Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
Absolute Classic. They had a new sound like nobody else at the time and I remember the first times hearing them. Great, strong emotional voice. Solid song writing. Great over-lapping vocals and harmony (like end of Shout with both voices singing different things). Newer digital sound but didn't forget SOLID guitar mixed in. Even had horns, etc. Great band early on and very innovative. Great album.
Favorite: Head over Heals
Listen End to End Without Skips Rating: 8 - I hadn't heard several - liked all of them
Overall solid. Not a giant fan and nothing really jumps out at me. Good solid old-style true analog sounding rock which I appreciate. Just nothing crazy good from my perspective. Didn't need to skip or anything and enjoyed it - just not a huge game-changer for me.
Favorite: nothing really stood out
Listen End to End Without Skips Rating: 7 - nothing I disliked honestly - just nothing that I truly loved
Love Beastie Boys. But unfortunately not this album as much as I wanted to. Solid beats and did enjoy listening to it but to me Ill Communication just blows them all away. So raw and so good. I listened to almost all the songs and only skipped a couple. But overall I did not feel that this album should be ranked as high as a lot of others.
OMG. That's what I can say about this album as a whole. If only youtube reaction videos were around back in 1978!! Seriously. I would pay a lot of money to watch some of the best musicians at the time react to listening to this album the first time. It would be absolutely epic.
What people need to realize is that when this album came out in 1978 NOBODY and I mean NOBODY sounded like this. To this day I have NEVER heard a guitar tone as perfect as the tone that Eddie (sorry...Edward) managed to get on this album. He was completely against pedals and effects (other than an occasional phaser or something to get a particular added funky sound for a song - like atomic punk intro), he did it entirely by hacking his guitars and amps to get them to sound this good by just plugging in with nothing. His overdrive/distortion/feedback sounds were completely natural.
I absolutely love the flow of this album. Starting with Runnin with the Devil gets everyone curious like wtf is this...then to absolutely melt your face to hear something like eruption that literally NOBODY had even come close to as far as sound/technique and then to a cover you really got me with insane fill-ins/solos was like holy shit, what is this.
Then you look at at the "bop baddup shooby doo wahs" in I'm the One and the funny Ice Cream Man you realize these guys did not give a flying fuck about doing what anyone else was doing and did what they wanted. They were completely in uncharted territory. They put together one of the rawest and in your face albums I have ever heard in my life.
Highlights: Eruption (obviously), I'm the One solos (insane), Ice Cream Man solos (insane) and I love the rawness and the crunch of Show Your Love.
End to End I listen to this album with a smile on my face. No skipping needed. Every song has its place. It is one of the best initial releases ever from a rock band. Ever. Period. It absolutely threw out every single concept you had of a guitar and the thought that everyone had pretty much done what you can do on a guitar. This was 1978. Jesus. NOBODY did this shit. Nobody sounded like this. Eddie was an absolute gift and changed guitar forever as we know it. Within 10 years everyone was tapping and doing shit like this and trying to replicate it, but NOBODY managed to pull it off like him. From a rock guitar perspective I don't think anything changed reality more than EVH.
Loved listening to this start to finish on the way to work. What an absolute masterpiece.
Wow. This was a very interesting listen for me. I love the Who, but I had not heard most of these songs.
Listening to this it's interesting because there are 2 completely different sounds and I wonder (I didn't look) at the years of each song being written. The first half of the album (and some later) could literally be thrown into a giant barrel of every British Invasion song getting pooped out of England at the time and I don't think you could pick any of them out and say "yep that's the who".
To me this is literally The Who before they had hair on their balls. SO much is missing. You get "some" glimpses of greatness that they were known for in My Generation (which obviously we all know) and I love The Kids are Alright. But outside of that - there is really nothing unique. It is very poorly produced and just a pile of bluesy 'stuff' turned into some British rock. Not a 'ton' going on here besides 2-3 songs that show future glimpses.
I don't consider The Who to be a band I recall pushing out the 'blues' sound and most I know by them was always their own sound - but this is prior to that. You can hear a lot of blues in a lot of their songs like a lot of the British rock sound started at before it branched off.
