This is the quintessential 70s heavy rock sound, it's clear how much it influenced other bands down the road. The music itself is well-packaged and arranged.
As someone who looks to lyrics though, this album -- metaphorically or literally -- doesn't speak to me. The lyrics here (not the singing/voice) are shallow, uninteresting to me.
Nothing here is to suggesting that this album shouldn't be viewed as potentially groundbreaking, it clearly opened the doors for numerous acts in later years. However it's nothing that would be in my rotation too often.
I knew nothing about this artist ahead of time. I subsequently started learning about him as I listened. That said, this review attempts to be objective and not take circumstances into consideration. I'm not familiar with his other albums either so this is taken as a single encapsulation.
Track 1: Vaguely Beatles-esque, crunchier.
Track 2: Jangly acoustic mellow rock, somehow cheerful despite the subject matter
Track 3: Nice arrangement, reminds me of some of the indie rock listen to.
Track 4: Mellow, introspective, the split stereo/dual vocal thing, I've heard a lot, maybe too much from this era.
Track 5: Again, vaguely reminiscent of the Beatles
Track 6: Dude definitely had a cohesive sound on this album. Not sure it is growing on me, maybe?
Track 7: This reminds me of someone and I can't put my finger on it. I cannot shake the Beatles feel though.
Track 8: I can see why this guy was presumably influential (at least insofar as the album is on this list). But at this point the album is starting to lose me.
Track 9: We're back to moody singer-songwriter again. Again, the album is well-produced.
Track 10: Maybe spoke too soon. This does feel different from the rest of the album. Kinda dig it.
Track 11: He's a lyricist. Not sure it's speaking to me. Maybe after repeated listens?
Track 12: Ok kinda feeling this one. IDK if it's because the sound is growing on me, or I just like the groove.
Track 13: Everything on this album is starting to run into itself for me at this point. I'm kinda feeling like "more of the same".
Track 14: I think I'd have to be in the right mood for this album. It would work better then, maybe. I can appreciate the lyricism. Wish it made me "feel" more.
Track 15: I am starting to actually wish there was more variance in this album. "Can't make a sound?" He definitely *has* a sound :). Wish there was.... more.
Track 16: A closer for sure, and different from the rest of the album.
So in the end -- perhaps I was not in the right mood for this album; I can see how it is apparently adored, and why it would be influential for some. Maybe multiple listens would make it stick more for me. Not sure I'd want to do that though. There's undeniably a lot of talent there, just kinda not my cup of tea. It just doesn't connect with me.
I read later that this was recorded in part at Abbey Road Studios. Can definitely hear the ghost of The Beatles in the songs...
I got this one and was a little happy. I am not a Neil Young aficionado but I've always liked his stuff. I'm generally not a huge fan of live albums, but this one seems pretty intimate. It's warm with the occasional cool breeze.
Again, I'm not sure I could name many actual Neil Young albums off the top of my head, besides Harvest Moon, but I always connect with his stuff.
I don't like how many tracks have a fadeout -- maybe ironically, given the aforementioned preference for studio albums -- but the fade atop a live performance sound kinda irks me.
But this album definitely hits pretty well. It's like a well-worn denim jacket. I also think there are better Neil Young albums.
I'd give it 3.5, but since we can't do fractionals, I will give it a 4; it sits above some of the albums I'd consider middling/three-star territory.
Love the varied instrumentation, world music, and of course Simon is a gifted lyricist. I was vaguely familiar with this album but first time listening in its entirety. It's quite enjoyable.
Tribe. US3. De La Soul. Digable Planets. I loved this subgenre, even though it wasn't what I normally listened to back then, nor what my friends were all into.
This album was a breakthrough, and for good reason -- it slaps.
I'd not listen to this all the time but I could drop it on once in a while when I'm in the right mood. It's a good album; his encapsulated vision of life in America is really the main tarnish on this album, that and some of the more cacophonic bits. I'd rate it a 3.5+, so we'll round it up to 4.
I mean, in the end, the higher you'd rate an album would be highly correlated with your likelihood of listening to it, right? You'd not rate something a 5 if you'd never listen to it again, and while that's a sort of black and white/binary example, it stands to reason that you would rate things on appreciation and listenability.
Ella is incredible on this collection. Ella always is. One of my favorites.
However, the likelihood I'd have reason to listen to over three hours of this? Pretty unlikely. Maybe for some chill background music at a dinner party or something but never in any given moment.
This is just... too much. Six albums worth of material. Three hours, fifteen minutes worth of music. It's unwieldy, like trying to fit a table into a room too small to comfortably sit people.
The recordings are beautiful. But I don't think a three hour set of Ella (or any artist/act) is necessary -- or appropriate -- for any list such as this. So many other representative options are available.
A tour de force. A small militia of tornadoes. This album is awesome and obviously immeasurably influential.
My only ding on it is that, despite being about 29 minutes long, it somehow still manages to get a little repetitive. That said, it's definitely a must-listen.
Not really my jam but I can respect it. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
This gets an extra star because I recognize that it was influential and basically the first of its kind to hit mainstream.
That said, this is not my jam. Half the beats sound like farts in an aluminum trashcan. It's full of energy -- and that energy extends, almost monotonously, the whole album.
Also, how come no one ever told Keith Flint that an inverse mohawk is basically a baldspot?
A bit poppy, some of it, but not really too different than, say, the Beatles back then. It is evident where their stuff influenced music/bands/genres years after.
I don't know if it is the 2018 remaster stereo mix specifically, or if there was a stereo mix before, but I am not a fan of how this one -- what i listened to on spotify -- was mixed.
