1001 Albums Summary

Hell of an album to kick off this project. I am going to refrain from comparisons to albums like Revolver or Abbey Road, as that's very 'apples to oranges' and it's just not the space that these earlier Beatles albums occupy. This is the Beatles at peak Beatlemania: young, dumb, naive, full of love and optimism and whimsy. The writing from John and Paul just pops (this is their first full originally written album), and this early Beatles sound was foundational in building 1) the sonic footprint of the 60's and 2) the massive public goodwill necessary for more risqué projects like Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour (or songs like Yellow Submarine or Maxwell's Silver Hammer lol). An iconic and decade-defining sound wrapped up in a tight 30 minutes. Great for what it is — a foundation — which is how I’m evaluating this album Favs: - Hard Day's Night - I Should Have Known Better - If I Fell - And I Love Her - Tell Me Why - Can't Buy Me Love - I'll Cry Instead

I'll always have a soft spot for 70's British rock, so even though I haven't listened to a ton of Bowie, the overall sound is still pretty familiar. This felt like leafing through my parents' old photobooks — there's gold-tinged hue that settles over the whole album. A good album for a lazy Sunday morning. Eight Line Poem is such a treasure. Bowie's howling and the wailing guitar are nigh indistinguishable, and he just pours his heart onto the track. Might be my favorite track on the album. Changes and Life on Mars? are well-tread territory but this is the first time I really listened to the lyrics and I just gotta say #wow. Kooks really irritated me for some reason. It feels very out of place. I wish I had a better explanation than that. The songwriting is sincere and assured, but hearing all of the different styles he was trying out, I get the sense that Bowie was still settling into his musical identity here. God, Bowie has such a unique voice though. Not the most technically proficient singer, but the personality is just bursting at the seams. The player in me is a big fan of how piano-forward the instrumentation is on a lot of the songs at the front half of the album, especially on Oh! You Pretty Things and Fill Your Heart. The production feels really open and airy, and the flow of the album has a nice ramp up and down. Just like for Hard Day's Night, you can see the foundation being laid for later albums like Ziggy Stardust here. My true rating is a 3.5 but I'll round up to 4 here since there's no half stars. Favorites: - Changes (a bit overplayed but a banger) - Eight Line Poem - Life on Mars? (for my money, Bowie's best song) - Quicksand - Fill Your Heart - Song for Bob Dylan - Queen Bitch

All told, a middling album when you consider an artist of Stevie Wonder's songwriting prowess. For me, this registers as slightly more than "the album with Superstition on it". To be clear: the production was very strong, and his departure from the Motown mold of his early career is a welcome change. I love how heavily the sound leans on drums and bass, and the synth work is pure magic. Not as orchestral/string-y as Songs in the Key of Life, but the pianist in me was a big fan of the heavy usage of Rhodeys and clavs (clavinet, not Clavicular). HOWEVER, the overall songwriting was a big mark against this album. Way too heavy handed with the lovey-dovey themes for my taste, and frankly just boring a lot of the time. It felt like the lyrics were asleep at the wheel for long stretches of this album. Song notes: - Maybe Your Baby has got some serious oomph. Coming off the intro track, it hits like a ton of bricks, hot and heavy and funky. Love it. - You And I is like warm honey. Sometimes all you need is a piano and a voice (and a little bit of synth). - Tuesday heartbreak had me making some serious stank face and shaking my head like a seal, Stevie-style. - Big Brother reminds me a lot of Village Ghetto Land on SITKOL. Stevie is nothing if not politically outspoken. One of the few tracks with strong writing. The harmonica just rips. - Blame It On The Sun is lyically bland, but I really like the way he uses the drum kit to keep the song from falling into straight up sleepy territory. Favorites: - Maybe Your Baby - You and I - Tuesday Heartbreak - Superstition - Big Brother

