Wasn't expecting to like this so much as I'm more familiar with his later music which was a bit too pop/cheese. Really appreciated the country and folk influence. "Seems like a long time" was a stand out track with the blues/soul track. Saying that, feels a little all over the place at times, despite having a solid back catalogue with the faces and solo, feels like he's trying to find his feet a bit. Would listen to it again 3.5/5
A solid album and probably their first widely accepted commercial success. Now difficult to separate the art from the artist(s) the album has aged better than the band themselves. A couple of tracks that feel like older RHCP and I’m unsure if listening to it now I still enjoy it because it’s good or because it evokes a lot of nostalgia. 3/5
I started writing this at about half way through the listening while having breakfast and getting ready for a run and started thinking “this is nice but it might not be a regular listening” but by the time I reached Ai Tchere Bele, Songhoy Blues had captured me and then with the flip to the hypnotic rhythm of Wayei I was genuinely hooked and haven’t moved from the table yet. The slide into Petit Metier is wonderfully sublime and really does hold up to their style of desert blues and the drop in of the syncopated rhythm in the second half of the track is a wonderful surprise that really shows the bands skill and talent as musicians. I think this album probably gets down voted because people don’t understand the lyrics and sadly I couldn’t find them online as I’d love to understand Music in Exile from a lyrical perspective. 100% this will be in regular rotation in my collection now. The harmonies are haunting, the guitar lines are beautiful in the way they wind, the bands use of rounds to naturally craft layers in the way other artists might use loop pedals. Disappointed to see that I missed their U.K. tour for their new album by a few weeks and will be exploring the rest of their work. Didn’t expect to like this as much as I did, it makes me want to sway, it makes me want to dance. I think it’s expertly produced and balanced really well but you can’t do that without great music to start from. Solid 5/5 I favourited this and instantly downloaded it.
Nevermind is a groundbreaking album, it changed the face of music forever and its influence will be felt by so many bands for years to come. Is it my favourite grunge though? Controversial, I think it’s a little too polished in places, too much thought put into the sequencing of the tracks to almost give you a breather. I think Bleach with its wall of sound and more punk feel, and Incesticide which just feels more grunge are better albums. They feel more raw. Nevermind is a phenomenal album but when you listen to From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah and hear some of these songs how they were performed live, you can hear the difference and you can feel the emotion that is just bubbling under the surface on Nevermind and doesn’t ever quite get the opportunity to escape. Despite this, it has to get a 5, it’s influence on music and artists over the last 35 years is huge and I don’t feel that there has really been anything like it since that has changed the direction of a genre. My recommendation, listen to Wishkah, listen to Nirvana how they were not how a producer and sound engineers felt they should be heard.
I wasn't sure about this, there are a couple of tracks on here that I know, and more that I didn't realise that I knew. For a debut album, it's a solid piece of work and a-ha's blend of pop synth and rock is incredibly distinctive. Hats off to Morten Harket's vocal range and voice control, he's an incredible vocalist that without, a-ha would probably just be another pop band. Genuinely forgot how much of a banger "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." is and if you remember that this is the opener for side 2 of the record then it makes it an even more powerful track. "Love is Reason" is a much better track than it's given credit for as it didn't do as well as a single, although the synth on it does make it feel like a poor mans' Sun Always Shines... it (and other tracks) sometimes feel like a-ha is The Smiths for people that aren't inherently miserable? This is a solid 4 for me, I love some 80s synth pop, yes it sounds of the time, but it still feels musically fresh and there are only really one or two mediocre tracks. Once you've listened to the original release, treat yourself to the deluxe edition, there's enough extra content on there to make it worth it and the demos are a great listening to see how their sound evolved.
