378
Albums Rated
3.4
Average Rating
35%
Complete
711 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1950
Favorite Decade
Latin
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
78
5-Star Albums
21
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
Top Styles
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
The United States Of America
The United States Of America
|
5 | 2.6 | +2.4 |
|
Bitte Orca
Dirty Projectors
|
5 | 2.69 | +2.31 |
|
90
808 State
|
5 | 2.69 | +2.31 |
|
Medúlla
Björk
|
5 | 2.73 | +2.27 |
|
A Wizard, A True Star
Todd Rundgren
|
5 | 2.84 | +2.16 |
|
Quiet Life
Japan
|
5 | 2.85 | +2.15 |
|
The Sun Rises In The East
Jeru The Damaja
|
5 | 2.91 | +2.09 |
|
Future Days
Can
|
5 | 3 | +2 |
|
Vento De Maio
Elis Regina
|
5 | 3.01 | +1.99 |
|
Fuzzy
Grant Lee Buffalo
|
5 | 3.01 | +1.99 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
At San Quentin
Johnny Cash
|
1 | 3.8 | -2.8 |
|
The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground
|
1 | 3.61 | -2.61 |
|
Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
|
1 | 3.47 | -2.47 |
|
Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
|
1 | 3.43 | -2.43 |
|
25
Adele
|
1 | 3.37 | -2.37 |
|
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
|
1 | 3.3 | -2.3 |
|
1989
Taylor Swift
|
1 | 3.27 | -2.27 |
|
Let It Be
The Replacements
|
1 | 3.25 | -2.25 |
|
Goo
Sonic Youth
|
1 | 3.24 | -2.24 |
|
Being There
Wilco
|
1 | 3.22 | -2.22 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Peter Gabriel | 3 | 5 |
| Led Zeppelin | 4 | 4.5 |
| Jimi Hendrix | 2 | 5 |
| Bob Marley & The Wailers | 2 | 5 |
| Beatles | 2 | 5 |
| Björk | 2 | 5 |
| Beck | 2 | 5 |
| Stevie Wonder | 2 | 5 |
| Yes | 2 | 5 |
| Radiohead | 2 | 5 |
| Elliott Smith | 2 | 5 |
| Joni Mitchell | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Sonic Youth | 3 | 1.67 |
| Wilco | 2 | 1.5 |
Controversial
| Artist | Ratings |
|---|---|
| PJ Harvey | 1, 4 |
| Public Image Ltd. | 4, 1 |
| Beastie Boys | 2, 3, 5 |
5-Star Albums (78)
View Album Wall
Popular Reviews
Jimi Hendrix · 4 likes
5/5
13/1001 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience is definitely the Ocarina of Time of psychedelic rock. Both revolutionized the landscapes they were a part of and also Jimi and Link are both left-handed.
Great improvisations, catchy melodies.
Elis Regina · 3 likes
5/5
94/1089 - Kinda fun to piece together this album (seems to be a mistake/oversight on the bookmaker's part). Jazz fusion is one of my favorite genres for some reason so I really enjoyed listening to this. So much variety in sounds and harmonies while still retaining catchy melodies and a great voice. I'm gonna listen again in the normal order (from the 1972/3? album).
Rod Stewart · 2 likes
5/5
322/1089 - Damn! This limey's got better Country chops than alotta us yanks!
Red Hot Chili Peppers · 2 likes
5/5
300/1089 -
*Amazing instrumental starts*
“ooh-she-walla-bing-bang,
shamma-lamma-ding-dong,
put da banana in da apple sauce!”
Stevie Wonder · 2 likes
5/5
249/1089 - A few days after Innervisions came out, Stevie Wonder unfortunately got in a bad car accident and was in a coma for 10 days. I wonder if when he woke up he pulled a prank on the doctors and went "AAAH I CAN'T SEE!" If I was blind and in this situation, I'd totally do that. Also this is Stevie Wonder's best album.
4-Star Albums (93)
1-Star Albums (21)
All Ratings
Moby
3/5
1/1001 - Mildly enjoyed it. Nothing super memorable.
Metallica
2/5
2/1001 - Not a fan of Hetfield's voice or Metal in general. Can cut 30 seconds off the start of many songs without losing coherence.
However, the Enter Sandman riff is cool and the music is overall well produced/competently made. Solos are alright.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
3/1001 - Voice is very nice, not a fan of the lip smacking though. The yelling on the final song at the end was bizarre. Other than that, very nice guitar playing with tasteful orchestration sketches throughout. Overall an enjoyable experience.
3/5
4/1001 The start of the loudness wars. It's alright. It was refreshing when Noel sang one of the songs instead of Liam.
Pink Floyd
4/5
5/1001 An enjoyable experience! It seemed a tad-bit samey with some of the songs having a similar drumbeat and tempo. On the other hand, "Money" is stuck in my head! What a catchy bassline.
The Notorious B.I.G.
4/5
6/1001 - Biggie's rapping is right in the pocket. The skits seemed unessecary, the album would have worked with just the songs. A lot of the instrumentals were nice too. (One of them switched tunings a lot of the time for some reason).
The Avalanches
4/5
7/1001 - The instrumentals were better than the repetitive vocal songs. "Two Hearts in 3/4 Time" was in 6/8 time. Enjoyed it more than I thought I would!
Pixies
2/5
8/1001 - Instrumentals are alright but the screaming/moaning vocals are annoying.
Stan Getz
4/5
9/1001 - Byrd's guitar playing is really creative and compliments the other instruments well. Not a fan of Getz's sound (way too much subtone, almost like a classical saxophone player!). Overall a cool introduction of Bossa Nova to U.S. audiences.
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
10/1001 - The acoustic songs work better than the electric ones (the fuzz guitar stands out in a bad way). Tracks are very inconsistent (instrumentation-wise amd quality-wise) which makes sense given the tension and isolation of the band members throughout recording this. It's okay overall.
Travis
2/5
11/1001 - The rhythms, textures, and riffs are homogenous and could be more interesting throughout with more variation instead of relying on background woosh effects.
Beyoncé
3/5
12/1001 - It feels like most film music to me: the vocals are the most important thing (Beyoncé has good technique) and all of the other surrounding instruments have to have no rhythmic activity (or repeat the beat with barely any variation). Some songs were more interesting to me "Haunted", "No Angel", and "Blue".
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
13/1001 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience is definitely the Ocarina of Time of psychedelic rock. Both revolutionized the landscapes they were a part of and also Jimi and Link are both left-handed.
Great improvisations, catchy melodies.
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
14/1001 - Sounds like this band would've been fun to see live. Voices sound a bit weird, but it kinda works! Backing instruments are solid.
The Jesus And Mary Chain
2/5
15/1001 - Not my style of music for sure but the guitar playing is good (voice is not since it keeps the same quality for the entire record). It makes sense why it was influential.
David Bowie
3/5
16/1001 - The jazz music is cool. His voice timbre is too strange for me. Unsure if I'm looking forward to 8 more albums of Bowie.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
3/5
17/1001 - Skits/intro "shop-talk" were unessecary. Background improvisations/comping sounded great. Seems like a good reference for writing country music. Much better in two different listening sessions with Disc 1 and Disc 2, still too long.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
18/1001 - I wish there weren't any strings. The parts would sound much better on electric guitar or piano (maybe electric piano too.) Once there are too many classical musicians in the room, it gets hard to do "feel" based music like soul or rock and the rhythm of the song suffers. Other than that, the harmonies are really cool combined with Springfield's smooth voice.
Rush
3/5
19/1001 - Voice is too high and has a weird effect on it that is quite grating. Instrumentals are alright (technically very proficient).
Guns N' Roses
4/5
20/1001 - I liked this more than I thought I would. Chromatic riffs were cool and the backing instrumentals had a great sense pocket. Wasn't a fan of the sex moans/noises or the lower backing vocal.
My Bloody Valentine
3/5
21/1001 - Improved as it went on. Kind of reminded me of Eric Whitacre choral pieces, swap the voices with distorted guitar. Drumming is very simplistic/same-y. I don't get the appeal but I also don't dislike it.
Les Rythmes Digitales
4/5
22/1001 - Fun and catchy. It would be nice if songs had B sections/more variation instead of pretty much removing or adding parts. Voice is good and some effects were cool to hear.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
23/1001 - I like the guitar fills. Normally I do not like redundancy too much, but I think it's done well here due to the variation in comping and "microshifts" inbetween the various phrases. I don't listen to reggae much so it was really interesting to listen to, especially with it's non-standard drum patterns (backbeat is in a different place).
Simple Minds
2/5
24/1001 - Inoffensive but quite boring. The music seems like it was produced well. Definitely "80s" sounding (and quite influential) which I dislike, but there aren't too many reverb-caked snare drums in this which is nice.
PJ Harvey
1/5
25/1001 - Not sure why this is on here. In terms of influential music, it seems "Doolittle" by the Pixies, did the dynamic shifts first.
Other than that, I never liked how "talk-singing" sounded. Pick one or the other. Instrumentals are either boring noisiness or ugly Penderecki sounding contemporary-classical strings.
Scott Walker
3/5
26/1001 - It's alright. Voice has too much vibrato for my liking.
Wilco
2/5
27/1001 - Instrumentals sounded cool on the first song but then the voice came in and I was immediately disappointed. The singer is consistently flat throughout all of the songs, and the instrumentals become a lot more boring and passive. "Jesus, Etc." was alright though.
Soft Machine
2/5
28/1001 - The weird intro was more fun than the large sections of jamming with mostly uninteresting solos. Singer is very British (gonna have to get use to that on this list). Last song was kinda cool but the intro was too long and then a random piano intro started and I realized there was 8 more minutes of the same song again!
Snoop Dogg
2/5
29/1001 - Enough with the sex skits. That being said, the beats weren't bad (though a couple sounded like Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg which threw me off and the "Funky Worm" (moog saw-wave with some glide) is quite irritating).
Just got to the end of "Murder Was the Case". Going down a point for that high-pitched tinnitus crap.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
30/1001 - Energy is super high and fun. I like how the high octane rapping contrasts with the relaxed jazz and soul samples. This has some good variety due to the many different rappers contributing to this album. A few interludes seemed a bit unnecessary but they were luckily short.
Miles Davis
4/5
31/1001 - I never could get into Miles Davis. He for sure is an important person in jazz music, being a pioneering many styles (cool jazz, modal jazz, fusion, etc.), but his trumpet technique wasn't as good compared to his contemporaries, and I personally prefer proficiency a lot of the time over "new sounds." That being said, this album was influential to jazz and enjoyable to listen to (despite some occasional rhythmic sloppiness in the large ensemble).
The White Stripes
3/5
32/1001 - I try to be analytical while reviewing, but this album struck me with a strong personal response of complete neutral-ness. This is one of the most average albums I've heard. It sounds well made, they know their instruments and voices, but I don't feel one way or the other at the end of the day.
The Jam
5/5
33/1001 - This was very enjoyable. The songs seemed largely on the shorter side but they were compact. I'm gonna learn "English Rose" on piano.
Funkadelic
2/5
34/1001 - Guitar wanking, some okay funk-rock, and a bunch of screaming and farting over an unchanging cowbell groove.
4/5
35/1001 - A lot of the problems I had with "Rid of Me" aren't present in this album. Some instrumentals are still on the safe/boring side: providing a "bed of sound" for the voice instead of reacting to it (which to me is a lot of the fun in rock). The Thom Yorke duet was neat. I liked it more than I thought I would.
Elbow
3/5
36/1001 - Seems somewhat derivative of Radiohead but I mildly enjoyed it.
Jimi Hendrix
5/5
37/1001 - Suprisingly jazzy! Lots of variation in all the types of songs and the effects were cool.
Faust
2/5
38/1001 - First song is 11 minutes long where nothing happens for 7 minutes, drums come in, then nothing happens for 5 minutes. Panning is super hard left and right. There are some cool things here and there but there's also way too much vamping/repetition of the same idea without any meaningful variation and it gets stale.
New Order
3/5
39/1001 - Before listening: Sometimes I'd try to imagine what the worst possible yet acceptable music is. Drum beats that aren't quite in time, messy guitars all over the place, random whooshing synths, incoherent vocalist, etc. Anyways, I listened to Joy Division and it was the bad music I was imagining the whole time! That being said, one of my friends said New Order is better than Joy Division so I'll do my best to be unbiased.
