Funky jams. Kind of makes me sad that "music" isn't actual instruments being played anymore. Apart from groovin' and playin', not a lot else going on here. Fine as background music.
Too many random noises sprinkled throughout and silence / nothing musical happening in Moonchild to be Great for me. "In the Court of the Crimson King" is a great track though. I can see peoples' minds being absolutely blown by this when it came out, seeing as they're contemporaries with the likes of the Beatles and the Carpenters. Too experimental and abstract in many sections for my liking though.
I was doing ok on this album until "Sylvia plath" which I thought "oh this song is awful it must be the album closer" but nope! Still 40 minutes of music to go... Entire back half was a slog. Album seems devoid of originality and I can't really imagine why it's on a list of stuff that we "must" listen to before we die
Excellent front half, more like "Very good" back half. Though all the experimental songs there do eventually get goin'. Can hear echoes of later Bowie in the catchiness of the musings.
This album rocks HARD. Love the screaming and the progressive nature of Child In Time. Perfect for headbangin' to. Can hear some glimpses of "Smoke on the Water" through the latter half of the album. Wife hated it.
Not good. Meandering and devoid of melody. "Jean Genie" is ok.
A lot of experimental sounds that are purposefully off-putting. Good tunes lurking underneath it all though, dragged down by "joe the lion" and similar silliness
Ok. Some muddled "freakazoid" and "anti-religion" lyrical messages, accompanied by progressive but tuneless prog-rock meandering. The flute isn't as bad as it could be. Steven Wilson's remaster is really good.
"Talkin World War III Blues" is awful. Same with "I Shall Be Free", this song sucks. A couple of good songs here ("Don't think twice, it's alright" and "Blowin in the wind"), but the rest is just a guy with a terrible singing voice bangin out some chords on an acoustic guitar and rambling.
Happy and jangly, like a Muppets album from the late 70s. Good tunes here, need to give it some repeated plays to let it sink in. Love the optimism and her crystal-clear voice, and Bela Fleck and co sound great as always.
Excruciating to listen to in places, this is a record I had to grit my teeth to get through. I kind of agree with the other reviewers who say it's completely devoid of melody - certainly nothing here will be stuck in my head. Still though, there's something a bit endearing about it... the sheer power and downwards-facing depressed outsiderness of a musician trying to figure it all out, it's at least honest.
Background music cratedigger sample splicing hiphop ish with some random noises thrown in. Not particularly interesting or memorable in any way
So awful I had to pause it to come up for air several times. For someone who poses on the cover as if he dislikes fame, he's certainly trying to court it with these "songs". Heinous lyricism abounds "These are strange days we are living in today Am I straight or am I gay? I hope I'm old before I die I hope I live to see the pope get high" barf "Clean?" made me wonder if this is all tongue in cheek, awful on purpose. There's an imitation Elton John song. The constant overly-dramatic but inauthentic references to death. The obviously self-centered worldview... not for me, I hope I never have to hear this one again
EEEEEEEEE-EH DEEE UHT WIIIIND What is with this guy's pronunciation? Is it a cover for his horrendous singing voice? Every time I think "hmm I might be making some headway with this guy" he then BLASTS off a screechy awful harmonica solo... There's a song that the guitar isn't even tuned right in. Is he trying to offend us? Awful forced rhymes... nah
At least this one was actually sonically interesting. Probably more of a 2.5 but the latter half songs were disconnected between the lyrics and the musical presentation, like they were doing different albums in different rooms and then just got slapped on top of each other.
Straight up jammin'. Comes really close to 'jazz' while staying pretty solidly in 'rock' groove. Varied instrumentation and interesting sounds and production techniques. The harshness of the violin in The Gumbo Variations (and the ridiculousness of the vocals in "Willie the Pimp") holds this back from a 4.
This is nice.
Refreshingly honest. Very punk, but with surprising tenderness at certain points. Brash and noisy, without being grating sonically. The lead singer is electric, as are the other two instrumentalists, and each pull the band in the direction they want, and the others move to catch up, in a super tight fashion.
