This is good. Has like a Thievery Corporation or Massive Attack kind of feel. I like the co-lead singer approach. Very chill sound. Their general sound is kind of moody so when they so a more upbeat song it has a strange effect. This is the first band that has been a revelation to me in a positive way. I would listen to another album.
Fred Durst has the worst voice. Every Limp Bizkit song sounds like 1998. Hot Dog is an excuse to say fuck over and over again. To save time they should have just replaced all the lyrics of one of their old songs with the word fuck. Ice Cube and DAS EFX should have sued over him even saying the words "check yourself before you wreck yourself". The music sucks, the lyrics suck, by 2000 this would have sounded dated. They are like a joke band. Fred Durst saying he'd knock someone out is hilarious. They're like an ICP that takes themselves seriously. That's it, he mentions Fight Club...this went from bad to insulting. Xzibit sullied his good name doing this and he is definitely the highlight so far. Mission: Impossible too. It's hard to listen to this. People actually like Limp Bizkit, this is a band that sold millions of albums. I have to buy this book and read the batshit crazy justification of whatever critic picked this. Redman, Method Man and DMX...why? I guess people will do a lot of things for money. Having guest artists that are legitimate really showcases how awful Fred Durst is. The robot voice is stupid but is an improvement over Fred Durst. He is the fakest hard ass ever. He make Steve Seagal look like Bruce Lee. This outro skit is just the perfect ending to a truly terrible ending. Come on Ben Stiller, you too? This is awful, Ben Stiller has a truly annoying laugh and he is chuckling like a moron for almost ten minutes. This is a loop, he's not laughing like this at his own dumb Limp Bizkit burns for five minutes. I respect everyone associated with this album less now. I am literally revisiting in my mind how funny I find Ben Stiller's movies listening to this. This is such a stupid ending to a remarkably terrible album. Thank god they recorded their stupid phone calls to put at the end of the album.
Ambient techno is not something you sit down to listen to. It's something that's on in a hipster coffee house while the surly barista takes your order. This feels like the music that plays over the opening credits of a 90s movie about shady stockbrokers. This album is a chore already. It's hard to focus on the quality of the album because it is designed to be on at a speakeasy as background music. Seriously, this is the score to a movie about computer hackers working against the government until they realize they were being used and were working for the government the whole time and then they take down the rogue agent who ran the whole operation. This is like the alternate soundtrack for the Matrix. Someone has definitely tried to sync this album up to a movie at some point. This is like the Dust Brothers' Fight Club soundtrack if instead of fighting they got high the whole movie and sat around a pretentious club all night. I bet this is Moby's favorite album and, to quote Eminem, he can get stomped by Obie...nobody listens to techno. The Monkey King is in the movie Heat. The whole thing sounds like an demo tape for someone trying to score films. Another album where there is no telling when it ends even when a new album starts on Spotify.
What a horrible band name. Starting the first song is only distortion or static and some hospital equipment beeps which promises that this album is going to be a slog. This is not music, this is a collection of annoying sounds. The second song is better solely by the fact that someone is singing and there is definitely a bass being played. Then they play their big debut single at 16x speed or rewinding or whatever. More found sound, this time a foul mouthed conversation over some "musical-ish" sounds and rain. Two alternate conversations, if this was the sound of a restaurant I was in, I'd leave. Einstürzende Neubauten heard this album and thought, "Hey, we can do this in German." It's hard to decide who did it worse. Dead On Arrival has the most music and is still somehow worse than the songs made up of annoying noises. That this album exists is a testament to the condition of modern humanity that enough freedom and leisure time and income exists to make this possible. Now it's the idiotic babble of a child over weird space-age sounds. The kid does have a cute voice. And know it's scientists talking about e. coli. These "songs" are terrible. It's hard to know if the songs with terrible tape recorded talking are better or worse than the songs with no human voices at all. That was a truly terrible experience.
I did not expect to like this album as much as I did. I am not usually a fan of early rock and roll. However, not only were there a number of great songs (led by Tutti Frutti of course) but the album felt like a composed whole. Little Richard has always been one of those artists that I never understood why he was so popular or why so many musicians considered him so influential. I understand a little better now.
It's hard to rate an album like this simply because the three big songs, What's Going On, Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) and Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) are GREAT, truly classic songs. But the other six tracks feel like they would have been part of the extended singles of those hits or filler.
I like some Pink Floyd songs, but I don't like Pink Floyd. This album is the perfect encapsulation of why. One great song (Wish You Were Here) surrounded by psychedelic noise.
Another surprising album. ELO seems so corny but I liked this album. The hits are there (Turn to Stone, Mr. Blue Sky), all of the songs hang together and there's very little to actively dislike.
Earth, Wind and Fire are the quintessential pop-funk band and this album is a good example of that. The R&B-inspired songs, particularly That's the Way of the World, are the better part of the album but the jazz and world music inspired songs, while not as catchy are not a distraction.
Best Song: This Town Hits: Our Lips Are Sealed, We Got The Beat Worst Song: Skidmarks On My Heart I'm not sure if I like this album or any less than Belinda Carlisle's solo work. Her voice is annoying and while Our Lips Are Sealed and This Town are not terrible, we Got the Beat is the album's big hit and it is horrible. It's mind boggling that this made the list. It feels more like they had to find a way to put in an "all-girl" rock band than this being a deserving entry. I also realized while listening to it that I like New Wave less than Psychedelic rock. Every backing track of every New Wave song sounds like every song on this album.
This whole album is meh. I like Scar Tissue but everything else just doesn't even register including the other hits (Californication, Around the World and Otherside). It's like if AI wrote a Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Plus, it's a double album which is hard to pull off. You better have everything pulled together because that is a lot of songs to have to get right.
I started this album thinking it was going to be a 5 and nostalgia may be giving this album a star all by itself as the opening notes of Where the Streets Have No Name play. This album goes back-to-back-to-back with Where the Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and With or Without You....that's maybe the best three opening songs to an album ever. With or Without You is great, everything about it feels wistful, the bass line, the guitar, the lyrics. This album has a lot of good songs on it outside of the hits...it's sad to think what U2 has become now.
Maybe the surprise album that I've listened to so far. The hits (Smack My Bitch Up, Breathe and Firestarter) still rock but there were a number of songs on the album I liked that I'd never heard before, Climbatize was especially good as was Diesel Power. This is the music you put on to finish a run or workout. For the most part everything works and works together to make a good album.
This album is the worst I've listened to so far. This is like a glam rock cover band.
This is an amazing album. This is what alternative music should be. Every song is good and some are great. It's impossible to pick the best song so many of them are good, the singles are good (Planet Telex, High and Dry, Fake Plastic Trees) the album cuts are good (The Bends, Black Star, Street Spirit (Fade Out)). A great album by a legendary band.
Say what you will about the man himself, but Michael Jackson could write some songs! The album as whole doesn't really feel like a cohesive piece though, more like a collection of singles, even if they are awesome singles. Bad, Man in the Mirror and Smooth Criminal are amazing but there is too much filler and not really a theme or feeling like the songs weren't just put on an album in the order in which they were written.
Solid album, bookended with two big hits and some uneven material in between. The two big singles from this album, Young Americans and Fame, are also the best songs, but I have a soft spot for the cover of Across the Universe which is one of my favorite Beatles songs and Bowie's take is interesting, even if I like Fiona Apple's cover more.
Every song sounds exactly the same except for whether it's a man or woman singing. There's having a cohesive sound on an album and there's being repetitive. If you like once Arcade Fire song, you probably like them all.
It's weird writing this, but I like my folk a little harder than this. This is like poems with music behind it. I understand Suzanne and So Long, Marianne are the big songs from this album but those are two of my least favorite tracks.
One minute into Take It Easy and I'm wondering if this album qualifies as yacht rock. I'm trying not to let The Dude's opinion of the Eagles impact my evaluation, but all I can think is that I hate the fucking Eagles, man! This is like a weird middle ground between lite rock and pop-rock. I think you either love the Eagles or hate the Eagles...there doesn't seem like a lot of middle ground. I think of Don Henley's solo career being the definition of "adult rock" but his music isn't any different than this. Witchy Woman is like they listened to Santana's Black Magic Woman and he wouldn't let them cover it so they wrote their own terrible song. The Eagles begat Bon Jovi with their fake cowboy nonsense, Thin Lizzy are more realistic cowboys than these guys. Come on with the banjo! The sad thing is the faux-country songs are far better than the easy listening garbage that were the hits on this album (Take It Easy, Witchy Woman and Peaceful Easy Feeling). If the song Peaceful Easy Feeling does give you a peaceful easy feeling, you have bad taste in music. There is almost nothing redeeming about this album and it baffles me that with a debut like this they became one of the most successful bands ever.
Aretha's version of People Get Ready is my new favorite version. It's great as a Curtis Mayfield song, but she brings so much to it. I never realized how much I liked her ability to elevate everything she does. This album is funky, even something with corny lyrics like Niki Hoeky is funky as hell. This album is a great example of the Muscle Shoals sound. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman is the biggest hit off the album but it might be my least favorite song on it. Good to Me as I Am to You is a great song I'd never heard. I can't imagine anyone doing these songs better than her. Ain't No Way is the perfect song to end the album on.
Skydog and Slowhand sounds like an Old West pair of gunslingers. It's ridiculous to have that much talent on one album. Pattie Boyd must have been something else. I guess I get the complaints about Clapton's voice...but if that's the worst thing you can say about this album, it's pretty minor. Great version of Little Wing. Layla...Duane and Eric playing together and it's almost perfect.
This is what emo kids were listening to before emo and it is terrible. Go all the way and listen to The Smiths. This is not alternative, this is New Wave. I can't believe this dominated college radio in the 80s. I understand why a generation of kids turned to hip hop from rock n' roll.
This is a weird album. It's interesting weird though. LCD Soundsystem is the spiritual descendant of Talking Heads. I'm not sure I can pinpoint why I like this but I do. If someone told me Talking Heads were a novelty band or at least this was a novelty album, I'd believe it. I guess the difference between a novelty and an experiment is a thin line sometimes. This is a kind of uneven. Life During Wartime is amazing but then two songs later I'm actively disliking Air. There are some clunkers in the second half.
The album cover is a red flag that this is not good. Half a song in and that snap judgement is proving absolutely spot on. New Wave or ska or whatever this is, it is awful. The early 80s were truly the nadir of modern popular music. This is like if the Clash were the worst band ever or like a cross between early Beatles and UB40. These guys make the Mighty Mighty Bosstones sound like Megadeth. Come on with the horns. This album is an early contender for the worst album in this project. Every song is like a new exercise in how annoying a throwback sound can be, in Mr. Speaker (Gets the Word)'s case, it's the barroom piano. This is the first album that's been so bad I'm questioning whether or not I'll be able to finish it. Our House...I didn't know they did this song and I'm sure it's their biggest hit, New Wave Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. It gets worse (Are You Coming (With Me) is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Thank God it's over.
