Reviews by gingerninja155

Album 301 and already 3/4 of the way done with Pink Floyd. I almost wish these 3 albums were spread out more, so I could enjoy them at more convenient intervals to savor them just a bit longer, but I guess this is just what RNG determined I'd listen to today, and I'm not complaining about it. Anyway, this is album 3/4, following Wish You Were Here and The Wall. A lot of people worship this album religiously. You see the album art on posters, shirts and other places to this day, for good reason at that. It's reached the same status as Nirvana, where some people might just like the design and don't even know what it is. In other words, it's a timeless classic. It's by far the easiest Pink Floyd album to digest, in my opinion. Surface level and new fans can enjoy it without peeling anything back to find deeper meaning, but longtime fans can still recognize and acknowledge how great it is, even if it is still probably like, my 5th favorite Pink Floyd album. Still a 5 with almost no faults though. Maybe just an itty bitty bit of fluff here and there, but like I said, almost no faults. It has a cult like following for a reason. It's so good, and it has what may be the greatest improvised vocal performance in history in "The Great Gig in the Sky". In fact, that little 3 song stretch of "Time", "The Great Gig in the Sky", and "Money" may also be the most legendary trio in music history. All 3 of those songs are phenomenal in their own individual ways, and are for sure my favorite 3 songs on the album. "Time" is a peaceful little melody... for about 3 and a half minutes, then it turns into an acid trippy, incredible solo, ending with an incredible amount of energy by both Gilmour and Waters. The best single moment of this album though has to go to Clare Torry, which is why my number 1 pick for favorite song is "The Great Gig in the Sky". She was paid pretty much nothing for recording it, which is an interesting story in and of itself. The little minute long intro is a good way to inch up closer to the aforementioned improv by Clare. God damn is it good. And then, right after that, you get freaking MONEY!! "Money" needs no explanation. Love it or hate it, it's catchy as heck. The bass, guitar, vocals, music video, background elements, and everything else about it are just so immensely full of energy that putting it as my favorite song almost felt like it would have been cheating, and I almost did it anyway. I haven't even mentioned the greatness of some of the other songs like "Breathe (In the Air)", and I'm not sure I even need to. You get the point. While I'm upset that Animals, Meddle, and Atom Heart Mother didn't make the final cut for the book, it's a literal no brainer to include the other 3 albums I've heard so far. I'd have been just as upset, if not even more so if they didn't get included. The only other album I have yet to listen to for this project is their debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and while I disagree with it's inclusion wholeheartedly, I get that it was likely included to hear Pink Floyd at their most "pure". The author of the book just loves doing stuff like that, and it's usually pretty annoying. Roger Waters may be a loser twat who should stop saying things out loud in public spaces, but I can not deny that his work with Pink Floyd was outstanding. Even if it does make me a bit upset listening to it after the fact, I always find myself coming back to it anyway, usually for months at a time.

Album #300. Quick side not before I begin. I’ve been informed that the correct pronunciation for this artist is “Byerk”, which is significantly less fun than the way I’d been pronouncing it this entire time. On to the review. Oh boy, people do NOT like this one do they?? This is my second Björk album for this project out of 4 total, following 1993’s Debut, which I really liked for being unique and having some cool Electronica components. Multiple years later down the line, we’ve got Medúlla. What did I think of it, you ask?? Well… yeesh, it’s pretty bad. A capella music, first and foremost, is just not generally my bag. I need some actual music in my songs to be interested enough to care. An entire 45 minute long album of it is asking a lot, and it feels longer if it’s not in your language some of the time. I think Björk has a fine singing voice. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s ok enough, but I don’t want to listen to her and 3 others mimicking instruments and breathing heavily for just under an hour. As another review mentioned, they should use that for torture. In fact, this is another one of those albums where reading the reviews is a better experience than listening to the album itself. Something else that didn’t really give me a lot of positive things to say about this album is that it’s got none of her hits at all. I get that the author thought this one was unique, but do you really need 4 of these in total, and specifically add this one, with none of her Top 10 on Spotify on it?? I don’t think you do. So many artists to pick from, but Björk steals 4 entire slots. Returning to the uniqueness of this album, I’ll at least also concede that the concept is cool on paper. Having an Icelander, a throat singer and some beatboxers replace instruments sounds neat enough in theory, but I just don’t want to personally hear it with Björk at the helm. My absolute biggest complaint with this album is actually the underutilization of the aforementioned beat boxers and throat singer. Songs where they’re prominently featured, like “Where Is The Line”, and “Triumph of a Heart”, are easily my favorite on the album, my personal favorite being the closer, “Triumph of a Heart”. I’d personally rather have more of that and less singing by Björk. Her breathiness annoys me, and like I already said, I don’t want to listen to her for 45 minutes at a time when she’s not paired with some instruments. For instance, if “Vokuro” was just the background singers, I’d enjoy the song much more than I do. Other songs where it’s literally just her, like “Oll Birtan”, while a novel concept, annoy me extensively in execution and I end up skipping them. Most other songs are just boring and utterly forgettable. Unfortunately, I didn’t love this album, and I’m a bit skeptical of the other 2. Sorry Björk, this is an easy 2 from me. Neat concept, cool concept even, but not so great on the ears. I want more of the beat boxers next time. Let them shine some more. They kick ass.

