Wasn't huge on this to be honest, I see the influence and significance but it felt a little repetitive. Some good bass parts but could've been better at times.
Well, I'm not going to lie when this came up as day two as something I hadn't heard much about and saw the genres, I was not excited, but, as I'm writing this part three tracks in, I'm actually quite intrigued.
The production is really nice and it sounds great, and the songwriting is really fun and cool. It's not something I thought I'd ever rush to listen to, but honestly I really might have to check out more of his albums. That's the point of this challenge I guess, so I'm already glad I impulsively started it, even if the app seems to be glitching around a bit. The vocals are really nice, some of the harmonies on songs like For The Turnstiles are great, being an element that I didn't think I'd be as interested in as I was. The solos are all really nice too, and they feel well placed within the somewhat repetitive but atmospheric song structures that don't overstay their welcome. It does feel a little bit weird to say all this when the Led Zeppelin album yesterday felt similar in context of how I feel about that kind of music in general, and it could've been listening condition bias, but honestly this just hit way better than yesterday.
Really think this album is quite overrated. It's got really repetitive song structures, with most the songs being built off the same boring straight quaver chords. All the drum parts are very similar. The main thing I appreciate about this is the production and its influence in general, but even the production leads to a muddying of the already minimal melodies, which just leads to it feeling even less catchy and less danceable. It just doesn't really have anything that hooks me in, other than maybe Julian's more distorted voice being pretty cool. Overall, though, I'd much rather listen to one of the albums that this inspired, like Twin Fantasy or maybe even Geese, if you agree they seem to show some Strokes influence. But yeah, lack of melodies, lack of interesting structures, lack of striking lyrics, even the guitar tones aren't that cool, it's mainly the idea of it and the vocals that feeling influential. Not a fan.
For the sake of this challenge, I'm giving this 2 stars, because I really don't enjoy it, but on my AOTY page it's a 66 due to the influence on stuff I do like.
Only one disc in as of writing this bit , but WOW: this challenge is already immensely worth it.
This album is so amazing. It is full of passionate vocals that feel like you're drowning in Wonder's soulful voice, whilst being accompanied by a very surprisingly proggy accompaniment, with some amazing bass guitar that is honestly super inspiring - I'll be checking out more of Nathan Watts' Stuff. The lyrics are also all really interesting, I love how Wonder pays homage to music as an art form in Sir Duke. Honestly, this could be considered a life changing listen for me, really really enjoyed this, and I've needed more joyful music in my rotation.
I quite enjoyed this as background music, but some of the songs were less interesting than others. Notably, I really enjoyed the first track and Unfinished Sympathies, but songs like One Love had interesting cores but ones that weren't built to be used for the songs' entire durations. My favourite will always be the bass in Safe from Harm though.
So I've finally come back to the first artist I ever loved! I remember listening to Smooth Criminal from the age of like, 3! Weirdly though, it took until this challenge to finally come to approaching a full album, and to be completely honest... I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood, but I'm not too impressed to be honest. There are definitely great cores to each song, with Michael's voice being amazing throughout, but to be honest I found several songs, even Beat It (until the guitar solo) to get quite repetitive to the point I started feeling like the loop was almost missing something. The song with Paul McCartney was quite corny in my opinion, but it was an interesting idea. My favourites though were Billie Jean and PYT by far, which are both amazing songs. I don't know, maybe I'll have to come back to this, but I definitely think it was a bit overrated when looking at AOTY.
Pretty cool, but nothing too good. I'm glad I've been forced to try more hip-hop as I do need to get into the genre more but some of these lyrics are better than others. Favourites were by far the ones on Hurt Me Soul, but songs like Sunshine featured some real stinkers. What do you mean this guy said "Working like a... hmm... reverse archaeologist, except his buried treasure was sunshine"??? The beats are pretty good and some of the features are great, I'm just not huge into hip-hop yet and this album doesn't have as layered production as there was on GKMC and TPAB, as well as lacking as much interesting stories to tell as Kendrick in my opinion.
First song was really good, not sure I'd come back to a lot of the rest. Definitely a certain vibe but that vibe is rare and a bit corny to me.
Look, I know I complained about the Led Zeppelin album being too long, but this is just too short.The first song actually intrigued me, but then it built up to nothing. Then, about 3 songs in, I just started getting extremely sick of his voice and accent, it's super annoying. The guitars do moderately interesting stuff occasionally but overall if that's what you're looking for, go to another band... His voice is so annoying it makes it impossible for any of the songs to be catchy, and there's nothing else interesting about it. Even the strokes are better than this.
Nice and chill, with some pretty cool songs, but overall a bit boring and I found it dragged even though it was only background music.
Pretty nice album, really like the first 5 songs but it felt like it fell off a bit from there. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, and it's very nice and groovy, I really like the bass work on here.