Dookie was a game changer, every song on here is an absolute banger. If you heard it on release it was such a breath of fresh air after grunge, shoegaze and 80s metal. There is not a bad song on this album, the bass hits SO hard and you want to air drum to every track. Secret track at the end is such brilliant punctuation to the album! Can't not rate this 5/5
I sometimes feel that Bossanova is an odd one to listen to in isolation, that is it's not the most normal introduction to the Pixies. It leans more into the surf rock influence that we hear in the earlier albums and I think in some ways makes it a more accessible album. I think the general opinion is that Doolittle is the most mainstream offering, but I think Bossanova leans into the success of tracks like Here Comes Your Man, Debaser and Monkey Gone to Heaven. In some ways it's the most fun of their albums pre-split after Trompe Le Monde. Is it my favourite, no - I prefer the raw sound of Surfer Rosa and Come on Pilgrim but I definitely think it's their most listenable before the release of Head Carrier in 2016. Kim Deal's harmonies and bass lines across the first albums are such a huge part of Pixies sound that I think post-2013 they just don't feel the same. Bossanova is a fantastic album, but it's just not quite there for me. I feel the same about this as I do about Nevermind. It doesn't quite feel like they're being themselves and for that it's a solid 4.5/5 - rounding down because I don't think it keeps up with the rest of their earlier releases and isn't the album I reach for when I want Pixies.
There are a couple of songs I like off of here and are absolute bangers, I'm familiar with Floodland over their other albums. I think a lot of my love for this comes from nostalgia over anything else. Dominion/Mother Russia and This Corrosion are standout tracks and have probably had a lot of influence on the gothic/post-punk scene but tracks like 1959 and Never Land just feel like filler. Their use of choral vocals and layered backing and synth turning some tracks into goth dance anthems is great but every time, I just want to skip tracks. This is definitely the best of the three albums as the other two are rather unremarkable. I'll give this a 3/5 because I think that the tracks I've mentioned are cracking, but it struggles to only just reach that and I'm giving it some good grace because of it's influence on the genre.
I'll be honest, from the offset I struggle a bit with Disintegration as an album. I will wholly admit that it's importance to shoegazer is unquestionable and I think that it's a perfect example of such. My favourite tracks off of here, Lullaby and I think that says a lot about how I feel about this album. When he turns to his slower more introspective singing I think that his voice loses a lot of its' appeal and I don't know if that's intentional or if it's just bad production? Lullaby feels like an intentional confusion of sound in a way that the other songs don't. Lovesong feels like confident melancholy and Smith's voice really shines through. Up to this point I prefer their earlier albums, I prefer their more post-punk and pop sound because I feel he sings with more conviction. As an aside - the era directly after Disintegration, I also love. The perfect blend of their earlier work, evolving their shoegazer style with their gothic/punk/pop sound and Smith's voice and range becomes more controlled and confident. Not the album I'm reviewing, but Wish is IMO peak The Cure. The more matured Cure that we find on their 2024 release Songs of a Lost World is in some ways what I think Disintegration should've been. Should this album get a better score because it's important and made such a difference by differentiating The Cure from a sea of sameness and inspiring so many future bands? Probably yes, but we lose Smith's vocals, it becomes an instrumental album at best in places and that's not what I come to The Cure for. Recommendation and this is similar to my view on Nevermind by Nirvana, get the deluxe version, listen to disc 3 (live in 1989) that's the album I think this should've been and if it had the same emotion and energy then it would be a 5/5 but I'm not reviewing them as a live band, I'm reviewing the original release and I have to do this through that lens. All that said, I'm still giving it a 4/5 for its importance, it's cohesiveness as an album and its musicality. Maybe it's just one of those albums that for me has its time and place.
