Reviews by apollo

Armed Forces, just like all of Elvis Costello's album is a decent album but doesn't exactly go all the way. This one seems to be much closer in line to how i remember This Year's Model sounding (which makes sense considering the two albums only came out a year apart). This album also really makes me remember how cheesy a lot of Costello's lyrics are and i do think that they can be pretty charming at point and do work well with the music that's being played by The Attractions which i also think sounds pretty good. I don't believe that this album made a huge impression on me but it still remains a decent listen.
Best Song: Goon Squad
Worst Song: Accidents Will Happen

I don't know if many people will agree with me on this (this album has a review average of less than a 3 so they might) but i am gonna be clear, Call of the Valley sucks. This was just one of those albums where my opinion of it deteriorated over time. At first, i thought this album sounded interesting but then it just kept going and going without much variation or good songs and i my opinion of this album started to get more and more sour. I think if just one of the songs released as a single, then i my original opinion would have stayed but as it stands, This is an album that i can understand it's place on the list but that still doesn't make it a good album in the slightest.
Best Song: Dhun-Mishra Kirwani
Worst Song: Bageshwari

Music From Big Pink was an album that did take a little while for me to really start to get used to it but when it did, the album did do it's job pretty well. Most of the songs generally sounded pretty good and were also pretty good at making some beautiful stuff at points. It did occasionally have parts where i can say that they weren't really the most pleasant to listen to such as the instrumentation getting to be a little too much but thankfully, those parts were pretty rare. This album is not a bad one and had some pretty good sounding parts but that's probably what you would expect from a band with the most generic name ever.
Best Song: This Wheel's on Fire
Worst Song: Tears of Rage

Well, time for another weird electronica album that i had never heard of until now with Let's Get Killed. Honestly, i wasn't really going in with the highest expectations but man oh man this album really grew on me. The actual songs here were actually really catchy when i could remember them due to their length making only one song stay in my head for that time and the intermission tracks did manage to fit well with the album's theme. There is even a reworking of the 007 theme here which i thought was interesting. Granted the album is long and repetitive but i still enjoyed it enough to give it a 3.5.
Best Song: Let's Get Killed
Worst Song: Head Rush On Lafayette

Considering the last two Leonard Cohen albums i have listened to (those being Songs of Love and Hate and You Want it Darker) If you were to tell me that I'm Your Man had a lot of 80s new wave sounding songs throughout the whole thing, I probably would not have believed you prior to listening this album but now that i have, i have no choice but to believe you now. Honestly, this album actually worked pretty well with it's sound considering that this is not the kind of sound that Cohen typically does. It was still very easy to recognize that this was a Leonard Cohen album too due to his voice and some folkish elements. This album isn't the greatest thing ever but for what it does, it does well.
Best Song: Everybody Knows
Worst Song: Tower of Song

McCartney honestly was not really what i was expecting it to be. After listening to 3 Beatles albums so far, i was expecting Paul's solo effort to sound a lot like his work with them but my expectations were very subverted. Not only was the music a lot more experimental feeling in nature, but his voice didn't sound like what it sounded like in The Beatles and i can give this album credit for being something i didn't expect. While the first part of the album was pretty forgettable, It was when Oo You hit when i really started to find things to like about this album. This album isn't perfect but it is still one i enjoyed a decent amount.
Best Song: Momma Miss America
Worst Song: The Lovely Linda

Red Headed Stranger is just another country album with all the quirks and flaws that come with most albums of the genre in my eyes. The album itself sounded pleasant enough and never really got unbearably bad to listen to (aside from that weird horn noise that most country albums use that i just don't like hearing all that much). But the album just hardly deviates from it's own formula or tries enough different things with each song which causes nearly all of them to sound the same. I also think that the songs end too quickly and unnaturally to the point where i have to check the tab the song was playing on in order to see if i was on a new song or not. This album isn't bad but it's not very great either.
Best Song: Down Yonder
Worst Song: O'er the Waves

Nilsson Schmilsson was actually a pretty solid album with some really good songs in there. For this album, i like how a lot of the songs do not sound similar to each other and have something new and unique from each other to add to this album. Of course, my favorites were all the really groovy, jazzy, and just fun and fast-paced songs. Some of the slow songs were alright too with them still being pretty unique from each other but sometimes, they did have a tendency to just meander along without really doing anything special. Other than that, this album is a pretty darn good one.
Best Song: Gotta Get Up
Worst Song: Early in the Morning

Modern Life Is Rubbish, along with Parklife, is the most British album i think i have ever heard. Everything about this album just screamed England from the title to Damon's voice to a lot of the musical ideas and i really like this album for that. The album generally sounds great with some well done guitars and fun musical offshoots which don't get distracting which really helped this album in the long run. I like this album more than Parklife since there was never a point in the album which was distractingly different from the rest of the album. The self-titled album may still be better but i still think this album is really good.
Best Song: Turn It Up
Worst Song: Miss America
Side note: Since i reviewed every Blur album on this project, I'm gonna do what i did with Simon & Garfunkel and rank all their albums on this project so, here goes
1. Blur
2. Modern Life Is Rubbish
3. Parklife

Honestly, I have no idea why this album is called Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music since i did not hear a single influence from country music like the title would have implied but I'm not here to complain about the title, I'm just here to say that this album is a pretty good one. I found that the best parts of the album were the opening song and closing song since they had the fun jazz sound i like. The other songs went for more of a Frank Sinatra sort of sound which is fine but nothing i liked more than the really jazzy stuff. This album is a pretty solid one, just had a little too much of the stuff i liked less.
Best Song: Bye Bye Love
Worst Song: I Love You So Much It Hurts
Side note: I find the first song kind of funny since the lyrical subject matter is so sad and serious yet the music is so jazzy and groovy

I was not expecting You Want It Darker to be this good. It seems pretty different from the last Leonard Cohen album i did way back (Songs Of Love And Hate if you don't know) and i do think that this one is better. The music could have either a really cool mysterious vibe or could be so beautiful that it could nearly move me to tears. Leonard's voice was also really great here and the lyrics were really well done too. It goes to show that even at 82, Leonard Cohen is still more than capable of making a really great album though sadly just one month before his death.
Best Song: It Seemed the Better Way
Worst Song: Leaving the Table
Side note: Knowing that this was Leonard Cohen's last album before his death honestly makes the last song much sadder as it is more or less a send off from Cohen even though one more album came out after his death.

