Reviews by benc

Miles has so many incredible records I've been listening to him since high school and somehow completely skipped this one. What an amazing sound world he created here. Somehow groovy and ambient at the same time. A new favorite.

I gotta be careful here. Between that one review of Be on this site, and the cringest Pitchfork review of all time (which they scrubbed from their website, look it up on the wayback machine), there's something about Common that brings out bad writing. I'll just say, Common's best skill is his ability to find great collaborators. It's hard to mess up the combination of Dilla, Premier, Questlove, and D'Angelo.

I'm a white guy evaluating the blues, so take this with a grain of salt ...

I love the blues and this isn't really the style I go for. I don't typically prefer full band, electric blues for a few reasons that aren't worth digging into. That being said, MW does it better than basically anyone ever on this record. I appreciate how each band member has their own groove and feel. And if I were a square folky in 1960 I would have lost my mind at this gig (you can hear the crowd going berserk in some songs, which is pretty great). So overall, not my favorite flavor but I still enjoyed it and I can't deny the craft.

-It's hard for me not to think of Kind of Blue, which was recorded the same year. In that context, where jazz was at the end of the 1950s, this is quite a conservative, throw-back kind of project. I was able to connect with a handful of the songs either because of their cleverness (e.g. "Who Cares") or their moodiness (e.g. "A Foggy Day"), but most of these tracks did not set me on fire. Nevertheless, major respect to Ella and the Gershwins for their place in jazz history.

-I didn't mind the length so much. It gave me a good excuse to plunge the depths of the Gershwin catalogue and listen to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald, something I basically never do. And, to be honest, the length of the catalogue started to win me over a bit. That being said, you can't put this many songs in a collection and expect them all to be winners. Some of these are miniature pieces of pop perfection, some are total shlock novelty songs. And as the great Spinal Tap said, it's a fine line between stupid and clever.

-It's probably a character flaw in me, but I do not enjoy scatting.

-The orchestral arrangements throughout are surprisingly square. The instrumental tracks without Ella are painfully schmaltzy.

I loved this album when I was in college. It was tailor made for my interests at the time. It's poppy new wave / post-punk with a ton of noise and dissonance. There's also a muted affect that reads as "cool" to young adults who still care about that kind of thing -- a bit of a C-86 vibe. And, of course, this album is one of the most obvious forerunners of shoegaze. But I also hear JAMC influence all over pop/rock music from Smashing Pumpkins to Frank Ocean and everywhere in between.

I can't help but offer my one critique though...their formula is to layer a bunch of feedback and trashy noise on top of saccharine 60s-style pop tunes, which means the two elements never really integrate. They don't ever successfully make pop music FROM noise, it's always pop music PLUS noise. Nevertheless, it's very good and much more interesting than a lot of the shite their contemporaries were putting out.

Credit to Culture Club for carving their own lane, making a queer radio sound for the shopping mall generation. I hear soul, r&b, blues, and reggae all blended into a pop new wave dessert. That being said, some of the songs are much stronger than others (to my ears). Not my first pick if I want to hear this style of music, but certainly not my last.

This album, his most Angeleno, was important to me around the time I was 25, living in Echo Park in a small apartment right down the road from the last home ES lived in (and where he died). I had just gone through a monumental break up but was still living with my ex because neither of us could afford our own place yet. It was maybe the loneliest period of my life. I spent a lot of time by myself with my headphones on wandering around LA on foot and I often went out of my way to walk by his house as a type of pilgrimage.

I had very little in my life to comfort me at that time except for this music. Now, when I listen back, I'm struck by how many of the songs express a ground-level view of LA; it's like ES wrote half the songs after he took his own walk around the city. It's hard to express how grateful I am for this record.

Makes me wish I was smoking weed

The Bomb Squad production is great but Ice Cube's aggressive machismo makes for a tough listen. I'd be able to tolerate it better if it wasn't constant, front and center, across basically every song. Respect to Cube for his place in hip hop history, but I'd love probably prefer an instrumental version.

I wish I could skip the numeric rating for this record. Who am I to quantify this album "out of 5" after Ms. Hill has been so thoroughly scrutinized and demeaned for the last ~30 years? It feels crass after the music industry hype machine completely chewed her up and spit her out. Instead, I'll just say Miseducation sounds so ahead of its time for 1998 it's crazy.

Set the pace in British rock music for the next 10 years

This is a tough album for me to evaluate because I have such personal attachments to it. Kid A was released when I was 13 and, at the time, It was the strangest, most experimental thing I had ever heard. I bought the CD at a mall when I visited my grandparents and I associate this album with listening on my discman on the train in subzero temperatures traveling back to Rochester. I became obsessed with this album and poured over the CD artwork. Only 2 other kids in my high school liked Radiohead and they were both older and cooler than me. Since then, I've come to appreciate much more unusual music so there is now a bit of a "mainstream version of the underground" veneer to this album, sort of like watching Garden State or Eternal Sunshine and thinking you've tapped into something really obscure. Nevertheless, my soft spot for this album remains. It is icy and scary and tender and heartfelt all at the same time. What's remarkable is not how "experimental" this album is, but rather how it remains pop music in spite of all the strangeness. Critics are correct to point out that there were many artists who had already achieved a similar aesthetic, only weirder, better, and earlier than Radiohead. But, for better or worse, Kid A bridged a gap between the popular and these electronic experimentalists in an oddly accessible way. Maybe if I were a college student or sneaking out to raves I would have been into Aphex Twin, but I was a middle schooler who listened to modern rock radio so it was much easier for me to find stranger music via the Karma Police band. I have mixed feelings about Radiohead these days, but if they've made anything I can enjoy it's this album. Even if there's a slight cringe to my enjoyment, Kid A opened many doors for me as a musician.