Love the bassline for Back In the Saddle. This is a completely unmemorable album. Every song sounds like the 70s. I didn't really think of Aerosmith as Zeppelin rip offs but this album definitely has that vibe. Like more generic Greta Van Fleet...and I just read an article where the GVF guys said they were influenced by Aerosmith not Zeppelin. Some of this sounds like Van Halen, some sounds like ZZ Top. Lick and A Promise showcases how bad Steven Tyler can sound sometimes. His voice is grating. One song at a time is fine, song after song is not good. Joe Perry plays "GENERIC ROCK GUITAR", he sounds like he did the playing for Bill and Ted when they play air guitar.
If you told me this was a Kinks album I would believe you. Pop/R&B Who is not as good as Rock Who. I thought I liked the Who more than this but this is middling. This feels like the album someone told The Who they had to make and once it was a success they were able to explore their own sound.
Starts a little slow with Too High (I get it you're hallucinating) but gets better fast with Visions, Living for the City, Golden Lady and Higher Ground. I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers version of Higher Ground but Stevie Wonder kills it. I'm not loving the back half of the album, the big hits from this album are awesome but the rest is mostly average. It all kind of plays like a softer What's Going On, speaking of which, I like the hits less generally speaking, but the rest of the songs on the album are much, much better. In a Verzuz, I think What's Going On wins based on the hits, but I'd be much more likely to put Innervisions on to listen through. No joke as soon as the album finished, what song came on Spotify? What's Going On.
Psychedelic rock is not my thing, I think not understanding the words might be helping though. This is like a cross between psychedelic rock and pop...this is like something that would be on at a hipster taqueria where the bartender has a unique and well maintained mustache. I could do without the "found sound" in every song. It must have been tiresome for these bands to try and outweird each other for a decade. The slide whistle across these songs feels like they had to find an instrument for one of the singers to play so they were involved in all the songs. The switching between genres in the same song is unpleasant. All the distortion is too much. This is like a collection of sounds being played over Brazilian covers of '60s American pop. This music is exhausting to listen to. Hail Ghengis Khan is the final song....I get this probably has something to do with the social criticism of the Brazilian government at the time but what a stupid title. Astrud Gilberto + The Mamas and the Papas + Dick Dale + Random Sounds + Jefferson Airplane = Os Mutantes...what a terrible mish mash of noise.
This album feels both like a throwback to a hip hop era before Staight Outta Compton and a look forward to groups like Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. Guru is an amazing lyricist. They invented Jazz Rap, whatever that genre means now. All due respect to A Tribe Called Quest, this might be the genre at it's peak. DJ Premier has worked with a lot of rappers but the partnership between him and Guru is a perfect match of a DJ and an MC. Different sounds but Gang Starr is the spiritual descendant of Eric B. & Rakim. A Tribe Called Quest's success is even more amazing considering that after this album it feels like everything was gangsta rap all of the sudden. Very jazzy. Guru sounds hard without telling stories about killing people and dealing drugs. Great album.
No way. Less than 2 minutes in to the first song and I know this is not one of the 1,001 albums you need to hear before you die. Unless this is like punishment for those who have lived a wicked life, no one should ever have to hear this "music" again. Found sound albums are definitely something music critics like more than real people. I thought modern art music was supposed to be excluded but this seems to be treading a fine line. It's hard to know when one crappy "song" ends and the next crappy "song" begins. The only thing that could prevent this album from being a 1 star would be if it was one track long. Every song is worse than the last. Some of the songs at the end of the album are at least short and contain long sections of silence which is an improvement over the random assortment of noises that make up the rest of the album. This album is the Jackson Pollack painting in regards to people claiming that any idiot could do this. That is one of the worst things I've ever subjected myself to.
I forgot to take notes on this album while I was listening but other than David Bowie, T. Rex is my favorite glam rock act. Cosmic Dancer and Get It On are great and everything else fits the album sound.
Graceland is such a great story. It's fun and charming and wistful at the same time. This is accessible world music which sounds terrible but I wonder if some of the issues in South Africa or the quality of some of its musicians wouldn't have gotten as much attention without it. A lot of great stories in these songs and just a hopeful feeling throughout. This album has a distinctive sound, even if I didn't know if a specific song was from this album it feels like it would be pretty evident. Ladysmith Black Mombazo have beautiful voices. This is such a departure from Simon and Garfunkel. Zydeco is a universally bad genre and Paul Simon's voice (accent and tone) does not pair well with it. The back half of the album is a significant disappointment after the first half.
This is like the band Wes Anderson would create if he was a musician. Both of the opening songs could be the music playing during the opening scene of any of his movies. And the album cover could easily be something that Bill Murray and Owen Wilson are talking to each other about Renaissance painting. I like them less than The Head and The Heart who they remind me of. There is definitely a Beach Boys feeling to this album. The vocals on these songs sound almost identical. Listening to one song from this album, ok. Listening to an entire album, too much. I don't hate the sound, it's just too much the same.
I'm having a hard time putting into words my reaction to this album. It feels very much of its time. Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, m.A.A.d City came out the year before and you can hear the impact it had. This is a super horny album. This is the first album after he started dating Kim Kardashian. I don't know if there's a connection but he can't stop talking about or making sex references. A lot of "noise music" on this album...not appealing. I like his earlier work much better. Kanye has gotten really weird.
This is good. Has like a Thievery Corporation or Massive Attack kind of feel. I like the co-lead singer approach. Very chill sound. Their general sound is kind of moody so when they so a more upbeat song it has a strange effect. This is the first band that has been a revelation to me in a positive way. I would listen to another album.
This is not starting off well. I'm beginning to think that either the critics who chose these albums were trying to show how cool and smart they are or I have bad taste. If this album was less interested in sounding weird and being "genre-bending" there's some parts I like. Her voice is lovely. It's getting better. She's like an R&B Annie Lennox with Kanye producing. Two Weeks is good, maybe I was rushing to judgment after one song and after being exposed to some truly terrible albums in this project. Her singing is amazing but the music is distracting sometimes. The songs almost barely hang together at some points. As soon as I think I'm starting to get it, the next song just feels off. Video Girl is sexy as hell though. Every song has something to like, but almost none of them are good through their whole length. I guess I like this. If I listen to it again, I feel like I might not. This is a confusing album.
Willie Nelson is such a great songwriter that I forgot what an original interpreter of songs he is. That he has an affinity for these songs is clear, they way he sings them it feels like he's sung them without anyone recording a million times. Some of these songs I'm unfamiliar with and I only know they are covers because it's a cover album. Georgia on My Mind, Willie vs. Ray...like Ted Lasso's arm wrestling match up. Just an old sweet song....that's as good a theme for this album as there can be. Blue Skies by Willie is the definition of wistful. There's like a country-jazz-blues thing that he just nails with this album. That's the best Moonlight in Vermont ever. This album feels like a Willie Nelson album, that's hard to do when it's all someone else's material. This is a masterpiece of performance, an all-time great singing some all-time greats.
I remember them getting super popular in the early 2000s but never really listened to them. It's almost like the rock version of reggaeton? Or is it Latin rap rock? This feels a lot like Santana's pop albums only without the famous featured artists. I don't remember exactly what their first album sounded like but this feels very heavily influenced by those Santana albums. I like Charli 2na, but I'm not loving this appearance. The more traditionally "Latin" songs are worse than the more rock/rap ones. The back half of this album sounds like a Richard Rodriguez bar band.
With a title like this, the album better deliver. This is a very jazzy Ray Charles. I do like jazz standards, but I don't like this as much as Country and Western Ray Charles. The horns are very prominent for an album by a piano player. Violins>Horns on this album, perfect example: Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'. I like the sad songs the best.
There's an REM sound from the late 80's/early 90's that is unmistakable. It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) is the best REM song. Upbeat with an edge, with only the slightest hint of whining. It's a very "teenager-y" song. Followed by The One I Love which is one of my least favorite REM songs or at least their popular songs. This is better than Murmur, more rock, less new wave. I can understand why this album was popular, situated in time amidst hair bands and prior to grunge. Lightnin' Hopkins has a great bassline.
I hear the punk influence, this is a "post-punk" band, you can hear the punk influence in the guitars and bass parts. This has a very Pretenders feel to it, same time period...rock just before New Wave. Listening to all of this music for this project makes me realize that everything is just a mash up of everything else because there's a Pink Floyd/Piper at the Gates of Dawn vibe as well. You can definitely hear the influence on later bands, I'm thinking in particular English Beat. Some of this album seems weirdly out of place, like it's 10 to 15 years after its time. I read REM loved this band and I can hear it on some songs. The opening and final/title track are the weakest on the album, most of everything between is better.
I have to quit reading the Spotify profiles and Wikipedia entries for these albums before I've listened all the way through because I am not able to separate my evaluations from what is written. The lyrics are literally nonsense words. This album apparently influenced later "shoegaze" music which is a genre I just now learned existed and am also pretty sure I will not be a fan of. A girl making up silly wordless songs over "dreampop" (another genre I just learned about) is not an alum you need to listen to before you die. I just put the shoegaze genre and the title of the Alabama Shakes song together. This is worse that ambient noise music because this woman "wrote" these lyrics knowing they are just sounds. She should have just gone to Japan and read off the strange English you find on some t-shirts there. The lyrics are dumb, the music is terrible, there is nothing redeeming about this album. This could be the music from a Final Fantasy game and I wouldn't know the difference.
5 stars. I love this album. I've always loved this album. I will always love this album. Agree or disagree with their politics, there's no debate that this album is an amazing debut. Bombtrack in the running for best opening track off a debut album. Settle for Nothing is the one weak link on the album...lyrically and musically it's the one song that just doesn't resonate with me. This is the sound of righteous anger. No one talks about Rage Against the Machine being the successors to LA Hard Core punk but you can hear it on some songs. Morello is underrated as a guitarist, you hear a song he plays on and you know it's him, there aren't many guitarists whose signature sound is so recognizable. This is the sound the Beastie Boys would have had if they'd been given a record deal by a punk label instead of a hip hop label. This was a band of and for me at the right time, they brought something familiar, something new, something interesting, something angry right when all of that was the thing I wanted to hear. Hard to separate the quality of the album from how I felt when I first heard it. Freeeeeedom! William Wallace would be proud. Your anger is a gift...it was on my t-shirt and in my mind. Great debut album, one of the best ever.
First things first, hilarious album cover. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough is an underrated Michael Jackson song. If Marvin Gaye's heirs got money from Pharrell and Robin Thicke for Blurred Lines being stylistically close to Got To Give It Up, Marvin Gaye could have all the money for this song. Rock With You, another great song. Workin' Day and Night sounds like it should be from a soundtrack for a Richard Pryor movie, could totally have been the song for the opening credits of The Toy. I Can't Help It sounds like something I can't place but I like it. Michael Jackson could have done straight R&B rather that pop and been great. Mac Ayres is what I Can't Help It reminds me of and I love his music.
Def Leppard is mid. They are to 80s rock what Cheap Trick was to 70s rock. Cheap Trick might be generous...Journey might be better than this. There are a lot of hits on this album, Photograph, Foolin', Rock of Ages. I have always hated the German at the beginning of Rock of Ages. Actually, I hate Rock of Ages.
Halfway through the first song and I'm already exhausted by the pretentiousness of this album. The organ is grating on the ear. This is like a novelty album. And to finish off, the ELP version of the Nutcracker Suite.