Another strong name with a weaker-than-expected showing. For what’s supposed to be the Stones’ best album, I was unimpressed. I’ll be meaner in my review than my star rating because nothing was really terrible, but the whole of the album just kind of bored me. The throughline for this album is its consistently bluesy sound. It felt like it was recorded in a dive bar in Memphis, which is impressive given that the Rolling Stones are as British as can be. Unfortunately what you see is what you get. It’s an hour of very listenable (albeit mumbly) music, but there’s no variety. You need a changeup or a curveball, you can’t just try to paint the corner with 101 every pitch. The album was bloated, and the middle of the album sags. I could have lived without the entire run of tracks from Happy to Stop Breaking Down. So many songs would just drag at the end as they repeated the same lyrics and faded the instruments for an extra minute. It’s okay to just end a song sometimes. Song Notes: - Rip this joint is good old fashioned dancing music. A little bit of rockabilly and a little bit of Bourbon Street - Sweet Virginia is a stone cold classic. Easily my fav track on the album. You can easily hear the strong influence of the Memphis blues. - Sweet Black Angel was fucking WILD. Was talking with Austin about how the album felt Deep South and then we got to this song. The affected “slave accent” and the HARD R Mick was using was certainly a choice. Lordy Lordy - Loving Cup is a great song. I think the lyrics are really sweet but the ending of the song drags on. Good use of the brassy sound and piano to keep it alive and semi-fresh as it fades. - Happy was the first song where I had the thought “this is the same song as the last one” which unfortunately was not the last time I had that thought - The run of songs from Turd On The Run, Ventilator Blues, and I Want To See His Face was SO REPETITIVE. Nearly put me to sleep - All Down The Line was a nice pickup in energy after the 5 wailing minutes of Let It Loose - Stop Breaking Down was a pretty egregious example of bloat within the songs themselves - The gospel influences in Shine a Light come right through, but you’re kept on your toes with the vibrato effect on the organ and the solo that breaks the straight churchy feel you’d get otherwise. A good showing that would arguably be better as the album’s closer 6/10 so an even 3 stars here Favorites: - Rip This Joint - Sweet Virginia - Loving Cup - Shine A Light

Note: I listened to the 2014 remaster, not the 2009 one split into 8 tracks + the Evil Woman cover. I absolutely adored this album. It was just plain old fun to listen to. I felt myself being whisked along from song to song, and I was transported somewhere new every time. Muddy, grimy, dark, and chock full of piss and vinegar; I don’t have enough good adjectives to describe the sound here. I’m uninitiated when it comes to metal, but by god if this doesn’t scratch an itch I didn’t know I had. 5 songs and a 39 minute runtime is what I’m gonna call Pink Floyd Chic — I’m a fan of songs that don’t start and end in the same place. This is an incredibly well-paced album, especially in contrast to Friday’s album. Geezer Butler is a wizard on the bass. Ozzy Osbourne’s voice is iconic and Tommy Iommi gets his fair share of (well-deserved) glazing for the immaculate riffing he lays down, but I think Geezer Butler’s bass work is the real hero of this album. Punchy and driving and self assured all at once. While the songwriting isn’t the strongest, and veers into corny at times, the sound and the pacing is so strong that you hardly even notice. Song Notes: - Black Sabbath slow rolls you from the pattering rain and the tolling church bell into a death march meditation. IMO, if Halloween had a theme song this would be it. - the Wizard is hard charging and snot-nosed. Writing a song about your drug dealer is awesome and the harmonica just RIPS. - Wasp/Behind The Wall of Sleep/Bassically is such a sexy track. Each portion rolls into the next, and the spotlight on Geezer’s basswork is wonderful. - Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning is an odyssey. You have no idea what’s waiting at each island and every time I listened to it, it felt like getting picked up and being chucked into a locker in the best way possible. 8/10 Favorites: - Wasp/Behind The Wall of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B. - Wicked World - A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning

