I was going to be generous and give this 3 starts until “This Song”’s radial speaker thing made me literally sick
Started strong with some big bangers and went out with a little bit of a whimper. Good instrumentation!
Is this the Beatles before they were cool?
Vocals all being in exclusively the right ear is not pleasant.
Some absolute generational bangers in here. Album falls off in the second half.
Fun, groovy. They’re really talented musicians. I see what the hype is about.
This is my first time hearing Hello in its original form. Wild.
Very good singing but bland otherwise.
Angry, novel. Very British. Sounds like British Invasion punk/alt.
It’s all good, but the thing is… it all sounds the same.
I can feel how this is influential on what would follow.
Feels like proto-techno.
So much fun stuff going on. Blues is Jazz, but for the peeeeeople.
Feels like a bad ruined by the meteoric rise of a single, which then defined them in everyone's eyes.
Kinda fun until I had the realization they sound like U2 and then finishing was tough.
First time I’d encountered a concept album outside the confines of prog rock. Amazing story, amazing execution. Kendrick’s Magnum Opus of story telling.
Swimming Pools is a masterpiece masquerading as a turn-up song.
Runaway child, running wild is the standout so far.
This is nice.
Super wide stereo balance again, though. Not so nice in headphones.
Trying to find some redeeming qualities, but this is so grating.
Some of the sax instrumentation is nice. Guitar too.
The vocalist though, ugh…
No extra points for pretentiousness, unfortunately, and I just can't with this man's voice.
Lots and lots of this album sound like local studio jams that show flashes of brilliance, but nothing inherently cohesive or enjoyable.
Good but dull can only go so far, and apparently this is the limit.
Okay listening to a few of these tracks here I think there’s some interesting sampling stuff going on back when sampling wasn’t exactly trivial.
Particularly on “Time To Get Ill” is when I first caught wind of that, but I think there’s more than that.
It actually reminds me a lot of that video of when A-Trak won the DJ championships in… idk 1999, at the age of 14 or something like that.
For reasons I can’t put my finger on, this agreed with me more than other late 60s music that is stylistically similar.
A somewhat fun bass line and tone carried me through this one. Maybe punk is not for me? This was a slog.
Not the Jay Z album I’d have selected
Oi, you sed whut, m8? I’ll bsh ur fkin’ ‘ed in m8. Swear on me mum.
Old enough it’s cool again. Enjoyable. Call and response backup singers were fun, as was the little doowop kinda vibe on some tracks.
This is fun G-funk stuff and everything, but can I get a little more funk with it or something? Idk, just doesn't do it for me like 2Pac/Biggie/NWA. Solid, but meh.
Sounds like I’m 8 years old chillin’ in front of the Jukebox at The 50’s Grill.
Can all Jazz be like this, pretty please?
Excellent guitar throughout.
I hate belting, but Janis makes it work.
Very, very good instrumentation, but I enjoy goofy lyrical Zappa more.
3/5
Considerably more mature than the other, but still has plenty of laddish moments. Leaned more into the MC thing, which was fun. Had some adult instrumentation in some stuff (Ricky’s Theme) which was a neat little surprise. Overall better than the last. Maybe less fun, but significantly more mature.
The amount of influence this had on modern hip hop is quite clear. A lot of this has aged well.
Pac walked so Kendrick could run.
This one genuinely surprised me. I’m so tired of the played out tracks off this, but they’re so iconic and so anthemic I couldn’t not bob my head.
This feels like it was probably the Hybrid Theory of its day.
I also am contractually obligated to score this high given there’s a solid chance I was conceived to this album.
I was stuck between a 3 and a 4 on this one and I went with a 3 because the album drops off at the end. It’s less an album that’s amazing and more a collection of banger singles.
This man writes stories into music like his last name is Hemingway.
Felt like proto-metal, vaguely? A very good album.
Mick Jaeger takes his coffee like he takes his women: Black
The king of pop at his zenith?
Some parts are nice but utterly forgettable.
I couldn’t even tell when Spotify fell off the album and started shuffling across other generic UK bands that sounded equally bland.
