322
Albums Rated
3.33
Average Rating
30%
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767 albums remaining
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1960s
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33
5-Star Albums
18
1-Star Albums
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You Love More Than Most
Albums you rated higher than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caetano Veloso | 5 | 2.85 | +2.15 |
| Call of the Valley | 5 | 2.96 | +2.04 |
| Future Days | 5 | 3.01 | +1.99 |
| Exile In Guyville | 5 | 3.02 | +1.98 |
| Vespertine | 5 | 3.17 | +1.83 |
| Crooked Rain Crooked Rain | 5 | 3.24 | +1.76 |
| I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got | 5 | 3.25 | +1.75 |
| Yankee Hotel Foxtrot | 5 | 3.3 | +1.7 |
| The College Dropout | 5 | 3.32 | +1.68 |
| Blur | 5 | 3.33 | +1.67 |
You Love Less Than Most
Albums you rated lower than global average
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metallica | 1 | 3.79 | -2.79 |
| The Marshall Mathers LP | 1 | 3.49 | -2.49 |
| ...And Justice For All | 1 | 3.43 | -2.43 |
| Iron Maiden | 1 | 3.41 | -2.41 |
| British Steel | 1 | 3.3 | -2.3 |
| System Of A Down | 1 | 3.26 | -2.26 |
| Permission to Land | 1 | 3.15 | -2.15 |
| Youth And Young Manhood | 1 | 3.1 | -2.1 |
| Rage Against The Machine | 2 | 4 | -2 |
| Searching For The Young Soul Rebels | 1 | 3 | -2 |
Artist Analysis
Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Beatles | 4 | 4.5 |
| Radiohead | 3 | 4.67 |
| Simon & Garfunkel | 2 | 5 |
| Fela Kuti | 2 | 5 |
| The Smiths | 3 | 4.33 |
| Bob Dylan | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorite Artists
Artists with 2+ albums
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Metallica | 4 | 1.5 |
| Dexys Midnight Runners | 2 | 1 |
| Iron Maiden | 2 | 1.5 |
| The Specials | 2 | 1.5 |
5-Star Albums (33)
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Popular Reviews
2/5
corny corny CORNY bullshit i don’t understand how so many people can take this music seriously never mind actually THINK IT’S GOOD. i cannot take seriously any song that says “i don’t give a hoot” in earnest. it’s all the worst bits of a paul mccartney song turned up to 11. the melodies really are quite lovely and complex but there’s something so tacky and stupid about the lyrics/vocals/harmonies that i simply cannot ignore. UGH.
7 likes
Stan Getz
4/5
lovely stuff! if i were a barista in a cool bookstore/cafe/bar i would be bumping this all shift. sadly i was a barista in a distinctly uncool cafe so i would not have been allowed to bump this.
1 likes
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
4/5
awwww i really enjoyed that. i actually knew the first and final tracks—there’s a camera obscura song that functions as a belated response to the latter, called 'lloyd, i’m ready to be heartbroken'. 😊
his voice is a bit silly but i love the jangly guitars and nice melodies, funny melancholic extremely 80s british nihilism lyrics…well it’s got everything as far as i’m concerned!
fav tracks: perfect skin; speedboat; down on mission street; forest fire; charlotte street; 2cv; four flights up; are you ready to be heartbroken?
1 likes
XTC
2/5
silly silly stuff. show tunes adjacent frankly. i feel like this would be very appealing to a little kid. probably i could learn to like it if i listened to it enough but i am not gonna do that.
1 likes
Destiny's Child
4/5
the messaging on this album is so confusing…following “bootylicious” with a song about some poor girl who’s apparently a huge skank honestly made me laugh like why would you say that… i really liked the outro when they were talking about how much they love each other though. peace and love on planet earth
obviously i love the hits and think they’re great especially to dance to but there’s also something that i can’t help but find inherently silly about sitting down and listening to a whole album of r&b/pop/dance music while i’m doing boring office work. THAT’S NOT THEIR FAULT of course but i was thinking about it. i think if i understood more about the process of making this kind of music i would appreciate it more.
fav tracks: independent woman pt I, bootylicious
1 likes
1-Star Albums (18)
All Ratings
Billy Joel
3/5
billy joel is a very talented man in that he somehow manages to make an album with only 9 tracks on it feel overlong and bloated. how does he do it!
2.5/5 stars if we're being real
Depeche Mode
4/5
started off really really strong but i started to lose interest by the end, especially with the ooga chaka type ethereal chanting on the final two tracks. i like depeche mode, i just can't see myself listening to this as a full album on a regular basis.
fav tracks: never let me down again; the things you said; strangelove; to have and to hold
3/5
i feel like i don't have much familiarity with the kinks outside of their hits and whatever was included on the compilation record "come dancing with the kinks!" which i loved as a teenager but i would not go so far as to classify it as "good music"...
i guess what i'm saying is it's hard for me to take them seriously as rock/pop musicians because i think of them as just goofy catchy 60s dance music and not anything worth thinking deeply about. and i don't think that this album changed my view very much. it has its charm but i frankly found it a bit grating. you can definitely hear the roots of all damon albarn's worst musical tendencies in this record lol.
fav tracks: victoria; shangri-la; australia
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
move over rover......and let jimi take over!!!!!!!!!!
i mean what is there to say about hendrix that hasn't already been said...i feel like it's impossible to really talk about this record objectively because his influence is so ubiquitous. that being said i probably hadn't listened to this album in full since i was a teenager so it was nice to revisit it as a complete item. i wish i knew more about guitar to i could understand just how talented he really was! all i know is that it sounds damn good.
also mitch mitchell's drumming is great.
fav tracks: may this be love; fire; third stone from the sun; are you experienced?
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
if every song on here was as good as "pump it up" it would be a very good album! otherwise it's just OK.
fav tracks: pump it up; the beat; you belong to me; (i don't want to go to) chelsea
Ghostface Killah
4/5
the skits are goofy ofc but that's pretty much always the case (something to be said for the inanity/levity of the skits in contrast with the heavy narratives of the actual songs—necessary in order to maintain some kind of emotional equilibrium?). i really really liked this, more than i ever would have expected honestly!!! i actually knew "whip you with a strap" from the j dilla album but other than that this was entirely new to me which was exciting too. a lot of solid tracks, engaging lyricism, nice beats...idk what else do you want from a rap album.
more like a 4.5 because i hated that ne-yo feature so much. deeply unserious man.
fav tracks: shakey dog; kilo; be easy; jellyfish
Ash
2/5
even as a known enjoyer of mediocre british guitar bands from the 1990s, i can wholeheartedly say that this sucked. you do NOT need to listen to this album before you die.
Elvis Costello
3/5
i think that his music would work best in the context of a movie soundtrack because the songs are fun but i don't have any desire to listen to a full album of them, nor do i want to concentrate on them individually as works of art. i could see them providing fun dynamic background music for a good shopping mall montage.
fav tracks: miracle man; no dancing
MGMT
4/5
this is difficult for me to rate objectively, and i imagine it will NOT be the last album on this list that feels fraught and unquantifiable.
basically, all music from this era stirs in me two kinda contradictory but equally visceral responses: the first is extreme nostalgia and affection, and the other is extreme cringe and revulsion. i cannot hear "time to pretend" without seeing in my mind's eye the same vision of an incredibly detailed skins post-canon fanvideo that i imagined when i listened to it obsessively the summer between 9th and 10th grade. i still think it's a beautiful song, but it has this tinge of childishness that i just can't ignore. basically i am unable to extricate a band like MGMT from my own adolescence; therefore it will always sound adolescent and a bit silly to me. of course it is still immensely fun, and i might like the melancholy vaguely existential lyrics contrasted with the boppy pseudopsychedelic synths even more than i did as a teenager.
but it's hard to imagine anybody over the age of sixteen taking this album seriously. i just can't tell if it actually Sounds dated or if that's just what my own past sounded like.
Shivkumar Sharma
5/5
i loved this. so beautiful and atmospheric. it was interesting especially to listen to this back to back with oracular spectacular because the mgmt album uses the same kind of bird/forest ambience effects that this one does. in a similar vein it's really easy to hear the influence that this album had on the beatles and other western artists in the 1960s, which of course i've read about but never actually heard in action.
honestly a lot of classical/purely instrumental music can be a bit of a challenge for me to listen to, in the sense that i know it's good and/or interesting but i don't earnestly Enjoy it because it doesn't hold my interest for the length a whole album...but i genuinely enjoyed listening to this and i found it engaging throughout.
Fishbone
1/5
some cool bass lines i guess. i can see how this would sound really good to someone who’d never heard any other music before in their life.
The Who
2/5
now i need to listen to the patti smith version of "my generation" 50 times in a row to cleanse my mind and heal my soul after enduring this slop. save me patti smith and john cale
fav tracks: it's not true, the ox, a legal matter
Chicago
2/5
this wasn't nearly as unlistenable as i anticipated honestly, but i still didn't really care about it. i liked the more experimental/freak-out guitar tracks toward the end of the album. the first half was too heavy on the brass for me personally. also insert obligatory cowbell joke here.
fav tracks: free form guitar, i'm a man
Brian Eno
3/5
this was pretty good...the first half of the album reminded me a bit of early john cale/talking heads but less groovy in the sense that it was like...pretty goofy? in an incongruous way that grated on me a bit. i liked the second half of the album a lot more. his 'serious' lyrics are really very beautiful.
fav tracks: king's lead hat, julie with..., by this river [absolute knockout song]
Sarah Vaughan
4/5
i liked this so much, very relaxing and intimate...her banter was so cute, i especially loved the silly scatting in the final track :') her warmth and charisma as a performer is so apparent even through audio.
fav tracks: september in the rain, honeysuckle rose, how high the moon
Pink Floyd
4/5
yep it's still good. ya gotta hand it to them. i wish that the shine on you crazy diamond parts were broken up into individual tracks for the sake of the current ~streaming era~ but like most things of that ilk, i appreciate that the work is so linked to the original physical format (i.e. a vinyl record)—i think it's a great demonstration of how practical technological limitations influence our conception of something like music. the medium is the message as they say 😳 idk if that makes sense but we can talk about it later lol.
fav tracks: have a cigar, wish you were here [i may or may not have teared up while listening to the latter......EMBARRASSING!!!]
The Stooges
4/5
verrrrry nice...i've always liked iggy pop more as a concept/icon than as a musician and of course i am automatically endeared to several of his songs for velvet goldmine reasons but this is a damn good record regardless!
fav tracks: gimme danger; raw power; i need somebody; shake appeal
Fleet Foxes
3/5
whatever....again, through no fault of its own, this record suffers from an inherent datedness in my mind due to the timeline of my own life, but i did find this quite tiresome by the end of it. i was like shut the hell up with that pitch please oooh woooooaaah a cappella choral harmonies!! the songs that stuck out to me this time were the ones i also liked way back when, so revisiting it now didn't really alter my opinion of the album.
fav tracks: white winter hymnal; ragged wood; blue ridge mountains
R.E.M.
3/5
MICHAEL STIPE PISSES ME OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what the hell is up with this guy. he makes "monster" (1994), one of the best albums ever of all time which SHOULD be on this list but isn't—my conspiracy theory is that nobody likes that record because it's too faggy BUT IT'S LITERALLY THEIR BEST ONE. and nothing else in their discography sounds like it.
anyway. we aren't talking about "monster" here, unfortunately. we're talking about "green," which is in fact the only other R.E.M. album that i will classify as good. this record has some beautiful lyricism and hints of the sound that would later define monster (i.e. "orange crush"). "you are the everything" and "hairshirt" are both fantastic in terms of the lyrical imagery and dynamism of the music imo. the back half of the album is really very good overall and stipe mostly manages to avoid the stipiest elements of his voice.
however this record is ruined by the inclusion of "stand" which is actually one of the worst songs ever committed to tape. i hate that song more than words can possibly say. i couldn't get to my phone fast enough while listening to skip it entirely and i accidentally heard like one millisecond of it, and that was one millisecond too many. i find it humiliating to listen to. so minus five billion stars for "stand," 3.5 stars for everything else. i fucking guess.
fav tracks: orange crush; you are the everything; hairshirt; i remember california
Michael Kiwanuka
3/5
i enjoyed this but i can't say it stood out to me much. i could tell it was well-produced and it was nice to listen to, but it was almost too clean...? idk how to describe it but it just didn't capture my interest. i can't say it was bad though. maybe i just need to give it another listen.
Rahul Dev Burman
4/5
WOW!!!!!!!! i enjoyed this so much. i loveeeeee how intricate the percussion in indian music often is. sounds much closer to 60s kitsch/yé-yé music than late 70s western music, but that’s obviously part of why i liked it so much lol.
i can definitely appreciate the point that some others have made in their reviews about this being an odd choice because it’s a movie soundtrack and perhaps not the best/most interesting representation of indian music, and that if the editors of the list had a greater familiarity with indian music, they might not have picked it.
fav tracks: title track; baby let’s dance together; mera pyar shalimar
Peter Gabriel
3/5
my art pop could be anything…….including peter gabriel apparently…..
this was actually pretty groovy and i liked it more than i expected but still. why does all 80s music have to sound Like That. i find it so repulsive. even the best of it sounds like there’s a gross sticky residue smothering everything underneath it.
Abdullah Ibrahim
3/5
that was nice! idk what to say, you know i'm not a jazz head...i gotta have some words to hold on to....but it was pleasant enough.
Arcade Fire
4/5
ALEXANDER!!! OUR OLDER BROTHER!!!!
i have not listened to this in years lol. it IS good and clearly ushered in a whole new sound that i think ended up defining the mainstream alt pop/folk-adjacent scene of the mid-2000s*, but i personally don’t like it as much as the suburbs so it gets docked points for that. on some songs it leans a little bit too far into stomp clap hey territory…
nevertheless, the one-two punch of “rebellion (lies)” to “in the backseat” still knocks the wind out of me the way it did when i was a teenager. i love that triumphant grandiosity—when it works, it really works in a way that’s almost overwhelming.
fav tracks: neighborhood #1 (tunnels); neighborhood #2 (laika); rebellion (lies); in the backseat [i seriously forgot how good this song is…i can tell i’m going to be obsessed with it for the next month or so…]
*i feel like this combined with wilco’s yankee hotel foxtrot is the platonic ideal of mid-2000s alt pop, with funeral being slightly more interesting musically. and sufjan’s illinois i suppose…
Metallica
1/5
obviously this was cheesy and stupid and i would never in a million years listen to it again of my own volition. BUT it was not entirely unbearable and i can once again see how it would appeal to people who have had no exposure to other music, or people who do not value artistry or beauty. do i think those people have bad taste and do i look down upon them—nay, pity them—for thinking this is genuinely good music? yes. was i relieved when the album was over? yes. (because it meant i could listen to pavement.) however, i can understand its appeal. i would not throw a fit if somebody insisted on listening to it around me, but i would still sulk for at least five minutes and bitch about it under my breath periodically.
Animal Collective
4/5
this album vexed me for years and years because i knew it was the paragon of Cool Guy Music* but i just didn’t get it…it finally clicked for me only a year or so ago and yeah, now i get it. i’m obviously not a huge anco stan and honestly i think they can be a bit cringe but i’m trying to focus on this album as an album and not as an indie electronica talisman with all the weird cultural baggage attached to it.
i do think it’s beautiful! it sounds like the better summers of my adolescence: lovely and fretful and bright.
fav tracks: in the flowers; my girls; summertime clothes; bluish; Yno more runnin
*this is also how i felt about pavement for almost the exact same amount of time.
Pavement
5/5
what can i say. i love da pavement. it took me a while to get there but i did eventually. i think this is their most listenable and cohesive album.
fav tracks: well all of them actually. but specifically newark wilder; unfair; cut your hair; range life; fillmore jive; silence kit/d
Devendra Banhart
4/5
lovely autumnal music. i think his voice can be a bit silly especially when listening to a whole album of it but it's still enjoyable and nostalgic to me
Ramones
3/5
crazy how people will go to the ends of the earth insisting that punk music was a radical political scene when the music that came out of it was truly some of the dumbest in the world. these guys were not starting a revolution they were singing stupid songs about getting high off solvents. AND THAT’S OK! but sometimes you just gotta call a spade a spade. a spade that’s young dumb and full of come. why does it have to be anything more serious or substantive than that?
fav tracks: judy is a punk; i wanna be your boyfriend; 53rd & 3rd
The Fall
3/5
i think this is a thing where i’ve heard so many imitations that the actual originator of the style sounds boring to me now. i liked the instrumental parts a lottttt but the vocals were just monotonous to me…idk i’m surprised cos i thought i would like it more.
