Rich & warm, a true delight of an album. Very nice to start this journey with a staple in my record collection. 'And it stoned me' is stunning in its simplicity, 'Moondance' is a shimmering little ditty. I have long earmarked 'Into The Mystic' as a potential first dance song. 'Crazy Love' and 'Caravan' sort of blend into one another and cause the album to lull a little bit through the middle. Things pick up again with 'These dreams of You' and the sweet closer 'Glad Tidings' leaves nothing but fond memories of revisiting this bonafide classic.
Top 3:
1. Into The Mystic
2. These Dreams Of You
3. Brand New Day
Bottom 1:
1. Come Running
Overall score: 8.3/10
This is excellent background music and while I can certainly appreciate that this would have been groundbreaking in 1959, it's just not engrossing enough to warrant deeper listening. Even the more sprightly 'Everybody's Jumping' has me firmly glued to the spot. I will say that this is probably the kind of album you'd throw on while playing games, especially 'pick up sticks'. That happens to be my favourite track on this record, if mostly for the way it evokes memories of the '
Pink Panther theme.
Most memorable: Pick up sticks
Least memorable: Just about everything else.
Overall score: 5.6/10
Not something I'm likely to return to but pretty fun while it was on. The opener 'Precious' provided impetus and there were a handful of eccentric punk grooves scattered throughout the tracklist to keep things interesting.
Top 3:
1. Brass in Pocket
2. Precious
3. Stop your Sobbing
Bottom 1: Kid
Overall score: 6.6/10
This is a peculiar listen. On the one hand, this is a pretty decently recorded live album, especially considering the challenging environment with plenty of background noise. Cash is at his vivacious best and is really quite engaging as a performer. I can't help but feel that these 'live at xyz prison' performances shouldn't have been allowed. Here we have some of the most dangerous criminals being afforded a live performance that everyone else has to pay for and may not have access to. The title track is a playful swipe at the state and prison system that when played once is a nice attempt by Cash to connect with his audience but upon hearing it reprised immediately, it feels as though he is attempting to incite prisoner action. I wouldn't consider this album essential listening, especially as there are superior live prison albums from Cash already in existence.
Top 3:
1. (There'll be) Peace in the Valley
2. Darlin' Companion (w/ June Carter)
3. A Boy Named Sue
Bottom 2:
1. San Quentin (Reprised)
2. San Quentin
Dummy is an extremely pleasant listening experience. There are lush soundscapes aplenty with just a splash of the eerie & foreboding industrial stuff that makes trip-hop so irresistible. Beth Gibbons has a wonderful presence about her on many of these tracks. I find that the strongest cuts come very early, and later on in the tracklist. The middle is where this album drags a touch. Overall though, it is inarguably a trip hop masterpiece and one that is well worth returning to time and again to discover new layers you might have missed previously.
Top 3:
1. It Could Be Sweet
2. Sour Times
3. Glory Box
Bottom 1: Wandering Star
Overall Score: 8.1/10
This album manages to sound incredibly influential and also quite derivative, all at once.
Influential in the sense that I have heard numerous indie-rock acts that clearly grew up on a healthy diet of T. Rex (cough *Cage The Elephant* cough). It is really hard to believe this album was released in 1971. Some poor redditor was just as dumbfounded at this fact as me and all but accused T. Rex of ripping off David Bowie (lead singer & founder Marc Bolan and Bowie were both born in 1947 and had a mutual respect of one another).
There were a few tracks that reminded me of The Beatles which is unsurprising considering the release year.
Highlights for me included the dynamic drum work & occasionally dramatic vocals.
While this isn't an album I will likely return to, it is very clearly a groundbreaking release that is worth a listen.
Top 3:
1. Cosmic Dancer
2. Lean Woman Blues
3. Jeepster
Bottom 1: Rip Off
Overall Score: 7.0/10
This album might be called Repeater but all I'm repeating in my head is "Why? Why did I put myself through this?".
