the strain of hip hop that was in some way Intentionally Contrasting Itself With Gangsta Rap is a whole Messy Thing that i am the last person to ask about, but i appreciate that this record leaves it implicit with a minimum of arrested development-style preaching (and a lot more political maturity from what i caught!). i think what helps is that there is still a lot of lived-in experiences here, just less mythology and more Common People Trying To Navigate The World Of Antiblack Capitalism. years later its easier to see the merits of both...and speaking of aging well musically this is pretty awesome. a lot of boom bap foundations and the sounds chosen to be above the percussion can be rly immediately atmospheric considering how sparse they are. theres even an instrumental closing track just to flex the smoothness and tightness in full focus. rly effortless and buttery and entertaining listen. plus a hip hop album of the cd age thats less then an hour is always nice FHJKFHSJKSFHJKS

the attempted "mature" reconfiguring of potential worst-band-of-all-time red hot chili peppers' image does not mean that their usual panic-attack-inducing levels of abhorrent douchebag vibes are gone, but rather smothered in a layer of boring detachment and faux-gravity that only takes everything further into the deepest levels of artistic hellishness. one of the smallest, most claustrophobic experiences ive ever had with any music ever, i genuinely do not think there is a single second on here that is of Any aesthetic or emotional value to me. im so not used to having blindspots like this anymore, because clearly people like the band, including multiple ppl in my Life who i love and care ab, but in my heart of hearts i have absolutely no idea why anyone would make or listen to music like this. and holy shit why does it SOUND LIKE THAT i was prepared for an overloud brickwall not, whatever the fuck this burnt cornchips palate is

"this is the most i have enjoyed ok computer by radiohead" is about as utterly un-meaningful of a statement as can possibly be made within the confines of my history with music, but it IS true. i last heard this in basically the sorest spot i probably could have, i was a lot earlier in my music journey but late enough to have certain solidified opinions and expectations (mostly about melodicism and my preferred Emotional Palate In Art), to which this did not conform and thus its universal acclaim felt like some sort of Attack On My Values. ig it should be more exciting to see such an illustration of my expanded horizons (in particular my tastes have run far enough towards expressionism that i finally understand the winding emotive beauty of the basic musical ideas), but its not like The Most Acclaimed Album Of All Time is the most meaningful discovery ive made in those horizions. and tbh this is still not totally for me,,,sci fi/dystopia is not my aesthetic home, their political commentary has always been deflated for me by their longstanding inability to do basic shit like boycott israel, and for as many sonic layers as there are here i just think radiohead became so much more free and expressive and vibrant when they finally dropped the Rock Band Pretense. but its easier to place my years of performative distaste in their proper context now, and enjoy some enveloping and Pretty and occasionally striking Isolation Jams. and honestly if i can appreciate this this much now, i might just totally love their kid a and onwards output now. azzy normie era strikes again!

not an instant favorite or anything but honestly for being such a staple of "dad rock", there is something that is Still rly refreshing and bold about this band...sultans of swing is a funny anecdote made into something resembling a statement of meta-defiance in the face of what the expected face of rock music Was and Is. honestly this could prob come out near-unaltered today and get a fantano 7/10 or something. slick and quiet but also incredibly direct, its all in the licks. very cozy music tbh...instantly digestible in its musical information and just in general dedicated to not Overwhelming u. the solos especially are hugely likable. if u turn up the Complexity and Snark sliders i think thats how u get steely dan...also a great band, but a different itch then this, and tbh one i might be in the mood for slightly less often

i find frank zappa's musical vision compelling enough that i regularly get re-obsessed with his music and check out a few new live records i havent heard yet, the mothers were one of his best bands (not his best tho...ull have to hit up the roxy/one size fits all era for that), and this represents a lot of his best and most memorable material in his Filtering 50s And 60s Pop Melodies Thru His Avant-Garde Stravinsky-Obsessed Hyper-Ironic lens. but its so, so hard to tolerate man...frank here shows a complete and utter unwillingness to do any material analysis of why hippies existed (multiple references and a full song about how their parents failed them, but nothing about vietnam???), and his most cogent criticism is reduced to a sexual assault joke with cartoon voices. the parody angle is frequently musically amusing, because any type of art that asks for a certain amount of buy-in can be easily detached from and made to look silly, and that is just not a style of pastiche that interests me at all anymore (unless you, say, genuinely like 70s art rock as much as ween does on the mollusk). this creates the impression that frank's problem with hippies is just that he finds them annoying and silly, which is fine as an opinion ig but rly weak for supposedly genius satire. a real criticism of hippies might be, for example, that they idolized the abstract ideal of freedom but were still mostly imperial white people whos idea of freedom was often self-centered rather then having any understanding of the shape of global power...but if zappa criticized that, the hypocrisy might be a bit too obvious!

my use of the daily 1001 albums generator (sticking strictly to cursory listens rather then full multi listen multi day chewings like i usually do now) begins by: derailing my already occurring beatles revisit project. yay! as such i will leave it to that project to fully reckon with my weird relationship to this thing. i have instinctively strong reactions to all of the peak period beatles records Except this one...something about its particular showmanship keeps me at a weird distance even tho all the songs r nice. it makes me feel insane honestly, just within the boundaries of my own taste...this is an eccentric, striking, detailed piece of art that contributed dna to basically all of my favorite aesthetically unified pop albums from hounds of love to skylarking to the works of the moody blues. hope this gets easier to reckon with when i reach it in chronological order, but none of this difficulty is from lack of trying or experience...i have listened to Way too much beatles, but this is the only record so far where i rly feel that fact weighing on me

as mind-expanding and exhausting as i remembered! huge sense of deliberacy to the tracklist here, a double LP with less then an hour of music total is a signal that just a little bit of extra space was needed to make room for everything they thought was Vital. disc 2 i think is the most packed with "i cant believe theyre basing the song around This Sound" moments for me, but the record is famous 4 that shit 4 a reason. considering this project is basically selecting my Morning Music its hard to imagine it getting much more startling to my half-awake brain then this, at least in the hip hop realm!

im in my normie era still ig, cuz this is a 5/5 finally fhgjsdhgjsd god. i rly just cant stop listening to it and finding new things to admire about the theatrical imagination, and more and more reward in the emotional arc. kendrick at this point in his career rly thought he could change the world with art and its so beautiful...the fact that tpab complicates it makes this feel even more powerful. when i was spinning this a bunch in the college dishroom in 2016/17 i didnt rly get the last two tracks which was the main thing keeping it from being a mega fave, but theyre clearly some of the most vital stuff to the album's power. staying alive for as long as u can is an Act Of Resistance. whether or not u are successful matters less...its the struggle, and telling others about ur struggle, that rly makes u an angel

elvis sings (and plays, to my surprise) with a wonderful mix of intentionality and intuition that i think would have stuck w/ ppl even in a non-white supremacist world. his backing band(s) impress me a little less...often feels like he's left entirely on his own to carry the more energetic cuts. the wrecking crew couldnt come soon enough ig (or even the beatles, who i enjoy the subtle instrumental character of quite a bit on those early records). still, for something so hastily assembled, there is a level of deliberacy in variety of style and the way its sequenced that feels like an actual test run for The Rock LP instead of something entirely from the beforetimes (making sure that tutti frutti opens side B is a move straight out of more polished 60s records). its extremely easy to be cynical about elvis as a cultural figure, to the point where its pretty trite and overplayed for me in spite of being well-deserved. but at least based on this, which represents him in a weird raw form before any of his more acclaimed peaks, the music itself doesnt rly do anything to earn that cynicism. itz just short and p sweet!

something ive been looking forward 2 in this project is catching random snapshots of bands i have little to no familiarity with , with far less logical throughline or context then i usually provide myself when trying out an artist. i have heard aja before, but just hearing aja makes this a lil more jarring if anything...four tracks longer and six minutes shorter! this is rly rly delightful...a lot of density, a lot of economy, both aided a lot by the use of jazz vocab esp in the wonderful harmonic stuff goin on here. im not sure how much of a capital b Band they were at this point but obviously the performances r something 2 behold as well. i could prob like this band a lot! deserves some more time on my own time

thank god for the deep purple rhythm section, carrying their absurdly overrated more famous members even harder then led zepp. the reputation of this one has always baffled me because surrounding records (especially made in japan) absolutely prove that this lineup of deep purple was an absolute Rock Music Machine that could create thrilling and distinctive music for days. this lumpy mid-tempo slush is so inherently not for me that if im gonna make my peace with it i have to accept it as an intentional choice...a bit of a Back To Basics record in the vein of , uh, Take A Look In The Mirror by korn (first thing that comes to mind lmao). unfortunately i just do not like the individual parts enough to get a lot out of the supposedly more focused presentation of them...made in japan outdoes this not only in speed but in weight. no other song is anywhere near as bad as smoke on the water (there are other classic rock staples i hate listening to more, but none i understand the appeal of less), but neither does the Intentionally Holding Back presentation create sufficient tension for me pretty much anywhere here. the spectre of this lineup's world-destroying heights should hang in the background as intimidating, the unsettling feeling that theyre only using a fraction of their power, but its so textureless for me that it more just erases those heights from existence instead. might listen to made in japan later at least

somehow probably the most difficult record so far to write Thoughts about. certainly harder then nevermind! i enjoy it even more tho...maybe not by the same margin i once did but pearl jam's hyper-melodic, soulful niche within grunge has always been appealing to me. the big singles are some of the most consistently enjoyable songs im forced to hear at work and sound even better in actual headphones and not fast food speakers...gotta be one of the most lushly produced rock records of the grunge era, and one of the more genuinely beautiful and emotive rock records of the 90s generally. not a huge personal favorite or anything but it was an instant surge of delight to roll this one

i have my hangups with ray davies worldview that ensure he will never be MY 60s pop song prophet...brian wilson is in my heart, and arthur lee strikes me as much smarter and less overly-inward in his observations (i have a deep affection for hippie aesthetics but man were they ever wasted on white people). that being said , only a fool would deny the peak of rays songwriting powers...the record is a bit side a heavy, but every track has some kind of interesting details or hooks. and ofc the bittersweet pastoral mood, running from the anxieties of industrial living even as it is crushed by them, is every bit as striking as any one of these aesthetically unified 60s pop statements...its no pet sounds, but id take it over sergeant peppers any day. song for song i think i might prefer arthur a bit atm...but this is a more fundamentally likable project for me

not an instant favorite or anything but honestly for being such a staple of "dad rock", there is something that is Still rly refreshing and bold about this band...sultans of swing is a funny anecdote made into something resembling a statement of meta-defiance in the face of what the expected face of rock music Was and Is. honestly this could prob come out near-unaltered today and get a fantano 7/10 or something. slick and quiet but also incredibly direct, its all in the licks. very cozy music tbh...instantly digestible in its musical information and just in general dedicated to not Overwhelming u. the solos especially are hugely likable. if u turn up the Complexity and Snark sliders i think thats how u get steely dan...also a great band, but a different itch then this, and tbh one i might be in the mood for slightly less often

since a semi-recent revisit of ziggy stardust i have been suspecting that as much as bowie is up my alley, its a tiny bit too late for me and him...as in, if i had put in the effort to get rly into his records beyond cursory listens when i was a teen, he could have ended up as a super mega important artist for me, and i have to wonder if the window for his music to be Revelatory has passed me by. i guess only time will tell if thats true (i hope it isnt, it seems like a cool discog and id love the motivation to rly sink into it), but as a concession i have found it far easier to enjoy his music Casually then when i was younger. this is no exception ofc, i suppose if anything sticks out its how much specificity it has for what could still be called a "transitional" album...and incredibly intimate too for all the theatrics, just about every song feels like bowie alone at the piano with all the other instruments as swirling figments of his imagination. lots of great Transitions Into Choruses. surprisingly rly nice compliment to the dingy cloudy morning (aka the ideal morning) outside my window rn

got acquainted with this one in semi-recent memory but this revisit rly solidifies it as a favorite. even before ur chewing on the wonderful melodies its simply one of the most characterful albums i can think of...feels so entirely aesthetically unified that u start to wonder why the black sabbath quotes were ever jarring. overwhelmingly , unstoppable gender. tastes like cinnamon and cloves...a big jug of wassail and an endless starry sky that u can see from ur smoky balcony turning all ur pain into a beautiful haze. man i used to be able to write stuff like that all the time i need to re-learn that!

the most unfamiliar album (and band) i have yet rolled in this, and its a rousing success for me...somehow incredibly precise and disciplined while still being as vibrant and non-uptight as ud expect from a late 60s california band. tons of rly effortlessly appreciable melodies, and GREAT production from a david briggs, fresh off the beginnings of a very fruitful collaboration with neil young. not too much jumps to mind to specifically say, just cozy and good!

