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

I'm a tad biased, since I love me some Bill Evans, so I'll preface with that. What a wonderfully understated album. Simplicity reigns supreme here, and I'm partial to the occasional hit of horn-less jazz. These dudes are mind readers. They have this uncanny ability to play off of each other, especially Evans and Lafaro. Part of that is probably a function of Bill's playing style and unique chord voicings -- he likes to use rootless chords in the left hand, giving the bassist the freedom to explore melodies and rhythms without boxing him into a timekeeping role. Still, it's refreshing to hear a bass player exercise this much agency in melodizing underneath a piano solo, and this is maybe one of the purest examples of musicians in conversation with each other that I've seen to date. I think a criticism that could be leveled at this album is that it sounds like generic cocktail/hotel bar jazz, but I'd argue that this is likely the source material for why this is what you hear in clubs and lounges all over the place. I have no way of actually verifying that, but anecdotally, the jazz pianists I knew (5-6 different people is my sample size) cited Evans as an influence in how they play. Can't really blame them for wanting to emulate that kind of depth and feel in their sound. The songs however, are remarkably similar which is another knock I can see coming. Bill has such an instantly recognizable sound; I reckon that y'all could pick out a Bill Evans song in a blind listening test without any trouble. Those extended block chords and voicings, plus all of the breathing room he leaves between each chord, make his playing here sound like falling rain on a misty day. It's just plain beautiful. You can hear such a strong influence from the impressionist composers that I loved to play growing up (Ravel and *especially* Debussy) with that ethereal, watercolor-y sound. Maybe just me, but you can really hear that classical training in the way he rolls through his phrases. People will point to Thelonius and Herbie, and I won't begrudge them that, but for my money, Bill is the greatest jazz pianist of all time. Okay that's enough glazing. Yeesh. As much as I love Evans' playing, I would argue that that Scott Lafaro's bass playing is the star of the show here. Listening to him dance up and down the fretboard was such a treat, and you can tell that him and Bill brought out the best in each other in this album. No idea when we're gonna get to A Kind of Blue, but I hear so much of the Bill Evans sound in that album, especially in Blue in Green and Flamenco Sketches. I know he was the pianist on that album, but it's remarkable how clearly his influence can be heard in different albums. 7/10. Half star bump because I’m biased and you can’t stop me Favorites: - Solar - Alice In Wonderland - All of You

I really don't have a ton to say on this one. A perfectly okay album. Ran a bit long for my liking. Everything was kind of just...there. Like if the color beige was an album. Pure mid (in the real sense of the word, I don't mean *bad*). Maybe I'll feel differently on a re-listen, since I only went through this one once. 5/10. Rounding down to 2 because this is a pretty bland entry all things considered.

God, I didn't expect this album to hit as hard as it did. Maybe I'm feeling sentimental today. Dolly just has that "it" factor. Her voice is crystal clear in the truest sense of the word. Bright and piercing and sharp enough to cut steel. Her songwriting chops are on full display through the first two tracks, and taking us from the tenderness of a mother's love to a stealing your daughter's lover is a great bit. She wears her heart on her sleeve and her songs are honey-sweet and occasionally comedic. She fills this album with color and mirth. The title track is easily the best on the album imo. That mellow steel guitar is a great counterpoint to Dolly's soprano, and it wails sweetly through this album. Dolly's restraint in her singing is also nice. No need to shout from the rooftops, but you can hear the power in her voice. 8/10 but we're getting our tits out for Dolly and bumping this to 5 stars and you can’t stop me. Rest in Peace legend Song Notes: - An absolute heartbreaker of a song to start this album. Poignant and tender and in the wake of Dolly dying it just shatters your heart into a million pieces. The walking bassline is wonderful here. - That steel guitar just cries in If I Lose My Mind. It has some vague structural similarities to You Never Even Called Me By My Name (Edgar Allen Coe), maybe I'm the only one that hears it. - The bass on Early Morning Breeze is FUNKY. - Here I Am has some great singing by Dolly. It's what I was mentioning earlier with her vocal restraint. - For all the heartbreak we're put through, she ends on a high note with A Better Place to Live. The lyrics border on saccharine, but I'm feeling sentimental, and we could use a little bit of optimism these days. Favorite lyrics: "la la la la la, la la la, la la la la" Favorites: - Coat of Many Colors - Traveling Man - My Blue Tears - Early Morning Breeze - A Better Place To Live