After listening: comes across to me as unfocused to have okay rock songs and dance songs. Maybe if the songs were inter-weaved (like the piano and IDM in "drukQs" by Aphex Twin) I'd like it more. Definitely better to my ears than "Unknown Pleasures" was.
X-Ray Spex
4/5
40/1001 - Can't understand the vocals (strong de-esser or lisp?). Can understand the loud and awesome guitars drums and flat sax.
Duran Duran
5/5
41/1001 - I thought I'd get filtered by 80's music (especially the reverb snares and absolutely everything having some sort of chorus effect) but I'm warming up to it/reevaluating my idea of what 80's music is. This has a lot of cool basslines, lots of syncopation and call and response between instruments. Side note: Save a Prayer has a really cool minor-third substitution (F# minor to B minor then F# minor to D minor). Rio gets a bit same-y sometimes but the ones that stand out really do stand out (got better on side two).
Germs
3/5
42/1001 - I honestly don't know what I was expecting. Hard to hear the lyrics, but everything else is fine I guess. The ducking of the instrumentals was weird and noticeable.
Hüsker Dü
3/5
43/1001 - Texturally homogenous and not particularly interesting given the amount of songs.
Nina Simone
2/5
44/1001 - Weird sounding upright piano. I recognize that it's objectively good/well sung (the production and recording is pretty awful though, lots of weird compression and clipping artifacts) but I didn't like it very much.
Roxy Music
3/5
45/1001 - Cool and unique instrumentation but not a good voice and pretty uninteresting songwriting.
Fairport Convention
3/5
46/1001 - This was somewhat enjoyable. The songs got VERY repetitive at times and I'd like to hear more vocal/dynamic variation and a lot more melodic variation.
Talk Talk
2/5
47/1001 - Not a fan of the children's choir. Or the voice or the instrumentation or the songwriting. Was looking forward to this based on the description but the Debussy and Bartok influence seems superficial at best.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
48/1001 - Would be better if he wasn't flat all the time. Very average.
Pixies
3/5
49/1001 - A little better than Doolittle (less screaming/makes more sense when screaming happens). Song structure seems samey.
Orange Juice
3/5
50/1001 - I might need to re-listen. That went in one ear and out the other. Sounded okay but hard to hear lyrics.
Amy Winehouse
4/5
51/1001 - I listened to a "dynamic edit" by reddit user TopConcern because of the crazy clipping and weirdness going on in the original recording. (I realize it's intentional to sound like older Motown records, but I think there's a difference between using old equipment (sounds fine) and making things sorta sound like old equipment (sounds uncanny)).
Not a huge fan of her voice (specifically the way she articulates vowels) but it fits the genre. Winehouse and the backing musicians have great rhythm and feel.
Chicago
3/5
52/1001 - Started cool but got long-winded and same-y the longer it went on. With the exception of the free-form guitar song (I don't have an opinion on it. You probably had to be there in the 60s amongst all the counter-culture and psychadelia stuff to see this as something cool or worthwhile I'm guessing).
The Replacements
1/5
53/1001 - British James Hetfield voice and sloppy musicianship.
Motörhead
2/5
54/1001 - I really should have excluded Metal when I started this project. It's clear to me that I don't like the genre and as a result I'll end up muddying the ratings for any metal albums in a non-objective way. On the other hand, I can sorta see why this album was influential (some songs are very samey unfortunately like the first and last track).
The Rolling Stones
3/5
55/1001 - Paint it Black was cool. I could hear the unique instruments used on the various tracks and how they added to the songs but I didn't find them very interesting for whatever reason. I'll probably listen again another time.
Green Day
3/5
56/1001 - Some cool melodies here and there but I wish it was played by better musicians.
Gillian Welch
3/5
57/1001 - I listened to her cover of Radiohead's "Black Star" first to get an idea of her sound. Honest competent guitar playing (two guitarists for sure on the album). Not a fan of the vocals and the last song could've been half as long (or a quarter since it was the same instrumental for 14 minutes).
The Killers
2/5
58/1001 - I should have realized this earlier but I now know this list isn't a "here are albums that influenced music list" or anything like that. To be fair, it is harder to determine which albums have more "staying power" the closer it gets to the present day and music today in the 20s is in a weird place societally.
I don't like this album but I respect the musicianship and competency of the musicians.
Traffic
4/5
59/1001 - The tenor saxophonist needs to practice long notes in the low register. Didn't like the picardy third ending on "John Barleycorn." Sequencing seemed weird to me, would be more accessible to start with a song with vocals instead of an instrumental jam. Other than that, I liked this album quite a lot; they have a great flute player and pianist.
Sheryl Crow
4/5
60/1001 - Great voice. I like the rock instrumentation and the different genre songs like "Solidify" and "We Do What We Can." It is missing something and I'm not sure what (experimentation with different song forms, dynamics, general excitement, etc.).
B.B. King
5/5
61/1001 - All the songs have very similar structures but feel different and nicely varied because of the different tempos and textural choices of the musicians. Energy is great throughout.
R.E.M.
3/5
62/1001 - Nothing happened but it wasn't awful sounding.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
63/1001 - Guitar and singing was cool but they need to find a drummer who knows more than one fill. Songs got better as the album went on. I liked it overall.
David Crosby
3/5
64/1001 - Music has little substance and becomes redundant fast. Very competent drummer.
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
65/1001 - Messy and samey. Opening track is very good.
Mott The Hoople
3/5
66/1001 - Competent band but that's about it. Squeaky end to the first track (fit the song imo).
Orbital
4/5
67/1001 - Strange. A mix of genuinely good techno (Sad But True) and baby's first fl studio beat (Kein Trink Wasser). Good outweighs the bad in this instance.
Daft Punk
2/5
68/1001 - Lots of TR-909 and repetition on this one. I heard Discovery and RAM are better albums from them and I'll give them a listen. Around the World and Burnin' were cool.
Beastie Boys
2/5
69/1001 - Beastie Boys walked so Eminem could crawl.
Stereo MC's
4/5
70/1001 - I liked it but don't understand why it's on the list. It's a bit repetitive but there's enough different layers and musical ideas to keep the songs from becoming too samey.
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
71/1001 - I think this will grow on me. Very coherent instrumentation (can definitely hear the Reich influence) which is rare for indie music in my experience. I would have appreciated more loud vocals in certain places ad wasn't a big fan of the odd-time stuff but that's just my personal preference and not really a problem with the music.
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
72/1001 - One reason I dislike the 80's gated-reverb snare is how artificial it sounds in rock music. It makes the drums sound like I'm listening in a large bathroom instead of a normal room or a concert venue. Songwriting seems fine but the 80s sound takes me out of the album.
Michael Jackson
5/5
73/1001 - What the hell, pop music used to be so cool! Now it's just for girls and gays :(
Peter Tosh
3/5
74/1001 - The out of tune horns took me out of it a little. Otherwise, very straightforward reggae music.
The Isley Brothers
4/5
75/1001 - Something sounds weird with the mixing or it might be my ears since I can't currently hear high-frequencies due to sinus issues. I'll listen again. Some good straightforward funk music but a bit too much synth noodling for me.
Beastie Boys
3/5
76/1001 - In my previous Beastie Boys album, I made a joke review which I now regret. I still didn't like "Licensed to Ill" (not a fan of stock 808 sounds and jokey covers although Paul Revere was cool due to the reversed sounds, and Eminem still sucks).
This one was better overall (the QTip feature, Sure Shot, and Sabotage were especially cool) but I feel they overall missed one of the core points of jazz music: exploration of a set of ideas. Most jazz songs have a "head" (the melody), and go through solos over the chords of the head creating a sort of Theme and Variations for each player to contribute their ideas. There are too many short ideas for this aspect of jazz music (the main inspiration of Ill Communication) to be successfully achieved.
Johnny Cash
3/5
77/1089 - I don't really understand prison performances. On one hand, the pro of prison performances is treating prisons as a place of rehabilitation and providing some sort of societal connection to make it easier for prisoners returning to society possibly decreasing the chances they become repeat offenders. On the other hand... you're playing for murderers! I'll do my best to put my biases aside and listen only to the music.
After listening to this recording, I found the music to be just okay. It seemed well done for the genre it was and the murderers seemed to have fun, but it was also very samey and predictable.
Carole King
5/5
78/1089 - Great bass player. Cool comping on piano (both acoustic and electric), and a nice amount of variation given the genre constraints.
Black Sabbath
4/5
Smart use of effects to cover up Ozzy Osbourne's pitchy vocals. Some cool songwriting throughout. I also liked the more subdued drum groove on "Hand of Doom." It might grow on me.
The United States Of America
5/5
80/1089 - Kinda reminds me of Stereolab. Cool bass-lines, drum breaks, and chords and I thought the canon thing in the middle was quite unique. For sure has a dated sound with the primitive electronic instruments complimenting the 60s recording. I didn't really understand all the found sounds and calliopes but it didn't get too in the way of the psychedelic experiments.
The Pogues
4/5
81/1089 - Good but samey.
Little Simz
2/5
82/1089 - I'm glad it was short and didn't have any skits.
Pixies
4/5
83/1089 - I liked this one the best so far out of the Pixies albums on the list. Still not a fan of the main singer's voice and some chord changes seemed weird for the sake of being weird (lots of parallel shifts from major to minor that work fine theoretically but sound off-putting in execution) but I think I understand what they're about a bit better (granted this is the most mainstream sounding of their albums). I might re-listen to the other Pixies albums with this in mind at the end of this project.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
2/5
84/1089 - Sounds like your average classical composition major senior recital. I didn't enjoy this.
Gang Starr
5/5
85/1089 - I liked this a lot. I wish there was more micro-variation in the actual beats and that "Say Your Prayers" didn't have a flexatone every 4 bars. These wishes are more my taste than fundamental problems with the music however which is very solid throughout.
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
86/1089 - The drummer in this band stole my Dad's socks at the gym. Anyways on to the review: It's okay. Some good songwriting here and there but some very homogeneous sounds throughout.
The Who
3/5
87/1089 - Eh. Would've benefited from trimming the fat and making the story more concise. Pinball Wizard was cool.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
4/5
88/1089 - I prefer the Ravel orchestration. The Tchaikovsky "Nut Rocker" song kinda reminded me of "Cliffs of Dover" at parts.
Janet Jackson
4/5
89/1089 - Why the interludes? Good music.
Otis Redding
3/5
90/1089 - I like Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin's versions better. Overall it was okay.
The Allman Brothers Band
3/5
91/1089 - This sure is blues rock.
Iggy Pop
4/5
92/1089 - Fuzzy. This might get me used to Bowie's voice (they're similar and work a lot together), interested to listen to more. Wish more songs were like China Girl and had some dynamic/instrumental variation throughout.
David Bowie
3/5
93/1089 - Pretty boring, but I'm used to his voice now which will make listening to 7 more Bowie albums more bearable.
Elis Regina
5/5
94/1089 - Kinda fun to piece together this album (seems to be a mistake/oversight on the bookmaker's part). Jazz fusion is one of my favorite genres for some reason so I really enjoyed listening to this. So much variety in sounds and harmonies while still retaining catchy melodies and a great voice. I'm gonna listen again in the normal order (from the 1972/3? album).
Gorillaz
5/5
95/1089 - A Top 5 album for me. Very creative and catchy instrumentals, lots of different vocals from Damon Albarn and others (even the ones that sound bad/out of tune like "Gravity" fit the context of the song) and a definitive Y2K sound and message.
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
96/1089 - Not horrible but not a fan of the voice.
Duke Ellington
5/5
97/1089 - Amazing soloists. Cool harmonies. Crowd was loving it. A fun live album to listen to.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3/5
98/1001 - Read that they vowed to not do drugs or alcohol... Nice, that's rare in rock music. The music itself dosen't "ramble" like they mention in their interviews but also doesn't go anywhere either. Voice was a little annoying at first but I got used to it.
Skunk Anansie
2/5
99/1089 - "Rid of Me" with distortion and slurs.
Stan Getz
3/5
100/1089 - The Bossa compositions are good but I'm not a fan of the players. Both singers are super dry and lifeless to my ears. I never liked Stan Getz's "subtone-only" sax sound and playstyle either. That being said, I get why it's on the list and I enjoy playing these songs on piano every once in a while.
The Kinks
3/5
101/1089 - Went in one ear and out the other.
Beatles
5/5
102/1089 - Ah, the last one before MI5 installed the new Paul McCartney. One of the more consistent of the experimental Beatles albums. The first and last songs are really great. Cool sonic textures throughout with reversed guitar solo, string octet, sitar, tabla, french horn, canons, vocals through a leslie speaker, etc.
