The Hour of Bewilderbeast

While I this isn’t my favourite Badly Drawn Boy album it is still brilliant. Been an age since I’ve listened to it but it will be in my regular rotation for a while now

Not a bad album, but it really didn't have much cohesion or direction for its runtime. It jumped around stylistically so much that it really didn't have much of a personality. Elliot Smith and the Microphones have a very similar feel with a more refined sound. 3/5

I would have liked to have heard this when it came out instead of 25 years later. This very well could have been one of my favorite albums if I had heard it at the right time.

I had to skip "This Song" because of the hard, rapid left/right panning. Wearing earbuds with a good seal, it was affecting my balance, not to mention annoying.

This is tedious except the single. That's pretty good.

I liked this a bit more than I expected. I never really liked the jazz pop hit but the album overall has a woozy messiness I can appreciate.

However, I still think his greatest contribution to music is the time Mark E Smith from The Fall decided he was a taxi driver and forced him to drive him home. The next morning BDB found Mark's dentures on his back seat and dutifully returned them. You know people were already saying MES was unintelligible but can you imagine....

This feels like the perfect sunday morning album to get, timing of the random generator really worked on that part. A nice soft and mellow folky album to listen to. Disillusion was a very nice and groovy track. The album is a bit dull and boring at times though and the runtime is a bit too long, victim of the CD era.

Just another ex-1001 album!™
http://1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie.wikidot.com/album-artists-a-z-ex

Felt like an odd album, nothing seemed to happen, still I nodded along with it, then forgot about it.

The album and band were completely unknown to me. When I heard the first track, I thought it might be quite interesting. In between, however, I found the music a bit boring. But then it was very pleasant. In the end, I enjoyed listening to the album, but I probably won't listen to it again any time soon. But who knows? 4/5

I really enjoyed this album. I saw Badly Drawn Boy support Squeeze in November and meant to listen to this album the day after that and never got round to it. I am glad I did today.

There are some lovely melodies and pop songs on this album.

Favourite song: The Shinning is a lovely song, and I really enjoyed once around the block.
Least favourite: I enjoyed all the tracks on the album.
Album artwork: Cool cover

The Hour Of Bewilderbeast is what i expected from an album that's at least 1 hour long. Basically, its an album that has it's really high highs but also has it's really low lows too. Typically, the songs were of the high variety with them often having an Elliott Smith like sound with a lot of it's strengths and as someone who likes his stuff, it's a major plus. But in some cases, there were songs that were annoying or just tried things that clearly didn't work and even some of the good songs could go off the rails when it was completely unnecessary. This is a good album but it's flaws do hold it back from greatness.
Best Song: Another Pearl
Worst Song: This Song

For what it is, it's really good.

It's kind of folksy, kind of rocky, with a bit of navel-gazing mixed in. It has some interesting sounds and the vocals just fit perfectly with the music and style.

It's really difficult to score, because I don't know if it's a home run 4 stars, but it's far better than a "meh, it's fine" 3 stars. I'm giving it 4 because I really liked it, acknowledging that at the end of this project this one may look a bit of an outsider.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m gonna very easily bump up to a 5.

I’ve learned it before, I should learn it again; never judge a late-90s/early 2000s album by its strange, strange cover. Everyone was collectively on one back then. I thought for sure, going into this, it would be some indie rock art album that got a little overrated at the time, aged sort of awkwardly in its avantgarde-ness, met with too much critical acclaim, and only ended up on the list with a bit of bias adjacent to that time period. I feel like it’s happened before.

This, however, was just a great album. There’s a really strong variety of styles here, some great production, some good vocals and lyrics throughout, and it just clicked extremely well for me. It wears a lot of inspirations on its sleeve, but it does so without ever sounding like a ripoff or a pastiche; the influence from the 60s & 70s is prevalent in spades here, but it blends it so well with 90s instrumentation that it just sort of morphs into that era. Even past that, though, you can hear the future of late 2000s / early 2010s indie rock here – Cause a Rockslide, even if it becomes a bit directionless and flat around the middle, starts off sounding like a mix of Cage the Elephant & Tame Impala. The entire 63 minutes is full of flavor like this that consistently kept me engaged and on my toes as a listener, and I don’t think there’s ever a dull moment or a part that feels like a repeated track. It’s extremely well done for the time.

It certainly helps that there’s a semblance of a front to back narrative throughout the album, but it’s not an extremely clear one to me – that’s not necessarily a negative, because it just means I was really entranced in the general soundscapes to fully invest in the lyrics to that extent of finding winding plots, though it’s not like I wasn’t paying attention. When this album hits on its more emotional tracks though, whether in a happy or sad way, it hits incredibly well. His vocals do a great job of finding the tone of the song and just getting it across, enhanced by some great lyrics on those tracks. When this album wants to go full rock, it nails it too – Disillusion feels like it could’ve fit right into Persona 5 or one of its many spinoffs.

Look, I could keep gushing, but I’m just surprised that this album managed to exceed my expectations that much for a guy I’ve never heard of, with an album cover like that, in a time period where it does feel like people were really glazing everything (no offense to Limp Bizkit) to try and make a new star in a sort of stagnant genre. This does feel like an album that should have at least one award under its belt, and I’m glad it does. It’s probably the reason why it’s on this list, and I’m also glad about that too. I thought this was really good, and I have no problems bumping it up to a 5.

Impressive album a first listen for me.

Now, I'll admit I bought this CD back in 2000 and I loved it then, and I haven't listened to it, or anything else by him for that matter, in probably 20 years now... And what seemed earth shattering to my naive reptile smooth brain back then is kinda boring now. It's just dull turn of the millenium indie music innit?

I still enjoyed songs like "The Shining", "Another Pearl", "Magic In The Air", and "Disillusion", add in a couple more and a killer EP they would make, but this was just too long and too stuffed with filler like instrumental tracks to be enjoyable as it once was. And don't get me started on the aural assault that is "This Song", do not wear headphones for that.

Really like the sound of this. Like a British Elliott Smith. Quite long but I like the lo-fi collage of different styles.

Much better than I anticipated. I had bought a BDB album back in the early aughts (after reading great reviews) and found it unlistenable. This one was much better, although it tailed off at the end. 3.5/5

Didn't understand the love at the time, don't understand it now.

I had this CD from back when I was in college. And I probably haven't listened to it in close to 20 years. After re-listening, I remember why. There's nothing wrong here, but it's just not something I'd choose to put on as there are better examples of this style and type of music.

It's perfectly pleasant, and fairly forgettable. Nothing wrong here at all, but doesn't knock anyone's socks off, either.

Pretty run of the mill lo-fi indie: a bit of a folksy sound, a bit of a pop melody, an overall bittersweet mood, some messing around with effects and wonky instruments, a shaggy bedroom feel to the arrangements and production. A very endearing artifact of the DIY creative spirit and of a basic impulse to make music. But it's only like one level up from coffee shop open mic stuff.

The whitest boy alive