Thank you for adding me to this group but when I saw this was the first album I thought to myself, 'fuck,'.
I used to think to myself 'hey I like the blues as much as the next guy', but I didn't realize the next guy might be Bob Dylan.
A lot of these songs are great standalone, but as a whole, the album exposes the rigid structure of blues chord progressions. It makes each subsequent song get more and more predictable, and by the beginning 'Bob Dylan's 115th Dream', I also broke out laughing. This repetition is broken when we reach 'Mr. Tambourine Man' when he switches off the electric twang. I liked this half of the album much more; he explores more ideas than just the AABA-BBAA-CBAA blues, and the acoustic guitar compliments his unique, nasal voice much better (which grew on me a lot as the album progressed). Would have given a 4 to this part of the album if I could, but the first half of the album could have been summed up in a single song IMO.
I don't think I've listened to Marvin Gaye before but I'm on the wagon now, this shit god damn rules. Each song seems to have like 3 to 5 melodies, plus intricate bass lines, going on at the same time. If attempted by many, this would sound like a cacophonic mess, but somehow it's all layered into this cohesive, coordinated texture. I imagine on the 100th time listening to this you can still find something new and exciting. I especially liked the songs where the gospel influences showed through, like the titular song and 'When did you stop loving me, when did I stop loving you'. The latter was my favorite and seemed to theme the entire album, but there's no weak points here. Awesome the whole way through.
I'm kinda getting my sea-legs under me with this discrete 1-5 rating scale, and maybe I should have rated 'Here, my Dear' a 4, rounded down from like a 4.4 or so. Compared to the albums I've heard up to this point though, that album really shined imo.
Not compared to this bona fide 5, though. There are so many songs I recognized as sort of cheesy, overly-commercialized songs ('Respect', 'My Girl', etc.), but man... Otis Redding's raw, powerful voice and lyrical styling make these songs sound so powerful. His singing reminds me a lot of Art Tatum; they never go quite where you expect, but once they do it just makes sense. And then finding out he was 24 years old (!!!) when this album was recorded... incredible. MAYBE you could make the argument that the instrumentals on this album haven't aged that well; a lot of the brass is kinda repetitive and hollow. But seriously, his voice is just timeless. I imagine he could sing a grocery list on a karaoke box and I would rate it a 5.
This album sounded so aggressively 70's, and that's just not an era of music that speaks to me. Still, there were some very strong ideas here. My favorite moments were on tracks like "Groovallegience" when the bass just kinda seems to do their own thing, all while still keeping the heartbeat of the song driving. I dunno, I feel like this lands in a category of music where if someone told me it was their favorite album of all time I wouldn't fault them at all, even if I don't love it much myself.
It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I'm honestly not very well-versed in rap, so it's hard for me to contextualize what this album does better/worse than other albums, what it brings new to the table, etc. But from the opening double bass riff I had a good feeling that I would enjoy 'Be', and I was right. The whole album was just very solid, hard to find any faults.
I dunno, this was just a mess to me. Maybe there's something I'm just not getting. Best I can say is I'm glad they're having fun and that all the songs were short.
I almost didn't have time to listen to this album, and I'm glad I did. The overall tone for most songs is quite bare-bone and singular, but BPB still somehow finds the range to express a remarkable span of emotions. He delivers some pretty bleak lyrics (although I wouldn't exactly call them 'revolutionary' or even 'clever') with a certain cadence of 'hey, what are you gonna do?'. It's kinda like he's grinning while pondering death, without going overboard and sounding too nihilistic. A very cohesive, clean album the whole way through. Maybe deserves a 5, but I'm kinda borderline, rounding down from like a 4.437779 or so.
It's not good when the words I would use to describe the overall texture of the album are 'hollow', 'monotone', or 'shrill'. It's funny because I actually think there are some decent ideas here from a music-writing standpoint (wasted time, pretty maids all in a row), conflating my final score to something like 1.6. But the whiny voice, lazy bass and boring guitar riffs lead me to believe that nobody in the band seems to have the talent or range to explore these ideas.
I was so stoked when this album came up; Briefly perusing the full 1001 list, I think this might be my second or third favorite on the whole list (probably a bit of a low-ish bar - are there seriously more albums attributed to Sinatra on this list than any other 'jazz' musician?).
Hancock was instrumental in finding (one of) jazz's new voice(s) in a post-Coltrane world. I typically like the evolutionary line that progressed into the sort of third-wave, avant-garde jazz in this era (Coleman, Mingus, Alice Coltrane, etc.). But Hancock makes a powerful statement with 'Head Hunters' that electronic sounds don't have to lose the soul of the genre.
'Chameleon': when has a 16 minute song passed by so quickly? The slow progression of this groovy opening that transforms into this call-and-response between a groaning saxophone and percussive keyboard over modal chord progressions... Extremely innovative, while staying true to Hancock's roots working with Miles.
'Watermelon Man': This song has such a special place in my heart, I have been obsessed with it for decades after playing it in 7th grade jazz band. How can you not love this song? Panflute, that weird wheezy mumbling at the beginning, chordal bass line... who thinks of that? Masterpiece.
Sly: Definitely the weak link of the album (I think kinda famously so?), but whatever; it's a bit boring, but still fine and carried sufficiently by the other three songs.
Vein Melter: It's so rare to hear such a textural cohesion between such disparate instruments; the way that the music just seems to oscillate between your ears, fantastic.
No rounding here, just a 5/5 through and through.
I think the common theme here is that the opening instrumentals are sick, then I kinda tune out when the singing starts. Honestly the drummer is the one that impressed me the most, he switches tempo so quickly but seamlessly on a lot of these openings. IDK, I'm not a huge metal head, but I feel like if I wanted to listen to the genre I'm looking to get punched in the stomach. These vocals just kinda give me a tummy slap.
My only knowledge of steely dan was that there was an insufferably annoying person I knew in college who made steely dan their entire identity. They were always like 'duuuude you have to listen to him it will change your life' and I never did because they were annoying. Honestly after listening I can kinda see where they're coming from, some pretty catchy stuff in the beginning but the last 5 songs got super boring. idk if he ran out of ideas or if his ideas just weren't gripping enough to maintain an entire album. Either way, my life remains pretty unchanged.