The Sugarcubes
4/5
103/1089 - My first Björk album so far. Pretty good but very washy textures throughout. Would have appreciated more drier staccatto sounds at points.
Coldplay
4/5
104/1089 - Very similar to Radiohead's "The Bends" but mellower and with a worse-sounding accent. That being said, "The Bends" is one of my favorite albums so I enjoyed this one too.
The Auteurs
2/5
105/1089 - Wait a minute, this isn't new wave... (It's actually boring proto-britpop nonsense).
Public Enemy
2/5
106/1089 - Take out the repeated sax/trumpet/nails-on-chalkboard/tea-kettle sample and all the interludes with absolutely nothing going on and it goes up a star or two. Annoying as fuck to listen to.
R.E.M.
4/5
107/1089 - It was alright. "Laughing" kinda reminded me of The Police so I really enjoyed that song over most of the album.
Madonna
3/5
108/1089 - This sure is 80s music.
The Charlatans
1/5
109/1089 - This Charlatans album sucked and was very derivative so I'll recommend some other albums that are influential/interesting and are not currently on the user list:
Bill Evans Trio - Portrait in Jazz (1960) : Changed the game for jazz combos by allowing every member to contribute as a "leader," instead of just the melodic instruments. (I like "Explorations" better but this one is more historically important)
Mort Garson - Mother Earth's Plantasia (1975) : Early electronic “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” made with an early Moog synthesizer. Chock-full of optimism.
Take 6 - Take 6 (1988) : Debut album of a gospel a'cappella group which had a big influence on modern vocal harmonies.
Stereolab - Dots and Loops (1996) : One of the first albums made with a digital audio workstation. Cool blend of experimental and accessible sounds.
Gorillaz - Demon Days (2005) : Loose concept album with a cool blend of alternative rock, trip-hop, and dance-pop. It also has "Feel Good Inc."
Hiatus Kaiyote - Choose Your Weapon (2015) : Neo-soul group with a very eclectic sound and a strong vocalist.
Tennyson - Rot (2022) : Experimental electronic music by a brother (producer, vocalist) and sister (drums) duo. Amazing production skills and intriguing vocal effects. I've found a lot of the songs translate well to piano as well.
Happy Mondays
3/5
110/1089 - Singer is out of tune and the songs are repetitive dance songs. Surprisingly didn't hate it though, and I understand why it's on the list (kind of a proto-Screamadelica sound).
Iron Maiden
5/5
111/1089 - Multiply the generator number by 6. Liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I think this is because Bruce Dickinson's voice is a lot cleaner than a lot of metal singers (that I've heard). Music is also quite good, tight players.
Can
5/5
112/1089 - Great drummer. Vocals are very quiet and it adds to the "spaciness." Hits the right balance of experimental and familiar to me.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3/5
113/1089 - Well I liked London Calling and the first two Gorillaz albums but I wasn't a fan of this. Kind of all over the place; middle part seemed better than the beginning and end.
Ray Charles
4/5
114/1089 - Competent but samey.
Neil Young
2/5
115/1089 - What an awful voice. At least it was a short album. The more energetic songs barely save this from 1 star.
Billy Bragg
3/5
116/1089 - This wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but his accent is very thick. A problem with a lot of singer-songwriter types is they focus so much on words/story that their actual melodies aren't memorable or musical. While there definitely was some English folk influence (and a rip of "Rudie Can't Fail" on "Help Save the Youth of America") in the melodies, nothing was catchy to my ear.
Terence Trent D'Arby
3/5
117/1089 - Music is decent. Not a huge fan of the voice but it doesn't sound bad. The a'cappella track "As Yet Untitled" was alright. I honestly think I'm burnt out on most 80s pop sounds (except for New Wave, the best genre) because of all the 80s throwback music today in shopping centers.
The Smiths
3/5
118/1089 - All I know about this band is that the lead singer is an annoying vegan. After listening: not bad! Kinda reminds me of the Cranberries lead singer for some reason. I think the melody notes stay on the same pitch too much throughout all the songs, making them directionless at times. Also all of the songs blend into each other (except for the funk one near the end, but that's mainly the bass player adding variety) and don't really stand out.
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
1/5
119/1089 - I don't care how influential this was to synth pop. I'm not rating midi saxophone above 1 star. The other songs on the album were also awful.
In order to not make my 1 star notes too negative, I decided I'm gonna recommend albums I like that aren't on the list (like my Charlatans note).
Toto - Toto (1978) A band of solid session musicians making some cool genre-blending songs (mainly rock, pop, soul, some synth stuff). Some stand out songs are "I'll Supply The Love" "Georgy Porgy" and "Hold the Line" but I like pretty much every song on this album.
Eric Clapton
3/5
120/1089 - The more I listen to Clapton the more convinced I am that people like him because he has a cool name and nothing to do with the boring music. This album is well made and recorded however which evens it out somewhat.
Dolly Parton
3/5
121/1089 - Sounds like she's singing through a fan. Lots of songs seemed to blend into eachother but it wasn't bad.
Ministry
1/5
122/1089 - Production is good but that's about it. The problem with strophic form songs is you need to offset the lack of different sections with strong melodies. This is why folk songs work well and screaming doesn't. At least a minute could be cut off of each song and it gets the point across the same.
And now for a different album to neutralize my negativity:
Brecker Brothers - Out of the Loop (1994): One of the greatest saxophonist players and his cool trumpet brother mess around with tape loops and world music to make some awesome sounds. My favorite on it is "African Skies." Has some nice surreal album art too if you're into that sorta thing.
Kendrick Lamar
2/5
123/1089 - I never got the appeal of Kendrick. My favorite hip-hop is "A Tribe Called Quest" and East Coast rap. I mainly like the jazzy beats and swung vocal delivery. With that out of the way, I'm willing to give this album another shot.
After listening, I dislike the skits and don't understand why hip-hop artists put them in (De La Soul being an exception because they at least add music to it). Kendrick doesn't look like OJ, that's as delusional as Soulja Boy's "bitch I look like Gohan" lyric. Some songs seem fine but he ruins it with his best Squidward impression on the choruses. Overall I didn't like it but I'm glad I listened to this.
Khaled
3/5
124/1089 - Neat! I'm completely unfamiliar with this, excited to listen.
After listening, it's pretty westernized (drum beats mostly except for one of the last songs) and kinda doesn't go anywhere. Good voice though.
Norah Jones
2/5
125/1089 - Sade but more boring than relaxing.
Mike Ladd
3/5
126/1089 - Eh. It's experimental hip-hop for sure. I don't care for the kid/chipmunk voices. Got better in the middle. Would trade this for a DOOM album.
Pink Floyd
4/5
127/1089 - Good start of the album. Pow R. Toc H. is cool bird imitations followed by the most dull piano solo. Overall pretty good but the guitarist is kinda sloppy.
Björk
5/5
128/1089 - Cool! Still in chronological order for Björk. Let's see how long that lasts. Strange in a good way. I like that the pitches of the percussive instruments come first with the harmonies built around them. Lots of different genres represented with a focus on more "out-there" harmonies like add 2s or diminished chords.
Slipknot
1/5
129/1089 - The switch between screaming and singing is irritating. Drumming is flashy, obviously takes a lot of effort to be good enough to sound like that but I'm not sure I enjoy how it sounds. At least they were relatively nice to Nardwuar. No good reason for this to be on the list as other nu-metal albums are more influential, so -1 star for that too.
On the bright side, my reviews 125-129 is a straight!
Non-list recommendation: I am using one of my free four album recommendations from the Charlatans notes - (Demon Days - Gorillaz).
MGMT
3/5
130/1089 - Well it sounds like pop music. I read that this album was made "ironically" which I call total bullshit on. You can't do things "ironically," that's just a smokescreen for doing what you want to do without others judging you. Maybe you can start things out ironically, but putting that much effort into releasing an album definitely takes willpower and some genuine love and respect for what you decide to record. I obviously am putting my own experiences and viewpoints into writing this but I am so sick of irony permeating society and the people I interact with on a day-to-day basis.
Got off track from the review, well made pop music but not really my thing and seems frontloaded.
Led Zeppelin
3/5
131/1089 - I'm going against the grain here but this is honestly one of the weaker Zeppelin albums for me. The songwriting overall is very redundant (slightly related too is Side A is all in the same key of A minor [arguably there are some A major ones I guess but it's still all A]), and I'm not a fan of the constant starting and stopping on Black Dog. Stairway to Heaven is good but definitely overplayed and the start and end of When the Levee Breaks was pretty cool.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
132/1089 - Woah! What are the odds of getting two albums by the same artist back to back? I know it gets more likely as you go on with the project so it's pretty cool it happened early on for me!
On to the review, it started strong. Honestly, Immigrant Song, Friends, and Since I've Been Loving You are worth the 5 on their own. The folksier B side was nice overall and a little strange on the last song (but it makes sense with historical context).
Sonic Youth
2/5
133/1089 - Drums should be much louder in the mix. I can see why they were influential and all but this was really boring to listen to. All the songs sound the same and themselves have redundant forms and similar tempos. Dissonance is fine and all but if you repeat it too much, the listener gets used to it and the dissonance starts to become consonant. Having a balance between consonance and dissonance is a key part to having music that actually takes you somewhere (not to mention rhythm, register, form, etc.).
Cyndi Lauper
2/5
134/1089 - 80s pop with sperg-out vocals.
Beck
5/5
135/1089 - One of my favorite albums! The wurlitzer-riff on Where It's At pops in my head all the time. Cool experimental folk/hip-hop music that covers a lot of genres with finesse. In addition to tasteful instrument fills there's the most random crap like yelling through a megaphone, vehicle warning beeps, or a bitcrushed? jaw-harp which really complement the sound. Each song was quite interesting and fun to listen to.
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
136/1089 - I forgot what Come on Eileen sounded like so I'm surprised to see how similar it is to the rest of this album. I expected it to be a bit jarring like Creep on Pablo Honey, but it sounded like it fit right in! A bit of an upgraded version of their debut album (now with strings) but I don't really see why it's on the list.
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
137/1089 - This was surprisingly good. I'd like if more tracks had the style of drums on Being Boring and My October Symphony and less of the reverb gated snare that plagues 80s music (and early 90s it looks like). I'm also not a fan of the casio keyboard orchestra hits that sound like I'm playing Super Mario World on my SNES.
Guided By Voices
3/5
138/1089 - Based on my experiences with lo-fi hip hop and rock, "lo-fi" seems to be a code word for bad. But in this case, the lo-fi production is the most interesting part of the album. Kinda reminded me of some indie tracks on the Newgrounds audio portal. Overall an adequate album.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
139/1089 - Really good! A very original voice in songwriting and arrangement. I liked every song on it and am surprised I haven't heard a lot of these before. I guess it was inbetween the two of Wonder's most critically acclaimed albums so it got pushed down a bit. Honestly this rivals Innervisions for my favorite Stevie Wonder album, gonna have to relisten.
Christina Aguilera
2/5
After listening, it's better than a lot of disney pop (more like disney poop XD loooool) but it's still really overproduced and I don't like how they treated the vocals. Too many overdubs and melismas that sound impressive to normies. The songs are "varied" but in a way which makes them feel inconsistent. I liked some of the Neo Soul stuff but the pop production and drum sounds they're using kinda get in the way. It'd be nicer sounding in my opinion to use drier 70s drum samples. I respect the musicianship but I thought it wasn't very good overall and dislike the effect this album had. Barely getting a 2 star because that jungle part on the last song was sick.
Mekons
1/5
141/1089 - Sounds like Joy Division with violins and electronic drums (so a slight improvement from Stephen "can't keep the beat" Morris).
Non-list recommendation: First Circle - Pat Metheny Group (1984)
Great guitarist and keyboard player playing a very unique type of jazz fusion.
Joy Division
1/5
142/1089 - Damn it. I just shit-talked Joy Division in my previous review. At least I get the worst album on the list (so far) early on in the project. It isn't good when the second song's hook "when will it end" is making me think "when will the album end?" I don't mean to be a snarky Christgau-esque blowhard so I should explain what I find fundamentally wrong with the music, and I just need to use "Disorder": the first drumbeat was off-time (and many more), then the sloppy guitars came in with stupid wooshes caked in reverb and finally Curtis's monotonous yet somehow pitchy vocals slurring about.