This is the first album we've done that doesn't come from "familiar" territory, and I formed a fair amount of preconceived notions in the first 30 seconds of this album that got completely undressed as I listened further. I apologize MBV, I was not familiar with your game. This was chock full of reverb, distortion, amping, and all manner of innovative production techniques; I'd love to see what Kevin Shields' pedalboard looks like. "Take up the space you're given" is fully realized here; there's not a stone left unturned in the exploration of what kind of shit you can really do on a guitar. Even still, the use of synth is tastefully (and surprisingly) restrained. The whole sound of this album is a total onslaught, and cranks Phil Spector's "wall of sound" production style to an 11. I turned the volume up to the max halfway through Only Shallow, which immediately and vastly improved my listening experience. This is one where you need to really surrender yourself to the music. Maybe my level of sobriety has something to do with it, who the fuck knows. I found myself getting inexplicably emotional during some of these songs, and it was honestly a beautiful thing. You can immediately see the influence of this album on the sound of everything from the crunchy midrange guitar seen everywhere in early 2000's rock (I hear so much Bôa in these songs + a bit of Queens of the Stone Age) to the droning and distortion in late 2010's experimental pop (Elvis Depressedly and Current Joys came to mind). Every song left threads to tug on that you can see woven into so many kinds of music that came after this album. This is two albums in a row that were impeccably paced and ordered, something that I'm gonna start paying more attention to. Even for an album this busy, it was still an easier-than-expected listen, largely in part because of the pacing. The songwriting was frankly unintellegible, but I get the sense that we're meant to hear the singing through a veil; how they sing the words matter more than the lyrics themselves. Viewed from a distance, the vocals were almost ethereal. This is gonna be a polarizing one. I anticipate lots of 1's and 5's 7.5/10 Song Notes: - Only Shallow's first guitar riff immediately made me think of In My Head by Queens of the Stone Age - Loomer feels like you're listening to a song underwater. That crunchy muted guitar sounds so much like Pepsi/Coke Suicide by Elvis Depressedly - To Here Knows When reminds me a bit of Dr. Dog's Where'd All The Time Go - When You Sleep shouts itself from the rooftops, and that whistle feels like poking your head out the sunroof on the highway at night - Come In Alone sounds so so so much like Bôa - Sometimes has such a warm fuzz, like sitting by a fireplace on a gray autumn day. The guitar just envelops you in this orange glow. - Soon has such a distinctly mid 2000's synergy between drum and guitar that I loved Favorites: - Loomer - To Here Knows When - When You Sleep - Sometimes - Soon

I really wanted to like this album, because I love D’Angelo, but the predominant emotion I felt while listening to this album was unfortunately boredom. D'Angelo has the voice of an angel, and this is a groovy, sensual (maybe too overtly), well-made album, but doesn’t have the *pop* that you see in some of his other works. None of the songs were bad, but nearly all of them were mildly boring and even worse, forgettable. An album that you can turn on in the background and be content listening to, since it does not require much critical though to appreciate (this album might actually be better as background music than a listening event). I have two criticisms I’ll level here that match what we all said about Exile on Main Street: 1) this felt like an hour of the same song over and over, and 2) you kind of knew what you were getting for the next 6 minutes within the first 15-30 seconds of the song. You can tell that the value of this album is in its production. It is a foundational album in neo-soul and the 90’s flavor of of RnB. The Virginia sound is blisteringly apparent here, and you can recognize the sound of a decade in how D’Angelo layers bass, drums, and synth. It’s got a warm and mellow sound, with an understated but gently layered use of instruments. I frankly have no qualms with the production here. Unfortunately, I felt myself bored and irritated by the lyrics here. They bludgeon you over the head repeatedly with overt sensuality, and I would have appreciated a little bit of nuance or attempts at some poeticism beyond the 50 shades of “I want you baby you’re my girl”. We also run into a common thread in D’Angelo’s music: lyrics repeated over and over (and over) again. There’s no storytelling thread through this album, and it reads more as an anthology more than a true album. It’s not all terrible, but I was left wanting for some lyrical variety. Walk with me here, but this album’s relationship to being good feels analogous to Tate McRae’s relationship to popstar-dom. Tate is a great dancer with a unique voice and a pretty big following, but IMO she just doesn’t have the stage presence or performance ability to shake the label of backup dancer that seems to follow her around. In the same way, Brown Sugar is technically proficient, well-performed, and cleanly produced, but struggles to elevate itself beyond (forgive me) high-school-back-of-car-sex-music. It breaks my heart to rate my goat D’Angelo so low, especially because I know he’s capable of more (How Does It Feel is one of the greatest RnB tracks of all time), but this is just Not A Great Album Unfortunately. 5/10 Song Notes: - The only song note I have for this whole album is to highlight a particularly egregious lyric from Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyez: “You’re gon be the cherry in my chocolate covered dreams” #okay Favorites: - Brown Sugar - Jonz In My Bonz - Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyez - Smooth - Higher

