I’m right on a 3. When this album hits, it hits pretty good – there are some genuinely energetic songs here that come together in complete harmony between the vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation, and I’d say that comprises about half the album. The other half tends to hit on just one or two of the three, but never quite hits that perfect balance on all 3; sometimes, it’ll reach it briefly during one of the other 7 songs, but it never sustains it for long enough to really click like the other 7 do. I’ll say this – it never falters on the instrumentation. I especially love the usage of the horns here, giving everything a sort of Ska vibe that I think is kinda underrated. The mixing is… a bit suspect at times, with the guitar especially overwhelming almost every other instrument here on most of the songs, but I never thought it was that big of a deal. I mean, ultimately, it’s a fine album, but it’s just kind of underwhelming for an album to really peak around Track 6 or 7 and then kinda just walk its way to the finish line, you know? I felt less engaged by the halfway mark, and it just sort of wore me down by the end. There’s solid stuff here, and I’d imagine someone will stay engaged the whole way through, but it just doesn’t feel like I needed to listen to this before I die. It’s a solid 3, and that’s really about it.

This is the worst Beastie Boys album I’ve ever listened to. OK, fine, I’ll be real with you, it’s a completely soulless, uninspired, mediocre 2 that probably has at least one or two guilty pleasures on it, if only for their presence in the cultural zeitgeist of the time, or in the obnoxious case of Cowboy, a genuine acknowledgement that there is something catchy to it, however minor, if only for the obvious sample and how Neil Cicierega has used it in the years since. From listening solely to the clean version, and refusing to hear Kid Rock openly use the N-word on the original final track of this album, what I find is that this is my “rap / country / rock fusion whatever the fuck genre we’re defining this as” version of Apocalypse Dudes, in which if you completely ignore the fucking horribly dated lyrics and just pluck one song from this album at a time while exercising or something else, you will end up with a small but effective boost of energy in terms of having not terrible guitar and drum work, even with Kid Rock just screaming on more than half the tracks. As an entire album experience though, it is objectively so fucking boring, so draining, so long, so repetitive, and so similar for most of its tracks, that the only reason it’s even partially getting a 2 is that there are at least a few fleeting moments of actual tiny headbops that come in and out, unlike that fucking awful Tricky album (Maxinquaye is still worse, yes, sue me). Out of a complete lack of respect for Kid Rock as a person though, even though this album is a 2 in my mind, I'm going to rate it a 1 anyway, because fuck you, Kid Rock.

Yeah, that’s a 5. I knew this was the album that had Baba O’Riley, but I never made the connection that Won’t Get Fooled Again was that fucking song. Those are the two standouts, obviously, but everything in between so perfectly compliments each other in terms of the instrumentation and the vocal performance, probably most deeply anchored together by the fantastic percussion throughout this album that really makes each song pop that much harder, especially on The Song Is Over and Getting in Tune. It’s just a really fucking good album, man. Even its weakest points where the sound lulls a bit or repetition starts to seep in, which are few and far between, are still great to listen to. Very deserving of a 5, and highly recommended.

I think people know this album as the one with Clocks & The Scientist – I certainly did, and I won’t act like I’m not guilty of that. It's more than that; It’s an instant classic. In terms of sticking to a theme, expanding on that theme, and keeping both a vocal style & an instrumental style that hooked me in, I think the album as a full experience was as enjoyable of a listen as I’ve gotten out of any other album. If I’m being nitpicky about it, then… yeah, the album sticks to its theme really, really hard, but it doesn’t really feel repetitive to me, even though we’re dealing with a similar one throughout. Much like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, it’s not a full 5, but it’s so close to a 5 for me that I think I have to rate it that.

It’s a 4.5 that I’ll round up to a 5. Other than the extreme dissonance of Hit the Plane Down, I really don’t think there’s a bad track on this album; there’s a lot of Nirvana to this at the start, but it slowly blends in a bit of R.E.M. as well, and that general soundscape just worked really well for me. I think this album shines best in its guitar and percussion work, but the vocals hold up pretty well against them, as do the lyrics for a good chunk of the album. Just a really strong listen for me; glad we got this one, and I feel good with a 5.

The thing about listening to an album like this is that you sign up for this sort of ethereal experience where once you lose that initial luster of a new soundscape, you start to lose your focus, and once you start to lose the focus, you miss out on the nuances of the performance – the guitar player working overtime to hit every note, the bass player who has to keep the rhythm, the drummer working so fast in syncopation – that once you finally get back into reality, everything that you’ve been listening to hits you like a truck. When you’re listening, it’s a vibe, and it’s a vibe you don’t appreciate until that moment that it ends. The soundscapes in this album do eventually overwhelm you, and your enjoyment of this album is truly dependent on how much of that soundscape you can stay engaged for. This album, sonically, is nothing short of incredible; every instrument mixed to perfection, every drum kick, every bass strum, every guitar solo just lies perfectly where it needs to. At some point, I got lost in it. However, I can’t give it a 5/5 just because at some points, I briefly woke up from that entrancing feeling. My best advice? Just let go. Put in some headphones, walk around, and let this album carry you. it's like a 4.5/5 though

I feel like a moron for not listening to any Bruce Springsteen before this. This is a brilliantly produced, cohesive project that makes its theme obvious throughout and it's a treat to listen to, but it's another strong 4/5 for me.

I feel like the critiques of a very British culture that’s too obsessed with sex and too caught up in the material things isn’t as valid in 2024 as they were in 1994. It doesn’t mean this album is bad; from top to bottom, it never strays from what its purpose is, and I respect the hell out of it for that. It’s a good listen, but I’d say it’s only about a 3.5/5 for me.

From a pure technical standpoint, this is instrumentally just so ahead of its time for me (either that or I don’t know shit about ‘60s rock) that whatever sort of mesmerizing feeling it gave me throughout, it ultimately just left me impressed, across the board, except for A Venture. I struggle to give it a full 5/5 but it’s absolutely a 4.5, and I think it’s my favorite album so far.

For all intents and purposes, I have to give this a 5, because it’s so much closer to a 5 than it is a 4 – just after one listen, it stands on its own merit as just a classic album. Not only did it live up to the slightly lofty expectations I had set for it, it blew them away because it’s just far, far, more than what I originally thought it was gonna be. It is my favorite album we’ve done so far.

I have to rate this album for what it is: probably the endgame of the Sugarhill Gang-era style of rap, while setting the stage for rap to properly enter the mainstream behind such a commercially safe album. Without the confidence in themselves & the genre as a whole that exists in this album, then I can’t imagine the genre really taking off like it did for the rest of the decade and the ‘90s onward. By every modern standard, I think it’s a mediocre album, and I personally can’t rate it any higher than a 3… but it’s not a BAD album. A little cheesy, sure, but that’s the sacrifice of making such a safe album.

If I could rate each part of this album, I think I’d give the front half a strong 3/5 (for my sensibilities) and the back half a 4/5, almost solely on production that feels at least 7 years ahead of its time. Obviously, that balances out to 3.5, but as an entire album, I don’t think I’d feel right rounding that up to 4 – that would put it at the same level as the Yes album, the Springsteen album, and the Funkadelic album, and I just don’t think I enjoyed this as much as those. I think it’s about even with Parklife for me. Definitely better than Run-D.M.C. though.

This isn’t an album you judge by modern standards. This is the sort of album that in 1964, you bought, you sat down, and you just listened. The lyrics eventually came to you the more you listened. This is a vocal showcase, but it’s also a musical showcase – not about how many synths you can use, or how fast you can drum or strum, or how fast you can spit out a melody, but a musical showcase of the innate spiritual feeling it gives some people, regardless of genre. For my own personal enjoyment, I think just sitting here, vibing, and letting that feeling overcome me is a better experience than either of the last two albums we’ve listened to. I think for me, it’s a strong 3.5 that personally rounds up to a 4, but you have to be in the right mindset and mood for it to be a 4. It’s certainly no less than a 3.

This album is absolutely what I hoped it would not be after the first 2 tracks – a kind of PS2 butt rock soundtrack. If you were to just listen to a random song off this album, it’s probably a great burst of energy. Like, if you threw this album into a workout playlist and had a song occasionally come up on shuffle, I’m sure it would be a great boost. Yet, as a listening experience for a whole album, due to the lack of variance, it’s absolutely the least enjoyable of what we’ve done so far, at least to my ears, and I’m rating it a 2.

For my first Radiohead album, I think I certainly got a more experimental one, but I didn’t get a bad one. Compared to the last album, we’ve got such a variance of styles, and those styles enhance the core sound & the core message of the album. As a listening experience, it’s a really good album, and I think I have to add every track (except Fitter Happier) to my big playlist pretty much solely on the production and the vocals. Lyrically, I’m sure I missed some stuff, but I don’t know if I really care. Right now, it’s not a perfect album to me; there were some points where the dissonance of everything turned me away, at least on that first listen. I don’t think I can give it a 5 right now, but it’s no less than a 4. I can see where the hype comes from, and I think if I give it another re-listen or two to just let everything truly overwhelm me, it could easily be a 5.

I think people know this album as the one with Clocks & The Scientist – I certainly did, and I won’t act like I’m not guilty of that. It's more than that; It’s an instant classic. In terms of sticking to a theme, expanding on that theme, and keeping both a vocal style & an instrumental style that hooked me in, I think the album as a full experience was as enjoyable of a listen as I’ve gotten out of any other album. If I’m being nitpicky about it, then… yeah, the album sticks to its theme really, really hard, but it doesn’t really feel repetitive to me, even though we’re dealing with a similar one throughout. Much like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, it’s not a full 5, but it’s so close to a 5 for me that I think I have to rate it that.

This album could’ve been cut in half, or even into a third, and I would’ve given it a lot of credit for being an early proponent of the style that would come to define a lot of video game music & the synthesizer use that was soon to come in the ‘80s – short little electronica pieces with fun melodies that work as a great background noise, and certainly ahead of its time. While all of that is still true to me, the issue is that each track is just feels so long to me that they all overstay their welcome. Don’t get me wrong; I understand that this is sort of what it’s like to ride on that titular express, as made obvious by the sound design. The problem is, if you're riding on an express and look outside, a landscape has scenery changes. Even if you’re just stuck looking at trees, each tree has their own thing, and they go by in a blur. These tracks don’t go by in a blur, and they didn't captivate me in like seeing a big mountain in the distance. In 1977, I'm sure this was great, but in 2024, it feels less like I’m riding a high speed train, and more like I’m stuck on a tourist bus in LA traffic. I'm disappointed to give this a 2 -- not because it's that bad, but because it just doesn't fit my sensibilities for an album experience, and I didn't enjoy it as much as some of the other albums we've done so far. It was better than Apocalypse Dudes, though.

In terms of being a concept album that gives you its story from start to finish, backs that up with great instrumentation, and keeps you rather compelled once it really kicks in, then… yeah. We’ve got a great album here. It’s not perfect; even though I think Lou’s voice still ended up being the perfect tone by the end of the album, I don’t think the sort of monotony works at the start, when Jim hasn’t gone completely drug-addicted and insane. It also doesn’t really spell out the idea that there’s a story going on here until about track 6, at least for a presumed “casual” listen like I was doing. If you want to go all in on the concept album, then start with a curtain opening or something; give the listener a very audible clue that this is an overarching story and each song has a part to play in it. I think just because I got so enthralled by it, I have to give it a 5 out of respect for absolutely nailing what it went for, but it's not a very replayable album: if we were going out of 10, I'd probably give it an 8.5/10. I'd recommend the album to anyone, as long as you tell them there's a story first.

I think based on what I knew about R.E.M., I was expecting something more akin to their big hits – in terms of the soundscape, it absolutely delivered, and for a debut album, I think it perfectly sets up the framework for all of their future records. They stick to it perfectly, and I think the vocal performance on each track suits every single track. Lyrically, I was just desperate for more substance. It isn’t gonna drag the album down for me that much, but after Berlin, I'm just kinda underwhelmed. I think I have to give this a 4, but it doesn’t really feel that way to me, just because I couldn’t get past the lyrics thing, I couldn’t enjoy it as much as say, the Yes album or OK Computer, but I definitely enjoyed it more than Neil Young & Run D.M.C. It’s like a 3.6, I guess.

i liked it better when he wasn't singing

well that sure was drum and bass (it's like a 2.5 but i can't give it a 3)

I think it’s hard to quantify this album into numbers. It’s not an album you can replay; there’s no big hit single here, there’s no catchy one-liners, there’s not even really melodies like that. There’s just Bjork, her voice, her emotions, and her soundscape. It’s hard to enter that soundscape at first, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it turns off some people early on (it nearly turned me off tbh). If you stick to it, what you end up with is a very cathartic album – a baring of the soul of someone who’s so clearly been through so much shit that they had to get it off their chest. I do think the album could have ended on track 7 to make for a much more complete and fulfilling experience, but the last 2 tracks didn't take away from the sort of mesmerizing feeling the whole album gave me. I’m gonna give it a strong 4, and in retrospect, that’s the same rating I should’ve given to Berlin. They both do an incredible job of conveying their themes and their emotions, but I think the more personal nature of this album pushes it ahead of Berlin for me in terms of concept albums, though like I said; this is an album that you can’t really quantify with numbers. You either feel it or you don’t.

I mean… wow. Sonically, this album feels so full to the ear, from the heavy basslines, the sampled drums & other beats, and perfectly placed vocal flows that I find it impossible to not enjoy this album from that standpoint alone, but... Look, if Run-DMC made commercially viable mainstream hip-hop possible, and N.W.A. gave rap the blueprint to have the amount of edge you’d find in albums to come, this album is the perfect melding of both – the commercially acceptable sounds of jazz and great sampling that others would continue to try and refine throughout the decade, mixed with the type of vocal flow to appease the holdovers from the Sugarhill Gang-era who couldn’t quite get behind Dr. Dre & company, with a lot of bones thrown in for the N.W.A.-adjacent crowd. Don't even get me started on the ripple effects this album must have had on R&B for the decade and beyond too. For my money’s worth, this is the best album I've listened to so far. It is easily the most deserved 5 I've given, and if we were going by 10, I’d genuinely give it at least a 9.75/10, if not an outright 10. I think, for my sensibilities, it's basically a perfect album, and I am a complete moron for not listening to it beforehand.

Well, it’s not what I was expecting, obviously, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. I think for 1975, it’s a very interesting call to go for an album like this, and in a lot of ways, I think there's a semblance of some modern production here. I don’t think there’s a whole lot to say other than “it sounded really nice,” and I think for my tastes, it did a really good job of filling its soundscape up to keep me captivated. It’s like a 3 – I don’t think it’s super great, but it’s a really chill listen and it’s something I’d recommend. Just not like, mind-blowing or anything.

This is an entirely forgettable album for me; it’s not really that good, but it’s not so egregiously bad that it sticks in the brain on account of that. Sure, the soundscape is great, and Maxwell’s vocals are really smooth, but I can’t really tell you the difference between Track 1, Track 3, Track 8, or Track 11 off the top of my head, and that’s just not a good album experience for me. To me, it suffers from the same problems I had with Apocalypse Dudes & Trans-Europe Express: each track is either too similar or too long. They all sound nice, and I’m willing to give Maxwell credit if this album did indeed innovate and refine a genre like Wikipedia is claiming it did. But by the standards of 2024, I just don’t think it works for me. It’s still better than Apocalypse Dudes, but I actually don’t think I enjoyed it as much as Trans-Europe Express. I’m gonna stay consistent with my rankings of those and give this a 2.

It’s a 5. It’s the fastest 5 I could possibly give. Like, I could easily go on about the guitar work, the vocal work, the drum work, and how it all comes together to make one of the greatest rock soundscapes ever, but the strength of this album is simply making its listener feel. This album just enthralled me from start to finish, and that’s a compliment I can give to very few albums. Really, I’m just… kinda speechless. It’s a perfect rock album in the same way that The Low End Theory is a perfect rap album. Pinnacles and bar-setters of a genre for their eras, with a timeless sound to both.

Nah. Just nah. It’s not egregiously terrible, but these songs drone endlessly on without any clear direction; especially Track 3, my god. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the most baffling instrumental choices I think any of these albums have made so far. For a pretty early attempt to blend jazzy instruments with electronica and synth, I have to give it credit for occasionally succeeding. The problem is, those moments are so short and so fleeting under these incredibly fucking long songs that it’s like finding a $1 bill while you’re walking through a sea of pennies. Those moments are enough to put this album at a 2 for me, but… this just wasn’t it, man.

Man, that’s a really good album. For 1969, I think it completely hits on all of its goals; talk about the social issues of the time, show off some fantastic musical skills, and just make an album you can vibe out to regardless of who you are. I’m really more impressed by the guitar work on this album than anything else – I’m not one to focus too heavily on individual instruments, since I think a full soundscape should usually be driven by everything working in harmony, but this album manages to achieve a great harmony between its vocals, the basslines, the drums, and all the other instruments that they throw in throughout, while letting the guitar just absolutely shine throughout. I ripped heavily into Third for not being able to keep its listener engaged, but I think it’s because it was just experimenting too hard for my tastes. On this album, I think Sex Machine is 14 minutes of just an incredibly satisfying jam session (save for that kinda grating guitar about 9 minutes in) that does exactly what I wish Third had done: keep it simple while just finding a fun way to integrate these rock instruments with a jazzy feel. That instrumental philosophy rings true throughout every aspect of this album, and I think my only complaint here is hoping for a little more lyrical density, but that’s kind of a nitpick. It’s a really fun album, and I think it’s a high 4 that could easily round up to a 5 on any subsequent listens. Probably didn't need Track 2, though.

For a debut album, that’s a fucking great album. A lot of my compliments for IV apply here too – the guitar work, the vocal work, the drum work all come together to make a really, really good soundscape. It’s obviously a lot more refined and perfected by IV, but this album is no slouch of its own, and I think some of its more high energy tracks just feel better to my ears than IV’s songs at certain points. For Stand!, I mentioned how the guitar work stood out to me, but that’s taken to an even higher level on this record for me. As a complete album, I do think there are some songs here that are just a little underwhelming, or a little unfitting, but they don’t take away from my enjoyment of this album whatsoever. It’s not a 5 for me, at least not on this first listen, but it’s absolutely like a 4 at least, and a highly recommended listen.

I mean… man. Slow start, big finish, but what an album. I’ve always been an MJ guy and not a Prince guy, which is to say I’ve always treated Michael’s albums with incredible reverence, and only given the same reverence to Prince’s big singles – Little Red Corvette, 1999, Kiss, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain, and so on. This album has made me realize I am a moron for not approaching Prince’s albums in the same way. There’s just an energy to this whole thing that’s a bit understated – I thought tracks 2 & 3 were a little disjointed, and I wasn’t vibing with them, but it fucking kicked into high gear for me with Track 6 and then never looked back. Lyrically, sometimes I wish Prince were a little less horny, but I get the feeling that would be the most futile cause in all of music. Instrumentally, I just hear the quintessential sound of the 1980s all wrapped up into one album; your acoustics, your electronics, your pre-programmed drums, your live drums, your horn sections, your deep voices, and your falsettos. In every sense of the word, it’s a 5 – realistically, for my tastes, it’s probably like a 4.75 (few tracks go a little long, slight repetition, be less horny), but I’d be a criminal to not round it up. Just a really, really good listen. High recommendation.

So, I’ve never listened to this in full with headphones in or anything like that – I had a small sense of what the album was like, or at least I thought I did. If you focus solely on the instruments, you end up with such a funky, bassy record that takes all of Thundercat’s best production beats on To Pimp a Butterfly, and then expands them to fit his own sensibilities lyrically. If you take the time to focus on the lyrics, you end up with all the phases of what it’s like to be drunk: the brief jolts of happiness, the random thoughts that creep in, the deep seated feelings that something isn’t right and you’re just kinda running away from something, and then the overwhelming sadness that comes as that drunk feeling starts to wear off. They meld together to make a really good soundscape, and ultimately, a really good album. I don’t think it’s perfect – I think some tracks go a little too short, I think some tracks didn’t quite click right with me on this first full listen, and there are some instrumentals where I went “I wish this was used for something with a little more depth,” but those are all nitpicks. The whole album is a great, great listen, and I’d recommend it to anyone. Strong, strong 4. Probably a 5 if you’re high.

…It’s just OK. There’s really nothing that special here – I have a number of songs I sorta liked while listening, just because they hit on some of my musical sensibilities, but it’s a pretty forgettable album otherwise. There’s no standouts, there’s nothing here but a really stripped down style: two vocalists, a good drummer, and a sick guitarist. Instrumentals on this album are great, but the lyrics and the vocal performances just weren’t always clicking for me. It’s a mediocre 3; it kinda just feels like it’s a worse version of Murmur by R.E.M..

I think this is a strong 3 for me – like, if we could go by decimals, you’re looking at a 3.5 that I can’t personally round up to a 4. This album hits on a lot of my sensibilities for this era, but I feel like the vision she’s going for isn’t fully realized over the course of this album. You’ve got great soundscapes, and when they hit in tandem with the lyrics, they hit, and I’d say they hit more often than not. However, when they do feel disjointed, it kinda sticks out to me in a way that… doesn’t ruin the album experience, necessarily, but it’s harder to stay invested for me because I kind of have to focus one way or the other instead of working in harmony. Those moments are what’s keeping me from rounding up to a 4, but this is a really nice sounding album, and I think there’s some high emotional points on it that would make me recommend it to some people I know.

This is possibly the most conflicted I’ve been on rating an album so far. The political climate of 1972 for Brazil underscores a lot of this album, and there’s a passion throughout it that’s so easy to feel, but probably very hard to understand in 2024 without an innate knowledge of the subject that I just don’t have. Let me be clear: I’d be a moron to not acknowledge that this is a good album. It does not sound like it came from 1972 at all – there’s an exploration of so many genres here that it feels like the album had an incredible vision of what music was gonna be for at least the next 20 or 30 years, if not longer, and it’s all carried by two things: guitar playing that simply feels timeless, whether it’s acoustic, electric, or bass, and absolutely passionate vocals by Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges that you can feel even through the language barrier. My confliction is not “is this good or bad” – it’s do I give this a 4 or 5? I feel like I can’t give it a 5 because of that language barrier, and how I don’t think I can fully enjoy the album because of that, but I’d also probably be a moron to not give it a 5 out of pure trust in how cathartic this album must have felt in 1972, and how well it’s aged into modern times; so many of the other 70s albums we’ve heard have occasionally had mixing issues or choices that clearly dated them. If we were going by 10, it’d be an easy choice to just say 9/10 and get it over with, but for a 5 point scale, I think I have no choice but to round it up, just out of respect for nailing everything it tries to do.

It’s… realistically, just a 3. It’s a pretty atypical country album for this time period I think, with a little extra flair here and there, and nothing really stands out except for a few tracks… but personally, it’s an album I think I’ll keep in shuffle. I have an incredible nostalgia for this type of soundscape – the country twang, the strong vocals, the fiddles and violins and strings mixed with crisp drums. The feeling this album gave me really, really did send me back to days of sitting in a car that still took old cassette tapes, with my dad popping them in during any car trips, and they always sounded like this. I haven’t forgotten that sound, but I haven’t actively been seeking it out. This album has made me want to revisit that sound; to find those old cassettes, to see what they were and to see if they hold up. It’s just a really nice album for me, and I'm glad I listened to it.

Another solid 3 – there’s some good highs here, not many lows, but overall, I feel just… whelmed. A lot of these tracks feel like they’re missing one extra thing in them that would really fill out each song and make them feel more complete. It’s not a disappointing album per se, it’s just dripping with some unmet potential, I think. It’s not a bad album, but it’s not one where I’d go back to too many tracks. I think it’s certainly worth a listen – there’s good stuff in here, namely the stretch of tracks 5 through 9, and I’m sure there’s some of the other tracks that would hit better to my ears if I listen even more, but... I think I’m just gonna stick to a 3.

That is absolutely pure jazz. I could nitpick; a few tracks have the instruments going a little too hard sometimes for it to be a super relaxed jazz album, but that’s the type of nitpick that would get you punched in the face. It’s just a great album for easy listening – there are some points where I was maybe hoping for lyrics or a brass section moment, but nothing ever really felt empty. Absolutely a must-listen record, even if it’s only as background noise, because it will eventually suck you in, either with the bass, the piano, or the drums. I don't think it's a 5 – it's not the type of album that I'd give a 5, but I’m gonna go with a 4. I'm giving it that just because it’s a REALLY timeless jazz record; there’s not a single missed note or beat here. Just a great listen.

I came into this album expecting ska, and to some degree, I did get it, but I kinda wish I came in with different expectations. This is a highly diverse, really experimental album for 1980 that I think hits more often than not. As far as the production goes, even after a pretty slow start marked by pretty traditional instrumentation, once it starts to get into the experimental, a lot of what’s on this record feels pretty ahead of its era – the sort of soundscapes that diversify themselves throughout this album certainly became more mainstream by the late 90s and early 2000s, and in that sense, this album is way more of a trendsetter than I was expecting going in. For 1980, I’m sure this was a little polarizing, but for 2024, everything in here feels pretty typical, but it still feels kinda fresh and nice, and I’m super impressed by that. It’s not a perfect album; there are some mixing things here and there, and a few tracks kinda just made me bored, but I think I’ve got to give this thing a 4 out of respect for being able to switch between so many genres and for usually just being really catchy.

This album could’ve been cut in half, or even into thirds, and I would’ve given it a lot of credit for being (does this sound familiar yet?) a completely competent album with a great runtime that explores a variety of styles and explores them all in short bursts, with some mediocre vocals, and I’d have given it a 3. The completely needlessly long runtime and repetitive production that actually permeates this entire album single handedly ruins it. It’s not an egregiously terrible album, but it just drains on and on, and it gets so utterly boring by the end that you barely realize the final track is the final track. It’s a 2, but it’s an Apocalypse Dudes-style 2 where individually, I’m sure these would be great tracks in bursts, but as a whole album, it’s just a miserable experience to me.

I am in a sort of stunned silence. I know Nirvana’s big hits, but I don’t think those big hits really represent the true spirit of the band. Smells Like Teen Spirit is obviously nowhere to be found on this album, and it doesn’t feel missed at all. Kurt Cobain and the rest of Nirvana wanted to just be themselves, jam out, and do some of their favorites, big hits be damned. The fact that half of this record is covers is a testament to how little they cared about the commercialism of it all. There were times where I kinda just zoned out to let the music carry me, but I think that’s the underlying point of Nirvana as a band. It’s very easy to understand their biggest hits, which is where I clearly was (and still am, really), but to understand Nirvana, and to more aptly explore Kurt Cobain, I feel like this album just gives a lot of insight into why Nirvana has endured this long after his passing. I’m sure there’s even more answers on their studio records, but there’s just something about that last song, and the way everyone literally held onto his every breath that just explains why he was so captivating to so many people without a single word. I really don’t think there’s a flaw in this album – I’m going to give it a 5, but something tells me that I deeply need to go back to the original studio versions of each song in here that I didn’t know to really appreciate these more stripped-down versions even more.

It’s a really, really nice 3 that I’m going to be biased and call a 4, just for how often I felt touched by this album. It really does just come down to how well their vocals blend together, and my bias towards this sort of general sound. I might have this sort of bias for a lot of the country albums that come up, but I’ll live with that. If nothing else, this album is great for easy listening, and to hear three great female vocalists. For my tastes, it just hit right, and sometimes, that’s all you can ask music to do.

Sympathy for the Devil set a major tone for a completely different sounding album. I was expecting a sort of big heavy rock album, and instead, I kinda got a sort of pseudo country album mixed with some other flavors and rock stylings, but it’s an album I’m totally down with. I’ve never listened to a full Rolling Stones album before this, but I thought the production here was incredibly good, and even though it didn’t retain the same energy that Sympathy for the Devil kicked off with, the sort of country/folksy/blues sensibilities that wash over the rest of the album just fit really nicely for me, and I liked it a lot. It’s a strong 4; certainly worth a listen, and I’m sure that the tracks I wasn’t fully vibing with might be someone else’s favorite; that’s a testament to the pretty good variance in this album.

I feel like I just got drugged by David Byrne. I’ve never listened to a Talking Heads album in full, but I thought I knew some of the eccentricities of the band (and namely Byrne), but clearly I wasn’t fully prepared. This album goes in so many directions lyrically that it kinda distracted me from REALLY great production that feels ripped a little more out of 1987 than 1977. I’m not complaining about the album, necessarily; I think it’s a good listen, but you really have to be in the mindset for it, and you have to accept that shit will get kinda wacky. It's like a 3.5 that I don't think I can really round up to a 4, but I think it's a good album, and it’s certainly an album that I think needs another listen or two to really get and appreciate more.

That’s a 5, through and through, and if we were going by 10, to me, it’d be a 10/10. It comes as no surprise to me that this is the best-selling album of the 21st century thus far, and I feel like a moron for never listening to the whole thing until today. I really truly think this is the album that defined the sounds of the 2010s, for better or for worse, and the fact that she was only 21 is insane to me. I loved every single song on here, and obviously, I’m a little biased because of growing up on the big hits, but there’s some incredibly good stuff in between that I had never heard until this listen. I think every part of this album, from the production, to the lyrics, to the vocals, hits on everything I love about music. Perhaps, in some subconscious sense, the amount of times I heard the singles from this album on the radio, or on YouTube, or in some movie or ad, is what shaped so many of my musical tendencies as I grew up. Just a spectacular album, and for me, a timeless one.

This may be harsh, but... I really think it’s actually the worst album we’ve listened to so far, at least for my sensibilities. I think my main problem is that it’s just really boring. Like, with the other “bad” albums we’ve had, they keep a consistent theme, there’s at least an attempt at some energy, and there’s usually at least one song where I go, “you know what, that was kinda catchy,” but on this one… it’s just not there at all. The most important thing an album can do is make you feel something; the “bad” albums got me to feel, even if it was anger at repetition or never evolving a sound, but for this one, I felt quite literally no emotion whatsoever. I feel like I’ve just listened to a bootleg album composed entirely of raps and instruments from old 90s CD sample discs; you know, the ones filled with nonsensical verses or random lines that ended up in like, Marvel vs. Capcom soundtracks and stuff. The problem is, there’s no way to make any of these songs actually interesting to my ear. Every track here feels like it’s got absolutely no energy, whether it’s in the production, the tempo, or the vocals, and that just goes against a lot of my musical sensibilities. It’s the first 1 I’m going to give – it’s just that boring to me.

Completely competent drum and bass that I listened to while doing my morning routine. Just a 2.

It’s hard to find a good way to describe how I feel about this album. It’s certainly not bad; I think it’s one of the best albums we’ve hit upon during this experience. It’s just a lot different than what I was expecting, and it’s a little hard to find a way to really convey that. Without question, this is fabulous production from top to bottom – I think the lyricism on all these tracks hits the right balance between serious, funny, introspective, and so on. The sampling throughout the album has such a wide and vivid range of styles and soundscapes that really shows just how much the Beastie Boys cared about respecting the genre and its evolving sound through the 90s as white artists. If I had any nitpicks, it would be that there’s maybe a few too many instrumentals on the album? They’re all great, but they do sometimes fail to keep the energy of a previous track going. There’s also the amount of vocal distortion, which may or may not be a Beastie Boys staple, but I found it sometimes undercut the more serious lyrical moments of the album at times. In terms of a ranking, I think it’s closer to a 5 than it is a 4, even with my nitpicks and my expectations being kinda thrown out the window. From front to back, I think it’s a good listen, and even if it could’ve been trimmed down a little bit, I think it deserves its place in the 90s rap canon as much as any other critically acclaimed rap album of its time.

It’s another one of those albums where I end up at a 3.5 and I just can’t round it up to a 4. Don’t get me wrong, for 1965, I think this is great lyricism across the board, and I think the first 7 tracks have such a great energy and sound and tempo to them. It’s the last 4 tracks where the emphasis is so heavily put on the lyrics at the sacrifice of the layered production of those first 7 tracks that kind of drag the album down from hitting that 4 for me. Take for example, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Smiling),” because it might have some of my favorite lyrics I’ve heard in a song yet, but the absolute minimalist production on it just doesn’t hit on my sensibilities, and that’s where you sort of lose me as a listener. It could definitely go up to a 4 on some subsequent listens, but I don’t think I can bump it for now.

This album is a test in patience that I’m just not sure I really have. I can commend a lot of things about this album; I think the guitar playing is fabulous throughout, I think the instrumental interludes are a fantastic showcase of that, and ultimately I don’t think it’s actually that bad of an album. It’s just not my kind of album. It doesn’t hit on that many of my sensibilities, but much like a game demo, I’m smart enough to tell when something is probably good, but just not for me. I found that, for me, a lot of this album just felt too similar, a bit too boring, and a bit too monotone. I’m sure for another person, they’ll be able to appreciate those parts of it; to ignore the lyrics, ignore the slow prodding tempos that make songs feel even longer than they already are, and simply feel the music in a way that I just can’t. There are points in this album where it all clicks for me, and those moments, while brief, are really nice. Realistically, for my tastes, I think it’s a 2.5 that I’m going to, perhaps begrudgingly, round up to a 3, if only because I recognize that it has something going for it that just doesn’t fit my vibe. It’s way better than Apocalypse Dudes, at least.

I only listened to the original 6 songs from the first EP release, and I think that's the best way to listen to it, because that is an electrifying 22 minutes. The energy on this album is off the charts, and once it gets going, it’s like a fucking freight train. I ripped on Apocalypse Dudes for not having enough variance, at least to my ears, but this album has enough variance in its short run time to keep everything fresh. I can see why Kurt Cobain liked this so much – there is a truly infectious feeling to it, and for my money, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. I’m gonna go with a 4 – I thought Chain That Door was kind of boring compared to the rest of the album, and I do think there is a hint of repetition in the styles of each song that does become a bit apparent once that initial wave of energy washes away. I still fucking loved that, though.

The very definition of a 3 – I think all the songs here sound really nice, but there’s only a few real standouts. I think it suffers from the general thing that ‘60s albums tend to do, which is really weird panning that kind of sacrifices the original vision of a song, but it doesn’t make them bad, necessarily. It’s a solid listen, but there’s just not enough to really warrant coming back to a lot of the tracks.

I am deeply struggling to find the words to say about this album. It’s very rare for me to think of music as art in the classical sense – the way people get emotional at seeing the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel, where they can feel the weight of history and the absolute mastery of a craft come upon them, mainly because I usually just don’t feel that when it comes to art. I can certainly feel emotion in music, but usually that emotion comes from the passion of a voice or the lyrical content. This album may be the only time I have felt the weight of a life long lived bear down on me in musical form, and in many ways, it’s a weight I’m not sure I can accurately hold or carry. In some strange way, I feel too young to truly connect to this album and its subject material in full, but I deeply appreciate every song on here and the man behind them. In that sense, I have almost no choice but to give this album a 5.

I needed the sound of this album badly. When I think of the 1980s, this is the sort of instrumentation I think of, but it also blends in so much of what I love from the early 90s. It’s a great album to just throw on and listen to even if you only care about the instrumentation, but lyrically and vocally, I think every song here has some kind of validity, whether it’s in how they made me feel, or in terms of its actual subject matter. I’m gonna go with a 5, if only because this album really lightened up my kind of stressed out mood, and I think it’s just hitting on all of my musical sensibilities. It’s not perfect, but I do think it’s much closer to a 5 than it is a 4.

That’s an instant 5. I have said before that the most important thing an album can do is to make you feel something, and… this album made me feel a lot of things. To some ears, I can understand it; occasionally, there is an incredible repetition in the soundscape that lingers on for a bit too long, and for those ears, that’s the sort of thing that takes them out of being engaged. For my money, though, there was not a dull moment in this album – I think almost every track here pulled me into its mood and its lyrics, and that is a testament to the amount of detail and effort poured into this entire album, whether it’s from Thom Yorke’s vocals, the incredible guitar & drums, or just the mixing that made everything stand out that much more. Just a fabulous, fabulous record.

It’s… probably a really light 4, at least for me. As an entire album, I think it does do a good job of keeping a consistent sound (except for Mother, what the fuck), but something could never fully hook me in to the whole thing. In terms of individual tracks, there are great ones on this album – obviously Every Breath You Take was a massive hit, but King of Pain & Wrapped Around Your Finger are both really, really good songs. I don’t really have a good sense of The Police from before this album, and I have a much better sense of Sting’s solo work in the 90s, but it’s very apparent to me that this is a crowning achievement for both the band and himself, and I do think a lot of these songs have held up incredibly well for being 41 years old. It's honestly way closer to a 3 than a 5 for me, but I'm just satisfied enough to bump it up.

I think, much like Synchronicity, I’m gonna go with a light 4, but I think this one’s a little closer to the side of a 5 for me. As far as the instrumentation goes, I think this is one of the nicest albums we’ve had yet in terms of pure easy listening. Vocally, I do think there were some times where I would’ve loved a little more gruff in his voice to better fit the mood of some of the songs, but other than that, his biggest crime was just sometimes staying a little too monotone for me. I think my big issue with this album is that it just goes a little long, and like I’ve said, if the sound starts to lose its luster, you start to lose the listener, and there are some tracks on here that either dragged on, or suffered from the infamous “the first minute is the entire song” problem. When this album hits though, it fucking hits, and I can’t say I ever really got bored of the album like that. Is it generic in a few spots? Of course, but when everyone was hitting around this sort of sound in the 90s, there are bound to be a few. I’d definitely recommend it, and I think some of the album’s weaker spots for me would be strong points for others.

I did something I don’t normally do with these albums, and that’s go back to the first few songs after finishing. I’m glad I did, because I definitely came into this album with the wrong mindset – it originally clicked for me around Track 5 that the sort of cacophony I was embedded in was a very controlled and intentional chaos, which became incredibly apparent by Track 7, and from that point on, once they broke through to me, I thought tracks 8 & 9 were a great string of strong melodies and fun vocals, but that kind of started to fizzle out with how awkward the last 2 tracks felt. As soon as the album ended, I went back to the first 4 and definitely had a better time with them, except that the Rolling Stones cover was still just a little too different for my tastes. All in all, though, I’d say…weirdly enough, it’s a 3.5 that I’m gonna go ahead and round up to a 4, if only because they managed to pull me out of whatever biases or predispositions I had, and made me really listen to what they were going for, and in that sense, I appreciate the hell out of this album for doing that. There’s definitely flaws, namely that I just think it’s still a bit off putting near the end, and that sometimes it IS too chaotic, but it’s a really tightly produced album that takes a bit to crack through, and it might not ever crack through for some people, but when you get it, you just get it, and it makes the album work.

That’s an incredibly tightly packed 28 minutes, with a strong variety of subject matters and music styles. A lot of it is held together by the same instruments throughout, but ultimately the album is just nice, and lyrically, it just feels way more in line with what I wish music still was. I’m not opposed to pop melodies or catchy hooks, but just hearing the lyrics on this album makes me want more of this type of poetic license, and not just super contemporary IG captions that everyone wants to write nowadays. It’s actually a 5 for me – there’s maybe one or two skips, but ultimately, what a triumph of an album, and a masterclass in how to maximize the balance between being meaningful and being melodically appealing without feeling too preachy or too long. It certainly helps that I actually understood half the references on the album.

It’s a resounding 3 that has flashes of a really nice 4, but never ever quite gets there. Ultimately, the biggest problem this album suffers from is its runtime, but it’s not in the sense that every track goes too long, it’s just that SOME of them do, and those extended periods where the song feels like it’s continuing just for the sake of padding or noise are what really drag this album down. There are some skips, don’t get me wrong, but I thought at least most of this album had really really enjoyable melodies (both vocally and instrumentally) behind them. The problem is, even with its best tracks, there are some moments of lyrical futility where it’s either full of empty platitudes or moments of repetition that are too often to not eventually notice. I will say, though, from track 8 onward, the album ends on a really nice tone, and if the album were more like its final 5 (and first 2) tracks, I’d probably be pointing in the direction of a 4. It’s just that the other 5 tracks either drag on too long, or they’re just too boring for my tastes. It’s definitely not a bad album though, you just have to be in the right mood to endure some of its longer stuff.

It’s an incredibly bold and incredibly stupid choice to put two of your 4 worst songs (Skunk & Fuck Shit Up) at the very front of the album, but somehow, what emerges from it is a shockingly nice 36 minute jam session full of really good, diverse energy. There are still points where the production is a fucking cacophonic mess, but those moments show up less and less after Fuck Shit Up, and by Track 7, the album actually becomes a fun listen up until the final 2 tracks, where it goes back into the bad habits of Skunk & Fuck Shit Up. Really experimental, avant-garde, greasy grungy garage rock that somehow hits on some of my sensibilities from about Tracks 5 through 14, and that’s most of the album, which is a miracle after that abysmal opening. To put it bluntly, this is the album Apocalypse Dudes fucking wishes it could have been, and it pulls off a bigger comeback than the Patriots did in Super Bowl 51. It is a 3 as a whole, but the good songs on this album, I would genuinely rate a 4.

It’s a really, really competent and super nice 3. I think, ultimately, my big thing with the album is that most of its tracks, while technically and instrumentally incredibly solid, with a great sound, and foundationally good to listen to, don’t do enough to stay memorable past those moments of bliss. Vocally, I find Tom Verlaine to be… I don’t know, just not the right fit for the great instrumentation on this album. He’s not bad, necessarily, but it feels more like a bit of Bob Dylan mixed with David Byrne to me, and that just doesn’t vibe well with these instruments. In that sense, if you can’t keep me engaged with all the parts of your soundscape, it’s harder to hook me into the songs, and most of them never fully hooked me. The guitar work on this album would get a 5/5 if we were going only by that, but as an entire package, I just don’t think there are that many memorable songs to return to that would justify giving this any higher than a 3, but I could be completely wrong.

This is the worst Beastie Boys album I’ve ever listened to. OK, fine, I’ll be real with you, it’s a completely soulless, uninspired, mediocre 2 that probably has at least one or two guilty pleasures on it, if only for their presence in the cultural zeitgeist of the time, or in the obnoxious case of Cowboy, a genuine acknowledgement that there is something catchy to it, however minor, if only for the obvious sample and how Neil Cicierega has used it in the years since. From listening solely to the clean version, and refusing to hear Kid Rock openly use the N-word on the original final track of this album, what I find is that this is my “rap / country / rock fusion whatever the fuck genre we’re defining this as” version of Apocalypse Dudes, in which if you completely ignore the fucking horribly dated lyrics and just pluck one song from this album at a time while exercising or something else, you will end up with a small but effective boost of energy in terms of having not terrible guitar and drum work, even with Kid Rock just screaming on more than half the tracks. As an entire album experience though, it is objectively so fucking boring, so draining, so long, so repetitive, and so similar for most of its tracks, that the only reason it’s even partially getting a 2 is that there are at least a few fleeting moments of actual tiny headbops that come in and out, unlike that fucking awful Tricky album (Maxinquaye is still worse, yes, sue me). Out of a complete lack of respect for Kid Rock as a person though, even though this album is a 2 in my mind, I'm going to rate it a 1 anyway, because fuck you, Kid Rock.

It’s an easy 5. I’ve never listened to the other tracks on this album besides the big 3 of Shout, Everybody Wants To Rule The World, and Head Over Heels, but almost every other track here really perfectly complements those 3. The one song on this album I wasn’t really feeling was Listen, but I’m going to treat that as kind of an epilogue track, because it sure feels like this album should have ended on Head Over Heels and that applause-filled outro. Obviously, my opinion might be a bit skewed because we just did a Kid Rock album, but I felt quite literally spiritually cleansed of the stench of Devil Without a Cause by the fantastic saxophone in The Working Hour, and the album just stayed at pure bliss for me after that. I cannot believe that one-two punch of the outro to The Working Hour & the intro to Everybody Wants To Rule The World, because it sent me into the damn stratosphere. Super deserved 5, and a fantastic album.

It’s a 3.5 that I think I’m going to begrudgingly round up, if only because I recognize that its biggest weakness for me is not going to be as big of a factor for some other people. I will say, first of all, that because of the renaissance of the late 90s aesthetic and style going on right now, something about this album does feel a bit like 2024 instead of 1998. That’s not to say it’s a timeless sound, but it’s certainly a sound that feels like it’s in vogue again, and that helped a lot with this album. My biggest thing with this album is the vocals, and I know that shouldn’t be a dig in light of really strong top to bottom production (except for The Happy End), but it really did just drag me out of a few of the songs. There are points when the vocals click really well, but when the lyrics are great and the vocal passion isn’t quite there to match it, something just doesn’t work well for me. However, that’s me – this album is certainly deserving of a 4, and I’m sure it would get there on a subsequent listen when something just clicks better for me, and I’ll round it up now to be fair.

