My favorite Steely Dan album. Loaded with familiar tracks but the sleeper on this is "Kings".
As someone who'd long known of The Velvet Underground without ever really knowing them, this was a treat. I was far more familiar with Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" and obviously have a ton still to hear. It's remarkable to think of their songs subject matter in the context of the 60's. The period is obviously well known for uprising counter-culture but my understanding of Velvet is that they took themes of depression, suicide, drug use, etc to the forefront of their music whereas previously, rock bands had to couch the content in massive layers of contextual obfuscation.
I particularly like the songs sung by Maureen "Moe" Tucker, they remind me of some of the more B-sides work of Régine Chassagne within the confines of Arcade Fire.
Overall a great listen, musically, historically, academically. But 3 stars and no less if I'm respecting my ear.
I have a fun game for you to try. Find someone who grew up watching Toy Story as a kid and play them "Rednecks" from this groundbreaking album. If it weren't for one of the most identifiable voices in music history, they'd be hard pressed to believe they were listening to same guy that gave them "You've Got A Friend". That's the thing about Randy Newman, he's one of these artists with two phenomenally distinct career arcs and the prior arc is certainly my preferred.
I had this Album on CD right after Highschool for reason and I probably haven’t listened to it in 20 years. Wow it all came back in an instant.
Finished better than it starts. I mean it’s really good and it serves as more than just a delivery husk for “Superstitious” but certain tracks leave you wondering if they should have ever made it out of demo.
“In the Lap of The Gods” is amazing. Queen is obviously amazing but Jesus Christ, there’s no “easy listening” to them. Not that they needed to do ANYTHING differently, but everything is a rock opera. Stemming from their collective musical genius is Queen’s ONE flaw, their music can come across as overtly sophisticated and thusly, it has almost zero lizard brain appeal. It’s like people who listen to musical theater all the time, it’s high quality music but it takes a certain mindset or wiring to make it your “favorite”. Regardless, it’s good stuff.
This might sound idiotic, but I think Brian Wilson and Queen collectively are as brilliant as one another, “Smile” obviously demonstrates what Brian Wilson had going on in his head that The Beach Boys couldn’t ultimately deliver on for their legacy whereas Freddie Mercury let all that impulsive musical fever dream out onto the stage. The two groups are IMO very comparable not in what they became known for but what their talent potential was and what their leads WANTED to create.
Excerpt on Smile Sessions:
“Smile is firmly entrenched as a great album that never was; 35 years after the fact, historians and archeologists were still trying to put the pieces together. It was intended as the follow-up to the landmark Pet Sounds and was meant to further establish Brian Wilson as the creative better to Lennon and McCartney. But Wilson lost his way; he became obsessed with the process and couldn't finalize his magnum opus…”
The Kinks are the coolest. And this album was a lot of fun.
Let me go ahead and listen to this album for the 1,329th time and give it my first 5. What an amazing story these guys are.
There's really only 1 5-star album from Zappa/Mothers for me, and that's "Overnite Sensation". This one was interesting and important but I am not going to seek it out again anytime soon.
Craaaaaab Album. Craaaaaab Album. Love the Prodigy for what the album represents for 90s electronic. Not an album I actively seek out but came across in several people’s Case Logic’s throughout the years.
Rock Lobster earns this one a whole extra star. “You’re a rock bob bobster”
Wow. That was an amazing album. So passionate.
meh. Lot's of other acts from the time did this same thing better. Interesting for sure, but the best part of the album was when "For Your Love" came on and then I realized the album was over and I was listening to the Yardbirds.
So pure. So much perfectly executed and difficult vocal harmony. It's easy to see why people love these guys. In my minds ear, I hear them as loose harmonies bordering on out of pitch but just no one cares because there's so much love and all that. But that could be because I've listened to way more live Dead that studio and you just can't be as perfect outside the controlled studio environment.
This was a great album and gets my second 5-stars.
Night and day from that other Bowie album a few weeks ago. So many jams. His Across The Universe is better than the Beatles. Take my $$$
I had GPT help me with this review:
For the immediate task at hand, this album is going to get a 3, which is my "good, important, musically interesting but, wouldn't add it to my collection".
The story of Nico, who I knew nothing about and initially mistook for a man after hearing the Velvet Underground album, is truly fascinating. For more in-depth insights, I highly recommend reading Brian Dillon's illuminating article in The New Yorker titled "The Misunderstood Voice of Nico". Nico, a stunning German actress, singer, and model, was once described as "half goddess, half icicle," with her voice likened to "a cello getting up in the morning." Despite Andy Warhol's admiration and efforts to foster collaboration between her and Lou Reed, there's a tragic narrative that sheds light on Reed's demeanor. Essentially, Nico faced ridicule for her voice from certain quarters.
