This album sounds so claustrophobic. Tim Buckley sounds like a white guy trying to be Bill Withers with a stuffy funky boogie. On top of that, his voice just kind of pisses me off. Pass!
Kraftwerk are legendary pioneers of electronic music. They’ve worked out a futuristic, yet retro aesthetic. Most of their albums are worth a few listens, especially Trans Atlantic Express.
OK Computer is a work of such depth and complexity, layer upon layer, peeling back like an onion, that there are still new things to discover in it even after 27 years of obsessive listening and worship. And yet, its message is so clearly communicated. The modern world is bullshit. We as humans have sold our souls to capitalism, for 24/7 instant food and entertainment. Humans will stomp on each other to be richer, to be seen as cooler, smarter…better. This album reads corporate culture for the filth it is. The production here is unbelievably marvelous. Radiohead were going for the spaces between notes on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, and they nailed it, particularly on Subterranean Homesick Alien, a gorgeous meditation on wishing to escape the world. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood took 16 violins tuned a quarter step apart, all playing the same note, and made the eerie outro to Climbing Up The Walls, a song about the voices inside the heads of schizophrenic patients clawing to get out, yet there is no escape. Open up your skull, I’ll be there, climbing up the walls. A blood curdling scream from inside a diseased brain. This is followed, geniously, by the child like bed time melody of No Surprises. You are deceived into thinking everything will now be better after that horror show, but then Thom starts singing about all the little defeats of life so plaintively that you feel every ounce of the loss in his soul. Alternatively on Karma Police, when he sings the last “I lost myself” and draws out the note, it feels like he’s crying and crumpling into a ball of despair. It’s heartbreaking and so fucking real. Then the song disintegrates into a virus infected computer. The best song on here for me is Let Down. On first few listens it sounds like an average alt rock meditation about being let down, stomped into the ground, and hoping to someday grow wings, yet it builds and builds, listen after listen, layer upon layer to such incredible heights that you can feel your soul actually grow wings, fly above it all and forgive this life for being what it is. Miraculous songwriting. I’m still waiting for someone, anyone to try and top it. I could go on for days. I’ve listened and obsessed so much that I can’t listen and obsess like I once did. I might not feel so strongly about this album had I not felt every emotion he’s singing about at some point in my life. This is a perfect album. No missed notes. No mistakes. Its intentions land squarely at ground zero. Pure, glorious art.
Yawn. I know I’m supposed to love Bob Dylan and particularly this album. I don’t. It’s boring to me.
Excellent grunge from when grunge was dying out. “All I Know” and “Sworn and Broken” are excellent songs that I return to frequently.
Day 1. The Police are an excellent band. 3.5/5
As with all legacy musicians, I respect what they have contributed towards the progression of music and art, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to connect with me. Electric Ladyland has its moments: “Voodoo Chile” and “1983” are cool, lengthy jams, and I would put “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” on a best of playlist, but beyond that, I’d need to devote more attention to it to see if it really is a timeless classic or just overhyped by time and circumstance (his death).
Lively, impeccable recording. You can feel the energy in the room. A nice quick introduction to James Browns’ talent.
This is a ZZ Top that I haven’t experienced before. Their 80’s hits are so ubiquitous that I can start singing any of them without a cue (Legs, Sharp Dressed Man, Gimme All Your Lovin’). Tres Hombres is bluesy, testosterone fueled rock with for tasty riffs, crunchy guitar tones, solid songs and a great album flow. I’ll be putting this album in a regular rotation for now.
On paper, I should be rapturously praising this album. I’m all about mid 90’s alt rock, and I consider that time frame to be the ultimate musical renaissance of my young life after coming off of a diet solely comprised of slick 80’s radio pop, which I truthfully still adore. Unfortunately this album falls into Pavement (the band) land for me: Style over substance. Attitude over ambition. (Or maybe I still just can’t forgive Stephen Malkmus, lead singer of Pavement, for dissing my beloved Smashing Pumpkins in the mid 90’s… Whatever. To each their own. They are VERY different bands!) There are a few cool moments which I’d likely come back to: “Closer You Are” sounds like a lost Beatles song, (which makes sense since this entire album feels like it’s aiming to be the lazier slacker version of ‘Abbey Road’s side two). “The Ugly Vision” is a creepy acoustic number even though it is undercooked, and “Move Away”, “Hit” and “My Valuable Hunting Knife” are fun and accessible with a dash of oddness. All in all, this album could grow on me, but I can’t see myself coming back to the whole project with so many other great albums, musicians and genres to taste and fall in love with.
