It's a snowy November day in New England and I'm stone cold sober. Listening to this, I wish none of this was true.
I was totally unfamiliar with this artist. I want to like this album more than I do.
First, the positives. The band, and Kiwanuka's voice, sound great. The sound of the psychedelic soul instrumentation (especially the guitars and the drums) scratches a real itch for the best of the late 60s/early 70s like the Pretty Things, Can, Funkadelic, etc. On some songs, the experimental approach to pop reminded me of more contemporary artists I have liked quite a bit: TV on the Radio, Solange, Sampha.
But there is something about the smooth, frictionless cleanliness to this record that does not hook into me. It feels unremarkable, in that it fits pretty easily among some of the landfill indie rock/pop that was churned out in the 00s and early 10s. Many of the songs on the album sound like commercial ad placement unit shifters; as I listen, I'm already imagining the "poignant moment" in the "prestige drama." Because of this, all the songs hover in a general emotive register that leaves me feeling little desire to "rewatch" the album; none of the songs are stuck in my head, nothing hit me in an "I need to hear that again" way. It sounds like he has been handed the keys to the music industry and has access to great resources: the best professional studios, producers, recording engineers, orchestras, etc. For my taste, this slick, professional sound creates an uncanny contrast with the grit of the rock instrumentation. I would rather hear a garage band version recorded in a basement.
-this isn't the best REM album, it might not even be top 5, but it's still a perfect record. That's how good REM were.
-a true "no skips" album.
-REM were excellent songwriters who didn't just lean on "great songwriting." They were also powerful performers who brought a lot of soul, groove, expression, etc. to every note they played.
-this album is a bit slicker and more "commercial" than some other REM records, but it doesn't feel cheap or gaudy.
-I've been listening to this album since high school (!) and my new hot take is that REM is what you should listen to when you think want to hear the Smiths. They are the more clever, groovier, less pretentious, more earnest queer Byrds fans.
Every other 60s rock band (except the Stooges) sound like total squares after you hear this album.
Happy to hear this for the first time. This band rips.
At its best, a nicely hypnotic album with enough grit and crunchy stuff. Sometimes a bit smooth and bright for my taste (I'll blame Cooder).
-God damn Marvin Gaye can sing.
-This is strong music. The title track has become a cultural meme; it's basically "Happy Birthday" for sex.
-But also, it's serious. He really means it when he sings about things like sex and love and peace. Wonderfully non-toxic masculinity.
-The whole band sounds incredible. The strings are just right.
A good collection of stories about guys getting shot
Incredible band, amazing singers, immaculate vibes
The opening dialogue says a couple things about Ryan Adams. 1) this guy is an insufferable record collector who will "well actually..." you in a heartbeat. 2) this guy is like Morrissey: a self-absorbed quasi-literati who is half as clever as his confidence belies.
I suppose any redeeming value of this album comes from Ryan Adams's occasional ability to cosplay better musicians. "To Be Young" starts off as a faithful photocopy of Bringing it Back Home/Highway 61 jump blues, then veers into a B section that is a note-for-note lift of "Girl From the North Country." By the time he reaches the bridge, I'm convinced Adams is missing the point of strophic form; he is trying so hard to convince you of his credibility, but it's such a postmodern hodgepodge of dad rock signifiers it reveals the opposite, that he's rooted in no tradition whatsoever.
"Damn Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)" is such an embarrassing rewrite of "Just Like a Woman" it gives me a fully body cringe just typing out the title. I would point out the more obvious and elegant phrasing would be "I love a woman WHO rains," but who am I to argue with someone who would win an Olympic gold medal in objectifying women. We have learned far too much about this guy's atrocious behavior over the past 20+ years to separate this artist from this art. From what I can tell, basically every song is either "I need a woman to take care of me and let me be a bad boy" or "I hate this specific woman" or some combination of both.
Maybe this would be a worthwhile listen if you've scraped the bottom of the barrel on every Bob Dylan and Neil Young b-side and outtake you could find and still want more. But I can't understand why you would want Diet Dylan if you can get the full flavor.
-Bowie's artistic instincts are impeccable. Who else would have thought to pair this style of icy, post-psychedelic kosmische music with some of the weirdest r&b ever made?
