Starts well, ends well, goes on a bit in the middle. Honestly, like, Zeppelin are good, they're just not as good as their fans or, more important, they themselves think they are.

I think I'd only heard the singles off this, so a lot of the moodier stuff (It's Up to You, Doesn't Make It Alright, etc) is hitting a lot harder, and honestly? It's a really good vibe for them. A bunch of the less racially politically charged tracks on here kind of run on a surprising level of misogynistic tropes, though, bc while many of his politics may have been good, Terry's always seemed like kind of a twat (also Too Much Too Young has always been overrated, don't @ me, and having the longer, slower mix of it on here helps nobody)

I didn't expect this to turn me around on AC/DC, and I was pretty much right - it's very samey, straight down the middle rock that I would describe as "perfectly fine", with an annoying man singing bullshit over it.

Abattoir Blues: This shit bangs, I did not expect to be drawing this many Strokes and David Byrne parallels. Lyre of Orpheus: Okay, this is more what I expected from Nick Cave, but in a David-Byrne-doing-Night-Vale-weather way? So hey, turns out this shit also bangs.

See, I *like* 60s/70s bullshit and soundtracks to musicals I haven't seen, but this is still getting on my nerves. Like, at its best it's approaching the less good bits of 2112, but then we go straight back into clunky recitative and magical crip narratives.

I know it's wildly influential, and I enjoy some of the individual tracks on there, but when my overwhelming feeling coming out of an album is "Christ, that went on a bit", it's rarely a good sign.

This is honestly breathtaking as a complete piece, there's a purity in trans gospel music I've rarely heard anywhere else and this piano work just kills me (and if you enjoyed that, I implore you to go listen to Transangelic Exodus)

I'd honestly never heard of these guys, which surprised me as a certified Knower of Things and enjoyer of rootsy folk-rock music, so thanks for making me learn, I guess, since this is really good? Like, it suffers (like so many albums) from frontloading the best track, so the rest of the album's not quite as good, but still, this is I think what I want Steely Dan to sound like every time I'm disappointed by Steely Dan.

Well, that uhhhhh... sure was Extremely Sixties. Like, I'm not convinced I disliked it per se, but wow, yeah (also it should've got to that last track sooner).

Okay, the rest of the album isn't as good as Papa, but that's an astronomical bar, and it is at its worst just really good classic funk. At its best, though? *chef kiss*

I'll be real, I have a lot of time for this kind of unpretentious Texas country (I'm a simple girl, I hear harmonica and pedal steel, I pop), and a few of these bang, but Waylon, why do you keep fading out just as we're getting to the good bit?

If you'd told me the guys out of Calexico were in a different band in the 90s and doing Lou Reed-style alt-country, this is, to be fair, the exact album I'd imagine. Luckily, I like all the words in that sentence.

I'm so torn, because musically this slaps (except when they get a bit too Deep Purple/generic 70s rock), but also Carlos Santana it costs $0 to not randomly be a transphobic asshat when nobody asked

You can't just keep saying "I am the Law," lieutenant-yefreitor. But for serious, I don't think I've ever actually listened to this whole album, and shocking nobody, it's good 80s synthpop - it lags a bit at points, but the bangers bang. And now I'm going to be singing Working as a Waitress all day.

Now, I *like* Sam Cooke, but this was just kind of...there? Like, he's great, but the lack of production does him no favours, and overall this just left me a bit cold.

You know how I said Highway to Hell was some perfectly serviceable classic rock? Well, to paraphrase a great thinker of our time, finally, some good fucking classic rock. I can't remember when I last would have listened to this as an album, if ever (I sure as hell don't remember ever hearing Thug before), but this is just bangers all the way down - taut, propulsive, riff-driven country rock, cocky without being pretentious, and just straight-up good fun.

I only knew Green Light and Perfect Places going into this, but they're both bangers that are on my regular playlist, so I was pretty sure I'd be a fan of the whole album. And goddammit, but I was right - it's queer femme-fronted electropop with some real Antonoffcore maximalist production, and as you might have guessed, every single word there speaks to me on a deep level. Yes, I'm a demographic, but I'm okay with that. (Also, "They'll hang us in the Louvre/(in the back/but who cares/still the Louvre)" is just an S-tier lyric)

I've been meaning to actually listen to this for ages, ever since Music League turned me into a Kendrick enjoyer, so thanks for that - and I do mean "thanks", because hot *damn* was that everything it's cracked up to be.

I just really like sumptuous 80s new romantic synthpop, okay? And like, this tails off a bit towards the end, and peaks with literally the first track thanks to Someone Somewhere, but it's really really good soundtrack to my day.

I mean, I was born in England in 1991, bangers bang, what am I supposed to say. It feels a little overstuffed at points, and I think it'd be like a 4.5 if we had more granular scoring available, but we're rounding up for just how high the highs are.

As another high-concept brutalist art-jazz soundtrack to a detective story that never was, this mostly reminded me of Bowie's Outside. And if you know me, you'll know what high praise that is, I am Vibing

The middle of this album is merely, for good or ill, very good funk. But those framing tracks? Genuinely transcendent, the opener is one of my favourite guitar tracks basically ever.

As I said when somebody put I-Spy into music league, once you get past the classic Britpop singles everyone knows, you realise what a little fuckin weirdo Jarvis Cocker is (complimentary). Like, this isn't groundbreaking, but it's a good album of weird little guy songs, and that's a genre I have a lot of time for. Plus, I found the ten minutes of ambient resonance weirdly soothing? I listened to this in the bath, so it definitely added to a weird spa atmosphere. Less a fan of the Jarvis jumpscare (jarmpscare?) though.

