Reviews by gingerninja155

Personally, I find the story behind why this album exists in the first place more interesting than the album itself, but I don’t hate the album either, despite how dark and depressing it is. To make a very long story short, this guy was drugged out of his mind and tried to axe murder his band. He later gets given a studio and a shitty tape recorder and makes this, an album that’s not only over an hour long, but also sold abysmally at the time of release. It’s also, maybe unsurprisingly, his only album. He was in mental care facilities pretty much the rest of his life after his axe incident. If I was a betting man I would also say that’s why critics love this album. Much like the former frontman for Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, both of them were in the process of legitimately losing their minds when they released their albums. It’s fascinating, it’s sad, and at times it’s somewhat incomprehensible. But it’s not terrible. I can’t decide if it’s a 2 or a 3. But if it’s a 3, it’s a very low 3. I can tolerate it, but I don’t love it. My favorite song was “War In Peace”, and my second favorite was “Grey/Afro”. Definitely wouldn’t return to this album, but I am surprisingly happy that I listened to it, if not only to listen to what someone who’s not quite there would make. It’s quite a weird trip. You know what, I keep flip flopping between a 2 and a 3. For the interesting story behind the album, and for not aggravating me as much as I was expecting it to, I’ll give it a 3. That seems fair. It might at times be incomprehensible, and he might say very strange nonsensical things, but it was at least weird enough to keep listening the entire way through. So yeah, I feel pretty good about giving this one a 3 actually. But the fact that it’s over an hour long and was never supposed to see the light of day for a release just blows my mind. I don’t know how you feel good about releasing this album, knowing how far gone the guy was at this point. He’s not an amazing singer, but he can admittedly play the guitar pretty well, so that makes the whole album bearable. But yeah. His story?? Much more interesting than the album itself.

As a Prog enthusiast, I am very familiar with Emerson, Lake & Palmer. This is the type of music that for sure isn't going to be for most people, but it fits my specific brand of autism perfectly. In fact, I understand why Prog works far better than I do Jazz. One is uniform and fun but still gets very crazy, and the other is simply unorganized chaos where everyone is trying to take over as the leader. With how many people still to this day love Jazz, it bugs me that Prog clearly hasn’t achieved the same level of love and understanding, as is evident by the criminally low rating for this album. I prefer Prog, and this album is no exception. It takes a little while to get going, but once you hit “The Old Castle”, it starts picking up steam and blesses your ears with some synthy bangers, then you get to my favorite song right after, “Blues Variation”, which is even trippier, and has an awesome sound to it. My one and biggest complaint with this album is that I don’t understand why it had to be live?? You really aren’t getting anything with the audience but a slight irritation that they’re as present as they are. They also take up a bit too much time with cheering and ruin the flow a bit. Not a lot but it’s a tad obnoxious and worth mentioning at least. Being live, the audio quality also isn’t as good as it could be. That last one’s not a huge issue, but Prog is meant to be enjoyed sounding the best it possibly can. Quite frankly, Tarkus is on the list as well as Pictures At An Exhibition, so it’s a little weird that the ladder is on here at all. I’m not complaining because this is the exact kind of sound that I love, but with all the glaring omissions not included on the list to begin with, I’m pleasantly surprised this one made the cut at all. It is also my first of the 2 E,L&P albums on the list, with my beloved 5 star Tarkus being reviewed some time later, whenever the site lets me listen to it. But for now, I love this album as well, even if I wish it wasn’t live. A 4 out of 5, and I will be returning to it. This might not be everyone’s style of music, but it’s my all time favorite for a reason. It’s fun to listen to and easy to get lost in the music no matter the situation.

I will admit, this is another one of those albums that I grew up with, so I’m a bit biased here. That being said, “E-Pro” and “Go It Alone” are worth the price of admission alone and by themselves are enough to push this album to a 5. I rolled Sea Change earlier, and I still gave it a 4 because I love Beck and his unique voice, but that album just has an overwhelmingly sad tone. It matches with what he was going through at the time, but Guero is at the bare minimum a little more hopeful and fun. This above anything else is what I know Beck for, and in my opinion this is his magnum opus. It’s weird and verbose, every song is different from the one before it, and it absolutely bops. 13 songs and 49 minutes that feel like they’re over in the blink of an eye, with some iconic album art to match. This one is a 5 for me and I don’t even have to think about it. Odelay is pretty great and weird as well, but this album is peak. Speaking of, this is the second of 3 albums by Beck I have rolled for the project, with only Odelay now remaining. I’m expecting to give it a 4 or a 5 as well. Beck is pretty damn good, and it’s never easy to pin down his genre of music, which is what makes it so good. You never know what you’re going to get with him, but you can be sure it will be good. Sure, it’s all Rock and maybe just a little bit of Pop thrown in, but listen to just how different the first 5 songs on this album are from each other and you’ll get it. There’s going to be something specially made for you somewhere in this album. Or in my instance, the entire album was made for me. It effortlessly shows the growth Beck went through in his career up to this point, and keeps the signature weirdness, but eliminates the depressing tone of his more recent albums around that time. “E-Pro” is my favorite song on this album, and I don’t know how it couldn’t be. It simply rocks, and every part about it from the lyrics to the beat are simply iconic. It’s my favorite Beck song in general and one of the ones I always find myself coming back to. And there are quite a few I come back to frequently. This album rocks, it’s a 5 star album for me and that’s all I need to say about it. I’d excitedly been waiting to roll this one, and now I’m going to be bummed I’ve already done so. Beck is a great musician and I’m always very happy hearing him in whatever he’s in.

