beautiful album. treat of an album. soulful, sweeping, and cinematic - as a fan of more vintage rock and pop acts this didn't sound tired to me at all. the title track, coles corner, is the showstopper for me, reminding me of a scott walker song or maybe even a track off of the arctic monkeys' the car (was pleasantly surprised to learn that hawley, also from sheffield, has previously collaborated with them). will be adding mr. hawley into regular listening rotation.
highlights - coles corner, hotel room, the ocean
don't get me wrong: this is a really good album. it's obvious there's some insane talent and production going into the tapestry of genres this album weaves together, but i, personally, like more of what came later and what was developed adjacent to twangly, jangly, americana rock. i wish there were more tracks like chest fever.
highlights - the weight, chest fever, this wheel's on fire, bob dylan's artwork
having just listened to music from big pink, it's obvious the band's sounds have crystalized on this album. it's more refined, it's more focused on genres / genre blend. unfortunately, i just don't really care much for where they took their sound - i found music from big pink was more interesting and engaging than this.
highlights - the night they drove old dixie down, look out cleveland, king harvest
don't really care that this was basically two albums glued together - why not take the time to meander through an album if the music is good? it's hard to decide which side is better, because i like both of them, just based on different merits. speakerboxxx is so solid, it's so good, and i think it beats out the love below as a stand alone album. the love below might be a bit more convoluted, but i was happy to tag along for a ride on big psychedelic-concept-album mountain. plus, it has hey ya!, and that's gotta count for a star or something.
highlights (speakerboxxx) unhappy, the way you move, the rooster, last call (the love below) happy valentines day, she lives in my lap, hey ya!, roses
forget about the songs themselves here for a sec: tom scholz has a masters from MIT?? he worked at polaroid?? he outfitted a mad scientists lair of diy music equipment to make the perfect rock song?? he conspired with the rest of the band to hoodwink the record company and get their unadulterated demos on the album?? this became the second highest grossing debut album of all time for a north american band?? lol. lmao, even.
i like the story of boston more than the album itself, and the album itself isn't half bad. having just emerged from under a rock where i've been living for the past three or so decades, i can hear why people think these songs sound overplayed. this is a ceremonious and benevolent 2.
highlights - more than a feeling
really liked the production on this album. unfortunately it was a little hit or miss for me: some of the tracks were great, while others... well, they were there. beyond the catchy beats, can't say i'm a huge fan of the tasteless lyrics, which MAYBE could be excusable if you aren't really listening and just have this playing in the background, though i had to pause and double check what i'd just heard several times on my listen through. oof! 😬
highlights - murder was the case, who am i (what's my name?), pump pump
wowie zowie!! i love music.
highlights - so much love, breakfast in bed, the windmills of your mind
enjoyable!! think this is a really solid album with a bunch of good songs, and i'm partial to the pairing of hole's sound to california as a theme. leaves a lot to be desired though, so: three gross melted plastic palm trees from a movie set that fell out on a truck and are now condemned on "the 5," out of five.
highlights - celebrity skin, boys on the radio
i'm afraid i'm a bit toy story-pilled having first encountered randy newman through pixar, and i must admit that every song sounded like "you've got a friend in me" until i really got into the album. he's obviously a great songwriter, but the music itself sounds a little hokey, like a cowboy doll is going to crawl out from my bed at any moment. still - great album!!
highlights - last night i had an amazing dream, simon smith and the amazing dancing bear, dayton ohio
lovely, absolutely lovely. i adored how this, as a live album, became something of a time capsule unto itself. everything about this: the music, sarah vaughan's voice, the atmosphere... just magical. i love music!!
highlights - willow weep for me, be anything but darling be mine, honeysuckle rose, just a gigolo, how high the moon
i mean... people like the Voidz, don't they?? (it's me, i'm people) there were a handful of tracks on here that were instant saves but i can't say the whole package was solid. some great highs, some okay lows. will be giving a listen to this band's other stuff for sure though.
highlights - star, if they move, kill 'em, motorhead, trainspotting, long life
second "album made as a soundtrack to a movie" in a row (vanishing point by primal scream was yesterday), and you know what? here for it. more albums like this please. more bed time stories about borderline personality disorder maiden please.
highlights - something wicked this way comes, the vibes ain't nothing but the vibes, achieved in the valley of the dolls
yeah, not my thing. first album that was a one and done listen through.
highlights - blue suede shoes, money honey
another "this really isn't my thing," and there were no songs i liked enough to save from this album.
i could hear elements in this album that i really liked - i am a sucker for orchestral pop music. but then as soon as i thought i was enjoying myself, the tune would shift into something grating. i wanted to be wrong and end up liking this, but again: not for me!
a nice change of pace - i liked a handful of songs, but at times they just blurred into one another without much differentiation. run time was a little too long for my liking... got a little tiresome. but!! overall, these guys were fun.
highlights - on a rope, used, misbeaten, come see, come saw
did i enjoy this?? maybe more than i expected i would: it surprised me how paired down this album was, seemingly in service to the focus of taylor swifts singing / songwriting. and, of taylor swifts singing / songwriting... it was alright. i found myself more interested in learning about the context behind the songs and this album, as opposed to the sound of the album itself, because again - to me - there wasn't a lot to parse through sonically /beyond/ taylor swifts singing / songwriting (like, i can't imagine i was supposed to be wowed by the tunes and instrumentation here, right?).
this was the first taylor swift album i've listened to in its entirety. i don't think i'd listen to this album again, but i am going to listen to other taylor swift albums because my curiosity has been piqued.
to all the gaylors out there: there's still time for travis kelce to transition. don't ever give up.
highlights - no body, no crime, cowboy like me
so, to kick this review off, i was initially listening to the 2011 remastered version of this album on spotify. i got through the first two songs - okay, right, this is the smashing pumpkins - but then i get to "today." the one smashing pumpkins song i know (because i played rock band 2 as a youngin), and i'm flabbergasted. why does this sound like DOO DOO?? did i hallucinate that "today" was a good song?? corgan's vocals sounded distant, the guitars nonexistent, and the drums were WEIRD. switched to youtube music and it sounded more like how i remembered it (like, good????). i don't know what's up with the mixing, but i'm glad i switched because otherwise these tracks were seriously lacking and were not being done justice.
anyway, on to why this is a 1 (jk) - i don't care for crogans vocals. like, really really don't care for them. IN SPITE OF THAT, this album rocks. hard to say yet if i like this or i REALLY like this, but this album is sitting at a 3.5 so we can round up to 4.
highlights - cherub rock, today, hummer, silverfuck, sweet sweet
the main thought i had listening to this album is "oh! interesting!" one of the first rock operas? interesting! it was widely panned upon release but was later rehabilitated for it's place in music history? interesting! unfortunately, the final product is a little meh.
highlights - balloon burning, death, baron saturday, old man going
i'm bewildered by the fact that power corruption and lies isn't on this list. it is, imo, the defining new order album (especially if you want to talk about music history and groundbreaking albums), though in revisiting technique i'm reminded that they just make great music anyway. and technique, front to back, is a great album.
highlights - fine time, all the way, run, dream attack
upon learning this is the best-selling album of the 21st century (so far) i was incredulous, but after a front to back listen: it makes sense! the album is solid, and adele's incredible vocals are able to elevate it to something that much more. it was an enjoyable listen, though beyond a few songs (rumor has it) it didn't leave any indelible impression on me - i heard most of these songs on repeat in the mid 2010s and i'm happy to leave them there.
and not that anyone asked: but i think i'll always have some difficulty approaching certain songs (ahem, someone like you) in earnest because of how much it's been meme-ified. i can't hear that song and not feel ironic. that's not adele's fault, and it's not a knock on the album, i just have internet brain worms.
