A interesting combination of the flavor of music at the time, bluegrass sensibilities, and a forward looking sound that anticipates the kinds of singer song writer music that would dominate the 70s. TFBB blend what may be influences of Harry Nillson, the Rolling Stones, an oddly Hank Williams into a genre bending album that both smacks of its era as well as feels out of place in it.
What can you say? It's The King! The record is a fantastic debut, and a showcase of the alchemy that took place to turn the country, blues, and swing into Rock and Roll. The King showcases many of the styles that would dominate music for the next 5-10 years, inspiring acts like Chubby Checker, Buddy Holly and the eventually bands like The Beatles. Elvis was key in bringing this type of music to broader and white audiences, but he was definitely participating in a conversation of his contemporaries who would not see their efforts rewarded with full length recordings until a few years later (notably Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley). If you are interested in the history of rock and roll, this is quintessential listening.
Micheal Jackson makes a statement about the future of his music with this album. Though still very clearly inspired by older contemporaries like Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, Jackson abandons the conscious and soulful R&B of the mid 70s to delve into something new. Moreover, it seems that Jackson toys with the supremely popular Disco genre, but stays away from a full commitment to the funky and dance forward sounds (he'd rather burn it out). Instead, we are presented with a soft blending of genres to create a newer sound for Pop music. Amazing singles like Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough will make you move to the beat, while soft melodies like Girlfriend have funky piano and bass parts that are as at home accompanying Jackson's vocals as they might David Byrnes. I've never been a huge Jackson fan, but this album is a must listen.
This is my favorite Bowie album. The album starts off with a bang, the instrumentals are amazing, and it foretells the kind of experimentation Bowie would continue doing until the end of his career. From the get go, Speed of Life sets the tone for the record, with some typically Bowie hits like Breaking Glass and Sound and Vision. MY favorite bowie song of all time, A New Career in a New Town sets the tone for the B side. Although the back half starts with the oppressive Warszawa, it is followed by some hauntingly beautiful melodies showcasing a beautiful collaboration between Bowie and Brian Eno.
I understand why the album is on the list. I understand that The Kinks are hugely important to the rock of the 60s and their influence on garage rock can be felt even as far into the future as bands like the Black Keys and The Strokes. But by 1969 when this album came out, their contemporaries had moved away from the tried and true sound of the early and mid 60s and were delving into sonically new sounds, pushing rock into newer directions. Although there are some very solid songs on this album, and it is easy to listen to, it does not speak to me.
A phenomenal debut album from a band that would shape music for years to come. Mike Patton crawled so Zach De La Rocha could run. Start to finish this album explodes with funky bass lines, absurd guitar riffs, and incendiary lyrics. One could even say Nu Metal started here, though RATM defies that genre classification. A must listen.
Full disclosure, I love surf and rockabilly, and the B-52s play with the genre beautifully. Planet Claire and Rock Lobster are worth the listen of this album, and most of the songs are fun and catchy, but some just don't hit. In an era where New Wave is about to take over, it is refreshing to see a band so unabashedly in love with old rock styles.
I appreciate that this is probably one of the first albums in the burgeoning punk rock genre at
A beautiful album. Full of some really surprising pop all the way to somber and melodic pieces. A real shame there aren't any more, but you can absolutely see the influences of other singer songwriters of the time on the work. Some hints of Leonard Cohen, touches of Henry Nilsson. Just a real pleasure to listen to.
When Beck's musical style works, it really works. Odelay had some unforgettable songs that topped the charts when this album came out. Beck's strange alchemy of techno breakbeats, guitar riffs, and samples creates something unique and unforgettable. Often Beck sounds like Cake and the Beastie Boys collided at high speed to smash together into something altogether unique. Track's like Devils Haircut and Where It's At show Beck's perfection of this sound, but more experimental and disjointed songs like Derelict and High 5 just don't hit as hard even though they are still interesting. Regardless, you can see Beck's, and specifically this album's, influence on music that would dominate the late 90s.
Not a single song from this album is on the Billboard Top 100 for 2001. Yet, the Gorillaz seemed to be everywhere at the time. Certainly, the music video played with regularity on MTV. Never having been a big Gorillaz fan, I thought to at first rate this a 2 or 3. However, looking at that list of the Top 100 for the year and re-listening to the b-side of the album, I have to rate it higher. The first two songs on the album made me think "oh great, just more Blur", but then as the album proceeds it astounds: the inclusion of Del the Funky Homosapien, experimentations with dub, intriguing sampling, genre bending; truly this album was unique when it came out. I firmly believe some of the more guitar heavy sounds likewise would go to inspire other indie rock of the mid to late 2000s like the Arctic Monkeys.
Oddly, many of my favorite tracks are the smoother love letters to bands like Massive Attack and Portishead, songs like "Sound Check (Gravity)" and "New Genius (Brother)", or the more dub heavy sounds of "Slow Country" and "Dracula".
