Reviews by gingerninja155

Oh Thom Yorke, you unparalleled legend you. There’s a reason all 6 Radiohead albums are rated above average on this website. It’s a fairly obvious reason at that. They’re all really, really really really REALLY good. There’s also a reason that 48% of listeners give OK Computer in particular a 5 star review. Now, with this album, I got particularly lucky. This was my weekend album, so I got to spend 3 entire days with it. Going in, my favorite song was, in fact, “Lucky”. I’ve heard that song so many times that it was actually hard not calling it my favorite now due to recently falling in love with “Electioneering”. Now, I’m certainly no stranger to this album, I’ve heard songs like “Karma Police” and “Paranoid Android” 1000+ times each. Whenever I return to Radiohead, OK Computer and The Bends are my go-to’s. Some of the other, lesser played songs though, I don’t listen to on repeat quite as often. I will now though, as the deeper cut but not too deep since it’s on this album “Electioneering” is going to have to be my favorite today. Whether or not that’s recency bias speaking is difficult to say. Tomorrow my favorite song could be something else. In fact, it probably will be. And that’s the true brilliance of this album. I haven’t even mentioned “Exit Music (For A Film)” or “Let Down” yet. Damn, “No Surprises” as well. The more I think about it, I truly believe that any singular song on this entire album, besides “Fitter Happier”, could EASILY be someone’s favorite Radiohead song. That song is a borderline intermission. It has its place on the album but I think it would be a little weird having someone claim it as their favorite. You never know though. And speaking of the album, this goes beyond the scope of the actual review, but check out the album OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 if you get the chance. It includes a lot of songs that were cut from the original, and inclusions such as “Man of War” make me wonder how they got cut to begin with. I know I can’t include that one in this review, but it deserves to be mentioned. It’s technically still attached to the album, just not the main album. This is my 3rd of 6 Radiohead albums I’ve listened to for this project, following both “Amnesiac” and “Kid A”, also both getting a 5 from me, and easily at that. Now, I’m often a bit of a contrarian, and I like to see the good in things others people might not consider their favorites. But this album man. This album might be their magnum opus. It is an actual holy grail of music, and every single song is just so beautiful. So perfect. So undoubtedly deserving of a 5 star review, that it might just make the case for being one of my top 3 albums in the entire book. It’s truly just a special, spectacular album, and between it and The Bends, you’re going to have a very similar review. Thom Yorke. What a freaking guy.

Wait, really?? This is Punk?? Doesn’t sound like the other Punk albums on this list. It honestly just kinda sounds like Soft Rock to me. This is album 100+ that just sounded pretty generic and repetitive and I’m going to have to pull a better review out of thin air and come up with something interesting to say about it other than “it sure does exist”. Ok, I’ve got something. So, the frontman for this band is Paul Weller. He’s got a solo album on this list that I’ve heard already. I honestly loved it, more than this that’s for sure. I gave his solo album a 4, and ironically mentioned that he was in 2 other bands that I’d never heard of before, one of them being The Jam. Evidently, that album is much later into his career, and I prefer it to this by a fairly good bit, but I can certainly see the evolution between here and then as well. So between his solo album and the 2 The Jam albums, there are 3 Paul Weller adjacent or direct albums on the list in total. I’m a tad irritable today, maybe I would have appreciated it more had this not been the third day in a row where I didn’t have power in the house, but I digress. It came back on at the end of the day, so I actually had a little longer to listen to this one than the last 2. The intro to “Start!” reminds me so much of “Taxman” by The Beatles. So much so that I had to look it up and, oh, ok, the entire song is just a big homage to that song. That makes it easily my favorite song on the album. The more I end up listening to this album, the more I like it. It’s still waaaaaaay too repetitive and generic, but it’s not bad. Still a mid 3 for me. But I can’t say I’m the most excited for their other album on here. It’s just a tad underwhelming as a whole. I love Paul Weller though. He can do no wrong. I’m just going to go celebrate my power finally coming back after 3 days and likely forget that I ever listened to this album at all pretty quickly. It’s not bad, it’s just not amazing either, and that’s the best thing I can say about it. It’s a pretty good length though. At 35 minutes long, it doesn’t outstay its welcome, repetition and all. Liked it, didn’t love it though, and likely won’t love their other one, but time will tell. That’s the beauty of this project. There’s always time to wait for more from a repeat artist, good or bad.

