God, make it stop! Morriseys maudlin lyrics and droning voice over the pedestrian backing music was too much…I couldn’t make it through…Morrisey is musical murder.

Pedestrian jazz interpretation from the era of jazz transitioning to pop. Middling at best.

I remember this album from when it dropped. I listened to it religiously for a short time, after which it slowly receded to the back of my CD collection, where it would remain if I hadn’t traded it in for Dungeon and Dragons supplies at our local second hand everything store. After another listen, I have no regrets.

The groundwork for so much of what was to come, from samples of ‘Le Freak’, to Donovan frankenreiter and the “Happy Feet” soundtrack from ‘Happy Man’, to just about every pop song that we love to hate on but secretly love at some level.

Aptly named. This album is boring on first listen…and on all subsequent listens, I’m sure. Could be the soundtrack to a movie made by third graders, starring their cats, doing nothing. If this is Bowie drug-free, we are now better informed as to why musicians eat pills until they explode.

This is a revelation! The musicianship is incredible; the arrangements wonderfully complex; and the shifting styles disorienting like a carnival ride - it all left me a bit breathless and joyous in a bit of a new way. I could do without the masturbatory 70s guitar solos (he was always ahead of his time!) from the first two songs, but overall an ever-shifting landscape of challenging musical joymanship! Not all at what I expected from the fella who in my childhood memory would’ve otherwise forever have been the “don’t eat yellow snow” guy….

Wow! Frank Ocean seems to fill that beauty-fusion space in between didactic, rhyme driven rap and melody driven pop/rock that so few have been able to populate. Lest I say his name, he’s like a Kayne with something to say. Lyrics like “Nah, I’m lying…down” from “Thinkin’ About You” (with such impeccable timing) and the entirety of “Crack Rock” and “Sweet Life” are art, allowing an inside view and understanding of another subjective reality.

Man, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Really, people literally do not make albums like this now. Storytelling soul is gone.indeed, I think soul music is gone, atomized into R&B, HipHop, Funk, even Singer-Songwriter, molecules-to-the-universe-gone-but-not-forgotten gone. I don’t necessarily love the music, but I long for the time and the sociocultural context that welcomed this music. When I complete my Time Machine, it’s the 70s or bust…

Wow, OutKast is more than “Hey Ya”?! ‘Stankonia’ is pretty okay, but it led me down the OutKast rabbit hole, music and videos, and I popped back out with a new group of songs to take along on my journey. The songs are wonderfully variable musically, and thematically and the videos are clearly done by a manic synesthete on acid, and they take the experience that is OutKast to a newer, even better place. OutKast is a beast that ate Robert Johnson and Grandmaster Flash and the Everly Brothers and nibbled on Isaac Hayes and Spike Jones and (weirdly) Flight of the Conchords (or more likely they nibbled on OutKast).

It’s crazy that this album, Willie’s “Red Headed Stranger”, Zappa’s “Hot Rats”, and Hayes “Hot Buttered Soul” came from the same era - a testament that this is a wonderful world! Mostly knowing Zeppelin from their hits as singles, this album sounds to me like an album Led Zeppelin took inspiration from to make the real Led Zeppelin albums.

Interstitial style, apparently from the origin. “I could make that” stuff that you really couldn’t.

I couldn’t get through this album. This used to be my wheelhouse, but I found this, honestly, lyrically, musically and spiritually, empty. I like to believe that I’m always looking forward and waiting for new things to amaze me - this helps me to see that I’ve moved on past vapid, navel gazing, Yawn Rock.

Conceptually interesting tapestry of musical styles, with some great drumming, but it left me flat overall. I think I just had the experience my kids have when I have them listen to a piece of seminal music that has been taken further over the intervening time. If they can appreciate the pedigree, it’s usually still a review of “Meh”. Did anyone else have sense that they were listening to the soundtrack album for the Bollywood remake of “Blade Runner”?

I have a confession to make : despite growing up in a hick town in the 1980s, I have NEVER listened to Iron Maiden! I was too busy with Phil Collins and Bryan Adams and Friday Night videos and didn’t turn my attention to them, as I thought they were heavy metal and I didn’t do heavy metal (that was those guys in the 3/4 sleeve rock T-shirts with that creepy Eddie splashed on the front). Object lesson in staying in your lane and ‘finding’ only those cultural bits that look familiar. Too bad for me - they’re pretty okay, with lots of Van Halen and even Chili Peppers guitar riffs and lyrics and stage antics tame by subsequent standards. I probably won’t seek them out too often, but I won’t turn away from them so quickly next time either.

Lush and heavy (some of the guitar work is ‘heavier’ in its way than the guitar on the recent Iron Maiden album, again showing the shifting landscape of style and also likely pointing out some of Corgans influences). I came to The Pumpkins with the next album, so this one has no emotional resonance for me. It’s good musically but not really my thing. But it did lead me back to Fugazi and some other “if you like this, then you’ll like this” bands that Henry then walked in on and we had a 90s awakening for him, so once again every melancholy cloud has a silver Offspring/Fugazi/ Everclear lining.

Ahhh, the master of blue-eyed soul. I do love me some Van the Man, that love child of James Brown and James Taylor. I was on a mountain biking trip in the summer of 1989 in Alberta with my uncle and a couple of family friends. We had covered a lot of altitude and miles before making camp for the night in the middle of nowhere under the big western sky, like four Spandex cowboys. The campfire was on the go when the fellas realized that they’d lost their hash somewhere along the way! Off they went, eventually finding it against the odds. They were in a celebratory mood (and high as f#&k) and put on some music to play one-legged “Pick up the Bag”, leading me to ask “Who’s this?”. They were aghast that I’d never heard - of course - Van Morrison. They were actually mad at my father for never having showed me the Way of the Van. And he’s been along for my ride ever since, in and out, on and off, but always there somewhere. Not sure I dig his live stuff as much as his studio work, but pulling out a Van album off the shelf now and then is always welcome.

