Weirdly, kind of the best place I could have started for this. Would I listen again? No. But what good would it have done me to have started with Is This It? and gone 'Huh, yeah, still think the Strokes are pretty good'?
Driving, percussive - my god, is it percussive - and the sort of thing I'd never have actively sought out. Problem is that I don't really see where this sits. It's not compelling in the way where the emotion is immediately intelligible, even if the words aren't. It's almost too raw in that way. But it's not easy enough to listen to where it can sit in the background.
Highlight Track - Rhapsodia Del Maravilloso.
Yeah it turns out that this simply cannot be rated in any meaningful way, because if you listen to this while smashing through the Lakes as the sun's going down on a train home from Glasgow then there is literally nothing finer to have on.
Best song: Big Iron. But that was the opener during a particularly idyllic stretch. And A Hundred And Sixty Acres is a bit crap, so it benefits in retrospect from that.
Genuinely mad how many of the tunes on this would be absolutely sensational singles from any other album.
Before he started crooning about the milk going off on his spaceship, Alex Turner really was an incredible storyteller.
Man, I think this is the first one where I've gone 'just not for me this'. Jump and Panama are listenable but there's not a single tune elsewhere I'd go back to.
Best song: Jump
Feels weird that I'd never encountered this. Never even heard of it. Sounds like it's ripped straight from a rom-com-that-everyone-thinks-is-good soundtrack. Huge span in terms of what it covers. Oh, California is a bit sub-Lehrer and some of it gets a bit show-tuney, but Love's Enough was just a really decent simple love song.
Best song: Love's Enough.
I don't know if this is because I've never been that big a Stones fan, or because I'm a big woke liberal who found 'Under My Thumb' a weird listen, but I enjoyed this a lot less than I thought I would? Paint It Black is good, there's good guitars and some fun experimental stuff here but I think I went into this with high expectations and they weren't met.
Didn't enjoy this and didn't finish it. Feel bad to say but just didn't sit with me at all.
Went into this thinking I'd hate it. The Wall is fine but, in my view, just not as good as people make out. It's not as bad, either - I find a lot of the critiques of it overwrought. But I actually enjoyed this far more than I thought I would. Would go back and listen to this *as an album* again, I reckon.
Loved it. Not to knock Scott-Heron's poetry or whatever but I think the thing I liked *most* was actually Brian Jackson's instrumentals here? Would enjoy this almost as much if it was just a faintly jazzy/soul instrumental album.
Best Song: Rivers of my Soul
Christ, looked at the backstory to this. Don't know if I can separate story from the art here, found it really interesting in that context but don't know if I'd have had as good a time without it?
Absolutely woeful, made tolerable by being very very short.
I enjoyed this during listening but very little stood out afterwards. Maybe I had this one while really absorbed in writing, maybe it's a forgettable album - and I kind of lean to the second because I did that with 'Heaven or Las Vegas' but came back to it.
Absolutely YES boys. Delighted to have found this. Makes me want to rent a large car with no top and drive it to California. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down is a weird listen, even though the instrumentation is great.
Oh no please don't make me like Wings.
Listening to this over Christmas was perhaps not the best time, but I did not get this.
I'm going to be very honest. I didn't get it.
Banger after banger mate. Second instance though of 'Christ this is horrible' on the old gender politics side. Sixteen? Just bad! A bad song with bad vibes! Everyone knows the Big Two on this but Tonight also really good. Best track's still Lust for Life though.
This was an odd one because it's obviously GOOD, like Harrison has so much talent, and I really liked parts of this, but man alive when it decides to get self indulgent he goes nuts with it doesn't he?
Previously I noted that I don't dislike Pink Floyd, I dislike Late Pink Floyd. This made me hate The Who, despite enjoying 'Who's Next'
This is an incredibly weird one, and I think my first real instance of 'why's *this* here?' - if you want slightly schlubby pub-rock garage from this era, then do Wolfmother or Jet, both of whom have albums I would have enjoyed listening to more than this.
