Rated 4/10
EDIT: I originally gave this album a 1, which the below review reflects
Maybe I'm in a bad mood, but I just found this to be boring. The Animal Years is standard folk with a bit of wilco-esque alt-country and rock. Not original by any metric, and I don't think the quality of the songwriting is enough to save it.
Should it be on the main list: No
Top 3 songs: Girl in the War, Wolves, In the Dark
Rated 2/10
I don't like late 00s-early/mid 10s pop EDM, I find it boring and formulaic, and Avicii is a great example of this bad musical trend. All of this EDM follows the same pattern (solo percussion intro, verse-chorus, electronic bit to amp up the song, verse-chorus which works its way to a drop at the end of the chorus, intense electronic release), and you could swap out any other artist that was big at the time and get the exact same music, with the exception being Deadmau5 who doesn't seem to do this. This is very boring and uninteresting music.
Should it be on the list: No
Top 3 songs: Waiting for Love, True Believer, Sunset Jesus
Rated 6/10
Another Canadian rock band, but this one is actually pretty interesting. David Comes to Life starts off with some prog rock wankery in the first song only to immediately pivot to hardcore punk of all things. I learned, after a glance at Wikipedia, that this is a post-hardcore/hardcore punk rock opera. A very interesting mix of genres given the historic rivalry between punk and prog, but I think it's done quite well, it's definitely more firmly on the hardcore side.
David Comes to Life is 77 minutes long, and it doesn't really feel as long as it is. The album does suffer from being a bit samey, from the second song onwards it mostly revolves around aggressive sounding post-hardcore music with screamy vocals and doesn't stray too far away outside of the occasional proggy noodling. I like the vocals and the music though so it worked for me.
As it's a rock opera there is a story which I didn't catch on first listen because the screamy vocals are hard to understand. I'll have to listen again while reading the lyrics.
Should it be on the list: Probably not but you could make a case for it.
Top 3 songs: It's hard to separate the songs as the album is a package rather than having standouts. I may edit this on future listens, but I think it defeats the point of the album.
Rated 4/10
There's a music act I like a lot called Kano, unfortunately this guy is a grime rapper and not the italo-disco band I'm thinking of. Honestly I think the list was fine for grime, I would have put that one Dizzee Rascal (the GOAT of grime) and called it a day, it's not like it was THAT important of a subgenre.
Unfortunately, as expected, I found this guy to be pretty mediocre, especially for 2005. I get that hip-hop originated in the US, but British rap around this time really lagged far behind and Home Sweet Home is no exception, it feels very primitive compared to American stuff around the same time. It's far from the worst rap you'll hear, but I won't remember much about this a few days from now.
Special shout out to Sometimes, it's not the best song on the album (that would be P's and Q's by far), but it does manage to channel Kano's awkward rapping into an authentic way due to the natural awkwardness of the song.
Should it be in the main list: No
Top 3 songs: P's and Q's, Reload It, Sometimes
Rated 6/10
EDIT: I originally gave this album a 2, which the below review reflects
I was intrigued when I saw that the Wikipedia snippet labeled GRiZ as a DJ and producer that played funk music with his saxophone, only to have my heart sink when the album quickly turned into dubstep. That said I enjoyed it more than I expected.
Unlike most dubstep, Rainbow Brain is much more musically curious. In just the first five minutes you get funk, jazz, and reggae, and GRiZ even plays around with other electronic genres, such as DnB which occupies a few songs on the tracklist. The album flows very nicely with smooth and seamless transitions, and all the songs are relatively short so the musical ideas he experiments with usually don't get too tired.
Unfortunately the runtime works against the album. The album is 55 minutes long and towards the end you start to feel that. It's not helped by GRiZ sacrificing some of the musical adventurousness from early in the album to reach for some ideas in the vault of dubstep cliches. I see a few reviewers praise the album for its glitchiness, but I really don't hear that at all on this album.
Should it be in the main list: No, but you could make a case for it. Rainbow Brain was a pretty unique experience for me.
Top 3 songs: Astro Funk, Vibe Check, Tie-Dye Sky
Rated 4/10
Vampire Weekend! The band I've heard all about but never listened to outside of the "Ay Ay Ay" song that's always on radio. I'm glad I finally get an excuse to see what all the fuss is about.
