1st song. Kinda reminds me of REM in the oddest way with the lyrics that feel almost too fast for the tune itself, Definitely starts running. Suprised this is early 90s and not mid 90s
2nd song. Gives Greenday Vibes in the pop punk feel, but specifically the earlier (and better) Greenday albums. Some great guitar work but I'm not hooked on the singing yet.
3rd song. Not my favorite so far, sounds like something off a burnout soundtrack and unfortunately not in a good way. Cool post chorus transitioning into the next verse though!
I like how breezy and fast these songs have been so far but I wonder if that leads them feeling a tiny bit one dimensional and not fully fleshed out to me over longer songs.
4th song. I really like the background singing in this, and the instrumentation is at its best so far, but the lyrics still are so hit and miss for me. It's not that I don't connect with them, but they feel like they hit the mix of vagueness and angst that give pop-punk a bad name as being a more vapid form of punk.
5th song. Wow this is a pretty huge shift from the previous songs, and I really like it! I feel like a younger me would resinate with this more and find the lyrics a little less eye-roll worthy, but I feel that's the way of this kind of music in general. It works best at a specific time in your life, and that's great in its on right.
6th song. The downside of an album with so many songs like this is that I'm a quarter of the way in and yet the songs are starting to merge together for me. This one didn't do much for me.
7th song. Great Intro, mediocre song.
Skipping forward a bit because I don't have much new to say.
The cover songs here are god damn great! Mrs Robinson is played with the kind of deep sarcasm that the song deserves. I don't like it more then the legendary original, but I totally get it. This feels like the kind of cover Alien Ant Farm wished it could be but never could. By changing the genre it reinforces the sardonic nature of the song whilst updating it in a way that feels like a commentary on how little the topic has changed.
Also there's a cover of Knowing me, Knowing you on here??? This song feels like it was made for me. There's something almost MTV unplugged about this uncover, which I do really like. It's lowkey, and appropriately somber. Maybe the covers are the things I like most about this album? On the otherhand, I can never imagine really listening to this over the original which has so much more emotion with Frida's beautiful voice.
I think I liked this album, mostly! I don't think it was incredible by any means, but the highlights were pretty high. I do wish the album was a bit more focused and the best songs were a little more fleshed out, especially because some of the middle tracks meld into one another in a way that didn't make for a great album listening experience. It feels like a 3 for me but not in "mediocre" way and more in a "the positives and negatives balance each other out"
Well I've listened to a fair amount of Radiohead before, but actually have not listened to Amnesiac all the way through so this will be a first.
"Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box" is quite interesting to me. The instrumentation is extremely out their and works well, and yet taken as a whole, there's something almost pop-adjacent about it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I do really like it.
"Pyramid Song" I've seen this song mostly talked about due to the 'music theory' involved in it, but the song is doing a lot more then just trying to be pretentious for the sake of it. I love the feeling like the song is "catching" itself. Almost the musical equivalent of the feeling of falling asleep, only to catch yourself and wake back up at the last moment. Its also very cinematic, I can see the line between something like this and their attempt at a James Bond intro.
"You and Whose Army?" just reminds me of Incendies at this point, great movie, never gonna watch it again.
God damn "I might be Wrong" is good, sometimes radiohead just finds a tune and explores it perfectly and suddenly I "get" the hype. I am very off and on about the entire discography of Radiohead but when they hit it, they do it out of the park.
"Knives out" sounds dramatically different from everything so far, and feels like it belongs on another radiohead album. It's very much a radiohead song that blends into all the other songs.
The second half of this album really feels like it goes to nowhere after the first half. I don't know if that's the intent, but it feels quite unfulfilling and not nearly as fully formed as the first half. Perhaps I'm not in the mood for it, but it did feel like the album stalled out and so did my interest.
Well I can't say I'm usually into aggressively heterosexual albums, which this definitely is. So much of this album is fawning over guys that I instantly knew this was going to be an upward battle for me. I prephise the album with this because the fact that I like this album so much is really a testament to how good it is that it's completely out of my wheelhouse.
