Speakerboxxx is good but The Love Below is great.
"Where Are My Panties" into "Prototype" is so aggressively romantic and lovely I cannot even describe the chokehold those tracks had on my perception of attraction when I was in high school and this album came out.
There are also so many bizarre and almost spooky sounds on The Love Below. "Pink & Blue" is one.
Also, not to mention that "Hey Ya" is definitively the single song to define an entire generation of culture!
Also how the hell anyone could listen to this and then still be surprised that Andre 3000 put out a jazz flute record is beyond me.
Fine. Overall pretty good but it didn’t blow my mind, but I think that’s because it’s so influencial so it’s not, like, NEW to my ears but it was new to the world, if that makes sense. I enjoyed it and love Neil Young, duh.
“Country Girl” is the stand out track, for sure.
First of all, I'm not happy about listening to this record. I am unable to listen to Michael Jackson without thinking about how he was a pedophile, and he was powerful enough that people just LET HIM BE ONE. But anyway, that's not the point of this. I'll try to look at it for its merit.
Essentially this is a perfect blend of like, pop and disco? If that makes sense? Personally I think disco is often way more proggy and jazzy, which this is not, but it is obviously very influenced by disco.
After the two big lead-in tracks ("Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You") the album gets a little more interesting. Those songs are just so played out they only make me think of music at boring weddings. To be honest, that is still kind of the vibe to the whole album.
"She's Out of My Life" is a departure. It is sad and sweet and musically it sounds like a sound bath or something, which is fun because of the contrast to the aggressive cheer of the rest of the record.
"It's the Falling in Love" is also pretty good and it makes me annoyed that I never get to hear that song but I've head "Rock with You" probably hundreds of times.
Overall, a pretty dull record that took disco and watered it down.
This album starts off so incredibly strong. "Runnin' with the Devil" has got to be one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever.
Weird choice to have the third track on your debut album be a cover-- and one that's not that interesting to boot.
"Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" gets things back on track for sure.
This album is like, all shredding. Just so much shredding.
God damn this record is fun. 11 songs. 35 minutes. Absolutely no fucking around. Amazing. Honestly it would get five stars except for that dumb cover.
This album is lovely. It's not what I was expecting exactly from Curtis Mayfield. It's much more sad soul than funk.
First of all, I hate a live record. Hate hate hate them. So we'll see how this goes.
Ok, "Emerald" rips??????? And you can't really tell that it's live even so much?
This album kind of lost momentum for me pretty quickly, to be honest. I will say I was prepared for the live aspect to be much worse and much more annoying than it actually was. The live aspect was fairly negligible. Thin Lizzy for me is just one of those bands that is INCREDIBLE when they are on, but more often than not it's just Fine and that's all.
Looped back around to being a little dull for me at the end. "Baby Drives Me Crazy" is a whole long band introduction live album thing which is always boring as hell. However apparently Huey Lewis played harmonica on this live album only so that was a bizarre and interesting introduction to hear.
Ok so it is a great travesty of my life that "Brown Sugar" is such a great song and that it also has to be about a slave owner raping his slave. That's just honestly the worst. But god, what a song.
"Wild Horses" is another irrefutable banger. It makes me cry half the time I hear it.
I mean, this record is just the epitome of rock and roll. I think blues rock shit can be so corny but it's executed well and it's too heavy-handed on this record.
The organ solo on "I Got The Blues"!!!!!
"Moonlight Mile" is a beautiful closing track. This whole album is like, such a lovely balance between tough and sexy and sad and weird and then also sad some more. I love it.
Ok a live soul record is really something else. The audio is amazing and there is just an absolute scream of joy and anticipation at the beginning of almost every track. It's kind of delightful.
In "Lost Someone" someone just loudly shrieks in the middle of the track and it's genuinely amazing. You can tell they are just overcome with joy and I love it.
Soul, especially live soul, can be so jazzy or proggy or whatever you want to call it. There is obviously a ton of structure on this record, but because it's live, there are so many moments when he just like, ~VIBES~ for a while and it is amazing and I feel like that live aspect of soul is nearly a genre in and of itself.
