While I hear a lot that influenced later music, this was not an enjoyable listen for me. The self important yet droning vocals, the grating industrial sounds, and the kind of bland songwriting made time stretch. When I felt I just about had enough I looked at the playlist to discover that I'm only halfway through. o no, I felt. The best part of the album was a song that started with 1:30 mintues of instrumental. Once the singing resumed, so did my time dilation. Personally this is a 1 for my own taste, but i'm giving it a second star in recognition that it did have a significant influence on other artists.

Prince was undoudbtedly a highly talented singer, instrumentalist and stylist, but the songwriting in this album is mediocre, using predictable and overused patterns. There are moments of interest, typically in background instruments suddenly doing something brilliant, but all in all it's a very long bore.

Sounds like it's trying very hard to sound modern and cool. The production is good, the lyrics & composition are trying so hard it sounds kind of pathetic. This is an album that tries to ride on the wake of better, more authentic albums, and will ultimately be forgettable.

Sure, songs are repetitive to the point of absurd, but with almost every one of them being unforgettable even decades later, this is a definition of a 5.

Most songs are good, some are great. Well crafted and executed, a pleasure to listen to.

Happy 50 years to this album! The album starts with its weakest track, so stick to it for a bit longer before judging. Overall musically this album is very solid, diverse, well crafted and made me curious about the band and their other works. I don't like the combination of punk and ambient - I understand this is kind of experimentality, but 50 years later of modern music development, I prefer more cohesive listening experiences. I don't mind variety, but punk+ambient is a bit much. For being a 50 year old album that still sounds relevant and interesting this is almost a 5, but enough songs don't land that it's a 4. But this is definitely the kind of musical discoveries I'm here for.

The guy can sing, but the music is mediocre and uninspired. In addition, some of the lyrics I managed to catch aged like a lecherous old man. Overall this album is nothing memorable, just a good singer making mediocre music with an annoyingly repetitive back-choir. It's a nice one-off listen, nothing more.

Two negatives make a positive? I'm not a fan of neither post-punk nor disco, but turns out the post-punk disco is definitely a thing! Really interesting combination of groove, hypnotic rhythms and weird (in a good way) sound design Feels like the work of a great musician playing to their strength, effortless and good. Overall I enjoyed most tracks here, both the catchy and the quirky ones.

Smooth sound and top notch mixing, but the music itself is not doing it for me at all. I listened to the whole album, couldn't tell one song from the next, and had a distinct feeling that if I don't hear it ever again I won't be missing out on anything. I'm awarding it 1 additional start for craftsmanship, I might cue this album up as a reference track when I'm making my own music. But for an entertainment product, this isn't going above 2 stars.

The biggest problem of this album is the mixing. Wikipedia says the band and the producer didn't agree on the sound - to me it sounds like the producer isn't a heavy music listener and he just mixed this as a pop album. If it was my band, I wouldn't agree with it either. The result - everything is too clean for thrash music, especially painful with the back vocals totally not fitting in. But overlooking the the unfortunate mix, the music is pretty cool and interesting. It's mostly carried by the strength of the guitar, that still sounds interesting and fresh today. I agree with other reviewers that the singing isn't what I'm looking for, but it's not as bad as some people say it is. Overall, I'd probably go back to listen to this again at some point!

The review is for the "normal" edition - The deluxe edition is way too long and has really really bad songs: Typical girls (blink style dub) was so full of clicks it was painful to hear. It's a bit too much avant-garde/arthouse for my taste, but even despite that, it's still a fun interesting listen, and there are some truly great songs there. The reggae with punk influences was new to my ear (at least, the way it was done here) and it was very well pulled off. These girls sound like they know how to freewheel it in style and pull it off, that's a rare talent. I am definitely going to listen to this one again.

Not a good album - some songs were okayish, others were bad. There was not a single good song. The singer's voice isn't good, and the mixing choice was to put it upfront and center, which further reduces the album's quality. This album is a big no thank you from me.

Cookie cutter songs that were manufactured to satisfy a specific clientelle. They are well made and well performed, but the album is musically bland. It's the kind of music you'd expect in a rock/biker bar, makes for a nice background and that's about it. To me it sounds like they're easily capable of better and therefore it was probably a conscious decision to maximize the commercial aspect of the album.

