A bit more mellow than I was expecting, but the instrumentals are tight and make for an easy listen. Funk has a high place in my heart so it was always going to be an enjoyable album for me. This is an album that you must read the lyrics alongside listening. You can almost hear the forthcoming funk albums from other artists that this one inspired. It is not traditional funk, and that adds a lot to why this album stands out. I read that this album was made during a period of heavy drug use by the members of the group, and influenced by increasing tension from the Black Panthers to create more overtly political music. On the drug use side, you can kind of "hear" it. Funk is repetitive to a certain extent, but there are portions of this album that loop in a way that feels similar to the way a thought gets stuck in your mind when under the influence. Spaced Cowboy was the standout track for me. Both lyrically and sonically, it is the best representation of the goals of the album as a whole.

Always wondered why this album pops up for every classic rock fan. Excited to get into it. What a way to start an album. I love psych rock so I'm having a lot of fun already. The layers of yelling, and chaos that are foreshadowed !! Very much a "we live in a society" kind of album, but it's chill - not in a bad way Interesting how all the smothering forces in this character's life are women (mother, wife) in interviews he talks about how his lack of a father figure led him to have warped relationships with women...(his 1984 interview with the BBC where he talks about not understanding why women have issues with objectification...) Sonically I enjoy the album, a very forward sounding body of work - highly experimental but also grounds itself with the way it tells a story (very much a trait of the rock scene) the darks sound incredibly dark, and put you in the shoes of the character. But the piece is really colored by whom the character views as the problem. Many men can probably relate to this, as American society sells sex but still has issues explicitly talking about it or portraying it. This creates a complex. The parallels with war that the album draws on center themselves with a lack of power that war brings. This lack of power is seen in the character's interpersonal relationship as well. If not for nothing, the layers this album is able to build upon are impressive if flawed. Mostly agree with thefilmobsessive.com analysis, that over the course of the piece the theme gets confused as it wrestles with this escalation of authority and power. It cannot clearly speak to whether it wants to identify with or reject it.

Anyway, here's Wonderwall. (Feels like it is the strongest of the first 3 songs, Hello and Roll With it sort of meld into each other) Sometimes I enjoy yell/singing, but so far I feel more irritated with the style than moved by it. I could see how it could be cathartic for someone to sing along to these songs in a crowd, but beyond that? Meh. The highs are high, and the lows are pretty mediocre. The album gets better the deeper you get into it - by the time you hit the eponymous track, it's easier to digest what the album is trying to say. Not sure if it is as timeless as many would say - but it adds to the charm of the album. Feels like it's one of those "you had to be there" albums. The impact is lost on me as the era it existed in is unfamiliar to me. I saw another review describe this as "competent but boring." I have to agree. Production is solid, and is able to conjure up an image of the mid-90s UK rock scene, but just doesn't move me.

There's a reason this album is in every hip-hop head's top 20. It's not an easy feat to be able to rhyme without it feeling forced - Nas is able to do it in a way that almost feels conversational. The essence of raps storytelling trait is found here. The World is Yours was my favorite track on this album, the looping sample doesn't feel gratingly repetitive but lets the rhymes breathe, and the ad-libs feel more like another layer of instrumentation to the whole piece. These days, "lo-fi" hip-hop still feels like a sad mimicry of hip-hop as a whole - easy to consume and not saying much of anything at all. This album serves as a reminder that you can keep things simple AND say a whole lot.

I love a skit in a Rap Album. Researching the efforts behind this album's creation is where I learned the term "sampledelia," which is still one of my favorite traits in music. It's like an audible collage (which also happens to be one of my favorite physical art mediums.) The amount of fun they're having on the album is just fun to hear. Feels like the pinnacle of late 80s/early 90s rap, where charisma was just as important as rhyme. Tracks like Jenifa Taught Me, and Do as De La Does shows the lasting impact disco has had on hip-hop, such fun danceable tracks. It's a challenge to review music that you can tell inspired so many later artists, because it sounds so familiar it's almost boring, immediately this album reminded me of The Pharcyde's later album Bizarre Ride II (and that album is more confrontational in its sound - it is very much of this sampledelia era) so in a way it played like something I had already heard 100s of times before.

