeeeaaaaayyyyyaaaaa baaaayyyyybaaaaay stuff. A guy can only take so much. I thin
I had only heard the single before. It’s the best song on here, but it’s also cool to hear the rest. Seems kinda foundational to a lot of stuff to come not too long after?
This didn’t make my jaw drop or anything, but it’s a nice sample of the better side of 2000s indie rock. I remember listening to cookie mountain years and years ago, and not enjoying it much. Did like this one just fine.
So this is Frank Ocean eh? Pleasant, I suppose, but in a neutral way.
A somewhat cooler, rougher-around-the-edges Blondie? Album maybe a bit uneven, but some really solid stretches.
I can not for the life of me figure out why S&G don’t really do it for me, and never have. I did like this better than I liked Graceland a few weeks back, so maybe Paul Simon is the issue. Didn’t hate this one, it just didn’t stick with me beyond giving it a listen.
Easy to imagine this being very impactful to the right person at the right time, but it wasn’t me.
The weirdest and worst thing about the Kanye West situation is that there’s a decade’s worth of people who were later like, “Come to think of it, he did talk about Hitler a lot!” He did a whole letterman taping where he talked about Hitler a bunch, to an uneasy crowd. Then they just edited the interview and released it anyway! Good album, a 1 anyway.
Hard to land on a score for this one. On one hand there was a lot of Psychedelic Rock Moments that made me roll my eyes, but on the other hand there were a lot of moments where a song lands in a groove that made me say “Hell yeah”. I also liked reading about the weirdo liner notes, and the guy himself. I have a feeling that one day I will give this a second listen and wish I had bumped it up a bit. But for now I will call it a very good, but quite uneven one.
Funkadelic is the first band two get two five star reviews from me. Would I have predicted that going in? No chance. Am I happy with my self discovery as a Funkadelic Guy? Hell yeah.
Never get tired of this one. Not much to say other than it’s an obvious 5, and I’ll listen to it again any chance k get. Maybe it’ll come up again on this list for some reason. That would be cool.
I’m something of a Stones hater by default, but I’m always trying to be a blank slate when I listen to these records. I know there are Stones albums I will like quite a bit, but this isn’t one of them. I do like hearing Brian Jones. But overall there’s just a lot of much better electric blues music out there that doesn’t also require the listener to have to think a lot about Mick Jagger’s weird hang ups about women.
Last time I got Costello I rounded it up to a 3, and my main complaint was that there was too much filler. This one did not have a ton of filler, and I’m rounding it down to a 3 instead. The numbers look the same but trust me it’s a different three. I imagine there’s like half a dozen more Costellos on here, maybe he’ll crack a 4 yet.
Hard to detach these guys from their Image and Reputation among my peers. I don’t believe they’re the greatest band on earth, but I do believe they’re a good band with some rip-ass guitars, and the guitars are especially rip-ass on this album. Rounding up on this one, if only to create a reasonable curve for future Radiohead picks.
This was probably the contemporary band that was most formative to my younger tastes. I think I still love them but it’s hard to tell how much of it is the memory of hearing any given album for the first time. Removed from that, this one strikes me as more uneven than I remembered. I think it may be that it’s a transition between the messy garage blues/rock White Stripes of De Stijl, and the more refined and organized White Stripes of Elephant. Those, to me, are the two best albums. This one has glimpses of strengths from both, but also a lot of filler and a lot of Jack White being a bit too preciously bluesy for my sensibilities now. The good stuff is still real good to me.
When I was a kid, I read a magazine article about the 25th anniversary of this album. It had an interview with Tom Verlaine, and I thought, “This guy seems very cool.” I took out Marquee Moon from the library, and it was indeed very cool. I’ve listened to it semi regularly ever since. Really try not to let nostalgia colour my reviews here, and thought maybe this is just a four. But hey I’m not a child of the 70s, I wasn’t there having an impression made on me, this was just some crap that I happened across and loved it immediately and forever.
This is the Nirvana I’ve listened to the least. It rocks. It’s got some of their best melodic parts and some of their best unmelodic parts. A great final album, sucks there aren’t more.
Pretty radical stuff I’m surprised The Man let this guy live as long as he did. Maybe he didn’t get enough mainstream exposure or something. I knew Scott-Heron as a poet and of course knew the big one, but listening to this got me pretty interested in his collaborator here. Cool and creative musically.
Guessing I don’t have too many unique thoughts on this one. There is a lot that is really really good, and it’s cool to hear these guys sort of split up and doing their own thing, but with each other as backup. But it is tooooo long and doesn’t justify the length.
I had slightly more patience for this than other theatery chamber pop (probably because it wasn’t British this time), but not much. Buddy knows what he’s doing, he’s just not doing it for me.
I have room in my heart to appreciate Taylor Swift as a high end pop star. But Taylor Swift doing ultra processed indie folk? Not great!
I don’t have any strong negative feelings about Bruce Springsteen, but he’s never done it for me. No exception here. An observation: between grade school and post secondary, Springsteen was a full time student until he was 19. His first record came out when he was 24. That leaves him with 5 years in which he could have plausibly Had A Job. Huge achievement to carve out a 50+ year niche as a workin’ man’s hero based on that.
I thought this was really cool and wild, and I can’t believe Herbie played in the Miles Davis Quintet and is still alive and performing!!!
On the whole, I like this band. This one is just too narrow as a concept. Only so many times I need to hear a guy sing the words “Lynyrd Skynyrd” before I say “Ok, ok.”
Boy this should definitely get a lot more recognition than it does. I thought I was familiar with the way they sounded, but on listening to this, I was wrong. The saxophone rips ass, and the whole thing holds up with the best of any early wave English punk.
Enjoyed it a lot, too long though. Some high quality self indulgence from Metallica. It has a five star moment, which is when the crowd goes MASTER! MASTER! And Hetfield says “HELL yeah,”
More like Yion. (Yawn)
New Order is so cool. I’m less familiar with the songs on this one, but they were all cool New Order songs, and so, I liked it.
The thing I like most about Radiohead is the guitars. This one could never be a favourite to me because they largely forsake that. Nice though, some good songs, easy to get swept up in it.
Dang this rocks. Less ear wormy than some other Dinosaur Jr, but I can’t complain about a record that shows off Mascis as a guitar guy, which this one does.
Wilco easily has two 5 star records (three, if live ones count). This one sounds like a soon-to-be 5 star band finding its footing.
Sonic Youth has always passed me by, so this was a good reason to sit down and listen to a whole album. It’s good! It’s cool! I like the wacky guitar stuff. I will listen to more.
AC/DC is the purest rock band. They don’t want you to think they’re cool, or suave, or profound. They just want to rock. They don’t live in a world in which pop music is a sacred art and pop musicians are poets. They say it themselves: rock and roll is just rock and roll. Nobody’s going to write a 10 paragraph review that reframes the history of their own youth through the lens of an inflated importance of Back in Black. Why would they? Back in Black doesn’t have that much to say. They write worse Spinal Tap lyrics than Spinal Tap does, because the lyrics just don’t matter that much, beyond being a small part of the rockin. I put this one on knowing I love it, but thinking it may have a 4 star ceiling (mostly because I prefer Bon). Before the end of the first song I had turned my little speaker all the way up. Come on man. 5 Stars. Easy.
Hard to put a finger on this one. Mostly didn’t care for it, but some neat moments.
ZZ Top has a lot of charm to me but I’m not sure it goes much further than that. God bless ‘em for being the blues rock band that came up with a good enough gimmick to have real longevity and success.
Most of the time I don’t find electric blues tooooo compelling, but this one has a lot going on. Cool ambient noise, Waters himself being kinda old and kinda fired up. Lots of fun.
Holy smokes is this ever different from the last Sly that popped up here. The production on this album is so weird, it shouldn’t be nearly as rad as it is, but here we are. A while back I read about the last Billie Holiday album, and how the composer/producer said he thought her voice has taken on an Evil character, but not in a bad way. Packed that description away for the right moment, and here it is: this one is evil, and it’s so so good.