My god, the singing on this. The way the songs blend conventions of music with a kind of stream-of-consciousness is incredible and I should have listened to this a long time ago. Especially because I do love so many singers influenced directly by Joni Mitchell (Weyes Blood being an obvious example)! It almost makes you forget Joni Mitchell did blackface and refused to apologize for it up until today because she said she was basically black despite being the most archetypal white Canadian Woman to ever walk the earth.
...But anyway the album itself is good. Funnily I heard River playing just two weeks ago, but I'm not one for christmas songs. Favorite songs are California, Carey and A Case of You.
About half way through listening to this I realized that this was from 1963. 1963! I mean there's ahead of its time and then there's THIS. There's something so theatrical about this, its like a sung through musical with no need for singing. The way the music moves through sections works so well- just as it feels like a piece is becoming too at home, the music switches up completely. I can't say I'm all that knowledgeable on theory of this kind of music so I don't have too much to say but I both extremely enjoyed and felt suprisingly anxious listening to this. The classical guitar and Spanish influence really shakes up the big band sound in a way that was very complementary.
I really love the way themes and leitmotifs are repeated throughout, it gives both a level of stabilization ( going back to something that's already been established) but also suprise (seeing something we've heard before in a new context) that never got old for me
I dunno, feels kind of like a 1960s folk album where every song goes on about twice as long as it needs to. I enjoy the strings quite a bit but they can only do so much to hold up the album. Honestly just don't think its for me considering what other people seem to think of it has such a mismatch to my own listening experience.
A really good album that makes me wish I listened to Prince more before now. Somehow I've managed to dodge basically all the-artist-formerly-known-as-Prince's music but god damn some of this is like peak 80s. And this is very early in the 80s to be at the peak! I do think some of the songs are almost a little bit too goofy sounding and haven't aged great (Delirious, All the critics love U in New York) but damn the title track and Little Red Corvette is great. The unrepetant horniness mixed with the Funk work incredibly when they do work. Almost a 5 for me but its just not quite consistent enough, and I get the feeling there's other Prince albums on this list I'm going to like more.
Yeah, it's good! I actually don't really know what I'm looking for between a good and "bad" jazz album. With most genres I've heard some of the absolute worst and some of the best, so I have good perspective on the line between them. Jazz though? I've mostly only heard the greats so differentiating between "good" and "great" is really hard for me. Well, that's not changing anytime soon because I know this was great!
Just on a purely listening experience, this was a nice calm vibe that felt like it was just the right length for me. The way the album shifts towards increasingly relaxed vibes as it goes on with moments of dramatic shifts and great release, makes the entire album feel very cohesive. I definitely got the fusion vibes, but considering how much I read about how Jazz was apprehensive to the shift, I was expecting it to lean harder into the fusion. That's not a fault though, as I feel it's perfectly balanced for the music that is being presented. Would love to listen to this again in a car on a dark, quiet night.
This list has a whole lot of British New wave so I guess we've got to settle in for that. The band throughout this album is pretty good but, by god, Elvis Costello... I think after this album I hate this guy. He reminds me of other singers I like far more then him. It made me really want to listen to a Clash album or even The Boomtown Rats. I do not like this snide nice-guy core.
You Belong to me and Hand in Hand was about the point I realized this would be a long listen. The band itself being so good makes the fact that I've got to hear Elvis Costello whine over this entire album even worse. Songs like Lip Service have a great sound to it completely destroyed by Costello's "ranting about another woman" hour. I wish this album was an instrumental. THIS GUY IS ON THIS LIST 4 TIMES? God damn it.
My immediate reaction to seeing this album was "Wait didn't these guys sing that one song?". Why yes, yes they did. I saw a Todd in the Shadows video about this band once. The first immediate thing I noticed when listening to this is that the mastering of this album is god awful. It sounds like the music is playing on an MP3 player at the opposite side of a really echo-y hallway. Luckily, this can SORT of be fixed by listening to the 20th anniversary version.