Her voice is classified as "contralto," encompassing a range similar to that of a male tenor, spanning from G2 to A5. It's exceptionally rare for a woman to master this lower range so seamlessly, and Nico accomplishes it with grace, all while exuding an otherworldly beauty and maintaining a distinctive German accent. She must have been an awe-inspiring presence to behold.
The novelty of this album and the 1981 timestamp it bears is not lost on me. It's certainly unlike anything I've ever heard from that era. It's just not my cup o'tea.
My inner 18 year old 1998 trance/house fanatic legally prevents me from enjoying Drum and Base. Paul Oakenfold FTW.
Super cool. I’ve never listened to Patti Smith before. I really love her voice.
My mother introduced me to Tommy before I had any true appreciation for what The Who even was, I was young enough to not even really get the concept of a band. But I remember watching the musical and thinking I was supposed to think it was significant or at least out of the ordinary given the content I had been up to this point exposed. The only aspect that held my attention was the promise and expectation that there would be "pinball in it".
In high school, I watched it again in a music elective as a tangent of musicals, the rock opera. Obviously everyone here knows what a rock opera is. I would venture to guess that Tommy is the reason you know what a rock opera is, both because of it's incredible songs but also the fact the it was made into a film as well. It's the ubiquitous OG of rock operas and is a reminder, along with Pink Floyd's "The Wall", of what England's youth's sentiment was at their respective times (Recall that The Wall was release 10 years after Tommy). Two world wars having exacted an attack on the nation's psyche, leaving the younger generations partially fatherless, profoundly disillusioned, and searching for answers.
Tommy be slammin, fam
I’ve been going to hard on 5s. This was tough.
So awesome. Yes is the f-ing coolest.
Meh. It’s good and I love that one song but OMD has never held purchase of my 80s music brain.
What a legend and man is this just chock full of bangers featured in various movies. I think most of my Ray Charles listening comes from movie soundtracks. This was great.
I get it. This came out when I was in middle school and I have core memories of other people LOVING it. But I couldn’t ever get into Nirvana like others could. I’ll take that MTV Unplugged Nirvana swag, fam.
In 2002, I had a two minute conversation with JT on the phone without realizing who I was speaking to. I LOVE Timberlake and I think this album is SWAG fam, but it does not belong on this list. Color me surprised by Justin Timberlake twice.
meh, reminds me of lamer Ramones.
Interesting. This was pretty good background, nothing to daring. But catchy.
The title track sounds like if the heist planning scene from an "Ocean's" movie and a shitty Getty Shorty sequel had a music baby.
Every time I try to listen to Speakerboxxx, I’m left disappointed. It has a few gems but it’s really just not that good. The Love Below, on the other hand is god damned brilliant and brings back such great memories of life around when this came out. OutKast are just so prolific and while it’s unfortunate that Big Boy doesn’t come across as creative or musically talented as Andre because of this dual flavored double album, one can simply re-listen to the myriad of amazing Albums that came before.
This is what I wanted from this whole experience, to discover total GOAT classics. That was awesome and I love Ozzie’s voice. Super cool.
Fuck this East Coast bullshit. I’m WEST SIEEEEED 4 Eva. Doggystyle, chronic, Chronic 2001, lethal injection, that’s my shit. 2pac and Biggie was a manufactured rivalry. They were both in drama club! This is all shug knight fake gangsta nonsense.
2 stars for the beats. But fuck biggie and Tupac
Some of the samples made for good beats, but this falls strictly into my “Adult Swim” nerd hip hop category which I’ve just grown oddly tired of to the point of annoyance over the years. The gratuitous use of voiceover samples, record scratches, overloaded flows are surely a memorable sound from the 90s. But I can handle only enough to fill bumps between ATHF and Metalacalypse.
Accidentally reviewed under wrong name. See if you can guess which hilarious review is mine
Absolutely amazing album.
This album made me like Neil Young less. Absolute peak boredom.
I didn't listen to all of it but I understand this album to be a jamie 3.
I saw Frampton open for Journey in like 2001. He was so cool even then. Such a fun classic album and chock full of great songs. Almost made the 5 cut.
Super cool and totally out of my wheelhouse. Feels pure
Musically not as favorite as Chronic 2001 but Chronic has those west coast beats I love fam.
