1001 Albums Summary

Wow, they really haven’t changed even remotely since their first album. While I still like Dave better as a drummer overall, his iconic voice is always a delight to listen to. 2 songs in and I’m starting to realize this is one of those albums where I’ve heard a lot of these songs before but can’t name any of them off the top of my head. "I’ll Stick Around" and "Alone + Easy Target" are an absolute bop. Peculiar that this is the album they chose for the Foo Fighters, but I’m not complaining. This is a STRONG first album to get. Absolutely screams 90’s. Get used to seeing a lot of Grunge adjacent albums at the top of my list.

Total jams followed by pretty sounds. The first half of this album sounds like what you’d imagine someone from the 70’s thinks the future sounds like. It’s got some absolute jammers with a unique sound to it. Bowie has such a great voice. “Always Crashing in the Same Car” has a killer guitar riff. Not something I think is going to stick with me, but nonetheless still very good. “Be My Wife” is also a banger. The second half of the album is purely instrumental, and while it’s pretty and very well composed, is not something I’d listen to very often. First half of the album is almost perfect, but the ladder half is utterly forgettable. Still, a solid album from one of the all time greats.

Day 3 and already an undeniable 5 star album. Listening to the gradual evolution of Paul McCartney is such a treat. Every single song on this album rocks. The instrumentation, catchy sounds, smooth bass lines, singing, and overall vibe is just incredible. The album frequently changes back and forth from an absolute jam session, to a killer bit of brass instrumentation, to something very reminiscent of The Beatles, and it all blends incredibly well together. One of my personal favorite tropes for an album is when they end with a riff from the first song, so bonus points for that as well.

Day 4. I feel weird giving 2 albums a 5 star in a row. I was listening to this album trying to find a single reason why it shouldn't be 5 stars, but I couldn't. First of all, I am completely unfamiliar with "Garbage" save for an old Guitar Hero cover, so I had no idea what I was getting into with this. What I got was an album without a single bad song. It's a freaking Grunge band with a Scottish Female singer, what a crazy combination!! My personal favorite song on this album is "Queer". When an album is so good that it makes you do a deep dive on the entire band, you know you've done well. Way to go Garbage!!

My first “Oh shoot, I’ve heard this song before!!” moment. I had no idea “Do You Realize??” was by these guys. That song actually makes me more sad than anything, and I don’t know if that was the intended result, but in general it’s clearly the best song on the entire album. This album isn’t something I would want to constantly listen to, but it’s very soothing and melodic. I’ve heard the titular song parodied before as well, but outside of that, this is my very first time listening to this band. This would be a great album to listen to during a drug trip, for better or for worse.

Ok, so, Yes is one of my favorite bands. This is not my favorite Yes album. A lot of the shorter songs are pretty forgettable. But the majority of this album is so good!! It’s Prog, so this is either going to be the best thing you’ve ever heard or a complete waste of your time. For me, it’s the prior. Having the JoJo meme song also really helps, especially because it’s just genuinely one of the best songs ever. Past that, “South Side of the Sky”, “Heart of the Sunrise” and “America” are all 5/5 songs. I desperately want to give this 5 stars, as I’ve just listed like 80% of the album. I just might. You know what? Yes.

There are a number of bands that are automatically just going to get 5 stars, and all of them are absolutely worthy of said rating. The Who is one of them. This is an absolutely epic tale from start to finish. I really could have gone my entire life without knowing why the song "Pinball Wizard" happens though. I greatly look forward to listening to more of The Who and their entire catalogue. This concludes my first "week" on this website, and it's been an incredible experience so far. I look forward to finishing the fight in a few years. Give me more like this and it will be an easy feat.

Welcome back to another episode of “Bands I first heard on Guitar Hero”. I thought about just copy and pasting the lyrics to “Supermassive Black Hole” as my review, but then I remembered this album also has “Knights of Cydonia” on it. I guarantee at some point on this long journey I’ll end up doing that, likely at least a few times. Yeah, it’s perfect from start to finish. The voice, unique and impressive. The beats, all bangers. I love this album. I genuinely can’t find anything to criticize here. Every song is great. If you don’t vibe with his voice or the style of music, I get it. That’s valid, but I personally LOVE this. I seriously don’t know if I’m ever going to rate an album less than 5 stars again… Is that normal or am I just easily impressed? Time will surely tell.

This was pure auditory torture. I found myself constantly checking how close I was to being done with this album, and it was never close enough. The only solace I had were the few and fleeting moments when the singing stopped.

This album kinda feels like it only lasts for around 10 minutes. Playing it on loop, it’s difficult to determine when it stopped and restarted. This one is on the borderline of 3-4 for me. It’s certainly got more great songs than bad songs, but nothing really blows me away either. At the same time, there’s some stuff I want to skip right off the bat. “Big Ten Inch Record” in particular got old pretty quickly. It’s got all the subtlety of a hand grenade, and none of the explosive fun. Everyone knows “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion”, and those are great, but I was pleasantly surprised by “Round and Round” and “You See Me Crying” the most. For the accomplishment of getting me to listen to this album on loop for the entire duration of my work day, I bestow a 4 upon this album.

I've heard a few of these songs covered before but have never heard of Dusty Springfield until now. I was very pleasantly surprised with this album, I really didn't think I would like it at first, but I was vibing hard from the second listen onward. Also, this is just making me want to watch Severance again, as "The Windmills of Your Mind" is prominently featured, even if it isn't the Dusty Springfield version. Overall, this isn't something I would always want to listen to, but god damn is it good when I just want some chill tunes. I will for sure be returning to more Dusty Springfield in the future. My favorite songs on this album are the previously aforementioned "The Windmills of Your Mind", as well as "Son of a Preacher Man".

While this isn’t really my bag, I can definitely respect the sheer talent of the band as a whole. The instrumentation is quite good and well composed. The album is a brilliant celebration of Cuban music in general. I don’t really think it’s going to stick with me for a long time, but I’m still very happy to have spent the day listening to it nonetheless. Very curious if I recognize any of these songs while watching a show or movie at some point.

You know what? This really grew on me the more I listened to it. Once again, not exactly something I would want to listen to daily, but there's nothing bad here. The entire album is catchy from top to bottom, and I think it's more than deserving of a 3 star. This is perfectly acceptable club music that I would be ok with if it came on again. Can't say I'm familiar with the band in any way but name, but this was pretty good and I'm interested in hearing more. My favorite songs on this album are "Shopping" and "It's a Sin". Also, the second track features Dusty Springfield, who was my featured artist 2 days ago. The odds of that happening have to be pretty low. Nice little album you got here, Pet Shop Boys. It's definitely catchy and ear wormy.

I'm sorry, Tom Waits. I don't think you're for me. I've been told there are like 5 of these albums and that this may be his best work based on the reviews for Swordfishtrombones on this site. That being said, I hope they're better than this. I gave it a solid and fair 3 listens, and it just didn't really resonate with me. "Down, Down, Down" is quite good, an actual jammer. While I don't find Tom's voice as bad as some others do, it's just a lot. There were brief moments of good music here, but they were very few and far between. A 2/5 for me.

This is a high 3 for me, almost a 4. Surprised the hell out of me. Every song here feels wholly unique from the last, for better and for worse. The only reason I’m not giving this 4 stars is because more often than not, I don’t think the ideas work very well. However, the songs I do like, I REALLY REALLY like. “The Wall Street Shuffle”, “The Worst Band In The World” and “Baron Samedi” are all fantastic songs. It’s always super cool diving into a band and album I’ve genuinely never heard of before in any capacity. If there were more songs on this album I absolutely loved, this would be an easy 4 for me, but more than anything I think it was cool just how many different ideas got tried out at all. It made for a consistently fun listening experience during my day whenever the album would restart. I may explore more of this band in the future.

This album grew on me so immensely hard that I really want to give it a 5. It didn’t hook me until around the 3rd listen, but when it finally resonated with me I absolutely loved it. It turns out these guys are good friends with the guys from Oasis. Go figure. They sound like them so much, and I mean that as a massive compliment. “Bitter Sweet Symphony” is an absolute classic which I had never even heard before listening to this album for the first time. What really surprised me though is “The Rolling People”. I honestly wish the rest of the album was like that, but it’s not even a problem when the rest of the album is still so good anyway. My only nitpick is that there’s a multi minute long dead air during the final song that makes listening on repeat rather annoying, and I didn’t particularly like the song “The Drugs Don’t Work”. I don’t think that’s enough to dock it an entire star though. Yeah. Sure, it’s another 5 star.

A little bit ago, I said that a few specific artists are just going to get 5 stars automatically. Ladies and Gentlemen, Red Hot Chili Peppers. I love this band, and I love this album. I can't believe how many of their classics are on this album specifically. I often overlook this album when I'm listening to the Peppers, I am no longer going to overlook this album when I'm listening to the Peppers. Is "Under the Bridge" the best song on this album? I don't know. Depends on the day. They're all good.

To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day Hardly spoke to folks around him, didn't have too much to say No one dared to ask his business, no one dared to make a slip The stranger there among them had a big iron on his hip Big iron on his hip It was early in the morning when he rode into the town He came riding from the south side, slowly lookin' all around He's an outlaw loose and running came the whisper from each lip And he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip Big iron on his hip In this town there lived an outlaw by the name of Texas red Many men had tried to take him and that many men were dead He was vicious and a killer though a youth of twenty four And the notches on his pistol numbered one an nineteen more One and nineteen more Now the stranger started talking made it plain to folks around Was an Arizona ranger wouldn't be too long in town He came here to take an outlaw back alive or maybe dead And he said it didn't matter, he was after Texas Red After Texas Red Wasn't long before the story was relayed to Texas Red But the outlaw didn't worry, men that tried before were dead Twenty men had tried to take him, twenty men had made a slip Twenty one would be the ranger with the big iron on his hip Big iron on his hip The morning passed so quickly, it was time for them to meet It was twenty past eleven when they walked out in the street Folks were watching from their windows, everybody held their breath They knew this handsome ranger was about to meet his death About to meet his death There was forty feet between them when they stopped to make their play And the swiftness of the ranger is still talked about today Texas Red had not cleared leather, for a bullet fairly ripped And the rangers' aim was deadly with the big iron on his hip Big iron on his hip It was over in a moment and the folks had gathered round There before them lay the body of the outlaw on the ground Oh, he might have gone on living but he made one fatal slip When he tried to match the ranger with the big iron on his hip Big iron on his hip Big iron, big iron When he tried to match the ranger with the big iron on his hip Big iron on his hip

Another album that kinda grew on me. Initially I wanted to give it 2 stars, as it's really not my kind of thing, but I managed to listen to it on loop the entire day and I ended up never skipping anything, besides "Forrest Gump" and "Bad Religion" which are both pretty bad. While this still wasn't my thing at the end of the day, I grew to understand and appreciate the vibe. Nothing particularly amazing here, but nothing egregiously bad either. The super short prelude songs are also all genuinely fun, like "Start" and "Fertilizer". I think my favorite song here is "Lost". Is this album going to stick with me? Absolutely not, but it's always nice hearing something different for a little bit.

Dude, let's go!! This is some good Punk music. God damn this album is so short though. My only main complaint is that it doesn't go on for any longer. I don't often listen to Punk music and even I thought this was great. "Melody Lee" and "Plan 9 Channel 7" are my favorite songs here, but the entire thing is a banger. See, my biggest fear here is that I don't know if any of the other Punk albums are going to be this good, but I hope they are. I loved the song "Plan 9 Channel 7" so much for how different it was compared to the rest of the album. If every song sounded like that, this would absolutely get 5 stars from me. It was more traditional Rock, and really makes me wish the rest of the album had more of the same structure. Even still, this is a very, VERY high 4 stars for me.

I'm sorry for speeding officer, I was listening to Deep Purple's classic opening song from 1970's Deep Purple in Rock, "Speed King". All jokes aside, Deep Purple is one of my Top 10, maybe even Top 5 favorite bands of all time. Surprisingly, I have never heard this album before past the already aforementioned first song. That being said, I now need to check out the entire rest of Deep Purple's discography to see if I've missed anything else. There is not a single bad song on this entire album. Every song is like 3-10 minutes of pure jams, and every single member brings something godly to the mix. Surprisingly, my favorite song on this album is "Child in Time", having never heard it before until my listen today. Deep Purple, you're getting your first, but not your last 5 star rating.

Listen to virtually any The Cure album after this one. Now listen to this album. Now listen to any album before this one. The differences between the 3 are pretty insane right?? Apparently, the guys were on copious amounts of drugs, depressed out of their minds, and almost ended the band as a whole while making this album. Holy shit does it show in the music. There is a lot to like on this album, and man is it depressing at points. Contextually, this album gets 5 stars from me. The backstory behind the album, and comparing it to previous and future albums from The Cure is very interesting. Personal enjoyment, it gets a 3. Like I said, there's a lot to like, but not a lot to love. As far as standouts, I really enjoyed "One Hundred Years", "The Hanging Garden", "Siamese Twins" and "A Strange Day." I know that's 4 entire songs, but the vibe is very similar throughout the entire album, so it was surprisingly hard to pick a favorite.

One of many albums where I'm glad I relistened to it a few times. My initial reaction was to give this a 1 and move on. I really did not like the guys voice at first. In fact, initially, I hated it. However, it gradually grew on me and by the end of the day I was hooked, and now I'm interested in hearing more Belle & Sebastian. Favorite songs on this album are "Me and the Major" and "Like Dylan in the Movies." Is this something I'm likely to come back to? Again, probably not, but it was very soothing and I'm glad I spent the day listening to it. Not a whole lot to talk about here other than that. Just a bunch of chill beats to vibe to. Succeeds in what it sets out to do.

If ever a 3 star album existed, this would be the very middle of the road in my opinion. This is very passable Indie Rock music that stays fairly consistently ok through the course of an hour play time. A bit grungy, which is typically one of my favorite styles of music, but it’s just kind of boring here. There isn’t anything particularly memorable either. I’m going to forget about this by tomorrow most likely. “Chapel Hill”, “Sugar Kane” and “Purr” are my favorites. Don’t love the female singers voice when she starts screaming unfortunately, I think the male singer is much better personally. Generally, the songs sung by him were leagues above hers. There are some absolutely killer guitar riffs at times that are very good, but the entire album is just kind of disjointed and not very memorable as a whole. Very much a 3 for me. Cute album art though. Maybe I should start critiquing the album art occasionally?? I hadn’t thought about that until now.

I gotta tell you something. I think I love Depeche Mode. I got absolutely lost in this album for an entire day, and while it’s not entirely all bangers, it’s a great trip from top to bottom, and the highlights of this album are some of the catchiest, vibiest (not a real word) songs I’ve ever heard. Those tracks are “Never Let Me Down Again”, “Strangelove”, and “Sacred”. One of my biggest complaints with this album is that the listed 3 songs are SO good, the rest of the album just does not compare. If those songs are a 5/5, the rest of the album is a solid 3/5, sans the last 3 mix songs, which are like a 4.5/5. We’re going to average it out to a very, veeeeeeery high 4, approaching 5 status. I may even change it to a 5 later when I’ve ultimately listened to more albums for this project. More Depeche Mode please!!!!

First of all, let me talk about the album art. It's so funny, instant 10/10. For the actual review, 2 English Club music legends in a row is crazy. I'm just coming off of Depeche Mode and straight into Fatboy Slim, the "Band of the 90's, if you wanna call it a band, because it's a one man name." I actually have no idea how to rate this album objectively. On vibes alone and how much I personally enjoy it, it's probably a 4/5, like Depeche Mode. Yes, it's very repetitive, but with club music you're kind of going to get that. You either love it or hate it, and I definitely love it. However, is it as good as Depeche Mode? I don't know if it is. The double edged sword of Fatboy Slim is that the entire album is just sound, therefore not very memorable until you replay it, but the sound is all super good. So do I give it, as an album, a 3? Or do I go off of vibes and personal enjoyment and give it a 4? I really don't know. The transition from "Right Here Right Now" into "The Rockafeller Skank" is smooth as butter though, really really cool. Also easily the 2 best songs on the album for sure. The funk soul brother check it out now!! The funk soul brother right about now!!

Not even a month in and I’m already at the stage where a rock album is going to have to really impress me to get anything higher than a 3. This is pretty good, but only just pretty good. Nothing to really write home about. As usual, it took me a while to start getting down with it, but I think the ladder half of the album is a LOT better than the top half personally, specifically “Made of Stone”, “I Am the Resurrection”, and my personal favorite “Fools Gold”. The singer sounds ok, the melody is fine, the guitarist can be boring at times and it all just sounds alright as a whole. Another album I probably won’t remember in a bit in all honesty, but hey, it’s definitely still great from top to bottom. Besides being a tad boring in places, I don’t really have any other big complaints with it. I don’t quite understand why this one is so highly rated honestly, but to each their own.

This is one of the coolest god damn album covers I think I’ve ever seen. I almost want to buy it on Vinyl just to look at it. Unfortunately, that’s where the compliments largely end. Legitimately yesterday I had an entire spiel on how Rock albums had to impress me a lot to get anything higher than a 3. Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division unfortunately does not do it for me. That really blows, because I wanted to like it and perhaps get one of those cliché band shirts you see people wearing without having actually heard the source material for whatever it is they’re wearing the logo of. I mean, damn, what’s my favorite song here? I don’t even know, it’s all largely the same generic sound. I think “Shadowplay” is my favorite. Nothing really daring, memorable or unique. Again, everything works, but none of it really blows me away either.

What a delightfully bizarre album. I don’t even really know how to categorize this. I don’t know the validity of this, but it sounds like a random white guy got inspired by various different cultures one day and decided to blend them all together into one bafflingly strange, yet creative album. It has a little bit of everything, from Indian, to Spanish, even a bit of traditional Anglo Rock vibes. I can see it coming off as a bit pretentious and douchey, which is probably why the rating here is so low, but I actually kind of dig this. My favorite song is “Everyman’s an Island”, because it is very replayable and fits the whole World Music theme very well. There’s a lot of different styles blended into this album, and I really think that for the most part, they do work. What a pleasant little surprise of an album this was. Extremely goofy name aside, the album is pretty good.

Zulu Nation!! Don’t touch children!! This was a miserable experience. Next.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Yes, I have seen and actively enjoy watching Stranger Things. That being said, I think listening to this album has actively lessened my enjoyment of that fantastic scene. I just did NOT vibe with this album. Her voice is an enigma to me. I acknowledge that she’s got a beautiful singing voice, but God I really just do not love listening to it. The songs here are mostly passable, some of them are really annoying, some are boring, and only “Mother Stands For Comfort” is truly replayable in my eyes. “Jig Of Life” is actually pretty catchy as well. More songs I want to actively skip than replay as a whole though. I reiterate, I feel like I should like this album more and genuinely understand why people do like it, but man is it hard to listen to. I’m sorry, Kate Bush, I don’t think I’m your biggest fan.

When I rolled Stevie Wonder this morning, I knew how popular he was. I’d never actively seeked out his music before though besides what I already knew. Quite frankly, I was a tad concerned whether or not I would like him. After all, this is the highest rated album I’ve heard so far. Well, now I can certifiably say that Stevie Wonder FUCKING SLAPS. There is not a single song on this album I would want to ever skip. Listening to this made the day go by so much faster, and it only got better over time. Picking a favorite song here is so tough. The popular one is “Higher Ground”, a song I have heard covered relentlessly before. It’s good, but man do I have to think hard on if I want to take the easy way out and label it as my favorite or not, as I may be a bit biased. The whole album really is that good.

What a pleasant, charmingly upbeat album. The duality between the male and female singers is very unique and their voices work tremendously well in tandem with each other. Nothing amazing, but very consistent from song to song. Nothing bad worth skipping, just a solid 3/5 the entire way through with a relaxed, chill vibe. I could see myself listening to this more often honestly. My only experience with this band previously is the song “Crystalised”, which I am already very fond of. This is another album that doesn’t do anything outstanding, but achieves its purpose of being chill very well. And to be honest, I think this one is probably going to stick with me for a little bit. I wish I could give half points, because this is a solid 3.5 stars, but since nothing amazed me, is still very much a 3. Simple album art, but the theme of an identically placed x that they use for all of The xx albums makes them all very cool to look at as a whole. Favorite song? I don’t know. “Lips” and “Replica” are both very pretty.

Another album where I wish we could give half star ratings. If I could, this would be a 2.5. There are a lot of bad, skippable songs on this album. The song "Fantastic Disaster" is in contention for the worst single song I've heard so far. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard a band formed by a bigger band's former bassist over the last 2 weeks, I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's strange that it happened twice. "Sacred Attention" is my favorite song here and it's not even close. Reminds me of a worse Foo Fighters. I want to give this a 2, but I don't think I disliked it as a whole as much as the other 2 star albums. So for now, Sebadoh (Not really a fan of the band name either, but hey, cool album art), you're getting a begrudging 3 stars from me, and we can all move on with our lives.

Iconic album. One of the best in its genre of all time. Funny skits, sharp, cutting and dark commentary that’s still relevant today. Maybe a little dated with the gay slurs, intent be damned, but not a deal breaker by any means. The song “Stan” in and of itself is one of the best ways to depict a parasocial relationship in an accurate, concise, and scary way. I can’t think of a better thing to even compare it to. “The Real Slim Shady” and “I’m Back” are absolutely iconic, and the features on this album are all genuine legends of their craft. I mean hell, “Bitch Please II” has 5 artists credited, all of which are insanely popular and talented in their own right. Just, maybe be cautious of your surrounding area when the Ken skit starts up. While funny, it’s not something I’d ever want someone to hear me listening to with or without context.

I want to be that guy and say this isn't a 5 star album. Go against the grain. Say "The Beatles are overrated". But maaaaaaaan, I can't do it. This album is just so good. My one complaint is that the middle half of the album doesn't hold quite the same level of quality as the first half and final 2 songs. But at a crazy nearly 35 minute run time, any other problems I'd be able to think of are minor and I'm already half way through the album again. "Taxman", "Eleanor Rigby", "I'm Only Sleeping", "Got to Get You Into My Life" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" are my favorites here. That's 5 entire songs. A huge portion of the album. Ok, so, here is my compromise with The Beatles. I'm going to give this album 5 stars. I'm also going to give Abbey Road 5 stars. Everything else is probably going to get fewer stars than that. But I think with how prominent and influential this band is, it would be actually criminal not giving this album specifically a 5, so I'm going to give it a 5. You've won this round Beatles. Many more to come.

2 days ago, I rolled the follow up to this album. Today, I roll this. Honestly, I'm glad I rolled the follow up first, as it is largely a response to this album. Everything that The Marshall Mathers LP is about stemmed from the initial success of this album. A lot of the bars and references of MMLP make more sense when you've heard this front to back. I rated that album an easy 5 stars, and I'm very much going to do the same for this one as well. Eminem is now the first artist I've had more than once, which is pretty cool, as he's one of my faves. Again, all of the skits here are hilarious. Picking a favorite song is also impossible. Everyone knows "My Name Is", that's probably the hit on this album. But, "Guilty Conscience", "'97 Bonnie & Clyde", "Role Model", and "As The World Turns" are all bangers as well. Eminem is truly on the Mount Rushmore of rappers, well deserving. I'm pretty sad that my run of Eminem is over, it's been such a nice change of pace from the copious amounts of passable Rock this book has. Oh well, back to it.

One of the most depressing stories in music the life of Nick Drake was. I’d never heard of this guy until today, and his music is as emotionally gripping and sad as his own personal fight with depression must have been. As someone struggling with anxiety and depression much the same way, I’m not afraid to say that this album made me cry. This man has a beautiful voice, twinged with an unbearable undertone of sheer sadness. This is really something I think I needed to hear right now. Even though it’s depressing, it made me feel a good type of sad, if that makes any amount of sense. My favorite songs on this album are “River Man” and “‘Cello Song”. Thank you, Nick Drake, for blessing my ears with your music today.

Catchy Hip-Hop. Always a pleasure. Makes the day go by really fast when I’m jamming to the fast pace cadences. “Work It” was the only song of Missy Elliott I was familiar with before this, and I believe it was the right song to get as big as it did. I was pleasantly surprised with the entire thing as a whole though. This was an album made in the wake of multiple tragedies in the USA, including 9/11 and the deaths of a number of prominent rappers in the scene, and Missy mentions all of them, with a somber yet hopeful undertone that we will all heal, slowly but surely. When she’s not rapping about some massive ass or getting laid, there are some surprisingly deep messages here. The features are also tremendous. Would put my thing down, flip it, reverse it, and listen to more of her stuff.

I've been stuck listening to (mostly) barely passable English music for the better part of a month now, and it's crazy to me that the moment I finally roll some good old Dad Rock from the United States, I absolutely love it. Realistically, I think this is a High 3, but the change of pace is extremely refreshing here. I kind of want to give it a 4, but the music starts sounding very same-y after the first few songs. As a whole, it's probably a 3, but compared to the other albums I've rated a 3, the more I look at it, it would be a 4 with my metric. Positives: Nothing skippable, 2 absolute bangers in "Twice As Hard" and "Hard To Handle", hell of a good debut album, and a nice, manageable 43 minute runtime. No huge negatives besides what was previously mentioned about being a bit same-y as a whole. Ok, I've convinced myself, 4 stars it is. As I start to slowly but surely add more albums, this is at the top of my list of albums I may move down to 3 stars some day. We'll see, but for now it gets a 3.8/5.

Funk Music is perhaps the best thing you can roll on a Friday. It is the easiest genre to listen to, and the day will be over so fast. The intergalactic brothers from the top of the Chocolate Milkyway are no exception. I believe every Funk album I’ve heard so far has gotten a 4 star rating, and this is no exception. It doesn’t do anything new or amazing, but man does it do Funk exceptionally well. “P-Funk” and “Give Up the Funk” are my favorite songs here. Special shoutout goes to the hilarious names of the songs, as well as the great and hilarious album art. Funky!!!!

Trent Reznor is a God among men, and this is one of his crowning achievements. I’m a sucker for concept albums, this being no exception. The concept here is extremely apparent and simple. One man is descending into madness very rapidly. When the third song on the album already has him screaming about God being dead and going to hell, you know that bro is really going through it. Every song is unique from the last, and I could see any individual song being someone’s favorite here. The one everyone knows is “Closer”, but the last song on the album is a cover of “Hurt” and is excellent as well. “Heresy” “March of the Pigs” and “Closer” are my top 3 here, and I’m praying to God that this isn’t the only NIN album. Simple but iconic album art as well. The vibes here are dark and gritty, and man do they ROCK!!!!

Torture, unfortunately. Self indulgent music that never should have been included in the book to begin with. Sounds like the songs that didn’t make it into a Katamari game. The children singing on “You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice” and the entirety of the song “Parade” are genuinely torturous. Occasionally, there’s some nice instrumentation, but it’s more often than not in addition to a voice that, and I'm sorry, I just straight up dislike. And when I said “occasionally there was some nice instrumentation”, it’s not always present either. This is elevator music with extra steps. Lounge music that you hear at low volume in the background of a Horror Game. Astrud is perfect in “The Girl from Ipanema” (not on this album, which pains me, because I LOVE that song), but as far as this album goes, the only song I really vibe with is “Nao Bate O Corocao.” Curious how many times if ever again I end up going from a 5 to a 1.

The ever controversial Morrissey. Personally, this is a little too light for my liking. A grand majority of the songs here are both skippable and forgettable. This one isn’t really going to stick with me after today. I understand and appreciate what he is doing here. His voice is beautiful and clearly the entire band is very talented, but the only song that truly ROCKS on this album is the opener, “You’re Gonna Need Someone on Your Side.” Alternatively, “You’re the One for Me, Fatty” is an instant skip. That song is just annoying and repetitive. Everything else isn’t entirely memorable, or is too light and repetitive to play on an immediate repeat. Again, none of the songs except for Fatty are bad, and they’re all very pretty and well written. They’re just not really my thing is all, but as a whole, this is a very passable little 39 minute album. 3.5/5.

Before my little review, I just want to point out a coincidence I thought was actually insane. Yesterday, I was reviewing this guys third album. Here I am today back with his fourth album. If that album was a 3.5, this one is like a 3.6. It's not much better, but it's definitely not worse. The same praise and criticisms I had for the last one remain for the album today. This guy has an incredible singing voice, his music is just a little too light and boring for my personal taste. I thought this album as a whole was a little more consistent in tone, and even though it was even lighter than the last one, I found it easier to listen to. Plus, last album has some instant skips, while nothing on this album is really skippable, I also don't really have an easy time remembering most of it, or really caring enough to do so. I guess the one that stuck with me the most was "Hold on to Your Friends", as I can relate to the message it was sending out. As a whole, this is just another solid album that I'm going to forget about in the morning probably. Apparently there's a lot more of this guy to get through. I'm just going to keep giving him a 3. Seems like the right call to me.

A great album that unfortunately needs to be docked an entire point because of the annoying ass skits. Biggie may very well deservingly be one of the best rappers of all time, and when he's dropping bars on this album, they absolutely hit each and every time. However, there are a LOT of skits here, and after the first listen (Or in some instances, during the first listen, looking at you "Fuck Me (Interlude)"), I have to end up skipping them. This wouldn't be that big of an issue if they didn't have skits at the beginning and ending of some good songs as well. If you've heard the album, you'll know what I'm talking about, so I won't elaborate, because they all have to do with one of three things; Getting shot, shooting someone, or having sex with someone. Picking a favorite song is easy at least, it's "Big Poppa", an absolute classic. The other songs that aren't skits are all bangers as well, but every single last one of them is about the 3 aforementioned skits and are pretty hard to distinguish from each other. This is an album I kind of want to give a 5, but there's a LOT, and I mean a LOT of annoying shit here that as a whole, brings my actual enjoyment down to a 3.

Yet another band I've never heard of before, and I don't think I was familiar with any of these songs before hearing the album for the first time. I gotta say, this absolutely rocks from top to bottom. Hell of a debut album. Killer guitar riffs, great voice, and a good mix of Rock styles that make a lot of the songs feel unique, and at times even extremely ear wormy. I mean, try not to dance listening to "Gone Daddy Gone", you can't. Personal favorites here are "Gone Daddy Gone", "Add It Up", and "To The Kill". I mentioned this before, but after enduring so much UK Punk, UK Rock and UK Funk, whenever an American band comes around, it's just automatically one of the best things I've heard in a while. Call it national bias, pride, or whatever else you want to label it as. At the end of the day, this album still absolutely slaps hard. Great start to the week, looking forward to whatever I end up rolling next.

I have no idea what these guys are saying, but man are they saying it. African music at its purest. The first two songs “Soubour” and “Irganda” absolutely rock and then the rest of the album calms down considerably. Despite that, this was a very pleasant experience. One of the ultimate examples of why I’m so glad to be doing this challenge. Were it not for this site, never in a million years would I find a charming little album like this. As a side note, the documentary these guys are prominently featured in, They Will Have To Kill Us First, is a very compelling story.

The first Neil Young album of many. This is one of those albums that I can absolutely appreciate and understand why someone would adore, but isn’t entirely for me. It’s absolutely beautiful for the first 2/3 of the album, and then the last couple of songs (my favorites of the album) absolutely rock. I personally wish the first half was more like the ladder half, but still appreciate it for what it is as a whole. I hear so much Pearl Jam in this, which makes sense as they call him “Uncle Neil”, and I can really understand why. For instance, I know Neil Young didn’t invent the harmonica, but whenever it gets played on this album I just think “Wow, that reminds me of Pearl Jam.” This is as close to a 4 star album as you can possibly get for me. A very solid 3.9/5. My favorite songs here are “Old Man”, “Alabama”, and “Words (Between the Lines of Age)”.

I have no idea why this album is on the list. I've never heard of The Zutons, and I still don't know what a Zuton even is or who killed them... but I think I love them. Like, genuinely, this is a 4.9/5 of an album, and the ONLY reason it isn't a 5 is because I didn't always love every song. But, the ones I did like, I absolutely L O V E D, and it's more than a few. "Zuton Fever" "Pressure Point" "You Will You Won't", "Havana Gang Brawl", "Dirty Dancehall" and "Don't Ever Think (Too Much)" are all phenomenal songs. The singer's voice is oddly reminiscent of someone else and I just can't for the life of me place who it is, but clearly I like them as well. I haven't been doing this a lot, but I'm actively going to seek out more of this band's music and hope it's comparable to this album, because this might have surprised me more than anything else I've listened to so far up to this point. This is a strong contender for moving up to 5 stars if I do a rebalancing of my list. Great job Zutons, you've gained a fan.

More sad white boy music that makes me feel things that I really don’t want to feel when listening to music most of the time. This is a great album that I just really don’t think I would ever be in the mood to want to hear very often. Sad vibes, especially considering what happened to Elliott Smith in general. It makes listening to this even more depressing. While I can appreciate this album for what it is, and realize how great it is, it’s just too sad for me to truly love. However, “Cupid’s Trick” absolutely rocks, and I also really liked “Pictures of Me” and “Rose Parade” the most. The album is technically great, just not my sad cup of tea. 4/5 as a whole, 3/5 for personal enjoyment.

Perfect start to the week. Jack White is my all time favorite musician. However, I have to say, generally, the albums he's been a part of are very rarely perfect as a whole. There's always some stuff on his albums I don't absolutely love, and this album is no exception. However, as usual, the songs that are really good here are some of my favorite songs of all time. In particular, "Blue Orchid" "The Denial Twist" and "Take, Take, Take" are my favorite songs on this album, and rightfully so. They all freaking slap and are extremely earwormy. Every band that Jack has been a part of is golden, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and his solo career are all consistently great, so I hope we can get at least one of each if not more for this project. It's always nice to go back to his early stuff so we can get some of the ever reclusive Meg. I hope she's doing well. Oh, and I LOVE this album art. The posing, simple but effective story telling, and clever use of a 3 color scheme are all very interesting to look at.

Just over 50 days in and I’m already on my 2nd album in the Top 20 for the site. It’s Led Zeppelin, dude. What is it that I could possibly say about them that hasn’t already been said 1 million times before? It’s almost flawless. It would be easier saying what I didn’t like about it. I am not the biggest fan of the weird drum solo filled song “Moby Dick”. Other than that, I’d be filling the rest of the review with my favorite songs. So I’ll just tell you my favorite song on this album is “Heartbreaker”. Every time I roll a Led Zeppelin album is going to be a special occasion but it also means one less Led Zeppelin album to look forward to later, so it’s a double edged sword really. I’m rolling heat in general this week and it’s only Tuesday, hoping to keep it up.

Ok, yeah. It’s pretty bad. It’s not 1 star bad, but it’s bad. Let’s start with the positives. The lead singer has a pleasant voice. The background instruments and overall mood are pretty upbeat. Those are the positives, now let’s talk about the negatives. This album is so boring I can’t even put into words how much I wanted to fall asleep listening to it. The lyrics are cheesy, and every song sounds exactly the same as the one before it. Picking a favorite is pretty hard because of that. I guess it would be “Tears All Over Town” because of the smooth Jazz going on in the background of the song. Very well, they can’t all be bangers, but at least this wasn’t offensively bad. On to the next one.

First of all, RIP to the legend Brian Wilson. Kind of crazy that I would pull this album on the day that he died. It seems like a perfect tribute to me. Second, man this is a lot of music for an album from the 60's. There's a lot of filler here that's just passable at best. This is an album that consistently makes me happy, and even if it's really not my thing I can still have a great time listening to it. There are very few things to criticize on this album, but for me personally, I just think that as a whole, it doesn't really hit me the same way as it does for others. After a while, I kind of get the point and am ready to listen to something else. Especially with 27 songs on an album that goes on for an alarmingly long 1 hour and 16 minutes. There's only so much joyous music I can take at a time. Speaking of, my favorite songs are the ones I've heard before. I think the most successful song here really is the best one, "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is great, as are "Sloop John B", "and God Only Knows." I don't believe I'd heard "That's Not Me" before, but it was also one of my favorites.

This was genuinely hard to get through. A 31 minute album that took me 3 days to get to the end of. Thank God this was my weekend album. I don’t even hate James Brown’s music generally, but for the love of God I can not in good faith enjoy this album in the slightest when it’s bogged down by 31 minutes of annoying fan cheering, and the most mid, boring instrumentation I’ve ever heard. I know this is blasphemy, but I don’t even enjoy his voice. “Soul” is listed as one of my favorite genres currently, but unfortunately this is going to tank that, probably for the rest of this challenge. “Instrumental Bridge #1” is my favorite song here, as it lasts for a little over 10 seconds. I don’t give 1’s very often, but this was offensively bad to my poor ears.

Here’s my entire experience with this album this morning, summarized in order of events. “I’ve heard of this band but can’t really name any of their songs.” “I don’t recognize most of these song names.” “Wait, I’ve heard this song before.” “Damn, this song ROCKS.” Repeat the last 2 statements for the remainder of the album. Turns out I’d heard damn near all of them before. Needless to say it’s a 5. “Ramble Tamble”, “Run Through The Jungle”, and “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”, especially that last one, are my favorites on this album. May have just turned into a big CCR fan with this one. This album is goated.

Man, I really did not need to hear Randy Newman singing the gamer word "artistically" probably 10 plus times in the same album. Hot take, extremely not a fan of his voice. This may be my first "Least Favorite Artist" when I roll him for a second time. I really don't care what the point of this album was, it was all just dreadful from top to bottom. I didn't enjoy any of it. His voice is just so hard to listen to in my opinion. Somehow I lasted the entire day though, and for that reason it's still a 1 star, but it's a high 1 star. Call it a 1.8. This is the least subtle music I've ever heard, and I just really don't know why he made an entire album like it. What's the concept? "I hate the South, wait, actually no, I hate everyone?" Phenomenal. Thank you Randy, now go away for a while so I don't have to hear you again for a while. No, actually, give me the other album so I can just get it over with. Anything has to be better than this. I give a lot of 5's on this site, and when an album gets rolled that is received very well by critics pops up that I don't like, sometimes I truly don't understand what they saw in said album. This is one of those times.

Guys, I've got some bad news. I think I hate Jazz music. I went into this with an open mind, and even a good friend talking me through what the "structure of Jazz music" entails. None of it helped. This was just bad. I don't understand Jazz music and I don't know if I ever will unfortunately. A big reason I started this challenge was to broaden my musical horizons, and in many aspects I believe I have succeeded. However, I tried to listen to this album and find ANYTHING to enjoy for multiple hours, and I just couldn't. So, I'm sorry John Coltrane. I gave it my best shot, and I still didn't enjoy it. However, each musician is clearly very talented, and for that reason this wasn't absolute torture. A 2 star, very low 2 star, but still a 2 star out of 5 nonetheless. I'd feel bad rating 2 albums a 1 star in a row anyway. Maybe I shouldn't, this was still pretty bad.

Finally, after more than 50 days of using this website, it hits me with another Prog album, my all time favorite genre. It may not be perfect, there may not have been a lot that stood out on this album by itself, but as a whole, it’s really really good. You can just skip around to any song on the album and get something that at the bare minimum is at least enjoyable no matter what. That’s also a slight double edged sword, because not everything is groundbreaking here, and nothing pushes into the truly amazing territory, especially at 1 hour and 34 minutes. I believe that makes this the longest album I’ve heard so far, and for that reason I have to judge it as a whole. As a whole, it’s a fantastic album, but far from perfect. There are multiple times here when I just drowned the music out, which isn’t always bad, it just doesn’t really add to my enjoyment. Plus, about an hour in I’m just ready for it to be over, another point against it. Despite all the critiques though, a few songs on this album truly are extremely memorable in my eyes, those being “Fly On A Windshield”, “The Grand Parade Of Lifeless Packaging”, and “Back In NYC”.

This is one of those albums that really, REALLY grew on me after a couple of listens. On my first listen through, I found a lot of the songs same-y and annoying. After like the fourth playthrough though I generally liked every song. The only ones that I didn't really like were "Faithful" and the end of "It's Your World." Also, listening to Kanye in any capacity just makes me sad knowing how terrible of a person he is now, so as much as I like the song "They Say", I just can't truly enjoy it fully. Besides that, I enjoyed very much of this album. A few days ago I mentioned growing a lack of interest in Jazz music and that upsetting me greatly, I'm glad to say that the opposite is true for Hip-Hop. I've pretty much enjoyed all the albums I've rolled so far, this being no different. "Be (Intro)", "The Corner", and my personal favorite "Chi-City" all absolutely SLAP. I kind of want to rate this one a 4, but I also skip a few songs per listen, and unfortunately it's getting a Kanye Tax, so it's a 3.99/5. Realistically this is a 4 though.

Another artist I’ve never heard of before. First things first, this guys voice is absolutely incredible. It’s just unbelievably smooth. The backup vocalists? Also incredible. My biggest problem with this album as a whole is simply that nothing stands out, and it’s very similar the entire way through. That isn’t a big problem, I just don’t particularly love it enough to give it anything past a 3. Objectively this guy is a fantastic singer, and I can easily appreciate that. Personal enjoyment though, it’s just ok. Would I listen to it again? No, but that’s also ok. Not really my thing, but I’m very glad I listened to it in general. Favorite song? I also have no idea. Let’s go with “You’re Good for Me.”

This album really grew on me throughout the course of the day. As a whole, when listening to the album completely from top to bottom, it's very good as a full listen, but listening to just a song by itself doesn't really do it justice. Initially, I hated the singer's voice, but around the 5th (seriously) complete listen through, I kind of ended up loving it. Surprisingly that's happened a lot during the course of this challenge. For that reason, I'm glad I stuck with it, because this album really is pretty good. I heard it compared to "Fake Grunge" and I couldn't agree more. At times it sounds like they're just trying to mimic or mock what Grunge is supposed to sound like, for better or for worse. My favorite songs here are "Stop Breathin", "Range Life", and my actual favorite "Fillmore Jive". Curiously, my least favorite song was the hit single "Cut Your Hair", as I found it pretty annoying. Interesting little album they got here, I'm excited to see if I like the first one any more or less, It's supposed to be fairly different from this one.

Stuck between giving this one a 1 or a 2. The first song, “American Gothic” is so comical that it actually made me laugh. It paints the woman as a shoe hungry villain, and the worst part is that I I think they expect you to take it seriously. For that reason it’s my favorite song on the album. Everything else is just forgettable, boring, bland and bad. This is listed as Country, I wasn’t aware Country could sound like this, but I do not like it. I’m having a generational run on bad music, surely a banger is coming my way soon. You know what, I only made it through once before I wanted to turn it off. It’s a 1 out of 5.

I really can’t imagine why this album is so low rated on this site. It’s pretty consistently great from front to back. Wikipedia suggests that Aimee Mann often writes songs about underdogs, and I think that’s an apt depiction of this album. It’s very up-lifting. It makes me happy, and her soothing voice is very pleasant to listen to. However, she also just absolutely rocks as well occasionally, like in my favorite 2 songs on the album “I Should’ve Known”, and “Say Anything.” This isn’t boring at all, some of the other reviewers are out of their minds if they truly believe that “Say Anything” isn’t a fantastic song. Plus, the guitar riffs in songs like “Stupid Things” are just incredible. Great album, hopefully a solid 4 star review will balance out the negativity surrounding this one a bit. :-)

This was a pretty good album. As usual, it took me a few listens through to really appreciate what it's going for, but when it clicked, I grew to appreciate the weirdness. This is proto-punk, and is very unique for what it is. Patti has a very good voice, and while the only song that I think stood out to a notable extent was the opener, "Gloria: In Excelsis Deo", this was a very unique listening experience as a whole, one that I'm glad I partook in. It might have been a cover, but I have to say, I really liked that song, especially when she finally gets to the part where she's singing the titular name. The more weird albums I roll, the more I grow to appreciate music in general. So thank you, Patti, for opening up my mind to this strange but great album. This is another artist and genre I've grown to appreciate a lot thanks to this site, so thank you to the site owner as well, for putting this cool site together.

What noise does an Icelandic dog make? Björk Björk. Anyway, this is day 3 in a row of having wildly different female artists, and all 3 of them have been tremendously enjoyable. This is the first of 5 Björk albums I’ve rolled, and it’s a great start. She just sounds very unique and friendly, and anything even remotely electronic is typically going to get high praise from me. I think this is the third day in a row stating that a unique album is pretty refreshing compared to the mediocre or generic kind of sound some albums provide, and this is definitely very unique. My favorite songs on this album are “Human Behavior”, “There Is More to Life Than This”, and “Play Dead.” Curious to hear the evolution of her musical style over time. I am entirely unfamiliar with Björk, and I’ve heard her later albums are quite different than this one. Luckily I started with her first solo album here. Björk Björk.

Really considered just copy and pasting the lyrics to my favorite song on the album, “Houses in Motion.” How much do I love David Byrne and his comically large suit? A lot. I love him a lot. This is the first Talking Heads album I’ve rolled, but it certainly won’t be the last. The only songs I’d actually heard on this album before today were “Once in a Lifetime” and the previously aforementioned “Houses in Motion.” Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to tell you that the entire album, Deluxe included, is an absolute bop. In other words, goes on, and the heat goes on. Goes on, and the heat goes on.

A lot of reviews here are comparing this to the works of Nick Drake, and I can definitely add my name to that list. Never heard of Bert Jansch before, and while I can’t say I’d ever actively seek out his music, it’s not bad. Folk Music in general is not my cup of tea, and yet it’s very rarely going to be something that makes me upset listening to either. Everything here is passable, but none of it is amazing. It’s chill vibes throughout. The best thing I can say about it is that I wouldn’t really skip any of it, which is good, as it makes for an enjoyable experience from top to bottom. I will also add though that his song “Angie” is his best song, so much so that there’s even a live rendition of the same song on this very album. If the rest of the album was even remotely comparable to “Angie”, I’d honestly consider giving this a 5, and that’s no joke.

That saxophone though!! Add this to the ever growing list of bands I’ve never heard of before, as well as the “debut album” list. And just for good measure, even the list of UK albums. It’s pretty good, some of the songs are annoying and I would likely skip a few of them, but the saxophone ties everything together and truly adds to the experience. It’s Punk with a sax, which is truly the most Punk thing of all. I love their most popular song “I Am a Poseur”, but my favorite song on the album is actually “Let’s Submerge”, as it does an excellent job of letting every member of the band display their talents and really just lets them all fit together perfectly, like a puzzle. Love the goofy album art as well, tremendously 70’s.

Soul music is generally just a good time all the way through, but it’s not always all that memorable. This is one of such cases. On a positive note, I definitely would not skip any of these songs. They’re all objectively good. Love this guys voice, but it does legitimately put me to sleep, and in my opinion nothing really stands out at all. Not a problem, but this was little more than just background noise to me. My favorite song, as I felt it did things in a somewhat unique and different way, is “La-La For You.” I would for sure be excited hearing more of this, so for that reason it’s at least a 3.6, if not slightly higher.

God, the beginning of “The Chain” just sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it. I could listen to that song 1000 times in a row and still get emotional. As the highest rated album on this website, I was wondering when I’d roll this one, but never expected it to be so soon. The fact that you could ask 100 people what their favorite Fleetwood Mac song is and they’d all have different answers is directly proportional to just how fucking good they are. This album is sex. I’d never actually heard it from top to bottom before but you can be damn sure I’d already heard a grand majority of the songs before today. Do I need to pick my favorites for this one? Absolutely not. Whatever trauma this band was going through somehow ended up producing what truly is one of the best albums of all time. Even the album art is iconic. Bravo!!

Quick side note before I begin my review. Wikipedia lists this album as a type of Country music called “Y'allternative“, which is one of the best names for a genre of music that I’ve ever heard. Regardless, this site says the album is Rock. I don’t hear any Country in this at all, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. The day I hear Country music that I actually enjoy, the world may actually end. Ok, goofy stuff out of the way, this album surprised the heck out of me. Judging a book (the album art) by its cover, I thought I would hate it. However, it really hooked me right from the first listen. Everything I care about is accounted for here, great guitar playing, some all out rocking hooks, and a singer with a great voice. It’s a little formulaic, but that’s never going to be a negative to me. “The Shining Hour” and “Fuzzy” are my 2 favorites songs on this one. Would definitely listen again. Way to truly surprise me, Mr. Buffalo.

This may honestly be the best week of music I’m ever going to have on this site. I had Rumours on Monday, and now this today. This is the second Jack White album I’ve rolled so far, and I’m pretty bummed that I don’t have many left after this one. For some added context, this album is extremely special to me for sentimental reasons. We had it on CD when I was a little kid and listened to it a ton. For many of these songs, I haven’t heard them in a long while, but as I was listening to them today, I was extremely happy and still remembered all of them in their entirety, almost like I was catching up with an old friend. Every single song is good. Not a single dud on the entire album. Picking my favorite song would be a gargantuan task, so once again I won’t even attempt to do so. Previously, I gave the album Get Behind Me Satan a 4 star rating and felt guilty doing so, as Jack White is my favorite artist of all time. To put it simply, this is the easiest 5 star I’ve ever given in my life. At least, it's the easiest so far.

Oh, hey, these are the guys that made “Galvanize”. I hear that song everywhere. If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it 1000 times, Electronica is never going to be unenjoyable for me to listen to. This is a little basic, nothing spectacularly out of the ordinary, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Sick beats to rock your head to and make the work day go by super fast, as is usual for the genre. However, I’m going to give this one a 3 because I don’t think any favorites easily jumped out at me. Nothing that made me really say, “Damn, that kicked ass.” Nevertheless, still an enjoyable experience. It’s like a 3.4.

I’ve got a list that I’ll bring up a few times during this journey. It’s a list of my Top 10 favorite songs of all time. “The Chain” is on it. I rolled that album on Monday. I bring the list up today because Machine Head has “Highway Star”. It starts with it as a matter of fact. Not only do I love that song, but I love this album. It’s previously been on a separate list of my personal favorite albums, and will continue to be praised extensively by me today. For the second time already, welcome back to the 5 star club, Deep Purple. I’ve already talked about how much I love this band, so I’ll save a bit of excess gushing. It all just works for me. It rocks. Every song. End of story. I’m almost 80 days in, and I can PROMISE you that I’m not going to have a week as consistently good as this one was for the rest of this experience. Wow!!!!

So, good Jazz DOES exist!! I’ve rolled a couple Jazz albums so far and really just did not care for them, so when I saw this album was over 2 hours long, I about screamed. However, it turns out that Jazz actually can be good, it just has to come in the form of Big Band. This was a super cool little time capsule as well. I liked the introductions given to everyone, and some of the live segments like “Riot Prevention” actually got a genuine chuckle out of me. My favorite song on this album was “Diminuendo In Blue - Live” as it’s fast paced and smooth all the way through, with plenty of fun mood shifts.

This website is going to Stockholm Syndrome me into liking Jazz, I swear. It saw Jazz listed as one of my bottom 3 genres and then gave me some pretty good albums for 2 days in a row. Not a lot to say about this one other than that it’s good. Easy to follow, and very soothing on the ears. Not something I would ever actively seek out, and picking a favorite song for a Jazz album just sounds like a gargantuan task, but overall it’s pretty good. Was able to groove to it for the entire day. Apparently Miles Davis is considered by many to be the best Jazz artist of all time. He's got a few albums on here, including the highest rated Jazz album on the site. This is the first one of his that I've rolled so far though. So, yeah. I’m actually starting to feel it now. You win this round, Jazz. I’m bestowing my highest honor for this genre of music, a 3.

