starting off with a classic, i see. very widely discussed but not an lp i've ever actually sat down and listened to.
composition and arrangement and performances and production are fantastic. lyrics pinball between great, vapid, and incomprehensible, which is above average for the genre imo. putting this in the pop album category is a weight mismatch, but i dunno as you can call it anything else. banger.
it is said that, to this day, in an isolated valley in central england, if you listen very carefully, you can hear the only consonant thom yorke ever fully pronounced echoing gently from the hills.
mushy, indistinct, sonically complex but compositionally uninnovative song construction produces an album that skitters off of my brain like a drop of water on a hot griddle. to be fair, if you don't have a strong aversion to the deliberately out of tune vocal style, it's probably a lot more palatable.
it's decent, i think? the vocal styling is not particularly to my taste, at least in this sort of quantity, but there's good individual tracks for sure.
i've got a lot of room in my heart for depression music. great bass tone, surprisingly good enunciation on the lyrics, fun percussion work. good stuff.
the opener is actually pretty good! My Iron Lung and Sulk are also fun. elsewise it's not nearly as interminable as Amnesiac since the vocals aren't distressingly flat to nearly the same degree. this album sounds like i imagine living in a long-faded former industrial city in 1990s england feels.
yep that's a coldplay album. it's a good canvas for drum n bass remixes and that's about it. lead vocalist is not inspiring confidence with the falsetto here if i'm being completely honest.
i'm not sure what genre this is, but i don't think it's one i'm familiar with. one of the vocalists is trying to sing on a teaspoon of air, the arrangement is pretty minimal but the individual sounds aren't complex to fill it out, and i don't know what's going on in the lyrics i can make out.
sure, that's fun. a bit staid for my tastes, but it's well arranged, varied in composition, and with some compelling vocal work.
one of the greatest big band recordings of all time. one of the greatest medium-size ensemble recordings of all time, in any genre. there's an interstitial track called "Riot Prevention" that contains exactly what it says on the tin. what more do you want.
it's a classic, it's very influential, and it's still pretty good in CURRENT_YEAR, but more than thirty years on a lot of people have made a lot of pretty similar music and it doesn't quite stand out.
these boys were *cooking*. an incredibly energetic studio album. there's so much going on and it's done so well that it doesn't even matter that the lyrics are pretty nothing. a couple of these tracks i'd love to hear more development on, but there's nothing wrong with what's on the record.
fun, well arranged, lyrics tend a little eeeh but i can only grab about half of em so we'll call it a draw. vocals are good tho, and the hook writing is in full force.
a masterclass in how to turn a bunch of interesting individual sounds into pulp slurry for egg carton manufacture
the same people trying to make a different type of music might well work for me; this does not
sure, that's interesting enough. doing several different things, none of them are super compelling individually but it's a fine package. i do love the vocal harmony writing in this style and era.
vocal performance is undeniable. songwriting...somewhat deniable. lyrics in particular frequently leave something to be desired, and the rhythm section tends to recede fully into the realm of a backing track. to be fair, i have the same opinions about a whole lot of pop music.
Ella Fitzgerald is perhaps the best singer of the recorded music era. this album comes once recording technology itself had reached more or less its full capacity, and puts her - and the band - on excellent display. the Gershwins are hit or miss for me, but it doesn't *matter* when you deliver them like this.
fascinatingly eclectic but generally danceable. the interstitial material isn't great. real shame they put the white dude's name on it, it feels like almost more of a collaboration / compilation album
whewwwwwww this is cookin. what a voice. loses some consistency in the slow songs in particular, but that's to be expected from someone who was only 23 at the time of recording. the band is fully in the pocket. gas top to bottom, as long as you don't listen to some of the lyrics very hard
well performed and beautifully produced. varied and interesting composition. i think the songwriting writes checks that bowie's vocal health can't cash.
the sort of album where nothing i hear sticks in my brain for more than about ten seconds. it sure is hippie music (value-neutral)
it's definitely interesting from an academic perspective, but i don't know that i'd call it enjoyable per se. i think the vocal style would be less tedious if i wasn't hearing it for an entire album in one go.
well, it's certainly *interesting*, but i don't think that's a good thing, at least for me. there's bits and pieces that are compelling, but it really kinda feels like someone tried to make a mosaic out of elements from other contemporary bands and it just doesn't look like a picture when you step back.