Why do all of these albums have to have these found sound intros? I love The Velvet Underground, I'm not loving this as much. This could be a Tom Waits album. Stephanie Says by the Velvet Underground > Caroline Says by Lou Reed. His delivery has a William Shatner quality to it. It should be noted that Lou Reed basically repurposed Stephanie Says for Caroline Says Part II...don't like it. There's something about this album I like despite itself. Sad Song is the perfect culmination of this album.
The lead singer's voice is annoying to the point of distraction. It's like a joke I'm not in on. He sounds like Daniel Johnston or the lead singer of Dr. Dog. One he was probably influenced by the other he probably influenced. I want to write this off but there's a whimsical quality to it that is kind of endearing. It's growing on me, there's a sadness behind the happy vibe that is appealing. There's a similarity to The Shins. I listened to it 30 minutes ago and I cannot tell the difference between Race for the Prize and Race for the Prize (Remix).
These ladies sound great. These women could have done the witches scene from O, Brother Where Art Thou. Hells Bells, Mr. Lund! They recorded this while Linda Ronstadt was engaged to George Lucas. Why is there so much Americana music focused on hobos? World class harmonizing. Those Memories of You is definitely an inspiration for Man of Constant Sorrow. Dolly is a natural show woman and comes across as the "leader" for most of the songs.
Elliott Smith, made famous by the reference to the sadness of his music in Lego Movie 2, with a relatively more upbeat song, named after a serial killer, opening this album. He was the indie rock darling and you can hear both why some loved him and others found him insufferable. The influence on his peers and successors is obvious, he's like a stripped down version of all the alternative indie rock that came out in the late 90s and 2000s. The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Regina Spektor...a million others, you can hear echoes of this. In 2000, he must have been on top of the world and this album is pretty upbeat which would track. Bye is a nice instrumental to end the album but while everything else on the album has that Elliott Smith sound, it does not.
My friend who turned me on to this project calls the death metal voice "Cookie Monster Voice". It's on full display here. I'm not a metal fan, especially all the horror and death references but if you could take the unintelligible lyrics out of this, the music is pretty cool. Punk + Cookie Monster + Death = This. Really short songs make any album easier to listen to, even if it is twice as many songs. Having some trouble discerning one song from the next though. I cannot understand a single word of these lyrics. Some of these "songs" are just noise. The longer this album goes, the less I like it...not because the songs are worse, but because they are all undistinguishable from one another. I'm only guessing that the lyrics are supposed to be more coherent than The Cocteau Twins but they are equally unintelligible. This is broken up into 28 songs but could just as easily be one 33 minute song if they skipped the breaks between tracks. "Microsongs" are stupid, the song "You Suffer" is less than 2 seconds long, it's like one note and one word.
I think I like The Cure but I am only familiar with the hits and not familiar with their early work at all. This might be the one New Wave band I like. This is like a less intense version of The Cure I'm familiar with. Robert Smith is going to Robert Smith though. This is not the kind of music I expected or am used to from The Cure. They definitely took a hard turn towards the mainstream later or at least put their more crowd friendly songs out as singles. A forest could have been repurposed as a James Bond song, work in the fanfare somewhere and you can replace one of those Timothy Dalton Bond songs, no one would miss A-ha or Gladys Knight. The band that spawned 1,000 goth looks. I bet the Venn diagram of people who own The Cure t-shirts perfectly overlaps with people who own Morrissey t-shirts.
In the last four albums I've gotten two Elliott Smith albums and a Cure album...I think this website is trying to get me to kill myself. This album is more like what I think of when I think of Elliott Smith, much more melancholy sound. Some of his song's have a throwback sound, like a 60s pop thing. This is like better REM. 2:45 a.m. is great, I've never heard it before. Then Say Yes, the album gets better as it goes on and closes really strong, maybe more pop as it went on?
I went into this with the wrong mindset, this first track is great. This is great funk music. This is how world music should sound. Other than the lyrics not being in English as an impediment, this should be way more well known to funk fans. I love the organ, the drums. Jazz albums are hit or miss for me and this one is a hit.
Another heavy metal band, another "Cookie Monster Voice" lead singer. Credit where credit is due, I can at least understand most of the words. I don't know why but the murder/slasher/horror lyrics come off as needless in death metal whereas they seem almost essential in gangsta rap. I don't like horror movies so maybe that's part of the lack of appeal. If the references were pertinent to me, maybe I'd like it more? I know a lot of metal lyrics are very political but it's hard to take that seriously when I can't understand so many of the lyrics and it's some guy screaming it in a put on cartoon voice. The Portuguese lyrics in some of the songs aren't even a problem since most metal in English has lyrics I can't understand. Either the lead singer or someone else in the band has a "Gremlin Voice" to go along with the standard growl, equally annoying though. I'm not familiar with metal to understand the nuances between each song....after a while they all sound exactly the same. The songs inspired by the traditional music of Brazil are a radical departure from the rest of the album...it's a nice break from the heavy guitars and yelling. More found sound, this time gun shots. 13 minutes of gun shots over background music? I'm sure this "means" something. Canyon Jam is like listening to the audio of a Predator movie, some music behind the alien walking through the jungle and shooting.
Pharrell Williams' voice is all over the intro to the first track, but even if it wasn't, you'd be able to tell he produced this in the early 2000s after a few bars. It's got that Neptunes sound. This is 1000x better than N'Sync. This feels like the evolution of New Jack Swing. This music is a hollow imitation of a real artist. Timberlake is a performer and this feels very much like a performance for an audience without any real soul in either the lyrics or music. The Neptunes and Timbaland producing on one album makes this the most 2000s album of all time. Take it from here reminds me of something and I can't place it. I do tend to love white people signing R&B and Soul music. Cry Me a River is a jam and is maybe the pinnacle of Timbalake's style. Rock Your Body is another banger. I give more credit to the producers being at the top of their games though. Timberlake still feels like a product. "Gonna have you nekkid by the end of this song" is delivered like an entitled rich guy knowing that a bunch of gold diggers and fame whores will drop their panties at his command rather than him sounding like the one in charge. Nothin' Else is a little too Michael Jackson...if someone said it was a cover, I'd believe it. This is a Michael Jackson album. Could do without the overly sentimental Never Again to close the album out, it's not a great fit for the rest of the album and it's feeling.
Tuesday's Gone...underrated song, it's totally overshadowed by Free Bird. From the wistful melancholy of Tuesday's Gone to the goofy fun of Gimme Three Steps. Legendary Busch theme song, Simple Man. Gimme Three Steps feels really out of place. I'm wondering if they just reprinted this album with a different cover and called it their greatest hits. 4 of their biggest songs on their debut? That's a solid first album. Other than Sweet Home Alabama, I'd say the four songs on this album are pretty much everything you absolutely need to know about Lynyrd Skynyrd. Things Goin' On continues the kind of happy-sad back and forth between songs. This album feels like a collection of singles, it's not super coherent. And now, Free Bird...great song but it really sucks the air out of the second half of the album. I am shocked that Simple Man is the second most listened to track on the album by a mile and that Tuesday's Gone is fourth. The instrumental at the end of Free Bird vs. the instrumental at the end of Layla, tough choice.
Smooth Operator is another strong contender for best opening track off a debut album. She has a great voice, maybe the sexiest voice ever. Jazz, funk, R&B, this is a fusion of them all. She has one of those old school sultry voices, I’d listen to her order a sandwich. This has a very 80s sound…there’s a little bit of a porno music vibe to this, particularly all the saxophone. Early 80s Michael Jackson, Liberian Girl Michael Jackson shares a sound with this album. The 80s were truly a dark time for R&B. Giving this a more thorough listen at my desk, Hang On to Your Love is great and it blended in when I wasn't devoting my full attention to the album. When Am I Going to Make a Living, another one I missed when I wasn't paying attention.
I love this album. It's sad what U2 has become at this point. One is a great song, absolutely beautiful. So Cruel wasn't a single, but it's a great song as well. Mysterious Way is another great U2 song. I think this is an undoubtedly better album than The Joshua Tree. Better hits (One beat With or Without You for greatest U2 song) and much better album cuts. Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World is another great album cut. I like relationship U2 better than political U2.
Rhymin & Stealin, another legendary opening track from a debut. This is a very Def Jam recording. You can picture LL Cool J rapping over these beats. They were the clown princes of rap at this point, they leaned into it and it worked in the time before gangsta rap. She's Crafty really leans into the humor. Girls is goofy as hell, but I love it. Fight For Your Right is amazing, rap-rock at it's finest and way before it's heyday. Girls, Fight For Your Right, No Sleep Till Brooklyn and Paul Revere is one of the best four song streaks on any album ever. Hold It Now, Hit It is a miss for me and I don't love Brass Monkey but if those are the worst songs on an album that's pretty impressive.
7 songs, 73 minutes. 6 and 72 if you don't count the last 37 second song...one 12 minutes song on an album is hard to pull off, a whole album averaging that is crazy. This feels like hippie elevator music. Another dreaded double album. The Allman Brothers mastered the jam when they put Mountain Jam on Eat a Peach, St. Stephen feels very similar. The band that spawned Phish, String Cheese Incident and Widespread Panic. Everything feels like an accident so that when there are parts that I like it never lasts and intensifies my dislike for the other parts. Where does one song end and another begin? Only The Dead know. The fake blues man/Jim Morrison vocals are ridiculous coming from a white hippie. It hard to know if it was The Dead influenced by everyone else or if they were doing the influencing but you can hear Big Brother and the Holding Company and later Janis Joplin and The Doors in this. Come on with the song made up of feedback. At least it's appropriately titled "Feedback". Drugged out weirdos going to drugged out weirdo. People sat and listened to this and swore that they loved it, I think they mainly loved drugs. Seven and a half minutes of this is ridiculous. This is one of those instances where a parent says their kid could create Jackson Pollack's work. My kids could make these noises with their karaoke machine, no one is lining up to drop acid and listen to it though. And the one thing resembling a normal song is less than a minute long to close the album out.
It's jazz. I generally like the sound of Jazz trios/quartets. However, this sounds a great deal like ever other combo I've ever heard and every song is almost undistinguishable to my ear. Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are sounds like the music from Cruella DeVil. This could be on in the background and it wouldn't bother me, but I couldn't see putting it on just to listen to it.
Black Sabbath always seemed like one of those bands that was overrated. Three songs in, I'm starting to get it. Changes is a great song, love this version, love the Charles Bradley version, just a great song. You can hear the similarities between Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin...two sides of the same 70s coin, one more blues rock, one more heavy metal. This album is great, Ozzy Osborne is a more intelligible singer than he is a speaker. Maybe Black Sabbath is underrated? I haven't been familiar with a single song yet but this rocks. Maybe it's just their hits I don't love. There are a lot of metal bands that owe a huge debt of gratitude to Black Sabbath. Another plus, varying song lengths, but an average of about four and a half minutes. 10 songs, 42 minutes, that's right in the zone in terms of number of songs and average song length. There are a couple of songs that I'm not sure how they fit in, good songs, but just seem a little out of place on this album.