Maybe it’s because I’ve heard two dozen albums by his peers so far, but I was listening thinking “I thought I liked Donovan!” Season of the Witch a great song at least.
This is the first hip hop record I’ve listened to that emphasized both Islam and Skateboarding. Liked more songs than I disliked. Of-its-time, but that wasn’t detrimental here.
The angst of the thing was too much for me even as an angsty youth, so it’s certainly too much now. But man, if he was just singing “beebabooba woo woo wee woo” instead of actual lyrics, this would probably be a 5 to me. Reznor knows how to ride the line between noises and nice sounds like no one else. No surprise he’s had a whole other second career as a composer. Coulda done anything, did NIN. Cool stuff.
Legalize what? What’s this guy talkin about do you think
I like The Jam. It’s getting a bit hard to delineate all the English rock that comes up, but these guys do stand out a bit to me. This is a 3.5 rounded down, wouldn’t turn my nose up at listening again.
I don’t have much to say about Leonard Cohen except for that I more or less like it all. These first ones are a trip, it’s almost impossible for me to imagine him as a youngish man, but there he is. Good good good.
This is a good time capsule of a guy recognizing some problems, and then all of those problems getting so, so much worse over the following years. And I’m sure people figured he was just being uptight, too! Some musically likeable stuff to me as well, if not the most memorable.
I don’t have much of a reference point for like, contemporary piano composition. But I liked listening to this a lot, it kept my attention despite being way out of my wheelhouse. Will probably read about it to learn the significance, if not listen to a ton more.
If I only rated this by how much I enjoyed listening to it, it would definitely be a 1. But I dunno, doesn’t feel right. I just don’t Get it, I have no reference point for drum and bass. Is it good? Maybe. Is it influential? I could imagine so, if not hear it. I don’t know. Giving it a 2, considering it an Abstain.
So much of this is so musically exciting, but with age and context it’s so hard to get past a lot of the content. Same thing happened with a previous Ice Cube solo record. I’m very familiar with this one, my young self listened a lot. I know the merit, I’m just not sure it’s worth it to me any more.
For whatever reason, this sort of music never really speaks to me. Didn’t hate this, would have liked it more if it leaned a bit more towards traditional folk (maybe it’s the rock drums superimposed on folk music that makes it not speak to me). Also a bit tough to be a singer who sounds like he’s doing a Bob Dylan thing.
Had only heard the follow up to this, before now. Liked that one, like this one even more.
Remembered this one quite fondly, less into it this time around. I suppose it’s quite a bit better than a lot of the rest of this wave of brit rock, and it’s interesting to know that these guys went on to become a pretty big and (I think) sonically diverse band.
What a wild name for a record eh? Fantastic stuff, liked this one a lot. Meandering 12-15 minute songs were a surprise, and fit nicely. Didn’t know Hayes had previously been a session musician, much more interesting guy than I ever realized.
One of the greats. Big fan of Captain Sensible as a guitarist (and as a guy who picks himself a stage name), and also think these guys have a bit more musical depth than most of their peers. Lyrics a bit too British Punk Society, Innit?, but what are ya gonna do.
In its low points this comes off as kind of bland 90s alterna-rock, but in its high points it seems 10-15 years ahead of its time in a cool millennial indie rock way. The good out weighs the bad, though, and I especially dig some of the weird little backing instrumentation choices.
I can really conjure up the memory of hearing this for the first time as a youth and being very rattled and impressed by it. Might be taste-related, or just that I’ve heard more music now and my brain is calloused, but I’m less thrilled now. Still, nice to give it a fresh listen, it’s a bit more varied and dynamic than I remembered. Forget the name of the song, but there’s the one that had the jazzy Hammond sounding part, very good.
I vaguely remember this coming out in a time of heavy Poptimism, where Serious Critics would insist that really goobie forgettable radio pop records held some sort of timeless significance. Usually they were very wrong about that. This one does hold up though. Worth revisiting at least.
I didn’t expect this to be a 5, but I didn’t expected it to be a 1 either. A long while back I gave an LCD Soundsystem record a 1 and called it “gruel for millennials”. This here is gruel for boomers. If you took all the Classic Rock in the world and averaged it and flattened it out into one thing, it would be this. Most of what I previously knew about Bad Company is that whenever the Rock and Roll HOF announcements come out, people get mad BC isn’t in there. That is so funny now that I’ve actually listened to them. It’s like insisting that plain rice crackers should be in the Chips Hall of Fame.
Ok fine the Smiths are good. I said it.
Not bad, exactly, but in one ear and out the other. An English rock band from 2008.
I don’t especially like the Beach Boys, and was kinda surprised and satisfied when I heard the first song on this one and liked it significantly more than any Beach Boys I know. Whole album, more or less the same. Not an instant favourite, call it a pleasant surprise. Rounding up here on the strength of a couple songs in particular.
Not at all unpleasant to listen to, but it very much comes off as a Soundtrack more than an Album. Too much so to make sense as a pick on this list.
Lots of the New Wave classics are pretty cool eh? Liked this better than Violator, which I previously (and for no reason) assumed would be the only Depeche Mode I sort of liked. Side note: it sure makes a guy nervous to see a song called Little 15. I sighed with relief when they quickly revealed that the guy in the song is also 15.
Over the last ten or so days, I’ve got the Smiths, Depeche Mode, and the Cure, and I didn’t think I liked any of these bands and I gave them all 4. What is the meaning of this. What is happening to me
I know there’s a lot more like, human spirit in this than the much worse music that was influenced by it. But it’s hard to listen to this with 2024 ears and not hear Theory of a Deadman or something. I know that’s uncouth to say, and grunge fans do not like it. I’m sorry, I can’t help it.
This is the second time I’ve listened to an entire album of English Trip Hop—the first one being Connected by Stereo MCs, also via this exercise. I know Massive Attack has some mainstream recognition, at least insofar as you sometimes hear them talked about outside of England, but I tell ya, if someone had put on Blue Lines and told me it was another Stereo MCs record I wouldn’t have known any better. I’ve heard Two Albums A British Psylocibin Enthusiast Must Hear Before They Die, and I’m all good now.
I was pretty hooked from the piano sample on the first song after the intro. Had a good time with this one, a total unknown to me.
Thirty seconds in I was rollin my eyes like, “Alright, Nick Cave…” Then each passing song made me feel more insane and by the end I loved it. Honest to god a second listen might bring this to a 5. Lots of people in the reviews hate this one. “Wah wah wah,” I say.
There were moments of this that I really liked. I have a lot of time for overblown dense production, and some of it was very cool here. Just not enough of it to overcome the underwhelming vocalist/lyrics. It’s rough when the main guy of something is the weakest part.
Frickin rocks.
This is the good stuff, to me. Kind of a pointless thought here, but: feels sort of stupid and arbitrary that early English punk often gets distilled down to just two bands, when there’s so much wild and interesting other stuff. Why not The Slits?
Future editions should cut every English and American psychedelic album from 1966-1970 and replace it with a repeat of this. It was a really weird experience to look at the cover of this and think “Oh God, more of this,” and then actually listen to it. It has a lot of the musical trappings that make the last five hundred sixties psych album on this list sound similar, but it also sounded creative and fresh and worthwhile and interesting. I can’t believe how sick this was! I can’t believe I had to listen to an entire record by the Zombies to get here!
Every once in a while I would be talking to my dad and I’d start talking shit about Eric Clapton. My dad wasn’t a very opinionated guy, but would always say, in that situation, “I never liked much of his stuff either, but Layla is a really good record.” He didn’t seem to care much one way or another, he wasn’t passionate about Layla or anything, but he still always put it out there. Anyway it had been a long time since I had listened to Layla, and now I have again, and I still think my dad was wrong about this one. It is what it is.
Easy some of the best guitar work so far, especially coming a day after 80 minutes of serif Clapton. Fantastic album, nothing bad to say.
Maybe to my taste, new wave has to be a little bit gothy or a little bit punk, to be a good time.