“john cooper clarke, james murphy, grian chatton—it’s all the same bullshit.” — jane goodall
The Zutons
4/5
i always get the ick from this genre in this era but it’s possible that i only feel that way about that genre/era because it reminds me of being 14. and because i didn’t know this album back then, it doesn’t carry the association so actually i suppose it’s nice to have an example of that music that i CAN listen to with fresh, mature ears and perhaps judge more fairly as a result. but i don’t think it objectively sounds that dated regardless. i had fun!!!!!!
James Brown
4/5
james brown has of course always been invoked as an influence for literally everybody…but i’ve never actually listened to him properly! so this was an exciting opportunity. you can feel the fervor of the crowd in his presence, that great tight-throated style of singing that he has, everyone screaming in response. my only complaint is that all of the songs felt weirdly short?? every time i felt like i was really getting into the groove of each song it would just stop abruptly. considering he was known for the duration of his live shows i was a little surprised by that ngl. i wanna DANCE, goddammit! give me more!!!!
Milton Nascimento
3/5
i marked this as “never heard of” but i actually do recognize the album artwork because it always gets included in those charts people make of their favorite records of all time lol. anyway i liked it, i don’t really have any strong feelings about it but i enjoyed listening to it. i would be happy listening to this while #chilling with my #friends.
Slayer
1/5
this was so astronomically dumb i couldn’t stop laughing…it really sounds like they put all the grossest edgy bullshit that a 15 year old redditor would find cool in a hat and pulled them out at random to compose (generous word there) the lyrics. there was an instrumental break (end of “altar of sacrifice” into “jesus saves”*) that i found mildly interesting but as soon as the vocals started again it was back to total dumbass horse shit. the best part of this record is that it’s less than half an hour long. thank god for small mercies.
*even typing these song titles is making me laugh
4/5
i looooveeeedddd this….it sounded like it could have easily been on the trainspotting soundtrack which makes sense cos it reminded me of underworld aka electronic rave music but like. somehow more intelligent? idk i really enjoyed it.
fav tracks: sereia; a noite sem fim
Yes
2/5
i mean it’s literally fine. i recognized “roundabout” from…somewhere…this certainly wasn’t as teeth-grittingly bad as some other prog rock but i would never listen to this of my own accord.
Jefferson Airplane
4/5
insanely well-structured songs, no frills or indulgences, just a terrific command of what a pop song should Do. it’s a shame that jefferson airplane get written off as one-hit wonders because of “white rabbit” in the grand scheme of things (NOT BY ME!) considering how good they actually were.
fav tracks: today; comin’ back to me; DCBA-25
XTC
2/5
silly silly stuff. show tunes adjacent frankly. i feel like this would be very appealing to a little kid. probably i could learn to like it if i listened to it enough but i am not gonna do that.
Tracy Chapman
5/5
vital and true. her voice is so smooth. i especially liked the songs that went a little outside of the typical singer-songwriter acoustic guitar + basic percussion formulation with the more syncopated (??!?!) drums.
fav tracks: fast car [duh]; baby can i hold you; mountains o’ things; why?; for my lover
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
oh yea let’s go crazy. nick zinner hometown hero SHARON MASSACHUSETTS REPRESENT!!!!
i think it’s fun. overall i’d say it holds up a hell of a lot better than most of the shite from this so-called scene, in that it still sounds fresh (albeit a little samey when listened as one contiguous album) to me! is it the best record in the world? no. is “maps” the best song in the world? well now that just might be possible…
fav tracks: maps [obviously]; y control; modern romance; poor song
2/5
TOO MUCH ORGAN OMFG. lay off the keys my man…i don’t like the guy’s voice—that very 70s strained-sounding style (not sure how else to describe this). i feel like these albums are difficult to rate because i literally don’t feel anything about them but “0 stars” implies i think it’s bad—but i don’t. i don’t think anything.
Faust
4/5
luuuuvvvvv it. kinda hard to believe this is from 1974 honestly it really does sound so contemporary. groovy as all get out.
Steely Dan
2/5
i don’t CARE!!!!!! i just don’t give a CRAP about this stupid ass easy listening music. obviously it’s not bad but it’s just so boringgggg and cheesy my god. the guy’s voice is so fuckin goofy. whatever. grocery store/dentist’s office music.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
genuinely kind of befuddling that this voice comes out of a little blond british lady. gorgeous, dynamic.
fav tracks: all cried out; i wish i’d never loved you; summer is over; do re mi
Dire Straits
3/5
wait a second this is actually kinda good…i remember listening to this album a couple years ago cos i put the title track on a playlist i made about the terror lol and i was thoroughly unimpressed by the whole outfit but now i’m thinking it’s alright…i think it’s maybe because the 80s schmaltz element (inescapable) has a distinctly springsteenian dimension (see: “walk of life,” which sounds like it could have easily been a bruce song) and is therefore more bearable to me. money for nothing is a good song but i do wish he didn’t say the F word in it. EVEN THOUGH I UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT.
i guess the takeaway here is #notall80smusic
fav tracks: why worry; the man’s too strong [which i added to my kendall roy fanmix]; one world
The Smiths
4/5
*i’ve seen this happeeeen in other people’s liveeees….and nooow it’s happening in mineee………….*
i assume that this will be as difficult for me talk about objectively as all the other smiths albums on this list*, although i will be honest and say that this one has never been a favorite of mine. it’s certainly not BAD but it just doesn’t have the same kind of pathos that i associate with their debut and *the queen is dead* (not enough slow, contemplative songs maybe?). but something about them just cuts right to the quick no matter the context. ever since andy rourke died i’ve been a lot more conscious of how integral his bass was to the smiths’ sound: defiantly melodious, insistent, full-throated. rusholme ruffians??!?? he was crazy for that.
of course moz is always Doing Too Much and his yelps and caterwauls are frankly distracting. the animal sound effects on the title track are goofy ahh hell and (dare i fucking say it) hamfisted. tbh they kind of ruin the song for me. but nevertheless we soldier (haha!!!) on.
fav tracks: i want the one i can’t have; that joke isn’t funny anymore; nowhere fast; well i wonder; barbarism begins at home; meat is murder [minus the animal noises]
*sorry i keep saying this in like half my reviews btw. a lot of these albums were ones i listened to as a teenager!!!
Drive Like Jehu
3/5
i saw “emo” and “hardcore” in the genre tags and immediately wanted to kms but this is actually pretty good. i mean it’s obviously still what it is and i can’t say i’m always in the mood to listen to this kind of music but i can dig it when i am. how does his voice not hurt after all that…also in “human interest” i thought he said “i’d never make you supper / i know that wouldn’t do” which i thought was a pretty good line but apparently he’s actually saying “i’d never make you suffer” which is lame. the whole thing is kinda like a kirkland brand version of spiderland by slint.
fav tracks: golden brown; super unison; new math; sinews (original version)
The Smiths
4/5
this is the smiths album i’ve listened to the least for whatever reason. well you know me i always cry at endings…anyway i kinda like that there’s something a little bit more melodic/traditional sing-y sounding (omfg hopefully i can explain this later lol) on here compared to most other smiths songs. maybe it’s morrissey singing in a slightly higher register? i don't KNOW his voice just sounds more pop here. i like it.
fav tracks: a rush and a push…; girlfriend in a coma; stop me if…; paint a vulgar picture; last night i dreamt…; i won’t share you
Japan
3/5
i actually liked this a lot! i got a little bored of it by the end of the second listen but the first half of the album is pretty fun, i was dancing a little bit. also between the cover of all tomorrow’s parties and a non-album track called european son…i know these guys were velvet underground heads…respect…
fav tracks: quiet life; fall in love with me; in vogue; despair
Black Sabbath
3/5
this sounds a lot like led zep. the blues influence is really apparent and i think i would be more appreciative of this kind of music if it hadn’t evolved (?) into something so far away from the blues especially in terms of the guitar sound. there’s a SUBTLETY and a certain level of restraint here that i do not think applies to later hard rock/metal music (at least what i’ve heard so far). yeah the devil lady ghost stuff is silly but so was zeppelin’s lord of the rings schtick. i can imagine that this would have been pretty goddamn mindblowing to hear in 1970 if you were just some random british kid.
also i love the fact that the first song on the album *black sabbath* by the band black sabbath is called “black sabbath.” OK branding!
Tito Puente
3/5
I mean sure. I feel like I don’t have much of an opinion on this cos it’s just mambo and not something you really listen to for the sake of listening to it. Play that funky marimba Tito!
fav tracks: hong kong mambo; estoy siempre junto a ti
10cc
1/5
i think these guys should have written a musical or something it feels like that’s what they really wanted to do here. some of the melodies are kinda fun but they are just patently silly overall. THESE ARE NOT SERIOUS PEOPLE. they sound like if the who and the beach boys had a really annoying and mid baby. also whoa that song hotel is pretty racist!
Jimmy Smith
3/5
you know i love that sweet sweet saxophone soundddddd…obviously i liked this a lot! it reminded me of the kind of music my dad listened to a lot when i was a kid, so listening to it was oddly nostalgic even though i’ve never heard the record before.
Sugar
3/5
i like hüsker dü so let’s see if i also like this…
update: i forgot i actually do know this album. it’s fine!! but there’s soooo much music from the 90s that sounds like this that it just doesn’t stand out at all. except for bob mould being gay i guess. also (and this isn’t even my anti-stoughton bias talking) the production is really horrendous. i loathe that extremely tight treble-heavy compressed-sounding production on a lot of “harder” alternative rock from the 90s. let the music breathe a little why don’t you…
fav tracks: a good idea
Joni Mitchell
5/5
i mean what is there to even say. masterful storytelling. one of my favorite things about joni is that i don’t think her voice sounds that ‘impressive’ at first listen—just cos she’s not belting or doing anything that obviously crazy, and it has a lighter tone that might be mistaken for ‘weakness’. BUT if you actually try to sing along it becomes apparent just how flexible her range was. just so effortless…i would describe her voice as being nimble which i think also suits her very dense lyrical style. incredible vocal + narrative dexterity. yeah.
the way she slightly mispronounces “percolator” in the last time i saw richard is like a lance through my heart. i cry every time.
fav tracks: the last time i saw richard [probably in my top 5 songs of all time tbh..]; california; all i want; river; carey; little green
Nirvana
4/5
i have a lot of appreciation and a strange sort of affection for kurt cobain as a figure but this is the only nirvana album that i really Listen To (besides *mtv unplugged*). i associate it (especially “dumb”) with fall 2019. i think all apologies is one of the most beautiful songs ever. idk… nirvana is angsty across the board of course but i think there’s some genuine, nuanced pathos on this record and it does move me. pennyroyal tea is a hard fucking listen. :(
fav tracks: dumb; all apologies; pennyroyal tea; serve the servants; frances farmer…; heart-shaped box; rape me
Rage Against The Machine
2/5
you should not be using this vocal style to deliver political manifestos you should be using it to say shit like “i’m in a lava lamp” and making references to the flintstones. cool bass lines but just impossible to take seriously. in the eternal words of laura shrago, “i liked it until the guy started singing.”
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
i dig it. it’s interesting to remember that hendrix was doing not just brilliant guitar stuff but also contributing to the foundations of experimental music/soundscapes/sound art. i mean this must have absolutely knocked the socks off anyone who heard it when it first came out.
fav tracks: crosstown traffic; little miss strange; all along the watchtower; voodoo child (slight return)
Dire Straits
3/5
whatever…it was kinda fun i guess. i like the bass a LOT. it just didn’t really hold my interest but i certainly didn’t find it offensive. i would not be mad if someone put this on in a backyard BBQ setting.
fav track: down to the waterline
Massive Attack
4/5
fucking righteous mannnnn. kind of insane that this is from NINETY-NINETY-ONE. i love the reggae influence, as well as the 1970s soul moments…they’re clearly drawing from a lot of different sources of inspiration and combining them to form something totally new and exciting. massive attack has always been one of those bands where i knew i would like them a lot if i ever sat down and listened to them properly—so i’m glad i finally did cos i was right. i do like them a lot.
fav tracks: safe from harm; five man army; hymn of the big wheel
Pere Ubu
1/5
you know those rubber chicken toys that squeak and squawk when you squeeze them? this guy’s voice kinda sounds like if someone were dancing all over a giant one of those for 35 minutes. all i can say is thank god it was only 35 minutes (and even then that was too long)! some of the slower instrumental bits (”caligari’s mirror”) were interesting but that’s about it. actually i couldn’t finish this cos it was too irritating and pointless to me. sorry messrs. ubu…
Madonna
3/5
i KNOW i can’t be the only one who has seriously been vibing to some music lately…
i enjoyed listening to this!! it always feels a little weird to, like, sit down and listen to a dancey pop album like this; nevertheless i did like it. yeah it’s cheesy but it’s cute!!! yay!!!
ABBA
3/5
i must renege on my prior abba hate…this wasn’t so bad!
David Bowie
3/5
my parents had best of bowie on CD so i know all the hits, and i’ve picked up various songs from soundtracks and references and other people’s playlists, but i’ve never Sat My White Ass Down And Listened to any bowie album all the way through….which seems kind of insane/borderline impossible. but it’s true!
i really liked the pop songs on this album but the atmospheric instrumental chanting stuff really lost me toward the end i fear…i guess i just don’t get it…it’s kinda nuts that “sound & vision” is on the same album as all the ambient stuff but the progression to get from one to the other wasn’t in fact that jarring, so. maybe it was more effective than i’m giving it credit for? either way the bass goes crazy!!!
fav tracks: breaking glass; sound and vision; always crashing in the same car; a new career in a new town
3/5
this was perfectly pleasant. i don’t think it’s any better or worse than a lot of the same music in this genre around this time. it was certainly less cheesy than a lot of the same stuff. the less densely-orchestrated songs kinda remind me of big star but idk if i know enough about music to identify 1. what exactly about it reminds me of big star and 2. why big star is so much better. overall i’m not mad at it but i doubt that i’d return to this in my own time.
Big Black
3/5
man…i would have dug this immensely as a teenager. i would have loved listening to “kerosene” and being miserable on purpose. as an adult it’s pretty good even if i can’t help but find it a little silly in its melodramatic edginess (see: violent femmes). love the blistering guitars tho.
fav tracks: big money; kerosene; bad houses
Amy Winehouse
3/5
i love her voice and her lyrics are so funny but i admit that i find the lounge lizard style / bossa nova tempo pretty tedious after a while when i listen to it all as one album. i wish all of the songs sounded more like “amy amy amy”… idk i wanted to like it more but i think i prefer to hear the songs individually. i’m sorry women!!!!
fav tracks: amy amy amy; what is it about men; in my bed
Eurythmics
3/5
i actually quite liked this lol. i don’t really think i would listen to it again as a full album but i enjoyed listening to it. i like annie lennox’s voice! side note how come the name “jennifer” and its variants get used so frequently in songs…doesn’t anybody want to write about an EMILIA…
favorite tracks: jennifer
G. Love & Special Sauce
1/5
this shit is genuinely repulsive to me
The Smashing Pumpkins
2/5
billy corgan sucks for a million different reason but one of the main reasons is that his delivery surely inspired the likes of gerard way and other similarly SHIT emo music. so that alone is a crime against humanity as far as i’m aware.
the music is good!!!! his voice and terrible vibes really ruin it which is really too bad. i actually liked the slower songs better because that’s more my vibe re: annoying man voice…the faster/more metal songs are too emo-adjacent!
fav tracks: beautiful; lily (my one and only)
Ray Charles
4/5
i really liked this…i guess i don’t know too much about ray charles cos i didn’t realize how much of a sad boy he is….almost all of these songs are about getting left at home alone by his gf! get up ray!
The Byrds
3/5
am i over folk music? perhaps :( this was nice but i found it pretty boring, which i was kinda bummed about honestly. the mild tone that lends the album its prettiness just isn’t super dynamic. maybe i should have listened to it on a higher volume?
Rod Stewart
2/5
okay. this had literally no impact on my life. but i didn’t hate it.
Aretha Franklin
4/5
love obviously…chain of fools is definitely in the top 25 best songs ever in the world. idk i agree with everything laura said but i don’t wanna be a copycatter….
2/5
corny corny CORNY bullshit i don’t understand how so many people can take this music seriously never mind actually THINK IT’S GOOD. i cannot take seriously any song that says “i don’t give a hoot” in earnest. it’s all the worst bits of a paul mccartney song turned up to 11. the melodies really are quite lovely and complex but there’s something so tacky and stupid about the lyrics/vocals/harmonies that i simply cannot ignore. UGH.