Front-loaded with a bunch of great songs thrown together on an album that's simply way too long and unfocused to be great itself. High points: "Porcelain", "Why does my heart feel so bad", "Natural Blues" Low points: "Body rock", "South side", entire back half, terrible poetry
Proof that just because things make musical-sounding noise and play in the same key, it doesn't necessarily add up to "music" Some lyrics are way too dark and serious for the stupidly poppy and upbeat instrumentation, like a guy who wasn't part of the band is reading from a lyric sheet for someone else's music and making up the tuneless "melody" as he goes
The hyperbolic praise and mystique around this album is downright silly. Billy Joe set out to write "his own bohemian rhapsody" and then we ended up with two songs in a row about "omg gurls!!!" ? Musically the album is just wall to wall full of power chords, bass following the exact same pattern as the guitar, and lots of crash cymbals. Sonically it's only interesting in a couple of places (hello, middle of "Homecoming"). Features a couple of good, catchy songs ("Holiday", "Wake me up when september ends"). Overall though it just feels really inauthentic and "edgy" for the sake of it. Let's throw in 1 f bomb into our radio hits so that we still can make tons of money from them! While also criticizing the radio / media / whatever lowhanging fruit we can get our hands on! Blegh
Racist, misogynistic violence pornography set to sick beats Dr Dre is a genius with his beat production. Some great flow on display here too. Unexpected nuggets of wisdom and humour abound - Their seeming hypocrisy ("Don't listen to me" on Parental Guidance, "Don't do drugs" on Dope Man, "Don't do women or materialism" on I Ain't Tha 1) seems tongue-in-cheek and self-aware. Too dang much violence and profanity and bravado and machismo for that 5 though.
Boring, repetitive. Preachy Beats aren't that good so it falls flat when they rap about "rhythm making the body move" "Dawn of the dreads" is awful. Album ran out of steam and overran its creative output long before it ran out of play time. Could not wait for it to be over.
Funky jams. Kind of makes me sad that "music" isn't actual instruments being played anymore. Apart from groovin' and playin', not a lot else going on here. Fine as background music.
What a stupid closing track. Help Me Rhonda has the worst "faux fadeout fakeout" ever The rest of it is fine
Kind of gothic-y, sparse. Though I like the sound, there's not a lot going on here, no real reason to return to it.
The supporting shout outs from Hill every few words actually make their words have *less* impact. The skits are tedious. Still, they have talent and can write some earworms.
Clearly she's a talented singer. I struggle with the "women's sexuality female empowerment" vibe while also clearly posing for the male gaze and singing songs written and produced by men... also quite embarrassing album artwork to have on your monitor at work, ha. Album kind of lacks cohesiveness and might be a little too long. The song about her father beating her mom is clearly out of place, and the Spanish elements sprinkled throughout are cool but inconsistent. The rapper popping on for 30 seconds of "Dirrty" felt disrespectful to that genre as a whole.
Every member of the band working hard and working together to create a cohesive sound. Bravo!
Horrible and disconnected, lacking in cohesiveness. Like a guy came up with some beats after hearing that DnB was a thing and then sent it to the singer who was forced to just kind of make up some lyrics and make them fit in tunelessly.
Boring. They're a band, I guess...
Too many random noises sprinkled throughout and silence / nothing musical happening in Moonchild to be Great for me. "In the Court of the Crimson King" is a great track though. I can see peoples' minds being absolutely blown by this when it came out, seeing as they're contemporaries with the likes of the Beatles and the Carpenters. Too experimental and abstract in many sections for my liking though.
"Scorpio" sucks. "The Message" is ok. "The adventures of..." is someone who's just discovered how a dj turntable works. A lot of this is really dated though, and the album leans on good-natured silliness.
Silly and noisy in parts, this album is best when the band is all driving together towards their musical goals. They seemed to run out of inspiration halfway through though and the back half of the album was a slog.
Band isn't entirely playing together in some places in the album, like they just heard the singer come in with a great idea and they all just tried to wing it and play along. Is "Jemima Surrender" about rape? Couldn't wait for it to be over.
