I really like Jack White and the style of music all of his projects have, but this is one of my least favorite albums of his discography purely due to being lighter and sappier than everything else. They do end up producing a good job at it, but if I am in the mood for music like this, I would choose a different artist who specializes in it. When I listen to The White Stripes, I want to have fun!
I don't know enough about this jazz to comment whether or not this is a good jazz album or not, but I do know that this is definitely the kind of music I was hoping to get out of starting this random album journey, and I think it's a good kickstart there!
I also learned that I would prefer jazz songs with either vocals (in comparison to other records I've accidentally listened in the future), or with a bassline (adds some texture, like the second half of Bemsha Swing). Good data!
Not something I would listen to on my own as I generally don't like listening to music that I don't understand, but certainly not something that I would complain about someone else putting on - cool and calm!
Only (slightly) more objective complaint I would have is the same as others have already pointed out - the sax is way too loud compared to the rest of the mix, making it fairly off-putting for a casual listen.
A classic by one of the GOATs of the genre, amazing atmosphere, great beats and irreplaceable flow.
This one always makes me want to pick up a bass to play those loops!
Not my taste at all - why I appreciate the talent on display, both on vocals and the instruments (some of the guitar licks in the first few songs were very fun!), this is just not to my taste at all. A bit too light, a bit too sappy, a bit too "romance".
I did genuinely like the first song - I Feel the Earth Move -, however! Probably because it was more upbeat!
The first song was suprisingly fresh, so much so that I had to do a double take on the release date of the album. Reminded me something to come out in the 2000s, not the 70s.
Beyond that though, it was fairly bland pop-ish rock-ish music from that era, which could easily blend into any other genre. Doesn't really interest me.
Can't quite place where from, but I know I've heard the title track somewhere before, and always found it intriguing and fun, but never bothered to take the time to find where it's coming from to hear more like it, so I'm happy this finally forced my hand to do so!
I can't say this is music that I could listen to regularly, but this perfectly fits the niche feeling I occasionally get, where I want something fun and groovy, that I haven't yet oversaturated myself with, or for some more focused sessions where lyrics would be a bit too distracting.
An eye opening experience, mostly due to past ignorance of Billy Joel - my only association with his music was Piano Man, so, when I saw him come up, I was not excited, as I figured I am sitting down for a ballad.
However, this album was suprisingly upbeat and rather enjoyable - a good listen overall. On top of that, Spotify radio later autoplayed some more songs that I knew, but had never realised they were Billy Joel songs, making me feel like I should check out some more of his albums in the future!
Don't have much to say about this one, as it felt like every single song was the came. Tiny Dancer only stood out as it has been made popular through other forms of media and Indian Sunset stood out as it was sampled in a 2Pac song. Had it not been for either of these events, there would be nothing special to say about this album at all.
More would be more enjoyable as an instrumental album in my personal opinion - always fun listening to The Edge, but the vocals are not to my taste at all. Nothing in particular really stands out, besides Elevation.
Although the album does show its age at times, especially the live recordings included on the deluxe version on Spotify, a lot of it still feels extremely fresh, especially the full version of 21st Century Schizoid Man, which, if I had no previous knowledge of the song or album, I could easily believe as having come out within the last year.
Fantastic music, which is a lot of fun, and it's easy to see why King Crimson is considered an influence to many bands across the world!
The first few songs were pretty fun! Felt like they sit right between the disco pop music of the 80s, and the more modern interpretation of pop, which started in the 2000s, so I quite enjoyed them!
Then (on the Spotify version of the album) came the live recording... What the hell was that? The music cut out halfway through the song, suddenly making the song a capella? And then eventually it got turned back up. With how random that was though, it seemed to me like an error, not a part of the song? Overall, that was pretty off putting.
And then the rest of the album came, which was all very boring to me, with these whispery vocals, and it all kind of blended together all the way to the end.
Unfortunately, this completely passed me by to the point where I could make no specific remarks of anything I liked or disliked. Just a neutral and uninteresting album overall, in my opinion.
