Reviews by bee-york

Not too much to say about this one other than I listened to it about 6 times before it was time to give a rating. Should be pretty self-evident that I loved it.
A little fruity, very funky and absolutely a good time

Definitely feels more like a going through the motions album from an Elvis who by this time was getting into the later stages of his career. Not a lot of stand out tracks but still a really nice listen if you are a fan. Gets better the deeper you get into the track list, peaking around 3 quarters in with In The Ghetto back to back into Suspicious Minds The amount of 1 ratings on this one is a bit egregious

Competent but mostly milquetoast music that I can’t really bring myself to feel too strong about. Really not much else to say, it’s pretty natural that music this commercially safe is going to be widespread on the radio

Perhaps given the prescience of Ozzy’s recent passing, the opening of Wheels of Confusion felt like it had an eerie sense of finality to it. It does give way into your standard Black Sabbath fair afterward though with some pleasantly lengthy tracks. Nothing on here that I would say tops Paranoid but that’s a fucking mount everest of a hurdle to leap frankly.
I love how without making anything overly intricate, Sabbath were able to culturally shape the sound of darkness and evil that is still present to this day.
RIP Ozzy, even before I had properly listened to your music and only knew you through your cameo in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged me I could tell you were a real one

Afraid to say I wasn’t fully head over heels for this Casanova. Very meandering and repetitive which is rough for an almost hour long album. The goofy perverted lyrics were not that funny to me but I was charmed a bit with the attempt. Funny to see some reviews taking this album seriously

I don’t think it would be hyperbole to call 21st Century Schizoid man the most iconic prog rock song of all time. Hell, just that opening chord feels so iconic that I feel as though most would have heard elements of this song in one way or another.
I see some critics of this album saying this song does a lot of heavy lifting for the album but I think that couldn’t be further from the truth. I love the willingness to pivot so freely in styles and weave genres together, it’s a lot cruisier of an album than the intense opener would lead most to believe. Epitaph might be my hidden contender for the highlight. Greg Lake’s singing works perfectly with the almost dream-like quality of the instrumentals on here are of the same ilk as what I have praised previously from his work on Tarkus. A fantastic album with more than one amazing song.

More painfully bland music, perhaps I am just predisposed to not liking these guys but I feel like the singers voice is more irritating than last time I heard them.
The only entertainment value that could have been derived from this would be if this album was a commercial bomb that killed any possible career for this group, at least the title would be more fitting

Oh thank goodness, from the cover I was expecting some drearily boring as sin country or folk music so dipping my toes in and hearing how funky this was right off the bat really hit like crack. I have similar feelings on this to Green Onions, a pretty short and sweet little album that lets the instrumental talent speak for itself (though this time we do actually have some vocals and they’re pretty great!).
Never judge a book by its cover I suppose

Maybe it’s just not a good fit for me but good lord so much of this sounds the same. It’s not even bad, just so similar to one another. That goes for previous reggae albums as well.

AC/DC’s first album following the death of Bon Scott and in my opinion, is the groups best showcase in their style of exhilaratingly stupid Hard Rock which has blessed the speakers of Makita bluetooth site radios across Australia for over 4 decades. I would say my biggest fault with the album isn’t it being front or back loaded, the first two thirds of the album are actually pretty well spread out. but rather that the last few songs just aren’t up to snuff with the rest of the album, outside of review purposes I don’t think I’d be too interested in listening past you shook me all night long.

A real ‘holy shit how many hits are on this album’ entry, I can’t even say this is an all-encompassing one either given how there are two other CCR albums on this list that are also pretty stacked. It’s a real testament to just how good they are, hearing these good old boys pluck away really soothes the soul.
Sadly this album cover lacks the goofy ‘kid fucking around with different camera filters’ effects over it but I still appreciate the vibes, they wouldn’t look out of place wearing some pinwheel hats for sure.

Abrasive and gritty in a way that actually manages to work. I have had a number of albums so far which try to handle heavy industrial elements in a song to varying degrees of success. But none to the same degree of mastery of Trent Reznor, from start to finish this albums sound is tonally congruent with the aggression and self-destructive themes while remaining perfectly melodic, it makes perfect sense why Reznor would have worked in sound design given how he has an ear for making so many of these sounds work.
Perhaps I am just looking for more things to glaze this album over but as always, bonus points for an album structure that enhances the experience of a full listen rather than just singles. While the whole thing is certainly contains a fairly dreary mood throughout I would say the faster thrills of the beginning of the album really do give way to a downward spiral in self-destruction, capping off beautifully with Hurt.

The third lowest rated album on this site with only 45.3k monthly spotify listeners and it fucking shows. Grating from the first few seconds. If I have to give this props for anything I would say that there are a few tracks on here which work well enough as unnerving/anxiety inducing background audio (I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume this was the goal for a lot of this). But with the purposefully out of tune singing and instrumentation this is bound to be as much of an acquired taste as motor oil. Not the worst album on this list by proxy of being more musically inclined than Throbbing Gristle. As for which side I preferred? Fucked if I know, I don’t want to put too much more thought into this album.

Fun Fact: My daily album prior to this was Midnight Ride by Paul Revere & The Raiders, one of the standout tracks on this album is a rockin little tune called ‘Get it On’. During this song lead singer of the song Phil Volk sings “Don’t listen to them chatter, you’ve gotta use your own grey matter”. This is clever foreshadowing to how I wanted to stop listening to Mercury Rev’s boring murmurys and paint the walls of my workplace with my own grey matter from a boredom induced state of dread.

Probably went hard as fuck back in the day, reminds me of that one picture of Mike Love looking deranged at a Beach Boys performance to the degree where people wonder what the fuck in The Beach Boys discography requires them to go that hard. The Beach Boys are a pretty good metric for comparison as their styles are fairly similar yet this album feels quite a bit more dated in comparison. Songs like Kicks and I’m not your stepping stone stick out a bit more for me to the rest of this as a result of their more aggressive edge.

Listening to Born to Run (the song) and crying about how this same guy was responsible for The Rising, damn I know 9/11 really buck broke the people of the US but these two are really night and day. Bruce gets a lot of flack for his 7-beers deep tone of singing while he tries to capture the deeper vocal stylings of Roy Orbison but I think it fits the bands

This has to be one of the most consistently high quality albums on the list for sure, the grungier elements might date this album to some but give it such an identity while also creating a fond, nostalgic sound. Her vocal performance was also fairly unique and while I had a few spots where I was worried she might get into a bit of over-enunciating which I find irritating. It’s something that is easy to look past after a song or two into the album.

Wow, such a powerful and soulful voice. With the intonations and vocal range used she really treats her own voice as an instrument more than most singers on this list. Far and above the highlight of this album for me, I could only wish some of the other elements were a little stronger to elevate my rating higher, the structure for a lot of these songs get into a monotony that feels like a disservice to the vocal delivery of Simone. I can’t stress enough how much she carrys this album on her back

Finally, some good fucking food. The food in question being a bit of an inverted sandwich. All the tastiest parts of this album come on the front and back ends of the runtime, and while you’re not going to be put off by anything in there. It’s also just plain white bread at the end of the day.
Always nice to hear this version of Behind Blue Eyes, I feel as though the Limp Bizkit one is all I hear in public anymore. The 2nd stretch with the harmony in the back is too good

Listening to this to wind down on a work afternoon was probably the right spot to listen to this one, I imagine it would have been a little dull otherwise. I dig the vibe this was going for but it was perhaps a bit too aimless for my tastes, I couldn’t name a single track on this one off the top of my head even after a relisten.