First four singles are the first four songs on the album? Clever.
There are things to like here: crispy production, nice vocalist. It’s just all so dull when assembled together.
Some wandering about that feels contemporary, but some absolute excellence in here.
Best Value Smashing Pumpkins
This is kind of an album with the same song happening again and again, but it’s pleasant.
Such a weird mix of bangers and duds. Also, why is this man yelling at me? I dig the massive 80s snare and shoegazey guitar tones. I’m forgiving some shit songs with this rating because some of the others are pretty cool for the era.
Oh so we’re doing Beatles meets Stones? Derivative.
This album is phenomenal.
So many good features. So many “wait, I know that voice” experiences. So much good conscience hip hop.
Kanye before he was ultra self aggrandizing.
Can anyone tell me why Courtney is so angy?
Big chunks of this are bad, but in the deliberately bad way grunge kinda was.
This is the ceiling of “amazing composition, but not for me.” Fantastic and interesting music, but it’s just from an era that I am not from.
If the outro scene from The Graduate was an album, it would be this album.
This was a challenging one to rate. Am I rating the singles, or the cohesive album as a whole?
I went with the latter. This album is *awful*.
Many Michael Jackson level poppy bangers but so, so, so much absolute shite to sift through to get to them.
Jazz piano is the most enjoyable improvisational jazz to listen to.
Bonus points for being obviously influential on a lot of music I love. It’s just a little too acid rock / psychedelia for me.
I recognized a bunch of these voices from Linkin Park’s reanimation. A really enjoyable, poetic MC album.
Lots of fun tracks on here!
So is this dude Spanish or French. I don’t get it.
One good song.
I’m sure this one was blazing all sorts of trails and such, but this era of music just feels *so* antiquated at this point.
Overall a very nice funky/disco-ey album. Some parts get irritatingly repetitive, but the instrumentation throughout is classy and nice - particularly the bass and the brass.
There are some good tracks on here, but even the good ones are just so beige.
Drums are dull and generic, guitar is repeating 4ish chord sequences, singing is very American idol (derogatory).
This is what happens when good musicians make bland choices.
I’m not the target audience for this album.
Some of it’s nice, but broadly this is what Carole King would be had someone shown her the gospel of instruments-other-than-piano.
Kinda cool to hear what black music sounded liked after disco and before the G-Funk era.
Solid, and fun. Not my typical listening, but enjoyable.
Wow, did anyone stop to tell The Clash that they're supposed to be bad at writing music and playing their instruments? This album is a stain on the Punk Rock Genre.
Please stop with this man. We’ve got 1001 albums to listen to and he deserves TWO?!
The songwriting on this one is excellent. I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
Also, where tf did that 9th track come from? Sounds like Dylan.
Parts are fun, but other parts are relentless attacks to the senses, and I cannot.
Compelling vocal performance and excellent instrumentation throughout. Not my home base musically, but enjoyable cover to cover.
I liked this more than I expected to, given my memories of the singles as being bland radio play. She’s better than the singles would suggest. I like the Smokey jazz lounge vibes.
My main critique: the album contains too many tracks and would benefit from some trimming.
This is what Taylor Swift would sound like if she wasn’t awful - and I say that with regard to both lyrical topic *and also* musical accompaniment.
A common criticism when I rag on Taylor is that her music isn’t for me. I can’t really argue that’s wrong. I’m not the target audience. Fair.
Amy’s music is *also* definitely not for me, and by way of contrast with Taylor, is still fucking excellent.
Some guy said: “Complex rock/punk with folk based influences” and I couldn’t agree more. This album is excellent, in a time when post punk was shit, grunge was just around the corner, and the junk drawer of “alternative” was still being carved out.
My favorite anarcho-syndicalist speedfreak road-movie record!
This is weird and experimental and all over the place and some of the tracks are kinda shit, but some of the experiments really do land nicely.
Pieces are an amalgam of The Crystal Method and Pink Floyd, with a dollop of The Pixies thrown in for good measure.
What else can be said that hasn’t already been said? This is one of the greatest albums humanity has ever produced.
This may be influential, but boy is it shite.
