Before I heard this album I was a complete dorkus malorkus. Now, upon hearing it for the first time, I am driving through midtown Manhatten at midnight in a Lincoln Continental, shades on. I'm wearing a pinstripe suit, I have a martini in my hand and a knockout dame on my lap.
Some of the most gorgeous and evocative guitar playing of all time, and some quite lovely song writing, are crushed beneath mind numbingly boring arrangements and production.
Too long, too slow, too sparse, too spineless by half
Play this loud. Elemental, vital, no frills rock n roll played with soul, muscle and heart. For a band so woven into the fabric of our pop culture CCR still seem underrated.
Incredible album.
I listened to this album a lot when it came out, so this was tinged with nostalgia. Very 90s, well produced with a satisfying blend of teen angst and adult sophistication.
A cultural juggernaut and part of the firmament of what made the 90s the 90s, listening to this with fresh ears I'm neither blown away or disappointed, it's every bit as enjoyably extra as I remember.
Songs 3.5/5
Vocals 4/5
Atmosphere 5/5
Grooves 100/5
The best KOL album, which is an extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemley low bar.
Sloppy, obnoxious, strangely charming. The guys in this band all seem dodgy as hell but they can find a cool and unique groove. If I was 20 and on drugs when this came out it would've blown my mind.
Classic sounding without being boringly reverant, soulful and emotional but never histronic, ecclectic in it's influences but cohesive in it's vision and sound. This is a true album as a defined piece of art. Richly satisfying and my favourite new discovery so far.
There are some albums that are so influential you are able to overlook how horribly dated and boring they sound. This is not one of them.
The older I get the more I deeply enjoy listening to jazz. Not for the songs themselves, but for the thrill of hearing musicians in the real playing music of supreme quality and expression, taking me on an aural journey.
At first I found this album annoying jarring, pretensious and painfully unenjoyable. As I listtened it grew on me and I came to appreciate it's clear, singular vision and the song structure and overall tone grew on me. In the end I respect this album and never want to hear it again.
It's hard to hear this with fresh ears given how insanely influential it is, but the groove is undeniable. Not what I reach for, but I respect the technique and the stature.
The brutal, blast beating hardcore side of this blast rules and is a strong 4.
The histronic bleating emo side of this album stinks and is a weak 2.
So we'll split the difference and call it a 3.
Three supremely talented sex pests and one hilariously untalented sex pest make the most inane, annoying and ultimately gutless bullshit going. Fuck this band and fuck this album.
I don't care who you are. I don't care where you're from. I don't care how old you are, how much money you have, who you like to fuck or what you like to drink. This is some of the realest shit ever commited to wax and you need to get down to it before you make a damn fool of yourself.
Who up honkin' they tonk?
Shit rips. It's like drinking from a fire hose, but once you get in the zone this is a suprisingly cohesive, enjoyable album.
Somewhere between perfect pastiche and earnest genre piece. Absolutely reamed full of hooks and ineffably c o o l.
As an old punk I fully expected to hate this but I found myself locking into to the virtuosity, the bananas timing and arrangements and the baroque weirdness of it all. I must be getting old.
The highs on this album are fabtastic - the title track is an absolute barnstormer and their cover of Born to Run rips. Unfortunately however the lows really make the album sag.
Undoubtedly extremely influential and a remarkable achievement, subjectively speaking this is all a bit too slow and gloomy for me. Love the bass and drum sound, and some of the faster tempo numbers were fun, but all in all a bit of a slog.
God DAYUM that's funky. And when I say funky, I mean in the 'tight as a fishes booty hole, stanker than a jazz cigarette' old school cool proto funk. Soul funky groove baby, yeAHHH!
The fact that Oasis are still so beloved despite releasing nothing but shite for their final FIVE albums is testament to how beloved and fantastic their first two are. Huge, dumb, loveable choons and lightning in a bottle chemistry and charisma and chutzpah to pull them off
Music to Drunkenly Leer at Girls By
WELL NOW
Old school rap is kind of CORNY AS HECK
But that don't mean it don't DESERVE RESPECT
The 808 is POPPIN' and the rhymes are KICKIN'
And in your head these songs will be STICKIN'
This album rules and that's NO JIVE
So clap your hands and slap a FIVE
Oh how I adore this album and this artist. Tidal is an extraordinary opening salvo from one of her generations most unique, exceptional and intoxicating songwriters and performers. As incredible as this album is it is only an appetiser for a run of albums that, when the dust settles, may prove to be THE discography of all time. She is that good. 100/5.
