Oh, Today!? The day after Brian Wilson’s death? That's convenient. I have as much passing familiarity with The Beach Boys as any active music fan my age. That's to say: I am aware of their hits, saw the cameos on Full House, have heard them praised countless times for their influence, and only partially blame them for the Tate-LaBianca murders. To me, The Beach Boys have always been the quintessential "We have The Beatles at home" band. The waspy goody two-shoes appearance and falsetto harmonies quickly get cloying, and somehow make The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan performance feel edgy. I’m sure Pet Sounds will be on this list because that's always cited as their most influential album, so knowing this is (at most) their 2nd most influential album doesn't help my opinion of it. If I'm apathetic about side 1, I'm actively disinterested in side 2. (Sorry Brian, Rest In Peace)

My entry point to electronic music was Daft Punk’s Discovery in 2002. This is a far cry from that. I’m hard pressed to point to any moment of this album that caught my attention, so I’d put this firmly into the “background music” category… The grandfather of the ‘Chill Electronic Study Music’ Playlist, perhaps.

This feels like it should be a live album. I know you can’t create a new band nobody’s ever heard of and release a live album as your debut, but I kinda wish that’s what this was. The whole second half of Layla is a pretty obnoxious thing to record, but I’m sure it went incredibly hard in concert. Beyond that, writing a whole album about how much you love your best friend’s wife is a crazy thing to do. Especially when you include a song that explicitly says so (see: “Have You Ever Loved A Woman?”). It’s even more crazy that it eventually worked out. As a (former?) guitar player, Clapton will always have my respect, but ultimately this album spends more time jamming than I need it to.

Maybe avant-pop isn't for me... at least not this kind. While I'm positive that songs like Lizard Lady, Birthday Boy, and Hello Skinny made major impressions on Les Claypool, they don't hold me enough to warrant a revisit of this album in the future. I did save Birthday Boy on Spotify just in case I need to ruin somebody's big day.

The beginning of this album felt like walking into the middle of a set, so I’m not surprised to read that this was their 6th album. This probably feels great for established fans, but a little disorienting for new listeners. Overall, this is an easy listen. It isn’t really my thing, but I can appreciate its place in time and the influence it must have had on later UK pop-rock artists.

I mostly know Ray from his Diet Pepsi commercials in the 90’s, so it’s nice to get a better feel for his catalog. Really surprised that I didn’t get a copy of this album when I inherited my grandparents vinyl collection 15 years ago. All in all, an easy listen that I could see myself revisiting under the right circumstances (cocktail hour)

If you've consumed popular media in the last 15yrs, you've probably heard the first 4 songs from this album. Beyond that, the album will feel brand new if you can stay awake for it. Also- I refuse to believe the intro isn’t a Blue Man Group track.

This is one of those albums that I’ve always known I *should* listen to, but never quite got around to. This was a little before my time, plus I was east coast biased when I started getting into hiphop in the late 90’s. Obviously I’ve heard many of these songs over the years, but it’s fun to finally catch-up on the full album… even if the lyrics (and Snoop's politics) might be divisive today. It holds up better if you don’t listen too closely and just surf the vibes.

This starts out like a love letter to The Beatles, but becomes more David Bowie(TM) over the course of the album. I'm not steeped enough in early 70's pop-rock to know if that was the dominant sound at the time, or if Bowie was particularly fixated on echoing the Liverpudlians. If I inherited a vinyl copy of this album it would probably get some spins, but I'm not sure I'd buy a copy. Likewise, if I had a copy of this (or, more likely, a greatest hits CD) when I was in my "classic rock phase" in high school, I think I would have really gotten into it. Maybe I need to dig into the catalog more.

Oh, Today!? The day after Brian Wilson’s death? That's convenient. I have as much passing familiarity with The Beach Boys as any active music fan my age. That's to say: I am aware of their hits, saw the cameos on Full House, have heard them praised countless times for their influence, and only partially blame them for the Tate-LaBianca murders. To me, The Beach Boys have always been the quintessential "We have The Beatles at home" band. The waspy goody two-shoes appearance and falsetto harmonies quickly get cloying, and somehow make The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan performance feel edgy. I’m sure Pet Sounds will be on this list because that's always cited as their most influential album, so knowing this is (at most) their 2nd most influential album doesn't help my opinion of it. If I'm apathetic about side 1, I'm actively disinterested in side 2. (Sorry Brian, Rest In Peace)

Oh, Amy. I’ve dabbled in her catalog, but haven’t listened to this full album before. As a concept, I think I’m really interested in early 00’s HipHop/R&B lyrics sung over classic jazz (sometimes leaning bossa nova?) instrumentals. For the most part, the frankness of the album doesn’t rise to a level that would get Amy canceled today, but Stronger Than Me sets a problematic(tm) early tone and casts a slight shadow over the rest of the album. In any case, it’s no wonder that the world took notice of Amy here. A 19 year old who ‘writes it like it is’ and then tells you about it with pipes like these is certainly someone to take notice of, and the classic instrumentals make sure she doesn’t get overlooked in a semi-crowded early 00’s Pop/R&B space. If I zone out the lyrics a little bit, the vibes are great for a cocktail hour album, except that it’s difficult to unwind when I’m being called a ladyboy, or gay, for having feelings. Maybe Amy’s views on that would have softened by now if she was still with us. We can hope, but we’ll never know.

