Having experienced the joy of hearing Orquestra Ibrahim Ferrer & Ruben Gonzalez y su Grupo perform live, during their 1999 US tour, just a couple years after the release of this album, the joy and resilience of the Cuban people feels evident to me across the tracks on this album. Yet, at the moment of this listening, nearly three decades later, the melancholic elements of the music are what feel most evocative and haunting, with the Cuban peoples facing shortages of fuel and food in the face of yet another US blockade of the island...
An album that offered companionship from the moment it was released, through years of adolescent and young adult alienation and depression, this record is a timeless masterpiece. Having had the privilege of seeing Jerry Cantrell perform a few of these songs on his Fall 2025 "I Want Blood" tour, I can state confidently that tracks like "Rain When I Die," "Rooster," and "Would?" still hit hard and have stood the test of time.
A breakthrough album for ZZ Top in 1973 that doesn't sound particularly revelatory to these ears in 2026. The name of their band is supposed to be a tribute to bluesmen Z.Z. Hill and B.B. King, and I'd recommend anyone interested in the blues-rock here to just listen to the music of B.B. King and John Lee Hooker instead.
One of the great live albums of all-time, a remarkably intimate set, albeit not entirely acoustic, in which Nirvana reveals both their own musicality and some of their musical influences and inspirations, including David Bowie, Lead Belly, Meat Puppets, and Vaselines. An essential listen and absolute classic.
Tapestry is an appropriate title for an album that yielded several familiar songs that are undeniably woven into the tapestry of American pop music history. Though they've aged well, these songs just don't quite hit as hard as I imagine they may have when released 55 years ago.
An instant classic at the time of its release, those first two tracks hit so hard -- and the lyrics of second perhaps even harder today, in the USA of 2026, occupied as we are by masked, armed agents of the state...
You justify those that died
By wearin' the badge, they're the chosen whites
Some of those that work forces
Are the same that burn crosses
Love the grooves. Enormously innovative and influential as always, this 1977 album by Brian Eno could be mistaken for one released by LCD Soundsystem in the 21st century.
A classic album from the Summer of Love, with a bunch of familiar tunes, that inevitably sounds of its time, from a band that formed six decades ago.
Any album featuring Muddy Waters performing live renditions of "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I've Got My Mojo Working" obviously can't receive any rating other than a 5.
In the context of Stevie Wonder's historic run of four albums -- Talking Book (1972) and Innervisions (1973) in the preceding couple years before this one and Songs in the Key of Life (1976) released a couple years later -- I'd say that this is the weakest of an incredibly strong batch. Start with one of the other three first.
An iconic album by an iconic artist, who achieved cultural ubiquity by selling sex and controversy, with the first two tracks ("Like A Prayer" and "Express Yourself") still receiving air play almost four decades later. Prince is credited as a "Composer, Primary Artist, Producer" on the album. Still, it sounds like a consummate contemporary pop album of its time, and I'd probably switch to another album after listening to those first two songs...
