And my heaven will be a big heaven / And I will walk through the front door So much I love about this album. It was important to sensitive kids in the 80s. It’s great, maybe not perfect but close enough.
I don't hate it, but I think this album could have been so much better if the arrangements and production were simplified. I often find myself asking "did this song really need a cello or a harmonica or a xylophone?" In contrast to the instrumentation, the vocals are a bit generic and lacking a punch that would lift this above the other bands of the day. Not sure I'd come back to this album again, but "American Guitars" is a good tune that I hadn't heard before. I also liked "Housebreaker" and "Idiot Brother"
Overproduced and self-indulgent. I’ve never listened to an album that so desperately needed an editor to step in and kill half of what’s going on. Every song seems to have 20 things happening simultaneously, making it impossible to pay attention to anything. I’m sure there are great songs here, and I wouldn’t mind listening to a stripped-back version of some of them, with more focus on Beyoncé’s voice and less layered synth, tinny drum sounds, random background vocals, samples, and pounding bass. The whole thing gives the effect of trying to listen to multiple radio stations at the same time. Ultimately, this is one star because there’s not a single song I would include on a playlist, and as an album, it just a tedious bore that goes on and on and on.
Like a time capsule within a time capsule, not only for the extensive use of blues samples but also because this album feels totally tied to 2000. The first half of the album feels stronger to me than the second which gets looser and more ambient and the theme of using blues samples is abandoned. The grooves on the big singles elevate this well beyond the ordinary though. A happy piece of nostalgia through over-licensing has made it feel like sitting through a loop of perfume commercials.
When the most popular band in the world decides that instead of cashing in on what has already made them popular, they will instead change the history of rock and roll by producing an inventive concept album that includes not only what would become classic radio hits, but also sitar and a some about a 19th-century circus act, you've got to respect that. This may not be the greatest album ever, but it might very well be the most important.
There's something fundamentally dishonest about this album of slickly produced pop tunes. It captured a moment in the 90s when girls could be angry, but Alanis never actually seemed angry. It was all a put-on. Alanis has a great voice and might have thrived as a singer-songwriter singing honest, heartfelt tunes, but instead the legacy is this. At the height of the "alternative music", borrowing heavily from Seattle sound, a Canadian pop teen and former television personality pretending to be tough and perverted.
All hail our robot overlords. What a fun record. I wouldn’t listen to this every night but it is a great reminder of the optimism of futurism in the 1970s.
For the best selling album ever, this is a disappointment. Not a terrible album by any means. Beat It and Billie Jean are great songs that totally stand the test of time. Wanna Be Starting Something is also pretty good though I don’t love the drums (frankly the drum machine on the whole album aren’t my favourite.) But can Thriller really be a classic pop song when it has been reduced to a Halloween novelty? The (Doggone) Girl is Mine has to be the worst song either Jackson orPaul McCartney ever recorded. And then the rest of the album is fairly charmless adult contemporary filler. Four stars on the strength of Beat It and Billie Jean.
Great range of songs here, including some all time greats but at about half a dozen songs could have been left out to make a single album would have been absolutely killer instead of a double album that drags in places. Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting is a towering classic. I know everyone loves Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. It’s not my favourite but I can get behind the idea of it as almost an overture of sorts. Candle in the Wind is such a tearjerker even after so many listens after so many years. Bennie and the Jets. People love this but I get distracted by the Bu-bu-bus and that hiss at the end of Jets every time. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is lovely though and Grey Seal is underrated as an Elton John song. It’s got a lot of pep. Sweet Painted Lady works for me as a quieter song that helps balance the album and while not a classic, Dirty Little Girl had its charms. With All the Girls love Alice these make for an interesting collection of songs about girls in one kind of trouble or another. Roy Rogers is a keeper. There’s a bit of filler here though that could have been easily cut and the album would have been stronger for it - This Song has No Title - Jamaica Jerk-Off (obviously) - I’ve Seen that Movie Too - The Ballad of Danny Bailey - Your Sister Can’t Twist
The definitive Coffee House chill-out album and certainly not without its charms, but there is an overwhelming sameness here that makes the whole album blend into a pile of pleasant mush. Jones has a beautiful voice with terrific texture though, and there are a few tracks here I'd happily listen to again. But ultimately this winds up being boring and doesn't reward much from re-listening.