Even if the instrumentalists were good at keeping time and making intriguing parts, Curtis's voice would drop this to a 0 star. I read some positive reviews which talk about the dark and gloomy atmosphere, and I should add I don't mind that Unknown Pleasures is dark and gloomy, I mind that it's shitty.
The album art is cool I guess but it kind of proves the "don't judge a book by a cover" idiom.
Mariah Carey
3/5
143/1089 - It certainly sounds like pop music. Nothing remarkable or horrible about it. Apparently it's the first album to steer Pop in a more Hip-Hop direction so I can see why it's influential.
Beatles
5/5
144/1089 - So much variety with a faint underlying eerieness connecting everything together. I think of the stupider songs as pallete cleansers (Wild Honey Pie into While My Guitar Gently Weeps) but I honestly enjoy them too.
The Beach Boys
4/5
145/1089 - RIP. This album is kind of a proto-Pet Sounds. There's something missing from this and I'm not sure what exactly. The interview at the end was unnecessary. Overall a good album.
The Clash
5/5
146/1089 - I wasn't originally a fan of the voices but they work really well with everything and the melodies are very catchy. Very good playing from all members and cool stylistic differences between all of the songs.
Hole
2/5
147/1089 - Sounds like alternative rock with a hit or miss vocalist. Why is this on the list? Maybe lyrically it has something going on but that's not music, that's literature. Musically it's nothing special at all.
Charles Mingus
4/5
148/1089 - I like Mingus's songs better. For example: Nostalgia in Times Square, Moanin, Fables of Faubus, etc. Overall, Mingus is definitely an important jazz composer, and had a quite different mind for arrangement than many of his contemporaries, but this album isn't the best showcase of that. The compositions themselves are good but the backgrounds and comping are very repetitive and the players sound like they just discovered the octatonic scale and want to show off all they're cool altered chords to each other. The "Ah Um" album is an easy 5 star.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
5/5
149/1089 - Great voice and laid-back sounds. The bass is loud and there are some aliasing problems sometimes but it's also an early 70s recording so I can accept some production artifacts here and there. The only mistake I can hear is on "High Tide or Low Tide" where the clavinet and organ aren't agreeing on the C# minor chord (organist is probably wrong since the vocals are in C# minor). It's a bit annoying but I think every 5 star record is allowed to have a dud track. I just realized I'm probably one of the few people who both like reggae and hate weed.
The Soft Boys
4/5
150/1089 - The melodies are repetitive and the voices are a bit on the grating side but other than that this was a good listen.
The Stooges
3/5
151/1089 - Barely any substance to the songs at all. Very redundant. I do like Iggy Pop's voice though.
Peter Gabriel
5/5
152/1089 - I liked this a lot. First track sounds like a cartoon villain is selling drugs to kids. It's interesting that there are no cymbals at all and it hits the threshold I like of experimental and accessible. I don't think he knew how much the gated reverb snare would damage the 80s but it was used very tastefully here.
Steely Dan
5/5
153/1089 - Excellent debut for an excellent band. I think Imagine has a stupid message too. Not as big of a fan as the tracks where Fagen isn't the lead vocalist and I'm glad they got Michael McDonald later on in the band.
Franz Ferdinand
3/5
154/1089 - It's alright at times. Too many songs with one-line hooks repeated too often.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
155/1089 - Name a better combo than music hipsters and gay loads of cum!
I liked the New Wave parts and disliked the Synth Pop parts.
The Clash
4/5
156/1089 - Solid debut. A bit simple and generic at times but some of the hits are very creative and show what the future has in store.
Wilco
1/5
157/1089 - It's almost listenable but his voice sucks too much. Flat and monotonous. The instrumentals also aren't nearly as interesting as on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. Very forgettable. Thankfully there's only one more album with them and it's with that country guy with the strong accent so it might sound a bit different.
Non-list recommendation: Jamiroquai - Traveling Without Moving (1996) The last of the initial acid jazz/nu-disco sound of Jamiroquai (Toby Smith and Stuart Zender are largely integral to this) with great hits like "Virtual Insanity" and "Cosmic Girl."
The Saints
4/5
158/1089 - Solid. Arrangements are the best part. Like the recent Beach Boys album nothing stands out in a way that would make this a 5 star imo. Needs more solid and varied song structure.
Astor Piazzolla
4/5
159/1089 - I now understand people's complaints when they say this book is too "eurocentric." The "world music" picks I've gotten so far are very safe and westernized and don't really show a lot of what the different cultures music is about. If the list-makers are going this western with the world music, they might as well cut the middleman and just feature Peter Gabriel and Sting albums (actually they should feature those in general because they're phenomenal musicians!)
Anyways, it was alright, very strong classical music influence. Nice to see Gary Burton on the list.
The xx
2/5
160/1089 - I like how the voices sound production-wise but dislike how they sound quality-wise. The female vocal is better than the male vocal. It's probably not very good when the best thing I can think of to say is that it sounds inoffensive. The song structure was alright in the beginning, and Islands was cool.
Lenny Kravitz
3/5
161/1089 - Kinda like Parliament and the Beatles fused together. He also did most of the rhythm instruments himself which is impressive and cool! However, the production is hit or miss and too many songs are the same tempo. There's also something weak about it that I'm really unsure how to describe. I felt it previously on the Beach Boys Today album and the Saints album. I need to listen to more music and more deeply so I can articulate myself better. Overall it's adequate.
Dirty Projectors
5/5
162/1089 - This really doesn't sound like the album cover. In fact, it really takes don't judge a book by it's cover to another level. I thought I'd dislike this based on the description (odd-time signatures, strings, indie, math-rock, etc.) but it was really well executed and the string sections were CHAMBER strings and not ORCHESTRAL which was nice. Gives it a more intimate feel and allows for more striking counterpoint. One issue I noticed is many of the songs are in G major right in a row but it's just a minor complaint. Overall, I feel like I learned something today.
P.S. Does the above sincerity read too millennial? I'm a zillennial so I should probably balance it out with some zoomer-speak: Jacob Collier if he was good at music 😎"
Nah but seriously I enjoyed this.
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
163/1089 - It's nice to see folk musicians who can write actual melodies. As an album there are too many ideas going on with the concept Side A and unused material on Side B. I wonder if they could've fit Side B within the concept album and had it make sense.
Sigur Rós
5/5
164/1089 - The excellent song forms are what sell this album for me. The sounds are very unique and beautiful and atmospheric and all that for sure but the sounds are arranged in a very functional and structural way that grounds it and elevates it. Cool sounds with purpose.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
4/5
165/1089 - I admit I am biased with this album. I was sick when I first listened to this and a couple seconds in I started laughing and it put me in a good mood for the rest of the album. The music sucks (to listen to, they're playing everything competently!) but it sucks in a very intriguing way, more than any contemporary classical piece from Boulez on could do. It helps that there are hints of accessibility here and there for example the last track having a nice jazzy vamp. I sincerely enjoyed my first experience listening to this album.
5/5
166/1089 - There are only three good songs on this one ;)
I don't usually like a lot of prog rock because it usually sounds like almost-classical music and kinda misses the mark for me. This Yes album is clearly more jazz influenced and the solos and riffs are really cool.
Supertramp
4/5
167/1089 - Bloody Well Right was cool. Some parts kinda feel almost like Boston or Chicago which I'm not a huge fan of, the bands not the cities. I enjoyed my visits in Boston and Chicago. Overall, this was above average. I'll listen to "Breakfast in America" sometime in the future.
I listened to "Breakfast in America" too. Damn, 1979 was a great year for music. The Police, The Clash, Toto, Michael Jackson, Music for Airports, etc. I wish this one was on the list too, I'd give it 5 stars.
The Offspring
4/5
168/1089 - Come Out and Play is far better than all of the other songs on this. Everything else is pretty good too.
Ryan Adams
3/5
169/1089 - This is most certainly alternative country music.
I'm getting sick of this bit I'm doing with the 3 star albums, but I really don't have anything to say. Before I give any of these albums a listen, I like to imagine what they sound like. If it sounds like what I imagined, I'll probably give it a neutral rating. I might change my rating style in the future.
There are definitely some albums I rated previously that I changed my mind on. Since I Left You is a 5 (not a 4) and Beyoncé is a 2 (not a 3) in my opinion.
This one will probably be a high 3 and stay that way.
Joni Mitchell
3/5
170/1089 - Above average playing for sure. Not a fan of her voice and sensed a lot of missed opportunities in the music (staccato thing at the end of My Old Man could've been done throughout the track to break up the Paul McCartney piano textures). There are cool chords here and there but no melody stood out to me which is arguably the most important part of folk music. Then again, maybe that's the point because it's supposed to be her most personal album. No melody stood out in a way other people could sing it because the melodies are optimized for her voice. Overall, I find it to be just okay.
The Lemonheads
3/5
171/1089 - Sounds like Alternative Rock. Competent but that's about it.
Digital Underground
4/5
172/1089 - Pretty standard Hip Hop to my knowledge, but it's nice to see some funky West Coast stuff without grating sounds. For whatever reason, I'm not a fan of moaning in music (this one, Ready to Die, Appetite for Destruction, etc.).
Marvin Gaye
2/5
173/1089 - This album is good evidence that struggling with life doesn't necessarily equate to making good quality art. It's like in Calvin and Hobbes where the author's house got broken into which sucks but the comic became unreadable! What's important to making good quality art is two things: practice and doing what's required. Onto the music:
Great singing voice but not utilized as well as it could've been here. Milquetoast soul arrangements too.
That being said, I'm really looking forward to his other albums on this list.
Funkadelic
4/5
174/1089 - I don't get the point of the flexatone and whistles, and animal noises in the background and that sandwich fear song went on for too long without changing, but the music is really good. I still think that Maggot Brain solo is a waste of time.
John Martyn
3/5
175/1089 - If this were an instrumental album only I'd give it 4 or 5 stars.
Public Image Ltd.
4/5
176/1089 - Damn, this has nearly everything I hate in music but it's done really well. It's amazing what you can get away with as long as you have a good rhythm section.
Alanis Morissette
2/5
177/1089 - This is extremely boring. She sounds like a female version of the Pixies singer which makes this worse. At least she's in tune, unlike the Pixies singer.
TLC
3/5
178/1089 - This definitely sounds like RnB (the diarrhea-shit-poop-fart-interlude caught me off guard, gross but kinda funny).
I rate these sort of albums neutrally but I think I find a lot more interest/things to talk about in the albums I strongly dislike and like.
Here's my current rating scale:
5 - :D
4 - :)
3 - :/
2 - :(
1 - >:C
Portishead
5/5
179/1089 - What a cool album! Hip-hop and film noire make a pretty good combo. Amazing vocals and mysterious sounds through the repetitive ambiguous harmonies (while varying the instrumentation). One of my favorite albums for sure.
While not on this list, Portishead self-titled and Massive Attack's Mezzanine are also great listens.
Sly & The Family Stone
2/5
180/1089 - This was kinda really bad. Lots of filler. I'd give it 1 star if it wasn't important to the development of progressive soul music but I decided to respect the history and can see why it was different given historical context.
R.E.M.
3/5
181/1089 - After listening to a few of their albums, I think R.E.M. is an above average band. Nothing stood out to me very much but I'm willing to relisten at some point in the future.
Adele
1/5
182/1089 - Damn, I really hate her voice. Sounds like a woman version of Eddie Vedder. Not as bad as Kendrick Lamar or Ian Curtis I guess but that's not exactly a high bar. The instrumental is boring and lifeless relying too much on long pads with no real rhythmic variation or humanization of the sampled percussion. I think it sounds good in DAW music to slightly vary the velocities of the drums in a lot of music (not to mention the beat). If you don't do that then it sounds like I'm listening to some baby Nintendo MIDI or youtuber FL-studio-slop.
Non-list rec. Mockroot - Tigran Hamasyan (2015) Really cool modern jazz pianist with a very unique rhythmic language.
Fever Ray
2/5
183/1089 - Whenever you're recording vocals, make sure to drink water before recording and don't eat any dairy in your previous meal. I did like it slightly more when the background music turned into Donkey Kong Country.
Santana
5/5
184/1089 - It's really cool how versatile rock is as a genre, this album being a good example of the fusion of latin jazz and rock. Definitely gonna listen again.
fIREHOSE
4/5
185/1089 - Don't know what this is but I kinda liked it. Seems underdeveloped at times.
