Reviews by brndnnll

I have never heard of this group or this record before. Very enjoyable late 60s folk record.

I was not expecting the synthesizer drum machine vibes straight out of the 80s for many of these songs. Somewhat silly, but underneath all of that are just absolutely beautiful songs. Truly a poet. Excellent record.

Great record. I only listened to the 8 tracks on the original release, not the super expanded stuff on streaming services. Just a lot of fun.

Truly a great record. It's everything, it's brilliant, it's tender, it's transcendent, it's focused and it's sprawling. A truly transcendent record from one of the best.

You know, the American Pie is gets goofed on a lot as a song, but despite it's cheesiness, I have always really loved it. My familiarity with Don McLean basically starts and ends there. This album was great though, starts off with that familiar song and then doesn't veer much from that sound, over a quick and succinct album. Real pleasure on a Sunday morning.

This is a good album for sure, probably her best. Some of it sounds very inspired and some of it sounds kind of run of the mill. Nonetheless a great Saturday morning record.

This album rules, and it's such an intrinsic part of my music DNA and language, just omnipresent for so long. It's a perfect record. An absolute joy to see albums like this pop up when they do.

So I had never heard of this band, and they are whatever. I am not super familiar with Radiohead but they just sound like Radiohead to me, particularly the vocals. I suppose the arrangements and instrumentation is less interesting. I don't know, I am reading and understand that there were a few post Brit-pop bands that had this sound and garnered that comparison, Coldplay among them. I think all of it is pretty pedestrian.

I was immediately skeptical of this just because of Michael Franti, who has long been the butt of many jokes between my friends and I. I had no idea he had anything to do with hip hop at all.

This was really hard to find to listen to. 4 of the 13 tracks are not on streaming services, and had to turn to a YouTube playlist with the occasional ad interruption between songs. Not ideal.

But... this was a pleasant surprise and felt relevant and right out of it's time. Very political and urgent. I dug it quite a bit.

Slightly aggravating to figure out how to listen to this. Originally released as an EP in 1988, then re-released as an album length compilation including the songs on this EP (although in a different order) and early singles from the band. The only thing available on streaming services is a 2+ hour deluxe edition which has yet a different track listing order than either of the first two releases.

Reading interviews and such, it seems like Mudhoney has been asked about it a bunch as they seem pretty adamant that they consider this their first album, and that they consider the designation between EP and LP to be pretty arbitrary. With that in mind I chose to listen to the 6 song 22 minute original "EP" release for this.

This album definitely rules and rocks. Mudhoney were the best grunge band in that scene, and that should not come as shocking or surprising to anyone anymore. And like most bands from that scene, their first release was their best. It's the most urgent, raw and true to live representation for them. Just a great recording as well to capture that spirit.

Listening to this is wild after living through it so long ago. It's hard to remember just how much by storm Eminem took the world when this came out. I never listened to it then but the singles and his presence were just ubiquitous. Obviously Eminem is a great rapper, one of the best ever, and these rhymes hit hard, but it's hard to get past the nostalgic punch from hearing this and listening to it in that context. It's not bad by any means, it's just not for me.

Cosmic American Music. It's great revisiting Parsons who was easily the best known of this genre of 70s country music that has spawned so much interest in mining compilations from he likes of archival labels like Numero Group. This record is beautiful and sound such a part of the fabric of American music. An absolute pleasure to listen to.

Had no expectations for this. This is a really intriguing and crazy album. The electric vibe punctuated by the Moog synth gives it an alien feeling in the context of what I usually associate with Texas Honky Tonk Country. Really solid album and enjoyed listening to it immensely. Reading more about Joe Ely, he seems pretty sweet.

This is obviously a classic recording with excellent performances of many classic and well known Sam Cooke songs. It's so baked in to the culture of what everyone knows now, it feels like it's been around forever. Tough to give this anything less than 4 stars.

I know pretty nothing about this band, aside from the inclusion of their song "Hello Sunshine" in the "The Rock-afire Explosion" documentary (which is great!).

I was surprised to learn that this is their debut album. It's incredibly well formed and layered for a band's first output and that in and of itself is impressive. This is a lot more up my alley than the Brit-pop stuff coming out in parallel from their colonizers.

Love the Bakersfield sound so much. Buck Owens was there at the start and at this point his records are classics. This was a great, quick and succinct listen. Just basking in that Bakersfield glow.

Glam Rock generally ends up being way better than I expect--I am not sure why I don't have a better association with it. It's cheesy, but all music is. This album is a lot of fun, it's stomping and it rocks.

I loved and listened to this album so much the summer it came out. iPods were new and I remember loving being able to listen to it as I walked around town that summer with nothing else to do.

That being said, this is not the first Beck record I think to listen to, and likely not even the fifth or sixth, and it's been a long time since I have heard it. What a jolt of nostalgia this was and I had a blast revisiting it. I remember at one point having a huge issue with the way this record is mixed, and it still bugs me, but not nearly as much as it used to. Great record.

I have never been familiar with Isaac Hayes outside of Shaft and South Park, and didn't have any real expectations at all for this. Initially I was pretty lukewarm to it, but the album builds and gets stronger and stronger, the last track was a surprisingly great 18 minute journey. Very cool stuff.

This album was fun, very solid 90s (1989 I know...) hip hop vibes. Buffalo Stance is a classic with such a solid hook. Good times.