Music for the Masses wasn't as good as i was hoping for it to be but it is still a solid album. I have heard plenty of things about Depeche Mode but never really sat down to listen to an album by them and their sound was generally what i was expecting. Half of the album was a pretty typical 80s new wave album with all the bells and whistles you'd expect to see. The other half though, was really orchestral and cinematic which i don't find to be a really good or bad thing. i just find it kinda funny. The album, like a lot of others like it, did have a few forgettable tracks but the good tracks were still pretty good so this album is a good one.
Best Song: Little 15
Worst Song: To Have and to Hold

D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle? More like D.O.A. the Torture Method of Throbbing Gristle because this album was genuine torture. Somehow this album managed to commit every no-no in music history. Horrible music that's overly repetitive and has start-and-stop loud moments? Check! Grainy and muffled vocals that make it impossible for me to decipher what they even are? Check! Terrible lyrics? I don't know since i couldn't even tell what they were. Even at 42 minutes, this album felt like it was dragging on and on. This may genuinely be the worst album i have ever done for this project. Sure, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was an overly long and repetitive country album but at least i can consider that music. Calling this album music though, is a MASSIVE stretch because this is just noise, Awful, awful noise.
Best Song: AB/7A
Worst Song: Walls of Sound

Who's Next is the album where The Who fully proved their worth to me. It does seem to be another concept album from them but this one actually seems to have a lot more structure to it. The songs here don't have any iffy sounding moments like some the ones from Tommy did but here they do have their own sound here and don't seem to be ripping anything off unlike My Generation which was a clear Beatles rip off. This album did feel like a bit of a drag but it never got too much. There were quite a couple of great songs on this album so that easily makes up for it anyway. This is actually a pretty great album and the best Who album i have done so far.
Best Song: Bargain
Worst Song: Love Ain't For Keeping

Ill Communication is my second Beastie Boys album i have done for this project following Licensed To Ill and i really like this album more. This album seems to be a bit more consistent with it's quality compared to Licensed To Ill, Where that album had pretty high highs and pretty low lows, Ill Communication seems to have higher lows and highs that are around the same level. Some of the songs do feel like they are just here to pad out the length of this album but they were never super annoying and didn't take away from the best tracks which were some pretty great ones. This album is a really good album and a decent step above Licensed To Ill.
Best Song: Sabotage
Worst Song: Bobo On The Corner

GI is definitely a guilty pleasure album of mine. It is often regarded as one of the first hardcore punk albums to ever come out and it is pretty good for holding that honor. The music definitely is chaotic but is also fun to listen to and never got very annoying even with the final song's piano work. The lyrics and vocals also are incredibly stupid but its not the cringy kind of stupid but rather, the fun and endearing kind of stupid and they fit the rhythm of the songs well. I really liked the fast pace of the album too which always made sure to keep me on my toes. This is a fun album that is pretty deserving of a 3.5
Best Song: Media Blitz
Worst Song: Our Way

Kind Of Blue isn't the best jazz album out there but it's still a decent one. This one seems to greatly reduce the amount of songs from Birth Of The Cool to this and in exchange, makes the songs longer. I personally like this style more since it allows the songs to do a better job at sinking in as well as being able to mask the lack of differentiation in this album better. While i don't think that the songs here are as memorable as the ones in In A Silent Way, i do still think these songs are pretty decent and definitely are better than the ones in Birth Of The Cool. This album is definitely a good one but i feel it would get topped 10 years later.
Best Song: So What
Worst Song: Blue In Green

Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus was definitely a really unique album on this list. The first three songs of the album may sound like your typical late 60s, early 70s rock album but when track 4 kicks in, that's when things really start to get crazy. Most of the songs at this point seem to be more like drug trips as they all have parts that i never expected to come next and always subvert my expectations. And this is what i like about this album. I enjoyed the erratic nature of these songs and there is the fact that the majority of them did manage to sound good regardless of how weird they were. This is a pretty solid addition to the list.
Best Song: When I Touch You
Worst Song: Why Can't I Be Free

The Only Ones was definitely a mixed bag album for me. All of the songs seem to follow similar formulas to each other but the results would often vary. On one hand, there were some songs with some pretty decent energy and the singer's voice did seem to fit well with them. On the other hand, the other songs were kinda slow and boring and just ruined by the singer's voice in some instances. The album did seem to move at a fairly fast pace and there were more good songs than bad songs so those two facts helped this album but not enough for me to give it more than 3 stars.
Best Song: Language Problem
Worst Song: Breaking Down

Happy Trails is a decent little album. This album does seem to go for a country sound for some of it despite the album mainly being psych rock and i think it sounds good here. The guitars themselves were really well handled and generally had some cool riffs and leads. However, the main issue with this album is one word, repetition. This album mostly consists of the same type of sound throughout and while it does sound good, with it's 50 minute runtime, it could get pretty tiring to listen to after a while. Despite that, this album is still a decent one that i don't regret listening to.
Best Song: Who Do You Love
Worst Song: Where You Love