Steel Claw! Holy shit. After decades with her abusive husband, the other half of The Ike and Tina Turner Review, at 45 this was her divorce/comeback album. You could buy a tinny second hand radio for $200 but it came with a car, and shorter AM versions of Private Dancer and What's Love Got to Do With It were on constant play, super annoying. This is my first time paying attention, and hearing them in full length, full stereo glory, so much better than I ever realized. But her covers of Al Green's Let's Stay Together, Help, and I Can't Stand the Rain top them. I could have done without her version of Bowie's 1984, but Steel Claw goes to 11.
One of my favorites by one of my favorites. Such a great guitar sound, the electric and accoustic, and yeah, that flute (most of it played on one leg, in concert anyway). If you enjoyed this, brew a big pot of tea and put on Thick as a Brick.
Such an important artist, I find his younger self unlistenable. See you in 20 years or so, Leonard's amazing.
I like a lot of Cream songs, some on this album, but over the years I've never deliberately thought, hey I'd love to hear some Cream. For me just kind of part of the 60s background soundtrack contribution to the universe.
I owned this on CD for years before hearing the story of the fucked up keyboard he had to do gymnastics around to get this gorgeous performance. Can we give it another point or two for degree of difficulty?
Three older sisters, this and the first S&G album Bookends were in constant play around my house for about 5 years, we sung the whole thing from memory on all car trips. The title track is a beautiful performance, but I've never liked its rescue fantasy or its screwed up smilie of laying me down and easing your heart like a bridge, but can't deny how great a song it is, and like wiz-kid sez, the rest is bangers all the way down.
Oh What a World is so great, and a few more come close, several don't on early listens. But there's a ton going on in the lyrics - I don't think there's going to be a middle ground, I'll either get sick of the self-reflection of it all or love it.
Love the simple songs, the really simple, catchy and clean guitar. After a few listen-throughs I'm almost starting to acclimatize to Tom Verlaine's over the top whiny vocals.
Love it. Common People is a post-Thatcher indie film in a single song soundtrack. Love the snide satirical lyrics all through the album, the outrage, the joy, the snark, Jarvis Cocker is amazing on vocals throughout.
Beautiful playing, great live performances and recording down to the bar conversations and martini glass clinks between the numbers - but - did they have to keep every clink and laugh right through every song? Fucking annoying, like the record is a comment on the eternal insult played to jazz greats bringing genius night after night while being ignored and talked over by their audiences. I do like live better than studio for lots of jazz, but I'll check around for a Bill Evans live recording with a more involved crowd.
Gorgeous sounds, definitely seeking more Doves.
I've been hearing about the brilliance of the Pixies forever. Love the speed drums and guitars and the tempo change ups, the massive energy. Not wild at all about the first half of this album, like it's serious side A, and fun side B. I'm a big fan of side B. Looking forward to checking out their other albums.
They pretty much invented punk, a massively influential band for sound and drag style. I ignored punk at the time but I'm liking it more and more these days. Really don't like the Mick Jagger with less soul singing.
At least 12 great albums in a row, I stopped listening to new Bowie albums after two duds. So many of those 12 I started by hating or at least meh ended up on my best ever list, so I was hoping a couple weeks listening would give The Next Day a higher rating, but for now it's still a 3. It's by far the darkest I've heard, which is fine, he does dark great, and I love the crash smash guitar assault right up there with Lodger and Scary Monsters, but I can't find any of the wit that's always in his work. Still, new to me Bowie is great to hear.
Love all of Eno's early albums, but if he re-recorded them today with anyone other than himself singing they'd be 5s. Absolutely worth checking his whole history, but my favorites with his hand on them are My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Talking Heads Remain in Light, and Bowie's Low, Heroes, and Lodger - plus the invention of Ambient Music as a recording category.
Blues need to be heard live, I've found often blues albums just don't catch the energy but wow, does this one catch it!
Been listening to this immaculate album for a lot of years. Band is so tight, all the songs are little gems with one spectacular Sultans of Swing stand out for all time gem right in the middle, and Mark Knopfler's guitar I could listen to forever. And yet - I think it's his growly voice that gets real boring every time I listen. I love all the parts, I don't love the album so much. 4 for the parts.
I stopped listening to new music around the end of the 80's and completely missed checking out The Jam. Love the 60's British Invasion sound, so basic, and ohhh that bass! Still, the production's pretty thick - I read that the first album was way more raw, and wow, it roars! Stripped back, immediate, teenage hunger. I think I'll be listening to more Jam.
My first trip-hop, apparently! Love the songs that sound like the James Bond, Twin Peaks, and Stranger Things themes, the others, not so much. Curious about other bands in the genre.
Gorgeous virtuosic album. I really didn't like it.
Love your dad story korirok, and I made the mistake of listening to the endless Deluxe version too whiz-kid. I have a love/hate relationship with the Who, most of the love being for the later albums. But this has my favorite Who song, one of what I consider the most perfect pop songs ever, The Kids are Alright. A beautiful portrait of a kid wanting to be with his girlfriend and his pals but torn by needing to be alone. What pop song does that? Catcher in the Rye, the 3 minute musical. See their later album Quadrophenia for the 90 minute rock opera version.
Wow. Never been a Janet Jackson, this took me by total surprise. Love the rocking production, LOVE the drum machines, not wild about the way they buried her voice in the anthems but the songs carry the weight for me. Best surprise album since joining so far.
I might like this better one day, not today.
I always thought of this as one of my top 5 favorite all timers, but playing it this time I'm sure I have listened to it more than any other album. Which I guess makes it my number one. To me it's a masterpiece - the songs, the lyrics, the playing, the hybriding. It makes me happier, every single time.
