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Wed Jan 10 2024
Amnesiac
Radiohead
It’s really a testament to Radiohead’s songmaking ability that a collection of songs that were rejected from Kid A are still good enough to be considered one of the best albums ever. “Pyramid Song”, “Knives Out”, “Morning Bell/Amnesiac”, and even “I Might Be Wrong” are some of Radiohead’s greatest, but this album is noticeably less consistently good compared to most other Radiohead albums (except King of Limbs which I can’t find myself to enjoy at all). One of the low points includes “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” which sounds fine but for the modulated voice. Not sure why but whenever they use computerized voices, it really breaks up the flow of the album for me (also see “Fitter Happier” on OK Computer).
I probably haven’t listened to this in 10+ years, and while I rated this album highly, I definitely didn’t think I’d remember it that well. About half the tracks are definitely forgettable, but I also forgot how much I enjoyed “Morning Bell/Amnesiac” (“releeeease meeeee”) and a few others in addition to the 2 singles.
3
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Thu Jan 11 2024
Crime Of The Century
Supertramp
For a long time I was familiar with Supertramp only for their silly pop songs like “Breakfast in America”, “Goodbye Stranger”, and “The Logical Song”. I still remember the first time I heard “Bloody Well Right” on the radio ~2008, and was sort of amazed that the pop-rock station I was listening to was playing it, having no idea who the band was. After learning it was Supertramp, I gained a new appreciation for later pop-oriented Supertramp.
Crime of the Century came at a time when Supertramp was transitioning from prog-rock to pop-rock, and it’s a perfect mix, akin to Yes at their best. I think I prefer Breakfast in America, but I don’t think I’d enjoy that as much without having known Crime of the Century.
3
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Fri Jan 12 2024
Graceland
Paul Simon
Definitely Paul Simon’s best album I’ve heard. This and Rhythm of the Saints were actually my introduction to Simon, after which I got into Simon & Garfunkel, now one of my all-time favorite groups. Graceland has hovered in and out of my top 100 over the years, and now it sits closer to ~200, but it’s still a favorite album of mine. I’ve always been mesmerized by the cheery upbeat music but often melancholy lyrics, discussing heartbreak, homelessness, starvation, and wealth inequality. Simon claimed that he wasn’t writing protest songs, and simultaneously he was criticized for going to South Africa to record (breaking the cultural boycott against apartheid), but I’ve always appreciated the cultural fusion on the album and understood many of the lyrics to be vaguely underhandedly critical of apartheid and overtly hopeful for a better world.
4
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Sat Jan 13 2024
Paranoid
Black Sabbath
The beginning of the album, in the vein of Cream or the Moody Blues, sounds like the standard psychedelic blues that was already declining in 1970… but then it gives way to something totally different. Something new. Black Sabbath rewrote the game. They weren’t the only ones doing so, but they were the only ones who went on to devote themself totally to the emerging heavy metal genre, rather than sticking with hard rock or blues rock like Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple. Hell, even the song titles set the standard for metal: “Iron Man”, “Electric Funeral”, “Hand of Doom”, really the only song that doesn’t have a metal title is “Fairies Wear Boots”.
This was one of the first CDs I ever owned that wasn’t a greatest hits compilation. Early on, I skipped most songs that weren’t “Iron Man”, having just begun attempting to play guitar, but over time the rest of the album has grown on me considerably. The album shifts back and forth between heavy metal and psychedelic blues, but it still forms a completely cohesive unit. This is another album which has floated in and out of my top 100, and the guitar solo from “Iron Man” is still probably my favorite moment on the album.
4
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Sun Jan 14 2024
Coat Of Many Colors
Dolly Parton
This album seems to be highlighted mostly for its very tender songs like the title track, “Early Morning Breeze”, or “Here I Am”. But this album also demonstrates Parton’s versatility in a way that some of her other great albums (like Jolene, my personal favorite) do not. “Traveling Man” in particular is a fantastic song with humor, akin to Johnny Cash/Shel Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue” or some of Jim Steinman’s songs for Meat Loaf. It’s that kind of hilarity: the narrator is in love with an older traveling man and wants to run away with him, but she’s afraid to tell her mom because she knows her mom would disapprove. Meanwhile the traveling man is getting with the narrator’s mom and runs away with her instead. Great song on a solid album.
3
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Mon Jan 15 2024
good kid, m.A.A.d city
Kendrick Lamar
When this album came out, it totally went under the radar for me, I don’t think I really appreciated this as much as I should have. I think I found it to be just another rap album, and it even had skits; I had thought the hip-hop industry had done away with skits by 2012, ugh. But while there’s still parts of this album I don’t particularly like, I think the highs on this album are as high or higher than anything on any of Lamar’s other albums. “Money Trees” and “Swimming Pools (Drank)” are among his best. That said, overall this album is less consistent than To Pimp a Butterfly, DAMN., or even Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. I wouldn’t say Mr. Morale is as good as Good Kid, but Mr. Morale is more consistently good, whereas Good Kid has lower moments. In any case, I’m glad this monumental album ended up on the 1001 albums list.
3
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Tue Jan 16 2024
Songs From The Big Chair
Tears For Fears
“Shout” is great, and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is solid, but most of the rest of this album gets boring quickly. Many songs seemed to drag on to the point that this felt like an hour + rather than sub-45 minutes.
2
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Wed Jan 17 2024
Live At The Regal
B.B. King
B.B. King live is the best way to listen. This is probably his best album.
3
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Thu Jan 18 2024
Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
I was introduced to Ryan Adams by his less lauded Cardinology which has a lot more rock-and-roll sound. Heartbreaker is a little more tender, like a combination of heartland rock and folk rock in the vein of Dylan’s Desire or Nashville Skyline (which despite their different “eras” and sounds, have always seemed thematically similar to me). It also reminds me of Neil Young, specifically Rust Never Sleeps with a mix of electric and softer acoustic-ish tracks. Adams is no Dylan or Young, but this is a pleasant album.
3
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Fri Jan 19 2024
The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
It took me a long time to warm up to this album. I loved Funeral on first listen, and Neon Bible probably after 2-3 listens, but it took me probably until after the release of Reflektor to find myself enjoying most of this. Even though it’s probably Arcade Fire's second-most celebrated album, it’s probably my least favorite through Reflektor. It’s definitely less consistent than most of their other albums, the highs are high but there’s a lot of filler, I can’t stand “Rococo” or “Month of May”, and even right after listening again, there’s some more forgettable songs.
I think if a few songs were cut and a few were rearranged to make this into a ~45 minute album, it would be more on par with Neon Bible in my mind as one of Arcade Fire’s greatest. Now, after having mostly criticized this album until now, I do still love this album. At one point it was in my top 100, and the two-part songs (“Half Light” I & II, “Sprawl” I & II, and to some extent “The Suburbs”) are highlights and some of the best tracks of Arcade Fire’s career. I know they started the multi-part songs on Funeral, but I still think that’s one of the more successful things they’ve done over their career, continuing into some of their best work on Reflektor and We.
4
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Sat Jan 20 2024
Cross
Justice
Love that this album is here. I think it's sort of fallen out of favor the longer it's been since release, but it's a phenomenal album rivaling Daft Punk.
4
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Sun Jan 21 2024
Slayed?
Slade
First album of the 1001 that I haven’t heard before! And… it’s dad rock. They’re not bad though, they remind me a bit of Rainbow but more on the glam side and less on the hard rock/metal side. It’s interesting but certainly not something I’d consider for a top 1000 albums of all time. I could see this being well-liked when released, but it seems quite tame compared to lots of other glam/hard rock of the time. I also think they sound similar to some other bands like The Saints or Twisted Sister which came later, so I can see how their vibe set the stage for later bands to expand and improve on the sound.
1
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Mon Jan 22 2024
Peter Gabriel 3
Peter Gabriel
I feel like Peter Gabriel has had a similar career as Lou Reed just 5 years later: both came from relatively experimental rock bands that pushed the boundaries of what pop rock could be, and then continued that blend of experimental and traditional pop/rock in their solo careers. I definitely prefer Reed for the most part, but this is one of Gabriel’s best albums and probably the best example of what his portfolio of music is like. “I Don’t Remember” is my favorite track, followed closely by “Biko”.
