379
Albums Rated
3.73
Average Rating
35%
Complete
710 albums remaining
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1950s
Favorite Decade
Blues
Favorite Genre
US
Top Origin
Cheerleader
Rater Style ?
76
5-Star Albums
2
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strange Cargo III | 5 | 2.77 | +2.23 |
| Talking With the Taxman About Poetry | 5 | 2.97 | +2.03 |
| Os Mutantes | 5 | 2.98 | +2.02 |
| Nighthawks At The Diner | 5 | 3.01 | +1.99 |
| Devil Without A Cause | 4 | 2.06 | +1.94 |
| Ambient 1/Music For Airports | 5 | 3.07 | +1.93 |
| 3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of... | 5 | 3.15 | +1.85 |
| Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space | 5 | 3.15 | +1.85 |
| Frampton Comes Alive | 5 | 3.19 | +1.81 |
| Dance Mania | 5 | 3.27 | +1.73 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ten | 2 | 3.92 | -1.92 |
| Songs From The Big Chair | 2 | 3.74 | -1.74 |
| Devotional Songs | 1 | 2.58 | -1.58 |
| Blackstar | 2 | 3.48 | -1.48 |
| Amnesiac | 2 | 3.41 | -1.41 |
| Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea | 2 | 3.38 | -1.38 |
| Daydream Nation | 2 | 3.3 | -1.3 |
| Fun House | 2 | 3.28 | -1.28 |
| 1989 | 2 | 3.27 | -1.27 |
| Entertainment | 2 | 3.25 | -1.25 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Johnny Cash | 2 | 5 |
| Dire Straits | 2 | 5 |
| A Tribe Called Quest | 2 | 5 |
| Muddy Waters | 2 | 5 |
| The Beach Boys | 2 | 5 |
| Beatles | 5 | 4.2 |
5-Star Albums (76)
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Popular Reviews
William Orbit
5/5
This is a more engaging record than most ambient ones we've had.
The spoken word on "Time To Get Wize" was unexpected, and I liked it. Everything about this song is good.
"The Story of Light" may be my favorite one yet. There are some vocals in the middle that sound a little like Grimes in "California".
This album rocked. I haven't been too positive about our other ambient albums, but this one had something more to it. The songs were great to have on in the background, but also would catch your attention here and there.
Very enjoyable sound almost the entire way through.
I didn't track the individual songs too well, but I didn't have any I wanted to skip past.
An hour is usually far too long of a run-time for me, but it's OK and maybe even desirable for an ambient album that I can leave on harmlessly to background whatever I'm up.
9/10
2 likes
The Beach Boys
5/5
I love the Beach Boys, they are my favorite 60s band. This is an interesting album for us to get first. It has none of their most famous hits, and scant reference to boats or surfing. They still reference "my baby" a whole lot, so at least that hasn't gone anywhere.
The lyrics on this album are more substantive than their previous outings. "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is a banger.
"When I Grow Up To Be A Man" is funny. They don't want their kids to view them as squares. Unfortunately, some number of the Beach Boys are now weird Trump-heads, so their kids almost certainly think they're squares.
"Bull Session with 'Big Daddy'" is a hell of a name for a track. Despite it's pornhub-worthy name, it's just a fun conversation between the band members. European bread is FAR better than American bread, and I thank the Beach Boys for spreading the word.
I love everything about the Beach Boys. The songs & albums are nice iPad kid lengths. The sound is awesome. This record shows a different side of them than their top played hits may. Not that different though, they're still on their same shit.
9/10
2 likes
Japan
3/5
This album isn't quite my speed but I'm enjoying "In Vogue". I like the saxophone in the background of the song.
The song "Halloween" is pretty fun. We are listening to it on Halloween. Coincidence?
The second half of "Alien" had me bumpin' a little.
I don't love the vocal style much, and that takes away from the album for me. The music is fun in places, but doesn't keep me engaged. It's like a slightly jazzier and funkier version of The Cure?
I lean slightly positive. I didn't have a bad time but wouldn't seek this out again.
6/10
1 likes
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
I liked the instrumentals on this album a lot. It was all very grand, slow, and epic sounding. I still don't really like his voice, which keeps me from actually enjoying it. The songs did feel very samey, it felt at likes like I was listening to one long continuous song. It felt a little sigur-ros-y at times, but then Nick's voice came over it and kind of ruined the vibes.
5/10, I likely wouldn't ever put this on again.
1 likes
David Bowie
3/5
This may be blasphemous but is Bowie just a more boring Elton John? This album felt very similar to Yellow Brick Road to me, but the songs never managed to hit the same highs. None of them really swept me away. I'm not a fan of the kind of talk singing he does, it's similar to Nick Cave but Bowie does squeeze some singing in there. I don't think I'll be adding any of these songs to my playlists.
5/10
1 likes
1-Star Albums (2)
All Ratings
Fugees
5/5
John Lennon
3/5
I might be being too generous with 3. The first four songs are very good. The rest of the album is boring, and the final song almost killed me
Portishead
3/5
This album has recalibrated my '3' rating. I regret not giving Imagine a 2.
This album was perfectly fine, and I enjoyed listening to it but likely wouldn't revisit it. Glory Box and Sour head stood out but the other tracks felt same-y. This may be because I have never listened to trip-hop and wasn't quite able to get past the top layer of the songs.
Moby
4/5
Great album. I already knew all the most famous songs - Porcelain, Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad, Natural Blues - but this was my first time listening to everything in between. I enjoyed the new songs, especially Honey and Everloving. Most of the songs didn't draw me in, but none were unpleasant to listen to. This is a great chill album to have in the background with five/six great songs to make me pay attention.
Nick Drake
4/5
I really enjoyed this album. The instrumentation was varied and the songs were heartfelt. I had never heard of Nick Drake before and will be exploring his music more.
My favorite song is Cello Song.
I'm going to start rating albums out of 10 in these comments.
8/10.
The Electric Prunes
4/5
Before even listening the album I want to note that I absolutely love the title. Really evocative and it's the kind of phrase I wish I had come up with.
This record feels like I'm listening to The Zombies' 'Odessey and Oracle". That's one of my favorite albums, and I like this one for all the same reasons.
'The King in the Counting House' especially felt like I was listening to a Zombies song. It also had some moments that felt like the pace changes in Sgt. Peppers.
I'll definitely revisit this album regularly
Afrika Bambaataa
3/5
The album cover is amazing.
I am sure this album absolutely blew everyone's minds in the 80s. It is clearly building upon the early foundations of hip-hop/funk. I've spent too much time listening to the forty years of music that followed this album to be able to appreciate fully the mind-blowing moment in time that I am sure it was.
I appreciate it for what it is, but likely wouldn't choose to listen to it again.
Johnny Cash
5/5
This is one of my favorite albums of all time. I've listened to it through hundreds of times since I first heard it in 2016.
Live shows are about the connection between the audience and the band, and this album captures every ounce of that. Many live albums fall short in capturing the energy in the room. Johnny is playing prison songs to prisoners and his enthusiasm comes through in every track.
I will continue to listen to this album forever.
Otis Redding
5/5
The album is so powerful that it's hard to listen to passively. I spent most of my first listen-through staring into space and feeling the music in my bones. I assumed he was older than he sounds, I am very surprised to learn he was in his early 20s and died a few years later.
I didn't know much about Otis before this. I spent all day listening to his albums and will continue to do so.
10/10
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
I was bored up until "There She Goes, My Beautiful World." Then I was mostly bored again until a few songs on the second disc.
I didn't dislike many of the songs, but they were almost all too 'raconteur'-esque. Nick Cave's low talk-singing doesn't do it for me. The instrumentation was interesting on quite a few tracks, but I could never find my way to enjoying the big picture.
I didn't hate it, but I'd never listen to it again. 5/10.
Carole King
4/5
My favorite song is Smackwater Jack. I really enjoyed many of the songs, namely "I Feel the Earth Move", "It's Too Late", and "You've got a Friend". These are the most played songs on Spotify so I'm with the pack there.
I also didn't know You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman by Carolie King.
It's been 8 dudes in a row, so nice to hear a great record from a lady. Solid album, would definitely play it again. 7.5/10.
Mj Cole
2/5
This album is definitely outside of my usual listening patterns. Why are there so many whale sounds?
I like Bandelero Desperado. Crazy Love is a bop. Many songs had interesting moments that I enjoyed, but then would repeat the one moment every 4 seconds for the next 5:40. Decent background music if I'm not trying to listen actively, but it wouldn't ever be more than that for me.
Pixies
3/5
This was a solid album. I enjoyed it, and would maybe put it on again.
6/10
James Brown
5/5
This album was awesome. The crowd's reactions to him had me laughing at my desk. Great instrumentation, singing and crowd energy. I'll be revisiting this album for sure.
9/10
The Stooges
2/5
This is grimy. Possibly a little too grimy for me. This album was largely simple chords being played with a guy yelling, and I did not love it.
I like the song 'Loose' and I liked when the sax showed up.
4/10
Michael Kiwanuka
4/5
This album was awesome. I listened to a bunch of the songs on repeat throughout the day. It had a very interesting set of sounds. Some of the songs felt very familiar to me, but I couldn't put my finger on why.
I'll definitely listen to this again and explore more of his work.
8/10
Talk Talk
3/5
I liked Happiness is Easy, Life's What You Make It, Give It Up, and Time It's Time. The album dragged at times but had a few songs I enjoyed and added to my 'liked songs' playlist.
I probably won't put it on again, but won't be unhappy if I happen to hear the songs.
6/10
Stevie Wonder
5/5
I loved almost every song. I didn't like "Heaven is 10 Zillion..." or "Creepin'" as much.
This is my first time listening to a Stevie Wonder record and I thought it was great. I'm amazed to learn he wrote this when he was 24 and that it was his SEVENTEENTH studio album. I look forward to listening to a lot more Stevie.
9/10
Johnny Cash
5/5
It's rawer than Folsom Prison. There's great banter with the inmates. The setlist and show feels a lot less refined than Folsom, but the songs sound great and the crowd loves it. Johnny's charisma and his ability to connect with the crowd is palpable throughout the entire record.
I really loved the ending sequence with the Carter Family and Carl Perkins on stage as well, especially "Daddy Sang Bass".
RIP Luther Perkins.
9/10
sidenote: I have just learned that both Johnny Cash and BB King played at San Quentin.
Tortoise
2/5
It's a weirder Explosions in the Sky with far more electronic sounds. The first song, Djed, dragged and was a little too ambient for me. Glass Museum slapped. None of the other songs really drew me in. I was bored most of the time and likely wouldn't play this again.
4/10
Stereolab
4/5
The opening song was my least favorite on the record. I am surprised it is the most popular by such a large margin on Spotify, usually I like the same songs everyone else does. I found out that the a member of Tortoise (yesterday's band) produced the album.
Quite a few of the other songs were bops, and I liked the vocals a lot. I've added a few songs to my liked songs playlist, and I'd be happy to hear them come on again.
7/10
Ray Charles
4/5
I liked this album a lot, but not as much as I thought I would. I've never listened to Ray Charles before. It was a little too much crooning and some of the songs got a little too slow for me.
I found a few of the most popular songs like 'Come Rain or Come Shine' a little boring, but loved 'Alexander's Ragtime Band'.
These thoughts are a little negative, but that's only because I went into this anticipating a possible 10/10.
8/10. Great album, I want to hear more.
Funkadelic
4/5
This album was fun. I had to listen on youtube so I'm trusting that the playlist was accurate. The songs had a variety of sounds and I enjoyed the lyrics. You truly can insert the word 'funk' into almost anything.
I probably wouldn't seek this album out but I did like it.
7/10
Beatles
4/5
I really liked some of the songs. "Till There Was You", "Roll Over Beethoven". A lot of the others are a little samey, but it's definitely pleasant to listen to.
I'll give it a 7/10.
Big Brother & The Holding Company
3/5
I may not be the badass punk rocker I thought I was. The album was a little too rough around the edges for me. I loved a lot of the instrumentation but had a hard time connecting to the vocals, to the point where I was savoring the parts with no singing. My favorite songs were at the end, Roadblock and Flower in the Sun. I also liked Piece of my Heart, which I've heard on classic rock stations plenty of times.
I'll give it a 6/10 because I did add the aforementioned songs to my liked songs playlist. I don't think I'd listen to the album ever again.
The Damned
4/5
This album was great, I'll definitely listen to it again. It was kind of like The Clash but rougher. I was tapping my foot and moving at my desk.
8/10
Elvis Presley
3/5
I didn't like it as much as I thought I would like it. It had a few super famous songs on it, but the other ones didn't do a ton for me. All around I still enjoyed it and wouldn't complain if someone else put it on.
My favorite songs were 'One-Sided Love Affair', 'Tutti Frutti' and 'Blue Suede Shoes'.
6/10
Beatles
5/5
This album was awesome. I liked it a lot more than the previous Beatles record we got - "With The Beatles". The sound is totally different and the songs are a lot more interesting and varied.
The album has literally billions of listens on Spotify for a good reason.
9/10.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
This is one of my all-time favorite albums. Over half the songs are enduring classics and the remainder range from good to amazing.
My favorite song is Da Mystery of Chessboxin'. ODB's verse on this is one of my favorites by him, and everyone else delivers as well. The stretch from Chessboxin' through Protect Ya Neck is an insane barrage of bars with amazing beats. I regularly listen to just that when I don't have time to get through the entire album.
31 years later, this album hasn't lost one step.
Dire Straits
5/5
I enjoyed it from start to finish. I was familiar with 'Money for Nothing' and 'Sultans of Swing'. I'd heard 'Walk of Life' before but didn't fully recall it.
This is my favorite rock record we've heard so far. I enjoyed every song. The guitar often took center stage and it was shredding, although it was often an understated slower shred, rather than the ripper guitar solos I am more used to. It reminds me a lot of certain parts of Dark Side of the Moon.
The songs changed mood a lot, going from groovy big tracks like Walk of Life to slower captivating jams like 'Why Worry'. The band has a ton of range and the production captured the diversity of their sound well throughout.
10/10, really dope stuff.
Herbie Hancock
3/5
This was a new experience for me. The only Herbie I had experienced before is Herbie: Fully Loaded. I was expecting this album to be conventional jazz (or what I consider to be conventional jazz) with a saxophone, piano, drums, and an upright bass. I was surprised to hear how electronic and funky it was.
My musical palette is not well developed for this kind of album. I have a hard time listening actively, and it largely fades into (enjoyable) background noise. I liked what I heard, but I'd never put this on when I am trying to actually listen. I'd put it on as I do work, or have some atmosphere around my house.
I liked Watermelon Man the most. Sly gave me anxiety.
I know this album is not a 3 star album, but I'm going to give it a 6/10 purely based on my enjoyment. I am not a jazzman.
6/10
Tears For Fears
2/5
This album was super mid for me. I don't love their general sound, but I do like a few of the big name songs like 'Everybody Wants to Rule The World' and 'Head Over Heels'.
I'm trying to be use more of the scoring range, so it's going to be a 2/5 from me. I was waiting for the album to end the entire time, and wouldn't listen to it again. The hits didn't redeem it for me. Maybe I just don't like the 80s? It felt like Phil Collins / Genesis but less enjoyable? Is that crazy to say?
4/10
Electric Light Orchestra
5/5
ELO is one of the few bands that tire me out from grooving too hard. I typically listen to their greatest hits compilations and haven't listened to as many of their albums as I should have.
I think almost anyone would agree, the hits from this album are absolutely electric. 'Turn to Stone', 'Sweet Talkin' Woman' and 'Mr Blue Sky' are 11/10 songs and I've listened to them hundreds of times. They assume direct control of my feet and head, forcing me to tap and bob along.
A lot of the quieter hits are also fantastic - 'It's Over', 'Across the Border', 'Starlight' and 'Sweet is the Night' stand out to me.
Unfortunately, the album is too long. It's got a runtime of 1h10m, and there are stretches of tracks that start to blend together. I think this prevents it from reaching the highest tiers of album heaven, even if the hits are angelic.
9/10
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
I listened to this one late, so it didn't get as much attention as I always give. It was OK, the songs felt a little samey. I liked "Stir it up" the most.
I think this just isn't quite my sound, I probably wouldn't ever put this on and listen to it on my own.
5/10
Simply Red
2/5
I was only a partial human being while listening to this. I hiked a mountain on Monday for the total eclipse and Tuesday was a total wash.
I'd never heard of Simply Red before this. Unfortunately, the album did not interest me and I had a hard time staying engaged. I don't even remember it well enough to write further thoughts. Maybe not Simply Red's fault.
Sorry Red.
4/10
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
1/5
Note before starting the album: This man has the most albums I've ever seen on Spotify. I must have scrolled past over a hundred to find this?
This one is too far away from my usual listenings. It felt like the beginning of every song had a unique funky section, then they would all turn into approximately the same song again? I more than likely just don't have the palette for this at all.
I'm forced to do something I've never done before. This album gets a 2/10 from me.
50 Cent
3/5
I'm surprised at how long this album is. It's got jams on it but also stretches where I'm wondering when the next track is starting.
The first song I really liked was "In Da Club", then I was kind of floating until "If I Can't" and then "P.I.M.P", which was amazing. When it ended I was thinking wow really I'm only half way through this album?
I was bored most of the time, and probably wouldn't ever put the album on again. It would get a 2/5 if it wasn't for the hits being great.
It gets a 5/10 from me, but the 4/10 was lurking.
Cat Stevens
4/5
This is such a nice and peaceful album. I hadn't listened to it before but knew Wild World.
The songs are relaxing, the theme is enjoyable and I really like the album cover. His voice is a little hard for me to get used to, but it definitely isn't unpleasant.
I added Wild World, Miles From Nowhere, Longer Boats, On The Road To Find Out, and Father and Son to my liked songs playlist.
8/10
Beastie Boys
3/5
The Beastie Boys have always been challenging for me. I am sometimes in the right mood and can absorb their hype, but more often I am not operating at the right speed. It's hard to get into while sitting at my desk, it feels like I should be in Manhattan drinking funky monkeys and smashing wing mirrors.
The beats across the album are so dope. Get It Together, Sabrosa and The Update were an awesome trio of songs. The beat on Alright Hear This was also dope.
I was not expecting the abstract to show up, that was my favorite song.
I loved all of the instrumental tracks. I thought the album changed pace a lot and had great variety. The bars were funny and kept coming fast. Unfortunately I have a very hard time connecting with their style of lyricism, to the point where I have to make an effort to enjoy it. I would not choose to put it on again, so despite my praise it has got to be a 6/10 from me. It would be a 9/10 if they would just stop yelling at me, but then they wouldn't be the beastie boys.
Tito Puente
5/5
This album was so great. I was moving my shoulders and swaying back and forth at my desk from start to finish. I couldn't conjure up any insightful comments about specific tracks, it all blended into some very enjoyable background music right from the beginning. This feels like an album I'd put on at my house when I host people.
I kept feeling like I was in one of the yellow/sepia-filter scenes in Breaking Bad. That reflects more on my limited exposure to latin music than anything else. I would like to listen to more, and I'll definitely listen to this album again. In fact, I'm listening to it again as I write this on our next day of music.
9/10
Paul Simon
3/5
Allergies was a strange song.
Update: The songs have not gotten less strange. Cars are cars indeed, Paul.
No part of this album really grabbed me. The songs were all a little boring and it totally lacked the power of Graceland, which is one of my favorite albums. I don't have too much to say here, I likely wouldn't put any of these tracks on again.
Yesterday the Beastie Boy's album was super interesting and diverse, but hard to listen to for some ways. Today's album was easy to listen to, but uninteresting and felt same-y.
5/10
Radiohead
4/5
I've somehow avoided listening to this album up until today. I liked it, it was good. It doesn't immediately strike me as a legendary album in the way that Otis Blue or Sgt Peppers would, but I definitely enjoyed it. As with some other records on this list, I suspect this album was a moment in time as much as it was a collection of songs. I wasn't there for that moment, and I've benefited from all the music that was inspired by it later, leaving me feeling like it's a pretty familiar sound.
Karma Police was my favorite song. The other notables were 'Subterranean Homesick Alien', which was a really ambient and cool tracks, and Electioneering.
8/10
Violent Femmes
4/5
I had heard Blister in the Sun so many times and never knew who it was by. If I had to say who wrote it and when, I'd have guessed a 2010 one-hit wonder indie band.
I enjoyed this album a lot. The vocals were raw in a way that wasn't off-putting, and the guitar / drums were engaging throughout. My favorite songs after Blister in the Sun were Please Do Not Go and Add It Up.
7/10. I'd listen to this again.
The Police
3/5
Walking in Your Footsteps is a funny song. It bemoans the hubris of the dinosaurs and asks if there are lessons to be learned from their death. "Hey mighty Brontosaurus, don't you have a lesson for us." He does indeed Sting, and it's that we're fucked.
The rest of the album didn't really stand out. I liked Every Breath You Take and King of Pain. I'm not the biggest fan of the classic 80s rock sound, and this album is certainly that. I'd probably never listen to it again.
5/10
Sepultura
3/5
We've all been questioning the legitimacy of this list. Who put it together?What are their credentials? How will I know that I'm *really* listening to the 1001 greatest albums? When I cracked open todays album and saw 'Orgasmatron' queued up, I was filled with a sense of calm. The list-makers know what they're doing.
I love the music. It's some sweet metal and I was soft-headbanging at my desk. I just can't make myself enjoy the gravely scream vocals. I was largely waiting for those to stop so I could enjoy musical interludes. Fortunately there were a lot of them, so I made it through the album. I probably wouldn't play this specific record again because of that gripe, but I can tell this album fucks. If I was more of a death-metal-vocals kind of guy I'd probably be giving it an 8, but it's got to be a 6/10 for me.
The Divine Comedy
4/5
This was such a strange album. I don't have a lot of time to write this review, so I'll just say that I enjoyed the music, didn't love the singing, and somehow came away from it feeling like it was very pleasant and I was happy it existed.
My favorite song was 'Theme from Casanova'.
7/10
Joy Division
2/5
This is my first time listening to Joy Division. It's surprising it took me so long because people love to bring them up in certain music circles.
This was a tougher listen for me. The stripped down (?) punky sound doesn't do it for me. The songs don't have a lot to offer my palate. The vocals are off-putting and hard for me to look past. I did like some of the musical elements. There were a lot more synths than I was expecting. I enjoyed Isolation and Twenty-Four Hours the most.
4/10
Nick Drake
4/5
This album bangs. I listened to it a bunch after our first Nick Drake album. His voice is weird but enjoyable. I think the album has a great diversity of instrumentation and manages to stay fresh throughout. It helps that its less than half an hour long.
The album cover rocks.
I'll definitely listen to it again. 8/10
Common
4/5
This is a new listen for me, I don't think I could name a song by Common. I'm only two songs in but this album is awesome. Loving the song 'The Corner'. This is clearly very influenced by College Dropout, or perhaps these kinds of samples were already popularized?
Update: I just realized Kanye is literally on this song. That explains it.
Update 2: He's on the third song too???? Is this a Kanye/Common record??
College Dropout era Kanye is continuing to bleed into every corner of this record, and I'm loving it.
I'm a day late so I'll keep my review brief, but this album rocked. I love this soul samples era of hip hop.
8/10
CHIC
4/5
I didn't know that I knew this band. They have so many instantly recognizable jams. I love me some disco.
My Feet Keep Dancing felt like an ELO song at times.
The disco sound gets a little same-y by the end. The album is surely made to be enjoyed on a dancefloor, not song by song in my office chair. I enjoyed it, but did get a little bored by the end. If I had a few drinks in me and was on the dancefloor, I don't think I'd get bored.
7/10.
7/10.
Scissor Sisters
4/5
This album is all over the place. I like it a lot. This is the first album on the list that I think I used to listen to? It's coming back to me as a distant memory. Even the album cover is familiar. I think I liked this album a lot in 2005 and then completely forgot it existed.
I really liked general energy. The opening songs were awesome. Take Your Mama was my favorite. The comfortably numb cover was interesting, and I was surprised to learn that was their 'hit'.
I added a few songs to playlists, I'll revisit and think fondly of this album.
7/10
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Maybe it's just me, but Nick Cave is kind of hard to listen to? This album is different sounding than the last Cave album we were given. He doesn't have a good voice, and he just kind of talks at you. This album was 10 very similar sounding piano songs with him talking over them in the same way on each one. Despite this, I see people remarking online that this album is amazing, so maybe it's just me who doesn't get it?
Not a single song stood out to me. I was bored the entire time. Didn't actively dislike it, but what is there to love about this?
5/10
Prince
4/5
Let's Pretend We're Married goes hard. So does D.M.S.R. So does Little Red Corvette. So does Delirious.
This was my first Prince album and I really liked it. Almost all of the songs were jams, with a few slower songs like International Lover to mix it up. You can feel his charisma coming through in all the songs. Listening to him sing is like listening to Jeff Goldblum talk. It feels like he's trying to fuck the song as he's singing it.
I look forward to hearing more Prince 8/10.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
Tribe are the group that got me into Hip-Hop. I've listened to this album countless times. Even as the first track is starting, I know this is getting a 5/5.
