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Tue Jan 02 2024
One Nation Under A Groove
Funkadelic
Damn, I always the guitar on Funkadelic albums was great because of how much I've heard "Maggot Brain" praised, but actually hearing a whole album's worth of it is... Woo boy!
4
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Wed Jan 03 2024
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen
Y'know, I don't dislike this album, or even Springsteen (I think I like BORN TO RUN more, actually), but, gawd, he really does sound like he's singing in some kind of made-up gibberish language sometimes.
3
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Thu Jan 04 2024
Parklife
Blur
aw man i love gorillaz :) and british people too ig
4
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Fri Jan 05 2024
The Yes Album
Yes
I can't listen to "Your Move" without singing "Semi-Charmed Life" over the end part.
4
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Sun Jan 07 2024
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
I mean, complete bias about this being my favorite Elton John album must be the only reason why I give a pass to "Jamica Jerk-Off".
5
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Mon Jan 08 2024
Raising Hell
Run-D.M.C.
I thought side one was pretty good, but when it comes to me being as interested in side two... Well, let's just say that it's tricky. Well, not as much as rocking a rhyme that's right on time, true, but still.
3
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Tue Jan 09 2024
Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Well, I hope I'm more into any of the other six Neil Young albums that're on this list.
3
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Wed Jan 10 2024
Rock 'N Soul
Solomon Burke
I vibe with it. Eight or so albums in, this one is so far the most "I'd never listened to this one before, but I'll be sure to do so again after today" one I've come across yet.
4
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Thu Jan 11 2024
Apocalypse Dudes
Turbonegro
I enjoyed what I heard during my first listen, but, honestly, I don't really see myself coming back to this beyond one or two tracks.
Still, though: motherfucking pizza.
3
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Fri Jan 12 2024
OK Computer
Radiohead
"OK Computer?" More like... "Pretty Darn Good Computer."
4
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Sat Jan 13 2024
A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
I love me a good rush of side one.
4
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Sun Jan 14 2024
Trans Europe Express
Kraftwerk
I kind of consider this a "chill n' vibe to" album in my head, and under that light... I mean, I have other albums I'd go to before this, but, y'know, still. Ich denke, dieses Album ist gut. Ich nehme an.
3
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Mon Jan 15 2024
Berlin
Lou Reed
I'll just say: if it weren't for those 30 seconds on "The Kids", this 3 would be more of a "leaning towards a 4" than the "straight 3" it is. I get those 30 seconds, I get why they're there, and I can appreciate what Reed was doing there, but they were seriously one of the most unpleasant times I've had with music in recent memory. No thank you, Lou.
3
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Tue Jan 16 2024
Murmur
R.E.M.
Boy, now don't **this** make me kick my own ass for not listening to more R.E.M.? Gawddamn. Document used to be my favorite, but now it's this, and I'm gonna look back at this four I'm giving it and I'm really gonna wish I gave it a five, dang it.
4
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Wed Jan 17 2024
Metal Box
Public Image Ltd.
Of the first fifteen albums I've listened to from this generaor, this is the first one where I've had to spend all day reconciling how I feel about it. It's not like the others, where I give 'em, two, one-and-a-half, or even just one runthrough and I know. This one, though...
I ended up interogating a lot of different topics to try and get to how I felt. "Did I listen to it wrong? Should I have listened to it in bursts and out of order, like how it was originally released?" "Was I just in the right head space, in this weird moment between accidentally falling asleep for an hour, waking up feeling off, and knowing I was gonna go to bed in another two hours? Did I not pay enough attention, even then?" "What about all of the praise critics have given it? Why's there such a divide between the 100% approval rating from them and low 2 from the people here on this website?" "Is it just because I'm not into post-punk?" "What's even the point of lists like this or the Rolling Stone 500? Does rating these albums even matter?" "How does my rating system even work?"
I went on like this until I reached two conclusions: firstly, in general I'm just bad at quantifying my opinion down to a single number. Like, all of those questions, and more I didn't list, were just to figure out if I was gonna give this thing a 2 or a 3. I had no idea which number better represented how I felt. And even if decimals were allowed and I could split the difference at 2.5, would that even still accurately reflect how I feel about it?
Then there's the second point, which is, simply, "What's the point in putting in overthinking your rating so much when by 00:15 the next day you'll be on to the next album?" It doesn't matter, ultimately. Just pick one and move on.
So let's just finally move onto my opinion, huh? Enough blabbering.
On the one hand, I feel like I get METAL BOX, or SECOND EDITION, whatever you wanna call it. I actually kind of click with what it's going for, musically. I mean, for one, the dub bass is fantastic. Absolutely the best part of the album, and all of the praise in the world to Jah Wobble for it. And, I mean, you combine that with the guitar, and... I'unno. It kind of reminds me a pre-evolved Primus? Switch out the dub bass for virtuosic slap funk and have more conventional song structures, and sure. Hell, I even really enjoyed "Socialist", "Careering", and the turn to relaxing synths for the closer "Radio 4". I can find a lot of good moments scattered throughout.
But, note: scattered throughout. There's pieces and songs here and there I like. But on the whole? On the whole, I feel like it's too long. Which, yeah, relates back to the earlier question about if I listened to this wrong: this was supposed to be listened to in bursts, ten minutes at a time. Sitting down with it for the full hour was never how it was intended to be listened to. But even accepting that and disregarding its total length as a criticism, to put it simply, a lot of it just doesn't interest me. Whatever anti-rock experiments they were going for... Just didn't do it for me. I can tell why most folks here checked out after "Albatross".
I mean, of course if I sat with it longer and truly let it sink in I'd maybe grow to like it more. But with only one chance to rate this album before I have another one I hafta spend the day considering... I jus' gotta go with my gut. It's a 2. Part of me doesn't like that, since I feel like experimental in particular gets a bad rap from this website's users, but whatever. "Wha'cha gonna do," eh? All I can hope for is that I like the next album better.
2
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Thu Jan 18 2024
Logical Progression
LTJ Bukem
I put on the first disc.
Nearly fell asleep.
Took notice of the FERRIS BUELLER sample.
Nearly fell asleep again.
The first disc ended.
I'm good.
2
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Fri Jan 19 2024
Vulnicura
Björk
I'm pretty sure I transcended listening to "Stonemilking" for the first time.
4
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Sat Jan 20 2024
The Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest
"Vibes and stuff?" Oh, you better believe it. To reference a song from a different album—I can kick it.
4
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Sun Jan 21 2024
Another Green World
Brian Eno
I'unno if I have any thoughts about the vocal tracks, but the ambient ones? Aw yeah, **that's** the good stuff. Nice to hear what Eno can do outside of "produce U2 albums."
4
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Mon Jan 22 2024
Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
There's other soul I'd reach to first, and maybe I missed out on something by not banging someone else at the same time, but, hey, it's still pretty good tunes.
3
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Tue Jan 23 2024
Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin
Listening to this album today, I spent a bit of time thinking about something I'd read on Wikipedia that Steven Hyden had written about this album. He put forth back in 2018 that there's, quoth, a "reflexive bias against it from both fans and critics," exemplified in two unwritten rules. First, you hafta claim a song from the second side as your favorite—'cuz that's the side has, quoth again, the "deep cuts with credibility"; and second, you can't ever claim that this is your favorite Led Zeppelin album.
Now, I bring this up because when I sat down to write this review a few hours before the website would allow me that I decided would discuss where I fall on these two rules. Y'know, it's a way—a way, certainly—to get my thoughts down and out there. Better than just rambling off the top of my head and expecting gold to fly out, I figure.
Though, what's funny is that the short answer to "where I fall on these rules" is that I actually follow both.
That's particularly funny in the case of the first rule, because side two isn't even my favorite side. Sure, my favorite song on the record is there, "When The Levee Breaks", but otherwise it just doesn't do much for me. I much prefer the first side, since that's where the big hits are, and, well, at heart I'm a sucker for the hits. "Rock And Roll" and the ol' standby "Stairway To Heaven"... That's the good stuff! And the other two are fine as well. I mean, "Black Dog" is a really good opener, with that awesome riff, although I'm sure a lot of my affection for it comes from the fact that Weird Al was allowed to record a chunk of it for one of his parodies. And "The Battle Of Evermore" has guitar parts that I like, though I've never really cared to learn or dive into its high fantasy lyrics; it's kind of the weakest part of side one for me.
When it comes to the second rule, my favorite Zeppelin album varies between II and III, and sometimes HOUSES. On those, I truly love and have affection for every song there. Yes, even "The Crunge"; I love how stupid it is. IV, meanwhile, has songs I really like—I just stated them in the last paragraphs—but more that... Are just fine to me? "Misty Mountain Hop" is good all around; "Four Sticks", even if I don't think it's bad, is the one I always pick whenever I hafta choose a "bad song" to make fun of; and "Going To California" is pretty, though it mostly glides by me until those "AAAHHH"s during the fade-out. It's just not a strong all-the-way-through package for me.
Still a four star album for me, though. Even if my tastes skew slightly off enough that I can't join the endless streak of five-star ratings I've seen... Bah, there's nothing bad or even weak enough to justify me goin' down any further. I still enjoy thing every time I put it. Ol' wedding song does a lot for me, I tell you what.
And speaking of "Stairway", if you ain't heard Frank Zappa's live cover of it, do y'self a favor. The horn section plays Jimmy Page's guitar solo note-for-note, which even got a shout out in the booklet for the MOTHERSHIP compilation. It's neat stuff.
4
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Wed Jan 24 2024
Third
Soft Machine
Looking at from this album from the outside, it didn't look like one I'd enjoy terribly much. To begin with, the thing's a double album. Nearly 80 minutes of music! These days I'm not really that much into albums over an hour unless it's already something I love dearly, so right away this was fighting an uphill battle. And that battle only got steeper once I discovered that the album is only four songs long, one per side. That's four twenty minute songs! An album having one song that long is usually bad enough... And that's not even mentioning that this is a progressive jazz rock album!
In my mind this was really shaping up quickly to be an interminably boring slog, like that drum n' bass compilation my group got a few days ago. Just endless jazz-y canoodling that I wouldn't be able to latch on. "Oh, a higher power have mercy. This is what I get for listening to every album that pops up."
However, once I actually got into it and past the first minute—which really wasn't as bad as the top-rated review warned me it'd be, honestly... It kind of clicked with me? And I very quickly realized why, which ended up being my secret to getting through it: this album sounds a LOT like Frank Zappa's jazz work.
Now, that isn't an original observation; I've seen a ton of other reviews, from here and on AllMusic, that point that out. It keeps getting made, though, because it's just true. It's a lot looser than a lot Zappa's jazz works could be, true, but tonally it's very close. Hell, there's even a part somewhere on one of these songs that sounds a lot like the electric violin used on "Willie The Pimp". (Forgive me for not knowing exactly which one; these are long and dense songs and I'm going off of only one listen.)
With that framework in mind, anyway, my favorite and least favorite tracks don't exactly fall into it, 100%? I've seen a lot of people single out "Moon In June" as their favorite, but on initial listen, I'm not exactly feeling the hype myself. It's the one that sounds the least like Zappa jazz, and at this point that's what I'm listening to this album for. As a result, it ends up being a bit of a disappoint for me.
Meanwhile, my favorite cut, "Out-Blood-Rageous", opens with these electronic tape loops and they're actually really pretty. It sounds nothing like Zappa would compose, albiet in the best way possible. If all that could've been in its own song, absolutely it would've been the one I'd come back to.
And as a brief note before I conclude, part of me hates that I keep bringing up Zappa here instuead of considering the bang's music on its own. Part of me feels like it's disrespectful. But I don't mean it as disrespect, like I've seen at least one person use the compairson. I really like Zappa's jazz work. It's not my favorite section of his discography, but it's still an important one with a lot of great tunes. Anything that sounds like it gets positive points in my book.
Although, with that in mind, I'm not sure if I'll give it another listen. For a one time listen, it was a pleasant surprise, and it was nice music to have on and not fully pay attention to while I played the Nintendo 64 DR. MARIO for the billionth time. The songs are still all twenty minutes, however, and I don't really usually have much room in my regular song rotations for it. So, with all that, it's a three for me, but if I do come back to again I could see it growing into a four over time.
FInally, two spare thoughts that don't have anything to do with anything:
~ For the longest time I'd assumed that Soft Machine was a band that made music like The Flaming Lips did on THE SOFT BULLETIN or YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS. Just sounds like the perfect band name for that?
~ I totally mistook this band's THIRD for Big Star's THIRD.
3
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Thu Jan 25 2024
Stand!
Sly & The Family Stone
Doesn't 100% bring the "wow" out of me, but damn if it ain't some good-ass funk n' soul.
3
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Fri Jan 26 2024
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Y'know, I was gonna start this review with a whole diatriabe on an unavoidable topic when it comes to Led Zeppelin's music: the stealing. The undeniable fact that the band snatched a lot of stuff from other artists, black ones in particular. And I actually did initially write it all down, althoughh once I was done, well... It ran on pretty long, for one. Fourwhole paragraphs of clarifying my poisition on the whole matter. But once I stepped back and saw the breadth of it, I thought: does it even really matter here in 2024?
Like, yes, the fact that they stole so much is bad, but like that's a new concept in blues music. The real problem, I always figured, was the lack of proper credit, and while I think it was pretty damn shitty that it wasn't there to begin with and that they had to be sued into giving a lot of it, most all of it's there now. So, how much does it really matter today if Zeppelin stole a few lyrics and riffs? It's not like anything can be done about what happened nearly 60 years ago. Of course I understandable completely if that's a hurdle you can't get over, but for my own money... Truth is, I've just never been bothered by it enough to not listen to them.
