Didn’t hate it. Slick sound verging on sterile. Tracks blend into one another with little variation. Fagen’s voice is pretty weak and irritatingly nasal. Anodyne background music that never really engages on a deeper level. Music that arrives dressed in shoulder pads and a pair of aviator shades.
I don’t feel in any way qualified to pass comment on a hip-hop album but, based on sheer enjoyment, this is a definite yes from me. Plebty of genre hopping and variety to keep things interesting. Would I revisit it? Probably not, mainly due to feeling slightly uncomfortable as a middle-aged white guy with quite so many ‘n-words’, as well as a whiff of misogyny in some of the lyrics.
I don’t usually count live albums and proper albums but I’ll let this one slide. Sonically a little one dimensional due to sparse instrumentation but Cash’s charisma and storytelling carry it.
As mentioned previously, I don’t really ‘get’ live albums and this does nothing to change my mind. A thirty-seconds-long drum solo is more than enough but eight minutes? Nope! The kind of music that seems a lot more fun for the people on stage than for anyone forced to endure it who isn’t stoned out of their tree. Spinal Tap, except they’re not taking the piss.
It’s almost better to approach this one by disregarding the title track due to its sheer overbearing ubiquity and judge it on the remaining nine. There are at least two other bona fide Lennon classics (Jealous Guy & Gimme Some Truth) and one of the more obvious ‘diss tracks’ aimed at Paul (How Do You Sleep). The rest is pleasant enough, if a little lightweight and lyrically saccharine at times.
Putting the iffy 80s production to one side, this was really quite enjoyable. Its subtlety invites and rewards repeated listening. You can also hear where subsequent female artists maybe took some of their inspiration from.
I’m a day behind and really tried to catch up with this one, but am ashamed to admit that I threw in the towel by the fifteenth track. It’s brimming with ideas, and there are some truly lovely moments, but, just as a single fondant fancy is delicious, I don’t want to eat 22 of them.
Again, I don’t feel at all qualified to offer any meaningful critique. My feeling toward this album is the definition of ambivalence. It exists. I neither like it nor dislike it.
A favourite festival memory is of seeing Jon Spencer at Reading ‘99 with zero prior knowledge of his work. In a live setting, those chaotic, primal elements work fine. On record, however, the chewing gum loses its flavour after a few tracks as it just doesn’t really have enough there to really connect with beyond the noise.
Again, I am hopelessly under qualified to give an informed critique. I’m going on pure enjoyment and the album’s wider cultural significance beyond its intended audience. It’s possibly the fist album I have listened to so far on this list that has made me want to press play again immediately upon finishing.
It’s hard to argue with some of the hooks, and there’s some nice bass work on display, but the lyrics are almost uniformly awful and I’m just not sure there’s enough substance there to sustain even a fairly short album. There’s probably a reason ABBA’s biggest seller is their greatest hits.
It’s difficile to try and be objective with this one but, as debut albums go, it’s pretty much a perfect distillation of what SFA are/were. It doesn’t get a five, as I feel they actually surpassed this on later albums.
This is something I would ordinarily have regarded as ‘music for people much cooler/cleverer than me’ and moved swiftly on, but this was genuinely fantastic. Surprising, affecting, funky and moody in equal measure.
A couple of listens through have brought me to the conclusion that TWS essentially have thee or four songs, and the bulk of their catalogue seems to be made up of variations of these. Thankfully these three or four songs are pretty good, and Jack White’s prowess as a songwriter, musician and performer is undeniable.
Musically nowhere near as awful as I was expecting - they’re clearly a tight band with a well-developed 70s pop sensibility. Let down by drifting into the cheesy schmalz of some of their later work and some questionable lyrics. If ever any further evidence were needed that Steven Tyler was a wrong’un…
I’m getting review fatigue so keeping this one brief! A lot to like, although some of the more overtly ‘gothy’ elements felt a little cartoonish for me.
Definitely one where I can (hopefully) appreciate its qualities and influence on later artists without really connecting with it personally. I think his voice just grates on me and gets in the way of enjoying the music.
One of those instances where I can completely see the value in what an artist is trying to do/say lyrically but ultimately just don’t like the music. Maybe if it had been made in a different decade and not produced with the clear intent of shifting millions of units there would have been a different, more sonically interesting album.
About as close to perfect as music can get for me. Utterly unique and authentic - she could sing the theme tune to ‘Rainbow’ and I would hang on her every word. ‘Little Green’, her first-hand account of placing a child for adoption, had me floored.
Enjoyed this one even if it perhaps sounds a little dated now. As ever with me, it’s all about the bass with this genre, and it’s on point here. Some of it reminded me of that Eddie Izzard bit from years ago about ‘sexy tunes’.
I’m cheating a bit with this one, as I didn’t listen all the way through but was already sufficiently familiar. The consensus among critics and many fans is that this is probably the strongest post-Beatles solo record. I would posit that ‘Something’ was a clear indicator that Harrison was saving up some seriously accomplished work and just needed the opportunity to put it out. It is too long, but the quality of the material is enough to forgive this. On a final point, Harrison’s guitar playing is an object lesson in restraint and good taste.