The style of jazz is great, but this is background music or the music a late night band plays or part of the score to a Blues Brothers movie. I love organ jazz though, I wonder if Booker T. and the MGs have any albums on the list because this is very similar. This is good music to work to, very productive morning, but super nondescript, mind elsewhere music.
This is hipster Muzak. It has now changed to a video game score. It's interesting to think that this album was potentially influenced by earlier video game scores and in turn has influenced later video game scores. EDM is another one of those genres that I think I just don't get. Guilty of Love could be music from the game soundtrack from Sugar Rush from Wreck-It Ralph. It sounds like he sampled MarioKart and put some base and Prince grunts from Kiss in the background. The title track is terrible, a list of bands from an old news clip over dance beats. This is like if LCD Soundsystem didn't make songs, just beats. All of the skipping on the tracks keeps making me think there's something wrong with Spotify. This is like crappy RJD2. Need You Tonite is by far the best song on the album. Emotion 98.6 sounds like the backing track for David Gray's Babylon remixed, still better than comedy cartoon video game music.
I would have said the Pixies were a 90s band but today I learned they are an 80s band. They seem like the transition from 80s music to 90s music which is exactly the timeline. I cannot understand a word of Rock Music through the screaming. The Pixies should have been bigger than Nirvana. They are like pre-Grunge and Nirvana in particular has borrowed from their sound. First half of the album was better than the second.
Help Me is the big song from the album, meh. This sounds like an album of Sesame Street Songs with grown up lyrics. I think folk music is not for me, Bob Dylan and folk rock maybe. This is mildly annoying. Her voice has a Carly Simonesque quality. Or maybe Carly Simon's voice sounds like Joni Mitchell. Every time the album seems to be improving, the next song makes me reconsider. Raised On Robbery has a different sound and is the best track on the album. The addition of Cheech and Chong to the last song is just the cherry on top of this terrible album.
The Allman Brothers' big break. This is a bluesy album...Statesboro Blues and Done Somebody Wrong really drive it home. Gregg Allman doesn't get enough credit, love his organ playing. Two guitarists (one on the Mt. Rushmore of guitarists) and two drummers, how did this work so well? Maybe I like jam bands more than I thought or maybe the Allmans are the only ones to get it right. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed is the most "jam band" song on the album, not loving it. If my dad could go back and see one concert in all of human history, I'm guessing this is the one he'd pick. Even Allman Brothers' jams are not my cup of tea. And they have a lot of guys who need to have solos. I will state, without hesitation, that this is the best jam band album of all time. They launch into the start of Mountain Jam right at the end of Whipping Post (which is definitely the greatest jam song of all time) and wish they had included it on the album.
Post New Wave The Cure? This is like if The Cure and The Velvet Underground/Lou Reed had a baby. Every song reminds me of some other band, Urge Overkill is coming to mind. Nine Inch Nails Light? Bowie, U2, maybe I'm not listening closely enough. It's not super compelling but it is also listenable. Ten minutes of fade noise with Jarvis Cocker saying "bye-bye" in the middle on the last song is inexcusable artiness with no real payoff.
Heaps of Sheep has a kind of U2 Pop (underrated U2 album) feel to the music. His voice has a Saturday morning cartoons feel to it. I won't say that I loved the first song, but The Duchess is horrible, it's like a children's song about his terrible, whorish wife. I bet Daniel Johnston loved this album. This is not the best representation of anything. This is only being saved from the very worst albums by some truly inspired garbage that was included in this list. I am losing respect for music critics the further I get into the list. Add prog rock to the list of genres I don't like. My god this is terrible. The Flaming Lips' lead singer must have taken notes on singing with a silly voice. This is like adding jazz to psychedelic rock...and it is magically way less than the sum of its parts. Blues in Bob Minor is Robert Wyatt's Subterranean Homesick Blues, and it is one of the better tracks on the album and is still a terrible homage to the original. That is a song format that is oft repeated and this was one of the worst I've heard.
The Smiths (and Morrissey) remind me of high school girls. It was the first time I saw band t-shirts of bands that I was unaware of and had disbanded prior to the people who wore them were old enough to buy a band t-shirt. So far so good. Clearly these guys are Beatles fans. It feels like The Smiths and The Cure either would have loved each other or hated each other. After listening to Nowhere Fast, I get why the Morrissey shirt wearers also seemed to always like rockabilly. Barbarism Begins at Home is the first song that I get being called post punk. Maybe this list is helping me understand pop music better. There's a The Clash vibe about it. If The Clash covered this it wouldn't be out of place on one of their albums. I now have one clue as to why vegetarianism was popular with women of a certain age at a certain period. Man, this guy "FEELS" things. I like the bluntness of the lyrics from the title track, no symbolism, just violent imagery and animal sounds.
If Jim Morrison had lived, The Doors could have been this band. The lead singer sounds like the guy from the New Zealand band OMC that did How Bizarre. The saxophone is weirdly overrepresented in so many of these experimental bands songs. It's like they all went to a conference and decided to add jazz sax to everything. Talking Heads does this kind of music much better. Why do all these "experimental" bands insist on using strange singing voices? More found sound! I just found Black Francis' favorite band, validated by the fact that apparently The Pixies and Pere Ubu went on tour together. Again, post punk can mean a lot of things because the music has similarities to the Pretenders even if it's light years away from them stylistically, both post punk bands though. The talking through the background on so many albums is distracting.
Fred Durst has the worst voice. Every Limp Bizkit song sounds like 1998. Hot Dog is an excuse to say fuck over and over again. To save time they should have just replaced all the lyrics of one of their old songs with the word fuck. Ice Cube and DAS EFX should have sued over him even saying the words "check yourself before you wreck yourself". The music sucks, the lyrics suck, by 2000 this would have sounded dated. They are like a joke band. Fred Durst saying he'd knock someone out is hilarious. They're like an ICP that takes themselves seriously. That's it, he mentions Fight Club...this went from bad to insulting. Xzibit sullied his good name doing this and he is definitely the highlight so far. Mission: Impossible too. It's hard to listen to this. People actually like Limp Bizkit, this is a band that sold millions of albums. I have to buy this book and read the batshit crazy justification of whatever critic picked this. Redman, Method Man and DMX...why? I guess people will do a lot of things for money. Having guest artists that are legitimate really showcases how awful Fred Durst is. The robot voice is stupid but is an improvement over Fred Durst. He is the fakest hard ass ever. He make Steve Seagal look like Bruce Lee. This outro skit is just the perfect ending to a truly terrible ending. Come on Ben Stiller, you too? This is awful, Ben Stiller has a truly annoying laugh and he is chuckling like a moron for almost ten minutes. This is a loop, he's not laughing like this at his own dumb Limp Bizkit burns for five minutes. I respect everyone associated with this album less now. I am literally revisiting in my mind how funny I find Ben Stiller's movies listening to this. This is such a stupid ending to a remarkably terrible album. Thank god they recorded their stupid phone calls to put at the end of the album.
Two Pulp albums out of 1,001 and I get them both within six albums of each other. They call Pulp glam rock, which I did not understand when reviewing This is Hardcore but I get now. Disco 2000 is a great song. This album has a much more upbeat feeling than This is Hardcore. I know they were super popular but I don't remember it at all. This is like pop Nine Inch Nails. Much better than expected, I was pleasantly urprised by this album.
THIS is the Leonard Cohen I was looking for. Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits are playing to identical audiences, I would not be able to tell the difference between this album and some Tom Waits. Leonard Cohen could have been less goofy Randy Newman for Pixar. You can hear his sound coming through, it's like late Dylan where it's different but you can still hear his sound.
Dr. Dre back from the dead after NWA broke up and the introduction of Snoop Doggy Dogg. This album is basically one extended diss track for Eazy-E. This was definitely the era of the Parliament and Funkadelic sample in hip hop, truly the G-Funk era. Nuthin' But A "G" Thang was the first single and is absolutely amazing. The skits and intros/outros are needless filler. Snoop was a revelation on this album, the rest of the guest rappers not so much. My memory had this higher, still good though. Maybe I'll have to do this project again in 20 years and see if it changes again.
Album covers can tell you a lot about what you're getting into and this one is correlating pretty well. This is the band that launched Nick Cave...it always surprises me how fame works. Every time I think I've just had bad luck in the albums I've gotten so far, I get hit with something like this again. This is like Rockabilly/Metal/Punk. It's like Elvis and The Ramones and Sepultura made an album. The screeching guitars are hard to listen to. Distorted guitars, distorted vocals, is this the original garage band? This is the music and album cover that inspired Mad Max: Fury Road, especially Dead Joe (2nd Version). The album switched to Sonic Youth and I barely noticed.
Late Madonna...Dance Party Madonna. This sounds like a Sneaker Pimps album, like this should be playing over the credits of a Johnny Lee Miller movie. Ray of Light is the single. Maybe it was music that changed, not Madonna. She always just rode the pop/dance trends and it didn't matter what the sound was, she was just always club music. Nothing Really Matters is the best track so far. Shanti/Ashtangi would never happen today due to the fear of being accused of cultural appropriation. Although, maybe Madonna was big enough to transcend that at some point. I vaguely remember Frozen on the radio. There's a world music thread running through this album too. I wonder if this is when she made the move to the UK. There's a vulnerability about Madonna's voice on some songs that resonates (Mer Girl on this album). She's varied between sex kitten party girl and vulnerable lover throughout her career.
If you are going to do "industrial" music, this is the way to do it. I bet Trent Reznor loves Einsturzende Neubauten. What is the fascination with pigs on this album? This album could have been the soundtrack for the movie Seven rather than just Closer over the opening credits. Closer is the biggest hit from Nine Inch Nails' career and for good reason, great song. The screeching saw on metal sounds are distracting from what is a pretty good album otherwise. There aren't too many songs that benefit from terrified screaming on a loop in the background. I love the piano on the album, it works great in creating the feeling of the album. It's hard to tell if Trent is mad at himself or someone else in these songs, very teenage angsty. You can feel the angry young male energy pouring out of each song. From Closer on it gets better. The industrial noise component of the album is tiresome. The Downward Spiral ties together the musical themes from Closer and Hurt, the two big singles off the album, it's interesting. Hurt is a great song, I think I like it better than Closer. Johnny Cash's cover is great too.
A rights dispute means this isn't available on Spotify which is a shame. One Nation Under a Groove is a great song, maybe the quintessential funk song. This is the album that spawned 1,001 samples. Typical George Clinton ridiculous lyrics. Groovallegiance has a definite reggae influence. The lyrics continue to be a distraction to the music. Each song has gotten progressively worse. Prince was definitely influenced by Funkadelic and added real lyrics, that's why he's one of the greats. My kids come up with better lyrics about poop than Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers) has. The call and response of poop lyrics is so awful. One great song to kick off the album. Honestly this album would be better if it was all instrumentals after One Nation Under a Groove. The groove from Mac Ayres' Soon owes a lot to the instrumental PE Squad/Doo Doo Squad to end the bonus EP.