And what a listen this is. While, as I said in my IV review, I ultimately prefer its sequels II and III, this is still a damn fine album. Good-ass proto-metal blues riffs and solos, outstanding drumming, a killer vocal performance... And just some rippin' tunes to bit. "Good TImes Bad Times" is an absolute door kicker of an opener; "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a great bit of hard folk rock (with a part that sounds a lot like the riff from Chicago's "25 Or 6 To 4" in there, actually); "Dazed And Confused" has some all-time licks and violin bow noodling; I actually really like "Your Time Is Gonna Come"; "Black Mountain Side" is a neat instrumental; "Communication Breakdown" is damn proto-punk...
The remaining tracks I don't really care so much for, and for me that's what mainly keeps it back from being on the all killer level of II, III and even HOUSES, but they're still jammin'. There's parts of how Plant sings "You Shook Me" that I'm pretty into.
And just the fact that they recorded this all in 36 hours, too. Not that they're the first, or even last band, even in the heavy metal scene, to knock out an all-time debut in such a short period of time, but that doesn't make it any less impressive.
Overall, yeah, it's a pretty four from me. Frankly, I don't think there's any Led Zeppelin album on this list I'd given less than a four. It just hits that good "dad rock" spot for me, y'know? I mean, maybe if IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR was here... Although, that DOES have "Hot Dog", to... Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I can't ever forget all the stealing they've done, and I don't wanna underplay it (even as much as I kind of worry that "it's 2024" bit might come across that way), but I can acknowledge thing bad and love it just the same, y'know?
Besides, like the stealing is even the WORST thing Led Zeppelin's done, though let's not get into THAT and drag this review out any longer, eh?
4
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Sat Jan 27 2024
Sign 'O' The Times
Prince
The culmination of Prince's 80's work, as far as I'm concerned. And if not that, then an impressive and sprawling sample platter of a lot of what he'd been doing that decade, with some small glimpses into the future. Just one good-ass track after another. Some cuts are a little lesser than the others, true—mostly on side two, honestly—but that's more often than not inevitable on double albums, and there's nothing I don't enjoy here regardless.
The whole second disc especially is just gold. I mean, you got bangers like "U Got The Look"? Fun-ass oddities like "Strange Relationship" and "If I Was Your Girlfriend"? The epic live jam that is "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night"? And such absolutely and amazingly perfect tunes like "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" and "Adore"? Absolutelt superb. Worth the price of admission.
And let's shout out the first side as well: the stark and chilling minimalism of the title track, the absolute joy of "Play In The Sunshine", the absolutely danceable "Housequake", the quiet beauty of "Starfish And Coffee", those... Like, orchestral hits or whatever on "It" that've always sounded to me like that one instrument in TURTLES IN TIME that I've always thought of as a "turtle synth." And the part on "The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker" where he asks to get a fruit cocktail 'cuz he's not really that hungry...
Inititally I wanted this review to have some kind of through line like my past couple have had. Y'know, an essay-like framework I can look at the album through. But, man, y'know, forget all that. This is just a good-ass album; one of many that've firmly wormed their way into my heart and/or soul and have gawddamn EARNED that 5 rating. And I don't need no fancy "creative writing" whatever to know or say that. 'Cuz lemme tell you, when this thing's on, that by itself is enough of a sign that there's a great time bein' had.
5
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Sun Jan 28 2024
Drunk
Thundercat
Damn, the guy who featured on Gorillaz' "Cracker Island" made his own music? And it's **this good**? Well, damn! And if the Genesis Sonic samples ain't the cherry on top.
4
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Mon Jan 29 2024
Wild Gift
X
I really like the rockabilly and early rock n' roll riffs that're on here (which it took me a hot moment to notice for some reason), but otherwise, eh, it's just above-fine to me. The idea of a punk album that covers domesticity and relationship issues is interesting to me, but it turns out it's more in theory than in practice.
3
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Tue Jan 30 2024
Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
PJ Harvey
Because I'd read that this album was inspired by PJ Harvey's affection for New York City, I decided it'd only be fitting that I spend my first listen to the album staring at video of someone driving around Manhatten. And somewhere during that, I just had to imagine the women—of course the badass kind in my mind—who relaxed by driving the long stretches of road under the bridges, just outside the jungle of buildings... It's sunny but coming on sunset, the top's down, and this album playing as the soundtrack... Yeah. It just hits right.
Frankly, if I ended up getting bored at any point during the album, it was only because the footage ended up going into the city itself and, lordy me, you can't go for five seconds without havin' to stop at another light. Goodness me.
4
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Wed Jan 31 2024
Clube Da Esquina
Milton Nascimento
When it comes to a lot of foreign language music, as someone who's only ever known a spare few words and phrases outside of English, it ends up being essentially instrumental music to me. Which isn't to undermine or undervalue the words that're there and what they mean, of course; just because I can't understand them doesn't mean they don't mean something to a lot of people. But even if I do take the time to look up a translation, it's not like I'm gonna remember it every time I listen to a foreign language song, y'know? For me, the vocals, way more often than not, end up becoming just another instrument; another melody line.
And in that light... Gawddamn, these are such great melodies, and the Brazilian Portugese is so pleasing to my ear. As a showcase for what MPB had to offer at the time, this is way more effective for me than, say, LOGICAL PROGESSION was as one for jungle. Like, for one, I'm able to tell songs apart, and that by itself is a huge advantage.
This album's getting a 4 from me, but believe me, I feel it's so far the closest any album I haven't listened to before on this list has come to getting a 5.
4
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Thu Feb 01 2024
Night Life
Ray Price
As I'm writing this review, I'm only about midway through this album. Normally, for albums I haven't heard before I'd wait 'til after my second listen, or even halfway through my second at least, to get a jump on this, but...
See, before I started listening to this album I did what I've done for a whilw now and checked out the already published reviews to find the most negative ones I could. Y'know, I guess I'm just interested in seeing the problems people have with these albums and then finding out if I disagree or not. Most of the ones I come across end up big negative "BAGHLE I DON'T LIKE THIS" dealies, but the one under this album that struck me so much is probably the most fair and balanced I've seen so far. In essence, it puts forth the following, which I hafta cop to: sure, it's good music, but is it important to music history or even notable enough on its own to be on this list of 1,001 albums?
And at where I am in the album... Yeah, it sure is traditional country. Which is fine by me; I like traditional country. I know it's not the most much example, but I've listened to Johnny Cash's debut album a number of times. But—and maybe I'm just missing the larger context, I acknowledge that, but I can't hear what exactly's so special about this. Cub Koda on AllMusic claims this album is a number of things: "the last gasp of true honky tonk, the first stab at mainstreaming it into the Nashville sound of the 1960s, or country music's first country album," and, like, whichever one of those it is... I'm not getting it.
Really, I'm having the same reaction to this that I did to X's WILD GIFT, where I'm not fully understanding why it's in this book. Although, I can at least acknowledge that WILD GIFT was notable to X as an in-between transitional point in their sound. Not to diss country, but what is NIGHT LIFE, this album, that a lot of other successful country albums from around the same time didn't also do?
Now, my rating system is based purely on how much I personally enjoy the album and nothing else. That's why I'm giving it a 3; putting aside all of the gripes regarding its inclusion on this list, again, I like traditional country. As an album to, as Ray suggests, kick off your shoes and relax to, it does the job. Probably even better if I had a beer and a front porch to sit on. But if I was evaluating this album on whether or not it should be in this book; if I agreed or not that it SHOULD be something you listen to before you do... I'd hafta agree with that other review and smack it with a 2. Just how it is.
3
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Fri Feb 02 2024
Pacific Ocean Blue
Dennis Wilson
I didn't know much about Dennis Wilson before today. Especially if you compare it next to how much I knew about, say, Brian Wilson or even stupid Mike Love, it's pretty much nothing. Hell, the only thing I really DID know about Dennis is that he was the only true surfer in The Beach Boys and that, ironically, he'd drown in 1983.
That's always been the framework I've viewed this album through, then: that it was the only solo project he released while he was alive. And going in, I felt that was kind of unfair to Dennis. Like, come on, this album should mean more to me than what its relation to the fact that he passed tragically young. I mean, hell, in my mind it always feels to me like they happened closer together than six years apart like they really did. I should be trying to see what this album provides on its own, seperated from all that.
However, that turned out to be a lot more difficult than I'd thought. There's just so many moments in there that remind me of it. "Moonlight", in how it sounds to me, evokes that kind of "lost someone you love" melancholy, even if the lyrics probably have nothing to do with that. Though, speaking of lyrics, "Thoughts Of You" hit me especially hard with the part that goes "All things that live one day must die, you know." On my first liste that was the only lyric I picked up, and, gawd, I felt like it could have destroyed me if I were in a worse place.
That's not even to mention "Farewell My Friend", which I found out was played at Dennis's funeral.
And I tell you, learning more about Dennis and his life surrounding this album's recording certainly didn't make anything better. Knowing all that context just makes this a very sad album to me. It was never meant to be that, but looking back on it nearly 50 years later and considering all of that context... Hell, even Brian Wilson has said at point that he hasn't listened to it because there's too many sad memories for him relating to it.
But then, that's still one reason why this album touched me so much. As much as I hate to admit it, it's because the album ends up being so sad that pushes it over for me from just being really good late 70's rock n' soul. It can even make me look past that one farty instrument on "Dreamer", though that break it has in there probably could've done it, too.
Don't get me wrong here. If you're a big, BIG fan of The Beach Boys, and post-SMiLE Beach Boys especially, this might not do it for you. Luckily for me, I dig that stuff a lot, even if I don't necessairly think this album comes as close to SMiLE as that comparison implies. I just wish he'd had the chance to do more; see BAMBU through to completion, at least. But for what he's done here, as "End Of Show" fades surrounded by applause, for the people who know, he's really made something that'll last forever.
And besides, it's better to view this album like I just did than through his relation to Charles Mansion. Wouldn't even make sense; Charley there didn't even have anything to do with this album!
5
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Sat Feb 03 2024
Sunday At The Village Vanguard
Bill Evans Trio
I'll admit, there's probably something about the performance I'm missing—a review of the album on this website mentioned how good the interplay is between the three is if you listen hard enough. Of course, like a lot of other albums I've covered, I don't really have the time to listen to it closely enough to hear that? Like I normally notice stuff like that to begin with, anyway. And besides, even the review mentions it's not the reviewer's favorite album by this album, so... For my money, it's good jazz trio jazz (I like that sort of atmosphere), but I think I'll stick more with the A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS soundtrack.
3
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Sun Feb 04 2024
More Specials
The Specials
I'll put it like this: this album reminded me of how much I like ska so much that I spent five hours at my work shift that night listening to ska. Wish I had more words or deeper thoughts, but that's really all I gotta say: I like ska.
4
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Mon Feb 05 2024
Rising Above Bedlam
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
First of all, I'll grant you—I think this is better overall than the last thing I heard Jah Wobble on, METAL BOX. Maybe attribute it to this album's pop sheen, I'unno. Although, with that said, I still find METAL BOX to be, like... More interesting? Now, yeah, the world music stuff is interesting; I'm not gonna deny that. But otherwise, it just kind of washes over me. At least METAL BOX had some parts where I perked up and went "Ah, damn that's cool!" Meanwhile, here, aside from a Sinéad O'Conner feature on the first track, I really didn't get much of anything out of it.
2
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Tue Feb 06 2024
MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana
For some reason this has been the hardest review I've written yet. I just can't seem to find the right words to describe how I feel about this album. So maybe I shouldn't say anything. Just listen to the album, all the way through. Right to the scream at the very end of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", where the whole band drops out like they're shocked to hear it, leaving him to sing the last few words completely unaccompanied. Chills. Every time. And I'll probably look back at what I wrote just now and wished I'd said something else, but, honestly, that moment says more than I ever could.
5
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Wed Feb 07 2024
Trio
Dolly Parton
I don't say this to undermine the contributions of Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, because of course theirs are just as important—but gawd, it's always such a joy to hear Dolly Parton.
4
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Thu Feb 08 2024
Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
All my life I've always been a Beatles fan more than I've been a Stones fan. Blame it on exposure: when I was young I had a full-frontal blast of THE BEATLES: ROCK BAND, which inspired me to collect every one of their stupid albums and buy into the mythology the old guards had given them (which, to some extent, I still believe to this day). Contrast that with the Stones, where at most there was one song in GUITAR HERO III, a Weird Al polka, maybe some needle drops, and the knowledge that Lennon and McCartney wrote "I Wanna Be Your Man" for them. There wasn't really as much there to get me to dig through their stuff.
Even as the years drew on and I became more aware of the praise given to them, a lot of their stuff has remained in a pile that I've come to label "Albums I'll Listen To One Of These Days–Honest!" Hell, it was only a couple of years ago I finally listened to the US versions of AFTERMATH and BETWEEN THE BUTTONS. So here I am, finally, with the first album in their golden period. How does it hold up to me? What have I been missing all of these years?
To begin, let's pull this framework all the way through and get it over with: I prefer what The Beatles were doing in '68, which was their legendary WHITE ALBUM. Now, it's no doubt probably not fair to compare them. I mean, the WHITE ALBUM is an eclectic monstrosity of a double album born out of the turbulence the band was going through at the time. BEGGARS BANQUET, meanwhile, is a single album made under lighter circumstances except for what Brian Jones was going through, and at its core it's a return to the roots rock and blues they were doing earlier in their career.
And don't get me wrong, I get that that's why this is here on this list: the return to roots. Well, the partial return, anyway, because while they were coming out of a heavy dive into psychedelic music on THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST they weren't leaving behind the worldly and more exotic influences. You wouldn't listen to "Sympathy For The Devil" or "Factory Girl" and say they're just roots and blues. Not to mention, I figure it's expanding on how they incorporated those influences into their regular sound that would lead them to later make LET IT BLEED and EXILE ON MAIN ST. and so on.