This album was flat-out tedious to listen to. Each song started strong and I’d be having fun with it, then the back 3 quarters of solos would kill my enjoyment. Don’t get me confused, I like jam session type performances, but when the soloing becomes the main focus, you’ve lost me. You can’t just have stuffing and cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner. Not much to say about the production on a live album (the crowd dragged when they clapped along lol), but given that live albums like Amy Winehouse’s At The BBC exist, the inclusion of this one is perplexing to me. Deep Purple are obviously borderline virtuosic instrumentalists, and Ian Gillan can WAIL, so no criticisms on the musicality front. However, the whole thing felt really self-indulgent (dare I say self-fellating). I understand the merit of putting a live album on this list, especially for a performance that deviates so much from its source material, but for these specific songs, I would have much preferred the studio cuts. Song notes: - The drum solo on the Mule was well done but unless you’re John Bonham, don’t do that shit for 6 minutes - When Ian Gillan starts screaming “HEYYYYY” to the crowd at the end of Strange Kind of Woman, I cracked up. I actually had tons of fun from start to finish on that song Favorites: - first part of Highway Star - first part of Smoke on the Water - Strange Kind of Woman

This was a very very solid album. Especially listenable after the past week of meh. The songs got to the point, didn’t overstay their welcome, and other than Carlos Santana’s guitar-ing, the rhythm section was easily the highlight for me — they kept it lively through the whole album. I didn’t realize that almost every Santana song I knew came from this album lol. Not a whole lot of technical notes since this is a more jamm-y album. Just good, clean, family fun like a Spielberg movie. 7/10 Song notes: - The lead-in from Singing Winds, Crying Beasts into Black Magic Woman was such a great one-two punch to start the album - Idk if I’m the only one that heard The Lick during Oye Como Va but that made me laugh Favorites: - Black Magic Woman - Oye Como Va - Incident at Neshabur - Samba Pa Ti

This album felt like eating really good food and not getting any aftertaste. A wonderful Rush-esque sound with pretty decent songwriting (with some odd bits sprinkled in), but nothing that stuck to the memory. In one ear and out the other, but in the most complimentary way possible. The lyrics were a mixed bag for me. Rush really excels at the immersive storytelling aspect of songwriting, but the lyrics felt kind of preachy at times. I have nothing to substantiate that particular claim other than vibes. As far as the sound goes, this is pretty textbook prog rock to me, but that’s Rush for you. I got exactly what I ordered. The drums are fantastic throughout the album, and I found myself tickled by Geddy Lee's funny-man voice. I really enjoyed the sound, and was really impressed with how clean the instrumentation was. At the same time, I wasn’t blown away by any particular song, or the album writ large. 7/10. Call it a mid to high 3 stars. Song Notes: - The intro track is surprisingly cohesive for a 20-minute song. I thought the defamiliarization of the guitar in the middle of the song was a fun piece. The lyrics felt weirdly preachy at times, but I enjoyed the storytelling and the journey we went on. The back half of the track reminded me vaguely of the end of Kubrick’s 2001. I might be crazy but one of the guitar licks around the 4:30 mark sounded like Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. - A Passage to Bangkok was catchy. The Chinaman Lick (I had to look that up) felt gratuitous, but I was amused by the lyrics. - I hated Tears at first but the songwriting is earnest and heartfelt. I came around to it eventually - The writing on Something for Nothing felt even preachier than the intro. What is happening here? Am I missing something? Favorites: - A Passage to Bangkok - Lessons - Something for Nothing