"this is the most i have enjoyed ok computer by radiohead" is about as utterly un-meaningful of a statement as can possibly be made within the confines of my history with music, but it IS true. i last heard this in basically the sorest spot i probably could have, i was a lot earlier in my music journey but late enough to have certain solidified opinions and expectations (mostly about melodicism and my preferred Emotional Palate In Art), to which this did not conform and thus its universal acclaim felt like some sort of Attack On My Values. ig it should be more exciting to see such an illustration of my expanded horizons (in particular my tastes have run far enough towards expressionism that i finally understand the winding emotive beauty of the basic musical ideas), but its not like The Most Acclaimed Album Of All Time is the most meaningful discovery ive made in those horizions. and tbh this is still not totally for me,,,sci fi/dystopia is not my aesthetic home, their political commentary has always been deflated for me by their longstanding inability to do basic shit like boycott israel, and for as many sonic layers as there are here i just think radiohead became so much more free and expressive and vibrant when they finally dropped the Rock Band Pretense. but its easier to place my years of performative distaste in their proper context now, and enjoy some enveloping and Pretty and occasionally striking Isolation Jams. and honestly if i can appreciate this this much now, i might just totally love their kid a and onwards output now. azzy normie era strikes again!

expected to enjoy but wasnt expecting to be this floored...just genuinely immaculate , every song coaxes a different color palate out of both the big stimmy synths and the lyrical hedonism. makes constructing this kind of pop seem effortless...all u need is A Sound and a few good ideas for what to do with it. basically entirely the kind of experience im hoping for with this project thing: something ive been meaning to sample for a while but just needed my ass kicked. lots of raindrops on windows on this album imo

by far the most thoroughly New To Me record of the project so far, having never caught a whiff of either it or the band. obviously its a bit harder 2 write ab stuff i have absolutely no associations with but the things that jump out are (1) i kinda forgot something can be So Beautiful it actually kind of hurts. like wind up a bodily tenseness instead of just releasing it (2) not gonna assume this is the first band to do this, but country and slowcore is one of the most inspired Genre Pairings i can think of...the latter rly lets the former soak and bring out all its dormant feelings of loneliness, melancholy, and peace (3) i need to remember this record when im looking for autumn tunes in a few months. also some incredible bass grooves on this. its just incredible in general ig. maybe my favorite New Discovery of the project so far

an absolutely delightful Encyclopedic Tome of bluegrass/country/appalachian standards and contemporary performers of such. certainly far more of this kind of music then most ppl will be willing to take at once but taking the first hour while playing animal crossing and the second while just lazing around was entirely pleasurable for me! rly starting to think i have a big proclivity towards bluegrass in general...wish it was more of an Albums Genre lol, but thats Authentic Folk Music for u ig. just nonstop great playing and time-tested material, and some rly wonderful silly/kindhearted/Old And Experienced studio banter on occasion that just make the whole thing feel even more living and titanic in scope

i have historically Never Rly Gotten The Doors. i get the mystique, i get the talent of the musicians that surrounded jim morrison, and i even get jim morrison a bit (tho more in theory then in practice), but not most of the actual songwriting. ig its lucky i rolled this one then cuz honestly i think i was always more likely to enjoy a Back To Basics approach considering i didnt totally vibe with the band trying to rapidly ascend Above The Basics on those first two revered albums. the most ive been "wait, its THAT song i hear at work all the time?" on an album since tom petty's greatest hits. all in all feels like really sturdy and tasteful white boy blues, which is not my favorite combination of things but no longer something i have an inherent wretching reaction to. i cant deny that the band absolutely kills it and in a less mystical setting the character of jim morrision appears just a bit more colorful...livening up a more "basic" kind of persona rather then failing to live up to lofty heights. other then deep purple i rly havent struggled much with any of these so far, idk if thats luck or just being stockholm syndromed into liking classic rock again lmao, ill take it tho

the lazy and frankly Morally Despicable route that some have taken is to say that aretha herself is the "only reason" to listen to this record, even if that was true that reason alone is equal to ten reasons for a different record. the color and gravity and pathos and excitement here is all hers, propelled by the songs while also effortlessly spinning them into something distinct. the perfect soul performance, in other words! and the songs are ALL undeniable as far as im concerned...plus while the band is no wrecking crew, theres plenty of good moments for them too. the moments of genuine forward/authoritative sexuality (wrestled from songs written by men no less) are not only mind-expanding precursors to so many big pop divas afterwards, theyre also just good and interesting Art. so is everything here!!!

yet another Insistence From The Universe that i need to freakin get into r.e.m.! im sure ill have more to say about this in the proper context of their career which is how i typically like to approach things but its not necessary at all to be in ecstatic enjoyment of the record. their songwriting and general melodic sensibilities are cryptic and emotive to a degree that makes their best songs feel like they contain the universe or at least A Universe or at least Some Kind Of Answers About The Universe. rly difficult to not get swept up in just about everything here. i rly gotta revisit murmur

i have to admit i slightly wrote off new order when i first tried to listen several years ago, thinking that the difference in style wasnt enough to overcome my fundamental disconnect that i also have with joy division. idk whats happened in the years since but this is one of the most Completely and Instantly good times ive had with these so far....maybe its just getting a Little More Morbid (these are still Goth Classics), maybe its the group having drifted further away at this point from the joy division routes, maybe its acknowledging that i basically want all music ever to have big synthesizers, maybe its just an undeniably tight and hard hitting tracklist idk FHJFS all i know is this is the coolest warehouse trip ever and i wish i could dance

after years of hacking and hurling at white boys play blues licks on their electric guitars, i sure did find myself Not Struggling At All with actual blues recordings when i finally got around to them! obviously theres a host of differences and breaks in evolutionary timeline but placing things strictly within the realm of my personal aesthetic tastes...besides a love of jazz which is probably my most obvious backdoor in, i think the basic foundation for it feeling at least a little Like Home is , tbh, musical theatre FHJSFHJFS both styles of music about expressiveness and performance on top of familiar material built for infinite iteration. i dont wanna go too far for that comparison lol but listening to a great theatre performer and listening to a great blues performer scratch similar itches for me...waters ofc inevitably kinda rocks my world here. not just a ton of color, its a ton of Shades of color, so when things are similar on the surface theres reason to pull in and pick out the variations. his band is also ofc wonderful here especially the drumming which feels very jazz influenced at this point (my understanding is that there was a sorta Volleying of influence between the two). just super wonderful and magical tbh!! kinda Why You Listen To Music

seems like a variation/diversification on the central Byrds Sound that might make a bit more sense to me were i more familiar with that sound. good fundamentals tho...harmonies, jangly guitar parts, arrangement details. apparently they were super into coltrane around this time??? i wish i could hear it more lmao but it is an indication as to the fun array of Outside Influences being grafted onto here. the songs are also fine lol

i find frank zappa's musical vision compelling enough that i regularly get re-obsessed with his music and check out a few new live records i havent heard yet, the mothers were one of his best bands (not his best tho...ull have to hit up the roxy/one size fits all era for that), and this represents a lot of his best and most memorable material in his Filtering 50s And 60s Pop Melodies Thru His Avant-Garde Stravinsky-Obsessed Hyper-Ironic lens. but its so, so hard to tolerate man...frank here shows a complete and utter unwillingness to do any material analysis of why hippies existed (multiple references and a full song about how their parents failed them, but nothing about vietnam???), and his most cogent criticism is reduced to a sexual assault joke with cartoon voices. the parody angle is frequently musically amusing, because any type of art that asks for a certain amount of buy-in can be easily detached from and made to look silly, and that is just not a style of pastiche that interests me at all anymore (unless you, say, genuinely like 70s art rock as much as ween does on the mollusk). this creates the impression that frank's problem with hippies is just that he finds them annoying and silly, which is fine as an opinion ig but rly weak for supposedly genius satire. a real criticism of hippies might be, for example, that they idolized the abstract ideal of freedom but were still mostly imperial white people whos idea of freedom was often self-centered rather then having any understanding of the shape of global power...but if zappa criticized that, the hypocrisy might be a bit too obvious!

by far the album ive rolled so far that most makes me question the methodology of this godforsaken list. i can accept western and guitar music-centric bias and that that means some bands are gonna be over represented but man are u serious lmao. the actual album is kind of an interesting reflection on the most popular metal band thats Ever Been, bunching together material from all over their timeline with extremely non-revelatory orchestral backing (and it rly is just Backing, its never mixed with any of the same amount as importance as the band) and james' new alt rock voice. it feels to me like metallica's songwriting (at least past kill em all) is way more rooted in the rock idiom then the metal idiom (in other words, has an evolutionary line pointing more towards RnB then the blues), which gives their music a sort of comforting familiarity to a mainstream audience no matter how aggressive and heavy they made it. it also highlights the ugliness of metal bands attempting to over-emphasize their roots in nonblack music, as if taking from classical is a fundamental part of the genre and not something that was popularly grafted on after the genre was already formed. more then anything tho, over two hours long! james is kinda loose and audience participationy on the first few tracks but then drops off the face of the earth, esp in the second set where i dont think he says a word. theres like One crowd sung line on wherever i may roam and it feels like a jumpscare. disappointing lack of showmanship here all things considered

very hard to write ab cuz the charms are so obvious, ig ill just say that this Kinda makes up for the whole metallica s&m thing...from washed out alt rock uncles to jittery lecherous teenagers channeling their experiences into punky folky songs that have the distance to achieve disarming humor but the intimacy to still feel like ur seeing something very special that ur lucky to witness. more then anything, one of the most immediately catchy albums ive heard in a good while. at some point ill accept that this rly is just My Genre

the strain of hip hop that was in some way Intentionally Contrasting Itself With Gangsta Rap is a whole Messy Thing that i am the last person to ask about, but i appreciate that this record leaves it implicit with a minimum of arrested development-style preaching (and a lot more political maturity from what i caught!). i think what helps is that there is still a lot of lived-in experiences here, just less mythology and more Common People Trying To Navigate The World Of Antiblack Capitalism. years later its easier to see the merits of both...and speaking of aging well musically this is pretty awesome. a lot of boom bap foundations and the sounds chosen to be above the percussion can be rly immediately atmospheric considering how sparse they are. theres even an instrumental closing track just to flex the smoothness and tightness in full focus. rly effortless and buttery and entertaining listen. plus a hip hop album of the cd age thats less then an hour is always nice FHJKFHSJKSFHJKS

i think i spent years and years assuming this was a punk band HFJFHS theyve got the attitude at least! caught a lot of neat lyrics, but obviously the main appeal is just the unstoppable melodicism and moments of surprise in the arrangements. honestly a lot of big juicy catharsis by the end. whenever i return to this to chew on it more besides a cursory listen, theres lots of colors im excited to parse as to what the Overall Vibe of this thing is, but just being great great poppy rock music has me more then satisfied enough for now!

