May 27 2024
View Album
Doolittle
Pixies
There's a few gems to discover but most of the back end of the album feels like filler.
3
May 28 2024
View Album
The College Dropout
Kanye West
It's a very good debut album. Kanye establishes himself well to the audience. The production is quality and very well thought out. Obviously there are some absolute stone cold classics here but they didn't immediately stand out to me as a new listener.
Overall good album.
4
May 29 2024
View Album
Sticky Fingers
The Rolling Stones
Sticky Fingers is an absolute classic. Starting from the album cover it just presents that rawness that the Stones achieve so well.
They bring their influences to the forefront and revive these old blue standards. What makes it great is that the songs themselves are amazing but inspire the listener to dive deeper into where this influences come from and go out to seek those artists such as Leadbelly and Muddy Waters.
It's a brilliant piece of art from Britains most premiere R&B band. It's right up their with Zeppelin and Sabbath for albums of the 70s
5
May 30 2024
View Album
Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
Well I've always been a Queen fan, I've never listened to this in full before. It's not a bad album, but not a great one.
In context with their career it lays out all the elements for A Night at the Opera. The medley in the middle, the song by Roger about cars and the odd classic thrown in the mix and the reprise at the end.
In the Lap of the Gods seems to be heavily inspired by Dark Side of The Moon and copies the formula of a song like The Great Gig in The Sky or Us and Them.
The album all in all is a conceptual piece that tries to be a bit more like Pink Floyd than like Queen. But I think they knew exactly what they had. A couple of great songs, Killer Queen, Now I'm Here and Stone Cold Crazy, and a bunch of average filler that could only be half interesting if you put them together in the mix and flow of the album.
The ordering of the album kind of makes it better but this is really not the one to be looking out for in their catalogue. It most certainly lays out a formula for something better.
3
May 31 2024
View Album
Since I Left You
The Avalanches
New type of music to me. I loved it. DJ'ying is always an art form I admire. This is a very good listen and the craft is really something to admire. Album sequencing is also quite good.
4
Jun 03 2024
View Album
Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
A nice chilled feeling. There's an operatic quality to his voice which I like. Good easy listening album
3
Jun 04 2024
View Album
Mothership Connection
Parliament
So influential on many things that I listen to.
4
Jun 05 2024
View Album
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Frank Sinatra
The whole album is kind of centred around The Girl from Ipanema. Great song with a good arrangement. The rest of the album is more of the same.
3
Jun 06 2024
View Album
Double Nickels On The Dime
Minutemen
Very well produced album.
4
Jun 07 2024
View Album
Fisherman's Blues
The Waterboys
Opening track is banging
3
Jun 10 2024
View Album
Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand
Definitely vibey in a Strokes kind of way
3
Jun 11 2024
View Album
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
This rocks!!
3
Jun 13 2024
View Album
The Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald
There a certain level of class involved with making this type of music, that just emanates through the speakers. Back when only professionals had the ability to make music. Now anyone can do it, and that's not a bad thing, but we have lost this type of music forever. A starlet sings the tunes of the great composers. Little Ella is magnificent!!
4
Jun 25 2024
View Album
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
An absolute masterpiece by a skilful craftsman. Probably my favourite Dylan album, but Blonde on Blonde is next up after this, a really prolific period, contested by few to none.
5
Jun 26 2024
View Album
Pieces Of The Sky
Emmylou Harris
The album is very good especially for a first solo. It's worth to take a listen to some of Gram Parsons albums, they've got a similar tone and Emmylou is greatly featured on his albums.
4
Jun 27 2024
View Album
Logical Progression
LTJ Bukem
I've never really taken a listen at drum and bass music, can't really find the occasion for it. But this album was really interesting and it felt like a 2000s movie soundtrack. Very clever production.
