Want Two
Rufus WainwrightUuggghhhh... 1 out of 5. I'd give it 0, but the 1st and 10th songs at least don't remind me of a Radiohead cover band playing an airport Marriot lounge.
Uuggghhhh... 1 out of 5. I'd give it 0, but the 1st and 10th songs at least don't remind me of a Radiohead cover band playing an airport Marriot lounge.
First time I've ever listened to a Rod Stewart album, and likely the last. I think I see the appeal to others, and it's certainly better than some other bands of the day, but in the end Rod is just not my jam.
This album has been in my rotation since I first bought it in 1992. It doesn't hit quite as hard on the 10,000th listen as it did on the 1st, and I still find some of the guitar solos a tad Onanist for my tastes, but the anger and aggression still make my day better every time I listen. Possibly one of the best albums to punch Nazis to.
Pop shite. Sonic pablum. Milquetoast synth garbage. God, I hated this. I had to turn the music off 4 different times before re-engaging. I made it to the end, and celebrated with another listen to Pantera as a palate cleanser. But then, jk pointed out that there's an acoustic version of the album, as well. I gave that a listen and turns out, it's much better. If the medium is the message, then please talk to me via unplugged guitar than Casio noise box. If we were listening to the acoustic album, I'd give it three stars, but we're not.
I absolutely did not need to listen to 42 bluegrass and old-style country songs. There's some genuinely great music on this bloated album, for sure, but not enough to earn it more than three stars.
I loved this album. Compares to jazz albums from the same time and place it feels much more modern. And it's damn fun to listen to. Will def add this into the rotation.
I think I need to listen to this a few more times before it sinks in. But, at first blush, I like it well enough...even with some of the dated 70s studio sound.
Lordy, this album is great! I've long been a fan of Sebadoh-adjacent bands and have even listened to Bakesale a few times, but this really struck a chord, which makes it the first album on here that I've listened to more than once in a day. I especially liked tracks 3, 9 and 15 but there's no real duds in here.
I was excited to give this a listen, because I really loved this album 35 or 40 years ago. Turns out, I've moved on and, while it has some excellent songs, this just isn't my jam, def or otherwise.
Not their best album by a long shot. There's a few solid songs, but overall this was not anything I needed to hear . . . especially a 7-minute song about the pleasures of Australia or something.
Oh wow. This band has been popping up on my You Might Also Like lists for years now, but I've never listened to them before today. What a mistake! From the first bass riff, I was hooked. I love the low end-heavy sound of two basses, and the drums somehow match that sound. The lead singer is sneering and hoarse sounding all at once, and I love that, too. I listened to this three times in a row and then moved on to later albums. Adding yet another band to my usual rotation.
I enjoyed this. Did I need to hear it? Only if I hadn't heard any other Blue Note records from the 1960s. They have a sound. Maybe Jimmy Smith started that sound. I don’t know. But, it's a good listen.
Blergh. This didn't change my mind about The Who. I 10,000% did not need to hear this. Switched to High on Fire halfway through to clear the dust and cobwebs that this album was leaving behind.
I heard this in 1983 and that was plenty. It's fine.
Boy, was this long. I liked some of it. I got caught on Midnight, feeling like I'd heard the song before, but not realizing why until suddenly it hit me that I was also listening to When the Levee Breaks and Black Sabbath. So, that was cool. In the end, though, my patience for this album wore thin.
Oh man, this is the good stuff. I'm not much a fan of the King's later work, but this album is a banger. I haven't listened to it in a couple years, and was stoked to see it pop up and remind me to do so. As usual, I barely know what the lyrics are saying, but as in any great (for me) band, it's the delivery that matters, and Caleb Whateverthefuck delivers. So, yeah, I liked this.
I never listened to this album in full before. I kind of liked it. It seems to move away from pop-punk toward something more straightforwardly rock and roll. And there's some very good songs on there.
Not my jam. At all.
Listened, but mostly didn't like. Unclear why I needed to listen to this. A few catchy tunes doesn't outweigh the middling quality of the whole.
So much misogyny! And this album pretty much cements my opinion that Hot Rocks is the most effective and complete greatest hits album in rock history, since it actually makes the Rolling Stones an interesting and enjoyable band...which is the opposite of what this album does.
I'm glad I listened past the first three songs on this album. Had I not, I would have hated it forever as a garbage rehash of 70s lounge music/Charlie's Angels themes. Now, having listened to the whole album, I can just be bored out of my fucking mind. Zzzzzzzz... Two stars, though, because at least it's not Sad Muffin or whatever the fuck that shitbrit band was.
Not many duds on here; in fact, maybe only one (For No One, if you must ask). I like Ringo's drum sound in Tomorrow Never Knows. I like the horns in Got to Get You Into My Life (even if they're busily sonically quoting Motown). I really like the sitar wherever it shows up. The album art is fantastic. Four stars. WAIT. Back to Tomorrow Never Knows. What a fucking great song. I mean really great. I can listen to it a lot and it doesn't grow old. One extra star for giving me that. Five stars.
