- I enjoyed this way more than I should have, all things considered - some of the vocal stylings and maximalist sound effects are very silly and dated in a way that Daft Punk's Homework still manages to not be, but the line is thin - "ain't that fresh, everybody want to get down like that" right next to a Buffalo Springfield lyric is certainly a choice, but I can dig it - the textures and layering are all over the place, like a fun parfait of sound - when the unique stylings of frosted-tip electro-pop from the early 2000s become solidly retro and therefore cool again in another five years, this will be very, very fun to revisit but this challenged me in a fun way. I suspect that those who did not like this album with a passion and rated it poorly here are not fans of the genre (I'm also largely not), but I posit this: it's not exactly fair to judge this (or any) album using criteria that don't pertain to what it's trying to be or accomplish in the first place. this is a house/dance album: repetition and that "uns uns" sound is as part of the genre as distorted guitars are to rock or metal music. this is not inherently radio-friendly music (and perhaps not even headphone-friendly) because it wasn't created for that listening environment. but outside of the everyday meat and potatoes I'm used to, there are still both great and meh goat curries -- and this is, musically speaking, some enjoyable curry I'd order again.

- I first listened to this album at 19, when I felt a strong connection with someone but was too chicken and afraid to break up wth the person I was already dating for them. I couldn't listen to "Crown of Love" for a long time because of how much it reminded me of my decision (or lack thereof) - "I carved your name across my eyelids/you pray for rain, I pray for blindness" will always give me goosebumps at how much heartbreak and pain is expressed in so few words - at 19, I did not appreciate the overwhelming theme of childhood (both the ups and downs: how at the mercy of our parents' moods and whims we were; the innocent, yet deep platonic love we share with our friends before puberty distances us; how we deal with complex emotional situations between others that we aren't old enough to fully understand) that so much of this album rests upon, but 11 years later, listening again is much different and reflects a lot of what I've felt over the last few years -- that somehow, both over many years and almost overnight, I'm different than I was at 25, 22, 17, 14, 10. - the weakest track for me is "Wake Up" because it sounds like every other indie song from around that time, but apart from "Crown of Love," the lyrics to "Backseat" are powerful in a very subdued way that I admire. I remember the feeling of being sleepy on the way home and instantly knowing where we were based on the road sounds and pattern of turns and stops once we got close - this album is bittersweet because of what -- and who -- it will forever remind me of. I can't separate my review from its personal meaning to me, so I'll gladly give it 5 stars

- I know it's punk and not meant to be pretty, but my first thought was that he sounds like he has a mouthful of mashed potatoes - oh, to have been a teenager in 1976, pouring over the liner notes while listening to this for the first time on my record player (alas, I'm a millennial, so Spotify album art it is). what was everyone else listening to back then, and how different and striking would this sound have been? - and on that note, I'm sure there's some important context surrounding the time period and both the musical and political scenes in the UK back then that I'm missing, especially in the repeat lines about "panda cars" and other general anti-police sentiments and references - for that reason, I owe it a relisten* over the next few days, armed with the lyrics this time - the remaster sounds excellent, though (especially the bass, which comes through strongly and adds a lot of depth beyond the "noise") bonus: a close childhood friend was very into the Clash and the Ramones and almost definitely owned a shirt with this album art on it in middle school. I remember hearing "Police and Thieves" ("ooh yeeaah") for the first time either in her mom's car on the way to school or on a CD she burned for me as a birthday or Christmas gift, so realizing that song was on this album when it came on was a nice treat for the memory

- I'm not a fan of southern/boogie rock, personally, and the more I listened and thought about it, I think I do actively dislike this genre. this is many people's bread and butter, I'm sure, but it's a little too straightforward and on the nose to keep my interest - the themes of blue-collar work ("Waitin' for the Bus"), beer ("Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers"), crazy and dangerous adolescent experiences ("Master of Sparks"), Jesus ("Have You Heard?"), and women (multiple tracks, or maybe all of them to a degree) might appeal to some folks, but I'm not the target audience - the guitar tone is pleasant, for what it's worth - the ZZ Top version of Jesus is not dissimilar to the Ricky Bobby/Cal Noughton (a la Talladega Nights) version: he's a bro you can have a beer with. first we have a song about raising hell at a honky tonk and another about hanging out with two sex workers ("Precious and Grace"), then we get sentiments like "Have you heard about Heaven?" and "You might not see him in person/But he'll see you just the same." I'm sure that resonates with a lot of people in the American South, in which Christianity is less of a set of beliefs you abide by and much more embedded into the culture and how you live (whether it actually aligns with biblical values or not -- as one example, Proberbs something-something says prostitution is immoral, so idk what type of religiousness is being portrayed here, but whatever floats your boat I guess) outside of my "notes," the story behind the supposedly incorrect/misheard lyric in the last track (it's written as "have you heard about Jo Ti Mahr?", not "have you heard, nació te amar") present on every lyrics site is quite funny. it seems like someone misheard it and put their mistake onto a song lyrics site, which then served as the single source of truth for all subsequent lyric sites