This album is shit from a butt. As far as alt-rock albums go, this was a head scratcher of an inclusion. I heard nothing innovative sonically or lyrically, so I am perplexed by the inclusion of this album on the 1001 — by 1995, the sound is riding on the coattails of bands like Soundgarden or Pearl Jam. The instrumentals sounded generic, and the vocals felt lifeless; it sounded like Justine Frischmann was bored by her own singing. The sound is not terrible but it is exceedingly bland, and I never found myself excited by any song. I couldn’t even bring myself to nod my head or tap my foot most of the time. This felt like a collection of half-baked musical ideas that were demo’d and then wrapped into an album. Most of these songs would be at home in a chase scene from a mid-budget 2000's movie, but I don’t mean that as a compliment. I really should give this album 2 stars because it is still kind of listenable and nothing is truly terrible, but the throughline of this album is how utterly boring it is, which for me is the worst sin of all. My least favorite album so far, by far. 3/10 Favorites: - Stutter

Man stop. Look what I'm plannin', plannin', I'm plannin' to do all this while ya panickin' and you're lookin' and starin' at mannequins and I'm goin' to Fanagans. Trying to get up a plan against all of the blana-kazana-ka-fam-bam-bannigans while of all the bana-kazanika Hanna in a cabana. You're in a cab- I'm in a cabana and a Janet I'm in a cabana chantin' all this standup banter while you don't got the stamina, you're lackin' the stamina. You're lackin' the stamina while you're divorcin' Harrison Ford and I'm in a Porsche on the floorboards while I'm world tourin' you usin' way too many napkins, papkins lapkins and chapki- you using ChapStick and napkins while I'm bapkin' flappin' around like a bapkin' flamminababbitapannitajampkin dammit, a can of pada- Musically, this is a wonderful blend of East and West. If I had a nickel for every time Labi Siffre got sampled in an iconic hip hop track... anyways. I love how they experiment with structure, both on an individual track and album-wide level. I really don't have much to say about this album sonically, since it's so well-produced. Just a fun sound all around. As far as the lyricism goes, I'm of two minds. My immediate reaction was shock at the blatant vulgarity of the subject matter. Hearing about raping 15 year olds and your daughter helping you dump a body in the ocean is not exactly easy listening lmao. The Dee Barnes line in Guilty Conscience had me laughing out loud. Cartoonish misogyny and homophobia aside (crazy statement, but walk with me), this is someone that's flat broke, angry, despairing, and downtrodden. The Slim Shady persona is a therapeutic device for Eminem, and you can hear the frustrations of living in poverty and how life is kicking him while he's down. Songs like Rock Bottom are when his lyrics shine the most. Especially for its time, it's a refreshing take to see a rapper that's willing to make himself vulnerable and talk about his worst moments. However, the messaging on a lot of these tracks is not great to say the least. '97 Bonnie and Clyde is performed with a chilling calm, and I can see how songs like Role Model would land with a younger, more impressionable crowd. Shady's rapping is damn near perfect here. Make your jokes about his unique rhyme scheme (a la Chris D'Elia's "Man Stop" bit), but Eminem has an incredible talent and instinct for modulation and flow. There's a reason Dre stood on a table to get him signed to Aftermath. A triumphant performance for Eminem. 8/10 Favorites: - My Name Is (duh) - Brain Damage - Rock Bottom - Bad Meets Evil