You know, I didn’t really expect to like this one as much as I did, but it’s quite good. I don’t like the weird whispering thing she does on the first song, but after that, the album actually gets pretty good. It’s a little overproduced, but Lana has an incredible voice regardless. This album is extraordinarily relaxing and vibey. I actually thoroughly enjoyed “Tulsa Jesus Freak” and “Dark But Just A Game” the most. Put this down as one of the albums that genuinely surprised me with how good I found it. Little fun fact, as of writing this, this album is one of just 2 that came out the same year as the last revision of the book that this site pulls from.

Another absolutely killer debut album. Dire Straits is one of those bands that I’ve never actively seeked out, but always end up adding their music to my playlist when they pop up. This is consistently good from start to finish, but the only song that truly blows me away is “Sultans of Swing”, which of course I had heard a ton of times already before. Don’t get me wrong though, this album still absolutely kicks ass, and the singer/guitarist is so unique that I could probably recognize any Dire Straits song as soon as it starts, which is extremely impressive. 1 more Dire Straits album to go, very curious to see how they evolved over time, so I’ll for sure remember this album until then.

Getting down with your bad self and dancing to this is album like a madman is not a recommendation, it is a legal requirement when you begin. It starts off with an absolute banger right out of the gate with “Shining Star” and then slows down ever so slightly the rest of the way. Besides the first song, “Happy Feelin’” is also a favorite of mine. This is some Grade A funk right here. You’re a shining star, right on!! Have Mercy!! The Funky 70’s catchphrases are all here, and they truly add to the experience considerably.

As a redheaded Irishman myself, this is the most Irish thing I’ve ever heard. Well and good drinking music to sing while getting absolutely sloshed in a pub right here this is. I’d be doing a great disservice to my heritage by not giving this at least a 3. That being said, an hour of this is asking a lot from me. Listening to it twice to find a favorite song and get a lasting impression is also a lot. I enjoyed it more the second time through at least, so that’s something. I listened to it for most of the day, but there's a strict cutoff point for listening to this. There’s really only so much of I can take at a time, and I’d really imagine the same opinion would be shared for anyone. Favorite song here is “Sketches of Spain” as it’s something I could listen to on repeat easily. Wonder how much more if any Irish music is on here, and if any of it could possibly be any more Irish than this. I guess we'll find out at some point or another.

If the website is to be believed, the book this site pulls from only has 10 Reggae albums. This is the first one that I’ve heard so far, and it’s pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking, it’s a whole album about smoking weed, but it doesn’t really need to be anything more than it is to be a good vibe that I’m pretty much always going to be in the mood to hear. Reggae music as a whole is generally always inoffensive on the ears and vibey, it’s just good and fun to listen to in most situations. While nothing here absolutely wowed me, I don’t think anything fell flat either. Not going to remember it all that much, but I would still return to it for sure. Favorite song on this one is “Igziabeher (Let Jah Be Praised)”. Also, the album art needs to be mentioned. Lmao, it's so good. Perfect encapsulation of what Reggae music is typically considered to be in a single image.

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” By this logic, Ozzy is going to live forever, because I for one am never going to stop talking about how much ass he kicked. This is the debut album of not only Black Sabbath, but the debut album of Heavy Metal as a whole, and it is absolutely packed with bangers from top to bottom. I could listen to only this on loop for a year and still enjoy it. “N.I.B.” is my pick for favorite here. I can’t believe he gifted us with that gem right at the start of his career. I’m here to pay my respects and give this man the 5 stars he deserves. Fuck it, I’ll give him 6 stars. 10 even, we’ve just lost one of the last true pioneers of music, and I’m still grieving. We love you, Ozzy. Until I roll your next one and rate that a 10 as well. Rock on you absolute legend ❤️🦇!!

How many Black, female, UK rappers can I name?? Just this one. This is a prime example of the type of music I would absolutely never find on my own if it wasn’t for this challenge. What do I think of it overall? Eh. It’s fine. The beats are all pretty catchy. Vocals are a bit of a mixed bag, frequently bordering on just being obnoxious and a tad cringy. This is on the borderline of a 2-3 for me. Call it a 3.1. Favorite song is the opener, “Offence”, strictly because of the beat. Probably going to forget about this one fairly quickly, but honestly I really am glad I listened to it. Liked it enough to at least give it a 3 after all.

Yep, this is definitely Jazz. What, you wanted me to say more? My favorite song on this album is “Part Of A Whole”, as it’s the only one I really remembered. It’s the only one I kept coming back to since it’s the first song on the album. I don’t know man, it’s really, really hard reviewing Jazz due to its very nature. Further more, the more of them I listen to, the harder it becomes to give a unique review that's not just a copy and paste of the last one. The best compliment I can give this album is that the piano player goes pretty crazy at times. Would I come back to this? Not really. Did I enjoy it more or less compared to some of the other Jazz I’ve heard so far? Couldn’t really say that either. It didn't really annoy me, excite me, bore me or offend me in any meaningful way so it’s getting another 3. One thing is for certain though, I still don't know how I feel about Jazz as a whole.

Let me tell you today about the phenomenon known as the Clustering illusion. According to Wikipedia, “The clustering illusion is the tendency to erroneously consider the inevitable "streaks" or "clusters" arising in small samples from random distributions to be non-random.” That being said, I swear to God I have rolled every Jazz album on the website over the last couple of weeks. My continuous review for all of them has, and will continue to be, “Yeah, it’s alright.” The same can be said about this album. It’s Jazz. If it sounds good, it’s more of the same. If it sounds bad, it’s almost unlistenable. This is pretty good. My favorite song is the titular “ Back At The Chicken Shack”. Can’t wait to roll more Jazz tomorrow.

Oh man, I am REALLY conflicted on this one. Listen, I absolutely love Beck. Guero is probably going to be an instant 5. The fact that he’s got 3 albums on here makes me incredibly happy. But that’s just the thing, usually his albums make me incredibly happy. This is sad Beck. I don’t like listening to sad Beck ☹️. That being said, this entire album is absolutely beautiful, even if it makes me incredibly sad listening to it. Favorite song is “Paper Tiger”, with a special shoutout to “Sunday Sun”. Also worth mentioning is the super cool album art. Whenever I like the album art, I always internally give a bit of a bonus point. It’s simple yet cool, and really compliments the vibes of the album. I really don’t know if I want to return to this album again, but objectively it’s gorgeous and incredibly well done. Perhaps Beck at his saddest, least goofy and most vulnerable. So, final verdict? Let’s give it a 4, on the dot a 4.0. I am going to need to listen to Guero as a palette cleanser though after this.

I can’t imagine why this guy was divorced 3 times. If this is one of the “Kings of Country”, Country is going to get a lot of 1 star reviews from me. Every single god damn song is about some cheating, promiscuous woman, or him cheating on someone as well. I can’t stand his Country drawl, the simple guitar playing, lyricism, or really anything else. At 28 minutes, this was actually hard to get all the way through. One of 2 albums so far I only got through once without attempting to listen to again. I could not wait to turn this off. May God give me the strength to get through whatever mid Country album I roll next, because I foresee a lot of 1’s and 2’s in the future.

Before listening to this album, I was only familiar with Public Enemy by name only, especially Flava Flav and his dope ass clock. After listening to this, I’m a big fan. They have 3 albums on the list, so clearly they’re pretty revolutionary, in more ways than 1. Every time I hear a “Yeeeeeeeeeeah Booooooyyyyy” or a “Terminator X”, it gets me more excited. I’m hearing familiar samples and some lyrics that I had no idea stemmed from, or at least were popularized by this album. The beats, fire. The lyricism without relying on heavily using the gamer word every second, fire. The way every band member plays off of each other, fire. This is a good ass album!! Best songs are “Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic”, “She Watch Channel Zero?!” and “Party For Your Right To Fight”. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah Booooooyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

Well, here we are again. Another one of the top rated albums of its respected genre on the site, this time being Folk Rock. And, it’s another example of something that I can confidently say is objectively a 5, and yet personally I would only give it a 3. When something just isn’t for me, it’s always tough giving it a fair score, which is why I think everyone using this site should use their own individualized metrics to grade albums. Mine isn’t by objectivity, no one is ever going to read this review. It’s more of a fun journal to tell myself how much I liked an album and what songs are worth coming back to, if any. Sometimes these reviews can go wildly off track and I could just end up talking about something that happened in the world that day, or I could simply just tell you how my day was specifically. The point being, it’s not to be taken seriously as gospel. But yeah, “Cecilia” is my favorite song here. They’re all great, just not my cup of tea. I wouldn’t necessarily even call this Rock. The 36 minute playtime is also just the perfect length, bonus points for being so tight with no filler. So, yeah, I reiterate. Objectively a 5, personally a 3.

Second Bowie album on my journey, and my opinions are more or less the same as they were for Low. That is, it’s alright. Lyrically, he’s a genius, and the titular song “Aladdin Sane” going crazy with the piano was downright funny. I love Bowie and his voice, but nothing really blows me away here, with one exception. I know he’s made an unbelievable amount of music, but I’ve never actively seeked any out, and I’d never heard any of these songs before, just like with Low. It needs to be said though, of all the songs on this album, “Lady Grinning Soul” is perhaps one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, and it came out of nowhere as the final track. That riff at the end is beautiful and I think I listened to it on repeat 30+ times before looping the album again. That song really did blow me away. This album rocks a hell of a lot more than Low did as a whole. If I gave that album a 3.4, this is at least a 3.8. Also worth mentioning, the album art is one of the most iconic pictures of Bowie that exists, and man is it cool. I’d get that on a poster or wear it as a shirt for sure. Maybe I should do a separate ranking of album arts as a side project. That could be a lot of fun actually. This one is S tier for sure.

With a name as interesting as Japan, I’m honestly a little surprised I’ve never heard of this band before. One of the reviews mentioned “Quiet Life” being in one of my favorite games (Metal Gear Solid V), but I don’t even remember it. That also about sums up my take on this album. None of it was bad, but none of it was particularly memorable either. I suppose my favorite song is “Halloween” here, as it’s the catchiest. Nothing terrible, and there is a lot to like here when you listen to it, I just won’t really remember it after a while. Little too samey and generic at parts, even though as a whole the background elements to a lot of these songs are incredibly catchy. The singers voice bugged me at first, but it grew on me very quickly, which has happened a lot for this challenge. Ultimately, I’d come back to this band again. It’s piqued my interest. This is another instant lock for a 3.

“Hey, wait a minute. That’s the Jackass theme”. I wonder how many times those words or something similar have been uttered when someone gets to “Corona” for the first time. For obvious reasons, I have to say that one is my favorite. This is a crazy album. 43 songs, 1 hour and 14 minutes is so much. The good news is that it never gets boring. There’s a lot of different genres and fun things going on in this album. The bad news is that I’m never going to remember any of these songs because they’re all so short, and some of them are either forgettable or outright bad. I really wish at least some of these songs were given a second to breathe, because all of them are quite good, with very few exceptions. The singer is nothing to write home about, but he’s pretty good, no complaints in that department. The Punk Rock aspects are also all pretty good, occasionally bordering on, but never quite reaching “Hard” status. I think I’m going to put this one at a 3.9, it’s really good but never QUITE reaches the level of extraordinary.

If I had a nickel for every album straight out of Africa that I’ve rolled so far, I wouldn’t have very many, but it’s interesting that it’s happened more than once. Perhaps more interesting than the music itself was the stuff the artist was going through while making this album. It’s a pretty cool story. Here’s some things that coincided with this album being made. Ali was; Actively dying of cancer, being the mayor of a city in Mali and helping them out by building necessities with his own money, and helping his son write his own first album. Freaking incredible. The music isn’t bad either. He’s a tremendously talented guitarist, my favorite example of that coming from “Savane”, the titular song of the album. I may not know what he’s saying, but I can definitely feel it in the music. It’s good and vibey, therefore it gets a high 3 from me. And clearly, he must be a fairly prominent artist, as he’s actually got a second album on here. I look forward to hearing that one as well. This website continues to surprise me by playing good music I would never in a million years stumble upon by myself.

Often times during this project I have criticized and truly wondered why they chose some specific albums from great artists over others. They always seem to go with the ones no one listens to over the hits. That being said, this album has “Gotta Get Away”, “Come Out and Play” and “Self Esteem”. Ladies and Gentlemen, they absolutely cooked with this one. I am pretty bummed this is the only Offspring album on here, but it would be hard to argue that this isn’t their absolute best. Somewhat of a bias because I grew up with it, but I absolutely LOVE this album, even though I’m not always the biggest enjoyer of Punk music. But there are always exceptions to rules, and The Offspring is perhaps my biggest exception yet when it comes to Punk. This is one of the first examples I’d come up with when asked the question “What did the 90’s sound like?”. Put this on with some Pearl Jam and you’ve got a great thing going. Unique sounding singer, all bangers, cool album art, super tight and under 50 minutes long, you’re damn right I’m giving it another 5!!

Another example of something that really just didn’t do it for me at all, but I can see why other people would like it. This album is apparently one of the most highly reviewed albums by critics of all time, but I found it rather boring if I’m being completely honest with you. She has a pretty voice (That I also didn’t really vibe with), and the instrumentation is pretty, but absolutely nothing about this album stands out to me. I listened to it all day, and I couldn’t even Stockholm Syndrome myself into liking it. Not entirely sure my favorite song either, as it’s all very similar. Just a lot of boring topics that I didn’t much care about. Singer Songwriter is a mixed bag in general for me, and this is a prime example of it not being in my favor today. I just did not enjoy this enough to give it anything past a 2 star rating. I’m sorry, Joni. I really tried. 3 more of your albums to go…

Day 2 of rolling highly praised Folk/Singer Songwriter albums. This one is marginally better than the one from yesterday. It grew on me enough to bump it up from an initial 2 to a 3. The subject matter is obviously immensely depressing and I don’t want to listen to it past today, but as a whole it was a worthwhile experience. It’s an important album for addressing many political and social issues plaguing the African American community, through the music of someone with a beautiful voice. While depressing, her voice is somewhat uplifting and soothing at the same time, which makes you really want to keep listening. My favorite song on this album was “Why?”. I like the rapid fire questioning and tempo of that song specifically. Hoping I don’t get stun locked into a bunch of Folk/Singer Songwriter albums. I’d like to get back to some good old Rock that I'm more familiar with, but this album was pretty good. Not something I would want to come back to, but it was good. Just, for the love of God, please give me a happier album tomorrow!! Please!!

"How are the tenders, Johnny?" Oh man, when I rolled Tusk to start the day, I was so thrilled to do a deep dive on it. I had only ever heard the titular song before, “Tusk”, and while that’s still my favorite song on the album at the end of the day, now I’ve gone and found “Sisters of the Moon”, which is just incredible in its own right. This album is a lot, both length wise and, well, everything else wise as well. Tusk had the literally impossible task of following Rumours. Everyone knows how good that album is, I don’t need to tell you about it. The public wasn’t very kind on Tusk, but again, how could they be? It followed Rumours. For better or worse, this album still kicks ass in its own right. It’s got a great mix of ups and downs. A lot of the songs don’t connect with themselves very well, which is apparent right out of the gate. That’s part of the “for better or worse” aspect. Some songs rock, others are beautiful, a few aren’t all that great, a few are GOD like. Is it the perfect album? No. Far from it. For the third time, it’s not Rumours, but man I hope more people discover this one and really try to appreciate it for what it is, because it’s still really really good. Bonus points for the album art. Random picture of a dog biting someone’s leg on a beige background with a bunch of dots, and just a teeny tiny “tusk” randomly placed towards the top left. Perfect.

Pre Listen: I’m going to listen to this 1 time on Spotify with a private session so it doesn’t ruin my algorithm, and then rate it a 2, just so I don’t see this shit on my profile. Damn you for making this not only be my 100th album, but having it be right after Fleetwood Mac. That’s just not fair. Post Listen: So boring. Overproduced, overrated, tiring. Everything I feared it would be. Next album please.

I’m very mixed on Green Day as a whole. I always have been. I feel like I should really like them, but I never really have. Yet, at the same time, I grew up with them and have heard quite a bit more Green Day than many other bands, so they still hold a special place in my heart. Every song on this album is hit or miss to me. It’s got so many all time classics. I have a lot of favorites, like “Basket Case”, “Welcome to Paradise”, and “When I Come Around.” Most other songs on the album are relatively forgettable. I’m going to give it 3 stars because I’ve never really vibed with Green Day personally but I respect them a whole lot. The guitar playing rocks, the vibes rock, but as much as I hate to say it I’ve never really resonated with Billie’s singing, and repeated listens didn’t change that. I can’t disagree with people who give this one a 5 star rating, but it’s just not something I would find myself listening to a whole lot.

Funk music continues to blow my mind album after album. This is some Grade A stuff right here. Absolutely makes you dance for most of the album. A select few lighter songs of below average enjoyment are the only thing keeping this from a 5. My favorite songs from this one are “Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On”, “Run Charlie Run”, “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone”, and “Do Your Thing.” Put this one down as a 4.9/5 and I may be back and up it to a 5 at some point, because I absolutely will be returning to this one in the future. Absolutely thrilled to hear more of these guys at some point. Had only heard of them by name until today but I’m definitely a fan now!!

I’m honestly surprised how much I liked this album. I know it’s a massive meme on this website, and for good reason, but it’s not nearly as bad as the ratings would imply. First of all, it’s just one giant shitpost. When treated as such, it becomes substantially more enjoyable. Literally a few friends just having a good time. The way they blend multiple different genres together like EDM, Rock and Rap is actually quite creative and catchy. Yes, Fred Durst is an obnoxious douche canoe who can’t sing, but it doesn’t really detract from the album enough for it to become unenjoyable. The songs “My Way” and “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)” are my favorite songs on the album. The constant pop culture references are also pretty funny honestly, with direct riffs and references to things like Nine Inch Nails and the Mission Impossible Theme. But man, that album art is truly one for the ages. One of the album arts of all time in fact.

What an extremely random The Who album. I don’t even know where to begin with this one. First of all, I find the ads hilarious. I know that’s a point of contention in the reviews, but lyrically they are quite funny, especially “Odorono”, which got an audible chuckle out of me. “I Can See For Miles” is both my favorite song on the album, as well as being pretty much the only song I would consider to be a real The Who song in general. That’s where my biggest criticism of the album stems from. The ads are funny, but they take up virtually the entire length of the album. They’re weird, and are more so comical little jingles than actual real songs. I know they’re parodying Pirate Radio, but the fact that they made an entire album on that concept is kind of amazing, and not in a particularly good way. So, while I still enjoyed the album because I love The Who, this will likely be the only one of their albums I give a 3 or lower. At least they had some fun with it, it’s very goofy and shows.

I believe, quite understandably, for some people that actively dislike Country Music, taking a gander at the name of this album would be enough to write the entire thing off just like that. It’s me, I’m those people. I was all ready to give it a 1 and move on. But then I listened to it, and you know what? As far as Country is concerned, I found a few songs in here that were actually pretty good. Joe Ely, I don’t know who you are, and I’m unlikely to hear you again, but you know what? I don’t dislike some of your music. Sure, it has a LOT of songs that are just annoying Country garbage, and I never want to hear the words Honky Tonk again, but “Cornbread Moon” and ESPECIALLY “Boxcars” are the clear standouts here. Those songs genuinely surprised me. This one is getting a 3.0 on the dot since I managed to listen to it all day and found at least 1 hidden gem in the mix. That puts it well above most other Country albums I’ve suffered through so far.

Bon Scott, you legend. Probably still rocking out in heaven after releasing his final album, Highway to Hell. AC/DC has a tendency to be categorized as a band where every song sounds the same. I’m here to tell you that is 100%, categorically… true. Ok, it’s true. They’re all really similar, BUT it’s all the same banger song. I deduct points sometimes when that happens, but this is one of the exceptions to my rule. Of my favorites, the title track, “Highway to Hell” does stand out the most. Bonus points for being one of my favorite album covers of all time as well. It’s an absolute classic. Now, I’m going to rate this a 5, but I’m curious what I would rate this had I rolled Back In Black first, as obviously it has a new singer. Regardless, this is likely going to be one of the next bands joining my Favorite Artists at the top of my profile, and deservingly so.

Pearl Jam, STP, Nirvana, Alice In Chains. Grunge!!!! Give me more Grunge. They’ve got every freaking Nirvana album on here but only one of each for everyone else, besides STP who have NONE!! It’s a crime, really. This album is absolutely perfect. It was always going to be a 5 for me. The hardest part about rolling this today is picking a favorite song. I’d be wasting my time just copying the name of every song on the album to select as my favorite, so I won’t. Just know that the Grunge bands are all extremely important to me and I love all of them. No one has a voice like Layne Staley, and no one ever will. Do you want a truly unique sounding album, complete with sounds you’ve never heard before and absolute bangers song after song? Here it is. It’s Dirt. Bummed this is the only Alice In Chains album, but yeah, they picked the right one. Hitting a good streak of legendary album covers as well. This one is so cool. They do so much with what is essentially a single color and make it stand out at the same time.

After rolling Five Leaves Left a few months ago, I was really hoping to hear more of Nick Drake and his music as soon as possible. I called the last album extremely depressing, yet uplifting. I feel the same way about this one. It makes me unbelievably sad, but sometimes that’s ok. Knowing that Nick made this album and would be dead shortly after contextualizes it succinctly, I believe better than anything else possibly could. It’s just one beautiful, tragically depressed soul, playing sad music from the deepest corners of his heart. He was 26 when he died, but before he went, he created 3 albums that each found their way onto this list. This is the second of 3 I’ve had the pleasure of hearing, and I’m betting the last one will be just as good as the other 2 have been. Pink Moon is only 27 minutes long, likely making it one of the shortest albums on the list, but man, those 27 minutes really say a lot. Once again, RIP Nick, I hope your family takes at least some solace knowing how highly people think of your music. Favorite song? All of it. I think “Know” is my favorite.

This is going to be another very similar album review compared to the other Folk albums I’ve rolled so far. Folk isn’t generally my thing, but I can appreciate it for what it is. It makes it a lot easier when I like the singers voice, obviously. Joan has a very soothing voice, and it’s extremely relaxing. The way she can hold a note for so long and really make it vibrate is very impressive. It’s also really cool hearing her start singing in Spanish on one of her tracks. Unfortunately, much like the other folk albums I’ve rolled, I’m probably not going to remember this one all too much in a few days. That being said, I’m an absolute sucker for good “House Of The Rising Sun” covers, and this one is pretty dang good. For that reason, that and the aforementioned “El Preso Numero Nueve” are my favorites on this one. Very pretty, but not the most memorable, as has been the same case for a lot of the other Folk albums.

Sometimes I feel like I’m super easy to please when it comes to music. Then I quickly realize how good it is being this open to so much heat. Point being, this is absolutely fire. If anyone gets a pass rapping about dropping people, it’s the guy who was shot 9 times and survived. I’m largely unfamiliar with 50, but whenever he’s featured in a song I always get excited. So how is he by himself? Turns out, he’s just as good!! I went through this entire album going “No way this gets 5 stars, not every song can be as good as the last one.” I was astronomically wrong. With very few exceptions, this is one of the most solid Rap albums I’ve ever heard from top to bottom. Yeah, the hits like “In Da Club” and “Many Men” are probably the catchiest and objectively best songs on the album, but even the lesser played songs are at the bare minimum catchy as hell. Great flow, great beats, some incredible features (Eminem, Nate Dogg, Snoop on the bonus track). It’s another Rap album I’m giving a 5 to. Had no idea I’d be here when I started this project, but here I am.

Funk?? Soul?? World?? Jazz?? What can you really even describe this album as?? I’m not entirely sure, but either way it’s pretty good. The energy that Fela Kuti brings to this performance is electric, and the addition of Ginger Baker makes it even better. The little intros to the songs with Fela explaining the meaning behind the song names is charming and adds some flair to the mix. While this one won’t stick with me for a long time, I enjoyed every song on the main album, and listening to Fela belt out a “Yeeeeeeeeah, Black Man’s Cry” or a “La la la la” is hype as hell. My favorite song was “Egbe Mi O (Carry Me)”. The only thing on the album I could have done without was the 16 minute long drum solo. I found it more annoying than enjoyable. Next up, the regular Non-Live Fela Kuti album.

Oh MAN does this album have some legendary bangers on it. Beastie Boys is another band on an increasingly growing list that’s very likely just automatically going to get 5 stars from me, and deservingly so. No other band like them. Every song is a certified bop. The samples they draw from are iconic, every song is quotable, and the music is still solid almost 40 years later. Crazy to me to think this album could be that old and still hold up as well as it does. Anyway, “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” is my favorite song on the album, but I believe “Fight For Your Right”, “Paul Revere” and “Brass Monkey” equally deserve a shoutout, as well as “She’s Crafty” for sampling another iconic riff from Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean”. Licensed to Ill is my personal favorite Beastie Boys album for multiple reasons, but I couldn’t help but notice that a grand majority of the songs I already have favorited by them are on this album. That being said, I’ve got 2 more Beastie Boys albums to go, so we’ll see if this one is truly the gem of the lot. If it’s not, I’ll end up adding a ton of new Beastie Boys songs I’m less familiar with. Either way it’s a win win for me!!

On today’s review, we’ve got another rare case of “How on Earth is this album rated so low on this website?”. Just to be fair, I’ll start with the biggest criticism I have, it can be a tad boring for some stretches. I only know about this guy because he did the version of "Hallelujah" from Shrek, which is an awesome accolade to have in and of itself. This is the second of 2 albums released one year apart, both being on this list, and the first one of the 2 I have heard so far for this project. The way he stretches out notes is extremely impressive, and the music itself is very pretty. Looking into his backstory is also very worthwhile, dude has lived a hell of an interesting life. My 2 favorite songs from this one are “Old Whore’s Diet” and “The One You Love.” I reiterate, I don’t understand how an album this beautifully written and melodic can be rated so low. It’s quite good. I'm very interested in hearing the other Rufus Wainwright album to compare the two.

Oh, hi Damon Albarn. I didn’t expect to find you here. Gorillaz is one of my favorite bands, and I’m largely unfamiliar with Blur outside of “Song 2”, so to roll this album first before any of those is kind of funny since I wasn’t expecting it. Your enjoyment of this album is going to be LARGELY dependent on how much you like Damon’s singing. Even though this is a Super Group, I still only hear one solid Gorillaz album that I didn’t know existed. It’s got some bangers, I think “Herculean”, “Northern Whale” and the titular “The Good, The Bad And The Queen” are my favorites of the bunch. I do wish it had some more personality to it though. I like it, but I’m not really going to go back to it very often in my usual rotation. The entire album kind of blends together into one song, which is both a positive and a negative. Positive since I can get lost in it so easily, negative since I’m not really able to distinguish the songs from each other easily. I wish they did more with the other band members, I was kind of expecting a different vibe from Albarn than I’m used to. That being said, he very rarely misses, so I’m still going to give it a high 3, because I’m always going to love him as a singer and the vibes are still immaculate, as is typical of anything featuring him.

This is just an astounding album for multiple reasons, and very few of them are good. I know Frank Zappa can make good music, I’ve heard him do it before, so why he chose to just deliberately make this bad on purpose is a choice that leaves me scratching my head wondering why. When viewed through the lens of a shit-poster, this album becomes better. It’s still not good, but it’s still better than some other music I’ve heard so far. I’m able to pick some favorites, so it’s not a complete loss. I thought “Flower Punk” and “Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance” were alright. Just weird enough to not be overtly annoying, and fine overall as tunes. But as a whole, the music, skits, and overall vibe are a net negative on this one. The random sound effects, entire songs being unfunny skits, occasional music played backward, and other deliberate artistic choices that are weird for the sake of being weird work on some albums, but not here. This is the musical equivalent of going to a modern art museum and admiring a banana taped to the wall. It might be for some people, maybe, but it’s not for me. Sorry Muffin Man, you glorious little oddity, maybe next time.

It’s fine. Great voice, good vibes, just the poster child of a very middle of the road album in general. It’s overly long and well outstays its welcome, it’s very bloated, and once again this is another album where the skits completely take me out of the flow of the album. I know it matches with the premise of the album, I’m just not the most fond of them, especially with all the bloat in the mix. Again, it’s fine. Nothing really much I can say about it. It’s fine to chill out to and let it play in the background, but I wouldn’t really call any of these songs something I would immediately want to come back to hear again. My favorite song on the album is “Forgive Them Father.” I’m sure this was revolutionary at the time, but it’s extraordinarily average sounding listening to it today, I may even go so far as calling it overrated?? Apologies Ms. Hill, I enjoyed it enough, but I’m not likely to remember it after a little while. Great little feature by Santana though, he makes any album better with his presence.

Do you enjoy listening to legendary Jam Bands?? If so, yeah, this is some good stuff. Do you like extended guitar riffs that just absolutely rock, occasionally lasting upwards of 10-20 minutes?? They may not be for everyone, but I know that I sure do. They even removed the very common and quite frankly annoying aspects of most other Live albums. The actual “Live” elements like fan noise and overtly long introductions are dialed back as much as they possibly can be. While you’re getting absolutely lost in the riffs, you’ll forget it’s a live album entirely with how well it’s been recorded here. Every song is unique, with plenty of identity and variation to make sure you’re never bored. My favorite songs on this album are the closers, “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed” and “Whipping Post”. They just absolutely ended this set with the best, most extended bang possible. As far as Live performances go, this may be one of the best. Great inclusion to the list!!

I mean, after listening to a day of Shalimar with absolutely zero context to what it’s about, I feel like it’s a legal obligation to watch the actual movie at this point, no?? Bet I can guess the plot by hyper analyzing the soundtrack. I wonder how culturally significant in the UK this movie was to warrant a Bollywood Movie Soundtrack making the cut. To my great surprise, I actually kinda vibe with it. It is undeniably Indian, and again to my surprise, this album is mostly instrumental. I was really expecting something different from this, something with a lot more singing and a faster pace overall, but I’m not complaining. You probably know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen a Bollywood film. This mostly female lead vocal soundtrack is the perfect amount of background noise to still let me be able to focus on my daily tasks and relax, instead of getting me amped up like I was expecting it to. My favorite track is the opener, “Title Music”. That’s one smooth opening that I greatly enjoyed. You know what, I easily liked this more than I disliked it. I would actually come back to this. Another good obscure album from the site that I’d never find by myself in a million years. Sure, let’s call it a 3. Why not??

Day 2 in a row of rolling the soundtrack to a movie. Yesterday was Shalimar. What are the odds of that?? Really wondering how many movie soundtracks are on this list. I’m just going to repeat some of what I said yesterday. Notably, I bet I can guess the plot of the movie by listening to the soundtrack all day, and I feel it’s a requirement for myself to watch the movie at this point after listening to this. As far as Funk goes, this is just ok. I’ve heard some absolutely electric Funk albums so far, to the degree that they’re going to have to start living up to the ones I’ve already heard. This one specifically is nothing to write home about. It’s very average, yet still thoroughly enjoyable. Good mix of slow and faster paced songs. My favorite of the bunch is “Freddie’s Dead”. I’m always going to enjoy a good Funk album, and this is no exception, but I don’t think this one is going to stick with me much after today. That being said, I’m absolutely going to watch the movie. I love a good Blaxploitation flick!!

Another album of Neil Young bangers. Second album of his I’ve reviewed following Harvest. I may even like this album more than that one. Maybe. I gave it a 3.9/5, and I’m going to give this one the exact same rating. It’s really good, still a ton of fun Harmonica riffs, and a solid measure of pretty Rock songs vs jamming Rock songs. As close to a 4 star album as you can possibly get. The song “Revolution Blues” is my favorite song on the album, and it’s really not even close. That song absolutely makes the whole album, and without it I think this would fall to about a 3.4 or a 3.5. That being said, I still don’t think this album has a bad song, I just like that one that much more than the rest. This is something I’m actually likely to return to, and some other songs like “For The Turnstiles” are good enough to make the rotation of songs I frequently listen to. Great job with this one Uncle Neil.

Listen, it’s a great album and all, but no album on Earth needs to be over 2 hours long. That’s maybe a tad much. To rephrase what someone else has already said, there’s a 4 star album in here somewhere, but it’s lost in a sea of bloat. This is the third Beatles related album I’ve reviewed, following Band on the Run and Revolver, and despite being the weakest of the 3, is still something I’m very glad I was able to listen to. When it’s good, it’s really good. Most of the time it just makes for good background noise, especially the entire back third of the album which is just an added instrumental. It doesn’t bother me, just adds to the already very bloated album even more. Being as long as it is, I’m extremely back and forth on my favorite song. The one everyone knows, “My Sweet Lord” is my bronze medal, but my favorites have to be between “Art of Dying” and “Hear Me Lord”. I believe Disc 2 is actually, as a whole, my favorite part of this album. It seems to be the half I keep coming back to hear again more often than not. I also believe out of all 4 Beatles, I’d say that I probably know the least about George Harrison other than the fact that he was clearly very fond of writing music, so I’m glad I was able to listen to what he came up with here. I for sure didn’t regret any of it, album length included.

So, if we’re talking about the Mount Rushmore of guitarists, I’d probably put Jimi Hendrix at Number 1. He makes sweet, sweet, tender love to that guitar on every note of the album. The problem is, it’s very disjointed and not every song is very memorable. When your album ends with 2 of the best songs ever made, “All Along the Watchtower” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, the rest of it is going to have to be comparable, and unfortunately, I don’t think it is. I am, of course, very familiar with Jimi Hendrix, but I think this album is just a little bit too long for its own good, and has some songs that are just meh. But oh man, compared to most other albums, this is still an absolute legend in the mix. First of 3 Jimi Hendrix albums I have rated so far. It was only a matter of time. A tremendously solid 4/5. Oh, and bonus point for the album art. Another classic picture I would LOVE to get on a poster. This is an album I want to give a 5 so desperately that I may just come back to it another day and see if I’m feeling it more then.

Oh boy, he’s back for the second time. Tom Waits strikes me as a pretty cool guy, but man is his music one massive mixed bag. I can understand the appeal of his deep, gravely voice, but do we absolutely NEED 5 entire albums of this?? It’s just not for me, which doesn’t automatically make it bad, it simply is what it is. To his credit, I think I enjoyed this more than Swordfishtrombones as a whole. “Clap Hands”, “Jockey Full of Bourbon”, and “Gun Street Girl” all stood out as pretty good to me. So there’s enough to save it from getting a 1. Unfortunately, the majority of this album is just something I would liken to bad circus or pirate music. I don’t absolutely despise it, but I for sure don’t like it very much either and likely won't be coming back to it any time soon. It’s another Tom Waits 2/5, a tradition that I foresee continuing with his other 3 albums. Really it’s just more of the same from him, about what I expected.

Surprised this isn’t labeled as Electronica. I liked “Candyman” ok enough but man was this album dreadfully boring. I managed to spend the day listening to it and I seriously don’t think anything has stayed with me at all. It’s just very repetitive base level EDM beats and other similar aspects and not much else. I mean, I didn’t hate it, but there’s thousands of other bands I’d rather be listening to. Will likely not be returning to this one either, sorry Cornershop. The fact that their most popular song on Spotify is a remix of one of their own songs made by Fatboy Slim is fairly telling, give it to someone else and they’ll make it better. Nothing personal, this one just wasn’t very enjoyable unfortunately.

Hitting a bit of a rough streak on the site lately. I’m not very fond of this guys voice, I feel like this album is stylistically disjointed and all over the place, and I really dislike most albums that consist of short songs bordering on 1 minute long each, with very few exceptions. Not entirely sure that Lofi is for me, but this definitely wasn’t. It’s a low 2 bordering on a 1 for me. I think my favorite song was the closer, “Alright”. I just find most of the songs either too short and never really get started, excruciatingly boring and repetitive, or worst of all, all of the above. Sorry guys, I gave it the day. Tried to find something redeeming or an aspect I could end up appreciating, just couldn’t do it.

Bowie album #3/9. Bowie album #3 getting a 3/5. So, right off the bat, this has the same aspect of Low that just did not do it for me, the entire back half of the album is just borderline uninteresting filler instrumental beats, besides the last song which actually is pretty good. If this was a more condensed album without all the filler, it would be an easy 4 or even a 5. As it stands, the only songs that really did anything for me were “Beauty and the Beast”, “Heroes”, and “The Secret Life of Arabia”. Now, those songs are absolutely good enough to warrant giving the album a 3, but that’s literally 3 of the 10 songs on the album. Maybe one of these will get a 4, but after Low, Aladdin Sane and now this, it’s still a very safe 3 for me. At least I enjoy all of these, always something good to look forward to at the bare minimum when I end up rolling Bowie. Also, once again, simply an iconic album art picture. He even used it again later for another album I haven’t gotten around to rolling yet. Until I roll you again, Bowie. You’ve always got a high chance of popping up on the list.

The tonal whiplash I felt jumping from “Long Promised Road” to “Take A Load Off Your Feet” can not be understated. This is a much darker tone than I’m used to from The Beach Boys, with that one single goofy and more lighthearted song thrown in just completely randomly. Before I forget to mention it, that album art is absolutely Metal. I see it and think we’re about to start listening to Heavy Metal or something. This is the second of three The Beach Boys albums I’ve rated, and I feel about the same way ratings wise as I did listening to Pet Sounds, although I enjoyed this one more for sure. However, I do appreciate how tight this one was. No filler, which is always huge when I’m trying to pick a favorite song. That being said, I really liked “Student Demonstration Time” the best. Some of the songs on this album just straight up rocked, which surprised me. I really didn’t know they were able to sound this way, but I like it. The flute solo in “Feel Flows” is particularly noteworthy and stands out in a big way. This is by all means a darker The Beach Boys album, and it’s actually really good. A VERY high 3, nearing a 4.

Yet another picture perfect example of a 3 star album. Did I enjoy it? Yeah, I enjoyed it enough. It did things musically I enjoyed. Am I going to remember this after 24 hours have passed? Absolutely not. A lot of the songs had vaguely Egyptian or maybe even Indian sounding themes which I enjoyed. I don’t know, it was all good. None of it was bad, but none of it was particularly memorable either. I liked his voice well enough, and the music all passed the vibe check. An incredibly standard, generic review for an equally standard and generic sounding album. I liked the last song the best, “Never Stop - Discotheque”. There are 3 of these albums on here, so I can only imagine these guys are huge across the pond. Sure, I can see that. They’re good enough. Side note, as a great man once said, “Name something that follows the word Pork”. “Upine”. Call it a 3.6/5 and I’ll see you tomorrow for another one.

I give whoever writes this book criticism on occasion for having so many British bands represented, and draw attention to the failure to add some super obvious bands that are more deserving from elsewhere, notably the United States, naturally. That being said, when I found out that American Indie Rock band Sonic Youth of all bands has a whopping FIVE albums on this list, I was really, reeeeeeally confused. Why on Earth do they need to have 5?? They’re exceptionally average. Just monumentally, aggressively ok. 5?? Why?? So many other deserving bands don’t have any at all. Are these guys huge in the UK and that’s why they’re on here so much?? I don’t know. I already listened to Dirty, and this is comparatively better. In my review for that, I also mentioned how average it was. I’m likely to mention it as well for the other 3. With all that being said, this album has their big hit, and likely the only song of theirs I’m going to recognize, “Kool Thing.” That one I’ll admit is a certified banger. I still like the male singers voice better, “My Friend Goo” is proof enough of that, it’s unlistenable garbage, and yet “Kool Thing” is the exception to the rule and ends up being the best song on the album by far. There’s a ton of down time and filler here as well which is all just inoffensive noise and adds to my overall reasoning in why this is like a 3.65/5.

On God, my favorite part of this album was when I didn’t have to listen to it anymore. This is one of about 3 or 4 albums that I just could not bear to listen to a second time. So, it’s got that going for it at least. Now, let me tell you, when I say I don’t like Country, this is the shit that I’m talking about. I’ve heard good Country albums on this list. I know they exist. But man, every aspect of this one was just grating with a capital G. Bad bad bad. Tragic even. Wouldn’t surprise me if every 1 star album I end up giving is going to be a Country or Country adjacent album. But hey, I’ve had an entire week of bad music, next week is going to be all 5’s, right?? Right…

Oh man. Would you hate me if I said I only really enjoyed 3 songs on this album?? This is the first of many Stones albums I’ve heard so far, the second highest rated Stones album on the website, and I’m going to give it a 3/5. I’m always hearing that you have to pick either The Beatles or The Rolling Stones as the best band of all time, and it may be blasphemous to say this, but I’ve already rolled Revolver, and I gave that a 5, easily. Now, listen, “Gimme Shelter” may be in the Top 10 for best songs ever. It’s an absolute achievement of music and should be acknowledged as such. Watch both the documentary of the same name, as well as the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom if you want a really cool history lesson on it. The background vocalist alone sends a shiver up my spine, and the sick beat mixed with Mick belting one out really gave me hope that I was about to listen to the best fucking album of all time if it could even remotely match up to the sheer presence of this opening song. It single handedly gives this album a high rating in my book. It’s so good that I kind of want to go back and rate the top song of each album in this book and rank them separately. It would be pretty hard to beat. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is another classic, that’s the second song I enjoyed. I was unfamiliar with “Monkey Man” but that one was also deeply enjoyable. So, 3/9 songs is, eh, not great, but I didn’t outright dislike the others, so a 3 is very fair. That being said, every other song on the album is just filler that ranges from just fine to utterly boring filler. A lot of them are filler. After the brilliance of “Gimme Shelter”, I was pretty disappointed with the rest of the album, and man does it absolutely hurt every fiber of my being typing that out. Do they have a more solid album from top to bottom, or am I going to ultimately side with team Beatles? Time will tell.

Finally!! I get it now. Three Neil Young albums in and I’m finally introduced to this banger of an album. You know it’s good when you have to spend the day trying to pick between multiple favorites. Ultimately, I ended up going with “Cowgirl in the Sand” over the all time classic “Down by the River.” That being said, “Cinnamon Girl” and “Running Dry” also deserve a shoutout. I’m an absolute sucker for extended riffs and songs that just go on and on and mix things up like those do. After previously listening to 2 other Neil Young albums, I felt like some of the songs were just a bit too light on notable Rock aspects, and existed as mostly filler. This one, on the other hand, absolutely rocks from top to bottom. Finally, after all this time, I can give a Neil Young album something higher than a 3. Higher than a 4, even. I truly enjoyed the hell out of this one. Way to go Uncle Neil. You’ve earned this rating. Here’s hoping there’s another 5 coming from you in the future. As always, time will tell.

“The Voodoo, who do what you don't dare do, people!!”. I have been hearing that sampled in songs, and the song itself covered in general for the better part of my entire life. “Voodoo People” is such a critically important song in the history of Electronica, and I’m very happy to be listening to the album it stemmed from. The Nirvana sample also really helps make it something truly special. Now, I’m not the most familiar with this album as a whole, but The Fat of the Land is perhaps my favorite Electronica album of all time, right on top with Justice. So, both of those albums are going to get 5 stars from me no questions asked. While this album is still absolutely fire in its own right, I can see how The Fat of the Land eventually came into being by listening to earlier The Prodigy music like this. It’s hard rating it fairly for that reason, knowing just how good the other album is, and how important it is to me. Still though, this is The Prodigy we’re talking about here, and despite sounding a bit more dated overall, this is still an outstanding piece of history that made my day go by in the blink of an eye. No duds, all bangers, high marks. You know the drill. It may not have a crab, but the album art is still pretty cool, if not creepy as shit. 🦀🦀

The random horse on the album art absolutely kills me. This is the first of 5 The Byrds albums I have listened to for this project, and I’m pretty sure it was exactly what I needed to hear today. I am wholly unfamiliar with this band, so having 5 albums is a bit surprising to me, but this was a great first time listen-through. Nothing absolutely blew me away, but as a whole, every song was psychedelic, rocked, and was different enough from the one before it that I was fully engaged the entire time. It all flows very naturally into itself. Love the singers voice, love the smooth bass and the psychedelic guitar riffs. Yeah, this was a pretty good one. As the “newest” The Byrds album on the list, I guess I’m now very interested to see the reverse progression of the band and find out how we ultimately got here. My favorite song on this album was “Tribal Gathering”. When the site states that this one is 4 different genres of music in 1, it’s not kidding. You can really hear all 4, and that’s for the most part what makes this one so unique and memorable to me.

Less singing, more sweet instrumental riffs, please. This is the first of 3 Van Morrison albums I have reviewed for this project, and I’m just not really a fan so far. The only song worth mentioning is “The Way Young Lovers Do”. The rest are fairly repetitive and bland songs that I just wouldn’t really want to come back to unfortunately because I’m not a huge fan of his singing. They aren’t outright terrible, I just didn’t really enjoy them personally. So I’m conflicted whether this should be a 2.9 or a 3.0. Not much to talk about with this one. It’s the oldest of the 3 albums, so I guess I’ll see how his music evolves over time. Perhaps the other 2 will be better. Like I said, not terrible, but not great either. At least it’s got “The Way Young Lovers Do”, which reminded me of something you’d hear in Kill Bill. I really actually liked that one. Sure, that’s enough to give it a low 3. Why not??

Alright, I have to go a little outside the scope of how I normally rate albums for this one. Generally, I rate these albums and weigh how solid they are as a whole from top to bottom. However, exceptions are rarely made for extenuating circumstances that hit heavy on my nostalgia or music that I grew up with. For those reasons, this one is going to be rated on personal enjoyment more. Led Zeppelin has earned that right. Disc 1 of Physical Graffiti is an absolute masterclass of music without a single track worth skipping. If it was only Disc 1, this may very well be the best album they ever made. In particular, “Trampled Under Foot” and “Kashmir” are my favorite tracks on the album. Disc 2 is mostly filler. But, and this is a huge but, even Zep filler is better than 99% of the albums on this list. So, personal enjoyment for me was still a 5. As a Zep album, the uneven second half makes me rank this below the other Zep album I’ve rolled so far, Led Zeppelin 2, but still not nearly enough for me to rank this anything but a 5. So, yeah. Expect every Zep album to get a 5 star rating. One of the best bands of all time.

This is the type of music you’d hear in a show or movie where things are going perfectly. Everything is going great for the crew and life is pretty good. Immediately following this rise (usually in the form of a “Life is great” compilation), things are about to go terribly, terribly wrong. All that being said, fuck this is some good shit right here. Indie Rock has been a real mixed bag for me so far with this project, but this is some real primo stuff. It’s tighter than the ass on the album cover, there isn’t a single filler song on the entire album, and picking my favorite song in general is a real challenge. This may very well be one of the best Indie albums on the entire list. I am actually quite baffled I haven’t heard any of this before, and if I have, I don’t recognize it. Everyone I talked to today was baffled I had not heard this, as it’s right up my alley. I’ve probably said this before, but you know an album is good when it makes you want to explore the bands entire catalog. Ultimately, my biggest complaint is that occasionally at the end of a song, they’ll have a little riff that absolutely shreds for about 30 seconds, and then leave you wanting more of it. And I do. I want more of it!! Bet these guys kick ass live. The little riff in the middle of “The Modern Age” and towards the end of “Take It Or Leave It” are good examples of this. All of the hits are so good, but I think my favorite song on the album is actually going to have to be “Alone, Together”, which actually has 2 separate moments where they step out a bit more and just shred that shit out. Wish they included the follow up album, as it contains the one song of theirs I actually recognized, “Reptilia”. Man, what a hell of a debut album!! Apparently, the entire band is still together to this day, which is pretty damn cool. Rock on, The Strokes. You’ve gained a fan. Is this It? Nah, I’m not done with you yet.

This one surprised me in every sense of the word. I’m not generally fond of Folk and Singer Songwriter albums. They’re usually fine and well written, but aren’t my cup of tea. So, it was unexplainable to me why I ended up liking this one so much. It’s slow, it’s as Folk as you can get, melodic, and somewhat depressing. But man, that voice is angelic. Something about the sheer passion you can tell went into this just makes every song really stand out. It’s very real, and I don’t think picking a favorite is going to be easy here, but if I had to it would be “Hard Headed Woman”. The way everything comes together, builds up and just blows you away is nothing short of impressive. I would actually come back to this one. At 36 minutes, this is the perfect length for an album and does a good job of having no filler. With this album alone, I can see why this guy is in the Rock Hall. Well deserved. Pretty difficult not singing “Wild World” out loud.

The only thing I know about T. Rex is that they were inducted into the Rock Hall a few years ago. As far as their music goes, it’s alright. This is aggressively average but still very passable Rock music. It’s a little repetitive, a little formulaic, but still very easy to listen to and enjoyable enough. A few songs are more annoying than entertaining, but as a whole it’s not bad. I love the lead singers voice, and a few of the songs, including my favorite, “Telegram Sam”, remind me of my current favorite band, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (which absolutely should be on the list). I don’t really think this one is going to stick with me, but it was good. I would absolutely listen to more T. Rex. I think my favorite part of the band might just be its name. I want to be in a band named T. Rex. That’s some cool stuff. They have another album on here, but I can’t honestly imagine it’s going to sound much different than this one. So, yeah. Pretty average but still good. I liked it. On to the next one.

I think my favorite part of Funk music is the continuous running trend of just about every song bluntly stating “You are listening to Funk. This is Funky. We Funk. Funk.” as if it isn’t the most obvious thing in the world. Man, I wanted to just give this a low rating and move on out of spite because it isn’t on Spotify. I imagined it just couldn’t possibly be that good. I was terribly, catastrophically wrong. This is Psychedelic Funk Soul Rock and at the same time, it’s genuinely funny. Unfortunately, I was listening to it without knowing the names of the songs, as again it wasn’t on Spotify, but any of the songs with extended psychedelic jams were my favorites. Those just absolutely rocked and it’s an outright SHAME that this was as hard to find as it was!!!! This one wasn’t just Funky. It was outright Funkalicious. Another Funky banger. A 5/5. Just praying this doesn’t become a trend of albums not being on any of the streaming services like this one. Docking it a point for being hard to find would just be petty of me, and I just can’t do that knowing how good this album is from top to bottom unfortunately.

Eh. Not even remotely what I was expecting based off of what I had previously heard about this album elsewhere. I think I hyped it up when I rolled this one too much and was just left fairly disappointed overall. Sure, it’s fine. But it just kinda exists. All songs on this album rank anywhere from mediocre to just ok. There’s some songs that are pretty boring, and others are fine. But that’s about it. Classic album art, passable album at best. Nothing really stood out here. I heard Funk with more memorable riffs than this the other day. I didn’t even particularly care about Lou Reed’s singing here, which may be blasphemous to some. Maybe you had to be there for this one. I’m sure it’s influential and an all time classic album, but unfortunately it was just barely passable enough to scrape by with a 3 for me. Sorry banana album. I wanted to like you so much, but I’ll likely forget about this album by tomorrow. Just don’t really get this one man. It happens. I think I liked “Venus In Furs” the best. It had some fun things going on with it.

