How to review this album? On the one hand, it's groundbreaking, and it's musically and lyrically catchy. Some of the songs are spectacular. On the other hand, I'd be hard pressed to find a more misogynous album. And can we please stop with the rapping about male gonads? I'd rate it higher if I didn't find the substance of the lyrics to be too often juvenile and offensive. I guess that makes me the only man telling the kids to get off my lawn.

I might rate this higher on a re-listen.

Sometimes sublime, sometimes derivative. One transcendent song does not a transcendent album make.

Brutal (except "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)," which merely sucked). Unwelcome visions in my head of 80s-era proto-incels slam dancing. The only essential question is how long this album will mess with my Spotify algorithm.

Starts weak (especially the insufferable "Teach Your Children"), but gets better as it goes along. I can't imagine listening to this album again, let alone being a member of the band and having to perform these songs for 45+ years. I know CSNY were all the rage in the Woodstock era, but I guess you had to be there.

An explosive lead-off single. But the rest of the album is mostly rock-ified blues, which is not my favorite genre.

I mean, I'm just not that into jazz, except, sometimes, when it's live and you can see the interactions among band members. This is fine as far as it goes, but it's no more than background music for a few seconds in a bar or nightclub in a period movie. Sorry, jazz aficionados.

Fine. 90s rock. This would probably be more meaningful to me if I'd been in high school or college in the 90s.

My favorite Beatles album, and one of the greatest records of all time. I listened to it front-to-back three times today. If there is a clunker here, it's "Yellow Submarine," which is ironically probably the most earworm-worthy track. The guitar licks are of their era and would be cliche now, but here they are still fresh after nearly 60 years. With "Revolver," we see the genius of which the Beatles were capable as they stood on the threshold of being liberated from the soul-crushing dungeon of touring live to screaming teenagers. We know, with "Tomorrow Never Knows," that we're entering an entirely new era.

Acceptable ambient music. Wouldn't go out of my way to listen to it again, even subject to that caveat. But wouldn't change the station, so to speak, if this came on during my workday.

Wasn't sure what to expect because I had only known Brian Eno as the producer of some of U2's best albums. This was really good--inventive, and with variety. It's astounding that this came out in late 1970s since it so cuts against the trends of that era.

Sometimes interesting, but not durably interesting.

I was too young for David Bowie’s first flourishing in the early 1970s. He was unapproachable cool in the early 80s in his “Modern Love” and “Let’s Dance” era. I can’t believe I’ve never listened to this entire album before. It is stunning.

It was fine.

Better than i expected.

Not big on jazz. But this is a classic.

Good, but great? I’ll have to listen to it when it’s not on my phone’s speaker while I’m cooking. I can see how this might be formative to someone in college in the mid-90s. But some of the songs ran together for me, and the sound mixing was spotty—at times too much guitar and not enough vocals.

I liked this a lot. Would listen to it again, and might give it a higher rating on a re-listen.

Wretched. I hope that the sell-outs at the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra lost money on this.

Well, it's a Christmas album, which is a strike against it. But it's good as far as Christmas albums go--some now-standards, and some otherwise interesting takes on classics. The sound is of its time. 3 stars because it's hard to imagine how a Christmas album could be better, i.e., this is no "A Very Special Christmas with Perry Como" or "Holidays Together with Josh Grogan."

Starts strong, but becomes a bit repetitive. A credible exemplar of its genre.

I know it's heresy to say this, but I got bored with this album a little over halfway through.

The blues is not my thing, but this was great.

This is easily the best album I've listened to so far that I hadn't heard before. I had always dismissed Nick Cave as the kind of artist loved by hipsters who, unlike me, were lucky enough to live near a college radio station in the 80s instead of drowning in REO Speedwagon and Billy Ocean. Shame on me. This disc packs an emotional and musical wallop. The Nick Cave button goes to 11.

Not knowing anything about this album other than the artist and date, I expected it to suck. But in fact it's very good--lots of different and interesting musical styles, and a couple of hits that I recognized. My only caveat is that I'm not that into the aesthetic of the early 70s sound.

I've never been much of an Elvis Costello fan. My only experience of him has been of live performances on shows like SNL and Late Night with David Letterman. He's an acquired taste, to be sure. I'm still not sure he's my cup of tea, but this album surprised me--interesting and creative. I'll give him a second look.

I told my son that my recollection was that this wasn't one of U2's best albums. It had been years since I'd listened to "War." I may have been right that this is a middle-of-the-pack U2 album, at most. But it's still spectacular. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" starts the disc with a wallop, and it introduced U2 to the wider American rock/pop audience. And "40" is as good a concert-ending totemic anthem as their is. "War" signified the last time that U2 could be regarded as largely an under-the-radar, post-punk alternative rock band.

How to review this album? On the one hand, it's groundbreaking, and it's musically and lyrically catchy. Some of the songs are spectacular. On the other hand, I'd be hard pressed to find a more misogynous album. And can we please stop with the rapping about male gonads? I'd rate it higher if I didn't find the substance of the lyrics to be too often juvenile and offensive. I guess that makes me the only man telling the kids to get off my lawn.

I don't even know what to say. Brave? Foolhardy? Delirious? Delusional?

Seems self-indulgent.

