Reviews by cmhess98

Iron Butterfly are a one-song band, and that one song takes up the entire second side of this record. Everything on side one — competent late-60s psychedelic rock, nothing more — exists mainly to clear the runway for the 17-minute title track that made them famous. The first side gets a quick triage and nothing more.

The title track opens with one of the most recognizable organ intros in rock history, and hearing it in the context of an active Hammond practice gives it a dimension casual listening wouldn’t. Doug Ingle found something genuinely hypnotic in those opening minutes — a locked groove with real weight behind it, the kind of intro that earns its reputation. That section alone justifies the listen.

What follows is a different question. The drum solo is long. The guitar noodling is patient. The song returns where it started, which is either satisfying resolution or the sensation of having traveled a great distance to arrive somewhere you never left, depending entirely on your relationship to the 17 minutes preceding it. Going the full distance earns a kind of grudging respect for the record’s commitment to its own indulgence — 1968 had not yet been told it couldn’t do this, and Iron Butterfly took full advantage.

The Simpsons episode doesn’t hurt. Knowing what the song is capable of doing to a Sunday morning church service adds something that pure musical assessment can’t account for, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

A straightforward 3. Better than expected, not good enough for more, and a record that will probably be remembered longer for its cultural footprint than anything it actually achieves sonically.

Hüsker Dü’s influence on alternative rock is genuinely audible in everything that came after them, and Warehouse: Songs and Stories is their most melodically accessible statement — the double album where the songs push through the distortion most clearly. The dual songwriter dynamic between Bob Mould and Grant Hart gives the record two distinct voices and enough variety to justify the runtime in theory.

In practice, the distorted guitar aesthetic and punk energy keep it firmly outside this particular listener’s natural world. Not actively unpleasant, historically important, and not something that generates any pull toward return visits. A respectful three for the craft and the influence, honestly delivered.

Supertramp occupy an interesting middle ground — more melodically generous than most prog, more musically ambitious than most pop, and ultimately a band that earns respect without quite generating the pull that earns regular rotation. Crime of the Century is their most carefully made record and the one that best makes the case for what they were capable of.

The saxophone and keyboard interplay throughout is the genuine highlight. John Helliwell’s sax gives the record a texture that distinguishes it from standard 70s rock, and the dual songwriter/vocalist dynamic between Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson gives the album two distinct voices and personalities that keep things from feeling monolithic. The production is warm and detailed — the wine glass that closes “Dreamer” is exactly the kind of unexpected touch that separates a carefully made record from a merely competent one.

Worth noting that “Dreamer” isn’t the track that landed hardest in the US — “Bloody Well Right” was the bigger American hit, its harder guitar edge translating better to radio than the more delicate falsetto of the album’s more famous track. Both work on their own terms.

Still, for all the craft and care on display, this sits at arm’s length. A respectful three — appreciated without being felt, admired without being reached for.

The most carefully constructed hip-hop record encountered in this project, and the one that addresses the recurring friction points most directly. The voicemails, skits, and interludes that derailed OutKast and others earn their place here — they’re serving a narrative rather than interrupting one. good kid, m.A.A.d city is a coming-of-age story set in Compton, told with cinematic precision and emotional honesty that gives the album a coherence most rap records never attempt.

Kendrick’s delivery is the other distinction. Where Common’s flow faded into the background and became texture rather than presence, Kendrick commands attention throughout — varied, emotionally present, and shifting registers in ways that match the story’s emotional arc. “Money Trees” in particular shows a storytelling gift that operates at a different level from almost anything else in the genre, and “Swimming Pools (Drank)” demonstrates how to make something genuinely complex work as pure pop simultaneously.

The Compton geography connects this directly to NWA — same streets, completely different artistic approach. Where Straight Outta Compton documented with rage, this excavates with empathy, which is the harder and ultimately more lasting achievement.

A five for a lot of people, and the craft absolutely justifies that reaction. For this particular listener, very good stops just short of irreplaceable — which is an honest four rather than a manufactured five.

Some records demand engagement. Some repel it. Future Days does neither — it simply exists, pleasantly and without urgency, somewhere in the middle distance between those two experiences.