3
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Tue Jan 23 2024
OK Computer
Radiohead
When I started really getting into music, I knew I had to listen to this one. Some of my favorite artists like Muse were heavily inspired by Radiohead’s sound, and this was lauded by many as the greatest album of all time. On first listen, I certainly didn’t think so. I’ve always enjoyed “Karma Police”, but for some reason it took me 5+ listens for Radiohead to really click with me. Now they’re one of my favorite bands and OK Computer has been in my top 100 albums of all time for a while (including a brief stint at #2 and a long stint between 5-10).
Every song on this album (with one exception) is perfect in its own way. And while there’s a lot of different stuff going on and a lot of variety, the songs all come together to form something amazing. Perhaps something that’s surprised me the most about this album is that while it feels a lot like a product of its times, after 25+ years, it’s still just as incredible to listen to. That’s not something I’d say about Nevermind by Nirvana, which sounds dated despite Nirvana putting their finger on the cultural pulse at the time.
“Fitter Happier” is an abomination though. I think I sort of understand what Thom Yorke was going for in writing and including this song, it’s interestingly experimental (spoken by “Fred”, an ancestor to Apple’s Siri) and playfully juxtaposes the hypocrisy of a computer telling us the best way to live a meaningful human lifestyle. But the song just really sucks, it totally breaks up the flow of the album. The rest of the album is so good though that even this can’t bring down the perfect rating.
5
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Wed Jan 24 2024
Elephant
The White Stripes
Not my favorite by the White Stripes or Jack White, but it’s easy to see why it’s considered their best. “Seven Nation Army” is a masterpiece and the rest of the album is full of awesome blues-rock jams.
4
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Thu Jan 25 2024
Chelsea Girl
Nico
I guess I’m glad this album is here, there tends to be a severe lack of representation of women artists in these lists. Nico was a pioneering art rock innovator along with the Velvet Underground, and later on a great songwriter. Having said those positive things about Nico, this album feels incredibly dull to me. It’s like a series of VU demos that were too underdeveloped to make the cut for The Velvet Underground & Nico. The songs were almost all written by VU collaborators and Jackson Browne with very little input from Nico herself.
I think if this were given the same level of songwriting, production, and engineering as The Velvet Underground & Nico, Chelsea Girl probably could have been something exceptional. But for me this just sounds like a very under-developed VU release that they gave to Nico to sing. Nico’s next two albums The Marble Index and Desertshore are MUCH more developed in their own right and Nico wrote her own songs and really made her own brand of art rock. One or both of those albums are really what should have been included in the 1001 in my opinion.
2
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Fri Jan 26 2024
Bubble And Scrape
Sebadoh
On the plus side, this is one of the few albums of the 1001 that I haven't heard before. On the downside, it sucks.
Sebadoh sounds to me like they wanted to be a grunge band but they just couldn't figure out the bite that Nirvana or Soundgarden did, and they also couldn't figure out how to be as interesting or introspective as Sonic Youth or other similar bands from the era... AKA Sebadoh suck. A few of their other albums are tolerable, and I thought this was going to be the same way based on the first track, but it was all downhill from there. Garbage album, absolutely should not be included on this list.
1
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Sat Jan 27 2024
Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
The third best (out of three) Jimi Hendrix Experience albums is still quite good.
3
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Sun Jan 28 2024
Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
50 Cent
This is a great party album, I forgot how fun this is. Not in a dancing kind of way, but in a head-bobbing vibe kind of way. The barking, the random “G-Unit!” shouts (including the “g-g-g-g-g-g-G-Unit”), and the mix of hardcore gangsta and tender introspection are what make this album more than just a product of its time. Some tracks like “Back Down” (the Ja Rule diss track) are dated, and there’s obviously a fair amount of misogyny that was prevalent in music at the time, but on the whole it’s a really enjoyable listen.
3
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Mon Jan 29 2024
Fulfillingness' First Finale
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder had a monumental run in the 70s between Music of My Mind (1972) and Hotter Than July (1980). Fulfillingness is probably my least favorite of the bunch (although I haven’t heard The Secret Life of Plants). It’s still a great album, but it doesn’t have the awesome hits that Talking Book or Songs in the Key of Life had, or the cohesiveness of Innervisions. It’s also not as consistent as Music of My Mind or Hotter Than July, but I think those are more even and the highs are higher on Fulfillingness, which makes them all about even for me. The good thing is that this album is among Wonder’s funkiest.
3
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Tue Jan 30 2024
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West
I used to love this album. I think it’s fair to say I’ve soured on all of West’s music since he outed himself as an anti-semitic douchebag, and I have a hard time enjoying any of his music past or present. I’ve especially soured on the lyrical content and found much to be desired, especially compared to West’s first 2 albums of Yeezus.
MBDTF is a masterclass in production, sampling, and collaboration, and it shouldn’t be underestimated how massive this was in 2010. It’s still one of the best rap albums ever made, and certainly one of if not THE best art rap/pop rap/whatever you want to call this genre albums ever made.
Pretty much every song is a masterpiece, and it’s a shame that they were made by such a colossal asshole. Whatever happened to the Kanye West who wrote “Balding Donald Trump taking dollars from y’all”?
5
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Wed Jan 31 2024
Happy Sad
Tim Buckley
This is one of the most appropriately titled albums ever. At times melancholy and at times positively nostalgic, this is the type of music that cheers me up when I’m feeling down, but makes me a bit sad when I’m in a good mood. I don’t know how else to describe it, but I get a similar feeling with much of Sufjan Stevens’ and Leonard Cohen’s music.
This isn’t my favorite Buckley album, but it represents a transition period from his baroque pop to his more experimental folk jazz style. This was also the first album where he wrote all his own material. The pairing of vibraphone and Buckley’s sort of experimental voice go together so so well. The use of voice as a tool to make interesting sounds more than just conveying the lyrics is a wonderful thing.
3
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Thu Feb 01 2024
Bossanova
Pixies
This is easily the weakest of the “holy trinity” of Pixies albums. Bossanova has a much poppier sound than their other albums, which I mostly don’t love. It’s an interesting product of its time, with a grunge-pop rock hybrid, but it also feels much older since it consists of 14 songs for a total of 40 minutes (less than 3 minutes per song). This feels like the perfect dose; I think I would’ve gotten bored after an hour of this sound. I don’t think I’ve listened to this album in 10+ years and my meh-to-okay rating from then still holds up. I gave the same rating to other Pixies albums and I think I’ll definitely be re-assessing those assuming they come up within the 1001. I can’t imagine Bossanova is on the list without Doolittle or Surfer Rosa, but we’ll see.
3
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Fri Feb 02 2024
Stripped
Christina Aguilera
Really? This is one of the 1001 albums? Well ok, I guess I’ll give it a shot.
A little more than halfway through, and I’m actually enjoying this a fair amount. Many of the songs are more rock oriented, some are R&B oriented, and some are the ones I know and eye roll at like “Beautiful”. Despite the differences between songs, it all feels cohesive. Interestingly, every song on the album was written or co-written by Aguilera except for “Beautiful”, which is the one part of the album that doesn’t feel like it belongs. It’s a major pop ballad though so it made sense to include it to help drive sales. Overall, I found myself liking this much more than I had expected, to the point where I listened to the deluxe edition with 2 extra tracks: a b-side and a remix.
3
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Sat Feb 03 2024
Be
Common
Common is a little boring but I respect what he does. This is a solid album with a great ode to Chicago. At least this album is much better than Like Water for Chocolate.
3
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Sun Feb 04 2024
En-Tact
The Shamen
First album on the 1001 list by an artist I hadn’t even heard of. Despite that, I knew I was getting into an electro-house album by the artwork alone. The early 90s vaguely futuristic “tribal” art and font ooze chill-out house. Very fortunately, this is something closer to The KLF than to The Orb. I love the former (a little dancy), and I can’t stand the latter (very ambient). While The Shamen fall somewhere in between, the album overall edges towards The KLF and away from The Orb. Many of the songs do drag on and get boring before they end; I can’t imagine enjoying extended versions that probably would’ve been typical at clubs.
