I grew up hearing all of Rod Stewart's 80s hits, and the big 70s hits. I liked a few songs, but overall was never a fan. So I wondered why there was a lot of praise for his early albums.
I'm glad I finally listened to this one. It's definitely more interesting and varied than the later pop hits. There are some good grooves, great guitar lines, and lyrics that resonate with the ups and downs of young love. I don't know that I'll come back to this album much, but if someone else puts it on I'll be happy to hear it again.
Potent! This album is wildly varied and feels a bit unconnected, but there's a powerful rock 'n roll core and some great guitar work. Going to listen again!
This is close to 3.5 stars. There's a lot of good stuff going here. On several songs Prince is at his peak, with observant lyrics and good rock-funk brews. He plays a lot of good lead guitar lines. But on other songs, it feels like he gets obsessed and won't quit. There are a few that go on too long, seemingly so that he could add some more overdubs. The album overall includes all the elements that made Prince great, but just doesn't add up to a cohesive whole.
I see why so many have called this the originator (or epitome) of trip-hop. But it's darker and slower than a lot of other trip-hop I've heard. For me, the vocals almost but don't quite work with the instrument sound. But this is groundbreaking and mesmerizing work, for sure.
I'd describe the sound of this album as ramshackle-inspired, and there was less of the inspired than I was hoping for. I was a bit let down. "The Weight" is a great song and there are a couple of others that are nearly as good, but many other songs feel like a jam session that needed some revisiting before pressing it onto a record.
What a voice, and what great retro-modern sound for the mid-00s.
It lives up to its reputation! I was impressed by the consistency here -- I knew the famous songs (Sunshine of Your Love, Tales of Brave Ulysses), but the others are great to.. (OK, the last track is just weird.) Three great musicians cooking up strange wonderful brews.
This is semi-adventurous territory for sure, a mix of driving rock, pop, and dance music. They hit some unique notes. I’ve never heard a dance song in 9/8 time before. But overall it doesn’t grab me and make me wanna listen again.
Rap feels largely foreign to me, and this album didn't get me a lot closer to understanding it. Some of the lyrics are brutally honest and self-reflective, and I respect that.
Really enjoyed this one. It's kind of a perfect party album. Turn it up and everyone can dance to the beats. Turn it down, and it's background music while people chill and talk. If there's a lull in conversation, there's plenty here to catch your ear.
Given how many samples are mixed in to these tracks, it's amazing how coherent and organic it feels. Gonna check out other albums this group has made.
It has all the elements of great blues-rock, but the pieces just don't add up to great songs.
I was expecting something heavy, dark, and brooding. This album was heavy, but surprisingly (to me) bright and poppy. The playing is tight and energetic, and you can sing along to everything. Job well done.
The musicianship here is clearly high-quality: relaxed, economical, flowing. But the songs don't move me a lot. Maybe you have to be in a café in Cuba -- or have the memory of it -- to really appreciate this.
Such a sweet album. It's probably Nick Drake's least good, but the bar is so high from the other two albums, it's still great. The only "weakness" of this album is that the instrumental backing feels a little random at times (here's a flute solo out of nowhere!). But it's all high quality. And the consistency comes from Drake's ruminant lyrics and his beautiful soft voice.
I love this project for bringing me albums like this -- unlikely gems that I had no idea existed.
Willie Nelson singing old Broadway and jazz standards? It works, and in fact, it's magical. Every one of these is a tall cool drink on a warm breezy day, gentle and soothing.
If the old standard songs aren't your thing, this album probably won't convert you. But it's unique, and gorgeous.
He could sing with passion for sure, and I enjoyed some of his piano licks. But overall this didn't grab me. Give me Nat King Cole.
Is there any type of music that polarizes opinions more than punk?
If you want something loud that you can shout or scream along to, lets you vent rage or desperation or nervous energy, that never sounds corny or sleepy or weird, then this is for you. And credit to the band, these short songs get in and out without lingering too long on anything.
If you want melody, harmony, innovation, chords you've never heard, comfort, poetry, or sweetness, there's nothing here for you.
My main criticism is that this album offers the same thing, over and over again. That may appeal to some. Not to me.
This feels like a best in class album, more a representative of the top class of a music genre rather than particular artistic brilliance. The genre here is big band blues, led by a confident, experienced singer. Overall good stuff. What’s missing for me is more guitar. I think King’s guitar playing is his best asset, and here it’s more of a garnish than a main course.