I don't hate it, but I think this album could have been so much better if the arrangements and production were simplified. I often find myself asking "did this song really need a cello or a harmonica or a xylophone?" In contrast to the instrumentation, the vocals are a bit generic and lacking a punch that would lift this above the other bands of the day. Not sure I'd come back to this album again, but "American Guitars" is a good tune that I hadn't heard before. I also liked "Housebreaker" and "Idiot Brother"
What a self-assured debut record this is. Fun, well-produced synth-pop with a bit of an 80s feel to it, but updated for the 2010s. Lauren Mayberry has a terrific voice that you want to spend time with. The Mother We Share is a strong start and there are a lot of songs here that reward repeated playing. We Sink, Tether, Lies, Recover and a couple others are all strong. Overall this is an enjoyable album, even if the songs do tend to blend together.
This is a great album full of spectacular drums, bass and guitar. I could listen to it all day. In fact, I just did. That's Entertainment and Start! are classics for a reason (sure, Start! lifts the bassline from Taxman, but if it didn't bother the Beatles, it doesn't bother me). Boy about Town though, which I'd never heard before Is two minutes of joy. What a great song. I love the horns on this track and god, the drums are great. Hard to find a weak spot on this album. Really good from start to finish and the drums and bass are killer throughout. If Peter Weller was just a little bit stronger as a vocalist, this album would have been a monumental classic and broken through in North America. He's not quite show-offy enough for the US.
Just a really good album from a great band that defined alt-rock. The three-song run Velouria, Allison and Is She Weird? is one of my favourite sections of just about any album ever and Dig for Fire has a great hook that lives in my head for days anytime I hear it. Maybe just shy of greatness.
What do you say about an album that is surely perfect for what it is, even if it’s not to your taste? Now 45 years since this album came out and it has stood the test of time better than just about any record I can think of. The music has nearly the same ability to capture testosterone-fueled young men today as it did then. These drum-and-guitar-driven tunes feel as relevant as ever to the people they were aimed at. There's not a not to think about here, but that's not the point. It's an absolute classic and an amazing achievement and the fact that it also came together just after the death of Bon Scott makes it even more remarkable.
Sandy Denny’s voice makes this album work for me, but the updated traditional songs full of the doings of lords and ladies and faeries and knights aren’t my thing. It would be very enjoyable at a Ren Faire or a Caleigh it’s just not the sort of thing I care to listen to outside of that context.
It is quite a pleasant record, but ultimately I find it a bit boring. Electro-pop can be lacking in emotion and that's what I find here. If there were some big ideas or something that would be another matter, but this is just pleasant dancehall fodder. Nothing excites me, nothing offends me, nothing challenges me. There's nothing terribly wrong with making a pleasant record, of course, it's just not my thing.
Kicks is great. It is like one of those songs that appear in a Quentin Tarantino movie and you’re like, wow, what is this song? Of course, another Paul Revere tune, Hungry, was used in exactly that way. There are a few other bright spots on the album and it’s definitely of its time with influences of the British Invasion and The Beach Boys very evident. This is a step down from those other bands though and unfortunately much of the album is a bit dull.
I'm a sucker for Lou Reed. His time with the Velvet Underground was groundbreaking and mind-expanding for everyone who heard the music. For this album, Perfect Day is one of my favourite songs of all time. It stops me in my tracks no matter where I am when I hear it. Of course, Walk on the Wild Side is a monumental work of art. So simple with its bass line and brushed snare and the fact that a song about a transvestite prostitute giving head can be played on the radio just blows my mind. Satellite of Love is also a beautiful song that I could listen to over and over again.
To me this sounds like the embodiment of my memories of inoffensive AM radio. Real Boomer music here. It’s all very competent and pleasant and may even have been innovative for its time but there’s nothing here that gets me excited.
Overproduced and self-indulgent. I’ve never listened to an album that so desperately needed an editor to step in and kill half of what’s going on. Every song seems to have 20 things happening simultaneously, making it impossible to pay attention to anything. I’m sure there are great songs here, and I wouldn’t mind listening to a stripped-back version of some of them, with more focus on Beyoncé’s voice and less layered synth, tinny drum sounds, random background vocals, samples, and pounding bass. The whole thing gives the effect of trying to listen to multiple radio stations at the same time. Ultimately, this is one star because there’s not a single song I would include on a playlist, and as an album, it just a tedious bore that goes on and on and on.