Kinda driving me crazy that they remind me of a band I like from years back with similar whiney vocals that I can't quite draw into memory. I've listened to this album multiple times, hating it one time, really starting to like it the next, then back again - it sounds a lot better to me on ear buds than full blast stereo, that's part of the back and forth I think - love the thrashy speedy wall of fuzz noisy fuck you guitar, don't love that the fuzzed out vocals and really uninteresting, so far, white-noised out lyrics. But I'm listening to Let it Ride as I write this and, damn that's good! On the fence, 3 twinkly stars.
I found them bland back when, still do. Gotta admit though there's lots of sounds that surprised me - the sudden strings, the switch up from great country pedal steel to Robert Fripp-style soaring simple dual guitars, really really nice stuff, then right back to the snoozy harmonies. Somehow this album lives in the middle of flower child Turn Turn Turn folk and glimpses of rock and synth popping out.
Amazing songwriter! I knew nothing about her except having grown up with hits I didn't know she wrote. Really don't like her singing, but love the take no prisoners full-on attack and crazy tempo switches, and the opening song sounded so much like Carole King's Tapestry songs (the songs, not the singing) that it felt familiar and easier to listen to. For a much better vocal experience, check her singing And When I Die.
My introduction to Herbie was his next album, Thrust, my favorite jazz-fusion album, it changed the direction of my listening life. Along with Headhunters they might as well be a double-album set, it shares so many sounds that are carved into my brain - Herbie's Fender Rhodes piano, his synth sounds I've never heard anywhere else, Bernie Maupin's sax, the simple but startling drums. Mmmmm good.
Wow. Heard my first MIA, MAYA, just a few months ago, loved it, and forgot about it. I find Kala just amazing. So many sounds, so many layers to explore.
Yeah, no. Syd is referenced in so many Pink Floyd songs and whole albums. I don't have much use for this album except it inspired me to check the first PF album when Syd was in charge, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - way more interesting!
Sad to say I never liked any post-Beatles McCartney, probably just because it wasn't the Beatles, and I guess I'm still not over it, I still don't like this song or this album, though I admit if he'd recorded these same songs under the Beatles I'd probably think they were genius. His first solo, McCartney, is the exception for me, it's on this list, love that album.
It's funny to know this is Miles' first all out fusion album since there's lots of electric but so little rock about it compared to what was to come. Gorgeous playing in every direction. Nearly every musician went on to play huge roles in fusion jazz for the next 10 to 20 years - Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock being everything everywhere.
So much easier to move into culturally unfamiliar music with the help of a hybridizer like M.I.A, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Elvis. Then I watch Baaba Maal's video with Mumford and Sons and go, oh yeah, now I get it! Yeah, I'll check the Black Panther soundtrack and in a month this 3 might be a 5.
My first listen to a Nirvana album. If I had his as a teenager it would probably still be one of my favorites. Instead I just feel late to the party, not there for it. But life is long, who knows?
Gorgeous. Yes to everything classically-trained-musician said about Monk that I wouldn't know how to say, just that I love his weird way with bending piano notes and making your ears squirm. I liked every song better than the one before, just gave it a single listen because I know I'll be back to this one.
Damn gorgeous album. Still toe dipping in rap so call it a 4 sliding to 5.
Great debut album, liked it from the first song. A couple tunes in I realized the singer was reminded me of Iggy Pop on Lust for Life, but way more skill and drama. Then the track Michael rips the album open and seals the deal. If you told me this was the missing great Bowie followup to Let's Dance I'd believe it. 4 on two listens, I'm sure it'll be 5 by New Years.
Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me, But you won't let those robots eat me
Oh come on, I'm in love.
Not such a great idea to listen to this album back to back with Miles Davis, left it sounded pretty bland, even after In a Silent Way which is a pretty laid back Miles album, Miles is never bland. Every now and then I started getting excited about some of the builds after the solo sections, but never the solos themselves. Not my day to meet Hugh Masekela.
Never expected to listen to a Def Leppard album. Agreed, the guitar tone is beautiful. So, better than I expected.
Beautiful surprise, I loved this album. So many different things going on, the drums and bass especially a stand out for me. ChatGPT says that repeated horn line going on all through the improved sections in the last song is a traditional South African thing - ChatGPT lies like a sidewalk, but it's a very cool sound.
This was an audacious album that hit huge and established a whole new form for rock. I never liked it, the Who always had a couple of really weak songs on the early albums, songs that made them sound like a folk act instead of a swaggering heavy rock band. To my ears that's what this album was filled with, excepting Pinball Wizard and the "Listening to You" build at the very end, the rest nearly all seemed written only to fill in the plot and narration, produced to sound harmless. BUT they played nearly the whole album on the road for a couple of years which was supposed to be pretty amazing. After listening again to the whole album yesterday, I realized the Super Deluxe version had the whole live recording. And yeah, it's amazing, it actually sounds like the Who. I still don't like the material, but the performance difference from the studio version is incredible.
I like a lot of albums like this, jammy, folky-rocky. Not this one though. Never liked Steve Windwood, and not liking any of the other voices or the songs.
Hearing this right after Tommy, it's amazing what the Rock Opera/concept album grew into. Also that so many of them are tragedies about the rise to fame and its costs - Tommy, The Wall, Ziggy Stardust, Jesus Christ Superstar. I think this one may be my favorite of the genre. I love the triple guitar choir on this, or however many are playing at once. I had genius.com open for the lyrics which also has excerpts from the album notes letting you know everything they were up to - a huge help. Wish I'd had this album when I was 17, it's a 4 on first listen, but going out on a limb that I think I'll be listening to it for a long time.