Great and groovin. Rhythm sections sounds perfectly in sync. I preferred the "jamacian version" frmo the 2001 "Deluxe edition" bc the bass seems over-emphasized to the point of distortion in the original. This may turn into a 5 with repeated listens.
What terrible mastering, all the loud parts are distorted and over-modulated. Makes you understand how people could listen on super rolled-off speakers or phono cartridges and still think they sound good... Songs are good, rockin and rollin and reelin, good musicianship, will never listen again :)
A Simple Desultory Philippic is both a hit track and apt impression of Bob Dylan? Lol. Either way, it's completely out of place on a bunch of nice songs that go together well by two musicians clearly at their artistic prime.
I was doing ok on this album until "Sylvia plath" which I thought "oh this song is awful it must be the album closer" but nope! Still 40 minutes of music to go... Entire back half was a slog. Album seems devoid of originality and I can't really imagine why it's on a list of stuff that we "must" listen to before we die
Sounds nice, but devoid of creativity or melody or interesting musical ideas. 80s overproduction over meandering instrumentals. This band is like... some guy wrote a bunch of poems, his neighbor happened to run a music studio and said "oh I've got a crack team of musicians who can make this into music for SURE!" then kinda produced this smash of weird lyrics and musical sounding noise with no direction or passion or cohesiveness
Pleasant to listen to , easy on the ears except for some shrill recording segments of her voice, that woman has some serious pipes and range tho.
Straightforward, take no prisoners unrelenting driving rhythms and melodies. Doesn't overstay its welcome (much) at 29 minutes. I guess it could be more varied in its sonics but they know what they're about. I can see a generation of kids picking up a guitar after listening to this and then learning to play along. Is that Cut Copy's Dan Whitford singing the woo-oohs in "I don't wanna walk around with you"? Sounds just like him.
Album has one dated misstep on "And you tell me" but apart from that it's fresh, creative, high-energy, nuanced, complex, and highly catchy.
WAY too much going on with this album.
If you look up "masterpiece" in the dictionary I'm pretty sure it just has this album cover
Pleasant to listen to, calm and soothing
Overhyped. Maybe it "reignited" jangly alt rock at the time, but the actual music just good, not great
You should count the number of times they say the word "yeah" on this album, that'd be a fun project too! Have to ignore the incredibly over-dramatic stereo mix, which is very distracting, to get to the good music. Ethos-wise, the pop world is still living in the hedonistic religion that these guys are espousing. "califonia dreamin" is a banger obviously, but some of the non-singles are a slog.
Imagine you're a disillusioned, disenfranchised youth in 1982... your choices are Olivia Newton John, Joan Jett, or... this. I know which I'm pickin 10 times out of 10! Lyrics are silly and mastering is awful and some of the songs on the back half are a silly slog, but the core guitar work is great. Hard to imagine that this is only 3 guys making so much noise.
Not a big fan of the vibrato technique that she uses. Other than that... it's... fine
from its first note to its last fade-out, this album is packed with sonically boundary-pushing, technologically accomplished, polished melodies, and highly catchy music. One of my favorites (and my father's, and my son's) of all time!
Jangly and whiny, pretty straight-up rock n roll, I'm not sure why people fawn over these guys really. Still, some great hooks and catchy songwriting on the second half of the album. Maybe could improve with a couple more spins.
Refreshingly original and inimitable, this deserves a 5 (until that last song, what were they thinking? save that for a b side)
Another fresh and timeless classic - the opening track still sounds like all doom metal released 55 years later, riffs all over are gargantuan, drumming and basswork are excellent, and Ozzy is ... there Too much meandering in the final track for a 5 but it gets pretty close!
Actually really good. Sounds fresh, features several very impressive cameos, no distracting skits, clearly talented rappers and producers feature, and Timbaland keeps the "sex noises" to a minimum.