highlights - rumor has it, turning tables, set fire to the rain
this album sounded dirty and grimey. like i wanted to wash my hands after i listened to it. but then i listened to it again, so what does that mean?? not too big of a fan of the vocals on some of the tracks (teenage head), but pretty much everything else they were doing, otherwise, was cool.
highlights - have you seen my baby?, yesterday's numbers, whiskey woman, shakin' all over
i only had vague knowledge of mr. fiasco before this listen, but i instantly recognized "kick, push" and "daydreamin'" - the rest of the album did not disappoint!! happy to be introduced to mr. fiasco as i will be checking out his other stuff.
highlights - kick, push, the instrumental, daydreamin', american terrorist
i will be honest, if i can dance to an album it's gonna be a high 4 to 5. i heard so many sounds on this album that i already love from the late 80s / 90s (they got house on here?!?! yippee!!), and queen latifahs evident skill as a rapper was the icing on top. was not expecting to dig this as much as i did, but it had all the makings of a great album for this user.
highlights - dance for me, wrath of my madness, evil that men do, and the REMIXES OH MY GOD!!! great stuff!!!
i was waiting for the other shoe to drop as i was listening to this: when was there going to be song that's a stinker? imo, there aren't any. what a treat to listen to a 1001 album and experience a growing sense of disbelief that EVERY song is an instant save.
highlights - excursions, buggin' out, verses from the abstract, show business, vibes and stuff, check the rhime, everything is fair, jazz (we got), skypager
so, after listening to this, i looked up a few aggregate lists for the best ""electronic"" albums of 2000, because i was really curious to see what "lost out," so to speak, to this album. while this album did show up on some of these lists, it often sat somewhere in the top 20 (if it even appeared), and there were several albums by artists (who i am familiar with, and do have bias) ranked above this one who are conspicuously absent in the entirety of the 1001 list.
don't get me wrong: i don't hate this album. it was alright, and, at times, enjoyable, but it was a one and done listen. coming to this when there's a dearth of ""electronica"" in this list makes me feel... bad!!! mr. dimey isn't the arbiter of good music, in spite of publishing a series of books on the matter, and i agree with the general consensus that this as a 1001 pick doesn't feel great. i think there are probably other ""electronica"" albums from 2000 that could've been on this list instead of sincere (if you want my pick to judge my taste, i would've put broadcast on here instead of mj cole).
merits of being on a made-up and arbitrary music ranking list aside, i liked this album as a faux-nostalgia trip for the late 90s / early 00s (i say faux because i was not at the club circa 2000). i was trying to envision in my mind what the club circa 2000 would even look like when this was playing, and you know what? everyone in my mind's eye looked like they were having fun. all to say: this album was somewhat enjoyable (to me) on qualities that are ephemeral and very non-objective, and the overall project failed to impress me as being worthy of inclusion on the 1001 list. it compelled me to do research to try and understand how it got on this list to begin with, and i wound up listening (and relistening!!) to a few albums from 2000 that i liked way more than this. ah well!! such is life.
highlights - sincere (re-cue'd)
hmmm... hard to pin down what it was exactly about this album that didn't click with me. i found the scant lore about this album (produced by phil spector, delayed release for a year, dion wound up disowning this record, it found later acclaim... somehow) more interesting than the album itself. nothing here grabbed me sonically (aside from in and out of the shadows, though i had heard that one before), but it was a pleasant enough listen to.
highlights - in and out of the shadows
multiple advisors in my court have informed me that this isn't a great album and its weird that it was even included in the list (compared to other who albums). nevertheless, i pressed forward because what kind of ruler would i be if i listened to baseless rumors fueled by my courtiers instead of verifying the facts for myself? as it turns out, the eunuchs were right: i thought the who were supposed to be better, or something. while a few tracks stood out, the rest were kind of duds, and a few - were i to be misled by power-hungry councillors with malicious intent to subvert my authority by making a fool of me - i could have been told were by the beatles and i would've accepted that because... i didn't hear a difference!!
highlights - my generation, it's not true, a legal matter, the ox
oof!! first time listening to ok computer front to back as a radiohead fan in passing. not only were most songs off of this album a save (or had otherwise been saved beforehand), but i felt like the album - as a project, as a experience - was consummately complete. while i know radiohead is afforded a great deal of study and commentary by virtue of being nearly ubiquitously popular and it's not like other people making music don't also have a myriad of influences from a myriad of places, it was still impressive to me to learn about all of the different sources of inspiration that radiohead wove together to make this album so richly layered - both in message and music.
for me, this is what you get when you're nerdy and pretentious and care a great deal about the art form. great stuff!!
highlights - airbag, paranoid android, subterranean homesick alien, electioneering, no surprises
well - this user is already a regular listener of old school 70s moog music, and thus: loved every second of this.
highlights - jumpin jack flash, mamata (affection), metamorphosis, sagar (the ocean)
ah.... how do you follow up thriller?? if it were me, i would've stopped while i was ahead. bad isn't /bad/ per se, but aside from the hits (bad, the way you make me feel, man in the mirror, smooth criminal) this album lacks the perfect track run of thriller - which - i can't begrudge anyone for not being able to meet such lofty standards. of the non-hits on here, i was surprised to like speed demon as much as i did, but the rest were forgettable...
... unlike smooth criminal, which i will have stuck in my head for the rest of the week.
highlights - bad, the way you make me feel, speed demon, man in the mirror, smooth criminal
i had to listen to this four times to find some kind of salient feeling about this album. this thing is mellow and subdued - i was wondering if i was somehow missing the critical acclaim that i otherwise figure the velvet underground warrants. but not everything is gonna be an in-your-face, get-on-the-dance-floor-now-motherfucker kind of ride. the more time i spent with the album, the more it grew on me, and there was more for me to hear and appreciate on each listen through.
highlights - candy says, what goes on, some kinda love, beginning to see the light, i'm set free
well, i expected to like this album more than i did: on paper, a maximalist art pop / hip hop album (viewed with millennial nostalgia colored glasses) should be a slam dunk, but this wound up being a really mixed listening experience for me.
i tend to like bombastic / rock opera stuff, but the big, sweeping movements on this album were disorienting because sometimes, i loved them, and sometimes, i was left sitting and twiddling my thumbs. i think they hit more than they miss, but i had multiple instances where i would favorite a song in the first minute or so, and then contemplate un-favoriting it at minute three or five. some high highs, some meh lows.
a lot of the parts that i did like were the features, because of kanye's rapping... well, i like parts of it. for me, the hard-hitting features point to the genius production that, at times, i would say is immaculate. the production is the highlight of this listen for me, and i can absolutely hear the influences - from what it takes previously to what it gives going forward - that this album brings.
highlights - POWER, monster, so appalled, lost in the world
hey this was pretty fun - had no problem putting this on and going about my day today. great stuff!!
but also, an aside: starting to notice a pattern where everybody blames brian eno for everything. didn't quite realize my guy was the jack antonoff of the 70s...
highlights - the thrill of it all, all i want is you, out of the blue, triptych, casanova, prairie rose
of the four fat sluts, they say george harrison was the fattest.
i appreciate 1001 giving me the zenith of the beatles' solo-stuff so i can anticipate everything going downhill from here. i guess i had higher expectations than this - or at least wanted to feel something about the music as i was listening to it. i really liked parts here and there, but the rest passed me by without much fanfare. willing to do a little more investigation on the matter to have a more definitive judgement (like i said: REALLY liked certain parts), but for now: meh!!