This album has so much nostalgia for me. I grew up in a prog household. My first gig was Barclay James Harvest, I've seen ELO Part 2 multiple times, Floyd and Roger Hodgson amongst many others. I remember listening to this album on vinyl through my dad's over ear headphones and in the car on long drives. I think that School is a fantastic opener to an album, the launch into Bloody Well Right is just brilliant. This is the first album where Supertramp feel like they have their own sound. You sometimes hear people refer to them as a poor mans Floyd and I think that's unfair. Yes, it has a lot of the winding elements that we hear on Dark Side of the Moon that came out a year before but it's still its own album and sound, but it has shades of The Wall years before its release. The way Davies voice has us spiralling down in Asylum and then you flip the record over to side B. That second side opener with Dreamer just hits hard and then we come back down with Rudy which is a musical whirlwind. Things I particularly love, the alternating between Hodgson and Davies on each track, every instrument is perfectly balanced, Siebenberg's drums are perfect and his skill as a percussionist really does bring this album together IMO. Every track feels like a conversation between the two vocalists and I think that the differences between Hodgson and Davies and the way they lean into this are really are what make Supertramp special. Some people hate this album and I think they probably mostly hate prog and concept albums and that's fine. For me, this album tells a story, it flows together beautifully and thematically and takes you on a musical tour. I can lose myself in this album. That long winding end to Crime of the Century that finished with the harmonica echoing from the opening to School is a master stroke and so easily missed. This is a 5/5 for me. If I was alive in 1974 and listened to this for the first time, I would flip the album and play it straight back from the beginning.
I'm not going to go too much into this, I think that Bob Marley is an artist that is best experienced live, it's culture, it's politics (even if Marley said that it wasn't so much so) and it's passion and that gets so lost in a studio. Maybe it's the transition to Marley being the real frontman of the Wailers and they needed time to find this new dynamic, but I think when reggae is treated like jazz, playful, experimental that's where it really shines. The live albums are where the I-Threes really add to the sound and it's clear that they are more than just some back random vocalists, they are integral to the Wailers' distinctive sound. Natty Dread is a very cleanly produced album and done incredibly well, but I think this lets it down. I think when we get towards the end of the album, Revolution, Talkin' Blues and Bend Down Low are the really stand out tracks and with the popularity of No Woman, No Cry, people forget that there is a lot more to this album. Would be a 5/5 for me if it were a solid live version of the same track listing as the production just feels a bit cold to me.
This album was huge when it came out, and really propelled metal into a new era because of the controversy surrounding it. I bought it when it came out and enjoyed it. Listening back now, I still think that it's a solid album and a lot of that because of Trent Reznor's work on it - in hindsight it's a NIN spin off album. I'm not going to waste too much time on it because like so many artists, it's disappointing when it turns our that they're just d*cks - the amount of claims levelled against Manson and other members of the band over the years, it's difficult to separate the art from the artist. I'll rate it a 4/5 because I think it's a bit long, coming in at 72 minutes and they definitely could've trimmed some of the fat. Putting aside how I feel about the band now, musically its great. Tracks like Cryptorchid and Man That You Fear are better for their difference from the rest of the album. It changed a genre and inspired a generation of musicians but like another reviewer, I still listen to NIN but MM is one of those albums that got left behind with my youth and angst.
I feel like I should like Neil Young. I like rock, I like country, I don't really like Neil Young - I like some of his songs but only when other people cover them. I don't particularly like his voice, sometimes he sounds like Kermit, sometimes he sounds like a poor mans Mick Jagger, I don't like the sequencing on this album, it stylistically feels lost. Harvest was alright and I imagine that's on this list somewhere but this album is not it. I won't be adding this to my library, I'll probably skip any of the tracks if they some on rotation. Sorry Neil but this is my first 1/5
I don't think I've ever listened to this album all the way through. In the war between blur and Oasis - I liked Pulp. Don't get me wrong, I think Beetlebum is a brilliant opener, On Your Own and M.O.R feel more like the blur that I remember and enjoyed, along with tracks like Movin' On it's fun and playful, they don't seem to take themselves too seriously. I think it's a great experimental album for blur but I'm not sure that I wouldn't skip this and probably go straight to 13 which I think best melds their love of US underground with their britpop roots. This album for me is at times not experimental enough to be interesting and not nostalgic enough to be draw me back in. So many 4 and 5 stars in blur's catalogue but for me this is a 3. It's decent but that's about it. Except for Song 2, I can't stand Song 2 - not because it's particularly bad but because it's so overplayed and I'm tired of hearing it everywhere.