Never heard of them. Sounds like 1970s guitar rock without a lot to distinguish it.

Apparently a classic, but I found this a hard listen. While I did appreciate the spirit of experimentation that Cage and Reed brought to the songs, they often fell flat beyond that. “Heroin” did portray what I would imagine doing horse in the 60s felt like, which is an artistic triumph. And “Sunday Morning” is a straight up 60s classic. But Nico’s vocals are nothing but jarring and the music is often flat as is the mood it brings. I give it two bananas

Fantastic! Musically and lyrically and atmospherically a revelation, again. Yet another album from an artist who I’ve heard of but haven’t listened to previously and now will make my way through their oeuvre. Listenable yet affecting from start to finish, Stephens manages to do that thing that true artists do, making the whole more than the seeming sum of the parts.

This album met all of my expectations. Enough said. Oh…and my imagination was wandering around (perhaps trying to escape?!) whilst sort of listening to JT (he asked me to call him that somewhere in there) and I thought: Art. Really. Hopefully there’s a reason why we make this sort of music. Maybe we’ll one day see the ships filling the skies over our cities and our nukes will be useless and we’ll face annihilation from our alien overlords. Failing force, we attempt to soothe them with our humanity, in efforts to have them spare us at least that. Beethoven. Makes their ears bleed. Picasso. Screaming for hours after. Fellini. Anger after befuddlement (even them). Shakespeare. Intrigued, but let down after discovering he ghost wrote. Then, jogs by a 40 something New Yorker who doesn’t give a fuck that the aliens have come for us, she needs to get her run in, as she has for everyday since 2002. Intrigued, one of the ships beams her up to probe just what’s up with her, self-betterment in the face of certain death and all. And what’s on her Walkman but her favorite album, JTs “Justified”. They are soothed. The album perfectly syncs with their harmonic centres, releasing waves of endocannibinoids and dopamine, easing them into a state a bliss they’ve never before known. All thoughts of domination and war evaporate in this “Timberlake state”. Prime directives rewired, they now heed only one thought: find this Tim-ber-lake. Once they figure out Facebook, it’s not a problem and soon they’re whisking JT away beyond the edge of the known universe. Who knew that inside every alien is a latent teenage girl, silently screaming for constant hits of misogynist-lite boy band confection. In the end, we all win.

Thanks to Jon’s generous text analysis of two weeks ago, I didn’t just discount this album right away - I considered why, then discounted it. At the risk of sounding xenophobic, I believe that I have different expectations of non-English artists. I press ‘play’ on albums from non-Western climes and of different languages with an excited expectation of discovery of a new-to-me ‘otherness’. I’m looking for expansion, even just a little. This album was 70s soft pop with lyrics, while sonorous in a Romance language, I couldn’t appreciate beyond feeling like Captain & Tennille had learned Spanish in a futile attempt to seem less bland.

Unexpectedly cool proto electronica from what would’ve likely been another Simple Minds or Big Country if one of their dads didn’t own a TV repair shop or the like. 8-bit drum machines and an easy hand on the rest of it and somehow it’s transporting like Trainspotting. Huh

I think I’m a prude. I don’t really admire Winehouse’s bad person (woke man that I am) style (and substance). The musicianship is top-rate, as per her last album, and she’s undeniably one of the finest of her generation, but her message is medium-rate (even though it’s true, hence me being a prude and not wanting to look straight at the burning sun of her talent and addiction and self-destruction). This music reflecting self stuff is a hard business!

I can’t…I just can’t…anything but The Cure.

Proto-rock’n’roll by an alcoholic pedophile and yet one of the best live albums of all! Talk about separating then artist from the art. Crazy world. The rawness and energy and the German crowd unironically chanting “Jerry” is dizzying, even 60 years later. With every nuance examined and every commodity, including music, overanalyzed and pre-judged upon its presentation to us, can we still have experiences like this? I hope so.

Some highlights and bright bits musically but overall I found this tepid. Cognitively I can see this may be important in the transition through the 90s-today, but it leaves my soul asking me to get back to music with feeling, please (my soul has good manners). I’ll post this in my conversational brain under “music to pull out so that my decade(s) younger friends think I’m still relevant”. And how the fu k do these guys have 80x more listeners than Ozomatli?! If there was a “2.5” rating, but 3 it is

(Dancing Face Emoji) Where did they come from?! And why have I never heard them before now?! And how did they mash up those musics and those messages and make it work?! And what have they done to my need to categorize musical styles?! And how can I see them live?! And am I the first person to ever have their mind blown by Ozomatli while making bread and butter pickles?! They’ve raised so many questions…

I also thought I liked the Pixies, but I really felt this album was best left to my 90s self. My 2020s self has moved on from what now seems like noise music gone to hell in the hands of musician wannabes.

Brilliant. Now this challenged my listening in the right ways : modal style, rhythmic inconsistency, un-landing melodies, not a lyric in sight but saying a lot, unpredictable interplay of instruments. I could only aspire to get to the point of playing that you can throw away the rules and make up your own as you go! I suppose this is the music that Jerry Lee Lewis was saying “fu k that shit” to, but I’ve made a place for them both…I’ll just make sure they don’t get seated side by side or they might get into it….

Once again proving that albums are a creature apart from our current culture of songs as singles, not part of a whole (maybe this reflects the general trend towards individuality that we presently live with?). I do love me some Stones, and ‘Sweet Virginia’ marries up my country leanings with crunchy blues guitar as well as any song out there, but it was the ‘other songs’ that grabbed me here, especially “Shine a Light” and “I Just Want to See His Face”. Maybe Mick and Keef felt they needed some saving - and they were probably right.

This endeavour keeps pushing me beyond my listening history. Weather Report is to Miles Davis what Any Winehouse is to Aretha Franklin : solid music without the same emotional depth. This did grow on me through the listen, but I’m sticking with my first impression : maybe jazz doesn’t need that 80s synth sound.

I was there for this music at the start, but, despite Annie Lennox’s luscious vocal tone, I’m not sure I’m there for it now.

