A lovely piece of prog metal. Influences from Zeppelin to Crimson. The sound is clean, though. Doesn't seem like a lot of processing or effects. Short, sweet, rock and roll.
Rhythm section is outrageously good. Funk and disco inspired. And the drum production is bombastic. Toms sound like tuned garbage cans. And the band is phenomenally tight. I'd never listened to this full album before. I'm super glad I did. I will listen again.
This entire album steals my breath. It's from a different place. Jimi was from a different place. As were Mitch Mitchell & Noel Redding. (The other musicians on this album are *also* in the pantheon of musical brilliance.) Sequenced impeccably. Psychedelic af. And funk is assuredly here. It's a perfect album.
Much of this album feels like a soundtrack for a deep, dark, menacing piece of baroque film noir. At times, it sprawls. And then, it's right in your ear and your ear alone. I'm a sucker for a 6/8 swing, and this album has a few. The rhythm sections, including drums, base, and often, Apple's piano, is sublime. So many brilliant musicians on this album. String arrangements are pristine. This album is an achievement and, while the three hits are perfectly rated, perhaps the album, as a whole, is actually underrated.
This sounds like a Nirvana album.
It’s a Grohl album. Dave on vocals, sounding a lot like Kurt. Dave on bass, sounding a lot like Krist. Dave on drums, sounding just like Dave.
These are good songs. Great production.
This is a Nirvana album made by a single member of Nirvana. And it stands up alongside Bleach, Nevermind, & In Utero.
It’s post-grunge pop-punk, and it’s a pristine example at that. You can hear The Beatles in here, as well. (Could hear it with Kurt as well, but it bears mentioning.)
Apparently, Grohl wrote and recorded demos for all of these songs while or before a member of Nirvana. It’s obviously why it fits in that canon so seamlessly.
Anyway, I dig it. It accesses and triggers regions of my brain connected to a critical period circa high school.
Okay. Look. I'm 50. Appetite entered my ears at precisely a critical period in my young life as I made the journey into high school and whatever that period of pre-adulthood that entails. The lyrics, the content, and certainly the behaviors of the band members tack incredibly problematic. Nevertheless, this album is seminal for so many, and it arrived like a sonic nuclear bomb. It changed things. I cannot separate myself from this album and really can't judge it objectively. It arrived four full years before Nevermind, though it didn't HIT (e.g. MTv) until 1989 or even 1990 for some. But *it* came first. Not Nevermind. Nevermind finished the job of "killing grunge and hair metal," but Appetite cracked open that door. To my experience and knowledge.
Full disclosure: I had never heard of this band, let alonevthis album. I reserve the right to modify my thoughts as I put this piece of amazing (I love it) album power pop, rock, ska, punk, glam rock, new/dark wave, synth pop, disco, psychedelia into my head more times. So much influence here, seemingly disparate lineages. It's beautifully all over the place. Rhythm section is stellar. Lead and background vocals are phenomenally interesting (complimentary). I will put this in regular rotation.
I appreciate what I put in my head here. While I've never listened to Sonic Youth, they are clearly an influential, appreciated, inventive, frequently gloriously dissonant band who,
here at least, venture from controlled cacophony through spoken word art noise, melodic punk and power pop. It's just consistently my cup of tea. I'm glad I listened though.
Um.
Okay.
I had no idea what I was getting into and when I put it on my head I almost immediately removed it.
Then I read just a little. Early industrial music, using actual industrial machinery and garbage for percussion, along with ear-challenging synths and processed vocals.
I went back in.
I'm glad I did, but I don't think I'll ever need a full re-listen. It is an auditory assault. But again, it's apparently one of several seminal albums defining and initiating what we call "Industrial Music." (I'd actually give this a 2.5)
Full Disclosure: I am a Beatles fan, through and through. Interestingly enough, as a Gen Xer, I didn't discover them until my 30s. Didn't fall in love until my 40s. Not that I avoided. I just...thought they were oldies. Until I didn't.
This eponymous white album is one I didn't particularly prefer for years. I would have said it's my least favorite post-touring-Beatles album.
Well, I'm really glad I got this album today.
Yes, of course there are plenty of songs on here that sound like, and likely are, demos. Lot's of joking around. Studio noise. It's messy. Some might say bloated, but I think everyone...well, John and Paul and then, to the extent they allowed, George...was differentiating and creating their own music.
I think Ringo really starts to swing here. Like, I think he and Paul, across the final two albums (which really are a de facto double album, Abbey Road and Let It Be) vaulted into the conversation of greatest rhythm sections in the history of such things.
Anyway, I'm rambling and actually not doing any fact checking, lol. Let me say that I love this 90 minute, 30 song, overstuffed double album that is absolutely all over the place and yet still somehow pristinely sequenced.