This was fine. Big band jazz makes me feel like I'm 8-years old visiting my grandparents in Yonkers with my grandfather talking about his pre-war days playing sax at clubs around the city. It's half good memories, half fusty nostalgia, and very little relevant to my daily life. Will I listen to this again? Nah.
Oh, fuck yes. It made me very happy to see this come up. Big Black is my favorite Steve Albini band, and this is my favorite Big Black album. There's some great songs on here and the lyrics are so extremely dark, but it's the actual *sound* of the album that captures me every time. Albini had a vision and it shows: abrasive, harsh, and metallic, but with no sludge or gloom in the production. It's like the aural equivalent of suurgical steel and bright lights, and I love it.
I love me some Johnny Cash. This is a good record. Not his best. You can feel, though, his appreciation, possibly affection, for the prisoners. And there's in retuen. Of course, this is pre-War on Drugs, pre-carceral state stuff. I can't imagine this happening now. Anyway, i'll probably lsten to this again. But, still only 3 star material.
I had hoped 35 or 40 years distance would give me a new, more positive perspective on this band. It did not. File under: crap, easy listening. But, there's a couple okay songs that, at a minimum, play a significant role in my memories of high school. So.... I guess 3 stars.
Ahhh... Fourteen year-old me is very, very happy that fifty-three year-old me still loves this album. Three thumbs up!
This was much better than I expected. My vague memories of this band are of a just another purveyor of 80s garbage. But, no! This wasn't the over-produced, rubbery synth treacle of memory. Real guitar sounds catchy tunes, and some memorable lyrics and song titles (Skid Marks on my Heart, anyone?). I ended up enjoying this quite a bit. I'm actually adding this to my playlist.
Nope. I love Can, and you can hear how Czukay brought his influence to bear on Can, but without the others in the band, this is just some noodly shit. Persian Love, in particular, just suuuuuxxxxxx.
This actually aged pretty well. The game show interludes were moderately amusing. The music holds up nicely. The lyrics are...um...sort of par for the course. Probably won't make regular rotation, but no hip-hop ever does.
You can sort of hear some early psych influences among the songs on this album, and some of the songs are quite good, but this is another band that really shines on their best of albums instead of the originals because some songs are just so fucking terrible. I Come and Stand at Every Door, for example. WTF?
This aged pretty well, and there's some very good songs on here. Heck, I could listen to this occasionally, even.
This is a very, very, very good album that I never used to like. Maybe I'm mellowing.
This sounds very modern, very indie, very not my jam in larger than one song doses. So, historically interesting and no doubt meritorious, but only getting 3 stars from me because I'll never listen to it again.
Now this is a good album! I'm not the world's biggest Willy fan, but he's got a deep discography with lots of good stuff in it. This is definitely among them. I really like the super-spare production. I think it gives the concept more heft in its storytelling. Anyway, 4 stars for me.
This was pretty good.
Not their best, but still very good.
Meh.
The Doors, Because We Couldn't Let White British Twats Have a Monopoly on Stealing the Blues from Black People. ...and yet, I still like much of this album. It's probably just rank nostalgia, but there's some songs I really enjoy, especially Hyacinth House and Riders on the Storm. Sorry, Jason.
I was torn a bit by this album. I enjoyed some of the songs, and the guitar was excellent in places, but ultimately it pretty much sounded like a North African guitar band. And, to be overly reductive, there is a pretty common North African guitar band sound, and this wasn't a particularly transcendent version of that. So, yeah, it was fine.
I just loathe Morrisey's voice and I just love Johnny Marr's guitar. For an average band, this would kill the listening experience for me. But, The Smiths aren't average and, say what you will about his twee lounge singer act, Morrisey can write some damn fine lyrics. So, in the end, I very much like this album and will continue to listen to it.
I'm gonna real time comment on this one. Song 1: Fuuuuck, not another baroque pop turd in the music punchbowl. Song 2: Everybody knows that I want to smash my phone. The brief episode of guitar sucks. The vocals suck worse. Song 3: My dad would LOVE this. Song 4: A bright spot! I think he really wants the object of this song to be a horse. I can almost overlook the horrible oboe. But then he starts imagining the object is his daughter/sister/dog and it starts getting fucking weird. I like it. Song 5: Premise is promising, song doesn't live up to its promise. Song 6: No. Song 7: All I need is to never, ever, ever hear this again. So, in sum, one song is just weird enough to be interesting, and the rest are garbage. I'm sure this music appeals to some people (fans of that Wainwright guy?), but I just don't appreciate anything about it.
As a certified Philistine, I have a hard time distinguishing between Paul Simon albums. He writes some pretty little ditties, but in the end they all sound like a Paul Simon minus Art Garfunkle song. This album is no exception. In fact, in the catslog of things we've listened to, it would be listed first under "Unexceptional." This is in no way an album I ever needed to hear, but in the hearing I did not sustain any lasting psychic injuries like some we've heard. And for that, 3 stars!