My Pink Floyd curve on this list started with a 3 for Dark Side. I’m very familiar with the band, and I know Dark Side is not my favourite, and I know they are simply not a five star band to me. I believe this one is my favourite, and according to the curve, it would likely land on a 4. Upon listening, it turned out the question was not “can Pink Floyd be a four star band?” but “Can Gilmour at his best elevate a 3 star record to a 4?” and to my surprise, despite liking Gilmour quite a bit, the answer was no. Good, not great.
A lot more demented than I expected (good thing)
I should have given Siamese Dream a higher rating. I only gave it a 3. It’s just that it was the first time I realized the Smashing Pumpkins are good, and now, a few months later, I know it for sure. This one, too, whips ass. A band that is built to be self-indulgent, and does it for two hours, and the whole thing is, at least, Good to Very Good. Sorry Caleb
Maybe a week back I said New Wave has to be a bit gothy or punk to be good. This is new wave right? It’s not gothy or punk, and it’s pretty cool. Consider this the upper bar maybe. For non-gothy or -punk new wave.
Like a lot of early rock and roll, a little bit of “you’ve heard one song you’ve heard em all”, but at least in Little Richard’s case, it sure is a cool song to hear.
Technically good, Jaco is cool, but too clean, too smooth.
Sickos: Yes… ha ha ha… Yes!
A 2 without Neil. Just can’t muster much enthusiasm for sappy hippie-folk, ya know?
Well-trod territory that, over time, has come to feel like Just A Three. Good, influential… The Clash is better, the Slits are cooler, and in the end this is just one album and the songs are pretty samey.
This might deserve a 1 but I didn’t find it totally repulsive. Maybe a 1.5, rounded up for the dumbest song title on the list yet. You know the one.
Yesterday I gave Incubus a 1.5 rounded up. Today I’m giving this a 1.5 rounded down. Here’s the difference: if I were out and about and incubus were playing in the background, I would barely notice it. If this were playing in the background I would say “What is this. Why.”
14 songs 29 minutes that’s the good stuff. We should always be so lucky. These guys lose a lot of studio steam real quick but not on the debut.
Last time, I had given my second Costello album 3 stars, same as the first one. I said then, “Maybe he’s got a 4 in him yet.” Reversing course on that one. Enough, Elvis, enough.
I got off the Jack White train right after the White Stripes, and this is kind of why: this album! It sounds like the White Stripes but with none of the vitality and charm. I understand he did different stuff later, which I might like, but I don’t care for this much.
Very nice sampling here. Loved the Good News song that had Hooked on a Feeling and then all the different guitar samples.
All of the Bon era albums appear to have one or two big songs and then a bunch of filler. But even a filler early AC/DC song is gonna have a killer Malcolm riff. This one’s full of em. As a side note, even the nastiest AC/DC songs usually have a bit of charm/plausible deniability. Night Prowler probably the biggest exception. Hard to explain that one!
Hard to assess. Not my wheelhouse, not my decade I suppose. But jeez you listen to this thing and it sounds like every song was a hit single. And though I don’t love the ultra polished 80s production sound, it does serve Tina Turner’s delivery pretty good. I bet a lot of this stuff sounded great live, too.
I was optimistic that an appreciation for Musicianship would carry this beyond my general attitude towards RHCP. Then the returns diminished more and more with every song. Then Sir Psycho Sexy came on, second last song. That’s all I have to say about that. Except for: this is meant to be one of their good albums, eh? Jesus.
There’s at least one too many Radiohead albums one must hear before they die.
Aggressively Millennial folk. Not much beneath the surface. A lot of talk of beards.
Sometimes a guy discovers a huge pop culture blind spot. I was listening to this thinking, “This band is real good, and who is this guitarist that probably no one has ever heard of??” Turns out it was just me. Anyway I never would have guessed I’d come across a 4 Star disco album, but here it is.
Well, yeah. Since I was a kid I have preferred Cheap Thrills, on the grounds that it’s more unhinged than this one. The little bit of studio professionalism hinders Joplin more than it helps, but the end product still absolutely goes, start to finish
After a lifetime of not really Getting It with the Pogues, I’ve started Getting It the last couple years. No one’s fault but my own, but it’s hard for me to detach a lot of European folk traditions from the idea of a like 5th generation Canadian band performing songs in character as their great-x-4-grandfathers or whatever. These guys are the real deal as far as they can be, and I like them and they rock.
Political angle ✅ Music that doesn’t just wash over me ❌
Lots of really nice stuff here, really pushing the limits of Some Guy With A Guitar. Great guitar work, great songs, somehow sounds a bit ahead of its time despite being a folk album from the mid 60s.
There’s now two Beastie Boys albums I at least sorta like. This one not as much as Paul’s Boutique, but still a lot more than I expected.
Ha ha holy smokes this rips. I wonder what the movie is like.
1001 Albums a Secondary Character in a Club Scene from a Shitty British Movie from 1995 Must Hear Before the Title Card.
Ok, I’ve heard enough Radiohead now. This exercise has made Radiohead tumble down the rankings. My favourite part of listening to this album was when the last song came on, because it was almost not Radiohead, it was mostly a different band. I wouldn’t have felt that way one year ago, before I was asked to suspend disbelief and entertain the idea that Radiohead has produced four (and counting, probably) of the world’s best one thousand and one records. I would have been like “Oh yeah, decent record, that song at the end was especially cool, I kinda like Radiohead,” like a normal person
These earlier Queen albums are not exactly up my alley, but they sure do rock. Except for Bring Back Leroy Brown. That song doesn’t rock.
Definitely in the upper half of 80s/90s funk rock I’ve heard in my life. Probably a 2.5, rounding it up because I read the guitarist recruited the singer after hearing him sing happy birthday. That’s a good bit of lore.
What I expected (bad). Rounding up instead of down because they dopey “I love love” lyrics throughout are funny.
Definitely a rounding up, based on my taste. Just that here, I can really imagine liking it a lot. But I’m not the guy for liking it a lot.
There’s a whole world out there eh? This guy sold 80 million records and I never heard of him until now! This is good and cool, except for the Imagine cover. Can’t get away from that song.
I’ve been a low level Elvis Hater for a while, but now have some time for the later live recordings. So coming into this one, I had a more open mind than I might have a couple years ago. This is good when it’s good, but man for a 28 minute album there is a lot of filler here. Elvis is not my King.
This stinks! No wonder all the hippies grew up to be reactionary conservatives. They thought this stuff was the soundtrack to a revolution!
The more concept albums I hear, the less I appreciate concept albums in general. This one still easily falls on the good side of the concept album spectrum, which is refreshing. The production is really nice to me, borders on super slick 90s pop style while still sounding pretty organic and loose. Very good stuff.
Not a ton to say other than I think this album rocks as much as I did the last time I heard it, which is a lot. Also: it’s really funny that it has sixteen songs, is only 38 minutes long, and the last song accounts for about 1/4 of the whole album. Every punk band should do that. Pad the total.
I think every single album ever made by an English guy is on here. I read about this and bought it on release day because of Paul Simonen’s involvement. Listened once, never thought of it again. Remember why now. Not bad, just totally non-essential.
I can’t believe this is already like 8 years ago. This is my first listen! The cool thing (of course) about Bowie is that he was never very stagnant. This one continues that line, and it’s good and interesting, like they usually are. It’s hard to detach it from the context of its release. Would it be as beloved by people without it? Hard to say. If this were the second last album instead of the last one, it might hold a different place. Nonetheless I enjoyed it, it’s sad to hear, and I’ll probably listen to it again some day.
This must mean there are three Public Enemy records on this list, right? What a world! Like this one quite a lot, just not as much as Fear, or Nation (which I imagine is the third). Closing track absolutely rocks but everyone knows that.
Ok boomer.
When I saw this was from 1964 I thought “oh wow, a young BB King!” I did not know this man was born in 1925! He was already middle aged! Anyway, very cool listen. I like BB.
Same problem I’ve had with trying to evaluate most of the other 90s hip hop albums on here so far: it’s just pretty tough to overcome a lot of the content. Different world. Sonically, liked this one quite a lot. Better delivery than his peers that’s for sure. This is a round down from 3.5.
