The iconic LZIV—stairway to heaven was the first song I learned on any instrument and I share many special memories listening to it with friends and family. I’ve spent days at a time studying and experiencing songs like ‘When the Levee Breaks’, and I’ve spent months or even years looking at other songs and am still just outright confused at how something like this could ever be possible—such as songs like Going to California—that if I listen to with my eyes closed and really focus, I can pretend that I’m in a cabin in the poconos learning double drop d for the first time. Perfect album, one of the best of all time.
Usually like to listen in the mornings but got busy. Have this one on vinyl so going to use the record player around late afternoon early evening.
Started playing around 3, first song I think of when looking at the vinyl before it started is ‘my house’ and maybe ‘helpless’ too, but I don’t remember ‘Almost Cut My Hair’ being that… simple? Not sure if that’s the right word but it was a very fun song just didn’t meet my expectations of cool harmonies typical in CSN. On Woodstock right now, sounding good, having fun.
Oh shit ‘Country Girl’! How could I have forgotten—so good. Feels like the songs in between the ones that I know well are not growing on me huge
Finished it, going to listen to a few of these a once over or two before rating bc I’m still not remembering a few of them too well, but maybe that’s just a sign they’re not that good, will report back.
2am, good album with some hits but it’s 36 minutes long only. Would probably give it a 7 or 7.5 if I could but I’m not giving it a 4/5 because there’s definitely better albums that are only a 4 so it needs buffer.
Just started listening to this the night before - first song feels very traditional late 70s pop, and I normally hate that style because it fucking ruined rock and roll, but this is nice, feels like a beach boys beat but sounds like it could be Diana Ross singing- liking this.
Ohhh shit we got dancing queen - haven’t heard this song since high school and it’s kinda weird to listen to but if u get over that this songs dope.
‘My love, my life’ feels like it could grow on me after a few more listens, felt catchy towards the end.
‘Dum Dum Dittle’ this is a song I don’t know but I’ve heard so many times in analysis of ABBA as being such a unique song for its chord progression and theory and yeah it definitely sounds like it, some weird things they do in the song that are super non traditional, they make it work, but I don’t necessarily hear an advantage of it or a intrigue about the song like I do with other weird songs, prob least fav in album so far
‘Knowing me, knowing you’ this has big rock feels but then the main chorus is more dance revolution, so I don’t really like that part just because I don’t like that genre, but the rest of the song is common sounding but I like it, the guitar is fun light in the album, tone is wack kinda cool.
‘Money, money…’ awww shiiiiiiiiiit. This shits weird!!! Tempo changes in the first 20 seconds and a hockey tonk hell yeah. More guitar again, some parts very fun. Good song, felt short, excited to relisten to this one
‘That’s me’ one of my favorite songs from a structure aspect
‘Why did it…’ Man what cant these guy do this shits dope. Genre switching like crazy in this album.
‘Tiger’ dope beat switch at end, want to sit on this one
‘Arrival’ wow, just listened and relistened immediately, beautiful experience. Opening sounds like a common bagpipe tune but I guess it’s synths? Not sure what type idk what year this was. Also pretty unreal to think that they were singing this shit with minimal production compared to today’s standards, their voices are simply lovely.
‘Fernando’ this song sounds like a different song, or maybe I’m just thinking of this song? This is the first song in the album wherr I think like yeah they’re forsure not English or American, definitely some other European influence coming out in this song and I’m enjoying it. Setting up as a good penultimate
‘Happy Hawaii’ very cool intro. Think I’m about a minute into the song and it sounds like a song that would be very different if it’s not stereo, so I’m going to listen to a mono version of this song next because this one seems to have too much going on for me. Couldn’t find a mono version, relistened to this one, very enjoyable.
Good album, very fun experience. Some songs felt less original then others, some felt weirder than others. Good time was had by all.
It’s 10am now, starting my second listen, skipped dancing queen this time around
https://www.popmatters.com/pops-and-the-wildest-2639825643.html
Interesting article on King Louis’ influences in Louis Armstrong and New Orleans culture. Also some interesting stuff online about Lion King Musical and racial implications for certain character names relating to these two artists because the writers were afraid of NAACP backlash since it was called ‘Jungle book’. Not to to forget the third Louis: Louis Jordan.
