This does what it set out to do basically flawlessly, and I'm glad it exists so that the title track and Paradise... can be in karaoke rotations, but if the question is "would I ever listen to this on purpose" the answer is resoundingly "no"
Holy shit what the hell this is the hardest thing I've ever listened to
This is a fun listen, though being a tiny bit more familiar with earlier Funkadelic I find it somewhat less interesting musically than that stuff, which immediately grabbed me when I first heard it.
I waffled between 3 and 4 here but I want to start out setting my scale with "3 is a good record that I enjoyed," which is exactly what this was.
2pac is defilitely an incredible poet and rapper but my first impression is also that like the cheesy G-Funk porno beats kinda steal the limelight from him in a way that lessens the listening experience
I had this higher before, but this is one of the first things in the project I ranked, and I liked it significantly less than anything else I've given a 3 to. It turns out you have to take some bold stances when you can't infinitely differentiate using the numbers between 3 and 4. Basically, the sound is just way too dated for me to want to listen to it really ever again, and this was thrust into stark relief by a lot of other older, better hip-hop
This fucking rules actually
This is excellent. I think I'd listened to it once through before but hardly remembered anything other than Roundabout, but Heart of the Sunrise also fucking slaps hard. Love the little intermissions as well.
⬅️ To Be Continued
It's really hard to rate this record without contextualizing it in its legacy, so I won't try to. I think grunge actually really blows (can't wait to go off on Alice in Chains), to say nothing of what it did to the following 10-20 years of rock music until The Strokes saved us again. Actually, yeah. This is Gen X's "Is This It". Except the Strokes copycats all made pretty good music.
Still, you can't judge a book by its imitators. This is the "Nirvana's Nevermind" of grunge.
All I Wanna Do is obviously well-regarded for a reason, but just about the entire rest of this album is split between slow ballad-y stuff I actively dislike, and Momcore Chunes For Your Workday Commute that if I heard them at a restaurant or bar I would never even clock that music was playing
I have been meaning to dig into De La Soul's catalog for a long time. It's only very recently (2023) that they have been on streaming services at all, on account of stupid legalese around how their samples were cleared. No fun allowed.
Anyway, this is an excellent record! Being that this is from '89 I can see that is set the stage stylistically for a lot of the threads hip-hop I've come to love the most. It feels old in a way that's quaint and nostalgic, without really feeling dated at all (total contrast with 2Pac here). I'm quite sure I'll be coming back to this one and I'm looking forward to the next three, which between this and those, the "heads" seem to spiritedly disagree as to which is their best.
Please note that I can't rank this from the counterfactual universe where it wasn't the most important album in my life at the age of 13.
I basically never listen to this anymore, but when I do I'm reminded that it's actually really good. If it were a 40 minute record containing just the singles, Homecoming, and maybe one other song to preserve narrative continuity, I think I'd be lying by giving it anything other than a 5. It flags in the middle in a big way though.
It's also quaint—almost cute—in the Year of our Lord 2026 to listen to a record that is in large part about how George W. Bush is a fascist and the American apparatus of the time is basically Nazi Germany (Kristallnacht is invoked for instance). Not to excuse GWB of anything, but it sure hits different today!
Going in I thought that I had a bit of a soft spot for this, but nah, not really. More Than a Feeling also sits alongside Hotel California and some other things in the "songs I would prefer to never hear again for the rest of my life" category.
I sort of think of this advent of this kind of music as the beginning of something of a dead end path for a certain type of rock music. You can draw a direct line from this to hair metal.
Probably the most remarkable thing about this record is that one guy played just about every instrument on it. I'll concede that Tom Scholz is incredibly talented, that I was pleasantly surprised by some of the soloism on the tracks I don't know well, and that Foreplay/Long Time is a banger. None of that really saves it for being boring commercially-packaged stuff designed to be played in arenas for uncs with purchasing power. Like they even basically say as much in Rock And Roll Band lol
Unfortunately, it's also probably among the best that this style of music has to offer. Already has me groaning in anticipation that we're likely gonna have to listen to Foreigner
3 one man bands out of 5, and lucky that I can't give half stars.
I dunno man, it's Ray Charles singing pop standards. I liked the swing half a lot better than the string half. I liked the blues numbers on the swing half best of all. At its high water marks I want to give this a strong 4.
What gets me is that this is on the list rather than his debut (technically a compilation) with all of his early singles on it. Like, I need to hear Ray Charles playing a bunch of standards for Frank Sinatra fans to go "hmm yes" to, but I can die having not heard I've Got A Woman or Hit The Road Jack?
I've never really cared for the whole "soft jazz singer" pop crossover bit either, and I probably like swing considerably less than the next jazz fan (though, again, I thought the swing side was pretty good). Part of me really wants to thumb the scale because there's like a dozen jazz records total in this entire list, but don't think this sustains a 4 through its runtime for me.
This is clearly a blueprint for so much of what came after it, but it also sounds quite dated in a way that a lot of stuff that came after it doesn't.
