Weird yet accessible.

Absolute fire

The title track is one of the worst songs ever written, wallowing in insipid melodies and whiny intonations. Several other songs re-tread the heavily trodden (and never interesting) ground of basic-chord country/folk. Lowest common denominator music.

Meh

Ahead of its time

Classic album. Every song is strong with original ideas and excellent musicianship.

A few of the songs are straight filler, more than a few overstay their welcome, and the production quality is quite poor, even for the era. Neverrtheless, the band's creativty and songwriting abitlities shine through nicely on a number of tracks, resulting in some fantastic moments. A reluctant 3.5 stars rounded up to four.

The first song is awful, but if you push past that the album becomes more experimental and you can hear the clear influence this album had on many other artists.

The blueprint for making a risk-avoidant and derivative album with minimum artisitic effort.

Intriguing album and very cohesive

A lot of interesting ideas, even if some of them should have been cut form the album.

Live fast

Jazz stylings over rock without ever approaching prog is a clever sound that really works for the band.

The grunge and pop bits are very interchangeable with almost any other post-1990 group, but when the band are exploring different ideas the album is excellent. Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars.

Lots of bold choices on this album, even if it is a little boring.

Alexander "Skip Every Song on This Album" Spence. An absolutely intolerable, lukewarm mess.

Now we know why the Blues died. Almost every other blues album I've heard is better simply by virtue of not choosing to be annoying. There's more sounds of dying fowl then blues chords on this record. Points for creativity, so 2 stars.

I never want to hear steel guitar again

Jazz/jazz-fusion with an ebb and flow to the compostions that I really liked.

5 stars if it had no vocals

The quintessential one-star album. A talentless predator riding on the coat-tails of better men and better artists.

Worth the two hours for the guitar melodies alone.

Perhaps THE defining New Wave of British Heavy Metal album. This is the album where Maiden began to embrace proggier sounds, but the tight, bass-driven songwriting remains. An all-time classic, and an easy five stars.

Great start, tailed off at the end though.

Interesting ideas, but always ends up sounding like Sesame Street

Really interesting album with great production but an annoying vocal style

It's very creative, but almost sounds like someone is pulling a prank and convincing people this is a serious album

This would be a great album if it was 25 minutes shorter. As it is, Mick's vocals really wear thin by minute 55.

Nothing to see here. Basic, run of the mill, exactly what you'd expect barely-rock.

Really Interesting album. The best Talking Heads album I've heard.

Interesting use of strings.

Classic album

There were no more riffs left after this album. Easiest 5 stars I'll have to give.

Classic - 5 Stars

Not their best, but still a good album

She can definitely hold a note without coming up for air, but musically this album is the equivalent of C-grade middle school project.

Kinda boring tbh

Weird yet accessible.

Super catchy songs

Sounded kinda goofy ngl

The ultimate classic hard rock album

Interesting album. Like if you Crossed The Doors and The Cure.

Pretty run of the mill

Some interesting ideas but pretty boring overall.

This album is so cheesy Kraft Foods called - they want their Velveeta back

Just like the band, I almost threw a dead sheep when I heard this album. JK - it's alright, if a little annoying.

This probably was the birth of the cool to be fair.

Mara-ju-wanna is bad, mkay?

The only street sign this album needs is "CAUTION: Great Musicians at Play".

OK, this is actually incredible.

They took a lot of chances on this album and not all of them worked, but points for trying.

Every song is a single 4 second idea repeated for 5 minutes.

The Woolworth's in the background of the album cover is the only place she could convince to play this driveling wannabe-sixties-country-folk pablum.

Not as good as "The Marble Index" but a good album nonetheless.

Nothing interesting or new here.

I mean, it's Sgt Peppers.

So this is what it would sound like if Adele sang with a mouth full of peanut butter while driving on a bumpy road.

One of the first and best concept albums

Cheesy electronica. I didn't hate it. Good background music.

The best live album from one of the best live bands ever.

A mixture of some very forgettable songs and some very powerfuls songs. 2.4999 stars rounded down to 2.

