Mid nineties guitar rock with pop sensibilities. Right up my alley, but I’ve never listened to it before. “Australia” is a standout at first listen. A lot of variety.

It’s hard to listen to this album without thinking of how every other white, Millennial dad out there decided to get together (without me) and decide that we all like Steely Dan now. I’ve tried. It’s obviously high effort, but it just isn’t interesting.

Love the Pixies. Out of the gate, mixes in some fun surf guitar. Has a lot of energy. Can easily see influence on Nirvana.

There’s a lot of ideas here, and what works really works. The singles are incredible. The main drawback is that it is overindulgent in ways that I frankly find annoying (it ends with a nearly 13 minute account of how he got a record deal).

Very surprised by this album. I read the description of it and thought it would just be repetitive boops and bops. This has real compositions, with a lot of variety. Great stuff.

I almost knocked it down a star just because I’ve been handing out a lot of five star reviews. That’s not a good reason. I absolutely love this album. It’s a lean, weird swan for an artist with a varied career and never went on cruise control. What an absolute king.

Took this morning to spend a little more time in this album. The instrumental track at the end helped me appreciate the composition a lot more. Love The Beach Boys and was happy to get this one. RIP Brian Wilson.

I liked the more upbeat songs ok, but this isn’t really for me.

Very catchy, singable songs. Hard for me to take “Wonderwall” seriously, but that’s not really the fault of the song itself.

Saw a Tiktoker call this kind of music “sad noises.” I agree, but as a compliment.

Really liked this one. I do feel a lot of the songs bled into the other. I would like to come back to this one.

It’s fine. The indie landfill period never gave anyone time to breathe and stand on their own. It was hard for me to genuinely listen to this album for that reason.

Love Paul McCartney, but still surprised by how much liked this album.

We are gathered here today to get through this thing called “life.”

I’ve spent many years in Appalachia and Dolly is our queen. No way she gets less than five stars. She mails my kid books every month.

One of the all-time greatest live albums.

This album is making me reconsider how I rate these. Part of me says that I should consider this a guilty pleasure, but I unreservedly love this album and I will rate it as such.

Great intro to Elvis. Had only a couple of songs I knew (“In the Ghetto” and “Suspicious Minds”). Gives you a good idea of Elvis as an entertainer. His “Elvisisms” are much more subtle than the impersonators would have you believe.

I like that “Hungry Like the Wolf” song.

Brian Eno at his most Eno.

The title track used to really annoy me, but that was because I only listened to the chorus. Hard to hate a song that tells you “I was dreaming when I wrote this.”

A pleasant surprise (I had never heard of this artist before). This is a lovely record. My only gripe is that the album never shifts gears at all.

I understand the arguments about Kiedis’s lyrics, and I kind of agree. The band still works for me, because I can’t imagine what they would sound like with a different front man. The musicianship is unimpeachable. However, there’s a huge dropoff in quality after track 8, making the album almost twice as long as it needs to be. The score reflects that I am probably biased in favor of this album, since it was a big one for me in high school.

Enjoyable and fun, with a good variety of instrumentation. Often noisy in a fun way.

One of those bands that few may know by name, but most have heard their influence.

Straight bangers with excellent musicianship.

I usually listen to these albums in my car during my commute. When I did that, I didn’t like this one as much. It benefitted greatly from listening with headphones.

Turns out that I love Björk and her weird mouth sounds. I can totally see this as being too avant-garde for some.