Stuck with a 3 on this one – maybe something never quite clicked for me, but even though I liked a lot of this album, it either felt like Bowie was holding back a little bit vocally to try and better fit the atmosphere of the record, or that lyrically he got a little too repetitive at times in a way that kind of just distracted me from that excellent top to bottom instrumentation – what a band. I can see what the vision was; a David Bowie soul album, and while I’d say he succeeded, those conflicts between the vocals and lyrics became just a little too distracting for me to completely stay invested in his messaging. It could definitely jump up to a 4 if something clicks right later, but I think for my tastes, a 3 feels right.

It’s a good, strong, technically sound 3. There’s definitely some fun ones on this album, and when everything clicks, it clicks really nicely, but it just never retains that for super long on here, whether it’s the vocals not matching the lyrics or the lyrics not matching the instrumentation for a few extended periods. I think instrumentally, the biggest thing this album suffers from is simply the time period it’s in; Thoughts & Words would be an even more awesome track if the drums were mixed in to stand out better, and that applies to other instruments on some of the other tracks. C.T.A.-102’s ending is sick as hell, though. Ultimately, what’s here is fun and it’s short, and each song has its own distinct flavor, which means the album doesn’t really tire itself out. Good listen, definitely some songs to come back to, but nothing higher than a 3.

That’s another 3 for me. It’s really not a bad album, it’s just kind of unmemorable. I really think the production is the obvious standout here – only 2 or 3 tracks ever really fully got my attention lyrically, and the amount of mixed genres with hip-hop sensibilities does a much better (albeit admittedly less energetic) job than that shitty Kid Rock album we listened to. If we were going solely on production, it's at least a 4. Crime & Punishment is probably my standout here, either that or King of New York. Much like some of the other albums we’ve listened to, the biggest issue is that it’s just a bit too long and a bit too repetitive in some spots to not notice, and those little moments just build up more and more every time, and that's why as a whole album, I can't go any higher than a 3. (also i don't know where else to put this but i just kept hearing lotus juice in his voice the whole time LOL)

That’s a fucking great 4, wow. It’d be a 5 if we had gotten this around Halloween instead of March, and it could totally still be a 5 the more I listen to it. There is absolutely no way you could have convinced me this album was from 1981, because from top to bottom, it feels at least a decade ahead of its time in terms of production and its general sound. The guitar work is absolutely on fucking fire here, no matter which song or which style, and the same goes for the percussion. The only reason I can’t really give this a 5 on the first go-around is that there are a few points where the lyrics felt a bit too silly for the tone of the song, and a few points where there was a sort of emptiness carried by the instrumentation that took me out of it. Regardless, it’s at least a 4, and a great album for 1981.

I just don’t really know, but I think I’m at a 3. For my tastes and my sensibilities, I think I came into this album with the wrong expectations, which is to say an evolution of the funky, polished, catchy idealism that was present on Stand!, and that expectation broke itself down very quickly. This album is a bit darker, a bit less polished, a bit less “catchy” in the sense that there’s definitely no Everyday People-esque songs on this album, and almost certainly a lack of the idealism from Stand!. I tried to shift myself into the mood once it became apparent, but to me, there’s a sort of ethereal emptiness to this album that stopped me from ever really getting hooked in. Even with such funky instrumentation, the rougher, obviously re-recorded, re-dubbed, and re-taped vocals kept pulling me away from that instrumentation in a way that I think negatively affected my perception of the individual songs; they all felt like demo tapes to me. As an entire album, I think the looser style of the instrumentation here is very effectively realized, and with the context of the drug usage and loneliness that affected the production of this album, it’s really kind of a miracle that this exists as coherently as it does. However, I just don’t think all of those elements hit on any of my sensibilities. There is something kind of intoxicating about this album though – I can see myself coming back to listen again and try to understand it better, but I also get the feeling this album is never going to fully click for me, and that’s where I’m stuck with a 3.

It’s a 5, with a few flaws here and there. The weakest part of this album is the 3-track stretch of Invincible through Exo-Politics, which to me, tries way too hard to fit into the politically progressive rock niche that Green Day had carved into the mainstream when they dropped American Idiot. There’s something that either doesn’t click right for me, or just outright has not aged well under the lens of 2024 as compared to 2006. The rest of this album is fucking spectacular. Take A Bow is the most electric opening track to an album I’ve heard in years, and an insanely cool tonesetter for the first 4 tracks. Soldier’s Song is fine, and it works with the backdrop of the Blair / Bush years without feeling too preachy. The last 3 (or 4, if you count Glorious) tracks are a great bit of variety, from super cool energetic bombastic pieces like Knights of Cydonia, or more atmospheric stuff like City of Delusion & Hoodoo. I do think this album does lose its luster a little quickly, but it managed to grab it back at the end for me – realistically, that stretch of tracks 6-8 probably do round it down to a 4.5 for me, but I’d be a moron to not round it up. Fabulous stuff here.

It’s a really cool 4 that I'm REALLY tempted to give a 5 for the hell of it, but I'll hold back. I haven’t listened to almost all of Missy Elliott’s solo work before this, and that's completely my fault. She popped off on this album, and I'm a moron for not listening to her before now. There are some songs I’m not sure I’ll go back to, but that comes down to little things like “well, the beat didn’t go hard enough for me” or “I can’t be caught dead listening to this in public” (see: Pussycat), but there’s a lot of variety on this album that just hits my musical tastes right. I could try to explain myself, but when you’re vibing, you’re vibing, and I was REALLY vibing. Really fun album, with really cool production from Timbaland that sometimes misses the mark for me, but her vocals make up for it tenfold.

I think I’m gonna go with a 4, but a low 4. After listening to Tricky’s solo album Maxinquaye, I think I’ve come to my own conclusion that he absolutely works better as part of a group; his rapping is a genuine highlight on this album compared to the absolutely bleak and dreary style he showed on that album. There are still some misses on this album, but my biggest thing is that it’s simply not soul-numbingly boring like Maxinquaye was, as even the “misses” at least have pretty fun production and a few moments of catching the ear in a smooth way; some of it didn’t hook me, but it definitely wasn’t bad. This is a genuine showcase of pretty cool production that would become a bit more apparent and a bit more mainstream as the 90s went along, and for 1991, a lot of what’s here is still pretty infused with the sort of soul/funk sounds of the 70s, so it’s a fun blend of both styles. A genuinely enjoyable listen across the board (except for Lately), and I’m pretty satisfied to give it a 4. It does just enough to be higher than a 3.

It’s a really nice 4. Ultimately, there’s just something about Bob Dylan’s music that’ll probably stop me from giving him a 5, maybe ever; sometimes his voice isn’t melodic enough, sometimes his songs go too long, sometimes I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about… but on this record he seemed pretty good across the board. Really inventive and evocative lyrics of images that have long since left the public eye, and references that are ironically probably too intellectually driven now in a world that values TikTok celebrity compared to poetic license (or at least that’s what Bob Dylan would probably say if he had another fucking verse on Desolation Row). I dunno, I just really liked the album. I wouldn’t say it has any standout all-timer songs, even with the super lauded Like a Rolling Stone, but there’s only really one or two misses on this album for anyone willing to sit through it. I just can’t go up to a 5 though; some of these ARE long as hell.

It’s a 4 that falls just short of me being able to round up to a 5. I think basically every song here manages to create a super cool atmosphere, and the album succeeds brilliantly at maintaining that atmosphere through its instrumental choices, its production choices, and how snappy most of the songs feel. The only reason I can’t bump this up to a 5 is because of how it occasionally slips out of that atmosphere in a way that affected me as a listener; I think the choice to go for quiet vocals on tracks 3 & 4 is super cool, but they were too quiet to have a real presence in the song for me. I think some of the outros and intros go a little too long here and there. At Night, in particular, felt like it was just kind of stalling to artificially build up tension to me. When this album just hits on vibes alone though, it’s a super enjoyable experience that feels like it’s shifting between the 80s and 90s – I really cannot speak enough to the production choices throughout this album. It’s a super cool 4, it could totally be a 5, but I think it’s just not quite there for me.

I knew coming in that I would give this one a 5 unless something shifted my opinion of it, and honestly, if I could give this shit a 6 or higher, I would. TPaB is still the masterpiece, the gold standard, the highest of high bars for me in terms of Kendrick’s albums, but I don’t think I’ve ever properly appreciated the narrative arc of this album until this listen; doing this whole 1,001 albums experience has made me feel more attentive to music than I have in a long time, and this album has, by far, had the biggest boost for me because of that. There is seriously not a missed beat or lyric or breath on almost every track here – the only one I’m still iffy on is Real, but I just don’t think that song will ever click with my sensibilities. I’ve also never really paid attention to the bonus tracks that are on the deluxe version, but Now or Never just feels like it should be the album closer, to just end the album on an incredibly bright note. I don’t wanna gush too much about this album, but it really is a piece of art, and it’s incredibly deserving of a 5.

I feel good with a 3.5 on this one, but I'm gonna round it up to a 4. There’s not really a bad song here, but there are moments where this album just feels a bit empty, whether it's an outro going a bit long, or the vocals just feeling too monotone, and it makes the songs drag on just a little bit in a way that kind of dilutes them for me. When this album is hitting though, it hits really well and really smooth, with some of the best guitar playing I’ve heard from a 70s album so far. I don’t normally check the reviews on this site too much, but it’s a testament to their variety and their sound that someone’s favorite could be another person’s worst and vice-versa. I don’t think it can ever bump up to a 5 for my tastes, but what’s here is really nice, and definitely a recommended listen.

It’s another 3.5 that I think I’m gonna round up to a 4. It’s just a really solid album to me – I don’t think there’s a bad song on here, just a few repetitive ones where either the lyrics don’t really do enough or the instrumentation stays a bit too grounded, but I liked a lot of this. Really fun guitar, some occasionally cool vocal melodies, and ultimately, just a really good sounding album that sometimes escapes my sensibilities, but still feels nice to listen to. White Rabbit should have been longer.

I’ve never heard this album in full. I’ve never listened to a Beatles album in full, really. I know the biggest hits from the band, and that’s really about it. This is a 10. Like, if I could give this a 10, it would get a 10. Instead, I have to give it a 5. I could try to gush about it, but really, I’m just kinda sitting here, stunned after the ending section of tracks that make up the final 8 of the album, wondering why I’ve never bothered to really go through The Beatles discography like that. This album is a genuine triumph of music, and I would imagine that for its time, it set the highest fucking bar imaginable; it's probably a bar that musicians today are still trying to reach, because for 2024, this still holds up unbelievably and timelessly well. It is indeed worth all the hype. That medley just hits like a fucking truck, man. This was their last album? That shit’s crazy. That’s gotta be the best final album ever. Just… wow.

As an entire album, it’s a really nice 4, but I think tracks 6-10 by themselves are a 5. I just wasn’t really vibing with the first 4 tracks too much; they felt a little slow, a little too lyrically dense, a little preachy, and not quite “poppy” enough. Track 5 started to bring in the energy, but it was about 2 or 3 minutes too long. Track 6 and onward, though… hoo. That’s really good stuff. Big difference from the front half and the back half; the more melodic instrumentation on the latter half of the album just sucked me in and had me FEELING that music really deeply. I think the incredibly solid (but still just kind of OK for me) first half does drag it down to a 4 for me, but it’s no lower than that. Really good stuff here.

It’s a super strong 4 that I’m gonna round up to a 5, just for my tastes. There are some points early in the album where the production is lacking just that one extra bit for my tastes, but when this album clicks and puts it all together, it’s some of the best country/Americana stuff I’ve heard in a long time. The consequences of “bro country” coming into the scene in the late 90s and early 2000s need to be studied someday, because this is a really good album to me, and I need more stuff like this. Red Dirt Girl? That’s the type of country music I need, not bullshit about trying “that” in a small town, whatever “that” is. The album is just a little too long for me. Could’ve cut it down to like, 8 or 9 tracks, but there’s really not a bad one here. I enjoyed everything on this album; I genuinely think it hits 12 for 12 for me, and that’s why I’m going with a 5 regardless of its slower moments or its perceived flaws. It’s good music, and that’s what matters.

This album is weird to me. Objectively, I don’t think there’s a song that SOUNDS bad on this album; I think the production work and the instrumentation across the board is really well done, really varied, and I’ll probably add a lot of songs from this to my big playlist just because they’re super easy listening. Lyrically and vocally is where I think this album is kind of weak; it’s not egregiously bad (save for Bengali in Platforms), but it’s the least compelling part of this album to me, even with Morrissey’s super smooth voice. I’ve never heard a Smiths record or a Morrissey record before this, but I think I enjoyed this. I also know nothing about the guy’s personal views, and I don’t know if I really care to. The problem is that I just kind of found a lot of the songs to be… weirdly unremarkable? I don’t know if it’s a lack of focus on my part, or if I was too hypnotized by the instrumentation, but even when the album has these sort of bombastic guitar solos that capture the ear, those moments just sort of faded away to me after. I do think it’s a great sounding album, but it just isn’t sticking to me in a memorable enough way; it’s a 3.5 that FEELS like it should be a 4, but I’m going to round it down to a 3, even if I’ll probably enjoy most of these songs on shuffle when they come up.

Feeling a 3.5 and rounding it up to a 4 with this one. I appreciate the brevity, the self-containment of each track, and I think I really respect the production throughout this album; there’s just little neat touches to each song that make them each have their own identity. I don’t think the individual songs on the album are super memorable, but they have some standout moments, and it’s a really good experience. I can kind of see why this might have flopped in 1968; it’s just different from some of the contemporaries of this same time period that we’ve heard, and there are some points where the melodies and the catchiness take a backseat to what are sometimes baffling lyrics (I’m still kinda trying to figure out Track 1) but that’s the sort of thing that goes over much better in music nowadays. Pretty good album.

It’s a 2.5 that I’m gonna round up to a 3. I don’t think there’s a bad track on this album, but when this sound starts to lose its luster, it loses it FAST. There are some really nice tracks here, but by the end, too much of it just started to blend together for me. Solid instrumentation, some occasional vocal standouts, but a lot of this just feels really really paint-by-numbers to me, and not in a way that hit with my sensibilities too often. Sort of disappointing, but not bad, just… plain.

It’s a 3.5 that I think I have to round down to a 3. This album is weird. Not like Morrissey-style weird where something just felt unappealing and unnatural, but like, properly weird. There’s appealing stuff on this album, and I liked a lot of it. I think it’s just kind of disjointed to me; sometimes the vocals clash with the lyrics and vice-versa, sometimes the instrumentation doesn’t quite fit the lyrical vision, or at worst, sometimes it’s just kinda boring to me. I don’t know if there’s necessarily a bad track on this album, but it’s a really diverse record that I honestly think doesn’t go far enough with its bolder choices. If you’re gonna try to be this innovative for 1967, then go all in, because it feels disconnected in a way that doesn’t melodically marry everything quite right to me. Certainly not bad though; I feel good with a 3.

I’m feeling a 4. There’s just something nice about this album to me; maybe it’s the more intimate nature of the production, and the ability to so clearly hear both him and his guitar in a way that just enhances both. It could be the fact that there are occasionally audible “flaws” on this album that just add to that sort of intimate nature. I think the weakest part of this album is its vocals, but I don’t think they’re ever bad; sometimes they’re just kind of plain or not as melodic as the guitar or the lyrics are asking for, but there are moments where it all clicks together super nicely. That guitar playing is kinda crazy though; it’s just fun to hear the strumming at work without the usual percussion or other instruments to cover up the more nuanced and technical parts to actually make it sound like that. Just some really nice acoustic stuff here, and it worked really well for me.

I mean, I knew it would be a 5, I just didn’t expect to want to give it a 6 or higher. I have consistently said that Songs in The Key of Life is one of the best albums ever made, and my respect for Stevie’s work is off the charts; from Superstition to Sir Duke to Overjoyed and some of his collaborations into the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s, it’s very hard for me to come up with a more consistent artist. He might be the GOAT, and this album is just another masterclass in that. I don’t know quite how to gush about it; everything here is just classic Stevie, from the funky instrumental of Too High, to the guitar on Visions, the all-timer that is Living for the City, the key changes on Golden Lady, the bassline on Higher Ground, the backing vocals on Jesus Children of America, the incredible vocal performance on All in Love is Fair, the percussion and feel-good attitude of Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing, and the bombastic (& slightly long) outro to He’s Misstra Know-It-All. Easy as hell 5.

It’s a 2.5 that I’m incredibly tempted to round down to a 2, but I’ll be nice and keep it at a 3. When this album hits, it hits pretty well; instrumentally, I think the very best songs on this album click together perfectly, carried pretty handily by the steel guitar and the percussion keeping everything melodically stable. The fast-paced tracks on this are really fun and enjoyable to listen to. Vocally, I don’t think there’s enough emotion or variance in his voice; the soft-spoken thing works on a few tracks, but when you do it for almost every track, it makes everything blend together in a bad and unmemorable way. That’s the problem with this album: there are too many tracks that blend together in a bad and unmemorable way, and that’s not good for an album experience. The amount of times that the album just gets annoyingly repetitive from both a lyrical and vocal standpoint is so often that it’s just too hard to ignore for me. The crazy part is that I think I liked about 7 of the 12 tracks here, but for 4 of them to be some of the most boring tracks I’ve heard in a way that they quite literally dragged no emotion out of me but pure disappointment is not good. Still though, those 7 are good to listen to, but not great, and that’s where I’m stuck on a 3 for this.

It’s a 3.5 and I wish I could leave it there. This is a really good record that gets dragged down by one thing, and I’d be a hypocrite to call it out on the last album and to not call it out here: it’s the repetition. Instrumental repetition is obviously fine, but lyrically, these songs drag on and on most of the time in a way that just doesn’t click right for me. That’s not to say they’re bad; what’s here is absolutely fabulous and super funky. Super cool basslines, guitar work, and percussion throughout this album, and even the vocals sound great with super good melodies that compliment the instruments. I just feel like this album deeply suffers from the “first minute is the whole song” problem that occasionally rears its ugly head, but I have to reconcile that with stellar production. That’s why I wish I could leave it at a 3.5, because I cannot in good conscience give it a 4 as an album experience. So, uhh… I guess it’s a 3. Dang.

I have an annoyingly deep connection to this album. In every sense of the word, I do find it to be a timeless classic. I think that THIS version of Kanye West, before every single disgraceful and disgusting thing he's done and said in the 20 years since this album has dropped, is Kanye at his best, and this is his best album of the College Trilogy. It's a genuine 5, and I'm gonna keep it there. It would be incredibly easy for me to rate this a 1 based on who he is now, in the year 2024, and move on, and give myself the moral brownie points. I just cannot bring myself to do it; I still basically know every line to every song on here, I still think the production is off the charts, and... to be completely honest, THIS version of Kanye West on this album just resonates with me still. Family Business, Jesus Walks, All Falls Down, Through The Wire... these are all obnoxiously good, and they all remind me of why the guy became a superstar to begin with. I miss that guy, not the anti-semitic Nazi-apologizing Trump supporter he's become. Let me be extra clear: I did not stream the album when I wrote this review. I'm not giving him another cent. I wrote all of this without re-listening, because I know this album that deeply. I still believe it to be a 5, even if the man himself has dropped into the negatives. So, uh... yeah, I listened to Desire, I Want To Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek today instead. Super cool album with a lot of 2000s influence clearly present throughout; definitely worth a listen, and worth all the hype it got in 2023. I'd probably give it like a 4.5, that I'd likely round up after another listen or two.

That’s a really good 4. When this album clicks, it clicks; those are some high-energy tracks with the 80s written all over them to me, in a good way. When I think of the 80s, this is part of the sound my brain goes to: heavy synth work, deep drum pads for percussion, a whole slew of instruments that somehow work together in harmony, plus really fun vocal work that can run the range of “basically screaming” to “really smooth” in a heartbeat. The slower tracks are what drag this album down to a 4 for me; they’re not bad songs at all, and I think they’re great to listen to, but they just didn’t keep me engaged in the way the higher paced and frenetic songs did. Some of them were a bit boring for me, even. I’ll admit, a lot of this album can be called “generic,” but I’m a sucker for this type of sound and this type of earworm stuff. If you’re listening to this and not grooving on at least one track, then I think you’re too deep into the “artsy” side of music to enjoy a good time when you hear one.

I think I’m at a 4. The weird part is that I would usually round up and give an album like this a 5, but for this one, I just… don’t feel that way. It never really connected to me in that way some of the other albums I’ve given a 5 to, but it’s absolutely no less than a 4. Changes & Life on Mars are all-time classics, and I think this album supplements them with really strong stuff that just never quite hit those heights for me (save for Quicksand & Queen Bitch). It could bump up to a 5 later, but I feel pretty good with a 4.

That’s a much better Apocalypse Dudes, to the point where I’ll even go from a 3 to a 4, just because I liked it that much. My biggest problem with Apocalypse Dudes is that it never really gave me a chance to breathe, and that it never really felt like there was that much variance in its sound; both of them came out in the same year, so I feel confident in saying this album does the heavy hard rock thing so much better. In terms of both the actual instrumental performance, the actual variance of tracks (i.e., that nothing blended together endlessly), and just the general passion for each track (Apocalypse Dudes felt sort of plastic and fake by comparison), this album just does everything way better, way catchier, and way more memorably. Top notch guitar and percussion work; my only knock is that the vocals felt a little too sharp at times, and that the lyrics (save for the last track and a handful of others) just didn’t add too much depth. Still though, really fun 3 that I enjoyed enough to bump up to a 4.

I’m vacillating between giving this a 3 or 4, and I think I’ve ended up on a 4, but a very strange 4. I don’t think I paid that much attention to the lyrics on this album, which is kinda crazy, given that it’s so lyrically dense. I also wasn’t feeling the album at first at all; I thought there wasn’t really a specific genre, I didn’t get a sense of variety, and perhaps worst of all, I didn’t get a sense of direction for the album. I don’t know when it clicked for me exactly, but I think at about the halfway point of the album, I just threw out the lyrics entirely, focused on the general mood of the songs, and I tried to catch what I could. That mood is what’s carrying the album to a 4 for me. Before I threw out the lyrics, I didn’t think there was necessarily a bad song, but I didn’t think there were any standouts either; once I kind of let the “analyst” side of me go away for this album, I just felt a deep, deep nostalgia for oddly, the late 2000s & early 2010s. For an album made in 2010, talking about nostalgia, it seems clear enough to me that they’re longing for the pre-9/11 vibes of innocence, hope, safety, and just a general brightness to everything. In 2024, to listen to this after the social media era, the Trump years, the COVID pandemic, the BLM movement… it just makes me feel nostalgic for the now underrated brightness of what I can now officially call my youth, as all of that shit just weighs down upon me like an anchor I’m not sure I can drag off of me. I need to give this album another listen or two to decide what the really good tracks are as opposed to just feeling the vibes, but I know this; I’m definitely listening to it in a car next time. This album feels like it was desperately designed for a car ride. Regardless, I feel good with a 4.

It’s a really nice 4. This album gives a really bad first impression through its first 4 or 5 tracks, but the stretch from Better to Truth or Dare presents the actual mood of the album so much better. LMK should have been the opening track, because the trap-hop beat on Frontline just gives the wrong impression for this album overall. Relistening to those first 4 tracks after finishing the album the first time gave me a really strong appreciation for this album overall. Kelela’s vocals on this entire album are fantastic, and this album is at its very best when just she flows on the electronica-infused beats. I can understand some of the complaints about this album, but when it all finally starts to click, the little details in the production become more apparent as the album goes on, and the sort of dullness that the first 4 tracks give gets washed away (at least, it did for me). It’s crazy how much this album improves by Better, seriously. There are some filler interlude tracks, some of the songs do go a bit long, but what ends up being here is some really cool R&B tracks with a clear Janet Jackson influence in the vocals, and a sort of “lo-fi Timbaland” feel to the production, and it just clicked incredibly well for me. I feel comfy with a 4, and it might even bump up to a 5 the more I listen. Glad to get this one.

It’s a 3.5 that I’ll round up to a 4. I think about half of this album just didn’t fully click for me, but maybe it’s because I was still in a sort of “analyst” mode as opposed to just listening and feeling the vibe. We’ve had a lot of vibe albums lately, but this is very much a vibes album. What’s here sounds excellent; there’s not a single bad track on here, and in terms of super relaxing electronica, this is an album you can both study to and fall asleep to on a dime. For my tastes, some of the songs felt a bit too empty at times or a bit too long, and I was still expecting at least one sort of Daft Punk-esque energy-filled song given the genre, but like… that’s an unfair expectation. This is a good listen, it’s well-recommended, and I’m perfectly ok with a 4 here. Good soundscapes, great vibes.

A resounding 3. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate the album, but like… it just never clicked. There’s great energy on here, and one all-timer in Where Is My Mind?, but past that, for my tastes, I think what’s here is a cacophonic, unwieldy, jumbled up mess of an album that occasionally shines through in a way that clicks. More often than not though, even with my newfound level of patience to an album with this sound, I just felt like I was listening to glorified noise. To be more succinct: the guitar gets too harsh sometimes, the percussion is mixed way in the front where it overpowers the vocals, the vocals themselves are sometimes studio quality and sometimes sound like they were recorded off of a microphone hanging from a string 25 feet away in the air in a wind tunnel. When all of those things aren’t happening, and they take a more traditional sound, the album works well for me. It just felt like those moments were more rare than I’d like. Still though, I can hear part of why Kurt Cobain took at least some inspo from this album. It’s not that bad, it’s just not my thing. Hence, the 3.

I feel like I got hypnotized. Seriously, I really don’t quite know what the fuck to make of that. There’s two ways to listen to this album: by sitting down and trying to actually give a sort of critique on the soundscape of everything, the mixing, etc., and go from there. There’s also the approach I took by “Thriller!” which was to just stand up, walk in place, and let the music simply drag me around. The latter worked for me; I don’t know why, but “Thriller!”, “Drinking Wine Spodyody,” and “Codex” were hypnotically pleasing despite being objectively terrible soundscapes, solely from just walking in place. That hypnotism made me realize this album feels like a Talking Heads album one might create in their sleep (with a really bad hangover). The first half of this album doesn’t work for me at all; I think it’s too noisy to be a walk in place sort of mood, but the back half works for me. I don’t think I can ever revisit this album except to experience that sort of hypnotic feeling again, because as far as an actual structured album, in the traditional sense, it’s absolutely a 2. However, in terms of just how I felt… I dunno, that feeling and the sort of otherworldly escape I felt seems 4-ish. I’ll split the difference and say a 3. What a strange, strange, almost alien album that doesn’t feel like anything else from 1978 whatsoever.

That’s a 3.5 that I’m really begrudgingly rounding up to a 4. I think the first half of this album fires on all cylinders; great variance in the production, some fun soundscapes, good lyrics, great vocals, and it’s all really fun stuff through Track 7. Tracks 8, 9, 10, and 11 all blend together in a way that really, really slows down the pace of the album for me. They’re all guitar-heavy songs that sound great to listen to, but they all sound the same to me, and the lyrics just weren’t as good to justify having such a similar sound. You can literally tell they lost steam. Track 12 was pretty nice, though. You just can’t have that much of an album feel like filler though; if this had been the first 7 tracks, it would probably be a really nice 5. It just kinda sticks around too long for its own good, and drags itself down in the process. I don’t want to give this a 4, but I also just can’t in good faith give this a 3 knowing the quality of those first 7 tracks, so, uh… yeah, I guess it’s a 4, but just know I’m stuck at a hard 3.5.

It’s a 4.5 that I’ll round up to a 5. Other than the extreme dissonance of Hit the Plane Down, I really don’t think there’s a bad track on this album; there’s a lot of Nirvana to this at the start, but it slowly blends in a bit of R.E.M. as well, and that general soundscape just worked really well for me. I think this album shines best in its guitar and percussion work, but the vocals hold up pretty well against them, as do the lyrics for a good chunk of the album. Just a really strong listen for me; glad we got this one, and I feel good with a 5.

I mean, they really blew their load in the first 7 tracks here, huh? This is a fantastic album that goes on just a little too long for its own good; those first 7 tracks could stand up with any 7-track stretch on any album like this, and I'll stand by that. The energy and the luster of the sound really started to fade away by Tracks 9 and 10, and it felt especially bad by Tracks 13 and 14 where it just felt like they were rehashing stuff from earlier in the album. Road Trippin’ is a great closer, but I think that stretch of Tracks 9-14 where the energy starts to fade and the album simply loses its steam is gonna drop this down to a 4 for me. It’s a 4.5 that I just can’t bring myself to round up all the way; it could hit a 5 if one or two of those tracks in the back half of the album click for me better, but it’s a really strong album that’s worth listening to regardless. Think of it this way; it’s a 9/10 for me.

That’s a solid 3. When this album clicks well, it really clicks well; I think tracks 3-6 are strong reggae tracks, and I think Till Your Well Runs Dry has super fun vibes and a great mix between a typical reggae feel and sort of traditional 70s pop/rock. When this album doesn’t click, it’s a bit too long, a bit too repetitive, and the vibes just don’t fully click with my sensibilities, and I think that happens a bit too much. There’s definitely not a bad track here, but it’s just harder to get lost in the soundscape on this than it was for Exodus. Hence, just a 3. Legalize weed, though.

Surprisingly, I’m gonna go with a 5. This album feels way way ahead of schedule for 1968 in terms of the general folksy sound that would come to pass by the mid-70s and early 80s; I think the percussion and guitar work are off the charts here. There’s not a single “bad” track on this album either; there are a few that go a little long, but they’re all great listens as far as catching the ear and keeping it engaged. In general, despite being Bob Dylan’s backing band for a bit, it speaks to the talent that Bob Dylan surrounded himself with for them to produce something that feels this sort of influential and groundbreaking with only a small (but still sizable) portion of his musical DNA scattered throughout the record. There’s just some incredibly cool soundscapes here that have aged fabulously for the 55 years since this album came out, and I think that’ll give it a 5 from me.

I’m not sure quite how I should rate this, given my unfamiliarity with most of the source material, the fact that I sort of zoned in and out while listening to it given its runtime, and that unfamiliarity making me sort of unsure how much the orchestra added to the actual weight of the original songs. There were points where these sort of just felt like studio recordings to me. With that said, it’s definitely somewhere between a 4 and 5. What a enriching album in terms of that soundscape and that orchestra blended with Metallica’s style. Seriously, seriously incredible stuff here. In some sense, I think my lack of familiarity with the band is a bit of a positive; even if some songs sort of blended together, and even if my focus was a little lost at times, something about either the orchestra’s ability to keep up with them or Metallica’s inherent charm and appeal kept pulling my ear back in pretty quickly. Are there lulls and periods of this album where you can feel a sort of rest break built in? Yes, but they don’t take away from the experience for me because they blend it super well to a point where those rest breaks are just as needed for the listener to catch their breath. I might need to give this concert at least one more listen to really lock this in, but I’m super comfortable with the idea of a 5 just on vibes, execution, and energy alone. I can’t wait to get more Metallica, mainly so I can come back to this album someday with a very fresh sense of how much the orchestra added and how well these songs were adapted to incorporate them. Either way, I’ll go for a 5. Great stuff.

Feeling a 4 here. There’s no bad tracks here; as far as the soundscape goes, this is super cool for 1987, with some great synth work, cool percussion, and just some pretty captivating melodies. Sometimes, they don’t work or they’re a little repetitive, but when this album clicks, it clicks really well. I’ve never heard the Pet Shop Boys before this, but I get the feeling I’ve been missing out. I think my biggest nitpick with this album is that sometimes the outros are just too long in a way that doesn’t really enhance the song. Music just can’t overstay its welcome, because it runs the risk of growing boring. I say that with the irony of having listened to 2 hours of orchestral Metallica yesterday, but that album worked because it was live and the energy never quite dwindled for me. On this album… yeah, the energy dwindled a little on those outros. Regardless, this is a really good album, definitely worth the listen, and definitely worth a 4; maybe a 5 if a few songs hit differently.

Incredibly, it’s a 5. Yes, the last 7 tracks of this album are a sort of stereotypical doo-wop affair reminiscent of “My Girl” more than the funk-infused and experimental first 3 tracks, but I love both sides of it equally. I think the doo-wop is just incredibly smooth, and even though it’s all just love songs, it manages to blend in that sort of late 50s/early 60s feel with a lot of their contemporaries of the era in a way that makes it feel kinda fresh and nostalgic at the same time for 1969, when Beatlemania was surely still in full swing. Those first 3 tracks are still really cool; namely Cloud Nine & the 10-minute centerpiece that is Runaway Child, Running Wild; yes, it doesn’t need to be 10 minutes, but it fills its soundscape pretty well and it stays pretty engaging throughout, even if it plays it pretty safe the whole way through. I can’t really explain why it’s a 5, but I think there’s just something about this sound that clicked with me super well; I don’t think there’s a miss on this album in terms of easy listening, and everything here is just catchy as hell to me. I feel pretty good with a 5.

I mean, it’s obviously a 5. I have some level of bias since I heard this in August 2022 for the first time and basically fell in love with the album there, but I’ve heard songs from it pretty sparsely, so to come back to it about a year and a half later with a more critical ear just tells me I was justified in liking the album the first time. A masterclass in lyricism and in flow with some genuine all-time beats here; I do think the latter half of the album relies a bit more on basslines to carry the beats than any substantial sampling, but Nas overshadows that incredibly well with his honesty and his enigmatic lyrics, even when he makes up shit like “magmatize”. It really is just a fantastic debut album, and I still feel like I need to listen to more Nas. Super easy 5.

This album makes that Bill Evans album look like a fucking preschool recital, holy shit. What an instant 5. The layering on every instrumental is perfectly done, the mixing is fabulous, and the avant garde composition of the piano, the brass, and the percussion — good lord, the percussion — is a masterclass in jazz. For 1963, this is experimental as hell, but it’s aged beautifully well. The quickest 40 minutes of an album experience I think I’ve had so far, but in a really pleasing way that had me encapsulated the entire time. I’m really deeply impressed by how much this sort of touched me, and I’m glad I listened to it. Fantastic album, easy 5.

It’s a very nice 3 that I'll round up to a 4. I really enjoyed this, honestly; I think what’s here makes for a great listen, there’s about 6 tracks that properly caught my ear in a captivating way, but the other 5 or so just sort of exist in a way that were only made for casual listening, at least to me. I thought the last track being fully instrumental was a bit baffling. Regardless though, this album evokes so much of that 50s/60s country sound that I tend to have a bias towards, and I thought it really faithfully captured a lot of its production quirks in a way that made the whole album feel authentically done and with a lot of respect towards that era. Hence, the round-up.

I mean, in terms of doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, I’d say it gets a 5 as an ambient album. In terms of the music itself… it’s like a 3.5, maybe, but the point of the album is almost certainly not to critique the actual composition – sure, there are layers to the music, intentional production decisions, and a general melody loop each track follows, but that’s not the stuff to focus on. It’s just about getting lost in the soundscape and going for it. Obviously, it would be dumb to go, “oh, it’s a 5, that means it’s as good as Illmatic or something” because it’s obviously not, but like… what else am I supposed to rate it, you know? The only knock I have is that 2/1 was probably the most “distracting” of the tracks, but it’s like complaining that a bird is chirping while it’s sunny outside. It happens. Seriously, I think I’m gonna go with a 5 in terms of keeping me focused, steady, and relaxed for its entire 48 minute runtime. If I had to go out of 10, it’s almost certainly like a 7/10 or something, but that’s just because it’s clearly not at the highest of high levels or anything. What a strange album to include in the 1,001 set, but like… I’m glad it came up, because now I have new focus/study music to add to my collection. Pretty good.

Once again, I have an annoyingly deep connection to this album. Once again, I do find it to be a timeless classic. I still think that THIS version of Kanye West, before every single disgraceful and disgusting thing he's done and said in the 13.5 years since this album has dropped, is still pretty damn good; not as good as his College Trilogy work, and honestly for me, probably still not as good as 808s, but regardless... ugh, this album is another fucking 5. Yes, this Kanye certainly resembles a little more of the asshole he's become, but he was driven by that stupidity and that ego to create this piece of art instead of spreading hate. In that sense, I miss this asshole who tried to "redeem" himself by just making incredible music and not being a Nazi sympathizer for the fun of it. Still though; just classics on classics on classics on this one; Dark Fantasy is a stellar opener, and the 3-track stretch of POWER, All of the Lights, and Monster is such a ridiculous flex. Devil In A New Dress is stellar, Runaway will stick with me forever, and the 1-2 punch of Lost in The World / Who Will Survive in America is a great way to close out the album. Once again, I didn't listen to this album before giving it this 5, if only because I know it well enough to never have to give Kanye another dime ever again. It is once again, obnoxiously a 5, even if the man has dipped further into the negatives. So, uhh... this time, I chose to listen to Sean Kingston's self-titled debut album. I mean, honestly? Not bad. Pretty fun album; a lot of 2000s-era production quirks in there, some slang I wish we would bring back in the lyrics, and ultimately, some pretty solid vocal performances by Sean Kingston. It’s got some weird sampling choices, sure, but I feel like I’ve heard worse. A solid 7/10 album.

It’s a pretty good 3, but it’s just sort of… safe. It’s hard for me to find the specific words I want to say, because I do think this album has some pretty energetic tracks throughout, but none of them are necessarily that memorable. It’s not an Apocalypse Dudes situation where I felt like every song just sort of blended together, but it is a point where the quantity of the album creates diminishing returns on the quality of the album – at some point, the soundscape loses its luster, and even with the 16 tracks here all being relatively short, some of them do feel unnecessary, even with some decent variety within. It’s a good listen, and I’m sure it’ll resonate better and perhaps more deeply with someone else, but for my money’s worth, this is an album that you take all the songs in, throw on a playlist, and then just go “oh, this sounds cool” when it comes up on shuffle, and never think about it again afterward. Hence, the 3, but it could go up to a 4 later. The guitar work was absolutely stellar though.

It’s a 2.5 that I cannot possibly bring myself to round up to a 3… but it’s not that terrible. It’s just boring. There’s genuinely some good soundscapes here, and I’d say the vocal performance only ever dips to a real low by “Vagabond Holes,” but this album just feels like the equivalent of just getting a vanilla ice cream when there’s so many other flavors and toppings available. Most of the songs are fine to listen to, but when you look at the lyrics, the concepts of each song sort of fall apart with lyrics that are either too contrived or too outdated and “safe” for 1987, let alone 2024. Instrumentally, I think the mixing on this album is all over the place, and in terms of production, these are trying so desperately hard to sound important and bombastic with this rich variety of instruments, and it just falls flat because as a listener, it’s incredibly easy to tell where they’re just trying too hard. The problem, of course, is that they’ve tried just enough to exist within the limbo of “good enough to listen to, not good enough to care,” and that is the cardinal sin any album can fall into. If I were going by a 10… I dunno, a 5.5, maybe? Decent listen, but instantly forgettable, hence the 2.

That’s a really intriguing 3. There are lulls around the middle where the sound sorta loses its luster, but all 4 of the core styles here make for good listening. I enjoyed the first and last styles (Dádrá & Sindhi-Bhairavi) the most because they just sort of had a more natural and free-flowing vibe to them; you can feel these guys feeling the music come to them. It felt to me like that was a bit more deliberate in the Máru-Bihág and Bhimpalási styles, and that’s why I didn’t enjoy them as much, but they’re all good listens. The only knock I might have on these tracks are the runtimes? I feel like it could’ve been possible to trim this down a little bit, but that’s a knock against the sort of flow I was talking about earlier and I’d be kind of a hypocrite. I don’t think I can go up to a 4 or a 5 because it is kind of just the same throughout, but it’s a very enjoyable listen regardless, and I feel good with a 3.

I’m just a sucker for pop, man. It’s a 4.5 that I’m gonna round up to a 5. It’s just a really fucking catchy album; there’s a lot to be said about Jack Antonoff’s influence (for better or worse) on so much of modern pop, but when he clicks perfectly with an artist, it’s easy to ignore those production quirks and just get a great feel for the music. Lorde’s vocals and lyrics on this album do a great job of distracting from those quirks in a way that makes her really shine on this album. I do think she gives a more authentic view of herself on Pure Heroine compared to this album, but they’re intentionally tonally different. Even though I think I still prefer aspects of Pure Heroine more, this album is just full of bops, and it’s got an extremely infectious energy. Oddly, my standout on this album is Liability, which is the least boppy of them all, but it’s just an utterly beautiful piano-driven song that brought me to the verge of tears. I can feel how this album did influence the direction this style of pop music would take; you don’t get to a Billie Eilish or an Olivia Rodrigo without this sort of album, in terms of its soundscape, its lyrics, and to some degree, its marketability. This style is starting to feel a bit overplayed now, but Lorde really makes it work for herself here, and I’m glad I listened to it. I feel pretty good going for a 5. Certainly no less than a 4.

It’s a pretty decent 4. James Brown has incredible crowd control on this album, which works well live, but occasionally hits some lull points when you’re dealing with nothing but the music – I thought Lost Someone really started to drag by the end, but the medley afterward started red hot. That’s the sort of thing where I imagine it was way cooler live than how it feels on this album. I also think Night Train was… sort of the “wrong” closer for this set? It seems like it was either recorded separately or recorded in a way where the crowd’s energy was drained. Speaking of the crowd, they’re basically their own instrument on this album with the way James Brown and his excellent band basically hit every transition in a way to let them realize what’s up next without much of a pause (again, except for the extended dragout section on Lost Someone). Those little lulls are what get this a 4; honestly, it’s probably closer to a 3.5 than it is a 4, but I know it deserves higher than a 3. It’s just a really strong listen that didn’t quite click with me the way some of the other live albums we’ve gotten have, but it's enjoyable regardless.

It’s a 3.5 that I think I’m going to round down to a 3. I really don’t think there’s a bad track here, save for two examples: the egregiously cheesy and quintessentially 80s “A Gospel,” and “Strength of Your Nature,” which is fine but did not need to be 4 minutes long. Every other track, besides My Ever Changing Moods & Headstart for Happiness, ended up as a good listen, but not a very memorable one. Those two were the standouts for me. Individually, I think there’s some good soundscapes, some good vocal performances, and even the instrumental tracks have a nice energy to them. The problem is that other than those 2 tracks, nothing really stuck to my brain on this album, but I’d honestly say I enjoyed most of it while I was listening to it. There are songs here I’d be happy to hear come up in a shuffle, but I don’t think I’d actively seek them out. I do think it’s higher than a 3, but it’s not quite at the level of a 4, so I’ll stick it at a 3. It might jump up to a 4 later though.

It’s a 4 that I’m gonna bump up to a 5. I’m kinda just stunned, really, and I’m not really sure if I have the proper words to describe my mood right now. This is the first time I’ve properly heard Fiona Apple, ever; her voice is incredibly unique to me, and her slightly deeper tone just clicked super well for me as the primary instrument on this album. The piano, while it did eventually lose its luster near the end of the album, is a really strong choice for her to play off of, as there were times when she was just gliding with the damn thing. For 1996, this feels like it wouldn’t miss a damn beat if it had come out in 2024. I also really liked the lyrics here; just evocative enough for imagery to sort of let the brain drift away and get lost, but not in a way where you lose all focus on the soundscape and her vocals. There were a few tracks where the lyrics sort of lost me, and when they lost me, the instrumental and her vocals couldn’t really pull me back in. However, for the vast majority of this album, something just captivated me, and that’s why even though it’s nearer to a 4 for me, given the runtime, the occasional extended instrumental outros, and the occasional moments of lyrical confusion, I enjoyed this so damn much that I have to bump it up to a 5.

The definition of a 3, really. I wouldn’t say it’s bad at all, but it never really makes the jump past “good” – Pretty in Pink is pretty fun, as are 2 or 3 other tracks, but this album feels like it’s missing a specific type of signature song. That doesn’t even mean a super commercial hit or anything, it just needs something that really defines their style and stands out, and I just never found that here. It is 1981 rock, which occasionally dips backwards into the late 70s and occasionally dips forward into some mid-80s R.E.M. type of soundscapes, but it never really settles into a spot where I found myself super deeply engaged with any one song, hence the 3.

It’s a pretty strong 4. I don’t know quite how to describe the way I felt during this album, but the energy grew throughout until it basically hit a peak at Not What You Want, before sort of curving back down. I felt a little nitpicky at first, with her vocals not quite meshing with the guitar and the dissonance not really clicking well for me sonically, to eventually just really getting pulled into the musical feel more than anything else. It’s a testament to the strength of the album that I actually wish the last track had gone longer instead of feeling a little more abrupt – this is just a super fun listen, and if the inner punk/grunge-self in you doesn’t feel the energy off this album at least once, then something’s just wrong. Super fun 4 that has peaks that feel like a 5.

