Reviews by gingerninja155

I’m very mixed on Green Day as a whole. I always have been. I feel like I should really like them, but I never really have. Yet, at the same time, I grew up with them and have heard quite a bit more Green Day than many other bands, so they still hold a special place in my heart. Every song on this album is hit or miss to me. It’s got so many all time classics. I have a lot of favorites, like “Basket Case”, “Welcome to Paradise”, and “When I Come Around.” Most other songs on the album are relatively forgettable. I’m going to give it 3 stars because I’ve never really vibed with Green Day personally but I respect them a whole lot. The guitar playing rocks, the vibes rock, but as much as I hate to say it I’ve never really resonated with Billie’s singing, and repeated listens didn’t change that. I can’t disagree with people who give this one a 5 star rating, but it’s just not something I would find myself listening to a whole lot.

Pre Listen: I’m going to listen to this 1 time on Spotify with a private session so it doesn’t ruin my algorithm, and then rate it a 2, just so I don’t see this shit on my profile. Damn you for making this not only be my 100th album, but having it be right after Fleetwood Mac. That’s just not fair.
Post Listen: So boring. Overproduced, overrated, tiring. Everything I feared it would be. Next album please.

"How are the tenders, Johnny?" Oh man, when I rolled Tusk to start the day, I was so thrilled to do a deep dive on it. I had only ever heard the titular song before, “Tusk”, and while that’s still my favorite song on the album at the end of the day, now I’ve gone and found “Sisters of the Moon”, which is just incredible in its own right. This album is a lot, both length wise and, well, everything else wise as well. Tusk had the literally impossible task of following Rumours. Everyone knows how good that album is, I don’t need to tell you about it. The public wasn’t very kind on Tusk, but again, how could they be? It followed Rumours. For better or worse, this album still kicks ass in its own right. It’s got a great mix of ups and downs. A lot of the songs don’t connect with themselves very well, which is apparent right out of the gate. That’s part of the “for better or worse” aspect. Some songs rock, others are beautiful, a few aren’t all that great, a few are GOD like. Is it the perfect album? No. Far from it. For the third time, it’s not Rumours, but man I hope more people discover this one and really try to appreciate it for what it is, because it’s still really really good. Bonus points for the album art. Random picture of a dog biting someone’s leg on a beige background with a bunch of dots, and just a teeny tiny “tusk” randomly placed towards the top left. Perfect.

Day 2 of rolling highly praised Folk/Singer Songwriter albums. This one is marginally better than the one from yesterday. It grew on me enough to bump it up from an initial 2 to a 3. The subject matter is obviously immensely depressing and I don’t want to listen to it past today, but as a whole it was a worthwhile experience. It’s an important album for addressing many political and social issues plaguing the African American community, through the music of someone with a beautiful voice. While depressing, her voice is somewhat uplifting and soothing at the same time, which makes you really want to keep listening. My favorite song on this album was “Why?”. I like the rapid fire questioning and tempo of that song specifically. Hoping I don’t get stun locked into a bunch of Folk/Singer Songwriter albums. I’d like to get back to some good old Rock that I'm more familiar with, but this album was pretty good. Not something I would want to come back to, but it was good. Just, for the love of God, please give me a happier album tomorrow!! Please!!

Another example of something that really just didn’t do it for me at all, but I can see why other people would like it. This album is apparently one of the most highly reviewed albums by critics of all time, but I found it rather boring if I’m being completely honest with you. She has a pretty voice (That I also didn’t really vibe with), and the instrumentation is pretty, but absolutely nothing about this album stands out to me. I listened to it all day, and I couldn’t even Stockholm Syndrome myself into liking it. Not entirely sure my favorite song either, as it’s all very similar. Just a lot of boring topics that I didn’t much care about. Singer Songwriter is a mixed bag in general for me, and this is a prime example of it not being in my favor today. I just did not enjoy this enough to give it anything past a 2 star rating. I’m sorry, Joni. I really tried. 3 more of your albums to go…

