As far as the now-mainstream understanding of punk's birth, this is certainly a fine album. Scratch the surface of the genre even a little, though, and you'll find that this is far from emblematic of the genre so many choose it to represent. There's a mix of good songs and poor, the second half mostly holding things up in that department, with the first half ending on the creatively bereft "Problem" before going right into the second half with strong efforts such as "Seventeen" and "Anarchy in the UK", and ending out on the band's best songwriting effort in "EMI". Lyrically there isn't anything special going on but that's to be expected, musically it's not exactly a shining example of variety. As far as the genre goes, even with just punk rock, there are many notably better efforts, and if you include all the offshoots of punk there are innumerable examples. That said, it's still a decent burst of energy and a piece of punk history, even if occasionally wrongly held up as a beacon of the genre. Punk didn't start with these kinds of bands, and definitely didn't peak with them.
As far as the album goes, while I didn't love it there's definitely more to like than i'd expected. There's a number of enjoyable songs which were mostly big singles, which isn't surprising from a pop group. "The Scientist" and "Clocks" were the tracks I was most familiar with, and they did end up being two of the better tracks, both very soft and generally bittersweet. I'd not heard "Green Eyes" before but it was one I came away enjoying most. My main issue with the album is that it definitely shouldn't be nearly an hour in length. At such a runtime, the very similarly styled tracks do start to wear off in enjoyment, and there are a few towards the back end that just blurred into each other despite being generally nice listening. Either way a surprisingly good listen.
Weirdly the opening track is both the first that comes to mind when thinking of this album, and yet one of the weaker big songs here for me. I went into this knowing I liked it, somewhat peturbed by the first track not hitting much (perhaps due to the lengthier repetitions and spoken word elements), and then immediately pushed back into my confident enjoyment of the record as songs like Star Child and Give Up the Funk rolled in. The latter in particular is a fantastic song. It's a very easy listen, a very fun listen, and probably the first album i've received so far that really feels like it deserves to be heard before you die.
A heartful southern soul album with the added bonus (that may not be a bonus to some) of an energetic and actively engaged live crowd. I don't have too much else to say than that, I love soul whenever I get round to listening to it and this is wonderful positive soul with great energy to it, highlighted by songs like "Chain Gang" and "Cupid".
As far as I can tell this is the first major Trip Hop release, at least in terms of stuff more substantive than just singles. I don't think it's unfair to say that while there's a lot of strong songs here, they aren't necessarily full of original ideas for the entire track runtimes. There's a lot of great bits in songs for sure but, for example, "Five Man Army" is a very nice chill song that doesn't entirely fill its six minute runtime with originality. That's not always a bad thing though and I gather that here a lot of the appeal is in letting the softer relaxing beats run for longer, it just doesn't entirely translate into a thrilling listen throughout for me. I'd also say that much of the album feels like it's running on a "good song, decent song" one two combo and that makes it hard to fully connect with the tracklist. Either way, there's a lot of soft soulful songs here underlayed with fun groovable beats. Tracks like "Safe from Harm" and "Hymn of the Big Wheel" (the latter totally different from a lot of the rest of the album) are really enjoyable stuff.
Not much I can put here that hasn't been said before, so i'll just say all the things everyone's already said. It's obviously a classic, as are the band, and deserves to be on the list of 1001 albums to hear before you die (i'd argue there aren't that many artists more worth putting on such a list in terms of sheer magnitude), but to my own tastes it's definitely not my favourite Queen album. That is very much just me being more of an early metal fan and loving some of the faster pre-nwobhm cuts on their self-titled album and Sheer Heart Attack, though. To my shame i'm pretty sure i'd never heard this album in full before today, so I was surprised to hear how much of it was music hall influenced. Very odd going between some of the bigger hits i've heard a hundred times to a band doing their best impression of George Formby or Arthur Askey, but a very welcome odd surprise to me. Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the biggest songs ever and more than likely the best song here (though Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon and Good Company did a lot for me personally), but there is that bit between the slower, piano-led acceptance of misery and the higher-pace rebellion against it that just feels disjointed in throwing random moments and words together that has always baffled or put me off. Again, probably something that has been noted before, just how it's always come across to me. At the end of the day it's a great album and deserves to be here, just for me I'd take an album of sillier old british music hall inspired tracks than 8 minute odysseys of call and response la la la's about doomsday prophets.
Great indie rock music in the vein of 80's bands such as Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. It shambles its way between heartful and melancholy emotion, and real energy, as any good indie album does, that bounce off each other well as songs one after the other. Tracks like "Summer Babe" and "In the Mouth a Desert" in particular are on the very top end of the genre for me. Also definitely one to hear before you die as a hugely important piece of 90's indie rock, though I would argue in terms of influence its probably drawing a lot more from others than it is giving to future bands. Best album i've had so far.
There's something odd about this band that never really clicked for me. It feels like they occupy space somewhere between post-punk and jangle pop, which are two genres I love, but never fully capturing the greatness of either. For example, the end of "My White Devil" puts me a lot in mind of Close Lobsters, but absolutely never fully finds itself in their stead. I think the track that follows, "Clay" is also definitely one of the songs here that flirts with post-punk the most and does so really well, but still feels a way off what was great about the genre at its peak. If anything it's like you blended all the late 70's/early 80's british bands and sounds, and Echo and the Bunnymen are the smoothie you're left with. That's really not to say that the songs here aren't good because they are, they just never push the boat out uniquely or in a particularly amazing way to me.