It’s a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. I think there are a few points of lulls on this album; not necessarily in the instrumental lacking an energy, or vocal repetition, but just points where the soundscape kinda loses a luster really quickly if the vocals aren’t flowing, and vice-versa. Most of the tracks here have a good energy, and a great soundscape, but there were some songs that were just harder for me to stay fully invested in on account of those little lulls. I do think this album sounds well ahead of its time for 2005; not like, 2020s level of ahead, but certainly a bit more of an early 2010’s flair. I don’t think there are that many standout individual tracks, but the album as an entire package is just a fun listen, and a recommended one at that. It’s not gonna be everyone’s cup of tea; I do think there are some harsher instrumental choices here and there, and sometimes her vocals do feel a bit… aggressive. However, a lot of this just clicked for me as a listener – there were times when I wasn’t feeling a song, kinda zoned out, and enjoyed it more for some reason. Schrödinger’s beat, I guess. Happy with the 4.

I knew I was giving it a 5, I just… ugh. Wow. It’s so good. I haven’t heard it in full in a bit, but it’s so goddamn good. There are some songs where the repetition becomes too noticeable to ignore at times, but when this album clicks, it clicks deeply. Her lyricism is great, her vocals are spectacular, and the instrumentals are really fun throughout, especially when they lean into live instrumentation. The biggest knock I have on this album is its length (it’s a little long), but it just doesn’t matter that much to me. It’s not a perfect album, but I love it regardless, and I really wish Lauryn Hill had tried to top herself, but if she never does, she left an absolutely stellar project here, and it’s so highly recommended. Easy 5.

It’s a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. It’s pretty good; I think the first half of the album is a bit generic at times, but I really enjoyed the back half of the album. I thought it had way more energy to it. However, when this album kinda hits those generic lulls, it’s just not that sonically pleasing; the guitar can overwhelm the vocals, or the percussion can overwhelm the guitar, or some other rock/paper/scissors type of connection with those 3 elements. When this album clicks and those 3 are in harmony, it’s really nice. Even when it’s not clicking in full, it’s usually hitting on 2 of those 3, and it makes for a fine enough listen. It didn’t really do enough to ever feel like it was close to a 5, but it’s pretty good regardless, and I think a 4 feels about right.

It is, thankfully, a 5. This album has received so much critical acclaim, and yet I only really knew it for Rehab and Back to Black, both of which are fabulous tracks. I think there are a few tracks on here that touched me really deeply, namely Love is a Losing Game & Wake Up Alone. Absolutely fabulous songs, and Amy Winehouse’s voice is spectacular on them, and the entire album. The production is off the charts too; Mark Ronson does a great job evoking the 50s and 60s with modern production for someone who feels ripped straight out of the era of R&B and soul music of that time. To put it bluntly, I’m glad it’s a 5 because I feel like I would have been underwhelmed if it were anything else. The legend of Amy Winehouse has grown in the years since her death, and the fact that a movie is coming out about her soon is the craziest part. Great timing to get this album, and I’m glad I finally had the excuse to sit down and listen to it in full. I’m so glad that it’s this good, and I’m also so dumb for not listening to the whole thing before today. Fantastic 5. Easily one of the best albums we’ve gotten so far.

Surprisingly, a 5. Well, OK, maybe not that surprising, but for the earliest album we’ve gotten so far to get this out of me is a little surprising to me. It’s just a really fun listen. Louis Prima’s voice and tone has this great energy that gets matched by the band, and on the two tracks that have Keely Smith as the female vocalist, his voice blends really well with hers. Ultimately, what makes this album is Louis Prima’s vocal energy; yes, the lyrics are there, and they’re pretty solid, but you don’t need them to enjoy this. This is just really fun swing music; it’s a good time, it’s a great listen, and I think the amount of infectious energy it gives out makes it very worthy of a 5. Certainly no less than a 4, at least to me.

It’s a 4.5 that I’m gonna pretty easily round up to a 5. First Bowie album to get a 5 out of me during this experience. I can’t exactly explain how I feel after listening to this, mainly because it’s unlike any Bowie album we’ve gotten yet, or anything Bowie that I’ve ever listened to, really. I don’t know what crack Brian Eno put into these collaborations with Bowie, but something just clicked perfectly for me with this album; the synth work, the instrumentation, Bowie’s vocals in the first half, the moodiness of the second half, and really, just the sort of strange mix of melancholy and brightness that I had wavering throughout this album. It’s very hard to describe it, but I know that I’m glad I listened to this album, and I know that I’d recommend it as an experience. It is not a traditional David Bowie affair, and I’d argue it’s more of a Brian Eno album that happens to have David Bowie on it for a strong chunk of the album, but regardless, I feel pretty good about bumping this up to a 5.

That’s a 5. I don’t even think I want to expound on that. It’s a fucking 5. Just… ugh. Insanely good. I’ve never heard Iron Maiden before this; I might be fucking stupid. What an incredible album, genuinely. I don’t have the words; I’m writing this right after I listened to it, and I’m stunned, and all I know is that everyone should listen to this. Just beautifully visceral. This shit feels like hearing Thriller for the first time. To me, it feels like the cornerstone piece of a genre. That’s all I can say. Easy 5.

I’m feeling a 4. I don’t really understand the criticisms this album has been getting on the site – yes, it’s very radio-friendly safe pop, but what’s wrong with that? Not everything has to be this absolutely blowout balls at the wall album. Sometimes, when pop is good, and it clicks, it just… clicks. This album clicked for me; I thought the instrumentation was pretty good, I really like the tone of his voice, and I thought the tempo and the vibes were pretty varied and entertaining throughout. Lyrically, I caught a few things that were dumb as hell, but overall, I’d say this is good, and worth giving a 4 to. Let me put it this way: I’ve heard worse on some of the previous 121 albums we’ve done before this. To me, this is pretty fun. It’s not blow-me-away incredible, and it breaks the streak of 5’s I’ve been giving (4 albums in a row and 5 out of the last 6 is pretty good), but I definitely enjoyed it, and I’d recommend it. I’d say that makes it worthy of being on the list.

It’s a 3.5 that I’m gonna pretty easily bump up to a 4. It’s all in her voice; it’s what carries this album through and through. Even though there’s some super good lyrics in here and some really catchy instrumentals, her voice just glides over everything and cuts through like butter. I think this album shines brightest when the instrumentation is either a bit more minimal, to let her voice stick out the most, or when the instrumentation builds into this bombastic piece to let her voice just glide up with it and still really stick out. Whenever it’s sort of in the middle, where the instrumentation is too much and too sudden, those songs just never fully kept me engaged for one reason or another. Either way, it’s a fabulous listen, and there are some real classics in here, I think. Pretty pleased with a 4. Shoutout to I Don’t Want to Hear It Anymore.

I kinda wish I could leave this right at a 3.5, but I’ll be nice and round it up to a 4. Really, the only thing holding this album back, at least to me, is the technology of its time; there’s some really fun concepts in here, but the execution comes up just short on a few on them, not at the fault of The Kinks, but simply at what was available to them at the time. Lazy Old Sun is a prime example of this; I thought it felt really unique for 1967, and I imagine if they had the technology of even a decade later, they would’ve really made that song pop more than it already does. I feel good about bumping it up to a 4 because I don’t think there are any bad tracks, just some safe ones that don’t really bring down the mood or the energy, though End of the Season sure tries. Overall, a little too early for its time without feeling out of place. Pretty good album regardless, though. 7/10, if we went by 10.

I think the first half of the album is a 3, and the back half of the album is a 4, so once again, I’m at a 3.5 that I wish I could keep there. I think I’m gonna bump it down to a 3. Ultimately, it’s because I think too many songs suffer from extended periods where everything just sort of blends together for too long. There’s not a single bad song on here, but so many of them just fade into the background after a bit while listening. That wouldn’t be so bad if the entire album had great instrumental pieces, but I find the first half of the album to be a little bland and a bit generic in its instrumentation, so it really sticks out when those songs blend into the background. The second half of the album is great, and doesn’t suffer from it as badly because they have great instrumentation and just better all-around vibes. However, they do suffer from it. It’s a 3.5, but I’ll round it down for that. Another solid 7/10 album.

It’s a 4 that I’m gonna bump up to a 5 because of some bias. Yes, there are some lulls on this album, but ultimately, what’s here is timeless. Really, truly timeless. I’ve got a lot of respect for Frank Sinatra’s specific era of music, because it’s stood the test of time. So often now, music is such a 1-way street of “drop, get the public attention for 2 weeks, leave,” and then go support the tour or the merch drops. There’s so much talk about the “Great American Songbook” that I occasionally see, and I think this album is a great showcase of what that actually is. Yes, in 70 years time, I imagine the kids of 2094 will talk about Taylor Swift and not Frank Sinatra, but that’s the proof that even though music has changed, so much of its DNA can still be traced back to this era, these compositions, these melodies, and voices like Frank Sinatra that make them pop to life. In that sense, this album just gets elevated higher to me; it’s a man at his peak showcasing songs that have lived on for years and years past their original versions because of this album and the amount of people that have tried to emulate his style. Almost every composition of these tracks, I would argue, is probably most heavily based on Sinatra’s versions, or at least Sinatra’s contemporaries who all took inspiration from him. That’s where the 4 gets bumped up to a 5: this album’s influence, and its timelessness. Great album, even if it has a few lulls.

It’s a 4.5 that I’ll round up to a 5, but there is one very noticeable flaw. It’s Jailbait. It hasn’t aged well, and it’s morally reprehensible in its lyrics. With that said, the rest of the album is a ball of energy that overwhelms that one track so much that the entire experience is fine without it. Just a ridiculous display of the guitar, great tempos (and really hard percussion, I would imagine), all anchored in by Lemmy’s voice, which sounds like it’s a cigarette away from falling apart at any given time, but somehow just works perfectly for this sound and this style. I just really, really liked it; it clicked super well for me, and I feel good about giving it a 5. Never adding Jailbait, though.

It’s a 4.5 that I will once again bump up to a 5. My biggest complaint about Murmur was that I didn’t think the lyrical depth was too strong; the melodies were great, the vocals had a good kick, but the lack of really meaningful lyrics just ate at me. This album remedies that pretty well – there are still a few songs where the lyrics are a bit lacking, but there’s definitely more tracks that blend together the great melodies with really strong lyrics, especially on the more politically-charged tracks. I really don’t think there’s a bad track on here; even the ones that I thought weren’t as lyrically strong more than made up for it with super strong instrumentation that felt at least 8 years ahead of schedule, and Michael Stipe’s vocals on this record really help to make those instrumentals pop. Ultimately, I think it's just a great album, hence the bump up to a 5.

It’s a very front-loaded 3.5 that I just don’t think I can bump up to a 4. The first 5 tracks here really clicked well for me, but of the back 7, I really think only 3 of them caught my ear in a really meaningful way. I might be a little tired, but I do think a number of songs in the back half just blend together in terms of messaging, lyrics, overall vocals, and instrumentation that doesn’t really hit the same heights as the first 5. Ultimately, I do think it’s a good album, and it’s worth a listen – I’m sure someone will connect more deeply to the back half than I did. I just don’t think the album as a whole is good enough to go to a 4, so I’ll feel a little disappointed with a 3. It’s like a 7/10 album, though.

Yeah, that’s a 5. There are a few lulls of “that’s just OK,” and two specifically weak tracks to me: Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and Sir Psycho Sexy (but only for its lyrics, because the instrumental is fabulous). The rest of the album, however, just really fucking clicked for me. I do think some of those “just OK” tracks could’ve been cut to shorten the runtime down a bit, but there’s just a lot of energy and charm oozing off of this album, man. I think my favorite was probably The Righteous & the Wicked, but about 12 (13 if you count me laughing my ass off at the absurdity of the last track) of these songs were SO good. Just a banger of an album to me, easily deserving of a 5, and one of the more fun ones we’ve gotten overall. I really enjoyed it.

I dunno… it’s a 3.5 that I think I’ll round down? Ultimately, I think it’s harder for me to fairly rate this album because Spotify just doesn’t display the lyrics like that, and to follow along on say, Genius, or something, takes away from the excellence found in a lot of the soundscapes. I can’t fully appreciate the lyrics without sacrificing paying attention to basslines, or backing vocals, or acoustics or electric guitar or synths. The same is true in a vice-versa sense. Ultimately, though, I really enjoyed listening to this. It’s super chill music, and from the lyrics I have looked up, it’s got good storytelling chops. I do think the vocals are one of the weaker parts of the album, but ultimately, for 1974, I think this is really innovative stuff. Solid album, I wish I could stick to a 3.5, but I just don’t think I can round it up because it never REALLY blew me away like that. Strong 3, like a 7/10 again.

I can finally give a solid 4 for the first time in a bit. I don’t think this album ever quite gets up to the territory of being a 5, but regardless, this album just glides from start to finish. Never a dull moment; maybe a few lulls here and there, or one or two songs that didn’t quite click right with me, but there’s not really a moment fully wasted throughout all 42 minutes of this album. Bono’s vocals are fine, and occasionally great, but what really anchors this album is the stellar guitar work and the masterful percussion. It’s just a good time – good lyrics, good vocals, strong instrumentation and just a delightful listen from start to finish. Very highly recommended 4.

It’s a very good 4. If we’re being really honest, I think this album kind of peaks by The Girl From Ipanema. The good news about hitting that peak so early is that it sustains it really well through the first 5 or 6 tracks of the album. I do think by the end, it finally sort of tapers off, but more from just an inevitable fatigue of the soundscape. What’s here is incredibly relaxing, very enjoyable, and super easy to listen to. It never really falls off a cliff, but it sets the tone so well and so early that every other song, by comparison, feels a bit lesser, but still pretty good. I think the only reason I’m stuck at a 4 is mainly just how rigid the album can feel; not in terms of the compositions themselves, but simply the instruments at hand. I understand the general vibe of bossa nova, and how going full big band on it would immediately betray everything, but this album sticks really deeply to its core instruments, and it keeps a relatively soft tone throughout. I’ve heard passionately done bossa nova with a little bit more bite to it, and I don’t think this album ever really has that kind of bite to it. Regardless though, it’s a great album, a very recommended listen, and a good time that deserves a 4 – maybe a 5 on a re-listen or two.

I’m exhausted as hell from jumping around. That is a spectacular 5. I’ve never heard this album in full, and I was only vaguely familiar with “Smack My Bitch Up,” but good lord, what a ridiculously energetic collection of songs that manage to feel captivating and engaging throughout all 56 minutes of its runtime. Part of it was me getting up and being active and letting the energy of the songs come through me in a way where my body hit a sort of adrenaline rush, but part of it really is just the excellent production; great drum samples, deep heavy basslines, great guitar, gritty vocals, and ultimately, just finding the right moments to break down and give a song new life when it started to get a little too repetitive or overbearing on the ears. Those moments really kept the album’s energy up for me, and they always hit at the perfect time. One of the most enjoyable albums we’ve had yet, and an absolute bomb of energy to boot; easy 5, spectacular electronica, probably a 10/10 if I were going out of 10. Fantastic stuff.

It’s a rather dull 2.5 that I just can't bump up to a 3. Maybe it’s just because I’m not familiar with Grateful Dead, but this is basically just a 73 minute jam session that’s completely inoffensive to the ears. Boring? Eh, maybe a little. It never really perked up my ears, but I never felt outright bored or annoyed by the soundscape, it just sort of existed. It’s not a bad listen, but it’s not something I’d recommend unless you’re looking for ambient and almost relaxing background noise. There’s not really any standout bits here, and for a live album, I heard almost nothing of a crowd. It’s a rather forgettable album, but it’s not a 1 because there is some decent energy throughout, and I’d be lying if I wasn’t at least nodding my head along a few times during the few points where everything just seemed to be in perfect sync between the band. A dull 2 feels about right. Right around a 5.5/10.

That’s a 10. I’m just glowing with praise, man; that’s a no-skip album from start to finish, with incredible energy throughout, a deeply captivating soundscape entirely anchored by a band working in genuinely perfect harmony. Led Zeppelin IV might have all the classics, but I think this album outshines it. I’m still just shell shocked and really struggling to find the words; all I know is that everyone has to hear this album, and that’s the most glowing praise I can give it. Absolutely spectacular, and one of the very best albums we’ve gotten so far. Wow, wow, wow.

I’m at a 4.5 that I think I can round up to a 5. I think the vast majority of this album is incredibly strong, all the way up until Gangsta Shit, and even through Toilet Tisha, but I think the album kinda limps to the finish line after that. I only knew the 3 big tracks going into this listen (So Fresh, So Clean, Ms. Jackson, and B.O.B.), but there’s so many good tracks here; Spaghetti Junction, Humble Mumble, and Gangsta Shit are all standouts to me, and almost everything else before Gangsta Shit is still pretty damn good. I do wish this ended on a stronger note, but regardless of the final 2 main tracks falling short for me, I think so much of this album does so many things so right, in terms of flow, lyricism, and great beats that I’d be kinda criminal to not give it a 5.

Yeah, that’s a 5. I knew this was the album that had Baba O’Riley, but I never made the connection that Won’t Get Fooled Again was that fucking song. Those are the two standouts, obviously, but everything in between so perfectly compliments each other in terms of the instrumentation and the vocal performance, probably most deeply anchored together by the fantastic percussion throughout this album that really makes each song pop that much harder, especially on The Song Is Over and Getting in Tune. It’s just a really fucking good album, man. Even its weakest points where the sound lulls a bit or repetition starts to seep in, which are few and far between, are still great to listen to. Very deserving of a 5, and highly recommended.

It’s a 3. There are some really good songs here, but I’d say about half of the album hits that good mark, and the other half just sorta falls flat, either from trying too hard to sound edgy and deep, or from not doing enough creatively with its instrumental soundscape to justify the screaming vocals as the main focal point. When this album hits, I do think it hits really nicely, with a good burst of energy; Born Stubborn is probably my favorite one here. When this album hits those lulls, it just feels like I’m waiting for another chance without getting any kind of feeling from the song itself, no matter how hard it tries to keep the energy up – Lookaway is full of these exotic grunts and backing vocal yells, but they just come across as cheesy to me. Don’t even get me started on the last track, which had me captivated for the first 6 or 7 minutes off just percussion and atmosphere, and then had me begging for it to end by the 10 minute mark when it just kept fucking going. It’s a good album, but it just has a number of flaws to me that make it so I can’t justify going any higher than a 3.

That’s a super fun 4. Ultimately, I think it just suffers from being a little too same-y and a little too repetitive to justify a 5 off a first listen, but this is an album made for car rides, concerts, and good times; repetition should be damned with this one. It’s got good vocals that are occasionally reminiscent of David Byrne and Talking Heads, great instrumentation that feels very R.E.M.-esque at times, and ultimately, the vibes are just overwhelmingly fun. I feel good with giving this one a 4; it could bump up to a 5 if some of the other songs just hit right, but the whole album is a treat to listen to.

I’m at a (slightly biased) 4.5 that I think I’m gonna go ahead and bump up to a 5. This is the general soundscape I’ve kinda been waiting for – I have a lot of love for like, the Goo Goo Dolls or Matchbox Twenty, so this album finally hit around that sound, and it does it super well. The guitar work in particular, while occasionally way too loud in the mix, is really good throughout this whole album. Courtney Love’s vocals, which I’ve never really heard before now, have a great tone to them, especially when she holds notes on the lower end of her register; there’s just a deep grit there that really makes the lyrics pop more. It’s just a really solid album where everything clicked for me, and I just liked almost every track here; obviously, there’s a number of references to Kurt Cobain, and Courtney’s reputation and image in light of what happened. This album, I believe, was her first chance to really respond with some music, and what emerged is an album that fits right alongside some of its contemporaries for 1998. I feel good bumping it up to a 5; I just enjoyed it that much.

I mean… I dunno what to say, really. It’s probably just a 3, but I enjoyed it. It’s really strong instrumental music, and it keeps a pretty solid quality throughout the album. Pretty energetic start, bit of a low-key finish. I get the energy of “it’s a farmer’s day” so from sunrise to sunset, yes, this is generally what a soundscape might feel like. It translates well. It’s just not that captivating to me where I can give it anything more than like, a 3. I zoned out a number of times in this album, and by the end, I just kinda felt like I didn’t need to listen back to it. It’s good music, but it’s not music I’d come back to unless I was really itching for this type of soundscape, or if I wanted to use it for say, ambience or study music. It’s totally competent, and I would recommend people give it a listen… but I’m probably not gonna come back to it, hence the 3. Still good though.

Well, that’s a 5. I’ve only ever heard Respect off this album, and other than (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, I’m just not that deeply familiar with Aretha Franklin's work. I’m a moron for not being deeply familiar with her work – this album epitomizes soul, and it’s very easy to see why she was dubbed the Queen of it within her lifetime. Her vocals on this record are absolutely stunning, and the main highlight of an album that would not be anywhere as good without them. Even without the absolute monster of a track that is Respect, this album would absolutely stand up on its own, from the immediate power of his voice on Drown In My Own Tears all the way to the passion shown on A Change Is Gonna Come. Just a fabulous album; it’s a very well-deserved 5. A 10/10, even.

I mean, that’s probably a 10, right? Fucking hell, I think I finally get the hype. I definitely listened to this a decade ago or something when I was trying to really get into music to see what I missed, but I probably just dismissed a lot of it outside of the first 3 tracks, because they had the most recognizable name value. Those tracks are awesome, and all-timers, don’t get me wrong, but like… god, the other 10 tracks on here are such an all-encapsulating gem of a record. Just a perfect encapsulation of the sound of a post-Reagan America pissed off at both him and George H.W. Bush on its heavier songs… but also, just a fucking awesome album in general. Dave Grohl deserves even more acclaim than he already gets – his drum work on this album is absolutely fucking impeccable. Kurt’s guitar riffs are off the charts, and the basslines are really underrated, I think, as the glue holding the percussion from collapsing in on itself on a few of these tracks. I’m kinda just stunned still, both at my younger self for not getting it, and at this album as a whole. I don’t know why I never really went back to it like this, but I’m very glad I got an excuse to do it now. Just an incredible album.

I’m at a 3. Really, the biggest thing I can knock this album for are the vocals; the monotone feel works on about half the tracks, but on the other half, they either just don’t fit, or he’s trying way too hard to make them fit. I Remember Nothing, in particular, has a really captivating and haunting moody soundscape that just gets dragged down so hard by his vocals that it almost killed the song for me. Regardless, it’s a solid album. There’s good tracks, there’s not really any bad tracks (ok, I fucking hated Candidate though), but there’s not that many captivating and memorable tracks. A lot of it blended together for me, and part of it is from some of the songs just having slightly dull and repetitive soundscapes. The drums are super hit and miss on this album to me; when they’re hot, they are red hot and add a great energy. When they’re missing, it’s basically just because it’s a remarkably basic pattern that sort of drains the energy from the guitar. The guitar usually doesn’t miss though. I dunno, that’s a lot of words to say “it’s fine, it could have been better, the instrumentation was bland at times, and the vocals are the weakest part”. It’s a solid 3, and I’m sure other people will “get it” more deeply than I did.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m gonna bump up to a 5. It’s just really fucking good soul music, man. Even if a lot of it is covers, his voice just glides on them and takes control like they were always his to begin with (save for Respect, but… you know). There are little lulls on this album, and I do think songs fade out a little too often instead of hitting a definitive finish, but those are nitpicks: what’s here is really good, and even when those lulls come in, they’re interrupted by his voice booming out with power and you immediately forget they ever happened. The instrumentation is pretty nice here too; I don’t think many liberties were taken, save for the horn section in the Satisfaction cover, but everything feels pretty true to its original versions otherwise. I just liked it a lot; it’s a fun listen with some occasionally stunning vocals, and I’m totally fine with giving it a 5. Certainly no less than a 4.

I’m going for a 5. I’ve never heard of Nick Drake before this – I now know who he is, and I feel rather sad. This album, much like the Leonard Cohen album we got a while ago, feels like the weight of a life bearing on me in musical form. Unlike Leonard Cohen, it’s not a life long lived; Nick Drake died at the age of 26. I don’t quite have the words to really describe how I feel, but I do think this album struck a little closer to home than the Leonard Cohen album did, though they both made me feel the same way. The youth in his voice, and the familiarity of his voice, with a sort of Jack Johnson or John Mayer-esque tone, enhanced even more by the choice to go fully acoustic, is what really made this hit harder for me. To put it in a more succinct way, this is a true tortured poet’s department, and every line here deserves to be studied with a bit more of a critical eye. Just a beautifully haunting album, and well deserved to be on this list. Very deserving of a 5.

Somehow, I think I’m at a 5. I can’t really explain why – I just enjoyed the hell out of this. At the first track, I was trying so hard to place what the vocals reminded me of, and it took until I Love The Dead to realize that Alice Cooper sounds like Weird Al for parts of this album; maybe that’s just a subconscious thing that added to my enjoyment of this album. Even without that connection, I think the album just sounds fantastic. It’s got such a good variance of styles, from the sort of rock arena anthem that is Hello Hooray, to the James Bond vibes of Unfinished Sweet, to the sort of jovial and Elton John-esque No More Mr. Nice Guy, and to the blatantly obvious Bob Dylan homage that is Generation Landslide. There’s just a lot of fun to be had on this album. It does sort of falter by the last 3 tracks, where it tries to take a sort of moodier approach (but they're still fine), but I think the strength of those first 7 tracks and the fun I had with them just gets me to a 5. I enjoyed it that much; great instrumentation, fun vocals, good vibes, awesome album. Definitely deserves to be on the list.

I’m somehow at a 3. I pretty much wrote my opinion of this album around Track 3, and even though Tracks 5 and 6 kind of picked up for me, this album is just aggressively OK. To copy and paste what I wrote after listening to “Someone”: I’m at a weird point with this album so far; it’s technically sound, the production is good, and his vocals are fine, but nothing is blowing me away. Every song is nice to listen to so far, but when you really dig into it, it’s all just homages to the past. This song in particular felt like a cheap version of a 60s Frank Sinatra trying to do a 90s Bond theme, which is fine on paper, and in terms of the execution here, was done pretty well. It just didn’t really have the charisma or a unique personality to really make this song work. Objectively, the horn section in this song was bombastic, it was glowing, it represented the sort of heartache and loneliness the song was going for really well… but I just didn’t believe in the song. Really, I just don’t believe in the album. It’s not that these are bad songs; they’re all fine, they’re decent to listen to, and the instrumentation gives a great energy to each track. The problem is that nothing truly stands out on its own; everything feels taken from another artist. In terms of the album’s structure, everything just blends together. If you do the big bombastic instrumental part in every song where the strings swell and the vocals hit a fever pitch… then no song feels special. When nothing feels special, you just can’t believe in the album. There is a skeleton of a great album in here, but this just never really sheds its skin to become something that actually stands out. It’s aggressively OK, and no higher than a 3. It definitely doesn’t feel like it belongs on this list.

I'm gonna put a 5, for the sake of the website, but realistically, I’m surprisingly only at a 4, because I just can’t bump it up from a 4.5. Don’t get me wrong, I really want to bump this up to a 5, and maybe on a better day, I can, but like… I dunno, this album kinda falls off after Track 8 for me. I really do think those first 8 tracks cover a great variety of soundscapes, great lyricism, and if it had climaxed on Express Yourself as a totally honest closing track, it’d totally be a 5. I think it just overstays its welcome afterwards, mainly because the last 5 songs are really long, taking up over a third of the album’s runtime by mostly retreading old ground, circling the subject matter a few too many times, or being outright horrendously misogynistic like on Dopeman (Remix). The last 2 tracks are fun though, so like… I dunno, 10 out of 13 isn’t bad? It’s just an album that goes a little too long – based on like, pure vibes, this album would totally get a 5; it’s just an incredible snapshot of its time, and Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and Dr. Dre (who really doesn’t even do THAT much on this album in terms of actually rapping) are all on top of their game here. I just think the entire album experience ends up at a 4 because of the run of Compton’s N The House, I Ain’t Tha 1, and Dopeman (Remix) just kinda killing the vibes. Cut those 3 tracks, I’m easily at a 5. With those 3 tracks, I’m stuck on a 4. Regardless, it’s an all-time classic album and it easily deserves to be on this list.

Yeah, that’s like a 10. I’ve really got no words – that was just 73 minutes of pure perfection, as far as I’m concerned. Yes, it does go a bit long, and yes, it does eventually start to wear on you with the guitar riffs and the percussion and the soundscape, and everything in between, but like… I could fucking care less. I loved every single track here (well, OK, “Still Raining, Still Dreaming” could’ve probably been cut), and I genuinely cannot believe I’ve never heard this album in full before today. I pretty much only knew Voodoo Child (Slight Return), and I knew about the existence of the All Along the Watchtower cover, but I’d never heard it, or the original song for that matter. I’m ignorant enough for not listening to the latter, but the other tracks on here are fucking incredible. I’ve really and truly got no other words; it’s a 10, it’s worth the listen, it’s so deeply recommended, and it’s so easily deserving to be on this list.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I just thought this album felt really encapsulating to me – it had some lulls early on, but I never really felt bored, I just felt like I was always waiting for the instrumentation to take another step up. They kinda broke down that expectation over time, and I think after getting a bit of energy with Back Home and The Bottle, the rest of the album was gliding for me in terms of the soundscape, the vocals, and ultimately, the comforting feel of the album. I really think the last 5 tracks (not counting the reprise of Peace go with You, Brother at the end) are just that damn good – Song for Bobby Smith and Your Daddy Loves You, in particular, gave me the same feeling as say, watching Mr. Rogers or Bob Ross. They just felt reassuring in an authentic way that isn’t often recorded in music, in part because there’s no swirling bombastic instrumental behind them, which helped a lot. H2Ogate Blues is a great critique of the politics of the era, and it’s wild how well I think it’s aged into 2024, especially with the damn Reagan diss about a decade early. I’m just kinda grumpy that this isn’t on streaming, because I’d add every song here if I could. Regardless, it’s a really nice 44 minutes, and I kinda just found a bit of bliss in it. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I feel good with a 5. It definitely feels like it should be on this list.

I’m at a 4. It’s a really good album, don’t get me wrong, and maybe on another day, it could totally be a 5, but much like Beck’s relationship seemed to wear him down into making this album, I think Beck kinda wore me down over the course of it. It’s just a little too long, and I think it touches on some of its themes a bit too often; I’m not opposed to the fact that this is 12 tracks and 52 minutes or whatever, but as an album experience, it just feels a bit cramped around the middle with some songs that he wasn’t willing to cut (for likely good reasons, mind you), but they don’t translate as conducively to the album experience for a listener. Instrumentation and lyrics here are fantastic, and in terms of the imagery and the feelings this album is meant to evoke, they do their jobs brilliantly – the swirling instrumental pieces that end a lot of these tracks are beautifully crafted. I just think the album’s biggest problem is being a little too bloated, and to be quite frank, a lack of true levity. There’s not really a point where anything truly brightens up here, and that lack of a release of tension just sort of hangs a cloud on the album that feels unresolved. I’m sure it more closely resembles reality, and it’s probably consistent with how Beck felt at the time, but I just think it wore me down to not get at least one happy-go-lucky song. I’m still rather pleased with the album though. I might just be nitpicking at it – it’s a really good album, it’s a strong listen, and it probably hits harder in the light of an actual breakup. I feel good with a 4, and I do think it deserves to be on the list.

I’m at a 3.5 that I'll rather kindly bump up to a 4. Let me just be clear: no chance in hell I was gonna listen to the whole thing; I listened to a “best of” version that was only 45 minutes, and I get the distinct feeling that if I had listened to the whole thing, then… I dunno, who knows, maybe I’d somehow get to a 5. From what I heard, this is super nice though. The orchestra does a great job of bringing these pieces to life, and I’m sure Ira Gershwin had a big say in the way all of these were recorded. Ella Fitzgerald… I’ve never heard her voice before today, for whatever reason. My goodness, what a voice. I don’t know how many more albums she has in these 1,001, but I hope it’s enough to hear more of her, and more of her doing contemporary music instead of more 1920s and 1930s standards. Seriously, she kind of carries this album, but she shares it pretty equally with the instrumentation as well – I’m such a sucker for this sort of era because it really does feel long gone, even if these compositions have a timeless feel. Yes, there are cheesy lyrics on this album, and yes, some of these songs have lulls here and there, but I just really enjoyed listening to… you know, 45 minutes of what’s a roughly 3 hour album, but I digress. It’s pretty damn good; it’s nowhere near a 5 for me, but it’s enough of a spectacle and a window into the past that I can’t help but appreciate it. I’m good with a 4, and I think it’s worth being on the list.

I’m right on a 3. When this album hits, it hits pretty good – there are some genuinely energetic songs here that come together in complete harmony between the vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation, and I’d say that comprises about half the album. The other half tends to hit on just one or two of the three, but never quite hits that perfect balance on all 3; sometimes, it’ll reach it briefly during one of the other 7 songs, but it never sustains it for long enough to really click like the other 7 do. I’ll say this – it never falters on the instrumentation. I especially love the usage of the horns here, giving everything a sort of Ska vibe that I think is kinda underrated. The mixing is… a bit suspect at times, with the guitar especially overwhelming almost every other instrument here on most of the songs, but I never thought it was that big of a deal. I mean, ultimately, it’s a fine album, but it’s just kind of underwhelming for an album to really peak around Track 6 or 7 and then kinda just walk its way to the finish line, you know? I felt less engaged by the halfway mark, and it just sort of wore me down by the end. There’s solid stuff here, and I’d imagine someone will stay engaged the whole way through, but it just doesn’t feel like I needed to listen to this before I die. It’s a solid 3, and that’s really about it.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m gonna begrudgingly bump up to a 5, because I think it’s not a 4, but it just doesn’t feel like a 5. Make no mistake; I think this album’s fucking great. This is incredibly cool to me – I only knew Use Somebody, which I still think is an all-timer of a track, but I’ve never really heard any of the other songs surrounding it, and up until Track 6, everything was blazing hot, all cylinders firing, all engines go, felt like one of the easiest 5s I might give. And yet, of those final 5 tracks, I was only really digging the last 2; something about Tracks 7 through 9 sounded really good, but they never really put the full package together in the same way that the first 6 tracks did. Who knows? I might just be overreacting to an underwhelming finish; those first 6 tracks hit like crack, man. Absolute bliss for me. Even those last 5 tracks are still good listens; the soundscape never lets up a single time during this album, and you can’t say that Caleb Followill can’t sing his ass off, because he was belting like a motherfucker on this. I’m sure someone will get more enjoyment out of Notion or I Want You than I did (17 is an actively mediocre track), and they don’t take away from the rest of the album at all. It’s a great listen, and it deserves to be on the list; kind of conflicted about bumping it up to a 5, but I really do think it's just too good to only give it a 4.

I’m at a 5. I just thought that was great. I don’t even really have that many words – I got completely encapsulated by the soundscape for most of the runtime. Those first 3 tracks are spectacular. Hell, even the long instrumental break during Moonchild kept me captivated for most of it, until I got tired of it by the end. The Court of The Crimson King shot me right back up though. For 1969, this is utterly ridiculous, in a good way; the layered soundscapes here, the beat drops on the title drops… it just feels really ahead of schedule, man. I’m sure this album has eventually been outdone within its space, and I get the feeling it might even come later in one of these 1,001 albums, but as someone listening to this for the first time, I’m just kinda blown away by how well they absolutely fucking nailed it. For a debut record, no less. Easy 5.

Yeah, that’s a 5. I’ve never heard Rush before today, but I’ve heard people cover Rush. I’ve never heard 2112 before today, but that has a case to be one of the greatest “long” songs ever right off the bat for me. Just a swirling song that really makes use of its 20 minutes; I don’t think there’s a single spot wasted in there, from start to finish. That shit was absolutely fantastic. Easy 5. Oh, yeah, there’s 5 other songs too. I really liked 4 of them. The only one that never really grabbed me was Lessons. Lessons IS still good though! It just felt too loose compared to the relative structure present in most of the other songs, and it just never really perked up instrumentally for me (unless I'm just deaf or I wasn't paying attention, that is). I say that, knowing that “Tears” is on here, but like… I really liked that one, sue me. Cheesy as hell, probably, but I’m just a big sucker for cheesy stuff when it’s done totally right. So, yeah, the back half of the album gets a 4 from me. Balance that out, and you get a 4.5, which… come on, I’d be stupid to not round it up. Just an absolute treat of an album to listen to; great lyrics, super good vocals, and incredible instrumentation. That was… man. Easy 5.

I’m at a 3. Ultimately, it’s just fine. There’s some super cool soundscapes here, and the sort of minimalist production being explored here wouldn’t really hit the mainstream for another 5 or 6 years at the least, so that part of the album was fun and felt a bit inventive for 2009. Really, the biggest thing this album has going against it are the vocals, which only really fit around half the time, and the time itself, where some songs just kinda overstay their welcome, or take a little too long to get to the strongest part. There’s not really a bad song here, just mediocre moments within them, which is fine in moderation, but it’s just a little too often to justify anything higher than a 3. Definitely an album I could sleep to though, and I mean that in a super positive way.

I mean, that’s like a 10, probably. I’m really just stunned that I’ve never heard this album before; Billy Joel has always been one of those artists that’s stayed just out of reach of my musical knowledge, outside of the really big stuff, like Piano Man, The Longest Time, Uptown Girl, and (for better or for worse) We Didn’t Start The Fire. I knew the names of some of the songs on this album, but I don’t think I had ever really heard any of them, save for maybe a little bit of Movin’ Out. I thought this was absolutely fantastic; very rarely can you tell an artist has hit their magnum opus on the first full album you’ve ever listened of them, but right around the point where Scenes from an Italian Restaurant crescendoed into the big tale about Brenda and Eddie is the point where I realized that like… yeah, this is probably Billy Joel’s best work, and it’s my first proper Billy Joel album. I genuinely thought every single track was great, not a single lull here. Instrumentation was off the fucking charts, and every instrument that slowly got brought into each song just added more without ever taking away from the essence of the songs. Lyrically, I thought it was just full of imagery, and written in a way that allowed his vocals to really shine through. I could keep going, but I’m seriously just stunned. It’s a 10 for me. Fabulous, fabulous album. It’s a shame that whatever Billy Joel album comes up next simply won’t be as good, unless he proves me wrong.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m pretty damn tempted to round up to a 5. I just had a lot of fun with this album; I thought the instrumentals here were super cool in an avantgarde sort of way for 1978; the synth work was fun, I thought the percussion had a really great tone to it, I thought the guitars were on fire for most of the album, and even when the horns come in, they sort of blend in naturally instead of taking a spotlight. Just on the instrumentals alone, I’d probably give this album a 3, I thought they were really fun. Lyrically, I think this is weird in a good way, because it directly makes the vocal delivery of them super fun – Ric Ocasek sounds like if someone had reigned in David Byrne just a little bit, and to my ears, it pays off super well. There are a few lulls here and there scattered on this album, but I really don’t know if any track was a miss for me; some of them felt a little too boxed in to more of a traditional sound, but they were still good listens, even if they didn’t captivate me as much. I just really liked this, you know? I’m gonna bump it up to a 5, I think it deserves it. Just a really cool album.

I’m at a 3.5 and… fine, alright, I’ll bump it up. Shockingly, for a 36 minute album, I think this kinda goes a bit long; 13 tracks is a little much, and some of them circle around the same soundscape a few times in a way that makes listening to the full album sort of a chore by the end. It comes out of the gates pretty hot though, but I only really dug one or two of the final 5 tracks. Sometimes less is more, you know? Instrumentation is super fun, lots of energy, and the horn section that comes up a few times is really fun. Vocals are a bit jarring at times, but I don’t think they’re ever outright bad, just unbefitting a few times. There are some seriously good lyrics on Private Affair that don’t fully get their credit because he goes all spoken word on them instead of belting them out with the energy they deserve. This happens a few times on the album, and while I don’t think it ever ruins the vibe of the song, it just makes me wish for a little more. Ultimately, though, I don’t think there’s a bad track on the album, and that’s the key difference between bumping it down to a 3 and bumping it up to a 4 – I had a lot of fun listening to this album, and I think with a little more time and a little more polish, a lot of my little nitpicks could’ve been cleaned up. This was a good album, and I’ll be nice to it because of that hot start to go with a 4. It’s like a 7/10, though.

It’s a 2.5 that I’ll kindly bump up to a 3. I just don’t think this album ever really hit a groove for me; I appreciate what it’s trying to do, and on the few songs where everything did come together for me, I thought it did its job well. I just think the other songs don’t execute the vision as cleanly or as clearly – there are times where I think the metaphors and the imagery and the storytelling get a bit muddled, and when those get muddled, it takes the focus away from what’s already a pretty minimal soundscape, which simply just never really worked for me throughout this album. I get what it’s going for, and maybe if I caught this album on a moodier day, I’d be feeling it a bit more, but there’s nothing here that fully grabbed my attention save for a few songs. It isn’t bad though, just not my thing, so I’m OK with a 3.

You know what? I’m at a 5. I really am stunned by that; maybe I’m just sort of overreacting on a first impression, but I seriously enjoyed that a lot. The only track I wasn’t feeling was I’d Give You Anything, which just has a fucking huge wall of noise at the end of it that drowns out any semblance of a melodic structure. Besides that though… yeah, I just really liked it; I think the vocals are the weakest part, but they’re not bad, they just feel like they could’ve added a bit more character to each song. The lyrics, while sort of lackluster, do the job they’re supposed to do, which is to get the feeling across, and the feeling is expertly weaved into the soundscape – I adore the way this album sounds. I think every song here has a really strong structure to it, save for I’d Give You Anything, and that structure, both vocally and instrumentally is what really carries this album to a super honest spot. I can firmly believe this was an album written by a 19-year-old kid, and that honesty makes its way through every track here in a way that I just kind of admire. I’m also a sucker for a good Star Wars reference, which I honestly didn’t pick up on until reading the title of the last track, then hearing them humming the Star Wars theme at the end, and then realizing 1977 is when A New Hope came out. It’s a seriously good album, and I’m feeling super good about giving it a 5. I really liked it, man.

I’m right on a 4. I thought it was good – I think the biggest problem this album has is entirely in managing its pacing and its tone. The sort of ratio between faster songs and slower songs is a bit skewed, and I don’t think the album flows as nicely and as smoothly as it could. It still manages to pace itself well, don’t get me wrong, but as an album experience, it does feel a little more front loaded with the faster stuff. That brings me to the point of its tone; I think a few songs here kinda touch around the same general soundscape and topics a bit too often, especially by the end, which lines up around the point where the sound design starts to kind of lose that luster, on account of the pacing of the album. With that said, this is a really nice album in spite of all that; I think the vocals are really nice throughout, finding a super good balance between soft and moody and a bit more excitable and engaged throughout each point of the songs. I think the sound design and production, for 1994, is definitely ahead of schedule – a few songs on here feel like they could’ve dropped in 2018 or 2019 and not missed a beat. Lyrically, I thought it was a little abstract, but the focus here is on the mood and the soundscapes, so I’m not gonna be a stickler about it, because they nailed the mood and the soundscapes on every track, whether I was feeling the track or not. I don’t think there’s a single bad song here, just different songs that you have to be in the right mood for in order for them to really hit. Someone’s least favorite on here could be someone else’s favorite, and that’s a testament to the variety of the tracks throughout the album, and the sustained quality it has. It doesn’t quite do enough for my tastes to get up to a 5, but it’s absolutely no less than a 4.

You know, I think I’m at a 3.5 that I just can’t round up. This album is ultimately good; in terms of the soundscape, it achieves the atmosphere it was looking for throughout, it has a decent progression in its lyrics from start to finish, and vocally, I think it does just enough for me to feel the intended emotion throughout the whole record. I just wasn’t that into it. For everything this album does right, I just think the overall vision here doesn’t align with my musical tastes as much as I would’ve liked. That’s a bit selfish to say, yes, but it’s just kind of how I feel. I think the overall structure of the album is a bit loose; there are songs where the soundscape could’ve been tightened up a bit more for me, with a lot of empty little gaps of nothing but the drums and guitar that slowly add up to me in a way that doesn’t make the album experience feel great. I think lyrically, while it gets the progression right, a lot of what’s here is remarkably abstract, and feels very stream of consciousness in a way that diminishes the potent storytelling potential that every song kicks off with – every single intro on this album is fantastic at setting a tone and an atmosphere, but it never managed to keep me hooked from start to finish on most songs until the back half of the album began. Even then, those songs suffer deeply from “first minute is the whole song” in terms of their soundscapes. Vocally… yeah, it could’ve just been better. It feels very spoken word-y throughout, and it kills me, because I can feel moments where the melodies are right there for him to take advantage of and hook onto, but he just never grabs them as tightly as he could have. I really do like this album, but it’s dripping with unmet potential to me. It’s right on the edge of a 4, and with some real outside presence to commercially sort of clean up the rougher edges of the album, I really do think this could’ve hit as high as a 5 for me… but that’s for me. I can easily recognize that this style, the way it is now, is gonna absolutely connect to someone better than it did for me. It just wasn’t fully there for my tastes, so I’m gonna disappointingly give this album a 3.