My wife played this a lot when it came out, so did everyone, it was massive, I found it bland, never paid attention after three tracks or so. Paying attention now, surprised to find I'm re-eavaluating, every song sounds perfect, just lovely. Still, too many of them in exactly the same vibe to pay attention to in one sitting, but maybe 3 or 4 at a time?
I like all the playing, love the organ when it shows up, and I'm a fan of singer Ian Gillian ever since Jesus Christ Superstar (If you only know the movie version, Gillian on the original Broadway leaves that poor imitation in the cave. Way better Judas and Pilate on the movie one though. I digress.) But these songs just sounds like it all occupy the same comfortable safe hard rock niche give Machine Head a listen for way more passion, fun, and range.
Yup, a song at a time it's a tour de force masterpiece, and I will never get tired of Bohemian Rhapsody and I love Brian Mayes' guitar as another voice. So why a 3? The albums hits are great and you hear them all the time. I get very tired of the soaring choral arrangements on song after song sounding more like an exquisite novelty album than something I want to listen to end to end. Humbug.
So many 80's bands had this slinky malinki vocal style, warbling wail. Some I love, others just grate my ears. Hadn't heard of Sulk before. Great elements, but I just found the 80's drums and synths operating in the same small window of possibility. Lots to love in New Wave, maybe not this.
My sister and her boyfriend were hanging around with a buddy listening to music. Buddy sez, "you know, I'm getting really tired of you two." They were, you know, what?? "Oh! not you two - the band, the band!" I feel the same way. Loved the early albums, so much electricity screaming through them. Then like a lot of artists, but definitely not all, who start raw and angry and full of passion, they just sounded to me like they got super rich, technically brilliant, and really really good at making U2 music. Gave it a couple listens, sounds great, just not compelling.
I don't hate country, I don't even dislike some of the old schoolers, but George Jones crosses all my lines. His wife, Tammy Wynette, love her. Fun fact, one of the co-writers of The Grand Tour divorce song title track married Tammy after their D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
Folk punk lives! Seriously thought about holding this album to a 4 just because I wanted to leave room for the later Pogues album on this list that eclipses this one. But that's just dumb. Rum, Sodomy, etc is a definite 5, If I Should Fall From Grace With God just goes to 11.
By the first couple songs I thought I'd hate this album. Throwback 60's pop sound, bland Byrds harmonies, big reverb on everything, throwaway lead vocals (you'd think a song called I Wanna Be Adored might have some desire in it?). But the guitar starts coming out, some really nice playing, some different production tricks, even the singer starts coming out of hiding (even just a little bit), it's like the album starts revealing itself like a movie unfolding - there's way more up out sleeves than just act one. I'm not in 4 territory with it yet, but getting interested.
First listen I thought, this is some weak ass lameness. Second listen, wow, these are a lot of great songs. 4 is on faith that I'm going to continue growing in this one.
Truckin' is one of those singular songs, like Sultans of Swing, that stands head and shoulders above everything else on the album and a highpoint in the whole damn art form. Otherwise I've never listened to a whole Grateful Dead album, just songs here and there that never really grabbed me. I'd love to hear them live but this very tame record as an unenhanced experience just doesn't do it for me.
Yeah, no. I love the form of repetition as a form of change - Groundhog Day, Run Lola Run, The Art of Fugue, looped guitar - but I didn't find any interest in the first 15 or so songs to keep up the experiment - which is actually the most interesting thing to me about this whole project we've taken on of speed listening to a thousand albums in a thousand days: I normally grow to love the music I love over repeated listenings. What happens when I force feed a thousand albums on one or two listens?
Let me add another Hell Yeah! Such a brilliant album. Everything's here, Santana's guitar that would dominate any other band is somehow just another genius sound on on this album.
So many words. Two listens, then I checked the words for the first 3 songs. These are amazing stories, multi-character voices spitting out high speed Raymond Chandler literary dialogue of drug deals, double-crosses, perfect little movie scenes pictures. 4 for now, but I'm betting taking time for going deep on more songs bump it up to a 5.
Surprised to find how much I immediately liked this in all it's slam bam wham thrashing confidence. The singing and so many ways to build a guitar-riven just kept grabbing me again and again. Now I want to go back to Bug and see if it still bugs me or have I just become a Dinosaur Jr fan?
Can't you just hear young D'Angelo as he's taking this album in with his mother's milk, thinking, that, yeah, that!
So yeah, I'm puzzling over this too, a whole over-the-top album about cheezy sleezy loungey lechery? Then Martine comes home and sez "Is this The Divine Comedy??" Sez her and some friends stumbled on them in their early 20's, and pulls up 6 songs in a row from various albums. Apparently every album has a different concept and persona, so imagine the fun ahead? I'm kinda loving his commitment, amazed a record company would stick with this. Call me Divine Comedy curious.
My first Korn album. Yeah, not for me. Great video!
I have no objectivity about this one. I bought it on a whim a couple years after it came out. The voice is odd, warm, sadly nostalgic, I've only talked with one other person who knew the album, and I love the whole thing and love love love the title track like a favorite childhood blanket. It didn't come with a lyric sheet, about half of albums had lyrics on the cover or in an insert, which usually didn't make it past the original release, so I haven't listened closely enough to the lyrics to actually know what he's singing about, or any of his other albums, or the Velvet Underground which he co-founded. Seeing it on the list is a good nudge to check into all that now. I do know 1919 was a shit year - general strikes all over the world including one of the biggest, yup, here, plus race riots started by white people all over the states, and in Paris the Peace Conference where the WW1 winners gathered to divide up the world, making Germany pay the bill for everything, and making WW2 practically inevitable, which is presumably what John's riffing on here. Really a record for our times.
