the opening of immigrant song with the, like, george of the jungle howl is pretty good. no thoughts on friends. no thoughts on celebration day. no thoughts on since i've been loving you. no thoughts on out on the tiles. gallows pole has a great rhythm to it. tangerine is the catchiest of the bunch so far but it's kind of a low bar for catchiness (i do not think they are going for "catchy" at all). that's the way has better vocals than the rest, it's sort of ballady, and i think i like that more than the, i don't know, airy/atmospheric vocals of the rest of the album. the opening of bron-y-aur stomp sounds kind of like, banjo-ey and that's pretty dancey but it literally turns into stomp clap which i have been informed via osmosis is cringe. hats off to (roy) harper sounds like someone just found out about knobs and is playing a tape while cranking those knobs all over the place like a child, genuinely stupid song
tangerine > bron-y-aur stomp > i guess immigrant song for the cool yelling melody thing and the rest is kind of whatever
crazy good opening track. sort of a combo between ennio morricone and justice. this is exactly the kind of thing i was hoping for when starting this. the latter parts trailed off a little bit but the general vibe is so magnificent i can't fault it for that really. immediately went back to listen to the start of it after finishing it. i think my appreciation for this kind of thing comes from hearing so much motown growing up. had never heard the name isaac hayes before this but i sure hope i remember it
recognized Yellow from hearing it on the radio, but that's about the only feeling i had during this. pretty bland overall. it has the trappings of being emotional but nothing about the music conveys emotion, so it just comes off as hollow
clearly a talented singer, and great poetry, but not really doing enough musically for me. feels like a lot of default choices
they're having a great time on this. really get the sense they're doing their favorite thing in the world which helps sell the enjoyment i get out of this more than other classic-ish rock records.
pretty okay. i can imagine having a great time dancing to this in a party setting but it seems more functional than anything
pretty good music to relax to. mission venice was probably the catchiest track.
pretty good, but so short! makes total sense how much this busted through norms, sounds really good even today
from the cover i was expecting this to be obnoxious hair metal, but then when dancing in the moonlight came on and they were thanking their saxophone player, i realized i had them totally wrong. and then the boys are back in town came up and i was like ohhhh it's those guys! really fun time on this one
pretty good variety here. break on through is good of course. alabama song is really goofy, it's like honky tonk or something. the end is just indulgent
did a double take at the line "let's get arrested, wanna be molested? who cares how old you are?" and i'm afraid that's gonna cost peter a star. but the cool talkbox tech gets another star back to make him completely average
really fun instrumentation, but over half the album is the aimless final track of noodling. not actively bad to listen to or anything but it feels like they kind of gave up and just improvised most of it. probably really sick if you're high in the 70s
surprising and impressive! one of the issues i've had with classic rock is that songs are all the same intensity. this feels like each song as a specific idea and it's walking you through all the points of the idea. this culminates in imo the best song on the album, fistful of love, which starts softly and understated and builds piece by piece up to a shouting crescendo by the end. it always feels like something new is happening
great time all around. really catchy songs that are cringe in a satisfying delightful way
rare album where i started it over right after finishing. every song is unique and kept my attention almost the whole time. hard to pick a favorite since they're all so great
really catchy and would be happy to listen to this pretty much any time. that said, it doesn't really evoke any moods besides aimlessly upbeat
like this better than lz3 which is in some ways kinda disappointing. pretty bland
kinda wild honestly. i have no idea what this even is. some of it sounds like jazz, some of it sounds like silent hill, huge fan of the variety here. i read that he made this album with the concept of "the soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exist" and it came out really great, all kinds of moods. didn't know they had this kind of innovation in 1996
really nice vocal-forward tracks on this, and there's a huge variety of instrumentation. i was expecting mostly guitars again but there's a lot of nice piano and stuff too
really pleasant listen. pretty good instrumentation although it never really rose above the level of pleasant
really liked how much this sounds like motown classics
good jazzy sound on this. i'm a sucker for gang vocals too and they're all over this one
this is a little too heavy on the screaming and a little too light on the fun rhythmic stuff i want from them
lots of recognizable stuff on here. pretty fun time all around
really good! so much energy in all of these, especially killing in the name of. hard to not get swept up with it
this is great. every track feels like a different idea and it feels ethereal and meaningful
this has a bunch of nice jazzy stuff on it. i'm inclined to like it just because my friends seem really into it but even without that, the first song alone made me curious enough to go see how these guys were classified. haven't heard anything quite like it and novelty counts for something
i had forgotten how much fun this album was. i went into this totally expecting to be rolling my eyes, but no man, they had it back then. especially loved the outro skit with ben stiller making fun of them. i remember the early 00s and how delicate one's persona was and it's actually super confident to put that kind of thing on there. really fun time
i can see how this is for someone but it's not for me. and the final track being random looping beeps felt very stupid. but i will say there's a ton of variety here, every song has its own vibe, which makes it all feel like it's a bit scattered and lacking cohesion as a musical idea
really fun album. i can see how this really laid the foundation for rhythmic rock that came later
usually enjoy post-hardcore but i'm afraid there's just not any juice here. the song titles and the tone all reflect that they quite deeply want to be Saying Something but i can't feel any of it, it's over my head or not there
i liked playing these guys on rock band, i can respect the musicianship here, but 28 songs is way too much for an album and they don't earn that length at all. white noise muzak
wow it's the jojo meme song. and the rest of the album is pretty good too. it's not exactly my area but it's a great deal better than most rock
It's fine. Perfectly pleasant to listen to but doesn't really reach out and grab me.