Fugazi have plenty to say, but do they have to yell everything?
Idk, this kind of music is never going to amaze me but I did try to find some value in what I was subjected to. Here's what I came up with.
1. Cool band name
2. Cool drumming
3. I don't have to listen to this again, phew
Overall, it sounded to me like if you threw Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Supergroove and maybe Sonic Youth in a blender and the net result is a noisy brown mush.
2.8/10
I find it incredibly difficult to give this album a rating. It's probably very good but offered absolutely nothing for me to get excited about. It felt like one big 'movement' or 'suite', with almost no variation between tracks. Loud horns, a strong vocalist with real oomph in their delivery and groovability are common features of almost all these tracks but there are too few scenarios where I would consider busting a move to this record.
Overall score: 4.7/10
An album of two halves, 'The Man Machine' starts off with eccentric electronic grooves before descending into tedium through the back half.
I didn't really dig the robot voice featuring early on but couldn't deny 'The Robots' is a catchy piece of techno. Similarly worming its way into my ears was 'Spacelab', a tranquil elevator music meets trance rave anthem that reminded me very fondly of Electric Light Orchestra.
Unfortunately, the wheels start to fall off not long after 'Spacelab' concludes. 'Neon Lights', in particular, is nearly 9 minutes long. This in itself is no problem but the long build-up reaches a crescendo around the 5 minute mark and then spends the better part of 4 minutes just petering out. It doesn't hold the listener's attention nor introduce anything new, save for some digital sounding "woah-oh-ohs".
'The Model' is comparatively brief at under 4 minutes but to my ears doesn't mesh all that well with what came before or what was to come.
Overall this is still a fairly enjoyable listen and a piece of music that had no shortage of influence on both synth-pop and more broadly speaking, electronic music.
Overall Score: 6.3/10
Scarily close to perfection. Radiohead have quite a few excellent concept albums but 'In Rainbows' is "just" an album and arguably does it better than anything else released in the 21st century.
'15 Step' opens the record with a frenetic and slightly glitchy cut. This song is about as fiery as 'In Rainbows' gets but it certainly gets things rolling in style.
Nude and Weird Fishes are two truly affecting gems, one of these on a record would more than suffice but to have these two back-to-back so early on in the piece is a real statement.
The high standard carries through the rest of the way, too. 'All I Need' makes it three moving pieces of high-concept art in a row, while 'Reckoner' is a career highlight.
There are very few "nits to pick", perhaps you could say that in terms of overall listening enjoyment, 'In Rainbows' is a bit front-loaded. The truth is, though, that even most of the songs on the b-side of this album are not easily forgotten.
'In Rainbows' is my pick (and many others are also of this opinion) for Radiohead's best.
Overall Score: 9.4/10
Top 3:
1. Nude
2. Weird Fishes
3. Reckoner/15 Step - truly can't split them!
Bottom 1: Faust Arp (a little short of being fully fleshed out)
I had more fun listening to this than I anticipated. Iggy Pop is one of those undeniable characters of the music industry and his personality reflects pretty well into his music.
The Passenger is a classic and was the only song I was familiar with from this album. Lust For Life is hiding a few other noteworthy tracks, such as the effervescent 'Sixteen' and 'Some Weird Sin' along with the title track.
On Lust For Life, Iggy sounds like he's having a good time and that in-turn allows his listener to relax and have a good time. It isn't an album for particularly deep listening or introspection, outside of the question "how strong is your lust for life?"
Top 3:
1. The Passenger
2. Fall In Love With Me
3. Turn Blue
Bottom 1: Success
Overall Score: 6.9/10 (3 & 1/2 Stars)
Fred Neil by Fred Neil, what an unexpected delight! The nondescript eponymous title and slightly terrifying album cover would have ensured I kept on flipping if I found this in a record store.
How wrong I was to judge Fred by his cover. His gravelly, soulful voice lends itself perfectly to the country-leaning folk instrumentals.