Classic, rock solid foundational soul from THAT VOICE! This is ‘comfort music’ (even though I have no particular personal emotional history with it).

Green eggs and ham. I do like Fiona Apple, Sam I am. Always took her for the cut rate Alanis, but what a voice, great musicians and strong songwriting and performance. Damn.

I guess now we know the answer to that age old question : “If you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of electric guitars, what do they make?” A Stooges album.

Interesting, as I’d never listened to this band other than incidentally. I read that they were meant to be as influential on subsequent music, particularly Alt Country, as another band of their era, the Beatles. I just didn’t hear it here. I think some of the issue was production, as the mix often sound wrong to my ears. But mostly I just don’t connect with their style nor with their songwriting. ‘My Back Pages’ is nice and my favorite (at least before it devolved into a meander on the sitar), wasn’t even on the main album, ‘Old John Robertson’.

I’ve never listened to an entire Talking Heads album up to now. The music was more intriguing than I expected, but David Byrne sounds like Max Headroom after a few too many rum and Cokes for most of the album. I think I’ll never listen to another entire Talking Heads album again.

I’m always surprised when I listen to an Al um by an artist whose oeuvre I think I know top to bottom, only to realize that I really just know their big songs and an album or two that I’ve put the time into. Not surprisingly, I felt that with “On the Beach”. “For the Turnstiles” and “Walk On” are great songs all day, every day, but I was pleased to ‘discover’ “See the Sky About to Rain”, which is been completely without prior. Aside - did anyone else notice that Wikipedia lists Neil as a “Canadian-American” musician. You know you’ve made it to the top when America lies to call you their own! I’d say 3.5, but gave 4 so Neil remembers where he’s from…

Deep Purple remain a mystery to me, from the name, to the fandom, to why the music should impress, to asking whether they would maintain relevance at all were it not for “the riff” (amazing how one piece of one song can ‘make’ a music career…)

Man, as much as I love Tom Waits, he can be challenging. Bone Machine seems to be (literally) shouting “wake up!!” to the collective pop music imbibing masses. This entire exercise for me has been about getting outside known musical lanes, even with artists I think I ‘know’. Bone Machine has no lane, as it careens through the aural wilderness, daring us to hang on as long as we can. I probably won’t go back to it often, but I know it’s there when I need a musical slap in the face.

Reminds me so much that I’m in my mid-50s. And that I’m not gangster (yes, I said ‘gangst-ER’, because my spellcheck won’t let me write ‘gangsta’, because even my phone knows that i can’t like 50 Cent, even if I give it the old college (see!) try).

Fucking awesome. I thought these guys were just Bjorkers-on for that other Icelandic music sensation, but they’re expansively talented, wide ranging musical silkworms, ingesting other musical forms and spinning them out into something…better. I love the ambient soundscapes, the haunting vocals and the journey of the album as a map to their musical interworld. Consider Sigur Ros ‘found’ by this guy.

I’m sure, as he tooted his tooter, Miles Davis was self-actualizing (his mind leaving his body behind to do its thing) himself as a craftsman, turning simple ingredients into so much more than the sum of their parts, ‘cause Miles Davis is a near-perfect woodworking soundtrack.

Bjork defies words, so just - Fantastic!

Going into this listen with low expectations, I was blown away. What a powerful, take-no-bullshit approach to musical protest and empowerment. Why have I never heard this? Why haven’t we progressed much at all, keeping her women-forward message still oh so relevant, 20+ years later? What do I do every day to help evolve our society to make it unneeded? Do I like reggaeton? Tune in next week for more existential angst brought on by powerful music…

To quote my favorite Mel Brooks movie : “Piss boy, bring the bucket!”.

Meh Meh Meh. I was excited at the last song I heard, but then I realized it was Beck, spun off the end of the album by the Spotify algorithm.

Ahhh, comfortable rock’n’roll of my youth. This is as stereotypical of the 70s Springsteen/Jackson Browne/Tom Petty trifecta as it gets. “American Girl” is my standout here, and I must admit not much else other than the driving-down-the-highway vibe stays with me after the first listen. But I know how much good stuff is on the way from TP, so I’ll give him a 3 for his out-the-gate effort…

Man, is this a gospel album or what? If anyone else, even Dylan, mentioned the Creator as often as Marley does here, I’d be tuning out in no time. But…somehow he mixes the reggae guitar chunk that I don’t really like; religious overtones that I don’t really share; and lyrics that I can’t always understand…and he makes it awesome! And how many albums finish so strong on the back half? Marley could write cereal jingles and they’d be profound hits, I expect.

I don’t know. Seems Madonna’s for dancing, not for listening. I don’t dance anymore. So, for me, the time of Madonna has passed.

There was a time when I would drive around in my buddy’s 5.0 mustang with AC/DC shouting to the world out the windows for us. I had a 3/4 sleeve Tshirt and knew the words to more of the songs than I took the time to hear the words of. Fuck, these guys are assholes! What a pack of misogynist jerks I see them as now. I’m embarrassed that I suggested my kids listen to them, though I guess they are now an object lesson in how not to be, the “before” in a cultural shitt that has caused a chasm that their music would do well to disappear deepen into (sorry, Jon, ended that sentence with a preposition). Ahh, but to have put that guitar playing to work for good not for evil…

Man, I really want to love Sade, but all I can muster is to like Sade. Her sultry voice, her jazz-tinged arrangements, her solid musicians, her good songwriting is impressive, it just doesn’t speak to my musical soul.

This is a nice album, I especially enjoyed “High tide or low tide”, which was new to me (i think because it doesn’t have the staccato reggae guitar that I just can’t learn to love), but it’s not one that I’d head back to anytime soon.

Didn’t even have to listen to this one to say that it’s seminal in my understanding of music and the feeling that it brings. It was sort of my “British Invasion”. Not a big fan anymore either, but this album stands shoulders above most from any era.