This album is some lovely sunny 00’s California pop. I’ve never heard of The Thrills. The sometimes fun, sometimes chill vibe has me craving a beach, a sunset, a cooler full of seltzers, vegan volcano nachos and good friends. Nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.
Black Francis’ violent scream! Those loud/soft dynamics! Super cool Kim Deal on bass!! The Pixies’ Surfer Rosa is a stone cold classic album whose influence can be heard everywhere: Bush, Everclear, David Bowie, Veruca Salt, Green Day, Weezer, The Breeders (Kim Deals awesome post Pixies band), even R.E.M, and many many more.? Tony’s Theme makes me giggle with 13 year old glee. Something Against You and Broken Face are cathartic violence without actually hitting anyone. River Euphrates is rolling bliss. Gigantic is the best song ever made on the topic of big D. Five big huge stars for one of the best albums of the 80’s that ended up defining the 90’s.
Excellent, tuneful album. Waylon Jennings and other old school country music reminds me of my grandparents.
My favorite Beatle anecdote comes from a random YouTube interview with Paul McCartney that I watched sometime in the last few years of him saying that his grandson was gloating over beating Paul in Guitar Hero on a Beatles song, to which Paul responded with “well I wrote the song, you little shit, so there!” I prefer post “A Hard Day’s Night” Beatles albums, but the earlier records are a remarkable reminder that a sugar pop boy band are not just in it for the money and has the ability to reinvent the wheel later on.
Definitely not my thing.
I had this album back in the day and really enjoy Got The Life and Freak On A Leash. Like Limp Bizkit, the angry, aggressive vibe isn’t always my thing, but this album feels more thought out than Chocolate Starfish…
I’ve been getting into old school rap and R&B a lot in the past few years. Straight Outta Compton has been on my list to listen for some time. Good album, but I prefer their east coast contemporaries, Public Enemy. Oddly, this is great camping music.
Ah the sweet life giving harmonies of the Mamas and the Papas. I know most of these songs from a compilation I bought a few years ago. Timeless perfection.
For me, the real beginning of the 90’s rock renaissance began with Jane’s Addiction, not Nirvana. Jane’s still feel fresh, raw, real, and very cool. The groove on Been Caught Stealing is blissful and very clearly inspired “ I Am One”, the first song on Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Gish’ in 1991, another album that could be described as being fresh, raw, real, and still very cool. This album pointed the way forward in its time, and has aged really well. There was truly something special going on in Rock music between 1988 and 1991!
Loveless is all about guitar texture to attain enlightened bliss. I’ve been listening to it for over 20 years and it does take a few spins to hear and enjoy the deeply embedded harmonies and melodies. It’s also one of those records that every pretentious music critic holds up and loudly declares to be the epitome of genius, art and influence, when in reality, it is good art, subject to each persons valid personal opinion. It is definitely not for everyone. Side 1 is interesting with When You Sleep being the clear standout. Side 2 is unstoppable with stone cold classics like Sometimes, Come In Alone, and Soon. All in all, I definitely dig it, but there were better albums made in the 90’s.
Amnesiac is a fractured, jarring, glorious mess. It contains some of Radiohead’s very best moments (PYRAMID SONG, You And Whose Army?, Knives Out, Life In A Glass House) next to songs that, even 23 years later, never sound like anything more than strange little experimental demos (Hunting Bears, Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors, Amnesiac Morning Bell). This is why it has always been tagged as leftovers from Kid A, which in reality, it is. As an album, it comes nowhere near the mind bogglingly consistent heights of OK Computer, Kid A or The Bends for me, but it is still Radiohead, and no other band I know can make leftovers sound like compelling modern abstract art the way they do.
Lots of really fun earworms here. “Mr. Speaker” is especially tasty. Madness should’ve been a bigger band in America than they were.
This album could have been released today and it would still be fresh. It sounds like some indie group out of the Pacific Northwest. There must have been some strange art school ethic blowing through the minds of young musicians in 1979. It exists in the same vein as the B-52’s first album, which also came out that year. I feel like in the last year of each decade we get music that is truly pushing boundaries in anticipation for the coming decade. It never ends up defining the next decade but it sure does make compelling art!