That’s immediately a 5. It was just fun, you know? I’ve been waiting for something this goofy and bubbly and happy for a while. We keep getting moody stuff, or hard rock, or semi-pop with a bit of a noir feel (looking at you, Billy Joel). Even when we get stuff that is fun, it’s never this fun and loose and carefree, or at least it hasn’t been for a while. I’m sort of struggling to say exactly what I liked about the album, because I really did enjoy just about everything here. I think the instrumentation is fantastic, and deeply reminiscent of so many artists and genres that I already like, especially with how many songs feel ripped straight out of Elton John’s style. It Can’t Come Quickly Enough felt like it came straight out of a mid-90s George Michael cut, and the last track, Return to Oz, felt very Bowie inspired in its structure. I love paying homage to artists like this. Lyrically, I thought every song was great, and it always manages to take itself seriously enough when the time calls for it – there’s a deep dichotomy between the seriousness of “Mary” and the goofier take on coming out expressed on “Take Your Mama,” but they all fit together on this album as a great listening experience from start to finish without feeling weird or out of place. Vocals were great throughout as well. There’s really not a single complaint from me. Fabulous, fabulous album. Easy 5. I’m a moron for never having heard this before today.

Yeah, that’s a 5. I’m really just blown away by how captivating and energetic that felt for its entire runtime; even during the lulls in the My Generation medley, they just had me baited like a fish on a hook, waiting for every little next step in the song. The structure to the whole thing is perfectly done, going from stuff that’s sort of theirs, sort of not theirs and just using it to really build the crowd's energy up, to breaking out their big stuff and absolutely smashing it out of the park once they do. The instrumentation was nothing short of incredible here to me throughout the entire album, and Pete Townshend… that motherfucker can sing, god damn. I got no complaints, and no more gushing to do; I’m just gonna call it how I see it – one of the easiest 5’s I’ll ever give. Absolutely spectacular.

I’m at a 5. I really didn’t expect to enjoy that as much as I did, but talk about just hitting a vibe I never knew I really wanted to hit upon until now. I’ve never heard of “Celtic rock” as a genre, but like… yeah, this makes sense. Honestly, I’m still kinda just stunned. I think the instrumentation here is super fun, I think the storytelling in the lyricism is fabulous (especially on the final track), and the vocals are pretty good across the board. The only real knock I could even have on this album is that the volume levels gradually go down as the album goes on, which certainly doesn’t feel intentional. There are some lulls here and there, but ultimately, I just found myself captivated by what felt like such a lively world. There’s a genuine feeling that all of this could have (and probably did) happen, and it’s reflected in just about every aspect of the album. I thought it was really, really cool, and easily deserving of the 5. Just a super cool listen.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I’ve never really heard Public Enemy before this; obviously I know about Chuck D and Flavor Flav in terms of name recognition and everything in between, but I’ve never listened. God, what a fool I feel like – this album is fucking rocking from top to bottom (ok, there’s a few lulls, but shh). In terms of just about everything from flow, to lyricism, to vocals, and especially in terms of the instrumentals, this album very rarely missed a beat for me. With that said, I think a few tracks could’ve been cut down or cut out entirely, and that’s really my only major flaw with this album; 63 minutes is a bit of time to commit to an album that never really takes its foot off the gas pedal, even with the amount of instrumental breaks here. The amount of sampling, especially in terms of spoken word speeches and radio criticisms really make it feel like an album that desires your attention at all times, as it should. I just think for my tastes there weren’t many points where I, as the listener, got a chance to fully breathe. Even when songs hit those long instrumental points, they’re so full of evolving noise that you can’t really take that step back to appreciate them. The biggest offender of this is easily the 5:43 runtime of Revolutionary Generation, which just went on for so long that it almost diluted the message for me. That’s a fucking nitpick though, really; I thought this was a fabulous album, and I’m honestly kinda glad it tested me as a listener. Paying attention for that much time through that many samples and that type of production (again, fantastic production) felt like an endurance test, and it’s a test I probably wouldn’t have gotten through at the start of this entire 1001 Albums bit. I could keep gushing about the flow and the lyrics and all of it, but I’m just glad this album lived up to the very high bar that was in my head. Very deserving of a 5.

I think I'm at a 4.5 that I'm gonna very graciously round up to a 5, even though I don't think it's /quite/ at a 5. It’s probably unfair, given that I listened to RENAISSANCE and COWBOY CARTER earlier this year, and I think those albums are absolutely spectacular, so I’m being a little biased in comparing this release from 9 to 11 years earlier to those albums, but… yeah. It’s very clear to me that this is an absolutely fabulous album, but for my tastes, there's just /something/ that falls a little flat on this album, and I’m not sure what it is. It’s not her vocals; her vocals are great. It’s not her lyricism, because her confidence after having Blue Ivy shines through brilliantly on these lyrics. I don’t even know if it’s the production; I thought there were great beats throughout this album and some stellar production work, especially on the Pharrell-led tracks… but there are a few songs with that sort of early 2010s pop feel that hasn’t aged as well to me, for some reason. I love Counting Stars, for example – Ryan Tedder produced XO – but if it came out in 2024, it wouldn’t feel as good, you know? In other words, I’m looking at these through a 2024 lens, which is a bit unfair, but ultimately, most of the tracks succeed at keeping a super contemporary feel, even now. Regardless of anything I just typed out, I REALLY liked this album. It’s super enjoyable, but for some reason or another that I just can't place, I’m just stuck on a 4.5, but I'd be a little rude to not round it up -- it's certainly higher than a 4.

Of course, that’s a 5. It’s already the one that has Sledgehammer, Big Time, and In Your Eyes, which would’ve given the album at least a 4 by themselves; almost every other track here acts perfect complimentary tracks, especially the deeply touching song that is Don’t Give Up. Red Rain is this big bombastic opener, and it sets the tone for a wild variance of production that never once lets up throughout the album, even on its weirdest tracks (the last two before In Your Eyes). If there’s any nitpick I have for this album, it’s that the outros are kind of clunky and a little long, but I imagine that’s some quirk about how radio play would’ve worked in the mid-80s. I think this is fabulous for pretty much the whole thing, top to bottom; the lyrics are great, Peter Gabriel’s voice is magnificent here, and the production compliments it perfectly. It’s one of the finest albums of the 1980s, and very deserving of a 5.

Well, that’s a masterclass in how to make repetition sound compelling. This is definitely getting a 5 from me; I thought the energy and the vibes were great here, and that’s why it’s getting a 5. In terms of the tracks by themselves, I would say a couple of them hit on the repetition for a bit long in a way where they began to really lose their luster, but most of them kept the energy throughout in a really strong way, even with the repetition. The only real thing I can nitpick this album for is the length; I don’t think that everything on here had to be around 5 minutes, and I especially don’t think Acid 8000 had to be 7 and a half minutes… but that’s a nitpick. The vibes are good, the energy is great, the sample work is immaculate, and I felt pretty captivated for most of those 62 minutes. Super cool album, and a hell of a proper introduction to Fatboy Slim for me – that was really fun. Easy 5.

I’m at a 4. Of course, I’m a little biased towards the soundscape, but this is a very lyric-heavy album, and I just really liked the storytelling on it. Yes, they’re all songs of tragedy, and yes, the stories get a little predictable the later you get into the album, but for my money’s worth, this has fine instrumentation, fabulous harmonization, and ultimately, I’m just super satisfied with it. I don’t think there’s a bad track here, just a few slightly duller ones, but I enjoyed this a lot. It’s not a 5 – it doesn’t do enough to get up to that level, but it’s just good country music with a very traditional lean, and I’m a sucker for a good story. Pretty solid 4.

It’s a 5. It’s a little weird to give a 2-track album a 5, but I think it’s definitely a 5. Those were 2 really good fucking tracks; Zombie has one of the catchiest choruses I’ve ever heard out of this genre (or others like it), and while Mr. Follow Follow wasn’t as good, it was still pretty damn good. Obviously, the politically charged undertones and the aftermath of this album’s release play a big part in its mythology and its impact, but the songs by themselves are both excellent to me. Sometimes, it’s just as simple as going “the music is really good,” and I think the music is just REALLY good. I’m fine with a 5.

Big turnaround from a rather slow start to get up to a 4. I think everything from Track 5 and onward on this album is pretty damn good; solid vocals, solid lyrics, solid topics for the songs, and really nice instrumentation that doesn’t intrude too much with the general “spirit” of each song – they’re just there to provide the melody, and they don’t make the recording space feel like an instrument by itself. You can see where this is going, I hope. 3 of those first 4 tracks are severely muddled and ruined by their production choices, which is utterly baffling to me. I get it, I get it; 1993, loud = new, new = good, and it clearly worked to the critics of the time, but the audio mixing and sudden jump in volume among instruments was all over the place in a way that wasn’t creatively satisfying or sonically pleasing, but just annoying to my ears as the listener. Thankfully, the album learns its lesson, and that’s how it’s getting a 4, but if those other 3 tracks were cleaned up, without having their walls of sound in them, it would be really close to (if not possibly) a 5. It’s a solid album that really shoots itself in the foot when it comes to a first impression, but it ultimately ends up pretty good. I still think some of the outros are a little long and some of the songs a little too generic to really bump it into 5 territory, but given that I enjoyed most of the album, it’s definitely deserving of a 4, and probably no less than like, a 3.5.

I’m at a 5. I just deeply enjoyed that; I thought the instrumentals were off the charts and the ingenuity in the production for 1970 was super cool. A lot of blended synth work here, in a way that made everything feel super sonically pleasing – “Love Has Found A Way” impressed me in particular. Lyrically, while there was some repetition, that repetition never fully extended to the vocals, and I think they were pretty damn good on this album too. Seriously, I don’t have a complaint about any track; I enjoyed this from top to bottom, and for 1970, it feels a bit ahead of schedule. Super fun album, really good vibes, great variety, and it nails down the “12 dreams” thing it’s going for. Pretty solid 5.

Yeah, I’m at a 5. I’ve never really heard a Beach Boys album in full like that – the big 60s singles that are all literally beach-y and happy and surf-y are the extent of my Beach Boys knowledge. I know sort of about the Smile Sessions or whatever, and the sort of desperate turn to try and match a wave they knew was coming, but I’ve never actually heard anything from around that era until now. This was really fucking good, man; such a diverse variety of soundscapes and styles here – I don’t think there was a single bad track on this album. Yes, I know that “Student Demonstration Time” has some odd lyrics about the protestors and they’re especially weird because it’s Mike Love singing it, but I almost kinda don’t care? This is my first sort of Beach Boys experience, so I don’t know if they ever dipped into that kind of heavy guitar before or after this, but I thought it was so out there for my perception of The Beach Boys that I kinda just enjoyed it regardless. Take a Load Off Your Feet was kinda weird, and felt the least fitting from the entire album, but I still liked it. Seriously, I don’t have any complaints; good production, good vocals, pretty strong subject matters, nice imagery in the lyrics, and overall, just a damn good album. Pretty strong 5 from me.

Of course that’s a 5. It was gonna be a 5 just because it had You Oughta Know and Ironic on it, but my goodness, some of those other tracks are fabulous; Forgiven and Perfect, in particular, are so fucking tuned into my sensibilities out of 90s rock, and there’s not a single bad track on here. Her vocals are off the charts for most of this album; just super strong control for someone constantly singing at such a high pitch, but when she goes deeper… man. Those moments are standout. The guitar riffs and the production on here is fucking crazy good; I don’t know if I’ve paid that much attention to the sound design on the bigger hits with headphones in before, but I clearly underestimated just how much work was poured into the instrumentals. Yes, it’s pretty clearly dated to 1995, especially with how much You Learn feels like it could’ve been the theme song to a 90s teen drama, but I kinda don’t care – this was just a spectacular listen for me, and I can’t believe I never listened to the whole thing until today. Fantastic stuff here, easy 5.

That’s a 5. I feel a little dirty giving it a 5, but I think it’s fine. Jerry Lee Lewis is a strange, strange man. I think he did some really weird shit in his lifetime, and I don’t like any of what I’ve read since I finished listening to the album. However… I can kinda separate it, mainly because I just don’t have any sort of deeper connection to the guy’s music like I did for a certain rapper who shall not be named. It’s just kind of annoying that this is as good as it is; I don’t have a single complaint. I think the crowd’s energy is electric, I think the live performances from the band are off the charts, and his piano performances (while singing!) in particular are downright incredible. There’s not a single missed note nor a single missed breath from the man, and he had that crowd hanging onto both of them deeply. His stage presence and control are unbelievable to me – I’m glowing with praise about the way this sounds because it just sounds that damn good. Yes, a lot of this set is ripped wholesale from other artists, and I’d be remiss not to acknowledge that, but I do think he did those songs justice – What’d I Say in particular keeps a lot of the grit from the Ray Charles version, and it just feels good to listen to. Honestly, I enjoyed this a lot, and I really wish the whole thing was on streaming. It’s pretty damn good. Solid 5.

Probably no surprise that I’m at a 5. I’m not gonna be verbose about it: this is a really fucking good jazz album. Every composition here is really well done, and I enjoyed the entire runtime. Not a single lull for me, nor a single miss, or even a single problem with the mixing or production, which is a little wild for a 50s album. I fell into a deep bliss during that, which makes me really terrified for whenever we get Kind of Blue, because this album has already set a high bar for me, and I know the critical acclaim that Kind of Blue has. Regardless, this is just a spectacular album to me, and I’ll easily come back to this often as studying music or reading music. It’s very deserving of a 5.

Yeah, I’m at another 5. I honestly think that was a more complete top to bottom album than 2112, which is crazy for me to even consider, but I liked it that much. I think the synth work here is off the charts. I think the instrumentation that underlines all of that synth work has a ridiculously infectious energy to it. Lyrically, there’s some great stuff here – Limelight and Witch Hunt, in particular, have aged remarkably well. Even in terms of the vocals, which do feel a little high pitched and out of place at times… I think there’s a super strong performance here all-around. The percussion deserves its own spotlight; Neil Peart deserves more flowers than there are stars in the solar system. I’ve got not a singular complaint; that was 40 minutes of rock music that hits on every single one of my musical sensibilities – I think it’s catchy as hell, it’s fun to listen to, and if you can’t enjoy hearing people shred on a guitar while percussion goes at 100 miles per hour, then you just don’t know how to have a good time with music. Very easy 5. Spectacular album.

I’m at a 3.5 that I'll bump up to a 4. I don’t really have too much to add; that’s a super competent bossa nova album. I don’t think there was a bad track here – even the Parade song, for as dumb and goofy and cheesy as it was, sort of won me over with how brazenly out of place it is. It definitely didn’t need to be on the album, but it’s not like it’s a bad listen. This album never does anything to get up into the territory of a 5 – there’s no rousing soundscapes, no signature songs, and nothing that especially sticks out, save for (at least to me) My Foolish Heart, which just kinda won me over. However, I think this maintains a pretty solid standard of quality throughout, and the vibes just connected perfectly with me. It’s a driving album, it’s a study album, and it’s a “do chores” album, but I enjoyed it all the same. Solid, solid 4.

I’m surprisingly at a 5. I deeply ripped into Kraftwerk for what I perceived as minimalism on Trans-Europe Express. I haven’t gone back to the album to see if my opinion has changed, but this album did way more for me than Trans-Europe Express. For me, this just has a way more sonically pleasing soundscape, it’s got a good variety of tone and instrumentation, I think the synth work evolves throughout each track in a way that doesn’t feel like an FL Studio sample loop on repeat for 6 minutes, and ultimately, everything here just felt like had more character and more groove to it. There was way more depth in just Autobahn by itself than the entirety of Trans-Europe Express for me. The back half of the album is really nice too; I love the dichotomy between Kometenmelodie 1 and 2, and while Mitternacht kinda fell into the repetition of Trans-Europe Express, it never got gratingly long to be an issue. Morgenspaziergang is really nice too; I love the transition from the synth work into the real instruments, and it does feel like a proper end to this journey on the Autobahn. Ultimately, this album DID have the scenery changes that I felt weren’t present on Trans-Europe Express, and I enjoyed my ride on the Autobahn much, much more. This is 43 minutes of super chill music, and I liked every single second of it. It’s a 5. A damn good one, at that.

It’s like a 10, probably. I’ve never heard this album in full until today. I’m an idiot. Perhaps the titular American idiot. I never knew there was a big running story and plotline and thread here; I’ve only ever heard the big tracks – American Idiot, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and Wake Me Up When September Ends. I always knew there was a Broadway musical, but I never made the connection somehow. This was fucking awesome. There’s not a single missed beat here – from those opening guitar riffs on American Idiot, through the entire running plot of “home sucks, I’m leaving, let’s party, I’m in love, oh shit, never mind, this sucks, I’m going back home” that’s portrayed brilliantly throughout the lyrics and instrumentation of every single track until the sort of epilogue that is “Whatsername,” and the peace that Jesus has finally come to after all his St. Jimmy escapades. It’s a very malleable plot, but what really drives it are these damn songs; every single one of them is fantastic, from the compositions, the guitar riffs, the extremely high energy, and especially in the lyrics. I now understand why all of these are paired so specifically on streaming. You cannot hear one of them without the other, and you really can’t listen to some of these songs by themselves, unless you remember the sort of context of the album. It really is a damn play. One small thing about the plot itself… I dunno, it’s a little weird in the end, given how often people find success outside of their hometown in my experience, but in terms of this hellish post-9/11 suburbia that Jesus finds himself in, maybe he really is just more comfortable at home. Regardless of that, I thought this was fucking spectacular. Absolutely worthy of the hype. Really dumb of me to never listen before now, but I now feel as cleansed as Jesus did at the end of this album. One of the easiest 5s yet.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I dunno, there was just something deeply entrancing about that album to me. I’ve heard of Norah Jones before this, but I’ve never heard her sing. Her voice just has such control to it while maintaining a softness that still commands a bit of authority. It is the anchor that keeps this album glued together. In terms of the instrumentation; I get the vibe – big jazzy nightclub atmosphere with a distinctly 50s/60s mood behind it. It works perfectly for this album, but it does get a little draining after about 9 or 10 songs, hence the 4.5. There’s a few covers sprinkled in here, and the one that stuck to me the most is Cold Cold Heart – that’s a song I’ve heard, but I could never remember it by name or anything. I’m glad it popped up. I think the runtime is my only complaint here, or at the very least, a lack of variance that keeps the album distinctly fresh near the end. Regardless, I thought it was great. Some super standout tracks, and even if it leans into coffee shop fodder a few times, I’m just a sucker for the atmosphere. I’m totally fine with bumping this up to a 5. I am surprised it was as big of a hit as it was though.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I think this was pretty damn good; it’s not perfect, and it’s admittedly probably a little closer to a 4 than it is a 5, but I respect the structure of the album and most of the songs too much to drop it down to a 4. It is a bit long, and certainly a little too loose and open at times where the clear vision of the album gets a little lost in the technicalities of the tracks. However, that’s nitpicking – it’s weird to say “the instrumentation dilutes the story,” because that’s remarkably dumb for a rock opera. You’re not necessarily listening for the story, you’re listening for the blend of both, and for one of the earliest ones, I’d say this album does a damn good job of setting up a blueprint. It’s also a pretty solid story, going from dumb, deaf and blind to basically a cult leader, only for him to realize he is indeed just as alone as he was, pinball or otherwise. At least, that’s how I interpreted it. There are some feel good moments in here, and some not very good ones (I’m stunned at the molestation, really), but that’s what any good plot should have. I just liked it a lot – again, it’s not perfect, and I do think 74 minutes is a bit self-serving, especially with a few songs that kind of do nothing other than re-iterate a plot point or two, but regardless of that, what’s here is a super good listen. At the very least, the instrumentation here is great, and while this doesn’t quite hit the superb highs of Who’s Next, there’s enough moments where everything just glides to forget about the looser parts of the album. I’m totally fine with bumping it up to a 5, but it’s certainly a lot closer to a 4.5 than it is a full 5 for me.

I’m at a 3.5 that I just don’t think I can round up to a 4. Really, the biggest thing this album has going against it is a lack of complete consistency. I’m not opposed to bucking traditionalism and having wild tempo shifts and mood shifts within individual songs, because when this album does it, it usually does it remarkably well, and tends to make sense within the lyrics of each track. It just never keeps a model of consistency in the quality of those shifts, and it stems entirely from her vocals. Her vocals, for most of this album, are usually pretty good, but there are times when, much like the compositions themselves, it just strains a little too far one way or the other to the point of either breaking, or sounding a little shaky. It’s very apparent when she tries to do those stair step vocals to pitch up or pitch down; it’s not consistent, and it’s not as clean as one would hope. Regardless, though, her vocals don’t ruin the songs at all, they’re just noticeable in a way that doesn’t vibe with my musical sensibilities. I love having vocalists blend in perfectly to the music, and she just doesn’t do it consistently enough here to overlook it. With all of that said, I think the instrumentals are great, the lyrics are a little weird at times (what in the fuck is “Decembery ice” other than a desperately needed adjective-noun pair) but mostly pretty solid, and the vibes of the album are good. I really did enjoy most of this album, and I’d honestly recommend it; someone will absolutely overlook all of these perceived flaws and just vibe out. For me, though, it’s just not consistent enough to bump up to a 4, and it certainly never gets anywhere near a 5 as a complete project. If I could keep it at a 3.5, I would, but I’m gonna leave it at a 3.

I liked it a lot, but I’m just at a 4. Ultimately, I do think that lived up to the hype – it really picked up after the first 2 tracks, and I thought most of the album afterward was pretty damn good. It’s not like, world-changing to me or anything; I’m sure it hit a lot harder in 1968, since these tricks have since been done to death by a number of bands, but this is pretty fucking innovative for its time. Heroin, is of course, the standout track; that thumping drum that acts as a heartbeat, the swirling instrumentation growing into a full blown cacophonic panic, while the vocals go on without a care – it’s crazy to make that in 1968. I do think the last track kinda falls flat, but in a way, I like that it does; a very untraditional closing track for a very untraditional album for its time. I don’t have extremely glowing praise, mainly because I still think I need to dive deeper into the lyrics, but I did really end up liking this. It’s a very strong 4, and it could be a 5 with time for me.

That’s a very good 4. This is my first proper White Stripes album, and all I can say is… I really wish Seven Nation Army wasn’t the big song for them, because it undermines their talent as a band that can cover this wide of a musical net. The variety of instrumentals and genres and soundscapes covered here is incredibly cool and really enjoyable to me. Blue Orchid, ironically, is sort of a bad tone setter – it makes the album feel like it’s gonna be a full rock album, but when it immediately jumps into xylophones and marimbas and maracas and all of these other instruments, it really unlocks the potential of the album. There’s great stuff on here, but I think my favorite one was The Denial Twist; it felt like a damn Cage the Elephant song a few years early, and I loved that a lot. Little Ghost is a close second for me; it’s a goofy country style song, and I’m a sucker for that kind of sound. Overall, though, this is a pretty damn good album. It’s not a 5 off of a first listen; I think there’s just a few too many filler tracks in here (Red Rain, in particular, is egregious about this) to make the entire album feel as satisfying as it could have been, but it can absolutely grow on me. It’s a VERY good 4, though.

Well, he got me again. Last time we got a Leonard Cohen album, I mentioned the weight of a life long lived bearing down on me, but that doesn’t apply as much here – he was only 36 at the time of making this album. By comparison, that’s rather short. However, the allegory I wrote of seeing music as art in that classical sense still applies rather deeply here, to me. This is an album of poetry, and while it’s not an album of a life long lived, it is an album guided by experience, hope, heartbreak, and a bit more. In a way, it feels like the midway point; obviously, he couldn’t have known that at the time of writing and composing these, but so much of what guides his spiritual belief in You Want It Darker is present here, without the life stories that lead to their definitive definitions in that album. To cut to the point, I’m rather shocked at the quality of these lyrics – I’ll still need to dive more deeply into them, but the imagery present here simply paints a picture that I still don’t feel like I can fully articulate, appreciate and comprehend. In terms of the instrumentals, I’m at least glad to hear a slightly lighter overall sound on this album; there’s some brighter instruments spread throughout that keep this from feeling overwhelmingly dreary. I could keep trying to go on, but I just deeply, deeply enjoyed this. It’s a damn good album, and I’d be a fool to give it anything other than a 5.

That’s an easy 5. I am completely exhausted after listening to that – what a whirlwind 62 minutes of pure energy. That’s my first proper Metallica album, outside of the live one we got a while back, and I am nothing short of stunned. Apparently, this is a more commercially friendly sound, but I kinda don’t care; I thought all 12 tracks here were fucking great. James Hetfield’s screams somehow sound melodic, but when he actually sings, he somehow manages to glide pretty damn well on these tracks. These have some of the most heavy percussion and ridiculous guitar solos that I’ve ever heard – trust me, I’ve heard a lot of insane solos on some of the other albums, and the ones on this album stack up with the very best of them here. I don’t really have the energy left to gush on and on about this, but I just know that it is one of the most satisfying 5s I get to give yet. I’m so glad this album wasn’t just Enter Sandman and a bunch of mediocrity. What a fucking stunner of an album. 10/10, at least to me.

I’m at a 5. I just thought that was really fun – lots of great verses, lots of great lyricism, and a very cool minimalist East Coast style of production that doesn’t get too bombastic, and allows for them to really get their messages and their vocals across. Even though Lauryn Hill is clearly the star here, both Wyclef Jean and Pras come out swinging on this album, and occasionally have moments where they really do outshine her. As a group, they really do bring the best out of each other, and it’s a shame that this is the last album they made as a trio. Obviously, some shit went down, but some bands have existed longer over worse disputes. I truly thought every track here had something to offer, and I don’t think any track really missed a beat. Just a super strong album from top to bottom, and certainly worthy of being on this list of 1,001 albums. If nothing else, it gave us that fabulous cover of Killing Me Softly, which is one of my favorite tracks ever. Pretty easy 5.

For the first time in a long time, I’m on a 2. The last time I gave a 2 to a non-live album was to Calenture - The Triffids, and that was *3 months ago.* Unlike Calenture, this is just straight up at a 2; it doesn’t even hit the “2.5 that I can’t round up” mark. There’s only 2 or 3 really good tracks at most, and yes, one of them is indeed the batshit insane yet wildly entertaining nonsense that is Jesus Built My Hotrod. The other one, for me, was Hero, if only because I couldn’t shake that it sounded like a Sonic track. TV II is OK, it just sorta clicked right for me for some reason. The first 5 tracks of the album are ultimately fine – they’ve got decent energy, some fun riffs, some fun percussion, and it does hit a solid high at Track 5. It was at a 3, until Scare Crow started. The final 4 tracks of this album just strike me as utterly directionless, or padding for the sake of it, and there is no more egregious an example of padding than the 8-minute snoozefest that is “Scare Crow” – my god, I’ve never heard anyone pan out *syllables* before. Choosing to end on two instrumental tracks after the remarkably disappointing Psalm 69 is really what dragged this album down from being close enough to a 3 to being firmly at a 2 – what a flat ending to an album that had so much potential from its imagery to its cover to the weirdest title I think we’ve gotten from an album yet. The really disappointing part is that the framework for a good album is here – speed up some tracks, throw in some extra vocals, hell, add a skit or two to play off of this religious theming; do something to add some extra character to your album. It feels like a fucking beta version of a style that other bands would imitate and refine to a greater degree (probably Nine Inch Nails, really, if I had to guess), and while it never dives into egregiously bad, it does dive into egregiously boring a few too many times at the end. It just fell short at the finish line to me, hence the 2.

That’s a 3.5 that I’ll round up to a 4. Sometimes, the music just sounds good to your ear. This album doesn’t do anything too special, but I… kinda just liked it a lot. Pretty consistent level of quality from top to bottom, and while there’s only one or two songs that especially stood out (for me, that’s Make My Mind and Traveler – they just kinda clicked well for some reason), there’s not really a bad song here. At worst, the first song makes for a really shaky first impression, but it recovers itself pretty quickly afterward with All I Know. It could have certainly been a little better, and while I’m not necessarily sure this has to be on the list of albums, it’s a pretty solid showcase of the middle ground of 90s rock; not big enough to be Nirvana or Pearl Jam or Metallica, but just big enough to have a willing audience and a decent spotlight. Frankly, the real miracle is that there’s not a single swear word on the album. It’s just good enough for me to give it a charitable bump up to a 4, and it’s certainly no less than a 3.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll easily bump up to a 5. I’ve never heard Alice in Chains before this, but I knew the bar for this album was pretty high, and they crossed over it pretty handily. Almost every track here has a pretty infectious energy – a few songs hit an occasional lull, and a few have a little too much repetition at times, but overall, as an album, from top to bottom, I’d say that was about on point with a lot of their Seattle contemporaries of the time. Nevermind is obviously still the gold standard of 90s grunge rock, and Nirvana’s sound on that album is timeless. I feel like the production on this album, for as good as it is, has the same thing going for it as Jagged Little Pill – just like how that album is sort of trapped in 1995, this album is trapped in 1992. That doesn’t mean it’s bad at all. Most of what’s here sounds super cool; the guitar work in particular, is off the charts. The percussion holds its own, and I’m deeply impressed by the grit in Layne Staley’s vocals. If I have any complaints, they’re all probably nitpicky – things like “this track goes a little too long” or “the mixing here is a little too loud,” and while those are sort of valid, they’re not present enough on this album for them to be real issues. I just liked this album a lot. This has some great fucking grunge on it, and it’s very deserving to be on the list. Pretty easy to bump this up to a 5.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. Really, the only reason I’m not at a straight 4 is because Attached is such a fucking deflating last track. That was 12 minutes of a glorified loop and it just felt like a really sour note to end a really good album. Regardless, I will not let the final 12 minutes dictate what the first 63 gave to me, which was pretty fucking good. There’s some really fun soundscapes here, and while a lot of it leans into VGM-adjacent territory, I’ve just been listening to a lot of VGM lately, so this sort of soundscape fell right into my recent comfort zone. I think the production choices and sound design for most of this album are really good, and there’s a huge variety of synths to work with, and a lot of it comes together in a pretty harmonious way. The layering that builds up each track to get to something really concrete was well done throughout most of this album, and I found myself just vibing a lot. I do think the final 17 or so minutes of the album fall flat; that’s the final 4 minutes of Are We Here? and the entirety of Attached, but regardless, I found so much of this enjoyable to listen to that I’m completely fine with bumping it up to a 4. This is some quality stuff here, and I’m really glad it’s on this list.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m gonna bump up to a 5 with incredibly naked bias. I’ve said it a million times; I’m a sucker for the soundscape of 50s/60s country because it’s partially what I grew up on. This album takes those soundscapes and blends them really well with 70s rock sensibilities, and it does it in a way where I truly think the best of both shine throughout here. Vocally, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris play off of each other so fucking well that it’s kind of mesmerizing to listen to. Lyrically, I thought a lot of these songs, while a little corny or cheesy at times, did a great job of storytelling and capturing moods. Brass Buttons in particular got me damn good. I just thought this was a damn good album from start to finish – Return of the Grievous Angel is one hell of an opener, and the only track where I kind of shrugged was Love Hurts. Other than that, I just deeply enjoyed it. I’m really glad this is here, and it feels like it should be on the list. No problems with going up to a 5.

I’m at a 3.5 that I think I’m going to incredibly graciously bump up to a 4 that it just barely earns. I liked most of this album. It has plenty of flaws, but I can look past most of them. I think the self-control in his vocals is a bit lost at times; he can’t decide if he wants to be Ozzy Osbourne, Paul McCartney, Prince, or Stevie Wonder for most of this album. You can’t be all 4. Somehow, he ends up sounding like the lead vocalist from Bowling for Soup for parts of this album as a result, but ultimately, that’s fine. I think the lyrics on most of the tracks are good – pretty solid messaging throughout. I think the main issue I have with this album’s lyrics simply comes in its repetition, and I Build This Garden for Us is distinctly terrible about it. Really retreading a lot of ground throughout that track. The same thing goes for Be, which quite frankly, just stunlocked me with that “or am I a rapist who needs a release” line, because what the fuck does that mean? Is it about leaving prison? Is it about getting off? It’s a weird fucking line to throw in regardless. Instrumentation is great across the album – no complaints from me on this one. Some of the tracks went a little long on their outros, but I could forgive it in the same way I can forgive a Stevie Wonder outro for going long, because the vibes are good and the music is a jam. Ultimately, I do think this album just does more right than wrong to get up to a 4, but that could change on a relisten or two. It’s definitely not within the range of being a 5, though. This is, so far, the only album to have a straight 3 in the reviews so far, which tells me I might be a little generous, and I can see why. This is the type of album that might have more holes or flaws open up over time to bump it back down to a 3, but right now, I feel good about giving it the 4.

I’m at a 4, which is kinda disappointing, somehow. I dunno, I guess I was really prepared for a 5, but a few tracks here and parts of the big medley at the end just didn’t quite grab me. Regardless of that, I did enjoy most of this album. Other than the revolutionary sample usage here, which is an incredible triumph for 1989 and an incredible tonesetter for rap production in the future… …honestly, I just don't think there's a lot to wax poetic on. Don’t get me wrong; the beats are great, the flow is great, the lyrics are pretty good, and I think for the most part, the energy stays at a good point throughout. This *IS* the Beastie Boys, and they’re doing great work on most of this album. There’s just something about a few tracks that I simply felt weren’t too captivating or engaging enough for me to really like them like that. It could just be fatigue from its length or the fact that there’s not any breaks like on Ill Communication. It’s honestly really weird, because I’d probably normally just look past it, but for some reason, when you just know something isn’t as good as you want it to be, you can just feel it. This album is still very good, but it falls short of hitting that 4.5 mark, and even if it had, I’m not quite sure I could bump it up. Regardless though, it’s no less than a 4 – it’s a super fun album that just kinda fell short for me in a few spots, but it’s a great listen and a great way to cap off 1980s rap.

You know what? I’m at a 5. For 1957, this feels like a sneak preview of what the 60s would bring to rock & roll, in a very good way. There’s a lot of DNA in here for what the Beatles would eventually refine and revolutionize, but this album stands on its own merits without those comparisons. If anything, it feels like Buddy Holly and friends were trying to capitalize on Elvis’s popularity without realizing they were creating the blueprint for the 60s. Seriously, this is a damn good album; yes, it has moments where the production is kinda “ehh” but it’s 1957, so I can look past it. There’s some catchy fucking hooks and choruses here, and I love the way the doo-wop feel of the 50s is still represented here in the backing vocals. There’s just a hodgepodge of styles here that blend together very well for a 50s album, and I’ll be damned if “That’ll Be The Day” isn’t the best representation of that on this album. I feel completely fine with giving this a 5; it’s a tight, enjoyable, and fun 26 minutes that never really overstays its welcome on a single track, and I just enjoyed it a lot. Pretty damn good album.

I’m at a 4. This is a pretty damn good album, but by the end, it kind of falters into a directionless playlist that makes the album experience suffer just enough to drop this out of the range of a 5. To put it more succinctly, I think by Track 10, a lot of the songs lose the tighter and more focused structure that was present earlier in the album, and devolve into great soundscapes but with really loose lyrics, and while I could look past it normally, it just happens too much and too often over the final 7 tracks to ignore. The Only Star In Heaven might be an egregious example of this; what a great hook to start off with on that first verse before kind of just rambling around a bit. With that said, I still liked a lot of the tracks, even those final 7; I just wish the album was a little bit tighter and a little more focused. I don’t think there’s a single bad track here, but some of them feel like they could’ve been non-album singles in order to keep the album experience flowing better. If anything, the biggest knock I can make against this album is moreso how explicitly sexual it is at times. I’m not trying to add a song to my playlist that straight up talks about how mystifying an orgasm can be without any pretense, or just straight up has sex sounds in it like The Ballad of 32, you know? Regardless, this album is no less than a 4 to me. It could even jump up to a 5 if the album’s structure magically clicks better for me someday, but what’s here makes for an exciting and sort of innovative soundscape for 1984 – I can’t say that I’ve heard too many 80s bands rely this heavily on synth work with an explicitly pop lean, but this album makes it work in spades. It’s a great listen, and it’s very fun; I’m still hung up on it as a full album experience, but it would be ridiculous to not give this album a try. It deserves to be on the list, and it’s a strong 4.

I’m at a 4. This is a much improved effort over Surfer Rosa for my sensibilities; it blends a bit more of a commercialized sound with their techniques, and in terms of the overall mixing and sound production, what’s here does a much better job of letting each instrument shine, for the most part. Much like Welcome to the Pleasuredome, though, I do think this album suffers from being a little too directionless in the back half, which is weird to say for a 38 minute album, but that’s just how I feel. There’s a number of tracks here that seem to exist as jam session ideas that pad out time to make the album feel worth the purchase, and while I don’t think any of them are bad, I simply think they’re a little unnecessary, and once again hinder the album’s listening experience. With that said, I still enjoyed this more than Surfer Rosa – not enough to go up to a 5, but there is the chance that it could all click at a later point for me. There’s some great fucking tracks here, and while some of them get a little dragged down lyrically, I don’t think anything is outright ruined. It’s a much more approachable record, and whether that makes it better or worse is up to personal opinion. I just know this one clicked better for me, and it’s definitely worthy of being on the list. Pretty damn good 4.

Yeah, that’s a 5. Obviously, it kills me to give Kanye any kind of credit in 2024, but as I’ve said; the version of the man that existed in 2004 is the version of the man I want to remember and admire if I ever think of Kanye, and his influence is felt all over this album, whether it’s in writing credits, production credits, or just the reshaping of Chicago rap that came in after College Dropout. Make no goddamn mistake about it, though; this is Common’s album, and he has the final say on everything here. What emerges from this collaboration is something that is distinctly more of his voice than Kanye’s, and that’s why I can sort of look past how much of Kanye’s fingerprints shape this album, because Common is the star here. He’s the main writer, he’s the one rapping, and overall, these are his stories to tell. He tells them beautifully – there’s not a single wasted line here, even when he’s horny as hell on Go!, it’s still delivered with such a confident flow that he just rolls with it without missing a beat. Speaking of the beats… yeah, Kanye cooked on a lot of these tracks, but so did J. Dilla – I don’t know that I’ve ever really heard a J. Dilla beat (sue me, I still haven’t heard Donuts), but the swirling piano that surrounds the outro of the entire album (and really, most of the beat on It’s Your World) is utterly perfect. I can’t remember the last time an album stuck the landing on the ending that hard. I could keep gushing here, but it’s just a fabulous rap album for 2005 – obviously, Kanye’s star power after College Dropout is probably what gave this album a bit of commercial appeal, but the end result is all Common’s, and it’s all great. It’s an easy 5 – it might even be a 10/10 for me, genuinely. I don’t think there’s a skip here. I loved this.

By some genuine miracle, I’m at a 3. This album makes one of the worst first impressions imaginable compared to expectations; when you read something like “rap opera,” the brain makes comparisons to shit like Tommy by The Who, in terms of “opera” in traditional music, or Hamilton in terms of “rap” to tell a story. This album is quite literally neither of those, and to call it a “rap opera” is a genuinely misleading description that might taint the album if you just don’t stick to it. This is not a rap opera; it’s a rap TV drama. To make the U.K. reference, this is basically just an 11-episode arc of Eastenders or Coronation Street, or some other goofy hokey drama, with a bit of a sitcom lean. To call this album an opera is like calling High School Musical a Broadway production; it just sets the wrong expectations. Once this album truly settles in, it’s… totally fine, honestly. Completely inoffensive beats, if a bit boring at times (but perfectly fitting on others), decent storytelling (but not anything TOO evocative, save for the genuinely fantastic “Dry Your Eyes”), and ultimately, a fine story that just feels a bit relatable in the end. It’s not THAT great; critics giving this like, a 90 on Metacritic or calling it a top 50 album of the 2000s are severely overrating it. However, I genuinely think it’s good. It takes a terrible first impression, and eventually finds its voice – yes, the flow could be better, the melodic qualities could use a bit of work, and the delivery feels a little bland without really getting too deep into the emotions trying to be portrayed… but I just kinda ended up liking it. It’s definitely not a 4, and it’s nowhere near a 5, but I can’t agree with the people that are giving this a 1 or 2. Lower the expectations before you go into it, because you’re not gonna get something like Tommy, which genuinely became a movie. You’re gonna get a 11-episode arc of a TV show where a weed-smoking guy loses his money behind a TV, meets his girlfriend, gets cheated on by one of his friends, and then learns to live with it. A completely average plot for a good album that simply does a good job of executing its vision. In other words, a resounding 3, but one I’d actually recommend.

It’s a 2.5 and I wish I could leave it there… but I’ll graciously round it up to a 3, even if I really don’t want to. I just wasn’t that captivated by this. There’s nothing technically wrong with any of these tracks, and in terms of execution, I think they nailed exactly what they were going for. This is my first time listening to anything shoegaze, and my assessment of it is that it’s like leaving the reverb in as if it’s a smoke cloud from a fire; it just hangs around, and stays there, and it doesn’t really bother you, but it is kind of weird that it’s there. It’s just… I dunno, for my tastes, not that interesting. There’s not a bad track here, but there’s not really a standout either; it’s a bunch of tracks that just sort of blend together for me in a directionless way. Yeah, the lyricism is fine, but the melodies (both vocally and instrumentally) feel either monotone or buried by the swirling wall of reverb smoke that permeates most of these tracks. It’s cool on the first track, but when you realize that it’s an entire album of just this, it just sort of loses the luster immediately. It just really does not feel like an album I had to listen to before I die, you know? Could’ve gone my whole life without hearing it, and now that I have heard it, it’s just OK. It doesn’t do anything special, and it doesn’t feel like it stands out. In terms of the individual tracks, they sound pretty neat, and I’m not opposed to the concept of shoegaze, but as an album experience, this just sorta dragged me into mediocrity. At least the last track was nice. I’ll acknowledge that this could do a lot more for someone else, but for me, ultimately, it’s a 2.5 that just barely does enough for me to bump it up to a 3. However, it could honestly go down over time. There’s just no room for going any higher than a 3, and that’s that.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. This is a good album, with one big issue for my sensibilities: the solos just go really fucking long, man. I wouldn’t mind it if it were one solo every now and then, but it feels like every single fucking song has to have at least a 90 second solo (or what feels like even longer) in a way that creates such a gap between verses that it just starts to feel like empty noise after a bit. That’s not to say the solos are bad; a good number of them have excellent guitar work and percussion, and they’re captivating in their own way, but if I were listening to this album in a car, I feel like those solos would just drag the fuck on in a bad way. With all of that said, though, what’s here is really strong 80s rock. Yes, it’s a bit formulaic, and that formulaic nature is what stops this from ever getting close to a 5 in my ears, but the formula works really well at an individual level. As an album experience, though, it just becomes too noticeable, much like the extended solos do. There’s great energy on all of these tracks, and I enjoyed every single one of them, but I kind of found myself in a holding pattern after the melodies wore off with each new track. I could keep nitpicking at this, but I’ll just get to it: it’s a solid album with noticeable problems (for my tastes) that manages to drag a lot of great 80s rock standards out while occasionally dragging along and sounding like a drag. However, the good outweighs the bad enough for me to bump this up to a 4; it’s still a pretty enjoyable album and a hell of a way to practice your air guitar, at least.

I’m at a really good 4. The biggest misstep on this album is the endlessly droning “Somebody Loves Me,” but besides that, what a great CHIC album. Yes, I know; it’s a Sister Sledge album, but this may as well be CHIC ft. Sister Sledge. That’s not to be taken as a complaint at all; I’m sure they had some level of say in the instrumentation and lyricism to make the songs feel more like their own, but this is a Nile Rodgers-led production if I’ve ever heard one. Some of the lingering issues from Risque are here, but they come up far less often; a few songs hit on a little too much repetition, or a melody that lingers a bit too long, or a soundscape that just loses its luster after 4 minutes without really changing stuff up. Those issues are here, but I can usually look past them because of the excellent vocals of Sister Sledge. I really don’t have any complaints; it’s a damn good album that gets dragged down to a 4 because of “Somebody Loves Me,” but without that track, I’d probably be at a 5. Honestly, I’ll probably just listen to it that way. It’s a very good listen, it’s catchy as hell, and it’s just some of the best disco of the era. Easily deserving to be on the list.

I’m… uh… let’s go with a 3. I don’t know that I’ve ever had less words for an album after listening to it; it’s not that I think this is bad. If anything, its eccentricities, its cacophonies, and all of its intentionally delivered flaws and oddities make it one of the more captivating of the 209 albums we’ve gotten so far, for better or for worse. I truly don’t think this album ever lost me in terms of being attentive and aware. It completely fucking lost me somewhere in the middle in terms of my own personality, invaded my brain, and simply replaced me with a new man somewhere by the end. This album is a goddamn acid trip on a runaway train that, while you know it’s going entirely off the rails, you are sat down as if this thing is taking you to the destination that you don’t even know you want to go to. I truly cannot describe the intricacies of this album; it is a complete enigma, and I somehow feel rejuvenated and confused at the same time after listening to it. I may never know quite what overcame me after a single listen, but I… think I enjoyed it. It’s a 3. It’s a very weird 3. It is worth a listen, if only to experience whatever sensation I just felt.