This band was not at all on my radar, and I’m a little upset about that. I spend a fair amount of time listening to “classic” punk, but maybe this leans too far into Metal or Post-Punk and that’s kept it out of my algorithms? In any case, it’s a joy to get to discover this after a week of albums that meandered through less interesting genres. Musically, this feels surprisingly well put together for a group of kids playing live-to-tape in a studio in 1980. It certainly feels like a band comfortable in their sound, and I’m very interested in hearing more of their discography to see how that develops more over time. Albums like this are why I started this project.

In highschool (when this came out) I used to keep a physical list of all the CDs I wanted to buy, and this was certainly on that list. Unfortunately, my budget only stretched so far and I never managed to buy this one. Being familiar with all the singles from this album, I was excited to dig into the full album. Sadly, beyond those singles, many of the album tracks never needed to be recorded. It feels like they wrote an incredibly solid EP, and then pulled in some studio goof-arounds to fill out for LP length. “Little Room”? “I Think I Smell a Rat”? Both of these could (should) have been bonus tracks stuck on the end of the last track a la Green Day’s “All By Myself”. Sometimes recording an album in a week isn’t something to brag about. I say all that, and then I wonder if The Black Keys would have made it out of Ohio without the commercial success of The White Stripes …I truly don’t know and it may keep me up tonight. An influential album, to be sure, but I had hoped for some new hidden gems to celebrate.

First off, I'm blown away by the album art (pun intended). If there was a more punk rock album cover put out in 1958, please send it to me. This is worth owning on vinyl just to have the sleeve. I love big band music, but I have spent no meaningful time digging into specific albums. This was a pretty easy listen for me, and a good way to start an overcast/drizzly Monday. It's certainly an "in your face" version of this kind of music, so you better be ready to go with that energy. "The Kid From Red Bank" punches you in the gut to start the album, so I appreciate that it's followed by "Duet" and "After Supper" which help you catch your breath and get into the Swing of things (pun clearly intended). Once you're back on your feet, "Flight of the Foo Birds" starts swinging again and doesn't stop until "Midnite Blue". Finally, you get a break again. Ok, it's only been 13 minutes, but in this weird fight analogy I've apparently committed to, that's a long time! This notable change of pace made "Midnite Blue" stand out to me on first listen, more than either of the earlier slow songs. From here "Splanky" speeds things up again, but it knows you're tired and your feet are moving slower than they did in the earlier rounds. "Fantail" follows a little quicker, just to see if you have one last spar in you, and "Lil Darlin'" sees you slowly shuffle back to your corner to await the decision. Does any of this make sense? Of course not. I should have written this like a dance card, not a fight card, because that's a much more normal way to analyze the pacing of an album. Beyond that, why is the first track compared to one punch, some tracks are full rounds, and some are something in between? Great question. Maybe 7 people will ever read this far anyway, so I don't feel particularly compelled to fix it at this point. Overall, a fun listen, and a good excuse to poke around the Count Basie discography today.

I can't tell you if Woody Guthrie would have liked this, but I’ll tell you I did not. I appreciate the project at hand, but don’t love the execution. I think this may have worked better if every track was a full collaboration, instead of sending two musicians off to each work on 1/2 an album. Some tracks are better than others, but I'm hard pressed to pick a standout. If anything, "Birds and Ships" (Track 4, featuring Natalie Merchant) felt like the low point. There is no connective tissue in how the first side of this album is laid out and it feels like they're throwing everything at the wall to see if something would stick. "Hoodoo Voodoo" continues the disparate trend and it's not until "She Came Along to Me" that they start cycling through approaches again and things feel more familiar. They never bring in another guest vocalist though, so Natalie holds the honor of being the only cameo on the whole album. The only track I noticed in the back half was "Eisler On The Go", where the haunting vocal performance forced me out of my malaise for a few minutes. Sadly, it goes straight into the upbeat "Hesitating Beauty" and quickly forgets the mood it just created (again). The album finally closes with "The Unwelcome Guest" which certainly lives up to its name. The harmonies (I use the word loosely) will encourage you to leave as soon as possible and make sure you think twice about coming back. I guess someone liked this enough to bring everyone back to do it two more times. I’ll never know if those sessions went better.