The Replacements
4/5
for some reason i always mix up the replacements and the proclaimers cos their names are kinda similar. so those were my only thoughts going into this album even though i KNOW i’ve listened to it before and i’ve known “androgynous” since i was a teenager.
i think these guys are kinda pranksters…naming their own album after a famous beatles album is such a cheeky move. is paul westerberg the latest in our line-up of little stinkers? it’s very possible.
GREAT fucking guitar riffs my god. the middle part of “seen your video” is just perfect. kind of incongruously (for the era/scene) tender and empathetic lyrics which, when delivered with that strange desperate inflection in westerberg’s voice, come across as really earnest, despite the overall piss-take tone of the record given the title and the tonsillectomy song and the boner song. honestly the songs that i didn’t like as much musically i still enjoyed because of the lyrics. i know they took inspiration from alex chilton vis a vis his guitar sound but i actually think the replacements are very much operating in the tradition of big star’s startlingly sincere and plainspoken lyrics (*”i loved you, well, never mind.”*). plus the influence of lou reed’s ambiguously gay storytelling which also seem sincere if sometimes a bit muddled, and anyway the stumbling is sweet to me. this is what every suburban power pop group thinks they sound like but they DON’T.
this is another album i wish i’d known as a teenager beyond “androgynous”…i would have loved crying to “sixteen blue.”
fav tracks: i will dare; favorite thing; unsatisfied; seen your video; sixteen blue; androgynous
Beatles
5/5
one of the best album openers evahhhh. they were so good at that (”taxman” off *revolver* is another good example). i really think “drive my car” is one of the greatest pop songs of all time. it’s so well-constructed: terrific, instantly recognizable opening riff, a coherent story and a genuinely funny punchline, the imminently singalongable “beep beep yeah!” bit. paul at the absolute top of his game.
this album will always remind me of driving to the cape in the summer with sophia next to me in the backseat and us and my mom all singing along as loud as we could. i have such a fondness for this record but especially for that memory that it conjures in my mind every time i hear a song off of it…
fav tracks: all of them frankly except for “what goes on”…but i can still get into that one depending on my mood….i do like “run for your life” and think it’s really fun in spite of the lyrics 🫢
SIDE NOTE: obviously i love this album to death and i love listening to it but it is also kind of mind-blowing to me that the velvet underground were starting to perform “heroin” the same year that the beatles cut this record. like, “heroin” makes all the songs on this album seem like kiddie nursery rhyme bullshit. I KNOW IT’S DIFFERENT THINGS. but it’s kind of hilarious to compare that song to all the coy allusions to sex and drugs and ‘naughtiness’ that the beatles managed to sneak past the censors (see: “girl”).
Queen
3/5
you know what actually. this wasn’t totally dreadful. it was just TOOOOOO much. i really liked the song “some day one day” and i didn’t mind “the loser in the end” because they felt slightly more subtle (lol) even though they were both still obviously over the top.
fav tracks: some day one day
Peter Gabriel
3/5
the drums do go hard as hell. i found myself bopping along to quite a bit of this so i can’t say i hated it. maybe peter gabriel was never truly bad, he was just a victim of 1980s production conventions…
fav tracks: lead a normal life
William Orbit
3/5
all i know about william orbit is that he produced 13 and think tank by blur and said some crazy stuff about how both those albums are about damon and graham breaking up and damon pining for graham. so he’s alright in my book!
i thought this was nice. it didn’t blow my mind or anything but i did enjoy listening to it. the british electronic/trip hop scene seems really interesting, i feel like they were doing a hell of a lot more with the genre than anyone in the US at the time.
Willie Nelson
3/5
this made me feel sleepy but in a pleasant way
3/5
kinda headache-inducing but i can’t say i hated it. pretty good noise i think. i much preferred the non-lyric tracks/sections of songs. however the song titles and lyrics are sooooo 2002 edgy artsy dude humor—think fall out boy and their obnoxiously long song titles that you KNOW they thought were just so goddamn clever—that it makes me want to roll my eyes. it would have been better 1. without lyrics and 2. if every song were just called “untitled #3” or whatever. the second half of the album was much better than the first.
Burning Spear
4/5
i like it! i like reggae a lot actually, i just never listen to it on my own cos i don’t know much about it at all…but i almost always enjoy it when it’s being played in my vicinity (i.e. when my dad listens to it, which he did all the time when i was a kid). there’s something about the particular cadence of reggae that really scratches something in my brain…
fav tracks: jordan river
50 Cent
3/5
i agree with laura that it’s of its time but i think that also could be BECAUSE this was such an influential album and informed all the rap albums released after it. [this article](https://crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/retrospective-get-rich-die-tryin/) seemed like a good explanation of its impact in the post-90s meld of east coast and west coast rap and revival of harder gangsta rap:
> Where so many big-name rappers in 2003 (Diddy, Nelly) were busy softening rap, blurring the lines between pop and hip-hop, *Get Rich…* was a reaffirmation of gangsta rap.
>
i totally see/hear that! but as something to listen to it’s not really my thing—as much as i like the beats and a lot of their sonic elements i really struggle to overlook the misogyny and homophobia (the latter especially…woof) in the lyrics especially because i don’t think 50 cent is as clever a lyricist as other “classic” rappers. i can tell it’s well made and i can definitely understand its impact but i’m not falling over myself to listen to it again.
The Temptations
4/5
oh yah. i liked this A LOT. every time i listen to this kind of music i have to wonder how come not all music sounds like this? i love the instrumental affectations of soul music soooooo much.
fav tracks: funky music sho nuff turns me on; papa was a rolling stone; mother nature
Can
4/5
homer simpson voice: brilliant. [chuckles] i have absolutely no idea what's going on.
Iron Maiden
2/5
this shit is so unserious and so mind-numbingly boring. i think the contrast in the intended “edginess” of the album’s overall aesthetic—the skulls, devils, gangs, whatever—with the total drudgery of the music is ironic and kinda pathetic. it defangs the whole thing. beyond silly. the songs are well-constructed in a very standard way…just no real imagination or innovation at all. but in that sense it was not unlistenable.
John Lennon
5/5
truly an excellent record. heartbreaking to listen to, given what happened to john (obviously). but even disregarding that, it’s such an emotionally fraught album on its own because you can hear that he was trying so, so hard. people forget that the beatles really did come from dirt in a way that feels impossible today—john had the most economically-privileged background and the most formal education, but growing up in postwar liverpool with a broken family certainly didn’t do wonders for his mental health and emotional intelligence. the songs were the only way that he could poke any air holes in that suffocating layer of repression.
to me this album is about someone who is desperately lost and unsure of himself and his place in the world and is trying to grapple with who he wants to be now that he isn’t a beatle. i think he was deeply and sincerely troubled by war, inequality, etc. and was frustrated by his inability to do anything meaningful about it, and he was trying very hard to articulate all of that. i like the sound of that effort. i think that’s what places him in opposition to paul tonally, because paul’s music has always been so effortless. not that paul didn’t try very hard—i think he did, and often tried too hard—but he rarely allowed that vulnerability to be reflected in the music itself. his ‘vulnerabilities’ were calculated and careful and affected, whereas john’s were laid bare and plain especially on this record. it’s sometimes a little uncomfortable or even embarrassing to hear, but i think it’s worth hearing!
if i were paul mccartney i would have simply killed myself after “how do you sleep?” got released.
fav tracks: jealous guy; i don’t wanna be a soldier mama; gimme some truth; oh my love; how do you sleep?; how?; oh yoko!
Destiny's Child
4/5
the messaging on this album is so confusing…following “bootylicious” with a song about some poor girl who’s apparently a huge skank honestly made me laugh like why would you say that… i really liked the outro when they were talking about how much they love each other though. peace and love on planet earth
obviously i love the hits and think they’re great especially to dance to but there’s also something that i can’t help but find inherently silly about sitting down and listening to a whole album of r&b/pop/dance music while i’m doing boring office work. THAT’S NOT THEIR FAULT of course but i was thinking about it. i think if i understood more about the process of making this kind of music i would appreciate it more.
fav tracks: independent woman pt I, bootylicious
Moby Grape
2/5
i don’t careeeeeeee. just another 60s guitar band full of white guys trying their hardest to sound black. BORING and DERIVATIVE.
Laibach
1/5
ok i do not think i have to listen to more than a couple of these songs to get the gist. goofy and distasteful. really just not my thing at all…
The Doors
3/5
it’s kinda too stupid to really get mad at or feel any strong way about. just dumb stoner california rock…same as it ever was. it would probably sound pretty good in the background at a party where everyone was stoned out of their minds and also it was 1971 so maybe we didn’t have that many options. the title track is far and away the worst song on the record i think.
fav tracks: cars hiss by my window; hyacinth house
Frank Sinatra
2/5
it’s fine of course i can’t say it was BAD. but it’s certainly not all that interesting to me. i think laura made a comment elsewhere about how some music (like sinatra) is just so buttery that it ends up being kinda boring cos it’s TOO good. there isn’t enough variation here... thank god they invented rock & roll cos i would have been bored to tears if this was all i had to listen to. i think jobim’s voice is more interesting than sinatra’s. idk how to rate this cos i know it’s not bad but i also don’t care about it on literally any level. these are not intelligent thoughts but oh well.
Gotan Project
4/5
i like it!!!!!!! reading about this album led me into a wikipedia rabbit hole about different rioplatense dialects and jargon which was fun too. LISTENING (to cool music) and LEARNING (about argentinian slang).
Cream
3/5
i forgot how well i know this album. i have my dad’s vinyl copy and used to listen to it a lot in high school (especially whenever i was rewatching freaks & geeks lol). it’s fine. i can’t say it moves me but it’s fine.
Radiohead
5/5
i mean come on lol. imagine my shock when i discovered that radiohead are, in fact, just as good as everyone has always claimed.
something i love about this album is that it’s not super guitar-focused—i LOVE how the bass and the drums get brought to fore in so many of the songs. it’s crazzzzyyyy that weird fishes is a human drummer (s/o phil) and not a drum machine how tf does he do that…and dear colin’s bass adds so much depth to the tracks, i like that his entry is often delayed so it’s really noticeable when the bass comes in and then the song kicks into gear. obviously i’m mad at thom and jonny so i don’t wanna talk about them but they are so good….weird fishes and all i need are some of thom’s best lyrics i think….fuck it actually the run from weird fishes to jigsaw is just absolutely gutwrenching unbearably beautiful. BLAH.
fav tracks: all of them except bodysnatchers and videotape and sometimes nude. but depending on my mood i like those too.
Jane's Addiction
2/5
actually confession time. i love “jane says” as a song it’s such a guilty pleasure. i know it’s so annoying…but it’s CATCHY and i do love a good story song. so i was pretty devastated to see that that song is #9 on this album. it’s not a good enough song to make the rest of this crap worthwhile anyway.
the really bloated bass really does appeal to me a lot but i hate those horrible hard rock 80s guitars and of course their shit from a butt lyrics are unforgivable.
one thing i will give them credit for—it’s crazy that this album came out in 1988 because it sounds so much like all the dumb fucking shit that every edgy white guy band would go on to produce until at least 2007 or so. like, you could have told me that this was from 1995 or 1999 or 2004 and i would have believed you each time.
Throwing Muses
4/5
i love when WOMEN yell. this would have hit so so so hard when i was scary depressed and probably would (will) hit so so so hard the next time i’m feeling really self-loathing and hopeless. that doesn’t sound like a particularly glowing review but it is COMING FROM ME. i like the pretty jangly guitar juxtaposed with the incisive brutal lyrics sung in her weirdo voice. music that makes your stomach hurt in a good way.
fav tracks: call me; green; soul soldier
Nick Drake
5/5
perfect music for staring wistfully out of a train window passing through new england in early december…nick drake’s music is too lovely and tragic to write about in words i think. he was never someone made for this world.
fav tracks: time has told me; cello song: man in a shed; day is done; saturday sun; river man
King Crimson
4/5
hey that was actually pretty good. it felt less indulgent and silly than a lot of other prog that i’ve heard, much more dynamic…these guys know how to edit! i know this is revered as one of the best albums of all time and i suppose i don’t have any reason to dispute it, but i also don’t think i’ll become obsessed with it anytime soon…i quite like robert fripp’s guitar playing on a lot of other songs out there in the world (especially on ”hammond song” by the roches AKA one of the best songs ever recorded) so that tracks.
The Strokes
2/5
what the freak ever honestly. i find the “lo-fi” effect of julian casablanca’s voice on most strokes tracks so irritating—it makes his vocals sound incredibly one-note, boring, trite. what is the artistic value of this choice? to me it comes across as an attempt at sounding Cool For Cool’s Sake and obfuscating the very boring reality of his melodies/vocal quality. it also makes the songs sound VERY samey—”take it or leave it” for example could have stood out (i like his shouting during the chorus) but that dumbass effect flattens out any variety.
again the super compressed production does not appeal to me on a personal level. i don't like the shrill guitar, the snare/hi-hat (?), all these SHARP sounds. also i know that they are doing the compression thing because they're trying to imitate the velvet underground which i find really embarrassing cos um…this ain't the velvets. it's goofy cos the velvets and the stooges retained that effect because of the equipment they were using—they purposely emphasized it of course but their music ultimately HAD to sound like that because that was kinda their only option due to the technology available at the time. so artificially recreating it for aesthetic effect is stupid and shallow to me.
the other song that stood out to me musically was “barely legal” but the lyrics suck so i can't commit to calling it a favorite…
btw i did not go into this trying to be a hater!! but at the end of the day the strokes are only worth anything TO ME because of the one time nick valensi (?), in an attempt to praise “girls & boys” as a song, described blur as “a kind of homosexual band.”
p.s. the one song on this album that i do actually like is “new york city cops” which got pulled after 9/11 from all subsequent pressings i think. just another thing those terrorists took from us along with comfortable airports…
Led Zeppelin
4/5
my favorite zeppelin album ^_^ i listened to this soooo much as a teenager so my fondness for it is a little clouded by nostalgia but i do think it's a great record and frankly underrated in the zeppelin canon. i just looked at the wikipedia article and i was surprised to see it described as folky but i guess that IS why it appeals to me—i like the gentler, lighter sound, the acoustic guitars and the mandolin. robert plant’s crazy ass voice contrasts well with the acoustic-ness. i think “tangerine” and “that's the way” are two of the most beautiful songs in the world…
FUN FACT: “bron-y-aur stomp” is about robert plant’s dog who was named strider after aragorn in lord of the rings.
fav tracks: tangerine; that's the way; gallows pole; celebration day
Traffic
4/5
i reallyyyyyyyy liked this…especially the title track which i thought was SO beautiful. that combination of guitar + flute is always super magical to me…fairy elf type music. very john fahey which i love.
fav tracks: glad; john barleycorn
Stan Getz
4/5
lovely stuff! if i were a barista in a cool bookstore/cafe/bar i would be bumping this all shift. sadly i was a barista in a distinctly uncool cafe so i would not have been allowed to bump this.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
idk if i can really rate or even talk about this album i’ve just heard it way too many times. but it’s still so beautiful, fun, silly, heartbreaking, sincere…a vast and complex range of human emotion….and it sounds good too!
Elvis Presley
3/5
this started out surprisingly strong but didn’t hold my attention for very long. too bad! i was having fun but then the energy just petered out.
fav tracks: wearin’ that loved on look; i’ll hold you in my heart (till i can hold you in my arms)
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
3/5
i think i would have liked this much more when i was younger and really into, like, keaton henson and artists like that. i’d like to know what allegedly makes this so special compared to every other melancholic white guy with a guitar. it does sound VERY 2010s (in a bad way, unfortunately) despite being from 1999 so i guess i can give it credit for that? i’d rather just listen to the magnolia electric co. by songs: ohia......