(It's probably still my least favorite album from Rubber Soul onwards, though. But, like, all of those albums are clustered near each other with solid A grades, at least. And technically I'd give this 4.5 stars, which is 9/10.)
Yeah man.
(I'd never heard this album before.)
This is lovely psychedelic pop music.
Apparently MGMT opened for Radiohead after this album. Cool. Makes sense.
Again, lovely.
And also? I'm likely never coming back to it. Not sure why, but I'm not. (Giving 2.5 starts)
Jesus.
This album is perfect. That's first. And let's contextualize.
This album comes from the depths of grief, beautiful and wretched, carving out painful recesses in the soul to then be filled with whatever healing may fill it back in.
It's fucking gorgeous.
I listened (for the first time, ever, mind you. Also, first Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, and Bad Seed album, lol.) while moving through a morning yoga flow. It's floating through space, or sensory deprivation but fir the auditory cortex and grief as a companion.
Fucking beautiful. Harrowing. Healing.
I'd never listened through, and Pearl is absolutely lovely. In particular, the band, arrangements, and performances on the album absolutely entranced me. Obviously, Janis' voice is singular and filled with the all the emotions available in the universe, channeled through vocal chords. It's short and sweet, also. Ten songs. Little over thirty minutes. A few absolute classics, and the other songs are worth the full ride.
Yesterday I got to listen to Janis Joplin "Pearl." I'd never listened through the full album. I loved it. Today, I've gotten The Stones, "Exile On Main."
I've done several Stones catalog dives, and this album is probably my favorite album. Maybe Let It Bleed. Regardless, it's nice to head back in to this double album.
Sweet Virginia is such an incredible song. Mick's harmonica is so goddam emotive. And Charlie Watts remains one of my favorite drummers. And he *is* underrated.
Got to scrape that shit right off your shoes.
Today's album is Face to Face (1966) by The Kinks.
This is a great album.
I'd never listened before.
Baroque pop is almost always wrapped up in The Beatles, Brian Wilson/The Beach Boys, The Zombies, Stones, and while The Kinks are neither forgotten or even necessarily underrated, this album is pristine of-the-era (mid 60s) baroque, early psychedelic, folksy/bluesy pop rock.
I adore Ray Davies voice and songs here. Arrangements, background vocals, and performances are all wonderful.
I need more time with it, but it's out of the gates with a 4 of 5, and I want to go 4.5.
-G
I am a generation X child who came to The Doors in the vicinity of the mid-80s. By High School, I'd read biographies, books of Morrison's poetry, and traversed The Doors' catalog with other (looking back, now, clearly gifted, traumatized, and neurodivergent) somber weirdos seeking capital-t Truth.
I don't know, now, looking back, about any of it. Morrison's poetry and songwriting don't seem nearly as profound and expansive as they did when I was a flailing young man, myself.
Nevertheless, this is a killer band, and this is a killer debut album. Each instrumental musician in the band... Krieger, Densmore, and Manzarak... were absolute beasts on their respective instruments, and they came together in a singular, iconic, "one of one" manner. Add Morrison, who I contend is the single greatest baritone front man in popular musical history, and you have perfect, albeit chaotic, mentally and emotionally raw, drug-addled chemistry.
Yeah, this is a 5 of 5 for me. Top to bottom.
Listen. I love Neil Young. He's been making viable and important albums for 60 years. He is a treasure, as a songwriter and as a performer. This album absolutely captures him as a countercultural folk artist (side 1) and then the proto-grunge avatar (side 2) with the incredible Crazy Horse. I've seen him with Booker T and the M.G.'s (...which, bucket list memories there...), and he did the split set... predominantly acoustic and then all the goddam way plugged in. This is a seminal and perfect album. Five of Five.
It was fine.
I wasn't really in a space for two Neil Young albums in a row, particularly when Rust Never Sleeps, which I adore, is first.
Still, I am a bit of a Neil "homer" and this has some stellar material.
This album is unfuckwithable.
Top to bottom.
Adore the album art, as well.
This album sinks in deep and resonates with some deep deep existential truth accessed through the hearing mechanisms and auditory cortex, in this case.
5 of 5. No notes.
I want to first to lavish Doug Wimbish, eventually of the band Living Colour, who plays bass across this 1982 album.
I also want to point out how much 80s funk, R&B, soul, and even gospel exists on this album between Scorpio, considered among the greatest early electro tracks, and The Message, considered among the greatest early hip hip tracks.
There's also this cheesy but somehow incredible platonic love song to Stevie Wonder, Dreamin', followed by a gospel song, You Are.