I’m at a 4.5 that I really want to bump up to a 5, but I just don’t think I can. What’s here, for the most part, is totally engaging and super rad; the 13 minutes of City, Country, City in particular might be one of my favorite extended instrumental tracks we’ve gotten, and a remarkable showcase of early 70s funk and jazz. This is a great fucking album that feels deeply reminiscent of some of Stevie Wonder’s best. However, those little extra parts that aren’t as engaging are what drag this album down to just a 4 for me – it’s got nothing to do with the instrumentation itself, or the energy of each track, or the lyrics, but it’s all about the length of some of these tracks. I think Four Cornered Room went on about 2 or 3 minutes too long in a way that didn’t substantially add anything to the track except for some runtime padding. I think The World Is A Ghetto, while fabulous, could’ve been trimmed down just a bit around the edges to make it feel more cohesive in a way that doesn’t sacrifice its soundscape. 10 minutes is long for that track, and there’s a sort of creative bankruptcy to the repetition of saying the song’s title over and over again, at least for me. The same applies to the first and the last tracks as well – great soundscapes, but I thought The Cisco Kid was sort of unengaging as the opener and Beetles in the Bog just fell flat for me with the vocal and instrumental repetition, especially as an album closer. Once again though, this is a great fucking album, and my complaints don’t take away from the fact that this is funky as hell, has great lyricism, great instrumentation, super fun energy, and is overall a great listen. I just think for my tastes it could’ve been trimmed a bit to shave down the filler and make for a tighter album experience. It’s really close to being a 5, but it’s an excellent 4 regardless of that, and deserves to be on the list.

It’s a 4. I’ve never heard the debut, though I have heard Demon Days, and while I firmly think Demon Days is the better album of the two after this listen, what’s here is remarkably experimental and genre-bending for 2001 that I have to give this album a lot of flowers. Obviously, Clint Eastwood is the big star of the album, but a lot of this is really fucking good. The big thing stopping this from being within 5 territory is simply how many tracks feel a little flat or a little repetitive for my tastes; there’s not any bad tracks, but a few too many weren’t clicking for one reason or another, namely the stretch of Tracks 12 through 14, whether it’s the language barrier biting at me, not really vibing with the emptiness in a soundscape, or simply being really fucking annoyed by a never-ending sample of a cheering crowd that anchors an entire song. Yeah, Slow Country sucks, I said it. I did not like that track. Regardless of that, though, the rest of this album clicked incredibly well for me. It’s a bit repetitive in a few spots, and sometimes the beats kept droning on without much of an evolution in the sound, but I don’t think any of it really took my enjoyment away until that stretch of tracks 12-14. There’s simply too much that doesn’t vibe with my tastes to go up to a 5, but it’s absolutely no less than a 4; great fucking stuff here, and easily deserving to be on the list.

I’m at a 10. I truly don’t know that I have the words to describe how all of this made me feel, but I imagine I’ll stumble into them as I write stuff; first and foremost, this is my first Pink Floyd album in full. Never heard anything off of Dark Side, and really, the only Pink Floyd track I’ve heard before this was Wish You Were Here, which I think is an excellent track. I’ve had moments throughout listening to all of these albums where I’ve felt dumb for not listening to an artist or a band before they popped up in this list and I had to be confronted with it. This is perhaps the dumbest I’ve ever felt yet. I don’t want to give a full recap of the plot or anything; that’s for other people to type out and analyze. I just want to type how I feel, which is that this just hit remarkably close to home for me a little too often, but in a good and confrontational way. The wall is a very real, and very valid thing. The message this album is trying to send is arguably more relevant now in 2024 than it was in 1979, and it’s a goddamn shame that apparently Roger Waters himself has lost the fucking plot on it. I’m still at a loss for words, so I’ll just skip to the finish: there is not a single missed note, or beat, or anything on here. This is 80 minutes of some of the best stuff ever put to tape, in terms of a fully cohesive vision and its execution. I feel remarkably idiotic for not listening to this before, and I curse Doug Walker every day for making “The Wall” into his own personal shitshow of a joke. Just a truly fabulous album that I may never put into words. Just listen to it. It’s a 10 out of 10, and well-deserving of so much of its critical acclaim. I truly, truly loved this.

I’m at a 3.5 that I think I’m gonna just barely bump up to a 4. I really wish I could keep it at that 3.5, but what’s here, in terms of energy and atmosphere and tempo is all honestly pretty good. The biggest knock I have on this album is its pacing and some of its production; I think there are too many tracks in a row that rely entirely on the energy of the soundscape, going at blazing fast speeds that are sure to perk up a listener, but at the expense of not being able to comprehend the lyrics, which are a bit incomprehensible throughout chunks of the back half of the album. It would be fine if it were one or two tracks in a row, but it feels like it’s around 3 or 4, and that’s simply too much. However, I thought too many of the soundscapes during that stretch were fucking rad as hell to ignore them like that. It’s a really entertaining 28 minutes, and that short length stops any one track from truly overstaying its welcome and becoming annoying. These are great individually, but as an album, they’re a little weirdly clumped together. With that said, the energy is still entirely infectious, and this album stays at a consistent enough quality that I think it can get that bump up to a 4, but it really is hanging on by a thread. I imagine if I come back to this album, those little lingering issues about lyrical comprehension and the overall pacing of the 12 tracks (seriously, who decided to have that many fast tracks in a row in the middle there?) are gonna bite at me more and more to a point where I might drop it down to a 3… but it’s no less than a 3. It’s pretty fun, and pretty good, and I think it should be on the list.

It’s a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. There are some (ok, probably many) aspects of this album that haven’t aged well, but for 1992, Dre’s solo debut, and the introduction of Snoop Dogg to the world, it’d be ridiculous for me to not bump this up to a 5 on account of just how damn well Dre fucking nailed this. The biggest outliers are, frankly, the tracks where Dre isn’t as prominent on them – I’d say Snoop carries at least half of this album, but even in N.W.A., I can’t really say Dre was a featured rapper to that degree. He was the beats guy, and he fucking kills almost every single beat here. Yes, he dips into his bag of tricks in a way that feels a little same-y the deeper the album goes, but a lot of that is usually saved by just how damn good the lyricism and flow on these tracks are. I do think the album starts to lose a bit of steam after The $20 Sack Pyramid, and that’s why it’s only at a 4.5 that I’m bumping up and not a straight 5, but I’d be hard-pressed to not call this one of the top 5 rap albums of the 90s; I’m sure I’m being forgetful to a point where it could slip into a top 10 slot, but regardless, I just deeply enjoy this album. I think those first 6 tracks after the intro are all-timers, and even if the album goes on a bit of a descent after Track 10, it’s just too damn good to not bump it up to a 5. It’s a great fucking album, and a genuine landmark moment for west coast hip hop, arguably even more than Straight Outta Compton was. It’s absolutely worth the listen and absolutely worth being on the list.

I’m at a 4.5 that I think just barely bumps itself up to a 5. I wasn’t really feeling the first 2 tracks on this album; I thought they felt a little repetitive in their lyricism and vocals, even if the instrumentals were pretty good. From Track 3 onward though, I thought this album took a nice ramp up in energy; each track got progressively better and better (save for the sort of super generic track that is “I Want Her, She Wants Me”) before it started firing on all cylinders by Track 9 and never looked back. I genuinely had a big grin on my face when I realized “Time of the Season” was that track, because I’ve heard it several times (obviously, the Eminem sample helped a bit), but I’ve never really thought to listen to the original. The quality that stems from 9 of those final 10 tracks is what gets this to go from a 4.5 up to a 5; I think they’re just too damn good to sell them short by leaving them at a 4. Yes, the album starts slow, but it really does ramp up and finish in a remarkable way; the choice to end on Time of the Season, and save frankly your best song for last is really hard in the modern music industry, and it’s kind of a breath of fresh air to see it happen here. I might be overhyping it a little, but I really, really did enjoy this – I feel good about going to a 5.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. I don’t think this album does anything super special, but it certainly doesn’t do anything wrong; this is a pretty quick 31 minutes that’s full of pretty quality tracks, but as an album experience, I feel like there’s not much of a sense of direction for the band to firmly plant itself on as a debut album. Individually, I don’t think there’s a bad track here – a few mediocre ones, sure, but nothing ever reaches outright bad. The instrumentation is pretty entertaining, and the vocals know when to switch between calm, angry, and forceful. The lyrics are sort of where this album falls flat; not that they’re bad, but there’s never really a super catchy hook here to really hang your hat on as a signature song. However, in terms of the album, it just sort of felt like going track to track without a direction, and while Odessey & Oracle was sort of the same way, it worked because of the consistency in the stylings of each track – this album can’t really decide if it wants to be super heavy, a little light, or somewhere right in the middle. It jumps between each tone, and it makes the album experience feel just a little bit too dissonant at times. Regardless, what’s here is super fun, and most of the little nitpicks I had don’t take away from the overall quality of each track or the album; it’s got a lot of great energy, and when everything is clicking, it feels a little unstoppable in a charismatic way. It just doesn’t click as often as I’d like, but it clicks often enough to bump this up to a 4.

I’m at a 5. God, what a beautiful, beautiful album. I’ve never heard of Michael Kiwanuka until now, but this album is one hell of an introduction; such a deeply vivid album, from its instrumentals, to its lyricism, and even to its vocals – his voice has such a great fucking tone to it that manages to sound like Bill Withers, Phil Collins, and Seal all at once. In terms of the genres, this album bounces all over the place, but it never once loses any sense of cohesion – it can go from Stevie Wonder-esque pop, to Bill Withers-esque soul, to a bit of Jimi Hendrix on a dime, while managing to explore a lot of other genres within those influences – for example, the instrumental part of Interlude (Loving the People) really stuck out to me. It feels almost Brian Eno-esque at the end while scattering in some awesome electric guitar throughout. Looking at the whole thing, it's basically a modern 70s album, even down to its cover art. Really, I’m just stunned this never entered my radar before now, and based on Spotify plays and whatnot, this is criminally fucking underrated. I’m really blown away by how cohesive this feels as an album experience; I feel like 2019 was very much a year for “playlist albums” thrown together without rhyme or reason, so to have an album cohesively put together with a definitive start and finish, excellent transitions throughout, and an overarching window of his version of the Black experience (if you didn't get this throughout the album, you truly did not get it) just feels kind of special. I thought this hit on all cylinders from top to bottom, and almost every influence it touches on involves some of my favorite artists ever, so everything here was right down my alley. Just a spectacular album – honestly, probably a 10/10 for me.

That’s an easy 5, and thank goodness it is. I always use this album as a sort of benchmark, but it’s been so long since I actually heard it that I wondered if my memory was sort of faltering on me – obviously, Band on the Run and Jet are the two biggest hits off of this album, and some of Paul’s best known post-Beatles stuff, but I couldn’t fully remember the rest of the album. The rest of the album is just as damn good; the only real point of “ehh” for me was the sort of “first minute is the whole song” track that is “Let Me Roll It,” but even that’s a pretty good song when it comes to it – I think this is just a great fucking listen, regardless of paying attention to the lyrics, and if you do pay attention to the lyrics, I think it just adds even more to the album. The structures on all of these tracks are super fun, both vocally and instrumentally in a way that’s both reminiscent of The Beatles and much closer to some of his contemporaries at the time, like say, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, or even a lot of the U.S. bands that had kinda tried to fill the post-Beatles void (especially on No Words & Helen Wheels). I could keep going, but I’m just glad this album was as strong as I remembered it being – I truly forgot the album had ended on a small reprise of Band on the Run, so that was a fun looping point. It’s just a great fucking album, and when music can make someone feel this good, there’s not a damn thing wrong with it. Just a really strong listen from top to bottom, and a real pinnacle of 70s rock to me. One of the easiest 5’s I’ll give.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’m rounding down to a 3. There’s not any bad tracks here, but there’s a number of tracks that just aren’t very captivating to me, and those tracks just drag the album down from the incredibly hot start it had. I was really into the first 4 tracks, but starting from Track 5, I think the album just gets a little too broad from a lyrical standpoint and for some reason, it just nagged at me the entire time. When the lyrics got too broad, the songs felt like they had less substance and less structure, and while that’s probably better for some people, it just doesn’t work as well for me. When the album does strike on tracks that have a structure and a substance during those final 8 tracks, I think it clicks really well, but it only does it a handful of times. There’s fantastic instrumentation throughout this album, but it just feels like too many of the songs on here are full of missed opportunity for my musical tastes – I want to dig deeper into these slice-of-life monotonous moments that are usually captured pretty well, but the scope of so many tracks being so broad just sort of left me underwhelmed. Once again, though, there’s not a bad track, and I don’t think this is a bad album. It’s just not fully my thing, but I can see how it could be someone else’s. It’s probably a 4 or maybe even a 5 for someone else, but for me, I’m just kinda stuck on a 3.

I’m at a 1.5 that I’m going to round down to a 1. That is the first, and hopefully last time I will ever have to write a sentence like that. This album fluctuated for a while in terms of where I was at with it; I thought the first track, “Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers” was fine – not super captivating, but just ultimately fine. I thought the second track, “Spit on It” was obnoxiously mixed and I quickly thought this would be a completely disastrous trainwreck. On the Lash had the worst intro ever, and started to reaffirm my fears, until it ended up actually being pretty good. Caviar was fine, but just sort of a directionless slog. Spike Island was decent – not that good, but it was enjoyable enough that I liked it. Kiss Like Lizards is the highest point of the album – I genuinely think it’s a great track with a lot of fun energy. By that point, I was probably at around a 2.5 that I could bump up to a 3. It was poorly mixed, sure, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t appreciate what the album was going for, it just wasn’t gonna be fully my thing. Getting Bright at Night is one of the longest, loudest, and least substantial tracks I think we’ve gotten on any album so far. It is a never-ending 9-minute mess with a never-ending guitar that never once lets the song breathe on its own merits, and it immediately fucking dragged down the mood. The sad part is that the album gets in one last good gasp of air with Big Sleep, which I thought was pretty enjoyable. After that point, from Track 9 (White Devil) and onward, the album just… ugh. Tracks 9 and 10 are fine, but completely boring – they exist for the sake of padding. Track 11, Virgin Velcro, is decent enough but it’s not doing anything new or special. By now, every song just blended together and felt the same to me, even the better ones. At this point, I had simply grown tired of the album. Seasick is decent enough until the final 2 minutes. The final 2 minutes of Seasick broke me. It’s just noise. It’s genuinely just noise. It’s not even noise with vocals to give the appearance of music. It’s truly just noise, and it’s not even noise that’s good and relaxing in the white noise Brian Eno-esque sort of way – it’s some of the most grating and painfully awful noise ever put to tape to be commercially sold. There’s not a single positive behind it. It grows louder and louder, and then it just… transitions into “Party the Baby Off,” as I’m just supposed to accept that I had my ear to the door of a T-1000 getting tortured in a lab for the last 2 minutes like it didn’t fucking exist. Party the Baby Off has some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard in any album closer ever. “But motherfuckers do what they have to, beat your face black and blue” before repeating “take off all your clothes” as the album faded out was genuinely the final straw for me. It genuinely went from an album where 3 of the first 6 tracks were fine to being an utter trainwreck of an album that I simply had no respect for. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that On the Lash, Spike Island, Kiss Like Lizards, and Big Sleep are all good tracks, and I might throw those in my playlists. However, this album just soured on me to such a deeply harsh fucking degree that I simply don’t think I can even give it a 2, as much as I thought about doing so. If this had had even a decent closing track, I could’ve probably been nice and gone up to a 2, just barely, if only to reward the good tracks for actually being good. It’s just not there for me. When I gave Maxinquaye a 1, it was because I simply found the album to be deeply boring – there was no energy and it did absolutely nothing for me. I’m at a 1.5 with this one, and because of the lyrics in that last track, I simply refuse to bump it up to a 2. I do think this album has a better energy and is probably still better than Maxinquaye, but it’s the third time I’m giving an album a 1 (fuck you Kid Rock), and it’s only because it had such an extreme decline that just made me feel disappointed that I even listened to it by the end. This did not need to be on the list.

As I sort of thought going into this, it’s a very nice 4. Stan Getz is pretty damn good at this whole bossa nova thing, and this is a really fucking good bossa nova album. As I said about Getz/Gilberto, what’s here is incredibly relaxing, very enjoyable, and super easy to listen to. As I also said about Getz/Gilberto, the only reason I’m at a 4 is mainly just how rigid the album can feel; not in terms of the compositions themselves, but simply the instruments at hand. This album sticks deeply to its shaker percussion, its cowbell, its guitar, and its saxophone, and it never really strays from that. The compositions are great, but even at just 33 minutes, there’s eventually gonna be some fatigue from hearing the shaker percussion in every single track without ever really pausing that much – the same goes for the saxophone riffs, or the guitar melodies, and the cowbell especially sticks out on the last track. With all of that said, there’s not a single bad track here, and I really did enjoy the hell out of this – it really could go to a 5 on a subsequent listen or two, because the vibes are just immaculate throughout. It’s a great album, it’s a great listen, and it should be on the list – I wish there was a vocal track or two (or even just a track with a little more bite to it) for variety’s sake, but that’s just my wishful thinking. It’s a very deserved and very strong 4. Definitely deserves to be on the list.

I’m at a 5. This is my first Kate Bush album – obviously, Running Up That Hill was huge a few years ago, but I never really took a deeper dive into her music. What’s here is one hell of a look at the idea of the human condition and the need for relevancy, comfort, and connection, bedazzled and supplemented with fantastic production work that seems to be the absolute pinnacle of the mid-80s style, refined all the way to this point in 1989. Her vocals are incredible throughout this album, and the lyricism is pretty damn good throughout. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a more effective beat drop in my life than the launch of “Rocket’s Tail” – just a masterclass of how to do that sort of thing and have it work perfectly. It’s one of the many examples of great production work blending with Kate’s vision that are scattered throughout the album, but it hits brilliantly on that track in particular. This Woman’s Work might be one of the most emotional album closers that I’ve ever heard. Seeing the scene it’s paired with adds an incredible layer of depth. Really, I could keep glowing with praise, but I just felt really touched by this album. It hits a few snags of repetition or empty spots at points, but those get immediately washed away by some great line or a great vocal hit or something crazy in the soundscape. It’s just a really fucking strong album, and a very easy 5 for me.

I’m at a 5. This is my first full George Michael album – obviously, I know the bigger hits and some of his Wham! stuff, but I knew this was the one that had Freedom! ‘90 on it, which is an all-timer track as far I’m concerned, so I was sort of expecting an album with that kind of tone. Instead, I got something that feels deeply introspective and much more serious / matured than most of his 80s work, and I’m not complaining about it – I love the direction this album takes, and while some might categorize it as moody or whiny, I think it’s a strong separation from his more poppy stuff to show his bigger variety as an artist. Obviously, people are still gonna play Careless Whisper or Last Christmas (or even Freedom! ‘90) more than they will most of the tracks on this album, but I think what’s here is probably deeply underrated in his catalog. I really don’t think there’s a bad track here – the only odd one out is Soul Free, which is a great fucking track that just feels like it’s on the wrong album, and doesn’t really mesh with the other tracks as cohesively. Regardless, I really loved this album; it’s sort of a shame that his career slowed down heavily after this, but it’s better that he slowed down to make music he was truly engaged with instead of trying to follow a sort of tour/release cycle that Sony was trying to box so many other artists into during the early 90s. This is an easy 5 for me to give, and it’s beyond deserving to be on the list. I gotta hear this MTV Unplugged half.

I’m at a 5. This is my first Smashing Pumpkins album, and while I always knew there was acclaim, for some reason, I just never really went for it – it could genuinely all be in the name. Either way, I’m a fucking moron; this is a great fucking album. Lots of diversity within the soundscape, great lyricism (if a bit broad at times), and Billy Corgan’s vocals are strong as hell, almost chameleon-esque with how he can shift from soft and introspective to a classic rockstar voice on a dime. I’m just really impressed with how honest this album seems to feel – Nirvana knew how to commercialize their style, and they did it remarkably successfully, even if it was kind of at Kurt Cobain’s detriment. Obviously, Nevermind is a fantastic album, but there’s something that feels just a little too clean about it after listening to this. I can’t explain how or why this feels more raw and honest, but it just does. Sometimes, that works against the album, and I think that honesty sort of collapses in on itself during “Silverfuck”. Silverfuck’s a great track, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know that it works as one long 9 minute piece; it feels like an attempt to shove the soundscape of a mini rock opera into what would otherwise be a pretty normal song if you just look at the lyrics. I think the choice of the soundscape works well, and it’s a pretty quick 9 minutes, but in the back of my mind, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it would work better as 3 separate 3-minute tracks with their own titles to really give the song just a bit more structure and definition. It’s rather honest in what it tries to do, but I think it falls just a little short on its execution, especially with how self-serving the instrumental parts can feel the longer they go. Still a hell of a climax to the album, though, and really enjoyable. That track is basically the only nitpick I have, but it’s such a minor blip – this album, for me, is like a 9.75/10 at the bare minimum if we’re going by 10. It’s just a remarkably strong rock album, and I can finally see the hype. I know there’s at least one other Smashing Pumpkins album on the list, so that should be exciting when it rolls around. Either way, for my first experience, this was nothing short of spectacular. Very, very easy 5.

I’m at a 3. For a top 100 album of 1978, I’d say that was alright. Hold on, this is from 1994? Oh, jeez. Yeah, this album really wears its target audience on its sleeve – it’s a Reagan administration album made right around the point of the Clinton administration, which is to say, for 1994, this just feels outdated and out of touch with its contemporary sounds, especially for a sort of pseudo-rock album. It’s not quite MTV Unplugged, but it sure as hell ain’t Nirvana either. When trying to really figure out what this sounded like to me, I ended up writing down “a mismatched hybrid between Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, while capturing neither of what makes either of them so good, and just sort of getting the leftovers,” which… yeah, I’d call that accurate. I’m sure Elvis Costello has better albums than this, but this just wasn’t super captivating to me – while there’s not a bad track here, and everything’s an enjoyable listen, you can only really coast on “that was alright” for so long. There’s not too many standouts; I’d say of the 15 tracks here, I only really liked about 6 of them, so that’s batting just under average. It’s not certainly not a bad album, and I’d even recommend it. It’s simply not working for me, if only because it doesn’t feel like an album from 1994 should, and there’s just better albums that do this style and sound that have come out both long before and long after it. However, it could easily work for someone else; a 4 or a 5 on this album wouldn’t feel that unjustified to me. The framework of a truly great album is here, it’s just missing something for my tastes. Hence, the 3.

Hm. I’m at a 3.5 that I think I’ll just barely bump down to a 3, even though I did like this. Really, the only reason I can’t bump it up to a 4 is because I just don’t think it’s a particularly cohesive album experience. It’s a really strong playlist album, and what’s here brought back those mythical “summer of 2016” vibes that people are still desperately trying to catch, and in that sense, I really liked it. However, as a cohesive album with a vision from start to finish, I think it sort of loses itself by the 8th track and just goes into “here’s the ones with the banger beats” mode, and while it does work extremely well, it gets kinda grating after a bit. It’s a good album, don’t get me wrong – there are great beats here, some good lyricism (though very slang-heavy for my Kansas brain), and some pretty strong flow (if a bit laggy or too disconnected from the beat at times). There’s a dud or two early on in the album, but after that, it goes into a really strong flow state, and there’s some good highlights here. It’s just not glued together enough as a 12-track album for me to be able to bump it up to a 4, but I do think it’s enjoyable as hell. A really strong 3. I had to deeply resist writing a Big Shaq joke, so here’s the obligatory mention. Sue me.

I just don’t even want to write a review for this one. I’m so disappointed, man. Realistically, it’s actually a 1.5 bumped up to a 2, but because the white lead singer dropped the N word twice (hard R both times), I simply have to drop this down to a 1. If you go to the Wikipedia page for this album, you’ll get words like “groundbreaking,” calling it innovative, and saying that several musicians have cited the album as an influence. To be completely fair to this album, the only reason why this was at a 1.5 bumped up to a 2 is because I do think this instrumental style works – it’s very early garage rock, but with the sort of blues style flair that really got refined and perfected in the early 2000s indie scene. This is a genuinely innovative album in that sense, and I really liked a lot of the instrumentals here. If this album were just the instrumentals, I’d probably be at a 3, bare minimum. They are all wasted on some of the worst lyricism and vocals I’ve ever fucking heard in my life. I don’t even want to expand on that, but because I’m already giving this a 1, I may as well tear into them a little bit – they’re the fucking musical equivalent of Desert Bus. He can’t fucking shut up. Every time you play Desert Bus, you gotta nudge the bus a little bit to the right in order to keep it from going off the road, and that’s what his vocals are. Once you notice the “guitar riffs for 5 seconds, random ass lyric, guitar riffs for 5 seconds” pattern that permeates *so goddamn much of this album*, it is truly impossible to ignore. Those random ass lyrics are pushing the bus to the right. They’re annoying to listen to, and I genuinely believe they add almost nothing of substance to this album. The real stress test of whether or not you’ll like this album is entirely dependent on Fire Spirit, which I think is a genuinely encapsulating track of the entire experience. It’s got a fantastic fucking instrumental, and it’s got what I consider to be the worst storytelling and vocal performance of the entire album. It’s got a story, sure, but it’s like listening to the worst D&D player at your table explain his quest in the most unimaginative way ever. If you can handle that track without really wincing at either the vocals or the storytelling, there’s a chance you’ll genuinely like the album – I’m being harsh on it, but it’s not specifically bad, it’s just disappointingly mediocre compared to the expectations that were put on it – this thing got good reviews in 1981 and even got a 9.1/10 from Pitchfork in 2021, which is insane to me, because I did not fucking like this enough to even sniff a 3 on account of the vocals and lyrics alone. I really do think that there’s a great soundscape here, and it did pave the way for a lot of 2000s rock standards that I do like, but they have easily eclipsed what this album did. It just didn’t work for me – I think it drags on like hell, I think it’s draining to listen to once you notice the obvious structural patterns throughout the tracks, and I just don’t think the vocals or lyrics stack up to any kind of modern standard. It’s a 1.5, that gets bumped to a 2, that goes back down to a 1 for the slurs. It’s a damn 4/10 in my heart, though.

It’s a 10. I knew it was gonna be a 10 before I listened to it again, but I just had to be completely sure. Too many people have written too many words about this album for me to add anything truly meaningful to the praise it gets – hell, I even wrote a paper about “How Much a Dollar Cost” once, so I’m worn out on writing things about this album already. I can’t wait to read all of the thinkpieces when this album hits its 10th anniversary next year to reflect on just how special of a piece of art this is – people with bigger vocabularies and more introspection than I will be able to write some beautiful one-liners about its impact and its legacy in ways that I’ll only be able to appreciate and agree with. For my money’s worth, I truly have nothing but praise for it, and it’s praise that everyone else will regurgitate – brilliant lyricism, incredible flow, fantastic features, genre-bending instrumentals, great vocal work, and ultimately, just one of the more clear and concise visions ever laid out for a single album with damn near flawless execution, especially via the framing of the album provided by the poem and the payoff with the 2pac “interview” at the end. This is the easiest 10 I could possibly give. I’m sure there are better rap albums out there, I’m sure there are albums with bigger impacts out there, and I’m willing to admit that I know it so well inside and outside from the amount of times I’ve listened to it that I can’t really look at it with a deeply critical eye… but I just don’t care. I truly think it’s the best album of the 21st century, regardless of genre, a top 10 album of all time, and it cemented Kendrick Lamar’s legacy by just his third studio album. Everything since this has been a bonus, and they’ve been incredible bonuses in their own right. I hope this guy drops again soon. Drake could fucking never.

I’m at a 2.5 that will just barely get bumped up to a 3 out of pure bias. I was really expecting a bit more slop out of this album, but listening to it in full, it’s really not that bad, it’s just painfully bland more often than it is truly entertaining. When this album hits though, I genuinely think it hits – I am kind of a sucker for some of these early 2000s nu-metal production tricks and soundscapes, and nobody was doing it like Limp Bizkit was, probably, for better or for worse. There are genuinely great instrumentals here, and Fred Durst's voice drags them down more often than not. I think Fred Durst’s goofy-ass voice is a gift from God – it is just silly enough to never once be taken seriously, it is just bad enough to hate whenever he's trying to be serious, and it is just good enough that when he’s in full-blown yell mode with guitars blaring behind him, there is an undeniable energy that fills up whatever room it’s heard in. Granted, sometimes that energy is incredible pain and suffering, but when the tracks are good, which happens maybe a grand total of 5 times, (and yes, this genuinely includes the cheesiest fucking song ever, “Rollin’”) it’s a genuinely good energy. Like I said though, this is usually more painfully bland than it is entertaining, and I think the album takes a steep drop after Track 10 in terms of actually holding my attention. It retreads a lot of the same instrumental production tricks, and they just don’t work that deep into the album – they even fucking reuse Rollin’, which is like, a cardinal sin, probably. You really shouldn’t have the remix be part of the main tracklist. Don’t even get me started on the lyrics. All of that said, I truly don’t think this is THAT bad – it’s certainly not so bad as to drop it to a 1, but it is relatively bad. I can see the appeal though; sometimes, people just want to fucking rock out without giving a shit about the actual lyrics or vocals and just go with the vibes. This could be someone else's 4 or even somehow a 5 (though if anyone thinks it's a 5, they almost certainly need to get a detox). For me, it’s truly no higher than a 3, and I’m being extremely generous to give it the bump if only because I think Limp Bizkit is a perfect encapsulation of just how over the top and silly the early 2000s were. It’s a way better Beastie Boys album than Devil Without A Cause was, that’s for sure. Hence, the 2.5 that barely gets bumped up to a 3. Please don’t give us any more Limp Bizkit albums.

It’s a 3. I don’t know what to say, really – that sure was an album. Decent vocals, if a bit shaky at times. Pretty fun instrumentals, if a little repetitive in energy and style over the course of the album. Some strange lyricism, but sometimes it’s pretty good. I’ve really got nothing super special to say about it, but I don’t have any negatives either. That’s 37 minutes of solid rock music that never really hits *that* high of a high, but it’s a solid listen. A few tracks get a little boring at points, but the tempo switches do a good job of keeping things from getting too stale. It’s a rock album from 1986 that sometimes sounds like it’s from 1990 at certain points. It has some good tracks, some mediocre tracks, but not really any bad tracks. It… sure exists. Not sure why it had to be on the list, but I’m not complaining that much. It’s the extreme definition of a 3.

It’s a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. It’s just funky as hell – the only reason I’m at a 4.5 instead of a flat 5 is because there’s a few tracks that are really fucking repetitive to the point of feeling stretched out to pad time, and I really don’t like the lyrics on Handcuffs. Besides that though, what a nice funky album. The first album we got as a group was One Nation Under A Groove, which came out after this – that album is funky as hell, but it relies a little more on a psychedelic sort of soundscape meant to hypnotize and zone out the brain a bit more than this does. What’s on this album has a lot more of a traditional feel, far more echoed in what was to come from say, Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall or Stevie Wonder’s Songs in The Key Of Life, and in that sense, I kinda like this album just a little more than One Nation Under A Groove, but they’re both great albums. This one is just more attuned to the soundscapes and styles that I love, and thus, it kept my attention for longer. I also didn’t realize just how damn much Dre took from this album for The Chronic (& Doggystyle, which I kinda hope is on the list), which was a nice happy surprise to my ears. I could keep going, but I just think this is funky as hell – I should’ve given One Nation Under A Groove a 5, but I’ll remedy that by giving this one a 5; it’s pretty deserved and pretty damn good. Certainly no less than a 4.

I’m honestly at a 3. Look, it’s very clear to me that this is not “music” in the traditional sense at all, and to categorize this as industrial music ala Nine Inch Nails or Slipknot or the rest is the equivalent of calling the first Gramophone recordings a podcast and then being offended when you can’t understand anything. It’s a narrative album, and it just happens to be a very loud and very bold one, with really ballsy choices for 1981 and the understanding of “music” as we both knew it then and as we know it today. Does that mean it’s one of the 1001 albums you should listen to before you die? No, not by a long shot. Does that mean I’m mad I listened to it? No, not really. I’m honestly impressed by what’s here – yes, the first few tracks are loud as hell, and the choice to drill directly in my face while yelling at me is about as dejected as I’ve ever felt in this album experience… but then I just sort of got over it and it started to click. Seriously – I did end up liking this. It’s not an album you add to a playlist, not by a fucking long shot, but it is sort of a journey in sound and a genuine attempt at a story, I think. I have no idea what the story is because of my stubbornness to look it up and the language barrier, but I think it’s genuinely effectively communicated through the soundscape alone. I knew the English titles of these tracks because they’re listed on Wikipedia, so that gave me some level of context to work with, but besides that, this was all up to the soundscape to tell those stories, and I really think it worked. It’s not that good of an album by any means, but for my money’s worth, it’s a genuinely enjoyable listen, if a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but I think it’s supposed to be. I don’t think it’s worthy of being the worst album by ranking on the site – it’s disingenuous and an overreaction from people who gave up after the first few tracks. For me, it’s enjoyable enough to earn a 3. This is probably a miracle, and a little bit of a pity bump up from a 2.5, but I don’t care – I did like it.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump down to a 3. I dunno, I just wasn’t super impressed, nor was I ever really disappointed. It’s supposed to be the soundtrack for a fictional movie, and I think it does a good job of showing some pretty strong diversity in its instrumentals, and providing the outline of some vague story. Really, the reason I can’t bump this up to a 4 is because I simply have no idea what the fuck that story is. This album tries to set up a general plotline on “The Vibes Ain't Nothin' but the Vibes”, before really nailing the urgency of the dialogue in “It’s Business As Usual” but I really can’t follow the plot after that. Seriously, why is there a Miles Davis tribute after that eerie-ass dialogue full of stalker stuff? It sounds excellent, but where is it in the plot? Why is “Vermillion Kisses” a medieval style storytelling moment of a sucker being born every minute to get killed by this princess? Is “State of Contraction” supposed to be about pregnancy and giving birth? After the stalker shit earlier and the literal dream of killing her husband or her lover or whatever? Are they ever actually in love by the end? Why do I care this much about a movie that will never exist and be a flimsy straight-to-DVD thriller at best? It is a good album though; I did like it, and I think it’s relatively inventive while nailing down the noir movie soundtrack it’s going for. A little long on a few tracks, and certainly not as atmospheric as an actual movie soundtrack would be, but pretty solid stuff here. Only a 3 for the utterly confusing “plot”, though.

I’m at a 5. I would go much higher if I could. I hold Michael Jackson in a lot of reverence, and maybe that’s a character flaw, for a multitude of reasons I could write about whenever we get Thriller or Bad or Off The Wall. To segue into my point, I’ve never really given Janet a fair shake for whatever reason – I’m genuinely not sure why. I think Scream is one of the best tracks on HIStory, and I know some of her bigger hits. I’ve just never really had an excuse to tackle this album other than laziness. Once again, I have proven myself to be a fucking moron – this album is fantastic, from top to almost bottom (sorry to “Someday Is Tonight”, it’s just a very awkward fit on this album to me – still a good track though!). While it's definitely stuck in the late 80s, this is New Jack Swing at some of its earliest and its finest; the entire stretch of Rhythm Nation to Livin' in a World (They Didn't Make) is off the charts in terms of production, instrumentals, lyricism, social messaging, and vocals. Even as the back half of the album transitions into more of a love-driven record, I don’t think anything changes that much other than the atmosphere and mood – obviously, it climaxes at Someday Is Tonight, but there’s still great production and a big variety of styles to keep the album feeling fresh, even if its subject matter grows narrower and narrower. Regardless of anything else, what I’m most impressed by is that she wrote this at the ages of 22 and 23. Singers nowadays at that age would dream to have something like Rhythm Nation in their catalog, let alone the seven Top 5 singles she had on this album. That’s about as old as Billie Eilish is now, and she's probably the only other artist I can think of with similar critical acclaim at the same age. Hell, it would be a real miracle if Olivia Rodrigo’s next album after GUTS somehow has the cultural impact and acclaim of this. Ultimately, I truly think Janet broke out an album that could genuinely rival some of Michael’s best (ok, maybe not Thriller, but possibly Bad, and probably Off The Wall). What’s here is nothing short of fantastic, and I don’t think there’s a single miss. A few tracks go a little long, and some production quirks are a little overused, but those are nitpicky in relation to how much I just deeply enjoyed this. It’s so easily deserving of a 5, and I’m very glad I finally listened to it. There better be more Janet on this list.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll just barely bump up to a 5 just because I liked this a lot. It’s very hard to not think about Nirvana (and more specifically Kurt Cobain) when listening to this, but it’s just because they’re so tightly linked. Obviously, Dave Grohl has stepped far beyond the overwhelming lingering impact that Kurt left behind to become a star in his own right, but since this album comprises so much of material Dave wrote while he was still in Nirvana, it’s just hard to avoid making the comparison. It is, however, very easy to listen to this and realize that Dave Grohl is absolutely not Kurt Cobain – even though a number of songs on here feel like they’re directly linked to Nirvana (X-Static absolutely has to be a Nevermind tribute in its vocal style and instrumentation, come on), there’s a pretty strong number that show Dave’s own musical styles well, whether it’s the acoustically laden cheesy “Big Me.” the heavy metal of “Weenie Beenie,” or the hard punk of “Wattershed,” it’s a really good showcase of just how varied the Foo Fighters would come to be once Dave got an actual full band together. It’s seriously impressive to me that this is all Dave Grohl – obviously, with the benefit of an entire world-class discography later, we know he had this in him all along, but for 1995, it’s a really ballsy shot to take. “The drummer from Nirvana made an album? After Kurt died? What a cash grab, am I right?” It could’ve totally flopped if people didn’t give the music a genuine chance, and I’m so very glad they did – this is a pretty good album. It’s got a few flaws – I think the lyrics aren’t as tight as they could be (and as Dave would later prove, would be), and some of the instrumental/production choices are a little off putting and screechy at times, but considering how much of this was written long before it was recorded, and that Dave Grohl did it all by himself, I can look over those as nitpicks. It’s just a damn good listen, and a really strong debut – 4.5 barely bumped up to a 5, but very, very good regardless.

I’m right at a 3. I don’t really know what to say – it’s definitely early 2010s indie rock. I’m not that willing to give it glowing praise, but it’s not a bad album at all, it’s just not my thing. To expound on this a little, it’s got great instrumentals across the board here – an incredibly relaxing album to listen to, and I appreciate the sort of minimalism and free-flowing vibe it has going for it. I think the vocals are pretty good, if a little too… I don’t wanna say “unmotivated,” but they don’t feel as emotionally driven as they could be, but with these lyrics, it does run the risk of sounding too cheesy if you overdo it, so I’m probably just being nitpicky towards my tastes. Honestly, I guess I don’t really have any flaws with this. There’s not a bad song here, and everything’s good. It just never captivated me that much. To put it bluntly, it’s a car album. It’s the type of album you put on during a long drive and you just calm your spirits to it. It’s not the type of album you intently listen to and try to break down the meaning of, because with too much focus, this album kind of crumbles on some of its more relaxing and hypnotic moments in the soundscape. We’ve had a few albums before that qualify as “car albums” to me, but this is probably the most blatant example of one thus far. Again, though, it’s not bad, it’s just not my thing. It’s certainly no less than a 3, I’ll say that. For my tastes, it is a 3, but this could easily be a 4 or a 5 for someone else. Maybe I’ll listen to it on a drive and see if it gets the bump.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. Gotta tell you – not used to an album without proper lyrics. I just don’t know that I could personally give a 5 to an album with vocals, but without lyrics, simply because I’m a sucker for storytelling… but I think a 4 means the album was pretty damn good regardless. And this was pretty damn good. Sometimes, soundscapes do make an album, and even though this is a 1990 album, it’s very much the dying gasp of the 1980s in full effect – everything here is a sort of pastiche on every 80s trope and style you could think of musically, and it comes together really well. Vocally, I think she’s got a mesmerizing tone to her voice that usually meshes pretty well with the instrumentals, but occasionally, I think the production blends them together too harshly on some tracks where it just kinda negates the positives of both. That’s not to say there’s any bad tracks here, just some suspect mixing – this is even more of a car album than the last one was, but it’s honestly more of a dreaming album to me (I guess that’s why it’s “dream pop”). I could easily see myself falling asleep to these, or even dreaming up something close to these – good soundscapes with lyrics just out of reach, but the occasionally clear word or two to keep you a little grounded to reality. I just had fun with it – I can’t wax too much about it because the extent of my criticism is “that sounded really good, but sometimes it didn’t,” and that’s kindergarten-level criticism. It’s a very nice listen; it sounds great, it’s relaxing as hell, and while it does go a little bit too long, I think it doesn’t overstay its welcome long enough to be actively annoying. I’m fine with bumping it up to a 4.

I’m at a 10. I’ve never heard Janis Joplin’s voice until today – her name is pretty damn well known, but finally listening to her… god, what a voice. Extremely unique for its era – Ella Fitzgerald she sure as shit is not. One of the grittiest, harshest, and yet most empowering voices I think I’ve ever heard, and the range of her voice is on full display throughout this album. Really, the only thing I could complain about is that the band behind her is so fucking good that it’s incredibly easy to zone out and be mesmerized by their guitars and percussion. Combine that with Janis’s voice and you have a deadly weapon of “being so into it you literally forget what the best parts are,” and that’s where I’m at – I would normally wax poetic about individual pieces of an album, but this all blended together to make 37 of the most entertaining minutes I’ve heard yet. The one thing I can wax poetic about though is the absolutely stunning “Piece of My Heart” – just a bombastic track. Janis is on fire, the band’s on fire, the whole thing is a masterpiece on wax, and a truly flawless song. It’s worthy of a 5 by itself, but this whole album feels like it deserves far higher; just a masterclass to me. Absolutely fantastic stuff.

I’m at a 5. This is just unabashedly my type of music, and I will not apologize for it one bit. Very, very Stevie-esque stuff here, but without the same sort of emotional maturity or wisdom… but a lot of the funk. Sometimes, all you need is the funk. That’s not to say this album is entirely stupid or anything – it’s a little stupid, but in the “go stupid and have fun” type of way, not in the “go drink bleach” type of way. I had a lot of fun with this – it’s sort of a final gasp of the late 70s disco era, but just contemporary enough for the early 80s that it kinda sneaks into that “sure, this sounds like it could go next to a Hall & Oates record” place on the record store shelf. My biggest compliment that I can give, other than the instrumentals being fantastic, is that his voice is absolutely perfect for this style and sound – the only Bobby Womack I’ve heard before this is Across 110th Street (significantly more of a socially serious 60s-style track), and his two features of Plastic Beach, but his voice especially pops on these more funky instrumentals, especially when he’s doing his best Stevie Wonder impression. It’s truly impossible for me to not make the comparison here, sorry. I just really, really liked this. I could keep going, but I’ll boil it down to this: it’s funky, he’s got a gritty voice, it’s a great combo, and it makes for a great album. Super fun 5.

I’m right at a 3. I really don’t have a lot of praise or critique either way for this album. It just exists, really. I’m sure it hit a little better in 1967, but by 2024, I’ve just heard so many other bands do these sort of styles while trying to effectively mix psychedelic rock with other genres, and a lot of those other bands have done this just as well or way better than what’s on this album. Again, that’s not to say this is bad – I’d say it’s good. It’s just not really feeling like I have to hear this before I die. I liked a lot of the tracks here – some of them have odd mixing choices or emotionless vocals, but as a whole album, I’d say it succeeds more often than it fails. It’s just that the success is sort of equivalent to winning a 100cc race of Mario Kart in that it’s just not as satisfying as it could be. So… yeah. It’s a 3. Fun listen, little long, a little odd at times, but never bad. It’s just kinda there, though.

I’m at a 4.5 that will just barely get the bump up to a 5. I’ve never heard a full Elvis album until this point – obviously, I’d be a moron to not know the hits, which is why I’m very glad this is an album with maybe 4 of them at most, and only 2 if you count the fact that Ray Charles and Little Richard did “I Got A Woman” and “Tutti Frutti” way better than Elvis did here. I didn’t know a lot of the tracks on here, and I enjoyed most of them. I’d be remiss to not acknowledge that yes, this entire album is basically a cover album of black music made more palatable to white people at a point where everything was too racist to give those black composers and musicians an inch of credit (unless you were an undeniable superstar, and even then…). With that said, huge credit to the backing band; a lot of these are really well adapted for a faster pace and a more rock-driven soundscape, and when they get a chance to shine on here, they knock it out of the park. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t say Elvis sang these songs pretty damn well. Look, it’s 2024; people know Elvis’s voice by now, whether they’ve heard Elvis himself or someone imitate it. It makes this album a little tougher to digest in that sense, because sometimes, it really does feel like he’s overdoing the whole twangy shtick sometimes to the point of parody on a few tracks. However, when he’s on, he is on like a motherfucker – there’s some serious standout vocal performances here, and in those little moments where everything comes together, I can feel the charisma oozing out of his voice and I can see the appeal of the time take hold. There is something to it all that’s just undeniable unless you’re actively looking to hate it. I just really enjoyed it – it’s cheesy as hell, and it’s extremely prototypical rock & roll by modern standards, but there’s just something appealing about it even with how much of a culture vulture Elvis was. It’s a great album, and even past its place in history as “the first Elvis album,” I think it holds up on a lot of its own merits. Just barely gets the bump to a 5. Certainly no lower than a 4, I think.

