I tried, I really did. One can recognize the importance and talent of Joni Mitchell and still think that this album was blandly homogeneous. Shadows and Light was a fun song that stood out (slightly).
A reminder that the expectation of bongo drums is far less exciting than the reality of bongo drums.
This album rocks, top to bottom. Somehow, being able to literally hear Meg White learn how to play drums makes it even better. She even learned how to use a ride cymbal by the end.
Obviously Janis is the big draw here, but I enjoyed most of the songs on this album. I found some great songs that I had never heard before, Roadblock, Catch Me Daddy, plus the cover art is veryyy sexy.
I loved this album. If even a handful of tracks were as amazing as The Shining, I would give it a five. Unfortunately the other tracks were all good/great, but not amazing. So while I am giving it a four, I was a feeling little let down after finishing.
I tried to like this one, as I always do any Frank Zappa. Real recognize real, but not so easy listening
So fucking clean! This album is a masterpiece of tight grooves. It's one of those albums that you KNOW is good, even if you don't love every song. I will admit, I wish it were maybe 10 percent more "normal." IE the music itself is a little too eccentric and unpredictable for me at times. But still, can't knock it.
Thought this album was solid, top to bottom. Check the technique is an amazing song.
The album definitely could have benefited from some features, just to give it a little more variety.
Some kind of weird mix between The Pogues and Randy Newman, where every song sounded like a soft rock, acoustic Come On Eileen.
I've heard a few non-Eileen Dexys midnight runners songs that I actually liked, none of which were on this album. It's not horrible, but I honestly couldn't wrap my mind around what the fuck these songs were even supposed to sound like. It's like they had a vague and undefined idea for what kind of music they wanted to play, and never figured it out beyond that. Just strange.
In the right mood, I probably wouldn't mind it so much. Today was not one of those days though.
There are definitely some five star songs on this album. There are also plenty of doors doldrums where every song sounds like the last. There are times where I just cannot stand the sound of Jim Morrisons voice, probably because we've all heard these songs thousands of times on the radio, in remember the titans, and in every movie ever made about that era.
This album is a peak 3. Meaning it is perfectly average, pleasant background music. There are no songs that stood out to me as better or worse than all the rest, and there were no songs that made me feeling much of anything at all.
My review was going to be something along the lines of "boring version of the Gorillaz", until I finally figured out that it's actually the same singer. The fact that it's a "super group" also exains their relative obscurity.
Super groups are pretty much always much less than the sum of their parts, and this album is no exception. TGTBATQ will follow the KG nets, the KD nets, the Malone Lakers, the Westbrook rockets, the Shaq suns, and many other super groups into distant history (unremembered).
I don't really understand why people like Metallica so much. They are very talented, but every song on this album is indistinguishable from the others. If this album didn't have the word "Metallica" on the front, I wouldn't have listened to more than 30 seconds. Bam, roasted.
Never having actually sat down and listened to more than the occasional Tswift song, I really had no idea what to expect here.
1) I would much rather listen to 1989 than literally any Metallica album. There's some catchy stuff in 1989, it's really not that bad.
2) I feel like I could write some (any?) of these songs. There's a complete lack of depth to everything on this album. It's hard to explain, but it just sounds like ultra produced sound effects behind a simple (albeit catchy) melody, every, single, track. Simple doesn't always lack depth (Sufjan Steven's anyone?), so that's not the problem. It's just boring and extremely predictable pop music.
3) I most definitely did not hear anything to inspire the widespread and creepy devotion of Swifties. It's just slightly better Katy perry and/or Pink.
All in all, it's not bad. But that's as good as it gets. 🤷♂️
Chappell Roan, Tegan and Sarah, and Lana Del Ray all do it 10x better. We don't NEED Taylor Swift to be great, so I'm still confused after having listened to this album. It's a niche that is already filled by many others who have managed to make badass, fun pop music.
Whatever, I tried. See you at the super bowl, Taylor.
2.5, maybe a 3, because it is passable music. It's just so cheesy and they are trying so hard.
"Beth" is actually kind of nice.
80 percent sure that "You brought a new kind of love to me" is about him exploring a dominatrix style relationship.
