Still sounds fresh. Moody, edgy, nice mood-setter.
Stevie's voice was much more subdued than I'm used to. First tracks were slower, more folksy, less funky, but still fun and well-harmonized as always. Later tracks got funky like I was expecting -- very nice. Overall a very good album. 5 stars.
Typical ZZ Top sound, driving bass, filthy growly guitars. Very nice.
Very Kinks sounding. Happy, unoffensive, nice melodies and grooves. This may have been ground-breaking in 1968 but it seems verging on boring now. It's good background music for cruising through a happy day, and the chord progressions and melodic elements are nice enough, just nothing mind-blowing.
Not really my style -- a little whiny, but cool melodies and nice sparse arrangements.
Side 1: Very cool soundscapes with good solid rhythm and lead parts. Super chill with good ambience. Side 2: Rocking sound with lots of Krautrock feel. Very fun, but still serious music. ;)
Classic Dylan. Rambling lyrics, lots of harmonica, lush organ and guitar tones, wonderful melodies and just a nice listen. Do You Mr. Jones was a wonderful unexpected tune.
Allman Brothers! I'd never noticed before how prominent the harmonica was in the Allman Brothers sound! They were really spot on in this performance, and the acoustics and sound quality in the venue were really great. Two drummers really messed with me for a minute. There's just so much going on here -- in a good way. The entire show really boogies. Truly one of a kind and so much awesome energy. Five stars.
Smooth and soulful, definitely a nice listen. There are some really cool grooves in here. If I was more into R&B or Soul I would give this five stars, but four stars.
At first I didn't think I was going to like this one very much, since it didn't seem like a genre I was really into -- very dub. But as the music progressed, I couldn't _not_ be impressed by the melodies and the performances -- especially the female vocalist, but also the male vocalist on Rough Out Here. The bass lines are super punchy and tight, the orchestration and drum grooves are just awesome, and everything is just perfectly done, even if not all of it was my normal arena. I see why this album is on this list! Four stars.
Wonderful simple guitar melodies with almost spoken word from Cohen. Famous Blue Raincoat is quite nice. Some of the tunes are really just poetry over music -- which is interesting, but I think it takes away from the musicality of it all. Joan of Arc was also quite nice. Overall a good listen, but not really my cup of tea. Three stars.
It's so crazy that a) so many of these songs are super ingrained in the zeitgeist, b) this was their very first album, and c) this was released in 1967. This is magic in a bottle and the sounds are just so incredibly cool and catchy. Even the non-hits on this album were so smooth and nice to listen to. Five stars easily.
So Irish. Lots of fun to listen, so bouncy and emotional (whether that's happy, angry or sad, depending on the song).
Wild stuff, really psychedelic -- some spoken word stuff. Cool rock grooves too, almost surf rock in some places. Heavy riffs, nice chugging, almost pre-metal, primordial sounding. I have no idea what decade this music is even from (okay, I just looked -- 1973 is definitely earlier than I would've guessed). Time We Left The World Today is super hypnotic and crazy sounding. I really like the grooves but the heaviness and repetitiveness of the music can be a little much. Three stars.
The screaming is just not my thing. I can appreciate the instrumentation though, although I find the ubiquitous double kick to be excessive (as I always do). When the singer actually sings (eg. Dead Memories, Vendetta, Snuff, Child of Burning Time, Vermilion Pt. 2, Till We Die, and to some degree Gehenna and Wherein Lies Continue), I really like the sound and everything is great! I had to take a break halfway through because the screaming is just too much. I almost didn't make it through the whole album because it was just so awful to listen to the screaming songs. I would give it 1 star, but the "actual singing" songs were really good. I won't be listening to this album (as a whole) ever again, but the songs I liked were really good and I would listen again. Two stars.
Bluesy, smoky, smooth. In The Mood with Bonnie Raitt is quite nice. The rest of the album is mostly just chill, old blues man grooves. Overall nice, but not really a style I'm super into without something special. Three stars.
Excellent flow, grooves, swagger. Cools bass lines, tons of character in the beats, singing from Lauryn Hill is so good, and flows from Wyclef and Pras are very smooth and natural sounding. Very nice listen. Three stars
Turns out that I know and like about 90% of the songs on this album, haha. And the songs I hadn't heard before we wonderful. Bono's voice and the band's sound are just perfect U2, definitely the sweet spot for me. Five stars.