Joan has a lovely voice and it's easy to see how this album influenced decades of folk artists and singer-songwriters that came after her. There's too many bible-centric songs for me, and even if I set those aside, I struggle to connect with anything. Standouts for me: "House of the Rising Sun", "El Preso Numero Nueve", and "Girl of Constant Sorrow"(I know this was added later). I could see Joan having a captivating live presence. Maybe not "captivating" in the sense that she holds 100% of your attention, but her vocal modulation makes it difficult to ignore her for very long before she requires your attention again. I wish this quality was moderated a little bit for the recording. The range of volumes here makes this a difficult pre-coffee listen. Between that and the three different typefaces on the album cover, I'm really struggling this morning.

My entry point to electronic music was Daft Punk’s Discovery in 2002. This is a far cry from that. I’m hard pressed to point to any moment of this album that caught my attention, so I’d put this firmly into the “background music” category… The grandfather of the ‘Chill Electronic Study Music’ Playlist, perhaps.

My primary exposure to The Kinks is their “Kinks” album, so this was not what I expected. The album opens like a tribute to (copy of?) Sgt. Pepper, so listeners in 1968 may have been forgiven for quickly passing summary judgement on this one. If I didn’t know I was listening to a Kinks album (and have a reasonable grasp of the Beatles catalog), it would be easy to mistake “Picture Book” as a lesser known Beatles song. Fortunately, “Johnny Thunder” starts to turn a corner, and by “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains” they are finally in their own lane. Which is to say, at least here, somewhere between The Beatles and The Who. For my part, I guess I wish there were a little less harpsichord and a few more rock’n’roll tracks like “Wicked Annebella”, or blues-rock tracks like “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains”.

When this album finished, the first song Spotify played was Led Zeppelin's “The Ocean” (Houses of the Holy, 1973). It’s a little wild think about this album and that one being only 1 year apart. Where Zeppelin still feels very much like proto-hard rock, Bad Company feels like a more polished next step in the progression of rock’n’roll. Strange/interesting that BC was the first act signed to LZ’s record label. But when I step back, Bad Company sounds more like a descendant of Deep Purple, who were doing a version of this sound since the late 60’s (and who Paul Rodgers almost fronted before starting BC). For their part, Bad Company did craft a monster rock’n’roll album here. 50 years later, almost all of these songs feel familiar (“The Way I Choose” & “Seagull” being the exceptions), which says a lot. A very easy listen for me, even if I hate to admit enjoying Dad Rock. Maybe I should have taken Bad Company more seriously in my classic rock phase.

I love Neil Young because he makes me feel like I could have been professional musician too; if Neil can get paid to sing, maybe anyone can. This album is full of the kind of misanthropic folk/blues/rock that I would have eaten up during my frequently mentioned Classic Rock Phase(TM). Unfortunately, I never made it past Buffalo Springfield or the popular notion that Neil’s solo catalog was as hit-or-miss as it was diverse. Case in point - a song from his newest album, Talkin to the Trees, was recently suggested as the worst song of the 2025. Ouch. Fortunately, this album feels like it falls on the opposite end of the spectrum. First listen standouts for me include “Revolution Blues” and “On The Beach”. The former feels ripe for a good cover, and the latter has a groove I could swim in for much longer than it’s 7min runtime (which feels absolutely wild to say about a song that long). I’ll also give an honorable mention to “Walk On”, but it has an aggressively Niel Young vocal performance that could turn away casual listeners right away. But here again, the track feels ripe for a good cover. I was excited that this could be my first no skip album of the project, but “Ambulance Blues” blew the no hitter in the ninth inning. And if we’re skipping one, then I might consider skipping “See The Sky About To Rain” as well, if only because it’s keeping me from all the tracks I like in the heart of the album. Maybe we axe Ambulance Blues and move this one towards the end for a more bulletproof album? Overall, this was a fun discovery, and a nice way to start my Sunday morning. I can see myself revisiting this album, and I look forward to more Neil Young in this project (at least Harvest, I assume).

On paper I probably should have been a Muse fan. I can’t really tell you why I’m not, except that something about them just didn't work for me... too fake, maybe? Or too pretentious? This isn’t their debut album, and it shows. This feels like a band very comfortable weaving together an extremely complex sound, or one with enough label money to hire a really slick producer. Having never heard their earlier albums, I have little doubt I’d enjoy them more than this one and then complain that BH&R was the beginning of their big sellout. Nevertheless, this is a very solid, if soulless, commercial-minded rock’n’roll record with all the cinematic flourishes you need for a big stadium tour (plus countless commercials and TV soundtracks). I can practically hear the pyrotechnics and the flutter of A&R professionals. Muse feels like what would happen if Coldplay took amphetamines instead of opioids. It's music for junior finance bros to do cocaine to.