I am not necessarily a hater of interesting stereo mixes where certain things are in one headphone but not the other, but there's something about the way this one (at least in the beginning of the album) is done that sets me on edge. Too much treble in one ear and muffled/distorted vocals in the other. I don't even mind distorted vocals either, but when it's that on top of it being in only one ear, it kinda annoys me.
Favorite song on the album: Last of the Steam Powered Trains
This is a solid 3.5, maybe higher. So rounded up to 4.
I nearly wore this album out when I got it.
That Butch Vig sound -- realized, expanded and encapsulated -- shimmers darkly with this album.
It's one that swerves dangerously without wrecking: The slight edge of electronics without veering too far into industrial; the smoky, strong presence of Shirley Manson -- vocals, inviting but controlled and always commanding -- run sultry without slipping into sleaze; and tracks that are pop-aware but slap your hand away at any notion of cheap accessibility.
4.5 -- we'll round it up.
Groundbreaking? For sure.
Can it be done again? Unlikely -- and given current music laws, probably prohibitively expensive, would that someone want to.
Repeatedly listenable? No, not for me.
"Tonight" is antagonizing.
"Frontier Psychiatrist" is arguably a classic.
I need to be able to inhabit the space of the music. This album is, instead, more spectacle. I have nothing against samples -- I think the Beastie Boys' albums were pure genius on that front. I can see what The Avalanches set out to accomplish on this album, and for the most part they succeeded.
In the end though, this album is, technically, and musically, exhibitionist. I'm just not the voyeur they're looking for.
5 stars. No notes, really. Absolute classic.
My first experience with this album was a dub that my aunt made for me. It wasn't even a line-to-line dub, she literally played it out of a stereo and recorded it over the air in a separate tape player. I remember the label, with "Purple Rain" scribbled on it in purple sharpie marker. Not sure if it was done to imitate the logo or not but there it was.
The quality was of course terrible, but I really enjoyed the album and was happy to have it. I didn't really appreciate it as much then as I do/can now.
I was also too young to understand some of the references. I had a very different understanding/interpretation of some of the lyrics for "Darling Nikki", that's for sure.
Absolutely a classic -- and the fact that the titular track is an engineered recording of a live performance (look it up)? So good.
Stellar.
God, just an absolute classic.
This album is a hard one to rate.
On its face, to me it's one of those albums where the obvious historical weight is more powerful than the album itself.
The album itself is a mixed bag to me, insofar as my listening styles. the late 70s/early 80s electronic stuff is a detraction for me, but there's more to the album that *isn't* that. There are some tracks which I can kind of appreciate and others which really do nothing for me. The album, in my opinion suffers most simply from a lack of cohesiveness.
Is this album a victory in the sense that it brought a transformed Faithfull back to the world? For sure, and there are certainly merits to the album, but I'm not sure it'd be a regular or even occasional addition to my rotation. Maybe repeated plays would change that. But for now a solid 3.
The book does not intend for one to listen to the deluxe edition, but rather the EP, which was seminal in genre and its influence. Indeed, the deluxe edition would be a whole lot for anyone to listen to, in one sitting, much less someone who is not familiar with the band.
That said, I compiled the tracks from the original EP and listened to those as intended.
This album honestly hits... and obviously they paved the way for Nirvana, et al. There was a lot of new stuff along these lines fermenting at this time, and other releases by other bands in this time frame prior to Nirvana's "Nevermind" really breaking things open, but this album was the first significant crack in the dike.
This would find itself in my rotation, maybe even significantly so, but not front and center on the queue.
I'd give a a 4.25, which rounds down to a 4. Not all partial stars can get rounded up.
This is the kinda thing the book/website is great for.
I had heard of the Soft Boys but had never listened, and I am thrilled to have been given this album for today.
Proto-punk with a psychedelic edge. This really hit the spot, to be honest. Sounds more modern than it is, some of it. Glad to have discovered the band.
Absolute classic. No notes, not much I can say. Has to be in any jazz collection/long run playlist.
Some albums, it's cliche to say, are anthems for certain periods in your life. As it stands, "Longview" might as well have been written about me.
This whole album is great, and I listened to it in its entirety for the first time since at least 2000, probably earlier, while at the gym. It *still* hit.
Lots of critics out there gonna complain about pop punk of course. Gatekeepers. Dookie was an antidote for the "shit" some of us were trying to manage in those days.
In general, this is an incredible album. I love the production, and Brian May's incredibly unique guitar sound. The obvious hits are classic, and most of the album is absolutely incredible.
What keeps this as a 4+ are some of the songs that are distractions for me, and mar this otherwise incredible album's cohesiveness. None of "'39", "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon", or "Good Company" are bad per se and I understand that some of the kitsch is what lends to Opera's legacy but for me they just distract from what is a great listening experience.
Do I love most of this album? For sure. Would I want to listen to it time and time again in its entirety? No.
This'd potentially have been a five star album, if not for 11 minutes of Heard it Through the Grapevine.
The sheer number of hits on this album is unbelievable, though, and so good!
Not all the tracks were available on Spotify so I had to supplement with Youtube videos.
This album feels like proto-Chumbawumba, and "Geisha Boys" and like a precursor to a much more refined "West End Girls."
It feels like something out of an art school conceptualist project, with the vocals detached from the music, nothing here blends well. I don't like to throw around the word "pretentious" and I won't call this effort that, but there's a common thread in here that feels performative.... or something.
The basslines are great though, in the title track and in "Play to Win". The second, particularly (and purposely) synth-driven half of the album, though just doesn't do a thing for me at all. The plinky, repetitive "We're Going to Live For a Very Long Time" does nothing to shake the art school manifesto. Perhaps graciously, the album ends here.
I just can't get into this overall, though. A firm 2+ but not enough for a 2.5 to round up. I wouldn't be listening to this much at all.
I recognize and reward the influence the album had. But that alone does not save it.