Weirdness here - Keith Moon playing like a normal drummer. Blech. What made Keith an absolute stand-out and SO unique in later years is instead of playing rhythm during the vocals and fill-ins between (like everyone else did), he actually played patterns and subtle fills DURING the melody of the vocals and would follow Roger's lyrics. If you listen to later years Who and remove vocal tracks you can actually know exactly what the lyrics/verses are JUST from the drums. It's the weirdest/coolest thing. He was very unique. But not yet here lol. He was an animal later years (and he thought so too since he enjoyed doing crazy shit like jumping off buildings and taking elephant tranquilizers for fun). Surprised he lived as long as he did wiht some of the stories lol.
John Entwistle was a frickin' musical god. I put him in my top 5 of all time rock bass players. You can hear it in some of the later songs on this album and ESPECIALLY on My Generation where he is just all over the fretboard. He just stood on the side of the stage and was a non-showy genious. Do yourself a favor and go listen to some youtubes where they pull the bass tracks out of some of the later who songs. He was just SO good.
Pete hadn't learned yet to not attempt to solo, because he's horrible at it lol. He was the definition of power chord rock guitarist and was just INSANE in later albums and especially on stage. This band later would define raw POWER especially live, but not yet on this album. I would consider them one of the few that had the sheer power of a band like Zeppelin at the time. They were extremely powerful. May have been because Pete probably sprinkled cocaine on his corn-flakes and was way over the top - but his energy was crazy and the hard rock chords were just awesome.
Roger was such an incredible singer and you don't get to hear a lot of it on this album yet. The screams and raunchy strong voice isn't here yet.
Overall it was a fun listen. Always interesting to hear a band before they really turn into what they become later - but not much on this album shines yet besides the couple I knew and I liked It's Not True and I think 1 other - they just don't sound like the Who I knew and loved in later years.
Ah yes! R&B meets heavy psychedelics!!! Gotta love the funk years lol. I was a big fan of Funkadelic after hearing them in college and the song Maggot Brain is probably one of my all-time favorite guitar solos of all time (sorry not on this album lol). Close your eyes and experience it on headphones - it is just SO emotional. Eddie Hazel recorded it after the producer told him to go play the solo as if someone just told him his mother had died. And he succeeded. Sorry I am on a tangent but Parliament was part of the funk craze and Parliament and Funkedelic were sort of the same entity and had a lot of similar members back/forth so it does somewhat apply. George Clinton started this fun crazy experimental direction into funk. It was like this journey through incredible beats, R&B, awesome back-ground vocals, horns, shit - everything! lol. It's just fun crazy intelligent music. It's where Bootsy Collins started to shine (after eary years with James Brown). Lots of talent and I love this era because it was VERY experimental and did a lot of really cool new stuff. Completely new sound. And so much of this sound you can here in a lot of current hip-hop. While this isn't something I would normally just pop on in the car to listen to, it is VERY fun to listen to and my leg was bouncing up and down the whole time. No skip-throughs and I enjoyed the whole album. Honestly I don't think I had heard anything before off of this album, but I enjoyed all of them. I appreciate it because musically there is a lot of great stuff going on here. Very well produced (lot of shit going on). Just fun. I really enjoyed this! Great stuff!
OMG. Get me a double espresso stat! OR hit me over the head with a huge rock so I can just forget I listened to this all the way through lol. Ugh. Can't keep my eyes open. It's probably unfair for me to rate this album because this is SO not my thing. While I'm so wide open to all kinds of music, this was a bit brutal. Other than Otto's Journey which actually felt like some time was taken into producing it and I think Zenophile was the other one - this album did absolutely nothing for me. Otto had some decent added instruments and was actually structured like a song I thought.
My brain was confused. I was stuck between a bad night on too much ecstasy at a rave at 4am with a shitty DJ or I was listening to the soundtrack of ANY big bush 70's porn movie (yes they had music back then and it was JUST like this). I did not enjoy this.
I'm giving it a 2 because while I do not enjoy this type of music, I 'can' appreciate that this guy was a little ahead of his time. I don't think that many were producing stuff like this at the time and he was a bit ahead of the wave. So I'll give him that.
