It was fine. PG has never been my favorite, but this was pretty good.
“Oops, all vibes” was the one sentence review, and Headhunters is on the shortlist of albums I own physically AND being on this list. A physical listen, on vinyl, was how I heard Headhunters, and the physical listen was palpable. Side 1 almost oozes out of the speakers, while Side 2 burst out like a bird. Hancock is one of the great masters of jazz and this is one of a few masterpieces he’s made.
Another physical listen, and The Beatles are even more great in that fashion. While I would rank With The Beatles in the lower tier of their discography, this album rips. Money, Roll Over Beethoven, and Please Mr. Postman are three of the bands best covers, and you get gems like All My Loving and opener It Won’t Be Long.
I’ve never been the biggest Simon fan, but his collaboration with notable jazz bassist Ron Carter seeps through the music in a natural and effective way, as if the two are speaking the same musical language, but different dialects. One of Simons’ best albums, and will be looking to add this physically.
Eminem has lost a LOT of credibility over years of less than perfect releases, but the Marshall Mathers LP holds together as a masterpiece still today. Many of Em’s best songs are here; Stan is iconic, The Real Slim Shady is hilarious, and Kim is a violent terrifying experience, but certainly memorable.
Is it a toxic masculine desert disc, probably, but does that make it inherently bad,I don’t think so. Much like Fight Club for cinema, I think both have taken hold of a certain kind of guy and become a sort of free speech armor for the reprehensible.
Not for the faint of heart, and I can see why our government was so upset, but artists should always have the freedom to tell their story, even if it speaks to the darkest side of masculinity, or at least as it existed at that time. It’s an essential document in hip hop, at the least, and should be heard at least once.
Tweedy and company’s infamous YHF is a very good album, maybe their most famous, with a lot of baggage. I personally am more of a Son Volt head over Wilco, but that’s because Trace is an undeniable six star wildly underrated album. And for anyone wondering, my favorite Uncle Tupelo album is Anodyne, with No Depression as a close second.
With that out of the way, this is a five star masterpiece. Over years of continued listening, it’s probably fallen to third on my personal favorite Wilco albums, with Summerteeth and A Ghost Is Born just ahead. I can whisper to the bands output following Wilco (The Album), as most of my passion for Wilco starts to waiver at this point.
Fortunately again, I owned this album prior to listening to it for this exercise. In this case, I have the Super Deluxe box set, which I will be commenting on here.
Wilco are almost a reminder of Record Store Days past and my years as a record store clerk. My ex boss would put on Wilco with some regularity. A safe haven of music of the day was usually the mix in A song like Heavy Metal Drummer off the remastered version of the album plays like an indelible part of biographical musical and personal history more than a song. It shreds, and Tommy Lee and Pamela should count themselves as lucky they’re MAYBE inhabiting the Wilco universe.
Some of the highlights from the set include multiple LPs titled either American Aquarium: Building YHF, Here Comes Everybody: Building YHF, or The Unified Theory of Everything: Building YHF, and a 3 LP set from Wilco circa 2002 at a prior haunt of mine, The Pageant in St. Louis.
As for the songs within those three sets, I found Not For The Season (Laminated Cat) on Side G, American Aquarium on Side F and The Good Part on Side I were particularly notable. Songs that made me ask, why wasn’t this on the album? Deeper cuts like A Magazine Called Sunset and Has Anybody Seen My Pencil? show the poppier and more avant-garde sides of Wilco, respectively.
There are new arrangements of album cuts like I’m The Man Who Loves You on Side F and Radio Cure & War On War on Side I that were standouts. Overall, this was an amazing deluxe version of one of my favorite bands most essential albums. I was thrilled to revisit it.
Tical is fine. I’ve always been more of a Ghostface Killah fan, and he’s noticeably absent from Method Man’s solo debut. Tical is for the most part, pretty good. Bring The Pain is hard as hell, but All I Need is almost R&B. Meth vs. Chef has a great feature from Raekwon. Overall, there are at least 4 solo Wu-Tang albums I’d reach for before Tical.
Listening to music is one of the most subjective experiences a person has, but objectively, it’s difficult to see Purple Rain as anything less than one of the great albums of all time. Prince, at the peak of his powers, delivers hit after hit. Singles like Purple Rain and I Would Die 4 U are as great as ever. I listened to the 2015 Deluxe edition, who included spectacular b-sides like Velvet Kitty Cat and We Can F**k for sure.
This is up there with some of the best live albums of all time. Another album I am lucky enough to own on vinyl. There have been posthumous records released by Nirvana since the period of Unplugged, but nothing has matched the quality since.
