Good songs, good performance.. docking points because not really an album so much as some songs thrown together

I think the worst song on this album is Electioneering and if you had a whole album of songs the same quality as Electioneering, it would still be one of the best albums of the 90s If you took Let Down and put it in the middle of an album of 7 hours of fire alarms and dental drills, the strength of that song alone would bring it up to at least a 4

I don’t hate Meat Is Murder but I’m trying to be somewhat objective. Were I to rank my favorite groups, I imagine The Smiths would rank rather highly. I own a graphic novel about them and also Morrissey’s autobiography, which is the most hilariously overwritten book I’ve ever attempted to read. Yet I am unbiased enough to recognize that THIS album belongs nowhere near a greatest of all time list, particularly when a cursory review informs me that their (much better) self-titled debut is not featured. There are exactly 2 songs here in any sort of rotation for me (Headmaster Ritual and That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore). The title track is one of the dullest songs in existence, though I actually admire when a message is so in-your-face that no thought or interpretation is necessary. The original US release closes with How Soon Is Now? which is actually good enough to make the whole thing worth listening to, but alas that is not the version we’re reviewing.

I fucking adore Bat Out of Hell. I wish with all my heart that we could bring back this kind of big dumb loud 70s arena rock music. It’s an artistic achievement in bombast, maximalism, and some third thing to keep the rhythm of this sentence going. Every word Mr. Loaf sings is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD and he makes you feel that. The melodrama here is fantastic. An 8.5 minute epic about marrying someone to get them agree to bang in car? Whatever the fuck is going on at the beginning of You Took the Words Right of My Mouth? Give Jim Steinman a posthumous Pulitzer. This stupid album just puts me in such a good mood. There’s a very real part of me that says to award this album with more stars than there are stars in the universe—and the universe is infinite. But four out of five ain’t bad

My good mood from yesterday has been dashed. Nothing here grabbed me in any way and I wished for the album to be over within seconds. Indeed, had it gone on any longer then I fear I would have been forced to grind up a CD by whoever is the opposite of this (the Ramones, obvi) and mainline it into my bloodstream.

Enthusiastic about this one. Stuff like this is what I was hoping to get out of the album generator idea.

I like Metallica pretty well but they’ve always been more of a greatest hits band than an album band for me. There’s songs here I like a lot, always was a big fan of Sanitarium, but i don’t really feel the need to listen to it straight through very often, if ever

Expected to like this more than I did. First track kinda banged but overstayed its welcome. Didn’t know they had a vocalist before Bruce. Would have been better with Bruce.

Again, sonically, musically, melodically, rhythmically, I really dig these dudes. But goddamn that guy’s voice kills me

I'm generally more inclined to listen to New Order than Joy Division but still goddamn, dude. Unknown Pleasures is so so so so so so so so so so fundamentally important and influential on so much of what I love that came after. Disorder is in contention for best "album 1, side 1, track 1" of all time IMO. Love the production. Martin Hannett was a genius but also a monster. Things like spraying an aerosol can in time with the beat to create a "mechanical" sound on She's Lost Control, which in turn presumably caused Trent Reznor to spontaneously come into existence.

Listened to this twice, initially felt solid about a 3 but it grew on me. Coldplay frustrates me because their stuff I like, I like really like a lot but so much of it is forgettable.

“Horses tore my limbs off and put them back on in a whole different order. I was like: "Shit, yeah, oh my god!" then I threw up."” -Michael Stipe I’ve been listening to this album since I was like 14 and read Please Kill Me for the first time. Every time I hear it, I appreciate more and more just how special it really is. This time I listened with the lyrics pulled up, following along with every single line and, again, it hit me like never before. This album is like the big bang. You don't have to like it, but you can't deny it. This is one of the most truly perfect pieces of recorded media ever created. Horses was, I believe, the first album released by one of the resident CBGB artists and, for that reason, has a claim to being the first punk album. By blending "intellectual" influences and contemporaries like Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Television (Tom Verlaine is here!), and Talking Heads with the raw, simple, instrumentation of the Stooges, Ramones, and garage bands like the Kingsmen and Troggs, Patti Smith made a case for the NYC underground scene as something that demanded attention as it came to liberate us from the tyranny of masturbatory prog rock bullshit. There’s a reason she has been cited as an inspiration by everyone from Springsteen to Madonna (I'd argue there's a very direct line from the juxtaposition of sacred and profane in the version of "Gloria" on this record to that same trope being on display in "Like a Prayer") to Sonic Youth to Dua Lipa. Taylor Swift saying "I'm not Patti Smith" in the title track to TTPD was the closest she’s come to humility in the last 5 years. "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" sounds like some edge-lord shit today but in 1975 it was a genuinely stunning mission statement. Such a simple declaration of autonomy and rejection of tradition. The storytelling here is visceral. You've got suicide, alien abductions, sex, drugs, rock and roll, religion. The lyrics to every song are like 10 pages long and sound borderline improvised and driven purely by emotion at points. It's like she's speaking in tongues.

Dude I’m a pretty recent convert to Missy Elliott (actually listened to this for the first time like a month ago maybe) but she’s pretty fucking awesome and has some of the coolest aesthetic choices in music videos especially. Timbaland is also great here. A chorus that’s just saying “I’m such a good rapper”??? Babe what? I love this. I will probably restate this a 5 later after a few more spins.