-This is a Cold War record through and through, but not in an overtly didactic way. He plopped himself at the borderline of east and west, recording basically on top of the Berlin Wall (which plays a direct thematic role in the album), and wrote some observations about the mundane and extraordinary ways life operated at this threshold.
-This record sounds so good. Bowie's voice (and Visconti's micing wizardry) is one of one; no singer sounded like this before or since. The rhythm section cooks. The guitars use all of the coolest prog rock effects of the day (and discard the dorkiest).
I love the Kinks, but they pushed the whimsy faders into the red on this one. Some good songs, but also some weird retvrn-syle English nationalism.
I spent my late 20s relearning the guitar listening to Bert Jansch and John Fahey. This album kinda changed my life.
I really disliked listening to this. Generic, dime-a-dozen 2000s indie rock. Not sure why it's on this list. Maybe because it feels like something an old person thinks young people listen to.
This album has the been the butt of the joke my whole life, so I really tried to give it a fair listen. I can get down with the Sabbath-style riffage and some of the more psychedelic flute bits, but basically everything else is insufferably corny. The lyrics are distractingly bad (and borderline pedophilic). And there's something especially irritating about British guys who hate religion; we get it, get over it.
A nice bit of Britpop I'd somehow missed
-an ostensibly horny album, it's actually all about love, fidelity, and trust (after all, it's Faith)
-GM is an unbelievably underrated singer and producer
A beautiful, shimmery, heartbreaking, immaculate piece of psychedelia. It sounds better every time I hear it.
I enjoyed this much more than I expected I would. Every synth on every song sounds great. If only PSB had a stronger singer, this album could have been a stone cold classic.
-A madcap pop album. The bars go crazy but they keep the verses short and the choruses hooky. There's electro and dnb, but also a ton of turntablism and guitar solos. It's classic funk, but also at the cutting edge of trap.
-Sounds somewhat dated, but also way ahead of its time for 2000.
-I feel like I'm listening to a different album than a lot of other reviewers. The interludes are very short and unobtrusive. Pretty much every song bangs. And what is misogynistic about this album? I think some people hear any rapper talk about sex and assume it's misogynistic -- if that's you, you better check yourself.
If a middle schooler drew a dick on their notebook and that dick came to life and started a band, it would sound like this.
Morrissey is an insufferable racist and the first song sounds like it could have been written by Nigel Farage. Also, "Girlfriend in a Coma" is probably the dumbest song this band ever recorded. I would rank this lower, but I have a soft spot for the music video to "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before"
These guys can sing their asses off and have some beautiful harmonies. That being said, I don't know that I "enjoy" listening to this album. I don't feel I have the proper context to evaluate it fairly. I basically never listen to acapella choral music and, thus, have no frame of reference.
-like a button down shirt had a bad dream and wrote an album about it.
-this band had themselves figured out from day 1. A fully formed, unique style in a debut album.
-file under "so square it's funky." A truly punk rock approach to r&b.
-no skips.
-really sounds like NYC in the late 70s, but also so influential you can hear a glimpse of what 80s new wave will be. Many people copied this sound, but no one did it as well.
-say what you will about Byrne, but the guy has no inhibitions on his voice.
-it would be hard to name a better rhythm section in rock music in the 70s.
I first listened to this album ~20 years ago and dismissed it because it doesn't really do what I want it to. I've gained an appreciation for it, but it still feels like it splits the difference between a few styles and doesn't go far enough in any direction -- not quite noisy enough, not quite pop enough, not quite dark enough. I understand it has greatly influenced "chill" genres, which seems right -- it feels a bit like taking 2 Benadryl. Sometimes that's nice feeling, but I'm also a bit skeptical of palliative music.
Such a heartfelt, introspective, nuanced album set to an incredibly dense, sophisticated musical texture. I love the sound of every instrument (drums, synths, bass, etc) and how Tupac used other voices as a contrast to his own. You can hear how this album influenced generations of rappers across styles and regions. Obviously, the last 25+ years of west coast rap wouldn't have sounded the same without this album. But also, a lot of the newer "emo" rap and other sad trappers clearly use this album as a blueprint.
Also, the way people on this site talk about most rap records is astonishingly ignorant. Only an illiterate racist could listen to this album and think it's "misogynistic." Oh, you don't like curse words? Grow up. Though, I suppose the critics prove Pac's exact point with the themes of the record.