This album grew on me so quickly and immediately that I can actually completely overlook the singer and his voice. My main takeaway from this album is that the guitar playing is phenomenal in places. I added 3 songs from this album to my frequent rotation playlist. But I just don’t love the singer. He irritates me so badly that I have to take a full star off. Without him, this album is a 4, but with him it’s a 3. Luckily, I am able to drown him out easily and focus on the killer riffs. Favorite songs on this one were “Animal Lover”, “Pantomime Horse”, and my favorite song on the album, “Moving”. For a singer with a voice I don’t like, the baseline for an album starts at 2. It’s rare, but this one just doesn’t do it for me. It’s also exceptionally rare that I can look past the voice so much to the extent that I considered giving this one a 4 star rating. Also interesting to note is that this band apparently wasn’t allowed to call themselves Suede here in the United States, so they’ve got 2 separate pages on Spotify. One called Suede, and then the North American version, The London Suede. Don’t think I’ve experienced a band having to change its name like that before, but it was worth mentioning. Anyway, the riffs and vibes on this album are amazing. At 55 minutes long it pushes it a little bit but not too much. It gives you plenty to love and perhaps even leaves me wanting a bit more. A surprisingly great album to be sure. It’s a very high 3 out of 5. Any gripes I have with the singer and his voice are drowned out by the crazy good guitar playing. Also completely unrelated to anything on the album whatsoever, but the Midterm Elections were today with a historic outcome heavily in favor of the Democratic Party. So this album is going to be on my mind for a little while, forever associated with politics. Think of that what you will. I’ve never heard of Suede before, but they’re notable enough to warrant having 2 albums on here. This was my first of the 2, and my first impressions are pretty good. I look forward to the next one, whenever that may be.

The Byrds are back on my timeline once again I see. Each album that passes, I remark how unbelievably sick of this band I am. My last encounter with them was about 2 weeks ago, and once again I was thoroughly unimpressed with it. This album is the highest rated from them on the site, not only for just The Byrds, but also for the associated acts consisting of solo albums of multiple The Byrds members. After listening to it, sure. It’s not terrible. I’ve probably enjoyed this one considerably more than their other albums. In fact, I managed to listen to it all day. How about that?? The band that I’m almost as sick of as Elvis Costello managed to put out a pretty good one here. The funniest part about the whole thing though is that chronologically, this is their first album on the list. Actually, it’s their first studio album, which means that for The Byrds, each album just gets progressively worse. But this one actually was somewhat catchy throughout, and some of the guitar riffs were surprisingly good. My favorite song here is “I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better”, but weirdly enough it’s for a personal reason that I won’t get into. Let’s just say that today was pretty tough to get through, and that song spoke to me in a way that only music can. It’s not often I get THAT sentimental about a song, an entire album really, but I think I really needed to listen to this album today. Of course, this album is credited as being the inspiration for a whole lot of talented musicians that came after, and having listened to it all day, I can confidently tell you that this is The Byrds at their absolute best, and I really didn’t mind listening to this today at all. That being said, it’s still not exactly my cup of tea, and it’s not something I would really need to return to. It’s a 3 out of 5, but I’m very glad I got to spend some time with it. Of all the albums that haven’t aged particularly well but are only on this list because they inspired the people who came after, this really is not one of them. I believe this album has a very good reason to be here, unlike the 4 other Byrds albums. This one not only didn’t bother me, I even rather enjoyed it. You probably won’t find me saying that about this band again, so enjoy it while it lasts, The Byrds. Still a few more of your albums to go, and I don’t see any of them topping this one. We’ll see though. We will see.

Damn man, this is really unfortunate. I was today years old when I learned that Eric Clapton was the final boss of racism. “Layla” is one of my favorite songs of all time, so to discover his past comments took me by surprise quite heavily. I took a look at the ratings for the 5 albums he’s prominently featured in, and was shocked to see that not one of them have an above average score. I guess that doesn’t surprise me though really, the albums that have morally, politically, or objectively gray musicians (Kanye and Kid Rock come to mind specifically) often get low ratings, even if subjectively the albums themselves aren’t bad. And I have a lot to say about disagreeing with that form of rating style in general, but I’ll refrain. If you don’t like something because the lead is a piece of shit, I get it. I rated an album a 1 because the singer touched kids, so who am I to judge really?? And hey, I’ve been saying it for years and I’ll keep saying it again, please for the love of God never idolize anyone who is even a little famous. They’re all crooks and pedophiles. Take track 3 for instance, an uncomfortable song about an older man trying to court an 18 year old. Technically legal?? Yes. Morally questionable, also yes. This album in general is really, really boring. Great guitar riffs, as is to be expected by Eric “Go back to where you came from” Clapton, but very little substance, and mostly forgettable throughout. I already had a song saved previously from this album, “Steppin’ Out”, so I’ll call that my favorite. Every positive thing I can say about this album is overshadowed by how boring it is, and how disappointed I am to find out how much of a shithead Clapton is. I’ve also never heard of John Mayall before, but his voice doesn’t do much for me. It’s fine, nothing special. I’ve heard better, I’ve heard worse. Again, I’m only here for Clapton and his sweet riffs, everything else is unnecessary. I know John McVie is here too, but neither of them make the album very interesting as a whole. This is another one of those bands which a ton of good musicians used as a jumping off point, but the band itself is just alright, if not a tad underwhelming. Ironically, this is the second Clapton band in a row I’ve listened to for this project where that can be said, the first being The Yardbirds, where the guitar playing was the best part and the singer was just terrible. Just to be clear, the singer here is ok, far from amazing, but still passable enough. But as I already mentioned, you’re only going to be here for Clapton. Speaking of, 2 down and 3 to go for the many bands he’s included in. At least he kills it on guitar. Anyway, this one is a 3. It’s ok. I’m bound to forget all about it pretty soon, but it’s ok. Oh well, next album coming right up.

