Reviews by apollo

Led Zeppelin IV was definitely more of a mixed bag containing some of Led Zeppelin's highest highs and lowest lows. In my opinion, Some of their best songs came from this album including Stairway To Heaven and When The Levee Breaks but this album also has some of their worst songs too including Misty Mountain Hop and Four Sticks. I still do think that the good heavily outweighs the bad as i just enjoyed all the best songs and still tolerated the worst ones. The songs are also well paced and know the perfect length for the songs. This album isn't the most consistent one in terms of quality but i still really liked it.
Best Song: Stairway To Heaven
Worst Song: Misty Mountain Hop

Electric Ladyland is an album that took a little while for me to get in the groove with it but when i did, i really did. The album didn't really leave me with the best first impression considering that i thought it was going to be overly noisy but as it turns out, those moments were rare if they were even there at all. The guitar riffs were really good and the album just invoked a chill yet rocking vibe. It did take until around track 4 for me to start liking it but when it did hit that song, the album just remained consistently really good. This album was a pretty nice surprise and definitely better than i was expecting.
Best Song: 1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)
Worst Song: House Burning Down

The Lexicon Of Love is easily one of the most 80s albums i have ever heard. Everything from the bass, the keyboards, the regular vocals, and the other types of vocals. Everything just sounded so electronic, poppy and robotic at some points but i still enjoyed a lot of these elements. Every element i listed sounds pretty good and really did add to the charm of this album. The lyrics are a bit cheesy at points considering that this is an 80s new-wave band and those lyrics are expected but some of them do sound pretty stupid in this day and age. The album was pretty short though which means it never got tiring while still giving me my fill of this stuff. This album isn't perfect but still solid.
Best Song: 4 Ever 2 Gether
Worst Song: Many Happy Returns

Penance Soiree is an album that should have fell flat on it's face but somehow, it manages to be so amazing. I wasn't having high hopes about this album considering that it was listed as a noise rock album so i was expecting the most annoying thing ever but i did not get that. Instead, what i got was fast and frenetic album with some great melodies and some insane guitar work. The trumpets in some of the tracks did add quite a lot to them as well as they gave the album a pretty bluesy vibe. Granted, Meatmaker does do the annoying thing with it's instruments getting loud at certain intervals and the lyrics can be incredibly juvenile at points but none of these issues were enough to make me score this album any lower than 5 stars.
Best Song: White Devil
Worst Song: Meatmaker

I pretty much expected this but Roots is an incredible album. This album is the second album in a row that incorporates world like elements but in my opinion, handles them so much better than the other one. I also like this one more than the other Sepultura album since it plays way more into the world elements than Arise did. The world elements, like i said, are handled absolutely beautifully as are the metal elements with heavy guitars and vocals which sound awesome. Some of the songs here i would not listen to on their own but they still added to the album pretty well. This is one amazing album.
Best Song: Ratamahatta
Worst Song: Canyon Jam

Graceland is an album I'm pretty mixed as it has some things that i like about it but has others that i think could have been handled better. This album used quite a lot of elements of South African Street music which i find interesting and it is handled alright but not all too greatly which is a big reason as to why i prefer both Simon's self titled album and Hearts and Bones over this one. Some of the singles which did not use world elements were pretty good though with songs like You Can Call Me Al being pretty fun tracks. This isn't a bad album but in my opinion, it is a lot more rough than the other two Paul Simon albums i have listened to.
Best Song: You Can Call Me Al
Worst Song: Homeless
Side note: Since i have done all of Paul Simon's solo albums, i might as well put my ranking of them here:
1. Hearts And Bones
2. Paul Simon
3. Graceland

