bow_doubt

A landmark album in its genre. The material is surprisingly weak, with only a few tracks that really work well. The production is solid, but more "promise of what is to come" than a full fledged demonstration of what Dr Dre is capable of. (Looking over the wikipedia page, it appears it was recorded quite quickly, and so that seems relevant here.)
Parental Discretion is interesting ... one of the more successful tracks, it features all four of the rappers who worked on this album, and provides an opportunity to compare their styles --
Ren is a workhorse who can be counted on to take a solid turn, but is not a frontman.
Ice Cube has a remarkable and unmistakable voice, though he seems to have one move: an aggressive, percussive attack. It seems like he over relies on his obvious strength; his voice is so good, he can make anything sound convincing, and so he doesn't have to be as inventive as others might.
The D.O.C. is interesting. I acquired a copy of his album No One Can Do It Better in 1991 by chance and listened to it many, many times that summer. He is genuinely clever, and does a lot of little things with timing, pacing, emphasis, etc. to make the material land. He is a real craftsman, and his performance on this track illustrates that.
Everything about Eazy-E -- his voice, lyrics, and persona -- I find obnoxious. Never understood how he got to be the lead / star of this group. Though ... Ice Cube had a much better career ultimately, so ... the universe is perhaps keyed to logic and reason after all.
Overall, this album is a tough listen. So much mediocre material, violence, misogyny, cheap / exploitative sex talk, and of course -- the swearing. Follow the cuss words to see who is really good at this. Rap lyrics are like crab cakes -- and cuss words are the bready filler.
It hasn't aged very well. It's long. It's just not a great listen. But I will round up to 3 stars because of History.
(To quote the English jesuit schoolmaster speaking to Stephen Daedalus in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: It seems history is to blame.)

Oh, ferf@#%ssake. We already got a Coldplay album. And now we're doing this again?!? This band is not good.
Actually, they are good. They are good at creating a product imbued with that special alchemy that it takes to be a huge commercial success in the music industry.
Just like Hollywood production teams are good at making exploitative, cheap emotional scenes that are so effective, at the level of craft, that you simultaneously are wiping away a tear and so angry at being manipulated that you're looking around to see if the director happens to be nearby so you can punch that puppet-string-pulling asshat in the face.
I once read a music review in the NYU student newspaper that offered the striking pronouncement that, Music is an emotion. (spoiler alert: that is not what music is)
Well, for me, to be asked to listen to the music of Coldplay is an emotion: Anger.
In fairness, I hated this far less than I expected to.
That, kids, is an example of what we mean when we use the phrase "damning with faint praise." Tomorrow, we'll take on zeugma, or perhaps "shit talk."

I mainly think of Donovan as a purveyor of catchy, memorable, ironically-enjoyable psychedelic pop singles that are fun but impossible to take seriously.
At points, I have encountered songs from his "upstart rival to Bob Dylan" phase that revealed a different, interesting, and at times very accomplished side to Donovan.
This album comes as a surprise -- good songs throughout. Very solid album. Ferris Wheel, for example, is a song I've never heard of but is really quite good.
It's still psychedelia, and it's still not something I'm going to listen to regularly. But -- good album. I learned something today.
Looking at his wikipedia page ... it's amazing how young he was. During his folky, Dylan-Guthrie-Martin Carthy -- that's right! Martin Carthy! Look it up! -- phase, he was like 18, 19 years old. When he had his Big Stylistic Shift to psychedelia, he was ... 20, if I'm not mistaken. So, the period he has spent since the early 70s (during which it turns out he released many albums -- including getting a turn on the Rick Rubin Reinvention Machine in 1996 -- who knew?) being a Relic of the Past Times of Sixties Hippiedom -- more than 50 years -- began when he was in his mid to late 20s. What a strange life.

This very famous album, that sold many, many copies, is on many lists of best this and that out of all time whathaveyou. (Starting with a #37 ranking by Rolling Stone in 2003 and 2012.)
It's not a great album. It's actually not even a good album.
It's a mediocre, boring album with three memorable singles. For my money, there's not a single song on here I would call good after those first three big tracks.
The title track is like a Brian De Palma adaptation of a Stephen King story converted into a lengthy rock song with great guitar solos. It's an all time classic of Rock ... sort of like Stairway to Heaven -- this huge, instantly recognizable song that gets a reaction when it comes on the radio, but -- how often are you really going to listen to this thing?
New Kid In Town is a good example of an Eagles song that you remember, as a good song like, oh, sure, that one ... but when you listen to it, you get stuck between wanting to sing along and wanting to throw the stereo out the window. They have a few of those. (The Long One -- am I right?)
And then there's Life In the Fast Lane. Great song, there's a reason it's a staple of classic / dinosaur rock radio. But, again -- aside from specialty use as a song to rock out to while driving ... how often does one need to listen to this thing?
So -- three pinnacle achievements of rock in its most commercial form. And a lot of songs that frankly suck.
After Fast lane, it's: Three rounds of "eh, kinda boring," then one that's, "hey, not bad; this is all right," and then it closes on "this is terrible; whatth-@#$% are we even doing here ?!?"
That's not a good album. That's a huge commercial success and three nice additions to the playlist of your stadium tours. But it is not a good album.
So ... greatest blahblahblah? Give me a blahblah break!

TThe Cure is another of these tricky bands that has a scattered set of great songs, but not much in terms of albums that are really satisfying all the way through for those who are not fully committed fans. (Like me -- I'm speaking from personal experience here! I take it that there are some who love whatever Robert Smith turns out, or did in the 80s, but ... that is a shaky, intellectual exercise for me. Don't feel it.)
I strongly believe that there are some singles compilations that should be on this list -- Squeeze, Singles 45s and Under; the first Blondie greatest hits, which sold like crazy and was one of those "belongs in every record collection" albums; love him or hate him, that blue and orange Steve Miller greatest hits was much the same; Hot Rocks -- another Great Album in its own right. Etc.
The Cure's one great album (One reviewer's opinion) was Standing On a Beach, which, like Hot Rocks, is not comprehensive -- there were more outstanding singles to come -- but is just a great listen. In fact, there are expanded versions of that album that add a couple of songs, which only serve to dilute the experience, demonstrating the point, I think.
Important band? Yes. Producer of must-listen albums? Don't know about that.
On this album, Lovesong is really good. Same for Fascination Street. Lullaby is another good one, that I had forgotten about. The rest is mostly fine, a little boring. Eh. It's an album. The Cure made many of them.
[Prayers For Rain, 5 minutes in: "oh my god, how long are we doing this?"]
Once again, as so often -- make a playlist! Life's too short. The universe gave us the tremendous gift of digital versions, the capacity to easily select the best songs and not bother with the rest.
After Prometheus gave Steve Jobs the gift of iTunes, Zeus cut his rations and doubled the vultures as punishment for his effrontery ... honor Prometheus's sufferings on our behalf, and make a goldurn playlist already!