Cool, more British triphop. Rounding up because it was marginally more interesting then the last couple.
Just recently I was talking to a friend about how I struggle to connect with a lot of the kind of autobiographical hip hop that was big in the 90s. It’s so alien to my own life and the life of anyone I know that it’s hard not to feel like an interloper when I listen to it. This one made me eat my words a little bit. Of course it’s still completely alien to me, but this is a really beautiful work, sonically and lyrically. Somehow Nas bridges the gap here.
Electric Light Borechestra
It’s just too much trip hop on this thing ok. There should be a compilation and that’s it.
I’ve never considered REM to be one of my bands, but whenever I listen to them on more than a one-song basis, I think “Dang REM is kinda cool.” Wish we had half stars. This is a definite 3.5, and could be a 4 should I ever follow through on the idea that REM is cool and I should listen more.
To my tastes, anything that could be described as chamber pop, or baroque pop, is usually a non-starter. Ol’ Newsom here overcomes it. When these records were coming out I remember getting Milk Eyed Mender and liking it quite a lot. Never gave as much time to Ys, but enjoyed it when I heard it. Giving it a closer listen now, it holds up and is very weird and impressive and good. I hope there’s no more baroque pop on this list and I can go on thinking, “Hey I guess that stuff can be alright!”
I like to listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing, but apparently not so much that I want to listen to her sing three and a quarter hours of American Standards ™️. I know it’s dismissive, maybe kind of anti-American, but in my mind, 75% of Gershwin songs I’ve ever heard might as well be different versions of Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Liked a few of the songs, but really suffers from over-smoothed 90s production.
[in the voice of someone who is fatigued from having been given five Radiohead albums on this list so far] This is the best one
Went through a bit of a roller coaster listening to this. Settled on this: Rumours is the better album, it’s a concise and perfect 70s pop rock record. But this one is surely more cool and interesting. Too long, not all good, but it covers a lot of ground that a guy might not expect if he was expecting another Rumours. The White Album isn’t the best Beatles album, but it is my favourite. This may also be true of Tusk.
Another brick in the road towards me becoming a new-wave guy. This one is I guess a bit more post-punk than gothy new-wave like the rest I’ve liked, but it’s still got that flavour. Probably a 3.5 but rounding down because there have been peers of these guys that I’ve liked a bit more. Could be convinced to round up after more listens, I bet.
A guy can make a case for Doing Drugs as a creative exercise. Sometimes people can access a way of expressing an idea, sometimes they can access the idea itself, while doing drugs. Regardless of someone’s moral stance, it can at least have artistic merit. This album is a Doing Drugs album that never gets past “huh huh this is trippy mate innit”. It sounds like the least interesting guy you’ve ever met, telling you about that one time they did DMT. Man this sucks.
This is musically probably my favourite Lou Reed thing I’ve encountered (though I know he worked with a wide variety of people through his life, and I’ve barely scratched the surface over the years). But I think it’s kinda hard for me to engage with this kind of bleak/tragic story. It’s very well done, it’s just the sort of thing that tends to not connect with me. My rating here is more about my taste than the album’s content, but aren’t they all.
1. As a general rule, I don’t like horny music much. Prince is an exception, somehow, despite being the horniest of all. 2. Some jabroni in the reviews said he “heard Prince is a good guitarist, but this album doesn’t showcase it”. Way to tell on yourself for listening to the first 10 seconds of each song and crying because they started with synths. Prince shreds here!!!
I don’t think the Kinks are Better than the Beatles but I do think they’re Cooler than the Beatles. Not my favourite one, but fun nonetheless.
Hard to have a strong opinion on this one either way. Nothing terribly unpleasant, but nothing I would go back to.
Empty Millennial Optimism was very similar to Empty Boomer Optimism eh? These guys have so many lyrics about how like, A Change Is Coming, but none of it articulates what the change is, and if you try to extrapolate it from the vibe of the album, it sounds like the change is “Doing cocaine with some cool girls and talking about Change”. Terrible.
Nice.
Enjoyed this quite a lot as a youth. Lots not to like about Adams over the years, both as a guy who is pretty bad, and a musician who ultimately has more misses than hits. Now, I suppose I would call it a good baseline for alt-country or whatever. The good songs are great, but there’s a lot that’s a bit weak too.
My DJ friend tells me this is somehow different and/or more significant and/or better than the average 90s English dance music that one might find on this list. I listened to it all, I don’t think I buy it, it still just sounds like NN TSS NN TSS OI BRUV to me, but I’m giving it an extra star as an act of good faith.
I really loved Beck growing up, and still have time for most of what he does. HOWEVER. The more music a guy hears in life, I think, the more inclined he is to think “Oh, Beck was just doing his own take on this artist” every once in a while. For example, my favourite Beck album is Midnite Vultures. The other day I listened to Prince’s Sign O The Times, and realized “Oh, Beck was (mostly) just doing Prince”. It doesn’t make the Beck album worse, but it does give it something to directly compare it to, maybe not helpfully. Anyway this one is good. Midnite Vultures is probably still my favourite. I wonder if Sea Change is on here.
A three-star rock record, with one star added for a meaningful reason: some things are more Spinal Tap than Spinal Tap, and that has value in music. Being a band of English guys representing yourselves as Mount Rushmore is funny. There being five guys in the band instead of four, and doing it anyway, is worth a whole extra star.
It’s Blonde on Blonde, it’s great. What can I add to that other than, I wish I had given the live record a higher rating way back. The more untethered Bob is, the better, and his live recordings always have more charm to me. It should have been a four, too
This one is quite a bit different from the previous one that came up here eh? Obvious and dumb thing to say I guess. Very cool, more cohesive, still a bit long and a bit precious with the interludes, but what are ya gonna do.
I like the parts of this more than I like the sum, but the sum is still a cool and neat project that I like to go back to every once in a while.
This is so demented. Normally would be a bit frustrated/annoyed with the prolonged noise parts, but I found myself a bit drawn in. Listened to it all, came out the other side like “Well that was an album I never would have listened to but am glad I did.” That’s somethin!
I am so excited to review another Elvis Costello album. I am so glad there are 57 Elvis Costello albums to review for this exercise. I look forward to each one more than the last. Costello reinvigorated the literate, lyrical traditions of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison with the raw energy and sass that were principal ethics of punk, delivering passion and intelligence with equal measure. I love it when Elvis Costello covers relationships with biting sarcasm and wordplay, combining jazzy guitars with soulful vocals. I love his hats, almost as much as I love Jamiroquai's. His dress style is so rockabilly, which is aces. To think, this was his debut album, in 1977, setting off a career without comparison. His aim was surely true.
This is probably a pretty rad album but I’m just so sick of Radiohead on this list. I suppose I would say this is the third best one I’ve heard, and the absolute cut-off for the last album that MAYBE should be on the list (but they could have got away with just two… or one.)
A guy in Spinal Tap once said, “It’s such a fine line between clever and stupid”. I don’t really know where this falls, but I do know that three days ago I listened to the eighth Elvis Costello record on this list so far, and two days ago I had the eleventh Radiohead record, and listening to the Residents after that made them sound like the cleverest thing to ever exist. Probably a 3 but bumping it because I’m a crank.
A photocopy of a photocopy of something I like a lot.
Usually, as a Canadian, it’s kind of painful to go back to a classic piece of Canadian media and listen to it/watch it/experience it critically. Because it makes you reckon with the fact that, removed from nostalgia and over-saturation, the piece of media almost always sucks. Expected that here, didn’t get it. This is actually cool and good, and not just curved against Canadian stuff either. For real cool!
Haha wow this absolutely rips! I had no idea! I can’t believe it’s from the early 70s, too. Sounds like 1986. This is not the sort of thing I ever would have got into when I was younger. All roads lead to Eno I guess.
Sonic Youth is guitar guy music in a way that should be right up my alley but for some reason, they aren’t. Liked this one fine, but I don’t think it’ll stick with me.
This isn’t bad, 22 years later, but I probably won’t listen to it for another 22 years. These guys know what they’re doing, that’s for sure.
