I've heard this album a couple of times before and honestly, while I don't love it I do think it is pretty solid overall - the opener, 'Blitzkrieg Bop' is probably the Ramones' signature song and for good reason, and I do appreciate that this album was pretty short, but I'd be lying if I said that I was engaged the whole way through even if I did generally have a good time with it. I'd probably give it a 7/10 if I could, but I do feel more comfortable with a 3/5 than a 4/5. Still good, though.
So I think this one would have always been kind of an uphill battle for me: I'm not huge on hard rock on the best of days, and from what I've heard from AC/DC, they're not exactly one of my favorites of the genre. And yeah, after a full listen this is good, but I still don't really see anything special about it, even if I do think the first and last tracks are both genuinely excellent. So yeah, good but not exactly what I'd call great and not really something I think I'll go back to very much.
I've been a pretty massive fan of this album for a while: it's probably my favorite Britpop album and 'Girls & Boys' is an all-time great album opener, and I was fully expecting to give it an easy 5/5, but sadly I do think it has shrunk on me since I first heard it 5 years ago. It's still fantastic, mind you, 'Girls & Boys' is just as good as ever, and it's surprisingly really varied genre-wise, but I'd be lying if I thought that it's fully consistent the whole way through. Still, at its best, this album is stellar - 'This Is a Low' is a stunning late-album highlight and 'To the End' is a really beautiful chamber pop pastiche that works really well. Not as good as I remember, but still really great.
I think my biggest hot take of any album on this list so far is that I think that 'Tiny Dancer' is kind of overrated. Not that it's not very good, but I wouldn't put it amongst Elton John's best like so many others do. And sadly, that leaves me with a pretty mixed view on this album. I think that 'Levon' is pretty great - honestly I might like it more than 'Tiny Dancer' on some days, and 'Indian Sunset' is also a high point, but the rest of this album just doesn't do much for me. Not a bad album, but I don't see myself going back to it very much.
It's short, sweet, and a ton of fun. There are some ballads on here which I don't really think work all that well, but the biggest hits on this are undeniably good. This is the first album I've gotten on this list that I've never heard of before, and I really enjoyed it.
Another album I was pretty familiar with before going into this, and while I didn’t really love it before, I can pretty confidently say I do now! This is pretty easily the most “pop” Joni Mitchell album: it still obviously has a lot of folky elements, but it also adds a bunch of really fantastic hooks while still being just as well-written as any other Joni album. I don’t think it’s her best, but it’s grown on me a lot and I do love it a lot. And ‘Help Me’ is her best song.
I wish I was able to get into R.E.M. I really, really do. I like a lot of their individual songs, but despite how much I've tried, I could never get into one of the albums. The closest I've gotten so far is probably 'Automatic For The People', and even then I don't think it ever fully clicked for me. But this is one of their albums that I've never heard before...and I'm sorry, but it's still not clicking for me. Again, some fantastic songs (the end of the A side and the start of the B side, in particular), but most of this kind of just bounced off of me. I wish it didn't.
It's fine. I was initially really on board for this because I tend to like atmospheric, dreamy indie rock quite a bit, but between the fact that this has an average track length of 5 minutes, and that it's honestly not too special even at its best (aside from 'Sea Song' and maybe 'Catch The Sun'), I was kinda disappointed by this. It's fine enough, but I doubt I'll return to it much.
I don't love every song on here and I'd be lying if I said I was fully engaged for the full 2 hours, but man, at its best, this is some of the best rock music of the 90s. 'Tonight, Tonight' and '1979' are generational songs.
A very pleasant dream pop album that's not only really good for vibing with in the background, but also a lush, layered album with some surprisingly excellent hooks throughout. I was not expecting to love this album as much as I did but I did! I'm really excited for the other Goldfrapp album on this list after this.
Obviously a classic, but not my personal favorite classic. I feel like it does go on for a bit long, it's a bit frontloaded, and there's not really as much insane high points as some of his other albums. With that being said, this is still a fantastic psych-rock album made by probably the greatest guitarist to ever do it.
I do kind of wish I liked this more, it's a solid indie rock album with some fun moments and 'Heads Will Roll' is one of my favorite songs of the 2000s but overall I didn't love this one. It's at its best when it's making really upbeat, fun post-punk (the first two songs and 'Dull Life' in particular), but it spends a lot of its runtime...well not doing that. Solid, but I won't return to it much.
TV On The Radio are a band I've been familiar with for a while but I've never really taken the chance to fully get into them aside from 'Wolf Like Me'...and I wish I liked this more, because this really didn't do anything for me. I just don't really like the more electronic or funk elements and while I do think it actually ends really well, with the last two songs being pretty great, as a whole it felt too overlong and I just was not a fan of most of it.
Hell yeah.
The second time where I've never heard of an album I got from the generator, and like the last time, this was a ton of fun. I honestly haven't heard many jazz albums with organ in them, and it was a really cool surprise for me to hear it! Even though it's all instrumental, there's a really nice propulsive energy to it that makes it so that you're never really bored, and it has a really nice soulful edge to it. Really cool album, I'll have to check some more Jimmy Smith out!
It's good and all, and it obviously should be on here for its influence on hip-hop, but I also don't really love it. I'm just not the biggest fan of this brand of early, rap-rock influenced hip-hop, and that's basically what this is. 'Tricky' and 'Walk This Way' are great though.
This is a pretty solid album: the guitars are genuinely pretty excellent and I love the tone on this album, but aside from that it doesn't really stand out as anything spectacular. Solid, don't think I'll return to it.
Maggot Brain is one of my favorite albums of all time - a psychedelic funk masterpiece with one of the greatest album openers of all time and 6 more fantastic songs to go along with it. So I was very excited to get this one, and it absolutely did not disappoint - I think this is the closest I've been to full on 5ing an album that I've never heard before, and while I did decide to leave it at a 4 for now, it was very close. Because how could this not be great! It has a live rendition of 'Maggot Brain' that's near perfect and just as good as the studio version, the title track is stellar, 'Who Says A Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!' has some of the best grooves I've ever heard, and it never really has any duds in the tracklist. It's so good.
Yeah, I'd be lying if I said that I felt like the interludes on this weren't kind of excessive, and I don't really think they add anything here, but man, this album's kind of perfect from front to back. You have the forays into soul that would become more obvious on their next album, a surprising amount of experimentation for an album this mainstream, some great features, and two of the best rappers to ever do it giving some of the best performances of their careers. And of course, you have two of the best songs ever made in 'Ms. Jackson' and 'B.O.B. - Bombs Over Baghdad'. One of the all-time great rap albums. Not their best ('Aquemini' is better even if it didn't make the cut here), but it's close.
Look, a part of me has to rate this album highly. 2015 was the first year of my life that I regularly started to listen to American/English music, and '25' was absolutely massive when it came out. And after finally listening to it in full, a decade after its release...it's solid! Not fantastic, and I don't think it's her best, but Adele is such a fantastic vocalist, and it's such a genuinely emotional album that it just kind of works despite it all. 'When We Were Young' in particular, is one of the absolute best pop songs of the 2010s, easily the album highlight and quite possibly my favorite Adele song period. It's really good.
A few years ago, I made a list of my 100 favorite albums of the 2010s. This album was not on that list. If I were to make that list today I feel confident in saying that this album would have a serious shot at making that list! It's such a bright, groovy, and just fun indie pop album. Some fantastic hooks combined with some fantastic grooves that had me dancing in my room at points. It's almost an hour long and it feels like 30 minutes. Great stuff, I'm so happy I heard it.