highlights - my sweet lord, wah-wah, i live for you
while i've dabbled in pavement before, i really don't know much about them and this was my first front-to-back listen of a pavement album. as someone who doesn't really listen to the likes of nirvana or sonic youth, it was initially hard to sonically parse this album aside from just being... "early 90s noisy rock." it took me sitting down and really LISTENING to this album (as opposed to having it on in the background) to begin to appreciate what they were doing here - i almost can't believe this is a debut album.
that being said, i think i know now why i don't casually listen to the likes of nirvana or sonic youth: this stuff kinda gives me a headache. i can only listen to the distorted, lo-fi fuzz for so long before i have to leave (i was counting down the seconds for the "serious legit" listen through for when i could turn this album off). this is a ceremonious and benevolent 2: i wholeheartedly believe this album has the merits of a 5 star rating (i wouldn't disabuse anyone who has that opinion of this album), but for me, this thing has a depth that puts it at the bottom of the static-fuzz-distortion ocean... and you know, i just don't feel like getting wet today.
highlights - trigger cut/wounded kite at :17, loretta's scars, two states, fame throwa
yeah... listening to this yesterday made me a little angry. mainly because i felt an inconsolable sense of betrayal that so many people in my life for whom i hold in high esteem have effused about this album and now that i've listened to it i can't understand why they'd lie to me. i thought we had something. what did i do to hurt you??
but then i slept on it, gave it another listen, and now: feel a little bit more charitable.
there's some good stuff on here (great stuff - even: america, mrs. robinson, a hazy shade of winter), but this album did not land for me. it's only at the end with the three track run of mrs. robinson, a hazy shade of winter, and at the zoo that i feel consistent about liking the album - everything beforehand is real hit or miss, but at least it's only 29 minutes (?!?!?!?!?!) so it's over soon enough.
highlights - save the life of my child, america, mrs. robinson, a hazy shade of winter, at the zoo
surprised i liked this as much as i did, but what do you know? i can't get enough of this baroque pop stuff. i didn't even know it was called baroque pop until i started 1001. i love music!!
this was going to be a 4, but then i searched john cale on the internet and went to images. ok grandpa!! get it!!!! 5 stars.
highlights - child's christmas in wales, the endless plain of fortune, macbeth, paris 1919, graham greene
couldn't place what it was about this album cover that bothered me so much, then i realized: willie nelson is giving gerber baby all grown up.
this was way too paired down for me to really get into. while i liked SOME parts of this album sonically, thirty minutes came and went, and the music didn't leave much of an impression on me. the concept and story, however, was a lot more interesting, and i appreciate this a lot more as a country concept album. no highlights because there wasn't anything here that i would listen to casually, but this was an interesting album to listen to, and i did enjoy that!!
i enjoyed this a lot more than i was expecting too!! it was sonically pleasing and a nice little slice of bay area history from the 60s. with the production and range on this thing i could hear how - if things had gone differently for poor moby grape - they might've had garnered a lot more acclaim. genre wise this isn't my usual speed so this is sitting at a high 3, but i still liked this as a little hidden gem of an album.
highlights - hey grandma, fall on you, 8:05, come in the morning, omaha
i do this bit (that's only funny to me, but why do anything in our fleeting lives if not for the love of the game?) where i say i get steely dan and tom petty and huey lewis mixed up - they're all pretty much the same guy to me. after listening to this album, i can see how i could really piss people off saying that, so i think i'm going to keep doing it.
highlights - bodhisattva, razor boy, the boston rag, show biz kids, my old school
the one thing i keep thinking as i try and sit down write a review for the third day in a row: this album is overwhelming (-ly good). if i really cared to, i could probably sift through this albums almost two hour run time to find SOMETHING to critique... but you know what? i don't want to. almost every song was a hit. stellar album. great listening. unquestionable classic.
highlights - saved almost every song from this album, but special shout out to saturn
20 seconds into the first track i broke into a cold sweat realizing the impending terror that the next hour of my life was going to be spent listening to twee singer-songwriter bullshit. well!! i wasn't wrong, BUT ☝️i must affirm: this album is more than some twee singer-songwriter bullshit. i hate being like "if it was different, i would've liked it," but i had the incessant feeling as i was listening to this album that if it didn't have the cheesy, singer-songwriter indie trappings, it could've easily been a high 4 or 5 for me.
that being said, it has a lot of that. but it also has a lot more going on - i didn't look at the date when i started listening, and guessed that this was some mid to late aughts indie project - but no!! 1999!!! EXCUSE ME??? AND this was this SOLO artist's DEBUT ALBUM???? this guy is insanely talented and sounds years ahead of his scene.
while i genuinely enjoyed a handful of tracks from this album, when i tried to get over myself and take some of the lyrics in good faith, i started to wonder if - excuse the british term - this guy was taking the piss. which is part of my problem with singer-songwriter as a genre, and brought my overall rating down. still: pleasantly surprised by this album and the sounds it brings.
please, for a moment, imagine that meme of three wojacks on the iq scale. please imagine the first wojack, to the low iq left end, is saying "this is some twee singer-songwriter bullshit," then please imagine a smug looking wojack in the bell curve center saying "it's more than that!!!," then, finally, please imagine a large-brained wojack on the high iq right end saying "this is some twee singer-songwriter bullshit, but i like it anyway."
highlights - everybody's stalking, fall in a river, body rap, once around the block, bewilderbeast, cause a rockslide, disillusion
enjoyed this well enough - there's some nice tunes - but nothing here impressed me much aside from the title track. i'm a lonesome fugitive?? i'm a well-endowed law-abiding citizen. now what.
highlights - i'm a lonesome fugitive
ah, to come back to where it all began: green day was my introduction to music. sure, i listened to what my folks played in the car or in the house, but green day was the first band i got into as a free agent with an internet connection (though, i do have a hazy memory of sitting down with my dad at the family computer and looking at itunes after i had made some declarative statement about getting into music / finding something to listen to, and he suggested green day). from green day i generally stuck with the broad category of alternative rock, though that in and of itself was all over the place because i'd listen to / buy whatever songs in the rock category itunes had on sale - i remember listening to flogging molly, weird al, obscure australian indie bands that started a lifelong affair for australian indie music (teenagersintokyo, mercy arms, lost valentinos), and panda bear because - being [redacted] years old - i thought anyone with the name panda bear must make good music.
green day isn't too shabby a start, if i do say so myself, and i find myself appreciating this album a lot more than i did when i was [redacted] years old. like, genuinely: this album sounds a lot better than i remember it being. especially when you hit longview and get to the meat and potatoes of this album. i was anticipating giving this a nostalgia tinted 4 stars, but it lands as a solid 5 star album.
also, shout out to progressive and bisexual king billie joe. didn't quite catch the lyrics to basket case before:
I went to a shrink, to analyze my dreams
She said it's lack of sex that's bringing me down
I went to a whore, he said my life's a bore
So quit my whining 'cause it's bringing her down
highlights - burnout, having a blast, longview, welcome to paradise, pulling teeth, basket case, when i come around, in the end
i had to listen to this like five times before i could make up my mind about it - do i like this? do i hate it? "electro pop" and "synth pop" are both genres i love to listen to, so i should love this, right? i really didn't know, and i didn't know why it was so hard for me to find some salient feeling about this album. it lands in some indeterminate, bland middle-ground for me - sure, i like some of the songs, but the project as a whole?? meh...