Our first entry from the 27 Club. A posthumous album from a fellow Texan, but that's about all the context I had going into this album. I should look more into it after this listen though. Drugs and musical talent usually make for a hell of a Wikipedia page. This album was really well produced! The Full Tilt Boogie Band earns its namesake here, especially on Buried Alive In The Blues, but never overpowers Janis. The keys add such a bright color to the entire album, piano or Hammond, and the bassline stays lively throughout. The songwriting is top-notch as well, really tender lyrics but I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. The real attraction here is Janis Joplin's singing. Wow! That raspy mezzo soprano is captivating, and that wildness belies a disciplined control of her vibrato. She's got a voice like a lit cigarette in a barrel of fireworks. It's raunchy, full-throttle, hard-charging, and BIG! The vocal affectations on Mercedes Benz are a bit over the top, but you can tell she put her soul on the track here. 7/10, will round up to a 4 star because of that great voice Favorites: - A Woman Left Lonely - Half Moon (FUNKY) - My Baby - Me and Bobby McGee - Get It While You Can

Starting with a sidenote: the first thing I noticed is that Twenty One Pilots reheated a lot of Linkin Park's nachos in their later work. I hear a lot of Blurryface in this album, so we at least know where some of that sound is coming from. While the nu-metal-ish sound is fun enough with that crunchy guitar and heavy drumming, you realize about halfway through how over-produced the overall sound is. It got old really fast for me. Every song is remarkably similar (but not necessarily bad!), and I was left wanting for any kind of variety. I think that somewhere around A Place for My Head, it got actively tedious for me to listen to and I had to take a break. I couldn't really bring myself to care about the lyrics either. They were so corny that I could hardly focus on anything else. I don't doubt the veracity of Chester Bennington's fucked up life (from my understanding), but the entire thing just felt commercial and inauthentic to me. Something got lost in translation along the way, and this album suffers for it. It's like it wants to be raw and angry, but you're seeing that through a sterilization filter. I don't hate this album, but I was left largely unimpressed. 6/10 Favorites: - Papercut - Crawling - By Myself - In The End

This entire album sounds like How It's Made background music except worse. Actual shit from a butt.

Sound-wise, I'm hearing a lot of that Radiohead alt-rocky distorted and reverb'd guitar sound that seemed to pervade the late 90's/early 2000's. Not that I have a problem with it, but this isn't a sonic innovation by any stretch. I can see where the milquetoast allegations come from, even if I don't fully agree. Not a ton happening musically that we haven't seen before, but that's not really Coldplay's calling card anyways. Some things I noticed: lots of hall reverb throughout the album, a la Beach House (maybe just a product of the early aughts), and especially in Trouble. A refreshingly light touch on the drums in a lot of the songs, and it almost sounds like they're using brushes instead of sticks in some of the songs. Most of the dough gets made on emotional impact though (and like 15% on Chris Martin's falsetto lmao), felt most acutely in the alley-oop dunk of Sparks and Yellow... still hits. If you listen with a vibes-focused mindset you'll enjoy the album a lot better. I listened critically the first time, then just let myself go the second time, and I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around. The lyricism did not move me at all. None of it's bad, but none of it's that good either. Broadly speaking, the front half of the album is where all the good stuff lived. The back half felt kind of like rehashing the greatest hits of 20 minutes ago, and nothing really new came out of the fold. 7/10. Rounding up to 4 because I love Sparks, and I can't quite bring myself to make this a 3 star rating. Favorites: - Shiver - Sparks - Yellow - Everything's Not Lost

A perfectly listenable hard rock/hardcore album. I was initially low on this through the first 2-3 songs but it started coming into its own as the album went on. Good on them for escaping what I thought was a pretty surefire 2 star rating. I think the mellower songs (Secret 77 specifically) had a well-done sound and I’d have liked to hear more of that than we got. 5/10 Favorites: - Secret 77 - Let Me Help - Sacred Love