I had no idea I liked Ryan Adams. I honestly just assumed I wouldn’t like him because of South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.
“Now now. The Canadian government has apologized for Ryan Adams on several occasions.”
And now I just realized that the above mentioned line is incorrect and Brian Adams and Ryan Adams are two different people. So we’re figuring out a lot this morning.
I just can't believe how out of nowhere this album is. So clever and creative.
If Andersonville had a soundtrack. Boooooooooooring.
Not their best but still great
Hey! You got Idlewild in my Muzak.
No! You got Muzak in my Idlewild.
Seriously this is like being 10 again standing in the JCPenny basement staring at bra tag ladies while my mom argues with the 3rd representative in a row as to why she can't have her fur out of storage unless she pays off her credit debt. RIP MA!
Man I love Ice Cube. Run run run from the Ghetto bird. Don't run run run from this album.
This was a really fun one.
I’m offended by this albums badness
Great album if you’re in the very specific mood to listen to White Stripes for a long time. I don’t get how people do it if I’m being honest.
Crazy to think about how different the times were that there’s an album of anyone from a jail. Cash is the outlaw Goat
I’m sure it’s great. It’s just not my bag.
What I’m about to write may sound quite anecdotal, I realize.
I don’t know if it’s a blip in thinking of the record production industry, but something stands out to me about music of my formative years (1990-2010), and the proliferation of the CD and giving people the ability to skip tracks in a way they never could before. Suddenly, you didn’t NEED to have a killer track to lead off your album, so you’d tuck your bullshit shitty songs up front and the “album” became less of a front to back experience and more of a music husk to deliver whatever single the radio was playing for you. The album was now like the supermarket, milk in the back.
The lead song of this album is fucking garbage and I almost stopped listening because it’s just bad, full stop. She’s painfully out of tune just rancid introduction to the rest of it. But the second track is great and so is most of the other stuff. I think nowadays, they just try to have “no shite songs” on albums but yeah, for a moment this is what happened, I’m sure of it.
To paraphrase Goodfellas, “Fridays were for Louis Prima. Saturdays were for Sinatra”
I love Louis and every one of his identical sounding songs with their identical sounding, “bah ba-nah ba-bah baaanuhhh” outros. He’s so eternally wonderful.
Immediately a new favorite.
I didn’t know I liked Common this much
A lot better than I was expecting and surprised by the existence of Lenny Kravitz prior to "are you gonna go my way" which was played on MTV 4,000,000,000 times when I was coming up.
Super duper cool. bang a gong was all I knew about T. rex before. Turns out it’s like their lamest song.
Musical theater crossover? Ughhhhh no thank you.
Plateau -> Aurora Borealis -> We’re Here is absolutely sublime
I really had no idea meat puppets were this good. New favorite.
Riders on the Storm what a jam
This is like novelty music to me. It might as well be an album of one-man-band songs. I can barely stomach this shit every St Patrick’s day and when I drank, it was shitty Pogues songs that I’d wash down with hard whisky, not the other way around. Fucking 1 Star
After reading what Echo themselves thought of this album I removed a Star. He literally described this as THE greatest album ever.
I’m so blown away by how awesome this album is
While I’m not a fan generally of R&B, there’s obviously a ton of musical talent and creativity that went into this album. It’s feels almost experimental or avant garde. So I’m going 4 even though I’ll likely not listen again.
what a bunch of bullshit.
I mean…Abbey Road? C’mon it’s like all famous and stuff. Don’t be difficult. It’s no Sergeant Pepper though that’s for sure and why I give it a 4
This was not as good as I was expecting. That's not to say I didn't like it. Sucks what happened to my man. What a shame. Inner City Blues was probs my fav track.
Opening groove alone with the driving beat below the swung accents is worthy of a 3 by itself, you never hear that.
I adore this album as it was foundational in my clubby French DJ Duo phase
I dig that he has an interesting voice and the music was actually pretty cool but I’m rating a 2 because to me it doesn’t sound like it was properly recorded like they weren’t sure how to mic him so this is a 2 for technical reasons.
It’s hard to overstate how much god damned respect I have for this act.
Probably my most listened to album of all time. That or The Sign
Wow. Can we fast forward to disco please?
I have never listened to Joni Mitchell before. There’s really something special here and her lore makes sense to me now. Timeless grooves.
Really great but lacks something that I can’t quite define to make it a 5.
I love it but it’s no midnite vultures
Extra star for sheer girth.