What a spectacularly weird album. I can’t tell if I really enjoy this or if I absolutely hate it. I’ve heard it front to back about 10 times trying to make that call, and at this point in time I don’t know if I ever will. First, the premise of a white guy attempting to sound like a voodoo doctor is questionable at best, and racist at worst. I don’t know what on Earth inspired this guy to come up with the character of Dr. John, but I have to know if he’s in other bands at least. The fact that this is his debut album is genuinely hilarious, and if it’s also his first/only band on top of that, the dedication to stick with being this character is amazing. The thing is, if we’re calling this guy a voodoo doctor, the album to its credit does a good job of putting you in that world. It’s easy to visualize the scenery of this album, and he sounds like he’s performing voodoo in the same room as you. I still don’t know what Gris Gris is though, and to be completely honest with you, I think it’s funnier if it stays that way. Only lasting 33 minutes long, this one at times feels like it can stretch on for over an hour, which is my biggest complaint with the album. After the first couple of seconds, I get it. I get the entire point of the album. It’s fine. It’s interesting. It’s unique. It’s not particularly good, but it’s also not the same Beatles knockoff for the 400th time, so it gets bonus points for not boring me to death. However, god damn am I having a difficult time deciding on a favorite song, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Probably a good thing, as it means I found several things to enjoy with this album. Almost in equal measure though, there’s a lot that irritates me with this album. Nothing that would let it slip to a 2, but perhaps more than any other album I’ve rolled on the site so far, I can plainly see all the reasons why someone would dislike this album. The I guess you could call optical illusion of the album art is also cool, and admittedly it took me a while to realize he had 2 faces, but it’s also another interesting application of the voodoo doctor premise. I still don’t know if that’s allowed or not, like another reviewer comically mentioned, but it’s unique and at the end of the day I’m going to give it 3 stars for being so. Like, is he even speaking a real language for some of this, or is that all fake as well to sell the character?? So many questions I don’t know if I want the answers to. Ok, I’ve decided that my favorite song is “Danse Fambeaux”. The background singers chanting and the cool instrumentation rise above the other songs to propel it into number 1 for me. What an interesting fellow Dr. John is. I don’t know how many more ways I can call this album a strangely wonderful concept, but it was a hell of a listen. Definitely became better the more time I spent with it, but I’m glad I bothered to do so, as pretty quickly it got a hold of me, and I get what he’s going for. I still don’t know what genre you’d even call this. It’s got just a little bit of every genre that exists, but it’s good. A 3 out of 5. Would listen to more of this, and perhaps at some point I will. Curious to hear the evolution of Dr. John. I can’t even fathom what direction he ended up taking this character, and I am particularly interested to find out the answer actually.

Why does she sound so bored here?? It’s both unsettling and off putting. The instrumentation is fine enough, pretty good at times even, but the length of the album and singer leave a lot to be desired. Really not a fan of Liz’s uninterested voice and it makes the songs on this album very hard to bear, unfortunately. Never a good start when I don’t like the singers voice, but when you also pair it with an album that lasts for almost an hour, it’s tough not giving this one a single star. Never heard of Liz Phair and unfortunately I don’t think I ever want to again. Graciously, this is her only album on the list, and I’m very thankful for that, because I really just did not like this one in the slightest. Another review mentions this sounds like a worse Alanis Morissette, who they also didn’t enjoy either, and I think that review really spoke to me. I also didn’t like that album, and this one may be worse. I don’t even mean to come off as rude or hostile, I give like 90% of albums at least a 3, but this one in particular is just egregiously bad and I don’t think I want to listen to it more than once. Which also makes picking a favorite difficult, so I guess I’m going to have to dive back in to it, begrudgingly so. Because there’s really not a lot of enjoyment for me here. I just hope she’s not still making music today, this is pretty torturous. And of course the album ends with several seconds of pure silence, making the looping a slight pain as well. Hell, even the album art is stupid and loops derpy. Man. I don’t know what it is about this album today. I’m in a good mood and everything. It’s just really bad. If I had to pick a favorite it would be “Mesmerizing”. That song didn’t immediately aggravate me, and might even save me from having to listen to this album all the way through a second time. The real question is whether or not I give this a 1 or a 2. Since at least the instrumentation is ok, I’m leaning towards a 2, but it’s surprisingly close. Sure, let’s give it a 2 and never speak of this one again. Next album please. I don’t want to spend any more time with this one.