This aural equivalent of dropping a valium and some molly and zoning out on a beanbag giggling with your best friends. Pure, unadulterated Good Vibes.
If this album consisted of just the title track alone repeated 8 times it would still stand as an almighty pop music masterpiece. 'Young Americans' (the song) is as close to a perfect song as I have heard, each tiny element tuned to absolute perfection, the track unfurls over 5 something minutes of scintilating, luxuriating, envigorating bliss.
The rest of the album does a gallant if not entirely as captivating job of following such a peerless opening act. Rich, textural production, smooth rhythms and harmonies, ineffeble sex appeal and sophistication. A sleek, stylish and satisfying cocktail shaken and served by the master Himself.
Breezy, dayglo, hyperactive and very late 90s. The late 90s were a positive time full of optimistic vibes. You didn't need to think too hard, you just need to smile and move your booty. And if this don't make your booty move your booty must be dead.
Servicable, competent, palatable and by the numbers. All adjectives that do not denote something that is unique or essential.
You do not need to hear this album before you die.
Few bands loom as large in the popular imgination as Pink Floyd. Who, apart from the Beatles and Bowie, has so many albums that have reached an almost mythical, unassailable level of reverence? All that to see that meeting albums like gif on it's own terms is something that must be done with prior intention, lest you get carried away with the towering context of it all.
So, with ears as fresh as is possible, this album is fantastic. Nothing on here seems unconsodered, not a second is wasted. Indeed every moment for the duration is utilised to it's fullest capacity in service of the albums themes and motifs. Musically the album leans clinically precise without losing a vital smeer of humanity, notably in the vocals. The epic 12 minute bookends are impressive constructions, and the three songs in between more than hold their own.
I want to give special attention to the title track. Despite half a century of over exposure it is still a shatteringly emotional experience listening to this song, especially if you are someone who has loved or lost a person suffering mental illness. Sandwiched between note perfect exercises in ice cold precision and howling ennui, it's compassion rushes over you like a balm.
It's monolithic stature is deserved, this is a towering achievement.
Along with albums from Velvet Underground and Nico, the Stooges and Black Sabbath, this is THE most influential 60s album in the development of quote unquote alternative rock n roll. You could make a list of 1001 bands from the 70s to today for whom this album's shaggy, stripped down, spaced out take on country rock is the rosetta stone.
I love this sound, it scratches such an elemental itch in my music listening brain. This album feels like being stoned to the bone rolling a smoke on a couch in a garage on a hot Wednesday afternoon. Dig it.
The zenith of a certain strain of warm, jangly, intelligent, big hearted music broadly known as alternative in the 90s, or more aptly college rock. This is an album that wraps around you like a woollen cardigan. A deserved masterpiece.
Decant a flagoon of fineste mead and embrace ye beloved maiden or lord, for verily, this slappeth.
Sophisticated country-adjacent singer songwriter music is usially my jam but I find this just ok.
Trying to pin down why this album isn't gelling with me when on paper I should love itband I think it's that overly 'aw shucks' West Coast 70s pop sheen on the production and vocals. Needs just a little more grit and it'd be a classic.
Top 3 album of all time for me. I first heard this as a teenager laying in bed home sick from school. From the first curious, careening guitar chords I was absolutely locked in, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Over the next hour or so my mind got completely blown apart.
Densely complex, technically astounding, fiercely intelligent, darkly groovy, ineffably intoxicating, depressingly prescient. What else is there to say about this towering masterpiece of modern music? A generational work of art.
I'm glad albums like these are on this list, it's unique, it's obscure, and it swings for the fences. It's two epic 7 minute plus songs are fantastic, and I genuinely love the vocals and commitment to the artistic vision. Unfortunately that vision often leaves me feeling like I need a shower, most notably in the godawful second track which overstays it's welcome about 30 seconds into it's interminable 6 minutes.
I tried with this album, I really did. I can hear some fine song craft, but the whole thing is so bloody maudlin, has such an air of cork sniffing pretentiousness, and is so painfully, dolorously slooooooooooow that I just couldn't. Maybe if I was post coital or three cocktails deep.