It was fine. Could be more interesting, but the instrumentation is cool. Not worth anything more than background music though.
I enjoyed the idea and vibe of this more than the music. The bass was by far my favourite bit and it was very groovy, and whilst I did like the vocals too, I found the overall song structures too boring and repetitive, with most of the songs being rather indistinct.
Some really interesting music, I found the bass parts super groovy and loved a lot of the samlles. Those first tracks were particularly great, but then I read about this album and Mclaren's controversy and I was extremely disappointed. In my opinion if you're going to sample this much whilst claiming it as you own because you added some racist and boring verses, it should've just been labelled a compilation that compensated the other artists... But evidently Mclaren's doesn't care about that...
A really cool and important album. I love the guitar work, and the vocals suit the style really well. However, the best songs were by far the first two, the title track, and of course, Riders on the Storm, whilst some of the others felt a bit weaker and less innovative. A great experience all around though, and I'm excited to dive into the band's earlier work.
I think this is a little too pretentious for me to be honest. I really like the drumming and I was aware of the band before because of it, but the guitar and other solos are really not that interesting or cool, and most of the guitar work in general does bore me a little. The songs as a whole are quite nice and smooth, but lacking in anything that really makes me feel anything, and other than the drumming at certain points there isn't enough impressive musicianship to make up for that. It just feels like people act like the melodies and harmony throughout is innovative because it uses jazz stuff, but in reality a lot of it is just going up and down those scales and not doing too much with it, although a lot of the bass lines are pretty cool. I'm also pretty conflicted on the vocals: I don't really like the lead singers voice, but sometimes the production and use of other backing vocals does make up for it.
I really hated the production on the first track. It was extremely unpleasant and overblown, with everything feeling like an unwarranted assault of the ears. I mean, that snare sound alone was horrid. Anyway, I'm still willing to hear out the rest of the album, somehow.
Okay, back two songs later and the production got a bit better, but whilst I like the lyrics, I'm really not a fan of the vocals, whether that's in terms of his voice or the melodies. So far, the main interest to me has been the bass, but even that could be a bit better.
The tracklist is a bit inconsistent and there are definite ups and downs but I'm just finding that none of the songs really do much for me, when I wish they felt more full and pleasantly produced. The snare tone doesn't really get any better throughout, and some of the synths, whilst stylistically typical of the time, are a bit crap in my opinion. The layering of the songs just doesn't feel nice, it all feels crudely slapped on top of itself. Then, the vocals aren't even that catchy and I find the voice obnoxious, so basically, there's nothing here I'd really like return to at all, but I respect the ideas.
It was pretty solid, but overall I'm not sure it's for me and the soft rock vibe seemed to cage it a bit too much in my opinion. I probably wouldn't listen again, but it's not bad by any means.
Honestly I've not got a whole lot of time today due to responsibilities so this was kinda more background music than I'd have liked considering I do find the band pretty entertaining even of they're not the greatest, but to be honest I still got bored of it a bit, a lot of the songs just feel pointless and I'd never really return to maybe around half the tracklist. The bass is pretty cool but the tone does get a little less interesting every song, and the song structures aren't that interesting. Not really a fan of any of the features or raps so that was a shame, but the first 4 songs were pretty good.
Also, what the hell is the hidden/last track???
When I saw this was my album for today, not to set my own expectations too high, but I jumped for joy. I've been meaning to listen to this for a while and felt it would probably interest me after enjoying Songs In The Key Of Life so much. So anyway, were my high expectations met?
Absolutely. This album is so beautiful. The lyrics are amazing, and whilst it took me a few tracks to get into the vocals, both the singing and the rapping are extremely passionate and emotive. I also really love the beats and production, it's a pretty damn perfect album. I don't really know what else to say other than stuff I said about Stevie Wonder, but I do really need more music like this in my life. Sure, some insane Bull of Heaven drone shit or Brian Eno at 1am will never not be a transcendental experience, but this is actually so uplifting and inspiring, whilst shedding light on the lives of a marginalised group I'm not associated with often at all. I like what I like sure, but in life I really strive to experience as much as possible and as a often atheistic white AMAB non-binary bisexual person, the experience of black Christian women is something far from my own, and something I loved learning about through this album. It's a testament to Hill's immense talents in all aspects of music, and I'm going to go back and do some Fugees soon too since I used to play Ready or Not in my drumming lessons.
A pretty good vibe with some excellent stand out tracks, but the rest got a bit boring. I can't seem to find the version with the 2001 remaster bonus tracks anywhere but Spotify, but those are a pretty nice addition but I wish they were a replacement for some of the original tracks as it made the album a bit too long for me.
I'll probably get shot for putting this on AOTY...
