I've listened to this album so many times over the years that I can't really review it in an objective way. It was one of the first metal albums I ever listened, and it got me through middle-school. Although I love Ride the Lightning even more, I reckon they're both about equal in quality.

Not much to say here, it's a fantastic soul album from start to finish. Aretha Franklin has no equal. There's almost no filler, every track is great.

I’ll admit I’m heavily biased – back when I was an angsty teen, I did so many drugs on this album (and when I say « on », I literaly mean on the jewel case) that just listening to it probably still triggers a chemical response in my brain. That being said, and putting aside the annoying mythos Jim Morrisson would later come to build around himself, I still think this is an absolute beast of an album. There’s no fat, not filler, it’s mean and lean, there’s not a single bad track. It’s just pure blues-rock with a unique tonality and lyrics that are a million times more intriguing and original than any other song in the same period. To put out such an incredible record as a first effort, AND have at least three of the tracks become absolute classics that are still used in popular culture almos 50 years later, is certainly no small feat. « The End » still sends shivers down my spine to this day. Am I being an edgy fanboy for still loving that song ? Maybe, but then so are Coppola and Marlon Brando, so I really don’t mind the company.

An excellent jazz album I was not familiar with. I never thought synthesizers could work so well in a jazz band, and I’m glad I discovered this record. The intro to Watermelon Man blew my mind, and the overall mood is fantastic. It’s almost perfect – it’s just missing an ineffable little something I can’t quite put my finger on. But I will certainly listen to more Herbie Hancock in the future.

I listened to this album back to back with « Music for airports », and I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t familiar with that side of Eno’s works. I was expecting more pseudo-ambient soup, but it’s actually quite interesting, even if I’m not really into that kind of art-rock (or is it proto-synthpop ?). Will I ever listen to it again ? Probably not, but I still enjoyed listening it once. Nice effort.

This album has always been one of my favorite hip hop albums, so I was already quite familiar with it. I gave it a refresh just to be sure – and yep, it’s still great. I reckon it’s not easy to get into that kind of sound ; it’s a demanding album that requires at least a basic hip hop culture to be fully appreciated. It’s abstract (or even ambient) hip hop, and you have to listen to it that way. Don’t expect headbanging, aggressive beats or gangsters. It’s very low-key, sometimes even a bit jazzy, with a lot of attention going to production and atmospheres. It’s almost a concept album with metal-esque artwork, disturbing themes and lyrics, haunting loops, and an overall gloomy mood that makes it close to horrorcore. It may not be Dan the Automator’s best work, but you can feel QBert’s presence all through the album with his phenomenal scratches. As for Kool Keith, he was still a bit rough around the edges at the time, but his droning voice contributes greatly to the general unease the album tries to convey. Still a classic in my opinion, but clearly not the album I’d pick to introduce someone to hip hop.

I am not unfamiliar with experimental music, and I appreciate its value as a force for innovation. However, not all experiments are successful. Sure, sometimes their value lies not in what they managed to accomplish, but on what they opened the door to – but that doesn’t mean they’re interesting to listen to... For me, this album falls in that this category. It may have had an impact on some musicians, but it’s too raw and transitionnal ; I find it really hard to listen to. The 60s were full of weird experiments ; some of them were even weirder than this album, and yet remain much more enjoyable to listen. Ummagumma came out the same year, and it’s infinitely stranger – and yet more haunting – than this. Hell, even Albert Ayler’s most esoteric work are more pleasant to listen to. It doesn’t help that the singer has a terrible, terrible voice. It’s harsh and grating and it got on my nerve so much that I had a hard time listening to the end. I would maybe have liked it better if it had been an instrumental album. But since he never shuts up, I found the whole album unsufferable.

I have a limited knowledge of Deep Purple, a band that I had always thought as lost in that weird buffer zone between 70s rock and proto heavy metal. I’ve heard their mainstream hits, but never tried to dig deeper. I was absolutely amazed to discover such a modern-sounding album. It’s great from start to finish, incredible vocal energy, fantastic riffs. It’s not a missing link or a transitionnal band, it’s just pure, good rock music. « Child in Time » can easily rival some of Led Zeppelin’s best pieces. A true discovery for me, probably the first real « I’m glad I have listened to this album before I die » moment since I started participating. I’m getting the rest of their discography right now.