- the Spotify link listed here sends you to a version with only four songs for some reason (even though it says at the bottom of that song list that it's 17 tracks...). the four-album version is not actually listed in the artist's discography as a different version, either -- just the longer one, so I have no idea where the link to the four-track one came from. very weird, but either way, the site link is not correct - I love that live albums have been included in list. I would have dismissed the studio version of a track like "Still in Love With You" as a cheesy rock ballad (like "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," etc.), but the live version almost takes it out of that context so I can enjoy the musicality more on its own instead of being "just another" rock song from the time period - the frontman really knows how to interact with the audience, and I can tell many of these songs were extended for the live show with longer jam sessions -- what a way to treat a fan. (and we love a band that thanks their crew at the end of the night) - thin lizzy's unique brand of talk-singing is made for live performances. that awful moment when you find out the lead singer actually can't find pitches and must have had a lot of help in the studio to produce good-sounding vocals (or were just dancing or moving around too much in the live recording to sound good) is enough to ruin a band for me, but luckily "singing" like this is basically foolproof - this album definitely exceeded my expectations and improved my impression of this band. this is summer-night-drive-with-the-windows-down music I'd definitely listen to again

- never heard this before but enjoyed it a lot. the production value is really high, and they have an incredible voice. there wasn't a track I didn't enjoy; even the little interludes were pleasant and layered - I realized I've been characterizing Janelle Monae as more Ke$ha and less Amy Winehouse -- much more jazzy and musical - the little jaunt with of Montreal was very fun and gave me a much better impression of what kind of artist they are - I heard influences from Simon and Garfunkel, Amy Winehouse, 70s psychadelic (and its revival in the 2010s with Tame Impala etc.), Southern gospel, Michael Jackson, James Bond scores, and even a little bit of Debussy at the end of "Say You'll Go" -- each track was almost squarely in its own genre - torn between four and five stars, so let's be generous: I was thoroughly impressed *and* my view of the artist changed as a result of listening, so I think that merits the full five

- did not expect that opening track. I figured it would be more of a straightforward rock sound, but this album feels a little more loose and deconstructed than what I expected. "Bold as Love" at the very end of the album feels like a perfect summary of everything good about what the listener has just heard, which I think makes it a perfect title track - the focus is almost always on Jimi whenever anyone talks about the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but Mitch Mitchell is insanely talented on drums. the rhythms and tone complement everything from some soft guitar noodling and light atmospheric sounds in the background to heavy chorus power chords, as if he knew when the drums should come forward to hold up the song vs. when they should back off and make room for other instruments and effects - "Little Wing" is a nice slow groove, and the psychedelic jazziness of "If 6 was 9" was a nice surprise to hear when I expected something more straightforward like "Purple Haze." there's a real Beatles-esque sound to "She's So Fine," and "One Rainy Day" feels like if staring into a lava lamp was a song - I'm wondering about the lyrical similarities between the openings of "If 6 Was 9" and Led Zeppelin's "Thank You," which came out a few years later and is definitely not about the same subject. was there a common source both groups were drawing inspiration from around that time? - making guitar distortion and squeals essentially its own instrument is objectively a ballsy thing to do, but today's music is better as a result. "squeaky guitar" artists like Jack White wouldn't be as successful today were it not for that innovation - the beat and opening riff in "Little Miss Lover" sounds extremely similar to another Led Zeppelin song from their first album ("How Many More Times"), as well as the drums around the 2:30 mark in "Bold as Love." (this can't be a coincidence, can it?) I used to think of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as solidly rock 'n roll (mostly from being grouped into the same "classic rock starter pack" as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and all the other groups the 2003 movie "School of Rock" awakened preteen boys to), but this album was colorful, melodic, and trippy in ways I did not expect