This debut album is a showcase of a group of musicians making the types of music they want to make, and not hemmed in by constraints of genre or even instrument.
You relax more than you have in a years sitting in the black leather lounge chair at the Sands while sipping your second top shelf dry martini. Taking a pull from your cigarette--which you still hold between your thumb, middle, and ring finger--you place the glass next to your dinner plate that now only hosts the fatty remains of a dry aged rib eye with bearnaise sauce. A waiter comes to take the plate and silverware away as the lights dim. You see Frank walk into a glowing spotlight, looking older, but then again you're older. After a bit of crowd work, he opens with the Girl from Ipanema. This is your first time hearing the lyrics in English. It alights you. Something new from Frank after all these years.
The house lights come up. Grabbing your coat and helping your wife into her furs, you then head to the gift shop. You eye the record Frank put out with songs from tonight's performance and grab it, turning it over in your hand. Your wife stands tentatively eyeing some gold earrings. You go over and ask the shop keep for them, and pay for it all with cash. After all, you saved for a decade for this trip, might as well be extravagant. You hand the earrings to your wife and ask her to put them on. She obliges and smiles.
"You look beautiful. As beautiful as when we met", you say, all of a sudden remembering your ragged thumb caressing the rumpled edge of a photo of her you kept in the rim of your M1. Her photo got you through long hard hours sitting in some strangers basement in a bombed out house in Brussels. She grabs your arm and you go back to your room.
...
The taxi door slams shut, you've got your luggage, your wife is still wearing the earrings you bought in the Sands. You didn't know it was maybe the last time Frank would play the Sands, and looking back, you'd realize then how lucky it was to see that Vegas icon in an iconic Vegas hotel before the new suits moved in. As you walk up the driveway, you hear loud screaming and raucous keyboard coming from your home.
You step into your living room which is hazy with odd smelling smoke. Your son sits there in a smiling daze with a few friends, while someone is screaming at you to "break on through". The din forces you to remember shrapnel from a stielhandgranate ripping at your leg while you clawed for your 1911 to return fire.
"Turn that off, please. Your mother and I want to listen to this new record from Frank Sinatra, it's really good."
"Is it?," quips one of the dopey friends.
"Never trust anyone over 30 man..." laughs your son as he slowly gets up , pulls his record off the player and motions for his friends to follow him as he heads down to the basement rumpus room.
Your leg aches.
-----
Hearing Sinatra mention a "new sound" on the album after Bossa Nova had seen its hay day is a bit odd. I like this album as a representation of an artist who was already so well established in a sound reaching for something new. Contextually, were I a Sinatra fan, I feel like this album would be much more touching and profound. That being said, I feel like there are better representations of Bossa Nova, and even some better renditions of these songs. I enjoyed the album okay enough, but it doesn't really impress me either.
When the songs hit, boy do they hit. Neither artist is hiding in this record, instead their are clear indicators of their musical styles intermeshed throughout, performing a delicate transmutation that brings forth some of the best parts of Eno's and Byrne's styles. Whether it is the unmistakably Byrne-esque pushing base line and guitar trills in "Help Me Somebody" or the more abstract stylings of Eno on songs like "The Carrier" the songs still carry a bit of the personality of each musician. I think the greatest fruition of this collaboration comes together on "Regiment" which is undeniably a banger.
I can also see that this album definitely likely had an influence on the inchoate industrial scene that would slowly come into prominence toward the end of the decade. The use of samples and sounds on songs like "New Feet" were clearly engaging with bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, while "Defiant" is just a few more guitar heavy riffs away from being a Ministry track.
My first gut instinct was a 4, but based on a second listen of the back half, I have to go with a 5.
A great introduction to the music of India. Ravi was clearly a master of his art. Fun to listen to, and you can absolutely see how this music clearly influenced the kinds of noodling we see in later years in Rock music.
Probably one or two listens is enough for me though.
I understand the Ramones' impact on music and specifically Punk in the United States, but I can't stand em. They're on the softer side of Punk which never really landed with me. God speed to all of you who like them.
I think the only song that really stuck with me was "I Don't Wanna Be A Solider Mama". The production of that song really feels like something much later, late 70s. From the wailing saxophone, pure keyboard sounds, and crunchy guitar, it feels very in place in even the 80s. No surprise, Phil Spector.
I do think this album was a bit ahead of it's time. Up there in that regards with something like Nilsson Schmilsson or Hunky Dory.
UB40 presents a pretty solid dub album with Signing Off. I always have conflicting feelings about the British Reggae and Ska movements, as the frontmen for these bands were mostly not of Jamaican decent, and participating in an art form that had been around for some time. In many ways, I tend to feel the art form is done better by those whose communities created it. Comparing this to say, "Super Ape", by The Upsetters I find the smooth production of "Signing Off" suddenly made more cloying by its pristine production value. I feel like Dub especially benefits from low-fi cuts and samples, as it provides body to the distortion. But a comparison to the legendary Lee "Scratch" Perry is probably unfair.