I’m still a ‘no’, maybe even a ‘no,no,no’ to the Stooges. It might be a bridge across musical eras, it might be the start of something beautiful to some, it might be lightning in a jar, but not to my ears. Sorry Iggy (but I suspect you’re a nihilist, so surely you don’t care either way…)

Hmmm. This alt-country stuff is supposed to be my wheelhouse, but I find this pretty ‘blah’. Maybe the roots of the music I still love is in there, and thanks to gene clark for that, but I’m going to keep looking ahead and not behind on this one.

After the title track, which is an undeniable classic, I found this album a weird mashup of non-Beatles songs. Maybe that was the point, but Lennon doesn’t so barrelhouse or blues or anything else so well. Interest g to watch icons find (lose?) their way after jumping off their pinnacles.

I didn’t much by like our last TH album but this one had something better about it. The musicianship is so stellar, David Byrnes singing is less rigid and willfully staccato, and the songs are interesting.

More love for OutKast. This album is a crazy mess of talent, momentum and vanity, but its highlights (for me, mostly in the middle of the second half) are high enough that I’ll keep going back, albeit for curated listens. I’d do 3.5 but momentum takes them to a 4

I can only imagine that this album was shockingly unlike anything else that dropped in 1980, so much so that it didn’t register the way it ought’ve. I always say, and this album only serves to put bricks in this wall, that Tom waits is the musical auter of his era and that his is the music that will escape the orbit of the current, spinning off to be what reps his time. I mean… “There’s no such thing as the Devil, that’s just God when he’s drunk”, “I shot the morning in the back with my Red Wings on, told the sun it better go back down”…From the first notes this album is gritty America of any age. Fucking fantastic!

I also thought Brian Eno was on my no-fly list, but his was pretty okay. His melodic sense is sound and he certainly got rhythm and his boundary-pushing is near-constant and interesting. Breaking down preconceptions, I give you…Eno.

Hard to beat “Last Night” and “Someday” as classics in the jangle punk genre. When I think ‘I do like the Strokes’, I now believe myself to be saying hat I like those songs. The rest of the album, to quote Osama, let me drift off, disinterested. But in the rock world, 2 out of 11 will get you 3 out of 5

I agree. Stevie is the man! I love Stevie and would put him at the pinnacle of my musical heroes, so I’m biased, but this is a solid album in all ways, even more impressive as the start of his ‘genius period’ after his start as child prodigy (which so many never successfully escape from). I must say I prefer Funky Stevie to maudlin Stevie, but Funky Stevie carries so much weight that maudlin Stevie can get a pass.

Hmmm. How do you say anything bad about Beyoncé? And her crew? Catchy stuff, no doubt, but empty of anything interesting for my ears.

Never heard of the guys before, despite their ‘Beach Boys-meet-Wilco’ sound and vibe. I love the lead singers voice and tone, but everything else is pretty pedestrian. The Thrills is gone for me.

First listen : interesting and quirky. Second listen (with Henry, who has some experience listening to them): what the hell?! I’ve heard these guys described as the forerunners of all electronic music, as the ‘next Beatles’ (really!), compared to the Beach Boys, as the cutting edge of the future of pop. To me, they sound like the AV squad at a 1970s high school got their hands on a Vic 20 and programmed the soundtrack to the drama club production of “I Love my Calculator!” while everyone else was drinking before the Friday night school dance.

I love these old raw recordings! You can hear all the growls and flaws and it’s somehow better for that. I was really hoping to find a new favourite, but I guess the best stuff does pass through the filter of time for a reason. I’m going to do the classic Price is Right move on Osama and bid 1 higher : 4

I sort of lost track of Nirvana between ‘Nevermind’ and the Unplugged album, so ‘In Utero’ isn’t in my nostalgia wheelhouse. And, apparently I’m an old fuddy-dud who just likes the hits, because, to me last night in my kitchen making supper, a lot of this album sounded like people yelling in their garage. Lots of good songs here, but I think I like them more as they’ve been covered over the years or as nirvana did them on the Unplugged album, which is where I know the ones I know.

God, make it stop! Morriseys maudlin lyrics and droning voice over the pedestrian backing music was too much…I couldn’t make it through…Morrisey is musical murder.

I started out waving my hand at in front of my eyes whilst saying “This is not the Beck you’re looking for”. “Where’s the upbeat, funky Beck I know and love?’l shouted to myself. Then I bade myself to “Slow down, listen, don’t be hasty, lay your expectations aside, be open, stop eating chocolate chips from the bag”. And I slowed down, settled into a ‘Morning Phase’ state of mind and got along with it all. And now, a sure sign of positive personal growth and resilience, I like both Becks

Solid background music, but not sure I’d take it on a road trip or to the gym or to the bedroom or to the wood shop or most anywhere else with much intention. Great musicianship with nothing to really pull me in.

Throw in the hits and stuff some solid songwriting around them and you have yourself a Paul Simon album. I really do like ‘Duncan’ and enjoyed the demo version of ‘Paranoid Blues’. Nicely heard.

Right. I’ve heard that everyone is supposed to revere Elliott Smith and that he’s a musical genius, but this all just sounds like a bunch of emo shit to me. He has an interesting voice and some nicely elegiac arrangements, but I mean, Jesus, would it…wait…what’s that grandma…”if you can’t say something nice, just say they have nice teeth?”…Elliott Smith has nice teeth.

Yeah…no.

This was kind of a…nice Sabbath album (?!). I quite liked ‘Supernaut’ and ‘Under the Sun/…’ (the original “Killing in the Name”) as classic BS songs, while the others variously sounded classical to, dare I say, tinged with the alt-country vibe of a lot of the rock’n’roll of the time (I’m trying to incite Jon into reviewing just to rebut me). An oddly anomalous (yet enjoyable) collection of songs for a band better known for pooping onstage than for these sorts of stylings.

There are those few albums that are masterworks, full of solid songs start to finish, albums that only seem to get better as they move along with us through time. This isn’t a trick, where I now say “…but this isn’t one of those albums”, because this IS one of those albums, at least for me.

