One of my favorite albums of all time, and definitely my favorite Stones album. Recorded during a famously drug-fueled, debaucherous period for the band while in tax exile in France, the album sounds like a near-constant party. It’s the raunchiest, dirtiest, messiest, and rawest sounding of any of the Stones albums—perhaps as hedonistic to listen to as it was to make.
I traveled back to the year 2000 and listened to Coldplay’s debut album for the first time. I’ll admit, I was dreading it. “Yellow” was one of the most overplayed songs of my childhood and Coldplay was inescapable. But I found the album solid and enjoyable, with a seamless flow. That said, Coldplay’s other music is basically as melodramatic and self-serious as “Yellow” is. I don’t think I would return to this album unless I wanted to wallow in self-pity. I enjoyed reading a bit of background about the band, and how the use of the word “yellow” is basically random and meaningless—the band was hoping to find another word to fit, but none did. I enjoyed the last song, and I love a good hidden track.
A deservedly classic album that sounds like one long jam session, Abraxas successfully infuses rock guitar with Latin rhythms. What an absolute vibe. The Tito Puente cover “Oye Como Va” might be my favorite track—a great song to just groove to. “Hope You’re Feeling Better” is the hard rock delineation the album needed. And of course “Black Magic Woman” is the dad rock song that played on repeat throughout my childhood— so it all feels nostalgic.
This album is a classic, and I’ve listened to it many times. I’ve always felt like the Stones tilted towards country on this album, which worked well for them. But it’s not as consistently successful as Exile. I listened with more critical ears today. Brown Sugar unnecessarily glorifies slavery and rape, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking is unmelodic and goes on for way too long, I Got the Blues is boring, and Sister Morphine drags. Wild Horses is one of the best Stones songs ever— it stands out as an intimate, reflective track with perfect timing. And Moonlight Mile is a satisfying way to end the album.
This sprawling concept album is quite the undertaking, clocking in at an hour and 20 minutes. Surprisingly, none of those minutes feels wasted. This is a fascinating album and keeps you on your toes for the entire hour plus, like a good movie would. It’s a full narrative about the stages of an entire life lived under an oppressive regime that stresses conformity and coercive control. It tracks this man’s life from birth to school days, childhood relationship with his mother, adolescence and rebellion, falling in love, falling out of love, growing old and beaten down, and then realizing, at long last, that you don’t want to lose your soul. While you’re listening to it you can’t help but think: “This may be the greatest album ever made.”
I loved this album—not quite as much as The Queen Is Dead, my favorite Smiths album. But listening to it was pleasantly familiar, even though I had only heard about half the tracks on the album. Johnny Marr’s jangly guitar work, Morrissey’s literary references and strange, morbid British humor—it all reminds me of car rides with my dad. Some of the lyrics made me laugh out loud. This was the Smiths’ last album together, and most of the band agreed it was their best. It takes it title from a famous prison that was actually called Strangeways, which I guess is where the band felt they were headed.
This album is mysterious and impenetrable—a style I might call madcap psychedelia. It has Syd Barrett written all over it. It’s not a particularly likable album, and it’s certainly not radio friendly. Much of it isn’t so much about music as it is about sound—it uses the L-R stereo to great effect, as strange cacophonies zoom between the speakers. Some of it feels like noise (much of “Interstellar Overdrive”), and some feels like it has this charming, oddball fantasy bend (“The Gnome” and “Bike”). The ending was strange, with squeaking sounds like a broken bicycle horn or a wheezing rubber duck. It sort of made me want to listen to the whole thing again.
album. The B side grabbed me quite a bit more than the A side, especially the startling, strange German oom-pah song “Bitter Sweet.” I’d honestly never heard Roxy Music before. I recognized the album cover of half-nude models against a background of pine needles—it’s kind of hard to forget. My impressions without reading anything about the band yet: they have a clear knack for theatricality. There was something extremely flamboyant about this album. The lead singer has this half-sung, half-spoken thing going on, but his voice isn’t super unique. The arrangements are dense and polished, which isn’t always my favorite, but the album certainly had some texture to it. It did sound ahead-of-its-time for 1974, and clearly inspired later new wave and electro-pop sounds that became popular later in the decade.
The Yes Album from 1971 is a quintessential English prog rock album. It has intensity, it has build, it has relief from the “hard rock” moments in little fingerpicking interludes. It’s not as if the songs just went on forever; really, there were 3 or 4 different songs within each track. Some of them melded, and some were extremely distinct. The instrumentation in this album, and its use of the stereo effect to layer sounds on top of one another was pretty exciting (Perpetual Change, the last track, best demonstrates this layering effect). I love an album that breaks with the traditional mode of composing and arranging—there are clear jazz-infused elements to the structure of these songs, just like many prog rock albums—but they also encompassed blues, folk, and funk. The arrangements reminded me of King Crimson, and the vocal harmonies sounded like they were inspired by Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Illmatic is sacred in the annals of hip hop, having often been christened the best hip hop album of all time. When you listen to it, it becomes abundantly clear that rappers have tried to recapture the magic of this album for decades, and seem fated to always come up short. The internal rhyme schemes, fluidity, and searing insights into life in the Queensbridge projects are unparalleled, recalling the street prophet poetry of Rakim.
This is perhaps the greatest double album of all time, and it sounds great spinning on my turntable. The grooves and timing, the depth and perfection of the production quality, and the brilliant hooks make this album unforgettable. “I Wish,” with its unmistakable bass line, is my favorite track. The songs on this album capture an entire spectrum of life experiences from birth to death, and I return to it all the time.
I’ve listened to many songs on this album, and many are favorites (“Run That Body Down,” “Me and Julio”), I’d never actually listened to it in its entirety. This was a phenomenally consistent album, and even the songs I’d never heard were catchy and distinct. Armistice Day had Joni Mitchell-inspired chord progressions; Peace Like A River was an unexpectedly empowering political anthem. I can’t wait to listen again.
I’d never heard of this album, and I still can’t tell if I want to return to it or not. I could instantly hear the Massive Attack connection. There was a lot of genre mixing going on, a lot of languid chillbeats, a lot of unexpected flute. In general, it was a bit boring. The most memorable was perhaps the danceable track “Brand New You’re Retro.” Most of the songs went on for far too long, but it was certainly an interesting listening experience, and not something I would have picked up on my own.
