Duran Duran were a touch before my time, having been a child of the very late 80s/early 90s. So i only heard the massive radio hits, and even those well after the fact.
As a whole it's way too slick for my liking, but there are some absolutely killer pop hooks in there, the bass playing is incredible, and the synth and drum sounds aren't as cold as some of their contemporaries. It does make me realise where INXS and Models got their sound from...
First time I've listened to this since Bowie's death. It's a heavy, heavy listen, perfect sign off album from him, pulls no punches but is also totally listenable and compelling. The videos released with it also stopped me in my tracks.
This can't be anything but 5 stars I reckon.
Can recognise that this is a beautiful album, Ray is the star of it obviously, but the strings and backing vocals are a little too treacly for me to really enjoy fully.
This is my favourite EC album. Clever punk(?) with great lyrics and melodies. I think every song is great on this one - can't say the same for later ones.
I saw Elvis a year or two ago and it was among the worst gigs I'd seen - as a result (maybe unfairly) this may have been a 5 star album. Its a 4 now.
Been a while between spins for this one! I think i once called it the best album of the 80s, until a friend corrected me with Disintegration, which is hard to refute.
Stacked side A, with hits i can't even hear properly any more I've heard them so many times.
Side B has the gold. Trip Through Your Wires, Red Hill Mining Town etc.
Only complaint - fizzles out at the end. An album that starts with 3 absolute anthems should probably end in kind, IMO.
Wow, this is a discovery.
So. Much. Sound. Very much a mood thing, I think on a bad day it would induce a panic attack (and nearly did in the car in heavy traffic today), on a good day would be the best thing ever.
Pet Sounds on 21st Century drugs. Recommended.
I always feel like a tourist listening to gangsta rap, and I'm just generally not a fan, so it's difficult to rate this objectively. This is pretty good though! Good beats and atmospheres, and I like Raekwon's voice.
3 stars, but it's no doubt worth more to those who like this sorta thing.
This is an immediate 5 stars for me. Venus in Furs, Heroin, Sunday Morning, all of it. Perfect. Imagine getting the bait and switch of the come down of the first few tracks and then descending into the drug hell of side two in 1967.
Had never listened to a Prince album in full, no idea why not, this is awesome!
Extended funk jams, slap bass even on the ballads, heaps of sleazy weirdness.
At least a couple of songs are destined for various late night party playlists.
4 stars, only due to the absence of half stars.
The hits are undeniably great, and Ice Cream Man is pretty fun, but overall this is just ok.
I had a minute in 2005 where I listened to other Tropicalia bands like Os Mutantes a lot, but never ventured further.
This is ok, a little Muzak-y in places, but there were occasional moments where the cheese meets fuzz guitars or other bits that grab my interest.
Don't think I'll explore further...
I'm not sure what's worse - the overt hypermasculine, misogynist nu-metal posturing of Limp Bizkit and Korn, or the same thing compressed to within an inch of its life in a multimillion dollar studio, sanitised and watered down for radio and a younger fan base.
I remember the moment this hit - millennials seemed to love it, it was everywhere. ln some ways its fine - some decent riffs hidden in the production for example - but I cant help but smell the Lynx Africa and hair gel, and hear the jingle of wallet key chains with every note. And the whining. As Ben Folds sang at about the same time - "y'all don't know what it's like, to be male, middle class and white".
Suffers from double album syndrome a bit, it is a new album + offcuts after all, but if this is the quality of a band's offcuts, what a band.
Disc 1 is kind of unstoppable - ending with Trampled Underfoot and Kashmir was always going to be difficult to beat on Disc 2. So it sags a bit, but has highlights too and really picks up for Ten Years Gone, Night Flight and The Wanton Song.
Not II or IV levels of perfection overall, but you could construct something pretty close out of the 15 songs here.
I don't even have to listen to this to give it an instant 5. But did anyway.
Oddly it didn't change my world when it came out like it did others. It was just another heavy sounding rock album at the time. And over the years it became a bit like wallpaper, it was played at every party. So I avoided it for a long long time.