This was fun, mostly. The first few songs kinda suck, but the one hit wonder "I believe in a Thing Called Love" is pretty good. It's goofy and an earworm. I don't really get why this is on this list though? It's a very early 2000s rock album that doesn't really feel very special, except maybe the singers voice. I feel like they should have committed more to the comedic and absurd elements, but it doesn't and so it feels trapped between goofball anthems and semi-sincere love songs. It's like they can't work out if they want to be Electric Six or The-Killers-does-glam-rock.
I'm suprised at myself for this, but it was weird in a way I liked! Kinda reminded me of a The Piper at the Gates of Dawn era Pink Floyd. A chaotic clashing of sounds that every now and again comes together to make me go "wow this is really going off". I'd totally get if someone said they absolutely detested it, but I think I was in the right frame of mind for it. I was a bit skeptical at first but the outro of fuzzy birds had me hooked, and the weirdness of Something 4 the weekend really caught me and from there I was along for the ride. I, too, would've liked to hang out with Howard Marks. It's so hard to choose between a 3 and a 4 because it isn't at all a consistent album, but I think it just eeks out a 4 on this listen. I could see downgrading it a bit if I listened to it on another day.
I still think I prefer Willy and the Poor Boys, but this is pretty great too. It's suprising how little of the hits I know are on this Creedance album and yet I think it still comes together really well! Some great instrumentals on this one, and in comparison to yesterday's album- very consistent. I just think it lacks the clear standouts needed for 5 stars to me, everything kind of melds together towards the end.
Very long songs and riffs the album. Idk I guess it was fine? I do not know what I'm listening for with this genre but there was something about the way this sounded that distinctly sounded off to me, beyond just the songs all being way too long. The bass feels oddly burried in the mix, whilst the whole thing has a muddy, overprocessed sound to me that I just do not really enjoy. I'll be the first to say do not trust my opinion on this entire genre as its just not my thing, but hey, I have to review each album up here so here goes.
Apparantly this book was made by a bunch of different critics and I have to assume all of them were British by what I've heard so far. I like some of this, I'd like it a lot more if it was maaaybe 30 minutes long instead of anywhere between 1 and 2 hours depending on the version. It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from an "English Drum and Bass album that's very late 90s" but I think my ear is somewhat attuned to that by the fact that I've actually at least heard one of these songs before but didn't realize it at the time (Brown Paper Bag). Still it is very, very repetitive. If I imagine myself listening to one or two of the songs instead of sitting through the whole thing though, I think I'd have a pretty good time. My favorites are probably "Share the Fall", "Down" and "New Forms".
I swear you could play 10 second snippets of half these songs, say they're a different song from the same album and no one would be able to tell the difference.
Okay well it's one of my favorite albums ever and I've listened to it too many times all the way through so this wasn't hard to rate. There's a lot that makes this album so amazing and I don't want to turn this review into an essay so I'll TRY to go through everything quickly. Firstly, the ability for the album to mix awesome pop hits with such a dark and tragic and clear story can't be ignored. The use of Skits to connect the songs together is done so well, it feels like a movie encapsulated into an album as a result. The absolute consistency of the album cannot be understated either. I know TPAB is usually held in higher regard, and partially for good reason, but I don't think anything can beat the pure listening experience of Good Kid for me.
The run of songs between "Good Kid" and "Sing About me I'm Dying of Thirst" is probably my favorite run of songs in any album ever, the flows on Good Kid are incredible and Pharell's production is actually at his peak. m.A.A.d city is just an immaculate song, Sounwave's production is on another level. The dark subject matter combined with Kendrick's incredible flows on this song blow me away. "Sing about me I'm dying of Thirst" fucks me up everytime. I could go through literally every song like this but for sake of time I will not.
I literally cannot glaze this album enough. I loved this album when I first heard it in full around 16ish, and I love it more with every single listen.
Elvis Costello did the production for this album, he should stick to it he's quite good at that. This album sounded pretty good to me at first but it did get repetitive and old fast. The songs are all very samey and not really a subject matter I care for, it almost feels like a caricature of Ireland with how much they talk about drinking and little else. But I did really like the instrumentation so there is that!