Can’s most ambient and atmospheric record is also their most patient, built from four long tracks that flow into each other with a warm, slightly hazy quality that rewards neither close attention nor casual dismissal. “Mop Shake” is the clearest highlight, the moment where the rhythm section locks in with enough purpose to briefly demand notice. The rest drifts by agreeably without quite justifying the time it asks for.

This sits in similar territory to the Jarre listen earlier in this project — architectural patience that neither fully connects nor actively bothers. The production is warm, the musicianship is real, and the indifference it generates is honest rather than hostile.

A straightforward three. Not everything needs to be more than that.

Three Beck records into this project and the hierarchy is now clear. Sea Change earned a four for patient emotional honesty. Guero earned a four for returning to the playful, genre-hopping energy of this record with polish and confidence. Odelay earns a five for being the original — the record that slightly reinvented something and created a template that a generation of music borrowed from, including Beck’s own later work.

The Dust Brothers production here is wilder and more joyful than anything on Guero — more samples, more chaos, more genuine surprise around every corner. “Devil’s Haircut” opens the whole thing with immediate confidence, and “Where It’s At” delivers on the promise of two turntables and a microphone by actually being as good as that line suggests. The genre-collision — hip-hop, country, folk, psychedelia, noise — feels genuinely new rather than calculated, which is the distinction that matters.

What makes Odelay a five rather than a four is exactly what it did to the musical landscape around it. Records that reinvent something earn a different category of respect than records that execute brilliantly within an existing framework. This one kicked a door open. Everything that came through it afterward, including Guero, was working in the space Odelay created.

“Ramshackle” closes the record with quiet reflection that shows the range without quite reaching transcendence on its own terms. The record doesn’t need it to. Everything before it already made the case.

It’s a Shame About Ray makes its case quickly and honestly — eleven songs in under thirty minutes, no sprawl, no self-indulgence, just Evan Dando’s loose charm and genuine melodic instincts delivered at a pace that never overstays its welcome. The conciseness is a real virtue and probably the thing that keeps this in solid three territory rather than slipping into charitable three.

The songwriting quality is real underneath the slightly ragged indie rock surface. The title track is immediately catchy in a way that feels effortless rather than calculated, and “My Drug Buddy” shows a quieter, more intimate side that gives the record more emotional range than the pop-punk energy alone would suggest. Juliana Hatfield’s harmonies add texture throughout without demanding attention.

Dando’s voice — loose, slightly sun-bleached, more charm than precision — fits the material perfectly without generating the kind of presence that makes you reach for a record by choice. That’s ultimately the honest limitation. Pretty good, genuinely catchy, and easy to like without being something that earns regular rotation.

A solid three that delivers exactly what it promises and nothing more — which at under thirty minutes feels like exactly the right ambition.

That opening chord. One simultaneous strike across guitar, bass, and piano that lands like a door being kicked open — one of the most analyzed moments in music history and still completely thrilling six decades later. Whatever the exact voicing, the effect is immediate and unmistakable: a band announcing itself with total confidence.
A Hard Day's Night is the only Beatles album composed entirely of Lennon-McCartney originals — no covers, no borrowed material, just the two of them writing at a pace and quality level that no band at this stage of their career was approaching. The consistency is real. The songwriting doesn't dip the way some of their other early records do, and tracks like "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," and "Things We Said Today" show a melodic sophistication that points clearly toward everything that was coming.
Four Beatles records into this project and the hierarchy is becoming clear. The White Album and Abbey Road both earned fives — one for its extraordinary breadth and songwriting density, the other for its timeless craftsmanship and seamless execution. This one sits honestly below both, which is less a criticism than an acknowledgment of how remarkable those later records are. Early Beatles at their most confident is still a four-star record by any reasonable measure.
The opening chord alone is worth the price of admission. Everything after it earns its place.