3
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Mon Feb 05 2024
Songs Of Love And Hate
Leonard Cohen
Songs of Love and Hate is right. So much emotion behind this, even though it's maybe not my favorite Leonard Cohen.
3
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Tue Feb 06 2024
Maggot Brain
Funkadelic
The title track is probably the best funk/rock instrumental ever, and then there’s some other songs which range from fine to solid. I feel like Funkadelic were at a point in their career similar to Black Sabbath at Paranoid: coming from psychedelic/blues roots, this was the album where they really began to develop their sound that made them famous. Oddly enough though, I felt like Parliament releases contain their funkier side where Funkadelic releases are more experimental rock.
Definitely not my favorite Funkadelic/Parliament/George Clinton/Bootsy Collins/etc. album, there’s a handful of Parliament albums I prefer along with One Nation Under a Groove (which contains a bonus EP with a live version of “Maggot Brain”). A lot of Maggot Brain feels like a fusion of James Brown and Jimi Hendrix, with a little Miles Davis thrown in. Further on in Parliament/Funkadelic’s career, I don’t think I can rightfully compare them to anyone; they’re the ones who get imitated, not the other way around.
3
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Wed Feb 07 2024
Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an interesting group. It looked like Karen O was primed to take the mantle that was developed by the riot grrrl movement, but after this album they started to go the more refined indie route rather than the garage punk status they had with their first couple albums. I do like some of the back-and-forth punkish sound and then softer sound with “Maps”. It reminds me a lot of The Breeders or Garbage. Overall unfortunately I think I prefer both Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ self-titled debut EP and their later album It’s Blitz to Fever to Tell. Fever is definitely an essential album for this list though.
3
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Thu Feb 08 2024
Morrison Hotel
The Doors
None of the Doors’ albums matched their self-titled debut or the follow-up Strange Days, but this one comes close. Really everything in their discography is very good, albeit there’s not a lot of albums considering Jim Morrison’s early death. “Peace Frog” is the highlight of this album for me. While rather upbeat it’s fairly political, condemning actions of the police (both for Morrison’s on-stage arrest in New Haven and the mishandling of the 1968 DNC convention protest in Chicago).
3
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Fri Feb 09 2024
One World
John Martyn
John Martyn is a little boring. I remember enjoying Solid Air, but there’s a lot less interesting things going on with this album. Martyn seemed to be doing in the 70s what Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel were doing in the 80s-90s, so props to Martyn for being ahead of the curve. But One World just doesn’t really do much for me.
2
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Sat Feb 10 2024
Deep Purple In Rock
Deep Purple
This album is really what pushed Deep Purple from psychedelic rock into hard rock or metal, but it’s also one of their least interesting albums I’ve heard. Their earlier Concerto for Group and Orchestra was a wonderfully weird prog-rock romp, and the later Machine Head and live Made in Japan set the standard for what hard rock should be. In Rock was a transition, and it has some cool elements of prog-rock (the 7-10-minutes each “Child in Time” and “Flight of the Rat”) and metal (“Speed King” and “Bloodsucker”). A deluxe version of this album contains “Black Night” which was recorded in the same sessions but only released as a single. I can’t really see why that was left off the album, it’s as good or better than most of the rest of the stuff on the album.
3
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Sun Feb 11 2024
Live At Leeds
The Who
The Who at their best. I listened to the original album which only contains 6 songs including 3 covers and a 15-minute version of “My Generation” with some awesome jam elements. I also listened to some sort of super deluxe version which I believe contains the whole concert, a little over 2 hours long, which includes a full performance of the album Tommy and a considerable amount of banter between songs. My favorite bit of banter is Daltrey narrating what the lyrics describe in “A Quick One, While He’s Away”.
It’s interesting to me what they chose to release on the original LP of Live at Leeds. They could have easily made it a double album and included bits of Tommy or perhaps some other amazing live songs like “A Quick One” or “Happy Jack”. Still a great live album, but surprisingly I prefer the full live set to the condensed 37-minute version.
4
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Mon Feb 12 2024
Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby
Girls Against Boys
I’m not sure what I was expecting getting into this (probably something like Sebadoh who I dislike), but… a post-hardcore band from Washington, DC formed from Fugazi and Soul Side alumni was NOT what I was expecting. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this band. This is at least as good as what Fugazi was doing around this time period. It leans heavily into bass and drums with a lighter touch on the guitar, and that’s something that I think differentiates the sound from Fugazi and other post-hardcore acts. I really like this one, I’m glad this was included.
3
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Tue Feb 13 2024
The Next Day
David Bowie
David Bowie has so many excellent albums that some great ones go somewhat forgotten. The Next Day was heavily eclipsed by Blackstar a few years later, and it can’t compete with Bowie’s 70s masterpieces, but it’s really his best between “Heroes” (1977) and Blackstar (2016). “The Stars Are Out Tonight”, “Where Are We Now?” and “Valentine’s Day” are some of Bowie’s best tracks, even considering all the great songs he released in decades prior.
3
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Wed Feb 14 2024
Live Through This
Hole
Generally I’m not a huge fan of grunge. I don’t mind Nirvana much and I do tend to like Pearl Jam, but I can’t stand Alice in Chains or Temple of the Dog and can’t say I really like Soundgarden at all either. Hole falls somewhere in the Soundgarden territory. This is an important grunge album, and Courtney Young’s vocals are impressive, but mostly this album doesn’t do a whole lot for me. I do think I’ve enjoyed this slightly more this time than in the past, so maybe it will keep growing on me.
2
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Thu Feb 15 2024
Catch A Fire
Bob Marley & The Wailers
I’ve never been a huge reggae fan but the more I listen, the more I get into it. It’s easy to see how Marley and crew catapulted the regional genre onto the international stage.
3
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Fri Feb 16 2024
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
VU really should have had Maureen/Moe Tucker sing on more tracks, she sounds good on “After Hours” despite that song being a little less interesting. This album is probably VU’s poppiest and folkiest, and in a way their least experimental. But it’s by no means worse for it. “Candy Says”, “What Goes On”, and “Pale Blue Eyes” are all fantastic songs. VU seem to be channeling The Beatles on this album: it can seem tonally all over the place, but it's still congruent and overall it works very well.
3
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Sat Feb 17 2024
With The Beatles
Beatles
Speak of the devil, this isn’t exactly the Beatles album I was referring to when I said that VU were channeling them yesterday, but it fits: this album is basically a bunch of poppy singles thrown together, so it’s not completely tonally consistent (compared to, say Revolver or Rubber Soul or even Abbey Road), but it’s a wonderful collection of songs that you can’t help but enjoy.
4
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Sun Feb 18 2024
Tusk
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac’s follow-up to Rumours was never going to hit that pulse again, but it is pretty good. Fleetwood Mac came a long way from their blues rock roots in the 60s into pop rock perfection on their 1975 self-titled album and 1977’s Rumours, and then waned a little with Tusk and afterwards. Tusk feels like they were experimenting a bit and toned down the arrangements and mixing compared to Rumours. It’s not bad, and it’s a neat direction for the group, but it’s not great. It also feels way too long, like they were trying out too many things and decided to just include everything on this double album. But it ends up being quantity over quality and gets boring by the end, to the point that I’m barely interested by the time “Tusk” (the second-to-last track) comes on. That song is hella good though.
3
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Mon Feb 19 2024
You Are The Quarry
Morrissey
Most of post-Smiths Morrissey is bad to mediocre, but this album is actually quite solid. It sounds pretty similar to britpop that was already waning at this point (Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines, Keane) but still sounded good.
3
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Tue Feb 20 2024
From Elvis In Memphis
Elvis Presley
This album and the prior Elvis TV special are my two favorite things Elvis has ever done (if “Suspicious Minds” had been included in the original release of From Elvis in Memphis, then it would probably be my favorite, but it’s interesting that the original release left out one of Elvis’s best songs). They’re the culmination of a decade of Elvis changing music forever and then a few years of garbage music that probably could’ve been great with different collaborators. These two albums were truly a comeback, and while it’s hard to say they’re the highlight of his career (when clearly he was at his peak in the 50s), these are definitely the highlights for me. The more modern recording technology compared to the 50s and the shift to a type of soul music is what really makes this album for me. The Elvis TV special was like a victory lap of great music Elvis had recorded over his career, but Memphis had Elvis recording new tracks incorporating elements of every part of his career: pop, rock and roll, country, blues, soul, and gospel. I’d actually be hard pressed to find an album that blends so many different genres so flawlessly.