It’s old and dated, it’s very long, and it’s very similar from top to bottom. But, man is it still pretty good despite all of that. Ray has an amazing voice and absolutely carries each and every song on this album. It doesn’t matter how old it is, this is always going to be just straight up good music. Not a lot I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. Picking a favorite is also hard because there are so many songs on the album. I’m sure each one is someone’s favorite, and they’re all valid. Naming the album “Country and Western Music” is also just inherently funny, and must have been pretty risky as a Black man in the 60’s. Mad respect for being one of the first shit-posters. Game respects game. At the end of the day, I think my favorite song on the album was "Oh, Lonesome Me." But there are a ton of good ones to pick from.

A bit whiny. Some pleasant noises, but otherwise pretty average. This is distinct from a lot of the other albums I’ve listened to so far, so it’s got that going for it. That isn’t always a good thing, but it’s definitely something. It’s just not really my cup of tea. This is pretty much just noise to me. The vocals really did not help. I’d rather be listening to a few other bands that make the same kind of noises but better, like Depeche Mode, which I’m sure has been mentioned by more than a few people here. Was this a pleasant way to spend the day? Absolutely, I don’t regret it. Am I going to return to this? Probably not, but I’m glad I listened to it. The hits are probably the best songs on the album, but I kinda just picked a favorite at random honestly. Hard to tell the songs apart when this is yet another hour long album filled with exclusively this kind of sound. I don’t know, maybe if I come back to it later when I’m less busy I’ll appreciate it more. As it stands, it’s nothing outstanding but isn’t terrible either. Again though, it’s unique, so I’m likely to remember it if I see it again.

No one in my family has heard of this band before, me included. I asked them, and considering there are 5 of his albums on here, I was banking on at least SOMEONE knowing who this guy Nick Cave is. They’re all rated pretty poorly on the site, so all things considered, it seems like a questionable choice to have that many, if any at all included. This is the first of them that I have heard, and it’s the highest rated on the site. What are my thoughts on this album? Holy shit. No dude, it’s actually good. It’s actually quite good, easily the best thing I’ve heard this week. It’s funny how the mind can draw parallels to things. Earlier in the week, I heard a Black man (Ray Charles) singing traditionally White music and making it his own, and now I’m hearing the reverse of that. These are all very Black Gospel coded songs, and you know what?? Nick Cave absolutely crushes it here. I don’t know if his other 4 albums are even remotely this good, but I actually loved this one. As a double album, it has a massive 1 hour and 22 minute playtime, and the first half kicks the shit out of the second half, so it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close. I found myself adding 4 songs from this album to my favorites playlist, and even the ones that did not make the cut were at the bare minimum all good enough to not skip. My favorites on this album are “Get Ready for Love”, “Cannibal’s Hymn”, “There She Goes, My Beautiful World”, and my personal favorite, “Hiding All Away”, which has an absolutely electric, energetic, crazy finish. “There is a waaaaaaaaaar comiiiiiiiiiiiiiing”, (Crazy guitar solo). That song kicks ass. So yeah, it all came together nicely and gave me a hell of a surprise on a random, slow Wednesday. Thank you Nick. Interested to see what else you’ve got, I might be a fan.

I’ve listened to a lot of sad white boy albums so far. This one might be my favorite. I don’t know if I compared Elliott Smith to Nick Drake in any of my previous reviews, but they had 2 very similar stories. Both of them involve young, insanely talented men who tragically lost their battles with depression. If you’re not in a good mood, it’s going to make you feel even worse listening to either of them most of the time, but sometimes that may be exactly what you need, if that makes any sense. This album still has all the patented sadness of an Elliott Smith album, but the production, implementation, vocals, instrumentation, energy and just overall mood is a lot happier and better as a whole somehow. I don’t really know how else to explain it. I really don’t, this one just made me a lot happier, it was full of energy and life, rather than just a wall of sadness. You feel me?? The opener, “Son of Sam” and “L.A.” are my favorite songs on this album. They’re absolutely killer and end up giving me hope, instead of just making me sad. The entire album as a whole kind of does that. Occasionally, some tracks won’t hit the same, some of it is a bit forgettable, but I honestly think I enjoyed this more than his much more popular album, Either/Or. Rest in peace buddy. Thank you for the killer album today. A very easy and very high 4 stars out of 5.

Eh. If this was from like the 80’s or something I might give this a bit of a pass for being boring and bringing nothing new or interesting to the table, but these guys have 3 entire albums on here and this album specifically released in 2007, so it gets no passes for being unoriginal from me. This is the first of them I have heard and the most popular on the site as well. It’s just kind of boring and generic indie electronica rock. It’s melodic and orchestral, but never really that good or exciting for the entire length of the album, until you get to the last song on the album, which I LOVED, “My Body Is a Cage”. Around 2 minutes into that song, there’s an absolutely killer tone shift that is unlike anything on the rest of the album. I really wish anything was even remotely comparable to how much I enjoyed that riff. This is a band I feel like I heard mentioned a ton around the 2010’s, never heard any of their music, knew nothing about, and then they were quickly excised from public conscience a few years later. Don’t know why we need 3 of these here, but who knows, maybe the other 2 show me something new. Somehow, I doubt it. This was a bit pretentious, I wouldn’t really return to it, and didn’t really connect with all that much of it, but I still never actively disliked any of it, so it’s still getting a 3 from me.

Bowie album 4/9. Bowie!! You’re back. Oh snap, this is the one with “Fame” on it. I love that song. Sure enough, it was my favorite song on the album as well. The more of these I listen to, the harder it is to rank them against each other. Do I like this better than the Berlin Trilogy? Without a doubt. Is it better than Heroes? Debatable. Probably. Is this finally getting a 4? Hard to say. It’s mostly filler, but it’s undeniably better than the purely instrumental filler I’m used to hearing from Bowie’s other albums in my opinion. I think this may be the most consistently good Bowie album I’ve heard so far from top to bottom. His vocals are an amazing part of every song here, and there’s a fair bit of differentiation from song to song as well. It’s never boring, but as usual, nothing really just stands out and blows my mind. To quote one of the best reviews on the site, “It’s David Bowie”, so you know it’s at least going to be worth listening to. I love how Funky this one is at times, and the backing vocalists all kick ass. It’s probably my favorite of the 4 albums I’ve heard so far. Ok Bowie, 5 more albums to go. Until next time buddy.

Pre-Listen Thoughts: Why is this here?? What business does this legitimately have being here?? “Nixon became a breakthrough release for Lambchop in the United Kingdom.” Oh. That’s why. Guys, we’ve made better music than this in the States you could have picked from. I promise there are better albums than this. Post-Listen Thoughts: Ok, so admittedly I was WAY too harsh on this album. It’s actually pretty good. I still stand by the fact that we have much better albums to pick from, but I enjoyed my time with this album substantially more than I had anticipated after reading the genre was “Pop Country”. So, first of all, I don’t hear Country in this album at all. This is borderline just Indie Rock. It’s the good kind of chill where you’re not really engaged in the music the entire time, but you’re still happy that it’s on in the background regardless. I’m not the fondest of the lead singers voice, but it’s at least passable. Then you get to the last 2 songs on the album, and they’re actually kind of just great. “The Petrified Florist” and “The Butcher Boy” are by far my favorite songs on this album. So, you know what. I’m sorry for pre-judging you, Lambchop. This was a nice, chill, pleasant listen-through on an otherwise busy, stressful day. I think I was also thrown off by the first song, which is actually my least favorite on the album. If you can get past that, you’re home free. And if you like it, hey, you’re probably going to enjoy the rest of the album a lot. Bonus.

This one is a low 2 for me. Everything I dislike about most Hardcore Punk music, only saved by how killer some of the riffs are. This guys voice is just nails on a chalkboard. I know that’s the point of “REAL” Punk Music, but it’s just not for me. If he didn’t sing at all, this would be an easy 3 for me, but his annoying wailing just ruins it entirely. Wouldn’t return to this one sadly, but it’s not a 1. I kind of thought it was going to be a 1 for a while. It’s almost a 1. I kind of want it to be a 1 low key. It didn’t exactly grow on me, but the more I could drown out the sound of the singers voice, the easier it became to appreciate the guitar and other, better aspects of this album. My favorite song on this one was “Our Way”. Gracefully, this one is 38 minutes long. The perfect length for an album. I also really like the album art. It’s simple but very cool. Stands out.

Did you guys ever play any of the old Tekken games, or other similar PS2 era fighting games like MVC? You know the background tracks they play while you’re fighting? Got a bunch of random fun noises and sound effects. Yeah. This is that, and I kind of love it. It’s extremely dated, but in a very delightful and fun way where I still had a blast listening to it. A medium-high 3. It doesn’t do anything new or amazing as an Electronica album, but it’s fun to listen to all the way through, which is all I would really want from it. “Groove Is in the Heart” is the big one from this album. I’d actually heard of it before, and yeah, it’s the best song on the album as well. Very, very catchy stuff. I’m never going to complain about having to listen to an Electronica album. They’re always at the very least going to be an enjoyable experience. This one is no different. Groove is in the heeeeeeeeeeeeart (astronomical).

Started the week with Bowie and I’m ending the week with Bowie. This is album 5/9 from him, and by God I’m starting to run out of things to say about David Bowie. I’m already a slight bit over 150 albums into this challenge, and it’s front loading me with a metric ton of Bowie. They’ve all gotten a 3 star rating, I would say deservingly so. So, what makes this one different? I don’t know myself really. Vibes mostly. I just find this to be the most consistently good from top to bottom. Every single Bowie album has 1 notable song and then a ton of filler. This has a few notable songs, and it’s really short at just 38 minutes long, so the notable songs take up a good little chunk of the album. My favorites on this one are the title track, “Station to Station”, and my actual favorite song on the album, “Stay”. This album does a lot of experimenting. If this even makes sense, that feels like the theme of this album, and it works here. There’s a good blend of rockers and lighter songs, instrumentals and vocal tracks. It took 5 albums, but I may have finally found the best Bowie album. We’ll see what the next one has in store within the next couple of days if this keeps up, so until then!!

Ok, I’ll start on a positive note because I don’t really have much else in the way of positivity for this album as a whole. I think the name Thelonious Monk is pretty great. I don’t know if that’s the guys name, the name of the band, or even a stage name, but it’s pretty cool. Part of the charm is that I have no idea, and don’t care enough to google it to find out. Ok, so that’s what was good about the album, now the negatives. It’s more Jazz. I don’t understand Jazz, and every time I think I’m starting to finally get it and roll a Jazz album I like, I soon after end up rolling an album like this, and just strongly dislike it. It’s just boring man, plus the lack of a structure doesn’t soothe me, it gives me anxiety. The overbearing piano and trumpet just make me dizzy. I don’t like this. I recognize and am easily able to appreciate the greatness and talent of the band, but personally I would never seek any of this out, and will not be returning to Mr. Monk, if that is in fact his real name. I just don’t get it. I’ll chalk it up to that and simply be satisfied knowing that I gave this one an honest attempt by listening to it all day. It’s Jazz, I can’t pick a favorite. Sorry. It’s between “Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are” and “Bemsha Swing”. Those were at least bearable.

“Heaux Tales”, huh?? Yeah, I’m sure this is empowering for women somehow. Nah, this is not it fam. This is the latest album to be added to the book, and I’m sure when they did so they probably figured it would become a classic at some point. While I can’t vouch for how it’s held up myself, I can tell you personally that I just did not care for it at all. First of all, I don’t get why every one of these Hip-Hop albums has to constantly be interrupted by these annoying ass skits. I hadn’t realized it before, but I guess that’s just integral to the genre, so while I can’t hate on that aspect specifically, I still just don’t like it. Second, I find this to be wholly generic, and unfortunately don’t enjoy Jazmine’s singing style very much. When I don’t like someone’s voice, it’s always going to make the album substantially less enjoyable. I really don’t think this album was made for me. That’s ok, but this one was pretty hard to get through. An occasional good song or 2, like “Pick Up Your Feelings”, but I couldn’t last the day listening to this one. Ironically, the best part of this album was the feature where someone else was singing instead of her. It’s nice and short at least, but the length just draws attention to the skits that much more. Not a questionable choice to add this album, I get why they would feel the need to do so, but it just wasn’t for me. Oh well, on to the next one I guess. Sorry Jazmine.

There’s a reason why MJ is known as the King of Pop. Regardless of public perception, his actual musical abilities were, and will continue to remain unparalleled. His status as a social pariah is an elephant in the room that many have already addressed, but god damn it, it’s so hard to not enjoy his music. “Man in the Mirror” may be one of the most popular songs on the album, and it happens to be one of my least favorites here. Which is insane because it’s still a really good song. I’ve never heard an MJ album from top to bottom before, this is the very first time I have done so, and when I tell you I added more than half of the songs on this album so quickly, I mean it. That last stretch of 3 songs alone, “Dirty Diana”, “Smooth Criminal”, and “Leave Me Alone” is absolutely legendary. My only criticism of this album comes from the middle, which has some skippable (but still absolutely outstanding) filler. Favorite song on the album? I mean damn, I can’t go with recency bias here and pick something I’ve never heard before, that would be disingenuous, “Smooth Criminal” is a brilliant song and deserves to be admired, so I’m going to pick that. I’ve been listening to it for a long time, for good reason. There’s so many good songs on this album, I didn’t even get around to talking about how good “Bad” and “Speed Demon” are. That’s just how good this album is as a whole. I know people like Thriller more, so I’m extremely excited to check that one out now. Bad? More like Good. I’m sure I’m the first person to ever make that joke.

Very middle of the road indie rock album. A fine example of an album that I’m going to listen to for 1 day, and immediately forget about the next. This was good, but nothing particularly stood out. As far as first albums go, it’s really good though. I know that a ton of people absolutely love this band, so for that reason I have a fun opportunity to see how they evolved over time. I am largely unfamiliar with R.E.M., but this was a pretty good start. Again, it wasn’t amazing, but it was still pretty good as a whole. Nice little peaceful album to get me through the long day, served its purpose. Never really grabbed me, but hooked me enough to let me still feel actively engaged in the music. Love the singers voice, even if this album was a bit too light for my liking as a whole in most places. At least it was easy to listen to. Another very middle of the road 3.5/5 on this one. I really liked the energy and funky guitar playing in “Moral Kiosk”. Easily my favorite song on the album. That one was really fun and ear wormy.

The Kinks are a very peculiar band to me. They’re one of those bands who I know are immensely popular, and I even have a good bit of their music saved to my Spotify already, however, I can’t for the life of me name any of their popular songs, let alone even remember what the ones I have saved are. It’s a band that I know I like sometimes, but know nothing about. If someone tells me one of their songs, I’m sure it would ring a bell, but I sure as hell haven’t even heard of a single song off of this album in particular. If I had to describe this, it would be a Beatles knockoff with just a touch of The Who mixed in. It wasn’t terrible, but I’ve already forgotten it entirely as I’m writing this review. My favorite song was “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains”, and even that was just ok. A few skippable songs that I found more annoying than good, but none that were offensively bad. As I listen to more albums, these are going to become dreadfully common, but this is yet another middle of the road 3 star affair that will quickly fade away out of my head in due time. The best thing I can say about it is that the singer sounds pretty good, and I would absolutely be willing to give these guys another shot at a 4 or 5, hopefully with an album where I’ve actually heard of some of the songs on previously. Being the first of 4 Kinks albums I’ve heard on here, I have a pretty good shot of getting my wish later. Will they all be this average, or will one of them surprise me?? As always, time will tell.

Sometimes, quite often actually, before I start listening to these daily albums, I like to do a deep dive into the band/artist that I’ll be spending my day with, and look at their Wikipedia pages to see what they’re all about. Man, after reading about Jeff Buckley’s story and all the people who he inspired, I was absolutely fiending to check this album out. This guy made 1 album, and then tragically drowned while fully dressed, singing a Led Zeppelin song at age 30. Insanity. God must have wanted this guy to sing for him personally in heaven, because it’s an actual sin that we only got him for a single album. I want more. Why am I giving this album 5 stars?? Because I hear a lot of Chris Cornell here, a friend of Jeff’s, and my favorite musician of all time. It may actually be crazy to say this, but I think Jeff may have better voice control. The places he goes with each and every note are nothing short of amazing. Not only does Jeff’s voice absolutely kick ass, but this album is a near perfect mix of absolutely electric, balls to the wall bangers where he sings his heart out, like in “Grace” and “Eternal Life”, while also including genuinely beautiful pieces as well, like “Hallelujah”. Then there are the songs that are somehow both at the same time, like “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over”. Wow. What an incredible album this was. I can’t believe there are artists that were this talented out there with albums this good, and I’d never have found them if it wasn’t for this site. This was truly something special. Favorite song? It’s gotta be the title track, “Grace”. I’m a sucker for the songs that rock the hardest after all.

Ironically, this is the first Pink Floyd adjacent album I’ve rolled so far on my journey through every album on the list, and man do I wish I was actually just listening to Pink Floyd instead. There are so many Pink Floyd albums they could have picked from that didn’t make the final cut, Animals being my favorite of the lot that didn’t make it, but instead they went with this. Listen, I get it. Syd was an integral part of the band and its history. Wish You Were Here is my favorite Pink Floyd album, and one of my favorite albums of all time, but putting this here as well next to that is just sad man. It honestly kind of hurts. Again, I get why they included this, but knowing the story behind Syd Barrett just makes it all the more painful. The way virtually half of the album on Spotify is outtakes is a weird decision. It feels like they’re making fun of him almost. In a way, it’s a rather brilliant way of looking into the mind of a man who is in the ongoing stages of literally losing his mind. And you know what? This album isn’t actually that terrible, outtakes included. And in a way, knowing how talented he was just adds to the sadness. This is a sad album man… Favorite song? I actually thought “No Man’s Land” rocked sufficiently hard. For the unique background this album has, as well as the fact that it still surprised me a few times and was never actively terrible, I’m actually going to give this one a very low 3 stars.

I’ll do my part and inform new listeners that the Spotify version of this album is incorrect. You’ve got to find the real version elsewhere, I used Youtube personally. This one is really tough to rate objectively. It is purely instrumental background noise. It’s inoffensive and pretty nice on the ears, but does absolutely nothing for me and I’m going to forget about it by tomorrow at the latest. The second song was also so quiet I could barely even hear it at all. I have no idea if that was intended, but it was just irritating enough to mention discussing here. Was it enjoyable? Ehhhhhhh, not really. Was it memorable? Absolutely not. Was it nice to have on while working? Kind of. It was, to its credit very relaxing and made me very sleepy. Maybe that’s both a positive and a negative the more I think about it. It’s clearly very well made for what it is, even if what it is isn’t for me. Every prominent artist in history just about has an “India” album, and it seems like this may just be the very album that inspired a ton of prominent, well known musicians to make their own “India” albums. So it’s got that going for it. This album, for that reason, is culturally significant, and more than welcome on the list. Now, the big question is whether I’m going to rate it a 2 or a 3. I don’t know. This one is really tough. You know what, it’s easy to get through. If I genuinely struggle to get through an album but can find aspects to appreciate, I’ll go 2. If it’s at least easy to get through, I’ll go with a 3. This is a 3.

Pretty good. A lot more Soul than Pop on this one in my opinion. Solange has a pretty voice that makes her very easy to listen to. This album was peaceful, upbeat, and never once bored me. However, like many others have said, it is very one note, samey, and will not stick with me for a very long time. It’s a middle-low 3, as nothing really stood out and grabbed me, but the vibes were immaculate. It was extremely easy to get through the day with, and I would even check out more of her music. My favorite song on the album is “F.U.B.U.”. That song was catchy as hell. A big criticism I have for a lot of Pop/Hip-Hop albums is the implementation of skits spread throughout the course of the album. I’ve mentioned that to death already. This album has a few of them, but for the most part they’re non-intrusive and work well. For that, I’m awarding a few bonus points to this album. Overall, yeah, I thought A Seat at the Table was pretty good.

Not entirely sure where to begin with this one. I’ll start with this though. Earlier in the week, I rolled a Syd Barrett album. The odds of me then pulling this album only days later are nothing short of amazing. This is one of those albums where nothing I could possibly say hasn’t been said before. If you like Floyd, this is their absolute best album in my opinion. If you don’t like them, you’re objectively wrong and have bad taste. Them’s are the rules. Every single song on this album works, and they all add so much to it as a whole. The first and last songs, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 1-9”, are an absolute love letter to Prog Rock and I could listen to them all day. “Welcome to the Machine” and “Have a Cigar” (My favorite Floyd Song) are both pointed jabs at the music industry in general, and also just rock. Finally, “Wish You Were Here” is a sad, but otherwise sweet tribute to Syd. Every one of these songs is absolutely amazing, and it’s another one of those albums where every song is going to be someone else’s favorite. It’s perfect. Not many albums on this list are going to come remotely close to just how much I love this album. You should listen to this one from top to bottom and just let it take over you for a bit. It’s magical. First Floyd album down, and they started with the best of the best.

It's The Wall. Be real here. It's musical perfection. I may not enjoy this as much as Wish You Were Here, but it's still one of many in a list of perfect or near perfect Pink Floyd albums. Noted, it's my least favorite of them, but it's nonetheless still perfect. Hilariously enough, I actually rolled Wish You Were Here yesterday, so there is a non zero chance I get 3 Pink Floyd albums in a row. Now that would be insane. Anyway, if Wish You Were Here is a Prog Opera, this is an entire Prog Movie. It's long, it's sad, it's intense, it's a lot of things that have already been said better than I ever possibly could. The filler adds to the experience, and there is plenty of it. That is the only reason why it can never be my favorite Floyd album. That being said, the hits absolutely rule. "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1-3", "Comfortably Numb", "Hey You", "Young Lust" and "Run Like Hell" are all God-Tier songs littered throughout the album, and when you get to them, it's definitely worth the wait. The rising and falling actions on this album are just one of many brilliant aspects to an album that deservedly gets a ton of praise. Another 5/5. I could listen to this on repeat for the rest of my life and find something new to enjoy and appreciate.

“Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?” You know, I’ve always been interested in checking out this movie, and now I’ve heard the entirety of the soundtrack to it. This is the third movie soundtrack I’ve rolled so far for this project, and for the third time I think it would have been better had I already seen the movie going in. Listen, I love Isaac Hayes as much as the next guy, but this is not the best representation of his work. He barely even sings at all here, and his voice is the most notable thing about him. None of these songs, besides “Theme From Shaft” and “Do Your Thing” really stand on their own legs without whatever scene they are supposed to accompany. Without that very important added context, this is like 99% background music and 1% gold when he’s actually singing. The good news is that even the instrumentals are at the bare minimum good, even if some of them go on way too long. I’m an absolute sucker for some Funk/Soul, so it was at least enjoyable for the most part. It’s a tad boring in places, but with background music to a movie, that feels inevitable really. Another strange inclusion to this list to have a musician beloved for his voice, and inexplicably have him not sing for the majority of the album. Thank God for the fact that Hot Buttered Soul is on this list, that’s one I expect to enjoy substantially more. Important to note that I didn’t not enjoy this one, it just wasn’t what I was hoping it would be.

2/2 Temptations Albums down. Having listened to the album All Directions previously, I had extremely high expectations for Cloud Nine. I added virtually the entire album after listening to it last time. So, how does this one compare? Well, in my honest opinion… This one isn’t nearly as good, sadly. The good news is that all the singers sound amazing, especially the guy with the immensely deep voice. Love that guy especially. The bad news is that as a whole, these songs are all just barely passable, maybe slightly boring, and I didn’t love the rendition of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” nearly as much as the CCR Version, so that kind of disappointed me even more. I think what held this album back compared to the other one is the level of Funk. It was easier getting down with All Directions because every song made me want to get down and dance, but this one felt like more traditional Motown and did not make me want to get down and dance. Not a bad thing, just not as good. It was a high pedestal to put the album on admittedly, and it did not pass my expectations. All that being said, it’s a slightly above middle of the road 3. Let’s go with a 3.68/5. My favorite song on this album was the opener, “Cloud Nine”. It teased me right away with a banger of a song and then went downhill rather quickly after that. Still, now that I’m done with these guys as far as this project is concerned, I’m free to check out their entire discography, which I absolutely will. That’s a huge compliment.

The review that links to the Onion Article about this album may just be the greatest review on this entire website. Dave Mustaine has a unique, iconic voice, and I will absolutely accept no slandering of his vocal performance on this album. He really adds something special to it. This is EXACTLY my tempo for an album. When I want to play true Metal, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Same reason why Metallica is going to get a bunch of 5’s. This is one of those albums where you can just take your pick for favorites, and it might change daily. There’s so much to love between all of the songs, but god damn are the hits amazing. The riffs on this album are some of the juiciest pieces of ear candy I’ve experienced with this project so far. This is one of those albums I have actually heard 1000 times before, which always have a bit of favoritism when I’m ranking these. That being said, I love this band, so it’s easily getting a 5 from me. Favorite songs are “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due”, “Hangar 18”, “Five Magics” and “Tornado of Souls.” This album is Metal as hell, it’s extremely goofy, and most importantly it just kicks so much ass. I haven’t even mentioned the album art yet. This might make the podium for best album art with all the funny political figures rallying around Vic Rattlehead messing around with an alien and some kind of glowing artifact thing. Uranium maybe?? Don’t know. Regardless, goated album. I even have another one to look forward to at some point.

“Oh, good, these guys again.” - Me, said sarcastically after rolling my second Arcade Fire album for this project. I really don’t know what it is about this band specifically, none of this is bad and the background aspects are very well done, I just find it all so pretentious, by the books, generic and boring. If someone were to play any of this, I wouldn’t object listening to it, but I would absolutely skip it 100% of the time if it was just me in the car. This is a prime example of the kind of generic indie rock that I can tolerate listening to, but do not prefer or recommend to anyone I know. They for sure aren’t the first band I’ve heard that just sound disingenuous, and they won’t be the last, but they just come off sounding kind of fake and phoned in. Damn, I’m being kind of rude to this album. It’s not as bad as I’m making it out to be, I promise. It’s fine. Passable at best, and more good then bad, but it’s very easy to critique as well for its faults, and hard to praise when every song sounds the exact same as the one before it. Not sure if I liked this or Neon Bible more. Probably the ladder, as it had 1 song I really loved. This one, not so much. I think the opener was probably the best song, “The Suburbs”.

This is one of those albums I appreciated listening to, and would not have seeked out if it wasn’t for the site. Obviously I have heard of the legendary Muddy Waters. Truly a revolutionary, and one of the best to ever do it. What I didn’t expect was to enjoy his music as much as I did. So, it’s very dated, obviously, but it is so incredibly easy to listen to that it really doesn’t matter. The repetitive nature makes it just the slightest bit less enjoyable, but I would take this any day of the week over something like Jazz. Muddy has a great voice and can play the guitar very well to boot. His charming and confident nature radiate with each song on the album. While this isn’t something I would often return to, I don’t believe this album has a single song I would skip on it. My favorite song on the album was the all time classic “I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man”. Very glad I got to spend the day with Muddy Waters. This is absolutely foundational music for so many reasons, and still holds up well today.

I’m learning. When I rolled a “Country, Singer Songwriter” album with a somewhat low rating this morning, I decided not to just write it off before listening to it. For that, I was rewarded with an album that more or less surprised me a ton. It was a dark, gross, and very rainy day outside today. Somehow, listening to this peaceful album with the rain pouring outside was just the vibe I needed to get through the day. The rain actually added to the experience, which was cool and unexpected. Listening to Gillian and her soothing voice made the rain feel more serene, peaceful and less chaotic, if that makes any sense. This album is a fairly mixed bag of genres and tone shifts at random points, so it also gets bonus points for feeling unique and interesting. It will shift between a soft spoken Singer Songwriter piece, more traditional Modern Country, or sometimes even some Country Rock, that last one of course being my favorite. Every song stands out from the last for both better and worse, which as I’m finding out over the course of this project, is actually pretty hard to do. The more Modern Country drawl ditty songs like “Elvis Presley Blues” don’t really do it for me, but even those I don’t straight up dislike. The opener, “Revelator”, was so good that I added it to my playlist. It’s got a killer riff at the end, and is both peaceful and also kicks ass. The song builds on itself and culminates in a song that ends up just being fantastic from start to finish. So, yeah. I’m learning. Never judge a book by its cover, go in with an open mind, and you might just end up being very surprised. Great album you have here Gillian!!

Jethro Tull beat out Metallica in 1989 at the Grammy’s in the category of “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental” with the album Crest of a Knave, an album most Jethro Tull fans wouldn’t have in their Top 5. It was the first and only time the Grammy’s held that category. Did you know that?? It’s one of the funniest things to ever happen in music. Not only did it paint the awards show as a total joke (which it absolutely is), but it also confused the shit out of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull, who are not, and have never been a Metal band. By Ian’s own words, he doesn’t even consider it Hard Rock. Now, jump to the year 2025. Jack White is finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, extraordinarily deservingly so. If the laws of nature abided, I would have that man’s babies. He thanks over 30 bands not already in the hall. Notably among them, a bunch of Prog artists, including Jethro Tull. This has all been a long winded way to say that not only is the Rock Hall committee an absolute joke as well, but Jethro Tull and his signature flautistry are absolutely iconic among bands. Ian isn't the first person to play the flute, but he's definitely one of the most notable to do so in the field of music. This album is so good from top to bottom, and it's going to surprise a lot of people with just how good it is. Every hit is incredible, and could all be considered my favorites. "Aqualung", "Cross-Eyed Mary", "Up To Me", "Hymn 43", "Locomotive Breath" and "Wind-Up" are my favorite songs on this album. Which one is my favorite favorite? Man, I can't even tell you. Even the interview at the end of the album is interesting, a cool insight on how the album was made. My all time favorite genres continue to be Prog and Grunge. High chance they're all going to get a 5, and this is for sure no exception. I wish we had more Jethro Tull albums on the list, but this is the most famous and most accessible of all of them, so I'm more than ok with this being what they went with.

I’m having a generationally good run on music this week again. 2 5’s in a row is always a good omen. “Feel Good Inc.” and the Gorillaz were my first big love in music. I’ve been listening to these guys my entire life. I’ve grown up with them and seen every stage of their evolution with great interest. While I’d rather have preferred Demon Days over this if I had to pick only 1 Gorillaz album, this is still undeniably a 5 star album. Me labeling it as anything other than that would be directly antithetical to my entire being. This is the band that introduced me to Deltron and MF DOOM, 2 of my all time favorite rappers. While only the former is present on this album, he’s also responsible for what I believe are the 2 best songs on the album, “Clint Eastwood” and “Rock the House”. Both of those songs are worth the price of admission alone. That isn’t to say 2D doesn’t absolutely kill it on vocals though, he’s another absolutely iconic part of the band. They must have had so much fun on this project. Every song sounds completely distinct from the last, and they’re all absolute ear candy. When this came out, it was unavoidable. You either loved it or hated it. After that, it took on a life of its own and the rest was history. What a great first album by one of my favorite bands of all time. Bonus, I’ve never heard this version of “Clint Eastwood” before either with Ed Case, but it’s fantastic. There’s a 3rd version on the album G-Sides with Phi Life Cypher, and even that’s good. I guess they just have a million different versions of that song, and it makes sense. The song is fantastic!! They’ve even sang it live with MF DOOM himself, which was legendary as well btw. I could talk about this band all day in a positive light. Listing my favorite songs on this album would simply be me copy and pasting the entire set list. And the album art!! Gotta love the classic Gorillaz geep with the graffiti of the bands name. It even manages to capture their unique personalities as well. Love this album. Love the Gorillaz. If the book gets another update, it would be a crime not to include Demon Days or Plastic Beach. Further more, since they were frequent collaborators, this may be one of the few moments where I get to request they add MF DOOM as well.

As a guy with Irish heritage, I’m surprisingly not the most familiar with U2. When I was a kid, we had a single U2 CD my parents would play in the car. Whatever record had “Elevation”, that’s the only track that stuck with me all these years later. I suppose I could easily just look that up on Spotify and see if I remember the other tracks, but I’ve never really cared to do so. It wasn’t really all that impactful of a memory, just a very old one I have. Anyway, I didn’t recognize any of the tracks on this album, hits included. I know about the reputation this album has though, and I know about the reputation Bono has nowadays. His portrayal on South Park as well as the whole forced album on Apple phones thing really fucked the band as a whole in the public eye, didn’t it?? All that being said, I guess I’m a fan of U2 now. This was nowhere even remotely close to what I remember them sounding like. This album is damn near a 5 for me. The electronic elements are stellar, as are the guitar playing and Bono’s iconic singing. I enjoyed just about every song here. The only thing keeping it from being a 5 is that, despite all the ways I enjoyed this album, I still don’t think anything stood out as truly incredible. Fantastic, yes. But not incredible. The closest song to true perfection I thought was “Even Better Than The Real Thing”. This is a really good album and it’s currently first place on the list of albums I may go back and change to a 5 if I feel like reranking a bit. I know this is considered by many to be their magnum opus, so I’m curious to see what I think of their other albums on this list. Really good first impression with this one.

Wow. Talk about an album that really surprised the hell out of me. I have no idea who Janelle Monáe is, but now I want to hear more of her. My first listen through and I thought it was a lot. Fast paced, sounded like an upbeat women’s haircare commercial, and insisted heavily upon itself. Kind of gave me anxiety. Wasn’t bad, just a long album that didn’t really do anything for me. On the second listen, I was absolutely hooked harder than I could possibly have imagined. Janelle is an incredible singer, and she brings a certain energy to these songs that I haven’t heard a lot of for this project. Now, this is a long album, and not every song is perfect, but god damn does it sure feel like it ends quickly, even at 1 hour and 8 minutes of runtime. Every song does a great job of blending into each other, and there is a good bit of variety in the songs. Occasionally, there’s even a killer breakdown, like on “Cold War”. The filler on this album is mostly just short intermission tracks that are still actual, real songs and not annoying skits. Picking a favorite song is actually really hard. The hit is “Tightrope”, and that’s probably the song I’m going to pick, otherwise it would take me hours to decide on what my favorite song on the album is. The feature is very good, and it’s definitely the catchiest song on the album. Man, this might literally be another contender for a 5. It’s close. The production is just insanely well done. I think by the time you hit a certain point, you kinda get the point. I don’t have many aspects to fault this one on, length included. Not only would I come back to this one, but it might fall into my usual rotation. A huge compliment for someone I’d never heard of before. It’s a very, very very very high 4 for me. I didn’t add any one specific song to my playlist, but god damn it’s all so good as a whole. This was catchy.

Man, this is a WEIRD album with a capital WEIRD. The first listen through was one of the most miserable experiences of my entire life. I could not wait to turn this off. This is the second Kate Bush album I’ve rolled for this project, and I gotta be honest and say she’s 0/2 on personal enjoyment. Here’s why this album is so weird. Kate has a great voice, but the ways she chooses to use it range from caterwauling like a mad woman with plenty of voice cracks left in the final product, using way too much unnecessary grumph, or as another reviewer mentioned, literally making animal noises. It’s not only off-putting, but it takes me out of the songs completely. A cardinal sin when I’m trying to get lost in the music or work with it in the background. Even the songs that I actually do like have these random interjections that I just don’t vibe with. Bad vibes on this album all around. Yet, I managed to spend the day listening to it. Have I sort of found a weird level of understanding with Kate that makes listening to this easier, or have I just lost my mind completely?? I don’t know. When it’s good, it’s a 3. When it’s bad, it’s a 1. Therefore, I think I’m going to give Kate Bush a second 2 star review, even though some of the noises she makes on this album are actually offensive to my ears. My favorite songs on this album, when she’s not being annoying, are “Leave It Open” and “Night Of The Swallow”. To my astonishment, I found something to actually enjoy with both of those songs. One more try at an average rating for Kate Bush. I don’t like her odds honestly. If anything can be said about Kate Bush, it’s that she’s unique and clearly having a lot of genuine fun here. That should at least be celebrated, even if I don’t enjoy it personally.

Going to start off by mentioning the album art. Few are as iconic as the angel baby smoking. Permanently engrained in my mind, and always will be. I’ve got some very fond memories of playing “Hot for Teacher” on Guitar Hero. Imagine that song coming out today though. It could never happen. Probably for good reason, but as it stands it’s one of the catchiest songs on the album, and I can’t stop singing it, lol. This album is so tight. It’s over in the blink of an eye. It would be easier to tell you the tracks that I didn’t recognize on the album. Having not heard this from top to bottom before, I knew all but 2 of them. That is to say, with songs like “Jump” and “Panama”, and the lesser known, but maybe my favorite song on the album “I’ll Wait”, this is a pretty damn good collection of hair metal jams. You’re either going to love it or not. I think most people are going to love it, personally. I know this came out in the 80’s, but for some reason I was kind of surprised just how psychedelic and funky this album was. Always going to be a fan of “future noises”, especially when it’s contextually relevant to when the album came out and not just a throwback, although those can be cool as well. I was going to say that this is Van Halen at its absolute best, but holy shit their first album is also pretty good. Going to be fun trying to determine which one I like more when I roll that one. As it stands right now, I’m on the border of giving this a 3 or 4. While I enjoy most of the songs, none of them absolutely blow me away. But it’s iconic, very tight, and I knew pretty much every song going in. So I don’t know man. Damn, this one is hard to rate. I’ll be nice and let the cool album art have a place on my profile.

This was my Thanksgiving album today, so it didn’t get the love or time I usually give to the other albums. I was spending some quality time with the family. Stuffing is the best Thanksgiving food btw, fight me if you disagree. Luckily, this album doesn’t seem to be all that great or memorable. Ok voice, fine instrumentation, just another album I’m going to forget about shortly. Maybe I’ll spend more time with it and see if it hits me differently when I’m not so busy. It was fine, but at the moment I don’t really have much to say about it. Too light for my liking and I was kind of falling asleep listening to it a few times. It’s very passable. Just one of seemingly a thousand of these middle of the road English Rock albums that get progressively harder to write a unique review for. I’m well over 150 albums in now, and it’s already getting rather difficult at times to be unique for these. I don’t know if that says more about me or the rather generic, unremarkable but still passable nature of the album as a whole. It’s almost an hour long, which is a little on the long side for what it is. Plenty of filler here. Most of the songs are forgettable after a single listen and some, especially “All By Myself”, are at times a little hard to get through and outstay their welcome. This is probably a band that falls in the “Hey, remember that band??” category, noting that they only ever made this single album. A few songs were pretty good, I particularly liked “I Can’t Sleep”, and “Doledrum”. There’s just enough variation between the songs here that it’s at least not a chore to get through for the most part, but I don’t think I’ll be keeping this one in the usual rotation or returning to it any time soon. After about a minute, it just fades into background noise. Again, it’s fine for what it is. But only just fine. A 3.3/5.

Before I begin this review, I want to mention that the only song I knew of Peter Gabriel going into this was “Sledgehammer”. Luckily, it happens to be on this album. This is the first of 3 Peter Gabriel albums on the list I’ve rolled, and the highest rated by the users on the site by a pretty good bit. I wonder if it’s because of the inclusion of that song. While undeniably the highlight of this album, I’m also obsessed with “Big Time” now as well. Listen, as a whole, I’m not in love with this album. It’s 9 songs, 46 minutes, which is a good length, and has 6 very light and slow songs, and 3 which are faster paced, better, and more to my personal taste and liking. The third song I really liked was “This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)”. Undeniably, Peter Gabriel has an amazing voice I could listen to for a long time. The drummer beats the hell out of whatever he’s using. You get a lot of noticeable, heavy steel drum noises all throughout this album which are pretty awesome. If I was in to the more slow paced and pretty 6 songs, this would absolutely be a 5 star album. If those 6 songs were even remotely like the 3 I enjoyed, this would probably be a 10 star album. As it stands, I’m going to give it a 3.7/5. “Sledgehammer” happens to be my favorite music video of all time, and I recommend anyone that enjoys that song, or anyone who simply enjoys good art to go watch it!! Also humorously enough, but more off topic, Stranger Things finally just came back this week for a final season. I rolled a Kate Bush album earlier this week, and I’m ending the week with a song featuring her on this album. Anyone who has seen the show would know why that’s funny, and if I didn’t know any better I would say the owner of this website may just have a great sense of humor.

Oh look, it’s another tragic artist that just so happened to blow me away with how good they were. Why do the most talented people have to die so early? It’s such a depressing reality of life. Admittedly, the only thing I knew about Amy Winehouse going into this album was that she died, and it was a huge story at the time. No idea how she sounded before listening to this, as I’d never really sat down and listened to an Amy Winehouse song before. When I saw the genres listed as Soul, Jazz and Rock, I really didn’t have a clue what I was going to be in for here. What a unique and catchy style of music this was. After listening to it, yeah, I can clearly hear elements of all 3. Her singing style is very reminiscent of Soul, the instruments are very Jazzy, and most of the songs on the album clearly have some Rock focus as well. That just about covers all 3. The only thing keeping this album from a 5 star rating is one of the most common issues I have with albums, the filler. It’s NEVER an issue here, but some of the songs are just here to extend the album a bit and end up being a little forgettable. Now, I ended up adding 4 songs to my playlist from this album, which was also way more than I expected. My favorites here are “Intro / Stronger Than Me”, “In My Bed”, “ What Is It About Men”, and my personal favorite, “Amy Amy Amy”. This was an album that immediately hooked me during the first listen. Holy shit her voice was on fire on this album, which also happened to be her debut. It was catchy, smooth, sexy, and easily replayable from top to bottom, filler included. This one is a solid 4.8/5. Notably, this album does not include any of her Top 10 songs on Spotify. A grand majority of them, including her Top 6 songs, are on her next album, Back To Black. That album is also on the list. If it’s as good as the listen count implies, we’re looking at a very solid chance that one gets a 5 star rating from me. I’m going to specifically refrain listening to it so whenever it gets rolled I can get excited about it popping up here. What else can I say? Amy, Amy, Amy, I’m a new fan of yours.

Listen, I know some of these albums are going to be dated and are very much products of their time. I get it, times were different, it was a different world and all that nonsense. That being said, man, this entire album just feels kinda… well, overtly rapey. Makes it kind of hard to enjoy. Not to mention it’s just not really my thing in general, so that’s a double whammy. I have no idea how Frank Sinatra was as a person, but it’s not relevant to the album. I kind of got the impression that he was one of the most well respected artists in general, but man is he getting absolutely RAILED in these reviews. There aren’t many, but there are enough albums on the website that reading the reviews for are a substantially more fun time than listening to the actual album they’re reviewing. This is one of those times. I expected to like this album a lot more than I actually did. I mean, it’s Frank Sinatra. From what I had initially understood, he’s some kind of music royalty. And yes, again, dated, product of its time, etc etc. I’m sure this was probably absolutely groundbreaking at the time. But now, all I hear is “Please cheat on your husband” or “I’m stalking this unsuspecting woman”, or “I’m going to buy the old washing machine some jewelry. Broads love shiny things.” I don’t know. It’s pretty boring, and I didn’t manage to get through the day just listening to it. This is also not my favorite rendition of “The Girl From Ipanema”. But, a positive note, he’s got a hell of a good voice. Conflicted, if this one’s not a 3.0, it’s a 2.9. The least rapey song I enjoyed the most was probably “Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)”. In case you couldn’t tell, I wasn’t really all that much of a fan of this one. A pretty rough outing by one Frank Sinatra. That’s all folks.

World music is always a mixed bag. I almost guarantee I’ve already stated that during one or multiple of these reviews so far. The ratings are generally always very low, and I can generally always understand why. It’s music from a different culture that often speaks an entirely different language. Unfairly, a lot of people are immediately going to not vibe with that. I’ve had multiple of these albums at this point, including some notably of Spanish, African, French, Hindi and Indian origins. Not all of them are bangers, but to be honest, this one was pretty good. High energy, energetic vocals that aren’t overbearing, and a good usage of some very prominent traditional South Asian instruments. While thematically similar, the songs on this album all have a unique feel to them, and even if I can’t understand them, I can kind of pick up what it is they’re trying to say and appreciate it for what it is. My favorite of the bunch this time was “Ali Maula Ali Maula Ali Dam Dam”. Never in a million lifetimes would I have bothered seeking this album out, but thanks to the site, I was able to enjoy this today, and it surprised me with how good it was. A pretty solid 3.6/5 stars. No skips here, just a fairly consistently good blend of catchy World music. Right on.

Mini tangent: Thought my app was glitching for a second. This entire album only has 2 songs on it, huh?? Well, that’s a new one. I wonder how many albums are only going to have 2 songs for this project. Can you really call this an album with just 2 songs?? Surely none of them have just 1, right?? Now that would be comedy. Ok, tangent over, let’s start the review. This is my second Miles Davis album, following Birth Of The Cool, which I enjoyed but don’t really remember any of really, because it’s Jazz. You’ll never believe it, but this is also just Jazz. I don’t love it, but I for sure don’t hate it. It is competently made, and it’s easy to listen to. You’d think having just 2 songs would make it easy for me to pick a favorite, but I really just can’t tell them apart enough to make a decision here. It’s literally a coin flip. Going to go with “Shhh/Peaceful” as whatever is going on towards the middle of the song is pretty good. As far as Jazz albums go on the site, this is one of them. That is my review. Thank you.

It’s been one hell of a week on the site for me. 4/5 days this week have been Jazz albums. Jazz is a genre I find to be astoundingly average and generally not something I ever seek out due to the lack of planning out the songs (Something directly inherent to what makes Jazz what it is) and coordination. It often just doesn’t interest me that much, often to the point of boredom. This, however, was pretty damn good. Perhaps that's because there's also a lot of Blues in here, and it all feels very planned out and not like one constant freestyle. Maybe it's because of his outstanding voice. Of the 4 Jazz albums I heard this week, I would go back to 2 of them. This is one of those 2. When Jazz is planned out and clearly coordinated like this and makes a semblance of sense musically, it’s generally pretty good. Plus, all I can imagine in my head when listening to this album is a funny Orangutan singing, and that just makes me happy. Look at the album art, look at that goofy guy. He’s having the time of his life. My favorite song on this album was the opener, the absolute classic “Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody - Medley”. Obviously this is very dated, as it’s one of the oldest albums in the book, but it’s still very easy and fun to listen to today and I’m glad I got to spend some time with it. I'm going to give it a high 3. Bonus, having never heard of Louis Prima before this outside of The Jungle Book, I later got to identify his music by sheer coincidence outside of this project, and immediately recognized that it was him. Getting to learn about new artists and then being able to identify them later on is one of the coolest parts of this entire project!! This was a very fun record by King Louie. 🦧❤️

This is the second Joni Mitchell album I’ve rolled, following Blue. I was very critical of Blue. Noting its accolades, I was expecting something very good and noteworthy. What I got instead was a voice I didn’t love, and a boring album I also didn’t really love. I was fully expecting more of the same going into this album. For some reason, and I have no idea why, I had a much different experience with Court And Spark than I did with Blue. Her voice here is calm yet confident and vibrant, and made every song sound great, the variety in a lot of the songs was good, and even if it kind of faded into the background after a little bit, I was more relaxed and entertained than bored. Joni has a very good voice for putting me at ease, and I promise that’s a big compliment. With 4 albums on here, I wonder if this is going to be what I can expect from her later albums. I’ve gone in order so far, we’ll see if that changes later on with the other 2. I really liked the big hit on this one the most, “Help Me”. The jazzy ending track, “Twisted”, and energetic, upbeat “Raised on Robbery” are also very good. Alright, good stuff Joni. I enjoyed this one a lot more than Blue. I found it much more accessible and easier to listen to on my ears. You’ve earned a 3 with this one.

Shoutout to Guitar Hero for my knowledge of the Dead Kennedys. I’ve been rocking out to “Holiday in Cambodia” for years because of its inclusion in that game. I still remember my shock and horror hearing the original version for the first time with the profanity included, instead of the Guitar Hero cover. Good times. It’s the best song on the album. Gotta say, they picked the right album this time for the book with this one. Now, I don’t know if it makes me biased, but I generally dislike Punk music that sounds this fast, and has songs this short. However, I had a super long and stressful day at work today, and this absolutely got me all the way through it and left me in a better mood because of it. Pair that with the inclusion of “Holiday in Cambodia”, which I already loved, and you end up with an album that I just absolutely ate up. It’s worth being said that on top of being good songs, some of these song names are the funniest things I’ve ever heard. With song titles like “I Kill Children”, “Stealing People’s Mail”, “Kill the Poor”, and “Let’s Lynch the Landlord”, it almost makes me wonder if this is supposed to be satirical in nature, or if this is truly just what Punk is like. Either way, I loved this album, and I wish we had some more representation by this band. Absolutely killed it with this one and saved my stressful day. Big ups. Will be returning to the Dead Kennedys for sure.

Oh man, it’s another quintessential middle of the road 3 star album. Going to have to pull something out of thin air to get a lengthier review for this one. Ok, let’s start with the basic things that I enjoyed. I love this singers voice. I’m also a sucker for a good brass section, so this album has that covered very well. The drummer works out great here, and you can really hear him banging the hell out of the drums. I did not dislike a single song on this album, but like many have said, they’re all tremendously similar and formulaic. However, I don’t take issue with the similarities here, because as a whole, I really like what this band has to offer. My favorite song on the album was the opener, “Dumb Waiters”. I loved the funky background elements of that one, they were very unique and hit my ears just right. That one was good enough to add to my frequent rotation. Humorously, I think the hit on this one, “Pretty In Pink”, while still good, isn’t one of the stronger songs on the album. I don’t quite understand why this one is rated as low as it is. Sure, it’s generic and doesn’t do anything particularly new or interesting, but I wouldn’t call this one boring or uninteresting because of that. Either way, I still enjoyed my day with this one and never thought of skipping anything here. Good stuff.

This is the Iron Maiden album Iron Maiden, featuring the song “Iron Maiden” by Iron Maiden, off of the album Iron Maiden. I’m easy. I see Metal, I enjoy Metal very much. Was already very familiar with this band previously, but hadn’t heard an album from front to back by them until now. For reasons that should be obvious, I always get Iron Maiden mixed up with Megadeth. While I absolutely LOVE Vic Rattlehead , I think Eddie the Head may just be the most iconic mascot in Metal history. I digress. Anyway, my favorite song on this album is “Phantom of the Opera”. The solo absolutely shreds on that one. This is an easy 5 for me. Whether it be the original singer or not, even being the debut album, this is still very much a core Iron Maiden album, and it turns out to be an incredible one at that. I just can’t help but love the vocals, killer riffs, fast pace, energy, vibes, it’s all outstanding here. Every time I roll an album like this, I dread whatever may come the next day, because I spent the entire day absolutely loving this album to death. This is the first of 2 Iron Maiden albums I have heard for the project so far, and you can probably have it as a safe bet that the other one is going to get 5 stars as well. We’ll see. This was 37 minutes and 8 songs of absolute bliss. My only concern, if you can call it one, is that I wish it was longer. That’s a pretty good concern to have in my opinion.