I can only hope that the one of U2's grandchildren who are still receiving 50% of the rights for using tracks on this have enough money to go and get a McDonald's happy meal. Not my cup of tea.
Great album! I remember hearing Cult of Personality the first time which was really their only hit that got much recognition and it was new and exciting. Way overplayed on the radio though lol. Good solid rock album and listening to the rest of the album I was pleasantly surprised because there were some really well written songs on it. I don’t believe I ever had heard more than maybe 1 or 2 off this album. Some great slower songs and everything honestly was very solid.
I was a very picky guitarist back then and always thought Vernon was way overrated as a guitarist. People started commenting he was the next Hendrix and I was like no lol. People went nuts over him. Sloppy as hell lead guitarist when he tried to really fly and wasn’t a fan of his faster solos. But…hearing the rest of the album he’s actually got some really well constructed songs. Some of his slower stuff was really impressive. And that was sort of his style so I won’t rip it much.
Great album. Very new sound at the time and a great mix of different styles on this album.
Never heard of Sault and probably would have never come across this. But I am glad I did. What a really cool different ride I got on this album. From feeling like I was sitting in an old speakeasy lounge listening to poetry with background music to just awesome beats and cool harmonies this was a really enjoyable album.
Highlights were
Hard Life
Only Synth in Church - awesome short instrumental
Bow
This album was produced and edited incredibly. That stood out the most. Everything is just so crisp and perfect. The snare drum felt like is was next to my head. Great producing.
Something I would never typically put on but glad I did and really enjoyed this album. Very creative and some really cool music. Certain areas got a little repetitive for me but it fit in and was all good.
Oh Bob. I try. I really try. But just can't get there. Great album from its simple folky guitar and harp, etc. and amazing lyrics of course, he was a writer, that we all know. But musically the voice I struggle with after a while and just want more. But music is great and lyrics great and song writing is great. Just never been a massive fan of his voice.
Highlights were probably Shelter from the Storm which I have always liked and a couple others, Buckets of Rain was solid.
Awesome album and while I'm not a HUGE fan of Van Morrison, his live performance and crazy soul/blues is captured amazingly well in this album, which I have never heard in full before. Incredible musical performance and he leaves it all on stage. Loved him covering some songs which I have never heard before either. Just a great album and perfect representation of what he was all about.
Just raw fucking awesome album. I forgot how much I love this album. The stuff I didn't recall is how they just break from the hard shit into piano and shit and slow it down and mix it up. Jesus of Suburbia is just awesome. I forgot all about that song. I know a lot of this album but was psyched to listen to the shit i've never heard a lot like Jesus of Suburbia, Are We the Waiting (awesome song). Jimmy.
Jimmy - jesus my hand got tired listening to it with all those downstrokes lmao - reminded me of some older Ramones stuff - awesome. Incredible chord changes - just awesome.
Enjoyed almost every song on this album. I think Novacaine was probably the only one that was a bit meh - but even that was fine. Letterbomb is awesome, never heard that.
Favorites are probably Jesus and September but honestly, this is another one of the very few albums I can listen to start to finish without any issues.
Awesome album!
Meh. I appreciate what he did here. Not a giant fan of Willie, but I have to respect it. Reminds me of Johnny Cash's covers of songs and releasing late in his life - but...the incredible thing Cash did is cover songs from all over the place, including current songs like NIN - which is just so intense and sad when you watch the video it is amazing. Many hate it but I absolutely love it.
This album is sort of a snoozer - it's about exactly what I would expect it to sound like before I even started listening to it. It's a lot of older slow mellow songs redone in his style, but nothing completely awesome here. I keep comparing to Cash - but what Cash did was totally revise the originals in his own style - this was like just putting Willie's voice into an old song - which to me wasn't very exciting.
I'm going to go a little lower here because I just don't think the goal here was accomlished.