Very timely to give me Vol. 4 today, a day after Ozzy Osbourne's passing. My real introduction to Black Sabbath was through 1997's "The Ozzman Cometh" which contained only two Black Sabbath tracks from a 1970 John Peel session, for this my introduction to the band and their back catalogue was a bit backwards. And maybe because of this, I tend to reach for a compilation rather than a specific album.
For me personally, Early Black Sabbath always felt very prog, they took what was being created and took it further and I think this is even more evident on Vol 4. The whole album feels a little more experimental, whether this is because of the band trying new things and pushing musical boundaries, Iommi's production or the copious amounts of cocaine they were taking at the time, it created something that became a blueprint for so many branches of metal as we know it today.
The album is unmistakably Black Sabbath but jumps in style from the blues opener or Wheels of Confusion to the jazz inspired Supernaut. I love Snowblind as the opener to side B, I could listen to this one track on repeat. Although tracks like FX and Laguna Sunrise seem oddly placed, they work as perfect stylistic breaks in the album. FX being 1:39 of avant-garde noise between Changes and Supernaut and Laguna Sunrise providing a musical break between the slower pace of Cornucopia before St Vitus Dance changes the pace again. Under the Sun / Every Day Comes and Goes is a perfect example of Bill Ward's skill as a drummer, showcasing his ability to switch styles and time signatures. Personally I think that Vol 4 more shows the influence over metal as a genre that the previous three albums had started to inspire.
Could the production be a little better, maybe. There are times where I think some of it feels a little flat, but it is a masterpiece of an album. It's hard not to review it without the lens of what came next and what Black Sabbath started. But just stacked against the existing catalogue at the time, Vol 4 is different, it stands out and is deserving of no less than 5/5.
I grew up on the Beatles, I took the blue album to my first school disco on C90 (Monster Mash on side B - it was Halloween), my French horn teacher was one of their session musicians and that was the coolest thing ever. This album amongst others from them introduced me to so many different genres of music.
So much to say about Abbey Road and I don’t know what I could add to anything that’s already been written. Oh! Darling Is the best track as far as I’m concerned and I’m sorry Lennon fans but I don’t think he could’ve sung it better than McCartney. Lennon was wrong. Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight are next up for me, I wish they could’ve been longer tracks but they’re blended perfectly in the medley. I Want You (She’s So Heavy) is such a full on end to side A, you have to leave a break before Here Comes the Sun to really appreciate how the two sides of the record are sequenced. This album at times feels a little disjointed but I think that’s okay, it’s reflective of where the band were at the time and every track still feels like the Beatles. Even Ringo’s bizarre offerings. I'm giving this a 5 because I think it's important, it's ahead of its time and it stands out compared to a lot of the music that was also around at the time. Plus the production is fantastic.
I remember when this came out and it was huge. Listening to it now, it’s just feels like bad rap music for white people. For teenagers who want to rebel or have undirected rage. The only really redeeming things are the sampling of Dido “Thank You” and the production and input from many superb rap artists. As a rapper I think he’s talented, and ”The Way I Am” which has only Mathers as a writing credit is possibly the only strong song and you hear his rage and passion. Eminem says in one of the songs this is music for your kids, it’s designed to shock. Cool story, why are we teaching kids it’s okay to call women sluts and gay people faggots. He had a platform to say something important and make a difference but in the end he’s just clowning and devaluing the conversation through shitty lyrics. The best thing about this album is it makes me want to go and listen to better rap. 1/5
I’ll be honest this is the first album that I’ve struggled to listen to all the way through. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, just I didn’t enjoy it enough. Would I like to see it performed live, sure. Did it just become background noise and take me a few days to get through. Unfortunately also yes. I think musically it’s excellent, vocally I wasn’t really feeling it though. I’ve since gone and explored a bit of Mansour Seck and Baaba Maal’s other works and honestly I think their solo efforts are better but unfortunately I’m not sure that this was 100% it for me. I would’ve given it a 3 for the music itself but at times the vocals drowned out their mastery and maybe that’s a production thing, maybe I just didn’t like the singing on this one.