Beautiful a cappella singing, and really distinctive. Highly recommend seeing them live -- but after 30 minutes, it's all the same. Same for this album.
I'm not much of a hip-hop fan, but I can imagine putting this on for pleasure listening. The rapping is clear and usually meaningful. The tracks have more than just beats (which are really good) -- in fact, there's usually a lot mixed in, but it's coherent. Rich stuff here.
I'm always impressed by Neil Young's ability to swing from the dark and serious to the silly within a single album.
Looking back 46 years, it's easy to appreciate where this album sits and why it still sounds great. It draws on earlier-70s rock and roll, embraces the punk of the day, and foreshadows 80s alternative (check out the jangly guitar on multiple tracks). It's relentless, committed, and FUN.
I've loved this album for a long time. A top-notch rock band in peak form playing great songs. There's some prog-rock experimentation but they never lose track of the grooves and power chords. What a pleasure to come back to this. Check out "Won't Get Fooled Again" for some utterly insane drumming.
There were some good tracks. Still don't engage with the rapping.
Listened to about half of this. Loud, heavy, angry industrial hard rock with vocals that are mostly controlled screaming. No thank you. I can appreciate that there's craft in how these tracks are assembled, but I can't listen to more of it. Also don't want to support a guy with a trail of sexual assault allegations.
Mmm, delicious. Like hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, but the most interesting hot chocolate. What are all those subtle flavors? The tone is constantly shifting from melancholy to happy, cool to warm, still to moving. I'll be coming back to this one.
Ah, this is the edgy, inventive post-Genesis Peter Gabriel that I've heard about. Much more interesting than his later albums like So and Us. I don't like everything on this album, but he's creating new textures and not trying to polish everything into radio-friendly formats, and I love that kind of creative energy. Also, "Biko" is a forgotten classic and a story we need to remember.
This album helped me understand why I've always felt meh about the Rolling Stones. It's partly that they almost always sound ramshackle, which only appeals to me in small doses. But it's mostly that I just don't like Mick Jagger's singing. If that's a not a problem for you, then maybe you'll love this album. There are some undeniably good songs here. But I'd rather hear someone else sing them.
This is what I imagine vintage country sounding like. Strong singing, homespun-sounding lyrics about love and life, lots of space in the arrangements for the steel guitar to resonate. Goes by quickly and smoothly.
I really enjoyed this album. Have I said that about a rap album before? Something about the tag-team rapping really works here, and the energy is forward-moving and positive. Other than "One of Them", this is a great album.
The vision and genius here is awesome. The guitar work isn't work -- it's pure creative energy unleashed, the fingers and effects united with the imagination. The album as a whole is sprawling and a lot to take in all at once -- too long for me.
For all the apocalyptic lyrics and heavy sound, this is ultimately melodramatic pop music -- with heavy distortion and fuzz. It's a spectacle, expertly delivered with full commitment from the band.
Solid rock 'n roll.
Peppy alternative rock... didn't grab me.
Wow. There is some crazy genius talent here, both the rapping and the production. I may never be a real rap fan, but I can appreciate the delivery, the sway, the creativity on this record. The backward rapping on "Work It" is just awesome.
Really had trouble getting into this one, other than the beats.
I remember hearing the name Franz Ferdinand a lot 20 years ago, but I didn't recognize any of the songs... and I wonder why this album is on the 1001 list. It's not bad musics, but I didn't find it catchy or engaging or skillfully played. Just indie rock. Someone else enlighten me.
Creative AND catchy. Very singable pop tunes with a lot of fun hooks and experimentation with electronic tools.
After reading some reviews, I was expecting this album to be terrible or very distinctive (maybe both). It turned out to be really normal and average. Early 70s rock 'n roll with a lot of looks back to the 60s. The lyrics are more overtly and consistently sex-focused than a lot of other records, but they're not at all extreme for rock music.
Like some of the other reviews, I don't see how this made the 1001 list. It's fine, it's fun, but it's not remarkable. Alex Harvey was apparently an influence for punk and alternative, but I don't hear why on this record.
This album feels like a relic now, but I think it's a bit of a forgotten treasure. It was an update of a lot of traditional American music forms, it still sounds great, and it's really well played.
IT'S SO GOOD.
I played this album a lot for a year or two when it was first out, but I hadn't listened from at least 30 years. It's not only held up, I think it sounds even better with age. In 1990 it was talked about as a retro alternative album, an old-school rock 'n roll statement in the era of hair metal. But now it just sounds timeless.