very chill. very confident, deservedly so. probably a bit too minimalist for me to want to listen to a whole album of in a row personally. not a surprise that this has been influential
there's some good individual riffs, but they're just repeated over and over until they're run into the ground instead of being developed, and the whole thing is suffocated by incredibly flat vocals. every song somehow manages to overstay its welcome despite only rarely making it over two and a half minutes
fun and eclectic concept album, good instrumentally, but the vocals and spoken word segments are not holding up their end. great instrumentation choices, love to hear vibes and sax in this sort of way
very yell-y. some of it is catchy, at least. given the date, probably one of the key precursors to the thousands and thousands of equally unremarkable punk eps and short lps recorded at great haste that would follow.
if this man would shut up and let the band play it would be at least passably fun and funky. as is, it's a disaster, with neither lyrics nor their performance being tolerable.
wow that comes out ripping! lyrics are nothing to write home about, but the delivery is good enough, and they don't detract from the star, which is some lovely guitar work. good range too, from wall of distortion to background noodling.
zep's collective songwriting hadn't really figured out how to develop their own compelling tracks from scratch yet, and as a result the songs that are wholly original tend to be weaker than the ones that are traditional/covers/inspired/stolen, but plant's voice and the arrangements - particularly page's guitars and jones's keyboards and strings - keep it going nonetheless. two of the stars are stolen from other artists.
i don't really know what's going on here, to be perfectly honest. the beats are consistently pretty good, vocals and production are mostly good, and best as i can tell the lyrics are absolutely all over the place. it careens from political commentary to regulation issue misogyny to daily life to out-of-pocket ableism to weird religious screeds? completely unpredictable.
fantastic vibes, occasionally a little extended for what's there. when it hits it *really* hits though. definitely approaching jazz from rock rather than the other way around. vocals and harmonica are standout
i like yes, i like king crimson, i like elp, so there's no good reason why i haven't listened to genesis before. i've been missing out. complex, virtuosic, filled with both immense energy and great delicacy. spectacular.
moderately catchy but very same-y. guitars occasionally do something interesting, some of the vocals are decent, but it's the same texture over and over again. not really convinced there's more than four actually different songs on the album.
casual and smooth, but so heavily polished it becomes monotonous. Baker is clearly talented but is making a lot of poppy stylistic choices i'm not a fan of.
yeah it's peak simon and garfunkel. top tier songwriting even then. not my favorite of their albums, but perhaps the most consistent
fascinating. vocals are a bit too speech-style for my taste, but the instrumentation makes up for it - oboe!? quite an interesting set of songs
i'm not sure who an hour of the same breathy vocals over the same basic drum pattern and the same predictable guitar strumming is for, but it ain't me.
angular and straightforward. fun guitars. perhaps a bit too uncomplicated at points. love like anthrax is sick
brooding and ominous, but restrained. atmospheric without drifting off, oppressive without crushing.
competent and varied. more indie-leaning style is forgettable, heavier stuff is more interesting. vocals are pretty flexible.
an interesting mix of really cool guitar tone and individual line writing with sometimes excessively repetitive arrangements that are only partially restrained from falling into the monotonous wastes of indie rock. both the vocalists and the lyrics leave something to be desired.
fire. great basslines, fantastic mastering. even the weakest track (same old show) is a heater in a mix as long as you don't hang out there for more than probably two of its six minutes.
doesn't do much other than groove, but it does groove hard.
lead vocals are as bright and garish as a carbon arc lamp. when he shuts his mouth, there's some fun and interesting guitar work. the heavier songs are compelling despite the vocals, the lighter fare just falls flat.
vocally, honestly pretty decent. songwriting...not so much.
it's fine. very well recorded and produced. most of the tracks have something going on, but it's not enough to maintain interest for the full length of the song.
Now That's What I Call Dad Rock! Volume 1435. pretty good guitar work, pretty rough lyrics writing and vocal performances. sometimes struggles to reconcile the rigidity of a drum machine with the desired fluidity of guitar playing.
messy guitars, fun. messy vocals, not so much. very high energy, drummer is getting quite the workout.
i think it would have been a good idea to find someone else to write lyrics. maybe for the singing too. instrumentally it's pretty solid? chill for sure. maybe goes a bit past 'restrained' to 'sparse' on occasion.
decent pop writing. instrumentation keeps it interesting moment to moment despite the overall texture being pretty constant.