This one is a mixed bag for me. Some of the tracks feel very modern and the influence on RnB artists and boy bands is very very clear, but then it seems like in his vision to get out another album, it wasn’t curated very well. It jumps around to disco/funk and back again and honestly felt a bit long. I question whether this could’ve been a single LP with a much tighter construction. Some tracks deal with civil rights and they’re some of the better tracks and I wonder whether a bigger exploration would’ve made them stand out more rather than feeling out of place. I enjoy Stevie Wonder, I enjoyed some of this album, I didn’t enjoy 1hr 45 minutes of it. It’s a 2.5 and I’ll round it up because it’s clear it’s influence and status within the music industry but I’m not sure I’ll be back for more.
My introduction to Leonard Cohen was through Pump Up the Volume with Concrete Blondes cover of Everybody Knows and Cohen is nothing if not consistent in his style and delivery. The last album before Cohen died, maybe I'm hearing it at a time when the themes that he plays on are closer but it hits home. As he got older, Cohen moved more towards a poetic delivery and this doesn't make it any less lyrical or musical. I popped it on again to listen to straight away. It reminded me of all the other bands I liked and makes me want to go exploring through my existing collection again. Sad that this is the last offering that we'll ever see.
I like jazz, I like prog, this didn’t feel like either. I can appreciate the talent but I just did not enjoy this. I started this to discover new music but unfortunately I don’t think this one will be joining the collection. I’ve seen reviews that suggest the first two albums are the gateway to Third, but as a stand alone without that context, this is not it.
A decent enough folk/funk album. It feels a bit lost at times, jumps around in style and I imagine that is a lot to do with the guest musicians on the album influencing the sound and songwriting. I like Stills voice, much better than the solo offerings from Kermit (Young). Appreciate the length, 39mins is nice and punchy. Production could be better. It's a 2.5 for me but pushing it up to a 3 because I appreciate the talent and his voice
A few things I noticed about this one. There are some great tracks and there are some perfectly mediocre RnB tracks. The great tracks have certain things in common, they either have Organized Noize doing the production (Waterfalls, Sumthin' Wicked) or specifically have Lopes as a writing credit (Waterfalls, Sumthin' Wicked, Kick Your Game, Switch). Unfortunately, there is so much filler outside of these tracks and I think that's a shame. I've seen reviews that say that Crazysexycool is a step up from On the TLC Tip, but the first album was a solid hip-hop album and I think it's a shame that they started releasing more generic RnB. They did help continue to pave the way for strong female RnB acts and for that they deserve a 3 but this offering is just for the most part a bit bland.
I'm not familiar with really a any of the tracks on this album. My experience of Queen was from the 80s onwards. But having gone back and listened to the self-titled debut album for context, this is the first album by the band that defined their sound for the rest of their career. This is the first rock opera album from one of the most influential and well known bands of the last 50 years. When you listen to this, just assume you've never heard anything like it before and you'll understand why it's on this list. Is it the best Queen album, no. Is it the start of something truly magical and musical. 100% yes. 5/5
I like Björk but haven't really kept up with her music so much. This feels like more of a return to the style of Debut. It feels a little overwhelming at times, and the length of some of the songs can be a bit much but overall, I enjoyed it. 4/5 because I wanted that variation in pace that we see in earlier albums
I'm a big Pixies fan and never really listened to Violent Femmes. Have to say that this feels like something that I'd been missing out on. It's grunge, it's surf rock, it's folk. It's a solid 40ish minutes of great music. It's why I listen to this list and I'm really pleased about it.