A disco album with a nice energetic start, but not something I’d sit down and listen to again. The momentum established in the first 3-4 minutes of Good Times dies out in the last 4-5 minutes of Good Times, which is a complaint I found myself making often during this album. This is a 36 minute album that could have been 28, which is especially egregious when you can lop off the back third of most of the songs on this album and make no discernible dent in the listening experience. Great errand music, but that’s where I’d cap this record. Special shoutout to Bernie Edwards’ finger pick bass-ing. Delicious. 5/10. Minus a half star for gratuitous song lengths, plus half a star for the bassline on Good Times. Rounding down because while the disco sound is clean, it resolves into background music more often than I’d like. And again, the song lengths. Song notes: - Good Times: one of my favorite “3 on E” bassline riffs (as popularized Joe Dart and Jack Stratton) Favorites: - Good Times - A Warm Summer Night - The bass/tap dance break in My Feet Keep Dancing, but only that

Pretty middle of the road stuff here. Nothing to hate, some stuff to like. There’s some fun compositions and instrumental work in Alison, Red Shoes, and Watching the Detectives, and the lyrics are occasionally fun and playful, but his singing reeks of a Reddit-y flavor of snark/sarcasm that’s about 40 years early. Another issue I have with this album is that these songs do not pop enough for me on a macroscopic or individual level. There is an occasionally frightening level of homogeneity here. Still, it’s a fun listen when you’re thinking about it as punk wearing an Elvis costume. That 50’s rock-n-roll (ish) sound is readily apparent for an album that came out the same year as Star Wars, but you can see some of the seeds for pop-punk being sown here with some of the instrumentals. Pay It Back has some really crispy guitar and the bassline in Watching The Detectives glues the whole thing together. 5/10 Favorites: - Blame It On Cain - Alison - Red Shoes - Pay It Back

What a gem. For someone trying to break out of the mold of ‘1970’s British singer-songwriter’ she displays a staggering amount of versatility. Stylistically, I was getting shades of Elton John (Down To Zero), Joni Mitchell (Save Me), Dusty Springfield (Water With The Wine), and even Pink Floyd (Tall In The Saddle) depending on the song. Folk, country, funk, blues, you want it? We got it. Compositionally varied, and keeps you on your toes with solos from everything from steel guitars to saxophones — unconventional for what I thought was a proto-Tracy Chapman Speaking of, this is probably an unoriginal thought, but Joan is the foundation upon which Tracy Chapman stands, but this was probably an incredibly refreshing sound in the 70’s that paved the way for artists like her, after her. That soulful alto is really something. It’s distinctive and powerful, and her voice lifts every song and lends weight to her songwriting, which is mature and well fleshed out. 9/10. I still felt really strongly about this even after 2 more listens, but this is a vibes based 5 star since I still can’t exactly verbalize my rationale. I just love it Favorites: - Water With The Wine - Love and Affection - People - Like Fire - Tall In The Saddle

I've been waiting probably about 15 years to bust out this fun fact: Andy Warhol designed the cover for this album, Levi's 505's with a fully functioning zipper and tighty-whities underneath. The zipper scratched a bunch of the vinyls when they shipped. This is also the debut of the Stones' iconic tongue logo. Source: Uncle John's Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (17th Edition). A much better execution of the bluesy, occasionally folksy rock that I think was really overdone in Exile on Main Street (even if this album came out before EOMS). More focused and distilled imo. The composition and instrumentals are great, and I love how the guitars get a lot of space to breathe and shine, even if the bass and drum were pretty basic all the way through. Keith Richards kills it. What the hell is up with Mick Jagger and singing songs about black women. Getting big Sean Penn "You like black girls? Well I love 'em" energy outta this one. I'm not sure if Brown Sugar or Sweet Black Angel is more racist, but at least Brown Sugar is catchy. Mick's voice is like nails on a chalkboard, but I imagine at least some of that is hammed up on purpose. This entire album is chaotic and gritty and it lends itself nicely to that vibe. The songwriting in the back four songs in this album is the strongest work I've seen from the Stones. Special shoutout to Sister Morphine. What a hauntingly beautiful tune. 7/10. Kinda surprised myself with this rating ngl Song Notes: - Wild Horses was probably my favorite track. Great songwriting and a tender delivery - Can't You Hear Me Knocking is fun, even if the lyrics are kind of phoned in - You Gotta Move used the melody from Robert Johnson's Come On In My Kitchen, so we're seeing that strong blues influence in the Stones' repertoire. Way to channel the GOAT - The hammed up southern accent in Dead Flowers made me laugh, especially because Mick Jagger is so bad at it. Favorites: - Wild Horses - Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Bitch - I Got The Blues - Sister Morphine - Dead Flowers

I am entirely unmoved. This is alt-rock Elastica.