130
Albums Rated
3.59
Average Rating
12%
Complete
959 albums remaining
Rating Distribution
Rating Timeline
Taste Profile
1970
Favorite Decade
Folk
Favorite Genre
other
Top Origin
Wordsmith
Rater Style ?
19
5-Star Albums
1
1-Star Albums
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By Genre
Top Styles
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
69 Love Songs
The Magnetic Fields
|
5 | 2.85 | +2.15 |
|
I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen
|
5 | 3.1 | +1.9 |
|
Run-D.M.C.
Run-D.M.C.
|
5 | 3.12 | +1.88 |
|
Melody A.M.
Röyksopp
|
5 | 3.21 | +1.79 |
|
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
|
5 | 3.32 | +1.68 |
|
Figure 8
Elliott Smith
|
5 | 3.33 | +1.67 |
|
Debut
Björk
|
5 | 3.38 | +1.62 |
|
Zombie
Fela Kuti
|
5 | 3.47 | +1.53 |
|
Paul Simon
Paul Simon
|
5 | 3.5 | +1.5 |
|
New Forms
Roni Size
|
4 | 2.53 | +1.47 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
50 Cent
|
1 | 3.07 | -2.07 |
|
If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
The Mamas & The Papas
|
2 | 3.43 | -1.43 |
|
My Generation
The Who
|
2 | 3.4 | -1.4 |
|
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Derek & The Dominos
|
2 | 3.38 | -1.38 |
|
The Coral
The Coral
|
2 | 3 | -1 |
5-Star Albums (19)
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Popular Reviews
Muddy Waters · 1 likes
4/5
Subtract a star from this impeccable artist, on this album, only because the richer instrumentation IMO obfuscates the raw energy of Waters. Dare I say it MUDDIES THE WATERS, but seriously folks. It feels indelibly marked in the post-Last-Waltz period; indeed his guitarist joined The Band with Muddy during that magical show. I was hoping that the harp player was Paul Butterfield, but no, he was gone by ‘77. My favourite track on this record is I Can’t Be Satisfied; it feels like half the band went on a beer run late at night, someone picked up a slide, and they just went for it. Raw, swung and funky. Makes me think of a gold-plated CD of his glorious second album on which he mostly plays solo. Many hours spent with Adam listening to that one.
1-Star Albums (1)
All Ratings
The Who
2/5
The Smiths
4/5
Death of a Disco Dancer is maybe the first time I’ve really heard the seeds of Radiohead (who cite them as inspo). Supports my suspicions that the band was impeccable AND that Moz would be an insufferable hang.
Santana
4/5
I found it difficult to separate this record from teenage memories, namely, a feeling of ironic kitsch a la 70s songs on Tarantino soundtracks. I feel confident in presuming that a great deal of the band was high all through these sessions, particularly the vocalist, with his lazy yawning intonations and long-hanging sibilants. My choir director would throw me out of the room for that shit. Be that as it may, it’s a classic sound and a good 30 years before Santana collaborated with Rob Thomas.
Yes
3/5
I’m officially old. I was past 40 by the time I became a dad. There’s hair growing from my ears. But even more important: I don’t hate prog anymore.
Like any prog album, it’s all over the map — but also very clearly a record that came about a year after CSNY’s Deja Vu. Similar to The Dead’s American Beauty, the packed, doubled harmonies are so big in the recordings that everything else is dwarfed and tinny.
Honest question tho: would it even be “proggy” if each song section went fully into a new track? Cf. tracks 3 and 4, which do the old “we’re so smart that our songs have several names.”
Stray thoughts:
- Track 1: I’ll go on the record and say that a single guitar line should never be panned back and forth like a shuttlecock. I don’t care how much coke the engineer did.
- Track 2 is ridic. If only bc a live track in the middle of an album is 3-days-sleepless madness.
- Fascinated by Ev’s grab from track 3 and now I want to find an 80s/90s musician that cites it as an influence.
The Stone Roses
3/5
I've reflected often in recent years how the component parts of what would become the grunge explosion are more diffuse and individually interesting than I used to naively assume. Here, these Madchester lads don't really *sound* like the UK Second Summer of Love (except Fools Gold, on the remaster), but boy do they presage Oasis and Blur. I basically picture Liam Gallagher singing this record.
Apple Music calls this "one of the great debuts of all time". I could start to get behind that if it started with "Waterfall", instead of the two pastel jangly tracks that precede it. There's nothing that great about Waterfall’s performances (tho the baseline rips), but the texture is marvellous (same producer as The Bends — checks out), and again, feels prophetic in 1989. And then, Don't Stop, right after, picks up the lead line and tips it vertiginously on its edge, as if to say "yes, there were drugs. LOTS of drugs." I actually got pointed to that track recently by way of a Pitchfork review of a Cut Copy album which I like, but they hated; and they called out a certain track as a direct rip of Don't Stop. (The track is called Take Me Higher, a true facsimile of the time period, and I begrudgingly concede Pitchfork's point)
I obvs wasn't part of those molly-soaked couple years at the end of 80s in the UK, but like a good consumer at the peak of his dispensable income, I love to passively participate in memories that I existed but didn't participate in. So while there's little on this record that intensely grabs me outside of Waterfall/Don't Stop, I LOVE the vibes, and some part of me wishes I was there, then. Even though my discretion was always at a career low with MDMA, and so if I had been there, I probably couldn't see straight today.
The Isley Brothers
3/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival
5/5
Five albums. Two years. In this period, Creedence were cranking albums like King Gizzard, except all hits. I admit that the non-single tracks here weren’t arresting. But it doesn’t matter. Fogerty is a fucking powerhouse.
50 Cent
1/5
You could say it’s minimalist because of its un-fussy, straightforward production. Or you could say it’s maximalist, with its giant orchestra hits. Either way, it’s *insubstantial*. It lacks substance. It’s big and dumb. It’s a Fast and Furious movie. It’s a jumbo hot dog with zero toppings. It’s an episode of Highlander on a Sony Watchman.