It's just there here, at its earliest "stripped-down return to roots" form... Even with the external influences, it's still mostly just roots and blues music. Of course it's GOOD roots and blues music; it hasn't gotten all of this praise as the first album in their golden period for nothing after all. But I feel like even if I had listened to this at that young age, in the period of time between "Paint It Black" and THE BEATLES: ROCK BAND... I don't think it would've really swayed me to be a Stones fan more. Maybe another one, but not this one.
To put it another way: I also find that "Hey Jude" kind of upstages this album. Sorry 'bout the birthday, Mick.
3
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Fri Feb 09 2024
Talking Heads 77
Talking Heads
Another one where I don't have too terribly much to say. I think I like a bit more the stuff I've heard on their future albums, but this is still a fun, funky debut. And that's something I don't need to say again.
4
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Sat Feb 10 2024
21
Adele
And here I am kicking myself for taking, like, thirteen years to finally get around to this. Good-ass stuff from the lady who'd go on to sing the "Skyfall" theme.
5
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Sun Feb 11 2024
Maxinquaye
Tricky
I wasn't able to give this album a second listen before I had to rate it like I'd wanted to, but, frankly, I don't think any amount of listens would make this album any less boring to me.
1
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Mon Feb 12 2024
Timeless
Goldie
Between this and the LTJ Burkem compilation I got a few days ago, I've come to the realization that I just don't like jungle or drum n' bass. Sure, I can recognize merits in the genres and figure why people would like them, but for me... Nah. Not me.
I mean, it just says something to me that the only track I really liked and devoted a good portion of my attention to was the third track from the first disc, which was the only one to me that didn't sound like drum n' bass. (It's for that reason, in fact, why I'm not recycling the review I gave for LOGICAL PROGRESSION like I'd honestly planned to. Believe me, though, with that **TWENTY MINUTE** nothing of a title track and opener I very easily could have.)
End of the day, I just hope there aren't too many of these left on the list, if there are even anymore at all.
2
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Tue Feb 13 2024
Ill Communication
Beastie Boys
Of course in any context I'd probably give this album a four. It's the Beastie Boys doin' more of what they do best. Unless you were expecting more samples, I don't know what more you could want. Sure, the runtime could be a problem (peak "CD era" issue), but the way I listen to things it was hardly an issue.
It's just, I feel like I was enjoying it more than I normally would this time because after the last two albums this randomizer gave me were so ass boring it was just a relief to hear the Beasties rap and yell over some good-shit beats. I'll take this over drum n' bass any day.
4
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Wed Feb 14 2024
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
During the day I had to listen to this album, there was only one thing I wanted to figure out about how I felt about it: which side would I enjoy more? The acoustic half, or the electric half that prompted cries of "Judas?"
That question puts aside how I feel about the album as a whole, by the way. To speak on that briefly, generally I think it's pretty good. This isn't my first Bob Dylan album (that would be BLOOD ON THE TRACKS), but it's been so long since I've heard any of his stuff that I might as well treat it as such. Under that light, and given that this record ends up being a transitional period for Dylan, I think it's a good introduction to his two most iconic styles: his acoustic protest songs and his electric folk. Of course, you could debate on how much protest there really IS in this album's acoustic songs, but that's besides the point.
Though that actually does end up tying into which side I enjoyed more. 'Cuz y'gotta understand one thing about me, and that's that I'm ultimately more a fan of melodies than meaning. Not a bad thing, of course; you don't need to be a poetry scholar to enjoy music "correctly"–as if a "correct method" could exist. But you gotta look at how Dylan's lyrics are backed up on both sides.
On the first side, the electric one, Dylan's words are scored by an electric band. As a result, I don't feel like I need to focus AS HARD on them. Naturally, I still do; they're not any less important here just because there's a drum kit. But if I find myself spacing out of the words and focusing on the music, then it's not as much of an issue.
Compare with the second side, where the sole instrument a lot of the time is an acoustic guitar. With such sparse backing, the lyrics are the main focal point. That's all you have to focus on, aside from a harmonica line every now and then. If you're into dissecting all of Dylan's weird metaphors and obscure references, this side's way more of a treat, I imagine. And, yeah, the words are interesting as hell; please continue to not get me wrong here. It's just as a result of the presentation, it's not the first side I would reach for casually.
This might be an esoteric comparison, but I like to think about it like this: Weird Al and the film WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY have both done Bob Dylan parodies. Hell, WALK HARD did two. Between them, I've listened to Weird Al's "Bob" way more than I have WALK HARD's "Royal Jelly". Or, to put it another way: consider me a Judas, too, I guess.
So yeah. Now I've heard this Robert Zimmerman. And although I don't suppose I've taken in enough to fully agree with the hype, taking this as a cross-section... Yeah, I can begin to see it. I just hope I can get a little more out of his earlier, fully acoustic records whenever they show up.
4
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Thu Feb 15 2024
A Northern Soul
The Verve
It's a fine album, I guess. My main issue with it just has to do with the 90's CD-era trend of albums being TOO DAMN LONG. But this isn't a platform for me to rant about that, so I'll just say that I don't think this album needed to do over an hour.
3
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Fri Feb 16 2024
Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney
So that's why it's in Kurt Cobain's top 50. I'll be.
4
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Sat Feb 17 2024
If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
The Mamas & The Papas
It's a pretty fine album overall that's **really** elevated (by a whole star, even) by the presence of "California Dreamin'". Like, imagine how this album would play without it; imagine if Barry McGuire **did** end up recording it—and y'get it, right? I mean, if all the hype sticker covering the toilet had to bring up was their cover of "I Call Your Name"...
4
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Sun Feb 18 2024
You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
Y'know, I can completely hear why someone wouldn't like this album. Hell, in a lot of spots it reminds me of that needless DARK SIDE OF THE MOON REDUX thing Roger Waters did last year. But in a similar case to Dennis Wilson's PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE, when this album's in the context of Cohen's passing just a few weeks after its release... Oof. It's hauntingly melancholic. Not something I'd return to very often, but gawddamn was it powerful during my time with it.
4
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Mon Feb 19 2024
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
I wish I'd caught this album on a better day; one where I wasn't operating on only three hours of sleep and could give fuller attention, 'cuz from what I caught on my two listens it sounds damn good to my ears. It's not the Madchester I expected to hear, but of course it's for the better it doesn't sound like EMF.
4
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Tue Feb 20 2024
In Rainbows
Radiohead
I like to think about this album in essentially the same way Ryan Marr does, as he wrote in his flash essay about the album for The RS 500: "as OK COMPUTER LITE: 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' with all the 'Fitter Happier' bullshit stripped away."
Which, presented in that context, all by itself, sounds like an insult. Certainly it sounded that way to one member of the group I'm a part of. But it's not to say that OK COMPUTER is worse than IN RAINBOWS. Honestly, on whatever level you wanna define "objective" as, I'd say I still think OK COMPUTER is a better album overall. As for which one I'd return to first, though...
OK COMPUTER is great. I just said as much. But it can also be a lot. Y'know, what with it being about the decline of Western civlization and all. IN RAINBOWS, on the other hand, is a lot simpler—and I don't mean that as an insult. It sounds like a much easier record to just throw on and enjoy without having to deal with any pigs in cages on antibiotics. That's true even if I can't really pick any one track as a stand-out like I could with OK COMPUTER ("Paranoid Android" and "No Surprises" for me).
I guess to put it some way to close this out, if I'd been around for this album's original release, I wouldn't've paid nothing. Some pretty fine clothes the emperor's got there, I tell you what.
4
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Wed Feb 21 2024
Synchronicity
The Police
My group's 50th album. I think it's good, but I wish I could've found more things to say about it than "this is the first one to have a song Weird Al parodied," "I think I prefer when The Police have more reggae" and "I get 'Mother', but that doesn't mean I hafta like 'Mother' all too much."
3
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Thu Feb 22 2024
Wild Wood
Paul Weller
Hours before I had to write this, I read another review on this website saying that the instrumentation on this album was very 70's. 70's singer-songwriter, I assume, since they'd also brought up references to Paul Simon and the like. And, yeah, that's exactly why I like this album. The 70's **are** my favorite decade, after all—or so all of the data I've collected over the last five years says. Because of that, anyway, even though I would've preferred something more around 40 minutes, I can absolutely overlook it's 50+ minute runtime.
4
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Fri Feb 23 2024
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Devo
Ah, primordial new wave! Back when it was weird, post punk-y and art rock-y! And much more palatable post-punk, too, than ‘Metal Box’!
I'd probably be more into their other albums (the ones that lean more into synth pop and sound more like Weird Al's pastiche "Dare To Be Stupid"), but I really do appreciate this one for how odd it is without being a mess.
4
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Sat Feb 24 2024
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Simon & Garfunkel
I can really appreciate how much work they put into the instrumentation and production (months worth, even—and it really paid off as far as I'm concerned), but otherwise I think it's just fine. I'm pretty sure I'll be into one of their other releases more.
3
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Sun Feb 25 2024
Central Reservation
Beth Orton
While I was listening to the second track on the album, I came across multiple reviews on this website that mentioned nostalgia. Now, they were probably referring to the nostalgia they felt about when this album first came out, but I still wanted to see if it could evoke that sense in me; someone who only yesterday found out this album existed. So I leaned back as far as I could in my chair, closed my eyes, let me mind wander to earlier times...
And it unlocked the rest of the album for me.
Now, that doesn't let this escape the fact that this album is still too damn long (CD era bloat!), but, y'know, otherwise...
4
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Mon Feb 26 2024
Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Before going into this album, I was only familiar with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion through the song of theirs that was in BABY DRIVER, "Bellbottoms". I've always loved it, largely for its association with the film, but in general I think it's great.
And it did not prepare me for this album.
I can hear some elements here and there, but this is some raw, loud, live show-ass punk blues. On some Jack White shit here. And I love it so much. It's so damn fun. I can understand that its energy might be too much, 'cuz it never tones down the whole album, even on the slower songs; and even if it isn't as long as some other 90's albums I've heard it could **maybe** stand to be a little shorter... Aw, but heck. I don't even care. It's fabulous. It's groovy. It dun' make me wanna dance.
4
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Tue Feb 27 2024
Marquee Moon
Television
Y'know, on the one hand I don't feel like I 100% get what all of the hullabloo is about this album. Maybe I just haven't listened to enough that's been influenced by it; maybe I've heard **too much**... I can't tell.
But of course what I **can** say is that this album is good. Damn good. I wouldn't say it's my favorite 70's rock album, buit it's gotta be way up there. I wasn't able to get in a second listen to "Torn Curtain" before the day ended, but from the little bit I sampled of it while I was writing this... Goodness me. So, like, in one sense at least I get this album's praise.
4
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Wed Feb 28 2024
Devil Without A Cause
Kid Rock
Before my group had ever even gotten this album—hell, from the moment I found out this album was on this list at all, I'd already given it a 1. It was one of only two 1 I knew for a fact I was going to give, along with the Limp Bizkit album that's on here.
And that's unfair, I get that. As I'm writing this, I haven't even heard the album yet. At most, I've heard the inclusion of the album's opener in Weird Al's "Angry White Boy Polka", Cledus T. Judd's parody of "Cowboy" "Plowboy", and the REGRETTING THE PAST video Rocked did on the album as a whole. And of course that last one especially would lead to me having a biased view-point going in. I'm fully aware of all this.
But you gotta realize, even if I wasn't aware of the stuff I just mentioned, everything else Kid Rock's done recently would sure leave me feeling that way as well.
This is the guy who would go on to release "AIN'T NOBODY GONNA TELL ME HOW TO LIVE" or whatever it's called and fully pander to the MAGA audience because those are the only people who sort of like him anymore. You give me an album by him, ANY album by him, and you expect me to go in with an unbiased mind? There's nothing listening to it could do to convince me otherwise; that I shouldn't just rate this album based on what I think of Kid Rock as a person and not what it actually contains. Because I know exactly what it is: it's shit-stupid country rap rock from a rich poser white boy selling a fantasy of being a suburban cowboy to other poser white boys. That's all this is, and the fact that it sold so much frankly kind of offends me. The hell was going on in the 90's that people just lapped this shit up?
Hell, what is it even doing HERE, on THIS LIST? Normally I'm not one to ask why an album's here because I figure it has to be for SOMETHING, but in this case, I can't figure it out beyond MAYBE that it was important to rap rock? But was it really? Why is this something I HAVE to listen to before I die? Unless you wanna say it's because you can't appreciate the good without hearing what trash sounds like. I could possibly make an argument for Limp Bizkit, but not here.
This IS a waste of a spot, completely. You can only imagine what else could have been included if not for this. Hell, I'm just left thinking about all of the albums my group could have gotten instead of this; from the proven timeless classics to shit I just love on a personal level. But no. We gotta waste our time with "FUCK ALL YOU HOES. DETROIT 'TIL I DIE, MOTHERFUCKER."
And it's only because I wanna remain consistent in my intent to listen to every album here that I'm even bothering to taint my Spotify history with this sack of shit. So I hope you're happy, Mr. Rock. You've triggered me, at least.
---------------*****---------------
This part was written after I listened to the album, and... See, hours before I figured I may as well get it over with, I had this joke in mind. Imagine: all that preamble, 500 words worth, of me ranting on and on about Kid Rock and this album and the fact that it's on this list, all written before I even heard a second of the album. Then, when I get to the post-conceptions part of the review, I only have four words: "Well... That fucking sucked."
You see the humor there, right? Oh, it would have been amusing—at least it would've been to me. Because right from the top, I didn't figure I had anything else to say about it. After everything I said beforehand, what else could listening to the album inspire me to say? Honestly, I WAS kind of considering just not listening to the album and posting that anyway.
But I wanted to do my due diligence. I put YouTube in Incognito mode, started up the album, and...