- tight vocal harmonies and some nice bass parts that keep the energy high all the way to the end of the album, which was fun - it's occurring to me that I don't regularly listen to a single band or group that consists of all women (and likely never would have listened to this one all the way through, had it not been for this project) - #deep though: the dudes of daft punk wore masks to avoid having their personal identities distract from the music they were making, but it's kind of the opposite situation here -- gender is the mask girl groups have historically not been able to shed when it comes to being recognized for musical innovation. in the same way scar-jo or anne hathaway can't seem to do an interview without someone asking about their diets or outfits on set while their male costars don't receive the same questions, all-female groups will always have to dodge gender being part of the conversation and perhaps even explicitly counter the assumption that their gender must be a large part of their identity as musicians or a theme in their projects (which may certainly be true for some female musicians, but not all). some girls sitting down to make some cool tunes together may not be actively trying to make a feminist statement or serve as a vocal mouthpiece for women's rights etc., but they may still be viewed that way by others and judged for it (perhaps both positively and negatively) as a result - but given all this (+ my own experiences I bring to the table as a listener), the album was objectively a little silly. "You Can't Walk In Your Sleep If You're Asleep," "Lust to Love," and the song about skidmarks on your heart -- which I know is in reference to cars, but still -- didn't stand out in any meaningful way to me. it was mildly fun, but that was the extent of my experience I gave NPR's online writeup on the band ("How The Go-Go's Perfected Pop-Punk," August 2020) half a read to see what I might be missing, and it really illustrated how important context (or lack thereof) is to a band's legacy: to me, this is a bonafide "rocker grrl" album that still resides solidly under the umbrella of 80s pop, but the group formed in the heart of LA's punk scene. "We Got the Beat" and "Our Lips Are Sealed" have been in so many girl- or kid-focused movies and productions over the years (hello, Jimmy Neutron movie) that it influenced my perception of the group as being entirely pop, even though I definitely recognize the punk influence now

- this is the music of mossy tree stumps and rippling brooks on cloudy summer days in ancient Britain - I noticed he holds constonant sounds instead of the vowel when singing sustained notes in most songs, which is a unique style and stands out from the usual vowel-heavy lofty vocals from other (usually female) folk singers - I'd never really thought about it before, but this album made me realize that British folk is distinctive from American folk. there are some specific musical themes that this and some of the more folk-driven tunes off Led Zeppelin III and Physical Graffiti share (e.g. the third track and "Black Mountain Side," even though that was a semi-cover), and it makes me want to explore more folk artists from the UK - after reading about Nick Drake's life, it feels bittersweet to enjoy the music he made and feel things from it while knowing he never got to see its impact. but even if he were alive today with John Prine-levels of fame and recognition, this album would still stand out as a fantastic effort that is more than the sum of its parts and bigger in many ways than just his guitar and voice

- if you don't find your head bobbing of its own accord during the first track, do you even have ears - the syncopated guitar riffs sound almost like gunfire when combined with those heavy cymbal crashes, which is a cool (and probably purposeful) effect considering how frequently gun violence is in their songs - (do you think they eventually ran out of rage, performing these same songs over and over again each night on tour?) - Tool hadn't released Undertow yet at the time Maynard James Keenan was featured on "Know Your Enemy," so I wonder what the story is behind that - RATM is one of those bands that basically pioneered a new genre (nu metal), but its influence has spread to so many other groups and projects that it's hard for me to not view this album as being derivative of... itself, even though it's essentially the source material. so many people make fun of similar bands like Disturbed or System of a Down ("wake up! asjflskjflkajf-makeup!"), so the serious messaging has become a bit laughable with the meme-ification of those artists and songs online. trolling wasn't a thing in 1992, at least not as we know it today, and I wonder if a sincere effort condemning violence and war today would either take off and become a rallying cry... or if it would quickly get dissected into soundbites taken out of context and made fun of on apps like TikTok - the political environment is also much different when this originally came out in 1992 (prior to widespread internet use and social media, which has fundamentally changed how we receive news and view/interact with politics), so I wonder what today's equivalent of Rage Against the Machine would be ("Set Fire To The Twitter Servers," maybe?) - "hatred passed on, and passed on, and passed on" from the fourth track was a line that stuck with me when I heard it. I really appreciate how repetition is used as a tool to escalate both the sense of urgency and seriousness of the subject matter. the instrumentation on each track complements the lyrics and gives them a space to flourish -- it's still clear that the thing listeners should be primarily be focusing on is the singer's voice and words, despite the presence of that growling bass tone and lots of interval-jumping in the hooks doing their thing in the background my world wasn't rocked, but I could see how this would be a very powerful album for the right (left?) people at a time when a lot of uncertain stuff was going on (the Gulf War, LA riots, maybe even the approach of the millennium etc. -- I wasn't there so you tell me). even though the subject matter is mostly evergreen, a lot of it still feels tied to that specific time in history and the concerns and injustices people felt and witnessed