Whenever I’ve expressed a distaste for The Police, someone always says “Yeah, but the first two albums, when they were kinda cool and punk,” Well now I’ve listened to one of those and the problem is, they still require a guy to listen to a bunch of songs sung by Sting. There’s a lot of musically cool stuff on this album, but none of it overcomes that the worst part of the band is the main part of the band.
I’m a Jazz Guy now
This is real cool. The production sounds so evil and ominous. I read that a bunch of the Wu Tang guys did solo albums, but they all had the same Wu Tang guy produce them? That’s kind of funny. Bet they’re all pretty decent though if they sound like this.
Tommy Pischedda : Excuse me... are you reading "Yes I Can"? Limo Groupie : Yeah, have you read it? Tommy Pischedda : Yeah, by Sammy Davis, Jr.? Limo Groupie : Yeah. Tommy Pischedda : You know what the title of that book should be? "Yes, I Can If Frank Sinatra Says It's OK". 'Cause Frank calls the shots for all of those guys. Did you get to the part yet where uh... Sammy is coming out of the Copa... it's about 3 o'clock in the morning and, uh, he sees Frank? Frank's walking down Broadway by himself... [Nigel raises the limo partition] Tommy Pischedda : Fuckin' limeys. Marty DiBergi : Well, you know, they're not, uh, used to that world. Tommy Pischedda : Yeah, yeah. Marty DiBergi : You know, Frank Sinatra, it's a different world that they're in. Tommy Pischedda : You know, it's just that people like this... you know... they get all they want so they really don't understand, you know... about a life like Frank's. I mean, when you've loved and lost the way Frank has, then you, uh, you know what life's about.
This rocks. The guitar is so good, the vocals are so good. Every song is so good. A novelty act that overcomes being a novelty act.
Can’t say I was dazzled by this, but it far exceeded my expectations of an album that was made by some guy from the Byrds. Cool early alt-country.
I’ve soured on Tom Waits over the years, but this album in particular is kind of sentimental to me. When I was about 13, my uncle gave me two Tom Waits CDs for my birthday: this one, and Closing Time. I had never heard of Tom Waits, and it turned out neither had he. He read about him in a magazine and thought “This sounds like something my 13 year old nephew would like.” Closing Time never spoke to me much, Swordfish did. In hindsight, I think it served as a bit of a baby’s-first toward a lot of music I like now. It’s kind of a bummer it makes me roll my eyes now, even though I do still think it has some musically interesting stuff to offer. I’ve become a crank.
An obvious all-timer, being deducted one star for an obvious reason (I hate to listen to both Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney say “doggone” over and over).
Another day, another kinda sick new wave/post punk record on here. This one’s not all killer, but the good stuff is real good.
This one caught me by surprise a bit, as a thing that doesn’t seem like it would be in my wheelhouse but kind of is. I’ve never cared much for The Knife, maybe I was just assuming based on that. Anyway I could easily see this growing on me. Dreijer is real weird in a cool way.
😎🎸
I like Neil Young a lot, and hadn’t listened to Harvest in quite some time. It was a less straight-ahead obvious-great-record experience than I expected. I find his folkin side a lot less compelling than his rockin side, or at least I like a bit more balance than Harvest provides. And I really don’t like the stuff with the symphony! That doesn’t work with Neil Young, I think. It’s good but I’d rather listen to the guy flip out on the electric guitar for 40 minutes. Sorry Caleb (?)
These guys are the kings of concepts albums, and I don’t have a politically correct way of saying why: the concept is always “What if there were a bunch of cool black guys from the 70s in an unexpected place?” This one’s a bit cleaner and more precise than the previous Funkadelic records we’ve encountered, which is neither better nor worse here, just different. I could listen to a thousand of these and enjoy every single one I think.
Timeless? More like TimeMORE! On account of how long the opening track is! [or] Timeless? More like 1995! Haha we like to laugh, but seriously, good god. I think it’s really important to hold the idea that most all kinds of art have an artfulness to them even if I don’t understand it. On the other hand, when I was a boy I had a PS1 demo disk that included a demo for a game called MTV Music Generator. It was basically a crude looping station, with built in samples. This album sounds indistinguishable from something a 12 year old me would have made on there, and again… I only had the demo, with a limited set of samples. And it was the PS1! That game probably came out less than 3 years after this album did. Come on! A guy does not need to hear this before he dies.
I appreciated listening to this having learned the Nile Rodgers context of it after having Chic come up a couple months ago. It’s not as good, but it’s still good. Remarkable how many one star reviews are like “Ugh! Disco SUCKS!” People probably born in the 80s, like me, still totally affected by butt-rock radio campaigns from the mid-70s lol
Always kind of wondered why this was the hip hop guy who got offered whatever weird Faustian bargain the American State was offering hip hop guys a couple decades ago. Listening to this—an album from when he was ostensibly cool, pre-bargain—illuminates it. Even when the subject matter has some edge, it’s not convincing at all. This guy sounds like he was grown in a lab! They never would have tried to get Nas to a state where he would be willing show up and say “Ya know, I think octogenarian Democrats are Pretty Fly!”
Graceland, without the bad parts (the Paul Simon parts).
I waffled a bit between a 4 and a 5 here, but the way Brown harnesses the screaming crowd’s energy into the most psychotic sounding call and response imaginable (on Lost Somebody) is enough to make the call. Remarkable.
Can’t muster much of an opinion on this one. Different time and place I guess.
Not sure of the necessity of two Gene Clark albums on the list, but just like the other one, I thought this was decent and pleasant enough. I’ll fly off the handle and give a one-star if there’s a third one though (just kiddin).
Just like the last one by the Cure, I liked this quite a lot. There’s something earnest and touching about the over commitment to being a spooky weirdo, I think the knowledge that Robert Smith is still Like That really goes a long way for me.
Of course EVH shreds. But the experience of listening to a Van Halen album is not great. I do have one big positive here: Hot For Teacher imagines a world where beavis and butthead type characters are hot for teacher… and teacher is hot for them back. That’s pretty funny, and worth an extra star alone.
I believe this is the first album so far, where I knew right off the bat that I wasn’t going to subject my family to it. Either way, I liked it alright, I think it’s cool that it exists, and I think every single person who one starred it is a huge nerd. I’d much rather listen to Napalm Death than another Elvis Costello.
There’s some weird tendency, when producing “world music” for a North American audience, to smooth the edges off things. Maybe it’s that the main market is for cafe playlists or something. To my ear, it often sucks the life out of what should be a more raucous, organic sounding thing. This is smooth, but it at least breathes a little. At its best, you can imagine you’re in the room with these guys, and that feels exceedingly rare for a 90s recording that isn’t in English but was marketed towards primarily English speakers. Anyway, I didn’t understand the lyrics, so it’s a 1⭐️ for me. (Just kiddin)
Beck 📉📉📉 When this one was new, I listened to it a lot. Either it’s aged badly, or I have. Just something mechanical and lifeless about it, can’t quite put my finger on it.
This is such a great record. Weird format, mostly comes off as buddies frickin around, but also has a surprising amount of musical depth. Love it.
I like these guys. This one was less (a bit less) gooby than the last, and the Todd Lundgren mixing error lore is real interesting. Would like to hear that original mix. Like the last one, we’re riding the line of being too Preciously English here, but something about XTC makes it work to my ear. Quickly becoming One Of My Bands.
I did my best to stitch together as many songs as I could via YouTube. It wasn’t worth the work. This was an album by a white Englishman who calls himself Jah, and it sounded like it.
Usually I think it’s corny when someone does their take on the American Pop Standards. I still do here, but Willie pulls it off pretty well.
I don’t know why Kendrick Lamar has a problem with this guy. He seems nice
Marvin Gaye sure comes off better when he’s singing about the state of the world, versus singing about the state of his divorce. Bit of a tough one to get through, but at least you still get to listen to Marvin Gaye sing.
Two Nick Drakes in three days, I ain’t complaining. Can now confirm I like him best unaccompanied, but this was another great one. Unreal that he went 3/3 at such a young age and in such a short amount of time.