Coming back to it though, it's just a perfect set of pop songs. Not a dud track on. And Butch Vig's big production is perfect for it.
Oh, this is directly in my wheelhouse right now. I have heard bits and pieces of this band, but not this album.
Can hear potential influences on a lot of the alt-country and downbeat Americana stuff that came later, and its pretty amazing on first listen. Occasional missteps (the loud bluesy tune in the middle, some unavoidably 80s production in spots) aside, this is a definite re-listen for me.
Two minds on this one.
Positive take: Shirley Manson is a superstar, and this is a fairly excellent set of pop songs.
Negative take: This is what happens when you get 3 big name producers in a room together. It sounds grown in a lab, or the best result of a carefully curated set of AI prompts looking for a perfectly 1995 sounding mix of alt rock, electronica and 80s Goth pop.
Overall verdict: I still can't connect with this, all the ingredients are there, mixed together a different way this would be right up my alley.
It's great, It's the Phil Spector wall of sound, but i left it a day too late.
3 points for now, but added to next year's Xmas listening!
Gonna sit on the fence for this one as I didn't give it the time. Can hear good things in it, but probably not my thing.
EDIT: oh, I was wrong. Relistened to this early this morning, and it gives the same vibes as I get from Portishead, Massive Attack, Boards of Canada etc. All great and really well put together.
I didn't love this at first when I heard it years ago - it's long, bluesy and goes for stretches without a hook, but it's gotten under my skin over the years and could be among maybe my top 3 or 4 Stones albums. It sounds like a band playing in a room, and when the horns and gospel backing vocals come in i want to actually be there. Most songs get in, make their point and get out, so it never drags.
A sign of a good double is when you can play a single side or one of the records and it still holds together as a classic. This is definitely one of those for me. I'm hesitating between 4 and 5 honestly.
I think maybe, like New Order after them, they were more effective across a collection of singles or a compilation than a full studio album, but this is still pretty great.
Hooky is at his best here, inspiring a million bass players bored with playing root notes. The production is unique too - so sparse and desolate, i cant imagine any other sound working for the material.
Probably closer to a 5 when I'm in the right headspace for this (and really, thank god I rarely am) but a 3 would be undervaluing it.
I've always hated R&B, so avoided this one. Glad I discovered it through this - love the beats, the thoughtful lyrics, the inbetween dialogue, the production, all of it. Definitely putting this on rotation.
Maybe my favourite jazz album, on some days. Has a lot of Miles to fight for the top spot though!
A masterpiece of performance, restraint and editing. "The Complete In a Silent Way sessions" is worth a crack too if you want 3+ hrs of the same vibe...
Ah, straight after In a Silent Way, this can't be coincidence...
My actual all time favourite jazz album - straighter and more accessible than what came later, but perfectly played, some all time melodies and solos, and it sounds so perfectly produced its hard to imagine it was recorded 65+ years ago.
"So What" has pretty much everything I love in jazz in 9 minutes, and most of my favourite jazz musicians (Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans and John Coltrane in addition to Davis).
Also makes me remember i need to branch out and listen to more jazz.
Another easy 5 stars!
Yeah, this is OK - certainly better than what they've done since.
They really are terrifically boring though, like the worst elements of latter day U2 filtered further for the masses.
Another band I kind of missed due to being just slightly too young to catch them in real time.
I know the hits, side two is pretty flawless. Side one patchy as. Suffers from the whole being less than the sum of it's (admittedly excellent) parts for me.
Might have to listen to the others, even if it's just with a musician's ear on.
Oh, this is really cool - discovering this sort of thing is the reason I'm here. First track is so joyous, love the shifts in rhythm.
I want to send this to all of my drummer friends - amazing!
Seems that listeners are divided between those who think the garage production and use of electric jug is a bug, and those who see it as a feature. I'm the latter.
Along with the Doors and Love, one of the bands that best balance the light and dark of 60s acid rock.