-Xtina has more in common with Fred Durst than she'd like to admit. This album fits nicely with the "neo-eclectic" style of early 2000s MTV fodder. Limp Bizkit hybridized rap and rock for suburban white adolescents and this is basically market-tested r&b for the same audience's sisters.

-Sure, she can sing. But the nonstop vocal backflips drive me nuts. They are tasteless and aesthetically unpleasant in the same way a Yngwie Malmsteen guitar solo is technically virtuosic but musically unsatisfying. People whose musical diet is 90% contestants from singing competitions are likely to tell you "she's actually a really talented singer!"

-The ballads are pure schmaltz. Whitney she is not.

-I can appreciate the W Bush-era resilience feminism (sex positivity, body positivity, "strength," etc). But it's a bit ironic the themes of the album are all about finding inner beauty, stripping away the makeup and designer clothes, not needing a makeover, loving your curves, appreciating your imperfections, etc when you take one look at the album cover.

-A genuinely creative album. I like the subtle instrumentation and overall sparse vibe.

-The songs are really centered on Cohen's lyrics, so it's a bit like listening to an audiobook (not derogatory). Even though it's largely acoustic, with lots of story songs, I don't really consider this "folk" music. It's its own thing.

-Few have written better double entendres.

-so many dope songs on this. the band sounds incredible. the singing is off the wall.

-this record is quite psychedelic; it's unbelievable this is the same group that did "Twist and Shout."

-every cover song is an improvement on the original.

I'm not gonna gripe about this being the wrong list pick for Minor Threat, or how widely misunderstood this band is. Instead I'll just say this record totally rips and underground American punk scenes wouldn't be what they are without Minor Threat.

I liked this album in 6th grade and I'm disappointed to say this album sounds pretty immature after you hit puberty. I have an appreciation for its place in rap/rock history, but it's just way too fratty and gross. The lyrics are not just sexist, they're downright rapey at times. I consider myself a Beastie Boys apologist, but this record is a bridge too far.

This rips and I wish I had listened to it more in high school/college. I feel like I've heard about 1000 bands who are trying to sound like the first track (most of them from LA and used to play at The Smell). There's quite a bit of sonic diversity on this album though; it's punky and funky and weird, but definitely 1 of 1.

Arguably the most important pop record ever.

As the poet Philip Larkin wrote, "sexual intercourse began in 1963." It's hard to overstate how much the Beatles transformed popular culture, personal politics, and social mores at that time. Beatlemania was a world-changing event for young people, especially girls. This record signals a total redistribution of the sensible (what people now crudely call "shifting the overton window").

Contemporary listeners often misunderstand the early Beatles era as a necessary phase to get into the more "revolutionary" style of their middle period. It's true that the revolutionary New Left movements of the mid-late 60s (the anti-war movement, the free speech movement, the sexual revolution, women's liberation, psychedelic counterculture, etc) all had some kernel that originated with the screaming girls who overpowered the police (the late great Barbara Ehrenreich makes this point in one of the best essays ever written about the band). But this early phase was radical in itself. The Beatles completely changed how people thought of the auteur-performer in rock n roll; if you need proof, look at the list of 1001 albums and count how many guitar rock bands wrote their own songs before 1963. (spoiler: it's 1...Buddy Holly and the Crickets, which might as well be a solo act with a backing band. Compare that to the number only 2 years later in 1965.) Not to mention, they had a totally distinct visual style (thanks to Brian) and were witty and charming as hell. When they landed in NYC in early 1964, they were like aliens from another planet.

For context, the Beatles also released 3 non-album singles within 6 months of this album: "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," and "From Me to You." Part of the problem with the 1001 album project is it places undue importance on "the album" as the ultimate recorded musical work. In 1963, albums were still a relatively new medium and the Beatles were still figuring out how to do it; they didn't even consider putting their 3 strongest singles on their new album and insisted on including only brand new material. They were among the first musicians to think of albums as complete art objects (see the Astrid Kircherr-style cinema verite photograph on the cover) instead of just a way to repackage popular singles around some extra filler. In other words, without With The Beatles there is no 1001 albums list.

-If you put on a skinny tie, pink blazer, and wayfarer sunglasses, this album autoplays.

-These guys spent the late 70s inventing the sound of 80s pop rock.

-Rock music has always been a useful tool for rizzed up nerds to get laid (see: Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Weezer, etc). The Cars are some all time great rock nerds.

-Absolutely great power pop. An album I've been listening to for 20+ (!) years. Also, quite a bit weirder than I remember. Lots of quirked up herky jerky rhythms and moody Bowie-esque timbres underneath the palm muted power chords and rockabilly guitar solos.

-Two years after this album came out, Ric Ocasek would go on the produce the second Suicide album.