Rated 4/10
We go from "Girls are awesome" to "girls are slutty" to "damn, that man is hot, gimme that" to thanking all these women who helped them get where they are and quoting Bible verses. Pick a lane, girls.
My rating: 2/5
Rated 4/10
Yet another "We don't allow soundtracks on the list, but here's a soundtrack". It's very airy and ethereal. I don't think this is an album I NEEDED to listen to. I fail to see the historical significance.
My rating: 2/5
He plays beautifully, but I only have space in my heart for one flugelhorn master. This album feels more like jazz for jazz people, not jazz for the audience.
Rated 6/10
Outside of "Our House", I was not expecting the weirdness in this album. It's good, but nothing is hooking be to come back.
Rated 6/10
Sounded like a 70's band transplanted into the 90's. They went through the studio storerooms and found all kinds of old stuff and decided to make it their own. Theremins. All kinda good stuff here. But... No hooks. Nothing is bringing me back.
Rated 6/10
For the most part, this album is largely forgettable. You've got the three hits: "Queer", "Only Happy When It Rains", and "Stupid Girl". Thank you MTV. Outside of those three, most of it all kinda blends together. Crunchy guitars, electronic mixed in, a little edgy, but not quite enough to bite in. Then you get to "Milk", where Shirley floats in this trip-hop bliss, enticing you to vibe with her. They could have made a whole album of just this and I would have been happy. Butch, you screwed the pooch on this one.
My Rating: 3/5
Rated 8/10
First off, let's talk about the album and separate the art from the artist. Because... hoo boy, Kanye is a trainwreck to end all trainwrecks.
This is, honestly, a really good album. The beats are tight, the rhymes are inventive, the skits are funny. I wish he hadn't tried to separate the skits from the songs, because it really inflates the track count when an intro skit shouldn't really be separated from the music it's supposed to introduce. The skits don't completely stand alone on their own, they need the song to support the scaffolding.
And then, we get to "Last Call". Why? WHY? WHYYYYYY? It's too long, it's self-aggrandizing, it makes no sense, nobody cares, Kanye. We didn't need this track AT ALL.
My Rating: 4/5. Let's be honest, we all liked this music BEFORE Kanye lost his mind.
Rated 8/10
Everything Must Go hits like a band rediscovering its own gravity. From the opening moments, the Manics are locked-in and confident, delivering big, melodic Brit-rock that practically demands finger-tapping and air-guitar accompaniment. The title track soars, “Small Black Flowers…” brings a moment of unexpected, fragile beauty, and the closer “No Surface All Feeling” lands with that perfect mix of triumph and ache. It’s a tight, emotionally legible record with no dead air, just a steady, satisfying ride from a band built for bigger rooms than they ever got here.
My Rating: 4/5
Rated 6/10
Brown Sugar is one of those albums where I can clearly hear the lineage and the influence even if I don’t fully feel the magic myself. The Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass DNA is right there in the warmth of the grooves and the analog haze, but D’Angelo leans on his falsetto more than I prefer, floating above the music instead of digging into it. The record’s softness is its strength, but it also makes the sudden pivot into “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker” feel like someone spliced a street‑level murder ballad into a candlelit soul session. I get the betrayal and sorrow he’s aiming for, but the coarseness and tonal whiplash undercut the romance the rest of the album is working so hard to build. Still, I can hear exactly how this opened the door for neo‑soul and reshaped R&B’s trajectory. +1 for influence, even if the album itself doesn’t quite land in my personal rotation.
My Rating: 3/5
Rated 6/10
*lesigh* another Beatles Album....
-1 for Eleanor Rigby
+1 for Yellow Submarine
+1 for general silliness
-1 for not being cohesive
+1 for not being a boy-band pop album
-1 for Too Much Paul
-1 for letting George play the sitar
Honestly, it's not a bad album. I struggle to not be the asshole Beatles Critic, and this album shows me they grew some from their pop-rock roots. At least there's no skiffle.
My rating: 3/5
Rated 6/10
It was like they took their first take (which was a proper goth album) and gave it to the studio execs, and they said "nope, too dark, won't sell, try again". And this is the second attempt. Just a little broody, but not enough. And half-produced.
Rated 2/10
This is weird. 60's British humor. Like, let's take all the Monty Python songs and try to make a cohesive story out of them, but still keep it silly. It didn't work.
My rating: 1/5. But above Kid Rock.
Rated 8/10
Solid hits. You can't really go wrong with this album. Even the more obscure tracks are solid. I mean, yeah, it's country adjacent rock, but it's good.
My Rating: 4/5
Rated 10/10
One iconic classic rock tune, put in at a key moment to give you partial relief from a VERY dark story. IT's not a bad album, just... there's no veiling of the darkness here. And the fact that Tommy starts a cult as an adult doesn't make it any better, because the same adults are still abusing him.
Yes, you need to hear this album. Just be forewarned that it's dark.
My Rating: 5/5
Rated 4/10
I appreciate the energy here, but it's not for me. This album sounded like the band at the dive bar where everyone gets completed blasted out of your gourd, and everyone has a good time, but NOBODY remembers what happened. And because this was before cellphones, no pictures were taken, so you make up your night. But you KNOW you had a good time.
My Rating: 2/5
Rated 10/10
Fun rocker. I didn't expect it to be this much fun, and I'd heard "Take Me Out" and "This Fire" before. Solid rock, with a wink and a nod, all the way through. Whoever said this was the worst out of the indie rockers of the turn of the century was an idiot.
Rated 10/10
Foundational, unbeatable gangsta rap. I'm not even a heavy rap fan, and this is a good album. Head bobbin' groovin' good time. The skits are mostly funny. And I think this might be the origin of "deez nuts".
My Rating: 5/5
Rated 8/10
A really high energy live album. I normally hate live albums, but this one felt like you could pick up the crowd feeding off the band, and the band feeding off the crowd. They get very unglued about halfway through, like the speed wore off and they were running of whatever hallucinogenic mix they had cooking in their systems. I couldn't finish the last track.
My Rating: 4/5
Rated 4/10
It felt like a country version of John Cougar Mellencamp. I don't know why I needed this in my life.
Rated 6/10
Essential 60's listening. Everything I would have expected of a 60's album. Not that I liked it all that much, because it's a mid-60's album. Once you get past the opening track, nothing really stands out. There's not a reason to come back.
My Rating: 3/5