Elliot Smith was christened an indie saint upon his death years ago, and I’ve spent that time trying to hear and understand the greatness, but I don’t. His delivery is so droll and completely uninteresting to me. His songs put me to sleep. He’s been compared to other artists I adore, and I’m just left scratching my head, trying to figure out if we’re all listening to the same thing. Maybe someday it will click, but for now I’ll pass.
The RHCP haven’t aged well for me. Musically they’re awesome. Anthony Kiedas as a singer and lyricist is just not my thing. He brings it all down most of the time. This album and Blood Sugar Sex Magik are both still good though.
Sounds like typical 90’s alt rock. I can hear Bob Mould/Husker Du, 60’s psychedelic, a pinch of electronica and a big dash of slacker. Definitely drags in spots, and could easily be trimmed to 40 minutes, but overall a good time.
Interesting… I thought “First We Take Manhattan” was an R.E.M. song but it turns out to be a cover of Leonard. Cool! Leonard Cohen is another artist I’ve heard so much about over the years and I’ve felt he’s overhyped. This album is the best I’ve heard from him. The songs are solid and rich, and he sounds like a middle aged French playboy reminiscing over lovers past with a bottle of whiskey and a deep sadness in his heart.
You could date when this music was made down to the month, it sounds so much like a quintessential late 90’s electronica raver revolution record. Those were thrilling times! The future was now. So much new music felt boundary pushing and cutting edge. I feel like that concept has sadly been lost to cheap disposable music in the 21st century. This album is rock solid. The last three songs really take you somewhere out of this world. For similar music, check out The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Moby or Daft Punk.
Nebraska sounds like the state it’s named for: sparse, lonely, can take forever to get through. For context of how shocking of a change this album is in Bruce’s catalog, it sits between 1980’s raucous double album “The River” and 1984’s zeitgeist “Born In The U.S.A.”. This is not my favorite Springsteen album but it does house one of the best songs he ever made in “Atlantic City”. Other highlights are “Johnny 99” and “Highway Patrolman”. It also shows that Bruce is truly a great storyteller who focuses on everyday, unassuming people with remarkable histories.
I’m a little surprised that this Madonna album is on the list. There are 4 or 5 true classics from her and this one doesn’t measure up to them. That being said, this is still a very good album, and possibly great if you take off the more embarrassing moments, like the “Beautiful Stranger” retread of “Amazing”, and the career low point of “Nobody’s Perfect”, which became the template for her next album, the still awful “American Life”. This is also the point where she became obsessed with autotune bullshit, which completely ruins vocals 9 times out of 10 to my ears. It doesn’t sound futuristic anymore. It’s a lazy studio trick (that many use to mask the fact that they can’t actually sing, except Madonna has proven that she really can sing so it’s pointless) showcasing a lack of ideas and pointing out that she is no longer driving ahead of the curve, but following others. I’m a super Madonna fan from everything she put out between her 1983 self titled debut album and 1994’s “Bedtime Stories”. Pure magical brilliance. I can more than tolerate 1998’s “Ray of Light”, and this record. Beyond this, it becomes a wasteland of overestimating relevance with a few moments of being good but never truly great again.
This sounds like the soundtrack to a Fat Albert caper in NYC. Gritty and funky. “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” is a highlight. I also hear the inspired connection of shoo boo shoo bop on “I Ain’t Got Nothin’” with the Fugees 1996 song “Zealots”. I love it!
I never thought I’d hear an Arabic version of “Imagine”, but here we are. This album is full of strong melodies and pretty great song construction. A nice surprise!
Ive never heard of this album or this band. It’s a generous hippie buffet. That jazz section of On Sir Francis Drake took me by joyous surprise. Sunlight would be the perfect chill soundtrack to the sun lighting up a plant filled bedroom on a perfect spring morning. All in all, this is great weed music for a chill, no worries type of day.
I’d love to love Lou Reed more than I do. So many great musicians and bands were born from the amazing aesthetic of The Velvet Underground. When I try to get into the source material though, I just feel dissatisfied. It lacks a fullness that I crave. Plus, Lou’s voice is too droll for me. Walk On The Wild Side is great though.