3
Jun 28 2024
View Album
Done By The Forces Of Nature
Jungle Brothers
A pioneering rap album. I really enjoyed the themes, which mainly include being African and celebrating that. A real endeavour of creative output. From a group I formerly knew nothing about
4
Jul 01 2024
View Album
Moon Safari
Air
Every song seemed to have a completely alternative feel from the previous, yet it works conceptually and can be easily listened to within the album format. Good album. Interesting style
4
Jul 02 2024
View Album
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
The Kinks
This album is half brilliant and half filler. Some of the songs however are immensely lifted by the production choices. The Kinks are a heavily influential band on what is to come. This era however, they are listening to the hits of the day and still rooted in the rock roots of all 60s British musicians. I could hear a lot of alternative rock in there. Some of The Strokes, Talking Heads and the song "Arthur" sounds exactly like an REM song. Ray Davies is a absolute legend
4
Jul 03 2024
View Album
Rattlesnakes
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
Nice clean pop rock album
3
Jul 04 2024
View Album
Konnichiwa
Skepta
Very articulate rapper. Gives an interesting perspective on London culture in a very well rounded modern rap album.
3
Jul 05 2024
View Album
The Notorious Byrd Brothers
The Byrds
The Byrds are not in a good space in this album. Crosby had left and Clarke was about to (More on that later). The album was supposed to be a continuation of the era of Eight Miles High and songs within the psychedelia culture. What it turned out to be was far from that.
The album finds itself in a state of limbo for the band. They are somewhere between heavy psychedelia and the country rock in which they achieved so well in. As stated within the album the Moog synthesiser is used and features heavily. And as Andrew Hickey puts it, it was probably one of the two guys in the entire world that owned one, that just showed up to the studio, and showed it off to the group.
Reminisce of the beloved Byrds harmonies remain. With David Crosby gone it was always going to be lost within the group. The country rock elements are lurking about in the guitar parts of this album. And it only helps to know what comes next, that makes you really appreciate that.
What really stood out on the Bonus Track Reissue was the inclusion of a fight between Roger McGuin and Michael Clarke. In which McGuin calls out Clarke on his drumming. This breaks out into a real fight for the listener. And knowing the history of the group it is quite brutal on Clarke. As he is replaced during the making of this album for a more technically proficient drummer.
So the Byrds are down two members. And the best song on the record comes out of that circumstance, "Triad". Back to jingly jangly folk rock for McGuin. But as the story goes on for the Byrds, it just becomes whackier. Enter Gram Parsons...
3
Jul 08 2024
View Album
Birth Of The Cool
Miles Davis
From what I understand, this was a bunch of singles recorded over an extended period of time. And by the time it came out it was already past the height of Cool jazz.
This album is very well packaged. The songs work conceptually and play very easily into the others. The band is on fire and Miles is devastatingly good.
Also I love the fact that I got jazz on a Friday!
5
Jul 09 2024
View Album
Fragile
Yes
My first time listening to Yes! I really digged it. It's very Pink Floyd and King Crimson. Really funky too.
4
Jul 10 2024
View Album
Vivid
Living Colour
Very politically conscious band of course. Wasn't really hard rock but then again the classification of what's hard rock never is so simple. Epic records you say. Interesting
3
Jul 11 2024
View Album
Darklands
The Jesus And Mary Chain
As far as alternative goes, very essential 80s album
4
Jul 12 2024
View Album
Like Water For Chocolate
Common
I really enjoyed this album. It feels like a real piece of art but also something casual enough to throw on and enjoy. Common is really profound and painfully real. Extremely enjoyable first listen for me.
5
Jul 15 2024
View Album
Brothers In Arms
Dire Straits
Mark Knopfler goes hard!!
I never heard the album version of Money for Nothing before. I think there's a good reason for that though. The censored Guitar Hero version used to rock so hard. The album version's weird verse kind of threw me off.
Good solid album though.
4
Jul 16 2024
View Album
In Utero
Nirvana
The really good songs are of an ascension that Nirvana could only have dreamt of. Brilliant compositions, plus that Nirvana sound and the now ever-present personality that is Cobain, makes this an all time classic
4
Jul 17 2024
View Album
Kings Of The Wild Frontier
Adam & The Ants
3
Jul 18 2024
View Album
Funeral
Arcade Fire
Kind of a mood bad. Reminded me a lot of the new Artic Monkey's style
3
Jul 22 2024
View Album
The Cars
The Cars
Great riffs!