Motörhead
3/5
My main takeaway is that Lemmy’s guitarist, Fast Eddie Clarke, sounds exactly like Mike and Stone from Pearl Jam. Like, dead-ringer for those soaring, overdriven wah-pedal licks. I’m curious whether there are a bunch of intermediaries there, or whether there’s a direct influence. Other than that, I’d have loved to be at that show, Ace of Spades rules; but otherwise prob not coming back.
The Bees
3/5
I want to say that this sounds like GarageBand. That's not fair. There's plenty of close-mic and panning. If it's GarageBand, it's very good GarageBand. It's just that nothing stands out in this perfectly fine and unremarkable indie funk album.
My knowledge of The Bees comes from Free the Bees, which came two years after this. I heard the song "Chicken Payback" on Triple J Sydney all the time when I lived there. That song is still great. And in fairness, it's of a piece with what appears to be their career statement of un-fussed Motown revival mashed with gentlemanly lad rock. But it's wall-to-wall better. So politely close the tab on this record, listen to Free the Bees, and wonder why that wasn't the Bees record in this dude's book.
Funkadelic
4/5
I must admit I didn’t finish this, but not because I didn’t like it. I thought it was bright and inventive without being annoying. The funk of Isley Bros without the blandness, and the jam-iness of Yes without quite so much wank.
Fela Kuti
5/5
Even if Fela hadn’t been Ada’s jolly jumper soundtrack from approx. 0 to 2, I would fucking love it. But I showed her how to dance to it (badly), I showed her how to play her plastic drum to it (not terrible), and she loved it too. So this is an easy sentimental 5 for me, and a reminder to bring it back to our speakers and see if she’ll take a break from Taylor Swift and jazz out to Afrobeat.
Les Rythmes Digitales
2/5
Today I learned that I myself have DJ'd Stuart Price. Said with dripping sarcasm, naturally, but every so often in my youth I'd cut a mixtape CD, and in the mid aughts I actually beatmatched a few of them. Not terribly well, but to my credit I think I counted the BPM by hand and then used percentages to slow down the tracks using a basic sound editor. The Toast app was a faithful friend. The best one was when I lived in Australia and had max free time; it was called "Australia: The Other White Meat". I wedged Four to the Floor (Thin White Duke remix — aka Rhythmes Digitales) between Run Eyed Blues by Ben Harper and a track by Telefon Tel Aviv. Questionable pacing, but a pretty good transition.
That was a good remix. I think it was more popular than the original. Wikipedia tells me that Price, as Duke, did a bunch of popular remixes. So I think of this one as formative for Price. Ev and I were both speculating that it was influential; again Wiki says that it had some effect on the nascent millennial electro scene. I was hoping that it was created before Daft Punk's Homework — French name and all — but no, it came two years later. Huh. Most of it is borderline annoying; I had to tab over a few times to see how much was left in a track. So I’m glad that he grew into a good career producer, but I wasn’t thrilled to listen to the highshool essay.
Marvin Gaye
3/5
Is there a greater state of nihilism than not loving a Marvin Gaye record? I’m sorry world. But I suspect I might be in good company with my brother in song reviewing. It’s a protest record I suppose, but he sings about the wrongs of the world in such vague language that it feels meaningless. I feel like I’d legit enjoy the instrumentals somewhat more. All that said, I like the trifecta of tracks 6, 7 and 9. I’d give a higher rating to an EP that dispenses with the vague whingeing about the wrongs of the world and leans in to the groove of Mercy Mercy Me and Inner City Blues.
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
Love Curtis in general, though this didn't especially grab me — I think because we've happened to be served a fair lot of 70s soul in our first few records. Will return to it another time.
Muddy Waters
4/5
Subtract a star from this impeccable artist, on this album, only because the richer instrumentation IMO obfuscates the raw energy of Waters. Dare I say it MUDDIES THE WATERS, but seriously folks. It feels indelibly marked in the post-Last-Waltz period; indeed his guitarist joined The Band with Muddy during that magical show. I was hoping that the harp player was Paul Butterfield, but no, he was gone by ‘77. My favourite track on this record is I Can’t Be Satisfied; it feels like half the band went on a beer run late at night, someone picked up a slide, and they just went for it. Raw, swung and funky. Makes me think of a gold-plated CD of his glorious second album on which he mostly plays solo. Many hours spent with Adam listening to that one.
Neil Young
3/5
Not a highlight Neil record, but thoroughly enjoyed. I love For The Turnstiles sung by Be Good Tanyas. Now I know the original.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
This is a very good album that I don't really want to listen to on any given day. With a little dad-istry under my belt, I feel marginally closer to understanding Cave's pain after losing his kid; enough that I sense the grieving and the existential want behind these songs. He's a varsity songwriter and a great lyricist, and like the best of them, he speaks of his own experiences behind veils and parables. They're not fun but they're rich. I want to listen to more Nick Cave, and I hope to cultivate his wisdom without sharing a fraction of his pain.
Run-D.M.C.
5/5
When we were kids, I felt like Beastie Boys were state of the art. They were great — but for the most part, they in fact were not the bleeding edge. Licensed to Ill was essentially a ripoff of this seminal album. They leaned into Jazz and Punk after that (if anything, that part *was* bleeding edge), but then with Hello Nasty...it was right back to emulating this classic sound.
1984! This came out in 1984. Fucking prophetic. I love everything about it: the hair metal guitar, the campy synth splashes, the 808 beats. Hail to the kings.
Bad Brains
4/5
Another record/band that clearly inspired Pearl Jam's sound. It's so cool to learn about the component parts of what felt, as a teen, like a singular revolution. I don't think I'm necessarily going to come back to it, but I'm inspired to listen to some other Bad Brains records.