I wonder if the title is a nod to The Moody Blues album, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour? Mudhoney is pure grunge. Raw, underground, and so highly influential in their local scene that totemic albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind, and Pearl Jam’s Ten exist partly because of them. Get out your flannel and Birkenstocks and go a month without washing your hair, because it’s a rainy early 90’s day in Seattle and this is your soundtrack, blasting out of your Dodge Horizon’s crummy cassette player.
There are a lot of great songs on this album. Highlights for me are Hey Joe, May This Be Love, Fire, and Foxey Lady.
Not too bad. Enjoyed the dynamics.
Rockin’ and groovy!
This is the one those records that it seemed like EVERYONE had on vinyl in the mid 80’s. It’s definitely an undisputed classic but it’s nowhere near being “the best album of all time”, even though it’s one of the highest selling records. Billie Jean is a perfect song. Thriller is king of Halloween. My favorite is actually one of the only songs on this album that was not a hit…The Lady In My Life. Smooth and velvety. I wish MJ had more like it.
Lots of great songs on this fantastic album. It still sounds fresh and important. This music defines the late 70’s and early 80’s culture that I grew up in. Nobody slays like Eddie Van Halen. His importance in rock music history can never be understated.
Yawn. This sounds like every other song/album being made right now. Not my thing. Next!
I avoided the last AC/DC album on this list, but I gave this a spin hoping to change my opinion on them. Nope. They suck. Like royally suck to me. Every song sounds the same and the lead singers voice always comes off sounding like he’s stuck on the toilet trying desperately to squeeze one out. Not a fan.
Kraftwerk are legendary pioneers of electronic music. They’ve worked out a futuristic, yet retro aesthetic. Most of their albums are worth a few listens, especially Trans Atlantic Express.
Deep neo-soulful night grooves. This, along with Sade, is exactly what my soul needs right now in 2024. So good on first listen. 5 big stars!!
This was the first The Cure record I ever bought. It is definitely not joyfully poppy as some of their later work could be. It feels as sparse and terrifying as an abandoned haunted farmhouse in a bleak winter landscape. Highly recommended! Highlights include Play For Today, M, and In Your House.
Fun early rock n’ roll instrumentals. Enjoyable but not something I’d come back to.
The first time I heard “Closer” was at Chu’s night club in Bloomington in 1995. It felt instantly iconic. Plus, everyone on the dance floor lost their damn minds when it came on. It still sounds like nothing else from that time. I have also always LOVED the chaotic rage of “March of the Pigs”. It put to music what my brain felt at times. This album is one of the best of the 90’s because it stood alone in its own weirdo corner raging and plotting revenge against the grunge jocks who overpowered the rest of the classroom. It truly embodies the spirit of 90’s music and culture.
I enjoyed the beats and vibe of this record, but back to autotune. Yuck! Fortunately it’s used in a way that benefits the music here, and is not used just for the sake of using it. This album is not the total shit show other musicians make of their music by over using it.
I imagine hearing Bob Dylan back in ‘63 was a revelation, considering his poetry combined with the stripped down acoustic presentation works so well. But I wasn’t alive then and I grew up with better production, fully rounded out electric rock n roll bands, and poetry that was just as good (Though “Masters of War” hits extra hard!). Also, his voice does NOTHING for me. He’s just another good/great songwriter whose style is just another color existing among all the other intriguing musical colors I grew up with. Nothing here is revelatory for me.
I just watched a documentary on Amazon the other day about Laurel Canyon, and The Byrds feature prominently in the first part. They were the first band to drop root in that idyllic heaven in California, followed by totemic artists such as The Doors, The Mamas and the Papas, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills and Nash, and later The Eagles. The music here sums up the feeling of an endless perfect summer, gardens full of colorful flowers, and sunlight coming through a plant populated living room window. It’s almost certain the album cover was taken at a band members house in the canyon. What a time and place to be alive!
Soft and sweet. This sound epitomizes the 60’s utopian dream with social commentary peppered in. Excellent record!
This album exists completely out of time to me. Released in 1983, it sounds more 90’s than most 90’s albums, but also retains an acoustic vibe that says it could’ve been made at any time during the past 40 years. Blister In The Sun shows up often in pop culture. I recall it being a favorite song to soundtrack angsty 90’s television to. All in all a good, but not really great record.
This album is too long, yet the songwriting is superb, so it never really overstays its welcome. Very early DIY 90’s sound. I’ll definitely come back again!
I hear touches of modern indie rock mixed in with The Velvet Underground. it sounds fresh. Enjoyable!
