Reviews by giddy

Really? This is the second highest rated album on the whole site? I mean, it's certainly okay, I wouldn't be giving it a three otherwise, but there are so many albums on this list I would not only say are better, but FAR better than this one that are struggling to even get a 3.5, or even worse, are lagging behind this one by a whole point. I just don't get it, it's certainly decent soft rock, but what else does this album do other than have hits on it everyone knows? Is that it? It's recognizable and therefore, safe? Bleh, makes me want to give it a two just for the annoyance of it, but it's not the albums fault, so I'll be fair. I have nothing to say about the music itself, save for impressive bass playing on some songs, and the Chain deserves its fame. The other hits? Not so much...

This album is like one big song, with songs oozing into each other and just feeling like one coherent thought, which I imagine is a big plus for those who are fans of this album. I, however, am not. It started to drag quite a bit pretty early on, and the long runtime just made it hard to stomach. I mean, it wasn't awful, but it turned to background noise very quickly, and any time I did tune back in, it felt like something not good was happening, like her weird country twang thing she does on some of the songs. Really at the end of the day this just wasn't really for me, but I can at least recognize that something good is here.

I really did have to get used to her voice at first, as while I'm not unfamiliar with the vocal style, it can certainly be jarring. Once I did get accustomed to it, however, I really thought it was very pretty. It's filled with so much heartache, and feels all the more genuine due to the strife behind each word. Those strings are also great, and were the reason for helping me get used to her voice. My main issue is that this album is pretty repetitive, and at forty-five minutes long, which is big for an album from the 1950s, it does wear on you after a while, but otherwise this a great piece of music history, showing you don't need some impeccable voice to stand out and even stand above your contemporaries.

I'm now about halfway through this album whilst writing this, and I have to say, this is incredibly "nothing" music. It's like R.E.M, but far less interesting and notable. Every song comes in one ear and out the other, to the point of being tedious. We'll see if it does better in the back half, but if it doesn't, I can see this being a one star just for wasting my time.

Yep, this was a waste of time. I mean, why bother with a double album if nothing is gonna change in the whole runtime? Perhaps not a one star on a song by song basis, but as an album, this is pointless.

All Yes albums officially gotten! My partner seems to really like this one, and I've heard all of it before, but I admittedly cannot remember a single ounce of the contents of this album, so let's hope it holds more of an impression with a more thorough listening, eh?

Yep, this is certainly very good. I mean, when I add a nearly twenty minute song to my song rotation, you know you made a good album. I can't quite give this a five, as it did start to lose my attention with all the long tracks not broken up by anything more stomachable, something I feel a lot of five star prog records have, but this is still an excellent experience.

I'm unsure if I'm just more open to the Byrds sound this time around, or if this album just is better because they're ripping off much better acts and blending them together, but this was pretty alright. I feel a lot of the power of the Bob Dylan tracks was stripped here, but a lot of the other covers had an energy to them that was appreciated, just like the brief runtime of the whole album. Perhaps I should give the other Byrds album another try.

I was excited for this album, so I'll say I'm a tad disappointed by what I got. After the Genesis album I figured I had been sleeping on Peter Gabriel this whole time, but hearing this I feel like no one was above the risk of falling into the production trends of the time, and it leads to an experience that feels just as cheesy as any other adult oriented pop record from the time. Sledgehammer is obviously fantastic, but it is only so great because my mind has had the time to accept the production and see past it, but the rest of this I was completely blind to, and in turn just found it boring. The album does pick up quite a bit at the end however, with the second to last track being something that I could see jamming out to with some time, but I truly think had the rest of this album sounded like the final track, we could've had Gabriel's very own Low. Otherwise, Sledgehammer is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for this rating, I must admit.

My first Beck of which I believe are three on this generator, and it's kind of weird to start with the last of the three, as knowing what I know of Beck, this feels like a sequel to something I haven't heard yet, and in turn can't completely appreciate it. However, this is still good, and I enjoyed my time with it. You can hear the Gorillaz comparisons everyone is saying, but there's also something here that is completely unique, and I appreciate that. Nothing beats that opening track though, makes sense it was the hit from this album, because it hits HARD.

I find this album to just be a better executed version of what Madonna tried to do a couple years later with Ray of Light. It's still relatively boring here, but there's more actual interesting beats here, and it went by a lot faster. I feel like this album just is good at feeling like a more vocal heavy version of a vocal track on one of the electronic artists' albums from a few years earlier, and that makes it more interesting. Still don't get including remixed tracks on the main tracklist, that's annoying.

Really danceable, it feels like this would be an amazing film score to a very slick movie. Otherwise, it's just alright jazz that I enjoy far more than most jazz. I could see myself liking this more on future listens, the question is if I will ever partake in those listens.

I'm unsure what I was smoking the first time I experienced this, but whatever it was, it gave me the "genius" idea to listen without headphones. Well, not today! Instead, I took the obvious path, and experienced this so the band could be as noisy or intimate as they felt like, all while making every song hit as hard as possible. I still adore In the Mouth a Desert, and think it's one of the best rock songs of the 90s, but now I've also come to appreciate the light chaos surrounding the rest of the album, as it feels like if a Guided By Voices album extended their tracks to full tunes, and it is magnificent. It still has some song-by-song memorability issues, but as an album this is a great project with the right amount of fuzz to scratch the inside of my head, and I just think it is extremely solid. Just a tad too much filler songs for the sake of hitting nearly forty minutes.