Wow I should have heard this album before now! This is genuinely the first album listening experience from the list so far where I've not just enjoyed it, not just found it great, but immediately known I will be listening to this over and over in future. The guitar, the SOUND of this album is so good. It feels like a splash of cold water after having sat through a year in music that I have found to be pretty stale. The album listening experience here is sublime in my opinion, the way it moves between tortured, deeply soulful to Lush and retro-infused sounds. Damn! If you haven't, listen to this album.
Y'know I think the world does not need another breakup album from the perspective of a man about a "toxic" breakup that is, in fact, just a collection of songs where a dude whines about wanting to fuck. Sounds like the type of album from a guy who goes through a bad breakup and then starts obnoxiously talking to his coworkers about how he has been "blackpilled" and how women suck. I'm gonna go now and listen to yesterday's album instead.
I feel like I'm listening to this music wrong by not listening to it whilst laying on a hammock with a caipirinha in hand, but this is lovely anyways. The original chill beats to study and relax to. Such a good evening listen before relaxing to sleep. I really do not have much to say about this album, I think it sounds great and I know it's a bit of a "babies first Bossa Nova" due to its ubiquity in America, but there's a reason for that and it's because it's lovely.
More brazillian music by a political anti-authoritarian countercultural singer and, *oh for fucks sakes*. Sorry y'all but I gotta hit the pedophile alarm. I'm not exactly settled on how I review albums by people who have either done awful things, or believe awful things yet. "Artist is dead" is a literary analysis tool, not a reviewing guideline, and I find this kind of thing hard to look past when listening to music. At the same time there's innevitably going to be cases where I don't know things prior to reviewing and I don't want half my reviews to become solely opinion pieces on the people themselves. So I'm mostly only going to rate albums down for that IF what they've done or who they are interact or come through in the songs themselves in any way (as we will see when we innevitably get to a Kanye West album).
Okay so now half a page of ick out of the way, time for review proper. I didn't really care for it, also the remastered version sounds suprisingly bad. I've heard Gilberto Gil before so I know I CAN like this genre, and some of the songs sound good (Soy Loco Por Ti America). A lot of the album sounds kind of like the psychedelic equivalent to mush to me though. The last 3 songs are definitely the highlight and stop me giving it 1 stars, but this didn't really vibe with me and I do like most of the influences it pulls from. I've heard this was an important album in Brazillian music so I don't want to trash it too hard and would rather put it in the "not for me" category.
Glam Rock was truly home to the first weebs. This sounds so wild I don't know how to rate it or what to think of it, but I er... I think I like it? The issue with an album every day is it doesn't give a lot of time to digest it and this is a whole lot to digest. This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us is a suprising earworm to me and each listen through the album seems to make me like it more so that's a good thing? Yeah this is the first album in a long while that just has me completely stumped. I don't know get back to me in like a year and I might've formed a concrete opinion on this... Maybe.
Uh... 4 stars I think?
So, I don't like Grunge. That's not to say its objectively bad, but its like an acquired taste in food I don't have. I can admit its got its place, but that place is not on my palate. This certainly sounds like grunge. I feel I'd appreciate this more if I forgot to take my antidepressants for like, a week straight.
Wow can't believe they made fallout soundtracks all the way back in 1962. This was alright, but it was a little slow at points. If you're willing to dig, there's definitely some gems in here. Generally the more big band inspired and orchestral it gets, the more I tend like the songs on here, which I've definitely heard more of in other Ray Charles albums. You are my Sunshine and Don't Tell Me Your Troubles sounds great on here. Both Discs start really well but begin to fall off towards the end, so it isn't the most consistent.
In the polar opposite to the Grunge yesterday, I have a real soft spot for this type of music that makes me really want to give this a 4 even though its very borderline. This site doesn't allow half stars, so just know if it did I'd go 3 1/2 stars.
Jesus Christ this album is so English. Imagine if Tenacious D was not in on their own joke, that's this album. I had fun listening to it but it ain't good. I can see the inspiration lyrically on some of later metal, I think In that they sing like they're talking about a weird biblical-themed DND homebrew but seem to be unaware its not as cool as they think it is. It does get a point for making me laugh though.