Yawn. I know I’m supposed to love Bob Dylan and particularly this album. I don’t. It’s boring to me.
So chill. Dusty is a sweet sweet vibe. This album sounds like the feeling of waking up fully rested on a sunny Saturday morning in May. Her voice is so rich and perfect. Yum!
There’s a lot of gusto in the delivery of these songs. It reminds me of the band Pulp. This is a cool discovery. And, it came out the year I was born, which is a plus!
Definitely one of the best jazz records ever made!
This and 1999’s The Soft Bulletin are The Flaming Lips high water marks for me. Interestingly, they were a more guitar bass drums band up through 1995’s near equally excellent Clouds Taste Metallic until they did sound experiments in parking lots where they had many multiple people synchronize different cassettes to be played in tandem with each other to create all encompassing soundscapes. In fact, their 1997 album Zaireeka is actually four discs meant to be played at the same time. Only The Flaming Lips could pull that type of crazy awesomeness off. Yoshimi is the logical extension of all that but in a very digestible form with songs that touch deeply on death and mortality. Definitely a best album of the 00’s.
I enjoy the Stereo MC’s very early 90’s British electronic/rap vibe. It seemed so cutting edge at the time. This actually sounds like the soundtrack to MTV interviewing twenty-something’s about their sex lives for one of those “hip” 90’s sex documentaries they were so keen on producing back then. I would put this on to chill to or clean the house, or to reminisce about an MTV approved life I didn’t have at that time.
This album sounds so claustrophobic. Tim Buckley sounds like a white guy trying to be Bill Withers with a stuffy funky boogie. On top of that, his voice just kind of pisses me off. Pass!
Sigh. The first truly great Radiohead album. Many more to follow, but this captures the band at their rockinest, chunkiest best. Many people will tell you much later albums are better than this but they are wrong. Take a look at stone cold classic hit songs like “Fake Plastic Trees” and “High and Dry”. So much emotion, so sad, and yet thoroughly uplifting. “Just” is an exercise in cramming as many chords into a song as possible without it sounding even slightly off. “My Iron Lung” is a remake of “Creep”, and also a scathing commentary on the throwaway nature that the band felt that “Creep” was and the general public’s willingness to suck on whatever crap is thrown at them (even though Creep is in actuality a perfect, timeless song). It is also the beating, raging heart of this album. And if that wasn’t enough, they end the record with the terrifying “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”… a song that takes you on a guided tour of the horror of humanity, then ends it with the answer to ALL of it… “Immerse your soul in love”. It’s the only option to get through life without losing your fucking mind. Big BRAVO Radiohead. You’ve given me so so much in this life beginning with this album, and I thank you from the depths of my soul. PS. I spent a day in Ireland listening to this record while staring wistfully out at The Irish Sea. “(Nice Dream)” is now the permanent perfect soundtrack to that memory.
I enjoyed this album far more than I thought I would going into it. It will easily go into regular rotation for me. Beyond “Scooby Snacks”, the hit I’ve already heard many times, the album takes to a nice hip hop chill easily digested at summer picnics, camping and chill days at home with nothing to do.
This stunning piece of art came to me upon its release in 2005. Antony’s voice is both delicate and powerful. “Fistful of Love” is easily one of my all time favorite songs. Antony’s wild emotion in the last minute of the song always wrecks me. The emotional “Spiralling” follows and the tears flow hard. The message behind this album is captured powerfully in its cover: Candy Darling, legendary Andy Warhol actress, on her death bed in 1974 from cancer caused by experimental hormone shots to transition physically from male to female. She lived her truth out loud, to death, with grace, dignity and strength. Candy had more courage in her pinky fingernail than most people can muster up over lifetimes. She may have died young, but she won the test of life in every way possible. Every song on this perfect record is about the joys and heartbreak of the queer experience and rising high within that glorious colorful light. It brings tears to my eyes every single time. Easy 5+ stars and definitive top 3 albums of the 2000’s, and top 10 albums of all time for me.
I once saw a Pitchfork review describe this album as the sound of someone cutting glass at high volume in the building next to you. True. Not my cup of tea, but at least “Just Like Honey” is a stone cold classic song.
I just cannot get into Rush. I respect Prog and what it’s trying to achieve but this is just not for me. Pass.
Fun and funky. New York in the early 80’s must have been so wonderful to experience.