I wasn’t into this album when it came out and I’m not sure I’ve ever identified as a RHCP fan, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this album. Sure it’s derivative and sometimes immature sexual overtness can distract, but it’s mostly a funky, riff heavy, bass-and-drum driven masterclass in West Coast rock!

Shinola!

Shite!

My first time hearing this album. Words fail me. This album is one a select few that I can say has ever moved me. It evokes emotion without any overt attempt to do so, without the words we usually need to tell us how to feel. I agree with Osama, this is a fully realized piece of true art that I’ve been sending to everyone I know in an effort to have more people to talk to about this music.

I remember my friend Peter bringing “Loser” around in our medical school study area (maybe there was subtext?), and it blowing up everyone’s well-coifed Pet Shop Boys-like heads. How do you follow up being so original? Then this messy, groundbreaking, nonsensical masterpiece arrived and cemented him forever as the best poet of slide guitar. And he’s still doing it oh so well. Foundational for him and for all of us listening.

Okay. We all know I have a Willie bias, but, c’mon, this album is great! Willie got a bum rap for his singing, but he acquits himself nicely and throws in some solid guitar playing to accompany. He really can do most anything he wants musically. Just because it’s not all original material…

I listened to the first two songs and thought, “I do like New Wave, Wham I Am”, but then the rest of the album came along, my teen years faded back to where they belong and I realized that maybe my Overton Window for synth rock had moved ever so slightly towards “It’s okay…”

Pedestrian jazz interpretation from the era of jazz transitioning to pop. Middling at best.

Henry has had me appreciating Kendrick for a few years. Though this album lacks any ‘hits’ for me, it’s solid and sets him up for his imminent genius period.

Rhymes fast, rise fast, fade fast. Never been a fan, even though my he can run it faster than anyone else. Gotta say I lean towards HipHop for the melody and remixes, while this style of rap leaves me wanting some joy

I remember this when it came out. Ty coder had done his Cuban album, then shifted to Northern Africa for this collab. I do like the playing here, but it gets repetitive quickly. I like later, more orchestrated AfroPop that integrates elements of this guitar style into a bigger soundscape.

I’m having hard time to trust myself on this album, since everyone loves it so much. I hear the raw emotion, the elegiac vocals, the earnest songwriting, the wide variety of styles he gathered together/ set in motion, the all-time great cover, the solid musicianship, the great production. I mean, this guy was the real thing. But I just don’t enjoy listening to it. I think it’s the lack of joy that turns me away. Maybe I need a therapist, but I’m not sure I can steer into material without joy.

BBKing had legendary status in my house growing up…but it seems like a time capsule now. Certainly my time for this sort of blues has passed (I think when I was 15 or so). Interestingly this is the basis for most of our modern guitar sound and so homage to BB, but it’s not my jam for listening.

This was a funk-soul surprise for me. I really had no preconceived notions but this far exceeded my original passing thought of ‘Meh, I’ve heard these guys’. This lead me down a funk/R&B rabbit hole that now stretches from the 60s up to yesterday and is my current go-to playlist.

I’ve said it before, I’m not a big ga bid the sax. Having said that, Getz is the sax virtuoso we’ve always been looking for and have had all along. Having said that, this some bland stuff. If it was fruit, this album would be a banana - a perfectly ripe banana, tuned perfection, but a banana. 2.5 slides to 3 for “The Girl from Ipanema” solo into the higher octaves - that was breathtaking.

Dear Mr 1001, Let’s be honest, homeopathic doses of the Pet Shop Boys are all anyone should be asked to take in. This is too much PSB; surely they only rank 1 in 1000 all time. And this isn’t even their best. Yours truly Synthed out

I’ve heard of Aphex twin, but never listened. I expect this was revolutionary in 1992, but I had my heard buried in textbooks and my musical eye on Ben Harper, Wilco, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the like. Even as a dedicated dancer, I don’t think this album needs to be listened to in this future, other than having infiltrated and being present in nearly everything we listen to. Interesting for its inheritance more than its ambiance. 2.5 -> 3 for having been so influential.

I do remember this album when it came out. I dismissed it as gimmicky and never really listened. Maybe it’s years later and now that it’s influenced pretty nearly everything that’s come since (pop, lo-fi, folk, HipHop (is that too far?) I can see Aug I’ve missed. My kids embraced this without bias and turned me around. Damon Albarn as visionary.

The name ‘Joy Division’ has rolled around for years and I never listened. I agree, especially the last song has a Downie/Hip sound. It’s amazing to me that these guys have 3m monthly Spotifiers and The Hip only 1m, when the Hip are so much more interesting and melodic. I do like the album cover, as it reminds me of another band I’d should take more time to listen to instead, Vulfpeck.

From the cover in, this album is a delight. It’s as though a genius was oppressed by two other geniuses, abetted by a fool, and, with the other geniuses flaming out, that oppressed genius ran straight to the front with a collection of wonder that the others had somehow held back, presenting the best of all of them to the rest of us.

Middling at best. Seemingly uncertain whether they are punk, pop, rock or emo (which hadn’t been invented yet), the sum of their uncertainty is blandness.

At the risk of offending Eduardo, I just can’t get into Gabriel, beyond the cool stop motion, food-based video for ‘Sledgehammer’ when I was 16 and video was king.

This exceeded my expectations. I thought the harmonies were often beautiful and the melodies solid. I won’t seek it out, but new respect to them M&Ps

I listened to 3 or 4 of the 6 albums and I’m not sure there’s one song that I remember or found myself humming after listening. In fact, I turned it off multiple times as it was difficult to listen to, not for any reason other than its sameness. In fact, though these two are American musical titans, this is probably the most bland collection of songs I’ve ever subjected myself to.

Better than I expected. ‘Helpless’ and ‘Woodstock’ are great songs, “Teach your children” a classic. It’s interesting how the Neil songs are instantly recognizable as his and on the others, where tight harmonies rule, he’s nowhere to be found. Curious a supergroup as there ever was. 3.5

No thank you, dark night of the musical soul.