Pretty glad they bailed on overcommitting to the Ibiza thing after just one song. The rest was a pretty fun New Order record.
It’s good in the sense that if you give one hundred skilled people a large amount of time and money to put together hit songs that fit the zeitgeist of the time, you’ll end up with a bunch of hit songs that fit the zeitgeist of the time. But here’s how disconnected from reality the finished product feels for me: Beyoncé references drinking several times throughout, and every time, my main thought was “I can not even imagine Beyoncé having a sip of alcohol and having a nice time.” A strange listen.
[on the phone with the manager of the pet shop] “Yeah I was just wondering, what’s your return policy for boys?”
I listened to the Doors extensively as a dopey young man, then got real tired of their shtick. Going back to this one, I enjoyed more than I expected, in spite of Jim Morrison. The rest of the band has its moments! I doubt other Doors records will hold up as well, but Morrison Hotel is solidly Fine.
I thought this would speak to me, it didn’t. Wikipedia references it as being influential in a proto-punk way. Thank god it wasn’t THAT influential.
I like the format of this. Some guy giving his take on folk songs and telling you where he heard them. Hard to tell how legit it is, but hey I’m not the arbiter of that.
Bloody Well Right is the worst, most English song that I like. Breakfast In America maybe a bit better than this one to my ear, but I think Supertramp is good and cool. They prog, that’s for sure.
I didn’t listen to this much at the time, very much felt like it wasn’t For Me, and I suppose it wasn’t. It sounds dated now, especially with the massive wake of similar electro-pop acts that followed. But Hanna is impossibly cool, seeming a bit self deprecating on this one but still absolutely givin’r in a way that most people don’t. Lots of great stuff here, and certainly holds a place. Liked it a lot.
My star rating here is based on the music alone, and I thought this was a great record. Especially the way it was produced—comes off as living and breathing in a way that ultra-digital pop/r&b rarely does. But here’s my main thought: sometimes I bristle at music that carries a really on-the-nose political message. Not that it bothers me that an artist wants to express their political views, but more just that I don’t think pop music is the best medium for axe-grinding. But man oh man, I read some reviews for this one and realized it’s cool and good sometimes when an artist puts it out there on-the-nose. Listen, if you heard this record and your main thought was “This is RACIST MUSIC”, you’re a dweeb and a crybaby and you should read a book. This album, apparently, does its job. Makes the point it wants to make.
Maybe it’s my mild anglophobia, but this is so far removed from anything I can imagine wanting to listen to for fun. I felt bad and knee-jerky after giving Pentangle a 1, so I’m making up for it here. This is actually 1.5, and the extra half star goes to Pentangle. They both still stink though.
The more I am made to listen to Nick Cave on this list, the more I think “ah ok he’s kinda cool”. He’s the anti-Costello in that way. This one isn’t as good as Junkyard, but I like it much more than Henry’s Dream
Yeah. Hell yeah
When it comes down to it, HR may be my favourite punk singer. And to be even more wild: is the title track the single greatest hardcore song? I think it might be. Anyway, an easy 5.
All I have to say about this as a listening experience, is that it’s a really really good singer performing nothing music. Like Beyoncé a few weeks back, it was written and produced by an army of people, and it sounds that way. But also: how is it possible that someone who was 25 years old sang these songs and everyone accepted it and thought it was relatable? These are the songs of a 45 year old, at least!
I don’t think I properly respect this sort of thing as an art form. I often like hip hop that is built on samples, and Shadow is one of the best at that. But removed from that context, a record of samples stitched together, existing entirely for its own sake, rather than working as a foundation for something else, maybe just can’t do it for me. I know what he’s doing is impressive and cool, but I don’t know that I care.
Good god this rips. It seems impossible that this is their first record. I’m usually not too inclined to listen to things real loud, but for this one I was. Last time I said that in a review was Back in Black, and I gave that 5⭐️ and this is obviously better than Back in Black. Painted myself into a corner that I am happy to paint myself into.
Nowhere near the worst thing I’ve listened to on here, but maybe the least essential. Not unpleasant, but bland. And when I get to the end of this thing, I’m going to think of all the 90s rock bands I like that aren’t on the list, and then I will remember this one.
These guys hold up. Every band from the mid-2000s did a transition from garage rock to electro pop, when the tides turned in that direction. To me, most of em were worse off for it. I’m not sure about Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I didn’t listen to them enough. But this is their electro pop of them, and it’s good. Consider this a 3.5 rounded down, to leave more of a ceiling if it turns out I like the garage rock version more.
When I reviewed Deja Vu, I did not expect to land on a 2, but I did. I thought, “Would this be a 1 if it didn’t include Neil Young?” Well, here we are. I’ve already said a lot about my feelings towards hippie folk, all that still stands here. It’s not really the WORST thing I’ve ever heard, but it sucks a lot, I will never listen to it again, and it now exists on a curve against CSNY.
Felt good to expand my familiarity with Sepultura beyond Roots. This one’s less impactful, a bit more conventional, but still a very solid 90s metal album. It’s thrashy!
Man this rocks. Running Free could be the archetype of Rock Songs. It’s hard to imagine a world where Iron Maiden is a new band, with one album. But definitely if I lived in that world and heard this I would say “Whoa what is this! This rocks!”
This stuff washes over me like it’s nothing at all. It did in 2010 and it does now. I remember when this sound first started emerging as a trend in rock music, and thinking “this doesn’t bode well”. Guess what: I was right.
Hard to evaluate. I think this general kind of music is so dopey, and I think Rod Stewart himself is a real goober. But the production is real nice, and I can’t help but like the way he sings in the late 60s/early 70s. This is a rounding up, but barely. 2.55 or something ya know?
This backstory on this one is extremely weird. The concept is extremely dumb. But it made me bob my head and go “ya” a few too many times.
At the halfway point this thing felt like a easy 5 star. Too bad it lost a bit of momentum with half a handful of weaker songs in the back half. But man does this ever rip. Something Patti-Smith-like about Bush, but with a bang on new wave sensibility. Great production of great songs with a great performer.
This is marginally more listenable than later Offspring because they haven’t quite worked out how to compose the worst sounding novelty songs ever made, and then somehow turn them into minor hits. But Come Out And Play is a hint of things to come and it sucks as bad as it did the first time I heard it. They-Might-Be-Giants-ass Orange County punk. Bad stuff. Big time round up, lest there be another, worse Offspring record to come on here.
Genre- and era-wise, this is in my wheelhouse, but at least from this album, Al Green doesn’t stand out from his peers enough to get me goin nuts. It’s good, it’s great, but there’s already been a couple handfuls of albums on the list that do a similar thing better and I bet there are many more to come
Mostly not my thing, but easy enough to understand it being someone else’s thing. This is a round up, only because I’ve given some recent 2s to records that I liked significantly less than this one. I wonder how Phil Collins records will stack up against this.
When I listen to guitar guy music around non guitar guys, is this what they hear? If so I have a lot of apologizing to do. An entire album of Mariah Carey songs is an insane experience. You hear her pack 12 notes into 1 note once and go “wow she has good vocal control” and then she does it for another 48:57.
When an album opens with a bard-like voice saying a line about a unifaun’s true love, you know you’re in for some Spinal Tap adjacent stuff (in a bad way).
A cooler-than-me pal hipped me to these guys (and this record) way back when. I was ready for it then, I am now. I love the A/B split here, it really goes wilder than a person would expect. Great creative stuff, a solid and satisfying record.
What’s a word that’s somewhere between yes and no but leans towards no? Like a maybe-but-probably-not.
I liked this alright, in a neutral sort of way, but it really lacks something compared to the Smiths. Sounds Generic New Wave in a way the Smiths do not
I’ve always thought of Bleach as being my favourite, because it’s less refined, more off-the-wall, than the later ones. Looking at the track listing for Nevermind, I thought the same. Turns out when I was looking at the track listing, I was remembering all the songs that are catchy and refined, and glazing over the ones that are more Bleach-y. An absolutely sick middle ground between two fairly different things that Nirvana does exceptionally well. Not a bad song on the thing, even Smells Like Teen Spirit being heard for the millionth time.