Q-Tip and Phife are both so smooth, the beats are awesome, the lyrics are funny. This album has so many famous songs - Left My Wallet in El Segundo, Can I Kick It etc. I think my favorite song is Footprints. I enjoyed it the entire time, but I think it doesn't quite make it to a 10/10.
9/10
Run-D.M.C.
3/5
I've never listened to Run-D.M.C before, so I apologize if this is ignorant, but.... are Run DMC eating Beastie Boy's lunch? It sounds basically exactly like a BB album, down to the flow, the beats, and even their word choices? Who came first?
Update: I had to look it up. They existed at the exact same time, in the same place, and were apparently great friends. They were both produced by Rick Rubin so maybe this was his doing somewhat?
The album was fine, I probably wouldn't listen to it again. This sound isn't really for me. I can enjoy it for 1/2 songs, usually the hits, but then it just gets old.
5/10
Kate Bush
3/5
This album was very weird but good. I am quite behind, so that is all I have to say.
6/10
Metallica
3/5
I listened to about half of this album. It's a lot, and I think it's super cool that it exists. There are too many songs I don't really want to listen to on it, but I did click through every song I liked. That was about 10 songs, which is honestly a solid album all on its own.
I liked it, but the album in its entirety isn't super consumable to me. Awesome concept, dope that it exists, a little exhausting to listen to.
6/10
Nina Simone
4/5
Wow, Four Women was a very intense song. I love piano and powerful voices so this album is doing a lot for me. Nina is a beautiful singer. "Break Down and Let It All Out" is another powerful song.
When did the fade out go out of style? Many of these albums from the 60s and 70s just fade out the song abruptly while she's still going.
8/10
Coldplay
5/5
I really like Coldplay, as is required of everyone who has lived in the british isles. Viva La Vida is their only album that I've listened to front-to-back prior to this, and that was clearly a mistake. This album was great and I liked every song. It's a more stripped down version of the Coldplay of recent years, no electronic effects or explosive crescendos, and I like that more. I read someone on reddit refer to this era of Coldplay as 'an easier to swallow version of radiohead'. Whether that's the case or not, I'm on board.
I'll listen to this album more often. God save the queen (sorry charles).
9/10
9/10
Ryan Adams
3/5
This sure was an album. The songs sound like the inoffensive rock that plays in the background of an autogenerated montage played at a company's goodbye party for an employee.
5/10
Buck Owens
4/5
I love a nice twang. This album has a whole lot of twang. I love this album.
Kit is entirely responsible for making me realize I do like country music, so I'm glad we're both here listening. There's something soothing and fun about the sound of these songs. I don't even mind that they all sound basically the same. I've got my foot tapping the entire time. I think my favorite songs were A Maiden's Prayer and The Band Keeps Playin' On.
Those country boys knew what they were doing in the 50s and 60s. I'll definitely listen to this again.
8/10
Terence Trent D'Arby
3/5
This album has changed names as Terence now goes by a different name.
Wishing Well is a really fun song. I like the little wind instrument sections in the middle.
Dance Little Sister feels like a song I should be hearing on the dancefloor, not in my office chair.
Besides a few exceptions, this album kind of felt like I'd listened to the same song ten times. It's not my favorite sound, and I probably wouldn't listen to it again. It feels like others have done this better (for me).
6/10
Marvin Gaye
4/5
I'm surprised to say that I didn't like this album as much as I thought I would. It was very good, and I'd definitely listen to it again, but I was expecting to be blown away.
The first song, Let's Get It On, was the best one, and I felt that the rest of the album took a step down from there. I enjoyed Keep Gettin' It On and Come Get To This as well.
This is a soulful sexy album, and I'm only being negative because I expected the world from it. That's on me.
8/10
Sarah Vaughan
5/5
I love the album cover. I love live albums. I haven't heard of Sarah Vaughan before, but I'm loving this record after the first few songs. These old live albums makes me reflect on how amazing it is to listen to these moments in time so many years later. This is an intimate record made in a legendary club, attended by people who are more than likely all dead, and I get to be there too. That's pretty cool.
Her personality comes through in a big way in Willow Weep for Me. I love funny crowd interactions.
I loved the whole album. Very relaxing with some nice crowd moments.
9/10
Cream
4/5
This is a cool album to get into. I've listened to Sunshine of Your Love so many times, so I'm excited to hear what else they cooked up.
I do not quite understand the lyrics on SWALBR, but I do like them. Rainbows with moustaches are scary.
Mother's Lament felt like I was listening to a Monty Python song. I shock laughed at how insensitive it was. "Your baby has gone down the plughole."
This album was fun. It's not exactly my brand of rock, but I liked all the songs.
7/10
Jungle Brothers
4/5
This was groovy and I liked it a lot. It has Tribe Called Quest vibes to it. I'm sure Q-Tip and Phife were listening to this album while they were writing their own.
The album has diverse beats and non-stop bars. It's got that classic golden-era sound to it. I did get a little bored by the end, it had a 1hr runtime which is a little long for me.
I really love a musical interlude, and Good Newz Comin' was a fun listen.
I think my favorite song was right at the end - 'Doin' Our Own Dang', it woke me up again from zoning out a little.
I didn't give this album the time it deserved to really dig into the lyrics, so I acknowledge that I'm missing a big part of it. I'll revisit this in the future perhaps, but for now it gets an 8 from me.
8/10
Songhoy Blues
5/5
I think this was the most interesting album yet. The band is described as "Desert Blues" and they are writing music about being pushed out of their homes in Mali by Ansar Dine. The songs itself are a blend of a modern sound (I don't know anything about North African Desert Blues) and old-school blues. Some songs could have fit on the Cream record from a few days ago.
Petit Metier and Soubour were my favorite songs. I've added the entire album to my Liked Songs playlist. This is the first album that I feel like I would truly never have heard had I not started this album journey.
9/10
Dolly Parton
5/5
I've listened to this many many times. This is one of the best country albums I've ever heard. I have actually cried in real life listening to the song Coat of Many Colors, it's that heartbreaking.
Coat of Many Colors and Blue Tears are my favorite songs.
I've never listened to any of her other albums back to front and maybe I should!
One or two of the songs I could take or leave, namely The Mystery of the Mystery and that keeps it from being a straight 10.
9/10
OutKast
4/5
I'm listening to this four months late. I just finished listening to Speakerboxx as part of this adventure, so I am well positioned to compare the albums.
I liked it a little less, but still really enjoyed it. There are a few songs that weren't great, but there were a lot of standout amazing songs. My favorites were "So Fresh, So Clean", "Mrs. Jackson", "B.O.B." and "We Luv Deez Hoez". The album has a few too many slow and kind of boring songs. They break it up a little from the funky high energy of the other songs, but I never found myself enjoying those breaks.
I appreciated the socially conscious focus of the album.
8/10
Cheap Trick
4/5
I really love a great live record. I love it as much as the ladies of Tokyo love Cheap Trick. This album didn't have much crowd interaction, which has been the hallmark of the other stellar live albums we've had, but that didn't stop the full force of the Tokyo fandom coming through. Every song starts and ends with screaming women. It's a little like watching the Beatles Mania clips from when they went on their international tours.
On to the music itself - I had never listened to Cheap Trick before, outside of hearing "I Want You to Want Me" on the radio. This is some great 70s rock, and I like it a lot. They have great energy, they shred, and the songs don't feel like they get old. I feel like I hear many aspects of their sound in more recent bands.
My favorites were "Ain't That a Shame" and "Clock Strikes Ten".
8/10
John Cale
4/5
This album started very slow. I wasn't super interested for the first half, but it picked up in the second. I liked "Macbeth" and "Paris 1919", and really all of the songs after Macbeth. It had a lot of very beatles-y moments. I added a few songs to my playlists.
I'd never heard John Cale's solo work before, and I've only listened to The Velvet Underground a little. It's good!
7/10
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
I loved this album in high school. It was really great to revisit it and discover that I still love it. There are a lot of standouts on this album, but they almost all come in the first half. "Come On!" "John Wayne Gacy, Jr" "Jacksonville" "Decatur" "Chicago" "Casimir Pulaski Day" are all so good. After those it feels like the album falls off a little bit. I love "The Tallest Man", but most of the other songs from 11-22 feel worse than the first half. "They Are Night Zombies" gets an honorary mention, I love the chanting section.
The album is very creative, has amazing song names and showcases Sufjan's wide musical ability. If the album was 30m shorter, cutting out all second half songs besides the ones I mentioned, I'd give it a 5 enthusiastically. Unfortunately I have to give it an 8/10.
David Bowie
3/5
This may be blasphemous but is Bowie just a more boring Elton John? This album felt very similar to Yellow Brick Road to me, but the songs never managed to hit the same highs. None of them really swept me away. I'm not a fan of the kind of talk singing he does, it's similar to Nick Cave but Bowie does squeeze some singing in there. I don't think I'll be adding any of these songs to my playlists.
5/10
Pearl Jam
2/5
This album is either very dated, not for me, or both. The songs are all peak generic dad rock and I associate them with guitar hero / rock band. It doesn't help that my friend Sal always blasts Pearl Jam as a joke.
4/10. Sorry to dads everywhere.
Joan Armatrading
3/5
This album is a little boring to me? I've finished my first listen-through and none of the songs really stood out to me. Join The Boys and Like Fire were my favorite songs
I probably wouldn't listen to any of these again.
5/10
The Smiths
3/5
This isn't the kind of music I thought The Smiths made, I thought they were a lot more punky.
This was an inoffensive but uninteresting album to me. I liked a few of the songs, "Girlfriend In a Coma" and "Death at One's Elbow".
All in all I wasn't very entertained, but it wasn't bad.
I'll give them a 5/10, leaning towards a 6/10.
The Soft Boys
4/5
This album is absurdly long on Spotify, but the original release is actually only the first ten songs. That's great news.
The opening song is "I Wanna Destroy You", which I've heard before. I like it, it's simple but catchy.
"I Got The Hots For You" is fun AND funny.
"Insanely Jealous" is also cool.
"Kingdom of Love" is probably my favorite song. The guitar part is really awesome.
"Queen of Love" has great vocal harmonies and a fun guitar part that's similar to Kingdom of Love.
I don't have too much to say but I liked this album a lot. The songs were all cool, good runtime. I'm surprised to read that this album was totally panned in it's time.
8/10
Aretha Franklin
4/5
This album has some very famous songs on it. I enjoyed it a lot, the songs were really groovy and she has an awesome voice. It's her twelfth studio album, which is nuts.
My favorite songs were "Money Won't Change You" "Since You've Been Gone" and "Come Back Baby".
8/10
The Clash
4/5
I've listened to Combat Rock and London Calling a lot. I'm a big fan of The Clash and I enjoyed this album! I'm not sure quite how to describe it, but they're a punk band that has taken the hard edges off? I have had a hard time with the grungier and harder albums on this playlist, but The Clash don't have whatever qualities turn me off from those.
I liked this album less than CR and LC, but it was a good listen. No stand-out songs to report, but I enjoyed having it on. I think a 35m album with songs between 2 and 3m long is my ideal.
8/10
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
The longer this album goes on the more I like it. It's a bunch of dudes making fun of hippies in SF, and the lyrics are pretty funny. The songs are short and all interesting sounding, and they aren't taking themselves very seriously. They're also making fun of Sgt Peppers (?), which is one of my favorite albums but I love some satire.
I wouldn't say that this was an incredible accomplishment of music, but it was definitely funny and I enjoyed listening to it.
8/10
Gang Of Four
2/5
I've consistently struggled with albums like this. I'm sure they are legendary and formative, and I'm sure that every single band on the THPS soundtrack owned their tapes. I have a hard time listening to it today in 2024 because it seems like very stripped down simple music with some guys yelling.
There isn't a lot for me here, but I'm sure I owe them a thank you for inspiring bands I do like.
4/10
Aphex Twin
4/5
I forgot I had this album on multiple times. I don't listen to a lot of ambient music, but I enjoyed this. It obviously isn't gripping, but it isn't meant to be. It's pleasant and occasionally interesting ambient music and it was very nice to have on in the background.
7/10
Bob Dylan
3/5
This album has Like a Rolling Stone on it, which is the only Bob Dylan song I could name off the top of my head. I haven't heard any of the others before but I like them! My favorite song by far was It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry. The album definitely felt a little played out by the end, I was getting a little tired of Bob's voice.
I'd listen to a few of these songs again! 6/10
Michael Jackson
4/5
This album rips. It peaks right away with Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, but stays good the entire time. It didn't lose my attention, and had a really nice variety of songs. Songs like Off The Wall and Girlfriend are classic MJ sounding songs, and She's Out Of My Life is a slow serenade to break it up.
I've added a few songs to my list, and I'd definitely listen to the album again.
8/10
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
I liked the instrumentals on this album a lot. It was all very grand, slow, and epic sounding. I still don't really like his voice, which keeps me from actually enjoying it. The songs did feel very samey, it felt at likes like I was listening to one long continuous song. It felt a little sigur-ros-y at times, but then Nick's voice came over it and kind of ruined the vibes.
5/10, I likely wouldn't ever put this on again.
The Temptations
4/5
Run Charlie Run is not a song I'll be playing out loud anywhere any time soon. Funky song though.
I Ain't got Nothin' is so smooth.
The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face is also so smooth. Do Your Thing is a fun ending, I added it to a playlist.
This isn't exactly my type of music but I enjoyed it a lot. Outside of Papa Was a Rollin' Stone the songs are all short and don't get boring.
7/10, fun album!
GZA
4/5
It is a strange fact that this album was performed at Northeastern University afterHOURS by GZA.
Duel of the Iron Mic has very similar lyrics, flow and beat to Da Mysteries of Chessboxin' on 36 chambers. The line that made me realize it is "I injure every fucking contender". After that I noticed it continuously throughout the song.
GZA has to be the most literary member of the Wu. His bars are thoughtful and his word selection is broad. That really shines through in this album. The similarities to Wu prove how strong his influence was on their sound - most of the songs on this album sound like stripped back 36 chambers tracks. RZA produced this one as well so it's not too surprising.
8/10.
The Mamas & The Papas
4/5
I'm really enjoying this, it feels very Beach Boys but with more crooning. Straight Shooter, Hey Girl, and The "In" Crowd may be my favorite songs. The album manages to get a little same-y even with its 34m runtime, so I probably couldn't listen to this all the time, but I did like it a lot.
7/10, I've added a few songs to my playlists.
David Bowie
3/5
David Bowie continues to be a little boring for me? I can see what's going on, and why people may like it, but it's not doing it. There's a lot of instruments, a lot going on musically, and good variety in the songs, but none of them really manage to capture me. I really don't enjoy his voice or style of singing very much, and it never feels like a song pulls me in.
I wouldn't listen to this again, sorry David. 5/10
5/5
This is the pinnacle of the brit-pop years. I love every single song. My favorites are Cast No Shadow and She's Electric. Wonderwall, Don't Look Back In Anger, and Champagne Supernova are so famous that you could start playing them at any location in the western world and have a crowd singing along.
I lived in England from '97 to '08 and this was the most played album on the radio and at gatherings for that entire period. I'm sure this is still true today. Their only true rival was Coldplay, whose works never quite reached the heights that this album did.
I've listened to this album back to front hundreds of times, and I'll do it hundreds more. This album is timeless and left a gargantuan mark on the world. It's an easy 10.
10/10
Tori Amos
2/5
I've never heard of Tori Amos, so I was interested to see what this would be like. This album is not really for me. I was bored most of the time, and the songs all felt very similar. It wasn't bothering me, but it felt like work to get through.
4/10
Gary Numan
3/5
This album is fun, and I can see how it may have influenced a lot of modern music. There are definitely some bops, the first song I really like is "Tracks". "Cars" also slaps.
This album is interesting, but too many of the songs are duds for me to love it. It's too long. The songs I liked I really liked, so it gets points for that.
6/10
Wilco
3/5
I've never listened to Wilco before despite them on a lot of billings alongside bands I really like throughout the 2010s. I see now that I haven't missed much. The album is not very engaging, none of the songs ever managed to pull me in and I don't think I could tell you which one the 'hit' was.
This may be a case of me being too used to listening to the bands inspired by Wilco, so Wilco themselves sound a little boring.
Not offensive, but nothing I'd want to listen to again. 5/10
Duke Ellington
5/5
This was another amazing live album. I've loved every one that I've heard so far, and I should definitely be listening to more. It is a privilege to be listening to legendary shows being performed so many years ago. As with the Cash shows we heard earlier, they keep a lot of the crowd interaction and in-between moments in, grounding the performance . I am reminded that everyone on these recordings were people just like me living regular human moments. Would people 80 years from now feel the same way listening to a show that I go to and don't think much of? Maybe I should be appreciative of the shows I do get to go to!
As for the record itself, it slapped. It was very long so I was in and out in my attention but I liked everything I heard.
9/10
Simple Minds
2/5
This is one of those albums where the version on Spotify is four hours long and I have to go digging online to find the actual tracklist. It is thankfully much shorter.
I don't know the correct way to describe the vocals of this album but they are very ethereal and echoey. The instrumentation is very synthy. This is a common sound from this period of time, and it doesn't really do it for me. The singing sounds a little like David Byrne, and there is some Talking Heads energy in the music. Unfortunately it doesn't come together in a way I enjoy nearly as much.
My favorite song was "Glittering Prize".
4/10
Orange Juice
3/5
"I Can't Help Myself" is really fun. This album was OK, a little boring at times but definitely an enjoyable album. I've never heard of Orange Juice, but I'm sure they were important and formative for many bands that came later.
6/10
Devendra Banhart
4/5
This album reminds me of Sufjan Stevens in places, and Tallest Man on Earth in others. I liked it a lot and added some songs to playlists. There Was Sun is a good example of a song that sounds like TMOE.
I've never heard of Devendra before and I'll listen to some more of his music. Some of the songs bored me, and the album did feel a little bit too long. Despite this I really liked it.
8/10
The Killers
5/5
This album rocks. It was my first time listening to it, and the whole album was pretty great.
The stretch from Jenny Was a Friend of Mine to All These Things That I've Done is a barrage of ultra-hits which make it pretty hard to give this album less than a 4 off the bat. The rest of the album didn't disappoint, my favorite song past that stretch was Change Your Mind.
It's hard to deny this album a 5. 9/10
Sister Sledge
5/5
This album has so many famous songs on it but I've somehow never heard their band name before.
I liked this entire album, it was disco stripped down to its fundamentals. "He's The Greatest Dancer" and "We Are Family" were my favorite tracks. It was all easy to listen to - I was doing lots of foot tapping and head bobbing. It wasn't too long either so I didn't get bored of the sound.
Disco isn't my favorite genre to listen to at my desk chair, but I can see that this is the good stuff.
9/10
Shivkumar Sharma
4/5
I really enjoyed this. It wasn't exactly my style of music, but it was relaxing. I listened to a re-recording of it by his son (?) on Spotify first by accident, so I've heard this album twice.
I had this running while doing my work, and it was great background music. I really did feel like I was working the fields in the countryside.
7/10
Justice
5/5
Justice are one of the only acts comparable to Daft Punk for me. I heard this album live in 2012, and it was intense. The whole album goes hard, isn't too long and is paced very well.
Genesis is such a badass start to the album.
"Phantom" and "Phantom Pt. II", and "One Minute to Midnight" are my favorite songs.
9/10 This album is iconic. Album art is sick too.
Nirvana
3/5
I didn't really like this that much. It's definitely Nirvana, and its an iconic sound, but I think I'm too far displaced from the novelty of it to really enjoy it.
I didn't hate it, but I probably wouldn't ever choose to put it on.
My favorite song was 'Dumb'.
5/10
OutKast
5/5
I'm listening to this album 3 months after I was supposed to, so I am going to keep my listening notes brief.
This album is too long and I hand out a lot of negative reviews for that crime. However... this time.... I'm going to let it go. This album is nothing but bars the entire way through. Amazing features and beats. I put it on and two hours flew by. My neck started hurting from two consecutive hours of head bopping. You're supposed to see a doctor after four right?
So good, I saved the entire album.
9/10
Fatboy Slim
5/5
I grew up right next to Brighton, where Norman Cook is from. He is a local legend. His music was unavoidable in the late 90s and early-mid 00s. He played on the radio constantly, performed in Brighton regularly, and was always being played at gatherings. As has often been the case in this project, I've never actually listened to this album front to back so I'm looking forward to it!
The transition from Right Here, Right Now to Rockafeller Skank is so good. I laughed as it happened.
This was a great album to have on in the background. The songs are varied, while keeping the unmistakable Fatboy Slim sound. My favorites are the ones everyone knows. I enjoyed You're Not From Brighton & Kalifornia a lot as well.
This album is iconic. 9/10
The Pretty Things
4/5
This was a fun album. It all blended into one song as I did my work, but I did like the sound. I didn't get bored of it, which is impressive over an hour. I didn't clock any specific song as a favorite.
The whole sound was very Sgt Peppers. This came out a year later so that isn't too surprising!
8/10.
Dire Straits
5/5
I always knew I liked Dire Straits, but now I know that I love Dire Straits. Nobody else sounds quite like them. My favorite songs were "Down to the Waterline", "Southbound Again", "Sultans of Swing" and "In the Gallery".
I've added this entire album to my liked songs playlist. I'm officially a Strait-Man. Dire-Guy? Straitie? None of these sound great.
9/10
Christina Aguilera
3/5
This album is immediately not what I expected. It is very soulful. Makes Me Wanna Pray is a banger.
Slow Down Baby is great. This isn't really my style of music, but it is very good. I'm seven songs in and starting to get a little bored of the sound. There's another fifty minutes to go.
Still Dirrty is fun, I wish there was even more horns.
OK, we might be changing it up completely for Disc 2. Circus theme? I'm back in.
This side of the album is way better. Welcome and Candyman were great. The rest of Disc 2 got a little same-y again, although I did generally like it more than Disc 1.
I probably wouldn't ever put this on again, and I'm going to rate it based on that, but I did like this album! 6/10
Taylor Swift
2/5
This album was OK, it's filled with pop jams and I see why people like it. It's not really my style. I don't really relate to any of the lyrics and I don't think they're particularly profound or interesting. I wouldn't put this on again.
4/10
Paul Simon
5/5
This is one of my favorite albums of all time. It is up there on my 'Most Played Albums' list and I don't think I'll ever get bored of it. It's got an amazing blend of musical styles. The vocals are amazing, the songs are so catchy, and the african instruments blend so well with Paul's song writing. I love that each song features different artists.
This is easily my favorite Paul Simon work.
10/10
Destiny's Child
3/5
This album goes kinda hard, my favorite songs are Bootylicious, Sexy Daddy, and Independent Women II.
This is definitely more my style of girlbossing, as compared to Taylor Swift from a few days ago. It's pretty poppy, but I like the R&B sound a lot more than 1989s synth-poppy anthems. I wasn't pulled in by every song but there were some real bops in here.
6/10
Iggy Pop
2/5
I have very little to say about this album. I was bored and kind of zoned out and didn't pay much attention. Iggy bores me in the same way that Nick Cave does. I don't really like the vocals, and it's all too slow and nothing is musically interesting enough to get me paying attention?
It wasn't horrible by any means, but I also didn't feel like it had any positives on this listen-through. 4/10
Tina Turner
4/5
I'd never listened to Tina Turner before and this album didn't disappoint. The songs are all over the place and don't really flow into one another but I never felt like it was an issue. It sounds like an album of 10 separate songs, but Tina does such an amazing job that it makes the album feel fresh the entire time. My favorite songs are "Show Some Respect" "I Can't Stand the Rain" "Better Be Good to Me" and "Steel Claw". Did the same person really Make Show some Respect and Steel Claw and put them on the same album?
This is a ton of fun. Good stuff Tina.
8/10
Jefferson Airplane
4/5
This album has quite a few super famous songs that I didn't know were by Jefferson Airplane. "Somebody to Love" is a classic and I was happy to hear it!
"My Best Friend" is such a fun song. "White Rabbit" and "Embryonic Journey" are also great. I'm liking this album a lot so far. "In The Morning" is a great jam.
This entire album rocked. It was a little too long for me but I was never bored. Lot's of awesome songs and many additions to my playlists.
8/10
The White Stripes
4/5
"Little Ghost" is my favorite song so far. I also loved "My Doorbell", it sounded a little bit like Cee Lo Green somehow. I'm not sure what the right away to describe these songs is, but they seem almost funky? They make me bop my head for sure.
This album has such interesting and varied percussion. I've heard so many different noises throughout. It's cool.
This album was good. Not a long of songs I loved, but also very few I didn't enjoy. It's going to be a lower 4/5 for me.
7/10
Earth, Wind & Fire
5/5
Yearnin' Learnin' is an awesome song. I'm moving my entire body in my office chair.
This album was super smooth. Lots of variety in the songs and a great run-time. I wasn't bored for one second.
9/10
Beyoncé
2/5
I haven't listened to Beyonce extensively, and I am far from an expert, but this album doesn't have any of her good songs on it? There's not much in here for me if I'm being honest. The songs are all a little same-y, the production style is super played out (although maybe it wasn't when the album dropped), and the lyrics aren't doing anything for me. I guess I know Beyonce for her jams, and there were none to be found here.