Rarely has an album grown on me to quite the extent that this one did, where it started as a 2, and ended up almost being a 4 by the end of the day. This album was a whole ass great vibe. The singer has a very simple but effective singing voice that for sure I had to get used to, but by the end of the day I was singing along to a good bit of the album. Having 22 songs and being an hour and 13 minutes is pretty rough though. I’m only going to remember like 3 of these songs, and some of them are pretty hard to get through in general. That being said, having this play on loop when I was working got me into a flow state so effectively that I almost want to give this a 4 and make it part of my official working music. I won’t do that, because there’s a lot about it that’s not great, but what is great is really really good and stands out. It was actually a surprisingly difficult toss up between 2 songs for my favorite on this album. I added 3 of them to my usual rotation, which I wasn’t expecting to do at all during my first listen, but that’s exactly why I always listen to the complete albums several times in general, it frequently helps me appreciate them more. Works about 90% of the time as well. Honorable mention goes to “Chicago”, which I unbelievably recognized from an old abridged series on YouTube called None Piece. I was seriously not expecting to have heard of any of these songs before, but that one specifically has been used in a few shows and movies I’ve seen as well as the YouTube vid, and most importantly it’s just really peaceful and good. Second place song goes to "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!". It does an effective job in being a bit creepy and ambient, but also has a sick beat, and the singing is extra on point. It’s just a phenomenal song with cool violin riffs and background vocals interspersed throughout. Was tough not putting it at number 1, because even when I was working, I always got excited when it would play again. First place, and it was really really close, goes to “Jacksonville”. I hardly ever give a song the gold metal for being beautiful, but this one actually got me. The trumpet chorus is catchy as hell, the singing is pretty, and the entire song in general is a fun time. It’s been stuck in my head all day. What’s funny about my favorites selection this time is that 2/3 of them are some of the shortest song names on the album. It’s such an oddball choice having song names this long. I don’t know if he’s just trying to be quirky and interesting, artsy, or what, but it’s rather annoying. This album surprised me a lot. I would return to this one, and I actually just might. Never heard of Sufjan Stevens before, but this is a good first impression. Album 300 tomorrow. I’m moving through them, but still have such a long way to go. Still though, 300 reviews is pretty good. Many more to come.

Rhythm Nation 1814 could have been shortened by a good 35 minutes and it would have been a better album for it. I don’t think any of these songs need to be as repetitive and long as they are, and the skits are also rather annoying. This album is over an hour long, and you feel every single bit of it. After a few songs, they all just kind of blend together and always seem to last longer than you want them to. This is a fine album. I’d never complain about having to listen to it, but, I’d honestly rather just listen to Michael instead if I had the option. That might sound harsh, but Janet sounds so similar, it almost sounds like her agent told her she needed to replicate the success of her brother by borrowing his style, but making it worse. All of these songs are fine, and most of them are even quite catchy for the first few minutes, but none of them are very memorable. “Black Cat” is pretty cool though, EASILY the most memorable song on the album. Has an insane guitar solo that comes out of freaking nowhere and sounds like nothing else on the album. It’s surprisingly heavy, and I wish more of the album was like it. “State Of The World” might be a little too preachy, but it’s also probably my favorite song on the album. It’s catchy, and got stuck in my head easily enough. The jazzy outro for “Someday Is Tonight” specifically also stood out to me, I just wish it didn’t have the annoying breathy moaning included. The biggest compliment I can give this album is that the beats more than make up for the repetitive nature of it all. I can live without a celebrity preaching from on high, and the lyrics generally leave a bit to be desired, but the actual singing and beats kick ass. Janet Jackson’s Top 10 on Spotify are a mixed bag of several albums, the only “hit” on this album being “Escapade”, which I thought was just okay at best personally. That being said, this is the only Janet Jackson album on the list, and I really don’t know anything about her. It’s making me want to dig into some more of her discography. And you know what, that’s a pretty big compliment. Thinking back on it now, I’m going to give my favorite on this one to “Black Cat”. It stood out enough that I might even remember it with that killer guitar solo. This album took a little bit to grow on me, but I’m ultimately happy I spent the day checking it out, even if she doesn’t hold a candle in the wind to her brother. Then again, that’s hardly an insult. No one does.