One of the best Hip Hop albums of all time, period. I won’t deny that I’m biased since I’ve always been a massive East Coast rap fan. However, this album has truly been pivotal in the history of hip hop, and ushered New York rap music into its golden age. Distancing himself from West Coast gangsta rap and from the very political (but often musically simplistic) conscious hip hop of the 80s, he proves that one can indeed talk about thug life while still being a gentleman about it. Nas displays a smooth, impeccable flow from start to finish. It may sometimes seem lackluster (it doesn’t have the raw insanity of an ODB or the heavy hammering of a Biggie), but it’s just technically perfect, never missing a beat. But as good as he is, Nas is not the main reason this album is so great. Most of all, the production is absolutely stellar, with so many big names of the NY hip hop scene involved that it feels like a best-of album : DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor... As usual in rap music, the rapper gets all the credit - and it’s a shame, because Illmatic is a perfect example of why production makes at the very least half the quality. Soul and jazz samples blend perfectly, and helped shape the thoughtful, melancholic vibe that defines a big part of NY hip hop. The beats and samples from « NY State of Mind » haven’t aged a day. « Memory Lane » has always been a personnal favorite of mine, and « Represent » could be the official anthem of NY rap in the 90s. A true classic !

I was expecting something more jazzy, or at least jazz-rock... But this is just a bland mix of mall jazz and vanilla funk. At the very best, it sounds like the opening credits of a late 70s exploitation movie. But most of the time it feels like a tired third-rate band playing at the bar of a cheap cruise boat for old people. I’m sure the musicians play very well, and I’m sure someone will find something good to write about this album. I’ll even admit they kind of grew on me by the end of the album... but it was too little, too late. I already gave them 40 minutes of my life, I can’t be bothered to find something better to say about them. It’s just about the opposite of what I personally like in music.

A Queen Latifah album is like a good bottle of wine – you have to slowly sip a glass or two and learn to appreciate it. If you try to binge-drink the whole bottle, you’ll end up with a hangover and miss the point entirely. Sure, this album sounds VERY old-school – the production is so minimalistic that it’s basically just a background beat, and it can be repetitive at times. The beat is old school even for 1989, it could almost be an album from the mid-80s. But this is largely compensated by the natural, charismatic flow of Queen Latifah, whose obvious enthusiasm and presence make for a very solid offering - in addition to finally giving a voice to women in the world of hip hop. All in all a great album. It think it aged surprisingly well – even now that we have a plethora of good female MCs, the Queen is still one of the best.

I've listened to this album so many times over the years that I can't really review it in an objective way. It was one of the first metal albums I ever listened, and it got me through middle-school. Although I love Ride the Lightning even more, I reckon they're both about equal in quality.

This album should absolutely be used as advertisement for "Drugs are bad". My ears are bleeding.

I’ve always had an interest in ambient music, an umbrella term that refers to many very different styles of music ranging from intricate musical landscapes to purely utilitarian music bordering on non-music. But I’ve never been a big fan of Brian Eno, who usually falls into the second category. I see Eno as the Edison of ambient music : he captured a bunch of ideas in the wild, repackaged them and marketed them to the masses (or to airports). But ambient was already very well alive before him, with much more interesting stuff like Reich’s minimalism, Tangerine Dream trippy experiments or even Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre’s soundscapes. « Music for airports » is (voluntarily) unsophisticated, with simplistic structures and superficial ambiances. It’s specifically conceived to be forgotten. The album is honest, it does precisely what it says it does - it’s just background noise that you can occasionnaly listen to, or not. But it does absolutely nothing else, so I’d say its musical value is ver limited. There is nothing eery or haunting about it. It doesn’t make airports sound more interesting (to be honest, it would be much funnier if airports played Pantera). It’s a nice soundtrack to paint my garage walls, but that’s about it. However, I don’t hate it ; it wasn’t *painful* to listen (as some albums on this list are...), just very forgettable. I’d ideally give it a 1,5 but since it’s not possible I’ll be generous and go as far as 2.