I really liked some songs to an extent that surprised me (because Motorhead have influenced so many other bands I can't stand). I love the raw, stripped down power trio energy. I bet this band was incredible live. But also, this album contains some all-time dumb lyrics. Whenever I could make out what Lemmy was saying, it sounded very Spinal Tap-esque.
Sounds great. But, after all, it's Christmas music.
It's a miracle this was popular radio music in 1966. It's so gruff and sloppy and nasty. Probably my favorite Stones album.
Gives me fond memories of an old pal, a former roommate who was a country singer and a Parsons enthusiast. Makes me wanna smoke weed and sit around a campfire in Joshua Tree.
Some good California folk rock soft psych. But also some weird exoticism and goofy Hobbit shit.
When I reviewed Kid A, I explained how that album rocked my little mind when I was 13 and how it sounded totally out there because I had no knowledge of Warp Records or experimental music whatsoever. Well, In Rainbows came out when I was 20, which made all the difference in the world. By this age, I was consuming plenty of Can, Faust, Ash Ra, Pop Vuh, Neu, etc and In Rainbows sounded pretty pallid in comparison. On relisten, it's not a bad album -- I especially enjoy the first few tracks. But I think this is the album Radiohead settled into a generic "Radiohead sound" they've maintained ever since. I can respect how/why some find this record mind-blowing in the right context, but that context isn't mine so it sounds pretty mid to me.
-If you put on a skinny tie, pink blazer, and wayfarer sunglasses, this album autoplays.
-These guys spent the late 70s inventing the sound of 80s pop rock.
-Rock music has always been a useful tool for rizzed up nerds to get laid (see: Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Weezer, etc). The Cars are some all time great rock nerds.
-Absolutely great power pop. An album I've been listening to for 20+ (!) years. Also, quite a bit weirder than I remember. Lots of quirked up herky jerky rhythms and moody Bowie-esque timbres underneath the palm muted power chords and rockabilly guitar solos.
-Two years after this album came out, Ric Ocasek would go on the produce the second Suicide album.
Arguably the most important pop record ever.
As the poet Philip Larkin wrote, "sexual intercourse began in 1963." It's hard to overstate how much the Beatles transformed popular culture, personal politics, and social mores at that time. Beatlemania was a world-changing event for young people, especially girls. This record signals a total redistribution of the sensible (what people now crudely call "shifting the overton window").
Contemporary listeners often misunderstand the early Beatles era as a necessary phase to get into the more "revolutionary" style of their middle period. It's true that the revolutionary New Left movements of the mid-late 60s (the anti-war movement, the free speech movement, the sexual revolution, women's liberation, psychedelic counterculture, etc) all had some kernel that originated with the screaming girls who overpowered the police (the late great Barbara Ehrenreich makes this point in one of the best essays ever written about the band). But this early phase was radical in itself. The Beatles completely changed how people thought of the auteur-performer in rock n roll; if you need proof, look at the list of 1001 albums and count how many guitar rock bands wrote their own songs before 1963. (spoiler: it's 1...Buddy Holly and the Crickets, which might as well be a solo act with a backing band. Compare that to the number only 2 years later in 1965.) Not to mention, they had a totally distinct visual style (thanks to Brian) and were witty and charming as hell. When they landed in NYC in early 1964, they were like aliens from another planet.
For context, the Beatles also released 3 non-album singles within 6 months of this album: "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," and "From Me to You." Part of the problem with the 1001 album project is it places undue importance on "the album" as the ultimate recorded musical work. In 1963, albums were still a relatively new medium and the Beatles were still figuring out how to do it; they didn't even consider putting their 3 strongest singles on their new album and insisted on including only brand new material. They were among the first musicians to think of albums as complete art objects (see the Astrid Kircherr-style cinema verite photograph on the cover) instead of just a way to repackage popular singles around some extra filler. In other words, without With The Beatles there is no 1001 albums list.
This rips and I wish I had listened to it more in high school/college. I feel like I've heard about 1000 bands who are trying to sound like the first track (most of them from LA and used to play at The Smell). There's quite a bit of sonic diversity on this album though; it's punky and funky and weird, but definitely 1 of 1.
