First listen: By about halfway through track three I was thinking Oh Man This Is Not My Thing and they're *all* gonna be like this. But once that was established, I could appreciate the good vibes that were in here - and more importantly, that it does feel like a very historically important listen for this genre.
Second Listen (had some time over the weekend to give it another go): I did end up getting into it! It's not the kind of thing I'd seek out more of, but it is hard to argue with the sheer vitality and energy of this. And I was maybe initially bringing a bit too much of a 2026 political viewpoint to something made by 3 20-year-old Jewish kids in the 80s. Who, looking into them, all seemed like pretty decent guys? Perhaps the stuff they were bragging about having done on this record wasn't entirely accurate.
Favourite tracks: well No! Sleep! Till Brooklyn!! Obviously is just a banger. I also really liked Paul Revere. The parts where it just feels like some friends goofing around endeared me the most.
Sublime. His voice was astonishing, it's hard to believe he was in his 20s sounding like this, so much weary heartache. This was fun to just jam out to at the end of my work day while cooking, I'll definitely come back to some of these tracks next time I want to fill out a soul playlist
Standouts: Respect (HOW did I not know he wrote the song! i assumed this was his response to Aretha) and A Change is Gonna Come.
I somewhat liked this. Took a bit to get into and the lyrics didn't really connect with me at all at least on a first listen, but there are some memorable tunes on here. I might come back to it with a more appreciative ear later down the line.
EDIT: I did give this one another go after getting 2 back to back REM albums on consecutive days, felt like a sign. And I'm pleased to say the tracks did just need a bit of time to percolate and undistracted space to listen for me to get plenty out of this! Enough to bump this up to a 4 for the time being.
Standout tracks: Drive, Everybody Hurts, Ignoreland, Man on the Moon, Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
AGAIN?! Okay. Well, I guess this gives me a chance to give REM another go and see if it was just an off day yesterday or if the band isn't really for me.
Nice, rollicking album I liked more at first listen than Automatic for the People, but kind of ended up liking Automatic more on the second. The tracks slightly blur into each other, and I'm even more at a loss as to what they're going on about but the vibes are great. REM feel like the kind of band I'd enjoy hearing on a playlist at a house party, or on a road trip. And then gradually become more and more familiar with them, go over the song lyrics in my head and develop attachments to little moments in particular songs. But they're not an instant classic with me.
Standout tracks: Talk About the Passion, Sitting Still, West of the Fields. I don't know, they slightly blurred into each other for me.
An absolute vibe start to finish. Loved the harmonies, and the jazzy interludes (some of them made me realise where Jacob Collier might have gotten some of his inspiration from). This sounds more than anything like a movement, and a moment in time, and like a hot, hot summer. I gave it three goes round in total just to see if it would wear out a bit, and it honestly didn't.
Standouts: hard to pick when there are only eight songs and it all flows so seamlessly as a single entity. But the way That's the Way of the World, Reasons and See The Light build to their climaxes is wonderful.
This hit with absolute perfection on Friday evening in the gym. Also the first album I had so far with more than one track I know, one of them being an all time favourite in Praise You! Anyway I like danceable electronic beats I can sprint on the treadmill to and I like long instrumental tracks with layered samples that put me in a bit of a trance, so I was looking forward to jamming out to this for an hour and it didn't disappoint. Just pure joyous good vibes. Real turn your brain off music, meant in the best possible way. I nearly gave it a 5 just from how good a mood I was in from it, but I can admit to myself that's a bit high for an album that is mostly loops and breaks when I only gave R.E.M's greatest work 4. Assume all my ratings are subject to potential changes.
It occurred to me that I can't really give a complete and true rating for an album on its first, even second listen within a 24 hour period. Because a lot of great albums need some time to sit with the songs, and my instinctual first reactions will probably unfairly favour instantly likable pop like this over a more contemplative record like Automatic for the People. But then, there's plenty of "likable" pop I have listened to and not loved as easily and immediately as You've Come A Long Way Baby. Maybe the 5 stars are warranted.
Standouts: Right Here, Right Now, Rockafeller Skank, Praise You, Fucking In Heaven, Acid 8000 man i enjoyed this album so much.
Just a shade too long with some definitely cuttable things but what's good here is so good. I don't know why I've never listened to it. I love Gorillaz and Ive loved most blur I've listened to (including 3 off this album that are just stellar). And the whole is definitely more than the sum of its parts, moving briskly between short and punchy rockers, Kinks-esque story-songs about little England, and then some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful tracks on anything. But maybe more importantly for my maybe too generous rating today, I listened to it first in a good chill mood, and second in a very not chill angry upset mood and it hit just right in both. Better in the second for sure.
EDIT: Weeks later and I'm still jamming out to this, if I can't give this one a 5 I don't know what's getting one
Standout tracks: girls and boys, park life and this is a low of course. But also Tracy jacks, badhead, to the end, end of the century, and I've had trouble in the message centre in my head for like a week for some reason
In theory I feel like I would like this. I like vibes music, I like dub/downtempo and R&B for the most part, but this, man, it just kind of bored me. There's only one song I can really remember anything about. None of it's bad by any means it just didn't move me.
