one of my favorite albums of all time!! and such a perfect way to start this challenge since it was my first album given to me.
everyone who says this is a perfect pop album is right. the harmonies and melodies are gorgeous, and there's so many little details in the production as well that's really fun to listen to. it can also get pretty emotional at points, too, especially with songs like "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" and "Caroline No"...
this album also has two instrumental tracks, and they stand out just as much as the ones with lyrics do in my opinion.
RIP Brian Wilson, he was such a genius
when this album popped up, i got excited because i've always loved Mr. Blue Sky and i've been meaning to listen to the full album for a while to see if there's any songs on this that could maybe match in quality to that pop masterpiece!
and unfortunately, as it turns out, listening to this full album made Mr. Blue Sky sound worse to me somehow. damn.
besides Turn to Stone i guess, the rest of this album is just filled with dated 70s overblown pop-rock. to my ears. i especially started to get bored around the 2nd half of the album, where Mr. Blue Sky served as a reprieve from all of the other super boring tunes. i also think that this album is wayyy too long and has some filler.
mannn im disappointed. i guess i'm not much of an ELO fan...
Nice soul album, the tracks on this one were on the longer side, and i liked how they progressed throughout their runtime, the grooves felt really great to settle into.
The last track also was a standout, with how he told an entire story before the song to add context to it, really interesting I liked it.
low 3 stars. when i first listened to it, the first few tracks stuck out to me the most, but then when i listened to them again they seemed more average then i thought.
there was also the big hit on here "Every Breath You Take" but when i listened to it right now i didn't seem to care for it that much.
favorite tracks: "Synchronicity I", "O My God", and "Synchronicity II"
---🎧listened before 1001---
it's in rainbooooooowssss!!!!!!! my favorite radiohead album!!!!! wow.
i'll always remember that when i first listened to "All I Need"'s climax, it was the first time i ever felt that floaty feeling i get when the music is transcendent.
and right now i was trying to be quiet in the morning listening to "Bodysnatchers" but i think it's literally impossible to stay still and calm listening to that. it always makes me go crazy!!! that track is probably in my top 5 Radiohead ever. the fuzzzzz
and overall, i think what makes this my favorite Radiohead album is the warm, spacey atmosphere it has. Radiohead is always amazing at building little worlds for the listener to fall into with each album, so of course the atmosphere here is amazing, but i think i just like the world of In Rainbows the most. i'm always drawn towards dreamy sounding music and this album has some of their dreamiest songs, such as "Nude", etc... so yeah easy 5 stars for me.
ive been wanting to get more into drum and bass music so i'm glad the website gave me this one :) this was just really solid all around, i love those ethereal synth pads they used to use and the drums of course are awesome. there was also a female vocalist on this as well and her voice was really nice. added to my library
a low 2 stars.
i feel like this is the exact opposite thing to what i usually look for in music... macho, aggressive, yeah... nope.
but for some reason i can't really say that i HATE it. it just kinda exists for me. as the album went on it just became a sound that i was hearing with no emotions attached to it. so that's kinda the only reason i'm rating it a 2 instead of a 1. it's not like it grinds my gears or anything it was more just boring and not my thing.
and you have to admit the guitar playing on this was good, i can see why people like this. and somehow, i don't have any vitriol against the singer, either. i was just laughing at him because i thought he sounded like a high pitched mouse, lol. after a while he just melded into the sound too and i was like eh whatever i guess this exists.
the only time i actually felt like i was hating on it a little bit was when "Back to Black" started playing and i immediately felt myself get thrown into a truck commercial because of how overplayed that one is. ugh. but other than that it's just eh.
the lyrics are shit though. fuck that macho attitude. (yeah ik the lyrics probably aren't the focus of this at all but it just makes me want to listen to this less than i already did.)
and btw, i was talking to my dad about this album, and he said it changed his life back in the day when it came out. so damn.
this was pretty good ig, what really surprised me was the big orchestral sections on this album... i'm not really sure if this album needed that.
the last song on the album reminded me of the song Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles
okay maybe when i said that i didn't like aggressive music on my AC/DC review i was lying a bit. because this was really cool. i guess it depends on what kinda aggressiveness it is.
and i usually really dislike screaming in music but there was something about how these guys mixed it into their sound which made it more palatable to me. i liked how they mixed it lower so it wasn't too overpowering. maybe i'm starting to understand something idk.
i think my favorite moments on this album were the insanely interesting riffs at the beginning of "Do You Compute", and the long ending of "Luau". i heard lots of sliding on the guitar which gave a really cool effect, i loved that.
adding this one to the library!
yknow i respect Willie Nelson and all, but i don't think i would've ever gone out of my way to listen to an album like this if it wasn't for this challenge. his other album of covers i got (Stardust) was pretty cozy and sweet but this one... yeah idk. it was pretty hard to follow along with the story without my mind wandering off someplace else and by the middle of the album i was just completely zoned out
listening to this was my first time really listening to The Who, and i wish i could've gotten a studio album first because i don't really care about live albums...
i don't really have much to say about this. i think i was trying to figure out the whole time whether i was liking it or not. the drumming was really good. would i listen to this again? idk. but i can recognize the talent.
---🎧re-listen---
old score: 3.5*
new score: 2.5* (very high 2)
i had a little Gorillaz moment around March of this year, so around that time i also listened to this album. and by the looks of my ratings, it seems my opinion on it has gone down a bit.
of course on this album you have the major hit Clint Eastwood, which i like a lot, the chorus on that is really iconic, and the rapper is pretty good too. and then you have the other hit, 19-2000. i remember my friend showed me this one before i listened to the whole album, it's a silly vibey song, i like that one too. i just listened to the Souldchild remix today and that was also great as well, might even be better than the original!
but besides that, this album doesn't really have too much to offer for me. i could live without it. i think i liked the first two songs, but other than i was very middling on it. the tracks after 19-2000 were also pretty boring and definitely the worst, which makes me lower my score to 2 since i wouldn't want to listen to those again.
i feel like Demon Days should be the Gorillaz album on this list, and not this one
---🎧re-listen---
old score: 4*
new score: unchanged (strong 4)
going into this one again after first listening to it about 2 years ago, i was maybe expecting my score to drop a bit for some reason, but nah, this is still an amazing album! i did have to listen to it a few times right now to get into it again but once i did it was great.
i can clearly see that this album is not gonna be for everyone, though. Kate's vocals on here could be very polarizing, and there's also a ton of crazy theatrical things happening on each song. but personally, i like it :) it's crazy and fun!
i remember my mental images on my first listen being so clear, my imagination was running wild the first time i heard this.
my favorite song on this is definitely the "Night of the Swallow" song. "Suspended in Gaffa" is great, too. upon relisten i also liked the first track, "Sat In Your Lap" a lot as well.
i don't think i'm really that big of a Bowie fan. maybe listening to some more of his albums later will change that, but this album didn't convince me otherwise.
i think the instrumentation on this was pretty great, though, it was pretty funky and layered, especially with songs like "Stay", and i really liked the watery acoustic guitar textures on the last song "Wild Is the Wind".
however i just didn't really care his singing or any of the vocal melodies... nothing really stuck with me from this. and i gave it two listens today too, and even on the second listen i still didn't change my mind. rip Station to Station