A bliss point is the precise, engineered amount of salt, sugar, or fat in processed food that maximizes pleasure and consumer desire, creating a "just right" taste that encourages overconsumption and repeat purchases. Coined by Howard Moskowitz, this industry strategy aims to trigger dopamine hits, making foods nearly impossible to resist.
Yes, yes, Morrissey is a royal bitch. My goal with this project is to try and leave context at the door, simply listen and ask myself if I enjoy it, and I enjoy this very much.
Arch, histronic, swaggering, dripping with invective, the songs are confident and economical and the production is crisp and punchy. As good as any mid tier 90s indie as you'll hear, I would listen again.
At first I thought this was just another goofy old school hip hop album, but as the album went on the intricate, ahead of it's time production and heady lyrical themes made me appreciate it as a much more of an important and interesting album. It does feel a little, if they'd shaved 3 or 4 tracks off this would be a bonafide classic.
An extremely stoned album. I enjoyed some of the more upbeat tunes and think the final track is probably the best, but some of the more dubbed out chillers got a little boring and Albarn's falsetto is extremely grating. Clint Eastwood is an all timer of a track. What was I talking about?
Cafe Del Mar-core snooze fest.
I was a young teenager when grunge broke, I absorbed the big 4 bands and their classic albums through cool older kids, but never heard this, apart from the singles. Courtney Love attracted so much derision from the same cool older kids that I know I would've dismissed it anyway. By the time I was a cool older kid I was in love with punk and looked down on grunge as sad sack junkie music.
On hearing this through I can now say I missed out on an incredible work, surely one of the high watermarks of grunge as a style and movement. Wow. This album floored me. The atmosphere is intensely personal, aggressive, spitting with righteous anger and detached despair. The music is soaring and dramatic without ever losing it's edge and grittiness. Like the best grunge it strikes the perfect balance between hardcore's intense dynamics and powerpop's melodic sensibilities, but crucially there is a rich, dark vein of punk rock and riot grrl running through these songs.
Special mention must be given to Love, who's lyrics, vocal performances and presence lifts this album to another level. As a huge fan of Distillers I now know where Brody Dalle took her cues from.
I have been unable to shake this album since hearing it. It is an incredibly effective and potent rock and roll album that can not and will not be denied. I wish I'd heard it when I was a young teenage boy.
Vocals? Crooning.
Drums? Swinging.
Ivories? Tinkling.
Horns? Blarting.
Must be a 50s jazz pop album! Not enjoying music like this is like not enjoying a marshmallow.
Steely Dan changed my music listening life. Not because they taught me something about myself or helped me through a tough time, but just that they showed me how richly enjoyable music can be a purely aesthetic level. This music is exceeding NICE to listen to. Gourmet music. An epicurean delight to the ears.
Of course part of the magic of Steely Dan (and they are magic) is that this sumptuous sweetness is balanced with the perfect hit of acid in the lyrical themes.
All in all the dish that comes together is a perfectly balanced, delectable and morish.
Melodramatic and rich at the same time as being brooding and ice cold, this album is deceptive. It can wash over you as a simply a classic example of baroque chamber pop, but closer listening reveals complexity and darkness.
There is something almost chilling in the calculated regal detachment of the vocals as they sing their theatrical tales of debauchery and despair above the grand, sweeping scope of the music. It is cinematic, evocative, lush and highly effective. I want more.
First two sides - "Maybe I've been wrong about prog rock all this time. This is some of the most adventurous, thrilling and fun rock music I've heard in a minute. I'm feeling a strong 4 to 5"
Second two sides - "The punks were right to want to destroy this bloated, pretentious nonsense. Light 2"
REM is a white whale of mine. Never knowing more than the hits I've always been so curious as to why exactly they are so beloved and canonised. Two albums in on the project it's becoming clear, people love them as much for what they created as for what they represent, and those two things marry beautifully- the idea of artists as craftspeople, using attainable skills to make things of beauty that speak to common truthes and concerns. The idea of a band that isn't critically lauded because of their virtuosity, or their avant-garde experimentalism, or their shocking left turns, but they did the work, and the work was good. That is a band you can believe in and feel good about living with your whole heart.
Wow. This made me rethink all the 5 stars I've already given because THIS deserves 5. An extraordinary, breathtaking masterpiece.
