Not my preferred style of rock, but it's close to a lot of sounds I love. I'm picking up a post-grunge Soundgarden feel, years before lighter-weight acts like Jet and The Hives would arrive on the scene. This album must have been a breath of fresh air for the culture, given that this was getting released during that late 90s "rock is in crisis" period before The Strokes brought rock and roll back in 2001. The first few songs felt too raw for my enjoyment. Standout favorites were How to Handle a Rope, You Can't Quit Me Baby, and Spiders and Vinegaroons (which was only on the 2011 reissue, I'm now reading). The musicianship was good, but I wanted more interesting lyrics. I remember exactly zero lyrical ideas, 4 hours after listening. That's an issue. PS - I Was a Teenage Hand Model is a hilarious song title.

The short story is this: I cannot stand Anonhi’s (nee Antony’s) vibrato voice. I understand the acclaim and the comparisons to Nina Simone, but I don’t like it.

Express Yourself is a real bop. Also enjoyed the title track, F*** the Police, I Ain't tha 1, and Something 2 Dance 2. I understand this album is "important", but I greatly prefer the later rap waves with more melody and sampled music.

Much vibier than I had given Björk’s other work credit for! I first became aware of her circa 2007 when I was in my “rip music off my friends’ older brothers’ laptops” era, but I never really connected with Björk as an artist until now. The Debut album is full of passion, much more emotional than the other early-90s Euro dance stuff I’ve listened to. I enjoyed it.

Listening notes: - Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are is giving Cruella de Vil (edit: Mel Leven paid homage to Monk with the Cruella song for the Disney film) - Sonny Rollins is IN FORM - Pannonica is where the swing really comes and gets ya. - I'd say that hard bop is better with Monk on the keys.

I still remember how David Bowie released this album two days before his death. We lost him too soon :( Loved: - Black Star (an odyssey of a title track) - Lazarus (saxophone and vibey guitar!) - Dollar Days (more sax, more love) - I Can't Give Everything Away (the plaintive harmonica moved me to tears, and the lyrics felt like a swan song to us all) Felt fine about: - Sue (a fun experiment that mostly works for me) Did not love: - 'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore (terrible title, and just a little too melodically dissonant) - Girl Loves Me (she may love me, but I don't love this song) Overall I'm really impressed with how experimental Bowie still was in the twilight of his 60s / his life.

None of the Doors songs I’m familiar with were on this album, but the record knits together nicely and is fun to listen to. I’d happily spin it again.

I know how influential Kraftwerk is on many artists that I love, and what they’re doing here with electronic instruments in 1978 is ground breaking, but it’s not an album I’m putting in my regular rotation.

Can you even imagine being around in 1977 and experiencing all of this music in real time? This is some big, atmospheric, prog rock, and that is my speed. I especially love the Solsbury Hill/Modern Love section, and then the last two tracks. Peter is big and beautiful in his vision. He’s one of the real geniuses of our age. Super fun album, which I feel good about now, but may revise later when we listen to some of his other work.

I’ve had a soft spot for Astor ever since I watched 12 Monkeys in high school. I love the zany sprawl of his bandoneon playing. Really enjoyed this one. I’d still give the edge to his other album, Tango: Zero Hour, but strong output here. I’ve already come back to listen again.

If this isn’t a 5, my rating scale might be broken. From that first organ note on Like a Rolling Stone, you can feel this record declaring a new attitude. Dylan pours himself into every track, gushing forth with his discontents. Breathtaking work. Important for the time, but still important for today.

Not my preferred style of rock, but it's close to a lot of sounds I love. I'm picking up a post-grunge Soundgarden feel, years before lighter-weight acts like Jet and The Hives would arrive on the scene. This album must have been a breath of fresh air for the culture, given that this was getting released during that late 90s "rock is in crisis" period before The Strokes brought rock and roll back in 2001. The first few songs felt too raw for my enjoyment. Standout favorites were How to Handle a Rope, You Can't Quit Me Baby, and Spiders and Vinegaroons (which was only on the 2011 reissue, I'm now reading). The musicianship was good, but I wanted more interesting lyrics. I remember exactly zero lyrical ideas, 4 hours after listening. That's an issue. PS - I Was a Teenage Hand Model is a hilarious song title.

