Reviews by amanda

Not the usual 70s fare! Still got plenty of electric guitar though. Anyway, I appreciate the Brazilian Portuguese representation. This guy's really into history, alchemy, and futebol, huh? I enjoyed listening to this, more than I expected, but I'm not sure it quite reaches a 4, since it's something I view as more background music (probably because I don't speak the language). Chill and fun and pleasant, but the high pitched whistle-y noises are not my jam, and there are a lot of them. So that's a 3 for me.

Highlights: 'Hermes Trismegisto Escreveu', 'O Filósofo', 'Taj Mahal'

I'm gonna choose to believe this is non-random because Brian Wilson just died :(
If so, I hope that other people who hadn't already had "Pet Sounds" get that one! Seeing everybody talk about how great an album it is really validated my giving it my first 5, so yay for that. (Of course I also enjoyed revisiting the classic Brian Wilson Norbit and Don Henley stories: https://bsky.app/profile/itsdings.bsky.social/post/3lrduzwv5e22s ; https://bsky.app/profile/margareteby.bsky.social/post/3lree6mui4227 )

But this album seems much less good, maybe because I never heard any of its songs before. Some of the lyrics are a little more perturbing. 'Help Me R(h)onda' made me want a song from R(h)onda's perspective (perhaps titled 'Help yourself, bucko'). There are no instrumentals, but it does end with what must be one of the first skit tracks. Kind of interesting just because it's so old now, but otherwise very mysterious.

Highlight: 'Please Let Me Wonder'

Lowlight: 'Good To My Baby'

I don't think I've ever heard a Queen Latifah song before now (other than her movie ones). She's more of an actress to me! This album is from when she was 19, which is adorable. No slurs, so all hail the queen for that one. I find the whole "I'm the best at rhyming" plot to be so boring and played out, but considering this was the 80s, it probably wasn't actually that played out yet. I'll round up to a 3 because I like Queen Latifah and the occasional background sax/horns, but this isn't really something I'd ever listen to.

Highlights: 'Come Into My House' (mentally dissertating about "What better off position can you be in?"), 'Ladies First' (likewise "I'm conversating with the folks who have no whatsoever clue")

In the 2000s when "The Osbournes" was a show, I found it very incongruous that Ozzy was in Black Sabbath because he seemed like a very unserious man. Not that I ever listened to Black Sabbath. I do not like an 8 minute song, but this album is mostly fine. Not my style but not the worst. I like that 'Paranoid' is Finland's 'Free Bird'.

Highlight: 'Iron Man'

I already liked the idea of this album even before I knew it had goats on it! What a delight. Also, "Pet Sounds" is a great name because both of those words can be a noun or verb. A lot of these tracks were the first songs I downloaded when I got my own computer, and they still hold up. I guess they're a little samey, and certainly old-fashioned, but also very poppy and harmony-y and, dare I say, emo, with some funny little instruments thrown in. In a way, it reminds me of a slightly more normie Magnetic Fields. I was not expecting 2 instrumental tracks -- the first one didn't really hit for me, but they're pleasant enough, and written-for-a-Bond-movie 'Pet Sounds' does seem like it was written for that. I don't particularly like some other Beach Boys hits I know ('I Get Around', 'Good Vibrations'), but this album was cohesively flawless. I was going to give it a 4, but looking at my highlights list, maybe it deserves a 5(!!)

Highlights: 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' (featuring a "12-string mando-guitar"), 'You Still Believe in Me', 'I'm Waiting for the Day', 'Sloop John B' (one of the most mysterious song titles of my lifetime; where's Sloop John A?), 'God Only Knows', 'Here Today', 'Caroline, No' (a mishearing of "Carol, I Know"! that's Mike Eindetitle), 'Hang On to Your Ego' (this isn't on the original version, but still)

A horrible album cover (unless this came out on Christmas Day), but a fine album. It sounds happy, which I like. According to Wiki, the producer (Jon Bon Jovi's cousin) was a real method-acting weirdo. It must be said: these guys really are into buildings.

Highlights: 'Tentative Decisions', 'No Compassion' (very relatable! also, are there still analysts even?), 'Don't Worry About the Government' (also very relatable! would make a good Severance fanvid)

Neo-soul seems like it'd be cool, but turns out, I like regular soul better (just call me an [[old soul] fan]). Hate to be such a hater, but I didn't like Erykah Badu's stuff when she was popular 25 years ago, and my music taste hasn't really evolved much since then. The lyrics seem good (minus a few slurs), but they are too muddled up in the music for me. (Although I did catch the very meta lyric: "What good do your words do / if they can't understand you?") To be fair, the music itself is kinda cool and jazzy, but it's muddled up in the vocals! Much muddle.

Highlight: 'In Love with You' (thanks to Stephen Marley, Delawarean)

I'm glad this is on here; SZA is one of my favorite current artists (although I like SOS as an album much more). I like her voice; I think it's very clear and pleasant. I also like this album cover, since it looks like something I would choose for an album cover myself. As for the album, it's a little heavy on the slow jams (and the slur count), so I don't particularly love it, but I am still a SZA fan -- just glad she moved to a more pop direction!

This is an eerie album cover. I've never heard of these guys, but they kept it nice and short, which is a virtue. Wiki says there were Bob Dylan comparisons, which I definitely hear (although maybe that's just all the "how do you feel"s in 'Are You Happy?'; like a rolling stone). David Duke plays French horn on this album.

Highlight: 'My Old Kentucky Home' (a song with history!)

Lowlight: 'Nine Pound Hammer' (nothing I like less than that hammer clinking noise)

A double Led Zeppelin album was probably doomed to fail (in my rating) regardless, but I have a headache, so I *extra* don't like it. It's not that they're bad or offensive, but this singing style plus the looong guitar parts are two things I have never been into, and this long album with its very long songs is not changing my stance.