THREE 5 STAR ALBUMS IN A FUCKING ROW!!!! I don't know what I did to deserve this, but the bot just breezed through most of what I was excited to play all in one fell swoop, just like that, with about 800 albums still to go. The only way this could possibly get better is by rolling some more Grunge or Prog stuff tomorrow. Oh man, where do I even begin with this album?? I don't know. First, I’m going to complain. Rage have multiple albums with 0 skips including but not limited to Evil Empire, The Battle of Los Angeles, and even Renegades to a lesser extent. The fact that this is the only album of theirs on here is quite depressing. However, this is also the one with their magnum opus, “Killing In The Name”. It’s also definitely my favorite song on the album, even despite the fact that at least the entire first 2/3 of the album in and of itself is iconic. The creator of this book often picks the wrong albums by the right artists, and while I don’t think I’d have been upset with any Rage album, I think if you had to pick one, yeah, it’s Self Titled. Excellent decision. The album art alone is one of the most iconic in music history, and it’s just a historical event which at this point is more commonly associated with this album than the actual event itself. Déjà vu, I’ve rolled 3 of the most recognizable album covers in a row. Surely I get Nevermind tomorrow, yeah?? Speaking of yesterday, I made a bold statement in my review. I said that I’d hate to follow up the album I had rolled, in this case the Black Album by Metallica. I’ve never been so wrong in my entire life, and I’m thrilled about it. Surely I won’t be lucky enough to have 4 5 star albums in a row, right?? Surely I’m about to go on the worst streak of 1’s and 2’s imaginable. I still haven’t rolled anything in the bottom 20 yet, now may be the time. Back to the actual review, I think Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello deserve more love in general. My God, that duo is so heavenly and unique. Tom just misses the Mount Rushmore of guitarists, but man is he so close. I’m never going to hear a song from him I won’t immediately like, and he’s been everywhere at this point. The weird things he does with his guitar are always a trip. Likewise, the way Zack is consistently able to go from cool and collected to just screaming his fucking brains out is unparalleled to anyone else in the industry. It’s something I can’t explain, and shouldn’t sound as good as it does. Just one dude shrieking into the mic like he does and making it sound like that takes massive talent. This is a certified banger from top to bottom, and I’m glad to have it up on my profile as another 5, in what’s shaping up to likely be my favorite combined week on the site I’ll ever have.

Alright, I'm going to leave this one short and sweet. Not too short, but shorter than my last Metallica review. Metallica is my all time favorite band. While this isn't my favorite Metallica album, it's still a 5, and I've been dying to roll it. I love when the bot blesses me with two 5 star albums in a row. Yesterday, I got freaking Abbey Road, and now I get the Black Album for my weekend enjoyment. This is the second Metallica album I have rolled for this project, following the also very much 5 star album, ...And Justice for All. Ironically, the black/grey snake with the black background is pretty comparable to Abbey Road, as they're both up there with some of the other all time best, most recognizable albums arts of all time. I'd get it on a shirt in a heartbeat. One thing I've started doing because of this project is listening to entire albums from start to finish instead of just the hits. Now, you might find that a pretty ridiculous thing to say, who doesn't listen to entire albums?? Then you realize we're living in an era where you can just do that very easily with things like YouTube and Spotify. I have nothing to base this on, but I'd say a majority of people listening to music these days aren't going to pop on an entire album if it's at their disposal, they'll stick to the hits. Exceptions are going to be made with new albums, of course, but the premise remains the same. That was a long way to go, but the point is that I am VERY familiar with this album top to bottom already. I've heard this whole god damn album 1000 times from start to finish, and it's all good. Picking a favorite when every song is this good is actually impossible. It would be easier just flipping a damn coin. Nobody shreds quite like Metallica, and no one ever will. The chords are immaculate on every single song, from the hardcore rockers, to the softer but still equally heavy hitters like "The Unforgiven". Of course I'm biased because I grew up with them, so I'm always going to judge them a bit differently, but the fact that I've been listening to this my entire life and I can still turn it on whenever to enjoy myself is emblematic of sheer perfection. Some days I want to jam out to "Enter Sandman", others I'll put on "Nothing Else Matters", but then I have to hear the entire album again. It's not possible for me to just put on 1. I've gotta play the whole album. Do you know how rare that is, even with the albums I've rated a 5?? It's pretty rare. So, I'm not going to pick a favorite for this one, because the whole damn album is already in my favorites. Metallica forever. I think that's good enough for now, until the next one that I give a 5. Man, I'd hate to be whatever album follows this one on my list. I guess we'll find out when I vote here in a second. Will we get the fabled three 5's in a row?? It could happen, you never know.

What more could you possibly expect me to contribute to this review that hasn’t already been said about Abbey Road by the Beatles?? Screw it, I’ll try to add something unique. I went to the actual location where the cover was taken a little over 2 weeks ago, and if you pay for it, they have a tour guide take your picture, just for walking across a small part of a road. Imagine needing to pay for that. Couldn’t be me. I was perfectly fine just taking a selfie myself. It wasn’t even like, tremendously crowded or anything, which was a concern of mine. If I was with someone, it would have been easy enough for them to have gotten a better angle as well. The only other Beatles album I’ve rolled so far for this project besides a single solo album for all 4 of the Beatles separately was Revolver, which is another easy 5. Another reviewer mentioned that every single song on this album has a separate page on Wikipedia, and I think that’s more than enough proof that this might very well make a strong case for being the most popular album of all time. Curiosity got the better of me and I had to confirm that the number 1 rated album on the site was the same way. Rumours, which constantly fights with Abbey Road for the number 1 spot on the site, also coincidentally has a Wikipedia page for every individual song. Just goes to show that both albums are goated with absolutely no skips on either. I’ve still yet to roll anything in the bottom 20, but just under 300 albums in, I’ve rolled the top 2 now. Something I didn’t expect when listening to this album, and something I really don’t want to admit, was that I pretty much hadn’t heard any of these songs previously. That genuinely shocked me. I’m far from a random octogenarian who wouldn’t have been able to avoid this album when it released, but I also actively listen to a lot of music, and now I’m questioning if I’m actually a connoisseur for having never heard Abbey Road before. If anything, it made the album more enjoyable to hear for the first time from top to bottom. There’s a little bit of everything here, but my favorite song on the album is a bit of an oddball choice. I’m going to give it to “I Want You (She's So Heavy)”. It’s so different even for the Beatles that, even on this album, I believe it stands out a lot. I’d get excited every time it started up again, which really sealed the deal for me. Anyway, I could talk for hours about how much I enjoyed this album. I didn’t even expect to make the review this long, but Abbey Road deserves it, even if all of this has been said about it before. I’m not going to be weird here, it’s perfect. It’s really, really good. But you knew that already.