Is it a coincidence that all 3 of the top rated Country albums on the website are all performed by Johnny Cash?? Absolutely, emphatically, no. There is Country music, and then there is Johnny Cash. They’re 2 completely different things. Listen, as someone who openly doesn’t particularly like or enjoy Country music, even I have to give it up to the all time great here. No one else even stands on this man’s plane of existence in the Country space, before or after. One of the greatest musicians of all time. How great is he? Well, I was today years old when I found out that “Hurt” wasn’t a Johnny Cash original, and Nine Inch Nails did not cover it. Instead, it was the other way around. And this is coming from a huge Nine Inch Nails fan. I’ve been listening to both versions for a long time, and only just now realized that this was the cover. Admittedly, I didn’t even realize Johnny Cash made it to the 2000’s, so to hear this was his last album didn’t surprise me all that much. Man, he sounds so old here. Despite that, he still gives it his absolute all and knocks it out of the park. Not only is “Hurt” a cover, but the entire concept of this album appears to be Johnny Cash giving respect to some of the all time greatest artists and songs himself, putting his own unique blend of singing on every song on the album, a majority of which are covers. A few of them even feature some other prominent artists like Nick Cave and Fiona Apple. My favorites of the lot are “Hurt” (obviously), “I Hung My Head” and “Personal Jesus”. I haven’t really done a deep dive on the post production of this album yet, but having the intro start with a passage from the book of Revelations (The last book in the Bible), and having the closer be “We’ll Meet Again”, is actually so insane that it’s almost creepy and foreboding. This is the first of 3 Johnny Cash albums I’ve rolled for this project, and I’m obviously very excited to check the others out.

Damn, sure. Ok Pixies. My apologies, I was unfamiliar with your game. I don’t know where this came from, but I kind of loved it. I feel kind of bad saying the intro song “Cecilia Ann” is my favorite, but it is. I feel bad about it specifically because it doesn’t have any vocals, and I really did like this guys voice as well. I don’t know if you could call it a great representation of the band, but it’s getting added to my favorites playlist regardless. It was not only the perfect intro, but it had a classic surfing music vibe and reminded me of “Miserlou”, one of my favorite songs. Pixies are a band I’ve heard by name only, and can only pull their biggest hit out of my head “Where Is My Mind?”, which is not on this album, but I did also recognize “Is She Weird” from this album, so that was cool. I’m almost certain there are more songs I would recognize if I heard them by the Pixies. It’s one of those bands, you know the ones I mean. Can’t think of any songs you know, but end up recognizing more than you thought you would. This album was not your usual generic Indie Rock, it’s full of a bunch of different sub genres that jump from song to song and range from Surfer Rock, Hard Rock, Stoner Rock, Indie Rock, Punk Rock, and many more. All that is to say, it never gets boring. To me, this is a 4.0 on the dot. It JUST reaches into the territory of being outstanding, but still far from perfect. I found myself running into a good issue to have with this album a few times today. Every time the album would end and restart, I’d find myself saying “Damn, that was the entire album??”. At 39 minutes and 14 songs a pop, this one feels more like it lasts for 10 minutes. Like I said, it’s a good problem to have. This is the first of 3 Pixies albums I have rolled for this this project, and currently the lowest rated on the website. That absolutely shocks me. You’re telling me they get even better?? There’s a very high likelihood I give this band a 5 or 2 before this project is over if they keep kicking this much ass. Good stuff here. Will be returning to it for sure. I’m a big fan of this. Badass album art as well.

Shoutout to the guy in the reviews who mentioned that Led Zeppelin absolutely ripped these guys off with the opening riff of “Stairway to Heaven”. That’s hilarious honestly. Go listen to “Taurus” if you don’t believe me. You’ll pick up on it pretty quickly. This has been a week of many surprises for me already, and this album is another one of those surprises. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this one from top to bottom. It’s weird. Very weird. Some of these songs are just all over the place genre wise. Anyone that knows me knows that I love variety, and this album has that in spades. I’m hearing everything from Psychedelic Rock to Funk to even a bit of Pop here. I can see why Led Zeppelin toured with these guys. They’re surprisingly comparable. My favorites this time around include “Animal Zoo”, “Mr. Skin”, and my personal favorite, “Street Worm”. That little riff is absolutely killer. Also worth mentioning are the catchy vocals and smooth brass in “Mr. Skin”. It was a close second for favorite. This is the type of album I really enjoy checking out. A band I’ve never heard of, a genre I already know I like, and a new collection of songs that I can easily enjoy. Hell yeah. Another unexpected great one here. I’ve been handing out a lot of 4’s lately. Let’s keep that 4 and 5 train rolling. They tend to come in waves. This band may very well mostly be known for suing the estate of Led Zeppelin, but their music is honestly pretty good. I was impressed with this one. It’s another 4 for me.

Like James Bond music on Valium. It’s not easy making Electronica boring, but I believe this album unfortunately succeeds in doing just that. Coincidentally, “Deer Stop” is what I was yelling at my phone while listening to this album. From the moment the first song started, I kinda worried every song would be that boring, and I was mostly right, with one notable exception. The only exception is the penultimate song, “Utopia”, which is by far the best of the bunch. It wasn’t amazing enough to add to my usual rotation, but it was definitely the best on the album. Being all the way at the end of the album, I wasn’t expecting anything to stand out from the rest that deep in. It’s a long way to go for a single notable song. Ok, so the singer for sure has a beautiful voice, and I wasn’t in abject misery listening to this at any point. It’s boring for sure, but it’s not terrible. It’s going to get a 2 from me. Easiest 2 of my life. You’ve got a lot of EDM/Electronica artists on here that only get a single showing, but somehow this is the first of 2 Goldfrapp albums on the list that I have heard so far. If I end up ranking their other album anything higher than a 2, I would actually be pleasantly surprised, but I really just don’t see it happening with how boring this one was. Why they get 2 albums on here is beyond me, but I didn’t write the book so it’s whatever. I didn’t last the whole day listening to this one. Again, it wasn’t good, but it was never bad enough to make me want to shut it off completely. So, yeah. 2 stars.

Started off rocking harder than I expected from Bob Marley and then quickly devolved into a fairly repetitive, yet still enjoyable enough album. Had some sick guitar solos early on that I wish had more of a presence later in. This is my first of 3 Bob Marley & The Wailers albums on the list, and my second album featuring Peter Tosh. Did Bob Marley have a solo career, or was it always him and the Wailers?? For being such a notable name in Reggae/Music history, I’m admittedly only aware of his hits. Kind of want to watch a Bob Marley documentary after this. I have no doubt I would be more appreciative of the goat and his lasting legacy. I was largely unfamiliar with Bob Marley’s music before listening to this, but you really kind of get the gist of it after a song or 2. Keep in mind, Bob Marley is THE most notable figure in Reggae music history, like it’s not even remotely close, and this album was still enjoyable enough, but Reggae doesn’t really blow me away as a genre. After a while, there’s only so much I can take at a time. Now, I don’t think I’m going to be the first person to point this out, but I suspect this kind of music may be more enjoyable if one is smoking the devil’s lettuce. Bold statement, I know. I’m a true visionary. What was I saying?? Oh, right. Bob Marley. My favorite song on the album was “400 Years”. The messaging, keyboard, deep bass, and vocals were pretty awesome. The aforementioned guitar in “Concrete Jungle” was also pretty great. Overall, this album was good, and I would happily listen to it if it was playing on the radio, but I don’t think it convinced me to return to it on my own. For this musical journey I’m on, there are 2 more Bob Marley albums on the list. Let’s see if they have more of a staying power than Catch A Fire. This one was alright, but it’s not something I’m going to be thinking about much after today. Nonetheless, it’s a very comfortable 3.

I kind of made the assumption blindly going into this one that I would be giving it a 5 star rating. Tragically, I didn’t expect to find it so boring. Prince is one of the most well respected artists out there, and of course “Purple Rain” is legendary in its own right. It’s not on this album but whatever. I thought Prince did more balls to the wall, killer solo riff laden Rock, which is 1000% on me, but this was far from that. Was it funky? Sure, it was funky, but I’ve heard much better Funk during this project already. I would also call this Pop much more than I would call it Rock, but regardless it was just very average the entire way through as both. Some songs, notably “Play In The Sunshine” and “It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night” were my favorites and stood out as the best to me, but even then, neither of them absolutely blew me away. Never once did I find myself saying “Wow, that was really good” while listening to this album. It pains me to say that I wouldn’t exactly call this album goated. I WOULD call it very bloated however. With a playtime of an hour and 19 minutes, this one was actually somewhat difficult to get through in a sitting, which is just really not something I expected to write about Prince. Well, he’s got 2 more albums left to impress me. I’m sure I’ll like those more. This one wasn’t bad, but it did disappoint me more than anything I’ve listened to so far while doing this project, so that’s pretty rough. When I expect to enjoy something a lot and then don’t end up enjoying it all that much, I’m much more critical of it as a whole and the review ends up sounding like I hated it entirely. I did not hate this, it’s still a 3. But it’s a low 3 at that…

Give me Grace Slick or don’t even bother giving me anything at all. I’m not the first person to say that and I won’t be the last person to say it either for sure. If she was the lead vocalist on every song, I think this would be a 5 star album. It’s still a pretty solid album overall, but there are a ton of songs that I actively want to skip after the first listen just to get to the good stuff. The only song not sung by Grace that I really vibed with was “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds”. Ok, so I’m being a bit harsh on Marty Balin, which I do sincerely apologize for, but he doesn’t hold a candle in the wind to Grace and her almost hypnotic voice. It’s no coincidence that the 2 best songs on the album also happen to be the hits, with her singing the lead vocals on both. That being said, picking a favorite between “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” is a really tough challenge. I wish I could pick both. I hear them both so frequently, and admittedly didn’t realize they were by Jefferson Airplane. This is just one of those many bands along the way doing this project in which I was glad to connect with, because I wouldn’t have seeked them out on my own. Bonus, now I can say I’m familiar with them, and not just the hits. Expanding my musical scope and finding something new is, and will continue to be the most rewarding part of this entire project. That got off topic a bit. Whatever, anyway, this is a pretty long filler-laden album at 58 minutes long, and it frequently has me skipping songs to get back to Grace. For that reason, it’s a middle of the road 3 stars out of 5. Please tell me she’s got some solo stuff, or at the bare minimum something where she sings more. It’s such an infrequent tease on Surrealistic Pillow and I’m absolutely craving more Grace after listening to this. That’s my big positive takeaway from Jefferson Airplane. Goated female singer. Decent but not amazing male singers. Not to be confused with Jefferson Starship, which didn’t make the book’s shortlist, or Starship, which definitely, absolutely didn’t make the cut either. What was my favorite song on this one? I’m going to have to give it to “White Rabbit”, because every time it ends I’m consistently upset it didn’t go on longer. Thankful they gave us this album and not a lesser known one just for the sake of hearing something new, they do that entirely too often, and not getting to listen to this would have been a crime.

Oh boy, Frank Sinatra is back with another album on my journey, pretty much exactly 3 weeks after I last heard him on here. The last album was so miserably bad I almost ended up giving it a 2. It just sounded very rapey, and it came out more than 10 years after this album, so I kind of thought I was going to be in for more of that here. The album in question was Frank Albert Sinatra And Antonio Carlos Jobim, which absolutely does not roll off the tongue. With an album name like Songs For Swingin' Lovers!, I was really bracing myself for more of the same. Instead, I got a much better album, and substantially less rapey sounding. Noted, the context/subtext behind a few of the songs maybe isn't amazing, but whatever. "Makin' Whoopee" in particular makes me want to jump from the highest bridge I can find. I was substantially less creeped out listening to this one as a whole though. However, I was still bored out of my freaking mind. This music has a rightful place in history. Does it deserve to be on this list? Absolutely!! Songs like "You Make Me Feel So Young" and "I've Got You Under My Skin" are classics, the ladder being my favorite song on the album. Do I want to listen to them? No. No I do not. Do I want to listen to an entire album that consists of 44 minutes of what is essentially the exact same dated song? Also no. But hey, it was better than his later stuff apparently. It would not surprise me even a little bit if this is his absolute peak musically. If anything, this album really makes me want to go back and give the last one I heard a 2. This one is leagues better. I've got one more Frank Sinatra album to go, and it's the oldest album in the entire book. So yeah, I am fully expecting it to sound more or less the same as this, but even more dated and boring. Not the biggest fan of Frank Sinatra's music. I acknowledge it has a huge spot in music history, but don't enjoy actively listening to it all that much. Another pretty low 3 from me, but definitely not a 2. Call it a 3.35/5.

Man. Music is weird sometimes. This album has pretty much no information about it on Wikipedia other than “The creators of the book apparently liked it enough to put it in.” It’s got an extremely low rating on the site, most notably due to being an obscure repetitive French Electronica album. And you know what… I kind of loved it. Like, a lot. Bonus points for the meme song “Music makes you lose control”, which is going to be stuck in my head again for another week at the bare minimum, if not longer. Anyway, yeah it’s repetitive and extremely goofy, but this is the kind of thing I could just have on in the background for hours and still jam the hell out. It accomplishes everything it sets out to do well, and for being made in the 90’s, it’s actually pretty ahead of its time. I think if this came out like 10 years later it would have been more popular. Doesn’t have any moments I want to skip. It’s just under an hour also, which is the perfect length for Electronica. I’ve said in just about every review of this genre that it’s pretty hard to mess up, and I think that Darkdancer does a great job here. Favorite song on this one has to be “Hey you what’s that sound?”. Every song on this album is catchy, but that’s by far the catchiest of all of them. There were also quite a few songs here that I recognized as background elements to other songs, or entire songs that have been remixed by other bands completely, again see “Music makes you lose control” for the best example of the ladder. Always cool to see the origins of other notable tracks. A few albums have been like that so far. To summarize and go back to the top of the review, music is weird. No way I’d be able to find this album on my own. I loved every second of it, and it’s going to join my personal Electronica rotation now. More of this please!! Link very much related. (https://youtu.be/z9aBlC-n94gsi=vy2xWBGUNOjKVBmL).

So, I have been informed that for the first time Christmas Day rolls around per project, the website has it set up so that this album comes up automatically. Pretty funny stuff. Makes sense, naturally. It’s been a very, very cool and rewarding first year on this website and I’m looking forward to finishing the fight to the very end. I know I still have a long way to go, but I’m going to keep going, and review every single album on here. Who’d have thought that my first album on the website put together by a convicted murderer would be a classic, upbeat Christmas album. For those unaware, that is unfortunately the legacy of Phil Spector. So just hearing his jovial voice in the last song on the album is honestly a bit haunting, obviously unintentionally so. What happened man… As far as the album goes, it’s 3 stars. It’s just a bunch of Christmas Songs and nothing more. If I was more of a Grinch I’d give it a 2 because Christmas songs are just boring and kind of annoying to me, but I can’t do it. You definitely know what you’re getting in to with this one, and even still I just can’t dislike it all that much because of how talented and happy everyone is performing these classic songs. “Sleigh Ride” is the best of the bunch for sure. That song is just way too happy and catchy to hate and I think the Ronettes sing it wonderfully here. There are a few songs on here I actually haven’t heard of at all before, so that’s a bit notable I guess. For instance, I’ve never heard of “A Marshmallow World” or “The Bells of St. Mary” before. Overall, this album was a very appropriate and fun time, and I’m thankful I got to check it out while opening up presents with the family. Merry Christmas everyone!! Don’t kill people. Murder is generally frowned upon.

Very fun album. It's definitely Reggae, but it also surprised me every step of the way. I pretty comfortably enjoyed this even more than Bob Marley, which surprised me. I was under the incorrect assumption that every Reggae song kind of had to sound the same, exactly like Bob Marley, but this album proved me wrong. It's very catchy, and there are enough differences between the songs to keep it fresh. Some of the songs have little stretches of Rock which are quite enjoyable, a continuing trend with these Reggae albums that have been pleasant little surprises and further keep the albums interesting. That being said, I would not always want to listen to this, and there's definitely a lot of filler as well. Right out of the gate you've got a catchy banger with the classic "A Message to You Rudy", and the album is interspersed with some really good, catchy songs, my favorite for personal reasons being "Monkey Man". For being a very unique and catchy, but far from perfect album, this one is going to get a high 3. Probably around a 3.75/5. I actually recognized a lot of these songs, which is something that genuinely surprised me as well, so that was pretty neat and unexpected as well. What a super fun band. Would return to these guys for sure.

Something dawned on me while listening to this album. Something I should have realized a very long time ago. I know for sure I won’t be the first person to ask this question, but it must be asked. What on Earth was up with Jimi Hendrix and his complete obsession with towers and castles? Just building structures in general really. He didn’t make a lot of music in his very short time on this Earth, but a good deal of it happened to be about certain kinds of buildings. Yes, I know what metaphors and allusions are, I just find it funny is all. None of that had anything to do with this album. Anyway, this is the second of 3 Jimi Hendrix albums I've rolled, following Electric Ladyland. That albums length approaches over an hour and a half minutes long, and I criticized it a tad bit for being that needlessly long, and notably having a ton of (still pretty good in it's own right) filler. Meanwhile, Axis: Bold As Love is only 39 minutes long, and barring the extremely annoying intro bit, "Exp", I think it's actually better as a whole. There are a few filler tracks around the middle, but not nearly as many as there were in Electric Ladyland. What it lacks in Jimi's biggest hits, it makes up for in being so tight, and having, in my opinion, his most under appreciated but still very much appreciated song, "Little Wing", my favorite song on the album. Other songs I added to my favorites playlist included "Up From The Skies", "Spanish Castle Magic", and "One Rainy Wish". I'm also thankful I had the right headphones to appreciate this one with, a lot of these songs have funky spacial audio mixing on Spotify that just make listening all the more enjoyable. I think I was going to give this one a 4 for some reason just like the last one, but writing a review this lengthy and in depth helped me realize just how much I actually adore this album and can find very few things to legitimately criticize about it. It's so Funky, it rocks a whole hell of a lot, and leaves me actually wanting even more. I've still got Are You Experienced to get through so I can definitively rank all 3, but as a complete album, I actually enjoyed this one the most so far. So it's getting a 5. Will Jimi end up in the favorites category? I really hope he does. Screw it, I might even go back and give Electric Ladyland a 5 after all. I don't know. Point being is that this one was absolutely awesome!!!!

The top reviews for this album, all of which have low ratings, include sentiments like "Street Life is a Jazz album for people who don't like Jazz" and "This is waiting room/elevator music". Damn bro, what elevators are you guys in?? I want to be in them as well. In response to the first review, I don't generally enjoy traditional Jazz, especially the stuff that just sounds disorganized and free form. This at least sounds like it was planned out and is much more enjoyable than most of the Jazz albums I have heard so far on this site. When I saw how low this album was rated, I was bracing for something pretty bad. I am beyond pleased to say I think I enjoyed this one as a whole more than a lot of other people on the site. Now, it's still just a 3 because of how repetitive and basic it is, but it was very easy to listen to and I honestly don't mind that it was so repetitive, because it accomplishes what it sets out to do. It's great to have on in the background in any situation and isn't ever annoying, unorganized or overbearing. And for that, it's enjoyable from top to bottom. For Jazz, this is awesome, but it still never blows me away. So, as far as Jazz goes, this is like a 5 for me, but a 3 overall. Maybe even a 4 if I'm being very generous. My favorite song is the opener, "Street Life", as it's a good mix of Jazz, Funk, and a great singing voice. This album is also short enough that it doesn't really overstay it's welcome. A pleasant and surprising experience, I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected to. Call it a 3.9/5, approaching a 4. I may go back and change this one to a 4 later if I feel like it. Good stuff.

Well, 2025 is over. This is the last review for me going into 2026. I can’t say it was an amazing year for anyone really, but one thing it did give me specifically was this website. I started on March 30th with Self Titled by The Foo Fighters. That album came out the year I was born, and the fact I rolled it first just gave me an immediate special attachment to this website. With fate alone giving me that banger, I knew I was in for something special here. With the goal of writing a detailed review for every album in the book, I made it a self commitment to listen to every single album front to back at the bare minimum one time, usually always listening to the album for the entire day if it wasn’t ear torture. I gave the first album a 4, and I'm going to give this one a 4 as well. At the end of March, I’ll officially have an entire year of albums on the site, which I’ll provide an additional little blurb for as well. But so far I’ve come to find out that every genre can surprise me, even the ones I don’t generally like. Enough reminiscing, let’s get back on track. I’ve never heard of “The Dandy Warhols” before. This is very basic and by the books 90’s era angry, angsty and aggressive Rock with some nice funky Britpop elements mixed in, and it doesn’t do anything I haven’t heard before. By all accounts, I should forget about this one by tomorrow. After all, I’ve heard hundreds of Indie Rock albums that sound similar to this now. But wait, I don’t know what it is about this one specifically, but it just reached out and grabbed me differently than most other albums of a similar sound have before. Every song is energetic, it’s got some really good ambience, a catchy and addictive rhythm, and a charmingly upbeat singer that I really kind of love. Man, something about this album just made me absolutely fall in love with it. I think my favorite song on the album was “Boys Better”, but there’s a lot more to love here in general. It’s long too, at an hour and six minutes total. Despite the length, it’s easy to get through and never drags. No filler, all killer. Multiple songs added to my usual rotation, and I’m most definitely going to be returning to this one more often. It’s closer to a 5 than it is a 3. Awesome!! Here’s to a good 2026. Please, for the love of us all be better than 2025. I think we all need it. Cheers!!!!

Hello 2026, hello album #200, and hello to the first 5 star of the year!! This is a VERY promising start to the new year. Another album that came out the year I was born and another one I’ve been dying to roll since the beginning of my journey on this website. Regardless of what anyone thinks of it, this is the album with “Wonderwall”, an absolutely iconic song which also happens to be a God Tier meme, something with unlimited staying power in the cultural zeitgeist that has managed to keep being great for a very long time now, regardless of whatever is considered popular at the time. And you know what?? It's not even my favorite song on the album!! That honor goes to the titular "Morning Glory". I'm so glad these guys got back together, the fact that they were feuding for so many years just made me sad. Both Gallagher's may be abrasive, generally angry cock nobs, but god damn do they know how to come together and jam. Every single song on this album is incredible. Not one song I would skip or consider filler. The guitar work? Superb. The vocals? Godly. Everything else? It's like you're listening to something you just know is special, from the first chord on the album. The creative use of vocal compression, subtle use of distortion, reverb, hella whammy bars, and just every aspect of this album makes it one of my faves I've heard so far. Favorite songs on the album are the previously mentioned "Morning Glory", "Wonderwall", and "Champagne Supernova". I listened to the 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition for this listen through. That's not something I generally do, but for this album it was a welcome addition with the Unplugged versions of almost half of the songs on the album. Very cool inclusion to have on the album. This is the first of 2 Oasis albums I've rolled so far. We'll see if the other one is just as good, or dare I say better than this one. That's asking a lot though, because I love this album. I don't listen to Oasis a lot, and I hadn't even heard most of the songs on this album before until today, which is blasphemy in it's own right. I've been missing out on something I already knew was great. Happy 2026, I greatly look forward to the next 100 albums I'll be rolling, especially if they're comparable to this. Is 2026 going to start with a streak of 5 star albums?? More on that tomorrow.

This is a difficult one to rate. It’s considered by many to be one of the greatest albums of all time. It’s pretty great, yes, but it’s far from the best Soul album I’ve heard so far. I don’t know, I can see why people love it. The most important thing I can do here at this point is at least recognize its greatness, which I do. The singing voice is the big draw here, in my opinion. If we’re talking about voice alone, it’s a 5. Damn, this man can sing beautifully, and does. Everything else is pretty good too, but after about 10 minutes you’ve really got the gist of the entire album already. It all starts sounding the exact same song to song and you don’t even know which song you’re on at parts. It’s great as a whole, and I can see why people consider this so good, but I can’t say I’d personally return to it, which is ok. My favorite song on this one is the titular opener, “What’s Going On”. This is the first of 3 Marvin Gaye albums I have rolled for this project, and I’m going to guess prematurely that if I gave this one a 3, they’re all likely to end up getting 3’s as well. I get the striking suspicion that the important messages this album provide are better than the music itself. Not a bad thing, just an observation. The themes are all moving and powerful, that much is true, but a lot of the music itself is forgettable and even a tad repetitive. It’s not really for me but I definitely respect it, and I would happily listen to it again if it came up naturally.

This has to be the final boss of Jazz albums for people who don’t love Jazz albums. 3 hours and 14 minutes long?? Be real. I’m honor bound and determined to listen to every album in the book front to back at least once, as well as pick a favorite song from each album, but this one is really going to try my patience. Those were my initial thoughts upon, mouth agape, seeing what I rolled this morning. What follows for the remainder of the review is post listen. I like Ella Fitzgerald, and I don’t even dislike The Gershwin Songbook by Ella Fitzgerald, but whoever included this album in the book had to have been trolling. You can’t seriously tell me I had to listen to this before I die, rather than something shorter and more focused by the same artist. Despite that, here I am, victorious, one entire listen-through later. The final disc is also just instrumental stuff with no Ella vocals, really unnecessary to include that at all, but I sure did listen to it anyway. It took me one whole work shift and the drive home to get through this one completely, which doesn’t say a lot about the album other than the length is just outrageous, and I had to pause it a lot to focus on important stuff. Generally I’m always going to listen to an album multiple times front to back to really form an opinion on it, and pick a favorite for the playlist as previously mentioned. Soak it all in, get to know and understand it better. You feel me?? This time, however, I’m just thankful to escape listening to it in full at all. Nothing of note stood out here, and if it did, I probably listened to it 6 hours ago. That being said, I really do like Ella’s voice, and admittedly I never felt like I was just praying for the album to end. As far as Jazz goes, this was alright. I’d be being disingenuous if I gave it a 2 just because of how long it was. Hyper-analyzing the album is going to be impossible unfortunately, as I was only able to listen to this one once. Would have been better as a weekend album so I could spend more time with it. Regardless, I wouldn’t come back to it anyway given the extra time. Jazz is Jazz, and this was very much tolerable, but not spectacular by any sense of the word. I’ll go with “Soon” as my favorite. Why?? I kind of remember how that one went, which is good enough for me. For Jazz lovers I think this one is going to be a must. It’s super long, has a singer with a beautiful voice, and it’s endlessly re-playable. For the rest of us, it exists somewhere between just alright and ok. It’s more Jazz, and the book has plenty of it. I wish it was about 2 and a half hours shorter, but for what it is, it’s not terrible. I’ll consider that a win and move on the the next challenge. Is this the longest album in the book?? It has to be, right??

I’ve listened to more Jazz albums than any one man should ever listen to since I started this long journey, now approaching an entire year on the site. I have heard many different types and sub genres of Jazz during this time. There have been some types of Jazz that I outright despise, some that were just ok, but most of them have rarely been worth listening to again after the day ends. This, and I don’t know why, is for sure one of the best ones that I have heard so far. I don’t know what causes me to like some Jazz and hate others, but now I want to do a deep dive into all the different forms. This album is giving me a deep appreciation for the craft that I otherwise didn’t have yet. It’s an album I’m thankful the site has given me. This barely registers as Jazz, it feels like Funky Electronica with a smooth Jazzy finish hidden underneath. I don’t know exactly what you would call this, but I’d call it pretty damn good. Favorite song on the album is the opener, “Chameleon”. It’s the fastest song on the album and some of the rapid tone changes towards the middle of the song are just incredibly ear wormy. Song lives up to its name, it’s constantly changing, but not in the way other free form Jazz albums have that have previously not done much for me. Again, I don’t really know what it is about this one specifically, but I’m not complaining. As far as Jazz goes, this was outstanding. I would gladly listen to more of this. Plus, I have no idea what’s going on with the album art, but I dig it. It’s pretty cool. Funky.

Definitely some middle of the road and overall pretty generic Indie Rock/Punk music. That’s for sure. Has all the traits of an album that is just kind of cookie cutter, and was mostly a good listen, but I’m going to forget about it in a few days time. For being the bands debut album, it’s not bad though. Few skips on here, notably the last 2 songs I don’t love listening to on repeat. But the singer has a pretty good voice that never got tiring to listen to besides when she starts singing softly, again only at the very end of the album. When it really wants to, this album can end up rocking pretty hard. The problem with that though is it doesn’t bring anything new or interesting to the table and always comes across as just another generic sound that doesn’t get elevated into anything very special or interesting, a kind of similar sound in which I’ve heard over 100 times already during this project. I get it man, it’s hard to be unique in this genre, especially considering how many of these albums are vying for my attention. Despite that, this still sounded good enough to me to say that despite not being unique, I very much enjoyed my time listening to it. It’s also only 36 minutes long, which is a pretty awesome length, and a bit surprising for a debut album from 2003. I would have expected this to be a lot longer than it actually is. To their credit, I have heard of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs before. If my memory serves me correctly, “Maps” was one of the first songs on the original set list for the game Rock Band 1, which also happens to be on this album. “Heads Will Roll”, of which I’ve only ever heard the remix of, is also very good, but is not on this album unfortunately. A few tracks stood out to me here, my favorite of the bunch this time being “Black Tongue”, but “Rich” was also a really good opener as well. I actually how bitchy and vitriolic “Black Tongue” comes off as, it really gave me kind of a chuckle. Yes, it was very Punk, but also kind of funny as well, if that makes sense. I don’t know if that was the intent, but regardless I enjoyed it a lot. This is the first of 2 Yeah Yeah Yeahs albums I have rolled for this project, and I’m very interested to see how they progressed over time. Would I return to this? Actually, yeah. I think I would. Yeah Yeah Yeah I would. Terrible joke, I know. I had to do it.

Man, what on Earth was this album?? This was so far removed from anything I’ve listened to so far and I honestly just kind of loved every weird minute of it. This is the kind of random album I started this project to hear. This is a band I just BARELY remember hearing in Madden when I was a little kid, so in a weird sense it also feels like a bit of a time capsule of sorts, back to when gaming was actually good and we didn’t have to worry about micro-transactions or AI nonsense. Street Signs is a completely mixed bag of musical genres and drastic vibe changes, sometimes being very traditionally Latin, other times going to Hip Hop, Pop, and frequently switching between Spanish and English lyrics. Sometimes, it works. Other times it really doesn’t. What does or does not work for you is going to largely depend on what you enjoy hearing, as the biggest compliment I can give this album is that every song sounds wholly unique from the last. Could also be a double edged sword at times, but I digress. Take Chali 2na randomly showing up on “Who’s To Blame” for instance. Furthering the fun time capsule, he immediately made me want to go listen to Jurassic 5. With his unbelievably smooth voice, I would listen to that man read the phone book. Then you’ve got songs like “(Who Discovered) America?” and “Love And Hope”, which are mostly in English but have a few lines and background elements in Spanish. On top of that, you’ve got “Dejame En Paz” and other songs which are entirely sung in Spanish. This album switches like that on the fly, and there’s truly a lot to take in. Sometimes to its benefit, other times it doesn’t really work. The end result for me personally was that I found myself adding a new song just about every single time I replayed the album. The only song I haven’t mentioned by name yet that I really enjoyed is “Saturday Night”, which I remember coming straight out of Madden. Picking a favorite song here was way harder than I was expecting, but it’s going to go to Chali 2na and “Who’s To Blame”. I had no idea he was going to show up, but he absolutely kills it on that song. “Saturday Night” gets my second favorite. It was a very close fight. Both are catchy as hell, but I think the ladder is maybe just a bit repetitive. I still don’t entirely know what this album was, and sure there’s plenty to skip on it, but man, I ended up adding 5 songs on the album, and most of the rest aren’t even bad, so I’m going to give it a 4.1 right on the dot. I think for being so unique and different, as well as just being very good and trying something new, that rating makes sense to me.

Oh goodie!! I get to do the meme. “It’s Linkin Park. 5 stars.” Do I really have to explain why I love this so much?? Ok fine, I’ll age myself. This was the music of my childhood and no amount of growing up is going to make me dislike it at all, and it makes me very nostalgic listening to it. Going to make me go down a rabbit hole and listen to all the old stuff in general. This was my weekend album, and I did in fact end up binging the first 3 Linkin Park albums for the entirety of the weekend. It was very worth it. A great blend of early 2000's Rock and a unique blend of Rap make this a phenomenal first album for Linkin Park. Is it my favorite album they have? Close, but that goes to Meteora. This is a close second though. I could name you several deep cut tracks this one has that I love, but I don't even need to, because "One Step Closer", "Crawling" and "In The End" exist. Those are the best 3 on the album for sure. They all got immensely popular for good reason. Not only was Hybrid Theory a killer first album, but it was also Linkin Park's best selling album as well, and it's easy to see why. It's really good, and every song has been somewhere roaming around the recesses of my head this entire time. Listening to this again awakened my inner kid. It was a blast checking this one out again, even if it made me feel a bit old being able to reminisce like this. Favorite song on this one? Any given day and I'll give you a different answer. This one is the easiest 5 I've given so far. I only wish we had more Linkin Park representation on here, even though I'm not only happy that we got this one at all, but kind of surprised that it was included at all. Goated stuff, RIP Chester Bennington. You were the man.

Fairly standard Punk album. I haven't done a lot of research on this one as I was pretty busy today, but this one kind of feels like it's pretty important and I don't know exactly why. The Ramones are a band I've heard of by name and can't pull a song of theirs unless you tell me one. I checked out their top songs on Spotify pre first listen and found, not on this album, "I Wanna Be Sedated", which is a banger, as well as "Blitzkrieg Bop", which is not only the opening track, but also probably the best, catchiest song on the album. Fairly certain that's another classic Rock Band game jam as well, always going to give bonus points for that. Truly a memorable, ear wormy song. As I started the album, I get to song 2, "Beat on the Brat", and I was surprised to find out that I knew that song as well. Get to track 3, "Judy Is a Punk", and it dawned on me that this was another one of those bands in which I can't name anything off the top of my head from, but then when you play any of the hits, I recognize them pretty quickly. Anyway, after song 3, I think the album just turns into about 25 minutes of the same repetitive song, over and over again. With an album that's 14 different songs with a play time of only 29 minutes and 14 seconds, you quickly get burned out when the album happens to be that short if they don't have much of a different sound from song to song, and unfortunately The Ramones, at least on this album, made 14 different versions of "Blitzkrieg Bop". Noted, it's a great song, and my first couple of listen throughs I was really digging it, but man, there's only so much of this I can take at one time. Maybe I should start opting for Deluxe Editions of albums every day if they start becoming a bit harder to listen to over time. The Deluxe Edition of this album is a staggering 78 songs and is over 2 hours and 45 minutes long. Definitely would not have been over this one as soon if I played that at some point during the day. Anyway, good songs, a bit repetitive, and nothing stood out to really wow me. Good album though, a solid 3 and a half stars on this one. It's my fault for listening to this on repeat, some albums I believe are meant to just be enjoyed one time only. This is one of those albums where you'll breeze through and not even realize it ended. That's probably enough for someone to give it a 4 or 5, but to me this was, again, pretty standard, but still good, Punk music.

I really liked this album. Never heard of James Taylor before, but he blends a very good amount of lighter songs with intermittent heavier songs that often times come out of nowhere and kick ass. The better songs on the album are few and far between, but being only 31 minutes long, you never have to wait too long to get to them. For instance, the first three songs are pretty light and traditional Singer Songwriter pieces. A little fillery in places, but they’re still fun to listen to. Nothing special. James has a voice that doesn’t necessarily blow me away. In fact, it took me a little bit to warm up to, but I still think it’s pretty good, and at the end of the day I ended up rather enjoying it. Song 4, “Steamroller Blues” is where this album starts getting really good. A few very good songs as well as a tight playtime save this from being a low 3, and this is one of them. This song sounds like it’s parodying classic Blues aspects, since the first 3 songs had nothing to do with that genre, but it’s executed so well here, and stands out so much by itself that it ends up being my second favorite song on the album. Immediately following it is “Country Road”, which was another fun one with some charming Country aspects, naturally, as well as the only song I recognized my first listen through. Following that is another filler song, and then “Fire and Rain”, his most popular song. I thought that one was just ok personally. Reminded me a little too much of the music you’d hear at a school graduation for my liking. 3 more filler songs and then finally, my favorite song on the album, the closer, “Suite for 20 G”. Not an amazing song name, but a pretty amazing song. It starts off light, like the other songs on the album, but then out of nowhere you get a killer guitar solo to end the album off on a strong note, and some very old fashioned Rock and Roll aspects that again feel like more of a parody or an homage to the genre itself. It also truly stands out, so much so that if the rest of the album had more of that, I’d consider giving this a 5. As it stands now, there’s a lot of filler here, but the short run time makes that not as big of an issue when the song variety itself here is pretty good, especially when you get to one of the better songs on the album. It feels rewarding to listen to them almost. This is very much Singer Songwriter first and foremost, but the random interspersion of other genres make it an interesting and truly worthwhile listen. I did end up adding the closer to my usual rotation as well. Good album, thank you James.

Man, I really don’t know what happened to Common in the 5 years following between this and his other album on the list, Be, but this album is astronomically different than that one. As terrible as he is now, Be being produced by Kanye likely has everything to do with that, and you’d be foolish to not see or accept that. While still good in its own right, Like Water For Chocolate doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s full of that classic homophobia and misogyny we’ve all come to love out of Hip-Hop, and the songs are all pretty generic to be honest. They’re still good, but they aren’t very memorable. It’s long as hell and doesn’t have many real bangers, although “Payback Is A Grandmother” was my favorite for sampling “The Payback” by James Brown. I love that song. In fact, a good deal of these songs pay tribute to Black icons like Fela Kuti (“Time Travelin' (A Tribute To Fela))” and Thelonious Monk (“Thelonius”), which is pretty cool. Not exactly subtle either with the naming conventions on those two songs, but still cool. I only became familiar with Kuti, his talented family, and Monk because of this project. Getting to understand and listen to the inspirations behind some of these albums ahead of time has been a very rewarding experience I must say. Anyway, while this album is pretty violent and angry at times, Be I would call more grounded, more focused, less angry, and much more accessible to everyone. That being said, I guarantee you can probably find a bunch of people that prefer the more uncut feelings and vibes of Like Water For Chocolate compared to Be, and I would completely understand. While I gave that one a 4, minus one because of the Kanye tax, I’d give this one more of a 3.6. It’s very long, and it’s not tremendously memorable, but Common has such a great and catchy cadence, and I still have to say I don’t think this has a lot of filler, length be damned. Really fun features as well, even if I don’t recognize many of them. I have to confess something to you. Be was my 3rd most listened to album of 2025, and this project is entirely to blame/thank for that. While I largely prefer Be, I still thoroughly enjoyed listening to this one, even if it isn’t as focused. Common is absolutely on my radar now, and I vibe with his music pretty heavily.

This one is going to be really hard to review for more than a few lines, seeing as Disco music is almost unanimously known for being repetitive by design. I haven’t rolled many, if any Disco albums yet to my knowledge, but this one was surprisingly easy to listen to on repeat. I’m for sure not always going to be in the mood for this kind of music, but when I am, it’s just simply charming to hear. Musically, there isn’t a ton here, it’s 36 minutes and 7 songs of just good vibes basically. I was kind of shocked that I’d heard of any of these songs at all, and yet the opener, “Good Times” is a classic Disco staple as well as the best song on the album. Hilariously, the songs are pretty easy to differentiate from each other, so luckily it’s not just 36 minutes of the exact same Disco flourish. Generally speaking, the songs are more often than not easily identifiable by the name of the song being sung on repeat, and that’s basically the loop of the entire album. You only needed one song to take off to get sales, and I think for CHIC, this particular album had “Good Times”. Even though that’s the one that took off, I did rather enjoy the whole album, and found other songs like “My Feet Keep Dancing” and “My Forbidden Lover” to be a worthwhile listening experience. It’s fun, it makes me want to dance, and it caught me on a good day where I could afford to just bob my head up and down the office, looking like an idiot in the process (Worth it though). This is the first of 2 CHIC albums I have rolled so far, and I think it’s hilarious that of all the artists to get 2 albums, they’re letting a Disco band have them. How different could the other album be, really?? It came out the previous year. I can’t imagine it would be radically different than this one. In fact, I guarantee it won’t be. I digress. Fun album, not exactly mould breaking, but still fun and accomplishes what it was meant to do, which is make me get up and dance.

Well then, I guess the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were just dying to make another appearance on my feed. This is the last of 2 Yeah Yeah Yeahs albums on the list, following 2003’s debut album Fever To Tell, which I rolled last week and mentioned I’d probably forget about just as quickly. Hit the nail on the head with that prediction. I did a re-listen of that album before diving into this one and said a whole lot of “Oh, right, that one”. How did this band evolve 6 years later, and does this one have more of a staying power than Fever To Tell?? Actually, yeah. A little bit, I think it does. First off, love the album art. The visual of seeing a squished egg in someone's hand is the perfect encapsulation for what this album is trying to convey. Second, the hit song on the album "Heads Will Roll" I believe is better and catchier than the hit from their first album, "Maps". Right out of the gate I'm hit with a cool opener in "Zero" which has a killer hook and a catchy rhythm, not to mention Karen and her still incredible voice. In fact, the rhythm's on all of these songs are pretty cool and memorable as a whole, with few exceptions. It's hard to explain, but it just adds to the kind of vibes I enjoy on an album, paired with an amazing singing voice. "Dull Life" is worth talking about as well, and is almost tied for my favorite song on the album. It's probably the song that traditionally rocks the hardest, and it's also the one that sticks out as the most catchy sans "Heads Will Roll". The album loses just a little bit of the magic that the first 5 songs have from this point on, but they're all mostly not skippable, and sound different enough so it's still very easy to listen to all of them and tell them apart from each other. My favorites from the ladder half of the album are "Shame And Fortune" and "Dragon Queen". It all adds up to an album that, while I still really enjoyed, even with a better ensemble of songs, I'm still not likely to remember a lot of in a few days time. However, if I return to it, I can still greatly enjoy it again, so that's cool. This is one of those bands that, since I'm now done with both albums they have on here, I am free to explore their entire discography. And you know what, I did just that, and immediately found the song "Gold Lion", which while not a part of the book, is worth listening to. I might not remember the Yeah Yeah Yeahs going forward the more I crack into this project, but they are a band that I thought had 2 great albums, and worth the inclusion. I came away satisfied listening to both of them. I only wish the songs had JUST a bit more to them. They're pretty close to great, but always leave you wanting just a little something more in the end.

Wasn’t really feeling this one. This is my second and last Fela Kuti album on the list, following Live! With Ginger Baker. I barely tolerated that one, but this one was just sadly hard to get through. I know Fela is a prolific name in the Black community, I even mentioned him last week on another album his family had involvement with, but his music simply isn’t for me. It’s too free form to be enjoyable, and each song just goes on and on and on, and the longer they go on the quicker I just want it all to be over. This is literally 4 songs that are each worse than the last. Only listened to this one a single time before I wanted to stop listening to it. It’s not unlistenable by any means, and I can see why people who like Jazz would love this album. Sadly, that’s not me though. I did not like this one. Giving it a rare 2/5. Sorry Fela. Not my thing, but I respect it and can see why others would enjoy it though. My favorite song on this album, or rather the one that bugged me the least was the second song, “Mr. Follow Follow”. Jazz music continues to be a poison pill on my daily quest to make it through the end of this long project. I want to like it, and sometimes I do, but more often then not I just can’t vibe with it, and this was unfortunately one of the worst examples of that. I gave it a try at least. Anyway, moving on.

*sighs*. Ok. Fine. I’ll just go ahead and say it. This album wasn’t terrible. For some unnecessary context, the year is 2026 and Taylor Swift is everywhere. She is so unavoidable that you’d have to specifically attempt to go out of your way to avoid hearing about her, and you’d still likely fail. Are you a football fan?? There she is at a Chiefs game. Enjoy supporting your local record store?? She’s front and center in every store. Watch the news at all?? She’s likely going to be making headlines again for something inane. The only thing I find appealing about Taylor Swift are the plane memes about just how often she gets in a plane, and how funny they are. Madness, all of it. I can’t think of someone who’s gotten this much attention for this long. I can’t in good faith say it’s unwarranted, but it really is insufferable at times. She is so unavoidable that despite spitefully never actively seeking her out, I’d still heard of 3 of these songs previously. The overexposure of Taylor and her rabidly dedicated Swiftie fan base is truly something to be studied for the history books. This might be worse than the Justin Bieber days of old. I rolled her album evermore previously, making this the second of 2 Taylor Swift albums I’ll have to endure for this project. It’s an artist I know I dislike, so better just knock it out of the way early, right?? I was going to have to listen to this eventually anyway. While evermore didn’t have a single song that reached out to me, and I still question its inclusion in the book at all, it physically pains me to say that this album is actually pretty good. It’s got a lot of the hits that I recognized, including “Blank Space”, “Bad Blood”, and my personal favorite (I can’t believe I’m saying that) song on the album, “Shake It Off”. Does it have filler?? Absolutely, and every song is overproduced, has annoying auto tune/distortion/etc filters, is ungodly repetitive and tailor made (See what I did there) for people with an attention span that lasts for all of about 5 seconds. But you know what?? I didn’t really hate any of it. It’s catchy, and that’s all that matters. While evermore was moody, edgy, whiny and insufferable, this one is at least full of energy and good vibes. So, you know what?? I’m not going to give this one a 1 out of spite. I’m going to give it a 3 and tell you that for all its flaws, I rather enjoyed it as a whole. Damn you, Taylor Swift. Damn you. Was I dramatic enough, because I was really trying to have fun with this one and go on a random goofy tangent. I’m not actually that upset, it’s just fun to be so unserious occasionally, and this felt like a good opportunity to do just that.

Well, shit. Don’t know if it’s something with the algorithm or just plain bad luck, but I was hoping to space out the Jimi Hendrix albums over the long course of this project. I just heard my second album of his a few weeks ago. Alas, this is the third and final album I’ve rolled, following Electric Ladyland and Axis: Bold As Love. I’m now left with the gargantuan and impossible task that no man should ever have to have of ranking them all, whether that be objectively, or more likely just subjectively, as that seems more convenient and personalized. But first, let’s not get too off topic and review Are You Experienced, which I feel should have a question mark at the end for style. I don’t know, minor pet peeve of mine. Ok, so right off the bat I have to say that this is the perfect album. It’s a guaranteed 5. This is his best album and I wish I could tell you it was close. When picking a favorite song from like 6 choices is the hardest thing to do, you know you’ve struck some real gold. My favorites on this album include what I’m begrudgingly saying is my favorite, which is the opener, “Purple Haze”, but I also loved “Manic Depression”, “Hey Joe”, “The Wind Cries Mary”, “Fire”, “Foxey Lady”, “Are You Experienced?”, and “Stone Free”. So yeah, I liked a few of them. All that being said, this is one of those albums where I’d be able to provide very little input that hasn’t already been said before, so instead I’ll just be one of many adding to the list of people saying that Jimi Hendrix is one of the greatest musicians in history, and this was his magnum opus. Now that I’ve heard and reviewed all 3 of his albums, I think I’ve actually got a pretty good grasp of how to personally rank them. Here’s a very brief summary on why I ranked these the way I did. 3. Electric Ladyland: His longest album, closes with the actual 2 best songs he ever performed in “All Along The Watchtower” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, but is bogged down a slight bit with a lot of unmemorable but still outstanding sounding filler songs across the entire album. 2. Axis: Bold As Love: His shortest album by far, this one lacks in the biggest hits but it makes up for it in having some deep cuts that are just incredible. In fact, the album in general is short, concise, and absolutely shreds for the duration of the album, minus the terrible opener. Also has “Little Wing”. 1. Are You Experienced: By sheer volume, this has the most well deserved hits over his other albums, and it’s all killer and very very few filler songs, only having a few missteps at the very end, minus the closer. Pure musical ecstasy, and truly his best album. Well, I’m bummed that I’m already completely done with the Hendrix albums, but it’s been a hell of a journey. Rock on and shoutout to one of the best to ever do it.

This might be the most radically different week of music day to day I’ve had on the site since I started. I’ve jumped from Taylor Swift, to Jimi Hendrix, to N.W.A. And the ladder 2 of those are both absolutely deserving of 5 stars, and are pivotal, important albums that still kick ass today. Can’t wait to see what I get tomorrow, it’s either going to be something really good or notably bad, I almost guarantee it. No in between, those are the only options. Straight Outta Compton is a pivotally important album not just for rap, but for music in general. There’s a good reason why it was put into the National Recording Registry. Among the cavalcade of positive things it accomplished, some of the many notable feats include launching the careers of multiple now famous rappers including the wildly successful Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, became the first gangsta rap album to sell over a million copies thanks to breakthrough and important songs like “Fuck Tha Police”, “Straight Outta Compton”, “Gangsta Gangsta”, and “Express Yourself”, had an entire documentary made about it, drew attention to many cultural issues by the sheer power of spoken word alone enough to get the entire crew targeted by the US government, and most importantly it’s just actually catchy as shit. I don’t personally believe any of the rappers here miss a single beat throughout the length of the album. Another really cool aspect about this album is just how diverse the track listing is. It helps of course to have like 8 different rappers available at any given moment, but each song really feels different. The difference for instance between “Fuck Tha Police” and “Express Yourself” is almost staggering, both lyrically and tonally. Where some rap albums suffer with annoying skits that never impress me, this one doesn’t have a single one, which is so relieving to hear. I’ve never cared for them, and I never will. They ruin the flow of most albums they appear in. It’s also never repetitive, and looking at each song by name is easy to remember which one is which, a rarity with album like this. Notably, that’s due to having a lot of people contributing, which I previously mentioned, but that’s still obviously a good thing. A lot of the comments mention how vulgar and offensive this album is as if that’s even remotely an issue, or something inherently wrong with the album itself. You have to think of the context here though. These guys were young, Black teenagers from Compton in the 80’s, so of fucking course it’s going to be vulgar. Sure, the subject matter in some of the songs, notably “I Ain’t Tha 1” aren’t great, but again, these guys were young, inexperienced, and pissed off at the world. Rightfully so, and at the bare minimum that song still at least slaps, lyrics aside. This album rocks. It’s probably the most important rap album ever released, and sadly a lot of the greater themes addressed in it are still relevant today. Is “Fuck Tha Police” the best song on the album?? Yeah, probably. It’s my favorite at least.

Franz Ferdinand is a very interesting band to me. This was the defining band of the PS2 era for me specifically. I swear to God, these guys had a song in just about every video game I played around the year 2005. I’ve added probably 15 of their songs from multiple albums on my Spotify from them already. The song “40’” was in my Top 5 most played songs last year, and there’s always a random smattering of Franz Ferdinand songs that end up on my playlist somehow, one way or another. All that being said, obviously I’m a very big fan of this band. Nothing weird about that right?? Actually, for how much I adore this band, I don’t really know a single thing about them, and I’d never heard an album of theirs from front to back until now. Couldn’t tell you anything about them other than the fact that every single time I hear one of their songs, I end up listening to it for the next month because I enjoy it so much. I don’t know what it is about this band, they just sound so unique to me. They’re having a lot of fun on this first album, which not only clearly shows in the music itself, but enhances it and makes it sound amazing. To paraphrase what another reviewer said, all of these songs sound very different from each other, while at the same time sounding very much like a Franz Ferdinand song. It’s just one of those bands man. I don’t know how any of them do it, but it’s just one of those bands you hear for a millisecond, and if you’ve ever heard a song by them, you’re instantly like, “Wait, that’s Franz Ferdinand. I haven’t heard this one before, time to add it to my library and listen to it for the next entire month until I get it out of my head. Otherwise I’ll be singing it at work unconsciously.” This album is great. My favorites include “Jacqueline”, “Take Me Out”, “This Fire”, and “40’”. My favorite song in general is going to vary from day to day, but “Take Me Out” is just so iconic and nostalgic, it’s hard not to call it the best song on the album because of that. This is going to once again send me into a spiral where all I’m going to do when not working on this project is listening to all of the Franz Ferdinand albums on a loop for the next couple of months. It’s unexplainable just why this is one of my favorite bands. I hardly get it myself, I just think they sound really really good. Love the singer, love the funky chord progressions, love the variance of sounds, it’s just everything I’m looking for on an album. All killer, no filler. It’s my third 5 star album in a row. Keep it coming!!!!