What struck me today was how The Black Crowes took their time here. They rock steady in their grooves and build their songs without high-speed attacks, and I love it. If your guitar riffs and lines are this good, please do linger on them and let them grow. I'm here for all of it.
Thoughtful, reflective.
What a singer.
I've heard lots of Elvis songs over the years, but I can't remember listening to a full album before. This was a great place to start. A lot less rockabilly than his early smashes, and a lot more schmaltzy, but his singing is so rich and mature. Forget the tracks if you don't fancy them, just enjoy the voice.
I don't see the greatness here. There is some interesting tonal stuff at times -- unexpected chords or harmony -- but overall, I think you have to love Wainwright's singing or this is just a lot of melodrama. Didn't work for me.
If you wanted to make a trance album, but all you had was an electric guitar, an effects pedal, and a microphone, I guess you'd make this album? It drones on and on and never gets interesting... which I know is kind of the aim of trance music, but I couldn't find a way into it. Boring.
I didn't like this at all. I expected more energy from Iggy Pop, but he sounds dull here, and his lyrics just aren't interesting. The tracks plod, plod, plod. The last two songs get a little more interesting, but I probably should have quit by that point.
So I'm stunned by all the 5-star reviews here, describing these songs as basically the opposite of what I heard. Amazing how we can all hear music so differently.
The reviews informed me this was a collab with David Bowie. I didn't know that until after I listened, and honestly this did not sound like a Bowie record to me at all. There's Bowie I like and Bowie I hate (including his later version of China Girl), but at least all of it is inventive. This was boring.
Strange to come back to this album, which I owned when it came out and listened to a lot and never really loved, so many years later. I'm trying to listen with fresh ears, but it doesn't sound fresh.
This is a muscular album with a lot of strong, loud beats. Most of the songs are very dance-floor friendly. But a lot of that muscular feeling comes from later 80s sounds that feel really dated now: reverb-heavy drum machines, synth bass, and brassy keyboards. In fact, there's a lot here that epitomizes Top 40 music of the time: massively hyped, big bold sounds, mostly synths, and a couple of dreamy ballads. Michael Jackson's singing is still unique, but he's leaning so hard into his gasps and affects that he sounds impersonal much of the time.
A bigger problems is that a lot of the songs just aren't that good. The Way You Make Me Feel is a standout dance track, and Another Part of Me and Just Good Friends have strong grooves. But many of the rest are uninspired.
It feels like Jackson is trying really hard to prove that he's still the king of pop. Trying too hard
It's a mix. There are some twangy ballads, some even-keel instrumentals, and a couple of sillier upbeat instrumentals. It feels like Willie inviting some friends over on a warm afternoon, trying out some different styles, and sending it off to the record company without worrying about sequencing or consistency. There's a gentleness to all of it that holds it together.
Suzanne Vega's first album... she's already really good at making songs that take you into gray moods and liminal spaces. Her acoustic guitar work is sharp. The downside is that her vocals are mixed kind of low, and her voice fades into the background enough that it's hard to make out her words sometimes... and we should hear her words! The Queen and the Soldier is an early classic. 3.5 stars.
This was indeed a big change for Beck, and one he clearly, fully committed to. It's basically all ballads. Seems like he just decided he wanted to fully explore this slow contemplative space, without worry about balance. Credit to him.
His singing gets mumbly at times, and I wish it were more clear. But other times, he sounds a lot like Nick Drake, and it's beautiful.
This is a perfect album for this project: you should definitely hear it once, even if you hate it.
The simple description of this music is bubblegum pop songs played with the reverb and distortion turned up to 11. Actually, I don't think it's much more complicated than that. By now a lot of bands have followed this formula, but I think Jesus and Mary Chain were one of the first to do it. Which makes this album sound almost quaint, which feels like an absurd thing to say about such cacophonous music.
I don't need to hear this album again, but JAMC are so over-the-top committed to this sound, there's a kind of hilarious genius to it. Gotta respect.
I avoided this album back in the day because I quickly tired of Sledgehammer and I hated Big Time.
But it turns out, the rest of the album is quite good! In Your Eyes remains gorgeous 40 years later, and the other six tracks have similar reflective and atmospheric feels, unlike the two up-tempo singles. The album very much carries the synth-heavy sound of the mid-80s, but Peter Gabriel is artist enough to do interesting things with those synths.
I still hate Big Time, but it's more interesting having learned that the bass was played with drumsticks.
I found this much celebrated record to be full of fine rock 'n roll, but nothing that really got me grooving until the last track.