After a while, I got so bored of the album I just started watching Rocked's video on it and didn't even pause it. So it's entirely possible I missed some of the grosser lyrics, and, yeah, no doubt I didn't treat this album fairly. But the big singles and the occasional REALLY bad lyric aside, there's just nothing to it. Like every album that was released in the 90's, it's too damn long. There's so much stuff that could've been left out and no one would've missed it. Though unlike with other records I doubt cutting it down would help much.
I mean, you'd still be left with Kid Rock's posing about being a "pimp cowboy," which only gets more infuriating every time he brings it up. All I can see is his stupid millionaire mansion. Seriously, Snow had more street cred than him—yeah, the guy who recorded "Informer". And at least Vanilla Ice was a goof so it was fun to laugh at his posing. I'm not even sure if Kid Rock's from Detroit!
Lemme put time aside now to mention one thing I liked about this album, before I get into the worst thing. The instrumental for "Wasting Time"? I kinda liked it. Or at least how it sounded coming out of my iPhone's speaker. I thought it was some kinda monk chant that he'd recorded for the album, but I found out later on in the day that, yeah, it's actually a sample of "Second Hand News". I like the version I had in my head better.
Speaking of the sampling, by the way, before my writing this I never 100% vibed with how Rocked talked about it on this album because I always got the feeling he thought sampling was cheap. Y'know, that sampling isn't an art form, as has been demonstrated on albums like PAUL'S BOUTIQUE and FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET. But that's just the thing—it's an art form, but the way Kid Rock uses samples is artless. I believe that's more Rocked's point; that every Kid Rock uses a sample, it's something where he could've recorded something original himself, but didn't because he's lazy and wanted to bank on recognizability.
But let's get to the worst thing. Simply put, the last track on the album, "Black Chick, White Guy", is disgusting. Even if I understand that it's a true story he's rapping about here—supposedly, anyway—never in my life did I want to hear Kid Rock rap about ninth graders having sex. That's not ALL it's about; it goes from there to be about the consequences, but still. You're damn right I don't know the half of it—and I don't WANT to!
So this ending up running on way longer than I thought: over 1,000 words. As I'm writing this, I have no idea if this website will even accept reviews that long; I might end up having to make a Pastebin for it. And of course it's an album as terrible as this that inspires so much writing from me. It's the frustration, and the fact that it's easier to dump about stuff you hate than stuff you love. I mean, I wish I had said nearly as much about MTV UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK or GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD or SIGN "O" THE TIMES" or PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE or 21 instead of wasting my time on Kid Rock.
Lemme, then, just summarize this whole thing the way I should have to begin with: this fucking sucks.
1
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Thu Feb 29 2024
Songs From The Big Chair
Tears For Fears
So, hey, it turns out the songs on here that aren't "Everyone Wants To Rule The World" or "Shout" are pretty dang good, too. And unless something else comes along, this might be the most 80's album I'll hear, so all around it's a real solid package.
4
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Fri Mar 01 2024
Deserter's Songs
Mercury Rev
Going into this album, the most important factor in me loving it is the fact that I also love—and a LOT more, I should add—The Flaming Lips' album THE SOFT BULLETIN. I'll save my exact opinions on it for when that actually shows up, but to put it in short, as a piece of music it's a very good contender for my top 20, if I ever wanted to make one. Anything that sounds like it would naturally appeal heavily to me.
Although, with that said, while there are a rather large number of spots here that remind me of THE SOFT BULLETIN, I don't wanna act like DESERTER'S SONGS isn't its own thing. It's not a dream pop record, for one; and it's not nearly as grand as THE SOFT BULLETIN can be. DESERTER'S SONGS is way more of a rock record, with its saxophone lines and guitar parts. And while DESERTER'S SONGS is more restrained, it's still a very cinematic listen—I mean, they wouldn't master this thing to 35mm film print if it wasn't. Plus it's got a few more musically odd moments than THE SOFT BULLETIN did—just check that untitled instrumental appended to the last track.
But I don't wanna act like my love for THE SOFT BULLETIN isn't a factor here. It absolutely is; I wasn't excited to listen to this thing until I saw that there was a whole section on its Wikipedia page about how they shared the same producer. Not to mention, to quote Wayne Coyne, "I think without DESERTER'S SONGS being so significant, THE SOFT BULLETIN would probably have not been followed too much." In that sense, at least, I owe a lot to DESERTER'S SONGS. Without it, it's likely I wouldn't have "Waitin' For A Superman" or "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate", or even "Fight Test", "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Part 1)" or "Do You Realize??". In that sense, even if I didn't like it, I'd have to give it SOME respect.
And luckily, I do like it, a lot. Not as much as THE SOFT BULLETIN, but it's up there. And me relating it so much in my mind to THE SOFT BULLETIN, by the way, is a HIGH compliment, believe me. I had such a large smile on my face during the first track when I realized how similar they sound. I can't really give anything that evokes that kind of reaction from me anything less than a 5.
5
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Sat Mar 02 2024
Young Americans
David Bowie
Y'know, I think it's fine. Like, I don't think Bowie did soul music badly, but I know there's better out there—better soul music **and** better Bowie.
3
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Sun Mar 03 2024
Younger Than Yesterday
The Byrds
Kinda wish I had more thoughts on this album, but I'unno. The jingle-jangly guitar just really appealed to me. And reminded me a lot of the first song off of The Monkees' HEADQUARTERS, which, hey, that's a good thing.
4
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Mon Mar 04 2024
Come Find Yourself
Fun Lovin' Criminals
Honestly, this album is fun as hell. It reminds me a lot of That Handsome Devil, actually; just less weird and a lot more chill. And with more raps about Gotti.
4
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Tue Mar 05 2024
Juju
Siouxsie And The Banshees
I imagine if I were goth I'd be INCREDIBLY into this. But since I'm only someone who appreciates the style and am not so much a participant, it's some pretty fine juju.
3
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Wed Mar 06 2024
There's A Riot Goin' On
Sly & The Family Stone
Of course I the more idealistic music Sly and company have made, but somehow I dig this stuff a lot more; the stuff inspired by drug use, paranoia, and the death of the 60's idealism that influenced their earlier music. It's some hard-ass funk music about riots that are, unfortunately, still going on.
4
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Thu Mar 07 2024
Black Holes and Revelations
Muse
The most liked review for this album on this website compares it negatively to Coldplay (minus Chris Martin) apeing Radiohead. Well, joke's on them; I happen to **like** Coldplay! And Radiohead, too, of course.
And I mean, like either of them would write that guitar line at the front of "Assassin", anyway. Or, for that matter, monsters of album openers and closers like "Take A Bow" and "Knight Of Cydonia". Or the... **Everything** of "Supermassive Black Hole". Maybe they could've done something like "Starlight" or "Invincible", but I'll take how they sound here.
I mean, frankly, the one positive "they wouldn't write" I'll grant in favor of the other two is that I don't think Radiohead or Coldplay would write "We Are Fucking Fucked", but that's not even on this album. Does really make me appreciate how good the music is here, though, considering all I've heard about Muse's decline after this—and I'm saying that as someone who likes DRONES a lot.
4
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Fri Mar 08 2024
Under Construction
Missy Elliott
This review is a Missy Elliott exclusive.
Y'know, I'd be lying if I said a lot of the thoughts I had while I was listening to this album didn't have anything to do with the top-voted review on this website. Well, "review" in quotes, because it's not really one. It's a track-by-track stream-of-consciousness where they list off every complaint they have, presumably in real time. That sort of method just feels unfair to me. Like, sure, it's not as bad here as the "review" of THE FRAGILE that's over on Pitchfork, but if you're gonna try and formulate and structure your thoughts, then what's the point? What does anyone gain from this?
I don't wanna make this whole review about that one, but lemme at least address the point where I stopped reading: right at the top, where they say "Shut and sing ffs." Before I heard the album, I thought they meant "Stop rapping; I just want to hear you sing." However, it turns out they were referring to a minute-long spoken introduction before the first song. Which I'm fine with, myself. This is a rap album, so they're allowed to have something like that. The words and what they mean matter more in this genre than any other (except maybe folk), and I liked being given some context directly from the artist themself. If this was a rock album, I think I'd have more of a problem with it. I mean, heck, I enjoy that one she has in the middle of the album, with the bit about Prince.
Although, that said, it's not like Missy Elliott is a master lyricist. I don't think she's aiming to be one, but there's a lot of weird lines sometimes. Sometimes they hit, like on "Work It" (buh-dunk-a-dunk-dunk), but then you have that weird bit in "Pussycat" where she asks if she can put her ass on your spaghetti. And it's not like the featured MCs aren't any better a lot of the time, either; you hear that "solid water" bar from JAY-Z on "Back In The Day"? If that don't remind me of Nicki's whole "duct tape" bit on "Only".
Plus, I can imagine how revolutionary Timbaland's production was back in the day, but here in 2024 it can sound pretty damn wacky at times. Of course, when it hits, it hits hard. It's just, when you take it together with some of the aforementioned lyrics... It's got weak spots, to say the least. As a sit-down-and-listen-to-it experience, anyway. I'm sure if you throw these on at a party people would indeed get on the floor.
The album ends with another monologue from Missy (if you don't count the remix of "Work It", anyway), where she says, among other things, that she doesn't give a shit if anyone doesn't like her album. The "review" (and I checked, just to make sure I wasn't putting anything in their mouth) I read shrugs it off with an "OK." I can just hear their eyes rolling. And it's not like I can't see why someone, especially someone who doesn't like hip hop as that person admits, wouldn't dig this. I'm not giving this a 3 for nothing, after all. My problem isn't the negativity in and of itself. It's just that I feel like it doesn't add anything to the conversation. Complaining by itself, without much substance beyond it, is pretty useless.
But then again, despite all I've said, I probably shouldn't care. I mean, if Missy doesn't care what they'd say, even as hard as I know it'd be for me to ignore it, I shouldn't either.rehtie t'ndluohs I ,ti erongi ot em rof eb d'ti wonk I sa drah sa neve ,yas d'yeht tahw erac t'nseod yssiM fi ,naem I
3
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Sat Mar 09 2024
Blue Lines
Massive Attack
This is the second time now my group's gotten an album with Tricky on it—and unlike the time we got a second album with Jah Wobble, I can actually give this one a pretty solid thumbs up.
Like every album I've gotten from this generator, I've only given it two complete listens at most, so I can't tell you exactly what makes this so much better than MAXINQUAYE. At the very least, I can say it's more interesting. The beats and production are interesting, the samples are interesting, the lyrics are interesting—and I'm not just talking about the strings of Beatles lyrics on that one song. It's not the bloated snooze-fest that MAXINQUAYE was. Maybe it's because this doesn't lean into dub as much as that one does, but I'unno.
I was only going to give this album my typical "it's fine" 3, but as I'm writing this I'm listening to the second side of the album and "Hymn Of The Big Wheel" came on, and that alone is enough for me to bump it up another star.
I also wanna say—my group all seem to agree that Massive Attack's later album, MEZZANINE, is better than this one. I haven't heard it aside from from hearing "Teardrop" hear and there, but looking it up on Wikipedia, I can't help but notice a curious lack of Tricky on it. Maybe that's relevant, I'unno.
4
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Sun Mar 10 2024
Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
I feel like I'm giving this album a 4 largely because that's what I gave the last Bob Dylan album my group covered (BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME). I mean, to me there's nothing really better or that much worse than the previous album that would give cause to a different rating. I think I ultimately prefer BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, at least the electric side, for how much more it leans into Americana melodies—I **do** tend more towards melodies than meaning, after all. And believe me, this album has a **lot** of meaning.
It was way more with this album than with the previous one that I got some people's problems with Dylan. I mean, most people, especially those who're recently born, don't go to music to analyze Balzac poetry, I get it. I don't, either, and I had to go to Genius.com to help me parse a lot of it. But if I'm the mood for it, it can be pretty interesting. Heck, I was having a time figuring out what "Ballad Of A Thin Man" meant to me. If I'm not, combined with the instrumentals, it woulda felt like an absolute slog, but thankfully...
And I don't know how to close this review, since I'm kind of just stream-of-consciousness-ing out thoughts I had about this album while I was at work, so, uhm... I guess I liked the "It Takes A Train To Cry" song the best? Ironically the track with the least words. And given my group got BLACK HOLES AND REVELATIONS the other day, that's two non-consecutive albums we've gotten in such a short period of time with ties to the WATCHMEN movie. Weird.
4
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Mon Mar 11 2024
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
Y'know, I think I like this album a better than the previous gothic rock outing my group got, JUJU, because this one's way more New Wave-y. And it's an early example of the sound, too, given that this came out in 1980. If you didn't tell me what year this was released in, I coulda sworn it was later in the decade. And, yeah, it's not enough to raise this album up a star, but,y'know, still. I can dig it.
3
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Tue Mar 12 2024
good kid, m.A.A.d city
Kendrick Lamar
I haven't listened to this as much as I have TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY or even DAMM., but it's what kicked the door open for K.Dot, so...
I wish I had more to say about this album, but I really don't. It's just good-ass raps around a story where a young Kendrick realizes maybe this hood life ain't so good after all. And note: a **YOUNG** Kendrick. To the guy whose response to the Eiffel tower line in "Backseat Freestyle" was "FFS grow up": did you even understand the plot? Seriously.
Anyway, uhm, I'unno. "m.A.A.d city" goes hard as hell and that's the last thing I wanna say. Well, aside fro—YAWK YAWK YAWK YAWK.
4
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Wed Mar 13 2024
Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Before yesterday, Dire Straits was a band I knew for only two songs: "Money For Nothing" and "Walk Of Life", which I'd been exposed to via Weird Al and ROCK BAND respectively. I really love both of those songs (a number of lyrics on the former aside), but I never really felt the need to dive deeper into their catalog beyond that. Sure, I think I listened to BROTHERS IN ARMS once a few years ago, but I know it was only once and I can't recall anything about it.