I have 3 older sisters, our little Viking portable mono record player was very busy between each of them hauling it between bedrooms to play the Beatles and the Monkees. I still have their copy, same cool cover but the Canadian release was titled "Beatlemania! With the Beatles" and lists quotes from the press, which ruins it but I kind of like it. I listened to side one for the first time since then yesterday, it's the absolutely abused side because it has all the hits. Side two this morning, mostly covers and weaker originals, but they all come back. I'm by no means a Beatles purist, and these were the days when records were thrown together out of two hit singles and 10 fillers until the Beatles changed all that a couple years later with Rubber Soul. There were a lot of great rock and roll songs at the time but these still sound new, fresh, and different to me.
Got really excited with the chug a chug locomotive rock n roll opening number, but it turns out to be the only one. Really nice album, but nice isn't a great word for an album. Feels like the kind you fall in love with over a special summer or after a breakup maybe, the Brit critics seem to adore it, but for me not falling into any of those categories it just doesn't seem to hit hard or go far enough.
classically trained musician, that's my favorite review to date! Where's the like button, I can't find it on the desktop or mobile?? This is a brilliant band, brilliant album, for all the reasons ctm and wk said. I half-listened to it in the car and didn't really catch much of it, so thanks both of you, your reviews made me lean in on second listening. So much here to dig into on coming listenings, jumping the gun straight to the 5.
I like electronic music, or maybe I don't? The synth-pop side of early new wave used the alienating sounds of synths to make robotic alien music, Kraftwerk, Devo, Gary Numan and it was great. Blondie and Eurythmics and lots of others kept the synths and mixed back in the humanity and fun, plus house and techno go totally alienating but at the same time sensuous. And then it all gets mushed up together drowning in soundalike synths and processed cookie cutter singers like everyone's in daycare mixing every paint colour together and pop all turns into brown paint (I may be cutting some corners here, this is an emotional history of 80's music, still my favorite era) so that by the 90's we desperately need the revival of alt music and anything anything more real, but too late for me, I'd pretty much stopped buying new music and retreated to my high school vinyls. So that for me listening to my first MGMT album is kind of a puzzler. Thanks for the lived life background wiz-kid and korirock, that helps make sense of them. This album is full of great songs, and I know I would have loved them if I'd grown up with them. Hearing it now, it's like fuck, these are expressive songs full of passion in the writing, why is it all programmed to strip the passion right back out, I'm dying for a little analogue here to balance out the inhumanly perfect and boring beats, or just commit to the alienating sounds your making and go hard with them? Then again, I wanted to check where they've come to - the first track of Loss of Life I thought that's a perfect little childhood merry-go-round tune played with an ironic 80's midi sound -brilliant! Then they go full analogue for the next 5 songs and I practically vomited. Careful what you ask for.
I loved the video of their live Kids. That made sense of these guys and I like them again. I'll keep listening to find out how they got from there to here.
Yeah, everything everyone's saying here, except I had to experience this sound when it first came out (see my digression rant on 80s synth pop under Oracular Spectacular). I appreciate the irony of a band embracing robotic synths and singing style but never liked the results. The 80's had so much great music - both the robotic and the other direction - hope we more of what I call the good stuff soon.
ksigz - thanks for all the great factoids, I didn't about the polio source of her tunings, and especially your mom's shared name! I'm glad that instead of going straight to the review I listened to this one again, reminding me how much I love this album. For me the first 3 songs here are the warmups, the album starts at Other People's Parties as she starts stretching out into the introspection mode that really plays deeper into the jazz on the next two albums, my favorites. Here and everywhere she writes the best lyrics I know of. And I doubt there isn't an album that isn't the favorite a big chunk of Joni fans.
Another album I can't help loving as soundtrack to my life. I listened to everything Eno touched in those days. He invented ambient music, so I think of this album as one of the prototypes, soon crowded out by Windham Hill bland folk music with waves in the background. Before Spotify, every public place either had top 40 radio playing over the PA or Muzak - commercially created bland shopping music, pre-AI slop. So Eno wanted to try more interesting background music to be ignored or not. My 5 is both for my love for it, the innovation, and for the massive influence.
Another 80's band I ignored for some reason, so I didn't have any of the familiarity the rest of you grew up with and I'm so glad I listened to this album before I die. I didn't love the vocals off the top but the drums-bass-guitar are phenomenal, and by the end I was even liking the vocals. Better late than never, looking forward to growing into this one.
Seems impossible, but last week was my first time hearing Coldplay. Aggravating. Such a great songs, such a great voice, such criminal abuse of piano riffs. An entire album of soft rock versions of U2 ballads without anything included that makes U2 interesting. I would have quit halfway through but pushed on to see if they would ever vary it. Nope. First album in this list that's actually pissed me off.
This should hit one of my my sweet spots - jangle reverbed rockabilly guitar, big loud fast chords, 60's Byrd's sound that I don't much like in the Byrds, but we keep hearing bands influenced by the Byrds who sound so much better to me than the Byrds. Despite loving the sound of this album I didn't actually love any of the songs much, but the sound is so good I'm feeling like it might grow on me.
Chocolate Cake starts this off with great Carole King sounding piano chording, bam bam drums, love the vocals, love this song. I wish the album stayed in that rock and roll groove, but sadly it goes softer, more Byrds sound again but not the good kind, and instead of interesting the vocal harmonies just sounds repetitive and nasally for the next 6 songs. There Goes God gets interesting, Fame Is is not so bad, and then we're into a completely different approach to ballads for the rest of side two that I'm really kind of liking. Although side 1 is a a 2 for me I'm giving it a 4 just so I remember to check it out again for side 2.