"You brought a new love to me
I know that I'm the slave, you're the queen
Still you can understand that underneath it all
You're a maid and I am only a man"
It's nice to listen to old music like this. It left me feeling pleasant and like I could easily buy a home making minimum wage, pay 100 dollars for tuition, and support an entire family as a skilled laborer. Take us back, Frank. You dirty old pervert.
Um, I really couldn't rate this album. Obviously these are amazing musicians, but how do we go from TSwift to this? Giving a three because I see it as the most neutral option.
Another one that I wanted to rate higher but just couldnt. A compilation of all of Queens greatest hits would easily score a four or a five, but there's some tough stuff on this album. Killer Queen is obviously an amazing song, as are many other songs not on this album (if you can transport yourself back to a time when you hadn't heard We Will Rock you 6,000 times). Queen is a great band but, unless you're some kind of super duper fan, raw dogging this album top to bottom is brutal. It's too proggy, weird, and homogenous. Anybody who gives this a 5 is just trying too hard.
This was quite nice, actually. It's not a genre that I could/would listen to very often, but these are talented musicians and pleasant tracks top to bottom. A 3 for me is average, can listen to it top to bottom with moments of pleasureee, but it's also not THAT pleasant. I'm giving this a 4 because it surpasses those criteria. It's a nice listen.
Super fun! I have had a hard time getting entirely through other White Denim albums, but this one is more approachable top-to-bottom. It's Him! is amazing, these guys shred. I saved TWO songs to my spotify liked songs after saving only one song total (Gang Star) from any previous album.
They just fucking rock, man. The drummer is a beast, and their music gets me super pumped up. Pumped up enough to spin brodies in my 2013 Ford Edge.
I'm not equipped to rate this one. It's certainly pleasant, we've definitely rated far worse albums than this, and it's kind or fun. I could listen to this as background music while at work and be perfectly happy.
Who makes this fucking list?!
Pretty standard. I was excited for this one, but this exercise has shown me how unlikely it is to make a good album top to bottom. Even for bands that I like.
What a sick fucking album, can you imagine hearing this for the first time in 1970? "In the ghetto" by Elvis is a top 20 hit (admittedly there are some great rock bands on that list but nothing as heavy as LZ), and all of the sudden you hear Immigrant Song for the first time?! It must have been a complete mind fuck. Even now, 55 years later, this album made me feel like the coolest and strongest guy at the gym. It just gets you pumped the fuck up.
Out on the Tiles is my favorite from this album.
Not Michael's best work, in my opinion. I personally love and prefer the loose-white-dress-shirt-and-wife-beater version of Michael Jackson over this disco era. I am sure the choreography for this album was great, but it left me wanting overall.
I was excited for this one. It holds up, but wouldn't say it's the best of GDs earlier albums. It's a little homogenous, but I'll take it any day!
I can't give Coldpay a 4, but maybe they deserve it for this album. Yellow is a great song, I really enjoyed Parachutes (the song). But man, it's hard to be objective here. Plus, I never agreed to be objective. Even ignoring their subsequent Imagine Dragons arc, just the fact that they tell you about the hidden track on the last song shows you how fucking lame this band is. It's not a hidden track if you tell listeners that it's there!
Plus, this exercise has softened me. In a vacuum, no way I give this boring ass album a 4.
Everybody playing and singing on this album is supremely talented, knew that going in. But I was surprised at how much I enjoyed listening to most of these songs top to bottom.
Way better than I expected
Too Late For Love has to be one of the most annoying fucking songs of all time. It sounds like a South Park song written to be intentionally cheesy and awful. This band is so bad, dude. The vocals are the definition of "try hard", and nobody brings anything good to the table. Every single song on this album sounds satirical, Team America: World Police - esque.
I don't understand how Def Leppard was as successful as they were. There were other metal bands in this era that did it way better.
I tried hard to put myself in the place of temporal denizens around when this album came out, but I just didn't think it was that exciting. If I were a movie director and needed a backing band for a scene in a country bar in 1974, I would choose Gram Parsons. It's exactly what you'd expect, and conjures images of red blooded Americans drinking bud heavy while leaning against a long wooden bar complaining about hippies at 1 PM on a Tuesday. Gram is obviously very talented and prolific (he also had a crazy life), but this shit is pretty standard. It is not bad, just not not boring.
Plus, I give him demerits for supposedly being the catalyst for "country rock". Thanks for nothing, Gram.