So here we have the band's first album from a few years earlier, and... It's not really as complex. I mean, of course; there's no organs or synths, and there's no female backing singers and no song runs seven minutes. One runs six, sure, but still. It's just a whole lot rootsier and less pop. And I like it; it's good guitar music without all the extra frills. I mean, you hear all of those riffs Knopfler's playing on "Sultans Of Swing"? Goodness me.
That being said, I did find it a little easy to have my attention swayed from it. Maybe it has more to do with things about me unrelated to the album, but it's still a fact that not a whole lot on the first album 100% pulled me in except for "Sultans Of Swing" and maybe "Wild West End". It's not entirely fair to compare this album to "Money For Nothing" and "Walk Of Life", since that's comparing two days to songs that've been in my life for years, but they got the pop hooks, y'know? And hooks, I gotta admit, are what keep me locked in a lot of the time. Good guitar playing can only do so much before I start to phase out.
I'm happy I've heard this album, of course, and I wouldn't put it past me to give it another listen—and maybe BROTHERS IN ARMS, too—but I'd gone this long without doing it, so...
3
View Album
Thu Mar 14 2024
Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane
Before taking part in this generator, a lot of my experience with 60's music didn't go much outside The Beatles. Sure, I also have had dips into Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and The Monkees and so on, but never a true step into **the** stereotypical sound of the decade—hippie psychedelia. The closest I'd gotten before now was Frank Zappa's satire of the sub-culture on WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY.
So as a first dip into the sound of San Fransico's Haight Street... Hey, I dig it. Outside of "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit", this is pretty much exactly what I'd imagine hippie psychedlia would sound like, and it turns out I like it a lot. The singles, of course, are just the little extra pinch of sugar on the LSD. Y'know, that's already on top of the sugar cube. Or something—I'unno, 60's drugs. Should I even be mentioning that stuff in the presence of "White Rabbit"? Big shout outs to THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS for first tipping me off to that song, by the way. Amazing shit.
4
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Fri Mar 15 2024
Abbey Road
Beatles
I remember this was the first Beatles album I ever got on CD, for my birthday in... I wanna say 2011? And ever since, it's never stopped being my favorite.
It's just non-stop masterpieces, front to back. Yes, even "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"; I **love** all of the Moog shit on it. But especially "Something", "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", "Here Comes The Sun" and the entire medley. I get the arguments for REVOLVER as the more important Beatles album, but on a purely musical level, there's no other album that inspires as much joy in me as this one does. And I'm not even talking about just Beatles albums, or albums on this list. In general, it might be my favorite album ever made of all-time, and I cannot praise its ass enough. It's absolutely the one 6 I know I would give if I could.
Now I jus' gotta hope the album I get after this can carry on this high.
5
View Album
Sat Mar 16 2024
Exodus
Bob Marley & The Wailers
There's so much things I could say about what this album makes me think about, from the fact that Marley was nearly assassinated before a concert against political violence, to my feelings about Marley's popular image is these days... But la-la-la-la, lemme just stick to the review: this is my favorite Wailers album. From all the hits on the back end to stuff I feel isn't paid much attention popularly up front. It's good to chill to, it's good to think about your spirit to... It's both sides of Bob, right here.
And seriously, I'm doin' y'all a favor not writing a whole damn essay about...
4
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Sun Mar 17 2024
Red Dirt Girl
Emmylou Harris
I feel like the top-rated review of this album gave me the wrong impression going in. If you haven't read it—maybe you're sorting by date and not top-rated, I'unno—in short, it's not a review of the album but instead a critique of the 1001 Albums list for including the 29th album by an artist instead of, like, albums from people who're newer and more recent. Like, are the boomers really taking up that much air that a past-their-prime album can get on here instead of, like, I'unno, DEMON DAYS?
That thought really set me up for the worst, and... Honestly, I really liked it. I mean, for one, I like Emmylou's voice a lot. This is the second album my group's gotten from her, after TRIO with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, and her voice reminded me a lot of Dolly's, actually. Which isn't a bad thing by me; I **love** hearing Dolly sing, so this is just a treat.
And beyond that, I just really appreciate that there's more going on here than it just being a country album. With that genre label, I was expecting some shit that's like "Of course the critics would lap this the hell up, but I find it **boring as toast**," though it turns out it's kind of not even accurate. Sure, the country-ness of it is all over the place, especially, I found, in how a lot of the lyrics are structured, but there's so many more influences that've gone into it. Honestly, I'm more wont to use Wikipedia's second genre label for it, "Americana," than country—and even then I don't feel like that really taps into everything Emmylou did here. Y'know? And, I mean, despite what I just said, I actually **like** country, but I'm jus' kinda glad it doesn't sound anything like the other country from around this time that I've heard (via Cledus T. Judd's parodies).
So I dug the album. That's neat. As for whether or not I think this belongs on the 1001 Albums list... No? Maybe? It's not a knock against the album, of course, and I think it **is** worth hearing if you're into country, but... Do I feel like it's omething you **absolutely** need to hear before you die? I'm not 100% sure. It's more worthy than Kid Rock at least, although it's not like **that's** a high bar to clear.
4
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Mon Mar 18 2024
Viva Hate
Morrissey
Y'know, if I'm kinder towards Morrissey than I am Kid Rock, it's not because I actually like the guy. More, it's just about exposure in relation to the quality of their music they've made. Kid Rock makes shitty rap rock that's very easy to dunk on, so of course more people have talked about him and his beliefs. Morrissey, meanwhile, was a member of The Smiths, and a lot of that stuff is generally accepted as "good" and not as fun to dunk on. Hell, the two biggest pieces of criticism of him I've seen are a recent SIMPSONS episode and a JPEGMAFIA song.
And wha'd'y'know, this is pretty good, too. Musically a very chill record that brings to mind the words "atmospheric new wave" in a lot of spots. It's a sound I gel quite a bit. If this is anything like what The Smiths sounded like, then, honestly, it makes me feel a little sorry I haven't checked them out sooner beyond Richard Cheese's cover of "How Soon Is Now?". It's a bit of a wash-over, but like I don't like one of those every once in a while, eh? I was only able to give this thing one listen today, and that's largely why I'm giving it a 3, but I could totally see myself bumping it up to a 4 on repeat.
Honestly, it's kind of a shame that just on principle I'm never gonna listen to this again. Like, if it weren't for the man behind it, I'd probably definietely play it a few more times. But that's what he gets for bein' a piece of shit.
Boy, bet he feels bad now that I've said that. And, hey, I mean, if I want good music from people who hate Maragret Thatcher, I'll stick with Chumbawamba, thank you very much.
3
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Tue Mar 19 2024
The Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks
I'll admit, when I was listening to this album today I wasn't exactly feeling it. Sure, I recognized enough quality in it to give it an "It's fine" 3 at least, but compared to the other British 60's music I like, and even to blur's PARKLIFE, I wasn't exactly all there.
But then I watched Parlogram Auction's video covering this and two other albums by The Kinks, where he pointed out a way it's relevant today: nostalgia. The album was always about nostalgia, of course, but specifically in regards to how people these tends tend to have artificial nostalgia for times they never lived in. After the video I went back and listened to the album's single, "Starstruck", and I started to feel it a lot more.
'Cuz, like, I've always kind of considered myself an older soul despite being in my mid-20's. I choose to blame it on how I spent a lot of time when I was younger and more easily influenced watching, like, James Rolfe and Doug Walker, and I ended up getting turned onto a lot of the nostalgia they expressed in their videos. I think it's largely where my love for physical media comes from, honestly. And as for music, well, I've always been a bit more fascinated by what's come before my birth than after. It might not be reflected stastically, but for as many modern albums as I love, I do tend to return to older stuff more often than not.
Big surprise, when I take the lyrics into consideration I get more out of it; who'd'a thought?
Anyway, it's not enough for me to bump this album up a 4, but it's certainly closer than it was before. Absolutely it's one from this band that should be checked one. And all the shout outs in the world to HOT FUZZ for turning me onto "VIllage Green", too. Love that movie!
3
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Wed Mar 20 2024
Nick Of Time
Bonnie Raitt
The biggest thing I've had on my mind listening to this album has been context and its importance to the listening experience–or lack thereof. I've made it no secret in my past reviews that I find context pretty important: PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE, IF YOU WANT IT DARKER, EXODUS, even DEVIL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Nothing exists in a vacuum; what happens before and after a piece can be just as important as the piece itself. But I suppose the question is "To what point is it really necessary?"
The review of this album on this website that stuck out the most to me has been one that claimed that Pitchfork's retrospective review of the album is 80% relaying the surrounding context. I skimmed the review before I read this, and that does seem to be the case. The reviewer does spend a lot of time going over the personal and professional trouble Raitt was going through beforehand and the success she found with this album afterwards. There's only a paragraph or two in there that actually touches on the music itself.
And, y'know, on the one hand I get: the story is the appeal. Y'know, listening to it and knowing that Raitt was able to pull herself up from such a dark place and produce such a commercially and critically successful album. It won her Album Of The Year for goodness sake. But on the other hand, you wonder: is that it? Is that all this album has going for it: its surrounding story? What does it offer beyond that?
I'll say to begin with that I had no idea who Bonnie Raitt was seeing this album pop up. Which felt weird to me. Sure, I recognized her name, the album title, and even the cover, but I didn't have a clue what it'd sound like. How do I recognize an artist so much and not know how they sound? It took me nigh on five minutes to remember she won the 2023 GRAMMY for Song Of The Year, and in the interim I legit confused this album for the Stevie Nicks one with "Edge Of Seventeen".
Then, when I actually listened to the album... Despite clearly reading on Wikipedia that this is an Americana album, for some reason I kept comparing it to the country albums I've heard? From her debut she was blues and folk, but I kept thinking about, like, the Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton songs I liked, and the more modern songs I was introduced to through Cledus T. Judd. 'Cuz at least in the title track I can hear that style of writing. Musically, **Lord** no. It's not the most 80's thing I've ever heard, but it's up there. I mean, maybe that's why I thought it was country. I guess I expect Americana to be rootsier, like that Emmylou album I heard before. And with way less synthesizers. Certainly I can't hear it as **blues** like Wikipedia also claims it is.
Honestly, listening to this album in 2024, I can't help but wonder why it was such a big hit. What was really so different in 1989 that this hit hard enough to win Album Of The Year? Even removing it from its context, like I often do with Axl Rose's CHINESE DEMOCRACY, doesn't make anything here terribly better. I guess her voice is nice, and I didn't think there was a song on here that was terrible, but... Beh. This is a 3 from me, but a lower end 3. It doesn't spill into the realm of 2's by virtue of not being an ass-boring drum n' bass album, and that's not entirely an impressive feat.
At the end of the day, though, I don't wanna begrudge Bonnie Raitt anything. This album helped her out of a bad place, I'm happy for that. And clearly, this album and the story surrounding it holds a lot for people who resonate with it. Just a shame it doesn't do anything for me.
3
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Thu Mar 21 2024
Safe As Milk
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Ah. Good ol' Captain Beefheart. The absolute mad man who somehow got TROUT MASK REPLICA to exisit.
And this is two albums before that.
Y'know, only knowing Beefheart from TROUT MASK REPLICA, it really surprised me how... Compartively normal this album is. Sure, a bit of that weirdness is still there, particularly in the lyrics, but you compare, say, "Abba Zaba" to "Frownland", it's damn night and day here.
And I actually like this lot.
Like, yeah, this is pretty standard Delta blues compared to what Beefheart would later be known for, but he's got a great voice for it, and, I'unno, I jus' like me some good blues music sometimes. I mean, I only had to listen to this thing one time to understand it, so that's gotta be worth something, eh?
4
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Fri Mar 22 2024
Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
This ended up being a really evocative album for me. Not one I love, no, but one where, with just a guitar and his voice, I can just see the open London highway Bert's rambling down.
And the way I figure it, how much you enjoy this album really plays into how much you buy the vocation. Either you're traveling right along with him down the road... Or you quickly fade back into reality, wherever you are. As for me, I'm firmly more in the camp where I can smell the early morning breeze.
3
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Sat Mar 23 2024
Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
Y'know, don't get me wrong—I love all of the single disc albums in Stevie's golden period. This period isn't so highly regarded for no reason. But... I'unno. As much as I like them, at a point the start to mesh together a little outside of the REALLY big songs. Like, TALKING BOOK is amazing, and I've actually heard it more than INNERVISIONS, but there are songs where I can't really remember how they go.
Not with INNERVISIONS, though. Each song, they're all distinct from one another; I can remember exactly how they all go. Even the two songs I find the weakest, "All In Love Is Fair" and "Jesus Children Of America", they stick out so well in my mind.
And, I mean, look, this album's got "Higher Ground" **and** "Living For The City". Even if this album was a 1, the presence of those two alone would raise this thing to, like, a 3 at least; they're just that good. Of course that's not to underplay the other songs; "Golden Lady" and "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" both come to mind immediately. It's just, those are such masterpieces on a masterpiece in a catlog of masterpieces.
Absolutely incredible, all around. Another one I could give a 6 if I could for how much it's entrenched in my soul.
5
View Album
Sun Mar 24 2024
So Much For The City
The Thrills
Listening to this album, in a lot of spots I was reminded of Owl City. And The Beach Boys. And Barenaked Ladies. And Ben Folds. And The Flaming Lips. And "You're So True" from SHREK 2. And, like, in another person's eyes that'd be harsh criticism, but me, I'm just like, "Heck, I like all those bands; I'm down for this 100%."
4
View Album
Mon Mar 25 2024
Risque
CHIC
Y'know, I'm sure if I heard this album in a 70's dance club—and I mean a legit dance club, too; not something that was built into a strip mall—this woulda gone off for me so much more than it did.