What do you want from me here? Shall I pretend I was never thirteen? I don't know if this is musically *good*, all I know is that this comes on and suddenly I'm in Year 7 again, on my way home from school and shitting myself about my Art homework with some absolutely appalling Limewire rip of Points of Authority in my headphones.
Some of my lowest grades so far have been for punk albums. Maybe it's the Strokes-esque adlib at the start of the opening track, but this was genuinely listenable, to the point where I could imagine myself choosing to listen to this. And while Memories Are Made of This has aged... horribly, I think it's easy to look at punk lyrics and get cynical and eye-rolly. But there's parts of this that reminded me of later works. I have listened to 'Bohemian Like You' a bunch, is it really so different from something like 'Know Your Product?'
I had to Google this, to find out in Venom had invited Black Metal. They did! Which, it turns out, makes sense, because the lyrics to the title track are so formulaic they're what I'd write if you asked me to do a black metal song as a joke.
Some albums have that 'one, two, three' hit thing - for my money the best is tracks 4-9 on 'Is This It?' by the Strokes. 3-6 on this would be up there if they'd binned Get on Top. This also drops off, massively, in the second half. To a really, really noticeable degree. Just couldn't get into it, but I've never been that much of a RHCP fan.
For years, we have debated the meaning of Jay-Z's adlib on 'The Blueprint 2', where he claims to have 'brought the flutes this time, though', and asks staff to 'unleash the flutes on them'. I am now choosing to assume that he, too, was listening to Aqualung.
Real faith restorer in the project, this. This is exactly the sort of stuff I want, mad Slovenian political art projects. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, the mad bastards.
Best song: Opus Dei
One of the greatest albums of all time here lads. Absolute banger after banger. As at home in the club as it is in the car as it is in someone's kitchen at 3am. Swiss army knife of albums. Something for everyone. Cover of Comfortably Numb absolutely shits all over the Floyd original. Flithy/Gorgeous an absolute belter, Laura one of the best ever album openers. Unmatched fun.
Faintly juvenile and not in a particularly fun or funny way. Wouldn't go back to this and didn't enjoy the listen.
Do you like the music of Thin Lizzy? Oh, you don't? Not a fan at all really? Well, what if we did it as a LIVE ALBUM so you could listen to tunes you don't really like but without studio sound quality and with audience noise/riffs?
I don't think I'd listened to this before despite enjoying peak Holiday, and I found myself really quite moved by the audible deterioration of her voice. Adds a really mournful quality to a lot of these covers.
I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody. Every great song by the Beach Boys. All the underground hits. All the Modern Lovers tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Niagara record on German import. I heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit techno hit - 1985, '86, '87. I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.
Genuinely, went into this with high expectations because of James Murphy, and was rewarded with an album that is fine to moderately good.
Tell you what troops, this has done me in. Never sat down and got through a full Cohen album. Regretting every choice I've made that made that the case. This is absolutely beautiful, it's dry, the guitar is lovely, track after track has these beautiful little bits of poetry. Going to come back to this again and again. Might buy it as a record. Amazing.
Best tracks are Susanne, Stranger Song, One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, and So Long, Marianne, but every single song on this album is good. God, I'm glad I found this.
This is a note to myself to come back to this. Because I should like this. I can see why other people would. But there is something about this that just didn't click for me. The Vienna of albums.
I read ahead the reviews and rolled my eyes at 'lol it's Chef' but... reader, I regret to tell you that it is, in fact, Chef. It's a decent album though. Limiting how many .5 margins I'd give myself, but I feel quite strongly that this is better than a 3 but inferior to a 4.
Very little to say about this one - that's not a bad thing, it's just an album I'd previously listened to before starting this project. Doesn't take anything away from this, though. It's a really, really good album. The jazz influences incredibly enjoyable - possibly the jazziest Steely Dan album for me?
If you put aside just how bad 'honky tonk' sounds as a phrase - and that is no mean feat - what you're left with is some very listenable country music with a clear 80s bent to it and some interesting technical parts... but a certain lack of soul, for me.