Starting off good…but definitely of its era. Early 90s alternative, like a more commercial Sonic Youth, or a more punk Pixies. Definitely some Tori Amos style vocals on some of these songs, very much of its time. There are long lead ups to the lyrics in several of these songs. There’s a rawness to the music and the singing that gives the album soul. Her voice is perfect for this album. Man-Size Sextet would be perfect for a feminist horror movie. Bold choice to cover Bob Dylan and I don’t love it. 50ft Queenie rocks. Me-Jane is good too. Her voice is definitely accompanying the music, the music drowns her out sometimes. Snake is the most punk song on the album. Steve Albini produced this, Surfer Rosa and In Utero…like I said, of a very specific time. Ecstasy has a blues throwback feel, you can hear echoes of Nirvana, and it is the best song on the album.
Psychedelic B-team artist whose most famous song isn't even on this album. They sound like a Doors cover band, apparently if you were a band in San Francisco in the late 60s and sounded a certain way they let you have an album and eventually critics found it "important". Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and The Grateful Dead are all on this list...there's no reason to have this album on the list other than some critic showing off how much he knows about psychedelic rock. This album is one more reason to hate San Francisco. Some comical political lyrics, this is the Country Joe and the Fish I was expecting, more comic book references than I would have expected though. Understood, you love doing drugs. This album is going downhill fast, The Masked Marauder is particularly awful. Psychedelic Simon and Garfunkel.
Subterranean Homesick Blues, often imitated, never duplicated. The Velvet Underground definitely were influenced by Dylan. Maggie's Farm, the song with 1,000 meanings. It always resonates as an anarchist anthem to me: anti-education, anti-business, anti-military, anti-government. A great song that spawned a great Rage Against the Machine cover. He's the best lyricist in popular music history, he can do it all, from allegorical and symbolic to literal storytelling. This is a bluesy album, Dylan is such a chameleon musically. The music from Bob Dylan's 115th Dream sounds like Lay Down Sally by Eric Clapton. Mr. Tambourine Man is the most popular song from the album and probably the worst one as well. Billy Joel's Piano Man borrows something from this even if it is played straight rather than as a metaphor. I like the electric half of the album better than the acoustic but his lyrics are just absolutely amazing. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue is great. Great album, underrated Dylan album.
Algerian folk music (rai) over a hip hop/dance beat. Honestly, this could be worse. And now it is. El Harba Wine's background music is from a cheesy 80s music, and not a good one. This is like what you'd expect to play over the Algerian dub of Teen Titans Go! in place of The Night Begins to Shine. I guess some of this is in French. The musical styles of the first three songs are all wildly different, this feels more like a greatest hits album as there's very little cohesion between the songs musically. Cover of John Lennon's Imagine is recognizable and awful. Much like modern Western music has been greatly influenced by the history of sacred music, a lot of this sounds like calls to prayer. English lyrics! The guest singer, Noa, does not have a strong voice. It's not helping that this is unavailable through Spotify. You can't even find E'dir E'sseba anywhere to listen to. The music from this is all over the place, pick a style and stick with it. This should only be on a list of 1,001 albums if they are albums from Algeria specifically. Ok, El Bab has something going on, massive improvement but again, no connection to the rest of the album. It feels like every musical style included in this album, and there are MANY, is from the 80s...maybe Algerian music is 25 years behind America.....so maybe the great Algerian Britney/Christina debate is happening right now. I'm counting the minutes until this is over. Mele H'bibti could be the music from a terrorism action movie sequence, Algeria or Paris based....Jason Bourne driving a car through the streets of Casablanca. It must be exhausting having to be this pretentious all the time for music critics. No one should need to feel like they need to impress people they will never meet this much.
Another album that's not available on Spotify...I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if it's this difficult for a person to listen to an album, it is not so essential that it belongs on this list. This is already the best of the albums I couldn't listen to on Spotify. I bet the Avett Brothers love this guy. Man, this is depressing. His voice reminds me of Damien Rice. O definitely feels like it was written after listening to this. The music is good, I'm going to have to give this a second listen to really get into the lyrics. The drums in Madeline-Mary makes it different from the rest of the album but it's great. This album was good. I'm going to listen to it a second time before I give it a final rating but I definitely liked it. This was a few years before it's time probably.
This album was the Jagged Little Pill of 2015, half the album ended up as massive singles, every person I knew loved it at the time and now no one admits they ever liked Adele. Good songs, she has a great voice. This album was definitely overrated. Even as singles I'm not loving these songs as much as I did when it came out. I Miss You is good though, Skyfall feeling (great Bond song). Maybe it's more of an exhaustion issue with the singles? When We Were Young was the best of the hits, reminds me of her cover of Dylan's Make You Feel My Love. It's hilarious when she talks about getting older and being young at the age of 25. This is a great song. Water Under the Bridge is also better than I remember, maybe it is just Hello and Send My Love (To Your Lover) that got overplayed (still are?). River Lea, Love In The Dark, both good. Maybe it is only the hits that are overrated. All I Ask was produced by Bruno Mars and you can hear it, another good one. I stand corrected, this album is underrated. Despite everyone complaining about Beyonce not winning Album of the Year, this was a deserving choice.
The last Bowie album and the lyrics are just as weird as ever. You can hear a difference in his voice. There is a lot of saxophone on this album. You can definitely hear a sadness in the songs, the title of Lazarus gives that one away, but there's a quality to the music that conveys the feeling too. I listened to this album right after he died and remembered liking it much more than I do now. I love the sound of the album, but the individual songs are kind of up and down. I Can't Give Everything feels like a perfect ending to an amazing career.
Ronald Isley's voice is instantly recognizable. That Lady, Pts. 1 & 2 is an amazing song. Pop funk, I am really liking this album even if I don't always love Ronald Isley's voice. This album is great, it's got a massive hit that stands up to replaying and a ton of great album tracks. You Walk Your Way is like Motown meets Curtis Mayfield. Although, now that I think about it, maybe this is just knock off Curtis Mayfield. The Listen to the Music cover has been the low point so far. This album is a revelation. Sunshine (Go Away Today) is a miss. The covers are generally weaker than the original material on the album, and unfortunately they are roughly half the songs.
I accidentally deleted all my thoughts on this album so it basically boils down to a couple of good to great songs surrounded by relatively weak album tracks. There is no denying the greatness of the title track though.
Bittersweet Symphony was everywhere when it was released. It is a good song though. Kind of an alternative-lite album, clearly influenced by Achtung Baby. This is another album that sounds very much of it's particular time. These guys were one-hit wonders, but the album is good so far. Very string heavy. This could have been a late 90s U2 album or series of outtakes except for Bittersweet Symphony. I guess they could be called proto-Coldplay or Radiohead for pop fans. I'm realizing a lot of music from the UK in the late 90s/early 2000s had an eerily similar sound. The lyrics are a little whiny throughout. It feels a little bit like these guys strategically planned to make a knock off of (What's the Story) Morning Glory? It started out strong but it loses its appeal pretty quickly. The album has a specific sound, there's just very little after the first song that is different at all, the songs all kind of blend together. 15 minute final track which is really two tracks separated by a five minutes of silence to.....I don't know what...this was a stupid but popular trick to try and pull on your fans. They aren't the only band to do it and it was so incredibly dumb. I think with the rise of mp3s and streaming this might be a relic of a time when CDs ruled music formats. Six and a half minutes of silence for a static filled "hidden track" lasting two minutes. I don't get the point of this...finding out who your real fans are? Being clever? Burying something that sucks but you love? The baby crying noises on a loop are an especially nice touch. Why do so many artists need to have such moronic last tracks on an album? Songs played by Spotify automatically after the album?.....The Cranberries and, you guessed it, Coldplay.
I always though Husker Du was more of a hardcore band. Another double album? Come on, music critics. Just because a band you like made a bunch of songs all at once doesn't make it good. It's so hard to make a single good album, why do so many artists think a double album is a good idea? This is more like a grunge album so far. I'm not sure why everyone thought that Nirvana and Pearl Jam were so ground breaking at the time. These guys and the Pixies were doing something similar before the grunge explosion. This is much better than I anticipated, at least I like it more than I expected. I think their name threw me off. I don't know why this wasn't more mainstream, maybe before their time with grunge or after their time with punk? The lead singer sounds like the guy from Barenaked Ladies. This is completely forgettable but there are a million 90s bands that owe these guys a huge debt of gratitude. She Floated Away could be a Pogues song from Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. If this album was the soundtrack to a 1987 version of the movie Singles, it would have changed the trajectory of so many bands and music history. This is starting to drag a little. Maybe "post-punk" is making more sense to me now because I can hear how someone would think this album sounds like REM in spots. You Can Live at Home sounds like a Talking Heads song, the bass line and vocals are clearly imitations, or "influenced by", them.
This album is in my top ten of most listened to all time. I love it, I love Cypress Hill. It's crazy that The Cocteau Twins got two albums on the list but Cypress Hill's Black Sunday was left off. How I Could Just Kill a Man is the best Cypress Hill song ever. This is an all time great song: the beat, the lyrics. Hand On the Pump next...that might be the greatest back to back tracks on an album of all time. Hole In the Head is a great album track, they wouldn't lean into the Spanglish or Spanish lyrics until later, but you get a brief taste on it. 90s hip hop acts loved skits/intermissions in their albums. The Phuncky Feel One is another great album track. This might be the best hip hop album of all time. The hits were huge, influential and awesome and the album tracks are terrific. B-Real and Sen Dog are underrated MCs and DJ Muggs is an underrated DJ. Real Estate is going to roll right into Stoned Is the Way of the Walk, love it. These guys love weed. Latin Lingo...with the funky bilingual...underrated song. Latin Lingo was released as a single which I do not remember but it definitely deserved to be. Tres Equis was their first Exito en Espanol. Born to Get Busy's chorus and the party noise is the first thing I actively don't like about the album. One of the best albums ever made, confirmed.
I remember liking Flava Flav as a hype man much better as a kid. His ridiculous presence in the videos might have contributed to that, a silly image alongside the important lyrical content provided a balance. Professor X's beats wouldn't work for anyone but Chuck D, great combination. 911 Is A Joke has one of the sickest beats ever. Welcome to the Terrordome is a great song. The "soundscape" tracks aren't great, they feel like a reminder that DJs were once as integral a part of the group as the MCs. Why did rappers add some random Jamaican saying "buck, buck" on so many albums? No irony in Ice Cube's "Fuck Hollywood" at the end of Burn Hollywood Burn. Power to the People is a good album track. It feels like the early 90s could have seen hip hop move to either socially conscious rap or gangsta rap. I guess it isn't surprising that entertainment won. Definitely an album that I remember more fondly than I like it now. The album tracks aren't that good. B Side Wins Again is good if it weren't for the static running over the whole track. And then it closes with Fight The Power. That's a great final track, has to be among the best last tracks of all time, sums up the album and is an amazing song.
Another debut album, another contender for best first song off a debut album for Runnin' with the Devil. I like guitar solos, but Eruption has never been one of my favorites. I like them in the context of a song, not as the song. You Really Got Me is a great cover. Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love is another Van Halen staple. I don't know if a band started a first album with more consecutive staples than Van Halen does here. This is a fun album. Jamie's Cryin' AKA the song that would become the sample from Tone Loc's Wild Thing. Six straight songs that probably make any Van Halen's greatest hits album....that's quite a start. First came KISS, then came Van Halen. Brothers maybe more than anything, but definitely related. That's a quick album. Good stuff.
