This was a fun listen. Spaghetti Junction, Humble Mumble, Red Velvet, Xplosion, Stankonia are all bangers that I hadn't heard before.
Killer album and a pleasant surprise. Short and fun, had somehow never heard this one before. f
Put it on this morning and just realized I'm already on my third listen. I take for granted how completely the Beatles had perfected the art of the pop song, and this is them still figuring things out. The Motown covers hit.
A very horny and monotonous album. The fillers feel like lazy alternate reality versions of the hits. Each track bleeds into the next and I struggled to keep paying attention. Even the singles feel like self-parody at this point. The cars/legs/girls thing hasn't aged well and feels like divorced dad rock you'd hear on touch tunes at Applebees.
Genuinely surprised by how little I enjoyed this. The one upside is it sent me back to Tres Hombres, which imo does the greasy blues rock schtick much better without tipping into cartoonishness.
Not a big 90s R&B guy, but this won me over. Holds up really well. Sharp lyrically, no weak tracks, and she's got serious vocal range on top of being able to spit. Narrative transitions on an album are hit or miss for me, the classroom interludes had me curious at first - she's absent from roll call while everyone else gets taught about love... but it started to drag by the midpoint.
Interesting tidbit: she was pregnant with Bob Marley's grandson during recording, which is what "To Zion" is about (and it features some genuinely sick Santana riffs).
Rating this is hard. I've absorbed some of the Lauryn Hill discourse over the years, and the New Ark lawsuit stuff lingers. But knowing what she was going through at the time, the album reads as authentic at least lyrically. She was undeniably talented and put this out against the grain of a hip hop scene that was very much a boys club.
I was not prepared for any of this and I have zero complaints. I think I hit peak enjoyment when he started scatting in the middle of Buscando Guayaba. Way more variety than I expected as a Salsa outsider. Musicianship and listenability off the charts.
For me, first masterpiece of this project. It's wild that Wonder wrote and played almost every instrument himself. The album has a spontaneity and playfulness to it, love the way the measures were constantly moving and shifting, hard to zone out even for a second. I'm also a sucker for that rhodes piano sound. The moog bass is all over this too, which was a surprise to me - had no idea moogs were being used this early.
"Too High" is unlike anything else on the album which made for a cool intro, I really dug the psychedelic funk energy it brought to the table. But the peaks for me were "Living for the City," "Higher Ground," and "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing." Hard to pick a favorite between the three. The way "Living for the City" closes with Wonder shifting into that hoarse, raspy, preacher-like vocal timbre is so good. And apparently that riff on "Higher Ground" is a clavinet run through a wah pedal? DOPE. This one's going in the regular rotation and has me excited to dig into the rest of his classics run, which it looks like we'll be visiting at some point on this list.
Some fun facts I read about while listening:
- Wonder was the first Black artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year... feels way overdue.
- Shortly after this album dropped he was nearly killed in a car accident and spent several days in a coma.
- "Living for the City" was apparently recorded in a single day, kind of unbelievable considering he wrote and played all the parts.
They’ve been cited by some of my favorite bands as a key influence, and I love basically any reggae-punk crossover, so I was already pretty primed to like this. Reading some of the coverage around the band, a lot of it falls back on this idea that they couldn’t really play their instruments. There are claims that they needed the Clash to tune their guitars or only knew three chords, but then you run straight into stuff like Ari Up getting guitar lessons from Joe Strummer, or Bob Marley cutting the Slits from an early version of ‘Punky Reggae Party’ when he found out they were women. At a certain point it starts to feel less like criticism and more like dismissal. Because when I listen to Cut the dub and reggae elements are deep in the bones of it, and the songwriting feels more inventive and rhythmically sophisticated than most of the punk scene around it. It's definitely raw though, and I get why it's not for everyone.
Favorite tracks: Instant Hit, Ping Pong Affair, Love Und Romance, Typical Girls, Adventures Close to Home.
Every song is a classic, and some are way heavier than I remember. Undeniable influence, a timeless masterpiece.