Soft lush-folk tracks, philosophical lyrics, singing that is half-speaking... this didn't grab my heart or my attention, but it is interesting stuff. Worth returning to.
Listen to the first and last songs. If you don't like them, you can move on.
Me, I love this album. It pulled me in the first time I heard it more than 30 years ago. The story I make up is that a country singer wanted to do smoky jazz lounge numbers, so she brought her steel guitars and fiddles into the studio, played them slow and sweet, and came up with the perfect accompaniments for her gorgeous, languid voice. I've never heard another album quite like this one, and it's hard to imagine anyone other than k.d. lang doing it.
The critique that a lot of the songs are similar and not excellent on their own is valid. But I think it works on this album, which maintains a quiet, yearning, vulnerable mood throughout. It's beautiful, at times achingly so.
Fun listen! The songs and the vocals are stylistically varied and often kind of weird, so you don't know what's coming next. The lead guitar work is great throughout, and I enjoyed focusing on that.
This is a slippery one that seems to fit several categories, sort of. It has shades of new wave and alt-rock that would come years later, along with some beautiful flowing lead guitar lines. Nothing about the lyrics grabbed me, but I may come back to this one to see if there's more under the hood.
It's got a lot of energy, snarl, and humor. It's missing melody and complexity.
Several reactions to hearing this much-beloved album for the first time:
- It sounds a hallmark of its time, evocative of so much other folk-rock from the 60s.
- It also sounds dated. No one makes music that sounds like this anymore, so heavily focused on singing harmonies.
- It's bittersweet to hear this, especially when the vocals are beautiful, knowing what happened to the group.
- California Dreaming and Monday Monday are still great songs.
- By track 8, it was all sounding the same.
Glad to discover this modern folk album, as I'd never heard of John Grant. But it left me with an odd impression. The plainspoken songs are very personal and emotional, yet they didn't feel original.
I remember Buffalo Stance being all over the radio, but I'd never heard the rest of the album until now. It sounds so... normal, compared to the free-spirited wackiness of Buffalo Stance. There are several late-80s soul songs (sung well!) and more raps, and it's all fine, but nothing too distinctive.
erm... was hoping to like this more than I did. The two big hits are great songs. Most of the rest had a lot of pop but just weren't all that good.
It really does deserve all the five-star praise. It's the masterwork of a generational talent who spent a decade and a half building to this. It's still so, so enjoyable to listen to.
This is a "best in class" album -- not really groundbreaking, but an exemplar of a particular type of music. That type I think is the so-called "new romantic" -- 80s pop that wanted to keep the best elements of yacht rock and disco while embracing synths and the big drama of 80s music. This album succeeds on all those fronts, and most of the songs are solid, but I find this to be a genre with a ceiling. Even though it's well-executed, I don't think it's worth another listen.
Having heard this album described as an exemplar of 60s psychedelia, I was expecting some more... psychedelic. White Rabbit and a couple more tracks definitely are trippy, but the rest is different shades of blues and twangy, mellow 60s rock, like the Yardbirds or Tommy James and the Shondells. It's pretty good stuff, honestly, a relaxing and ear-catching album with a couple of crazy songs that jump out and grab you.
My initial reaction, sustained throught the album:
Your high school friend has this band he keeps talking about, who you havan't heard much but they sound kind of loud. He keeps saying they want to play concerts so you bug your mom into hiring them to play at your backyard graduation party. The band comes and it turns out they don't suck! The singer stays on key, the guitarist has some legitimate licks, the drummer is a bit nuts but fun to listen to, and they don't try to hide their flaws by turning everything to 11. But there's also the random rhythm changes, long guitar solos that meander to nowhere, and chaotic drum fills that high school garage bands with counter-cultural aspirations always indulge in. So you don't mind when they're done. Then you find out your sister recorded it on cassette, and that's what we're hearing now.
Then I read all the comments about this being the original (proto-)heavy metal album. I can... kind of see that? They do sound sort of like heavier versions of Cream and Jimi Hendrix, and I can respect that Blue Cheer pushed their sound heavier than anyone else at the time. But Blue Cheer doesn't have the songs or the focus of those other great artists, nor the metal that followed.
Funny how time changes perception. I used to agree that this was one of the most creative and groundbreaking albums of all time, and that made it a masterpiece. Now I'm not so sure about the masterpiece part, although it remains incredibly original and genre-breaking.
