Reviews by gingerninja155

Eh. Not even remotely what I was expecting based off of what I had previously heard about this album elsewhere. I think I hyped it up when I rolled this one too much and was just left fairly disappointed overall. Sure, it’s fine. But it just kinda exists. All songs on this album rank anywhere from mediocre to just ok. There’s some songs that are pretty boring, and others are fine. But that’s about it. Classic album art, passable album at best. Nothing really stood out here. I heard Funk with more memorable riffs than this the other day. I didn’t even particularly care about Lou Reed’s singing here, which may be blasphemous to some. Maybe you had to be there for this one. I’m sure it’s influential and an all time classic album, but unfortunately it was just barely passable enough to scrape by with a 3 for me. Sorry banana album. I wanted to like you so much, but I’ll likely forget about this album by tomorrow. Just don’t really get this one man. It happens. I think I liked “Venus In Furs” the best. It had some fun things going on with it.

I think my favorite part of Funk music is the continuous running trend of just about every song bluntly stating “You are listening to Funk. This is Funky. We Funk. Funk.” as if it isn’t the most obvious thing in the world. Man, I wanted to just give this a low rating and move on out of spite because it isn’t on Spotify. I imagined it just couldn’t possibly be that good. I was terribly, catastrophically wrong. This is Psychedelic Funk Soul Rock and at the same time, it’s genuinely funny. Unfortunately, I was listening to it without knowing the names of the songs, as again it wasn’t on Spotify, but any of the songs with extended psychedelic jams were my favorites. Those just absolutely rocked and it’s an outright SHAME that this was as hard to find as it was!!!! This one wasn’t just Funky. It was outright Funkalicious. Another Funky banger. A 5/5. Just praying this doesn’t become a trend of albums not being on any of the streaming services like this one. Docking it a point for being hard to find would just be petty of me, and I just can’t do that knowing how good this album is from top to bottom unfortunately.

The only thing I know about T. Rex is that they were inducted into the Rock Hall a few years ago. As far as their music goes, it’s alright. This is aggressively average but still very passable Rock music. It’s a little repetitive, a little formulaic, but still very easy to listen to and enjoyable enough. A few songs are more annoying than entertaining, but as a whole it’s not bad. I love the lead singers voice, and a few of the songs, including my favorite, “Telegram Sam”, remind me of my current favorite band, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (which absolutely should be on the list). I don’t really think this one is going to stick with me, but it was good. I would absolutely listen to more T. Rex. I think my favorite part of the band might just be its name. I want to be in a band named T. Rex. That’s some cool stuff. They have another album on here, but I can’t honestly imagine it’s going to sound much different than this one. So, yeah. Pretty average but still good. I liked it. On to the next one.

This one surprised me in every sense of the word. I’m not generally fond of Folk and Singer Songwriter albums. They’re usually fine and well written, but aren’t my cup of tea. So, it was unexplainable to me why I ended up liking this one so much. It’s slow, it’s as Folk as you can get, melodic, and somewhat depressing. But man, that voice is angelic. Something about the sheer passion you can tell went into this just makes every song really stand out. It’s very real, and I don’t think picking a favorite is going to be easy here, but if I had to it would be “Hard Headed Woman”. The way everything comes together, builds up and just blows you away is nothing short of impressive. I would actually come back to this one. At 36 minutes, this is the perfect length for an album and does a good job of having no filler. With this album alone, I can see why this guy is in the Rock Hall. Well deserved. Pretty difficult not singing “Wild World” out loud.

This is the type of music you’d hear in a show or movie where things are going perfectly. Everything is going great for the crew and life is pretty good. Immediately following this rise (usually in the form of a “Life is great” compilation), things are about to go terribly, terribly wrong. All that being said, fuck this is some good shit right here. Indie Rock has been a real mixed bag for me so far with this project, but this is some real primo stuff. It’s tighter than the ass on the album cover, there isn’t a single filler song on the entire album, and picking my favorite song in general is a real challenge. This may very well be one of the best Indie albums on the entire list. I am actually quite baffled I haven’t heard any of this before, and if I have, I don’t recognize it. Everyone I talked to today was baffled I had not heard this, as it’s right up my alley. I’ve probably said this before, but you know an album is good when it makes you want to explore the bands entire catalog. Ultimately, my biggest complaint is that occasionally at the end of a song, they’ll have a little riff that absolutely shreds for about 30 seconds, and then leave you wanting more of it. And I do. I want more of it!! Bet these guys kick ass live. The little riff in the middle of “The Modern Age” and towards the end of “Take It Or Leave It” are good examples of this. All of the hits are so good, but I think my favorite song on the album is actually going to have to be “Alone, Together”, which actually has 2 separate moments where they step out a bit more and just shred that shit out. Wish they included the follow up album, as it contains the one song of theirs I actually recognized, “Reptilia”. Man, what a hell of a debut album!! Apparently, the entire band is still together to this day, which is pretty damn cool. Rock on, The Strokes. You’ve gained a fan. Is this It? Nah, I’m not done with you yet.