Contra attempts to craft a tropical summery atmosphere by utilising synths and non-western music in a psychedelic manner, and achieves this pretty well. From start to finish it feels like a tropical beach vibe, similar to Desire I Want To Turn Into You which I got a few days ago. It gives me flashbacks to Merriweather Post Pavilion from the original list, which went for a similar theme, and I'm guessing AnCo was an influence.
That said, despite the success of the atmosphere they're going for I actually don't like the album. I compared it to Desire I Want to Turn Into You and MPP, but those albums have big hooky songs as anchor points throughout the album for me to latch onto, Contra seems to be going all in on the summery vibe. As I said before, the sound they're going for they do pretty well but I think Vampire Weekend intended for the album to wash over you, which is fine, but I don't really like it.
Should it be on the main list: No
Top 3 songs: Taxi Cab, Cousins, Giving Up the Gun,
Rated 4/10
Gemstones is a singer/songwriter comedy folk album, which was a popular style in the 00s. As a result I find this one a lot harder to rate than other albums since the main factor is the comedy, something that is rarely a factor in other albums.
Adam Green is clearly talented, the instrumentation is well done and he can sing decently well. Melodically it's pretty upbeat, though the lyrics are rather vulgar and crass, as well as the humour being a little bit on the darker side, but I find that juxtaposition to be pretty interesting. The comedy, is fine, I got a couple of laughs out of it which was more than I was expecting, but I didn't find it exceptionally funny.
Should it be in the main list: No, though I think the submitter was onto something when choosing an album like this.
Top 3 songs: He's the Brat, Carolina, Emily
This is an album I really wish I liked more than I actually do, the highs are nothing short of spectacular but to my taste there is only three of them on the entire album (Welcome to My Island, Bunny is a Rider, and Billions) and the rest I find to be rather boring.
The album opens in a perfect way with Welcome to My Island. It's playful yet mysterious, and it encourages you to engage with the album. I think this song takes the place of an overture from rock operas, it foreshadows many themes will be expressed throughout the album. She deliberately sets a tone of a tropical island to jam that thought into your head while listening to the album (see the sand on the cover), and she completely succeeded. While talking about this album I actually referred to it as an "island" at several points, that's how well she sets the stage. This is definitely the most fun song, it's borderline dance pop, but later songs will reveal an artsier side.
So now we're on Polachek 's island, what does it contain? Well primarily this is a pop album with a lot of British 90s electronic influence (trip hop, downtempo, garage, baggy, just to name a few) which jumps around from song to song. The lush tropical theme from the opener stays through pretty much the whole album, it sticks to it very well.
There's a few things I don't like. I feel the auto tune used throughout the album is tacky for the most part, and Sunset just feels like it was hopping on the Latin trend that was budding in 2023 (though it is one of her most popular songs so maybe that's a me problem). The dislikes heavily outweigh the likes so this album is just fortunate that the strengths pull it up.
The real gem of the album is the closer, Billions, which is one of my favourite pop songs ever. This Bjork-esque downtempo song uses the most lush instrumentation on the album which climaxes into a children's choir. The end of the song is so transcendental.
Should it be on the main list: Yeah probably, you could make a strong case for it. Polachek is regarded as one of the finest pop songwriters of the 21st century, a quality that Dimery holds in high regard according to his book.
Top 3 songs: Welcome To My Island, Bunny is a Rider, Billions
Rated 6/10
Competently performed hard rock. The band is obviously very talented but there's no variety here, if you like one song you'll probably like the whole batch. Not trying to disparage the album either, it was a fun listen.
Should it be in the main list: No
Top 3 songs: I'm gonna be real I couldn't pick any of the songs apart. I might update this when I relisten.
A great emo choice and an album I've wanted to listen to for a long time, so I'm glad I finally get the opportunity. I was familiar with some of Brand New's work going into this, but I expected them to be poppier than they were (not like Paramore or MCR, but more like Jimmy Eat World and Say Anything), so when I opened the album up and got an artsier form of traditional emo I was even more intrigued.