Listening to the Beatles' whole catalog straight through, it's obvious that they became better and better songwriters. At the same time, their albums become less and less coherent products of a band, and more collections of songs by individuals working independently. Sgt Pepper is the album where the coherent band starts to come apart. Lots of good and original songs, but as an album it's kind of broad and random. Good on the Beatles for doing whatever they wanted, but they don't effectively tie it together, the whole Sgt Pepper conceit notwithstanding.
I can respect that this album is creative, richly sourced, thoughtfully crafted, and Kendrick Lamar has lots to say. I liked the conversations at the end of the last two tracks -- reflective, open.
But if this is the cream of '10's hip-hop, then I just can't get into this whole genre, period.
The strength of this album is a couple of soaring songs -- Take On Me and Hunting High and Low. The downside is that it's so steeped in the sound of its time. By the end it's an overdose of 80s synthpop.
But there was always more to a-ha than Take On Me. Here and there an acoustic guitar or actual drums break through, enriching the sound. Similarly, there are a couple interesting songs beyond the big singles, Train of Thought in particular, where the lyrics are more distinctive. Hints of the growth the band would exhibit on future albums.
I'm a big fan of a few later Tracy Chapman albums, so it was illuminating to return to this one, which i hadn't listened to in probably 30 years. My biggest impression: she already had it on her first album. Songs with sharp lyrics, very singable tunes, quality arrangements that don't get in the way of her words. What a great singer and songwriter.
First time I remember listening to Prefab Sprout, despite hearing the name a lot in the 80s. I really liked this album. I also don't understand why it's on this list.
They have a nice clean soft rock sound, with a lot touches from 80s synths that don't overwhelm the acoustic foundations -- nice. The lyrics aren't run-of-the-mill, so there's lots to catch your ear.
That said, this isn't a distinctive album. I could write the same description about other Scottish / North English bands of the time, like Deacon Blue or Aztec Camera. Maybe this one came a couple of years earlier, but was it really breaking new ground?
Like it or hate it, this album and its massive hits were everywhere in 1985 and into 1986. Its success was outdone only by its ambition. These guys were talented and clearly aiming to make bigger and deeper music than their contemporaries. In only 8 songs, they cover a huge range -- the sing-a-long anthem Shout contrasts with the inscrutable Mothers Talk.
In retrospect, though, did Tears For Fears make a lasting impact? These songs still sound so distinctive. Maybe no one even bothered to try to imitate them.
This was an album I struggled with when It came out in the mid-80s. I was a big fan of Simon and Garfunkel, but I didn't love many of these songs. And there was so much buzz around this album. A lot of people thought it was brilliant and loved it, to the extend that there was pressure to like it (annoying). People also criticized Paul Simon for working with South African musicians despite the boycott on the racist Apartheid government-- even though Simon was working almost (completely?) exclusively with Black musicians.
So it's easier to appreciate this record in retrospect, seeing where it fits into the long arc of Paul Simon's career. In that view, it's a big and risky creative leap for a peerless songwriter who'd had 20 years of acclaim and success. He tossed his comfortable soft-rock sound for South African sounds that few Western audiences were familiar with, and built songs out of jam sessions with musicians he traveled to South Africa to meet. I think this impacted his lyrics too -- they were always flowing and laden with imagery, but on Graceland they're even more free-form, like improvisations.
So does this all add up to good music? Mostly! There's a ton of creative energy here that carries things along, which I enjoyed even if I didn't love a particular song. Some of the lyrics just plain don't make sense. But Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes is a great song.
Stevie Wonder created so many of the sounds and textures of pop and soul music from the 70s through today. Where would music be without Superstition and You've Got It Bad Girl? This is one of his string of early-70s albums on which he grew, stretched, explored, and elevated the music of the time. Listen to the sound of a genius at work.
I've long respected the creativity of Talking Heads, even if I only like a couple of their songs, and that same adventurous energy is evident here on this side project by two TH members. Genius of Love is irresistible. Not a lot else really grabs me, but I can also say I haven't heard many other albums like this, even though it came out 45 years ago. Tip of the hat to those who expand the sonic landscapes of their time.
It's amazing how much this sounds like a debut album. Like a new singer on a low budget who didn't know yet what he could with strings and horns and studio effects, giving us a stripped down set of unpolished, passionately sung songs. Of course, John Lennon was a master songwriter and absolutely knew what he was doing in a studio, so I'm sure this is what he wanted. Some tracks feel like he was the only one there. Maybe Lennon was trying to put major distance between himself and the last Beatles' records, and he came up with the epitome of a rock singer-songwriter album.
