Reviews by ellesnayr

This grew on me. At first I wasn’t digging it, it sounded like a lot of 80s synth pop, kind of generic. But as I kept going I found myself enjoying it and noticing how forward thinking it is. This album has a ton of foreshadowing for what would come next in electronic music. Some of this is proto-EDM and techno. This album was wildly progressive.

Never heard of this guy, this is what I signed up for! It’s cool to be exposed to new stuff. This was enjoyable.

Nothing really memorable about this one.

This would make for good music to fall asleep to. Seriously, in what other scenario would you play this dull and uninteresting music. Fistful of Love has some cool horns though.

I imagine this is what Phish sounds like to people who don’t like Phish.

Starts strong but gets pretty meh after a while. The Man Comes Around might be my favorite Johnny Cash song.

It was fine.

This list has forced me to finally deep dive into Bowie and I’ve been pleasantly surprised. This album is no exception.

Never heard of these guys but I really enjoyed this. I wish I could give it a decimal rating cause it’s not quite a 4 for me but it’s way better than a 3. Like a 3.8 if I could do that.

Solid album, didn’t know it was gonna be live. Janis Joplin’s singing really carries this band, if not for her this would be just okay blues rock. The lead guitar on Ball and Chain was great.

It was alright, I don’t understand the hype around the smiths.

Hell yeah man! This rocks so hard! When Metallica was going alt rock these guys just got heavier and faster.

Hey guys, maybe try and focus on like 9 songs and make them, how do I say this, good?

This is an album of mostly songs fragments. On They Might Be Giants album Apollo 18 they made a bunch of song fragments (later compiled as the song Fingertips) so if you put the cd on shuffle it would feel like flipping through the radio in between full songs. The only difference between Fingertips and this album is the Giants did it as a throwaway and they are talented so the fragments end up being interesting.

That isn’t to say the Magnetic fields aren’t talented. I honestly think they are, the main guy plays tons of instruments competently on here, and there are some genuinely good songs (Papa was a Rodeo in particular). The problem is 70% of this album is unnecessary to downright bad. Also I hate the singer, is he singing bad on purpose or is he just tone deaf? Make the girl the lead/only singer and this album would be way better.

Chicago brings the heat on their debut! I’ve always been aware of Chicago, but I never dove deep. This album has some flaws, some songs go on too long for instance. Like was that minute long tambourine solo at the end of Beginnings really necessary? I think not. But overall this album slams. And I did not expect a 5+ minute experimental noise guitar solo on Free Form Guitar, that was wild and way ahead of its time. Plus there are plenty of horns, and I love horns.

This album sounds amazing. The production choices, the instrument choices, and the instrumentation are all perfect for this music. It’s raw and gritty. I didn’t really like any of the songs enough to probably listen to this album again, but I love that this knows exactly what it’s supposed to be. So this is a strange one for me, I love this album for what it is even if I don’t think I’ll listen again.

Most of these songs were 3 minutes too long. Next was the only song that didn’t drag, the rest were just one idea repeated for 4+ minutes. I don’t understand this album’s inclusion on the list.

Relentlessly bland.

The last great Kanye album. I wasn’t ready for this when it came out, I thought it was bad. But it is a fantastic album that follows the hero’s journey. Or does it? The Dissect podcast does a full season on this album, breaking it down song by song and I highly recommend everyone check it out. They do terrific work and help me fully appreciate the albums they cover.

Interesting. It’s all over the place after the first song. Not necessarily in a bad way, seems like they were trying some things out. Overall I didn’t mind it but I doubt I’ll ever listen to it again. Also, that is some terrible album art.

This was inoffensive folk rock. I have nothing against it but it was nothing to write home about.