How excited did people get for live albums before YouTube made it easy to get clips of bands playing live? I guess it's fitting that I had to listen to this album on YouTube because Spotify didn't have all the tracks available. Typically I skip live albums in favor of 'best of' albums (or playlists) with all the studio tracks, but I'm glad I had to give this one a shot. To be clear, I do appreciate live music, but I feel like I have to turn the volume way up on live albums to get a full appreciation for the experience and that's a commitment I'm not usually willing to make. That said, I'm sure there's a pantheon of the greatest live albums of all time and that I should spend more time with that list. I'm a little dismayed to read about the controversy surrounding this album and how much of it was or wasn't overdubbed. For me, that really blunts how much I 'm able to appreciate this album. This sounds like a really great tour, but is this really what a concert would have sounded like? Without that additional knowledge I think I would have become very bullish on Thin Lizzy after this. I'm still curious to dig into their studio recordings a little more, but will always wonder how much studio magic is involved.

Is this the 1962 equivalent of Cowboy Carter or Lil Nas X? Sixty years later, these songs do not sound at all controversial but I'll believe what I've read about how many feathers were ruffled at the time. Conversely, it's also hard to wrap my head around everything I've read about how influential this was in mainstreaming (and influencing) country music. There were only a few moments in this album where I could hear the country bleeding through in the arrangements, otherwise this played like a pretty standard album of early 60's R&B/Soul/Pop crooning, just based on country songs. I could have done with fewer violins, but I understand that was a thing at this time. I feel like I appreciate this as much as I appreciated "The Genius of Ray Charles" when I listened to that but I understand that this album is probably more culturally significant and thus more necessary pre-death listening. That makes rating complicated. In any case, I’m glad I held back a little bit on my 'Genius' review so I can say it here: Ray Charles was a visionary. Someone get this guy a Diet Pepsi.

I was extremely unexcited when this album came up today. I am, unfortunately, tangentially VERY familiar with this one because I had a sibling who was a huge Britney fan. We all even saw her live in Chicago at one point. I also watched a lot of TRL in ‘99/‘00. All that to say, for someone who was/is not at all into this kind of music, I know way too much of this album already. Nevertheless, here we go… The beginning of this album (“…Baby One More Time” through “Sometimes”) will not be new to anyone who lived through the Y2K crisis. They were big ol’ pop hits and I don’t have much to say about them. Next up are the real time capsules… “Soda Pop” is so late-90’s it hurts. Why are we skatting here? Didn’t we get enough of this with Mmmbop? Apparently not, much to Shaggy’s delight a few years after this. Next is the equally late-90’s “Born To Make You Happy”, which gives me big yikes in 2025. This is probably still celebrated as a Trad Wife anthem in certain circles, but I want nothing to do with it. Next, I think “From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart” was also a single, or maybe it was just a local favorite in my house. Either way, and that track helps reset things a little bit. But after that, the rest of the album feels remarkably unremarkable. “Email my Heart” is the the possible exception, but only because its premise is too corny to ignore. I know she didn’t write any of these songs, and was only ~19 when they were recorded, so I won’t fault her too much for the questionable decisions here. This isn’t an album I’ll be revisiting, but it was kinda fun(?) to force myself to give it a full listen all these years later.

I'm impressed by how cinematic this album is. Obviously I've heard all the singles (and probably more) over the years, but this is the first time I've sat with the whole thing. And considering the musical landscape of 1993, I can't help but be even more impressed. Certainly compared to Nirvana's In Utero (also 1993), this record is going a completely different direction. Where Nirvana doubled down on their bread&butter grunge sound, The Smashing Pumpkins are leaning into a much more expansive sound. Listening back to Gish (1991), I can hear elements that hint at an enhanced grunge sound, but Siamese Dream moves that sound out of grunge's shadow. I’m not sure I need to revisit this whole album, but it’s certainly deepens my respect for the band.

This feels like it should be a live album. I know you can’t create a new band nobody’s ever heard of and release a live album as your debut, but I kinda wish that’s what this was. The whole second half of Layla is a pretty obnoxious thing to record, but I’m sure it went incredibly hard in concert. Beyond that, writing a whole album about how much you love your best friend’s wife is a crazy thing to do. Especially when you include a song that explicitly says so (see: “Have You Ever Loved A Woman?”). It’s even more crazy that it eventually worked out. As a (former?) guitar player, Clapton will always have my respect, but ultimately this album spends more time jamming than I need it to.

