Cover - It's strong, except the font, which is kinda ass? Love the picture though.
Let's Get it On is obvs ubiquitous, but uhhh every song is just that song over and over again?? 'Keep gettin' it On' literally so.
'Come Get To This' a bit better.
Yer man sure likes getting laid.
It was embarrassing then, it's somehow even more embarrassing now. Exhaustingly edgy, like the inane ramblings of the worst child that you hope no child you care about goes anywhere near. The most charitable reading is that it's all a 'joke', but even then, it isn't funny, at all.
Obviously this is absolute trash, and proof if proof be need be that popular ≠ good. So, let's consider skits instead - is there ANY good skit, even on a less repugnant record than this? I really don't think there is, and hopefully during this trip into the mainstream I will eventually find a skit where I think 'Oh, I definitely would listen to this more than once.' But somehow I doubt it.
uhhh I just heard Kim - wtf
Nostalgia overload but also still a brilliant album. Every track (except No No No) is great fun, and going from Maps into Y Control is as good as anything that came out of this NY scene. Even the sequencing feels nostalgic, with the traditional slow big drum track at the end. Still sounds massive, too.
Don't think I've ever heard this before, wasn't expecting much (probably unfairly cos the singles are great) but was pleasantly surprised! Definitely a bit hippy dippy, but mostly in that Forever Changes way, where the trip has gone bad and the Manson family are lurking off screen. 'D.C.B.A. -25' and the proto-Robbie Basho sound of 'Embryonic Journey' were my two faves that weren't 'White Rabbit'. Will listen again.
Boring at the time, somehow even duller now. 'Darts of Pleasure' is still a great song, and the first few tracks are catchy, but it's mostly just kind of a stompy mess of borrowed hooks and dull lyrics. The most remarkable thing about this for me is that I have intense memories of how much these guys had missed the dance-punk boat with this record - looking back, there's less than eighteen months between those highs and this release. What is time :\
I’m sure I’m going to say this a lot as we move forward, but how on earth is this on a best of anything list? A bunch of forgettable songs with no real discernible style, other than ‘not very good’ and horrible over-bright production. At its worst when it verges into an odd Stereolab-ey psych sort of thing.
Wikipedia says it's her best selling record, which is mad cos you'd assume that was Blue? I’d never even heard of this. It’s a pleasant listen, the first one of these I’ve felt compelled to play twice, and maybe eventually this is a 4. 'Down to You' is my clear fave, absolutely loved this song. 'Twisted' by far the worst and really has no business being on this record!
An all-timer, listened to this endlessly in my teens, still love it. The refined yin to 'Out of Time's cheesy yang (a duality that I think then informs all their warner bros work going forward!), it's just a masterful use of major label money to make something strange and indescribable, but also chock full of hits. Stipe's lyrics are great as ever ('Ignoreland' is so so so so good and the blueprint for every political Thom Yorke lyric), it all flows together beautifully despite all the disparate elements, the willingness to abandon drums through a lot of the record is so rewarding - man, I could go on (and on), but it's just an absolute banger.
Also, the last minute of 'Everybody Hurts' and the whole of 'Nightswimming', 'Sweetness Follows', 'Ignoreland' and 'Find the River' (one of the most beautiful songs about death ever written) are empirically perfect music, and I won't hear otherwise.
Any Rolling Stones record starts from a point of disadvantage because I absolutely cannot stand Mick Jagger’s voice, and I hate that I can see his stupid gurning face flapping around in my mind whenever I hear it.
This is one of the few Stones records I had heard all the way through before because people bang on about it a lot - it didn’t sound any better this time. Overly long, repetitive gurning and straining, and yeah I guess if you like 'rock & roll' music this is a great example of that (?), but I really, really don’t.
I really don’t know what to make of this. It’s fine, a pleasant listen, I wouldn’t mind hearing it again but I don’t think I’d ever put it on. It’s so old it almost feels like listening to music made by aliens or Neolithic man, but also you know exactly where every song is going even if you’ve never heard it before. And of course you don’t get The Beatles etc etc without this record, but if I start rating stuff based on stuff like that then I’m going to tie myself in knots and collapse.
Anyway, ‘Not Fade Away’ was the best track, loved how it sounds like it was recorded inside a Pringles can. Also the reverb on the chorus of ‘It’s Too Late’ was a fun time.
The 1001 roulette blessed us putting this on a Sunday, as it's perfect Sunday morning music. Enjoyed it so much more than Court and Spark, loved the intertwining guitars and Pastorius sliding about on the bass. 'Amelia' was probably my favourite, I wish the vibes on this track (the instrument, not the mood (but also the mood)) were featured more throughout the album. 'Hejira' also exceptional. I think it ran out of steam a bit towards the end, but overall this was super good and suspect it will only go up in my estimations with repeated listens.
Strange record. The title track is good, and the doo-wop vocals over a more '70s soul sound is funny, but I guess kinda works. 'Runaway Child, Running Wild' is incredibly bizarre. The second side is much better, probably because it sounds more like you'd expect a Temptations record to sound.
Hilarious, and I think I'm laughing AT them, not WITH them? Yer man is very horny, but doesn't really have many words to express it. Special mention for 'Gods of War', a rare venture away from his pants into 'political' introspection, with guest lyrics by a small child. My high(low)light was definitely 'Love Bites', in which an existential crisis arrives for the singer in the form of catching his own eye in a mirror while fucking.
Truly abysmal.
The Liars’ debut ‘They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top’ (also a good record) ended with a locked groove loop on the CD release that lasts for over 20 minutes - it was the sound of a band staring you out, daring you to listen to the end, to tough out this relentless noise and find something there. I was 17 when it came out and was absolutely entranced by the idea. (There’s a similar device (but there for very different reasons) at the end of Wilco’s A Ghost is Born and it’s bloody great there, too. Music can be hard, it can be unpleasant, it can challenge in ways I think more people should embrace!)
My point here is that I feel like the rest of their career, and especially this record, are the direct continuation of that ethos, challenging you to figure out what else is going on beyond an abrasive front. Yes, this record absolutely spits on your face the first time you hear it, but underneath is rhythm, melody, hooks, all that good stuff music can do.
Swampy, messy, creepy, noisy but also at times so peaceful in an unsettling way, it took me a while to fully ‘get’ this LP, (and really only made complete sense after the follow-up ‘Drum’s Not Dead’ released) but I think it’s absolutely worth the effort.
It’s just so much fun, I love all the ambience, the ritual circle feel of the drums, the closeness, the sound of a highway somewhere in the middle of the record that suggests you’ve escaped, only to get got again. Such a great record.
Speaking of ‘Drum’s Not Dead’, the fact this record is on the list is even more bizarre because ‘Drum’s…’ isn’t, and I know I’m not alone in viewing that as by far the better record (which I would argue this is sort of the prototype for). ‘Drum’s…’ is an absolute masterpiece, one of my all-time favourites, and an album everyone should hear, even if this wasn’t your thing.
Never really got the hype with this (like MOST mercury winners I think), it's basically 2 good tracks ('Butterfly' is a true 5/5 banger) and then a load of nonsense after it. The drum programming is good but all the synths sound like they were made in Magix Music Maker (is that still a thing?). This isn't a hindsight thing either, btw, it sounded lame even at the time.