The main focus of this live album seems to be James Brown's vocal vamping, which for a lesser singer would just be screaming. Brown manages to stay on pitch and keep his emotional focus, even though he really is screaming. It's impressive.
Beyond that though... I just wasn't impressed. Nothing else memorable. I'm glad some of the rest of y'all enjoyed it so much. Not for me.
Compared to Paul Simon's earlier work with Simon & Garfunkel, and his upcoming solo albums, this is more modest effort. But it still has all the qualities that make his music great: masterful acoustic guitar playing, imaginative flowing lyrics, and a sympathetic view of the characters he writes songs about. It's always good to spend time with a Paul Simon album.
This is near the peak of early 70s folk rock, which had a lot of competition. CSN had already set a high bar with their first album, and adding Neil Young went about as well as they could have hoped for -- he augmented their sound and songwriting, in particular with his edgier lead guitar lines, without hurting the chemistry and harmonies that CSN already had. The songs here are a bit up and down in terms of quality, or at least impactfulness. But Woodstock and Helpless almost push this to 5 stars on their own.
Is this the epitome of Countrypolitan? Or the ultimate mournful country collection? Maybe both at once! Not my favorite stuff, but it’s classy.
Very groove-able! At times I liked the backing band, especially the pianist, better than the trumpet.
This is a nice, thoughtful collection of songs, with the usual Peppers edge and some snarl, but not the bite of their earlier albums.
An album full of good songs and great singing. It may have been a more important album for these artists to make than it was a grand musical statement, but out of the context of its time it still holds up well.
The songwriting is definitely sharp, and the jangly post-punk sound here is also sharp. It's an economical set of energetic, appealing songs.
This is good, driving electronica, very beat-heavy. Not sure what sets this apart from others, though.
The heart of hard rock is here. Few have matched it.
Clear-eyed and beautiful.
Chalk this up as a win in the "you've never heard something like this before" category. I didn't know how to listen to this at first, but it helped to read a basic description: Brazilian styles crossed with 60s psychedelia. And they lean heavy into the psychedelia.
Enjoyed this. Modern soul mixed with electronic beats, in sweet ways that flow and work well.
This is the first Beck album I spent a lot of time with, and twenty years later I still really enjoy its eclectic sampling and zany energy. It does get to be a lot of the same by track 12, though.
Radiohead may be the most creative, inventive band of their generation. Amnesiac is one of their most boundary-pushing albums, full of chilly textures and electronic experiments. But is it one I would put on again and again? -- no.
I love this. They explored unusual rhythms and landed on some exceptional soft grooves. The sax and piano are played so well. I could listen to this endlessly.
I'm starting to wonder what people see in the Kinks. Was it innovative at the time? It sounds like mildly original but otherwise mid-level late-60s brit pop. Other people were doing this better.
This was a slow grower. My first reaction was, OK, Latin, vaguely tango-y, nothing exciting. But more and more in turns into Tango-flavored downtempo, and there are a lot of interesting textures.
Always wondered about this album. Turns out... it's rap.
On the plus side, there's a lot of creative sampling, the sound is really crisp, and the Boys clearly had fun making it.
On the minus side, it's skin-deep rap: guys yelling about stuff that doesn't matter.
Mostly the same thing over and over again -- 4/4 beats, driving synths, slightly bluesy guitar. I'd rather hear the guitar work without the other stuff.
I mean, it's Frank. What an amazing singer.
I haven't heard much that's as heartfelt as this. The rhythms are slow, the guitar is meditative and pleading, and he's pleading from the depths of his soul.
A lot of good heavy rock 'n roll here, driven by solid bass and can't-miss guitar riffs. No real killer songs, though.
This great record sounds like so much other mid-90s music -- Beck, Sublime, even a little Beastie Boys -- but somehow remains distinctive, with its fusion of blues into all those other genres. And it still sound fresh, despite being so utterly 90s.
Still doesn't do it for me. I can appreciate the ambition and craft here -- the energy and grandeur of 70s prog rock crossed with the bright shining drama of Broadway musicals. It's like the ultimate soundtrack to a teen romance movie. But so over the top.
Way out there, stimulating stuff. You could spend hours and days wandering in these sonic landscapes.