This record is for a much sadder day than today, but I’m trying to connect anyway. “Stroke It Noel” is the stand out track from my first listen. I’m excluding “Femme Fatale” because it’s a cover and I’m not sure it’s better than the original. Ultimately, I don’t hate it, but I don’t think I’ll revisit this one many times. I noticed nothing from this album is in Big Star’s most popular songs on Spotify, so I think I’ll see what the other albums are like. Three big stars feels appropriate.

Soft-core Prog-Rock, but like, not in a bad way? By today's standards, this is classic Yacht Rock(TM), for sure. I know "Dreamer" was the single, but wikipedia claims that "School" and "Bloody Well Right" are the more enduring hits. It's hard to argue with that as I find Dreamer pretty cloying after about 30seconds. I can’t see School as a hit but as an album opener, you could do far worse. Portions of Bloody Well Right feel like they had direct influence on Pink Floyd's Animals (1977), which surprised me at first. I am much more familiar with the latter, so hearing similar sounds caught me off guard here. At ~45min, this is a very manageable prog-rock album that never feels like it goes off on a big space voyage for too long despite the slightly ominous album cover or the threatening “will he take a sailboat ride?" in the chorus of “Asylum”. We get harmonicas, saxophones, talkbox guitars, Wurlitzers, all the things I wish we still heard more often. I don't know if I need to revisit this whole album, but I'll spend some more time with Supertramp.

I knew The Doors would come up at some point, so part of me is glad to check one off the list. I'm not a Jim Morrison fan. If I could somehow listen to this album without wincing every time he launched into his signature overly theatric vocals, there’s a possibility I’d enjoy some of these songs. Hell, if they just mixed everything differently to make Jim and the organ less prominent, I might be able to enjoy this more. I understand how influential The Doors were, but I just can't get past Jim. Maybe that will change with later albums, but I kinda doubt he got less obnoxious as he got more famous. The saving grace is that they influenced a lot of later acts who managed to tweak the recipe and make enjoyable music. I don't have many specific notes about this album. The hits were the hits. You know them, you have feelings about them. "Twentieth Century Fox" feels like a warm-up for "Light My Fire" - without the tempo difference, they open with essentially the same melody and that's all I could think about. Somewhere during "The End" I started looking for the ffwd button. The 45min runtime for this record felt like it meandered more than it needed to; the opposite of yesterday's Supertramp album.

I don't understand why this is on the list. I don't say that to be mean, but I can't hear anything here that feels different or more influential than other singer-songwriter albums of this time, or decades before. Maybe the devil is in the details and I am too bored to listen for those details. Rufus Wainwright sings like a sad teenager who only owns Thom Yorke and Chris Martin records. The album opens with a dirge that really set a tone I couldn't get past. I can't pick out any hits, and there are a lot of songs that feel like they would be that final slow song you'd play to end a concert, but then it keeps going. Makes for a long hour, and probably an even longer concert.

After Boards of Canada, I was not extremely excited to get into another early electronic album. This one, however, is a little more my speed. I had friends who made electronic music in the early 00s, and this feels remarkably similar to what they were making even a decade later. I guess that's triggering a sense of nostalgia in me, even though I've never listened to this particular album nor do any raving in the 90s.

I’ve never heard of this band, but I’ve heard “Alright” in plenty of tv/movie scenes. I listened to this one twice and still don’t know how I feel about it. For the most part, I enjoyed this but don’t see myself revisiting the album or any of their others.

A lot of reviews mentioned that Spotify doesn’t have the correct tracks for this album, so I went to YouTube and I think I found it(?). If so, it seems like an enjoyable set but difficult for me to get into through all the YouTube ads.

If you can put aside your feelings about Morrissey as a person, I think this album can help you just hate him as a musician too. You couldn’t even parody this album because Morrissey is cartoonishly self loathing and whiney in a way that doesn’t feel humble, it just feels like the melodic pouting of a narcissist. It feels shockingly self-aware, but I can’t decide if he is or not. If he wasn’t already a rich, famous, middle-aged white man, I can’t imagine this album ever seeing the light of day. But alas, here it is ruining my otherwise nice Sunday. To adapt a phrase from my grandma (and Lucille Ball): “If that’s the kind of album you wanted, you sure got a good one.”

This was exactly the kind of thing I needed to start an overcast Monday. This was fun and an easy listen, while still feeling a little edgy (see track two). Plenty of hits on this one, so I’m sure a lot of white people bought this and got a little bit of a surprise when they dropped the needle. Ya love to see it. This isn’t a genre I spend a lot of time with, but if I had this record, I think I’d play it semi-regularly.

Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning, because of course he did. AC/DC is high art for people who have to worry about things like that - people who answer the question ‘what’s your favorite kind of music?’ with “Loud!” Verses be damned, the only thing that matters is that the chorus is simple and repetitive enough that you can start singing along the first time through. If that’s the kind of music you want, AC/DC is absolutely your kinda band. This is not a band for anyone interested in reading lyrics or thinking about themes; this whiskey is for shooting, not for sipping. I truly don't know if I mean all of that in a good way or a bad way, and I guess that's the genius of AC/DC.

I had no idea what to expect here, but it certainly wasn't what I got. I had to listen to this a few times to decide what I really thought about it (I kinda like when that happens). Ultimately, it feels like two different albums shuffled together; one part is straightforward brit-pop, and the other is experimental electronic music. I actually like parts, but the constant juxtaposition makes it difficult to get into. The only way this really makes sense to me is as the soundtrack to a movie I'm, unfortunately, not watching. I know that's the idea behind "Kowalski", but I feel like it applies to the whole album. Call-outs: "Star" - sounds like it had direct influence on future Gorillaz recordings. "Medication" - if you told me this was a Rolling Stones cover, I'd believe you. I didn’t dislike it enough to take away stars, but I don’t like it enough to give it extras; so this gets a baseline score.

Mathematically it's impossible for Mac Miller to have fronted this band, but if you told me this was released in 2016, you could have convinced me. I think I would have loved this album had I found it in middle school; it's the right amount of catchy pop/rock mixed with a pre-teen level of edginess that would have really scratched my brain in the late 90s. Maybe I'll pretend that happened and I'll retroactively start including this in my pantheon of formative classics. Delving into the rest of their catalog has also been fun, I'm sad it took so long for me to find this band.

I can appreciate that Elliott Smith, and likely this album, were hugely influential for a generation of disaffected "art kids" and countless early-00's emo bands. This album feels like a collection of that one slow acoustic song that every rock band has towards the back of their album. Like a Cap'n Crunch's OOPS! All Berries(R) of acoustic proto-emo, minus the sugar. If someone gave me a burned copy of this in highschool, I'm sure it would have resonated and frequently been in the 3Disk CD player next to my homework desk. Instead, the longest running rotation I can remember was: Jimmy Eat World's Clarity, Beulah's The Coast Is Never Clear, and Pete Yorn's Music For The Morning After... All considerably less depressing than this, which was probably for the best. Unlike I was in highschool, I'm not in a place in my life where I can fully embrace ES anymore. I don't think I'd revisit this album but I don't regret listening to it and I hope Elliott rests in peace.

This project is missing an editor. I don’t feel like I needed any of this, so a double album is… a lot. This is basically two single albums packaged together: one album where she covers standards over hip-hop beats, and one album of originals where she’s backed by a swing band, orchestra, and/or choir. See what she did there? Call-outs: “Thank You (Dedicated To Fans…)” is sprinkled with audio clips of her fans praising her and feels more self-indulgent than humble. “Candyman” is like a swing version of Britney Spears’s “Soda Pop” but somehow even worse. Is “The Right Man” about her new husband or her daddy issues? Both? That’s neat.

As a vibe, I enjoyed this album; especially once the day turned overcast and rainy. But in my second listen, I started to have issues with the component pieces. Much of this sounds like things I used to do in FL Studio back when I was tinkering with elmy own electronic music. Obviously there’s some extra parts and polishing here that I never mastered, but the basic melodies and drum parts aren’t that much more advanced. Beyond that, I kind of wish I didn’t know English very well and could just treat the vocals like another instrument on this record. I don’t think the lyrics are very good, and part of me wonders what if Fever Ray actually speaks English. Somehow, both of these things work well enough together to make pretty acceptable background music. Not high praise, I know, but I’m working with what I’m given.

I assume the title is an allusion to the band members who bailed right before the album was recorded? I’m not going to spend too much time debating post-Beatles McCartney vs Lennon projects. Music isn’t zero-sum and there’s room for both to be appreciated for what they are. In this case, we’re appreciating a pretty lightweight offering. This probably isn’t a record I’d seek out, but I think I’d play it occasionally if I had a copy. It’s a sunny Saturday morning kinda record… not the kind you deep clean the house to, but the kind you put on while you get ready for a day out. “Band On The Run” & “Jet” put the hits right up front so you can listen before you get too distracted. “Let Me Roll It” breaks the vibe just enough to remind you that you’re gonna have to flip the record in a minute (well played, Paul). “Mamunia” restarts the vibe sesh on side2 just long enough for you to go back to whatever you were doing. “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five” is one last banger to go out on. Kinda like an ‘NPR Driveway Moment’ where you stand there and let it finish playing before you move onto your next thing. Or, just stream it on your phone and don’t worry about all that. Idk.