Meh. Dated, shrill, boring "Moving Pictures" is much better
Funky grooves! The first half has some real 10/10 bangers, but it takes a turn for the mundane during All About Love
Imagine if you were so creative and such a good musician that you could break out of a "writer's block slump" with a double album spanning multiple genres with varied riffs, instrumentation, etc, for your casual third album in as many years! If only the singer didn't sound like he just got a novacaine shot in his tongue, and they cut out some of the "pretty good" tracks in the middle, this would be a 5. Maybe on repeated listens it'll get up there. A solid sonic onslaught of 65 minutes.
Meticulously-crafted male-female pop rock perfection
It was ok. Jangly americana noise folk that was way too long and mostly just "there" instead of intensely melodic
Some very good songs here, pretty consistent quality throughout, love that it ends with a repetition of "you're not alone"
Idk how a band can be both so noisy and so boring at the same time. I don't get the music industry's preoccupation with these guys and won't remember a single line from this album tomorrow.
Silly. The thing where they trade words back and forth and between different sides of the stereo mix is really distracting and corny. They yell all their lyrics at the exact same tone almost every time. The guitar bits are cool I guess. "You be illin'" is hilarious though, and I'd listen to Rock This Way and It's Tricky again.
I cannot stand these guys. Just a bunch of noise at 500 hz and above, tuneless meandering with pretty instrumentation.
Rockin! Straight up unbelievable to think that this album is contemporary with CSNY's "Deja Vu" which was also "pushing the boundaries of guitar playing" lol
I don't get the hype (recurring theme for this list) Alternates between boring kind of "just there" atmospheric rock, pre-Coldplay influence, and noise. I like the ending song.
British people pretending to be southern Americans? Ok Very annoying singer Last track kind of sounds like it could have come off the Godspell soundtrack
I actually dig the "female krautrock" thing, but the writing could be significantly improved and the singing is nothing special. "Ravenspoint" is a misstep on an otherwise-solid collection of songs. All in all though I just can't fathom why this made the cut for being a must-listen when modern classics like Tame Impala's "Currents" are absent.
First two tracks are jammin', but "where you love" is distractingly bad. Overall good improvisational skills and interesting sounds. I particularly liked where they worked in Western trail music to "Calvary".
Had to listen to this one a couple times to really get a feel for what was going on. It's pretty fragmented in style and scope but the musical ideas laid out all have merit - I just feel like they could have gone together better with more time in the studio maybe. Overall though it's a high energy romp. And another appearance of the Cut Copy oOOoooOOs in "Smash It Up"!
Good synthesis of New Wave synth music and "rock and roll" writing, with plenty of well-deserved hits
Hated almost every second of this. Angular guitar noises, terrible voice, bad melodies, silly do-wap 60s stuff. Maybe it hit in 1965 or whatever and made the ladies go crazy, but I'm no 1965 16 year old girl. "going home" is about 11 minutes too long. Misogyny abounds. Not sure how people can like this stuff.
Lots of meaning behind the supposedly-simple lyrics, and great melodic flow. also, "till the morning comes" is one of the best songs ever.
Idk what to think about this one really. It's full of bad messages (Outlaw) but also good ones? (Young N******z, Dear Mama, Can U Get Away). The flow is great, the beats are consistently excellent, his more "philosophical" stuff is eye-opening, but every other word is the N or F word...
So bad. One guy pressing a note on a synthesizer for whole songs, random "white guy rap" breaking out, heavy metal blast beats, whiney singing, 10k treble spike and hollowed out mids at 250hz, 0 bass under 100hz... nearly unlistenable. Woodpecker From Mars is cool (without lyrics, I'll point out), if the bass weren't playing all the way up at 2khz that'd be great. War Pigs is probably the best effort here, but - it's just a worse version of the Black Sabbath song it's covering (which is excellent). Last song is a whiney hard rock snarl about a pedophile played over jazzy piano? oooooook It could be good (or at least "better") if they could settle on one style and get a decent sound engineer.
