It's difficult for someone my age to hear this without expecting Paul Simon to jump out from behind a door, but it's a lot of fun, and nice to imagine dancing in Senegal rather than clearing six inches of snow from the roof of the car.
If the goal here is to choose influential albums, this is a clear winner. I thought I was listening to a Nirvana demo.
Exactly the beta blocker some of us needed today.
Interesting choice, because most of it is pretty unremarkable. The two singles are as great as anything he ever did but the rest sounds like an ordinary band (unlike, say, the Cars or Van Halen whose first albums presented an entirely new sound). I'd take Damn the Torpedoes any day.
I've always loved this album, but it's probably hard for the youngsters to appreciate how revolutionary it was for a bunch of young women to write their own songs, play their own instruments, and make a #1 record. I see that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's an absolute classic, and you would not have your Bikini Kills or Best Coasts without them.
It's difficult for someone my age to hear this without expecting Paul Simon to jump out from behind a door, but it's a lot of fun, and nice to imagine dancing in Senegal rather than clearing six inches of snow from the roof of the car.
If the goal here is to choose influential albums, this is a clear winner. I thought I was listening to a Nirvana demo.
Didn't thrill me, sorry
Not sure I've ever listened to it straight through. Good stuff.
I confess I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing today, but I filled in the gaps in my memory, and even allowing for side 4 it's still totally solid
I am not the audience for this album and my opinion is irrelevant, but I was prepared to hate it and I really didn't. Yeah, it was too long and some of it was offensive (no more so than Mötley Crũe, but that was a performance too). The groove is solid (although when I hear the samples I tend to think why don't we just listen to that?) and the rapping is skillful and the Library of Congress says it's significant, so I'm fine with it.
This doesn't particularly speak to me, but it's clearly influential and all that. I'm totally neutral on this one. And I don't know any French (although I generally ignore lyrics so that shouldn't matter).
I could not make it through 45 minutes of this, but it's nice to see that Cookie Monster has found a healthy way of working out his frustrations. We could all take a lesson from him.
Solid groove, more jazzy than I remembered, definitely cures migraines and arthritis
Exactly the beta blocker some of us needed today.
Kind of boring, frankly. Trying to reach a mass audience in the 80s was a losing game.
This is a hippie litmus test and I still don't pass. I have childhood memories associated with the big hits, of course.
The only upside of this is that 20 minutes of something called Eruption sent me straight to Van Halen.
This is a truly impressive work of art but not necessarily enjoyable to listen to. I'll take Army of Me any day, but I'm kind of lowbrow.
Meh, this sounds like everything else on the hipster radio station. Oh wait... seriously, I had other priorities (two little kids) in 2009 so I missed all the pop-punk action, but this is a gem.
Boring. Too many songs, each one is too long, and they all sound the same. The 90s were a musical sinkhole.
Welcome to the 80s theme park! I had only ever heard Take On Me (and it amazes me that anyone can hear that as anything but the soundtrack to a video--it's barely a song) but the rest of the album is like a template for Europop.
This could be a lot shorter but the good parts are very good and the lads are clearly having fun.
I can't say I'm familiar enough with the old tango to fully appreciate this, but it was pleasant enough. I'm straight-up neutral.
Am I rating the album I'm listening to (not bad, if you like that sort of thing), the conceptual art project it represents (kind of odd) or its influence on the next generation of electronic dance pop (significant)? Did I even listen to the right version? I'd lean toward a 2.5 with an extra .5 for Tammy Wynette.
There's a lot more going on here than straight-up 1978 punk--a little power pop, a little glam, maybe even a little prog noodling. Whether they were hugely influential or just riding a bunch of waves I don't know, but I'm ok with it.
Very pleasant
I believe the International Bureau of Weights and Measures uses this as the standard for 5-star albums.
I like this better than the Dead, but it still strikes me as a bargain-basement Band (or Byrds). But I listened to 8:05 three times.
How can you hear "FREAK OUT!" and not smile? Some of the album is disco perfection (crying out to be sampled) and some of it feels like very technically accomplished backing tracks.
Abrasive, repetitive, grating, monotonous singing followed by shouting. Make it go away.
Can't say I know enough about Bollywood music to judge this, but it was pretty entertaining.
Lots going on here; I'm sure they're great live. I'm rounding my rating up from 3.5 despite the fact that they are at least partly responsible for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It's very hard to listen to this objectively, as Back to Black is so much better. But I can imagine being impressed with her in 2003 even if these songs aren't great.
I am baffled. The Pet Shop Boys released 15 albums? And three of them are on this list? And Neil Tennant didn't come out until 1993? This album is a fine example of their output but nothing stands out for me.
These reviews are an argument for listening to the albums in chronological, rather than random, order. Listen, kids, there would be no Nirvana or Pixies without Bob Mould. In my personal pantheon I rate Grant Hart a little higher as a songwriter and I therefore like Hüsker Dü a bit better than Sugar, but I'm not going to split hairs. Totally solid power punk.
Brighter and bouncier than most of what I think of as millennial rock. Perfectly pleasant.
That wah thing sends me right back to junior high. I didn't get it then and, having listened to the whole album for the first time, I am even more confused now: were all those junior high boys really into all this noodly meandering? Was Do You Feel Like We Do always 14 minutes long? Was it all about the hair?
I bought the patchouli-scented album in 1990, I saw the tour (from the worst seats in the Oakland Coliseum), and I see no reason to back down now. Definitely Madonna's best album and its influence reverberates through several generations of women in pop. And hello there Prince!
Listening to this for the first time in 40 years, I am noticing is how slow it is--even the relatively peppy tunes kind of drag, so I can see how newcomers find it dull. They were clearly a work in progress, but nothing else sounded like this in 1983. (But yes, this and Reckoning are their best albums, and I am shocked at how long they kept it up as they got duller and duller.)
Moby may have done more to promote the work of Alan Lomax to the general public than Pete Seeger; too bad they're all on X when they hear it. I'm somewhat seduced by its propulsive catchiness and then I listen to a couple of real songs and think nah, this is well-marketed trash.
Can't say I made it all the way through, but I got the gist. What did a bunch of dudes in Iowa in 1998 have to be so mad about? Did they invent the 90s thing of throwing in the little melody between the screaming to show they know what it is? No thanks.
A nice album of 70s-esque R&B; I'd never heard of them but I can definitely see keeping this around. It is not surprising or bothersome in any way that an R&B album is infused with racial consciousness (maybe some people missed the 60s?) but the fact that this has a lower overall rating than Moby is truly disturbing.
A great achievement in both rapping and sampling; and my only complaint is that it's hard to listen to both at once.