Alright, here it is. Definitive proof that unfortunately, I don’t like Jazz music. This is the highest rated Jazz album on the entire website and I kind of want to give it a 2, but it’s not notably worse than the 2 other Miles Davis albums I’ve rolled already. It’s weird to be the dissenting opinion for once, usually I do the opposite or agree with the majority. But here, I just don’t get it. It’s not for me, and that’s ok, but I don’t even understand why the people who do like it say they like it. Most of the Jazz I’ve heard so far I’ve at least given a 3, but coincidentally this is the Modal style of Jazz, as is “A Love Supreme”, another album I thought was borderline unlistenable and gave a 2. So, you know what, for all the Jazz that surprised me, I can tell you that something that won’t surprise me going forward is my unfortunate distaste for Modal Jazz. Furthermore, writing a complete review for one Jazz album is tough. Saying that is mostly just filler to pad out the length of this review, and I’ve mentioned it many times already. Coming up with a good review for what feels like 50 plus Jazz albums at this point is just unfair. I mean what do you honestly expect me to say at this point I haven’t already said before?? In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve done this bit before as well. The bottom line is that this album was boring. It bored me, it went on for too long, and I was happy when it ended. I gave it a few tries just to really try to understand why someone would enjoy this, and I couldn’t do it. I won’t be returning to this one, and I don’t care enough to pick a favorite, as even though it’s all improvised, it still just sounds the same to me. Boring background noise I wouldn’t even want as background noise. This is going to very probably be my biggest departure from the public consensus, but hey, everyone is different. I’ve enjoyed some things no one else liked, and I personally find this album to be just another boring and forgettable Jazz album like the majority of them are. It wasn’t offensively bad like some of them have been, but I didn’t enjoy it either. Sorry.

I’m finally free of Kate Bush. This is the third and final Kate Bush album I’ve rolled for this project after giving her other 2 albums both a 2 star review. Surely, this one is similar to her other albums I didn’t care for, right?? Well, actually, hold on now. You’re going to think I’m joking, but I somehow kind of really liked this album. Words I never in a million years thought I would say about The Sensual World after listening to her other 2 albums on here. I stated after the last one that I was convinced this would be more of the same. To tell you why I liked this one so much requires a bit of backtracking to explain why I didn’t love the other ones. So, her other 2 albums have unique aspects to them that, and while I’m glad they exist for the sole purpose of being able to tell so easily that she’s just genuinely having fun with it the entire time, are not something I want to hear on an album personally. Every song she’s either making weird animal noises, sometimes actually barking, or doing weird throat things that just sound too experimental for my liking. Again, they’re fun, maybe a bit pretentious as an art form, but very goofy. Bad, yes, but also somehow true to her character and genuine sounding. If that even makes sense, glaring contradiction included. They made me want a Kate Bush album where she’s just singing normally. I figured she had it in her but wasn’t convinced I was ever going to get it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is that album. I gotta tell you, she’s got a great voice when she chooses to use it, and songs like “Heads We’re Dancing”, and my favorite song on the album “Rocket’s Tail” are proof of that. Let me be absolutely clear, this is still very much a Kate Bush album. She’s still very expressive and pitchy with her vocals. She will still occasionally do a random vocal stim out of nowhere. But it’s not as annoyingly breathy or just plain random and dog barky. It’s more contained and guided properly. And for that reason, you know what, this album truly surprised me. Not in a way where I thought it was barely tolerable, but in a way where I truly enjoyed it all the way through. I personally believe this is her best album, and now I’m glad the bot decided to save it for last. By the grace of God, I’ve found a Kate Bush album I enjoyed. Weird and unexpected times for sure. But I’m not complaining at all. “Rocket’s Tail” just rocks unnecessarily hard for no reason, and I thought it was awesome. Great job Kate. I like this one. You finally got me. Third time really is the charm for Kate Bush.

Oh, Marilyn Manson. Where do I even begin with you?? So, this guy was huge for about 2 years when I was a kid and then fell off the face of the Earth. I haven't heard anything about him since. His legacy to me is the Metalocalypse episode where the gang try to, uh, how do I word this appropriately, remove their rib cages to assist with putting their meat in their mouths. That's innocent sounding enough right?? So yeah, that was a very prominent rumor with Marilyn Manson, and even though it's not true, I still believe. I don't even think it started with him, but it's almost synonymous with him at this point, and it's really funny to think about all this time later. How is his singing? Well, it's unique. I'll give him that. The almost perfect distribution of 1's, 2's and 3's with no 4's or 5's in the site ratings almost perfectly sum him up. Either you hate him entirely as a person and just auto give him a 1, you find his singing tolerable and give it a 2, or you actually kind of enjoy it but acknowledge it's very flawed and give it a 3. I'm currently at a 3. It's fine. Aggressively average, but fine. His biggest hit is also the best song by a country mile, "The Beautiful People", and everything else is just filler. It's ok, but with a literal hour and eleven minute playtime, that's too much for even his hardest core fans. It's edgy. It's graphic. It didn't age well because it was never good to begin with. But, it's also EXTREMELY 90's coded, and for that honestly I can kind of vibe with it. This was the kind of music I was listening to when I was a kid, so it's always going to have just a little bit of a soft spot for me, even if it's just objectively bad music. So, I don't know. I get why anyone would give this a 1-3, as Metal in general is a tough sell for most people and Marilyn Manson himself was a huge, annoying asshole of a person when he had his 15 minutes in the spotlight. I'd compare him to someone like Fred Durst, Kid Rock, or Kanye West in the sense that a lot of these reviews are going to be biased because they just don't like the person. And that's kind of understandable honestly. Additionally, this is the first album I've rolled that's this screamy, and I'd be hard pressed to believe they have many with a remotely similar sound. That screaminess and vulgarity alone is going to throw off a bunch of people right out of the gate. So, it may be the bad kind of unique to most, but again, I kind of vibe with it. Yeah, it's a very safe 3.

Not really my thing. Just a little bit too weird, slow, and I'm not exactly obsessed with this guys voice or vocals. The song names also come off as a little pretentious and annoying which don't exactly help his case. The first time through I absolutely despised listening to this, but as with most other albums I initially despised, this album grew on me. Not a lot, but enough to save it easily from a 1 to at least a very high 2. “A Sight to Behold”, “Fall” and “Insect Eyes” are my favorite 3 songs on the album, and having 3 that I genuinely enjoyed are good indications of at the bare minimum a 2 star album. 1 stars are saved for albums where I just straight up did not enjoy a single song or aspect of. At least this one has those 3 songs, "Fall" being my favorite of the bunch. I still don't love his voice, but the western tempo and melody of that song do go kind of hard. I did that song enough to say that it's pretty good. Not great, but good enough. Other songs, however, and this is a prominent reason the album isn't going to get a 3, come off as so artsy and pretentious that it legitimately aggravates me into just immediately skipping them when they start. I'm sorry, and this might be going too far, but any artist that uses the gimmick of messing up and restarting a song, and then leaves the outtake of starting the song over from the top in the final product is just annoying as shit, looking at you "Todo los Dolores". Whether it's intentional or not is irrelevant, it's one of my least favorite gimmicks and I seldom have to hear it, for good reason. It's not artistic, it's just kind of annoying. When it happens live, it's hilarious. Big difference is that this isn't a Live album. Anyway, yeah. That's my review of Rejoicing In The Hands by Devendra Banhart. Why was this one included exactly?? Don't know. I don't think I had to hear this one before I died, but besides some annoying vocals on a good bit of the songs and the entirety of "Todo los Dolores" it wasn't offensively bad, and I did manage to listen to it for the entire day. Yet another album that goes in the "Grew on me" category. I'm starting to write that so often in these reviews that I need to start keeping track of them all. Ok, review over. I don't generally give a lot of 2's, but I feel this one earned it. Next album please.

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm by A Tribe Called Quest is such a refreshing Hip-Hop album. It's so happy and upbeat, while still just absolutely being as catchy as can be. The smooth Jazz mixed with Hip-Hop is an interesting combination, and while by itself wouldn't be much, when blended together make for a very good time. I'm a little biased, as the only song by these guys I know is "Can I Kick It?", but I'd be pretty hard pressed to not put it as my favorite song on the album as well. This is such a chill, vibe of an album, the entire thing works off of just good, positive vibes alone, and it all just works. It's kind of hard giving it an in depth review, but I think very highly of this album. The positive Hip-Hop albums always end up being my favorites, and this is a prime example of that. Songs like "Luck of Lucian", a song which literally revolves around playfully making fun of the French, are just so goofy, but god are they unbelievably catchy. Another interesting aspect of this album is the numerous samples used. They're everywhere, and are pretty fun to spot, especially if you know any of their origins. This is the fist album from A Tribe Called Quest I have rolled for this project, with 1 more group album, and 1 solo project from Q-Tip remaining. I'm very much in to it. I was surprised to find this album rated lower than their other group album in the book The Low End Theory, considering this one has "Can I Kick It?", so now I'm very interested to check that one out whenever I roll it. Great album. 4.3/5.

Oh hell yeah. The Beastie Boys are back again with another certified banger of an album. Ok, there are quite a few interesting things about this album that I want to bring up, and I want to mention them all real quick. First, this is an album made mostly hand in hand with The Dust Brothers, an artist that I’ve already rolled once for this project and thoroughly enjoyed listening to. They mostly work within the bounds of the Electronica genre, so seeing them collab with the Beastie Boys was quite surprising to me. The album is mostly comprised of an overwhelming amount of samples. This gets to be so ridiculous on some tracks that looking up a list of samples on some songs like “Egg Man” shows an entire list that contains a mix of The Beatles, and songs simply including the word egg in them. That’s extremely funny and clever to me, because they still manage to make it work out fairly well. Next, I’m very familiar with the Beastie Boys. Licensed to Ill, which I’ve already rolled for this project, and Ill Communication, which I’m really excited to roll, I am very familiar with from top to bottom. I’ve never heard of a single one of these songs up until today, and I can’t fathom why. Is this album as good as the previously mentioned albums?? In my opinion, no, it’s a little too bloated and the songs aren’t all that memorable, but it’s still the Beastie Boys, and it’s still a high 4. The songs might not all stick with me, but I love a good album of just deep cuts. It’s not a bad thing. This is still better than a grand majority of albums I’ve heard on the project so far, but it’s not without flaws either. My favorites on this one are “Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun” and my winner for best on the album goes to “Car Thief”. I’m not entirely sure what they were going for with the last 9 “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” tracks, they sound just like the other regular songs on the album. I don’t know exactly why they gave them a unique moniker, but they’re all pretty good. Again, not the most memorable, but good. Going to give this one a high 4.8, and I want to give it a 5 just because I love the Beastie Boys, but I just can’t do it. Don’t get it twisted though, this album still kicks a whole lot of ass.

Songs to go out on a quest to. Songs to play for your fellow hobbits. Songs for the Kings Gathering. Songs to joust to. Songs for wooing a fair maiden. Songs to drink, be gay and merry to at the town square. You get the point. This is straight up Medieval music and sounds like something you’d hear in the background of an episode of Game of Thrones. Does it blow me away? Not really. But I got used to it fairly quickly, and the fun blend of Folk and more traditional Rock, mixed with both singers, who equally hold their own and entertain, make this a surprisingly good album when you get used to just how goofy the entire thing is. My favorite songs on the album are “I Saw an Angel” and “Train Song”. Both do a great job of still being fantastical and a bit goofy, but “I Saw an Angel” takes a step into the more straight forward Rock territory and ends the album on an extremely strong note. This album doesn’t do anything absolutely amazingly or new, but it’s pretty unique, and I can appreciate that. Especially for being from the 60’s. I easily managed to listen to it on repeat for the day. I think my biggest criticism is with the fact that, at least on Spotify, the song “Sally Go Round the Roses” makes three separate appearances. In fact, that song plays, and then after 2 songs later it’s back, followed immediately by an extended version of the exact same song. It’s probably my least favorite song on the album partly because of that. Makes me wonder if the original album cuts off at “House Carpenter”. If so, that wouldn’t be a problem if the original cut was on Spotify in the first place, which it isn’t. Also makes me wonder if the last song, the previously mentioned “I Saw an Angel” was added in later. Would explain why it sounds so different if true, but you really have to be patient if you want to get to it. I’m glad it was included at all, and it is my favorite song on the album, but the vibes really are much different with that song than the others. So much so that I really want to hear more of Pentangle and see how they evolved over the years. This is the only album they have on here, but they made music for a very long time, with a discography ranging from the 60’s all the way to the 90’s. Even if this album isn’t perfect, I’m thankful for this site for letting me check it out. This is the kind of thing I really enjoy using this bot for. The fact that I want to actively seek out more of this music, even if I only gave it a 3, means the authors of the book occasionally do a good job of making me want to listen to more of their oddball suggestions like this one.

Didn't enjoy this one sadly, as much as I tried to. I'm sure that this is a pretty foundational accomplishment in the field of Electronica, but good lord was it perhaps the most boring thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I love Electronica in general and I almost want to give this 1 star. I just could not for the life of me get in to this. I went into it with high hopes seeing the very unique blend of genres, but for once I agree with the common consensus here. This is just background noise, and not even particularly good background noise at that. I guess my favorite song is the opener, the titular "Phaedra", but I didn't last the day listening to this one before having to turn it off. I don't enjoy that I had to play the Deluxe Version either. Couldn't be bothered giving the various bonus songs a shot, it was just outtakes and more of the same boring noise as the regular songs on the album. I wish that I had the option of just listening to the original album only, but that's a dig at Spotify itself and not the album. I don't know, it's tough for me to compliment or find anything I enjoyed about this. It wasn't offensively bad so I'll still give it a 2, but man I am going to forget about this one almost immediately upon clicking the Vote button. Not a great album here, but that's fine and to be expected, it just opens up more room for another certified banger. Oh well, they can't all be winners. Moving on now. Again, I'm sure this is a very important album for the evolution of this genre, especially for when it came out in the 70's. Unfortunately, I kind of wish it would stay there.

This was a surprisingly good album. The only Jeff Beck song I was familiar with going in to this album is "Cause We've Ended as Lovers", so I was vaguely familiar with Beck and his incredible guitar playing. Besides some strange mixing choices where some of the guitar playing is quieter than it should be, this album is absolutely carried by Jeff Beck on guitar and Ronnie Wood on bass. While I still enjoyed Rod Stewart and his vocals, they took a little getting used to, and I wouldn't say they blew me away. What did blow me away were the solos. Every time Jeff got to shine, that was instantly the best part of every song with a solo. For that reason, the song "Beck's Bolero" was my second favorite song on the album, because it explicitly lets him shine. It was a tad repetitive though, so my favorite song on the album is going to go to "You Shook Me", which actually has the PERFEFCT blend of Blues, Rock, killer guitar riffs, an aggressive piano, and the best vocals on the album. I love albums like this because Blues Rock is just so cool and different. Yet another album that I enjoyed because of the unique blend of genres. I do really wish the mixing was better though, I don't know if it's just because this album is old or if that was a creative decision, but it's rather strange to make the literal lead guitarist and front man of the band the quietest of the group. I don't often comment on the mixing of albums, but it's notably strange here. Other than that, this is a very solid, consistently good album with a perfect playtime. Having a cover of "Ol' Man River" is also pretty funny. While I think it's the low point of the album, I still enjoyed it for what it was. Going to give this one a 4.2/5. Legendary set of artists on this one. A lot of people call it Proto Led Zeppelin, some people even call it Metal, but at the end of the day, all that matters is that it's extremely enjoyable, and I thank them for that.

Guys, I’m going to be extremely honest with you right now. I can’t name a Bruce Springsteen song. He has 5 albums on here, and this is the first one I’ve rolled so far. It was inevitable that I would get to one eventually. Obviously, I’ve heard of him before. I’ve heard the name here and there throughout my entire life and I know how much people love him. I just have never listened to his music before, and I can’t say I’ve ever had anyone recommend it to me either. Looking at his Top 10 on Spotify, I think I only recognize “Born in the U.S.A.”, which is not on this album. On this album specifically I don’t recognize a single song. That’s not a problem, since all that matters is what I thought of it as a whole. So, with that introduction out of the way, what did I think of Darkness on the Edge of Town exactly?? I liked it. I didn't absolutely love it, but as a whole it was pretty good. I think that I'll probably forget about it shortly, but it was still very decent Rock, even if it didn't really do anything new or unique. Just solid guitar playing and a voice that is, at times ok, and other times not the best. The riffs were the best parts of this one. Occasionally he'll just absolutely shred a wicked solo, seemingly out of nowhere. When he's shredding, it's pretty damn good. They call him "The Boss" apparently. Great nickname. That's a nickname that you for sure have to earn. My favorite song on this album is overwhelmingly going to have to be "Adam Raised a Cain". The vocals are super catchy, the riffs are juicy, and I was excited to have that song pop up every time I replayed the album very consistently. Well, Mr. The Boss, good first album. We'll see if this is another David Bowie situation in due time where I like all of the albums well enough to give them a 3, but most don't quite breach into the 4 territory.

Welcome back to the generator, The Kinks. When I last rolled this band, I was given Village Green and admittedly found it rather underwhelming. Too much like a worse Beatles. Still nowhere near bad, but nothing was very memorable. Clearly, later down the road, The Kinks evolved into whatever this is here. This might not make sense but the singer, Ray Davies, has such a voice where even though I’m confident I’ve never heard any of these songs before, they just feel very welcoming and familiar. I was going to give this album a 4 half way in. The first couple of songs are pretty good but don’t quite blow me away. Cutting political and social commentary, especially with “Some Mother’s Son”. The deep and depressing song is almost sung with a level of fake joviality that I can only describe as odd, yet unique. Once we get to the 4 song streak of “Brainwashed”, “Australia”, “Shangri-La”, and “Mr. Churchill Says” is when I started strongly considering giving this a 4 or 5, and you know what. I added all 4 of them. I must have played “Australia”, my favorite song on the album, close to 100 times today. That song hooked me immediately. This is an insanely good album, and I’ve got 2 more The Kinks albums to go!! The fist one got a 3, and this one is getting a 5. I believe that’s the first time a disparity this big has happened with a band I’ve listened to during this project. I expect it to happen again, but I’m pretty sure this is the first. Unrelated to my review, but the top review for this album mentioning some blokes kinks may also be the funniest review I’ve read on the site so far, up there with the math expert on Common’s Be. Extremely good album here. Every song hooked me and I’m absolutely going to remember them later on, unlike Village Green. This album evolves so much past just sounding like The Beatles, and forms its own unique identity that I can only describe as freaking great, mostly upbeat, and catchy as all hell. A 5 out of 5.

Led Zeppelin is back. Much to my surprise, the only song I was familiar with was the opener, which in my humble opinion carries this album heavily. Without it, I would actually rate this album a solid 3. As it stands though, much like Jimi Hendrix, even Led Zeppelin songs that I don’t recognize are still great. While my favorite song is undoubtedly “Immigrant Song”, which is a timeless classic, I did also thoroughly enjoy “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and “Tangerine”. I’m actually kind of baffled to not have heard of literally any of these songs before. I’ve been listening to Led Zeppelin my entire life, so to find this many deep cuts was actually a bit surprising to me, especially for one of their numbered albums. On the site, this is the second lowest rated of the Led Zeppelin albums, and yet still one of the highest rated albums on the site in general. For me, so far, I have rolled 3/5 Led Zeppelin albums. My rankings so far would have to be this as my least favorite, followed by Physical Graffiti, and then Led Zeppelin 2. Still to go are 1 and 4, the ladder of which is undoubtedly going to be my favorite. I don’t know man, I just found this one kind of whelming as a whole. Like, I see why 3 isn’t talked about as much as the more praised albums like 4. It definitely paved the way, but it’s not nearly as good. It’s Led Zeppelin, so it is still better than most of the albums I’ve heard so far on the site, but admittedly I’m largely going to forget this one compared to their other albums. I would DEFINITELY not call it disappointing, but it was kind of fillery. As previously stated though, Led Zeppelin filler is still totally killer, even though I don’t think a lot of these songs rank up their with the all time greats. Plus, it gave me a few to add to the frequent rotation. Always a bonus. This one is going to get a 4.2/5 for me. Still outstanding by the standard definition, but a little underwhelming by Led Zeppelin standards.

Now, it might sound super obvious, but a good rule of thumb for an album is to have both the first and last song stand out. They say that when you’re watching a movie, reading a book, listening to an album, etc, the things that sticks with you the most are the beginning and end. Over the course of my time with this project, I’ve noticed that for my playlist consisting of my single favorite song from each album, I heavily tend to enjoy the opener or the closer the most. Unsurprisingly, this album is no different. According to Spotify, the big hits of Dig Me Out are the first three songs on the album. However, my personal favorite was the closer, “Jenny”. What a great way to end an album. That song just totally rocked. Now, this is the only Sleater-Kinney album on the list, and I can’t say I know much about them as a whole. Song wise I don’t know any of them. The only fun little factoid about this band that I know is that they opened for and have played with Pearl Jam more than a few times over the years. Any friend of Pearl Jam is a friend of mine. Listening to this album for more than a few minutes and you can definitely see why they’re so close. The prime definition of Riot Grrrl playing with the often politically charged lyrics of Eddie Vedder make for a good 1 2 combo. Albums like this are an important inclusion on the list, as they paved the way and influenced women everywhere to rock out, motivating them to take up a fight against important causes and inspiring change. It might not be my absolute favorite sound, but it’s still good enough as it is and succeeds in what it’s trying to do. An important inclusion on the list that I’m happy got chosen. I can’t say I’d really return to this one very often personally, but I’m happy that I got to spend the day listening to it. I find the lead singers voice to be a little much at times, but the instrumentation is fantastic, and some songs, notably the intro to “One More Hour” actually really remind me of Pearl Jam in places, which is pretty cool. I’m comfortably going to give this one a 3/5. It was pretty enjoyable throughout. Nothing new or breathtaking, but good.

Finding it very hard not to rate this a 1 and move on, but I enjoyed it enough that it wasn't as miserable as the other 1 star albums, so it's a 2.1/5. I have a very consistent history at this point with The Velvet Underground. I just can not stand this band unfortunately. I tried, but I could only listen to this one completely once and then I just had to have a pallet cleanser and listen to anything else. The worst part is that I really do love Lou Reed. I just kind of hate his early stuff like this. This is the second album I've rolled by them, following the banana album, which I had heard good things about and I was at least able to listen to throughout the entire day, but bound rather boring, unmemorable and just unremarkable. My issues with this one stem a lot deeper. What the hell is up with the sound quality here?? I feel like it's on purpose, but this entire album sounds like it was produced from the perspective of a bit crushed blender. It's choppy, hard to understand, repetitive, art for arts sake and sadly it just kind of sucks. I think anyone who really enjoys this album might just be either an ENORMOUS fan of this band, or are simply pretending to sound like they're better than everyone else. God damn, this one was rough. Begrudgingly, I'm going to give my favorite song to "I Heard Her Call My Name". This album narrowly avoided getting one star, and I'm just super not interested in listening to the third and final album by The Velvet Underground whenever the bot decided to spring that on me. At this point, I'm fine with it being sooner rather than later just so I can get it over with. If it's my weekend album I'm going to be upset though. We'll see, I'm rambling again because it's difficult for me to praise a single thing in this album. The guitar playing is fine sometimes, that's all I got. Ciao for now, more tomorrow.

2 weekend albums in a row from The Boss. I can get down with that. This is the 2nd out of 5 Bruce Springsteen albums I have rolled, following Darkness on the Edge of Town last Friday. I opened that review stating that Bruce was an artist I knew nothing about, and couldn't name any of his songs, despite hearing about him a lot growing up and knowing how popular he is. Now that one week has passed, I'm substantially more familiar with him now, and I can confidently tell you that I enjoy his music. I can see why he's got 5 albums on here. Nothing has absolutely wowed me yet, but it’s good. I don’t think any of these albums are going to get a 4 or 5 from me personally, but I’ve appreciated both this and Darkness about the same, with Darkness taking a slight edge over Born to Run. While Born to Run is slightly tighter, I thought that per capita, Darkness has the better songs, and a better variety of softer and harder Rock that Born to Run is lacking. I still liked Born to Run, but it was just a little too light for my personal enjoyment. I don’t know if I’m going to make it a tradition to start ranking artists with multiple albums like I’ve done for Zep, but so far while I’ve enjoyed both Springsteen albums, I liked Darkness more. My favorite songs on Born to Run include the title track, “Born To Run”, the Jazz filled closer “Jungleland”, and my personal favorite song on the album “Backstreets”. Based on Spotify listens, I would guess that song is pretty underrated. It’s got a great piano to open with, starts off very light and gets progressively heavier, and ends with Bruce belting one out. It tells a pretty neat story as well. All that being said, it’s got a similar tone to the rest of the songs on the album, while Darkness has more variety. As a whole, I wasn’t crazy about 3/8 of the songs on this album, which is almost half. For that reason, as well as the previously mentioned reasons, it’s going to get a solid 3 stars. Did I enjoy it?? Yes. Would I return to it?? Maybe if it was already on, but at least I’m for sure going to be able to instantly recognize a Bruce Springsteen song out in the wild because of this project. So that’s a bonus. 3 more Springsteen albums to go, let’s see what else you’ve got, Boss.

The Good: This is the first Radiohead album out of 6 I have rolled for this project. Radiohead kicks ass. The Bad: This is the lowest rated Radiohead album on the site, and may not be the best starting point for the band. The Other: It’s still a 5 star album. I loved it anyway. Ok, so here’s the thing. I’m not the most familiar with this band. My younger brother is a huge fan, and I love what little I’ve heard, but I’ve never actually seeked out Radiohead before. Rolling this one first is a bit odd, because apparently it’s just outtakes from Kid A, an album I haven’t heard yet. Saw some people calling it Kid B for that reason. It’s also weird, because, and I can’t stress this enough, I fucking L O V E this. Radiohead is one of those bands with a near cult like following. Every album they put out people treat like the second coming of Jesus. I’ve rolled some other artists with the same kind of cult like following as Radiohead, but none quite to this extent. And you know what?? I immediately get it. I might join that cult. Thom Yorke is a brilliant singer, a brilliant guitarist, and the rest of the band is great too. I don’t know if the other albums have the same somber vibe as this one, but I love this. It’s got a very Gorillaz feel to it, one of my top 5 favorite bands of all time. I picked the Gorillaz path as a kid, not the Radiohead path, lol. They’re immensely similar, but I would say this is more symphonic and almost astral, focusing on vibes and the art itself more than the vocals and beats. Wouldn’t you know it, this came out the same year as the self titled Gorillaz album. What a killer year for music 2001 was, holy hell. Shit, I’m still coming to grips with this being the lowest rated Radiohead album on the site. Not only would I return to this any day of the week, but picking a favorite song is also borderline impossible. Any album where your favorite song is going to change by the minute is really really good. I don’t know man, it’s a double edged sword giving this one a 5, should I rate it as a high 4 and wait to listen to the other 5 albums to see if this is truly the worst of them, or do I let it ride and potentially have 6 Radiohead albums rated 5 stars. Decisions, decisions. I don’t know man. I loved this from the very first listen, so either it’s an outlier that I’ll end up liking more than the other 5, or I genuinely may have 6 5 star albums lined up whenever I roll Radiohead. Either way, I’m fucking pumped for more of this. I’m jonesing for it. I’m not going to give this one a 4. I get the hype. This is one of the better albums I’ve rolled for this project. While most albums have been enjoyable, this was true art. Peak.

This album is 1 in 1 billion. No really, I feel like I've heard this same album 1 billion times. Vaguely Beatles sounding, but came out after they'd already broken up. This is Rock music that was already dated when it came out. I've never heard of Big Star, as unsurprisingly they weren't big in the USA, but instead were very popular in the UK. I promise I won't rail the album this entire review. It was fine. I liked more than I disliked, but man was this by the books. The only song I would consistently skip was "The India Song", which I found a tad obnoxious. I can compliment the lead singers voice, but I can't say it was unique or impressive. The guitar playing was fine, but only just fine. Nothing stood out here. That's what this album is missing. It wasn't unique in any way, and everything it attempts has already been done 1000000x before it. My favorite song, AKA the one with a bit of a cool solo in it, was "Don't Lie To Me". I've heard more Rock than any other genre, so I'm a bit of a stickler for it when it's just this aggressively average. It makes it really hard to write a review for it that's not just "Yeah, it was fine I guess. There sure were guitars, drums and a singer". But that's about the extent of what I got with this one. Again, didn't hate it. I didn't even dislike it, in fact, but I'm going to forget I even heard it in approximately 1 day when I hopefully roll something more memorable. Whether that be good or bad, we'll see. I've still got 1 more album left to go by Big Star, and it's got a pretty low rating on the site. Oh boy, more of this. Goodie. I'm sure it will be even more memorable than this one was. Sarcasm over. Album was fine, I guess. Next.

God awful rapping. Who let the British make Hip-Hop?? They should stop doing that. This was an album where right from the start, with that whiny "It was supposed to be so eeeaaassssyyyyyy" I let out an audible "Oh no" and figured I would be giving this a 1 for the first time in well over 150 albums. I managed to listen to this a few times, and while I still really do want to give it a 1, I was able to get some enjoyment from the story this tells. For being a Rap Opera, it's at least unique enough to warrant having a spot in this book, but man is it not for me. It's basically just about some British blokes terrible day and him trying to find his grand. What makes it interesting is the amount of times he hints at where the money is. Spoiler alert: It was behind his broken TV the entire time, as he'd been complaining about his TV not working for multiple songs. My favorite song here, if you can call it that, was "Not Addicted", simply because I thought the beat was alright. I also kind of liked the back and forth he has with his girl in "Get Out of My House". When this is on in the background, it's not as intrusive as I thought it was the first time I listened through it in shock and terror. I still don't like it, I mean REALLY don't like it, but the 1 star rating is reserved for albums that actively made me miserable, and there's even enough positives to talk about with this one that even though I'm hesitant, I'll give this one a 2.0 on the dot out of 5 and call it a day. I was specifically asking for a more memorable album for better or worse yesterday, so I guess I got what I wanted. This was certainly very memorable, and love it or hate it, I'm going to remember it down the line. So, it's got that going for it. Not in a good way, but it's something going for it at least.

Do you ever just listen to an album for the first time from an artist you’re not familiar with, and then suddenly out of nowhere a song comes on that you are instantly familiar with?? You start obsessing over it and wonder where you initially heard it. You take this obsession a step further and start looking up what it sampled, or what it’s been sampled by. When that doesn’t work, you look up what shows and movies it’s been in. Your final resort?? Video games. Jackpot. Going to age myself yet again, but when I was a kid I played the Smackdown vs. Raw series almost religiously, so to be reunited with “The Champ” again after all these years (It was on the 2007 version btw), makes me very happy. God damn is that song catchy. For that reason, it’s got to be my favorite on the album, which is a good a reason as any. Every song on this album slaps. They’re catchy, they’ve got some great features, and here’s the amazing thing. The skits?? Actually funny and non intrusive. I generally always dock points for skits, but for the first time, one of them made me audibly laugh out loud. That was “Heart Street Directions”. See, men are easy to please. You’ve got someone giving directions like “Get off at Dick, make a left on Dick”, and I just instantly start laughing. Juvenile?? Absolutely. Hilarious?? The funniest shit I’ve ever heard personally. The songs at the end, presumably bonus tracks, featuring vocals from people like Biggie and Ice Cube are also just brilliant. Both versions of “Be Easy” in particular are so catchy. Apparently I rate Hip-Hop albums higher than the average listener on the site, and I’m going to be consistent with this one. It was partially produced by MF DOOM, who’s name I don’t get to mention nearly enough. The fact that he doesn’t have any albums on here is legitimately sickening. They call him “Your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper” for a reason. He is my all time favorite, and his hands were clearly all over this album. I’m curious if any other Wu-Tang Clan members have solo albums on here. This is the first one I’ve rolled so far, including getting to listen to this before the actual Wu-Tang Clan itself, something I’m much more familiar with as a whole. Am I seriously going to go against the consensus again and give another Rap album a 5?? Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. I can’t help if it’s catchy. I guess I just love this kind of stuff, who knew, I’m thankful for this site for turning me on to so many absolute bangers like this!!

I don't know what compelled me to do it, but I checked out the Expanded Version of this album. Google said it was best listened to in full, and that the regular version was very toned down and incomplete. I don't know why I listened to Google. This was not a very good album. Generally I try to listen to an album more than once throughout the day to really let it sink its teeth into me and let me appreciate it more. Often times, that works. On rare occasions like this, even listening to it once was tough enough that I didn't want to give it another go. Wasn't a big fan of the vocals, wasn't a big fan of the Jazz itself, just straight up was not a fan of this one in general. Not going to dock it for being a Live album, but when I hear things like "Haha, oops, not very comfortable singing this one, I'll try to do it justice though", I want to rip my hair out. I really kind of just picked a song at random for my "Best of" playlist. I don't remember what it was, and this album isn't worth the time of day to open Spotify and find out. It's just more boring Jazz that I didn't have to listen to before I died. All that being said, it's still better than some albums, and STILL didn't make me miserable enough to give it a 1. That should really tell you everything you need to know about the kind of albums I give a 1, but I digress. This was my weekend album, and I'm writing this one on the Sunday night before my next album drops in a bit, so by this point I largely don't even remember this album all that much in general, and probably for good reason. It was over an hour long of dated, overwhelmingly average Jazz music. I already don't love most Jazz music anyway, but exceptions have been made more than a few times. When this one doesn't even have a particularly high rating on the site, with people who like Jazz substantially more than I ever will, you end up with At Mister Kelly's by Sarah Vaughan. Sorry Sarah, did not enjoy this one very much. It had it's moments though, I remember the piano being kinda cool at moments, so I still won't give it a 1.

Well, this is it. Another milestone on my journey to the end of the list. I’ve finally listened to at least 1 solo album for all 3 of the Beatles on here (Sorry Ringo, I’m sure your solo career is great), as well as an actual Beatles album with Revolver. I have enjoyed every one of them so far, and ranking them would maybe be a bit unfair to John, as he didn’t get to evolve his music past 1980 like everyone else did. However, I think that out of what I have heard so far, Paul is my favorite without a shadow of a doubt, George surprised the hell out of me with how much I enjoyed his music, and John of course is legendary in his own right. However, I don’t think this album starts getting truly great until the middle, and there are a few songs I’d skip here on my way to the gold on another listen. This is going to be one of many acts of musical blasphemy I’ve committed so far, but I’ll say it anyway. I don’t love “Imagine”. I respect the HELL out of it, I love the message, I admire it for how great it is. It’s a beautiful song, and a great song at that, an absolute classic. That’s the important thing. But, and this is a big but, I’m so tired of listening to it. I’ve heard that song constantly throughout the highs and lows of my life, and I’d never call it bad or overrated, but man am I tired of it. Additionally, hearing that song with its jovial messaging and positive attitude on the same album as “How Do You Sleep?”, a very old fashioned diss track against Paul, is actually hilarious. One big thing I’ll give this album is that it’s not all just soft rock classics. A slight one up on Harrison’s album, this has an incredible mix of softer and harder songs, adding some much appreciated variety to John’s usual sound. “I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier Mama”, and “How Do You Sleep?” add some great, edgier bangers to the mix, the ladder being my favorite song on the album. And again, the fact that it’s a diss track against Paul is just crazy to me. A fascinating song all around. These are songs that were, in my opinion, clear signs at an attempt to branch out from his usual Beatley music into a darker, more raw sound that really, REALLY worked out great. I wasn’t even aware he could make songs that cool admittedly. All of the Beatles have songs and albums like this that surprise me every single time I hear them and just absolutely rock. I have a rather warped sense of what I expected the Beatles to sound like. At least, I did before this project. Now I seriously love them. There’s a valid reason they’re generally considered to be the best. Overall, this was a pretty solid album. Some skips, some total bangers, and one all time classic, it’s pretty good!!

There’s a point at the end of the second disk of this album where the singer, Billy, outcries that he doesn’t know if he can go on. I think that line really spoke to me on a sort of spiritual level. It was a direct allusion of what I had to go through making it that far into the album. This album was fucking miserable tosh, and I resent the entire country of England for producing it. I was going to give this a 2, but it went on and on and on and on and on and by the time I got to the ending, I couldn’t turn it off fast enough. I really hope the original pressing only had 1 disc, because Spotify has a second disk which is even worse and makes the experience last for well over an hour, which is another point against this album. I rather enjoyed the cool violin on “Train Train”, but dude, the vocals on this album are terrible. If I never have to hear a grown man sing about being a big boy again, it will be too soon. God, I was hoping for something good this morning. Instead, I got this. Bad. Bad album. He’s got a second one on here as well. Please help me. The worst part is that I’m actually in a great mood today, this blokes god forsaken singing just makes me want to vent and get it all out. So, for the free therapy, I thank this album for being as bad as it is. I’m going to go through the other 1 stars again real quick to see if something is finally going to join them. This one might be worthy. It makes an excellent case for being overwhelming shit. I’m upset that the other aspects of the album like the guitar playing, violin and brass are pretty cool so I can’t outright detest it entirely. I do not relate to this album in any way, and with this whiny, annoying singer, I absolutely do not care to either. “Train Train” was bearable, so that’s my pick for best one on this album. Now let’s never speak of this album again so I can get on with the rest of my life. Please. All I can do at this point is hope I get a better album tomorrow.

The monkeys paw really and truly unfurled with this one. I wanted a unique album that wasn’t just mediocre British Punk or American Rock, and in a sense I got it with this album. On the other hand, I didn’t really care for this album all that much. Listen, I had to give an album a 1 star review yesterday for the first time in 108 albums. I ended that review writing that “All I can do at this point is hope I get a better album tomorrow.” When I checked out the reviews on this one, I was not the happiest camper. However, it’s completely understandable why the rating is so low. I don’t speak French, and neither do a majority of the people rating these. I don’t really love the way Jacques sings here. I didn’t get much entertainment out of this one. But, it’s getting somewhat of a pass this time. Yesterday’s album was in English and I outright detested it. This one was at least fun, gracefully short, and has the built in excuse of being in a foreign language. It’s not what I’m looking for, but it’s fun. Would that be a reason that a majority of reviewers are going to rate this one pretty low?? Yeah, for sure, obviously. But, you can tell without speaking French that Mr. Brel is a talented singer, even though this isn’t really my thing at all. I think my favorite song was “Les jardins du casino”. Why?? Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. The instruments were fun enough throughout the album, and the obvious passion put into this man’s craft elevates it to at least a 2 for me. Not nearly enough for a 3, but I can at least see the reason someone from France in the 60’s would go crazy for something like this. It’s not bad, but it’s not for me, and it’s probably not for most people in general honestly. But, I can see why it’s here, even if I’d have liked another Pearl Jam album or 2 instead. This is my first experience with a “Chanson” on the site. Humorously, of the 6 listed on the site, every single one of them has a 2 star rating, which will likely end up matching my own takes on all of them if they end up sounding anything like this one. One of them is even in the bottom 20 rated albums on the website. Knowing my luck this week, I’m going to end up rolling it pretty soon, or just another Chanson in general. I can’t say I’m the most excited about any of them. The French make outstanding Electronica, but I’m not so fond of the Chanson from what little I’ve heard so far, and it would seem I’m not in the minority when it comes to that take either. We’ll see when the site decides to spring Chanson 2/6 on me so I can verify whether or not they all kind of sound like this or not. Until then, this one is a very comfortable 2 stars out of 5.

This is the one with “Psycho Killer”!!!! Let’s freaking go. Finally, some good food this week. This is the second Talking Heads album I have rolled so far out of 4, following Remain in Light. Talking Heads is one of those bands where I’ve never bothered playing an album from top to bottom, but whenever I hear something new, I end up adding it to my frequent rotation. I’ve used that line a bunch already, and I’m going continue using it whenever applicable. Lucky for me, by the end of this journey, I’ll have heard at least 4 complete albums from these guys. As if to prove my point, the only song from Talking Heads 77 I’d heard of up until now is their magnum opus itself, “Psycho Killer”. Of course that one is going to have to be my favorite, I’m not insane. It’s peak music, and I even love some of the covers, especially the one by Cage The Elephant. But I’m not going to let my love for a single song sway how I rank the album as a whole. So, how is Talking Heads 77?? Let’s talk about it. Spoiler alert: It's great!! Comparable to Remain in Light, and the Deluxe Edition actually adds some of my favorite songs on the album, on top of still not even being over an hour long, which is just perfect. Any album with a Deluxe Edition that only adds a few songs is perfectly fine by me to listen to for this project. This is absolutely a Talking Heads album, complete with David Byrne's absolutely iconic vocal stims. He really does have to have one of the most recognizable voices in music, and I love him for that. Besides "Psycho Killer", my favorite songs on this album are the last 2 songs on the album, "I Feel It in My Heart" and "Sugar on My Tongue". I'm always going to be in the mood for some Talking Heads. They're the perfect example of a band that consistently put out 4 star albums. I'm always going to want to listen to it, it doesn't blow me away, but it's consistent in the fact that it's always almost perfect. That's just what I need it to be at the end of the day. Been having a rough last couple of days on the site, so this was exactly what I needed today as well. Side Note: Every time David unleashes a "YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA", an angel gets its wings. Peak. Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est? Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, fa, better Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away Oh-oh-oh-oh, aye-ya-ya-ya-ya

Charming little album here by Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel fame. This is the first solo album for him of 3 I’ve rolled for this project, following the duo’s famous Bridge over Troubled Water. While both are great Folk albums in their own right, I thought that Self Titled by Paul Simon is more adventurous, has a lot more variety than the very calm Bridge, and actually enjoyed it slightly more. They’re still comparable of course, but I liked how many different places this album attempted to go, and found it to mostly be a good call with every song. My favorites of the bunch this time were “Mother and Child Reunion” and “Armistice Day”. Nothing absolutely wowed me on this one, but every song being so happy and full of joy is really felt, and the multiple different vibes from song to song are really felt. From what I believe is a flute on “Duncan”, to the very Jazzy, mostly violin laden “Hobo’s Blues”, Paul was not afraid to take some risks with this one, and as previously mentioned, it makes every song feel fresh and memorable. Also worth mentioning is that it’s just pretty surprisingly funny at times, and the lyrics, as well as some of the song names and concepts, caught me off guard a bit. The very first lyrics to “Duncan” being “Couple in the next room, bound to win a prize”, sung in Paul’s down to Earth and calm voice, are so comically out of place with what’s actually being said, and it’s fantastic. I like some humor in my Folk albums, and this one has it in spades. So, while it’s still not exactly the type of music I listen to very often, this one is still going to stick with me for a little while longer. Cool album art too. Bro just kind of looks like a bit of a badass in that outfit, not going to lie to you. Good stuff, very excited for the other 2 Paul Simon albums.

If there is one thing I have learned over the course of this project, it’s that the Brit’s putting the book together are actually dead on at picking a lot of these Gangsta Rap albums. Not only was I not expecting OutKast to have 2 albums on here, but I wasn’t expecting this one to also be so heavy on the P Funk. Last time I heard P Funk was with Funkadelic, and I gave that a 5 star rating. When you mix the 2 genres together here, you end up with a very uneven, but still pretty goated album. It’s uneven because over the course of its 1 hour and 13 minute runtime, I kind of got the point about 30 minutes in. They blow their load early with “Gasoline Dreams”, “So Fresh, So Clean” and the all time classic that most people probably recognize, “Ms. Jackson”. You then have to wait all the way until the middle of the album to hit my favorite song on the album, “B.O.B. - Bombs Over Baghdad”, which has just an insanely good hook to it and a good rhythm that makes you want to dance. This album has, not including the skits or the intro, about 16/24 songs. I only really love the hits, you can take or leave the rest. Notably, they’re still really good, but the hits actually do blow me away for once with how good they are. I’m generally a bit of an outlier when it comes to picking my favorite songs on these albums, but yeah, the hits are the best here. This is my first of 2 OutKast albums I have rolled for this project, and after consistently hearing some great Hip Hop over the course of my journey, gotta say that I’m super excited to roll the second album from these guys as well. I didn’t love every song on the album, I end up skipping quite a few actually, but as a whole, and considering how good the hits are, I’m going to give this one a low 4, probably somewhere around a 4.2. It’s great, if not a little flawed, and when it’s good, it’s very good. The flows these guys both put out when on top of their game are some of the best I’ve heard so far, but they don’t land as often as I’d like them to. Good stuff as always. Carry on.

The fact that this is one of the best things I've heard on this site lately should tell you what kind of luck I'm having with the bot recently. World Music is always interesting to me for a few reasons. The first reason, and I'm sure I've written this verbatim in another review, is that I have no idea what World Music is. Yes, I understand. It's a term for "Anything not made in the USA or UK", essentially, which is honestly kind of hilarious. I've never understood that though, because some of the World Music I've heard so far has just blatantly been Rock, Rap, etc. This is not one of those examples, but surely there's something better we can call it than just "World Music". If this was close enough to anything, I would maybe say Singer Songwriter. Don't know. This was a long tangent. I don't have a lot to say about this album. My favorite song was "Pitche Mi". I found this album surprisingly easy to listen to, and the fact that it's as good as it is in retrospect should make all the albums I've given low 3's, 2's and even a 1 recently feel incredibly bad about being as shit as they are. This was an incredibly African sounding album, and even though I don't speak whatever language this was, I was vibing with it. Loved all the drums and super smooth guitar playing. My least favorite aspect was the singer himself sadly. Wasn't obsessed with that, but I'm going to give it a bit of a pass, because, again, I don't speak the language and it really didn't bother me all that much. I was too busy focusing on the sick ass drum beats, which were honestly the highlight of the album. Despite "Pitche Mi" being my favorite, I thought that all 4 songs on this album were pretty good and easy to distinguish from each other. I really liked this one actually. A 3.4 out of 5.

Pre Listen: This better be worth the pain it caused me to download the actual album, rather than the very incorrect version Spotify has. It took me forever to get this stupid thing on my phone. There are so many different versions and loopholes I had to go through to even find the thing. Thank God for the top review saying the Spotify version is wrong though. I don't think this album would be as low rated as it is on the site if people could just find it more easily. Post Listen: Alright, I’m back. Heard the entire thing. What are my thoughts on this one? First things first, a compilation feels like cheating to even have on this list at all. Kind of weird to have multiple artists being listed as the same artist. Don’t really love that. Second of all, my GOD was this long. Took like half of my shift to get through it, and I barely realized I was even done, as the entire album is just very similar Drum and Bass samples that, while fundamental, are far beyond dated. This was a fun album to go back and explore because without something like this, we wouldn't have some of the best Electronica out today. It's basic now, sure, but back when this came out it was new and exciting. Unfortunately, it's so dated it really does lessen my interest as a whole, especially because of how long it is. I only managed to get through it once and can't say I'd want to again, but for what it is at the bare minimum it makes for some excellent background noise while I'm working. Favorite song? Brother, I can't even tell you a single thing I remember about any of them. None of them were bad, I can confidently say that. But they're so basic that all I remember is the rhythm that most every single song on the album collectively shared. I guess this album is on the list solely for being a big progenitor in the history of Drum and Bass, but I can't say that with the length, and ease of access to even find the bloody thing, that it was worth hunting it down at the end of the day JUST to listen to the whole thing. But, that is my goal for all of these albums, and I've stuck to it so far. At least it was good music this time and very easy to zone out to. Props for that. As for the music itself, I can't really say I had to listen to it before I died. It's a product of it's time and wasn't very interesting to listen to, but again, I get it. It's important to the progression of an entire genre of music, which is likely why it was added to begin with.

If I’ve learned anything from this project, it’s that true random just straight up doesn’t seem to exist. I just rolled Self Titled by Paul Simon less than a week ago, and mentioned how I was eager to compare the remaining Simon & Garfunkel albums to the solo career of Paul Simon. So far, I have rolled Bridge Over Troubled Water, Paul Simon, and now this. Of the 3, I think this is actually my favorite so far. I enjoyed multiple songs to the extent that picking a favorite was difficult, which is always a sign of a good album. My favorites on this one are “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”, “Homeward Bound”, and the ultimate winner in my opinion, “A Simple Desultory Philippic”. Simon & Garfunkel, whether solo or together, are so goofy that it actually surprises me how much depth this album, which came out in 1966 has. It’s self deprecating in places, is full of social and political commentary, and does it all under the guise of a deceptively complex Folk album. It’s still not something I’d always want to listen to, but the charm and comedic aspects I think make a lot of the songs very memorable. Plus, there’s a fine mix of styles on this album, yet another plus. This is the closest I’ve come to giving a 4 to a Simon & Garfunkel album, but there are still plenty of skippable songs here, and with a playtime of 28 minutes, even a single skip is enough of an annoyance to dock a star. Still, I would probably give this one a 3.85 out of 5. I’ve determined it to be the best of the 3 so far, but I’ve still got 3 to go, so we’ll find out if any of them can break into 4 or even 5 star territory. To take it back to the top, if I’ve learned anything from this project, it’s that I’ve got a high likelihood of rolling another one soon. Am I a soothsayer?? God no, don’t be ridiculous. But I would find it very funny if it ends up happening. Here I am going off track again. I enjoyed this album a lot. This has been my review.