The R.E.M. Effect: When a good band that makes some great songs but also some bad ones becomes a fad and gets called the greatest band in the world. (also see: Coldplay)
I remember this as the album when critics started calling R.E.M. an all-time great band. There are some really good songs here -- Welcome To the Occupation and The One I Love stand out, and It's The End of the World... is still a hilarious batshit-crazy classic. But there are also some real clunkers: Exhuming McCarthy is sloppily played, and Strange is just bad. Why did people fawn over this album?
To be fair, a couple of future R.E.M. albums were a lot more consistent and complete. But this one exemplifies how much of a mixed bag their output was.
Great stuff! Reminded me a lot of early Led Zeppelin, but closer to progressive rock with the organ and frequent rhythm changes. Ian Gillian is awesome on vocals.
Love this album so much.
Solid stuff.
I have respected Public Enemy from the first time I heard them (or read their lyrics). They have things to say worthy of your attention, and it's almost all political, not saturated with bragging and misogyny like a lot of later rap. But I've never really liked the underlying tracks. The beats are solid, but the sampling is often distracting and too often random-feeling to me.
Well, if this isn't the epitome of 60s hippie rock -- chiming guitars, spacey vocals. It's very pretty, but I didn't find any of the songs memorable.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this album. I've always thought that Adele was a great singer stuck singing mostly average songs. But this is a really good collection of songs, carried by strong arrangements and quality playing to support her excellent vocals. She's not breaking any major new territory, but this is well-made pop/soul and I'll come back to it.
Thoroughly enjoyable, barely memorable 90s brit-rock.
Invites you to sit in its melancholy.
This is as good as pop music gets.
Rush pulled off something that apparently no one else could -- progressive-rock rhythms, heavy guitars, modern (at the time) synths, and bright vocals, making a blend that still sounds fantastic. An amazing album.
I love this project for introducing me to stuff outside my usual musical radar, like this. Can't say I loved this one, though. Seems from an era when the singer was really a performer, like the star of a musical. Not my stuff.
I had forgotten just how great of a tunesmith Aimee Mann is. And that completes the whole package -- lyrics, inventive music, beautiful singing.
It's a classic, but I think mostly because it has a few spectacularly good songs. The rest are uneven, although certainly there's nothing bad here. Some of the songs just don't feel finished.
I was struck by a few things on this listen:
- Larry's drumming is really good, and drives the album just as much as the vocals and guitar
- Edge's background vocals are (always) underrated, and there's a call-and-response arrangement for him and Bono on the majority of the songs.
- This still sounds like a post-punk album more than the Lanois/Eno-produced atmospheric albums to come, but you can absolutely here Edge developing the guitar sounds that would dominate Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.
This is right in line with the handful of post-70s Tom Waits songs I've heard over the years: there's melody and tenderness there but it's almost buried under harsh and sometimes highly distorted singing and effects. He's a great songwriter, but his boundary-pushing sounds are often hard to listen to.
After many years, I still don't get why this album is on so many greatest-ever lists.
It's fine. It's definitely adventurous -- there's lots of punk-ish energy at the core and the band explore lots of styles. They can play decently. The singing isn't great, but it's very much within the norm of punk and rock.
I just don't find myself jamming along with most of these songs, besides Clampdown and maybe Train in Vain. No resonance. It's fine but nothing more. The rest of y'all can go on enjoying it, but I don't see why.
I've tried with this album multiple times. I don't love it and I don't think it's one of the greatest from one of the greatest artists.
I wish I liked Dylan more, since many of my friends do, and they rave about his poetic lyrics. He has good melodies, and he can offer penetrating commentary. I don't even mind his raspy, imprecise singing. But honestly his songs are rambly, the chords are simple over and over again, and his lyrics are often just inscrutable. Some them have 5, 6, 7 verses, which doesn't make them better, it just means there's even more that I don't get.
Maybe I needed to be high in the 60s. Maybe I just need to sit down and study the words. But most of the time I'm not looking for music to study. I'm looking for music to enjoy.
Seemed like every time I tuned into the words, Ye or someone was dropping the n-word, bragging about something, or talking about violent sex. Made it hard to appreciate anything else about this supposedly classic album.
It's fun, it's energetic, it's 90s britpop. It's lost on me why I should hear this album as opposed to the hundreds of others from its time.
Seemed like every time I tuned into the words, Ye or someone was dropping the n-word, bragging about something, or talking about violent sex. Made it hard to appreciate anything else about this supposedly classic album.
There's subtly a lot here, and it doesn't all hold together. It sounds like a 60s psychedelic band trying out lots of different sounds and not settling on one. Eight Miles High and John Riley sound like early Crosby Still & Nash, but Wild Mountain Thyme just kind of gets lost.