That’s an extremely easy 5. Sometimes, you just get really encapsulated in an album to the point where you’re about as in sync with the music as the band was when they recorded it, and I hit that point of sync incredibly early on and never once lost it through the rest of the album. Just incredibly captivating stuff here, at least for me; I thought the crowd was red hot and never really cooled down throughout the album, on either half. I thought the band was on fire throughout the whole thing. I’ve never heard B.B. King’s voice or guitar, but I knew about the status both of those instruments held, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t live up to the almost mythical things I’ve read. I think that sums it up, really; it’s just an electric album, and the energy is incredibly easy to feel through the speakers or the headphones or whatever way someone might choose to listen to this. It’s a very fast 35 minutes, and I was hung on every last note, beat, vocal, and lyric throughout the whole thing. Absolutely worth the listen. Very, very easy 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump down to a 4. There’s a big chance this album will hit way less on any subsequent relistens, and I’m fully prepared for that to be the case – for a first go-around though, I’m just a sucker for this style, and I think this is 42 minutes of it being done really, really well. The big thing this album has going for it on its Wikipedia page is that it was “voted the third-most overrated album ever made in a 2005 BBC public poll,” and… that might be kind of fair. I don’t think this is an album that should’ve changed the world or anything, and if it did light the UK on fire, then that’s sort of odd. I don’t think it does anything so special that it should be near a “top 100 albums of all time” list or something similar. Within its own genre and style, I’m sure there are better albums than this, and I’m sure we’ll get to some of them. With that said, I’m just a sucker for this style – this is a great Arctic Monkeys album, even if this came a year and a half before the Arctic Monkeys dropped their first proper studio album. There’s some serious standouts here; I think “Can’t Stand Me Now” is a hell of an opener, I think “Music When the Lights Go Out” has a really nice sort of local bar feel before the instrumentation kicks in (without distracting from the atmosphere, mind you), and the obvious 60s throwback that is “What Katie Did” just appealed right to my cheesy little musical sensibilities. I’ll give the album extra credit; I think this is one of the few times an album has actually gotten me on a hidden track, even in the streaming era. The acoustic piece that ends the album is really, really nicely recorded, and I think it’s just a very quaint finish to a rather fun album. The energy never really lets up, and I don’t think there’s a bad track here. It’s not perfect; a lot of this style is stuck in the early 2000s, and it does have that sort of “this fits right on a Tony Hawk soundtrack” smell that sometimes works in its favor and sometimes doesn’t… but I think it works more often than not. I just really, really enjoyed this, but not enough to bump it up to a 5. Very fun album; very good 4.

I’m at a 4.5, and I’ll give it the bump up to a 5. It’s just really fucking good blues; a few tracks didn’t quite mix with my sensibilities (some of them are a little long, a little repetitive, etc), but I enjoyed this enough that I can recognize that some of the tracks that didn’t work as well for me could very very easily hit for someone else, and that’s why I’ll bump it up to a 5. When this backing band behind Muddy Waters enters the flow state (which happens plenty of times on this album), they sucked me in just as easily as the listener; when they’re in that mode, and everything is rolling, with the guitars on fire, the deep percussion nailing every beat, and the instruments riffing like there’s no tomorrow, while Muddy’s voice hits its deepest Ray Charles-inspired tones, there’s really nothing like it. It is a mood that is sort of impossible to describe, but very easy to be aware of, and it’s incredibly fun. This album enters the flow state several times, and it just makes for 45 of the smoothest and fastest minutes I can remember. There’s not a bad track here, just a few that didn’t click with my tastes, but it’s so damn good that I’d be a fool not to give it the 5. It’s a very, very good album, and a highly recommended listen. This was great.

I’m at a 4.5 that I desperately wish I could leave there, but I’ll go up to a 5. This is a fucking great album; I’ve heard of Blondie, but I didn’t think I had actually ever heard Blondie, and then One Way or Another came on and I fucking did a spittake. Normally, I have a moment like that once every few weeks in this experience; some song that’s weaved its way into the pop culture soundtrack jumpscares me and I go “oh, this is THAT song” and I get all giddy and happy to finally know the source. They fucking did it to me again later in the album with “Heart of Glass” and I just kinda lost it laughing. I do wish this album had ended on Heart of Glass though; I think the last 2 tracks are a little bit more “filler” than closer material; they’re not bad tracks at all, but I would’ve been way more receptive to them if they had been placed earlier in the album. They just don’t structurally fit the album as much to me – there’s a few tracks that do feel out of place in terms of the track order, and that’s sort of why I was wavering between a 4 and 5 as an album experience. However, I think it would be a bit odd to give this only a 4 after I enjoyed it as much as I did; I don’t think this album misses a single beat (literally) from an instrumental or vocal standpoint. From a production standpoint, some of these songs feel right out of the mid-80s instead of the late 70s, so that's fun. Sometimes the lyrics are a little odd, but they’re never outright bad, save for the really deflating “I Know but I Don't Know”. That song feels like it was written by a high school sophomore having to write a poem after procrastinating all day and just spitting that out about 2 hours before the start of class. I say all that, and I think the song has one of the very best instrumentals on the album, so even when the album misses, it still hits. So, yeah, I’m up to a 5. I do think the track order could’ve been tweaked a bit, and maybe even a song or two could’ve been cut out for not fitting as well with the rest of the album, but that’s for other people to decide on a more definitive track order (other than ending on “Heart of Glass” as the last track no matter what). It’s just a really fun album; it’s 40 minutes of hard hitting rock, anchored by a damn strong voice and some great instrumentation. Highly recommended listen, and I’m totally fine with the bump up to a 5. It's definitely no less than a 4.

I’m only at a 3, which is kinda disappointing. I don’t think it’s a bad album; I’d recommend it, honestly. It just never really clicked for me as a fully cohesive one from front to back. I think there’s a lot of repetition here, but it’s really supplemented by an energetic vocal performance and a lot of great production tricks. However, sometimes those production tricks either didn’t hit as well on a few tracks, or became an outright hindrance with some awkward mixing between the percussion and the vocals or the synths that felt just out of balance enough to be distracting. I think I liked this album better when it was more focused on being a sort of pseudo-dance record; the heavier beats, the deeper percussion mixed closer to the ears, and the vocals that had just enough processing to blend in without feeling too overdone, and that’s about half of the album. In other words, I liked the songs that feel distinctly modern and about 7 years ahead of schedule for 2007 – super experimental stuff for the time that feels very common now. The other half ranges from “just not really doing it for me” to outright bad on “Hussel” (just REALLY flat for me) and “20 Dollar” (extremely overdone production, and I really did not like the “Where Is My Mind?” interpolation, even though I’m normally a sucker for that sort of thing). When the album hits, it hits really well – Bamboo Banga is a good (if slightly long) opener, Boyz feels like a great sports hype up track, Paper Planes is an all-timer, and XR2 is a perfect 90s club throwback. For me, it just only hits about half the time, and that’s why I’m at a 3. For someone else, I can hear how it might be a 4 or even a 5, but for my tastes, it just never got up there. Very solid 3 though.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m going to bump up to a 5 because I just really, really enjoyed this. I have to be honest to myself with these ratings – I really thought about going for a 4 because “well, some of the outros are a little long, and it’s a little cheesy” but I quickly realized that for my listening experience, I didn’t really care about them in the moment that much. I cared enough to notice them, sure, but they didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the album while I was listening to it. This is just a delight for me – I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because it’s kind of unabashedly cheesy. This is early 80s production at a sort of plateau between the direction of the late 70s and the growing use of synthesizers that would really come to define the mid-80s. This album really tows the line between jazzy soundscapes and some great synth work without overdoing either one. The mixing on this album is as good as audiophiles make it out to be – this is CRISP for 1982, and I guess it’s a testament that the album has never really had to be remastered like that, you know? Those soundscapes are supplemented really well by his vocals – I know Donald Fagen was one of the members of Steely Dan, but I’ve never heard a Steely Dan album. I have to imagine one will come up, because I want to hear more stuff like this. I think I.G.Y. is a fantastic opener, and a great tonesetter for an album that never really loses steam, save for the occasional long outro, or extended periods where the soundscape doesn’t shift as much as it could. This isn’t a flawless album, but I don’t think there’s too much I would tweak here. The variety of styles here is super cool, from the moodier & jazzier stuff that comprises the first few tracks, to the arguably city pop-esque “The Goodbye Look,” and the almost Sinatra-esque “Walk Between Raindrops” – slow that track down a bit and you can hear him crooning out those lyrics. It was just a really fun album for me, I dunno. I could totally see someone getting entirely bored of this and giving it a 2 or a 3, though. It’s gonna be a mixed bag for some people, but it hits on everything I like. Sometimes, when you enjoy an album this much, it’s hard not to go with a 5, and I just feel like I’ve got to give it one. Certainly no less than a 4 for me.

I’m at a 4. I need a hug. It’s just a sad album, you know? Right from the rip, “Novocaine for the Soul” is an obvious drug addiction parallel, and the album never really gets happier from there – the big peak of positivity is probably “My Beloved Monster,” and that might just be because it was used in Shrek. Seriously, the back half of this album is just a rough dose of suburban reality that never really brightens itself up. It’s a bold fucking choice, and it’s one I really deeply respect; this is a somewhat thought-provoking album for 1996. Taking this shit head on without really pulling any punches as to the nature of social anxiety and a desire to feel like one belongs stands out in the sort of commercialized rock and pop that was starting to come back into vogue around this time. I don’t think I can give it a 5; there’s a few tracks that hit really well lyrically and vocally, but are supplemented by instrumentals that don’t do too much to stick out, even when they get their little solo moments. Those types of tracks are really prevalent around the middle of the album, and they do make the experience slow down just a little bit too much, but this is still a really strong album. It can read as a bit generic and a little too angsty and moody in that teenage sort of way, but I think it’s possibly more relatable now in 2024 than it was in 1996 as far as the social dynamics go. It’s a very good 4, and it could be a 5 for people who really fucking relate to some of the subject matter here. It could also be a 2 for people who don’t relate to it at all and want to hear this guy shut up about his poor shitty life. For my tastes, I just liked it a lot, and I thought the storytelling and tone of the album was really well done. And now, I will go get that hug.

I’m somewhere between a 4 and a 5, and I think I’ll have to talk myself into either one by the end of this little writeup. I mean, I don’t have anything negative to say about the album, so that’s a huge plus; this is my first Wu-Tang anything ever, save for the occasional random feature spots from some Wu-Tang members on other projects. I feel kinda dumb for never really listening to them before – it’s not that I haven’t wanted to, it’s just that I’ve been too lazy to really commit to it for some reason. This album is glowing with great lyricism across the board; really, really strong stuff for 1995, and probably some of the best lyrics of this period from ‘95-’96 where just about everyone in rap was on fire and hitting a creative peak. I think the flows are hypnotic, sometimes almost to a fault, and everyone gets a chance to really shine here – even though this is technically a GZA solo album, it distinctly feels like a Wu-Tang group effort to me based on the amount of features everyone gets. The only partial knock I can give comes in the beats – there’s not a bad beat, but I do sometimes think the sort of moodier and darker atmosphere of the album gets punctuated just a little too harshly by how dry some beats feel. I’m not saying you have to suddenly brighten up the instrumental while we’re talking drug dealing and Chinese restaurants getting shot up, but it just sort of leads to a sterilized style that stops some tracks from really sticking out more than others, which isn’t great from the perspective of listening to the full album front to back. With all of that written down though, I think the positives deeply outweigh the completely nitpicky negatives, and I’m gonna go ahead and give this a 5 – it’s a really enjoyable experience from front to back, and it really does have some of the best lyricism I’ve heard from this era. Even if the beats are a little dry at times, that never once takes away from the actual tracks themselves; they just blend in a little too often at times, but that’s probably a me thing more than anything else. This was damn good.

It’s a fucking 1. Even without the child rape this guy was accused of in 2019, which is already going to give it a 1 regardless, this is just such a fucking boring album, my god. This is comprised of 58 FUCKING MINUTES of music that sounds like what you'd hear when they're showing b-roll footage of the zoo on a kids show. The looping instrumentals that comprise the entirety of this album are not only egregiously long and tiresome and boring, but they’re just so fucking annoying to sit through. I talked about Kraftwerk sounding like an FL Studio loop once, but this literally IS one. I would wager to bet over half (if not all) of the backing instrumentals are like, 16 bars at most, on loop. Past that, he’s somehow delusional enough to think he can carry this album with his fucking vocals, while having not an inch of charisma to actually do it and while sounding like a constipated opera singer in training. Honestly, the 58 minutes might be the worst part. By the time I got to the last track, I wrote the following down, and I think it sums up the crux of my feelings on the album: “I truly do not care about any of this album anymore. The sooner I never have to listen to it, the better; it’s not even like it’s a bad album from a musical standpoint other than the obnoxiously obvious loops, it’s just painfully, painfully boring in a way that I haven’t felt since Maxinquaye, and honestly, the egregious nature of the looping may make this one even worse. However, at least this has a more positive and beachy upbeat tone throughout the runtime, so it doesn’t get like the depressingly sad type of “please end my suffering” boring. It just gets the ‘stuck at a 3-year-old’s birthday party with none of my friends & 7 other people in their 80s’ type of “please end my suffering” boring.” Yeah, this is worse than Maxinquaye. This is the worst one we’ve gotten yet. Even if I were so kind as to give the music like, a 1.5 bumped up to a 2 because it “sounds happy,” this dude was convicted of child rape in 2019, so I just don’t even want to entertain the idea of a 2. It’s a bland, boring 1. We better fucking get Dark Side of the Moon next or something.

I’m at a 3. It’s not a bad album, but there’s just nothing super appealing about it to me; there’s good tracks here, but it’s very hard to get a real sense of a defined style and tone of this album. I’m a sucker for variety, but sometimes this album switches really harshly in terms of its tones, going from softer acoustic-driven stuff to harsh electric that’s really oddly mixed on a dime, and that leads to a real lack of cohesion that just sort of sours the album as an experience. I don’t think there are any bad tracks here, but I just think the structure of the album in terms of this track order doesn’t work very well, and as far as the songs themselves go, I just don’t think many of them were as captivating as they could be. Obviously, this is their debut album, so I’ll go easier on them, but from what I remember of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, all the “flaws” (decisions I disagree with, really) were a lot more ironed out on that record, and it just made for a much tighter album that felt more cohesive. Ultimately, this is fine, and it’s really solid 90s rock. Someone will get more out of this than I did, and I can easily see someone giving this a 4 or a rather generous 5, but I don’t think it’s any lower than a 3. I liked a lot of what’s here, it just wasn’t THAT good to go any higher than a 3. It’s way fucking better than Haute de gamme, at least.

That’s a super easy 5. Chrissie Hynde has been one of the most persistent banes of my trivia existence – I’ve never heard a song by Pretenders until listening through this album, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t been dragged and kicked into learning that Chrissie Hynde is their lead vocalist. Her vocal style on this album just feels super refreshing for some reason that I can’t quite grasp – the closest comparison I have is Alanis Morissette, and there are plenty of times throughout this album where I swear I’m hearing Alanis. I think it’s something to do with the ability to easily switch between a sort of soft spoken word and belting out on a dime. Past all of that though, this is just an awesome sounding album from an instrumental standpoint – in many ways, this really does feel like the first album of the 1980s. It was recorded in the 70s, and didn’t get released until January of 1980, but this really feels like the first proper album to capture the sounds and stylings of 80s production in full force. A lot of the stuff on here sounds like it could be from any one year of the decade at any given point, and that’s really cool to me. I think the guitar and percussion both have their standout moments here, the guitar moreso, but when mixed with Chrissie’s vocals, it just clicks together perfectly. I don’t think there’s a bad track on here; maybe a few duller moments, but I’d say this album keeps up the energy pretty much at all times. I really, really enjoyed this, and I’m glad I can finally put a sound to the trivia question that I usually miss. This was awesome. Very deserved 5.

It’s a highly recommended 4.5 that I'll bump up to a 5. I’ve always had a slightly softer spot for ska, for whatever reason. I think something about the instrumentation just clicks really well with me, even if the songs are usually kinda hokey and goofy and never that serious. This, however, is… kind of a serious ska album. There’s some real depth to some of the songs here in terms of their lyricism, and I really respect the attempt to try and make a socially conscious album with this soundscape, especially for 1988, well before ska hit the mainstream like a truck in the mid-90s. When it works, it works REALLY well, and when it doesn’t work… it just kind of exists in a way where you can tell they needed a LITTLE more time to refine it. There’s really not a bad track here – I enjoyed all 41 minutes of this, but for as much as I respect their vision, it’s just not executed as well as I’d like all the way through. With that said, it’s executed really damn well for its time, and definitely set the tone for other bands to come in and really refine it based on their efforts here. I need to take a deeper dive to see if anyone stepped up to that plate. Regardless of any of that, I thought this was still really, really good. There’s a lot of energy throughout this, and it’s just a damn fun listen for the most part. I think it’s just good enough to give it a 5 – again, a few tracks just don’t work as well, but sometimes it’s really apparent when they were padding for time, or if they sort of couldn’t figure out a proper ending for a song or two. However, I don't really care. It might be a 2 if you really hate trumpets, but it’s almost certainly no less than a 4 in my eyes. I’m definitely pleased with a 5 – I just enjoyed the hell out of it, and I’m very glad to discover this.

I’m at a highly recommended 4.5 that I'll bump up to a 5, again. Much like the Pretenders album felt kind of like the first real album of the 1980s in terms of setting the tone from a production, instrumental, and lyrical standpoint, I think this album might’ve really set the tone as the first real album of the 1970s. Yes, you could call me a complete moron and point to Abbey Road as such, far ahead of schedule, and I would call that valid. However, I really think this touches deeper into the sort of folksy Americana that defined the direction the U.S. took as a way to reclaim its own sound from Beatlemania, and in that way, it feels like the first album of the 70s from an entirely American perspective. I fucking loved this. The only reason it’s not at a flat 5 to begin with is because I do think some tracks don’t tonally mix super well as a cohesive album from front to back (very specifically targeting “Everyone” here, but Come Running kinda suffers from this as well), and sometimes his vocals are too incomprehensible because he’s throwing too much emotion into them… but those are realistically nitpicks in the long run. They might bite at me more on subsequent listens, but I shouldn’t care that much. I think just about every track here is a fantastic showcase of this jazz/swing/rock hybrid that gets nailed to perfection in terms of the soundscapes – there’s some really stunning stuff, and the 2013 remasters do them incredible justice in terms of balancing and mixing. Before listening to this, the only Van Morrison song I was aware of was Brown Eyed Girl, and I’m so very glad this isn’t just 39 more minutes of songs that sound suspiciously like that. This is a really, REALLY good album, and it’s very deserving to be on the list. I’m surprised that I’ve never interacted with any of these songs before now, but they’re deeply down my alley. Just a great album, and a very easy one to bump up to a 5.

I’m at a 3.3 that I'll bump up to a 4 (I can explain later), but I gotta tell you, I really do admire the scope and scale of this project. I think I would recommend going through an actual listen to this, but not all at once; 23 at a time, just to spread it out and give the brain some sanity. I really can’t believe I actually listened to all 69. It felt a lot easier doing it 23 at a time with spread out breaks, but it’s still so many fucking songs. I categorized each song into 3 distinctions: liking it, being indifferent towards it, and outright hating it. I liked 30 of the songs here, for various reasons, so that’s pretty good. I was indifferent towards 36 of them, and while I can’t speak to how good or how bad each of the ones I was indifferent towards really was, I’d say most of the “good” indifferent ones were on the second disc, and a lot of the “bad” indifferent ones were on the third disc. I only really hated 3 of the tracks, and part of it is either from subject matter, bad instrumentation, or terrible mixing. I don’t wanna speak to the entire album as a whole, but I did ultimately enjoy this. It’s a slog, yes, but it’s a rather worthwhile slog. There are some good songs in here, and the scale of the project makes it kind of impressive that I really only hated about 3 of the tracks. Either that, or I have a really high tolerance for mediocrity. If I had to rate each “disc” (set of 23) as their own individual albums, I’d say disc 1 gets a flat 3 – it wasn’t egregiously offensive, but it didn’t do anything too special either. Disc 2 gets a 4 from me – easily the best set of the whole bunch. Lots of great production, and probably the best lyricism of the album. Disc 3 was the weakest one – it’s a 2.5 that I’d bump up to a 3 because it’s just got the most bland songs on the album, and the good ones are probably the most average between the 3 discs. That’s how I ended up at a 4; those rankings together average out to about 3.3, but I'll be nice and bump it up to a 4. I admire the hell out of them for making an album that hits pretty well, but if 36 of your tracks get met with a shrug, then you kinda just made 30 good love songs, 36 straight-to-DVD soundtrack songs, and 3 outright bad ones. However, this is still worth a listen, because I’m sure someone else will like more than 30 songs here. It’s an album with so much variance, and it covers such a strong variety of styles and tones, both in its instrumentals, vocals, and lyricism that it’s impossible for any 2 people to have the exact same tracklist as their “liked” ones (although Epitaph for my Heart & Papa Was A Radio should universally be on that list). It’s a very solid 4, and I can totally see how other people can give it a 5. People giving this a 1 or a 2 either listened to it all at once and got burnt out, or barely listened to it. I’m totally fine with it, and I did honestly like the album. Never give us a 69-track album ever again, please.

That’s an incredibly easy 5. I’ve never heard this album until today – the extent of my knowledge of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails is the few times Weird Al has touched on them in polka stuff, and that Trent Reznor did the soundtrack for Quake 2. Yeah, I know, not a great basis to work with. This album is a fucking masterclass in using sound design to convey not only a mood, or an atmosphere, but personality traits and full-fledged storytelling, and I can’t say I’ve ever really heard an album break convention to use sound so effectively as a device in this way. I love the way harsher tones denote a more broken mind, and how calming stuff represents the last bastion of sanity left in this main character we’re following. I can only assume this is partially Trent Reznor himself, whether it’s a bit exaggerated or not. I’m really just stunned; that was a very fast 65 minutes, and it’s remarkably just how much it touches on while sticking to its harsher tones – there’s elements of electronica and dance in here, anchored by some very 80s-adjacent soundscapes, but really torn apart and deconstructed, like the last grasps of a mind trying to find comfort in the past and having them distorted and ripped away. Trent Reznor’s vocal range, as far as his emotional depth goes, is rather impressive here. I could keep going, but I’m just utterly blown away. Somehow, through all of its pain, it’s kind of beautiful in its honesty. This isn’t a playlist album, not by a long shot, but for 1994, this feels deeply fresh and somehow timeless, even if it’s the least traditional sound there could ever be. It’s a really, REALLY good album, and a highly recommended listen. An incredibly easy 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. It’s just a really, really nice sounding album. I think the lyricism here has a lot of depth, and I do need to dive into them a bit more, but on a first pass, from everything I was able to catch, there’s sort of a melancholy hidden behind all of these brighter tones. Most of this album is more upbeat than anything on Pink Moon, and while it surprised me, it didn’t shock me in terms of the quality of the tracks. There’s not a single bad one here; I’d honestly say this album goes 10 for 10. The only reason I’m not at a flat 5 is because of my own shortcomings with the lyrics, but I know that’s a stupid reason, hence the bump. A lot of this album is driven by piano, guitar, and percussion, but it’s composed and produced in such a way that the lyrics and vocals get a chance to shine. In a way, some of the tracks blend together, especially the instrumental ones, but it never takes away from the overall theming of the album – to me, I think this album is mainly about trying to push on through the sad times. There’s a lot of self doubt riddled throughout the lyrics that I was able to catch, but there’s always a hint of hope at the end of most verses and choruses. I just enjoyed it a lot – I think it’s no less than a 4, and I’d be remiss not to give it a 5.

I’m at a 4.5 and I’m gonna yet again bump it up to a 5. Truthfully, I was really leaning towards a flat 4 for most of the album, and then something about the last 4 tracks just clicked incredibly well for me and I felt like I just had to bump it up. I obviously know who Lana Del Rey is, but I’ve never heard a single one of her albums in full – she’s been the pop star of the 2010s that I just never really connected to for one reason or another. I know some of her bigger singles, but I’m guessing that I was too focused on pop melodies and choruses to really appreciate her stuff to that degree when I was younger. I feel like I need to go back now, because I really did enjoy this a lot. There’s a lot of Jack Antonoff’s production quirks that permeate this album, and they’re incredibly noticeable on the tracks that sound distinctly like any of Taylor Swift’s more recent stuff. He has a style, and it does work, but I’ll be damned if it’s not starting to feel sterilized & homogenized across all the singers he works with. However, as the album moves on, settles in, and truly gets its identity across as a “this is how the industry can really fuck with your mental health” album, those production quirks sort of melt away, and I got really encapsulated by her writing and her vocals. God, her vocals are beautiful. Her writing is stellar too – lots of great one-liners throughout here, and really strong imagery. The only reason I was at a 4 for so long is because something felt sort of missing throughout the first 7 tracks of the album – just a little more edge in the vocals or the instrumentation that wasn’t quite there. The last 4 tracks won me over – they just feel like a fully cohesive fit, just one long package that finally kicks in some of that edge and strength that was a real joy to listen to, and properly won me fully over on the entire album. The last track in particular (the Joni Mitchell cover) just solidified it – it’s so thematically fitting to the album, and it just shows me she’s got a real mind for making albums, and not playlists. A lot of these tracks aren’t things you’d typically release as a single, and while a lot of them are “for the girlies,” there’s enough to admire here that I think anyone can pick it up and listen. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it. I gotta give it another listen to try and catch what I might’ve missed on the earliest tracks, but it’s a really, really nice album. It’s no less than a 4, I think. Maybe a 3 if you hate Jack Antonoff’s style, or modern production in general. I’m fine with bumping it up to a 5. As far as it being on the list, I do feel like it popped up a bit too soon – this is a 3-year-old album, but it popped up in the 2021 edition of the book, so I feel like it got its flowers very very quickly and probably bumped something equally as deserving (or maybe it bumped Haute de gamme, good riddance). However, I am glad it’s here if only because I’m selfishly happy I got to listen to it.

Well, that’s an easy 5. I really only know Thin Lizzy for “The Boys Are Back In Town,” and while a lot of this album’s setlist features tracks that carry a lot of that song’s DNA, I do think this album manages to make those tracks stand out and feel rad on their own – this is my first time hearing any of these tracks, whether studio or live, and the energy behind them just felt off the charts. Lots of great variance here too – a few love ballads, a few “great war stories,” and just a lot of bangers from top to bottom. It does start to kind of wear you down over time – there is a point where a lot of these do start to blend together, feel a little samey, and the blustering guitar and drum solos don’t quite hit as hard as they do earlier on the album. However, make no mistake about it – I think this was a fast and exciting 78 minutes. There’s not a second of empty air here, and even if a track feels “flat,” it’s still an awesome listen. I don’t have any real complaints here, only nitpicks for my musical tastes. I really fucking enjoyed this – very glad to dive deeper into Thin Lizzy, very glad to get some new bangers, and a very easy 5 to give.

I’m at a very very easy 10. (No pun intended.) I’ll try my hardest to not make any direct comparisons to Nevermind, but let’s be clear; these albums are effectively the Pokemon Red & Blue of Seattle grunge, down to the damn colors of the album covers. You cannot go wrong either way, and comparing the two serves almost no purpose. They’re distinctly different, and it really just comes down to which one you prefer, and I enjoyed them basically equally (with just a slightly biased edge toward Nevermind, based on familiarity). The only thing I really knew from Pearl Jam was Even Flow – I think most people have probably heard Even Flow, whether it’s from all the videos mocking the indiscernible lyrics, or as just a straight up banger of a track. It’s an all-timer, but I think I’m glad that it was out of the way early on this album, because it gave so much room for so many of these other spectacular tracks to breathe and have their own space. I truly do not think there is a single bad track here – between the rocking instrumentation, Eddie Vedder’s slightly coarse but controlled vocals, and the excellent writing that evokes some level of imagery and emotion on almost every track, this album swings for the fences and ends up hitting the damn Moon. It is a knockout shot of a debut album, with maybe one or two “lesser” tracks that are still great to listen to. It’s definitely more loaded towards the front and the middle, but I think Release is an incredible closing track. I really don’t have the words to wax poetic about this – other people will have other platitudes to say that will better capture my mood after listening, but I just thought this was great. Very deserving of all the acclaim it gets, very deserving of being on the list, and I’m just glad I finally had an excuse to listen to it. That’s a really captivating 53 minutes, and so very deserving of a 5. Definitely a 10/10.

I’m at a 4.5, and I wish I could leave it there, but I’m gonna be that guy who goes up to a 5. This album feels like a very distinct bridge between the 80s and the 90s – I’ve mentioned before that Run-DMC made commercially viable hip-hop possible, N.W.A. gave rap the blueprint to have the amount of edge you’d find in albums to come, and A Tribe Called Quest provided the perfect melding of both. This album feels like the bridge between N.W.A. and A Tribe Called Quest – not necessarily in terms of subject matter (though some of it overlaps), but mainly in its production. A lot of these tracks feel blended between the late 80s style (heavily sampling just the drums, more stunted and less melodic flows, long verses without a break) and the early 90s style of production (effective use of pauses, more melodic flows, more diverse sample use). It’s a really interesting listen for that alone, but what drives this album for me is how effective it is at managing to blend the two in a way that still feels classic and fresh – stuff like Mama Said Knock You Out and Around The Way Girl are the two foremost examples for me, though I’ll throw a quick shout to “6 Minutes of Pleasure” as well. I don’t think there’s a bad track here, just a few that aren’t as melodic and more driven by wordplay, and to each their own when it comes to that sort of thing, but I tend to enjoy both. I think LL Cool J’s flow is great on most of these tracks, and when it’s not as good, the lyrics do carry it (save for that godawful "I sure wouldn't rape you" line). The beats are relatively diverse, but a few of them sort of fall into that “mainly sampling just the drums” thing. I just really enjoyed it – I really wish I could keep it a 4.5, because in spite of how much I enjoyed this, I don’t think it’s quite at a 5, but it definitely feels like it should be higher than a 4. I don’t mind going up to a 5, but I can see this falling on any subsequent listens; for now, though, I liked it enough to give it a 5. Someone will probably give this a 3 to balance me out.

It’s a pretty good 3.5 that I’ll bump up to 4. This doesn’t really get up to a 5 for me, but with another knockout hit or two on here, in that almost timeless “would hear on a medicine commercial made for the boomers” sort of way, I think it would’ve gotten close. Regardless of that, I enjoyed this a lot – it’s very steeped in its time of people trying to catch the success of The Beatles in their own way, but this album tends to feel more original than that. The only times it misses are the moments where tracks feel a little too Beatle-y, namely “If You Knew”, which just felt aggressively OK. I just thought this was rather nice – a lot of the tracks clicked with my sensibilities, and I thought the instrumentation throughout the album was really strong. There’s a bit of bossa nova in here, some jazz, and even stuff that sounds kinda like Stevie Wonder, which adds up, considering the “A Place in the Sun” cover (by the way, a big thank you to The Young Rascals for introducing me to a new Stevie song). It’s not a great album, but it’s a very enjoyable listen, with some fun melodies, some good vocal structures, and some good vibes throughout. It’s very much a 60s album, but it’s the sort of 60s album that I enjoy. I’m fine with going up to a 4, and I’m glad it’s on the list.

I’m at a 5. I’ve been sitting here for the past 15 minutes, and much like I was after Leonard Cohen’s “You Want It Darker,” I’m struggling to find the words to say about this album. It does evoke art in the classical sense to me, much in the same way that album did, but not in terms of a life long lived that I can’t carry the weight of, nor does it feel like I’m staring at the Mona Lisa in a museum or anything. Instead, this feels more like a family portrait in a living room, and all the stories that can be told about the individual members. This album is rich with variance in its soundscape, its storytelling, and its vocal stylings, and it just evokes the same feeling of a family reunion to me, being regaled by stories of places I’ve never been and people I’ve never met, but making them sound grandiose in their own way, whether it’s from a bright point of happiness or making it sound deeply sad. I can carry those stories with me, much like I can digest this album far easier than Leonard Cohen's. I’m smart enough to recognize that not everyone will feel this way – I can easily see someone giving this a 2 or a 3 for being “overplayed 2000s indie rock” and being deathly bored of this general style, which is entirely fair. For my tastes, however, this just clicked beautifully for me – I think every track was great, the vocals were fabulous (especially when layered), and even if a few tracks aren’t “lyrically interesting,” there’s still something to the instrumentation that gave them such depth and charm in a way that can really only be captured and felt while listening to it. I deeply, deeply enjoyed this. It’s an incredibly easy 5 for me.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4 because I just admire the hell out of this. This is an extremely raw album for 1965 – it feels poorly recorded, poorly mixed, overtly loud, and doesn’t feel like it has as much professionalism as it’s trying to get across. I love every single thing about that – this is raw in a beautiful way, because it’s clearly made with a lot of love and respect to most of the songs they covered here, as well as their original ones. It’s not poorly recorded or poorly mixed – it’s recorded exactly how they want it to sound, because this is their style. It’s so deeply rooted in what would come to fruition roughly a decade later with harsher metal tones and punkier sounds – “The Witch” in particular feels like a damn Motorhead song, and this is 12 years before their debut album. Honestly, as much as I hated the loudness at the start of the album, in some kind of oddly charming way, it just grew on me – there are points where the screaming becomes too often and a bit obnoxious, but once this album settles in, what feels like ear-bleeding harshness tends to normalize itself and become kinda cool. The sax solo on Have Love Will Travel is a great example of this – it has a sort of scratchy effect because of how much the mic is being distorted, and it’s such a unique effect that I don’t really know if it can be replicated on modern day equipment. In that sense, this album is both desperately of its time and rather ahead of it. Does that mean it knocks it out of the park on every track? No, not really – there’s definitely a number of these tracks where the effects are still really overdone, and just makes me wish they had toned it down a little bit for a better listening experience. However, I think it gets it right on about 7 of the 12 tracks. There’s not really a bad track here. I think it’s a good album – I can see how people might give it a 1 or 2, but for my tastes, I admire the hell out of this for trying something so bold and loud. It’s probably closer to a 3, but I’m gonna go up to a 4. It’s worth listening to. Probably with loud-ass speakers in a garage somewhere, but it’s definitely worth it.

I’m at a 3.5 that I just can’t bump up to a 4, but the covers by themselves would get a 4 from me. Before this, I’d never heard a Rod Stewart album in full – hell, I don’t even know if I’ve heard a Rod Stewart song before now. The extent of my knowledge of Rod Stewart is that he was the older looking guy on TV commercials with great hair and a gritty voice who looked a little hokey. Just go Google “Rod Stewart 2005” or something – that’s my enduring image of the guy. This isn’t a bad album at all, but it says something that of the 9 tracks here, the ones I enjoyed the most were 5 of the covers. It’s only his second studio album, so I’ll cut him a bit of slack for not really finding his own voice as a songwriter yet. However, I can’t really cut him much slack for his compositional skills – when he’s doing covers of other people’s songs, he sounds confident and the band behind him is rocking. When it’s his own original material, the structure of each track just feels off, and falls deeply into the “first minute is the whole song” trap. I enjoyed the covers on here a lot, but they’re a great showcase of other people’s songwriting and compositional abilities, which just makes the wide gap between those covers and the original material here stand out a lot. His original material on this album isn’t bad, but it’s just painfully drab, like he’s trying to mimic what makes the people he’s covering so effective, but without really nailing the secret sauce that makes it work. Of the 3 original songs on this album, Gasoline Alley is probably the best one, but even it suffers from the “first minute is the whole song” syndrome from a compositional standpoint. Pretty good lyrically, though. The other two are fine enough. It’s just kind of annoying, if only because he’s close to finding his voice here. I’m sure he’ll have his breakthrough on some later album that may or may not be on this list, but it just drags the album back down when you realize its best material isn’t his own stuff. I do think this is a good album, though – maybe someone will get more out of his original material than I did. I do think the floor here is a 3 though – people giving this a 1 or 2 were already bored of the guy. I just can’t give it a 4, hence the 3. It’s a pretty solid 3, though.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5, simply because I enjoyed it a lot. This is great jazz, and it’s as simple as that. I’m not a jazz expert, so I can’t speak to the complexities of the compositions or the music theory that went into these tracks. I simply have ears and can tell when my brain is getting a dopamine kick, and I got a pretty good kick out of this one. A few tracks gave me more of a kick than others – specifically, the stuff with the booming shotgun percussion that just added a bit of depth and a more bombastic feel. The piano is great too, and the saxophone is usually on fire. I wish modern bass had the same plunk as there is on this album. I enjoyed a lot of this. The only minor thing I can throw at it is that I wish more tracks had the bite of the first track, “Blue Rondo à la Turk” – it sets such a unique tone for a jazz album of the era, but it never really gets a follow up like that. Other than that, I guess a few tracks just didn’t click as well for me, but I’m nitpicking – what’s here is a great listen, and is absolutely no less than a 4. I’m up to a 5, and it’s a highly recommended one, if only for studying music at the very least. Pretty damn good stuff.

I’m either at a 4 or a 5 – I’ll figure it out as I write this. I really fucking liked this, though. Courtney Love is, in fact, really good at this. I had some doubt back on Celebrity Skin, but she shut me up back then, and she really solidified herself here for me. She carries herself like a fucking star throughout this album – her voice is confident, her writing unabashedly honest, and the band carries that energy in a way that creates a sort of perfect storm, fueled by anger (at the world, at people, at herself) that’s mostly underlined by an acknowledgement that it is what it is, and she can only really live through it. Unlike Celebrity Skin, this album doesn’t carry Kurt Cobain’s shadow all over it, at least from a lyrical standpoint. It came out right after his death, so in that sense, a lot of this can be read with the context of Kurt, but it’s not as latent and as sorrowful as it was on Celebrity Skin. Instead, it almost feels like a harmonious anger – part of why her lyrics feel so honest to me is because so much of it is channeled from how much she and Kurt must’ve been under a constant microscope, especially when it comes to their kid. She references her kid several times on this album, and the references to “milk” (almost certainly a drug allegory) don’t go unnoticed. Granted, all of that’s about the writing and the surrounding context of the album – when it comes to the actual music, I think every single one of these songs are good, but not many of them are outright great, and that’s where I’m sort of flipping between a 4 and a 5. It’s an awesome album, don’t get me wrong – I think it does a great job of slowly building up the anger in each track over time, going from a sort of annoyed indifference, to contempt, to outright hatred by the end. However, there’s something within each track that sort of holds the album back from really hitting a full blown stride for me. I don’t think it’s the instrumentation, though a few songs do hit on the “first minute is the whole song” trope. I don’t think it’s the lyrics, but sometimes, it does feel like once Courtney’s said all she has to say, a few tracks lose their direction and sort of repeat their way to the finish line. It’s definitely not in her vocal performance – as far as I’m concerned, she’s rather flawless throughout most of this. Really, the only thing I can think of is that the album doesn’t touch on a super diverse number of themes, and that a few tracks tend to dip into a similar well from an instrumental and lyrical standpoint, but that undermines just how good all of the tracks still are, and how well this album is constructed. It’s not a perfect album, but I think I’m gaslighting myself to try and find some sort of overarching flaw here, and there really isn't one. It’s a damn good album, and I enjoyed this a lot. I’m at a 5.

I’m right at a 4, but it’s a very highly recommended 4. I got really lost in the instrumentation of this one – for 1980, this is such a unique blend of electronica, industrial, and some of the standards of 70s rock. It comes together to make a sort of prototypical sound that 90s grunge bands would really utilize and make their own, but this is one hell of a prototype. There’s some remarkably cool production decisions that underline this album, but it never feels like it’s overdoing anything. A lot of these tracks are still grounded in the basic principles of rock music, and it keeps the album from ever feeling too ambitious – it never once feels like it might collapse under its own weight. There is a sort of story throughout the tracks of anarchy and a revolution being suppressed into oblivion, but it’s never really explicit in its lyrics – it’s more of a thematic thing. It’s hard to describe what makes this album click so well for me – sometimes, when you’re listening, you just know. I knew this was good throughout; the reason I’m at a 4 is because it does sort of stall out on a few longer tracks, sometimes the lyrics are a bit unclear, and it doesn’t quite stick the landing at the end. Those first 5 tracks are awesome, but the last 3 don’t hit quite as much. Regardless, what’s here is really, really good. It might go up to a 5 if I’m feeling it more another day, but for now, it’s a highly recommended 4.

I’m at a 4.5, and I enjoyed this enough that I’ll bump it up to a 5. This is pretty good, but it does feel like two distinct albums sort of merged into one. That’s not a bad thing, but they’re so tonally different from each other and it makes for a really interesting experience. The first half is pretty traditional, and you won’t get many complaints for me – it’s pretty solid rock that leans into a bit of prog and does it rather well. The only track from the first half that I wasn’t feeling as much was “Rene,” and it’s partially in the lyrics. It’s not a bad track though, and it’s a fun listen with a really good instrumental to close out. I’d say all the instrumentals on the first half are pretty good – the psychedelic intro title track, the 70s rock vibes of “Afterglow” (a little ahead of schedule for 1968), the sort of space-y feel to “Long Agos and Worlds Apart”, the electric guitar that drives “Song of a Baker”, and the rather goofy happy tone of “Lazy Sunday”. They all clicked for me, and they had a really nice variance. If I had to give the first half of the album a rating by itself, it’s a pretty strong 4. The storybook portion of this album is gonna be what divides people – for my money though, I found it charming. I’ve been playing The Plucky Squire, so my brain is a little attuned towards “silly goofy storybook tale,” and I thought the instrumentation and lyrics throughout were rather nice. I loved the spoken monologues between certain songs – it gave it an audiobook feel, and his voice felt comforting during it. I could totally see this entire half being adapted into a real book, or some kind of made-for-TV 30 minute special. It’s charming, and while it’s rather obvious in its plot, for some reason, it just gave me a nostalgic kind of vibe. It may sound weird, but just on the strength of its execution, I’d give the back half a 5. Obviously, that balances out to a 4.5, but if I enjoyed this much of the album, I’d be remiss to not give it the bump. This is a rather fast 38 minutes, and while it’s not for everyone (trust me, someone will find the back half immensely boring, or think some of the first half tracks drag a little), it hits just right for me. I’m happy this is on the list – these are the sorts of albums I like. Pretty nice 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I'll bump down to a 4. I just thought this was good music. It’s a very fun album, and a very good listen, but it also sort of feels like the beginning of the sunset for this era of 90s rock. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t remember many albums with this pseudo-grunge style from like, 1998 onward having this much success and acclaim. It feels like this is right at the split of say, Matchbox 20, the Goo Goo Dolls, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and others bringing the more acoustically-driven and poppier style of rock back into the forefront. Is it Blur’s best album? I dunno. I liked it more than Parklife though. There’s not a bad track here, though it does sort of dull out around the middle before rising back up near the end. Obviously, Song 2 is like, the big eternal hit of the album, but within the context of the entire thing and not just as a single, it just sort of blinks by as a burst of energy. This album feels like an experiment in soundscapes and sonic tones more than any kind of solid messaging in the lyrics. I won’t go so far as to say it’s a secret Gorillaz record or anything, but my read on this album is that for as much as it’s inspired by American soundscapes and the sort of grunge rock that dominated the first half of the 90s, it deconstructs the genre. That is to say, Damon Albarn doesn’t take this anywhere near as seriously as Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, or Billy Corgan. He’s sort of taking the piss out of it, and Song 2 kinda proves that – it is entirely nonsensical from a lyrical standpoint, fully driven by the rock melodies and huge energy it brings, but it was a monster success. It sort of begs the question of “were people ever actually listening to those bands, or did they just hear the melodies and rock out?” That’s not to say every track on here is nonsensical, or to imply that Damon Albarn doesn’t care on this record – there’s a few tracks that take themselves a bit more seriously (namely, Death of a Party & Strange News from Another Star), and they obviously gave a shit about making it sound as sonically complete and fulfilling as possible… but this isn’t that serious of a record in the long run. It’s got great writing, but it’s never the focus here. I know this all reads like I’m complaining, but if anything, I sort of admire this for being such an effective distillation of a genre and a time that feels so captivating to so many people, myself included. To close out, I’m not at a 5, mainly because the album dips from Tracks 6-10 for me. Those tracks aren’t bad, but they just didn’t feel as captivating or as interesting to me. Track 11 and onward are a pretty good way to close out the album though. It’s a pretty good 4, though – the soundscapes are great, the melodies complex, and Damon Albarn’s voice cuts through like a knife. I liked it a lot.