i was promised songs about buildings and food, two things which i am quite fond of and fairly interested in, but i have no earthly idea what about 95% of the lyrics are, and the delivery is rather...idiosyncratic, so i'm not sure if i got what was advertised or not. instrumentally fascinating though, some good ass sounds in here.
white boy got pipes and about two and a half different songs.
yeah i'm not sure what you were expecting, it's aretha franklin. recording/mixing/mastering are letting her and the band down a bit frankly, there's balance issues and occasional clipping. the band themselves are in good form, and the arrangements let them show off once in a while.
singing and rapping and songwriting all at once like that seems a bit unfair to everyone else. beats and mixing are often merely adequate, and some of the tracks are a bit longer than they have juice for, but that can't stop the vocal performances.
there's a lot here to like - some great vocal performances, strong songwriting, very good instrumental work, and a truly fantastic opener. unfortunately there's also a lot to dislike, with the middle of the album really sagging musically even without taking into account the racism. ultimately it very much overstays its welcome.
that's gonna be a yikes from me, dawg. i would simply use my skill and experience in a different manner.
a bit sparse on the arrangement, occasional high and tight vibrato isn't my favorite. minimal but effective guitar is the highlight.
cookin. impressive delicacy on the vocal delivery, and the band is absolutely in the pocket. bass is particularly fun.
there's a reason a lot of people (myself included) can only name Bono and The Edge and not any other members of U2, and it's only partially cause those are catchy and easy to remember stage names. the drumming and bass guitar are perfectly good, but take a supporting role to the vocal melodrama and the frankly really impressive guitar texture. on the other hand, the actual *lyrics* often leave something to be desired, and the overall songwriting sags heavily in the middle of the album.
wildly complex lyrics clearly presented in a range of styles paired with fairly sparse arrangements result in an album that's always very technically impressive but not necessarily always enjoyable to listen to.
it is indeed smooth and chill, the whole way through. it's one note but at least that note is good.
idk, i can also be sad and do the same thing repeatedly for seven minutes at a time. their production is way better though, good individual sounds for sure.
unremarkable at best, vocals tending to whiny and lyrics to obnoxious, and poorly mixed.
mostly uninspired guitar progressions behind a vocalist who's flexible but not really in command of her screaming. drumming is pretty decent at least, fairly conventional but active.
if you're gonna do really sparse arrangements then either they have to be compositionally interesting or the individual sounds need to be interesting. this has neither, and it's made worse by out of tune vocals. at least the vocal features provide a break from that.
fascinating use of sound and texture, and mixing and mastering. it doesn't nail it - lead vocals don't feel quite up to the task stylistically, some of the synth sounds are starkly out of place, lyrically it's scattershot, and it runs out of steam by the end - and i'm not entirely sure it's *fun* to listen to, but it's absolutely *interesting* to consider as a piece of art.
some truly great sounds here between the synth and the guitars, but the composition is so repetitive that it's boring anyways, and the vocals are mostly just speech at various intensities instead of singing.
yep, that's a beatles album. mostly unremarkable pop rock, with a couple more memorable tracks sprinkled about. vocal harmony is fun though, and the hooks are decent.
impressive for the vocals to be both obnoxiously abrasive and uncomfortably unctuous at the same time, so it's a pretty tough listen even without the overly-polished arrangements and deeply questionable lyrical choices.
very basic songwriting (the guest artist tracks are the best of the lot) but sold by the performances. lead vocals in particular are compelling despite (or perhaps because of) clearly struggling at times.
a corker of a pop-rock record, really. vocals and lyrics front and center, and strong, but the band isn't exactly slacking and are offered plenty of opportunity to show off. great diversity of sound within the parameters.
occasionally manages to break out a catchy line or some interesting sounds, but mostly it's just vocally slightly unpleasant to listen to and overall deeply unmemorable.
good as hell production, lyrics are inconsistent but the presentation makes up for that in spades. lots of features but they're all pretty good.
captures the authentic garage rock experience by being physically painful to listen to even at low volume.
somewhat all over the place, which is to be expected for a debut. songwriting and arrangements range from frantic to underbaked to just right. the vocals are inconsistent as well, sometimes crossing the line from loose into uncontrolled. when everything lines up, though, it's pretty good.
idk it's probably pretty good if you're into that sort of thing. pretty samey for me and drifts unpleasantly into the christianity zone.
yeah that's pretty fun. perhaps a bit overpolished and occasionally the vocals are a bit to sloppy, but the band has got it for sure.
