Reviews by apollo

For being a pretty early hip-hop album, Run-D.M.C. does it's job pretty well. This is probably one of the earliest hip-hop albums on this project (I believe it is second only to Malcolm Mclaren's Duck Rock in that regard) so it is a pretty basic album especially in it's first half. There are some pretty good songs here however and some weird ones (I'm looking at you, Wake Up) but the good ones are some pretty solid songs. I guess if there is another issue with this album besides it's overly basic nature, I'd say the weird songs do tend to drag for a bit too long which causes their gimmicks to get a little annoying but other than that, This is actually a pretty good early hip-hop album.
Best Song: Rock Box
Worst Song: Wake Up

Da Capo is actually a really good album held back by one major flaw. The songs on side 1 were surprisingly quite good as they gave me a couple of different sound types. The first track almost made this sound like a circusy (for lack of a better word) album then the album mainly shifted into a style where, while having the typical psych rock quirks, still sounded immensely pleasant to listen to. The main flaw i was talking about earlier was side 2. I think that the song there simply went on for too long and had too many annoying elements (despite having a couple good ones). If the last song had been removed or at least shortened, This album could have earned a full 4 but as it stands, it gets a 3.5.
Best Song: Seven & Seven Is
Worst Song: Revelation
Side note: I also like that in the album art, the guy standing in the middle kinda looks like Han Solo with that outfit.

Exodus was a pretty decent album. This is only the second reggae album that i have listened yet i don't have a whole lot to say about it. The songs here are all pretty pleasant listens with no outright awful sounding stuff but that's all it kinda is. There is nothing about any of these songs that stands out as really good or really bad, It's just mainly mid tier stuff. I will admit that the transition From So Much Things To Say to Guiltiness was pretty sudden and abrupt but it doesn't really change my opinion of this album all that much. This is a perfectly fine album and that's all i can say.
Best Song: The Heathen
Worst Song: So Much Things To Say

Look, i really wanted to like Odelay considering that i listened to the other two Beck albums on the project with Sea Change and especially Guero being some good albums but i just can't like this one. I personally feel that this album has a huge identity crisis as it just doesn't know whether it wants to be rock, country, hip hop or electronic. This causes the album to try too many random things with almost none of them working out in the album's favor. I typically like it when albums are more unique and weird but this one tries to be those things so hard that it just forgets to make an album i would enjoy listening to.
Best Song: Devils Haircut
Worst Song: Computer Rock
Side note: Since i have done every Beck album on this project, i will rank all his albums here:
1. Guero
2. Sea Change
3. Odelay

Back to Basics was certainly an interesting album. Unlike other double albums which despite being double albums, do tend to rely on the same sound. This one drastically changed it's sound towards the 14th song with it changing from a more hip-hop/R&B style album to a more orchestral album towards the end. It does go without question that i do prefer the first half and that's mainly because DJ Premier produced a lot of that section and he is a beast of a producer who did an immensely good job there. This album is a decent one and i can appreciate it for changing up it's sound but the change does feel very jarring.
Best Song: On Our Way
Worst Song: Nasty Naughty Boy

...The Dandy Warhols Come Down is such a weird, wacky and wonderful album. I initially came into this album thinking that it was just going to be a standard alt-rock album (which i still would have been fine with) but as it went on, it started introducing more and more crazy elements that really added to this album's individuality. The vocals were great here to ranging from regular alt-rock vocals to a much more quiet vocal style which i would have found many reasons to criticize if the album didn't handle these vocals so well but it ended up doing just that. Many of these aspects made this 66 minute long album more than worth my time.
Best Song: Hard On For Jesus
Worst Song: Pete International Airport

Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is an album I'm pretty divided on. I generally like it as a whole but there are just small things about it that hold this album back for me. The songs here are pretty good with some good instrumentals and some rapping that really shows what these rappers can do. None of the songs here are really bad as a whole either but the main issue is just small parts of songs that manage to be bad enough to hold it back. The main offenders of this are the build-ups to the songs not sounding great and just being something i can do without. This is still a good album, just one i think could be better if some things were changed.
Best Song: Da Mystery Of Chessboxin'
Worst Song: Method Man

The Low End Theory actually turned out to be a really good album. Oddly enough, the thing i most judge rap albums for (the lyrics) could be pretty hit or miss but i still ended up liking it for some reason. This was mainly due to other factors that mainly helped skyrocket the album into being something great. Those things are the instrumentals with some incredible beats and melodies that fit the songs very well and sounded real cool and while the lyrics were indeed hit or miss, the flows were mostly just hits since they felt so smooth that they became so enjoyable to listen to. I really wasn't expecting this much of a step up from People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm but this album ended up being just that.
Best Song: Show Business
Worst Song: What?

Fleet Foxes is an album that i liked, I don't think it's amazing or anything but i like it. This is yet another relaxing album on this list which i do appreciate since sometimes, i do want to hear something to chill out to especially if the day has been rough. Though this album, if you take away the lyrics from these songs, i could probably be tricked into thinking these are songs from Planet Coaster since they seem to have the same sound as the songs from that game. I do feel that the songs here can get a little samey due to most of them feeling like background noise. I still like this album and it's relaxing feel so i can still appreciate it for what it is.
Best Song: He Doesn't Know Why
Worst Song: Meadowlarks

Dummy is such a cool album. From the album art and this band's name, for some reason, i thought that this was going to be a punk rock album but no, instead what i got was a trip-hop album and it definitely does the genre super well. The beats may be repetitive but that didn't bother me one bit as they just sounded so cool and all the extra touches the band put into these songs really added to them. Beth Gibbons' voice was also something that really added to my enjoyment of this album as she was able to bring out all the emotion of all the tracks that she was in. This album was a very good listen.
Best Song: Glory Box
Worst Song: It's A Fire

B-52's was a pretty solid album. Even though this album did come out in the late 70s, it still feels so 80s and i still find that a really fun quirk of this album. The songs here are a pretty mixed bag though. There are some really good ones and some that i would remove if i were given the choice for one reason or another. Though the main thing that helps this album to be as good as it is has got to be Ricky Wilson, He is an absolute beast of a guitarist who pretty much does the majority of carrying this album. The other instruments and vocals were good too. This album is most definitely a good listen.
Best Song: There's a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon)
Worst Song: Downtown

Not to be confused with the series of RPGs with the same name, Ys is a pretty alright album. Like a couple of albums i have done here, the lyrics in this album seem like they are telling some kind of story and in these albums, the lyrics are most often the best part and that does apply here. Joanna's voice was pretty good despite taking me a bit of time to get used to and the music was a little long-winded but fit well with the songs and was something i liked. I do believe that this album would be a fairly difficult one to get into but i did end up liking what i heard. Honestly, not a bad way to start off 2025.
Best Song: Only Skin
Worst Song: Sawdust and Diamonds

I didn't exactly have the highest hopes for Golden Hour seeing as its a country album and I'm usually not a huge fan of those but it actually turned out to be a pretty nice surprise. The songs here are some of the most pleasant and relaxing ones i have heard from this project and the album still managed to be super melodic which is also another pretty decent plus for this album. The production here is also really good and the lyrics are also really good. Some of the songs could get a little samey but never enough to detract from my enjoyment. This album was quite a big surprise to me and it was certainly a good one.
Best Song: Velvet Elvis
Worst Song: Mother
Side Note: Since this review is gonna go up on the first of the new year. To everyone reading this review, happy new year. May 2025 bless us all with great albums.