You're a 1980s yuppie stockbroker with slicked-back hair and a condo on the 17th floor. Your cellphone is the size of a brick. You work all day in FiDi for a dream that slowly recedes, year by year. What is it all for? Sometimes it feels like a line dance, this corporate hustle; well, that's just the Walk of Life. You're chasing love too. She has big volume hair, teased and sprayed to the heavens with Aqua Net. Sketches of saxophone wrap you both in a cold hug as she breaks your heart again. Oh well. Nothing new on that front. Why Worry? There's always tomorrow in Reagan's America. The streets whisper as you walk down their narrowing corridor in fading light. You can’t win this game, but you are not alone. A host of yuppies joins you on the twilight boulevard. You draw strength from one other, Brothers in Arms.

With these daily albums, I've been excited to experience the great artists I've been hearing about my whole life, but have never actually listened to. Patti Smith is a perfect example: I know she's huge in the culture, I know she wrote a great book called Just Kids, but that's all I know. This album is punk incarnate (and it might be the very first punk album??). It's not just the music; it's Patti herself. She's like Dylan in her poetry and rough-around-the-edges singing voice, but her style is all her own. On Birdland, she asks "am I all alone in this generation?" and begs for someone to "please take me up, don't leave me here". That lyric touched me in its raw sincerity. This is not an album I'm going to spin regularly. But it is an album I'm going to rate highly for its courage and clarity.

There was a very funny cluster of dudes in 9th grade who competed on how many guitar notes they could play per second. For them, the Messiah of Shred was Eddie Van Halen. Listening to him obliterate the fretboard throughout this album, I can understand why. Super fun record. Surprisingly singable! Runnin’ with the Devil, Feel Your Love Tonight, and Ice Cream Man were my highlights.

The short story is this: I cannot stand Anonhi’s (nee Antony’s) vibrato voice. I understand the acclaim and the comparisons to Nina Simone, but I don’t like it.

This weekend put me in a mood for blunt takes. So here you go: this is forgettable garage rock. It wasn’t hard on the ears, but it didn’t stand out. Meanwhile, it annoyed me to have two white noise songs at the end of a 66-minute album. Don’t do that.

Pure joy. I was dancing yesterday in the office kitchen. I couldn’t help myself. I Zimbra was my favorite new find. Talking Heads is the band that opened my teenage mind, formed a deep connection point between me and my dad, and inspired many of my own songwriting experiments. And on this album, I was smiling non-stop.

King Contrary Man had a really enjoyable breakdown; that was probably my favorite song. Rick Rubin’s fingerprints are everywhere (clean sound mixing and crisp instrumentation), but “Born to Be Wild” is a huge swing and miss. Terrible cover. Edit, one week later: it wasn't that good, now that I think back on it. Knocking a star off.

I learned via Wikipedia that this was the first album purchased by Barack Obama. I love that fact. Man, Talking Book is just a winner, through and through. Stevie was 22 years old, releasing his 15th album! You have the two big well-known hits (You Are the Sunshine of My Life and Superstition), but I think I most enjoyed my introduction to the other tracks: Tuesday Heartbreak, Big Brother, Blame It On the Sun, and I Believe – especially I Believe – are really lovely. Stevie is giving us love songs, move-on-after-love songs, protest songs... breaking archetypes and stretching his wings all at once.

As much as the label seemed to haunt him, Brian Wilson was a genius. For the second day in a row, we're listening to a 22-year-old at the height of his powers. I have always found Beach Boys songs, especially the later work, to possess an almost mystic longing. It sounds like pop - but it's deeper than pop. No skips on this album, dazzling arrangements, and I really enjoyed the early cut of Help Me, Rhonda (more stripped down and uke-forward than the smash hit single version released later in 1965). I feel like I can hear shades of Pet Sounds building in the background on the second half.

I came in totally blind and had no idea what I was getting into. But wow... as Fela counted to 3 on "Let's Start" and those first brassy Hammond organ notes roared to life, my spirit soared. This has the juice! Love the albums we got this week. A mix of comfort classics + introductions to musicians I had never heard of.