now, i find all the jack antonoff scapegoating lore hilarious, and while i don't earnestly believe he's solely responsible for how i feel about this album, it's gotten me thinking about his production style in general. because: as a st. vincent fan, i /liked/ masseduction (2017 - same year as melodrama), and i /really liked/ daddy's home (2021), but both of these antonoff produced works are a huge departure from her older stuff, and i maintain strange mercy (2011) is her best album (so far!!). so, maybe there's some truth to this jack antonoff slander - but i haven't really listened to the artists he regularly works with, so i can't say for certain if he's really the one to blame here.
highlights - homemade dynamite, supercut, perfect places
i'm not too familiar with britpop, but after listening to this album i'm wondering if i need to amend that. while the britpop years were a little before my time, i was around for its immediate successors - most of which i grew up listening to and are largely responsible for my music tastes today. the problem, though, is that of britpop's immediate successors that influenced me, i would say almost all of them were turns away from the dominant genre's trappings and status quo (bloc party comes to mind), or were otherwise so sonically self-determined that they could eclipse whatever precedent had been set by britpop (radiohead comes to mind). of the post-britpop scene (coldplay, travis, et. al.), i feel mostly ambient disinterest with a sprinkling of active disgust. ergo: i probably wouldn't like britpop, right??
but i liked this a lot more than i expected to - it was fun, snappy, and i saved almost all the songs off this album. there was a lot more variation in sound and style than i was expecting!! i have errant musings about this album's sound and development late into the britpop timeline - i'll be interested to hear earlier britpop classics and what this album might've taken / not taken from precedent.
highlights - richard iii, late in the day, g-song, sun hits the sky, it's not me, cheapskate, you can see me, sometimes i make you sad
i was honestly so pleased to finally get kraftwerk album... among the many things i'm learning about music doing this project, i've learned that kraftwerk (whomst id never sat down to listen to before) is a major influence on some of my favorite artists. like, i think this whole album is a trip to begin with, but it was especially trippy to put the first track on and wonder if i hadn't somehow put early new order on by mistake - THEN, we jump to show room dummies and i'm suddenly reminiscing about SOPHIE (❤️).
my favorite thing about this album is when it seamlessly flows together as a coherent fifty minute block of music. i love the melody that carries from the first and last track. while it can, at many points, feel rote and droning, i feel compelled to charitably attribute these qualities to its dark and experiential atmosphere as opposed to thinking its, like, bad music or something.
and you know: this album really grew on me with each listen through. idk what i'd do if i was teleported to 1977 and didn't have my emotional support electronica. think i'd get by with disco, and of course moog is here, but could i remain steadfast long enough for the 80s right around the corner?? maybe it wouldn't be so bad if my new best friend, kraftwerk, was there with me and my haphazard time machine accident. anyway, idk what i was talking about: 5 stars.
highlights - europe endless, showroom dummies, franz schubert
i rated sarah vaughan's "at mister kelly's" a 4 some number of moons ago on the merits that 1. i like jazz, 2. it felt historically significant to be listening to a live set from the 1950s, and 3. it made me laugh a couple of times. coming to this album... well... not be a belligerent zoomer who doesn't understand the significance of MTV... but like, who cares? not to mention it's a paired down acoustic set - why do grunge if you're not going to put your whole pussy into it? i'm only half-joking asking that: i'm not an incorrigible hater who can't appreciate musical talent (listening to this, there's no question that nirvana's genius is innate and transcends labels), i'm just an incorrigible hater when it comes to acoustic sets.
watching this on youtube improved my feelings somewhat: if i'm going to listen to a live album, i'd like there to at least be SOMETHING interesting about it. i'd like to hear the back and forth between the musicians, i'd like to hear them tune their instruments, and i'd like to hear the audience's reactions, etc. etc. i appreciated this as a project a lot more when i could actually see and hear these things instead of JUST clipping it to the music.
highlights - about a girl, come as you are, the man who sold the world
dang!! four songs, forty minutes, four stars.
highlights - chameleon, watermelon man, vein melter
listening to this made me realize - of madonna's hit singles - like a prayer is the one i like the least, and the rest of the album didn't really hit the same high as the title track. so: we go from middling to a little under middling (middling-lite, maybe). a little bit disappointed to be so underwhelmed, but i did save a handful of songs, so it evens out.
highlights - like a prayer, express yourself, love song, till death do us part, cherish
today this web app has informed me i've listened to 50 albums, and today this web app has deemed it so to give me adele's "25." scientists say that 50 is divisible by 25, and they're pretty sure the number you get is a 2. but i don't think this album is a 2 - it's more like a high 3, erring on a 4. i liked this more than 21, which - i've heard things about 21. mainly that: it's divisible by 3, which was the rating i gave it. ergo: 30, if it were on this list, would've gotten 5 stars from me, but it's not, so it won't, and that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
highlights - hello, send my love (to your new lover), i miss you, river lea, million years ago, sweetest devotion
i'm a casual REM fan and like them well enough to have revisited this album a year or so ago when stipe was doing their 40th anniversary tribute tour for this album. weirdly enough, i like these songs more now than i did a year ago, though i feel the same as i did then with my main gripe with REM being: they sometimes sound... kinda hokey. their hits are, undoubtedly, transcendent, but listening to this album there were stretches where the jangly guitars and indeterminate accent weren't doing anything for me. still☝️there's great stuff here, and i'm happy to admit i was too hasty to write off this album the last time i listened to it a year ago.
highlights - radio free europe, moral kiosk, 9-9, shaking through, we walk, west of the fields
in 1962 art historian george kubler published "the shape of time: remarks on the history of things," a breezy 136 page read where he proposes a new system for contextualizing and understanding the development of style. i say "breezy," but it's a conceptually dense work of art theory that, effectively, describes and contextualizes all art ever: all the art that has been made, all the art that will be made, and that new taylor swift album that came out yesterday.
the shape of time (which i will breezily summarize) proposes that all objects and images should be considered within a linear continuum: art develops from endless replication, innovation, and mutation based on what came before. containers of style - say, art movements or musical genres - start with a "prime object" that defines that style and is then iteratively built upon with "replications": imitations and iterations of the prime object. sooner or later, one of these replications will be a "mutation," an improvement of a prime object that we all agree is pretty cool and improves the original - say, depth perception in paintings that make it look like the painted people actually exist in space, or using samples (portions of sound recordings) in songs. eventually - after so many mutations - the prime object looks nothing like the latest mutation in this container of style, and the mutation becomes a prime object unto itself: the first entry in a new container of style.
like i said, this is a breezy (and oversimplified) summary, but i hope you get the jist of kubler and can appreciate why i'm bringing up the shape of time in regards to this album. i don't consider planet rock a prime object, but i do consider it an early and significant mutation within the genre. as such: it's a little rough around the edges. by chance, i've managed to get a couple other universal zulu nation / native tongues albums that released a few years after planet rock before i listened to planet rock (a tribe called quest, queen latifah), and i definitely hear the improvement of this album's sound on those records. i'm, admittedly, a little head over heels in love with those albums now, while this one... well - let's just say i felt like it was little bit of a fraught listening experience.
still: this album has so many sonic qualities i love. i also love that, by chance, i had trans-europe express by kraftwerk a few days ago, and could immediately recognize the sample in the title track song. and - not to keep on referencing old white dudes - but the work of science historian james burke proposes that the history of science shouldn't be thought of as a linear, siloed sequence of logical events but rather an interconnected, and often chaotic, series of connections that lead to innovation. i'd like to think humanity's greatest achievements are because we - in tandem or asynchronously, in close proximity or a world away - worked together on something and found genius and inspiration from our prismatic idiosyncrasies. as planet rock exemplifies my favorite thing about being one human of many on a pale blue dot, i'm giving this five stars even though i couldn't stop thinking how much the songs sounded like the DK rap.