I struggled a lot with what I was gonna rate this album. I walked into it expecting to give it a high 3/low 4 based on prior knowledge of the album. By the time I got through the three-song run of Sgt. Pepper's/Help From My Friends/Lucy, I had convinced myself this album was gonna be my first 5 star. By the time I reached the end of Day In The Life, I had come back down to earth, more vindicated in my initial expectation. I've arrived at the following conclusion: I enjoyed the show! This isn't the best album of all time, it's not even the best Beatles album (hell, it's not even top 3). It is, however, a fun album to listen to, a foundational (that's twice I've used that word in a Beatles album review now) work as a concept album, and as a benchmark for more experimental sounds moving forward. It is also an indicator of the zeitgeist of the late 60's, serving as the backdrop for the Summer of Love (six-sevennnnn hahahahahahahaahahahahaha) and broader cultural change -- at least in the US -- around the time. We're tipping pretty firmly into the Drugged Out Beatles era. This is some real hippie shit. Throughout the album, I am a huge fan of how McCartney and Lennon's voices play off of each other. Paul's honey-sweet tenor contrasts wonderfully with Lennon's nasal drawl (at its worst during Lucy). The instrumentation is eclectic to say the least, but well-balanced through it all. This also marks 2 albums in a row that feature the harpsichord prominently. I wonder if we can do a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon drawing a musical lineage from the Beatles to Eminem. Just a musing. 7/10 Song Notes: - As previously mentioned, the three-track run to start the album is unparalleled, and promises a spectacle. As such, it's almost a regression to follow up that promise with Getting Better and Fixing a Hole, two very safe "classic" Beatles sounds. - She's Leaving Home was written and sung in a really tender in a very defeated kind of way, and it really stuck with me. Something about songs addressing relationships between parents and kids always gets me. - I audibly laughed out loud when I first heard the intro of Within You Without You. As far as the George Harrison-ness of the song, WYWY has the subtlety of an 18-wheeler. - The whiplash of going from George's drugged out sitar to Paul's Sesame Street clarinet of Sixty Four cannot be understated - I was a big fan of the intro to Lovely Rita. Something about that guitar sound just tickles me. - Day in the Life is a trip of a song. The John/Paul splits are really fun to contrast, and this is some of Ringo's best work imo. The discordant orchestra building to each new part of the song adds a nice tension to the end of the album, but the secret track at the end feels like a 'fuck you' to what's otherwise a really fun album - Dishonorable mentions to Fixing a Hole, Mr. Kite, and Good Morning. All of them fell flat on their faces imo Favorites: - With A Little Help From My Friends - Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds - She's Leaving Home - Lovely Rita - Sixty Four - A Day In The Life

I was unmoved by this album on the first listen through. Partly because I was calibrated to oldies when I started listening, and partly because I wasn't giving it the attention it deserved. Second listen through when I actually locked in and payed attention was completely different. I love the two songs I knew from the Cure before listening to this album. Friday I'm In Love and Boys Don't Cry are obviously bangers, and those were more in line with what I was expecting out of this album. Obviously not the same type of light and airy post-punk rock I was familiar with, but a really lovely sound nonetheless. From the Wikipedia page: The Cure felt an "increased pressure to follow up on the band's pop successes with a more enduring work ... coupled with a distaste for the group's newfound popularity". It's pretty funny that an album made as a reaction to becoming too mainstream ended up being one of their most commercially successful albums. The sound of this album is incredible. The production is wonderfully layered, and between the piercing synths and punchy bass & drums, all wrapped up in reverb, you end up with a heavy-lidded drugged out sound. Moody and gray and haunting and bleak, but keeps you immersed the whole way through. Listening to this album during this spat of rainy days we're having in Dayton really helped. This sounds almost like a proto-shoegaze sonic influence/inspiration for MBV's Loveless. Austin mentioned this as well, so thanks for pointing out something I didn't hear at first, but you hear a ton of Olivia Rodrigo's sound in this album. It all falls along the lines of that Joy Division/Depeche Mode/The Cure sound. It makes complete sense after looking into it though. She's explicitly called out the Cure as a sonic inspiration for her last album, performed with Robert Smith at Glasto last year, and then did What's Wrong With Me with him on YSPS. Really fun example to see an album on this list with a direct line to its influence on modern music. 8/10 Favorites: - Pictures of You - Lovesong - Lullaby - The Same Deep Water as You - Disintegration