Over the years, I’ve tried to get into Depeche Mode about half a dozen times. It never worked for me – maybe I didn’t listen to the right songs or the right albums ? This time, I tried my best to give « Music for the Masses » a chance. I must admit I was finally hooked. It won’t become my favorite band anytime soon, but the cold, brooding atmosphere of this album really struck a chord, and a few tracks left me a lasting impression despite all my initial prejudices. I had never realized Depeche Mode could sound so similar to industrial. I don’t regret giving it a new try !

One of the few albums from The Who I had never listened before. As usual, it's a great rock album, with a lot of energy and a wide range of emotions and atmospheres. Not my absolute favorite (nothing beats "My Generation" !!) but still a great offering. The musicians all know what they're doing (that was not always a given in the early 70s...) and seem perfectly at ease with any kind of beat.

I didn’t really want to listen to this album. To say that I don’t have a country music culture would be an understatement - I’ve always found folk performers quite hard to get into, mostly because I lack an adequate frame of reference. It’s a very « localized » genre, with its own tropes, mythology and private jokes, most of which I don’t really understand. However, I must confess that I found this album surprisingly pleasant to listen. I can’t really compare it to any other country record, but it’s got an intimate, mellow atmosphere that made me feel like I was sitting at a campfire in the middle of nowhere. Old-school folk performers seem to have a very down-to-earth relation to their listeners, mixing music with jokes, tall tales and shout-outs, which makes them something of a missing link between itinerant storytellers and modern musicians. Maybe I’m just indulging too much in the old country music mythos, but isn't that the whole point ? After all, Jack Elliott himself was only pretending to be a countryside bumpkin, while he was in fact born in a well-off New York family... As often with country music, however, I also found it a bit repetitive, and the last few songs started to bore me. I probably won’t become a country music fan - but it was still a nice change from what I usually listen to.

I never really got into The Police - a band I’ve always found overrated – but I’m at least familiar with their first two albums, which are decent enough for casual listening. Synchronicity, however, has very few redeeming qualities in my opinion. The punk and reggae influences that made Outlandos d’Amour interesting are gone. It’s a bland mix of easy-listening jazz and rock, with a touch of elevator-quality « world music ». It’s already been done, and much better, by far more inventive artists. But mostly I just found the album boring. There’s no fire, everything sounds tired and emotionless. No wonder they split after this. The only track I truly enjoyed was « Mother » (the one not sung by Sting...) for its weird unhinged vibe. « Synchronicity II » is almost interesting, but it’s too little, too late. As for the famous « Every breath you take »... well, it’s so corny it gives me stomach burns. All in all a very forgettable album that only comforts me in my opinion about The Police.

I’m less familiar with John Lee Hooker than I would like, so I was happy to discover this much-vaunted album. The first track left me sightly disappointed, since it had a « happy feeling » that just didn’t do it for me. But the rest of the album was mostly great – especially « In the Mood » and « Sally Mae », which are exactly what I’m expecting from Blues music : deep, slow, harsh and sexy at the same time. All in all a great Blues album, all the more impressing since it was composed when John Lee Hooker was already 72. The numerous featurings are a welcome addition, although not essential to the album. I was torn between giving it 3 or 4 stars – a 3,5 would have been a nice option. It probably deserves a 4 from a strictly objective point of view ; but I’ll go with a 3, since regardless of the quality itself, there’s a lot of stuff I like much more than this out there.

Although I never really liked dirty south as a subgenre, I used to give OutKast a free pass because Andre 3000 is an absolute beast of a MC. His flow is extremely technical and versatile, making him one of the best MCs of his generation. The three first OutKast albums were solid offerings, with a dark, sober tonality and a jazzy feeling almost reminiscent of NY hip hop. I’ve listened to AtLiens and Aquemini quite a few times, and they never get old. Stankonia, however, marks a huge drop in quality. It’s mainstream, pop-ish, loud and messy. The production is all over the place. And so many skits... It’s annoying AF. This album is a perfect example of why a good MC isn’t enough to make a good hip hop record – although the flow is still great in itself, it gets drowned in this cacophonic mess. With Stankonia, OutKast is flirting with pop-rap. It’s rap for people who don’t like rap. That was my first impression when I first listened to it years ago, and I still felt exactly the same while listening to it again for this review. What a disappointment. The only redeeming track of the album is « X-plosion », a true old-school banger.

