Still a solid listen. I haven’t heard it all the way through since it was released. Several 5s and 4s, only a couple of less interesting songs, but nothing that brings the album down or slows the momentum. I’m still not a big fan of zydeco. 4.5
Not my cup of tea. It’s like if Thornton Wilder wrote musicals or a less cool Scott Walker.
Great. Not as good as ATliens or Aquemini, but excellent.
Fantastic! Guitar driven British power pop in the tradition of The Who. One of the best of the 90s BritPop wave. 4.5 I have to save my 5 star ratings for perfect albums, but this is close.
I like noise rock and more avante genres of music, but this was a little too repetitive and I’m not a huge fan of blast beats. It was enjoyable. I just like something a little more dynamic.
Solid listen. Not my favorite by Steely Dan, but very good.
Solid. Brilliant. The prototype for the greatness of 90s hip hop.
I forgot how good this was. Pretty great throughout. Last couple of songs kind of throw the brakes on the momentum, but very good overall.
Superbly pleasant. Listened on a rainy morning while drinking coffee. The musicianship is sublime. Locked in. Listen to Jimmy Smith.
Not a fan. Sorry. Meh.
Perfect album. One of the best of the first psychedelic era
More like Bored of Canada. Just kidding. Mellow. No. Offensive, Chill.
Great album. Ground breaking. Almost a 5. Starts strong but small decline toward the end of side 2.
Not my thing, but I see its value. I’m feeling generous.
Same as previous. I need to be in the right mood for this. It’s good for what it is, just not something I would choose to listen to unless I was in some very specific circumstances. Still feeling generous.
3 really great songs, 4 very good songs, 1 ok song. I’ll let everyone else decide which ones they are.
Side 1 is so great. Heavy funk, incredible version of Walk On By. Side 2 explores the romantic elements of r&b beautiful string arrangements and horns. 4.5
Decent for a later period U2 album. Pretty average compared to their early, more energetic output. 3.5
I love this album. This revitalized Neil and his on again, off again band, Crazy Horse and solidified his influence on the new generation. Recorded live in Neil’s barn, it does sound like a bunch of geezers jamming, but it’s the best band of geezers there is. I’m trying to be reasonable with my rating considering the quality and weight of Neil’s discography. As much as I’d like to give it a 5, I think a 4 is more reasonable, but it’s great.
Not a huge fan, but these first 2 records are undeniably good. I know the 3rd record is everyone’s favorite, but I feel like it’s bloated and overproduced. Their first record will always be my favorite. This one is a 4.4
It’s a fun record from the early 70s glam era, with a little more pub rock feel. I’ll give it a solid 3.7
3 great songs, 9 very average songs
Boring. The vocals are annoying. Song structure is flat. No dynamics. All the songs are the same. I want to be nice, but I just don’t like it.
This thoroughly enjoyable album is the pinnacle of the outlaw country movement featuring its best representative and singer in Waylon Jennings and its greatest songwriter in Billy Joe Shaver, who harassed Jennings until he agreed to record his songs.
Incredible. Quite possibly the best album of the first wave of the post punk era. Dark and menacing, but also upbeat and danceable? Great bass lines and sharp, angular guitars. Snotty vocals. Great. 4.8 (I’m bumping it up to 5 because it’s one of my all-time favorites)
Incredible live album by Van the man. This one kind of gets forgotten when talking about the greatest live albums of all-time, but it deserves to be up there with Live at Leeds or At Filmore East. Van Morrison at his peak as a live performer. 4.5
Great band. Woefully underrated. This is generally considered their best album, but the have many as good (or maybe better) and they even better live. I saw them on tour with Iron & Wine (who they’ve also recorded with). If you like this, dig deep. It’s worth it. 4.4
Not my favorite kind of music, but pleasant. Excellent musicianship and arrangements. I could do without the strings on the title track.
The The is one of those bands I’m supposed to like, but it never clicked. I can’t really explain it other than there are other bands from the genre and time period that do the same thing, but better. Dude’s vocals get on my nerves a bit. This Is The Day is great song though.
Whatever genre of music this is… I don’t like it. It’s lightweight and no substance pop music. It’s not unpleasant. I just does nothing for me. There is music adjacent to this that I do like.. say, Cocteau Twins, but the depth is night and day. 2.5
Definitely the style of hip hop I like the most. 5 was west coast but shared a lot of the same vibe and influence as the soul informed groups of the 90s. I like this album, but I’m putting it below those top tier albums. Still, very good. 3.7 (I’ll bump it to 4)
Brilliant album by a songwriting master. Almost perfect. There’s a couple of lightweight songs, but they don’t bring down the overall greatness of the Album and the great songs are pop masterpieces. Truly one of my favorite albums. 4.8 I’m bumping it up to a 5.
