"The Stranger" by Billy Joel being the first ever album this website generated for me is truly a blessing. I was familiar with five of the nine songs before doing a full run-through, so I had a great vibe session and possibly frightened some of my neighbors.
For lack of a better description, this album was an emotional rollercoaster. Many of his songs feel like novels, his imagery transporting me to the streets of Vienna or to an Italian restaurant—but then the next song could be a wedding song or something to listen to in the car with the windows down. Each song is a different track on the album, obviously, but every song feels like a part of an intertwined story.
Instrumentally, this album would be a perfect 5/5 if it weren't for the verses and choruses of "The Stranger" and "Only the Good Die Young" (please don't hate me), since they’re a bit monotone and repetitive for my taste. Despite this, Billy is a musical genius throughout the album. His ability to combine piano, acoustic guitar, saxophone (I live for these solos), drums, flute, and harmonica into one record and still make it sound near-perfect is a talent. And I guess "The Stranger" does deserve a little bit of merit, because the extremely satisfying ending would not be possible without the song. No matter how much you hate him, it is undeniable that this album as a whole is a work of art.
I don't know if I will listen to the album straight through again, because I feel like each song is suited for a different environment, both physically and emotionally. I wish this site had half-star ratings like Letterboxd does, so my rating could be more accurate. But in the meantime, please listen to "Scenes"; it hurts to see the absolute best track on the album have fewer streams than five others.
4/5
Before “Sea Change,” I had never listened to any of Beck’s work besides “Loser,” which is an interesting song, to say the least. This is probably why I was baffled to hear the soft, acoustic intro of “Golden Age,” but it goes to show how much genre experimentation he did (and I would too if I were him).
It is insane how much this album parallels the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” era. I could hear the resemblance between the strings on “A Day in the Life” and countless tracks on this album; it’s not a surprise that when I Googled “Does Beck get inspiration from the Beatles?” the AI Overview gave me twenty thousand examples. Not to mention the hints of Radiohead, confirmed again by the fact that Nigel Godrich, the producer of this album, has produced almost every Radiohead album.
Half of the songs on the album I would listen to on a chill, sunny walk in New York City, and half of them I would listen to while lying awake at 3 a.m. on a school night. This album does a lot of experimentation (quite psychedelic-rock-esque, maybe) while still falling under the indie rock umbrella, but I did find some aspects of the album a bit repetitive or reused. However, many lyrics and sounds are beautiful yet haunting; the best way to describe it, in my opinion, is being on the edge of a cliff, looking out at the setting sun, with nothing in front of you for miles. As a whole, the sound of most tracks complements the other tracks well, and his low-register voice is perfect for the instrumentals in the background. When I heard “Lonesome Tears” and “Little One,” I basically ascended.
Although I did find some tracks to lack melody, I think this album holds up for what it is: the quintessential “breakup album,” which I will definitely come back to in my mid-20s or something, but not necessarily now (this is a lie; I revisited the album exactly one day after listening to it). It’s so funny that I originally thought Beck was this niche, underground artist, but after researching, I learned that he has eight Grammy Awards, which is insane. I am so excited that there are two more of his records on the list, but I'm surprised “Morning Phase” isn’t on it…I guess I’ll give it a listen myself.
4/5
Can this website read my thoughts? I was scrolling through the entire list of albums last night, and I stumbled upon “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green and thought, “I really want to listen to this one.” So this happened.
I expected something similar to the vibe of “Let’s Stay Together” and “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” which I got, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the album as a whole; in my opinion, this album could have ended after the latter track, since I didn’t see a purpose of “Judy” or “It Ain’t No Fun to Me” being there. A few tracks, though, I thought were pretty solid, and again, I could see myself listening to the album on a chill spring walk.
I heard so many Marvin Gaye-esque vocals and instrumentals on this album, and it’s no wonder since they were from the same era; soul is a genre that I really enjoy listening to. However, I do agree with Marvin’s observation that Al’s falsetto range was a bit “too safe” and would probably prefer Marvin’s music over Al's. Al’s music on this album drags quite a bit with his ad-libs; you would really have to pay me to believe that “I have to keep on singing” was actually scripted because it was 99% not. Besides this, though, I found a lot of new songs that I could vibe to! I’ll probably listen to “La-La for You” or “Old Time Lovin'” once in a while, because those were the strongest instrumentally and vocally besides “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” which is just six straight minutes of beauty with its arpeggios and the instrumentals after “breeze,” oh my lord.
Although I was not feeling five out of the nine tracks on the album, it’s great with both themes of love and loneliness and encapsulates the feeling of yearning well, but a little bit less than Marvin Gaye. It’s an interesting mix of love songs, definitely, but it all fits under the “Let’s Stay Together” umbrella, especially with “So You’re Leaving,” which is basically just “Let’s Stay Together” but more demanding. Nonetheless, I love Al’s vibe, and I will most definitely continue listening to him on my subway rides.
3/5
I was unfamiliar with “Hard Again” by Muddy Waters when I saw it pop up on the website, and I don’t normally listen to the blues, so I was pretty excited to listen to my first album of this kind for the challenge. Also, interesting title.
However…this was a challenging listen. It started okay, with “Mannish Boy,” but then got increasingly worse, and I found myself restless toward the end, even writing in my notebook during “Little Girl,” “Oh no no no not 7 minutes of the same thing over and over again.” You can probably tell where my review is going with this, but I’ll sum it up in the wise words of another listener: “Listening to this album is like eating 6-day-old leftover food for the 4th time in the same week. The first night, it was delicious, but in the end, we eat it out of principle so as not to waste.”
Building off of the quote, I now realize why “Mannish Boy” is the most popular track of the album: they listen to it once, like me, and then go down the tracks, beginning to realize that each track is basically the same thing as all of the above, with the same electric guitar, with the same type of Muddy Waters vocals and spontaneous shrieks that get old after hearing them fifty times. Don’t get me wrong, I think Muddy Waters’ vocals are great and completely different from what I’ve heard, but after the first three songs on this album, everything else becomes genuinely unbearable because it's quite literally 49 minutes and 28 seconds of the same stuff. I pretty much zoned out after 12 minutes, though—and the lyrics might have helped if they hadn’t been sung to the same tune every single time (I’m really sorry, I can’t stop stressing this).
Maybe this album would be better if it were released as 10 separate singles, 10 years apart. I hope “At Newport 1960” will help me maybe see what I’m not yet seeing, but in the meantime, I don’t think I’ll listen to any more of Muddy Waters’ music. I hope tomorrow’s album won’t make me crash out.
2/5