The Who
4/5
I like this WAY more than the studio album I started with before Ev joined. It's raw as hell, and Pete (I assume it's Pete) is doing his max Jimi impression (a year after Woodstock; figures). They are having fun, and it's fun to listen to. The 17-minute penultimate track is somewhere between captivating and annoying, but it sells the concert vibe as dangerous and unpredictable. There's some real Zeppelin pomp with an indie rock feel. I can't read drums very well, but I feel like Keith Moon was pretty well regarded in this period, and I credit him obliviously for the driving force of those borderline jam tracks.
Cream
3/5
I’ve occasionally had the thought that Eric Clapton is a gleaming example of white dudes expropriating Black music. Holding that for the moment to be a good take (it might not be), it’s auspicious that this record came a few days after Muddy Waters. Eric’s blues is technically competent, shiny, showy, and utterly devoid of feeling. It’s a photograph of a poem, framed and hung in a posh London pub.
Now, there aren’t very many blues songs on this record. And yet the vibe remains. There’s nothing grabby. And yet I find myself indifferently enjoying it, because it’s Talmud in rock and roll. I’m supposed to like it. If we were teenagers in the 60s/70s, we would have put this record on before getting ripped. (We probably would have in the 90s if we had a copy) I think what it comes down to is that it makes me *think* about feelings without feeling anything.
Common
4/5
Goddamn I miss this era. Take me *back* — not because I want to be 24 again. I don't, really. Take me to this liminal moment in rap when jazz and poetry seemed like an endless tap for creativity and groove. When the Soulquarians were active and brilliant and prolific; when there was a list of brilliant heads to follow; when it felt like being part of a movement.
That said: Hearing that The Roots were down with 50-Cent's music in the mid-aughts was a little "Dylan goes electric" moment for me. A sadness, but also a reminder that I didn't necessarily understand this movement, and just as likely, that the movement wasn't really for me. The latter point, probably technically true. And at any rate, became true as the proliferation of Southern & trap made me feel old and disconnected, like my father complaining of Grunge that he couldn't hear the lyrics.
And all THAT said: my recollection is that at some point, Chris had dissuaded me of listening to Common, so I kind of ignored his music. But his flow and beats feel so of a piece to that moment where I was obsessed with every Roots album, it feels like I've heard most of it before. I don't even dislike the Kanye collaborations. Subtract a star because while I love it in general, it doesn't feel like an instant classic like The Tipping Point or Black on Both Sides.
Snoop Dogg
3/5
It's obvs a classic, but I've never liked this record. Dre keeps doing the early rap beats thing with a whiny descending scale — like, 3 or 4 different songs. I respect it as history, but I don't want to listen to it. And as much as I love the conscious era of that Common record, I'm an old dad now and rapping about hoes, blunts and casual assassination is gross.
2 stars plus 1 for Gin and Juice, which Ev and I put into a Flash experience to commemorate the ticking of the clock as we all left home for school.
The Coral
2/5
How is there not yet an emoji for a wet fart? I realize a literal image would be problematic, but something cultural, along of the likes of how the anodyne eggplant is now forever a dong. #itstime
Anyways, I need one for this album. I classify it under the hood of English Lout-Lad Rock, a genre that started around the time of the Rolling Stones, but I’m sure lives on today. I reckon that louty lads especially had a day around the mid-aughts: Kasabian, The Streets, and I guess The Coral, though this is the first I’ve heard of them. +1 star for the reasonably cool harmonies, which season these bland shouty songs with a little sea shanty saltiness. Alas, I thought this was a great new discovery, but 🍑💦💨
Elliott Smith
5/5
It's a pure pleasure listen for me — Elliott Smith was my driving soundtrack for the summer-or-two of Persia Tea House visits. I was delighted to hear a contemporary artist that front-lined classic fingerstyle folk pickings. An update of the early Paul Simon sound, with just as much brokenhearted emo, updated for a more complex age.
I remember the day I woke up, in Adam's basement, to my clock radio breaking the news that Elliott ended his life, allegedly with a steak knife to the heart. I had just gotten to know his music.
I tried to listen to this outside the context of my own history. In that light, I might subtract a star for somewhat transparent emo vocals. A little too whiney, a little too obvious, perhaps. But I'm going to be consistent and vote with my feels — if 50 Cent got a 1, Elliott gets a 5.
Boston
3/5
I was all set to pan this album, but in good conscience I cannot. If it came out in 1986, I could write it off as bog-standard genre. But released in 1976, it feels kind of prophetic of the wave of hair metal to come. And despite a consistent lack of dynamics — the power chords, the screamy solos, the screamy vocals (outside of Foreplay), this record is fun. The power chords are tight. And despite their obvious conviction that their instruments are extensions of their dongs, they see to be somewhat in on the joke?
David Bowie
3/5
I feel like I’m always in the wrong mood for this album. It feels as inaccessible as Ziggy Stardust was accessible, just a year earlier. The title track grates on my nerves. The Stones cover is fine. Jean Genie is familiar, but never much grabbed me. I feel like I’m missing something on this one.
Dagmar Krause
3/5
Despite spending my last highschool year as a musical theatre nerd (if I joined MT in grade 10, I would have been a WAY less miserable young man), I'm lukewarm on any musical I didn't grow up with. On the other hand, I have more time of day — at least in theory — for this sort of interstitial early-20th-century-vaudeville fusion that owes a tremendous amount to Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel and probably a German tradition I'm completely unaware of.
I'm done with it, but it makes me want to watch WWII documentaries in an abiding desire to better understand a pivotal moment to our present world, and a mighty determiner in my family's history.
Silver Jews
3/5
A band I say I know much more than I do. I like David Berman because he was a longtime Shmuel favourite. The only song I really know is How Can I Love You If You Don't Lie Down, which I recorded myself for his 40th.