The first song is titled Moribund the Burgermeister, I feel like I'm in for a very pretentious experience. Solsbury Hill is an amazing song and by far the biggest hit from the album. There is no way Peter Gabriel thought Excuse me was a good song other than as a goofy interruption. It's like he heard a Randy Newman album and thought he absolutely had to have a song like that on his album. This isn't a super cohesive album, no real theme or definitive sound. I suppose that's the danger of an art rock debut, it can end up sounding like an eclectic mish mash of postmodern songs. Slowburn is more of a standard prog rock song, could be an ELP song. Down The Dolce Vita could be ELP too. Even weirdos can't escape their time and place. Here Comes the Flood is a good song, an a good choice to end the album.
Joni Mitchell and Carole King might be the same person. Folk music is way more popular with music critics than with anyone else. This sounds like adult Sesame Street music, I might rather hear the Pinball song counting to 12. She might be the lyrical equivalent of Bob Dylan, but this just doesn't resonate with me the same way. Maybe it's a male/female thing? There's something about her delivery or songwriting that reminds me of Jill Scott, not on every song, but some. This is not good. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention to the lyrics and am missing the meaning because this is not great music or great singing.
Will this album live up to my memory/the hype? Citizen Cope owes these guys a lot. There's a proto-Southern Rock vibe to this album...so good, but funny that they were all Canadians except for Levon Helm, I guess that's why he's regarded so highly. Caledonia Mission is a great song, really encapsulates the sound of The Band. What can you say about The Weight but that it's an amazing song. Long Black Veil brings it too. They are great storytellers as well and songwriters and musicians. I Shall Be Released is such a great song to close an album on.
good album, m.A.A.d. rapper. Kendrick has a very distinct flow. You can hear the influence of Outkast, not just his rhyming, the music too. I could do without the phone call sketches. Kendrick is super horny. This is going to date this review, but Kendrick and Drake on the same track is crazy. Poetic Justice is a great song. I know hip hop doesn't really do covers, but this about as close as you can come of a cover of Anytime, Anyplace by Janet Jackson as you're going to get from two MCs. His rhymes are amazing, I'm less thrilled with the beats. Several of these songs are made up of what seems like multiple songs, complete changes in beats. Swimming Pools (Drank) sounds like being drunk, good song. Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst might be the longest rap song I've ever heard....a 12 minute song is not easy to pull off. He writes amazing lyrics but the beats leave something to be desired. I did not like this album as much as I thought I would.
Deceptacon is a fun album. This is like 90s The Go-Gos and I like it infinitely more. There's something punk and something pop and something retro about this. The feminism on this album is right in your face which I guess makes some sense due to the fact that this album came out at the height of the Grrl Power and Riot Grrl eras. What's Yr Take On Cassavetes has maybe the stupidest lyrics of any song I've ever heard. Phanta shares some of the Imperial March. You can hear the Pixies influence. Eau D'Bedroom Dancing is cool. The lyrics pn this album could have been written by a whiny sixteen year old girl in 1998. The album is short and catchy. I don't know that I love it, and again, the lyrics are truly dreadful, but I wouldn't turn this off if it was playing. The Donnas owe these ladies a debt of gratitude. Dud Yr so Crazy!! is maybe worse lyrics than the Cassavetes song except the spoken word lyrics over an industrial beat makes for a much less appealing song.
PLAY SOMETHING FROM THE STRANGER! 1980s doo wop Billy Joel sucks! Moving’ Out (Anthony’s Song) is one of the better Billy Joel songs, has an Abbey Road vibe to it. Good lyrics, catchy tune, stupid motorcycle sounds. I have a feeling every song after this is going to pale in comparison to the first one. Whistling very rarely adds anything positive to a song, Patience by Guns N’ Roses, Ennio Morricone scores and that song Darryl Hannah whistles in Kill Bill is pretty much it. Just the Way You Are, another hit. This sounds like the defining song of adult contemporary radio. This is Wonderful Tonight for people that got old in the 70s. Damn, this album has a lot of his hits. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant is so corny. What is with the use of all the smooth jazz saxophone? 1977 must have been a truly dismal year for music or Grammy voters must have felt like proving once and for all that they are truly the biggest morons alive. Only the Good Die Young sucks. This song is way overrated. This is one of his biggest hits and it is truly awful. The idea of Billy Joel running with a dangerous crowd is hilarious. Him and Fred Durst are equally fake hardos. She’s Always a Woman to Me is awful too. This album has a lot of his career defining hits and almost all of them are terrible. Everybody Has a Dream is an improvement over most of the rest of the album, good to close on a high note.
Blue Suede Shoes maybe takes over the top spot for the first song off a debut album. Maybe the difference is that this is a cover of a Carl Perkins song rather than it being the first time anyone had heard it. Elvis might be one of the greatest performers in rock, pop, country and gospel music. I've never heard his version of I Got a Woman, but it is good. Another song with whistling. I like the songs that rock much better than the ballads. Little Richard's Tutti Frutti is the superior version. You can hear where this music came from and what came after. I think that's because Elvis was a performer, not a songwriter. He was interpreting what came before him in a way that influenced so much that came after in a lot of different genres. Damn this guy can cover songs! Great version of Blue Moon.
This is like proto-New Wave. I'm not loving this right off the bat. There's a vaguely ska element of so much British pop music from the mid-70s to the mid-80s that makes everything sound similar. This is like crappy Clash. These critics must be predominantly British because there are a ton of unknown, repetitive British bands in this list. Maybe this band was the first real New Wave band. A very active horn section in this album. These guys took what the Clash did and made it worse.
Is this electronic music or hip hop? Either way, it is not good. I guess this is dance music but it's hard to imagine anyone actually dancing to it. I get why a music critic would put this on a list like this, but it's almost unlistenable. Steel drum is a hard instrument to effectively integrate into popular music. It feels like this a forced combination of world music, electronic and hip hop. This manages to be dissonant and repetitive at the same time. Galang is the hit from this album and is definitely the best track. I did not even notice the difference between Galang and M.I.A, when the album ended I was surprised.
The lead singer reminds me of Jarvis Cocker, which makes me feel like Franz Ferdinand is alt-rock Pulp. Take Me Out is a great song, love the bassline. This is like a cross between punk and glam rock. This album was so good, I didn't realize I'd listened to the whole thing.
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes is another strong contender for best first track from a debut album. Marrakesh Express is too goofy and light for me. I think Neil Young was the lynchpin for these guys not sounding like a precursor to the Eagles. Great voices. This is threading a very fine line between folk and folk rock so far. Wooden Ships, right in the middle of the album is a great album track. The straight folk songs are not as good. Helplessly Hoping is beautiful, maybe it's the lyrical content that's making me like some of the songs less because this folk music. The old timey English ballad lyrics leave a lot to be desired, on this album as well as in folk music in general. Long Time Gone is more rock, you can hear the rock, the blues, the psychedelic influences and the harmonies are great of course. Song with No Words is pretentious, hippie crap. Everybody's Talkin' is a terrific song and this is a great version, maybe better than the Harry Nilsson version. Super folk Teach Your Children is a good version too, I think I like the more produced version they did later, but this is good too, very stripped down.
k.d. lang does straight country music? I had no idea that's where she got her start. I think of her as the Constant Craving singer, more folk pop. She has a real Patsy Cline vibe. Which makes sense because I just now learned it was produced by the same guy who produced Cline's best known works. This is a revelation. k.d lang is awesome! I love this album and I would never have expected that. This has a Dwight Yoakam kind of feeling. She should have stuck with this, I'd rather listen to this album than almost any other \"country\" music produced since 1988.
Was this band Duran Duran at one point? New Wave music is terrible. Each song is somehow both better and worse than the one before it. This album is awful. This is one of the worst non-experimental albums I've ever heard. I understand why this album made the list. This is the band that literally every other New Wave band of every variety sounds like. A uniquely terrible album.
Ambient techno is not something you sit down to listen to. It's something that's on in a hipster coffee house while the surly barista takes your order. This feels like the music that plays over the opening credits of a 90s movie about shady stockbrokers. This album is a chore already. It's hard to focus on the quality of the album because it is designed to be on at a speakeasy as background music. Seriously, this is the score to a movie about computer hackers working against the government until they realize they were being used and were working for the government the whole time and then they take down the rogue agent who ran the whole operation. This is like the alternate soundtrack for the Matrix. Someone has definitely tried to sync this album up to a movie at some point. This is like the Dust Brothers' Fight Club soundtrack if instead of fighting they got high the whole movie and sat around a pretentious club all night. I bet this is Moby's favorite album and, to quote Eminem, he can get stomped by Obie...nobody listens to techno. The Monkey King is in the movie Heat. The whole thing sounds like an demo tape for someone trying to score films. Another album where there is no telling when it ends even when a new album starts on Spotify.
I don't love Simon and Garfunkel. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is corny. David Gray's White Ladder was definitely influenced by this album. Homeward Bound is great. You can feel the kid who just left home and is feeling lonely in it. Paul Simon is a great songwriter, great storyteller. The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine sounds like a nickname for the Incredible Hulk's junk, but I think it's about drugs. The Dangling Conversation and Nico's These Days have a more than passing resemblance. A Poem on an Underground Wall is as hard as two Columbia University folk musicians could possibly sound. Found sound of the nightly news' greatest hits from 1966 over Silent Night feels like a freshman film school project.
Starting off well, Song of Love is classic 70's blues rock. It's crazy that this album predates Lynyrd Skynyrd, they totally ripped Steven Stills off. Only four songs in, I'm calling it, this is his best work. I spoke exactly one song too soon. Both of Us (Bound to Lose) is more of a CSN type of song. And followed with straight bluegrass on Fallen Eagle. The album feels a little disjointed with the jumps in style, but I think I understand what he was trying to do with the album, it all fits in a way, music, title, cover. It's like he went to Nashville and sat at one bar and wrote a song in every genre that passed through, southern rock, folk rock, bluegrass, country. Some are more successful than others. Just as I'm thinking the county music is getting a little wearisome, I see this is a double album (bad sign) and each side had a different musical theme (mitigating factor, maybe?). I wish Spotify would add a column to show the original album sides each song was on. Now, I'll have to figure out which side is my favorite. Right now, I'm leaning towards the first. Not loving the synthesizer on Move Around. It's an uneven effort, some songs on each side are good, but it's just too many songs to expect all of them to be great or even good.
This album is on this list because it was the theme to The Exorcist. If you want to include an album that's only famous because of its association with the film it was featured in and was on the pop charts, make it John Williams' Star Wars. This is an insufferable inclusion on this list. Music critics have to love things that make them sound smarter than everyone, it's part of their DNA apparently. Now we've reached the Peter and Wolf narrated part of the album, telling me which instrument is which. The music during the lecture is at this point is actually the best part of this album so far. Part II is much worse than Part I. The changes between styles within each side of this album make the compositions sound disjointed. Without The Exorcist, this album would not be remembered today. All of the grunting just adds to the stupidity of this album. Now part of this sounds like some themes from the first track. The transition to the Sailor's Hornpipe is just a hard stop and start to end the album. It's including nonsense like this that makes me question why I'm participating in this project.