- never heard of this group before today, but the rockabilly style meshes extremely well with punk tempos and vocals - still, the female singer's favorite note must be A because she hangs out there a lot (and I mean a lot). I think I probably would have enjoyed this more if her vocals were absent - I wouldn't listen to this in my free time or include any song in a playlist to come back to, but I see why it was included in this list

- if the Rolling Stones weren't the Rolling Stones, basically - usually I'm way more likely to enjoy an album's first two or three tracks than later ones, but the last three here were noticeably good to me - the Rolling Stones did a lot of hanging out in one key and just jamming, but after a while it can sound old or a little boring (we get it, "start you up and never stop," etc. -- or maybe it's just too much radio play?). This band seems to do he same thing, but it sounds a lot more palatable and fun as opposed to listeners wondering when it will finally end (by the way, did you know there are 120+ "woo-woos" in "Sympathy for the Devil"?) - Rod Stewart has a great voice for this type of music, but as I understand it, his solo career eventually overshadowed this group and its other members -- so maybe *too* good all in all, a pretty solid and fun album that I enjoyed and would listen to again on a summer car ride with the windows down

the pro: - there were some interesting guitar and bass parts that accented some of the usual (boring-ish) straight love ballad + extended 12-bar blues jam combination of songs that every band was doing during that time. those occasional instrumental flourishes that caught my attention were like a little bit of seasoning on an otherwise bland, predictable meal - I enjoyed the lyrics (if not so much their presentation): "I'm so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry" the cons: - it's hard (for me) to get past her voice. it works in some places but not others, and I'm left feeling like I've just heard a slightly less heinous version of the infamous Yoko Ono/Chuck Berry performance. her vibrato in some places is similar to a car engine trying to start on a cold morning - there are a few songs that just mostly describe women (which is slightly strange if there's a female singer also singing about how beautiful someone is), but "How Do You Feel" was almost too strange. from my first surface-level listen, it's coming from the perspective of someone who likes a girl and is trying to get another guy to also see her that way ("look into her eyes/do you see what I mean?/just look at her hair"). for whatever reason, this imaginary conversation between two men about how hot the one guy's crush is (in 1960s terms) gave me 2% the creeps in ways only someone coming into adulthood during the post-Weinstein era would probably even notice (obviously the song was not intended to be creepy in any way, but I couldn't get past it just from my own experiences; I think everyone must bring their own to the table in some way or another when it comes to music) just not as enjoyable as I'd hoped, which was disappointing (mostly because I wanted to explore more beyond "White Rabbit"), and now my interest just isn't there.