Starts off with an awesome sound; bopping, sharp guitar rock with a nice tone, smooth, cutting vocals, nice happy riffs. Some twangy steel guitar was an unexpected delight. I'd heard the Mrs. Robinson cover many times before but never knew it was by the Lemonheads -- great tune. Overall very cool vibe, really enjoyed listening. Four stars.
Delightfully wacky. Such good grooves with such unconventional sounds. Loose playing of unconventional instruments, playful singing, he almost sounds drunk at least half the time, but the lyrics are so poetic and just sound so cool. Feels almost like haunted carnival music, slightly unsettling but super intriguing, but then at other times it's emotional and gentle (albeit weirdly so). Other times the tone is like smooth but smoky, like eavesdropping on a Southern barbecue hoedown or something. Four stars.
Cool, boppy punk sound, very Ramones- and Blackhearts-reminiscent, which is cool. But the music is very one-note -- almost no difference between songs. Two stars.
The Band has a sound like no other musical act. So smooth, so twangy, so folksy and just all-around enjoyable to listen to. Some of the songs were a little one-note, and I didn't hear anything (besides The Weight) that I thought was amazing. All good, solid songs, with cool vibes and grooves, but not mind-blowing. Maybe worth a second listen to see if I missed something? Three stars.
Absolutely wonderful, as always. I know most of these songs already and I love them. Great listen.
I know this album well, and it never fails to disappoint. The soaring vocals, edgy riffs and brilliant sense of humor make this an absolute blast to listen to. I wouldn't change a thing about it -- it's about the perfect album for me. Five stars.
Way cooler than I even expected. The only Suzanne Vega songs I'd heard before were Tom's Diner and Luka, but this music was much more driving and acoustically folksy than I expected. Great bass sound on a lot of these tracks, awesome vocals throughout, of course, and some great acoustic guitar riffs. The lyrics are very expressive, imaginative and evocative. Such great storytelling in The Queen and the Soldier and Knight Moves. Such a pure and beautiful voice and lots of minor keys that sound really cool when she sings. Great recording quality and crisp sounding instruments, lovely ambience. All of the songs were so good I listened to the album twice. Five stars easily.
Cool, disco smoothness. Very cool ambience and vibe but not really my genre. Appreciate the musical genius of it and the cool basslines though. Three stars.
Slightly funky, cool grooves, great vocals and great sound, but sounds very dated to my ear. Three stars.
I know most of these songs well. All so good, even the ones I hadn't heard before. Hard to believe that so many hits were on one album. So folksy, rocking, just great to listen to. Five stars.
I own this album on vinyl and it's just absolutely flawless. The sound is so crisp and clean, and every instrument sounds like it was composed and performed in heaven. Such good grooves, smooth melodies and clean harmonies. The bass sound is super cool, the synths are perfectly balanced and natural sounding, the drums and cymbals are just perfect. Vocals of course are enlightened and flawless. I only wish it was longer. Five stars easily.
So fucking cool. Tom Petty's twangy, rocky sound is perfect here. Every song has a different vibe from the others, but they're all so perfectly Tom Petty. His voice really shines and some of the grooves are just super cool and clean. Production quality is also quite good, as well as just absolutely stellar performances on all instruments (and vocals, of course). This album is very good, but the sound can be a tad grating after a while. Four stars.
So heavy, so riffy, so cool. It's amazing that Black Sabbath started a whole genre of music with this one album. I've heard this album before, but the only track I was familiar was The Wizard, which was head and shoulders above the others IMO. They're all great, and the uniqueness and novelty of the sound Black Sabbath created can't be overstated. Five stars.
Bluesy, smoky, twangy, and just really cool. Very Allman-esque and just so good. The good songs (Bell-Bottom Blues, Layla) are just amazingly good, and even the forgettable songs were great to listen to. Four stars.
Biggie isn't really my sound, and the violence and anger don't resonate with me much. But there were some positive songs in there, and the flows, hooks and beats were quite good. Biggie was clearly a very talented rapper and I respect the hell out of him for that. Great storytelling too. Three stars.