The back half of this album is an incredible run, kicked off by Exodus and that absolutely filthy bass riff. Highly recommend giving the Deluxe Edition a listen or else you're going to miss Punky Reggae Party, which is basically Marley shouting out the same London/Roxy punk scene that gave us the Slits record from last week. He was a massive influence on those bands, The Clash chief among them, and the track is a fun little time capsule of that crossover moment. Beyond Punky Reggae though, the Deluxe also has some alternate versions I prefer to the originals, and the live cuts of So Much Things To Say and Exodus are a nice treat.
If you like to get a mild buzz going and blast live music in your living room, much to the chagrin of your family, the "Live at the Rainbow" concert film is worth a watch https://youtu.be/bLkfzVSp49c?si=bySlBoKPw16fJvbK
Favorite tracks: So Much Things to Say, Exodus, Jamming, Waiting in Vain, Three Little Birds, One Love, Punky Reggae Party.
Production is good throughout and downright lush in places, and I loved when a song would randomly drop a brass section or a gospel choir on you. That said large stretches of this really dragged for me, and I'm left wondering would this album be on anyone's radar if it weren't made by a Beach Boy who died before his time? It has its moments but never quite becomes more than the sum of its parts. Honestly, his Wikipedia page gives the album a run for its money.
Favorite Tracks: River Song, Dreamer, Thoughts Of You, Time, Farewell My Friend
Tical was a mixed bag for me, but a pretty solid one overall. Lyrics are usually a little secondary in my first few listens, so with rap records it can take me a bit before everything fully clicks. There are some genuinely great bars here and the whole album has a menacing atmosphere that I dig. Method Man’s flow is great throughout, and I liked most of the features. Where it lost me some was in the production (sorry RZA). The repeated 4-bar loops started to wear me down after a while, and there is not always a lot happening melodically or in the hooks. I'm good with boom bap when the sampling grabs me, and I wanted more of that here like on Release Yo Delf.
Also, speaking as someone who cannot fully quit Limp Bizkit, it was fun to finally hear where Method Man’s "TICAAAAAL" on N 2 Gether Now comes from.
Favorite tracks: Bring the Pain, All I Need, Release Yo’ Delf, I Get My Thang in Action, Mr. Sandman
Loved the first half, sagged in the back half but thought it picked back up with the last two tracks. Enjoyed the genre hopping and there were lots of surprises musically, did not expect a sitar solo. My favorite moments were when they leaned into the trippy down tempo grooves and psychedelic textures. Long Life kind of reminds my of some of Thom Yorke's solo stuff. Stand out tracks for me were Get Duffy, Trainspotting, Star, Long Life.
BANGERS. Basically a greatest hits album defining modern pop in real time. Next level production from Quincy Jones. Only weak track for me was The Girl Is Mine - predictable, out of place, and feels like its only here to pander to boomers. Corny af even by 80s standards (sorry Paul). The rest of the album is so good that it made me temporarily forget about all of the horrible things I've internalized about MJ over the years.
An all time classic record. The bass line from Chameleon lives deep in my bones. It’s so goddamn funky.
I wasn't bowled over by this album, but it does enough to set itself apart from the cadre of 90s acts trying to ape the Seattle sound. It was at its best when it veered away from grunge and leaned into its folk and psychedelic influences. I enjoyed the second half a lot more than the first. Not a bad or unpleasant listen, the musicianship is even quite good in places, but immediately after listening I don't remember much of it.
Favorite Tracks: Sworn and Broken, Traveler, Gospel Plow
Just a couple of regular dudes from Ohio who like to smoke darts and drink beers and occasionally record music in their 4th grade school teacher frontman’s concrete basement.
I really dig the collage of hooks and melody. Some of it sounds like alternate reality 60s Beatles demos if they were from the Midwest. I do wish the songs were a bit longer, listening to the album felt like an exercise in musical edging. That didn’t stop me from listening 3 times though.
I’m a sucker for the lofi garage band diy aesthetic so this is an easy 5.
Some interesting quotes I've read from this 25th anniversary interview https://uproxx.com/indie/guided-by-voices-alien-lanes-oral-history-25th-anniversary/
"I wanted Alien Lanes to sound like a late-night radio show without a DJ"
"I had my brother pound on my back with his fists to create a tremolo sound for “Chicken Blows.”
