There's a nightclub, empty, except for some reason all the missing people's drinks are on the tables, and smoke still curls through the air. There are two kids with complicated feelings and precocious pop instincts. The nightclub is about seven miles across and three miles high, the kids are recording their songs about a quarter inch from the mics. The rhythm section is tight and plays only exactly what it needs to.
Almost perfect collage of tight beats, hippie-dippy dreams, and folk-hop-edelica. As the immortal Bard wrote: "Going back to Houston / Do the hot dog dance. / Going back to Houston / To get me some pants."
Old weird America gut checks the excesses of 60s psychedelia, and though it rocks, all that mournful organ and cracked three part singing are lonesome, strange, and sad. I mean, hard to think of another album that has more tragic opening and closing songs.
No way I can rate this rationally. I was a huge REM devotee and when this came out I listened to it nonstop. Saw them seven times on the Green tour. I stand by my love of this record: pop irony, hard rock grind, delicate beautiful weirdness. It's probably not even in the top 5 REM albums, but it is for me a 5 star classic.
The Monkees or maybe the Byrds, but amped up and fuzzy, with some dance beats and long solos. Plus acid. Even more acid than the Monkees and the Byrds. I know there's a lot of love for this record, but I listened three times today: while there are some huge hooky gems, there is a fair bit of filler. Hate to lose any Anglophilic cred, but I think this album is overrated.
A masterpiece of shamanic ritual urban apocalypse chant that devastates with its chaos of noise and poetry, laying bare the existential wreckage of late capitalism.
JK! This sounds like some bros set out to make a "confrontational" and "off-putting" piece of "art" and having now listened to it in full, I can say this tedious and insipid grind of a record put me off. You did it, guys!
(I actually kind of love Drum's Not Dead, so this was a revelation--and not the good kind)
Super 70s tight musicianship, complex white guy blues/R&B/jazz so perfect it must have taken a whole gang of cocaine to get it all together. I don't love Steely Dan, but there are a few really good, interesting, sonically rich songs on this one, as well as a few mid throwaway wank jobs.
I came prepared to hate this. I have held a grudge against UB40 ever since my high school girlfriend taped the insipid overplayed cheesefest 'Labour of Love' over my tape of 'Rain Dogs'. Unforgivable. I gave this a legit listen and the dub elements, honey smooth voiced lead singer, and insurgent politics made some of it pretty okay. But a lot of too long reggae-lite.
Love the sweet soul samples, excellent beats, rich texture, Alvin and the CMs pitched up gospel, and then I realized it's early Kanye before he broke bad. So, now I have mixed feelings. Common sounds great, and while a few of the tracks lack, all in all a good Friday soundtrack.
The kids are looking back on when they were kids, and it is still angsty, grandiose, and chock full of the big feels. The songs are complex--at times verging on busy--and the record is a bit too long, but the whole is punchily raw and honest. I can imagine screaming along at a stadium show, at age 55 recalling myself at 27 looking back on being 16.
John fucking Prine. This record is not a greatest hits collection; it just feels that way. Almost every song on this record is a pure classic: he's funny, he's incisive, he tells stories, he is sad as hell. Seriously, this is better songwriting than 99% of anybody. And I used to feel like Prine was overproduced, but this is gorgeously done. Crushingly good. An American treasure.
Bob who? Blonde on what? Hmm. Intriguing.
In all seriousness, c'mon, 10 out of 5 stars. One of the best things ever.
Not a big Beach Boys guy, even though I know that heaps of indie hipsters praise their perfect pop symphonies and this record is always in the top 10 all time lists. The album really is sugary but longing and sad, richly overlapping, soaring, baroque. Some hugely great single songs (I really like Sloop John B and Wouldn't It Be Nice), but some very skippable others. It's like a tiramisu: lots of layers, complexly sweet, with a darker underlying bitterness. And like tiramisu, I would not want it everyday, and there are some empty calories.
Throughout high school, Zeppelin was constantly on. Non-stop, and not played by me--in cars, on radio, everywhere. So it is hard to hear these songs anew, but I tried. I think III is my favourite Zeppelin album, but I will say, what I used to think was trippy acoustic art, now I think the last two songs are meh. But some killers on here.
I have to confess: I have never heard this record before. After OK Computer I was kind of just out on Radiohead. Dips into the subsequent records never grabbed me. And this one didn't really either, though I admire many of its textures, sounds, and ideas. And there are some killer songs, the second one especially. But not grabbed.
I am at the borders of offended, maybe just checking into the hotel of irked, that they made me listen to this. The same drum machine beat, with really bad filler lyrics, between an occasionally okay hook on a few of the songs: super formulaic, dumb as a box of hair (and not in a good way), mediocre at best.
Never have really listened to Eminem, beyond the singles that proliferated on the radio late 90s early 00s. Conceptually wild: self-loathing, hateful, mean-spirited, witty. He so deliberately straddles the line between game and earnest. He's a troll in the pre-troll era. Of its so-muchness, I found it compelling on poverty. The cluttered production has its moments. But I'm not going to buy the album, or probably ever listen to it again. Maybe his misogyny, homophobia, cruelty is ironic, but in this day and age, that might be lost on listeners.
Loved this. Muddy and the whole band sound all loose, reckless, in to it. Mannish Boy is a jam, but tons of the other songs were kicking it. The drummer is an assassin and everybody sounds awesome. Fun one.
I kinda just want to be in that nightclub with a stiff drink in a non-Trumpian era, listening to Vaughan kill it with that spare jazz ensemble. She sounds excellent.
Hurtling chaotic traditional Irish songs with gorgeous writing and ripping energy. And I love Shane's voice. This is a stone cold classic.
Just quickly: I am with EJR here: 20 albums (for me) so far and only one woman in that run, but we are getting a second Arcade Fire record. Admittedly, it is an incredible record: aching, longing, mourning, aging, feeling (a lot). Reminder that songs aren't nouns but verbs.
But meanwhile Aretha, Joni, Madonna, Lucinda, Diana, Stevie, Billie, Nina, Chrissie, Tina and so many more need some space in the algorithm.
I love this record. Copeland's drums, some great songs (ignore the cringey "Any Other Day"), early edgy Police sliding into their heyday. And I have always loved 'Walking on the Moon'. Plus, funny story (so you can ignore): after years of not having a turntable, my kid bought me a vinyl LP of this, because he thought we had a record player. Instead of returning it, I bought a turntable. And many records since. And I love it. So 5 stars to the Police.
Occasionally enjoyable hard funk(ish) that sounds like 90s alternative radio to me. Pretty monotonous. A few things: I find the lead singer insufferable in terms of his croony affect and his often dumb ass lyrics. Also, these 90s records often really drag and I wonder if they would have benefited from being released in the vinyl era. CDs can hold too much, and the 45ish max minutes of an LP might have helped them edit. Pass.
Almost all classics. I am not big into S&G but some of my faves on here. Only Living Boy in NY!
Never been wowed by BritPop, even though I was living there in its heyday--maybe that's why: it was on the radio nonstop. So this one feels pretty overrated to me. I know it's blur's masterpiece and all, but even the hits are kind of a drag. I kind of liked "This is the Low" at the end, but quite a few I wanted to fast forward. I'm not Cool Britannia enough to get it
Truly never have even heard of this, which kind of made it fun to figure out as I listened: big bang 80s drums, relentlessly earnest 80s lyrics, and some real easy cheesy listening arrangements, mixed in with flashes of country, synth, drama, and Jeebus. I can't say I liked it, but kind an entertaining experience. Why it's one of the 1001 records remains a puzzle. I guess 1001 is a lot.
She has an amazing voice--obviously--and some of the songs swing for the fences, but I found the album pretty meh. All same tempo, by and large the same kind of big voiced a.m. radio ballads, all of them about lost love long ago, and nary a whisper of wit, humour, complexity--a lot of general platitudinous stuff. Blah. Great vocalist but I wonder if she's a great singer. That said, I mean, if you are coming to Adele, you are coming for amazing vocals about lost love long ago, so....