This sounds like something...I can't place it though. If Wes Anderson decided to have a house band for his films, this would be who he would hire, maybe Zach Braff too. I bet this is The Shins' favorite band. I'm not sure this is something I'd listen to again, but it's ok. The Kooks' She Moves in Her Own Way owes a lot to You're Just a Baby. This project is warping what I think of as "good". This album is only good in the context of this project. The chatting over I Could Be Dreaming is distracting, reminds me of Simon and Garfunkel's Silent Night. The lead singer reminds me of Nico, and I bet these guys love The Velvet Underground. If Oasis was the mid-90s White Album Beatles, Belle & Sebastian was the mid-90s The Beatles Beatles. Maybe the mid-90s Donovan is a better comparison?
My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) is the hit. It's better to burn out than to fade away is an all time lyric. It's interesting that later in the song he says it's better to burn out than to rust, I wonder if old rock stars feel that same way now. This is how folk rock should sound. Few songwriters can make you value both the story they are telling and what they are really trying to say at the same time. Pocahontas would be called cultural appropriation today. Neil Young's voice outside the context of his music would be terrible, it's crazy to think it worked with Buffalo Springfield and CSNY. You can hear the punk influence on Sedan Delivery...better to meet the times where they are than fade away. Black Francis heard Sedan Delivery and thus the Pixies were born. Hard rocking Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) to end the album. Having different versions bookend the album is an interesting touch and leaves me wondering which version I like better (I think it's Into the Black).
Sunday Bloody Sunday is an intense way to open an album, reminds me of Bombtrack to open Rage Against the Machine's debut album. 20th Century U2 > 21st Century U2. New Year's Day is maybe my least favorite U2 hit, it sounds very much of it's time though, the music could be a Cure song and Bono's vocals are at their most annoying on it. A lot of really intense drumming on this album. It's supposed to feel like war drums or the cacophony of war I suppose. I don't know about this album. This album sounds like a band that heard the Clash and decided they had to do a Clash album in their own way and it is not entirely successful. You can hear how this band became The Joshua Tree U2 and the biggest band in the world. At the same time, you can hear them trying to incorporate what was going on musically at the time this album was made. After Sunday Bloody Sunday, Two Hearts Beat As One is the best track. Some late punk, some Wave, some ska, it's all from the early 80s and it's all here.
I think this is the Mission: Impossible soundtrack. I would take the first track and it's techno movie score over the second all day, every day. This has no business on this list. The distorted vocals that sound like a mix of Donald Duck and the Chipmunks is ridiculous. The Rough and The Quick is more like stereo instructions for having sex rather than being actually sexy. Primarily instrumental pop music strikes me as soundtrack music, it was the same for Tubular Bells. Alaska Street is probably the worst song on the album....so far. The drill bit sounds is particularly annoying.
I had a musician friend who was way into Jeff Buckley in college. If Jeff Buckley lived, this album would not get all the love it gets now. Music critics are just as sappy and deluded as everyone else. I don't mind retrospective reviews, but I definitely feel like once something gets a following, critics are forced to eat their words or look like they are out of touch. This is like alt-rock lite. This does feel like a synthesis of 80s music rather than something new. And at the same time grunge was making punk and garage rock cool again. His cover of Hallelujah is the hit and probably the main reason this album is so famous. It's a good cover of a great song. Maybe because it was the first major cover of it, but it's not so amazing to warrant all the attention. Lover, You Should've Come Over is the best song so far, it still has that 80s pop rock ballad sound, like a good Jamie Walters song. Followed up by the worst song on the album, Corpus Christi Carol. Forget Her is a highlight to close the album. If you caught me on a different day, I might love this album.
It's hard to classify exactly what genre the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are in. Indie dance rock? Pop rock electronica? Heads Will Roll was the dance rock hit from this album. I love Karen O's voice. This came out the same year as The XX's album and you can hear some echoes in this. We're all prisoners of our own times. It's hard to make an album where no songs are duds or filler and everything doesn't sound identical. This is good. Little Shadow is different but showcases what's great about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
This sounds like someone....I can't place it. This album is trying too hard. I don't know but there was a British band that sounded like these guys at a roughly similar time. This doesn't sound "bad" but it's not compelling.
This is like if CSN, The Mamas and The Papas and Jefferson Airplane came together to make an album...it's terrible. The hippies were too high to realize what they were listening to was no good. Draft Morning is the best track so far, kind of a Youngbloods Get Together vibe. Harmonized vocals are overrated. A song titled Space Odyssey by a psychedelic band in 1968 is exactly what you would think it is. A fitting end to a wildly overrated album.
Highway to Hell is a great way to kick off an album. AC/DC has a sound, and they have stuck with it through thick and thin. These guys are super horny, every song is about getting laid. I can understand how some people might confuse some AC/DC songs. With as many hits as they have over their career, it's surprising that this album only really had one big one. This one delivers exactly what an AC/DC album promises.
Move Any Mountain was definitely all over pop radio when I was a kid. I don't think Jock Jams existed when this album came out so I don't think the intentionally created a song that would inevitably become one. Human NRG (Massey) is one of the dumbest titles of a song ever...it's like the tagline for an actual energy company's commercial. Electronica has come a long way, this album makes me want to positively reevaluate any electronic music I've previously rated. The robot filtered vocals are even worse than the music. This is the music you would have heard in an overly hip hair salon in the 90s. It's not possible that anyone not in a club or hosting a lame house party would just put this album on and hit play. It's a long album too. This is terrible. I thought the music was on shuffle because the lyrics of Lightspan are just "energy" over and over again. Hear Me's lyrics are a speech from an Indian politician, I can't identify who, but it is misplaced over techno music. 666 Edit is the best track on the album so far and is the most "techno" of them all. And then they add the Move Any Mountain lyrics and ruin it. This album never ends. The tuning noise on Lightspan Soundwave is one of the most annoying noises in a song I've ever heard. Three songs with the beat or lyrics to Move Any Mountain...this is an absolutely awful album. THis was apparently early rave music further solidifying the fact that rave music doesn't have to be good to have a bunch of high and horny kids listen to it.
Red Hot Chili Peppers heard this and thought "We can do this." This is what was left of punk before it was completely swallowed by pop punk. A punk band hates commercialism?!? Now I've heard everything. At least these guys stayed indie their whole careers. A young Trent Reznor would have thought this band was either not hard enough or not experimental enough. The lead singer sounds like Brian Johnson from AC/DC. Could be that I just had an AC/DC album that's making me think that.
Yay! More NuMetal! To quote the voice of his time, Fred Durst, "If it were not for Bennington's voice and his words, nu metal would never have reached the masses and affected so many lives." To that I can only say, I wish Chester Bennington had chosen to be an accountant or oceanographer or literally anything other than the singer in Linkin Park because, according to Durst, he was directly responsible for one of the worst genres of music ever created. Linkin Park is a stupid band name. I wonder if some marketing exec told them that misspelling a word with extra 'i"s was cool like in Limp Bizkit. Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park are two sides of the fake hard ass/whiny bitch nu metal coin. Nu Metal sucks so much even Linkin Park didn't want to be associated with the label. There are a number of songs that I absolutely hate and that you could not avoid in the early aughts. This could be the soundtrack to a Transformers movie. At least Korn isn't so whiny. In the End suuuuucks. No song longer than 3 minutes 36 seconds, that's a plus. The whole album is only 38 minutes too. Mike Shinoda's rapping is awful. What was wrong with America in the late 90s/early 2000s? This is what spawned from Rage Against the Machine? Linkin Park is the 31st most listened to band in the world according to Spotify?!? In 2024?!?
A live double album by a psychedelic band....this is truly going to be a test. Space sounds are the entire first song, not an auspicious start. Maybe those sounds are the Hawkwind. The singing on Born to Go sucks, but the music is cool. Psychedelic jams are not my jam. Who doesn't want some flute in their rock music...the girl from American Pie definitely does. The music could be Blue Oyster Cult. The Awakening....a reading of a stupid poem with space sounds behind it again. I bet this album syncs up with something. And now another poem over cosmic noises. It's ZZ Top meets Jefferson Airplane on Orgone Accumulator, cool blues riff. 10 Seconds of Forever is another stupid slam poetry moment. These guys are like the Isaac Asimov version of Led Zeppelin with Tolkien. The lyrics and vocals are terrible. There are parts of this that are good, but songs drag on forever and the space sounds and poetry readings are laughable. If Flight of The Conchords made this album as a joke, I would believe it. The talking segments are absolute nonsense. There's a hint of something cool in this and it just never gets any space to breathe with all the psychedelic jabbering and jamming and space noise. Closes with another little chat.
Soundgarden was always kind of an afterthought in the grunge discussion behind Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I think I like them more than Nirvana though. Chris Cornell has a rock star voice. They sound like Stone Temple Pilots on some songs. I never got into Soundgarden, I liked Pearl Jam the best out of the grunge bands, but this album is good. Black Hole Sun is probably why I never got into them...it was the hit and I don't really like it that much. The Day I Tried To Live is the best song on the album. Chris Cornell has a throwback rock star voice, there's a Robert Plant like quality to the way he sings, not that their voices are similar. There's something to their delivery that is similar or the way they approach the songs. There are some weaker songs on the album, but this is better than I was anticipating and a new found appreciation for Chris Cornell.
Brian Eno's band, I'm guessing he's the most represented person in this project between Roxy Music, his solo efforts and the albums he produced. He has the famous quote about the Velvet Underground and there are moments where you can hear the influence. A lot of bands loved Roxy Music and I simply do not understand it. David Bowie, yes. The Sex Pistols, no. The Bob (Medley) revisits a theme from If There Is Something and expands on how terrible it is. Art rock is generally not a good genre. The album gets worse as it goes on. What happened to bands in the late 60s that made them think that an album with random guitar distortion in the background was appealing? Drugs?
This makes me think of Mark Ruffalo's character extemporizing on The Clash in Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. I did not realize this was a double album. This is a punk double album though, 19 songs, just over an hour long. Green Day are Clash rip-offs. It's not even an homage, they could be a London Calling cover band. The distinction between "eclectic" and "experimental" is whether I like an album or not. Is this the first new wave album? Madness bought this album and decided to become a band. Why is there so much Spanish on all their albums? It's hard to hear how this is related to the Sex Pistols or Black Flag. The Guns of Brixton is the music for Cypress Hill's What's Your Number? Good stuff. It's almost literally the music, net of the goofy sound effects, including the bridge, with B-Real rapping over it, a real Frank Ocean vs. the Eagles song. Train In Vain (Stand By Me) is a great song and a great song to close the album on.