Well the name of this album sounds like a threat if I've ever heard one. Phil Spector pulled a gun on 4 different women for not wanting to screw him before murdering Lana Clarkson. Also he did so much abuse to write it here would take more time then their is in the day. Anyhow this is a compilation album and it's not like he sings on it so I'm going to reaaaaally try to block out the thought of who I'm listening to. Then again he does SPEAK on it which activated my fight or flight senses hard.
Overall I think its just okay. The issue with the wall of sound is that it sounds better the worse the equipment is, so I'm listening to this in the worst way possible. It was designed for 60s radios afterall. This is the only of The Ronettes and The Crystals on here, which is unfortunate because I think they had songs a lot better then those on here. Sleigh Rides, Santa Claus is coming to Town, and Winter Wonderland are huge standouts though and these recordings have almost transcended the album itself in pop culture. I really can't get over the production though, I've seen it work elsewhere but here it's just too much
Dusty Springfield had one hell of a voice. Kinda was suprised how many songs on here I do actually recognize, because y'know, its a covers album. That said being a cover album prompts the question: why THESE songs? Dusty's voice is the highlight of this but I feel like most of these songs ultimately sound better in their original forms, and don't give Dusty enough chance to shine. "You don't own me" for instance, is a great song, but am I ever listening to this version over the stunning Lesley Gore version? I don't really think so. There's also a lot to say about the Elvis-like implications of so much of these covers being from black artists and are here being covered by a White English Woman in the 1960s.
So it puts me at a crossroads: It sounds good, but it doesn't make me feel all that good and I can't imagine listening to a lot of this again. There's a Dusty album I know is much better already on this list, but I still think there's other albums of her that are contenders to be on here before this one.
I think I can listen to about 1 song that sounds like this until I lose my ability to actually comprehend anything. Uh, the drums sound good? I kinda like psychosocial despite really not liking the... Amount of edgy singing going on in some of these other songs. It's not AS bad as I expected it to be? The only song I didn't think "jesus this is going on a bit long" was the opening track which isn't a great sign.
Don't listen to my opinion on this kind of music, if you like it good for you! Remember to check in with a therapist now and again if you can, and remember to talk to a friend if you need help.
I understand this list probably can't encapsulate all albums "worth listening to" but there's something that stings really wrong about the fact that any non-European and non-North American music must, for the most part, be some kind of cultural fusion with European or American music. But that's not the fault of the individual musicians on the list I suppose as the list itself.
I didn't quite know how much I needed to listen to a Sitar version of Light my fire until now. Some of this really goes off crazy and sounds great, the album definitely builds and builds. I certainly enjoyed sitting through it more then the past few days albums but I think the real best pieces on here are those that are original. Metamorphosis sounds incredible to me, there's a section about 2 minutes in that just goes so hard. The first half of the 13 minute long Sagar didn't really capture me, but I really enjoyed the second half. Dance indra is probably my favorite song on here but honestly, there's a lot to like.
Oh Hell yeah! An album I know I already love and have heard a number of times before but I am happy to listen to it again. Incredible songs with amazing production throughout this album. Y'know there's a review on here saying that "talkin' Bout a revolution" is too vague? Like that any protest song has to exist as a list of specific demands. Wild.
Anyhow, Fast Car is like, the very high peak of 80s Folk singer songwriter music. That said I worry it overshadows, in popular discourse at least, the rest of this album which is also great and very worth talking about. This is a straight up harrowing album the different forms of violence and oppression ubiquitous in America. Highlights for me, besides the obvious two headliners, include Mountain's o'things and Behind the Wall. I guess if I had to complain about one thing, it's that towards the end of the album it feels a little like the romance and love themes overpower the afformentioned inequality and violence themes in a way that makes me feel a bit conflicted. After hearing songs about being unable to stop domestic abuse, about racial violence and starving children I don't feel like I can just swing back to songs about loving someone so seemlessly. That's mostly an album sequencing issue though, and it doesn't undermine an incredible album enough for me to take away any points.