It's fine. Trip-hop beats and soul singin
Fine until that last track, which is a giant waste of time
This is a 3 "I liked it" brought up by "Every Breath You Take" which is one of the best songs of all time. Immediately following that with "King of Pain" and "Wrapped Around your Finger", which also appear on the Police's Greatest Hits album, is a great run. "Mother" is awful and completely out of place here - leaves the album feeling disjointed and not very "synchronous." The rest of it is there, being Police-y
Annoying. The audio is so compressed and her voice so grating that I can't get past the sound to the "cool" neo-soul stuff going on (which is not that original itself). Let's throw some profanity and drug / sex addiction glorification on grandma's favorite music and make people pine for a fake past! One has to wonder how much different this would be if it weren't Amy fronting this band, something tells me it'd be almost all the same because Mark Ronson did all the hard work here and she just penned some angry jealous self-destructive lyrics to smash on the top.
4 tracks in and I'm making bets with myself about whether this album will go above 60 bpm at all... truly horrible so far. "(he's got the) whole world in his hands" sounds like it was recorded in a can by a potato. New York City Song is decent but still ... never gonna listen to this album again.
Raspy-voiced dude moanin' and blowin' a harmonica over acoustic guitar is not for me. I'm sure there's someone out there who enjoys this...
Jammin' them down-low blues. Exquisite guitar work. The deluxe version flows better but is super dang long. Imagine being so good that you could play a guitar solo essentially for 2 hours...
I liked it. Good tunes, good accompaniment, a little "disney choir" at times, and combining Vol 1 and 2 makes it way too long, but it's a pleasant listen at least.
Hated it. Every second was like torture to my ears. When I thought it couldn't get any worse, it hit "Honky Tonky Angels" or whatever and this went from a -1 to a -2 Would rather endure physical violence than listen to this again.
"woohoo my band and I can make some noise"
Too much silliness abounds in this album to concentrate on it or take it seriously. The highs are pretty high ("Me Myself and I", sampling Steely Dan, the one with the yodeling, the wordplay throughout about "jenifa") but the lows (the skits, the orgee, some of the boring "yeah I'm so great" stuff near the end) drag it down. I respect the originality on display here, but taken at face value it sounds more like an experimental mixtape than an influential album that I'd want to listen to again.
I need to spend more time with this one. It's kind of "intentionally off-kilter" which makes it a jarring listen, but... it's supposed to be like that. The last song is very good.
Fine. Sounds like music! Trippy lyrics and instrumentation. His voice and vocal delivery style remind me a lot of Nick Drake.
Why is this on this list? Very uneven. The rap song is awful.
Punk meets American blues? Really interesting concept. Lyrics veer into "profound" territory. Melodic grooves really get going in the latter halves of the longer songs. "The Doors" vibes for sure. Too much "intentional noise" to be a "really liked it" but there's definitely something here.
djooour SKEEEEEEEINNNN oh yeah I SKIIIN AND BOOOOOONES turn EEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIN to something BEAUTIFULLLL Brilliant (debut!) album from a brilliant band. Each member contributes equally, I miss this version of "awkwardly excellent college kids" Coldplay before they turned into the Chris Martin Pop Hit Machine
The opening chord! The best guitar solo ever! The orchestral reprise halfway through the album! Predicting the demise of the band as well as American capitalism in the last track! What a great album.
Pretty good pretty good, need more time with it. Bittersweet Symphony is obviously the standout, and the rest lacks compelling hooks. Pleasant noise though.
A marvel of building, swirling sonic design, blended with impeccable beats, catchy melodies, and a timeless message of scandalous fidelity. One of my favorites of all time.
reminds me of a worse John Denver. So many waltzes. Boring. Twangy. Grating and irritating by "Blue Canadian Rockies"
Very annoying
Big throwback to the Pandora days. Pretty varied album actually. The highs are really high. The filler on the back half of the album I definitely could have died without having listened to.
big brass band Jammin' (reminds me a bit of mardi gras music) and singing about Africa. Not much here but not bad as background music.
the trumpet hitting the highest notes it can hit ever might be the most annoying noise in the world. Otherwise, fine, but not my jam. A blitz of notes that sound like they go together but lack "song"ness
Wow never have I known that an album was going to get a 1 so fast. Still, I persisted and listened to the whole thing. The guitar tone is discordant with the general honky-tonky vibes in some places, more of a new wave tone than twangy. Odd
Kind of sounds like my aunt with a southern accent? Use of growling technique all over is distracting, but goodness can that woman belt em out
Jangly and same-y, but "And I love her" is a great track
Imitation Beatles. "Band 6" is stupid. "Mr Webster" I guess is their "Eleanor Rigby". "Shades of Grey" is worse Simon and Garfunkel. "Zilch" we're back into stupid territory. Had an awful time forcing myself to listen to this.