Nothing offensive in here, but I wouldn't listen to it again.
4/10
Ali Farka Touré
3/5
I found this album to be a little boring. Lasidan was my favorite song, and I added it to a playlist. I don't think I have the palette for the West African sound, and I didn't enjoy it that much. I have no complaints and it certainly wasn't unpleasant, but I wouldn't listen to it again.
5/10
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
ADAM RAISED A CANE! This album rocks, classic Bruce.
It start's so hot with Badlands, one of my favorite Bruce songs.
The Promised Land is another favorite, I listened to it a few times. I hadn't heard "Darkness on the Edge of Town" before, I liked it a lot. It was a cool ending to the album.
It isn't bangers the whole way through, but it has a whole lot of them. A few songs were a little boring compared to their peers, but I didn't have a bad time for one second. 42 minutes is a great run-time.
8/10
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
This is a sensational album. The first five songs are unquestionably the best, but I also loved You Make Loving Fun and I Don't Want to Know.
All of those songs have been added to my playlists. It flows amazingly, it changes moods a few times and doesn't run too long. It's got a few down songs keeping it from being a perfect 10, but this is a special album.
9/10
The Coral
4/5
This album rocked. I'd never heard of it but had fun the entire time. It's not too long, great guitar, awesome vocals. It rocks pretty hard throughout. At times the album really reminds me of My Chemical Romance? That might be a weird association, but they were around in similar times.
I'm in the process of catching up to a few missed albums so I only listened once. Good stuff.
8/10
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3/5
After about thirty minutes of thinking that all the refrains sounded like the Gorillaz, I googled this album and learned that it is yet another Damon Albarn project.
It was OK, I didn't have any negative feelings but I was a little bored. None of the songs truly gripped me. If I had to pick one then I'd say the first song, History Song, was the best one. Herculean sounded the most like a Gorillaz song.
6/10
Leonard Cohen
4/5
This was a nice album. It was very peaceful and pleasant to listen to. I think my favorite songs were the same ones as everyone else, "Hey that's no way to say goodbye" and "Suzanne".
It was very samey by the end, but the 41 minute run-time made that OK. It felt like a combination of Simon&Garfunkel and Jeff Buckley?
7/10
Jurassic 5
3/5
This is a real old-head hip-hop album. I listened to J5 a bunch in high school because one of my friends liked them a lot.
I listened to this album twice, but the first time I was barely listening in a car. The album is straight bars with some pretty simple but funky production. If you like hot lyrics, this is a great album. I like a little more musical production, so this didn't quite pull me in that much.
It's good, but runs a little long. No complaints and definitely enjoy it.
6/10
The Police
3/5
This is a real old-head hip-hop album. I listened to J5 a bunch in high school because one of my friends liked them a lot.
I listened to this album twice, but the first time I was barely listening in a car. The album is straight bars with some pretty simple but funky production. If you like hot lyrics, this is a great album. I like a little more musical production, so this didn't quite pull me in that much.
It's good, but runs a little long. No complaints and definitely enjoy it.
6/10
Echo And The Bunnymen
2/5
This was a very 80s album. It wasn't very interesting to me, but I did like a few songs. "My Kingdom" was my favorite.
I wouldn't listen to this again, grateful for the short run-time.
4/10
The Afghan Whigs
2/5
I didn't love the opening song, but it's growing on me.
This album was pretty mid, I didn't love it. I don't have a ton to say, I don't think I'd listen to it again? I don't like the vocals, but I did like a fair bit of the instrumentals.
4/10
Public Image Ltd.
2/5
I did not really enjoy the opening song, "Theme". I like "Religion II" more, it's got a nice guitar riff going on.
Annalisa is making me feel like I'd enjoy them live a lot more. Listening to the record in my office chair is making me not love the vocals, but I think that live I'd be enjoying the instrumental too much to care.
Fodderstomp is a funny song, it almost evokes the Gorillaz a little? That underlying funky bass line with a bunch of weird stuff on top sounds a lot like Damon Albarn.
Overall this kind of music is a little too rough around the edges for me. I think I'd like it in a live setting with some drinks in me, but it's not suited for office listening. Punk is dead in my soul (from 9-5).
4/10
Muddy Waters
5/5
I knew right away I'd love this album. The live albums are the best part of this experience so far, and this one absolutely did not miss. I love this era of blues. I'd never listened to Muddy Waters before but I certainly will in the future.
I loved the whole album and added it to my saved albums.
9/10
Miles Davis
4/5
I liked this album, it was very nice background music. It's the kind of thing I'd put on quietly in the background of a nice house party. Not that I've ever had one of those.
Jazz doesn't do anything special for me, so I didn't fall in love with this (presumably) iconic record, but I definitely like it. I don't have the developed nose for Jazz that I'd need to say anything intelligent about it here.
7/10
Röyksopp
3/5
The first song I'm truly enjoying is Poor Leno. This one is engaging, the others have been too slow and ambient for me.
Röyksopp's Night Out is also fun, even if it did run longer than I like.
Remind Me is nice. I like listening to his hushed whisper singing.
Ultimately this album was not very engaging. I definitely don't dislike it, but it does very little to draw me in. I don't love slow paced ambient electronica too much, and this falls into that category for me. I liked the songs that were more upbeat and had some singing.
5/10
Arrested Development
5/5
This album is so funky. I'm loving it and I'm surprised I've never heard of it before. My favorite songs are "Mr Wendal", "Mama's Always On Stage", "Fishin' For Revolution", "Give A Man A Fish", "U", and "Dawn of the Dreads". I added to this list as I went and it just kept getting longer and longer. I was laughing at "Children Play With Earth". They put me on blast and told to put down my nintendo and touch grass.
They have such interesting vocals over all their beats. Great mixtures of singing and bars. They have a lot to say, thoughtful lyrics that reflect their worldviews and experiences.
This was so great the entire way through. I love it.
9/10
Iron Maiden
5/5
Fuck yeah. This album fucks, it had me amped up at my desk the entire time. It's a classic and I don't think there is much more to be said. This album cover is iconic and it has hung on millions of walls as a poster, as well as on millions of sweaty metalheads as a t-shirt.
I think Iron Maiden would be the first name out of many people's mouths when asked about metal. This album is easily their most well known.
My metal reviews have been all over the place. I can't stand it when the singers voice is just angry yelling or screaming. Bruce has a cool voice and I liked listening to it the whole time. It feels like at least he put some effort into hitting notes?
Iconic, holds up entirely. Also possibly rekindling its cultural relevance thanks to Stranger Things' appeal to non-metalheads?
666/10.
The Pogues
4/5
I listened to this album on a car ride so I don't have any comments on specifics song. I really liked it a lot. It's like Dropkick Murphy's but actual irish people, and way better. It ran a little long and repetitively for my taste, but the songs were great and got me pumped up on my ride.
8/10
Stan Getz
4/5
This album had some very famous songs that I'd heard about but never listened to. I really like a saxophone and clearly Stan Getz does too. I was never bored or unhappy with a song, the instrumental was perfect office background music and the singing was very nice.
This isn't exactly my kind of music but I really enjoyed it.
8/10
AC/DC
4/5
AC/DC sure do have a consistent sound. I like that sound, and when it first comes on I'm nodding my head and tapping my feet. After thirty minutes I'm thinking 'wow this is still going?'. They are iconic, and this album is legendary, but it really does all sound the same.
This music is at its best when exactly one song comes on the local classic rock station as you're driving down the highway. You bang your head, tap the steering wheel, and drive a little faster. When that same song comes on the same station three days later, you'll do it again.
7/10. I like it a lot, but only 5-10 minutes at a time.
Dinosaur Jr.
3/5
This album was alright. I'm becoming more aware of a portion of rock that I would describe as 'just a lot of noise'? The last half of Tarpit is a great example. It's a howling noise overlaid with the singer tonelessly repeating the same line. Underneath all that is an obscured guitar track and drums that seems like it may be pleasant, but you wouldn't know.
I don't really like having my ears blasted with random noise, and I think I'm just not part of the generation where that was subversive and interesting.
The rest of the songs were pretty alright. The vocals were not offensive but also not great, and it sounded like a whole lot of some pretty conventional rock.
I did genuinely enjoy a few songs, like Sludgefeast and In a Jar.
I probably won't ever listen to this again, but I'd describe it as boring rather than bad? This does not apply to the second half of Tarpit which I don't need to hear.
5/10
Don McLean
3/5
It is simply impossible for me to start this album and not be singing "The Saga Begins" by Weird Al. I listened to the first song and then went and listened to Al for two hours. This is not Don's fault but I can't separate myself from that, so - sorry Don.
American Pie is an absolutely legendary song, hopefully the rest of the album is as good. Putting your best song first is a bold move.
The next few songs were not that exciting, but I am enjoying "Everybody Loves Me, Baby."
It was all a little slow for me ultimately. American Pie was easily the best song.
It would probably get a 5/10 but American Pie gives it a boost.
6/10
2/5
This album isn't doing it for me. Every song sounds kind of the same, and I feel like musically it's been very bland. Her voice is also not my favorite, so it's missing in a lot of ways.
I'm enjoying Beautiful Feeling, but that may be because it's a Radiohead song.
This Mess We're In is also good. It has Thom Yorke on it again.
Basically every other song bored me, and I had a bit of a hard time staying engaged.
It certainly wasn't bad, but it also wasn't good.
4/10
The Flaming Lips
4/5
I love this album! "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, pt 1/2", "Do You Realize", and "All We Have is Now" are my favorites. Do You Realize is a rare song where the lyrics broke through and made me sit back and listen. It makes me sit back and wonder and why I'm in a chair in an office as I listen.
One of my greatest regrets is not seeing Flaming Lips w/ Tame Impala when they came through.
Not every song is incredible, but it's a strong album with a sound I really like, and a run-time that didn't have me looking for the exit.
8/10
Björk
2/5
I was definitely waiting for this one to be over. None of these songs drew me in at all. They all sound very similar and that sound doesn't do it for me. It's minimalist ethereal-pop backing with Björk singing, and that's a little boring.
It wasn't bad, but it was too long and boring enough for me that I've got to give it a 4/10.
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
For me, this is one of the best albums of all time. From 2011-2012 I was in a white suburban high schooler transitional period from an "I like everything but country and hip hop" guy, to a "Tribe Called Quest are so underrated" guy. Neither of these are great guys to be, but it's where I was at the time.
This album and Channel Orange both hit me in the same months and absolutely blew my mind. They were so good that for the next four years I basically listened to nothing but hip hop and R&B. Decades of undiscovered music was suddenly available to me, and hip-hop was in a really amazing place in the early 2010s.
Every single song is at least great, and most are incredible. My personal favorite song is "m.A.A.d city". The beats are amazing, the features are perfect, the scene setting skits pull you into the story. I don't have a single complaint about this album. I think it changed hip hop forever. I'm writing this review in the months after the "Not Like Us" mania. I don't think you'd find many hiphopheads who'd dispute that Kendrick is one of the GOATs.
10/10
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
4/5
I don't want to eat Kit's lunch but this is an absolutely sensational album cover. The best one yet by a mile. I want it as a poster.
I'd never heard of this album before! It's really good. We've had a few other albums that open with twenty minute songs and it hasn't gone as well as this did. The album is all over the place, tons of different sounds and interesting moments.
I really love hearing piano and this album has it in spades. My favorite songs are "Tarkus", "Jeremy Bender", and "Are You Ready Eddy?". The run-time was great. The energy kept up and the sounds never got stale.
There were a few songs that were only OK for me, so I think that keeps me from giving it a 9/10. This is a very strong 8/10.
8/10
King Crimson
5/5
This album was sweet. I had never heard of King Crimson. Before I'd even started, the album name was appealing to my fantasy sensibilities.
The opening song is the sample for Power by Kanye, which is crazy. MBDTF is one of my favorite albums ever, and I'd never thought to look up any of the samples. I foolishly thought he made those himself. The song itself was awesome. So many instruments.
"I Talk To The Wind" was a beautiful peaceful song.
"Epitaph" was an epic ballad that gave me strong Metallica vibes. I was expecting Hetfield to cut in during the intro.
"Moonchild" didn't do much for me.
"The Court of the Crimson King" was awesome again.
The entire album felt like a journey, and I really liked being on it.
I also like the album cover.
This is a very unexpected 5 for me. I didn't like Moonchild much, so it won't be a 10/10, but the other songs were impressive.
9/10
Neil Young
4/5
This is my first time listening to Neil Young. I liked the album! I liked "Are You Ready For The Country" and "Words (Between The Lines of Age)" the most. I like the rocky-country-folksy sound. The album didn't feel like it had a ton of diversity, and even with a tight 37 minute run-time, it managed to get a little stale.
I'm going to explore more Neil Young, and I'm sure more will show up on this list.
7/10
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
This was a fun album. I like the ethereal poppy sound and the funky beats. My favorite songs were "Shopping", "It's a Sin", "Rent", and "Heart".
The album ran a little long for my taste, but was fun the whole time. The songs had a lot of variety, and the lyrics were interesting & funny (when they occasionally broke through to me).
7/10
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
I enjoy what I've heard of Elvis Costello so far. This is my first time listening to "Elvis Costello and the Attractions".
The album was dragging a little for me until "... And In Every Home". That song rocked, and it really picked up from there. The next half of the album was better than the first half, but still felt a little repetitive to me.
I did really like the song "You Little Fool".
This is a long album, and having so many songs makes it feel even longer. There's a lot of slow crooning songs, which aren't really my style. I liked the songs enough, but there weren't really any that I'd come back to.
I'm surprised to be giving it a 6/10, but a 6/10 it must be.
6/10
Super Furry Animals
3/5
This may be our first Welsh album? It had a lot of fun moments, but generally went on so long that it was hard to pick moments out of the haze.
"Death By Melody" was the first song that made me turn and face my Spotify monitor. It was followed by "Something for the Weekend", which was also very fun. These songs have Arctic Monkeys undertones - I wonder if they were listening to this growing up.
Unfortunately this album is just way too long, and that makes it hard for me to really enjoy it. This length of runtime erases an albums identity, and the interesting parts of their sound are shown to me so many times that they manage to become boring within the first listen-through.
I do generally like it, but it's too much of it.
6/10
Beatles
3/5
This album was the OK-est of all the Beatles records I've heard. The best song was the opener, "A Hard Day's Night". I also enjoyed "Tell Me Why" and "Can't Buy Me Love". I listened to this song on the car ride and it kind of flew by in a blur of swingy Beatles sounds.
From some quick googling, this album was clearly an important moment in transatlantic rock and roll. I wasn't part of that moment, so I am helpless but to judge it for what I hear today in 2024. It was fine. It was a lot of the same, and it managed to get a bit same-y even in it's very short run time of thirty minutes. The songs are all so short, but many seem to pick up right where the last one left off.
6/10
Radiohead
2/5
Radiohead have such a legendary status that I feel like I have to like them. People who are really into music will look at me funny if I say I don't like Radiohead.
This is our second or third album by them, and I have to say that I'm still really not getting it. It's all very slow and boring, and when it does pick up I still don't love the sound. There's a lot of noise, which perhaps is 'experimental'. The best song was "I Might Be Wrong", which I liked a lot. That one lifted me out of the malaise of the first few songs. "Knives Out" kept the injury up a little but then it went right back down.
"Life In a Glasshouse" had some fun elements.
I'm going to be even more heavy handed than last time here, and say that I actively didn't enjoy it. But only a little.
4/10
System Of A Down
4/5
I absolutely love System of a Down. It is a universal truth that every pre-teen boy must be given great wisdom by their peer's older brothers, late-teenage neighbors, or the metal-head in the back of their health class. It is on this review that I shall offer my thanks to Jason Hannah, Martin Hannah, and Christopher Bull. You each conferred upon me great lessons in metal, and for this I am grateful. It was Chris who showed me System of a Down. I was eleven years old and my friend Seb had a birthday party where we all camped in a massive tent in his backyard. In attendance was myself, Seb, four other eleven year olds who I hadn't met before (Seb went to a different school), and Chris. Chris was fifteen. He was a pillar of knowledge, wizened by his many years, and lessons flowed from him as great rivers descend upon the plains from lofty peaks. The fertile grasslands of our youthful minds received gratefully his knowledge of early YouTube, albinoblacksheep, and Real Music.
The human brain stores enduring memories if they are associated with strong emotional responses. I don't remember a lot from my childhood, but I remember so vividly the moment that Chris took out his phone and began playing a low quality mp3 of Vicinity of Obscenity (which I am aware isn't on this album). Each of us listened in awe. When the song finished we demanded to hear it again. And again. And again. He continued to show us songs until Seb's dad came outside and told us it was time to go to sleep. Little did he know, the six eleven year olds who entered the tent that night had been transformed. We arose from our sleeping bags reborn, young metalheads with the seeds of political dissidence planted deep within our consciences. Seb's dad was surprised when I asked him what Tiananmen Square was over breakfast. I don't think I got an answer. I never saw the other four again, but I assume each one has gone on to become a political revolutionary. Or maybe they forgot about System of a Down as soon as they got picked up from the sleepover. I certainly never did.
This album rocks, but not as much as their future ones. It's their first record and I think they went in the opposite, and better, direction than many groups do. A lot of bands open up with their strongest performances, the products of many years of creative energy, and then struggle to bring it back there. System of a Down seem to not quite have figured out who they were yet on this record. They knew they were hard as fuck, but they didn't know they had to get way more absurd, and even more political. The bones of their signature sounds are here, the sudden transitions from hard metal to slow soft interludes, Serj's wild screaming followed by beautiful harmonies. I like this record a lot, but they have the dials at 6 and they will go up to 10 in the following years. I really enjoy "Sugar", "DDevil", "Soil", and "P.L.U.C.K."
7/10
Jamiroquai
4/5
This is a funky album. I've heard the name Jamiroquai many times but never listened myself. I'm not sure what I thought this band was, but it wasn't this. My favorite songs were "When You Gonna Learn", "Music of the Mind", "Emergency on Planet Earth", and "Blow Your Mind". Honorable mention to "Didgin' Out", which is entirely Didgeridoo. That's awesome. This was good background music and had me moving my body all funkily at my desk. I'm surprised that this album was written in the 90s. It is clearly heavily influenced by the funk and soul sounds of the 60s/70s.
8/10
Madonna
4/5
This is my first time listening to Madonna. She's kind of a lot like Michael Jackson? Maybe that was just the style of the time, but she's got a lot of those percussive beats behind her that remind me of songs like "Beat It". "Express Yourself" and "Keep it Together" are two good examples of what I mean.
My favorite song is "Dear Jessie", it's got some Disney movie energy. I also really like "Till Death Do Us Part", and "Cherish".
I like this album. I don't love the croony slower ballads, but I like all the more upbeat songs.
7/10
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
I have not loved the first few songs. "North American Scum" is the first good one. "All My Friends" is also good. They really sound like The Killers on this track. All the next tracks didn't do it for me, but then "New York I Love You..." was pretty good.
I've dabbled with LCD Soundsystem a little in the past and it's never clicked. They don't quite hold the same status as Radiohead, but they're another one of those bands everyone says they love. This album was a little boring. The interesting elements of it don't feel like they're executed that well. It all feels a little middle of the road and bland. I didn't dislike it and a few of the songs were good.
6/10
Pretenders
3/5
I have to admit that when I started this album I thought it was by the band who sang "I Would Walk 500 Miles". It turns out that is The Proclaimers. That was a disappointing moment.
I always kind of knew I didn't love the state of music in the 80s, but this album listening adventure is really solidifying that for me. This album was fine, but too long, a little boring, and too many 80s things goings on for me.
I don't really have any specific comments, it just kinda blew by me.
5/10
The Lemonheads
3/5
I've never heard of The Lemonheads. They're from Boston, which is pretty cool of them. According to their Spotify bio they broke out around the Nirvana times, and were associated with Oasis and other iconic Gen X bands of the 90s.
If the Spotify description is to be believed, they mostly got famous from how handsome the lead singer was. That makes sense as the music all seems a little toothless and same-y. It's a good length and inoffensively catchy the entire time, but it doesn't really do anything great. It certainly is music, and it isn't bad. My favorite song was "Ceiling Fan in My Spoon". That's a cool name for a song and immediately evokes a scene/moment in my mind.
It's kind of funny that they covered Mrs. Robinson. It wasn't better than the original.
5/10
Yes
4/5
I was mostly paying attention to this album in Henry's apartment. We're on a big prog rock kick in this group, having listened to EL&P and King Crimson last week. Yes finishes the triumvirate of "prog bands I've heard of", so I'm glad they've come up so soon.
Roundabout is super famous, so that was instantly recognizable. I liked it a lot. I wasn't really paying attention to individual songs, so I've got to rate it off of the general vibes. The vibes were generally good.
This was my least favorite album of the three prog rock albums so far (Tarkus, Crimson King), but I enjoyed it.
7/10
The Libertines
4/5
This album has the classic 2000s british rock sound for sure. The song "Narcissist" reminds me a lot of the Fratellis. The sound is a little played out for me personally, but I do like it a lot. This sound is such a big part of my youth that I can't help but view it positively. It feels a little like the backing track to a full decade of my life.
This era of music is made to be listened to it in sweaty underground British basements. I was too young to be in basements. They started right after I left and I'm sure everyone was having a lot of fun. Without me.
The album is good and definitely a fun listen. I listened to it in a setting where it was hard to track individual songs, so I've got to give a general review of the album.
7/10
B.B. King
4/5
This album is really fun. The performance is very tight and the band is clearly well rehearsed & familiar with each other. His song are like a conversation with the crowd broken up by amazing guitar bits. He tells a story throughout the show, and the crowd are absolutely loving it. There seems to either be an intermission in the middle, or its two different concerts?
"How Blue Can You Get" has awesome saxophone and powerful vocals.
"Please Love Me" has some of the most fun instrumentation on the album. I was moving my whole body listening to this one.
"Worry Worry" has some of the most iconic vocals. I've heard quite a few live tracks of this song before. He does the "Ladies if you've got a man..." bit on more than one recording.
I liked this album a lot, it's a great length and has great energy. I didn't love it as much as other live albums we've heard but it was great.
8/10
Dusty Springfield
3/5
I expected the album "Dusty in Memphis" by Dusty Springfield to be a live album by a country music man. I haven't knowingly listened to her before, but this album is really good.
"Son of a Preacher Man" is amazing. I've heard it many times before and always enjoy it.
"Don't Forget About Me" has me moving.
Besides those two songs, the rest all felt a little boring. I'm not a big fan of slow paced crooning songs. The instrumentation wasn't very interesting, and the focus was largely on Dusty's singing and her lyrics. I can see the appeal for someone who loves that, but it doesn't quite do it for me.
6/10
John Lennon
4/5
I am putting this album on with some nervousness. I really did not like "Imagine", which was one of the first albums on our journey. All I know about Yoko Ono is her heavily meme'd personal projects, and that people say she broke up The Beatles.
"Mother" is really good. This is a hundred times better than 'Imagine' to start.
"Working Class Hero" wasn't my favorite song musically, but it did have some fantastic lyrics.
"Hold On" is also great, very Beatles sounding song.
"Isolation" is cool, it has some very Pink Floyd sounding moments.
"Remember" and "Love" were a little weaker.
Am I tripping out or did Yoko Ono not sing once on this record? Wikipedia credits her with vocals, but I'm not sure I even noticed them.
7/10
Beck
3/5
This album is definitely passing me by a little. It's a little too slow paced and understated to really grab me.
"Lost Cause" is the first song I'm actively enjoying.
I didn't tab over and check out many individual songs. The album was a bit of a same-y blur. It wasn't an unpleasant blur but it didn't have much to offer for me.
6/10
Hookworms
4/5
This is an odd choice to have on this list. I've read before that the list tries to include bands & albums that were not hits, but they felt were very strong songwriting showings. This is likely one of those as I've never heard of this band or album.
I really like the first four songs and the general flow of the album up until this point. It's ambient in a way that I enjoy. "The Soft Season" has very Bon Iver inspired sounds. The 'noise' with soft trumpets and other similar instruments in the background. I love Bon Iver so that sound is really doing it for me.
I really like that the songs flow into one another so well. It reminds me a little of the M83 album "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" in that way.
"Each Time We Pass" wasn't as great for me and I didn't love the wailing noises on "Boxing Day".
"Shortcomings" is a good ending to the album.
This album wasn't too long and had some really good sections. It dropped off a little on songs five, six , seven and eight, but then came in strong again at the end.
7/10
Gorillaz
5/5
I love the Gorillaz but have never listened to this album start to finish. I lived in England when Demon Days swept the nation. I remember being obsessed with the album art.
Damon Albarn came into this project with very well formed idea. The entire Gorillaz sound is on display on this debut record. "Tomorrow Comes Today" has the melancholy instrumentals / vocals that remain central to their future projects. "Clint Eastwood" which showcases the other side of the Gorillaz signature sound - a Dan The Automator beat with Del rapping on it. I believe they got connected for this project because Dan was working on Deltron 3030 and Gorillaz at the same time. Del's voice and flow is iconic and is an irreplaceable part of the Gorillaz for me.
