Band on the Run is the fifth album from Paul McCartney after The Beatles broke up. It has been hailed as his best work by many critics. It has two hit songs that I have heard many times. As I stated about Elton John's album a few post back these songs meant something to me as a child. These are the songs that I can pinpoint that I remember hearing as a child. Everything before this is blurry mess. I am not saying this was not a mess, but this mess has music attached to it.
The two songs that I had heard as a child are "Band on the Run" and "Jet". They are both great, but the latter is my favourite. I cannot explain how I feel when I hear this song. It sounds like victory! I thought the only lonely face was mine, but I knew the moon was sad too. I was living "Band on the Run". It was my life with my mother. She was always running, running and running. If we played music it would have made more sense to be on the run. It would explain why we moved so much. In my imagination, we were touring the world, but only a small piece of it. We were like The Partridge Family without the instruments and without the voice to be heard.
My other favourite songs are "Mrs. Vandebilt", "Bluebird", "Let Me Roll It", and especially "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five". It is a great tune with McCartney singing in a different voice.
The whole album is a masterpiece. All the songs are listenable to awesome. I did not feel the need to skip even my least favorite song. McCartney has elevated himself to the status of superstar with this album. 10/10.
The xx debut album xx was released in 2009. I have been a fan since the first time I heard them. Their blend of indie pop and dream pop is perfect. I like Romy Madley Croft's vocals, especially when Oliver Sim joins in with her. And to make it even better Jamie Smith aka Jamie xx is a genius of a musician.
My favourite songs are "Fantasy", "Shelter", and "Crystalised".
Is it just me or does "Infinity" sound like a Chris Isaak song? And why wasn't he included in the list of 1001 Albums? The song is probably my least favourite, yet it is still a decent song. Speaking of songs that sound like other songs, "VCR" sounds like a David Bowie song. I think it reminds me of "Heroes".
Overall, I like the whole album. It was a great debut album. I love the vocals from Sim and Croft. 9.5/10.
I think everybody remembers when they discovered Nirvana and heard their second studio album Nevermind, which quickly exploded into our lives in 1991. It was released in 1991, but it peaked at number one on January 11, 1992. It was like a bride's list of "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue." It had that feeling of sounding old and yet new, but it borrowed from the sounds before it and near it and connected us together through the feelings of someone who was deeply scarred. Kurt Cobain became the unreluctant spokesman for a generation.
It was great to hear this album after all these years away from it. I was a huge fan of Nirvana. When famous people die, it does not usually matter to me. I took it hard that Cobain committed suicide. I had tried a few years before him and I failed. I was jealous. I always get jealous when I hear someone was successful in killing themselves.
I think it is hard to pick one song as my favourite from the album, but I still love listening to "Come as You Are" because of the lyrics...
"Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an known enemy"
I feel like friends are future enemies. Sometimes they are current ones, but hide it well.
As for the album, it is brilliant. I think it has aged better than most albums from that time period, especially the hip hop albums. 10/10.
I have heard of Kendrick Lamar, but I cannot say that I know his music. Lamar's second studio album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City was released in 2012. Why does every rapper have the same bio on Wikipedia? They are all considered the best rapper. Is that like a participation award?
I did like the use of a Janet Jackson song on"Poetic Justice", but it makes sense. The rest of the album had good music, but that was it.
Overall, I hated it because of the language. It is vulgar, but that seems typical for rap and hip hop. Is it ironic when they talk about Jesus and curse so much? I had oringally gave it a 5/10, but years later(2026) I lowered the score. 3/10.
Blunderbuss is Jack White's debut solo album. I probably will not like it because I never liked his voice.
I did not really like any of the songs. I thought the music was okay to good, but the vocals do nothing for me.
Overall, if you like White's former band The White Stripes, then you will probably love this album; it is literally the same as all his previous work. The album incorporates blues rock, folk, and country soul. 5/10.
Metallica again. Oh the joy that fills my heart. I get to listen to another one of their crappy albums. This is their third album on the list. Hopefully, it will be the last. Metallica aka The Black Album is their fifth studio album. The band moved from thrash metal to heavy metal. That could be an improvement. It is their best selling album and reached number 1 in many countries.
If I was forced to recommend a song it would be "Nothing Else Matters" or "The Unforgiven". Although, both were too long.
I do not want to waste anymore time on this album. I did not like the vocals at all. I hated them. James Hetfield sounds like he swallowed a bag of penises and they are scratching his throat so he sounds hoarse. 3/10.
Van Halen's 1984 was one of my favourite albums in 1984. The music was incredible. I think the lyrics were a bit misogynistic, but that is to be expected for a band on rock and roll guys. I have listened to this album so many times that I could almost skip it, but I will not because it is too good.
"Jump" was so fresh sounding in 1984 and still sounds awesome today. David Lee Roth was the only perfect guy to be a frontman of Van Halen band. He is extremely charismatic.
"Panama" is one of the best songs, especially considering Eddie Van Halen's guitar work.