and while i'm here on my soapbox: i know what afrika bambaataa has been accused of, and i do not say the above as an endorsement of his actions or judgement about his character. i do not condone him nor do i condone the normalization of power structures that benefit those who harm others at the expense of those they harm. HOWEVER☝️the quality of art people make ("good" art, "bad" art) doesn't inherently confer anything about their morality or character, and vice versa. i don't think there's a "right" answer to how any one person ought to respond to art made by an artist who has harmed others aside from reflecting on one's own personal experiences and values to decide what their own principles are and how they want to engage with the world. draw your fucking line in the sand and stick to it. as far as i'm concerned: by doing a project where the main impetus is to experience new music and expand my worldview, i'm going to make a good faith effort to approach the music based on it's own merits before all else.
anyway, further reading / watching:
1. george kubler's shape of time (1962) (https://monoskop.org/images/8/87/Kubler_George_The_Shape_of_Time_Remarks_on_the_History_of_Things.pdf)
2. james burke's connections, episode one "the trigger effect" (1978) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ)
3. the DK rap (1999) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npuuTBlEb1U)
this wound up being a pretty fun album!! i wasn't so sure at first because i started listening to it in my car on my way to work and i guess whatever audio qualities my car's speakers have make initial listen-throughs sound like doo doo. glad i sat down for another listen through this evening: i'm not familiar with tina turner but i love her voice and really liked the - albeit dated and a little cheesy, but still catchy as hell - 80s production soundscape. i really liked this album as a prismatic blend of mid-80s rock, pop, and r&b. great stuff!!
highlights - what's love got to do with it, i can't stand the rain, private dancer, let's stay together, steel claw
coincidentally, i had the same reaction to to pimp a butterfly as i did with ok computer: oof!!
in fact, i could probably lift what i wrote in my review of that album verbatim and it would apply here (though the main difference here is that i'm not a prior fan of kendrick lamar and came to this album with fresh ears). the word i keep thinking about with this album is "substantial" - weighty, meaningful, prodigious, etc. etc. even though this wound up being (for me) a rare one-run-through rating, i feel confident saying this is 5 stars knowing that there will be other things on this album that i'll discover and enjoy on the next dozen or so listens.
one thing i will plagiarize myself and repeat about to pimp a butterfly is: this is what happens when you're nerdy, pretentious, and care deeply about the art form - it shows!! great stuff!!
highlights - wesley's theory, king kunta, institutionalized, alright, momma, how much a dollar cost, you aint gotta lie (momma said), mortal man
the universe saw me write "pavement is great but it gives me a headache" and then went "is that so? interesting."
have to agree with others that, on the merits of this being a unique listening experience, this is a worthwhile album, but i didn't really find much that was sonically pleasing here. of the stuff i did like, it was pretty ephemeral: there were fragments of tunes or sections that made me think "oh, this isn't so bad," but just as soon as these fragments materialized they vanished and it was back to screaming (which, i found it hilarious for the song to juke me out like that. you thought???? i thought, indeed).
no surprise that nothing here ended up being saved, but hey - it was interesting, i laughed a few times, and i had something to talk / think about. feel pretty positive about this album even though it's at two stars for me.
wowie zowie!! this whole album is SLICK. like, it's consistent, it's chill, and - dare i say - it's cool. it was fun for me to have a couple of moments where i thought "oh, this is where that song is from?" had otherwise never listened to fugees before, but now i have, and i will be listening to more.
highlights - how many mics, zealots, fu-gee-la, the score, the mask, cowboys
i'm a casual listener and liker of beach house, though my experience with them had previously been limited to bloom and depression cherry - those were the only two albums i wound up listening to when i was introduced to them as a teenager. they were one of those bands - when i was listening to A LOT of new music through pandora and youtube - where i liked their sound and put them on my ever-growing to-do list of discography deep-dives (you know, to make sure that i REALLY, AUTHENTICALLY, liked them, or whatever). and, just writing that out made me feel the sudden weight of a bunch of needless work - so it's no wonder that i never really got back around to revisiting these bands when i made listening to them this whole big chore. i feel justified to indulgently label beach house as one of the bands that "got away."
suffice to say, it was interesting to learn that many consider this to be their ""best"" work (or, at the very least, coming in at #2 or #3 in overall ranking). i don't feel like i necessarily disagree with this pick for 1001, though: i still have preference for bloom and depression cherry (if i had to pick, i would sub out this album for the sweeping vistas of bloom). not that it's that big of a deal - beach house has amazing songs on all their albums and it's a treat to listen to them. glad i had a reason to revisit and enjoy beach house again after all these years!!
highlights - zebra, silver soul, norway, used to be, lover of mine, 10 mile stereo, real love, take care
damn... what's up with guys getting old and having goth phases before peacing out of this mortal coil? this is crazy. i'm crazy. what the hell.
highlights - you want it darker, treaty, on the level, traveling light, it seemed the better way, steer your way
i'm going to be thinking about this album for weeks - it's the perfect blend of what i HATE... and LOVE... in this genre-scape. some of these songs i can't stand!! some of these songs i can't get enough of!! what's up with that???
the songs that really leaned into the country, acoustic, singer-songwriter bullshit were the ones i was ready to skip (for the most part, if the guy isn't singing, i'm enjoying myself). but the ones that leaned more into jazzy, experimental desert rock were TOTALLY up my alley - i could listen to these songs on repeat for days!! i need to study this album in a lab. i need to analyze it. this is crazy. i love music!!
highlights - quattro - world drifts in, black heart, pepita, across the wire, guero canelo
sonically pleasing but lacking some measure of "oomph" for me to feel emphatic about it, though i do love the sound of those retro strings - pretty good overall!!
highlights - let's stay together, i've never found a girl, how can you mend a broken heart, judy, it ain't no fun to me
i don't know much about sonic youth aside from, like, knowing who kim gordon is and having heard teen age riot before. and wouldn't you know it? today is the day i learn that kim gordon was in the band that made teen age riot and - why are you booing me?? like, c'mon - i knew she existed but i didn't know which band!! she was just, like, this amorphous figure in the echelons of riot grrrls and at some point in the indeterminate past did cool shit that meant a lot to a bunch of different people - why would i think she was in THIS band in particular?? that's a guy singing teen age riot. they could've gotten any gal off the street to do that voice over. please stop throwing tomatoes at me they're REALLY smelly!! AND THEY STAIN...
all elaborate bits to distract from my admitted ignorance aside, i was honestly surprised to learn this album was '88 - if i had to guess (with my approximate and incorrect knowledge of things) i would've placed teen age riot somewhere in the mid-90s. it struck me that, if i really don't know anything about an album aside from one song and i'm placing it ~7+ years ahead of when it was actually released, this album must've really have some innovative and forward-thinking sounds.
unfortunately... of this album's sound... if it was any more distorted, any more fuzzy, i'm certain it would've given me a headache. i can see how teen age riot is the breakout hit of this album (and, perhaps, for sonic youth's entire discography), and i'm a little sad that it was kinda all downhill after the first track. granted, i really liked some songs off of this album, and i'm not basing my whole judgement off of the fact that i can't listen to teen age riot over and over again... but getting towards the end of the album i was counting down the minutes until i could call it quits and move on with my day.
i get the feeling that there's a lot more going on with this album than i'm able to glean from this initial listen through - and hey, i'm down to put this album on a few more times - but for the time being this is is sitting at a meh three stars.