For a while I mixed up Robert Plant (this LZ guy) with Robert Smith (from The Cure), because I thought Robert Plant was a cooler name, so surely that would belong to the band with the music I liked. But it did not.

Highlights: The song name "In my Time of Dying" (but not the song), 'Kashmir' (because the USC marching band plays it)

Nick Drake existing in the 60s is mindblowing. Maybe I subconsciously still mix him up with Nick Cave. Anyway, to be fair, this album is also extremely mellow. Some might call it a snoozefest, but I think his style fits right in to the 90s OC-soundtrack kind of music, and not just because it's very Alexi Murdochy. So I find it very pleasant and nostalgic.

Highlight: 'The Thoughts of Mary Jane'

Is this cosmic punishment for saying the last album was boring?
I've never heard of this band before. I do like some industrial, but this ain't it. Too much guitar, too edgy, not enough nostalgia. Maybe if I were 15 years older I'd like it? Probably not though. At least it's short.

Solid air, huh? Nice font. Very literary. The titular song was written for Nick Drake, and it sounds a little bit like him, so that's nice. Unfortunately, this album is sooooo mellow. Bit of a snoozefest. Found it hard to believe the line "can't get enough of sweet cocaine", coming from such an artist. I thought the second half was a bit stronger. I enjoyed taking literally the lyrics of the paean to a jelly roll baker.

Highlights: 'Dreams by the Sea', 'May You Never', 'The Man in the Station'

A 90s band I don't know?! I feel like I've seen the album cover before, but that might just be due to the popularity of crab memes among the youth. Anyway, I quickly realised I actually just intentionally memory-holed The Prodigy at a young age. This wiki quote sums the situation up:

<The National Organization for Women objected to the seeming misogyny of "Smack My Bitch Up", though the band maintains that its true interpretation is "doing anything intensely". Liam Howlett observed, "That record was for the fans. Only brainless people get some stupid message out of it…">

I have a lot in common with the National Organization for Women, I guess. Not that Liam Howlett is the first to throw some spuriously defended slurs in an acclaimed album ("it doesn't mean X, it just means bad!"), but it's a shame it had to happen to one with a crab on the cover. Other than that cursed single, I don't really even like the album that much. It's electro, but it's not chill electro, more like edgy rock-based electro, like if Linkin Park wanted to make a dance record (derogatory). I see there is some Beastie Boys & Pixies crossover on this album, which makes sense. 'Breathe' and 'Firestarter' are in a lot of media I've watched, so I guess they have a certain appeal. Not for me though! I'd rather listen to Wilco!

Highlight: 'Narayan'

Flugelhorn is pretty fun, but the sax parts here are my favorite. This is kind of a long album, but it's background-able, so didn't feel too long. Then again, it's background-able, so how great an album (on my personal ranking) can it really be? Thus... 3.

Highlight: 'Nomali'

Aha! The Beatles are back, after a long pause. This is one of the album covers I studied intently in college when I was trying to learn to ID each Beatle from pictures. It took me a while just to get that all of the ones in each row are the same guy. Of course, now I know that they're George, Ringo, John, and Paul, from top to bottom. :)

I actually watched this movie for the first time last year, and it was just as old and boring as I feared. But the songs are OK. Actually, on the Beatle scale, this is one of my least favorites. Still short and poppy, but no songs that I'm super into. (By the way, when we had Rubber Soul, I said I thought that was my favorite Beatles album, but it's actually Beatles for Sale, which possibly isn't on here. I feel like a lot of artists on this list have albums I like much more than the ones that are on the list! But maybe I just didn't get to those ones yet. We shall see.)

Anyway, I'm stuck between a 3 and 4 for this. It's better than the average album but not as good as the other Beatleses I gave 4s to, so a 3 it is. Sorry, Beatles.

Highlights: 'A Hard Day's Night', 'Tell Me Why', 'Any Time At All'

2 live albums in a row!? I must be cursed. This one was a little more enjoyable than the Cheap Trick one, I guess because it's more jazzy which seems more inherently "live" (idk). Like, there's actual crowd interaction, which I don't want to listen to, but at least it makes sense what the appeal is. Feels 50sish to me, like Drifters vibes. If it weren't a live album I would like it!

Highlights: 'Cupid'

As established previously, I do not like a live album. I do like Cheap Trick (or at least, I liked their singles). So, very mixed feelings about this one. As an album I would never listen to it, though, so I'll give it a 2. Does anyone even like live albums? (I guess they must.)

Highlights: 'I Want You to Want Me', 'Surrender'

I could've sworn we already had this album, but no, that was "The Sensual World". At least this starts with 'Running Up That Hill', which is the only Kate Bush song I really know, even though I think it is inferior to the Placebo cover. Running up a building is a lot more impressive than running up a hill, you know, but nobody talks about that part.
I liked the album OK. It certainly has an 80s witchy vibe, which I appreciate, but it didn't particularly compel me on a first listen.

Highlights: 'Running Up That Hill', 'Cloudbusting'

This album cover looks like a middle school doodle. Somehow the art sold for like 2 million bucks, though. Not a bad thing, but just sayin'.
I'm so over these 70s bands! What a snoozefest! And it's over an hour, too. I like the name "Layla". Nowadays the kiddos are calling their faves "Shayla", which is another 70s song, as I understand it. Anyway, many of the songs are love songs about George from the Beatles' wife, so that's fun I guess. A 2.5, but since it was so long I will round down.

Highlights: 'Keep on Growing', 'It's Too Late', 'Layla' (another rare song where the music is actually more enjoyable for me than the vocals)