I really enjoyed this album. Totally mellow. Great songwriting start to finish. Very relaxing to listen to while I was working and didn't even realize I had gone through the whole album lol. Not something I'd normally grab and play and I have listened to almost nothing by K.D. - but this was very well done. Was not watching names of songs as they went through - I recognized one of them that I think was a hit on radio. Rest was great. Similar feel as something as like a Carole King perhaps, but not as good. Nothing jumps out as a 'wow' moment at all so I'll go in the middle, but I have no issues with this album.
REALLY enjoyed this. I LOVE older school 'rap' what I consider the real hip-hop compared to a lot of the crap that's out there now. I hate most of the new stuff. I love the older feel of just in your face awesome beats and just raw rough voices 'truly' rapping. This is all of that.
I go back to my hilarious grade school days of walking around listening to Grandmaster Flash, Furious Five and Mel and Mel and Newcleus lmao. I LOVED this stuff. While this is slightly later in time and has taken the turn of a bit better produced and sounding like Tribe, it still has that raw feeling and just awesome vocals/lyrics I enjoyed as a kid. I had lost touch with this genre after I went rock in later gradeschool and picked up a guitar. But mid gradeschool we had the large what we called "ghetto blasters" (not politically correct now lol) we'd carry around with music like this jamming. and actually walked around like we could break dance on cardboard squares and it got us truly interested in this whole new world of music. Yep. I admit it. We were ridiculous white burb boys that wanted to be ghetto break dancers. It was absolutely pathetic and great at the same time lol.
Listened to it on the way to work and finished at work, didn't note out any specific tracks, but enjoyed the whole thing. Just awesome old-school hip-hop which I always have a soft spot for. Just solid and great. I'd totally listen to this again.
Great album. I look at the my prior guitar influences and Beck was never at the front of the line with some of the others for me and he should have been What an innovator. Beck/Clapton/Page were to me considered the true rock/blues guitarists that came out of the British Invasion and just exploded stuff up when they came over to the US. And so much influence came from them on others and that awesome hard rock/blues sound emerged in the 70s.
The thing I absolutely love about Beck is his guitar just talks. It's not the normal shit. It moans. His use of wah and tremolo bar at the perfect places without overdoing it is just insane.
Beck's Bolero is probably the only one I knew on this album from him. A lot of these are covers of famous blues stuff or random covers.
Highlights for me were Beck's Bolero because it's just cool and so different. The random mix of just totally non-standard notes and overall musical melody is just awesome and unique. Like most of his stuff that came out as he progressed through the years. His version of Greensleeves was great and just really pretty. Loved his soloing in Let Me Love You.
Overall great blues album by one of the greats. Rod Stewart's lyrics fit great with his playing and it reminds me SO much of Plant/Page in Zeppelin 1 and 2 early years. Similar feel. Back/forth between vocals and lead guitar bluesy stuff. Then they all sort of went their own unique directions - Beck probably the most since Page stuck to a lot of the blues/rock while they DID get much more innovative later and Clapton I think really stayed in a common sound/feel throughout the years and never changed a ton.
Great intro to early Beck. Enjoyed this album. I prefer his more custom stuff he wrote later - but event the covers here have a very 'Beck' flavor to them and his guitar playing is awesome.
Wow. Wtf is this album. I had heard a few of these songs and just LOVE "I wish". So much talent bundled up in 1 package.
This album is like a fucking giant washing machine and throwing in R&B, funk, jazz, anything else you can think of.
I had always heard about how they called him "Little Stevie" - the knickname of him in his crazy young years when he was starting to get recognized. But really only knew of him in his later "pop" radio years and never listened to a lot of his stuff NOT on the radio. The musical talent that inside this man's brain is absolutely INSANE. I cannot even comprehend the variations and arrangements of shit on this album. It is untouched as far as what so many other albums have. He is SO INSANELY gifted from a musical perspective. His writing/arrangements/producing/vocals/melodies - JESUS!! It is NUTS.
Loved everything on this album.
- Village Ghetto Land - incredible/different
- I Wish - just an awesome song - always loved it - how cool. Listening to this song and picturing people in a studio...how could you NOT be just smiling and bouncing around and loving every second of recording a song like this?!