Going into this, I was like "Oh, it's the album Tuesday's Gone, Gimme Three Steps, and Free Bird are on - I don't know if I've ever listened to this as an album, so let's see if the rest of the tracks live up to that incredibly high standard." And then I proceeded to go "Ohhhh, it's *this* one!" to basically every other track. Suffice to say, this is all bangers, and while the rest of the album can't live up to Free Bird, I think when the question is "How many genre-defining masterpieces are on this album," most bands will absolutely settle for "One." Seriously, the only negative things I can say about this record are that the honky-tonk piano in Things Goin' On gives me extremely specific flashbacks to Dr Drago's Madcap Chase (you're welcome, handful of other people who grew up on that), and that Guns 'N' Roses listened to Tuesday's Gone and Free Bird, thought "Yeah, we could do that," and that's how we ended up with November Rain.

TIL that Weather Storm, a piano piece that I've known and loved since I was a child, was originally a Massive Attack track??? Anyway, shockingly, local trip-hop enjoyer enjoys foundational trip-hop album. Some bits of it felt like they'd been John Cartered into feeling a bit like they weren't doing much I hadn't heard, purely because it's so foundational, but still, it's really good, and 5 for the force with which finding that out punched me in the brain, if nothing else.

I was literally just the other day saying I needed to properly listen to this album, since Roads and Glory Box are absolutely impeccable tracks, and what do you know, this foundational album of trip-hop is really good trip-hop all the way down, I am Vibing

See, I genuinely like George Michael as a singer, but one standout track aside, this sure is a collection of late 80s/early-90s synthpop/R&B/desperate attempts to be Michael Jackson that are mostly just... There. Point added for the title track still being a banger, then deducted for the number of times I thought "Wait, is this one still going?" (Sorry, George, but nobody needed 9 minutes and 18 seconds of Look How Heterosexual I Am)

I mean, what's to say, one of my favourite albums growing up, and every bit of this holds up.

Van's a tosser, sure, but I actually really like this - good memories of listening to his best of as a kid, and it remains extremely good background jazz.

First of all, let me clearly state my case that Nina Simone's voice is an otherworldly gem and one of the best musical instruments humanity has ever produced, and if she's not on the Voyager record we have failed as a species. That all said, this sure does sound like a collection of offcuts rather than an album (mostly because it is), and a lot of these songs aren't the kind that really show off her power and emotion. When they are, like the title track and Break Down And Let It All Out, this is great (also Lilac Wine, but my brain rebels at the thought of treating it as anything other than a Jeff Buckley cover), but otherwise...eh. Also I legitimately heard the first "Aunt Sarah" in Four Women as "My name is Ed Sheeran", and even Nina is gonna have trouble coming back from that.

I mean, it's Rumours.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/V348yLxRHFDvpZAA9 But seriously, this album slaps - I only know the singles, but even they were longer and funkier than I remembered, so I probably only know the radio cuts? It sags on a few tracks, but overall, this was great, and brought back a lot of memories of seeing them live.

I'm torn, because this is really really good, but I feel like it's inconsistent? Like, when it's just really good son it is *really* good son (like, Chan Chan is just a transcendent track), but a lot of the time it gets a bit too 40s for me? Still, fantastic album, perfect background, and another good one to spend half the album going "Oh, that's where that's from."

I know Blur have the range, and *gestures wildly at every Gorillaz album*, but I feel like I still wasn't prepared for the sheer level of genre whiplash on here. Still, for all that it sometimes sounds like Damon doing the style of a different act of the 80s and 90s each track, there's more hits than nurses, and the hits *hit*

While I am as a general rule ideologically opposed to the American impulse toward post-colonial self-mythologisation, to pull it off you've got to either lean into the mythopoeic bombast of it and anchor it in existing stories (hi, Dark Tower), or else deliver it with this kind of understated grace and surprising bitterness.

How have I never got round to actually listening to this, and why did I always listen to the hipster brain telling me it wasn't cool and alternative enough to acknowledge that LP slapped?

It remains utterly wild to me that any of what is objectively some very weird music here made any impact on the charts, but I'll take it, this whole album rules so hard

It's giving "80s fantasy film with a demented good synth soundtrack that doesn't fit at all", and if you know me you know what a compliment that is. Might make a Jarre playlist for the next time I run a fantasy RPG, for the full Ladyhawke effect.

I feel like I wanted to like this more than I do - like, I like Grace Petrie, I like Kae Tempest, I like Arab Strap, I like Frank Turner, hell, I like Billy Bragg - but a lot of these were kind of just there? There are a few absolute bangers in Levi Stubbs' Tears and the later tracks, but it takes a lot to win back the goodwill the opening few left me with. Still, I absolutely enjoyed this, I'm just being harsh because I like the genre.

Once again, shock as local trip-hop enjoyer enjoys really good trip-hop. Seriously, this one just whips all the way down.

I mean, what am I going to say that hasn't been said before, it's Vespertine. I'd never actually listened to this as a whole album before, so thanks for that, but yeah - it's sumptuous, it's ethereal, it's incredibly horny in a surprisingly wholesome way, Björk's vocals are exquisite, and it turns into Wintergatan in the middle. What's not to love?

Sure, the quality drops notably later in the album, and the less we say about Jamaica Jerk-Off the better, but the highs are worth it, so many tracks on here absolutely bang

Starts well, ends well, goes on a bit in the middle. Honestly, like, Zeppelin are good, they're just not as good as their fans or, more important, they themselves think they are.

As someone who enjoys burbly synths, dark ambience, and even the bits of Tangerine Dream I'd previously heard, I was really expecting to enjoy this a lot, but it just left me a bit cold? Like, the last two tracks were good, but there was a whole lot of thinking "is this still going, and do I care" getting to that point.

A+ space bee music to vibe to, thanks