The guitar sounds great, Roky is an amazing frontman and vocalist, and underneath the gonzo weirdness is a bunch of classic rock and roll tunes, expertly delivered. I love this album.
A maddening mix of schmaltzy ballads (Without You), Ween-like annoying novelty tunes (Coconut), music hall numbers and genuinely great "American Beatles in the 70s" classics.
One to extract the gooduns for a playlist i reckon. 3 stars for the rest.
No songs, all vibe, charisma and musicianship. I'm not complaining!
This is a fun one. Some of it is a bit silly, but that's KISS. The big hitters are among my favourites (God of Thunder, Shout It Out Loud, Detroit Rock City), and Beth is Bob Ezrin production at it's finest (actually sounds very similar to his arrangements on The Wall).
I'm not a member of the KISS army by any stretch, but this is a solid glam rock album.
Wow, this is great. Have always appreciated Kate Bush, but have been limited to Hounds of Love and the singles. I have a bunch of other records of hers but for some reason never connected with them.
This one is super weird and really did the job through headphones on the way to work this morning. Every song has a new surprise, whether it be in the production, or the arrangement, and especially in Kate's super unhinged and flexible vocal delivery. It starts with the high pitched screechiness of "Sat In Your Lap" and ends with the call and response donkey sounds of "Get Out of my House"...guessing it isn't for everyone, but this is a rare find and I'll be definitely be putting this one on again.
Bowie is as always great here, but the reason i love 70s Bowie is as much due to the presence of others (Ronson, Iggy, Eno) as it's due to him. There's no one else here worth mentioning, it all just sounds a little session muso-ey and faceless.
Also, if you're going to take on "Heroes" on the cover art like this, I'd expect more.
A few tracks to pull out for a late period Bowie playlist but that's about it.
Big fan of Damn the Torpedoes, and others i've heard, so was expecting more from this one. On first listen, it's generally a bunch of middling rockers, sounding like a band just formed and yet to gel. American Girl and Breakdown are both good, the rest completely skippable.
This and the two albums prior are kind of perfect. Amnesiac gets unfairly pegged as Kid A offcuts, and the release strategy lent itself to that, but Pyramid Song, I Might Be Wrong and Knives Out are among my favourite Radiohead songs, and the album as a whole meshes together just as beautifully as Kid A.
Pretty good. Damned by being the follow up to an absolute all timer, and by the tendency of late 90s albums to be way too long. But - the good songs are excellent and the okay ones are elevated by the force of Jarvis Cocker's wit and personality. Overall though, needs a good harsh edit of about 15 minutes and it would be so much better.
Probably very good, but i cant get into Elvis Costello these days.
Probably my most long standing favourite so far. Blew my mind as a kid, the production and sound effects, the sweeping grandeur of it juxtaposed with the isolation and despair of Pink's story, the guitar solos, the movie (the animations!), the live shows, the backstory behind it, the fact you can connect the end to the beginning to make an infinite loop...concept albums don't get any better.
36 years after being introduced to this one by my sister, it really says a lot about an album when it pops up here and I immediately make plans that involve listening to it...
I was working in a CD retailer when this came out and it was on high rotation at the time, so I know this pretty well, even though I haven't listened to it once since, until now.
It was also one of the first albums that made me realise I was getting older - this was a millennials album, and as a gen-Xer i was probably not going to be at the clubs / indie nights where this would have been spun in 2004.
Musically, on relisten I feel much the same as I did when it was released - it's front loaded with absolute monster tunes, the bass and keyboards give the best of New Order and The Cure, alongside guitar parts lifted directly from U2, and the drums are dancey and scream 2004. After the first 5 songs though, it drops off a cliff - i have no desire to listen to any of the back half again. The closer "Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll" could be the worst thing I've ever heard.
A 3 star album that should have been a 5 star EP.
Not bad - on paper i should like this more, all the elements are there, post punk, minimalist arrangements, good mix of male and female vocals. Songs aren't really there though. Might open up something over a couple of listens, but i doubt it.
