Was there any surprise that I recognized the album's first half? Not from me anyway; Dad listened to WEBN, the Cincinnati hard rock station, while I was growing up, so classic hard rock? Was part of the soundtrack of my life.
I listened to the album without looking up the lyrics; most were white noise. Looking them up later on genius.com was a bit of a revelation. And not simultaneously because of putting them into the context of their time, place, and influences? Both the influences on them at the time and the influence the album and the band had on later music. Of course, the lyrics are talking about the Vietnam War, punks, skinheads, drugs, and hippies!
I hadn't thought to put a Black Sabbath album into my background music rotation, but Paranoid is now on it.
Dropping me into the deep end on the second day with an artist I've never heard of, lol. To make sure I can devote my attention to these album listens, I listen as I do my hour of walking for exercise.
Regardless of how I feel about the album, I really like Kiwanuka's voice. He reminds me a lot of the '60s and '70s folk albums my Dad played for me; the focus here is on his voice as an instrument.
There's a mix of social conscious songs - Britain does not have the same type of racism as the USA does, but it does have its own - and problems in love songs. I didn't actively dislike any songs, but I did enjoy mostly the same songs as the higher-played songs (at as Spotify reported). I might only come back to relisten to a few songs, but I enjoyed listening to the album and have no regrets spending the time with it.
I wanted to love this album, but it's like I just glanced off it. It's surface enjoyable for me, but there's nothing grabbing me to listen again, even the title track that seems to be many people's favorite. I know I like Bowie; I adore singles I've heard on the radio, but there is nothing in this album.
I can recognize the skill and the talent, but there's no connection, which is a bummer.
Conceptually, I do appreciate the instrumental tracks, which I feel are forgotten by a lot of modern musicians and bands.
I tend to fall more in the Dance subgenre of Electronica, so this album was fun, and I didn't mind listening to it, but I'll probably only revisit it when I need some music to exercise with. It makes me want to *move*, but that's more the beat and melody than any of the lyrics.
Wow, that '60s guitar pop influence is strong, even if the '80s shine through. I enjoyed listening, but nothing stood out as a new favorite.
While it was nice to hear some old favorites by Aerosmith, the B-tracks that I could swear I half-recognized brought this down. There's the old joke about guitarists only needing to know three chords to play a lot of popular music, but several tracks felt like Aerosmith scrubbed out their previous lyrics and just put in new ones - not that they copied somebody else, but that they went "That song didn't land, reuse what we already composed with new lyrics."
I have fond memories for half of the tracks on this album, and unlike some previous albums, the unknown tracks aren't detractions. Don't necessarily like them, but they don't feel like rehashes. "Livin' On A Prayer" and "You Give Love A Bad Name" are fun, and "Wanted Dead Or Alive" is on my favorites playlist for always.
CCR was not "Born On The Bayou"; they're Californian and CCR was their second attempt at a band. Still, their music is fun to listen to and their lyrics managed to connect to Southerners to the point that no one cares. At 34 mins, this is more an EP than an album, but whatever, I love it anyway.
"Proud Mary" is an automatic sing along song.
<img src="https://tenor.com/view/forgot-no-memories-lord-of-the-rings-lotr-gandalf-gif-13463504" alt="Gandalf says 'I have no memory of this place...'">
"I have no memory of this place..."
Well, except "Where It's At." I was thirteen in 1996 and had my own little Walkman. I listened to the radio plenty, but the only song from Beck I recognize is "Where It's At," though some of the others feel slightly familiar.
It's decent background rock, but nothing other than that song stands out. It's not bad, but it's not excellent either. That's the problem with hearing experimental rock nearly three (wtf.) decades later: stuff that was avant-garde and bleeding edge at the time has now been incorporated into the main flow of music unless it's really outre. Might have blown my mind *then* but it doesn't now.
I would have liked to talk to my Dad about this album, as it is right smack in his mid-twenties, and he definitely had opinions about music from this era. Otherwise, it's psychedelic rock that sounds fine for its era but doesn't show me anything new or fresh. It is enjoyable but creates no lasting memory.
I like dance electronica, but not this electronica. I can see the artistry, but it does nothing for me. I like Beth Gibbons voice, and I don't regret listening to the whole album, but I'm not revisiting it later.
I know the first three songs by heart. The others aren't familiar, but not bad to listen to. For all it's from the eighties, it feels more like the nineties in style, which is not a complaint so much an observation.
Echoing many of the other reviews, this sounded like one song with different lyrics. It was fun the first few times, but then it became a background beat as I exercised and didn't draw my attention. It was a good exercise beat, but I couldn't tell what they were shouting most of the time.
I'm not actually sure how I feel about this album. I've listened to classical jazz before and enjoyed it, but not so much late mid-century jazz. I recognized a lot of elements that felt like 80s prog rock, which, since they came later, implies that Weather Report might have influenced them. Some casual googling turns up the Rush's bassist Geddy Lee points to "Teen Town" as being an influential song on him, so evidence in that column. I feel very early 80s music with this, but, again, I think it's the influence such music might have had on 80's tv show soundtracks.
Enjoyable but nothing permanent for me. My heyday for alternative rock is mid 90's, though I've always heard good things about the Pixies.