He just talks about himself at a quick pace for 78 minutes.

I enjoyed this one

OK pop music.

A personal favorite.

When my dog attacked an armadillo in the yard at 4:00 am I ran outside shouting "What's going on?!!" and that was a lot more chaotic then this album. Great bass though.

It's called Deja Vu because it sounds like every other country/folk/rock/blues mashup album released at around the same time. OK in places.

Such an unique sound

Interesting pop

Great production, great songs.

Thrash has been completely abandoned on this album for a generic heavy rock sound. Still a great album, but things predictably went off the rails for Metallica in subsequent releases.

Yeah, not good. It's bloated both as a whole and each song individually. The music is an incoherent mess. I can't even give it points for creativity - it's just poorly done electronica.

I Beck this album was big

Was expecting something a little heavier for a straight-edge band but I guess it was early in the scene.

Fun album

This was around the point when someone should have taken Lou aside and told him to stop making music, but he never did until death did him from us part. This album does sneak in an extra star for creatvity though.

90s B-movie background music

LZ really gets experimental on this one. A bloated but still 5 stars

Never unplug.

Rumour has it they were, indeed, born on the bayou

Enjoyable. A little too same-y and bloated to get 5 stars though.

This album is very reliant upon the audience's emotional response and I don't have time for that today

everything about this is wrong

Pretty standard late-era swing crooning, but dang are the performances top-notch.

Normal pants are not an option

THIS ALBUM BEGS THE QUESTION, "WHY IS MY CAPSLOCK STUCK?????" (IT DOESN'T REALLY BUT HOW DO I GET IT UNSTUCK ASKING FOR A FRIEND)

Love Thin Lizzy, but live albums are rarely 5 stars

Cinnamon Toast Crunch review: Honestly not that toasty but definitely comes through on the cinnamon and crunch aspects.

Octopus Schadenfreude or something

Mostly boring and pretentious. Art rock should still be interesting, which this album definitely isn't. A few good punk moments.

Hit or miss. Opening track is great. Title track is garbage. The whole album is like this. A tug-of-war between good/interesting and bad/dull.

Distractingly, Kid B never returned from his hike in the forest and was lost to us forever.

Turns out this WAS NOT the last broadcast. I checked.

Fantastic, really. Incredibly eclectic selection of songs without losing any quality or cohesiveness, regardless of genre attempted.

Interesting album musically. Vocals wear a little over time. 3.5 stars.

Music is great, and I get that it's live, but the talking in the background is unacceptable and not charming at all.

Great voice, although the live production kinda sucks. The music is also corny - the type of stuff Martin Scorsese would play over the 17th montage of his latest 4 hour film

Rumor has it they were only in it for the money.

More like broken voice. Wailing in the wrong key over simple loops does not make for a good time.

Fun album, but not all that unique for the genre

Surprisingly coherent for a debut album. Every song is good, and there are a few bangers as well (Moral Kiosk)

Music is really great, but the vocal performance definitely dates this album. 3.5 stars for me.

1. The songs are good. 2. The sonic textures are really interesting. 3. The fade-out-sudden-switch structure of each song lends a unique sound to the album.

Mediocre vocals on every level (rapping, metal screams, melodies), but some killer drumming and interestign musical choices

I don't think this was meant to be listened to as an album. If it was, this is one of the least interesting records ever.

Mind-numbingly boring and formulaic rock. Everything is humdrum and by rote. Save yourself the time and skip this one.

It was OK but nothing really that special

Great songs; diverse selection; good voice. Only a couple of annoying ones.

I had to stop halfway through. Good lord this was awful. References to "Honky-tonk angels" and doubts as to whether his girlfriend would make a good wife are the general tenor and thrust of this mashup of the endlessly rehashed musical pablum that is country music.

Lyin' Badams

Hair salon at the mall kinda music.

Not great, but still better than Presley.

Probably a bad idea to wear a watch in the shower.

Really interesting, diverse selection of good songs. Elements of everything from early glam to English folk.