This album sounds how the cover looks. Like someone attempting to mimic Picasso but gets nervous that audience won't get it if it's too abstract. Or maybe it's like the adult jokes in Disney movies and I'm just not smart enough to know there are things going over my head. I'm sure there's some real art here because I've read a few extremely nerdy reviews that say so, but I can't find it. I feel like it would be more accurate to call them Elvis Costello and the Distractions. Elvis's voice is passable when he's shouting over a cacophony of noise, but as soon as then slow the tempo down and pare back the instruments, his voice is kinda bad. "Almost Blue" really hurt me. I didn't really love "Little Savage", "Boy With A Problem", or "Town Cryer" either, but otherwise was able to bop my head and go along with the circus.

Oh boy, this really drags me back to the old Carson Daly TRL days. This feels very much like a tale of two albums; one part late 90s Pop/R&B, one part Adult Contemporary. I'm not sure I love the former, but definitely don't care for the latter. If this album didn't start the trend of stretching every high note into a full scale just to flex your vocal skills, it was certainly on the front end. Almost 30 years later, pop music hasn't recovered.

This was a surprise. I'm sure I've heard a few of these songs nestled into a TV show here or there, but I couldn't have told you anything about Cowboy Junkies before today. Now I know they are the foundation of any David Lynch (or David Lynch inspired) project’s soundtrack. It's not music that you'd sit and watch... If they were playing any venue larger than a bar, I don't think I'd go. But as sad background music (especially for drinking), you could do a lot worse. I could easily see myself listening to this on a quiet Saturday morning/evening at home, or while cooking dinner after a long day.

Before I even pressed play, I wanted to like this album and confirm my alt/punk bonafides. For the most part, I did like it, but I guess I didn’t love it. I guess I’m not as cool as I had hoped. “Where Is My Mind?” - there’s a reason this has 1Billion Spotify listens. It’s an anthem, but it’s an outlier on this album; I kinda hate when the one non-representative song gets pulled to be the single. Also slightly frustrating because “if you can do THIS, why are you spending so much time doing THAT?”. The inclusion of this song makes the rest of the album (especially the tracks after it) sound worse. “Vamos (Surfer Rosa)” - you can’t make me listen to this whole track. I tried twice and it can’t be done; the guitar solo is insufferable.

A lot of this album feels like game show demo music. The rest of it manages to feel like every 80s new wave trope rolled together, and it was still only 1982! I don’t know if that says something about how influential this album was, or my perception of pop music in the 80s. I’m not sure I buy the argument that this album had a meaningful influence on the later development of electric music. “Arrogance Gave Him Up” - 100% game show music. “No” - title sums up my thoughts. “Gloomy Sunday” - objectively the least good song about Sunday to come out of the 80s. “Club Country” - sounds like someone doing karaoke of this song, but that’s just the song. “18 Carat Love Affair” - another theme song for a show that didn’t exist.

I enjoyed this. Maybe that’s not a surprise since I’ve previously rated Neil Young, Cowboy Junkies, and Eels favorably. It’s certainly not an album for everyone, but it works for me. “Overture” was not a very promising start, but things got easier once they dialed back the synth strings. "(Well)Dusted", "X-Tra Wide", and "Shiver" were my standouts

A good friend in highschool was a Beck fan, so I know a lot of these songs from our late night cruises in the suburbs. Unfortunately, Beck was a little too avant-garde for me at that time(I was more of a metalhead) and I never made an effort to dig in beyond what I heard in that Volvo. Twenty something years later, I regret that. If Beck wasn’t ahead of his time in a popular sense, he certainly was for me personally.

I knew nothing about Slint before today, however, there are countless bands still making music that sounds like this and I've seen many of them over the years in small bars and DIY spaces. I wish I had found this when I was younger. I think the hardest part of trying to make music as a teenager was figuring out where the music in my head fit into the broader music landscape, and that challenge drove me to force different styles on myself so I could fit in better. I'm not sure I even knew post-rock was a thing at the time, which is pretty unfortunate. This feels much closer to the music I would have made naturally than the metal-based music I ended up trying to make. My blues roots gave me a love for jamming and letting the groove slowly build, but my only point of reference for that type of music was classic rock and actual jam bands (Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Phish, etc) and that wasn't a sound I was interested in creating. Realizing there was a whole genre where people did that with heavier distortion would have been a revelation for me, and would have helped me share that vision with potential band mates. Sadly, the 2005 reunion was just barely too late for me to notice; one or two years earlier might have changed my life. Or not, who knows. "Breadcrumb Trail" "Washer" (even if the vocals aren't quite in key) "Good Morning, Captain"

