Well, they certainly remind us who they are at every opportunity. They produced some great stuff later on, but this doesn't do anything for me.
Pleasant listening, but no song stands out - for any reason. Altogether not at all exciting. Probably background music.
Meh. Couple familiar tunes, though.
Enjoyed. Good old-fashioned music.
Several enjoyable old tunes here. Good to hear them again.
Decent. Middle of the road sort of material.
Old school rock and roll. Good stuff.
Meh. Very boring.
Pure generic 80s pop.
Curious. Not unlike Black Grape.
Couple of familiar tunes here. Very poppy.
Cracker. Definitive recordings of so many songs.
Yep, that's prog rock! Not very interesting, but I'm not sorry I listened.
The opener is a self-indulgent prog rock (is that a tautology?) epic. Many Floyd-esque moments, though (or maybe Floyd had ELP-esque moment?). "The Only Way" is excellent, though. Very odd album overall, closing with a kind of a rock and roll kick.
Awful. Lethally boring.
Much better than expected. Desolation Row really is masterful. I hadn't expected such subtlety or lyricism from Dylan (I clearly don't know Dylan nearly well enough). It lifts the album to 4 stars.
Probably the dullest album he recorded. He could do so much better - and he did.
Good God, this is awful. It kicks off with kind of "sexy time music", and then plunges into music so utterly banal as to be immediately forgotten.
When I think of what they achieved later, this is not a good start at all!
Didn't appeal. There's definitely some musicality in there, though.
Certainly a couple of good tunes in here, but it's not nearly as good as I remember. Even "Bullet" and "Tonight, Tonight" don't do much for me any more, it seems. "Love" isn't bad. "Thirty-three" and "1979" have stood the test of time, though. The "novelty" songs ("We only come out..." and "Lily") are still just that. Can't take them seriously - and I can't imagine that we were meant to.
Enjoyed. Would listen again. Hotel Yorba is still a cracker.
Easy listening. A pretty, poppy kind of a sound.
Interesting start, really got my attention - but then it fell off, and I didn't really notice the rest of the album.
Title track is certainly well known, but I can't say it appeals, and nor does anything else here.
Well, they certainly remind us who they are at every opportunity. They produced some great stuff later on, but this doesn't do anything for me.
What a great album! Hard to beat. "Only Love..." and "After the Gold Rush" are surely the standouts.
This was great fun. It's gotta get a 4.
Didn't do it for me.
Middle-of-the road. Background music.
Enjoyed this overall. Light and breezy, but with a few interesting bits to lift it out the doldrums.
Great music. Solid vocals from Janis. Altogether a very enjoyable album. It's definitely getting more airplay around here!
Love it. I always wonder how I'd feel if I heard old favourite albums for the first time in 2024, for example, but I just have to give this a five, as I've always loved it. She Bangs the Drums, I Am the Resurrection - absolute crackers.
That was awful. It's utterly flat and lifeless.
Not bad. Easy enough listening.
Soothing, pleasant music.
Great debut. Solid.
Easy enough listening. Nothing special.
Light and poppy. Undistinguished.
Unremarkable, but I'm surprised to find that I know "On a Rope". 2 stars.
Certainly plenty listenable. I'm not a reggae fan, though, so I can't give it more than 3.
Interesting, but not amazing. Reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees - she must have been a big influence on them.
Very dull. Totally uninspired.
All these years later, I'm still loving this album. Some cracking songs on it. All round great work.
Grabs my attention at the very outset. V. strong start. Yeah, that's an absolute cracker of an opener. And then - BANG - into track 2. Jolted me out of my groove. Track 2: totally different mood, with jarring breaks, but those breaks serve to complement the "main" theme, and to return to it is very welcome. Another great beat to kick off track 3, after a gentler finish to track 2. Gentler groove here, too. The vocals here are almost just an ornament - but a very welcome one. Nice and easy start to track 4 leads into a lovely mellow groove, with somewhat more prominent vocals. Another cracker. We're going slightly up tempo here (in spots!) for track 5 - with some unsettling drum fills. Are they played backwards? Wonderful vocals again. Somewhat more hypnotic here in track 6. Track 7: What an odd mood here. What odd instrumentation. The first track on which Gibbons's voice gets the prominence it deserves. Back to a somewhat more electronic sound on track 8. And the name of the track makes perfect sense. Low point of the album so far. Softer intro again here on track 9, with those wonderful vocals shining again, in ultra-soft mode. Shame they couldn't maintain that mood all the way through. Another very abrupt finish. Very experimental sound here on track 10. Nice laid back start here to the closer, but I'm not fooled. This could go anywhere. Hmmm... It didn't. It dipped somewhat in the middle, became rather generic - but it saved itself at at the end.