This is not that, but it carries Berman's lowlife poet charm on its sleeve. Somewhere between Lou Reed and Stephin Merritt. I want to run through his discography sometime, but it's so awfully sad, even back in 2001; and I hear it doesn't get better in the following 18 years up to his suicide.
Depeche Mode
4/5
Depeche Mode has been on my “to listen” list for a long time, mainly because they’re probably my stepbrother’s favourite band. At first, it’s hard to listen past the synth instruments, which often sound like a $100 Soundblaster in a PC in ~1993. SO much goth emo drama with just 1-2 voices and minimal synths. But then I started thinking about Nine Inch Nails. This is basically a softer version of Pretty Hate Machine, or Downward Spiral. I can totally see leaning into this as a teenager in the 80s if I was looking for a dark alternative to New Wave.
Personal Jesus is still great crossover pop — cynical, confident and provocative. Waiting for the Night is a great vampiric ballad; almost a music theatre song. And Enjoy the Silence fucking slaps. +1 just for that song. Policy of Truth is ridiculous and pretty groovy.
But yeah, without the vocals, most of the record sounds like the soundtrack to Quake, or some homemade beats shared on a cyberpunk webring in the late 90s.
Simon & Garfunkel
5/5
My only question is whether this is the *best* S&G album. The answer is probably yes. Though I’m pretty familiar with every one of his songs, I’ll happily admit that Paul has been given to fillers; mostly starting around 1980. But there are no fillers here. And there are so many *ideas*. WTF is a chill bossa nova song about Frank Lloyd Wright doing here? It all works. It’s 1970. It’s experimental and light and fun. Some rue this as S&G’s swan song, and that’s true, but it cleared the way forward with Paul’s self-titled, itself a genre-fuck, a style of styles that carried on into the 90s. There’s just nothing not to love here.
And as much as I love to give Paul basically solo credit: goddamn, Art’s harmonies. Paul always said that Artie sang the songs the way he heard them in his head. Every time I’ve hashed together a harmony, what I’m really thinking about is Art’s effortless tenor in The Boxer.
TV On The Radio
3/5
I have fond memories of this record, in the epicentre of the indie rock revolution. It felt part of a movement, and I felt a part of it too. Eclectic as it it is, it's consistent with New York's tradition of audacious iconoclasts; it makes me think of Battles, or recently, Geese.
Warm though my memories are, I'm not certain that it holds together all that well. Zagging, instead of zigging, wears out its welcome. Listening to it feels like I'm allowing for the strangeness of these songs out of responsibility, because I like strange things because art. But this record runs the risk of trying too hard, I think.
Halfway Home is a dramatic bit of post-industrial; I was excited to hear it again. Family Tree is boring as shit and I never liked it. Side B tries a little less hard and fares better for it. Love Dog has a good shouty hook and succeeds as being restrained. Similarly Shouted Out. Most of the following tracks. That part is a more linear, maximalist, New York record. But admittedly also more forgettable.
Being weird is fine when it comes together. I'm tempted be cynical and say they definitely hit that on their first record, and chased that ever since. But I guess that's what a New York hipster would have said in the late aughts.
Germs
2/5
It’s quite possible that I wasn’t in the right mood to open my ears up to a fairly hardcore punk album. But I actively disliked listening to it. Cool to learn about Pat Smear’s origins though.
Machito
4/5
Perfectly good early afrojazz, though fairly unremarkable. +1 star because I assume that this record was influential, being that it was released before 1960.
Amy Winehouse
3/5
Obvs a landmark R&B record, but I don't have much capacity for this sound. I think it's best when it follows the Erykah Badu example and drops hip hop beats over the band. I like Back to Black more, as far as that goes.
Queen
4/5
This hits similar to the Yes record, in the bald spot of acceptance revealed by receding tastes and cares. It has the sort of mid-70s celtic jam fetish that Spinal Tap mocked. But I'm down with it. A lot of essential rock bands of this era had an antiseptic early period, like David Bowie's WTF early work. This is not that. It's the indulgent strut of a band just beginning its full bloom into weirdness. Yas Queen.
Tom Waits
4/5
Probably my top artist for "need to listen to more". I love the scenes in this record. Such a colourful pastiche of New York sleaze in the 70s. So full of details and ephemera. Truly an acolyte of Burroughs. He was in his 20s on this record! I think of him as ~50 for his whole career.
Am I going to listen to it lots? No. But sometimes his talent is obscured by his weirdness. Not here.
The The
3/5
A profoundly uneven record. "This is the Day" is immortal, if for no other reason than that it was the closing music for Empire Records. Giant is dynamic and weird in a wide-eyed 1980s way. I'll listen to that one again. The middle of the record is just directionless. The closest thing I could think of was Nick Cave, but he's not Nick Cave. Some Talking Heads too, but he's not David Byrne. He's a dude pretentious enough to call his band The The. I will forever wonder what the inferred head noun is after "The", just as I wonder why this record is on a "best records" list.
Maxwell
2/5
Perfectly mid sexmusic. I'd rather be listening to Thievery Corp, though.
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
Did not affect my unshakable notion that part of The Boss' thing is just groaning into the mic. Witness the opening moan-crooning on Something in the Night. Eventually he starts singing words, but he seems uncommitted. Sexy? Sloshed? We may never know. Nonetheless, it's pretty cool to consider his unwavering arc from poet of the American everyman to labour-songwriter-laureate. Someday I will dress as well as Bruce does in his 70s.
Sam Cooke
3/5
Unremarkable as a live album, but just to imagine Sam casually working through the highlights of his career is pretty thrilling.
Black Sabbath
3/5
Badass, but less badass than I was expecting. I locate the most badass Sabbath in the mid/late 70s. This is early 70s. But it's record #4!? Clearly another research project I need to do. Another great educational album that's not in itself going to bring me back for further listens.