Wake up in a wooden panelled bungalow in southern California. Headache, blurry vision, mouth full of sand. Cigarette ashes in the shag carpet. The din of Watergate hearings, Bob Dylan covers, and the bitter end of the summer of love rings in your head. Crisped, brittle, tired of it all. Walk to the porch. Sun is glorious, sky crystalline blue, a cool rush of ocean wind. Stare out there until things are clear, ramshackle, epiphanic.
Q: How much cocaine does it take to fly the cosmofunkin Afronauts to utopian galaxy of grooves?
A: Funkadelic
I love this album: long jams, Hendrixy guitar, deep soulful bounce, and door (and wall) blowing songs that are about political, sexual, rocktacular freedom.
More BritPop! This is fine: grandiose, symphonic, dramatic. And some huge hits. And who hasn't listened to 'Bittersweet Symphony' ten thousand times?
After hearing about this band for years--like reading Rolling Stone articles in the 80s--I think this is the first time I ever listened to the record. Aggro old school rock and roll Chuck Berry style, souped up and made frenetic. A little dramarama. Loved the energy and the vibe.
Messy, weird, but it works. It's cool to think of this fusion of hippie and country the same year as Woodstock, but the slide guitar guy is great, Gram can sing, and the songs are amazing.
OMG. Sweet sugar rush of power hooks and amazingly made pop songs. Harmonies, jangle, big chords. Excellent tight record and almost every song is a win.
Ceaseless string section fills
Robo-space voice
Beatles wannabe songs
Rococo excessive production
E.L. Hell, No
Love this record. Neil is all ornery and ragged and the band locks in, and you might think a 4 minute two note guitar solo is not a good idea, but here it is. Neil and Crazy Horse rock on this like scrappy aggro minimalists.
In 1983, when my cousins from Wisconsin visited and let me have their dubbed tape of this record, it was like this strange funny angsty world opened up. Acoustic punk plus teenage romanticism and naivety caving in to sex and death and drugs and rage--but in a good way. Wore the tape out. Bought my own. And I still love the violin solo on Good Feeling.
A very pretty record; their voices are so rich, sometimes raspy achey, sometimes soaring, plus the interlocking parts of many of the songs are kind of amazing. Really good, if not great.
Listening, I thought this was so 90s, but maybe that's because it was ahead of its time. Synthy, wild, pop/r&b. I don't love this record--except Buffalo Stance of course--but I respect it.
Look, I have my issues with Led Zeppelin. They are personal, aesthetic, political, and more. But for this one, driving for hours in the BC mountains, I just let this sort of happen (and did not focus on the lyrics--never focus on Led Zeppelin lyrics), and holy motherfucking fuck. This is their *first* record? Some of these songs are really pretty awesome.
I love the cover photo. Muddy looks tight. A famous blues recording historically, because of riots I think, and the band sounds great, Muddy is on, and I like "Mojo Working" a lot. I feel like I need to add the dumb white guy "I just don't get the blues" proviso: the genre has such strict formalisms, and I know the sophisticated subtleties and play within the strict forms are part of the brilliance and pleasure of the genre, so it's on me to learn to hear that, but usually for me it's work with diminishing returns. How deep do I need to dive to 'get' it? Nothing against Waters' kickassery.
Okay, yes: one of the greatest American vocalists takes on one of the greatest American songwriting canons, and it's really good. I especially like the more swinging renditions--like "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" or "I Got Rhythm". But not sure this should count as an 'album'. Might be too much. Hella lotta Ella.
Weird. At times, a groovy record to get down with your lady on the thick shag carpet. At times, a nicotine stained conversion van with an airbrushed mural headed downtown. At times, elevated elevator music. At times, some freaky post-Bitches Brew experimentalism.
Dear Aerosmith + Run DMC 'Walk this Way' and Beastie Boys:
You owe us an apology.
Signed,
Everyone ever
P.S. I feel really guilty even giving this douche one stream.
One might want to not like this nepo-baby super-hyped cool kids record, but one cannot choose that option: it's pretty great.
Some Lou Reed vocals, a few Television guitar solos, but really, it's the sweet hooks with long grooves. Not a lot of range, but what they do, they do really well.
The sort of extreme earnestness but also trying-so-hardism of this kind of 60s psychedelic folkiness just bugs me: the ridiculous lyrics, the meandering recorder, the breathy spacey singing, weak-ass drumming. However, Slick is amazing on the two big hits, and the acoustic guitar instrumental is gorgeous.
From the searing genius guitar solo that opens this to the funk-freak show (and bodily function?) saga that shuts it down, this is awesome. Psychedelic without that earnest showiness, weird, rocking, funny, incisive. Brilliant record.
Sure that one song is great, but I feel like there are other better hard swinging big bands. This set did not stand out for me.
Dreary and tedious post-Britpop Britpop. Meh.
Love this record. Soul, jazz, R&B, hip hop: she puts it all together in an intense millennial complexity.
I think the algorithm has a thing for Damon Albarn. Sheeezus. This one has a few great songs and you can feel them pushing away from BritPop, but I am still not won over.
Such a great record. While it feels so much of its time, I love the vibe. 'Can I Kick It' all day long
My kid is super into this album, this artist: the drama, the persona, the lyrics. So it was kind of fun to give it a listen. She has her lane and she knows what she is doing and she is super good at it. Her work is so American in this alt-pop unsettling nostalgic way that seems so different from the nostalgia for American that is so rife right now and unsettling for very different reasons. Very solid.
This is an intense, weird, angular, discordant record with moments that are all gross and messy and explosive and moments that are crazily lovely. It's dark. Sonic Youth were never on my radar in the 80s, early 90s, and I have always felt like a loser that I don't know their music well, but a year or three back, Goo and Daydream Nation went into my rotation, and now this one will as well.
Unbelievable transcendent performance by one of the truly great greats. The Stax band is pure smoke, Otis is on top of them all, and the songs are killer: the trifecta of Cooke tribute numbers and his three originals crush. You can make a case this is the greatest soul album ever made. The universe was utterly robbed when he died in that plane crash. No number of stars is enough.
Basically, there are the two 'hits': I really like the ironic synthy pop of 'Time to Pretend' and the more melancholy thick fuzz of 'Kids' is good enough. But otherwise, the songs are just kind of mediocre, though the proggy new wave disco production has its cool textural moments. I don't know, it's fine.
Do I need a jam-packed and nearly exhausting space robot musical crammed with Bowie and Prince impersonations, Fairport Convention lilt, future-R&B, and *so* many ideas? Turns out I don't really, but I do respect the ever living hell out of Monae's creativity and ambition.
Even after giving this an earnest listen, which was kind of fun because I really only identify the Bee Gees with their SNF hits, I can't say I understand why this is a must-hear album. I mean it sounds like third-rate Beatles souped up with aspirations of grandeur and a lot of strings. But third-rate Beatles can still be okay--I like Israel for example--but the deep cheese of so many of these songs is painful.
I know they are let's say heavily borrowing from 80s post-punk and new wave, and I know that the music-cognoscenti like to diss them for being all flash and no bang, but I have never listened to the Killers before, aside from hearing that single "Mr. Brightside" a bunch, and there are some fun post-punk-pop songs here, especially in the first half. Hooks, synths, big drums, moods. Not great, but pretty good on a bike ride to the dentist in the summer.
This is the shit. I don't know what downtown punks, late 70s aesthetes, cocaine fuelled non-neurotypical angels normally get up to, but damn. Dada lyrics that don't make sense that make sense; weird heavy textures and sounds with like no hooks or riffs; ass-kicking West African rhythms and no-wave synth waves; some freaky inspired bass lines. Art that rocks; theory that practices; abstraction you can dance to. Pure uncut genius. Ten million stars.
Gave it the full (so long) listen, and conclusion is this:
There are people who like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I do not understand them. And I do not want to.