4
Jul 23 2024
View Album
Stardust
Willie Nelson
"And know the purple dusk of twilight time" brilliantly simply produced album from the Nashville legend
4
Jul 24 2024
View Album
A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
Coldplay is like Radiohead, if they didn't have Jonny Greenwood
4
Jul 25 2024
View Album
It's Too Late to Stop Now
Van Morrison
Energetic!!
3
Jul 26 2024
View Album
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Eurythmics
Sweet dreams is really the stand out. It sounds completely different to the rest of the album
3
Jul 29 2024
View Album
Hunky Dory
David Bowie
Absolutely legendary!!!
5
Jul 30 2024
View Album
Channel Orange
Frank Ocean
The music is the vibe of tropical beach flavoured vacation house. But the interludes are very, I'm angry at my mother and the people I went to boarding school with.
It did open up a few questions about his sexuality and why he writes the music he writes. Pretty good debut album.
4
Aug 01 2024
View Album
The Idiot
Iggy Pop
Iggy is just a guy that does what he wants
4
Aug 02 2024
View Album
At Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash
"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash". Iconic!
5
Aug 05 2024
View Album
Bossanova
Pixies
They kind of went off the rails
3
Aug 06 2024
View Album
Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
The Hendrix Eperience are real mad!
This is a real hodge hodge of late sixties music. From inspiration such as The Beatles, The Byrds, Pink Floyd and Cream; Hendrix really is attentive and in tune with the music of the time.
The band together as a unit isn't as tight as Pink Floyd or Cream even, but are really individual talents strung together to play the wildest shit of all time. The is not a world in which Atom Heart Mother or Court of the Crimson King or Cosmo's Factory exists without Electric Ladyland.
Conceptually it's all over the place but the last two songs stand up as legend without a doubt. They are a different class! Good album, kind of messy but the writing is inspired and excited with just raw force and nothing much more intricate than that.
4
Aug 07 2024
View Album
Brothers
The Black Keys
Very enjoyable early 2010's white boy music. Some good stuff in there. Not revolutionary but extremely nostalgic, and sometimes that's all that people want.
3
Aug 08 2024
View Album
Hard Again
Muddy Waters
The Blues. Very well put together album from an artist from a generation in which singles were the only things that really mattered. You can't have a Muddy album without Mannish Boy
3
Aug 09 2024
View Album
Teenager Of The Year
Frank Black
High energy! Highly enjoyable.
3
Aug 12 2024
View Album
Chirping Crickets
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
All I hear is John Lennon! This album is very clean.
4
Aug 13 2024
View Album
Moving Pictures
Rush
First time listening to Rush! It was kind of epic.
4
Aug 14 2024
View Album
Nowhere
Ride
A bit too much eighties filler. First time listening, so difficult identifying the hits/
3
Aug 15 2024
View Album
Damaged
Black Flag
I used to gym to this. So all it reminded me of was exercise.
3
Aug 16 2024
View Album
Five Leaves Left
Nick Drake
This was very beautiful.
4
Aug 19 2024
View Album
Straight Outta Compton
N.W.A.
Dre is a genius! The opening three tracks on this is unmatched by anything in hip hop. However the album slowly fades into interesting samples but not as great raps. Still, it has to chart high on any hip hop list.
4
Aug 20 2024
View Album
Cheap Thrills
Big Brother & The Holding Company
Janice is a really interesting character. Everything about her life suggests she didn't want or was heading toward being the rock and roll, drugs and free love icon most people see her as today. Straight A student, chubby kid, supportive parents. An unfortunate set of circumstances abruptly ends her life, so young.
As for the band, despite the fact she didn't really dig them, I thought they were good. They have style but don't really keep it tight, but it's still some really great music in this album. A very good listen from a time so viscerally engrained in everyone's mind.
4
Aug 21 2024
View Album
Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I really enjoyed the B-side of this record. Some real good songwriting.
4
Aug 22 2024
View Album
Abraxas
Santana
Couple of classics. But a bunch of 70s trash mixed in. Good listen!