One thing that’s awesome to me is that this was recorded in the same studio as Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis only a few months later, and the two albums feature most of the same backing musicians. Both of these albums are the best of their respective artists’ careers, and it goes to show how important the recording location and collaborators are to making great music.
4
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Wed Feb 21 2024
Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
Oh boy, this album is amazing. It’s often overshadowed by A Night at the Opera, but Sheer Heart Attack is something amazing. I’ve been loving when albums pop up on this listen that I own on vinyl. I try not to be one of those “rah rah rah, vinyl is better than any other music format” type of people, but on this album I’ll truly say that vinyl is the best way to experience this:
The first time I listened to this album, it was on iTunes, and there were minor split-second gaps between songs (probably because it was a shitty pirated copy but it may have been an official iTunes purchase, I can’t recall). This completely breaks the flow of the 3-song medley on the first side of the album: “Tenement Funster”/”Flick of the Wrist”/”Lily of the Valley” which really should be played in a row uninterrupted (unless you just listen to the only slightly edited single version of “Flick of the Wrist”).
On the record, the first side opens with “Brighton Rock” which is a slow build of carnival noises into Brian May’s chugging guitar and Freddie Mercury’s bizarre fast-sung vocals, and contains what may be May’s best guitar solo recorded. The intro to the first side of the album is completely juxtaposed by the jarring opening of the second side, “In the Lap of the Gods” which begins with a shrill scream from Mercury and Roger Taylor, which then dies down into a weird fever-dream of sorts. The medley and the borderline jumpscare of an intro to the second side of the album are really what set the vinyl apart from other formats for this album.
Although it’s hardly Queen’s best, this is an amazing album, and one I love to put on regularly.
5
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Thu Feb 22 2024
Brothers In Arms
Dire Straits
I always think I don’t really like Dire Straits but then I listen and I’m like “oh yeah this song is good. Oh yeah, this one too.” and on and on for most of the album. Brothers in Arms definitely has its best songs near the beginning, and gets weaker as it goes along until the final track which is solid. I feel like there’s too much of a synth sound in everything by Dire Straits or Knopfler (e.g. The Princess Bride soundtrack), when they could have easily excelled as a hard rock act. I think the biggest problem is the synthesized drum sounds, which just sound so weak on these tracks. I guess they seemed to do alright for themselves though.
Side note: I’ve heard “Money for Nothing” dozens if not hundreds of times, and somehow today was the first time that I thought “wait… is that Sting singing backup vocals?” and looked it up, and yes, it is Sting. Can’t believe it took me that long to realize that.
3
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Fri Feb 23 2024
Teenager Of The Year
Frank Black
I’ve listened to this once before and did not enjoy it. Three songs in and I feel the same way again. The Pixies really just didn’t do anything nearly as interesting after breaking up. At least The Breeders and The Martinis were sort of doing different things than Pixies and were relatively better for it, but Black Francis/Frank Black sort of just seems like he wanted to make poppier Pixies songs here, and I think he at least succeeds at creating a Pixies-esque sound, which is not something that The Breeders or The Martinis seemed like they were really trying to do. However, it’s an unfortunate continuation of the downward trend that started with Bossanova. You’re better off turning this off and listening to Doolittle or Surfer Rosa.
1
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Sat Feb 24 2024
Rock 'N Soul
Solomon Burke
Solid little album which collects some of Burke’s singles from 1961-1964 plus some additional tracks. It hints at Burke’s gospel ties but mostly stays firmly in the style of rock/soul that other great musicians like Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, or even Ray Charles were doing around the same time.
3
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Sun Feb 25 2024
All Things Must Pass
George Harrison
First of all, this album is way too long. It’s a daunting triple album (almost unheard of at the time in rock music, and to some extent still basically unheard of), not everything’s going to be a hit. The first 6 or so songs clearly outshine everything else on the album. The first disc includes the hits, the second disc contains some rejected Beatles songs (which are better than Let It Be), and the final disc contains the Apple Jam. If I was releasing this album, I probably would’ve eliminated the Apple Jam and released it as its own album. Though had that been the case, it definitely wouldn’t have reached the audience it did, including me. Usually when I complain about an album being too long, I have suggestions on songs to cut, but it’s hard to do that here. It’s a monumental effort and a bit too daunting, but the quality doesn’t suffer.
Second, this is not necessarily the best post-Beatles album, nor is it my favorite (John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is my favorite), but with this album George Harrison solidified himself as the heir to the Beatles in the wake of their breakup. And I think it’s the best breakup album ever made. Lennon went off in a different art-pop direction. McCartney didn’t really make anything very good for another 3 years (until Band on the Run). And Ringo… I can’t honestly say I’ve ever listened to a Ringo Starr album, though some of his singles are decent. A bit of everything that made the Beatles great towards the end of their career is present on this album, including the collaborative effort: Derek & the Dominos formed as a result of them meeting and performing together on this album; Badfinger performed on many of the tracks; the honorary 5th Beatle, Billy Preston, is here; Klaus Voorman; Alan White (the future drummer of Yes); Ringo plays on most tracks; even John and Yoko show up for some background handclaps; Harrison co-wrote songs with Bob Dylan and performed some on this album.
After this album and the Concert for Bangladesh, Harrison really didn’t do much of note until the Traveling Wilburys. But I truly believe that this album alone solidifies him as the greatest Beatle post-Beatles.
4
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Mon Feb 26 2024
New Forms
Roni Size
I didn’t love this the first time I listened, but I really don’t remember it at all so it’s basically like listening to something new. Speaking of albums that are too long, this is over 2 hrs and gets old fairly quickly. I wish the album was more drum&bass than trance, it’s at its best when the drums are constant and rapid and the bass is booming, but unfortunately that tends not to be the case on most of the album. “Matter of Fact” was a highlight to me.
2
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Tue Feb 27 2024
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Probably my second favorite RHCP album after Stadium Arcadium, and probably the first one of theirs I listened to. I think it contains some of their best songs with the least duds of any of their albums (although it does have some duds like “I Like Dirt”). Probably their most consistently good album.
3
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Wed Feb 28 2024
Arc Of A Diver
Steve Winwood
Winwood is quintessentially 80s: that blend of soft rock which isn’t quite pop, but also incorporates trance amounts of soul and jazz into it as well, while also somehow having almost entirely synthesized instruments. Overall consensus: meh.
3
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Thu Feb 29 2024
Le Tigre
Le Tigre
Who did this font better: Le Tigre, or Spongebob? Anyway, this is a great dancepunk/riot grrrl album, full of everything that made/makes riot grrrl great, but somehow even more fun. It’s refreshing to hear such a thorough criticism of Rudy Giuliani from 25 years ago.
3
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Fri Mar 01 2024
Aha Shake Heartbreak
Kings of Leon
I don’t quite understand why these guys got as popular as they did. I guess they just seemed to hit the right pulse at the right time, and to me these guys fill the same niche as Creed or Imagine Dragons. But unlike Creed or Imagine Dragons, Kings of Leon don’t seem to be a band that people love to hate, although I feel like they should be. I never really got into Kings of Leon. I’d groan when “Sex on Fire” or “Use Somebody” came on the radio, I can’t stand those songs. Aha Shake Heartbreak released before the album containing those hits, and frankly it this album is much better than Only by the Night and anything KoL have done since then (at least among things I’ve listened to). Although “The Bucket” is just as groan worthy. And gosh, while I’m listening to some of these songs for the first time in 15 years, some of them are garbage.
Side note: I didn’t think these guys were actual brothers, for a while I thought they were doing a shtick like the Ramones because they don’t really look alike to me.
