Love this album, it’s an all-time fav for me. It gets overshadowed by TCATS because that one had bigger hits, but I love the rawness and energy of this one.
Top-tier vocal performance, but some of the songwriting isn't great and the album as a whole feels too long. Still an enjoyable listen with some high highs.
Has held up really well and still hits hard. Very formative for me, musically
I think I’d heard like 1-2 tracks from this one before but had never heard of this as an album and was unaware of its status as a classic. Really solid!
Besides the fact that some of the Pumpkins’ best work is on this one, the stylistic range between the tracks is just staggering. There are a good number of tracks that I could do without, (the album’s final stretch is borderline terrible), but you have to respect the creativity.
Pretty solid mid-period Beck album although I think it’s maybe Beck’s 4th or 5th best. Sounds like he wanted to do ‘Odelay’ again.
I haven't listened to a ton of actual 80's glam metal stuff like this; I didn't hate it but I was hoping it would be sillier/trashier/catchier or something.
Enjoyed this one more than I expected to. Lots of fun to sing nonsense lyrics along with.
I think this is objectively a pretty solid album (although it is EXTREMELY of its time and the songwriting isn’t anything spectacular for the most part) but it turns out I just find Madonna’s overall corniness and self-importance too big of an obstacle to enjoy her music.
Somewhere out there, there's a universe where I don't hate Robert Smith's voice, and am a huge fan of The Cure.
Wasn't feeling this one at first, but it grew on me a lot by the end. I think my appreciation for Vampire Weekend helped me out here.
'Oh Baby' is a great start to the album but I feel like it was kind of downhill from there. I've never been a fan of James Murphy's talk-singing thing, and most of these songs are just soooo loooong. I haven't listened to LCD Soundsystem's earlier albums in a long time, but I remember them being a lot more fun; maybe I'm misremembering though.
Classic country has never been my thing, but this was fine. Reminded me of stuff I’ve heard from Dolly Parton from around that era.
I've always respected Talking Heads more than I actually like them, for the most part. I cannot in good conscience give this less then 4 stars because it's so unique and interesting to listen to, but I will say that little here would rank among my favorite TH songs.
Really enjoyed this one. First ‘new to me’ album from the list that I went back and listened to several times.
Great songwriting, great production. The singles still hit even though I’ve heard them a thousand times.
Decent UK punk that wasn't as down-the-middle as the first couple of songs suggested.
I was kind of ready to hate this, and while it wasn't really my thing, I respect it for being a lot more varied than I was expecting. I liked the songs that were more laid back more than the 70's hard rock stuff.
Not bad by any means; definitely a little forgettable though, and it probably doesn't help that I already listen to a fair amount of music in this vein that is more up my alley. The best songs here struck me as a not-as-good Daft Punk.
The words that kept coming to mind as I listened to this were 'pleasant' and 'sleepy'. I listened to it early in the morning, but I think it would work better as a winding-down-for-the-night sort of listen.
Hell of a debut. Miss this scrappy, up-and-coming version of Kanye so much. This is almost hard to listen to, knowing where Kanye has ended up. That said: this is undoubtedly a great album but I forget how hit and miss it is.
I was kind of excited to check out some Adele deep cuts, but unfortunately most of this album just didn’t do anything for me. You can’t deny her voice, but I didn’t think anything of the non-single tracks came anywhere close to the actual singles.
This is going to sound INCREDIBLY STUPID but I never realized how west coast g-funk Tupac was. I've never listened to more than one of his songs at a time and I guess most of my focus is on his unmistakable voice/cadence. Anyway, this was pretty good even though I've never really been a Tupac guy.
Man, I was turned off by this one almost immediately. It just sounds like someone told her to sing in all caps all the time. It sounds like she looks around the room and says 'listen to this, 'y'all' before every take. I will say that the production is pretty fantastic and that I would have had a hard time placing the time period that this came out. Anyway, this felt like a real endurance test and I couldn't wait for it to be over.
This was an interesting listen; I think I had only heard a little over half of it before but the half that I had heard as been burned into my brain. I've never been a huge fan of GNR but you have to respect how fully-formed of a debut this is. I can't imagine how this crazy would have sounded back in 1987.
Great performance, great energy. I like that they kept the stage banter in there as part of the recording.
I've never been a Pink Floyd fan, so I didn't have that as a jumping off point for this album. I also wasn't aware of the mental health stuff surrounding the creation of the album until after I was done listening, and maybe the context makes these songs more interesting in a way, but I could not wait for it to be over. This just came off as a bunch of tossed off screwing around to me and I kind of hated most of it.
Not really for me, but it's inoffensive enough that it was a pleasant listen, and the harmonies were pretty top notch.
This was pretty cool; kind of a dark jazzy detective movie soundtrack-type of thing. Some pretty cool sections here and there.
I’m giving this 3 stars because I can appreciate it on an artistic level, but God help me, I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to stand David Bowie’s voice.