2 hours of electronica?!? I'm exhausted already. This is incredibly boring. A 21 minute song to kick things off is not an auspicious start. These dance albums have to be the least listened to albums, start to finish, ever. No one just puts on a Goldie record and lets it play and listens to the music. This is background music at an overpriced salon or in a restaurant that has uncomfortable chairs and $16 drinks. The first song is hard to endure and there is another hour and a half of music to go. This music must only be good on E. This is "boots and pants" music. This is more a trail of endurance than an evaluation of an album. This album is terrible, one of the worst so far. The ambient waves and one of the most annoying electronic seagull noises imaginable in Sea of Tears makes this a rival for one of the worst songs I've listened to so far. This is all so repetitive, every song, every minute, just boring beats. 7 minutes at the end are remixes from the US release, not the initial release so that is great news. Every song is exactly as bad as every other one in it's own special way. The only thing that makes one better than another is the length (shorter is better). Still 27 minutes left and I cannot wait for this to be over. I will continue to listen but the Kenny G sax in Adrift is the end of my observations. This isn't dance music, it's not jazz, it's just awful. This is like music from a dream sequence in a porno movie. I'm not sure if I like the fake jazz songs less than the dance songs. In any case, they are both awful.
Pearl Jam was definitely my favorite grunge band. Even Flow is an awesome song. Once, Even Flow and Alive is a really strong contender for the best three songs to start a debut album. That's a pretty specific take, but I stand by it. Alive is an all time great song. A lot of good songs on this album...it feels like everything after was a slow decline from this peak. The America of the early 90s was a bleak existence if you were listening to grunge or gangsta rap. I remember liking Oceans more than Jeremy and having them linked in my mind because of their proximity on the album. The album cuts are good too. Something on Garden reminds me of Tenacious D's Tribute. The obsession with ending albums with long/secret tracks was a huge thing in the 90s. The end of secret tracks is hopefully one of the only good things to come out of the digital music revolution. The start of Once and the hidden track both sound a little like the beginning to the PeeWee's Playhouse theme song.
There is a Fiona Apple/Alanis Morissette vibe to this album. Way less punk than Rid of Me. A Place Called Home is a really good song. There's and undefinable quality that's really great about this album. Radiohead...that's the quality I couldn't find maybe, Thom Yorke on the album makes it seem like that's the answer at least. Kamikaze has some of that old punk PJ Harvey feeling, great song, like a tribute to the Ramones. Horses In My Dreams is a great song but very much like Fiona Apple.
Smells Like Teen Spirit...the anthem for a generation. I know Nirvana released an indie album before this but if we're only counting major label debuts, Smells Like Teen Spirit is a contender for best first song off a debut album. Come As You Are is my favorite song from this album. Kurt Cobain's voice is annoying. Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom and Come As You Are is a really strong start to an album. Lithium was a big hit for them but it's the weakest song from this album so far. This album peaked at Smells Like Teen Spirit and is downhill from there. Territorial Pissings is punk. On A Plain sounds like every song on the Singles soundtrack. Everything in the early 90s was grunge and gangsta rap. Endless, Nameless is the worst song on the album. It's their take on metal and it's terrible. And it drags on forever and it has a a full minute of guitar distortion and some weird background sound.
Doyle Hargraves himself. I've never really listened to bar room country, but after the k.d. lang album, I think it might be an underappreciated genre. Dwight Yoakam has the right voice for the style of music, but there's something about it I don't love. This is fine. There's something that feels very mediocre about it though. The addition of Tejano music on Streets of Bakersfield is not a plus.
The White Stripes rule. From the first chords, you know it's going to be an experience. Everything has the same stripped down sound, in less talented hands every song might have sounded the same, not here though. Fell In Love With a Girl was the hit and the video was awesome. Fell In Love With a Girl is one of my favorite rock songs of all time, Joss Stone's cover of it is great too. There's a stripped down metal sound to this, like a garage band Black Sabbath feel. The lyrical conceit of The Union Forever is corny, but the music is cool. We're Going to Be Friends is a great song too. This album has everything: hits, sleeper singles, great album cuts.
I am skeptical heading into another Brian Eno project so soon after Roxy Music. Rightly so to this point. Art "rock", if this can even be called that, is terrible, art "pop" maybe. Whatever it is, this is not good. In Dark Trees sounds like it could be the soundtrack to a David Lynch film. I guess I should be grateful there aren't a bunch of weird experimental lyrics too. There they are. Once you've made a name for yourself, you can be as weird as you want and critics will eat it up like they're at a buffet. This is a major drag. Even the songs that are "better" aren't good. Last song was the best one and it was still terrible.
Is this acid jazz or jazz rap? This album definitely borrows from jazz, funk and soul. The beats are always unique, A Tribe Called Quest was always "cool" in that way. And Ali Shaheed's signature sound, the scratches, the beats, it's all there, he's an underrated DJ. And Q-Tip is probably an underrated MC. Footprints is a jam, it's got that Stevie Wonder Sir Duke horn sample. I Left My Wallet in El Segundo is a classic. Bonita Applebum is another great song, smooth beat, great lyrics. It's like a rap slow jam. Can I Kick It? samples Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, which makes these two maybe the greatest non-cover version of original song and song that samples it. Go Ahead In the Rain is a great deep cut.
Sleep to Dream is in the running for best first song off a debut album. The title is also apt, there's a dreamlike quality to the piano and vibraphone. Sullen Girl is also appropriately named, the vibe fits the title or maybe vice versa. Shadowboxer was the first single and her first hit. It got overshadowed by Criminal later, partly because the video had her in various states of undress. Norah Jones is a pale, poppy imitation of Fiona Apple. The First Taste has a Latin(?) or Middle Eastern (?) vibe that doesn't really fit the rest of the album. But I'm nodding my head to it, maybe it's her big dance number. Never Is a Promise is a beautiful song. Pale September is great too. There's an aggressiveness coupled with a vulnerability in her voice and these songs that is amazing. Carrion too. This album is amazing.
This feels more like an early 90s pop-rock band than an early 2000s band. It's like Oasis-lite. This reminds me of something I can't place, something much later. They sound like a band Zach Braff would feature in one of his films. M62 Song sounds like Guster's Satellite. This is not bad, but it isn't a standout either. There's a song called Satellites on this album! Friday's Dust is bad. The Sulphur Man is cool, good use of the glockenspiel . I have never heard of this band so it's hard to know what the hit off this album was, or if there even was one. This isn't a terrible album, but I am glad it's over.
oh baby is the hit to lead off the album. The music matches the album cover. I could do without the sci fi lab noises in other voices. I do like this album. change yr mind is not good. It sounds like those human body songs on Kids Learning Tube on YouTube. how do you sleep? is like bad electronic U2. Their other albums are better. black screen sounds like the soundtrack to Blade Runner, or maybe Blade Runner: 2049. The ee cummings titles is a stupid affectation.
The Pretenders are like rock Blondie. Over/under on Ohio based references is one per song. This is more New Wave than I would have thought. The lyrics are ridiculous. LCD Soundsystem must love this album, this is what they would have been if they came out in 1980 instead of 2000. Stop Your Sobbing is not good, the 60s girl group vibe is out of place on the album and in the song. There is a Pretenders sound that carries through every song though. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs probably love them too. There are too many songs that are dominated by Chrissy Hynde's stange delivery and voice. And some of these songs are rock songs and others are just straight New Wave/Ska. Brass in Pocket is the hit, for good reason, it's a great song, maybe the perfect Pretenders song. They definitely had an influence-Beck, Scissor Sisters- you can hear pieces of this album in a lot of places. This is a hard album to rate, a lot of things to like and a lot of things to hate.
Another country rock group. There were 100 of these groups in the 60s and then in the 70s it was just the Eagles and they became the biggest band in the world. This is Crosby, Stills and Nash with less of an edge. Dark End Of The Street is a good song. This reminds me of Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. This is Cotton Jones' favorite band. There's something missing from this album. The country/gospel/roots rock influences on this album should make it something, but it just feels corny, like another bunch of fake cowboys. Hippie Boy is the worst song on the album because the vocals are so ridiculous.
What a horrible band name. Starting the first song is only distortion or static and some hospital equipment beeps which promises that this album is going to be a slog. This is not music, this is a collection of annoying sounds. The second song is better solely by the fact that someone is singing and there is definitely a bass being played. Then they play their big debut single at 16x speed or rewinding or whatever. More found sound, this time a foul mouthed conversation over some "musical-ish" sounds and rain. Two alternate conversations, if this was the sound of a restaurant I was in, I'd leave. Einstürzende Neubauten heard this album and thought, "Hey, we can do this in German." It's hard to decide who did it worse. Dead On Arrival has the most music and is still somehow worse than the songs made up of annoying noises. That this album exists is a testament to the condition of modern humanity that enough freedom and leisure time and income exists to make this possible. Now it's the idiotic babble of a child over weird space-age sounds. The kid does have a cute voice. And know it's scientists talking about e. coli. These "songs" are terrible. It's hard to know if the songs with terrible tape recorded talking are better or worse than the songs with no human voices at all. That was a truly terrible experience.
Steely Dan, perennial favorite of music critics and assholes. The start of Black Cow is the sample used for Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz’s Deja Vu (Uptown Baby). That’s a better use of the music. This might be the first yacht rock album. Which band is more responsible for “adult contemporary” music, The Eagles or Steely Dan? Either way, they both suck. That’s unfair, they are definitely better than The Eagles. Aja sounds like Rikki Don’t Lose That Number in parts, I guess that’s just the “Steely Dan sound”. Deacon Blues is more of the same, but I definitely have a soft spot for it. Maybe it’s what I always assumed was a college football reference but probably wasn’t. This might be the most 70s album of all time. There are a lot of “hits” on this album. Peg is another one. If you took the lyrics away from these songs, they’d all be gold music. Is that Michael McDonald in the background of Peg? It is! That guy is good. Home At Last is the best song on the album. Donald Fagan’s voice exactly matches his appearance. Another Michael McDonald guest spot, instant improvement. I liked this album more than I thought I would which is not a very high bar to cross, but a pleasant surprise.
Oh my god this is awful. This sounds like a YouTube rapper. The rap acts that aren't in this list is astonishing, but Dizzee Rascal makes the cut. This is like a cross between Azalea Banks and The Streets, both of whom are probably in the list too. The beat is distracting, the accent is annoying and seems almost comical when you think about British gangsters meeting up with, as Easy put it, Real Muthaphuckin' Gs. The voice distortion effects turn this from bad to bad and ridiculous. The delivery is so terrible. I bet MIA loves this album. This is considered "the greatest British hip hop record of all time", that's insane. They should stick to rock and roll. Jus' a Rascal is the best song except for the chorus. This is one of the worst rap albums I've ever heard. The robot filter on the vocals makes it sound like EV-99 from Jabba's palace is on the album. This is also a very long album. The UK bias of the editors are on full display with this absolutely terrible addition.
I'm not the biggest jazz fan, but this is good. It does sound a little bit like the background to a cartoon from the 50s though. Blues to Be There sounds like George Gershwin. Before the rise of pop music, every thing sounded like a score to a movie. This is a good listen. The longer this goes the more I like it. This is a great album. I only listened to the original release version but I will definitely check out the 2 hour complete recording now.
Girls & Boys is a catchy opening track. These guys took the "rip off the Beatles" thing a step too far, End of a Century sounds like an original song written by a Beatles cover band. Bank Holiday is terrible. This is taking "post punk" too literally. This album starts with it's best song and gets steadily worse as it goes on. To the End is the worst song so far. I spoke to soon, there are many bad songs on the album, London Loves being one of them. Lot 105's goofiness doesn't help, especially with the Beatles' Eight Days a Week melody.