3 defeated sucka MCs out of 5
Yawn. I guess there's a reason these guys are most famous for a Mark Ronson/Amy Winehouse song
Hell yeah I would totally play a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater to this
Really solid early punk. Apparently these guys were on the scene before *any* of the big British wave bands, which is cool. I had never heard of them.
This is a very strong three, like the top percentage of threes. Looking at my 4s they are all stuff I think is rather clearly a cut above what I've given threes to.
I've actually never listened to a Smiths record before this one, which is a HUGE blindspot for me. Deliberately avoiding spoiling my opinion and trying to listen to it mostly blind, although I am already aware (at least I think) that this is usually considered their magnum opus.
It comes out the gates really great, but kinda lost me at track 2 and didn't really pick back up to what I was enjoying until the back half. I think this is really a taste thing, and maybe I'd feel different on repeated listens, but I'm not grabbed at all by the next few tracks. I just don't really care much for slow introspective sadboy guitars.
The stuff I do like is great though. I think I'm comfortable putting a 4 on this. I think I have to sit with it a few more times to know what I really think about it, but I suspect it's the kind of thing that grows on you with a little time to gestate.
It's been brought to my attention that Morrissey is a shithead, but as much as I can avoid it I'm not here to rank the moral character of 1001 musicians.
This isn't nearly as good as It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. The highs are just as good I would say (Burn Hollywood Burn, Fight The Power) and Flavor Flav's track is better, but it feels like half of the album is just interludes where everyone just goes "yes y'all" for a few minutes.
There's too much filler in here, and it's a lot less cohesive for it. It Takes a Nation just relentlessly blasts you in the face for an hour and doesn't really have any weak spots.
Man, the integer ratings are really making me take some bold stances.
I don't think I've ever listened to a Sprinsteen album cover-to-cover. This one is great. The title track really fucking does have it like that.
Was happy to see it was a tight 40 at first, and partway through I thought to myself it could be longer and I wouldn't be mad, but then I was glad for the tight 40 in the end as it's a little overblown for me to take an especially high dose of it. I expect I'm gonna have to listen to between three and seven Springsteen records before the end of this.
I've seen this cover a zillion times and only just realized that there's bandmate cropped out of it! Turns out the photo continues onto the reverse of the record. This must be a very cool thing to own in gatefold.
I expect we'll see a bunch of Steely Dan records in here, and I expect they will have a high floor but a low ceiling. I think my general opinion of them having only dabbled is that they're just a little too slick for a jazz rock band compared to their contemporaries, even those coming from the rock side (thinking about Zappa especially). I guess you could even call this soft rock or my new least favorite term "adult-oriented-rock", but it's way more interesting than most of that stuff is.
They compare extremely favorably to other soft-rock contemporaries, but do not hold a candle to other fusion contemporaries, I guess I'm saying.
Nonetheless, they make like perfectly cromulent dad chunes that are musically interesting enough to listen to. This certainly is a record of their songs, and is is a perfectly fine record to throw on and either listen intently or just have it linger in the background. I remain curious whether one of their records is going to stand out enough to deserve a 4.
This is just well and truly not my thing. Wouldn't be mad it was on or anything, and I'm sure for the type of person who loves wistful love ballads set to orchestras it's great, but for all the jazz I've voraciously consumed I just really don't care about this kinda stuff at all.
"The Beatles didn't really make anything interesting until Rubber Soul" is like the least interesting or provocative thing you can say about The Beatles. Although, trying to say anything provocative about The Beatles at all is like an extremely midwit thing to do.
So yeah, some people like this stuff, some people don't. Whatever man. Listen to stuff you like and don't listen to stuff you don't like. I don't really have strong opinions about early Beatles records one way or the other. This is certainly one of them. I had never noticed A Hard Day's Night had bongos before.
DEAR LORD though, why are the stereo versions canon? Go into your accessibility settings and force mono if you're listening to them through headphones. Or seek out the mono versions (so they can sit in your collection and you can be smug about it while pulling out a different Beatles record than this this like 99 times out of 100).
Debated a 3 and a 4 for this one. The singles are all great, but most of the rest of the album ranges from forgettable to actively annoying. It kinda makes me wonder whether I used to at some point think all the singles were annoying too—other than Praise You obviously—but through sheer mantric repetition I have ascended to Funk Soul Brotherhood.
Each and every one of us are funk souls, brother.
I had no idea what I was expecting going in, but 1. it was not this and 2. I liked what it actually is a lot more than I expected to. I actually sorta hate most country and I think had basically never heard (or clocked that I was listening to anyway) a Willie Nelson song other than On the Road Again. So I was pleasantly surprised by this!
Apparently it's also mostly covers of old country tunes, as well. Makes sense, it sounds like it.
I especially liked the little honky tonk break that was Down Yonder. The rest of the record is kinda samey (not in a bad way, it's short enough for that) so it was a pleasant little surprise in the back half.
