Pretentious lyrics, bad singing. Complex mixing with interesting choices.
The singer couldn't be arsed to go to the studio, so someone held a phone up to the microphone. And he phoned it in. The songs are too similar. Tempo, texture, and the constant, busy, busy, busy rhythms combined with monotone singing. This band was part of the early 2000s glut of plural-noun-named bands trying to reinvent The Kinks. Not much to see here. Just go listen to The Kinks.
The "singer" mostly talks and moans through constant distortion. There are occasional attempts to carry a tune, but she mostly relies on charisma and simply doesn't have enough. The guitar and drums try heroically, but the singer's limited range and lack of melody keep the band chained to mediocrity. A grating and terrible experience.
Not particularly catchy or accomplished. Middle of the road alternative rock from the mid '90s. Boring.
Basic hymnal structure, folk style instruments, repetitive and boring.
Strange mix with vocals too low. Cobain's repetitive style has not aged well. Love his guitar solos though.
Pretentious lyrics, bad singing. Complex mixing with interesting choices.
Band sounds good, especially guitar. Can't stand Morissey's sense of melody. Repetitive and awful, same from song to song. Could not get through even half before I ragequit.
Historically important but very predictable 70 years later. All 12-bar blues progressions. Great performance though.
Total shit. Awful singer, boring songwriting. Did not make it through two songs.
A landmark concept album in hip-hop. Lamar combines lyricism, storytelling, allegory, passion, and high-fidelity production in this masterpiece.
The first song is a 1-4-5 chord progression, the most common in Western popular music. Second song is a 1-4. Third song is a 1-4. Fourth song sounds like a 5-4-1. Ok, the songwriting is crap, got it. How about the singer and band? Middling and lousy. An amateur production all the way down. I wondered why I hadn't heard of this album. Now I know why. Lazer Guided Turd.
A strangely flaccid band, as if some accountants and librarians decided to make some music but didn't want to be too loud about it. Listening to them is like writing your name with a wet noodle. You can do it, but why would anyone want to? Their rhythm is constant and busy, the recording is thin and trebly, Stipe's singing is weird and morose. But it's a strong debut record for its originality, even if I don't like what they do. I wish they had maintained this experimental spirit as they went on, instead of moving into a more mainstream-friendly sound.
Bizarrely distant, high gloss production does not match the singer's confessional point of view. Rough lyrics and frankly lousy speak-singing throughout. This might have been a solid album with a more natural, intimate sound. A few good moments but totally forgettable.
A very clean and sanitized recording of reggae compared to what is produced in Jamaica, but it's a timeless sound with Marley's beautiful voice and spirit animating the songs.
What a beautiful voice. Very unusual to hear a woman singing with men providing the background vocals.
This album has aged terribly. It was huge when it came out, but it sounds so small now. Weak melodies, safe chord progressions, busy bass guitar, passionless guitar, and Bono singing like a drunken hack at karaoke night. I'm surprised at how amateur the band sounds, even though they had long been professionals by this time. Boring and nearly talentless.
A pastiche of 90s sounds here. Some moments are clearly Sonic Youth, or Nirvana, or Pixies, sometimes in quick succession. But the core sound is a low-talent college band. The singer is especially under-accomplished. Not impressed at all by this album. Why wasn't a better band given this opportunity?
Solid debut by a blues rock band that hadn't found its style quite yet. There are a couple zingers here, but their best was yet to come.
Flaccid, self-absorbed, inoffensive. This band does nothing for me. They have a distinctive sound; I'll give them that. But it's a whiny, jangly sound I don't want to hear.
Boring and safe, with nothing risked. It sounds like the hardest and most interesting life experience for this band was that time they came in 3rd at the county fair Battle of the Bands, only because the mayor's son was in the band that won and his friend was in the band that placed second. Boring music for boring people.
Beautiful, impressionistic piano from a jazz master. The trio has an almost telepathic connection. Doesn't swing like Thelonius or Garner, but it's a gentle, soothing sound. A great entree to jazz for someone new.
Other than the title track, this album is forgettable. It sounds like a pale imitation of Motown combined with some lousy folk music. The songs are spent after one minute and don't go anywhere else. I'm annoyed before the end of each one. Guess you had to be there.
