Reviews by blakestewart

Great classic metal album. Prisoner is a highlight song and a wild-ass show if you have not.

I remember when this came out how novel it was to intertwine these sounds. It never was my personal soundtrack but I've listened to it several times prior. It's a good album and ticks a lot of boxes for me. I actually like a song that winces between styles and tempos.

What seemed at first like lazy Brit punk belied some pretty complex musicianship. I liked the album but at no point did I feel my toe threaten a tap.

It's an ac/DC album. What's not to ac/DC about it?

It's boisterous and ridiculous and I can't fault it for being what is on the tin so fully.

Fair album with some high spots. It's fun and where it lags it's merely because it is a fun punk album with literal slow spots. I don't want those when I have such fun driving highs.

Legends of old school but never really did it for me.

Lush and otherworldly as always. ELO is one of my faves.

Just felt weirdly and not fun bluesy sometimes. Not altogether bad but I wasn't enthused.

All too appropriate.

Nice enough album. A lot of his stuff suffers from droning on.

A lot closer to a cross between queer punk and the beach boys than I would have imagined and I was ok with that.

I like Alexis and the boys earlier album The Warning quite a lot. This album a touch less. Still great fun.

It's a great album. Wild that it still manages to sound slightly ahead of its time 33 years later. Freakin' space alien.

What a lovely album.

Fun album that helped get me through a stressful day. Quite relaxing and mellifluous.

Man, I can't help it. Early Ska weirdness is just so fun.

Great album. Poetic and dark and languid. Not precisely as feel-good as some of their music but still a really solid listen through the whole album. Nightswimming is quite nice and beautiful in its imperfection. It's small and human.

All I've ever heard from them was the massive hall effect vocal country-fried alt rock stuff that made it to popular rotation. This is better than that. It's almost punk in spots. I won't say I love it but I enjoyed it.

Pretty strong writing and intricate composition for what is essentially pop-ified music. It's a quandary that a lot of albums on this list (respect the more modern ones) are "worth listening to before I die" because they were enormously successful...and this influential. But, they were designed by committee to be that way. Not to say that Lana del Rey isn't a wild talent or that this album is bad. Merely to say that, if this was Wanda Del Reuben without the star power, it'd be fine. It would not be something on this list. About 30% of the albums here feel, I don't know, recursive? Self-referential in their credentialing?

"See, I'm worth it! Says so because of who I am! It's on the label!"

But, I just want to hear great news music I have never been exposed to. This list has also given me plenty of that. This album isn't it. Still good though.

Suppose I'm just a year into this and giving every album a full listen every day is tough some days. I won't give Lana short shrift here though. Even though it's overproduced for my taste her essence still pushes through the caked on industry nonsense and kind of saves it for me. Good album.