The first track mentions Master Splinter who is a good rat.
It's solid.
This is fine but not really my thing and there was nothing in here that made me go "hell yeah this kicks ass" besides some really good guitar.
This is basically just Leonard Cohen saying cool shit over a beat, and it's fucking rad as all hell
I think this man was sad. It's a dramatic album for good reason.
Solid beats that were pretty cool to listen to.
A lot of really cool songs, but I'm so sick of hearing Alright, I'm going to be real with you.
I Wish I Had Duck Feet is a fucking banger.
Several really cool songs. Feels like it'd be music featured in the hit video game Cyberpunk 2077.
I think this is the album that makes me finally "get" Bruce Springsteen, which seems weird but nah actually he's really cool.
Easy to see why Lynyrd Skynyrd made it big. They have style right out the gate. Most of the songs kick ass, though I'll fully admit that I'm tired of hearing Simple Man and Free Bird. That said, Mississippi Kid is fucking awful. What was going on there, seriously?
This gets 1 star because Kanye West is fucking insane.
But like, damn, this album is still amazing and would get 5 if Kanye wasn't Kanye. Jesus Walks is an all timer, We Don't Care and School Spirit are great, and Last Call just being a 12 minute interview over a beat is a really fun thing to listen to.
Don't be a weirdo nazi shithead tho.
Defecting Grey and Baron Saturday are both pretty good, but overall this is just fine. I get it's like a rock opera sorta thing, but it's just fine.
Honestly? Outside of "Is She Weird" I have little to say about this. I liked what I've heard of Pixies before, but this album is almost entirely 100% forgettable. There's not a single track (again, besides Is She Weird) that I thought about for even a moment while it was actively playing. Background noise dad rock.
I like Bjork as a person, I like Bjork as an artist, I don't think I really get it. The music is beautiful, her singing is beautiful, her lyrics are crazy, and if you told me this was an album about an alien navigating human relationships, I'd believe you. I liked this quite a bit. I don't think I'll ever listen to it again.
Honest answer: outside of Layla, I just did not find anything I actually gave a shit about on this album. I'm sure it's good, and there's good stuff, but I was zoned out for almost out of it and nothing here brought me back in. This feels like an album my dad would make me listen to while staring at me to judge my reactions. Layla is an absolute classic, though.
Solid. I didn't care much for I've Been Waitin' For Tomorrow (All of My Life) so I went in worried, but the rest of this is solid. I particularly liked Giant. That said, why does the singer sound like LemonDemon?
This has several classics on it (Clocks, The Scientist, In My Place) so you already knew it was going to be good, but the rest of this album is also just good. What can I say, I had a good time here. Easy five stars.
Honestly, most of my enjoyment from this album came from the surprise that was Goon Squad, something that's genuinely hilarious now. Like, this is fine, but not anything I'll think about past Goon Squad being hilarious.
Deny Everything made me worried, because this started by sounding like that kind of Punk that people listen to in movies where they want you to think it's edgy nonsense. But then I Just Want Some Skank sold me on the album entirely. Hilarious way to end that song. Operation and Group Sex are funny, Back Against the Wall is great, and Paid Vacation was the song that made me decide this deserved a 5. Is it good? Debatable. Is it a group of people angry and yelling in a way only they can do? Absolutely.
With the exception of Burning, which was solid, this whole album floated by me without evoking a single emotion. It exists. It feels generic as all hell. I genuinely couldn't tell you what actually would make this "guitar while being sad" album stand out from any of the others.
This has... aged super poorly.
Run D.M.C. are fuckin' nerds, I don't know how else to put it. Their songs are like "I went to school and got good GRADES/My teacher said I get an A/Now that makes me really COOL/And if you do drugs you're a FOOL" like damn these guys need to get shoved into fucking lockers. Nerdcore was never cool.
I dunno man, every song on this album sounds exactly like the DK Rap. I get that's both the point of the DK Rap, which is supposed to sound like a Run D.M.C. song, and that music has just changed a ton, but this just aged so poorly.
Funky as all hell. Solid album. I know this isn't "the" version of Thank You, but it's really good. Family Affair and You Caught Me Smilin' are great. Well worth it. The five seconds of silence in the middle of the album that makes up the title track caught me off guard though.
Probably my first big surprise since starting this: someone I've never heard of and clicked with pretty quickly. This is a cool as all hell album, and one I may revisit. Marquee Moon is long but great, and Prove It ending with just the cool "This case is closed" is a 10/10. Enjoyed this a lot.
