Reviews by 1001mjanzai

Another nice and warm sounding album from the 70s.
This era is quickly becoming one of my favourites just for the sound of the recordings alone.
Interesting songs and arrangements here.
I don’t know much about Harry Nilsson but I definitely want to hear more from him so I’ll have to get into his discography.

This was another fun listen from Brian Eno but after Here Come The Warm Jets I’m not sure that this one would be an essential listen.
Definitely a more interesting listen than half the albums on this list though.
It was great to get more into his discography.
I wonder if there will be any of his ambient works coming up…

Just like listening to an album by Bob Dylan for the first time, this one gives me the same feeling of listening to something great and timeless.
And just like with Bob Dylan’s guitar playing, I’m super impressed by Leonard Cohen’s guitar playing.
The arrangements are also quite good and the instrumentation is suitably subtle.
When I listen to music I generally don’t latch onto words right away but for some reason I’m pretty entranced by Leonard Cohen’s words and singing style.
I’ve really been missing out and need to go back and listen to all his albums!

Not bad but not great and not essential.
This is the problem with popular rock music from this era.
It’s only just serviceable and aimed at a fairly conservative audience.
There’s way more important rock albums that need to be included on this list than these kinds of albums.
It wasn’t a terrible listen though.
There are some wild parts but they sound a bit disingenuous and although they try some progressions with more than 3 chords they sound like stuff we’ve already heard before done by much better bands.
No matter what they try it doesn’t seem to elevate the pieces any further than a mildly good but forgettable listen.

p.s.
I might be a bit harsh though because it turns out they saved the best song for last!
Although it does still have a by-the-numbers feel to it, I’ll probably give this album one more listen.

Average music played by average musicians for average people.
This panders to the average unevolved music listener.
Put this on at a party as inoffensive background music.
This one should be removed from the list.
Probably should sit somewhere around 6,000-10,000.

I know some of their hits and I’ve never listened to an actual album by them but this was a good listen.
Once again it’s great to listen to music from this era as the recordings sound so warm.
Even though I’ve heard that first track before I couldn’t believe there was a banjo on it!
Those vocal harmonies sound great as well!
In a way a lot of this sounds a bit like stock country rock but it is a solid album overall.
Definitely looking forward to listening to some more albums by them.

I remember this when it came out back in the day.
I had this on cassette tape and played it a lot in various walkmans.
I mainly bought it because I really loved the song Money For Nothing, probably because of the distorted guitar riff and that computer generated music video which was revolutionary at the time.
I do remember how subdued a lot of the other songs on the album were.
In hindsight a lot of it sounds like some sort of adult contemporary soft rock so I’m sure as a kid I didn’t totally get it but I do remember putting it on just to chill out.
Putting this on now it seems that some elements have not stood the test of time but I still enjoyed the listen.
I never listened to any other albums by them though and I really ought to.
I do enjoy Mark Knopfler’s voice and guitar playing so there’s gotta be some other gems in their catalogue.

Wow what a cool sounding album!
Hearing his name associated so much with ambient music I didn’t expect this album to sound like this.
It essentially has a classic rock sound but done with a good helping of experimentation on top.
This makes it sound quite unique and makes for a very interesting listen.
I definitely need to hear more from his discography as I’m sure there will be a lot of interesting and different sounding albums to dig into.

I’ve only ever heard their first album back when it came out and I liked it enough that I saw them play in a small club.
For some strange reason I’ve managed to never hear any of their albums since even though I’ve heard all the praise over the years.
Sometimes it seems that exposure to music is all about the company that you keep and I guess I just never knew anyone who was really into their later albums and showed them to me.
It sure was great to finally get to one and this listen was great!
This is absolutely great, creative, pop music.
I’m assuming there’s a few more of their albums coming up but I’ll likely get to them soon now that I know what incredible recordings I’ve been missing!

I heard one of their latest albums and thought it was great so going back to hear this one for the first time was a good listen.
I dig the dark and melancholy vibe of this band.
The music is well written and the lead vocals are distinct and great.
Definitely want to get more into their catalogue as I’m sure that there’s a lot of great stuff waiting to be discovered in there!

This was a nice surprise!
I’m always wary of having to listen to music from this era because I find most of it to be dull and unexciting, never pushing artistry to great creative heights but this was the opposite.
This band is actually trying to do something exciting within the framework of rock music.
There’s great energy here and enough experimentation in the recording to keep things always interesting.
Looks like this band didn’t last very long which means they probably burned real bright and probably left at their peak.
More bands need to do that since there’s a lot of late period garbage on this list to sift through.
I definitely need to check out the rest of their discography to see how they progressed!