Often times during this project I have criticized and truly wondered why they chose some specific albums from great artists over others. They always seem to go with the ones no one listens to over the hits. That being said, this album has “Gotta Get Away”, “Come Out and Play” and “Self Esteem”. Ladies and Gentlemen, they absolutely cooked with this one. I am pretty bummed this is the only Offspring album on here, but it would be hard to argue that this isn’t their absolute best. Somewhat of a bias because I grew up with it, but I absolutely LOVE this album, even though I’m not always the biggest enjoyer of Punk music. But there are always exceptions to rules, and The Offspring is perhaps my biggest exception yet when it comes to Punk. This is one of the first examples I’d come up with when asked the question “What did the 90’s sound like?”. Put this on with some Pearl Jam and you’ve got a great thing going. Unique sounding singer, all bangers, cool album art, super tight and under 50 minutes long, you’re damn right I’m giving it another 5!!

If I had a nickel for every album straight out of Africa that I’ve rolled so far, I wouldn’t have very many, but it’s interesting that it’s happened more than once. Perhaps more interesting than the music itself was the stuff the artist was going through while making this album. It’s a pretty cool story. Here’s some things that coincided with this album being made. Ali was; Actively dying of cancer, being the mayor of a city in Mali and helping them out by building necessities with his own money, and helping his son write his own first album. Freaking incredible. The music isn’t bad either. He’s a tremendously talented guitarist, my favorite example of that coming from “Savane”, the titular song of the album. I may not know what he’s saying, but I can definitely feel it in the music. It’s good and vibey, therefore it gets a high 3 from me. And clearly, he must be a fairly prominent artist, as he’s actually got a second album on here. I look forward to hearing that one as well. This website continues to surprise me by playing good music I would never in a million years stumble upon by myself.

“Hey, wait a minute. That’s the Jackass theme”. I wonder how many times those words or something similar have been uttered when someone gets to “Corona” for the first time. For obvious reasons, I have to say that one is my favorite. This is a crazy album. 43 songs, 1 hour and 14 minutes is so much. The good news is that it never gets boring. There’s a lot of different genres and fun things going on in this album. The bad news is that I’m never going to remember any of these songs because they’re all so short, and some of them are either forgettable or outright bad. I really wish at least some of these songs were given a second to breathe, because all of them are quite good, with very few exceptions. The singer is nothing to write home about, but he’s pretty good, no complaints in that department. The Punk Rock aspects are also all pretty good, occasionally bordering on, but never quite reaching “Hard” status. I think I’m going to put this one at a 3.9, it’s really good but never QUITE reaches the level of extraordinary.

With a name as interesting as Japan, I’m honestly a little surprised I’ve never heard of this band before. One of the reviews mentioned “Quiet Life” being in one of my favorite games (Metal Gear Solid V), but I don’t even remember it. That also about sums up my take on this album. None of it was bad, but none of it was particularly memorable either. I suppose my favorite song is “Halloween” here, as it’s the catchiest. Nothing terrible, and there is a lot to like here when you listen to it, I just won’t really remember it after a while. Little too samey and generic at parts, even though as a whole the background elements to a lot of these songs are incredibly catchy. The singers voice bugged me at first, but it grew on me very quickly, which has happened a lot for this challenge. Ultimately, I’d come back to this band again. It’s piqued my interest. This is another instant lock for a 3.

Second Bowie album on my journey, and my opinions are more or less the same as they were for Low. That is, it’s alright. Lyrically, he’s a genius, and the titular song “Aladdin Sane” going crazy with the piano was downright funny. I love Bowie and his voice, but nothing really blows me away here, with one exception. I know he’s made an unbelievable amount of music, but I’ve never actively seeked any out, and I’d never heard any of these songs before, just like with Low. It needs to be said though, of all the songs on this album, “Lady Grinning Soul” is perhaps one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, and it came out of nowhere as the final track. That riff at the end is beautiful and I think I listened to it on repeat 30+ times before looping the album again. That song really did blow me away. This album rocks a hell of a lot more than Low did as a whole. If I gave that album a 3.4, this is at least a 3.8. Also worth mentioning, the album art is one of the most iconic pictures of Bowie that exists, and man is it cool. I’d get that on a poster or wear it as a shirt for sure. Maybe I should do a separate ranking of album arts as a side project. That could be a lot of fun actually. This one is S tier for sure.