Continuing the Joni Mitchell discography in order following “Blue”, then “Court and Spark”, today we have “The Hissing Of Summer Lawns”. 3/4 Joni Mitchell albums down now, just 1 more to go. I didn’t like Blue, as I thought it was boring and I didn’t gel with her voice all that much. The next album, Court and Spark, really surprised me though, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I did Blue. How does The Hissing Of Summer Lawns fare, you ask?? Well, more or less the same as Court and Spark. It's fine. I think I'm actually getting used to her voice now. I don't dislike it as much as I used to. I would still definitively never return to this album, but I never actively wanted to turn it off. It's peaceful, and when it's not boring the hell out of me, it's pretty good. That being said, the first song, "In France They Kiss on Main Street", sets a pretty good precedent for the album, which then proceeds to fall off of a cliff in enjoyment until we hit my favorite song towards the end of the album, "Harry's House/ Centerpiece". Unfortunately, it must be said. This album is painfully boring, and Joni herself doesn't help her case. Some songs are pretty unique, but most of them sound the exact same as any other Joni Mitchell album. She has such a specific way of singing that works in small doses, but an entire 42 minute long album of it is a lot to go through. I don't know man, if you're into this kind of stuff, that's cool with me. I think it's fine personally, but I can only handle it in small doses. It's undeniably pretty boring and forgettable, which as I always say, doesn't make it bad, just nothing to write home about. The background elements and instruments in "Harry's House/ Centerpiece" actually did resonate with me though, Joni's voice be damned. It's easy enough to drown it out. Not tremendously easy, but easy enough to let the song stay enjoyable. Well, I think at the bare minimum I've gotten use to her style. Not enough to really call me a fan, but enough that I can give this a 3 instead of a 2 and not feel bad about it. I haven't actually returned to Blue since the day I heard it. I know that's considered by many to be her magum opus. Curious if I would still give it a 2 if I heard it again now, but also don't know if I care enough to go back and re-judge it. Well, one more of these to go. Will she finish off strong?? Only time will tell. This one wasn't terrible, and had a few good moments, but none that are going to stick with me after today.

First things first, this album is not meant to be taken seriously. For the love of God, it’s called “Dr. Octagonecologyst”, you should know exactly what you’re getting into with a name like that. It instantly plants itself into an oddly specific niche of music listeners who enjoy geek culture, low hanging fruit, and Hip Hop. Unfortunately, this naturally makes it immensely inaccessible to most of the people who would end up listening to it. The second thing I very quickly picked up about “Dr. Octagon”, AKA Kool Keith, is that he sounds a L O T like Deltron Zero. The third thing I noticed, is that the skits on this album are fucking hilarious. It’s not often I enjoy the skits on these rap albums, but conceptually they work just fine here, and actually end up enhancing the album as a whole. The skits on this album follow the exploits of the titular Dr. Octagon. They are as absurd as they are funny, and they are also undeniably 90’s coded, which makes them extra special to me. This album isn’t perfect. It’s way too long for what it is. Keith is a pretty good rapper with a great flow, but he doesn’t always hook me on all these songs. Plus, none of them were good enough to save. I still really liked listening to this album, especially my favorite song on the album, “Bear Witness”, and I would even return to it if I heard it naturally, but it wouldn’t be something I would feel the need to go back to specifically. I’m a sucker for record scratches, and “Bear Witness” had it in bunches. It also did an interesting job of blending Electronica with Hip Hop, as did a lot of the album in general. The best parts really are the skits though. If I was going to save a song just to enjoy laughing at occasionally, it would have to be “General Hospital”. Just the ending alone had me wheezing. The line “Fuck it he’s dead. Oh shit, there’s a horse in the hospital” is going to be stuck in my head for at least a week. For better or for worse, but mostly for better, the skits give this album so much life that, unlike a lot of the Hip Hop albums that I even notably enjoyed, I’m likely to remember this album for a good bit longer than I would without them. This one gets a high 3 nearing a 4 from me. Going to give it a 3.9/5. It made me laugh a few times, it’s got a fun concept, and the rapping is good, but the rapping isn’t tremendously memorable, and the premise starts to run thin over an hour into the album’s 1 hour and 5 minute playtime. Still though, I really liked this one, but I completely understand why it’s rated as low as it is.