I liked this album in 6th grade and I'm disappointed to say this album sounds pretty immature after you hit puberty. I have an appreciation for its place in rap/rock history, but it's just way too fratty and gross. The lyrics are not just sexist, they're downright rapey at times. I consider myself a Beastie Boys apologist, but this record is a bridge too far.
I'm not gonna gripe about this being the wrong list pick for Minor Threat, or how widely misunderstood this band is. Instead I'll just say this record totally rips and underground American punk scenes wouldn't be what they are without Minor Threat.
-so many dope songs on this. the band sounds incredible. the singing is off the wall.
-this record is quite psychedelic; it's unbelievable this is the same group that did "Twist and Shout."
-every cover song is an improvement on the original.
-A genuinely creative album. I like the subtle instrumentation and overall sparse vibe.
-The songs are really centered on Cohen's lyrics, so it's a bit like listening to an audiobook (not derogatory). Even though it's largely acoustic, with lots of story songs, I don't really consider this "folk" music. It's its own thing.
-Few have written better double entendres.
-Xtina has more in common with Fred Durst than she'd like to admit. This album fits nicely with the "neo-eclectic" style of early 2000s MTV fodder. Limp Bizkit hybridized rap and rock for suburban white adolescents and this is basically market-tested r&b for the same audience's sisters.
-Sure, she can sing. But the nonstop vocal backflips drive me nuts. They are tasteless and aesthetically unpleasant in the same way a Yngwie Malmsteen guitar solo is technically virtuosic but musically unsatisfying. People whose musical diet is 90% contestants from singing competitions are likely to tell you "she's actually a really talented singer!"
-The ballads are pure schmaltz. Whitney she is not.
-I can appreciate the W Bush-era resilience feminism (sex positivity, body positivity, "strength," etc). But it's a bit ironic the themes of the album are all about finding inner beauty, stripping away the makeup and designer clothes, not needing a makeover, loving your curves, appreciating your imperfections, etc when you take one look at the album cover.
This is a tough album for me to evaluate because I have such personal attachments to it. Kid A was released when I was 13 and, at the time, It was the strangest, most experimental thing I had ever heard. I bought the CD at a mall when I visited my grandparents and I associate this album with listening on my discman on the train in subzero temperatures traveling back to Rochester. I became obsessed with this album and poured over the CD artwork. Only 2 other kids in my high school liked Radiohead and they were both older and cooler than me. Since then, I've come to appreciate much more unusual music so there is now a bit of a "mainstream version of the underground" veneer to this album, sort of like watching Garden State or Eternal Sunshine and thinking you've tapped into something really obscure. Nevertheless, my soft spot for this album remains. It is icy and scary and tender and heartfelt all at the same time. What's remarkable is not how "experimental" this album is, but rather how it remains pop music in spite of all the strangeness. Critics are correct to point out that there were many artists who had already achieved a similar aesthetic, only weirder, better, and earlier than Radiohead. But, for better or worse, Kid A bridged a gap between the popular and these electronic experimentalists in an oddly accessible way. Maybe if I were a college student or sneaking out to raves I would have been into Aphex Twin, but I was a middle schooler who listened to modern rock radio so it was much easier for me to find stranger music via the Karma Police band. I have mixed feelings about Radiohead these days, but if they've made anything I can enjoy it's this album. Even if there's a slight cringe to my enjoyment, Kid A opened many doors for me as a musician.
Set the pace in British rock music for the next 10 years
I wish I could skip the numeric rating for this record. Who am I to quantify this album "out of 5" after Ms. Hill has been so thoroughly scrutinized and demeaned for the last ~30 years? It feels crass after the music industry hype machine completely chewed her up and spit her out. Instead, I'll just say Miseducation sounds so ahead of its time for 1998 it's crazy.
The Bomb Squad production is great but I can't handle Ice Cube's aggressive machismo. I'd be able to tolerate it better if it wasn't constant, front and center, across basically every song. Respect to Cube for his place in hip hop history, but this record is not for me. I'd love to hear an instrumental version though.
Makes me wish I was smoking weed
This album, his most Angeleno, was important to me around the time I was 25, living in Echo Park in a small apartment right down the road from the last home ES lived in (and where he died). I had just gone through a monumental break up but was still living with my ex because neither of us could afford our own place yet. It was maybe the loneliest period of my life. I spent a lot of time by myself with my headphones on wandering around LA on foot and I often went out of my way to walk by his house as a type of pilgrimage.
