Reviews by conorr90

Some good songs on here, and I can see the influence they had on other British bands later on in the 90s. But overall, I find them pretty mediocre. Definitely remind me a lot of Big Star, who I also find pretty mediocre!

Loved this, I've been meaning to get into Billy Bragg for years now. I prefer his political songs to his love songs, but some of those are great too. Some of the points he raises should be dated, but are unfortunately more relevant than ever. 8/10, but could see this rising to a 9 over time.

Incidentally, it occurred to me that this is what Elvis Costello's music could have been, if he was a bit more political. Maybe that's why his music rubs me the wrong way a lot of the time, it just feels lacking in some way.

Some decent songs on here, and I can see how it could have been influential. But overall it's "Wham bam, thank you mam, not for me"

I feel like giving this a 1 star, but Another Girl, Another Planet is such a good song that I think I have to bump it to 2. The rest of it is nothing worth remembering though: bad singing, uninteresting lyrics, ordinary music.

I kind of hated this on first listen, but the second time around it grew on me. It's still kinda terrible, but in a fun way, like the Evil Dead or something. It's very cinematic and groovy, like a spookier Dick Dale.

I'm not a big fan of country, but Johnny Cash is something else. Like a lot of people of my generation, I was introduced to his music via the Walk the Line film. Since then, I haven't delved too deeply into his catalogue, but usually enjoy listening to whatever songs of his I come across.

This is one of the best live albums I've ever heard, and a great compilation of his best songs. I enjoyed the short version so much that I went and listened to the 90+ minute Legacy version, which flows better and has more songs from the other artists. Some of the songs are a bit ordinary, and the recording is a bit rough in places, but Cash's rapport with the crowd is incredible. He had them in the palm of his hand. It's very transportative as well, a great window into that time and place. Really glad to have finally listened to this, and looking forward to getting the Folsom prison album.

I've given out about live albums being in this book before, but I think I can give this one a pass since it's a unique concept. What I can't give a pass though, is the number of terrible songs on here. Metallica really did take a nose dive in quality after the Black Album. I wish it was mixed a bit better as well, sometimes you can barely hear the orchestra over the band.

Some of the older songs are great, maybe even improved by the orchestra. Master of Puppets gave me chills when the crowd started singing along. The last 4 songs on the second disc are great too. Overall a mixed bag, but interesting enough in places.

Some great singing on here, and great songwriting too. But at the end of the day, it's a covers album. Not really sure if it's innovative enough to be on here.

This was surprisingly good, I expected it to be of the same calibre of a lot of the other 60s psyche slop that this generator likes to serve up every so often. There's some great songs here though, mainly in the first half, and it's well produced. The second side gets a bit weird though. I found the nonsensical voiceover funny at first, but was sick of it by the end.

I expected to hate this, but after the second listen was quite enjoying it. I've loved NIN for a long time, and always wanted to find some other Industrial Rock to listen to, but never came across this band. I'd say this had some sort of influence on Trent Reznor and various other hard rock acts of the 90s.

Sweet Emotion is pretty much a perfect song IMO, and some others are decent, but the rest of this is pretty middle of the road. Some great guitar playing, and if you pay no attention to lyrics, I can see why you'd rate it highly. But the lyrics are so creepy in places, especially knowing that Tyler was grooming a teenager just a few years prior to this. It's hard to argue for separation of art from the artist when you have a dude in his late 20s writing a song like Walk This Way, which features a sexy "young bleeder" high school cheerleader.

Maybe not the best Arcade Fire album "objectively" speaking (if that's even possible with music), but my favourite of theirs. I was listening to this a lot when it came out, and was going through a very rough time in my life, so a lot of the songs have taken on very personal meanings for me.

There's a slight lull in the middle of it, and its maybe a bit too long, but other than that I think it's close to perfect. I think the themes of lost childhood and coming of age in a dangerous world are probably even more relevant today as well.

Liked parts of this, and the guitar playing is great. Cringe lyrics though, and not as good overall as Rust in Peace. Not really sure if we needed 2 Megadeath albums on this list.

As nightmarish and gross as this is in places, you do have to give them props for doing something so completely different from the vast majority of music. Band name is a 10/10 as well.

These poor guys just came here to rock! Are you all ready to rock?! Has anyone here ever heard of something called rock music?!

I absolutely despise music like this. It's overly sanitized, completely lacking in depth, and the lyrics are ridiculous. I hate this narrative that "rock" is always close to death - it wasn't in 1983 and it isn't now either. Bands like this just pushed rock into the underground in the late 80s/90s, probably for the better.

It's probably marginally better than the other Def Leopard on this list, but I'm so offended that they have 2 albums in the book that it gets 1 star.

Pretty inoffensive as 80s pop music goes, with some pretty good songs (Karma, Black Money, Church, Miss Me), but the deeper cuts are a bit dull. Have to give respect to Boy George as a trailblazer though as well.

Hadn't listened to this before, but I have heard of the artist. His guitar playing is incredible, and I quite like his singing too! Some of the shorter sketch type songs seem a bit unfinished, but apart from that I have no complaints. Can see myself listening to this a good bit in future. 8/10

Not quite a perfect album, but this is the Flaming Lips at their best, imo. Wayne's singing could still be better, but the songs are so well written and polished that I can forgive it. Love the futuristic robot lyrics and existential themes. Ego Tripping has one of my favourite basslines ever, it's one of my headphone/speaker reference tracks. 9/10

Even though this band is essentially a second rate Beatles impersonation, I did enjoy bits of this, particularly the weird goofy parts like Zilch. Probably won't bother listening to it again though.

This is a bit dated but still quite enjoyable, particularly the tracks with female vocalists.