Day 2 of having no power in my house. Luckily, I was able to listen to this one a few times on repeat, but didn’t give it as much time as I usually give these albums unfortunately. I don’t know if my opinions on this album would be that much different had I been granted the luxury of listening to it a tad longer, but a 3 feels like a pretty safe bet for this one. From what I was able to listen to though, this is a delightfully weird album. Song to song, the vibes go from Pop, to Singer Songwriter, to damn near Hard Rock. I don’t know who Laura Nyro is, but I like her voice a lot. Occasionally. And that’s the weird thing about this album. She has a great voice, but sometimes it just sounds a little off on some of these songs when she’s hitting a high note. It’s very unique though, and even when she’s hitting a weird high note, I don’t actually mind it. Which is weird, because I feel like I should hate it?? But I don’t. Plenty of other artists who have the gimmick of random pitch shifts just end up sounding awful, but I don’t think I mind when Laura does it, even when it sounds off. I don’t really know why. Again, I wish I had some more time with this album because I’m sure on the 10th+ listen through I would end up either getting even more hooked on it or end up detesting it. Knowing me, probably the former. That pipeline usually only goes one direction. If I like it already, I’m typically going to keep liking it. If I don’t, then there’s a chance I end up liking it anyway, but very rarely will I decide I dislike something after initially enjoying it, so I think we’re fine on that front probably. Completely random explosion of conscience thought that has no place anywhere in this review so I’m just going to stick it here, I think she kind of looks like the actress that plays Jessica Jones, whose name is escaping me. I’d look it up, but again I have no power or internet access. I was lucky to be able to download this album to begin with. Back to the actual review, I would definitely return to this again. It’s weirdly up my alley, it’s unique, and it’s different enough from song to song that I don’t think I would even skip any of these songs. The biggest takeaway I got from this album though, was that this is the original version of one of my favorite songs, “Eli’s Comin’.” Something I’ve enjoyed playing while participating in this project, is a little game I like to call “Is this a cover, or is this the original!??”. In this case, it’s the original. While I think the Three Dog Night cover does it a bit better, it’s still really really great to hear the original, and my bias of already enjoying that song is going to have to force me to say it’s my favorite song on this album. To be fair, it probably would be my favorite song on the album anyway. It’s great. Going on day 3 without power and I wish I could have given this one some more time, I feel like I owe it that. There’s a lot more I think I can get out of this one. Maybe some other time. But for now, I’ll give it a 3 and move on to the next one. So long for now.

I like Electronica. Truly, I do. But the selections chosen for the book overall as a whole seem rather shite from what I’ve listened to so far. This is really not that good, and the song where he just names a bunch of infinitely cooler artists than he will ever amount to is just kind of sad and pathetic. Additionally, “Drop the Pressure” being included 6 times out of his Top 10 songs on Spotify got a genuine chuckle out of me for a few reasons. On top of the funny visual, I have a playlist where I include my single favorite song from each of these albums. When I heard this one come around on my second listen through, without seeing the name of the song, I noted that “I really liked that one the first time”. Upon seeing that it was in fact the same song, I was laughing pretty hard. What’s more funny is that yesterday I was listening to glorified intermission music. Today, I’ve got pretty much the same vibes, although I’d liken this more to a “Your call is important to us. Please wait for an agent to take your call” kind of vibe. You feel me?? It’s call center wait time music. Something you’d hear when getting put on hold. This album is also almost an hour long. I’m surprised a song actually managed to stand out as my favorite, but it’s got to be the one everyone else seemed to glom onto. Giving it to the previously mentioned “Drop the Pressure” for managing to stick out as the best to me on a very repetitive, very basic Electronica album. Now, a lot of these albums have been dated and overwhelmingly boring, some of them have borderline put me to sleep. It’s a tremendously fine line, and I can’t really explain how it gets crossed, but despite all of my complaints, I still think this album isn’t terrible. It manages to be both repetitive, but never all that boring. I could have this playing in the background when I need to lock into whatever it is I’m doing at the moment. It doesn’t put me to sleep, and I’m able to actively engage with it, but it’s also not overbearing. I guess what I’m saying is, despite all my criticisms of this album, I still didn’t altogether dislike it. Would I return to it?? Nah. If it was on, I’d probably skip it. But it’s not terrible. Just a very low 3. We’re talking like a 3.25 out of 5. Even my favorite song on the album is just ok, even if it is by far the catchiest song on the whole album. This is another inclusion I’m curious about as to why it was included at all. Usually I do a deep dive on these albums, but I’m without an internet connection today unfortunately, so I’ll just have to assume this guy is and or was important somehow and trust that he belongs here. Not terrible, but not great. An overwhelming “Meh” on this one. It’s lucky it got a 3.

Despite being labeled as an instrumental album, the titular “Green Onions” has both the lyrics “Yeah”, and “Hey”. Ok, but all jokes aside, “Green Onions” the song is a classic. It’s my favorite song on the album and it’s not hard. I didn’t have to even remotely consider picking something else for once. Goodie for me. Despite never having heard of this band before, I instantly recognized that song frame 1. That being said, is the rest of the album worth including on this list?? I would liken it to intermission music in all honesty. Something you would hear when you’re allowed a bathroom break during an exceedingly long movie. I mean damn, I’ve probably heard it during one myself, to be real for a second. None of it is terrible, and none of it is even bad in fact, but a little goes a very long way. I found it surprisingly difficult listening to this one on a loop. After a few goes around with this 35 minute album, I kind of got the point. There wasn’t a lot more to get from it after the first few loops around and I was ultimately ready to put it down earlier than usual. In fact, the question even popped into my head of why these guys made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Do they have more albums that aren’t instrumental?? I doubt it, at least one of them would probably be on this list if that were the case, and if it’s just not notable enough to include, that further emphasizes my point. I’m not dismissing the inclusion, far from it. I’m sure these guys are instrumental pioneers of the genre or something, but I don’t really believe this album does them a lot of justice as a whole. I’m not even dogging on the fact that it’s instrumental, I just think this is overwhelmingly average all around as a whole. It’s fine instrumental guitar playing from the Mid-60’s, an era rife with banger guitar players. Many people, myself included, would probably say the best in history. But today, albums like this are more of a history lesson. Homework that isn’t necessarily required learning when much better examples are out there. For instance, do we need the millionth “Twist and Shout” cover on this album?? Probably not. But the original “Green Onions” has also been played and sampled to kingdom come, so that’s neat, I guess. It’s a really good album to get a sample from in general, and I bet it’s probably been sampled more than most other albums in general. I just get that vibe. Being instrumental makes it very sample-able. Additionally, the sound is truly very signature to the band, so much so that if I heard this out in the wild, I’d very likely be able to pick it out if I heard it. So, the more I talk about it, the more I end up kind of respecting it more than I thought I did. As an album, it’s alright. I had a fun time with it. Don’t think I’ll be returning to it, but it’s very good. A solid 3 out of 5 on this one. Another easy placement today.

