Reviews by apollo

Look, regardless of what you think of Marilyn Manson as a person or his style of music, There is absolutely no denying that he truly makes some of the best music of his kind and Antichrist Superstar shows that off perfectly. This album has just about everything i love about industrial metal. Its dark, haunting, aggressive, heavy and has some good electronic elements which add so much to the music. It could also be really catchy when it wanted to (I'm looking at you Angel With The Scabbed Wings). The lyrics here are also incredibly good as well with some pretty deep lines throughout a lot of the songs. This album is an easy favorite for me.
Best Song: Angel With The Scabbed Wings
Worst Song: Mister Superstar

I thought that The Beach Boys Today! was an alright album. In many ways, it does feel very dated from things like the production, the lyrics and many other things that clearly make this album a product of 1965. I still enjoyed this album a decent bit to be honest. I thought that the songs felt relaxing and had that Beach Boys vibe i got from hearing all their really popular stuff pretty well. The main issues with this album are the fact that every song sounds overly similar to each other and that the album went by a little too quickly. This made the album kinda forgettable but these issues never made it bad.
Best Song: Help Me, Rhonda
Worst Song: Don't Hurt My Little Sister

Heaux Tales is definitely an odd one for me when it comes to my opinion on it. This is one of the most recent albums on the whole list as this album closed the 2021 edition of the book this whole list was based on. As for my opinion, there are things i do and don't like about this album. Musically, it handles things pretty alright with the production and instrumentals being decent at best and mediocre at worst. The lyrics though, i have some pretty conflicting feelings. At some points, they could feel pretty cool and deep but at other points, they could just be pointless swearfests. This album is one where my feelings are all over the place but i didn't hate my time with it.
Best Song: Put It Down
Worst Song: Ari's Tale

Exile On Main Street is an album that i had a hard time keeping up with. I am mostly just going to blame it on it's length and the fact that there isn't all too much variation on the formula. The songs tended to flip-flop between two formulas, one being a more country like style and the other being a harder, more rock and roll style and that lasted for about an hour. I don't think that this album is bad, far from it actually, the music is pretty good especially from the latter formula and the vocals are also really good hear as well. I just wish that it were cut down a bit. This may be another album where I'm struggling to find a favorite and least favorite song due to them being overly similar to each other. It's not bad, i just wish it wasn't so long.
Best Song: Stop Breaking Down
Worst Song: Sweet Virginia

Purple Rain is certainly a darn amazing album. This is my third (maybe fourth) time hearing a film soundtrack from this project (after both Air's Virgin Suicides, and Curtis Mayfield's Superfly and kinda Barry Adamson's Moss Side Story) but i can safely say that this is easily the best of the bunch. I also think its Prince's best album due to pretty much combining the best parts of both Sign 'O' The Times and 1999 without any of their issues. Every guitar riff is great, the vocals are something to behold and it is produced beautifully. I don't believe i can think of any issue that this album even has so it is getting a full 5 stars from me.
Best Song: Let's Go Crazy
Worst Song: Take Me with U
Side note: Since this will be my last Prince album, i will rank all of them
1. Purple Rain
2. 1999
3. Sign 'O' The Times

I have never really thought too highly with most jazz albums on this list due to a lot of them just being overly boring and forgettable but there have been a fair few standouts with Street Life easily being one of them. There wasn't anything too out of the ordinary with this album with it mostly just sticking to the basics of jazz but it handles those basics super well. The music is mainly the best part of the album with it being so funky yet so relaxing at the same time. The vocals (when they were used) were also very well done too. Also, this album is one of the few jazz albums on this project that never felt bloated. This is easily one of the better jazz albums i have heard.
Best Song: Street Life
Worst Song: Carnival Of The Night