Queen is my favorite band. I can't be even a modicum of unbiased towards anything they did unless it was actually complete shit... which, as far as I've heard, was rare. Queen's members were masters at trying and doing tons of different styles and incorporating the strangest influences. This isn't straight rock - not hard rock, not metal rock, nor prog-rock - this is QUEEN and all it encompasses.
Also, Bohemian Rhapsody. Seriously. Pure classic. Even if the rest of the album was dreck - which it's not! - that alone would make this album five stars.
I don't want to say this is the music of my childhood, because it isn't, but at the same time it is. I'm shaped by the music that came out when I was young just as much as I'm shaped by the music that came out when my parents were in their twenties - this album was just that for my Dad.
I liked this more than just the main singles; I like harmonies and acoustic guitar, and yeah, there's nothing *new* here to someone born in the 80's but I can look back and see that there's innovation here that of course it's not new *to me* because they had this to draw on.
Short, maybe not sweet but bittersweet, gorgeous harmonies: a pleasure to listen to.
I glanced off this; it's a repeat of that David Bowie album - I can hear the skill and the talent, but didn't make a connection to it. Enjoyed the music even if it didn't make a lasting impression.
Her voice is nice and I like the music, but while I love that she's putting the history of the Black experience into words, I'm not. I'm another minority, so there's some commonality, but the connection is touch and go. I would recommend it to other people, but it's not for me. Every single person is not necessarily the proper audience for every piece of art, even if they could enjoy it.
I didn't pay much attention to the lyrics, but the music was lovely. It's not my favorite rendition of Yeats' "The Stolen Child," though.
Classic - not just a 70s classic, but simply classic. The opening bars of \"Let's Get It On\" are instantly recognizable even if I'm certain I've never heard the full song before. It is the epitome of Soul that all others in the category can compare themselves to.
Damn, I wish my Dad was still alive to talk to him about this album. This is right smack in his favorite decade of music and it *feels* like the music he would play occasionally.
I didn't recognize a single song and yet it felt familiar. I loved it as a whole and not necessarily any specific song.
My second Black Sabbath album and I enjoyed it even more than the first. There is a wide range of 'genres,' but as my favorite band is Queen, I don't think that's a detriment but a plus in a rock band. Blues, ballads, proto-metal becoming metal, hard rock... I'm going to be coming back to several songs to listen again.
I don't understand any of the words that Toure sang... and I don't care. This album is fantastic. Blues are universal, and instruments are their own voice that transcends language. I'm not sure I could pick out a single track to add to my favorites list just yet, but the whole album can go into rotation, especially as general background music for my life. Out of all the 'modern' (ie since 2000) albums, this is my favorite. I can and will recommend this album to people without hesitation.
I've always heard *of* "Live at Folsom Prison," but other than some brief clips, I've never *heard* the album. I would have thought older Johnny Cash wasn't my thing, a thought that was dumb as hell.
Live albums can be hit or miss, but this one is fun. His bumbles and corpsing - to borrow a television filming term - are funny. I'm a lot more likely to explore the rest of his discography at this point.
I'm not sure how random this generator is when this immediately follows "At Folsom Prison" but I didn't mind having a second night of Johnny Cash. I think the Folsom recording is just a little warmer; if we could do half stars, this album would be 4.5 stars rather than the 5 I'm going to give it. I do like that there are no duplicate songs, plus "A Boy Named Sue" debuts here, and that song is *classic*.
I have to agree with the reviews who talked about the sameness between all the tracks. Nothing was offensive but nothing was grabbing my attention either. More than decent as background music to fill the air, Kelela has a lovely voice that needs no ornamentation. There just needed to be more variance in the songs.
I hear more of the *influences* they're calling back to than this band. Not bad, I don't mind it on, but I'm not going back to seek it out.
Based on the opening track, I enjoyed this far more than I thought - Darkness, Darkness' opening was just not to my taste. It's funny to read the other reviews who don't get the folks-rock-jazz *thing* that was happening in the 50s and 60s. Rock was ascending, but the folk scene was also happening, and jazz had had a grip on the counterculture for a couple of generations at this point. It's like a modern rock group having bits of metal, electronic, pop, and country: it just *happens*, living in the crockpot of modern music.
Aggressive Irish punk music is semi-redundant to say, but that's the best description for the Pogues I have. I had heard of the band but never actually listened to them. I usually exercise when listening to whatever album I get that day; I simply wish I had been running rather than the strength work I was doing.
Not for me. I can hear the musicianship, but the music feels a lot like a drone. Yeah, yeah, that's grunge to some extent, but it's just not for me.
I had always heard *of* Fatboy Slim, but I hadn't realized I had *heard* Fatboy Slim. Is he someone I'm going to listen to when I need to relax or need to think? No. Is he great for exercising or doing physical work? Yes. I enjoyed this a whole lot more than I thought I would.
Lyrically sophomoric, but I enjoyed the hell out of the music.
Nice background music. I'm unfamiliar with the movie, so my opinion is solely about the music, which is: Good for putting on in the background but not necessarily complex enough for active listening.
It was not what I was expecting from the cover, but it was a pleasant surprise. It's not really a big fave, but nothing heinous either. I liked the music a lot more than I liked the lyrics.
It was not what I was expecting from the cover, but it was a pleasant surprise. It's not really a big fave, but nothing heinous either. I liked the music a lot more than I liked the lyrics.
