Reviews by apollo

Entertainment is a rather fun listen so it's name does feel fitting. They most certainly weren't lying about the Gang Of Four part either as there were four people who worked on this album (not counting the tape operators or the engineer). One thing i can also say about this album is that it is so unapologetically British, that accent that of the lead singer just reeks of British punk, and i love it. The songs themselves were all fun listens with them having upbeat tempos and quite a lot of work when it comes to the instruments. Granted this album does get really repetitive which is why i can't justify a full 4 star rating but it was fun enough to earn a 3.5 which rounds up to a 4 so it's still a win in the end.
Best Song: At Home He's A Tourist
Worst Song: Love Like Anthrax

I liked Nowhere quite a bit more than i was expecting to. This album is a shoegaze album and i typically have very middling opinions on that genre as it can be noisy but give it time and it can be quite nice to listen to. This album is one of the albums that does the genre right though. It never got too noisy as the production kept everything from getting too loud but also had those nice, addictive melodies that made the album a joy to listen to. I think this is one of those shoegaze albums that didn't need to be quite long for me to like it as i was at least considering a high 3 stars for this but as i kept listening i bumped it up to a 4. Really good album that I'm glad i listened to.
Best Song: Decay
Worst Song: Polar Bear

Leftism is easily among my top 5 electronic albums of all time. I'm always someone who enjoys electronic music, especially the kind that's incredibly layered and complex while still being high energy and easy to dance to. This album is able to do that extremely well. Also, while it is 69 minutes long, it doesn't feel like it is that long since the songs have enough energy to them to make them feel like they are absolutely flying by. And the songs themselves are just so good. The beats have weight to them, the ambiance in these songs are really good and the vocals and all the other sounds are very good too. I don't think i can say anything bad about this album so it's getting full marks from me.
Best Song: Open Up
Worst Song: 21st Century Poem

Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine is an album i really liked a lot. I only really knew Cee-Lo for his really popular singles and his pop culture appearances and the latter had a very R&B like sound. While this album still has that R&B sound, it still has a lot of hip-hop elements which are handled really well here. The production on offer is off the charts good with so many amazingly produced songs. It could just be the fact that two excellent producers (DJ Premier and The Neptunes) offered their help here and did an excellent job as did all the others. It may not be my favorite hip-hop album but it is still a really good one.
Best Song: Living Again
Worst Song: Die Trying

Roxy Music was a very enjoyable album. Due to David Bowie especially, i have always found glam rock to be a genre that i really enjoy and this album is no exception to that rule. The synths were probably the main thing that stole the show here as they did sound really nice. This album also had a lot of free jazz elements which i'm a bit divided on. I'm generally not a fan of free jazz as it can sound rather messy and they had that issue on this album too but i didn't find them to be too intrusive though. That last track gave me Willy Wonka vibes for some reason which i find rather funny. Not their best work but still a really good album.
Best Song: Virginia Plain
Worst Song: Re-Make/Re-Model

Ah, Mariah Carey, the bane of every retail worker's existence near Christmas time especially when the store they work at blares "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOUUUUUU". Honestly it would have made more sense for me to get Butterfly during Christmas due to that very popular Christmas song of hers. It probably wouldn't change my opinion as i would still think that this album is alright. The production here is solidly handled and Mariah did a good job on the vocals. The problem is how samey this album gets. Nearly every song has literally the exact same sound with minimal changes which makes this album feel like it's a bit too long. It sounds good, it just could have benefited from being shorter.
Best Song: The Roof (Back In Time)
Worst Song: Outside

I think that Live At The Regal is a very enjoyable album from start to finish. I always thought that B.B. King was a jazz artist when it turned out that he was actually a blues one. I still ended up really liking this style as the songs were very often upbeat and catchy and the general stage presence that B.B. King gave off added quite a lot to this album. One thing that i was a little bit confused by was the fact that B.B. King got introduced twice for some reason once in the first song (which made sense) but again in one of the later songs. I guess it is one of those you have have been there sort of things and i of course couldn't since i wasn't born yet (Hell, my parents weren't even born yet). Even still, it's a very enjoyable album and one of the 60s' better offerings.
Best Song: Sweet Little Angel
Worst Song: You Upset Me Baby