Well well well. 3 star, dime a dozen, generic but not altogether terrible Rock album that doesn’t bring a lot to the table and is getting progressively harder to write a unique review for, we meet again!! Ok, so, this grew on me quite a bit. I’m being very harsh on this album. I do actually really enjoy it, perhaps calling it generic is a bit harsh. It is from the late 60’s. Listen, with a voice like this, and one of the genres being listed as Country, it’s going to be a hard sell for me. Luckily, this isn’t really Country at all, just Rock with a southern drawl. I don’t love it, and I wouldn’t return to it, but it’s not terrible. There’s a lot of filler, lot of songs I think are safe to skip, and even the “hits” aren’t my favorite part of the album. Ironically, for a good portion of the hit “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, I think the lead singer sounds like Kermit the Frog. Not only is it genuinely distracting, I just don’t love how it sounds unfortunately. Instead, my favorite song on the album is easily “Rag Mama Rag”, which is a pretty swinging good time. It’s actually catchy, with an additionally catchy little piano flourish. “Jemima Surrender” isn’t terrible either, the beat is catchy, I just don’t love the singing. More of Kermit on that one, but when he’s not singing, the song is pretty great. Any of the songs where the frog runs wild I just can’t take seriously. Nothing against him, it’s not terrible, just really not for me. This is the first of 2 The Band albums I have rolled for this project. Unless the next one is simply terrible, I think I can predict it will also safely be a 3, like this one is. Safely, and unequivocally, a 3 star album. I am glad I listened to it though, and I’m thankful it really wasn’t actually a Country album at all, otherwise it would probably be a 2. To conclude this review, I also find it worth mentioning that for a name like “The Band”, I’m surprised it took until the late 60’s for a band to start calling themselves that, assuming these guys were actually the first to do so. I just find it hard to believe it took so long. Funny though. Banger band name, so they’ve got that going for them. Memorable band name, not as memorable music.

You know what?? I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been having somewhat of a low streak on this site for the past few weeks or if it’s something entirely different, but this album really resonated with me. First of all, there’s not one skip in the entire album. As this was my weekend album, it took me 3 entire days to even pick a favorite song, and man was that a hard decision. I only have a base level knowledge on Duran Duran, but have enjoyed what I’ve heard so far. Mostly, I just associate them with the Metal Gear Solid meme, which is an all time banger, but this album unironically slaps. The background elements are the first thing that pop out at you for every single song. They’re upbeat, a bit weird, CATCHY, and make you want to dance. Then the bass kicks in. Oh man, does this album have some sexual bass playing. Top it off with the lead singer and cool guitar playing, and you’ve got a near perfect album. I don’t know man, this one just did it for me, and I won’t complain about it. My favorites from this one, all of which are going into the frequent rotation, are “Last Chance on the Stairway”, “My Own Way”, “Rio”, and my favorite song on the album, “Save a Prayer”. It was tough picking from those. Really, really tough. My favorite could change at a moments notice, but I had to pick one, and that was the one that spoke to me at the moment. I’m bummed this is the only Duran Duran album on the list, but it’s accomplished the main goal of all artists and made me want to seek out more of their discography. That’s pretty much the highest blessing I can give. Thank God I got something good to round out the week, let’s hope this kicks next week off just right as well. In retrospect, I think I would have given this a 5 regardless, it’s just right up my alley, and I love it for that. 9 songs, 42 minutes, and I added 4 of them to my frequent rotation. Wouldn’t skip any of the other songs. Yeah man, any way you slice it this is still a 5 star album in my book, would return to this one for sure. Nothing wrong with that. The streak is over, I’m giving this one a 5.

Delightful little album. It appears that, based on reading a lot of the reviews, the only reason this album is rated as poorly as it is is because it's the Bee Gees not doing Disco. While I wholeheartedly agree that it would have been a nice inclusion to the book, and I'm a bit confused as to why this album as well as another pre-disco album was included as well, this album is not bad by itself. Plus, I was just in Trafalgar Square last week. While it would have been very cool to roll this album then, the week after is still a pretty fun coincidence. Anyway, as all Late 60's, Early 70's albums are, there are some Beatley aspects to this one. It's interesting hearing this band perform Soft Rock instead of Disco, and I think it really does work. I was also surprised to have recognized the first, and my favorite song on the album, "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart". I also really liked the titular "Trafalgar". Overall, I'm not going to remember this album in a week, but I still enjoyed spending the day listening to it, and I wholeheartedly disagree with the low rating. At 47 minutes long, it does overstay it's welcome just a little bit. It also doesn't bring anything new or interesting to the table, but that doesn't mean it's bad. The singer has a great voice, the mood is upbeat and cheery, and the instrumentation more than does enough to bring this album up to a very easy 3 rating. Not every album needs to be high energy to be great, and this album is a good example of that. If I wanted to just relax, perhaps go for a nice walk in the park, I would absolutely return to this album. It's mostly filler that blends in with itself, and absolutely nothing reached out and grabbed me, but it's far from terrible filler, and I love the vibes. That's all that really matters. I'm still confused why there are 2 Pre-Disco Bee Gees albums on this list, but it was cool to hear what they sounded like before that, even though this is inexplicably also their ninth album. Wow. They must have put out a metric ton of albums over their careers. Shoutout to my dude Trafalgar Law. He knows what's up.