- my husband is a white stripes fan, so discussing this album with him made for an insightful car ride home last night - this feels like the album someone would write after school in their bedroom if they had just learned how to play guitar six months ago, but I don't mean that as a negative critique. instead, it's refreshingly minimal and feels free of external influence; there's no standard 12-bar blues template in use over and over here - this album feels like a jackson pollock painting: someone could hear songs from White Blood Cells and think "*this* is the group that made it? this is the best of the best?", but both of those questions are missing the point. I mentioned this to husband and he posited that we all generally accept that music is art, but usually only from a technical skill perspective, not as a form of making a statement by intentionally leaving things out or avoiding "rules" or tropes for effect. on the one hand, it's hard to imagine creating and sharing something that doesn't highlight your absolute best, especially if you want other people to like your music and make a living from it, but then again, there's almost no one daring to do the opposite out there... and thus: the white stripes - to that point, jack white instructed the sound engineer to "not make it sound too good," from what I understand - people tend to get frustrated with modern art because it often has the appearance of having no thought or skill put into it, so why should those people make all the money over the "better" artists who don't? and that's a reasonable thought to have in a largely capitalist world (i.e., if you're paying for a service, it follows that you would choose the service that's better than all the others to avoid wasting your money), but at the most basic level, it seems arbitrary to judge art almost entirely by its monetary value. we're the only animal on earth that has the capacity to create things out of nothing to such a degree, and to limit acknowledgement of that ability by viewing everything we do through the lens of whether it could be appealing to others or hit a certain number of sales feels like a real shame - in other words: if you write 15 drafts of a song over three years and then choose the "best" one to perform with your band in hopes that people will listen to your music on Spotify and maybe buy a t-shirt or sticker from your merch table, who (or what) is the thing that says those other 14 drafts do not merit any recognition whatsoever? they all came out of your head and did not exist until the moment you wrote down the lyrics, same as the "best" one, and just because they didn't suit a specific purpose or set of criteria doesn't remove the value in your creative process (that, once again, no other species on this planet -- or universe, to our current knowledge -- is capable of engaging in) - but now back to your regularly scheduled programming: the majority of the songs are based around big power chords rather than riffs, which lends some punk power to this rock album - similarly, meg white is just beating the shit out of the crash cymbal to make up for the lack of complexity in the rest of it, which is fun and head bob-inducing, and it certainly takes up space - jack white's vocals evoke a sense of... anxiety? I think this feeling might come from the lack of bass across the whole album in general, but he's also not singing terribly well; it's just unique (with the benefit of now being immediately recognizable in other songs and projects he's been involved in) three stars feels about right for my first time listening to this full album, despite the passionate rant in defense of ~art~ -- not my favorite, but a solid effort that made me question and think about some things. definitely looking forward to experiencing some more white stripes tunes when they come around again

- this is the first instance of non-western music this project has given me, which is fun, and I hope there are more albums like this included in the list - my first exposure to this group was from the movie Mean Girls, when the mom says "but you love Ladysmith Black Mambazo!" when the main character (who grew up in Africa and only recently moved to the US) declines to go with her parents to a concert so she can hold a wild house party instead. at the time, I assumed it was a single woman, so learning it was a men's chorus instead was delightful - the live version from KEXP on YouTube is a better way to understand this group, I think. the Wikipedia page said that the name of this vocal tradition means something like "walking softly" or "stepping lightly," which is partly due to the soft sound of their voices but also refers to some light steps or dancing that takes place, so I wanted to find a live version to see if it was a different experience than just listening. I didn't notice any real "dancing" (maybe some arm movements from the soloist), but I think seeing them actually sing together is the better context - the background vocals almost sound like waves lapping on a shore (especially in tracks like "Wawusho Kubani") in that they swell and recede over and over again, coming up and then almost fading away - I like that the solo vocalists never have overly stylized voices. the solo parts are emphasized and accent the choral parts, but the singers never have super strong voices that are meant to be the highlight, unlike in gospel music from the US. everyone feels more or less equal; it's just who's at the microphone filling in the spaces the chorus doesn't take up overall, a pleasant listen. they all started to sound the same after a while and everything is mostly variations around a single chord, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing

- I'm not a country fan (and this album confirms it), but the storytelling is pretty good. many songs are like short stories set to music instead of the very identity-driven songs of the 2020s ("Try That in a Small Town" comes to mind) - if music is food, this is a chicken-fried steak or chicken 'n dumplings: predictable, safe, and pretty delicious, but with no seasoning other than good ole salt 'n pepper (and a lot of Crisco). not a TV dinner or a school lunch -- good for what it is and never turned down when offered, with maybe even a "thank you for the meal" -- but just like when you've eaten at home the entire week and are craving something spicy or exotic from a restaurant, this album was a little tiresome over time and left me wanting to hear something that isn't just essentially I-IV-I-V-I 60s-70s country music has always felt like a time capsule or love letter to a time that never actually existed -- which might be exactly how the identity-focused Jason Aldean/Toby Keith found room to flourish decades later and become what the artists (or label execs, let's be real) wanted to push to the masses. I'm looking forward to hearing more "good" older country so I can build upon this thought or see if/how my views change over time