"Punk" is the first song that brings me into the 'Gorillaz Universe' a little. It really does sound like a synthesized attempt at a punk song made by the characters.
"Rock The House" and "19-2000" are my two favorite songs on the album. I've listened to them so much. They are both so unique and quintessentially Gorillaz. Del continues to spit and the beats are really fun. No other band has me moving my whole body as squeaky recorder noises come in under the vocals.
"M1 A1" feels like I'm listening to Dark Side of the Moon. Until it doesn't.
"Left Hand Suzuki Mode" sounds like I'm listening to The Pogues or a similar band combined with Japanese elements. I like it!
This album is amazing. It isn't just the music either, the entire project is cool. The art direction, the band members, and the music videos are all novel and engaging. If it was just the music alone I'd likely give it an eight. There's so many great songs but also some filler. The scope of the entire project elevates it a little higher, so I'll give it a nine.
9/10
Van Halen
3/5
"Jump" is such a meme-y 80's song that I actually laughed when it came on. This is the kind of song I would never put on because its so corny, but if it comes on at a wedding and I've got some drinks in me then I'll be JAMMING.
I haven't heard a single song on the rest of the album before, so I'm looking forward to hearing it.
"Panama" is the exact same song as Jump. My comments above apply equally here.
"Hot for Teacher" is a ridiculous and funny song.
It feels like in the 80s everyone stopped taking music seriously as an art form and decided to just get silly with it. But they all got silly with it in the exact same way. Songs from this era are immediately recognizable as so many of them sound the same.
I probably wouldn't ever choose to listen to this on my own time, but it's a lot of fun to have come on in the car or at a wedding.
6/10
Laura Nyro
4/5
This was a really fun album. I listened to it a little distractedly so don't have a ton to say.
"Sweet Blindness", "Women's Blues" and "Timer" were my favorite songs.
This was a lot more lively than I was expecting.
7/10
The Modern Lovers
4/5
This album kicks off with him declaring his love for MA, then he goes on to sing about Stop & Shop. What an amazing song. I am seen.
"Roadrunner" is a great song. I have learned that it's the namesake for the new-ish venue Roadrunner in Boston.
"Pablo Picasso" has dope instrumental. I like this song a lot.
"Someone I Care About" and "Modern World" are other honorable mentions.
This is a really fun album. I don't love his voice and styling of singing that much, but its paired well with some really excellent guitar/drums.
7/10
Suede
4/5
I'm listening to this one a little distractedly. Liking it a lot so far.
"Daddy's Speeding" is good enough to make me tab over and see what song is playing.
"New Generation" mentions the Astral Plane. Modern Lovers had a whole song about that yesterday. Odd coincidence to have two bands using that phrase in two days.
7/10
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
This is a strange album. It's live but not all the time, and seems to be overdubbed with studio recording. The live element adds essentially nothing. There are occasionally faint crowd noises that can be heard, such as when he sings "Rock and Roll will never die", but that's about it. I'm spoiled with some of the other outstanding live albums we've heard.
The music itself is pretty good. I'm so-so on Neil Young. I don't love his voice, but I like the music and the lyrics a lot.
"My My, Hey Hey" is a famous song. I like it! "It's better to burn out than fade away" is a very famous line, which I'd heard before in media about Kurt Cobain's suicide. It's odd to hear the crowd reacting to that section , but then never really hear them again.
"Welfare Mothers" is the first song that got me going. The electric section of the album is pretty tight, the acoustic opening section is a little sleepy for me.
"Sedan Delivery" is also a jam.
7/10
Lorde
4/5
I loved Pure Heroine and have listened to it many times. I've never explored her catalog past that, so I am happy to see this album!
"Green Light" absolutely rips, very reminiscent of Pure Heroine.
"Sober"was pretty good, but not as good as the opener.
"Home Dynamite" also excellent.
"Louvre" says "Broadcoast the boom boom and make them all dance to it" but doesn't have a lot of dance elements. It feels like a quieter reflection on making people dance to the boom boom.
"Liability" is great. Strong lyrics.
This album is really good. It's toned down from Pure Heroine but the lyrics are more open and raw. Green Light is my favorite song.
8/10
The Smiths
4/5
"Frankly, Mr Shankly" is a really fun song, I wish it was longer. Very relatable, I also don't want to keep working. Is Mr. Shankly a real person, or just a convenient rhyme for the word frankly?
The rest of the songs on this album were less fun than "Frankly, Mr Shankly." This was a good album but a little same-y for me. "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" is a famous song that I recognize. It's good!
7/10, a cool sound but I could have used more variety.
The Cure
3/5
The Cure are from a town I went to very regularly when I lived in England. That's fun.
Generally speaking, the gloomy introspective ambient instrumentals don't really do it for me. However, I did like a lot of the music on this album. "Last Dance" had some cool guitar sounds. They're doing a lot of stuff with pedals in this record.
"Lovesong" is the song I recognize. I like a lot about it, and about the album in general, but I have a hard time getting into the singing style.
"Lullaby" is cool, I like the instrumental sections a lot.
"Fascination Street" is also cool. I am enjoying this section of the album with less singing a lot more.
"Prayers of Rain" also has cool instrumental. I feel like I'd like a vocal-free version of this album.
The vocals are a little droning and get old quickly for me. The album is depressing, in a way that is more often tedious than interesting. I like the instrumentals in a lot of places, but I always tune out when the singing starts again.
6/10
The Beach Boys
5/5
I love the Beach Boys, they are my favorite 60s band. This is an interesting album for us to get first. It has none of their most famous hits, and scant reference to boats or surfing. They still reference "my baby" a whole lot, so at least that hasn't gone anywhere.
The lyrics on this album are more substantive than their previous outings. "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is a banger.
"When I Grow Up To Be A Man" is funny. They don't want their kids to view them as squares. Unfortunately, some number of the Beach Boys are now weird Trump-heads, so their kids almost certainly think they're squares.
"Bull Session with 'Big Daddy'" is a hell of a name for a track. Despite it's pornhub-worthy name, it's just a fun conversation between the band members. European bread is FAR better than American bread, and I thank the Beach Boys for spreading the word.
I love everything about the Beach Boys. The songs & albums are nice iPad kid lengths. The sound is awesome. This record shows a different side of them than their top played hits may. Not that different though, they're still on their same shit.
9/10
Count Basie & His Orchestra
5/5
This album really rocked. I experienced it as one long track, so don't have too much to say about the individual songs. It was a fun pace and didn't feel old. As many people of approximately my age do, I associate big band swing music positively with walking through the apocalyptic wastelands of America in the Fallout games.
"Whirly-Bird" had an awesome trumpet? saxophone? some wind instrument? solo. I loved it.
"Splanky" had sections that would be perfect background to elaborate heist scenes in cartoons or comedy shows.
I liked the entire album and will definitely listen to it again. Fantastically engaging background music. Great length, it ended right as I was thinking I could enjoy something different.
9/10
Additional comment: making the album cover a mushroom cloud in 1958 is bold.
Ray Charles
5/5
This album was amazing. It's our second Ray Charles album and I liked this one a lot more than "The Genius of Ray Charles". I'm not the biggest fan of the soulful crooning songs, but I love the big band swing tracks. This album had a much better mix of the two.
"Bye Bye Love" is an amazing opener to the album.
"Just A Little Lovin'" is a banger.
My favorite song was "Don't Tell Me Your Troubles". It's impossible to not tap your foot.
"Take These Chains From My Heart" was a slower song that I really liked.
The album is a little long, and the crooning still gets a little too repetitive for me, but I'm still going to give this a 5. If it was 70% big swing and 30% slow tracks it would be a 10/10.
9/10
MC Solaar
4/5
This was a cool album! I've never heard of MC Solaar, but google tells me he is the most famous french hip-hop artist.
I enjoyed the vibes, but don't speak french so didn't pick up on any of the lyrics. The beats were dope and I like his flow across the record. It ran a little long.
I can't rate it super highly because I can't understand a word he's saying, and I'm not going to go translate all the lyrics. However, I did think the sound was cool and it's clearly pretty dope stuff.
7/10
Happy Mondays
2/5
This one kinda passed me by. I do not have too much to say, I didn't really like it.
4/10
Alice Cooper
4/5
This is a really interesting album. I haven't listened to Alice Cooper before.
I fall between neutral and like on all of the songs.
I liked "Raped and Freezin'" (not a good name or topic), but it has good musical sections and great energy. The end sounds like he suddenly brought Paul Simon into the booth.
I liked "Billion Dollar Babies", "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "I Love the Dead" a lot as well.
Solid and interesting rock and roll.
7/10
Black Sabbath
4/5
This album is fun. Black Sabbath have such a distinct sound, they are unmistakable.
"Changes" was a cool tone switch. This is the first song I recognize myself.
"Supernaut" and "Snowblind" both rock.
"Laguna Sunrise" is another nice tone switch to break it up a little.
I enjoyed this album. The sound is a little too repetitive to give it an incredible rating, but I do like the sound a lot. They mix it up here and there to prevent it getting stale and the album has a pretty good run-time.
7/10
Marvin Gaye
5/5
This album is fantastic. This is my first time listening to a full album by Marvin and he's delivering the goods.
The first three songs flow into one another so well. They are all so layered and benefit immensely from a nice pair of headphones. I loved all three of them.
"Save the Children" was a step back for me, I didn't like this one as much. Despite this I would like to affirm that I do support saving children.
"God is Love" and "Mercy Me" are right back to the smooth flowing ways of the beginning of the album. I like "Mercy Me" a lot, it's got me moving in my seat.
"Right On" is my favorite track yet.
It's got a few tracks that are just OK, but many more that are excellent.
9/10
Muddy Waters
5/5
This album goes so hard (again). It is largely forty minutes of shredding on the guitar and keys.
Did someone (or many people) more contemporary rip off "Mannish Boy"? Why does this sound exactly like another (or many other) songs? It slaps, and was clearly a very influential song.
"Jealous Hearted Man" is awesome.
"Can't Be Satisfied" is a little more dialed back from the other songs. The guitar is still very much at the front, but in a more subdued way. I liked this song a lot.
"Crosseyed Cat" had some more ferocious shredding.
"Little Girl is a fun long jam.
9/10
Blondie
5/5
Right away I'm enjoying this more than I expected! I definitely thought Blondie was her name and that she was a solo act. I didn't know she had a band.
"Hanging On The Telephone" is a fun song.
I'm realizing as I go that my dad used to play these songs. "One Way or Another" is awesome and is unlocking memories of childhood car rides and hanging out in the living room. The vocal performance in this song is iconic.
"Pretty Baby" is a very ABBA sounding song. I love it.
The synth coming in on "I Know but I Don't Know" was exciting. It's a shame it didn't last that long, the rest of the song was a little stale.
"11:59" is my favorite song so far.
"Sunday Girl" has another awesome vocal performance. This is a groovy track.
"Heart of Glass" hit me like a truck. I've heard it so many times and I've never know what it was.
"I'm Gonna Love You" has me wanting to clap along and do some shimmying in my office chair.
This album has a lot going for it. Blondie's amazing vocal performance is the highlight, but there's a ton of great guitar parts and fun backup vocals.
9/10
Japan
3/5
This album isn't quite my speed but I'm enjoying "In Vogue". I like the saxophone in the background of the song.
The song "Halloween" is pretty fun. We are listening to it on Halloween. Coincidence?
The second half of "Alien" had me bumpin' a little.
I don't love the vocal style much, and that takes away from the album for me. The music is fun in places, but doesn't keep me engaged. It's like a slightly jazzier and funkier version of The Cure?
I lean slightly positive. I didn't have a bad time but wouldn't seek this out again.
6/10
5/5
This is one of the most famous albums of all time, and for good reason. I've listened to it hundreds of times and it hasn't lost its luster.
Every song is great. My favorites are "Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite" and "When I'm Sixty-Four".
This is unquestionably my favorite Beatles record.
10/10
Solomon Burke
4/5
This album was dope. I liked every track! There were a lot of fantastic vocal performances. It had a great runtime and I didn't get bored.
8/10
Willie Nelson
4/5
I really like Willie Nelson's voice. I love a lot of these songs. "Down Yonder" is my favorite. I wish more of the songs were in this style rather than the slow soothing ballads. I like this a lot too though.
7/10
Travis
3/5
This was an OK album. It has that classic 90s british sound that so many of the bands from that era have. This could just as easily be a Snow Patrol or Keane album.
I don't love it, but it's only OK for me. It feels dated.
6/10
Van Morrison
3/5
I like this but don't love it. His voice is unique but got a little grating for me over the course of the album. The songs are also all a little same-y.
My favorite songs were "Sweet Thing" and "The Way Young Lovers Do". The latter had a sweet section with a lot of horns.
6/10
Lauryn Hill
4/5
I like this album, but I don't love it. It's long and I don't think the length is doing it any favors. It blends together and the sound gets a little old.
My favorite songs were "To Zion" and "Lost Ones." I also enjoyed "Ex-Factor" & "Can't Take My Eyes Off You".
If an album is going to be over an hour long, it should have a good reason to do so. Making it this long and so similar across the record dilutes the coolness of the sound. That being said, the sound is dope and Ms Lauryn Hill has an amazing voice.
7/10
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
This is my first time listening to a Jimi Hendrix record.
I like the song "Hey Joe".
The focus of the record is absolutely shredding on the guitar, and I don't love that too much. "Love Or Confusion" is a good example. I can tell that the guitar part is sick, but I don't really enjoy the guitar being center stage in every song. I also don't play the guitar, so to me it all kind of blends together into "guy shredding noises", and I can't really pick out the impressive individual parts.
"May This Be Love" is a nice song. I like the percussion and the subtler guitar parts.
"Fire" is fun. It sounds a little brit-punky, and I dig that.
"Foxey Lady" is the first song I've heard before.
"Stone Free" is the best song so far for me. I like this one a lot. More awesome percussion.
"Remember" is also a lot of fun.
I enjoyed this album. Jimi has a very iconic sound, and I liked the songs that strayed from that sound the most. I just may not be a Jimi guy.
7/10
Deep Purple
5/5
Every Deep Purple song is built around iconic guitar riffs. We are listening to this the day after Hendrix's "Are You Experienced" and the contrast is making me realize I should've given Jimi a lower score. That album had so much long-winded technical guitar and vocals I wasn't loving.
This album is so much more digestible. I love the vocals. The riffs are diabolical. They may not be as technical as Hendrix, but man are they fun to listen to. For some unknown reason I'd relegated Deep Purple to 'meme rock' but they are fucking sick.
"Bloodsucker" goes so hard.
"Child of Time" is my favorite song on the record. Did they ever put this in a Guitar Hero or Rock Band game? It would be like running a marathon.
"Into the Fire" has a riff that almost feels like the guitar was made specifically to play it.
"Hard Lovin' Man" is a sick finale. That synth (?) solo was sinister and I felt like I was riding out of Dracula's burning castle after defeating the vampire lord himself.
9/10
I would also like to update my score for Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced" to a 5/10.
Jean-Michel Jarre
3/5
I am having a nice relaxing morning listening to laser pew pew sounds in Oxygene Pt 2.
Oxygene Pt 5 sounded a lot like a videogame soundtrack in the back half.
This album blended into one long electronic song. I liked it but no part really stood out to me. It was enjoyable background music but nothing for me to get excited about.
6/10
The album cover is really sick, I give it an A.
George Harrison
4/5
I've never listened to George Harrison's solo work. Out of the gates I'm enjoying the sound a lot.
"My Sweet Lord", "What Is Life", "Behind That Locked Door", and "I Live For You" were my favorite songs on Disc One. I really enjoyed all of them. They are very peaceful and feel 'fuller' than Beatles songs? There's a lot going on sonically and it's pleasant.
"Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp", "Awaiting On You", "I Dig Love", "Art of Dying", and "Hear Me Lord" were my favorite songs on Disc Two. Art of Dying is the first song on the record I thought sounded a lot like a Beatles song.
There's a ton of great music on this record. I enjoyed it a lot, more than any of the other Beatles solo-works I've heard. I had always thought of George Harrison as "the third Beatle", and viewed him as more of a roleplayer than a strong creative force. Clearly that is not true. Sorry George.
8/10
Pink Floyd
5/5
This is one of the most culturally pervasive albums ever written. It would be difficult for even the most casual of rock enjoyers to not have heard of Pink Floyd. The album cover is iconic and is the flag flying over a decade of legendary music.
I have vivid memories of walking back from Mike Rullo's house in an 'altered state', going right to bed and lying in the darkness with this album playing. I also did this regularly with Explosions in the Sky, but that's a discussion for another time.
The first three songs of this album are such a carefully crafted sonic experience. It's the most I've ever felt like I was 'inside' songs. The album
The beginning of "Time" is so well recorded. I feel like I'm in the center of a room encircled by blaring clocks. The rest of the song shreds too. The lyrics are so beautiful and melancholy.
"The Great Gig in the Sky" is the song that would always affect me most while lying in bed and listening. It slowly grows and envelops you, carrying you higher while the singing starts. It keeps you up there for a minute, then slowly brings you back down to earth. I feel as if I'm slipping off to sleep while listening to it.
No time to rest, "Money" is starting. This is the first song I heard independent of the record. It's groovy as hell. It picks you back up after "The Great Gig" and brings you back into some rock and roll.
"Us and Them" transports you to the next destination on the journey. It is a slower subdued beginning that grows again. The songs swells and falls, alternating between the saxophone blaring alongside a chorus, and the peaceful piano and organ arrangement.
"Any Color You Like" is the weakest song on the record for me. It gets a little weird and synthy, and I don't think it matches the vibe of the rest of the album.
"Brain Damage" / "Eclipse" returns right back to the formula. It truly feels like the culmination of the journey. The backing vocalist from "Great Gig in the Sky" returns and kills it. The manic laughter is awesome.
This album is about as good as it gets. It's one of the most famous albums of all time for good reason.
10/10
The White Stripes
5/5
"Seven Nation Army" is one of the most overplayed songs I have ever known. When I was nine years old it started to appear in every online video, at every party, and at every sports event. Despite having been made to hear it non-consensually thousands of times, I still fuck with it. This song fucking rocks.
I really like the vocals on "There's No Home For You Here". This song is great.
"I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" is good too.
I like that Meg is singing on "In The Cold Cold Night".
"Ball and Biscuit" rocks. This is the sound I associate with The White Stripes. It's the kind of music that plays over a modern western.
"The Hardest Button to Button" is probably my favorite song since "Seven Nation Army".
"Little Acorns" has The Racounteur's energy.
"Hypnotize" probably goes so hard live. It's definitely the highest energy track yet.
This album is pretty fucking sick. I'm going back and forth between an 8 and a 9, but I feel like I just need to ride the hype and give it the 9. I enjoyed this the entire time.
9/10
The KLF
4/5
I'm reading the wikipedia page for this band as I listen to this album. These are some weird dudes. They fit the category of "Your Favorite Band's Favorite Band". They performed under a variety of aliases, they wrote joke songs, serious songs, and books. They spent all the money from their hit joke song on trying to make a movie and accompanying soundtrack, but failed. They revolutionized house music, became the top selling act in the world, and then retired by buying a dead sheep and dumping it an award show after party. They were actually planning to massacre the sheep on-stage and throw its blood all over the audience, but were prevented from doing so by the BBC. They settled for buying real machine guns filled with blank movie rounds and firing them into the audience. Their intent was to create such revulsion for the band that nobody would ever listen to them again. They failed, so instead they deleted their entire back-catalogue and retired. They then spent all of their remaining money on a foundation that awarded "The Worst Artist In The World". They provided music critics with thousands of pounds in cash, presented them with one million pounds in framed notes, and then drove to Rachel Whiteread (the aforementioned 'Worst Artist in the World') in a motorcade of gold and white limos and demanded she take the money. She refused but ultimately accepted when informed the KLF would be burning the million pounds if she didn't take it.
In the 2020s they have made a return and have begun re-releasing their works digitally.
Anyway, the music was good. I listened to the entire album while reading their wikipedia page. I can't tell you anything about which songs I liked, but I did like them.
8/10
CHVRCHES
4/5
I know this album very well. It came out in our second year of college and was constantly on play for years. Our friend Dylan is a massive fan of Chvrches and would have them playing constantly. They played at Boston Calling and he sang every word to every song. The people around us did not like Dylan as much as Lauren.
The album opens with its biggest hit. "Mother We Share" is an amazing song. The song samples M83, who wrote one of my favorite albums.
"We Sink" also slaps.
The album slows down a little for a while here. I don't like the next few songs as much. "Under The Tide" picks me back up.
"Recover" is another song that Dylan played constantly. It's good. The underlying synth tracks have a lot of M83 in them.
"Lungs" has fun vocals.
I like Chvrches sound, but it does get a little old for me by the end of the album. There are awesome songs on here, but I spend about as much time wanting to turn it down a little as I do wanting to turn it up. The best songs are the first two. It's pushing an 8, but I don't think it quite makes it there.
7/10
Tangerine Dream
3/5
I listened to this album twice and didn't come away with anything specific to say about it.
I liked it enough as ambient background music, nothing grabbed me more than that.
6/10
The Isley Brothers
4/5
This was a funky ass album. I liked it! There was good variety in the songs and it didn't get stale.
The new Kendrick album came out today and that took up a good amount of my time.
7/10
Beatles
4/5
I really enjoy this album. I am not a Beatles expert, but this is now the fifth album we've had by them and my opinions are developing. I enjoy this 'middle' era a lot. Their sound changes a lot from "With The Beatles" to "Abbey Road", and this album is a lot closer to the end than the beginning. It feels like a lot of the songwriting and compositional elements of Sgt. Peppers are present here, and I like that sound a lot.
It doesn't have many standout bangers like Abbey Road does, but it has a very consistent quality throughout.
8/10
Queen Latifah
4/5
The beat is super funky and the bars are tight, but the kids talking on "Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children" are a little creepy.
"Come Into My House" is dope.
"Wrath of my Madness" has a sweet beat and cool vocal sections.
"Princess of the Posse" also has awesome sections. Her flow on this song sounds a lot like Phife Dawg.
The album is great. It is little single-tone and at times the songs blend together. I wasn't super dialed into the lyrics but it's clear she has a lot of thoughtful bars about her negative experiences.
8/10
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
There's a few super famous songs on here but I've never listened to the entire record!
"Save The Life Of My Child" is morbid, but a good song.
"America" I've heard many times before. It's great.
"Overs" is a little boring.
"Voice of Old People" is as advertised. It's got some really sad moments. I appreciate it a lot as an idea, an album is a strange place for it.
"Fakin' It" is a bop. This is one of the best songs on the album for me.
"Punky's Dilemma" is fun too. I like whistling in songs.
"Mr's Robinson" is one of the most famous songs ever.
It's a great album. I don't love the Simon & Garfunkel sound that much, so it's not going to get a sky-high rating but it deserves a good one.
8/10
Super Furry Animals
4/5
This is our second album by Super Furry Animals, a band I had not heard of prior.
"Receptacle for the Respectable" did not go the way I thought it would. I felt like I was descending into some sort of hellish prison camp for the last 45s.
The album is nice and all of the songs are pretty pleasant. None of it really grips me, but it was all fun to listen to.
7/10
The Rolling Stones
3/5
This is my first time listening to a Rolling Stones album. They're a lot more "Rock 'n' Roll" than the Beatles are, despite being part of that same "British Invasion" time period.
A lot of the sound on this albums feels played out and same-old, although it is good. It's not their fault that they influenced so many bands, but it does make it hard for me to show up to their album 'fresh'.
"Bitch" is the first song I really like. I love the horns.
The album started a lot more rock focused but turned into too many slow and a little boring songs. This didn't really do it for me.
6/10
David Bowie
3/5
Why is David Bowie so mid? I said this in my last review but Bowie is a boring Elton John. The songs are so slow and boring, and when they occasionally threaten to pick up, they quickly abandon ship and go back to being boring.
5/10, it's so fine but never gets good.
Wire
4/5
This album was way better than I thought it was going to be. Every song was short and had a different drum-the-steering-wheel energy to it.
The singing was the punk style that I enjoy, it obviously wasn't beautiful singing but they also weren't actively trying to make me unhappy.
8/10
Tom Waits
5/5
I loved everything about this album. Tom's voice is awesome, the lyrics are funny, the crowd interaction is fantastic, and the jazz is immaculate. It's a very unique album. I love the concept. It was recorded in a few sessions at an LA club with the aim of emulating a classic jazz club. They definitely succeeded in that.
It all blended together in a good way for me. It felt like one long experience rather than individual songs. I don't have any specific songs to shout out. It was super long, but that didn't bother me.
9/10
Spiritualized
5/5
The opening song of this record, "Ladies and gentleman..." is one I've heard many times before, but I'd never have known who made it. It's really good.
I lost track of the individual songs a little, but I loved this album. There wasn't a single track I didn't like! I'm not sure if it was filled with recognizable samples, or if other people sample this album a lot, but there were so many familiar settings.