I don't think this comes as a surprise to anyone but i really like Master Of Puppets. The album always did have that thrash metal sound to it which i enjoyed even if it did start to get a little repetitive due to the lack of change throughout. While i love the fast, heavy sounds of this album, i mostly enjoyed the more technical and melodic parts of these songs which can really show what these musicians are really capable of. Despite it's somewhat repetitive nature, i still didn't find myself getting all too tired of it. I still like ...And Justice For All more but i still think this one is a great album.
Best Song: Damage, Inc.
Worst Song: Orion

Sister is an album i wanted to like more than i do but i just don't see that happening. When i first saw this album, i thought that it was gonna be your standard typical rock-out album but this album actually turned out to be an art rock album. And with most art rock albums, they have almost no accessibility to them and are only for people who really like that kind of music. I still think the riffs here are cool and i definitely do see the direction but the songs just tend to meander longer than i would have wanted. This album is not a bad one but i do think that it is pretty hard to get into.
Best Song: White Cross
Worst Song: Beauty Lies in the Eye

I liked Soul Mining more than i thought i would have. This is one of those albums that gets off to a rather uneventful start but picks up as the album progresses as it starts to introduce new and interesting things. The songs at the start were alright but didn't sound too well mixed at points but the later songs definitely were so much better as they were the ones with all the more unique sounds. The later songs could also get really catchy (especially Soul Mining) This album isn't exactly an easy one to get into but since i stuck around, i started to like it a pretty decent bit.
Best Song: The Twilight Hour
Worst Song: I've Been Waitin' for Tomorrow (All of My Life)

Strangeways, Here We Come is a pretty decent album. I wouldn't really say it does anything super special or original or things that it's contemporaries does not do but for what it does do, it does a well enough job. The music was all pretty nice to listen to as were Morissey's vocals and the lyrics felt on brand for him and were pretty interesting just like the other Smiths songs and the album went at a brisk pace meaning it didn't get too tedious. This album i feel is probably in the middle ground of Smiths albums, not as cool sounding as The Queen Is Dead but not as iffy sounding as Meat Is Murder, it's just right.
Best Song: Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
Worst Song: Death at One's Elbow
Side note: i also find it pretty interesting that i have now done every Smiths album on this project but none of Morissey's solo stuff yet but anyways, here is my ranking of them
1.The Queen Is Dead
2.Strangeways, Here We Come
3.Meat Is Murder

Well for my first studio album in a while, Tigermilk was quite a nice surprise. The album incredibly chill, in fact, it was probably one of the most chill albums i have done for this project. The songs did mostly seem to follow the same formula being that of a folk pop rock formula but it wasn't really something i minded too much and it did help some of the more interesting songs stick out more. I did go into the album thinking that the production wasn't going to be all that good but after listening to it, i thought it was pretty alright. This album was actually a great surprise for me.
Best Song: The State I Am In
Worst Song: My Wandering Days Are Over

So, here it is, my third live album in a row with Made In Japan and just like the other live albums i have done in this row, it is a great one. The songs here frequently took many twists and turns which i enjoyed and the recording quality sounded absolutely great on a majority of the songs. There were however, some problems that make me not like this album as much as the studio albums. The album did drag itself out in some places and there was the fact that The Mule did sound incredibly messy with it's composition. These problems aside, i do think that this album is yet another great album from these guys.
Best Song: Lazy
Worst Song: The Mule
Side note: Since i have done every Deep Purple album on this project, here is my ranking of them
1. Deep Purple In Rock
2. Machine Head
3. Made In Japan

MTV Unplugged In New York has got to be one of the best live albums i have ever listened to. I find it quite crazy how well Nirvana could translate their heavy, grungy sound into a more acoustic live show. The heaviness was not often there but still could come out at points where it did sound great. The recording quality was also top notch and i think that Kurt Cobain's more deadpan stage presence was a nice change of pace from all the really extravagant performers from other live shows (not that i dislike those) during my time listening to this album, i was gravitating between a 4 or a 5 for this album but with enough thinking, i decided to give this one a 5.
Best Song: Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Worst Song: Plateau