4
Aug 23 2024
View Album
Tanto Tempo
Bebel Gilberto
Very much more than just Bossa Nova. They do the Bossa Nova stuff well but there's this added layer of ingenuity with elements of funk, electronic and DJ'ing. Very good record. Would definitely listen again!
4
Aug 26 2024
View Album
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
This is absolute perfection!!! From start to finish The Chili Peppers deliver.
Kiedis reinvents his style and cuts out most of the rap he did before. The lyrics are more melodical and have an outer world quality to them. As opposed to his previous style where he spoke about concrete things, like sex, woman and drugs. Now the style is about the universe, being mindful and California.
Frusciante comes back with a new personality. A more peaceful guitarist. A technical ability unmatched, now backed with an idea of production and making the sound fuller. After a decade in the wilderness, a welcome return with a greater appeal.
Flea! Oh my God, Flea! The gift that keeps on giving. He holds this together, gives it flavour. I can't fathom how he does it. A power that just flows through the music and simultaneously create a bridge between the big banging drums and the ethereal nature of the guitar. The bass creates so much in the music. Flea provides in a way that is unmatched in rock music.
Chad Smith, what a rock star. He eats drums for breakfast! Without Chad this is really anything. He defines it. He gives the artists in the band the foundation of Rock. His style is so heavy but so technically adept. A true rock star guiding this band into genre.
This album is a combine of love. The people making it do it out of love for the music. The Chili Peppers are reborn from here on out and the world was never the same again!!
5
Aug 27 2024
View Album
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
LISTENED TO ON VINYL!!!
Pink Floyd is once again an example of you need to have a good drummer to be a great band.
This album is back to where they left off before Dark Side of the Moon. It's a bit more interesting than Meddle and Atom Heart Mother, but sort of is in the same vain. It does have marketable singles, but the A side is much more experimental than anything on Dark Side of the Moon.
Welcome to the Machine is a song that really grows in its perfection with each listen. The whole song just carries this tone that is so enticing and just fills the space so much. I love that synth or whatever the fuck instrument it is, because I can't tell.
Have a cigar is just a great tune, the lyrics on top make it even better and more thoughtful, as with most of their songs.
Wish You Were Here is an all time classic. Such a brilliantly constructed, composed and recited lyric. It would stand out in any context and most certainly elevates the rest of this album to the classic status.
The album really should have been call Shine on You Crazy Diamond, not because of the volume of that section but because of the content of the lyrics within that song. It really sums up the theme of the album. One of regret, nostalgia and longing.
Great album with some very memorable parts. Well mixed and superbly performed. The way Pink Floyd writes is just so interesting in a musical way. The fact that they could be so commercially successful is just unreal. But this is a Gilly album and Roger will have his revenge on the next one.
5
Aug 28 2024
View Album
3 Feet High and Rising
De La Soul
Such a joyous and fun album made by creative young friends, with big ideas and the best of eccentricities. This was a joy to listen to.
4
Aug 29 2024
View Album
Want Two
Rufus Wainwright
I've never heard of Rufus Wainwright before and this was really good. He seems like a real musician's musician. The music in itself probably ages like wine and gets better after a few listens. Would take a while to really dig deep into this guy. And this is why I both love and hate this idea of the generator. I get to listen to this for the first time. But it doesn't come to me organically, so I won't put as much time as I think I need to into discovering the rest of the artist's discography, as I would normally.
4
Aug 30 2024
View Album
Disraeli Gears
Cream
What could go wrong when you put the best musicians of their respective instruments together in a band... apparently, a lot
3
Sep 02 2024
View Album
Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
Not a lot of great moments. Castles Made of Sand and Little Wing are great though.
3
Sep 03 2024
View Album
Coat Of Many Colors
Dolly Parton
Pretty standard Dolly album. The singles didn't really stand out to me or impress me all that much but the Nashville formula is so enticing and efficient that it's really easy to listen to, which is good.
3
Sep 04 2024
View Album
Time (The Revelator)
Gillian Welch
Some very good songs in this. Her writing is hilarious and the mood is grim. Sort of like early Dylan
3