The album was very melancholic and emotional. It had a lot of ups and downs and blending of musical styles. I love the psychedelic shoegaze-y elements. I'll definitely be listening to it again.
9/10
Green Day
5/5
This is an instant 10/10 for me. "American Idiot" and "The Black Parade" are the two defining albums of my childhood. It was the first CD I ever owned and I listened to it constantly. I could go ten years without listening to it and still know every word.
This album was an on-ramp not only to Green Day's older and punkier albums, but the entire world of punk music in general. My parent's friend, Kevin Meeten, heard that I was obsessed with Green Day and showed up at my house with their entire discography burned onto CDs, album covers printed out in low resolution and put inside cheap plastic CD cases. I'm not sure I even knew they had other albums prior to that moment, but they quickly became valuable currency among my friends. I would bring them around to the many houses and we'd listen to them, our minds being blown by "Dookie" and "Nimrod". This was my first introduction to music snobbery, and I was the culprit. Oh, you've only listened to American Idiot?
I love basically every song on this album. I went through phases with it, each section of the album becoming my favorite for a few months at a time. I'd listen to just the first four songs on repeat, then get bored of them and realize the next four were just as good. At this point in time, I think "Homecoming" and "Whatshername" are my favorite songs.
The live album of the American Idiot Tour, "Bullet In A Bible", came with a concert DVD that shared equal time inside my DVD Player with "Return of the King". I watched it on repeat and put so much pressure on my parents that I went to Green Day as my first concert a year later. It rocked.
This isn't Green Day's best album, but it is definitely their most important album for me. The political angles of the album may have influenced me a lot, and unfortunately ring just as true twenty years later.
I have no complaints about this album whatsoever. It fucking rocks, it changed music for me.
10/10
Beck
4/5
This is such a strange album. It's all over the place. I don't know anything about Beck but I didn't know he was so hip-hop? Why does this sound like a Beastie Boys record half the time? The other half of the time its soft acoustic music? Did he make this album at two completely separate times in his life?
"Where It's At" was my favorite song, and "Ramshackle" was my second favorite song. These songs should not be on the same album.
7/10. Weird stuff. Pretty good though.
Ozomatli
4/5
This was a cool album. It was very salsa-y, and I don't listen to a lot of Salsa music. It was almost entirely jams. I liked essentially every song. It's not my favorite sound in the world, but I liked it a lot.
8/10
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
"The Cutter" is a cool song. It has very Talking Heads sounding percussion and vocals at times.
"Heads Must Roll" sounds also sounds like a Talking Heads song at moments.
"Ripeness" has fun foot-tapping energy but descends into vocals that annoy me a little somewhere along the way.
"Gods Will Be Gods" has a lot of the same energy as the back half of "Ripeness" and I don't love it.
This album was pretty OK. It is a cool sound for a few songs, but it got old. They feel like a combination of The Clash and Talking Heads, but don't quite capture the greatness of each. They were formed a few years after those bands, so they were certainly influenced by the same musical moments.
6/10
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I'm enjoying the song "How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously." The whole album so far has had some underlying Phil Collins / Genesis energy.
The vocals on "Nervously" sound like Death Cab For Cutie.
This album is nice but isn't really my jam. It's an enjoyable relaxing synthy album. The songs mostly blended together.
6/10
David Bowie
2/5
This was Bowie's last album before he died and he wrote it while he undergoing treatment for liver cancer. That's pretty bleak.
"Blackstar" was really long and I didn't enjoy too much about it. The instrumentals were fine, I don't enjoy Bowie's voice much, and I didn't like the constant "I'm a blackstar" bit.
"Man she punched me like a dude" is an interesting lyric. Again, the backing musicians on "'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore" are doing some nice work, but I don't enjoy any of the vocals. Reading articles about how people revere these songs makes me feel like I'm being punked.
"Dollar Days" is my favorite song so far, its nice. Nice saxophone sections.
Sorry David, I just don't really like this. I don't understand how all the reviews are so positive. The singing is distinctly *not* pleasant to listen to, and the instrumentals are kind of boring for long stretches.
4/10
Pixies
5/5
"Debaser" has some rough-around-the-edge vocals, but the song is an absolute jam.
I was having a great time listening, then the riff for "Here Comes Your Man" came in. Absolutely fire. I didn't know this was a Pixies song. It's so unlike the first few songs, but comes in so hot.
The vocals have grown on me, they're abrasive but enjoyable. The riffs on this album are out of control. Basically every song is a jam. It feels like they were made in a lab to play in Allston basements. Knowing they're from Boston makes me like them at least twice as much.
This album is a fantastic length. None of the songs drag. There is no pretension, just jams the whole way through.
9/10. I apologize to the Pixies for never having listened to them before.
Everything But The Girl
2/5
This album was really just very OK. There weren't any songs that grabbed me, and many that bored me. I liked the two or three song section on the back half where the saxophone showed up.
It's possible this is an album where the focus is the lyricism. Unfortunately I'm just not really engaging with these albums actively enough for that to get through to me.
3/10
Yes
4/5
I don't know why progressive rock feels so associated with fantasy, but it totally does.
"The Clap" was super sick.
I liked all the songs. I didn't know this about myself a year ago, but I just like prog rock. I like hearing twenty different instruments and lyrics about wizards.
8/10
Solange
4/5
This was a good album. It's not my first choice of genre, but I liked most of the songs and the features. It ran a little long and got a little stale by the end but it was generally great.
The album was very focused on race issues. I wasn't listening actively to every song, but the lyrics were clearly thoughtful and showed her strong stances and experiences.
8/10
8/10
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
"All Along The Watchtower" is super iconic, and I enjoyed listening to that. The rest of the album was too long and didn't have much that I loved. Jimi's gratuitous technical guitar doesn't quite hit for me. I think I lack a refined guitar shredding palette. None of it is actively bad or annoying me, but I just don't really ever need to have it on.
5/10
Frank Ocean
5/5
This may be the album I've listened to the most in my life. It was a sensation in my high school friend group and it was played at every function I attended for years. We played it while studying, hanging and smoking, and at parties. It fit perfectly into every situation a nineteen year old listens to music in.
I went to college in 2012 and was feeling a lot of the normal discomfort, anxiety, and sadness associated with moving to a new place and undergoing a major life change. Channel Orange was the perfect nostalgic and melancholic accompaniment to those feelings. I listened to it close to daily for multiple years. Mutual love of this album was a common icebreaker as a freshman and sophomore. A girl I dated in sophomore year told me I wasn't allowed to play it anymore because it was all I ever had on.
I love every track on this album. His singing is beautiful and the lyrics are sad reflections on what felt to me at the time like very 'suburban' and isolated feelings. There's a lot of 'non-musical' sounds that play throughout the album to break up songs and capture the mechanical noises of listening to an album or tape in real life.
The features are all incredible.
My favorite songs are 'Super Rich Kids', 'Lost', and 'Pyramids'. I wish 'Fertilizer' was a minute longer.
I've never had an easy time deciding what my favorite album is, but if you put me on the spot I may just say Channel Orange.
11/10
Various Artists
5/5
I have to rate this album for what it is, which is an absolutely fucking banging Christmas album. No, it's not as good as Dark Side of the Moon, but it's not meant to be.
I love Christmas. My favorite songs were "Sleigh Ride", "A Marshmallow World", and "Here Comes Santa Claus".
10/10
10/10
Emmylou Harris
3/5
I enjoyed this album. I loved the opening song "Bluebird Wine", it had me tapping my foot. She has an awesome vocal performance. It's got big country band vibes and I love that. The album changes after that song and finds a much slower paced country singer-songwriter sound. I don't like that nearly as much and I got a little bored.
She has a beautiful voice, but I can only hear soft instrumentals with a lady singing for so long.
6/10
Harry Nilsson
3/5
I had no idea where the phrase "Put The Lime in the Coconut" came from. "Let the Good Times Roll" is a great song.
Most of the songs were a little boring for me, the album was missing a little bit of something.
6/10
The Doors
4/5
This album was pretty sweet. The Doors don't sound like I expected them to sound. There's a lot of riff-heavy songs. I liked "L.A. Woman" and "Crawling King Snake" a lot. "The WASP" was also sick.
I had no idea "Riders on the Storm" was by The Doors. They've put the most famous song right at the end!
7/10
Screaming Trees
4/5
This album is shredding pretty hard. "Dying Days" is my favorite song.
I liked it a lot. There's enough variety to keep me interested the whole way.
7/10
Nico
3/5
"The Fairest Of The Seasons" is a familiar song. I like it, the vocals and strings are really nice.
"These Days" has that same familiarity. I haven't heard this song as far as I know, but it strikes a nostalgic tone.
"I'll Keep It With Mine" is great, I love the strings here again.
This album was pretty good. The first two songs were by far the best, and the rest felt very single-tone. I probably wouldn't listen to any songs other than the first two again.
6/10
Haircut 100
3/5
This was not bad, and I can see why some people may love it. There was a lot of great saxophone on this album and I was really feeling that.
Unfortunately a lot of the songs felt like Talking Heads but less good? My favorite was "Love's Got Me In Triangles". The sax was amazing.
"Calling Captain Autumn" is a good example of a song that has a lot of Talking Heads energy but isn't as good. The saxophone comes on the track and distinguishes it from Talking Heads, but it can't carry an entire album by itself.
6/10 (9/10 for the saxophone player).
Lou Reed
4/5
"Vicious" is a bop.
"Andy's Chest" has funny lyrics!
"Perfect Day" is a really nice song.
I've heard the opening of "Walk On The Wild Side" hundreds of times as a sample on Tribe's "Can I Kick It", it's really weird to hear it and not Q-Tip immediately after. Great song though.
This album was great. I enjoyed it the whole way through.
8/10
N.W.A.
5/5
This album is incredible. I'm pretty demographically and temporally distanced from the cultural effect this album had but I know it changed the game overnight.
I enjoyed every song. The beats keep you moving. The bars are relentless.
"It Ain't Ruff" actually made me take off my headphones, the bass was so intense it was hurting my ears. I am not a gangster.
"Straight Outta Compton" and "Fuck Tha Police" are my favorite songs as well as, presumably, almost everyone else's.
9/10
Steely Dan
4/5
Man this is a really good album.
"Dirty Work" is an amazing jam.
"Midnite Cruiser" has a famous section that I recognized, and is also a great song. Nice guitar sections.
"Only A Fool Would Say That" was the first song that bored me a little. Definitely not a bad song though.
The second half of this album fell off a little for me. They're all great tracks but the sound starts to get too familiar, and not every song has the wow factor that most in the first half did. I still loved the album as a whole, great stuff.
8/10
Soundgarden
4/5
I've never listened to Soundgarden before, besides possibly Guitar Hero / Rock Band games I've forgotten about.
"Let Me Drown" rocked.
"My Wave" also rocks.
The whole album blended together a little after the opener. It is a familiar grungy rock sound from the late 80s/90s. I like it, it rocks pretty good. It's not my go-to music selection but I can get down with it.
7/10
Jeff Buckley
4/5
This album is really good.
"Hallelujah" is one of the best songs I've ever heard. The emotional effects of it have dulled from years of repeated listens, but it remains perfectly distilled sadness. Its sadly poetic for such a beautifully sad song to be performed by a man who died young. This is a song with a lot of versions, but Jeff really claimed it for himself.
"Lover You Should've Come Over" is my second favorite song.
"Eternal Life" fucking rocked. He's got a lot of variety on this record.
I'm listening to these albums backwards, but Jeff Buckley sounds a ton like Moses Sumney. I listened to his album aromanticism a lot in 2017.
8/10
Bob Dylan
4/5
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a great song. Bob has a strange but enjoyable voice. There was some furious harmonica on this and I loved it.
"She Belongs to Me" dials back the intensity but is still great. More sweet harmonica.
I don't know much about Bob Dylan, but I do know that it was a huge deal when he went electric. This album has electric guitar on it and it sure does sound sweet. Good decision Bob.
"Love Minus Zero" has really smooth guitar.
"On The Road Again" has funny lyrics but I didn't love the vocals.
"Mr Tambourine Man" is the first song I had heard before, it rocks.
The Rolling Stones
4/5
"Gimme Shelter" is a very famous song that I didn't recognize right away. It's pretty sweet. Iconic vocals.
"Love In Vain" is a very different song. It feels like Bob Dylan.
"Country Honk" is a great song. I had genuinely no idea the Rolling Stones wrote songs like this.
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" is a classic, I like it a lot.
This album surprised me. The Stones are clearly more interesting than I thought they were.
8/10
The Fall
3/5
"Crap Rap 2" is fun.
I hadn't read the song title, and I thought they were saying "There's no xmas for donkeys". I was thinking that seems very unfair given that Mary literally rode one. Glad to hear that isn't the case.
This kind of punk doesn't do much for me. It would be fun at a basement show with some drinks in me, but not as a casual listen. I didn't dislike it, but I wouldn't come back to it in a casual setting.
5/10
Kraftwerk
4/5
"Europe Endless" was an amazing song. It sounds like a lot of my favorite songs in Stardew Valley, which is an unexpected connection.
"The Hall of Mirrors" is hypnotic. The synth part has strong "going through a damp cave in a videogame energy".
It definitely got weirder and more experimental after that. I don't love the industrial sounds.
"Franz Schubert" and "Endless Endless" were really nice.
These guys came so far before Daft Punk and were clearly inspirations.
I enjoyed a four of the songs a lot, and the rest were OK. Some were boring.
7/10
The Kinks
4/5
"David Watts" is a great song.
"Harry Rag" is my favorite song so far. This album feels like a strong influence for bands like The Fratellis.
"Tin Soldier Man" is fun.
"Afternoon Tea" is also fun.
This whole album was fun. I like The Kinks.
8/10
Deep Purple
4/5
These people are riff machines. "Maybe I'm A Leo" has me moving in my chair. This makes me the thirteen year old in me want to pick up guitar.
They aren't slowing down. "Pictures Of Home" is filled with shredding.
"Smoke On The Water" was THE song for new guitar players to play in school. It's iconic.
"Lazy" is my favorite song yet.
"Space Truckin'" is an amazing concept. I would like to Space Truckin' around the stars. Unfortunately, sci-fi has made me worried about getting stuck on a distant moon's penal colony, waiting to gather enough credits to buy a ride back home.
8/10. Rad album.
Pink Floyd
4/5
This album is sweet. I listened to it as one long song. This is far from my first time listening to it, so I don't have a lot of new listener takes to provide.
It's the kind of album you just fall into. It makes me feel like I'm in bed and high.
I have a memory of listening to a live performance of this entire album with my friend Dan in his truck. It was almost ten years ago and I remember it, so it must have affected me.
Not a lot of individual moments stand out, but the entire thing blends in to one rocking song.
"Wish You Were Here" is legendary.
8/10
Eminem
5/5
This album has a lot of misogny and homophobia which has aged very poorly. I am not going to lower my score based on this, it is a relic of its time (pretty recent), but it should be acknowledged.
At the end of "Kill You" he assures us at he actually loves the ladies, and he has avoided the last decade of cancellations and abuse scandals unscathed, so maybe he was a nicer guy outside the studio. Still says a lot of messed up stuff though.
"Stan" is one of the most famous songs ever. The word 'Stan' has fully entered the modern lexicon. It sees more usage than ever to refer to overzealous fans twenty years later. The song itself is sad and hits really hard. I think a nonzero amount of Eminem fans saw themselves in this song.
"Who Knew" is an interesting self reflection. I wasn't part of this moment but Eminem experienced a lot of cultural backlash. A lot of people with poorly behaved kids blamed Eminem for making them that way. I don't blame Marshall, who had a very messed up childhood himself, for asking the parents to look at themselves and see if they're as good of parents as they believe.
The "Steve Berman" skit makes me laugh out loud. 'You're rapping about homosexuals and vicodin!' Good self awareness in here.
"The Way I Am" contains even more refutation of America's parents outrage at Eminem transforming their children. Marshall sure is mad about it. His anger is palpable throughout the record, and you don't here that a lot.
"The Real Slim Shady" is incredible. It's laugh out loud funny. 'Will Smith doesn't need to cuss to sell records..." is such an amazing line. There's thirty more lines that funny in this song. Besides Weird Al, I'm not sure I know anyone funnier in music.
"Remember Me" is the first song I don't really like. I don't like the concept, it's grating.
"I'm Back" is another insane song. 'Please Slim, put down Christopher Reeves' legs!'. That's messed up. but really funny. He isn't battling America's parents anymore, but talking directly to his fellow celebrities. I wonder if he ever met J-Lo after this song came out? The onslaught of cultural references in this song definitely date it. 2001 was a long time ago.
"Marshall Mathers" goes really hard. He's got more to say about his fellow celebrities. Some homophobia. He definitely wasn't out to make friends. He's kind of combining his messages from "Who Knew" and "I'm Back". 'I'm not a wrestler guy...' is funny.
"Drug Ballad" is an underrated song. The beat is awesome and I love his flow on this song.
"Amityville" also doesn't do it for me.
"Bitch Please II" is incredible. This could just as easily be on "2001". Every verse is amazing, and the beat is classic Dre.
"Kim" is off the rails.
"Under the Influence" is another underrated banger. The beat is so amazing, Eminem's flow is pristine and perfectly fits the production.
This album is greatness. Dr. Dre and Eminem were a match made in heaven and fused perfectly on this record. There are three songs I don't care for, but the rest are all incredible. Eminem was the greatest rapper on earth for a stretch of time, and this album was part of that. I'm glad he has found more peace and is no longer this angry, but I am at least grateful that he turned all that rage into something this enduringly dope.
10/10
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
This is an enjoyable album, very 2000s. He has a nice voice and its very easy listening. It isn't mind-blowing but its definitely good.
Some of the songs remind me of Andrew Bird.
My favorite song was "Want".
7/10
Supertramp
5/5
"School" is awesome. I love the keyboard section.
"Bloody Well Right" is also awesome. The saxophone is sweet. This isn't what I thought Supertramp would sound like. I am realizing that in my head I thought Supertramp and Soundgarden were the same band.
"Dreamer" is also hitting. This album rocks, they have a lot of ELO energy.
I loved basically this whole album. Sorry for mistaking you with Soundgarden for a decade and a half.
9/10
R.E.M.
4/5
This album is kind of great. Mr. Arden was my Year 7 and Year 8 form tutor. He was an older man teaching english kids about how to use bunsen burners, and he absolutely loved REM. He didn't like me at all, so I tried to make nice with him by listening to his favorite band. The outcome of this was that I fucked pretty heavy with REM for an eleven year old kid.
"Orange Crush" and "Stand" were both on my iPod shuffle and they got a lot of play.
All these years later, they are still bangers. The rest of the songs were pretty good too.
8/10
"Stand" and "Orange Crush" are iconic bangers, but I can't tell if that
Mercury Rev
4/5
"Tonite It Shows" is a great song. The lead singer has a good voice for not being able to hold a lot of notes. Still nice to listen to.
I'm not paying a ton of attention to the individual songs but this album has been really good. "Hudson Line" is really great. The vocals remind me a little of Vampire Weekend.
"The Happy End" is a weird song, it made me a little uncomfortable.
"Goddess on a Hiway" has really enjoyable vocals. I really like his voice and the singing style.
"The Funny Bird" is not my favorite song, the vocal modifications are a little weird.
"Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp" was a great ending.
8/10
The Kinks
4/5
"Rosy Won't You Please Come Home" is great, I love the vocals. This song sounds a lot like The Zombies, who I like a lot. They were contemporaries so likely they were part of the same musical moment.
Every song after this blended together into one, enjoyable, thirty minute song. Their sound is very consistent on this album. I liked it, but did feel like I could have used some more variety. It was all very easy to listen to and inoffensive.
7/10
Jethro Tull
4/5
Jethro Tull are iconic riff machines, they remind me of Deep Purple in that way.
I've never heard flutes as furious as on "My God". This is an angry ass song, it absolutely shreds. Jethro Tull do not love religion.
This album rocks.
8/10
Santana
5/5
"Black Magic Woman" is such a smooth song. I'm loving it.
Latin Rock is not a genre I'm super familiar with but I am really digging this. "Oye Como Va" is a song I recognize, and it's amazing. The album has some awesome technical guitar playing, but in a more accessible way than Hendrix. When Jimi is twiddling on the strings it all just blends into 'guitar noises', but this has a lot more subtlety. There's a lot of layers and I like them all.
The bass line and bongos (?) on "Se a Cabo" are rocking.
9/10
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
This album was nice. For some reason I thought Belle & Sebastian were a 2000s indie pop couple (Matt & Kim?) and not a 90s band from Glasgow.
I enjoyed this album. It was pleasant background music but not much more than that. None of the songs stood out too much. I notice that none of the songs on this album were in their Spotify top 10, which is interesting.
My favorite songs were "The State I Am In" and "Expectations". It's possible that its just because I was still paying attention in the beginning.
6/10
Bob Dylan
4/5
Bob is asking a lot of me here. One hour and twelve minutes. The harmonica is ripping right away though, so maybe I'll make it. "Rainy Day Women #12 & #35" is really fun, I feel like I'm at a carnival or a parade.
"Pledging my time" is what I view as classic Bob Dylan. He's just kinda talking, there's some guitar and a harmonica. This is another electric album, and I like it.
"One of Us Must Know Soon" is a bit too much for me. It's like someone is doing an over the top Bob Dylan impression. 'When you whisPERRED in my ~EAR~ and asked if I was leaving with yOUUUU or her, I didn't realIZZEEEE just what I did here, I didn't realize how yo~uunnggg~ you were.' It's a little much Bob.
I don't know what instrument is doing the fun little ditty in the background of "I Want You" but its really fun.
"Just Like A Woman" has really nice vocals. The whole song is very pleasant and peaceful.
"Most Likely You Go Your Way" is another song that sounds like a Bob Dylan impersenator. "GruuUUDGE" "Fa~all on you". It's fun though.
"Temporary Like Achilles" starts with some sweet harmonica. This sounds like a song playing on a steamboat as I go down the 'ssipi.
"Obviously Five Believers" burns the house down, this one rocks.
"Sad Eyed Lady of the Low-Lands" was cool. It reminded me of The Shins a little. Very long, without the tremendous payoff of a song like Stairway to Heaven (which is still much shorter).
This is definitely the best Bob Dylan album I've heard. I liked it a lot.
8/10
Metallica
4/5
I am a very basic Metallica fan. I like Master of Puppets and The Black Album. I've never listened to this album, but I like it a lot. It fucking shreds. This is by far the most proggy I've heard them and it's doing it for me. It's great background music for people who are super hardcore, like me.
This has the potential to become my favorite Metallica album. I've listened to the other two I like so much that they've gotten a little stale. This is a breath of fresh air.
8/10
John Martyn
3/5
John has an interesting voice. Very raspy.
The album is jazzy and has a lot of interesting little noises on it.
"Dancing" is a fun song.
This album mostly passed by me in the background, it wasn't super captivating. I liked the sound, lots of cool instruments and interesting experimental electronic noises. I lean positive, but not quite enough to give it a seven.
6/10
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
I'm enjoying the opening song. Some sweet sax, some loud drums, some cool harmonies. "Dominion/Mother Russia" has pulled me in.
"Lucretia My Reflection" has a groovy little guitar bit going. I am digging this albums dark but also dancy vibes. This song has some Talking Heads feel to it. This song is great.
"1959" lost me a little, but "This Corrosion" got me back. I don't usually have the patience to listen to nine minutes of a song, but this one had me going the entire time.
8/10
Big Black
2/5
Big Black really wanted to push the boundaries with this one. It was pretty bleak. "Kerosene" was about setting yourself on fire in your small town?
There isn't a lot for me in this album. I can appreciate what it is, who it is for, and where you would listen to it. I don't love it, I am not that person, and I am in the wrong place. It's too much noise and not enough rhythm.
4/10
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
We listened to "Want One" very recently. He is once again immediately reminding me of Andrew Bird with the string instruments being played unusually.
"The One You Love" is another Andrew Bird ass song. They were releasing music right at the same time, I wonder if they hung out. This song is really good.
"Little Sister" has great strings and a fun pacing. I feel a little like it's a big orchestral disney number. This could be in a musical or an animated movie.
"Hometown Waltz" also has great vocals and backing instrumental. Rufus has a very full sound, so many instruments and big swells.
"Waiting For A Dream" has a fun bass heavy backing.
The backing vocalists on "Crumb by Crumb" sound really nice.
This man is plucking his violin strings. I know what that sounds like Rufus.
8/10
Amy Winehouse
3/5
Amy Winehouse has one of my favorite voices of all time. I've listened to Back to Black a thousand times, but Frank only a few times.
Mark Ronson didn't produce this but there's already a lot of wind instruments.
"Fuck Me Pumps" is a funny song and had a great melody.
"In My Bed" is great energy.
"Amy, Amy, Amy" has great lyrics and vocals.
I liked this album, but I didn't love it. It's got awesome vocals and great instrumental backing, but it's missing something. She finds that something between now and Back to Black.