The title track is one of the great recorded guitar performances in American music, full stop. Eddie Hazel playing a ten-minute solo over a spare backing — reportedly after George Clinton told him to play like he'd just been told his mother had died — delivers exactly that. It's devastating, searching, and completely inhabited in a way that transcends genre or era. Give it headphones and your full attention and it will stop you in your tracks regardless of what you normally listen to.
The rest of Maggot Brain is a different proposition — enjoyable, groove-forward Funkadelic that rewards listening without reaching the same altitude. The range is real and worth acknowledging: "Can You Get to That" arrives as an unexpected acoustic gospel-folk piece that sounds like it wandered in from a completely different record, "Super Stupid" turns the whole thing toward heavy rock, and the closing "Wars of Armageddon" descends into controlled chaos. George Clinton clearly had no interest in making a conventional album, and he succeeded.
But the honest experience is a transcendent opening track followed by music that's genuinely enjoyable without consistently matching what came before. It's almost the inverse of the James Brown Apollo situation — there the performance deserved five stars and the recording got in the way. Here the recording is fine and the title track deserves five. The album around it honestly earns four.
A strong four anchored by one of the most extraordinary guitar performances ever committed to tape.

At 280+ albums into this project, protecting listening time and energy for records that have a genuine chance of connecting is not laziness — it’s honesty. A few tracks of The Modern Dance was enough to confirm that this sits firmly in a sonic universe that has consistently not connected throughout this list. David Thomas’s deliberately unsettling vocals, the intentional dissonance, the controlled chaos — all of it points toward a corner of avant-garde post-punk that has earned respect and genuine admiration from the right listeners for decades.

This listener is not among them.

The historical importance is real and acknowledged. The point of diminishing returns arrived early. A 2 that reflects an honest triage rather than a full listen — sometimes that’s the most useful review you can write.

Two Paul Simon fives already on this list, and this record sits in honest relationship to both of them — clearly connected to the same songwriting genius, operating within constraints that the solo work eventually shed. Garfunkel's voice adds something irreplaceable: pure, precise, and completely complementary to Simon's writing in ways that give these arrangements a beauty the solo records don't have. But the duo format also defines the ceiling, and the genre-hopping adventurousness that made Graceland and the 1972 debut so remarkable wasn't available here.
The special moments are real and worth naming. "Homeward Bound" has that quality of emotional directness and melodic precision that defines Simon's best work — written on a train platform in England and sounding exactly like it. The harmonies throughout are immaculate, the arrangements more sophisticated than anything the duo had attempted before, and the whole record shows an ambition that points clearly toward what Simon would eventually do on his own.
The closing "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night" is a concept worth appreciating even when the execution leaves you not fully on board — Silent Night's harmonies playing underneath an increasingly grim news broadcast is technically impressive and emotionally ambivalent in equal measure. The artistry is clear. The payoff is debatable.
A genuine four — special moments, beautiful voices, and a record that sits honestly below the solo work for reasons that are specific rather than critical.

Two Brazilian records in succession, different scores for different reasons. Where Jorge Ben Jor’s África Brasil earned a four through groove, personality, and genuine replayability, this one earns a high three through charm, curiosity, and a fun that doesn’t quite cross into essential.

The record announces itself immediately with a triumphant trumpet intro — a signal that this band has no interest in meeting expectations and considerable interest in subverting them. Os Mutantes absorbed the White Album and Sgt. Pepper and then filtered both through Brazilian Tropicália, genuine mischief, and a willingness to get strange in ways that feel playful rather than self-serious. The Beatles influence is unmistakable and completely their own at the same time, which is rarer than it sounds.

Rita Lee’s vocals give the record a distinctive personality, the guitar work is inventive throughout, and the whole thing has a quality of joyful experimentalism that distinguishes it from the more studied weirdness of European psychedelia from the same era. “Panis et Circenses” in particular shows a band fully committed to its own logic, orchestra and all.

But the vinyl test came back clean — fun to spend time with, not something you’d reach for by choice. A high three that fully respects the playfulness and the craft without pretending to a personal connection that isn’t quite there.