God help me, I just don't like this kind of jazz.
I don't think I've ever listened to this type of music for more than a couple of minutes. This wasn't unlistenable or anything but I will say that if I was a quitter this would have been my first DNF.
Here’s another classic album that I had never heard all the way through. I thought that the quirks of Alanis’ voice would get super annoying over the course of the album, but that part ended up being fine.
I listened to Portishead quite a bit in college, and always preferred the second album to this one. I haven’t listened to either album all the way through in probably 25 years, but I’ll have to go back and give that second album a listen there’s no freaking way it’s better than this one.
Really enjoyed this one. Very 'all killer no filler'.
Music that sounds this 80's is always going to have a bit of an uphill climb as far as my enjoyment of it, but I found most of these songs to be pretty boring even outside of how extremely 80's they sounded. I recognized 'Walk of Life' - that song is pretty good; I had no idea what that song was called or who it was by before I listened to this. Also: I was surprised to find out that these guys are British
Thirty seconds into this one I thought 'oh man, this is going to be super annoying', but it ended up being kind of charming and fun. I don't think I would have enjoyed it that much if the singer didn't have a hilarious cockney (I think?) accent.
Early hip hop like this tends to not age well, but I still found this to be pretty enjoyable. I'd say the beats have held up better than the bars. When I was a kid I somehow went from MC Hammer to NWA, but I think something like this would have been a better middle ground.
This is their mountaintop album as far as I'm concerned. You could definitely trim the fat in a couple of places, but for the most part it's solid all the way through with some really high highs. 'B.O.B.' remains untouchable, and I'm still blown away every time I hear how Andre 3000 is able to rap over the beat on '?'
Possibly my favorite front-to-back Beatles album. I'm not a huge Beatles fan or an expert by any means, but I think of this as the album where they were really starting to get creative but before they got kind of bonkers (for better or worse). This was kind of their sweet spot in terms of overall quality as far as I'm concerned.
I dug this; very fun and breezy. Not a lot of surprises stylistically if you’ve heard their bigger songs, but it was a good time.
Sounds a lot like The Clash to me, who I've never liked. I'm just not a fan of this sort of sound, especially with this dude's vocals.
It feels weird to hate on this because it's so far out of my wheelhouse, but wow, this was a rough listen.
Lots of weird sections, some parts that were really cool. My favorite parts were the instrumental sections - some of them brought to mind Radiohead and early post rock. Not really what I'd call enjoyable, but definitely interesting.
I don't have the jazz vocabulary to describe why this is a lot more appealing to me than the John Coltrane albums that I listened to a couple of weeks ago, but I think part of it is that there is a level of chaos and dissonance that can push a lot of jazz into the ‘not for me’ zone.
I dug this one more than 'Heroes', I think it's a little less experimental maybe, and Bowie isn't singing with his Extreme Bowie Voice this time.
The cringy parts of this album haven't gotten any less cringy over the years, but I found it to still be a really entertaining listen beyond that. I know a lot of people don't like the 'lyrical miracle' aspect of Eminem's music, but I don't mind it.
This was a nice listen. I had always heard that this was an underrated semi-classic; it didn't blow me away or anything, but I think I would have been really into it if I had discovered it around the time it came out.
I didn't like this one quite as much as MSABAF but it was cool to hear what Talking Heads sounded like on their first album.
Never listened to these guys before; I don't know why I always assumed that they were more 70's southern classic rock. Pretty solid listen; I dug how varied it was. Also I never knew that these guys were responsible for 'Somebody to Love' and 'White Rabbit'.
Pretty enjoyable for the most part; I'm not a big blues guy so more than a couple of songs like this will get old fast to me. The live setting/energy does give this a big boost.
Here's another all-time classic that I'd never heard all the way through. I didn't dig the slower songs like 'Save the Children' nearly as much as the more upbeat ones, but this thing is just gorgeous front to back. Absolutely love the overall vibe.
Had never heard of this guy, but I thought it was a good listen. Very soothing blend of folk and blues. The instrumentation/production in particular stood out to me.
This album has never totally clicked with me, which I think is largely because of how it compares stylistically to 'Discovery', one of my favorite albums of all time. I think I'd like this a bit more if I could 'Men In Black' the rest of DP's discography from my brain.
Maybe a liiiiiitle more boring in places than I remember, but still a very pleasant listen. Probably more like a 3 1/2 star for me these days.
As someone who just does not like fast, swing-y jazz, I unfortunately have to put this one in the 'not for me' pile.
Ramones, if they were 20% more polite and British
Musically grating, awful vocals, annoyingly repetitive, way too long. A pretty miserable experience overall.
I genuinely tried to get into this even though I think Pink Floyd kinda sucks. I know that a lot of people like how expansive and epic it is, but a lot of it just felt meandering and overly grandiose and boring to me, particularly in the second half. I had forgotten about 'mother are they going to try and break my balls' though, which is pretty funny when sung in a British accent.