2 R.E.M. albums down and 2 more to go. This is my second R.E.M. album on the list so far, following Murmur. I just don’t know man. It’s an album I feel on a deep, emotional level. It’s one where I can tell they poured their hearts and souls into. It’s technically perfect, and one that I think I’d at least recommend everyone listen to. Truly, it’s something that belongs on 1089 albums you need to listen to before you die, and I think most people would agree. Every song is deep, most of them are dark, and across the board the album is astonishingly beautiful. Songs like “New Orleans Instrumental No. 1” serve as really solid intermissions between the other songs, and “Everybody Hurts” is an all time classic that I’m sure most people willingly participating in this project have already heard before. Overall, it’s a great album. There are moments where a jam almost breaks out and the album gets a little less depressing, but honestly, it’s just not my cup of tea. There are plenty of artists I’ll listen to if I want to feel sad who I click with a little more. R.E.M. is not one of those bands. I can still appreciate the hell out of this album for what it is, and I do, but I don’t really want to listen to it a lot before moving onto something maybe a bit more exciting and a lot less sad. Now, compared to Murmur, I’m actually astonished how different it is. I like it about the same, but you can really hear that whatever the band went through between 1983 and 1992 clearly changed them spectacularly. I reiterate, just because I don’t want to return to this album for a while, I still had an incredible time with it and I’m glad that I was able to finally experience this band I’d heard about in passing, but have never done a deep dive of personally. Picking a favorite song is also pretty tough, because it’s going to be one of the deep cuts. The ones most people love don’t really reach me the same way, and that’s ok, but the weird ones like “Ignoreland” and “Monty Got A Raw Deal” I thought were spectacular. I don’t really believe this band is going to grow on me with the 2 albums between Murmur and Automatic For The People, but I’m glad I at least got to experience this for the weekend. It was well worth it. I get the love for the band, even if it’s not my personal cup of tea, I still see just how damn good this album is. I’ll go ahead and give me favorite to “Ignoreland”. I thought that song did the most interesting things, and stood out more than the rest. 2 albums by R.E.M. left, and I’m interested to see if they just progressively get more depressing over time, or if this album was an exception. Time will tell. This one is around a 3.6 out of 5. Beautifully sad album.

So, this is a very important album. It’s got some all time classics and essentially kickstarted Lauryn Hill’s career. All 3 rappers here come off as intellectual, conscientious and very good on the mic. Individually they’re great, but together they’re amazing. This was the second and last album they came out with. It’s no wonder why. After how well this sold, they all launched successful solo careers, Lauryn most notably, releasing The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill literally only 2 years after this one came out. That album, unsurprisingly, is also featured on the site. While most others were hardcore gangster rapping, this album is very different in a sense and just comes off as a unique form of Hip-Hop that no one else was really doing at the time. My opinions of it as a whole are that it’s pretty good. It’s interesting how they’ll go from topic to topic in an almost nerdy way, rapping about how much Newt Gingrich sucked, and immediately following it up with a verse about Chewbacca. A lot of the songs are like that. After about 30 minutes though, I rather get the point. It’s catchy but it doesn’t blow me away like some of these other albums have. I still really like it, and it is very important, but I think I’m going to give this one a 3. It’s got a lot of prominent and notable covers featured throughout, but my favorite song has to be “Ready or Not”. That song in particular I’ve heard covered so many times, and it’s always good. I had completely forgotten that this was the original. Of course, “Killing Me Softly With His Song” gets a shoutout as well. Masterful performance. The original version was probably shorter, but at an hour and 17 minutes, the album really does start to drag a little bit at the midpoint. Also, can we just talk about the Chinese Restaurant Skit please?? A common trend for Hip-Hop albums is to fill them to the brim with skits, and Lauryn uses a ton of them on Miseducation. This album doesn’t actually have a lot, which I’m thankful for, I don’t usually like them and find that they ruin the flow of a lot of the albums they’re featured in. That being said, again, can we talk about the Chinese Restaurant Skit please???? What the hell is this, lmao. Like, it’s really funny, but why is it here. I don’t really see the point to have it placed where it is, but I will say that it’s very funny, so I’m not complaining about it. Overall, this is a landmark album that everyone should listen to, full of pop culture references, smart rap, and a lot more fun stuff added to the mix as well. Personal enjoyment was just ok, but it’s a very high 3 nearing a 4 for me, and that’s still really good in my book.