I’m up to a 5. I just really liked it – there’s a solid variety of styles here, from the opening track, traditional blues rock that sounds like it would play in a bar full of motorcycle gang members, to some funkier stuff (HUGE fan of Peace Frog), and even some nice calmer tracks like Indian Summer. Ultimately, this album never really punches up above its weight for 1970, but even if it’s not setting the world on fire by innovating and introducing new stuff, it does everything pretty close to perfectly. This is just a really strong album. This is my first Doors album – I get the suspicion there’s gonna be worse ones along the way, but for now, I’ll ride this high. Jim Morrison’s voice has a pretty good tone to it, and I like how easily it can switch on a dime from really melodic to kinda scratchy – his vocals always meet the moment they call for, and it keeps this album from ever going too far off the rails. Really strong mixing and production here, by the way. I feel weird giving Blur a 4 and this a 5, but I just thought this never let off the gas. It feels really cohesive, and it’s just a super enjoyable listen. Very deserving to be on the list.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll generously bump up to a 5 – this is the second time I’ve given a 5 to a David Bowie album. I was sort of wavering between a 4 and a 5, but I just enjoyed this enough to give it a bump – I do think it doesn’t quite get to a 5, but it’s certainly higher than a 4. This is David Bowie’s “American” album, and it’s rather obvious in the instrumental influence – gone are the days of ch-ch-ch-changes and all that. I’m exaggerating a bit, but this is really unlike his other albums we’ve gotten so far; we’re talking about watching porn at drive-in theaters, doing coke, and getting head in Hollywood. This guy’s a rockstar now, or at least Aladdin Sane is. I think the piano really stands out on this album – I’m a sucker for a good piano, but I can’t say I’ve ever really heard it used as a storytelling device for a sort of insanity meter. It’s present throughout almost every track, and it really decides the tone that Bowie just sort of follows. Obviously, there’s guitar, horns, some great percussion throughout, but the piano just cuts through like a knife on all of them. Aladdin Sane is the standout example of this – the smashing of the damn keyboard makes for a rather visceral tone rarely expressed around this time. Ultimately, I think whatever he was going for here, he completely succeeded – if this is his “American” album like I think it is, then it’s rocking, it’s gritty, and it’s more American than Young Americans was. It’s a super fun listen, that does dive a bit into what I suspect is a genuine growing insanity from Bowie at the time, but he channels that energy into a really fun rock album. I do kinda wish there was a more bombastic Life on Mars-esque track here (unless you count "Time"), but regardless, I liked it. Totally fine with bumping it up to a 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. For a band formed in 1983, to be able to survive and adapt with the times and survive until 2002 is rather impressive. To make something that sounds this good, and arguably still modern and still totally befitting for 2024, both 19 years after your forming, and 22 years after it came out is downright miraculous – this is an unbelievably well produced album, and its soundscape somehow feels timeless. It blends so many genres and styles; I feel like 70s rock is somehow the foundation of the album, but it’s blended with some R.E.M.-esque vocal work, 90s rave & electronica, and early 2000s hip-hop tropes. In some strange way, it feels totally ahead of its time, oddly nostalgic, and a perfect encapsulation of 2002 rock all at once. I can’t really describe it – this thing defies any conventional logic to me. The only thing I can say is that it sounds fucking awesome. I do wish it had stuck harder to the sci-fi vibe and the more lyrically driven stuff, and that’s really my only knock on the album – I know it’s not meant to be a concept album, but the first 4 tracks are so cohesive and so strong that the album loses its luster the farther it goes away from the initial tracks. Don’t get me wrong, there’s not a bad track on here, but it does feel like it loses cohesion and focuses more heavily on soundscape and vibes. Some people will like that more than others, but for my tastes, I really started to feel like it dragged just a bit too long by the very last track (again, rad as hell, but just doesn’t feel like it should’ve ended the album over All We Have Is Now). That’s why I’m not at a flat 5, but make no mistake – this is too damn good to be anything other than a 5. It’s got a great energy, its production sounds timeless, and it is overwhelmingly cool. It has withstood the test of time in a very tangible way, and that’s apparent to me on my very first listen. I fuck with sci-fi stuff super hard, so this was right down my alley – it impressed me and went above and beyond. It’s a great, great album.

I’m at a 5. It’s just a raw fucking album, and I love that. Right from the album title, this thing sets a tone and an expectation that’s instantly met throughout the whole thing. Never mind the bollocks, forget the bullshit, forget the marketing, forget the catchy album titles – this isn’t “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, it’s the fucking Sex Pistols, and you’ll just have to deal with it. That’s the expectation, and it’s the core tenet of the album – Johnny Rotten couldn’t give less of a shit about your opinion on his opinion. He is brutally honest throughout this whole thing, and I respect most of that honesty -- the only song I can't really respect the "honesty" on is "Bodies". “Bodies” is probably the one that’s aged the very worst, and I didn’t like it one damn bit, but it’s not like I can debate the guy over it. It's a shame, because the instrumentation is pretty good, but I just can't agree with any part of the messaging. Regardless of how I feel on that track, his honesty in those moments spreads throughout the entire album, with perhaps the greatest prescience of all time in “God Save The Queen” – opinion of the royal family and the British monarchy has probably dipped as far as it has because of whatever avalanche that song probably started. The instrumentation on here is just as much of a highlight as Johnny Rotten’s vocals and lyrics – this is great punk rock. It’s a little overblown and overdone at points on this album, but when it’s fucking rolling, and Johnny is throwing his nasally voice out there in perfect harmony and energy, there is nothing that hits more of a raw nerve. I could point to 90s grunge, but even that’s steeped within production standards, commercialism, and a more sensible form of storytelling as opposed to how often this album tends to punch down on a few people just for the hell of it. EMI probably fucking deserved it, though. Anyway, I just really liked it – it is a brutally honest album for 1977, and I’m guessing it sort of snapped people out of this idea that everyone just had to try and be the Beatles. It’s raw as hell, it sounds great to this day, and its influence is likely immeasurable for the 1980s and beyond. Easy 5.

I’m at a 1.5 that I’m going to very generously bump up to a 2, despite my better judgment, because I don’t think this is quite bad enough to deserve a 1. It’s pretty damn close, though. I’ve made analogies to art in the classical sense before, and this album is art – it’s the type of art you walk up to, notice it’s just two colors painted next to each other, and you wonder how in the hell it ever made it into a damn museum. This is that type of album among the big 1,001 albums featured in the museum – whoever curated this had a damn soft spot for whatever the fuck this was. It’s just… nothingness. I feel nothing after listening to this. I don’t feel apathy, I don’t feel joy, and I don’t feel like it did anything to me. It’s not even white noise – you can focus on white noise and it can let your brain feel something. This truly gave me nothing. I could go on an existential tangent about “nothing” doesn’t really apply given that I have something to say about it, but the truth is that I just don’t feel like it was worth my time at all. Does that mean it was egregiously awful? No. It is still art – there is some merit to having it be here, but it’s not the type of art that gives me any type of feeling. If Abbey Road is the Mona Lisa, this album strikes me as, say, a Rothko. I’ve seen Mark Rothko paintings before. They’re just squares to me. I find nothing in them, much like I found nothing out of this album. Does that mean a Rothko piece is devoid of artistic merit? No – someone will find a beauty in the slightly offtone shapes, or an appreciation in the individual brush strokes. I didn’t like most of this album, but I never found myself openly angry at it. I just didn’t find beauty in the compositions, nor an appreciation for the individual instruments or vocals. It was a dull album to me. Why is it a 2 then, and not a 1? I dunno. I guess a few parts just sounded nice enough, and for better or for worse, there is some charm in the guitar riffs and percussion. I didn’t feel anything, and that’s a crime, but I recognize that someone else probably could and will. It’s just not my type of art piece. It’s a 1.5 that’ll go up to a 2, but I will likely never think about this ever again. Very strange for it to be on the list. Still better than Haute de gamme, though.

That’s a very very easy 5. Much like with “Birth of the Cool”, I’m not gonna be verbose about it – it’s just fabulous, fabulous jazz. What’s here is incredibly rich in its soundscape, and extremely blissful once it gets into rhythm. There’s not a missed note here, and it’s timeless. Fantastic compositions, great melodies, and a perfect mix to give each instrumental room to breathe. When we got Birth of the Cool, I said I’d be terrified once we got this album, because that one set the bar remarkably high – this is at that same bar. I can’t say for sure if it’s higher, but it’s certainly equal, even if the track count is much less. I enjoyed this just as much, I’ll come back to it as often, and it’s so very deserving of a 5.

One of the easiest 5’s yet. Arguably a 10. That was just blissful for me – what a stunning combination of Latin instrumentation, jazz standards, and rock music, all anchored by Carlos Santana’s fucking insane wizardry with the guitar. I knew he was good, but hearing him seemingly at his peak and his prime like this is fucking crazy – I don’t know that I’ve heard a guitar sound that good ever. Maybe on a Led Zeppelin album, or a Hendrix one, but besides those (which are already amazing in their own right), this feels like a golden standard. There is not a single miss here, only a slightly lackluster ending (El Nicoya really feels like it could’ve been at the very start as opposed to the last track), but I could care less – this is packed to the brim, and it feels like I could listen to it 10 times and still miss stuff. Just a masterclass in composing, instrumentation, and production tricks; the occasional panning really sells a lot of the depth of these tracks, but much like Kind of Blue, everything is so perfectly mixed that you can still pick out just about every instrument, while giving them each time to breathe. Seriously, I’m annoyed at myself for only giving Santana credit for the limited amount of stuff I’ve heard on Supernatural – this is excellent. One of the best albums we’ve gotten yet. Very easy 5, and a highly, highly recommended listen.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’m gonna bump down to a 3. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever been more disappointed in an album after listening to it like I was with this one, but it’s not because it’s outright bad. I think it’s good, but it’s in desperate need of several tweaks that, with a bit of time and a bit more outside input, could catapult this into great. I really wanted to give this a 4, but I just can’t. Let me just give some positives first: there are some great tracks on here. When he’s flowing, and the instrumentals are rolling, this album hits really well, and I can see exactly how it captivated British audiences in 2003 – it’s incredibly risky, rather unique, and taking a swing like this is pretty cool. When it hits, it hits, and it does hit kinda often. There’s one tiny little problem. I did not like most of the instrumentals on this album. I loved a lot of the lyrics and flow, and I honestly love what it’s trying to do with this bass-heavy, scratchier, synth-driven minimalist style. It just needed more time to cook in the oven. I can recognize that part of it is my musical sensibilities not agreeing with Dizzee Rascal’s, but like… there were 7 tracks out of 15 where I said “the lyrics are great, the flow is great, but the beat needed more to it” or something similar to that. It just felt like a few more instruments would’ve given some tracks some more depth in a way that would’ve made them click more. The most egregious example to me is the last track, “Do It!”, which has some genuinely great and honest lyricism, arguably the most introspective stuff on the album, and worthy of being the closer… with a really obnoxiously bad beat on top of it. It doesn’t fit at all, and that sort of incompatibility between the lyrics and the instrumentals permeates too much of this album for me to give it a 4. I don’t think this is bad, and I certainly think someone else will enjoy these beats more, but for as much as I really want to give this the benefit of the doubt, I just have to bump it down to a 3. It’s only disappointing because it’s so damn close to being so goddamn good. Just a shame. Very solid 3, though.

Just a plain 3. I got nothing. It’s not that good. It’s not that bad. It’s competent. A few baffling production choices, and a rather strange track order (why the fuck did Toonerville Trolley close out the album?), but ultimately it sure felt like a 1967 album trying to capitalize on Beatlemania. I don’t think it’s so bad as to be a 1, and I think it shows enough effort and care to be higher than a 2. No chance in hell it’s higher than a 3 though. Just for comparison’s sake, by the way, a few other albums we’ve gotten from 1967: Younger Than Yesterday (by The Byrds), Surrealistic Pillow (by Jefferson Airplane), I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (by Aretha Franklin), and The Velvet Underground & Nico (by… you know). We’ve had 10 albums from 1967 before this, so it’s a good year for music, I guess; so far, before this one, I’d given four albums a 3, five albums a 4, and one album a 5 from this year. Add this to the pile of 3s then. It’s totally, utterly fine. A few good ones, a few mediocre ones, but nothing outright bad. Just not the most captivating or the most special. I don’t know if it needed to be on the list.

I’m at a very fun 5. I’ve known Cyndi Lauper was good – Girls Just Want to Have Fun & Time After Time are quintessential 80s tracks. I didn’t know she was this good. The first 6 tracks on this one may well be all-timers, even if 3 of them are covers. Money Changes Everything surprised me, mainly because I was fully expecting the tone of this album to follow the poppier synths of Girls Just Want to Have Fun, but she pulls off that Springsteen-esque style really fucking well. Her vocals get one hell of a showcase, and it sets the tone that this album doesn’t have to be all bubblegum and sunshine. Jumping ahead, the When You Were Mine cover is pretty damn good too. She Bop is pretty fun, but I couldn’t quite place why I liked it so much. Just catchy as hell. All Through the Night is the emotional peak of the album, and I’m genuinely stunned it wasn’t the last track on the album. Beautiful, beautiful track that I’d never heard until listening through this, but it stunned me. The album sort of falls down after that – Witness & I’ll Kiss You are both really fun with their own neat production tricks and stylization quirks, but after All Through The Night, they just sort of pale by comparison. The last two tracks are where it just sort of stumbles to a finish line – the Betty Boop stuff didn’t click as well with me for a sort of feminist-driven album and just felt backwards, and Yeah Yeah has a great transition, but the rest feels like it was produced super early on in the album, and Cyndi just didn’t want it to go to waste. Either way, those first 6 tracks are so fucking good they deserve a 5 on their own, and the album doesn’t collapse so badly as to drop it any lower. When I think of 80s pop and 80s synthwork, this sort of soundscape is exactly what my brain thinks of. To hear it fully encapsulated and properly executed throughout an entire album of the era feels super satisfying, and it certainly helps that most of the tracks are about as catchy and fun as I was hoping for. It’s an incredibly easy 5 for me, even if it does sort of stumble down towards the end. I really, really enjoyed that.

I can finally give U2 a 5. We’ve gotten two different U2 albums before this – 1983’s “War”, and 2000’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”, so this falls pretty much right in the middle of those two albums. Those averaged out to a 3.5, and I could never really give either album a 5 because I just didn’t think it hit on a consistent level of quality and thematics throughout the listening experience. This album does that in spades and more – this is a fully coherent album from front to back, with not a single solitary miss (ok, maybe “Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World” is a little too hokey, but shh). The band is on fire, Bono’s vocals have genuinely never sounded better to me, and ultimately, this is just a joy to listen to and a kind of triumph for 1991. I noted it several times while listening, but a lot of this sound felt like a more refined version of “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” to me – that’s a lot of praise, I think. This sort of soundscape is what traditional rock returned to in the late 90s after its collective grunge era brought on by Nirvana and Pearl Jam, so to hear it in 1991 just tells me that U2 were a bit ahead of the curve. That’s not to say the influence of grunge and industrial rock isn’t felt all over this album, it just doesn’t dominate the entire thing, and for my ears, after the amount of 90s grunge we’ve gotten, is deeply refreshing. There is a middle ground somewhere in there, and I’d say this album strikes that middle ground perfectly. I could keep going, and try to break down individual tracks, but I feel like whatever words I write couldn’t do them justice (although huge shoutout to “One”, that’s my first time hearing it and it was incredible to me). This is absolutely worth the listen, and beyond deserving to be on the list. Just a stellar album, and an easy 5.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. It’s not necessarily a great album, but it’s a pretty damn fun one – where it lacks in some of the technical and compositional stuff, it more than makes up for in terms of vibes and enjoyment. There are lots of empty spots on this album that feels like they could be filled in by something more, but those patches of emptiness are simply a reminder that this is 1981, and the world’s not quite yet ready for a Daft Punk-esque synth solo that would break their brains. Wordy Rappinghood is fun (if a little goofy), and Genius of Love surprised me once it revealed itself is THAT song that everyone (namely Mariah Carey) has sampled, but the album definitely hits a sort of stagnant point until Lorelei for me. Tom Tom Theme is rather short, L'éléphant was just too repetitive for me to really enjoy, especially without the vocal hook or storytelling (that I could understand) to break it up, and As Above, So Below really drags out its chorus despite the rather fun instrumental. After that though, Lorelei is sort of mesmerizing, hypnotic, and mysterious in a way that sucked me in and clicked really well. On, On, On, On, while a bit culty in its lyricism, just worked for me instrumentally and tonally. Booming and Zooming is sort of weird, but its story is captivating enough that I can look past the sort of droning instrumental in the back. Under the Boardwalk feels like the first breaths of 90s Eurodance trying to come to life, and a very good way to end the album. All of that to say, I enjoyed about 2/3rds of what’s on here, but none of it was outright bad. It’s just not as concise and controlled as I think it could have been, but it’s not enough of a problem to make me think any less of the album. It’s a 3.5 that’ll go up to a 4, and a rather fun listen. I liked it.

I am at a 5. I am also in bliss. Is it too late to make that Trio we got way earlier into a Quartet? I know Dolly, Emmylou & Linda don’t need a 4th, but if they ever wanted one, I’d immediately vouch for Nanci Griffith – what a beautiful, beautiful voice. Her vocals add so much emotional depth to what’s already an album full of incredibly well written songs. I know I’m a sucker for country, and this album pretty much hits on every country trope I like, but even if I could remove my biases, I just think there’s something beautiful to the whole thing here. When I think of country music, I continue to curse the name of Toby Keith and all the other motherfuckers who took this style of country far away and made it into sucking off the troops, drinking beer, sexualizing girls in bikinis, and a bunch of other platitudinal bullshit that doesn’t really represent what country was always made to capture. It’s this type of sound, and these types of stories. It’s the slice of life Americana with good storytelling that calls back to younger days full of starry-eyed hope and wonder. It’s exactly what this album captures so well, and so beautifully. It certainly helps that there’s a real variety to these tracks – this goes all over the place tonally and even geographically in the lyrics, but it stays pretty grounded and anchored by the core instrumentation of the acoustic guitar, the steel guitar, the fiddle, and the really light percussion. No two tracks feel quite the same, especially if you actually bother to read the lyrics. Her voice just glides on top of everything else though, the little missing puzzle piece that makes these songs totally pop. Even when the choruses get a little repetitive, her voice is just so damn good that it’s easy to get lost in it without a care. I could keep going, but I just really, really, really enjoyed this. I know there’s a disposition against modern country, and it’s well deserved, but this is the type of album that makes me pray that this style can come back into the forefront someday. Intelligent writing, great storytelling, simple soundscapes, and great vocals. That’s all it takes, and while it’s easier said than done, I really think we can get there if people just put in the damn effort, just like Nanci Griffith did here. Just a stellar 5.

I’m at a 3.5, and I think I have to bump it down to a 3. I think this album has an identity crisis. I thought about it a lot while listening to it, but the core style of this album is split between “composition” vs “feel” for me. I don’t think the album ever really comes to a decision on which way it fully leans, and that sort of indecision is what’s driving me down towards a 3. I think in terms of the actual compositions, these are sort of thoughtfully lazy – that is to say, each added instrument on top of the many samples, as well as the ongoing layering of instruments that occurs throughout the album is intentionally and thoughtfully produced. Sure, not all of it is sonically and tonally as energetic as one might hope, but there is not one “mistake” in terms of Moby’s composition. It’s very deliberate. The question that arises from those choices is simply “does it make you feel the way he intended?” I don’t know if every track made me feel the way he intended. I think it leans that way most of the time, but when it hits on feel, it sacrifices part of the actual musicality of everything. I don’t think the composition is particularly as interesting or as captivating as Moby intended it to be. I think the feeling of each track is nailed pretty well, and when it clicks, it clicks. The question that arises from that choice is simply “does it make for a coherent album experience?” No. No, it doesn’t. At least, not for me. This album never quite finds its true balance between composition and feel, and it suffers from not picking a proper direction. There’s not any bad tracks (ok, save for the painfully boring stretch of Tracks 12-13), but I can’t really say that this album ends up sticking out after listening to it. There’s definitely good tracks, don’t get me wrong, but as an entire experience front to back, things just feel like they come and go – nothing truly sticks in the long term in terms of feel or composition, and it makes for an album with an identity crisis. I did like most of it, and there are worse ways to use up 63 minutes, but there are also much better ways. I’m not gonna say it doesn’t deserve to be on the list, because this will click with someone much more than it did for me, but I just feel like it had to commit to a more concrete style to really click for me. Hence, the 3.5 that I’ll bump down to a 3.

I’m at a 4, but for a while, I think I was honestly pretty close to a 5. It’s just a very, very British album. I’ve seen enough Taskmaster over the course of the past 3 and a half years to find a charm in this sort of thing, though. People are giving this 1’s and 2’s, and I genuinely don’t hear it at all – maybe if you really fucking hate his vocals and his British-isms, but at that point, you’re sort of just not having any fun at all. I thought the instrumentation here was pretty good – great variance of styles, switching around from Disco tones, to straight rock, to punk rock, a bit of pop, and it blends itself together in a pretty sincere way. The lyricism is the part that’ll split this album in two, but for my money’s worth, it reminded me a whole lot of “Thank Goodness You’re Here!” – that extremely British indie game that’s making great headway for YouTubers in need of a cozy comedy game. Yes, sometimes, the insults go a bit too far (namely Blockheads, where it gets just a bit too mean spirited, & Blackmail Man, where he gets so into character he starts using actual slurs), but for the most part, a lot of this just strikes me as extremely British banter that hits a certain comedy niche that was probably prevalent to pubgoers & the Monty Python crowd at the time. I dunno, I just had a lot of fun with it. It’s charming, it’s well-written (save for those two tracks), and it’s very melodically and compositionally sound. The instrumentals are great, his vocals have a fun flow that switches to whatever the soundscape calls for, and when this album hits its stride, it feels about as confident as any other album of its era, despite how goofy it is, straight from the title and beyond. I liked it, sue me. I’m fine giving it a 4.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. It’s a solid album. It’s certainly worth being on the list. It’s just not a great album experience, or at least one that’s not as cohesive as it could’ve been. This album has two distinct issues for me – they’re not big issues, but they’re enough to really mess with the flow of the album. The first involves the pacing – some of these tracks wander on a bit too long in their instrumentals, and they sort of dissipate the vocal moments in favor of letting the instrumentals shine. It’s not a bad approach, but it makes the album run much longer than it needs to. This is 66 minutes that could’ve been trimmed down. The other issue is simply finding a more proper balance between vocal presence and the instrumentals themselves – there are really good tracks here, but some of them have the vocals get drowned out by the instrumentals so much that the vocals don’t have any presence on them, or at least, not as much as they should. When this album finds the right balance between the two (see: I Love You & Whipping Tree), it hits really well and completely nails what it’s going for. It just doesn’t strike on it as much as I’d like. Regardless, I still thought this was pretty good – there’s a few tracks that aren’t as captivating as others, but this is just a really good blend of a lot of 90s stuff – sort of a “Pearl Jam meets indie rock” with a bit of Britpop influence as well. It’s a strong album, but it’s dragged down by its track length, its pacing, and arguably its track order – closing out on 15 minutes of instrumentals without one big encore payoff is a little too bold for my tastes. There’s a few tracks that feel too similar, too close to one another. Either way, I liked it. It’s a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4 because I enjoyed it enough.

You know, this is my first time actually listening to this album in full. Trust me, I was aware of a few of the songs, and I know where this lands in the pantheon of music – this album is to Fleetwood Mac what Thriller was for MJ, Abbey Road for the Beatles, and Nevermind for Nirvana. It’s that big timeless record that will live on forever; its lyricism, production, vocals, and overall creation studied for years and decades to come, in this case, made more potent by just how heavily the band itself was imploding and hurting while making this. I know all of that. I just didn’t know what I would end up thinking after listening through it. After finally listening through it, I’m at a 10. Hell, I might be at like, a 15. I might just be overreacting a little while I'm in the moment, but… man, it is exactly that album. It feels like more than that. It feels like whatever I type here will echo whatever people have written for the past 47 years about this album. I don’t know that I can add anything to the praise, and I certainly don’t want to add anything to the discourse. I keep mentioning this metaphor about thinking of music as art in the classical sense. It’s what I tend to fall back on when my brain is struggling to find the words to praise the compositions on, or the lyrics, or the vocals, or any part of the actual production. When an album has been this good, or touched me this deeply, I lean on it to help me find the words to say. This album isn’t the Mona Lisa, even though it deserves every bit of praise and acclaim. This album feels like a timelapse of a rage room, captured in slow motion – one where you can appreciate its finest details while recognizing the pain, loss, hurt, hatred, anger, and attempted solace of the whole thing. It’s beautiful in just how raw it feels. It’s beautiful in how relatable it feels. It’s beautiful in just how human it is. I do have to add some level of objectivity and critique here, and the only knock I could really have is that Tracks 1 and 3 feel rather out of place -- they are sort of left behind under the weight of "Dreams" and everything from Track 4 onwards. They're good tracks, and this album would be sort of incomplete without their presence. They just don't click as well with the rest of the album as a whole. Anyway, I would truly love to wax poetic about the moments of bliss I felt during Stevie Nicks or Christine McVie’s finest vocal moments, or the pure catharsis of some utterly pained lines, or the instrumentals hitting arguably the climax of 70s rock as a whole, or all 3 of those things somehow happening at the same time to leave me speechless… but like I said, someone else has probably said it better than I ever could. I can’t believe it took me this long to finally listen to it. It’s that damn good. It lived up to every single line of praise that’s ever been written about any individual track here, or the album as a whole. It’s a very easy 10, and it’s probably my new favorite album throughout this entire thing. How the hell do you follow this up?

I’m up to a 4. The extent of my Moby Grape knowledge is that they were an answer once on Jeopardy. Normally, that means you had at least some cultural impact. After hearing the album, I can kinda see why – this is just really good rock. Little bit of psychedelic, a little bit of prog, certainly a bit of influence from The Beatles in here, but more than anything else, it’s just a really tight 30 minutes with some strong variety that never seems to hit a snag. I think the guitar’s on fire for most of this, with the vocals finding a bit of Elvis’ aggressive swagger and a bit of Freddie Mercury’s stylization to just make a really strong combo. The lyrics are a little more broad than I’d like, but the vocal melodies are strong enough to get the emotion across, so it balances out. I just really liked it, what else can I say? I don't think it does quite enough to get up into 5 territory, but it comes close a few times. It stakes itself right at a 4 and never really goes back down. Pretty darn good rock. Certainly not a bad one to get after Rumours.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. That’s just a great album. I don’t really know quite what to say – it’s not the most technically sound, even though the band is on fire for most of it (save for the rather dull Been Down So Long). It’s not the most well written, even though there’s some great lines on here. It’s just an album that oozes charisma from top to bottom, and that charisma creates an undeniable confidence that makes for a pretty damn good 48 minutes. I do think a few tracks are a little too long, and a few tracks aren’t super captivating, but when the album hits those points, it’s still a really smooth listen that eventually pulls you back in. I will say this – I genuinely don’t think I liked it as much as Morrison Hotel. I don’t know if that’s sacrilege, but I think that album just had a greater variance of styles and slightly tighter composition for my tastes. Seriously, I got nothing. It’s got good blues, good rock, some strong vocals, and it’s 48 minutes that fly by (save for a few longer spots). I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5 because I just enjoyed it that much. Sometimes, you don’t have to justify it. I liked it.

I’m at a 5 – that might just be the best rap album of the 1980s. I mean, there’s some competition in there, but I don’t know if anyone can listen to that and definitively say it’s worse than either Beastie Boys album of the decade, anything from N.W.A., or Run-DMC. For my money’s worth, it’s certainly the most complete 80s rap album we’ve gotten yet – Paul’s Boutique didn’t quite click for me, and I thought Straight Outta Compton kinda stumbled its way to the finish line. There’s some all-timers on here, and not a single miss throughout most of the 16 tracks (ok, the interludes kinda suck) but the one that specifically caught my ear is “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”, because it so distinctly shows to me just how badly Tricky botched that damn track on Maxinquaye with “Black Steel”. Public Enemy’s version here is a masterclass in storytelling about a jailbreak, behind an all-time beat with some great flow and lyricism. Tricky’s version mainly takes from the first verse, and turns it into a sort of psychedelic rock take that removes all the storytelling and soul from the original track – it’s technically sound, and probably the best track on that dogshit album, but when you hear this version of the track, and realize just how much got cut and mutilated by Tricky… ugh, it just makes me mad, man. I could keep going with the praise for the production (excellent sampling work throughout), the flow, the vocals (Chuck D is on fire throughout this whole thing), and the lyricism, but I feel like listening to the album gets that across better than anything I could say. It’s a super fast hour, a tightly produced album, a very enjoyable one, and it probably culminates in the best rap album of the 1980s. Stellar effort across the board here, and a rather easy 5. They brought the noise.

That’s a pretty easy 5. I’ve always meant to dig a little deeper into Duran Duran – Hungry Like the Wolf is one of those all-timer 80s hits, instantly recognizable by the laugh in the intro and the immediate guitar riff, but I figured there was more beyond that. A View to a Kill, for example, is a deeply, deeply underrated Bond theme. I’m very glad I was proven right – this is a deep album. Even past the singles on here, this is full of bangers across the board, and it’s incredibly layered and well produced for 1982. I get it, same year as Thriller, but at the same time, like… same year as Thriller, you know? Two totally tonally different albums in substance and style, both existing within the same space and genre (well, if you consider synthpop as pop, anyway). I mean, even from the opening of Rio, this thing never really stops going – it’s a constantly captivating soundscape, whether it’s the synth work, the punchy drums, Simon Le Bon’s vocals, or the basslines (which are KILLER throughout this album), and even with each track being at least 4 minutes on average, the whole thing flies by without ever really hitting a lull point or a repetitive spot. It’s just damn good synthpop, and I do wonder how much of a catalyst this was for bands like Tears for Fears or Eurythmics or Depeche Mode, or even solo artists like Cyndi Lauper to really go balls to the wall with this style and unlock everything further. I enjoyed it a lot – not a single skip here, and just a really fun listen. Very easy 5.

I’m at a 4. I can see why Kurt Cobain liked these guys. They’re just kind of honest. That is to say, this album isn’t overly produced to hide any flaws – it actively welcomes them at times. There are moments where the vocals are hanging onto the beat by a thread, and to hear something like that in 1984, when everyone is trying to hit on masterpieces to compete with Thriller or any of the other stiff competition of the era, is rather welcomed. It’s also just a really fun blend of genres with a bit of variety – this album kinda bounces back and forth in time and goes all over the place. There’s some 70s rock tropes in here, the punchiness of 80s drums, a bit of garage/grunge influence that would be more present in the 90s, and even an occasional soundscape reminiscent of late-2000s indie rock. It’s not necessarily ahead of its time or anything, or super innovative, but it sounds pretty damn good. I can’t say this ever got into 5 territory for me – it certainly flirts with it a few times, namely on the tracks that are perhaps more well known as part of the MTV Unplugged performance, but it never keeps a consistently high mark on the other songs. There’s not any bad tracks here, though. It’s a fun album, and it’s a rather quick 30 minutes, even with about a quarter of it taken up by instrumentals. Obviously, this album’s influence on Kurt Cobain may be its legacy in the long run, but it’s rather good in its own right. Pretty solid 4.

Well, that’s a rather strong 5, ain’t it? I’m a sucker for this style of country music, what can I say? These are the sorts of soundscapes and storytelling I so desperately want to make a comeback – they’re intellectual, they’re honest, and they provide a storytelling bend that fulfills a different sort of thing other than the “drink beer and make love all day” that modern country tries to hit on. I’m simply realizing over the course of the several good to great country albums we’ve gotten is that it’s all rooted in Americana and folk music, just with its own style of instrumentation and a rather distinct vocal twang. I’m sure there are modern country singers out there that hit on this exact style, but I’m just too afraid to try to jump back in. Anyway, I’ve never heard a Merle Haggard album in full before now. I know the name. I probably know a hit or two in my subconscious. I figured this would at least be good, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this damn great. His vocals are fabulous throughout, and the steel guitar has never sounded better to me. There’s not a miss here – maybe a track or two that’s a little too quaint and instrumentally simplistic for my tastes, but everything here is rather good. It’s not perfect, but if it makes you feel something, it’s doing something right. House of Memories in particular got me pretty damn good. So, yeah, I’m at a 5. Super enjoyable album, from top to bottom, and a very brisk 30 minutes. I really wish people would bring this style back – I know I’m a broken record with each country album we get, but it just fucking kills me.

I’m at a 4, and I’m sort of annoyed that I am. This is not a bad album at all, and it’s certainly no lower than a 4. I’m just annoyed that I haven’t been able to give either Bob Marley album we’ve gotten so far a 5. This one hits on the same thing that Exodus did, where once you exit the flow state, the album’s cohesion and melodic substance falls apart just enough to bring the album down a bit as a full experience. I thought the first track wasn’t a great tonesetter in terms of mood and atmosphere, but Tracks 2-5 got me into that flow state, and Tracks 6 and 7 were still pretty good, if a bit of a step down. Tracks 8 and 9 certainly aren’t bad, but they sacrifice the melodic depth for lyrical depth, and while they tell good stories, I think they require a deeper context of the sociopolitical climate of the time that I just don’t have, and so I can’t connect to them like that. Once again, though, this is not a bad album – what’s here is full of the same vibrance and confidence present on Exodus, and its sound feels just as polished despite being 3 years younger. I just don’t think the entire thing hangs on as a front to back experience – there are certainly lulls in the music, and a few tracks fall for the “first minute is the whole song” trap, but usually it’s done so well that it’s easy to ignore. It just has too many of those moments pop up over the course of the album for me to give it a 5, but make no mistake – this is certainly one of the 1,001 albums one should listen to before they die. I just wish it had a little more cohesion to bump up to a 5, but I’m not quite there. Still a great album, though.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. I think the most famous Paul Simon solo album is Graceland, and “You Can Call Me Al” is effectively the extent of my knowledge for Paul Simon as a solo artist. This is still pretty far away from the mid-80s though – this is pretty fresh after the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel as a duo. I don’t know how much of that is necessarily reflected in these songs, but this does feel like the start of a natural evolution and experimentation past their work. It’s not too different, obviously – a lot of this is steeped in the slower acoustics and storytelling that made Simon & Garfunkel work as a duo, but when he steps out of the box just a bit, whether it’s the reggae influenced opening track, or the more upbeat tempo of “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”, something pops just a little bit that makes most of these tracks work. However, I do think a lot of this album suffers from one continuous quirk that I just don’t vibe with – I think the album is just a little too ambiguous. There’s great storytelling here, but so much of it is made for the listener to fill in too many blanks, and it sort of makes the effort fall apart. There’s nothing wrong with ambiguity, but when it’s done this many times, it sort of loses the mystique and just starts to feel half-baked. You can only ask a listener to think so critically for so long without losing some of the focus on the music. It’s probably how Simon & Garfunkel functioned as a duo, cleaning up the ambiguity to find the perfect balance between intellectualism and airy prose. That’s not enough to drag it down to a 3.5 by itself though – I think there’s just a few too many acoustic only tracks here for my tastes, but they’re also so well done that I’d be remiss not to bump it up to a 4 overall. This is definitely a good album, and a rather fast 34 minutes, but it did leave me scratching your head a few too many times. Someone else will click with a bit more, but for me, I think it’s a solid album plagued by a few too many faults to really hit its highest potential. Hence, a 3.5 up to a 4.

I’m at a pretty darn good 4. This album has a few too many lulls and experimental points for me to really push it near a 5, but what’s here is still pretty captivating in its own weird way. Its experimental nature keeps it from hitting a 5 for me, but it also does enough that I think it pushes it up nicely into a 4, just for trying all of this in 1973, and succeeding, for the most part. A lot of this album is instrumental, which is fine enough – it’s broken up by 3 normal tracks, and the only one I really wasn’t feeling at all was “Easy Money”; just a little too simple and a bit too boring for my tastes. Felt like there was never a big payoff. The same applies to The Talking Drum, but that at least has the benefit of transitioning perfectly into the absolute stunner that is Part 2 of Larks’ Tongues in Aspic – just an absolutely captivating 7 minutes of a progressive rock instrumental that never really hits a lull point, and just clicked on all my tastes. So, yeah, I’m at a 4 – it’s an interesting 48 minutes, but it doesn’t do enough to hold my attention throughout the whole thing. It’s a little vague, and occasionally too experimental for its own good, but when it clicks, it clicks, and it clicked enough for me to enjoy it. It’s a very recommended 4, because I can see someone vibing throughout this whole thing and giving it a 5 (or absolutely despising it and giving it a 2).

I’m at a disappointed 2. It’s just soulless music to me. It’s never technically bad in terms of music theory or production, nor does it hit any egregiously low points, but as an album experience from front to back, it starts off bland, peaks around tracks 3-6, and then just stumbles straight into “movie soundtrack bait” from Track 7 all the way to the end, even egregiously daring to finish on a Beatles-esque “repeat the same line for 2 minutes to increasingly complex instrumentation” ending track, which is really the nail in the coffin. The only reason I’m feeling so nice is because of that stretch of Tracks 3-6 – they still feel corporate and manufactured to some degree, but it’s at least hidden well enough by some fun instrumentation and some decent song structures. Something 4 the Weekend is clearly the best track here, and the momentum of that track carried for a bit. As a front to back album experience though, it is an excruciating 41 minutes that never really finds an identity of its own – the first track starting right off with that instrumentation should’ve been a sign that this wasn’t gonna have a great structure as an entire album. I’m just disappointed, because I think there is the framework for a decent album in here, but it can’t stop chasing commercially successful sounds and aping other people’s styles for long enough to find its own identity. With just a bit more time, and a little more room for the tone and substance of each track to breathe, this could be far better than it is. Instead, it just kind of sits there, with a listener waiting for a breakthrough that never comes to fruition. Hence, the 2, because at least it’s not bad to listen to, just sort of dull, but with an occasional burst of energy. Maybe I just didn't get it, I dunno.

I’m at a 5. My experience with Oasis is still relatively untainted and fresh – yes, everyone knows Wonderwall, and a lot of people know Champagne Supernova, and I’m guilty of knowing (and loving) both. This was always gonna get at least a 3 on the strength of those 2 tracks alone. Past that though, I’m still fresh as a daisy on pretty much all of their stuff; I know Noel and Liam can be pretentious as hell, always at odds, and their confidence is their biggest flaw as much as it is their biggest strength. It’s a good thing this album uses it as an incredible strength – they shot their shot with the most stadium-friendly rock one could ever produce, without any guarantee that they could really fill out stadiums like that, and they absolutely fucking nailed it. I’m leaning fully into guilty pleasure mode on a lot of these tracks, and I don’t really care. The melodies are fun, the vocals are great, and when the bombast and showmanship matches the quality like this, it just comes across as a sort of victory lap to me, rather than corporate or manufactured. It feels like an indie band that “made it” their way, in their own style, without selling out or sacrificing, even if it probably leans closer to “selling out”. I just loved this album from front to back. I think Hello’s immediate foreshadowing of Wonderwall kinda eased me in, and I never really looked back – these are energetic tracks, and while a few go a bit too long, or lean into a bit of repetition, I don’t think there’s ever really a dull moment on here. The lyrics are probably the weakest part here, but the vocals and instrumentation shoot this album up pretty damn high for me – when the lyrics do match the quality of the instrumentals, though, it leads to something excellent. If the lyrics, vocals, and instrumentals all click at the same time, it leads to something spectacular. This album only ever hits on “spectacular” a few times for me, at varying points throughout some of the songs, but it clicks on “excellent” a lot of the time. Big shoutout to “Cast No Shadow”, by the way. I’m sure some people will be absolutely snobbish about an album like this, and I’d be remiss to not recognize my own hypocrisy with how much I tore into Fuzzy Logic by Super Furry Animals for what I perceived as trying to achieve this type of success on a different, more commercialized “Hollywood soundtrack” scale. Maybe it’s because of my own bias with Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova prior to listening to the album in full, but I never felt like I was listening to something inauthentic throughout the album like I did with Fuzzy Logic. There is a fully realized style here that gets pretty adhered to, and while the variety of the album itself is admittedly weaker because of it, it doesn’t make the experience feel lesser to me. This feels like a proper setlist, cohesive, earning its stripes as a 50 minute piece with a beginning and ending, all concocted by Liam and Noel and the rest of the band with the express purpose of selling out stadiums and realizing their dreams. Is that a bad thing? I dunno, maybe. Maybe I’m the snob for adoring one type of commercial appeal and ripping into the other, but regardless of my own introspections, this album just clicked perfectly for me. This does feel like the inflection point that shifted Britpop for the last half of the 90s, for better or for worse. Its legacy will likely stand as Oasis’ magnum opus, a seminal album of the 1990s, and for unfortunately (and lovingly) giving us Wonderwall. It’s a lot of different things, arguably dated being among them, but for my tastes, I just deeply, deeply enjoyed it. Rather easy 5 for me.

I’m… I’m somewhere. When I wrote my little review for Safe as Milk, there’s one sentence I threw in there: “If you’re gonna try to be this innovative for 1967, then go all in.” This album is them going all in, and I feel like the genie took my wish and bastardized it beyond my wildest dreams. Is that a bad thing? Is that a good thing? Well, it was 79 minutes of something, alright, but you can’t say it wasn’t captivating or intriguing. You can certainly call it bad, but I don’t know that it is bad. Does it deserve to have an average rating of 2.27? No, I wouldn’t go that low. I think I’m at a 3, somehow. I know what this album is trying to do, or at least, I think I do – it’s simply trying to exist. There is an incredible complexity behind the actual compositions and melodies and everything here, and that complexity is entirely grounded and almost canceled out by the most nonsensical lyrics and the most grating vocal performance that any album has ever had. Grating doesn’t necessarily mean bad in this case, it just means… divisive. This album’s gonna be divisive. I don’t think it’s bad, I don’t think it’s THAT good either, but it’s a journey. It’s music that fundamentally challenges the entire structure of the genre, of Beatlemania, and of an artist’s obligation to make music that’s actively commercially appealing. It’s batshit insane, but it’s technically sound, even if it feels entirely wrong or completely uncomfortable at times. There may truly never be anything produced like this, with such little commercial appeal, and yet so meticulously produced to evoke such a reaction that it somehow loops around to having appeal again. I would say it’s like listening to a band trying to perform over Zoom, with each instrument on an individual call, but that’s a disservice to just how brilliantly scattered these compositions tend to be. It’s more equivalent to say, the awful “rival” art present in Pokemon Art Academy on the 3DS – just go look at that shit. It’s designed perfectly to evoke poor artistry, and yet there’s a brilliance within that. The only issue that this album has, besides its obnoxiously long run time, is its obnoxiously self-centered lead vocalist, who honestly drags this album down tremendously for me. It’s not that his vocals are ever bad, but they overpower the compositions and their complexity so much that it genuinely ruins the spirit of the musicality for me. His presence is not only awkward, it’s unneeded, and yet at the same time, his presence is entirely necessary to make the album’s overall tone work. It’s a conundrum, but it’s easily solved by just lowering his voice in the mix, and minimizing his presence, as well as his overly preachy poetry that sounds like a Brennan Lee Mulligan monologue fed through Google Translate 28 times over. With all of that said, it is an enjoyable experience, but an excruciating one – the album did lose me at several points, but it also always managed to pull me back in just by doing some completely goofy bullshit that just happened to win me over more often than not. It’s not an album I’ll ever return to, but it’s one where I think I can genuinely appreciate how ballsy and avant-garde it feels for 1969. It’s an oddly recommended 3.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4. This is the second time we’ve gotten Bjork, and this is a much, much different album than Vulnicura. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. This is a really ballsy album to try and pull off, and frankly, she succeeded entirely at what she set out to do – every instrument here is a voice. Some of it processed to hell and back, but impressive all the same. It gives every track a uniform sound, but not a uniform style, and the versatility that she explores throughout this album is kind of remarkable given its general somber and almost spiritually driven tone. I could be misreading the album as somber though – I’m just going off the vibe of most of the tracks, a lot of which feel slow, intentional, breathy, and a bit held, as if to give everything its own space to shine. The exception to this is obviously Triumph of a Heart, and in a way, I’m glad she reserved herself from making more tracks like that – it makes that one stand out, feel special, and connect really well as the final track of the overall experience. I definitely hit the zen state a few times while listening here, but I think the album didn’t do a great job of keeping me in it – for as ambitious as this is, it does fall apart under its own weight a few times. There’s some production choices I disagree with, and there’s a number of times where the melodic structure is lost (albeit intentionally) in favor of a slightly off-beat rhythm that never quite found the balance between musically pleasing and captivating for me. Make no mistake, though – this is a captivating album. It’s 45 minutes that’ll sort of take you every which way, but you have to be willing to go along with the journey. I don’t necessarily blame anyone who could give this a 2, because it is abrasive, unnatural, and discomforting, but if you’re willing to accept that, it’s an enjoyable enough listen on the strength of its ambition. Anyone giving this a 1 is just too afraid to be challenged by music. For me, it’s a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4, if only because I respect its ambition so much, and I was genuinely really captivated by the album. It’s not strong enough to carry its own weight and its own concepts for the full 45 minutes, but when this album is rolling, it’s a beautifully layered mess that’s a treat to listen to. Even when it’s not rolling, it’s just a layered mess that’s technically sound, and that’s still an interesting listen in its own right. I liked it, what can I say?