Classic...hard rock in expert mode - Malcolm and Angus Young's guitars blast out of the speakers like no one elses, Bon Scott puts in his usual charismatic performance, and I reckon Cliff Williams is the secret weapon throughout, playing the most deceptively simple bass parts in rock, completely locked in to the groove from start to finish. Not to mention Mutt Lange's production and distinctive backing vocals - there are moments that you hear the same tricks he'd use to make his millions from with Def Leppard and Bryan Adams a decade later.
Fun, fun album. A couple of clunkers in amongst it but one of their best for sure.
R.I.P. Bon Scott - this was quite an album to go out with.
Not a fan of blues in generally, but i can be swayed occasionally. Not this time though - this album, the production, the featured artists (Bonnie Raitt a notable exception) and the arrangements all leave me cold - it's a 5 star for a guitar shop employee I'm sure, but a 2 from me.
Beautiful. It is a bit of a time and place album for me, but pretty flawless. Hazey Jane II is a masterpiece of an opener.
Not sure why the Lauryn Hill album was such an amazing surprise but this left me completely cold, but there it is. Absolute snoozefest.
Love this album, for the storytelling, the bleak vibe, the back story of its recording and the influence on so many alt-country/Americana artists I discovered after. The songs take a while to soak in, it's all so sparse it often reminds me of those Dylan albums released when he was trying to shake off some fans. But that same sparseness forces you to lean in and pay attention to the stories - and also creates the perfect atmosphere for them to hang off.
No doubt it's harder work than Born in the USA or Born to Run, but i reckon the payoff is better for it.
Its a short way from "best-selling American artist" to "I hate the fucking Eagles, man". To be honest I'm not sure where I land. For everything they are popular for (the harmonies, the FM radio friendly sound) they're clearly top of the heap, but i just don't think there's much substance underneath. Looking at their contemporaries (CSNY, Fleetwood Mac, even Grateful Dead) the difference for me is depth. Those bands had some gravity to what they were writing about, something progressive instrumentally or even just a bit of drama. The Eagles have none of that - but just like Coldplay 30 years later, noone in my office is going to complain if it's on in the background. Its just fine.
One of those rare albums that not only grabbed me straight off the first listen, but still continues to surprise and impress me decades on.
The songs aren't massively catchy apart from the hits... but the orchestration and harmonies are so incredible, they create a completely unique world to live in for 37 minutes.
Plenty of bands have been influenced by this and tried to replicate it, but I can't think of one that succeeded.
Another artist that I listen to infrequently thinking "this is incredible!" and then don't listen to again for years.
This is excellent though - kooky lyrics over awesome beats and samples, and some all time classic Beck tunes. I probably prefer Mutations or Seachange, but this is super fun.
Albini's engineering is great on this - sounds like 4 people at their peak in a room playing classic songs, no more, no less. Kim Deal's bass playing proves that you don't need to be flashy to be a great bass player, just consistent (and being cool helps too). It's the perfect punk counterpoint to Doolittle's pop, and they were the second band to show me that weirdo nerds can make the best music (Talking Heads were the first). I don't think it's as perfect as what they'd do next, so id stop short of granting it full marks, but still a fantastic album.
Not bad...the songs kind of blur into each other a bit, so it all comes off as a bit characterless.
I reckon dressed up in a different set of arrangements and engineered with more clarity, this would be a cracking album - its just a shame i need to imagine that rather than hear it.
I can see how people love this, but for life of me i can't connect with it. And I've tried, many times.
Pretty fun - i think I prefer a couple of the others, and i definitely prefer Neu! and Can when it comes to their peers from the time...this feels a little bit novelty value to me, as much as I get their importance.
Picking up on lost threads is one of the reasons I love doing this. I listened to the first two Black Keys albums a lot back when they came out - their covers of "She Said, She Said" and "Have Love, Will Travel" were on many a WinAmp playlist (remember them?) in 2000-something. I lost track soon after and apart from being vaguely aware through online articles of them "selling out" and trying to recoup touring money through some problematic crypto gig, and the ubiquitous singles used in various ads, had no idea about them post 2004.
