No thank you. Like a ‘90s version of The Doors. Perfectly competent musicians making self-serious songs that I have zero interest in listening to. The quality and affect in Vedder’s vocals that turns some people off are particularly pronounced on this album. It makes sense that most of these songs are reworked from Mother Love Bone songs - they sound like they are in tension with themselves and feel like a collision of genres that is forced rather than intentional. If someone else put this record on, I wouldn’t go so far as to ask them to turn it off. I can’t see myself ever intentionally choosing to listen to any song on this album again.
2 bangers followed by a clunker in the first half; 2 bangers and a background track for the second half. A couple must skip tracks, but more all-timers. Cohesive themes and great lyrics (mostly) throughout. Holds up 30+ years later. Don’t sleep on this one. Adding (back) to regular rotation.
Maybe it’s me, but I find the pseudo intellectual and egoistic myth making of Jim Morrison too nauseating to stomach. The music is okay, but the vocals and lyrics consistently leave me reaching for the skip button. I’m pretty sure Joe Rogan and Jim Morrison would be BFFs - if only he just had a shitty band instead of a highly influential broadcast…
Solid album all the way through. A couple of all-timers. No skips.
Coupla tracks are cringeworthy, but there are easily 8 or 9 tracks that hold up still. The musical production and performance quality are great. The rap style and content will thankfully get better in follow up records, but the seed is planted and growing even here.
I’m sure I’ve heard this before, but never really listened to it. It’s darker and deeper than it may seem. It draws from so many styles and specific artists for inspiration, yet still feels like its own thing. It somehow feels exactly of the early aughts and unstuck in time. This is going into the rotation (and it sparked nostalgia for other bands I was listening to in this genre at the time that I’ll go back to too).
Not the first album I think of from Beck, but literally every song is excellent.
Classic for a reason. People often think early hip hop had basic beats - this is the counter argument.
RIP to a legend and genuinely good person.
Highway Star is one of the best lead tracks of any hard rock album. Following with Maybe I’m a Leo, with a deep and funky groove to it, is a great one two punch. Smoke on the Water suffers from being overplayed and so often emulated, but it’s a good cut. Lazy is a favorite and Space Trucker rips. Blind Man is sappy, whiny closer - too drippy for my liking.
Wall to wall bangers. Eclectic and fearless. Has the feel of Afrofuturism while being so specifically of its time. Still as fresh and relevant as it was two and a half decades ago.
Perfect.
Technically excellent, but not an album that I connect with in any meaningful way. Extremely listenable and yet forgettable. Any track would make for a great addition to a dinner party playlist.
While it’s my favorite of their albums, I can only handle the White Stripes in small doses. Probably because I worked in a record store when they debuted and most of my coworkers had them in near-constant rotation.
Some great songs still require context. It’s hard to appreciate what these songs are really all about and commenting on without having lived through it or investing the time and effort to put them in context.i want to meet the person who says “Jamaica Jerk-Off is my favorite song” without irony.
The most “2” of two-star albums. Utterly forgettable, but some just won’t let it be forgotten.
The arrangements and production on this album are stellar. So much to hear and appreciate with each new listen. Best enjoyed with headphones or a loud, high-fidelity system. I’d put it at 4.5, but rounded up because each time I pull this out, I find more to like.
Too hard to explain. Another time, another time. 4am and wandering. Hesitation.
While I appreciate the importance and impact this album had, I prefer listening the bands and genres the Sex Pistols influenced over this.
They are clearly talented, but I struggled to get through this one. The mix of styles detracts rather than adds, for me. I like all the genres they are pulling from, but I don’t like the way they come together. I’m glad this exists and influenced a lot of artists that I love, but it’s just not to my taste after multiple plays through. I can’t imagine ever listening to this again, but I’ll round up for the musicianship and creativity.
Great lyrics, but many of the songs have quite similar, repetitive, and limited range in the melodies. I guess that's part of the folk tradition, but doesn't make for very interesting listening IMO. Some standouts: Suzanne, Sisters of Mercy, So Long Marianne, One of Us Cannot Be Wrong. I think I prefer Leonard Cohen a song at a time, rather than an album at a time.
Has some good tracks, but nothing close to the level of their absolutely essential debut. By most accounts, the divergence of artistic vision throughout the making of this album is what led to the departure of most of the band. I can see why - it feels like there's very little cohesion. Also, I get the whole thing with wanting to bookend the album, but this is probably the most glaring instance of "the first track should be the closing track" in existence.
The production is solid and there's plenty to like about their sound, but the songs are pretty forgetable background sounds. The better songs on the al;bum weren't written by the band. Happy to encounter a few of the tracks when I'm in the mood for an "AM Gold" kind of soundtrack, but I won't revisit this one.