Alright, I have to go a little outside the scope of how I normally rate albums for this one. Generally, I rate these albums and weigh how solid they are as a whole from top to bottom. However, exceptions are rarely made for extenuating circumstances that hit heavy on my nostalgia or music that I grew up with. For those reasons, this one is going to be rated on personal enjoyment more. Led Zeppelin has earned that right. Disc 1 of Physical Graffiti is an absolute masterclass of music without a single track worth skipping. If it was only Disc 1, this may very well be the best album they ever made. In particular, “Trampled Under Foot” and “Kashmir” are my favorite tracks on the album. Disc 2 is mostly filler. But, and this is a huge but, even Zep filler is better than 99% of the albums on this list. So, personal enjoyment for me was still a 5. As a Zep album, the uneven second half makes me rank this below the other Zep album I’ve rolled so far, Led Zeppelin 2, but still not nearly enough for me to rank this anything but a 5. So, yeah. Expect every Zep album to get a 5 star rating. One of the best bands of all time.

Less singing, more sweet instrumental riffs, please. This is the first of 3 Van Morrison albums I have reviewed for this project, and I’m just not really a fan so far. The only song worth mentioning is “The Way Young Lovers Do”. The rest are fairly repetitive and bland songs that I just wouldn’t really want to come back to unfortunately because I’m not a huge fan of his singing. They aren’t outright terrible, I just didn’t really enjoy them personally. So I’m conflicted whether this should be a 2.9 or a 3.0. Not much to talk about with this one. It’s the oldest of the 3 albums, so I guess I’ll see how his music evolves over time. Perhaps the other 2 will be better. Like I said, not terrible, but not great either. At least it’s got “The Way Young Lovers Do”, which reminded me of something you’d hear in Kill Bill. I really actually liked that one. Sure, that’s enough to give it a low 3. Why not??

The random horse on the album art absolutely kills me. This is the first of 5 The Byrds albums I have listened to for this project, and I’m pretty sure it was exactly what I needed to hear today. I am wholly unfamiliar with this band, so having 5 albums is a bit surprising to me, but this was a great first time listen-through. Nothing absolutely blew me away, but as a whole, every song was psychedelic, rocked, and was different enough from the one before it that I was fully engaged the entire time. It all flows very naturally into itself. Love the singers voice, love the smooth bass and the psychedelic guitar riffs. Yeah, this was a pretty good one. As the “newest” The Byrds album on the list, I guess I’m now very interested to see the reverse progression of the band and find out how we ultimately got here. My favorite song on this album was “Tribal Gathering”. When the site states that this one is 4 different genres of music in 1, it’s not kidding. You can really hear all 4, and that’s for the most part what makes this one so unique and memorable to me.

“The Voodoo, who do what you don't dare do, people!!”. I have been hearing that sampled in songs, and the song itself covered in general for the better part of my entire life. “Voodoo People” is such a critically important song in the history of Electronica, and I’m very happy to be listening to the album it stemmed from. The Nirvana sample also really helps make it something truly special. Now, I’m not the most familiar with this album as a whole, but The Fat of the Land is perhaps my favorite Electronica album of all time, right on top with Justice. So, both of those albums are going to get 5 stars from me no questions asked. While this album is still absolutely fire in its own right, I can see how The Fat of the Land eventually came into being by listening to earlier The Prodigy music like this. It’s hard rating it fairly for that reason, knowing just how good the other album is, and how important it is to me. Still though, this is The Prodigy we’re talking about here, and despite sounding a bit more dated overall, this is still an outstanding piece of history that made my day go by in the blink of an eye. No duds, all bangers, high marks. You know the drill. It may not have a crab, but the album art is still pretty cool, if not creepy as shit. 🦀🦀

Finally!! I get it now. Three Neil Young albums in and I’m finally introduced to this banger of an album. You know it’s good when you have to spend the day trying to pick between multiple favorites. Ultimately, I ended up going with “Cowgirl in the Sand” over the all time classic “Down by the River.” That being said, “Cinnamon Girl” and “Running Dry” also deserve a shoutout. I’m an absolute sucker for extended riffs and songs that just go on and on and mix things up like those do. After previously listening to 2 other Neil Young albums, I felt like some of the songs were just a bit too light on notable Rock aspects, and existed as mostly filler. This one, on the other hand, absolutely rocks from top to bottom. Finally, after all this time, I can give a Neil Young album something higher than a 3. Higher than a 4, even. I truly enjoyed the hell out of this one. Way to go Uncle Neil. You’ve earned this rating. Here’s hoping there’s another 5 coming from you in the future. As always, time will tell.