That being said, UB40's approach is refreshing. They clearly love the genre and attempt to make music that is in its style and not some clear anglicization of it (though as is mentioned in the blurb this is where they eventually go). The message of their lyrics also corresponds well with them working in an art form, showing care and precision in their choices. To stick to dub when English Ska was taking off (The Beat was on a hot streak) shows great fortitude of vision.
Protection presents listeners with a beautiful composite of dub, rhythm and blues, and electronica. Massive Attack aided in pioneering a new sound of electronic music that would help shape the later years of the decade. Their unique inclusion of dub and trip hop melodies in their album help to set them apart from contemporaries like Portishead and provides flair that is unique to their style.
The titular track "Protection" is as perfect as a smooth electronica ballad can get, while songs like "Karmacoma" showcase Massive Attack's ability to choose sonically distinct samples and put them into a groove. "Spying Glass" is a fantastically updated dub track that walks the line between traditional sounds and the bands stylistic bass.
However, the cover at the end of the album is nearly unlistenable. Sweet jesus. It provides a valid reason not to listen to this album on repeat, but instead to restart at track one right after "Heat Miser" ends.
Certainly the Garage Rock Revival of the mid to late aughts, and the Stomp Clap ascendency of the early 2010s would have not had the momentum behind it were it not for The White Stripes. This album showcases The White Stripes influence on the latter, which the crunchy guitars and low fi sounds typical of their work fading away to Mandolin and Piano. The White Stripes were clearly tend setters and architects of that movement, but I am not sure the new direction of this album fully resonates.
I couldn't really pick one song that I really enjoyed that got under my skin, but I find that with the White Stripes I often usually need to find the song I like out of their entire collection as opposed to liking their sound. In contrast, I could easily listen to 2002's "The Big Come Up" by the Black Keys (a band clearly influenced by the White Stripes) and find myself enjoying it all. I am not sure if it has to do with the nearly always borderline whiney Jack White's voice, or the often odd Americana departures that always take place in their albums, but something just doesn't hit for me even though I know the musicians are talented and the music well wrought.
A beautiful blend of musical style, Songhoy Blues showcases the artists mastery of guitar that melds perfectly with the drums and vocal melodies.
Certainly not the best Smiths album out there, but still notable for its singles and for being a Smiths album. Truly at the time, their sound was fairly singular. They may be lumped in with other contemporaries like The Cure and The Jesus and Mary Chain, but no one quite sounds like The Smiths.
From the oddly light melodies of "Girlfriend in a Coma" to the dreamlike pop sounds of "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" this album delivers on a still evolving sound that could only have come from the unique partnership of Morrissey and Marr. A solid album through and though.
Also, Morrisey is awful and may he never get what he wants this time.
I have never been an REM fan, but the fact that this album comes out in 1987 and has a sound that would dominate alternative music airwaves for the next decade does make one pause. In a sense, REM is a perfect example of alternative music because the scope of their music defies easy classification.
The strong baselines, frequent use of ancillary rock instruments like tambourine, banjos, mandolins, saxophones etc. all show that REM was crafting a new sound. Not necessarily rock or even light rock, but something different. It is hard to imagine an early 90s dominated by singles from bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, Spin Doctors, Alanis Morissette, Counting Crows, Blues Travelers, Dave Matthews Band all without REM helping to pave the way.
Poppier songs like "Strange" and "Exhuming McCarthy" showcase a sound influenced by the B-52s and pop music in general. Multi-instrumental songs like "Fireplace" defy classification, while songs like "King of Birds" and "Oddfellows Local 151" expose an exploration of folk ballad and grungy guitars respectively. REM is a bit of a chimera in that regard, and if you happen to like the form that chimera takes then this is an album you must certainly enjoy.
Regardless of my personal feelings, it is a pretty solid album, but I would not put it on of my own accord.
Keep your Beatles, your Stones, your Cream. Give me Sabbath any day of the week.
Really fun to hear some post punk while punk was still in it's hay day. Love hearing where Pere Ubu may have influenced others. Discordant at points, jubilant throughout, and astonishing in moments.
Beautiful big band sound. Easy to see how this music was the sound of the greatest generation.
A classic that cemented these two as great songwriters of their era. To bad Paul Simon turned around and bashed Garfunkle to smithereens.
Were it not for the single "To Be Young" id probably rate this a 1 on principle, but that song is amazing.
Maybe it is that they couldn't imagine what a Nation run by Reagan would look like. Maybe it was being safely nestled in a punk club full of capital A "aritists" in the East Village that allowed the Ramones to pay homage to Buddy Holly and pre-Beatles rock with every hurried drumbeat and twangy strum. The Dead Kennedys were afforded no such luxury, and as such, surpass their counterparts as co-pioneers of United States punk rock.