6/10
Nirvana
3/5
It's been a while since we had a live album so I'm looking forward to this. Nirvana is not something I like to hear at just any moment, they are very location and mood specific for me. I am not entering this listen in the right place or mood, so that may affect my reviews.
The first song I'm really liking is "The Man Who Sold The World". Kurt's vocals on it are nice. I learned at the end it's a Bowie song, so maybe I still don't really like Nirvana.
I'm enjoying "On A Plain".
This album lacks the awesome crowd connection and engagement that I've heard from other live albums on this list. They aren't really bringing a lot of energy to the performance? The sound quality is great, but there's not much to this album's live performance other than that an audience claps at the end of songs.
I don't really love Nirvana, and I was expecting this to be a super hardcore live album which brought energy I couldn't appreciate from my office chair. Instead it was a quiet and slow performance which was appropriate for my office chair, but boring. I guess that's the point of an unplugged album, but without the intensity they bring to their recorded electrical stuff, they don't have much left to offer me.
5/10
Elis Regina
4/5
I've probably never listened to a Brazilian album before.
"Sai Dessa" has forced me to start grooving in my desk chair. This is a weird observation and I'm snitching on myself a little, but this sounds a LOT like the type of jazzy female singer songs that end up on anime show intros.
"Nova Estacao" has the same energy. I love it. There's some fun xylophone (? or vibes?) in the background that are great.
"A Estrada E O Violeiro" had a great feature. It was a lot of fun to listen to.
When the album finished it autoplayed "Rebento". The vocals remind me a lot of Edith Piaf, who I also love.
This was a great album, I liked it a lot. Not every song was a sound I love hearing, but it was all at least enjoyable and often great.
7/10
Carpenters
4/5
I've never listened to Carpenters. Karen has a beautiful voice. I just read about her life and death on wikipedia, and now I am sad.
My first thought when I saw the album cover was "why do so many people who get married look like siblings". Turns out they are just siblings.
"I'll Never Fall Again" did not have the lyrics I expected. What do you get when you fall in love? Pneumonia.
The end of "Mr. Guder" sounds like that one song from Super Mario Sunshine when you're in the hidden platforming levels. It's called "Secret Course" by Koji Kondo.
This album was really good, I enjoyed it a lot.
7/10
Billy Bragg
5/5
I've only ever heard of Billy Bragg for his political work in England. I won't pretend that I know much about him, but I know that he is a man of the left and that has set him up well for a favorable review.
"Greetings to the New Brunette" was a fun song. Shirley has made a strong impression on Billy. I'm not entirely sure what the line 'I'm more impressionable when my cement is wet' means, and I won't ask any further questions.
"The Marriage" is a funny song. I liked the melody. Billy really doesn't want to get married. I'm on his side here, what difference does it make if you've been to the altar?
"Ideology" is a very plain-spoken song. I can't say I disagree with a word of it. It brings me to thinking, are there any Billy Bragg / Woody Guthrie type singers out there that get any play in 2025? Folk music I heard is typically frivolous or about emotional distress, and country has been consumed by consumerist small-town worship of trucks and guns. Do we have any working class singers?
"There Is Power in a Union" is an amazing song.
"Help Save The Youth of America" is another hard hitting song. 'The cities of Europe have burned before and they may yet burn again. And if they do, I hope you understand, that Washington will burn with them." Billy likely did not foresee the US becoming one of Europe's biggest concerns in 2025.
"The Warmest Room" is a jam. I really like his voice. This might not be a compliment but he sounds like just a regular guy who can hit some nice notes.
The horns on "The Home Front" are sweet. The lyrics consider to be high quality. What about the workers? The verse "In the land of a thousand doses, where nostalgia is the opium of the age, our place in history is as, clock watchers, old timers, window shoppers" is exceptional.
9/10
I should check out what Billy's been up to.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
This album rips. I didn't pay attention to individual songs too much, but I enjoyed the entire run. It's a great length and all the songs are at least fun to listen to.
My favorite songs were "Car on a Hill", "Free Man In Paris", "Raised on Robbery", and "Twisted".
8/10
The Verve
3/5
"Bittersweet Symphony" is one of those songs that was ALWAYS on the radio in England in the late 90s / early 2000s. It's amazing how listening to a song can evoke images of car rides that would otherwise have stayed locked away in my brain-vault forever.
"Sonnet" is also good. I definitely recognize it as 'The Verve's other song'.
"The Rolling People" is a very Oasis sounding song.
The rest of this album kinda faded into general britpop noises.This decade in England had so many bands that sounded exactly like this. They are certainly one of those. They don't have the power of a band like Oasis for me, but I liked it.
6/10
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
This album is a banger, and I think everyone would agree.
'Girls Just Want To Have Fun' and 'Time After Time' are incredible songs. Every other song could be terrible and I'd still give this album a good review.
It was my first time hearing all of the other songs, and I would say I generally liked them. I liked 'She Bop' 'Witness' and 'Yeah Yeah' the most of those songs. By the end I was getting a little bored of the Cyndi Lauper sound, but I enjoyed the album a lot.
8/10
The Cure
3/5
This was a much more enjoyable album than Disintegration.
"Play For Today" had an awesome guitar riff throughout.
"M" did as well.
I still don't really like Robert Smith's vocals too much, and the best tracks were the ones that he wasn't super involved in.
6/10
Fleet Foxes
5/5
Fleet Foxes are one of my favorite bands of all time. I saw them at Newport Folk Festival a few years ago and it was incredible.
"Sun It Rises" is a perfect song to start the album. The harmonies are beautiful, the percussion (timpanis?) gives it this amazing feel that I haven't heard in many (any?) other bands.
"White Winter Hymnal" is one of my most listened to songs ever. The composition is beautiful. At the right times this song gets me all emotional.
"Ragged Wood" keeps it going. This song was performed beautifully in their "Live at Boston Harbor" concert video.
'I don't know what I have done, I'm turning myself into a demon' is a sweet line, and very dramatically sung. That's the highlight of "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" for me.
"He Doesn't Know Why" has really nice vocals. Robin Pecknold has an unusual way of singing. His voice is nice and he has a very distinct cadence. It pairs so well with these big songs setting fantasy-esque old-timey rural scenes.
"Blue Ridge Mountains" is another iconic and stunningly beautiful song.
This is one of my favorite albums. The Fleet Foxes sound is so unique and they have been an important band for me and my friends for almost a decade and a half.
10/10
Blur
3/5
"Girls & Boys" is a famous song that I didn't know was by Blur. I only know Blur as the main project of Damon Albarn, the Gorillaz guy. This song is pretty OK, I don't mind it but don't love it. You can hear some Gorillaz type production in the background.
I like the song "Parklife". I like the spoken word part, and the whole chorus is great. The guitar part is simple but enjoyable. I like the sound of the bicycle bell.
"Jubilee" rocked pretty hard, that's my favorite song yet.
This album was good, but none of it really gets me going. It's all good, but besides a song or two I'd never put it on again.
6/10
The Notorious B.I.G.
5/5
I love individual Biggie tracks, but I've never listened to the entire album.
I immediately love "Intro". Hip-hop albums have a unique sense of theater to them with the skits.
The bars are immense on "Things Done Changed". 'Either you're slingin' crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot' is one of many hard-hitting lines.
"Gimme the Loot" is amazing.
The individual songs got away from me a little as I listened, but I love this album. The beats are classic, the bars are amazing, and biggie's flows/voice are so enjoyable to listen to. The lyrics are bleak. They paint a picture of a brutal survival-of-the-toughest world happening in the background of the America I live in.
My favorite songs are "Juicy" and "Big Poppa". My only complaint is that the album is too long. Even when I love what I'm hearing, it gets old after an hour and fifteen minutes.
9/10
Led Zeppelin
5/5
Led Zeppelin are among my favorite rock bands ever.
My favorite songs are "Whole Lotta Love", "Heartbreaker", "Living Loving Maid", "Ramble On", and "Moby Dick".
The album is a good length and every song is at least great, and many are amazing.
9/10
TV On The Radio
4/5
"Halfway Home" reminds of the song "The Season" by The Dodos, but more electronic. I went back and listened to The Dodos song, and they don't sound too similar but there is something in the vibes.
I didn't pay too much attention to the individual tracks, but I enjoyed this album. There was a lot of funky electronic business going on, and the songs had a lot of variation.
My favorite songs were "Crying", "Dancing Choose", "Golden Age", "Family Tree", and "Shout Me Out".
7/10
Cee Lo Green
3/5
I liked the intro skit, it is very of the time. I see that the album is over an hour long, which is almost always too long.
"The Art of Noise" is an awesome song. Great energy. I love the production, and the scatting at the end.
I didn't really like "I'll Be Around". Not a lot going on in this song, it felt very one dimensional. It was mostly repeating one line over and over. The beat sounded like classic Timbaland, I felt like I was listening to Justin Timberlake.
Same for "The One". Not great.
"My Kind of People" has better vocals and I like the horns.
"Childz Play" is dope. The fast lyrics are great, and Ludacris is a great feature. So far the album has felt like Cee Lo & Friends, with the songs being defined by the features.
"I Am Selling Soul" is a super Tribe-sounding song in the first half. It sounds like he's trying to emulate Phife Dawg. The second half switches it up, and it was pretty tight too. Good song.
"All Day Love Affair" was a nice switch-up to a slower pace, but it wasn't really my speed.
"Evening News" has a cool beat and great flow.
"Glockapella" is an amazing song name, that's all I have to say about that.
This album has so many songs that sound like other songs, and I can't quite remember any of them. "When We Were Friends" is another one of those.
This album was pretty enjoyable, but none of the songs really stood out as amazing. It was a fun listen that I was ready to be done with about 2/3 of the way through.
6/10
"Stay With Me", and "Memphis" were my favorite songs. The only song I didn't like much was "Debris".
This album has a great run-time, and I liked almost every song. No complaints, this is some nice rock and roll.
7/10
Beck
5/5
I'm liking the riffs right off the bat.
"E-Pro" is a great song, I'm loving the vocals and the percussion. The guitar riff over the "na na na na na na naaa" part is sweet too. Something about this feels like it's going to be the best song on the record. It reminds me of the Gorillaz a little too.
"Que'Onda Guero" sounds even more like a Gorillaz song. It's awesome. This album came out two months before "Demon Days". Are Damon Albarn and Beck friends?
"Girl" is another banger.
I'm loving the strings on "Missing".
"Earthquake Weather" is dope and has another very Gorillaz sounding section in the middle.
"Go It Alone" is a great song. I had this one saved already, but don't remember it.
"Farewell Ride" is the first song I didn't love.
This was an unexpectedly great album. I've found that you never know what to expect when walking into a new Beck album. I saw him live at Boston Calling a decade ago and I remember thinking his performance was just OK.
9/10
Al Green
4/5
This album is great, Al Green is a king of soul. He wrote "Take Me To The River", which is my favorite song on Stop Making Sense.
My favorite songs were "La-La For You" and "I've Never Found a Girl". The sound did manage to get a little old for me, even with the 34 minute run-time. "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" in particular was long for me.
7/10
Aerosmith
4/5
"Back in the Saddle" is off to a good start. Something about those shrieks is hitting.
The riff on "Last Child" along with the vocals are diabolical. They've got me moving in my office chair.
I didn't pay attention to which song was which too much after this, but I loved "Lick and a Promise".
This album was fun rock and roll the entire time, and it was heavier than I expected it to be at times.
8/10
The Dictators
4/5
"The Next Big Thing" was funny.
"I Got You Babe" is great. The album is reminding me a lot of The Clash at the moment. It looks like this album came out a year before The Clash formed, so maybe they were from the same circles.
"Back to Africa" was a strange song and I can't tell how I should feel. It was pretty rocking though.
"(I Live For) Cars and Girls" is also funny, it sounds like they're clowning the Beach Boys.
I really liked this album. It was funny and not too long. The music was great too.
8/10
Justin Timberlake
3/5
I love the 20/20 experience and Futuresex/Lovesounds. I've never listened to this album in it's entirety.
"Senorita" certainly is a JT song. He could have released this last year and I wouldn't know. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not, but he certainly hasn't strayed far from his wheelhouse. The audience involvement section at the end is genius, and I'm sure was fun at all the concerts.
The beat swap at the end of "Like I Love You" goes hard.
"(Oh No)" and "Take It From Here" are both kind of boring.
"Cry Me a River" is iconic. This song is sick. The beat bangs, JT's vocals are dope. I used to regular play a youtube recording of Johnny Craig from Dance Gavin Dance covering this song in some attic. It's still up, I just checked.
"Rock Your Body" is another amazing song. Awesome beat and vocals. If I've got a few drinks in me and this comes on, I WILL be dancing.
The rest of the album was a little boring for me, and it was too long.
The three songs I like get an 8 or 9, but the album as a whole is too much for me.
6/10
Janis Joplin
3/5
I haven't listened to a lot of Janis Joplin.
The piano and vocals on "Move Over" are awesome. The song has a ton of energy.
"Cry Baby" and "A Woman left Lonely" were a little less interesting. The vocals felt a little over the top for the rest of the song.
"Half Moon" is a lot groovier. I'm digging the piano and guitar again.
The album got a little same-y for me, but I do like the sound. Her singing is a little tough to listen to passively for long periods of time, because she is absolutely going for it.
I'd probably only ever listen to one or two songs at a time from this.
6/10
CHIC
4/5
I could not have told you who CHIC were before today, but the song "Le Freak" is iconic. I'm glad to know who sings it now!
"Savoir Faire" is awesome. It's such a full sounding song. The guitar is obviously front and center, but all layers of the track are hitting.
The rest of the album was good, but became too familiar by the end. I enjoy disco but my desk chair isn't the place to be listening to it. Despite that, I enjoyed the album a lot. It has a good run-time and the music is very layered.
7/10
Bauhaus
3/5
I can see a photo of the band as I open their album on Spotify. They look like a glam-rock version of The Addams Family. This is a good sign.
I'm enjoying this album. "Of Lilies and Remains" is the first song to make me look up. I love a spoken word song like this. The tempo is great.
I like "Kick in the Eye".
The rest of the album was fun, but not remarkable. I didn't take note of many more individual songs. I don't love the vocals, and the instrumental sections were a little too experimental and zany for me most of the time.
6/10
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
I love the vocals on 'Pusherman'.
"Junkie Chase" and "Think" were great instrumentals.
The songs were pretty similar across the album, but they were good. Curtis Mayfield has a very distinctive voice and singing style. I'll have to watch the movie.
7/10
Eagles
3/5
"Witchy Woman" is a jam.
"Nightingale" has some fun riffs.
This album was good, but it didn't make me feel much. I could see that they were shredding, and that the songs were good, but I wasn't getting much out of it. Definitely not a bad album, but something prevented me from loving it.
6/10
Public Enemy
5/5
Public Enemy have an awesome sound. The spotify band description calls the production "cacophonic" and that is definitely right. The production is overwhelming and confrontational in a way that couples with the lyrics. You should be a little uncomfortable from the barrage of sound, as well as the message being given to you by Public Enemy.
"911 is a joke" is Flavor Flav on every verse. My only other explosure to Flavor Flav is his dating show from the 2000s.
"Incident at 66.6FM" likely inspired Kendrick's recording on DAMN with the TV hosts criticizing him. Hip-hop has been a target of this kind of pearl clutching since the beginning.
The bars on "Burn Hollywood Burn" are insane.
"Reggie Jax" is the first song that I haven't liked.
This album is great. It's got fiery political lyrics on top of genre and era defining production. An hour is a little long and the cacaphony does get a little tiring, but it's rarely bad.
This music and the music inspired by it plays over scenes in so many 90s movies about black america. I can see Radio Raheem walking around with his boombox as I listen.
9/10
ZZ Top
3/5
I think I've mentioned this before, but we had the Top Gear cassette in the car when we lived in England. I put it on almost every time I got in the car. One of the first songs on it was "Sharp Dressed Man". This song is ingrained in my body, and I have no choice but to love it.
Every other song on this album sounded largely the same to me. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't really pay attention to any of it. I probably won't play any song other than Sharp Dressed Man again.
5/10
Dirty Projectors
4/5
"Cannibal Resource" is a good song. I like the harmonies from the ladies. He could've said 'the arbitrary life' a few less times.
"Temecula Sunrise" feels like a very similar song, with some different guitar parts here and there.
"The Bride" vocals for the first minute sound exactly like Moses Sumney on Aromanticism. Moses really ate this man's lunch. This is my favorite song so far.
"Two Doves" is a nice change of pace. I enjoy the strings, and the vocals are very pleasant.
I like the back half of "Remade Horizon" a lot, lots of fun instrumentals going on there.
I'd probably listen to this again.
7/10
Pere Ubu
3/5
"Non-Alignment Pact" & "Modern Dance" are two great but similar songs. I'm enjoying all of the anthem-style singing sections, as well as all the experimental guitar and synth parts. The piano is sweet too.
I can't really tell what's happening on "Chinese Radiation", but I do like it.
The last few songs got a little too experimental for me.
I think I liked this album, but it was all the place and very odd. I liked the first half more than the second half.
6/10
Alanis Morissette
3/5
The 90s were such a weird time for music.
"All I Really Want" is not what I thought it was going to be. I was expecting it to be slower paced singer-songwriter type music, but she's got some fun vocals and production going on.
"You Oughta Know" is a powerfully nostalgic song. Listening to it is a single highly concentrated dose of 00s school dances. I couldn't have told you this song was by Alanis Morissette. It's a fun song. It's one of those songs thats transcended being a standalone piece of art, and now occupies some other ambigous place in culture. I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
"Hand in My Pocket" was OK. I wonder if she's figured it out yet.
The songs are all kind of blending into one 90s/00s blur now.
Wow, "Ironic" is another song everybody knows. This song to me is mostly a meme because half of the situations aren't irony. It's a classic 90s jam though.
This album was better than I thought it would be, but it also wasn't anything special. This era of music doesn't do much for me, maybe because it's all I heard growing up? It all kind of blends together into the sounds of the 90s/00s, and I don't like those sounds that much. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it either.
5/10
David Bowie
3/5
The opener on this album, "Station to Station" is a little like "Funeral for a Friend" by Elton John. It's a long and slow-building song with less frequent vocal sections broken up by piano and electric guitar sections. Even the vocals are vaguely similar in sections. I like it.
"TVC15" is also a fun song. These are definitely my favorite Bowie songs I've heard.
"Stay" has some sweet guitar.
I still don't like Bowie's vocals. It sounds like someone doing a bit. I did however enjoy this album more than any other Bowie record I've listened to.
The best songs were the ones I mentioned above, the others I was so-so on.
6/10
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
I've heard some of the songs on this album hundreds of times.
"Bridge over Troubled" is an absolutely beautiful song. I have a fondness for the singer with a piano, and this song is that combo at its best. It's cool that Art sings the entire song.
I didn't know until this listen-through that El Condor Pasa is a cover of a famous peruvian song. The instrumental backing is fantastic, but the added vocals don't do too much for me. The lyrics are simple but funny, I'd also rather be a hammer than a nail. Paul Simon has such a nice voice.
"Cecilia" is a classic. I've listened to this song so much. The percussion is awesome.
The horns and vocals on "Keep the Customer Satisfied" are awesome. I guess I am his customer, although I'd never thought of it like that.
"The Boxer" is another song I've listened to hundreds of times. Beautiful lyrics, vocals, instrumentals.
"Baby Driver" is a fun folksy tone-change. I love the guitar and percussion. The vocals are really fun too.
"Why Don't You Write Me" has some horns that absolutely hit me like a truck. They came out of nowhere and took center stage.
"Bye Bye Love" is an alright song, but it's odd that they did a studio recording with live audience noises put over it?
This album has one or two songs that I like, and nine or ten songs that I love. It's close to flawless and is a perfect match for my taste.
10/10
Slipknot
2/5
I never really got into Slipknot, despite loving a lot of similar music back in the day.
"Wait and Bleed" is the first song I recognized, and I don't dislike it. 'I felt the air rise up in me' is a line people would say a lot.
I don't have too much to say. I didn't really like the album. It's metal in a way that I don't really like. A lot of it is angry noises that aren't meant to be fun to listen to, just loud.
3/10
The Teardrop Explodes
3/5
Napalm Death
1/5
This is unpleasant. There's very little for me here. The only saving grace is that the songs were short, and so was the album. There were some sweet riffs when the singer occasionally stopped, and that is all that is keeping it from a 1/10.
"Scum" and some other songs were OK because there was basically no singing. Even then, most of them were just people slamming their instrments as hard as possible.
I don't think I feel the feelings required to enjoy this.
2/10
Rage Against The Machine
5/5
This being today's album is a bizarre coincidence. I hung out in Tom Morello's trailer at Boston Calling for hours yesterday. Tom's bassist is also the lead singer of my girlfriend's dad's band, and he got us artists badges for the festival. I'm going to take this review as a chance to talk about the Boston Calling set.
Tom is touring as "Tom Morello" these days, and his set at BC consisted of solo hits, RATM hits, Audioslave hits, and some fantastic covers. Unsurprisingly, the performance was extremely political. The backdrop featured images of black revolutionaries holding pitchforks while running through smoke bombs and fires. Tom railed against I.C.E, Trump, billionares, and landlords as he got the crowd pumped up.
Highlights of the show were his cover of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Our Land", Bruce's "Ghost of Tom Joad", and a medley of Prophet's of Rage songs with Public Enemy's Chuck D. No surprise, the final song was "Killing in the Name Of". This song hasn't lost one bit of its political power, and the crowd was raging.
Tom took the time to talk about Harvard's free courses on the constitution, american history, and recognizing dictatorships. Harvard is his alma mater and he was pretty psyched to play this show. He had his bag from "The Coop" with him in the trailer and had a Harvard sweater on.
Tom signed a set-list for me, and I got his pick from the show, so I was pretty psyched about that. They also had no interest in any of the stock in the trailer, so I took Tom's Grey Goose, bottled water, avocados, pringles, and Oreos home. Sarah and her dad took just as much stuff. We rode the T home with our pockets full.
The self-titled is my favorite RATM album. It goes so hard and is, unfortunuately, just as appropriate in 2025 as it was in 1992.
"Killing in the Name Of" is iconic and instantly recognizable the world over. As I said above, this song hasn't lost one bit of its power.
"Take the Power Back" has filthy riffs and a filthy bassline. It's so sick.
"Settle for Nothing" is a dope breakdown. Usually these songs clash with my "man at desk" daytime persona, but I'm taking a walk while I listen to this so I can let the energy flow. "If we don't action now, we'll settle for nothing later" is hitting pretty hard in 2025.
"Know Your Enemy" goes so hard. The riffs are sick, and the vocals hit hard.
"wake Up" is so funky, and I love the rapping.
Having this and Public Enemy so close together has been a great blast of politically conscious music.
10/10
The Velvet Underground
4/5
I am listening to this album directly after "Napalm Death". It's like slipping into a nice warm bath after being dunked in a swamp. The velvet underground are a salve for my weary soul.
"Candy Says" is a very pretty song. I love the quiet harmonies and the peaceful guitar.
The opening riff on "Some Kinda Love" is so nice. The vocals sit on top of it very nicely.
"The Murder Mystery" is tripping me out.
"After Hours" might be my favorite song on the record.
This is a pleasant album. Nothing blows my mind, but I like it.
7/10
Motörhead
3/5
I was hoping this album would be a crystallizing moment for me and Motorhead. It wasn't a bad album by any means, but it didn't unveil new depths.
It's fun, it's loud. I can smell the cigarettes through my headphones. It isn't quite for me. It's a little single-tone. If I skip through the record to random songs at random times, it's often hard to tell that the song has changed at all. I don't dislike it, but I only like it at very specific and infrequent times.
I'll revisit this album during my midlife crisis, when me and Kit are riding our hogs down Route 1.
5/10
Mudhoney
3/5
This is one of the best album names I've ever heard. Unfortunuately, I'm a few songs in and I'm having a hard time connecting to the vocals.
I feel like I'm listening to old Green Day but with worse singing. Every song has some nice 90s sounding punk/rock guitar/drums.
"Something So Clear" has sweet riffs.
"Into the Drink" is a cool song. I like the drums and the guitar part.
"Who You Drivin' Now" has got me moving.
They are absolutely shredding on "Fuzzgun '91".
Loving the harmonica on "Pokin' Around".
"Pokin' Around" is also going super hard. I love it, abut the vocals are only OK.
These kinds of albums are tough for me. I'm not as punk as I wish I was, and I have a hard time enjoying the vocals when they're a little flat like this. It sounds too much like someone just yelling instead of trying to hit any notes.
It rocks pretty hard though.
6/10
a-ha
3/5
I've never known who "Take On Me" was by. This song is amazing. The synth part is beyond legendary, and I challenge anyone not to start boppin' when they hear it.
Every song between "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines on T.V" was unfortunately a little boring. This song is pretty good though.
This brand of 80s pop doesn't really do it for me.
5/10, even if "Take On Me" is a banger.
The Offspring
4/5
"Nitro (Youth Energy)" is a great start. There's nothing complicated about this. You'll have your whiny 90s punk for dinner and you'll like it.