Black Sabbath
3/5
186/1089 - This is slightly adventurous metal music but not as adventurous as the first Black Sabbath album in my opinion. I always thought Ozzy Osborne was a musician with pure charisma and no other redeemable traits. He didn't write the lyrics, he didn't play an instrument, and he never learned how to sing in tune. That being said, he was still important to the development of this genre and had a larger-than-life persona and a great quote we can live by:
"Being sober on a bus is, like, totally different than being drunk on a bus."
Also Changes was extremely awful.
Completely unrelated to the above review but I wish "Combat Rock" by The Clash was on this list. I'd give that a 5 for sure.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
187/1089 - It's alright! I liked the songs with guitars better than the songs with electronics, especially Dull Life.
Lauryn Hill
3/5
188/1089 - Eh... The live instruments were cool. The skits are very "on the nose," and I never liked skits in albums anyways.
Django Django
3/5
189/1089 - It's alright.
Miles Davis
3/5
190/1089 - Freddie Freeloader and So What shouldn't be next to each other track-wise. The melodic contour of the songs are too similar.
Kinda boring and "atmospheric" to be honest, probably why it's the best selling jazz album and on this list. All Blues and Bill Evans are the best part of this album.
Generally I'm a jazz fan but I really don't like a lot of the picks on this list for various reasons.
Peter Gabriel
5/5
191/1089 - The Stewart Copeland hi-hats alone in the intro of Red Rain gets 4 stars from me automatically. Bass playing, production, and songwriting are all killer. Hard for me to pick if this, melt, or car is my favorite Peter Gabriel album.
Elvis Costello
3/5
192/1089 - Cool instruments, bad voice. Switched between this is pretty good and this is total shit a lot.
Frank Zappa
5/5
193/1089 - Weird Jazz Rock. Very fun listen.
Jeru The Damaja
5/5
194/1089 - Really solid East Coast hip-hop. Like the strange free-jazz samples and clever wordplay. Great rhythms throughout.
Count Basie & His Orchestra
3/5
195/1089 - This was big band music for sure. I like jazz in general so I'm somewhere between 3 and 4.
Julian Cope
2/5
196/1089 - "It is generally seen as the beginning of Cope's trademark sound." Sounds like generic furniture advertisement music most of the time. Competent but nothing is exciting to me. Between a 2 and a 3 on this one. I liked the sax solo in "You..."
David Bowie
4/5
197/1089 - Kind of like a happier and more electronic version of The Idiot. It seemed somewhat unfinished to me. I would have liked if the songs on Side A were longer. It also seemed more like a half-Bowie half-Eno album. Pretty alright and I may warm up to it over time.
Rush
5/5
198/1089 - Geddy's voice is at a lower pitch than in 2112. Fantastic musicianship from the trio and cool OB-X effects and layers. YYZ is a really fantastic song and this album reminds me that there's cool music in every genre. Even though I may not like prog rock and metal very much, I do like this album a lot which has elements of both genres.
Basement Jaxx
3/5
199/1089 - It's alright house music with a lot of variations. I don't like listening to moaning and I liked the less obnoxious dubby stuff.
Primal Scream
4/5
200/1089 - Cool sounds. The second half of the album wasn't as strong as the first half (more same-y). Mellow dance music is kind of an oxymoron but it was neat to listen to.
Pere Ubu
3/5
201/1089 - This sounds like art punk.
Dusty Springfield
4/5
202/1089 - Great voice and cool arrangements. Dunno why it's here. I thought the Memphis album was stronger and covers very similar ground to this debut. Not on this album but I like the Sting song she did.
The Byrds
3/5
203/1089 - Eight Miles High was really good. The rest was competent but pretty dry.
Aerosmith
3/5
204/1089 - Went in one ear and out the other. Sounded like music.
Radiohead
5/5
205/1089 - A great example of an album where every song is unique and interesting but still sounds like the band. Cool concept as well on the importance and dangers of the reliance on technology. Great melding of rock instrumentation with new (at the time) digital effects.
Fugees
4/5
206/1089 - Normally I don't like skits but one of them reminded me of Xavier Renegade Angel and I found it funny. Interesting instrumentals and the singing was pretty alright.
The Damned
3/5
207/1089 - Going into this, I only know their cover of "Alone Again Or" which I really like. After listening, it's ok. Some good ideas and some very repetitive bad ones. I prefer their more gothic rock sound later on.
Taylor Swift
1/5
208/1089 - I know she's very popular but I can't think of a single song I've heard from Taylor Swift other than the "shake shake shake" one which was shit, hopefully the rest of it isn't like that. After listening: Huh? This is just corny, bland, 80s music with modern production techniques. At least she's a good singer I think. Can't tell with all of the modern effects making things abnormally clean. Didn't enjoy this one at all.
Non-list recommendation: I am using one of my free three album recommendations from the Charlatans notes - (Choose Your Weapon - Hiatus Kaiyote).
Led Zeppelin
5/5
209/1089 - Neat! I'm still in descending order for the numbered Zeppelin albums. I like this one a lot. Ramble On, Whole Lotta Love, and Moby Dick are awesome. The rest of the tracks are quality blues rock. Excellent musicianship.
Tom Waits
2/5
210/1089 - What a giant waste of time. Generic jazz with some rambling personificafion of an HVAC unit. Some of it is kinda okay I guess and the concept is somewhat interesting but that's about it.
Fatboy Slim
3/5
211/1089 - Eh, it's music. I liked Praise You.
Linkin Park
5/5
212/1089 - Shout out to that one /mu/ anon who listened to In the End 64,000 times.
Traffic
4/5
213/1089 - I'm feelin' alright about this one!
Sparks
4/5
214/1089 - Very Geddy Lee-esque vocals. Kinda cool. I liked the different song types and ideas throughout but the stagnant vocals wore me down.
I've noticed I've been less descriptive in my reviews over the last few weeks. Idk if it's laziness or shifting priorities or a change in how I view things or all of the above. We'll see what happens in the future.
808 State
5/5
215/1089 - Strange and cool. I wonder if anyone at Sega or Namco listened to this, some tracks would work in Super Monkey Ball or Ridge Racer.
Johnny Cash
1/5
216/1089 - For all the moral grandstanding on this website about musicians like Kanye or Morrissey saying mean words or even the more understandable complaints on the criminals on this list, I'm surprised Johnny Cash doesn't get any flack for entertaining criminals. I try to not be biased when reviewing things and think separating art from the artist is a reasonable value but I admit it is challenging sometimes. I'll try and do my best for this one.
There's barely any music. Very rudimentary stuff playing the same looping progressions so he can say a story. I get that strophic form exists but the way to have a convincing song that utilizes strophic form is to spice up the instrumentation or dynamics, maybe play with the rhythm a bit if you're a vocalist. If you just have the same crap over and over in the background what's the point of having it in the first place? As for the vocals, Johnny Cash has a voice that really takes the life out of the room. Dry and lifeless, at least the instrumentals were somewhat pleasant.
I guess I'm glad I encountered music that doesn't align with my personal values so I could see a different point of view but I'd be more convinced if the music was actually musical.
Non-list rec: Alone - Bill Evans (1970) amazing solo piano record. One of my top 10 favorite albums.
Public Enemy
4/5
217/1089 - Way better than the first PE album I got, the beats aren't as annoying. Still a bit repetitive. I appreciated that a majority of the skits were tv footage/radio call-ins but I'd still prefer no skits.
The Pogues
4/5
218/1089 - Same as my first review. They definitely know their sound.
Beastie Boys
5/5
219/1089 - The Dust Brothers have a really cool sound. Both this and Odelay have great beats. Wasn't sold on the Beastie Boys raps until the line "I've been making beats since you've been sucking on your mother's dick," which made me smile.
I also re-listened to Ill Communication and think it's a 5 now and not a 3. If I think of it as a hip-hop album (which it is) and not a jazz album, my criticism goes out the window. Sure Shot, Root Down, Sabotage, Get it Together and the Scoop are too good for just a 3.
As of today, these are the albums with ratings I changed my mind on:
The Avalanches - Since I Left You (4 -> 5)
Beyoncé - BEYONCÉ (3 -> 2)
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will the Circle Be Unbroken (3 -> 4)
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication - (3 -> 5)
Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison (3 -> 2)
Iggy Pop - The Idiot (4->5)
Radiohead
5/5
220/1089 - I enjoyed it when I first listened to it, and my enjoyment has grown on every re-listen. Definitely one of my favorite albums. Very interesting song structures and counterpoint, the latter of which seems rare in guitar-based music.
The Only Ones
3/5
221/1089 - Strange voice, competent music, nothing too memorable. Voice, sounds like George Harrison on a bad day or a British version of The Strokes.
Elton John
5/5
222/1089 - I was surprised and impressed by the amount of texture variety in this double album. I guess I shouldn't be, piano is a very versatile instrument and Elton John knows what he's doing as a pianist and singer. I liked the synth and organ playing too.
David Bowie
3/5
223/1089 - Slightly better than Heroes
Dion
3/5
224/1089 - This is for sure baroque pop.
Patti Smith
4/5
225/1089 - I really like the way the songs evolve over time, and how they stick to only 2 or 3 chords at most. Goes to show you that chords and harmony is just one part of the equation of what makes a good song. Her voice is very strange though.
Marvin Gaye
4/5
226/1089 - Very lush and rich, a bit too much sometimes with the strings and choir. Singing is impeccable and the backing band is great, especially the bass player.
George Harrison
5/5
227/1089 - George sure likes diminished chords. Cool folk rock sound. First half is stronger than the middle. I liked the instrumentals at the end. Really between a 4 and a 5 on this one.
Björk
5/5
228/1089 - This takes the golden rule of composing: "keep things the same, change some other things" to another level. The timbres are very experimental, consisting of a'capella with various effects but the rhythms are grounded in electronic music and the pitch content is largely tonal. Essentially, certain musical parameters are intensely messed with while others are kept simple giving the album a pleasing balance.
The Yardbirds
5/5
229/1089 - Starts out with "the lick" on Happenings Ten Years Time Ago. Using "the lick" isn't a good or bad thing, it's just the first thing I noticed. Cool psych and blues rock sound with a fair amount of variation throughout while sticking to pop-oriented song structures. I definitely want to listen to more Jeff Beck after this.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
4/5
230/1089 - I don't really get why Folk music is called Folk music. From my perspective as a Classical musician who's learning about "normal-people-human-music" (and having a lot of fun with this list!), I thought folk music was music passed down through traditions and cultures, usually vocal with accesably singable melodies like Greensleeves or Clementine. I learned later that what I'm thinking of is "traditional folk/classical folk," which is different from modern folk music but also doesn't seem to have any set in stone characteristics. Idk, genres are kinda weird to me as a concept.
Anyways, this album had a pretty good sound but could benefit from variation. Lots of three part harmonies but not a lot of counter melodies or solos to change things up. Missed opportunities.
Shivkumar Sharma
3/5
231/1089 - Let's spice up this 20 minutes of C# with 15 minutes of Db!
Roni Size
3/5
232/1089 - This definitely sounds like drum and bass music.
Jack White
3/5
233/1089 - The music is fine but goddamn does he have a voice for print.
Dead Kennedys
3/5
234/1089 - So this is where the Pokémon battle themes come from.
Tori Amos
4/5
235/1089 - It's a bit too low energy throughout for my taste and I'm not a fan of her vocal fry but she's a fantastic piano player and a good songwriter too.
Ella Fitzgerald
5/5
236/1089 - This kinda came at the perfect time for me. A nice refreshing break of 3 hours of semi-Classical music I'm familiar with (not all in one session, I'm not that much of a degen!). The arrangements can get a bit similar but there's always enough variation per disc and Ella Fitzgerald has one of the clearest voices in jazz.
Yes
5/5
237/1089 - When starting this project, I thought I didn't like prog or metal or West-Coast Hip Hop, etc. but I now realize that none of that stuff about genres or styles matters. I like good music and I don't like bad music.
Kings of Leon
3/5
This is the second best American rock band with three brothers and a cousin that I've heard! The first is The Beach Boys.
Fela Kuti
4/5
239/1089 - Can definitely see the influence this had on some of the 80s music like Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel. I like the horn playing. A bit too repetitive at times for me but I also think things change enough to feel good, more-so than Remain in Light for sure. It's also people like Fela Kuti and Dmitri Shostakovich who are inspiring to me. They chose to keep making music when under horrible authoritarian regimes that wanted them and their loved ones dead. That takes strength.