Foo Fighters is an absolutely fantastic album. I've always been aware of the Foo Fighters (honestly who hasn't been?) including some songs of this album, in particular the first three with me hearing This Is a Call and Big Me on my local alt rock station and hearing I'll Stick Around back in high school when Spotify would recommend me that song. I think that every song on this album was an absolutely great listen with some really good guitars, and some very solid vocals which fit these songs perfectly. And there is not one single song that i dislike here as they are all incredibly great. This album really showed that even after Nirvana ended, Dave Grohl never stopped making great music.
Best Song: Good Grief
Worst Song: Big Me
Side Note: I also think it's really impressive that Dave Grohl was the only musician on this album (except for Greg Dulli who played an additional guitar on X-Static)

All i can really say about The Gilded Palace Of Sin is that it's alright. It does have a cool name though which is something i can say with a strong opinion unlike the music on this album. This album, more or less is your standard country rock affair with pretty much all the strengths and weaknesses you would expect in this genre. The album certainly is pleasant to listen to being very slow moving and easy-listening which makes it a good album to be played on a road trip or something. However, it just really doesn't do anything that special and just makes this album blend in with all the other country rock albums that came out at the time. This album is fine, just nothing special
Best Song: Christine's Tune
Worst Song: Do You Know How It Feels

All i can really say about The Gilded Palace Of Sin is that it's alright. It does have a cool name though which is something i can say with a strong opinion unlike the music on this album. This album, more or less is your standard country rock affair with pretty much all the strengths and weaknesses you would expect in this genre. The album certainly is pleasant to listen to being very slow moving and easy-listening which makes it a good album to be played on a road trip or something. However, it just really doesn't do anything that special and just makes this album blend in with all the other country rock albums that came out at the time. This album is fine, just nothing special
Best Song: Christine's Tune
Worst Song: Do You Know How It Feels

Oh come on 1001 albums generator, since it's St. Patty's day, you know that this was a very missed opportunity to give me an album with green on the album art. Anyways, jokes aside, I thought that Parallel Lines was a pretty solid album. I only really know Blondie from the really popular songs of theirs including Call Me, Heart Of Glass, and One Way Or Another (The latter two are off this album and the latter of those two i didn't know was by Blondie until i listened to this). This album reeks of 1978 which makes sense because that's when it released but i did enjoy the mix of disco and rock music. It may not hit as hard as some of my favorite rock albums but i still liked this one a fair bit.
Best Song: 11:59
Worst Song: I'm Gonna Love You Too

The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators is honestly just an alright album. This band doesn't really seem to be that much different from any of the other psychedelic rock bands that were big around this time. Complete with all the insanely distorted guitars (with the production making them even more distorted). I guess the one thing that this album has that it's contemporaries did not have was that odd sound in a lot of the songs which sounded like constantly poking at a bubble. This is also one of those albums in which i have a tough time picking a favorite/least favorite because they all sound so similar. This album is okay but you can do a lot better than this.
Best Song: Splash 1 (Now I'm Home)
Worst Song: Tried To Hide

Time Out Of Mind is easily the best Bob Dylan album i have heard so far. It just really went to show that Dylan kept refining his craft over his career. I thought that this album was really well produced and it's a shame that Bob Dylan didn't like the sound of this album because i think it sounds far nicer and clearer than anything he has done in the past (at least, the albums i heard released prior to this). The songs here were also really nice and generally very relaxing to hear, especially Make You Feel My Love which in a lot of ways, makes me think of John Grant's Silver Platter Club (I love that song so i definitely like this one too). Granted this album is a long one but it is still solid.
Best Song: Make You Feel My Love
Worst Song: Highlands