WHEN I GO DRIVING I STAY IN MY LANE. I listened to this song so much in High School. Offspring were high on the roster on my 120GB iPod classic. If I close my eyes I can see the wintery suburbs passing by through the school bus window.
"Come Out and Play" is iconic. The little riff near the beginning (you know the one) is so great.
"Self Esteem" is the other big hit from the record. It's probably one of the first Offspring songs I heard after "Pretty Fly For a White Guy".
"What Happened to You" is an extremely "The Offspring" song. The bouncy guitar and the harmonies are great.
I don't know why I love Bryan Holland's voice so much. My logical brain can see that his singing is annoying and whiny, but my 90s/00s punk lizard brain loves it.
It isn't art, but it sure is fun.
8/10
Scott Walker
3/5
I like Scott Walker's voice. "Jackie" is a very grand feeling song immediately. It feels like it would've felt nostalgic even in the 60s.
The album was nice, but it did get old pretty quickly. The soft strings and 'classical' backing over his slow dramatic vocals sounds nice, but not for fifty straight minutes.
6/10
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
This album was one of a few that made its way to me in High School and changed my perception of Hip-Hop. I've made reference to my transition from "everything but hip-hop or country" guy in High School to having separate multi-year 'hip-hop only' and 'mostly country' (nothing after Willie Nelson) phases later in my 20s.
I can say for a fact that this album influenced the musical tastes of weed smoking white boys from suburban MA forever.
The sample on 'Excursions' is legendary.
"Skypager" is hilarious. Man's got duracells.
This could be a longer review, but it won't be. This album is amazing. The lyrics are funny, the flows are smooth, and the beats are funky. There's nothing wrong with this album.
10/10
Elliott Smith
4/5
"Ballad of Big Nothing" sounds a LOT like a Phoebe Bridgers. I'm guessing she really likes Elliot. This is a great song.
"Between the Bars" is a familiar song. It's all quite depressing, but it is really nice to listen to. It's obvious that Elliot was a strong influence on a lot of sad girls and sad boys in the 2010s and 2020s.
I really enjoyed this album. Phoebe Bridgers is apparently quite open about Elliot being her favorite artist of all time, so it makes sense that they sound so similar.
8/10
Joy Division
4/5
I know this album from the many many t-shirts worn in Boston venues and basements. It's a really cool cover.
I'm enjoying "Day of the Lords".
"Interzone" is a jam.
For a punk record, it's surprisingly melodic and the vocals aren't too abrasive. There is a lot of production work happening and it adds depth to the tracks.
I liked what I heard. I may need to spend some more time on this album for it to fully sink in, which is not something I typically do.
7/10
Eels
4/5
I like "Susan's House". It's got bleak subject matter, but I like the way the entire track comes together. The production is interesting. The spoken word sections remind me of "Fire Coming Out of The Monkey's Head" by Gorillaz.
Each song has been pretty different so far. "Beloved Monster" has some nice riffs.
This album was a lot of easy-listening pop. The lyrics were personal, dark, and interesting.
7/10
Brian Eno
3/5
I've never listened to David Byrne outside of The Talking Heads. Brian Eno is a very famous name, but I couldn't tell you why. I'm assuming this is a Dangermouse / MF Doom type collaboration.
"Mea Culpa" is unusual. It seems like this is going to be an experimental ambient type album, which I'm not a big fan of. Decent background music for reviewing code changes to though.
"Help Me Somebody" is funky. The album puts my mind into 'ambient' mode and I'm not really paying attention to the words in the samples.
This wasn't a bad album, but also it was just weird and didn't have many positives. It was occasionally interesting, but generally just ambient music. I listen to this in the same way as with my brown noise machine.
5/10
The Beach Boys
5/5
This is one of my all-time favorite albums. I've listened to it hundreds of times. It's the only Beach Boys album I ever listen to as an album, rather than in compilations. It's getting a 10.
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is such a beautiful song. It's one of their biggest hits and it doesn't disappoint.
"You Still Believe in Me" slows it down a little and focuses in on Brian a little more. He crushes it.
I love the percussion on "I'm Waiting For The Day". There's so much going on. I love the big raucous instrumental sections broken up by quieter solo vocals. Is there a flute in there? It's ripping.
A calming and centering instrumental break in "Let's Go Away For Awhile" is nice. We're about to go into a banger, so it's nice to have a few minutes of respite.
"Sloop John B" is one of my favorite Beach Boys songs. This is not a hot take. I love the a capella section in the middle. I chuckle occaisonally when he says 'this is the worst song I've ever been on'. It's easy for the lyrics to fade away into general positivity when you're not listening actively, and that line always pulls me back in. The song has an interesting history going back a century before the Beach Boys interpretation. It is originally a folk song from The Bahamas. It's worth reading a little about it.
"God Only Knows" is ALSO one of my favorite Beach Boys songs. The musical arrangement is beautiful.
The Beach Boys are a combination of so many things I love in a band. The songs are short, the harmonies are beautiful, the piano & organ are perfect. Brian Wilson's voice is so iconic and enjoyable to listen to.
We are listening to this the day after Brian Wilson died, so this felt like a nice tribute. I see you pulling the strings Mr. 1001albumsgenerator.com. RIP Brian.
10/10
Stevie Wonder
4/5
"Too High" and "Visions" are nice songs. They are both very slow crooning songs. I'm pretty unfamiliar with Stevie's massive body of work, but I was expecting more big-band funk/jazz type music.
"Higher Ground" is one funky ass song. This is my favorite song so far.
"Jesus Children of America" is a good song too. The album has picked up a little now.
"Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" also slaps.
This album had its good and great moments, and a few others that were good but not quite my cup of tea. I enjoyed the funkier upbeat tracks more than the slow singer-songwriter type tracks.
7/10
William Orbit
5/5
This is a more engaging record than most ambient ones we've had.
The spoken word on "Time To Get Wize" was unexpected, and I liked it. Everything about this song is good.
"The Story of Light" may be my favorite one yet. There are some vocals in the middle that sound a little like Grimes in "California".
This album rocked. I haven't been too positive about our other ambient albums, but this one had something more to it. The songs were great to have on in the background, but also would catch your attention here and there.
Very enjoyable sound almost the entire way through.
I didn't track the individual songs too well, but I didn't have any I wanted to skip past.
An hour is usually far too long of a run-time for me, but it's OK and maybe even desirable for an ambient album that I can leave on harmlessly to background whatever I'm up.
9/10
David Bowie
3/5
I accidentally deleted my first review of this album, and I didn't like it enough to do another full listen.
I continue to not really get Bowie. There's a lot of cool instrumental backing, but it also lacks something for me. It's a little boring and I don't like Bowie's voice.
There was nothing bad about the album, but all its positives didn't excite me.
5/10
Elliott Smith
4/5
This is our second Elliot Smith record this month. I liked the last one.
"Son of Sam" is a much more electric and big sounding song than any on his previous record. I like the piano backing.
I've listened to the Gotye "Somebody I Used to Know" so much that my brain is filling parts of that song around Elliot's singing of the same phrase. Sorry Elliot, Gotye really stole this one. It's a nice song regardless.
I like "Everything Means Nothing to Me".
This was a different album to "Either/Or". I liked it a lot. It had a lot more instrumentation and was a lot livelier in a way that still felt true to his sound. It had a lot of intimate lyrics, but not in the overtly bleak way that "Either/Or" had.
8/10
Grateful Dead
3/5
I last listened to this album at Mikey's house on Gray Street. I remember being kind of bored at the time, so hopefully it makes a better impression me this time.
"Sugar Magnolia" is great. I love the riffs, and the 'doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo'. The first two songs were fine but not super interesting to me.
"Ripple" and "Truckin'" were fun.
This is a good album, but not totally my cup of tea. It's a little slow a lot of the time.
I have a lingering feeling I'm being a little harsh with a 6, but that's what it's going to be for now. This album could grow on me.
6/10
Os Mutantes
5/5
I've never heard of Os Mutantes. I love the album cover.
"Panis Et Circenses" is a very 60s sounding song. I'm enjoying it a lot. It's very Beatles-esque. There's so much going on across this song - I love the trumpet (?) going crazy.
"A Minha Menina" has me moving right away.
"Adeus Maria Fulo" is a very weird song, and I love it. The noises in the background remind me of the White Lotus season 1 intro.
"Senhor F" is great.
"Ave Genghis Khan" has sweet synth business going on.
I don't want to be reductive, but these guys sound like the brazillian beatles to me. They have a lot of the 60s psychedelic british sound in their music. They are doing a lot of weird experiental noises, but I'm enjoying all of them.
I've gone down a wikipedia rabbit-hole reading about the Tropicália movement in Brazil.
I enjoyed the entire album. It was weird, fun, and a great length.
9/10
The Rolling Stones
4/5
This is their first album and they open with a cover? That's an interesting decision. "Route 66" is a fantastic song, and they do a good job with it. I like Chuck Berry's version more, and I'm sure they were listening to it before recording their own.
Is this all going to be covers? "I Just Want to Make Love to You" is another cover of a Muddy Water's song. It is once again, pretty good.
I'm now on the album's Wikipedia page and seeing they are basically all covers - nine out of the twelve.
"Honest I Do" is smooth. I like the country-blues-y guitar.
"Now I've Got A Witness" sounds like "My Shiny Teeth and Me" by Chip Skylark. Fun song.
"Carol" is another Chuck Berry song. This song sounds exactly like "Johnny B-Goode", those two are basically the same song.
This album was really good. I don't feel like I can give an album consisting of 75% covers an equivalent score to an original album I enjoyed equally.
8/10, I'd give it a 9 if they wrote the songs themselves.
The War On Drugs
4/5
"Under The Pressure" is a great song. Very easy listening rock and roll at the beginning, and some great ambient post-rock-ish minutes towards the end.
"Disappearing" is a nice easy-listening song. I like the ambient background instrumentals on all of the songs so far. All of the tracks have been quite long thus far, but they have a lot of distinct sections within them, so they aren't getting too stale.
"Eyes To The Wind" had Dylan-esque vocals. The song was nice but a little boring.
I really like "Lost In The Dream". Also very Dylan. This is my favorite song so far.
This was a long album, but it was easy enough listening that it didn't feel draining to listen to. There was a lot of variety in here, and I enjoy the slow ambient sound underlying many of the songs.
8/10
De La Soul
5/5
I'm enjoying the game-show intro. I hope the rest of the album is a full game-show.
Wow, "(3 Is) The Magic Number" is a song that I heard once in a while a LONG time ago, and I've never known what it was. I love the hook, and the verses.
"Can U Keep A Secret" is a weird song, it's a funny idea but isn't that great to listen to. Lots of people have dandruff.
"Eye Know" sounds like its sampling just Otis' whistling, which is funny. This is a great song, the other sample is great too.
"Take It Off" is another weird song.
"A Little Bit of Soap" has dope flow and a fun beat. It's also funny. Please use soap.
"Tread Water" is back to the fundamentals with a dope beat and bars.
I forgot to write my thoughts on the back half of the album, but it was all pretty good. "This Is A Recording" was my favorite.
I maintain that an hour is too long for almost any album, and this album had its boring sections. Despite that, the highs were high enough that I'm willing to give this a 9.
9/10
Massive Attack
4/5
The first few songs faded into the background for me, but were enjoyable.
"Blue Lines" caught my attention with some bars delivered plainly and smoothly. I really enjoy the "lo-fi hip-hop" instrumental in the background.
"Be Thankful For What You've Got" was smooth and soulful. I didn't know who Massive Attack were prior to today, but this isn't what I was expecting out of them.
"Daydreaming" made me realize that what I actually like is the rapper, Tricky. I'm enjoying all of his songs on this record.
This album was really good. It wasn't too long, the beats were engaging and diverse, and the vocals/rapping were great.
8/10
Quicksilver Messenger Service
2/5
I only had to look at Quicksilver Messenger Service's band photo for one second to know they were from San Francisco.
"Who Do You Love - Pt. 1" is an OK song. Nice riffs.
"When You Love" had an awesome first ten seconds, and then got a little boring. The riffs are cool, but it's really just riffs. I'm sure it was a lot more innovative and mindblowing in '69.
"Where You Love" has not improved much on the last song. There isn't much going on here.
QMS have a huge "Past Members" section on Wikipedia. It's the biggest one I've ever seen. A whole lot of people have been in this band.
Unfortunuately this album was not interesting, and often boring.
4/10
Billy Bragg
4/5
I love Woody Guthrie, and this is a great concept for an album.
"Walt Whitman's Niece" is a fun song. I love spoken word story-telling vocals over some foot tapping folk music. I also love the harmonizing. It sounds like a bunch of friends making some music together.
"Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key" was a funny song. The vocals were great. Nobody did sing like you Woody. I'm not hearing a lot of Wilco influence on the track.
Natalie Merchant has a beautiful voice. "Birds And Ships" is a nice relaxing slow song.
"Hoodoo Voodoo" is a jam. This song is kickstarting my morning.
"Chris For President" is a funny song. Woody Guthrie would be just as on-point today.
"The Unwelcome Guest" goes so hard. The song is about a Robin Hood type, riding his horse and robbing the wealthy to give to the poor.
Not every song was a banger, but many were really good. They didn't feel so much like a fusion of Wilco and Billy Bragg, but rather like one or the other.
I love Woody Guthrie, and we need another one of him today.
8/10
Air
4/5
This is another one of those albums that I lose track of as it's playing, but in a good way.
I don't know which songs I liked the most, but I enjoyed them all. None of it is mindblowing, but its all pleasant to have on in the background, and interesting enough that it occasionally breaks through and makes me pay attention.
The songs were ambient but nuanced. I've learned the word "downtempo" from the wikipedia page of the album. I enjoy downtempo electronic music.
8/10
Kanye West
5/5
We're going to have to do some separating the artist from the art to review this one.
This is one of the best albums ever, and I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that it changed hip-hop. This era of Kanye is stacked with hilarious and often touching emotional lyrics, delivered on top of incredible soul beats.
The story of this era of Kanye's life is crazy. This man had everything he did during the production of this album recorded by Coodie because he was THAT sure he was going to be famous.
"We Don't Care" immediately introduces you to the fullness of who Kanye is at this point. The production is lively and loud, there's a kid's chorus singing in the background, and the bars are amazing. 'We wasn't supposed to make it past twenty-five'.
"Graduation Day" is a funny skit that turns into some sweet production. You think the skits over and then the beat and autotuned vocals come in.
"All Falls Down" is a legendary song. A lot of the lyrics are about a personal (and black-american) self consciousness that is covered up by materialism. He revisits that idea a lot in the next ten years, but he never becomes less materialistic. Even in the 'New Slaves' era, the man was selling $400 egyptian cotton t-shirts.
"Spaceship" is the first song that I don't love. It's a great song but not quite my taste. The samples are nice though.
"Jesus Walks" is one of his most famous songs ever. He wanted to write a song that would bring jesus into the club, and he sure as hell did it. The documentary, if I'm recalling correctly, has scenes of him making assistants of music executives listen to this song. They do not look impressed.
"Never Let me Down" has great lyrics but is less captivating than the other songs heard so far. This is an 'OK' song on this record and might be a highlight on many other artists'.
"Get Em High" really highlights his versality in beat-making. This song is pretty different from the others that came so far.
"The New Workout Plan" has maybe not kept up with the times with regards to body image, but it is a funny song. The beat change into the 'daft punk' style section is sweet.
I don't really like "Slow Jamz" personally, not quite my speed.
"Breathe In Breathe Out" is another miss for me. This stretch from "Slow Jamz" to "Two Words" is the most missable part of the album for me, but I'm sure other people love it.
Mos Def goes hard on "Two Words".
"Through The Wire" is my second favorite song on the album. The story behind this song is wild. The beat is incredible.
"Family Business" is my favorite song. The beat is so pleasant. This song I think paints the starkest contrast between who Kanye was in 2004 and who he is today. It genuinely makes me sad to listen to it.
"Last Call" is fun and endearing.
10/10
The Birthday Party
2/5
How did they sneak another Nick Cave album in here? The people who make this list are obsessed with him, I've heard more Nick Cave than Beatles. I find it hard to believe that if I had to listen to 1001 albums before I did, this many of them would be by Nick.
I didn't dislike "Blast Off", but it also didn't have a lot to offer for me.
"She's Hit" was a very boring noisescape.
"Dead Joe" has me wishing we could go back to the boring noisescape. I'm definitely not enjoying the vocals. The music seems to be trying to make noise for the sake of it.
"The Dim Locator" is the most tolerable song yet. It's got some fun riffs and cool vocal sections in it. It still had plenty of annoying things greatly outnumbering the enjoyable, but it had the most good moments of any song so far.
"Several Sins" was alright. I like the slower pace and the chorus was cool.
I got tired of describing the specific reasons I didn't like the songs, so I stopped writing thoughts on individual songs.
This was truly an album I had to get through. It can get worse than this, but it wasn't good. The songs were most frequently a mix of unpleasant and boring, and infrequently just OK. This album's vocals feel like the ambient noise that plays in a haunted house to put me on edge.
It had a lot of abrasive elements, but not super abrasive, so that was OK, but it didn't balance them out with anything nice to listen to.
3/10
The Cars
5/5
"Good Times Roll" is a jam. This has some ELO energy to it at times. I love the synths and the harmonies.
"My Best Friend's Girl" also rocks. I love the riffs and the keyboard.
The "Just What I Needed" intro sounds just like the intro to another song that I'm not putting my finger on. Update: I put my finger on it. It sounds like "Stacy's Mom" is about to start playing. It definitely is nothing like it later. It's another great song. The keyboardist continus to add so much. It got the chorus and I actually blinked and said 'Woah'. This is a famous song and I didn't realize it until then.
"I'm in Touch with You World" was fun.
"Don't Cha Stop" sounds familiar right off the bat too. It's another foot tapper.
"You're All I've Got Tonight" is another major performance for the keyboardist. I just love hearing it. This is another very ELO feeling song.
"Moving in Stereo" has more sick keyboard.
They're from Boston! That's great news. So far the Boston bands on the list have been awesome. This album was a banger almost the entire way through.
9/10
Ryan Adams
4/5
Starting the album with a bit of banter between friends is nice.
I've been rewatching Scrubs and that has exposed me to a lot of 2000s soft rock. This album definitely has the late 90s and early 00s flowing through it.
"Oh My Sweet Carolina" sounds SO much like "Land Locked Blues" by Bright Eyes. Quite a few parts of this album sound a lot like Bright Eyes.
"Why Do They Leave" is another Bright Eyes sounding song.
This album ran long but was enjoyable most of the time. Some of the songs were a little slow and dull, but many more were great.
My favorite songs were "To Be Young" and "My Winding Wheel". Honorary mention to "Shakedown on 9th Street".
8/10
Fiona Apple
3/5
This was a good album. I personally don't love it - the slow-paced singer-songwriter isn't my favorite and I didn't listen closely enough to the lyrics to find out if they were great.
The instrumentation was diverse and pleasant to listen to in the background. None of the songs were bad.
This was a background album for me, and I was bored enough to be looking at the next album by the end, but that's largely on me and not on Fiona.
6/10
Iron Maiden
4/5
I've never listened to this album. It's not what I expected at all. It sounds quite different from Number of the Beast. It feels a lot more restrained? They're still going hard as fuck and there's a LOT going on, but it sounds less like Iron Maiden than I expected. The vocal style is also a little different. It's less theatrical.
This album rocked front to back. I enjoyed it a lot, but didn't love it. It was missing that extra bit of something that they pick up later in their discography.
My favorite songs were "Transylvania" and "Iron Maiden".
8/10
Buzzcocks
3/5
This album was not interesting to me. The songs sounded similar throughout the album. There was a lot of guitar but not in an interesting way, and the vocals weren't pulling me in either.
Nothing to be upset about here, but nothing to be excited about.
5/10
Randy Newman
4/5
Almost all of my exposure to Randy Newman has been the song "You've got a friend in me" from Toy Story. I love that song. I've listened to it hundreds of times.
I'm not sure any musician has ever had a more unique voice. It's so pleasant to listen to, maybe because I associate it with loving Toy Story.
"It's Lonely at the Top" is so good. Was anyone else making music quite like this? I love everything about it.
"Political Science" is the next song I really liked. It's a funny satire roasting american foreign policy.
"Dayton, Ohio" is great.
"You Can Leave Your Hat On" is a jam.
I liked this album. Not every song is amazing, but I at least liked them all. The runtime was short, so I never had the time to get bored of his sound.
I like Randy Newman.
8/10
X-Ray Spex
4/5
I've never listened to X-Ray Spex before.
"Art-I-Ficial" is rocking pretty hard right away. I'm not sure I've ever listened a 70s punk bank with a frontwoman. I like the spin she's putting on it.
"Warrior in Woolworths" is a funny song. I love it.
I'm liking the sax on "Genetic Engineering".
"The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" also has great saxophone.
This was a great album filled with consumable punk. I liked her voice a lot. The instrumentation has a fun variety in it, but keeps it simple.
7/10
The Band
4/5
Seeing a band called "The Band" is like when you see the guy on World of Warcraft who got the name "Steve" or "Gandalf". Someone had to get it. Time to find out if they deserved it.
"Across The Great Divide" is great so far. I love the horns, the keys, the guitar, and the vocals.
"Up On Cripple Creek" slaps.
"Rockin' Chair" is real nice.
"King Harvest" has some sweet instrumentation on it. I don't even know what I'm hearing but I like it.
This is all very "E Street Band". I can imagine Bruce and co. took a lot of inspiration from these guys.
Disappointed they don't have an incredible track called 'The Song'.
This was a great album.
8/10
Keith Jarrett
5/5
This album is entirely improvised and that's crazy. I love piano so I'm expecting to love this.
Yeah, this was dope. He made some weird moaning noises throughout which was odd, but I guess that's his thing. This guy is nuts.
9/10
Fatboy Slim
3/5
This is our second Fatboy Slim album, and I'm excited. The last album we listened to was his sophomore project, and this is his debut. I've never listened to this one front to back either.
"Going Out of My Head" is a banger filled with classic Fatboy Slim sound effects.
"Everybody needs a 303" is funky.
I like "First Down" a lot.
I didn't enjoy this album as much as his second. It was definitely not bad, but a lot of the songs were single-tone and the album ran way too long. This was surely pioneering work back in the day, but EDM has come a long way and it makes this album feel a little empty.
I think I'd enjoy it a lot more if I was dancing somewhere. It was fun, but it was mostly background music.
6/10
Black Sabbath
5/5
We are listening to "Black Sabbath" in the wake of Ozzy's death. His death has made gigantic waves globally, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised by how big of a moment it is. His final concert was a week ago, and it was a legendary event, but I didn't hear about it until after his death. I had also forgotten until now that he was the original 'Keeping up with the Kardashians" on MTV.
I was never a huge Ozzy fan growing up, but that isn't because I didn't like his music, it's because the various older brothers who instructed me in the ways of metal weren't Black Sabbath fans. I've never listened to this album, but listened to "Paranoid" frequently in a certain period of my life.
"Black Sabbath" was sick. When the guitars come in around ~4:40, that gives me some chills. They were quite good at that 'now the guitars are here' type of moment. Ozzy's vocals are awesome.
I was not expecting harmonica. The intro to "The Wizard" is so sweet.
Some elements of "Wasp..." are like "Ironman" but slower. It's funny to see some of the guitar ideas transplanted and done differently on their later work. 'My Name is Lucifer, please take my hand' is a nicely delivered line. I see why the metalheads had to hide their records from their parents. The guitar on "N.I.B" is shredding.
The guitar on "Wicked World" was awesome.
The bass came in hot on "A Bit of Finger...". The bass has continued hotly in "Sleeping Village". This song feels like they just wanted to shred a little more before the album came to a close, and yes sir they did shred. I'm 31 and it's kind of making me want to play guitar.
This album is a lot proggier than I thought it would be. It has more instruments than I expected, the songs are long, and they sing about wizards. I can see why this made waves
I can see why they took off. Their music is simultaneously totally from the 70s, but also so different from their big-name contemporaries like Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Led Zep.
9/10
Bill Callahan
3/5
I wonder who "We" is in the album title. I like to think he means everyone. Instead of all humans he wishes we were just one sweet eagle. That would probably be better for earth.
Bill Calahan is a LOT like Andrew Bird, who I like a lot. "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" is a very Bird sounding song. I like it a lot.
The rest of the songs blended together, but were mostly nice. I enjoyed it, but didn't love it. It was very peaceful, but a little long. I like the multi-instrumentalism throughout.
6/10
R.E.M.
4/5
As I said in my previous R.E.M review, shout out to Mr Arden in years 7 and 8. I was super into R.E.M when I was 11 and hearing the vocals is fiercely nostalgic.
"Drive" was OK. It's a little slow and boring.
"The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" is one of my favorite REM songs. I love the vocals on this track. Michael Stipe has such a unique voice and he crushes it on this one. The chorus hits real good.
"Everybody Hurts" is another banger. Two great songs back to back. I was very self indulgently sad for a long time, and this song absolutely featured in that. I'd listen to this an "Bad Day" by Daniel Power, which is really funny in retrospect.