Like Christmas music, only better. It’s almost like these songs were written for drum and bass driven 3-part harmonies, it’s just that they were stuck in the organ and 33-part chorus world or in the keyboard and 23-elementary student concert world or the orchestra and 23-biggest pop stars in the world for all Time before and after this album. My only regret is not listening tomorrows before this Christmas season, ‘cause as good as it is, it’s only gone two weeks of the year.

Now, maybe it’s just that I got my fill of this type of screeching guitar-driven, anthemic, stadium rock (like I got my fill of shooting guns and drinking in gravel pits) in my youthful years. Maybe I’m not the nostalgic type. Maybe I’m not a fan of guitar played mostly above the 7th fret by people who ply the guitar like everyone else. Maybe Kiss is enough of all this for me. Meh Rock…

Interesting album in the way of charting the evolution of the Stones. Proto-stuff, with one foot playing beginner blues and the future-Stones, breaking through into their own with Mothers Little Helper and Under my Thumb.

On the short list of bands with consistently great and innovative guitar riffs (These guys, Muse, the Stones, Hendrix (of course)…other thoughts?). The Edge earns his name and, I think, totally floats this band and makes them something more than the other(wise) straight-ahead rock bands of the last 40 years. Put me in as a middling member of the U2 movement.

Admission- I’m okay with Taylor Swift. I expect it’s an ouroboros kind of thing, where she’s gone so far around the love-hater cycle that we’re back to (something less than, but something like) love. It’s confection, but I like me sweets, so ‘why not’ is my play here. 3.5 turns to 4

Never heard of these guys. I actually likes this, not a lot, but liked it. It led me back to Muse, who are superior in every way

Caught in the middle between original R&B and all of its titans and future trap and HipHop/rap, to me DAngelo is neither and the worse for it. Pretty bland stuff here.

This album left me feeling that listening to it would be a great way to spend an afternoon in an elevator with Miles Davis

I hear this album came out of a tight studio band who were messing around before their recording session with Jerry Lee Lewis (who was late for reasons we won’t discuss here) when someone sat on the soundboard, inadvertently recording the prolonged warm up set. Again, seminal stuff, but kinda boring. I really can’t think of where/when I would listen to this - except that it’s DNA is in everything since.

Hadn’t heard this (didn’t know it existed). His voice has changed into something deeply smoky and even more beautiful than before - I could see his age as I listened. Having said that, his songwriting doesn’t seem inspired, a far cry from his ‘cant miss’ 60-70s genius period. If it wasn’t Bowie, I expect this is an album no one would listen to.

Man, this is so familiar, like (insert worn simile here). It’s so easy and well worn and…predictable and…kinda boring. Other than Clemmon’s sax playing, this could be anyone from 1970-2025. Maybe Springsteen been so influential that there’s too much of his progeny between here and there but the effect of his success is also his downfall - we’ve all heard all of this too many times to find it anything more than nostalgia. And, while I love me a good sniff around the 70s, I’m looking onwards and upwards for new sounds so…it’s out to the dark edge of town with 70s Bruce.

I was going to deride this as joyless, but, in this exercises ongoing efforts to make me a better person, I’m only going to say that I don’t find my joy in Adele’s music. I think my dislike is mostly for this sort of voice-forward anthemic style of ballideering that seems empty if one isn’t in for wallowing or wants some instrumental joy stimulus beyond ‘very competent’. Big voice, but I don’t feel it. While that’s maybe on me, it’s a three

I was really hoping that Rush was going to ‘Wow!’ me. In the search for ‘new’ music, my prog rock blind spot held hope for an undiscovered vein of old gold. But…I agree that, while technically pretty great, their music doesn’t get all the way from my ears to my soul.

Classic classic rock. I wouldn't change the station if it came on the radio but I don’t see pulling it off the shelf either. Comfy sweater, out of fashion.

Classic Bowie in all the right ways, though I guess there’s a reason why it’s not an album I know - it doesn’t quite hit the Bowie heights of the era, when he could do no wrong. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not the e Bowie album I’d reach for or be a ‘must have’ on my album shelf.

This is pretty great. It’s raw and honest and unpretentious and out of tune and out of time and in the pocket and (almost) on the nose and not-quite-what-you’d expect and just-what-I-needed and fresh as fuck even 30 odd years later. Thanks 1001

I usually rate these albums as soon as I listen to them, so as to capture how they make me feel. It’s been a few days since listening to this one. I recall feeling…

Like so many of the bands on this journey, Radiohead's isn’t what I thought Radiohead was. I really got into the deep electronica groove, then the (more subtle than usual?) overlaid guitar, drifting along on the slipstream they laid down, then…bam!…Thom Yorke sang! His vocals are more instrument than melody, I figure, an odd, dissonant instrument that sometimes soothes, sometimes jars, sometimes makes me think “Really?!”. It’s more Portished and less Coldplay, and I like it all the more for that.

A pleasant surprise. Cool electronic rock from a band I’d never heard of. Not so different from all the Radiohead-ed bands of the era, but something about his beep-boops pulled me in. 3.5

Like bad teeth and vinegar on your fries, probably it’ve been better for us all if this album had just stayed home in jolly old.

I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that this is one of the great albums. It’s like “Love Supreme” with fuzz and yelling; it’s like “Songs in the Key of Life” with punk drumming and long hair; it’s like “Blue” with bad attitude and dirty fingernails (I’d imagine Kurt had messy cuticles); it’s like “Revolver”…yeah, it’s like “Revolver”. Burnout > fade away…

Surprising. I liked their punkness and the guitar playing a lot, more than I expected to. And Chrissy Hynes sings like Lou Reed dressed in drag - wait, Lou Reed sings like Lou Reed dressed in drag…you know what I’m trying to say.