Ah, a classic. I just love the mood of this whole album. It's chock full of winners. An easy five stars.
Didn't enjoy. The title track is decent, but the rest is very dull indeed.
Didn't much appeal. Very little substance to it. Electronica (is that what this is?) does very little for me anyway.
Such classics on this album. Wonderful stuff. And Never Going Back Again is just beautiful! So clean!
Didn't enjoy. Very flat and lifeless.
Curious and interesting. Wouldn't rate it higher than background music, though. Couldn't see myself ever choosing to listen to it.
Uninspired. Not at all interesting. 2 stars.
Solid enough rock and roll.
Enjoyable. Lively.
Terrible. Opening track sounded vaguely interesting, but I can't abide this sort of thing. Pretending you're punk is just daft. All I can see there to link them to the likes of the Sex Pistols is the poor copy of the vocal style.
Definitely not Bowie's best work, but certainly not a bad album. Middle of the road stuff here.
Latin rhythms failed to overcome the overall jazzy sound on this. Not a fan of the jazziness at all.
Bit too jazzy for me. Echoes of previous triumphs fail to elevate this beyond mediocrity.
Enjoyed. Surprised to find I knew virtually every song on it.
A couple of interesting tracks on here, but overall not exciting.
Interesting album. I'd never heard of her. Nice piano work on some of the tracks.
Giving this a 3 is a little unfair, but I'll do it anyway. Some lovely numbers on here, and his voice was so much fresher back then - so much easier on the ear! But bar one or two hits, there's no real standout material here.
Love it. What a wonderful album. Standout for me is always "Mystery Man".
Very mediocre. Can't see what's special about this at all.
Solid album. Great tunes. Eminently listenable.
Couple of great tunes here to lift it out of the 3-star doldrums.
Not bad. Not great, but certainly listenable.
Light listening here. The opening track is familiar and enjoyable. The rest of the album is listenable, but it just trails off into mediocrity .
Solid stuff here, but, bar Layla, nothing really stands out.
By-the-numbers stuff here.
I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. 3 stars is still plenty, though, as I can't see myself going back to listen to it.
Pretty dull, overall. I don't recall a single interesting track on it.
"One Flight Down" isn't bad. The rest is not for me: the vocals are too jazzy.
Got off to an interesting start, got my hopes up - but failed to hold my attention all the way through.
Magnificent. Can't fault it.
There's really only one song on this - and it's not even a particularly good one.
Not my style at all, but Emmylou is a legend for a reason. That's quite the voice.
Very odd. I disliked it a lot less than I thought I would. Still no interest in it, but it's certainly more than a 1-star.
Masterpiece. Epic. Divinely inspired. What more superlatives can I find to describe this?
I wanted to stop listening halfway through track 1, but I'm glad I persevered. Oddly jaunty, this. Definite shades of Debbie Harry in there at times, too.
The title track is of course an absolute cracker, but outside of that, there's nothing really standing out. "The Chase..." is another great track, but those two can barely lift it to a 3-star rating.
Easy listening here. Nothing remarkable either way, but Willie's voice saves the day.
Nice bouncy start. Great recording of "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo". That sounds like it's crossing into other genres until you look it up and find that it's a cover of Duke Ellington! Altogether, an enjoyable, poppy album. Very radio friendly.
Great stuff. Justifiably famous. Some silly tracks on here that could definitely have been left on the cutting room floor (e.g. the totally unnecessary "Rocky Racoon", "Revolution 9", "Everybody's Got Something..."), but overall really decent music that really showcases their creative and musical ability.
Very pedestrian. Saw them in concert once. They failed to excite.
I enjoyed this far more than I expected. If all you know of her is "Feeling Good", I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that that's nowhere near her best work.
This was OK. Perfectly listenable, but no track stood out, and none was memorable.
Great stuff. Love the mood of the album. Sidewinder has been a favourite of mine since it came out.