Joni Mitchell
5/5
240/1089 - I really like the jazzy influence and smeary guitar effects on this one. Very sparse but effective use of lydian harmony. Lydian harmony has a tendency to be very "stock" in my opinion. Most people stick it on at the end to sound hopeful or do lydian for the entire song because it sounds "bright", but here it's just a short part of a phrase then it goes somewhere else. I like how she used the lydian sound here. Some parts remind me of Steely Dan sometimes and I'm guessing parts of The Royal Scam and Aja were influenced by this. Gonna listen to this again for sure.
Leonard Cohen
2/5
241/1089 - Bland vocals and redundant instrumentals.
Cheap Trick
3/5
242/1089 - Very rudimentary and formulaic. A good showcase that there's a difference between simple and basic. This is either the worst 3 or the best 2.
Adam & The Ants
4/5
243/1089 - This is a pretty average New Wave album but I like New Wave a lot. Fun listen.
Arctic Monkeys
5/5
244/1089 - This does not sound like the album cover at all. Probably the best out of all the indie rock/garage rock revival bands from the 2000s, I like the post-punk sound because of how distinct and angular it sounds. Post-punk/New Wave reminds me of classical counterpoint in a way which is one of my favorite things about music.
Dr. Octagon
2/5
245/1089 - What if Deltron 3030 but porn noises and crappy. I noticed a Bartok sample which was kinda cool in Blue Flowers.
Iggy Pop
5/5
246/1089 - Love the energy. Great voice.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
247/1089 - A little less annoying than the Gold Rush one.
G. Love & Special Sauce
3/5
248/1089 - This is stupid and it sucks. I kinda like it.
It loosely reminds me of Sublime and I'd much rather listen to Sublime.
I'm rating this a 3 but it's really a 2 and 4 at the same time.
Stevie Wonder
5/5
249/1089 - A few days after Innervisions came out, Stevie Wonder unfortunately got in a bad car accident and was in a coma for 10 days. I wonder if when he woke up he pulled a prank on the doctors and went "AAAH I CAN'T SEE!" If I was blind and in this situation, I'd totally do that. Also this is Stevie Wonder's best album.
Al Green
4/5
250/1089 - Organist and guitarist aren't agreeing on the A- (or major) chord on What is This Feeling. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart sounds like it switches between different backing tracks mid song a few times. Pretty abysmal recording quality but interesting voice and competent songwriting.
Talking Heads
5/5
251/1089 - David Byrne's phrasing really makes this record. Probably my favorite Talking Heads one of the one's I've listened to since it's the least repetitive.
Cream
4/5
252/1089 - In general, I find psychedelic music is pretty cool but I can't imagine myself listening to it that often. My taste currently leans more towards New Wave, Jazz Fusion, Soft Rock, and Trip Hop. This makes it tricky for me to review these types of albums. This seems like a pretty standard psychedelic album to me so it's a 3 or a 4. I liked the songs that descended I guess.
Megadeth
4/5
253/1089 - Not a metal fan but my read is that they are significantly better than Metallica but not as good as Iron Maiden. I liked every other song which was interesting.
Violent Femmes
5/5
254/1089 - Cool sound; weird (in-a-good-way) voice; great bass player.
On a different note, I dislike most reviews on this website but people really need to learn the difference between unrequited love and being an incel.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5/5
255/1089 - I was initially apprehensive about listening to this. Nick Cave has many albums on this list, which is usually a red flag for me since my taste doesn't heavily align with Dimery. It also is a double album so I'd be commiting to the sound for a while. So I listened, and it was pretty good!
The songs are simple and somewhat repetitive but have slightly atypical instrumentation and do enough interesting things with texture and Nick Cave's voice to keep the songs fresh.
Overall, a pleasent surprise.
Now I hope I get all of the Neil Young or Elvis Costello albums in a row so I never have to listen to them again.
Elliott Smith
5/5
256/1089 - When I first listened to this I didn't expect to like it since I'm not huge on folk or indie but I ended up really enjoying Either / Or a lot and it eventually became one of my favorite albums! Wispy voice that worked very well with the creative guitars and drums. Extremely strong melodies throughout, just a great album. I like XO and Figure 8 a lot too.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
257/1089 - Liked this more than I thought I would. I still think the "world music" picks are too westernized on this list. Nothing against this album it's a collaboration between a blues guitarist and a Malian folk guitarist; I knew what I was getting in to.
Onto the music: I like mid-bar variation and consider it a must have to make interesting music which only a couple songs on this album utilized.
Elliott Smith
5/5
258/1089 - I had Elliot Smith two days ago! Was kinda hoping it'd be a bit more spread out but it is what it is. On to the review!
Really like his style. I like that the strings are only used when necessary or in large sections (though I'd prefer it'd be Chamber Strings so more unique counterpoint textures can happen like in his piano pieces). Honestly this might be a Top 10 album for me, definitely top 25.
Primal Scream
3/5
259/1089 - A bit annoying at times but mostly samey. Neither bad nor good.
Stephen Stills
3/5
260/1089 - Sorta like Prince (I know Stills is earlier) in where I respect that he plays all the instruments himself but I don't really like the music too much. Cherokee was a really cool song though and I thought it was overall a mildly good album.
Black Sabbath
5/5
261/1089 - Get a different vocalist and it's one of the best metal albums ever made. Then again, the amount of sick instrumental parts in this make me want to give it 5 stars anyways, eh why not?
Manic Street Preachers
3/5
262/1089 - Reading a bit about this before listening, I was expecting a real downer, but it just sounds like The Dead Kennedy's with news interludes in-between.
I think I overall don't resonate as heavily as others do with the "tortured and depressed rock artist" archetype because of my classical music background. If I want to feel really depressed, I'll put on some Shostakovich. He feared for his life constantly under the rule of Stalin, one of the worst dictators ever, and once Stalin died and Shostakovich could enjoy slightly more freedom, he had to deal with ALS and died of the complications. You can hear the ALS in his later works too! It became too hard for him to physically write music at some points so the music became very sparse and bleak. Genuinely hard for me to listen to sometimes knowing the historical context. I don't know why I'm writing all of this, go listen to Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet and 1st Violin Concerto, they're great.
Queen Latifah
3/5
263/1089 - Competent but samey.
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
264/1089 - Some songs are really cool and varied and others like Pusherman and Superfly are the same thing over and over again. Overall good but not great.
Willie Nelson
4/5
265/1089 - Alright music and singing but a weird pick to me. It's all standards from the Great American Songbook so it's probably aimed at an older audience/audience familiar with jazz. I thought it was competently made but I probably am never gonna listen to it again. Then again, I feel that way with most of the 4 star albums I rate.
Todd Rundgren
5/5
266/1089 - What the hell did I just listen to?!
Joni Mitchell
5/5
267/1089 - Cool to hear the crossover of jazz fusion with folk. I like this a bit more than Court and Spark.
I wish some more Jaco was on the list like his self-titled album or Bright Size Life by Pat Metheny. Such a great bass player.
By the way, I have a bone to pick with you other reviewers on this site for this album particularly! That's not a mouthwatering delicious juicy cock on the album cover, that's her wrist! She's got a bracelet on and everything.
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
268/1089 - Got a bit sick of the drum sounds after awhile but it was a very fun listen overall.
N.W.A.
3/5
269/1089 - Not a boy band fan but this gave me an excuse to listen to "Stakes is High" by De La Soul again.
Sonic Youth
2/5
270/1089 - Given the sad news I thought I was gonna get Brown Sugar which is definitely a 5 star album but it's nice to get more Sonic youth so I can get these albums out of the way and never listen to them again. At least the drummer is competent.
Willie Nelson
3/5
271/1089 - Sounds like country music
The Cure
4/5
272/1089 - My Mom hates this band and I think they're pretty cool. Wish is my favorite from them. The guitars and synths are cool but I don't like the programmed drums very much. If it was live it'd be a 5.
MC Solaar
3/5
273/1089 - Some cool jazz rap. Wasn't a big fan of his voice and I lost interest with the reggae stuff towards the end.
Merle Haggard
3/5
274/1089 - Slightly more interesting than the Willie Nelson album I had a few days ago.
I tried giving country more of a chance (before the project I was mostly unfamiliar with it and didn't care for the accents) but Country in general is way too repetitive for me. Some bluegrass is kinda cool like Bela Fleck or the Punch Brothers.
Jeff Buckley
5/5
275/1089 - I only knew the great "Hallelujah" cover before going into this but after listening this shot up to one of my top 20 albums. Really good musicianship and really varied voice and instrumentation throughout. Songwriting is right at my preferred level of complexity (approachable yet abnormal). Such an unfortunate ending, always be careful and know your surroundings especially in water.
Elvis Presley
3/5
276/1089 - It was fine.
Mudhoney
1/5
277/1089 - This is like Sonic Youth without any of the redeeming qualities.
Blondie
3/5
278/1089 - The playing and singing is well done but I didn't like the songs (except for 11:59). It's kinda like the opposite of the Blue Album by Weezer (great songs but bad performances).
Solomon Burke
3/5
279/1089 - Samey but great voice. Definitely a good pick for the historical value of this album too.
Leonard Cohen
3/5
280/1089 - Didn't like or hate this. Not a very musical album.
Aerosmith
3/5
281/1089 - I think it's slightly better than Toys in the Attic but this was really forgettable. Now I'm interested to see how long this streak of 3s will be.
The War On Drugs
3/5
282/1089 - Drums are boring and they need to trim the fat overall in all the songs.
Britney Spears
3/5
283/1089 - This is most definitely teen pop music. Last song was kinda cool, found an earlier version by The All Seeing I.
Ice Cube
3/5
284/1089 - Smart decision to create dissonance between all the layers of the beats for an angry effect. Overall, it was ok.
Solange
4/5
285/1089 - The overall vibe/tone of the album is cool and Solange is a great singer but the songs are a bit too repetitive for my taste. Not sure if this is a high 3 or a low 4. Idk if this is on my end but things seem to be clipping/very fuzzy when they get loud.
Talking Heads
4/5
286/1089 - Fitting to get Psycho Killer on Halloween. It'd be cool to get Thriller next year and the Specials the year after (the odds would be crazy).
The Talking Heads in general are solid but a little repetitive. Definitely the case with this album.
Peter Gabriel
5/5
287/1089 - This was incredible. I'm surprised by how good Solsbury Hill sounds given that it's in an odd time signature (I don't like most music outside of 3/4 and 4/4 for somewhat illogical reasons) and I think it's because the tempo is moderate and the groupings change based on the verse and chorus making it feel fresh. Love the classical music sounding bits throughout the album. I think my ordering of the Peter Gabriel 1001 albums is So>Car>Melt. Excited to check out more Peter Gabriel and Genesis.
Arcade Fire
2/5
288/1089 - Boring, too long and bad voices. Only thing it has going for it is instrument competency.
Deep Purple
2/5
289/1089 - Same song over and over and the song isn't a good one either.
Leftfield
3/5
290/1089 - Cool production. Not really a fan of the songs. Mostly two chord vamps which don't really develop other than changing sounds a lot and adding/subtracting layers every 4 bars.
LTJ Bukem
4/5
291/1089 - Very relaxing. Reminds me of playing Ridge Racer Type 4 and Super Monkey Ball.
Make sure you listen to Logical Progression and not "Level 1" (or do both if you want more DnB)
Joe Ely
3/5
292/1089 - First song was cool but then there was no variation for the rest of the album. I've been thinking about how Country and Hip-Hop have a lot in common recently.
The Doors
2/5
293/1089 - Not a fan of CIA funded circus blues music. Riders on the Storm was cool.
Sonic Youth
1/5
294/1089 - Not looking forward to this one for sure: Kool Thing and Disappear are almost songs. Mote reminded me of Hey Jude by the Beatles because they both have shitty outros that go on for too long.
Overall, it's just incredibly boring and shitty music. Both singers are out of tune, the band isn't in time with each other, and the material is very repetitive and not particularly creative. "What if instead of playing a pentatonic riff I play half-steps with distortion!" and somehow everyone thinks this is edgy and groundbreaking?
I hope I get the remaining Sonic Youth, Neil Young, Pavement, and Joy Division albums out of the way so I don't have to listen to them again.
Van Morrison
3/5
295/1089 - Where was the jazz? (Nvm just got to The Way Young Lovers Do) Not really a fan of his big vowels.
