1001 Albums Summary

Scarborough Fair is a banger. Patterns is a great look at mundane life. Cloudy takes things a bit lighter until Homeward Bound, another fantastic song. Really catchy. The tempo is definitely brought up by the Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine though. Catchy, great rhythm, and the album really goes a lot of different places at this point. All of which are great. The songs maintain an upbeat feel once Feelin' Groovy plays. While they aren't exactly heavy-hitters, each one is unique feeling and takes you on a trip between tambourines, organs, and harpsichords while Simon and Garfunkel harmonize their bromance to peak perfection. Every song sounds different than the last, a big plus. At times the songs travel into Bob Dylan-y territory but this is not a bad thing by any means. Overall a pretty solid album. I ended up listening to Scarborough Fair on repeat for the better part of a half hour after I finished it...

Most of the songs sound very much alike. There's not much variation in the non-singles off the album. The singles all sound like "We have the Beatles at home" types of songs. Not bad per say, just not very good. I know they're a hugely influential band but this just isn't it at all for me. Very boring songs that don't really say much.

Not really my cup of tea. Not a lot of songs really felt that different outside of the first song, Son of Sam and In the Lost and Found. A lot of them kind of blurred together in my head and none of them really stood out. It felt like stuff you'd hear playing at the mall as background music. Elliott's lyrics aren't bad, but his singing voice is very monotone. It's just very same-y every song and the instruments sound like they overpower his singing voice. It might be part of why the singing sounds like it's struggling against the music instead of accompanying it.

Obviously the titular track is a classic. I've heard it far too much in my life but that's just me. It's still a banger. The Kids Alright is also a great song. It feels more like what The Who later moved on to do and is a song where you can really feel the melodies and vocals coming together. Otherwise the album is kind of boring outside of the cover songs which totally change the tone of the album at times. It's just a really odd choice to cover not one but TWO James Brown songs on the same album.

10's across the board as they say. I didn't know what a flugelhorn was until I listened to this album and all I can say is that I gotta have more flugelhorn. I got a fever and the only prescription is more flugelhorn. This album has so much energy interspersed between each track with infectious beats and melodies around every corner. As upbeat as it is mellow, every instrument just explodes across the spectrum of sound, taking the listener on a journey through harmonies and songs that beg to be listened to again and again to really enrich the senses.