The instrumental moments are some of my favourites, especially on the peculiar closer "Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga" and "Faretheewell (Fred's Tune)". An ode to Murphy's Law, "That's The Bag I'm In" is a cynical, yet humorous gem.
Some light reading would reveal that this album was re-released 3 years on (1969) with the title "Everybody's Talkin'", a name befitting the hype this album deserved but likely didn't receive.
Top 3:
1. That's The Bag I'm In
2. The Dolphins
3. Everybody's Talkin'
Bottom 1: Sweet Cocaine
Overall Score: 8.9/10 (rounded to five stars as I can't give this 4.5 stars and 4 wouldn't do it justice)
A fairly high quality, if slightly drawn out full-length debut from Kanye West. Aside from the "classics" (Jesus Walks, All Falls Down & Through The Wire), oddly the only track I was familiar with from this record was 'The New Workout Plan', a comically bad piece of all too common 2000's misogyny.
Unfortunately, that isn't the only ugly moment on this album. This doozy comes very early on during 'We Don't Care':
"The drug game bulimic, it's hard to get weight//
So n* money is homo, it's hard to get straight".
More grizzly bottom-feeding bars are not hard to come by. 'Slow Jamz' feels like an R. Kelly offcut. Jamie Foxx introduces what is ostensibly a smooth song for the ladies. Kanye takes no time whatsoever to dismantle that image "I'ma play this Vandross, you gon' take yo' pants off" (poor Luther passed away 18 months after this hot garbage was released, he'd had enough).
This isn't to say that this record is without highlights. 'Never Let Me Down' is a notable first major collaboration between West and Roc-A-Fella boss Jay-Z, despite never being released as a single. The album finishes well with 'Through the Wire' and 'Family Business' also.
Aside from the occasional (perhaps frequent) juvenile lyric, this album is notable for displaying West's chops as a producer. The extensive use of sampling throughout The College Dropout keeps things interesting, even when things threaten to fizzle out during the bloated middle of the record.
Top 3:
1. Never Let Me Down
2. Jesus Walks (that sample is heavenly)
3. Breathe In Breathe Out
Bottom 1: Slow Jamz
Overall Score: 6.4/10
Not too much to report on this one. I'm an avid listener of their 'follow up to the follow up' of Fever to Tell (It's Blitz) and was definitely having a hard time pinpointing how the Yeah Yeah Yeahs progressed to that sound based off what I heard on Fever to Tell.
This was a really patchy listen for me, there were bright moments (Maps, Y Control, Pin). I think that on balance however, these bright moments were clouded by the wall of sound that was oppressive throughout the first half of the record.
Overall quite disappointing as I was excited to get stuck into this one.
Top 3:
1. Y Control
2. Maps
3. Pin
Bottom 1: Rich
Overall Score: 4.8/10
I'm torn on this one, Pet Sounds is a staple of 'all-time' Top 100/250/500, etc. lists (though I'm not sure why). If I review this purely based on what I hear then I'm probably somewhere around a 6/10. If I review this based upon the hefty praise heaped onto the album and how it severely fell short of my expectations due to it being so lauded, I'm probably closer to a 3/10. I'm going to pretend I'd have never heard of this one before.
For as many golden hits (God Only Knows, Wouldn't It Be Nice) appear on this album, there are twice as many 'woe-is-me' snooze-inducers.
Pet Sounds has plenty of polish but equal amounts of pomposity and I cannot for the life of me understand why it's so revered by the masses.
Overall Score: 6.2/10
Just a really nice album. It's a shame Coldplay didn't expand on this sound later on in their career because I think this utilizes Chris Martin's voice well, more-so than the stadium belters littered throughout their most recent works.
Top 3:
1. High Speed
2. Shiver
3. Yellow
Bottom 1: Life Is For Living (Hidden Track)
Overall Score: 8.1/10