To this day, Brian Eno’s Here Come The Warm Jets is third place on my You Love More Than Most list. It was his debut album, and released a year before this did. It was very much a traditional Rock/Pop album and surprised the hell out of me so much that I gave it a 5. I have also returned to it quite a bit. Somewhere down the line he released Airport Music, which I very much did not like, nor have I returned to it. Ironically enough because of those 2 albums, he’s also the only artist I currently have listed as “Controversial”, for a 5 and 2 star review, respectively. The monumental shift in music style that he went through is well documented, but actually being able to hear him changing in real time is quite interesting, knowing where he started and where he ended up. This is my third of his 5 solo albums on the list, and even a year later, he was already revolutionizing the world of music with the unique sound of this album. As I already hit on a little bit, the way it combines what little sound from his debut album remains, and the Electronica/Ambient Noise he would ultimately be known for is very interesting. I’m glad I got this album third, as it just exemplifies his wild growth having listened to the other 2 previously. I don’t think we need 5 of his albums on here, but this one probably deserves a spot, even if I did enjoy his debut performance more than this. Love the album cover as well with just “ENO” displayed in the corner. Very artsy. The way he slowly but surely eliminated vocals from his songs as his new style took center stage is another aspect that makes this album interesting to listen to, as a majority of the songs here don’t have any. Not all of them, but most of them. And the ones that do actually have vocals, mostly towards the top of the album, I rather enjoyed. This was a relaxing, fun album to listen to as a whole. Calming, peaceful, but still engaging enough as to not be boring, which is pretty difficult to pull off. My favorite song was also fairly difficult to select, as all of these songs had completely different vibes but with the same feel. Ultimately I copped out and picked the one in his Top 10 on Spotify, “The Big Ship” as my favorite song on the album. Is it the best song on the album?? Probably. Is it my favorite?? I don’t know, probably. Very hard to select this time. 3 Eno albums down, 2 to go. Going to give this one a 3, as it was solid all throughout, but never did anything I would consider amazing or worth adding to the frequent rotation. Still though, it’s been fun following this guy and his wild career. This late into the project, he’s also got a decent chance to be the only artist I give a 2, 3 and 5 star rating to. Could even have a 1 and a 4. Who knows, anything is possible. But I did really like this one in particular. It’s his highest rated album on the site and I can most definitely see why.

Well shit. That was even faster than I thought it would be. As I’m sure you know if you’re bothering to for some reason read this, Dimery updated the 1001 Albums book for the first time since 2021 very recently, and I was wondering how long it was going to take me to roll something new. I’m still on my first go around with the generator, only on album 412 so far, so I’m still very far from experiencing the user submitted albums. Anyway, the answer to how long it would take me to roll something new, as it turns out, was 3 albums. It took 3 whole albums. So I get to be one of the first reviews for once. I feel tremendously honored. Of the 13 new albums added, ironically, this is the only one I had somewhat of a prior knowledge of beforehand. The other 12 I either don’t know or couldn’t even remotely care about just by name alone, but we’ll get to those when we get to them. For now, here’s the 7th Rolling Stones album on the list. This is the second I’ve reviewed so far, so still many more to come, following Let It Bleed. I gave that album a 3 and thought it was disappointing as a whole, but the gems on that album elevated it a lot. And that may be the problem I have with The Rolling Stones so far on this project. From the extremely limited selection I’ve heard so far, their albums just have so much damn filler. My parents are obsessed with this band, and generally speaking I share the exact same love for the bands they grew up with as they do themselves. But I’ve just never clicked with The Rolling Stones as much as they did. And I think it really is simply because only their hits are worth listening to. And let me tell you, this one probably ain’t it if you’re looking for hits. I think it’s remarkable they can still make music at 100 years old, but it wouldn’t be my first choice to listen to. Instead of adding a newer but still deserving band, Dimery adds the 7th Rolling Stones album to the list. 1964-1972 is a pretty good range in and of itself for the 6 albums that were already on the list, and even noting the popularity of the band, I think 6 albums is a lot more than is probably needed. But we’re really skipping from 1972-2023?? Are we deadass?? You couldn’t just add a single album that fans have been clamoring for?? That’s just crazy. Much like Let It Bleed, this album has 2 or 3 really good songs, and a whole lot of filler. My favorite of the bunch was “Live By The Sword” as it has both a fun singing performance as well as a pretty cool solo in the middle of the song. The thing I’m going to take away from this album more than anything else is that it’s actually kind of shocking how similar they sound from the way they did so many years ago. I guess you never really lose that talent, especially if you’re The Rolling Stones, and that is actually really cool. I think this album struggles extensively when it comes to having any hits, and I’m probably not going to be returning to it any time soon, but I’m going to give it 3 stars. And having 3 stars is pretty damn good for a band with a combined age of over 350. As a side note, my Dad told me to check out the 2026 album if I wanted more bangers, and I love that after all this time he’s still a big fan of the band himself. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Ok, that’s all for now. A lot of filler again, but a surprisingly good album as a whole.