Elliott Smith
4/5
it’s kinda crazy to me that i’ve never listened to a whole elliott smith album…i’ve picked up so many songs here and there but i managed to bypass him almost entirely as a teenager (which seems like a minor miracle). in fact his voice is most solidly associated with that one heartwrenching scene in the royal tenenbaums where “needle in the hay” plays in the background, to the point that hearing his non-heatmiser pushed-through-a-sieve vocals instantly transports me into that emotional space: anxious and hollow, overwhelmed with despair…i almost wish i didn’t have that association because it makes him really difficult to listen to outside of that context. blah. where was i…well it’s just sad and brilliant for the most part even the overplayed bits.
fav tracks: speed trials; rose parade; angeles
Johnny Cash
3/5
that was fun! the music is admittedly not really My Thing but i can understand the appeal and i think it’s cool that cash, who relied on that “outlaw” image for a lot of his branding and song inspiration, was not only willing but eager to actually engage with real prisoners and give back to them in a way. it hearkens back to the function of music as a kind of oral storytelling, a kind of fully embodied entertainment as opposed to something more passive/something to have on in the background.
fav tracks: jackson
Soft Cell
3/5
it would have been literally soooo amazing to hear this music while fucked up on 17 different uppers in the club pre-AIDS crisis…idk if it hits as hard in any other context but i think the absurd synths/preset drum beats etc. are pretty fun and i just love listening to marc almond’s lovely gay voice. we need gay men to start speaking with lisps again. anyway so i like the disparate elements but they just don’t gel super well to me for some reason.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
ok this has nothing to do with the music itself but i started thinking about how unfair it is that god took sterling morrison from this earth so young when it should have been eric clapton instead so then i got really mad at eric clapton for still being alive. which made me not want to enjoy this album. which is not really eric clapton’s fault i guess. but still…god if you’re listening we are ready and willing to trade clapton for sterling.
i LOOOOVED the guitar on “anyday.” and “little wing” also jumped out at me but clapton didn’t even write the goddamn thing. overall this is just atrociously long—the self-indulgent lyrics combined with the guitar noodling and the album’s length really create a sense of tedium. “layla” is a good ass song though i will give him that. except for the extended middle part…again, this guy does NOT know how to self-edit.
The Crusaders
2/5
god this was dull. there were a moments where it got a little funky and i was like YIPPEE but then it went back to being what my brain perceives as standard muzak fare. i think it’s the tone of the keyboards which sound unbearably dated to me, especially on the final track.
Nas
4/5
the stuff that i write is even tougher than dykes!!!!!!!
the beats go harddddd, catchy and satisfying with a great variety of sound/melody, not too repetitive or samey. i liked this a lot. and obviously i loved all the NYC references. the outro of “the world is yours” made me kinda tear up ngl…
fav tracks: NY state of mind; halftime
Queens of the Stone Age
3/5
honestly this just sounds like if early radiohead were american and therefore slightly worse (ESPECIALLY the first song). i really expected this to be shit but it’s perfectly fine. the drums are mad boring but i like most of the other elements of the songs especially the quieter ones. the album was way too long tho.
fav tracks: regular john; i was a teenage hand model [even with all the stupid sound effects]
Dexys Midnight Runners
1/5
why is there so much goddamn TALKING
Wilco
5/5
ik they had issues with the production/distribution of the record so it was not actually written as a post-9/11 album, but that’s when it got released anyway and i think it’s extremely interesting to look at YHF as a time capsule of that moment in terms of american identity. i mean, the very first words on the record are literally “i am an american”—but then they’re immediately followed by “…aquarium drinker,” which is such a non sequitur and yet so evocative—of what exactly idk but it still evokes SOMETHING in me. (is it an aquarium-drinker who’s american, or a drinker of american aquariums, or a drinker who is himself an american aquarium…?) “war on war” (”you’re gonna lose / you have to lose”) and “ashes of american flags” are the other obvious ones but i think that kind of well-meaning anxiety, a confusion about and dissatisfaction with oneself that is mostly clumsy but has the potential to cause genuine harm, is felt throughout the whole album. or maybe that’s just what it’s like to be in your twenties*: wanting to do right by people, not knowing how exactly to do it, wishing someone would tell just tell you what to do, knowing no one will, knowing you wouldn’t listen even if they did…
the music is also interesting—the electronic elements are deployed really carefully and i think that’s part of what keeps the record from sounding too dated sonically. except for “kamera,” that is unfortunately such a target/cvs song…but if that’s the album’s ‘low point’ then it’s still pretty damn good.
HEAVY METAL DRUMMER BEST SONG IN THE WORLD!!! everything good that’s ever happened in the summer can fit inside it. it never ever gets old.
fav tracks: radio cure; i am trying to break your heart; heavy metal drummer; i'm the man who loves you; reservations
*ok i looked it up and jeff tweedy was actually in his mid-30s when they made this album. i guess i listened and connected to it first as a teenager so i split the difference in our ages….i really thought this was giving quarterlife crisis mid-to-late 20s. well whatever.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
4/5
folk music sounds so good when you ain’t got a bitch in ya ear impersonating carl wheezer…no but seriously this was great. very touching. i like that a bunch of the songs are sexy, only with a kind of sly, subtle tone. i think it's funny and very of the time but in a nice way. and i like the lyrics very much.
fav tracks: suite judy blue eyes; guinnevere; song with no words
Cee Lo Green
3/5
i felt pretty silly listening to this while sitting hunched over my desk doing work cos this is obviously meant to be listened to at a fun outdoor party in the summer. but it was enjoyable anyway. though a bit overlong, i found a lot of the second half album fairly emotionally engaging in a way that surprised me—”scrap metal” was an evil diss track while “when we were friends” was really lucid and moving…i’m sorry cee lo i was unfamiliar with your game…
Barry Adamson
3/5
i only know this album because naomi got it the other day and she told me, “the opening track is an incredibly INCREDIBLY horny song featuring jarvis cocker,” and i said, “all jarvis songs are incredibly horny, that’s kinda his whole thing” and she said, “it’s even hornier than he usually is” and i thought, “there’s no way.” but then i listened to it and was like WHOA this is incredibly horny even for jarvis. so the moral of the story is that i should never have doubted naomi’s ability to assess jarvis cocker’s horny levels.
but anyway this was kind of whatever to me. the best track was composed by this guy along with tricky and massive attack, so it’s hard for me to be impressed by him as an artist i guess. as far as imaginary film soundtracks go, this would work very well in a cinematic setting so he succeeded there…on its own, though, i don’t think it’s anything special.
fav tracks: something wicked this way comes; the big bamboozle
Beatles
5/5
can you imagine hearing “tomorrow never knows” for the first time in 1966. probably you thought you’d died and that was the sound of your soul on its way out of consciousness.
fav tracks: taxman; and your bird can sing; i’m only sleeping; she said she said; tomorrow never knows; i want to tell you
Mj Cole
2/5
okay i am not listening to 72 minutes of that because i think i got the point after about 3 minutes (i ended up listening to like 5 songs though, including the title track, so i at least tried). yeah i’m sure it sounds great at a rave but there is just not enough going on artistically to hold my attention as something to listen to in any other context. i have better things to do with my time!
The Saints
2/5
the use of the R word in the second song caught me so off-guard i actually laughed like huh…anyway these guys sound almost identical to iggy pop/stooges except with trumpets. unfortunately i dislike the sound of australians and brass instruments so those elements did not combine to make a very appealing record for me personally. but it wasn’t egregiously terrible or anything. fairly acceptable i suppose.
Arcade Fire
3/5
there is a strange, unnameable, effervescent quality to arcade fire’s music that is tuned to a frequency that evokes the sensation of “Big Feelings”—a distinctly adolescent desperation, an earnest grandiosity of emotion. there’s something about butler’s delivery which somehow sounds hushed even at full volume, how each song slowly builds into this great triumphant climax of chimes and horns and big guitars, like running down a hill and getting faster and faster not consciously but simply due to momentum and gravity. this visceral reaction can trick a person into thinking the music is actually good…BUT DON’T BE FOOLED! it’s not actually that good. it’s a little bit saccharine, a little bit samey, a little bit sincere but not quite enough for me to buy it now as an adult. it’s nothing extraordinary—still, i can’t deny the way it makes my heart twinge slightly.
fav tracks: keep the car running; (antichrist television blues)
Dexys Midnight Runners
1/5
i listened to like half of this. his voice really only works on a novelty level for the length of ONE song (i.e. “come on eileen”). again, too many horns!!!
Various Artists
4/5
yay yippee woohoo. i mean truly it is so much fun…take the christ OUT of christmas! “(baby please come home)” by darlene love is one of my favorite christmas songs. i’m copying what i wrote for my newsletter about sad christmas songs at the end of 2020:
I love any song that hides heartbreaking lyrics beneath the veneer of an energetic performance and a healthy dose of bells. (Darlene’s other hit [*All Alone on Christmas](https://youtu.be/r1uJPGRfO5Y)* follows this same pattern.) She makes a desperate plea for the return of her lover because, despite the city’s festive atmosphere, Christmas isn’t the same without him there. It’s a simple concept made unfamiliar in the context of this year—coming home, of course, implies that a person has left the house in the first place. This is one of those sad songs that should be sung at the top of your lungs in a fit of theatrical despair.
Kings of Leon
1/5
these songs ranged from “whatever” to “actively bad” in my opinion, although i will be honest—there wasn’t a single one that i felt compelled to listen to all the way through, except for the last two. a lot of the instrumentals (and some of the vocal phrasing) kinda reminded me of the band, if the band had no charm whatsoever. [damon albarn voice] that’s the album of a charmless band…
Beastie Boys
4/5
BEASTIES GO WOKE (NOT CLICKBAIT)????????
well it’s not my favorite. i actually really like the instrumental interludes, i find them engaging and frequently quite beautiful…i like how this album really pays homage to their punk/hardcore roots and demonstrates their instrumental capabilities and i respect it for what it is—i think it’s a valuable addition to their discography. but i have to say i don’t LOVE listening to it especially compared to their other records. although the truth of the matter is that i probably would learn to really like it if i listened to it enough times. that’s kinda how it goes with the beasties…the 4 stars is the result of the instrumental tracks mostly.
also the line “step into the party with the fila fresh gear / people looking at me like i’m david koresh here” is so uncalled for like WHAT…why would mike D say that…
*fav tracks: sure shot; root down; sabrosa; ricky’s theme; get it together* (mostly for q-tip’s part sorry BBs)*; the scoop*
Al Green
3/5
that was nice. a little less interesting/more schmaltzy than other al green albums i’ve listened to—the title track is of course the best song.
Jungle Brothers
3/5
this definitely has a dated energy to it with the run DMC/sugarhill gang-style cadence in most of the songs. overall it tends to sound a bit corny but in a way that i find really charming. it’s also interesting the strains of the early 90s hip hop sound coming through—it straddles the 80s and 90s styles. albums that provide a transitional vehicle for one distinct era into another are always cool and i think this is a good example of one!
Little Richard
3/5
well that was fun! little richard’s influence on the beatles and thus on rock & roll is foundational to the genre so it’s fun to hear that. his energy is incredible…yeah, the songs all sound pretty much exactly the same, but it’s FUN and SEXY!!! this is music for dancing. it ain’t complicated but i had a good time.
Rufus Wainwright
3/5
why he kinda sound like thom yorke 🤔
i thought this was nice but it didn’t grab me—he’s clearly a very vivid and competent lyricist which i really appreciate, but the orchestral elements came across as overwrought in my opinion.
Jeff Buckley
5/5
obviously all of jeff buckley’s music is tinged with tragedy regardless of what it sounds like, but i think the emotional depth of this album is staggering anyway. his soaring voice, his lyrics, his guitar, the oscillation between extremes in terms of volume and sound and emotion…it’s all transcendent. ironically the one song on the album that doesn’t necessarily floor me the way the others do is the title track.
fav tracks: lover you should’ve come over; mojo pin; so real; last goodbye; eternal life
Raekwon
3/5
it was fine i guess. not really my thing.
Steely Dan
2/5
i am trying really hard to “get” steely dan but i just cannot. IT JUST SOUNDS SO STUPID TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! some of these songs are kinda fun and groovy (”josie”) and then they introduce some stupid fuckass cornball element (those ultra smooth vocal harmonies) and it becomes unlistenable again.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3/5
“everyone knows this is nowhere” is a mountain goats lyric which i did not realize was a reference to this album until now. i’m feeling a little betrayed by john darnielle. AND “cinnamon girl” is a lana song!!! never afraid to reference or not reference…
that was nice! beautiful guitars but none of the gut wrenching lyrics that i expect and frankly crave from our neil.
The Birthday Party
2/5
this was SOOOO BORINGGGGGG. i think nick cave’s lyrics are his strong suit in his solo work and this album demonstrated none of that skill at all. i’m sorry nick i like you better when you’re trying to be australia’s answer to leonard cohen and/or johnny cash, not when you’re doing this.
Public Enemy
3/5
every public enemy song kinda just sounds like a slightly worse version of “fight the power”. reductive take i realize but i can’t come up with anything else.
The Beta Band
3/5
i knocked some points off because the other beta band albums are so much better and this felt a little bland, but i still really enjoyed listening to it while working. groovy baby groovy…but not quite as groovy as it could be.
fav tracks: assessment; easy; space beatle
Kraftwerk
4/5
this was cool af…it made me want to go drive around in a car on a long open stretch of road on a sunny day. i could literally cruiseeee the vistas…
The The
4/5
I used to be super into this album but it kinda didn’t hit the same this time for some reason. I don’t remember the fiddle being so prominent on “This Is The Day”… But it’s still really good!
*fav tracks: this is the day; giant; the sinking feeling*
The Doors
3/5
is “the end” really that good or has it been made good in the public consciousness by its incredible usage in *apocalypse now*? maybe a combination of both. “light my fire” is one of the worst songs in the world. somebody should have taken that organ away from them (and pretty much everybody else who isn’t the phantom of the opera).
fav tracks: i looked at you; the end
Donovan
3/5
that was pretty cool i enjoyed it. i like the tone of his voice, i feel like it suits the sitar/eastern influences really well for whatever reason.
Eminem
1/5
this is 12-year-old boy music. even the funny or clever lyrics are really impossible for me to chuckle at (except derisively) because of the all-encompassing misogyny and homophobia and also the ABJECT STUPIDITY of literally everything he’s saying. he has a serious victim complex and it’s boring as fuck.
i think this record has value as a document of a specific cultural moment at the end of the 1990s, in terms of how it captures the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching about pop culture and sex/drugs/violence and how intensely ironic it must have felt to have tipper gore as the VP’s wife while the clinton scandal was going on, strains of the satanic panic getting revived with the judas priest suicide lawsuit and then columbine, the fearmongering around gangsta rap as mainstream white culture absorbed more and more hip-hop-adjacent aesthetics, etc.
some of the beats are pretty good i guess. but it’s just dumb. it did make me want to listen to dido.
Neil Young
4/5
oh neil…it kills me that he has the capacity for such incredible songwriting because when it works, it works so astronomically well, but when it doesn’t work…it’s the goofiest thing i’ve ever heard. basically i’m saying that sometimes his lyrics are powerful enough to transcend the inherent silliness of his voice. and when that happens it’s totally magic. but when it doesn’t happen i’m like lol get a look at this guy…neil! you’re only 25! you’re gonna be OK!!!!!!!!
fav tracks: the needle and the damage done; old man; out on the weekend
Machito
2/5
i really do not like the shrill trumpets/tenor saxes i find them unbelievably grating. there’s just nothing there, especially when it’s multiple horns/tenor sax (NOT alto) at the same time ugh it’s just an awful blaring mess to me. but i like the african style drums so much…ditch the tenor and the horns and give me more of that alto saxophone and those congas….yeah….!
Deerhunter
4/5
lovely lovely. i always associate deerhunter with gen (they are her favorite band and her fanfiction handle is a song title of theirs lol) so i am fond of them for that reason alone, but i also think this is a beautiful record. i love the wistful tone both in the music and the lyrics. bradford cox is a really interesting guy, extremely idiosyncratic and obsessive—he’s influenced gen’s writing a lot, so i kinda listen to deerhunter as an extension of her work/mind rather than the other way around…
my only thing is that sometimes this record feels a little pedestrian, like more or less bog standard 2010s indie rock but as i’ve mentioned before that is an aesthetic bias of mine that i find really hard to ignore. i think the album is strong enough to bypass the association in the end though.
fav tracks: don’t cry; basement scene; he would have laughed; desire lines; coronado; helicopter
Van Morrison
2/5
my mom always used to listen to a van morrison greatest hits CD in the car when i was a kid so i was overexposed to him and now his voice just pisses me off so much. as much as i dislike him, i can tolerate his music for the length of exactly one song…but an album is simply too much to bear.
Kanye West
5/5
it’s such a shame that it’s more or less impossible to talk about kanye without the shadow of his mental breakdown hovering over everything because he truly was so spectacularly talented. his music sounds so ELEMENTAL, like it’s impossible to imagine a world in which it didn’t already exist.
i am ultimately pro-education but i think that the skits still kinda hit honestly lol. his lyrics are just so clever and funny!!!! ugh!!!!!!!!
loses a half star cos “last call” is too long…i GET it but it should have been split up into two tracks imo.
fav tracks: jesus walks; never let me down; get em high; school spirit; two words
Miles Davis
4/5
hey wait a second i actually liked that…nothing really jumped out at me as being particularly SPECTACULAR but i enjoyed listening to it.
