Reviews by apollo

I thought Colour By Numbers was a pretty decent album. I think it is an album that would have fit more in the 70s than it would the 80s since it is very disco coded just with a couple of twinges from 80s new wave. I definitely think that this album is really cheesy and reeks of it's time but that is the case with most disco as in general, its just a very cheesy genre especially when you are looking at it from modern lenses. The album is still pretty good despite the cheesiness and it did have some pretty good songs on offer (Miss Me Blind and Victims being particular stand-outs). But in my eyes, you have to enjoy disco to find value in this album, but if you do, you will definitely find it.
Best Song: Miss Me Blind
Worst Song: Karma Chameleon

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea might be the weakest of the PJ Harvery albums i have looked at so far. It isn't bad but it doesn't really have the cool, hard grit of Dry nor the masterful and layered production that Let England Shake had. Its in it's own spot of doing both the things the other two albums did but not doing either of them as well as the other albums. There are still some good things about this album, the music itself was still pretty solid and PJ Harvey herself did a good job on vocals and songwriting. Thom Yorke also appeared on a few tracks and his presence is appreciated here too. Its still a decent album, it just doesn't hold a candle to the other two PJ Harvey works i looked at.
Best Song: One Line
Worst Song: Kamikaze

Meat Puppets II was an album that came so close to getting 4 stars but just barely missed the mark. When i first heard this band's name, i thought that these guys would maybe be folk or blues but they are psychedelic rock which was kinda close to what i was thinking. I am very into the rough sound that this album is going for and each song had that fun groovy vibe to it which never really hitched but i still feel like there is a hint of laziness to this album which kinda holds it back for me. This album was paced pretty well though so there was never a point where i was begging for it to end. It is a good album, just not quite great.
Best Song: Aurora Borealis
Worst Song: What to Do

Horses was just a really odd album to me. I honestly did find it odd that this album is considered punk considering how minimalist it sounds in comparison to a lot of other punk rock albums are typically very aggressive and chaotic but apparently this is what punk used to be for a lot of people, and I'm glad it changed because I'm not the hugest fan of this. The music itself was pretty decent even if it is different than i would expect from punk music, the main issue though is the vocals as i feel like Patti really loves to ramble and i don't really like that and these lyrics aren't great either so there is that. I feel like this album could have been good but these vocals really hold it back.
Best Song: Free Money
Worst Song: Land: Horses / Land of a Thousand Dances / La Mer (de)

White Light was honestly a pretty okay album. This is the first time i have heard anything by Gene Clark (even counting the Byrds albums because he wasn't involved on either of the ones i did) but his music seems to be more or less what i expected it to be being this very country, singer-songwriter album. The album itself is alright, the music was good and the songwriting was good too. The problem was that these songs could get really samey, this got to a point where i had trouble picking out a favorite and least favorite song since they all sounded so similar to each other. I didn't think it got tiring but there is no doubt that it got forgettable.
Best Song: One In A Hundred
Worst Song: Stand By Me

Music is an album i really like but not quite to the same amount as Madonna's prior record. I'm more interested in the late 90s early 2000s era Madonna than i am in her 80s stuff and this album was definitely no exception. This album still had that same variety of electronic music styles that the album before this one did with trip-hop, ambient, house, techno and all of that and it is all executed very well here. If i had one issue with this album, it would be the fact that while the vocals were generally pretty well put together, there were some obnoxious usages of autotune which got rather annoying. Other than that though, this is one really good record.
Best Song: Music
Worst Song: Nobody's Perfect
Side note: Last Madonna album, here are the rankings:
1. Ray Of Light
2. Music
3. Like A Prayer

Let England Shake was definitely a really good album. This one definitely took a turn from the last PJ Harvey album i heard going from a very grungy sound to a more pop-esque sound. I may not like this as much as the former but i still really can't deny how textured and detailed all these songs feel especially with some excellent production. PJ Harvey herself also had a great voice which helped add to these songs. But the main show stealer is the production. I genuinely sounds so great here, it sounds incredibly polished and expensive no matter which producer worked on it. It's not my favorite kind of PJ Harvey album but its still a really good one.
Best Song: Let England Shake
Worst Song: The Words That Maketh Murder