MGMT
4/5
I've long had daggers for this album because I took someone on a date to a very early MGMT concert, and the date was a disaster. Be that as it was, it's a good record made by a couple of young wankers. They were immature and edgy, and you can make it out on the lyrical edges, "We'll choke on our vomit" etc. And yet the music is both derivative and excellent. They do electro, they do gospel Stones, they do indie funk. There are some legend songs; Electric Feel aged better because it didn't become quite the corporate anthem that Kids did. I love it; I hate it; four stars.
Arcade Fire
5/5
A good artist/art differentiator. Turns out Will Butler was a bit of a cock. I think it was Hearing Things — a Pitchfork offshoot — that I noticed was started the wave of rethinking Arcade Fire in lieu of Will's behaviour, basically hedging with "idk, I was young; I liked it" I was and I did, but I think I still do. In 2005/6, it took me a while to get over his voice: a thin warble; the whole thing feeling tentative and unsure compared to the music I grew up with. But gosh, it doesn't feel unconfident now.
Tunnels feels like church bells; a call to prayer. Power Out a tight-jean freakout — a shivering monster. 7 Kettles, sitting shiva. Wake Up, a wall of woh-ohs that would spawn twenty years of soundalikes. Rebellion, a cocksure chorus I tried in total vain to capture playing with a friend.
And I think that's really it: so much music sounded like Funeral afterward. But not before.
Frank Sinatra
4/5
It's remarkable how long Frank takes to get to any individual note. Just about every phrase is full of sliiiides to get there, and usually singers like Robert Goulet become the butt of jokes for it. Not Frank. It feels perfect.
Subtract a star because these don't feel like the best songs. They're canonical, but they're boring — at least today. I don't know his records, but I'm certain that he has songs that communicate a little more feeling under the heavy varnish.
Bob Dylan
5/5
“Well I try my best to be just like I am. But everybody wants you to be just like them.” I love this moment in Bobology, when he was just about ready to tell the folk movement to suck it. It could have been a moment of pure, self-destructive narcissism. But turned out, singing about himself (often), from his heart (usually?), was fucking great material.
I love that there’s literally a side A for axe-cutting blues rock, and a side B for the haters, with some of his best folk songs of all time (Tambourine Man, Baby Blue). Top 3 Dylan album, possibly #1.
Derek & The Dominos
2/5
Boring af.
Meat Loaf
4/5
Surprisingly kickass. I grew up thinking Meat Loaf was a metal guy, probably from his album covers. But he’s a ridiculous softboi. Especially coming on the heels of seeing Rocky Horror for the first in a long time, I’m reminded that he pairs a certain amount of vulnerability with a total lack of self-seriousness. It’s a good combo.
Bee Gees
3/5
I was really enjoying the first 8 or so songs on this record. I think of pre disco Bee Gees as pretty tasteful. But then it keeps going and sprawling into a needless double record. Guys. Stop while you were ahead. I’m imagining them in the studio ripped and being like “this is the songs record, and THIS is the wank record!” And they wanked and wanked.
The Clash
4/5
An evergreen lack of cognitive sync for me: I see the famous cover of London Calling and I think Punk. But this is Ska — perhaps the ur-Ska record. Truth be told, I get a little bored of it (and Ska in general) around the middle, but I respect the iconic status of the record and its influence.
Fatboy Slim
3/5
Lots of nostalgia, but waning respect. This era of popular breakbeat feels formulaic. Introduce a sample for 4-8 bars, drop in another sample or switch the break for another 4-8, then remove the first sample. And the samples have this overall kitsch feel; a post-Odelay irony. “Isn’t this funny/cool?” Rinse and repeat. They generally lack musicality and feel. Rockefeller Skank is the best example; it’s just so annoying by the end. IMO probably the most enduring song is the closer, Acid 8000, precisely because it has the fewest samples. Down with Friuty Loops sampling in the 90s; up with 303s.
Tricky
4/5
A stark contrast with Fatboy Slim. As much as You’ve Come A Long Way Baby sounds like formula electronica that made it big, Tricky sounds rich, dark and weird. I love the density of the beats, dripping with mood and feeling. Mainstream 90s electro is skying on e’s in a muddy field; Maxinquaye is a hallucinogenic walk through a haunted forest. I’ll take the forest please.
Hüsker Dü
4/5
I went into this thinking Punk and was surprised. But I read the bio and changed my POV to the crucial runup to my dear grunge era. Goddamn, does Foo Fighters sound like this band. And some members of Pearl Jam, when they hold the songwriting pen. A heavier version of REM, who of course were contemporaries. I’m captivated by how far up front the guitar is in the mix. A little distortion, a fuzzy amp; without diving into their Wikipedia, I expect that this is a group that made its listeners start bands. Fun discovery. I want to listen to their transition from punk to whatever this is.
Various Artists
3/5
Classic Christmas songs that I was already playing to please my elders every year during the holidays. For that I’m grateful, but they’re sugar-sweet pop songs and they’ve only survived because they were written to cloy and not offend.
John Coltrane
4/5
The sound of stress. I think I say that mostly because this kind of jazz has been recently featured on shows that denote stress through layers of multitasking and commitment. Also because my life denotes that sort of stress rn. Lastly because Murray gives Jonathan Byers a tape of Love Supreme complete with an extra little something in the final season of Stranger Things. All reasons to mightily respect this record.
Norah Jones
4/5
I mean it’s a classic, but — at the risk of being in a youthful mood — also dull as beans. Come snooze with me.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
5/5
Nearly flawless. Perhaps the only 4-or-3 song is Almost Cut my Hair; some David Crosby nonsense. But I love it. Imagine Grateful Dead circa American Beauty, but with better singing: you get here. Imagine The Yes Album, but more restrained and focused: you get here. This record explodes from the 60s into the 70s, full of ideas, but also *taste*.
Sade
3/5
Never much enjoyed Sade, but everyone else’s admiration surely indicates a blind spot on my part.