"Alien Lanes was mastered by Bob Ludwig, one of the industry’s most famous mastering engineers, who has worked on scores of classic albums by Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, Coldplay, and many, many others."
Loved this one top to bottom. Dad rock in the most complimentary way. It grooves for days, relentless guitar interludes that are so clean and bluesy and intricate. Was interesting to read that Knopfler is a lefty playing a right handed guitar so he is fingerpicking and his dominant hand with his “weak” hand on the fretboard. I don’t know enough about guitar technique to articulate it but the dynamics he incorporates into his riffs are singular and still sound fresh. He’s shredding but still giving the notes space to breathe. And then layering on the folksy nostalgic storytelling? Get outta here. 5/5.
Favorite tracks: Down To The Waterline, Six Blade Knife, Sultans of Swing, In The Gallery, Wild West End, Lions.
One of the more emotionally resonant albums of the project so far. It has a hippy aesthetic but Young is cynical enough that it doesn't tip into being corny. I liked how stripped down the sound was throughout. The sparseness of mostly piano and acoustic guitar gives everything a melancholy intimacy that suits the songwriting really well. The lyrics are vivid in an almost cinematic way.
The first four tracks are my favorite run, and "Don't Let It Bring You Down" and "Birds" were other standouts for me. Also had no idea that 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd was written as a direct response to 'Southern Man'.
I'm looking forward to the other Young albums on the list. 5/5.
Favorite tracks: After the Gold Rush, Tell Me Why, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, I Believe in You, Don't Let It Bring You Down, Birds.
A bridge between their abrasive early records and the Daydream Nation era that is so iconic. It still carries that avant-garde DNA. Love it. 4.5/5
Favorite tracks: Schizophrenia, Catholic Block, Tuff Gnarl, Pacific Coast Highway, Hot Wire My Heart, White Cross.
I vibed with some of the beats but these bars are Drake-tier (derogatory) cornball shit. 2/5.
Damn. I knew Eminem was an edgelord, but I guess I memory-holed just how violent and misogynistic this album is.
Mixed bag. There are some great bars, and a few tracks really land. Where I struggle is that the Slim Shady persona looks suspiciously like the person he was at the time. Transgressive art has to walk a tightrope, and a lot depends on the distance between the artist and the transgression. I kept thinking about American Psycho, which works for me because the gap between Bret Easton Ellis and Patrick Bateman is easier to trust. Ellis hasn’t given us much reason to doubt that distance. And even then, plenty of people still miss the satire and take Bateman at face value.
That gap is much harder to trust on this album, especially when you’re hearing a murder fantasy about his then-wife during a period when his real life made the violence feel less theoretical. “Stan” still works for me because it feels like a story with a point of view. “Kim” collapses that distance. It feels less like performance and more like a pressure valve for real rage. The rage is being performed by the guy who actually had it, aimed at the person he actually had it toward. Even in my most charitable interpretation, I’m not sure what point it’s trying to make other than catharsis. Which is pretty fucked. I’ll admit that my own proximity to domestic violence is shaping how I’m experiencing this album revisit.
He got clean, became a dedicated father, and by all accounts grew past this version of himself. But knowing what was happening around this album changes how I hear it, and I can’t really unhear it. I can admire the songcraft, but “it’s just a character” doesn’t fully survive contact with the context.
And outside of my incessant moralizing, large parts of it dragged for me. The skits wore thin fast. But it made me think. 2/5.
My favorite live album of the project so far. So raw and vulnerable. Loved the new arrangements and song selection.
The stranglehold NY State of Mind had on me in my tweens. A kid that lame had no business feeling that cool.
This one is timeless. The lyricism, the storytelling, the sampling, the boom bap - it’s all top notch. No skits or filler or fluff just wall to wall east coast bangers. One of my favorite hip hop albums of all time. 5/5.
Favorite tracks: ny state of mind, the world is yours, one love, memory lane.