I'll be honest: I thought Intro / Go To The Floor was kind of embarrassing, but after that, I enjoyed the hell out of this. Fun lyrics, great beats, and Missy kicks ass. Gossip Folks, Work It, and Pussycat are all great, but Slide is probably my favorite on the album. Also, nearly every track on this album starts with the line "This is a Missy Elliott exclusive" like she's Geoff at the Game Awards.
Didn't care for Women so I figured this would just be generic 80s rock metal, but actually, the rest of this was a vibe. Rocket absolutely kicks ass and is the standout for me. Animal and Don't Shoot Shotgun are both fun as well, and Pour Some Sugar On Me continues to be an absolute classic. Hella fun.
This album had too much going against it for me. The biggest two being that it's in French and that it's a live recording. There was very little likely to get me past those two issues, and the fact that a lot of the songs sound the same certainly didn't help. Not for me at all, guy is an incredible singer though.
Maybe... Maybe Miles Davis was just the coolest dude to ever live? This is some really smooth jazz, and it's easy to see how Miles became the best to ever do it. Noticed how this also had a bunch of new "electric" sound, which seems like it was something Miles was really experimenting with at the time. It's really good.
This absolutely kicked ass. I'm not really a rock opera/prog rock person, but I can not believe how much I enjoyed this. The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging is going to end up as a regular on my music, which is a bit of a strange choice from this album, but I liked it a lot. So many of these songs are really cool though. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Counting Out Time, Lilywhite Lilith, and The Waiting Room are probably the ones that I enjoyed the most.
If You All Get To Heaven is such a banger and fantastic way to start this album. Other standouts for me include Wishing Well, Seven More Days, and Rain. Never heard of this one before, but absolutely loved it.
I don't know I didn't buy this one. There was very little here I gave a shit about, and it mostly just felt like pretty middle of the road "sad dude with a guitar" shit. He's fine, Down by the River is solid, but I just simply did not care for the most part.
Brian Eno is a name I always saw tossed around a ton, but if you asked me who he was I'd just sort of be like "I dunno, he makes airport music I think?" Now I know, and I vibe with it. I think the unexpected winner of this album for me is On Some Faraway Beach, but a lot of this is good. Baby's On Fire kicks ass, Dead Finks Don't Talk is fun weird, and the one-two of Some Of Them Are Old and Here Comes the Warm Jets to end the album unironically kicks ass. I ended up going back to several of these songs. Loved it.
Give Up the Funk is an absolute classic and entirely makes this album worth it, but outside of that I wasn't feeling most of these. P-Funk, Mothership Connection, Unfunky UFO, and Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication all sound like the exact same song, so the fact that they're four in a row is insane. The album ends with Night of the Thumpasorus People, which consists of a group of dudes going "goo goo ga ga" for three minutes straight. Give Up the Funk feels like the whole reason this is here. Maybe I am just not a funk dude.
I went into this with some hope because Intro had a neat beat and Fred Durst doesn't talk much over it. But then the 1-2-3-4 hit of Hot Dog, My Generation, Full Nelson, and My Way ruined that. So much of this album is just those guys in High School that you avoided because they sucked. The best part of these four songs are just taken from other songs (later in the album Take a Look Around would just straight up use the Mission Impossible theme, but at least it has the excuse of appearing in the movies first).
To try and stay positive: Rollin' is still pretty great, so great that there are two versions of it on the album (I prefer Urban Assault Vehicle to Air Raid Vehicle), and Boiler was solid. Outro being a four minute sketch of Ben Stiller making fun of Limp Biskit is funny, and then they repeat his stupid laugh for 3 minutes straight before playing some messages other people have left for Limp Biskit. It's a really dumb way to end the album that fits. But, you know, "Ben Stiller makes fun of you for four minutes" isn't really a great selling point for an album.
This is fine, but it feels like every song on this album sounds the exact same and after a while they all began to flow together. You Don't Own Me is cool, and Mockingbird is a classic, but outside of those two there wasn't much for me personally. It's still solid enough.
Yeah this did nothing for me. I think outside of No Body No Crime, I just did not care about a single song on this album. When I got to the bonus songs I went "no I'm done" and shut it off. It's not bad, I know it's fine, I even like quite a few of Taylor's songs, but none of them are on this album.
Creepy and dark in the correct way. Never Let Me Down Again is a great opener, and the album never really lets up from there. The Things You Said, Little 15, and Nothing are all solid tracks that mix that sort of dark synth and British new wave into something that works well. The album ends with Pimpf, which is just a five minute instrumental with a choir, and it's weird that the album just ends with a Castlevania theme honestly.
