Overall I liked it, definitely brought me back to my brief time with nirvana and foo fighters in college.
With most alt rock albums I am picky about song length, and some tracks on here were excess of 6-9 minutes which is. Too long for me unless it does go places a la Won't Get Fooled Again. So if I could skip past the longer ones and stick to the 5 mins and under songs I think I'd enjoy it a lot more...
Highlights: Today, Cherub Rock (a hell of an opener!), Spaceboy, Soma. Shoutout to Silverfuck for being just the most 90s song title I've seen in some time
Woowowow what a blast of a record. I absolutely adored this one!! I especially loved a lot of the varied guitar and drums, bright sparkling piano inbetween, and of course Freddie's beautiful voice. I was pleasantly surprised also by the panning from left to right on a multitude of songs, it really gave a sense of space!
No real misses on this album for me, I even think the somber piano songs have their place here as a break from the high energy rock.
Highlights: Brighton Rock, KQ (obviously), Stone Cold Crazy, Now I'm Here, Tenement Funster, Flick of the Wrist. For the slower songs, Dear Friends I enjoyed the most. It's an album so good I may just listen to it twice today...
I will say, as someone that really doesn't seek out rap music (but should, I've been wanting to listen to more black artists and rap specifically) this was a pretty great album as a first timer. Very bleepy bloopy synth heavy, yet never skimping on great funky beats, and with some fantastic bars/hooks that will stay in my head for some time.
Even the skits in the album were really funny! Shoutout to Kim and Cookie I think that one was my favorite, her line delivery of "and I was like, FUCK" is going to stick in my brain forever.
Highlights: So Fresh So Clean (i loved this as an opener so much), Ms Jackson (ofc), Spaghetti Junction, B.O.B, Slum Beautiful.
The only songs that didn't really work for me were We Love Dem Hoez and Stanklove, but that's more I felt they went on a little too long and their hooks weren't as good as some others. Not awful by any means but, just not for me.
Pretzel Logic devoured, the dans are Steely indeed.
As someone without any prior steely dan knowledge this one was fine! Nice, even! A lot of the guitar noodling I loved.
That being said, at least when I compare it to the other 70s rock album I listened to (sheer heart attack) there's some kind of flavor missing from Steely Dan that Queen has in spades. Maybe it's just the difference in particular rock subgenres but, I found myself just kinda pleasantly nodding my head and going "yep! This is music!" for a lot of the songs on this record. There were still some standouts tho.
Highlights: Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Any Major Dude Will Tell You, Night By Night (actually maybe my fave from the album), With A Gun.
Maybe mr dan's other albums are more steely? This one was perfectly fine tho!
More like, "songs i really wanna dance to" haahaha (this is a bad joke)
But seriously I found myself really loving this record. Stop Making Sense is one of my favorites of TH's discography and it's so so SO cool to see some of the blueprints of that here. Take Me To The River especially, a song that both albums share, is really cool to see how it changes via this original version and the live performance years later.
Deeply danceable piano, some great guitar riffs and fantastic production and David Byrne's eccentric lyrics-- but as someone that already loves this band's sort of out there style, I've got a taste for this kind of sound specifically.
Highlights: Found A Job, Artists Only, The Good Thing, Take Me To The River, The Big Country.
Honestly there were no misses on this record at all! I absolutely loved it. I cannot wait to sink my teeth into their other albums in the future :D
the superfly was indeed super fly
i am gonna have to definitely watch the movie this is a soundtrack to, mainly bc it was just so slick and soulful and fun. some of the basslines in here are actually killer, and the instrumental only tracks were also very funky! he was going ham on those keys.
highlights: freddie's dead (theme from superfly), give me your love, no thing on me (cocaine song), superfly.
I sadly didn't enjoy this record as much as their second one (more songs about buildings and food) but as a debut album I really was surprised by how much of their signature stylings still remain. It is still danceable and catchy and so so fun to see where it all started.
I think my biggest sticking point was the lyrics-- they almost seem too "normie" for what I'm used to when it comes to David Byrne and just being handed the mic to do whatever he wants. But at the very least, Psycho Killer is the closest they get to their sound that I'm more used to, and it's great that they evolved in the direction they did. A solid debut from one of, I can now confidently say, my favorite rock bands from the 70s.
Highlights: Uh-Oh Love Comes To Town, New Feeling, Don't Worry About the Government, Psycho Killer, No Compassion.
If i get a third TH album next week i will get suspicious fr.
