MY QUEEN!!!!! This is such a classic holy I forgot how much I loved this aged 15. Bit miffed that my first suggestion from this damn website was one I’m already familiar with but I had fun with this in the end so I can’t be too mad :3
Not my type of music and won’t be after this challenge but I’m still glad I listened to the whole thing!! Though I haven’t listened to any other releases from her Complete American Songbook series yet I suspect this was probably not the best choice for this list, if only for its inaccessible form - there are EIGHT albums in that collection and every one bar this is single LP length, why would the editors 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 (albeit I listened in about three chunks which helped a bit w/ the burnout :]). still I v much appreciate this was before the album era and I am probably listening to this under very different circumstances to its original audience. Ella does a fantastic job with the material though. 2.5/5
LOVE the guitar tones throughout this. Not very ‘Unplugged’ however lmfao. Kind of wish the accordion was used on a few more occasions beyond just Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam which surprise surprise is my favourite here. Then again that would probably lessen its effect in that one song (:
My attention did waver a bit towards the end, this is likely my own bias against stuff I’m not v familiar with but I suspect were a few tracks left out of the performance it would be just as, if not more, impactful. In general I preferred the covers as compositions to the originals. very haunting to think that the man singing here would no longer be alive less than 5 months after this performance. 3.75/5
Woah this comes from the source!!! Those bottom keys!!!!! Fuck it 5/5
HOT MEAT! HOT RATS! HOT CATS!!!!!!! 🐈/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 three tracks, but that part one of the title track is one of the most hideous moments I’ve ever encountered in music and it’s all downhill from there. 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
so you’re telling me the Back II Life on here isn’t even a remotely similar version to the great single? it’s a mostly acapella version??? yeah… no. I did originally give this a 3, bang average but on reflection I am deducting 1 star for that crime. fuck you
PETER WHY!!!!! i was a bit freaked out when the generator threw this my way because I have recently began my gabriel-era genesis phase. however I had not yet listened to any members’ solo albums (as I was too focussed on the band discography from that era). this being thrown at me by the Generator Gods™️ and thus the first solo genesis album I listened to… was certainly an experience! of course I had come across the biggest hits on here at some point in the past (sledgehammer, don’t give up etc.) but this was long before I ever gave PG or genesis a second thought. I’m not sure I’ve ever come across an album this BACKLOADED? as in where the second half is that much better than the first?? (sorry sledgehammer!) my biggest gripe with this is the production. it really doesn’t date well. anyway this didn’t really sink in on first listen and I’m slightly loathed to listen to it again. I will however be doing so at least a few more times in the coming days/weeks/months.
and while this isn’t really my style I think this is a great example of an artist being progressive in the trust sense of the word, I don’t expect him to stick to playing supper’s ready and prancing around on stage as a flower head his entire career nor would I want him to (well, maybe I wouldn’t mind LMFAO) so I can appreciate the changes in artistic direction on display here. plus I can think of very few artists who can truly adapt to changes in the cultural and musical landscape the way peter gabriel can and has done, even bowie couldn’t take on the 80s like this.
I definitely warmed up to this.
My listening was separated roughly in half, the first this morning and the latter in the evening, which probably isn’t the best way to experience this album but I found the second half to be much more enjoyable and interesting than the first.
‘Tunic’ is remarkably mature in its premise. ‘My Friend Goo’ made me laugh out loud (well, more like laugh in my head, the Americans were in the kitchen so I couldn’t actually laugh out loud for fear of giving the impression that I’m even more of a loony than they undoubtedly already think I am)
Not the generic indie band I had unfairly denounced they were aged 13! I have a feeling I will like earlier Sonic Youth more though :)
I have given Laura Nyro a handful of times over the past few years, but couldn’t really get into her style. On first listen this morning for the list I thought this was pretty good, albeit found the huge dynamic variation a bit unsettling. but having given it (+ some individual tracks that stood out to me on that first listen) a second listen in the evening… 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 it’s really difficult to pick up on that on first listen and is probably why I found it a bit disjointed at first but! holy fuck does it make for a beyond intriguing album and reward repeated listens! such surreal imagery!! THE DOUBLE TRACKED VOCALS!!! I think I’ve found an album I will take with me far beyond this list here.
favourite tracks: Timer, Stoned Soul Picnic, The Confession, actually you know what every track!!!
Very groovy and eclectic!! Will probably need to give another (few) listen(s) further down the line, but did not have time to this day.
I did like this, I thought the textures on some of the tracks were gorgeous BUT feel like the editors could’ve chosen a more definitive, memorable and/or just better Billie Holiday album than this :( also WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE BILLIE HOLIDAY ALBUM ON THIS LIST??? while there’s TWO EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL ALBUMS?????
I was a bit freaked out by this because why did I actually… like it??? I was expecting this, based on my knowledge of Sheryl Crow’s music prior to this (which consisted pretty much solely of the odd appearance on TOTP in the mid-90s), to be 90s MOR radio-oriented pop, in other words not my thing. (I am coming to the realisation reading this over that this might be a product of my internalised misogyny with a sprinkle of the ol’ taste brainwashing from the parents/dad.) While I don’t know whether I’ll be listening to this beyond this setting it definitely was not that- as another user said the influences on here are surprisingly diverse! at times it’s quite post-punk-y and even gets funky on ‘Solidify’!! Some quite interesting and unexpected instrumentation choices scattered across this too, I thought ‘Solidify’ and ‘We Do What We Can’ had several of these particularly re: percussion. The production starts off fairly typical of blown-out 90s radio pop on the first track as I was expecting but it definitely dials down as it continues. I hate to be that person to compare a woman to a man (I’m a woman myself I promise) BUT at times it did genuinely seem as though Crow was trying to do an early Bob Dylan impression in terms of her phrasing and the continuity and vague referentiality of her lyrics. This was particularly obvious on ‘Na Song’ which I actually liked but it seemed to draw not very subtly from ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. Yet even these didn’t bother me much as they probably would’ve done had I not been so taken by the shock of the realisation that I was actually enjoying a Sheryl Crow album 😃 Hell, from the barrage of seemingly disparate, vague political-historical references crowded alongside each other on certain tracks which rarely seem to serve any higher purpose (see the aforementioned ‘Na Song’, also ‘We Do What We Can’ unfortunately), I suspect there was a certain amount of throwing in said references to appear cool/politically conscious/Dylanesque/for the sake of it in the writing process - Sheryl, you are very lucky my expectations were so low and my auditory processing skills so poor to begin with that I found it nearly impossible to actively listen to your lyrics on the first few listens!! However I think there is something to be said for the melodies here too - oftentimes they were strong and interesting enough to distract me from any potentially lazy lyricism :)
While had I listened to this not knowing it was on this list I might have given it a 4/5, I am settling on a 3 (albeit a high one) instead as I do not think, especially given all of the historically really important artists that are not represented at all on here, that this necessarily deserves a place on the list of ‘Albums You Must Listen to Before You Die’. I think the only basis on which I could justify its inclusion to myself is as a relic of its era, but even then it wasn’t AFAIK as though Sheryl Crow or her music were landmark cultural icons of the 90s.
Oh also this album OPENS - yes, the very first words of the first track - with the lines:
“She was born in November 1963
The day Aldous Huxley died”
which might be the funniest literature-adjacent reference I’ve ever heard in any song holy shit
