Reviews by florida-metalhead810

Despite what the title may suggest, this is far from the "cars and girls" early-60s sound of the Beach Boys. Instead, it's thematically very dark by Beach Boys standards, despite musically sounding fairly light. "Student Demonstration Time" isn't that bad, it's just far heavier and louder than everything else on the album. I won't say this is a bad album, but it's not the best thing I've ever heard, either.

This is a very melancholy indie rock album. It features guitar jangles with a very downbeat vocalist singing world-weary lyrics. This is definitely not a record to listen to at a party. The lyrics are better than most of the stuff I've listened to recently, but the songs show very little sonic variance. It kind of all sounds the same: mid tempo, jangly indie ballads with very forlorn-sounding vocals.

The choice to open the album with a 10-minute improvisational guitar solo is...well, interesting. The rest of the album is very heavy for its time, yet also groovy funk rock. "Super Stupid" in particular is heavier than many hard rock songs of the era, amazingly. "Wars of Armageddon" could stand to lose the random sounds throughout the track. Overall, a solid album, though not quite masterpiece level.

This is a pretty good new wave album. It's certainly better than some of the other new wave albums on this list in terms of songwriting. Tracks like "Nocturnal Me" and "The Killing Moon" have a foreboding, melancholy quality to them that, while far from unique, works well in this context. However, it does have some weak tracks("Thorn of Crowns" is terrible).

An annoying quirk of this era of musical releases is that the British and American versions of the albums tend to differ in track listing. As such, I will listen to all available tracks from both versions. Now, let's get to the actual album. It's a pretty good 60s rock album with strong songwriting that really serves to show how far the Stones came in the two years since their cover-filled debut(which I rated a 2 earlier in the project). Granted, there is absolutely no reason for a Stones song to be 11 minutes long("Going Home"). "Paint It Black" is, of course, better than any of the UK tracks, but those are no slouches.

Ok, this is VERY 1980s. For starters, it's hair metal. It has everything you'd expect from the genre with added saxophone solos on top, which enhance the 80s feel. I don't really get why it's on the list as the band isn't hugely popular in modern times. Unfortunately, they lack the catchy hooks of the genre's greats. 3 stars for the music, loses 1 star for some very gross lyrics (the title track is the worst offender, but no song here is completely innocent).

This is a solid power pop album. It's not the best entry I've heard in the genre(Big Star's #1 Record is better), but it definitely isn't terrible. The songs are well-crafted, fairly catchy pop tunes, but I don't think Nilsson has that good of a voice. It's not bad in any way, but it's not a masterpiece.

Now THIS is a classic. The fourth in an unparalleled six-album run of masterpieces that laid the groundwork for the entire metal genre, it is packed full of excellent metal songs such as "Snowblind" and "Supernaut". However, it also shows plenty of sonic variation with "Changes" and "Laguna Sunrise" being more mellow tracks that serve to counterbalance the album's heaviness well. "FX" is nothing, but at least it's fairly short.

This is some very weird shit. It sounds like the backing tracks to a bunch of rap songs without the rapping. I can see this being influential on the rap and electronic music scenes, but it doesn't really hit with me. There are some good parts, but a lot of it is just weird for weird's sake. It might be some kind of highbrow art, but if flew way over my head if that's the case.

I don't have high expectations for this at all. Band is obscure(13k Spotify listeners), album cover is shit, average rating is 2.6/5. It didn't do anything to blow me away, but it was surprisingly not godawful. It's basically some white British dude trying to make pop with Latin and African music elements. However, it suffers from redundancy; if I actually wanted to listen to these styles of music, I would listen to musicians from the actual countries and cultures, rather than a British white guy's versions of world music. Another gripe I have is that individual songs tend to drag on. But at least it wasn't terribly boring and overlong, unlike some of the other stuff I've had to listen to (*cough* Christina Aguilera *cough*).

This album is Latin American dance music with lots of horns and percussion. I don't quite understand the lyrics, but it's very musically well done. The whole thing is very groovy and upbeat, but also has some jazz feel to it. It was a fun listen, and it was from one of the Hispanic world's most prominent musicians.

Wikipedia says this is "psychedelic soul". It's basically smooth Motown soul with some flourishes of psychedelia. That means it's slick, well produced music with great singing. Granted, I have no idea why a Motown vocal group stuffed a 9-minute epic in the middle of their album which includes a child crying "I want my mama!". After said epic, it was just a string of 3-minute ballads that were excellent. This is a good album, but it falls short of masterpiece status.

This band has a distinctive atmosphere to them; both of their albums on this list are psychedelic indie/alt rock efforts. This is slightly noisier and more organic sounding than Yoshimi, but it still creates an atmosphere. Lyricism isn't the greatest, but it's mostly passable. Musically, it combines thundering rock drums with psychedelic guitar and mediocre vocals. Are they the best band on the list? Not even close. Are they still good with a distinct sonic identity? Yes. Something about their atmospheric, psychedelic sounds resonates with me, and they're probably one of my favorite bands discovered here.

My God, this is not essential in the slightest. It's basically just a bunch of vapid pop pap with nothing actually worth hearing. Hell, there's literally a "song" that's mostly just random answering machine messages being played back from her fans. It does nothing well, and it's very much a product of its time. It's just way too long and boring, like every lousy album on this list so far.

This is basically the genesis point for rap music as a commercial genre. It has a very rhythmic, driving sound mostly lacking in melodies, with simplistic yet enjoyable flows. The lyricism isn't the best, especially compared to what was to come for the genre, but it's not horrible. This album may not have aged the best, but it essentially codified hip hop as we know it and broke the genre into the mainstream. Four stars for the quality; an extra for its place in rap history.

So this is basically 60s psychedelic pop from Brazil? I don't understand any of the lyrics, not being fluent in Portuguese, so I kind of just have to listen to the music here. Musically, it seems to mostly use 60s rock instrumentation to create the same psychedelic soundscapes typical of American bands of the period. However, it does incorporate some traditional Brazilian percussion and bossa nova with its psychedelic stylings. Unfortunately, I didn't really care for it much.

This is loud early 70s hard rock. Lyrically, it's godawful, with lyrics being either trite, incoherent, or both. Musically, however, it's great. The interplay between the organ and guitar give the Purple a distinctive sound no one has really replicated, and the vocals are suitable for the music, if not the best. It's one of my personal favorite bands, so I'm probably a little biased in my rating. But, alas, everyone here is; no one person can truly rate an album objectively. Such is the beauty of art.

This album is primarily an 80s pop album with some African music elements. It is somewhat inconsistent; while some songs are excellent, others are mediocre or terrible. Lyrics are often trite and lack the poetic nature of Simon's older work. Plagiarism controversies only serve to worsen the album's contents, but it's not bad in its entirety. In the end, I don't think it was anything life changing, but it certainly wasn't a bad album.

This album is exactly what you'd expect from the Foos; poppy alternative rock that usually doesn't require you to think too hard about it. Musically, it sounds like every radio rock band of the era. Lyrically, it's ok, but by no means excellent. It's fairly standard radio rock, but that's not always a problem; I enjoy this kind of rock.

The most interesting thing about this is that it had a song with a woman begging for sex ("The Rough and Quick"). The rest of it is just vapid electronic music with occasional rapping. It appears to have been completely forgotten; exactly the opposite of an album you must hear before you die. It is nothing; it made no impact. Ergo, it deserves the lowest of all possible ratings; the fabled 1 star reserved for only the worst of albums.