have listened to lots of Miles before but haven’t listened to him this early (pre Kind of Blue) as a bandleader.
really lyrical playing. i guess miles was sick of bebop and was slowing things down compared to the bebop standard of playing 1000km/h over super fast chord changes and he wanted to make it less of a “jam” and more like a composition. really interesting and a good listen. shows how much he was experimenting and changing the game in jazz even before he dropped Kind of Blue later on which was a real shift.
hard not to give it a 10/10 on the historical importance basis but assuming we’re going off of personal enjoyment i’ll say like a 7/10. enjoyable but i think i just enjoy the whackier side of miles’ discography (and jazz in general) more than earlier more traditional jazz stuff.
have listened to lots of metallica before. not really a metal guy anymore so this will be interesting. never really liked this album mostly because i don't care for metallica's releases after cliff burton died (not out of some kind of worship for him. just only like the first three), and i used to think the hits from this album like Enter Sandman are super overplayed and i was/am pretty sick to death of them. kind of fucking insane that there's apparently FOUR metallica albums on this list – i'd include maybe three at an absolute stretch.
all the songs are in terms of composition good metal songs. james hetfield is a great vocalist. kirk hammett using wah-wah on every solo used to not really irk me much but for some reason this listen through it really started to piss me off — just turn it off for one fucking lick dude please. the way the drums are mixed kind of pisses me off too. the snare sounds like lars is hitting a mattress or something and the cymbals, especially the crash, are just fucking annoying. i guess especially because lars ulrich is pretty indisputably a shit drummer (he used to be good but by this stage in metallica’s career and onwards he definitely is as bad as popular vitriol makes him out to be and he's also a dick). lars makes so many of the songs drag on like borderline snoozefests because it feels like he’s constantly drumming in halftime. his fills (especially on Wherever I May Roam) also SUCK oh my fucking god.
WHERE THE FUCK IS THE BASS IN THE MIX?????? the only way they could’ve gotten away with this absolute dogshit sound for a record was because of how notoriously bad And Justice For All’s (the album before this one) mix was. so many of these songs sound totally empty. i guess it’s worth considering this is metallica right as they decide to start pandering to more of a “hard rock” fanbase because they had already achieved most of the commercial success you can really get as a metal band (by releasing 3 [AJFA is composition-speaking a great album with great songs but fuck me what a terrible sounding album] great metal albums beforehand, so worth giving them credit here).
not gonna get too into it but while the lyrics are mostly good (Hetfield is a good metal lyricist all around), there’s some fucking trash in here too — Don’t Tread On Me is a blatantly right-wing shitstain lyrically (“love it or leave it”?!!? are you serious cunt) and it’s also probably the worst, laziest, and corniest song on the album in my opinion.
on the bright side, broadly great guitar work and vocals. i think i’m harsher on this album than most would be because i never got super into this album (it was probably a lot of millennials’ introduction to metal), so i don’t have any nostalgia to look back on it with. standout track is for sure Nothing Else Matters. also obviously better than the absolute shite metallica put out after this haha.
maybe like a 3.5/10 if i'm being generous. sorry. i'll round up to 2/5 when i rate it to make up for it though.
very chill and impressive guitar album. probably need to relisten eventually because i found that a lot of the songs got a bit same-y compositionally and i ended up listening pretty lazily towards the end. that being said all the songs are well composed - super interesting chord progressions on a ton of these songs. can't fault mark knopfler at all. broadly not my cup of tea because dire straits can border on a yacht rock sorta vibe sometimes but i'd be lying to say i dislike this album. 6/10
10/10. i don't have to explain this album lol.
so interesting. love that whacky time signatures. insanely tight group. 8/10
just not as good as the smiths other stuff and i’m pretty off them. eh. 4/10
fucking boring as haha why tf do people like this
8.5/10 - i remember this being whacky and it still is. love it. talking heads gang of four all took reference. chinese radiation is such a nice track.
10/10 – one of my fav albums of all time. Unbelievably progressive guitar playing and songwriting. Perfect soundtrack of CBGBs and the entire universe that surrounded that. This album is a peak atop a perfect moment that happened before the Sex Pistols but after the Beatles. The title track is one of the few "rock" songs that can go beyond the 8 minute mark with no wank. Don't know how they did it.
6/10. ZZ Top were never really my thing. Relistening to this album its full of some really admirable guitar playing, but I can't really say its gonna stick with me.
8/10 - so underrated. combines beatlesy stuff with what i already knew i loved abt neil young. love
9/10 simply for Masters Of War
Weird and whacky blues album. Love it
Indisputably one of the best rock albums ever.