Oh man. Would you hate me if I said I only really enjoyed 3 songs on this album?? This is the first of many Stones albums I’ve heard so far, the second highest rated Stones album on the website, and I’m going to give it a 3/5. I’m always hearing that you have to pick either The Beatles or The Rolling Stones as the best band of all time, and it may be blasphemous to say this, but I’ve already rolled Revolver, and I gave that a 5, easily. Now, listen, “Gimme Shelter” may be in the Top 10 for best songs ever. It’s an absolute achievement of music and should be acknowledged as such. Watch both the documentary of the same name, as well as the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom if you want a really cool history lesson on it. The background vocalist alone sends a shiver up my spine, and the sick beat mixed with Mick belting one out really gave me hope that I was about to listen to the best fucking album of all time if it could even remotely match up to the sheer presence of this opening song. It single handedly gives this album a high rating in my book. It’s so good that I kind of want to go back and rate the top song of each album in this book and rank them separately. It would be pretty hard to beat. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is another classic, that’s the second song I enjoyed. I was unfamiliar with “Monkey Man” but that one was also deeply enjoyable. So, 3/9 songs is, eh, not great, but I didn’t outright dislike the others, so a 3 is very fair. That being said, every other song on the album is just filler that ranges from just fine to utterly boring filler. A lot of them are filler. After the brilliance of “Gimme Shelter”, I was pretty disappointed with the rest of the album, and man does it absolutely hurt every fiber of my being typing that out. Do they have a more solid album from top to bottom, or am I going to ultimately side with team Beatles? Time will tell.

On God, my favorite part of this album was when I didn’t have to listen to it anymore. This is one of about 3 or 4 albums that I just could not bear to listen to a second time. So, it’s got that going for it at least. Now, let me tell you, when I say I don’t like Country, this is the shit that I’m talking about. I’ve heard good Country albums on this list. I know they exist. But man, every aspect of this one was just grating with a capital G. Bad bad bad. Tragic even. Wouldn’t surprise me if every 1 star album I end up giving is going to be a Country or Country adjacent album. But hey, I’ve had an entire week of bad music, next week is going to be all 5’s, right?? Right…

I give whoever writes this book criticism on occasion for having so many British bands represented, and draw attention to the failure to add some super obvious bands that are more deserving from elsewhere, notably the United States, naturally. That being said, when I found out that American Indie Rock band Sonic Youth of all bands has a whopping FIVE albums on this list, I was really, reeeeeeally confused. Why on Earth do they need to have 5?? They’re exceptionally average. Just monumentally, aggressively ok. 5?? Why?? So many other deserving bands don’t have any at all. Are these guys huge in the UK and that’s why they’re on here so much?? I don’t know. I already listened to Dirty, and this is comparatively better. In my review for that, I also mentioned how average it was. I’m likely to mention it as well for the other 3. With all that being said, this album has their big hit, and likely the only song of theirs I’m going to recognize, “Kool Thing.” That one I’ll admit is a certified banger. I still like the male singers voice better, “My Friend Goo” is proof enough of that, it’s unlistenable garbage, and yet “Kool Thing” is the exception to the rule and ends up being the best song on the album by far. There’s a ton of down time and filler here as well which is all just inoffensive noise and adds to my overall reasoning in why this is like a 3.65/5.

Yet another picture perfect example of a 3 star album. Did I enjoy it? Yeah, I enjoyed it enough. It did things musically I enjoyed. Am I going to remember this after 24 hours have passed? Absolutely not. A lot of the songs had vaguely Egyptian or maybe even Indian sounding themes which I enjoyed. I don’t know, it was all good. None of it was bad, but none of it was particularly memorable either. I liked his voice well enough, and the music all passed the vibe check. An incredibly standard, generic review for an equally standard and generic sounding album. I liked the last song the best, “Never Stop - Discotheque”. There are 3 of these albums on here, so I can only imagine these guys are huge across the pond. Sure, I can see that. They’re good enough. Side note, as a great man once said, “Name something that follows the word Pork”. “Upine”. Call it a 3.6/5 and I’ll see you tomorrow for another one.