Très chic! Every song pops. Disco is one of my favorite genres, and this album is stellar from top to bottom. I already feel the pull to return. We need another 3 Bar Saturday that includes a disco club.

Nostalgic 5/5 for me, which I may revise down to a 4 later. I remember buying Dear Science on iTunes in the fall of 2008, a few weeks before I got my driver’s license. All of my friends were obsessed with TV on the Radio, and none of us could believe how good this new record was. It’s Pavlovian to listen to now, bringing me right back to those carefree high school days where freedom felt like having the car for the night and a little bit of money in my pocket. Halfway Home still opens as powerfully as the first time I heard it all those years ago. That sweet bass line on the 3rd verse of Crying? Still hits. Funniest new thing I noticed was how explicitly sexual the closing track Lover’s Day is. That went way over my head back in the day.

It's hard for me to love rap, but Illmatic started to click as I biked through Chinatown last night with It Ain't Hard to Tell playing. The album's production is great -- the trumpets and record scratch effects feel just right for that classic East Coast rap sound -- and Nas has a silky lyricism that reminds me of The Roots' Black Thought. All good things! Giving this one a 3, but noting that a 3 is a good score for a rap album in my world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo625D7pBfA - the Penguin Cafe Orchestra later provided the soundtrack for a modern dance video inside of a 1989 Mister Rogers' Neighborhood episode. You really can't make this stuff up. I discovered this album in the last two weeks, by total coincidence. "The Sound of Someone You Love" has been on heavy rotation in my 'relax + focus' playlist at work and at home. It's a gorgeous song, an earworm, and we'd be talking about a masterpiece album if the other songs were in the same ballpark. Some of them are: Penguin Cafe Single, Hugebaby, and Chartered Flight. I loved the feeling of getting lost in their intricate melodies. But the other songs, the "Zopf" tracks (which had a larger lineup of musicians playing), were a bit harder for me to get into. Too experimental, too dissonant, even though I can appreciate the genre-bending between classical chamber music and sort of an avant-garde folk sound. The Zopf tracks feel like a separate album, one that doesn't mesh as well with the other four songs, which are more conventionally melodic.

Mariachi Mystery Orchestra 🌵🏜️ I really like the way this album creates a world of its own and pulls you right in. When I was 13, I tried writing a coming-of-age thriller novel that took place in Flagstaff, Arizona. This would have been the perfect soundtrack to it: Desert Noir, starring Pedro Pascal.

Hellll yeah. For hiphop, this is more my vibe: melodic with good groove. My favorites were Work It and Back in the Day (really dug the main hook on this one). Missy is one of the real ones.

Didn’t think I knew anything about The Prodigy, but I definitely knew Smack My Bitch Up (iconic club track) and a couple of others from some dance/electronic playlists. I can appreciate how this album was taking electronic music forward in the 90s. It starts strong, but the songs start feeling really repetitive toward the end. More variety (even just switching up the drum loop, come on) would have helped a lot.

Wow. I loved this album. After a year of my brother priming me on trip hop, Maxinquaye caught me in the ideal moment to lean in and enjoy every song. This is an ALBUM, complete in its vision and construction. The lyrics complement the music perfectly. From the trance-like tones of Overcome, to the barebones bass of Hell is Round the Corner, to the vibey goodness of Aftermath, I savored it all – and I’ll be coming back on the reg.

I first heard Remind Me on a 2006 Geico commercial: the caveman on the airport moving walkway. “Vibey elevator music!” I remember thinking. 19 years later, listening to the whole album? Yeah, my teenage take holds up, but “elevator music” is selling it short. If Eple, In Space, or Poor Leno comes on at the club, I’m dancing to it. See you there 🕺🪩 💃

Man, I love Ray Charles. I have his "Georgia on My Mind" sheet music sitting at my piano. I liked this album, especially the second half of piano ballads backed by strings (the classic Ray, in my opinion). The big band sound on the first half is good too, but the Ray I love is the soulful crooner.