It only makes sense that Black Sabbath would be pushed the day after Ozzy's death is announced. I appreciate the timeliness, but I will resist to use this review to eulogize Ozzy. I'm not sure this is the definitive Black Sabbath album, but I do understand why it's on the list. It's clear that Sabbath was writing the rules for metal with every recording, and Vol. 4 is the first time they took the reins and produced an album themselves (cocaine definitely helped). I'm sure this has been studied closely by innumerable aspiring rock'n'rollers and they've all taken away different pieces. "Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener": A fun classic rock riff to start the album, but it quickly transitions to very recognizable Sabbath. The guitar solo in the last few minutes is unexpected and feels like early roots for the 'widdly-widdly-wah' guitar solos that were everywhere in the late 70s and 80s. "Changes": A classic. Kinda crazy that they would put this so far forward in the album; they certainly didn't play it this early at concerts. "Supernaut": The guitar tone feels like the missing link between the squawky overdrive of classic Classic Rock(TM) and the clean distortion of later Heavy Metal(TM). I'm sure there aren't major tone changes compared to the rest of the album, but it's front & center here and hard to miss. Impressively modern compared to the compressed/buzzy tone on Paranoid or Master of Reality, but that could just be better studio production or later remastering. "Snowblind": Another classic that's launched 1000 garage bands. "Laguna Sunrise": A string section and an acoustic guitar? I like this more than "FX" but it's hard to hear it as anything but filler. It makes sense why "Changes" was so far forward now; you wouldn't want that and this to be too close together. This definitely gave Ozzy a minute to go backstage and "freshen up" on the tour.

I initially groaned at this because I forget Garbage and Hole are different bands. Had I managed to mentally uncouple these bands sooner, I might have been a Garbage fan in highschool. My first impression is that Garbage leaned way more Industrial than I thought. The very machine-eque drumming and/or drum machine(?), really surprised me as I was expecting straight Grunge. The hits ("Only Happy When It Rains" & "Stupid Girl") do skew a little more 'mainstream' alt-rock, so maybe that's what lead me astray. Overall, this was an interesting listen for me and I’m sorry I missed it the first time around. "Queer": feels very proto-Fiona Apple. "Only Happy When It Rains": after "Queer", this really ramps the album back up to the heavier side. Hearing this in context makes it feel less Pop. "As Heaven Is Wide": this is when I noticed the industrial influence. It also reminded me of future metal/industrial acts, like Orgy and Powerman 5000. Not sure I can fully defend that, but something got my mind there. "Not My Idea": this is proto-CSS. I know that's an obscure band reference, but I'm going to call it out as proof of influence. "Stupid Girl": If you can listen past the bubblegum, the breakdowns remind me of something straight off of a KMFDM album.

I'm not a Metallica fan, but I can appreciate their contribution to the Metal(TM) genre. I knew I'd eventually have to listen to some Metallica albums for this project, so here we go... A lot of this album feels like it's sticking to bread & butter metal - a wall of crunchy guitars and drums with some lyrics shouted over the top. That's fine, I don't have a ton to say about that. Where the album gets interesting is the moments like "...And Justice For All", "One", "To Live Is To Die", and "Dyers Eve" where they weave some classical guitar interludes into the standard metal structures. I don't know Metallica intimately enough to know if this was new for this album or not, but this being their first album nominated for a Grammy suggests it probably was. I do appreciate the irony of them losing to Jethro Tull; after listening to this, I feel like the two aren't as far apart as I would have thought. A lot of the guitar solos sound like recycled Van Halen solos, but maybe that's all part of the design. This feels like a bid to bring Metal closer to the mainstream, and I think that's exactly what it did. A quick look at Metallica's history of award nominations doesn't show anything before this album and a lot from here forward. This was Metallica's big crossover moment, and that's not nothing. Overall, I don't think I need to spend more time with this album, but I'm not as annoyed as I thought I would be to listen through it.

Except for the inclusion of a few fun blues moments and, of course, the one song everyone knows… I might have zoned this completely out. I’m sure this really spoke to people in 1970, but I couldn’t connect to it this morning. “Steamroller”: love the blues but glad there’s a guitar on his lap hiding the boner. “Fire and Rain”: the hit. This was definitely a go to for creepy autistic guitar guys at parties in the 70’s. “… Oh Baby, Don’t You Loose Your Lip on Me”: another blues banger just to prove he can be Miracle Whip when he wasn’t so determined to be regular ass Mayonnaise. “Suite for 20 G”: there was money for other musicians this whole time? We really did all that boring bedtime music just to finish the albums with drums and horns??? Borderline unforgivable.