highlights - teen age riot, the sprawl, 'cross the breeze, eric's trip
four or so years ago i tried a "60s lounge music, space pop, easy listening" playlist because i needed some ""easy listening"" to get me through the work day. four or so years later i regularly listen to "adult standards" (or as i interpret: boomer music) and girl from ipanema is one of my favorite songs. i can't get enough of this stuff - it's catchy, it's smooth, it's the perfect distillation of music. i want to dance listening to this!! i want to kick my feet up and have a beer listening to this!! fuck big elevator for co-opting this: this is MUSIC for living your life, not MUZAK for some fleeting moment of purgatorial transit!!
highlights - the girl from ipanema, corcovado (quiet nights of quiet stars), só danço samba, o grande amor
this album is a really beautiful piece of music. it's got the craft, the polish - the competency!! - to land as a solid album. i want to give this album its laurels because it got me, incorrigible acoustic set hater, feeling things about an album that really only featured guitar, vocals, and banjo.
that being said, this still really isn't my scene, and i only got through one listen through before i had to turn it off and listen to something else. i might be a little more prejudiced now that other acoustic acts will have to match ms. welch: if you aren't making me teary eyed over some banjo, get off the stage!!
highlights - revelator, my first lover, red clay halo, april the 14th part 1, i dream a highway
can't help but reflect on a very wise woman's words in regards to this album: "bitch me too! the fuck."
highlights - blister in the sun, prove my love, promise
hmmm... another one of those "i thought this band was supposed to be good" moments, though my advisors have informed me - once again - that they like oasis but this isn't their pick as far as oasis albums go. there were some decent tunes here and there, but it was hard for me to really differentiate between the songs, and this felt like an hour long noisy cymbal-fest above all else. i can absolutely hear the appeal of rocking out to these at a concert, like it feels like these were maybe designed from the get-go to be feel-good venue anthems, but besides that it didn't have that much appeal for me.
highlights - rock 'n' roll star, columbia, supersonic
some enjoyable tunes and some solid tracks. had countdown to ecstasy beforehand and i think i like that more than their debut, but both albums land at around a 4 for me - i'd have no problem putting this on and having a good time. special shoutout to do it again as one of those special, enchanting tracks that make me wanna get up and dance.
highlights - do it again, reelin' in the years, midnite cruiser
not to be hyperbolic, but this album brought a deep - perhaps immeasurable - sadness to my day because i was expecting the fine folks who did don't dream it's over to be like, good, or something. i wanted to be swept off my feet like i was listening to don't dream it's over for the first time again. i suppose, unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be .... 🥺
main word i feel with this album is "inoffensive," like, inoffensively decent, inoffensively bland. it was only at track 8 with there goes god that i felt SOMETHING. liked the orchestral touch on all i ask too, but besides those two tracks this was a big letdown !!
highlights - there goes god, all i ask
ah... i have a distinct memory of a college professor i once had whenever i hear duran duran. for context: this professor was a crotchety old man who taught at a community college and loved nothing more than to go on animated rants. his lectures were pretty much nothing but rants. he ranted most weeks about the incompetence of the cc's admin. he ranted about how things used to be back in his day (like how much less drugs cost (?)), and, on one particular occasion, he ranted about how they were playing duran duran on the radio again. he seemed to be genuinely bewildered by the fact that, of his students that were not alive during the 80s, most of us knew who duran duran was. i remember he expressed something along the lines of "i fucking hated listening to them when i was your age, but now i kind of like them. fuck. shit. i can't keep getting old."
anyway, 5 stars.
highlights - rio, hungry like the wolf, save a prayer
this is the third time since starting 1001 that i've learned bob dylan is still alive. and, you know, since starting 1001 i've been having trust issues because i listen to widely acclaimed albums and wonder why everyone's favorite hobby is lying.
so: thank you all for at least having SOME integrity when you all say bob dylan is good. if you had told me this morning i would have been rapturously engaged in an 18 minute long folk song that included the lines "i say, tell me what i want / she say, you probably want some hard boiled eggs / i said, that's right, bring me some / she says, we ain't got any. you picked the wrong time to come" i would have asked you why you were in my house and can you please leave.
highlights - love sick, tryin' to get to heaven, not dark yet, cold irons bound, highlands
you know, i really don't mean what im about to say as being derogatory towards pere ubu, but: i have a strong suspicion that i only liked this as much as i did because 1001 has eroded my standards. don't get it twisted - i say erosion and you probably imagine a whittling down, a degradation of quality, or even an erasure of what once stood reason to be. but - the grand canyon started as a stream, and look at it now: big, wide, and listening to a band that took their name after an avant garde shitposter from the 19th century (i mean, really, the father of all shitposters if we're being honest, and honesty is a virtue). this isn't bad. it's different. i kinda like it. i didn't want to turn it off after thirty minutes!!
anyway: can someone please come get me they're holding me in the ranger station here in arizona they're telling me i'm disturbing the peace playing this for the grand canyon and they won't listen to me when i tell them about 1001 albums. can we crowdfund a pair of headphones for the earth id like her to hear this.
highlights - non-alignment pact, street wares, over my head, sentimental journey, humor me
some folks seem to hold this album in pretty high regard... for reasons that continue to baffle and elude to me. please believe me when i say that i tried to listen to this in good faith to understand what the appeal is: knowing that big star was influential to R.E.M. made me think this was going to be sonically miles away from where it actually landed. how can you call this "a shambling wreck of an album" and give it 5 stars??? where is the "haphazard brilliance"??? all i hear is the "haphazard" part - are we listening to the same album??? ???
highlights - for you
knew of the verve going into this but didn't know enough to realize the first track - bitter sweet symphony - was theirs!! it's a good enough song despite being crazy overplayed, though the rest of the album didn't have too much more to offer. for a band called THE verve, their panache was... milquetoast - bordering on the kind of acceptable if routine decency you get with U2, and i couldn't help but compare this to U2 whilst listening to this (or coldplay, for that matter!!). didn't love this didn't hate this but... didn't feel much about this one either way.
highlights - bitter sweet symphony, catching the butterfly, weeping willow, this time
today is the day that i share i've never sat down and listened to a four fat sluts album ever before in my life. like, why would i need to? wouldn't it stand to reason i could get by listening to them by osmosis since they're so pervasive and culturally significant? and, if i happened to miss a song or two (or seven dozen) through this process, wouldn't it mean the song(s) suck anyhow and weren't worth listening to?
but i suppose this was a flawed assumption since i can't trust anyone or their taste in music anymore. i must investigate these four fat sluts to understand, for myself, what about them compels people to lie and say that they're good. it's fortuitous, then, that 1001 has deemed to give me the four fat sluts "when they sucked" as my introduction to them.
a tangential story: when i was younger i went to some get-together with my dad. i don't remember what this get-together was about - a family friend? an all-ages social gathering? could've been a cult info session for all i knew, but we didn't stay too long. of the precious few minutes that we spent at this strangers house, i was engaged in a conversation with someone's british grandpa. my dad, always the jokester, decided to reveal to this british grandpa that i didn't like the beatles (since renamed to the four fat sluts) - he said this against my heartfelt desire to avoid needlessly antagonizing the geriatric. after my dad said this the gentleman's demeanor shifted and, all of the sudden, he looked very pensive. grandpa could feel a socratic moment coming on.
he asked me: "who is your favorite band?" i told him: "the knife" he replied: "do you think, in one hundred years, your band - these 'knives' fellas - do you think they'll still be an important part of people's lives? do you think they will transcend cultures and touch millions of people all over the world?"
being of obstinate tweenager age, i replied with something along the lines of "i don't know, who's to say they couldn't?" but the grandpa shook his head and smiled a bit as though my answer proved his point: your favorite band will never be the four fat sluts, your criticisms are invalid, and if you had said this within the realm of great britannia we would have you shot, yank.