Sounds like it was recorded with tin cans and strings at the bottom of a disused backyard swimming pool. Can’t hear a goddamn thing. Every instrument and vocal is echoey and garbled. I can almost get behind "I Was a Teenage Werewolf," but, honestly, I only like the opening guitar riff. Then, they ruin the track. I really don't like anything else here. This is the sort of album that many people love because of how terrible it is. It’s raw and weird, and in some ways it’s what rock and roll is all about, but come on. This sounds like a band you hear in a friend’s garage in high school on a Tuesday afternoon, one week after they figured out how to plug in their amp. It’s not campy or fun, it’s just juvenile.
I don't hate this but It's not for me. I admire the ambition of it, even if I won't listen to it again.
Brilliant, soulful, and ultimately sad. I could listen to this a thousand times.
A miracle of a debut album. How do you put together a bunch of songs that are best suited to getting an entire arena jumping before anyone knows who you are? It's almost incomprehensible to think that there was a world before Sweet Child O'Mine or Welcome to the Jungle. Etc. Only reason to keep it out of 5 stars is that I personally find it a bit boring, but that’s probably just that it’s so familiar.
I’ve never listened to ABBA outside of hits compilations so it was interesting to hear a few songs I wasn’t familiar with but I think I’ll stick with the hits if I want a dose of ABBA. Hard to argue with the big hits here though that are as comfortable as the couch in your mother’s basement.
1969 and I Wanna Be Your Dog are an amazing 1-2 punch to open this album but then the sleepy "We Will Fall" ten minutes of B-grade psychedelia mars that amazing start. Other than We Will Fall, though, this is otherwise a pretty flawless, classic proto-punk album.
From totally generic folk rock to unlistenable noodling on a MOOG synth this is an excruciating album.
These guys seem like great musicians. They should try writing some songs.
This is a terrific album. I just don’t want to add it to my list of five-star albums because I don’t want to listen to it over and over again. I totally understand why people love this album, I just don’t need any help feeling depressed.
This album is a lot like tantric sex. It’s pleasant but it goes on and one without ever coming to a climax. After you’ve experienced it once it’s a bit of a bore.
Goth classic. It’s okay and I really dig Mother Russia but the rest of the album doesn’t really do it for me.
I mean, what a voice. No one has done it better since and many have tried.
In so many ways the quintessential Beatles album. Mature and confident with Lennon & McCartney at the peak of their powers. No sitars, no George Martin experiments or Phil Spector Wall of Sound, just clean, pure, well composed and produced 60s pop music. I love it.
Just short of 5 stars from me, but I love the album.
There are so many amazing things about this record. It’s not just the miracle that exists and Nas’s story, that the lyricism is great and that the album is honest and real, it’s that this is musically such a sophisticated and purely enjoyable album on top of all of that. A masterpiece.
And my heaven will be a big heaven / And I will walk through the front door So much I love about this album. It was important to sensitive kids in the 80s. It’s great, maybe not perfect but close enough.
Remember when rap used to be the most fun genre of music? De La Soul was the pinnacle of that. Extra points for how thoroughly happy this album made me.
This is exactly the type of stuff I was hoping to discover when starting this project. I’m not sure I would have stumbled upon Hugh Masekela myself. Really enjoyable album. My only complaint would be that many of the songs get ragged towards the end as drum solos or crazy horns move away from the beautiful musicality of at the beginning of the track.
A monster of an album. Funky and creative and full of classics. Never annoying, never boring. I love it.
Not really into this, though it was fine background music for an afternoon. I didn’t annoy me, which is more than I can say for a lot of music.
Nickelback, but three times more successful and twice as dumb. Not bad enough to be one star, but so generic and forgettable.
A bit goofy, really. And if you’re in just the right mood for it, this could be the album you need. It’s a novelty album though and would have made a great live show. As for something to sit at home and listen to, I’m not so sure. Jump, Jive, a Wail is great though. Extra star just for the joy of that.
The only concept album I’m really interested in is this: “Me and my friends thought it would be a cool idea to put together a whole album full of songs people would really like and want to listen to over and over again.” This album is a slog. I don’t want to have it explained to me. I don’t want to have to be high to enjoy it. I don’t want to watch the accompanying film. The Wall may be a great piece of art, I don’t know. What I do know is that the great tracks here are buried under an endless Roger Waters’ wank-fest. If you cut out all the faff, this would be an incredible album. Instead, it is a three-star album with pretensions of greatness. Elite tracks: Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2 Comfortably Numb Good tracks: Mother Hey You Good enough for filler: In the Flesh? Goodbye Blue Sky The Show Must Go On Run Like Hell Chuck everything else. Now you’ve got an album I’ll happily listen to on repeat.