2
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Sat Mar 02 2024
In A Silent Way
Miles Davis
This album took me a few listens to get into it, but I think I prefer it to Bitches Brew or anything else in Miles Davis’s jazz fusion era. Throughout his career, Davis managed to put together some of the best jazz musicians at the top of their game. This album features Wayne Shorter on sax, John McLaughlin on guitar, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock on keys, Tony Williams on drums, Dave Holland on bass, and Joe Zawinul on organ, with production by the incomparable Teo Macero.
This is also one of the only albums where I prefer the “ultra-deluxe” version: The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions. At 3 ½ hours long, it contains some tracks from Filles de Kilimanjaro, rehearsals for the songs which ended up on In a Silent Way, and a number of outtakes and otherwise unreleased tracks which are all up to the same standard of quality as the two tracks that made the final version of In a Silent Way. This is definitely not something I believe of Davis’s other “The Complete [album] Sessions” box sets.
This 40 minute version is definitely the better way to listen to it, but if you like it, check out Filles de Kilimanjaro next, and if you like that just as much, maybe check out The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions.
5
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Sun Mar 03 2024
Abbey Road
Beatles
Probably The Beatles’ most coherent album, despite it being the last they recorded before they broke up. Amazing start to finish with the exception of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” which was apparently a nightmare for everyone but Paul. Harrison’s two songs on the album are probably the best: “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something”.
5
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Mon Mar 04 2024
Pump
Aerosmith
Oddly this was one of the first CDs I ever had, but it took me years before I listened to the full album. There’s a few of Aerosmith’s best songs like “Janie’s Got a Gun” here, and overall it sounds like 70s Aerosmith which I guess is good for them. I’m not a huge fan though.
2
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Tue Mar 05 2024
Blunderbuss
Jack White
I’m generally a fan of most of Jack White’s projects, and it seemed like he held the reins and had most of the creative control with The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather, but that’s even more the case on Blunderbuss.
Prior to the release of this album, I wasn’t super impressed by “Sixteen Saltines” (it’s now grown on me more), and I was concerned that White wasn’t going to be able to make something as great as his old stuff without a backing band (even though one of those bands was just one additional person). But I was corrected in multiple ways: the amount of talent on this album is immense, all brought together by White and, yes, under his complete creative control. And the music recorded is all fantastic. It’s like a mix of the amazing songwriting of The White Stripes plus but with crisp production added. I know that not everyone loves that because Jack White became synonymous with garage rock and a sort of lo-fi style of production, but I think the fine engineering on Blunderbuss is for the better.
I had the pleasure of seeing Jack White live touring for this album at the inaugural Firefly Festival in 2012; he and his band put on a great show. There were some snags with the sound not working great, but after they sorted it out, everything was perfect. I’ll never forget the end of that night, when all the concertgoers were filtering out of the festival grounds to the tents or parking lot all chanting “Seven Nation Army”.
5
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Wed Mar 06 2024
This Is Hardcore
Pulp
I tend to love Pulp, and I had rated this album well previously, but it’s just not doing it for me today. Jarvis Cocker of Pulp is masterful though, he writes some great songs and the band plays like Bowie.
3
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Thu Mar 07 2024
Bluesbreakers
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
Mostly a bunch of soulless blues covers with a few individual songs. But wow, these guys are amazing at their respective instruments, Clapton obviously on guitar but also Hughie Flint on drums and John McVie (later of Fleetwood Mac) on bass. Mayall himself is really the weak link here, and it’s no surprise that Clapton later went on to have a bigger career.
3
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Fri Mar 08 2024
Highway to Hell
AC/DC
I always forget how much I enjoy AC/DC. Not as great as Back in Black, but this album presents the best of AC/DC from the 70s era which had some blues rock and arena rock as well as the 80s era which went more into metal and hard rock. This was also the first AC/DC album produced by “Mutt” Lange, more famous for his work with (and marriage to) Shania Twain. Mutt was bigger on arena rock in the 70s-80s before diversifying his production sound in the 90s.
3
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Sat Mar 09 2024
Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson
This is a nice bunch of soft rock/folk rock songs and then all of a sudden… “Coconut” which is just bizarre here. Not a lot of congruence among songs on the album but most of the songs are solid.
3
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Sun Mar 10 2024
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
Not my favorite Cure album. It’s pretty good but mostly forgettable. The first time I ever heard “A Forest” it was a remixed version, and it’s probably just nostalgia but I much prefer that to the original.
3
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Mon Mar 11 2024
Hounds Of Love
Kate Bush
I’m not the hugest Kate Bush fan but I give her props for the unique music she was making. I really wish I enjoyed her music more, because I really respect what she’s created, but it doesn’t always vibe with me. The first side of this album is all awesome art pop songs, and the second side is a weird concept about a lost woman. The concept album thing is definitely something Bush would delve deeper into on later albums like Aerial. Hounds of Love is definitely her magnum opus, although it’s not my favorite of her albums.
3
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Tue Mar 12 2024
3 + 3
The Isley Brothers
With the exceptions of “Shout” and “Twist and Shout”, this album contains all the best music that the Isley Brothers ever recorded. It’s a re-invention of the Isley Brothers as a funk group, as opposed to the more straightforward R&B music they were making in the 50s and 60s. About 15 years into their career, the Isleys proved how versatile they were.
4
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Wed Mar 13 2024
Songs The Lord Taught Us
The Cramps
Even if “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” was the only good song on the album, this would still be excellent. But this awesome song is surrounded by other similarly great goth-punk/psychobilly songs. It’s like The Cramps committed to a weird novelty aesthetic but then really stuck the landing and came out with some awesome tracks that were ahead of their time while still relevant for the shifting music scene of the early 1980s. Their covers of classic rock and roll artists are just as at home as their original tracks, and they really make the covers their own. Particularly “Sunglasses After Dark” with the fun “Ace of Spades” interpolation thrown in the middle.
4
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Thu Mar 14 2024
Who Killed...... The Zutons?
The Zutons
Recorded in 2003, this sounds like an ode to old school garage rock from the 60s or even 50s, similar to The Cramps. Only problem is that The Zutons don’t execute as well. It sounds fine, but it also definitely sounds somewhat influenced by Britpop, becoming a weird amalgam of eras that just doesn’t work well for me.
3
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Fri Mar 15 2024
There's A Riot Goin' On
Sly & The Family Stone
Not my favorite Sly album, but it’s an interesting funk piece that gets a little deeper soul. It’s a more mature sound that many other funk and soul artists of the era were also adapting (like Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, or Stevie Wonder).
3
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Sat Mar 16 2024
Dookie
Green Day
Just great song after great song, it’s amazing this album came out as early as it did. Green Day defined the sound of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater years, just 5 or so years early. So many pop punk, skate punk, or ska punk bands based their sound and attitude off of Green Day, from blink 182 and Sum 41 to My Chemical Romance.
4
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Sun Mar 17 2024
They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Liars
I’ve listened to a few albums by Liars already, but this was new to me. They’re sort of hit or miss. The experimental/noise-rock style doesn’t really hit for me, but They Were Wrong definitely fuses more industrial music rather than just being straight up noise rock. I think this is my favorite album by Liars I’ve heard so far.
3
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Mon Mar 18 2024
Sunshine Superman
Donovan
Mostly a bit boring but the starts to both sides of the album (“Sunshine Superman” and “Season of the Witch”) are both great. It’s also very exemplary of mid-60s psych-rock.
3
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Tue Mar 19 2024
Dirt
Alice In Chains
AiC is really everything I don’t like about grunge. I know that a lot of grunge is an opposition to the status quo while also projecting an aloofness that’s absent from punk music. But other major grunge acts like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Soundgarden brought so much passion, anger, and even joy into their music. Every musician in Alice in Chains sounds like they don’t want to be making music, as if recording is their 9-5 that they’re sick of and dying for retirement. I know that making music IS work, but it doesn’t need to sound so uninspired.
Having said all that, Dirt is my favorite Alice in Chains album and it’s easily their most tolerable.
2
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Wed Mar 20 2024
Headquarters
The Monkees
I guess this is the first Monkees album where they were afforded (some) creative freedom, after the band was originally a fictional group for the TV show with the music written by others and recorded by session musicians. I hate to say it, but the industry machine that created The Monkees did a better job making songs than the Monkees themselves. At least at this stage before “Daydream Believer” was released.