How to ruin multiple genres at the same time by making them all sound like generic Country garbage. With a name like The Flying Burrito Brothers, I was hoping for something more than what we got with this one, especially with an album name like "The Gilded Palace Of Sin". How do you have an album name that cool and then spend a majority of time just sounding like your average, run of the mill Country drivel?? I really have to say, it's impressive how they can almost make some of the songs work, but still put a Country spin on it to make it still sound bad anyway. The 2 notable exceptions are both Hot Burrito songs, "Hot Burrito #1", and my favorite song on the album, although they pretty much come neck and neck as a pair, "Hot Burrito #2". Those songs have a psychedelic lick to them, and even with the singing, sound good enough to bump this album up from a high 1, to at the bare minimum a 2. I'd love to give it a 3, but 2/11 songs being bearable isn't great. I don't hate the guitar playing in the intro, "Christine's Tune", but it's overshadowed by my intense dislike of the singer. Every song sounds the same besides the aforementioned burrito songs, which is a shame, because "Psychedelic Country" actually sounds like a somewhat interesting combo I'd be down to hear. It's a shame it's only used so sparingly, and now I have to have the sub-genre take an unnecessary hit on my profile by giving this album a 2. Been a while since I had a 5, would be nice. Instead, I'm left with a concept that while unique, falls flat on it's face right from the beginning, and never recovers sans a duo of outliers buried deep into the album, which despite being a great length of 37 minutes, feels like it lasts an hour. It's always a struggle getting through Country albums, but at least this one had the gall to be different in a few places, and when it is different, it actually works. Unfortunately, it's not nearly enough. This is a very comfortable 2 stars out of 5, and I can also comfortably say I won't be returning to The Flying Burrito Brothers. Such a good name, wasted on whatever the hell this was. Whatever, there can only be so many bad Country albums on the list. Better to just get them out of the way as fast as possible to make more room for the good stuff.

Now this album truly surprised me. Coming in and breaking the 9 day streak of adding 0 songs to my frequent Spotify rotation is “Forever Changes” by Love. Love. That’s the band name?? Never heard of them. This album hits a sweet spot genre wise of some of my favorite genres and time periods. A 60’s era psychedelic rock album happens to be exactly what I’m looking for. There are approximately 2 songs I don’t love because of the singer being weird, notably “Andmoreagain” and “Live and Let Live”, but the rest of the album is great. The psychedelic licks are a little few and far between, but when you get them, it’s pretty great. The little yell the lead singer does that leads into a trippy solo in “A House Is Not a Motel” has to easily be my favorite song on the album, and is good enough to be added to my frequent Spotify rotation. Finally, the bot has not been feeding me anything replayable lately. If there’s something I would consider my least favorite part of this album, it actually is the lead singers voice. If I loved it, this album might get a 5 from me. It’s not bad, but he does make a few songs worse with his lyrics. They’re a little bizarre over the course of the entire album and never really make sense. But if I focus more on the music itself, I can look past it enough to give this album a very low 4. I’m satisfied with that. This is the first of 2 Love albums I have rolled for this project, and a very impressive first showing from this one. Yet another band I’ve never heard of before getting multiple inclusions on the bot. If I didn’t love this album, I’d complain more about that, but this time it gets a pass. I may even go back and give this one a 3 at some point, it’s the best thing I’ve rolled in several days, but I also haven’t exactly been rolling heat lately, so we’ll see. I don’t know if I’m truly satisfied with a 4, but it would have been a pretty hard decision to rank this one to begin with. It just happens to perfectly fall into the category of genres that I enjoy listening to, with very few exceptions. Best aspect, the music. Worst aspect, the singer. But even he’s not terrible, so I can look past it. It’s a 4 for now, but I still don’t know if I’m actually cool with that. We’ll see if it stays that way, but it’s liable to change later.

Oh, good. Elvis Costello is back again for the second of 6 times in total for this project. When we last left off, I had just heard "This Year's Model" from 1978, his second highest rated album on the site. Today, I'm rolling the highest rated and earliest of the 6 albums, 1977's "My Aim Is True". I'd called the previous album, and I quote, a poison pill. I had predicted 6 Elvis Costello albums with a 1 or 2 star rating approaching, especially considering that ratings wise, it only goes downhill from here, and pretty rapidly so. I was quite certain that if any of his albums sounded like that, I'd be having a really bad time. What I did NOT expect from this album though, was that I'd actually end up enjoying it quite a bit. My biggest complaint with Elvis Costello is the way he sings and emphasizes words. The inflection he puts on every-uh, wor-duh is just-tuh so-wa, annoying-ha. Literally nails on a chalkboard. However, much to my surprise, he sings kinda normally on this one, and it makes it SO MUCH better. I don't know how or why he picked that annoying inflection up and just ran with it a year later, but I really hope his other albums are more similar to this one than his next album, because I wasn't even remotely miserable with this one. The songs are graciously short, the album is only 36 minutes, and as previously stated, he doesn't put the annoying emphasis on every word. There are even a few songs I like a lot. My favorite of the bunch this time is "I'm Not Angry", as it was catchy, and just kinda rocked as a whole. The ladder half in general was better on this one, which seems pretty rare. I still can't say I'm excited to roll the other 4 albums, but if this is the absolute best he can do, it's not terrible. Hilarious that it's his first album though. Him at his most pure, before he morphed into whatever terrifying monstrosity he quickly became to deserve 6 low rated albums on this bot. It's still very clear that one of the authors is a fan, and that's fine, but this should be his only album on here. I like it well enough, still don't like his voice at all, but the guitar playing and beats are pretty cool on this one, and his voice is even bearable enough that it doesn't bug me at all. It's not an amazing album, but it's likely going to be the best of his I'll get to hear. And it's a very easy placement at 3 stars. Yikes. If any of the other 4 are better, I'll gladly eat my words, but I just don't see it getting any better than this very average album. So, we'll find out. For now, I'm still shocked to be giving this one a 3 at all. We'll see soon enough how the other albums hold up, but I'm still fully expecting more 2's and maybe even some 1's on the horizon. It brings me no pleasure to say that I really just can't stand this guy.