This record is so deeply symptomatic of its early 80s moment: big bang drums, super synthy, shiny to the point of sharp edged production--all of it dated. And it is so deeply entrenched in 13 year old suburban white kid 80s past. Whole thing is like digging up a reliquary when you were just looking for a pair of scissors in a drawer. But here's the thing: songs 1 through 6 are great. It's actually pretty awesome: high energy, super sad, gymnastic girl group Betty Boop voice, pop perfection. The last four songs fall off a cliff, but for six, Cyndi kills it.
Based on their many hits, never loved Green Day: it bugged me that they got called punk when they were at best in a kiddie pool in an overgrown backyard in the okay part of town down the street from a place where one might glimpse punk. I gave this a go, and still don't really like Green Day. A vaguely political pop-punk opera--I mean, who'd have thought?--so of course it feels belaboured, overlong, and excessive. That "September Ends" song reminds me of that "Time of Your Life" song which indirectly arrives at some solid nostalgia (not mine, theirs).
Amazing record. Let's get an outlaw country Texan weed smoking lifer to cover classic urbane and cosmopolitan American songbook standards. The arrangements are gorgeous, Willie is a brilliant interpreter of these songs, and it's beautiful. Reminds me in a way of Ray Charles' R&B soul covers of country songs. These kinds of crossovers make me miss America, or at least, the one that these great records exemplify.
Back in the day, the Onion used to run a parodic column by Smoov B. Listening to Chic was like the finely crafted perfect groove disco version of Smoov's column: I mean this totally as a compliment. Sure some weak songs and run longs, but a real pleasure.
Despite being a huge IRS-era REM stan, I'll admit this record has grown on me over the decades and it is one of their best. Careful, layered, autumnal, sad (with a few swerves). My kids know to play 'Nightswimming' at my funeral.
Rod Stewart's early 70s sound is great: mandolin, pedal steel, 12-string guitars, his fired up, ragged and ramshackle energy and voice. Not all of these songs win me over, but the good ones are good. I hate to admit how much I like some of this, because 80s me would take that time traveling Delorean to here and now and try and run me over for it.
I mean, this is high art-rock. Each song is like a character-sketch vignette or super short story. It's very writerly. And the heavy synth textures, Irish(esque) folk instruments, and classical aspirations make it a heady listen. "Woman's Work" is amazing and I want to like the record, but I think I can not fully like it because it is largely hookless. Am I so basic that I need a hook from time to time? Yep. Guess so
Big guitars, a dash of psychedelia, and the Britpop nasal whine. Nothing really stands out. Perfectly adequate, I guess.
An unbelievably good record. Arguably (and I might argue for one other record) best first and last tracks in rock, and almost everything between is rich, bluesy, painful, beautiful: gospel, country, Delta. Energy and anger and resignation out of loss and wreckage.
Don't get me wrong, I love the 80s. And I love a bunch of the new wave synth dance pop bands, but giving this a good listen reminds me that I find Depeche Mode super tedious. This one strives for conceptuality and symphonic and their usual shady morose kink, but never hits for me. Even the poppy ones. Monotonous drudgery.
Kind of excited to listen to something I had never even heard of. Then I got into this limp dream-techno Stereolab wannabe record and all that excitement went straight away.
Very ragey. Lots of heavy guitar riff and that steady bash groove drumming and rhythmic scream shouting vocals. When I was a 15 year old steroid jacked white suburban rebel (umm, no), this would have been just the ticket. Now, I liked the first, then second, but diminishing returns. Too long and one formula.
Careful and crafty, smarty and arty. But as per usual with BritPop (and this is like the sixth Blur we've had--what gives?) I just don't find the songs compelling. I want to want to make an effort, but it's just not happening.
Sweet sexy seductive soul-jams. Marvin is bringing the heat for his lady, and while there are a few same-same songs, who cares? 30 minutes of goodness. And I have never noticed how great the drumming is on some of these--whoever the session genius was, well done.
Holy shit! Amazing. Punk, reggae, roots, rock, ska, pop spiked with numerous kick ass gorgeous classics: London Calling, Guns of Brixton, Lost in the Supermarket, Spanish Bombs, Clampdown, Death and Glory, the secret hidden last track. Crushes.
This is a B/B+ Smiths album, which means that it is still really not bad (standard operating 'Morrisey is an ass' caveat here). It's more diverse sound-wise if still as always dark and miserable lyric-wise, even when sung beautifully. I just do not love the Smiths that much, try as I might. That said, I cannot get 'Girlfriend in a Coma' out of my head now
A huge sprawling statement album fusing reggae, R+B, hip-hop, rap, doo-wop and more. I like the fuse but not as much the sprawl. I know I am supposed to love this as one of the great records of the 90s and all time, but I only really like it.
Lots of this is not very good--derivative country rock swiped from someone like Graham Parsons with numerous less than memorable songs--and I know it's cool to hate the Eagles. But I give one star for hearing these songs on the sweaty fake leather knocking around town in the 70s summers of my mom's beat up Chevy Malibu station wagon. And another star for the Eagles greatest hits tape that seemed always to be stuck in the tape player of my girlfriend's indestructible Honda in the late 80s.
I've never listened to a whole Kanye Album start to finish. Fuck me. This one's so fucking good.
Ugly and pretty pop meets narcotic drone art. Well crafted hooks meet unhinged noise. So easy to forget just how weird this record is, given that it is canonized to high hell, and I have listened to it a million times. Astounding.
The icy and breathy British trip hop club vibe never hit me just right, but I was impressed with the complex textures and general weirdness of these songs. A few stood out--Overcome, Aftermath--and over all, solid.
An hour and fifteen minutes of drum-machine diarrhea and soulless lite-jazz noodling for your next Eurotrash cocktail party or late night chill sesh that you really really wish you didn't have to be at.
I love so many songs on this: rubbery bass, horns, guitar funk, Prince and Parliament and so much more. But this is one where maybe a single disc would do. Culled and leaner, it would be nonstop classics.
Gorgeous and perfect and sad and amazing.
Such a great record, with the chiming weird raw guitar melodies in the guttural edgy songs. Plus it rocks. Marquee Moon, See No Evil, amazing.
I always have felt like British folk rock was like a weird parallel universe; add to that I loved Richard and Linda Thompson's post-Fairport work (Shoot Out the Lights, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight). This made it cool to give the Fairport album a fresh listen. I love the weird thrumming guitar and fiddle outro of Sailor's Song, Who Knows Where the Times Goes is lovely, and two Dylan solid covers (Million Dollar Bash as weird as it should be). This is very pretty in parts, a bit indulgent in others, and interesting.
I love Springsteen, but this is not a great record at all. A few solid Brucey anthems (the Rising, the opening track) and even those are just okay, but a lot of legitimately bad songs, like cringey bad, like embarrassing make it stop bad. Not at all sure this should be a must-listen.
Sort of blank and vapid cutesy aspirations to the Mamas and the Papas and the Monkees (whom they name check, of course). Sweet for the first half of the first song and cloying all the rest of the way.
If you can come up with something better than the stabbing guitar solo on 'Sympathy' or the haunted piano-slide interplay on 'No Expectations' or the thunder drop drum hit at the opening of 'Street Fighting' or the weird little 'ah' and the apex greasy sleaze crescendos of 'Stray Cat' or the ragged gospel surge of 'Salt of the Earth,' then fine don't give it 5 stars. But you can't, so it's five stars.
Rock classic. They have the formula, they use it, and they do so as best as it can be done. The riffs are bombproof. The hooks enormous. Not a ton of range, but a blast to listen to.
Angsty adolescent punky new wave pop. I had only ever heard 'Teenage Kicks', which I easily loved for its frustrated, angry, sweet, hooky, edgy rawness. This is more of the same. A lot more. Rocked out on the clever "More Songs About Chocolate and Girls" (because, like, of course) and my head bobbed to "Hypnotized" (great chord changes). But it's monochrome and some droppable tracks (like the not good cover of 'Under the Boardwalk').