This album is deranged. I have never even heard of it before, let alone listened to it, and I don't know what I expected exactly, but it certainly wasn't what this album turned out to be.
After listening to this album twice, I am STILL not sure what it is supposed to be. It makes me feel nothing but confused? I mean, it's not awful, but I wouldn't say it's good.
You know, this is not a bad record. I'm not sure that I had ever listened to any K.D. Lang before I listened to this, and it's about what I expected it to be. It's like, americana/country adjacent, but also from 1988 so there is more saxophone than I think there should be, but that jives with the time. It's a fine record. Not bad, but kind of ignorable. I think it's cool that she was a lesbian that made country-ish music, but it's very western swingy which I'm not really into, and she does that thing I hate with her voice a lot where she like, swings it open so it does that deep vibrato thing but not holding a word out? There's got to be a word for doing that with your voice but I don't know what it is. Anyway I hate that thing it's so corny unless you're like, Ella Fitzgerald.
Banger after banger. A perfect record.
I've never really listened to Santana before and this is much more like Jazz than I anticipated.
Weird, jazzy, psychy, rock and roll.
I don't know how, but I hadn't listened to this Abba record before, and it's a delight! It's very theatrical (for lack of a better word?) much more than other Abba records I have listened to.
This album is pretty strange, but not bad. It has, like, super radio hits on it, but then also weird space out jam songs. I don't love it but I didn't hate it, either.
I have a lot of feelings about Billy Joel and I am trying to leave them out of this. He's so aggressively uncool. I can appreciate that there are very catchy songs on this record, and that it is like, important to the history of music and probably did a lot for a lot of people, but it doesn't do a lot for me.
Pretty fun. Pretty rock and roll. "Breaking the Law" rules.
I mean, this record has some good tracks, but it is just not my thing. "Sweet Child O' Mine" is about as good as a Guns n' Roses track can be for me, and I still don't really love that song.
Guns n' Roses is like the easy listening of metal. Which is I guess what most hair metal is? Is this hair metal? I don't know, and frankly I don't care. It's only getting the rating it's getting from me because I can accept that it is culturally significant.
I am trying not to be biased but I love Pavement. I don't know that I think this album is revolutionary or anything, but it is definitely one I am into.
I didn't know anything about this album and had never even heard of the band, but it was delightful.
This album started out pretty interesting and good, but turns into kind of a blues rock album a bit more than I enjoy, so that was too bad.
I mean, Nick Drake doesn't fuck around.
pretty good. pretty weird.
2004! The greatest year for music! I already know I love this record, but I'll try to listen to it with new ears.
I mean this is just straight up super fun and catchy rock and roll. A very good example of everything that was good about music from this time.
I mean, Spiritualized is incredible. They very much have their own thing going and it is so big and beautiful and spacey and strange. I love it. I don't know that I think this is their best record but I do love it.
This album rules. Blur rules. Fun and cool and rock and roll.
Buddy Holly is one of very few white people that, in my opinion, was integral to the early development of rock and roll. Every single track on this record is amazing. The guitar sound is kind of fat and stinky but it still has these perfect lovely harmonies? It's amazing. "Not Fade Away" might be one of the greatest, simplest songs of all time.
Both of my parents love Buddy Holly and sang his songs to me a lot as a kid, which I am sure has made me deeply biased, but I can't ever not love Buddy Holly.
"That'll Be The Day" is so beautifully structured! The drum beats on those syllables!? Get outta here!
Another record I already love, but trying to listen to it with new ears.
Man, The xx sure can do a lot with very little.
Another one I knew nothing about before listening to it here. I don't know that I think it's my thing, but I have not really heard anything like it before, which is cool. It's like if jazz and folk had a baby. I can appreciate that it exists and is important.
I lied. "Never May You Ever" also has a high(er) number of plays on Spotify but the same rule applies. It is not very jazzy compared to the other tracks.