What kind of sub genre do you prefer with your Ray Charles music?? Blues or Jazz?? This question is very relevant in determining which Ray Charles album you’ll prefer to listen to on the site. This is my second of 2 Ray Charles albums I’ve heard for this project, following the more Blues themed “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music”. By contrast, “The Genius of Ray Charles” is much more Jazz themed. That being said, both albums are unmistakably Soul music first, and still 100% the type of Ray Charles music you’d expect in both cases. While this one is much shorter and tighter than Modern Sounds, I’m a bigger fan of Blues than I am Jazz, and nothing really hooked me on this one. Everything is great on this album, I want to make that abundantly clear, but nothing blows me away. It’s also basically the same tempo for nearly 40 minutes. It works well, and the songs don’t end up sounding samey, but you really do get the point very quickly. If you love it, you’ll really love it. If not, it’s just kind of ok. I love and respect Ray Charles, especially his voice. You listen to him for the voice, and the voice alone. Everything else is a bonus. That being said, the “everything else” in question just isn’t really my thing. It’s fine, but nothing special that would make me want to personally come back to it. Emphasis on personally. If my metric for an album was based only on singing, this is a 5. If it was based on what I believe a professional review would be, it’s a 4.5. On my own personal enjoyment, which is what I’m using in reality, it’s a high 3. I really love the boisterous, paradey sounding intro song “Let the Good Times Roll” the most out of the other songs. Reason being is that it was uplifting, fun, and memorable. It’s like something you’d hear playing in the streets for Mardi Gras or during a victory celebration for your local sports team. The other songs, while still undeniably great, aren’t going to be stuck in my head as much. A little too light for my personal enjoyment, and surprisingly a bit of a downer feeling in general. I don’t know if the album was made this way intentionally, but the first half is much more Jazzy and uplifting, while the second half is much slower and less interesting in my opinion. I much prefer the first half to the second half. Oh well, that’s a pair of 3 star reviews for the great Ray Charles. An undeniable goat of a singer, but not one I’d actively seek out to listen to personally. Still, this was an awesome weekend album and I’m glad I was able to check it out to see what this legend is capable of.

Going to come at you with a hot take fresh out of the oven. I think the cutoff for this bot should be 1960 as far as how old an album is allowed to be to still qualify for the book. Listening to this album was kind of a chore, and now I’m forced to give it a bit of a pass for being as old as it is. The only difference between me giving this a 3 star today and a 1 star is that it came out in 1957 and not the 2000’s, which helps me appreciate it just a tad bit more. I’m not saying good music didn’t exist before the 60’s. Far from it in fact. However, listening to this today, I’d actually just straight up list this as Classical music, instead of Pop/Rock. Some albums are dated and good. Others are just dated and should stay in the past. This album is both. If you like this sound, I’m sure this album is going to be great. However, I think you need to be about 80 for the desired effect. Yes, Buddy Holly is legendary. He was an important Rock pioneer kept alive solely off of a lyric in a Weezer song, so obviously he has a place on this list. I do still think the cutoff should be 1960 though. This album is fine. It’s unbelievably repetitive, I barely know when the first song starts and the next one ends. They’re all about women as well. He’s either looking for one, taking care of one, being slighted by one, or just talking about them for whatever reason. And that’s on just about every single song. It’s almost maddening. “That'll Be The Day” and “I'm Lookin' For Someone To Love” for sure don’t break that mold either, but I’d say they’re my favorites on this album. The sole reason for that is because of the fun classical little guitar riffs they share. It also helps that they’re right after each other on the album. My favorite of the 2 is going to go to “That’ll Be The Day”, the background vocalist seals the deal and makes the song more interesting. There’s only so much I can say about an album like this that isn’t just a history lessen. My profile has a sharp red line for 50’s albums, and I think it’s because you need to be older to even appreciate them fully. This one wasn’t terrible, but I have no reason of return to it. It was mostly just homework, but still far from terrible. Maybe Elvis gets higher than a 3?? Don’t know, haven’t rolled him yet. If anyone from the 50’s can do it, that would be the guy. Buddy Holly doesn’t really do it for me though, and he’s also a legendary performer. Alright, that’s it. That’s the review for today.

