benc

I don't like Muse. The pseudo-dystopian "we are the rebels and our love will overpower the system" lyrics are very childish and I'm sorry not sorry to say it's hard for me to imagine adults who take this seriously. On top of that, the pop-prog sound is quite grating. That being said, I tried giving it a generous listen and to understand what people hear in this band -- they certainly "rock" hard, and I can appreciate that Muse (while wearing their influences heavily) don't necessarily have a cookie-cutter generic sound like so much other rock nonsense from the 00s. I will never choose to listen to this again, but I can at least giving a knowing "oh ok cool" the next time someone tells me they like Muse.

I really tried to bracket out my distaste for Billy Joel and give this a fair listen. His upbeat pop-r&b songs are undeniably well-written, but there's so much Long Island kitch here it really drags the record down. Feels like the kinda album you can only love if you drink at noon (or have a dad who did).

A perfect soul record, a perfect pop record. Astonishingly beautiful voice.

Great album. I'm still partial to psychedelic Byrds and folk-rock Byrds, but yeehaw Byrds hits hard.

I could've sworn I liked Blur at one point in my life. But listening to this was not enjoyable. An extremely uneven album packed with lots of goofy pop carnivalesque nonsense that tastes like bad old hard candy. The best songs on the album are "pretty good."