Really solid instrumentation throughout - Reuters has some great stuff, the opening to Ex Lion Tamer is great - but the singing is just not very good, is it? This is the closest I've got to finding a punk album that I consider to be half decent but nope, still nowt above a 3.
I absolutely love Deep Cuts by the Knife, so slightly mad that I didn’t know this was a solo project. Anyway, it’s absolutely brilliant. Moodier and mellower than the Knife but with the exact same ability to really capture a mood and your attention.
Like many sensitive young men, I had a pop punk phase, and listening to this you really do see the genesis of that, thematically as much as anything. This must have absolutely blown you away if you were like, 10 years older than me. Some really good tunes, lot of filler imo, gets more points due to defining a genre I listened to a lot of at 13 and thus cannot bring myself to hate.
I mean, it’s the absolute opus by one of the best bands of the late 80s/90s alt rock boom? Listening to this with a more critical ear really brings out just how many people these guys influenced. Hard to hear the opening of cactus with that dirty guitar and not go ‘oh, it’s ‘roll with it’’. Brilliant album.
Genuinely taken aback at how little I enjoyed this.
This is quite samey at the opening, and then 'No Love, No Sympathy' comes in and it is noticeably different, but I just don't quite think he's got the vocals to pull off what he's trying to do.
An enjoyable sub-plot of this is me turning this project into 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Dad Rock' because this was great? The folk influences really enjoyable. Immigrant Song an all-timer.
Right, in a very real way - this is not a review, this is a 'They're called the La's, I'm from Liverpool, 'There She Goes' rarely leaves my Spotify rotation every summer, and this is a very servicable album. I'm giving it five stars but I'm hopelessly, hopelessly biased aren't I
The bangers are bangers here but man alive Muse album tracks aren't great are they?
So you start this and you don't see The Whole of the Moon and you go 'This'll be shit, this.' Turns out you're absolutely wrong and should feel bad about it. Absolutely wonderful album. Five stars.
Not sure there's much I can say on this, other than I think I both like this less than most people seem to, and also less than early Floyd? What I will say is that this is a proper album. Properly cohesive, a enjoyable experience that works together without being same-y.
This isn’t good, in my view. But you really can see how you probably need to get through this to get to Nine Inch Nails.
Incredibly fun, I’m so down for anything that does the kind of storytelling of ‘Left My Wallet in El Segundo’ or ‘Description of a Fool’ and ‘Can I Kick It?’ is the greatest grilling and seven beers song of all time.
Here’s the thing. I can, and have, listened to stuff as part of this where I’ve gone ‘Oh this isn’t really for me but I can really see how it led to other stuff’, or sometimes ‘Oh this isn’t for me, but it’s really of a time or place. I can see why it was liked.’ Musically, this was the best punk album so far, but oh my god are all the lyrics so on the nose? Is religion just being right wing, would you like to share other thoughts that most people get out of their system at 12? Shall we have a party? Shall we invite Bella Hadid?
I get that everyone probably comes to this as a series of singles or just via other culture (Perfect Day via soundtracks etc) but there’s so much good stuff on this. Vicious a great opener. Really enjoyed I’m So Free. Satellite of Love quite affecting. Two well known ones are obviously brilliant.
There’s not quite the verve or lyricism of, say, OK Computer, but the instrumentation is great.
Like REM in the abstract. This felt schlocky somehow, with the sharpness of some of their other stuff.
One of the easiest five stars. To answer the great philosophical question posed by the Bee Movie, I do in fact like jazz. This was on my ‘should listen’ list but this was a very good forcing function.
This is another of the albums where I just go 'Wait, this got on here over, say, more Warren Zevon?'. Is this that different in any meaningful way to whatever sort of scuzzy rock you vaguely prefer?
Really enjoyed this. I think my only real experience with QOTSA before this was Songs for the Deaf, which I really do enjoy as an album (and preferred to this, so I hope it comes up) but this is great in its own way.