Derek & The Dominos
4/5
296/1089 - I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. Not usually a Clapton fan but there's enough interesting things going on in the song forms and instrumentation throughout. I like Hendrix and Sting's version of Little Wing better than this one.
The Pretty Things
3/5
297/1089 - Went in one ear then out the other. This is probably unfair since I listened to a lot of 60s music (without paying attention to dates) before listening to this album so I'm unsure what influenced what exactly but the album really sounds derivitive and generic.
Suede
1/5
298/1089 - Too lengthy for how uninteresting it is. Reminded me of that Primal Scream album from awhile ago but slap on an orchestra and make everything sound big, empty, and lifeless.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3/5
299/1089 - It's like a fusion of Patti Smith (good) and The Strokes (bad) which makes for some interesting ideas and vocals and uninteresting song forms.
The album started off strong but ended really weak.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
5/5
300/1089 -
*Amazing instrumental starts*
“ooh-she-walla-bing-bang,
shamma-lamma-ding-dong,
put da banana in da apple sauce!”
Thin Lizzy
4/5
301/1089 - This isn't my scene but it was pretty good overall.
3/5
302/1089 - Too repetitive.
The Police
5/5
303/1089 - Probably my favorite first 10 seconds to any album ever. I think this was the album that got me into "normal people" music from listening to pretty much only classical for several years before and I'm very thankful for that. Synchronicity is my second favorite Police album and my fourth favorite album of all time.
So many of Sting's signature songs are on this one along with Stewart Copeland's quirky and fun "Miss Gradenko" and Andy Summer's great and off-kilter song "Mother" (which isn't THAT out there imo... I see it as a 12 bar blues in 7/8 with shouting but still a compelling and energetic song).
All three members contribute something great to this trio and it's cool that they stopped on this one and "never saw the other end of the parabola" as Stewart puts it.
All three members also did some great stuff after The Police too with Sting's solo career, Andy's prog and instrumental guitar stuff and Stewart's film/game scores and orchestral music.
On a slightly different note... AAARGH!! I GOT MY FAVORITE BAND TOO EARLY IN THIS PROJECT!!! I WISH IT WAS NEXT YEAR OR EVEN THE LAST ALBUM!!!!
Fiona Apple
4/5
304/1089 - She's out of tune and every song sounds the same, but other than that it's alright.
Joanna Newsom
1/5
305/1089 - Voice was very strange (in a bad way) and got worse throughout the songs. Quite a few squeaks, cracks and rasps which probably could have been rerecorded. Orchestra was alright with its focus on chamber instrumentation but every song sounded the same and dragged on and on (did Brahms write this?).
I forgot to do several non-list recs so I'll do all of them now:
For Newsom: The Campfire Headphase - Boards of Canada (2005) An interesting take on folktronica combining guitars with their signature strange tape machine sounds and beats.
For Suede: Roman Candle - Elliott Smith (1994) Elliott Smith's debut. I honestly think he could've been a Beatle if he were born in Liverpool in the 40s
For Sonic Youth: Ah Via Musicom - Eric Johnson (1990) Probably the best Eric Johnson album. He's a very unique virtuoso guitarist combining jazz and country rock (but that's not really sufficient to describe it) and this album has the signature "Cliff's of Dover."
For Mudhoney: Wish - The Cure (1992) - The most solid Cure album in my opinion with the great "Friday I'm in Love" among many other solid alternative/goth rock songs.
5/5
306/1089 - Liked this a lot but it got a bit too music-theater-y for me at the end. Great hits though for sure.
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
307/1089 - Amazing guitar tone, grating vocals, decent songs.
Fleetwood Mac
2/5
308/1089 - This was boring. Sounded like bad EDM but with acoustic instruments.
Kings of Leon
3/5
309/1089 - Not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Some of the instrumentals are pretty good and show nice use of layering but the main singer's voice is quite obnoxious.
Led Zeppelin
5/5
310/1089 - Overall this is a really good double album. Plant's voice definitely sounds thinner here than at the beginning of Led Zeppelin's career which is too bad. On the flip side, there is some really great keyboard work from John Paul Jones (and of course great bass playing). He's definitely been becoming more of an inspiration to me over time.
The Stranglers
3/5
311/1089 - Sorta decent psychedelic punk. Not a fan of talk-singing.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
312/1089 - A mixed bag. Not a fan of the talking into singing (which I'm guessing is kind of the point of this record) as I prefer the story and context to be in the music. I liked the basslines and occasional walk-ups on the guitar.
Scott Walker
4/5
313/1089 - Way better than Scott 4 was. The orchestrations are interesting and make use of all of the families with additional features like bagpipes, pitched percussion, and acoustic delays. His voice still has too much vibrato and I wasn't convinced by a lot of the slower songs.
Tears For Fears
5/5
314/1089 - This is a really good showcase of the technological advancements in the 80s (regarding synths and percussion) while having really catchy songs and varied tracks.
The Rolling Stones
3/5
315/1089 - Was wondering when I'd get them again. I don't think I've gotten any Bob Dylan albums yet and I know he has a lot on the list too, looking forward to some of those.
Anyways, it's competent but samey and I'm not really a blues rock fan. Shake Your Hips and I Just Want to See His Face were alright.
The Icarus Line
3/5
316/1089 - I can't tell if the book shits the bed in the 21st century or if the internet + streaming + telecommunications act of 1996 + poptimism really did that much damage to cool stuff in mainstream music. At least I actively look for modern music I like and find it but a lot if people today are stuck in their nostalgia-spirals. Anyways, this was very average noisy garage rock.
De La Soul
4/5
I'm not a fan of sex noises in music. Some production is grating and some other songs are very good like Me Myself and I and the Steely Dan one.
Missy Elliott
3/5
318/1089 - Went in one ear and out the other. Only thing I remember is "This is a Missy Elliot exculsive" at the beginning of every other song and some beat references to Beastie Boys and Run DMC. The last song seemed cool and had some Neo Soul influence. Guess I remember more than I thought I did.
King Crimson
3/5
319/1089 - I don't know how to say this without sounding pretentious but I'd rather listen to classical music than prog rock which sorta emulates classical music. I understand that King Crimson is important and started the genre and everything but I really appreciate the more jazz-influenced side of prog like Yes or Rush. Prog Rock that sounds like classical to me is kinda equivalent to the uncanny valley of animation where something is almost the real things but isn't quite there so it ends up being bad. All that being said, they're all competent players and the drummer was in Yes so that makes me appreciate this more.
Soundgarden
5/5
320/1089 - What Nirvana does with harmony, Soundgarden does with rhythm. Super inventive and so many great songs on this one. Truly the best grunge album.
Ramones
2/5
321/1089 - Very homogoneus and the singer sounds like how deaf people talk. I like Post-Punk better when there's more intrresting lines going on and less power chords.
Rod Stewart
5/5
322/1089 - Damn! This limey's got better Country chops than alotta us yanks!
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3/5
323/1089 - This guy's 3 streak remains. Nothing more to say. Guess it's cool that I'm halfway done with his albums.
Dr. Dre
2/5
324/1089 - It's good for what it is. I don't like West Coast Hip Hop. The compton whistle sound is really grating and I prefer the jazz beats on the east coast.
In fact, this album would be a lot better if instead of being called "The Chronic" it replaced "The" with "Syn" and added "ity" at the end so it'd be called "Synchronicity" by the Police.
The Black Keys
3/5
325/1089 - I thought this was the Black Eyed Peas for a second but I'm relieved. I kinda get why Rock died in the 2000s if this is what was considered cool enough for this list. Sounds like The Allman Brothers Band + the Strokes.
King Crimson
4/5
326/1089 - When working with slower rhythms it's usually hard to keep interest. One way of doing this is changing things up very slightly from phrase to phrase (an extra cymbal hit here, remove or shorten a note here, add an instrument for a second, etc.). You can also play random shit on vibraphone, guitars and drums for 10 minutes and sound like every BMus Composition Senior recital piece too which isn't as enjoyable. In the Court of the Crimson King does both.
Antony and the Johnsons
3/5
327/1089 - Do you want some vocals with your vibrato? That aside, it's competently made but definitely not the type of music I like or would listen to ever again. The first song was pretty awful (I hate "Paul McCartney/Singer-Songwriter style piano playing) but the music got more interesting as the album went on.
Bob Dylan
5/5
328/1089 - I get why people say his voice is grating. It honestly is. It works really well here somehow and the session musicians are doing some really creative comping given the limited chord changes and large amount of repetition of phrases. His harmonica is much worse than his voice. Surprisingly really good.
Grant Lee Buffalo
5/5
329/1089 - First song hit me with a cool Classical-esque progression then American Bono starts singing and I was hit with another surprise, no country twang! A good start. Overall this was a pretty good listen. I wish the drums were deeper and the mix sounds a bit "far away" for a lack of a better term. I enjoyed the surprises throughout like the marimba and clarinet appearing out of nowhere though I'm assuming they're from a keyboard.
Janis Joplin
4/5
330/1089 - The description for "Buried Alive in the Blues" makes it seem like the song is gonna be a dirge but it seems more like a celebration of life. There's a lot of energy on the tracks but I'm not a huge fan of this era of rock music. A lot of the songs seem like "let's play blues lick number 7 for four bars then switch to blues lick number 23 for eight!" and so on. This is definitely the case with this album, but it was still an alright listen.
Oasis
2/5
331/1089 - Everything sounded the same until the last song which sounded different but worse. Annoying voice and the song structures were too repetitive for me.
Steely Dan
4/5
332/1089 - Not their best for sure. The 1001 list has weird picks for Steely Dan. I think Countdown and Pretzel could be swapped for Royal Scam and Gaucho. Or better yet, swap them out for some Doobie Brothers albums so there's some more Michael McDonald on the list than just Aja background vocals and that one corny Berkleecore Thundercat song
Klaxons
4/5
333/1089 - A bit "too indie" at times but much catchier than I expected. I thought this was gonna be the best 3 but after seeing the variety and the fact that I like it more than Trout Mask Replica, the worst 4, I'm giving it a 4 star rating.
Richard Thompson
3/5
334/1089 - A bit better than the Liege and Lief album I got some time ago but nothing special. No song really stood out to me since the song forms were all too similar to each-other and the instrumentation wasn't notable enough to differentiate anything. Seems to be more focused on lyrics and not music, which isn't the point of listening to music for me.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
335/1089 - What a crazy story for how this group started. Makes me feel grateful for what I have and what I don't have to deal with when living in a Western country with classically liberal values. The music is somewhat samey but also a pleasant combo of blues rock and West African rhythms and melodies.
The Youngbloods
5/5
336/1089 - This was awesome. I've found I've been really into acoustic sounds lately and this combined with some cool psychedelic effects and jazz was a real treat. I liked the little interlude to flip the disc over (Turn it Over) and the one where they f up and just go off the deep end (Black Mountain Breakdown). Very nice rhythmic piano playing on this album.
David Bowie
5/5
337/1089 - I took one two hour lesson with the piano player on this album a few years ago. It was really insightful and I think put me on a good track in my musical growth, thank you Mike Garson. I've defintiely warmed up to Bowie over the course of this listening project, I might revisit Blackstar. This one is a bit more adventurous and fun than Ziggy Stardust and I like it for that. Sorta like the progression of Rundgren on Something/Anything to A Wizard, A True Star.
Eagles
2/5
338/1089 - I don't get the appeal. It sounds like generic pop rock music to me which isn't a sound I care for. People think it's interesting because the lyrics are ambiguous? I think that's weak songwriting. Why write something with no clear meaning (no matter how obscure you want it to be and even if the meaning isn't anything). Also, this sounds counterintuitive, but you need interesting rhythms if you're writing slow music. On a different note, I think it's cool that they made a greatest hits album before writing this one.
Meat Loaf
1/5
339/1089 - I feel like I'm listening to fucking Brentalfloss... So this is the album where he and Jack Black got their stupid voice and theatrics from! On another note, I like Todd Rundgren so at least this is a polished turd, the best 1 star if you will (and I will!).
Koffi Olomide
3/5
340/1089 - I'd like this more if every song was around 2 minutes shorter and half the songs were in something other than C major. I'm not against long songs at all (I'm a huge classical music fan) and I bet it's really fun to hear this group live but I don't think jammy music translates well to recordings. Between a 3 and a 4, this is very 80s sounding and feels somewhat New-Wave-ized and inauthentic. I like New Wave but this got to the point where it sounded like a bunch of flip-phone ringtones.