Elton John
3/5
the alice song goes so fucking crazy it makes me want to rank this higher than it really deserves. how come all the songs aren’t that good….i don’t care for his ballad-y stuff nearly as much as the more raucous banging out the tunes tracks because the piano features too heavily in the former songs. i know that playing the piano is literally his whole gig but there you go.
fav tracks: all the girls love alice; grey seal
Iron Maiden
1/5
stupid asf
Kendrick Lamar
4/5
pretty damn good! there’s so much beautiful stuff happening musically and a lot of great lyrics and i can hear/recall how much it informed the culture, but the songs often felt overlong and the whole album felt like it dragged a little as a result.
Minor Threat
3/5
that was fine, it didn’t really catch my attention at all until the very last song.
DJ Shadow
4/5
that was wicked cool! i really really enjoyed listening to this while working in a cold office. i shall be revisiting in the near future.
fav tracks: mutual slump; what does your soul look like, pt. 4
Sly & The Family Stone
3/5
this was kinda boring to me, not nearly as engaging as the other sly stone music i’ve listened to…a bit too easy on the ear…
Bill Evans Trio
2/5
boring sorry…there’s something about the constant snare+brush sound undercutting every song that instantly pushes it into schmaltz territory for me…can we please get any other kind of percussion up in here…. honestly with this kind of traditional (?) white people jazz i feel like i can only really appreciate it if i’m watching it being performed live, so i can see the musicians playing their instruments in real time. without that it just sounds like background music. as per usual the only parts that really grabbed me were the bass, and even that was kinda whatever.
The Divine Comedy
2/5
an evil and ultimately bad combination of david bowie and kiss of the spider-woman, somehow. i think more rock musicians should be honest with themselves about their desire to write stage musicals because they always end up sounding like this. embrace the show tunes…don’t make us listen to this under the guise of real music.
Electric Light Orchestra
3/5
this was fun…it’s obviously over the top and very, very silly but in a way that feels more interesting and listenable than, say, queen. i was bopping along quite capably to a few of these. i wouldn’t reach for it in my own time but it’s fine.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
lovely gorgeous…made me want to curl up and go to sleep (compliment). like a beautiful warm rumbling furnace or perhaps a nice vacuum cleaner. not nearly as dynamic or varied as their other earlier albums but i don’t mind.
Björk
5/5
goddddd this is just so beautiful it almost makes me feel nauseous—there’s some music that just makes me react in that way. it’s sort of like anxiety, the sensation of something collapsing on me. i don’t know how else to explain it! it takes a lot of energy to listen to this but i don’t think that’s a bad thing. strange and exciting sounds, blindingly beautiful lyrics.
also “unison” is on my sam/frodo fanmix hehe.
fav tracks: cocoon; it’s not up to you; an echo a stain; sun in my mouth; heirloom; unison
Sex Pistols
3/5
i love the imaginary beef that british punks from this era invented with american (specifically new york) punks…it’s very “i feel sorry for you” / “i don’t think about you at all”…….sex pistols vs. new york dolls mid off of the century……well anyway this record is stupid and maybe a little fun at times but it’s really not that good.
fav tracks: problems
Talking Heads
3/5
embryonic talking heads…it’s interesting to hear the bones of their signature sound but these songs end up seeming pretty emaciated and frankly quite silly compared to the all-encompassing genius of their later records. there’s a heaviness missing here—not emotionally heavy but something solid in which to ground the melodies that i feel like is necessary to balance out the abject goofiness.
fav tracks: uh-oh, love comes to town; don’t worry about the government
The Soft Boys
3/5
i wish this were better. i liked the lyrics/themes A LOT but i wasn’t particularly enamored of the sound itself. too bad…
The Psychedelic Furs
3/5
how come some british people sound really british when they sing and other british people don’t retain the accent at all? this was pretty fun and i found myself enjoying it more as the album went on, especially “all of this and nothing.” a lot of this style of british rock sounds really dated in a way that i just can’t get past so that’s unfortunate but overall i think it’s fine.
Jorge Ben Jor
3/5
that was fun! i LOVED the first song and the next couple were also pretty groovy but i started to get really irritated by that birdcall (?!) sound that’s in the background so i can’t really say it’s a mega favorite or anything.
fav tracks: ponta de lança africano
Public Enemy
3/5
see my other public enemy review
Stereo MC's
4/5
nothing to complain about here! i really like listening to this kind of music while i’m working because it’s fun and dynamic but not something i need to think too deeply about. no single song stood out to me and it did feel a little long BUT i enjoyed it. also i recognized the first song from one of the hood internet’s mashups lol.
Incredible Bongo Band
3/5
can i be real with you…i kinda thought it needed more bongos…
The Rolling Stones
3/5
it literally defies the laws of physics how every other song on this album is barely 3 minutes long and yet they all feel like they go on for at least ten minutes. i’m stuck in a hole in the time space continuum with mick jagger and i want out.
Funkadelic
3/5
preddddy good
JAY Z
4/5
honestly…this was really quite good. you can hear how foundational it was to y2k hip hop in terms of production style and vocal delivery. i see in laura’s review that kanye produced “takeover” which makes sense cos that one immediately jumped out at me in terms of being super catchy and cool but also frankly pretty weird and drawing from a matrix of disparate influences. he managed to make the doors sound enjoyable and vital…that’s how powerful kanye used to be…
jay z has a lot of clever turns of phrase in addition to the very corny and straight up offensive lyrics. you win some you lose some i suppose.
fav tracks: takeover
Caetano Veloso
5/5
UAU!!!! i liked this soooo so much. it sounds incredibly fresh. the other tropicália that i’ve listened to sounds cool but still recognizably 1960s, while i thought that this sounded kind of magically singular and outside of time. overall it made me imagine what it would be like to twirl!!!! weeeeee!!!!!
Black Flag
2/5
i would genuinely be curious as to discover what makes this kind of music appealing to me (big black, drive like jehu, violent femmes) versus what makes it sound like stupid bullshit, considering there aren’t a lot of objective differences in sound that i can really detect. so what is it that makes, say, “kerosene” by big black sound fairly cool and interesting to me while “tv party” off this record sounded so stupid i actually felt a sense of rage bubbling up inside of me while listening to it. THEY ARE FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME SONG. and yet i like one so much more than the other. so what’s my fucking problem???
Blur
5/5
it’s alright i guess.
OK you got me. that was just a little joke. :P but in all seriousness i have spent so much time listening to and thinking and talking about this album that writing my thoughts down here seems like an entirely futile gesture, mostly because i STILL can’t put into words why i love it so much and what it means to me. it defies categorization on every level. well you know what they say…WOOHOO!!!!!
fav tracks: essex dogs; you're so great; country sad ballad man; death of a party; i'm just a killer for your love; beetlebum; look inside america; strange news from another star; song 2
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
an all-time breakup album—because that’s really what it is, the tenderest of grand finales, the sincerest of send-offs…how devastating is that closing track?! it’s always easier to tell someone that all they have to do is ask to come back when you know that they never will. but that kind of forgone conclusion doesn’t make the sentiment any less true. i’ve been waiting all my life…
fav tracks: cecilia; the only living boy in new york; so long, frank lloyd wright; baby driver; the boxer; el condor pasa; song for the asking
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
wait this was good. i also didn’t realize how much of it i already knew. “money changes everything” got me weirdly verklempt right off the bat—there’s a melancholy earnestness under the silly surface that almost reminds me of pulp (???) in that it evokes this really strong emotional reaction in me more or less involuntarily. what’s up with that…? i LOVEEEEE “when you were mine” of course. the synths got a little too squeaky for me especially in the last couple songs but overall i just find her voice really engaging even when she’s being crazy. she sounds like a cartoon character! it’s fun! i’m having fun!
fav tracks: when you were mine; money changes everything; she bop; girls just wanna have fun
Happy Mondays
4/5
smh there are two happy mondays albums on this list and neither of them are their floptastic debut record produced by john cale which means i can’t go on a tangent about john cale producing them and what a miserable experience it was for everyone involved here in my review. and yet somehow i managed it anyway…my mind!
anyway my first instinct is to make fun of this band cos they are famously so dumb but the joke is on me cos i liked this a lot. that jangly melody is typical of sooooo much indie rock (especially in america) in the 90s and 2000s that it kinda shocked me to remember this record came out in 1988. there are still so many bands that are trying to sound exactly like this—what makes it better is that FAT bass line throughout.
tbh it sounds a lot like thinking fellers so it tracks that i like it so much.
fav tracks: country song; moving in with; fat lady wrestlers
The Cramps
3/5
the cramps are certainly a lot of fun if only in the smallest of doses. i wouldn’t choose to listen to a full album of theirs like this but i enjoy the individual songs.
fav tracks: tv set; i was a teenage werewolf
Garbage
4/5
all pop rock should sound this good!!!
fav tracks: not my idea; stupid girl; #1 crush; driving lesson; sleep
Stevie Wonder
4/5
i really enjoyed listening to this as a complete entity but i’m not sure that i connected with any one song in particular…but that’s OK!! it’s still really really solid. any song off this record could play at random and i wouldn’t be mad at all.
fav tracks: higher ground
Elastica
4/5
sorry justine i don’t really have anything interesting to say about this album except that it’s fun and i like it and i don’t care whether they ripped off wire.
fav tracks: annie; car song; S.O.F.T.; hold me now; waking up; indian song
The Stooges
4/5
i wanna be your dog” is one of the best songs of all time TO ME!!! partly because it reminds me of gen and reading her work in college and discovering so so so much utterly mindblowing new-to-me music as a result of all of her references. and partly because it is actually just that good of a song. well come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the borderline binaural audio mixing on this album is crazy. the guitar tone especially sounds incredibly alive and dynamic throughout, although it breaks my heart to acknowledge that this was not the work of one john cale…thank god he made up for his insanely shitty mixing job by adding the sleigh bells to “i wanna be your dog”.
while listening to this today i also realized for the first time that iggy pop’s delivery/vocal cadence reminds me a lot of jonathan richman which i find charming, lol.
fav tracks: i wanna be your dog; no fun; 1969
Beck
3/5
it sounds great and i love the lyrics but it’s too one-note when listened to as an album. the songs are much stronger individually. let’s ffffflip it up!
fav tracks: lost cause
Marty Robbins
3/5
you know what this wasn’t actually so bad. i probably wouldn’t ever listen to it on my own (certainly not as a complete album) but i do ultimately love a good story-song, which almost all of these are, and i also really like that style of super precise background harmonies (à la the everly brothers i guess?). yeehaw!
Beck
4/5
BECK SAYS A HOMOPHOBIC SLUR IN SPANISH ON THIS ALBUM #CANCELBECK #BECKISOVERPARTY
the man knows how to make a sick beat it must be said. i do often really like his voice and the rhythm of it but there were a couple of songs on here (”earthquake weather”—the minor key part (?)—and “hell yes”) where i liked the beat SO MUCH that i wanted to be able to focus on it without his vocals clogging the airwaves. i really like the oscillation between weird funky upbeat songs and then the more melodious droning songs (”hell yes” into “broken drum,” which is such a beautiful song)—that kind of variation was sorely missing on sea change, so i appreciated it here.
i just looked it up and the dust brothers produced this album so that makes a lot of sense as to why i liked it so much. and where the sick beats came from.
fav tracks: broken drum; qué onda guero; scarecrow; hell yes; farewell ride; earthquake weather; emergency exit; girl
Fela Kuti
5/5
this freaking rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Youngbloods
4/5
this is kind of like if neil young was good? really impressive range of styles and sounds, genuinely enjoyable to listen to and pretty unexpected. once again this is the kind of album i would play if i were working in a cool bookstore/café.
Adele
3/5
this is just really not my kind of music at the end of the day but i appreciate it for what it is. i only knew “hello” before going into it so i didn’t really have any expectations—it was pleasant to listen to overall. i feel quite neutral about the whole thing although i am able to recognize that she is objectively very talented as a singer. some of the arrangements were pretty cool.
The Smiths
5/5
even with the album’s low points (i.e. “vicar in a tutu” and “frankly, mr. shankly,” the latter of which isn’t a BAD song but it’s certainly not a very good one) (and i know “some girls are bigger than others” is stupid but johnny saves the day as usual), this is the smiths at their best—johnny’s guitar is jangle pop perfection, andy’s bass is as buoyant as it is anchoring, mike’s drums are drums, and morrissey is delivering some of his most memorable, gut-wrenching lyrics. it all still hits so hard despite my having listened to it one trillion times. now that i’m not a depressed 16-year-old wallowing in self-pity i think i’m better equipped to appreciate the instrumental elements of the smiths’ music, so i like listening to them and hearing things i’ve somehow still never noticed before.
*fav tracks: i know it’s over; cemetry gates; never had no one ever; bigmouth strikes again; the queen is dead; there is a light that never goes out*
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
ok wait i liked this a lot actually. my relationship with neil young is so complex even i can’t keep up with it…
things i learned from this album:
1. kurt cobain was actually quoting a neil young song in his suicide note.
2. neil young appears to have been misinformed of johnny rotten’s death.
3. neil young wanted to have a threesome with marlon brando and pocahontas.
stephen king quoted the first track in the epigraph of the clown novel so that is admittedly very darksided but i liked it anyway. “pocahontas” is also kinda wack conceptually. is neil young openly fantasizing about sleeping with pocahontas in one of his songs the predecessor to jeff mangum writing a whole album about saving anne frank from the holocaust? let’s get into it.
Neil Young
3/5
i was going to complain about this but i ended up liking the second half of it a lot better than the first. i’m still a neil agnostic but it simply isn’t fair to say that i’m a hater.
fav tracks: vampire blues; on the beach; motion pictures (for carrie)
David Holmes
3/5
cool i guess
Supertramp
3/5
i found this kind of charming (if deeply unserious) and mostly tolerable in the same vein as ELO and certain songs by queen, but it pushed the limits of my good graces for going on for far too long. it’s like a 2.75 really.
Metallica
2/5
what is that specific style of guitar you hear in 80s metal that’s extremely tight and rhythmic and monotonous? is that the ‘thrash’ in thrash metal? whatever it is, it’s horrific and shrinks the sonic landscape of every single song and makes the whole thing such a drag to listen to. it’s so FUCKING boring. even the more melodic and interesting guitar moments (the interlude/bridge/whatever in the title track, i think) are still so shrill and have this really awful buzzy tone to them that i cannot get over. YUCK!!!
Frank Zappa
4/5
this is the exact kind of album that made me want to do this challenge—it’s a record i’ve been meaning to listen to for ages and is constantly referenced and yet i’ve never actually sat down to listen to it. obviously i know who frank zappa is but i can honestly say i don’t think i’ve ever listened to a full song by him or the mothers of invention. so this is as good an excuse as any. even tho he had beef with the velvets.
ok update i listened to it. well it’s kinda doing too much. but i think it’s still quite good. i doubt i’d listen to it in full again but i understand its relevance and importance to music history…still i’ll never forgive frank zappa for being a meanie bo beanie to sterling and the other members of the velvet underground. also RIP miss christine 💔
fav tracks: peaches en regalia; son of mr. green genes; it must be a camel
Jane Weaver
4/5
i’m surprised that i’ve never heard of this woman before because this whole record feels very much in keeping with the zeitgeist of 2016-2018 alternative pop/rock. i liked it a lot but none of the individual songs jumped out at me…i probably would appreciate her more in a playlist among various other artists.
Dolly Parton
3/5
cuteee…honestly every single song on here sounded exactly the same to me, but it was a pleasant enough song to begin with so i didn't mind so much. nice unobtrusive melodies.
also don't worry dolly patchwork clothes are SO back.
Metallica
2/5
ok i am absolutely not listening to all of that. it’s nominally more bearable than the other metallica shite because of the orchestral elements and lack of vocals* but it still sounds so boring and cheesy to me. it sounds like the score of a really stupid action movie. obviously the orchestra involves skill but it’s just STUPIDDDDDDDDD.
*nope i just got to the third song and the vocals kicked in so that killed any of my remaining enthusiasm. his voice does sound better here than on the studio albums though.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
feels so good to listen to this on a sunny spring day with the window open and the breeze coming in. bruce’s music always makes me feel like my heart is too big for my ribcage, like i can’t fit all of that emotion inside. real joy and real frustration, unrelentingly earnest. even ‘dancing in the dark’ which i’ve heard one zillion times in various superficial contexts still has the power to bring me to my knees.