Tapestry was a very enjoyable album. When looking at the highest rated albums on this site released in 1971, i was shocked to see that this is the 4th highest rated one from that year mainly because i have never heard of it and yet, it's passed very well known albums like Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones and Who's Next by The Who. But after listening to it, i can easily see why people love it. It has so many things which you would want from a great singer-songwriter album from relaxing music, deep vocals and some very great songwriting. It is the songwriting that mainly steals the show but everything else still helps make this album really good.
Best Song: Tapestry
Worst Song: Home Again

Third is definitely a really interesting album. This album seemed to move away from the trip-hop that Portishead is known for and included quite a lot of other genres including krautrock, doo wop, surf rock and John Carpenter film scores. I definitely think its an interesting change which was handled pretty well. Granted, the album didn't quite find it's footing for a while but when it did, it really did. The part i enjoyed most about the album is that these songs added in so much that i was always curious to see what would come next. I still think i like Dummy more due to me having more of an affinity for that album's sound but this was still a really good one.
Best Song: We Carry On
Worst Song: Plastic

I thought The Cars was a pretty good album. This album is definitely a real trailblazer as it had a lot of the sounds that became commonplace in the 80s new wave movement. The synths are all here though somewhat different from what the genre would produce and there is even a saxophone solo in the last song. The vocals were also pretty interesting as Ric Ocasek could sometimes sound like Freddie Mercury (especially in the second song). I wouldn't say that this album is a s interesting as some of the albums that would come after it due to those doing much more and feeling more polished, I still thought that this was a pretty good one.
Best Song: All Mixed Up
Worst Song: Good Times Roll

Bright Flight was definitely not like what i was expecting. I was expecting a very indie rock like album considering the fact that the genre is listed on the reviews page and some of the members were in Pavement. But nope, what i ended up getting was a country rock album. It is a perfectly fine one at that as it doesn't really do anything worse or better than it's contemporaries. There were some interesting atmospheric bits which i like and i did find it funny that one of the songs had lyrics from the song Jingle Bells in it but i don't have too much to say about this album beyond that. Its a perfectly serviceable album but nothing beyond that.
Best Song: Transylvania Blues
Worst Song: Tennessee

I was expecting Neon Bible to be good but i wasn't expecting to give a 5 star review to it, But i'm so happy that i get to give a surprise 5 star review. I get that the incredibly grandiose sound is certainly a divisive aspect about this album but i'm with the people that like it as it gave the songs here so much depth. Every song here felt atmospheric and incredibly deep which i really liked. Everything from the general indie rock sound with the guitars and such to all the elements that added to this grandiose nature were all things that i really liked about this album. And they are all hits, not a single song that i didn't enjoy. This album was certainly a really great listen.
Best Song: No Cars Go
Worst Song: Neon Bible

I gotta say, i absolutely loved Apocalypse Dudes. For some reason this album is tagged on Wikipedia as glam rock (as is the band) and i just don't see it since despite having a cover of a glam rock song, this is full blown punk or death punk as they call it. And it sure is really great punk. The songs all have a very fast, frenetic energy to them which is perfect for a genre like this and makes all these songs fun to listen to. I also enjoy all the little touches in the songs that aren't super prevalent but still noticeable and fun to listen to. Also gotta love that a cover of Suffragette City is here since that is one of the best David Bowie tracks and it sounds great here. This album was just nothing but a really fun time.
Best Song: Are You Ready (For Some Darkness)
Worst Song: Humiliation Street

Chemtrails Over The Country Club is a pretty good album. This is the most recent album to come out on this whole list and it shows here. Everything about the production does feel very modern. I felt that the music was actually quite nice, very slow moving and easy listening. However, the one issue this album suffers from is that it plays it very safe. There isn't really much that sticks out here and leads nearly every song to end up sounding the same which causes the album to drag along even at 45 minutes. This album isn't bad at all and i can 100% see why Lana Del Rey is so popular but it does start to drag which brings my enjoyment down.
Best Song: Breaking Up Slowly
Worst Song: Dance Till We Die

