Reviews by crumb_embargo

Leonard Cohen for total cornballs

Didn't like this one Frank, kind of just music for jerks

SOAD along with Rage Against the Machine rise above the nu-metal label slapped on anything vaguely metal from the 90's to early 2000s by 1.) being extremely fun and inventive and 2.) being overtly political. Compare P.L.U.C.K - a moving track about the Armenian genocide to something like Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit which just channels the general but ultimately impotent rage of genX and the elder millennial. SOAD tries really hard to make you not take them seriously but it's hard not to when you really listen to the lyrics - it's woke circus metal and it's brilliant.

Did not think I'd be ready to give Cyndi Lauper a 5 but here we are - this is perfect 80s pop infused with a punk sensibility, some great ska-like horns on some songs, crazy and unique voice, dense with bangers. I've had to listen to a lot of 80s pop for this list and will have to suffer a lot more but this is the best.

This is that good shit, baby, that pure uncut weird shit. I adore this album

As an album I have to give it a 3 because it's overstuffed and I'll never listen to it as an album again but good Lord the songs that are bangers in this record are all timers

It's a great and genre-defining album but I really just am not a Beach Boys person. I understand that Brian Wilson was a genius and RIP but for me a 5 is an album I want to listen to at least once a year and I probably won't listen to this all the way through ever again. I Just Wasn't Made These Times is an incredible song though that I truly adore.

Grunge with musicality and I'm a sucker for Kim Gordon's insane vocals.

Where has this been my whole life? Demented blues punk and the singer sounds weirdly like Jonathan Richman. It's like if someone merged the Modern Lovers with the band playing instruments made from corpses in From Dusk Til Dawn. Slaps.

The only other Sonic Youth album I've listened to at this point is Daydream Nation which I gave a 5. The magic of that album is diluted here, a lot of the songs feel like grunge songs with noise piped on top instead of emergent structures built from the noise while Kim or Thurston mutters at you, which is much more my jam. I really liked Mildred Pierce and Tunic though.

I adore the sad sleaze of this album, there's not much else like it. If you listened to a version without Like A Friend on it (which is a single B-side that is technically not on this album but is on the Spotify version) - please do yourself a favor and give it a listen.

Perfectly cromulent radio psych rock but nothing stands out enough for me to be ranked any higher.

A beautiful album that bridges Motown and funk. I much prefer the A-side but solid all-around.

A game-changer when it came out but I feel like so much of it is overlong and self-indulgent to a degree I don't have patience for anymore (end of Runaway, Blame Game). Trying to separate the art from the artist, there are still some parts of this album I just don't want to listen to on a second listen and that keeps it from a 5 - which is good because I didn't want to give that Nazi a 5 anyway.

The Jam is a blindspot for me and maybe I'd feel differently if it wasn't? Probably not, there's a distinct lack of bangers and it veers to the corny pretty frequently. Feels a lot like the grating naivete of that first Lenny Kravitz album but this guy was older and should've known better.

Not bad music but no bangers - makes it a 1 by default. Reminder as to rubric:
1 - no bangers or truly painful to listen to as an album but maybe 1 banger
2 - 1-3 bangers but the rest of the album is so bad I don't want to listen to it again
3 - Anywhere from 1 to half of the album's worth of bangers and the rest of the album is alright.
4 - High density of bangers necessary - can have one skip.
5 - Not necessarily all bangers but works high density of bangers and works as a cohesive album. No skips.

While Bobby Womack here has no skips - there are no bangers. It feels wrong because the music isn't incompetent or anything but there's just no bangers here.

There's some good stuff here but also a lot of bad stuff that doesn't feel particularly artful or interesting in why it's noisy and short and weird especially in contrast to the more fleshed out songs. It just feels confused. There's a version of this album I'd give a 3 but I never want to listen to it all the way through ever again so it gets a 2.

I wanted to like this but The Bogus Man was 9 minutes long

I like noise music and things like Suicide but the application of feedback to these songs, other than maybe Just Like Honey where it felt more restrained, really doesn't feel like it accomplishes anything but novelty. I get how influential this album is but it really was a slog to listen to and I feel like for noise to be interesting/successful it has to also be provocative and this was not. Just hard for me to get on board.

This album goes so hard. I never listened to Underworld or much house music at all but I'm such a sucker for the effortless gothic cool of tracks like Confusion the Waitress and Pearl's Girl. The first two songs are great but too long for me and it makes the album feel top-heavy whereas I think the most interesting ideas start with track 3.