3
View Album
Tue Mar 26 2024
The College Dropout
Kanye West
(Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that neither this review or how I rate this album in any way endorses a belief in Kanye West. Additionally, I listened to this album using files I'd downloaded years ago; no streaming revenue went towards West.)
I don't think I'll dread writing any review more than I did this one. Even the other two Kanye albums on this list won't be as bad as this, because it's with this I have to grapple with how I'm even going to talk about or rate his music in the first place. I mean, for all intents and purposes, I should just give this a 1 and move on. A 0, if I could. I shouldn't even have listened to the album. As of late, he's done nothing to deserve praise or fair analysis for anything he's done or will do. No matter how many "bagners" he has, at the end of the day he's a raging, far-right anti-semite, and I know it's not just me, but I find it hard to enjoy music from someone like that.
I mean, he's not like Morrissey, where I'm VERY aware of his views, but because I haven't had much experience with them I'm more able to fairly judge his work. It's been way more... Y'know, Kid Rock. Kanye's decline has been in my face for the longest time now, and I've made efforts not to listen to him since at least 2019 and JESUS IS KING. Once he started pushing that "prosperity gospel" nonsense, even before he started praising Hitler, it was all over for me. Aside from some degrees-of-separation stuff like toasty digital and a Weezer mashup album, that, frankly, I should cut out as well, I just couldn't put up with him anymore.
So, imagine my surprise when I come out of this, his debut, and the main feeling I have is... Sadness. Maybe a little mournful, even, for what we've lost. I mean, hearing "Jesus Walks" again, all I can think of is how he later betrayed the song's message (that Jesus walks with the downtrodden; not the rich who'd set up shops in the temples if they could) with JESUS IS KING. With "Through The Wire", I just think about how he'd later reframe one of the most important moments in his life, the car crash that resulted in his jaw getting wired shut, to be some petulant "divorced dad" shit about Pete Davidson. And listening to the extended outro of "Last Call", where Kanye explains how he even got to make this album... Gawd, it just felt tragic, knowing where he'd end up.
And where he'd end up is VULTURES 1. I refuse to hear it, just on principle, but even the little I've heard about lets me know I'd hate it. Just knowing that on "Carnival"—which was a **NUMBER ONE HIT**, for some reason—that for shock value he compares himself to Bill Cosby, R. Kelly and Chris Brown...
I'm tired. Writing this review has stressed me and made me feel not great and I'm tired.
I'm giving this album a 3 only because in the brief moments I could look past what I felt about him as a person, it's fine. Good, but not mind blowing. I mean, I'll admit openly, there's parts I like. Even as much as new context has tainted "Jesus Walks", it's still amazing. The outro to "Family Business" is prtty damn good as well. Plus, jus', in general the beatwork is immaculate. But from what I caught of the verses... Big "Eh," y'know? And, like, did it **need** to be 76 minutes long? This isn't as bad as premo 90's CD bloat, but still. Some of this possibly could have been trimmed. He'll make better stuff later on that more justifies its length—in the brief period of time when he still made good stuff, anyway.
And I hope it's a long time 'fore I ever hear him again.
Fuck you, Kanye, for making me do this shit.
3
View Album
Wed Mar 27 2024
Picture Book
Simply Red
I enjoy this album in a lot of spots, but, honestly, I feel like I'd enjoy this band more as a subject on One Hit Wonderland, y'know?
3
View Album
Thu Mar 28 2024
Hunky Dory
David Bowie
Y'know, I wanna try something different here. I'm gonna comment on each song on the album. And this decision, by the way, has nothing really to do with the album itself; I just feel like it, mostly. So, to get down to it:
"Changes": The song from the album I recognize the best thanks to the cover in SHREK 2 that Bowie features on. And in fact, I like that cover a bit better? A lot better, actually. I credit it mostly to how much older Bowie sounds there. I mean, of course after 30 years he would sound older, but seriously. Maybe it's the nostalgia talking, too, I'll fully admit that, but I really think I'm being genuine here. Even with that, that's not to knock the original here.
"Oh! You Pretty Things": During all of the listening I did today, this is the one I came back to the most. I kept getting the title line stuck in my head. Although, of the album's first three main songs, I think I'd put it third of three. I mean, come on, it's just hard to compare when you're standing next to two giants.
"Eight Line Poem": Oh, yeah, this. This is one of those "flow over" tracks I have, where I'm pretty likely to zone out during it when I'm doing full album listens. It can be a nice listen; I just don't think it's really worth listening to outside of the full album context or as a coda to "Oh! You Pretty Things".
"Life On Mars?": Best song on the album, full stop. I remember the first couple of times I heard it. I probably had the wrong expectations because I kept hearing it described as a parody of "My Way", and I was disappointed when it didn't really sound anything like it, even in a broad "pastiche" sense. I've since gotten over that, and it's just **so good**. I've naturally memorized more lyrics from it outside of its chorus than I thought I would, which means a lot, believe. And for the record: yes, I **do** believe there's life on Mars—in the metaphorical sense this song means it in, anyway.
"Kooks": It surprised me to read reviews here and keep seeing people say "Oh, I don't hate 'Kooks'; it's not **that bad**." Like, I'm not sure what I'd consider the "worst song" on the album, but I never thought it'd be this one. I've always liked it, at least because it's fun to sing with the "hung up on romancin'" line. Like, I'unno. It's just a nice, cute song. And a nice little break before what comes directly next, too.
"Quicksand": OK, I know I just said I don't know what I'd call the worst song on the album, but if I were hard pressed... I mean, I don't even wanna say this one, 'cuz I know I'd just be saying it only because I find it the hardest song on the album to understand. Taking a guess, I thought it was about that feeling you get when you're lacking inspiration, but it might actually be about not knowing what happens after you die? Something about the "great beyond?" I really don't know, and I'm not terribly equipped to analyze poetic lyrics like this. I like the "Don't believe in yourself" refrain, anyway.
"Fill Your Heart": If there's anything I wanna comment on here, it's the same thing Abigail Devoe pointed out when she talked about this song: how Bowie jumps into his falsetto during that last "free-EEEEE." Such a joy.
"Andy Warhol": Most of the time I think about this song, it's about how Metallica later quoted it during "Master Of Puppets". And about how I can't **really** hear it? I'm sure it is, but sometimes I'm bad at picking up melodic references like that. Also just the fact that, eh, I'unno. It's fine. I like the "Andy walking, Andy tired" bit, but otherwise... Oh, and of course the chorus, too. I love me my chourses. At any rate, if I were Andy Warhol, I'd like it more than he actually didn't.
"Song For Bob Dylan": One time I read on Wikipedia that this was considered the weakest song on the album, and that's how I've always thought of it. Is it really? Probably not, but of every song on this side of the record, I think I'd think about it the least. Even though I did reference/quote the opening lyrics back when I talked about HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED. I mean, you name me another song about Bob Dylan to quote, huh?
"Queen Bitch": The best song on side two, hands down. "Bippity-boppity hat," I love it. One time while I was listening to this song, I imagined myself back in mid-1970's New York, dancing in a silk dress around some kind of Bohemian apartment with a glass of wine in hand. I was actually in my family's townhouse wearing a housecoat and holding a cup of water with red Kool-Aid flavoring that'd been squirted in, but, y'know, still. The spirit was there. Real lucky, that Lou Reed, to get this song made about him.
"The Bewlay Brothers": The song that actually has the densest lyrics on the album, but I don't mind it as much as "Quicksand" because even Bowie himself said before recording a take not to pay attention to the lyrics. And most of the time, honestly, I don't. Before now, it's been another "flow over" track for me, where I zone out right before the final bit snaps me back in. Just like on "Eight Line Poem", I mostly blame it on the instrumental not being as attention grabbing as some of the other songs. But... Y'know, when I was relistening to this album at, like, 5AM, and I was staring into some of the dark corners of my family's townhouse... With this song filling my ears at the same time, it was actually a little unsettling, imagining what could be hiding in there. Jeez.
Overall, let me say first I haven't sampled the entire Bowie ouvre. Heck, I only heard YOUNG AMERICANS just this month thanks to the generator. But I'm fairly certain that once I do, this'll still remain probably my favorite Bowie album. This or ZIGGY STARDUST. It dips a little for me on side two, but come on, it's got "Life On Mars?". Like INNERVISIONS having "Living For The City", that's worth enough points by itself.
4
View Album
Fri Mar 29 2024
System Of A Down
System Of A Down
Listening to this album really makes it hard to believe that it's the only System Of A Down album here. Like, no way this is the only notable thing they've ever done. You listen to Serj's vocals and how weird their instrumentals can get in places and tell me TOXICITY doesn't also deserve to be here at least. Come on, book. They've made some fun-ass angry music, and they deserve to get a double instead of a single.
4
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Sat Mar 30 2024
The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
Do I like this album? Yeah, a fair bit. I don't think I like it as much as the last indie rock album my group got, SO MUCH FOR THE CITY by The Thrills; and I don't think enough to give it a 4, but I can hear why so many people were goin' nuts for it back in 2010.
Do I think it's the best album of 2010, though? I mean, I think I've listened to PLASTIC BEACH a bit too much to agree.
3
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Sun Mar 31 2024
Take Me Apart
Kelela
It's albums like these I'm glad I make an effort to listen to every album twice—or one-and-a-half times, at least. Because on a first go around, I was gonna give this a 3 that was leaning more towards a 2. Y'know, I didn't really understand it, but I didn't here anything I obviously disliked: it's fine.
It was only within the last four tracks that this album finally clicked for me, and relistening to the first half of the album with those in mind (plus the knowledge that this is a concept album about relationships), I enjoyed it a whole lot more. Between Kelela's vocals and the R&B futurism beats... It's a lot of neat stuff. I'm still not giving this more than a 3 'cuz it's nothing I'd really return to beyond the day it was generated for me, but I had a good time with it while it lasted. Y'know, it's a 3 closer to a 4.
(Also, another thing helped me understand this album, honestly: fanmade Epic Rap Battles. Jus', keeping those beats and flows in mind really did help me, honest to goodness.)
3
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Mon Apr 01 2024
Moon Safari
Air
I've been tryna think of some kind of big through-line; some essay-style framework to write this review around, but nah, man. This is just some good-ass chill music. **Really** good-ass chill music. Like, within the first 30 seconds, I dug it so hard. Absolutely something I'm gonna put on in the future to kick back to. Hell, if my sleep schedule still meant I'd get up in the morning, I'd put it alongside FRIENDS by The Beach Boys and MOTHER EARTH'S PLANTASIA as a great "wake up, start the day" album. I mean, I don't even know what to say about the album specifically; it's just vibes too hard for that, and I'm all for it. And big shout-out, too, for the fact that The Moog Cookbook, a group I **really** like, remixed one of the songs on here. That's a damn cherry on top, and I don't even like cherries.
5
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Tue Apr 02 2024
Surfer Rosa
Pixies
I wanted to write a longer review or whatever for this album, but some stuff happened in real life just before I got down to it that's stressing me the hell out as I write this, so I'm gonna make this a little briefer than I was planning.
This is a fun album. I mean, **I** certainly enjoyed it. I can't hear **exactly** how it influenced Nirvana's NEVERMIND, but like I wouldn't take Kurdt at his word about it. It's clearly not for everyone—see the fact that the top-rated review of the album on this website, which gives it a 1, calls the it "just noise"—but if you click with it, it's a pretty enjoyable listen. And, hey, I'm just happy the superhero Tony finally got his own song.
4
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Wed Apr 03 2024
Dub Housing
Pere Ubu
I'll put it like this: the band was described itself as "avant-garage," and I dig the "garage" half more than I do the "avant-" half.
3
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Thu Apr 04 2024
Everything Must Go
Manic Street Preachers
The top-rated review of this album complains about the abundance of Britpop on this list—"shitty Britpop," as they put it—and, I mean... I'unno. I'm OK with it. More than OK with it, really. Turns out I'm real down for Britpop, even outside of the big two of blur and Oasis.
I'd put this below blur, though. Just considering the albums my group has gotten, anyway. But I'd still put it above The Verve, so...
4
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Fri Apr 05 2024
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Pavement
Y'know, I've seen some talk this is the best album of the 90's, from the best band on the 90's. Like, that's a damn claim coming from the same decade that gave us Nirvana's NEVERMIND, Oasis's WHAT'S THE STORY (MORNING GLORY?), Radiohead's OK COMPUTER, Weird Al's BAD HAIR DAY and so many more. What makes this road material so great? And I didn't go into this album with the predisposed derision that question would imply, but it was still on my mind. What **did** make so many critics claim this thing's greatness?
I can't claim a defnitive answer. Frankly, no one can, but that's besides the point. All I can speak on is the moment I got the closest glimpse to what they were talking about—without reading what they actually said, anyway. I was listening to "Range Life" for the third time 'cuz I kept missing the verse where the band disses The Smashing Pumpkins, and during an instrumentral break, I closed my eyes and asked myself: "What decade does this come from?" Does this **actually** sound like a 90's album? Or is it more 70's? 60's? 2000's? I couldn't exactly pin down what decade it sounded like. Stark constrast to a lot of the other albums I've heard so far, even the ones I love more, with all my soul. INNERVISIONS and ABBEY ROAD are masterpieces of their time, but in a lot of spots they kinda sound like their time. Not in a bad way, of course; but there's just moments where I can point to and be like "That's the 60's/70's." Meanwhile, y'look at "Range Life", and the mentions of The Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots aside, I'd be hard pressed.
I didn't relisten to any of the rest of the album after that, so I can't say how much the rest of it holds up to that, but at least from what I remember about side two (that's the one I listened to twice)... "Fillmore Jive" especially, I tell you. Wuuf.
So, do I agree with the critics? No, I don't think so. But can I at least understand where they're coming from? Eh, enough, I'd say.