Everything about this album still fucking rules. Smack My Bitch Up and Firestarter are still all timers, while Breath and Fuel My Fire are a bunch of fun. Honestly, this is an all thriller no filler album. Also the cover is legendary. Crab.
I don't know about most of this, but when it hits it hits hard. I'll admit everything from Thinkin Bout You to Pilot Jones I wasn't vibing with this at all, but Crack Rock was solid and I really liked Pyramid. After that, Monks, Bad Religion, and Forrest Gump were all songs I really enjoyed. Don't know if this is one I'd listen to again, but it was at least worth listening to once.
This is the first album in this challenge I actually called it quits on halfway through. I thought You'll Never See My Face Again and Marley Purt Drive were fine, and that's the best thing I can say about this. Odessa is long and plodding, Edison is just fucking weird, and everything else is absolutely forgettable. Bee Gees would go on to have several hits, but there's a reason this weird concept album is mostly just forgotten.
Ayyy, two The Prodigy albums this week. Doesn't have the huge hits that The Fat of the Land would go on to have, but this is still pretty great. Break & Enter and Poison are probably my two standouts, but honestly you could put almost any track on here on and enjoy it. It's nearly 80 minutes of just kick-ass beats.
This is fine. Gimme All Your Lovin' and Sharp Dressed Man are classics, they kick ass. The rest of this is fine. There's nothing in here past those two songs that made me really care, but there was also nothing in here that was really bad. Legs is solid if I had to pick something else, but that's the most I have to say.
I've heard this album from start to finish before this challenge, and I did it again for this, but this is unironically one of my all-time favorites. Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space still is the kind of song I want to die slowly in the snow to. Come Together is still a song I'll scream-sing to every time it comes on. Stay With Me, Cool Waves, and Electricity kicks so much ass. The 17 minutes that is Cop Shoots Cop is exactly how this album should end. This is my personal perfect album.
This is fine. I genuinely have no strong feelings on it. Nothing here is bad. Nothing here caught my attention. It's fine, and that's it really.
The first Elvis Costello album I got, I only really noted for two things: a white dude saying the N-word and how goofy Goon Squad was. So I'm happy that This Year's Model was noticeably better. The singles, Pump It Up and Radio Radio, were noticeably the best part of the album. But the rest is solid. The Beat was pretty good, Lip Service was neat, and something about (I Don't Want to Go To) Chelsea was pretty funny. If the rest of Elvis Costello's stuff is like this, then it'll be much more enjoyable to go through.
Guero Canelo has been sitting around on one of my general music playlists for so long, and I genuinely don't remember how it got there, so it's really cool to see this album pop up. I was worried I was going to end up hating it, and Sunken Waltz is probably the worst song on this album for me, so it wasn't a great start, but after that, I just loved everything. Quattro (World Drifts In), Black Heart, Not Even Stevie Nicks..., and Attack El Robot! Attack! are the highlights for me (besides the aforementioned one-two hit of Dub Latina/Guero Canelo, which it turns out should absolutely be listened to back to back), but to be totally honest, I was just into this whole thing by the end. Super easy recommend.
Unfortunately, I think songs that aren't in English may just sort of not click with me, which makes me feel bad, but also means several tracks on this album didn't do it for me. None of them were bad, I just didn't find them super interesting. There's a handful of songs I liked here: Brimful of Asha, Funky Days Are Back Again, and Good Shit stood out, but I actually think I enjoyed the instrumentals even more than the other tracks, especially What Is Happening? and State Troopers, Pt. 1.
I thought Da Bichez and You Can't Stop The Prophet were both pretty funny, and I feel like that's the most I have to say about this album. Most rap albums I get why they're on this list, but I just didn't feel this one at all. I kinda saw what Ain't The Devil Happy was trying to do, but it felt like a weird morality message that someone said had to quickly be added in. Nothing else really stood out.
Look, this album contains three of Simon & Garfunkel's best songs: America, Mrs. Robinson, and A Hazy Shade of Winter. For that alone, it's an all-timer. However, there isn't really a single song here I think is bad (besides maybe Voices of Old People, which is literally just two minutes of someone recording some random people talking. Didn't get that one.) Save the Life of My Child is not something I ever really expected from Simon & Garfunkle, but it's so good. Old Friends is sad but beautiful. At the Zoo is a weird fun way to end the album. It all kicks ass. Easy up there as one of the best.