Okay, so I'm not a fan of heavy metal, and I was not looking forward to this after recently enduring two farcical albums by Metallica. But this record is great--as good as heavy metal gets other than peak Van Halen. I'd forgotten how many tunes off this album made the charts when I was in high school. If you're going to listen to music at the left end of the FM radio dial and to the right of NPR, Def Leopard's Pyromania is so much better than most of its ilk, e.g., anything by Stryper.

I might rate this higher on a re-listen.

This is the third Metallica album that has popped up for me in my first 20 days. The first two were beyond awful, sounding more like a cliched attempt to spoof Spinal Tap itself rather than a good-faith attempt to make interesting music. This album's actually pretty good. It has some standard heavy metal numbers, but it also has a lot of variety, and it held my attention. I'd listen to it again.

I had never heard of this band and had no idea what to expect. The album was entertaining--large swaths of a more edgy mid- to late-70s The Eagles and Little River Band sound, homages to Disco, and early 80s funk. A pleasant surprise and satisfying listen.

This was kind of fun--old school NYC rap. A bonus: relatively speaking, it rated fairly low on the misogyny-ometer.

I wish I could give this 2.5 stars. Replacement level 90s rap, with the bonus that it has also rap in Spanish (but not as good as Mellowman Ace).

Can see how it would have been a revelation at the time. In 2025, just okay.

So this album typifies the great divide in the late 70s/early 80s music world. Hipsters and kids with access to college radio, plus the extremely disaffected (a slightly younger version of Winona Ryder from "Heathers,' say), were listening to this album. I, on the other hand, like the bulk of kids in my lily-white suburb, was imbibing disco and yacht rock. It wasn't until Billy Idol broke through on the pop charts that I was even aware that punk/industrial rock really existed. Too bad for me. This album is great--inventive, interesting, varied. Now I get why people like punk. I will certainly listen to it again. It's just a shame that, instead of my limited brain cells being devoted to this kind of music, they've been squandered on more Air Supply lyrics than you can shake a stick at.

When the gods reached out and touched the voices of women country musci artists, one of the first whom they commissioned was Emmylou Harris. A beautiful album. What's not to love?

Apostasy, maybe: Tommy Jones's joke in "Men in Black" about having to buy The White Album again when a new gadget replaces CDs, this is my least favorite latter-stage Beatles record. It has one sublime song ("Blackbird"), and a number of good to great tunes (e.g., "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"), but a lot of it is, frankly, self-indulgent. Sorry, fanboys.

Interesting as an artefact of its time. Otherwise not.

Would rate this lower if it weren't the ur-album for the yacht rock genre. Lots of smooth hits that were the AM radio soundtrack of my 1970s youth.

I can see why a Jerry Lee Lewis live performance in Hamburg, Germany would be thrilling. I'm not much of a Lewis fan, however, and in 2024 it's just "meh."

I mean, the intro of Tubular Bells is the music for the closing scene of "The Exorcist," and that's one of the greatest uses of music in any soundtrack. But the rest of this album is bizarre.

She was in the David Bowe zone of unapproachably cool. A great album. Inimitable sound.

Another album that I could have been listening to in 1979 instead of the Doobie Brothers and "Sharing the Night Together." I mean, yacht rock is comfort music to me--but why wasn't I exposed to this? And "Brass in Pocket" isn't even the best song on the album!

My father had an album of a Harry Belafonte concert at Carnegie Hall that featured Miriam Makeba singing "The Click Song," and my older brother and I, despite years of effort, could never generate one authentic-sounding click. She is a classic. As with many albums from that era, this was more impactful in the early 1960s than it would be now, but it remains a great listen.

OMG this ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Effing brilliant.

Blech. I try to make it through every album. With this one, I couldn't.

Almost gave this five stars. A classic that I didn't come to appreciate until after the 80s were over.

Is "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" Michael Jackson's greatest song? Was the "Off the Wall" era the latest time he was genuinely happy? Of its time in many ways, but a classic.

A much less interesting take on the Beatles.

I mean, it's Ravi Shankar--what's not to like?

Why?

A master class of a pop music album.

Some interesting stuff her. But OMG way too loooooooooonnnnng.

It's better than, say, Metallica. But, notwithstanding Steve Tyler's good voice, it's just kind of boring.

Like most Gen-Xers, I know Buck Owens almost exclusively from his co-hosting "Hee-Haw" in the 1970s and 1980s, which I used to watch with my grandparents. Not someone I ever took seriously. I was wrong. This album is first-rate, and I know now what is meant by the "Bakersfield Sound." Lots of catchy tunes, and a surprising take on the old chestnut "Streets of Laredo." I was going to give it four stars, and then I realized I'd already listened to it twice, so five.

My wife and I, of course, each brought our own Thriller LP into our marriage. Listening to this front-to-back for the first time in years, I am re-astounded at just how great it is. There are some admitted weaknesses, e.g., "The Girl Is Mine," but if you chose "Wanna Be Starting Something" over "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" as Michael Jackson's best song, I wouldn't argue. Hard to overstate the seismic impact this had on early 80s American pop culture, particularly on previously lily-white MTV. My high school best friend still has his "Thriller"-esque red leather jacket, which he says he wants to be buried in. Check your hipster goggles at the door and don't pretend that you're too cool for this record.