View Album
Sat Oct 21 2023
Aja
Steely Dan
Funky! I haven't heard much Jazz Rock so quite a new experience for me. Really liked the instrumentation but found the vocals fell out of my focus (rare for me) and the album became quite background music in a way that I don't often find. I liked it though!
Imo there wasn't too much variety within the songs but it really held me in a certain mood (upbeat groove with some confidence, definitely not a bad place to be)
Highlights: Black Cow, Aja, Peg (also Deacon Blues)
Would I listen to again? At some point, sure!
Would I recommend? Yes, for that particular vibe
4
View Album
Sun Oct 22 2023
Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys
Yeah no this wasn't it for me. Despite having one of my favourite songs ever in it (God Only Knows is maybe one of the most beautiful songs ever imo) the overall album just didn't resonate. I listened in mono and genuinely that may be partly why? Will relisten in stereo but I feel like it's the content that misses for me.
So much of the lyrics are the epitome of needy, unrequited, horny ballads without being enough of a banger to justify it. Go back to the beach lads.
I feel like the album pivoted at Let's Go Away into some less paint by numbers pop and had some psych influences (Caroline No is such a bizzare end song that I think they're doing for an effect) but I just don't feel like it stuck the landing.
Highlights: God Only Knows, Let's Go Away For Awhile, Sloop John B
Relisten? Yes in stereo, then probs not. I've got the songs that I wanted from the album and don't love the full experience.
2
View Album
Mon Oct 23 2023
Tonight's The Night
Neil Young
Very good reminder of the importance of context. Listened to this album with absolutely 0 pre-reading (or even knowledge of Neil Young to be truthful) and hated it (besides wonderful occasional guitar solos). Young's voice has the Dylan-esque "songwriter not singer" but the lyrics didn't hit on a first pass. After a full listen through I decided to do some reading up as I really couldn't understand why it would be seen as one of the greatest albums of all time
It's almost entirely changed by the context. Neil and the label also held my critiques of it sonically / out of context - and the more I read into the stories of Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry, the more I approached it differently and it soared in my appreciation.
Neil: "I know the first time I listened back on Tonight's The Night it was the most out-of-tune thing I'd ever heard. Everybody's off-key. I couldn't hack it... When I handed it to Warner's, they hated it. "
And yet, once I'd read into it and reappproached it as a hurried, desperate attempt at processing grief, my god is it heartbreaking and becomes a masterpiece. When you know what it's aiming for, it becomes amazing at expressing that as the most raw purging of those emotions
Highlights:
Speakin out (phenomenal guitar solo)
Borrowed tune (so vulnerable)
Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown (recorded live 4 years prior with lead vocals from Danny, who the album is partly grieving the death of)
Albuquerque
Tired eyes
Tonight's The Night pt 1 & 2
4
View Album
Tue Oct 24 2023
The Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks
Well I think I was in the perfect place and time for this album. Seems like it was written for the end of summer in an area obsessed with British Nostalgia but starting to reckon with the realisation that those days are gone
It begins twee and sickly sweet but even in the first song it starts revealing the dark underbelly of a society unravelling itself
"Preserving the old ways from being abused/Protecting the new ways for me and you/What more can we do?"
Do You Remember Walter is where the realisatuon for the loss of the traditional and usual really kicks in
Picture Book details the attempt to prove that a marriage isn't fallin apart because the pictures "prove they loved each other a long time ago"
Last of the Steam Powered Trains is a masterpiece
Big Sky, Animal Farm, Village Green and People Take Pictures of Each Other are all great also
I don't actually love listening to it but it's pretty carthartic and interesting to see something that resonates so deeply with rural, ex-tourism town and village life
Very very glad it wasn't the unironically bubblegum boyband pop of the 60s and actually had some bite to it
4
View Album
Wed Oct 25 2023
Cloud Nine
The Temptations
Wonderful album, even if it is a bit all over the place!
Opens with a gritty but maybe optimistic song?
Then a version of Grapevine released the year after Gaye that is just a bit... Why?