This one was an absolute joy to listen to - i can hear how they expanded their sound beyond the two piece garage blues constraints of their early material, and it works a treat. Some of it sounds exactly like an album in 2010 was expected to production-wise, but I still get shades of soul, guitar driven blues and even some early Captain Beefheart vibes at times. Most importantly the songs are really, really strong and sound authentic.
Unlike, say, Kings of Leon at around the same time, who i guess faced the same dilemma at the time on how to stay relevant and able to recoup money for themselves and their record company, this album shows the best possible balance between artistic purity and a commercial sound. From reading up on them that was short lived...but this is a keeper.
'60s counter-culture icons in errant apostrophe horror!
Have only heard the really big hits, which is surprising, as the really big hits are near perfect.
Straight Shooter is a cool slice of California guitar pop, Monday Monday and California Dreamin' are the aforementioned big hits. Some of the stuff in the middle is, well, middling. The Beach Boys cover is inessential, i imagine it would have been even more so in 1966? Ditto Spanish Harlem.
Honestly - this plays like a group of overnight sensations rushed into making an album, familiar cover tunes and all.
But - those hits make this a very worthy listen.
This was a bit fun!
Great beats, MCs and vibes. Typically questionable lyrics, it was 1992 after all.
Rated-R DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, maybe? No, that's rude. But, I'll knock a star off for it ageing pretty poorly lyrically...
Yeah, lots of fun. I should listen to more hip hop.
Beyoncé, alright then!
I have a fairly strong bias against this sort of massive production, multi million dollar pop music, so I'm listening with some reluctance.
Pretty good though...Beyoncé is undeniably talented and in control of what she's doing. The lyrics are a lot more provocative that I had imagined, and pretty funny in places. As for production, in places it almost, almost tickles the part of my brain that trip-hop does, or the better parts of mid period Madonna. So it's good, and I can understand why she is a superstar...its just another one that's probably not for me.
Ooh - this is bloody lovely, very easy listening but fabulous playing, really cool interplay between Getz and Byrd (recorded in 4 hours in a church? Insane), and like a lot of jazz albums of the period, the cover art makes me want to run out and buy it.
Eurgh. Opening track was promising, but it soon descended to easy listening landfill disco...
Amazing keyboard sounds, I want to plug an organ into a wah pedal and wail for 45 minutes.
Even the syrupy songs (and there are several) go alright.
Now we're talking! I originally discovered these guys through the "Satan is Real" album, commonly cited in funniest album cover lists, which is an unfair focus as it's pretty incredible in all other ways.
Hadn't explored further so this is my first listen of this one - beautifully harmonised bluegrass ballads about sad and tragic things, all immaculately performed and recorded.
Right up my alley at present!
Oh, I giggled a lot re-listening to this one.
- Why is George sniffing his armpit?
- The album has I Want Your Sex pts 1, 2 and 3, set up like a very serious prog album ala Genesis or Pink Floyd, and then
- "Phwoar...sex!" a lot.
Look, this is great, a fun album and was kind of ubiquitous in 1987/88. Quaint how naughty it seemed, according to commercial telly and radio at least - particularly when much ruder stuff was already out. I guess the PMRC kerfuffle had a long tail?
Title track continues to be an all time pop banger, the ballads are actually excellent, and as a whole the album holds together really well.
Interesting ride listening to this one. First half grated on me a lot, it sounds like they stretched the 2 piece format as far as they could, and got a bit desperately experimental (Marimba! Piano! Unexpected blasts of guitar noise!). It all sounds a bit contrived.
Once it settles in though, it's actually pretty good. Bits reminded me of Led Zep III, or Exile on Main Street, which is a good thing.
Overall though, this feels like (and felt like at the time) the beginning of the end for them. I might also be a bit biased - the one time I saw them (Big Day Out 2006 I think?) was touring this, and i walked out - watching Jack White bash on a marimba in an enormodome with bad sound is not my idea of fun...