Various Artists
1/5
341/1089 - I don't like holiday music. It always feels so cynically made. Paired with Spector's lush orchestration which makes me want to vomit and this wasn't a good combo. I don't mean to be a total grinch though. I do like the older church music (esp. on organ!) around Christmas and Vince Guaraldi. I also liked the Nostalgia Critic's weird christmas song and the PilotRedSun Grinch Ultimatum dance.
Anyways hope you have the reciept cause I'm returning this.
The Mamas & The Papas
3/5
342/1089 - It was pleasant but definitely went in one ear then out the other.
Belle & Sebastian
2/5
343/1089 - The songs are pretty good (notes and rhythms) but the guys voices are abysmally bad. Out of tune, no enunciation, and weak in an unintersiting way. Essentially the music is a 5 and the vocals are a 0.
The Incredible String Band
2/5
344/1089 - Another one of the low rated ones on the website. I think this one loosely inspired Geogaddi by Boards of Canada if I'm not mistaken, and I'm a huge fan of that album so I'm interested to check this one out: It's gimmicky and somewhat poorly executed but it's not horrible and too interesting to be a 1.
The Band
3/5
345/1089 - It's okay. Don't like the guys voice very much. Organ is cool sometimes, I liked Chest Fever.
This has been a pretty weak week on the generator for me. Hopefully I get something more exciting like War or Violator soon.
The Cars
3/5
346/1089 - It's some alright New Wave. Slightly better than Blondie. I think the Brits win this genre overall.
The Cure
4/5
347/1089 - Not my favorite Cure album for sure. For the record, I love Wish, Disintegration, and The Head on the Door. Pornography is a bit repetitive and the songs go on for too long given the lack of musical ideas but thankfully there are enough differences in the actual songs. I'm confused by how many people are calling this dark, nothing in the music suggests that to me (besides the last song maybe), if anything the main emotion I feel the album gives off is persistence/steadfastness. If you like dark music, I recommend Shostakovich's String Quartet no. 8, or really anything later in Shostakovich career.
The Kinks
3/5
348/1089 - It's okay. I thought the sound effects were a bit too loud and didn't sit well in the mix.
Beck
5/5
349/1089 - Not as strong as Odelay for me but still a really eclectic and cool album.
Fishbone
4/5
350/1089 - Fun. I wish more ska was on the list like The English Beat or Sublime. Sounded a bit too much like Prince or Sonic the Hedgehog to me at times.
Devendra Banhart
1/5
351/1089 - This is kinda like that Joanna Newsom album (didn't like her voice or this guy's voice) but extremely stripped down which makes it significantly worse. Fall is almost a song I guess...
Here are the album recs for all the 1 stars I missed:
For Banhart: Think Tank - Blur (2003) A pit stop in-between the two Gorillaz albums combining the dub/hip-hop influence of Gorillaz with the Britpop and mild experimentation of Blur. A moody and exciting listen.
For Spector: Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) I guess this is technically a soundtrack but seeing as a Bollywood soundtrack, DnB mixtape, and some Contemporary Classical is on this list, I don't think it's an issue. Everyone's heard Linus and Lucy and Christmastime is Here and Skating, good stuff.
For Meatloaf: The Doobie Brothers - Minute by Minute (1978) Now that Michael McDonald has been in the band for a bit The Doobie Brothers have shifted very successfully from Country Rock to Soft Rock. This album has a lot of great rhythm section stuff going on and the hits "Minute By Minute" which as a cool EP intro and "What a Fool Believes" which is, I believe, scientifically proven to be the greatest song ever made.
Queen
2/5
352/1089 - I don't like Queen very much but I think this is the one with "Stone Cold Crazy" which is the only song I like from them. I haven't listened in a while so I'm interested to see if I'm gonna re-evaluate them: I still only like Stone Cold Crazy and don't really care about much of their other stuff. I'm not a fan of the theatrical and choral style of Queen's harmony but they're very good at what they do and were pretty influential.
Going down a star from a 3 for the police sirens in that one song, I hate listening to that shit when I'm driving.
Alice Cooper
3/5
353/1089 - I didn't realize Alice Cooper was the band's name and not the singer. Noticed some Bernstein quotes and it seemed eclectic overall but I wasn't a fan of the singer who's name is NOT Alice Cooper (but now is I think).
The Byrds
3/5
354/1089 - Slightly better than the Mama's and Papa's album I had recently. Too many twangy reversed guitars and not enough harmonic movement to justify their existence.
Rage Against The Machine
3/5
355/1089 - Initially it was fun and sludgy and energetic but once I started paying attention to the music some more I found it pretty dull and derivative. One blues riff after another blues riff and some Drop D to spice things up. Let's throw in a 8 bar crescendo where we repeat the same thing over and over and never actually develop any ideas! Also let's play the same song 5 times with different lyrics on top of it and different blues/pentatonic riffs but with the exact same structure as listed up above. This is one of the few times where I wish I could put a 2.5 instead of a 3.
Garbage
4/5
356/1089 - I liked it overall. Got a bit too shoegaze-y and out of tune for me on some of the songs but overall liked the dance + alt rock textures. Stupid Girl and Queer stood out to me.
Japan
5/5
357/1089 - Depeche Duran. Cool instrument and synth combinations throughout. The songforms were a bit repetitive sometimes and the voice lethargic but overall still a solid listen. (I may be rating this too high giving it a 5 but I think that could be because of the dry-spell between this album and Fishbone [which I have re-listened to and decided it's a 5])
The Beach Boys
4/5
358/1089 - "Surf's Up" the song has one of the most beautiful phrases in all of music, and is my favorite Beach Boys song. I'm excited to see what the rest of the album has to offer.
After listening: Normally I deduct stars for emergency vehicle noises as it's confusing for me when listening while driving. I think it's obviously fake sounding in Student Demonstration Time, so I'm not gonna deduct stars for that. I like the cleaner voices of the Wilson brothers over Love and Jardine and thought the album was too safe overall.
The Velvet Underground
1/5
359/1089 - Redundant music, abysmal production quality, horrible voices: one nasal talk singer (without the charisma or dynamics of Bob Dylan), and one German with no timbral variation making it dull and monotonous. I guess it has variation going for it in all of it's songs but when your songs are this crappy and repetitive, what's the point? Especially that last song is bullshit to listen to. It isn't enough to be "interesting" you also have to be competent, which escapes the sound engineers and performers. This rivals Joy Division and Ministry for being the worst album I've heard on the list.
Non-list rec: Smiley Smile - The Beach Boys (1967) A somewhat eerie sounding Beach Boys album mostly made of re-recorded Smile tracks at Brian Wilson's house with unconventional (but competent) recording methods. Good Vibrations and Woody Woodpecker Symphony stand out to me.
Fun Lovin' Criminals
2/5
360/1089 - It's cool for them to have a band I guess but if you're playing the same uninteresting blues facsimile always in groups of 4, what's the point?
I really don't understand why critics love Hip Hop so much. Don't get me wrong, I like a good bit of Hip-Hop, especially East Coast jazz rap, but often the songforms are extremely samey and repetitive due to the nature of most beats and it's not often that producers use micro-variations to manipulate the beat and add some life and variation into the music, rendering it a genre not very worthy of analysis. The structure of a song is one of the most important things in music and I get a feeling when people say they don't like certain genres like Jazz, Hip Hop, and EDM it's because they detect how cookie-cutter it all is but don't have the music knowledge to describe what they're hearing.
For example: nearly all jazz songs are: head, solos over head chords, head again with a 3x tag of the final phrase. This is why I think it's fundamentally impossible to be a jazz elitist. The structure of the music isn't complex enough to be worth being pompous.
I've noticed a lot of my favorite music and albums change up the song structure from track to track no matter what the genre is, and that's something that normal people should really consider more.
Flamin' Groovies
5/5
361/1089 - Very simple but also very catchy and fun. Liked this more than I thought I would.
Fats Domino
3/5
362/1089 - Nothing special. Standard competent older blues and rock album.
Marty Robbins
4/5
363/1089 - The singing is very solid. I found a lot of the songs very similar to each other. For example: Big Iron, The Master's Call, and Saddle Tramp are practically the same song and I think they should have just picked one (Big Iron) or used a significantly different arrangement. Saddle Tramp is somewhat different being in a different meter and all, and I think more choices like that should have been made in the arrangements throughout the album.
Aimee Mann
3/5
364/1089 - I sorta knew Voices Carry before going into this and wasn't looking forward to it based off of that. After listening: pretty standard competent pop rock. Not sure why it's on the list.
Ravi Shankar
4/5
365/1089 - Liked the educational aspect of it a lot. Made the album sound better, when I kinda knew what was going on.
Kendrick Lamar
2/5
366/1089 - Wow! It's been one year doing this listening project. I'm enjoying it so far.
To be honest, I don't like Kendrick's voice or beats and I remember listening to this album a few times and disliking it in the past. I'll give it another try and see if my opinion has changed:
The production is impeccable and there are some really cool instrumentals like Institutionalized and Alright. I'm not a fan of the Funkadelic/Thundercat sounds but that's more a personal taste thing and nothing against the album itself. The main problem with the instrumentals is how repetitive they are. I also liked "i" but by "liked" i I mean I liked "That Lady" by the Isley Brothers and was trying to ignore the rest of the sounds which brings me to my main problem with Kendrick Lamar: his vocals.
I still think Kendrick's vocal timbre sounds like Spongebob if his balls dropped and he had throat cancer. I just can't really get into his music for whatever reason.
Everything But The Girl
3/5
367/1089 - Mildly pleasant but only one of the songs "Goodbye Sunday" stood out to me. I wasn't convinced by the acoustic instrumentation with the drum machines, would rather have it the other way around I guess. For this type of music I'd rather listen to Sting or Sade which has a bit more groove and energy.
I am looking forward to generating Massive Attack on which she sings some songs. Mezzanine should be on the list, that's their best one!
Deep Purple
3/5
368/1089 - Organ is alright. Pretty boring overall.
Neil Young
2/5
369/1089 - This is the greatest Neil Young album I've listened to.
The Strokes
2/5
370/1089 -
howdy. ig showed me pictures of you
even tho i try to focus on art and
human-like animals and people fighting …
so i thought i’d say a respectful platonic
“hello, physical pal.” (maybe)
- the end.
🫡returning to
self-imposed solitude🌷🦩
Supergrass
5/5
371/1089 - Love the energy here. Great fills throughout. I was familiar with "Alright" before listening and I'm glad the rest of the album was also alright too :)
Paul McCartney and Wings
5/5
372/1089 - Great varied textures and melodies throughout! After watching the Get Back documentary from a few years ago I think Paul and Ringo are my favorite Beatles.
Isaac Hayes
4/5
373/1089 - Thanks Chef!
Jean-Michel Jarre
4/5
374/1089 - The French really love textures huh? This album made me want to hear what would happen if Ravel or Debussy had access to synthesizers. It was overall a cool and unique listening experience.
Public Image Ltd.
1/5
375/1089 - Sounds like Joy Division except even shittier and more repetitive. Seriously, the repetition on this gives EDM and Reggaeton a run for their money.
Non-list rec: Breakfast in America - Supertramp (1979) Excellent showcase of the Wurlitzer and a very solid Prog Pop record.
10cc
3/5
376/1089 - It's eclectic but quite disconnected. Overall, a bit too silly for me but my rating might change depending on the day.
Van Halen
4/5
377/1089 - The Top Jimmy intro has been stuck in my head for a long time and I finally know what song it is now! Great guitar playing. The synths leave a lot to be desired. Overall a very hit or miss album for me with lots of great songs and a good chunk of mediocrity.
The The
5/5
378/1089 - Fantastic album. Also "This is the Day" is now one of my favorite songs. I finally listened to lyrics for once and I really like the uplifting message in this song. The verses show the character looking at the past and feeling depressed while the chorus shows the character taking the first step to overcome the depression. Opening the curtain, showing a plane in a clear blue sky, think about it! This is Britain, do you know how rare a clear blue sky is? Happens like 4 days a year I imagine. There's also the imagery of a plane, containing people traveling and actively living, something the character is taking the first step in doing. I interpret it as a very earnest and uncynical song which is awesome, not to mention the catchy bassline and unique accordion, fiddle, and omnichord instrumentation!
All of that paragraph is just for one song! I love the piano solo on "Uncertain Smile" and the amazing synth parts and punk influences throughout. One of the best New Wave albums ever made.