Wait - there's hardcore punk jazz?? This album gets a 5 just for existing, but also because I think it may have changed my life. Never listened to Zorn or Ornette Coleman before, it's going to be frustrating unavailable on Spotify or Qobuz, just Youtube, but just gave me a whole new genre to investigate.. Best reviews on Reddit: "Sounds like an orchestra falling down the stairs and I absolutely love it." "Honestly having listened to it, i wish it wasn't available on any platform"
I'm getting more out of this album with each listen, lots to love here but it hasn't hit the sweet 5 star point yet, pretty sure it'll get there with time.
Love the guitar/drum/bass on this, such a clean sound, so driving, fantastic energy. But then there's those punk vocals, what I think of as shout style. I don't necessarily hate shout singing - love it from Devo - but Siouxsie and a lot of other punks shouted as a fuck off, and it works. 4 for the band, 1 for the vocals.
Loved the singer, the songs so much on first listen I'm just slapping a 5 on this to confirm at a later date. Zero immediately reminds me of Bjork on A Day Called Zero. Other songs the playful way she bends her really pure voice outside of a pure tone like Molly Rankin, always singing just on the edge of badly, love that. Also the bagpipe synths and military drumming on Skeletons, beautiful.
Yeah, too bad about Mother and Miss Gradenko, the two token non-Sting written songs. Everything else in here Sting is at the height of his songwriting before going all prissy precious in his solo life. Every Breath was so overplayed I can't stand hearing it any more, but Synchronicity II is my favorite police song. Murder By Numbers is a cool song added to the the Remaster I hadn't heard before, but I'd always loved that this album leaves you with the moody thoughtful slightly weird story turn on Tea in the Sahara, putting a completely different mood than the rest of the album, very cool.
Sexy, sad, gorgeous. Reminds me of the vibe on Why Can't We Live Together by Timmy Thomas, or Sade's cover of it. Hard to think of higher praise than that.
Always loved the kitchen party band sound and Come on Eileen and its timeless bros help the singer woo the girl Romeo and Juliet video, pretty much the template for the Back on 74 video and lots in between (nice surprise to see spotify shows a new video for the song, charting Kevin and the band aging as they play this song over the last 40 years, very cool, but you have to go to Youtube to revisit the classic video). This was the first time I checked the lyrics though - turns out the song goes way deeper, aside from Kevin thinking dirty thoughts for Eileen, which we would have guessed, he's also begging her to give up this dead end Irish Catholic life with all their parents' generation keeping them down with their sentimental nostalgia for Johnny Ray songs of their youth and the toora loora melodies of Irish folk music to breakaway for his ballsy optimism for the big city and opportunities together, like half of Bruce Springsteen's catalogue, and the way that story's fated to end you can see in Kevin's portrait on the album cover or the other half of Springsteeen's catalogue. Anyway, I had a good time diving deep into Come on Eileen this morning, and giving the rest of this album a second look, so the long post for a meagre 3 - I've never loved Kevin's warbling vocals, but there's about four songs here I'll come back for, a nice surprise.
Listened to the first 10 seconds of all of these, all solid genre pieces that will happily make their way into my Christmas playlist and never be heard any other time of year. Fun research question for some rainy day : I also clicked each song at about the halfway point, nearly every one of them landed in the midway instrumental break. Is that a Phil Spector standard trick or do all do-wops have the same mid-point break?
Just went for a walk with this on the frozen river lined with hoar frost trees. Gorgeous. As Cory might say pairs well with winter.
Beautiful album, great player and writer I didn't know about, easily worth a 4 or even a 5 within its genre if I knew more of its genre, but my personal rating system is settling more towards I'd buy the album = 5, I'll favorite the album on Spotify = 4, I might favorite a couple songs = 3, so, nice album, might favorite a song or two.
Listened to this in the car on interruptive errands, didn't see the point in it. Luckily I gave it a sit down full second listen, the point was made. Love love love this.
No interest in the "I'm so evil" guitar and singing metal style, so this is the first whole album I've listened to that I put in that bucket. It reinforced my prejudices, but I was surprised how little development any of these songs have - contrast with anything by Led Zep that all go on full and wild journeys - you can start on the first 30 seconds of any song then jump to anywhere else, and it's got the exact same tone and dynamics, all without the ease of modern looping.
I've loved this one forever. It's one of a kind though, the band changed drastically over the years following guitarist Robert Fripp's crazy experiment directions, most of which I also love, but they never repeated the take of this first album that pretty much launched prog rock.
Yup, I thought it was a kids album too, with a couple tame sex and cocaine references casually dropped. When I find out it's Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz from Talking Heads it's too late - even with all the same rythms of Remain in Light and Heads regular Adrian Belew adding Heads guitar sounds all over the place, it's catchy but most of it so simplistic and Tina and her sisters all singing little girl voices it's still a kids record in my mind - one I'd be happy to have added to my daughter's collection at age 3, but just feels disappointing given all the musicianship here. I'll dip into their later albums and see what developed, fingers crossed.
Nope. Just don't like these byrds. I didn't mind this one quite as much as The Notorious Byrd Brothers, and I like the backward guitar soumds. If they just didn't sing maybe.
Complete reappraisal time. Really hated Zepplin when my sister first brought them home after the Beatles broke up and you couldn't avoid them being played and adored by all red blooded males everywhere. So listening to it again end to end for the first time since, it's all familiar, but also way more fun and more to appreciate than I heard in it all those years. I've never realized how thoroughly rooted in blues everything here is and how great the bass is throughout, how innovative and immediate and adventurous these songs sound, especially compared to what became the sound of metal kingpins over the next couple decades, and how the heavy guitar/bass riffs I never liked really put these songs into a different place in the body than anything else I've ever heard. So somehow what was once a 1 has become a 5.