Alright let’s listen to some honkey jazz
‘T1 Just a gigalo’ is very familiar . That switch to ‘I ain’t got no buddy’ is very nice. Only a minute or two not the album but it feels like I’m just listening to a jam version of ‘Pennies from heaven’. Great ending.
T2 alright now this is a jazz album. I don’t know any Keely smith songs but she sounds familiar.
T8 buona sera - this is beautiful
T9 night train - ooooh baby
Was in an uber today and he said that his friend was an 83 year old man that died 5 years ago, and when they were kids he went out with Keely Smith.
T1 that was an experience, some cool key changes
T2
T3
T4 starting to see this is a concept album for sure. This song has that same chord progression used throughout most of Pink Floyd’s animals. Also hear dogs barking now, is that Seamus?
T5 beginning of this sounds like Morrison singing and the beat itself sounds like the doors. Yeah this for sure sounds like something straight from L.A Woman
T6 ‘Take a walk through peaceful meadows.. try not to look so disappointed’ is straight out of the doors by the doors, specifically the song ‘the end’. Got a bunch of different sounds going on in this one, think I might actually kinda like it. Didn’t love the intro but all these weird sounds are kinda coming together.
T7 alr let’s get weird. At 2:55, that show the good place on Netflix stole this riff completely. Also I was wondering what the deal was with those weird cool echo sounds and I looked it up and it’s Brian eno, legend. Surprised to learn he produced this record and 2 other talking head albums (remain in light, and more building about buildings and food). Very cool.
T8 feels like a reprise of Mind or Paper? Not sure, sounds better though.
Relistening now @10am:
Following day, think this is a 2.5/3 outta 10
T1 - first song in any album so far that made me feel like I needed to stand up and start dancing. Shits just too groovy. Whole song is splendid. Simply lovely.
T4 what a fun time. ‘Naa baaad mistaaakeee’. Crazy to think this was live in Berlin 50 years ago… and that was towards the end of Kuti’s run! Definitely think this is my favorite of the 4.
Whole thing feels like more of a concert performance and less of a studio album, so it’s hard to differentiate and rate separately each of the first three tracks. So most of my review is for the full album as listed on AM.
Albums about over but I’m loving this, think I’m going to listen to some related music, decided on just listening to the AM album/playlist called ‘the ‘69 Los Angeles sessions’ by Kuti. Going to be interesting since it was from a decade prior.
Was putting of listening to this all morning, finally started at 10:15 ish
T1 yeah basically what I expected, this is somehow worse though. The lyrics are so cornball. “I’m so angry and get no pussy!!”
Good production
3:39 yo this is straight up nonsense, no modality, legit sounds like just random notes. When you think of muddy playing and jimmy paige u think sure there’s some random shit he’s doing that probably wouldn’t be intentionally replicated every show he does, but still it fits and makes his solos special, this is just the noise and random filler shit except for the entire solo.
T2 wow this a new song? Also I do high key get how Metallica could turn this into something, kinda sounds like master of puppets or enter sandman with the drop tuning open string chugs and chromatic line cliches.
Definitely like this one more than the first.
T3 alright starting to see how although this might be ass, it could be fun to listen to to hear different metal influences, can definitely hear the birth of Black Sabbath in this one
1:04 another random note shit but this time it’s fitting into the track a little better. It’s just all so fast though, like it feels like the artists don’t respect consumer’s ears enough to listen to their music and instead need to overstimulate the audience with just so much noise, random key changes, and words that sound like they are not in english, well maybe Medieval English. I know that’s not true and they are serious very real artists but that’s my naive take on basically all heavy slash metal.
T4 what’s the deal with death and satan? Remeber when Paul McCartney shouted about a playground? Am I supposed to be scared? Because I am.
Maybe coolest song from an instrumental or rather musical aspect, and the drums and rhythm are IN THE POCKET big time, very tight playing, excellent drums and for the most part it’s excellent in tempo changes, doesn’t always sound very good, but is extremely difficult to do.