Radiohead
4/5
Curious why this one would be added to a top-list, but I've always been fond of this adolescent record betwixt the Kid A and In Rainbows eras. I listened to it endlessly on discman between classes in uni. I actually really like the quasi U2 numbers Where I End and Backdrifts. The only really annoying cut is We Suck Young Blood. I Will is a fun loopback (literally) to Amnesiac's Like Spinning Plates. Fond memories.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3/5
Now I know what Freebird sounds like. Now I will never have to listen to it again. Sounds like The Guess Who by way of Florida.
De La Soul
3/5
Not hit-laden, but fun and ridiculous. Almost up there with People's Travels.
Bert Jansch
3/5
Previously unknown, very pleasant fingerpicking folk. A fine example of the period without much sense of innovation, at least on this record. But I’ve always tried to play guitar like he does, so I would listen to more.
Hookworms
4/5
I was set to call it another "huh" of an un-relevant record. Which it may still be. But then I listened again and got fairly hooked on Ullswater, a poppy electroclash song in 9. Anyone who makes a fun electronic song in a weird signature is alright by me. Might come back. A 3.5 rounded up.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
3/5
I tend to be intimidated by Will's massive catalogue, but this feels like particularly strong songwriting.
David Bowie
3/5
It's so hard to separate this one from its identity as Bowie's swan song. I liked it more this listen than any time before. The title track is a masterful haunted walk through anxiety and perhaps despair. The rest feels uneven, or at least resistant to easy parsing. It makes me think that Bowie wrote and recorded separately from the rest of the band, but reviews suggest that wasn't the case. Ultimately I'm rating it lower than the standard because I'm not sure how much it would mean to me outside of the context and time in which it was created.
David Bowie
3/5
Highs and lows. The opening and closing tracks are wonderful. The middle sags. His cover of Across the Universe is atrocious. Generally Bowie trying to dip into a dirty bassy soul croon is not a great look.
Roni Size
4/5
While I never liked DnB that much, aggressively-compressed MP3s of pieces of this album definitely ended up on my hard drive in the late 90s. It's cool to hear it all together. Much respect without necessarily returning to it.
Traffic
3/5
A fairly bland bowl of porridge — I started to get excited about it circa tracks 1-3, but by the end the inevitable 70s mid theme of forgettable wankery gathered steam on side B. I shall not return.
Sonic Youth
3/5
Mildly annoying sound, but venerable for the movement that it started. Kim’s voice feels overly punk-affected, provocative and raw at the expense of heart and feeling.
Beatles
5/5
You could make an argument that while side A is immaculate, side B is bloated. Mr Mustard through She Came In feels like filler. But then you start to wrap up with Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight, and it feels like the only ending possible to probably the all-time greatest seven-year collaboration in pop music.
They manage to include the whole history of Beatles songwriting: the tight songcraft of the early years (Oh! Darling); the Sgt Pepper wildness (Octopus's Garden); the gilt-record later-career hits, suffused with a little more wisdom (Here Comes The Sun), and the folky bits of improvised irreverence that inspired a thousand imitator albums (The End).
I don't know if this is the real coda record, or Let It Be. But goddamn, this one works.
4/5
Sometimes it feels/felt like PJ was writing songs to be edgy rather than a songwriter. But there are plenty of songs I genuinely like here.
Rage Against The Machine
5/5
Goddamn does this record still sound great. Take even Bombtrack on its own — a minor song — but the way it *growls* Rage into the world in '92 is exceptional. It sounds like an angry V6 revving without a muffler.
Even more than Evil Empire — probably still my favourite, even though I have little appetite for this music now — they sound like a single ferocious instrument on this record. Truly exceptional.
Goldie
3/5
"Solid DnB fairly ruled by annoying vocals" is a reaction I have frequently to these sort of records. Do you want to make music, or do you want to be the soundtrack in a shoe store?
The Adverts
3/5
Formative as I expect they were, they scan as another bland Punk album. Not helped by a Wall of Sound style of production, which sounds suitably vinyl, but fundamentally unremarkable. While it gets 3 stars, my own capacity for scanning and appreciating Punk probably deserves less.
Nirvana
4/5
Dangerous territory, but imo this album was a little aggrandized in context of the band’s life. It’s a mostly bootleg-quality record, but after Kurt died it became hagiography. There are stellar moments where everyone is together and sounds different and haunting and true, like Man Who Sold The World, Lake of Fire, All Apologies and Polly. But there’s other parts — particularly the beginning — where the sound is bad, the guitar is tinny and flat and the feel is plodding and muddy.
Perhaps the press was right: this is an eerie capture of an artist near his end. Or maybe a weak recording became squished into a sad painting because the label had found a terribly reluctant hero, and it wasn’t done with him.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
Didn't in itself persuade me of what some respected peers assert: that Petty's songwriting powers are self-evident in both his A- and B-catalogue. This feels like mostly B's with the obvious exception of American Girl. I will come back for a close reading of his discography, but I don't know if I need to return to this one.
The Beach Boys
3/5
It probably deserves a much better objective rating, but I’ve never liked Beach Boys. This record doesn’t make me feel anything. I don’t even like Pet Sounds very much. The fault is mine, not theirs.
Beck
3/5
Was stoked to hear this again as Guero seemed liked a triumphant return to the Odelay period when it released. Certainly the first half of the record tries very hard to get back into flow of Beck-vs-Dust-Brothers esoterica. But 20 years later, it feels less successful. Songs like E-Pro, Qué Onda Guero and Hell Yes feel like ideas fused together for the sake of camp and novelty; production tchotchkes. The better songs — Missing, Black Tambourine — try less hard to be weird.
The second half of the record fares better. Broken Drum, Go it Alone, Farewell Ride are just well-written songs, and they skip the sonic thrift store treatment. Confirms my already-held suspicions that Beck does his best songwriting work when not distracted by being a genre dilettante.