I only ever really knew the Bee Gees for Stayin' Alive so when i heard Odessa and found out that every song on here sounded nothing like that one, I was utterly flabbergasted. This album was way more of a folk/country album with many orchestral elements with some songs even going as far as to just being orchestral pieces without any vocals at all. Even the vocals here are very Beatlesque. I actually did quite like this album in spite of my shock. The instruments (especially the violins) were handled really well and the songs were still catchy at points without being disco like the Bee Gees are known for. The country songs weren't my favorite but this album was never at any point bad.
Best Song: I Laugh In Your Face
Worst Song: Marley Purt Drive

Mama Said Knock You Out was a surprisingly very good album. I didn't have the highest expectations going into it in which i was expecting to only like the back half but a good majority (if not all of it) turned out to be very good. The beats all were really cool sounding and the only issue with them is that they could get a little repetitive but it was rare. The main selling point of this album though, was the rapping itself. The LL Cool J had some really good flows and somehow he could manage to make them sound so good without swearing all that much which is difficult for a lot of rappers to do. Aside from the repetition, There isn't really anything for me to complain about so all I'll say is its a really good album.
Best Song: Mama Said Knock You Out
Worst Song: Mr. Good Bar

At first glance, I thought i wasn't going to like The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill seeing as it didn't give off the best first impression with the first two songs (not counting the intro) but as the album kept going, it did start to have some good songs. The main issue with the first few songs (which bleeds into a few of the other songs a little by the way) was that the composition of both the vocals and the instruments could get messy and disorganized to the point where it becomes sensory overload but in a lot of the other songs, the beats were cool, Lauryn had some good vocals and the lyrics were decent as well. This album's issues do hold it back but not enough to make it bad.
Best Song: I Used To Love Him
Worst Song: Lost Ones

Happy Sad is an album i just couldn't enjoy to the fullest. I can see the direction where the album wanted to go in being a folk album with a couple of jazz elements but this album just failed in too many ways for me to really enjoy it. There is already the fact that the composition sounds really messy but add that with an inconsistent voice volume (he could go from overly quiet to trying to do his best Kermit The Frog impression). And another issue was track 5 where it clearly wanted to be a quirky sorta cultist song like something Dr. John would make but the problem with this track is that it doesn't fully play into the weirdness like Dr. John did which makes the song kinda have an identity crisis. Who knows, this guy does have a few more albums here so maybe my opinion might change but with this album, It shows me that Tim's son just makes better music.
Best Song: Sing a Song for You
Worst Song: Gypsy Woman

Tuesday Night Music Club is yet another album that falls into the category of being just good. When i first heard the the name Sheryl Crow, I thought this was going to be a country album but while this does have some country elements, i wouldn't really say that this is a country album. This album has it's fun and catchy songs which i do find to be pretty good songs but it does have some boring ones too. I wasn't too miffed at this album though because the former easily overpowered the latter even if the latter's songs were longer. I do think that this is a decent album that i never really disliked at any point.
Best Song: What I Can Do For You
Worst Song: No One Said It Would Be Easy

Catch A Fire is a pretty good album. I honestly never thought that with the few reggae albums that i have currently listened to, i found some pretty good sounding ones. This one is probably the best of them though (at least so far). The instruments here were the most extravagant sounding without going too far and becoming annoying. I also think that Marley's vocals are perfect for these kinds of songs. My only problem with this album is it keeps things too consistent to the point of being overly samey as to where i had trouble picking out a best and worst song. I still do think this album is a pleasant and enjoyable listen.
Best Song: Slave Driver
Worst Song: Kinky Reggae

Play has managed to become one of my favorite electronic albums. The album mainly employs a lot of different styles including ambient, techno, and even rock in some places with all the guitars. And somehow, every single element is handled beautifully with the songs managing to remain upbeat and catchy and having enough ambiance to make the album sound otherworldly. The album also managed to have very different sounding songs which kept me interested even at a 63 minute runtime and the songs still managed to fit well together. This is an absolutely beautiful album.
Best Song: Bodyrock
Worst Song: My Weakness