Criminally neglected classic.
A fun puce of cultural history. I think that even non-French speakers can appreciate some of the wordplay, just from the sounds of the words. Not an album I’m dying to listen to again but I don’t regret spending a day with it.
Doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would when the album popped up for me this morning. The big hits feel tired and the album as a whole feels derivative and a bit boring. By no means terrible, it just doesn’t excite me at all.
More than anything, this album makes me sad. Leonard Cohen was a giant, a genius, a ladies man, a hero and a victim. I can’t listen to this without thinking of him recording it in his living room, in pain, suffering from spine fractures not long after a manager stole most of the money he had earned. This is not m favourite Cohen album but it is a more than worthy final bow. I think I’ll have a good cry now.
A classic new wave album that brings back a lot of memories. Maybe a bit too poppy, a bit over produced and clean, but a classic.
Such a strange album. It's all over the place and just when you think you know what's happening, here comes some flamenco guitar. I'm aware that Mingus was a genius and that this is a great work of art. It's just not for me.
What a weird album. It’s often described as early psychedelic but there’s not a lot that’s recognizable as psychedelic here. It’s really all over the place. At least these guys sound like they are having fun. By the time you get to “The King is in the Counting House” it’s really impossible to classify the album and it only gets stranger from there. Bravo, I guess. These guys wind up sounding like The Monkees on acid. Just a wild mix of everything they find amusing. This whole thing would have benefited from cleaner production though. It’s fine to be goofy if your sound is clean and the songs reward re-listening. These, mostly, do not.
I hate this. I respect it, but I hate it. I’m not young enough or angry enough to start getting into metal.
At first I wasn’t into this at all, but it grew on me surprisingly quickly. Now I find myself randomly thinking “This boy needs therapy!” It’s a bit inconsistent but overall I wound up really enjoying this.
I hated this when it came out, just because it wasn’t Nirvana. I thought it was an insult to the memory of Cobain. That was way too harsh. I don’t hate it anymore and I now realize something that the much younger version of me didn’t: Grohl had more grief than I did about Cobain and at least he did something creative and productive with his. But it’s not a great album. It’s amazing what Grohl could do all alone but too much of this winds up sounding generic. Foo Fighters would get better when they became an actual band.
Almost a great album that veers occasionally into madness. Where It’s At and Devli’s Haircut are two iconic tracks though.
It’s hard for an album to make you feel so many different things all at the same time: nostalgia, joy, sadness. It’s a really solid pop/dance album that still feels fresh today.
Not punk enough to be punk, not prog enough to be prog. Truly annoying, nasally vocals and silly keyboards everywhere. Post-punk, I suppose but it winds up sounding like what would happen if Pink Floyd suddenly forgot how to make music. It’s a slog to get through and there’s not a single track I’m dying to hear again.
I admire Brian Wilson but this album is not the greatest. Despite of really terrific moments it feels unfinished.
Not my favourite Talking Heads. I think this is a step backwards from their first album and the collaboration with Eno winds up making this whole album into a bit of a bland mess. Musically it’s not bad at all but the vocal mix is muddy and Byrne sounds like he’s singing on the other side of a bathroom stall, nothing is clear and it’s all echoes.
Even though I don’t understand the language and can’t truly appreciate the political context, this is still a way better album than many of the other albums on the list. Totally enjoyed the listen.
Has any band ever gotten so much traction out of yelling “Oh yeah yeah? Self Esteem is a nostalgic song but this is a fundamentally boring album that is like what a marketing executive thinks punk rock is.
In the attempt to make heavy metal radio friendly, they’ve produced an album that’s pretty bland. Not pop not metal but something in between that feels dated and sad. Not horrible though, it’s actually pleasant background music.
This is not what I was expecting. An interesting mix of musical styles and an entertaining album with one huge classic in Maggie May. Not my favourite but much better than anticipated.
It’s really an amazing album, that Deep Purple sound is instantly recognizable. Just short of 5 stars in my opinion because it can be a bit repetitive.
Beautiful and sad.
Tedious and charmless, just like Morrissey himself. This album is like “what if a bad Smiths cover band didn’t know any Smiths songs?”