And so it begins. Let it be known that on this day, Friday March 6, 2026, album 246 (That’s 3 6’s btw, I didn’t plan that) is FINALLY my first Metallica album!!!! Bonus, it’s also my weekend album, so I get to listen to it longer. Let’s fucking go!!!! Full transparency, growing up as a little kid, my very first musical favorites happened to be Pearl Jam and Metallica. We played more of those 2 bands in the car than you could possibly imagine. I haven’t rolled Ten yet, but it’s going to get a 5, and has a high likelihood of being selected as my favorite album for this entire project. I’d kind of been planning this little blurb for when I finally rolled one of these albums, never cared which one it happened to be. In this case, it was Metallica’s …And Justice For All, which is the first of 4 Metallica albums I’ve rolled for this project, and naturally the first of 4 to get a free 5 star rating from me. I even thoroughly enjoyed 72 Seasons, which is their latest album at the time of this review. I’d give that a 5 as well if it was on here. They’ve still got it. Hell, the only time for their mainline albums they ever really missed was with St. Anger. Please don’t even get me started on Lulu either, that’s just astoundingly awful. Even though my musical repertoire has expanded heavily since childhood, Metallica is still likely always going to be my favorite band, and this album is no exception. As far as Metallica albums go, to me, this one is marked in my mind as being the first without bassist Cliff Burton, who tragically died in a vehicular accident while touring for the release of Metallica’s third album, Master of Puppets, which is also on this list. Replacing him, and doing an excellent job at that, was Jason Newsted, who would continue being their bassist for a total of 4 albums. Evidently, he picked a good time to jump ship. He missed out on St. Anger. Following that letdown of an album, current bassist Robert Trujillo would take his place, and he’d end up having plenty of time later to make up for St. Anger and its many shortcomings. After all these years being a fan, he’s still “The new guy” to me. That was without a shadow of a doubt the most amount of background info I’m ever going to provide for a bassist, but it’s a prevalent part of this album if you’re a Metallica fan. They’ve had the same core lineup, bassist excluded, since the very first album came out. Obligatory Dave Mustaine commentary goes here. Dave, the OG guitarist before the first album was recorded, ended up doing pretty well for himself after the fact. OG bassist Ron McGovney was not as successful, but is still worth a shoutout. So yeah, with 2 members departing before the first album was recorded, and more importantly Cliff’s tragic death, it’s fairly pivotal context and paints a picture of the terrible headspace James, Kirk and Lars were probably in while creating this masterpiece of an album. …And Justice For All features some of the best riffs of any Metallica album, the most iconic of which featured on this album belonging to “One”. I’m going to play it safe and list that as my favorite song on the album, but I also love “Blackened” and “Harvester of Sorrow” just as much. Metallica is my favorite band. To finally roll 1/4 of the albums they have on here brings me immense joy. Until the next one where I also give it a 5!!

Oh, Meat Loaf made the cut?? Interesting. Admittedly, I only know him from his acting. Specifically from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and as Robert Paulson in Fight Club, one of my all time favorite movies. The dude could really act well. As a singer though, this is a little too silly, too light, and has way too much filler for my liking. The first song, “Bat Out of Hell” is pretty good. Not amazing, but he’s got a hell of a set of pipes on him and can hit those high notes spectacularly. It’s my favorite song on the album. Everything else is either a slow ballad that I don’t care for, or filler that just drags on for longer than I really want or need it to. “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” has a pretty neat sax solo that I thought was worth mentioning, I loved that. I still enjoyed this album, but I’ve got a lot of nitpicks with it and things that didn’t really vibe with me. It’s immensely theatrical and to that degree I conclude it must be a theater kids wet dream. I am not, nor have I ever been or ever will be a theater kid, so the charm doesn’t really register with me. It’s 46 minutes long, which is always a good length for an album, but I can only say I only really enjoyed a single song. Nothing was unbearable, but nothing was objectively great either to me. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is fine, it has moments of greatness, but it just goes on and on and I lose interest about halfway through. This album is fine, but I for sure won’t be returning to it. The few and far between moments when it’s over the top and fast paced, it’s also generally a bit repetitive and drags, but those are my favorite parts of the album. The rest is just a bunch of filler and heavily filled with lighter ballads that I just do not care for. I almost want to give this a 2, but in the rare moments it’s good, it’s more than worthy of a 3. We’ll call this one a 3.2 and move on to the next one. At the bare minimum, it was actually really cool to finally hear the late, great Meat Loaf sing. Now I can say truthfully and wholeheartedly that I preferred him much more as an actor and really mean that.

You know what?? I really dig this. This is the 4th movie soundtrack I’ve rolled for this project out of a total of 6, and yet again it’s making me want to watch the movie it was made for. Helping immensely, of course, is French Electronica band Air. The French without a shadow of a doubt continuing to prove that instead of singing, they should stick instead to doing more of this kind of thing. Between Air, Justice, Carpenter Brut, David Guetta, Daft Punk, and many more, they absolutely knock it out of the park with Electronica music in a way that just hits different. This is no exception, and it’s not even the only Air album on the list. First, of all, it’s really cool how the first and last songs set up the overarching story and conclusion of this film. Without even heard of it, I feel like I can summarize the plot pretty well off of that alone. Given the context of the setlist, I think the names and general vibes of the music itself also give away a lot just based off of what I’m listening to. Really want to watch the movie itself now to see if I was correct. Favorite songs on this one were “Playground Love”, “Highschool Lover”, and “Dead Bodies”, the last of those 3 being my favorite. It’s so hectic, fast paced, and panic inducing, it tells me that something very serious and dire is happening. I absolutely love it. “Highschool Lover” feels like a reprise of the opener with no vocals, and the somber, dreary tone just makes it super interesting. In fact, this entire album is rather dreary and interesting in general. Nothing I would want to skip, and a few songs saved to the usual rotation. I repeat, the French Electronica albums are goated, and this is no exception. Only 2 Movie Soundtracks left to go with this project and another Air album. It was only after a day of listening to this passed that I realized just how cool I thought it really was, after reviewing it here and now. I had a lot of good things to say about it, especially for being the soundtrack for a movie I’ve never heard of before. For that reason, yeah, I feel pretty good about giving this one a 4.

If 3 stars exemplified anything, it would certainly be this album right here. Add this to the ever growing list of albums that I enjoyed more than I didn't, but really can't say much for or against because of how by the books and generic it all was. Maybe not when it came out, but by today's standards, this album really did not do anything new or interesting for me. Again, I enjoyed every song just fine. I liked how it mixed both Post Punk and Rock elements together, and I like the lead singer's voice. But, every song sounded the exact same, and Siouxsie Sioux has such a familiar voice, even though I've never heard of her in my life until listening to this album, so it's not going to be very memorable in a day or 2, and I'll likely mistake this band for the million others on this list that sound just like it. Post Punk isn't necessarily the deepest genre of music, and a lot of it sounds pretty similar, especially around the 70's and 80's when it was actually relevant. All that being said, I easily managed to listen to it all day, so it's going to get a 3.5 stars. My favorite song was, funnily enough, the cover, "Helter Skelter", because I liked how fun and goofy it was. Pretty lively, and they did a good job singing it. It's the only song on the 12 song album I've put to memory. Damn, I can't tell any of them apart by looking at the song names. That's pretty telling. I'm already running out of anything good or bad to say about this album. It's just one of those, you know? I enjoyed listening to it, spent the entire day vibing with the cool vocals, and then absolutely blanked when it came to being creative with the review. Oh well, at least it was good. Bit of a shorter review today. The creative juices aren't flowing with this one. Next album please.

The album summary for White Light by Gene Clark states that “It only achieved commercial success in the Netherlands, where rock critics also voted it album of the year. Like all of his post-Byrds records, it did very poorly on the US charts.” Ok, so, it didn’t chart so great, and no one bought it. I’ve often guessed that the point of this book is not to present you with the 1001 best albums of all time, but albums that are at least from prominent artists that you might not have heard before. After rolling this album today and being greeted by that wonderfully depressing header for the album, I did some barebones research and checked what Wikipedia had to say about the book. My initial assessment was incredibly wrong. Literally the second sentence for this book on Wikipedia states that “It compiles writings and information on albums chosen by a panel of music critics to be the most important, influential, and best in popular music between the 1950s and the date of publication.” Ok, so now it needs to be asked. What in all honesty is this album doing here on the list?? Honestly, I’m being serious here. They don’t follow their own criteria!! Unless you’re counting the Netherlands, this album is not important in the slightest, wasn’t influential for anyone, and certainly wasn’t popular. Hell, just going back to Wikipedia and searching for “White Light (Album)” puts this as the 6th result in the search results. I repeat, it’s the SIXTH RESULT when you SPECIFY that it’s also an album. What are we doing here guys?? We can do better than this. To make matters even worse if you can believe it, including this one, the book has 7 The Byrds related albums altogether. I guess the entire panel are just really big fans. There is absolutely no reason on Earth there should be more than 1 of these albums. But no, we must listen to all 7 apparently. Maddening. Anyway, all that being said, and regardless of why it’s here, I did like this album. It’s listed as Country on the site but I’d say it’s much closer to Singer Songwriter. The aspect that’s going to make me remember it is the harmonica. I won’t lie to you, I’m a sucker for a good harmonica, and this album’s got it pretty good. The singing is alright. Fine most of the time, just ok at others. Nothing special. The music is a little boring, I could for sure fall asleep to this. It’s not terribly impressive or amazing, it certainly shouldn’t be on this list, but I actually kind of liked it as a whole. It’s peaceful, kind of upbeat, his voice is ok, and the harmonica really brings it home and ties it together nicely. I don’t think it needs to be 51 minutes long, that certainly doesn’t help its case at all, but whatever. It was fine actually. I don’t think this album deserves to be under 3 stars, personally. Unless the reviews are mostly just raging over the fact that 7 The Byrds albums made the cut over something like Demon Days by Gorillaz, any single MF DOOM or Tool albums. Then I would completely understand the frustration and would agree it’s warranted. My favorite song was “For A Spanish Guitar”. Some good harmonica solos, pretty goated. Easy dub. 3.45 out of 5 as a whole. Better than I expected, but truly shouldn’t be here at all.

Now this is a hell of a good Blues album. Love me some B.B. King. It being a live album isn't even remotely an issue. Someone mentioned you could draw a straight line to popular music from today from this album to now and they're absolutely correct. I can't believe this album is from the 60's. Some of the guitar solos are sick. B.B. King has all the swagger and charm of Elvis, and his band freaking rocks. Some of these songs have killer riffs. My favorite of the bunch is "Worry, Worry”. It’s something about the way he talks to the audience that just makes it special. I seriously love his stage presence more so than any other live album so far. It actually makes me love the album more for once. Blues music is pretty consistently good on this list, and this is no exception. The way B.B. comes off is charming, and the way he thanks the audience after every song is also pretty cool. Even though this is a Blues album, I can't help but be very charmed by it. I will for sure be returning to this, and I'll likely be returning to check out some more of his discography. At the time of this review, Live At The Regal is the third highest rated Blues album on the site, and it shows. The music, singer, rest of the band, ambience, and especially the vibes are just immaculate. A near perfect album. It's easy to tell the songs apart, and I added at least my favorite one to the usual rotation. Also, at 35 minutes long and 10 songs, it starts over so quickly that by the time you realize it, you've already listened to the entire album like 5 times completely through. The only reason I'm not giving it a 5 is personal taste. I love it, but I would not always listen to it. For that reason and many more positive ones, it's getting as close to a 5 as it possibly can. I'm rating it a 4.9 out of 5, and wish the website gave us an option for half stars. A sentiment I've shared a few times and will likely continue to do going forward as needed. Great album. Blues music kind of kicks ass. Killer weekend album and just a super good album in general. Can’t wait to see what the other highly rated Blues albums have in store for me. It’s going to be pretty hard to top this!!

Another album that came out the year I was born. Always a pleasant surprise. Only bangers so far from 1995 and this is no exception. British Rock/Pop is a very mixed bag with this project, because it seems like every other day on here I inevitably roll some forgettable album that ended up being pretty big in the UK but nowhere else. They’re not all bad, but I’ve been pretty disappointed with a lot of them. Some of them were even pretty highly rated on this site. While I Should Coco by Supergrass, the debut album by a bunch of actual children, 2 of them literally being 18 years old when this was being created, didn’t chart in the USA, the song “Alright” certainly left its mark. I’ve heard that song in various shows and commercials up to the point that I recognized it pretty instantly when it played for the first time. The funny part about it is that, although it’s still a certified banger, I actually like 3 of the songs I’d never heard before better. All that is to say that this album is really, really good. Historically, it caught on overseas because it gave UK kids a very powerful voice, and man does it ever. This album is filled with freedom, youth, hope, and various other positive feelings that I think we’d all like to feel more of in the big 2026. As unlikely as that is, this album really made me happy, and I almost want to give it a 5. Love the singer, love the guitar playing, and to create this album at such a young age is such an impressive feat that helps push this album even further in a great direction. You could tell me this came out today and I’d believe you. It hasn’t really aged a day, if anything it’s better than what’s currently coming out. Now I simply have to hear these guys live today and see what they’re currently up to, it looks like they still tour occasionally. Good for them. My favorite songs on this album, all of which were added to my usual rotation are “I’d Like to Know”, “Strange Ones”, and my favorite of the bunch, “Lose It”. My only criticism with this album is one that is very common. The bottom half kind of loses me a bit. First half is a 10/10, second half is like an 8/10. Still good but not 5 worthy. But man is it close. It was really difficult picking a rating this time. I Should Coco, which is apparently slang for “I should think so”, not entirely sure how, really surprised me. This is one of those albums that I started this project to hear. Will certainly return to this album, and there’s a second one on here that I’m going to wait until rolling to enjoy for the first time, as I usually do. Add this to the ever growing list of albums I might adjust to a 5 later. That’s how much I enjoyed it. Fantastic stuff here!!

Man… This album is just a rollercoaster of emotions. Not good emotions unfortunately. Pretty bad overall I’d say. So, I hadn’t heard of Small Faces before, but looking at the band members, every one of them went on to be pretty successful, and I recognize most of them as well. Pre listen, I’m seeing that the genre is Psychedelic Rock and wondering how it can go so catastrophically wrong for a 60’s album in that genre to warrant falling below a 3 star review on the site. After the first song, what would ultimately end up being by FAR my favorite on the album, “Ogden's Nut Gone Flake”, I’m actually a bit pissed off at the reviewers. That song was incredible. What a classic, great, killer psychedelic intro. No lyrics, but spoiler alert, it helps the song out immensely knowing what’s to come later. Next song, also pretty good. What’s up?? Why is the album rated so low?? Something must go unbelievably wrong later. From here on, they really start the songs with lyrics and never ending filler. They start to lose me, and then they start to actually make me mad. I’ll save you the long winded breakdown of each song, but it’s not until well through the middle point of the album when you start to understand why this is a concept album. There are songs like “Happiness Stan” that have moments of greatness in them but are overwhelmingly overshadowed by the concept, which is essentially a British guy telling us some inane story about Stan getting food or finding the moon or something. I don’t know and I’m not even going to bother googling it to find out. I don’t care. When the narrator starts talking, it ruins the song. I don’t care if the rest of the song is good, I never want to hear someone this stereotypically British again in my life. I would assume they’re taking the piss, but that doesn’t excuse how much I dislike every song talking about Stan and his yummy wummy treato wheeto’s going down his tum tum tummy. Water torture. At first I didn’t understand the hatred for this album, but now I do. And it’s frustrating. It has moments where it could be a 4 star album, but SEVERAL moments where it’s a 1. For that reason, I’m gonna put it dead in the middle and give it a 3.3/5. The instrumentation is so good. I love this genre. If this wasn’t a concept album, I can’t help but wonder if it would be better. Whatever. I’m not going to find out. This is the only album Small Faces has on here, and may very well be the last I bother checking out. This was not it. Their own bio on Spotify states they’re like the biggest band to not be successful in the USA. After these insanity breeding lyrics, I don’t see how they possibly could be popular here. What a disappointment this was. Still not the worst thing I’ve ever heard, far from it in fact. Not even bad enough to warrant a 2, but that just makes it ever the more disappointing. Surely you could have picked something better than this. It’s their only concept album, and I’d imagine the others can’t possibly be as insufferable as this was at times. Don’t know, but I digress. Next album please. Get me out of this demented story time pronto.

Another day, another Country album that I expected not to like, and was mostly correct. It was bearable, it’s at least a 3, but I’m not the biggest fan of this type of accent, and in some songs it’s insufferable. However, this album has 2 shining moments that are actually quite good. Those being “Can’t Let Go” and “Joy”. They rocked surprisingly hard. So, for how much I’m not a fan of the accent, the album really isn’t that bad as a whole. Sometimes it’s actually pretty good, especially the instrumentation. It’s Country, so there’s not a lot I can even really say about it. Over 30 Country albums on here, only 4 of them have a decent rating, and this one doesn’t even make the top 30 according to the ratings. Pretty rough when not even the general reviews don’t love it. A lot of them said this was boring, which is the one thing I don’t necessarily agree with. It had enough going for it where I was never actively in misery. Didn’t manage to listen to it for the entire day, but I also didn’t hate it, and I actually ended up adding “Joy” to my frequent rotation. So, 2 great songs, a few ok and a lot of skippable filler. As far as Country goes, this wasn’t terrible. Will I be returning to it? God no. Give it a 3.25/5 and move on to the next one. Oddly enough though, I think I might remember this one after the fact. So it’s got that going for it at least.

“The Boss” is back again. Gracing me with his presence for a third time out of a total of 5 comes The Rising by Bruce Springsteen. This is album number 3/5 after previously rolling Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. The general consensus I’m seeing online and in a lot of these reviews about Bruce is that he fell off pretty spectacularly after the mid 80’s. Not necessarily a fall from grace, just wasn’t making all that culturally relevant or popular music anymore like he used to. I enjoyed his first 2 albums on the list well enough. A lot of the songs straight up rocked with an occasional lighter ballad here and there. Nothing I’ve heard so far has absolutely amazed me, but it’s all been good enough that I’d be happy to hear more of it. It’s Dad Rock. I enjoy Dad Rock, so it’s good enough for me. This album in particular was still alright, but man was every single song pretty bleak and depressing. Substantially more light songs than the previous albums, and it’s mostly filler that I don’t dislike but wouldn’t say is anything special or worth coming back to. That is, except for my 2 favorite songs on the album that I love equally, “Further On (Up the Road)” and “Worlds Apart” are freaking awesome. Both of those songs come out of nowhere and are up to the quality I expect of someone who identifies as The Boss. First time 2 of his songs have genuinely impressed me. If those songs didn’t exist, I may have just rated this album a 2. Probably not actually. It’s fine as a whole, I just wouldn’t return to anything besides those 2 songs, both of which are now going to be in my frequent rotation. I don’t know man, an entire hour and twelve minutes of depressing songs is a lot to ask of someone. Now to address the enormous elephant in the room. This is the 9/11 album. It’s not a coincidence that his albums on here jump from 1984 to 2002. 9/11 was a tragedy that had everyone reacting pretty similarly as far as music is concerned. Very patriotic, very sad and moody yet hopeful. There are a lot of songs that feel very reactionary, and I totally get it. This album revitalized his career pretty substantially, and with the context of the tragedy, I can see why it gets to be on the list. However, it’s my least favorite of the three I’ve heard so far. Not bad, but certainly dated by today’s standards. We’re going to need much more hope as a country if any of us want a better future nowadays… Sorry, that got a little dark, kinda like this album. Anyway, yeah. It’s alright. Not his best but far from terrible. A good product of its time but not something I’d come back to personally in the present.

I’m a tad bit conflicted on this one. The frontman, Johnny Rotten’s story is so fascinating and messed up that it alone makes the album almost a 4. On top of that, this is actually culturally relevant. It impacted the Punk scene so immensely that it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call this one of the more important albums of all time. The only problem is that I’m not the biggest fan of Punk music. And this is the most Punk Punk music you could possibly be, with Johnny wailing about abortions and anarchy and what not. I’ve rolled plenty of Punk so far. Some of it surprised me, some of it was borderline unlistenable, but they’re fairly consistently hard to listen to for extended periods of time as a whole. Even my favorite Punk albums so far haven’t hit the 5 mark, I believe. So yeah, unfortunately it’s not really my genre, but I can still enjoy and appreciate the hell out of it. And this album is legendary. When this was released I think the entire UK was in a state of panic, which is both Punk but also Metal as hell. “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen” are 2 classic songs that I’ve heard many times before. They’re legendary in their own rights. But somehow, I liked “Sub-Mission” the most out of any song on this album. Bit of a deep cut, but I don’t know. It was just good. A little goofier than the other songs, but it’s just very high energy and fun. Another reason I think I’ve convinced myself to give this a 3 is that I for sure could not always listen to Johnny’s voice. It does everything it needs to do here, but I didn’t really want to spend the entire day listening to it over and over again. 38 minutes of an absolutely seminal performance. If I was going to be objective, this is a 5. If I’m being subjective and personal, it’s a very high 3. Not necessarily a point against the album, it’s just a lot for one guy. This is the only album that the Sex Pistols ever made, which is perhaps the most Punk thing about the band in general. Got in, got out, died young, and possibly killed some people. Now that’s the real anarchy, and tragically ironic. For real though, go see what kind of messed up stuff Rotten was caught up in before he died. Bro had an insane life.

Part Prog masterclass, part Rock Opera, part Pop, all bangers. This album did so much more than just surprise me. It started strong right off the bat, only took its foot off the gas for a select few songs that I didn’t love, and demanded I give it a 5. I’m going to do so without hesitation. Everyone’s favorite gay knighted icon Elton John knocked it out of the park with this one. It may surprise you to know that I didn’t actually know any of these songs, but a few of the hits sounded familiar enough where I’m sure that I’ve heard them before, but not positive. Even the softer songs which I wouldn’t necessarily always want to rehear, like “Candle In The Wind” and “Harmony” are fantastic. Elton John has a great voice. I’d listen to him doing taxes for all I care, and I’d do it with a smile. I’ve got a tough week ahead, and this man just made me forget all about it. That’s talent. For an album that’s over an hour and 16 minutes long, I’m glad there’s so much variety. My favorite of the bunch being the long Prograstic opener, “Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”. What can I say?? I’m a sucker when it comes to that kind of music, and this is no exception. My other favorites include the title track “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Grey Seal”, and “Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock'n' Roll)”, the ladder of which has actual clown music but incredibly makes it work and then goes off on a crazy solo. This is the first of 2 albums I’ve rolled from Elton John, and he may just get a set of 5 star reviews if the other album is half as good as this one. I’m ashamed of myself for not really knowing anything about his music going in to this album, because I’m very familiar with his life. What a cool guy. What a great album. This has a little bit of everything for everyone, I really don’t know how anybody could hate it. The little tiny piano on the album art kills me as well. Great art. There’s even a few Country adjacent songs on here that aren’t terrible. The only thing I’d skip is “Jamaica Jerk-Off”, which I find more obnoxious than entertaining. I’m sure if I listened to this album for a second day in a row I’d probably find another favorite or 2, and I will in fact do that later, because I’m not done with this album. Those are just the ones I immediately committed to memory. Other classics like “Bennie And The Jets” are worth talking about, but what more could I even say about it you haven’t already heard before?? 5/5 album, the few skips are drowned out largely by the length of the album, and the otherwise flawless consistency of banger after banger. There’s a good reason why this one’s so highly rated on the site. Rightfully so. Gimme some more of this, I’m going to have to seek out more from Elton John, the ultimate success the site can give me is seeking more music from my daily artist. So, yeah, good job. Raucous applause for this one. I’m hoping for an all 5 star week, and this is a great start.

Yesterday, to start a stressful week off right, I requested that the website give me 5 continuous 5 star albums in a row. Today, insanely enough, I’m 2/2. Carlos Santana is on the Mount Rushmore of Hispanic Guitarists, and just outside of the overall Mount Rushmore. I feel like every successful artist has a song that features him, and if you don’t, you just haven’t made it yet. Anyway, it’s rare to hear him on a solo album. Of course I knew “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” and “Oye Como Va”, the ladder of which being my favorite song on the album going into this, but this entire album is just insanely good from top to bottom. It fades into the background at some point and helps me lock in to my work when I need to. The guitar playing, as previously mentioned, is phenomenal. But, it’s not just 40 minutes of guitar playing. It’s so much deeper than that. The entire album as a whole just flows into itself and is actually better as a whole. The 2 hits play right after each other, and to hear them both in the full context of the album is freaking awesome. Something immensely humorous I find about Santana from his Wikipedia page is that he was ranked as Rolling Stone Magazine’s 20th best guitarist in 2015, but then in 2023 they corrected this to number 11. Curious as to what changed in that time to lift him to a much more accurate position. Fan outrage?? Or did they just realize how much of a mistake they made. Anyway, the album art makes me think I’m about to dive into some Heavy Metal or something. It still kinda fits, but it’s pretty crazy looking. Definitely has undertones of an LSD induced trip. Love this album, love Santana, wish he had more albums on here. We’re off to a good start to the week. Let’s see if we can get 3 5’s in a row for the first time ever. I’m feeling pretty good about it.

Another album that came out the year I was born, so I’m always going to be a bit biased when it comes to that. I’ve never heard of Tricky before, but he’s fine at best. I greatly enjoyed listening to Martina Topley-Bird over him though, and that’s a fact. She does the whole breathy thing where after every couple of words you can hear her exhale. For a ton of singers I’ve heard so far, it never really sounds great. But, and I don’t know why, I think it’s actually pretty cool when she does it here. Nothing to add to the daily playlist here, but by far my favorite song on this one was “Black Steel”. Cool steel drums, great singing, killer hook, and a few sections where the song breaks off into actual Rock. This album is listed as experimental, and that’s for sure an apt depiction. The way they blend Hip Hop with Electronica is pretty interesting, and there’s some added Rock/Pop aspects that work for the most part. Some of the reviews are comparing this to the Gorillaz, and I actually disagree with that. Gorillaz is substantially more oriented on the Hip Hop aspect. While this has that as well, it’s not really the focus. Unfortunately, I think that’s for good reason. While I love Martina and could listen to her all day, Tricky is my least favorite part of his own album. He’s fine, but not exactly my cup of tea. I just don’t like his voice at all. Would give this a 2 if it wasn’t for Martina. Luckily, she’s the lead singer on a good bit of these songs, making the nearly hour long album much more bearable. Coincidentally, the big hit on this one, “Hell Is Round The Corner”, is my least favorite song on the album and it’s not even close. Tricky leads the singing on that one, doesn’t sound great, uses a filter to make himself sound fuzzy, and edits in a series of intentional crackling noises that last the entire duration of the song that I actually hate. I’m sure that song is his most popular for a reason, I just can’t figure out why though. This is another album that just kind of fades into the background for better and for worse. It works best when I’m not really paying attention to it. That’s both a positive and a negative. Songs like “You Don’t” are great when I’m trying to work and I can just vibe. On pure vibes alone this album is a 5. In general though, it’s on the lower end of 3.

I’m a bit biased because Progressive Rock is my all time favorite genre, so I was very close of ranking this a 5 during the entirety of my first listen through of the album. I spent literally all day trying to decide what my favorite song was, and whether or not my bias was affecting my judgment a bit. I ultimately decided that it was, and even though this is still a really really good album, I’m going to give it a 4 instead of a 5. The first 2 songs are incredible, but the next several minutes up until “Rudy” are just okay. My favorites on this album are “School”, “Bloody Well Right”, “Rudy” and “Crime Of The Century”. “Rudy” has a little riff towards the middle of the song that sealed it as my favorite. The 2 opening songs have the best vocal performances and almost got picked as my favorite, and “Crime Of The Century” is borderline Jazz at times mixed with Prog, which is a very good way to end off the album. I could listen to any of these songs all day, and even the other ones I wouldn’t end up skipping, another point in favor of the album. 4/8 songs kind of blew me away, but the other 4 are just ok. Ultimately, that’s half of the album that gets a 5 from me. That might be enough to warrant a 5 in general… Been that kind of a week so far. I don’t know. Damn, I’m still conflicted on this after spending an entire day with Crime Of The Century. I’ve never even actually heard of this band or any of these songs before, so to call this a surprise would be a hell of an understatement. I am an absolute sucker when it comes to Prog music, and this is pure art, so to waver at what the ranking should be, and even consider ranking this anything other than a 5 ultimately makes me think it deserves to be a 4. I’ve got to draw a line somewhere and not just blanket make them all a 5. So, as tough as it is for me to admit, this is not a perfect album. But it’s close. So I’m going to give it a 4.85/5. For now at least. We’ll see if I’m satisfied with that, or if I decided to come back and give this a 5 later. Add this to the list of god knows how many I’ve mentioned adjusting to a 5. Fantastic album!!

It’s not often I start one of these reviews by talking about the album art. In fact, I think this is actually a first for me. My God, that is something. It’s terrifying to be completely honest. That really does just immediately reach out and tell you that you’re about to go on a hell of a trip. Are you on drugs?? I think Janis would prefer you were before turning this one on. Anyway, that was all an assessment of the album art before I’d even started listening to the album itself. Real review starts now. Yeah. It’s good. Vibes match the album art, it’s Psychedelic Rock with a twinge of Blues. Lot of understated gems, but I wouldn’t skip any of them. In fact, the actual hardest part of listening to this album for me is trying to figure out which one is my favorite. If I’m being completely honest here, I didn’t know that Janice Joplin was ever in a band. I thought she was always a solo career, and even then I couldn’t pull any of her songs out of my head. Not sure I’d actually heard any until now. The best thing I can say about her is that her voice is extraordinarily unique, and extraordinary in general. Her range is quite impressive, especially the high notes, and I could listen to her singing for hours. Now that I mention it, let’s change “could listen” to “did listen”. I couldn’t get enough of this one. I still do think there are some forgettable tracks here, but even they’re bangers themselves. Damn, if I’m forced to pick a favorite song, I’ll go with “Ball and Chain” because the intro starts off with a mind melting solo, continues into a great Janice performance, and has a few more killer bouts of guitar magic throughout. It’s also over 9 minutes long, so I get to spend some more time with this band when I’m jamming out to the “Best song on the album” playlist I’ve set up for this project. Very silly band name, but legendary performance by both the singer and guitarist. Psychedelic Rock is pretty hard to mess up, and when done right, it’s pretty damn hard to beat. This is a clear exemplification of the second option. It sounds amazing, and you can bet your ass I’m going to be returning to it!! Another mark of a great album. This concludes what very well might have been the most consistently good week of music I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying for this project so far. Keep it up bot, more of this please.

Spent the entire day going back and forth on whether or not this was a 3 or a 4. I definitely love it, and would absolutely go back to it, but comparing it to the other Electronica albums I've rated so far, I think a 3 is fine for this. I'm sure that when it came out, it must have sounded like the future. It actually reminds me a lot of some bands I listen to today. This is yet another fundamental Electronica that I'm sure was directly influenced by virtually everything that came after it. To that degree, it's also extremely easy to listen to. I didn't think I was going to manage to have just this on for the whole day, as it's pretty short for an Electronica album. Usually they're like an hour long, but this one is only 6 songs, and 36 minutes long. Of course this is freaking German as well. The funniest part about this album is that even with the voice modulators, you can frame 1 instantly tell the singer is German. It gets a pass for being basic, but I don't know whether to let that dictate my rating of the album or not. Yes, it's repetitive, yes it's samey, but it's never boring and for coming out in 1978 it's pretty incredible. Then again, look at some of the other albums that came out that year. I don't know, I do love this, but I think it's a 3. A very, very high 3. Like a 3.95/5, but I don't round up. I've been very consistent with that. Favorite song on this one is the intro, "The Robots". Sounded vaguely familiar to me, regardless of whether or not I've heard it before. It's just such a good start, and tells you exactly what to expect from this album. I would not skip a single song on this album and also loved the biggest hit "The Model" as well. Hilariously enough, as of a few years ago, Kraftwerk is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so they're actually more important of a band than most people will realize. For just a bunch of German goobers making beep boop sounds, it's phenomenally impressive it still sounds so damn good today. This is the 1st of 3 Kraftwerk albums I have rolled for this project, as well as the last chronologically, so I'm very interested to hear what they sounded like before this. Considering how much higher this is rated than the other 2, if this is them at their best, I kind of want to give it a 4, and expect what came before it to be a 3. Otherwise all 3 albums are likely to get a 3 from me. Even after talking myself through it and writing this review, I still don't know if this is really a 3 or a 4. Good job with this one though. It's simple and repetitive by today's standards but it still absolutely slaps, and I love it for that. Fine, it's a 4. I've decided.

While I more than understand, and to an extent agree with the sentiment of people not wanting Live albums on this list, I’ve never understood the sheer amount of comments that just say things like “Live albums suck”. Some of my favorite bands ever, both past and present like Pearl Jam and King Gizzard have some of their absolute best material from the Live stuff. In fact, I’d rather listen to Pearl Jam live than on a studio album. To that extent, Live At Leeds is great. It came out right after Tommy, which was a pretty big departure from The Who’s earlier albums. This tour specifically was more about seeing what stuck, what was good, and what they could improve on as a band. Let me tell you, they certainly found it here. The live aspects are also just genuinely hilarious. I loved hearing them bantering before and after songs. One of the band members keeps joyously heckling, and I think it was Entwistle, the bassist, making it even funnier to have him interject between songs. Anyway, the album isn’t perfect. The double edged sword of it being a Live album is that some of the set list doesn’t flow together, and the songs don’t always seemingly have a rhyme or reason to where they are placed. A few of them are Medley’s, and those ended up being my favorite songs on the album. Speaking of which, my favorites for this one are “My Generation”, “Amazing Journey/Sparks”, “Young Man Blues”, and “Heaven And Hell”. “My Generation” in and of itself is one of my favorite The Who songs, so it’s got to be my pick for favorite. All of those are good enough to add to my usual rotation, making a strong case for a high 4 approaching 5 for this album. Would I always come back to it? Yeah. Would I jump around and prioritize my favorites? Also yeah, but this is a great live album in general. Speaking of The Who, this is the third of five albums of theirs I’ve rolled, following the outstanding Tommy and the rather disappointing The Who Sell Out. They’re a very special band to me, and I think a 4 is more than warranted for this one. Good showing gents.

Never heard of Dexys Midnight Runners before, and not entirely convinced they deserve to have 3 albums on this list after listening to this album, but I’ll reserve judgement until after I listen to the other 2. This was the first of 3 I’ve rolled so far, and it was fine. Took a few listens to appreciate it, and I almost gave up after the first go around, but as most albums have, it kind of grew on me. Started as a 1 and evolved into a 3 the more I really paid attention to it. It's a low 3, but it's better than some other stuff I've rolled. I've been getting nothing but 4's and 5's lately, so hearing this after such a hot streak was also just very unfortunate. I still really don't like his voice, and believe I could sing better, but god damn it, it actually grew on me. This is a 1 hit wonder band with 3 albums on the list, once again proving that the authors have no idea what they're doing a lot of the time. This also isn't even the album with the hit on it. I was so excited when "Smoke on the Water" starts playing on the intro, I thought I was really going to be in for something special with this one. Unfortunately, it's just very average. Way too much emphasis on the horns, not good for concentrating or vibing. Don't know the origin of the band name and don't really care to. Maybe I'll look it up when I roll the other 2 albums to pad my review a bit for those. I almost want to say that my favorite song on the album is where he isn't singing, but I actually really enjoyed "Tell Me When My Light Turns Green" even with the incessant horns and singing. He hits the high note pretty satisfactorily, making the song catchy and pretty good overall. Not great, but good enough to be considered my favorite. Like I previously mentioned, this album really grew on me. Going to give it a 3, and somehow, I also think I'm going to remember it after this. So, yeah. I know I was pretty harsh talking about it this entire time, and believe me, it's got a lot of faults, but I think I actually gaslit myself into liking it, as I've done with many albums in this project before. So, I'm going to say it's a 3.3/5 and see how their other albums pan out. At the bare minimum I can say that for a debut album, it has a lot of potential. Interested to see where that potential went, and how it culminated into their biggest hit, "Come On Eileen." I guess I'll find out soon enough. Until then, I ended up enjoying this album more than I initially thought I would after the first couple of times through, so it's an alright start for the Dexys Midnight Runners. I don't think I would actively return to it, but it was alright. I'd listen to this if it was playing somewhere naturally, and that's good enough in my book for a 3 star.

The best part about this album was making fun of how pretentious and self important one has to be to name his first 5 albums “Scott”, as well as his BBC TV Series. I mean seriously. He deleted this album after it released because he released it under his real name and not his stage name?? Even the background context of this album is boring. I think you can make the case that true indifference is worse than just being outright bad with this album. Sure, it’s fine. He sings fine. I don't particularly love his voice, so it was always going to be tough getting into this on a personal level, but my God am I bored to death with this album. I won’t be remembering anything from Scott 4 after today, what is often cited as his “best album”, and Scott 2 is also lurking somewhere on the bot and has an even lower rating. This is Day 2 in a row of criticizing the creators of this book for making terrible additions. When an albums biggest accolade on Wikipedia is that it’s featured in this book and that it was a commercial failure, you know you’ve likely rolled some Grade A traaaaaaaash. This is definitely one of those times. After a mound of exceptionally mid British albums, this is the representation America gets?? Quite frankly I feel cheated and somewhat offended even. I suppose I have to give a favorite out, so I'll give it to "The Old Man's Back Again", the chanting in the background of that one is kind of cool, I guess. Not much more to say about this album. It really just wasn't very good. Never been a big fan of the crooning type, but I wasn't in misery listening to this one, so it's at least a 2. I would never return to it though under any circumstance, so it's for sure not getting a 3 either. Sorry Scott, can't really say I'm a fan. Maybe next time, but I doubt it, especially if this is the best of what he had to offer. Oh well, after a long streak of fantastic albums, rolling something like this just makes me more critical as a whole. Maybe if I didn't just roll a bunch of heat I'd give this a 3. Hoping to break this new trend of mediocrity before I start another streak of bad albums. We're on 2 in a row now where I just didn't care for them. Let's see if the weekend album can fix that.

I'm sure I won't be the first review you've read discussing the backstory to this performance. But to summarize a long story, Keith Jarrett was to perform a live concert in Köln Germany with a luxurious Grand Piano. All the Germans had to do was provide one for him and he would be set for a great concert. He was partially injured at the time and wearing a back brace, so bending over must have hurt a ton. To make things worse, somehow the wrong piano was ordered. Instead of what he had requested, they ordered a tiny, broken, piece of garbage piano that wasn't even really meant to be played by anyone. He claims that the only reason he even performed at this concert was because the piano was fixed before he arrived, but I can only imagine how pissed off he must have been. What he delivered ended up being a hell of a performance, and resulted in the best selling solo album in Jazz history, as well as the best selling piano album of all time. Which really says a lot about Jazz when you think of it, but I won't go there this time. Regardless, this album is absolutely nothing without that story. I mean, sure, it probably would have been a pretty great performance if the piano was what he requested, but he'd likely done a ton already just like it, which would have been just another boring live Jazz performance. Instead, we got this. Pure talent and an amazing sounding record that sold like hotcakes due to a hilarious situation. It was lightning in a bottle for Keith, and I'm sure he's looked back on this concert and smiled about it for years now, even if it wasn't a good situation to be in while it was happening for him. I'm not a Jazz guy. I thought this album was just ok. I can recognize the talent, it's oozing from every note. But, I would never personally return to it. Without the backstory, I would probably give it a mid 2 or a low 3. It's not my taste in music at all, but the background heavily elevated my personal enjoyment with this one. Again, you don't have to be an expert to tell how impressive this is, and I can't honestly dislike a dude playing his freaking heart out on a bad piano like this. So I'm going to give it a 3, which seems very fair for this one. Picking a favorite song from the 4 is also going to be very difficult, especially since it's just a dude playing the piano for an hour, but I'm going to go with "Part II b". Not entirely sure why. I think I picked that one because a lot of the beginning notes just resonated positively with me. This was an alright album, but a remarkable story. Carry on Mr. Jarrett.

Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison of Northern Ireland is back again. It looks like I'm going through his discography in order for this project, which is always fun. This is the second of 3 Van Morrison albums I have rolled, after Astral Weeks. His other 2 albums on the site have well below average ratings, and I can't really say the first one was all that good or even memorable personally. My pick for favorite was the only song I even remembered from it, "The Way Young Lovers Do". Everything else was forgettable and I mentioned I also did not care for his voice. Well well well, something over the course of the 2 years between that album and this one must have changed spectacularly, and I'm not entirely sure what it is, but this album is pretty substantially better than the last. Not only are these songs all mostly pretty memorable, but I actually love his voice as well for the most part. I don't think I vibed with it as much as most other people on the site have, but I managed to easily listen to it for the entire day, and I gotta say that despite how light it is, I was impressed. These lighter albums aren't always my bag, but I liked this one well enough. The only song on the album I would say absolutely blew me away was the titular "Moondance", which I loved comparably to how much I loved my favorite from his last album. "Brown Eyed Girl" is Van Morrison's top song on Spotify, and it has amassed almost 1.5 billion listens. Despite this particular albums high rating on the site, "Brown Eyed Girl" doesn't appear on Moondance however. Comparing this to the 500 million listens from his second most played song, which does appear on Moondance, "Into the Mystic", it's rather interesting that that album is not included in the book as well. This is especially true considering the other album that is included is a low rated live album that doesn't include it either. To make a very long story short, I didn't particularly fall in love with either song unfortunately. They're both fine, but neither grabbed me enough to remember past today. So, I wouldn't really call myself a new fan of Van Morrison's music personally, even though I still enjoyed it well enough. I just mentioned that I like it well enough, but it needs to be stated that this album really does blow Astral Weeks out of the water. I'd give that one a solid 3, and this one at least a 3.5 if I could. However, since only one song really resonated with me, and the fact that I'm not really going to remember the album as a whole past today, I'm still only going to rate it a 3. A much higher 3, but still a 3 nonetheless.

Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is not exactly the kind of album name I was expecting for something this chill. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but I’ve never heard of this band before, and they have 2 albums on here. The biggest accolade they have on the Wikipedia summary for this album is that it was featured in this book. That’s always a not great start. The second not great start is that it’s got a low rating. So, yeah, this album happened. It’s got a ton of filler, but also a surprising amount to love. First and most important thing is that the singer sounds pretty cool. Like a chill dude I’d want to hang out with. He sings pretty well also. Not really unique, but for a debut album it shows progress. Going to be interested to hear what they followed this up with when I roll the other one. I could see why this has such a low rating. All these low energy, almost kind of listless, chill albums are a bit hard to get into for most people. Me, however, I kind of love them. Not enough to give it a 4, but it’s actually very enjoyable. My favorite song on this one was “Don’t Love You”. This album is, however, also very heavily Art Rock in many aspects, and it tries to do a lot of different things that all impact the album in different ways. Mostly positively, with one BIG exception. Some songs are very high energy and fun, filled with trumpets and loud, banging drums, like “The Wrong Way”, others are almost like they were meant to be listened to on acid, like “King Eternal”. However, I don’t normally criticize specific songs, but I need to talk about how much I hate “Ambulance”. The background singer in that song drives me absolutely crazy, and I just truly hate it. Luckily it’s just that one song, but man did I seriously skip that every time it was on after the second listen. This album is a dime a dozen, and sounds like a million other American indie bands before it. Luckily I’m into this kinda stuff though, so I dig it. Lot of filler with some gems sprinkled in. Am surprisingly interested in checking out the other one on the list. Until then.

I genuinely don't even know where to begin with this one. First off, I'll start by just saying that this is a 5. I have rolled so many 5 star albums where I love ~4 songs the most, and picking a favorite is difficult. For this live performance, every single song is a banger. Like, genuinely every single song is outstanding here. This is the first of 3 Nirvana albums I have rolled, and it's very likely going to be the first of 3 5 star albums as well. Ultimately, I'm going to pick the closer, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" as my favorite, because the context makes it even more interesting. Shortly after this performance, he'd be dead. Murdered?? Probably, but that's a story for a different time. I'm also going to pick that one because to my knowledge, you can only find it on this album. That gives the other classic Nirvana songs a slightly better shot at being picked later as my favorite. I mean seriously, picking a favorite is so tough because I've heard these songs so much, and they truly never get old. As a fun little anecdote, let me tell you how dumb I was as a kid. My parents would only listen to Pearl Jam when I was a kid, which unsurprisingly is my all time favorite band because of it. At some point, I heard that they had a rivalry with Nirvana, so I forced myself into thinking Nirvana sucks and is overrated. As I got older and realized how freaking stupid that was, I VERY quickly came to find out just how good this band was. They don't just deliver here, they amaze spectacularly with every song. Another aspect that's really great about this album is just how truly FUNNY and human it is. Kurt talking about someone tuning a harp, how he'll surely mess up part of a Bowie song, and then remarks at the end "I didn't mess it up, but I might mess this next one up" is just so cool. God damn I wish I could have met that guy. He may truly have died being one of the coolest people in history. His stage performance and presence is LEGENDARY here. I could talk for hours about why and what I love about each individual song from this performance, but it's all been said before. So I'll leave this review a bit shorter than usual, otherwise I risk writing a novel. Just know that on the list of albums joining the 5 star club, this is a 6 star instead. God it's good, truly one of the best albums I've rolled so far and a majority of the site agrees.

I sincerely wish I enjoyed this album the same way that the majority of the website does. It was fine, and I can for sure see why it's considered one of the greatest albums of all time. But it's just not for me. It's too light, entirely too boring and repetitive, and only 2 of the songs really grabbed me in a meaningful way. Those songs are "I Feel the Earth Move" and "It's Too Late". I thought they were very catchy, and I wish the rest of the album was like that. I do love her voice, it's calm, motherly, and puts me at peace. If I was going to rank this on an objective level, it's a 5. However, I just can't listen to something like this all day. Noted, I know I'm not the targeted audience necessarily, but that isn't a valid reason to not enjoy something anyway. The voice is great, the compositions are all great, I love the 2 previously mentioned songs, but I don't love love anything, and the rest of the album is pretty much in one ear and out the other for me. Again, it's nice enough, and I recognize it's greatness, but for an album with this many accolades, I was expecting a bit more variety. Sure, she sounds great, but I can't really tell some of the songs apart. There's a lot of filler. To the albums credit, the bits of smooth Jazz and piano are pretty great. I think if I was on a bad streak of albums I might give this a 4, but I've rolled some absolute heat lately and unfortunately this one just didn't do it for me like I was hoping it would. Again, and I can not stress this enough, this is a 5 star album. It is excellently made, and Carole does a phenomenal job here. But, and this is a big but, I wouldn't personally want to return to it. My scale for judgement uses a personal rating, not an objective rating, so I'm going to give this one a 3.65/5 and call it a day. Going in circles at this point, but I'll wrap it up once again by saying it's a great album, and I love everything about it, I just don't love love it. Anyway, on to the weekend album. Wish I had more to say about this one other than "Good vocals, great and catchy instrumentation", but I really don't. I've done so many reviews like that at this point, and it's not always easy to be unique for these reviews. This is one of those times, it just didn't grab me and draw me in unfortunately. That's fine though, I see how good it is, even if it's not personally always going to be what I'd turn on. I'm still happy that I got the chance to appreciate this today. That's a lot more than I can say about plenty of the other albums I've rolled so far for this long project. Anyway, the journey continues with the weekend album. That's enough of this one for now.

Baby making music. Right from the top of the album, that intro riff from “Let’s Get It On” lives rent free in my head and likely always will. This is the second of 3 Marvin Gaye albums I have rolled for this project so far, following “What’s Going On”. I love how often I’ve been able to go in order with an artists discography for this project. The RNG gods have been good to me. First observation with this album is that I’m a tad surprised it’s not the highest rated of his albums simply based on including “Distant Lover” and the titular “Let's Get It On”. I’m going to repeat something I said from my last Marvin Gaye review, and largely feel the same about this one. His voice is the biggest draw here. This might be the album with the most amount of children conceived to per capita out of any of them. I mean seriously. God damn does this man’s voice have an effect on me. I mean, the instrumentation on “If I Should Die Tonight” paired with that voice is really something special. I mean quite literally this is just made to be listened to in the bedroom, the very next song is “Keep Gettin’ It On”, lol. Much like his previous album though, you really kind of get the point after a few seconds of listening. All of the songs are quite good, but they blend together in a way that makes it sound fairly samey. I think I actually like this one slightly more than the last one. Could really do without the moaning at the start of “You Sure Love To Ball” though. This album is almost comically short for how packed with bangers it is. 31 minutes and 8 songs. It’s very tight and focused, despite being very samey. That really kind of makes me want to give it a 4, but then I went back to the previous album and saw that it was almost the exact same length and thought better. The 2 are very comparable. Voice is a 5, but there are better Soul albums that have grabbed me more than they both collectively have. I like Marvin Gaye well enough, but I can’t say he really touches me as much as he has others on the site. This is the second album in a row where if I was a reviewer, I’d give it a perfect rating for being so tight, having a great voice, and a great instrumentation. However, personal enjoyment is a 3, and I bet his final album will be as well. To its credit, I did enjoy this more than “What’s Going On”. Both are great, just not always going to be my cup of tea. Favorite song on the album is obviously the titular opener, “Let’s Get It On”. That was never in question. This concludes my review of Sex: The Album.

Ok, listen. I don’t think I should have enjoyed this album as much as I thought I would. Knowing a surprising amount of songs going in, in and of itself was a surprise to me. I have been on a crazy streak for the entire last week of hearing albums that I know are goated, but haven’t personally been for me. This, however, this is different. First of all, Adele has an immaculate voice. The way she hits every high note on “Hello” is nothing short of spectacular. Bonus points for that being such a meme banger when it came out. The “Hello” meme lives rent free in my head. I’d heard of that and “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” before, but what really surprised me here were the deep cuts. Don’t get me wrong, those other 2 are great in and of themselves, but what really hooked me was “I Miss You”, and my favorite song on the album “River Lea”. I mean seriously, the pipes on her are breathtaking. Whenever she says “illuminates” on “I Miss You” it sounds amazing specifically. The background vocals are also a great touch. As for “River Lea”, it’s just so different. It’s almost kind of sad. I usually go for the songs that rock the most, but this one just feels so personal to her. So genuine, somber and REAL. Plus, she collaborated with Danger Mouse on it apparently. Did not for the life of me think I was going to get to mention him once during this project, but here we are. The entire album is mostly great, a little bit of filler here and there, but I’d return to it for sure. This is the first of 2 Adele albums I have rolled for this project, and I’m actually fairly excited about the next one as well. Add this to the list of albums that genuinely surprised the hell out of me. Again, I don’t think I was supposed to like this one as much as I did, but I’m certainly not complaining about it. “River Lea” is getting added to the frequent rotation, and I genuinely enjoyed a good bit of this album. Yeah, that sounds like a 4 to me. Let’s go with a 4.