"Man on the Moon" rocks. This was a recurring play on the old iPod shuffle as well. The subject matter is interesting. I didn't know who Andy Kaufman was, but apparently many people believe he faked his death.
"Nightswimming" again was a constant play.
This album has some really great songs on it. It's got some chaff in there too, but it has some great highs. I only ever listened to select singles by R.E.M but I see that they were mostly on this record. I guess that makes this my favorite R.E.M record?
There's a lot of nostalgia here, and that's playing into it for sure.
8/10
Willie Nelson
4/5
A few years ago I went to the "Country Music Hall of Fame" in Nashville and walked through over a century of country/folk/blues history. Since then I have said on more than one occasion that I love country up to Willie Nelson. I'm sure that there's some stuff after him that I'd like, but in general that captures my feelings on country.
I've never listened to this album, so I'm excited to get into it.
"Stardust" is a very appropriately named song. It does feel like I'm floating with Willie through space.
"All of Me" has some sweet guitar.
"September Song" also has sweet guitar. Willie is really plucking on the heart strings in this record.
"On the Sunny Side of the Street" is so nice.
Willie wrote a lot of other people's most famous songs. I only recently listened to Patsy Cline for the first time and had a real "Hurt" Johnny Cash/NIN moment with "Crazy".
I loved this album. Lots of really great songs. I love what Willie's cooking.
8/10
Judas Priest
5/5
"Rapid Fire" fucking rocked. I've never really listened to Judas Priest but that was electric. It was likely a less abrasive Iron Maiden mixed with an un-satirized Tenacious D.
I didn't write down any further songs because they were all absolutely ripping. I was entranced by the metal. This album was so sick. Sorry for not listeing to you before Judas Priest.
9/10
The Boo Radleys
3/5
"Wish I Was Skinny" is some nice enjoyable soft indie-rock sounding music. It sounds a lot like Guster, or Peach Pit, who I like.
"Barney (...and me)" is a jam.
"Best Lose the Fear" is nice.
This album had a bunch of nice songs on it, and a bunch of boring songs. I definitely enjoyed it most of it, but didn't love much of it. They could've cut some songs out of this one.
6/10
Red Hot Chili Peppers
4/5
This is one of those albums that makes me realize how old I am. This album and their later works were sensations during my childhood, and it came out in 1999. That's a long time ago. I was five! I would have guessed I was ten when this came out.
It's not on this album but "Zephyr Song" is the first song I remember being aware of playing on the radio. It played constantly and I loved it. I can picture images of car-rides where the song was playing, and there are very few songs that have that effect on me.
"Around the World" is a full showcase of the classic Chili Peppers sound. This song captures them almost entirely.
"Scar Tissue", "Otherside", and "Californication" is such a crazy lineup of absolute bangers. These songs are all so instantly recognizable. A third of the songs on this record are played out because of the levels of popularity they reached.
The back half of the album falls off a little bit and it gets a little single-tone. They could have ended the album at "Emit Remmus" and lost little I think.
This album has vocals that are synonymous with California and the 90s/00s. The basslines and riffs are out of control and must have inspired countless people to pick up guitars. Unfortunately, I have to assess the album as a whole. The first half contains four or five of the 90s/00s most played songs, but the back half could be cut down by more half probably. In light of that, it's going to have to be less than it could have been. The album would be an easy nine if it was just the first half.
8/10
Prince
4/5
I haven't listened to a lot of Prince, but I know he's a major cultural icon.
"Let's Go Crazy" has some cool keys with classic 80s over them. I like it.
"Computer Blue" sounds like Ghostbusters. This is a good thing.
"Darling Nikki" is a very different song, it's fun. It sounds a little like Vampire Weekend.
This album rocked. Great variety, almost all good songs. I'm surprised 'Purple Rain' is the most famous song, I thought many others were a lot better.
8/10
Neil Young
3/5
This album was mostly easy-listening background music for me. I like the harmonica, I like the bluesy rock elements mixed with the country elements. There's some sweet guitar on here.
Some of the songs I didn't love, like "For the Turnstiles", but others like "On The Beach" I really liked.
"Walk On" was a jam. The rest of the album was different from this song. I loved the riffs.
The album was very low key in the back two thirds and didn't really keep my attention. It was really nice background music though. I feel like maybe I'm being a bit harsh with a six. Maybe on a day where I'd paid more attention it would be a seven, but today is not that day.
6/10
Ramones
4/5
It brings a smile to my face when I see an album is a tight thirty minutes. The album cover is funny. Their shoes are so dirty, and their haircuts are so bad.
"Blitzkrieg Bop" is an awesome song. They're starting with the only song I know. I must forge onwards into the unknown.
"Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" is a banger. This is an important message.
This album flew past me, but I liked it. Almost every song sounded the same, but I did like that sound. The songs and albums are so short that its hard to find time to get bored with any of it. I think they get a little more interesting on later records, but this one showed the bones of The Ramones pretty well.
7/10
Can
2/5
This album had its enjoyable moments at the beginning, but man I really wanted "Halleluhwah" to end, and then I really wanted "Aumgn" to end, and then I wanted "Peking O" to end.
This album went off the rails and just descended into noise. I don't ever need to hear this again.
3/10
Duran Duran
4/5
Wow, "Rio" is one of those songs that exists somewhere in my brain but I've never know who sings it. This is a great song. Duran Duran may break through my general dislike of the 80s albums we've had. That was a sweet sax solo.
"Hungry Like the Wolf" is another song from that formative Top Gear cassette I've referenced before. It rocks.
The rest of the album kind of blended together.
Duran Duran has a great sound and some of the songs were bangers. Others got a little old quicker, but it was a fun album!
7/10
MGMT
5/5
I love that this album is on here. This is maybe the first album on the playlist that I feel like truly belonged to me and my friends growing up. This came out towards the end of Middle School for me and really took hold a few years after that. MGMT were constantly played by me and my friends, alongisde Passion Pit, Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club, Temper Trap, M83, alt-J, and others. This era of electronic/synth-driven indie music was incredible.
"Time to Pretend" is an amazing song. The synth parts are iconic. Everything about the production is amazing.
"Weekend Wars" has some of my favorite vocals on the album. I don't know why the whiny vocals are so great, but they are.
"Electric Feel" and "Kids" are two more iconic songs. They are about as recognizable as songs can get. For my specific slice of my generation, and maybe others, these are as recognizable as "Hey Jude' or "Bohemian Rhapsody" coming on.
"Pieces of What" sounds like MGMT doing an Oasis impersonation. That makes me like it.
"Of Moons, Birds & Monsters" has some sweet drums and guitar in it.
This is one of the most potently nostalgic albums we've had (if not the most), and it fills me with a lot of emotions.
It really feels like two albums, separated by "4th Dimensional Transition".
The front half of the album gets a 10/10, and the back half gets an 8/10, so I'll have to average them out.
9/10
Pulp
4/5
This album was great. I listened a little passively but enjoyed it the entire time. There are a lot of famous songs on here. I feel like they sound a lot like "The Clash" in many places. Especially on "Common People" and "Disco 2000".
The album is a little long but I enjoyed the changes of pace.
8/10
Bill Evans Trio
3/5
I lean positive on this album, but don't really know how to discuss it. I like the piano. I can tell there's really sweet jazz happening, and a lot of the time I am enjoying hearing said sweet jazz.
The album is very long, and its hard to just listen to it in the background. There's a lot going on and it makes itself known too regularly to really let it slip pleasantly behind my work.
I am not an experienced jazz-man, but I enjoyed listening to it. I just wish there was less of it, and that they'd do a little less sometimes.
6/10
John Martyn
4/5
I'm not familiar with John Martyn.
"Solid Air" is a really pleasant and relaxing song. I'm enjoying the acoustic guitar and the jazzy backing.
The bassline on "Dreams By The Sea" is real nice.
"May You Never" has some really pleasant guitar and vocals.
The piano on "The Easy Blues" is great.
This was a great album. My favorite songs were "Solid Air", "Over The Hill", "Dreams By the Sea", "The Easy Blues", and "May You Never".
That's most of the record so it deserves a good score.
8/10
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
An hour+ long album from the mid-80s is definitely not a strong start for me, but I haven't hit play yet so we'll see where it goes.
"Welcome To The Pleasuredome" was extremely long but pretty fun the entire time.
I was absolutely not expecting a Bruce cover. It's a great song, but they're not really doing much more than the boss himself.
This is a nice album. Nothing blew me away and it went on forever. The really big hits weren't that much better than the other music.
6/10
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
I like Bruce a lot and I've never heard this album before. I didn't know he had a whole album without the E-Street Band.
The twang he's got going on "Nebraska" is great. I hope the whole album is from the perspective of characters.
I enjoyed the album, but didn't love it. Bruce singing over acoustic sans backing did grow a little old, but it definitely wasn't bad. It was a lot of classic Bruce blue collar american stories. Maybe I'll revisit one day and listen much closer to the lyrics, and I'll up my score.
Like everyone else, my favorite song was "Atlantic City".
6/10
Arctic Monkeys
5/5
Arctic Monkeys are such a crazy band. They have been world famous since before I was a teenager, and somehow the lead singer is only 39. They rocketed to extreme fame in a year or two, and they were barely adults. What a crazy life.
"The View From The Afternoon" captures the essence of the 2000s Arctic Monkeys immediately. This is a great song and is immediately recognizable as them.
The opening to "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" goes so hard. It's a sick riff, and then it transitions into an equally sick but different bouncy rhythm.
"Riot Van" is a new-to-me song and I love it.
"Mardy Bum" is my favorite song on the record. I love the slowed-down pace and the vocals.
This is an amazing album. It's not too long. The sound is a little repetitive, but I love it. There is great variety in here, and I love the perspective of drunken teenage england.
9/10
The Replacements
3/5
The boys are singing about boners. Was this a special event for Gary? Had he been struggling and finally got there?
This was a fun record, but not too much stood out to me. The song "Androgynous" was good. I can see that it might be popular today, it seems very ahead of its time.
6/10
Weather Report
4/5
Damn, "Birdland" is awesome. I'm movin'.
I didn't take note of too many individual songs, but I loved this. The 'jazz-rock' fusion is definitely more consumable for me than straight jazz most of the time. I loved this record, great jams the whole way through.
8/10
Morrissey
3/5
I've never listened to Morrisey. I'm enjoying the song "Glamorous Glue". I like the line 'We look to Los Angeles for the language we use - London is dead'.
"We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" is a very honest song. It's also possible he's talking about someone else hating him. It's funny though. 'And if they're Northern...'
I feel generally positive about this album. It had an interesting sound and I liked most of the songs. I didn't love any of it, but I enjoyed it. I don't really love Morrisey's voice.
6/10
Coldplay
4/5
We've had "Parachutes" already, I wonder how far into the Coldplay discography we're going to get. If I was making the list I'd put Viva La Vida on there and call it done.
I've listened to some of the songs on this album tens or hundreds of times, but I might not have ever done it back to front.
"Politik" was a good start but nothing special in the world of Coldplay.
The guitar line at the beginning of "In My Place" is so iconic. It gives me some nostalgic chills. The song isn't one of the greatest ever written, but it is really good. It's one of those tracks that is etched into my memory of a period of time.
"God Put a Smile upon Your Face" is another OK Coldplay song.
"The Scientist" has to be one of the most songs they ever wrote. It has 2.5 billion listens on Spotify, and that's just one platform which has been around for half of this album's lifetime. This song has almost certainly been played more times than we have people on earth.
The piano part on "Clocks" is another little Coldplay bit that has been carved right into the brains of hundreds of millions of people. Amazing song.
"Daylight" was a little boring for me.
I like "Warning Sign".
I really like the album cover, and the animated version on the Spotify album page is cool.
It is hard to rate albums filled with songs that have been played around me literally thousands of times. I have to separate my appreciation for the music from how played out it is. I can only hear Chris Martin's voice so many times in one life, and I may already be past that point.
Outside of the three big hits it was a little boring, and I am rating the entire album, so it doesn't quite make it to the eight/nine territory.
7/10
Elvis Presley
3/5
This was a nice album to have on in the background. There weren't many songs that drew me in, but it was a nice passive listen. I loved the general country vibe the entire time. It's very different from the music Elvis is the most famous for, but not in a bad way.
They did bury "Suspicious Minds" all the way at the end. That is the only song I knew, and I like it.
6/10
Marianne Faithfull
3/5
This album was alright. It didn't dazzle me at any points, but it wasn't bad. I was happy enough to do some foot tapping for thirty minutes.
I liked "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" the most. It seems like everyone else does too.
"Working Class Hero" was also good.
5/10
The Hives
4/5
Seeing a sub 30 minute album puts a smile on my face right away.
"Hate To Say I Told You So" is a bop. It's also by far the most listened to song on Spotify, so hopefully it doesn't all fall apart from here.
"Main Offender" and "Die, All Right" both have me moving my head a little too.
"Here We Go Again" has a fun little riff. They're not doing anything new, but it's definitely fun.
"A.K.A. I.D.I.O.T" also has some fun guitar.
These guys have a lot of Green Day energy. I enjoyed the album. I don't think it was very innovative but they did it all well.
7/10
The Stooges
3/5
The mixing on this album is not very good at all, I feel like I can't hear half of it. I can see on Spotify that there's a 'Bowie Mix' and an 'Iggy Mix' so I'm guessing there's a story behind that.
This album wasn't very great. It had some above average songs like "Gimme Danger" to balance out the below average songs like "Death Trip".
It was short enough that I didn't get too burned out.
5/10
Garbage
3/5
I like "Queer", the dede-de-duh-duh is nice. Cool vocals and cool guitar.
"I'm Only Happy When it Rains" is a classic song, I didn't know who sang it.
"Not My Idea" is a cool song.
"Stupid Girl" is the other song I know. Cool song.
I enjoyed this album, but didn't love it.
6/10
Isaac Hayes
3/5
This was a pleasant smooth album to have on in the background.
I didn't love the last song, "By The Time I Get to Phoenix", but the others were sweet.
I'm surprised at how aggressively Spotify is selling merch for this 60 year old album.
6/10
Gil Scott-Heron
3/5
I absolutely loved the production and instrumental on this record. I had a very hard time connecting with Gil's singing. I just couldn't enjoy it.
Despite disliking a large part of every song, I'm still going to think positively of this record and say that Gil's style just isn't for me.
This album is incredible for hip-hop samples, I'm sure many people sampled it.
6/10
The Jam
3/5
This album didn't quite do it for me, but it wasn't bad. "That's Entertainment" was the big hit and that fell a little flat for me.
I liked "Dream Time", and "Boy About Town" the most.
5/10
The Specials
4/5
"Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)" is a great fun song. I really like the phrase as well.
"Pearl's Cafe" is a hilarious song, and also a jam.
"Stereotype" was pretty depressing.
"Holiday Fortnight" has me doing some moving in my chair. I feel like I'm on a funky tropical island in Mario Sunshine (or somewhere on a real tropical island, I just haven't been to those).
The horns on this entire record were exquisite.
8/10, very fun album.
Sigur Rós
5/5
This album was a beautiful background for an hour. I didn't look at individual songs but I loved it all. The vocals and broad variety of instrumentation are so beautiful. It is so peaceful. I can't understand one word of what they're saying, but I don't like it any less for that.
My favorite song was "Olsen olsen".
I had listened to this before, but it had been a while. It is an amazing album. I could have sworn we had Takk earlier in the project. I went back to see what I wrote, but couldn't find it. Am I hallucinating that?
I want to lie in a sauna with this playing.
9/10
Eagles
4/5
I've heard the song "Hotel California" a million times, but never the rest of the album. As a side note, I love the Frank Ocean 'remix' of Hotel California - American Wedding. The song slaps, the guitar part is legendary. It's another one of those songs that's hard to talk about because you've heard it so many times.
I like "New Kid In Town".
"Life in the Fast Lane" is fun. It's got sweet riffs throughout.
"Victim of Love" also has some sweet riffs.
"Try and Love Again" is nice. I like the vocals a lot.
This album is really good. It's a great execution of a brand of rock and roll that I am not in love with. It's a little too 'Dad Rock' for me. Still good though.
7/10
Tim Buckley
3/5
This was a fun record but I zoned out for most of it. It was a pleasant background album, but didn't inspire me to listen any more actively.
I like his voice and the broad variety of instrumentation.
6/10
Talking Heads
3/5
Besides incidental listenings of their big hits, "Stop Making Sense" is the only Talking Heads work I've ever engaged with. I've seen it three times and loved it. My first thought when looking at this album was 'hmm, there's only one song from SMS on there'. I'm probably overdue to listen to more.
I'm sorry to say that besides "Once In A Lifetime" and "Cross-Eyed and Painless", I didn't love this album that much. I liked it, but most of the songs were a little weird and experimental. I liked the funky bass lines throughout, and especially on "Born Under Punches:.
Not bad, but not amazing.
6/10
Kid Rock
4/5
This is one of the first albums I've been generally stunned is on here. Did Kid Rock really need to make an album over an hour long?
"Bawitdaba" was a lot harder than I expected. Not a lot of country in there, sounded like some Linkin Park or something in that vein.
"Cowboy" is a little more country, but still doesn't really have a lot of country sound in there. I liked the little saloon piano section. "I ain't straight out of compton, I'm straight out the trailer" is a funny line.
"Devil Without A Cause" is pretty good, I like the beat.
"Wasting Time" also has a sweet beat.
"Only God Knows Why" is what I thought this entire album would be like (minus the weird autotune?).
Songs like "Where U at Rock" make me feel like I'm listening to a poppier and less hardcore RATM.
I was really surprised to see this album. I am even more surprised to say I kind of liked it. I didn't like every song, but it was a LOT more rap than country. It's closer to Beastie Boys or Linkin Park than it is to country.
7/10
Pink Floyd
3/5
I've never listened to this album. I've listened to "Dark Side of the Moon" a thousand times, "The Wall" a hundred, and their other albums barely at all. I see this is their first album, that's exciting.
"Astronomy Domine" is great. It's got so much classic Pink Floyd in it already. The chanted vocals are still a core of their sound 10 years later.
"Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" has sweet instrumentals. I'm not sure if I'm hearing a guitar or a synth but its jamming. The muffled talking underneath crazy instrumental is a funny thing to have as a signature sound. I might've thought they just did this on Dark Side, but it seems like they loved it the entire time. They're a little more Beatles sounding on the end of this song.
I am not really loving the experimental noise taking up most of "Interstellar Overdrive". I'm surprised this song has some of the most plays on the record.
"The Gnome" could not sound more like it's on Sgt. Peppers. You could put it on the album and nobody would blink. It's a great song.
This was an interesting album. It was like a mix of Beatles style rock, and classic Pink Floyd. I liked it, but didn't love most of it.
6/10
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
I don't love Neil Young's voice, but I like the sound.
"Country Home" was OK.
I like "F*!#in' Up".
"Over and Over" has some nice harmonies.
There's some ripping guitar on "Mansion on the Hill".
This album was OK. I like it, but it's too long and I didn't think it was very interesting. A lot of similar sounding regular ol' songs.
6/10
Genesis
3/5
This is my first ever Genesis Album. It's going to be long and it's going to be proggy. Time to buckle in.
The opening song, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", was fire.
I zoned out and have been listening happily to the music for a while until the line "Erogenous zones, I question you" broke through. I don't know the context, but that's hilarious.
This album was good, but exhausting. I struggled to stay attentive for all of Disc 2. Tiredly listening to the synth solos on Disc 2 made me feel like the little kid I saw sleeping on a bench in the middle of the Sesame Street parade at Universal Studios Japan. He was sleeping peacefully while Elmo was raging 10ft away.
6/10, but it would be 7/10 if it was fifty minutes shorter.
4/5
I've never listened to Limp Bizkit. The album cover is off-putting.
"Hot Dog" is good. I dont mean this negatively, but I would have loved this when I was eleven.
I like "Full Nelson". This is the background music to me sitting on the bus to school daydreaming myself into awesome anime fight scenes.
The production on "My Way" is dope at the beginning. This is a very different song to the previous ones.
"Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle) is also sick.
"Rollin' (Urban Assault Vehicle) has some awesome features."
I can perfectly picture how everyone looks at a Limp Bizkit show. It would be a lot of fun to be at one.
I thought that Limp Bizkit were from the early 90s, surprised to see they're right around the late 90s/early 00s. This album was really surprisingly good. Great beats, great flow, OK lyrics. Lots of variety. There's a couple of dope features. Method Mad has a sweet verse. Parts of the album remind me Linkin Park, other parts Eminem.
8/10
T. Rex
4/5
"Metal Guru" was a really great song.
This is a really fun album. It's a bouncy poppy record and I wasn't bored at any point. The song names are all short and kind of funny, which I like.
It did blend together a little and I didn't track the individual songs, but I was enjoying them all.
I really liked "Telegram Sam".
8/10
Digital Underground
4/5
It's always a little concerning when the first song of an hour long album has 120million listens and the rest of the album doesn't have a quarter of that cumulatively.
As expected, "The Humpty Dance" was fire.
"Rhymin' on the Funk" is super Tribe feeling.
"Underwater Rimes" has a lady speaking at the start, and she is immediately recognizable from something else. I don't know what. The song is OK.
"Freaks of the Industry" is hilarious. Solving real problems on behalf of the people. Truly instructional.
"Doowutchyalike" was too long but it was pretty dope throughout.
"Packet Man" may have been my favorite song.
This was a great album. Great beats, very funny. Very smooth flows over classic 80s/90s beats.
7/10
Brian Eno
5/5
This album is great. Is this the mother of the millions of relaxing / ambient youtube playlists I've listened to?
2/2 had a lot of Bon Iver energy in it.
I floated through this album very pleasantly. It was relaxing. I feel like I should have been in a pool or sensory deprivation chamber while listening.
9/10
Django Django
3/5
This is the most contemporary album we've had in some time! I haven't listened to Django Django before.
"Default" is a fun song. I was so into music and new bands in this time period, I'm not sure how I missed this song.
This album was OK. Kind of boring besides a few bangers. Not sure how this album made it onto this playlist, of all of the albums to choose from in this time period.
6/10
Neu!
4/5
We've had a few ambient/instrumental albums recently and I've been enjoying it.
This was a fun album the whole way through. It was good to have on in the background, but also grabbed my attention at times.
7/10
Antony and the Johnsons
4/5
"What Can I Do" is a great song. It was my favorite song on the record.
I really enjoyed this album. The vocals are cool, and I liked all the instrumentals. I'd never heard of the band before. I really enjoy orchestral "Chamber Pop" type music. Lots of horns and strings are always great for me.
7/10
Gene Clark
4/5
"Life's Greatest Fool" is a fun song. I like his vocals a lot. The bouncy instrumental is nice too. I love a piano.
I loved the wide variety of instruments on the album. A lot of piano, some mandolin, some violin? That's all good stuff.
Reading about the history of this album was crazy. It was considered so bad, so expensive, and so indulgent, that it effectively ended Gene Clarke's career. The record label didn't market it and then deleted it entirely from their catalog. Then, years later it was re-released and people decided it was incredible. That's bizarre.
The album has a great mix of country, jazz, and rock elements.
It isn't the greatest album ever made, but it's very very far from a career-ending disaster. They did you wrong Gene.
7/10
Peter Frampton
5/5
Opening this album was a rapid emotional up and down. I balked at it being almost an hour and a half long, but then bounced back when I saw it was a live record. We haven't had an amazing live record in a while, and that's a shame. The live records have been my favorite part of this journey.
I don't know much Peter Frampton.
"Something's Happening" is a great start.
"Show Me The Way" sounds like Daft Punk at the beginning, but he's doing it with a guitar.
"Baby I Love Your Way" is a crazy famous song. I sing it sometimes. I had no idea it was by Peter Frampton. This song has 103m listens, and most other songs have a few hundred thousand.
"I Wanna Go To The Sun" was awesome. Awesome shredding.
"Penny For Your Thoughts" sounds like "Never Going Back Again" by Fleetwood Mac.
This whole album was amazing. It was really long and I listened to it in two settings. It slapped.
9/10
PJ Harvey
3/5
"Dress" is really fun. So far this entire album has felt like something I'd hear at a really good basement show.
"Sheela-Na-Gig" is also a jam.
I enjoyed the strings and vocals on "Plants and Rags".
This album had a lot going on. Lots of variation in instrumentation and rawer vocals that I enjoyed. Not many of the songs grabbed my attention, but I enjoyed them all.
6/10
Tricky
3/5
This album was really interesting. The throughline was trippy dubby hip hop instrumentals with lots of cool samples, and I really enjoyed that.
There was a lot of spoken word and great vocals from Martina Topley-Bird, which I learned after listening were mostly improvised.
I enjoyed "Aftermath" and "Overcome" the most. "Brand New You're Retro" made me jump a little, it was a quick tone change. Some of the songs were a little weird.
The album was almost a little unsettling. I enjoyed it, but not every song.
6/10
Sonic Youth
2/5
This album was OK. It definitely had a lot of noise. I had a hard time focusing in on this album but didn't actively dislike it. I just didn't find it very interesting.
4/10