So a while ago, I heard Queen's 1975 album, 'A Night At The Opera' and left kind of underwhelmed by it considering how so many considered it to be their best album. For a while, I kind of assumed that they had better individual songs instead of full on albums, so I was having some mixed feelings on this going into it, and to my surprise it's pretty fantastic. 'Killer Queen' may be my favorite Queen song, 'Stone Cold Crazy' is a shockingly effective metal song, and the rest of the album is just varied and good enough to still be very enjoyable. My favorite Queen album (with a sample size of 2).
...so yesterday, on my very first day of this project, I got Queen's 'Sheer Heart Attack', a pretty great slice of classic rock that I really enjoyed. At the start of that review, I mentioned how I heard this album a while ago and left it feeling kind of disappointed, and that 'Sheer Heart Attack' was, to me, a pretty big improvement on that album.
And now saying that I was wrong actually and that 'A Night At The Opera' is Great Actually a literal day after posting that review feels more than a little embarrassing but here we are. Yeah, 'A Night At The Opera' is Queen's best album (n = 2 still withstanding). It's eclectic, colorful, and genuinely such a blast that I'm kind of left wondering why I didn't really love it when I first heard it. Obviously, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is one of the greatest rock songs ever written, but 'I'm In Love With My Car', 'You're My Best Friend', 'Death On Two Legs', '39', and 'The Prophet's Song' are all still absolutely fantastic songs (especially that last one - might be the weirdest song I've heard from the band and I mean that in the best way possible).
It's my first 5/5 of the challenge (realistically closer to a strong 9/10 for me but close enough), and it's my favorite Queen album.
Just a really fantastic country album. Compelling narrative, doesn't overstay its welcome, and 'Can I Sleep In Your Arms' is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful songs I've heard in a long while.
It's 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd. The best album by one of the greatest rock bands to ever do it. The first half of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' is a contender for the best album opener of all time, and the second half is also stellar. 'Have A Cigar' and 'Welcome To The Machine' are definitely lesser tracks, but they still are some of my favorite prog rock songs of the 70s. And the title track is one of the best songs Pink Floyd has ever made - an ode to Syd Barrett that's raw, personal, and heartbreaking in all of the best ways. It's a 10/10, no question.
To be honest, I really didn't want to have this be the first Beck album I got from this list. Beck's been one of those artists who, despite their popularity and acclaim, I never actually made the time to listen to their work. And so, I didn't really want my first Beck album to be one from the 2000's that isn't really considered to be one of his top-tier albums, but it's what I got anyway. With that being said, I actually really enjoyed this! It's very much a mish-mash of a lot of different styles - alternative rock, hip hop, psychedelia are the main ones that come to mind - but it all coalesces to make a really fun experience that sounds like nothing else.
'Sign 'O' The Times' is an artist at his commercial peak making the most overblown, ambitious, and varied album of his entire career. It almost feels like a culmination of his work until then: it has some of his best ever pop singles, it has multiple swerves into different strands of psychedelia, all of which work really well, it's probably his funkiest album to date, and of course, it still has a ton of experimentation to keep it interesting. And I haven't even gotten to how genuinely fantastic a lot of these individual tracks are! The title track is a fantastic minimalistic funk tune and a great bit of social commentary, 'Play In The Sunshine' is one of his poppiest and best ever songs, 'It' has one of my favorite vocal performances by him, and the entirety of the second disc is near flawless. 'The Cross' might be his best ever deep cut. This isn't my favorite Prince album...but it is closer than you'd think.
Doolittle is a really great album! I like it a lot! I do think it's a tad bit overrated, though. Its influence is undeniable - so many grunge artists would likely not exist if not for the Pixies paving the way for thim, and 'Doolittle' is probably my favorite of theirs I've heard, but I'm generally not a fan of pretty short albums which are primarily a bunch of shorter songs, and 'Doolittle' is kind of exactly that. Still, the best songs do elevate this to being excellent - 'Debaser' is an all-timer when it comes to album openers, the riff on 'Here Comes Your Man' is one of my all-time favorites, and 'Monkey Gone To Heaven' is one of the best rock songs of the 90s. In terms of the non-singles... 'Tame' is a super fun swerve into noise rock, 'No.13 Baby' has a great hook to it, 'Gouge Away' is pretty excellent, but the rest is just kind of really solid without standing out too much for me.