Whether it is the thrashing riffs and nihilistic lyrics of "Forward to Death", the experimental sounds in "Drug Me" and "Chemical Warfare", or the quintessential punk listening of "California Uber Alles" and "Holliday in Cambodia", Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is a foundational punk album that would shape the genre for the next decade at least.
Unlike the Ramones who never seemed to escape the trajectory they had set for themselves to be firmly rooted in a style that paid homage to Rockabilly, the Dead Kennedys seem to acknowledge the Surf music so associated with California just enough to say "fuck you, we're not playing that".
Nowhere is their contempt for any style but their own shown as well as in the last track where they cover "Viva Las Vegas". Blasting drums, feverish bass, twangy guitar, and Jello playfully mimicking the kings accent with a deadpan flair showcases the horror of Vegas: a place that turns "...day into nighttime / [Turns] night into daytime" in a sick inversion of time. Though Elvis' original lyrics hold as much darkness as the cover, his jovial melodies throughout highlight that whatever the outcome, what is important is that the singer "had a swinging time". In contrast, DK's rendition removes the jaunty vocals of the King to unearth the song's darker tones about consumerism and losing every last dime. The cover encapsulates a perfect artistic choice for a bad concerned that in a California run by Jerry Brown the "suede denim secret police...will come for your uncool niece".
Lastly, I have to admit I have never been a Dead Kennedys fan, and have mostly dismissed their music when I heard it. But giving this album a few re-listens and seeing that it was released in 1980, I have to admit DK's impact. Would there be bands I love--Flipper, Circle Jerks, Agent Orange, or Black Flag--without them? Probably, but I'd be willing to bet the scene might have not been there to meet them without DK paving the way. I have to unfortunately kowtow to this album's supremacy, and rate it accordingly.
It is a bit like someone said "people like Ratt, people like Styx" and Bon Jovi was like "say no more fam" and went and recorded this album and then took it to a record executive to give the band notes and then the band re-recorded to appease the corporate record execs and then the album was on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to sell 15 million copies leaving us stuck with poppy crap corpo rock masquerading as rebellious anti-establishment music with tracks that cops and administrators at construction companies play on their way home from work to feel badass.
Decent. I like some of the songs. No one can understand the impact of Song 2 though. It was everywhere.
Blur is one of those bands that has some songs I absolutely love, and the rest I find ok.
If you like capital R ROCK, how could you not like Thin Lizzy?
An album for sure!
This album is a masterpiece. Bjork’s artistic vision makes itself evident in her attention to every detail. From the cover to the composition of each song, Medulla explores its namesake throughly. The cover itself tells the listener what is in store: Bjork’s mask made of hair, her near nudity and dead-like pallor, and a necklace made of bones the color of blood, tells us all we need to know: Medulla is about the core grittiness of humanity—the marrow of our very bones—conceived of through soundscapes made nearly entirely of purely human sounds.
The beginning track “Pleasure Is All Mine” sets the tone for the album, with the concept of nearly purely vocal tracks shining in the forefront. Bjork’s beautiful and lilting melodies underpinned by choral tones and interspersed with moans that invoke both pleasure and pain. It is a grotesque entry into the album exposing Bjork’s thesis of exploring the range of humanities polar binaries: life and death, pleasure and pain.
“Where Is the Line” assaults our senses with a myriad of sounds, and it would be quite easy to mistake them for synthesized notes we are used to hearing in electronic music, but upon closer listening, one finds each sound is made from a human voice. The disturbing dissonance is one that is wholly human though augmented by production techniques.
The somber tones of “Vokuro” invoke both sadness and exaltation with Bjork’s dirge like vocals backed by powerful choral notes. Pared down songs like “Desired Constellation” illuminate Bjork’s sheer power as a singer by reprising the line “how am I going to make it right?” with both jubilation and sadness, However, she also disallows our comfort by alienating the listener using that same voice in dissonant and disturbing tracks like “Ancestors”. Bjork does not let us forget who she is, and reminds us of her ability to make poppy and catchy songs by ending with the still sonically interesting but more approachable “Triumph of a Heart”.
Truly, the experimental and avant-garde nature of this album would not be echoed for some time. Indie darlings like Modest Mouse and Arcade fire were about to take center stage in 2004, and though they too represented a fairly unrepresented music at their time, it would be years before the fruits of Bjork’s experimentation with Medulla made themselves known with artists like Dirty Projectors, Tune Yards, Alt-J, and others.
Medulla is esoteric and hard to approach but ultimately hauntingly beautiful: it is Bjork beckoning us to come closer as she digs through the guts of some dead animal turning entrails into intricate and beautiful designs.