I saw this descibed as trip hop, it is definitely is not. What it is is very well made, extremely pleasant to listen to pop music. Which has it's place. One for when you need to lower the cortisol.
An album as remarkable and commendable for it's concept and context as much as it's content, so thankfully the content is as good as it gets. Sublimely understated compositions masterfully performed. The only thing keeping me from a 5 is the sequencing and repetition which I think will gel better for me after a few more listens.
That exceedingly rare thing - an album so fully ingrained in the firmament that you can demarcate popular culture before and after it, that does not lose an iota of it's thrill decades after it's release. I can't wait for the day I play this to my young sons, to watch their faces as they hear it all for the first time.
The sound and production on this is clean as a whistle, all the the instruments sound like they were recorded in hermetically sealed barns. The vocals have an agreeable twang, the uptempo numbers get the tows tapping, and the whole thing is pleasantly cheese laden without toppling into parody. The two songs that are directly and plainspokenly about murdering your intimate partner should she dare leave you definitely sour the experience for me however.
This music is a balm for the soul.
Music for nerdy 12 year old boys who've had far too much sugar.
This is one of my mother's favourite albums so listening again after many years evokes warm memories, as indeed does the music itself; wholesome and humanist as it is.
This has a quality I appreciate in an album wherein all the songs kind of sound just a little similar. It makes for a cohesive feel and gives the impression of an artist working in a rich creative vein.
All up it's a little twee but puts a smile on my face.
p.s This is where Vampire Weekend were born.
It makes a lot of sense when you learn that Steve Earle spent the first part of his career working as a jobbing songwriter in Nashville. He is a craftsman as much as an artist, his songs are sturdy and reliable. This album leans more into heartland rock and pop than pure country, big emotions, whole chested deliveries and a rich authenticity of voice.
This album is packed with bangers but unfortunatley for mine loses a bit of steam in the last couple of tracks. There is a lot to love here though, and Earle as a figure deserves his flowers.
Aggressively inessential.
Beguiling, elemental, ineffeble. A sound world I could spend my life uncovering.
Given their universal acclaim I'm embarrassed to say this is the first Smith's album I've listened to go to woah (singles compilations notwithstanding). Shocker - it's really good. Remarkably ahead of the game for an album released in '87, a lot of it sounds like it could be released today. Smiths, Pixies and REM really were the Ur Indie bands of the late 80s hey.
This didn't hit me as a masterpiece of a album, but a collection of very good to very very good songs. Bring on the next one, I'm sure there are more on here.
This is really fantastic. A perfect (dis)harmony of distortion and melody. Some very satisfying skronk and screams balanced with warm chords and melodies that draw you in. Equally the album is well weighted in the ratio of 3 minute bursts and longer, more slowly built up atmospheres. All while being effortlessly, effortlessly cool. Spectacular.
If you wanted to show a group of young musicians an elite example of a band as a group of musicians serving each other and the song, you could do worse than this album. Each player plays their role, takes their time and supports the groove and the vibe. The outcome is exceedingly enjoyable and deceptively simple.
I teach primary school dance and one of the first songs I play for my classes of Preps (5 and 6 year olds) in their intro to dance lesson is the title track to this album. Has never failed to get bodies moving and minds relaxed, and never will.
Goofy, candy coloured, Disneyfied rock n music. The King has no clothes.
I may be in kind of a shitty mood today but still. What the fuck is this shit?
Lush and ornate and arch, but ends up sort of wafting over you, not to be grasped, just enjoyed via osmosis. Pretty but hollow.
This is the 2nd Dire Straights album I've heard through doing this, the first being Brothers In Arms, and I enjoy this so much more. It's the same silky smooth skills and classic blues (small r) rock sensibilities, but far more warm blooded. Where I found B.I.A to be sparse and cool to the point of anemia this has far more air in the room, and is more enjoyable for it. Rather than the sense of peering at virtuosity beneath glass, this feels human. Sultans of Swing is an absolute all timer too. Something about that change into and out of the pre chorus that just hooks you in.
What is often overlooked in the moral panic about west coast gangsta raps dominance in the 90s is that as well as the all the things that upset people - the glorification of criminality, the unceasing violence, the outrageous braggadocio, the appalling misogyny - one thing the big rap albums of the era had in common was an extremely listener friendly, addictive sound. G Funk is funk, afterall, and funk is fun to listen to. This music is FUN, ethical qualms or not. And this album, at least timeline wise, is the zenith of that. Every aspect that makes the genre so appealing is turned up to 11 and run over the top of the pristinely produced beats and pop hooks. Is it anal time rap album? Probably not. Is it one of the biggest pop albums of it's era? Undoubtedly.