- I enjoyed this more than I expected to, although there were several moments where a few chords or notes of the melody sounded very, very similar to other Stones songs. that isn't a bad thing so much as it is just unique -- I guess I'd rather be recognized for sounding like my other songs than not sounding like anything (i.e., not being memorable in the first place) - I think the band would not have gotten where it is today without Mick Jagger as the vocalist. he brings 70% of the life to this album, and there's a significant gritty portion that sounds almost like proto-punk similar to what the Clash vocalist would later sound like (although maybe I'm just a dumb American and can't separate a specific British accent from the music in which I hear it most prominently; I also have no idea if the Clash were influenced by the Stones at all) - I grew up hearing most of these songs dozens of times (maybe more), but I never knew "Sympathy for the Devil" was the opening track. if that was the first song I'd ever heard of the Rolling Stones after buying this record at the corner store or listening to it in a friend's room one afternoon (idk how people listened to new music back in the 60s, but I'm sure it was likely to be a much more social event than it is today), I would be hooked overall, more solid than I anticipated, and listening to the entire album instead of hearing just the hits over the radio for once was a nice treat

- the best way to listen to this album is in the highest definition possible. otherwise it just brings to mind drunken sporting events and shitty bar jukebox music (also possibly drunken) - I would give this two stars, but a close family friend who passed away unexpectedly in 2011 loved AC/DC, and I have a memory of him blasting Back in Black -- and I mean blasting -- while riding with him and his son to a concert in Columbus when I was 14. this third star is for you, Mike

- shimmery guitars and distorted drums = the Cure's Disintegration album, but dipped in a vat of molten sugar (esp the title track and the opening part of "Wolf in the Breast" -- they're like sweeter, more colorful versions of "Pictures of You") - I had a very hard time understanding the lyrics; I maybe caught one out of every 10 words. usually I'm not frustrated by this whatsoever, but I found myself getting more annoyed as the album went on. still, the effect of layering head and chest voices an octave apart in some of the songs is a cool effect that I appreciate - thinking more about the (surprising) amount of frustration I felt, I think it's because there's a little too much going on layering-wise -- I wanted to tell the other vocal tracks "quiet down, I want to hear what this one is saying first," but the fact that there were two or three different melodies with different lyrics all playing at once in a few songs was like trying to focus on a single TV in a sports bar when seven other games are playing on other screens

- never heard of this group before and had zero idea what to expect -- not even any inkling of what genre this could be, which was a fun way to approach the album - there's something vaguely (or not-so-vaguely) reminiscent of the Matrix soundtrack in all dance music of the very early 2000s - I appreciated the mix of organic and digital instruments and effects (or at least organic-sounding to my ears). I feel like that kind of exemplifies the year 2000: figuring out the relationship with and interplay between what sounds you can make with your hands vs. what sounds you can make a computer program (in that sense, is a computer essentially an instrument in itself?) - nothing really stood out to me, though, except for some of the more melancholy tracks near the end. but those tracks were on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the "lick my clit" from just a few minutes prior, which was a hard left turn I couldnt (and still can't) really wrap my head around. I probably wouldn't listen to any of these tracks again of my own volition, but I didn't actively *dislike* them, either

- not what I would consider the best of the White Stripes' career. the one thing I knew about the band growing up was "whoa, they don't have a bassist!", but putting the guitar in a bass role while making the piano the main instrument in more than one song here just isn't it. the guitar doesn't function well as a bass tone-wise, and the fact that there's a vocal doubling effect in some songs just doesn't sound like it has the same spirit as their other music - I heard the marimba (vibraphone? unsure) pop up in one song and thought it was a nice surprise, but then when it came up again in the very next one, I thought "oh, I guess this the new gimmick for this album" (it did indeed pop up a few more times) - the lyrics were fun, though; "Little Ghost" felt like something out of Adventure Time that Finn might sing. I enjoy the whimsicality of the White Stripes' discography in general, and it seems especially present here, but it comes across as less participatory and not as sing-along-able as White Blood Cells or their other efforts to me