Alanis was the capstone of a very specific type of alternative music of the 90s. The high water mark of an alternative before all the polish of the Clinton years made everything just a bit more poppy.
Not a huge fan, but I can respect it.
I wish I had been in the right headspace for this. I think there are some solid jams on here, but the day I had nothing but doom would do.
I mean, I am not a but-rock guy. I really look at who Pearl Jam likely inspired and am not at all a fan. But "Ten"? "Ten". "Ten" is as close to a perfect album as it gets. Fantastic and memorable songs. Set the tone for the next wave of musicians. Part of a bigger movement. "Ten" man, fuck.
I love this album. Always have. Young's unique blend of folk and rock creates something astounding.
But "A Man Needs a Maid" can fuck off.
Fantastic listen, would listen again. I love the movements of each piece, and the addition of the jingling and jangling electric guitar and keys really highlight the brass when it comes in.
Overall, love that this was Miles going electric, and it works. Shows that he and the band he put together could really make some fantastic music. Can really see its impact on funk and R&B that is set to come in the 70s. I can really see some of this influences in Frank Zappa's fusion (Waka/Jawaka)and some of the music of Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye.
Its wild to hear this crew without David Byrne, and to see what exactly Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz brought to the Talking Heads, which turns out, was quite a lot.
I'll admit, some of the songs here are the worst kind of American New Wave drivel that I hate (looking at you Wordy Rappinghood, Booming and Zooming), but other songs are a lot more enjoyable meditations on sound (L'Elephant, As Above, So Below, Lorelei).
I think it is the context in which this album comes out that makes it so interesting. "Tom Tom Club" is released a year after The Talking Heads made "Remain in Light", and the same year as Byrne and Eno's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" and both showcase the members of the band experimenting with different sounds that find them both making interesting music. No wonder then that when they came back together to release Speaking In Tongues it became, arguably, The Talking Heads most successful album.
Clearly their collaboration was improved by being able to seperate for a bit.
It also bears mentioning that "Genius of Love" is a song with a much farther reach than a fair amount of the other music by being sampled and refrenced by people like Mack Morrison, 2pac, and Mariah Carrey.
OMD has a huge presence in the goth and industrial music culture as influencers of the style. It's fairly easy to see that they were toying with this sound with songs like "The New Stone Age" where you can hear strains of The Cure, Joy Division, and Souixsie and the Banshees. Clearly deeper, darker, and slower sound OMD provides in this album in songs like "Sealand" and "Architecture and Morality" were playing with music coming out of the more experimental industrial and goth genres.
But OMD does not completely let you forget they wrote "Enola Gay" just a few years prior, and we are treated to popper and upbeat songs like "Souvenir" and "Georgia". One easily thinks of New Order or even Duran Duran when hearing some of these song.
This album toes the line and exposes the two major strains of the New Wave that would come to dominate the 80s. Pretty great listen.
Classic, but definitely some of the songs are lack luster.
What can you say? I think amongst even his peers in the indie space Sufjan remains a fairly singular musical voice. His methodology around composition of single pieces is maybe only matched by his attention to the album as a whole, and how the album flows. This is easily showcased by his choice of starting song (Concerning the UFO...), the small musical interludes that space out songs and move the album from one sound to another, and ending the album with a pulsing and discordant instrumental. As a lyricist, he is equally talented. Singing songs ranging from personal loss, Lincoln, John Wayne Gacy, and Superman, Stevens is masterful at weaving narrative into his melodies.
I wish I could say I had always loved Sufjan Stevens, but it is not true. I think only though having someone show me the depth of his music did I come to appreciate on of the best Indie artists of all time. I think this prowess is shown well by the fact that out of many of the bands that hit it big in the Indie explosion of the mid oughts, you don't hear their music commercially that often. Yet it seems as if "Chicago" creeps out of nowhere to appear in some modern media at least once a year.
To be honest, this is the type of Rock that has always made me think I maybe don't like Rock.
I know that this sound definitely inspired a lot of rock acts, but I think I would rate them fairly poorly as well. It feels as if these bands took what makes bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and watered it down and packaged it for a wider audience. Less metal, less psychedelic, more straightforward, and lyrics of an outlaw life as a must.
Maybe too much radio as a kid disabused me of this type of rock. But considering that this album came out the same year as Rush's self titled, Bad Company feels more like a Rock derivative and less of a rock evolution.
Solid album. For 2017, nothing transcendental for me.
Would we even have Muzak without Booker T & The MGs?
Wild to think that so many of the standards they covered here went on to become big big hits by other folks in the 60s. Also, their organ is the sound I most associated with music from this time period.
All that said, the titular track is, by far, one of the best instrumentals of its era.
Common creates the kind of conscious hip hop that can hit you were you live. Coming at a time when mainstream hip hop was dominated by the lyrical stylings of Lil Jon, Ludacris, Nelly, Usher and Outkast that often celebrated more boisterous and celebratory rap, Common provides an album that merges modern sounds and sensibilities with the a back bone of jazz rap.