Sepia toned, wide frame and analogue, music made with so much reverence for the past it feels like an act of homage. Vitally though it never feels like cheap mimicry, there is far too much skill and care in it's creation. Deservedly beloved, if a little too baggy by the end to be called a true classic.
I'm Australian, disparaging Acca Dacca is a bootable offense.
What a shame that Sledgehammer, one of the greatest tracks of the 80s, had to be stuck in amongst this woeful dreck. Woof this album stinks. 'Adult Contemporary' and the adults are all fucking prats.
I really enjoyed this. In a list clogged with so much ornately produced and meticulously performed prog and classic rock it's so refreshing to listen to an album in which you can hear the weather in the room.
Red blooded, intelligent and quietly ambitious, this fits into a late 80s/early 90s scene that blended folk, country, punk and gothic Americana; think Violent Femmes and Gun Club.
A fantastic discovery I will revisit.
God this is all just so SILLY isn't it?
Clearly very influential and groundbreaking, it's pretty amazing to think this came out over 50 years ago.
The first track is a bit of a slog and gives the impression that the whole album will be inaccessibly cerebral, but the middle two tracks offer some more softer edged ambient sounds to get immersed in. Just don't go in expecting anything resembling traditional song structure.
Nina Simone is one of the greatest to ever do it. A prodigiously talented singer, pianist and interpreter of other's music. She also had impeccable taste and an invigorating passion and politic.
This album shows off her towering talents in a range of styles in the vocal jazz milieu, including hauntingly beautiful solo performances and swinging full band numbers.
As with a lot of pre-late 60s albums it hangs together more as a collection of songs rather than a cohesive whole, but the songs are by and large magnificent, so it doesn't matter.
Bombastic, histronic and overblown, this could very easily be painfully pretentious and unenjoyable, but it manages to (mostly) avoid that fate by virtue of some excellent playing and production. The music SOUNDS excellent, even when the writing is a little much.
The album starts strong and ends even stronger, a little less bloat in the middle and it would be an all timer.
'Blues played by pasty British guys with electric guitars in the 60s' is my most consistently low rated genres, so I was expecting to hate this but was pleasantly suprised. The music has grunt, the rhythm section is full blooded, and the lead guitar is effortlessly badass. Not even King Leer himself Rod Stewart or some baffling song choices could ruin it for me.
It's 2009, and I’m in the midst of a life shattering heartbreak, so I move to the big city.
My heart is bared as wide open as it will ever be, oscillating between hyperactivity and melancholy so quickly they become the same thing.
I fall in with a crowd of beautiful, cool, ridiculous, interesting people, drink a lot and listen to a lot of music. My sonic palate expands. I'm introduced to a swathe of bands - Fleet Foxes, Bill Callahan, Bon Iver, Midlake - that make music in the folk idiom that plaintive, aching, painfully sincere, staggeringly vulnerable. It catches the particular light in my wild, sad young soul perfectly, and in that refraction things seem clearer. My own aching, painfully sincere, staggeringly vulnerable feelings don't feel so crazy.
It's grounding, like a walk through a pastoral scene, in the fog of a frosty morning.
By any metrics it's staggering what Black Sabbath achieved in just five years. Between 1970 and 1975 four working class blokes from Birmingham pumped out six albums that were beyond just 'influential', they created entire genres of music whole cloth to the extent that decades upon decades of countlessfuture bands would ape their sound to the point of mimicry. Simply put, no Sabbath, no Metal.
This album leans into mid tempo stoner and doom with enough stylistic detours and tempo changes to keep it engaging. Everything sounds elementally heavy and is held together by one of the most iconic and awesome voices in music history.
Essential.
Amazing to find someone I'd never heard of who is clearly so influential. Every sardonic self aware hipster singer songwriter can trace lineage here, and the last track is pure NYC guitar band cool. I love the acoustic guitar all over the album too. Great choice.
There's something so satisfying about the structure of a lot of these songs, the cabaret/chanson inspired craftsmanship of the writing, her voice is incredible and I adore Costello and Waits.