Maiden at their punkiest. Paul Di'Anno was still on vocals, providing a grittier, less dramatic sound than his successor. The star of the album is Steve Harris' melodic and driving baselines. The songs are catchy and well-written (even if they bear a heavy resemblance to late seventies New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands like Judas Priest, Saxon, or Diamond Head).

Absolute fire

Too catchy not to be five stars even if it's nothing new.

The music is pretty good, but the vocals are just trash. If you want to hear this style of vocal done well, listen to Layne Staley.

Very rarely does any band write such great vocal melodies over such heavy guitar parts. One of the best albums ever made.

Super creative album with a lot of diversity in the song selection, especially for dance album. Also very catchy (of course).

Clearly influenced by Jim Morrison here, but the music isn't nearly at the level of The Doors. OK album overall.

Not only is the musicianship great, but the album is fulll of fresh-sounding ideas and unusual choices. A little long perhaps, but the quality of the album makes it feel shorter.

A tad long, but the songs are really good.

Fantastic vocal performance over subtle jazz.

What are the chances that someone would pick up a bass for the first time at exactly the same moment as another person standing next to a hot mic was attacked by a chicken, all while inside a recording studio?

Nope, that definitely wasn't it.

Aboslutely outstanding in every facet - songwriting, performance, use of genre, etc.

Interchangeable boring folk rock. The bluesy parts are better, but even then the musical performance is below average.

Mostly good songs, but I don't know if I'd go back for a second listen.

I'm a sucker for bossa nova, so this is an easy five.

Instant classic mixing jazz/trip-hop/post-punk

Another slightly different than what was expected at the time R.E.M. album. Nothing special, but the nods to country-folk and pop punk are nice.

If nothing else, it's interesting.

There's better music in this vein made at around the same time but it's still enjoyable.

Vocalist is in the wrong key and sounds like he's falling asleep. Production is incredibly cheesy - like what a 14 year-old thinks rock should sound like. Drummer is just drumming random time signatures. Low-effort nonsense.

oof.

The only temptation I had was to skip every track.

Great bass and some interesting and (intentionally) amusing artistic choices.

A lot of good songs, but a few very annoying ones bring this down to a three.

Exceptional. Really had to Take Five after it was over to soak it in.

I get why some people might like it, but it's intolerably slow with annoying vocals. At its best, its background music.

Yes, he nicked Scott Walker's sound, but the music does sound like Scott Walker, so 5 stars.

More like "yeah - no".

More like 5 stars, am I right?

Performances are off the charts on this one.

A tad long with some filler, but the good moments are very good.

Annoying vocals, utterly predictable lyrics, basic guitars, and cheesy sounding "new age" drumming accented with inexplicable honking that might be saxophone.

Excellent music but honestly could afford to drop a few of the tracks at the end.

I've always been stunned that anyone could listen to this paragon of boring, run-of-the-mill rock. Everything is by rote, and nothing that hadn't been done a million times before is attempted.

Has a weird sound, even for early hardcore, but still very enojayable.

It's a classic for a reason

If you ignore the incredibly moronic lyrics and forced country accent (both par for the course), the instrumentation isn't bad.

Not a great live album - I know they recorded in a prison but at least try to get the production into a listenable state.

Should've been The Banned. Like many artists of this ilk, the country/folk aspects are repetitive and boring, and the bluesy/funky parts are good. Unfortunately, the majority of the tracks lean hard into country/folk.

I honestly don't know if I've ever heard a more annoying and whiny album. The music is utterly predictable, throwing every well-worn post-punk trick at the wall. The guitars, bass, and drums do exactly what you expect (slow-builds, 2-note riffs, etc.) and never surprise or create interesting melodies. On top of this, the vocals are horrendous. The vocalist spends the whole album accidentally drifting out of key, which would seem to be almost impossible given that the vocal melodies are also incredibly unimaginative. Every note is the most predictable (and whiny) note available to choose – and he still struggles to belt it out correctly. Definitely an album to skip.

The hooks/choruses are pretty basic, but the rest is interesting and sometimes surprising.

GOod music, but unfortunately boring.