Songs like "The Corner" expose the issues facing people in the city while still celebrating the culture. Class struggles are brought to the forefront in songs like "The Food" and "Chi-City". Beautiful songs like "They Say" can disarm you with beautiful melodies provided by John Legend and enhanced by Kanye West, but still cuts through with deeper messages.
All in all, this album definitely marked a shift change from the hip hop culture of the late 90s and early 2000s to something more cerebral and deep, if at least for a moment.
Not my cup of tea but can absolutely see their influence on later music. Seems to me they must have inspired acts like Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc.
Love Peter Tosh. Some really banging standards on this album. I do love how he leans more into the dub side of reggae and really sets his sound apart from the Wailers music he did.
So sad he died so young.
By far the best Doors album IMHO. Not sure if they every really caught lightning in a bottle again like they did on this one.
Just not a fan.
If I want big band, I ain't going to Frank as my first choice, I will tell you that for free.
A banger of an album, and institution. Really showed where rap could go.
Amazing record. Laibach conjures a storm of industrial sounds, samples, and overtly militarized sounds to present a record that would lay a template for Industrial music heading into the 90s. Considering also that this album comes out during New Wave dominance, Liabach is showcasing a completely different way of using synthesizers and sounds to make an in your face, gritty, heavy music.
Laibach's Industrial contemporaries were also shaping the sounds of the genre, but Laibach had a clear hand in influencing the Industrial music that would eventually make it to the masses, and even be featured on such MTV staples as Total Request Live: Ministry, NIN, Rammstein etc.
Laibach's influence on other Industrial acts that are not as well known is showcased by this album. Songs like "Trans-National" see clear successors in PIG's 1991 album Praise the Lard. The big heavy drum sounds on songs like "Geburt Einer Nation" clearly inspired the ultra heavy beat acts like KFMDM, Front Line Assembly, and Die Krupps. "Herz-Feide" acts as a blueprint for Ministry's trajectory towards their own magnum opus Psalm 69.
Though other acts like Front 242, Skinny Puppy, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, and Godflesh would explore different aspects of Industrial Music, Laibach made their mark on the hard hitting, heavy beat and sample laden sound that would become a hallmark of the type of Industrial music that would see the most commercial success.
No notes. If you like Jazz, hell, if you don't, you listen to this. A masterpiece.
Great riffs, odd singing!
Hauntingly beautiful. Nick Drake provides something unique, even amongst his singer songwriter contemporaries. Oddly, the tracks that sound most like the music being made by his contemporaries are songs like Bryter Layter in which Nick's voice is missing and more emphasis is given to the backing band lilting in the more common constructions of melodies of the the time.
I understand the why and wherefore, but not my favorite Neil Young Album
An absolute pleasure to listen to holy cow. For people who say they do not like country, they need to give this album a listen.
It is incredible that this album keeps more traditional country alive and thrumming only 2 years before Garth Brooks would hit the scene and set the pace for the big stadium country of the 90s that now dominates popular country's landscape.
I think this is Nirvana at their best. It showcases how well the trio works together, and highlights the strength of their songwriting abilities. The covers are absolutely some of the best versions of those songs out there.
I am not a huge Nirvana fan, but this is an album to come back to.
This album really shines when it is not trying to ape the style of the time. Songs like "Out in the Street", "My Generation" and "The Ox" show that, for at least this album, The Who would inspire punk rock and harder rock to come, distancing themselves from the bands of this era still making music with a softer croonier sound, as is done by The Who is "It's Not True".
Overall, a surprising listen.
Honestly, changes the trajectory of Rock and Roll from here on out. Supremely simple sounding melodies that feature interesting instrumentation, layered a-capella, and captivating lyrics.
I do not like the Beatles, but I do think Rubber Soul is one of those albums that would help rock and roll break out of its Buddy Holly or Garage Rock tones and move into the more experimental genre we see in the coming years.
Brutal listen. Experimental sure. But not good...
Bone Machine culminates nearly two decades of Waits discovery of sound. An album somewhat discordant and jangly as it's composer, Bone Machine delivers on the promises Waits made in earlier albums like "The Heart of Saturday Night", "Swordfish Trombones" and "Rain Dogs".
Songs like "A Little Rain" and "Whistle Down the Wind" showcase Waits' talent to make mournful and beautiful piano ballads, while "In The Colosseum" highlights the experimental sounds harkening back to songs like "Singapore". And then there are entirely new types of songs for Waits like "Goin' Out West" with its big fuzzy bass line.
All in all, a fantastic album full of gems, and an amalgam of sounds unlike anything you were likely to hear in its era, proving again Waits' singular voice.
It's like you asked someone to take the sum total of early 70s rock and produce an average of it. Thats what this album is.