i actually did relisten to this a while back when i was having another brief Coltrane Period and tbh it wasnt fully hitting me then...its hitting me now, but i can kinda see why my reaction fluctuates sometimes. coltrane's music is kinda unique among the group-focused world of jazz in that his records tend to be utterly dominated by His Specific Voice, honestly because in part he kinda cant help it, he's probably the most compelling voice to ever touch his instrument. this is not to underestimate the importance of the musicians he played with (especially the legendary quartet material) but it does mean that listening to a coltrane record kinda calls for a Different Mode of listening then a lot of other jazz, which i cant always readily slip into. this record is ofc as poetic and cathartic and immersive a demonstration as any as to Why people decided it was a good idea to just let coltrane take u wherever he wanted to go...tho elvin jones especially creates a sort of Cascading Waterfall backdrop thru much of the record which ive always loved. just in general a lot of coltrane deserves a revisit from me...its one of the most rewarding discogs out there, and tbh even tho i loved it when i was last exploring it, my jazz tastes were mostly in the attention-grabbing avant garde half of his career, and i owe a lot of those early records full appreciation now that i have become appropriately obsessed with the Fundamentals of the genre

extremely exciting to discover an album this old that traces the roots of the idiom of Dance Music as it is known in western popular music to Dance Music as in the tradition that has existed for probably as long as music itself has. i honestly cant imagine unsuspecting listeners in 1957 (or apparently, suspecting listeners in 2024, given the bizarrely low rym score) rly knew what to do with it? its super awesome tho...sweaty hypnotic call and response beats that just go and go and go a little more, feels free while being incredibly tight, feels old (much older then the recording, roots in afro-cuban folk styles) while being incredibly vital, feels spiritual while having more libido then any contemporary rock and roll would manage for a long long time

i was introduced to the shock rock stylings of alice cooper and related artists not as music on its own or even thru a big radio single but as an explanation on several online frank zappa review pages as to what exactly he was parodying on The Torture Never Stops. based on that i assumed that frank was under the impression that he was taking someone overly self-serious down a peg (which he did all the time) and if he did think that ig this was an idiot cuz this album is pretty fugkigng funny and clearly on purpose. its also not musically abrasive at all! just decadence and morbidity draped over fun breezy catchy theatrical glammy rock music. not much 2 actually observe, just clearly a ton of fun to listen to. torture never stops is still pretty good tho.

i talked in the metallica entry about a bit of thoughts im developing regarding the evolutionary divide between rock and metal (the former's songwriting idiom growing directly out of RnB, the latters owing more to the blues). ive also thought a lot about the lyrical divides between the two, in particular how a first person I is so much rarer in metal then in rock where it tends to be the bedrock. they both rely on fiction, but hard rock tends to favor the Idealization Of The Self rather then inhabiting a fully different dramatic roll. ig i was just thinking about that because while this is hard rock in musical idiom (at least the idiom we would recognize today), there is a kind of Spiritually Metal bent to it...closer to the led zepp songs that create the impression of an Unstoppable Force Of Nature rather then any of the ones that are strictly carnal. extremely enjoyable album btw! a lot more showmanship then the aforementioned live double lp, and more genuinely great songs then i expected. very sweaty!!! and very irish. i wonder if america/europe is a dividing line worth looking into re:the development of these styles...

finally, at long last, after so many people refusing, we finally have a band that asks "if u2 is so good how come theres no u3???" okay tbh still quite enjoyable for me...songs feel very static and kinda glompy, but picking a Sound and a Melody to ride out cozily in the shape of an alt rock song isnt something that eludes my tastes. given a different context where id be coming back to this more (or if this was one of the albums i picked up from walmart when i was 15/16 and trying out this Music thing) i could probably even get rly attached, its comfy! but certainly not among my most significant discoveries from this project either way

seemingly deliberately unrevelatory, which is just fine by me. what could be an incredible amount of pomp and circumstance gathering this level of fame and talent instead presents itself as so inevitable as if to be mundane, if beautiful (especially in the harmonies ofc). ive often played animal crossing while listening to the albums from this project, this was one of the best pairs yet for obvious reasons. lindas outfit on the cover is incredible

the appeal and polarization in pink floyd is that, if they are prog at all, they are the most moderate and instantly digestible prog in existence. all the musical phrases inherit an instantaneousness from their grounding in capital b Blues, and all their cumulative statements inherit a big weighty gravity from their ability to achieve aesthetic/thematic unity and clarity in a way that is readable to just about anyone. in other words, if im being cynical (which i have a slight inclination to be given my loaded history with the band as one of my former favorites and Big Musical Gateways that i fell out of favor with), i could describe the band's style as cribbing from musicians more adventurous and/or More Black then them, and stacking up mountains of credit that they dont really "deserve" due to not actually being either of those things to a degree that will offend common consensus tastes. being less cynical, i enjoyed this revisit of my former favorite album of all time (as a teen) more then i expected , just because even (and maybe especially) in their instantly readable mellow tones, they created a very emotive record that pulls that quality from a variety of well-selected traditions. they are not a flashy band, and that Does have a bit more worth then maybe i thought...it makes all their big lofty ideas feel attainable and approachable, and thus more emotionally immediate. they will likely never be one of my favorite bands again, but here is yet another Day Of Reckoning where i was able to make some peace. at the v least, fun to discover that welcome to the machine is Easily my runaway favorite on the album now...comes the closest to fully recapturing that old vividness

insofar as they are a real Band, i think funkadelic p much has to be in contention for Greatest Band Of All Time, not just for their ability to make transcendental music but to have that transcendence coexist with the pure brazen confidence it takes to name a masterpiece something like Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)...whatever clinton and co had, its what frank zappa wanted! trite to even say for funk, but so much of the appeal rly is that every single idea feels totally mined for all its worth, hypnotic and colorful sonic painting to get turned around and lost in. im not super familiar with the bands various lineups (much less their cross-pollination with parliament), but this feels like it has to be one of the best theyve ever had...a million things to notice and plenty of time to appreciate them. the fact they can pull off a live version of maggot brain without eddie hazel and make it distinct and exciting is unbelievable. this discog (and parliament by extension) just seem like a treasure trove

difficult day yesterday, was rly nice to wake up and revisit and Old Friend. its no longer one of my favorite albums, but i rolled it in the dying days of summer which is pretty much the absolute best time to do so...beck in this period runs on pure Form As Content, nonsense lyrics chosen for their vibe and cadence spouted in west coast deadpan over songs that are constructed out of Literally Whatever is laying around in beck's head and mixing board. very fun album to listen 2 for obvious reasons, and maybe its just cuz im so familiar but i think its ability to pull all the parts into something instantly recognizable, on a track-by-track and album-wide level, is a testament to craft and intuition and also just the weight that those seemingly hyper simple hooks are pulling

the attempted "mature" reconfiguring of potential worst-band-of-all-time red hot chili peppers' image does not mean that their usual panic-attack-inducing levels of abhorrent douchebag vibes are gone, but rather smothered in a layer of boring detachment and faux-gravity that only takes everything further into the deepest levels of artistic hellishness. one of the smallest, most claustrophobic experiences ive ever had with any music ever, i genuinely do not think there is a single second on here that is of Any aesthetic or emotional value to me. im so not used to having blindspots like this anymore, because clearly people like the band, including multiple ppl in my Life who i love and care ab, but in my heart of hearts i have absolutely no idea why anyone would make or listen to music like this. and holy shit why does it SOUND LIKE THAT i was prepared for an overloud brickwall not, whatever the fuck this burnt cornchips palate is

okay obviously anythings gonna sound good after rhcp but this is also genuinely a nice record. weirdly low-key given the grunge and post grunge styles it sits at the crossroads of, for which id point to the strangely warm production...maybe not a lot of super standouts, but very comfy, esp when u hit the more layered and impressionist tracks for which the production takes on an almost shoegazey vibe. that being said i wasnt paying attention to the lyrics at all but apparently one of the songs is about courtney love....so fucking lame dude, feel like i gotta dock it a star just for that lmao

didnt think i would even get to this cuz ive had a very emotionally draining day, but it got better and this was the cap off to me slowly picking myself up, an album that i knew i liked suddenly clicking as the best thing ive ever heard in my life. its probably not That impressive to perfectly sequence an album thats only four tracks, but the balance of the A and the B side is absolutely perfect, with A as the perfect idiosyncratic introduction and B taking their overall vibes to greater extremes (sly is even more explosive and exciting then chameleon, vein melter is even more chill and relieving then watermelon man). so many instruments here sound nearly unrecognizable, its such a vivid and unique and creative palate that changes up slightly to give every track its own completely different rainbow (and yet still aesthetically Part Of Head Hunters). the band here is godly and every solo knocks me into next week, its hard to tell whether the hyper-disciplined tenseness or the moments of pure explosion hit harder. vibrant, sweaty, unbelievable music

this was actually a Slightly more fruitful revisit then i expected, if only because i do think the songs r a bit better crafted then i remembered...probably part of my ongoing rewiring of my brain in a classic rock direction thanks to years of classic rock radio at work, but in general i would be remiss to deny that there is both tunefulness and creativity on here, and each song is impressively distinct in hook and arrangement. but absolutely no band could survive being fronted by mick jagger, who only comes across worse and worse with every bit of experience i get with the black vocalists he was biting. i can see how he's a very expressive singer esp for the time and place but he covers everything in layers of sleaze and sarcasm that make the intense moments unconvincing, the emotive moments condescending, and the "humorous" moments near unbearable. i think im the only person who intensely hates him as much as i do but So Be It.

TWO STONES ALBUMS IN A ROW!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EAT MY ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wanted to leave it at that but i feel like i do need to explain why This is so obviously the nadir to me of a catalog i already obviously Do Not Like At All. the rolling stones doing boring, stiff, sleazy versions of black music was partly excusable on their early records cuz thats what Everyone Was Doing, and much like their contemporaries they started branching and experimenting as the 60s went on, going thru a weird sissy pop era , making that weird psychedelic thing, and by the time they went back to Rootsy music with beggars banquet they had an expanded palate that i can appreciate from afar even tho i hate listening to the actual music. but this record, the culmination of their most acclaimed stretch, is their full on Back To Basics record even more then sticky fingers, and that means the mode is purely in imitation and pastiche, which is just absolutely unholy (strangely similarly to led zepp's interminable physical graffiti, which also made the inexplicable decision to make their big double album a super monotonous back to basics affair after branching out on the last few records). just about the only thing keeping this from being one of the very *very* worst albums ive ever heard is that i can at least appreciate the hyper-dense arrangement approach...especially the rollicking pianos and organs, i like to hear those in rock songs. cant stand any other aspect of this enterprise, not the least of which that this is their second album in a ROW to have a song featuring brazenly horrible and tone-deaf slavery references, if u thought i had to give them any credit whatsoever for "respecting" who they stole their music from. i genuinely might hate mick jagger more then axl rose but i know im gonna roll appetite one of these days so i may eat my words

save me white girl a bit stylistically one note for a 50 minute album but u could pick worse styles, certainly ones that are less totally up my ally...pianos, jazzy harmony, and Reflective Teenager Lyrics. my current exhausted self was also very glad how much faith this has in relatively simple structures...easy to parse, easy to get sunk into, easy to enjoy. its not easy to write about anything tho lol im so tapped. great album tho! hope theres more then one of hers on here

THANK U!!! SOME PEAK!!! also something thats very much been in my recent memory/rotation so i dont have super a lot of new thoughts about it but i do need to rly take my time to let the fact that CCR is peak soak in. while its hard to map their albums onto an arc esp considering in what quick succession they were made, im here to call this their Pop Masterpiece, the record where the savory rock band chops (creating arrangements and performances often just as dense as any of the fab four beatles material) and the smoggy swamp atmosphere both send all their strength towards pure tunefulness. i like the long jams and the rootsy genre excursions and all the other parts of CCR but if u want the same itch scratched as by most of the other Big Classic 60s rock bands, the album with bad moon rising and lodi is right here. fun and memorable and lonely and sad. everything ud want from living on the river ig!