I love the one two punch of the late 60s prison records. And I love how Cash sounds reckless, worn, loose. Wild energy on "Wanted Man" "Wreck" and "Boy Named Sue." I might prefer Folsom, but this is good stuff
Such a weird record. The first side is these kind of amazing, deeply textured pop funk soul fragments (abstracted into Bowie-space), but the mostly icy passionless ambient side two, I feel like I should academically have some feelings for. I don't
Impeccable pop genius with zero misses. Undisputed masterpiece.
I like the West Coast low key grooves and Snoop is a fun rapper to listen to, with that super easy going loose bounce and witty turns (he must have worked hard to make it seem that easy), but sometimes there's more to life than weed songs and g-life songs.
Clean precise synth dance--smart and poppy, but never really hit home for me.
I have never been able to get into Sleater-Kinney--and that is on me. Coming to this fresh, I was rocked and thrilled: pummelling drums, snarly angular punk hooks, and flat out rage and menace shot through with fragility and longing. They tear through a whole mess of songs in like 37 blistering minutes. Win. Loved it.
FFFOKKKKKK! Raging thrashing pummelling all out assault your ears and brain metal. Crushing it
I actually kinda liked it.
Brooding, alienating, spooky, conflicted. This is record is of the outré arty Bowie and while I appreciate it as such, especially given it being part and parcel of his mortality, I'm not sure when I would choose it instead of Ziggy, Hunky Dory, or several other great Bowie records.
Metal classic. The scary mean blues all electrified and made doomy. Huge riffs. Some less than great songs on side two, but I remain a fan.
45 minutes of extended sweet psychedelic soul jams by the Stax guys. What the hell is not to like? Hayes burns it down. So weird. So luxe. So epic.
Cannot not listen without my hazy Santa Cruz nostalgia for the Dead--this one was always on rotation, and the spacey psychedelic explorations stay rooted in rock and song and are just excellent. Jerry's guitar tone is brilliant and Lesh is all over the place. Great record.
Pretty fun to sing along to many of these: TSwift knows her way around a hook, and exploits that persona in her lyrics like a champ. Fun
Neil's records are all the hell over the place, with total garbage and apex pinnacles. This one is decidedly the latter. Rust Never Sleeps and neither does Neil, raging, imagining, howling against the grisly transience of all good things. 'Thrasher' kept me afloat for a month of my least favourite job ever when I was 19 or 20. Used to debate the meaning of 'Powderfinger' for hours. Love how he borrowed Dylan's structure acoustic/electric but reversed. Brilliant record.
Genius. Their best record. It's thick, enveloping, layered and while I think of it kind of as angsty world-wrecking teenage longing, it is actually pretty grown up and smart.
70s arty prog = not my thing. I mean, I kinda liked Starship Troopers, but the rest of it feels so pompous and affected and overwrought. Even the big hit is kinda meh.
I like the first Specials record, but this one is pretty weak. Aspirational in arrangement, instrumentation, but the songs are not strong and I did not, despite the exhortation, enjoy myself.
80s synth pop gets cozy with Renaissance polyphony. The complex and multi-stranded songs are laudable, but I like the more straightforward song songs where I can hear Fraser's voice up in the mix, like Iceblink Luck or Heaven or Las Vegas. My housemate and long time associate is huge Cocteau Twins fan, so I will be in trouble if I don't overrate this one.
A total jam. Maybe their best record. Deep grooves, amazing musicianship, and crazy as ever. Chocolate coated, freaky and and habit forming. Doin' it to you in 3-D. So groovy that I dig me
Was this a big deal in the mid-90s? I feel like a traitor, being a former Madisonian, but it's really underwhelming. A lot of production: cool sounds, big drums, guitar layers, tricks, but most of the songs either seemed real milquetoast or were straight up annoying. Manson's persona can be charismatic, but even the big hits like Vow, Rains, Queer, I'm content hearing those every few years when they show up on the nostalgia radio station.
I like the sort of old weird America collective vibe and the way it throws back and forward: spooky country blues, plangent folkiness, electric rock. The big songs are big and the small ones are small. More of a parallel cosmos than hook-laden pleasure.
It's been a long time since I have heard this. We had the CD back around 2000 and put it on all the time. Still sounds good: quiet folky soul: slow, poignant, and Orton's voice has that edgy little crack. Stolen Car is amazing, and I like the techno-dance version of the title track. Good stuff.
Still strong. The scratchy guitar, the yelpy and stretched (if sometimes histrionic) vocals, and wow, the drums. Some very good songs, and only a few that can be skipped. They were really coming into their own with this one. I can see why earnest melodramatic me really liked U2
This is the era of reggae I really can get behind. Politically insurgent, soulfully plangent, and tight as hell rhythm section. I know the big hit here is 'Stir It Up' but it's like the fourth best song on the record.
Personal is political concept album of orchestral soul and funk. I love this in principle and really like it for most of the songs. Pusherman, Freddie's Dead, Give Me Your Love are smoking hot, all in their own way. Mayfield was so smart and so on.
I know it's supposed to be humorous and throwing off the shackles of expectations with its rock, jazz, psych, and what the fuck ever. But it a miserable blast of Alice Cooper vomit in congealed record form and no, thanks, I will forever and ever pass.
Thick woozy haze and rippling thick textures. I love this record: it's its own little universe that washes over, through, and beneath your whole body and whole brain.
So 60s. Like charmingly and egregiously dated. So much effort into trippiness, but still all those Byrdsy elements of blues and country, chiming folk, guitar jams. Kind of amazing in its own way.
A West Coast urban locked in funky groove. I have never really liked "Low Rider" or "Why Can't We Be Friends" but this kept things going on a Friday.
I love the way they go high energy punky thrash into discordant noise that resolves into these chiming songs. Hey Joni is epic and Teenage Riot is one of the best songs ever--that riff is apex predator epic.
A few songs--and one of my favourite Floyd songs, "Wish You Were Here"--embedded in a symphonic prog rock elegy that somehow transcends its longwinded excess. Or maybe that's the point. Really sad. Not a real Pink Floyd enthusiast, but I used to play a tape of this in my walkman to fall asleep every night during one particularly angsty phase.
The innermost reaches of my soul were delighted and transported by the delicate and sublime melodies, the angelic harmonies, and the enrapturing quiet beauty of this gentle and life-affirming miracle of an album.
Super inventive, seriously virtuosic, and I legit laughed out loud several times. Never been into Frank Zappa, still not, but I can see the upside.
Becks Becks up some really Becky Beckishness most Beckfully.
The sing songy melody lines, spare arrangements, voice from the grave, and smart writing make Cohen a pretty good hang.
Noise, clips, beats, funk, soul in a well-marshalled barrage, with Chuck D blasting out verses. I mean it's revolutionary in at least three or four ways. I definitely like Chuck's tracks more than Flav's and the full hour run time is a lot, but as an album so essential.
This is so 90s, and not necessarily in a bad way. Rather Zeppeliny extended guitar layers of rock, psychedelia, some pop hooks, and grandiose ambition. Feels dated, then not. And I will always love "Classic Girl."
Big band? Excellent players--so tight and so swinging. Loved the Basie-centered Kid From Red Bank, and some excellent solos from sax and trumpet. Sounded great.
Virtuosic brilliance. Wasn't he like 16 when he wrote these? And such good rhythm and flow. My kid constantly tells me about this record, so it was fun to give it a focused listen.
As great as a handful of these songs are, this band is spectacularly overrated. Even their best songs--Welcome to Jungle, Sweet Child of Mine, Paradise City--have parts of them that suck, mixed right in there with brilliant parts. And several songs on this record are straight-up filler. So some stars for the Sweet Child riff, the intense intro and cool longing ache of the bridge in Welcome, the pastoral weirdness of Paradise.
And damn does this band like a coda.
I suppose I am not Gallic enough (at all) to like this all that much. Monsieur can belt it out, an no doubt to the 60s French heart these were stirring as hell--so, respect to you Jacques!--but too melodramatic for me.