The first half of this album (i.e. the first 5/6 songs) is brilliant and easily the highlight. They have a great flow and are mired in the emo dreariness you come to expect from these kinds of releases. This is the aforementioned artsy section of the album, these songs are mostly Midwestern emo and post hardcore (hell, Limousine is basically prog rock, it sounds exactly like The Mars Volta), they connect melodically and have the best songwriting on the album. It's lyrically very depressing too, but I'll analyse those more on repeat listens.
The second half has a noticeable dip in quality, it's not bad by any means (it's actually pretty good!) but the moody and tight atmosphere that has been built up to this point promptly falls apart. This is also where the pop that I was expecting is introduced, the more aggressive and oppressive sounds replaced with straighter alt rock and emo pop songs. It also bounces around genres a bit more unlike the consistency from the first half.
Overall I loved this, on first impressions I think it's rightfully regarded as one of the emo classics, and with a lot of depth. I look forward to getting deeper into this over the coming days because I think this has potential to be a 5.
Should it be on the main list: Yes 100%
Top 3 songs: Sowing Season, Degausser, Limousine
Rated 8/10
I've listened to Protomartyr before, most notably the album after this, and I was very unimpressed, however Relatives in Descent was banging.
The songs generally have two different modes: a talk-singing type of post-punk/art punk usually with a social message, and a noise rock and more melodic mode with a hook that usually takes place during the chorus. I think these two styles play off each other well, the former builds anticipation and gets the point of the song across and the latter is the wonderful release. There's also hints of goth here and there and it gives it a delightfully dark vibe across most of the album.
I do feel the album has a serious lull in the second half of the album, I think after Don't Go To Anacita, but it doesn't diminish the quality too much
I think this album was the big inspiration for a lot of the art punk bands around today, including the Windmill Scene (which I'm a big fan of), obviously they weren't the only band doing similar music as there were others (e.g. Iceage, Women/Vietcong/whatever they're called now) but this was definitely the most notable and probably the most influential. I think the album is the reason why that widely mocked post-punk talk-singing became a big thing with more modern acts, I don't have an issue with it personally and it's done tastefully here.
Should it be on the list: Yes probably, you could make a strong case for it. I remember this being a big post-punk indie record when it came out, and arguably starting that new wave of art punk that's popular nowadays.
Top 3 songs: A Private Understanding, My Children, Half Sister
Rated 6/10
It's a tired comparison but an apt one: Nordic Radiohead. Specifically it sounds like a mix of Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows, which is interesting because this came out between the two. The album starts off very strong and I was originally going to give this a 4, but it runs out of steam very quickly. It also has Bowie and Lou Reed featuring on separate tracks, interestingly.
Should it be on the main list: No
Top 3 songs: Kalifornia, Jewel Drop, She's Made Of Chalk
Rated 8/10
Hey Dimery, you forgot a hard rock album for your book! I'm being sincere! I'm not entirely sure I would call Dreamboat Annie essential per se, but the Wilson sisters et al. prove that they rock harder than most of the "classic rock" chumps on the main list.
I haven't listened to Dreamboat Annie in a long time, but it's a lot poppier than I remember. Despite being a hard rock album there's hooks all the way through the tracklist so I think that will give it a wider appeal than other bands in the genre. To borrow software terminology, I think you could call this "firm rock", the hooks make it accessible and an easy listen but the harder rocking aspect gives it a much needed oomph.
The star of the show is easily Nancy Wilson. Her plucked acoustic guitar playing gives the songs a soft and folksy feel to most of the songs, which helps to emulsify the pop with the harder elements. She also is proficient technically while still managing to to transform the fiddlier elements of the guitar into the aforementioned hooks, the intro for Crazy On You is a perfect example of that. I've never considered Nancy Wilson one of the "greats" in the guitar world, but this album is making me reconsider that. I will have to check out more Heart albums, because her performance on here is nothing short of spectacular.
That's not to discredit the other members! Ann Wilson has wonderfully powerful vocals that works superbly with the more passionate songs, again looking towards Crazy On You where she arguably steals the show from Nancy from the choruses onwards. The lead electric guitarist (who I believe is Robert Fisher) also plays a great part on some of the harder rocking songs.