Curtis Mayfield is one of those names synonymous with soul music. I’m sure he and Stevie spent nights backstage planning to make the world a better place - and, in the end, they probably had a role to play in doing just that. I’m not sure I like his voice on these songs and the playing seems workmanlike. His vibe is not as joyous as on his other albums and I think that’s what gets me here. I appreciate him, but this is a one-and-done album listening experience for me.

Huh. Interesting music for the times. It sounds far more modern than 1985. Cool mix of British guitar rock, jazz, showtune and new wave-y styles and vibes. Having said that, I don’t think I’d go back to it, mostly because I don’t really like his voice, his lyrics or ultimately his playing.

I will admit to not being an R&B guy at heart, but this is not my music. And this is not the best of R&B, Mr1001. It’s full on dragging and down tempo in the worst way. It’s boring. It’s boring like Gershwin wrote songs about my cat, eating yogurt

Never heard of them, but I quite liked this album. Interesting how one band can go moody guitar rock that catches you, where ten others didn’t. They have the magic sauce.

This is a great album! I wasn’t crazy about the last TH album we reviewed, but something about this one caught with me. I think mostly it’s that this is a less avant garde album, but still with great musicianship and more melody. “Psycho killer” and “Love->Building on Fire” stood out, as did, capturing the zeitgeist decades later, “Don’t worry about the government”

I know the songs, but, man, this whole album is pretty great! Hard to believe this was his first effort, it’s so mature and emotionally and melodically intelligent and unapologetically sex-informed. This has me going back through his cannon and putting together my Cohen playlist - now I’d only I could go back to 3rd year university armed with that…

Wait…just a second…pardon me…let me just…okay - got my white socks on, rolled up the legs of my blue jeans, white t shirt sleeves once turned, hair just so, slipped in to my black loafers…but…I think this foo bird has flown, something feels splanky about this music in this time.

Sad. Definitely sad.

I couldn’t get this album on Spotify, so listened to some of their other work. Pleasant surprise - books and covers, I thought this would be Linkin Park-adjacent meathead rock, so didn’t expect to like it so much. Nice grooves and interesting collaborations.

The white stripes did their northern Canadian tour in 2005, stopping in Whitehorse and doing an afternoon show downtown under blue skies. It made me realize the amount of organized noise two people can make if they really try. They grow on me a little more every time I hear them. I do like their later stuff more, but I do like the rawness of these tracks. 3.5

This was a pillar of that mid-80s golden age of albums, one of the truly great collections of genius songwriting. Somehow they walked the line that so many 80s British bands couldn’t - big hair, slashing style, feigned blitheness, New Wave-y style, tangential lyrics - and made it work. In the wasteland of Duran Duran, Big Country, New Order, the Smiths, the Cure, the Police remain. Long live the Police - Jesus, sounds like America of 2025, not MuchMusic of 1984…

3rd rate proggishness with all the self-importance and little of the talent to back it up. Couldn’t make it through the entire album before my dog started howling, my cat left thextomm and my wife made me turn it off (“either the music goes or I do!”)

Curious stuff, this. Some of the first album was actually pretty good, sounding fairly modern in style and vocal effects. But crazy imagery and allusion that didn’t hold together for me. Then the second album just came undone in most respects - again, wife vs music.

Jesus, these guys have 9 albums! I couldn’t get all the way through 3 songs before tapping out - aural arm bar for the submission. The pain…

It’d be hard to argue that this isn’t one of the most rock’n’roll Rock’n’ Roll albums of all (and it’s not even their best!). 1/2/3 were really just building up to LZ4, but man, what a best supporting album candidate

I really quite enjoyed this. Heard about it so many times, but this was listen #1. Unexpectedly orchestral and cohesive. The Who seem to have been lost to the mainstream of oldies, but they had something gear for awhile and ‘Tommy’ was in their pocket.

These guys actually seem talented and modestly original inside whatever genre Spotify says this fits into. I liked a few songs, but it’s all a beige blur a couple of days on…

I read they started out as ‘Samey Same and the Same Things”, then Gwenyth said “I’m cold, play that song you play so well” and they did, over and over again and again…

Some cool songs (“Thankfully not living in Yorkshire”, “Sevrn Days”), but mostly it sounds like a high school marching band got stranded in the auditorium with a junior high punk band and they put on their own version of The Breakfast Club to pass the time until the salty old janitor found the keys to let them out…

Sure, “Son of a preacher man” is a classic, but without that this is the music elevator repair men listen to on the way to repair elevators.

I remember this fondly when she debuted with it. Sultry voice, jazz-country piano, solid backup band, cool dad, beautiful. And it holds up - nothing groundbreaking, but worth a listen now and then. 3.5 -> 4.

Out of the way at the start : 5/5. Incredible songwriting. Stellar musicianship (though sometimes I wish someone would slap that harmonica out of his mouth!). This was truly a golden age for music (Pet Sounds, something or more by the Beatles, A Love Supreme (!), even Garibaldi’s “Charlie Brown Christmas” all also coming out in 1965 and either setting bars or presaging even greater things to come in the next few years. To me, this is THE Dylan album

Oh man, I wanted to like this, for her as the ‘underog’, but this was bad, bad like the ice cream dropping of your cone, bad

I want to like these guys, I really do, because C’mon Eileen as the 80s…but I guess ‘One Hit Wonder’ is a category for a reason.

Crazy - this album is pretty great. Not sure what happened between 1967 and 1969, but VU made me…happy…with this album. Clever, melodic songwriting without the avant garde focus of the banana album.

Never heard of Jimmy Smith, but he’s tight. Great musicianship (I initially thought he must be the sax player, as the sax is the shit on most of these songs!). Laser-like rhythm section, cool organ, nice arrangements. Nothing groundbreaking, but in great listen when you just need to listen.

I do like some of his other work, but this album left me flat - some good songwriting, but mostly fumbling to find his rhythm without the obvious vocal or musical talent to make up for anything but fantastic songwriting…

Meh.