T6 apparently Jeff hanneman played a les Paul esp on this?? Kinda shocking. Kinda cool tho to hear how evh’s red special/Frankenstein came to be, certain sounds and frequencies from this album I’m sure that he wanted and certain that he didn’t want, probably ultimately led him to the decisions he made on gear.
T7 song sounds same as others, the talking is so weird I can’t get over that. Funish guitar run 1:00-1:30 but man I’m just waiting until this is over.
T8 Ayo Metallica, this your flow?
When in doubt pinch harmonic
T9 almost at the end. Like this intro so far, best in the album that I remember. The rythym sections are doing some cool stuff here, unique sounding composition as well. I feel like this could’ve been a good 2nd song on the album— but maybe since it’s here that means the final song is gonna be sick. why do they keep asking if I want to die? No?
T10, here we go, big buildup, fav song in the album precedes it, let’s see what we got. Alright the lighting and the two lead guitars I’m liking it. Pivotal point here for me at like 1:07 at the end of the double stop chugs, they needed to make a change and I liked the way they did it. Great tempo drops for that recurring riff. This songs seems very fun to play on guitar. Yoo he’s playing the same riff but on the downbeats now @2:20~ hell yeah never hear that. Kind of a weird cut to the rain but actually kind of nice, abrupt at first but it settles. I wonder what the idea/concept behind this album is and why the last 45 seconds is just rain, are we dead now maybe?
Last two songs are making me slightly less wish there was a 0 star rating option, still a firm 1/5 and would probably be much more hated by me if it didn’t have those last two songs. Definitely fun to see where inspiration is drawn from, but I did not enjoy listening to that album.
Started around 8
T1 intro
T2 edm
Did not finish
T3 edm
Going to hendells messiah tonight so I’ve been listening to some of that during the day and I just feel ridiculous going away from that to listen to an early edm album. Might not get all the way through this one today.
When I see this I think of hallelujah but don’t think I know any others, when I think of Jeff Buckley I mainly think of his Bob Dylan cover ‘mama, you’ve been on my mind’ which I like a lot.
T1 not what I expected at all, beginning is very very soft rock then end sort of exploded, excited to see where that’ll lead the rest of the album, didn’t necessarily love the first song but we’ll see about the rest.
T2 like this intro . This is like a grunge progression like nirvana.
This is nice, at like 3:00-3:30 that feels like it could be a Stevie backing.
Man this song is weird I like it
T3 this is more what I expected based on the little I knew about Jeff Buckley. Like it
My right ears like half clogged from a concert last night and this fourth song sounds like I’m missing a lot of frequencies so I’m gonna stop for now and come back later in the day and headphones if needed if I still can’t hear everything bc as of now it sounds kind of naked and I’m sure much of it is but I think I’m judging it as too naked for missing a lot of the background.
T4
Fuck I wrote a ton of notes but didn’t hit save. I don’t want to rewrite everything fuck.
Listened to it a bunch tho satisfied with rating accuracy. Would like to give this a 2.5
4.5/10
Alr 80s pop herwego
T1 hate the beginning, started to like it as the singer started singing more weird. Seems like a concept album maybe? Excited to hear the rest of the songs, probably wouldn’t relisten often to t1 but I enjoyed listening
T2
Hate this falsetto
T6
Some weird tribal music hell yea
T10 Ayo? Horse noises? That’s wild (echoes is the best PF song)
Late start today
Merry Christmas Eve
T1 that French? Alr. Definitely alternate, very excited. 1:18 is that Neil diamond? 3:20 what’s going on here.
Very avant garde I enjoyed that experience.
T2 didn’t enjoy as much. Definitely still feels like it’s part of a bigger experience though.
Didn’t take any notes but had a lot of thoughts, wanted to experience the album first then see what I remember or do a second listen later for notes: I have yet to listen to the final 4 songs (all already in the album but these are different versions / variations).
Enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Maybe a 2.2/10 or even a little higher. Going to relisten to some songs before giving final rating tomorrow morning.
Put this on the upstairs speakers during the morning in Christmas. Very pleasant time. It is Christmas music though and Christmas music does suck unless it’s Nate cole so 1/5
It’s 6pm now. Busy day just getting to this.