There's a few other pretty important elements that act as the secret sauce as to why this album is so good. There's a lot of folk rock and soft rock elements, which as stated before acts as a pretty good counterbalance to the hard rock. There's also a little bit of prog in here, giving the album much needed complexity. I think a good comparison is Led Zeppelin IV, which I'm guessing was a major inspiration.
This album is also home to possibly my favourite song of the boomer hard rock era that I alluded to earlier. That song is Crazy On You. After a phenomenal guitar intro from Nancy, she effortlessly transitions into the song's main motif, swiftly followed into the song proper which is another hard rocker. This combines /every/ positive element I described about the song succinctly into a 5 minute runtime. I don't think I'm exaggerating either, this should be considered a classic among the likes of Gimme Shelter and Bohemian Rhapsody, and if you haven't listened to it before do so now!
I see a lot of other reviewers criticise the second half for being much weaker than the first, an opinion that I don't really agree with. Sure there's a drop in quality, but even the best bands aren't going to be pumping out songs at the quality of Crazy On You left and right. There's I'll Be Your Song which is a nice ballad, and Sing Child which is probably the hardest song on the album. I wouldn't really change anything about it other than the title track reprise at the end which was kind of unnecessary.
Should it be on the main list: Yes. They're one of the original female led rock bands, and quite frankly it's more interesting than most "classic rock" albums that were in the books.
Top 3 songs: Crazy On You, Dreamboat Annie, Sing Child
Rated 8/10
You'd Prefer an Astronaut is a classic. I first discovered it and it seems that it's esteem has grown significantly since them. The first song - Little Dipper - is the inspiration for Deftones entire sound, the second song - The Pod - foreshadows the sound alt metal would take in the mid 00s, the third song - Stars - was an emo hit. From this you would imagine the album to be a sprawling mess of genres, but au contraire mon frere!
The genre that Hum is, is just Hum. By combining a mix of alt rock adjacent genres they've managed to formulate a pretty unique sound. They're fundamentally and alt rock, post-hardcore, and emo band, but they fortify it with shoegaze, alt metal, and even a little of grunge and post-rock. They don't play all these genres at the same time. The alt metal and shoegaze are typically together and the other genres are together, though the emo is typically in all songs, so it doesn't feel like an awkward amalgamation of sounds, it's all natural. As an example: when I think of Deftones I think of a band that expanded upon the scope of Little Dipper from this album, that's how much Hum succeeded in cultivating their own sound
It's not remarkable in just the music either, the lyrics are very poetic. They're mostly about passionate feelings during breakups or unrequited love of varying complexity. Stars, which was a decent hit on the rock charts, has relatively simple lyrics given it's a pop song, but something like I Hate It Too has a bit more depth and flair to it. It's also very reminiscent of Midwestern suburbia, which comes with the genre, but still good job Hum.
Should it be on the main list: Yes 100%
Top 3 songs: Little Dipper, The Pod, Stars
Rated 6/10
I feel like I should like this more than I do, blame it on all the post-rock I've gotten recently and my current state of mind. That said it is a pretty interesting album and I don't regret my time with it.
Psychic switches between slow and methodical ambient, and pretty upbeat and poppier music. For the most part it's slow and minimal IDM, bordering on ambient, but it throws in funk, R&B and rock music to keep the album chugging along. Personally I enjoy the album more when it's lively and has more energy to it.
This is definitely one I need to return to, I don't think I can do the album justice right now because it has depth for it and I'm just not in the mood for it right now.
Should it be on the list: No, but it's not far away from it. The list would benefit from minimal IDM like this.
Top 3 songs: Golden Arrow, The Only Shrine I've Seen, Metatron
Rated 8/10
I had big expectations for this band as I know they're a huge player in the modern post-rock scene, and while this album isn't new it definitely didn't disappoint. Sonically I think they follow Slint's line of post-rock, but with a few Godspeed You elements too.
This is a very rocky variety of post-rock, it even borders on shoegaze, noise rock, and grunge in places. The music is given space to develop but they also go pretty hard into more mainstream rock with crunchy riffs and repetitive, predictable patterns. I actually like this style quite a lot, it doesn't feel too "out there" because it becomes grounded in reality frequently, but you still get the benefits of the more atmospheric and roomy sounds that gives space for your mind to wander.