The singer couldn't be arsed to go to the studio, so someone held a phone up to the microphone. And he phoned it in. The songs are too similar. Tempo, texture, and the constant, busy, busy, busy rhythms combined with monotone singing. This band was part of the early 2000s glut of plural-noun-named bands trying to reinvent The Kinks. Not much to see here. Just go listen to The Kinks.
A few moments of interesting noises scattered throughout 45 minutes of crap. It's as if an art student turned in their sketchbook for their final project. How and why is this an album?
Brilliant pop from the 1960s about coming of age in a more innocent and puritanical time. Complex harmonic structure and melody are combined with unusual instrumentation. Unfortunately, Brian Wilson's bizarre, perpetual falsetto has aged poorly. To modern ears, it's a weird affectation. Still a great album.
Very impressive album for its time. Ambitious song structures and complex instrumentation. I think this is the earliest I've heard double bass drum, which would become a staple of metal about 10 years later. I can forgive most of the far out sojourns and weird free jazz parts here and there. Alas, I have to deduct a star for pretentious lyrics and over-long songs.
Beautiful harmonies and voices from a close-knit group. It's nice to remember people used to carry a tune without using software or going hog wild with melisma. The mix is very odd for being in the early days of stereo (all the drums on one side, all the singers on the other, for example). The songs are well-crafted and executed.
Full instrumentation with a funky '70s sound. The songs are structurally simple and repetitive vamps. Best consumed in small doses, not as an entire album.
Paul Simon's songwriting is mature, subtle and fantastically inventive. Garfunkel's gentle tenor floats beautifully through each song. The instrumentation is ambitious, perhaps too grand for the intimate nature of the songs, but it's hard to fault this album for its execution.
Some fun rockabilly with a slight post punk edge. It wears thin after a whole album, but it's a good time in smaller doses.
Excellent songwriting, beautiful melodies, poetic lyrics. Stylistically, it's a little scattered, as Simon explores some new sounds. His vocal range is limited and not quite up to the job of being the lead, but his sincerity makes up for a lot.
A strong record full of the Zeppelin swagger. A couple of albums later, they would become more complacent with their success, but here they are still hungry and intense. All four band members show their chops, along with their powerhouse chemistry as a group. No band rocked harder than these guys.
Seems like this was the right song at the right time. Numan's songwriting is basic and repetitive, although he has a knack for catchy hooks and more willingness to leave space in his arrangements than most folks tend to. Still, it's basically one synthesizer patch (aptly called Vox Humana from a Moog), and it's basically the same song again and again. Interesting in its moment and the cutting edge of the '80s, but it doesn't hold up well out of context.
Pretentious, busy, empty. These guys have no heart and no loins. Nothing passionate or sexy or gritty or real, just noodly nonsense. As usual, the mixing is fantastic, with every instrument clearly audible. If only they had just mixed other people's records and never made their own, we would all be happier.
The guitars go jun jun jun jun jun jun while the drums go dun dun chick dun dun dun chick dun dun dun chick. To mix it up, sometimes there's a piano that goes jonk jonk jonk jonk or an acoustic guitar that goes chuck chuck chuck chuck. And the guy sings like Springsteen with his balls in a vise. Every song.
The "singer" mostly talks and moans through constant distortion. There are occasional attempts to carry a tune, but she mostly relies on charisma and simply doesn't have enough. The guitar and drums try heroically, but the singer's limited range and lack of melody keep the band chained to mediocrity. A grating and terrible experience.
His voice is a rich combination of Seal, Little Richard and Michael Jackson. The music is typical late '80s fare, with sparkling digital synthesizers and drum machines. Terence / Sananda has the unfortunate tendency to reach past his grasp vocally, resulting in some awkward moments of strain. The songs would be stronger if he reined himself in. Still, he has a compelling presence and could have matured into a great artist following this album.
Sounds like Nigel from Spinal Tap did a reggae project. Utter shite.
A beautiful voice, strong personality and bold vision. Unfortunately, the theatrics of the album concept often get in the way of making good music here. I would love to hear her approach songwriting with a little less bombast so that her voice can take the spotlight.
Lethargic, dull, uninspired. She sounds drunk and half asleep. The lyrics are the caliber you'd expect from an amateur at an open mic night on a Tuesday in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A low-rent Sheryl Crow, at least she sounds like a real person and not a 50-foot tall pop monstrosity, but that's the most praise I can give.