2
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Thu Mar 21 2024
The Yes Album
Yes
The first great Yes album, they jumped onto the prog rock scene with this album and continued to develop the genre over the next couple years (although I haven’t heard the first 2 Yes albums which are apparently solid proto-prog albums that proved the band in the same way that In the Court of the Crimson King did for King Crimson). Yes cement their style of prog rock which includes close harmony, the electric organ, funk-jazz interludes, and prominent bass lines that sometimes rival the guitar licks.
3
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Fri Mar 22 2024
Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
Possibly an unpopular opinion but I definitely prefer New Order to Joy Division. That is not to say that I think it’s better off after the death of Ian Curtis, if anything I think the rest of the band continued in his footsteps and their sound evolved naturally into a new era. It’s insane that he was only 23 when he passed. His voice is tremendous on this album, like a punkier Jim Morrison. I think that if he had continued living, the band probably would’ve continued to trend more in the direction of New Order’s style, but possibly with darker overtones to complement Curtis’ voice.
More than the songwriting though, the production on Unknown Pleasures is incredible. There’s an interesting technique like Phil Spector’s wall-of-sound which is unlike anything from the late 70s/early 80s, and predates the similar shoegaze sound by 10 years. While I think that many of Joy Division’s best songs were released as non-album singles, Unknown Pleasures contains a lot more interesting material than Closer. “Disorder” and “She’s Lost Control” in particular are my favorites and hint at what’s to come from New Order.
4
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Sat Mar 23 2024
Sign 'O' The Times
Prince
Prince is really hit or miss for me. I love Purple Rain, but I really don’t see why Sign o’ the Times is his other album which is incredibly well regarded. Perhaps it’s because of the absence of The Revolution, but I don’t find Prince as interesting with a stripped bare-bones instrumental backing. The title track is good and there are some other solid songs on the album, but overall it’s not really my cup of tea. I was actually considering rating this album a 2 or even a 1 until “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man”, which is an all-time great Prince song that I totally forgot about.
3
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Sun Mar 24 2024
Here, My Dear
Marvin Gaye
This is a solid album but among some of Marvin Gaye’s other work, it’s a little weak. Lyrically, Gaye mostly discusses his ex-wife Anna Gordy, and he really toes the line between standard generic heartbreak music and dissing Anna. It turns out sort of weird, but it also interestingly demonstrates a few of the stages of grief, namely anger and acceptance. Soul music is by definition passionate, and anger is a passion. But it’s still very interesting when anger comes through in soul.
3
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Mon Mar 25 2024
Shalimar
Rahul Dev Burman
Burman is like the John Williams or Hans Zimmer of Bollywood: he’s iconic and he’s the master of composing for film. I’ve heard a lot of his work together with Asha Bhosle, but never this soundtrack. I hadn’t heard of Shalimar, but a Bollywood movie starring Rex Harrison seems super interesting.
The title credits music has a James Bond-esque feel to it (not so much as the vocal Bond main themes, but the “James Bond Theme”, “007 Theme”, or the “Suspense Motif” by Monty Norman, John Barry, and David Arnold, respectively). The rest of the songs follow some excellent Bollywood dance numbers interspersed with great suspenseful film music and (what I assume are) leitmotifs.
I’m really glad this album was included in the 1001. This was new to me and this is not the type of music I’ve come to expect from the book.
4
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Tue Mar 26 2024
Cosmo's Factory
Creedence Clearwater Revival
I always underestimate how much I like CCR until I listen again. Willy and the Poor Boys is my favorite of their albums, but this is probably second or close to it. Considering they were only active for about 4-5 years, their productivity was almost as high as the Beatles or Dylan compared to a similar time period. “Up Around the Bend” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain” are highlights from the album, but a few other tracks surprised me with how much I enjoyed them, like “Travelin’ Band” and the cover of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” which interestingly retained some soul elements while mostly being performed in CCR’s iconic swamp rock style.
3
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Wed Mar 27 2024
Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
Probably my favorite Stones album, the two bookends of this album are my favorite songs by them. “Sympathy for the Devil” is a masterwork, easily my favorite song of theirs. And “Salt of the Earth” is a really underrated Stones song. Sung primarily by Keith Richards, it’s a bit of a naive attempt at an ode to the common person, something John Lennon later went on to do a lot in his music. But it’s still an endearing song with a really cool gospel-like vocal distinction. Gospel is certainly a genre the Stones toyed with a lot, but I think this ended up being gospelly without being in your face about it. The rest of the tracks are fine, but nowhere near as good as the opener and closer.
4
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Thu Mar 28 2024
The Clash
The Clash
I assume this is supposed to be the original British release, which is great despite the later US release including “Complete Control”, “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais”, “I Fought the Law”, and a new version of “White Riot”, all some of The Clash’s best songs up until the release of London Calling. The Clash excelled at making covers their own. “I Fought the Law” is a great example of this, but “Police & Thieves” is a song that really fits in with the rest of Joe Strummer & Mick Jones’ repertoire.
3
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Fri Mar 29 2024
To Pimp A Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar
I think everyone knew when this came out that it was something special, something that would become an instant classic and have immense staying power, changing the shape of modern music. It’s the 5th highest-ranked album of all time on Metacritic, and it’s quickly risen to #17 on Acclaimed Music, #19 on Best Ever Albums, #19 by Rolling Stone, #7 by Consequence of Sound, and #1 on Rate Your Music. With the possible exception of Rolling Stone, it’s the best rap album ever in all of these lists. Nearly 10 years after release, I’d say it for sure holds up. It’s an absolute masterpiece.
Sometimes when you gather so much great talent together on one album, it doesn’t equal the sum of its parts. That’s not the case here. There’s a variety of producers including Thundercat and Flying Lotus. There’s a variety of guest musicians like Snoop Dogg, SZA, and Robert Isley. But it’s really Kamasi Washington who shines above all else (other than Kendrick Lamar himself of course): while he only plays sax on “U”, he arranged strings and instrumentals for most of the album, and in my opinion that’s what really skyrockets this album to the heights it achieved. Regardless of how good the lyrics are (and Kendrick’s are bar none), you need great backing music to get the songs to stick in your mind.
5
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Sat Mar 30 2024
Madman Across The Water
Elton John
Two of Elton John’s best songs back-to-back start the album, but afterwards it gets much less interesting. Still, less interesting than “Tiny Dancer” and “Levon” is pretty good. After Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (by far Elton John’s best album), Madman Across the Water is probably tied with Honky Chateau for my second-favorite.
3
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Sun Mar 31 2024
Felt Mountain
Goldfrapp
I’ve enjoyed a few other albums by Goldfrapp, including Seventh Tree which I love. But even though Felt Mountain was the debut that made her big, I just can’t get into it. Most of her later albums either lean much more into dance or much more into folktronica. Felt Mountain is almost strictly ambient electronic, which sometimes I’m into but just not with this album.
3
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Mon Apr 01 2024
Drunk
Thundercat
Thundercat’s expertise in hip hop production is in full force here, despite this album being largely a tribute to old school jazz as well as the jazz fusion of Miles Davis. Even the album artwork seems to have Thundercat’s upper half of his face mimic Miles Davis’ hair and angry demeanor from that era. But contrary to the photo, this album is just so fun. It’s playfully bizarre without being so bizarre that it ever gets anywhere close to being difficult to listen to. It’s great background music for chilling out or partying, and it’s also great music to vibe to without any other distractions. Great album all around.
4
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Tue Apr 02 2024
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Beatles
Obviously an absolute classic, but this is really the one Beatles album which has soured on me over the years. It’s still amazing, but while I hold Revolver and Abbey Road in utmost esteem, and the White Album, Help!, and others have grown on me, Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour were once in my top 100 of all time and have both fallen out, Sgt. Peppers’ much more so compared to MMT. Perhaps it’s because of the “concept” that they just can’t seem to stick to, or perhaps it’s because some songs seem like total throwaways (“Fixing a Hole”) compared to other amazing songs (“A Day in the Life”), so the whole album feels a bit disconcerted. All that said, Sgt. Pepper’s cultural impact and influence on the music industry are massive, and anyone who listens to popular music should all be glad this album exists. Also… fabulous album artwork, possibly the most iconic of all time.