The tonal whiplash I felt jumping from “Long Promised Road” to “Take A Load Off Your Feet” can not be understated. This is a much darker tone than I’m used to from The Beach Boys, with that one single goofy and more lighthearted song thrown in just completely randomly. Before I forget to mention it, that album art is absolutely Metal. I see it and think we’re about to start listening to Heavy Metal or something. This is the second of three The Beach Boys albums I’ve rated, and I feel about the same way ratings wise as I did listening to Pet Sounds, although I enjoyed this one more for sure. However, I do appreciate how tight this one was. No filler, which is always huge when I’m trying to pick a favorite song. That being said, I really liked “Student Demonstration Time” the best. Some of the songs on this album just straight up rocked, which surprised me. I really didn’t know they were able to sound this way, but I like it. The flute solo in “Feel Flows” is particularly noteworthy and stands out in a big way. This is by all means a darker The Beach Boys album, and it’s actually really good. A VERY high 3, nearing a 4.

Bowie album #3/9. Bowie album #3 getting a 3/5. So, right off the bat, this has the same aspect of Low that just did not do it for me, the entire back half of the album is just borderline uninteresting filler instrumental beats, besides the last song which actually is pretty good. If this was a more condensed album without all the filler, it would be an easy 4 or even a 5. As it stands, the only songs that really did anything for me were “Beauty and the Beast”, “Heroes”, and “The Secret Life of Arabia”. Now, those songs are absolutely good enough to warrant giving the album a 3, but that’s literally 3 of the 10 songs on the album. Maybe one of these will get a 4, but after Low, Aladdin Sane and now this, it’s still a very safe 3 for me. At least I enjoy all of these, always something good to look forward to at the bare minimum when I end up rolling Bowie. Also, once again, simply an iconic album art picture. He even used it again later for another album I haven’t gotten around to rolling yet. Until I roll you again, Bowie. You’ve always got a high chance of popping up on the list.

Hitting a bit of a rough streak on the site lately. I’m not very fond of this guys voice, I feel like this album is stylistically disjointed and all over the place, and I really dislike most albums that consist of short songs bordering on 1 minute long each, with very few exceptions. Not entirely sure that Lofi is for me, but this definitely wasn’t. It’s a low 2 bordering on a 1 for me. I think my favorite song was the closer, “Alright”. I just find most of the songs either too short and never really get started, excruciatingly boring and repetitive, or worst of all, all of the above. Sorry guys, I gave it the day. Tried to find something redeeming or an aspect I could end up appreciating, just couldn’t do it.

Surprised this isn’t labeled as Electronica. I liked “Candyman” ok enough but man was this album dreadfully boring. I managed to spend the day listening to it and I seriously don’t think anything has stayed with me at all. It’s just very repetitive base level EDM beats and other similar aspects and not much else. I mean, I didn’t hate it, but there’s thousands of other bands I’d rather be listening to. Will likely not be returning to this one either, sorry Cornershop. The fact that their most popular song on Spotify is a remix of one of their own songs made by Fatboy Slim is fairly telling, give it to someone else and they’ll make it better. Nothing personal, this one just wasn’t very enjoyable unfortunately.

Oh boy, he’s back for the second time. Tom Waits strikes me as a pretty cool guy, but man is his music one massive mixed bag. I can understand the appeal of his deep, gravely voice, but do we absolutely NEED 5 entire albums of this?? It’s just not for me, which doesn’t automatically make it bad, it simply is what it is. To his credit, I think I enjoyed this more than Swordfishtrombones as a whole. “Clap Hands”, “Jockey Full of Bourbon”, and “Gun Street Girl” all stood out as pretty good to me. So there’s enough to save it from getting a 1. Unfortunately, the majority of this album is just something I would liken to bad circus or pirate music. I don’t absolutely despise it, but I for sure don’t like it very much either and likely won't be coming back to it any time soon. It’s another Tom Waits 2/5, a tradition that I foresee continuing with his other 3 albums. Really it’s just more of the same from him, about what I expected.

So, if we’re talking about the Mount Rushmore of guitarists, I’d probably put Jimi Hendrix at Number 1. He makes sweet, sweet, tender love to that guitar on every note of the album. The problem is, it’s very disjointed and not every song is very memorable. When your album ends with 2 of the best songs ever made, “All Along the Watchtower” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, the rest of it is going to have to be comparable, and unfortunately, I don’t think it is. I am, of course, very familiar with Jimi Hendrix, but I think this album is just a little bit too long for its own good, and has some songs that are just meh. But oh man, compared to most other albums, this is still an absolute legend in the mix. First of 3 Jimi Hendrix albums I have rated so far. It was only a matter of time. A tremendously solid 4/5. Oh, and bonus point for the album art. Another classic picture I would LOVE to get on a poster. This is an album I want to give a 5 so desperately that I may just come back to it another day and see if I’m feeling it more then.