Can a record be both chill--soulful, singsong, rootsy- and intense--political, spiritual, striving? Answer: Burning Spear. I'm no reggae cognoscenti, but this sounded great.
It's been awhile. I mean, the big ones are on the radio all the time up here (thanks, CanCon!), but to re-hear the whole thing is interesting: love the rage and hippydip, but I forgot just how super produced to a high polished sheen this is, and I forgot just how affected the singing is--like I cringed for a few of them. Plus, several of these songs are just not that great. Still, apex mid-90s radio.
Big swing cock rock. I know it was sold as grunge in the day, but hard to hear huge differences from LA and hair metal bands of the same time. And there is nothing wrong with hair metal. It has the CD-era problem of too many songs: like 4 or 5 could be cut for a leaner meaner record. Glad they broke big from this, I guess
Metal classic. I know it was their "sell out" album but they are locked into their thing and it's pretty awesome.
Such a young Steve Earle. Fun to hear him in his most straightforward country moment, young and hungry but already with a vision. Some great songs, some good ones, some okay ones. Thumbs up
Early 70s Bowie: chugging guitar riffage, avant garde abstract piano and sax, grim alienated dissolution in the lyrics, Stonesy sleaze. Bowie always has a few tracks you just don't want to cue up, but this record hangs together pretty well.
Of course a musical about a middle aged carpet-layer moving to Australia after World War 2 is a folky, poppy, droll music hall classic. So weird.
Alterna-rocker kid me in 1986 would punch me in the face for saying it (I was no sharp dressed man), but I really like this ZZ Top record. It just has a feel, texture, vibe: thick, shuffling, bloozey, driving. The songs are nothing crazy but the way they play them--great.
Anglo-American blues-adjacent guitar fireworks. Allman is astounding, yes Clapton's a dick, and this record has some good songs.
Squishy and thick synth that bops along with some pop sugar hooks. Retro-space-age French goodness.
Soul classic. Aretha owns these songs--even when they are better known by other geniuses like Sam and Ray--and her band is whip-cracking on. I mean, Respect, I Never Loved, Dr. Feelgood. Masterpiece by a legend.
Baroque chamber pop orchestral power wailing. I'd like to like the classical operatic queer intensity, but I straight up did not.
Won't lie, always have found it difficult to love Joni. If her work is an acquired taste, this listen was the first time I started to acquire. Jazz, pop, folk--a few songs still put me off, but a start
Shred!
Proggy pop seriousness, with singer who is very distinct. Some moments, some good writing. Very British.
Never heard this. Heard of them, and always assumed they were really punk, but they are more New York Dolls hard rock pop with snark and comedy. The cover of I Got You Babe is genius. The whole thing is like a weird NY twisted fantasy of California. Not terrible.
One of the best debut albums of all time. Hynde is so damn good here: mean, feral, tender, snarly, sweet. Tight and relentless.
Laconic electric rock pop pleasure, with some killer craft and some edgy doom at the edges.
Iggy is all kinds of raving maniacal unhinged lunacy and the band is like a squalling fuzzy heap of enraged wreckage. Some pretty hooky pop underneath a few songs, not that that was the point.
I know it's a marvel of sampling genius and is jam-packed with allusions references and inside jokes--loads of fun--but I find it almost exhausting at times.
Great voice, great sound, great songs.
Outer space laser horses fired through operatic jam cannons over the top of over-the-topness into histrionic nebula of business-casual prog.
Interesting record: side one is like a 70s prog-soul and funk (Sly Stoney) and side two is back to the (very good) Motown sound. These guys in fringe and bell bottoms or tight high-stepping tuxedos?
Like a pre-super group, everyone went on to other things and it sounds like they already are on this. Spotty to me: some high highs, but some folk or psychedelic (or psychy folk or folky psych) songs are sorta mid. Won't lie: I like Neil's work best.
Retro-future grooves half way between lounging in a space age batch pad and gyrating in the revolution. 60s French chanteuse pop shipped with new age popidelica. What is not to like? Love me some Stereolab
Look how fun it is to be a Monkee! We often hold hands and kick our boots out with big grins because we love to Monkee around. We made a record! So fun!
A harmless and mildly pleasant tour through a Beatlesesque simulacrum.
So good: the horn drop on People Get Ready, the kinetic bass on Niki Hoeky, the nervous strings on You Make Me Feel, that Aretha transcends somehow both soaring and gritty. I could do without Groovin', but otherwise perfect.
Honestly, I know this is a well regarded record, but it's too long and aside from a few of the songs, and some of the choicer verses, I find it too smooth, too even, too produced, and boring. Hill is great, of course, but with so much great 90s hiphop out there, this one doesn't rank.
It is as if the Beach Boys were interested in textures instead of songs.
Warm, blurry, avant garde British folk, swerving from lyrical and trad to experimental jazz strangeness. It has this feel. As much as I would like to say the arty tracks win me over, I like the most straight ahead songs, like Over the Hill, best. Still, pretty great.
Magic elf sex techno-baroque dream-hop beats that last all of late September and through October.
Hey Neil (because I know Mr Young definitely reads through trifling internet reviews of his work): Thanks for this--the folky masterpieces, the searing and sad rockers, the crazy good guitar solo on Words, even the weird orchestral ones. It was super important to me in 1987. And it kicks ass.
An un-Stripesy White Stripes outing: marimba, piano, weird arrangements. I liked the first and last songs, but the kooky morass in the middle was weak.
Given that this list is UK-rooted, I guess I can see why this makes the list. But what started as kind of fun and interesting frenetic looped beats with some trappings, quickly devolved into a tedious slog.
This record is like a zombie, that no matter how many times it passes away, it comes crawling back. Heard in the 90s, then the early 2000s, 2010s and now again. And not once, in all those times, have I liked it. So affected and overwrought and show-offy that there are barely songs, just wailing melodramatic angst. And KD Lang's Hallelujah blows this one out of the water.
Mid dance-pop with synthy horns and big-bang drums. Yes, yes, I hear it's upbeat music with dark tense political lyrics; neat paradox but barely listenable.
Loud, snarky, self-conscious, funny, gross, hooks, riffs, in-jokes, pop culture references, frenetic. I thought I hated this but I was wrong.
When even these mid-tier Brit poppers are something I should hear before I die, then maybe I need to reassess my relationship to my mortality. I mean, poppy, energetic, old Who and Kinks derivatives, but even the big hit--which was so ubiquitous in 1995(ish?)--is pretty weak sauce.
Heavy metal that is neither heavy nor metal? Hard rock that didn't? A concept-lite mediocre batch of rawk-theater.
There are a few fucked up haunted well-made songs, but so much of this is not 'good' in the sense one usually might use the term. Only reason I think it has the pull it does is the super sad story of Syd.
Trite unadventurous pop shallowly pitched at making the charts. Even the big hit Angel is cringey garbage.
Children's nursery rhymes, punk drumming, death metal vocals, pop hooks, body horror, art rock guitars: wildly inventive genius. A few songs on side two slip a bit, but this record is nearly perfect.
I am not a huge CCR fan, but they really kicked some ass. R&B, swamp rock, blues, psychedelia. That opener 'Ramble Tamble' is amazing--some whole new thing coming into being. And then there are the hits. Very good record.
Mostly sounds like the soundtrack to a gentle early 80s sitcom set at a retirement home in Vermont, but then occasionally a deranged former avant garde artist gets a hold of the Casiotone for a minute. Laffs ensue.
High drama, chill beats, sad stories. Kendrick is so good.
Boring parade of anodyne and generic nu-metal wankfests swinging for unearned drama.
Her voice really is singular and several of these blues jams are great. Whole thing haunted by its posthumousness. Get It While You Can.
I am more of the raging thrash heaviness of the first four Metallica records, rather than this big top 40 one. But I guess Enter Sandman and Unforgiven are poppy hits.
Aggressively fizzing, discombobulated, clattering, noisy, unmooring, grating, hard. Plus Paper Planes which is brilliant.
