MY QUEEN!!!!! This is such a classic holy shit I forgot how much I loved this in my mid-teens. Bit miffed that my first album from this website is one I already know intimately but I had so much fun returning to this that I can’t be too mad :3 5/5
Not my type of music but I’m glad I listened to the whole thing!! Though I haven’t listened to any other releases from her Complete American Songbook series yet I have my suspicions this was not the best choice for this list, if solely for its inaccessible form - there are EIGHT albums in that collection and every one bar this is single LP length, why would the editors of this book choose this as essential listening?? I also don’t personally care for most of the Gershwin compositions here and my 21st century British ears were quite tired after 3+ hours.
Still I appreciate this predates the album era and I am listening to this under very different circumstances to its original audience. Ella does do a fantastic job with the material even if it’s not to my tastes. 2.75/5
LOVE the guitar tones on this. Kind of wish the accordion was used a bit more beyond just Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam, which unsurprisingly is my favourite track here (:
I suspect I would find it just as, if not more, impactful were a few tracks left off the album release. still a very haunting recording nonetheless 3.75/5
Woah this comes from the source!!! Those bottom keys!!!!! Fuck it 5/5
HOT MEAT! HOT RATS! HOT CATS!!!!!!! fun as hell 🐀/5
Thoroughly stupid, from the lyrics to the melodies, especially from track 4 onwards. I liked the odd instrumental flourish here or there, and upon relisten I found myself almost enjoying the first two tracks, but that part one of the title track is one of the most hideous moments I’ve ever encountered in music and it doesn’t get much better or less tedious from there for me. 1.75/5
Wow I love this album a lot more than I remember!! Death is a huuuge theme across this and it really jumped out to me today more than it did when I was younger and a more frequent and avid Smiths listener!! Paint a Vulgar Picture might lyrically be one of my favourite songs ever 4.75/5
Hell yes 4.25/5
genuinely awful?????? 0.5/5
so you’re telling me the one composition on here I truly like (Back II Life) is a completely redone and stripped-down remix of the iconic fabulous 1989 single? no thank you, not for me! I was pretty underwhelmed by the entire album anyway but I will be deducting half a star for that crime. found this sadly bland and plodding given how much their one big hit swings 2/5
I take back everything I said about this album. Might not be my favourite of his but this swings, love you Peter 🙌🌟 4.25/5
My listening of this was separated roughly in half, the first this morning and the latter in the evening, which probably isn’t the best way to experience any album but I definitely warmed up to this one as the day progressed !
Not the generic, overrated indie rockers I had unfairly denounced them as in my pretentious early teen years !! Still have a feeling I’ll like earlier Sonic Youth more though 3.75/5
I have given Laura Nyro a handful of listen over the past few years, though could never really get into her style then. On first listen to this this morning I thought was pretty good albeit found the huge dynamic variation a bit too unsettling.
Upon my second listen in the evening however… something just,, clicked. WOW this is gorgeous. Some of the strangest yet most fitting, satisfying, stunning chord progressions I’ve ever come across in pop music!! The songs on here never travel in a direction you expect them to and I think that’s probably why I found it a bit disjointed at first but! Holy fuck does it make for a beyond intriguing and layered album! Such surreal imagery!! THE DOUBLE TRACKING ON THOSE VOCALS!!! I think I’ve found an album I will take with me far beyond my stabs at this list :3
5/5
favourite tracks: Timer, Stoned Soul Picnic, The Confession, actually you know what every track!!!
Very groovy and eclectic !! Feel I need to give this another few listens, didn’t have time to today unfortunately but greatly enjoyed upon first listen :) 4/5
I did like some of this, I thought the textures on certain tracks were gorgeous…
Having said that, Billie Holiday definitely deserves a more memorable, or just…better album to represent her catalogue on this list :(
speaking of which WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE BILLIE HOLIDAY ALBUM ON HERE? while there’s TWO EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL ALBUMS??? truly criminal behaviour… you know what actually FUCK the editors of this book 2.75/5
Cannot get over the fact this OPENS with the lines:
“She was born in November 1963
The day Aldous Huxley died”
which might be the funniest literature-adjacent reference I’ve heard in any song ever
The production is overly polished and OTT for my liking as I was expecting, but was pleasantly surprised by some of the songwriting on here ! Haven’t decided yet whether that includes the above lyrics or not 3.5/5
Call me boring but I’m more of a Synthpop Ministry kind of girl. TV II is kind of cool though and Jesus Built My Hotrod BITES 3.25/5
One of my all-time favourites, practically a perfect 5/5
Surprised to find I still know most of the melodies on here by heart!!! This was little 13 year old me’s JAM and although I can’t find it within me to muster up the same enthusiasm for it now I had a generally pleasant time revisiting this 3.75/5
Not as hard rocking as I was expecting, though I suppose that’s bound to be the case with an album this influential and early on in a genre’s history!! Plus the metal loather in me is secretly appreciative of that fact. I definitely enjoyed this more than I was anticipating, I’m looking forward to getting more Sabbath thrown at me by this website now 3.5/5
4.5 really pleasantly surprised!!! on certain songs I almost thought I was listening to an 80s indie record a-la-replacements, so more fitted to my tastes than I had been expecting
Pretty terrible actually but I’m not mad that I got this today or that it’s on the list? in fact it’s albums like this that are what this website is for…curiosities emblematic of a particular moment in music history that could never have been made at any other point in time and which I would never have listened to otherwise!
having said that I did kind of enjoy Sagar and Raghupati 2.5/5
Not generally my thing but this was a fun and at times eccentric listen ^-^ 3.25/5
This was a gem I was not expecting! It’s so offbeat and and at times jarring and dissonant. So much of this feels like a satire of early punk in the most affectionate way possible 4.5/5
(as an aside: this is supposed to be the 1986 album usually available as part of the 1998 ‘In A Doghouse’ compilation, right? not the 2003 one with the same title? I wonder how many people on here mixed up the two, especially given the apparent scarcity of the original 1986 release…
still haven’t listened to 2003 self-titled of course, though this has made me want to)
Unfortunately very good and the blueprint for so much of my taste…
I am well aware how far from the point this is but it’s a far more…musical? album than I remember it being? Still think the Sex Pistols as a band were a novelty project used by Malcolm McLaren to sell clothes 4/5