I had very little in my life to comfort me at that time except for this music. Now, when I listen back, I'm struck by how many of the songs express a ground-level view of LA; it's like ES wrote half the songs after he took his own walk around the city. It's hard to express how grateful I am for this record.
Credit to Culture Club for carving their own lane, making a queer radio sound for the shopping mall generation. I hear soul, r&b, blues, and reggae all blended into a pop new wave dessert. That being said, some of the songs are much stronger than others (to my ears). Not my first pick if I want to hear this style of music, but certainly not my last.
I loved this album when I was in college. It was tailor made for my interests at the time. It's poppy new wave / post-punk with a ton of noise and dissonance. There's also a muted affect that reads as "cool" to young adults who still care about that kind of thing -- a bit of a C-86 vibe. And, of course, this album is one of the most obvious forerunners of shoegaze. But I also hear JAMC influence all over pop/rock music from Smashing Pumpkins to Frank Ocean and everywhere in between.
I can't help but offer my one critique though...their formula is to layer a bunch of feedback and trashy noise on top of saccharine 60s-style pop tunes, which means the two elements never really integrate. They don't ever successfully make pop music FROM noise, it's always pop music PLUS noise. Nevertheless, it's very good and much more interesting than a lot of the shite their contemporaries were putting out.
-It's hard for me not to think of Kind of Blue, which was recorded the same year. In that context, where jazz was at the end of the 1950s, this is quite a conservative, throw-back kind of project. I was able to connect with a handful of the songs either because of their cleverness (e.g. "Who Cares") or their moodiness (e.g. "A Foggy Day"), but most of these tracks did not set me on fire. Nevertheless, major respect to Ella and the Gershwins for their place in jazz history.
-I didn't mind the length so much. It gave me a good excuse to plunge the depths of the Gershwin catalogue and listen to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald, something I basically never do. And, to be honest, the length of the catalogue started to win me over a bit. That being said, you can't put this many songs in a collection and expect them all to be winners. Some of these are miniature pieces of pop perfection, some are total shlock novelty songs. And as the great Spinal Tap said, it's a fine line between stupid and clever.
-It's probably a character flaw in me, but I do not enjoy scatting.
-The orchestral arrangements throughout are surprisingly square. The instrumental tracks without Ella are painfully schmaltzy.
I'm a white guy evaluating the blues, so take this with a grain of salt ...
I love the blues and this isn't really the style I go for. I don't typically prefer full band, electric blues for a few reasons that aren't worth digging into. That being said, MW does it better than basically anyone ever on this record. I appreciate how each band member has their own groove and feel. And if I were a square folky in 1960 I would have lost my mind at this gig (you can hear the crowd going berserk in some songs, which is pretty great). So overall, not my favorite flavor but I still enjoyed it and I can't deny the craft.
I gotta be careful here. Between that one review of Be on this site, and the cringest Pitchfork review of all time (which they scrubbed from their website, look it up on the wayback machine), there's something about Common that brings out bad writing. I'll just say, Common's best skill is his ability to find great collaborators. It's hard to mess up the combination of Dilla, Premier, Questlove, and D'Angelo.
Miles has so many incredible records I've been listening to him since high school and somehow completely skipped this one. What an amazing sound world he created here. Somehow groovy and ambient at the same time. A new favorite.
Re-listening to this album has reaffirmed I can't stand Led Zeppelin. Especially Robert Plant's "baby baby baby" shit. It's all so "epic" and self-aggrandizing. Bonham's drums sound nice though.
Joplin has the kinda voice you either love or hate. Unfortunately I don't love it. The band is also pretty mid - run of the mill bar boogie blues. I have gained a respect for JJ over the years...I bet she would have been great to see live. But I still don't enjoy listening to this record.
The most widely misunderstood, and overrated, Beatles album.
Something I think captures Abbey Road in a nutshell...
They originally wanted to name this album Everest, and the cover photo was going to be the foursome on Mt Everest. Instead they named it Abbey Road and took a photo outside the front door of their studio. Despite its recent critical reappraisal, Abbey Road is not the sound of the Beatles at their creative peak. It's the sound of a band running out of gas, suing each other, and lowering their standards. The Beatles were not trying to make any profound artistic statements, they were trying to fulfill their contractual obligations as quickly as possible so they could move on. All 3 songwriters released better solo albums a year or so after this album came out and, clearly, they were saving their best material.