Out of disrespect for Jayden Daniels, I'm giving this album 5 stars. Brothers in Arms is a flat-out fun time. It's the first time this project I've walked away with this big of a grin on my face. This is how I felt while listening [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLPAUHdyjRI]. Mark Knopfler is awesome. An immediately recognizable voice with an absolute technical mastery of his instrument, his playing just oozes coolness. Tastefully restrained but never ever timid, his guitar work is easily the highlight of this album. Dire Straits has such a recognizable and iconic sound, and listening to them is just so comforting. Intentional or not, I hear a lot of Carlos Santana in both the guitar playing and the production for some of these songs. The instrumentation is masterful: restrained drums and synth, with ample moments for sax, trumpet, and guitar to shine shine shine. 10/10 Song Notes: - That glassy guitar tone on So Far Away is textbook Dire Straits. God it's so good. - When I heard the "I want my MTV" lyric in Money for Nothing I felt like the pointing whistling Leo meme. It's the MTV jingle they use in all their videos!!! The riff is iconic, but more importantly for me, this song is the soundtrack for our ROTC fridge moving escapades, trying to make a little summer money; it's also indelibly tied to the mental image of Jamie taking a shooter of vodka he found in the bedframe of a dorm in South Quad. Good shit. - Your Latest Trick is buttery smooth and velvety rich. I'm getting echoes of Santana with the reverb'd out guitar and drums. The saxophone FUCKS. Talk about having motion. - Why Worry just oozes tenderness, and the guitar tone reminds me of the sound of the guitar in Purple Rain. The lyrics felt like a warm hug that I really needed. - Ride Across the River feels like another Santana track; the influence is a lot stronger here, and the trumpet/sax combo + punchy guitar solo + reverb'd out drums is textbook. - Man's Too Strong was a nice changeup, and that crunchy guitar is a good counterpoint to the silkier playing we've grown accustomed to by this point in the album. - The bass in One World is so indulgently poppy it just tickles my eardrums - Brothers in Arms really moved me. Between the gentle weeping of the guitar to kick you off and the mournful reflection from Mark Knopfler, I was transported to the aforementioned misty mountains during this song. Easily my favorite track on the album, which is saying a lot given how strong each song is individually. Favorites: - Money for Nothing - Walk of Life - Your Latest Trick - Brothers in Arms

Another plain old good time. I’m gonna be a little bit loosey gooey and give this one a 5 as well. This album seems to lay down a lot of musical bones and scraps that other artists have picked up over the years. Maybe because it’s just a lot of covers and 12-bar blues, but lots of riffs, licks, and motifs sounded familiar throughout the record. I don’t feel like chasing all of them down but I’m sure y’all feel the same way. Either way, it puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step. Green Onions (the album) is deceptively layered in its instrumentation, even if it’s mostly just an organ and a guitar in conversation for long stretches. The bass sets a strong foundation to build on and then it’s off to the races. The musical equivalent of running the ball for 3.4 YPC. Simple but effective. 9/10 but we’ll round up to 5 stars Song Notes: - The opening organ riff that takes us into the title track's 12-bar blues needs no introduction. One of the most recognizable soundbites in music. The Telecaster just SINGS here. - Shoutout to Augie for the assist but the guitar at the end of Stranger On The Shore is straight up Coldplay’s Adventure of a Lifetime - Don't know if a chromatic descent is really a proprietary thing, but the lick in Comin' Home Baby reminds me of Sublime's Date Rape intro - That Hammond organ is truly 60's sound embodied. Booker T. Jones turns it into a living, breathing thing on this album. Gooooood shit. Favorites: - Green Onions - Rinky Dink - Mo’ Onions - Stranger On The Shore - One Who Really Loves You - Comin’ Home Baby