While I am aware of this album’s lasting influence, it all comes across as rather solipsistic and, dare I say, whiny. Plus the drums are horrible and it’s all a bit too AOR for me.
Gets a four more out of respect for what it represents and its legacy than for any particular enjoyment on my part. It’s just not something I would ever choose to listen to. To my admittedly uneducated ears it sounds a bit dated and I’ve never got on with Bobby Gillespie as a vocalist.
I have no idea whether this constitutes a good example of the genre, so can’t really pass comment.
I was perhaps a little harsh on the White Stripes when I suggested they only had three songs, given The Hives seemingly have just one.
I still don’t feel any better qualified to pass comment on a reggae album, so it’s a ‘neutral’ three again. At least I knew some of the tracks on this one.
Another example of an album where I can appreciate its individual qualities without particularly connecting with the music itself. I suspect context matters also, in the sense that this would have blown me away if I had listened to it thirty-plus years ago but now just sounds like a bit of a museum piece.
It was interesting listening through a couple of times and realising that, even in its ‘sunniest’ moments, there’s a real sense of melancholy at the heart of this album which, In the context of what came before it, makes it all the more remarkable. That it essentially came fully-formed from the mind of one man barely into his twenties is pretty astonishing.
Rock music deconstructed to its most basic elements and drenched in fuzz is very much a good thing in my book. I had never listened to them before but will definitely investigate further and can clearly see where later bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club took their cue.
Couldn’t help but think ‘if you thought things were bad back in 1992, just you wait’. Anyway, it’s difficult to be objective with this one, as there’s an almost emotional attachment to some of the tracks here, and Tim Commerford was a massive formative influence on me as a fledgling bass player.
I genuinely didn’t dislike this anywhere near as much as I thought I would. A three-track album lasting almost forty minutes is never a good omen and the opening passage of noodling did nothing to dispel my feelings of dread. There were some listenable moments, although these sounded very much of their time and were too few and far between.
Appreciated the old school beats and jazz influences but it did get a bit repetitive.
Only really serves any purpose as a curio or artefact, such is its limited sonic palate. ‘In the Pines’ was an interesting one, as it’s always fascinating to hear earlier versions of an iconic cover. Elsewhere, I’m not sure jaunty ditties about murdering one’s girlfriend belong on any normal person’s essential playlist.
I’m almost upset at the fact I can’t really give this one a fair rating. The quality of the songwriting is undeniable but, to my eternal shame, I just can’t get past Dylan’s voice. It’s not as if it annoys me, because it really doesn’t. I almost find it funny, which is probably even more of an insult. I found myself singing along an exaggerating his affectations, which is suspect is very much not the desired effect! I’m going to have to give it 4, if only as a half-arsed attempt at being balanced.
Good lord that was hard work. I feel as if I’ve been made to watch every single episode of Dawson’s Creek back to back without so much as a toilet break.
I had to get ChatGPT to help me out on this one:
This isn’t art — it’s lifestyle curation. The production gleams, the marketing purrs, and the result is music as self-care ritual: perfectly pleasant, perfectly empty. Evermore isn’t an album — it’s a product demo for emotional branding.
Aside from the distinction of being the first Beatles album made up entirely of originals, I’m not sure why this one is on the list. It’s very front loaded and most of side two is just early Beatles by numbers and largely forgettable.
I’ve never been wholly convinced by Led Zeppelin and this does nothing to persuade me in either direction. A little too much of Robert Plant’s anguished wailing for my taste.
I can’t think of much to say other than that I really enjoyed it. Sounds very much of its time, and probably veered towards sound a bit daft, but neither is a bad thing for me. It doesn’t take much to work out where Rammstein got many of their ideas from.
I’m giving it five, not because I enjoyed it, as I really didn’t, but because it’s possible to marvel at the musicianship without feeling anything for the music being produced. The existence of music that asks questions or pushes boundaries is necessary, regardless of whether I want to listen to it.
A other questionable inclusion as, although it’s the ‘big seller’ and an obvious entry point for PJ, they went on to produce at least two better albums than this. Tails off quite a bit towards the end to the point that I realised I had hardly ever bothered with the last three or four tracks. It could also be blamed for the existence of Creed, which is a significant mark against it.
I also hold this album responsible for a brief ill-advised obsession I had with the sound of chorus-drenched fretless bass. Mercifully it didn’t last.
I can’t think of anything to add that hasn’t already been said.
I have never really listened to many soundtrack albums before, imagined or otherwise, so this was a learning experience. I particularly enjoyed the slightly nightmarish Bond theme at the end. The whole thing feels like it could soundtrack something written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.
A tough listen, mainly due to pricking at my insecurities about feeling/looking stupid. I feel I should just embrace my philistinism and make peace with the idea that jazz does absolutely nothing for me. The only emotions it ever seems to evoke are negative, so it follows that I would rather avoid it. The only take away thus far is ‘wow, they’re good at their instruments… how long is this track?’.
I’ll have to give it five for the musicianship, though.