I’m at a 5. I’ve sort of just sat here in silence trying to really digest the album, and I think my current inability to put my feelings into truly coherent thought speak more to the quality of the album and its emotional impact more than my words could. This is the third time we’ve gotten a Radiohead album, and it’s the 3rd time it’s lived up to the acclaim, and this time, I think it went above and beyond – OK Computer was great, In Rainbows was fantastic, and I knew this album would probably get another big adjective to mark its quality, but I really can’t think of one right now. The only thing that even remotely comes to mind is “overwhelming,” and I guess that applies best to both my brain and this album as a whole. It really is overwhelming, in the best way possible – the closest analog I have to any of the albums we’ve gotten so far is David Bowie’s “Low,” but that’s only in terms of production and stylization. There is something in the general emotion evoked by Thom Yorke and the rest of the band here that takes this album over the top, but it’s something that I seriously just don’t have the words for. I’ve never been left this… stunted by an album. I recognize its grandeur, I recognize its emotional pull, I recognize the incredible instrumentation and production here, I recognize its ability to use a minimalism in words to try to convey feeling as effectively as possible – every core tenet of praise I have about the album is there, but I just can’t figure out how to say it. All I know is that I thought it was beautiful. There’s not a skip here, save for maybe Treefingers, but this album is a front to back journey – close your eyes, find a focus, and just let it take over. At some point, that zen state will kick in, and there will be nothing like it. It’s a fast, fast 47 minutes, but it sticks for a long time afterward. It’s a highly recommended 5.

I’m at a 5. This is my first of the Johnny Cash prison albums, and by a weird sort of extension, my first proper Johnny Cash album as well – the man simply exudes charisma, and this is the concert where the famous middle finger photo comes from. Just a fucking legend, really. This is a good setlist too – I haven’t heard most of these tracks, save for I Walk The Line. This is my first time hearing A Boy Named Sue. That’s a really fun song, and honestly, I feel like it’s aged well enough into today’s standards of LGBTQ+ related issues, gender equality, and how much more personal and attached names feel. There’s some fun stuff here, namely the story about him getting arrested for picking flowers and then writing a whole song about it. I haven’t heard the Folsom album; I know it’s more acclaimed, and I can’t wait to get there now, but I just really enjoyed this. I think Johnny Cash shines in an environment like this. Even if he seems “bored” at times, like some critics have written, he’s still engaged enough to put on a damn fine show. It’s a really tight 34 minutes, and the crowd brings a great energy that Johnny perfectly plays into. I’m being generous by not bumping it down to a 4 for the San Quentin reprise, but I can always just skip over it on a future relisten. I liked it a lot, and I think it’s worth giving a 5.

I’m at a 3. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad album – I think it’s a decent album bogged down by production choices that hinder the listening experience, but its charm manages to break through in spite of its self-sabotage. The first and most obvious thing is the reverb effects and the wall of sound – not bad in theory, as long as it’s not overused, overblown in the mix, and doesn’t actively hide the full extent of the instrumentation. So, of course, it’s overused, overblown in the mix, and actively hides the full extent of the instrumentation. The levels of reverb vary throughout the album, but there’s never a good mix on them to have an effective use that adds to the experience – far too often, all of the instruments have the same amount of reverb, so it just feels like I’m sitting in a cave. The volume of the wall of sound that permeates a good chunk of the tracks here also varies, and when it doesn’t totally take away from the vocals or percussion, it’s alright. I just don’t think it ever adds anything to any track – if there were moments where it faded in to create an ambiance or whatever, it would be fine. It just sort of shows up and never goes away, though. The second thing for me is how little of a presence the drums have, and I can’t help but feel like giving them more space to work with and turning them up a bit would’ve added so much energy to some of the tracks desperately searching for them. The same applies to the vocals at times, but my thing with the vocals is mainly that I wish the guy had a bit more emotion on a few tracks, and didn’t just sound like he was reading off a piece of paper – that’s most prevalent on “In a Hole”. The third and final thing for me is the track order – I think “Just Like Honey” sets a wildly different expectation for the tone of the album, and it never really finds a natural progression throughout. I’m not really sure what else could have started the album, but “Just Like Honey” feels like such a natural closing track to me. There’s definitely a way to tweak the track order, though. With all of that said, the album isn’t outright bad; if it were bad, I’d be presenting all of these as outright negatives as opposed to things that could be easily tweaked to create an overall better album experience. I think there’s something enjoyable here, and the framework of everything is in place. All of the charm is there, but I just feel like the production sort of kills it for me. When this album clicks, it clicks pretty well, but it only truly clicks a handful of times, in part because of that damn wall of sound diluting so much of the instrumentation. Of course, this is just my take as a “guy who likes radio-friendly production” sort of listener – I can see how this style as it is would totally click for someone all the way up to a 4 or even a 5, but for me, I’m at a 3. It’s a recommended 3, though.

I’m at a 5. I mean, listen; if we’re weighing 5’s next to each other, this is at the low end of the 5’s I’ve given. It’s not doing anything so deeply impressive to actually put it up next to, say, Nevermind by Nirvana or Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. It’s a 5 on its own merits, for its genre, and for my experience with it. I just really fucking enjoyed this. Yes, one may disparage this as “beep boop music”, but I think it’s more than that – maybe it’s just because I’m a big sci-fi head, but I haven’t really heard an electronica soundscape so deeply capture the feeling of adventure, mystery, and ambience in this specific style so efficiently and effectively. I’m not saying this is easy to make, but it does a lot without really using up too much; a lot of what’s here is based in simple windy synths, panning tricks, volume tricks to add the illusion of depth, and the occasional Moog melody distorted to hell and back. It’s a really fast 37 minutes, despite how slow it felt in the moment. I walked around while listening to this album, and even my walking just felt more deliberate, more focused; it could’ve been because of how attentive I was to the soundscape, but I’d like to imagine it’s because it just felt more like space to me, with that sense of adventure really getting into my brain and actively working. It’s an album that’s deeply, deeply enhanced with headphones in, and it’s enhanced even further if you close your eyes – it’s an audio journey, and for me, about as effective as an ASMR video might be in terms of eliciting a specific feeling. Hell, ASMR just barely works for me, but this really fucking worked for me, so it might be even better for someone else. I thought it was a beautifully crafted set of compositions, and I can feel this album’s general influence on so much of modern ambient music. Not quite to the degree of, say, an Eno album, but something relatively close. It’s an enjoyable 5 if you let yourself melt into the soundscape – it’s certainly no less than a 3, at the very worst.

The most three-y 3 to ever 3. It’s not a bad album. It’s not a very captivating album, though. It’s an enjoyable listen, but other than La Grange, and maybe a few other tracks, it’s not a very memorable listen either. It just feels half-baked to me, but perhaps I’m holding this to a much higher standard than I should be. I fully recognize this album for what it is; it’s for when you’re on the road, trucking along, and you need some rock music to listen to without giving a shit. It totally works in that sense; this is fully competent 70s rock to drink some beer to. It doesn’t challenge itself too much, nor does it ever really challenge the listener. It didn’t really wow me as the listener, either. The instrumentation, other than the usually more involved guitar solos, feels a bit neglected and basic. The percussion in particular sounds like I could play it on some of these tracks, and the extent of my rhythm/instrumental experience is like, playing Rhythm Heaven and slapping a desk. I dunno, it’s just sort of disappointing compared to the last ZZ Top album we got – they definitely grew more as musicians, and got more comfortable exploring complexities, but the core of what made Eliminator work is here. It’s just not all there in terms of confidence, instrumentation, or bombast. It’s a solid 33 minutes though; I don’t hate it, and there’s not a single bad track here, but I just don’t think I can go any higher than a 3.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I just thought that was a damn good album; it’s definitely split into halves (Tracks 2-9 & Tracks 11-18), but it comes together as a pretty complete package. The biggest split in terms of the production here is how the instrumentals take more of a backseat to the lyricism in the first half, and how they find more of a balance in the second half. There’s some stellar beats here, and some stellar lyricism, and when this album finds that balance, it rolls really, really smoothly. The only reason I’m at a 4.5 instead of a flat 5 is because I do think this album suffers from what I’m describing as “Harvard rap”. I’m sure that’s not the most concise way to put it, but a lot of this album touches on how braggadocious Guru can be about his verbose vocabulary, finding the perfect rhyme, and disparaging the lack of “intellectualism” in rap music. They would fucking hate today’s rap, I’ll tell you that much, but for 1991, this does feel a little too early to criticize the genre as a whole, unless there were some really fucking dogshit rappers getting radio airplay in 1990 just because hiphop was the new hot thing. Really, the issue isn’t the criticisms, but it’s how often they get touched on in this album – there’s just a few too many tracks that involve him bragging about his wordplay and his skill, and it sort of bogs down the album, even for as much as I liked them. Regardless of that, DJ Premier is on fire for a lot of these beats, and too much of this album is too damn good to let a slight oversaturation ruin the whole thing. For as much as he bragged, Guru does back it up pretty damn well; there’s some great flow and lyricism throughout this album – the entirety of “Take A Rest” stands out as one of the prime examples to me, but there’s some gems thrown about here. This is a pretty cohesive album from front to back, and it’s worth paying attention to every line. Ultimately, this is a super dense album, but a breezy and captivating 50 minutes. It’s a really good listen that gets sort of bogged down in its own “intellectualism” at times, but not enough to ruin the overall package. It’s a 4.5 that easily gets bumped up to a 5, and it kinda makes me wonder how this got lost in the 90s rap canon; I guess all the other heavy hitters of the era have drowned this out over the years. It’s a damn good thing it’s on this list, then.

It’s a 5. I don’t need to use any more than 2 paragraphs to explain why. It’s a live jazz album, what did you think it was gonna get? The only way it could’ve been any lower than a 4 would be if someone had just been yelling into a microphone the whole time. I’m not super deep into music theory to tell someone why these are good, or to explain the deep complexities in the performance. I have an ear, and that’s about all I need, I think. My ear is telling me this was really fucking good. This is my first time listening to anything by Duke Ellington. I now want to listen to even more of Duke Ellington – I know the name, I know his place in history, and I know his deep, deep importance to this specific era of big band jazz. There’s a reason Stevie Wonder made Sir Duke. He lived up to the hype and more – this is a spectacular 44 minutes; there's neither a wasted note nor a moment where the energy dies down. Mix that with a red-hot crowd hanging onto every single flourish & some stellar compositions, and you end up at an easy 5.

I’m at a 4. I really, really liked the first half of this album, and then the second half of the album gave me Ella Fitzgerald-adjacent PTSD of the Great American Songbook. That is to say, I think the first half of this album really clicks on a good middle ground between his contemporaries and the “classics” of his time, and the instrumentation that guides them feels like his own. He takes control of those songs in a way that feels good for 1978, and just as good in 2024. The second half of this album throws out that middle ground to focus entirely on the 30s and 40s, and while there’s not a single bad track on the album, it definitely felt like he was in less control of them, and just covering them mostly as they were, and the album sort of loses his touch. I do think what’s here is good – the Georgia on My Mind cover especially blew me away, and when this album clicks, it really clicks. I just feel like it sort of got… boring near the end. Not like, “dear God, end the album already” boring, but a lot of the back half felt like it touched on topics already explored and covered in the first half, and that redundancy, mixed with the slower tempo of everything started to make me feel drowsy, for some reason. It’s not like I was literally getting bored to sleep or anything, but the instrumentation was so calming and serene, with his vocals so soft-spoken that it simply created the perfect environment to get to that point. When I say it’s “boring”, I simply mean that the energetic songs, or at least the more bombastic instrumentation and tempo go away, and their lack of presence throughout that second half creates a sort of homogeneity that drags the album down to a 4 for me. It is Willie Nelson, though, and who am I to talk shit on his music taste? The band does a great job, his vocals are stellar, and the emotional pull of every song is left intact here; it is a good album, and a recommended one. If nothing else, that Georgia on My Mind cover gets this album to a 3 by itself, but for me, the entire package is worthy of a 4. It could totally go up to a 5 though.

This whole thing is a 5. I’ve always been a little scared to tackle this album; obviously, Hey Ya is the monster hit, but even past that, these are basically just two albums thrown together like a Sonic & Garfield pack for the Sega Genesis. They’re entirely unrelated, and they’re clearly put together just to keep the “OutKast” brand name alive. I wrote down two individual reviews for both Speakerboxx & The Love Below as I was listening; I’ll just copy/paste them both here, and then give a sort of epilogue to the whole thing. For Speakerboxx, that half easily gets a 5. Big Boi is flowing on this half of the record – this could’ve easily stood on its own without being attached to The Love Below, I think. Fantastic production across the board, great verses from everyone involved, and a really fun mix of like, Funkadelic-esque production stylizations with a bit of Outkast flair, naturally evolved from Stankonia, and still feeling extremely modern for 2003. A lot of these beats still go hard as hell in 2024, and any modern rapper could probably flow on a lot of them. I’ve always liked Big Boi’s verses just a little more than Andre’s, and so far, this part of the album is confirming my bias – he is on fire on a lot of these tracks, with his faster flow just more attuned to the upbeat tempo and nature of this part of the album. A lot of these are really fun tracks in terms of subject matter. Of course, there’s not a lot of “serious” moments here, but he does know when to reel it in when the time comes. I’ll say this; it’s a tough fucking act to follow. Andre’s got a lot to beat here – I think this perfectly lined up with my tastes. That’s a stellar album in its own right; I do wish it sort of landed its “ending” a little better, but this is a double package, so hopefully the last track on The Love Below satiates my thirst. When it comes to Speakerboxx, that’s a 5 by itself. I’ve got high, high hopes for Andre, and I hope he doesn’t let me down. For The Love Below, I’m at a 4.5. It’s oh so very close to being a 5 for me, but I just think this album doesn’t do quite enough to hit a fully authentic vibe that he’s trying to capture – he succeeds at hitting the vibe, but there’s a few tracks that go a bit long, a few tracks with some weird production choices, and honestly, just not enough features. If you’re gonna do this sort of Prince throwback style, or try to evoke old Bootsy Collins / Funkadelic type of production at times, bring in some of the people that made it work. With that said, I loved it when he stepped out of that box and did some super unique stuff – there are production tricks on this album that I don’t think mainstream rap & hip-hop really caught up to for at least another 5 or 6 years, unless I’m just deeply ignorant to the early 2000s (and I probably am). Those tracks easily stood out the most to me. Maybe I’m just a little salty because I wanted to hear Andre rap more, but his presence as a rapper is seriously underutilized on this album. That’s not to say his singing is bad; I think his voice contortions are really good, and he's pretty well trained. Sometimes the production covers up any perceived “flaws”, but if there are any, I barely caught them. I think this is a good front to back album, and it certainly has more of a plotline and a sort of A to Z structure than Speakerboxx did. I do think I enjoyed Speakerboxx more, just because Big Boi was flowing and it felt more fun, but this also could have stood on its own as a solo album. It’s a nice high 4.5. So, what does that mean for the entire package? Well, obviously, it’s a 4.75 if you average those out, but it’s an easy, easy roundup to a 5. I don’t think that part was ever in question – what I’m most surprised by, in terms of this double album, is how oddly cohesive it feels even with the blatant split. They complement each other well, and they both bring an individual vibe; the usual ATL bounce from Speakerboxx, and the more thoughtful and introspective stuff from The Love Below. Those vibes together do evoke OutKast to me. In a way, this feels better as a double album under the OutKast branding, if only because I think they would’ve been pigeonholed into these styles if these were released as solo albums. As a whole package though, it does feel like it’s OutKast, and a more individual showcase of the best of their own work. I do wish there was a bit more overlap between Andre and Big Boi across both albums, to keep that cohesion a bit more intact, but I’m just sort of nitpicking at this point. These are two very good solo albums; one gets a 5, the other gets a 4.5, but as a whole package, it’s very easily a 5. Ghettomusick > Hey Ya!, by the way. Fight me.

I’m gonna need more time with this album, but at first pass, I’m at a 4.5 that I simply admire so much that I’m gonna bump it up to a 5. Perhaps it’s the post-election inner fear talking, but this felt like the perfect album at the perfect time – just an inspired biographical reminder of what I hope this country is, what I hope it can continue to be, and what makes it truly great. I’ve never heard a Sufjan Stevens album for this; never even heard of the guy, really. I’m beyond impressed. I’m a sucker for historical references in music; not because it’s necessarily great for songwriting, but because it tells me that I’m dealing with someone who knows and is embedded into history, at least to some degree. As a trivia guy, it just gives me a point of reference to really feel where a song is coming from. This album is jam-packed with them, up and down, and quite frankly, the balance between all the references and being able to actively blend them and weave them into such compelling narratives and melodies is one of the most impressive things I’ve heard in the 310 albums we’ve done so far. Past that, my goodness, the music; what an absolute behemoth of a production this must’ve had. Occasionally, this album gets a little too cute with its vocal mixing at the expense of the listener, but more often than not, that orchestration and instrumentation so perfectly captures a mood that might be impossible to put into words. I say that knowing that his songwriting here is about as impressive as the instrumentation, if not moreso. It’s a deeply bombastic album, fantastically structured, and its long-ass song titles provide the humor in places where it’s desperately needed. It definitely feels like he had fun making this, but he also knew exactly how much weight this thing was carrying. To find such a great balance between instrumentation, songwriting, vocals and production, while making sure this thing doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own ambition and honesty is nothing short of a miracle. Again, there are flaws here; a few tracks go on a bit long, some of the funny filler could’ve been cut instead of doing it to satiate a long song title or to keep the “musical” structure alive, but those “flaws” are more like production choices that just didn’t click with me. I need another pass or two on this album without the misty-eyed dread of November 5th, 2024 looming long in my head, to more critically analyze it, and really take away its theming and lyricism more without clinging so deeply onto its messaging of hope and promise… but if the album’s already got me that hooked, in light of what just happened, it’s doing something right. If anything, I feel like I’ll appreciate it even more. It’s a 4.5 that I’m bumping up to a 5.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’m going to cautiously bump up to a 4. I mean, look, of all the albums to get so soon after the 2024 Presidential election, to get this one is the equivalent of rolling a Nat 1 on a D700. It’s not even that it’s necessarily bad – I genuinely really did enjoy this, but the optics and timing are tremendously and uniquely awful. It feels like starting this project on January 1st led to this as a long, long, sick punchline. But regardless of that, like I said – I genuinely enjoyed this. Call it sick irony given the consequences of the election and the incredibly militaristic sound here, but in terms of soundscape and vision, this really does feel like an awkward political rally. It’s discomfiting, uneasy, a little too real at times… and I think that’s the point. This is meant to create that sense of awkwardness, to confront it head on, to feel that way without ever explicitly agreeing to it. Given the social contexts of 1980s Cold War politics that deeply underline this album, it feels like a direct statement against the causes that were more present behind the Iron Curtain at the time. In that sense, I think the production and tone here are basically perfect as a form of satire. Really uncomfortable satire, but satire nonetheless. Where this album falls flat then, for me, is simply in fully committing to its vision and execution – you wanna go down this pathway, and make people awkwardly feel the consequences of something they didn’t sign up for? Make it even less palatable. Make it a little bit screechier, make it a little less clean, make it feel like despair. I know I sound sadistic when I type all of that, but if that’s the point of the album here, I think committing even deeper to the “downfall” of this rally would’ve really nailed this as a home run of a concept album. Because it plays itself relatively safe, I have to judge it a bit more on the musical execution, and in terms of the musical execution… yeah, this thing kinda falls into the “first minute is the whole song” trap a few too many times. The pulsating, militaristic drums and brass sections grow tiring after too long, and slowly start to lose their effect. The political speeches of despair are effective, but without a real shift in the instrumentation to add to the atmosphere, it comes across as kind of hokey. Again, I get it – you can’t be too blatant, otherwise it goes from incredibly pointed and direct satire done in a perfectly uncomfortable way, to just straight up being the real thing, and that’s a truly hard balance to hit on. I think they did about as good as they could given the political environment of the time – they could’ve been in some serious shit if they went too far one way or the other, and the fact that they even crossed the tightrope is a miracle to begin with. So… yeah, I really did like this. I wish it had the guts to be a little more loose, to really drive home how awkward it is, but it doesn’t take away from how oddly engaging those 37 minutes still are. By really leaning into itself, and making it feel so captivating and bombastic, I simply have to wonder… did people really think they were legit? Hell, am I misreading them? I guess I’ll never quite know – the band itself has stayed ambiguous about it for years upon years. Hell, apparently they played North Korea, and I truly don’t know what to make of that. I can only hope I’m right in calling it a deeply biting satire. Hence, the 3.5 that I’m cautiously bumping up to a 4 – heavy emphasis on “cautiously”.

I’m at a 5. Bridge Over Troubled Water, as a title track, sets an incredible tone and sets a high bar for the rest of the album, and while I don’t think it ever quite touches that bar again, it’s never more than a few inches away. El Condor Pasa is incredibly efficient in its simplicity, Cecilia feels like late 2000s indie rock in the best way possible, Keep the Customer Satisfied is the best Beatles song that Simon & Garfunkel ever made, and once this album gets to side 2, it just keeps rolling from there. There’s maybe one or two stumbles on its way to the finish line (looking right at “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” & “Bye Bye Love”), but regardless of anything else, that’s a super breezy and really enjoyable 37 minutes. I don’t think this lived up to like, the super duper universal acclaim that it has, but I can certainly see why people think that way, and maybe one day, it’ll click in that sense for me. Make no mistake about it, though; this is a stellar album. There’s a few tracks that didn’t hit as well for me, but from top to bottom, this thing is beautifully written, composed, and produced. It’s a great listen, and it fits perfectly as a final album for Simon & Garfunkel. Super easy 5.

I’m at a pretty high 4. I think after this and the Pogues album we got, I might just be a sucker for medieval-style music with modern instrumentation. I really did like this album; the only reason I’m at a 4 is because the choice to go mostly acoustic sort of creates a homogeneity that the album’s instrumentation never fully overcame for me. To be more specific, there’s just too many tracks that suffer from a “first minute is the whole song” syndrome for me, but those are still pretty good tracks. The ones that overcome it are great, and I think the last track in particular nails it really well. For the lyricism, I think my only real nag is that a few tracks feel sort of similar in subject matter, but otherwise, they completely nailed the feeling; some of these have to be actual old poems and songs brought into modern times. It’s a relatively breezy 40 minutes, save for Hunting Song, which did feel like the track that dragged the longest; not just in its runtime, but in how slow the pacing of the story felt. Regardless, I enjoyed this a lot – it executes the sort of “folk jazz” thing it’s going for pretty well, the vocalists are both nice, the acoustics (which eventually lose their luster) sound great, and if nothing else, it’s a super easy listen. Pretty solid 4 for me.

Well, that’s obviously a 5. Just an electric setlist, really – those 36 minutes flew by. I’ve heard of Sam Cooke, but I’ve never actually heard Sam Cooke until now, and that motherfucker can sing his heart out, my goodness. Combine his gritty soulful voice with a red hot band and a red hot crowd, and that’s a recipe for an awesome live album. How this went unreleased for 22 years, I simply don’t understand. How could you listen to that album, with that much crowd energy, and such an honest and soulful performance, and think it’s too edgy? I guess 1963 is still deep in the Civil Rights Movement, and it was more palatable to present him as a gospel star rather than an Elvis Presley-esque pop star, but come on, this would’ve sent Sam Cooke into absolute superstardom. I’ll go so far as to say he wouldn’t have been murdered if this had come out. Truthfully, I got so swept up into the energy and charisma of the whole thing that I barely have any individual notes on tracks – my ears were attentive, but my brain was on autopilot. There’s a lot of love songs here, which makes some sense, but the energy with which both Sam and the band perform them with is so damn high, you could easily confuse it for a dance album. He’s got the crowd in the palm of his hands too – the amount of call/response parts on this album is kind of unbelievable. It’s really hard to explain how good this album is without listening to it; it is just 36 minutes of pure energy and a spectacular live set. I deeply enjoyed this, and it’s an extremely easy 5.

I was at a 4. Then, “I’ve Got My Mojo Working” happened and I jumped right up to a 5. I won’t discount the other tracks on this album, because they all act as a grand buildup to that moment, but like… what a show-stopper of a number that is. I can’t even complain that he played it twice. Muddy let out every ounce of energy he had left for that, with himself, his band, and that crowd hitting an absolute fever pitch. It’s one of the most stunning live performances I think I’ve ever heard. I do have to rewind – this album does sort of start slowly, and you can feel everyone involved with this recording getting more comfortable, more confident, and more energetic as the set goes along. For the first two tracks, everything feels sort of modest and slow, and while it all technically sounded nice, the energy felt flat. My immediate suspicion was that this was a white crowd, and… yeah, this was a white crowd. Well, OK, an integrated crowd, but it sure looks like there were a lot more white people. By tracks 3 & 4, the band’s energy starts to pick up, as does Muddy’s vocals. Track 5 is when they really let loose – Tiger in Your Tank is just catchy and fun, and that energy carries into “I Feel So Good”. Those opening piano notes, his deeper vocal twang, the crowd screaming… all of it is a buildup to Got My Mojo Working. I cannot stress enough how good this performance is; I can’t capture it in words. It’s worth sitting through both parts, because it’s that damn good. Hell, I looked up the video of the performance just to see how in the zone he was – he was deeply in the zone. How that crowd didn’t just stand up and dance their heart out is beyond me. There is a great shot of a guy doing the Charleston, though. All this praise towards Got My Mojo Working aside, the album ends on a Langston Hughes-written track. Like, Harlem Renaissance poet, black icon Langston Hughes. The story goes that there was a big riot over a lack of tickets, so the city just shut down the whole festival. Apparently, he wrote the track soon after he learned it, and asked Muddy to perform it. The irony is, that’s not even him on the last track – it’s his pianist Otis Spann. When I said Muddy left every ounce of energy on Got My Mojo Working, I meant that shit. It’s Langston Hughes himself who gets the final words on this album, and that piece of history being so well captured here is kind of amazing. So, yeah, this gets a big jump up right to a 5. Muddy Waters is indeed as good live as he is in-studio, and his consistency in quality, even up to the 1970s, when we got his album “Hard Again”, is kind of incredible. It makes me kind of mad that blues musicians like him feel sort of lost to time, understated in the modern music canon. This was a real delight, though.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump back down to a 4, but it was pretty close to going up to a 5, This is my second time hearing anything Wu-Tang related, after Liquid Swords – Ghostface Killah is pretty damn good, man. His verses and storytelling on this album are really good, and the obvious highlight. When he passes it off to the features, they’ve got high bars to reach, and only a handful of them do on this album; all the Wu-Tang members get there pretty easily, and the big surprise, for me, is Ne-Yo absolutely killing it on “Back Like That”. The reason for this getting a 4 is simply in the skits; there’s so many of them that just kill the pacing of the album for me at times. Even a few tracks without the (skit) moniker are sort of just glorified ones, in a way, getting in one short verse. Those tracks sort of ruin the cohesiveness of the album, even if a number of them do flow pretty well into the main tracks. Past that, the production on this album, despite the absolutely loaded contributions from MF DOOM, J. Dilla, Pete Rock, and others, is… a little suspect at times. It feels like some of the flows on some of the tracks didn’t quite mesh well, and the overall vision of the album, sort of driven by the storytelling device of the kilo of cocaine set so early on, feels a bit lost and muddled over the course of the whole thing. It feels like there was meant to be a more cohesive plot here, given the amount of skits and setups for future tracks, but a lot of them feel unanswered and sort of left me… befuddled, I guess. With that said, what’s here is still really good – when this album is rolling, it’s fucking *rolling*, and it succeeds in spite of my perceived flaws and nitpicks. I do think there are ways to improve upon what’s here, namely trimming down some of the “fat” of the album to cut down the runtime, and to more cohesively flow the whole together without the minor comic book, DOOM-esque narrative transitions (which are cool, but just feel a little out of place here with how short they are), but as a whole, this is just a great hour of good beats, good flows, and for 2006, it’s got pretty damn fun wordplay and some great verses. Certainly stands up there with some of its contemporaries for the time. It's a very good 4.5 that just barely doesn't get up to a 5.

Oh, sue me, I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I just really enjoyed that, what can I say? I feel firmly established in saying that synthpop will simply win me over every time if it’s done well, and this is done pretty damn well. Obviously, Karma Chameleon is like, the super duper all-timer hit here, forever established in the 80s musical canon, but like… almost all of the other tracks here are pretty good. There’s not a bad one, just a few that felt either a little long, or a little repetitive, or a little half-baked; a number of tracks lyrically suffer from the “first minute is the whole track” syndrome that really bites at a lot of 80s synthpop. With that said, as long as the instrumentals and the general vocals can overcome that, to evoke some sort of bigger, grandiose feeling that just feels dance-y and fun, it’s enough for me. This album does it in spades; when the lyrics falter, or things get a little stale, a sax solo is always there to save it and bring the mood right back up. Either that, or just some super catchy vocal melody – the layering on the background vocals throughout this album is a real highlight to me. I’d also be entirely remiss to not point out that Boy George sounds strikingly and scarily like George Michael. I now have a lot more appreciation for Culture Club than I had going into this. Karma Chameleon (and by extension, Do You Really Want To Hurt Me) felt like maybe a one or two-hit wonder sort of thing, but what’s here is *good.* It’s a fast 38 minutes, it’s catchy as hell, it’s tightly produced, and looking at the chart data, no wonder the only thing stopping this album from going to #1 was Thriller. That’s just some damn good synthpop to my ears – I can see how it’d be jarring to some people, and maybe if I were in a grumpier mood, the faltering moments would drag this thing down more for me. Right now, though, I don’t really care. I liked it a lot, and it’s very easy for me to bump it up to a 5.

I’m at a very enjoyable 4.5 that I’ll once again drop back down to a 4. I dunno, even though I liked most of this, I just don’t think it quite gets up to a 5 for me. I can’t even really explain why; maybe a few beats fell flat, or sometimes the mixing felt off, but as a whole, I never quite found myself fully in the zone with this album like I have with other rap albums, and even other albums by Wu-Tang members. That’s not to say this is bad; when this album does enter a flow state, it’s a really good flow state, but it only lasts temporarily. There’s great bits of energy, wordplay, vocals and flow all over this album, & as an entire front to back album, it’s a relatively coherent project that breezes by. This didn’t feel like 43 minutes, in a very good way. Method Man’s pretty damn good at this, and the features throughout this album are super fun. I just don’t think that many tracks hit the plateau of “great” – I’m going by feel here, really. There’s definitely standouts, namely “Bring The Pain”, “All I Need”, “Release Yo’ Delf”, & “I Get My Thang In Action”. Those are my top 4 that I’d call “great”, but all 13 tracks here are pretty good. I guess it’s odd to say “it never stays great long enough to get up to a 5”, but I guess that’s where I’m at with it; just the intangibles that didn’t quite click with me the way they could have. It might be a mood thing, and this could probably easily bump itself up at a later point, but for now, I’m fine bumping it down to a 4. Still pretty recommended though; Wu-Tang Clan still ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

That’s a pretty damn good 5. I mean, this album just has charisma in spades, language barrier be damned. It does exactly what it sets out to do – mix Brazilian standards driven by a bit of samba with influences from American pop, R&B, and a bit of Afrobeat in there too. It blends itself together beautifully, on both the slower tracks and the more upbeat ones. I think it might be impossible to listen to this whole album and not get up and move around at least once – whether it’s in the stellar guitar work, the super fun synth and production tricks, the bombastic brass sections, or even just the deeply impressive percussion, there is at least one aspect of this album that’s easy to just vibe to, and that’s not even mentioning his vocal work. I think his vocals really are understated and perhaps underrated here; even though these instrumentals are great, it feels like there’s a distinct reason for this album to not have an instrumental track on it. Jorge Ben Jor’s vocals have a really good range to them, and the vocal tone of the track honestly makes or breaks the energy at times – I think this is best exemplified in “O Filosofo”, which was the only track that didn’t quite click for me, and it’s partially because his vocals don’t feel fully engaged with the song itself. On the flipside of that, when he gets into a deeply gritty tone on the last track, Africa Brasil, it evokes those moments of true zen and passion from a performer that feel rarely captured on albums or even on tape – Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” comes to mind, both in the album cut and that famous GRAMMYs performance. Ultimately, this is just fun. It’s 40 minutes that zoom by, but it kept me really attentive to every little detail – what’s here is so deep and rich in its soundscape that it’s impossible to ignore, and frankly worth analyzing to really distill funk in such a pure form. It’s very rare to get international albums on the list, but they’ve usually been pretty damn good (save for that shit show “Haut de gamme”) – this sits right behind Clube Da Esquina as my second favorite international one we’ve gotten so far. It’s a super easy 5 for me. Hell, just give us another Brazilian album. It can’t hurt at this point.

Kinda wish I could hang this one right at a 4.5; solely because I think this is higher than a 4, I’m gonna begrudgingly bump this up to a 5, even if it’s not quite there for me. I do have a lot of positive things to say about this album though; maybe my expectations were set a little low for a mid-90s Britpop album by a band not named Blur or Oasis, and certainly lowered even more because of Wikipedia labeling this as a partial “hip hop soul” album comparable to Neil Young, but like… damn, I really fucking enjoyed this. I truly don’t know where “hip hop soul” comes from at all when describing this album; if we’re calling the faster paced, almost rap-esque verses on here “hip hop soul”, then you may as well just call Blues Traveler a rap group at that point. This is Britpop through and through, and honestly, a really strong merging of the more distinct aspects of both Blur and Oasis at the time, namely in the more grungy production with the guitar work, reminiscent of Blur’s self-titled, and the slower, more deliberate vocal style of “What’s the Story, Morning Glory?”. Don’t get me wrong, this certainly isn’t big bombastic stadium rock, and there’s no Wonderwall here, but it feels like it could at least play pretty well in an arena. There’s some seriously good tracks here; the big standouts are the singles, all of which have at least a million plays on Spotify apiece, but even the supplementary tracks have a few gems: With No Shoes is a pretty good opener, and “Only Teething” immediately comes to mind (even if the percussion there is pretty much from Freedom! ‘90). Really, the only reason I’m not quite at an actual 5 is because some of the supplementary tracks do fall a little short in the execution or the mix – the last 2 tracks in particular really dampen the momentum of the album. Get on It feels like a Bob Dylan track in the worst way; not that it’s a bad track, but that it clicks on all of the habits from Dylan’s work that sacrifice melodic content for slightly more verbose storytelling and a bit of repetition. However, the instrumental and the extended solo throughout really salvage that track from being too boring. Rob’s Theme, on the other hand, simply plays itself too safe, and doesn’t really lean enough into the buildup and execution of the more psychedelic style attempted in the guitars; the drum pattern in that track just kills the mood for me. It’s a sort of flat instrumental to end the album. But, hey, I said I had a lot of positive things, and those positive things more than outweigh a flat ending – this is just damn good Britpop. It’s energetic, it’s catchy, and it just feels good for 1997. The only thing I can truly knock are the lyrics, for not feeling super coherent or memorable throughout, but when the melodies hit like this, and the overall tracks have such good mixing and instrumentation, it lifts the overall experience in a pretty coherent and fun way. I don’t think this is low enough to call a 4, nor do I think it’s quite at a 5. It really is at a 4.5 for me, but it’s a highly recommended one, so much so that I’ll give it a 5 on the website. If nothing else, listen to One to Another – that shit’s a banger.

I wish I could hang this at a 3.5, but I’ll have to bump it down to a 3. This is a weird album, in that I wasn’t too captivated in a lyrical or vocal sense (save for a few tracks), and it was sort of easy to lose track in the moment, but while I was listening to it, there was usually something oddly engaging in the soundscape and production that kept me hooked and attentive. I can’t really describe that paradox, but somehow that’s where I was with this – zoned out and attentive at the same time. Not necessarily hooked on vocals or lyrics, but hooked on hearing how it would all meld around the production and somehow find a melodic basis to work with. The “problem” with the album then, which I’m sure is rather intentional and purposefully designed, is that it takes a long time to get to that melodic basis on a number of these already long tracks. When a track doesn’t find a melodic basis, it’s just sort of a flop, and this album has enough of those flops to feel disjointed and not as coherent as it could be. That’s not to say there are actively bad tracks (save for the dreadfully minimalistic “Bomb Yourself”, which truly goes nowhere in its 5 and a half minute runtime), but there is a lot of empty space here, and those empty spaces don’t quite do what I think the band wanted, which was a sort of eerie, artsy liminal feel. Instead, it just feels… kinda boring. When it picked up, it hooked me right back into it, but this album doesn’t do a great job of balancing its time between the “empty” and the “full” – if this were a roller coaster, it’d be too many upward hills and not enough drops. However, with that roller coaster analogy, this album does have enough momentum to not feel like a total wash. I think when the soundscapes do get going, and the tempo and energy pick up, the band genuinely sounds good and all that buildup feels worth the release. There are some good tracks here, and ultimately, I did end up liking the album, just not as much as I think I could have. With a little more tweaking, I think this could’ve found a great balance on its execution, but in this state, it just feels a little undercooked. Someone else will get a bit more enjoyment out of this than I will, but for my tastes, it’s at a 3.5 that just doesn’t quite get up to a 4. Hence, the 3, but a 3 that’s worth giving a try at the very least.

Ah, what the hell. I’m at a 4.5 that I'll bump up to a 5. This is my first time hearing The Monkees, outside of “I’m A Believer” – I know about the TV show, but my (admittedly ignorant) reputation of them has always fallen under the same general lens I think most people have about the 1960s in pop music: there’s the Beatles, and then there’s everyone else trying to be the Beatles. It rings especially true for the Monkees; just look at the name, plus it’s a 4-person band that seemingly got thrown together on a whim. You can’t blame me for this. My expectations were middling, and I’m very pleasantly surprised to be wrong – this is a really charming album. You have to be in the sort of mood for overly bubbly 60s pop like this, so I can understand why the average rating on this is lower… but like, come on, you can’t be that goddamn unhappy for an album like this, can you? I thought this was great – it’s not like, Beatles-level great, but who said it had to be? There’s a lot of unfair expectations levied here on account of being “The Monkees” but if you push past that, you end up with a really good album. A decent number of these tracks feel like the natural conclusion of the 30s/40s “Great American Songbook” style, and they’re appropriately produced that way, but it doesn’t mean this album feels horribly out of date for 1967. It’s all intentional, but still brought up to the standards of the 60s, and I think they sound great and feel fun to listen to. It’s very weird to feel the fruits of that era coming to roost after listening to so many of those tracks, but it’s kind of cool at the same time. When this album escapes from that “Great American Songbook” box, and gets into its more experimental & Beatles-y stuff, it’s still just as good, with “Randy Scouse Git” being the prime example here. It’s really different from the rest of the album, but without straying too far, and it’s really memorable because it dares to be different enough, especially for a final track. So, yeah, I’ll give my credit where credit is due to Dolenz, Tork, Nesmith, and Jones – the Monkees may just be a good band after all, or at the very least, their musicianship grew enough to make a genuinely compelling album that feels like it can at least sit at the same lunch table as some of its contemporaries. This sat right behind Sgt. Pepper at #2 for a while, so clearly audiences loved these guys. I thought it was just charming enough to really win me over – the lyricism is good, the vocals are good, the instrumentals are fun and varied, and as a whole, it’s just a really tight 31 minutes that kept me captivated most of the time. I enjoyed it a lot, and it’s worth giving a 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m gonna round up to a 5. The only reason I’m not at a flat 5 is simply because of the shorter tracks here – I get that they’re meant to be solo tracks, made as partial filler and a partial showcase of their individual talents, but they don’t have a really cohesive bend to them that makes the concept work – those tracks are no Speakerboxx / The Love Below, to put it one way. There are great tracks within those solo tracks though – Long Distance Runaround is a treat, and for some reason, Mood for a Day really fucking clicked with me. The rest are just sort of there, though. The main tracks on this album, which I would consider to be Roundabout, South Side of the Sky, & Heart of the Sunrise are all spectacular, and they’re the reason this gets a bump up to a 5. Roundabout is obviously the huge one, and I loved hearing it again, but I genuinely preferred South Side of the Sky more in terms of the storytelling, sound design, and atmosphere. Heart of the Sunrise is the longest one, and the most “epic” but the reprise of “We Have Heaven” closing out the album feels like a really staggering mistake to me. The track listing in general didn’t feel as coherent as the stuff on “The Yes Album”. I guess now’s a good time to point out the near-bookending of all this – we did get their last album on January 5th, and it’s now November 18th. That’s 10 months; I have heard so much fucking music this year, that this didn’t quite blow me away in the same way as The Yes Album did, but that’s less a fault of the album and more a consequence of going through this project, and just hearing so much music. It’s still great prog rock, it’s a great Yes album, and I really hope there’s more – it’s a pretty enjoyable 40 minutes, even with a few flat spots in there. It deserves to be bumped up to a 5, and everyone in the world should hear the main 3 tracks on this album at least once.

Once again, it’s a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I just want one fucking day without feeling a “.5”, you know? This is a very good album; it’s regarded as Neil Young’s best album, and I did enjoy a lot of this. There’s great lyricism, and I deeply dig the country-esque soundscape mixed with rock sensibilities here. I think it’s super well produced, and its storytelling is done really well. There’s not a bad track here, and it’s ultimately a pretty strong 37 minutes, that doesn’t overstay its welcome, though it does start to come a little close. Really, the only complaint I have, and this might just be a general fatigue talking here, but like… this just felt really same-y after a bit, you know? You can only take so many slow paced, guitar driven, rock/country soundscapes contemplating the intricacies of life. This really needed some levity at some point – I’m not punishing the album for taking itself seriously, because I think it carries a lot of emotional weight and heft, and carries it incredibly well for 1972. But, like, goddamn man, just throw at least one fun song in there, would you? All that said, this album clicked super well for me; there’s a few lulls in some extended instrumentals, and an occasional “first minute is the whole track” issue, but I think it more than makes up for it in everything else, especially in the lyrics. I’d recommend it to anyone, unless you’re looking for a more upbeat album. This is not that, even with some great guitar riffs throughout. I enjoyed it, even with the lack of levity, and I think it deserves the bump up to a 5. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go listen to like, MJ or something.

I am strangely at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5. I can’t explain it; I had some serious doubts, because I’ve been pretty mixed on the Pixies in the past, and a solo album from their lead singer led me to one of two conclusions: either a more cleaned up, commercialized sound that would be palatable and distinctly different from the Pixies, or leaning even harder into the more avantgarde and loose parts of their hard rock sound, so much so that it somehow would loop around into art. By some miracle, this album manages to hit on both of those, and it weaves in and out of those paths so often that they end up blending together. I can give an immense amount of praise to most of the instrumentals here; they’re never really stale until maybe 3/4ths of the way through the album, and even then, there’s a very intentional choice to explore different genres in an effort to try and stay fresh. The effort sort of fails, but also sort of works at the same time; I can’t really describe it, if only because there was some general fatigue due to this album’s length that had me start to falter out by the end. I can give some good praise to his vocals too – he really does come across as a strong vocalist on a lot of these tracks, and it’s distinctly different from his Pixies style, which leaned a lot more into a slower, surfer-y vibe. These feel good to listen to throughout. The only thing I can kinda knock are the lyrics, but even with those, I sort of admire how off-the-wall some of the tracks are in their subject matter; spacecraft being sent to Mars, people who made water more available in California, a hard rock ballad about the 3 Stooges… there’s a lot here. It’s sort of Sufjan Stevens-esque in how varied it all is, and I like how big of a swing it takes. The biggest issue is the runtime and the amount of tracks; for as entertaining and as fast of an hour as this is, it could’ve been cut down by a bit – a few too many tracks start to tread on the same tone and subject matter, even with the experimental genre shifts towards the end. Get this down to like, 18 or even 15 of the best tracks, and you’ve got a pure winner here. As it stands, it’s still good, but it overstays its welcome just a little too long. That’s why I’m at a 4.5, but I enjoyed this too much to knock it down; it deserves a 5, and I’m kinda stunned that it does. It’s a fun album.