Not peak Raitt if you ask me. I mean, everybody loves a love song, but with this much 80s sheen? I’ve got several all timers released in the 80s, but this is not one of them. It’s fine, and smooth enough where it can be played early in the day, but not what I’ll be reaching for regularly. She would go on to have bigger hits (Let’s Give ‘Em Something To Talk About) and her early career has higher highs (Her self titled debut and the album Streetlights are worth a listen.)
Nick Drake is one of the staples for the singer-songwriter template. This record, his second of three, is him stretching his wings in the studio. With big names like Richard Thompson and John Cale joining him, its no wonder his three albums have aged like wine. This, his second of only three albums he would record before his untimely death, has high points like One Of These Things First and Northern Sky.
Steely Dan have always been a streaming favorite of mine. I like them enough to stream, but not enough to buy all the records. I have Aja, and spun it after listening to confirm what I already thought. Pretzel Logic is a good, not great record from a band with at least two all time classics. While Pretzel Logic may have an all time single from the band, the fantastic Ricky Don’t Lose That Number, I connect with the Steely Dan albums Gaucho and Aja far more. I consider them to be less loose and more tightly conceived records.
Even when they hit their groove with tracks like East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, a special one for a Missouri resident, it just doesn’t reach the top of the mountain creatively for what was to come, as to me, the title track plays more like underbaked Allman Brothers-esque southern rock than the tightly conceived harmonic jazz & R&B that Becker and Fagan would become known for.
Manu Chao, the former frontman for Mano Negra, is a one of one performer. Coming off somewhere between Joe Strummer and the Buena Vista Social Club, Chao’s solo debut is a moment in time, much like the Tropicalia movement of the mid 2000s, it captured a lot of attention for a specific genre of music for a short time, whoch is unfortunate, given what Chao stands for.
Today, I could go miles before I’d find someone who knew who he is offhand. That doesn’t diminish his music, which as a Spanish immigrant to Paris, has a particular flair that is difficult to replicate. Songs like the title track and Bongo Bong are true earworms, and worth a listen.
A Tribe Called Quest has an argument for the greatest hip hop group of all time. This, my least favorite of their iconic three records but their debut, is still a pleasure to listen to. Some of the groups best singles are to be found here, those being Can I Kick It and I Left My Wallet In El Segundo. I find myself returning to The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders more, but Peoples Instinctive Travels… has plenty worth sticking around for.
Iron Maiden were just a bit before my time, and with family musical heritage that leans less Black Sabbath and more Doobie Brothers, I had to seek out and decide on Iron Maiden’s music on my own. Its heavy, which is a good thing, and I love a record where the stronger songs are on the second half. The back to back of Run To The Hills and Gangland is especially strong.
As a fan of The Stooges since I was a teen, Pop and his aforementioned band have always been a favorite for me. His solo work, more hit and miss. The Idiot stands as one of his best works as a solo artist. The ethereal China Girl and the standout Nightclubbing were top tier tracks on this underrated Iggy Pop album, which should really be a Iggy Pop & David Bowie album, given the latter is a producer on the record.
Without Black Sabbath, much of modern psych and garage rock and all of heavy metal would sound a lot different. This, their debut, is pretty one-note, but that note slays. This is another album I own physically, and it sounds incredible in the vinyl format. The Rhino reissue of this record is also quite nice.
The B-52’s were as important an element in my musical taste as bands like Devo and The New York Dolls, only their brand of new wave has a bit more of a 50s tinge to it. Songs like Planet Claire and Dance This Mess Around have become indelible parts of pop music of the late 70s. While compatriots like the Talking Heads and Blondie may have risen higher, the B-52’s have a magic about them whice make revisiting their early albums a true joy.
I first heard Maggot Brain as a teenager, which is the absolute best time to discover Funkadelic. It plays like you’re discovering a long lost gem. The title track has one of the best guitar solos of all time. Hit It And Quit It is a bop that fits most moods. I love this album and think it is a desert island disc for sure.
Psychedelic rock hasn’t always been my thing. This, however, is pretty good. Hawkwind are fronted by Robert Calvert, whose poetic interludes throughout definitely ground this album in the 70s. Overall, a fine album, but not a desert island disc.
It’s fine. Pop queens have never really been my thing, but this is probably the best Mariah Carey ever was.
I remember lover this album as a young man, but upon revisiting, it played a little long and some of the flourishes weren’t for me. Overall, it’s essential, but not my favorite Hendrix album.
Overall, a fun little record for a seventies rock enthusiast, and plays like a psychedelic opus knowing nothing about the artist or background. Probably not going to seek it out physically, but a nice way to start a morning.
An all time classic jazz record. I own this physically and personally rate it anong my top 150 albums.
I listened to this album all the time as a kid. It holds up to today’s ears, mostly. Their behaviors as humans is another story.