Jack White has plenty of style. I have to give him credit, even if it's not really my thing. He sings like a strained, smaller Robert Plant, and this band conspicuously lacks bass. Well done for what it is.
Grace Slick is not everyone's cup of tea, but there's no denying the arresting power of her voice. Her strong persona shines through, in what feels like a groundbreaking venture from folk into psychedelia. The other musicians are accomplished and bold, and they're a tight group. A solid album.
A crucial album as the West Coast sound took over the '90s. Snoop has endless charisma as an MC, even if his rhymes aren't intricate. Dr. Dre's synthesizer and beats heralded a new era. Unfortunately, this also meant the end of what we now call the Golden Age of hip-hop. Several aspects of this new era were corrosive. The glorification of misogyny, gang violence, sexual violence, and self-aggrandizing took the place of introspection, political awareness, spirituality, or community solidarity. As much as I enjoyed this album in its time, I resent it now for its harmful impact on hip-hop and the broader culture.
Brooding and dark, a little hobbled by the trebly, thin sound of the recording. The remastered version sounds much better, although the drums still sound gutless. Somehow, the sum of often lackluster parts (such as the guitar playing two notes over and over) is a coherent, bleak, punk-informed take on life. An impressive debut.
Annie Lennox has a fantastic voice and bold personal style. These songs are too simple and boring to live beyond their time, however. The title song is the only one you need to hear.
Sleepy and inoffensive, as if crafted to disappear into the background. It's strange to hear a singer back off the intensity where it would naturally rise, for fear of being too noticeable. Why do I need to hear an album that is trying not to be heard? I do not. One star for the music, two for the high-fidelity recording.
Parliament/Funkadelic/George Clinton are highly creative and influential. They have some terrific songs that have propagated into hip hop. And this album is hot garbage. There are a few good moments, but they are too few and too scattered to save this mess. Every song goes on far too long. It's a cycle of being interested, bored, annoyed and then furious as the seventh minute rolls into the eighth and they keep doing all the same things from the first minute. A horrible experience from a great band.
Sophisticated wankery. No idea who would want to hear this. Technical, grandiose and boring
Paul McCartney is too light-hearted and cheeky for the '70s. His style played very well in the '60s, but the next decade called for more grit and more style. These songs are well crafted, but they're innocent to the point of boredom.
I don't know what it is about Nick Cave, but his songs do absolutely nothing for me.
Not particularly catchy or accomplished. Middle of the road alternative rock from the mid '90s. Boring.
Whether you love or hate Frank Black, he never phones it in. But I hate him.
Beautiful and brilliant. Coltrane usually plays too many notes for my liking, but he's in great form here. This album is sublime.
Perhaps the best album of all time.
His voice is not for me. Too thin and quavering and self-indulgent. The production is a slightly over-processed, with a distinctly '90s sound that hasn't aged well. And the songs are too long for how little happens in them.
Total hoax, the product of focus groups and market research. Polishing every rough edge of the production to a sparkle is directly at odds with the attempt to be edgy. Shirley Manson plays the role of dominatrix, ingenue, crazy desperate girlfriend, sex doll. It is engineered for suburban teenage masturbation. You might as well go buy a T-shirt at the mall that says "I'm a rebel."
I didn't think anyone could be more boring than Fatboy Slim.
Without question, Wilson is a highly inventive songwriter, capable of complex harmonies and chord progressions. But this album has two major flaws: First, Wilson is too old for the youthful tone he seeks here. He needed to adapt the album to his much older sensibility, or record it 5 decades ago. Second, it's just too much of him. Too many stacked layers of his odd falsetto and weird vocal rhythms. He needed more musicians to fill out the sound, even if he's the mastermind. It would have been brilliant in the '60s, but it's an odd anachronism decades later.
Janis Joplin has one gear, and it's not for me.
Every vocal part sounds like a 5-year-old chanting during a game of hopscotch. Repetitive and childlike. She does an affected rise in pitch at the end of each phrase. After 5 minutes of it, I want to die. There are some interesting electronic textures, but they go nowhere. Every song feels like the dentist drill.
No-talent hack. Layer a few samples and collect a paycheck. Fuck this guy.
A beautiful album by a beautiful person.