There’s good news and bad news about this album. The good news is that it is not a Prog rock album from the 70s for a change. The bad news is, it is this album. I don’t really know what to say beyond that. Maybe I am lacking in musical sophistication, but I do not know why this album is one that I needed to hear before I died.

Outstanding 80s metal album. Nice range of songs, much more accessible than I was expecting.

It's hard separate the artist from the character, a man who still has people professionally impersonating him. You could see his country, R&B, and rock influences all coming together, but I preferred I Got a Woman and Tutti Frutti when left to Ray and Richard. Didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Oh, it was interesting to hear some of the less commercially popular Queen songs. And there were a lot of Led Zeppelin influences here, I was expecting to see Glyn John’s name on the record. If I don’t see this record going into heavy rotation at my house, it has accomplished the goal of introducing new music into my life.

Teenage/young adult angst becomes musically incarnate. Unfortunately, unlike other angsty contemporaries, Smith forgot to make any of the music fun. Most of the songs sound like the same sad bastard music, nothing stands out. I would need to be in a very specific mental place to enjoy this, like in my parent's basement right after my girlfriend broke up with me and I got fired from my job at Burger King on the same day.

Although hip-hop has never been on heavy rotation for me, there’s something I always find interesting and enjoyable about listening to it. I don’t necessarily identify with the songs, but it’s impossible not to Nod Your Head along to the beat. Quest seems like they have tapped into whatever magic is needed to create great music.

I’m trying not to let the fact that this is the second queen album in almost as many days affect my thoughts on it. I realize now that most of my queen exposure has been on the radio, which means it’s the same dozen or so songs over and over again. Venturing out into some of the deeper cuts has been interesting as it shows much more of the wide not the band was casting as it searched for its own sound. The multi layered vocal tracks and doubled guitars that are so memorable in Bohemian Rhapsody were clearly developed over several years to reach that point. As with Queen II, I can’t help but feel that the band was as heavily influenced by the Beatles as any of their contemporaries. Some of the bouncing, boisterous songs are more reminiscent Mr. Kite and Eleanor Rigby than say D’yer Mak’er.

Absolutely loved this one. Learning Chameleon and Watermelon Man in high school jazz band was a seminal moment for me as a musician. Getting to hear those tracks in their original, 10 minute format was a treat. I didn’t realize how much of Psychedelia had entered into Hancock‘s early work, I’m not sure if this is what is meant when we talk about “Acid Jazz“? That certainly seemed like the appropriate drug to be on while listening to this album.

If the Rolling Stones and AC/DC had a baby, I feel like Slade would be the result. A progenitor of heavier rock, you can still hear the influences of the 60s on the music, but feel the oncoming rush of guitar riffs and hard hitting drums that would follow in the 70s-80s. I don’t know that I’ll be diving deeper into Slade’s discography, but I certainly enjoyed it more than some of my colleagues did.

I struggled with how to feel about this album. I enjoy Peter Gabriel, I enjoy Phil Collins, I even enjoy Genesis. But I didn’t enjoy THIS Genesis. I DID enjoy the fact that this album felt like a coherent body of work, I think it was created with the notion that the listener bears it from start to finish, not single tracks. The songs felt large, like they contained entire movements in some of them. You could hear the impact Gabriel had on the band even though he was not a member any more. Some of Collins’s iconic drumming was very present here. On the other hand, the lyrics were far too abstract for me to enjoy. Too many of them felt like the result of a “bad lip reading” segment. I probably won’t spend a lot more time with this album though I continue to enjoy the journey of listening.

There’s good news and bad news about this album. The good news is that it is not a Prog rock album from the 70s for a change. The bad news is, it is this album. I don’t really know what to say beyond that. Maybe I am lacking in musical sophistication, but I do not know why this album is one that I needed to hear before I died.