The Fall of Snivilisation…1.5

Crazy what time does. This music is the stuff I spent my teenage years trying not to listen to even though there were more 3/4 sleeve Eddie T-shirts per capita in my rural hometown than anywhere else on the planet. I expect I secretly sang Bryan Adam’s lyrics to myself as this played in a van in the way to a hockey game or at a camp party, as some sort of mantra to calm myself and assure myself that the world was still okay). Turns out it s just hair metal, but better. And that it’s generally better than Dexys Midnight Runners or whatever tripe I was putting in my ears instead of this. Turns out this has way more staying power and is pretty okay. Check out Tanya Taqak’s cover of “Run for the Hills”…

Before there was Eddie Murphy singing James Brown, there was James Brown. Before there was that James brown, there was this James Brown - early rock’n’roll with screaming girls in the appreciative crowd, singing songs so ahead of their time they could be released today. I’m loving these early live albums, with their honest recordings and fantastic energy - I don’t think this exists anymore and it’s a shame.

This was a pretty great rediscovery. I’d put Crazy Horse in a different pocket of his music, forgetting about this seminal contributor to “Decade”, the album on which I first heard Neil young’s music and the one that stays with me to this day, often to exclusion of his other works. Solid ‘hits’ here, but the other songs are strong and beautifully round out the album.

I just don’t know. I want to like Blur, even if just to have them win against their foil, Oasis. But I found this album inconsistent and even forgettable for the lost part. Not exactly the stuff with which to battle for the title of “the next Beatles”. I do like some of their stiff, maybe just not this stuff.

Once again…nope.

Seminal stuff. Although there’s a bit too much business rap on here, I suppose it was vital to speak up at the time this was made. The last two songs saved it for me, like they were building towards the best they offered on this album.

Lots of reviews here about the excellence of this album, but I didn’t hear it. Some of the guitar work was pretty cool, but in the way that Moon Mist ice cream is so different but it’s also not ge me. There’s lots of 70s NYC rock that lights me up far more than this.

This is crazy! You actually chart the evolution of one of the greatest bands of all time through the tracks on this album. For a first album to be so diverse is wild: Crooners, almost lounge-y (‘Anytime you want me’), to blues (‘l’m a Man’), to barrelhouse rock (‘Shout and Shimmy’), to the punk influenced rockers they would become (‘My Geneeation’). There are even in between stages, like fish with little feet (punk-swing ‘Leaving Here’ and lounge-rock ‘Instant Party Mixture’). The title even hints at the Darwinian nature of what’s within.

To be fair, I expect the proper way to listen to this album would be to be dressed in a full on teddy bear furry outfit, pockets full of mDMA, soother firmly in place in a warehouse full of writhing bodies. Given that I listened at the gym, pockets of my shorts full of nothing, sweating for altogether different reasons, I suppose it doesn’t have the desired effect.

There’s never was before and never will be another band quite the the Beasties! We don’t get many true originals anymore, but these guys were the real deal. I love HipHop with actual instruments and lush samples and…fun!

Beautiful album. I haven’t albums so much with simon and Garfunkel, I’ve more songed with Simon with these in the mix. Fantastic album with such a feeling of the time and place and evolving style and harmonies (if that was Garfunkel doing harmonies on the last bit of ‘America’ I can more fully understand why Simon kept him around for as long as he did). People, including me, often refer to duos as the ‘current/next S&G’ (presently I’ve used that for the Milk Carton Kids’) but there Will never be another S&G.

I remember when “Owners of a Lonely Heart” came out and it was huge!! I went back to find out where it had come from and found a prog rock mess that hasn’t changed since then. Some interesting instrumentation but…

I had the hair, the sweaters, the music video habit to feed, and this was a big thing in the time of The Police, Michael, Born in the USA, and all the great music of the mid decade in the 80s. I recalled slow dancing to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, but it seems to have a different connotation 40 years on.

Really?! I’d ask “Where have ‘The Residents’ been all my life?” but I think I know the answer - they’ve been travelling the metaverse, aided by a series of psychedelics (starting with pot, through mushrooms, MDMA, GHB and back to mushrooms), experiencing life differently than the rest of us, chronicling it through their soundscapes, which make lost people say either “What the hell are you listening to!?” Or “Jesus, turn that noise off?!” but which i can’t wait to play at my next sit down dinner as the background music, to see just who’s who around the table.

I do love me some Dolly. I expect she gets her ass-kicked by feminists for her “please don’t take my man/please your man” oeuvre, but she does mountain country more beautifully than anyone ever has or ever will. What it must’ve been like to hear her early on, that voice filling little churches and halls.

Crazy that they came out of the late 70s New York scene along with The Pretenders, The Talking Heads, Lou Reed, and the like. And kept going through grunge, which it seems they did first. Unfortunately, they did it first but they don’t do music very well, so I just can’t listen with a historical ear enough to like them.

Great album! “Man in the Mirror’ is, I think, my favorite Michael song; “Smooth Criminal” is genius (and maybe confessional?); “Bad” is…well, bad. This was huge when it landed and is still pretty great.

If I was to be spread supine on a boulder while birds endlessly picked away my flesh, this would be the soundtrack.

I dont eat at McDonalds and I don’t listen to Adele

Marvin is the man, but even the man’s miss sometimes. Sure it’s smooth, sure it’s well-played, but it’s sure forgettable.

So good. If the worst thing you can say about a band is that, while they tried mightily, they never quite got to be as good as the Beatles, well, that’s high praise indeed. I like the Kinks more every time I hear them.

I kind of missed these guys in the 90s - everyone was talking Oasis and Blur when I think they ought’ve been talking Supergrass. Imaginative, energetic, clever, harkening back to the 60s British vibe yet running along with Nirvana and the like. Thanks Mr 1001

No Young, no edge to CSN. This is the music I think of when I think of 60s music that I’d rather not have to think of again.

Jesus, what the actual fuck was that! I really only enjoyed the last song, and because it tried to be something more than the tepid gravy rock on the rest of the album.