What a creepy album cover. Whose kid is that?? Where did you get that kid from Fred, apparently it’s not yours. The most interesting thing about this album is the fact that Fred Neil completely left the public eye to focus on his love of dolphins, and no, I’m not even remotely kidding about that. It’s hilarious, look it up. Bro has an entire song on the album, the first song on the album in fact, fantasizing about his immense love of dolphins. I’ll be honest, I need to fill this review with some filler, because this album is pretty boring and I don’t know how much I realistically have to say about it. Sure, “The Dolphins” has a cool sentimental meaning and it’s a pretty song. I love dolphins as well. Maybe not as much as Fred Neil loves dolphins, but they’re cool as hell, and they’re very smart. However, he makes it all sound just so unremarkably boring and I just don’t care all that much. The good news, is that being an album from the 60’s, this album is only 38 minutes long, and you REALLY feel every second out of those 38 minutes. Mostly you feel like they should be over by now, and why is this song still going, oh god it’s so boring, but whatever. I digress. Sam Neil doesn’t do much for me. The songs are nice and peaceful. They aren’t bad. He’s also got a pretty good voice. But I know I sound like a broken record at this point, they’re unbelievably boring. I don’t think I’ve pointed out enough how boring these songs are. His voice and the very basic Folky tunes in the background lend themselves well to being very boring unfortunately. Every once in a while he’ll get a little more exciting and a cool riff will materialize, like on “That’s The Bag I’m In”, but they’re few and far between, and still not tremendously remarkable even then. In fact, the single little moment on “That’s The Bag I’m In” makes it my favorite song on the album by far, and it’s not even close. Calling “Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga” my favorite would kind of feel like cheating in my opinion, as it’s clearly meant to be experimental and doesn’t reflect the artist’s work as a whole. That would be like marveling at the frame of a painting, you’re really not supposed to do it, even if it’s better than the actual painting it’s surrounding. It is actually a pretty great Raga jam though and might be my favorite song. Damn. Going to break my own rule here and say they’re both my favorite actually. This is such an unremarkable album as a whole though and I will not be returning to it. I gave it a shot. It’s perfectly fine at best, never truly terrible, but it’s boring the entire way through, and that’s worse sometimes. Do I give this a high 2 or a low 3?? Hmmm… I’m not entirely sure. I don’t dislike any of these songs, personally. I just don’t love any of them either, and it didn’t really grow on me. Tough choice with this one today. I guess you’ll find out when you’re looking at the review. Maybe I’ll flip a coin. I truly can not decide if this is a 2 or a 3. Both make such a strong case. I’ll compare it to the other 2’s and see what I feel like at the end of the day. Ok, after listening to it with better headphones, and after some more time with it, it grew on me a bit more. It’s a 3.

Bro!! I’d listen to an entire album of these guys singing nursery rhymes and still give it a 5. God damn the flow is so good on this album. This is the catchiest, most vibe inducing, banger after banger-centric album I’ve ever heard. I love it so much. Every song is great, minus the random bouts of dated homophobia sprinkled throughout. Everyone was doing it though, so I’m not upset about it. Something I’ve learned quickly about myself during this project is that when Hip-Hop is good, I’m liable to just give it a 5 off rip, and this is really good. I was already familiar with Jurassic 5 going in, so some of these I’d already heard before, just not the album as a whole. Furthermore, I’ve heard a lot of solo stuff by Chali 2na, as well as the other band he’s in Ozomatli. Let me tell you something, and I mean it. Of all the rappers featured on this site, he probably has my favorite voice out of all of them. I mean it. It’s deep, and turns anything he says into something amazing, regardless of topic. Again, I’d listen to that dude read anything we wants to. Another, more personal reason I love this album is because of whoever it is that adds some of the sound effects to the tracks. The audio engineer, I guess?? I don’t know, I don’t make music. Anyone who has a good sound man and knows when to sprinkle in some banger sound effects also automatically gets a 5 from me. Public Enemy does it a lot as well, and MFDOOM was famous for it so much that it became a meme. I don’t know why I like it so much. It’s just fun. This album is FUN. Amazing rapping, good energy, good chemistry, good vibes, good beats, good sounds. It’s just really, really good to me and the only thing I can give it is a 5. My favorite song on the album is “What’s Golden” for being so god damn catchy as well as being a good showing of each J5 member. Power In Numbers is great. Jurassic 5 is great. End of story. As of this moment, Hip-Hop has overtaken Rock as my second favorite genre on the site. That’s not something in a million years I would have ever expected to happen, but it goes to show that this website has a metric ton of albums that it markets as Rock that have no right being here at all, and a good amount of Hip-Hop albums that clearly should be on here. There is no realm on Earth that this should be possible, but here we are. I won’t complain about it, it’s all been pretty great so far, and I hope that continues.

Before I begin my in-depth review, I want to peel back the curtains a little bit and take a moment to talk about how I write some of them. On first listen, I’ll just write a bunch of notes down on the review page with my initial thoughts on the songs and the album as a whole as I’m listening to them. As the day goes on, I’ll continue looking at those notes, and if something changes, I’ll adjust them as needed, likely noting what changed when I’m writing my actual review. They’ll always be super short things I noticed like “Love this song”, “Singer can’t sing”, or “Canada isn’t real”. Now, why am I choosing to talk about this for Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette, none of you are asking?? Well, I’m glad you didn’t ask. This album just didn’t do anything for me. It never grew on me at all. I wasn’t sucked in, and I really tried to get into it, but I just couldn’t. No amount of trying to force myself to like it did anything to change the fact that I just do not like her as a singer, on top of just how awfully dated the album sounds as a whole. To go back to what I was talking about before, here are my, let’s call them, pre-drafted notes for this album; “Open with 90’s kid diatribe.””Weird falsetto first song.” “She sounds like a chipmunk.” ”The ratings on this site often have a women tax, how did this one break through that??” “I just don’t love her inflection.” “Shit. So they’re all just going to sound like that, aren’t they??” Enough of the pre-draft notes. You get the point. This album came out the year I was born, and I have a special attachment to 90’s music. Most of my favorite bands are all directly associated with 90’s Grunge. So it’s confusing and bothers me why I high key just didn’t like this album in the slightest. I feel like it should have been something that was right up my alley. I didn’t even enjoy any of the hits all that much. My favorite song on the album was “You Oughta Know”, but when I kind of haphazardly selected it as my favorite, as I was totally done listening to the album at that point and really didn’t want to start comparing songs. Overall, I think there’s a reason I didn’t grow up listening to this. It is for sure not for me, and it hurts giving it a 2, but I’m going to have to do it. Sorry Alanis, I tried. Couldn’t do it. This is one of those few albums that I’m going to disagree with the website on.