Still very (very) early in my rap and hip hop journey, it's funny to start with Kendrick's albums and then work back. Enjoying this one after a couple listenings, yeah I was caught by the first person narrative but assumed that's always been part of the genre - good to know this album was the first to do it.
Liking it so far, it feels like it has potential after enough listenings to become a comfortable old favourite, like if your roommate kept playing it and it creeps up on you, but on 2 listenings not there yet.
"I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record." So great to listen to this album again. I met it in 1992 in a fringe play about a couple of kids romance over the 80's decade. One of the actors brought in this album, her angst, heartbreak and anger dance music from her teens, Kiss Off became the theme song. Love the singing/screeching, the bass is amazing, and the over the top feelings that manage to be deeply ironic and hilarious without ignoring the teen passion all at the same. The last two songs, Ugly and Gimmie the Car are added bonus tracks added to the CD release 5 years later - to me they're both a huge on the nose intrusion on the tone of the rest of the album, it'll always end at Good Feeling for me.
Rod Stewart was a great straight ahead rock singer with Faces and the Jeff Beck Group. As a solo act he started with this softer rock/blues/country style. Not sure why this album would make this list, it's okay, but his next Album, Every Picture Tells a Story is his masterpiece, so much better, and after that he started making huge money with worse and worse music. I guess maybe I'd take the money too.
Don't mind the opening song but otherwise agree with wiz-kid, the strong stuff like Chris Robinson spitting through the pretty great 30 or so fast syllables chorus of Otis Redding's Hard to Handle is limited to the second side on an otherwise nothing special blues rock album. Funny roll of the dice hearing this back to back with Rod Stewart - unfair comparison given its their first album, but Rod can sing the lights out on similar material compared to Chris's, well, limited emotional range.
Wrote them off after Fight for the Right, so I never learned about their abilities as musicians - the tracks are great, if it was all instrumental only I'd give it a 5. Just can't get past their version of rap, maybe someday.
So good. I know a couple of Beck albums but not this one. A kick in the ass to go out and listen to the rest of his catalogue.
wiz-kid for more Dzama do you know the cover of Weakerthans' Reconstruction Site? For a deeper Winnipeg roots dive, search his art collective Royal Art Lodge
Yay Neil! First listen to Buffalo Springfield. It's kind of all over the place, I guess between the different early career soon to be superstar artists all contributing different pieces in different directions, but I love the way they play together, and some places like Bluebird the playing really gels. So many sounds here of good things to come, especially I think I'm hearing Crosby Stills Nash and Young on its way.
Naturally we all have our problem genres - country, jazz, 80's. For me the big one is classic metal. Great production on this album, every word, note, drum hit crystal clear, love the war drum throughout, and I rarely turn down a screaming guitar solo, but the damn music, yeah, no. One of my hopes and goals over the next 900 albums might be a respectful appreciation for a couple high water mark metal albums, this one included.
Great voice, but hearing that horrible bland 80's synth-pseudo funk arrangement of Come to my Aid I thought I'm going to fucking hate this album. Then he turns pure crooner on Sad Old Red and it's awesome, this is who this guy LIVES. The rest of the album he wanders around soul/jazz/r&B, soundling like an old diva on an old TV variety show - check his recent videos, it came to be. Big points for a truly weird cover of Talking Heads' Heaven, kind of love it.
My bad, I really disliked their version of prog rock on the first album and never went back to listen to another one. You can see the theatrical, retro, vaudeville seeds of Night at the Opera coming on Sheer Heart Attack, but I love this Queen Uncaged, Brian May Unleashed full on 45 minutes. Such a great surprise, wild epic music by a freaking great rock band instead of wild epic music by a freaking great choral society, all respect due to Opera, this is by far my preferred version.
Funny, I remember Wall Street Shuffle as a nothing song, didn't know it was 10cc, didn't notice them again until I'm Not in Love, which I always took as tongue in cheek. So I didn't know they were essentially a novelty act, is this really a whole album of pretty bland satrical songs? This is the first album I've given up on after 4 songs.
I so want this album to just keeping with the energy of Wanna Be Startin Somethin', close, but it's not like he couldn't have done it. I count it as 5 great songs, Human Nature included, Thriller not, and Billie Jean is one of those transcendent brilliant songs that's just in a class of its own. But The Girl is Mine? Shudder.
My Aim is True came out the year before, I didn't like his voice for a while but the frantic angry rock n roll throwback announced some new mad energy. This Year's Model in 1978 was the start of the 80's for me, I love every song on it, Pump it Up to Radio Radio. I bought nearly all of his next 10 albums, not all of them great but all interesting. My favorite lyricist next to Joni Mitchell.
"Blood, Blood, Blood, Blood, etc."
Can't believe how much I love this album. Sits really interesting coming so soon after listening to Metallica for the first time (bear with me), both take up the same sonic space mainly thumping the low and mid range, both use strictly limited repetitive rythm to enduce a trance state - one with guitar riffs the other with industrial noise and synths, both diving into fantasy - one on bad dreams and the Hobbit, the other on witches and Narnia, both with terrible singing. And I have a body experience reaction to each of them, Metallica leaves me feeling shitty, Liars - this album anyway - leaves me calm and incredibly happy, as soon as it was over I listened to it again. Honestly, I feel more appreciative of Metallica after this one, excited to check more of Liars.
