Before listening to this album, I had never considered myself a Stones fan ... and I still don't. I don't hate any of their music and I don't love any of it. This album has a few nice moments, but the issue is that Mick Jagger has no singing ability at all. It's honestly extremely impressive how successful he has been in spite of that.

Sorry, I just don't get Neil Young.

no

Couldn’t decide if it wants to be boring or annoying.

This is one of my all-time favorite albums—one of the greatest vocal performances by one of the greatest recording artists of all time. I've listened to it so much over the years that it doesn't really hit the way it used to, but still. I remember hearing Ray's version of "You Are My Sunshine" for the first time and feeling like a musical hole had been ripped open in my brain (in a good way). Every fucking note this guy sings here is just perfect. I don't love the choral stuff, but it works anyway—Ray is just that good. At this point, the ballads hold up the most for me, especially "You Don't Know Me" and "Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)." The way his voice just overflows with emotion ... the guy was unbelievable!

I’ve never been a Kanye guy but I enjoyed some of the songs here more than I expected. I like the insanity and aggression of it more when I realize that it’s sincere—he is actually insane.

At times they sound like a cross between Elvis Costello and Steely Dan, and there's no shame in that. I wish the lyrics tried either a little harder or a little less hard. Musically there's some interesting stuff going on. This is a provisional score — I could see it going up or down on further listens.

Not bad

It's a normal part of life for a lot of men: you get a little older, get married, have a kid, drift apart from your high school buddies—and so you start a mediocre rock band. It's just a bummer when the man is Paul McCartney, he's still in his 20s when he starts the band, and his high school buddies were the fucking Beatles. I really wanted to like this, but the songs are just so boring. Paul and John needed each other.

Really apt album title.

I have to criticize you like I should. One bonus star for two undeniably iconic tracks, otherwise pretty unlistenable.

Imagine if you were talking to someone and they said this was their favorite album.

I know it's heretical to give this any less than five stars, but I think if we're being honest we should admit that it's a challenging and uneven album. The highs are Mt. Everest, but there are lows. And Jimi really should have taken vocal lessons.

Silly but a lot of fun. And I understand Tenacious D a bit better now.

Pleasant but a little dull. Love Stanley Turrentine, but in the proper dosage.

You have to wonder how often Stan Getz got laid while playing his own record.

Pretty cool background music, but too many songs that sound like 5 minute intros to another song.

I’ve never understood the adulation for this record, which inspired a lot of self-serious noodling in the world of jazz over the ensuing years.

Expected to love this, but there are a LOT of skippable tracks for me and I don’t get why they spend half the album rapping into a fuzzy landline connection. Still gets 3 stars for overall vibe and Sure Shot, Sabotage, Root Down, and Get It Together, but it’s a soft 3.

Sounds like they grabbed a random guy off the street and asked him to sing.

I’ve always found Pink Floyd unobjectionable but boring.

Not really my shit, but you have to respect it.

I suspect you really had to be there

I have a hard time explaining why, exactly, U2 sucks so hard, but they do.

Some great stuff, but also kind of annoying, if I’m being honest. Still giving it 4 stars because I wuv the Beatles. Interesting how much more of the lead singing John did in the early days.

Actually totally fine to die without listening to this pretentious noise

I expected to like this more. Cool beats and production but the songs didn’t really jump out and grab me.

If you don’t fuck with Mr. Blue Sky, I don’t fuck with you. Aside from that absolutely legendary track, though, I thought this was weaker than some of ELO’s other albums (Discovery and Time are really good). It’s a 3.5 but I’m rounding to 4 to honor Mister Blue.

Loved it for one song. Liked it for two. Got pretty old after three.

The guitar playing is pretty fun — and unlike Frampton’s musical inheritors, he knew the value of keeping his solos to a tasteful length! — but the songs got a little shouty and monotonous.

“Cool conga solo—I wish that was the entire record,” said no one ever. I give it a bonus star for the musicianship and general raucousness.

I find Donald Fagen’s voice really really fucking annoying on this album in particular

I mean what more could you possibly want from music. One of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time, singing his heart out on some of the very best songs he ever wrote, and it's funky and soulful as hell. I guess my main quibble is that the lyrics are odd and, on a lot of the songs, kind of impossible to retain/sing along with. But anyway. Disc One, on its own, would be one of the greatest records ever made. Dayenu. Aside from the unlistenable jazz-rock fusion track, it's like a greatest-hits album. Sir Duke - I Wish - Knocks Me Off My Feet - Pastime Paradise, all that in a row? That's 1990s Michael Jordan, but album tracks. Disc Two is a little more far-out and uneven, but it also rules! 7 stars.

What a fascinating album. Arguably each song is worse than the one before it (depending how you rate Wasted Time and Victim of Love), which is unusual—usually a band tries to spread out the best songs, but this is super front-loaded. Which is not to say it's a bad album! More on that later. I was also struck by how much the ballads seem to foreshadow a lot of what was to come with 80s hair metal, musically speaking. 1. Hotel California — On the Mt. Rushmore of classic-rock epics, up there with Stairway to Heaven and Don't Fear the Reaper. It doesn't hit the same on the thousandth listen, but that's not the Eagles' fault. If you claim not to like this song you're a pretentious dweeb who took the wrong lessons from The Big Lebowski. (I do think that movie single-handedly tanked the Eagles' reputation among college-educated Millennial men.) 2. New Kid In Town — Not the most amazing composition ever, but it's a nice little melody and Glenn Frey sings like an absolute angel. 3. Life In the Fast Lane — A little cheesy, but that guitar hook absolutely rocks. 4. Wasted Time — Here's where things start to descend into dreary non-powerful power ballads. This is the best of the bunch. The lyrics are actually decent. 5. Reprise — okay fine 6. Victim of Love — You could argue this is better than Wasted Time. It rocks decently hard. But the title is so fucking cheesy, it taints it. 7. Pretty Maids All In a Row — Boring proto-power ballad 8. Try and Love Again — On repeat listen, this might actually be kind of good? There's one part at the end of each verse that really hits, musically. Where he sings "day by day" the first time through. 9. The Last Resort — Another shitty ballad, but I give it a little bump because it turns out they're writing about American consumerist decadence and the spoliation of the West ... points for getting political.

Nothing could have prepared me for this mix of old-school rap and Paul Simon-less Graceland. Weird, but inoffensive.