Fells somehow even more bland and pandering than the Springsteen he's ripping off, buuuuut I can hear a lot of sounds that probably inspired bands I like today, so he gets a bonus star.
Very Radiohead meets Coldplay. Really shines as background music you actually don't want to pay attention to.
Who's this drunk mumble rapper trying to rip off Leonard Cohen?
Beats were good. But the rest is just...generic trap. It increasingly feels like a "1001 albums that have been popular in Britain over the years" list.
Run of the mill classic rock. Some of it is pretty good when I'm in the mood, but mostly I just don't know what is supposed to be particularly good...besides Baba O Riley.
Kind of a slow burn for me. Definitely just felt very 80s pop at first, then realized it was very much the original of that sound gave me some appreciation. All in all just sorta grew on me. Super solid.
Just.......no. I don't need Songs from Underground.
Also, I get it's going for grunge, but dissonant does not mean out of tune.
They're not wrong. It is music. There are sounds and instruments and rhythms. But it's what is playing when you walk out of a coffee shop and say, "oh yeah. There was music playing". Legitimately, I've listened through 3 times and I'm like 95% sure it had lyrics.
I would give it a 3 in my normal life, but the list demands more.
Every song would be better with no keyboard solo. I'd happily take banger 2 minute songs over these self indulgent 6 minute versions.
It's just....... captivating. Somehow it makes 2 15 minute adventures feel like one 5 minute song.
Can definitely feel the Wayne shorter vibes as they start exploring a bit more free jazz-fusion type ideas.
I mean. It's 70s Brit punk. What more do I really need in my life.
Really foreshadows all the emocore of the early 2000s...which was 90% of my teenage personality. As a more, shall we say, discerning adult, it's a bit harder to stay in it and not get blown out by the drone. But I'm somehow still here for it.
Before this I had heard of the name Blondie, but that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge. Then I saw all the names of the songs on this album. All the hits. All bangers all the time, even the ones I had never heard before.
That opening synth, though! To whom did Dre sell his soul to be a Synth Lord?
Just all around incredible. Completely changed the entire world of music. It's still definitely not as good as 2001.
Far from music I actually like, it somehow still has a vibe. Her voice is amazing enough I think she can just do whatever she wants and I'll pay attention to it. Nevertheless, half an hour of old country covers just doesn't seem like it's worthy of the list, and I am again very confused about the reason this album was picked over so many better, more impactful ones.
I appreciate that if I heard it in 82 it would have felt.....less dated? But today, to me, it just feels like what you'd get if a 14yr old kid opened up garage band and said what's a key-tar. Nothing really interesting or exciting about it. Sorry.
Feels like a worse Bob Dylan, and it's interesting cause he got screwed by a record company?
So good! It sounds a lot like most late 80s pop/funk/jazz fusion stuff, and it should, because it's incredible and inspired all the kids who were 10 in 1973. Absolutely hasn't aged. So subtle and smooth with all the instrumental bits. None of the solos feel selfish or even wanted, just what the vibe needed at the time. Groovy, groovin', grove.
Really cool example of what I want from the list. I wouldn't say I liked it in the way I normally like music, but it was neat and interesting and felt like it would be foundational to a lot of Latin stuff. Maybe it's also the novelty.
If you asked me yesterday, I would have said I was a decent pink floyd fan. But this....I guess it's fine. Pretty good listening. Honestly doesn't excite me in any sorta way. Wish you were here is obviously a good track. Idk. White noise, I guess.
A good edit for me would be to have Crazy Diamond 1-3, throw the other 6 parts in the trash, and maybe write another 4 songs that did anything different. It just gets real repetitive real fast after that first chorus finally resolves.
Also, have a cigar is deeply bad. Dislike on all levels.
It's fine. Mostly pretty good, but a few really bad ones being it down as a whole.
Honestly rolled my eyes when I saw this, but these are banger songs. They're definitely way popular and she gets written off as a pop artist, but she's really good. I think they're also new enough they still really suffer from being overplayed, but as my fiance likes to say, songs get overplayed for a reason....