I liked Real Life a little more than i was expecting to. Barry Adamson was involved on this (he was the bass player by the way) so i did at least expect this to be pretty good. While the album does lack the creativity that his mock film soundtracks, Moss Side Story and Oedipus Schmoedipus, I still found it to have a pretty enjoyable post punk, almost glam rock sort of sound. I think that this is an album where the back half shines more than the front half with a lot of those songs being really good especially on those guitars and melodies. In fact, i was initially gonna give this a high 3 stars but as i kept hearing those back half songs, that was enough to push it to a 4.
Best Song: Shot By Both Sides (Single Version)
Worst Song: Recoil

Aftermath is definitely a really solid album from The Rolling Stones. This album apparently had two different versions with one being from the UK and the other being from the US (I listened to the latter because that was the first one i could find on Youtube) with the latter having a few songs rearranged or omitted entirely. I still think i would have had the same opinion of this album regardless of which one i listened to though. The production is very fuzzy sounding which i think adds a certain charm to these kinds of album. There were also some interesting ideas in store on this album especially with Paint It Black. This is a rather enjoyable album and a good way to close off my 6 album journey with them.
Best Song: Paint It Black
Worst Song: Going Home
Side Note: Like i have always done with artists with 3 albums or more, album rankings:
1. Sticky Fingers
2. Let It Bleed
3. Aftermath
4. Beggars Banquet
5. The Rolling Stones
6. Exile On Main Street

Fetch The Bolt Cutters was a really damn good album. This one definitely feels very different from the last album i heard from her that being Tidal (man, its been nearly 3 years since i heard that album). That one heavily leaned into a very pop like style, however, this one honestly felt more like Tom Waits with some feminine attitude and that is something i really like. The general bases of the songs aren't anything to write home about but the melodies overlayed on top of them are honestly so good. The lyrics are also some really good ones too. A few iffy vocals do unfortunately prevent this album from getting 5 stars but this one still one very enjoyable listen.
Best Song: Newspaper
Worst Song: I Want You To Love Me

Tonight's The Night is a decent, if forgettable album. When it comes to Neil Young, he either does hard rock or country and i prefer the former so it is a bit of a shame in my eyes that this album focuses on the latter. That being said there are some hard guitars on offer and even the general country elements aren't bad and were generally pleasant to listen to. My main issue with this album is just how forgettable it is. None of the songs here really do anything that unique or memorable and just tend to blend in with each other. I also found Neil Young's voice a bit weird in places but it was nothing all that bad. This album is not bad, just not very memorable or exciting.
Best Song: Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown
Worst Song: World on a String

The Stooges was certainly a fun listen. It is always nice to hear another album by Iggy Pop as even though the guy's music is rough around the edges, it's still some very fun punk music and this album shows that perfectly. The general punk songs of this album are all fun listens with that incredibly charming 60s distorted guitars which could have been annoying but were used pretty darn well here. Even the 10 minute long track "We Will Fall" was a cool listen because it felt so different from the rest of the album to make it feel like a breath of fresh air. This may not be the most perfect album but it is still no doubt a really fun listen.
Best Song: Real Cool Time
Worst Song: Ann

Metal Box is one of those albums where it tries to be so weird and out there that it ends up just becoming really repetitive. This album gives me quite a bit of deja vu to Suicide's self-titled album i did way back, however this album isn't nearly as bad as that one because its not nearly as annoying. There were some good basslines on this album and they definitely did try a lot of things here. But it just all ends up blending together considering the album's ho-hum production and it simply goes on for too long, like an hour of this is excessive. I was initially thinking of giving this a 2.5 but due to the length, it got knocked down to a full blown 2.
Best Song: Memories
Worst Song: Chant

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake is certainly an interesting concept album. The first half mainly claims to take inspiration from quite a few music styles (but let's be real here, most of it just sounds like The Beatles, you just can't escape that sound if you are a psych-rock band in the 1960s). The second half though, is based on an original fairy tale about a boy named Happiness Stan which track one from that half is named after. I did find a lot of these fairy tale segments quite interesting and the music was generally enjoyable too. I guess one main problem with this album would be the production, I get that this was probably the best they could do in 1968 but the overly fuzzy sound makes it a bit more difficult to fully enjoy. However, this album was interesting enough for me to like it.
Best Song: Song of a Baker
Worst Song: Happydaystoytown