Such an odd break away for PJ Harvey: I think I like her raw rock early albums; this one--with its harps and zithers and whatnot--plus this babydoll pitched singing voice, is sonically not my cup of tea (and this such an English album). Some beautiful songs (like Hanging in the Wire) and some scary images, but nope.
Liteweight R&B with a couple of hooky hits and a bunch of so-so filler. Very 80s in the worst and best ways ( I mean I lived this records year on the charts), but all in all, not a great set.
I love this record. Very defining for a very short period of my dumb last gasps of high school--but stupid nostalgia aside, gorgeous songs beautifully played. Saw her open for Bob Dylan in 1988: just her and a guitar and she completely owned the place. Riverting.
Even though I did the thing where we all got stoned and listened to this in a dorm room and waited for the "If you can hear this whisper your are dying" in "Great Gig", I find this record overrated, overplayed, and overdone.
First time hearing this, which is ridiculous because it is an a piece of edgy mod pop punk brilliance: angry working class (or unemployed class) British politics in taut and smart songs.
Very weird to get Weller's 90s solo shit after a '78 Jam record in two consecutive days. But does not show well against the more edgy, class conscious, clinging to pogo punk Jam stuff. Very bland northern soul wannabe dreck. So boring. No.
Icy dread, oppressive and bleak. Claustrophobically minimal. Multitracked howls of despair from within a banal abyss. Good times!
Neil writes great songs. I mean, jso well written, so well made. He digs deep here too--sad, edgy, angry, forlorn. Very good record
Pretty sweet set--and tight--of killer grooves, soul and disco jams. Tastes, feels, and sounds like apex slick mid-70s R&B funk. What is not to like?
Fela's bands are always amazing, but this choice strikes me as weak: Zombie, Expensive Shit, He Miss Road and others are better. I worry this one is on this list just because Ginger Baker showed up. And I mean, the Ginger jam drum solo track is the weakest on the record.
Limp soft rock that fails to make use of Winwood's voice or what appears to be second generation synths that the producer could not get enough of. But the real problem is there are not really any good songs on this record, including the big hit. Just straight up profoundly uninteresting.
Really? Some kind of soulless techno/house. Must have been big in Britain.
I guess I feel the same way about "Bohemian Rhapsody" (which I know is not on this record) as I do about Queen II as I do about Queen's whole career: there are a few moments which are truly amazing but they are lost in bloated grandiose histrionic grating excess.
Okay. So. I grew up a huge devotee of the Who. They were a awkward little part of my even more awkward preteen identity (and beyond). I love(d) them. I listened to this record obsessively for a year or so. I remained a Who fan many many years, still am. Here is the thing: Tommy just isn't great. It's ambitious, urgent, unsettling and there are some great songs, some amazing playing (thanks, Keith!), and moments of pop genius. But it is pretty goofy, thematically inchoate, loaded with crappy filler, excessive, and its aims exceed its grasp. This is Pete's tragic flaw: dreaming up wild conceptual shit that is never brought to fruition. This is a failure to which I am sympathetic: I feel for Pete and with Pete in ways that I never could or would for or with John Lennon or Mick Jagger/Keith Richards or Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Nicks or Bob Dylan or Lucinda Williams or anyone. My sympathetic connection to Pete's failures makes the music, when it is good, even better. But Tommy. Still not great.
Some pretty run of the mill early 90s beats and hooks; not sure what the draw is here. Tres meh!
This record does one thing, and it does not do it very well.
I have never been able to get into Roxy Music's arty pop rock. Gave this a careful listen. Still can't.
Straight up pop classics, but with surreal goth lyrics and raging quiet-loud-quiet abrasive guitars and singing. Such weird little geniuses. And this is like the third or fourth best Pixies album.
Two Pixies in a row? This one is fucking straight up uncut mainline plasma energy freaky awesome.
Imagine the scene for just one song, "Tame"
'Okay, we need more tiny breathy baby doll laugh noises...great great, now, Frank, scream like your soul is being removed by a sadistic dentist...nice, nice, now hit the drums as hard as possible while we turn the guitars to 11; perfect, that's Tame'
Pretty weak: some big riffs but tedious, and the highly vaunted Indigenization of their sound was superficial window dressing, which makes it feel politically appropriative. And way too long.
I mean, it's super popular, probably overrated and probably underrated. Just gave it another listen and really, it's pretty perfect. Mick's drumming, Stevie's power, Lindsey's pop perfectionism, Christine's song craft. Great record.
I love the rubbery kid weird funk and the chanting girly singing; sure some of the songs stretch a bit, but inventive, fun, smart, danceable. Genius of Love is, in fact, genius.
I mean it's a classic, and opened up pop music, and transformed rock and all. So of course, 5 stars. But honestly, there is a stretch of songs on this record I always want to skip: She's Leaving Home, Mr Kite, Within You Without You range from okay to annoying. There are very high highs, but, well, but...
Blondie's best album (even though it doesn't have their best song): snap tight new wave pop songs, Clem drums like a maniac and Debbie Harry is great.
Appreciate the electro-pioneering ambient cosmic-grooves, though only stretches of each track really lock in and feel good. When it hits, you want it to last and last, which, of course, it tends to do.
Lame. Uninventive songs with at times some pretty awkward and weak lyrics arranged essentially the same, over and over production. Kind of liked First of the Gang to Die, but otherwise why suffer the insufferable (unless the deep artistic point)?
Some confrontational punk pop driven by the provocative and sometimes charismatic Karen O yelp. The slower sweet ones are way better--Maps is a classic--but the album is otherwise a bit monotonous and messy.
Dusty does her thing. Damn, she can sing. I mean, no ground broken but do we always need new ground?
Elvis sounds pretty good--back to his rock, soul, country roots--and Memphis band is solid. He chose some good songs. Suspicious Minds is awesome.
In a club, on drugs, in the mid-90s, in Britain, this sounded good. Does that make it actually good?
I mean, pretty tight disco album. The Sledge can sing, the bass is a sweet groove, Niles' guitar is funky, and the (fake?) strings swirl around. Smooth as the silk the ladies sport on the cover.
Things Everyone Says About This:
A few pretty good bangers
Christina really can sing
Monotonous production (except a few spots)
Way way way--by like an hour--too long
Things I am going to say:
See above
Except for the brilliant 'So in Love' I didn't really know this Mayfield record, but I am pretty into it: the excellent funky grooves, tight horn arrangements, stark political critiques, and Curtis's expressive falsetto. Dude was killing it in the 70s.
Thrashy metal goodness. Sure, could be bassier, tighter, thicker but it's pretty inventive, weird, and rocks rather hard.
Edgy, tense, shout-chant insurgency with post-punk nervy stabbing guitars and nigh-on funk adjacent bass drum rhythms: angry, surreal, incisive, askew. And who'd have seen a psych-rock opera closer? Awesome.
I can hear the Prince/Beatles yearnings, and I mean, that's some good stuff to yearn for. But overall, a weird blend of cringey and tedious.
I cannot figure out for the life of me to whom Alice Cooper appeals. Scary suburban rebel metal kids surely are not down with the theatrical and tongue-in-cheek lightweight cabaret. Are the dramarama kids interested in dipping their toes into necrophiliac dentistry? The shock is schlock and the rock is mock. Tries so hard, exudes corn, and I do not get it.
I like the earlier records better, but this one is pretty damn sweet: laid back production and jams, optimistic and melodic lines, all in all, a delight to listen to. Thanks, Bob.
Sure the musicianship is pretty amazing as it twists through jazz, psychedelic, classical, rock, but the songs are just so pompous and full of themselves. I guess that's prog for you, but I will not be back anytime soon.
A perfect record. Strange, tender, scuzzy, beautiful, lowdown, sweet. Yes, even "Murder Mystery". Pop gems, inventive, insightful, real.