You know, for being one of the lowest rated albums on this whole site (tied for 18th to be exact as of writing this) Sincere isn't half bad. Most of these songs feel like they would be songs that would play during the daily life segments of the Persona games and i love the soundtracks of those games so this kinda resonated with me. I can see the issue of the songs using the same beats throughout the whole thing some how so it can get really repetitive but the other parts of the songs were pretty cool including all the little ambient sounding parts. This is actually a pretty solid album and if the songs used different beats, I could see people liking this album quite a lot more.
Best Song: Hold On To Me
Worst Song: Slum King

The ArchAndroid is a case of good ideas with mixed execution. There was mostly the idea of combining a couple of music genres with a pop touch like R&B, Opera, and even somewhat of a metal influence in Come Alive. Most of the time, these ideas worked pretty well with the songs being catchy and Monae generally having a similar energy to a lot of the R&B artists from the 60s and 70s. But other times, the songs could either be boring, annoying or (in a rare case) both. I guess this is somewhat expected of an album that is over an hour long but it still remains an issue for me. All in all, The thing i can say about this album is that there is good and there is bad.
Best Song: Tightrope
Worst Song: Mushrooms & Roses

Like the other Led Zeppelin albums i listened to, Led Zeppelin was a legitimately great album. For a pretty early album in the metal genre, This album still managed to do so many interesting things to the point where it didn't sound all too basic like a lot of early albums of their respective genres do. Most of the songs here were pretty long but still managed keep me hooked throughout their whole runtime by doing enough to add to the typical blues-hard rock sound that this band is known for. While this album doesn't seem to have a lot of Led Zeppelin's most popular songs, I still really liked this album.
Best Song: Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Worst Song: Good Times Bad Times

I actually really enjoyed Pink Flag a pretty decent bit. The album has the fast and energetic pace that i expect from most punk albums for most of the songs. The guitars and drums are of course exactly like that and the vocals are also really good here too with the right amount of British cheesiness while still sounding very clear and understandable. I guess if i did have one problem with this album, it would be that sometimes, this album gets a bit too fast-paced with the songs ending before they can really start to sink in. Other than that small blemish, this is still a really fun album i enjoyed quite a bit.
Best Song: Pink Flag
Worst Song: It's So Obvious

Considering Third's reputation on this site (with a 2.45 average score) i was going into it thinking that i would absolutely hate it. But i didn't hate it, rather, i tolerated it somehow. I will get this out of the way, Yes, the album can get pretty noisy when it wants to. Those noisy sections were surprisingly rare though as when the album was actually trying to sound like proper music, It didn't sound too terrible. I guess the length did kinda help me get through this album's quirkiness. The vocals in the third track were cool as well. I didn't think i would not dislike this album but somehow, it turned out to be surprisingly okay.
Best Song: Moon in June
Worst Song: Out-Bloody-Rageous

Ray Of Light is a really good album that i wasn't really expecting to sound the way it did. Despite mainly being a pop album, This album was an electronic music lover's dream. It has a lot of the different genres that are well associated with electronic music including techno, trip-hop, ambient, house etc. And i can safely say that every genre that was tried in this album was executed really well. At worst, the songs could just be a little forgettable but most of the songs here were actually pretty catchy and enjoyable to listen to. This is definitely a really solid album.
Best Song: Frozen
Worst Song: Shanti / Ashtangi
Side note: I also noticed that depending on the music video, Madonna could look incredibly different in one compared to the other.

Blunderbuss is a pretty good album at what it does. Since this is by Jack White and he is a member of The White Stripes, i personally liked the album most when the songs were doing White Stripes things. These were mainly songs like Sixteen Saltines and Freedom At 21 and those songs were easily some of the highlights of the album. It was when the album was going off on its own when my interest was at it's lowest points. These songs aren't bad but they are kinda forgettable and they do take up the majority of the album. Other than that, i still enjoyed this album for what it did.
Best Song: Freedom At 21
Worst Song: I Guess I Should Go To Sleep