I knew Cohen leaned toward the somber side but SHEESH, this album is bleak. Love the sparseness of this record. Stripped down arrangements with that deep, haunting voice just sitting on top of them. For most of it he's not really singing in a technical sense but that almost works better here. Lyrically there's a whole world in these songs and you can just hang out in it. Very much my shit.
Favorite tracks: Avalanche, Dress Rehearsal Rag, Famous Blue Raincoat, Joan of Arc
This album was so bad it provoked my fight or flight response. Dwight Yoakam, I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
I love Metallica. I love classical music. Which is exactly why S&M is so fascinating to me.
It’s particularly funny that this came out during the era where Lars Ulrich was on TV acting like Napster users were personally taking food out of his children’s mouths. Meanwhile Metallica was out here commissioning an entire symphony orchestra like medieval nobility.
S&M is deeply stupid in a way only extremely talented people can be. The symphony is flawless. Metallica is locked in. The whole thing sounds like a perfectly orchestrated mistake. Nobody asked for this. Did the San Francisco Symphony lose a bet?
I’ll give it a 3/5 for the talent on display and taking a swing on something new.
Not sure what else you can ask from an album. It has maybe the greatest Christmas song of all time, Irish folk played like punk, Celtic jazz, Spanish guitar, and exudes the atmosphere of a pub. Mostly though it immediately sent me back to my honeymoon, days before Christmas, singing along to “Fairytale of New York” with my wife and the locals. Hard to review this like a normal album when it makes my brain feel like I'm already two pints in. 5/5.
I want to get to the other albums but I can’t stop listening to this one. It is a no skip unadulterated baroque pop treasure. Loved the contrast between the orchestral textures and the melancholic historical vignettes that he muses over. This is going into the rotation.
I’ve followed a lot of Lou Reed’s solo career but clearly have been sleeping on Cale. 4.5/5
Favorite tracks: Hanky Panky Nohow, Andalucia, Macbeth, Paris 1919, Half Past France, Antarctica Starts Here
On paper this is right up my alley but the first few tracks did not click with me. Ended up really liking the middle section though. I could see it growing on me but for now 3.5/5
Favorite Tracks: Bloodsport, The Wait
Some of these riffs are imprinted on my soul and the psychedelic experimentation still sounds fresh. Top notch production that warrants a decent set of headphones. There are a handful of filler tracks (EXP was a weird way to start the album) but even a patchy Hendrix track is better than most bands can conjure. An absolute classic. 4.5/5.
Favorite tracks: Little Wing, Castles Made of Sand, Bold as Love, Spanish Castle Magic, If 6 Was 9
The instrumentation is great, stuffed to the brim with groove and funk. There is so much talent on display. But jfc do Kiedis' lyrics and vocal stylings get on my nerves. Unfortunately Flea, Frusciante, and Smith's mastery can't quite save this one from 74 minutes of Kiedis rapping about all the sex he has. At least this one doesn't feature a song about a 14 year old girl. 2.5/5.
Favorite tracks: The Power of Equality, If You Have to Ask, Sir Psycho Sexy (for going full sludge mode)
Listen, I’m fully on board with long ass records. I’ll happily sit through The Wall, 69 Love Songs, or any other bloated masturbatory concept album in one sitting. Hell, I just survived 78 uninterrupted minutes of Anthony Kiedis.
But this isn’t an album. It’s the musical equivalent of The Complete Works of Shakespeare. I don’t even think greatest hits albums belong on the list, much less a collected works box set masquerading as an album.
That said, the “very best of” version absolutely rips. Ella is ridiculous and the Gershwins wrote standards for a reason. Turns out if you take the best songs from one of the greatest singers ever performing one of the greatest songwriting catalogs ever, you end up with a pretty good record. I’d give that one a 4.5/5. I might defer to the site consensus for the full box set.
I spent most of this album bouncing between “this is actually some pretty inventive fusion” and “this sounds like it was engineered in a lab for suburban white kids.” Large parts were unbearably lame, particularly all the faux-New York mobster schtick, but every so often a groove or backing track would catch me nodding along despite myself. The music was ultimately more interesting than the characters they were playing. 2/5.