It may not be Cosmo’s Factory, but Bayou Country is yet another masterclass album by John Fogerty and the good old boys of Creedence Clearwater Revival. This is the second of 3 CCR albums I have rolled for this project, following the previously mentioned Cosmo’s Factory, which I gave a glowing 5 star review. In comparison to that album, this is like a 3. When comparing it to every other album on the site, it’s an easy 5. In general though, I think a high 4 is warranted. I can’t believe I ever considered giving it a 3 at one point, I was singing out loud at work to nearly every song on this album. In fact, this has to be in contention for the hardest album to pick a favorite song on in general. At the end of the day, I had to do a full tournament style bracket because I didn’t want to count any of them out. I could go for the super obvious fan favorites that everyone knows, “Proud Mary” or the opener, “Born On The Bayou”. The former I’ve always considered rather overrated commercial music, and the ladder one is in contention for favorite song, I’ve heard it a thousand times but it’s still just so good today. I could also go for the super weird but very charming and catchy “Keep On Chooglin’”, despite not knowing what the hell Chooglin’ is. I really think they wanted that one to catch on, and I kind of wish it did. Going to make it a new challenge to randomly start introducing Chooglin’ into my vernacular and randomly try to start Chooglin’ it into places where it doesn’t belong. Nah, not that one. My silver medal this time goes to “Penthouse Pauper”, and it was CLOSE. I think that song is the one I was singing the most. It’s just so catchy, has some awesome riffs, and just the overall story it tells is fun. He makes the guitar literally sing with him, and it’s awesome. It was very hard not putting that at number 1. Taking that spot, at number 1 this time, is none other than “Good Golly Miss Molly”. It might be a bit simple, but it’s also very singable, and the guitar playing on this one rivals their very best, even if it is a cover. The little guitar solo in the middle of the song is just awe inspiring. Best single moment of the entire album. As a whole, this album is very disjointed. The songs don’t really all flow together, but that’s actually why I like it so much, believe it or not. It might not sound like praise, but I hate when albums have a general theme, and all of the songs end up sounding exactly the same because of it. The theme of this album is just “B A Y O U”. Not only do they do a great job of portraying this theme, but they manage to do it in a way where not every song just sounds like a copy and pasted version of the last song. Which is funny, considering the trifecta of rain based songs in their catalogue, none of which feature in Bayou Country. Man. I kind of want to give this one a 5 too to be honest with you. It’s really another great one, and I only have praise for it. Maybe I’ll come rebalance it to a 5 at some point. Who knows?? Either way, this was a hell of a good weekend album and I greatly look forward to Chooglin’ out to their third album on here as well. I started out this project only just knowing CCR by name, and now twice they’ve surprised the hell out of me, especially with how many songs I recognized going in. They won’t surprise me a third time though. I’m going to be expecting excellence the third time, and I’m probably going to get it too.

Man, I’ve been getting a ton of just absolute powerhouse female vocalists lately, and I’m not complaining about it at all. Even if this was just an hour of her singing into a microphone, I’d still probably give it a 4. Tina Turner has such an interesting, unique voice that just makes you want to listen to it at any given occasion. The voice being so prominent does unfortunately mean that a lot of the time I’m not paying much attention to the instruments. It’s very traditional 80’s coded Pop/Rock and isn’t doing anything special. You’re going to be listening to this album for Tina or not listening to the album at all. Hmmm. I might be talking this album into a 3 as I write this review, but even still the instruments are at least catchy, so it’s cool. My only big gripe with this album in general is probably on the record label who uploads these albums to Spotify’s fault. I’m so sick of these classic albums only being uploaded with a bunch of extra songs tacked on to them. If I want to listen to an anniversary, or an extended edition, I’ll do that. But listening to 2 hours of Tina Turner at a time makes it virtually impossible to judge the album Private Dancer as a whole. Which is why I’m going to lean into what I heard being worthy of 4 stars. I don’t even know if my 3 favorite songs on this album were on the album to begin with, and obviously that’s a pretty big issue. Anyway, my favorite songs this time were “Show Some Respect”, “Steel Claw”, and my favorite of the bunch, “Ball of Confusion (with B.E.F.)”. We’re quickly wrapping up a very solid, female centric week of singers who I would return to time and time again, and I wonder if I’m going to get another one tomorrow on Friday to finish off the week strong. Regardless, Tina Turner kicks ass and this album was really, really good. What a freaking badass. She seems like she would be really cool to talk to in person. Of all the artists who have multiple albums on this list, it’s lowkenuinely surprising that Tina only gets this one. I kinda wish she had more to be honest. But I’ll just be happy I got to listen to this one at all, give it a 4 and move on.