"Supernaut". What a great riff. If you combined this album with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, you'd have an absolute stomper. Here, we have Changes, as well, which is a superb contrast to the other tracks. All told, this is a solid album - but it lacks the punch of their earlier work, and lacks the refinement of its successor. "Supernaut" almost lifts it into 4-star territory, but unfortunately, it still falls short.
What a very strange album. I really enjoyed it, despite the bloody title track, maddening earworm that it is. Quite different musical styles throughout.
Hard to rate this objectively. The title track and "Love is a Stranger" are such iconic songs that they could lift almost any album to 3 stars. This is the case here. Nothing else is memorable, nothing else stands out.
What a stunner of an album. "Rock Music" is the weakest link, but it's still a decent tune.
Wow. Deadly dull. Just totally lacking any kind of spark at all. Zero soul. Zero stars.
I'm really not a fan of the vocals on this. But for that, I think I'd rate it four. I really enjoyed the other components.
I'm torn on this one. It really isn't music I'd be interested in listening to, but much of this album has a certain life to it that lifts it beyond the generic. So even though it's not my style, and I'd never choose to listen to it, I somehow admire it enough to give it 3 stars.
Why does this work? I have no idea. But it's great stuff, David Byrne's voice shouldn't work either (and I have no doubt that, for many, it doesn't), but I love it. Superb album all round (and I only knew Psycho Killer going in).
Not for me at all. There's the very odd (in both senses) moment of - of clarity, I suppose, of a simple melody sung in a straightforward and unembellished manner. I enjoyed those bits, but the rest of the album doesn't do anything for me. It's inventive, though, I'll give it that, and wildly eclectic.
Great stuff. Proper old school.
Elevator music to me, I'm afraid. I know Smooth Operator, but nothing here strikes me as interesting in the least.
Couldn't find anything to like in this.
This slipped by without my even noticing. Very bland indeed.
What a load of self-indulgent bollox. Utter trash.
I think if I hadn't known the three hits from back in the day, I'd have found this much less enjoyable. It's quite monotonous, and the vocals would be quite wearing if they didn't evoke those memories. Three stars for nostalgia value.
I enjoyed this. It's not going to set the world on fire, but it is very listenable, and I enjoy the vocals.
Definitely listenable. Would probably return to it.
Pretty dull stuff. Nothing remotely interesting on here.
Two stars because although it reminds me of early Floyd (obviously!), it is very definitely not Floyd. It sounds like a poor imitation. No slight to Barrett is intended: he was an important part of the band, but his solo work, if this is typical, is not up to the same standard.
The cultural significance of this is lost on me, so all I have to go on is the music, and that does nothing for me, I'm afraid. But it's far from the worst I've heard on this journey!
Really enjoyed this. The punky, Blondie-esque tone of much of the album is a big plus. Some tracks are less punk, but more Rockabilly. I'd rather they kept up the punkiness throughout, but this is still a great album. I'd rather listen to them doing rockabilly than listen to an embarrassingly poor imitation of punk such as The Fall produced.
Awful. It's truly shocking that so many people have been conned into believing that this is good music. It is not. It's just cool to like it, so everyone has to pretend that it's a work of genius. It is not a work of genius. It is trash. The emperor is stark bollock naked. Can I give this zero stars?
I didn't enjoy this at all. Does nothing for me.
Enjoyed. Nothing to write home about, though.
Boring. Totally generic.
This didn't interest me at all. Uninspired, undistinguished.
Did not like at all.
Can't even remember anything about this, and I only finished listening to it an hour ago.
It's hard to be objective about this, as I know so many of the songs already. They're still great songs, though. Among the ones I didn't know is Baby Driver, which caught my attention. It's a great tune.
Pleasant listening, but no song stands out - for any reason. Altogether not at all exciting. Probably background music.
Didn't really fancy it. Bit too jazzy by times, bit too self-indulgent. But despite myself, I enjoyed the 14-minute closer.
This was pretty harmless. I certainly didn't dislike it, and I wouldn't consider it time wasted, but it didn't excite me in any way.
Didn't much like this, despite my expectations. Her voice is actually hard to take. I enjoyed it on "The Velvet Undergound and Nico", but a full album is too much. She's not terribly tuneful.
Enjoyed this. I knew "My Perfect Cousin", and already liked it. The opening track has a great catchy riff, too. An all-round solid album.
I had high hopes for this, given the associated artists, but it was pretty dull, sad to say. Neil Hannon gave it a bit of a lift, but only a bit.