In grade 10 got my free copy of Tres Hombres by calling in to CFRW FM, the only non-top 40 radio station and easy to win stuff from cause they didn't have a lot of listeners. Album sounded like fairly cool laid back cowboy blues and came with 2 free concert tickets what the hell. But the band had evolved fast, nothing cool or laid back. The 3 thin cowboys on the cover were big bellied, bearded, white Vegas style rhinestoned suits and gigantic Stetsons, a power trio blasting everything at Kiss concert volumes. I felt kind of betrayed, hard to complain about the price. I've never listened to anything else by ZZ, but I still like hearing this album now again, i don't think of it as hard rock at all, it still sounds like cool laid back cowboy blues to me.
What's going on? So much. Vietnam, violent racism, riots on campuses, police shootings, a government attacking it's own people. So still relevant? Also edge of 70's big strings and whacky show tune key changes, soaring backup voices, those congas! killer songs, lush sound all around, the weirdest spoken call and sung response with himself, and Marvin soft, urgent gorgeous voice pleading for peace. I didn't realize this was a concept album, soldier returning from the war and looking around at what America's become since he left. Amazing artist, Marvin went through a lot and produced a lot of great music in a short life, the Jesus and God part was an arrival for him, but if it's a bit much (it is for me), check his great Let's Get It On from 1973, full-on 70's Soul, his spiritual call for Peace and Love becomes a spiritual call for Sex and Love, less Jesus, more sexual healing. Mercy.
Really liking this, big sound, big vision. Very reminiscent of Destroyer in voice and theatricality. Fun watching the videos for every song too. Heartland: "This is the 51st state of the USA" Thatcher's Britain in 1986 or Trump's Canada 2026?
Another band I unfairly dismissed after their first single, time for a reassessment. Walked a frozen Canadian river 3 days in a row listening to this album, nicely fit the setting. They sure create a space of sound, I didn't expect to love Geddy's bass so much, and I've learned a lot from fan videos about why their following loves them so hard. So my interest in their music hasn't grown much, but my respect has. Curious whether 2112 moves my needle a bit more, and very curious how Anike Nilles fills the Neil Peart fills.
Really nice album. I only knew the one about the serial drummer lover, lots to like here, especially as the band's sound expands into nice weird places along the way.
I feel like I barely dipped my toe in at 3 listenings, liked it more each time and I'm sure that will grow. Go Habs.
Blues wants to be live, really enjoyed the parade of guest artists. 5 for the legacy, 3 for the album/
Went to the library with a friend in about grade 5 to try borrowing a record. He said you gotta get this one. Seemed evil and dangerous. I don't know if I ever listened to it, but it's better than what I've forgotten. Paranoid is a great track, Fairies wear boots stands out for side 2.
They made music like robots, now the robots have caught up.
Kinda love the Stooges, always love Iggy. Cool first album in the days of going into a studio and making up the filler really fast. Sick guitar nearly every song.
I really like some of the all-synth music from this era when it's consciously about the alienating new instruments that had no genuine connection between the fingers inputting and the sound outputting, the way Kraftwerk played with. 70's Tangerine Dream always sounded to me more like plastic flowers in a glass vase. Didn't know they were still making new albums for the next 50 years though, very curious to check how that sound evolved.
Totally agree with ksigz about the songs - great poet, great songwriter, but 60's Leonard singing is torture to me. Love 80's Leonard once the ciggies and whiskies did their work. (it's fun to search just about any song on this album on Spotify and hear better singers bring game to what great songs they are)
Sweet Love is absolute killer. But after that I gotta agree with the 70's/80's production complaints here. She's putting in genius performances but with that big anonymous sounding arrangements and wall of sound on every track, I really want to hear her sing with a stripped back band. Some digging to do.
I'm so happy to find there's a Byrds album I don't hate. I don't know how it made a list of important albums compared to the massive influence of their earlier stuff, but so glad to hear their country side bust out.
Love this album so damn much.
I didn't much like this album when Elvis burst out, sounded like 50's rock, an angry Buddy Holly and the Crickets like his Buddy glasses. It still sound like that to me now, but now I think an angry Buddy is a thing of beauty. This Year's Model and everything after changed my ears.
Not blown away with their first album, Steely Dan starts here for me, 5 brilliant albums in a row, plus Gaucho.
Hey kisigz, gotta respond to your note on all-cover albums - I realize you're questioning whether Dusty brought anything new and significant to already great songs, and not saying covers have no value, but it's a really interesting point and one I've thought about a lot and moved around a lot on. For a long time I wouldn't even listen to cover albums, it was all about original artists for me. But then that dismisses the value of Elvis, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, Joe Cocker, most blues players, jazz musicians, and virtually all classical musicians other than the composers, plus most actors and nearly everyone involved in theatre and film except the writers, as well as most of what the Shirelles and Dione Warwick recorded - Carole King and Bachrach and entire stables of writers wrote songs specifically for artists and still do, making those artists the interpreters of the music not the writers, so I don't see the difference between their first recordings and the covers that followed. And yet that said, 90% of what I listen to is originals, and yeah, I probably still value the originals more than the interpreters. Sorry to go on so long about music from 60 years ago, I'd love to hear anyone chip in about all this in music of the last couple decades. Back to a Girl called Dusty -
This album is such a box of chocolates surprise treat to me, I had no idea about Dusty earlier than the great smokey, sultry Dusty of Son of a Preacher Man and Spooky, but this is something different - white bread tones but the edge of blue-eyed soul was already there belting rock and roll, sounding so immediate, almost careless, this middle class English Catholic girl channeling Aretha like she's just singing for her own pleasure when nobody's watching, ripping it up on Nothing like she's ready to tear someone's clothes off, even if its 1964. Damn I love this album, so, 5.