I spent the entirety of today listening to this album and thinking it was definitely from the 70’s or 80’s. Which is strange that I didn’t check until writing my review, that’s pretty much always the first thing I do is check the year before listening to an album for the first time. Ok, so it already sounded several years dated when it came out, and there are various levels of Electronica sprinkled throughout the album. I can see why it only has a 2.9. But low score be damned, I for one still got a lot of enjoyment out of this album. Cool singer with some great, catchy, and funky beats, and you've almost got a disco album from 1990 of all times. I really didn’t see that coming, but nonetheless I still enjoyed it. In particular, I liked both version of “Kinky Afro” the most, with the original taking an edge over the Euro Mix. I do question this albums inclusion in the first place, but I can overlook that pretty easily when it sounds pretty good like this. Am I going to remember any of it in a few days?? Nah, but it was fun to listen to today, and I’ve been rolling nothing but actual trash recently so this sounds miraculous compared to the last few days of music. I’ll take a fun Rock/Electronica album any day of the week, even if it does sound like it belongs several decades in the past. Hoping to pull this one out of the 2’s and into the 3’s where I think it belongs. It’s nothing new, but it still sounds really cool, and the singer, guitar and Electronica beats compliment each other well. So, it’s still a 3, just a middle to lower middle 3. Glad I spent the day listening to it, especially after what I’ve been putting up with lately. Even if this will be out of my head just as quickly as it went in, I don’t think it should be as low rated as a 2.9. There’s plenty to enjoy here, and nothing really to criticize except being maybe just a little bland and dated as a whole. Oh boy, they’ve got another album in the book as well with a much lower rating than this. Let’s see if this band that I’ve never heard of until today can impress me for a second time. Until then, this one gets an easy 3 from me. On to the next one.

God damn this was a weird one. The honor of being in the bottom 20 is not an honor granted to most, but out of 1089 albums, some of them have to be the worst. And you know what?? While this was dreadfully awful, this is the first album in the bottom 20 that I’m not going to give a 1. Behind the worst vocals I think I’ve ever heard in my entire life, there’s some cool audio effects and funky riffs going on. I don’t know why this was as bearable as it ended up being, but I managed to spend the day listening to this one, which isn’t something I manage to do to even some 3 star albums. But seriously, I want to know what the hell this dude is doing trying to sing, and what the background is that anyone would think it was ok to continue doing. Even worse, there are 2 of his albums on here, and the other one apparently just BARELY avoided being in the bottom 20 itself, although it’s never too late for that. Despite, again, the singer just sounding dreadful, I was able to tune him out surprisingly pretty easily. This album might be terrible, but there are a few that I’ve heard that I believe were even worse. So somehow, some way, Dub Housing by Pere Ubu feels like it should be a 2 to me. Is that the correct decision?? I really don’t know. But after a while it grew on me in a very strange way, and I grew to, at the bare minimum, find it unique and bearable to get through. Again, the same couldn’t be said about a handful of other albums I have endured so far. My favorite song on this one was almost the titular track, “Dub Housing”, but I like the way the song before that one opens a little bit more, so I’ll give it to “On the Surface”. Did I really enjoy any of this? God no. But it was unrelentingly strange and pulled me in, in a way it definitely shouldn’t have, so I won’t complain. It gets a low 2. Very low. Very, very low. This album caught me on a good day and is liable to be given a 1 star review at any time. I think if I listened to this on any other day, it probably would end up getting a 1. I might change it later. Who knows?? On to the next one.

Courtney Love. I’ll be completely honest, and I know I’m not the only one who’s mentioned this. I only know her as the person who ALLEGEDLY killed Kurt Cobain. Very popular urban legend that persists to this very day. To find out that she was also a singer doesn’t actually surprise me in the least. It’s probably one of the main things that drew Kurt to her in the first place. Not only that, but they both happen to be prominent members of the Grunge community, as was very common in the 90’s, naturally. That’s when Grunge was really created, the Seattle Sound. Anyway, Grunge is one of my all time favorite genres, so I happened to find this album pretty good. Courtney has a great voice that lends itself to Grunge well, and the guitarist also understood the assignment. Billy Corgan, her first ex, was also a composer on this album, and you can really tell. That’s a little strange, but ok. It gives the album a signature sound. I’m here for that. Now, this is pretty much entirely an album of filler past the hits at the top, and I’m not going to fault it too much for that, but it does need to be mentioned. It’s an alright album. It doesn’t really grab me like it should, perhaps my slight reservations to listening to Courtney are too great. I’m just kidding, that has nothing to do with it at all. It’s just very repetitive, and a lot of the filler is very skippable. It’s an easy 3 from me. This is the first of 2 Hole albums I have rolled for this project. Favorite song was by far the opener, which was also the only song I recognized, “Celebrity Skin”. Even then, it’s just alright. That’s my biggest problem overall with this album. I am obsessed with Grunge music, and Courtney can definitely sing. So why does it not really do much for me?? I don’t know. It was fine. Nothing memorable but good enough to spend the day with and vibe out to it. Still very much a 3. But it’s a high 3. Would I return to it?? Actually, yeah. I think I would return to this. While it doesn’t blow me away, I still had a lot of fun listening to this today, and that’s all that really matters in the end.