I should mention I am a Beatles fanatic (not a hater) and can acknowledge the positives here. There are a handful of remarkably great recordings on this album, best of which is "Something." "Something" is an all-timer love song and one of the most mature, elegant miniature morsels the band ever made. "Come Together" is also quite unique -- a post-psychedelic reinterpretation of 50s rhythm and blues with a signature rhythm track unlike anything the band (or really anyone else) had ever done. But alongside these merits are serious problems. "Because" is a virtuosic piece of work, overshadowed by the corny Moog sounds. (The Moog generally does not work on this album, in my opinion.) Similarly, "Here Comes the Sun" is a great song at its core, but it gets bogged down with its overblown prog rock arrangement.
The B-side medley is probably the best example of their misfire and it still shocks me to read reviews from people who think it's some kind of masterful experiment in songcraft. They took unfinished scraps of songs that might have really had an impact if they took the time to work on them (e.g. "Golden Slumbers," "Mean Mr. Mustard"), threw them in the pot with a bunch of other crap, added a Moog and an orchestra, served it up and said bon appetit. John acknowledged many times in many interviews that the medley was pure lifeless junk. And there's a scene in the Anthology documentary where they are re-listening to studio masters of some of the medley orchestration; Paul is absolutely high on his own farts and George looks straight into the camera to say "a bit corny, init?" Yes! It is very very corny. When the theme to "You Never Give Me Your Money" returns as a horn section during "Carry That Weight," I get a full body cringe.
John is only half-present on this album and it clearly shows. There are a number of songs he didn't touch, and he didn't even bother showing up to the final recording sessions. He's also, clearly, not sharing his best work -- most of what he wrote on this album had been kicking around since the band came back from India, and Plastic Ono Band (which is a MUCH better album than Abbey Road) was recorded shortly after this. "I Want You" is the closest thing to a proto-Plastic Ono song on Abbey Road, and it pales in comparison to others in its style (like "Yer Blues" or "Don't Let Me Down"). What we're left with is Paul's ego unchained. The medley has his fingerprints all over it, and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is legendary in how badly it pissed off the rest of the band. "Oh Darling" is fine, but it's a weak pastiche at a time when a zillion musicians (including John) were doing a much better job of playing with roots rock n roll revival.
It's been quite surprising to see this album get reevaluated in the past couple decades by younger audiences who have elevated it to "masterpiece" status in the same way the Boomers latched on to Sgt. Pepper. I'm not entirely sure why this is the highest rated Beatles album on this site, but it probably has to do with the cleaner production standards compared to their earlier 60s albums; in the end, I think most people just want easy listening. All in all, Abbey Road showed the way to the future in 70s rock radio, but mostly by influencing its worst tendencies, i.e. corny prog pop and soft rock. This doesn't sound like a band at the cutting edge of popular culture, it sounds like ELO or Wings or any number of yacht rock bands. But hey, I suppose that's also why a lot of people like it -- ELO sold a lot of records.
I could do without the Confederate flags. Given the huge cast of musicians and songwriters they drew from, and the repertoire they're playing, it's actually shocking there's not a single black musician represented. It may be top tier bluegrass and string band music, but it also kinda seems like a low-key white identity album.
What a great album. Dusty sounds amazing and she picked a perfect set of songs for her voice. Very hip and mod for 1964.
Something about this album irritates me. Maybe it's the turn-of-millennium postmodern poly-stylism. Maybe it's the crypto-prog rock lurking beneath the sunny pseudo-psychedelia. Or maybe I just don't like indie pop. There's a small window of my life (age 15-17) I probably would have liked this album, but I think I would have soured on it by the time I went off to college.
A really interesting transitional record. Retains a lot of what made REM great in the 80s, set a blueprint for what the 90s would sound like (not just for REM, for a lot of rock bands).
There is a power in this music that overwhelms me. It gave me chills listening to this again. Just a perfect punk record.
I don't care if it's big dumb dance music -- I loved listening to this. It reminds me of my older brother, who (I'm pretty sure) had this on minidisc back in the 90s.