Dance Mania is yet another album where i am more or less just split down the middle in terms of my opinion of it. I definitely do enjoy a lot of the jazz elements that are on frequent display here and the album always had a fun, upbeat vibe to it. My main issue is that all the songs just sound the same with no real differentiation towards any of them. This is my main problem with salsa music in general. When you get past all the things that make it different from other genres, There isn't very much individuality to the genre as nearly every song of that genre sounds the same. This album is still good but that problem is still quite noticeable.
Best Song: Hong Kong Mambo
Worst Song: Mi Chiquita Quiere Bembe

Arc Of A Diver isn't really an album i have much to say about. All this album really is is just your standard, typical 80s pop rock album that has been done so many times. I guess this wasn't really overdone at the time since this album came out pretty early in the 80s (in fact, it was the first year of that decade) but it still does not change the fact that this album just isn't one that's gonna stick in my mind which is a shame since the one i did yesterday of a similar genre did so much to help itself stand out from the rest of the pack while this one just doesn't. I can't hate this one because the musicianship is pretty solid but it doesn't change the fact i can't rank this one any higher than a 2.5.
Best Song: Slowdown Sundown
Worst Song: Spanish Dancer

Penthouse And Pavement was just a really weird album and a really difficult one for me to speak my opinions on it. I guess one thing i can really say about it is "The 80sness is strong with this one" as this is probably one of the most 80s albums i have ever heard. You can just tell that this album was from 1981 with all the synths, the style of the vocals and all the quirks that this album had. The quirkiness is the real make it or break it moment for this album for a lot of people. I can see why some people find it annoying but oddly enough, i did kinda enjoy just how quirky this album is. Its definitely an odd one but still a somewhat enjoyable one.
Best Song: Play To Win
Worst Song: Song With No Name

Countdown To Ecstasy was actually a really good album. During my first few minutes of listening, i thought this album was just going to be okay but the more i listened to it, the more i started to like it. I love the generally jazzy vibe to it with a whole lot of rock elements added in as well and also even the slight country twinges were a nice surprise as well. But the main draw of these songs is obviously how funky they can all get. They all had a fun melody to them that is just so easy to dance along to. Granted, the songs are a bit long but i never really found that to be too much of an issue as i still enjoyed their melodies. This is a really strong album and a really enjoyable one.
Best Song: My Old School
Worst Song: The Boston Rag

Violent Femmes is an album that i have somewhat mixed feelings on. I definitely didn't hate it but it wasn't something i really loved either. It does feel quite a bit different from a lot of the other punk albums i have heard on this project with this one feeling more acoustic than a lot of the others. The music here is pretty good albeit a bit forgettable as there is not a whole lot of differentiation between the songs with them only having a few interesting moments. The lyrics are not all that great either due to some of them feeling more perverted than i would have wanted. It is still a pretty decent album but its not one that i really want to go back to.
Best Song: Add It Up
Worst Song: Gimme the Car

Gold was quite a solid album which rather surprised me. For some reason, the album art made me think that this was going to be an emo album (i guess some of the fashion choices did it for me including the hair and the eyeshadow) but no, this is in fact a country rock album. This album does it's job pretty well as many of the songs can be pretty beautiful or pretty rocking in a lot of the best ways. The main issue that i do have with this album is it's length, this album is around 70 minutes which would be fine if the songs sounded more varied but here they do not and it did cause my enjoyment of this album to tank a bit. It's still a solid album and was better than i was expecting due to Adams' reputation on this site.
Best Song: The Rescue Blues
Worst Song: Touch, Feel & Lose

Little Earthquakes was definitely a really darn good album. This album gave me a lot of the same vibes that Fiona Apple's Tidal gave despite that album coming out a whole 4 years after this one. This album still hits a lot of the same beats Tidal did with similar sounding vocals and also heavily relying on the piano in nearly all the songs. Said piano was easily the best part of the whole album as it could be really beautiful at points in the songs that did use it. The vocals were a bit more hit or miss but were mostly hits when Amos did her typical singing style and didn't try anything too weird. This is a quite a nice surprise of an album.
Best Song: Winter
Worst Song: Me and a Gun