I just love that the album is so thoroughly Black, that the musicians and various producers and programmers are exploring an expanded pallette of styles, and that it all sort of works.
Holy shit.
That's really the review. Holy shit.
I'm semi-obsessed with this album that I'd never even known existed before Swampsnake and then Gangbang destroyed me. The band and production are fucking incredible. Just, tight and bombastic. And Alex is so goddam horny and absolutely confident across this thing, sounding like a combination of Bon Scott (AC/DC) and Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) with a little David Lee Roth (Van Halen). Just, straightforward rock, blues, boogie-woogie, and apparently British Music Hall. Many of us in the U.S. are most familiar with Paul McCartney's and The Beatles Music Hall ditties. There is drama. Like, this album could be the soundtrack to some companion film to Little Shop of Horrors or Grease 2.
Anyway, I highly recommend anyone who doesn't know this album to give it a shot. Again, I'm obsessed, and am now traveling through their catalog. A perfect second album is their first album, Framed, from 1972. Anyway, I'm giving this bad boy a 5 because nothing has captured me like this in a long while.
This is absolutely lovely Brit-pop.
I know they're from Las Vegas.
And also? I know that this is lovely Brit-pop.
Lead vocals are delivered with an accent that certainly points across the pond. And it's just lovely, emotional, sad-boy Brit-pop.
(I'd never listened to this album before, lol. I'm not sure how I missed it. And them. But I did. The only song I KNEW knew was, "Sombody Told Me." Which... great fucking tune.)
This is also exceptionally shoegazey. I don't mind that. I'm rocking back and forth in front of a massive speaker, ben-gay scented fog mingling with cloves cigarettes, a cheap gin and tonic in a plastic cup held high.
It's a ruhl good memory, yinz guys.
Four of five stars on this one. It's a fantastic album.
This is absolutely fine. I'm just not into Judas Priest. And after having listened to British Steel? I'm still just not that into Judas Priest.
Today's album is, "C'est Chic" (1978) by Chic.
Here is what I want to say.
Bernard Edwards as a bassist is upper echelon.
Nile Rogers as a guitarist is upper echelon.
AND ALSO...they are both upper echelon as writers and producers.
AND AND ALSO...Nile went on to prove himself one of the greatest and most successful writers and producers ever.
The rest of the production on this album? Superb.
Vocals, all around? Sublime. (Shout out, Luther Vandross, rip)
The arrangements and the larger band? Stellar.
And the album is a perfect little piece of disco elegance and sophistication.
Five Stars.
I loved hearing the first recorded version of No Woman, No Cry, which is not the recording that most of us hear regularly on the radio or out in the world. Obviously this album is monumental and beautiful. I will also point out that Marley's upper register, not falsetto, but a full-chested alto, is just amazing.
This album is perfect in a way that makes me want to stop ranking things and just allow them to exist in their magical, mystical, actual spiritual perfection. This album crawls into your synapses and massages microscopic bits that you'd long forgotten. It's soul salve. Chant with me: A love supreme. A love supreme. A love supreme.
I get it. This is the band that had Clapton, Beck, and Page... guitarists held in high esteem by old white men who claim to know the blues better than the inventors of the genre.
I feel like I'm in an Austin Powers movie here, and the songs are fine, absolutely dated, and the playing, while massively competent, is formulaic and boring, to me.
Brilliant.
This is everything I wanted The Yardbirds to be, meaning you can feel soul here. These folks are pouring something into this music and it is utterly compelling. Plus the arrangements and performances are wonderful. It feels live. A bit noisy, too, lol. No "noise reduction" back then. Anyway, yes.
Absolutely brilliant.
The famous Funk Brothers (band) are all here, creating sleek, tight, filthy funk. String arrangement are sublime. Lyrics are astounding. Of course, the 12 minute cover of Papa Was A Rolling Stone is here, and it is one of the greatest songs and performances ever recorded. The other songs here are powerful and often brazen. This album is unabashedly Black. All vocals are 100% on point. And the soft songs are lush and soul full. I'd never listened to this 35 minute masterpiece of an album. And I'm glad I have it now. 5 of 5 stars.
Game changer.
Love the use of dissonant chords. A little bit of menace always lurking.
Rock Lobster is an all time great song.
Prince on everything.
Prince making a song, in 1982, named 1999, that was at least 17 years ahead of its time sonically. His decisions... arrangements, vamping, vocals, etc. All sublime. This is one of Prince's several 5 star albums.
Five Leaves Left is impossibly beautiful, harrowing, bittersweet, and soulful. The musicality, the performances, the engineering and mixing, arrangements, and Nick's voice cutting through it all. I can't possibly think of more to say that hasn't already been said about this absolutely perfect album.