4
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Wed Apr 03 2024
Tonight's The Night
Neil Young
Listened to this a couple days after Neil Young was added back to Spotify (Joni Mitchell doesn’t seem to be holding out either anymore, not sure when that happened). I tend to like Neil Young but this album never really resonated with me. There’s some good songs but nothing that stands out too much. Young is at his best live, and Live Rust contains a great version of “Tonight’s the Night”.
3
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Thu Apr 04 2024
D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
I want to like Throbbing Gristle, but on this album they get so weird that they borderline turn into the Residents. I say I want to like them because their music is so strange, and also because their first album is called The Second Annual Report and their third album of experimental industrial music is called 20 Jazz Funk Greats.
Really only one song was bearable and the rest was hard to even call music. I mean… “United” is a new version of an earlier song they made which they considered too accessible so they sped it up so it’s shortened from 4 minutes to 16 seconds, and it’s totally incomprehensible. But the one bearable song was “AB/7A” which I actually really liked.
2
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Fri Apr 05 2024
Live!
Fela Kuti
Ginger Baker is a name I’ve never heard of before, but I’ve heard his music loads. He was the drummer for Cream and Blind Faith, then traveled Nigeria with Fela Kuti learning more about African music. I suppose Baker is probably partially responsible for Fela Kuti gaining prominence outside of Nigeria. Baker performs on the final 2 songs on the album (and the bonus track recorded 7 years later which is included on later releases of the album), and he performs almost as excellently as The Africa ‘70’s longtime drummer Tony Allen.
I say “almost as excellently” because Baker’s absence isn’t really felt on the first 2 tracks. The drums are the core of Afrobeat and Fela Kuti’s specific blend of international funk and regional Nigerian music. And no drummer is more important to this regional music than Tony Allen.
One thing I’m amazed by is how early in Kuti’s career this was recorded. This was recorded in 1971 and released only a month after it was recorded, which is crazy by today’s standards, especially considering how good the recording sounds given the minimal post-production and engineering the music received. Everything else I’ve ever heard by Kuti was recorded later in the 70s or 80s, so this marks the first thing by him I’ve heard. It’s a great album, really shows off how talented Kuti, Allen, and the rest of the band are well before their other albums.
4
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Sat Apr 06 2024
American Idiot
Green Day
I believe this was either the first or second CD I ever bought for myself (Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers was the other). This came out when I was in middle school, and I enjoyed the music and the general anti-establishment vibes without really resonating with or understanding the political implications. A few years later, I kept an early music diary in high school and I re-listened to this album and wrote a fairly extensive entry. I think this was maybe the first time I really attempted to understand the plot of the punk-rock-opera and wrote it down as I understood it (I believe I was remarkably close, except I think Green Day intended only St. Jimmy to be a figment of Jesus of Suburbia’s psyche, whereas I thought Whatsername was as well). I think more so than albums like Tommy or The Wall (which may be technically better albums), I prefer this as a rock opera, because the story is not just more straightforward and easier to understand, but also a more encompassing and important story. But in 2008-09, I wasn’t exactly a politically savvy highschooler. I was fortunate enough that my family was relatively unscathed by the financial crisis, and I didn’t quite grasp how 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really affected me and my fellow citizens of the US and the world.
Listening again nearly 20 years after release, I think I resonate with this album even more than I did as an angsty teenager. There’s a general sense of ennui present throughout the album that seems to put a finger on the pulse of the millennial generation. There’s a consensus that something and maybe everything is wrong, but no one’s able or willing to make things right. But ultimately despite how fucked up everything is, “There’s nothing wrong with me. This is how I’m supposed to be in a land of make-believe that don’t believe in me”.
4
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Sun Apr 07 2024
Paris 1919
John Cale
This is easily Cale’s most accessible music outside of the Velvet Underground. The orchestral arrangements are great throughout the album, and Cale’s composition is good but he’s just not a good singer unfortunately. Probably my favorite Cale album up until Hobosapiens which surprised me with how much I enjoyed it.
2
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Mon Apr 08 2024
Talking Heads 77
Talking Heads
I love Talking Heads, but then whenever I listen to one of their full studio albums, I realize what I really love are Talking Heads’ greatest hits and live albums. There’s some great tracks on 77, but there’s also some lackluster songs that sort of just drone on in the background. Compare that to Stop Making Sense which is an absolute tour-de-force of all of Talking Heads’ best songs up to that point pumped full of even more energy than on the studio recordings.
Even with David Byrne’s broken French, “Psycho Killer” is just an incredible song. Byrne’s robotic voice fits in perfectly on tracks like “Don’t Worry About the Government” and “Uh Oh, Love Comes to Town”. The rest of the tracks are good but mostly forgettable. While I don’t think Talking Heads made a bad album during their ~10 year run, I also don’t think they made very many exceptional studio albums. This, their debut album, is pretty close though, and it’s one of my favorites of theirs.
3
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Tue Apr 09 2024
Sound of Silver
LCD Soundsystem
I realized I feel almost the opposite about LCD Soundsystem as Talking Heads: I went into this album thinking that I enjoyed a few songs but didn’t love the rest. Turns out I forgot a lot, every song on this album is great.
“Get Innocuous!” is a great dance-punk banger, “Time to Get Away” is a great fuck-you to LCD’s old manager, “North American Scum” is dancy but also a contemplation on what it means to be a New Yorker and how their high culture compares to that of Europe. “Someone Great” is a memorial to James Murphy’s therapist. I listened to this song for the first time the day I first watched the movie Metropolis, and I always associate the two. The lyrics are mostly about Murphy’s therapy sessions but also seem to me to contain some social commentary similar to Metropolis. Add to that the lyric “surprised you were human” and the robotic backing music, and I almost associate the song with loving and losing Maria, the robot from Metropolis.
“All My Friends” is one of the greatest songs of the decade and all time, an amazing ode to friendship whose repetitive piano part is steadily joined by other parts in a steady crescendo. “Us V Them” is a weirdly upbeat earworm which is a critique of the music industry, then “Watch the Tapes” is an ode or maybe an elegy to partying. “Sound of Silver” is a repetitive question on what nostalgia really means, and then the grand finale “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” is both a love and hate letter to NYC as well as seeming like a preemptive farewell to LCD Soundsystem, despite their (first) farewell not coming until years later. Awesome album overall.
4
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Wed Apr 10 2024
The Man Who
Travis
The Man Who is mostly endearing if a little boring. Their biggest single “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” doesn’t appeal to me much, but there are some other solid melancholic ballads on the album.
2
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Thu Apr 11 2024
The Bones Of What You Believe
CHVRCHES
I’m glad to see this album on the list. I once bought what I thought were tickets to see the group in NYC, and it turns out when we got to the venue, the concert was actually a “CHVRCHES DJ set” despite what the tickets said. Well… the DJ didn’t even play ANY CHVRCHES, so I don’t know what the fuck we bought or what I even went to see. Had a reasonably good time, but this album is definitely better than the DJ set which definitely wasn’t CHVRCHES.
3
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Fri Apr 12 2024
Let's Stay Together
Al Green
Pretty much all of Al Green’s good material was recorded and released in a span of about 2 years, which is incredible considering the consistent quality of the 5 albums. The thing that most impresses me about Green is his ability to cover songs and make them his own. There’s a Bee Gees cover on this album that I had no idea was a cover. Green’s soulful cover is completely original to the Gibb brothers’ pop-folk original.
3
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Sat Apr 13 2024
Homework
Daft Punk
Prior to Random Access Memories, this was my favorite Daft Punk album. While “Around the World” is definitely a highlight, “Da Funk” is my favorite Daft Punk track and easily one of their most underrated songs (maybe more forgotten than underrated, since this was one of their first singles, released 2 years before the album). The album feels like flipping through French house radio stations, which makes sense because Daft Punk didn’t originally intend to release all these tracks on one album. They aren’t really connected at all, but the way the songs are arranged really cements this as a cohesive album.