‘bobby jean’ will forever be about a teenage lesbian from the POV of her gay best friend. they were closeted together in high school—”now you hung with me when all the others / turned away, turned up their nose / we liked the same music, we liked the same bands / we liked the same clothes” and “now we went walking in the rain / talking about the pain from the world we hid / now there ain't nobody, nowhere, no how / gonna ever understand me the way you did”. eventually bobby jean made it out of their hometown to a big city where she could be herself and the narrator recognizes that she had to do it and he admires her for it…but he wishes he could’ve talked to her one last time, not to change her mind but just to say i miss you, baby, good luck, goodbye... i’m literally crying writing this.
"now i work down at the car wash where all it ever does is rain" from ‘downbound train’ is one of my favorite lyrics ever. it just turns my heart for some reason.
and ‘i’m on fire’ is forever transcendent.
fav tracks: cover me; downbound train; i’m on fire; bobby jean; i’m goin’ down; dancing in the dark
Stevie Wonder
4/5
this started out strong but lost momentum toward the end. still, it was never unpleasant to listen to—the first half of the album was just really engaging in comparison to the latter half.
fav tracks: heaven is 10 zillion light years away; boogie on reggae woman
Eels
3/5
the song ‘my beloved monster’ is on the shrek soundtrack and i really liked it as a kid, so i remember wanting to listen to more of eels’ songs, but when i saw that THAT was the album artwork i was so repulsed that i never revisited them again. so here we are like 16 years later. also i have heard 'novocaine for the soul' and quite a few of these songs before in various contexts so i’m counting it as "partially listened."
still i thought this was nice—not really markedly different from other alt rock albums of the 90s. i think the aesthetic sensibility of this album is very unsophisticated—i.e. it’s tacky—and i’m bothered by that. the lyrics are kinda try-hard/too emo-adjacent but the melodies are generally pretty nice and catchy. it’s definitely easier on the ear than earlier iterations of grunge. honestly i think it’s closer to pop… and unfortunately i’m always going to hear this guy’s voice and think of shrek so that’s another major barrier to my claiming to enjoy this record fully. but it’s better than i expected i won’t lie!
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
4/5
awwww i really enjoyed that. i actually knew the first and final tracks—there’s a camera obscura song that functions as a belated response to the latter, called 'lloyd, i’m ready to be heartbroken'. 😊
his voice is a bit silly but i love the jangly guitars and nice melodies, funny melancholic extremely 80s british nihilism lyrics…well it’s got everything as far as i’m concerned!
fav tracks: perfect skin; speedboat; down on mission street; forest fire; charlotte street; 2cv; four flights up; are you ready to be heartbroken?
Bebel Gilberto
4/5
i liked it! some songs sounded a little corny but i think that might have been because of the english lyrics. but her voice is very lush and overall this was quite enjoyable. portuguese is just such a crazy language!!
Fleetwood Mac
4/5
yaaaa it’s a little bit all over the place and definitely not a “no skips” album but the good songs are just SO good that it doesn’t even matter. stevie and christine the women that you are…’sara’ makes me feel like i’m dying and all my guts are heaped on the ground around my body (this is a good thing). ‘over & over’ and ‘warm ways’ are syrupy warm contentment, sunlight on skin…
fav tracks: brown eyes; honey hi; sara; the ledge; sisters of the moon; storms; over & over; angel; that’s all for everyone; think about me; i know i’m not wrong; walk a thin line; tusk
Pixies
4/5
i was legiterally just listening to this album last week :O i was having such a moment with ‘the happening’ in particular. i LOVE kim’s bass and that swirly guitar that blends into her vocals during the chorus so they’re briefly indistinguishable (what is this phenomenon called?), it’s just so satisfying. and then the explosive percussion!
in general i like the surf rock revival + grunge combination—when it works it REALLY works. i love the floppy-sounding bass. sometimes black francis’ voice is too screechy which is a shame…bring it down a notch frank… i listen to this record and i’m driving through the desert in my beat-up station wagon in the evening when the heat hasn’t yet receded into the night…the sky half on fire and half purple as a bruise…
we will wade!! in the shine!! of the ever…!! we will wade!! in the tides!! of the summer…!!
fav tracks: cecilia ann; velouria; ana; all over the world; dig for fire; down to the well; the happening; havalina
The Adverts
2/5
whatever
The Only Ones
2/5
this was so blah to me. ‘the whole of the law’ is such an incredible song—i dearly love [yo la tengo’s cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5GtdQEWdYY) of it—so i guess my expectations were too high for the rest of the songs on the record, especially with that as the first track. it can only be downhill from there…his voice was just annoying. like gordon gano but british and without any personal sentimentality and therefore almost impossible to tolerate.
fav tracks: the whole of the law
Grant Lee Buffalo
3/5
i don’t really care. sorry to this man</3
Bob Dylan
4/5
‘it takes a lot to laugh…’ is an all-time favorite for me because it’s just so gorgeous and strange and a little bit sexy, especially the line, “i just wanna be your lover baby i don’t wanna be your bosssssssssss”….YOW! some of dylan’s best lyrics and melodies from this era i think. also yielded some very very good covers over the years.
fav tracks: queen jane approximately; it takes a lot to laugh…; ballad of a thin man; tombstone blues; from a buick 6
Coldplay
3/5
you know what. i’ll say it. ‘yellow’ still kinda gets me in my feelings. even still, once you clock how badly chris martin wants to be thom yorke and how hard he’s trying to emulate radiohead’s softer, more acoustic side (e.g. ‘fake plastic trees’), it becomes impossible to unhear it. (i feel like this is super obvious in the interplay of piano and guitar in a minor key [??] on songs like ‘trouble’), and of course in chris martin’s vocals, his use of falsetto, that trailing off inflection, etc. in this sense it has the shape of good music but it is not actually good, and it’s certainly not interesting. at least on viva la vida they had some crazy strings and moments of dynamic percussion. this album just goes straight through you.
Mercury Rev
3/5
‘holes’ is one of my most favorite songs EVER in the world…it really feels like the perfect thesis for everything that compels me about music and bands in particular, my longstanding creative focus of the past five years or so…every line a gut punch. “bands / those funny little plans / that never work quite right,” and it ending on an unresolved note (???)…of course with the knowledge that garth hudson and levon helm are playing on this album i can’t help but want to draw parallels between this song and THEIR experience in a band together too…ultimately a really weird note to begin an album on i think. it would have made an amazing final track. it just sounds like an epilogue.
with that said the rest of the songs on this record failed to make much of an impression on me. i liked ‘opus 40’ because…hey! i’ve been there! and i’ve been on the hudson line too!
fav tracks: holes; opus 40; delta sun bottleneck stomp
Gillian Welch
4/5
i liked this with a definite preference for the slower, more melancholy ballads. the more upbeat songs veered too much into “proper” country music i think.
fav tracks: revelator; my first lover; everything is free; elvis presley blues
Metallica
1/5
i'm not listening to any more of this bullshit
Depeche Mode
3/5
that was pretty good actually. i liked the opening track a lot but the repeated “pah” (like the sound of someone forcefully exhaling) was irritating me sooo much. a lot of the songs had elements like that and because they were integral to the electronic beats they were kinda hard to ignore :( i was a bit shocked by how good ‘personal jesus’ still is despite the memes…’enjoy the silence’ is just whatever to me though.
fav tracks: world in my eyes; personal jesus
5/5
ummm yeah that ruled. almost every time i’ve gone into my local record store and shazamed whatever the owner is listening to it’s been war SO i expected to like this…and i did!
fav tracks: cisco kid; four cornered room; the world is a ghetto
The Isley Brothers
3/5
fun!!! idk if i would revisit it on my own but i liked listening to it for sure.
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
another album that feels patently absurd to rate on a 5-star scale because it just exists outside the realm of anything quantifiable. no amount of stars or list ranking could encapsulate the impact it’s had on culture and its power to still make me feel crazy. like these aren’t even songs anymore, they’re something much more essential to the very fabric of humanity.
i think certain individual tracks from *fleetwood mac* and *tusk* actually move me more on an emotional level, but *rumours* is without a doubt their most iconic single ALBUM.
fav tracks: the chain; dreams; gold dust woman; never going back again; songbird; you make loving fun; oh daddy
Aimee Mann
4/5
really really solid!!! i love her lyrics in general and i liked how many of the songs on this album seem to be about her wrestling with her identity outside of the context of her former band…i just love when musicians write songs about being musicians LOL… i also like hearing a “grittier” (eh), slightly more coltish iteration of her style…all the foundation is there for the forthcoming genius of work like *bachelor no.2* and the *magnolia* soundtrack, it just hasn’t fully evolved yet!! and i think it’s cool that she was nearly 40 by the time she truly hit her stride as an independent musician.
fav tracks: 4th of july; jacob marley’s chain; i know there’s a word; i’ve had it
Muddy Waters
4/5
idk how he manages to make one riff over and over and over and over again sound so compelling….but i guess that’s rock & roll at the end of the day!!! i love slide guitars. i love johnny winter’s “miscellaneous screams”. i even love that crazy harmonica that sounds more like a guitar than anything else…how’d he do that?!
also muddy waters is a friend of the band the band so he’s like my blorbo-in-laws’ blorbo.
fav tracks: mannish boy; i want to be loved #2; i can’t be satisfied; the blues had a baby…; deep down in florida
4/5
there are some beatles songs where i think they transcend their beatle-ness and i can actually process them outside of the veil of nostalgia and my gut reaction which is almost always “heeheehoohoo it’s the beatles 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁”. however sgt. pepper’s is a BEATLES album. there’s no other way to listen to it. that doesn’t make it bad but it does sort of limit it in my mind. i used to loathe ‘mr. kite’ but now i don’t really care. i LOVE the sgt. pepper reprise so much i wish it was ten hours long.
fav tracks: lucy in the sky with diamonds; fixing a hole; within you without you; lovely rita; sgt. pepper (reprise); a day in the life
Air
4/5
there’s no way for me to talk about this album and how it makes me feel without talking about *the virgin suicides* film. hearing just a couple bars of any one of these tracks sends me back to being 14 or 15 with all of the anxiety and listlessness that came with that age, a very real sense of entrapment. these songs still make me feel extremely uneasy, almost sick to my stomach. weird shadowy memories. i was surprised how visceral that emotion was upon listening to them for the first time in years. she was the still point of the turning world, man…
fav tracks: playground love; bathroom girl; the word hurricane
Todd Rundgren
3/5
why were white guys in the 1970s literally addicted to making carnival music. was this their version of healing their inner child?
fav track: zen archer
Roni Size
2/5
i don’t need to listen to a whole album of this
Pearl Jam
2/5
this type of music just sounds like nothing to me. like an anonymous object moving through air. the sound of one hand clapping. absolutely nothing.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
2/5
i can really only tolerate this kind of music when i’m pretending that i’m in a deleted scene from dazed & confused. ‘tuesday’s gone’ is alright i guess. and i can’t lie…i kinda do like ‘free bird’ (only for the “lord knows i can’t change” refrain) even though it being the hold music at my psychiatrist’s office does make it a bit triggering for me. this is not an album that’s worth caring about either way.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
4/5
i dug that immensely…i really really REALLY like the drumming patterns in south asian (or hindustani??) music—the tabla i guess is what i’m referring to here—i love how intricate and nimble they are. and i like the droning quality of the sustained vocals. idk how to describe it i just like it<3
Big Star
4/5
this could be rated five million stars for ‘kanga roo’ alone. but there are a couple lame-os on here too so i guess i’ll give it 4 stars instead.
fav tracks: kanga roo; kizza me; o, dana; big black car; take care; till the end of the day
Frank Sinatra
3/5
that’s nice i guess. i like the title track and ‘i get along…’ but i just like those songs in general, i’m not particularly devoted to sinatra’s versions.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
i’m sorry to my close personal friends bruce and clarence but i don’t really like the sound of this record. it’s TOO MUCH! the lyrics are so insanely gorgeous—”the screen door slams / mary’s dress sways” is such an incredible opening line for the whole album, it sets the tone so effectively—but the slamming piano and blasting sax and bruce leaning into his country twang delivery undercut the lyrics in basically every track unfortunately. there are some real ear worms on here though.
fav track: tenth avenue freeze-out
Sade
4/5
this sounds how floating on your back in perfectly warm water feels.
fav tracks: when am i gonna make a living; frankie’s first affair; cherry pie; smooth operator; hang on to your love; sally
Baaba Maal
4/5
i loved the instrumental parts but unfortunately i wasn’t a huge fan of his voice. but the music itself was so compelling to me that i really forced myself to concentrate on it over the vocals.
The Byrds
4/5
i liked this a lot more than the other byrds album! i guess i like that this one is darker and more experimental…the sound mixing was crazy with the binaural side effects, i was thoroughly entertained by the whole affair…chris hillman ASMR channel when…
fav tracks: everybody’s been burned; it happens each day; CTA 102
The Beach Boys
4/5
i suppose they were kinda the platonic ideal of the “cheery melody + melancholy lyrics” dynamic which i frequently enjoy so i do like that aspect of their music. I <3 FEELING BAD. the production is very lush and expansive but that combined with the vocal harmonies results in a music hall choir type effect which i found grating after a while especially on an album like this where there isn’t a huge contrast in overall sound between each song. well i’ll always cry listening to ‘i just wasn’t made for these times’ anyway.
fav tracks: god only knows; don’t talk (put your head on my shoulder); that’s not me; sloop john b; wouldn’t it be nice; i just wasn’t made for these times
Talking Heads
4/5
i’ve kinda been whatever about this album historically because i like all the SMS versions of the songs so much better than the studio ones*, and as a result i never really bother to listen to this album. but this time i reallllllyyyyyy liked it. a really terrific depiction of paranoia, an everyday sense of doom. i think if i had revisited this during covid it would have really and truly broken my brain i guess i’m glad i was ambivalent toward it for so long. ‘paper’ and ‘air’ both jumped out at me this time around.
*i still think this but the only studio version i think is notably inferior is ‘life during wartime’…nothing compares to the live version!
fav tracks: i zimbra; heaven; mind; cities; electric guitar; paper
Boston
2/5
I was willing to hear this out because it’s not immediately disgusting to me but then I realized that I was only two and a half songs into the album even though I felt like I’d been listening to it for at least half an hour. So actually maybe not.
Massive Attack
4/5
i agree with laura.
fav tracks: protection
The Damned
3/5
i liked that it had an extremely anti-christian song followed by a song about a demented circus clown. let’s all strive for that kind of variety in our artmaking practices.
Judas Priest
1/5
i can’t think about the fact that people sincerely consider this good music for too long or i will actually get angry. just looking at the comments on youtube makes me want to throw up.
De La Soul
5/5
this is the ultimate boy best friends album. i enjoyed it so much. fun, funny, funky. i also love their long island accents.
fav tracks: 3 is the magic number; change in speak; eye know; transmitting live from mars; me myself and i
Elton John
3/5
‘tiny dancer’ will always make me want to throw up and cry because it reminds me of that one scene in "almost famous". i think that really is the best context for elton john’s music—when it provides an opportunity for a lovely kind of camaraderie in which we can all pretend this is good music together<3
i like that he named a song after levon helm because he had a crush on him....in another world elton john was my tumblr mutual. elton you would love to read about the gay sex these people are imagining levon helm having.
anyway overall this was actually fine. i’m still not an elton fan but this wasn’t unbearable. not exactly a ringing endorsement, but there you go.
Tim Buckley
3/5
that’s nice tim.
Lambchop
2/5
his voice sounds so crazy familiar to me i was convinced that he had another project or vocal feature or SOMETHING that i've listened to already but it appears not…? it's driving me nuts because there's something about his inflection that i know i recognize from somewhere but idk where…anyway i thought this was pretty boring. with this kind of toned down instrumentals and very clear delivery i think the lyrics really have to stand on their own because there's little else to focus on and they simply weren't doing it for me. this is not an album you have to hear before you die.
New Order
4/5
yayyyy
fav tracks: love vigilantes; the perfect kiss; face-up
Fats Domino
3/5
yippee! that was fun.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
‘moonlight mile’ is such a great note to end on it almost tricks me into thinking this album was better than it actually was…it’s not a bad record by any means but it’s not the staggering work of rock genius that people claim it is (i think). honestly it’s possible that i think that mick jagger is a boring tryhard no matter what he does. once you grok that he and bowie and all those other englishmen were still so desperate to copy lou reed like five years too late it just becomes unbearably cringe to witness that effort. i always think of that video of kyle mooney dressed as macklemore…not unless yer gay, man….
fav tracks: moonlight mile; wild horses; sister morphine (but i prefer the marianne faithfull version)
Afrika Bambaataa
3/5
fun i guess—again, the old-school hip-hop vocal delivery gets a bit old after a while but the beats were great. i won’t be returning to this on my own but i’m not mad at it.