production is very good, writing is pretty nothing, i can't tell what basically any of the lyrics are. pop album bingo achieved, i spose.
it basically sounds like what it is - four individual songwriters each mostly contributing a couple tracks for themselves. fortunately each of them is quite good, the changeup keeps it from getting stale, and the vocals are pretty locked in (you'll note nobody asks neil young to harmonize with them). instrumentally nothing happens aside from an occasional fun guitar excursion, but that's not the focus.
deeply stylish and completely in the pocket. perhaps lacks a bit of innovation over the runtime, but that feels like complaining about a discount on something you needed to get anyways.
she can really sing and that is really all this has going for it. the lyrics are trite, the songwriting is neither interesting itself nor shows off the vocals enough to compensate, and the arrangements are deeply unremarkable.
pretty simple pop rock with nothing particularly happening. occasionally pulls some interesting harmony or a decent vocal performance from lennon out but that's about it.
flexible and well-placed vocals and very good bass work anchor an album that's performed *extremely* well. definitely not my favorite genre of lyrics, but the delivery sells em anyways.
some interesting sounds, but the overall texture stays pretty constant, and the vocals don't exactly help.
really good production and sound design with an album hanging off of them that doesn't do anything particularly interesting
they're pissed the hell off. the anger does to a significant degree end up sounding the same all the way through, unfortunately, but it's still very high energy. production is great as well.
fascinating texture, heavily rhythmic despite little percussion. compelling vocal presentation despite not knowing what any of the lyrics actually are.
guitars are pretty good but whenever anyone opens their mouth it's a bad ol time. keeps doing the same thing for the whole album, more or less.
impressive vocal performances and writing (albeit with lyrics that range from quite good to rather terrible), but it's placed over some of the most boring and predictable rhythm section work imaginable.
cookin. arrangements and production are fantastic, and vocals are usually well-articulated while still being stylish (and mostly lyrically solid).
delightfully melodramatic. a fairly unique (at least in popular music) combination of diction, loft, and direction, and more than enough songwriting to show it off and keep things interesting.
certainly cultivates an air of austere melancholy, but strips back very far in favor of vocals that are sometimes incomprehensible (lyrical content) and sometimes incomprehensible (diction).
an absolute corker - great selection of originals and covers, fantastic lead and backup vocal work, and tight performances by the band.
it grooves, but that's about it, nothing particularly noteworthy otherwise. runs out of ideas by the end.
quite energetic in general and mostly good lyric writing, but the overall sound is somewhat monotonous and the vocals are a style i'm very much not fond of.
frankly just a fantastic display of musicianship, both individually and collectively.
wildly impressive early electronica, heavily rhythmically grounded despite no percussion (synthesized or otherwise). fascinating soundscapes and individual sounds.
actually interesting instrumental writing and decent performances, which is very much not the case for their earlier music, but the lyrics are still frequently quite sus and they can't decide whether to cut a song short before developing it out or to stretch it out well past its welcome.
very well polished arena rock, headlined by quite good vocals. any individual song is high energy and fairly interesting, but the whole album is basically variations on the same fundamental plan. it's a pretty decent plan, though.
pretty good bass tone and playing, lead vocals are decent, and it's fairly catchy, at least to start. writing doesn't do much interesting and the texture ends up being pretty similar across the set.
this appears to be an attempt to convince the listener that banal pop-rock is more compelling when you slow it down by 30%. it is not successful.
decent songwriting but the vocal style is just viscerally unpleasant.
very good instrumental writing and arranging and excellent performances. i have no earthly idea what the lyrics writer(s) were thinking and/or doing.
very technically impressive and highly varied, but it feels sterile. the very separated mixing isn't doing it any favors either.
actual rapping is quite good, lyrics are all over the place, but the beats are just really not doing it for me.
delightful. individually and collectively very technically impressive, and the writing and arranging show it off without being annoying. the mixing is extraordinarily competent but perhaps a bit too sterile.
vocal harmonies are fantastic, arrangements are quite good, and there's about four excellent songs writing-wise. unfortunately there's thirteen tracks on the album so it gets rather samey.
beats are good, scratching is very impressive, lyric composition and delivery are great, but the content is rather variable.