I don't really like the Fall, and sometimes I find Mark E Smith insufferable. But I really liked this record: pummelling, edgy, askew, catchy, ramshackle, kick ass guitars. Sure, there are several I would skip, but good stuff
Like one jazzy soul adventure with funny idiosyncratic lyrics, virtuoso bass lines, tiny falsetto micro-hooks, with a few poppy gems rising to the surface. Fun listen.
Mean, snarly, angry, cruel songs; blues pop psychedelia. The Stones question is always: 'is this ironic?" and Mick's sneer and the brilliance of some of the songs doesn't ever let us know. I like young hungry edgy Stones inspite of and because of this confusion.
I couldn't get into Elvis Costello when all my cool-kid friends in high school were quoting lyrics, but coming to him later in life is pretty fun too. Savage lyrics, Elvis Presley rock and pop craft, with snarly angry punk fuck-offery. A brilliant debut.
I love Keith's riffs, Charlie's drumming is so tight, and Mick Taylor's liquid melodic soloing is gorgeous. And. But. So. Jagger performs his Jaggering so Jaggerishly that at times it's hilarious parody, then deep veined soul, then performance art, then ironic sneer, and then Moonlight Mile. To which all must bow down.
Fun blast beats, too rare riffs, stupid lyrics. Once is aggro but this record is way too long and doesn't vary enough to stay aggro. Settles into tedious.
Sprawling, indulgent, maximalist, too much. And nonstop kick ass genius. Prince was so on. Starfish and Coffee has a large chamber of my heart, but almost all the songs are perfect.
A pretty lively big band set--but not nearly as great as Duke's earlier eras--except for the famous solo in 'Diminuendo/Crescendo' which gets everyone hopping. That's a blast.
Look, this is the fourth best record of Stevie's four album run of greatness. And it's awesome. Some great uptempo songs, a great ballad. Warm, rich, brilliant.
I love some 60s country, and Lynn is one of the best. A tight little collection of solid turns.
This is an incredible document of a legendary moment in the speed-fuelled visionary cutting edge evolution of Dylan. But also, it kills: the acoustic "Visions' with its urgent ghost whispers, the spooky "Baby Blue" with killer harmonica solo (for real!), the either tender or exhausted "Just Like a Woman". But then the electric set shreds: the Band is locked in, aggro, tearing it up, and Dylan sneers, yells, howls through his amazing new stuff. Insane that he was being heckled through it--no wonder he yaps "Play fucking loud" - he must have been pissed.
Blues-rock of the British 60s sort, but on a few songs it pushes harder, gets weirder, fuzzes out noisier. Some good ones, but some, or kinda a lot of, uh, not good ones.
Biggie raps amazingly, and he is witty, cutting, vivid. The best works are his grim accounts of poverty, crime, despair: clever, bleakly funny, and painful. The skits suck. And so much of this misogynist crap sucked then and sucks now, whether one claims its ironic role play or not.
I confess a soft spot for the swing for the fences high drama of (some of) these songs. The thick deep guitar sound these guys get, coupled with the angsty catharsis they aim for, is pretty great. The album is too long, but calling the Pumpkins out for excess is missing the point.
Jazz played like rock composed like classical. I *appreciate* Zappa's intellectual and guitar chops, but I don't really *like* his music: ubi sunt soul, heart, feel?
Pretty smart and witty lyrics, great song crafty hooks, lovely chiming guitars, tight rhythm section. This is the Smiths' best work, but it still is doesn't ever grab me. Maybe it's the arch drollery or lack of big riffs--drama without being dramatic.
Post-Velvets what can you do? Bring on Bowie and Ronson of course. I love the glam guitar chug of Vicious and Hanging Around, and the melodic minimal pop of Walk on the Wild Side or even Perfect Day, but some of this is too cute or not great. Still, post-Velvets, what can you do?
Pretty standard late 70s hard rock. Pretty mediocre at that. Some energy but only a few songs
The record is a 5, and side 2 is a brilliant collage that is so much more than the sum of its parts, Come Together is apex John, and Harrison's songs shine. But as so often on a Beatles record, there are the inevitable two or so songs that demand skipping: Maxwell and Octopus, I am talking to you. Otherwise, genius. Amazing hilarious beautiful weird aching genius.
Lackluster mid-90s Britpop that really does not pop.
Wanted to like this as a full record, but really all it has is a few big hits / edgy catchy synth pop songs, and the rest is fairly bland filler: dull.
Incisive political takes and heavy sound collage beats, but really not all that enjoyable or compelling.
I love this record. Folky, atmospheric, 80s nostalgia, big.
Folk songs with surrealist stream of consciousness lyrics that still make sense backed by Chuck Berry / Buddy Holly / early Beatles rock and roll. Stupid beautiful aggro aching. Total fire.
Orchestral synth disco pop, with histrionic over the top Bryan Ferry singing--so much drama--kinda clever kinda lame. The big (US) hits are fine, but without nostalgia they don't really land for me. Though I do remember being entranced by those early MTV videos.
Smoky van with dragons fighting aliens on the side. Tight t shirt and long hair, long moustaches, long beards. Apex American mid 70s rock with what sounds like 28 guitars racing for the sky, a lead singer whose bell bottoms are so tight, and giant hooks. Gotta admit despite having heard all these songs on KGON in the 80s way too many times, still sounded pretty good.
Tasteful, super competent musicianship; easygoing and charming arrangements; rock solid choice of standards and covers; her voice is just right, like mama bear's porridge. Is there such thing as apex-level pleasantness and agreeability? Exponentially acceptable.
Such an idiosyncratic weirdo - so glad we have them - and this record reflects Bjork's peculiar vibe. I can't say I like it much - but strange, complicated, dramatic dance baroque experiments I respect
Delicate melodies, brutal sadness, great songs. This one is a bit long, but I still love listening to Elliott.
He's a wry dark songwriter, and the deep voice sounds like it's carved out of a 1000 year old oak. I like the more straightforward folk/country songs, like Jim Cain, and the weird motorik beat (not beat) of Too Many Birds. But some of these missed for me, especially the more elaborately produced ones.
Joni's a genius and national treasure, but her avant jazz poet phase has never done much for m.
Rocks hard. This band couldn't miss for five albums. I am never a fan of the Tolkien viking lyrics but this shit isn't about lyrics.
Weird electro-disco funk robo-music? I don't know--some amazing songs, but then the usual few Bowie experiments. Not super inviting but artistically interesting
Crafty melodies, rock noise, and intense writing: smart white-hot anger and desire. It's a pretty good record.
Beyoncé is brilliant, and while this one is all about the sexy love my husband R+B heat, there are definitely several clunkers--bland, corporate, dumb--amid some great ones.
I have mixed feelings about this: the late grave bound and gravel voiced Cash blasting each of these songs with mortality's gravitas. Some of them are great--Man Comes Around for one--but a bunch are lame (sorry, but I think that NIN song sucks). And is it a gimmick? I mean this is the FOURTH one of these.
CCR was so locked in during this stretch: driving upbeat swamp jams but spooky weird apocalyptic lyrics. There is a limit to how much CCR I can take, but the record is tight, no filler, and next thing I knew I wanted to hear 'Song for Everyone' again.
In the know post-punk pop. They have a thing. They do their thing. Guitars. Staccato shouts and drums. Icy or standoffish. Smart. Without the feels to draw me back.
Upbeat lite-reggae song about death? Check.
Folk epic about how the sex noises next door remind you of losing your virginity to a pentecostal preacher? Check.
Groovy 70s acoustic number about telling your wife and kids you are going to die? Check
Jaunty nostalgia number about unspeakable crimes with a whistle solo? Check.
What else do you need?
The Byrds hard-right from psychedelic to country is pretty great. I know Gram was an asshole, but he worked his magic with the Byrds here, and the Dylan covers, Hickory Wind, the Louvin Brothers cover - exhausted, sad, beautiful, old, cosmically new.
Knopfler's warm rangy guitar tone and his low key smoky thrum of a voice, the band's relaxed country pub choogle, and the lyrical solos. Solidly enjoyable.