Left my speakers in the living room so it’s headphones for tonight.
Also coincidentally just started tracking my pulse and spo2 so I’m gonna see if my pulse shoots up when it starts to get loud (I think this is gonna be rap music ?)
T1 alright this sounds new let’s goo
T2 I can’t even describe what this reminds me of. It just reminds me more of a time maybe like heading into the 2010s? Maybe it was a little earlier, but this is giving me similar vibes to a lot of the beats. Despite that you can definitely hear ‘the 90s’ in this beat. Fun change of pace haven’t heard this in a while. Yoooo it just hit me this sounds so derivative of ‘36 chambers’. I’m enjoying listening to this but j queued 36 chambers for after this album. Shoutout ghostface killa too I might put it on the turntable if I’m feelin it.
T3 radical switch up at 2:00.
T4 now THIS feels like alt 90s rap HELLL YEAAH.
I love this beat
Zoned out to this song good stuff.
T8 I been zoned out. Having a good time. Not wanting to review but don’t want to forget anything.
Aside: this is nothing like Wu Tang I take it back.
I hear a nylon guitar? So weird I love it.
This could be a prog rock song.
J checked pulseoximeter or whatever and at the beginning it was sitting over 110 not going down, just checked and last 5 minutes+ we’re in the 80s, can feel this music relaxing me.
Do I have autism?
Definitely want to relisten in the future
Listened to in the car so didn’t get to hear it all too well but I’ve listened before. Think I might want to give it a 3 stars but I think realistically it’s a 2
Listening to this while Rossin’s getting bitched by a 40 year old mom for his insurance money
Enjoying this mucho
Heard many of these, don’t always feel like giving a full review to something I don’t know much to say about.
Did forget just quite how many bangers there are in this. At least 2 likely 3 legit bangers just in this album, including a top 10-15 Aretha song (the last track), this was a song king wrote (with input from her) for Aretha, who then made it famous.
Wasn’t able to find this specific album/mastering on Apple Music, guess we’re using Spotify today… booo! Wireless headphones it is👎
A lot of this makes me want to listen to Sammy Davis
Not what I was expecting
Writing this Jan 5 ‘26. Catching up on a few old albums I missed.
T1 classic song, makes me think of that old meme and trying to learn that little lick at the end of the intro. Such an iconic baseline aswell.
T2 very refreshing
T8 feels like a Jerry Garcia solo . Maybe from “Garcia” album.
Overall a nice album. Not a lot of standout unique sounds. Not that this is common, but there were other groups doing this same type of different much better than this.
Thought between 2 and 3 stars
Heard before and have the vinyl but never really listened to it more than a few times and probably didn’t pay much attention after the title track. Terrific album, didn’t realize how much like blues and classic rock this album was, was expecting a lot more gain and distortion and much louder drums. That was a big problem I had with other albums (albeit they were more metal, maybe even slash or whatever it’s called): drums were drowning out everything else. Didn’t have that problem here. Really enjoyed every track. Iommi’s the man - I guess I just didn’t know. Crazy to think he was playing with half a finger also. Really great time, played along for most of album. Definitely going to listen to more Black Sabbath in the future. Likely the first 4 first per Murphys advice
‘Hey! That’s the name of the show!’
T1 8th wonder of the world is hard
T2 dopest beat with a harmonica. Just a totally sick mix. Junior wells playing that harp sample and pretty sure thers is a buddy guy composition in here.
1:45 yeaaaa this is what I like
T4/5 these guys really sound like they have a big appreciation for predecessors in various genres. Usually when u can hear the gospel roots u can hear all the rockabilly and rhythm and blues that leads to rock, and same thing here. Sometimes artists you can tell really listened to James brown or Isley bros, but these guys don’t sound directly derivative, more so a conglomerate of inspiration from a hundred years of music (and that omitting any Afro beat they include), seems like they, or their engineers whatever, were students of music history and wanted to do their own thing. It’s weird how well this fits into the culture and environment of the 90s hip hop scene, so it’s surprising to me to have this group that can gel so well with what people would’ve been hearing on the radio (I mean how else are they gonna get radio play), and yet it doesn’t seem like a dated piece of ‘90s music’ like a lot of 90s rap and music in general is. No shade against the others just something about the diversity in this album makes it stand out.