This is such a great album that I can skip writing the best songs, instead I will mention my least favourite song is "Top Jimmy". It has always been my least favourite, but not enough to turn it off.
Eddie Van Halen's guitar and David Lee Roth's vocals were a match made in music heaven. Halen's guitar speaks in the places that Roth's voice does not. I wish they did not separate all those years ago. I stopped listening to them when they changed singers. The band and Roth were never as good apart. 10/10.
First Morrissey returned to the 1001 Albums list—and now Björk follows. She hasn’t been gone long, but I had started to wonder if her window to make an impact had passed. Her 2004 album Medúlla proved otherwise.
My favourite track might be “Desired Constellation”—it’s so quiet and deeply melancholic. I also enjoyed “Show Me Forgiveness,” “Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right),” “Where Is the Line,” and “Triumph of a Heart.”
That said, this is probably my least favourite Björk album overall. It didn’t quite connect with me. I tend to prefer her electronic work paired with her vocals, rather than the largely a cappella approach she takes here. While I can appreciate the creativity and ambition behind it, it’s not something I see myself revisiting often. 6.5/10.
Of course I have heard of Offspring and their third album Smash, but I never actually heard the music. I had no idea that they were a punk band.
The songs I liked the most were "Genocide" "Something to Believe In", "Not the One", and "What Happened to You?"
One of the reviews from the album when it was released stated "it had enough riffs to keep most teenagers happy". That is exactly the problem now. I am not a teenager, yet I still liked some of it. I think I would rather listen to a couple songs from Offspring, then move on.
The songs are short so that is a good thing. I was able to get through the whole album twice. I felt it deserved a second listening. I like it more than I thought I would at the beginning. I think the songs in the middle were vast improvements over the first few songs. One song "Bad Habit" made me think my Spotify switched over to Aerosmith. I did not like it at all. This is actually a pretty good album overall. 7.7/10.
I could safely say that I do not have any good memories of my mother except one. She listened to a lot of music. She would listen to songs over and over. If the lyrics were not included on the album, then she would try to write them out. I am not sure why she did it, but it gave me a love for music and maybe a love for the lyrics of songs. Unfortunately, she never paid as much attention to me as she did the songs and my love never extended to my mother either.
Most of the artist were rock or soul artist, such as Led Zeppelin, the Supremes and even Sonny and Cher. One of the greatest artist I remember her listening to was Otis Redding. The sweet sound of soul pumping through the speakers moved me even as a young child. Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul was not the album she played, but I wish it has been the one she had played.
"R-E-S-P-E-C-T". I only knew this song from Aretha Franklin and I hated it. She is another artist who I judged her career on one song. I will listen to her when her albums appear on the list of "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Otis Redding wrote "Respect". His original version is asking his woman for respect when he comes home with the money. He is begging her.
This biggest misstep is his cover of The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". It loses its punch under Reddings soulful vocals. The music almost feels like high school band performed it. In most of his cover songs, Redding does a great job, but he excels in his own lyrics. I think he should have written more songs or had more written for him. He is competing with other giants such as The Temptations and Sam Cooke who was murdered a few years earlier.
Otis Redding inspired so many singers who came after him. Sadly, he died in a plane crash in 1967 so his discography is too short. Fortunately, he left us with Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, one of the greatest soul albums of the 60s. 9/10.
I have heard of The White Stripes, but only a little. I know they are an American duo, who pretended to be brother and sister, but they were married. Jack White still performs under his own name and Meg White stopped performing due to anxieties. White Blood Cells is their third studio album. It was released to universal acclaim.
My first thought was Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes, but The Stripes are older than Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes are contemporaries. Other times, I thought of much older bands from the 60s and 80s. My biggest problem was White's voice. I really am not a fan of it.
"Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", "Fell in Love with a Girl", "We're Going to Be Friends", "The Same Boy You've Always Known", and "The Union Forever" are the best songs. It was really hard to decide. I need quite a few more listens to be certain.
Overall, it is not a terrible album and I can hear how it was part of the post-punk revival of the early 2000s. Unfortunately, it sort of disappeared by the end of the decade. 6/10.
Echo & The Bunnymen again? Kind of overrated at this point. Ocean Rain is their fourth studio album and their third one on this ridiculous list. I wish I could find a replacement list to going the journey. The album was released in 1984 so it had a lot of competition for attention. I might have stated it in the early reviews of their albums, but I find Ian McCulloch bit bland compared to the other English singers during this time period. It was released to mixed reviews.
I just remembered who liked them in my life. It was in the 90s, I had a friend named John and he liked them a lot. John turned out to be a bad friend and so was one of his favourite bands. He was extremely deceitful.
The best song is the title song, but even that is not going on my list.
My opinion on this album is quite simple. It drones on and on. His vocals sound the same on each song. Do yourself a favour and listen to "Bring on the Dancing Horses" or even "Lips Like Sugar". This is what they could have been. This album is pictured in the dictionary under mediocrity. Look it up. 5/10.