For anyone who grew up in the 90s, this album sounds like the generic soundtrack of the decade. It’s been imitated so many times that its originality has now been diluted in the giant pool of pop-rock ; but by the mid-90s, every band tried to sound like Smashing Pumpkins (or like Nirvana), and every wannabe singer tried to emulate Corgan’s very peculiar vocal style. The whining voice and the distorted riffs have been done a zillion times by now, but Smashing Pumpkins were indeed the ones to start the trend (or at least introduce it to the mainstream – I still think they sound like a more presentable, radio-friendly version of Sonic Youth). Anyway, it’s hard not to acknowledge that this is a solid rock album with a few fantastic tracks (like Disarm or Soma), and that it had a great impact on its time, However, I’m still not a fan of the lead singer’s whiny voice. It annoyed me back then, and it still annoys me now. I had a hard time listening to the entire album without pause - I’m probably too old to ingest such a huge portion of raw teenage angst in one serving. After a while all tracks just start to sound the same, with the same gimmicks and the same tortured tremolos. It probably deserves an objective 4 – and I totally understand people who worshiped this album back in the days. But I can’t give it more than a 3, because let’s be honest, I probably won’t listen to it again ; it feels like travelling back in time, it’s fun, but the emotion just isn’t there for me.

Boring generic pop-rock with as much spice as a turnip. A few interesting blues and disco sounds here and there, but not enough to make the album worthwhile. It's not a *terrible* album, it may have been relevant at some point (in a few songs, you can clearly hear the seeds of the "feel-good" tonality that would later define a big chunk of the 80s pop music), but it's just not for me. I'm pretty sure I'll have forgotten every song by tomorrow. Except maybe "The Chain", which I kind of enjoyed a little.

A difficult album to rate for me. Like most U2 albums in my opinion, it's a mixed bag. Some songs are great, while others are more forgettable. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" remains a powerful song to this days despite its overuse over the years, and "New Year's Day", although a bit cheesy, is an iconc hit of the 80s. Listening to it again after so many years, I also gained a new appreciation for a few overlooked tracks (I really enjoyed "Like a Song", and "Drowning Man" wasn't bad), while others remained... meh. I was suprised to see that this album is so old (1983 !). I remember hearing Sunday Bloody Sunday everywhere in the early 90s - a testimony to its lasting popularity. Not my favourite kind of music, but clearly a landmark in the landscape of mainstream rock. It was ahead of its times, and it aged much better than I would have imagined.

I had never even heard of the band before listening to this album, so I approached it without any bias one way or the other. My first impression is that it’s really a melting pot of many, many different influences, ranging from 70s psychedelic rock to Radiohead and everything in between. It’s an interesting effort, and I can’t blame a musician for trying. And it does, at times, succeed : some songs are dreamy soundscapes that managed to surprise me. My second impression is that it sometimes tries to be too many different things at once, and ends up lacking a strong identity. It’s a bit too much on the hipster side, a bit too whiny, a bit too sweet... and I can’t help but thinking « I’ve already heard this before ». It’s really not a bad album, but I can’t rate it as a 3 since I’ve given 3 stars to much better albums before. It deserves a 2 for effort - maybe a 2,2 and a Macchiato, because I have a soft spot for weird instrumentations and dream pop.

I was expecting a Blues album.... But Blues this is not. I don't quite know what to say. I recognize her talent, it's quite well-sung, but it's really, really not my kind of music. I tried very hard to let myself be convinced, but by the end of the album I was bored out of my mind. The instrumentation sounds incredibly basic to my (admittedly profane) ears, and I have zero interest in songs about break-ups and broken hearts. Sorry Joni, nothing personnal. It's not you, it's me.