They utilised a lot of incidental sounds on their instrumentation, like the sounds of strings hitting the feet and amplifier feedback, and I think this works well during the quieter segments to give it a colder and more mechanical feeling. Also I like the cover, this album does have a very urban/city feel to it, which I think is helped by the claustrophobic hard riffs that feature in most of the songs.
Should it be in the main list: Probably, you could make a strong case for it.
Top 3 songs: Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home, Like Herod, Mogwai Fear Satan
A week after getting F Sharp A Sharp Infinity, I get this album, Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, and the difference couldn't be more stark,to a point where their debut feels like a demo for their more interesting work. F Sharp used more sound collages and droning soundscapes, and it still exists here, but the ambient rock music is front and centre, it even starts with a very triumphant and rocky sound!
Lift Yr. Skinny Fists is quite long, it comes in at roughly an hour and a half, but it doesn't feel quite that long, the post rock soundscapes of the first three songs do a good job of setting the scene and sucking you in and it doesn't really let go of that. There's a guy talking about Coney Island on the beginning of the track "Sleep" which is jarring at first, but it does set the stage for the best track on the album so I'll give it a pass.
Should it be in the main list: Yes 100%. This is one of the most egregious exclusions.
Top 3 songs: Storm, Static, Sleep
Rated 8/10
Night Drive, as the name implies, is going for the vibe of driving at night, preferably in a city, and I think it captures this feeling pretty damn well. I will have to actually try driving at night to this at some point.
This album is a synthwave album among other genres. Most synthwave bands tend to stick to the genre religiously or only have a few hints of industrial or electro house (e.g. Dance With the Dead, Lazerhawk, Perturbator), Night Drive inserts other elements such as dream pop, post-punk, ambient, and regular synthpop, and as a result it doesn't feel like a typical synthwave album.
The submitter said he considered it stronger as a collection of tracks and I completely agree with this sentiment. If you pick out tracks one by one they're mostly unremarkable, but together the album is more than the sum of its parts and creates a very comforting night time atmosphere which is the highlight of the album.
The last song is a 17 minute minimal electronic/drone track, which is an interesting choice, and potentially ruinous for an album, but I think the vibe of the album is so successful that it actually ends up being a very good track. Apparently there's a whole other side of the album that I missed because it wasn't finished due to time and money by the time of the original release, so I plan to relisten to it "the way it was intended", though I think Tick of the Clock is a fine closer.
Should it be on the main list: Probably not, but you could make a case for it. There needs to be a synthwave album at least.
Top 3 songs: Night Drive, Running Up That Hill, Mask
Rated 4/10
Lou Reed albums seem to be a coin toss of getting something completely unexpected and challenging, or getting some of the most accessible rock music available. New York is quite firmly in that latter category and seems to be call back to his earlier rockier work, a la Transformer, after attempting (and failing) at a pop career in the mid 80s.
New York bounces around genres a bit more than you would typically expect from a Lou Reed album. There's a lot of early alt rock, there's Springsteen-esque heartland music, some country rock, some folk, there's even a couple of poetry songs. While I compared it to Transformer earlier, it has less pop and more variety, so I can understand fans of Lou Reed's breadth of work eating this one up.
This was always going to be an uphill battle for me, I didnt like Lou's solo albums from the books despite them objectively being fine, and I feel the same about this. His more challenging works I can dig but I can't get into his more standard works. I'm sure this is a very fine album and I can see why the submitter chose it, but it's not an album I like.
Should it be on the list: No
Top 3 songs: Romeo Had Juliet, Dirty Blvd., There is No Time
Rated 4/10
In short, this album is a teeny bopper rip off of Madonna's early work, which is to say it's synthpop/dance-pop with some freestyle elements. I'm not a fan of Madonna, so unfortunately the diet version does nothing for me. The song Only In My Dreams shows some talent, but really that's the only salvagable part of this.
There are a couple of interesting things. As said before there's some elements of 80s freestyle, which wasn't really represented on the actual list. The most interesting thing by far is that Gibson wrote every song on the album, which is very rare for young radio friendly pop artists like her (even Madonna didn't write all the songs on her debut), and she was just 16 when it was released!
Should it be on the list: No
Top 3 songs: Out of the Blue, Only In My Dreams, Shake Your Love