T8 up until 1:55 this was Kind of the ‘90s music I was referencing, not quite as coooie cutter, definitely not quite as cookie cutter, forsure more unique. Innervisions type beat
T9 1:37 me at Thanksgiving
“This is antisemetic bullshit! I’m gonna call my friends over at the jdl” fr tho black people do hate Italians
Less thoughts as the album went on. Had a good time. Not my favorite but there’s a lot in there I really enjoyed listening to this morning.
T1 this is a gospel song. Like the Beatles reference at 4:00.
T5 lovely sax reprise
T6
Speaking of Beatles references
T7 the Luther vandross really makes this Bowie record into a Philly special soul album
T8 we got a James brown sample to start off and I’ve been told that this was a collaborative composition with Lennon, not just a vocal feature.
T7 liking this one, sounds more like the cure when they had a lot of their more popular songs and hits in the following decade.
I put this on and I’m in the car with my mom and she’s seen the curr in concert like a dozen times and said this album is like the cure on heroin and not a great representation of the whole discography of the band. Definitely not what I expected from an album by them.
Not a lot of memorable hooks. There was like 1 I remember well. I listened only once and think I’m gonna rate it after only one listen, prob j gonna clump it into the other 2 stat albums but from what I remember easily could go the other way.
Want to relisten and see if this should be rated higher
Second album of the day, listening to this 1/16/26, like a week late.
T1 I like this. I always liked the band Radiohead without ever listening to them much, j knew they did some alt stuff that was kind of proggy but mainly alt and most notably I always thought they were creative and had some originality. This shits weird I’m liking it.
T2 this sounds like that one XXX song at 2:00ish, kinda the whole ‘?’ Album I think it was, but mainly one song I can’t think of, may update this when I hear it next time.
T3 that maj7 opening chord keeps making me think it’s ’still crazy…’ -Paul Simon.
Very pretty
T5 CSNY joint right here and I love it.
Paused and relistened to T3 simply lovely. Really wanna do heroine
Registering from there^
T7 I NEED HEROINE. This shits amazing
Very nice time listening to this. It’s always weird rating albums when some of them are like this, like what about “bitches brew” how would I rate an album like that on 1-5 and compare it to the rest? Maybe by the time that album (hope it’s here) comes up, I’ll know how to better differentiate artists.
First day back on the morning album regiment been busy.
Glad it’s an r&b album to ease me back in.
T1 feels like Kendrick , a little tpab but mainly “untitled”. Especially the “I feel weird, brush your teeth comb your hair”, reminds me of sb soul outro
T3 also like Kendrick but section 80.
T4 just reading about the album now and now I am a fool. This IS A Kendrick album! Didn’t even look at the release year, just assumed it was 40 years old.
T6 flower boy? Tyler wya in this album btw ?
T9 finally this is what I came here for.
T10 nice verse. Sounds exactly like Sherane IIRC.
T17 man wiz sucks.
Feels weird listening to this when I missed so much of his discography.
T1 sounded like Al green join at like 5:05
T2 SHE WAS A HOOOAH 2:00 Ayo? This guy gay or something?
T4 was not expecting this it’s like heavy metal but so, so gay.
T6 sax is really nice, think there’s an alto sax in there aswell. I swear I’m getting Pink Floyd’s vibes but I can’t pinpoint it, it’s a bunch of small things that make me feel like there’s a resemblance.
T7 2:30 in, definitely favorite instrumental section and prob fav song in album.
Really making me want to listen from the beginning.
I listened to unplugged right after this to get my mind right about nirvana. Never really loved this album. The hits are the songs I like and they’re good. T4 makes me think of shiv
Very nitpicky about what nirvana I like. I think this is either a 2 or 3 for me. Would feel weird giving it a score so low as 2, but when I look track by track, with this short of an album, it’s just not worthy of being on the good side of a 5 star rating system—think it’ll be a 2