Yeah, this is further evidence that I just don't like punk very much, insofar as this appears to be proto-punk and I'm not a fan. I think the thing that I see in punk reflected here is that I found myself going 'Not much of real substance here, is there?'
Kind of think if you're gonna have a Surfers record, Electriclarryland was the place to go? I think you have to be pretty into this stuff, or at least really in the mood for it, and today I wasn't. Three stars.
I remember reading About A Boy in English class in 2012, and thinking 'Huh, I've listened to Nirvana and I just... don't get it. I don't get why this teenage character seems to like this band so much. They're fine? I guess?' and this is no different. Nevermind has some fun stuff, but sorry to say it: some of the tracks here were absolutely unlistenable. I mean, Tourette's is just... not very good, is it? Heart Shaped Box, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter good, but overall this is just a fine enough album with some low notes.
Obviously you know Harder Than You Think from Public Enemy but this was a really good intro to some of their wider work that I really enjoyed. Probably just me being daft, this, but I was taken aback by how political a record this is. Clear, coherent, complementary production (the opening track sets the tone for this well) and overall I really enjoyed it.
Found this a really enjoyable listen but not one I'd go back to - I think you absolutely have to be in the mood for jam band stuff, and some of it would be infuriating if not in the mood due to the sheer length of some of the solos etc.
God, I love this. She was SO good. I could listen to this literally all day.
Good album, not as good as Fairport Convention.
Considering all of the obviously awful stuff out of Kanye in recent years, this is actually a jolting listen - it's so much better than anything he's done post Life of Pablo. Take 'Gorgeous' - 'Jerome gets more time than Brandon' is a sharper, funnier, far better way of getting to the point he spends three minutes noodling around on 'Jail' from his more recent work. 'Dark Fantasy' a brilliant opener and one I'd forgot about. The bangers are absolute bangers, the features incredible - the sheer contempt that Pusha T gets across in 'Runway' blows me away every time, the 'Monster' verses, etc. It sits alongside very few albums I've ever listened to that just work as a cohesive piece of art.
This never gets to the point of greatness - Sweet Baby James is good, Fire and Rain is very enjoyable - but it does have some proper duds. Steamroller Blues just an appalling metaphor. Crap. It's a 4 when it's good and a 1 when it's bad.
Really enjoyed this. Obviously Eric Clapton is a grade A dickhead but the man can play a guitar. There's a good few weak chunks to this in all fairness - big drop off from the first two tracks until Tales of Brave Ulysses - but credit to a gang of unbeleivably sharp instrumentalists for not going full jam band and throwing in a load of 12 minute riffs.
I'd obviously heard the title track before, and you know, you sort of vaguely know who Al Green is, you reckon you've heard some of his tracks on a date or whatever. But man alive, the voice on this man. Those little gospel influences. The smoothness of it all. It never gets better than 'Let's Stay Together' but that's tough going, and I think made comparatively more difficult by the fact that La-La for You is one of the weaker tracks on the album; if it'd been followed by How Can You Mend A Broken Heart we'd all be talking about it as an all-timer of an opening. Because the instrumentation on 'Heart' is incredible. If that opened a track this year I'd sit myself down and turn it up.
Quite frustrating technical difficulties listening to this. I tried to check out, but I couldn't leave?
It's got Bohemian Rhapsody, which adds credit - there's just no way around the fact it's one of the best songs ever made. But it doesn't ever get close to the heights of that track. 39, and Best Friend are both good, sure, but there's also real dross on here.
I'd not listened to this before - given it's two long tracks I suspect this doesn't make its way onto many playlists or lists. But I really, really liked this. Brings in more modern stuff (like keyboard), hugely enjoyable listen. Five stars, would buy the album.
Quintessential Dylan, and thus essential Dylan.
There's been other albums (Zombie comes to mind) where I've listened, not got it, but then read about it and gone 'Oh, okay, not my bag but I see why it's on here, it's got real significance'. This doesn't seem to be that? The instrumentation is good in parts but equally bits of it really drop off and feel slightly jarring, and I couldn't find much by way of the wider cultural or socio-political importance of this.