You know what?? Dimery can surprise me sometimes. Not tremendously often, usually he just makes me scratch my rugged chin and wonder why he put a specific album on the list. That’s right, I’m actually naming the bloke who edits the book for once. Let’s get real meta with this review!! This may be my first time doing so, but it’s to emphasize a point. Point being, I’ve listened to too many albums where one of the first sentences of the artists blurb mentions something like “They were never popular” or “They were only popular in the UK”. A lot of these albums I just completely space out on and wonder why they’re even here to begin with. But it can be a blessing knowing so many bands that others may not know, and occasionally you end up getting an album that’s really good. After all, who would want to listen to a list of stuff they’d already heard 1001 times before?? That wouldn’t be very fun in my opinion. Anyway, this project has in good measure introduced me to some really cool bands. It’s also introduced me to some I never want to hear again for as long as I live. But mostly, they’re not bad. And you know what?? This one’s not that bad either. If you haven’t caught on yet to what I’ve been alluding to this entire review, I’ve never heard of this band before, and none of these songs ring a bell to me. But they’re pretty good. It’s a unique mix of Country-Rock mixed with psychedelia, and when it’s psychedelic, it’s fairly interesting. Good singer, cool vibes, a pleasant 39 minutes long. Yeah, that’s all good. It’s not bad. One of my favorite songs on the album has to be “On Sir Francis Drake”. A great example of a song that for no reason just takes you through a nice, trippy instrumental that almost nears a level of Prog I’m very happy with listening to. “Sham” was another favorite of mine, full of plenty meaty Southern flavored riffs and a quick tempo, culminating in a truly killer ending. But my actual favorite song is the opener, “Darkness, Darkness”. Starting the song with what I believe are bagpipes of all things, and showcasing a lighter side of the singers voice that is surprisingly sparse for most of the album, then breaking out into a trippy jam. It’s a fantastic opener that made me excited to listen to the rest of the album. There’s a really fun blend of multiple genres going on throughout this album, and it makes each individual song really stand out. That’s one of the hardest things to get right, and it’s something that even on some of my favorite albums I usually end up criticizing. Having a signature sound is fine, but switching up the vibes and energy on every song while still retaining your signature sound is tremendously difficult, and these guys manage to pull it off. I really ended up enjoying this one. A solid 3 out of 5, and I would return to it again.

I feel kind of guilty for enjoying this album as much as I did. First and foremost, Cee-Lo Green is not a good guy. He’s said some terrible things about women, and done worse things to them. Neither is Timbaland a good person. His shitty takes on AI lately have ruined his legacy in my eyes. Ludacris and Pharrell, I’m not so sure. But god dammit, this album is FUN. And if I’m rating this on how much I personally enjoyed it, I would have to go ahead and give this one a 4. Does it lessen the experience knowing what I know about Green?? Maybe a little bit, yeah. But I was able to vibe with this the entire day and I honestly kind of loved it. Do I think this album should be 35 plus minutes shorter?? Also yes. Anything past the half way mark just starts to feel a little repetitive. Cee-Lo has another very unique voice that evidently a lot of people on the site don’t like, and I get that. Ironically, I’m more familiar with him as an actor than as a singer. When I was a kid, he was on Adult Swim a lot, and that’s pretty much the only thing I knew him from, besides his song “Fuck You”, which is not present on this album. So I’m actually very familiar with his weird voice, and I even rather like it a lot. Something else I’ve already mentioned are the features. Even if you don’t like his voice, ironically 2 of the 3 songs I added to my library are songs with features. The one that doesn’t that I liked is “Living Again”, which is my third favorite song on the album. Second place goes to “The Art Of Noise (feat. Pharrell)”, and first goes to my boy Luda with “Childz Play (feat. Ludacris)”. And listen, I may be a bit, or more than a bit, biased here. I grew up listening to a ton of Luda. I didn’t know he was going to show up here in any capacity, but even though I’ve never heard any of this album before, it has a weird nostalgia to it that I love, and the Luda song exemplifies this more than anything else. Every time Luda showed up on a track I got so happy as a kid, and clearly that hasn’t changed much over the years. It’s like checking in with an old friend. But I promise he’s not the only reason I loved this album. The flow, the beats, and the lyricism are all just fun. I grew up in the 2000’s and I think albums like this are just always going to appeal to me. I don’t know man. It almost sounds like it belongs in a PS2 game. I can imagine myself laying back, playing some Tekken, and rocking out to this. This album makes me nostalgic, and I’ve never heard it before. And for that, I’ve got to give it a 4. I just have to.

So, for the first time since 2021, the 1001 albums book got updated today. It added 13 new albums in which I have next to no interest in listening to at face value. I’d love to be proven wrong on my initial glance at who all got added, but it leads perfectly into yet another grievance I have with the book in general. They added several albums that literally just released this year. Albums that are unproven, not necessary in the slightest to listen to before you die, and will in all likelihood be forgotten about in short time. And yet, this is the only Arctic Monkeys album on the entire list. AM is nowhere to be found. One of my favorite albums of all time. Now, let me not sugar coat it, I freaking LOVE this album, so let me segue into actually talking about it. It’s still a 5, unequivocally and is better than a grand majority of the other albums on this list. It’s also the debut album for the Arctic Monkeys, and every song is perfect. I’m so obsessed with Alex Turner and his iconic voice, he’s one of those singers who I would easily be able to pick out of a crowd because they’re so unique and simply sound amazing. In a sea of a million English bands trying to sound like the Beatles over the course of this project, this is such a breathe of fresh air. It’s always fun rolling one of the albums you’ve been waiting for, and this is one of those albums for me. The song that got me into the band in the first place, “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”, is going to have to be my favorite song on the album. It’s so catchy, and the opening guitar riff and heavy drum banging are just so metal. Everything mashes together so well in that song, it’s an automatic “never skip” song that I’m always going to be in the mood to listen to. I was going to paste some of the lyrics of that song that always get stuck in my head, but I couldn’t decide on one specifically, so I’ll just say that they’re all good. The Arctic Monkeys are their own genre, and I love them for it. Incredible debut album, perhaps one of the best of all time, and just an incredibly solid album from top to bottom in general. This is a certified 5 star album and I will not tolerate any Arctic Monkeys slander in this household. I still wish they added AM, as that album very well be in my Top 10 all time, but I’m still unbelievably happy we at least get Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not all the same. It’s such a freaking banger.