Oh no here we go again with the first album syndrome.
This is a great album but there’s a few albums later in their career that are better.
It seems like they include these first albums from artists in terms of if it was something unique at the time it came out, which this album was, rather than if it was the artist’s greatest statement which is too bad because there are a lot of great albums being left off of the list.
Anyways great to hear this again and if you enjoyed this I highly recommend you keep going through their discography because there are some gems down the line, especially their “lost” albums!

It’s hard to say if this is essential listening for someone like myself who didn’t grow up with this kind of music.
This does leave me with fresh ears to take this kind of music in.
I did hear this way back when it first came out but it didn’t stick with me and upon hearing this again it’s not doing too much for me.
I do recognize the great musicianship on display here, however it’s exclusively in service of some sort of dance music so the elements in these pieces are limited to a form that’s very nice and appealing to the general public.
I suppose these styles just don’t seem to somehow speak to me and that’s a personal feeling and I suppose some of the problem for me is that it does crossover to a bland jazz style which is fine for most of the regular listeners out there but not for me.
Once again I do acknowledge the great talent on display here so I would definitely have to rate this above 50% but I personally might not ever play this album ever again.

Wow what a surprise to see this album here!
This is a great, underrated album!
This gives me some hope that there might still be some decent picks on this list since there’s way too many albums on this list based on popularity and not on actual musical integrity.
Such an amazing and diverse collection of pieces here.
These guys were firing on all cylinders at this point in time.
Listening to this makes me think about all the great independent rock bands of this era who made absolutely essential albums which are not on the list.
Oh well I guess this album just gives me another reason to just make my own list for myself.

This was a nice listen.
Hard to say how essential this is without a thorough knowledge of this style of music.
I have heard this style done in a more experimental way which I find much more engaging.
This album comes across a bit too nice and safe but there are just enough interesting sections to keep it interesting enough and the heavy subject matter does give it a bit of an edge.
Good to finally hear an album by this band and to finally not think of them as a one hit wonder for that one really popular song that came later.

I wonder why this album is on this list?
Kind of an underwhelming late career attempt at staying relevant.
It’s pretty weak and missing any sort of urgency required to be a good rock band.
But maybe that’s the point.
They’re pushing deep into some sort of overly nice and inoffensive pop territory and I think they succeeded at that.
More spins are likely needed to understand this album fully but this first listen doesn’t make me think it’s essential and I don’t want to put it on ever again.
It’s not the worst thing ever though but to me, for now, it’s just ok.
Well it looks like you can leave some things behind, ha!

Very cool!
Although this is their first album their sound is pretty much fully formed here and they will go on to further refine and develop their style from here.
There are a few more albums that should be on this list other than just this one and Number Of The Beast.
I believe their best albums are actually after those two so it is too bad that they are not on here in place of some of the dubious choices.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard this and what a great listen this was!
Now I want to keep going through their discography, at least through the next 7 or 8 albums because they are all great!

This was a good listen.
It’s a pretty solid rock album and I gotta think that it might be one of the better rock albums to have come out around this time.
It’s also always great to hear the exquisite voice of Mark Lanegan!
I’m not very familiar with their output but seeing as this is their seventh album I definitely need to hear the others and there’s bound to be some other albums in their discography that probably should be on this list.

I’ve never listened to an album by them and I really wanted to like this but it wasn’t that good of a first time listen for me.
I think this album may not have stood the test of time very well.
It probably sounded somewhat fresh back then but listening to it now it just sounds kind of annoying in its simplicity.
I’ve always found most industrial music to be somewhat lacking after Ministry and Nine Inch Nails.
It’s as if the parameters of that style of music was very limited and all the great ideas were dealt with in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
If you were a teenager when this came out back then it probably would have meant a lot and probably would have helped get one through some hard times but hopefully you worked your way back to earlier examples of the genre and found the real great albums of this style.

Oh man this album was pretty big for me when it came out!
I just started my first year of high school and with an insanely traumatic home life it really helped me get through some dark times by being able to escape into some sort of fantasy land in a very musical way.
This and Raising Hell by Run-DMC really stood out at the time in the rapidly changing landscape of the popular music world.
Even though I would have never understood the meaning of most of the lyrics there’s great musicality in the rapping (at such a high pitch!) as well as in all the backing tracks (great mix of beats and samples) which is probably what completely drew me in.
It is too bad about the content of some of the lyrics now many years later but it probably does genuinely tell what a party their lives must have been at that time and with apologies made we must forgive them and be able to not take some of these lyrics too seriously.
I hope their next two albums are also on this list because they really progressed a lot over those years.