You know what?? I’m going to just go ahead and give this a 5 star rating and not even remotely feel bad about it, because I don’t care who you are, Adele can freaking sing, and everyone should be able to appreciate this album for what it is. A 21 year old putting on one of the most spectacular performances I’ve heard in a long time. Not only that, but this album has all the hits. “Rolling in the Deep”, “Set Fire to the Rain”, “Someone Like You”, and my personal favorite song on the album, the unbelievably catchy “Rumour Has It”. That’s going to be stuck in my head for at least the next couple of weeks. To imagine someone so young putting out this much heat at that age is unprecedented. She sounds like she’s been singing her entire life to the utmost perfection here, as if she had 30+ years of experience. I will say, it’s hardly original to have an album that’s essentially from top to bottom about breaking up with someone, but to make every song sound as great as it does makes up for that tenfold. This is actually the second and final Adele album I have rolled for this project, following 25, an album that, unsurprisingly, she made when she was 25. I really liked that one also, I gave it a 4 in fact, but it just doesn’t have as many heavy hitters as this one does. I mean seriously, you couldn’t go a day without hearing one of these songs when this dropped. And you know what?? I never gave it a chance. In my fragile little mind, I probably believed I’d have been shunned for listening to this as a straight white guy. But I’m older and wiser now, perfectly comfortable with who I am, and I gotta confidently tell you that Adele freaking rocks. Great pipes, cool instrumentation and some great production. This album is catchy, sad, and just overall really, really impressive. Not just for someone who was only 21 when it came out, but impressive for anyone in general. A few skippable songs towards the end of the album aren’t going to keep this one from being a 5 for me. It’s a 5 for sure. This is really good stuff.

When I rolled this album quickly after waking up this morning, in a daze after a good sleep but excited to see what album was coming up next for the day, a few things happened in tandem. Not necessarily in this order, but all worth discussing. First, the most obvious thing, is that the name of the band as well as the album itself are hilarious. Delirious and barely awake, I did a triple take to make sure I was reading Group Sex by Circle Jerks correctly. I was. Assuming that could only be a Punk album, it is, in fact, very much a Punk album. The next thing I noticed was the average rating. It’s a Punk album with a provocative title and band name, that’s to be expected for anything that isn’t Green Day or The Clash. I paid the low rating no mind and moved on. After all, any of these albums can surprise me. I know that by now. Even Country, rarely. Hardly ever, but it has happened. The final thing I noticed, and this might be the most Punk thing imaginable, was the length of the album. 14 songs. 15 minutes. That’s an average of 1 minute and 4 seconds per song, if that. Ok. So it’s another weird one. Noted. But how does it sound?? That’s the most important part. I haven’t even mentioned how it sounds yet. But you know what?? I don’t mind it at all really. It’s not bad. The short, digestible songs are so short, you’re going to probably listen to the whole album 5 times just to start figuring out what’s going on. And somehow, some way, I even knew one of the songs. Probably because it’s the big hit, but “Live Fast Die Young” I instantly recognized. It’s my favorite song on the album, but I also thought “World up My Ass” was pretty funny and to the point. It’s just so funny to me how short these songs are, and yet they say everything they need to and move on to the next one. None of these songs are spectacular, but they don’t need to be. Together, this is all just one big 15 minute song. The album is shorter than many single songs on other albums, and yet packs in so much in just 15 minutes that it’s kind of charming. Like, I don’t think I would individually go back to specific songs, instead I’d opt to just listen to this whole album a few dozen times if I was in the mood to come back to this. I don’t think I will be, but this was a very unique album in a good, interesting way, and you know for damn sure that this was never boring. It’s packed from top to bottom with 15 minutes of balls to the wall Punk action. And I kind of love it for that. I love that all these silly Punk albums are so short, the genre in general has grown on me quite a bit. If there’s somehow an album shorter than this, it’s probably also going to be a Punk album. But if this isn’t legitimately the shortest album on the site, I will be blown away. Fun one here, I enjoyed it.

More like Everything Butt The Girl. Am I right?? Because this isn’t very good. Ha!! Got ‘em. Ok, real talk. I wanted to make that awful joke about the last Everything But The Girl album but decided against it. This is the second and final album of theirs on the website that I’ll be listening to, following Idlewild. Idlewild I found unrelentingly boring, but I liked the singer. Knowing that, I scoffed at rolling this today, and I figured it would be more of the same. Surprisingly, I actually ended up liking this one instead, proving that some bands can still end up surprising me. Notably, this album is from 1996, and the previous album was from 1988. Clearly, a lot happened to this band between those years, because this sounds completely and utterly different than the other album. It’s more energetic, more full of life and care, the Electronica aspects take a much more prominent front and center roll, and even the singer sounds better. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I would return to this album again after today. The worst thing I can say about it is that I can’t even remotely tell the songs apart, and this album was nearly an hour long, so picking a favorite was much harder, and my reasoning for selecting it was very simplistic. As far as that is concerned, I ended up picking the third song on the album, “Single” as my favorite. When listening to it with headphones, it does some really cool things with the audio channels. That’s it, that’s why I picked it. The way it uses the audio channels was very ear wormy and stood out to me. Of course, the singing and general feel of the song was pretty cool as well, but the audio channel stuff is what makes it the most memorable to me. Alright, I’m brave enough to admit when I’m wrong about a band. I thought I was going to hate this one to be completely honest, but you’d probably expect it to be more like Idlewild if you heard that album as well. This is like comparing apples to sledgehammers though. 2 completely different albums, and yes, I’m glad I listened to this one. It’s going to be a low to mid 3 from me. Nice, relaxing album here with great vibes, and a pretty great singer. Surprised me pretty substantially.

