I listened to this in the background while doing something else and so didn't give it my full attention. Having mostly heard the single from this LP, I didn't expect so much instrumental music and was happy to hear more of the guitar and rhythm section.
This album is only 29 minutes long but is full of surprises. It has a few of my favorites--America, A Hazy Shade of Winter--and also surprises. The beginning of the first full song, Save the Life of My Child, is more electric than I was expecting, and the Voices of Old People was new to me. It really is just old people talking. :) This album came out the year I was born and it was fun to think about people in that year putting this LP on the turntable for the first time and giving it a spin.
This was a fun album to get on day three. Unlike the first two, I have listened to this LP a hundred times, and it never fails to please. I thought about Mishaun and how awkward it was to share a love of this band with him when the lyrics are so inappropriate! :)
I hesitated listening to this one, but it was better than I expected. It came out when I was a junior in high school. I worked in a record store and listened to the radio a lot. The Smiths weren't as ubiquitous as pop bands of the era, but I had plenty of friends who liked them and I had more than my share of the band. Morrissey's voice felt contrived to me, and I never listened to the lyrics closely enough to relate to them. Because of that overexposure, I nearly gave this one a pass, but I'm glad I listened to it. 40+ years later, the music has a freshness I didn't recognize at the time. When I was a teenager, I only heard the most popular tunes and missed many of the other songs. Rusholme Ruffians and Nowhere Fast were surprisingly jaunty. :) I liked the guitar on the latter. What She Said was a pretty great thrashy song. There was far less mopiness than I expected. I'm giving it three stars because I am not likely to come back to this, but it was a good listen.
I audibly groaned when this came up as the next album to listen to. I get that it's important to listen to different styles and that Yes exemplifies the progressive rock scene of the late 60s and 70s, but damn some of their music is hard to listen to. the opening to Roundabout is iconic, of course, but I don't need 8 and a half minutes of that song. The next two short tunes (under 2 minutes) were unlistenable. South Side of the Sky was pretty interesting, but again long--almost 8 minutes. The next three were interesting and listenable: Long Distance Runaround (the other radio play from this album and a proper length), the Fish (fun bass line and only 2.5 minutes. Mood for a Day is medieval, so up my alley, but not sure why it's on a rock album. I can see that as a musician, this might have been fun music to play, but damn I don't want to listen to most of it.
I wish I had the language to describe what I’m hearing. It’s wonderful but I lack the vocabulary to explain what is happening and why it works. Great music, though. Cool interplay between the musicians. Note combinations that should be atonal somehow work. Very cool.
I like the Band's sound, and loved The Last Waltz. While I appreciate their music, a whole album might be a bit too much for me. :) I think I'm more of a greatest hits listener for this group.
The Van Halen brothers get all my stars for this album--Eddie is obviously a great guitarist, and Alex keeps a solid backbeat to sustain him. But I grew up watching and listening to David Lee Roth. He was obnoxious then and still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. His singing style fits the lyrics, but is he crucial to the band's sound? Nah. :) He was a dramatic frontman and crucial to their popular success, I get it. I just don't like his singing style.
Brilliant album, but I am biased and love almost everything they did. I have no opinion on which is their best album, but I can see why the list includes this one. The build up to each song, Page's brilliant guitars, Bonham and Jones with the most solid rhythm section, and Plant's irreplaceable vocals. Man, it's good.
I've heard of this artist for years, but never listened to her music. I left the country the year this album came out and so missed it. What a treat to "discover" this album more than 30 years late! Definitely the kind of music I like--rough around the edges, great voice.
I listened to half, but not the whole double album set. I could appreciate what he was doing, but wasn't drawn enough to commit to more than that. I gave it enough of a listen to treat it fairly, I think.
This was great! I've listened to my share of Neil Young, but never heard this one. Thoughtful lyrics, wonderful guitar. Happy to learn about this album many years too late.
'Vicious' opens this album like a charm. It's immediately compelling and sets the stage for the songs that follow. The guitar, bass and drums chug along, often simply but powerfully. Reed's unique voice and syntax are charming, although I imagine they are an acquired taste. I wonder if someone who didn't grow up with that voice would appreciate it hearing it first as an adult--like Neil Young's :)
I went into this, knowing I didn’t really like Brian Wilson, but as with other albums here, I was willing to give it a try. For those other albums, I was at least able to see why people appreciated it, and could admire the musicality, even if it wasn’t my taste. Not so with this album. I get why The Beach Boys were popular in the 1960s. I don’t understand why anyone would pay Brian Wilson money to produce this album in 2004. The best way I can describe it is juvenile. The chimes, the church bells, the choir boy voices. The simplistic lyrics. My God, there were even farm animal sounds, chickens and goats. It’s childish, and more than boring, actually irritating. Sorry Brian Wilson fans. I don’t get it.
I'm being generous with my 3-star rating because I have a soft spot for Steve Winwood and because I think it's quality is hampered by the synthesizers which defined so much of production when this album came out. Remaster this album without the electronic syth? It's a solid 3, maybe a bit higher. While You See a Chance is a solid opener that still resonates as a strong pop song--although on re-listen it's clear that Winwood's Valerie--another favorite of mine--is almost identical, Spanish Dancer is a commendable ballad, and Night Train has a great groove. These songs without synthesizer? Long-lasting pop songs. The other tunes would all be improved by a similar re-mastering, and all have good bones. Okay, enough belabored justification for an overly generous rating. :)
I've heard of this artist for years, so it was fun to listen to her music for the first time. The experience was enhanced by spending time with her website. It includes art, poetry, documentaries and feature films. She was also a guest designer for Francis Ford Coppola's literary magazine, something I didn't know existed, so that opened doors for me as well as her music. This album felt familiar but still new. Her voice is alternately powerful and haunting, magnetic and off-putting. Cool musical appearances of unusual instruments alongside familiar themes. Really enjoyable and I'll explore more of her music now.