It's been a while since i've really heard an album I hated. That's mostly because i've listened to a lot less music that's new to me this year, and when I do i've stayed in familiar territory. Unfortunately I decided to start listening to more music again and started the 1001 albums list more seriously. Good because I get exposed to more music I like, bad because there are some real significant hitters that I know I hate and don't want to hear. I got this one after an eight day streak of good albums, as if my luck was tempting fate and I had to be batted back down into submission.
I've obviously heard this album before, and besides that I, like anyone else vaguely familiar with popular music and a general interest in rock music or anything pushing heavier, have heard the bigger cuts from this a good thousand times. I don't think I ever really loved, or so much liked this band, despite enjoying Sweet Child o Mine back in the day, but that was probably more thanks to having started learning guitar than having any huge interest in the worst end of "hard" rock. Nowadays, though i've been on a drought of it for a while, I love heavy metal and old people rock, though i've still got a little distaste for the weaker hard rock elements in those early trad albums. This is barely hard rock, definitely not metal, and lacks pretty much all of the elements of the good attempts at both those genres.
I don't think i've heard an album as lyrically embarassing as this. I mean it's hardly the first rock album with a lazy single-minded focus on sex and women while half-heartedly attempting to look "cool", but i've not found too many that really take this much of the cake. If i'd written "It's So Easy" i'd have burned the paper it was written on to save myself the sheer embarassment of even the idea someone else would read it. I've scarcely seen a lyric as bad as "I see you standing there/You think you're so cool/Why don't you just fuck off". It's not the only forced swear attempt that just comes off as a 12 year old's first day knowing the word fuck. "Out ta Get Me" for example is one of the better actual songs on the album (not that that means much) but mars itself with more embarassing lines like "I'm fucking innocent" and "'Cause I got something I've been building up inside/For so fuckin' long" and the extra-gold "So you can suck me".
That's not even touching on Axl's vocals which are really poor. They make no real impact, aside from grating, they're vaguely high-pitched in the vein of some great 80's metal vocalists but with absolutely zero of the actual worth or intrigue of those (thinking Bruce Dickinson or King Diamond). Instrumentally there's mostly nothing going on. I think the best stuff is the guitar on Sweet Child o Mine, which is also probably the best song here, but even then it's running too long. The last minute of that song is them singing "Where Do We Go?" repeatedly, as they know as much as anyone how go-nowhere the songwriting is, and how artificially extended each song is. Why is "Paradise City" nearly 7 minutes long? Who on this planet needs to hear 7 minutes of that song? Also just to top off the lack of ideas, two songs here with moans in, and both male and female just so they can fill the market of both male and female listeners who enjoy sexual moans permeating their music.
At the end of the day it's a very popular and successful album so i'm clearly not the majority opinion, and that's fine, so long as that majority keep this album away from my ears for the forseeable future.
Definitely one I need to listen to again. It feels like the album is wrestling with two different versions of itself, the first half having a much more experimental and interesting production while the second half has a lot more bonafide "hits" with less crazy instrumentals but ending up more catchy and memorable. In the end it manages to produce great stuff in both ends, with the really odd beat and feature of "Mango Pickle Down River" and the huge chart-topper "Paper Planes" (by far the best track here), but in a single listen it's not giving me too much more than that. By the end of the album I was definitely feeling it a lot more than the start, so most definitely one for a few more listens.
A lot of psychedelic-infused 60's work has a similar air to it, one I find familiar and comforting but in this case not one I feel pushes the boat out much. It's more of a comforting blanket, something you tend not to actively think about but value, than a mindmelding experience that many of the top-end weirdest late 60's work does for me (Red Krayola, Beefheart, etc.). That comes off a bit more incendiary than I intended but the point is it's an easy and enjoyable listen. Buckley has a very notable voice, instrumentally and melodically it finds itself very rooted in folk tradition and lyrically there's a lot to unpack. Definitely enjoyed this one, and will go back to it.
It's a Rolling Stones album, so it's not like there are going to be many people unsure of the ride ahead of them. I don't think it's anywhere near the level of some of my favourite albums by them (Their Satanic Majesties Request), and even then those albums aren't, to me, close to the great level of weird wonderful experimentation that late 60's rock is known for. Still, it's a good album for sure and one i'd recommend. I think there are probably albums more worthy of being heard before you die than this, though, including other Rolling Stones albums.
A nice little bag of standards tunes that perhaps for what it is goes ever so slightly long. This is obviously one of the earlier albums not only on the 1001 albums list but generally a very early major album, and as far as that metric is concerned, i'd definitely say i'm more of a fan of the instrumental jazz from around this time that was much more creative and boundary pushing than this comfortable but, well, standard release. Still good stuff though.
Post-Punk is my favourite genre of all. It's a perfect blend of the raw energy pushed forward by the increasingly aggressive punk outfits since the mid-60's through to the punk rock boom period efforts of the mid to late 70's, and the wonderful leaps and weirder experiments that rock music had been making around the same time. This one definitely finds itself a little further away from the total weirdness of some of my favourite post-punk releases, but with the gorgeous blend of punk burst-outs and artful pretty rock it still finds itself very high in my graces. Being from 1977 there are very few releases in the genre that found their way out before it, and as such it is a very good cornerstone of what post-punk would draw from and become. Starting with a song like See No Evil is genius, a brilliant beautiful energetic starter, while much of the rest of the album blurs into the artsier wonderful works such as Venus and Prove It. The title track is obviously the best part, the incredible instrumental break in the middle being one of the best parts of one of the best albums ever. Of the releases I know to be on this list, i'd put it very close to the top 10 of all of them. 5 stars and a genuine top shelf record.
Despite some odd flirting with stranger more broad genres, after not too long this one was going over my head a bit, and by the end I was a very slight bit bored of it. Still a decent album, with some fun poppish art rock tunes.
