Already know and love this album. Have it on LP. So fabulous.
It's... fine. Nothing special to really recommend it.
There is no reason for this to be on a list of "must listen" albums. It's fine. It's a solid folk-rock album. But there's nothing special about it. It came out in 1979. It has some good songs, but doesn't pioneer, experiment, fuse, or perfect anything. Everything it does well has already been done better by earlier albums.
I really liked this. Didn't have enough chance to listen to it through closely to fully form an opinion, but I want to give it a closer listen.
I did enjoy that it's a concept album. Musical variety and production quality were great.
Didn't immediately jump out as something obviously super special. But very good.
Great album by one of my favorite artists. Will listen again. Would enjoy owning.
Some fantastic but approachable soul-jazz.
Good stuff. Will listen again.
Funk yeah!
Great piece of art. Great musicianship. Great arrangement. Solid production. Enjoyable to listen to, while also being hugely musically and culturally influential.
This was really great. I need time to sit down and listen to it more closely.
Great album. Solid alternative rock classic.
Fabulous jazz classic. Probably not for people who aren't already into jazz. It is almost ecstatic and impressionistic at times. Going off into near pure emotion. Masterful artists walking the very edge of spinning out of control.
This was surprisingly enjoyable. Lots of energy. Crazy good bassline. Raw punk energy.
This was surprisingly enjoyable. Lots of energy. Crazy good bassline. Raw punk energy.
It's Bowie. It's good. But not his best. Neither as experimental, or conceptual, or peak poppy as his other albums.
So hot. This album is fantastic, start to finish. "Walk On By" is possibly one of the greatest popular songs ever recorded.
I've heard this called "Progressive Soul". I think that might be labeling it wrong. This arguably predates Progressive Rock. It's clearly doing it's own thing, too. And I think drawing from vastly divergent influences.
It is sweeping and epic.
This is everything good about early hip hop.
If you went out to a street corner in New York, put down a boom box, and slapped "play" on a cassette of this, you would still have a party. Slap down some cardboard, and someone would randomly start break dancing.
One song is a ballad where five grown, straight, men sing a love letter to Stevie Wonder because, "He's the greatest." 10/10. No notes.
Great album. Mix of latin, jazz, psychedluc rock. It is expansive and full of passion.
The sort of exploration where you can imagine musical rituals taking casting magicspells and transporting your consciousness.
4.5 stars
Solid punk. Not their best album.
Solid and enjoyable Blue-Eyed-Soul. It's good stuff, but I don't think blazes many trails.
It sounds like a demo tape. The recording is too muddy and incomprehensible to really speak to the quality of musicianship.
Great live album. One of the few cases where the live recordings surpass the studio ones as the definitive versions of the songs.
Great album. Love it. My favorite Steely Dan, but not their best.
Has some "meh" songs (Garrytown, and Through with Buzz).
Not their finest work
Very nice. 3 or 4. Reminds me of Radiohead or Massive Attack, but with lush strings and wind instruments.
Just sort of rambles. I get that that's the point, and it's exploring. But like... it's like watered down jazz.
Dylan was/is very influential, but I don't care for most of his work. He opened a path, but I think he was surpassed by many other artist.
Even among contemporaries, Paul Simon and Townes Van Zandt are better.
Nearly unlistenable.
First track was just noise. I sat with it for a while thinking it was maybe a "Close to the Edge" type of intro, but no. Just noise.
Later tracks the audio quality was so distorted to be unpleasant.
Does not hold up. (Wasn't sure on 2 or 3 stars. I'll say 2.5)
This certainly did a lot to bring EDM into the mainstream, but is honestly very lackluster.
Today, the songs sound like someone who has finally learned how to use Garage Band. They're decent, but kind of bland.
Even in it's day, it falls well behind the quality of other contemporary or even preceding music. There is nothing this does that wasn't already being done better by other artists.
At same time, other artists were working in the same or adjacent genres and truly pioneering new ground.
At first I thought it was... fine. Sort of whatever.
But it grew on me. It has an energy that their later music lacks. But with good playing. I found myself listening again.
My album before this was 'Play' by Moby. For two artists so superficially similar, these albums could not be more different. Where 'Play' was very "meh", 'Odelay' really holds up and soars.
This is an absurdly fun album.
It is experimental, playful, absurd, and almost poking fun at itself - but it does so with so much conviction and intention to pass through the realm of being a joke, to coming full circle to being serious art. It includes intentionally absurd samples, nonsense lyrics, or jarring and dissonant instrumentals - but it knows exactly what it is doing throwing them in.
Good 90's Brit-hop. A bit trite, but good at what it is. If this is your sort of thing it will give happy feels, but not exceptional. If this isn't your thing, it is very "meh".
The title track "Connected" is a certified banger though.
I was fully prepared to be bored with this as trite boy-band schlock. I enjoyed it more than I expected to. It's a bit dated and not edgy at all, but... I'm impressed that THIS is what a corporately manufactured boy band used to sound like. Real singing. Real instruments. DIFFERENT instruments. Like harpsichord an banjo?!? WTF?
"Zilch" is fun and absurd and actually experimental.
It's incredibly playful and listening to it was just... joyful.
Still not quite my thing. But I went from rolling my eyes to happily listening through the whole album.
I wanted to hate this more than I do. Definitely not going to keep listening, but I can't bring myself to hate it.
It's competently done. The mixing is surprisingly energetic and organic after being so used to mainstream music being pitch-corrected and quantized to death.
I can very easily see why this was so popular and influential.
But in the end...
It's kinda schlocky and trite white middle-class rebellion.
I was prepared to be hard on this album. I was expecting the songs to be trite and cliche in hindsight.
Instead I got a soaring, gliding, elegant album. Listening after a massive break from U2's music. This is better than I remembered.
Remember when MTV used to play music videos?
Those were great times...
4.5/5 stars. (really 6/7)
This one is a bit tough to rate. The first 3 songs "So Far Away From Me", "Money for Nothing", and "Walk of Life" are 5/5 easy.
"Money for Nothing" is one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time. Find the best guitarist you know, and watch how fast they would "nope" out of being challenged to play it.
The rest of the album after it is great, but doesn't rise to the level of those first three songs. I'd tell anyone to listen to those first three (with caveat to younger people about how much culture has changed since "Money for Nothing" was recorded), but the rest of the album isn't going to excite everyone.
Another album I was prepared to roll my eyes at being over-hyped boomer-bait, but I think it lives up to its reputation.
Not an album for everyone. I will probably not return to this often, but an album that is truly worth listening to for every music fan.
A beautiful work of elegant simplicity.
Spare and personal, often just one voice and one guitar. The minimalism is personal. It is perfect in its raw imperfection.