However this is a lot, it's so bloody camp and euro sleeze - see the two dreadful duets and bawdy songs about whorehouses.
A little more subtlety would've gone a long way.
A top 10 of all time for me and a formative album for my young brain. I was obsessed with The Strokes when their debut dropped and hearing this for the first time not long afterwards made me realise just how deeply influenced (at the time) modern music could be classic material such as this.
This is such a fun, cool, bop of an album, personality and charisma out the wazoo and just the right amount of depth. After all these years it just keeps me hangin' on.
Look, there are worse things to listen to whilst drinking a malted milk at the hop with your steady.
One of my very favourite songs ever- Nothing But Flowers by Talking Heads - sounds like it was ripped directly off one of the tracks on this album. Good to hear the OG I guess.
If I'd heard this at 16 it would have blown my mind, but now not so much. It's catchy and has some interesting moments, but way too long, and everything here has been done better by other bands. Listen to Buzzcocks or DEVO instead.
Normally when I get an album I've never heard of I'll do a quick read of the wiki to get a bit of context, but here I decided to go in blind. Within 30 seconds I knew I was hearing something truly great. No suprise then to read that this is considered an all time masterpiece of it's genre. The virtuosity, the scope, the production, the passion and the palpable energy are spectacular. An amazing listen.
Formula for a Marilyn Manson song:
Start with four bars of creepy synth/organ grinder music.
Next bring in chugging, midtempo, over ridden guitar riffs and meat and potatoes industrial rhythm section for 16 bars.
VSing each line in a creepy whisper, except for the final word which is in a hilarious, strangled cat effect. Yell every third line in the most pissweak yell ever committed to tape.
Lyrical content is a hodge podge of insects, drugs, prostitutes, rock stars and satan. Title it something unbelievably pretentious.
eg: The Bloodletting Feast of Bleeding Apostates (Red Roses for Weeping Widow Babies) Pt II
Verse
I am the bug with large brEASTS
You want to make me unDRESS
I DRINK A GLASS OF PURE COCAAAAAIIIIIIINE
And then commit inCEST
Chorus
I am a rock god!
I am a fuck dog!
I am a corn cob in your school!
I am a skid mark!
I am a pool shark!
I am a theme park full of ghouls!
Drag this out for 6 interminable minutes.
Im not saying this to be edgy, or funny, or controversial. This is not a value judgement and honestly I'm not really 100% sure what I mean, but: this is the whitest music I have ever heard.
Imagine being John Lennon.
You grow up in a broken home in working class, post war Britain, with no father, being shunted around, you have learning disabilities, trauma and huge amounts of rage, resentment and confusion. You then, in your early twenties, are catapulted into unimaginable fame and adoration. You are hailed as a hero, a legend, a genius. Women hurl themselves at you, and literally millions of people hang on your every word. Imagine what that would do to your already fragile ego?
Then imagine you spend the last decade of your life devoting yourself to the messy and painful and imperfect world of figuring your shit out. You read, you listen, you do the therapy, you open yourself up. You fuck up, you apologise, you repeat. You try, in your way, to find make a positive impact, and to find peace. You are murdered, barely 40.
Then imagine that for the rest of time chuds on the internet can't stop making asinine comments ala HE SAID IMAGINE NO MONEY BUT HE'S RICH! HE MUST HAVE BEEN SPEAKING COMPLETELY LITERALLY! FUCK HIM AND FUCK YOU I'M SO ANGRY AND COOL
There are plenty of other piece of shit rock stars who beat their wives and abandoned their kids, but none of them could write songs like this.
Holy shit.
Countless musicians over the decades have tried to capture aurally a psychedelic experience. This dude absolutely nailed the assignment. This is an acid trip on tape. The disorientation, the euphoria, the panic, the moments of terror, the bizarreness, the humour, the ridiculousness and profundity and beauty of it all, this album manages to capture it and serve it to the listener in one continuous stream. What a trip.
On top of all that there is some exquisite song writing in here too. Wow. This album is incredible.
Catchy and kinda charming I guess, but man is it same-y. Kind of like your useless stoner buddy. Good in small doses but lacks much real appeal.
Imagine your debut album absolutely genre defining and it still only being your 3rd best album. The Clash were the real deal.