Some interesting songs and great melodies, but entirely too long to the point of being obnoxious.

The title track is one of the worst songs ever written, wallowing in insipid melodies and whiny intonations. Several other songs re-tread the heavily trodden (and never interesting) ground of basic-chord country/folk. Lowest common denominator music.

Actually interesting, creative, progressive music.

Really well done album with some great performances.

Some good music can be found here, but my goodness. Not every song has to end with Rod repeating the same line for 3 minutes and/or an out of place hymn.

Very predictable songwriting, but at least he knows not to overstay his welcome for the most part. Still, I was wishing the album would end by the third-to-last song, so two stars.

Unfortunately, The Man was still trying to make music at this point, which essentially boils down to inane, out of breath mumbling, with no (or very poor) vocal melodies, and basic musical arrangements. Additionally, the celebrated covers on this album are decidedly worse than the originals.

A little whiny tbh

This sounds like it was recorded in a closet full of straw, but it is entertaining, and you can even hear the clear influence the band had on future hard rock bands with tracks like "Have Love Will Travel", "Walkin' the Dog", and "Strychnine." These (and other) forays away from 50s rock'n'roll staples are also the strong points on the album. With a little more originality this could be five stars, but ends up at 3.5 for me.

My only regret with this album is that my headphones only play music so loud.

Super creative progressive pop full of unexpected moments that fit the music perfectly. Probably Supertramp's best album - which is saying a lot for band that pretty much only made good music.

The music isn't bad, which is about as much of a complement as I can give this record. The songs feel unedited (constant repetition) and incomplete (the repetition leads nowhere). Additionally, The production is rough, lending to that feeling of incompleteness (a remarkable feat for an album well over an hour long). If FM had cut 7 or 8 songs, and edited or re-produced the rest, this album has great potential. As it stands, however, this is a bit of a mess.

This album is far removed from the band's blackened-thrash beginnings that yielded such brilliant records as "Beneath the Remains." They've exchanged their heavy metal credentials for (early) Nu Metal trappings, and, as far as Nu Metal goes, it's not bad. The liberal sprinkling of traditional instrumentation is nice and provides variation for the band’s primary songwriting method – A simple, heavy, repetitive riff. Nevertheless, the aforementioned repetition can get tiresome, especially over the hardly justified 72 minute runtime. As a piece of heavy metal history this is an influential and controversial album that is worth listening too, but lacks the songwriting chops, actual heaviness, or variation to reach the 5 star level.

This album is a mashup of '60s contemporary influences - The Beatlesesque harmonies, The Doors-y keyboards, and the riff-heavy songs structures of Cream. Unfortunately, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The various elements of each song seem to clash rather than cohere, making the listening experience unintentionally uncomfortable. For example, the track "Termination" begins with an interesting groove but somehow ends up with almost medieval melodies sparring with child-like keyboard noodling before fading away inexplicably, leaving the listener thoroughly unsatisfied. Finally, the title track is wholly unworthy of being 17 minutes long given that it consists of a single riff and some out of place solos. The album does earn an extra star for a nice bass tone.

If you've ever wondered what a blues album would sound like with the reverb-drenched '80s production style, this album is your chance to experience that. In a word, the glossy production feels antithetical to the blues. The "perfect" production makes the music lose grit, and feel pre-packaged. However, the production does lend the album a unique sound. As for the music, the performances, both from JLH and his guests, are excellent, and only a few of the songs overstay their welcome. That said, it's diffcult to give this album more than three stars given the plethora of much better blues albums out there.

The story behind the creation of this album is fascinating, and it unsurprisingly resulted in fascinating - even enthralling - music. I was truly bummed out when the album ended. An easy 5 stars.

The music isn't just boring - it's a simple amalgamation of pre-set drumbeats and basslines, with nary a melodic lead apart from Adele's voice. And this is where the album really fails. While Adele has a strong voice, her vocal meoldy choices also feel like pre-sets. It's like she went with the first melody that came into her head and never tried actually writing anything. The result is a thoroughly boring, unimaginative, album with no surprises.