1001 Albums Summary

1001 albums day one i’m not one to listen to a lot of music outside of spanish and english so i was pretty interested in how i was gonna feel about this one. for this review i’ll be doing a track by track review, ending with my overall thoughts on the project. track one: ponta de lança africano any doubts that i had about the project were immediately erased with this opener. instantly did it have my attention, i was hooked. i am a big fan of just about everything this song has to offer, and i love the background vocals that accompany it. after hearing this track, i have very high expectations for the rest of the album. 8.5/10 track two: hermes trismegisto escreveu this one definitely didn’t hook me immediately as much as the opener, but i suppose that should be expected from the second track. i enjoyed the spoken word during the first moments of the track, but i definitely didn’t love it. however, as the track progresses it reveals itself as pure funk with almost a little reminiscence of pink floyd. i definitely didn’t love this one as much as the opener track, but as it grew i definitely l liked more and more. 8/10 track three: o filósofo this track had me a little worried for the rest of the album. there is a woodwind(?) or some kind of instrument playing repeated notes throughout the entire song and it gets annoying pretty fast. i also really do not like the singing on the song, like at all. it feels very sluggish, and not in a way that previous singers have been able to pull it off. just sluggish. hopefully this is just a small detour and the album continues on the road the first two tracks were traveling upon. 5.5/10 track four: meus filhos, meu tesouro this song immediately picked things up for me. the singing was already so much more favorable to me, and the intro had me waiting to see what was going to happen next. what happened next did not disappoint. once the drums kick in, this song just keeps going and going and never stops. they bring that woodwind noise back in from the 3rd track, but unlike last time it’s not as repetitive and feels like it contributes a lot to the mix. definitely my favorite track so far, i really love it. 9/10 track five: o plebeu while this song is a lot less impressive than the others i’ve praised, i don’t necessarily think that’s a bad think. this track coming after the fourth works really well as it adds a playful vibe to the album after the more “dire” tone that took place in the fourth. i really like the synths on this song, and while i’m not usually a fan of la la las i like how they work on this song. the song is playful, and that’s really it. it’s not trying to be anything bigger than that, and i think that’s fine for where it is on the album. 8/10 track six: taj mahal keeping a similar feel to the fourth track, taj mahal makes me feel even better about track five. i think that the playful tone provided from the previous track was crucial to this song working. even if this song feels very similar to the fourth, i can still appreciate it equally because of the small break the song before gave me. that being said, this track still holds up really well, i just wish that flute solo at the end was drawn out long than 5 seconds. 8.5 track seven: xica da silva i really like how this track starts out. they take no time getting the song started, and i love that. at first, i thought i would find the metronome annoying but after a while it just kinda blended with everything else in this mix. this song was the first since the opener track to remind me how great the backing vocals are on this album, especially with how much they stand out on this song. overall, the song carries a great vibe and really doesn’t have any negatives. it’s just a genuinely good song. 8.5/10 track eight: a história de jorge the title alone had me pretty interested in this track, i’m happy that i wasn’t disappointed. the song takes home to one of the best vocal performances on this album as well as some great synth worked accompanied by saxaphone. the outro is also really catchy. this song is just a straight banger. 8.5/10 track nine: camisa 10 da gávea while this is one of the slower tracks on the album, i still enjoyed it a lot. that being said i don’t really much to say about it. it doesn’t really offer anything new to the album and just feels like a bit of a drag. 7/10 track ten: cavaleiro do cavalo imaculado i was beginning to reach a point in this album where i couldn’t really appreciate much of what was happening anymore. however, track ten really turned that around for me and had me genuinely enjoying a song throughout it’s entire length. this song features some really cool high speed percussive elements that are hard to not find cool. 8/10 track eleven: africa brasil (zumbi) the title track. if i’m being honest, i’m not sure what i was expecting when i first went into this track. the album isn’t very ambitious throughout it’s entirety (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but i love big grand outros so i wasn’t sure if i was going to get that). yet this outro really blew me away. the intro of the song features a piano intro followed by an instantly intriguing instrumental to accompany the lead singers AMAZING performance. the vocals on this last song are really what make it, but the instrumental is just that cherry on top. i think this song was the perfect way to close out this album. 9.5/10 i’m happy to say this album did not disappoint. while it had it’s lows, it introduced me into a new genre of music that i’ve never really dove into and can now appreciate. the highs were also, very very high, when they did happen. favorite tracks: ponta de lança africano / meus filhos, meu tesouro / africa brasil (zumbi) least favorite track: o filósofo OVERALL SCORE: 8/10