so this one goes out to you british grandpa: you're right, it's undeniable the four fat sluts have done numbers and we're still talking about them 100 years after they released this album (1925 - wow!!). the album itself is fine - worse than i expected, given the four fat slut's lofty acclaim, but it still meets my arbitrary measure of acceptance (hell, it goes past that!) so i will not deny what they've accomplished here: a decent, passable, fine-enough album. can't wait to listen to the rest of the four fat slut's discography and find out, once and for all, if british grandpa had any right to be defending them like he did.
highlights - don't bother me, roll over beethoven, hold me tight
going by the previously established metrics of which albums gave me a headache, i made sure i had bottle of tylenol on stand-by when i put this on. but dear listener, i must tell you: this album, miraculously, did not give me a headache. there's no fuzz here, no heavy layer of distortion to wade through - everything is here on the table: take it or leave it!!
my only prior knowledge of megadeth was the inclusion of peace sells on rockband 2, of which i have no impression of since i usually avoided playing metal songs on that game. several years later here we are: my sincere apologies to megadeth for not being a more open-minded [REDACTED]-year old. i liked this album a lot more than i thought i would - great stuff!!
highlights - wake up dead, peace sells, devils island, good mourning/black friday, my last words
despite the fact that the points are made up and don't matter, i feel terribly conflicted between a four and five star rating for this album. on the one hand, it hits so many arbitrary personal affinities of mine that i have to wonder if i'm secretly the result of some lab experiment where an evil (read: french) mad scientist was trying to artificially synthesize the kind of person who would love everything about moon safari. but yet, after several front to back listens, i feel bereft and left wanting more from this album. like, the mad scientist did too good of a job and i find moon safari just a bit passe now. but that's just how it is on this bitch of an earth!!
highlights - la femme d'argent, sexy boy, kelly watch the stars, talisman, ce matin-là
pretty impressed by this one: my usual musical milieu is most everything this album covers genre-wise, so to hear this run the genre gamut and still come out sounding like a breath of fresh air is a real treat. while the latter part of the album fell off for me, this lands at a solid four stars having managed to get more than one (!!) song stuck in my head after my initial listen through. great stuff!!
highlights - be-in, boys better, minnesoter, not if you were the last junkie on earth, every day should be a holiday
absolutely bonkers. just crazy pants. have you seen my marbles?? i've seemed to have lost them.
no highlights because i already had every damn song saved off this album.
okay, it makes a lot of sense that this was produced by the same guy who produced patsy cline: i like me some patsy cline. and i like me some dykey country. did you know i was listening to orville peck when nobody had ever heard of him?? [SOUNDS OF MY DETRACTORS ENTERING THE ROOM] i remember watching those pony music videos and thinking to myself: "is this guy gay? what's up with him" [THEY FORM A CIRCLE AROUND MY CHAIR] i streamed pony so much that summer and fall, and what do you know, he goes on to become this big thing. but i kinda stopped listening to him a little while after that. [I AM FORCIBLY PICKED UP BUT I STILL HAVE MY LAPTOP IN MY HANDS SO I KEEP TYPING] man. that was before covid. does anyone remember what it was like before covid?? why does orville peck wear that mask?? has anyone figured that out yet?? is orville peck gay???????? [I AM CARRIED OUT OF THE ROOM. END SCENE]
highlights - western stars, sugar moon, i wish i didn't love you so, don't let the stars get in your eyes, i'm down to my last cigarette, busy being blue, honky tonk angels medley
of the contingent of random, lesser-known british rock bands i've gotten from 1001 so far, the jam have landed with a solid album that sets them among the better sounding acts - would i say the best sound?? meh!! maybe not the best best, but i feel charitable enough to put them in the running for second or third place.
now, i like me some random, lesser-known british rock bands from this era (i know there's a particularly low rated album from a lesser-known british rock band on this list that i, personally, adore), but would i classify myself as a fan?? hmmm... i don't know... if i really think about it: maybe i am a fan!! maybe this is all a part of robert dimery's plan to convert unsuspecting americans into lesser-known british rock band connoisseurs. i'm on to you mr. dimery. i see (I HEAR) what you're doing...
also i swear i've heard that guitar riff from set the house ablaze before. did they lift that from someone?? did someone lift that from them?? am i still missing a few of my marbles???? ??
highlights - pretty green, monday, set the house ablaze, start!, that's entertainment, the man in the corner shop, scrape away
i must admit i do not "get" the blues (cue the line: you were not put on this earth to GET IT mister jack burton!!!), but that's not for lack of trying. in fact, i don't even need to lift a finger: i live with a blues superfan so i hear the blues on a regular basis whether i want to listen to it or not. i have a healthy respect for the genre and its history, but it tends to elicit the same feelings as when i'm listening to some acoustic set, and i happen to be the vice president of the incorrigible acoustic set hater club. but where i will totally write off paired down, sonically boring yet self-indulgent slop, i will otherwise nod and concede defeat to the blues: i don't quite understand, but maybe someday i will.
well, today happened to be the day: music in exile brought out sounds and textures that absolutely resonated with me, and i'm glad i've finally been able to listen to something "bluesy" and not feel the need to grimace and hide my pain. i don't even know if i could articulate what it was about this album that made me like it more than others: because, it like, actually sounded good???? i dunno man...
regardless: this was a real treat of an album. those first two songs were real barn burners if i'd ever heard em, though the rest of the album didn't quite reach the same high for me. but this is the kind of stuff i wanted to listen to starting 1001, so im a happy camper. great stuff!!!
highlights - soubour, irganda, sekou oumaru, petit metier, jolie, mali
serendipitous i get my first blues album a few days ago and then 1001 sees fit to give me what most consider to be the greatest blues live album ever recorded. safe to say i'm starting to understand what everyone has been on about with this blues music...
have to agree with others that the crowd's enthusiasm is infectious. it's honestly nice to hear people having a good time, which is enough to merit this live album being "worth it" in my estimation of live albums, because it's SOMETHING interesting aside from the music itself.
anyhow - i was being flippant earlier but to repeat what i said and be genuine this time: i understand what's special about the blues now. while i don't think this is the precedent for my conversion to the genre, i feel really positive about this album in particular and i'm honestly glad i got a chance to listen to it because it's SUCH a treat to listen to. great stuff!!
highlights - sweet little angel, it's my own fault, how blue can you get?, worry, worry, you done lost a good thing now, help the poor
it's weird that only in retrospect has this album grown to be a juggernaut of nostalgia for me: i (along with everyone else) was inundated with this album's singles through the tail end of the 2000s. i liked the songs so it was fine if they were a bit overplayed, but i really didn't feel compelled to seek them out when i'd already had my fill (please, no more, my cup runneth over). in the years that followed i began to accumulate disparate mgmt songs that found their way into my life - my online life, really, as that's where i was spending my time in the years that followed. i never did a straightforward front-to-back listen of this album, because it came to me in bits and pieces until, finally, in 2018 they released little dark age and i had the thought "wow, mgmt is good again!" prompting me to get to the last dregs of oracular spectacular. only then, 11 years later, had i ""listened"" to this album.
i'm certain my experience isn't unique to my generation, but i can't help but think about how this album grew on me (or rather, grew with me), and how i experienced mgmt gazing into a computer screen. i started seriously getting into music in the streaming era where the concept of "the album" really doesn't matter anymore: albums are fractured, decontextualized, and anyone can sift through the pieces and pick out what they want to take back home with them. heck, my habit of picking out "highlights" from each album is because that's how i've come to conceptualize music growing up on an endless stream of apportioned songs presented to me by the mighty algorithms of pandora, spotify, youtube, and so on. 1001 is the first time in my life i've spent any time seriously considering ~the album~ as a consummate work of art.