Wow what a refreshing change after an awful Monkees album. Blistering guitar speed, varied song structures, a good length. Only thing holding this back from a 5 right off the bat is that I don't recognize anything on the album and it's not very "hooky"
I started this journey with a "judge the album by how consistently truthful it is" and this... happens to be the most truthful album I've heard yet. Incredibly challenging to listen to (that's the point), "Kim" is the worst there, and "Ken Kaniff" is a close second. Clearly he's enjoying playing the line between "am I insane or is it all a joke?" and he runs both directions while exploring that theme. It's immature, incredibly vulgar, disrespectful, violent, misogynistic, homophobic, racist... but again, that's the point. In a world devoid of morals because it's rejected God, this kind of behavior is, idk, expected. The beats are awesome and would be a pleasure to listen to without any lyrics. I'm going to knock a star off because the guest appearances seem like clowns next to Eminem's effortless flow.
My right ear heard a little James Brown and a lot of screaming
Being black and LSD-level creative musical free association are two things I don't identify with. He sounds like a poet though. There's genius here but maybe it's not for me? Can hear the fingerprints all over Blackstar though. That last track through where he brings it all together is boss.
Just rock n roll Noise. I liked the introduction of the sax most of the way through though.
Ahh the 80s, when everyone chased this man's prolific output. Overlong by 40 minutes, boring 80s drum machines, way overproduced tuneless pieces about havin sex with everyone walking around, danny elfman-level sound effects and silliness "I could never take the place of your man" is nice, but it also appears to have actual instruments, so it's a misplacement on the album. His music videos are great, high-energy cast of millions affairs, but they significantly improve on what's in the music.
Pleasant sounds in a language I don't understand... I guess I can die now that I've heard this album
Really liked this, nice harmonic rhythms, varied sonics, tuneful melodies . It's no "Out Of Time" but it's still very nice
I listen to this album every October on repeat. Meticulously crafted, funky pop perfection
Boring, slow, repetitive, and uninspired. "Essential" albums shouldn't sound so lame that I could have recorded them in my basement without any musical experience or skill.
Really enjoyed this. Latin vibes, pretty well-recorded, high energy, not annoying in its use of percussion, instant mood booster - makes me want to throw a cocktail party or eat guacamole!
My 8 year old son while listening: "why does it sound like he's just turning the pitch knob on my moog modular analog synth?" My 6 year old daughter: "I'm falling asleep, this is really boring. It wasn't so bad when he was singing" Overlong, boring, repetitive, sounds like it was recorded inside a can of Pringles. Terrible synth work. Horrible monologues. Why did they think in the 70s that spring reverb sounded anything like space?
Horribly meandering, over-ambitious, terribly mastered, and yet very fun and silly. We used to listen to a MIDI file of the title track "BATOUT.mid" all the time growing up while playing the board game Payday, and for that it brings the score up to a 3
Enjoyable jams with unique latin twists and guitar wails
Pretty easy-listening, sparse instrumentation, tight harmonies, and yet I still hated it - something about it reminds me of grating nails on a chalkboard. Super simple blues chords with a bunch of boring aimless guitar noodling in the background
I liked the funkier electronic dance tracks but hated all the violence inherent in some of the darker stuff
Really enjoyed this, listened to it a couple of times in a row. Soft sonic textures and a lot of variety for a "folk singer" in the 80s
Great album but has its weak points, feels like it was rushed a bit in production, which would explain the strange choice to add some live songs instead of doing those in the studio as well as the rest of the album... "The Boxer" and the title track are absolute bangers.