This is the Radiohead album that so many super fans will tell you is their best. I am NOT one of them. “In Rainbows” would be Radiohead perfecting their post “Kid A” sound into a totally digestible piece. There is nothing even remotely bad about this album, but if I’m comparing it to “The Bends”, “Kid A”, or the always timely perfection of “OK Computer”, this doesn’t measure up. I don’t feel the goosebumps rise, or the uncontrollable awe that those three records bring to me, except on “Weird Fishes” and “Reckoner”, and on a good day, “Nude”. The rest feels like Radiohead by numbers. I’m actually way more in love with their next album, 2011’s “The King of Limbs”, but that won’t show up on this list because the critical mass of Radiohead fans and instant internet culture banned that to the garbage bin for being too short and too weird when it first came out. Also it’s worth noting that when this album was released, Radiohead issued a second disc of B-sides along with it. Those are so much better than the album proper. “Bangers and Mash”, “Down Is the New Up”, “Go Slowly” and “4 Minute Warning” could easily have replaced four lower songs on here and made this a truly great record.
I love The Cramps for their campy fun. They fall into whatever genre you want to call them, The B-52’s, and The Slits. Rockabilly. Or Post Punk I guess. It’s like they are all weird for weird sake.
Good noise rock album. I prefer Sonic Youth’s 1990 album “Goo” over this, but still an excellent trip into New York’s 1980’s underground art rock scene.
Automatic For The People has been in my steady rotation for over 30 years because the songs are simply SO good. They miraculously never get old or tiresome. The high quality of songwriting on this record is astounding to comprehend. I still consider Michael Stipe’s plain, yet powerfully rich voice to be the best I’ve ever heard. This album is a meditation on death and mortality which becomes more pertinent the older we get. While I don’t consider this to be my personal favorite R.E.M. record, it is ultimately their most cohesive collection of songs. It is also considered the high water mark of their catalog in critical circles. Perfect songs include: Drive, Try Not To Breathe, Everybody Hurts, Sweetness Follows, Monty Got A Raw Deal, Star Me Kitten, Nightswimming, and Find The River.
This live Fela Kuti album is impeccably recorded and sounds wonderful. The studio records I’ve heard from him sound claustrophobic and yet this sounds loose and free. It captures his spirit well. It could be a soundtrack to summer. On a similar live album note, I would also recommend Elton John’s “17-11-70”. Elton is a genius and his studio albums are incredible, but this particular live album sounds amazing, and it’s recorded as if you’re standing right in front of him at a show. It captures the true energy of Elton John’s brilliant early 70’s music better than the studio albums.
So alt-rock it hurts. The Lemonheads epitomize the scruffy indie band playing in a dingy basement lit with old Christmas lights while their girlfriends watch them from the shabby beer stained/cigarette burned couch. That’s not a bad thing. They are more of a vibe to me than a good band. This album is mid level decent. It is not comparable to far better alt rock bands from the same time period.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this music until I read Apple’s description of it. New Orleans swamp meets 1960’s San Francisco psychedelic. It puts it into perspective, and I wish I’d had this in my life two weeks ago when I was actually in New Orleans. It is a truly deep and dark psychedelic experience, and the kind of oddity that I’m always searching for and thrilled to find.
A swinging good time! Great for cocktail parties, and cooking, and getting your man’s coffee ready for him in the morning before he goes off to the office for a hard days work, and putting on your lipstick to go out to make a visit to your meat man.
Sweet Dreams, the song, is essentially a zeitgeist song of the 1980’s. It sonically captures what everyone thinks the decade was all about. It's a lightning in a bottle perfect song that used the current technology of the time to create a futuristic, yet very 80’s sounding masterpiece. The rest of the album gives a glimpse into the reality of the time…synths, drum machines, solid songwriting and exotic androgyny. Nothing else here comes close to the perfection of Sweet Dreams. It is still a solid album through and through.
I’m not the biggest Eagles fan, but I’ve spent time with this album in the past and it is a solid work.
I’ve always been told I should listen to Muse because I’m a huge Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead fan. I’ve heard bits and pieces in the past and my impression is the same then as it is now. They write excellent melodies and instrumentals, but the lead singer is pushing WAY TOO HARD. It has a quality that says “ look how powerful of a singer I am! LOOK DAMMIT!!”, Without sounding like the songs need that. Billy Corgan succeeds because he writes super complex and beautiful songs FOR his less than stellar voice, and Thom Yorke’s voice doesn’t need to even try because it’s just naturally perfect. I suppose if I invest more time with Muse, I can forgive this. Like I said, the music here is pretty interesting. Time will tell.