Never need to hear that again. I'm worried it's even tainted my future enjoyment of the original tracks sampled. I'm not sure what's worse, the formulaic way all of these songs are constructed, or the lyrics (groan). Every song is about a minute too long, including the songs that are only about a minute long.
The story is better than the album. I’ve heard them both enough and I’d be happy if they were both just left on the shelf now, thanks. Improvisation is great for “finding” bits that will turn into songs or “playing with” already existing songs to draw out novelty or create surprise. I’m not a fan of improvisation like this that feels like just noodling around. Also, improvisation for an audience shouldn’t be recorded - the whole point is to “be here now” and share an experience that cannot be recreated.
If I was there and in my teens/twenties at the time, I would have been front row. Now that I've heard and enjoyed those that they influenced so much more, I just can't with this one. A friend and colleague I worked with at a record store in college lived for Siouxsie and this album. I respect his taste and he introduced me to so many great artist (Elvis Costello, Killing Joke, Bauhaus, The Gun Club come to mind), but I could just never get into this.
I could see myself revisiting this again, but after three listens, I'm just a bit lukewarm on it. Nothing that makes me want to hit that skip button, but there were only a couple of tracks that caught my attention as worth listening to more regularly and deeply.
Their weakest album. It's a messy, hodge-podge of experimentation with genre and lots of noodling. Not bad if you already like the band, but not what I'd recommend to anyone who's not invested in the lore and history of the '60s LA psych scene.
I was initially ready to dismiss this album as overly saccharine and as sounding great, but being light on substance. I’m glad I listened to it multiple times, giving it my full attention and listening with headphones ultimately. I realized it’s easy to overlook something that’s bigger than it seems when you approach it with casual cynicism and undue (passive) skepticism. Impressive to see modern artists remaining devoted to the album, song cycle, or a unified concept collection of songs when the machinery incentivizes the immediacy and junk food style desire for bold flavors, but empty calories of single song releases.
This album was included in a handful of albums that a college girlfriend’s roommate gave me with the caveat that “you can never sell these and if you decide you don’t like any of them, you have to find them a good home.” They were her dad’s, and were of the few things she had of his. She was a great writer and a crunchy norcal hippie from a town called Cool. I wonder what she’s up to.
Screw It, We’re Just Gonna Talk About The Beatles
Surreal, weird, and wonderful. Perfect for a wander on a rainy day.
I have no memory of buying or intentionally listening to this album, yet I knew every song. Like, I could sing along to it and knew most of the words. I must have wiped that part of my mental hard drive to protect myself from embarrassment. Wow this is bad.
Obviously all the stars
Fucking good. Hard, deep, and relentless. Don’t give up because it’s abrasive. Crazy how this lines up to the sentiment around (child sexual) abuse and politics 40 years after it was released.
Best appreciated in the dark with a great pair of headphones or the highest fidelity stereo system you have access to. Other option: Listening party with fellow enthusiast for musical exploration and appreciation. Set and setting are key, they extent to which you arrive to it in an already altered state - up to you. I feel like fully appreciating this album requires treating it with the reverence and seriousness of the band themselves when they made it. It may make you feel at onece silly, uncool, and try-hard, but let yourself go and feel something, man. P.s. I had fun hypothesizing what a double LP version of this album might look like based on their live sets at the time. An extension of the cycle? A repetition of the cycle with different tracks? Hard to imagine any change to the bookends, so that's gotta stay.
I (mostly) remember seeing Justice at the Congress Theater on NYE in 2008 --> 2009. Some of my crustier theater friends at the time were living in what was supposed to be retail space next door and in the basement below that. There was a passage in the basement that connected their place with the backstage area at Congress theater. There was no door on their side - just a crude hole in the wall with a large board covering it. We also hung out and smaked cigarettes on the back stoop or out front, facing the street. Both resulted in befriending most of the staff (the ones doing security, box office, maintenance). As such, they'd often let us into shows for free or be cool with us sneaking back and forth through the passage. I can't remember which was the case on that particular night, but we got in and I know we didn't have tickets. The next year, we did the same thing for Girl Talk's NYE show and I remember the two story house set on the stage (but not much else - that was a wild one). Oh year, and this Justice album still sounds fresh and relevant in 2026 despite being 20 years old.
Solid. Hard to disassociate from every time one of these tracks is used as shorthand in a film to signify Vietnam war angst or average country town but still exceptional and deep.
Hard to listen to with fresh ears. So many songs have been in commercials, TV shows and movies that seemingly have nothing to do with their original intent. In my experience, they are best as individual tracks, as opposed to a cohesive album. The songs themselves are a 4/5, but as an album they are not as strong.