- I expected from the band name that this was a psychedelic rock group, and I was right: it's a little like early Pink Floyd, but with a more straightforward late-60s rock sound and a few jumps into different genres (jazz, world [in "Train for Tomorrow"], garage rock, semi-big band/jazz + a horn section [About a Quarter to Nine"], folk, ragtime, etc.) - this is the fourth or fifth album I've gotten from 1967 in the first ~20 albums in this project, and it seems to be a big year for music across multiple genres - surprisingly, I wasn't a fan of the first track, which seems to be their biggest hit. still, I started enjoying almost every track after the second one, at least mildly so - it seems like the band didn't have a lot of creative control over which songs made it onto the album and intended several tracks to be filler. I wouldn't say that any song is filler in terms of quality, but some of the songs do feel a little disjointed when paired next to each other. this is especially apparent in the last and second-to-last tracks -- as well as going from a kind of nursery rhyme song in "The King is in the Counting House" to "Luvin," which sounds like something the Beatles could have written and performed around this time)

- already I like this more than Tres Hombres, which was released 10 years prior to this album. the guitar riffs are more engaging and the sound is more straight-rock than boogie-rock, which I think fits that distinct 80s style of guitar distortion quite well - I didn't realize there was a synth playing under the entirety of "Sharp Dressed Man, which adds something that the songs on Tres Hombres were missing (though the editor in me is cringing at the missing hyphen -- without it, he's "a dressed man who is sharp," not "a man dressed sharply") - I think there's a reason more of the songs from this album made it onto the radio. everything just oozes masculinity, like you're flying down an Arizona highway on your Harley-Davidson with the ape hanger handlebars and flames painted on the sides - there are virtually no country-adjacent or "good ole Christian country boy" aspects -- almost like someone shoved an AC/DC song through an Aerosmith filter to make a track like "Bad Girl." they're still largely about women, but there isn't as much storytelling as the songs on Tres Hombres (as far as I could tell without examining the lyrics to each of the songs) - digging the slap bass on "Thug," and I think the guitars are generally more interesting and memorable here. I didn't find myself actively wanting the album to be over and wasn't checking my phone each time to see how much progress I was making to the end (even though the songs all sounded pretty similar to each other) so: ZZ Top is still a band I don't like, but I dislike this album a little less than I expected to. at any rate, it did not deserve my initial reaction of "ugh, *another* one?" when it was revealed

- I think this is best listened to with really high-quality over-ear headphones -- not that the ones I have are exceptional; they just were $50 on Amazon -- mostly because I think the richness of the drums and the emphasis on the rhythms might be lost if it's coming through a phone's external speaker or car stereo. this is music I could easily see being dismissed as just quirky background music for a college town coffee shop otherwise - yet this came out in 1957, so individual listening wasn't a thing yet. jazz was being recorded for home listening on record players, sure, but I'm imagining this was meant for the context of people dancing to it in person at a club or some other music-oriented event. in that context, this is some really fun music that makes you want to move - some of the nonwestern musical features in this album (e.g., the rapid call-and-response songs and the shouting/vocalizing in "Simba") are pretty fun and feel more expressive than actual melodic singing. in a way, the latter feels just like a different version of scatting or whatever other jazz musicians were doing at the time -- expressing something musical without using lyrics or recognizable words - some of these songs feel more like a recording of a whole live performance as opposed to a specific "song" that can be written and performed exactly the same each time, which is probably in line with jazz traditions

- surprisingly did not like this album one bit. something about Sting singing at the very top of his range was grating and hard to get through, and the reverb and 80s sound effects didn't help - "hey, mighty brontosaurus/don't you have a lesson for us" is just a bad lyric (maybe not for the time period, but for today it's terribly cheesy) - I really liked "King of Pain" when I first heard it on a Police greatest hits compilation years ago and assumed the rest of the album would be similar in terms of listenability, but it just felt difficult to be carried along by. less like songs, more like... disjointed, reverb-heavy deep-80s soundscapes with words - ultimately, Sting's voice was the worst offense. I think it makes a lot of sense why "Every Breath You Take" is their biggest hit and gets the most radio play; the highest note he hits in that song is significantly lower than his highest on almost every other track. even "Roxanne," another hit from a different album with some notable high notes, has more of a screamy-type of timbre ("RAAAAHXANNE") compared to stretching his voice to its thinnest extreme here - I hate giving a 1-star rating, but if we're going only by subjective enjoyment here... I think the worst part is that I expected greatness and was excited to finally listen to this album in its entirety, but I was left feeling extremely disappointed. this is the opposite of how I've given 5-star reviews: those have been reserved for bands or artists whose efforts wholly surprised me in the opposite directions