A tightly wound, emotionally cathartic, quietly devastating masterpiece. The atmosphere and song writing here is lightning in a bottle brilliance, there's nothing like it. This is a high watermark of the Boss's career in my opinion.
Seductive coos over gossamer synths and tasteful beats with just a hint of glitch. All very stylish and sophisticated. Not something I would listen to very often, but perfect for driving fast at night with sunglasses on, or making cosmic love to a stranger in a neon lit club, with sunglasses on.
The fact that Oasis are still so beloved despite releasing nothing but shite for their final FIVE albums is testament to how beloved and fantastic their first two are. Huge, dumb, loveable choons and lightning in a bottle chemistry and charisma and chutzpah to pull them off.
(This is the exact same review I gave What's The Story Morning Glory, because to these ears the first two Oasis albums are essentially the same. Having said that I gave WTSMG 4 stars and this 5. I will not elaborate).
Of all the various sub genres of music that have risen and fallen in the time I've been paying attention, trip hop seemed to me as the most daringly creative. Instead of just a tweak on an existing formula, trip hop seemed to be something actually new.
Listening now with the benefit of a few decades I can recognise that the genre does have forebears, namely dub, jazz, and (duh) instrumental hip hop. Still, it's admirable and remarkable how unique and distinctive the blend is, especially as it is shot through with it's signature atmospherics.
This album is definitely atmospheric, with some gorgeous moments and dark twists. It varies widely, and for me that keeps it from being something I return to often, but I appreciate and enjoy it's various moments and contours.
Perfect for a dimly lit room full of dank weed smoke, or a dinner party with sophisticates.
A charmingly shaggy and enjoyable rough around the edges rock opera. It's a little same-y in parts and probably overstays it's welcome by 10 or so minutes, but it's not lacking in ambition and chutzpah. What I enjoy most about this album though is it's relative simplicity when compared to the sprawling, virtuosic, proggy concept albums that came after it. Drums perhaps notwithstanding, there is something in Townsend's powerchord based writing that makes this seem attainable, and therefore admirable.
If you were rating these albums purely based on how well they achieved what they set out to achieve this is an automatic five. 40 plus years later this is still the hardcore punk rosetta stone.
Musically this sound - short, fast, loud, angry - is replicated by countless bands to this day. Lyrically the themes, which are so perfectly summed up in the album title, are the ultimate expression of a certain subset of 'angry young man' poetry.
Essential and undeniable if you have even a passing interest in modern punk rock.
Sunglasses on, janked up on caffeine, dressed to kill. A little bit Talking Heads' artsy nervousness, a little bit Blondie's pop smarts, a little bit Split Enz's melodic mastery. Of it's time but always fresh. A perfect little confection, lime fizz with a double shot of grenadine.
Needs and deserves to be listened to loud. Another of Black Sabbath's unimpeachable run of first four albums. They captured lightning in a lager bottle, sunlight in a bong. Every element here working exactly as it should and adding up to a heady, undeniable stew of riffs, chugs and wails. Crank it.
I hate myself for not hating this.
Heavy man.
I very much appreciate the way these songs are structured. Undergirding it all is some of the coolest post punk drumming I've evr heard, upon which is layered dense slaps of atmospheric guitar, echo-y bass and incredibly expressive vocals wailing some of the darkest lyrics I've ever heard (check out 'The Figurehead', oof it's bleak).
The atmosphere is something you need to be in the mood for though, because it's fairly unrelenting.
Great? Yes. Enjoyable? Ehhhhh
Oh how I love this band. Lush, playful, deeply human, often shatteringly gorgeous. An act that was serious about stretching the boundaries of what acoustic music could be without ever being too serious about it. Capital M music with heart and a warm smile.
A lot of people I respect love this band but I just don't get it. Plodding, turgid, self important shite with the most irritating vocalist I've ever heard. Shut the fuck up guys.
I mean, look. It's Led Zeppelin. Not so much a band as a mystical tribe of Rock N Roll Lords who cast tablets that contained untouchable blasts of rock perfection or something blah blah blah.
Hair Metal/Cock Rock are amongst my very least favourite genres but luckily this album is so far above the rest of that pack it just about transcends it, becoming instead just a very good rock album. Kind of glam, kind of punk, full of far too much confidence and machismo but overflowing with riffs and attitude and it quality. Lightning in a bottle that was never recaptured.