Huh Now I finally know what those people complaining about the "damn hippy music" feel when they listen to psychedelic. Middle-of-the-road instrumentation meets lyrics that kind of feel like a parody of the time. I feel like I'm more critical of this music because I know I like so much psychedelic that I can be confident in saying this is very just-below mid to me. What was radical politically and sonically at the time simply isn't anymore so what we're left with is some weak prose and a feeling of "maybe you just had to be there". One of the songs is a reference to Jefferson Airplane, and I wish I was listening to them instead.
Insert Joke about the name of the album here.
The English Bias is actually amazing its kind of hilarious. Why is this here? It wasn't rated well. The critical reception page of wikipedia STARTS with "this album was featured in 1001 albums you must here before you die" The album peaked at number 20 in the UK and nowhere else. When you look this album up on youtube the top comment is thanking the uploader because its the only place to find it and they needed to listen to it for the 1001 albums review.
It's house. I like house music sometimes. I like People Hold On, the first song, I guess. So I was thinking to myself "maybe I'll find this okay". Then the rest of it was god awful. Most of this sounds like the menu music for a ps2 game you found in a bargain bin and is all scratched up. In a weird way I can see the link between music like this and something like The Avalanches, but y'know, one of those bands is interesting and the other is this. I'm gonna be real I didn't want to finish this and ended up just doing other stuff whilst it was on to satisfy the time. This is the worst one so far for me and its actually not even close.
The best part of this album is the featured artists, I guess. They could do the best singing part ever and it'd be a 1 star still.
Okay I can't complain about the English bias every time it comes up so... Let me complain about the weird electronic music bias that I'm sure is not due to the average age of the reviewers happening to grow up listening to this music.
This sounds like music from one of those cheap movie studios that create knock offs of major franchises for a spy themed film. They'd call it something like "mission: unlikely" and it'd air on the syfy network for some reason. It's not good but it is absolutely inoffensive which means a lot after yesterday. I know there's good albums on this list and I really could use one about now.
The algorithm listened and did give me something at least a little better, and a short and sweet half an hour. Is it dad rock? Absolutely. Has it been overplayed on radio? God yes. Do I have a soft spot for Dad rock and really needed something else after the past few albums? Also yes.
I've heard most of these songs way too much, but when they come on the radio I am always like "yeah I'll listen to this again" which is a good sign. As an album experience it is either nicely cohesive or slightly motonous depending on how you feel. Like the radiation levels at Chernobyl it's not great and not terrible, which is to say it probably is actually pretty bad but in the context I've heard it in it feels fine.
Interesting that this is the only Ghostface Killah Album on here despite most people usually putting this at 2nd or 3rd best. Guess they needed space for all the mid electronica albums. That said, y'know, 2nd or 3rd best Ghostface Killah album still means absolutely incredible.
My god the performance throughout this is so good. The production is some of the best of the mid 2000s. It really lifts this album up massively, and I found it a treat to listen to. I do have to say, this is the period of terrible skits filling up an album and this has some pretty deeply meh skits. I don't really rate albums down for skits unless they're actually intrusive enough to get in the way of the album though.
Rod Stewart is tory scum and I hate his singing voice. I really don't get it, it just felt like a dull album made worse by a singing voice that actually kinda grates on me. It has the same effect as listening to fingernails scrape on a chalkboard, I can't focus on anything else and I viscerally do not like it.
HELL YES ITS BOWIE TIME. I do prefer Low over this for the berlin trilogy, but damn I do really like a lot of this album. There are no less than 9 Bowie albums on this list and this is one of my least favorites despite having the incredible Heroes, the wild Beauty and the Beast, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno collaborating. That's not a dig against the album, but the quality of Bowie's work in my eyes. Overall it's great, but I think most David Bowie albums are. Its funny that Heroes is such an anomoly on this album compared to every other song.
The issue is, I know Bowie can do better then this. It feels lacking in the consistency of other albums as well as the high highs (with exception to Heroes and maybe Blackout). So take this as a very high 4.