Finally, it's been a while since I got something fantastic, but it makes sense that someone I really only know bits and pieces about would come and be the one to do it. This album is great, it's so cool and unique, whilst also being very honest and feeling like some of the most genuine music I've ever heard. Björk is singing her heart out here, and it's blend of jazz, trip hop, and just general pop makes this an incredibly great release. I know her stuff after this is a bit more experimental, but this certainly lays down ground work to be someone I adore the music of.

I'll admit I'm one of those freaks who thinks Tainted Love is just alright, but I was still cautiously optimistic for this album. I mean, how can one know Sex Dwarf is on here and not be excited?! As it seems, I was right to be optimistic about this one, because this was pretty nice. Nothing absolutely mind blowing, but I feel this album is far less wishy-washy than most new wave albums from the area, telling it as it is both lyrically and with its beats. It's harsh, but in a good way. I think the first step to liking this album is understanding that Tainted Love is the exception, not the rule.

This is dreadfully boring, to the point where I have nearly nothing to say about it. It comes in one ear and out the other, and does not earn its extended run time at all. Perhaps there are parts that remind me of singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, but why would I not listen to him, then? Because this certainly is worse than anything he's ever made. Scrapes by with a two.

I'm unsure to give this a two or a three, admittedly. On one hand, I didn't straight up dislike any part of this album, and you could even say I got into a song or two here and there, but this album commits the sin of being boring and over an hour long, and while it doesn't make it unlistenable like some bore fests, it is exhausting to get through, especially around the 3/4s area, where the songs seem to just be making random noises. I think I'm going with a two, because if we compare this to another dance record that's over an hour long I recently got, Daft Punk's Homework, then this is worse.

Man, this album is so close to a five star that it hurts, as the first four tracks and final four tracks are all fantastic pieces of folk-y power pop that scratches that itch the way a calmer Led Zeppelin song does. My issue is that three of the four middle tracks lean a little too heavy into the rock part, and feel bland due to it, as it sounds like a poor imitation of admittedly acts that would come after this, but I still don't enjoy the style. However, none of that should detract from the fact that I think this is an excellent record. This is a glorious debut where you can see inspirations like George Harrison, T. Rex, and as mentioned before, Led Zeppelin, yet this is definitively all Big Star's, with tracks like Thirteen and the Ballad of El Goodo being master class power pop pieces that I will never forget. It is a shame this group didn't take off, because I think they really could've blown the music world open. I suppose they did inspire R.E.M., but I'll just say this is better than anything that group put out by a mile. Just an awesome album, wish I could give it that five, but I gotta be fair to my system. Perhaps one day it'll get there.

It kind of reminds me of those really old union songs that workers would sing whilst working, and I think that's neat with modern production, but it is also overwhelmingly British, in an annoying eay like many Britpop artists, and that makes it so the album ranges from actually decent to incredibly annoying. By the end, it doesn't really leave any sort of an impact. I think more to the production or even less to the production would help, because it doesn't sound bombastic like the instruments try to make it sometimes, and it isn't personal like the lyrics suggest.

It may be a genre-defining departure for Madonna, or some production masterpiece that shook the musical world into the 2000s, but that does not excuse the fact that this album is so BORING. We're not talking not my cup of tea boring, but that kind of shit that grew out of favor for a reason as the years went on. None of the beats here stick in your mind as none of them are catchy, the slick nature seems like a total relapse of everything pop music had learned earlier in the decade with the rise of grunge, and I just straight up don't care as I'm listening to the point of anger. And at over an hour long despite the slim thirteen track length, why would I bother?

That's not to mention the fact that Madonna does nothing here. Her voice is inoffensive but not notable, and I cannot imagine she's the one who made all of these "futuristic" backing tracks, leading me to believe the only praise this album tends to get from music critics is those who already love William Orbit's style and want to praise this boring "choose your car!" sounding shit. Feels like a crime this can be considered trip hop because putting this and acts like Björk and Portishead in the same sentence seems like blasphemy. Bleh.

I am surprised I like this more the Parklife, as that is generally considered the better album by the band, but there was just something here I enjoyed a lot more. I think the british-ness of it all isn't too overwhelmingly annoying, more Supergrass-esque, less Oasis. Nothing mind blowing, but this one was good. Went on too long, though, and that's removing the two hidden tracks seemingly not apart of modern digital releases.

This album is decent, as I'm sure was expected from Daft Punk. I mean, I was hoping for a bit better, but this first outing gets the job done and there's some great songs here. You can really hear the influence it would have on acts like Justice.

So, instead, let me take the time to ask: Where's Discovery? The far more iconic and very obviously better album from the duo, it seems extremely weird that it is omitted from this list, as it had just as much influence if not more as this album, and does not go on too long or start to become background noise like this album. That album would be a five, no doubtm this one? No where near as close, sadly.