Look. It's super good, and I love it, but it's just not quite there for me. Funk without being funky. Jazz without being jazzy. Idk. I want more fun and fresh and dancy. Oooorrrr more jazz and technical and complex. It's just....not quite there for me and I can't explain why. Maybe I just think Herbie is better than this.
Just bangers all the way down. 29 minutes of raw, unfiltered energy.
But like....where's the drop!?
It definitely feels ahead of its time, and I don't doubt it has been immensely influential, but man is it hard to listen to! It's not chill enough to be actually ambient and background noise but it's way too boring and bland to be fun and dancy.
As beats go, these are pretty banging. You can kinda groove, but they're not overwhelming or steal your attention. But that feels like exactly the problem: they're beats, not songs. It feels incomplete. They'd be super great as background for a hip hop album or like, the intro to a Muse song.
Yes it's relentlessly poppy and commercial, but that's what it's supposed to be. It's very good at what it wants to be good at. I also don't think you can argue against that scale of global success.
Sooo, what I'm hearing is that Scotland invented grunge in 1985.
It's a lot of good, early, raw "rock" sounds that definitely moved the genre forward away from more pop stuff. I wouldn't say I enjoy it, but I respect it.
First impression was that it was just more ambient electronica garbage, but quickly realized what it actually was: a masterpiece of sample mixing. Really cool and interesting. It's nice to find an album that's the opposite of most, where it doesn't really work as background, but definitely rewards closer attention.
Never listened to any Dead before.
Pretty banging. I could definitely spend a decade or 2 following these guys around the country. If you told me they were a bluegrass band formed in montana in 2016 I'd absolutely believe it. It's just that good, folksy, bluesy timeless sound.
It sounds exactly like everything from the early 2000s.....10 years early. Feels kind of washed out and bland today, but is still sneaky good when you really sit and pay attention to it.
A lot of it just kinda sounds like impressions or almost soundscapes. Obviously the 10s tracks do, but even the longer ones. I don't feel like they really take me anywhere or change at all the way a normal song would. Generally boring and dated, but I do see the influence of it, and I guess it isn't bad.
Obviously South Side is a banger.
She's so incredible. Pulling on so many different sounds and influences with what is essentially just a singer over some chord changes. How do you say sad in every genre?
As a complete, thought out work of art this is amazing. Absolutely one of the better full-album arcs of music I've heard. And I do appreciate the bookending steel strings.
Certainly nothing memorable, just felt like 1/3, maybe 1/4 as good as what I'm used to hearing with his voice.
Live these guys. Absolutely an essential listening album
As always, the skits just kinda take me out of it, but the music is absolutely top notch. And, while it's not quite at the level of ATLiens or Speakerboxx, it's still way better than rubber soul.
This is a weird one, and I have to keep reminding myself that it's from 1994, and the reason it sounds so much like a lot of things from the mid-200s is that it clearly inspired and influenced it. All in all, I think I'm here for it? It's just a bit too engaging and out there to be truly background coffee shop noise, but it's not really listenable or "easy" enough to be truly enjoyable. I think it just truly lives in that trip-hop, trance, chill electronica space that it was clearly designed for.
I do also really appreciate the variety of flavors going on here, all the way from jazz flute to reggae to noir film score. A few tracks were giving me strong Dune and 300 vibes.
But like.....what else is about it? Yeah she's a good singer but the only reason this isn't all immediately forgettable is because it's kind of bad?
I would refuse a Grammy too, if I knew I didn't deserve it.
Was he Billy Eilash's voice coach or something?
Look. It's not good. But it is always hard to argue against wildly popular things, even if their popularity doesn't really last. These are far from timeless sounds, buuuuut they definitely completely changed the face of music. There is undoubtedly some historical significance there, regardless of how problematic her life and treatment was/is. For at least a few years before she was the poster child for exploitation/manipulation/abuse, she was the face of pop music, and that means something.
Maybe I'm amazed, but maybe it's just pretty mid.
They mostly just feel like all the songs he had started writing before the breakup, and he wanted to rush and get them out while he was relevant. Didn't bother actually polishing them all, and it suffers for it.
Obviously Maybe I'm Amazed is amazing.
Another one I probably would not have ever heard without this project. Obviously I wish I spoke Portuguese, but it's still pretty dang enjoyable stuff.