and oracular spectacular, as a consummate work of art, represents the 2010s for me. it is an album of nostalgic fragments i've haphazardly pieced together navigating the new age of social media as a young person, but if i'd experienced this album any other way, at any other time, i would've never had the privilege of experiencing the profound love i have for this album. if i get in my feelings, hearing kids or time to pretend will make me cry. spare me a moment of cheesy sentimentality, but i can't help to echo back: yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can i do? i have a job, an office, and a morning commute.
highlights - time to pretend, weekend wars, the youth, electric feel, 4th dimensional transition, future reflections
hmmm... kind of a weird album for me. like, i should like this??? or, i think i should like it: i don't know too much about elvis costello but there's a handful of songs by him that i adore and ON PAPER there's no reason why i shouldn't like this... but, i don't like this. not all of it at once, anyway: i'm acutely aware of the parts of songs that i enjoy because those are, unfortunately, far and few between. rest of my time with this album i was just... sitting there. confused.
highlights - big boys, party girl, (what's so funny 'bout) peace, love and understanding
hrmmm... what an unenviable position to be in to have to follow up ok computer... i don't say this to mean that i think radiohead should've given up music at this point and become real estate agents or something. more that: i like kid a. i like radiohead. i had songs saved off of this album before i did a front to back listen... but!! ☝️this did not instill the same feeling of grandeur and emotion that ok computer did. feelings that, on ok computer's part, were pretty effortless to command whereas kid a felt... opaque??? meandering??? and, i have to speculate that's intentional for this album because of it's background as an exploratory endeavor following ok computer. i mean... they made two albums out of them fucking around here (lol).
if i was talented enough to make two albums out of me fucking around on synthesizers, i would, but i'm not, so i don't, and that doesn't mean radiohead shouldn't have either, but i think i like their other albums more than this.
highlights - kid a, the national anthem, how to disappear completely, optimistic, in limbo, idioteque, morning bell
this album sent me on a little research excursion regarding "chipmunk soul," as while wikipedia cited kanye west as popularizing the sound, it said nothing about who did it ""first"" or how, exactly, it came to be. maybe i'm not ""hip with it"" but pitched up singing seems enduring and, at times, ubiquitous. like, they're still doing edits to kordhell's music, aren't they??? that hasn't totally fallen out of style yet, right????
regardless, i was delighted to learn in my cursory research that it was a specific group of producers in the early aughts (which does include mr. kanye) who were experimenting, remixing, and taking advantage of any affordance the technology could offer. as rsonist says in the red bull music academy article on the origins of chipmunk soul "we all started using our voices as instruments. a lot of the times, i started using the voice simply because i couldn't get it out. but when i started putting it together, something dope happened... when you chop it up and piece it back together, you realize that the voice is actually an intricate part of what you do."
funnily enough, i had kid a (2001) yesterday and that album's mythology goes along a similar trajectory where, as an antidote to writer's block, thom yorke took after electronic music and experimented with synthesizers to modulate his voice as an instrument. i also can't help but think about vocaloids, which, while initially released in 2004, would spin off into something so much bigger. learned here, too, that michael stipe of R.E.M. was cited as being impressed by vocaloids in a 2003 nyt article but was worried about the long-term implications with this incredibly prescient quote "i would hate to think that 250 years from now altria would use the michael stipe voice to sell organic soy to a mars landing ... it's intriguing in 2003. i'm not sure about 2303."
i don't really have a thesis here aside from: i just think hip-hop is neat. the more i learn about hip-hop producers the more i understand how foundational their craft was for most any kind of music i like these days. oh, i was rating an album, wasn't i ??? uh... lukewarm four stars because, i'll hand it to kanye this is a phenomenal debut with phenomenal production but as much as i enjoyed the this album's tone it started to drag on for me. liked this more than my beautiful dark twisted fantasy for sure!!
highlights - we don't care, spaceship, jesus walks, never let me down, the new workout plan, school spirit, through the wire
have to admit this kind of music is up my alley, but this is the first time i'm hearing of mr emerson, mr lake, & mr palmer, and i have to wonder if there's a reason for that because this album was kinda... meh. started really strong with a frenetic, balls-to-the wall 20 minute opener that devolved into a track list that ranged from alright to very questionable. my double take for "how did he lose / six million jews" gave me whiplash. three stars.
highlights - that first track that's 20 minutes you know the one i'm not typing that all out lol, bitches crystal, a time and place, are you ready eddy?
hmm... i seem to have been teleported from the berenstein universe where grizzly bear was good to the berenstain universe where grizzly bear sucks. i was genuinely excited to get grizzly bear because i knew i had some songs saved from them (off this album, no less!) and had conceptions they were more of the indietronica ilk that i grew up with. guess that goes to show how much egg can get on your face when you move through life assuming things based on vibes alone without cognitively verifying how, exactly, the music of any particular band sounds. now, this album didn't SUCK suck: i hear some great stuff in the songs i had picked out / liked well enough to save on this front-to-back listen, and broadly speaking i think this album is interesting in the context of what indie sounded like circa ~2010 ... but AT LEAST i thought i'd want to dance at some point. i just wanted to nap instead :/
highlights - southern point, two weeks, fine for now, ready, able, while you wait for the others
this album kicked down my front door slapped my headphones off my head and said "hey stop listening to those mid two and three star albums and listen to a real four star instead." and it's like, yeah, thank you for finally showing up and giving me something to listen to that's unquestionably good and an unquestionable classic but we could've done that without the violence... i don't have a front door anymore... think my headphones are under the couch or something... c'mon man...
highlights - lust for life, some weird sin, the passenger, success, fall in love with me
first time sitting down with a bob marley album and i absolutely hear the appeal (mark another one down for the "wait you people weren't lying when you said this was good" team). beyond my superficial and likely erroneous understanding of bob marley through the filter of pop culture, this album instilled an ease and "chillness" that made it a great listen through. it might have been the mood of the day that i listened to this (had this going in the bg mostly) but i didn't save a lot of songs from this album. while that usually means i don't like an album too much, i wouldn't have any problem putting this on and going about my day anyhow ... and maybe i will do that and maybe i'll be back here later to revise my review / ratings. great stuff!!
highlights - concrete jungle, stir it up
absolutely bonkers. while i'm someone who doesn't listen to ms. knowles casually, i am someone who has watched several hours of video essays about her. ms. knowles, as an artist, is endlessly fascinating because she's a businesswoman first and foremost, and it's because of her business savvy that she's able to create such visionary work. also, her music is pretty great too!!
i kept on having to check what year this album came out as i was listening to it - some of these tracks i recognize and can place chronologically, but others sound like a synthesis of pop / electronica sampled from the years 2008 to 2012. after some cursory research i saw this album was labelled under the electro-r&b genre, which makes a lot of sense to me of where it originated sonically (specifically thinking about the track haunted here, which, to the surprise of no one, was my #1 highlight from this album).
i liked this album a lot more than i thought i would, and my opinion going into this album is the same coming out: it's a shame this is the only beyonce album on 1001. not even getting into the visual album aspect (which i feel like i could write another 500+ words about, but i'm already behind on album ratings so i won't), this album carries a grandeur (to use an antiquated early 2010's term: epic-ness, perhaps??) that's difficult to refute. like, ms. knowles knows what she's doing here, right!! she knows how to make great music - i don't really care, otherwise, if this was hyper-engineered in a lab and has a superficial common denominator (read: mass appeal without risk) re: feminist messaging.
highlights - haunted, drunk and in love, blow, no angel, partition, mine, xo, flawless