Paul Simon
3/5
aw that was really lovely. easy to listen to without being “easy listening”…i can see myself crying to ‘train in the distance’ at some point (compliment). but idk if you need to listen to this before you die.
fav tracks: train in the distance
Killing Joke
3/5
i want to rate this 3.75 stars…that extra .25 really makes a difference in my mind. probably i could learn to like this a lot if i listened to it enough. but i can’t really see myself doing that.
The Verve
4/5
my expectations were way low going into this because i think ‘bittersweet symphony’ is a great song the way ‘champagne supernova’ is a great song, and we all know how the rest of oasis’ discography sounds…but i really dug this! the shimmery drone lite guitar music of the 1990s often appeals to me and this fit right in there. sorry richard ashcroft i was unfamiliar with your game.
fav tracks: bittersweet symphony; catching the butterfly
Bob Dylan
5/5
it’s just beyond anything. the only negative i can think of is that he reallyyyy sounds dylan-y here, like his voice almost sounds like someone doing a dylan impression at certain points. but it’s just such a gut punch otherwise that it doesn’t matter. remarkable storytelling, melodic finery.
fav tracks: you’re gonna make me lonesome…; buckets of rain; tangled up in blue; meet me in the morning; if you see her, say hello; lily, rosemary and the jack of hearts; you’re a big girl now; shelter from the storm; simple twist of fate
Beatles
4/5
i like ‘wild honey pie’ and i’m tired of pretending i don’t. apparently pattie boyd really pushed for it to be included on the album which makes me love and respect her even more than i already do.
idk what i should say otherwise cos everything’s already been said. too many songs, yes, and a couple of really SHITE tracks (’goodnight’) but there are actually fewer true stinkers than i always remember. it could have been 3 sides instead of 4 i guess. and the good songs are just stone cold classics.
fav tracks: dear prudence; while my guitar gently weeps; happiness is a warm gun; mother nature’s son; back in the USSR; i’m so tired; yer blues; glass onion; long long long; savoy truffle; cry baby cry; helter skelter; julia
Blood, Sweat & Tears
3/5
that was literally fine. i didn’t mind it at all. shout-out erik satie…
Portishead
3/5
idk i thought this was pretty bland compared to other portishead i’ve listened to but maybe *dummy* is just really so good that everything else pales in comparison…i knew and listened to a couple of these songs as a teenager and those were still the ones that stood out to me listening to the whole record now.
fav tracks: the rip; machine gun; small
Parliament
3/5
i like this kind of concept album—it’s really easy to see how the format (LP) informed the record’s storytelling and narrative/musical arc. fun and cool!!!
Bob Dylan
4/5
let’s get a little silly with it bob…but not too silly cos we still need to decimate people with ‘baby blue’. OK??
fav tracks: bob dylan’s 115th dream; it’s all over now baby blue; subterranean homesick blues; it’s alright ma (i’m only bleeding); outlaw blues
Fun Lovin' Criminals
1/5
stupid asf. sorry to these men but i only have room in my heart for one goofy hip-hop trio of white boys from new york city. cool tarantino samples i guess…
The Clash
3/5
i didn’t really like this one that much, i’m sorry lads…but it gets better (see: london calling and sandinista!) ❤️ i somehow managed to get bored of it even though it’s only 30 minutes long yikes. i guess they were still finding their footing and it’s interesting to hear the reggae/dub influence right from the beginning since that would become more and more integral to their sound as a band.
fav tracks: janie jones; protex blue; police & thieves
The Slits
4/5
love love love. we need more women making strange and off-putting music. NOW!!!!!!!!!!
fav tracks: typical girls; heard it through the grape vine; FM; newtown; shoplifting
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
aw man i kinda really liked that…it’s NAWT GOOD but i liked it anyway. embarrassing.
it’s strange because in my mind, smashing pumpkins of course occupy a prime spot in the annals of 1990s american alternative rock but more on the pavement/sonic youth side than the pearl jam side—that is to say, more sensitive (?), cooler (??), with more substance and aesthetic value. for some reason. but in reality they’re wayyy more aligned with that crappy hard grunge bullshit which i generally loathe, or at least their monotonous revving guitar sound is...and their lyrics aren't that good either. so i don't knowwwww.
this album makes me feel like i’m in a teen TV show from the late 1990s—i swear i recognize every other song from a movie soundtrack somewhere in my subconscious. so actually maybe that’s why i like it. bro last night (listening to siamese dream for my 1001 albums project alone in my room while eating pistachios) was a movie…
fav tracks: geek USA; mayonaise; luna
Cat Stevens
4/5
really really nice! unfortunately ‘wild world’ will always make me think of the episode of skins where tony gets hit by a bus and then they randomly have a musical number set to that song.
*fav tracks: but i might die tonight; on the road to find out*
Dizzee Rascal
2/5
i don’t mind his ACCENT but i just don’t care for the overall sonic texture of these songs. the beats all sound really compressed and yuck to me but some of the instrumental parts are kinda cool. i know grime was a huge cultural moment in the UK but (similar to the rave scene) it never made its way overseas in a meaningful way so it’s hard for me to understand why this is an essential album.
Black Sabbath
4/5
this was pretty decent. still not exactly my thing but i could appreciate it for what it was—it was much more dynamic and blues-adjacent than other heavy metal, to the extent that i don’t even know if you could really call this heavy metal. but what do i know…
Radiohead
5/5
it’s just so insanely good i’m sorry. this was the album that really made radiohead click for me. i remember listening to it and thinking that i finally understood why thom yorke always dances like a nut while performing, because the music courses through you like an electric current. it’s that immediate and devastating…you’re just helpless to move…
it was specifically ‘where i end and you begin’ that got me way back in 2022, because it has all the hallmarks of an Instant Emilia Favorite—prominent bass line, lyrics about a codependent relationship, spiky guitar, throbbing percussion. this album (like *in rainbows*) is fairly bass-heavy, or at least heavier than their earlier albums, which is maybe why i like it so much…? i think thom’s voice was also really strong in this era—he started singing in a slightly lower register and relied less on his falsetto. i like it when he sings through his teeth, lol. i like when male vocalists sing in a way that rings as desperate but NOT whiny.
i love ‘there, there’ and all the footage of them playing it live on the HTTT tour—it was almost always their opener because it requires three sets of drums and i just can’t imagine how fucking exciting it was to see them kick off a set like that. “just ‘cause you feel it / doesn’t mean it’s there” is such a brilliant lyric. in general i love how so many of the songs on this album seem to lend themselves to dual interpretations, simultaneously menacing and comforting…
‘myxomatosis’ is another favorite…i love that revving guitar sound and the absolutely gut wrenching lyrics. don't you just want to go ape shitt?
unfortunately, my attachment to this album and its intentions as an anti-war record are the main contributing factors to my hesitance to enjoy radiohead fully now in light of their support of zionism (EXCEPT FOR ED!!!). i don’t actually care a lot about the political implications of this album—i think many of radiohead’s lyrics referencing politics are their weakest and most trite (see: “kicking squealing gucci little piggy” in ‘paranoid android’ which makes me want to puke, or even the reference to 1984 with ‘2+2=5’. eye roll). but that’s what THOM wanted to convey with this album, and i just can’t square it with his refusal to fully condemn israel’s actions. blah.
as a record it’s still gorgeous. but my ability to get lost in it is significantly diminished now, which does make me very sad.
fav tracks: WHERE I END AND YOU BEGIN!!!!!!; myxomatosis; there, there; a wolf at the door; sit down. stand up.; 2+2=5; a punch up at a wedding; the gloaming
Radiohead
4/5
maybe i’m just not smart enough when it comes to music theory to appreciate everything happening here but i just don’t get why THIS is the radiohead album that’s supposed to be totally groundbreaking. with the exception of ‘paranoid android,’ i think it sounds incredibly dated and it always shocks me that other people don’t feel the same way because i think it sounds markedly More dated than their records. it’s interesting to listen to radiohead’s within the context of what other adjacent bands were doing around the same time…for example, "the bends" is very much in keeping with the tradition of other alternative rock bands in britain, but it doesn’t feel dated because it feels perfectly situated in that moment. whereas "ok computer" has the guitar band sound plus some other more interesting and innovative (at the time) electronic intervention, but what made it innovative at the time now sounds 1. not that crazy and 2. awkward alongside the more standard guitar band stuff.
my hottest take is that ‘let down’ is TO ME this band at their weakest. this is what radiohead sounds like to people who don’t like radiohead: absolutely boring, self-indulgent dribble. AND IT GOES ON FOR FUCKING EVER. something about the chord progression maybe strikes me as so clichéd. how is this not a totally bog standard 90s alt rock guitar song...?
my favorites are ‘climbing up the walls’ and ‘electioneering,’ the latter of which is admittedly a pretty standard guitar rock song so idk what i’m bitching about really. i love that thocking percussion throughout. and ‘climbing up the walls’ is so brilliant and awful, just stomach-churning in the best way.
the “kicking squealing gucci little piggy” line in ‘paranoid android’ induces a full-body cringe in me every single time i hear it. i dearly wish he had not included that lyric. otherwise it rips, i can’t lie.
fav tracks: electioneering; climbing up the walls; paranoid android; subterranean homesick alien; exit music (for a film); no surprises
Norah Jones
3/5
I just can’t bring myself to care about this kind of music. She has a beautiful voice but my god it’s so boring. ‘i’ve got to see you again’ was the only song that really stood out to me because it sounds a bit darker and used more interesting instrumentation. i think...
fav tracks: i’ve got to see you again
Mylo
2/5
whatever. i just kinda don’t care. but i always like making fun of christian fundamentalists so it’s alright in my book for that alone.
Cornershop
4/5
a couple of summers ago i was ADDICTED to the song ‘sleep on the left side’ for some reason. idk why but it is sooo catchy and sunny and i still really like it. the whole album is fun and deserves to be included in the britpop-adjacent canon IMO.
fav tracks: sleep on the left side; we’re in yr corner; funky days are back again; brimful of asha; norwegian wood; candyman; good to be on the road back home
4/5
it’s such an enormous shame that the list doesn’t have the deluxe version of this album. i realize that’s a ridiculous expectation but i’ll never stop extolling the brilliance of this album’s B-sides over the track list on the original release—so many examples of blur’s best songs, or at least the best examples of damon’s songwriting and graham’s guitar in conjunction with one another (which i suppose are not necessarily the same thing). this would include ‘peach’, ‘bone bag’, ‘my ark’, ‘garden central’, ‘young & lovely’, and of course ‘beachcoma’ which is one of their best best best songs for real this time…and their cover of ‘maggie may’ which i stan idgaf…replace all the clunkers on MLIR with those and you’ve basically got a perfect album.
in any case the actual album is just alright. i don’t like most of the singles (’chemical world’ and ‘sunday sunday’ in particular are damon at his most mealy-mouthed). but i’ve learned to enjoy almost all of it through repeat exposure and i think many of the songs are FUN if not actually all that GOOD. however ‘oily water’ is a real stroke of genius and it’s exciting to see a glimpse of the far more experimental/abrasive sound they would adopt later. that swirly guitar on so many of the best tracks sounds like how a gasoline spill looks in a puddle, iridescent and shimmery and strange...
this is definitely the record that launched britpop so it deserves to be remembered in the grand scheme of music history. and they were sooooo so cute during this era in their little mod-adjacent looks ^_^
fav tracks (going by the original release only…as much as it pains me): oily water; miss america; blue jeans
2/5
It’s not horrendous but I would never in a million years choose to listen to this of my own volition. I got pretty sick of it by the end. But it didn’t actively repulse me and I can see why people like it, so whatever.
David Bowie
4/5
rather than reheating lou reed’s nachos, bowie was kinda preheating his nachos with this album…just kidding, not everything is about lou reed.
except when it is.
there’s a lot going on here, and the heavy theatricality makes it feel a little silly at points. this combined with how overplayed ‘changes’ and ‘life on mars?’ are leads to a certain difficulty in taking it seriously. BUT i did enjoy it. i actually really like the warhol song—that spanish guitar is so goddamn random but ultimately quite cool—although i can’t believe that bowie actually expected warhol to not completely hate it lol. i also like the bob dylan tribute. awwww it’s kind of cute that bowie wrote all these songs about his celebrity crushes…
fav tracks: oh! you pretty things; queen bitch; andy warhol; song for bob dylan; the bewlay brothers; changes
PJ Harvey
4/5
POLLY JEAN 4EVER
i love the raw edge on this whole album. it’s urgent and scary and manic but also powerful and deliberate.
fav tracks: rub ‘till it bleeds; man-size; rid of me; highway 61 revisited; legs; yuri-g; dry; 50ft queenie
The Darkness
1/5
this sounds like music that would have been on the shaun white snowboarding wii game that i loved in 4th grade. this is not a compliment.
Dagmar Krause
3/5
this is not music that i would choose to listen to in my own time but i can appreciate it for achieving what it clearly set out to do. kind of exhausting to listen to the way a lot of musical theatre is exhausting to listen to.
4/5
i’m trying to assess this album in a vacuum and not compare it to blur because i think that’s the only fair way to approach it. you’re welcome, liam. (noel gets nothing from me.)
WELLLLL it’s a good record! is it the best in the world? is it the best of 1995? is it particularly groundbreaking in terms of the musical arrangements, lyrical content, overall structure? NO!!!! is ‘champagne supernova’ one of the greatest songs of all time? YES!!!!
the best oasis songs have a wonderful anthemic quality to them, which is what i imagine is the driving force of their appeal. to me, this does not indicate great art. but not every pop rock album has to be great art.
i think they take a very classical, 1950s/60s-era approach to rock n roll: simple, infectious, great to sing along to, nothing you have to think too hard about.
ok i’m putting my blur fan hat back on. it’s frankly ludicrous that they’re compared to blur because blur so obviously blows them out of the water when it comes to artistry, creative innovation, emotional depth, etc. i can see why people might personally prefer oasis, but they are not OBJECTIVELY better by any metric.
however, i will concede that this is a better album than *the great escape*. but only barely. and ‘roll with it’ is equally as stupid as ‘country house’. [ariana grande voice] it’s equality.
fav tracks: champagne supernova; hey now!; cast no shadow; wonderwall
Stan Getz
4/5
i enjoyed this a lot! i feel like such a dope trying to articulate my thoughts about (mostly) instrumental music that i don’t already have a personal connection to but idk i just found this really pleasant to listen to.
The Specials
1/5
i can’t fucking do it mate. this is clown music. for clowns.
Underworld
4/5
yaaaaa i think ‘blueski’ is such an unbelievably gorgeous song. i enjoyed listening to this. shame ‘born slippy’ wasn’t on the album.
fav tracks: blueski; banstyle/sappys curry
Brian Wilson
3/5
okayyyyy brian i get it. you’re very good at this. but it’s just so……beach boys. idk. it’s very hard to listen to this outside of that context. and i think he deserves credit for his skill and for developing such a recognizable, sonically lush style, and i can appreciate that it sounds Nice in the fullest sense of the word, but it’s just not that interesting to me.
Pixies
4/5
OOOOOuuuu…stop. ✋
why does black francis kinda sound like mickey mouse on some of these songs? well i like it anyway. but it’s not my favorite…
fav tracks: gigantic; where is my mind?; oh my golly!
Muddy Waters
4/5
yeappp that rules.
Jack White
3/5
jack white’s voice will unfortunately always make me think of listening to ‘icky thump’ by the white stripes on the school bus when i was in 6th or 7th grade and thinking i was cool as fuck, an image that now kind of makes me cringe. i actually do think his voice and guitar are both genuinely pretty cool and interesting, but there’s a lingering air of goofy self-seriousness that clouds my perception of his solo music. some of the affectations on here i think are meant to be humorous but fall flat for me—for example i really liked ‘i’m shakin’ but why does he pronounce it like “noivous”…?
actually i just looked that one up and apparently that’s an early r&b standard not even written by white. so actually who cares.