Released the same week as the White Album in November 1968, this record never had a chance. The Beatles cast a shadow so large that almost anything would disappear beneath it, and Village Green Preservation Society — quiet, nostalgic, and deliberately unfashionable — was exactly the kind of record that gets buried rather than celebrated in that kind of cultural moment.
What Ray Davies was doing here is actually quietly radical. While everyone else in 1968 was going cosmic, psychedelic, or political, he wrote a record about village greens, steam engines, old friends, and a vanishing English way of life — and committed to it completely without apology or irony. The contrarianism is part of the charm, but so is the genuine warmth underneath it. This is the British Isles equivalent of what the Band was doing with Americana across the Atlantic — finding something worth preserving in the ordinary and making it feel universal.
The songs are consistently strong without any single track towering above the rest, which is both the record's limitation and its defining quality. It sustains a mood and an identity front to back in a way that rewards return listens rather than demanding them. The melodic generosity is real throughout.
The record player test passed clearly — something you'd actually reach for again. That's not generosity. That's a four.

James Brown recorded this at his own expense because his label didn't think a live album would sell. It went to number two on the Billboard charts and stayed there for over a year. The label was wrong, and the instinct that drove Brown to capture this moment was right — there's something here that needed to exist on tape.
The performance is extraordinary. Brown commanding the Apollo is Brown at his most elemental — preaching, sweating, working a room that's completely his from the first note. The Famous Flames are locked in behind him, the energy is real, and the whole thing plays as one continuous experience rather than a collection of tracks. You can hear the foundation of everything that came after — the JBs, Fred Wesley, the entire funk tradition — being built in real time.
And yet. When "I Got You (I Feel Good)" autoplayed immediately after the record ended, something crystallized. The studio recording had a presence and physical immediacy that the live album, for all its historical weight, doesn't quite match. The 1962 recording technology captured most of the room but not all of it — maybe 80% of what being there must have felt like. Sam Cooke at the Harlem Square Club, recorded the same year, somehow got the other 20%. This one leaves you feeling the gap.
A four that fully respects the greatness without being seduced by the legend. The performance deserves five stars. The record earns four.

Two solo Beatle debuts in succession, both landing at four, both clearly great for completely different reasons. Where George Harrison’s record was warm, layered, and generous, Plastic Ono Band is the opposite — stripped to the bone, almost uncomfortably direct, Lennon fresh from primal scream therapy with nothing left to hide behind and apparently no interest in hiding anyway.

The production matches the intent perfectly. Phil Spector here with the opposite instinct from the Harrison record — everything removed rather than added, Ringo playing with a simplicity and restraint that feels almost ceremonial, Klaus Voormann’s bass spare and purposeful. The nakedness of the sound mirrors the nakedness of the songs, and nothing gets between Lennon and whatever he’s trying to say.

“Working Class Hero” is the standout — acoustic, direct, and drawing from the same well as the folk protest tradition that runs through so much music that matters most in this listening world. There’s something immediately familiar about it in the best possible sense, like the song always existed and Lennon just found it. “Mother” opens with church bells and then Lennon’s completely unguarded voice, which is either the bravest or most self-indulgent thing depending on your mood. “God” closes by dismantling every mythology Lennon had ever been part of, including his own.

Put this record on and you can picture the people making it immediately — flashy 70s clothes, complete confidence, a band that knows exactly what it's doing and is having the time of its life doing it. That quality of vivid presence is rarer than it sounds, and it's what separates África Brasil from records that merely blend genres from one that fully inhabits its own world.
The production is the first thing that pulls you in — horns and background vocals deployed with real flair, rhythms that blend Brazilian samba, African tradition, and American funk into something that feels completely natural rather than calculated. Jorge Ben Jor's percussive, syncopated rhythm guitar gives everything a physical momentum that makes the whole record feel alive rather than assembled.
The highlights accumulate on closer listening. "A História de Jorge" grabs you with autobiographical conviction riding one of the record's most irresistible grooves. "Camisa 10 Da Gavea" — a tribute to a Flamengo football shirt — gets a referee whistle into the arrangement so effectively it feels inevitable rather than gimmicky, the kind of audacious choice that only works when the music around it is fully committed. And yes, there's Hammond in there too, woven into the fabric rather than announced, doing exactly what organ should do.
A record that encapsulates a time and a vibe with complete authenticity — and rewards the closer listen with more than it gives up immediately. A genuine four.