- Contusion - good luck trying to in your head anticipate where this song is going next - pure Jazz insanity and all over the place. Reminds me of some later Steely Dan feel honestly. Time signatures insane, unpredictable, just tight jazz. Crazy guitar leads in background
Pasttime Paradise - did NOT know this was the origination of later hip hop lol - learn something every day.
Summer Soft - great mellow song - reminds me a lot of some of his later stuff.
What I could not believe honestly in listening to this album is how much of these songs kept reminding me of artists in the last 20 years. WOW!! How much influence this album had on others! I hear everything from Phish to Lenny Kravitz to hip hop - just crazy. This must be a highly respected album by so many later artists. I never realized it.
Overall I'm must blown away by the production/arrangement of this and the song-writing. It is just not from a brain from this planet. Seriously. There are only a handful of artists I listen to and pay attention to the musical genius behind it - this is one of them. Elton is another. People that just do NOT write what you think you're expecting to hear next and play stuff that just is not supposed to go together...yet it does. His songwriting here is just unparalleled.
So appreciative of what is on this album. Just absolute insane talent oozing out of everything put together here and written. Wow.
While not my cup of tea - I did not mind this album. I think what I liked the most is every song does NOT sound the same. At all. It had a great mix of some 'real' instruments. I like the way some songs are darker/grungier and put your head down and close your eyes and just move to the music at the club and others are happy, hands up, smiling at your friends, laughing while dancing at the club lol. Good variation of sound/beats/etc. I can respect that.
Overall pretty well produced and good dance music and I think they're pretty creative. Once again I love that all the songs do not sound AT ALL alike across the album. I appreciate that.
Great album. Amazing song-writer of course as always.
Probably enjoyed the title track the least out of all of them lol. But rest of album is great and I enjoyed all of them. Favorite is "She's Always a Woman" which I think musically is just incredibly written. Absolutely LOVE the way he does main chorus 2 downward parts starting with the "oooh...she takes care of herself..." and then the 2nd he jumps up and does it again. So much fun to play.
I do not find this album crazy 'exciting' but I do enjoy it and he has some great songwriting on it. This album I don't feel like was a common style around the time it came out (but I could be wrong) with the piano at the head of everything. But pretty cool he did it. Lot of rock and crazy stuff in late 70's so how this found a way to make it and get him recognized is pretty cool. Good to say real talent get ahead over a lot of the pop stuff that's getting shoved out to everyone.
Great song-writer, great early introduction to his talent. Enjoyed most the whole album and great representation of Billy.
Great Marley album and I heard pretty much what I expected. Not a massive fan of Reggae but always love listening to Bob.
Nothing earth-shattering here to be totally honest. Just a good honest representation of early Bob Marley. And always great to chill to.
couldn't even find it anywhere i could actually play it. And the couple songs i heard were nothing great. not sure what's so amazing about this album lol
This album for the first half was about exactly what I expected. I've never been a huge Bowie fan, although always appreciated his creativity. So I got through about half of it and then it was like oh wtf just happened...2-3 instrumentals in a row and they all totally blew me away. I loved them. Heard Eastern flavors and Indian/oriental sounds, etc. It was really cool. Very well produced and pretty awesome. Then it went back I think and maybe there was 1-2 vocal songs at end that were ok. I think the only one I recognized was Heroes which has been covered recently I think by Dylan's son's band (I think?? - Wallflowers or something)?
Most the songs were incredibly creative and interesting and not at all 'normal' 70s type rock I'd expect. I guess I expected that from Bowie. Always very unique. While I didn't get overly excited about a lot of the songs on this album, I did enjoy them and the few instrumentals were just awesome.
Ugh. I tried. And I COMPLETELY appreciate Elvis's performing like a champ and leaving everything on the stage. But...I just can't get into it. His vocal style and 'over' singing (from my perspective) just doesn't do it for me. And honestly a lot of the songs were just sort of semi-boring. but a few I recognized and the performance was great. His voice (for Elvis anyway) was totally on and it was a great live performance. Just not my style.
I kind of enjoyed this! Not something I'd ever grab and listen to lol - but pretty cool for a different sound. I enjoyed the couple covers and enjoyed hearing some different culture of music. Do not think this should be on some all time greatest list anywhere lol - but entertaining none the less.