Sinead O'Connor
5/5
sinéad, it felt like you were calling back through time to address me in particular when i was in college and i first heard you ask, “how could i possibly know what i want when i was only twenty-one?”
for the longest time it felt like the only way i could understand myself was through this album. every song was like a bruise, all that blood rushing to the surface.
now i’m twenty-eight and you’re gone and i still don’t know what i want. and i’m still listening, listening and watching the blood gather under my skin, grateful beyond measure to have been in a world where you were, too, once and always.
fav tracks: the emperor’s new clothes; last day of our acquaintance; black boys on mopeds; i am stretched on your grave; jump in the river; you cause as much sorrow; nothing compares 2 u
American Music Club
3/5
i liked that. it didn’t necessarily stand out from the one zillion other bands that i already listen to that sound just like it but i enjoyed listening to it. i could hear a connection to the national in particular, and in that sense it sounded much more contemporary.
fav tracks: somewhere; laughingstock; pale & skinny girl
Joan Armatrading
4/5
that was kinda crazy good. all of the songs were really interesting structurally—almost all of them went in directions that i couldn’t really predict which i found quite engaging in contrast to the overall smoothness of her sound. her voice is so gorgeous and a bit nostalgic to me cos my mommy loves her :’)
fav tracks: help yourself; like fire; somebody who loves you
The Who
2/5
i don’t want to listen to this whole thing. i got through about half. it’s SILLY. these are not serious people. it combines the worst parts of 70s rock music and the worst parts of musical theatre into a single maelstrom of drudgery.
Julian Cope
4/5
i reallyyyyy liked that. it reminded me a bit of pulp: sleazy and dark and catchy and just the tiniest bit stupid but in a way that feels interesting and fun as opposed to actively reducing my brain cell count. i thought there was a lot of variation in sound which kept my attention throughout. i had a good time listening to this and i bet i will again!!!
fav tracks: pristeen; east easy rider; if you loved me at all
The Incredible String Band
3/5
these guys are crazy lol…i’m glad somebody was having fun! i started out enjoying it but i will admit it gave me a bit of a headache by the end. i think i would have appreciated it more if the songs had been cut up into more individual tracks, because there were ‘movements’ of certain songs that i liked a lot but then they veered off into bizarre territory. however that’s a natural consequence of the LP format so i can’t really fault them for that.
fav track: witches’ song
Cocteau Twins
3/5
**Laura:**
A lot more industrial than what I’ve heard from them on *Heaven or Las Vegas*. I really liked it! It felt more atmospheric and dark. I of course have no idea what they’re saying but that’s okay because the sounds are so interesting that I can’t see myself listening to this for anything but that.
*Fav tracks: Persephone; Domino; Pandora (for Cindy)*
---
**Emilia:**
i liked it but i honestly found quite a lot of it pretty annoying, idk why :( a lot of the elements of the songs were just grating to me for some reason, which has not been my experience with other cocteau twins music…oh well…
fav tracks: lorelei; aloysius
Fela Kuti
5/5
i knew the title track but had never listened to the whole record. i'm glad i finally did!!!! shout-out tony allen.
The Specials
2/5
idk why i could tolerate this more than the other specials album but i guess this was more punk-adjacent? not necessarily in a good way, just in the sense that i found it easier to endure…my dad really likes the first song on here for some reason.
Big Star
4/5
like *third*, there’s one song on this album (’thirteen’) that is so incandescently brilliant that listening to it feels like looking directly at the sun—and that makes me want to rate the whole venture higher than it maybe deserves as an album. the rest of this album could have been alex chilton blowing raspberries into the mic and i still would have been like wow this is a masterpiece.
you hear the origin of all power pop in this record….for better and for way worse. when they’re good, they’re brilliant, but when they’re mediocre, they just sound like all the shitty big star rip-offs that came in the decades after them. not their fault but it is a little annoying to listen to.
fav tracks: THIRTEEN!!!!!!!; the ballad of el goodo; watch the sunrise
Tortoise
4/5
this was really nice. dynamic and yet unobtrusive. i don’t generally seek out this kind of music but i enjoyed this for what it is.
System Of A Down
1/5
this is just desperately unchic. i hate the corny yowl that metal singers always do. if you’re going to sing about beating women at least do it in a way that sounds good.
Funkadelic
5/5
i usually only listen to the shorter songs on this album out of context so it was nice to have a reason to sit down and listen to the whole thing again. it’s such a brilliant mixture of soundscape, emotional depth, weird out-of-left-field humor, genuine fear and darkness, and pure funkiness. crazy drums, CRAZY guitar…it’s all so good and a little scary.
i can’t imagine listening to this for the first time in 1971!!! wild.
obligatory one million apologies to funkadelic for thinking that ‘rill rill’ by sleigh bells was an original.
fav tracks: maggot brain; can you get to that; you and your folks…
The Who
4/5
i listened to this album sooooooooo so much when i was a teenager that i can’t help but feel a bit of affection toward it. it’s a great pop/rock record! sue me! i like when they say beep beep!
fav tracks: baba o’riley; going mobile
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
i really really like the guitars (especially on ‘my kingdom’) but most of the tracks fell a little flat for me for a reason that i can’t quite articulate. the melodies are just kind of dull i guess? i like the lyrics of ‘nocturnal me,’ for example, but i thought the structure of the song was actually not that interesting.
fav tracks: silver; the killing moon
The Prodigy
3/5
this was pretty fun but i kind of grew tired of it partway through—i’m not really in the right mindset, i guess. each one of these would be amazing in the context of a film soundtrack i bet.
Carole King
4/5
i think this record suffers from an unfortunate affliction through no fault of carole king’s own, which is that i’ve heard so many of these songs not as elements of a coherent album but as individual tracks in various contexts (’i feel the earth move,’ ‘you’ve got a friend,’ ‘where you lead,’ ‘will you love me tomorrow,’ ‘natural woman,’ ‘so far away’) so it’s difficult to hear them for what they are. my first instinct is to be like “yayy this is actually a nice song for something so overplayed” which seems unfair. but that’s still how i feel. as a result i much preferred the songs that i wasn’t as familiar with already. she’s excellent at what she does and the overplayed-ness of these songs ultimately speaks to her success as a songwriter.
fav tracks: so far away; home again
Frank Sinatra
3/5
whoop-tee-doo. pleasant enough but it felt like it dragged because there’s so little variation in sound. i bet this sounded fire in 1956 though and i can appreciate that.
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
it’s just so GOOD!!!! i love the cadence of this kind of rap, it’s just so satisfying to listen to. it’s very much of its era but simultaneously manages to sound completely fresh and cool every time.
fav tracks: scenario; buggin’ out; what?; everything is fair; check the rhime; excursions; show business
Liz Phair
5/5
there’s no way for me to really talk about this album in a normal way. i wish i could articulate what i find so brilliant about it—what about the structure of the songs, the lyrics, her delivery, the insistent strum of the guitar, the production which is lo-fi without becoming compressed or thin (begrudging shout-out to my ex tumblr mutual’s dad for that), etc.
there are so many lines on this album that raise all the hair on my arms and the back of my neck every time i hear them. all i know is that i’m clean as a whistle, baby…
something that always strikes me is the way liz phair sometimes purposely sings just below her own register, which renders her voice deceptively quiet, folded in on itself, seething. to call anything (especially anything written by a woman) “confessional” feels so trite but this particular affect that she adopts does lend itself to an impression of hushedness, everything made immense and urgent for having been conveyed in low tones. i'm there with her in everything, pressed up against the feeling of it, regardless of whether i relate to it personally or not.
the only song i don't really care about it the final one. i always forget about it for some reason.
fav tracks: flower; divorce song; never said; fuck and run; canary; gunshy; shatter; mesmerizing; 6’1”
Pulp
4/5
jarvis you crazy bastard…who else could make a record like this and get away with it? it’s somehow both sleazy and sincere, sexy and silly…and yet it doesn't get me in the gut the way "different class" does. there is admittedly a glaze of irony over the whole album that serves to undermine the emotional resonance of the more straightforward songs. but it really is proof that pulp was operating on a totally different level than everybody else during this time. including suede!!
fav tracks: this is hardcore; party hard; the fear; dishes; sylvia; like a friend; the day after the revolution; a little soul
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
COOL!! i like how theatrical this is while maintaining what feels like an authentic and dynamic darkness.
fav tracks: spellbound; into the light; monitor
Thelonious Monk
4/5
i like itttttt. idk what else to say. it DOESN’T sound schmaltzy the way a lot of this piano jazz tends to sound (in my opinion). i wonder what the distinction is between this and, say, the bill evans album we listened to….?
Marvin Gaye
5/5
it’s brilliant, urgent without losing its lushness. his voice is so beautiful and compelling.
fav tracks: what’s going on; right on; inner city blues (make me wanna holler)
Sepultura
2/5
i can’t deal with this style of singing. it sounds so monumentally stupid to me. just a big joke—which is fine, i guess, but it’s probably not great art and it’s definitely not fun enough for me to forgive/overlook the stupidity. however, the musical/instrumental parts of these songs is more interesting and melodic than the other thrash metal we’ve listened to, which really does sound like static to me. i also frequently liked the percussion throughout. but ultimately it’s just such a fucking chore to listen to this kind of music and i would never do it in my free time. it’s not even noise, because i often LIKE noise. it’s less substantive than noise. like a mosquito, or car exhaust.
Can
5/5
i don’t knowwwwwww. i can’t explain my response to this kind of music. it’s lovely, although lovely is too flimsy and small a word…it’s just wide open feelings, warm air, cool water, something sweet and good.
fav tracks: future days; moonshake
Harry Nilsson
4/5
hey…one of these songs WAS on the shaun white snowboarding wii game soundtrack!
i’m kind of fascinated by the range (some might say “randomness”) of these songs together. some are straight classic cornball pop (’gotta get up’), some are extremely beautiful and moving (’the moonbeam song’), some are incredibly goofy and bizarre in a way that is undeniably catchy and enjoyable to listen to (’coconut’), and some are just plain cool and rockin and almost sexy…? (’jump into the fire’). it gave me a sense of aesthetic whiplash through the whole course of the album but i certainly wasn’t bored and i did have fun. he has a really flexible voice. this guy is a character!!!
fav tracks: the moonbeam song; jump into the fire
Public Enemy
4/5
really engaging and inventive if ultimately overlong.
fav tracks: fight the power; welcome to the terrordome
Led Zeppelin
4/5
ok i fully forgot that i actually do know every song on this album. and it’s very very good, but it’s too long. the last three tracks could have been left off and then it would have been more or less a perfect record. alas…
fav tracks: kashmir; trampled under foot; the houses of the holy; in my time of dying; down by the seaside; ten years gone
The Velvet Underground
4/5
it’s clumsy and scattered and seething, a magnificent failure. it’s impossible to imagine what this could have sounded like with the “proper” audio technology that the band felt it required, and it’s probably not even worth trying to imagine it. like with everything related to the velvet underground, there is the gap between the myth and the music, but on the other side of that is the gap between the music the band could record and the music they could play and the music they could imagine. *WL/WH* falls somewhere in amongst all of that. it feels like peering into a deep hole in the ground and feeling all that cool, damp and filthy subterranean air against your face.
of the myriad technical issues remaining on the final product, the only one i really regret is how low maureen’s drums are mixed. turn that shit up!!!!!!!!!!!!!
fav tracks: here she comes now; sister ray; lady godiva’s operation
Soul II Soul
3/5
that was fun! i don’t really get a lot out of listening to this kind of music while sitting alone in my room but this was wayyy more dynamic and textured than a lot of the electronic/dance music that we’ve listened to for this list and therefore it felt like a more worthwhile endeavor.
Goldfrapp
3/5
this is very atmospheric and twin peaks-y….julee cruise for the 21st century. sounds far less dated than i might have expected—i feel like a lot of electronic music tends to be very identifiable by era, for better and for worse—although you can definitely hear the oncoming electroswing revival that would happen a couple years after this album was released, like the echo of ominous footsteps in the distance…some of it is a little too circus-y but overall i enjoyed it.
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
this album is kind of a trip to listen to in full because it’s mostly well-structured and fun electronic dance songs with pretty silly self-indulgent lyrics, plus a few very grand and emotionally resonant opuses (opii?) that still manage to stop me in my tracks and make me tear up no matter how many times i’ve heard them. i think pitchfork was probably right to name ‘all my friends’ as the second-best song of the 2000s. the repetitive nature of electronica is much more compelling when it is layered with interesting lyrics. which is not to say that every single song on this album has interesting lyrics. but those ones are fun anyway. yeah you got me james murphy.
fav tracks: all my friends; new york i love you…; someone great; watch the tapes
The Cure
4/5
the moral of the story is it’s OK if every song on your album sounds pretty much the same so long as it sounds cool ❤️
i like how shimmery these songs are, like shot silk in a deep shade.
fav tracks: plainsong; lullaby; lovesong; disintegration
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
i hadn’t listened to this entire album in a while—i think i like nick cave best in smaller doses, especially when the instrumentation is fairly reserved (compared to, say, *abattoir blues*, which i love and find extremely engaging to listen to all the way through, or *dig, lazarus, dig!!!*, which is a different style altogether), i.e. primarily piano-based. these songs sound like they’re from another era, like he’s a medieval bard of sorts…or otherwise they sound like lost jazz standards from an alternative universe. either way there’s an atmosphere of essential-ness to this music, like it’s been around forever.
fav tracks: idiot prayer; black hair; people ain’t no good; lime tree arbour
Pink Floyd
4/5
yeah alright it’s still good and in certain moments it’s even great. the sound effects are silly now but i can see how that might have been inventive back in the day. i agree that this is music you need to first hear when you’re fifteen to really be blown away by it. now it’s just nostalgic and nice rather than mind-boggling.
fav tracks: money; us and them
Air
4/5
i was having a huge moment with this album earlier this year, just listening to it on repeat for two weeks straight, although now i can’t remember what prompted this fixation. the opening track gives me the same sensation as when i’m in an airplane just as the wheels first lift off the runway.
i do think listening to ‘sexy boy’ one trillion times when i was fifteen or sixteen gave me some kind of irreversible brain damage but i don’t regret it!
fav tracks: la femme d’argent; sexy boy; talisman; you make it easy; ce matin-là; kelly watch the stars
Beastie Boys
4/5
i think it’s a little lame that people (including the beasties themselves) have created a revisionist history that overstates the level of satire involved in this record at its inception. obviously it’s very very silly and stupid but i don’t actually think it’s as much of a parody as people want it to be in order to justify the egregious misogyny and general grossness. of course it’s much easier to write it off now knowing how much they’ve disavowed the attitudes since. but let’s not pretend it’s deeper than it actually is…
THAT SAID, unfortunately my favorite songs on here are also the most offensive ones. whoops! ‘brass monkey’ goes so hard beat-wise and ‘girls’ makes me laugh in spite of myself. you can already see how inventive they were with their sampling and breadth of references, but also how so much of their creative output was motivated primarily by making each other laugh, an approach that i think has yielded some of the best works in hip-hop history (see: de la soul, tribe). KICK IT!
fav tracks: hold it now hit it; she’s crafty; brass monkey; no sleep til brooklyn
The Thrills
3/5
is there anything more embarrassing to bear witness to than european americaboos? except for maybe european californiaboos?
but there’s also something to be said for committing SO hard to pastiche that that almost becomes a performance in and of itself. like camp for boring straight people who have no other cultural references.
this is very kitschy and very 2003 and very inoffensive, and not very good.
Joni Mitchell
4/5
"no regrets coyote!" — Sun Tzu, The Art of War
fav tracks: amelia; coyote; song for sharon; blue motel room; a strange boy; hejira
Tom Waits
4/5
i’ve definitely tried listening to this album before because i LOVE ‘clap hands’ and [redacted] was obsessed with ‘downtown train’ a while ago. unfortunately both the opening track and ‘downtown train’ don’t appeal to me (the former being worse than the latter imo) so i didn’t try much beyond that. i’m glad i was obliged to revisit it now.
once you adjust to his voice it’s great!!! i love love love the percussion on this album. in general he’s featuring all of my favorite instruments (xylophone/marimba, double bass, baritone & even bass sax, congas) which lend the songs this incredible richness that complements his vocals really well. why don’t all musicians use that stuff all the time?
i know that tom waits is known for his lyrics, but weirdly—especially for me—the words were the least compelling aspect because i was SO taken with the unique instrumentation. occasionally a particular phrase would catch my ear but i wasn’t really paying much attention to them.
some of the songs are a little TOO theatrical with the brass and border on cabaret or even musical theatre type stuff…idk. it didn’t spoil my overall impression of the album, i just didn’t care for them. the more ‘typical’ sounding songs (e.g. ‘downtown train’) were also kinda whatever but maybe would have worked in a different context.
fav tracks: clap hands; gun street girl; big black mariah; jockey full of bourbon