All bangers. Coked up pre-Berlin r&b gold. An incredible cast of collaborators. He had already reinvented his sound 5 or 6 times by this point in his career, but he was somehow able to make it sound perfect each time he tried something new. The production sounds great, the band sounds great, Bowie's voice sounds great, the backup singers sound great. It just sounds great. Maybe not even a top 5 Bowie album for me, but it's still close to perfect...that's how good Bowie was.
I'm not a Bjork fanatic but this record is undeniable. It's a pretty astonishing sound for 1993. It embraces new (at the time) dance music sounds and already pushes those boundaries -- if this was released 10 years later, it still would have sounded new.
This might be the nostalgia talking, but I love this album and every song on it. I heard "Staring at the Sun" late at night on MTV2 when I was 16 and I was so excited to hear something that didn't sound like the terrible mainstream rock music of the time or the bland, generic indie rock of the time. I went out and bought the CD as soon as I could and fell in love with it. I didn't know anyone else at the time who like this band and they felt like a hidden gem. Little music at that time was this weird, funky, and thoughtful. I couldn't imagine how this band wrote these songs and put them together. I expected my interest in this music to wane over time (as I've heard TVOTR placed in a zillion movies and TV shows since then) but it still has the same effect on me.
This band sounds incredible. The 3 songs they wrote are the standouts and it makes me wish the whole album was instrumental originals. I don't typically love instrumental versions of vocal pop songs -- it feels a bit like I'm at a baseball game. That's not a bad thing but, with all due respect to these legends, it's not the kinda thing I would just put on and listen to.
-I don't like this band at all, but I understand why a lot of people do. They were able to transform the Sunset Strip sound (e.g. Crue, Poison, etc) into something a little less plastic. If the major labels never gobbled up the underground (i.e. Nirvana), this probably would have been the dominant sound of the early 90s and we would have seen a million photocopies. Thank G-d that didn't really happen.
-Every song is an extremely competent stylistic impression of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Van Halen, AC/DC, Ted Nugent, and/or ZZ Top. There's also a good dose of quasi-Stones/Dolls riffs played through a heavy metal rig.
-Axl does his thing, which is really fucking annoying to me.
-The guitars are mixed so loud it's like the amp is right next to my ears. Especially Slash's guitar, which is like a 2nd lead vocal on most songs.
-this is some DRY music. Literally, there's almost no reverb anywhere on the album. But also, it gives the feeling of when you've taken too many drugs and forget to drink water and you're suddenly dehydrated and have a headache.
-as a lapsed punk, I'm basically obligated to hate the Dead, but I gave this a fair shake and ended up (mostly) enjoying it. I like the Byrds a lot, and this is in the same post-psychedelic country rock lane. But by the time Truckin hit, I was ready to be done. Not sure I could enjoy listening to this for hours on end like some of my friends do.
-this is essentially "feel good" music, which makes sense because it attracts 3 main groups of listeners: 1) people who want to drop out of society and twirl around all day, 2) regular people who work shitty jobs and just want to unwind while taking a bunch of drugs, 3) Republicans who want to quiet their conscience. This is vibes-based music, not art designed to stir your passions or activate you.
Mom can we stop for Sade?
"We have Sade at home"
*the Sade at home*:
-there's probably 1001 better albums from 1969 alone. This album has had zero cultural imprint, nothing from this album left a widespread popular impression on anyone, and no one in the underground or on the fringes was significantly inspired by this music. This is the 3rd album from a one hit wonder who didn't even write their own hit. Should not be included on this list.
-this album surprised me. Surprised me in how strongly I disliked it. Occasionally I would hear a few measures of music that sounded OK, and each time the song was quickly interrupted by something really dull, silly, hackneyed, or contrived. I can't reasonably recommend a single song on this album.
-how many albums from this era are described as "bridging the gap between psychedelic rock and folk/country"? This is probably the worst, most inessential example of that style.
-the singer is as square as they come. Leaves a bitter, plastic taste in my mouth.
-the "jazz" songs on this album are some of the most grooveless pap I've ever heard.
-in between the bad, unmemorable songs is a lot of *trippy* / *quirky* filler nonsense I think is designed to sound like this band had a lot of high concept "experimental" ideas, but actually makes it sound like they were given too much money by their record label.