Memories of Senior year in high school. This album, along with U2’s Achtung Baby, and the zeitgeist behemoth Nevermind by Nirvana were everywhere. I feel a bit of pride in knowing that I graduated during a peak year in music history.
Yawn. This album is so boring and overrated to me. The vocal delivery is droll, and the songs go absolutely nowhere. I find myself feeling this way about many albums released in 1979. Definitely a low point in music history for me. Hard pass.
This album ages like the finest wine. Every song hits that perfectly produced 80’s sweet spot by avoiding drum machine/keyboard cliches that were oh so popular at the time in favor of a timeless bass/keyboard urban production that feels organic. While listening to this recently I realized that it just might be a concept album which starts with having faith that the right person will maybe eventually show up, to going through the beginning, middle and end phases of a toxic relationship. George: Thank you for creating a perfect pop album that still sounds relevant and modern nearly 40 years later. My opinion states that this album and Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” are the two best records of the 80’s.
This is often listed as the best album of all time. I get its historical importance and impact on modern music, but I also think that you had to be there. It’s great, but I’ll take Revolver and Abbey Road over this for a more enjoyable Beatles experience.
Nearly every song on this album is so overplayed on classic rock radio, you’d think it is a greatest hits record. I would say this is Zep’s most consistent piece of work. Definitely their most totemic, god like work.
I bought this upon release in 2004 while riding the internet music media hype machine. The Beach Boys/Brian Wilson are certainly interesting and groundbreaking but they’ve always come off as too comical and child-like for me to take them seriously. They lack an outright cool factor that other bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones wallow in. This album is not bad at all, its good for what it is trying to be…it’s just not the upper echelon musical experience old music critics claim it to be.
OK Computer is a work of such depth and complexity, layer upon layer, peeling back like an onion, that there are still new things to discover in it even after 27 years of obsessive listening and worship. And yet, its message is so clearly communicated. The modern world is bullshit. We as humans have sold our souls to capitalism, for 24/7 instant food and entertainment. Humans will stomp on each other to be richer, to be seen as cooler, smarter…better. This album reads corporate culture for the filth it is. The production here is unbelievably marvelous. Radiohead were going for the spaces between notes on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, and they nailed it, particularly on Subterranean Homesick Alien, a gorgeous meditation on wishing to escape the world. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood took 16 violins tuned a quarter step apart, all playing the same note, and made the eerie outro to Climbing Up The Walls, a song about the voices inside the heads of schizophrenic patients clawing to get out, yet there is no escape. Open up your skull, I’ll be there, climbing up the walls. A blood curdling scream from inside a diseased brain. This is followed, geniously, by the child like bed time melody of No Surprises. You are deceived into thinking everything will now be better after that horror show, but then Thom starts singing about all the little defeats of life so plaintively that you feel every ounce of the loss in his soul. Alternatively on Karma Police, when he sings the last “I lost myself” and draws out the note, it feels like he’s crying and crumpling into a ball of despair. It’s heartbreaking and so fucking real. Then the song disintegrates into a virus infected computer. The best song on here for me is Let Down. On first few listens it sounds like an average alt rock meditation about being let down, stomped into the ground, and hoping to someday grow wings, yet it builds and builds, listen after listen, layer upon layer to such incredible heights that you can feel your soul actually grow wings, fly above it all and forgive this life for being what it is. Miraculous songwriting. I’m still waiting for someone, anyone to try and top it. I could go on for days. I’ve listened and obsessed so much that I can’t listen and obsess like I once did. I might not feel so strongly about this album had I not felt every emotion he’s singing about at some point in my life. This is a perfect album. No missed notes. No mistakes. Its intentions land squarely at ground zero. Pure, glorious art.
One of my favorite quips from reading Charles Mingus’ biography was the story of how he would stop a show if people were talking or clinking glasses, and if they didn’t cease the noise, he would pick up the mic stand and throw it violently into the audience demanding silence. A bit too far? Yes, but they sure shut the hell up after that. He was there to put on a show and felt it was highly disrespectful to interrupt it by not paying attention. That energy absolutely makes its way into his avant-garde jazz. Charles plays an aggressive bass on 4 very well constructed ballet movements that feel graceful and violent at the same time. This is top notch jazz for anyone who doesn’t know the genre well and is looking for a more unconventional place to begin exploring beyond the well worn standards.