I’m just going to start this review by addressing the elephant in the room. I have never heard of Brian Eno before. For an artist that has 5 albums on here, 7 if you’re including the 2 he was in with Roxy Music, it blows my mind that I’ve never heard of either that band nor this artist before a day in my life, even just in passing this guy has eluded me completely. Roxy Music is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I guess they’re warranted to be here, but 5 solo albums for Brian Eno?? Every one of them is low rated on the site. What’s up with that?? The freaking Brits putting this book together have some wild additions I’d like to talk about, and the amount of Brian Eno on the list is certainly one of them. If you believe him having 5 is genuinely warranted, please feel free to call my American ass crazy, but I’ve never even heard of him before. Anyway, this is the first of 5 Brian Eno albums I’ve rolled so far, and coincidentally also the first album in his solo discography. He’s been a producer for artists like U2 and David Bowie as well, so he may just have the most albums on this list in general out of anyone. As a side note, it also really feels like Bowie’s name gets brought up for every single artist I’ve rolled so far. Dude had tons of connections for sure, and for very good reason obviously. Personal asides at the authors of the book be damned, what did I think of this album?? Well… God dammit, it’s actually perfect. I thought it was amazing from the very first listen and now I guess I’m a Brian Eno fan. For being from the early 70’s, this sound is so ahead of its time. I give tons of extra credit to albums that have different vibes from song to song, and this album has that in spades. It’s legitimately impressive how many different bands that name after this it sounds like. There’s the previously mentioned Bowie, but there’s also a lot of Talking Heads here. He’s also got the weirdness of Frank Zappa, but in a charming way that’s super listenable, where Zappa a lot of the times is more than often just weird. It takes some serious talent to sound this weird but make it cool somehow. There’s elements of psychedelic rock, glam and pop for sure, but occasionally he’ll just freaking SHRED out a solo, like during “Baby’s On Fire”. Other songs are ambient and pretty, like “On Some Faraway Beach”. I don’t know why it took me all day to decide this was a 5, but it is. Not only would I return to this, but picking a favorite song was immensely difficult. I actually can’t believe I’ve never heard of him before, but now I’ve got 6 more of his albums to enjoy!! I’m confused as to why every top review of this album has 5 stars, but on average the rating is less than average. Is it too inaccessible because of his voice?? If so, that’s a shame. I VERY quickly went from “What the hell am I listening to??”, to “Wait no this actually slaps, never mind.” Shame that they didn’t give this a chance if that’s the case. My favorite songs on this one are “Baby’s On Fire”, “Blank Frank” and “Dead Finks Don’t Talk”. Ultimately it was between the first 2, but I went with the first one because of the solo. It’s that good. I’d like to formally apologize to Brian Eno. I was unfamiliar with your game. It won’t happen again, unless the other albums aren’t as good. We’ll see. This is a hell of a start though. Looking forward to more from him.

Yet another fantastic album where it’s genuinely difficult picking a favorite. For once, I’ve actually heard of this band before, and unsurprisingly it’s got some bangers. “Turn to Stone”, “Mr. Blue Sky”, “Night in the City”, and “Steppin' Out” are my favorites here. It’s well over an hour long of vaguely Beatley sounding Prog music, which for someone who loves that is a blessing. It’s me, I’m that someone. I don’t think it resonated with me like other Prog albums have, but I’m a bit strict with that, as it’s my favorite genre. Would I return to this very long album?? Absolutely. Would I listen to every song again?? Depending on the day, but not always. It’s quite good all the way through, and I’ll even pick a dark horse as my favorite song on the album. I really enjoyed “Night in the City”. Even with how much of a banger “Mr. Blue Sky” is, I’ve just heard it 100 too many times. Don’t get me wrong though, it is a serious banger. This entire album is. You had me at Prog. I’m just surprised this one above all else is rated so high, plenty other albums like this are rated much lower. Is it the voice perhaps that people enjoy?? Probably. Another cool fun fact about this album was learning that some of the later songs all follow a mini story of the rain, ending with the previously mentioned “Mr. Blue Sky”, so to finally get the full context of why that song is extra fun to get to was interesting to me. This is a great album that I wish was rolled during my weekend so I could give it just a little more time to resonate with me. It is entirely likely that a 5 star album exists in this, I just didn’t have a lot of time today to find it. I did however love this album and at the bare minimum it doesn’t deserve anything less than a 4.

Sisters Of Mercy. AKA Songs to suck blood to. Beats by Dracula. What if listening to Marilyn Manson in public was deemed socially acceptable?? This genuinely could not be more 80’s if it tried, and it does try!! The drums alone are hilarious. This entire album is hilarious. If it came out a few years later I'd have called it a parody, but in the context of the 80's, it fits right in. I won't lie either, I kind of love it. This is another album I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I enjoyed as much as I did. I also was not expecting to have heard of this band before, but straight off rip I recognized “Dominion/Mother Russia” from Liberty Rock Radio in GTA IV. It’s a certified bop. Between that and “This Corrosion”, I don’t know which is my favorite song on the album. The chorus and way they sing “Hey now, hey now now” is unbelievably catchy. High key kind of love this album way more than I think I realistically should, but I’m not complaining. Listened to it the entire day, only song I would skip is the much slower "1959". It's not terrible but I just don't love it as much. The final 3 songs on the album are also all pretty much filler, the top of the album is perfect though. That might warrant a 3 for this one. Also, it's quite necessary to bring up the album art here. It's so god damn funny. The dude wearing pitch black rim shades outside, the moon, the woman with half of her face obscured. That's probably enough to actually put this album back at a 4. It's not perfect, in fact it's far from that, but it was exactly what I was looking for today, and I love it for that. Ultimately, I'm going to go with the opener, “Dominion/Mother Russia”, as my favorite. Slight edge for having heard it before, it takes me back to the good old days of driving around in Liberty City. Goth Rock is hilarious in a good way, and I'm a pretty big fan of this, goofiness included. It's a low 4, but I'm going to go with my gut and unashamedly give it a 4 and move on. I have to go with what my heart tells me, and my ears also tell me that this one is a 4.

A little bit of Elvis Costello goes a long way. This is the first of… *sighs* SIX??!! HE GETS SIX!!?? The first of 6 Elvis Costello albums I have rolled for this project. The thing about Elvis Costello on the site is that every single one of his albums have a below average rating. This is the first album in chronological order for him on the site, and the second highest rated. My God, if this is almost as good as it gets for him I’m going to be lighting this bot up with 1’s and 2’s. This is not the first time that I’ve railed on the authors of the book for including an artist multiple times. In fact, I don’t even think this is the first time I’ve done that this week, but it really REALLY needs to be said this time. There is no freaking shot you need to put this guy on here more than once. Unfortunately, I hate his voice. Just absolutely can not stand it. It’s better on some songs than others, but the way he sings just specifically annoys the hell out of me. The instruments also just don’t do much for me either, especially paired with having to carry the weight of that voice. I wanted to give this a 3, but the entire back half of this album is just bad. It starts off fine I guess, and “Pump It Up”, his biggest hit, is catchy enough. I mean, it’s not amazing but it’s pretty catchy. The only other song worth note, and my personal favorite on the album, is “(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea”, as I also found it catchy. I think what ultimately makes me give this a 2 is that not only would I never return to any of this, if it was on and I heard his voice I would actively try to turn it off. It bugs me to no end that Elvis freaking Costello gets an entire 6 albums on here. I mean seriously, that’s just ridiculous and should not be the case. 6 little poison pills that I’ll wake up to at one point or another and just know I’m in for a bad time. Top it off with the fact that this is considered perhaps his best work, and I’m rating it a 2. Not a good look, not a good first impression, and not a good first album. I gave it the day, but it was a struggle to even give it that.

Now here’s an album I can really start the week to!! I am very familiar with this band, but not really this album. I don’t actually recognize any of these songs besides “Roadhouse Blues”. Could be the reason this is the lowest rated of the 3 The Doors albums on the site. I think that’s a strong possibility. Speaking of, this is also the first of 3 The Doors albums that I’ve listened to for this project so far. I have 6 of the Top 10 Popular The Doors songs saved to my Spotify already, and I’m looking to add some more soon. The big hit on this one is the opener, the previously mentioned “Roadhouse Blues”. What did I think of it?? It’s peak, obviously. You’re never going to find me saying a single bad thing about Jim Morrison. In fact, I would argue he’s one of the best singers of all time. I don’t know what it is about these guys, they’re just a special level of iconic that most other bands strive to be. You can tell them apart easily from everyone else even if you don’t know you’re listening to a song by them just by listening to the lead vocalist. If it’s still not clear, perhaps the organ, drums, or unique guitar riffs will job your memory. I don’t know, it’s just so freaking cool. I love these guys. I can’t name many bands where I’d just put the genre as the band name itself, but this genre is simply “The Doors”, and that’s the highest compliment I can give a band. The fact that this is the lowest rated album by these guys makes sense. It doesn’t have many of the hits. However, it’s still pretty god damn good, and I’d never be upset listening to it. It’s a 4, almost a 5, and I really really REALLY want to give it a 5. Few songs I would maybe pass over here, but they’re still great. It was agonizing having to give this one a 4, but the only song I added to my frequent rotation was “Peace Frog” and “Maggie M’Gill”. That’s what this band means to me personally. They're really good and I want to give all 3 a 5 star rating. But yeah, I’ll agree with the masses on this one and give my favorite to the opener, “Roadhouse Blues”. It’s also really good and has all the signatures of a good The Doors song. Very excited to roll the other 2 albums, as I loved this one enough to just barely scrape under a 5, and that’s without a good majority of the hits. Fantastic album, would always return to this one at any time!!

Well then, a Stephen Stills solo album. One of two in the book even. This is my first experience with Stephen Stills outside of the context of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Based on the low score, I really had no idea what I was going to be in for, and having listened to it, I can say it’s pretty damn close to a 4 star album. Not quite there yet, but I don’t get why it’s rated so low. Sure, some of these songs are pretty boring. He’s not Neil Young, not many people can be. But as a solo artist, he’s still got a lot to bring to the table. Notably, guest musicians. I’d really love to know how my 2 favorite songs on this album came to be. “Old Times Good Times” has Jimi Hendrix come out of nowhere to play guitar, and “Go Back Home” has Eric Clapton playing guitar. These are the only songs each respective guitarist plays on, and they’re right after each other on this album. What the hell???? Not only does that feel very random, but it’s specifically what pushes this album to almost be a 4. It’s actually quite jarring when you come to the realization that yes, you did just hear those 2 back to back on an album, and yes, the album did just continue on like normal, as if it didn’t just hit you with some of the coolest shit imaginable. The rest is just alright at best and boring at worst, but it’s way too slow for my personal liking. Some great chords come through occasionally, but this album is mostly just pretty as a whole. It’s got great features by Crosby and Nash, but not much that I’d personally return to. “Black Queen” is a pretty neat song, as it exemplifies how good of a singer and a guitarist Stills is by himself. I actually did enjoy that song a lot as well. “Cherokee” feels like an acid trip and is also kind of neat. Having a running time of 38 minutes is actually the perfect length for this album, as it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Going on to my favorite song on the album, it’s genuinely hilarious that I’d have to pick between 2 of the best guitarists in human history as my favorite song on someone else’s album, but I’ve gotta give the edge to Jimi here. I’d actually heard “Old Times Good Times” previously, but his immaculate guitar playing mixed in tandem with the cool singing truly elevates this one to goated status. This song particularly works better as a tandem in my opinion, and it just ROCKS as a whole. That isn’t to say that “Go Back Home” doesn’t absolutely rock itself though. Eric Clapton can do no wrong, and this song proves it. There was a point in the day where I considered giving this a 4, but I came to my senses when I realized I only really loved those 2 songs, and not even strictly because of Stills. Again, it’s a fine album as a whole. He’s a great singer, but besides the classic “Love the One You're With” and my 2 favorite songs on the album, you can kind of take or leave the rest. Nevertheless, this album was an enjoyable time, and my first taste of Stills music has me wanting more. Fun album if not just a little teeny tiny bit too slow at times. Immensely front loaded, and then a whole lot of filler. Not necessarily bad filler, just kind of unmemorable as a whole. But when I tell you those 2 guitar solos are worth the price of admission, you best freaking believe it. This was a really neat album to check out, and I’m very glad I listened to it today.

Ambient 1/Music For Airports does what it sets out to accomplish perfectly, and that’s why I don’t really like it. Listen, when I want to relax with an album, I’m going to play something like Metal or Grunge. I get the people who can work with this on, but to me it’s just boring and has no substance, which also ends up making it distracting, ironically. I’m just not into it at all. This was a critically important album for the birth of Ambient music, but I don’t really like a lot of Ambient music in general, so this was always personally going to be a hard sell. The crazy thing is, this is the second Brian Eno album I’ve rolled within a week. This is my second of 5 Brian Eno solo albums for this project, following “Here Come The Warm Jets”. That album was surprising in that it featured Brian Eno, who has a very peculiar voice, performing all manner of different genres of Rock, Pop and even a little bit of Jazz. I ended up giving it a 5 and mentioned being excited to check out the rest of his stuff. I’m aware now that Brian Eno was known for pioneering this genre, and now I don’t know what to expect from his 3 other solo albums on the site. Again, I understand that this album is meant to be unobtrusive and fade into the background. And again I say, unfortunately, it succeeds in doing so. 279 albums in and I’ve come to my very first “Controversial” artist. I didn’t think it was going to happen, but here we are. I can see why someone would like this, but I’m never going to be caught dead vibing to most ambient or Lo-Fi music. It’s just never been my thing and unfortunately, this album only enforced that belief. Even when I’m sleeping I’d rather listen to something else. Sorry Brian. Still curious to listen to your other albums, but now I’m also a little cautious as well. Didn’t love this one, but it succeeds perfectly with what it’s trying to do and it’s historically relevant. I’m not mad that I listened to it, but I very quickly needed to turn it off and absolutely will never return to it. I liked the last song, “2/2” the best because it felt very space-y. In yet another fun instance of immediately hearing an artist I’d only just learned about from this bot out in the wild, the animated show Invincible prominently featured a Brian Eno song in Season 4. Always very cool hearing an artist like that, I hope that trend continues. Anyway, yeah. Didn’t like this one, sorry about that.

Were it not for the singer, I think this would be in strong consideration for a 4, or perhaps even a 5. I’ve come to a quick and sudden realization during my time participating on this awesome bot. That realization is that I really do not like Punk singers a good majority of the time, but god damn do I love Punk guitarists. Imagine the coolest song you’ve ever heard, any good song will do. Now imagine some absolute wanker is singing in a rather annoying and nonsensical manner over it. That would suck, right?? That’s this album for me. I’ve never heard of The Saints before, who are coming straight out of Australia, and on first impression I can’t say I’m very impressed. Not outright upset or disappointed, but far from impressed. Not liking someone’s voice for me is always going to instantly start an album at the baseline of a 2, so congratulations I guess for having amazing guitar and drum players on the squad. Seriously though, apologies to the singer. I just can not take him seriously, and he ruins legitimately every song on this album. If it wasn’t for him, picking my favorite song would be easy. The riffs in “(I'm) Misunderstood” are awesome, but I wouldn’t return to it just for the riffs. Instead, now I have to judge my favorite based on the song where he’s the least intrusive. I believe that a grand majority of my favorite songs from this project have been the first song on the album, and I’m going to continue that tradition now. My pick for favorite is going to be going to the opener, “Know Your Product”. With a better singer, or better yet, no singer at all, I think this album might be something truly special. Instead, it’s just yet another barely middle of the road 3 star Punk album that I’ll forget about before my head hits the pillow tonight. I’m only disappointed I couldn’t hear those sick guitar riffs uninterrupted, there’s some pretty good material here. If only I liked Punk singing, but alas, I do not. Still a 3 though, so far from being a terrible album.

Almost 300 albums in, and yep, still don’t understand Jazz in the slightest. This is fine at best and annoying at worst. Don’t really have much at all to say about this one other then I’m glad it was only 38 minutes long. There wasn’t much I’d say was cool about this Cool Jazz, it just sounded like more of the same to me. That is, underwhelming. Favorite song, if you can call it that, goes to “Take Five”, as it didn’t give me a headache. I really just don’t know man. If I was a Jazz major, I might think this is really good. Alas, I am not. Technically it’s all fine, but if you don’t really enjoy Jazz, this just sounds like every other Jazz album on the site. I’m never excited to roll these, I’m never going to say “Hell yes, I rolled some Jazz today!!”, and this is yet another prime example in many of that. There are times, specifically during the first time, where the lack of uniformity truly does give me a headache. For that reason and so many more, it’s going to be a 3 star for me. I just don’t get Jazz, and it’s always consistently the hardest to write reviews for. How would you even?? Oh yeah, this one sure is good with it’s lack of organization and musical structure. The way the notes come out sure happens alright. I don’t know man. It was fine, but much like every other Jazz album, I’ll forget it by tomorrow. Is that the point of Jazz, to forget it, or is it supposed to actually stick with you?? Not sure. Don’t really care enough either to find out. This is borderline classical music, and it has its place in history, but should stay there in the past, forever, where it belongs. Until the next Jazz review, which will be even harder to write a unique review for. Goodie.

Tom ❤️. Tom Petty may be one of my favorite musicians of all time. The inclusion of him at all on this list is good enough, but man is it pretty upsetting that with all his hits, only the debut album makes the cut. Tom Petty may very well be a “hit or bust” kind of artist, as a grand majority of this album is honestly just filler, but it’s still enjoyable enough all the way through to warrant a high 3. I’ll give it a 3.8 because I love Tom Petty, but in this instance it’s more of as a person than an artist. Besides the hits, this album just doesn’t hit very hard. At the bare minimum, his voice is on point for every song. No one could sing quite like Tom, his voice was simply iconic. While I’m happy to hear this album, it breaks my heart that the only Tom Petty album on here is this underwhelming. Anyone who hasn’t heard “Mary Jane's Last Dance”, as well as the accompanying music video, you should do so. They’re both phenomenal, bummed I don’t get to check out that album. I know everyone loves “American Girl”, and believe me, I’m one of them, but my overwhelming pick for favorite song here is “Breakdown”. Newly added to my playlist though, is “Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)”. Chalk that one as yet another reason I’m happy to be using this site. Also, can we talk about the length of this album?? It’s literally only 30 minutes long. While a lot of that admittedly is filler, that’s still a LOT to pack into 10 great songs. Very, VERY much like Bowie, Tom Petty might have spread his bangers over the course of several albums, but I still wish he’d have been included in the book more than just once, as again, it breaks my heart (You see what I did there??) that I have to give this one a 3. Was hoping to include him in my “Favorite Artists” section for the profile, where he rightfully deserves to be. Anyway, this one is a 3. Later Tom, and thanks for the fun jams here!!

I was so god damn sick today that I was legitimately seeing things that weren’t there in front of me. I needed something to take my mind off of things that I could jam out and or relax to. Then, this album started. Man, now that I’m not as sick as I was earlier, I really gotta tell you that listening to this album may have been the wrong call given my delirious condition. What the hell did I just listen to?? Genuinely. What do you even define this as?? This is a bizarre album, the first riff gave me hope that it was going to be something interesting, but as it continued, I just kept getting more and more confused. “Girl” has an interesting sound, but I don’t think I needed to hear the singer making sex noises for the better half of 4 minutes. Similarly, I like every element of “Frankie Teardrop” besides the singer, who ruins that song to a degree I would justifiably say is unfair. That was just the worst. He literally screams out of nowhere, LOUDLY, multiple times over the course of over 10 minutes. You heard that right. That terrible song is 1/3 of the entire album. So, this album isn’t in the bottom 20 rated on the site, but based on a majority of people giving it a 1 or a 2, it sure is close to it. You know, hours later, I still don’t know what the fuck this is… but I don’t hate it either. The singer, I hate, I rather hate him a lot actually, but I can get behind the beats. When I was looking for something different, the monkeys paw unfurled and I got it here. Upon reading the Wikipedia for this album, it apparently inspired Bruce Springsteen, which seems necessary for me to mention, because how the hell is that real?? I can’t fathom how this would inspire him even remotely. Did this band evolve from this sound, was this different than what they played before, or did they pioneer and then continue making this weird noise. I kinda hate that I’m curious about it, because now I’m going jump to another one of their albums to find out. In any case, I think the opener has the least amount of incessant annoying baffle. Favorite on this one is going to go to “Ghost Rider”. As for the rating in general, I might give it a slight pass for being experimental from the 70’s. I kinda enjoy weird shit like this. Would I ever return to it after today?? God no, but I was happy to return to it when my head wasn’t spinning like a top. While it was though, that was a whole experience in and of itself. What a weird fucking album this was. Next please. I can’t believe I’m giving this one a 3, that might be more than it deserves honestly.

I know this isn’t exact the best place to say this, but for lack of a better space, it’ll do just fine. I’m on the home turf of the blokes who made the book this entire site is based on this week, and I’ve had the time of my life so far. I think one of the funniest coincidences that keeps happening is listening to music on pub speakers, car radios, hotel lobbies or just anywhere else that has music playing, and then hearing something I’ve only heard of because of this site. Without fail it has made me laugh several times now. Anyway, I was taking a lovely walk in the park to accompany my first few goes around of this album today. To say that might have unintentionally bumped up my rating of this album by a good bit would be an understatement. I think on an average day this album would be a 3. However, today was really special. Listening to this very calm music while walking in a beautiful garden in a foreign country had me quite emotional. I’ll actually remember this entire album fondly, but not just for accompanying me on my walk. Slower albums like this are general misses for me, but this one hit a bit different. I loved the lead singer and backup singers voices so much, I actually ended up with several favorites here. There’s some filler along the way, in fact, I think most people would end up calling this album filler in general, but a few songs really didn’t do much for me. That keeps it safely from a 5, especially on a 53 minute long album, but I even feel like 4 is maaaaaaaybe a little bit too generous. Looking at my favorite songs though, and taking into account how this album made me feel on my killer walk, I think it’s more than justified. Sticking with a 4. Now, the mini elephant in the room is that I’ve never heard of this band before. This is the first of 2 Doves albums on the list, and I practically guarantee the second album gets a 3 if it more or less sounds just like this. I would enjoy that though, as this album is great in and of itself. My favorites are “Words”, “M62 Song”, and “Pounding”. Giving the edge here to “M62 Song”. It’s short, sweet, and beautiful. Going to be stuck in my head for a while. Sometimes an album that’s not your usual vibe really just hits you in the right way. Today was one of those days. Great stuff with this one.

Going to come at you with a hot take fresh out of the oven. I think the cutoff for this bot should be 1960 as far as how old an album is allowed to be to still qualify for the book. Listening to this album was kind of a chore, and now I’m forced to give it a bit of a pass for being as old as it is. The only difference between me giving this a 3 star today and a 1 star is that it came out in 1957 and not the 2000’s, which helps me appreciate it just a tad bit more. I’m not saying good music didn’t exist before the 60’s. Far from it in fact. However, listening to this today, I’d actually just straight up list this as Classical music, instead of Pop/Rock. Some albums are dated and good. Others are just dated and should stay in the past. This album is both. If you like this sound, I’m sure this album is going to be great. However, I think you need to be about 80 for the desired effect. Yes, Buddy Holly is legendary. He was an important Rock pioneer kept alive solely off of a lyric in a Weezer song, so obviously he has a place on this list. I do still think the cutoff should be 1960 though. This album is fine. It’s unbelievably repetitive, I barely know when the first song starts and the next one ends. They’re all about women as well. He’s either looking for one, taking care of one, being slighted by one, or just talking about them for whatever reason. And that’s on just about every single song. It’s almost maddening. “That'll Be The Day” and “I'm Lookin' For Someone To Love” for sure don’t break that mold either, but I’d say they’re my favorites on this album. The sole reason for that is because of the fun classical little guitar riffs they share. It also helps that they’re right after each other on the album. My favorite of the 2 is going to go to “That’ll Be The Day”, the background vocalist seals the deal and makes the song more interesting. There’s only so much I can say about an album like this that isn’t just a history lessen. My profile has a sharp red line for 50’s albums, and I think it’s because you need to be older to even appreciate them fully. This one wasn’t terrible, but I have no reason of return to it. It was mostly just homework, but still far from terrible. Maybe Elvis gets higher than a 3?? Don’t know, haven’t rolled him yet. If anyone from the 50’s can do it, that would be the guy. Buddy Holly doesn’t really do it for me though, and he’s also a legendary performer. Alright, that’s it. That’s the review for today.

What kind of sub genre do you prefer with your Ray Charles music?? Blues or Jazz?? This question is very relevant in determining which Ray Charles album you’ll prefer to listen to on the site. This is my second of 2 Ray Charles albums I’ve heard for this project, following the more Blues themed “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music”. By contrast, “The Genius of Ray Charles” is much more Jazz themed. That being said, both albums are unmistakably Soul music first, and still 100% the type of Ray Charles music you’d expect in both cases. While this one is much shorter and tighter than Modern Sounds, I’m a bigger fan of Blues than I am Jazz, and nothing really hooked me on this one. Everything is great on this album, I want to make that abundantly clear, but nothing blows me away. It’s also basically the same tempo for nearly 40 minutes. It works well, and the songs don’t end up sounding samey, but you really do get the point very quickly. If you love it, you’ll really love it. If not, it’s just kind of ok. I love and respect Ray Charles, especially his voice. You listen to him for the voice, and the voice alone. Everything else is a bonus. That being said, the “everything else” in question just isn’t really my thing. It’s fine, but nothing special that would make me want to personally come back to it. Emphasis on personally. If my metric for an album was based only on singing, this is a 5. If it was based on what I believe a professional review would be, it’s a 4.5. On my own personal enjoyment, which is what I’m using in reality, it’s a high 3. I really love the boisterous, paradey sounding intro song “Let the Good Times Roll” the most out of the other songs. Reason being is that it was uplifting, fun, and memorable. It’s like something you’d hear playing in the streets for Mardi Gras or during a victory celebration for your local sports team. The other songs, while still undeniably great, aren’t going to be stuck in my head as much. A little too light for my personal enjoyment, and surprisingly a bit of a downer feeling in general. I don’t know if the album was made this way intentionally, but the first half is much more Jazzy and uplifting, while the second half is much slower and less interesting in my opinion. I much prefer the first half to the second half. Oh well, that’s a pair of 3 star reviews for the great Ray Charles. An undeniable goat of a singer, but not one I’d actively seek out to listen to personally. Still, this was an awesome weekend album and I’m glad I was able to check it out to see what this legend is capable of.

Oh, good. Elvis Costello is back again for the second of 6 times in total for this project. When we last left off, I had just heard "This Year's Model" from 1978, his second highest rated album on the site. Today, I'm rolling the highest rated and earliest of the 6 albums, 1977's "My Aim Is True". I'd called the previous album, and I quote, a poison pill. I had predicted 6 Elvis Costello albums with a 1 or 2 star rating approaching, especially considering that ratings wise, it only goes downhill from here, and pretty rapidly so. I was quite certain that if any of his albums sounded like that, I'd be having a really bad time. What I did NOT expect from this album though, was that I'd actually end up enjoying it quite a bit. My biggest complaint with Elvis Costello is the way he sings and emphasizes words. The inflection he puts on every-uh, wor-duh is just-tuh so-wa, annoying-ha. Literally nails on a chalkboard. However, much to my surprise, he sings kinda normally on this one, and it makes it SO MUCH better. I don't know how or why he picked that annoying inflection up and just ran with it a year later, but I really hope his other albums are more similar to this one than his next album, because I wasn't even remotely miserable with this one. The songs are graciously short, the album is only 36 minutes, and as previously stated, he doesn't put the annoying emphasis on every word. There are even a few songs I like a lot. My favorite of the bunch this time is "I'm Not Angry", as it was catchy, and just kinda rocked as a whole. The ladder half in general was better on this one, which seems pretty rare. I still can't say I'm excited to roll the other 4 albums, but if this is the absolute best he can do, it's not terrible. Hilarious that it's his first album though. Him at his most pure, before he morphed into whatever terrifying monstrosity he quickly became to deserve 6 low rated albums on this bot. It's still very clear that one of the authors is a fan, and that's fine, but this should be his only album on here. I like it well enough, still don't like his voice at all, but the guitar playing and beats are pretty cool on this one, and his voice is even bearable enough that it doesn't bug me at all. It's not an amazing album, but it's likely going to be the best of his I'll get to hear. And it's a very easy placement at 3 stars. Yikes. If any of the other 4 are better, I'll gladly eat my words, but I just don't see it getting any better than this very average album. So, we'll find out. For now, I'm still shocked to be giving this one a 3 at all. We'll see soon enough how the other albums hold up, but I'm still fully expecting more 2's and maybe even some 1's on the horizon. It brings me no pleasure to say that I really just can't stand this guy.

Now this album truly surprised me. Coming in and breaking the 9 day streak of adding 0 songs to my frequent Spotify rotation is “Forever Changes” by Love. Love. That’s the band name?? Never heard of them. This album hits a sweet spot genre wise of some of my favorite genres and time periods. A 60’s era psychedelic rock album happens to be exactly what I’m looking for. There are approximately 2 songs I don’t love because of the singer being weird, notably “Andmoreagain” and “Live and Let Live”, but the rest of the album is great. The psychedelic licks are a little few and far between, but when you get them, it’s pretty great. The little yell the lead singer does that leads into a trippy solo in “A House Is Not a Motel” has to easily be my favorite song on the album, and is good enough to be added to my frequent Spotify rotation. Finally, the bot has not been feeding me anything replayable lately. If there’s something I would consider my least favorite part of this album, it actually is the lead singers voice. If I loved it, this album might get a 5 from me. It’s not bad, but he does make a few songs worse with his lyrics. They’re a little bizarre over the course of the entire album and never really make sense. But if I focus more on the music itself, I can look past it enough to give this album a very low 4. I’m satisfied with that. This is the first of 2 Love albums I have rolled for this project, and a very impressive first showing from this one. Yet another band I’ve never heard of before getting multiple inclusions on the bot. If I didn’t love this album, I’d complain more about that, but this time it gets a pass. I may even go back and give this one a 3 at some point, it’s the best thing I’ve rolled in several days, but I also haven’t exactly been rolling heat lately, so we’ll see. I don’t know if I’m truly satisfied with a 4, but it would have been a pretty hard decision to rank this one to begin with. It just happens to perfectly fall into the category of genres that I enjoy listening to, with very few exceptions. Best aspect, the music. Worst aspect, the singer. But even he’s not terrible, so I can look past it. It’s a 4 for now, but I still don’t know if I’m actually cool with that. We’ll see if it stays that way, but it’s liable to change later.

How to ruin multiple genres at the same time by making them all sound like generic Country garbage. With a name like The Flying Burrito Brothers, I was hoping for something more than what we got with this one, especially with an album name like "The Gilded Palace Of Sin". How do you have an album name that cool and then spend a majority of time just sounding like your average, run of the mill Country drivel?? I really have to say, it's impressive how they can almost make some of the songs work, but still put a Country spin on it to make it still sound bad anyway. The 2 notable exceptions are both Hot Burrito songs, "Hot Burrito #1", and my favorite song on the album, although they pretty much come neck and neck as a pair, "Hot Burrito #2". Those songs have a psychedelic lick to them, and even with the singing, sound good enough to bump this album up from a high 1, to at the bare minimum a 2. I'd love to give it a 3, but 2/11 songs being bearable isn't great. I don't hate the guitar playing in the intro, "Christine's Tune", but it's overshadowed by my intense dislike of the singer. Every song sounds the same besides the aforementioned burrito songs, which is a shame, because "Psychedelic Country" actually sounds like a somewhat interesting combo I'd be down to hear. It's a shame it's only used so sparingly, and now I have to have the sub-genre take an unnecessary hit on my profile by giving this album a 2. Been a while since I had a 5, would be nice. Instead, I'm left with a concept that while unique, falls flat on it's face right from the beginning, and never recovers sans a duo of outliers buried deep into the album, which despite being a great length of 37 minutes, feels like it lasts an hour. It's always a struggle getting through Country albums, but at least this one had the gall to be different in a few places, and when it is different, it actually works. Unfortunately, it's not nearly enough. This is a very comfortable 2 stars out of 5, and I can also comfortably say I won't be returning to The Flying Burrito Brothers. Such a good name, wasted on whatever the hell this was. Whatever, there can only be so many bad Country albums on the list. Better to just get them out of the way as fast as possible to make more room for the good stuff.

Delightful little album. It appears that, based on reading a lot of the reviews, the only reason this album is rated as poorly as it is is because it's the Bee Gees not doing Disco. While I wholeheartedly agree that it would have been a nice inclusion to the book, and I'm a bit confused as to why this album as well as another pre-disco album was included as well, this album is not bad by itself. Plus, I was just in Trafalgar Square last week. While it would have been very cool to roll this album then, the week after is still a pretty fun coincidence. Anyway, as all Late 60's, Early 70's albums are, there are some Beatley aspects to this one. It's interesting hearing this band perform Soft Rock instead of Disco, and I think it really does work. I was also surprised to have recognized the first, and my favorite song on the album, "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart". I also really liked the titular "Trafalgar". Overall, I'm not going to remember this album in a week, but I still enjoyed spending the day listening to it, and I wholeheartedly disagree with the low rating. At 47 minutes long, it does overstay it's welcome just a little bit. It also doesn't bring anything new or interesting to the table, but that doesn't mean it's bad. The singer has a great voice, the mood is upbeat and cheery, and the instrumentation more than does enough to bring this album up to a very easy 3 rating. Not every album needs to be high energy to be great, and this album is a good example of that. If I wanted to just relax, perhaps go for a nice walk in the park, I would absolutely return to this album. It's mostly filler that blends in with itself, and absolutely nothing reached out and grabbed me, but it's far from terrible filler, and I love the vibes. That's all that really matters. I'm still confused why there are 2 Pre-Disco Bee Gees albums on this list, but it was cool to hear what they sounded like before that, even though this is inexplicably also their ninth album. Wow. They must have put out a metric ton of albums over their careers. Shoutout to my dude Trafalgar Law. He knows what's up.

You know what?? I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been having somewhat of a low streak on this site for the past few weeks or if it’s something entirely different, but this album really resonated with me. First of all, there’s not one skip in the entire album. As this was my weekend album, it took me 3 entire days to even pick a favorite song, and man was that a hard decision. I only have a base level knowledge on Duran Duran, but have enjoyed what I’ve heard so far. Mostly, I just associate them with the Metal Gear Solid meme, which is an all time banger, but this album unironically slaps. The background elements are the first thing that pop out at you for every single song. They’re upbeat, a bit weird, CATCHY, and make you want to dance. Then the bass kicks in. Oh man, does this album have some sexual bass playing. Top it off with the lead singer and cool guitar playing, and you’ve got a near perfect album. I don’t know man, this one just did it for me, and I won’t complain about it. My favorites from this one, all of which are going into the frequent rotation, are “Last Chance on the Stairway”, “My Own Way”, “Rio”, and my favorite song on the album, “Save a Prayer”. It was tough picking from those. Really, really tough. My favorite could change at a moments notice, but I had to pick one, and that was the one that spoke to me at the moment. I’m bummed this is the only Duran Duran album on the list, but it’s accomplished the main goal of all artists and made me want to seek out more of their discography. That’s pretty much the highest blessing I can give. Thank God I got something good to round out the week, let’s hope this kicks next week off just right as well. In retrospect, I think I would have given this a 5 regardless, it’s just right up my alley, and I love it for that. 9 songs, 42 minutes, and I added 4 of them to my frequent rotation. Wouldn’t skip any of the other songs. Yeah man, any way you slice it this is still a 5 star album in my book, would return to this one for sure. Nothing wrong with that. The streak is over, I’m giving this one a 5.

Well well well. 3 star, dime a dozen, generic but not altogether terrible Rock album that doesn’t bring a lot to the table and is getting progressively harder to write a unique review for, we meet again!! Ok, so, this grew on me quite a bit. I’m being very harsh on this album. I do actually really enjoy it, perhaps calling it generic is a bit harsh. It is from the late 60’s. Listen, with a voice like this, and one of the genres being listed as Country, it’s going to be a hard sell for me. Luckily, this isn’t really Country at all, just Rock with a southern drawl. I don’t love it, and I wouldn’t return to it, but it’s not terrible. There’s a lot of filler, lot of songs I think are safe to skip, and even the “hits” aren’t my favorite part of the album. Ironically, for a good portion of the hit “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, I think the lead singer sounds like Kermit the Frog. Not only is it genuinely distracting, I just don’t love how it sounds unfortunately. Instead, my favorite song on the album is easily “Rag Mama Rag”, which is a pretty swinging good time. It’s actually catchy, with an additionally catchy little piano flourish. “Jemima Surrender” isn’t terrible either, the beat is catchy, I just don’t love the singing. More of Kermit on that one, but when he’s not singing, the song is pretty great. Any of the songs where the frog runs wild I just can’t take seriously. Nothing against him, it’s not terrible, just really not for me. This is the first of 2 The Band albums I have rolled for this project. Unless the next one is simply terrible, I think I can predict it will also safely be a 3, like this one is. Safely, and unequivocally, a 3 star album. I am glad I listened to it though, and I’m thankful it really wasn’t actually a Country album at all, otherwise it would probably be a 2. To conclude this review, I also find it worth mentioning that for a name like “The Band”, I’m surprised it took until the late 60’s for a band to start calling themselves that, assuming these guys were actually the first to do so. I just find it hard to believe it took so long. Funny though. Banger band name, so they’ve got that going for them. Memorable band name, not as memorable music.

First things first, this album is not meant to be taken seriously. For the love of God, it’s called “Dr. Octagonecologyst”, you should know exactly what you’re getting into with a name like that. It instantly plants itself into an oddly specific niche of music listeners who enjoy geek culture, low hanging fruit, and Hip Hop. Unfortunately, this naturally makes it immensely inaccessible to most of the people who would end up listening to it. The second thing I very quickly picked up about “Dr. Octagon”, AKA Kool Keith, is that he sounds a L O T like Deltron Zero. The third thing I noticed, is that the skits on this album are fucking hilarious. It’s not often I enjoy the skits on these rap albums, but conceptually they work just fine here, and actually end up enhancing the album as a whole. The skits on this album follow the exploits of the titular Dr. Octagon. They are as absurd as they are funny, and they are also undeniably 90’s coded, which makes them extra special to me. This album isn’t perfect. It’s way too long for what it is. Keith is a pretty good rapper with a great flow, but he doesn’t always hook me on all these songs. Plus, none of them were good enough to save. I still really liked listening to this album, especially my favorite song on the album, “Bear Witness”, and I would even return to it if I heard it naturally, but it wouldn’t be something I would feel the need to go back to specifically. I’m a sucker for record scratches, and “Bear Witness” had it in bunches. It also did an interesting job of blending Electronica with Hip Hop, as did a lot of the album in general. The best parts really are the skits though. If I was going to save a song just to enjoy laughing at occasionally, it would have to be “General Hospital”. Just the ending alone had me wheezing. The line “Fuck it he’s dead. Oh shit, there’s a horse in the hospital” is going to be stuck in my head for at least a week. For better or for worse, but mostly for better, the skits give this album so much life that, unlike a lot of the Hip Hop albums that I even notably enjoyed, I’m likely to remember this album for a good bit longer than I would without them. This one gets a high 3 nearing a 4 from me. Going to give it a 3.9/5. It made me laugh a few times, it’s got a fun concept, and the rapping is good, but the rapping isn’t tremendously memorable, and the premise starts to run thin over an hour into the album’s 1 hour and 5 minute playtime. Still though, I really liked this one, but I completely understand why it’s rated as low as it is.

Continuing the Joni Mitchell discography in order following “Blue”, then “Court and Spark”, today we have “The Hissing Of Summer Lawns”. 3/4 Joni Mitchell albums down now, just 1 more to go. I didn’t like Blue, as I thought it was boring and I didn’t gel with her voice all that much. The next album, Court and Spark, really surprised me though, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I did Blue. How does The Hissing Of Summer Lawns fare, you ask?? Well, more or less the same as Court and Spark. It's fine. I think I'm actually getting used to her voice now. I don't dislike it as much as I used to. I would still definitively never return to this album, but I never actively wanted to turn it off. It's peaceful, and when it's not boring the hell out of me, it's pretty good. That being said, the first song, "In France They Kiss on Main Street", sets a pretty good precedent for the album, which then proceeds to fall off of a cliff in enjoyment until we hit my favorite song towards the end of the album, "Harry's House/ Centerpiece". Unfortunately, it must be said. This album is painfully boring, and Joni herself doesn't help her case. Some songs are pretty unique, but most of them sound the exact same as any other Joni Mitchell album. She has such a specific way of singing that works in small doses, but an entire 42 minute long album of it is a lot to go through. I don't know man, if you're into this kind of stuff, that's cool with me. I think it's fine personally, but I can only handle it in small doses. It's undeniably pretty boring and forgettable, which as I always say, doesn't make it bad, just nothing to write home about. The background elements and instruments in "Harry's House/ Centerpiece" actually did resonate with me though, Joni's voice be damned. It's easy enough to drown it out. Not tremendously easy, but easy enough to let the song stay enjoyable. Well, I think at the bare minimum I've gotten use to her style. Not enough to really call me a fan, but enough that I can give this a 3 instead of a 2 and not feel bad about it. I haven't actually returned to Blue since the day I heard it. I know that's considered by many to be her magum opus. Curious if I would still give it a 2 if I heard it again now, but also don't know if I care enough to go back and re-judge it. Well, one more of these to go. Will she finish off strong?? Only time will tell. This one wasn't terrible, and had a few good moments, but none that are going to stick with me after today.

What more could you possibly expect me to contribute to this review that hasn’t already been said about Abbey Road by the Beatles?? Screw it, I’ll try to add something unique. I went to the actual location where the cover was taken a little over 2 weeks ago, and if you pay for it, they have a tour guide take your picture, just for walking across a small part of a road. Imagine needing to pay for that. Couldn’t be me. I was perfectly fine just taking a selfie myself. It wasn’t even like, tremendously crowded or anything, which was a concern of mine. If I was with someone, it would have been easy enough for them to have gotten a better angle as well. The only other Beatles album I’ve rolled so far for this project besides a single solo album for all 4 of the Beatles separately was Revolver, which is another easy 5. Another reviewer mentioned that every single song on this album has a separate page on Wikipedia, and I think that’s more than enough proof that this might very well make a strong case for being the most popular album of all time. Curiosity got the better of me and I had to confirm that the number 1 rated album on the site was the same way. Rumours, which constantly fights with Abbey Road for the number 1 spot on the site, also coincidentally has a Wikipedia page for every individual song. Just goes to show that both albums are goated with absolutely no skips on either. I’ve still yet to roll anything in the bottom 20, but just under 300 albums in, I’ve rolled the top 2 now. Something I didn’t expect when listening to this album, and something I really don’t want to admit, was that I pretty much hadn’t heard any of these songs previously. That genuinely shocked me. I’m far from a random octogenarian who wouldn’t have been able to avoid this album when it released, but I also actively listen to a lot of music, and now I’m questioning if I’m actually a connoisseur for having never heard Abbey Road before. If anything, it made the album more enjoyable to hear for the first time from top to bottom. There’s a little bit of everything here, but my favorite song on the album is a bit of an oddball choice. I’m going to give it to “I Want You (She's So Heavy)”. It’s so different even for the Beatles that, even on this album, I believe it stands out a lot. I’d get excited every time it started up again, which really sealed the deal for me. Anyway, I could talk for hours about how much I enjoyed this album. I didn’t even expect to make the review this long, but Abbey Road deserves it, even if all of this has been said about it before. I’m not going to be weird here, it’s perfect. It’s really, really good. But you knew that already.

Alright, I'm going to leave this one short and sweet. Not too short, but shorter than my last Metallica review. Metallica is my all time favorite band. While this isn't my favorite Metallica album, it's still a 5, and I've been dying to roll it. I love when the bot blesses me with two 5 star albums in a row. Yesterday, I got freaking Abbey Road, and now I get the Black Album for my weekend enjoyment. This is the second Metallica album I have rolled for this project, following the also very much 5 star album, ...And Justice for All. Ironically, the black/grey snake with the black background is pretty comparable to Abbey Road, as they're both up there with some of the other all time best, most recognizable albums arts of all time. I'd get it on a shirt in a heartbeat. One thing I've started doing because of this project is listening to entire albums from start to finish instead of just the hits. Now, you might find that a pretty ridiculous thing to say, who doesn't listen to entire albums?? Then you realize we're living in an era where you can just do that very easily with things like YouTube and Spotify. I have nothing to base this on, but I'd say a majority of people listening to music these days aren't going to pop on an entire album if it's at their disposal, they'll stick to the hits. Exceptions are going to be made with new albums, of course, but the premise remains the same. That was a long way to go, but the point is that I am VERY familiar with this album top to bottom already. I've heard this whole god damn album 1000 times from start to finish, and it's all good. Picking a favorite when every song is this good is actually impossible. It would be easier just flipping a damn coin. Nobody shreds quite like Metallica, and no one ever will. The chords are immaculate on every single song, from the hardcore rockers, to the softer but still equally heavy hitters like "The Unforgiven". Of course I'm biased because I grew up with them, so I'm always going to judge them a bit differently, but the fact that I've been listening to this my entire life and I can still turn it on whenever to enjoy myself is emblematic of sheer perfection. Some days I want to jam out to "Enter Sandman", others I'll put on "Nothing Else Matters", but then I have to hear the entire album again. It's not possible for me to just put on 1. I've gotta play the whole album. Do you know how rare that is, even with the albums I've rated a 5?? It's pretty rare. So, I'm not going to pick a favorite for this one, because the whole damn album is already in my favorites. Metallica forever. I think that's good enough for now, until the next one that I give a 5. Man, I'd hate to be whatever album follows this one on my list. I guess we'll find out when I vote here in a second. Will we get the fabled three 5's in a row?? It could happen, you never know.

THREE 5 STAR ALBUMS IN A FUCKING ROW!!!! I don't know what I did to deserve this, but the bot just breezed through most of what I was excited to play all in one fell swoop, just like that, with about 800 albums still to go. The only way this could possibly get better is by rolling some more Grunge or Prog stuff tomorrow. Oh man, where do I even begin with this album?? I don't know. First, I’m going to complain. Rage have multiple albums with 0 skips including but not limited to Evil Empire, The Battle of Los Angeles, and even Renegades to a lesser extent. The fact that this is the only album of theirs on here is quite depressing. However, this is also the one with their magnum opus, “Killing In The Name”. It’s also definitely my favorite song on the album, even despite the fact that at least the entire first 2/3 of the album in and of itself is iconic. The creator of this book often picks the wrong albums by the right artists, and while I don’t think I’d have been upset with any Rage album, I think if you had to pick one, yeah, it’s Self Titled. Excellent decision. The album art alone is one of the most iconic in music history, and it’s just a historical event which at this point is more commonly associated with this album than the actual event itself. Déjà vu, I’ve rolled 3 of the most recognizable album covers in a row. Surely I get Nevermind tomorrow, yeah?? Speaking of yesterday, I made a bold statement in my review. I said that I’d hate to follow up the album I had rolled, in this case the Black Album by Metallica. I’ve never been so wrong in my entire life, and I’m thrilled about it. Surely I won’t be lucky enough to have 4 5 star albums in a row, right?? Surely I’m about to go on the worst streak of 1’s and 2’s imaginable. I still haven’t rolled anything in the bottom 20 yet, now may be the time. Back to the actual review, I think Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello deserve more love in general. My God, that duo is so heavenly and unique. Tom just misses the Mount Rushmore of guitarists, but man is he so close. I’m never going to hear a song from him I won’t immediately like, and he’s been everywhere at this point. The weird things he does with his guitar are always a trip. Likewise, the way Zack is consistently able to go from cool and collected to just screaming his fucking brains out is unparalleled to anyone else in the industry. It’s something I can’t explain, and shouldn’t sound as good as it does. Just one dude shrieking into the mic like he does and making it sound like that takes massive talent. This is a certified banger from top to bottom, and I’m glad to have it up on my profile as another 5, in what’s shaping up to likely be my favorite combined week on the site I’ll ever have.

Rhythm Nation 1814 could have been shortened by a good 35 minutes and it would have been a better album for it. I don’t think any of these songs need to be as repetitive and long as they are, and the skits are also rather annoying. This album is over an hour long, and you feel every single bit of it. After a few songs, they all just kind of blend together and always seem to last longer than you want them to. This is a fine album. I’d never complain about having to listen to it, but, I’d honestly rather just listen to Michael instead if I had the option. That might sound harsh, but Janet sounds so similar, it almost sounds like her agent told her she needed to replicate the success of her brother by borrowing his style, but making it worse. All of these songs are fine, and most of them are even quite catchy for the first few minutes, but none of them are very memorable. “Black Cat” is pretty cool though, EASILY the most memorable song on the album. Has an insane guitar solo that comes out of freaking nowhere and sounds like nothing else on the album. It’s surprisingly heavy, and I wish more of the album was like it. “State Of The World” might be a little too preachy, but it’s also probably my favorite song on the album. It’s catchy, and got stuck in my head easily enough. The jazzy outro for “Someday Is Tonight” specifically also stood out to me, I just wish it didn’t have the annoying breathy moaning included. The biggest compliment I can give this album is that the beats more than make up for the repetitive nature of it all. I can live without a celebrity preaching from on high, and the lyrics generally leave a bit to be desired, but the actual singing and beats kick ass. Janet Jackson’s Top 10 on Spotify are a mixed bag of several albums, the only “hit” on this album being “Escapade”, which I thought was just okay at best personally. That being said, this is the only Janet Jackson album on the list, and I really don’t know anything about her. It’s making me want to dig into some more of her discography. And you know what, that’s a pretty big compliment. Thinking back on it now, I’m going to give my favorite on this one to “Black Cat”. It stood out enough that I might even remember it with that killer guitar solo. This album took a little bit to grow on me, but I’m ultimately happy I spent the day checking it out, even if she doesn’t hold a candle in the wind to her brother. Then again, that’s hardly an insult. No one does.

Rarely has an album grown on me to quite the extent that this one did, where it started as a 2, and ended up almost being a 4 by the end of the day. This album was a whole ass great vibe. The singer has a very simple but effective singing voice that for sure I had to get used to, but by the end of the day I was singing along to a good bit of the album. Having 22 songs and being an hour and 13 minutes is pretty rough though. I’m only going to remember like 3 of these songs, and some of them are pretty hard to get through in general. That being said, having this play on loop when I was working got me into a flow state so effectively that I almost want to give this a 4 and make it part of my official working music. I won’t do that, because there’s a lot about it that’s not great, but what is great is really really good and stands out. It was actually a surprisingly difficult toss up between 2 songs for my favorite on this album. I added 3 of them to my usual rotation, which I wasn’t expecting to do at all during my first listen, but that’s exactly why I always listen to the complete albums several times in general, it frequently helps me appreciate them more. Works about 90% of the time as well. Honorable mention goes to “Chicago”, which I unbelievably recognized from an old abridged series on YouTube called None Piece. I was seriously not expecting to have heard of any of these songs before, but that one specifically has been used in a few shows and movies I’ve seen as well as the YouTube vid, and most importantly it’s just really peaceful and good. Second place song goes to "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!". It does an effective job in being a bit creepy and ambient, but also has a sick beat, and the singing is extra on point. It’s just a phenomenal song with cool violin riffs and background vocals interspersed throughout. Was tough not putting it at number 1, because even when I was working, I always got excited when it would play again. First place, and it was really really close, goes to “Jacksonville”. I hardly ever give a song the gold metal for being beautiful, but this one actually got me. The trumpet chorus is catchy as hell, the singing is pretty, and the entire song in general is a fun time. It’s been stuck in my head all day. What’s funny about my favorites selection this time is that 2/3 of them are some of the shortest song names on the album. It’s such an oddball choice having song names this long. I don’t know if he’s just trying to be quirky and interesting, artsy, or what, but it’s rather annoying. This album surprised me a lot. I would return to this one, and I actually just might. Never heard of Sufjan Stevens before, but this is a good first impression. Album 300 tomorrow. I’m moving through them, but still have such a long way to go. Still though, 300 reviews is pretty good. Many more to come.