Yes! Yes! Yes! I take back all the 5s I have conferred so far. THIS is a five-star album. And, not only is it a wonderful piece of sonic art, it marks the beginning of a remarkable 6- to 8-album run of some of the best American rock and roll ever put to vinyl or tape or whatever. And that's not just my Georgia chauvanism talking.
I love this album. It's definitely not as accessible as their first two, but I think that's because they're moving away from triphop a little bit, or atleast away from the sampling heavy stuff. I dunno. Anyway, I love Beth Gibbons vocals and the kind of noisy, almost-droning but also hard-driving music the rest of the band lays down in songs like We Carry On and Small. Very good stuff.
I did not enjoy this album; I definitely did not need to hear it. But, it wasn't all bad. I think I could probably enjoy a pretty good single plus a B-side, I just didn't have the patience to figure out two songs I liked.
This is a very good album with some legit classics. When I listen to it, I feel like it's maybe the last album U2 made before they fully transitioned from post-punk to whatever amalgam they became of rock/pop/etc. And, I won't lie, I like their next 3 albums better.
I see this album came out in 1991. That it sounds so very 1990s suggests to me that these folks were on the leading edge of alternative rock. I certainly heard of them in that time, but I don't know that I ever listened to them. And, having listened now, being early doesn't, apparently, mean you meet my subjective determination of what's great. I liked this album well-enough, but it doesn't really stand out for me. The guitars are a tad too pretty for me, and there's just too much harmonizing for my tastes. More dissonance and/or less singing would make me like this more. Anyway, pretty good, not great. I give it a 3.
I like Depeche Mode withe the proviso that they got better over time in the mid 80s to early 90s as their sound and lyrics got darker. This album maybe doesn't mark that turn, and definitely benefits from it. Dave Gahan's voice is like the inverse of Morrisey's, excellent in every way. So, not 5 star material, but close.
Good Christ. Two songs in and time has slowed to a crawl. Sitting here on the plane, reading a book, and I feel like I've been listening to this for hours. WTF. Weird enunciation on "So definite." Yeah, no thanks.
I sort of listened to this between family events this weekend. There were songs I some how knew, songs thatbwere intensely annoying, amd songs that were excellent. I didn't develop a fully-formed opinion, so I'm going to give it a 3 and come back later to listen more intently.
Well... I turned this on expecting to hate it....and I absolutely did not. In fact, I thought it was really excellent. I had the thought that it sounded a bit like late 1990s Beth Orton (but with Madonna's voice), so I checked the production credits. And there it was: William Orbit. I suspect that's why I liked this album so much. Or, at least, that's what I going to tell myself to preserve my self-image.
Fuuuuuck, this is horrible. But at least it's not some chap in a Nehru collar weeping to the "lush" sound ofa clarinet, tinkling glasses, and a synthesizer. I'm adding a star for that.
I feel like this band probably pretty much captures the spirit of what I think of as calliope indie or, maybe, carnival indie. I listen to it, and I can almost smell the popcorn and funnel cake. It makes me want to play skee ball. It also sounds a little bit like Yes in certain songs. So...I don’t hate it, but I probably will never listen to this band again.
I really dislike the Beach Boys. Nice blazers, though. And that white goat looks like you could go on a proper goat-packing trip with it. It seems powerful and nimble-footed. I would have it carry all of my liquor and maybe a large sleeping pad so I could camp in luxury. The goat and I would probably be good friends. It might even become my pet. And any fucking sound it would or could make would be preferable to listening to this band or this album. +1 star for a couple of vaguely catchy tunes.
Tidal doesn't have this album, and I didn't have the chance to try and find it on other platforms. So, instead, I Iistened to everything these guys had available on Tidal. Dang! They just had one banger after another. I read on Wikipedia that they all used their instruments as percussion, and you can really hear it. Songs like "Boys are Boys and Girls are Choice" and "I Hate You" seem to pick really propulsive grooves and every instrument rides along with it. This is very, very much my jam. I probably give too many 5s, so I'm going to marshal them more carefully, but this is darn close to a 5.
With distance and time, I've come to enjoy this album. I mostly listened while riding my bike to/fro work and an appointment, so perhaps you can add the effect of wind to that list, too. Regardless, listening to this now, I'm not sure why I didn't like NIN back in the 90s. Maybe it was too many meatheads with NIN stickers, or knee-jerk opposition to media saturation, or who knows? Now, it sounds dark, but poppy, and kind of fun. So, yeah, Iiked it.
I guess this was okay. Now I know who sang "The Weight." Maybe that'll be useful in bar trivia. And "Chest Fever" has a pretry cool organ chord progression to start with that evolves into a kind of groovy organ solo. So, this album had that going for it. Otherwise, not my jam at all.