Reviews by avoidperil

I love experimental music. I love silly music. But when it comes along, it needs to be pushing something truly well produced and unique. I just don't get that from these rambling and silly songs.

This is actually pretty good. I legitimately found myself enjoying this more than most of the other albums I've heard up to this point. Not being huge on the manufactured pop genre, I really don't know much about it or the influences this album is drawing from (I haven't heard anything else on this list like it so far) but I know what this has influenced. Ariana Grande?

And yet, being 21 when this came out, I fell into the trap of hating on the image that was being cultivated for Christina. But that's exactly what am confronted with here. I got called a hypocrite in the first track for how I saw her back then. And I can't argue with that.

Christina has a gorgeous voice and it's treated so well here. This is a statement of intent, has some genuine bangers, and has a good message that is delivered well. I don't even care. It's a 4 from me.

It's fine. Not really my cup of tea, but not the most annoying thing ever.

I'm not going to go so far as to say that this album deserves to be on this list. It's rather unremarkable. But on second listen, it's actually rather nice in places. I like it a lot more than other albums this list is trying to ram down my throat.

It actually reminded me of Oasis at first, but then I realised it actually sounds like the Stone Roses but good.

This is a fun little album. I'm predisposed to like the Pixies. It just does what it does and doesn't annoy me, I guess. I'm tired. Have a 4.

This is one of the most hollow albums I've ever listened to. It feels like these guys knew how to work a studio and their instruments, but what are these songs? This entire album played out and the overriding emotion I felt was cringe.

As the album started I was sitting at a solid 3, but over the course of the album the trite and meaningless songs wore me down to a solid 2.

Meh, it's fine I guess. If we were still in the 60s this might have been new or subversive, but it has been comprehensively surpassed in every way by modern acts. I'm also not a fan of blues/soul music.

I was 16 when this came out. I hated it then. I have so many more reasons to hate it now.

But also... "Liberate. Bananas." I don't care what they are really saying, it gave me a chuckle.

This sounds so dated, but in the worst possible way. Just listening to how busy these tracks are, with woo woos and soft flutes, a soft pad synth running through it. There's something proggy about the song structures, with some abandoning time signatures altogether.

It's gorgeously constructed and well recorded. But the songs are just shit.

Oh wow, it's Snoop Dogg. He's such an icon. I should give this a 5! No. Every song is the same, talking about drugs, sex, and how amazing Snoop is. And I don't care.

I don't fucking care.

DNF. I really have no time for this. What I did hear was uninspirational reggae with tiresome lyrics.

This album feels like a vision, fully realised. It's lush, bold, poppy, and undeniably 80s. When you name quintessential 80s bands, Duran Duran should be one of the first to leave your lips.

But this isn't just the pop album that I, for one, had considered it to be all these years while ignoring its existence. There are real riffs here, real solos, real instruments being played with skill. There's unconventional songcrafting here as well - the familiar Save a Prayer is a prime example of this. My jaded ears can't even start to figure out what key and scale this thing is adhering to.

Ultimately a triumph, but also not something that impresses me so much as to call it an absolute masterpiece. Certainly a joy to listen to, and one that I'll be sure to spin again to see if my opinion changes.

Oh hooray! Another jazz album. This one I had the misfortune of listening to 15-20 years ago. It did nothing for my developing brain then, and it still does nothing for me now.

I'll be honest, I only listened to the first track this time around. But it was enough for me to remember that I have heard this, didn't like it, and would much rather listen to literally anything else.

At first I thought I was really enjoying this. But the best songs are really just covers of other greater artists work. And something in the telling gets lost - they're more pale shadows of great works. There's obviously something to Otis Redding's voice that goes a long way to carrying these, but it's not enough to lift it into the upper echelons of music for me.

Okay so, this album spawned an entire mental discourse on meta-criticism of albums for me. What's the point of music? Is it to entertain, evoke emotions, inform, incite, exalt? Is it show off the skill of the artist? Is it a measure of all these things?

And so I wondered why this album falls flat for me. You could look at the social awareness and think "well, it sounds important, so I should give it a 5" right? This album is mostly concerned with inciting and informing, but on almost every other measure I can think of, it falls short. And for my own personal assessment, those values mean very little to me, hence my rating.

Pretty decent. Most of the songs fall a bit flat or are too unstructured and pedestrian for my tastes. Even the best track, Superstition leans too heavily on its groove.

I don't know how to rate this. It sounds like an extended version of Bill Wurtz videos. You know? Like "The sun is a deadly laser."

But it also feels like jazz in that not many of the songs actually resolve into anything. Is it meant to be taken as a meme? All it did was make me a little more anxious than I was already feeling.

Not even sure what to say about this really. It's super dated. Absolutely nothing about it is relevant.

Cathy's Clown is the only breakaway from the syrupy sweet pop, but barely. Bonus point for being referenced by Elliott Smith.

I actually wanted to be surprised by this one, but it was not to be. Every song on this thing inspires cringes, aside from the one outstanding track 'Cry Me a River'.

There's a weird horniness to this one that gives me the ick, and a strange clinginess. The production is limp. He wishes he was his lover's mother at one point. Even one good track can't really redeem it.