Album #300. Quick side not before I begin. I’ve been informed that the correct pronunciation for this artist is “Byerk”, which is significantly less fun than the way I’d been pronouncing it this entire time. On to the review. Oh boy, people do NOT like this one do they?? This is my second Björk album for this project out of 4 total, following 1993’s Debut, which I really liked for being unique and having some cool Electronica components. Multiple years later down the line, we’ve got Medúlla. What did I think of it, you ask?? Well… yeesh, it’s pretty bad. A capella music, first and foremost, is just not generally my bag. I need some actual music in my songs to be interested enough to care. An entire 45 minute long album of it is asking a lot, and it feels longer if it’s not in your language some of the time. I think Björk has a fine singing voice. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s ok enough, but I don’t want to listen to her and 3 others mimicking instruments and breathing heavily for just under an hour. As another review mentioned, they should use that for torture. In fact, this is another one of those albums where reading the reviews is a better experience than listening to the album itself. Something else that didn’t really give me a lot of positive things to say about this album is that it’s got none of her hits at all. I get that the author thought this one was unique, but do you really need 4 of these in total, and specifically add this one, with none of her Top 10 on Spotify on it?? I don’t think you do. So many artists to pick from, but Björk steals 4 entire slots. Returning to the uniqueness of this album, I’ll at least also concede that the concept is cool on paper. Having an Icelander, a throat singer and some beatboxers replace instruments sounds neat enough in theory, but I just don’t want to personally hear it with Björk at the helm. My absolute biggest complaint with this album is actually the underutilization of the aforementioned beat boxers and throat singer. Songs where they’re prominently featured, like “Where Is The Line”, and “Triumph of a Heart”, are easily my favorite on the album, my personal favorite being the closer, “Triumph of a Heart”. I’d personally rather have more of that and less singing by Björk. Her breathiness annoys me, and like I already said, I don’t want to listen to her for 45 minutes at a time when she’s not paired with some instruments. For instance, if “Vokuro” was just the background singers, I’d enjoy the song much more than I do. Other songs where it’s literally just her, like “Oll Birtan”, while a novel concept, annoy me extensively in execution and I end up skipping them. Most other songs are just boring and utterly forgettable. Unfortunately, I didn’t love this album, and I’m a bit skeptical of the other 2. Sorry Björk, this is an easy 2 from me. Neat concept, cool concept even, but not so great on the ears. I want more of the beat boxers next time. Let them shine some more. They kick ass.

Album 301 and already 3/4 of the way done with Pink Floyd. I almost wish these 3 albums were spread out more, so I could enjoy them at more convenient intervals to savor them just a bit longer, but I guess this is just what RNG determined I'd listen to today, and I'm not complaining about it. Anyway, this is album 3/4, following Wish You Were Here and The Wall. A lot of people worship this album religiously. You see the album art on posters, shirts and other places to this day, for good reason at that. It's reached the same status as Nirvana, where some people might just like the design and don't even know what it is. In other words, it's a timeless classic. It's by far the easiest Pink Floyd album to digest, in my opinion. Surface level and new fans can enjoy it without peeling anything back to find deeper meaning, but longtime fans can still recognize and acknowledge how great it is, even if it is still probably like, my 5th favorite Pink Floyd album. Still a 5 with almost no faults though. Maybe just an itty bitty bit of fluff here and there, but like I said, almost no faults. It has a cult like following for a reason. It's so good, and it has what may be the greatest improvised vocal performance in history in "The Great Gig in the Sky". In fact, that little 3 song stretch of "Time", "The Great Gig in the Sky", and "Money" may also be the most legendary trio in music history. All 3 of those songs are phenomenal in their own individual ways, and are for sure my favorite 3 songs on the album. "Time" is a peaceful little melody... for about 3 and a half minutes, then it turns into an acid trippy, incredible solo, ending with an incredible amount of energy by both Gilmour and Waters. The best single moment of this album though has to go to Clare Torry, which is why my number 1 pick for favorite song is "The Great Gig in the Sky". She was paid pretty much nothing for recording it, which is an interesting story in and of itself. The little minute long intro is a good way to inch up closer to the aforementioned improv by Clare. God damn is it good. And then, right after that, you get freaking MONEY!! "Money" needs no explanation. Love it or hate it, it's catchy as heck. The bass, guitar, vocals, music video, background elements, and everything else about it are just so immensely full of energy that putting it as my favorite song almost felt like it would have been cheating, and I almost did it anyway. I haven't even mentioned the greatness of some of the other songs like "Breathe (In the Air)", and I'm not sure I even need to. You get the point. While I'm upset that Animals, Meddle, and Atom Heart Mother didn't make the final cut for the book, it's a literal no brainer to include the other 3 albums I've heard so far. I'd have been just as upset, if not even more so if they didn't get included. The only other album I have yet to listen to for this project is their debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and while I disagree with it's inclusion wholeheartedly, I get that it was likely included to hear Pink Floyd at their most "pure". The author of the book just loves doing stuff like that, and it's usually pretty annoying. Roger Waters may be a loser twat who should stop saying things out loud in public spaces, but I can not deny that his work with Pink Floyd was outstanding. Even if it does make me a bit upset listening to it after the fact, I always find myself coming back to it anyway, usually for months at a time.

Oh, hey. It's Tricky again. I remember him from earlier. Always fun when a name I only know from this project pops up again unexpectedly out of nowhere. Hilariously enough, he's also my least favorite part of this album, just like he was in Maxinquaye. I still just don't really like the way he speaks. Nothing against him, it's just that he's the weak point of an otherwise very strange, but very good album. It won't surprise you then to know that my favorite songs on the album are ones where he isn't present. My favorite songs on this album, all good enough to add to the usual rotation, are "Unfinished Sympathy", "Lately", and my favorite, the opener, "Safe From Harm". The common denominator between all 3 of these songs is singer Shara Nelson, who has an incredible voice. Shara included, when you add the absolutely killer, ear-wormy background elements, heavy bass, and the other singer vocally aura farming, you've got just a really surprisingly killer opener that I wish set the standard for the entire album. This album skirts the line between a 3.9 and a 4.0 for me. While I find Tricky barely passable to listen to, and I actually can't stand the closing song, "Hymn Of The Big Wheel", the elements of this album I do like may be worth giving it a 4. Adding 3 songs from an artist I've never heard of before is a pretty good accomplishment, and I've already established that I love this kind of unholy mix of genres that blend a little bit of everything. So, you know what?? It's obviously not a 5, but I would 100% return to it, Tricky songs included. That sounds like a 4 to me. This one was incredibly unique and different. Flaws included, I think that should be celebrated. One thing I can say about this album for sure is that even in the weaker moments, it was never boring, so yeah, gonna be an immensely low 4, and I should probably give it a 3, but I think the background elements elevate this one higher. The vibe album of all vibe albums. Looking forward to the other one on here, and I'll likely check out even more from Massive Attack. Nice job on this one, low key kinda loved it.

Listen, I understand including albums that you personally enjoy. Personal bias is going to be a huge determining factor when it comes to making or deciding anything. Anyone who tells you they're making a decision with 0 personal bias is lying to you, or even worse is trying to deceive you. Now, all I'm trying to do by saying that, besides padding out my review length (mostly the last point, I can't think of anything to say about this album), is ask genuinely why this album was included in the book to begin with? This is as boring as it is forgettable. Sure, it's fine. I'm still going to give it a 3, but I managed to listen to it all day, and I already struggle to remember any of it. Not only does it bring absolutely nothing to the table, but the Wikipedia article, which I generally always use before diving into an album, has 3 complete sentences attached to it. Do you know what 1 of them is?? If you guessed "The album was included in the publication 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.", then you'd be 100% correct!! Congratulations!! The other sentences mention that Suba is Serbian, made this album about his life in São Paulo, and gives a brief rundown of the musicians on the album. Besides the Track Listing, 4 references at the bottom of the page, and a single external link, that is the ENTIRE Wikipedia article for this album. I know the book isn't called "1001 of the best albums of all time", but why did I have to listen to this elevator music today instead of something more deserving?? I'm not saying underground music (If that's even what you would call this album) doesn't have it's place here and there on the list, I just really think you could probably find a better album than this to include on the list. I don't speak the language, but even on some albums that aren't in English I can at least understand what the album is trying to say. The vibes are admittedly pretty good here, but this is very base level Electronica, and it's just not very memorable most of the time. Good enough for a low 3, but not something I would return to. Still, songs like "Na Neblina" and my favorite song on the album, "Sereia", were ear wormy enough to stick in my mind for a few hours. Not good enough to add to my frequent rotation, but good enough for today. I always enjoy listening to things I haven't heard before. Obviously, I'm more than 300 days into this project and I don't intend to stop until I'm done. However, I'll forget about this album entirely by tomorrow while I'm listening to whatever I end up rolling. After all, I don't know what they were trying to say, and I simply do not care enough to do any research on them. The album never really pulled me in enough to give it a lot of recognition while I was working. It made for fantastic background noise though, and albums that are non intrusive and are able to sink into the background like this one did do actually deserve some recognition. Even if it was boring elevator music, it still wasn't bad enough that I wanted to turn it off. Giving this one a 3.2/5. Not terrible, but not tremendously memorable either. Moving on.

1984 or Self Titled?? That is the question. The answer depends largely on the person, and may even change depending on the day. Both are great, I personally gave 1984 a 4 earlier on in this project, and now I get to review Self Titled. This is the second, and final Van Halen album I'll get to listen to for this project, and while I disagree with the author's inclusions to the book fairly consistently (literally yesterday), they did right by including both Self Titled and 1984, no doubt. While this album art may not be as iconic as the smoking cherub, it’s still a killer debut cover, prominently featuring the band members in an interesting and cool way. Opening with the 4 best songs on the album is pretty funny though, and it seems like a fairly deliberate decision, as all 4 of them are EASILY the best on the album, besides song 6, "Jamie's Cryin'", which is also a classic. I think the main difference between Self Titled and 1984 is that this is more purely Metal focused, while 1984 is more Pop Rocky. While I still absolutely love 1984, I mentioned in my review that none of the songs really blew me away. They all really make you want to dance for sure, and they're all great, but more in the way that you expect to hear them at like a sports game or something. I wouldn't always seek out something like "Jump" or "Panama" unless I was watching the NFL on Fox or something like that. You know what I'm saying?? I think that makes sense. Meanwhile, playing something like "Eruption" and just rocking the hell out is something I could do all the time, and always enjoy it. Each and every one of the first 4 songs on the album do actually blow me away for different, but similar ways. They feature an amazing singer, who consistently makes me laugh with the constant "OOOHHH YEEEAAAHHHH's", and an unbelievably heavy guitar/bass/drum combo that still hold up today. They're all going into the frequent rotation, but my favorite of the bunch ultimately came down to "You Really Got Me" vs "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love". The former, I would argue, is even better than the original version of the song, and the riff is so meaty that it was hard not picking it as my number one. Ultimately, I went with "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love". Reason being is that it too has a meaty riff, but I also consistently found myself singing it today, even when it wasn't currently playing. That sold it for me. I love mostly every song on this album, but after the first 4 and 6, it's very VERY fillery. I don't know if that should make me rate it as a 4 or not, but I can definitively tell you that personally, yeah, I like it more than 1984, which I rated as a 4, so I do believe a 5 may be warranted here. I'm always sad when I get done with all the albums by artists I like. With almost 800 days left to go, that's another Heavy Metal all-star done and dusted. Don't know how many albums I'll enjoy as much as this one, but I'm very glad it was included. Today was a good day, and this was a fantastic album. Even with the filler, the guitar riffs are worth listening to, as well as Eddie just wailing on every song.

I really don’t understand this band in the slightest. After listening to both of their albums for this project, Dear Science is the second of 2 TV On The Radio albums I have rolled, following Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. Virtually every comment I made about that album I still feel the same way about this time around as well. It’s almost shocking to me that either album was included. They’re both fine, but I’d hardly say either are important enough to include in the book. I’ve never heard of this artist, so unless I’ve been living under a rock, they were probably a flash in the pan. Hardly worth celebrating twice. Every song here is such a radically different tone shift, it’s like they just recorded a million different things and wanted to see if any of them stuck. Some songs are very light almost orchestral beats, others are light Rock, there’s a tiny bit of Electronica here and there, and some are pretty Funky. None of them blow me away, and most of them leave me wanting just a bit more. Some even seem like parody or imitations of much better bands. The songs I enjoyed on this album really stood out though, and all of them prominently feature the lead singer singing his heart out with very high energy. My favorite songs are all the ones where you can tell everyone was having a blast recording. “Dancing Choose” almost starts in a rap, but remains a fun little bop throughout, cool trumpet included. “Red Dress” might not be the most memorable song on the album, but it was actually my favorite of the bunch. It’s the most traditional Rock song on the album, has some cool vocals, a good beat, and a catchy hook. I really appreciated how well it all flowed together and wasn’t overly artsy like so much of the album is. The other song I really liked was “DLZ”. I can see why it was the big hit on this album. It’s catchy, a bit dramatic, and a bit edgy, but it’s certainly got charm as well. Perfectly encapsulated the kind of music that was very popular pretty much throughout the entire 2000’s to late 2010’s. I didn’t love this album admittedly. They try to do too much and don’t succeed a lot of the time. When it’s not really good, it’s usually pretty boring, or worse, skippable. There’s a lot of skippable songs here. But when they actually manage to find their groove, I’m into it. Still though, it’s an alright album. I wouldn’t really want to return to it, but it was fun enough listening to today. We’ll go with a 3.4/5 for this, and move on to the next one. That’s another band done, I’m starting to really make some good progress here.

Wow. This kicks ass. Might be the coolest female only band ever. It's a very fun Rock Pop mix, and every song is pretty fun and energetic. It's also only 35 minutes long, which if anything leaves me wanting more. Of course, the big hit here is "We Got The Beat", and it's for sure my second favorite song on the album. It was a close fight between that and "This Town", but as always, if I end up singing a song when it's not even on, that one is going to be my pick for favorite virtually every time. In this instance, since this was my weekend album (Female Friday's), I've had the lyrics to "This Town" in my head the entire weekend, so it's for sure my favorite. There's not a TON of variety on this album, you kind of get the point after the first couple of songs, but they're all very fun, and it's not much of an issue when the album is so short to begin with. The album art is also pretty great. Not something you'd expect to see on a Rock album cover, but they make it work. Seriously though, especially for being an entirely female led band, this was really good. I emphasize that for the sole reason of saying, admittedly, I can't think of a second 4+ member band of just females. It's pretty cool that it exists at all, and even cooler that it sounds this good. I think I would seriously return to this at any time virtually. It's unbelievably catchy, and the chemistry between the band members comes together very nicely to produce an excellent, short, lightning in a bottle album that I really enjoyed spending the weekend listening to. I also always love when my 2 favorite songs on an album are right next to each other. The 1-2 combo of "This Town" and "We Got The Beat" is just so good. Not much more to say about this album other than the fact that I really enjoyed it, and I kind of wish they had more albums I could check out on here. I feel like I've been very generous giving out 4's and 5's lately. Either that or these albums have just been banger after banger. I'm honestly struggling to think of why this would ever be a 3 for me, and I'm also struggling to think of why it wouldn't be a 5. I don't know, it's pretty god damn good. This one is going on the list of albums I might change to a 5 later if I ever comb through the list in the future. I really enjoyed this one.

So, I have a bit of a personal anecdote for my review today. Yes is a very important band to me. Completely by coincidence, I stumbled upon them several years ago and instantly fell in love. When I asked my Mom if she was familiar with the band, she simply laughed and mentioned how she had grown up with it herself and was a massive fan. My musical overlap is usually pretty 1 to 1 with my Mom, so I was a little surprised she had never played me any Yes when I was a kid, but I find it hilarious that it would still end up finding its way to me anyway later in life. Progressive music quickly became my favorite musical genre in my late teens and has remained my favorite genre ever since. If there's a song that's like 10-30 minutes long, chances are I'm going to love it. The weird Prog songs that literally include chapters. That's my shit. "The Yes Album" has 2 of them, and you can be sure they're both already in my playlist. However, my favorite song on this one is actually "Yours Is No Disgrace", specifically for a specific section towards the end that always gets stuck in my head. I don't really know how to describe it. It's the moment that kind of sounds like a record scratch. Speaking of the chaptered songs though, the way they just quickly morph into completely different tone shifts and somehow end up still working are amazing. Yes is not a band for everyone, and I would completely understand if not everyone "got it", if you will. However, I get it, and I love it. The longer the song, the trippier the song, the better. The lead singer has such a cool, almost soothing voice, and the rest of the band just come together and give you something special for a very reasonable 41 minutes. Anyway, this is my second of 3 Yes albums I have rolled for this project, following the much more accessible Fragile, both of which hilariously came out the same year. Imagine coming out with 2 unbelievable bangers back to back in the same year like that. That's quite a feat. Anyway, Yes is one of my favorite bands, and this album is no exception, so of course it's getting a 5 from me. The bot has been feeding me heat all month, I'm still worried I'll hit a losing streak of garbage soon. Until then though, this is an easy 5 from me. Another of the easiest 5's I'll have.

With an album name like “ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ: AKA Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs”, you can probably guess that you’re going to likely be in for something different with this one. Different can either be very good, or very bad depending on the context. The difference in this case that makes the album really stand out is the amount of screaming the lead singer does. Sure, I’ve listened to several Metal albums before during the course of this project, but this is the heaviest one of them so far. This is probably going to be the closest the project comes to something like Death Metal. Is that a bad thing or a good thing then, that I was able to tolerate it? I don't know. Generally, I don't really touch stuff like this all that often, I find a lot of screamo-adjacent albums pretty off-putting, but found this album to be surprisingly enjoyable, so I'm not complaining. It didn't blow me away, but it was still good enough to listen to on repeat today. To all of that I say, yeah, this album was alright. The singer is bearable, but the fast pace of the drummer and killer guitar riffs are the main appeal. They’ve got a religious theme too, obviously, that makes some songs hilarious, and I think the comedic element was the intent, but I’m not entirely sure whether or not it’s supposed to be funny. No, scratch that, listening to the lyrics of “Jesus Build My Hotrod” or “Psalm 69” will very quickly let you know that these guys are just taking the piss. For the comedy aspect alone, as well as having a great guitar section, “Jesus Build My Hotrod” is my favorite song on the album. This was a weird one, and I can see why it’s got such a low rating on the site, but I’m just glad to have listened to something this different today. This was a refreshing album, a nice break from the hundreds of generic English Rock/Pop albums the author is so fond of.

This is one of those albums where I don’t understand the low rating of, but at the same time I kind of do. Sure, this isn’t a very 90’s sounding album, but it was really good regardless, so whatever. That’s such an odd complaint that I saw more than a few times. If this is something you’d hear in a doctors office, send me to that doctor immediately, I’ll pay them extra. Not going to lie to you, this album surprised the hell out of me. Never heard of Paul Weller before, and I do agree with the review that says you probably don't need to listen to every album that England ever released between the years of 1960-2020, but this one really hit me in a good way. Love his voice, love the guitar playing, and just love the overall vibe. You could consider this both a positive and a negative, but for being released in the early 90's, this was unique for sure. I'd have guessed it was released in like the 70's or something. It's kind of timeless in that sense. This guy was in 2 other bands I've never heard of before, so I kind of want to compare and listen to what he sounded like back in the day, as this album came out much later in his career. While others have mentioned how unremarkable this album is as a whole, I strongly disagree. I thought virtually every song was catchy as hell, and found this easy to play on repeat, with a terrific production, and a great sound overall. I had many favorites on this album that I added to the usual rotation, but the ones that really stood out to me are "Has My Fire Really Gone Out?", "Can You Heal Us (Holy Man)”, "Sunflower", and my personal favorite song on the album, "Shadow Of The Sun". Something specifically about the guitar solos just hits perfectly. It's not that I dislike the singing, the singing is fine. Arguably it's the weakest element of the album, keeping it from a 5. Whenever the guitar hits though, it's unbelievably good and keeps me coming back for another listen. I will be checking out more from Paul Weller, and I'm very glad to have heard this today. Excellent album here.

Subjectively, this album is awful. Objectively, it may also not be great. Took me a good bit of the day to gaslight myself into actually somewhat enjoying it, but man did it take a while. When I saw this was a Talking Heads side project I was more than a little excited. I love the Talking Heads, and more David Byrne is always going to make me happy. Then I saw it didn’t have him in it and the first bit of skepticism and panic quickly swept in. I saw that this album had a low review and an additional layer of skepticism was added. Finally, I listened to the album myself. There’s a literal nursery rhyme in the first song, “Wordy Rappinghood”. Not only does the name of the song elicit anger out of me, but so does the fact that it’s so repetitive, as well as the additional fact that it’s over 6 minutes of a bassist sing-rapping about words. Every song here lasts just a little longer than you’d want it to, some overstaying their welcome by a good couple of minutes even. If I had a nickel for every album I enjoyed the background elements and beats of, but the vocals didn’t do much for me, I’d be a millionaire at this point. This would have worked better as an instrumental heavy, maybe even instrumental entirely album. The singing is just… weird, and not in the ironically cool way. It’s just weird for weird sake. The funny thing about this album is that it gives ripoff Talking Heads vibes heavily. It’s proof that you need a front man to fully assemble a cohesive band. This is repetitive, disjointed, and just kind of a musical monstrosity for a good majority of the runtime. Songs like “Genius of Love” and “Under the Boardwalk” are fine, but they just do not end. The remix (at the end of the over hour long album) to the previously mentioned “Wordy Rappinghood” was my favorite song on the album simply because I thought it was not only a more interesting version, but both versions actually made me laugh and if I want to remember anything from this weird album, it’s the “banger” intro, in the most literal sense of the word it is “ironically” a banger. If they just let the cool Electronica play out without interrupting it with weird vocals, I’d likely enjoy this album more. But as it stands now, this is definitive proof that the assistance of one David Byrne was more than needed here. Did I enjoy this album?? Clearly not, did you read the review?? But, it was stuck in my head, it kind of draws you in with the hypnotic beats, and I didn’t outright even dislike it all that much. As much as I want to give it a 2, to take this review full cycle, I was able to focus on the beats, and did enjoy this filler laden bizarre album more because of it. Let’s get some more actual Talking Heads soon please. This was an interesting album, but not one I would likely return to. It’s just too weird and off putting for its own good. On to the weekend album.

You know, this website confuses me sometimes. More frequently than I’d like to admit. There are times when I roll an album that is an unmistakable 5, just an absolute gem, and it has a way lower rating than I was anticipating. Virtually every female artist barring a select few have low ratings as well, that seems to be the norm at least from what I’ve noticed. A lot of those albums are also 5’s. With all that being said, “Dummy” by Portishead is the second highest rated Electronica album on the website, right under another album I didn’t exactly care for. First things first, did I enjoy this album?? Yeah, of course. It’s pretty chill and vibey for the whole thing, but that’s also one of my biggest criticisms. It’s way too mellow and low key for a grand majority of the album. I’m not the biggest fan of the consistent emphasis on this kind of chilled out, low stress music. The fact that this has a higher rating than something like Justice, The Prodigy and even the Gorillaz does genuinely surprise me. The biggest criticism I have with Electronica in general is that a lot of the times, a song is going to last just a liiiiiiiiittle bit longer than you want it to. This album suffers heavily from that. It’s 48 minutes of songs that just kinda put me to sleep. Again, not an issue. Objectively, it sounds great, it’s just not the kind of Electronica that I love. Still though, songs like “Glory Box” have a random guitar solo that I love, and the background elements of “Wandering Star” make it my favorite song on the entire album. I can’t really say I’d return to this one, and I can’t even honestly figure out what a majority of the website saw with this one either. Oh well, not every album can be a banger to everybody. This is one I’ll forget about pretty quickly. Very pretty singing though. It’s charming and peaceful. Got me through the day good enough, and I could have it on in the background while working easy enough as well. Overall, I was a little bored by this one, but the singer truly does have a great voice. Just not one I’d like to listen to for an extended period of time.

Free Bird. That’s all that needs to be said about this one. This is the album with “Free Bird” on it. Any kid like me who grew up playing Guitar Hero probably know 2 songs more than anything else in the world. Those songs being “Free Bird” and “Through the Fire and Flames”. It’s just, the perfect song. Nothing I could possibly say about it hasn’t been said about it before. I can’t contribute anything new, so I’ll just say that it remains fresh for the entire long length of the song. Then, when you get to about the 4:20 mark in the song, the magic happens. The last couple of minutes of that song are some of my favorite in all of music. All that being said though, it’s not even the only good song on the album. The entire album is good. Don’t mistake it though,”Free Bird” is my favorite. I’d be crazy to say otherwise and be that guy. Southern Rock is such a weird genre to me. It’s one of the closest to Country music, but is also super far removed from being remotely Country at all, if that makes any amount of sense. I genuinely despise most Country music, but have an affinity for most Sourhern Rock/Blues, which has always made no sense to me. This album sounds very rednecky and about the most Southern thing you could imagine, but god damn is it good. Absolutely tragic that the entire band is dead. That plane crash really fucked up the entire band. We can only imagine the lasting impact they would have if they were around longer. But man, does it just creep me out looking at the album cover now knowing they’re all gone, and most of them WAY too soon at that. Besides that, it’s a really cool cover. Another iconic one. This album has a perfect blend of ballads, rockers, and a few filler songs in between that are all still very good. I actually forgot that “Tuesday’s Gone” was a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, but it’s also iconic. As is “Simple Man”. The guitar playing on this album is so unmistakably Southern, as well as the singing, but god damn do I love it. I really do. I can’t find fault in this album enough to give it a 4. The riffs are too righteous. 3 iconic songs, including Free Bird. Yeah man, it’s going to be another 5 for me. I’d listen to this entire album any time, including the weaker entries like “Mississippi Kid” and “Poison Whiskey”. They’re at the bare minimum catchy, and when the ladder bleeds into “Free Bird”, I’m filled with bliss. This is a great album and I’m glad it’s on here.

What a great album this was. All Rock with just a little tiny bit of Jazz thrown in a few places. So, I’ve heard of Steely Dan before. I’m very aware of the name, but could not name a single song of theirs. Can’t even tell you any of the band members. This is the first of 4 Steely Dan albums I have rolled for this project. It is the first album chronologically, it’s the highest rated by far, and it’s the one with their top 4 songs on Spotify. What did I think of it?? I thought it was great. 3/4 of those top songs I actually knew going in. The rest of the album is largely filler, but it’s not bad filler. In fact, I don’t think there’s a skip here. The album has a nice length at 41 minutes and 10 songs. “Do It Again” is already saved to my library, and remains my favorite song on the album. I’ve heard of “Dirty Work” (Thank you The Suicide Squad) and “Reelin’ In The Years” before as well, and they’re very catchy. I think my only minor complaint with this album is that while I genuinely enjoy every song, none of these songs blow me away. They’re all VERY catchy, but not something I would always turn on if I was trying to rock out to something. However, this is one of those albums that had me singing “You’ll go back, Jack, and do it again” as well as “I’m a fool to do your dirty work” literally all day. Those songs in particular are fantastic, and the guitar solo in “Do It Again” is genuinely phenomenal. It’s so cool that that’s their first, and honestly, best song. I don’t know what they’ve done to warrant having 4 separate albums on here, but this is the highest rated of all of them, and it’s a hell of a good start. I’m very interested in checking out the other 3, even if I’m wary of not only their inclusion, but more importantly how they compare to this debut album. As it stands, 2 songs are going to stick with me from this one, and they were 2 I already knew going in. It’s a really good album, but it’s not perfect. I love the singer though, he’s great. The tone of the album is very different from song to song, almost to the extent that I don’t really know what to describe the vibes on this album. That does make it more interesting though. Ultimately, 2 really good songs, 1 pretty good, a whole lot of filler, but far from perfect. Still though, it’s a 4 from me and I’m excited to hear the other 3.

Iron Butterfly is truly a 1 hit wonder. They probably shouldn’t be on here to begin with. When your top song is listed multiple times in the Top 10 for an artist on Spotify, that’s an issue. When it has substantially more listens then the next most listened to song, that’s also indicative of a 1 hit wonder and should not be considered for the book. If this book was called “1001 songs you must hear before you die”, it might have a place, but to include the entire lackluster album over many more deserving is pretty criminal. Don’t get me wrong, the album is fine. Nothing terrible. It’s just so unremarkable that it almost feels like parody at points. If the titular “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” wasn’t literally half the length of the album, this would be a 2 star album. As it stands though, that song is quite good, and it was cool hearing the extended version for the first time. I was not aware that was a thing until today. I don’t even have to question what my favorite song on this album is, so that at least made putting it in the playlist of my favorite singular song from each album super easy today. Pretty much the only positive thing I can say about the rest of the album is that the Doors sample in the first song, “Most Anything You Want” was cool. I noticed it immediately, and enjoyed the way it was used in that song. That song in general wasn’t terrible. None of them are, they’re all fine, but god damn are they generic and bring nothing to the table. Why is this album here?? Seriously?? I have heard the titular track hundreds of times in shows and movies, and noted, that song is great. By itself it’s a 5. But every single other song is unremarkable, unmemorable filler, and I really almost think this album deserves a low 3 bordering a 2 because of it. There are a number of valid reasons why this album is so low rated on the site, and for once I agree with all of them. It truly should not be on here. It’s not terrible, but it’s also just objectively not good either. Truly forgettable, one of those albums you won’t remember listening to while it’s still playing. In addition, if you don’t like the title track, it’s for sure going to be a 1 for you. While I love it personally, I can see it having a fair share of negative feedback as well, also valid.

The thing I find most interesting about this album is that a ton of the songs are covers. I could have gone my entire life thinking "Respect" was an Aretha Franklin original, but nope. It's actually an Otis Redding song from less than 2 years prior. This one is hard to rate for me. Albums that are objectively a 5 always make me feel terrible for not personally loving. Aretha Franklin is one of the most well known, beloved musicians of all time. Her voice is absolutely iconic. She has been given every positive accolade under the sun. Her version of “Respect” is also perfect. I was surprised to see it wasn’t her most listened to song on Spotify. If you put a gun to my head, I’d have told you it was number 1. Instead, number 1 went to a song from a different album entirely, that song being “I Say a Little Prayer”. By name alone, I don’t even recognize that song. In fact, even on this album, I only know “Respect”, and it’s my favorite song on the album by far. Why is this a 3 if I’ve acknowledged and understand how great she is then?? What fault could I possibly find in this album?? Well, none honestly. I can’t fault this album, I just don’t personally enjoy this type of music very much. That’s just not the way I rank these albums. I thought this was slow, not terribly interesting, and only has 1 memorable song. But that’s just from my perspective, personally. Again, I reiterate, this is a fantastic album. It’s just not really for me. This is the first of 2 Aretha Franklin albums I have rolled for this project. One of the best to ever do it, but for the modern ears, she just sounds alright to me, and I would not personally return to this. I can’t even really say that “Respect” got stuck in my head like I thought it would. It’s such a short song, and ends way too early. I wish it was even just 30 seconds longer so I could enjoy it more. Still though, now I want to wait to hear her number 1 song to see if I recognize it or not. I wonder if it really is catchier and better than “Respect”, but somehow I just doubt that it would be. We’ll see when I roll it at some point. Quick update after the review. Upon further inspection, the album with her top song isn’t even on here. I guess I’ll just play it regardless to see how good it is.

I’ve been tolerable of Bruce Springsteen. Tolerable is a good word. This is the 4th of 5 Bruce albums I have rolled, and genuinely none of them have impressed me. I can see why he would have fans, but he just doesn’t bring anything interesting or unique to the table. All of his songs are so bland, by the books, and forgettable. Even after the previous 3 albums, I have all of them comfortably ranked as a 3, since I was able to find a few Rock songs on those albums that were more or less acceptable. Some of them were even really good. On this album however, I can’t find much of anything that I would consider redeeming or good. Every single song, with 0 exceptions on Nebraska is either a slow, boring affair, or even worse, a Country sounding diddy that also manages to be slow and boring. If he didn’t have such a unique voice with good production value and good enough guitar playing, I would rate this a 1. There really just isn’t anything here that I would consider good. There’s a reason no one asks him to play these songs. They’re just not good. This is the second lowest of the Bruce Springsteen albums on the site, just above the very reactionary post 9/11 album The Rising. Even that album had some songs that truly rocked though. It had enough where I wasn’t complaining about the slow and boring pacing. This however, I almost want to give a 1. I didn’t manage to spend the whole day listening to it, which is also rare. It was also hard picking a favorite, which was the only reason I didn’t turn it off sooner. Even then, I still kind of haphazardly picked a favorite, more so out of necessity for the playlist of my favorite song from each album rather than one I truly enjoyed. Since I didn’t really enjoy any of them, the one that bothered me the least was “State Trooper”. It had a slightly different tone to it, and it was bearable. I know these are all sad tunes, and are mostly deep and tragic stories about the State, however, I just can not be bothered enough to care. They’re just not for me this time. Sorry Bruce. Maybe the last album will impress me. After all, it’s the one with all the hits, and it came out 2 years later, Born In The U.S.A. This one gets a 2 though. Really was not feeling it at all whatsoever.

So, I grew up with post 90’s U2. I mentioned in my last U2 review for Achtung Baby that we had one of their later albums, All That You Can't Leave Behind, as a CD, and wore it the hell out. Played that CD in the car all the time. Because of that CD, I liked the band a lot already. But that was U2 to me. Just that album. It wasn’t until just now actually that I’m hearing this album for the first time. It was the same for when I rolled Achtung Baby previously. This is insanely good. Like, so good I didn’t have any idea U2 could possibly sound like this. This is U2 album 2/4, following the previously mentioned Achtung Baby. Seeing and hearing Bono here this young is quite a trip. He’s just a baby. The difference between this album and the post 2000’s albums are actually insane. The hardest part about this album is picking a favorite. That’s how I know, deep down, that it’s a 5 for me personally. There’s the obvious choice, the one song I knew going in, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, but genuinely every song on this album separately has been stuck in my head all day. The guitar playing and singing on these songs is just incredible. I could make a case for every song here. Seriously, I can’t pick a favorite. If I thought there was passion in the later albums, clearly I hadn’t heard this album yet. The sheer extent of the inspiring vocals and instrumentation here is nothing short of incredible. I gave Achtung Baby a 4, and mentioned I was considering giving it a 5. I’m going to skip right to a 5 for War. This very well may be their magnum opus. It’s going to be hard for the other 2 to beat this one for me, but we’ll see. I was one of what feels like a select few people that has no problem with even U2’s latest albums (Yes, even the controversial one that was forced onto our phones), and even I am kicking myself not having heard any of this previously. It’s really, really good and I don’t have any excuses for why I’d give it a 4. I think the first half is a bit more memorable as a whole, but that’s hardly a complaint. The back half is still really good and high energy as well. Ok. I’ve finally decided. I’m going to give my favorite song of the album to “Like A Song”. Just know that this could have gone to any song on the album. I can’t explain specifically why I chose it without just saying it was good, and that picking a favorite one here tormented me all day. So yeah, this was a great album. There’s a non zero chance I go back to the previous album and give that a 5 as well. I’m definitively a U2 fan after this one.

Dad Rock but amplify it and turn it up to 11. All solos and shredding guitar jams, and yet not a lot of substance. To be honest, I was expecting to like this one a bit more, but it’s rather samey from song to song and besides the famous “La Grange”, the best song on the album by far, it’s very unmemorable as a whole. This is the first of 2 ZZ Top albums I have rolled for this project, and the first in order of release. Considering the other album came out 10 years later and has “Sharp Dressed Man”, I’m going to be very interested in comparing the 2 albums. This album in particular is fine. I really don’t have a lot of negative things to say about it. The guitar playing is great, but somehow I don’t find myself getting very attached to it. It’s missing something, and I don’t really know what that something is. I feel in my heart they this should be an easy 5 star album, but it just didn’t really do a lot for me. That’s surprising, because I’m a sucker for solos like this. However, when every song kinda has the same energy, style and vibe, the repetition can start to lose some charm. This album is very repetitive. Come for the fantastic guitar solos and not much else. Still though, it’s a great album and I had fun listening to it. After all, I really am a sucker for a good solo, and that’s this entire albums gimmick it would seem. ZZ Top is one of those bands where I know I’ve heard a lot of, but can’t name anything besides their 2 huge hits, both prominently featured for this project. The bands image is greater than the sum of their music in my mind. ZZ Top to me just exude coolness, and that’s all I need them to do. 3 cool guys with some long ass beards who appreciate a good, gritty, old fashioned guitar solo. You can’t get much more American than that. This one for all its strengths, surprisingly, is getting a Tres from me. Perhaps that’s appropriate given the album name, but I was really expecting a bit more to it than what it ultimately delivered.

It took 319 albums for me to roll something in the Bottom 20, and man was I not disappointed. In this instance, by not disappointed, I mean to say that this is absolutely terrible, and I would not subject my greatest enemies to it. Being French is fine. I’ve had some French albums that were ok at best. None amazing, but they generally make some REALLY good Electronica. However, this is not one of such cases. This is the musical equivalent of water torture. The background elements sound fine in places, but each and every song is ruined by the Death Metal singing Frenchman making the music sound terrible. God damn this is bad. I mean seriously, the first song sounds like something you would hear at a circus, and the singing makes it even worse. This is one of those albums where I was happy when it ended, unfortunately. There’s SOME saving grace in the background elements, but the terrible singing is simply unforgivable. Songs like “Pas Mal” would be fine if I could tune out the singer, it’s got a pretty cool background element and a good beat, but it’s absolutely ruined, just like every other song on the album, by the singer. I’d love a version of this album without the singing. If that exists, this would get a 3. As it stands right now, this is either a low 2, or a high 1. I haven’t decided yet. It’s fucking abysmal though for what it is. Gonna compare it to my other 1’s and 2’s and make my final decision at the end of the day. Favorite song?? None of them. It’s all bad. That’s probably a point in favor of being a 1 star. Just, yikes. Bad album. Do the French themselves even like it?? That might be even more terrifying if they did. This is bad. Ok, next album please. I’m done venting about how bad this one was. I wanted something in the Bottom 20, and boy howdy did I get it here. Excited to see the other 19, excited in the worst possible way. Until then. Upon further review and comparison, I’m going to give it the 1 it deserves. It’s awful. This is the first 1 I’ve given in 81 albums. L’Eau Rouge by The Young Gods will take its rightful place in my profile on the album list of shame.

The best song on this album is the cover of “Love Hurts” that doesn’t even show up as a notable cover in the Wikipedia article housing the song itself. That says a lot about this album. That song is fine, it’s very peaceful and easy to listen to. Not my favorite cover of that song by any means, but it’s fine. It’s also Gram Parson’s most well known song. However, as previously mentioned, it’s not even a Gram Parsons song. A rule of thumb I have for artists is that if a remix made by someone else, or a cover that doesn’t surpass the original is your number one song, we might have a bit of a problem. This album is more Country nonsense through and through that I don’t really care for. On top of that, it’s yet another member of The Byrds getting a solo album on the list. That means there’s at least 8 on here, with potentially more if a third band member also has a solo album on here. Jesus Christ. That’s way WAY too many. Ridiculous to have even 2 of them on here to be honest. Boring album art as well. Very uninspired and lame. Call it a very weird bias, but with songs like “Return of the Grievous Angel”, I always get the feeling that they’re going to say something very… outdated. I’ll leave it at that. Interpret that the way you will. Even if it’s perfectly fine, it just rubs me the wrong way. Man, I just do not enjoy Country music in the slightest, and as usual, this selection is not helping. If this bot was meant to get me to appreciate Country music, it has epically failed a grand majority of the time. Furthermore, the 7+ other Byrds albums are really starting to irk me, and I roll my eyes at this point whenever I roll one, just like the copious amounts of Elvis Costello. So many other deserving artists are left out in exchange for this. The 3 Byrds and Byrds adjacent albums I’ve listened to so far got a 3, but I might start giving them 2’s going forward. This is the worst one so far. I’m just really sick of them and get no enjoyment whatsoever out of any of them. It’s just boring. It brings nothing to the table and it’s utterly forgettable. Every one of their albums I’ve listened to so far are the same, solo artist or not. Nothing against them personally, but they’re just not for me. If there’s anything I’m thankful for, it’s that this wasn’t my weekend album. Whether or not that becomes a monkeys paw in a second when I roll the next album remains to be seen. This is yet another album that wasn’t terrible, but man was it not good either, which situationally can be worse, as I’m going to forget about it in its entirety before the end of this review. Next please!! Let’s end the week off with some heat. If I don’t have to listen to this generic Country drivel for at least another week I’ll be happy. Either that or just get the rest out of the way consecutively. Either of those options would be fine by me at this point. Sorry Gram, not a fan.

Oh, goodie, Jazz is back. Yay… This concludes a really bad week of music for me on this site. Sometimes it be like that. First things first, I don’t really like Jazz. Reviewing it is the worst part of all. I can’t contribute anything articulate well enough for an album where the entire point is to be nonsensical with no rhyme, reason or cohesion. Some Jazz is fine. None of it is amazing or really worth listening to. Most of it is bad. This is one of the bad and uninteresting ones. Is that a good review? Obviously not, but the only things I can think to say about this album are negatives. It sounds like the dude is just waffling about the entire time, like he’s never played an instrument in his life. This goes on for an hour, because of course it does, and it just sounds like a practice session where a bunch of kids thought the instruments looked cool. Again, it’s Jazz. I don’t have a favorite song. I could only bear to listen to this twice before I had to turn it off. I can’t keep reviewing Jazz albums like this. Surely, some of them have to be good. The ones with careful planning that aren’t Freeform are mostly fine. But this?? Even the other reviewers on the website have this as slightly below average. Mostly this has been getting 3’s, but I think those are from people that actually like Jazz albums to begin with. Even then, that says a lot that even amongst fans of the genre where you play an aimless, maddening jerk off session, the consensus on the website is that it’s just not that good. This might be my shortest review in a long while. I don’t know man, if I’ve learned one thing above all else on this site, it’s that Jazz albums are the hardest to write reviews for. I’m going to read some of the long form reviews of this album after posting this to get a better understanding of what I’m supposed to be seeing here, because man, I kinda really dislike this, and most Jazz music as a whole. This album is not helping on that front at all. Even worse knowing this was my weekend album. Oh well, let’s hope this upcoming week gets me off the rough patch the site has bestowed upon me. Until then!!

Radiohead but make it Icelandic. If I had a nickel for every Icelandic artist I’ve had to listen to for this project, I’d have 2 nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice now. I gotta say, the album art is pretty appropriate for this album, but man does it creep me the hell out. This entire album is just orchestral vibes and low key riffs. Admittedly, it took me a while to get into it. I feel like the singer kind of demands your attention, and it was hard to zone out to this while I was working, which felt antithetical to the point of the album, which is to kind of fade into the background. In that regard, some songs like “Svefn-g-englar” have repetitive moments of singing that I really don’t enjoy, and go on for longer than I’m comfortable with. Luckily though, that’s not present in most songs. Some songs even have moments of true greatness, like the tail end of “Ný batterí”. I wish the entire album was like that song to be honest. The buildup is remarkable, and by the time you get to the end of the song and it ramps up in intensity, it just feels pretty awesome. The middle portion of the album is my favorite. I already talked about “Ný batterí”, and I feel similar about the next song, “Hjartaỗ hamast (bamm bamm bamm)”, which ramps up in intensity as the song goes, while still managing to be orchestral and pretty throughout, starting simple but getting progressively more complicated and interesting as the song goes on, then literally imploding at the end. It’s a weird song, but pretty great. My favorite song on the album though is the next one after that, “Viðrar vel til loftárása”. It’s long, it’s pretty, and for the third time in a row the pattern continues of the song getting really good at the end. I understand build up, but so many songs on this album are like that, where it’s pretty slow at the start and then gets better at the end. I just wish we had more moments throughout the album where the entire song was like the end of the one prior from the beginning. Other than that, this album was pretty good in small doses. I didn’t listen to it all day, but still enjoyed my time with it well enough. It’s just weird enough to still be interesting and not concerning, and it’s different musically enough to be refreshing while doing a great job of avoiding being off-putting. You know, besides the album art, which still freaks me out. I don’t like it. Ok Iceland, giving you a 3 for this one. It’s pretty good and experimental, but I wouldn’t really want to personally return to it. I am glad I tried it out though. It was nice, and nice on the ears, and that’s all that really matters 🙂.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard “Under the Boardwalk” covered this month, I’d have 2 nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s strange that it happened twice. For that reason, I honestly want to call it my favorite song on the album. It’s catchy, and I’m starting to love hearing the different interpretations of it from artist to artist. This was a nice little album. Short and sweet, very much to the point. It’s over before you even know it and starts from the top very quickly, which is a big point in its favor. 15 songs, 38 minutes that all feel short. However, they do all feel a tad repetitive and samey. Nothing that’s really very memorable or interesting here. This album isn’t winning any awards for being new, surprising, or breaking any pre-existing molds that need breaking. I’m probably going to forget about it by tomorrow, but it wasn’t bad, just forgettable and very, very generic. The lead singers voice was fine, as was the guitar playing. It’s very lively and energetic. A very traditional Punk/Rock album. Probably just a little more Punk than Rock. They yell at you for about 40 minutes, and then the album ends, but it feels like it only lasted for about half of that time. In other words, it serves its purpose nicely. I wouldn’t necessarily return to this, but I’m not upset for listening to it today. Decent little filler album, and definitely better than the actual trash I’ve been rolling lately. This was a very nice change of pace for what it is, and it came across my page at the perfect time. The best thing I can say about this album is that it’s catchy when you actually have it playing. The worst is that it’s forgettable when you don’t, and it’s probably going to be out of my mind by the next time I get a good album. But hey, isn’t that one of the points of Punk music technically?? They’re not going to care who it sticks with. They’re just here to jam. This is album 1 out of 2 The Undertones albums I have rolled for this project. This album was fine, not amazing, but it has me questioning why this very basic Punk warrants having 2 separate albums on here. I can’t imagine the other one is any different. Who knows, I could be wrong. This one’s a 3. Easy decision.

I enjoyed the comic more. Get it?? Like Batman. Alright, whatever. This was a pretty weird album. I understand the low rating, but I kind of thought it was weird in a refreshing way. The almost grungy, metallic guitar playing was very interesting. Every song feels very unpolished, gritty, and real. The singer on the other hand, eh, the singer kinda sucks. I’m not gonna lie to you. This is one of those albums I enjoyed the most when he wasn’t singing. For that reason, “Bloodsport” was, and I mean by far was, my favorite song on the album. Seriously though, it’s really cool how different these songs sound for being called Rock songs. They’re pretty unique in that regard. Futuristic almost. Song to song, the sound is pretty different from the last, but the songs themselves drag on a little too long, and are fairly one-note and not tremendously engaging. They’re fine, certainly, but nothing you’d think is amazing or necessarily in need of a listen. It’s not an amazing album, but for what it is I enjoyed it enough to say that I might return to it if I’m bored. It’s a mid to high 3.7 for me. Some funky, raw guitar playing throughout the album that I can’t really compare to anything else, but the singing just isn’t for me, and holds the album back heavily, unfortunately. Still though, I had fun with this one at least. Being unique is an accomplishment in and of itself. It’s another accomplishment to be unique and sound as interesting as this does, and not get a 1 or a 2. Unique in a cool, refreshing way. Cool little album. I liked it. I could see myself digging into this band who I’ve never heard of before until today’s discography and checking out their other stuff. The lead singer looks to me, in visual appearance only (I wish in vocal quality, but alas) like an exact replica of Ozzy, which doesn’t contribute a single thing to the album, I just think it’s really funny and I wanted to share that. But yeah, with a voice like that it’s no wonder this album is rated as low as it is. If the guitar playing wasn’t so god damn interesting, this would be an easy 2 from me. But I can mostly tune Temu Ozzy out and enjoy this album for what it is. So, despite all odds, it’s still a high 3 for me.

This album is delightfully stupid and you’d have to just genuinely not enjoy fun to hate on it. Not every album in this book has to be high art to be good. This certainly isn’t, and it’s by far the best album I’ve had in over a week. It’s dumb, it doesn’t take itself seriously, and it’s a seriously good time. I could listen to nothing but this album for a week and still have a good time with it. It’s front loaded for sure, but the entire first half of the album is banger after banger after banger. Love the singing, love the solos, and the vibes?? Oh man, the vibes are good on this one. The only mood I’d have to be in to not want to listen to this one would be “literally dead”. “You Give Love A Bad Name”, “Livin’ On A Prayer”, and “Wanted Dead or Alive” are bonafine classics, and the rest of the album isn’t bad either. But those songs alone are worthy of a 4 star review. I have personal anecdotes for why I like 2 of those songs as much as I do, but regardless of that, they’re just good songs. In fact, despite having never heard this album from front to back until now, you can be certain that I recognized most of the songs on this album. Plus, all of them are fun to sing, preferably when you’re alone. “Livin’ On A Prayer” is yet another certified Guitar Hero classic banger, and “Wanted Dead Or Alive” was the theme song to the show Deadliest Catch. Both of those songs have deep sentimental value for me, and I’m still going to say “You Give Love A Bad Name” is my favorite song on the album because it’s just THAT good. The clapping, the solo, the background vocals, it’s all pretty peak. It’s the most fun to sing as well, in my opinion, and of the 3 classics, it’s probably the one I think about the most. Anyway, this is a classic album, and all of the hits are incredible songs. This is almost a 5, going to give it a 4.9 simply because the second half of the album is mostly forgettable and isn’t as good as the top half. Hell of a good pick for Bon Jovi. Very happy this album is on here. What a great change of pace from the albums I’ve been rolling lately. Now to see what the weekend album is.

Fantastic album with a lot of unmemorable songs and a few phenomenal jams that even out to a near 4 star album. It’s really good, but the songs that stand out, notably “One Way Or Another” and “Heart Of Glass” are so many miles above the rest of the album that it’s hard to say this is a low 4. I don’t know, it’s close. Blondie is a really fun singer, but none of these songs particularly blow me away. Now, don’t get me wrong, I freaking LOVE Debbie Harry, the lead singer. Some of her other songs that aren’t even on this album like “Rapture” and “Call Me” have been stuck in my head since the moment I heard them. However, much like Bowie, there’s a lot of filler to get to the good stuff. Noted, it’s pretty good filler, but it’s largely just set dressing for the better songs on the album. I really do feel guilty giving this 3 stars, and I may come back to it later to adjust it to a low 4. Upon further review, unfortunately I’m going to keep it as a 3. There’s just not enough bangers to warrant putting it any higher. Again, don’t get it mistaken, I still love Blondie, and this album didn’t even remotely disappoint me. It just isn’t really a banger from top to bottom, and it needs to be to have a higher rating. Still though, I wouldn’t really skip any of these songs. They’re all good, and from song to song the variety is also quite good and varied. There are a lot of different blended genres here, and for better and worse, they make the album very unique and fun. My personal favorite of the bunch is obviously going to have to be “One Way Or Another”. What a classic. Easily stuck in my head and will remain stuck in my head until I hear another certified banger classic at some point during this project. Could that be tomorrow?? We’ll see. For now, this is a really good, charming, fun album, and I wish I could give it a higher rating. If the site had more than just 1-5 stars, this would be a 3.9, and I’d feel a whole lot less guilty about only giving it a 3.