Raekwon (and the rest of the Clan) is in peak form here. RZA is an absolute magician on the mix, and he fills your ears to the brim with grit and dust (complimentary). His beats completely immerse you in that Wu-Tang sound, and it sucks you right into a world full of smoke and crime and kung-fu movies. Raekwon and Ghostface bounce off each other like Batman and Robin (Batman and Batman?), and their synergy brought a whole new level to mylistening experience. I was completely captivated when they were going at 100% The lyrics are a bit corny at times, but the rapping is top notch. The lyricism and flow are strong points of this album, even if that's what you expect from this cast of characters. Where the album starts to falter for me is the narrative strength on the macro level. I understood the the rough outlines of a mafia crime story, but the song-to-song storytelling didn't provide a strong throughline. This album also rambles for a little longer than it should. The hour-plus runtime was peppered with bloat. There was a bit of a slow start, and the skits -- while a ubiquitous part of the genre, and serving as nice setups to some tracks -- should have been edited for brevity. Take out the first 3 songs and cut down the skits and you're cooking with gas. Still, despite the weaknesses, this is a damn good album. Immersive and dark and energetic, I really enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to the first proper WTC album. 7/10. I'll round up to 4 here because this ain't a 3 star album. Song notes: - My first introduction to this album was actually an episode of the Boondocks I watched with Jamie in junior year (Guillotine) - The Nas feature on Verbal Intercourse is so damn good wheeeeew. - Method Man was a great Alfred to Raekwon and Ghostface's Batman & Robin in Ice Cream, but he was clearly the 3rd best rapper in the room imo - The 3-song run to end the album is really strong. North Star is probably my favorite track on this album, and listening felt like riding off on a luscious cloud, Raekwon was at his best here. Favorites: - Criminology - Incarcerated Scarfaces - Rainy Dayz - Guillotine - Verbal Intercourse - Ice Cream - Heaven & Hell - North Star

I was initially upset that Melodrama made this list over Pure Heroine, then I listened to the album. Now I'm fucking livid. This is a sophomore slump if I've ever seen one. It really struggles to elevate itself beyond 'default pop album', and I'm really puzzled by the inclusion on this list, unless it's to serve as an example of what the inside of an H&M sounds like. As I'm sure Tyler will allude to, the production has Jack Antonoff's fingerprints all over it. That pulsating 16th note synth & bass is a dead giveaway, and you'll find that in a ton of 2010's pop if you listen for it. You've also got the tinny electronic drums, which is another mainstay. Antonoff is someone that loves to play with distortion and reverb a lot too, something you hear a bunch in The Louvre. A pretty textbook Jack Antonoff produced album This is exactly the kind of music I loved when I was 15/16, driving around town at night with my friends and enjoying the newfound freedom of a driver's license after realizing I could lie to my parents and say I was studying at a friend's house. That breathy, mumbled singing is a Lorde calling card (I didn't know she's from New Zealand!), but 'sad girl'-ness that pervades this entire album gets a bit tired. The talk-singing oscillates between haunting and affected, and it walks that line really uncomfortably; at its most noticeable during Liability and Writer In The Dark (the way she sings those lyrics in that song irk me to no end). The lyrics are extremely melodramatic (ha), but given that she was 20 when she released this album, I can partially forgive it, since most 20 year olds are just Like That. However, the subject matter is overly well-tread territory. How many times can we make an album about a breakup. I'm sad, I'm mad, I still love you, I regret you, you regret me, I'm drowning my sorrows and getting fucked up. Blah. I level the same accusation I leveled at Elastica: music can be a lot of things, and can make you feel a lot of different ways but the one thing you can never do is be boring. This was a nothingburger unfortunately. A perfectly listenable pop album, and hits hard if you're 16 or throwing it on in the background of a Pac-Sun, but past that I wouldn't touch it. 4/10 Favorites: - Homemade Dynamite - Liability - Perfect Places

holy fuck this was a boring lazy nonchalant featureless plain low-energy total snoozefest zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. sorry i fell asleep typing the review for this BORING ASS ALBUM. Favorites: - Intro. Misleading as fuck