You know, usually, when a band has more than 3 albums on this project, I wonder what the hell the author was thinking. They’ll pick something like Elvis Costello or The Byrds and give them each way more than they justifiably deserve. They all sound exactly the same album to album, and I don’t particularly care for any of them. Now, if you’re a fan of those artists, that’s cool. More power to you. I don’t think they need that many albums on here, but whatever. What do I know?? All that being said, man, I’m about to be very hypocritical when I say I’m glad Radiohead has 6 albums on here. A blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while, and there is a very strong possibility that all 6 Radiohead albums get a 5 from me. The inclusion of these albums gets me very excited to potentially roll another one every week day, and I’ve been waiting quite patiently at that. Following Amnesiac, this is the second of 6 Radiohead albums I’ve rolled for this project. Dude. What can I even say about it?? Rather, where do I BEGIN to talk about it?? Yesterday, Thom Yorke woke up sucking a lemon, and then made a masterpiece of an album about his experience having done so. Jokes aside, what an A+ opener. “Everything In Its Right Place” immediately showcases the sheer vocal talent on display, as well as the trippy and ambient vibes of the album. The best place to begin, naturally, is at the beginning. “Kid A” then goes for a more lowdown, weird, tone setting vibe. Far from my favorite song on the album, but it’s nice to hear where it is. Immediately following that IS my favorite song on the album, “The National Anthem”. If you’ve read any of my reviews at this point, and why would you, weirdo, you’ll know that the songs that rock the hardest are generally always my favorite. The killer guitar in the background being accompanied by a subtle but earwormy riff, and the brass section going mental just make this song freaking rock. The third song in a row with a completely different vibe and sound. It’s hectic, it’s not chill, it’s crazy, it practically screams at you, but god fucking damn is it good. Pardon my French. Or don’t. We don’t know each other. Anyway, after that we’ve got “How to Disappear Completely” and I’m for the 4th song in a row reminded that Radiohead can’t pick a lane. It’s brilliant. After the song that rocks the hardest on the album, the next few take it way down. “How to Disappear Completely” is yet another spectacular masterclass in singing by Thom. It’s chill, puts you at ease, and also eases you into what might be the most relaxing guitar break you’ve ever heard in “Treefingers”, which doesn’t even have any lyrics at all. “Optimistic” is a bit more intense. The guitar and drums come back in a powerful way here. 3/4 of the song is filled with chill singing, and then it transforms in the last minute into something super drum heavy and cool, making a seamless transition between “Optimistic” and “In Limbo” and making it sound like “Optimistic” never ended. I didn’t plan on writing blurbs for every song, but I’m already more than halfway done, so let’s just keep it moving. I don’t think I’ve done this before. It’s fun, and gives me an even deeper respect for the album. If the last few tracks make you at ease and calm you down, “Idioteque” will wake you right back up and make you return to reality. Good mix of drums and vocals on this one. “Morning Bell” then returns to calm you down again, but the lyrics are low key kinda terrifying. It’s like the worlds calmest psychotic break put to music, and just progressively gets more hectic as the song goes on. “Motion Picture Soundtrack” is beautiful. That’s all that needs to be said about it. Finally, “Untitled” is just 52 seconds of ambience and no vocals. A proper artistic send off to a really, really good album that’s probably going to be like, my 4th favorite Radiohead album or something after I listen to all of them for this project. The brilliance of the band is my inherent want to discuss the album from top to bottom. I didn’t have to talk about all of them. But they’re all so cool and interesting, and they’re easy to talk about because of how good they are. God, what a good album. 5 lemons out of 5. 🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

The Cars are yet another one of those bands in which I rolled, and remarked that I’d heard of them before, couldn’t name any of their songs, but somehow also already had one downloaded as well. Half of the album is on their Top 10, yet the only song I already had downloaded was the albums closet, “All Mixed Up”. And you know what?? It’s still my favorite at the end of the day. Probably because I’m already familiar with it, but I just really like the more somber feel to it. It’s super interesting. The background vocals, the trumpet, the way it slowly fades out. It’s a really good song and I think it deserves recognition. Now let’s talk about some of the other songs on this album. First of all, I’d already heard of the first 3 songs on the album before. Not only are all 3 of them bangers, but I had no idea they were performed by The Cars. I do now though. I was listening to this one all day, and I thoroughly enjoy it. Of the first 3 songs, “Just What I Needed” stands out to me as the best. Noticing a pattern, I did a bit of a deep dive on the album. Most of my favorite songs from this album are sung by Benjamin Orr. Benjamin and Ric Ocasek trade off lead vocalist duties on this album, and in tandem they’re both quite good. That might be a big reason why I think the album is so interesting. It’s always staying true to what the band should sound like, but mixing it up song to song in a way that’s very interesting. Of the 2 singers though, I think Benjamin is my favorite. He has less songs to sing, but even “Moving In Stereo” is interesting enough to write about. It’s got a lot of movie soundtrack qualities to it. It just sounds like something you would hear at the end of a movie, it doesn’t have a ton of vocals, but it’s also very much a “second half of the album” kind of song, if any of that makes sense. I don’t know, I just kind of love it. It stands out to me as the most different song on the album, and it’s very musically interesting. Meanwhile, the only song I didn’t like on this album is “I'm in Touch with Your World”. It just kind of annoyed me, and I didn’t like anything about it besides the guitar playing. I think it’s supposed to be strange, and it definitely is. They can’t all be winners, and that was the only song on the album that I would skip if I heard it again. Luckily, it’s followed up by “Don’t Cha Stop”, which is perhaps the catchiest and ear wormiest song on the album. It’s appropriately repetitive, fun, and makes me want to dance, with an awesome guitar hook to boot. Even the album art is pretty fun and memorable. Man. This is a great album. I almost want to give it a 5. The whole thing together is better than the sum of its parts, but the parts are also just really solid. I’m going to revisit this one in the future. It could end up getting a 5 for sure. For now though, let’s call it a 4.8. Loved this one.