Butthole Surfers
2/5
It's not that it's heavy that's unappealing: it's heavy and pointless. It's the late 80s grunge-metal version of a fidget spinner.
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
Green Onions itself is immortal; it makes me think of a dozen film and tv trailers that tried to borrow some of its effortless cool. The rest varies. I feel like the keyboard player’s solos are possibly too frenetic for these blues compositions. However most importantly, it makes my three year old want to dance.
CHIC
4/5
I was dumbfounded by how good this sounded until I realized it’s Nile Rodgers’ and Bernard Edwards’ band. Goddamn. You could strip out everything but those two players on this album and it would still sound fantastic. This is what Daft Punk wanted their last record to sound like.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
4/5
I'm struggling to find something to say about a landmark album that I listened to all the time in the 90s, but didn't ultimately leave much of an impression. Chilies' alt-funk was iconic and peerless in that era, though it retrospect it feels engineered to offend no one. My favourite tracks today are the non-singles, like If You Have to Ask and Breaking the Girl. It's quite possible that One Hot Minute ultimately made more of an impression on me.
George Harrison
4/5
Smooth as fuck Beatles breakup album. You could make an argument that their dissolution created pathways for each facet of Lennon/McCartney to fully bloom. I'll put disc 1 on forever. Disc 2, however, must dock a star for going off the rails, and at one star that's generous. Blues jams! We never need the blues jams! The 70s saw the birth of bloat and it was and is a bad look.
N.E.R.D
4/5
Respect but minimal enjoyment.
Dusty Springfield
3/5
Essential when it was released, tired and inessential now. I almost wish Tarantino hadn't lifted up Son of A Preacher to insane heights; the rest of her catalogue can't compare.
3/5
Victoria is a great pop song. The rest is fusty stuff, written by and for the brits of the time. Seldom heard a harpsichord I liked in the context of a pop song.
Röyksopp
5/5
It's really all about Sparks for me. A restrained, distressed lofi beat forged long before it was an AI slop-stuffed keyword on YouTube. It's a smokey cyberpunk pastiche that could easily be mistaken be for Portishead, if not for the bleak bit of euro-pop sunshine that is Royksopp's hallmark. Heaven for 22 year old me. I'm twice that age but it still makes me smile.
It's not a wall-to-wall new sound, but it's polished as hell, and personally it's deeply woven into a special time.
Little Simz
4/5
A great reminder that in absence of any trends of American rap that grab me, I should listen to more UK rap. There's a surplus of sheer skill here that makes for a genuinely fun listen.
Leonard Cohen
5/5
Sometimes I think that Eno/Lanois + Bono/Edge was the Lennon/McCartney of the 1980s. These songs are so incredibly overhyped and overplayed, yet listening to Streets Have No Name open this record is thrilling every time. The builds are masterful — filmic, sweeping and patient. My conviction persists that Edge is an absolute master in restrained, tasteful lead guitar, and one of the very best user of effect pedals, up there with Tom Morello. Anyone else with an echo pedal is risking masturbatory noodling off of the gate. But Streets just shimmers with its jittery echoing lead over choppy rhythm guitar. It's an incandescent album, and even its b-sides like One Tree Hill are magical.
Eagles
4/5
The mellowness of the music mars its impact in 2026, but fuck are these birds talented. Is the banjo on Earlybird actually recorded live? It must be; too early for synth that good. Peaceful Easy Feeling makes me want to smoke a doob on my porch.
Paul Simon
5/5
I could write pages on the tightness of this album, its wealth of ideas of talent. The liminal feeling of lost youth and wistfulness, Paul’s old-soul emerging after ending his run with Arty. But this was the record that I sung nearly top-to-bottom at my father’s bedside, and I think that’s enough.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
4/5
Honestly I haven’t paid much attention to Jack, but I’m given to understand that he used to introduce Dylan songs as written by his son. Makes sense. The songs feel legendary and heavy; not in themselves incredible listens, but vital to the dustbowl everyman movement.
Billy Joel
3/5
The opening song — particularly the first two — are fire. Tight, confident, fantastic songwriting. The more languid ballads didn't grab me as much. They sound like the other artists of the time, Paul/Elton/Sade, but less engaging songwriting. That means, for me, I prob won't come back to the record, but I'm definitely going to play some Billy Joel greatest hits; blind spot on my catalogue.
The Young Rascals
3/5
Fully sixties pop. Pretty blah compared to, say, Pet Sounds; and I'm not enough of a connoisseur to have a warm reaction to the lesser records.
5/5
Sometimes I think that Eno/Lanois + Bono/Edge was the Lennon/McCartney of the 1980s. These songs are so incredibly overhyped and overplayed, yet listening to Streets Have No Name open this record is thrilling every time. The builds are masterful — filmic, sweeping and patient. My conviction persists that Edge is an absolute master in restrained, tasteful lead guitar, and one of the very best user of effect pedals, up there with Tom Morello. Anyone else with an echo pedal is risking masturbatory noodling out of the gate. But Streets just shimmers with its jittery echoing lead over choppy rhythm guitar. It's an incandescent album, and even its b-sides like One Tree Hill are magical.
Roxy Music
4/5
Beautiful, ridiculous and profane. I think of Roxy as Velvet Underground dressed up in 18th century frocks & coats, sipping absinthe. Better than the Thom Yorke covers.
Dolly Parton
4/5
Is it just me that can't get Wildfires on the apple music version? A capital offence. This album turns around Wildflowers as its bright fulcrum. A little flowery/lacy in this late 80s snapshot, but just lovely harmonies.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
2/5
It's my loss, but this record didn't change my view of Elvis Costello. A big part of it is his voice: rock-n-roll posturing, sneering, rasping, trying *so* hard. Why? I'm sure he has a nice voice without pushing himself to be a Rock Singer. He reminds me of early Bruce Springsteen with less songwriting chops and a worse band. I can certainly see the buds of other work, like Wilco and Magnetic Fields. But this one is wall-to-wall blah for me.