Checked for other covers of Heard it Through the Grapevine. There's a playlist of 100 of them, I flipped through the first 20, not a single one I didn't like, including The Slits. All except CCR. That inimitable, famous CCR sound, I just don't like it.
I like their first single, Take it Easy, and Hotel California is stand out brilliant, but one grows tired of it. Eagles and CCR, it's not them, it's me.
Good clean fun, great old songs about ironic ways to die in the west, kind of Happy Tree House Friends of the 50's. But the playing and the voice and those happy old lonesome cowboys singing cautionary tales as coyotes howl just pull you in. This was a guy with his own K-Tel Marty Robbins Gold 20 Original Hits album advertised during the cartoons while I was growing up - he even sang them in person in a cheap TV studio for the commercial. You couldn't not make fun of him. Then one day, you smarmily slide the mouse over to the 1 a little prematurely. Or should it be 2? And then from the ear buds, wham! El Paso. Holy shit. Lodges in your heart like a lump of steaming lead. You know you done him wrong. You struggle fix it, to slide the mouse up the scale. Then face smashing the keyboard, a red tear trickling down your cheek, you hang on just long enough to catch the final tunes before you expire.
The Sugar Cubes' older American cousin, ABBA's evil kid sister. Another reason the best of the 80's all started in the 70's.
I like Sofia Coppola's movies, haven't seen this one, I'll bet the soundtrack works great. For album listening, no traction for me so far.
Pulled one way, then the other. Agree with korirok, Frontline at full blast is a great opener. Enough is another standout, which to me shares some DNA with Rihanna's Kiss it Better, and I mean that as a good thing. On the other hand, teeing them both up (criminally unfair to compare Kelela's first album but I'm going to anyway) the whole of Anti is similarly massive on production but every song is beautifully focused, and I'm with wiz kid, the electronics and production on Take Me Apart is a lot, which isn't necessarily a problem, it's absolutely what she's going for with conviction, I'm just finding it hard to grab onto. Curious to check out her later stuff, see where she takes it.
Funny, bouncy kinda bongos and flutey boppy funk groovacious sound. I'm kinda intrigued, kinda not interested, kinda 3, give it another listen down the line.
Edit one week later: yup, another listen, it's odd that there's so little edge but I'm loving the very laid back groove. Bumping it up 1.
The house I grew up in had Neil's early records on regular rotation. I remember not liking his voice, until suddenly I did, and it became part of life's soundtrack. But somehow not On the Beach, a really nice surprise. I find the spareness and emotion on this one gorgeous, a different palette than I can think of in any other of his albums, which is one of the reasons I love Neil - some of his albums are awful, some are great, but he doesn't repeat himself, he always finds another direction to try, always worth checking. I think I'm going to be playing this one a lot.
Loved the first album, Reckoning, more romantic melodies, the singing was lower, mumblier, almost impossible to distinguish the lyrics, sounded a lot closer to Dire Straits minus the virtuoso guitar. On this one I find the harsher cleaner sound really forgettable. Except The End of the World, that's just plain grand.
So good! So awful! Another album I grew up with, I don't think we ever played side one, the Butterfly side, I guess, the gagworthy side of 60's. Flip to the hilariously diggable Iron side of 60s psychedelia In the Garden of Eden, or the mumbled version of the title, just darn wonderful. I'd forgotten about the endless drum solo, a regular part of all pre-80's live shows, but I'm surprised how restrained and funky it is - love all the solos. I'm calling this a one-sided great album with no docked points for the comedy bonus side.
Always liked Nilsson's radio singles, Everybody's Talking is an all-time top 10 for me, lesser but good are Without You and Jump into the Fire on this one, and how can you possibly not like Coconut? But... never listened to a whole Nilsson album, or noticed how much he sounds like a Beatle on some tracks, good call.
Who knew? Okay, a few million people, but not me, so embarrassing to have missed out on Rage Against the Machine. Or on the Edgar Winter Band's Frankenstein homage on Know Your Enemy, or finding the source waters of The Matrix end credits. Glad all this ignorance is over, joining the revolution.
Keep just hearing PJ as Patti Smith. Gonna listen to some of her other stuff until I can hear her for herself. 4 as a placeholder for now.
Not huge on Elvis but surprised how much i enjoyed this. All decent tracks, and a great take on Fever, but 12xElvis is a lot for me even in 32 minutes.
What's not to love? Other than the annoying kid saying I love you I love you I love you.
A new to me 5er always makes my day. Phenomenal vocal writing and producing chops, phenomenal album. I played it once this morning and started again from the beginning - which I think I've done twice before in my life. I'm hearing Stevie Wonder all over the place, Janet Jackson's Rythm Nation, Queen, Doris Day, every James Bond theme song, yeah - Clare de Lune (thanks ksigz, couldn't place it), Kate Bush, Snow White era Disney, John Hartford's Gentle on my Mind, and one review cites Rogers and Hammerstein, Hendrix, Bowie and Lauren Hill, none of which I've noticed and there's probably a few dozen more in there. Top tracks: all of them.
The coolest tracks of our first 200 albums.
Halfway through the opening song I thought I was going to hate it, instead I'm obsessed. Totally agreed Classically Trained, love the clean production, the menacing guitars & drum, the whispering snarling don't-give-a-fuck vocals. The movie in my head is jaded trenchcoat spies lurking in permanent grey cold war Berlin.
Don't hate country but don't like much old school country, like this.
Love this same way as Boards of Canada - like they're doing the same anti-structure thing but out of different taps, chill and not-chill, soft and ultra-violent, minimal and minimal-but-maximal. And I can verify it works just fine with hearing aids and full crank on the system, though weirdly I like it a lot better through the ear pods, this sound seems to work best for me cradled right in close around my skull like it's crawling around inside.
