1001 Albums Summary

Immediately from the first song on the album I knew i was in for a lesson in music history. That lady pt.1 and 2 came on and i immediately recognized the guitar line. Kendrick Lamar used the same line and overall composition for his song i off of To Pimp a Butterfly. As soon as i realized that I knew this one was gonna be something special. There's a lot of heart on this album right at the start with Don't let me be lonely tonight. It's a common sentiment among music throughout its history in America the last century especially entering the jazz and blues era. But the Isley Brothers put so much heart into everything from the vocals to the instrumentation that it feels fresh. Immediately the tone picks up in the next song with If You Were There. This album has many tonal shifts but they don't feel out of place. Everything blends together to make a really nice album.

HBS started off incredible. From just a minute in to walk on by it hit so hard. Everything about it was great. Then hyperbolicsylabicsupersesquedalymistic came on. It was pretty good, it had a nice groove to it but everything id get into the feel it would get interrupted by the woman on vocals singing the name of the song. Don't get me wrong she seems like a good singer it's just that the rhythm of the title took me out of the feel. But as soon as the song enters its second half it immediately pulled me in with a smooth bassline and incredible progression and a rising act with a great climax. I really like that each song on this album is around 10 minutes long. When I got to hyperbolic I was worried that 1/4 of this album would be asong full of my earlier complaints, but it reeled me back in. One woman was a good song. Had the same strengths as the others, but it didn't have anything that really reeled me into it. And when I get to Phoenix now that one was interesting. Was the story a little long? Yeah it was. But man it was worth it. The transition into the actual song was phenomenal after all the build up and the song itself was a masterclass in music and instrumentation. The trumpets were so great and the bass was complementing everything so well. And of course, Hayes always delivers on the vocals. All in all. This was a really short album in retrospect but it was for sure a memorable one. It had a couple of shortcomings but everything else was just so nice.