4
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Sat Apr 06 2024
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
I've yet to sample the entire RHCP ouvere, but for the time being, hot damn, this is my favorite album of theirs. Even when I do get around to sampling the rest of them, I doubt any of them will have just that right mix for me of their typical funk jams, alt rock doodlings and Kledis's weird-ass lyrics about sex, California or both. And they **are** weird lyrics, believe you me—let's not even touch those lines at the front of "Purple Stain".
Big ol' bonus for me, too, that I can't hear any of the loudness war stuff I hear people talk about, so I don't got any points for that. I'm still docking for it's **length** of course, and that's the closest reason I can articulate why this is a 4 instead of a 5 (and even then that's not really an issue for me here), but at least I've never heard what clipping sounds like.
Oh, and those lines at the top of "Purple Stain". Those dock points, too.
4
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Sun Apr 07 2024
Legalize It
Peter Tosh
Well, it's 70's reggae by a Wailers-adjacent. You can't really go wrong with that stuff. Like, besides relaying my own relationship to legalized weed—that my mom smokes it for medicinal reasons and I think it smells kind of bad—I really can't think of much else to say. Granted, sure, it doesn't have that same spark for me that full-on Bob Marley material has—which is maybe why I liked the song he had a writing credit on the best—but don't take that to minimize Peter Tosh, no. He was a member of The Wailers, too, after all. But then, he doesn't get his name tossed up front, so... I'unno.
Reggae is good reggae is the point. Unless it's cod. And even then I have my soft spots for "Jamaica Jerk-Off" and, damn, "Rude" of all things.
3
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Mon Apr 08 2024
Music From Big Pink
The Band
Y'know, I'm just not sure if I really get what makes this one of the top 100 albums of all time accoridng to Rolling Stone (as in, it's 100 exactly as of 2020). Like, I can guess at elements—the harmonies, the communial songwriting, how it sounds like it actually sounds like guys playing in a basement... And just the fact that they were able to step out of Bob Dylan's shadow the way they did. I mean, I think of these guys, I hardly ever think that they were Dylan's backing band. Even on this album, where I'm actively aware Dylan wrote two songs.
It's just, I'm not seeing the sauce. Worth a listen, sure, but I'm not sure why music from the Big Pink is good compared to music from anywhere else.
Also, for some reason it really made me wanna listen to "The Chain"? I have no idea.
3
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Tue Apr 09 2024
S&M
Metallica
I don't have much to say; I'm just an absolute sucker for when symphonies get added to songs that Ilike that originally didn't have them, and S&M is one of my absolute favorites. Sure, it runs a little long... A **lot** long, yeah, but I really don't care, honestly.
Not when it has "No Leaf Clover" and among my favorite versions of "Master Of Puppets", "Fuel", "Hero Of The Day", and especially "One". The way James screams "NO" before the final guitar solo is just too perfect.
It's stuff like that, and the transition from "The Thing That Should Not Be" to "fuel", that makes this one of those "deep in my soul" 5's for me.
Plus, it's nice to give a metal album a 5 to balance out the 1 I gave to Kid gawddamn Rock.
5
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Wed Apr 10 2024
Actually
Pet Shop Boys
Gawd, the keys and synths on this thing, man. The KEYS AND SYNTHS. That was my favorite part of this whole album, with a doubt. In fact, honestly, I kinda feel like this album could've been an instrumental and I would've enjoyed it just as much. I mean, certainly, whatever barbs it has against Thatcherism don't apply to me here and now, not being in the 1980's or the UK. But, jus', play me "Hit Music" or "It's A Sin" and I'm down **good**.
If I gotta pick any one reason why I'm giving this thing a 4 and not a 5, I'll say it's "I Want To Wake Up". More like, "I Want To Fall Asleep. 'Cuz It's Kind Of Boring Compared To Everything Else On Here". Yeah, take **that**.
4
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Thu Apr 11 2024
Cloud Nine
The Temptations
CLOUD NINE is an album carried **heavily** by two songs: the title track and "Runaway Child, Running Away". The rest of the album, meanwhile...
I mean, to tackle those first, the songs from the fourth onward are just fine Temptations fare. Good, but nothing spectacular. Kind of underwhelming, honestly, in the face of its stand-outs. And, boy, that "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" cover sure does exist, dunnit?
But "Cloud Nine" is a great piece of Sly inspired music, and "Runaway Child, Running Away" is a damn sprawling epic work of psychdelic soul that helped pave the way for their daminger sprawlinger epicer "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone". It's a trip and a half, I tell you what. The album's absolutely worth hearing alone jusr for those two.
And, y'know, based on those songs merits I wanted to say that elevated this album as a whole to a 4. But, like everything else that aren't those songs are so "it's fine" that I'm really feeling it's more a 3. This isn't an INNERVISIONS and "Living In The City" or HUNKY DORY and "Life On Mars?" case here, y'know?
So anyway, that was my group's 100th album. A bit of a squib for the only 100th album we're ever gonna get, but there's always hope our next milestones are better bangs.
3
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Fri Apr 12 2024
Illmatic
Nas
Writing a review for an album like this is hard for someone like me. Because, sure, I enjoyed the beats and the samples that made them up, and I really dug the flows. Me tending so naturally towards melody, of course I do.
But ILLMATIC is an album that's all about its lyrics; complexly-formed street poetry about inner-city life in Queens, New York. And it's just, unless I force myself to spend a whole day listening to nothing but this album and focusing on the lyrics, I can't grasp them. Sure, I can appreciate how the lines their constructed and all their internal rhymes, but I don't think I've absorbed enough of the actual meanings to really be able to comment on them. And with albums like this, I feel like if I'm not able to comment on the meanings, then why bother?
Not that they'd mean much to me personally—me, a Canadian living in 2024. At the very least, do I think the lyrics expressed his stories well? With how well each line is made, it's hard to say they don't.
I mean, I'unno. If I can appreciate MF DOOM's technicality without really understanding a lot of what he means, I can like this album, too. Besides, my favorite Nas song is "Hip Hop Is Dead", so how much is my opinion worth, really?
4
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Sat Apr 13 2024
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Charles Mingus
Seeing this album labelled as avant-garde jazz on Wikipedia made me expect worse. I mean, I see that descriptor and I'm expecting... Like, noise, honestly. Atonal and with everyone playing in a different weird time signature, but I'm supposed to appreciate it because, I'unno, it's hard to play a trumpet in 30/31.
However, it turns out I really can't hear what's so avant-garde about it. At most it sounds like the jazz Frank Zappa would have The Mothers play—and that's a big compliment in my book. The same one I gave THIRD by Soft Machine, actually. (Though give this album the benefit, only one song approaches 20 minutes, and even then it's because it's comprised of three smaller movements).
I'unno, I just really dug it. It's one I'd throw on whenever I'm in the mood for something like it, sure. Sometimes I need a little THE GRAND WAZOO, y'know? And this isn't even the album by this guy that got on the Rolling Stone 500? Gosh, you can only imagine how good **that one** is.
4
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Sun Apr 14 2024
Coles Corner
Richard Hawley
I'unno. I get what it's doing—some kinda Roy Orbison-style nostalgia throwback—and normally I'd eat that sort of thing up, but for whatever reason it just didn't click with me the day I had it. Maybe I just didn't catch it at the right time, maybe blame it on the fact that I was too lazy to move from the room where my mom was blasting "It's Gonna Be Me"... For what it's doing, it's very good, but just for my own personal enjoyment, I'm givin' it a 3 right now.
And the building on the cover isn't even Coles Corner. I'd remove a star for that alone~!
3
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Mon Apr 15 2024
Ambient 1/Music For Airports
Brian Eno
Before I listened to this album, I told my group that I wasn't gonna be listening to this album. Which is to say, I wasn't going to afford it the same level of attention I've given every other album on this list. It's ambient music, after all; it's not meant to be listened to in the same way you would other genres. And that's not a knock against the stuff, of course. That's just, bluntly, how it is by design.
And I understand, for that reason, the frustration some have about the inclusion of an album like this on a list like this. Ambient music, to most ears, is essentially wallpaper. You put that next to ABBEY ROAD and THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON and TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY, and how does it even stack up? How does it even compare?
For me, yeah, I kept my word. I didn't really listen to the album; it just kind of floated in and out of my attention as I did other things. But whenever I did catch it... Damn, it's some transcendental shit. Just, these vast, open, beautiful soundscapes. Heaven stretches before your ears. There's not much there melodically, true.
If you're looking for it, I get the disappointment. But just for how it evokes for me a sense of safety and calm... Damn. A++ tape loops.
5
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Tue Apr 16 2024
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West
(NOTE: I did not stream this album. I listened to it via a CD I've owned for around a decade now. No money was given to Kanye West in the making of this review. Thank you.)
Every now and then I think back to the review I wrote for THE COLLEGE DROPOUT and wince a little. Y'know, as much as I stand by a lot of what I said, there I hafta wonder, "Did I spend too much time calling out Kanye?" Like, "We get it. He's big divorced dad energy and loves Nazis. Do you **need** to keep saying you don't like him and 'Fuck him' and all that? You've talked about how much you don't like him as a person more than you have the damn music. You already gave an 'I don't condone him' disclaimer. What moral brownie points are you aiming for here, exactly?"
On the one hand, I blame this on that album being my first Kanye review. I felt like I had to take the time to air out my opinions on the man. With how much he ends up talking about himself on these albums, it's not exactly an unimportant piece of context. Plus, it's better to get it all out in one burst at the start than to keep repeating myself over the course of the next two–even if I doubt most people outside of my group are gonna read my reviews, let alone in order.
But on the other hand–and this is the bigger hand, I figure–I don't have much of an attachment to THE COLLEGE DROUPOUT. Preparing for that review was probably only the second time I've heard it in full over the course of a decade. Of course, then, it was really easy for me to get distracted from talking about the music to going on about something where I had more to say. Don't get me wrong, I recognize THE COLLEGE DROPOUT for its beatwork and "Jesus Walks" (even if Kanye's gone on to betray its message). But I just don't have that link that inspires me to write much about it.
Unlike this album.
MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY is home to my favorite song Kanye ever made, "Runaway". I love the extended "single note" piano intro. I love the beat it turns into. I love singing along to it. I even love the "I sent this bitch a picture of my dick" line for how memorably bad it is.
And every other song on the album has its great share of beats, moments and memorable lines, too. "CAN WE GET MUCH HIGHER?" "Choke a SOUTH PARK writer with a fish stick." The whole ending to "POWER". Elton John's piano playing. "MJ GONE–A [n] DEAD." Nicki's verse on "Monster". "That'll be the same day MTV plays videos. That was a little joke–voila." That guitar line before Rick Ross's verse on "Devil In A New Dress". The "Iron Man" interpolation on "Hell Of A Life". "Avril 14th". The intro to "Lost In The World".
None of them, though, compare to the second half of "Runaway". The entire vocal solo. That feeling when you want to express yourself, explain yourself ("I'mma be honest")... But you can't. And it can only come out as a long, pained, anguished wail that says more than any words ever could. It's beautiful, honestly. I get close to tearing up over it.
And it's damn depressing with the context of 2024.
I mean, let's be clear: it needs to be acknowledged that bad people can make good art. Just because Kanye turned out to be a piece of shit doesn't mean his old music is suddenly bad. Hell, he was a piece of shit back when he made this album. Remember the whole "I'MMA LET YOU FINISH" incident? This album was made following that controversy. And he's no stranger to controversy, of course–"GEORGE BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE," after all. But when even the president was vocally calling him a jackass...
You can view the vocal solo on "Runaway" as a reaction to all that. That he wanted to say so much in response, but ultimately couldn't. That he'd never be understood anyway. And in that light, this whole album is such an underdog triumph. That he was the world's public scumbag #1 and still came out with a critically acclaimed, world conquering smash.
That success just feels non-existent these days knowing there'd be controversy following this album, and much worse controversy than stealing a microphone from Taylor Swift.
MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY is a masterpiece. Kanye's absolute peak before he slid off, in my opinion. True, it's entirely self-indulgent in how damn long it is (see: Rick Ross's verse on "Devil In A New Dress", the "Blame Game" skit, etc.), and just because a lyric is memorably bad doesn't stop it from being... Y'know, bad. It's just all trumped by the fact that it's my Kanye album. The first one of his I've discovered. Where, more than once, I'd imagined one of my own characters screaming out the vocal solo in "Runaway". That aria of sadness and anger at how painfully aware they are that they're a huge fuckin' asshole.
And Kanye is an asshole. A jackass, even. He was one back then, and he's an even bigger one now.
But I'll always have this. Even if I don't listen to this album anymore because of how inseparable Kanye is from his music, he'll never truly take "Runaway" away from me.
4
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Wed Apr 17 2024
The Undertones
The Undertones
Just a very nice, fun burst of early pop punk (I didn't even think it existed before the 90's!) that reminded me a lot of the Buzzcocks and The Clash. And Jello Biafara in some spots, weirdly.
4
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Thu Apr 18 2024
Calenture
The Triffids
The first time I saw this album's cover, there was just this vibe about it. Like it was going to become the new album I bring up whenever I make some of the inclusions on this list. "CALENTURE got on this list, but not something or other?" That sort of deal.
Listening to the album certainly didn't dispel that feeling. And the thing is, actually, that I don't even really think this album is... **Entirely** bad. It's got moments here and there—check those Irish-sounding instruments on "Jerdacuttup Man", not to mention how its opening sounds like Pink Floyd's "Echoes". I think that stuff's neat. It's just all so few and far between is all, which really highlights how oppressively, suffocatingly "FI-I-I-I-INE" the rest of the album is.
I just can't hear what makes this thing so special, and as a result it's so hard to give a shit about it. While I was writing this review, even, I got so bored re-listening to the first side that I didn't even let it finish. What would I even gain? It's not like letting "Open For You" play out a second time would change my mind.