Well, here we are again. Another one of the top rated albums of its respected genre on the site, this time being Folk Rock. And, it’s another example of something that I can confidently say is objectively a 5, and yet personally I would only give it a 3. When something just isn’t for me, it’s always tough giving it a fair score, which is why I think everyone using this site should use their own individualized metrics to grade albums. Mine isn’t by objectivity, no one is ever going to read this review. It’s more of a fun journal to tell myself how much I liked an album and what songs are worth coming back to, if any. Sometimes these reviews can go wildly off track and I could just end up talking about something that happened in the world that day, or I could simply just tell you how my day was specifically. The point being, it’s not to be taken seriously as gospel. But yeah, “Cecilia” is my favorite song here. They’re all great, just not my cup of tea. I wouldn’t necessarily even call this Rock. The 36 minute playtime is also just the perfect length, bonus points for being so tight with no filler. So, yeah, I reiterate. Objectively a 5, personally a 3.

Before listening to this album, I was only familiar with Public Enemy by name only, especially Flava Flav and his dope ass clock. After listening to this, I’m a big fan. They have 3 albums on the list, so clearly they’re pretty revolutionary, in more ways than 1. Every time I hear a “Yeeeeeeeeeeah Booooooyyyyy” or a “Terminator X”, it gets me more excited. I’m hearing familiar samples and some lyrics that I had no idea stemmed from, or at least were popularized by this album. The beats, fire. The lyricism without relying on heavily using the gamer word every second, fire. The way every band member plays off of each other, fire. This is a good ass album!! Best songs are “Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic”, “She Watch Channel Zero?!” and “Party For Your Right To Fight”. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah Booooooyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

I can’t imagine why this guy was divorced 3 times. If this is one of the “Kings of Country”, Country is going to get a lot of 1 star reviews from me. Every single god damn song is about some cheating, promiscuous woman, or him cheating on someone as well. I can’t stand his Country drawl, the simple guitar playing, lyricism, or really anything else. At 28 minutes, this was actually hard to get all the way through. One of 2 albums so far I only got through once without attempting to listen to again. I could not wait to turn this off. May God give me the strength to get through whatever mid Country album I roll next, because I foresee a lot of 1’s and 2’s in the future.

Oh man, I am REALLY conflicted on this one. Listen, I absolutely love Beck. Guero is probably going to be an instant 5. The fact that he’s got 3 albums on here makes me incredibly happy. But that’s just the thing, usually his albums make me incredibly happy. This is sad Beck. I don’t like listening to sad Beck ☹️. That being said, this entire album is absolutely beautiful, even if it makes me incredibly sad listening to it. Favorite song is “Paper Tiger”, with a special shoutout to “Sunday Sun”. Also worth mentioning is the super cool album art. Whenever I like the album art, I always internally give a bit of a bonus point. It’s simple yet cool, and really compliments the vibes of the album. I really don’t know if I want to return to this album again, but objectively it’s gorgeous and incredibly well done. Perhaps Beck at his saddest, least goofy and most vulnerable. So, final verdict? Let’s give it a 4, on the dot a 4.0. I am going to need to listen to Guero as a palette cleanser though after this.