I get why people love this band, it's just not my style. I worked in a record store in the 80s with lots of metal fans as customers and a few as coworkers. Great folks, friendly and positive, and I heard from them what they loved about Iron Maiden. 40 years later, they still love them. The guitar and drums are wildly energetic, the vocals distinctive, and from what l can hear and my limited knowledge, they set the bar for the genre. Giving it 3 stars for that, not because I particularly like it. :)
I graduated college in 1990 and worked in a brewpub in the Northwest for the first few years of that decade. Grunge was the music of the day and this album was ever present. Nirvana and Primus were more my jam, and Pearl Jam felt like the radio version of that movement, but the album holds up.
This is a great album that I haven't listened to all the way through in decades. I remember as a teenager getting irritated by the excessive radio play of Aqualung and Locomotive Breath, but after a long hiatus, those songs and the whole album really stand out as special. And yes, even the flute works after all these years. :)
This is the first album & band rec here that I've never heard of, so I was excited to give it a listen. I liked it from the first song--nice guitar riff, understated vocal, then interesting rhythm section and backing vocals kick in. Some of this reminds me of Harry Nilsson ("All We Ask"), other times inspired by Wishbone Ash ("Fine for Now")--it doesn't feel like an album made in 2009, but maybe in the early 70s. "Dory" gets kind of psychedelic weird. It's very interesting and dreamlike. Pitchfork calls it "lush chamber pop" :) I haven't heard that expression before, but it fits! "Ready, Able' is a great, steady jam, and followed strongly by "About Face", but really every song has something great to it. I'll be putting this album in rotation, it's the most interesting LP I've heard in a long time.
Yay! Another new band and album for me! I like how this website is breaking down my listening patterns and either introducing me to new music (this is the second out of about twenty) or making me rethink my opinions of bands I grew up with. The first song on this album feels 60's inspired--there's some surfer guitar, and 60s spy movie sound that are really cool. This and yesterday's album are proving to me I need to revisit the late aughts for Indie music. This band and Grizzly Bear have both been a feast for the ears, and are dramatically different from each other. The lead vocalist for this band is dramatic and magnetic, there's a driving backbeat and an urgency to many of these songs.
Ahh, lovely. It's not the Plastic Ono Band, but a strong second release in Lennon's solo repertoire. The title song is of course a classic. I love the oomph in John's voice in Gimme Some Truth, but I really love the final song, Oh Yoko! It's just so damn sweet
Such a great album in every respect--music, lyrics, vibe, uniqueness. I'm very familiar with this album and welcome the chance to listen to it at every opportunity.
I had listened to this artist's later work, but never his first album. I liked it, but he has come so far since this album, it's hard to rate it more than 3 stars. His music matured and his later albums outshine this one. 3 stars for the album, 5 stars for the career.
This is a sweet album--great title song of course, and fun to hear a cover of How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. I had to do some quick chronology to be sure the cover wasn't the other way around, but later confirmed it's a Brothers Gibb composition. Anyway, sweet album, but not tremendous all the way through, so I'm giving it 3 stars. It did, though, make me want to listen to the rest of his discography. There's so much great music there.
This was a great opportunity to listen all the way through a formative classic. I've heard a lot of Bob Dylan in my life, but hadn't ever listened to this album all the way through. My husband was listening with me, and as each familiar song came on, he asked, "is this all the same album?!" expressing the wonder that one album could contain so many songs with staying power.
They were boring when I was a teenager in the 80s. They're still boring. The 3 singles from the album hold up, but the rest was unlistenable.
Killer vibe. Great guitar, classic.
This album still rocks--beats, lyrics, vibe--it's the real deal.
Cool fusion of musical styles--hip hop, electronic, South Asian, and more that I can't identify. A little frenzied for my taste now, but if I were 30 years younger and going out dancing on Saturday nights, I would have loved this.
I tried to look past my affection and nostalgia for the artist and listen to it as if it had not been his final album. There are some really interesting and lovely moments on this album, but also a lot that is atonal. There are times when his voice came through beautifully, and other songs which were just uncomfortable to listen to. It would take a couple listens to identify 2 out of the 7 songs here that I'd want to revisit regularly.
So cool...I've noted before that I don't know how to describe jazz, but this is interesting, surprising, mellow, and virtuoso, all at once.
This album’s reputation is well deserved. Great songwriting that stands the test of time.
The album begins with three conventional songs that sounded like many other bands. With “Don’t Stop”, the album became more interesting and occasional, but inconsistently so. However, I’m glad I hung on to the end because the last song is the best thing on the album. I absolutely loved “Fools Gold”! Long funky instrumental with a great bass, it doesn’t sound like anything else on the album.🤣
I am very familiar with Steely Dan, but never owned their albums. Aja was ever present in my friends' collections, but I didn't register which radio tunes came from which album. so I was surprised to see an unfamiliar album cover and hear several very familiar songs. Steely Dan is not a band I would seek out regularly, but I really enjoyed listening to this one.