I do believe that I have mentioned it before, maybe multiple times, but The Byrds have ten albums on the site. 5 albums as The Byrds themselves, and 5 solo albums with each of the band members. I’m not going to lie and say it isn’t impressive that all of them went on to have successful careers, but I also won’t lie to you and tell you that I’m happy that I have to get through 10 of them. If you remove 4 of these Byrds albums and instead replace them with a more deserving band, that would be pretty sick. This is my 6th The Byrds related album, the second one that’s actually The Byrds, and I’ve gotta say each and every one of these albums just sounds the exact same. Just one of a thousand albums that remind me of why The Beatles are as prominent as they are, even today. It’s tough not mentioning how similar both bands sound, and for the rest of this project I should do my damndest not to mention that the 60’s and early 70’s were a hellscape of bands trying to copy that exact same sound. Some of them are pretty good. Not this one, but some of them. This is a solid 3.4 out of 5. It’s got some truly bizarre songs with annoying background noise mixed in, and I never want to hear “C.T.A. - 102” ever again because of the piped in alien sound effects at the end. But for how much this album annoys me, it does have “My Back Pages”, which is probably the very first The Byrds song I’ve recognized in the 6 albums of theirs I’ve now listened to. And on an album where it’s difficult for me to pick out a favorite, I’m going to give it to that one as a default. That seems pretty fair to me. It’s my favorite since I recognize it. There are moments on this album where I found enjoyment. It’s more good than it is bad. I’m sure this was fundamental and important music for the time (Count how many reviews I’ve used that line in), but it’s fairly average listening to today. Not bad, far from being bad, but just a little bit of a chore to get through, most certainly. Still though, it’s alright. Neither the best, nor the worst The Byrds album on the list, but bonus points for having something I’ve actually heard of before. That’s always fun.

When it comes to the Biggie vs 2Pac debate from forever ago, I’ve always preferred Biggie personally. I find that especially true when it comes to Me Against The World and how repetitive it is. I’m not going to say it hasn’t deserved its reputation as the album released while 2Pac was incarcerated, but I also personally don’t find it to be all that good. Every single song is the exact same sentimentality, with zero switch ups in cadence or an attempt to say something different. “I got shot, I shoot people, my life is so hard, man my life is so hard, did I mention my life is hard??”. There, now you’ve listened to over an hour of 2Pac. He has much better music than what’s on this album. The circumstances of when it was released are more important to people than the album itself, and I find the album itself to be particularly uninteresting and bland. It makes it even more ironic he’s talking about the world being against him when ultimately he was incarcerated for supposedly having non consensual sex with a 20 year old. But I won’t bring that little tidbit up any more than that, I’ve just always found 2Pac adoration a bit creepy. Anyway, my favorite song on this album was “Fuck The World”, as I feel like it has the best beat. If there’s one aspect this album has over Biggie, it’s that besides the intro, which makes sense, there aren’t any annoying skits on this album, which is uncommon for the time, especially in the mid 90’s when every one of these albums were filled with them. If there’s Biggie album didn’t have skits, I’d have rated it a 4, and if this album was more interesting thematically, I’d also have rated it a 4. Alas, I think both of them are 3’s. This is the only 2Pac album on the list, and considering many people believe him to be the best of all time, I’m surprised it’s just not that good. Maybe if I listen to his greatest hits album I’ll appreciate him more. I didn’t even particularly enjoy my favorite song on the album. None of them are terrible, but none of them impress me either. It’s honestly a very low 3 out of 5, and that both surprises me and disappoints me. I expected to enjoy this one a lot more.

As of Face to Face, I’ve now rolled The Kinks 3 times for this project, out of the 4 of their albums on this list in total. I even gave one of them a 5 earlier. They’re a band I greatly enjoy, but not everything always hits. And when it doesn’t hit, it’s just alright. But when it does, you’ve got some absolute bangers. I already had “Sunny Afternoon” saved to my music library years ago, and you already know that it’s the best song on the album. Even if as a whole this album isn’t their best, there’s a solid case to be made that “Sunny Afternoon” is their best song, full stop. I also really enjoyed listening to “Rosy Won't You Please Come Home” on this album as well, as I wasn’t familiar with that one, and it comes off as one of the most serious and real, heartfelt songs that The Kinks have. Interesting to note, Revolver by The Beatles, another album I’ve already bestowed a 5 star review upon, came out the same year as Face to Face. While most bands at the time were still sounding like the old Beatles, the Beatles themselves managed to make an album completely unlike anything they’d done before. The reason I’m giving this album a 3, is that it just doesn’t compare to Revolver, and it really sounds like they’re still trying to be the Beatles of old a lot of the time. Now I want to go off on a little bit of a somewhat off topic tangent. Why does Spotify not have the original version of this album available to search by default?? I have to Google it to get it to pop up and link me back to what I’m actually looking for on Spotify. So I know that it’s hiding in the code somewhere, and I can force it to play, but I hate that I can’t just use Spotify to search for the original without putting the right songs in a single playlist. I don’t want to listen to the Deluxe edition of any album really, and this problem is surprisingly common, where I have to end up looking at Wikipedia to see the track list, since Spotify won’t tell me what the actual album I’m reviewing is supposed to look like. I hate when it’s the only option. Vent over. This is another great album by The Kinks, but it’s got a lot of just ok songs in the mix as well that really hold it back from being the best, even with what very well be my favorite song of theirs included. It’s a 3 out of 5. One more The Kinks album to go. I’ve given two 3’s and a 5 so far. Let’s see if they can get another solid 4 or 5 to end it off. I’m hoping they can, because I very much enjoy listening to this band, even if they are a bit Beatley.