In conclusion, to be fair, this album's got more going for it than others I've found to be slogs—TIMELESS, MAXINQUAYE—but, yeah, it's definitely going to be one of my new punching bags. Sorry, Australia. Maybe give me some AC/DC or INXS or whatever next time.
2
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Fri Apr 19 2024
The Sounds Of India
Ravi Shankar
I kinda wish we got more albums like this and CLUBE DE ESQUINA more often. Not that I don't enjoy a good 60's folk album or... Random whatever from the 70's or 80's whose only legacy is being on this list, but I'd love to have more dives in foreign reigional music. I mean, it's just really interesting to get an earful of Hindustandi classical music—the really real stuff, too; not just what George Harrison was doing with The Beatles. And even if it turns out it's not your thing, I still think you're enriched by having heard this stuff. So, y'know, regardless of my feelings on it, I think it's worth your time.
4
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Sat Apr 20 2024
Melodrama
Lorde
I remember Todd In The Shadows's best list for 2017 was the first time I didn't recognize a single song he included, nor did I feel particularly inspired to listen to any of them. That was up to and including the song he picked for the top spot: "Green Light" by Lorde.
Finally listenjng to it, and the album, seven years later... Man, I'm just reminded of how much I don't really care for modern, current popular releases. Like, sure, I can't hear anything I dislike about it, and I can probably point out a few specific moments I like, but in general nothing really speaks to or clicks with me, y'know? Even "Green Light".
I mean, the only 2017 album I listened to in 2017 was HUMANZ by Gorillaz. **That's** what I'm into. This... Eh. Not as much, sadly.
3
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Sun Apr 21 2024
James Brown Live At The Apollo
James Brown
The album that made James Brown a star. I mean, really; this right here is "star time." Front-to-back, it's nonstop excitement. And if you think the music's energetic, you gotta imagine what moves James is pullin' on stage. I mean, that's probably the only thing I'd really ding this album for—that, and the album ends a bit too abruptly after "Night Train"—but of course that's just a general fault of audio recordings; not just this album. Otherwise, more than just his hit songs or the sample clips, this is absolutely the album to understand why Brown was, indeed, the Hardest Working Man In Show Business.
4
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Mon Apr 22 2024
Cafe Bleu
The Style Council
When this album first popped up for my group, my initial reaction, like with a lot of albums from musicians and/or bands I don't recognize, was "Who the hell is this?" I mean, I hate to judge a book by its cover, but something about its cover just seemed... Off to me. Like this would be another random forgettable whatever where I hafta wonder why it's even on this list.
Imagine my surprise, then, when after I listen to the album a friend in the group tells me that this group has **Peter Wellers**. The guy from The Jam! and whose solo album WILD WOOD I'd previously rated highly! That guy! I wish his presence did more for me than shift my question to "**What** the hell is this?", but still!
Y'know, it actually took me a moment to figure out what a specific problem I had with this album was, and I think it's this: The Jam album I listened to back when, SOUND AFFECTS, is Mod revival and power pop, and it's very good at that. WILD WOODS is very much a 70's singer-songwriter dealie in the 90's, and it's very good at that. CAFÉ BLEU is called a sophisti-pop album, but it jumps all over the damn place, and it doesn't do anything it tries well.
Aside from the album's opener, most of the album is just "bleh" dives into various styles. It's very lounge-y, and not even the fun, swinging kind of lounge. And when it's not just "whatever," it's "A Gospel", and the last thing I needed to hear on this album was any attempts at rapping. It's the most memorable thing here, and for all the wrong reasons.
So that's a miss in my book, Wellers. I liked WILD WOODS, and my group hasn't gotten SOUND AFFECTS but I know I'm gonna rate it highly, and I know two-out-of-three ain't bad, but... Gawd, why the hell is this here?
2
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Tue Apr 23 2024
Tidal
Fiona Apple
The thing that surprised me the most about this album, honestly, is something another review for this album pointed out: if it were released today, or at least a few years ago, no one would bat an eye at it. In a world with Billie Eillish, it (Apple's voice here especially) doesn't sound out of place. And that's crazy, because not only was this album released back in the 90's, but by a 19 year old. How the hell did this woman at that age have such foresight to make this thing? I have to marvel at it.
That being said, because it sounds so modern, it's not really for me. Like I said in my MELODRAMA review entry whatever, a lot of current popular just doesn't do it for me. Even Billie Eillish; I listen to new.wav's blink-182-style'd cover of "bad guy" way more than the original. The specific vibes this album gives off just aren't for me, y'know? I'unno.
And I'unno how to end this, so I'll just say that when it comes to me and chamber pop, I way prefer LIL' BEETHOVEN and PET SOUNDS to what this is layin' down.
3
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Wed Apr 24 2024
Talk Talk Talk
The Psychedelic Furs
Eh, I'unno. As New Wave, it's not as weird as Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO!, and it's not polished as, say, RIO. It sits kind of in the middle, and as a result, it's fine, but not terribly interesting my ears. I 100% dug "She Is Mine", though, so you can have that at least.
3
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Thu Apr 25 2024
Dig Me Out
Sleater-Kinney
Damn exciting album y'ask me. Exciting riffs, exciting drums, exciting vocals... Darn gets me in the mood to check out some more riot grrrl, I tell you what. Or maybe I'll end up just listening to "Rebel Girl" again, I'unno.
4
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Fri Apr 26 2024
Arular
M.I.A.
This is an album that's walking a very fine line between being annoying and... Being annoying. Between all the various influences and sources that make up the instrumentals and M.I.A.'s voice itself, it's one hell of a balancing act where, like, it never fell into obnoxiousness for me, but I can absolutely hear how it would for others.
All that said, if I'm giving this album a 3 and not a 4 for any reason, it's an apples and oranges comparison kind of deal. Like, if I want music with revolutionary lyrics, I've already got Chumbawamba and Rage Against The Machine for that. Their respective brands of anarcho-punk/dance/world/folk and rap metal are way more up my M.I.A.'s dancehall material. And none of them were anti-vaxxers far as I can remember, so...
3
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Sat Apr 27 2024
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
Before now, the only Lauryn Hill album I've really had any experience with was the one for her MTV UNPLUGGED 2.0 show. Defend that album all you want, I don't care, but to me it's for damn sure the worst introduction you could have to her music. I get that it's an unplugged show and that it's not supposed to be representative of her normal sound, but seriously, it's two straight hours of amateur plink-plonking on an acoustic guitar, ramble-y as hell lyrics, and babbling from Lauryn that to me sounds like the hook to Kendrick Lamar's "Real" on loop. When you take her mental condition into account, too, whatever exactly it is, the fact it was released at all just gets all the ickier and you gotta wonder, "**This** is the follow-up to MISEDUCATION?"
I mean, be fair to Lauryn—if **I** put out an album as good as MISEDUCATION, I wouldn't be able to follow it up, either. On her first solo attempt, she put out a greatest hits record. I'm someone who's melody first, so I probably missed a lot of great lyrics, but just taking it as a vibe, it's pretty damn immaculate. The beats are probably some of the best from the hip hop albums my group has gotten so far. Lauryn's got a really good voice, too; it's fun to hear her rap, and it's pretty to hear her sing. I don't even mind this thing's length. I'm sure it could be cut down in a few spots, but it's still more than carried by what's here.
Just on those merits alone I can hear why this was the highest charting hip hop album on the 2020 ROLLING STONE 500. I mean, do I agree 100% with it? At this stage, maybe not. It's the cliché music nerd answer, but I might still think something like TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY is better. Although, it's not just about quality, is it? It's about impact, too, The legacy. And I'm not aware of what exactly this album's done for the culture, though this just feels like an album that's changed everything. Mostly for women in hip hop, but in general, too. So, like, even if Lauryn never comes out with another album as long as she lives, she's got this under her belt. For anyone, that's damn more than enough.
(And this all reads like a 5, I'm aware, but I'm giving it a 4 just because I don't think I've spent enough time with it yet for that. Once I actually do pay attention to and learn the lyrics, though, believe me, I'm gonna be wishing I gave this thing a 5.)
4
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Sun Apr 28 2024
Elastica
Elastica
Aw yeah, more female-vocal punk stuff. I dug the hell out of this—maybe even a little bit more than DIG ME OUT, honestly. And for that, I think I hafta credit the Britpop sheen that's over this album. The riffs, the vocals... I jus' think it's fun stuff, y'know? I've loved every Britpop album my group has gotten so far, and this is no exception.
And thus, I've paid the whole "WIRE copying" thing exactly as much attention as I think it deserves.
4
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Mon Apr 29 2024
Back To Black
Amy Winehouse
Coming into this review, I had a lot of thoughts about Amy Winehouse, but they weren't about this music. They weren't even really about her as a person, honestly. They were more about how the media in her time, specifically tabloids, treated her—as nothing more than a junkie barrelling to an early grave. Or how I assumed her biopic this year would treat her—I hear it's as "nothing more than a junkie barrelling to an early grave." Hell, I was thinking a lot about how the woman who co-presented Winehouse her GRAMMY for song of the year claimed that people like her "shouldn't be rewarded for bad behaviour."
But going in with this mindset isn't fair to Winehouse. The treatment she got wasn't fair, either, and it's absolutely worth condeming, but that's not how I should be thinking about her. I should focus just on her art and what she gave the world.
And what she gave the world was... Truly immaculate. A tight 35-some minutes of throwbacks to the early Motown sound and early rock n' roll. I love this kinda shit. Take it from someone who spun AN EVENING ON SILK SONIC back when it dropped, I love throwbacks so much. But not **just** throwbacks. Ones that, like the Silk Sonic mention implies, brings it into the current days.
Give it up for Ronson and Salaam. They nailed the sound, but I'd never think this came out any earlier than the 2000s. Even when all I knew about this album was "Rehab" thanks to ROCK BAND 3, it still sounded so fresh to my ears. It's a groovy-ass track, but when this album needs to get soulful and back to black, such as it is, you bet your ass it will.
And Winehouse's voice. Amy herself, so I've read, didn't regard her abilities as anything more than a party trick. But what a trick this is. If it didn't evoke "Motown diva" as well as it does while still being recognizably her own thing, it'd all fall apart. And, yeah, me being me, a lot of the lyrics didn't register in my mind. But just the tone of her voice was enough to get enough of the meaning across to me. That sounds like something most people can achieve, but to do it truly well—that takes a little something extra.
Y'know, normally I reserve 5's for albums that've already wedged their way into my soul, or albums that manage to edge their way in there. I'm not sure if BACK TO BLACK is truly there yet, but regardless, it deserves a 5. Not as an "Oh, so tragic she died so young" deal. Not as a clapback against the people who treated her so poorly. But just because she made a damn good album. It was a damn good album back then, it's a damn good album now, and I wouldn't be happy if it wasn't a damn good album on the future. Gawd, I needa find the time to put on FRANK!
5
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Tue Apr 30 2024
The Wildest!
Louis Prima
Oh, this one's just a blast. There's really nothing else to it—it aims to be swingin' fun and it sure as hell is. It's downright infectuous how clear it is how much everyone recording this is enjoying themselves. It makes me look forward to when/if my group gets more swing music like this. And in the meantime, I guess I'll spin this album again.
5
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Wed May 01 2024
Low
David Bowie
Going into this album I didn't expect to like it terribly much. After all, there was a line on its Wikipedia page about how much it influenced post-punk bands. I haven't disliked every post-punk album I've heard, but I sure as well haven't had a clean track record with it either, so I didn't have exactly high hopes.
But then at the beginning of side two, there was this moment where I had to just... Stop what I was doing. Stop, close my eyes, inhale deeply through my nostrils...
I have to give all the credit in the world to Brian Eno and the influence he had. Even on an album this gloomy and dark, there are moments in the soundscape I found kind of beautiful, actually. Really, it's a similar reaction I had to the two Eno album my group's gotten before, and it proves I really shoulda paid more attention to the "electronica" genre credit on Wikipedia.
HUNKY DORY, largely because I've spent so much time with it, is still my favorite Bowie album, so that's why I'm not giving this a five. However, just the fact alone that it made such a strong case for that spot is incredibly noteworthy.
4
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Thu May 02 2024
The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
It's just kick-ass NWOBHM, simply put. Killer riffs, solos and vocals, front to back. It's no wonder this is the album they truly broke through with. I don't even know what else I wanna say, really. Just listen to "Hallowed Be Thy Name"—you'll get it.
5
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Fri May 03 2024
Life Thru A Lens
Robbie Williams
I think this is the least interested in a Britpop album I've been so far. Like, I'm not gonna say it's bad, but it's not particularly exciting. For the most part, it's radio music—incredibly safe, even acknowledging some weird lines I've read about. And I don't even mean "radio music" as an insult; it can really hit the spot sometimes. I'm just not sure what makes this so special compared to any other Britpop I've heard—blur, Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, Elastica... Honestly, I'm not even sure how much I even hear this as a Britpop album; it feels way more like a straight-up pop album 90% of the time.
My one big exception is "Let Me Entertain You"—not a Queen cover like I always thought it was, but still. With its very obvious Who influence, it's driving as hell and the biggest burst of excitement and energu on the whole damn album. I can shake my head to that one, seriously. And, y'know, maybe if the rest of the album matched up to that...
As it stands, the album's fine, but I can do without it. Like, maybe, JUST MAYBE, this list could do with one less Britpop album, y'know? Maybe?
3
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Sat May 04 2024
Dusty In Memphis
Dusty Springfield
This album's largely carried by "Son Of A Preacher Man", yeah, but that's not to put down the rest of it. It's very nicely orchestrated blue-eyed soul and there's not really much to complain about. Or say in general. So... Yeah. Good job, Dusty.
3