Bowie was first and foremost an artist. He could have followed his muse into acting, visual art, literature, philosophy.. How lucky we are he chose music, so that we can have albums like this, where he turned his artist's eye and prodigeous talent towards crafting blissful gems of pure pop perfection.
I'll echo a lot of other comments here and say I was absolutely not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did, but as a lover of songcraft I couldn't help but sit back and admire the masterful work going on here.
Oh yeah, this is slicker than owl shit.
As well as being slicker than owl shit, this is a remarkably effect concept album, After hearing so many increadibly dense, convulted and head-in-arse concept albums/rock operas by prog bands through this generator (Looking at you Genesis), it's so refreshing to hear a story told in a clear and concise way. Amazingly done from top to bottom.
Gah what a thoroughly unenjoyable slog that was.
Prodigious rapping talent and meat and potato beats all in the service of a deeply bitter, nihilistic, arrogant and toxic worldview. Here the 27 year raps about, among other things: date raping teenagers, butchering his wife (more than once), killing his child (I think) and raping a woman to death.
And yes I know it's all meant to be a big joke, or a horror movie or whatever, but at least when ICP do the same thing they have the ridiculous goofiness and self knowing wink to kind of pull it off. This on the other hand is a void where charm does not exist, and despite it's many attempts at humour, neither does wit.
All that's left is bone deep unlikeability.
Warm, generous, lush and full hearted, in the hands of a lesser band this tale of a robot experiencing a crisis of confidence (which doubles as an allegory for the experience of a psychedelic drug trip) would be too cloying, twee or goofy. The Flaming Lips however, already 10 albums in, had the experience, the smarts, the sincerity and the cool to pull it off in spades.
A modern psychedelic masterpiece.
A fitting swansong for the legendary poet and songwriter.
Extremely well produced, this albums sounds fantastic. I love that this band leans so hard into their particular spaghetti western/space opera aesthetic, even if it is somewhat silly in places. Like so many albums on here, with a bit of judicious editing this would be a classic.
I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, indeed, there is a lot here to enjoy. Sumptuously produced and artfully arranged, this album sounds gorgeous, and luckily the songwriting is mostly deserving of the dressing: Ambitious but not pretentious, cinematic but still personal, meticulous while still feeling lived in and warm.
Special mention to the lyrics, which are really terrific from top to bottom.
My only complaint is a few songs, namely The Fix, lean too far into musical territory and stand out as not sounding of a piece with the rest of the album. Still, that's nitpicking what is a fine piece of work by any metric. Bravo.
An extremely successful exercise in creating and sustaining mood and atmosphere. Even if it's all just a little too down tempo for my tastes I applaud the method.
In this listereners humble opinion the best psychedelic albums balance out their conceptual noodles with tight songcraft, so that the listener isn't just assaulted with one 14 minute wander after another, but rather gets to enjoy a few 14 minute wanders among the collection of bobby rock songs. That's exactly what this is. The noodles are noodly, which, when you are listening to arguablty the best ax man to ever do it, is great fun. Even more so the shorter songs are by and large fantastic - Crosstown Traffic, Burning of the Midnight Lamp, and of course the final two absolute classics.
All it makes for an album that is sprawling but never fristratingly so, as it's ambition remains tethered as a collection of good to excellent songs.
Special mention to my favourite drummer OAT Mitch Mitchell cutting absolutely sick all over this album. Out of sight.
Here we are invited to witness the bearing of a soul, in all of it's longing, pride, confusion, pain, stuborness, despair and moments of calm. This album feels at once too perfect to exist and like it has always been there, ready to hear. A true masterpiece.
Proto Egg Punk
Eno admirably balances both the endearingly goofy and the eye rollingly high brow sides of art rock here, meaning there are thoughtful, serious synth and piano studies (more heavily on side 2) next to uptempo bops. It more or less coalesces, and overall the artistic vision is an enjoyable listen.
As cutesy poo aw shucks as a lot of Simon's post Simon and Garfunkel output is, and as much of a voracious cultural appropriator as he is, there is no denying his songwriting nouce. Not sure I'd classify it as essential, but it's hard to hate.
Maybe it's just the crushing intensity of life in the great late capitalist decline hellscape that is 2026 but oh did this make me wistful. Sincere, smart, full blooded, full hearted, just ever so cockeyed. I love it.