Let me tell you today about the phenomenon known as the Clustering illusion. According to Wikipedia, “The clustering illusion is the tendency to erroneously consider the inevitable "streaks" or "clusters" arising in small samples from random distributions to be non-random.” That being said, I swear to God I have rolled every Jazz album on the website over the last couple of weeks. My continuous review for all of them has, and will continue to be, “Yeah, it’s alright.” The same can be said about this album. It’s Jazz. If it sounds good, it’s more of the same. If it sounds bad, it’s almost unlistenable. This is pretty good. My favorite song is the titular “ Back At The Chicken Shack”. Can’t wait to roll more Jazz tomorrow.

Yep, this is definitely Jazz. What, you wanted me to say more? My favorite song on this album is “Part Of A Whole”, as it’s the only one I really remembered. It’s the only one I kept coming back to since it’s the first song on the album. I don’t know man, it’s really, really hard reviewing Jazz due to its very nature. Further more, the more of them I listen to, the harder it becomes to give a unique review that's not just a copy and paste of the last one. The best compliment I can give this album is that the piano player goes pretty crazy at times. Would I come back to this? Not really. Did I enjoy it more or less compared to some of the other Jazz I’ve heard so far? Couldn’t really say that either. It didn't really annoy me, excite me, bore me or offend me in any meaningful way so it’s getting another 3. One thing is for certain though, I still don't know how I feel about Jazz as a whole.

How many Black, female, UK rappers can I name?? Just this one. This is a prime example of the type of music I would absolutely never find on my own if it wasn’t for this challenge. What do I think of it overall? Eh. It’s fine. The beats are all pretty catchy. Vocals are a bit of a mixed bag, frequently bordering on just being obnoxious and a tad cringy. This is on the borderline of a 2-3 for me. Call it a 3.1. Favorite song is the opener, “Offence”, strictly because of the beat. Probably going to forget about this one fairly quickly, but honestly I really am glad I listened to it. Liked it enough to at least give it a 3 after all.

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” By this logic, Ozzy is going to live forever, because I for one am never going to stop talking about how much ass he kicked. This is the debut album of not only Black Sabbath, but the debut album of Heavy Metal as a whole, and it is absolutely packed with bangers from top to bottom. I could listen to only this on loop for a year and still enjoy it. “N.I.B.” is my pick for favorite here. I can’t believe he gifted us with that gem right at the start of his career. I’m here to pay my respects and give this man the 5 stars he deserves. Fuck it, I’ll give him 6 stars. 10 even, we’ve just lost one of the last true pioneers of music, and I’m still grieving. We love you, Ozzy. Until I roll your next one and rate that a 10 as well. Rock on you absolute legend ❤️🦇!!

If the website is to be believed, the book this site pulls from only has 10 Reggae albums. This is the first one that I’ve heard so far, and it’s pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking, it’s a whole album about smoking weed, but it doesn’t really need to be anything more than it is to be a good vibe that I’m pretty much always going to be in the mood to hear. Reggae music as a whole is generally always inoffensive on the ears and vibey, it’s just good and fun to listen to in most situations. While nothing here absolutely wowed me, I don’t think anything fell flat either. Not going to remember it all that much, but I would still return to it for sure. Favorite song on this one is “Igziabeher (Let Jah Be Praised)”. Also, the album art needs to be mentioned. Lmao, it's so good. Perfect encapsulation of what Reggae music is typically considered to be in a single image.

As a redheaded Irishman myself, this is the most Irish thing I’ve ever heard. Well and good drinking music to sing while getting absolutely sloshed in a pub right here this is. I’d be doing a great disservice to my heritage by not giving this at least a 3. That being said, an hour of this is asking a lot from me. Listening to it twice to find a favorite song and get a lasting impression is also a lot. I enjoyed it more the second time through at least, so that’s something. I listened to it for most of the day, but there's a strict cutoff point for listening to this. There’s really only so much of I can take at a time, and I’d really imagine the same opinion would be shared for anyone. Favorite song here is “Sketches of Spain” as it’s something I could listen to on repeat easily. Wonder how much more if any Irish music is on here, and if any of it could possibly be any more Irish than this. I guess we'll find out at some point or another.