What a cool 80's pop sound. The whole album was well put together and well recorded and these guys clearly have a lot of talent, but the sound is very dated today and basically the whole album sounded like one long song -- that's how similar the sound was from track to track. Overall good, but not something I'd listen to over and over. Two stars.
This was an interesting listen. They have a very distinct sound, but I found them oddly similar to the Echo And The Bunnymen album from yesterday. Not really my cup of tea, but a neat vibe. Three stars.
This album sounds so 80's (despite being released in '78), but also so fresh and good. The sound is just so cool and synth-vibey, I just love every songs. Even the songs I'd never heard before were great and had a great sound to them. Five stars.
What a cool album. I've never been impressed with the recording quality of Hendrix albums, and this one is no different, but the music inside is just really great. I find the Hendrix sound to be a little grating sometimes, but some aspects of this (eg. the glockenspiel on Little Wing) we just really outstanding in how they created a sound that I wanted to hear more of. Very listenable and fun, even though I'm still not the biggest fan of Jimi's sound. Four stars.
Cool, dark, smooth, and really mellow. I liked everything here. Four stars.
Very funky, cool and sparse. The grooves are very nice. The double bass is really good. Don't like the style of the vocalist -- sounds really fake and immature, like a little white boy trying to sound cool by putting on a really stupid "urban" way of speaking. Four stars for the music, one star for the vocals, two stars overall.
Musically kind of interesting, but the whiny vocals get pretty grating after a couple songs. Very polished sounding, but in an almost clinical way, despite having lots of spectrum coverage, sonically. Go West's chords almost perfectly matched Canon in D, which was interesting for a minute, but then became pretty monotonous (no pun intended) and boring. Overall not really my cup of tea. Two stars.
Great harmonies, good vibes, excellent musicianship and writing. If not for the lead singer's voice (which can be whiny and the vibrato a little too harsh sometimes), this would be five stars, but I give it four stars.
Very cool. So good. Five stars.
Excellent primordial heavy metal/hard rock, akin to Black Sabbath's first album. Killer riffs and great musicianship, will listen again. Five stars.
Charming sound, very unconventional, and sometimes a bit sloppy, but full of raw talent. Very cool grooves and great mesh between the instruments, lots of them with cool sounds rarely heard in Western music, but still with a Western feel to the structure of the songs. Definitely a neat world music feel and fun to listen to, but not really my thing. A solid three stars.
Initially this seemed like boilerplate 90's pop rock like Cracker/Rembrandts/Fastball, but after getting deeper into the album, I'm finding this a nice listen. Area 51 stands out as a different style to the rest of the record (more electronic/techno), but still a good listen. Lots of cool grooves that I didn't expect from the same band as the other songs. They seem really versatile and I like them, but I probably wouldn't listen to this album twice. Three stars.
So cool, so synthy, really just unbelievable that this came out in 1978 because it still sounds so modern. Some songs are a little silly sounding (eg. Neon Lights), but most of it is just really great. Very listenable and melds into the background while also giving the listener a really cool feeling. Recorded so well. Five stars.
So bluesy, so cool, so Doors. The style does get a little old after a while, but it takes a long time. Very good. Four stars.
Excellent record, very Kinks but also very modern and complex sounding, almost like a mid-period Beatles sound. I really liked it and will listen again (already listened to it twice). Five stars.
I'd never listened to any Sonic Youth music before now and I wasn't sure what to expect, but this was actually very good and enjoyable. Hints of Garbage, The Smashing Pumpkins and someone else (Weezer? Not sure), with a cool pop/grungy sound that was very cool. The one song Nic Fit was absoltuely awful (bad enough that I almost couldn't sit through its 1 minute runtime), but I guess that's bound to happen on even good albums from time to time. Four stars.
I appreciate Little Richard's virtuosic piano playing and his amazing voice, but these songs were pretty much just all 12-bar blues with minor variations in arranging and phrasing over the top. It was fun to listen to, but felt like just a bunch of rehashes of the same song. Two stars.
Rap is not usually my genre, but this is just really, really good stuff. The rhymes and flow are so incredibly creative and tight, and the character work by Eninem is just awesome. The production quality was just flawless and everything was just amazing. I will listen to this again, right now. Five stars.