This was a first listen of the album for me and I really enjoyed it. Felt like Bowie was exploring a little more avant garde style but still had his fingerprints on it. I liked hearing him incorporate longer jams and exploring funk and disco influences through the album. Surprising it’s only 38 minutes long. Standout track for me was “Stay”
First listen! The third album from this proto-hardcore punk group has really tight compositions and strong performances from everyone. You can hear their previous history in jazz and reggae in their playstyle as they diverge from the more familiar punk forms of playing. Standout track: Hired Gun
I’ve never heard of this band or any of their music, so this was a wild ride. Opening with a quasi-metal rendition of a Curtis Mayfield song was a shock and then actually a lot of fun! Getting hit with Ska was also a surprise lol. Overall, the album was a fun listen, I couldn’t help think of the Chrono Trigger soundtrack every time I heard the keyboard ripping it. Lots of sounds that reminded me of playing my SNES.
Average track: 🎶🤩 🕺🎺🎸
Lyrical content: 😔😈🤬💀
Standout track: One Day
Classic Beck album! Listening to this album felt like I was listening to the radio while driving through SoCal in the 90s. The various melding of styles within the same song was reminiscent of the blurring between radio station signals. Beck’s expansive influences incorporated on this album were ambitious with most landing but a couple misses threw off the flow of the record for me.
Stand out Track: Where It’s At
It was nice to sit down and give this album a dedicated listen. I’ve normally only heard it via random tracks played in various locations. And who doesn’t love an album with lore! This album oddly blends country, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll seamlessly. Stand out track: Dreams
This feels like a quintessential dad rock album. We’ve all heard More Than a Feeling endlessly via radio, jukebox plays, and karaoke renditions. Listening to some of the later tracks on the album felt like catching a glimpse of a dad (pre-fatherhood) living it up. But much like some of those rigid masculine mores of the late 70s and 80s, the album felt limiting and one-note despite glimpses of some depth and exploration. Still a good album, but I’ll probably stick to the hits with this one.
Stand out track(s): More Then a Feeling and Foreplay/Long Time
This album was a challenging listen tbh. The opening track, while it had drive, didn’t capture my attention and interest from the jump. I can appreciate the possible influence this album had on future synth-pop artists but I just wasn’t feeling it. Stand out track: In Vogue
What’s there to say, it’s a classic Cat Steven’s record!
Favorite Track: Father and Son
This album is both an interesting and understandable inclusion to this list. Arctic Monkeys brought post-punk revival/indie rock to a broader audience. Where Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, and The Futureheads set the stage, Arctic Monkeys scored a big hit with this debut. The vivid, relatable story telling about youth and night life in Alex Turner’s lyrics and the energy of the compositions make for a fun album. I can appreciate the album and how vital it was/is for people. I think had I not explored the aforementioned bands before this came out, this album would have been on heavy rotation. Alas, I had moved on to my post-rock obsession and this felt a tad repetitive.
Stand out track: Riot Van and Red Light Indicates Doors are Secured
Decent listen. R.E.M. definitely had their sound on lock fairly early on. I’m more partial to their later works but it was find to see the beginning.
Stand Out Track: Orange Crush
Pretty good album, I liked the more psyche influenced pieces. Will likely listen again!
What an album! Of Elliott Smith’s work, this is definitely his most iconic piece. The quiet melancholy of this album is beautiful and gut wrenching. The production on the record gives this incredible close feeling as if you’re in the room as he performs. You can hear the influence Elliot Smith had on the late aughts bedroom indie artists.
The first time I listened to Either/Or was on a trip I took to Russia in the late 2000s. It offered a cathartic release to the worry, loneliness, and stress of traveling with a group of people I hardly knew to a less glamorous city of the country. So while it has a heavy tinge of nostalgia the album stands well on it’s on as a classic.
Standout track: Between the Bars
I really really love Portishead, so I recognize my bias in my rating of this album. Dummy still feels fresh even 30 years after its release. The tracks throughout the album feel as though they’re soundtracking an obscure film or indie movie. Beth Gibbons voice really sets them apart from other trip hop acts that came after them. Incredible vibes from front to back. Stand out track: Roads and Glory Roads
Really solid album for Janis Joplin’s last album before her tragic passing. Love the slight country feel that some of the late 60s hippie music had.
I wasn’t really feeling this album tbh. I think punk music has come a long way since the days of Dead Kennedy’s and Sex Pistols. The most refreshing part was the cover of Viva Las Vegas lol
Girls just wanna have fun! What’s more to say lol
Whew, I was not expecting to get a Throbbing Gristle album on this list. Lmao
My first time hearing Throbbing Gristle was my friend Cory playing Hamburger Lady. It horrified me. It felt like I was listening to what an eldritch being or alien was attacking me with over psychic waves. Like I still get an unknowable unsettled feeling when I hear it.
As for the album, it is an incredible piece of experimental art. Throbbing Gristle’s work is singular in the exploration of sounds pleasant and unpleasant. I feel you can hear the influence TG had on artists like Aphex Twin, Nine Inch Nails, and ,distantly, Oneohtrix Point Never. Granted, those artists took a different approach to musicality in their art but the impact of the challenging and horizon expanding art TG created still stands.
In comparison to the vast majority of albums on the list, this album feels like a gremlin escaped from it’s hidden world and found belonging with outsider art appreciators.
Fun bit: United was actually a single with much broader appeal but they decided “f*** it” and sped up the 4:04 long song to 16 seconds on the album.
Standout track?: Hometime
I listen through it twice and somewhat enjoyed it. While the album had a little grandiosity to it, the feel of the album was a tad contrived in my opinion. As I was listening to it, it felt like a slog to get through a 32 minute album. I wanted to give it a fair shake so listening though it a second time I could see the vision a bit more, but still kind of a middling album for me. A soft 3 for me.
The production on this album is a maximalists dream with the volume of samples and flips here. This album is a prime example of Rap/Hip Hop as a form of protest. Hearing the news reports and the parodies of call in radio shows highlighting the experience of Black people in America in the 90s. What keeps this album in the light 4 range is the lengthiness of it and density of the production throughout the album. The last track was perfect though.
Another great hip hop album! Missy Elliot is an incredible MC. Missy and her contemporaries were some of my first intros into hip hop when I was in middle school. So while it was nostalgic to listen to, it still felt fresh and I was having a great time listening again. Her bragadocious verses and great features make this a fun and re-listenable album.