Fantastically groovy album, which I had already grown somewhat accustomed to, with Poison Arrow having featured on my favorite radio station on one of my all time favorite games - GTA Vice City.
Every song through the album has a wonderful feel to it, the bass on some of these songs is crazy, and I really loved how the last song came back to a more laid back version of Poison Arrow - felt like the album went on a full loop.
This didn't hit with me at all. I can see how this can be enjoyable, especially as background music while focusing, but it just is not for me. Too mellow, with no real texture that would grip me, so I glossed over it without anything to note.
As with some of the other Kinks songs I have heard before - admittedly, they are "mainstream", unlike most of this entire album -, they give off a lot of innovation, and appear as something which I can entirely see as world changing relative to their contemporary artists. Something like Wicked Annabella, for example - a chugging riff, with dissonance and harmonics? That's an entire genre of music nowadays, and they made this in '68, unreal!
That being said, we are not in '68 any more, and overarching their fun aspects is a very obvious aging to everything they do, especially the vocals, both in lyrics and mixing. For me personally, this is not appealing, but I absolutely don't mind listening to this passively, or as an exploration of music history.
This album made me learn something about music! While listening to it, I kept thinking, "the ska songs are pretty fun, but why do they keep mixing the reggae into it, which keeps ruining the flow of the album?"
After doing some searching, I learned that they are actually linked genres. I had no idea! My only association to ska was what is apparently called third-wave ska or punk-ska - Rancid, Sublime and the like.
I'm not too fond of reggae, as it's too mellow and repetitive, in my opinion, so my overall feelings for this specific album remain as I described it in the first paragraph - indecisive and intrusive. Not my taste. But I give it +1 for the fast paced ska, and +1 for the knowledge, which was somewhat mindblowing to me.
Tonally - fantastic. Musically - a bit dull.
The sound these guys create is absolutely insane, and I love how gritty and strong the instruments are here. Something that, if inserted into some other bands, would probably make for some of my favorite songs ever.
And I get the same feeling about this band and it's instrumental nature. Instrumental music for me is a mixed bag, mostly negative though - I can listen to it for a bit, but eventually it becomes boring when there's no human element adding some texture to it.
With a real vocalist, not the incomprehensible, or sometimes even non-words saying sounds that the album has, this genuinely could be one of my favorite bands. Think something like an edgier DFA1979.
As it is though, it gets relegated as an interesting experimental listen for me.
It's obvious Fiona is a very talented singer, and, although I don't generally like singer-songwriter type music anyway, this fit the specific niche of "talking over music", which is the same kind of reason I also can't listen to Lou Reed, for example, even though a few people I know also like his music. To me, it feels boring and lazy.
Seeing that this is the album that contains Wonderwall, I immediately expected another dud today, but I was pleasantly suprised! I guess I had never heard any other Oasis song besides Wonderwall.
Even though the general theme is largely the same, mellow singing about love and stuff, I was suprised by the dynamic range of these songs, and some of them had pretty interesting melodies. Still not my cup of tea, but I wouldn't mind it in the background.
...except for Wonderwall though. I hate that song.
I'm suprised a live album is included in this list! It's hard for me to quantify this, as live albums are a total crapshoot due to the nature of it all - venue, crowd, mixing, playing, etc. Some live songs sound significantly worse than their studio counterparts, some sound better. Which side of the equation does this fall under?
Speaking individually on the album though, this is pretty fun! The tones are super heavy at times, most of the songs have a lot of range in them. Brainstorm was probably my favorite. Overall, it sounds like an epic show to have been at, regardless if this is a good showing from the band or not, cause they certainly seem on point!
I will definitely check out some other stuff from them so I can judge this better, but for now, rating as very good!
Very groovy album, really makes you feel a bit like you're watching a movie as you listen along to it, which makes sense with it being a soundtrack album! More than anything though, kind of made me feel like playing Driver: Parallel Lines. Not sure if that's random or not - Pushaman might be on the soundtrack for that, but don't quote me.