Sorry Bowie, Mott oughta have split.
Can't complain. Maybe would not listen again.
An important record to be sure.
The other half of the grunge movement feels like it starts around this album, with Dinosaur Jr.'s introspective and morose sounds thematically feeding the movement. You can place indie bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth as pioneers of a type of music that fed the grunge and slacker aesthetic that loomed large in the early 90s.
Truthfully, the indie and art rock movement of the late 80s would never find its mainstream fulfillment until the bubblegum pop of the late 90s gave way to the dolorous sounds of the Shins and Modest Mouse in the early oughts. However, Dinosaur Jr.'s sound, though not polished enough to make a top 100, would clearly see imitators aping the sound make a bigger splash in places like MTV: bands like Blind Melon, The Flaming Lips, Candlebox, and even Stone Temple Pilots.
When it's all said and done, Dinosaur Jr. may not be for everyone, but there is a good chance it's one of your favorite band's favorite bands.
Classic album. Dire Straits is one of those bands who epitomize the kind of rock sound born in the 70s but with a forward looking trajectory that would keep them relevant well into the 80s.
Not a huge Stones fan, but this album has some decent songs. Definitely of its time, a bit ahead of it, just like the Beatles.
The Stones have always shone bright in their singles. This album is no different. From the sitar use in Paint it Black to the xylophone in Under My Thumb, the most interesting contributions from the Stones come when they experiment. But outside of this, when the produce the same kind of sound as The Zombies or the Kinks you forget why they are lumped into the same lauded and mythic group of artists as the Beatles, Zepplin, and Bowie.
It's hard not to think that NIN was the catalyst for the success that Industrial Music found in the mainstream. The fact that the next few years after this album came out. The fact that bands like Marilyn Manson, Ramstein, and Static-X found a home on MTV for any small amount of time might be because of the astounding The Downward Spiral is as an album.
Reznor really sets up themes and sounds he would explore for the next decade or so in this album, and produced some amazing songs that can stand alone, but shine more brightly when listened to in situ on the album as a whole.
Truly an album that belongs in any Heavy Music enthusiast' collection.
This is a five. I know it is a five. But I just can't. I feel like I ought to hate on how some of the lyrics are corny, the music is 70s stadium rock that was indicative of the time, but it also is the Apotheosis of that.
A tight album under 40 minutes, songs with progressive portions, but nothing ever lingers. No song goes on for too long, making it skippable. The themes stay the same throughout, and the songs switch seamlessly. Truly, a classic of rock and roll, and a standout in the genre of stadium rock. It is an impressive album, made even more impressive by the history of how it came together.
I still ain't giving it a five though.
I can appreciate what they were doing, and how they were participating in the pysch scene. I genuinely think some of the songs are good.
A fantastic album all around. Musically interesting and unique, drawing from so many different eras of music. "Wesley's Theory" showcases the musical thesis of the album with its funky bass and throwbacks to 90s hip hop sounds and Dre's cameo.
"King Kunta" illuminates K-Dot's ability to make extremely catchy and amusing lyrics. "Institutionalized" and "Hood Politics" tackle more serious issues. Experimental pieces like "u" veer towards the passionate and personal, with the kind of pathos Kendrick let's loose every so often.
Overall, a masterpiece.
A good album with some great songs. Really a pivotal piece of folk Americana and the protest legacy of people like Woody Guthrie, Muriel Rukeyser, and Alan Ginsberg.
Some of the absurdist and surrealist songs get a bit grating though.
Faith by George Micheal and the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack spent nearly a combined 23 weeks on top of the Billboard 200 in 1988. Other notable artists with consecutive weeks on the chart are the likes of Def Leppard, Guns 'n Roses, and Bon Jovi.
And then there is the Cowboy Junkies. Tapping into something completely counter to the popular culture. With a sound like Joan Baez on benzos, the Junkies present melancholic yet saccharine melodies that float past you like blue smoke in a haze filled room. Though the slow pace and toned down sound may not appeal to everyone, it is clear that the Junkies had tapped into something special that would echo on in artists like Mazzy Star, Portishead, Chris Issak, and even Radiohead.
Songs like "Mining for Gold" tie them into their folk and country roots, but they make it clear that they are doing something new and different with tracks like "Blue Moon Revisited". Lastly, this album hosts probably one of the best covers ever written with "Sweet Jane".
Not for me. I love the style, some fusion bands really get me, like Melt Yourself Down, Budos Band, Estradasphere. But for some reason this one just doesn't hit.
That being said, I imagine if I saw this band live, I'd be blown away, and want to know who it was. I feel like these types of intense, collaborative performances lose something when not live.
A real nice listen. A slow style of country that harkens to the traditional melodies with a bit of an update.
Some classics on here. At least a little bit sonically divergent from what else was coming out at the time.