T. Rex is always good fun. This is T. Rex.
Highway Star - what an absolute banger of an opening track. Magnificent. It does rather slump after that, sad to say. Smoke... is a brilliant song. It's just that it's been played to death, so it's very hard to listen to it objectively any more. Space Truckin' is a great tune as well, but overall, this album falls short of my expectations. The singles apart, there's not much here at all. The extended edition, with When a Blind Man Cries, is the better version, being bookended by two stunning tracks. Three stars because the original version is a bit dull despite the superb start.
Boring.
Bland, monotonous, overproduced, indistinguishable from her competitors. Why all the fuss?
I do like his voice, and he's perfectly listenable, but, bar Maggie May, nothing on this album is very interesting. 3 stars cos I like his voice.
I realised that I already knew a lot of songs off this album. I also realised that I hate the ones I didn't know as much as I hate the ones I did.
Wow. Ride are basically the Stone Roses, or the Stone Roses are basically Ride!
I hated this less than I expected. Still awful, but better than that Miles Davis trash I listened to here.
Rubbish. I'd heard Dy-Na-Mi-Tee before. Didn't like it then. Don't like it now.
How does rubbish like this sell? All the jazz heads will sneer at my lack of sophistication, but the emperor still has no clothes. This is trash. It's pointless. There's the occasional melodic bit, but those are lifted from elsewhere. It's mainly just people playing random snatches of music, or imitating sirens or the like. The musicians are clearly good, but what a waste of their talent.
What an incredible album. I remember how excited I was when I first heard this. Sheer magic. 10 stars.
Love the mood on this. The Killing Moon is such an amazing track. Seven Seas is decent as well. Those three factors bring it to three stars - the rest of the album isn't up to the same standard, though.
I enjoyed this. The opening track, \"America Is Not The World\" is very apt for today, the 6th of November 2024. I Have Forgiven Jesus is great! I love the mood of the album in general. 4 stars for that.
Enjoyed this. Not an amazing album, but fun to listen to.
While I like the message of the album, I've never been able to warm to the music itself. The instrumentals are easier on the ear than the vocals: I've never liked that vocal style. 2 starts cos I don't like the vocals.
Not bad. Surprised to find I know the title track. Solid album, all told, if not exciting.
Love it. Aside altogether from the biggest hits, I love No Expectations and Dear Doctor. The whole album is great.
I wasn't going to listen to this, because I know I hate it. But I didn't remember any of the songs on it, so I gritted my teeth and stuck it on. Well, I don't know what the album is that I so hate, but this isn't it. Solid album, this. I wouldn't race to put it on again, but there are some really good tracks on it. It's overall an enjoyable album.
Bland enough, but I like it - perhaps because I remember when it was new.
I have always loved this album. It's bleak, it's dark, it's a demonstration of the power of the band. This is surely the peak of their output.
What a strange album. I kinda liked it, all told!
Meh. Not as bad as some of his stuff, but still crap.
Not exciting. Grand for listening to in the background.
Not really exciting, unfortunately. The two big songs of his seem to have had their definitive versions recorded by other artists. Still, nothing to actively dislike here.
I hated this less than I expected to.
Didn't really interest me. Nothing remarkable or memorable about it.
Very much background music here. Pretty dull.
Ahhh, what a great album! There are so many five-star tracks on this. Since there are a couple of four-star tracks, though, and one zero-star track, I can only give it four stars overall - despite the sheer brilliance of Since I've Been Loving You, and Tangerine, in particular.
Devoid of musicality, this is an album I never want to hear again.
It's random wins like this that keep me going. This is great stuff! Love the opening track. "Booming and Zooming" is very odd, and I love it! The cover of Under the Boardwalk is quality stuff as well.
Good stuff. Solid blues from an expert.
Listened to this a couple of days ago. Don't remember a thing about it, except that it was kind of old-fashioned country. Nothing to object to in it, though.
This is the second of her albums that I've heard here. I've heard plenty more elsewhere, but I just can't get into it.
I do love Neil Hannon. His voice and his humour always win me over.
I do like this. No nonsense, good music.
I liked the instrumentals here, but the vocal really turned me off. It was the accent/delivery rather than the voice. It's somewhat reminiscent of Beck, but Beck managed it without being annoying.
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Sparse, melodic, great music.