walk out the door you see someone that you know and they ask you how you are and you just have to say that youre fine when youre not really fine but you just cant get into it because they would never understand

in yet another Cruel Twist (of fate) i now i have to talk about my blood on the tracks opinions. im a huge dylan fan (been very slowly doing a discog dive), and this is not only a great album but one that does (and should) jump out to many people as their favorite. in one of his early-ish live recordings dylan throws out a quip that he needs to adjust his "bob dylan mask", and this sentiment is surprisingly core to his entire body of work: dylan's mystique is his use of Artistic Artifice, not to Hide some "true identity" but to express that Truth and Identity are inherently multifaceted and irreducible. bob dylan is not an Authentic Country Star a la nashville skyline, but that albums existence and his playing that role on it still reveals something about him...its a very freeing body of work for me in that way. the unique appeal of blood on the tracks is that it is the most bob ever stripped away those layers of abstraction...it has some of his most direct and instantly emotionally readable lyricism (at least thats not a pastiche of some kind) and just pricks right at dylan's real personal life and emotions with total transparency. this is why i think even a lot of ppl who dont like dylan writ large like this one...its a unique and disarming appeal within his body of work. that all being said, as someone who Does like dylan writ large, specifically the way he uses the layers of abstraction he tries to strip away here, im left with an album that is often affecting but occupies my mind and heart very little compared to much of his other acclaimed material...its all kinda Right There, ive never personally found much to chew on or dig through. probably best illustrated in lily rosemary and jack of hearts, which is fine but so straightforward and grounded and literal compared to the dylan Epics that proceeded it that it holds up a lot worse on repeated listens. album is still great obviously, melodies are wonderful, so is his singing, so are the lyrics on their own terms, but even compared to dylan's self-consciously Slight music (nashville skyline and self portrait, two of my favorites), theres not a lot that i get stuck in here

a nostalgic throwback to the days when mick jagger wasnt the smarmiest sleaziest most self satisfied piece of shit frontman on the planet, and merely a guy with an extremely annoying voice and singing sensibilities. could do a lot worse for a rubber soul equivalent made by a band that sucks ass, id say im even into the A side here more then im not...its nothing if not a very distinct lineup of songs, strong central musical and lyrical ideas, and its fun to map the View Of Women thru each track which fluctates wildly from sympathetic (and horrifying) observations of married women addicted to happy pills to at least one straightforward love song to Stupid Girl and Under My Thumb which are hilarious (on purpose) misogyny classics. ofc the arrangement creativity keeps popping up even tho im less into the second half. cant stand this band but how can i hate an album with multiple marimba parts on it??? u cant go wrong with a marimba. also this is actually my first time listening to the UK tracklisting lmao, only heard the US version as a teen, had to hunt down the other songs on the Flowers compilation

honestly seems like yet another questionable inclusion for the goals of the list but it also turns out i like this a Lot so i wont complain. its not too often u hear rock albums this Singleminded...the goal is to be Riffy and Buttery and it turns out thats kinda all u need! it honestly kinda took a bit to adjust to how un-ornamental it is...tho obviously its very easy to lock in once uve done so. it trusts the riffs, trusts the guitar tone, and its trust is well-placed. in that way it weirdly reminds me more then anything else of tony iommi, but ig he's already unintentionally the reason for all of stoner rock's existence

a rly bad dissociative day today so i almost didnt get to this but i threw it on while closing at work and its even better then i remember and kind of the best music ever if we're being honest. moments here that do with hardcore guitar tone what autechre do with a daw...pure vivid sonic worldbuilding that make me hear the stomps of 50 foot creatures (i dont know what they look like but i know what it feels like to be in their presence) and the crashing of upsidedown waves (in oceans of liquids that are colors that dont exist in our world). fills up the entire space of my ears and brain and heart so theres no room for anything else while its playing...exhausting, but obviously rewarding, i think im gonna keep this one in rotation a bit beyond this cursory project listen. this album could be ur life

man i almost cried like four times ghjasdghjsd. just an ocean of pop catharsis, with lorde's whole Already World-Weary At A Young Age vibe manifesting not for distant self-deflation but for trying to hold onto the fact that no matter how intense things are ur not the only person to ever go thru this and come out fine. reminds me, in its rougher moments, of my first relationship (in college) and how a lifetime spent consuming media About romantic relationships and their flow and how they end by that point made the whole thing feel even more uncanny then it already was. will never forget the first time i heard a song and instantly thought about a Specific Person. rly wonderful album obviously,,,,i should get back on the lorde train

there are FOUR MORRISSEY SOLO ALBUMS on this horrible evil list so ill have plenty of time to hash things out with him eventually, but at least ive been eased into it with what was when i last listened to their discog the smiths album i Got the most. still holds up to me as pretty good with some unique charms that help me connect with it over their other material, with a thick impressionist almost dream-poppy style. and ive gotta say that even tho on the whole the band's melodic style does not blow me away or stick with me, i no longer find it Utterly Bewildering which i guess is the best i can hope for atm. theres a couple moments here that extend things out instrumentally, not a Jam or whatever but theyre p striking anyway. the vibest smiths album which for someone not sold on their music or lyrics means it pretty much has to be their best

obviously nina simone could sing the phone book and it would be a transformative experience, but extra praise must be given to the various recording lineups here. they create an unassumingly diverse spread of sound that nina effortlessly matches...her chops span so many genres and idioms. and yet somehow this is still so aesthetically cohesive...heartrending and mystical ect ect. im very very sick rn so idk how to string words together but i feel like this is potentially one of the best things ive ever heard

less ethereal then the debut and less polished and poppy then all the future records, this is their sweatiest, scuzziest, swampiest record. alternately something to wade thru at waist-level and something to zip along freely no matter how many reeds smack u in the face. scratchy and sticky and kinda gross (the noisiest guitar moments really slash thru the air), but wholly masterful wall-to-wall as far as im concerned. those interested in the band as a capital r Rock outfit will prob find the most to enjoy here...more overt blues and old school rock and roll here then on any record other then the debut.

longstanding blindspot i should have filled ages ago. the mastering is rough on my ears unfortunately, which is a big issue, but its the only issue i can pawsibly raise. she has to have been one of the most memorable singers probably Ever, and despite my production complaints the actual arrangements are so Zesty and Poppy. some rly nasty licks on occasion too! hoping this one will get a better remaster eventually. the title track made me lift a few feet off the ground

enduringly aesthetically incomprehensible! full of stimmy wonder! and genuinely autistic. some rly unmatched sound worldbuilding on here ...assembled from aesthetic fixations that are complimented perfectly by available technology. kind of the biggest album ever tbh, but it might be more of an intricate miniature u got shrunk down into. i love artifice!! cant spell it without art!!!

ive been extremely exhausted due to recovering from sickness, its maybe questionable whether i should still be doing these daily albums at all but so far ive been fine if sparse on my writing. all this is to say that something in this reached into me and pulled out a very strong emotional reaction, but im having a hard time identifying what...need more listens with a clearer head and body for that. but lowkey this is one of my fave New To Me albums of this project so far...sits compellingly between deceptively numerous genres, but not thru pastiche or whatever, just feels like the most natural alchemy ever of this particular group of ppl writing and playing songs together in a Rock framework. feels as comfortably itselt as it is anxious and fluid...the moments of immaturity that u learn to not repeat but represent something painfully honest. idk. i loved this very much

im sure this isnt the only curtis mayfield on this list so its cool that the first one i rolled was one that was actually new to me! id need to revisit his other stuff (its been years) but based on my memories id say this one feels less lavish and more precise...no big wall of sound arrangements, but every instrument placed in its own deliberately prominent place in the mix. ig that should give it a harder edge and maybe it does but its angelic as ever anyway,,while he gets a surprising amount of tonal variety out of his songs, the default aesthetic of curtis' voice is a kind of idealistic humanity-wide kindness pushing through the vile evils of an unjust world, of which his only rival is probably stevie. so lovely

u can tell from a mile away that its mostly meant to be a showcase for a great voice, but it Is a great voice, with great performance decisions thruout as well. idk enough about country music to know how to judge the backing players....they seem fine but if theres anything great going on there its wasted on me. this goes rly hard on the sad and mistreated lady vibe for the most part which even considering the short length does lose momentum after a while. its v cool that three of the most memorable tracks (especially in terms of lyrical perspective) have a writing credit from lynn herself!

i know embarrassingly little ab elvis costello but being thrown into the thick of someones later career is deffo one of the more fun parts of this little project. idk what brought him to this point, how typical this is for him ect, but i was enamored with this almost immediately. its great, full-blooded rock music with a strange embryonic quality...like he shattered the whole genre into pieces and glued them back together partly in an attempt to rebuild from memory but also inject his own instincts into the very dna of musical history. the attractions kick an unbelievable amount of ass and the songs are hypnotic and offputting and very cozy to me honestly. rly excited for anything else i roll from him

metallica do not know how to make prog (or at least forgot on this record), which fortunately for them has never rly been a barrier to Making Prog. One sticks out like a sore thumb for having the musical Coherency of the band's previous epics, elsewhere these tracks are not rly beating the riff salad allegations but the riffs are at least usually fun. kirk ofc also has great showings thruout. idk i love prog and prog metal and kinda sloppy prog and this is fine but even grading on the curve that is my general lack of fandom for this band, its hard to find this very exciting, or aesthetically coherent, or even much of a Career Culmination when it feels mostly like the same tracklisting formula as lightning and puppets but left out in the sun a bit too long. also is metallica the most famous/acclaimed band to have multiple albums known for Bad Production? much less production that is bad in Different Ways from the other albums with Bad Production?

ive not heard plastic ono band yet but from what i know about it this seems like an attempt to counteract that album's whole-hearted bitterness with something sweeter and more digestible. the results are predictably solid if amusingly compromised-feeling considering how much contemporary reception was propping up lennon as the Real Artist of the beatles (while trashing paul's Ram, a much more melodically and sonically exciting, and better aged, record than this imo). a whole album of post-1967 john lennon was always gonna be a bit hard for me to fully vibe with tbh...he plays rly well as part of the larger collage of personalities in the beatles, but its a little difficult for me to feel as stirred when he's out here on his own...but he's a skilled tunesmith, phil spector brings subtle but resonant colors, and john's biggest advantage had long revealed itself to be a propensity towards emotional nakedness without layers of showmanship. i like showmanship, but as much as i mock the contemporary deification of the guy, i can absolutely understand why he was so refreshing

an old friend...been years since i revisited the nick cave discog so i cant fully place this in its proper context outside of my memories, but esp listening chronologically its hard to forget the bolt of energy and color this is. nick cave strikes me at least in part as an alternate history where bob dylan rose out of literary tradition instead of folk tradition, and with a consistently greater interest in arrangement...or at least a consistent band that has such, the bad seeds kick all kinds of ass on here, draining so much energy out of u thru the course of disc 1 that disc 2 hits even harder as a big pool of balm. would love to do a big nick cave revisit at some point, and this may remain my favorite album of his...full of surreal emotive beauty, and the perfect meeting point between spiritualism and Flesh And Blood. lowkey a record about Dance in that way...or at least physical ritual of some kind!!! comfy cult vibes off the charts

absolutely insane production job for a niche genre in 1980...a level of clarity and expressiveness that would work well for just about any music played with a traditional guitar band setup. lots of room to appreciate the band's work here, which is vibrant and subtly diverse in terms of influence thruout...they can soar, they can chug, sometimes the rhythm section even has a little funk in it. releasing the same year as iron maiden's debut, its rly striking as The Shape Of Metal To Come, but also a short and sweet record of oiled-up rock music on its own...rly wanna fill in all my vast knowledge blanks of judas priests' evolution eventually!