A pleasure to listen to. I love how Waters' is so easily able to transition between the original blues styles and the electric style. Nothing seems to be lost. A master of his craft.
The album starts with a bang with that quintessential Chicago Blues sound. Tracks like "I Want to Be Loved" showcase Waters' playful side and mastery of guitar. "I Can't Be Satisfied" shows us that even stripping it down back to a more acoustic sound, Waters is a virtuoso. Overall, a fabulous album and representation of the style.
Though it's called the blues, I feel as though you'd have a hard time being blue listening.
Quintessential listening if you like Metal or Thrash.
I think this album is definitely up there with the top Metal albums of all time, and you can see that it is the antecedent for a lot of sub genres that come after.
Also, how can you beat that opening track? You can't!
Techno as deviant exploration. In this vein, I tend to side more with Aphex Twin.
Some of the tracks on here are real bangers: "Sad but True", "Are We Here?" etc.
But I sadly find the tone of the synths too clean by half, and too sharp. What can begin as quite a song, gets overridden by melodies that come straight from a moog, but without the backing crunchiness that the 70's musicians added.
That being said, many, many of my favorite bands would not be here without Orbital.
Would be a 5 but I have heard "Don't Stop" too many times sadly.
Not for me, but I understand why it is important.
Perhaps the only Offspring album I find palatable.
Some really great tracks here. Certainly forward looking.
But for some reason, I cannot stand Paul Simon.
I can see why, but very samey after the first few songs
Experimental, droney, odd. Love it.
Honestly, it is a taste of things to come for post punk. I am sure they inspired bands like Bahaus, Sonic Youth, Swans, etc.
Probably some of the best music of its type from it's era. White Rabbit, Somebody to Love, absolute bangers that would resonate for a long time into other music genres.
Some great songs. It's so interesting to see hear the ways in which DM both escape the New Wave genre trappings as well as shape them. Like a lot of their peers, ODM, Gary Numen, New Order, their brand of music strays away from the uber-pop that New Wave can encapsulate and often create something more sonically interesting and dissonant.
Good album here.
Not for me, but quite interesting.
Not my cup of tea, but interesting and I know people who would love this.
Incredible, beginning to end. Oddly for me, Iron Man is the weakest song, the rest friggin rock.
I don't prefer Queen, but this is a decent album. TBH, if it were not for "You're My Best Friend" and Wayne's World's resuscitation of "Bohemian Rhapsody", would this album be on the list?
Some of the songs are good, very Americana. But so god damn samey that I cant score it well.
Pretty interesting pysch!
A wonderful listen. War really blends funky soul and progressive movement together.
Bye bye American Pie. I could say that I liked you, but that is a lie. You drove me to drinking whiskey and rye, thinking "this is the day I hope I die, this is the day I hope I die"
Masterclass of classic country. The fact that you can hear Johnny engage with the audience and clearly have fun performing adds a unique charm to the album.
Just a pleasure to listen too, and would set the bar for R&B to come for generations.
If you, like me, were only familiar with The Tempations hits, then you would hardly recognize them as the same band that made this album.
This album is just solid from beginning to end, and traverses genres from funk, to soul, to r and b. With intense political messaging, it is clearly as much a master class in the genre as is Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly.
A very enjoyable listen.
This is an album I love and have loved for a long time. A true love letter to the cyclical love hate relationship that the United States seems to be unable to get away from.
This album contains what might have been the peak of Arcade Fire's artistic vision and sound that started with Funeral. It encapsulates the band at its best: before their music mutated into hit or miss dabbling with other genres and a too exposed narcissism that was always lurking but was kept in check for the sake of artistry.
The album is a bit uneven in tone and pace, but is clearly made for the two vinyl format. That being said, as a whole, it is completely beautiful to experience from one end to the other, and contains some of Arcade Fire's most memorable songs.
Influential? Absolutely. Not my cup of tea? Absolutely.
A few of my favorite Smiths songs on here. But its a Smiths album, and aren't they all just?
Certainly this album delivers on Beck's idiosyncratic sound, and shows him perfecting motifs and styles he helped to pioneer. Songs like Broken Drum stand out as Beck doing something different, but in his own way.
But it is hard not to feel like it is a little too late for these soundscapes and mixed genre melodies to make a splash. At this point in time, Beck's sound was tried and true. Highly emulated throughout the late 90s and early oughts. We're left here with an album capstone-ing those sounds all the while Indie music was cascading onto the scene and changing the way pop and rock were being viewed.
Add to this that Beck's sounds, though still his own and still experimental, were not breaching the Avante Garde anymore. Bands like Sufjan Stevens, Bright Eyes, Animal Collective, Sigur Ros, Spoon, The Decemberists, were all experimenting in new ways that would change music for the next 10 years.
Guero is certainly worth a listen for Beck fans, but I am not sure it is deserving of taking the place of many other albums from 2005.