Then so many mopey heartbroken songs that have NO RIGHT being as good as they are considering the subject matter
Nice to hear an album that is just wonderful outside of the context of its era of release and how much it altered the trajectory of the band /was innovative (which imo is harder to realise decades after the fact and especially on a first listen)
Highlights: Cloud Nine, Runaway Child, Love Is A Hurtin Thing, Hey Girl, Don't Let Him (certified reluctant banger)
4
View Album
Thu Oct 26 2023
Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine
Cee Lo Green
Well this one was quite the journey. It was definitely my ignorance but having never willingly chosen to listen to him, I really didn't expect Cee-Lo Green to be on this list.
But after removing him from just the one hit wonder of Fuck You, I started to notice that this album featured Pharrell (twice!), Timbaland, Ludacris, TI, and is a hip hop album from 2004, which should be my dream find
And in many respects, it was! I can't help but think that if I knew of it at the time, I would have loved it. Definitely not the strongest ever but enough to go toe to toe on some songs with the best. Also genuinely had range (although I'd be lying if I said I didn't lean towards preferring the songs where he let the phenomenal beats take the stage)
His lyrics are very of their time (all front and self professed goat brags) but he definitely had some great wordplay at times. Flow was pretty good! Features I genuinely cannot believe the calibre of - phenomenal. Beats are up there with some of the best.
However you just can't not compare this to dropping the same year as the college dropout, can you? Obviously most of my life I've been a Kanye stan but I think it's pretty fair to say that the bar was well and truly raised before Cee-Lo could go for the Grammy.
Highlights - I ended up (begrudgingly at times) liking 15 out of the 18 songs, but some standouts were Soul Machine, I'll Be Around, Sometimes, and Die Trying
Honestly I'd recommend checking this out!
4
View Album
Fri Oct 27 2023
Celebrity Skin
Hole
A band I don't think I've heard a song of before but it was pretty brilliant!
Opening song was probably the highest point, especially with how unexpectedly brilliant it was from the get go.
Really liked some of the slower and quieter songs on the album, as well as the raucous - some vibes of foos (unsurprising), nine inch nails, the cure and the cranberries.
The album did have some variety but overall it did fade into one block but still a 4/5 for me
Highlights: Celebrity Skin, Dying, Heaven Tonight, Petals
4
View Album
Sat Oct 28 2023
Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
Didn't connect with this album at all. I can appreciate the political undercurrents and overtones but honestly it just didn't really resonate with me.
The chorus of Too High walked so Jacob Collier (and Bill Wurtz) could run
I get what Living For The City was trying to do but I don't think it stuck the landing
Jesus Children of America was a flop
Golden Lady and Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing were pretty good, and I wanted to like All In Love Is Fair but just couldn't
I think my first 1* album of the project? And I thought I'd like it as I really like the best of Stevie. Slightly sad but there are many many more
1
View Album
Sun Oct 29 2023
16 Lovers Lane
The Go-Betweens
It was quite nice!
Started off well with Love Goes On! and Quiet Heart. After that I found that nothing took my interest much, but Clouds and Was There Anything I Could Do were also good
I think I'm really realising just how many of these albums are listed for their influence or innovation, which again, doesn't really translate when listening so long after release and after those innovations and influences have become general soundscapes. Or maybe I just haven't had albums that have fully blown me away yet!
3
View Album
Mon Oct 30 2023
Revolver
Beatles
Yeah this is just as good as the hype. First 5* album from me
5
View Album
Tue Oct 31 2023
The Fat Of The Land
The Prodigy
I feel like the prodigy's biggest hits on here (Smack My and Firestarter mainly) are seared into my brain from my uncle being obsessed growing up, and I feel like it's hard to rate rave music in a vacuum? Like you need to have a massive crowd of bodies at nighttime with pulsing lasers and I'm just like... On a beach at 10am. But besides that context, I can absolutely find myself still loving the beat breaks and I can only imagine what it would have been like to hear those monster songs for the first time again.
4
View Album
Wed Nov 01 2023
Tical
Method Man
Pretty damn good! Haven't listened to much wu tang ever but the beats are instantly recognisable and make me want to dive much more into the back catalogue. I didn't get the chance to really dive into the lyrics but I will in time!
4
View Album
Thu Nov 02 2023
Guitar Town
Steve Earle
Ended up liking more than half the songs, which I didn't expect at first!
4
View Album
Fri Mar 08 2024
The Renaissance
Q-Tip
Great running album, will relisten at some point for the lyrics
5