always reliable ofc, to the point where even tho i dont revisit this super often, our paths cross often enough that this is kind of a comfort album. ive developed a preference for bringing it all back home, but the ways in which this is an advancement make it absoloutely stunning that these came out mere months apart...the electric material on back home is not only so conventional by comparison but so much more Timid...dylan rly sounds like he's gonna conquer the world with his cascade of guitars and drums and organs on here. idk, u dont need me to tell u highway 61 revisited is good! my takes about it have remained almost entirely the same for almost half a decade...maybe ill have big revelations about it one day, but im fine with it the way it is

never even heard of this one beforehand, ended up scratching itches i forgot i had...harmonic and melodic construction that is theoretically extremely spicy but delivered in a swirling sweet way. thought a lot about like, oil paints, mixing and unmixing in impossible ways to make impossible colors. fun to navigate, even more fun to fail to navigate. there are parts of my ears that can only rly be filled by songwriting like this...perhaps there is hope for me yet that i have not undergone full normieification after finding myself drifting towards more conventional and digestable music for a couple years. wish i had the proper words to capture this record's aesthetic experience, but rly thats just motivation to eventually return to it until i do!

pumped my fists a lil when i rolled this lmao. not my fave alice in chains ive ever heard (i am eternally partial to jar of flies) but definitely the band at their most razor-precise. cascades of venomous but lush harmonizing pouring all over crushing churning songs thru which layne slams down performances and lyrics that feel like theyre going to literally kill him. being Sick and Sad recently, this was my most emotionally powerful listen yet and i think im ready to fully claim it as a favorite. i promise ill get to self titled soon-ish! it might change my life tbh

brown and his band blow through the A side with a bunch of songs less than 3 (sometimes less than 2!) minutes like a proto-grindcore band, and when slowing things down for a couple lengthy cuts in the second half the crowd is eating out of his hand. just an absolutely electric display of showmanship with one of the best voices ever on a Human Being...place-taking and exhilarating to this day. could have listened to way more of this, but the short runtime is also part of its power i suppose...and rly its just proof i need to listen to the double LP Volume II!

obviously i have v little familiarity with any of the genres this is mashing up, but just on its own it strikes me as super cool...i think the secret weapon is the trip hop influence, which allows a great variety of subtle atmospheric touches that rly unify the smoky, sultry, nocturnal atmosphere on here. i cant say this authoritatively obviously, but this feels pretty forward thinking, as opposed to a bunch of pastiches. very funny inclusion: a cover of the title track from Chunga's Revenge of frank zappa's infamous flo and eddie era

so melodic its almost abrasive, or maybe a little bit funny. no complaints from me ofc..while not entirely Wowing all the way thru, every single song is a great study in Songs That Teach You How To Listen To Themselves, spreading and distributing musical information in a way that will almost inevitably be fully absorbed and probably lodged in ur head. lots of genuine power to the band here too, the tone is Big without any shred of ornateness which is always a fun vibe. kinda cant believe this is 40 minutes lmao it just flies by, maybe more then any other record ive rolled so far. ive been on a good streak recently i think!

honestly feels like a lost and underrated stone-cold rock classic to me. skin is ofc an absolutely magnetic central presence but the band that supports her is also incredible,,particularly love the huge bass tone, and man idk what to tell u the songs absolutely rule. lots of ass kicked while never losing an intimate and personal-feeling edge, and when they stretch out for the more open and ballad-y songs the effect is just pure emotional magic tbh. i am in a very Music-Receptive mood rn and im glad i got to lay in bed throwing this on to get my daily album done and just being totally enraptured, barely moving except for the occasional semi-voluntary Shaking Of My Legs. i first knew this band from the sucker punch soundtrack so ofc i was going to like them. pretty funny choice for day 69 but would have been funnier as day 70

thank GOD for my several-months-ago experiences with axis bold as love, granting me some clarity about Ultra Popular And Beloved Guitar Player Jimi Hendrix Who Should Be Intuitive To Pretty Much Everyone But Eluded Me For Years Somehow. in that way i have to give him some credit for genuinely being so distinct that my expectations from the likes of jazz and prog didnt help me much, and were maybe even a bit counter-intuitive! my moment of clarity with axis and its psychedelic tapestry was that the cadence of sound coaxed from jimi's guitar matters often more then the individual notes he's playing...and i think even here on a more sonically conservative album (strictly compared to axis, goes without saying this was even more insane for the time), where his playing has a slightly more lyrical quality , its the stubborn part of my ears that is finally fixed. this isnt one of my fave albums or anything, i dont prefer it to axis i dont think, but it finally all sounds colorful and firey and In Place to me. electric ladyland might kick my head in if i revisit it idk

im sure this is not the only band to try and answer the question "what if post-punk was Fun and Bouncy and Colorful" but its a good question for anyone to ask tbh. some blindingly bright synth horns on here, and a big dash of thrillingly expensive-sounding creativity generally. feels like an unassuming band was just given the chance to go wild in a super decked out studio...not that ur necessarily getting a lot of crazy studio tricks or whatever but just a bigger canvas thru which to channel the songs they always Wanted to play had they only had the resources. very fun!!!!!!!!!!!!

an overtly fun and deceptively subtle shattering of rock and roll's base components and reassembled by people for whom many of its subtextual gut feelings (especially of libido) are but an abstract curiosity, but they think its cool anyway and worth studying and replicating and performing to its fullest extent. in that way it somehow becomes a comical peak of these subtextual gut feelings? i need to stop trying to comprehend this thread i think its getting away from me. album is crazy fun, the ratio of runtime to Ass Kicked Per Second absolutely slams many hard rock bands... there's so little in the way of rock as pure Motion and Energy when u have no times for things like self-aggrandizement ! no disrespect on self-aggrandizement ofc...but this scratches an almost wholly unique itch. made me think about early rock n rollers just as much as talking heads

at least this time its not disrupting the chronology of my slowly ongoing beatles revisits! i have acquired plenty of hot takes during this project about the band's (incredibly fruitful) early period, the hottest of which is a deep appreciation for beatles for sale as not just my fave of these early albums in terms of material but also the secret forgotten Great Leap in the band's diversity and ambition. with this leap in appreciation comes a Slight loss of magic for the much more beloved two records on either side of it. not super much mind you, theyre still great, but come across as more treading water than Advancements in the overall trajectory of the band. what that does mean is that esp in the case of this one, theyve settled very snuggly into their songcraft and a lot of the tracks do blur together for me (esp considering how much i like these early beatles albums and Can tell the songs apart lol), but it also means theyre working at a very very high floor of quality. and i dont wanna oversell the monotony anyway...theres some surprise bitter tones among the bubblegum here, as well as just a lot of great individual musical ideas with weird chord changes and little moments of subtle arrangement genius (if u didnt know, the secret to the famous opening chord is Theres A Piano In There). v good material from the world's favorite above average pop band.

if u saw the two star rating i inexplicably had on this from when i was 18 or so, no u didnt. the slowly dawning realization that this is probably one of the best albums ive rolled yet was not pretty. rly just inimitable songcraft delivering emotions deeply felt but struggled to be projected. in places , as elemental as something like the velvet underground, but never compromising on its nonstop melodic sensibility. kind of autistic honestly. feel very stupid that i just bounced off this years ago and havent spent the time inbetween getting super attached to this thing! will make up for lost time eventually, i am periodically slowly revisiting my new faves from this project...they can pop up in the most unexpected places

almost every member of this band is credited with "sampler" except for the drummer who is the only one playing an instrument. rly striking and inspiring stuff, tho a lil more in its conception than the actual music, at least for now...the strange Unmoored feeling that comes from building semi-traditional songs out of a sampler can be hard to find a place in on just one listen. still, i literally havent heard anything that sounds like this...the strange theatrical undertone and the menace of the vocal delivery add additional wrinkles to what could just be a one-gimmick band. in its best moments, it feels like the sky is the limit but its also made of bronze and trapping u

once again, stepped in musical traditions that i have v little experience with (i dont even have enough knowledge of american blues much less this african fusion). lacking more specific language or fallback mental models ill just say this is v v enjoyable. there is a rly warm and sweet quality to this that certainly stands out against the typical perception of the blues, and probably owes itself to all sorts of things from the geographical move away from the center of antiblack oppression to these songhai/mande traditions i am not familiar with. songs are very hypnotic and can be surprisingly varied in terms of sound palate. a barely posthumous release, im not sure if it was a self-conscious swan song (toure was battling cancer for a long time) but regardless of how it got here, its moving qualities of liveliness and being-at-peace are likely to stick with me

kinda afraid this has pre-emptively ruined any other 50s trad pop albums i might roll in comparison! absolutely covered in sparkles and giggles, a great swing band teams up with a gravitatious singer and trumpet player to create a fleeting and fluid set of tracks that carry so much character and charisma , humor often thru pure energy that has to go Somewhere as prima makes silly expressive noises with his voice even before u get to the scatting. simply the Sound Of Entertainment or whatever! comfy party vibes off the charts

totally revelatory man...one of the nastier results of a perusal of the Canon is that while some bands are inevitably over-represented others are reduced to a single significant album, cut off from its evolution and context and often implying a narrative of "most of their music kinda sounds like this but this is where they did it the best." i rly like forever changes and ig was unconsciously expecting something in that mold, but i was totally wrong to do so...arthur lee flexes his songwriting and creativity muscles in directions i didnt even know he was capable of based on that one album, creating a diverse and ornate hippie fantasyland that still Has Things To Say. honestly he might deserve the cred that ended up going to jim morrision...such a magnetic presence, and here he is in full gonzo exploration mode that only enhances my appreciation for forever changes' tender apocalypse. so mind-expanding!

instead of simply building one of the most vivid smoky candlelight atmospheres thats ever been on a singer songwriter record, nyro somehow Starts there and just keeps adding on top. in that way it reminds me weirdly of pet sounds? and is a similarly impressive and ofc even more adventurous splitting of the difference between classic proven musical modes and intricate hyper-expressive songwriting experiments. some choices in vocal delivery here will always take my breath away. the longer my good streak goes on the more anxious i get FHJSHFDJFS

got this for the day after the band seemingly announced their final stretch, a kind of emotional announcement for me even as a critter who likes things to be Manageably Finite. there are few bands out there that hit the marks of Comfort as well as coldplay does, depending on the song and era the emotional impression is either that The Song Is Speaking To You Directly In An Intimate Setting, or The Song Is Throwing A Party That Everyone Is Invited To And You Dont Need To Come Its No Pressure But It Will Be Very Happy When It Sees You Arrive. obviously the former is where the magic lies in this very beautiful record, which ive been underrating p hard. there is an earnest and inviting and hyper-populist quality to all of coldplays music that i think deserves a lot more respect simply because basically no one else has worked so hard at this specific craft...the lack of self-aggrandizement and ability to speak across so many demographics genuinely reminds me of CCR or something. early coldplay is not my personal favorite, ive spent the most time in the post-viva la vida lush maximalism (x&y splits the difference rly well becoming my favorite of theirs currently), but the What If The Bends Was Sweet stuff is growing on me. and they got way way way better takes on palestine then radiohead too lmao

am groggy and Bleh and not in the best mood for music. still rly liked this tho which makes me think i should revisit it some other day with a clearer head...very warm and glowing and soulful pop stuff with even kind of a singer-songwriter edge that i wasnt expecting from the guy i mostly know for the funny sexy meme song (granted that is culture's fault and not his). my fave tracks predictably are the big soupy comfy ballads, real fishbowl stuff i can just float around in, but even the ones with a harder rnb edge are mostly super good and hooky. i like how u can trace my level of mentally functioning based on how stilted my writing ab these albums is lol im sorry george u made good music u deserve better!!!

p much every part of this is engineered for maximum front to back Delight from myself! sparkling, soaring, winding proggy pop rock with a ton of big color and drama, synths and saxophones, hyper-melodic at all turns. plays at turns like a less glammy more dreamy ziggy stardust, a less monochromatic pink floyd, or a harder-edged moody blues, but i think this created whole new itches i dont even know how to articulate yet. tons of theatrical imagination without ever being overbearing, which i wouldnt have minded but which would have compromised the surprisingly cozy and warm quality this has too. a real gem for me, deffo time to stop overlooking this band!