Prior to this record, I just thought Radiohead was ok. I saw them open for R.E.M. on the Monster tour, they were supporting The Bends. They were just ok. Not a great live band, but enjoyable. Then I bought OK Computer on a whim. I was floored. It’s a perfect album. Honestly, Fitter Happier is not a great stand alone song, but in context, it’s obviously relevant. 4.9
Oh, boy… I don’t like this. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. It’s like everything I didn’t like about the second half of the 90s chopped up into a soup with no regard for compatibility or flavor profile and it’s still also very bland. If a pair of JNCO jeans became sentient and made music it would sound like this. I do think I finally understand why people who listened to this were so angry, I’m angry. This is making me angry. I’m an angry teenager with labret piercing and my parents are dumb. They don’t understand. Nobody understands. It’s kind of funny though. I’ll be nice and give it a 2.5 for the effort… oh, the effort. I’m not rounding up.
Heavily influenced by the Jimi Hendrix, Clapton formed this power trio with top musicians, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker and made the best album of their short career. Clapton makes his best music when he’s inspired by other musicians which didn’t happen enough. This album is great though. 4.5
I’m from Texas. ZZ Top is the official rock band of Texas. OK, that’s probably not true, but if you’re from Texas and you don’t like ZZ Top, you have to leave once you turn 18. That’s not true either, but if you don’t like ZZ Top there’s probably something wrong with you and you’re not fun to be around. Seriously, how can you not like ZZ Top?! What genre is ZZ Top? Funky Texas Blues Rock Boogie? How fun does that sound? Pretty fun. Two weird beards and one guy named Beard who didn’t have a beard?! Again, fun. Also, if you were a teenage boy in the 80s, those videos were pretty great. I like ZZ Top. I would like them even if I wasn’t from Texas. 4.6
Great album. 6 perfect songs, 4 very good songs and my favorite Smiths song is on this album. I’m not going to reveal the answers to any of these suppositions. I’m going to be dodgy and unpredictable like Morrissey
I had never heard this record. Really good. I like Midlake who back up Grant (former singer/songwriter for the Czars) and convinced him to end his hiatus and make this record. It’s a little uneven, but there are some great songs here. Sigourney Weaver and Chicken Bones are standouts. 3.7
Love Joni Mitchell! Incredible voice. Great songwriter. Fantastic guitar player. This album is nearly perfect. 4.8 I’ll give it a 5.
I like Queen. This wasn’t one of my favorite Queen album, but I liked it more than I remembered. Solid 4
Great album. This is the Byrds in transition. David Crosby, Michael Clarke and Gene Clark becoming revolving door members leaving Mcguinn and Hillman toexplore a simplified approach and experimenting with country instrumentation. Great guest guitar work from James Burton and Clarence White and pedal steel by Red Rhodes, but also mixing in some Moog synthesizer. It’s an interesting approach and turns out to be extremely influential. 4.6
I still say this is as good as it got for Oasis. So much potential. I saw them at a small club in Texas on this tour. Amazing. All attitude and hooks. Then the audience got bigger and so did the egos. Which is fine. You have to believe to succeed, but to me they lost that real swagger and replaced with a more performative version. They had some great songs after this, but it was a decline in quality and effort. Solid 4
This album is so great. They cover so much musical ground here. They bring the noise (and Chuck D). Kim Gordon attacking misogyny in hip hop and left wing politics all in the same song. The guitars are all at once wild and expressive, but still well in control. The drums are composed in service of the song like an alternative/noise rock version of Ringo Starr. The songs are alternatively and simultaneously accessible and challenging. It’s an impressive feat. I’ve calculated 4.7 because there’s a couple of songs that go against the flow without derailing the album, but I’m bumping it up to a 5 because it’s such a great and important album.
I’m a little puzzled at this selection when House Of GVSB and Freak*on*ica are floating around out there. Good on GVSB for crawling their way out of the DC hardcore scene and having the good sense to relocate to NYC, expand their sound and make more interesting music, but this isn’t quite the peak of that experiment. It is a good jump from their first record, but not quite there. They peaked with the two aforementioned records and kind of just leveled off. Some bands just occupy a verse specific space in time and GVSB dodged grunge and ducked Nu Metal, but missed the Indie Rock train of the early 2000s and just fizzled out. They were a breath of fresh air for a couple of years. Some bands never get that. Hooray for GVSB! 3.4