And that could be down to my mood, which is probably going to affect all these ratings come to think of it. But why was listening to Parklife good, even better in a bad mood while this wasn't? I guess I'd say that Parklife in a bad mood is like a friend coming over to hang out, make stupid jokes to distract you, offer to take you to the rubbish tip to smash some plates and let you cry on your shoulder at the end, while Club Classics Vol 1 by Soul II Soul is like being at a picnic as someone's plus one, and it's very sunny and there's a boombox with people sort of lazily grooving, but you just want to go home.
Smooth and cool and fun in a vacuum, but probably hits a lot better for people with knowledge of the genre and its history. The soul sample-based beats are great, and it took a bit for Jay Z's rapping to connect for me, but like with a few of these it just needed to marinate overnight and for me to give the tracks another listen out of order. Lyrical highlight was probably song cry.
Standouts: takeover, girls girls girls, song cry and renegade
Ridiculous. I had a great time. Felt nice to be able to tick it off the list!
Standouts: Bat out of Hell (he makes dying in a motorbike crash sound totally cool and radical), paradise by the dashboard light and two out of three ain't bad
Wild World and Father and Son are nice. That's really about all I can say... Just a "nice" album. That did virtually nothing for me and at times honestly kind of grated, that gentle sing-song vocal on Into White and Sad Lisa just wasn't for me.
Most emphatic "This one just wasn't for me" album so far which is a bummer because I always liked Metallica's most famous song, and I've actually liked most metal from other bands people have shown me. I think I like the idea of it more than the experience of a whole album's worth unfortunately. However I'm not blind to the obvious craft on display, and even if the songs do all sound very alike to me, I wouldn't consider that a knock if it was in a genre I could listen to all day (see my rating for Fatboy Slim).
Also, and this is maybe the one thing that made me certain that my 2 star rating over 1 isn't just a sense of obligation but my own personal enjoyment: To Live Is To Die is breathtaking. This was another gym listen for me, ending with 15 mins of treadmill running that coincided with that track. And it's ironic that it's the slowest, most meditative one on the album, that basically any other song would have fit my usual uptempo running requirements better, but it completely gripped me and had me in a trance. I only looked up the background for it afterwards but i absolutely could have guessed that song is driven by real grief.
I liked the bluesy, weary but not too heavily laden feel of this. The experimental closer didn't quite work for me with everything else though, and everything else is a little slight. But unlike my last 2 albums which were a bit of a chore, these songs feel like they make more sense listened to as a package than bits and pieces. Take the raga out and that's only 30 minutes.
Most importantly though, Everybody's Talkin' is such a beautiful song that probably only makes me cry because of Midnight Cowboy, but does that matter? And Fred Neil is to thank for that so he gets a thumbs up from me. I might prefer the Nilsson version but it's gorgeous here too and fits perfectly into the album.
This might be a "you had to be there" situation, or maybe I'm unfairly biased cause I kept thinking "man. imagine if we had a recording this quality of the silver beetles live at the star club hamburg".
That poor piano though!
I stopped my chores mid-way through track three and decided I'd give this a proper sat-down, distraction-free listen. The songs weave together images and phrases that circle round ideas and imagined objects rather than depict them directly. But the circling is hypnotic.
Or, as my mum put it: "the thing about Leonard Cohen is he was clearly a shagger and a cunt." And the amazing thing about his music is that this does come across somehow, not in spite of but in harmony with the ethereal beauty of the lyrics and singing.
Some of my favourite similes and metaphors from Cohen's dysfunctional and creative brain:
"your love is some dust in an old man's cuff who is tapping his foot to a tune"
"there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder"
"your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm"
"I'm cold as a new razor blade"
The problem wasn't that I don't like metal! It was just metallica 🙂↕️🙂↕️
I was in a bit of a distracted state with this so it's not got my best listening efforts. But I can say it was perfectly enjoyable listening even while in that state and just right for the gym again. Nothing is as good as the first track, but I'm not sure how anything could be really. There's always something exhilarating about listening to the origin album of an entire genre, too.
Standouts: I'll never forget being 11 and made to listen to Generic Greatest Classic Rock Songs Compilation in the car, and then Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath on their album Black Sabbath came on and I was like. now what in the good goddamn is this. holy shit
It's a busy week okay. my head's not really in it. But this was fine I guess
man can the next album please just not be mid
EDIT: going forward I will try not to let my pissy moods affect scores and reviews to this degree. I did give this two listens, if broken up over a few sessions. There is stuff to like here for sure. I liked the song "showgirl" partly because I thought the line was "I married a showgirl, that's me wife" and I knew it probably wasn't actually that but didn't want to look it up. "When I first met you, you were not house trained" does not have the impression I think they're going for. Or maybe it does? They sound like weird slightly offputting theatre kids and maybe that's okay. But the music is still just not that memorable. It' 2.5 not a 2 though, which rounds up to a 3.
I kind of loved this. I'll be back to listen again for sure. It's interesting to feel such a contrast in my feelings towards this after the last two albums I couldn't really get into at all. I can't quite put my finger on what's different and better here, is it just that we've finally had a female artist? There's emotional clarity in the lyrics and music maybe, I feel at the end of the album like I understand something about the people who created it. There are some genuine catchy hooks and bangers on here. The trip hoppy vibes mixed with distorted punky guitars and moody vocal performance are just up my street. Whole thing feels full and vibrant and I had a good time listening, the second listen being more of a "going back for more" rather than "giving it another chance" situation.
Standouts: As Heaven is Wide, Queer, Milk