when records come out of particularly significant circumstances, for obvious reasons because of how Art Works those circumstances arent usually visible in the final product in a totally unambiguous unavoidable way. just about the only way it can is if it noticeably changes how the record Sounds, and the instrument most prone to bearing the weight of the circumstances it lives thru (without being replaceable) is ofc the human voice. there is a great and beautiful orchestra present here delivering very moving (and sometimes heartrending on their own) renditions of the songs here, but it wouldnt have a tenth of the power without billie's voice. ravaged by decades of abuse, substance and otherwise, it still proves incredibly expressive both in its inherent characteristics and in the choices she makes...her jazzy phrasing is lowkey conversational, lends recognizable readable emotions to lyrics that might pass you by could u simply get lost in the melody. ive seen descriptions to the effect that she sounds like she's about to drop dead but this is counter to the appeal to me honestly...she sings with patience and presence , sounding not one bit fearful of time. a rly rly difficult listen honestly,,,partly because of billie's life ofc but more immediately and enduringly how that life created this sound, which is at times excruciatingly painful even as it is totally beautiful and approachable

this site has me fugking bugged this was literally on my slate of albums to get to rly soon , kicking off the fire in my heart telling me to do a tom petty dive. petty is strangely over-represented in the rotation of the classic rock station that plays where i work, and my relationship with him evolved from disgust at him somewhat signifying Shit I Was Forced To Listen To, to a slowburn casual appreciation of a few of his songs, to crying to his greatest hits album (which became one of my great Comfort Albums of recent). i figure i thusly owe his proper records some time and i think this sets a great precedent to how i will respond to them. a couple rly big hits that are probably the highlights, but comfortably cushioned by deep cuts that prod at different directions of petty's aesthetic interests and more than anything Pure Songwriting Sensibilities (its my understanding most of this album was written in a day). petty is one of the most intuitive songwriters to ever work in the Rock Idiom as far as im concerned, and front to back this is full of little melodic delights for me...and ofc petty and the heartbreakers absolutely kill their performances and bring out surprising subtle bits of variety track for track (including a few synths, the horror!). i think with all my ccr raving my tom petty raving is inevitable, he brings more Rock Star energy but perfectly balances approachability with total coolness and not an ounce of gross swagger...just a guy with a weird expressive voice who can smith a tune in his sleep and hand it to a great band

delightfully inscrutable! esp as it seems like an artistic climax of an arc of which i only know the one big hit. extremely confident mix of new wave and soul and stretches of spoken word to create something ornate and at times melodically decadent but somehow super casual...like its simply giving voice and form to a bunch of thoughts of no consequence. ends up feeling deceptively huge by the end, some rly great arrangements help a lot with that but i think more than anything its that even if something is small, it ends up feeling like it Matters, somehow, or should at least be treated as such

its difficult to tell which substance had a greater impact on the recording of this record between Cocaine and Utter Disillusionment. im glad that ive already heard Stand and a bit of Life because without the context of their earlier Brighter Livelier Idealistic material i dont think this hits quite as hard (which makes the discrepancy in number of ratings on this website a lil sad but its fine lol). slightly nightmarish and always wholly enveloping with arrangements it feels like u can never reach the bottom of, and bizarre musical ideas are somehow finessed in such a half-lucid state that they start to feel magnetic and inevitable. my only potential complaint is that they rly dont sound like a Band that much on this one at all,,,iir a lot of parts are just sly himself either from the start or in overdubs, but even this kinda adds to the fucked-up atmosphere cuz theres so little room to breathe and no direction to move except down. sly in general is one of the great unsung mega-influences on all popular music that came afterwards, the amount that goes back to his work is unbelievable, and his music is rly incredible too which is always nice!

so good at worldbuilding that it creates a whole backstory for an already existing soul standard and its one of the most hypnotizing experiences u can have listening to a record. hayes and the bar-keys go absolute god mode finding every single possible bit of groove and emotion to be fleshed out in a mere four songs to create something so overwhelming im a lil at a loss for words even having heard this a while back and sort of knowing what to expect. idk how often id even be in the mood for this but what an accomplishment man. south park will pay for its crimes

i tbh wasnt sure how i was gonna react to this but it turns out its not the 70s version of minor threat, its the 70s version of andrew wk (the fact that its the embryo for both is just an additional layer of admiration). even pumped up in muscle and tempo there is a very sweet melodic sensibility at the heart of this (inherited from the shockingly Wussy types of 50s rock they were into) that rly makes this feel like a Real Band with a Real Vision despite how many iterations in so many directions take off from here. and even if ur not into it for whatever reason, u could never claim it wastes ur time. once i get into classical music ill be explaining how this is exactly like totalism

being a doofus with extremely limited knowledge, the main thing i was thinking of was rush of blood to the head-era coldplay which i only found out afterwards this predates by like three years. so ig rly the point of origin here is more bends era radiohead? neither of these are especially exciting comparisons for me tbh but this is prob my fave between all three,,,a real warmth is achieved here somewhere between the vocal delivery and the personal-feelin lyrics and the comfy winter vibe, and if its nothing mindblowing i find it very inviting regardless. comfortably uninsistent while still making room for some big choruses and the like, its rly nice! whole project has been full of little one-off experiences that it feels nice to unexpectedly have in my memory bank...cant believe im coming up on 100 days without having missed a single one so far, woooo

i dont imagine there's a tonnnn of country on this list but there's probably enough to trip me up a little because, as is the case with most Online Music Fans, it is not a genre i have rly found a consistent way into yet in an album presentation. however not only is this rly good but its also v different from the couple of more nashville-y country records ive rolled so far...its a lot sparser and spacier and while thats not usually my intuitive preference i think opening up the space rly rly does something for my appreciation, simultaneously bigger and even cosmic while also being comfier and more intimate. some sparkling pianos on here i always love, and clearly beautiful country melodies even tho its not an idiom i can seamlessly navigate atm. if anyone has country recs (from any era really) lemme know, ive been living in texas for over half a decade now im running out of excuses!

in the year between rush making a very amateurish and full-of-visable-seams (but endearing!) stab at prog, and the oiling up of their prog ideas into a respectable machine (albeit one that has a couple tendencies not to my personal tastes), they put out this weird transitional album that for me lacks the strengths of whats on either side of it but is positioned at just the right point to be inevitably remembered as a classic for people more sold on the band than me. i was determined to force the B-side to make an impression on me but nothin doin i suppose!!!! it takes a couple more records for me to get a lot out of rush's "normal" songwriting abilities,,,i cant quite articulate what doesnt work for me other than continuing fan fiction of bands i dont super like, and a certain structural choppiness thats in a LOT of the band's material (its p much my biggest problem with them) but is less irksome in the context of the big multipart epics. speaking of which the title track's fine lol, but honestly i kinda end up preferring the super rough yet Cute prog attempts on caress of steel. i dont wanna say its not growth, it definitely is, but its growth in just the right space to be less to my tastes. deffo not my favorite band as u can tell lol but they are capable of making great music, i am (very) slowly working thru their discog

i tbh melted so much and so firmly into this that when i got to the other side i realized i didnt actually form any cogent thoughts rly hfjsd. best attempt after the fact: sounds alternately like its being transmitted from the other side of the country or the other side of the galaxy, a bunch of the melodies feel like theyve been around for forever, and maybe its just cuz its when my lucidity started coming back to me but poor places is grabbing my soul as a Song Of Significance for the future.

clocking in at over three hours, obviously this is more of an encyclopedic document of songs and performances than an actually intended Album Listening Experience. i did still listen to the whole thing in one sitting! and not even out of obligation necessarily...when i saw it was divided into discs, i was like "okay after each disc ill give myself the chance to stop", but i ended up not rly feeling the obvious need for a break at any point. definitely bad for its intended function As an encyclopedic document, as the sheer volume of songs and performances is just too much information to properly parse in a row, but i super enjoyed myself. if ur going to listen to anyone sing for this long, i think its gotta be ella fitzgerald...she's just this steady ray of light thats constantly inviting to Have In Ur Ears (esp cuz she still retains a fun and involving swing), and her diction is so clear and readable and comfortable that u never have to struggle to see the artistry of both her and whatever song she's singing. all the choices she makes are firmly in favor of The Song, a very humble approach that still leaves it self evident that ur listening to quite possibly the Objectively Best Singer humanity has ever seen. even the final stretch of instrumentals is a nice way to wind down to the finish line after a titanic experience. and ur telling she's got a whole separate album with louis armstrong for the porgy and bess material? wowie!

famously much more difficult to conceptualize as a Cohesive Art Object than its older sister ziggy stardust, but i can at least buy the Rock Star Neurosis that ties some of the songs together and works well enough as a flavoring for those it doesnt directly concern. the songs are pretty good too! not accounting for the boldness of ziggy's overall style at the time its probably the more musically adventurous album...the kind of loosey-goosey creative rainbow i always enjoy hearing from artists i like, esp a creative maverick like bowie. but if im gonna have any more insightful takes or whatever i think id need a level of investment in bowie overall i dont quite have, to rly mingle with those finer details and small differences. also finding out jean genie was the hit is kind of strange!!! the 70s were weird, man!!!

its been so long since i last heard either eno's art rock records or bowie's berlin trilogy that i cant rly make meaningful comparisons and thus am more or less missing the two most obvious anchoring points here. that being said, it turned out not to be necessary...the cumulative effect of this album is absolutely magical and moving and even medicinal. winding up a tense storm of anxious jittery proto-talking heads thats as synesthetically and melodically satisfying as anything, and then all the tension is unwound perfectly on the gorgeous and moving back half for maximum catharsis. the unsung hero of the whole thing is the beautiful Here He Comes, which bridges the two halves and helps create an effect that doesnt hit u all at once but takes u in one step at a time, prolonging the feeling of unwinding and making the whole thing feel like a Whole instead of two halves. eno is probably among the most intuitive thinkers in all of music...every left field sound and stylistic switch-up feels absolutely inevitable. a lil bit in awe of this

idk what i was expecting, but it wasnt Kind Of A Version Of Exile Era Stones I Can Actually Tolerate. its actually very easy to improve on that central rackous southern tinged rock n roll Cascade with lots of pianos: less lengthy, less racist, less mick jagger! just real good fun and enthusiastically performed rock music, with enough little quirks to make me believe if i ever came back to rly soak in this id find a lot of genuine idiosyncrasy. im fine with just appreciating the enjoyable surface level atm tho! this may be the first time in this project where i get a fuller recontextualization of a song i hear all the time at work, which is something ive enjoyed doing periodically as my brain stockholm syndromes itself into classic rock mode

somehow lowkey one of the best produced albums ive ever heard...the amount of precision on display without sacrificing an ounce of warmth is astonishing! obviously a lot of it is going to come down to joan herself, who is magnetic and powerful without ever once overplaying anything. i dont mind things that are cold or overplayed, but the discipline here in all directions is impressive, and creates something shockingly enveloping in ways that i dont even think i can articulate after just one listen. the start of every new track pulled me in all over again...great melodic ideas and expressive song structures, arranged tastefully and performed magically. what i caught of the lyrics (not typically my focus on a first listen) are also incredible. i cant believe ive never heard about her before even a little, this deserves way more canonization!

i already have this record slated for a revisitation project where it will enter my actual rotation and ill actually chew on it and form hopefully better thoughts then i manage with these little blurbs lol. but maybe not! not for lack of things to talk about, its a famously intricate record, but the formula for its popularity has always been intricacy + hyper-clarity...in sound engineering, in the way musical information is dished out, in aesthetic. i tbh might push back on the lack of rough edges harder if that didnt in and of itself Become the colors and the texture, esp because for as approachable as this is it never quite feels Friendly...feels like u could slip and fall down it and it would just be a perfectly smooth bottomless pit. cool music!