"Over The Hill" is maybe the best song, and certainly has the most plays by a lot on Spotify, and its definitely the least jazzy song, so that's an interesting observation about how the public as a whole has embraced this jazz/folk thing.
Kind of hate Pink Floyd but we're being open-minded! Honestly Pink Floyd is pretty inoffensive. Like, as much as I complain about them, I would never be actively angry about someone playing a record of theirs. It's just so proggy, which is not my thing, and I don't even know why! I would think that it would be something I am into being that I try to live my life like a 10-year-old boy in the 70s in most ways.
Ok, so I was sitting here thinking about how not terrible this record was until "Hey You" came on. I fucking hate this song.
I don't know man, I mean, I guess Pink Floyd is GOOD I just also find them deeply ANNOYING. It's like, white male pseudo-intellectual bullshit to me.
I mean, sure, nearly every track on this record is overplayed, but for good reason. It's an incredible record. That's an undeniable fact.
It's interesting because similarly to how the Ramones were punk influenced by girl groups I feel like Nirvana is punk/rock&roll influenced by pop, structurally speaking, which is probably what makes it so universally loved.
It's a little annoying though because I feel like other bands like maybe Dinosaur Jr were doing similar things in a more interesting way, and I will be surprised if a Dinosaur Jr record is on this list. Maybe I will be surprised though! And obviously Nevermind is insanely influential, moreso than Dinosaur Jr. Idk I'm still giving this 5 stars I'M JUST SAYING.
Another band I have historically hated! This is such a cheese-dick record. It's like children's music for adults. I hate it. There are a few moments where it almost gets interesting but then they swing back into some bullshit sing-songy carnival-ass sounding repetitive thing again. Not the worst thing I have ever heard, but not for me for sure. BOOOO.
Leonard Cohen is someone I feel like I should know about and I don't really so I'm interested to see how I feel about this.
This is kind of big and bizarre and sad. It reminds me of Tom Waits if I didn't hate Tom Waits.
Another one that I already know and love. This record is impeccable.
It is proggy or jam band-y while still being so structured and intentional. It doesn't ever feel like it's losing sight of where it's going or what is happening. Maybe that is what delineates psych?
"Rainy Day, Dream Away" is a bit bizarre with the addition of saxophone but I am still into it. It's not overwhelming or the center of the action.
I like Alice Cooper but always thought about him not necessarily being that good but just being gimmicky and fun but this is kind of a great record.
"No More Mr. Nice Guy" is silly and dumb but still so good.
"Sick Things" is a little too bizarre, but everybody gets one.
Ok unfortunately "I Love The Dead" is also too bizarre so that's too bad. Yeah, now I know why I think of him as being too gimmicky. Because when he is making just straight up rock and roll songs it is great, but then he does the over the top silly shit and it's way less cool. But not intolerable.
Honestly I am kind of amazed that I never really listened to this record when it came out. It was the hottest shit and everyone was into it.
I don't know what I was expecting this record to be but this isn't it. This is lovely and interesting and strange. It's in one of those sweet spots where you could play it at a party or at dinner or while you're cleaning or while you're doing homework. I love that.
I could obviously do without the John Mayer feature but tbh I didn't even notice it when it was happening and only when I looked at the track listing so there's that. The Andre 3000 feature is dope.
This record is spotless. I keep starting to write which certain songs are incredible but honestly, it's all of them. I mean gtfo this is what I want all music to be like.
Don't know anything about this going into it, but I'm into the cover and title.
Well. This is interesting.
Yeah, I kind of hate this. I can appreciate that it was made, but like, the world needs fewer white people making folk music "influenced by world music".
No, I don't kind of hate this I hate this so much. I keep checking to see how many tracks I have left to suffer through.
What an absolute psychopath. I don't love live records but this suits Jerry Lee Lewis.
This is a perfect record. It's so fun and good and tough and weird. I love it.
Besides the hits I don't know much about Tina Turner. To be honest I was nervous about what the cover of "I Can't Stand the Rain" because I love that original song so much, but it was kind of an interesting and fun cover.