George Harrison spent years as the third Beatle, his songs rationed carefully while Lennon and McCartney dominated the available space. All Things Must Pass is what happens when that backlog finally gets released — three albums worth of material, produced by Phil Spector at his most ambitious, and a statement of artistic identity so complete it silences any lingering doubts about where the quiet one really stood.
The production is the first thing that strikes you — dense, warm, and enveloping in a way that Phil Spector's Wall of Sound rarely achieved without tipping into excess. Here it serves the songs rather than overwhelming them, giving everything a grandeur that feels earned rather than imposed. The slide guitar throughout is Harrison at his absolute peak, that sustained singing tone reaching for something just beyond the frame of each song.
"My Sweet Lord" arrives already beloved through the Parlor Greens cover that lives in this particular musical world — hearing the original in full album context reveals what that arrangement was drawing from. The spiritual warmth, the melodic generosity, the sense of genuine seeking rather than performed devotion. It's as good as advertised.
What keeps this at four rather than five is the absence of a single truly transcendent moment — the kind of thing that stops you completely and rewires something. Everything here is really good. Nothing quite crosses into irreplaceable. That's a high bar, and the Beatle shadow makes it slightly higher — you know what transcendence sounds like from the White Album and Abbey Road, and "really good across the board" sits just below it.
A strong four. George was underrated. This record proves it without quite being the one that changes everything.

question, the delivery and instrumental palette sometimes are. Bringing It All Back Home addresses that critique more directly than anything else in the catalog encountered so far — the electric first side finally giving the songs the dynamic band treatment they've always invited, and the results are immediate."Subterranean Homesick Blues" opens with something that barely existed before it — words tumbling over a rock backing with a speed and wit that points directly toward rap, spoken word, and a whole generation of lyric-forward music. The electric tracks throughout side one have an energy and momentum that makes the songwriting feel physical rather than just literary, which is exactly what the quieter records occasionally lack.The acoustic second side holds its own on different terms. "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" is so lyrically dense and performed with such intensity it feels like a different category of thing from the folk tracks surrounding it — a sustained argument delivered at full conviction. "Mr. Tambourine Man" in Dylan's own voice, stripped of the Byrds' jangle, has a rawness the famous cover version smoothed away.The record player test landed clearly — really liked, not first reach. A strong four that sits just below Blonde on Blonde in the catalog for honest and specific reasons, and well above the earlier records that let the instrumental sameness accumulate.

The easy comparison is From Elvis in Memphis — the mature, evolved Elvis who earned a five by proving he could still grow after years of creative stagnation. This is the opposite end of the story: a 21-year-old from Tupelo detonating popular music with a fusion of country, blues, and R&B that genuinely hadn’t existed before and wouldn’t stop reverberating for decades.
The record is mostly covers, which puts it in similar territory to the Dusty Springfield debut reviewed just before it. The difference is that Elvis wasn’t just interpreting songs — he was colliding genres with a physicality and conviction that created something new in the collision. You can hear the catalyst quality clearly, the sense that the music is about to escape the room entirely and take everything with it.
Is it a fully realized record by the standards of what he’d eventually become? No. The raw edges and the unevenness are real, and some tracks feel more like proof of concept than finished statements. But proof of concept that rewired an entire culture earns its place in the score.
The trailblazing aspect is audible rather than just historical — which is the distinction that pushes this to a four rather than a respectful three. Some records matter because of what they launched. This one sounds like the launch itself.

The voice is never in question — Dusty Springfield arrived fully formed, with an instrument that could elevate almost any material she chose to inhabit. That much was clear even from a background listen during a work session.
The problem is the material itself. A Girl Called Dusty is largely covers of American soul and R&B, delivered competently and without obvious missteps, but rarely with the kind of production or arrangement that gives the voice the setting it deserves. Compared to Dusty in Memphis — where Jerry Wexler and the Muscle Shoals musicians created a framework that drew out her absolute best — this debut sounds like a talented singer waiting for the right room to walk into.
Nothing here is bad. Very little demands attention. A record that plays pleasantly in the background without once making you look up from what you're doing has told you most of what you need to know.
The Memphis record earned a four through sophistication, restraint, and production that breathed. This one earns a three through the voice alone — present, beautiful, and somewhat underserved by everything surrounding it.