Great all the way through. Every track was outstanding.

Always a good listen. Cutting edge 1981.

Some classic amazing songs, some real stinkers, even for the day. Blue Condition was painful, Mother's Lament was a bad way to end a nice experience. Thank goodness for the bonus Lawdy Mama track.

Great all the way through. Every track was outstanding.

So very, very good from start to finish. Some amazing funk\rock jams at the end that just made me want to start again on side 1. So fine.

So good, though I had never listened to most of this album and fell in love with every morsel of it.

Like fine and aging wine, every time I take a sip I enjoy it more. A response to Ramones style punk and a launching pad to new wave. You can really hear the nods to Lou Reed\Velvet Underground (I'm your dog but not your pet...) and this just makes me want to listen to other CBGB bands like Dead Boys, Talking Heads, Television and Patti Smith spring to mind. A musical time capsule with a smirking angel's voice. Absolutely the best.

I was especially happy to see the Beach Boys pop up, with the passing from this world of the genius of Brian Wilson. However, while there are a couple good songs and excellent sound, most of the album is below average for a Beach Boys album. It may have been better than a good portion of the songs that came out on the year of release, it was a disappointing listen in 2025.

I've heard some epic songs from Arcade Fire and saw that this album was rated top 5 or top 3 in many cases for them. Maybe it is just the day, but I'm not feeling it. Deep Blue had a nice feel to it, a little like a muted Neutral Milk Hotel song. That said, I had to stop pausing the album to, in my mind, go do something interesting. Then eventually Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) grabbed my attention again and I was able to push through to the end of the album.

I was ready to listen with an ear to Nile Rodgers' hand in the making of it, and some of these songs were definitely hits, but some did NOT age well, Frankie among those. So how do you stack up a release for an above-average DISCO band against the other albums we have been listening to? Should I factor in the fact that the title track has every ounce of vitality wrung out of it by overuse in advertisements and politics? Should I add points because it has been sampled so many times since release? Do the vapid lyrics drag ot down as much if this was intended as dance music? The worst of the lyrics here were still easier to continue to listen to than some of the high concept albums I've listened to in the past, does that bring it up a star?

I think I missed Sugar completely in the 90's, but was aware of Bob Mould as a member of Hüsker Dü. I know the Pixies were heavily influenced by HD, but was surprised how much some of the songs reminded me of the Pixies and other later alternative band's songs. And this could be considered an easily digestible entry point to HD. I feel like I've heard these songs in the periphery many times before and and songs like Changes manage to take me back to places in the early 90's without me having been consciously aware of the band or the album. For some reason, as I listen to it, it reminds me of parts of The Smithereens' Especially for You album from 86, which is one of my favorites and I wonder if there was some inspiration there. I do remember hearing Helpless at some point. And like a flash this album is over with the slightly more aggressive and mildly anthemic Man on the Moon song as a nice ending point. Beaster, I'm told, is a little harder, can't wait to unpack that.