S’alright. Bit twee but it’s got some bangers.

Production is mad - even on the remastered version. Drier than a nun’s proverbial. One is arguably the greatest metal song ever written and The Shortest Straw and Harvester of Sorrow both slap. Do think the album as a whole drags on a little bit. Metallica are well harder and stronger than Megadeth.

Not a fan. There are some great, straightforward rock tracks on it - Now I’m Here, Stone Cold Crazy, but a lot of the rest is filler and absurdities.

Don’t mind it. A few decent tunes and I like the production on it - sounds very live. Singer’s voice can be a bit grating sometimes, but the lyrics are decent. It’s very ok.

Some of this slaps and some of it really isn’t my cup of tea. Hard blues rock, yes please. Miss me with hippy-dippy singing about trees and faux-eastern mysticism though.

I don’t even need to listen to this. It’s about as 5/5 as albums get and one of my all-time favourites. It’s got some of the prettiest folk rock songs of all time on it (title track, only love can break your heart, tell me why, I believe in you). Southern man is one of the best rock songs of all time and pissed off Lynyrd Skynyrd, which inspired them to write Sweet Home Alabama. So win/win really. Best songs: Pretty much all of them Worst song: Cripple Creek Ferry is a bit filler-y, but it’s still pretty af

Remember liking this when it came out (in my defence, I was 16), but it’s just a bit shit. The singles are decent enough indie pop, but it’s all so slight and fey (sez). It hasn’t aged well (sez).

I see what they’re going for here. That whole trip-hop, Zero 7, Groove Armada vibe. And to be honest I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Wouldn’t stick it on again, but I’ve listened to worse albums. Could envision this playing at some beachfront bar on a hungover Sunday, if the holiday was quite lame.

As much as I like Pixies, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this album back-to-back. Which is a shame as it’s great. It does feel a bit like Gigantic and Where Is My Mind are outliers, as the rest of the record is so dissonant and strange, in a good way. The start of Cactus sounds exactly like Rock N Roll Star. Think Lloydie will like Tony’s Theme due to his extreme narcissism (and tbf, the song slaps). Only problem I have with this is that the production is all over the show. None of it is bad, per se, but it sounds like every song was recorded in a different room, but I like how ‘live’ it sounds. Favourite songs: Bone Machine, Gigantic, Where Is My Mind, Tony’s Theme, Oh My Golly, Vamos, Brick is Red. Least favourite: None.

Really enjoyed this. Don’t know anything of his work outside of Father and Son, so I was pleasantly surprised. One of the songs sounding like Could it be Magic? by Take That was a nice bonus.

Sounds like the main song to every 90’s Disney film. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Gets the hips shaking - wish there was a video of a mate of mine dancing to it in a slightly questionable way. It’s not really my cup of tea, especially not on a cold November morning, but I could see this working at a summer get together, or sitting off on a balcony on holiday while nursing a can and waiting for the missus to get her fucking shit together she’s been in there for like 2 hours now and I’m starving but you can’t say owt or it’ll turn into a right kick off and spoil the evening and potentially spill over into the next day and you end up swimming on your bill all day all passively aggressively. Found this a bit of a slog and the beats sound like Casio keyboard presets. 2/5

This fucking slaps If I was gonna nitpick, I’d say it’s maybe a track too long and I’m not a fan of screechy vocals in metal. Your Dio‘s your Rob Halfords etc. But those really are just nitpicks, this is proper eighties thrash metal and I can’t believe I’ve never heard it before. Gonna listen to more Anthrax. Caught in a Mosh and I am the Law (shout out for the Judge Dredd reference) are highlights, but I don’t think there was a duff track on it and all of it grooves, which is very important. 5/5

I can see why people call this jangle pop. It’s very jangly. Rickenbacker must have made some serious bunce off Peter Buck over the years. Given this came out in the 80’s, it still sounds pretty contemporary and isn’t as vastly different from the later REM stuff as I thought. Some excellent melodies and Stipe has always been a fantastic, if idiosyncratic, singer. There are elements here of what they’d later become; you can extrapolate tracks like Talk About the Passion right through to your Losing My Religions, etc. Strong album, not my favourite of theirs by a long stretch but much better than I remember from listening to it previously. This would be a dead on a 3.5 for me, but as we can’t give half marks I’m gonna have to get off the fence. 3/5

I don’t like this. I really can’t get past Perry Farrell’s voice - he’s one of the most grating singers I’ve ever heard. Some of the tracks are alright - Obvious and Been Caught Stealing are highlights - but PF seems to suffer from Axl Rose syndrome where he has to be singing on every second of every song. Let Navarro have a proper solo my dude. It doesn’t groove, apart from Been Caught Stealing. Some of the tracks sound like each member is playing a different song and they all just did a weed for the first time. The whole thing is about as sexy the video of that guy squatting a glass jar up his ring. Three Days is actually pretty good, bit proggy. Loves me some prog. PF has taken a back seat on this track, which is nice as I fucking hate him. Overall, I didn’t love this. Couple of tunes on it, but not enough for me to get past Perry Farrell’s nails-on-a-blackboard voice. Decent tracks: Obvious, Been Caught Stealing, Three Days 2/5

Very odd album this. It’s sort of chamber pop but with classical, folk and prog mixed in. I don’t hate it, but I can’t say I particularly like it either. Some of the melodies are pretty nice, some not so much, and some of it seems purposefully obtuse. I’m glad I’ve listened to it as it’s like nothing else I’ve ever heard, but I don’t think I’ll be sticking it on again. Highlight: Penguin Cafe Single, The sound of someone you love whose going away but it doesn’t matter Lowlight: Zopf: Milk, Zopf: Pigtail

Can I shock you? I don’t mind The Smiths (I just fucking hate Morrissey) This is ok - The Headmaster Ritual is a great tune and most of the tracks are pretty boppy. The bass and drums tend to stay the same throughout the songs while Johnny Marr has a mooch on his fretboard and it works pretty well. Morrissey is obviously a cunt and while he throws out some nice melodies, his singing style gets on my tits. Starts to all blur together towards the end and gets very samey. Don’t get quite why The Smiths are as revered as they are. REM’s Losing my Religion came on after this finished and showed The Smiths how you properly do weird indie pop. Highlights: The Headmaster Ritual Lowlights: Everything else was just a bit meh

Weird vibes. Sounds like a vaudeville Nick Cave at some points, like a broadway musical at others and occasionally a bit like Nick Drake. I don’t think that’s *necessarily* a bad thing, but it won’t be to everyone’s taste. Ultimately, not my bag. There’s some nice folk tunes on here but they tend to get a bit subsumed by the campy stuff. Highlights: American Gothic, Oh California!

Man I love Neil Young. While this isn’t my favourite album of his - nothing is gonna surpass After the Gold Rush - it’s still a brilliant album. It has some of his best jams in Down by the River and Cowgirl in the Sand, one of his best songs in Cinnamon Girl and one of his prettiest songs with the title track. The only thing that holds this back from being a 5/5 for me is Running Dry (the one with the fiddle war crimes). Don’t think it’s bad necessarily, just drags on a little bit. Overall, love this album. Highlights: Cinnamon Girl, Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, Down by the River, Cowgirl in the Sand. Meh: Running Dry