I am not sure I love this album overall. When it's good and catchy it is REALLY good and catchy, but that is not all the time. "Better Be Good to Me" is a waste of a track. "Let's Stay Together" is a bad cover. Too many covers on this record.
I don't know, man, when this record is good it's good, so it makes it more annoying when it's boring. I know what you can do, Tina! Do it!
This is the kind of music I feel like I am not capable of fully appreciating. I think it's nice, but I don't entirely understand it, I guess. Her voice is incredible but I am just such an idiot when it comes to jazz. It feels too unstructured to me and I don't really get the appeal of all the beebopping around.
Yeahhhhhh I don't get this. At times it just feels like joke music to me? "How High the Moon" is ridiculous. But feeling this way makes me feel like a pleb! I am not proud!
Beta Band is dope. Underrated.
It's kind of ignorable music, but really good ignorable music. Like, I could put it on while I was reading or something and it wouldn't be distracting, but if I paid attention to it I would still be into it. If that makes sense.
I love Neil Young. I love this record.
Is that French horn on "After the Gold Rush"???? I love French horn!
I looked it up. It's flugelhorn. Still very cool.
"Only Love Can Break Your Heart" is so lovely and sad.
Love this record.
5 stars.
Another banger. Outkast doesn't fuck around.
You know, I had listened to this record when it came out and was unsure how I felt about it then. There are some great tracks for sure, but there's also a lot that I feel ambivalent about. Adele is kind of always like that for me. She has some super incredible tracks, but most of it feels like filler.
The best track on this record is "Someone Like You" by a long shot. I am even pretty disinterested int he other singles.
Obviously her voice is incredible and none of the music is outright bad at all, but not mind-blowing.
Love Elvis Costello and knew nothing about this specific record going into it.
Ok at first I was weirdly hesitant about this record, I think maybe because I love Elvis Costello and I hadn't heard much about this record (and also because the cover isn't very cool) but I am into it.
"Big Boys" "Goon Squad" and "Busy Bodies" are all bangers. Literally my only complaint is that "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding" is fucking corny as shit and I hate that song. Also, grow up and use an Oxford comma.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I feel about jazz overall. I love Mingus, but there is a lot I can't tolerate. This is somewhere in the middle. I can appreciate it, and I probably would listen to it again, but I don't know how it makes me feel. Maybe that just makes me stupid. Maybe jazz is supposed to be confusing.
Ok, by the end of this record I am really coming around to it.
Banger after banger. Duh. Into it.
"Bron-Yr-Aur" might be the standout one for me but there's not a single track I would skip.
Good. Important. But not quite as good or as important as Nevermind. My notes for Nevermind more or less apply to this, as well, but less enthusiastically.
Not giving Scooter the streams. I've heard it a hundred times. Our girl doesn't miss.
You know, as a non-Pink Floyd fan, this is probably the album I am least annoyed with. I am a Wizard of Oz girly above all else and obvs this album has ties. There are bangers ("Money") and the tracks that aren't bangers ("Breathe (In the Air)") are lovely space-out tracks that almost make me like Pink Floyd.
I know this album inside out and backward and I am still astounded by how good it is every time I listen to it. It is illogical that it is as good as it is. A perfect record.
It's kind of a shame that this band is known pretty much exclusively for \"There She Goes\" as that song is kind of boring and dumb and the rest of this record is quick, dirty, easy pop music. It's not incredible but certainly an enjoyable listen.
Perfect record.
I don't think I have listened to this record all the way through before. It is pretty great and about what I expected. I don't know that it's my favorite, but it's good and I can appreciate that it's important.
I know nothing about this at all but saw on Spotify that this dude was on "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel and that's how the larger world population found out about him. I can get quite into African music because it's so different to so much else, and I am enjoying this from the first chords.
This rules. It's catchy while still being strange and meandering.
Another record that is completely new to me and that I have no expectations for.
Eh. Kind of weird and good. Not amazing or mind-blowing or especially interesting. Sometimes I really wish I could read why albums are on this list becuase I wonder if it would ever change my mind.
