Reviews by ellesnayr

Starting with this album I don’t think Metallica should call themselves Metallica anymore. They kind of stopped being a metal band and veered into hard rock on this album. But Hard Rockica just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Metallica. With their transition to hard rock, Metallica made a decent album. Honestly for a lot of bands this would be a great album, but Metallica was coming off an amazing three album run. This album doesn’t come close to those. It has a few good songs but most are just ok to forgettable. All I’m saying is they better have ride the lightning, master of puppets, and …and justice for all on this list if this album is gonna be on it. I get that this is Metallica’s mainstream success album, but it’s not their best.

I enjoyed a lot of this. Changeling was fantastic. However, I don’t really buy that it was such a sea change when it was released in 1996. Reading through the Wikipedia and there are quotes saying it set the bar for hip hop and other grandiose statements because of its use of sampling. But this album came out almost ten years after Paul’s Boutique, which basically did the same thing as this album in terms of sampling. I was 5 when this came out so it wasn’t really on my radar at the time. So maybe it was as important as they say, I’m just not seeing it.

Well that settles it, I am not a Stevie Wonder fan. This is the second album I’ve had of his on this list and again it did nothing for me. Some of the more upbeat tunes are kind of fun, like Boogie On, but even that one I got bored of after 45 seconds. Most of his songs on this album are slow ballads and they are capital B BORING!

This is like a mediocre Dolores O’Riordan solo album. There are a couple okay songs but most drag in too long and don’t go anywhere. I’d say just replace this with a Cranberries album and call it a day.

I’ve never cared for the title song and the rest of the album didn’t do much for me. Synths are cool, but the songs weren’t great and I don’t like the choices the singer made or maybe I just don’t like her voice. Either way not my favorite album. Going with a two because there are some good synth parts in it.

Some chill beats on here. Pretty much every song was ruined by the vocals.

While I’m not a fan of 99% of the bands/music that came because of this album’s influence (hair metal), Van Halen and this album are undeniable. Just an awesome rock album. Eddie Van Halen is one of the greatest to ever do it. A creative and virtuosic player. The songs are there too, it’s fun to listen to and it rocks, what’s not to love.

This was my first time listening to a full T Swift album and damn can she write a pop song! There’s not a dud on this album. Lyrically it’s not super relatable to me personally but it doesn’t matter, the songs are just good. I was pleasantly surprised by this album. I knew the hits, but pretty much any song on here could’ve been a single.

As always a plus one for horns. This album was not what I expected beaded on the first couple tracks. It gets a little experimental and weird in the middle there. Charge and Woman of the World were standouts for me. Not my favorite, but a fun and unique listen.

This did not need to be on the list.
There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s fine, but that’s it, it’s just fine.
This is inoffensive pop rock, there’s nothing particularly exceptional about it.

I went into this rolling my eyes. I like some SP songs but thought 2 hours was going to be WAY too much. I’m delighted by how wrong I was. This album was incredible and never lost my attention. I could gush over how dynamic and varied it is all the while remaining cohesive, but I’ll just leave it at incredible. What a feat The Smashing Pumpkins pulled off here.

Mostly really good songs on here. I didn’t love everybody has a dream. Otherwise I at least liked and very much enjoyed many of the songs. Italian Restaurant is one of my favorites from Billy Joel.

Objectively this is probably a 4/5, but I’ve been rating subjectively since I started this so for me it’s a 3/5. There are songs I love and listen to somewhat regularly (dreams, never going back again, the chain). There are songs I can tell are good but I have never cared for them (don’t stop, go your own way). There are some good songs that just didn’t really do anything for me. And there are a few duds. So overall it’s a good album but not one that I’ll be returning to in full.

So close to being a perfect album. In my opinion, Hall of Mirrors and Showroom Dummies throw off the flow of this album. Also I just think they’re stinkers, just not good songs, especially Hall of Mirrors. Otherwise this album is amazing. I love the opener, skip the next two, and then it’s basically one long suite of songs that all flow together.

Some good songs on here. Not everything thrilled me. Mountain o’ things was really cool.

Bogus Man pushed this one from a two to a three for me. Everything before Bogus Man was awful. Everything after it was pretty cool, it got pretty experimental in the second half. I credit old sourpuss Brian Eno with the things I like about this album. Brian Ferry sounds like he’s doing a Dracula impression half the time, he is not my favorite singer.

Solid album. Not really a bad song on here. I wish they hadn’t made Moby Dick the drum solo song, it has a cool riff but the rest of the song is boring. Also although musically the lemon song is very cool the lyrics are cringe.

This rules. Very moody. I love the bass forward sound of early cure.

A couple good songs in here. What’s Going on and Mercy Mercy Me were decent. Right On was the best track. The rest of the songs were meh at best. I was going to give a three star but Save the Children is straight up one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard so that knocked it down to a two for me.

This was a fun one. I knew the hits but never dove deeper into Blondie’s discography. I don’t know if I’d return to this but I wouldn’t be mad if someone put it on.