The Doors are the OG of psych rock and they still sounds incredible. The stars here are Jim Morrison of course, and that organ playing, which creates a dark purple acid trip swirl.
It’s always interesting listening to music from a time period that I love, but I have never even remotely heard of the band. This is some moderately good alt rock that drips 1993. Maybe in some parallel universe, this album is talked about over 30 years later like it resides in Valhalla. Parallel universes will warp your mind if you think about them too deeply, just like the concept of eternity. Go read “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig for more on that.
I received the Purple Rain cassette for Christmas, 1984. In hindsight it was probably a little brave of my parents to get that for me as a 10 year-old, considering some of the lyrics travel into risqué territory (Darling Nikki), but they surely didn’t know that when they bought it. Purple Rain is a universally regarded brilliant and perfect album, so digging further into Prince is weird because it reveals that there are exactly zero of his other albums that sound anything like it. The closest you’re going to come would be 1999, created the year before in 1983. It has the big pop radio hits but instead of the classic rock all-time great album vibe of Purple Rain, it presents an early 80s dance/club aesthetic that truly rocks a persons world once they get into it. Many of these songs stretch past 6 or 7 minutes and dig their 5” purple velvet heels deeply into the groove. This album is just as important as Purple Rain, and once you get into this as well, you’ll discover that Prince’s catalog is full of mind blowing albums that never repeat themselves, that don’t always take themselves seriously, will get a little (or a lot) nasty, and will reward repeated listens ten-fold.
This is not what I expected. I thought they were some rock band along the lines of The Strokes. Very pleasantly surprised but I don’t know if it’s intriguing enough to come back to very often.
Elton John is a treasure. His 70’s records are among the best made by anybody that decade. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a beast with some of his biggest hits, but also some of his better deep cuts such as Sweet Painted Lady and Dirty Little Girl. For more Elton greatness, I’d recommend Madman Across The Water, Blue Moves, Honky Chateau, and Tumbleweed Connection. What a gift of a musician!!
Iggy Pop and David Bowie, whom Iggy worked with deeply here, go hand in hand at this point in their careers. They may as well just be considered the Hall & Oates of the 70’s, only more inventive of a world unique to them and not necessarily following others (no shade to H&O…I love them). The Idiot is a fantastic escapade into art dance and club music. The astounding thing about Iggy is that he was a pioneer of punk music in the late 60’s with his band The Stooges, and later became a pioneer of electronica music with his work here with Bowie. This music, along with bands like Kraftwerk led to the electronica and goth explosions in the 80’s and 90’s. This album is definitely a very important historical document and worth every second of a persons attention.
I wore the hell out of this cassette in the late 80’s. It’s the Janet album I always go back to. There is not one bad song, though I will say that Escapade has a hissing sound in it that always makes me feel queasy. I can’t explain that. This is Janet at her best: catchy dance bliss.
Excellent grunge from when grunge was dying out. “All I Know” and “Sworn and Broken” are excellent songs that I return to frequently.
I don’t love Kate Bush. I get the appeal for many but overall she is not for me. That being said, this album is decent. Nothing special, just mildly interesting 80’s art pop.
The first half of this album is incredible. Great vibe despite the mumbles. Side two is good, but gets a smidge uninspiring in a few spots. All in all this is a fantastic find!
Solid bluesy rock, but nothing super special going on here.
I went into this album expecting to be thoroughly unimpressed, but it’s time to eat crow. It’s got that big dick dumb rock n roll energy, yes, but some of the songs are really good. The album cover is cool too.
I respect Damon Albarn’s ability to cover a lot of ground with his songwriting, but on Parklife, it mostly just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s all too wink wink in a smarmy British way. Maybe it’s just trying too hard to be a Sgt. Peppers for the 90’s. I’ve tried on many occasions over the years to get into this record, but I just can’t. A few songs hit well: “Girls & Boys” is a stone cold classic 90’s banger, “Far Out” and “Too The End” emit cool psychedelic vibes, and “This Is A Low” is a solidly written, mature tune. Had the album been full of those, then it would be a perfect record.