Albums like this remind me of how old "modern" is if that makes sense. Current shoegaze/dream & ethereal wave artists are still trying to capture what Cocteau Twins did here. Playing this as the weather has started to cool down, and the leaves fall adds another element to the experience, Fall is a nostalgic season and this is pure nostalgia. On the note of nostalgia, I've been reading the late Mark Fisher's work on Post Punk and Modernism. This album is a great example of what Fisher was theorizing around hauntology and our cultures' fixation on nostalgia and newness. This is what makes the 90s so exceptional for so many - it was an innovative time that successfully built on the foundations of the past but conceptualized new futures. This idea of modern hauntology is why the 90s is able to successfully sound new - even today. Elizabeth Fraser's vocals, are mixed into the track in a powerful way. They come to the forefront of the instrumentals, but also build out this dream-like soundscape that the percussion solidifies. Its accessible as most pop songs are, and structured in the same way, but also feels so outside of traditional pop.

Even if its not for me, I can at least respect the talent and recognize the blueprint it was drawing out. That being said, it's really not for me. Calmer songs like She Makes Me were enjoyable to listen to - and that's what made me realize I'm just not a fan of the theatrical crooning in combination with the bombastic riffs. It executes what it tries to do well, very in-your-face. I just really want it to get out of my face. They aren't a bad band whatsoever, I just cannot get with the program and have 0 desire to try. If I'm rating this on pure artistic quality: It's a strong 4. the album knows its campy and leans into it heavily without coming across as kitsch. The skill does not take a backseat to the concept. However, if I'm rating this purely on personal taste? a 2.5

I had never heard of this artist before this recommendation. The album has a calm sound, but the topics it covers are incredibly heavy. A downtempo album covering the anxiety around nuclear testing is ambitious. Letting the lyrics come to the forefront of the songs was a successful choice to allow the words to sit with the listener, but the instrumentals were a bit boring. There is a meditative quality to the album that makes it feel more like poetry than traditional music - but then that begs the questions if there is a relevant difference between poetry and music - so I can appreciate the exploration Sawhney offers. Homelands stands out on this album due to the rhythmic vocals. Everything in that track plays off of each other well, and the percussion was by far my favorite off of the whole album. Pilgrim was a pretty weak track in my eyes - it tries to come off poignant but feels very "lyrical miracle spiritual." It wants to come off vulnerable and thoughtful, but says a lot of nothing. The entire album's goal is to use repetition to create a meditative quality - but using that idea with rap makes the lyricism come off grating and confused. Would I listen to this again? Probably not, as it just didn't engage me. I respect why the album was made to be simplistic, but it also felt like the easiest interpretation one could have gone with. Mixing "traditional" instruments, with orchestral sounding strings and audio samples from news bites is the most straightforward use of juxtaposition one could go with.

It is incredibly hard to sing about sex in a truly sensual way. This album is a gem on exactly how to do it. Learning that this album was an outlet for Gaye to cope with childhood abuse adds another dimension to the joy expressed in this album. You can hear through his vocals his vulnerabilities around love and sex. There's just something really sonically gorgeous about an artist laying it all on a track. It is raw, but far from unpolished. It is well produced, but almost doesn't need such tight production to be good. Gaye's vocals very clearly drive every track and elevate them to hits. I've consistently held the belief that any artist inspired by jazz will prove to be a wonderful musician because they're able to hold a contradiction between chaos and order. Gaye is one of the best examples of this.

No notes. I love Jazz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wiki: "Yorke said that the lyrics were based on "that anonymous fear thing, sitting in traffic, thinking, 'I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something else'" Man. The feeling of monotony, like life is passing you by - but you're not exactly sure what to do to catch up. How do you begin to put that into an album without it sounding like a white picket fence? The distorted guitar building up cutting through a very basic beat on 15 Step was sign enough that Radiohead could capture the feeling. Droning on without really droning. This feeling is heightened with the lyrics in Bodysnatchers "Pale imitation/with the edges sawn off" and "Has the light gone out for you?/Because the lights' gone out for me." Just brutal.

I already have half of these songs in my "favorites" playlist. This is the pinnacle of 60's rock for me, the composition still sounds so modern - but not necessarily "new." It has all the standard components of 60s Psychedelic rock, but its Blues influences make this album stand out like no other.

I had no idea the Bee Gees could sound like this - being only familiar with their hit singles. This album felt like a movie.

Sometimes I get really annoyed by "sing-talking," but something about the lyricism here makes it less obnoxious and more honest. Simple.