First Band On The Moon is an album i listened to and reviewed back in 2023 a bit before starting this project and i wasn't really that much of a fan. Though, like Illmatic, i think my opinion has improved slightly because i thought this album was fine. I think that there was some solid musicianship here especially with the bass. I did think that the lyrics in some of the songs were not the greatest though. There was a lot of Black Sabbath influences in these songs oddly enough including an Iron Man cover. I wasn't really a big fan of it as i felt it sounded too chill which doesn't fit considering what the lyrics are actually about. I still thought this album was a perfectly fine listen, just nothing too special.
Best Song: Great Divide
Worst Song: Iron Man

Just like Public Image Ltd.'s later record, i wasn't really a fan of Public Image: First Issue. To give this album credit, it is better than Metal Box but only slightly. The songs here have a bit more variety and don't go on for nearly as long as the other one but it still suffers from a lot of the same issues. A lot of these songs just feel incredibly self-indulgent especially that last one where there was a fire extinguisher solo and Elmo was also hired to do some of the vocals. This self-indulgent nature made this album quite annoying to listen to. It is a shame i have to rate this pretty low too since there are glimpses of good musicianship in here, It's just buried underneath this self-indulgent crap.
Best Song: Public Image
Worst Song: Theme

I must say, Good Old Boys was a pretty nice listen. It's honestly been quite a while since i last heard Sail Away so i don't exactly know how this one compares to that one but due to recency bias, i think i prefer this one. The songs here still have that very Disney/Pixar jazz sounding tone to them and that is something i enjoy to see this style in an earlier fashion. I also think that some of the lyrical themes are pretty interesting with some of them being about various historical events and as someone who enjoys history, i really do get a kick out of this. It isn't perfect as most of the songs can get pretty samey but i still enjoyed my time with this one.
Best Song: Louisiana 1927
Worst Song: Naked Man

Car Wheels On A Gravel Road was honestly a super nice surprise. This album having Texas blues in the styles section of this site is honestly so fitting because this is one of the most Texas albums i have ever heard which makes it odd that it wasn't actually recorded in Texas. The main thing i really liked about this album was how chill it was, it's honestly one really nice album to unwind and relax to after working an 8 and a half hour long shift at work which is what i did. Williams' vocals were really good here too with them just having that right amount of rasp to make it enjoyable. Not the best album but if you want to listen to some nice Texas sounding country music, there are worse ways to do it.
Best Song: Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Worst Song: Drunken Angel

Peter Gabriel is a very good album. From looking at the comments section of these songs (the first song in particular) people have been saying that this album is more or less an extension of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and with many of these songs, i can easily see why. This album had a very prog rock slant to it while still feeling quite concise which makes me prefer it over TLLDOB. These songs could mostly range from being decent to really good to amazing with Down The Dolce Vita. I was initially going to put this below Peter Gabriel 3 (Melt) due to it seeming to lack the creativity that one had but when the track i mentioned came on, It was so good that i ended up putting this album higher.
Best Song: Down The Dolce Vita
Worst Song: Moribund The Burgermeister
Side Note: Last Peter Gabriel album, Rankings here:
1. So
2. Peter Gabriel
3. Peter Gabriel 3

I thought that Stephen Stills was a very solid album. Stephen Stills is in a lot of places on this list so i more or less expected what this album was gonna sound like. And even though i could easily see the sound of this album coming, that doesn't mean that it wasn't any good because it very much was. The songs here had a very acoustic vibe to them as they were slow moving and generally focused on the vocals and lyrics but there were points where this album could get quite extravagant and very textured. Those were the parts i liked most from this album. I also thought that this is a better album than Manassas since it's not nearly as long. Real solid album here.
Best Song: We Are Not Helpless
Worst Song: Black Queen