Great voice, tap water songs. Nothing objectionable about it, but none of it sticks with me and I’ll probably never think “Hey I should listen to Norah Jones.” It lacks any amount of chaos or something, I dunno.
There were times that this got into some of the more interesting places Led Zeppelin is able to go. There were also times this got into 11 minute songs that started 9 minutes of JPJ playing a noodly synth solo. The bad times outweigh the good, and the sum total of the times is over 80 minutes, which is entirely too long to have to listen to Led Zeppelin for.
Not what I remembered, in a good way. This is a hell of a record! Great melodies, great tension (especially in the longer songs).
1 star for the album. 0 stars for the dozens and dozens of reviews that quote the Dude. That movie was like 30 years ago, get over it for god’s sake!!
More like the Snore on Drugs ha ha ok let’s hear the next one
Easy to appreciate the weirdo innovation of this thing, but I can’t say I ever really Enjoy listening to Beach Boys. This is a big round up, just so no one gets mad at me.
At first I thought this album seems totally non-essential. But then I remembered, not everyone in the world has a lot of exposure to CanCon. So this IS essential, so that non-Canadians can have the experience of listening to it and thinking “Ok, this is a familiar genre, but something is off about it…… oh it’s Canadian that’s the problem here.” It’s just not essential to me, as I’ve been going through this my whole life. The prison of being Canadian.
It progs, it progs in a way I find marginally better than most of the other prog we’ve heard so far. A 3 here is generous, but it represents that marginal betterness, because I think most of the other prog has been a 2.
Whoa this rules. It’s so deranged, it’s so fun. The drummer is so good! Easy sell: I’m a Devo Guy now.
Scott 2 is right. 2 stars. And that’s a stretch!!
Did I already make a joke about returning boys to the pet shop? Yes? Ok, well,
Coming to terms with the idea that I don’t really like Queen anymore. Can’t say I think this one is bad, it’s not. It’s kinda cool, it kinda rocks. But this is probably the last time I’ll ever listen to it start to finish. Rounding up here, because a 2 doesn’t feel right. But a 2 might have been right.
This is the fourth (I think) Led Zep I’ve encountered on here, and I think I’ve said it all in a general sense. For this one I will add: Ramble On is a great song, and it’s so funny that it sounds like a lyrically normal dumb rock song for about 3 minutes and then all the sudden Plant starts singing about Mordor and Gollum and you realize that’s what it was about the whole time.
New to me, neat and cool. I could see going back to this many times, and checking out more. That’s what it’s all about, babyyyy
“Psychedelic blues” is not a combination of words that I like to hear, but leave it to Janis Joplin to overcome that and then some. I love the way the band kinda sucks. They sound like they’re about to fly off the rails from the first few measures of the first song, right up until the end, but they never really do. And Joplin herself was never on the rails to begin with. Everything she did was good to me, but this is the best. Sounds like her in a natural state, whereas later albums sound a bit reigned in. Love Cheap Thrills, always have always will.
There is just so much English trip hop a guy must hear before he dies eh
I went back and forth on this. It delivers on the promise of its title. It’s unbelievably violent and nasty, it’s right in Cave’s wheelhouse. It had some stinkers but some real highs too. Musically neat and varied. I loved the conclusion. Ultimately the rating will suffer due to my own earlier misjudgement. Junkyard shoulda have been a 5. This maybe should have been a 4, but it ain’t Junkyard.
Yes let’s
Alright this is the last one on the list (I think). In the end, it’s my favourite one. It’s probably like a 3.4 or something. Some of the songs rock so hard, Good Times Bad Times especially. What an opener for a debut album! But also there’s a lot of stinkers, and I still simply to not care to hear Robert Plant Doing His Thing. Goodbye Zeppelin it’s been fun, sort of.
I may be hearing this favourably because the last few days have been a forever-feeling cycle of boomer rock and English club music from the 90s. It benefits from not being Robert Plant, or Freddie Mercury, or some molly’d up DJ from Pordenshire-on-Frent who took a gap year trip to Ibiza and then Changed The World. One way or another, this one was cool as hell
Alright alright I guess I kinda get it now
Butthole Splatters LP Ha ha, we like to have a laugh. But seriously, approaching it critically, Butthole Splatters LP
Remarkable how kinda bland this is. None of the covers do anything the originals don’t, they’re just less-than because they’re not performed by the original cool Americans. English guys shouldn’t be allowed to sing about Route 66. They shouldn’t even be allowed to acknowledge it.
I won’t be banging down the door to listen to this again, but Syd Barrett brings an element of fun to Pink Floyd that makes them palatable in a way that later Floyd is not.
It makes sense that Australian punk would be kinda cool. This is not all killer, there is a decent amount of filler, but the main sound is very sick and the good songs are very good.
I like REM just fine, but they never reeeeeally do it for me. No exception here. A good album, some standout songs (like Stand!). But nothing I’m terribly likely to go back to.
In a lot of ways this feels like an archetype for the idea of Classic Rock. That is both good and bad, but leans more bad.
Here’s what I can muster for this: it was ok.
This once was a favourite of mine. I don’t have anything insightful to say, I still love it a lot. Have maybe just heard too much music now and it’s got a bit bumped down the list. Nilsson is cool as hell.
Easily the best snippety-samply record that’s popped up so far. Guess 90s club music sets a low bar (pun intended). Go figure it would be Eno and Byrne who clear it. First half better than second, but all in all a decent listen.
A bit too long, but a real treat among other 90s hip hop on the list. A lightheartedness and sense of humour that makes Ice T stand out from his peers.
The Bandy Borehols (this band is boring)
I have a real aversion to 50s big bandish swingish type stuff. Turns out if it has some human spirit (is far enough away from the Rat Pack), it can really frickin rock.
This guy sorta knew his way around a song eh
Too smooth. Nothing to hold on to.
Boy I just don’t know about Bruce Springsteen. Just don’t see it. The “if you listen to the lyrics, he’s actually CRITICAL Americana!” trick works once, the first time, and it IS cool. But the music is pretty not cool, to me.
These guys are not what I thought they were! First half of the album stronger than the second, but carried me through nonetheless.
Tempted to round up on the strength of the real good ones (especially the closing track). I bet if I went back and listened to this a year from now I would regret rounding down instead. Oh well. Iron Maiden rocks, regardless of rating.
Above all, a waste of a great band name.
This is so cool, and not just because it makes me think of THPS. Clean and clear production, great vocal trade offs. Good stuff.
In my mind, anything that came out after 2009 might as well have come out yesterday, and chances are it sucks. Because, after all, it just happens that they stopped making good music as soon as I aged out of being cool. I can admit this is good though. Maybe it was recorded a couple years before, when I was still under 21, and just didn’t get released soon enough. That would explain it.
I remember kinda liking this when it came out, but it feels like a harder sell now. Maybe it’s the Kanye West connection, maybe it’s John Mayer. Maybe it’s that I know Obama really likes the guy. I dunno. It’s not good when any president thinks you’re cool.
My twin three-year-olds are obsessed with the song Robots. Any time I put on any song, there’s a good chance they will yell “CAN YOU PLAY ROBOTS”. When they hear the first synth hit, they tense up, ready to run in circles, pumping their arms and screaming. Whenever they see a fan, they stick their faces right in front of it and say “WE ARE THE ROBOTS”. I have heard Robots ten thousand times. Yesterday I heard it four times. Once for this project. Three times on their request. Every day, Robots. Good album though. Not the coolest Kraftwerk, but still good.
Something is shocking: Dave Navarro has made not one but two albums that I like a lot. Despite them having a lot of the trappings of indulgent rock music I usually don’t like. Dave Navarro, for God’s sake!
If I’m ever in a situation where I have to prove to someone I’m a late 30s white guy, I’ll just show them this 5 star review.
Absolutely does not rock
More substance than the others English 90s electronic, which isn’t exactly saying much, but still,
I’m glad to have now listened to multiple Kraftwerk records. There’s more to them than I knew. This was my favourite. The first and last songs are really great. For guys on mid-70s synths, this is so much greater than the sum of its parts.