did not fully absorb as much as i want due to a combination of grogginess and stress, but theres probably little else even under these circumstances that would be As Nice to listen to. life affirming in such a self-evident way it makes me feel less bad for struggling to form words about it. almost. might have to come back to this one later

there is absolutely no significance to whatever the random generator throws at me, so me getting a rly great record for my day 100 milestone isnt crazy, but it being my first easy First Listen 5/5 of the entire project does feel a lil extraordinary. ive been listening a lot lately to the black saint and the sinner lady, an absolutely unhinged musical accomplishment that combines a wide variety of disciplines into something that feels so effortlessly singular yet also in conversation with so many strands of history. i am far less familiar with the styles and cultures being mixed here, but even after just one listen it feels comparably vibrant and unstoppable, channeling the most color and complexity possible into pure gut-level dance and emotion. the feelings sliders are thrown way towards joyousness, togetherness, and healing. i have no idea how u even start to make music like this. i should explore a lot more west african pop whenever i feel the mental capacity for such a task

less poppy then the earlier album i rolled from her, goes further on the harder rnb/deep soul edge to rly amazing results i think even those who werent into that other album could appreciate. just extremely vivacious and lively music, barnburners all over the place, even in its slower ballady moments it kinda makes me sweat just from the grit and weight. been acquainting and re-acquainting with a lot of legendary soul vocalists over the course of this project, and while nina simone is prob my personal fave there's nobody who quite matches aretha's Bright Belting , feels like the sun

extremely horrifying combination of name and genres, but the actual listening experience was not repulsive thankfully lol, even mostly good id say. a lot of it comes from the wide and respectable spread of sample choices, which combined with the efforts of the rhythm section lend some good swing that elevates g love's slacker rock white rapper thing. upon hearing the first song i was wondering whether this was an inspiration for (or rip off of) beck, but mellow gold came out the same year. even soul coughing's debut came out the same year!! where the hell did all these guys come from. g love's gotta be the weakest of these three (the record overstays its welcome, which reveals the limitations of his style), but it would be a mistake to Totally dismiss this out of hand

some infamously muddy murky production on this that isnt quite of a piece with the bright and dramatic arrangements, but i can at least put up with bad/questionable production as long as its not actively physically unpleasant on my ears. otherwise....uh, i think i loved literally everything about this HFJKHSFJKHFSJKHFSJKFHSJKFHKFS regardless of how its presented the musical palate on here is incredibly comforting to me...ridiculously heart-on-sleeve, melodic, autumnal, and expressive. its not often rock music with this much of a glam/theatrical edge feels this intimate, but its testament to how it feels like theres just no barrier whatsoever between the sound and the emotions. im rly thankful for artists who just throw themselves into stuff like this thats maybe easily mockable but is so so much For Me and id be sad to live in a world without. deffo one to come back to for me...have a feeling increased familiarity might make this one a lil transcendent

extremely funny and silly of me to wonder where g love, beck, and soul coughing all sprang up from and literally roll the beastie boys a couple days later lmao. owned by the RNG machine! kind of a funny contrast to g love cuz the beastie boys' delivery style is even more monotonous and theoretically way less conducive to an album of this length (and tbh im not Completely sold on it in a 10/10 classic way still) but where g love kinda dragged me across the finish line, this flies by. kinda gives me vertigo...rly kaleidoscopic, with their frantic trade-off style and weird combinations of words making even the non-sampled parts fit in with the Bottomless Pit Of Collage aesthetic. expectedly, very stimmy. may throw this on a bit when i need to drag myself out of bed for an early shift in a couple days lol

expectedly extremely nice, unexpectedly full of little pockets of sadness that u can trip over easily if ur not careful. rolling this version of make me feel like a natural woman so close to aretha's rly drives this home...king's voice is sturdy but slightly pained, and it lends a bittersweet quality to a lot of the songs that makes them feel like there are details of the surrounding story and circumstance ur missing. lots to chew on whenever i come back to this

track after track of How The Fuck Did Trent Reznor Do This. he's one of those sound designers that just knows what Emotions sound like, so much so that u dont even need the lyrics most of the time. but thru their addition they transform these internal landscapes into anthems, burning rage directed at god and the self which are often the same thing. this whole exercise grants a comforting tactility and comprehensibility to feelings that, when felt on their own, can be too overwhelming to parse, which is p much one of The Reasons to make art...a desire to map some order onto the world even briefly, even if the direction of that order is straight to the bottom. a warm place/eraser/reptile/title track/hurt is pretty much the best five song stretch on any album...maybe others are As Good but im not confident theres anything better. unless i roll another old megafavorite soon, this will be on the v top of my ranking for this project for a long while

v successful collaboration between Shining Sparkling new wave and utterly caustic acidity. every track is rly great and surprisingly distinct on first listen for me, it usually takes me a bit more familiarity to pick tracks apart cuz new stimulus is overwhelming and scary. last track in particular is one of the coolest new discoveries ive made in this project...rly hypnotic and spiraling. matt johnson's commanding voice is one of the most impressively corrosive ive heard because somehow it doesnt feel at all like he's Doing A Bit, just feels like all the darkness in his soul is spilling out his mouth on top of these fun flashy rhythmic rants

apparently i heard the debut at some point but i dont remember that, so this entire listen i operated under the assumption that this was the first time i was venturing into talking heads from Before they picked up their more eclectic blend of influences and studio tricks. its maybe not entirely fair...i can at the v least see the Skeleton of those influences in a lot of the music here, but the emphasis is first and foremost on the band as a somewhat traditional rock setup, which im not super used to tbh! it absolutely rules, ofc...i should spend some time on a talking heads dive more broadly, but even hearing this out of context its just an absolute bolt of exciting subtly fucked-up jittery music. david byrne's hyper-neurotic vocal style brings out sinister colors to lyrics that might be totally innocuous read on their own, and id hear out anyone who said they p much had the best rhythm section in rock music of the decade. tina weymouth in particular! absolutely incredible!!! rly wonderful to see how well the band's proclivities stack up with a relative lack of frills to hide behind, esp since eno is still there to make everything sound incredible. can probably only grow and grow in appreciation

long and smooth, one of the times where i feel like my total lack of remembering anything specific that Happened on an album might have been part of the specific design. the smoothness makes u swirl around like a marble in a perpetual motion machine...more hypnotizing than anything. a couple tone shifts like the last couple of tracks do stand out, melodies are often beautiful, and i think more than anything my main takeaway is kurt wagner's voice which perfectly balances Commanding Presence with utter gentleness. also perfect fall music obviously but every season looks the same in the texas suburbs lol. kinda rly loved this one tbh

i think the thing that most sticks out to me is that for how early this is in the history of synthpop, and for how rough and patchy the sound is, the band somehow knows Exactly What They Want To Achieve and how to achieve it with the confidence of infinitely more established technology and genre conventions. front to back quality tunes matched only by surprisingly layered aesthetic unity...i think the flavor that rly sells it is the Comic Edge which is mostly content to bubble under the surface, quietly enhancing the ramshackle qualities. closing track is rly beautiful and sad, and i think does even more wonders than the aesthetic to help me conceptualize this as a whole Album. a weirdly evocative halloween listen too!!

mixing/mastering can be not to my taste at points but otherwise wonderfully comforting and even creative slice of maudlin. made me feel coldplay feelings more than once, and surprisingly brisk for its length and lack of surface level Excitement. good melty music i should prob return to, esp if im ever in a place that actually has snow again fhsdjfshdj. feel like that would top it off rly nicely

in my early years as a music listener, the beatles set my appreciation for conceptualizing albums that are eclectic and "messy", and pink floyd set my appreciation for conceptualizing albums that are clearly unified wholes. the LP format in general as itself a Method Of Expression is probably floyd's most consistent strength in their peak period and certainly one of the central ways in which they built their Legend...the music is un-flashy and un-show-offy esp compared to the genre prog rock landscape, so a lot of what Blows Peoples Minds really is the Structure, which is something to think about and is also p personally vindicating lol. i tbh dont have a lot to say ab this...it was nice to revisit! and nice to make a little more peace with my past self. but atm this is pretty in the realm of Pure Functionality for me...i deeply admire the flow and the sonic palate but where Wish You Were Here was still surprisingly stirring, this washed over me in an enjoyable but slightly cold way. could be at least in part a function of mood ill admit, and it is hard to not feel Something at "you missed the starting gun" and the cathartic bursts of volume in great gig/us and them/brain damage. i tbh wonder if the wall will be a bit more exciting to me whenever i get to it...some theatrics and melodrama might bridge the gap a lil more for me

almost completely forgot ab the project today but i was rewarded for remembering with uh....the best album ever???? idk??? faggy forest prince music...just an immaculate vibe set almost entirely to my specific tastes. eccentric and longing songs with rly expressive and surprising compositions set to a bunch of creative ideas and/or beautiful piano playing, all overgrown with moss and mushrooms and ivy. will take a few more listens on my own time to rly pull apart, but i cant imagine i wont be rewarded. makes me think i like thom yorke's voice a lot more than i think i do, or that what he was rly missing was to sound way gayer, cuz Gay Ass Thom Yorke kept flashing in my mind!!!

perilously , endlessly Smooth jazz funk the likes of which might be a bit too indistinct to people who are inclined to just dismiss out of hand. for me tho this is basically the perfect thing to slot into the way i tend to use the albums in this project as my morning routine. probably nothing here will blow ur mind (except maybe the opening title track, with commandingly beautiful vocals from randy crawford), but its all finessed and lovable and artful...packed with genuine experience and a ton of sweet little keyboard parts. might have to come back to this one just to vibe out!

a whole album about the bad bitch you pulled by being autistic ive been visiting and revisiting this record on and off for years and the effect its produced has always been reliably wonderful, but its never quite broken into my personal favorites even tho i have no good reason for that! i dont even feel distance with it, i think its wonderfully spellbinding. honestly maybe the lubrication i need is to just actually get into the band as a whole and their other albums dkdnjd...i have an instinct that placing this in a more fleshed out context will finally push it over the edge into that This Is A Fave gut feeling. i suppose it is also quite mood based, as its deliberate and atmospheric pop music with a Churning quality rather than being necessarily bright and attention grabbing. still, its genuinely difficult to imagine making music thats better than this lol....literally flawless combination of enveloping well-realized vibe, incredible sound palate, and some of the best and most decadent vocal melodies ever put down on a pop record

free and beautiful music. what i appreciate most is the care taken to make each of the four tracks as distinct as possible...different sound palates, tones, musical ideas. wraps from challenging to lovely any anything else u can think of probably...each central seed for a track is brought out and grown into a wide spread u can just soak in, with too many cool things happening along the way to count. my mind jumps to the image of a seed cuz this is a weirdly plantlike album for me...sort of in the vein of my experience with autechre's draft 7.30. rly looking forward to chewing on this more at some point

extremely precise and sentimental modern country, kinda washed over me but i deliberately let it do so. extremely good After Your Shower tunes, and would occasionally demand my full attention with an excruciatingly beautiful melody or delivery. what i caught of the lyrics always seemed extremely emotive and sweet and likable. im pretty disconnected from the resurgence country has seen in the mainstream recently, or well actually anything thats been popular recently tbh FSFHJSFHJSF. also this probably isnt exactly in that category esp cuz its pre-pandemic when pop culture seemed to Make More Sense lol. great and comfy record tho

if any artist was capable of going back in time to make an album before most of their influences even existed, simply thru Sheer Force Of Contrarianism, maybe itd be mark e smith because this reminds me way more of the fall than i does the ramones, or even the early garage-y kinks singles. i dont wanna imply the main virtue of this thing is coming out in 1966 but its pretty impossible not to think about...i havent heard the sonics, but how much sounded like this Ever at this point in time??? it all comes out of genuinely creative and eccentric choices mixing antithetic repetition of barely-formed lyrics, free jazz atonal instrumental flourishes, and essentially no recognizable compositional conventions of the time whatsoever (at least, none that arent distorted beyond belief). a bit exhausting even at a short length but this still packs an unbelievable punch, i cant even imagine how it sounded on release to whatever small number of people actually heard it