honestly this is way goofier than i expected. the smiths are talked about in a kind of reverent tone a lot, i was expecting some soft emotional guitar or something. and there's some of that. but i was not expecting a singsongy bit about "mr shankly". maybe the lyrics actually mean something deep but i was pretty surprised by it
pretty good! all over the map here and constantly feels like they're having fun making it. surprisingly danceable too
tremendous album honestly. cannot believe this is 30 years old. takes all the best parts of detroit techno and lightens the monotony by a lot, with surprising bursts of vocals coming out. just really good vibes. feels like it's crossing every genre
really good stuff. i had no idea all these names i recognized were in one big group at one point, feels like learning about a cultural pillar that influenced a ton of stuff since i kept recognizing traits of other works in this one
honestly this is as good as classic rock gets. i used to have adults put on classic rock around me as a kid all the time, and this gives me a nostalgic feeling of a moment of "oh it's rock again..." followed by "oh wait this is the good kind!". it's all just really upbeat and melodic in a way that a lot of stuff of the era isn't. really into it
wild wild west *and* gangsta's paradise came from here? this has gotta be the blueprint for hundreds of good songs. ridiculously fun to listen to and the goal that all music should aspire to
it's pretty wild how modern this sounds. if you told me this was like a 2014 indie release i'd believe you. really like the guy's voice and how strong the lyrics come through, and how they're usually pretty singsongy and attention-grabbing. not every song was my taste but a surprising amount of them were
pretty good! a lot of unique songs on here across a pretty wide range of genres
Pretty good. Interesting little skit(?) thing in the middle with the mercedes song, but no strong feelings either way with this.
Decent variety but nothing here is particularly moving.
No particularly compelling substance here, feels meandering and dull.
pretty navel-gazey kind of pretentious stuff but lucky for me i love that kind of thing. the choir sounds great too. really good at making songs sound like big events
i have no idea why i don't like this kind of pretention when i like other stuff. maybe saying "invented by advertising executives" in song lyrics was a revelatory edgy thing in 1991 but hearing it now just feels like it's trying way, way too hard with zero nuance
just kind of fine. obviously a decently fun time. hey this guy hid his toes on the album art that's kinda funny. anyway this would probably be a blast to listen to on a dance floor or something but just listening in isolation it's just kind of repetitive
Totally fine but without standing out. No real oomph to any of the sounds. Probably good if you're old enough to be nostalgic for it, though.
Pretty decent. It has a kind of punk-ish sound to it but it's so low-energy that it's hard to think of it in the same category.
Super smooth and pleasant. Sounds a little bit like waiting room music but that's speaking highly of waiting rooms more than badly about the music.
Usually a huge motown fan but this album is sadly a miss for me. A missed motown is just average, but still! This has some of the great harmonizing I like but is just missing some of the energy
Really good vibes on this. I'm also pretty surprised it's 1989, since I feel like Kravitz was a huge name throughout the 90s. He already had the basic blueprint before that window! A delight to listen to.
Pretty catchy! I might have expected more from this because of how well known The Strokes are, but it was only alright. I think the later stuff is probably more my speed.
Not particularly interesting. Pretty repetitive and dull lyrics without much musical quality at all.
Not too bad to listen to, but no real movement. Pretty sounds without inspiring much feeling.
I had no clue how much I was going to love this. The opening track is a great wave of feelings washing over me and the second song is catchy. There's something magical about this combination of catchy simple melodies and the textured wall of sound behind it. It kept feeling like a song that was right on the tip of my tongue but I couldn't quite place.
This is pretty good. Tons of good beats and politics here, I especially like Turn The Radio Off and A Gangsta's Fairytale. I have some problems with Man's World, like I know he's playing a misogynist character but the in-fiction argument doesn't exactly resolve how I would have done it. Still, a delight to listen to for most of the album.
A lot better than the band name would suggest! Somehow maintains a lot of strong melodic lines even among their rock peers, and super memorable ones at that.
Pretty good but it's so familiar at this point it's hard to even evaluate it. It doesn't stick out to me as strongly as I feel like it should, but it feels like sacrilege to rate it average. That's all I've got, though.
Honestly just sounds like punk music from before they really cracked the code on how to make it sound exciting. Or at least, make it sound exciting to me.
This feels like music that is absolutely glued to a certain mood, or a vibe or situation or something. Listening to it in isolation honestly doesn't do much for me, but hearing it alongside a great movie scene, or even a live show, would probably feel pretty incredible.
I was looking forward to this since the Grateful Dead has a huge reputation, with a huge audience even today. I was pretty disappointed! It hardly even sounds like music. It's fairly sparse fragments of songs. I feel that the megafans of this are bringing a lot of their own stuff to the table here and seeing a reflection here. I don't get a sense of feeling or skill behind this.
So much of this is super heavy-handed, way moreso than I remembered from when I first heard it as a teen. I suppose that makes sense though, for a couple of reasons. First, the post-9/11 era caused everyone everywhere to become pretty stupid, and it really was that ridiculous. Second, I was a teen in the target audience, I highly doubt I would have picked up on any kind of subtlety, especially in music where I wasn't particularly looking for it. Still, it's good for what it is.
Pretty tedious honestly. Same topics and same riffs as every other guitar-centric rock band of the era. Nothing that particularly grabbed my attention.
They were really cranking these out in the 70s huh? Sounds like replacement-level rock. Towards the end of the album it went in a strange direction with some beatles-y stuff, with a violin in there? It was better than the rest of the album but too little too late.
A lot more free-flowing than other 70s rock. I like the variety in instruments and tempo. Not too inspiring but not bad to listen to either.
Must have been really exciting in the 70s! A little reductive for me now, though. Suffers from being too influential; everything sounds like this now, and therefore the trailblazers sound generic. Really too bad.