Pornography is definitely an album which I'm not exactly the biggest fan of. This album did have some good ideas with it being one of the early pioneers of gothic rock and it does show with a lot of the songs having this somewhat haunting air to them. This album unfortunately isn't the best when it comes to the execution though. This album's production isn't really that great causing the songs to sort of blend in with all the dissonance that they all have in spades. This causes the songs to just feel kinda forgettable since the melodies are lost to the dissonance. This is by no means a bad album but i still think that it could have been quite a lot better.
Best Song: Cold
Worst Song: Siamese Twins

1999 was definitely an album that was all over the place but still a really fun listen. This album was a case where absolutely no song sounded the same as they all had their own quirks and gimmicks that the other songs didn't have with some working better than others. This album does of course, reek of the 80s seeing as it did come out in 1982 and tried sounding as futuristic as it could seeing as it is called 1999 but it still reeks of that era in all of the best ways. I do think that not all of the creative ideas in the songs were handled perfectly as some could be annoying. It is a shame though, because without those annoying bits, this genuinely would have been a 5 star album but alas, we can't have that can we?
Best Song: D.M.S.R.
Worst Song: All The Critics Love U In New York

Ah, Van Morrison, now that's a name i haven't heard in a long time, not since my third album. Anyways, It's Too Late to Stop Now is an album that is pretty dang solid. I think that Van Morrison might be another case of an artist/band that sounds better live than in the studio. While Moondance was an alright album, this one is definitely a step up as it just sounds more jazzy, more upbeat and just has a lot more energy and memorability. There is one thing you really have to get around though, and that is the fact that this album is VERY long, It is an hour and a half long and many of the songs definitely feel like they drag. Despite that, this was actually a pretty solid listen.
Best Song: Into the Mystic
Worst Song: Help Me

I am a guy who absolutely loves nu-metal so it obviously comes as no surprise that i love All Hope Is Gone. This is an album i do have some experience with by listening to a lot of the more popular songs off of it quite a fair bit. But of course, every song off this album is a genuinely great listen. This album is nearly nonstop heaviness throughout but also had a much more slow and melancholic side to it with songs like Snuff. Even though they were not utilized much, the electronic elements that were used in this album added quite a lot to the songs that had them. This album is a long one but still one that is amazing the whole way through.
Best Song: Dead Memories
Worst Song: This Cold Black

Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts is a pretty decent album. It is a late 70s British punk album so it has all the bells and whistles you would expect from an album with all of these characteristics and in my opinion, its done pretty well. The songs all have that fast paced and rebellious energy that you would expect to see from a punk album like this making the album rush by and really never getting all too tedious. Granted, this album is very samey and also very cheesy as it does have all the quirks of late 70s british punk rock albums but i still enjoyed this album for being a fun, inoffensive listen.
Best Song: Safety In Numbers
Worst Song: Bored Teenagers

Night Life is an album that i didn't enjoy very much. This album mainly suffers from issues that some other albums suffer from including ones like Richard Hawley's Coles Corner where the album does nothing all that horribly but its just super uninteresting. I get that this is a fairly early country album coming from the early 60s but there are country albums that released before this that are way more interesting and memorable than this one. This is just a massive nothing album to me that lacks anything to make it really good or really bad, I'm running out of things to say as it is just kinda there.
Best Song: Let Me Talk To You
Worst Song: Sittin' And Thinkin'

Nevermind is a genuinely amazing album but i don't think that's very surprising considering that this is the essential grunge album. There is, of course, all the singles including Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom, Come As You Are and Lithium all of which i hear on the radio quite a lot and are all very much great songs but the other tracks on this album are no slouches either. The guitars and Kurt's vocals are of course major highlights but the bass is also a huge highlight. I also like how similar to Bug by Dinosaur Jr, it ends with a really heavy song which is always something i love. I still think In Utero is a little bit better but this album is still an absolutely excellent one regardless.
Best Song: Come As You Are
Worst Song: Polly
Side note: Since i will be knocking Nirvana off my unlistened albums list for this project, here are my rankings for each of their albums:
1. In Utero
2. Nevermind
3. MTV Unplugged In New York