i mean even if i wasnt really into this for whatever reason, it would probably still feel too immense for words. without strictly imitating any of his previous work (at least that im aware of, tho im sure it takes influences from all over), it feels like bowie grasps the core of the appeal of his chameleonic always-on-the-artistic-move persona by creating a cryptic and emotive blend of sounds and styles that make anything Seem possible. for as often as this album is described as morose or oppressive it most often feels to me like wide open spaces and cosmic bursts of creativity as hungry as anything else he made at any other stage of his life. the way bowie cracks himself open and spills his caged-up vulnerabilities everywhere will be most people's main takeaway from the record, rightfully so, but i think at this point i find myself most moved by the final of finals I Can't Give Everything Away, which finds a beauty and serenity in all the things that bowie Could have shared with the world but never will. the beauty i think comes from simply the enormity of not just existence, but existence that is potentially worthwhile, u will never ever run out of things to discover and appreciate in this life. even if he wanted it would not be possible for even a nonstop maverick like bowie to express every single worthwhile thing in his life and head. he sure made a better stab at it than most though

somewhat like bowie, i feel like i havent given neil young's music enough time and have approached his career to the extent that i have in a kind of unideal way: casual one-off listens to his most acclaimed albums that i never bothered to follow up on. a random number generator of acclaimed albums obviously isnt gonna solve this problem HJKFHSJKFHFSJKHFSJKFSHKFSJHK but i will pay more attention to our encounters. i think they will be fruitful, because i think his voice especially has clicked harder for me than it ever has before, both in vocals and songwriting,,,a good mixture of instant recognizibility and eclecticism across both. was v interesting to find out this was recorded in the aftermath of harvest, one of the ones ive actually heard...to bust out one of my signature tortured beach boys metaphor, this feels a bit like a wild honey/friends to that record's pet sounds/smile. incredibly whisky soaked in that way that makes me question whether people get drunk to escape or to wallow, a productive emotional tension that informs a rly incredible set of melodies and performances. borrowed tune in particular really cut to my center....how can i, number one Ballad Fan, continue to put off neil young???

this seems pretty good i was enjoying the swinging and melodic semi-theatrical style but i didnt actually take a good look at the album cover until i was in the second half or so of the record and i was like Is That Fucking Blackface and then i just lost my whole train of thought for the rest of the album oops!

was in my rotation semi-recently but its never a bad time to listen. much like violator this has never quite hit my Favorite Album instinct but has been a reliably perfect piece of work with nothing else that quite scratches its itch, especially impressive given its such a thorough stylistic almanac of so many ways in which prog would evolve from here...i talk to the wind sounds ripped right from the canterbury scene, moonchild's jam is in the dna of so many avant prog bands, and all the other tracks take up spaces inbetween from theatrics to jazz to metal. they are ofc also just perfectly crafted songs with a sweeping escapist atmosphere u cant find anywhere else. this album deffo didnt Invent prog rock, the moody blues/procol harum/the nice/probably a bunch of other bands had already been confirming that the existence of prog rock or at least something with a similar philosophy was inevitable, but its this album that set down the shape of the genre as something other than a general direction, like how black sabbath's self-titled set down the shape of metal beyond the simple instinct to make rock music heavier and louder. im prob due for a king crimson dive...

another band i really need to learn More About, but i remember most of this record surprisingly vividly from my spins years ago in the college dishroom. its difficult to isolate any One Part of cocteau twins music and what exactly its contributing besides the fact that the music would be emptier without it, it feels strangely and comfortingly inevitable in that way. fraser always sounds less like someone singing at u and more like a voice inside ur head, like ur remembering her rather than hearing her. compared to holv which im a lot more familiar with this is less anthemic and more esoteric...while not ofc being one bit less melodic, and the mysteries here are all inviting, like theres reason to believe there's benevolence behind them. kind of the best music ever lowkey

obviously a huge album (more in scale than in runtime, even), and tho ive heard it a few times before i dont feel hugely confident writing ab it holistically so here's a couple random thoughts lol. (1) is george still the "cool" pick for best beatle? i feel like paul has cinched the title in recent years...something about him has proved enduring thru various eras of taste politics (2) i dont quite have the words for it but george's sense of melody is maybe the most distinct of the entire band. for as distinct as lennon/mccartney are from eachother, lennon/mccartney is still a recognizable Style that people in general call Beatleseque even tho it doesnt even really apply to all the beatles (3) the apple jam is an enduringly interesting inclusion to this thing...not necessarily cuz of the music itself (which is perfectly good, people are mean and dumb) but just the overwhelming Casualness and Backwards Looking Vibes. on a record most famous for sounding big and spiritual, its the biggest tether to earth besides a couple rootsier songs in the "main" tracklist (4) this might be the apex of phil spectors "instruments to be felt and not heard" style, in that u can hear all the instruments generally speaking but it feels so unintuitive to pick them out from eachother...they feel like a ghostly and occasionally ecstatic whole (5) im really bad at picking favorite songs on albums but im not sure i Ever could here. there's like half a dozen even contenders

also leaves me slightly speechless but for the opposite reason as all things must pass lol im so familiar and it feels so Small that its like, what do i even say about if you're feeling sinister. besides Its Been A While Since Ive Heard It and It Was A Delight To Hear Again, as always. i didnt hear this album for the First time in 2020 but if i recall that was when it clicked, very rough and tumultuous time when a lot of things were up in the air and of all the records i was spinning at the time this is the one i inevitably became traumabonded to...it seemed to take all my emotions and rework them into something soothing and warm. in that sense i suppose i can never really expect it to "hit" like that again, which is fine! even if i felt nothing (which isnt rly possible at this point), id still have the good sense to enjoy some of the best Strings Of Notes ever put in this particular order. and the title track is kind of taking on new dimensions in some of my recent patterns of thought too...theres probably enough in here to last me decades

freakily, this is exactly the place i last left off my rush dive, so i guess i'll try to pick it up HJKFHSFJKSF. my rush adventures have been pretty up and down unfortunately, i still feel like there's something really fundamental at the core of this band that i am just Not Getting. that being said when i was last listening i had just had my mind blown by permanent waves, a wonderfully vibrant and colorful statement that did a lot to justify rush's melding of melodic hard rock and shiny flashy prog. at least on this first revisit i think its clear i like this one a bit less...the goal here is not advancement or risk-taking so much as Refinement, and i miss some of the more eclectic moments from PW that showed off their ambitions a lot more. the tradeoff has many obvious advantages tho, not only is this just Obviously their tightest tracklist, but the start-stop jittery song structures that have always annoyed me about rush are p much entirely wiped away here. whats left is a level of pure unity and coherency that will inevitably be remembered by fans as one of the bands peaks, and ig its gotta be one for me too. limelight is undeniable as far as classic rock radio staples go, and i didnt know they had a song as moody and bubblebathy as witch hunt in them. yet more proof that all rock bands need synthesizers and im tired of pretending they dont

almost strikingly , ig Unambitious? obviously the structure of it leaves very little room for ambiguity, which i have to admit does make me fidget a little...i dont think theres anything ontalogically wrong with making art that is Not Subtle and Not Ambiguous but its not very compatible with my Art Sensors most of the time cuz i dont just wanna observe it from the outside i wanna find a way into working with it, which is harder to do when its tryna do all the work by itself. that being said this made more and more sense the more i got into it (and it also saves what are likely its most moving track for the back end)...the ambitions it does have to express Lived Experiences with various degrees of abstraction (once through direct narration once through music, generally speaking) does have a genuinely interesting kind of transparency. and obviously a lot of the sentiments here are very moving and cover a wide variety of tones that allow for actual nuance and complication in how those involved view themselves. and for all my waffling about wanting ambiguity or whatever, a lot of these are perspectives that Havent been expressed in direct unmissable ways thru art and music history. maybe not one of my super favorites but fs a beautiful record in many ways

i didnt realize it until i thought about it but i barely know who elton john is HFJKHFSJKFSHJKFS its impossible to miss his Existence as an outsized pop culture presence with a bunch of famous songs but besides being that piano guy i dont actually know much about his artistic vision or trajectory at all. just listening to one album isnt gonna help super much with that but this was v enjoyable for me lol...rick wakemen appearing on a few tracks kinda speaks to the grand and ambitious tone of this thing while still remaining pretty hit-between-the-eyes pop in most of its songwriting approach...a big string arrangement here, a theatrical ballad there, its all Good Stuff For Me. and the base materials seems rly good as well thankfully...john's cascading keyboard parts and strangely flamboyant-yet-approachable singing are definitely something i could stand to have more of in my life

are we sure? are we absolutely sure u need to hear this before u die? are we like Sure sure? over any of her other albums even??? almost inevitably there are moments where everything lines up right: the great timbre of adele's voice sings what just happens to be a genuinely moving melodic twist which just happens to be lined up with an effectively bittersweet worldweary lyric and its all washed over with that big echoy pop soul cathedral production. unfortunately it happens less for me than id like (tho more than i expected based on the tbh kinda drab and inert famous singles), and the Maturity here in place of the melodrama i remember from 21 kinda dulls the emotional colors all over the place. fair enough ig and im mom-coded enough to give this a passing grade but im sure she can do more vivid and distinctive work than this. at least its better in her vocal chords than it would be in many others

perfectly enjoyable kitsch imo! unfortunately idk if it quite beats the allegations of One Song Where The Songcraft Comes Together Notably More Than The Others but of all the songs in that category karma chameleon is probably one of the best and will not be denied by me. almost everything else is pretty glompy and structurally inert unfortunately but i still had a good time cuz its hard to beat this hyper-colorful new romantic sound palate...if the songs were more memorable, they would be very easy to tell apart with the genuine variety tied together mostly by admirable garishness. and no matter what he's singing boy george is a nice presence!

i keep trying to put down words about it and i just cant. im considering a full kate bush re-dive at some point so maybe ill try to be articulate than but all i can ever manage to say about this one is that it feels like ive unlocked the secrets of the universe while im within it and than am unceremoniously jolted awake. kind of like the ninth wave but even more disorienting and harder to connect in any way to the waking world. kate gives possibly the best vocal performance in pop music across this record, if u wanna call this pop music. i do, but in a strange partially-remembered way. if i hadnt gotten the downward spiral recently this would be the best record ive rolled in this whole project so far by a landslide and its not like it lacks competition

late 60s post-summer of love disillusion "back to basics" british rock steeped in blues and folk is never rly one of my preferred vibes but tbh this might be about as strong as it gets for me (unless like, abbey road counts). maybe because that description is already a slight misnomer (there's definitely some notable psychedelic remnants on this, just not super garish or whatever), but its still definitely part of that stylistic transition from the 60s to the 70s marked by a resistance to the excess that had been building thru the decade's innovations. and yet somehow it doesnt feel one bit less creative tbh! i especially love the last three songs here as a sequence, some muscular stretching out of ambitions before collapsing into a humble earthy finale. rly great guitar licks and songwriting twists in general across the record, again maybe not exactly my idiom but it all feels idiosyncratic and melodically strong. the hammond organ on here also kicks ass, and the gruff vocals here are some of the better british rnb growls ive heard (sounds like damning with faint praise LOL but theyre good!). strangely unsurprising that this band eventually became a prog outfit

where lots of jittery new wave features vocalists that Succumb To The Neurotic Chaos to varying degrees, debbie harry always feels like the queen of it, channeling and commanding it. the chemistry between the unstoppable confidence of her presence and the eccentric, disorienting, jaggedy music is, among other things, some kind of theoretical Pop Perfection between chaos and order. frank infante's guitar lines go crazy all over here...just such constantly bright music in general, sunshine bent thru a bunch of sculpted prisms. is there anything more punk then being remembered by the superstar producer who orchestrated your """""sellout""""" album as The Worst Band I've Ever Worked With???? and still getting a bunch of immortal hit tracks out of it too...thats the stuff