B.B. King
4/5
It’s not the sort of blues I go for. Big-band blues fees so abstracted from the original article. But it’s undeniably a great show.
Deep Purple
4/5
Surprisingly badass. And not just the song that Beavis and Butthead love.
Tom Waits
4/5
Interesting getting this album queued up a few weeks after Nirvana’s Unplugged. If I heard this record in the 90s, I would have *hated* it compared to the Nirvana covers. But after a youth steeped in indie, it feels right at home, teeing up Wilco and Pavement. Doing something bold, raw and messy in the early 80s — punk-adjacent, but more loose and sad — feels rather brave in retrospective. I could listen to The History of Grunge playlist all day (but I might turn it down sometimes).
Meat Puppets
4/5
Interesting getting this album queued up a few weeks after Nirvana’s Unplugged. If I heard this record in the 90s, I would have *hated* it compared to the Nirvana covers. But after a youth steeped in indie, it feels right at home, teeing up Wilco and Pavement. Doing something bold, raw and messy in the early 80s — punk-adjacent, but more loose and sad — feels rather brave in retrospective. I could listen to The History of Grunge playlist all day (but I might turn it down sometimes).
The Lemonheads
4/5
Lovable, accessible punk. They make me want to smoke some pot and go skating. Their cover of Mrs. Robinson joins the rarified air of excellent S&G covers.
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
Just monumental. Every MC at the very top of their game. The samples and beats are legendary. The skits are just as dumb as they were in 1993.
The Black Keys
3/5
It's the beginning of Black Keys' transition into boredom, doing the same thing over and over again. The Foo Fighter-fication of a fun new/old sound. But there are some bangers here for sure.
Mariah Carey
2/5
A shade of pop that still means nothing to me. 😢
The Specials
4/5
Damn fine ska. Too Much Too Young and Rudy are immortal.
John Lee Hooker
3/5
I would say an inessential JLH album. A bluesman who surely doesn't need accompaniment to sound great.
The Stooges
4/5
Badass. Hearing Search and Destroy live a couple years ago was fantastic.
The Mamas & The Papas
2/5
Safe, groovy filler. It really puts the boundary-pushing folk rock classics in sharp relief.
Stevie Wonder
4/5
I daresay this could have managed to not be a double-album. But even so, it's wall-to-wall fantastic songwriting.
Prince
5/5
Beyond the usual hits, this spin made me appreciate the incredible end-of-run of this album, with I Would Die 4 U through to Purple Rain. Wild tempo up to the close.
Ms. Dynamite
3/5
One of several records where I'd be interested to read fella's review in his book, because this feels pleasant but inessential. But I certainly prefer her flows to Southern rap.
Björk
5/5
1993! Bjork was so far beyond the plodding pace of voice + beats. Strange, personal, unpredictable. I love how the audience POV slips inside and outside of the club on There's More to Life Than This, a trick Daft Punk would do in 1997 with Revolution 909. There's just no one like Bjork.
Bruce Springsteen
5/5
An all-time great. I love the wholesale tonal shift from his early records. The Boss does Bob Dylan with more focus.
Lambchop
2/5
Couldn't get through it, though I expect it would grow on me if I took my time and read the lyrics.
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
Beautiful. Man I could really follow Cooder's name around to find lovely recordings I'd never otherwise know about. Wish I'd been at Folk Fest in 1988!
Bill Evans Trio
4/5
Smooooth. Evans really is a gateway drug to jazz. It occasionally runs the risk of fading away to the bg in this record.
Songhoy Blues
4/5
Very beautiful. Mdou Moctar without the wailing overdrive.
The White Stripes
3/5
Feels less vital compared to their later work, but I get what a bomb it was after nearly a decade of alternative cruft. Lean and mean and noisy. We're Going to Be Friends is still cute 25 years later.
Saint Etienne
4/5
I love it. Such a great infusion of dreamy pop and house music. Must have been wildly influential. SO much was happening at the start of this decade that I didn't know about.
Pavement
4/5
You've got to be in the right mood for Pavement. But I wish I had access to this kind of record in 1994. Commercial alternative pushed an image; indie lets it all hang out. I like how Silence Kid is basically a slacker rock version of Everyday by Buddy Holly. Korea! Korea! I'll come back to this.
The Fall
3/5
I had to look on Wiki to tell me the bands that cite them as an influence, but yeah now I can see the LCD Soundsystem influence for sure. I don’t really want to hear it again, but I respect the influence.
Joan Armatrading
4/5
Woah, I didn't know this artist at all. Very strong record. Like Fire in particular seems like something Dave Matthews straight lifted and incubated into his sound.
Jean-Michel Jarre
4/5
An electric meringue; lovingly crafted & it's killing me where I just heard him as a soundtrack. Wish I'd been around for the lasers and pyrotechnics.
The Magnetic Fields
5/5
feels a little on the nose to say that this record contains multitudes. Maybe if it was ONLY a double album. There’s stuff for everything: Brian Wilson croons, renaissance lute ballads, classic Merritt dirges and even choir chestnuts like The Book of Love. But most important for me, there’s a supercut of hazy power-pop bangers that faithfully soundtracked my most melodramatic times. That cut alone would make a full LP. For my own tastes, most other Fields albums contain 1/3 things that I want to hear forever, but a third of 69 is 23. So goddamn.
R.E.M.
3/5
I keep wanting to make a project of getting into REM and it never seems to stick. There are parts of this record I love like Finest Worksong and End of the World, but then also lots of blah tracks. I'm going to keep working on it.
Charles Mingus
4/5
Probably not going to come back to it much, but Mingus is dark and smoky as hell and generally I love it.
Jane Weaver
3/5
It's a record that would mildly turn my head if Pitchfork had recommended it. But generally this gentleman's taste post ~2005 is fairly baffling.