For a debut album, I can undoubtedly see how this could have taken the world over by storm when this came out. Especially starting off with Blue Suede Shoes, which is a song I fairly enjoy.
However, for casual listening these days, it's not very entertaining in my opinion. The audio quality is very dated and the music is pretty basic. Great for some, not for me though.
I had never heard of The Verve as a band before, but, damn, this album was packing some hits! Though, I feel similar to something like Oasis or U2 from a few days ago, where there is plenty of creativity and excitement in the music, but, ultimately, not for me, as the circle around the slow, love theming.
Once again, I came into the album, not knowing what it is or even what band this is. I was pleasantly suprised with a banger to start off with, but nothing else really gripped me after Karma Chameleon. Maybe that's why it's an unknown band (to me) - one hit wonder?
Spotify describes this band as an "also-ran", and, frankly, I must agree. It's not bad music at all, but it's all very... samey. The songs feel the same to one another, and the band feels the same to all the others. I did like the live track at the end of the Spotify version of the album - they seem like a hoot in person!
To be honest, I was quite disappointed listening to this album. Don't get me wrong, it was not a bad album, but, having heard the praise OutKast gets for all these years, and with the absolute banger that Ms. Jackson, from this very album, is, I expected something mind blowing. In response, I got something which feels like it drags on for longer than it should, probably due to the sheer number of songs in the album, as the runtime is pretty normal, and all in all, sounds kind of samey. Overall, kind of meh.
An album of two halves for me. The first half really felt like nothing special to me - just some generic 90s soft-rock pop-ish music, but then The Happy End started, which totally threw me for a loop. It doesn't happen often, but there certainly is both a time and a place where this kind of off-beat, off-putting song is just the kind of jam one needs. Goddess on a Hiway is just genuinely a good song, I absolutely loved both the vocal arrangement and the instruments through and through, with the fade out to end... chef's kiss, one of my favorite new songs I've discovered since I started doing this challenge. And then the rest of the album through the end didn't provide much amazement anymore, but I still really liked what they were doing with the songs, lots of quirky elements to them, and the sudden uptick in loudness was also pretty refreshing! Very intrigued to hear more of what they have to offer.
Some crazy dad rock going on here, but it was so short and sweet... I think I liked it. Not relevant to this album itself, but the album ended before I realised that Spotify radio started playing and this band for sure has some bangers worth listening to!
To me, this sounds like royalty free rock music with bad vocals layered over it.
I struggle to find any redeeming qualities of any song in this album.
Felt very meh. Listened through it, nothing caught my eye, and I didn't even realise the album was over until I heard songs from obviously different artists.
Bittersweet listening to Kanye these days, but, man, he used to be one of the GOATs.
This album in particular is one of my favorite casual listens from his discography, and, therefore, overall. Pretty much all of his albums have some sort of central theme to the sound of the album, but this one doesn't. It's all consistent, clean, straight bars from the 2000s. Love it.
Solid dad rock. It's got riffs, it's got singing, it's got tone, it's got soul. Just drags on a bit too much for my liking, so it starts to get old.
I don't know how to explain what exactly it is and how I could even call it, but this 80s vocal style or vocal mix with all this reverb is not anywhere near my favorite thing sonically - it sounds incredibly dated these days.
But on this album, it somehow sounded pretty nice and refreshing. But probably not due to the actual vocals, but the songs. Some great variety in here! Ballads, more aggressive stuff, dancing. Intriguing bag of songs for sure.
Listening to music like this and it being called "rock and roll" is pretty funny to me these days, knowing what has come of this genre with time. As I listen to this, I keep thinking to myself - this is is a bit too sappy. I wonder what it must have felt like listening to this when it was contemporary. Did it blow people's heads off?
Love Hurts was pretty interesting though, was fun realising what it is I am listening to, having gotten used to another rock band's apparent cover of it (I never knew it wasn't an original!)