This is bearable for all of about 5 minutes before I desperately want to turn it off forever. A little goes a long way with this album. I’ve had to listen to probably about 5 albums from India at this point over the course of this project, including a soundtrack from a Bollywood film. I can confidently tell you that this is the worst out of all of them. I find it admirable that in the 1950’s a single Indian man was eager to share his music with the world. That’s very cool, and I respect the hell out of it. I’m sure that Ravi Shankar was a very cool guy, and I think that for the time this album might have been an interesting listen. But I have made it my quest to listen to every album on this list, uninterrupted, at the bare minimum one time through completely. This one was tough to get through even the bare minimum one time. It’s just an hour of the same guy playing a sitar, and I don’t even know what my “favorite” song is, because it sounds the exact same for the entire hour, interrupted briefly by Ravi explaining what he is doing. Again, it’s admirable, but it’s a lot. I actually really like Indian music when it’s not just the traditional sitar the entire time, but this was all substance and absolutely no style to be had whatsoever. There is no way I am going to be returning to this one when I’ve already heard now multiple much better albums from India. And I do like what I’ve heard. But this is just a lot, and it’s so repetitive, and I can’t say I enjoyed it all that much. If the reasoning for making the album wasn’t so admirable, I’d probably rate this a 1. But at the bare minimum, this album is at least bearable to make it through, even if I have no reason to ever return to it. For those reasons, I’m going to be rating this album a very low 2 out of 5, and promptly forget about it in its entirety by tomorrow at the latest. I would question why it’s on here at all, but the author has a proclivity to add plenty of albums from other countries that he deems important to listen to, so I understand why it’s here. But if this is your first experience with the Indian albums, I can assure you that it gets much, much better than this. This may be a good introductory album on what Indian music sounds like, but it’s also stripped completely bare, and lacks a solid enough reason to actually listen to more than a few minutes of it at a time. If you’re in to the sitar, man have I got an album for you!! For everyone else, there’s Mastercard, err, I mean, there’s better albums. Yeah, that’s what I meant. It’s a 2 out of 5. My “favorite” song, in copious amounts of air quotes is “Máru-Bihág”, which I basically just picked at random. I have nothing nice to say about it. Ok, that’s all I have to say about this one. Luckily it wasn’t my Friday album, I say tempting fate once again. Until next time.

Electronica has a terrible track record on this website for most people. Having grown up in the era when Dubstep was quickly albeit briefly taking the music world by storm, it dominated my life for some of my most formative years. Even before that, I tended to enjoy Electronica music due to its prominence in the video game space. It’s not a genre that most people can appreciate, and it’s not one that most people even tolerate to begin with. When I roll a Rock, Rap, Country etc album with a low rating on the site, I tend to immediately brace for something terrible. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong. But when I roll a low rated Electronica album, I’m not the least bit upset at doing so. There are exceptions, but for the most part, I find them very relaxing, enjoyable, and easy to listen to. I know I just used the word relaxing, but the exceptions mostly have to do with the softer, more Lo-Fi albums I’ve run into on several occasions. I don’t enjoy those. I like the albums with a fast paced BPM, where I can use the beats of the music to concentrate on what I’m currently doing. And if I’m not doing anything, I’d much rather listen to something I can jam out to than something that’s slow and downtempo. This album is not perfect. It’s way too long. It’s very repetitive. It’s perhaps a little, or rather extremely dated sounding. But it’s fast paced, it’s got some cool vocals, and I can jam to it. From the very first song to the last, it’s fun to groove to, which is important. Some Electronica albums are dreadfully boring, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Coincidentally, this is also the third Scottish album I’ve rolled in a week, and I think it’s pretty safely going to be my favorite of the 3 when I look back on them all. Do I understand why it has a low rating?? Yeah. I get it. People don’t like repetitive beats. It’s a very hard sell. I won’t hate on someone for not getting that. After all, I don’t understand why people pretend to enjoy Jazz. I simply don’t understand it, and I’ve mentioned that in probably about 40 of my reviews now. In the same sense though, I love some of the weirder genres like Acid House, Triphop, Dubstep, etc. While something like Skrillex, Knife Party or Zomboy are never going to be on a list like this, even though they should be if we’re being realistic, they would all unanimously be some of the lowest rated artists on the site. Now, this album specifically might not be the most important album on the list. And some albums are naturally going to be either pretty divisive or outright disliked across the board. But for having inclusion in the book to begin with, I’m appreciative that it’s here as a representation of the genre all the same. My favorite song was “666 Edit”. I’m a sucker for songs that glitch out and have funky cuts. That song was really cool, and I’m happy to have it as my number 1. To wrap this one up, I get why this album is so low rated, but I wholeheartedly enjoyed listening to it from top to bottom, even if it does drag a little bit in places. Very fun earwormy sounds and cool singing for a little over an hour, it’s a low-medium 3 out of 5. I wish this one had a higher rating on the site, as I feel it’s not fair to have it rated as low as it is currently. But I get it, it’s a hard sell. I’m the target audience. Whatever. This is a cool album. More for me!!