Backstory to Nyro’s career is neat, she seems like a cool and respectable musician. Good record, too.
My two favourite things: English psychedelia, and Eric Clapton. I listened with an open mind, but it was no use.
Review for the album: the funk stuff is better than the smooth r&b stuff, and the real long song was good as hell, this was a solid album and I liked it a lot. Four stars. Review for other people’s reviews: if you listen to this and say “This is DIVISIVE and TOO POLITICAL” because there is a song or two about how maybe people shouldn’t be racist, you have an American Baby Brain and should read a book and calm down lol. Zero stars.
I forgot Queen Latifah also had a music career, and this is the first time I’ve heard any of it. It’s neat! Solid late 80s hip hop, fun sampling. A decent record.
Superstition is a 6⭐️ song. It, along with a couple others, almost carries the album to a 5. I’m rounding down though, because there’s a couple that are a bit too adult-contemporary for me.
I wish I could be as cool as a Malian guitarist.
Kind of rolled my eyes when this came up, just because it’s a band that I (and most people, I think?) would consider a one hit wonder. A good lesson in checking oneself. Sounds like if the Clash had done one more album, and it was their second worst one, but in a good way. Rounding down from 3.5 here.
A big time “this was ok”. It had an ok cover of a great song (Heaven). I can’t imagine ever thinking to listen to it again.
Last Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I said I was rounding down from 3.5, in case I liked their earlier garage rocky one more. I did like this one more, but in a way that made me think the previous was inflated. Call that one a 2.5 rounded up, this one a 3.5 rounded down.
I didn’t have high hopes for a 1969 psychedelic album by the guy from Moby Grape, but hey. Sometimes we make mistakes.
Maybe the biggest value of doing this list is that every once in a while it shines a light on a blind spot. I haven’t found all that many acts that I didn’t previously know at all, but there have been a few that I just neglected until my phone sat me down and said “Listen to this.” Kate Bush is one of em, Kate Bush rules.
This is the kind of music a guy’s Gido would listen to while a guy’s bouncing around in the passenger seat of a truck that should have a child seat but doesn’t.
Rules.
I thing I’ve discovered about my own taste in Elvis Music is that the closer he is to death, the more I like him. This is better than 50s-Rock-and-Roll Elvis, but not as good as 70s staggering-around-Vegas-incoherent Elvis.
When I was a young man I was averse to Bob Marley because his place in the young white guy cultural zeitgeist was so irritating. But now it’s been close to 20 years since I last stood in a room that had a Bob Marley poster in it, and I’ve finally let myself come around. I like Bob Marley now.
With a name like that you’re either getting totally psychotic metal, or totally bland millennial electro pop. Unfortunately this is the latter.
I don’t hate it. I think I would hate it if the guy were not actually from Louisiana. But I don’t love it either. A 2.5, rounded up.
My contrarian nature makes me reluctant to give a Classic Rock Classic full grades. But I have to speak my Guitar Guy truth. Nobody does it like Hendrix, to the point that I’m not sure I even consider him Influential in the way that we like to call some guys Influential. Has anyone ever really figured out how he did what he was doing and built on it? I don’t think so. It’s hard to imagine hearing this when it first came out. But it’s even kinda hard to imagine hearing it for the first time now, ya know?
It’s a 1.5 that I would normally round up. I’m rounding down because the last album I had was the Hendrix debut and in human spirit alone, it wouldn’t be fair to say this is within 3 stars of that. There aren’t enough stars in the world to bridge that gap.
Maybe it’s because I listened to it while stuck in downtown traffic on a snowy evening, but the more I this album went on the more hypnotic and pleasant it became.
It takes a special kind of talent to be a sad folk 90s acoustic guitar guy and make multiple records that stand out and hold up.
[vigorously shaking] “Magic eight ball, are ANY of these English electronic albums going to be inspiring whatsoever?” [UNLIKELY]
Great songs, beautiful voice. My friend tells me this was Jones’ 50th album? Imagine if Radiohead had 50 albums. There would be 38 of them on this list!
First five songs or so, I thought were pretty strong. Lost momentum pretty quick. Too bad, coulda gave probably made a nice 35 minute album out of this. Not bad, but definitely did not need to hear it.
🎷😎
Yeah yeah fine I get it now, I kinda like the Beasties now.
At one time I just have liked this quite a lot. At this time not so much. Not awful, but not something to go back to.
Not as psychically excruciating to as the Spears, or as sonically excruciating as the Carey. But some other thing, that I can’t quite put my finger on. I liked it distinctly more than those, but not enough to give it two stars. Rough time for too 40 chanteuses.
I wasn’t super Moved by this, but there’s definitely something kinda special about it. It’s like… an unusually tasteful interpretation of Big 70s Rock or something? I might regret rounding down if I listen to it again in the coming weeks.
At times this drags quite a bit (obvious by the total run time x number of tracks) but it also has a lot of moments where it locks into something really rad. And also I’m very partial to Robert Wyatt.
I’m less thrilled by this one than the last Roxy Music we had. Feels a bit more shy or something. Still cool, just not the same magic.
I like the name Giant Sand quite a lot. Is it a giant grain of sand? A giant area of sand? Not all that much to say about the record. Mostly forgettable, with a couple of Moments throughout. Lots of that on this list. Decent, maybe not essential.
Truly a horrible time in pop music, and in hindsight, maybe a tipping point. The last little bit of human spirit squeezed out, pure grey goop. When there are hit songs that are 100% AI Generated they’ll have the hits of the early 2000s to thank. This was a primer. Remember the follow up to this album, which people insisted was Groundbreaking? More grey goop, please! Yum yum yum!
Extremely rad, very sick, I bet if I were a bass player I would be going 5.
Weird to think this is the Bee Gees, but in a “huh” way, not a “this is great!” way.
Not the sort of thing that I will ever go back to, but I sure wish there was a 0 star option, because this is certainly more than twice as good as the timberlake a couple days ago
Kings of Leon? More like Stinks of Pee(on)!! Seriously though I knew I had a vague distaste for these guys, based on singles after they went mega big, but this is their debut. Shouldn’t it be kinda cool or interesting or something??
I didn’t go nuts for it or anything, but I appreciate something a bit different. I wouldn’t have listened to this otherwise, and I’d rather listen to this than a lot of other stuff
Roughly what I expected, and definitely better than a lot of the 90s pop we’ve encountered here. Still don’t care much to listen though. That’s life.
First time listen for me, despite being a big fan of Loveless. Interesting to hear them with less time and budget. Same band, but a bit less effective. Really liked You Never Should. Like a pop punk song in structure and melody, but with the psycho drums of MBV.
This rules, this is cool, it’s a lot of fun and a lot of good stuff.
Kind of bland, but not totally unpleasant.
Nerd rap from the early 2000s is not something I’d especially expect to like, but this he enough moments for me to think, “Alright! This is alright!” Some slick production, some slick songs.
Maybe I was in a weird mood or something but I found myself enjoying this more than I’ve enjoyed U2 in the last. Don’t know if I enjoyed it to a 3 Star level, but I know I gave the Joshua Tree a 2. So I’ll bump this, as a document of The Day I Enjoyed U2.
Rules.
Big band music will probably never really speak to me, but this one got me boppin my head a bit in the car. Gotta give it credit for that.
There’s a part of me that wants to generously round this way up to a 2, because it Sounds Better than all the English dance music from a decade or so earlier. But I’m not sure it deserves it. It sounds better by default, being from Continental Europe, and being made by guys who are playing on a better computer than the ones available in the 90s. Either way, this sucks. It reminds me of all the sorta indie-rock guys I knew discovering cocaine and getting sweaty and annoying. Sounds like shit too.
That’s a big “🤷ok?” from me.
It’s really something to be John Lennon and open an album with the dumbest empty-headed hippie anthem ever written… and then follow it up with basically an entire album about the darkness within. This thing rocks. Great Lennon sound, pretty wacky at times. Much better than I remember it.