Reviews by ella_ayates

It's like listening to the Beatles before they were the Beatles, just lyrically and vocally a bit worse. Hate that the mixing means on headphones all the singing is in one ear and the music in the other: feels like my ears aren't working right. I don't hate any of it but with 6 other (better?) Beatles albums on the list I'm not sure we had to hear this one.
Favourite song: Don't Bother Me
Least: I Wanna Be Your Man

Clearly very influential and I'm glad to have listened but it's not music I'd go back to. Feels very formulaic, and I know you need the formula to then have future musicians break it but I was quite bored of it by the end which is impressive with such a short album.
Nice harmonies though and it's fun that these guys were on Graceland when we had it just a few days ago.
Favourite song: Lucille
Least: Made to Love

Two great things have come out of this album: the iconic scene at the end of 10 things I hate about you where a cover of I Want You To Want Me is played on the roof, and the scene in New Girl where she sings Surrender to try to get her parents to stop arguing. I could happily have not listened to any of the other songs on the album (maybe with the exception of Clock Strikes Ten). Also the producer says it wasn't even recorded at Budakon, I think pretending it is is a bit of a... cheap trick...
Favourite song: I Want You To Want Me
Least: Goodnight

Putting into words the way I feel about this album isn't easy. I think it's musically gorgeous with beautiful vocals and incredible storytelling. But mostly I think it's impossible to separate this album from all my memories of it.
There was a year or so my parents were traveling full time and Homeless was my dad's anthem (always sang incredibly overly dramatically). When I turned 21 my flatmate put You Can Call Me Al on the party playlist because he knew how much I liked it and I remember feeling so loved and seen and surrounded by my favourite people as it played. And there are the countless memories of singing along to Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes and Graceland on long car rides with my family.
Favourite song: You Can Call Me Al
Least: I Know What I Know (but I love the whole album really)

I really don't want to be someone who just rules albums out by genre immediately so I swear I try to listen to everything with an open mind. But jazz continues to be outside of my understanding.
I enjoyed the first song for a little while from about 6 minutes in and I liked the first and last four minutes of the second song. But both are 20 minute long songs with big sections of what sounds to me to be unstructured freestyle saxophone that drove me a little mad so I'll probably never listen to the bits I did like again.
Favourite song: In a Silent Way
Least: Shhh / Peaceful

I just don't like it. I think the over the top focus on Englishness in the first song put me off and I just never came back. The actual musical performances didn't help.
I know what I like (and it isn't this).
Favourite song: I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Least: The Battle of Epping Forest

I've not seen the film Superfly and I was quite confused about what the scenes that go with some of the songs could possibly look like (but in the film at least Freddie's dead is instrumental, which makes sense). The soundtrack doesn't need the film to be wonderful and entertaining. The music is gorgeous and I really enjoy his voice.
Favourite song: No Thing On Me (Cocaine Song)
Least: Eddie You Should Know Better

I really wanted to like it- so many interesting musical choices and genre bending decisions, and I love that her first two albums are named after her parents (and then her next two are named after herself). But musically I found a lot of the choices she made put me off. And I thought I'd get more of a sense of her mum from the album named after her- but I can't imagine that songs like XR2 are at all about her mum, unless they went out raving in the 90s together.
Favourite song: Paper Planes
Least: World Town

Listened to Free Man In Paris and saw that Joni Mitchell had written it about a friend of hers who's a music promoter. I thought "damn imagine having to promote a song about how nice it would be to not have all the ties and stresses of the working world" and then I read David Geffen's wikipedia page and I lost that sympathy- now it's more like "damn imagine having $9 billion and Joni Mitchell wrote a song about you!".
I love her storytelling and her voice, it doesn't have any of my favourite songs of hers but overall I really enjoyed the album.
Favourite song: Free Man In Paris (or Raised on Robbery)
Least: Twisted

Definitely liked the first half more than the second, but I can't tell if that's the songs themselves or if I was getting bored of their sound/her voice. Love the album cover.
Favourite song: Soft Shock
Least: Runaway

Obviously it's a long album and it suffers from the nature of this reviewing process- they probably weren't ever expecting people to try to listen to it in a day. Although everyone complaining should be glad he didn't make it 100 love songs like originally planned. Honestly the further into the album I got the more I appreciated the scale of it. It's not just an album its a project on love songs, an exploration across genres, emotions and types and stages of relationships. There are some truly gorgeous songs and lyrics and while they aren't all perfect I never got bored or annoyed, I was always excited to see what they'd done next and I'm really glad this project made me listen to it all.
Favourite song: All My Little Words (also absolutely love The Book of Love and Absolutely Cuckoo)
My favourite new song: Meaningless (or It's A Crime, or I'm Sorry I Love You)
Least: Love Is Like Jazz

This album makes me feel like I'm at an open mic night having to listen to loads of dramatic (and kind of shitty) poetry. I can imagine them sitting around with little notebooks brainstorming about the Manson family and Hitchcock films and quotes from Ulysses. And how proud they would have been to call it Love backwards. It's all a little too pretentious for me. That being said musically I like it more than the other Sonic Youth albums I've rated.
Favourite song: Tom Violence
Least: Starpower

There's a weird freaky circus vibe at points- it's like he knows I've been listening to the magnus archives. A couple songs I really like but too much weirdness just for the sake of being weird for me.
Favourite song: In The Neighborhood
Least: Dave the Butcher

Perfect sunny weather album. Love the songs with Astrud on them- musically the three of them work so so well together, although interpersonally (and financially) I think Astrud deserved much better than what they put her through.
Favourite song: The Girl From Ipanema
Least: O Grande Amor

Young Americans and Fame are really great songs, but the rest of the album doesn't reach the same heights. Never knew that Lennon helped write Fame, puts the Beatles cover into context (although it's still not great).
Favourite song: Young Americans
Least: Across The Universe

It started so strong, what a gorgeous song! Read that he sued Rod Stewart but I was still jump scared by the Da Ya Think I'm Sexy melody when it started. I'm not a huge cuíca fan and after a while the squeaky sound of it started to annoy me a bit, but it was more than made up for the stunning vocals, rhythms and the other drums.
Favourite song: Ponta De Lanca Africano
Least: Meus Filhos, Meu Tesouro

I really enjoy the combination of their softer vocals with the rock music. Didn't love the first song but the album grew on me.
Favourite song: Look At You
Least: Half of Ashes

Alex Turner's got such a distinctive voice but this album still manages to feel very different from any Artic Monkeys' music I know. I think that side projects of famous band members can often be self indulgent and under edited and it's so nice to see it done so so well: this album feels like a work of art.
Favourite song: Black Plant
Least: I Don't Like You Anymore

A few improv moments that went on a little long for me but otherwise shocked by how much I enjoyed this. I'd never heard of King Crimson before and I feel like I've fixed an important gap in my musical education.
Favourite song: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Least: Moonchild

The whispering at the end of the first track gave me goosebumps. Not a huge fan of starting and ending the album with 10 minute long songs. Can You Get To That is gorgeous, such an incredibly well made and performed song that contrasts so much with the chaos of the rest of the album.
Favourite song: Can You Get To That
Least: Wars of Armageddon