I don't get the hype. I like rap, but this just isn't for me I don't think. I get he's trying to do a concept but I got to the last song and it was just like. Oh, he kills himself, but I just never even felt invested. The beats are pretty solid yeah, and I like a lot of the flows, so I'll definitely come back to it, but I'm 50/50 on the lyrics. A lot of them just feel like they're saying the same thing in a way that doesn't do much for me, and some of the songs feel like they go on too long and become overly repetitive as a result. Sorry guys...
Ended up accidentally falling sleep whilst first listening to this as it was too hot and I didn't sleep well the night before... And it was a pretty cool experience. I didn't even really feel that tired before listening, but something about the hypnotic atmosphere of the first two tracks made it feel like the consciousness was almost ripped from my body. I still took a lot of it in in this time, as it felt very familiar when I went back and tried it again, especially with the second half which was playing as I kept waking up. I do think it is a bit repetitive in a way that is intentional but not necessarily interesting to me in the way that drone can be, but I do like this. Another observation I had was that I've been meaning to try more krautrock for a while since it has influenced a lot of bands I like, but I actually found this surprisingly fresh and different to those. The fact that this was made when it was is also really cool, especially considering the simultaneous proto- and post-punk elements.
Chapman's vocals are absolutely the focus here, and they're amazing. They work really well with the instrumentation too, which makes for some amazing and emotional songs, like Fast Car of course. However, I did find quite a few of the songs just a bit too sparse and repetitive to really grab me in. It just became a bit boring, but in isolation I think all of the songs are pretty amazingly written and performed.
A very emotionally charged album I feel, but one that feels not aimed at me at all, besides maybe the second song. I can see why this would be better for others, but it was just a bit boring to me, like something a lot of pople could pull off. Definitely want to try more Spingsteen though.
Honestly I don't think I'm the biggest fan of early punk stuff. I just found this all very same-y, like the kind of indie rock that is so oversaturated nowadays, but with often more annoying vocals. Most of the lyrics just felt silly and not even that rebellious or "punk". It's fine, just really quite boring. There was one bit that went a bit more glitchy and experimenta, but it wasn't really the point of the album.
Listened to this on a 14hr plane journey to Singapore at 11pm.
One minute in - the bass is going to be my favourite bit here, isn't it? I mean, the tone and production on Good Times so far is so crisp and the playing is very clean. It is a little repetitive, but I'll adjust I'm sure.
It didn't improve from there really. The bass is cool but stays relatively similar for most of every song, and the bass lines themselves got less interesting and often quieter in the mix. Cool first song, although only for the first 5 mins in my opinion, but then the rest is pretty samey but a pretty good, groovy vibe at least.
A mixed bag of quirky, interesting, and pretty fun songs after the fallout of Blur. There are several absolute classics on here as well as some really underrated picks like Punk, M1A1, and 5/4. It's also a really good vibe, and whilst I'd listened to this a while ago and didn't have time to do this whole album tonight without some skips, I am definitely going to come back to this more often now, although I'm not a fan at all of a lot of the vocals by Albarn.
A really cool vibe, but I didn't really find the individual songs very interesting, and don't really have much more to say about this for now, which is annoying because I was expecting to love this.
Honestly after the Chic album and now this, I think I'm just not really a huge disco fan. Bernard Edwards is on this, who was the same bass player as the one on the Chic album funnily enough, and whilst his tone and playing style is cool, I again have the same sort of feelings with the Chic albums that it doesn't really go anyway. Sure, the vocals and harmonies throughout are pretty good, but it all feels like it repeats itself too much and each track lacks personality in my opinion, but then again I'm a Swans fan.
The first half of this is really good, but I did find the second half, namely the last 4 songs, got a bit boring as it went quite slow. The overall vibe though is really nice, and Season of the Witch is an amazing song. Other than that, I can only really see myself coming back to that ans the first 3 songs. Definitely glad to have heard this though, it's useful in my broader contextual understanding of this era of music and another step towards me getting folk-ier stuff more.
Sorry Hole, I've already had my Riot Grrrl fix today... Since my dad was sad about Jennifer Finch dying today, I checked out the album with his favourite of their songs on it earlier, and it was cool but breezed past me a bit, it didn't really grab my attention but had some decent songs and riffs. I'm pretty sure from my memory and other bands I've heard and seen, this tends to be the pattern with my opinion on the genre/scene. Sure, I love and agree with the lyrica, but the music itself isn't really my thing. This seems to continue that pattern unfortunately.
The first two tracks are pretty good and I like the energy a lot, but then most of the songs after feel so similar at times I genuinely thought my Spotify glitched and returned to the first songs again and I didn't notice. There are also some other pretty cool bits where it suddenly kicks in and Courtney's vocals suddenly increase in intensity, but even those lose their impact for me throughout, leaving me entertained but a little bored by the end of the albums. None of the songs really had any notable parts for individual instruments or the whole thing other than this though, so that's about it.