3
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Sun Apr 14 2024
461 Ocean Boulevard
Eric Clapton
Possibly my favorite of any Clapton album with the exception of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. That said, my least favorite song is perhaps the most popular: “I Shot the Sheriff”. IMO not one of Bob Marley’s good songs, and Clapton’s lame cover is even worse. I think the album overall compared to many other Clapton (or Cream, etc.) albums is because these are mostly faster-paced rock-and-roll covers of blues songs rather than the slower-paced blues-rock tracks on albums like Fresh Cream or Blues Breakers.
3
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Mon Apr 15 2024
Vincebus Eruptum
Blue Cheer
Not really much to like here. The music here is mostly heavy blues which was a precursor to metal music, but you’re much better off listening to early Black Sabbath than this. Half of the songs are covers which really just aren’t good. And the originals aren’t any better: soulless singing, uninspired guitar and drum solos, just all around mediocre. As a proto-metal album, I can see why this was included, but I’m really glad that Black Sabbath and others developed the genre into much more interesting music.
2
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Tue Apr 16 2024
Zombie
Fela Kuti
This is Fela Kuti’s magnum opus: an absolutely scathing political piece which criticizes not just the Nigerian military junta but also the individuals who become soldiers and commit atrocities on behalf of their superiors. Where most anti-war protest songs you hear by American artists criticize the leaders without going so far as to criticize the individual soldiers, Kuti goes all in on pissing off the soldiers who mindlessly follow orders (aka “Zombie” or “Mr. Follow-Follow”).
The story behind this album is also crazy: Kuti had a large compound (which he called a Republic) within Lagos which housed his family and musical entourage, and contained homes, recording studios, and a health clinic. After the release of this album, the Nigerian military raided his compound, destroyed almost everything, and brutally injured many of the people there, including Kuti’s mother who died from these wounds. The Nigerian military government then declared these acts as committed by an “unknown soldier”, really just playing into exactly what Kuti was criticizing.
Anyway, it feels weird to dance to music that’s so angry, but the music is also just so funky that it’s hard not to at least bop your head.
4
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Wed Apr 17 2024
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Dead Kennedys
These guys are generally very left-wing in their criticism of conservative politics and American love for property and violence, but they also criticize authority in general (including the current left-leaning governor of California) as well as hippies who they view as not doing enough to take action. Dead Kennedys are angry, and rightfully so. They criticize Khmer Rouge for their genocide, the US for their complicity, and the general public of western nations for their lack of care for fellow humans on the other side of the world. There’s some awesome protest songs in here, and on top of all of that, the cover of “Viva Las Vegas” fucking slaps.
4
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Thu Apr 18 2024
The Rise & Fall
Madness
Nuts that this was never released in the US, it’s easily at least as good as One Step Beyond…, the only other album by Madness I’ve heard. Most of this album gets more experimental and veers away from the 2 tone/ska of their earlier work. That influence is still there, but there’s more pop, punk, and new wave here. “Our House” is quintessentially new wave, and it’s easy to see why that’s Madness’s biggest hit.
3
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Fri Apr 19 2024
O.G. Original Gangster
Ice T
I think I somehow like Ice-T as an actor better than a rapper.
2
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Sat Apr 20 2024
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
This is such an interesting album. I love Fleet Foxes, and while all their subsequent releases have been pretty good, I don’t think they’ve released anything as good as this. It’s basically folk gospel music made by nonreligious city boys, so it’s a totally different take on the genre(s) than pretty much anything I’ve heard before. Mostly though it still conforms to the indie rock style that other people in Fleet Foxes’ demographic were creating around the same time, like Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine, etc. Just more acoustic and with more close harmony. “White Winter Hymnal” is one of my favorite songs; it has the most vivid imagery of any song I know.
4
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Sun Apr 21 2024
...And Justice For All
Metallica
Metallica is sort of a weird band to me because I absolutely love Ride the Lightning and see that as the peak of thrash metal, but the rest of their material tends to lean much harder into rock than metal, resulting in a sound sort of like Guns ‘n’ Roses but just not as pleasing to my ears. Maybe it’s that their singer isn’t as good as Iron Maiden’s but also not as gritty as Judas Priest's (for example). I do enjoy Master of Puppets and some individual tracks from many of Metallica’s other albums, but …And Justice for All really just doesn’t do much for me. I had the pleasure of seeing Metallica play once, and their fans seem to be a really weird mix of counter-culture and current or former military. Not groups of people you usually see hanging out together, so I guess props to the band for appealing to such a wide variety of people.
2
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Mon Apr 22 2024
Warehouse: Songs And Stories
Hüsker Dü
I’ve heard a decent amount of Hüsker Dü before, but their sound still continues to surprise me each time. Before listening, I assumed they were metal based on their band name (the umlauts mainly) and even some song titles (“Masochism World”, “59 Times the Pain”, “Bed of Nails”), but their genre sounds much more like alternative rock or slightly punky rock in the vein of R.E.M. or Pixies albeit much less experimental or interesting (not that I particularly love either R.E.M. or Pixies). I think on average of everything I’ve listened to by these 3 bands, I maybe rate Hüsker Dü higher than R.E.M. and slightly lower than Pixies, but I’ve certainly heard much better and much worse by those bands. Hüsker Dü is consistently mediocre, despite their shift from harder punk on Zen Arcade to this much more mundane shit on Warehouse. I think these 3 bands are also great bridges from punk to grunge, Hüsker Dü more so than the others.
2
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Tue Apr 23 2024
Low
David Bowie
If I were to rank my favorite David Bowie albums, this would probably be pretty low (heh) on the list. But it’s still a fantastic album, that just goes to show how amazing Bowie is. The first half of this album consists of songs with a similar vibe to his earlier albums, particularly Aladdin Sane, and I love all of them. “Sound and Vision” is an all-time great Bowie song. The second half of the album, starting with “Warszawa” co-written by Brian Eno, is mostly instrumental songs (all but “Subterranean”) and all have the minimalist vibe that I don’t love nearly as much as the first half of the album. The Eno influence is clearly there despite him only being credited on the one track. I do like the songs thematically though, because it blends the desolation Bowie saw in post-war communist Eastern Europe with his own drug addictions that he was recovering from at the time.
3
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Wed Apr 24 2024
The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
The first time I listened to NIN, I really didn’t care for him/them. I’ve grown more interested in industrial music since then though, but it’s interesting that this wasn’t really my gateway, considering how The Downward Spiral is one of the most accessible industrial albums I’ve heard. I can’t really pinpoint why, but it doesn’t really appeal to me. Maybe it’s because of the alternating whispered and screeched vocals of Reznor or the weird cuts from very quiet to very loud or ending the song at an odd spot. But the instrumentals are brilliant, and I’m surprised I don’t like Reznor’s origins better considering how much I love what he’s done more recently composing film soundtracks. Hell, it’s crazy that the guy who wrote lyrics like “I wanna fuck you like an animal / I wanna feel you from the inside” composed the soundtrack to a Pixar movie (Soul, which is brilliant).
2
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Thu Apr 25 2024
Take Me Apart
Kelela
I thought this was a new album to me but apparently I have listened to it before. Kelela’s clearly immensely talented but this style of slow-jam R&B unfortunately doesn’t appeal to me much. It’s pleasant while I’m listening but doesn’t make enough of an impression that I retain much of it after listening. I do remember liking her 2023 album Raven slightly better.
2
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Fri Apr 26 2024
Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs
Marty Robbins
Robbins is one of the most interesting figures in music I’ve ever read about. Mostly a country & western musician (as on this album), he helped develop the outlaw country sub-genre, forayed into blues, pop, and folk, had a small film career (mostly playing himself and/or a singer), and then even had a career as a NASCAR driver. And he was apparently a decent racer, with a handful of top-10 finishes.
I know songs like “El Paso” and particularly “Big Iron” have become meme songs, but it does take a catchy tune to get to meme status. And “Big Iron” is definitely that. You can definitely see the origins of outlaw country on this album, not necessarily in the pacing or style of instrumentation, but definitely in the lyrics.
3