1001 Albums Summary

Jazz is definitely not a genre I'm familiar with but this was nice to leave on and just vibe to. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would; pleasant to listen to without being too boring. The incorporation of different instrumentals (flute, synths) keeps this fresh the whole way through. I love the atmosphere of this. Heavy Weather would be good music to have on in the background, and I don't mean that in a derisive way.

Vaughan could sing an autopsy report and it would still sound like honey.

I don't really know how to feel about this album. I genuinely don't know how I'd rate this, so take the stars with a grain of salt. I'm not really a stranger to music that's deliberately trying to be provocative and 'edgy', and I have a higher-than-normal tolerance for dumb shock humor, so I think I genuinely enjoyed the more outlandish and over the top parts more than a lot of people on here. 'Brain Damage' was weirdly cathartic as someone who was bullied a lot as a kid, and stuff like 'Rock Bottom' shows that Eminem is totally capable of writing songs that aren't just 'what if i raped a woman guys isn't that funni lol'. It's disappointing that that crap takes up so much of the album, it's genuinely fun when it's not about that. That being said I 100% get why people hate this album. 20 tracks of the most horrendous shit Eminem could think of gets old after a while. The line 'Go-go gadget dick' made me laugh because I have the sense of humor of a 8 year old, but good lord the rest of that song is emblematic of the worst parts of this album. I found myself thinking at several points 'was it really necessary to record these lyrics in a studio and put them out on an album?' It's so stupid and tryhard that it just ends up being kind of cringey instead of 'hard' or whatever. I don't really need to hear about how you're going to murder a prostitute in detail thanks. I feel a bit hypocritical criticizing the album for being deliberately edgy, because I like metal and like 50% of that genre is just edgelord nonsense (I say this with love). I also get the whole 'persona who's a terrible person who you use to say shit you would never actually say in real life' thing, like I don't think Corpsegrinder is actually advocating for eating babies or whatever. I think what gets me though isn't the edginess, it's the tastelessness. Satan isn't real, people who eat babies aren't real, but guys who slit their girlfriend's throats are. Plus it's pretty easy to ignore the lyrics in a lot of metal songs since they aren't the main focus and the singing is borderline incomprehensible anyways, but the lyrics are, uh, kind of important in rap. This deliberate tastelessness makes the whole album feel like massive bait. It's carefully calculated to piss off every white suburban parent in America, and like, maybe not the most ambitious or worthy goal, but I don't think anyone could deny that it succeeds with flying colors in that aspect. The self-awareness emblematic in songs like 'Role Model' made the whole album's tastelessness go down better for me, but it's still a challenge to get through it. Probably sacrilege that I thought harder about and gave a more in-depth review to the fucking Slim Shady LP than Lady Soul, but it is what it is I guess. Not dying to give this a relisten, maybe when I'm in a more '14 year old boy' mood.