instrumentation is pretty cool, arrangements are quite fun, but the vocals are really just quite unpleasant to listen to
this basically feels like prog pop? the overall composition and songwriting are pop-ish but heavily informed by prog rock, and instrumentation and arrangements lean more heavily on that side. unfortunately despite being a noted prog rock enjoyer and sometime pop enjoyer, the combo just doesn't suuuuper do it for me? feels like it loses too much prog to really *be* that, particularly in terms of individual part complexity.
starts off quite strongly, but fades after the first few tracks. the beats are high energy but get a lot simpler, the vocal performances aren't quite the same, and the production is only fine by the end. the lyrics are well performed but the content is highly variable, fuck tha police is a classic for a reason but some of the rest are...questionable.
interesting enough i suppose, the iterations on a blues formula are fun, and some of the guitar work is quite good. the vocals are not doin it for me and the recording quality is a relic of a previous decade in a bad way
hard rock-ish kinda joint, not much going on in terms of writing to start, but turns into some more interesting chaos by the end. individually the guitar goes hard for solos (as does the sax), and the voice-as-instrument works out pretty well.
honestly the instrumentals are really quite good, danceable and interesting, but it's a hip-hop album, and i'm getting maaaybe 25% of the lyrics at most.
honestly pretty impressive how much they get out of what is mostly very sparse drum machine work and some scratching. the interplay between the two vocalists is pretty slick as well, but overall it kinda feels like an unmixed set rather than an lp.
the concept and combination of instruments is interesting, but it takes waaaaaay too long to present an idea
idk there's a couple good bits but it mostly feels like background music for a teen drama or something
gas. it's not the world's most explosive dnb, particularly compared to what would come in later decades, but it's still very good - the sound palette is limited but all the producers are making excellent use of what they have, and the mixing and mastering are solid.
weird unsupported half-speaking vocals. some of the solo playing is pretty good but the basic instrumentals are mostly nothing.
some of the instrumental work is fun, arrangements are mostly unremarkable, vocalist is versatile but making a lot of stylistic choices i'm not fond of, and the lyrics are all over the place
the beats are good as hell, is the thing. all three vocalists have a distinct style and excellent delivery, and the lyrics writing seems pretty solid too
the sad slow songs here are much less unpleasant than the other r.e.m. lps i've gotten so far, the arrangements have more room to breathe and the vocals fit better.
pretty impressive vocal performance, aside from some wide fast vibrato, and a good set of arrangements and performances from the band, but the lyrics leave something to be desired
plenty of good ideas, lots of enthusiasm, and very good recording/mixing/mastering, but there's more vocals writing than instrumental writing, and it ends up somewhat samey. also, you can't say that word, buddy.
it's a pretty good soundtrack, there's some solid playing (guitars in particular), but it very much feels like a soundtrack, and the requirements of being a soundtrack make it a much worse album than if it just had these ideas by themselves
great vocal work in both registers. the instrumental choices are all pretty good but the arranging is sometimes lacking, and the lyrics are inconsistent. mixing is quite good though
phenomenally groovy, fantastic playing, great arrangements. guitars in particular are killing it. delightfully energetic and maximalist.
prince's combination of immaculate attention to detail and incredible sense of style applies across genres, it seems. varied enough to not get worn out across a double lp, and the vocal performances are fantastic. only real negative is some of the lyrics are kinda sus, but they're certainly not worse than contemporaries
yeah, sure thing man. help yourself to the fridge, i'm gonna go paint some grass and watch it dry, and you let me know if you find anything interesting, alright?
quite british. great bass, good delivery and rhythm, decent diction, writing seems pretty good. arrangements are very economic
fine pop writing, a decent song selection, and pretty good vocal performances per se, but the style grates over the length of the album.
well-produced and pleasantly ominous, but perhaps a bit one-note
delightfully danceable, a good mix of tracks, and a very impressive collection of performances from a group that wasn't even entirely out of their teens.
great production, great flow, great arrangements, technically impressive lyric writing but the content doesn't really do it for me a lot of the time.
some killer sound design here, which makes the fairly sparse and slow-moving arrangements primarily hypnotic rather than primarily boring.
lots of repetitive guitars and vocals that are just on the line of being either out of tune or just speech. some of it is catchy at least.
barely contained chaos. absolutely incredible work, bouncing between the more-or-less organized head sections and the wholly unrestrained soloing.
as 'wow the music of fifteen years ago was great, we should do some of that' albums go it's a solid effort, and the arrangements are generally pretty good and not too repetitive, but the vocalist appears to mostly be unaware of the existence of consonants and none of the instrumentalists particularly distinguish themselves.