Honestly, I've never liked the Pixies and struggled to understand what others like about their music. Every time one of their songs starts to get tuneful, some out of place distorted guitar tears up the sound or Black Francis screams something weird.
I hadn't heard Bossanova before, but it didn't help.
It's sharp, it's well-played and passionately sung... but nothing held my attention here.
I listened to this album a lot back when it was new, but not for years since then. So how did it hold up?
Really well, I'm happy to say, at least musically. There's a lot of good guitar riffs and grooves, a good balance of muscle and sweetness, and they do a lot of great things with interweaving vocals. Still sounds great.
Lyrically... I guess it's typical REM. Sometimes Michael Stipe evokes beautiful relatable images (You Are the Everything, The Wrong Child). Sometimes he's really saying something (World Leader Pretend). Sometimes he writes half a song and repeats himself (Get Up, Orange Crush). Sometimes he just doesn't make any sense (Stand).
Not as boundary=pushing as Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, but good heavy blues-driven rock.
I had never hear of Scott Walker, so this was an interesting discovery. Similar to the Carpenters in that way. He has a beautiful voice, and while I thought his delivery was a bit stiff, it was still really nice to listen to. These songs and arrangements must've sounded totally retro when they came out in the late '60s. Thematically they're more like dramatic Broadway numbers, but with pop song structures and some psychedelic guitars working their way in on occasion.
Wow, this was good.
Dusty in Memphis is the album we always hear about, but this one does a better job of showcasing her great singing and especially her delivery, which she nuances for different styles. This is pre-Beatles 60s pop at its best.
So I had only heard the singles from this album before today. Now that I've heard the whole thing, I still don't like Nirvana. Unlike most people my age (apparently), their combination of heavy guitars, screaming, and mumbled rage never moved me.
One thing impressed me here -- the way they chose to follow up the multi-platinum arena-packing success of Nevermind: even heavier guitars, frayed sounds, darker lyrics. Not a whiff of an attempt to recruit more fans. That's probably the best way they could have done it, and I'll tip my hat to that.
As a child of the 80s, I was not into Iron Maiden. They kind of scared me. Maybe it was the ghoulish album art, or the bits of songs that I heard that were so heavy and minor-key.
So I appreciated this re-introduction. What surprised me the most is how *musical* this album is. Melodies, harmonies (largely in the guitars), contrast, big soundscapes that they explore and fill with innovation. The songs sound thoughtfully constructed -- in particular, the tempo changes feel purposeful. This is good stuff.
Funny that the title starts with "Modern", since the style is retro even for 1962. My daughter accurately described it as, "old romantic movie music," and it evokes the 1940s. Completely genre-busting, and it sounds great, but I doubt I'll listen to it again.
Groovy, soulful stuff.
Kicks is a great single. Nothing else here is at that level, but it's solid.
The soul songs are all right. Too bad there's only a couple of them.
Has the intensity of White Stripes that I've heard before, but kind of all over the place. They're trying lots of different instruments and textures, and that's kind of it -- lots of trying things, not really settling on anything.
One thing I'll always give Christina Aguilera credit for: she can sing, and she has great pipes. And there are some good songs on this album that she elevates. The problem here is that the range of songs is limited. Pop and soul, ballads and belters, not much else. If this were two albums released a year apart, we'd say the second album was just more of the same. Releasing it all as a double album doesn't change that.
This album has always been too frenetic and jittery for me, but there is still something genius in the rhythms. The music engages you on several levels simultaneously, which I find exhausting, but it's amazing. Also, Once In a Lifetime is brilliant.
This is the peak of the big band.
Beautiful singing, pastoral settings, contemplative lyrics. Just my kind of stuff.
A couple of songs here are pretty tuneful, and the lyrics are more fun and gleeful than angry rage. But it's still punk, not offering much musically.
If this had become the dominant form of rap, I might feel differently about the genre. Credit to these guys for having things to say and not bragging about it or threatening to kill people. Their rapping flows well, too.
The downside is that most of the tracks are musically pretty plain. The beats are simple, the samples are few and extended. It does let the rapping be the main focus, but that's about all there is.
There is some cleverness and a bit of imagination in all the sampling and layers of these songs. There are lots of tidbits on each track.
The problem is, the songs are lame and repetitive. They would honestly be better as instrumentals, and for songs that don't say much, they go on way too long.
I really don't think I needed to hear this album before I die.
