Plays like a greatest hits album. The vocal power is obvious, but the song selection is what takes this over the top

The opening track is amazing, totally timeless and exciting, the rest of the album sounds exactly like you would expect from late 80s hip hop. The gangster lyrics were a huge innovation at the time, but the flows are all in the “well I went to the hat store today and I bought myself a hat, uh huh uh huh” vein

Probably the greatest album ever, this created the concept of an album as a piece of art rather than a few singles and then some filler tracks. As immense as it is, the project is even more impressive when accounting for the fact that Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane were a product of these recording sessions, even though neither track was included on the album

Deeply inessential compared to everything else happening in 1968

Plays like a greatest hits album. The vocal power is obvious, but the song selection is what takes this over the top

Amazing voice and the hits really hit, but for an album with only 10 tracks (one of which is an instrumental) there are a few too many forgettable tunes to justify 5 stars

2 star album. I’m sure it was amazing at the time, but it’s far too linked to that specific counter culture moment

Easily a 5 star album if not for a few tracks where Lou Reed is furiously channeling Bob Dylan in a way that makes a listener wonder if he hates Dylan and is satirizing him

Should have been great, too many filler tracks

Hard to justify listening to this instead of Linda Ronstadt if I’m in the mood for a lightly latin-inspired singer-songwriter vibe

1 star, inoffensive background music

No tracks that I would be embarrassed if they came up on shuffle (ok that’s not true, the beat on 101 FM is trash) but also no tracks that I’d be excited for

Feels like the peak of the big band era and the introduction of crooner acts, more modern jazz, and rock all at once.

Platonic ideal of 90s singer-songwriter rock

2 bangers and a lot of filler