Massive Attack is a peculiar band. Every song is pretty different from the last, but it’s still unmistakably Trip Hop coded at heart above all else. This is the second of 2 Massive Attack albums I’ve rolled for this project. The first one, Blue Lines, surprised the hell out of me. It took an artist I didn’t like, Tricky, and actually made me kind of like the songs he was in. There were some bangers, and I even saved some to my frequent rotation mix. I gave it a 4. Protection, by contrast, just isn’t as good. Nothing I would save or listen to again. It’s fine, but it’s very repetitive and not in a way I find particularly interesting. Despite all the songs being pretty distinct, they’re just so boring. Hilariously, Tricky is also only featured on one of the songs on the album. Double hilarious is that it’s my favorite song on the album, as it’s the most memorable, and makes me want to go back to Blue Lines instead. “Euro Child” has a catchy, vibey beat, and a singer who I’m now quite familiar with. Instead of mildly bugging me like he usually does, I actually like the way he sings here, accompanied by whoever is going “EYAAAAYYYAAA” in the background. That too is catchy. This album is a 3. It’s not as good as the other one, and if Spotify’s most played Massive Attack songs are to be believed, it’s shocking that the album Mezzanine is not on here, as it takes up a great bit of their Top 10, including the first 2 spots. So now I have to listen to that album. Usually, it’s a good thing when a band from this project is enjoyable enough to warrant me seeking out more of their stuff, but in this instance I would probably have preferred what they left out to what was actually here to begin with. This album isn’t bad, it’s just very basic and repetitive beats with no real substance. Still, they’re very pretty beats and each song is different enough so that it only bored me a little. Preferably I’d like to not be bored at all, but eh, this album was a little boring unfortunately. It’s a low 3 out of 5, quite disappointing compared to the last one, but it’s still ok as a whole. But I have to wonder what that ending track is doing. A live cover of “Light My Fire” is a very strange choice for an album like this. Not only does it not work in the context of the album, it’s also just not a great rendition of what is usually a phenomenal song. So that was worth bringing up, it stands out. Just not in the way you would want it to. Ok, one solid album that surprised the heck out of me, and one album that was just ok at best, and boring at worst. Not bad for a band I’d never heard of before until I started this project. Not bad at all.

Nothing like a rousing round of CCR to kickstart a week. One of the biggest joys I’ve had with this project so far is rolling these 3 albums. Now 400 in, I’ve already exhausted all of them. From 1969-1970, they put out 5 of their 7 studio albums, and 3 of those 5 are on the list. That’s a pretty damn good track record when it comes to music. Even better, not only are they on the list, they all deserve to be on the list to begin with. Going in order, Bayou Country (‘69) is the oldest of the 3, and I mentioned in my review that I wanted to give it 5 stars anyway. It’s disjointed, but unbelievably catchy and has a plethora of bangers that I was singing out loud all day. I gave it a 4, and mentioned I might just rebalance it to a 5 at some point. Next on the list is Green River (‘69), this album, which is also incredible. The big difference though is that it was actually super easy for me this time to pick my favorite song on the album. I selected “Sinister Purpose” because it breaks the regular CCR mould and ends up sounding like something different entirely. Not that the usual mould needed to be broken, it’s just a nice break from the “good old boys” Country vibe that the band usually exudes. Now, I was unfamiliar with a good bit of this album going in to it. Most of the album I’d never heard of in fact. Recency bias is telling me it didn’t have as many catchy hits as Bayou Country, but I may go back to this album later and realize how foolish that statement is. It’s still a 4 star album, but I wasn’t singing as much as I did on the last album. It’s got some classics, “Bad Moon Rising”, which I had heard before, and “Green River”, which is a killer opening and my second favorite song on the album, but I can’t seem to really remember the rest of the album all that well. This may end up being my least favorite of the 3, but compared to most of the other albums on the site, this is a 5 star album. In CCR terms, it’s not as good as the last album in chronological order, Cosmo’s Factory (‘70). That was the only album I gave a 5, and I absolutely don’t regret it. If it was even slightly worse, I might have given all 3 a 5 star review, but comparatively, nothing in their catalogue holds a candle in the wind to it. Every song is catchy, singable, memorable, and just great. They changed up their sound again, and just kill every song. I was hoping this album would kind of feel like a mix of Bayou and Cosmo, but it’s pretty similar to Bayou. Cosmo’s Factory stands in a category of its own, and if I talk any more about it, I’ll risk overtaking the space of the actual album I’m reviewing today, Green River. While still a great album, I don’t mind many of these songs as memorable as the other 2 album, as I’ve already established. It’s still something I’m going to come back to again and again, just not as often. For that reason, it’s a 4. And with that, the trifecta of CCR bangers is done and dusted, and now I’m sad that I won’t get to continue listening to it. But in retrospect, this band surprised me more than most other bands on this project so far in a myriad of different ways. Going in, I only knew the band by name, and didn’t know what to expect. Going out, I became a fan from the very first note, and remain a fan after the last. A pair of 4’s and a 5 is a great score. This month is blessing me with some total bangers so far, let’s see if that continues.