I love this record (double technically). Quick hit songs, musically complex, gritty, real, funny, D Boon shouts of songs. Smart punk, super inventive, a blast.
Sure I used to know all the words to "Hotel California" but wow, on a relisten the whole record is this entitled malaise, put-upon world-weariness, and often condescending. Musically, whatever. I mean, mid-70s soft rock (for which these bros are largely responsible) is innocuous enough. Sometimes I can will myself into the vibe, and then I am in a weed-smoke filled Honda in a Cali parking mall parking lot, doing errands, cassette blaring. Then it isn't quite as annoying
Bitter, paranoid, cold, melodramatic, earnest. Some of the songs go big and hit: No Cars Go, Keep the Car Running, Windowsill, but mostly wild catharsis is held back and I kinda like this band mainly for the wild catharsis.
Nope. Greasy and seedy reach for acid jazz grooves, but the caterwauling scatting (swiped from unhinged Jim Morrison and sane as hell Screaming Jay Hawkins) suck. The band is not enough. While foot fetishes, light S+M, infidelity, 'monkey rubs' and whatnot are a delight or some, the music is not.
Scuzzy overdriven and distorted freakouts, spoken word tragicomedy, and gorgeous pop songs at one with layers of noise. There is no punk, no wave, or new wave without this. Still weird, unsettling, bracing, and fun to listen to.
High energy punky new wave / new wavy punk? I like the braying crazed monologic sax and the catchy sing song. Loud, bright, fired up.
Seriously dark and seriously funny croaking sardonic almost songs about death. Spare and spooky. Respect but repeat listen
Utopian psychedelic deep groove soul funk. Sure some of the jams meander, but this is apex level genius shit. Thank you, Sly.
Gorgeous writing (especially the ballads, Shane, though I know you were a rager), traditional Irish instruments playing with punk venom, and punk venom played traditionally Irish. They made better albums, but this one is extremely good.
Ah, mid 80s punk. Raging, stuttering, fast, efficient, simple, rich. I haven't heard this in a long time, but it sounds alive, smart, and awesome.
Spacey and chilly trip hop, often felt pretty aimless, with either stoney rapping or R&B hooks. So not my genre - never have been able to get into this vibe. Pass.
Yeah, this one has their hits, and some of the hits are fine. But such a one tone, one note, one sound record, and often cringey as hell lyrics. When they hook, they hook, but this is never as great as people, and Oasis, say. It's also good they save Champagne Supernova for last because the record gets boring and annoying by that point.
I love the longing weary blues, the surreal poetry word salad, the sense of humor, the aching sadness, the incisive outrage. The band is loose, on, fun. Apex level white hot genius.
Exploding chaos of ramshackle high energy. I love the furious spirit of this overdrive blues jam proto-punk freakout, but I wouldn't drop the needle on it everyday.
Deep grooved funk jazz. I love how locked-in ultra-tight this band is. Beats to die for. Bass lines to kill for. Right in there with P-Funk and Sly and Mayfield but also with Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith. Amazing record.
After a careful listen, I found this to be stupid, boring, tepid pablum. I think they are trying to be snotty and funny but they are just dumb. No bratty energy or interesting music, just the grating organ, grating voice, and just not great.
I kind of turned away from Radiohead after OK Computer, because I like songs. So it was good to listed to this open mindedly. Delicate synth melody lines, free jazz breakdowns, ambient electronica, even some songs. It's distant, heady, richly textured.
Classic. Amazing riffs, brilliant drumming, Ozzy's wail. The DNA of metal.
Musically so amazing: the epic riffs, the thunderous drumming, the willingness to go baroque and for broke. I mean, it's great. But the lyrics so often suck--please stop with the Nordic LOTR medievalisms--that I want to just turn the record off. Still, 'When the Levee Breaks' is one of the greatest rock songs ever.
So late 80s and a lot of pretty good tracks. More than I few were a bit weirdly produced or less than great. Still, she is the Queen.
Tight, intense, urgent Black punk with threads of reggae, dub, metal, and weird experimentalism woven in. Gotta say, pretty ripping.
I like the acoustic treatment of these songs, and the covers are incredibly well curated. Such a relic of its weird particular moment, and the moments that came soon after.
I have started to come round on Tom Petty. Some of his early records are just great classic rock. And while each has high high and low lows, this one came in just above mid-level. American Girl + Breakdown are awesome.
This gets 2 stars for "Tuesday's Gone" alone, which does everything I need from a song. Everything else is just 70s white guy blues-adjacent boogie: what is "Southern" about this? "Three Steps" is overrated, but not nearly as much as "Free Bird" which is slightly better. But really, the long weak solo to close?
I guess in principle a Weillian chanteuse take on rock classics is cool, but this kinda mostly sucks. Theatrical stringy versions of "edgy" artists. Nah
Lush arty pop by a visionary auteur. I don't really vibe with Kate Bush's work (though I do love 'Running Up That Hill') but I really respect this record: it is precise, insightful, complex, a lot.
Nina was on such a tear in the 60s. Jazz, blues, folk, theatre: she crushes these songs - love her work on the piano, and her interpretation and voice are subtle, emotive, rich.
A pretty good Beasties record. And Sabotage still crushes - especially with the video.
I admire the full on reinvention from country weirdo to cabaret chanteuse. k.d. can sing the pain off the walls, but I wouldn't mind a bit more torch in the torch songs and balls in the ballads.
A mewling kittiwake doing flattened Renaissance polyphony with chopped, screwed, and fattened electro body beats.
Loved the robo-electro grooves. Late 70s disco hidden inside a gleaming cold metallic automaton.
Like, EDM jock rock, striving for testosterone, deliberately (or not) stupid, rave without the bliss, high energy but funk-less beats.
I feel like this band, and this record (as well as its somewhat well known successor), are overrated. But then I am awash in dizzy dream pop noise and vertiginous textural swirls and jarring high energy sugar rush and I tell myself, "No. Not overrated."
There are doubtless some extremely talented musicians on this, but this kind of vaguely trip-hop, noodly, late 90s, pseudo-drum 'n bass, nu lite soul is super frictionless and utterly vacuous. Tedium with flutes and weak beats.
The desperate surreal country sad songs on this one can be great, or not so great, but Berman has a vision, and its hungover, seedy, smart, aching, bitter, exhausted, and brilliant.
This may be Jethro Tull's best record, but it is still turgid, pretentious, stupid, overblown and annoying. A few chugging riffs, some bad flute, and proggy pivots. I used to want to like this band back in high school, now I am glad to dislike them.
Didn't we do this one already? The nature of Oasis is that it just feels like we did. But, really, I like this one better than "What's the Story". Something edgier, leaner, hungrier, even as they establish the cock-swinging rock star brash arrogant DNA of their run.
Apex level NYC late 90s, early 00s hip hop. Jay Z is real sure of himself, beats are solid, not as many hooks, but good production, good craft.
Classic 90s lite R&B. Mariah is really breathy and often buried in the mix. Big hits, solid filler. I like more soul in my R&B but I respect this.
This sounded so good today. I love Chuck D's stentorian flow, and the beats and lyrics are so strong. Landmark.
You can hear Bowie all over this, and while this arty dark (and legit creepy) chugging album makes Pop pop, I have never been able to get into the two big hits (Lust for Life and Passenger). Solid but I am uncompelled.
Fatboy Slim can grab a decent hook, and work it until it is boring and dumb. Maybe on ecstasy in a thumping scene it would be okay, but sober old me is like, nah.
Hey EJR: I liked this world weary loose and rangy Neil, even though (or maybe because) there are no big hits. Except maybe 'Walk On'. Sounded good as you destroyed your son at corn hole.
Loose cool energy, solid beats, and the xx formula: hushed, intimate, R&B-ish.
Love Goo. Sonic Youth's major label, and most accessible (?) to that point. I mean, "Kool Thing"!
I know she's a genius and all. I mean, I know. And the songs are smart, inventive, cool. But there is something dramarama about her delivery and voice that stands between me and her genius and all.