The Boys were Indeed, Back In Town!
I will say only being familiar that particular song of theirs, I was Not prepared for the amount of sickening guitar solos. The energy of this album is absolutely electric-- from the smooth transitions between each song, to the crowd hype and participation, clearly this is a band well loved. And I can see why! The energy felt through the roof with every new song change, and this will definitely be going on any long drive that I take someplace. I loved the vibe of this record and it's energetic, bombastic feel.
Highlights: Southbound, Dancing In The Moonlight, Cowboy Song, The Boys Are Back In Town, The Rocker.
Special shoutout to some of the drum solos too they were absolutely awesome to bask in.
definitely a curveball from all my previous listens. this one was very folksy, very twang-y, a loooott slower paced. some parts of it i really enjoyed: woody guthrie's lyrics lend themselves to a unique, kind of timeless quality, something old but yet it feels like it's sort of always been around. there were misses on certain songs, but i more think its due to me not liking the voice of one of the singers. he sings outside of his register often and it makes his voice crack something fierce, which i couldn't stand. the other singers were all perfectly fine though! nice melodies, pleasant guitar + harmonica and violin, some great harmonies in particular.
it was nice to have a very downbeat break from all my previous albums, to listen with the window open and the night breeze roll in. i have to wonder how many of these songs were only lyrics and without any melodies to accompany them, or if they had certain melodies written in mind that the performers followed.
highlights: california stars, way over yonder in the minor key, birds and ships (this one's a real standout, if you check out this album at ALL at least listen to this one), one by one, the unwelcome guest.
i boarded the T.E.E!! and it was quite a ride!
only being familiar with electro music thru daft punk, this was an extremely different kind of listen -- kraftwerk were pioneers in the genre, and it's very easy to see why. even with the rather sparse production, the bleepy bloopy synths got stuck in my head right away! my only dislike is the lyrical side, a lot of repetitive lyrics and songs that stretched on for upwards of almost 10 minutes, which i guess this early kind of electro was best listened to at The Club (and probably while dancing and or on some kind of substance)
still an extremely interesting peak into music history! i'm glad this came up on the generator, i probably would have never reached for it otherwise!
highlights: trans-europe express, showroom dummies, europe endless
thoroughly enjoyed this listen, honestly i haven't been like over heels loving an album since maybe i listened to sheer heart attack all the way thru? there was a lot to love here now that i've heard some different kinds of rock and, generally can pick out what i like from the genre. but the noodly guitars, the bass lines on some of these, ooo they were all SO GOOD!
i think i ended up liking almost every song on this album? basically no misses. these guys WAY outdo steely dan.
highlights: highway star, pictures of home, lazy, space truckin'. but honestly all of them are fantastic
this was a really interesting one!! i have not really listened to a lot of blues records, let alone desert blues, but i really appreciated the instrumentation! this makes for very wonderful background music, and the language they sing in (north african i think?) sounds very warm.
this was also just a nice break from all the rock. not much else to add, was just a really pleasant time.
highlights: soubour, sekou oumarou, al hassidi terei
Crazysexycool as the name says, hits all the marks! It's crazy sexy AND cool! The style of this album is so very 90s, from the lyrics to the production to the Busta Rhymes and Andre features!
Each one of these girls have such unique and beautiful voices-- I just might have to look into more girl r&b groups bc the harmonies here were really the best part of this whole record. This one was very nostalgic to me despite it releasing before I was born, technically. Maybe it's the sound? It sounds warm and comforting...
Highlights: Creep, Diggin' On You, Waterfalls, If I Was Your Girlfriend
i will stress: i do not like or care for kanye west as a person. but i can separate art from artist, to a degree.
i found this one to be perfectly fine, though its length really threw me off. by the mid point toward the end, i just got really tired of the song length.
i'd say all the really good ones are on the front half of the album, and then unfortunately the middle chunk of the album didn't capture as much of my attention. the skits i found just okay, if a little grating since they were all back to back. i'd prefer if they were spread out over the album. basically i didn't start paying attention again until we got to through the wire.
however, for a debut, it's definitely a stellar start-- kanye's lyrics have always been highly praised by critics, and he really flexes that prowess. they're dense with great flow, and the wordplay / rhyming scheme in some verses is pretty fascinating
i probably would have liked this way more if it weren't for the length, which is largely inflated by the very last song on the record (a whopping 12:41 runtime....).
highlights: all falls down, jesus walks, through the wire, family business.