The good: The singer can SING. Some of the songs have cool riffs and are worth revisiting. The not-so-good: The lyrics are really bad. They're not even good in a campy way. Just bad. The mastering is awful. Beside the 2-3 songs that are relistenable, the rest isn't.

Clearly created by someone who understands grooves, hooks and the power of a great bass line. Not all songs hit, but those that do are really well written. The production is quite basic to my taste (stock drums, sparse soundscape and preset-sounding sounds), but the songwriting more than makes up for it. Some songs are literally annoying to listen to, I was considering deducting a star for the 2-3 bad songs, but i'll just pretend that the album didn't contain them.

While I hear a lot that influenced later music, this was not an enjoyable listen for me. The self important yet droning vocals, the grating industrial sounds, and the kind of bland songwriting made time stretch. When I felt I just about had enough I looked at the playlist to discover that I'm only halfway through. o no, I felt. The best part of the album was a song that started with 1:30 mintues of instrumental. Once the singing resumed, so did my time dilation. Personally this is a 1 for my own taste, but i'm giving it a second star in recognition that it did have a significant influence on other artists.

For better or for worse, this isn't a product, this is art, and so it can land very perfectly or not at all. I can hear later singer-songwriters productizing this style for wider consumption, and by doing so, cheapening it *coughsufjanstevenscough* Within 2 songs I thought the album would quickly overstay its welcome, but, damnit, if Old Legs here ain't grown on me and I enjoyed it till the end. I can imagine this to be something to dive deeper into, with the lyrics in hand. The music does its job while being a little too predictable, yet has flashes of genuinely creative moments to spice it up, which in my opinion is a recipe for 3-4 review. But the experience is ultimately mostly carried by the lyrics. Considering that most albums I've heard on this project so far had throwaway lyrics that bordered on the laughable, this is a very welcome change, and that alone pushes this to 5 for me.

Some interesting musical moments , but overall, this is first and foremost a pop album, so it relies on a driving a hook home, and except one song, they're not driven home. I feel the artist was capable of doing something more interesting had they chosen to. Mixing-wise, vocals are too upfornt and overall the sound is very hyped and tough to listen to for a prolonged period of time. It'a as if they try to make you like the music through sheer repetition and aggressive mixing. I do think they have a lot of talent as musicians, but the feeling to me is that they consciously chose a very commercial path and for me that doesn't make for timeless music.

Servicable, enjoyable music, but at least on first listen, not more than that. A song or two feel like a 4, but the rest aren't, so the album as a whole doesn't make it to 4 territory. Feels like a step back compared to previous albums - I feel that whatever made Elliottt Smith an interesting musician wasn't really captured here, and I wouldn't choose this album as a representative of him for new listeners.

Started as an interesting mix of singer-songwriter and electronic music, but as the album progressed it leaned a lot more to singer-songwriter. Too bad, this album could've earned its place in this list if it leaned harder into this innovative direction. But despite that, pretty good and enjoyable songs. There were maybe 1 or 2 songs I felt an urge to skip, but that was it. Love the cover art.

Just straigthforward good music. Love the hammond sound, the fact that the album is not overstaying its welcome (I've had trouble with some of the albums on this list having 15+ songs where a lot of them were obvious fillers). Listening to this I immediately thought I'd be happy to own this on vinyl. That's a 5 in my book, even if there's nothing exceptionally flashy goingo on. I think the first song of the album inspired the title music of Transport Tycoon Deluxe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmL4HoG5ehQ&list=PLB0C4CF334E53E241&index=1

Wow, what a great album, everything works, and literally banger after banger. Controversial content aside (not gonna go into a debate here on whether the controversy is justified or not), the lyrics aren't braindead as they are for some other bands in this genre, and therefore don't subtract from the experience. I think a lot of metal fans have a problem with this album because it's more Hardcore Punk than Metal. To me, it's the best of both worlds, but I can see how someone who has a problem with HC Punk would struggle listening to this. I see this was produced by Rick Rubin, gives me some idea for why he's such a celebrated producer. This guy really understands so many different genres and how to make them work, rather than trying to copy the recipe of genre A and apply it to genre B.