I know this isn’t exact the best place to say this, but for lack of a better space, it’ll do just fine. I’m on the home turf of the blokes who made the book this entire site is based on this week, and I’ve had the time of my life so far. I think one of the funniest coincidences that keeps happening is listening to music on pub speakers, car radios, hotel lobbies or just anywhere else that has music playing, and then hearing something I’ve only heard of because of this site. Without fail it has made me laugh several times now. Anyway, I was taking a lovely walk in the park to accompany my first few goes around of this album today. To say that might have unintentionally bumped up my rating of this album by a good bit would be an understatement. I think on an average day this album would be a 3. However, today was really special. Listening to this very calm music while walking in a beautiful garden in a foreign country had me quite emotional. I’ll actually remember this entire album fondly, but not just for accompanying me on my walk. Slower albums like this are general misses for me, but this one hit a bit different. I loved the lead singer and backup singers voices so much, I actually ended up with several favorites here. There’s some filler along the way, in fact, I think most people would end up calling this album filler in general, but a few songs really didn’t do much for me. That keeps it safely from a 5, especially on a 53 minute long album, but I even feel like 4 is maaaaaaaybe a little bit too generous. Looking at my favorite songs though, and taking into account how this album made me feel on my killer walk, I think it’s more than justified. Sticking with a 4. Now, the mini elephant in the room is that I’ve never heard of this band before. This is the first of 2 Doves albums on the list, and I practically guarantee the second album gets a 3 if it more or less sounds just like this. I would enjoy that though, as this album is great in and of itself. My favorites are “Words”, “M62 Song”, and “Pounding”. Giving the edge here to “M62 Song”. It’s short, sweet, and beautiful. Going to be stuck in my head for a while. Sometimes an album that’s not your usual vibe really just hits you in the right way. Today was one of those days. Great stuff with this one.

I was so god damn sick today that I was legitimately seeing things that weren’t there in front of me. I needed something to take my mind off of things that I could jam out and or relax to. Then, this album started. Man, now that I’m not as sick as I was earlier, I really gotta tell you that listening to this album may have been the wrong call given my delirious condition. What the hell did I just listen to?? Genuinely. What do you even define this as?? This is a bizarre album, the first riff gave me hope that it was going to be something interesting, but as it continued, I just kept getting more and more confused. “Girl” has an interesting sound, but I don’t think I needed to hear the singer making sex noises for the better half of 4 minutes. Similarly, I like every element of “Frankie Teardrop” besides the singer, who ruins that song to a degree I would justifiably say is unfair. That was just the worst. He literally screams out of nowhere, LOUDLY, multiple times over the course of over 10 minutes. You heard that right. That terrible song is 1/3 of the entire album. So, this album isn’t in the bottom 20 rated on the site, but based on a majority of people giving it a 1 or a 2, it sure is close to it. You know, hours later, I still don’t know what the fuck this is… but I don’t hate it either. The singer, I hate, I rather hate him a lot actually, but I can get behind the beats. When I was looking for something different, the monkeys paw unfurled and I got it here. Upon reading the Wikipedia for this album, it apparently inspired Bruce Springsteen, which seems necessary for me to mention, because how the hell is that real?? I can’t fathom how this would inspire him even remotely. Did this band evolve from this sound, was this different than what they played before, or did they pioneer and then continue making this weird noise. I kinda hate that I’m curious about it, because now I’m going jump to another one of their albums to find out. In any case, I think the opener has the least amount of incessant annoying baffle. Favorite on this one is going to go to “Ghost Rider”. As for the rating in general, I might give it a slight pass for being experimental from the 70’s. I kinda enjoy weird shit like this. Would I ever return to it after today?? God no, but I was happy to return to it when my head wasn’t spinning like a top. While it was though, that was a whole experience in and of itself. What a weird fucking album this was. Next please. I can’t believe I’m giving this one a 3, that might be more than it deserves honestly.

Tom ❤️. Tom Petty may be one of my favorite musicians of all time. The inclusion of him at all on this list is good enough, but man is it pretty upsetting that with all his hits, only the debut album makes the cut. Tom Petty may very well be a “hit or bust” kind of artist, as a grand majority of this album is honestly just filler, but it’s still enjoyable enough all the way through to warrant a high 3. I’ll give it a 3.8 because I love Tom Petty, but in this instance it’s more of as a person than an artist. Besides the hits, this album just doesn’t hit very hard. At the bare minimum, his voice is on point for every song. No one could sing quite like Tom, his voice was simply iconic. While I’m happy to hear this album, it breaks my heart that the only Tom Petty album on here is this underwhelming. Anyone who hasn’t heard “Mary Jane's Last Dance”, as well as the accompanying music video, you should do so. They’re both phenomenal, bummed I don’t get to check out that album. I know everyone loves “American Girl”, and believe me, I’m one of them, but my overwhelming pick for favorite song here is “Breakdown”. Newly added to my playlist though, is “Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)”. Chalk that one as yet another reason I’m happy to be using this site. Also, can we talk about the length of this album?? It’s literally only 30 minutes long. While a lot of that admittedly is filler, that’s still a LOT to pack into 10 great songs. Very, VERY much like Bowie, Tom Petty might have spread his bangers over the course of several albums, but I still wish he’d have been included in the book more than just once, as again, it breaks my heart (You see what I did there??) that I have to give this one a 3. Was hoping to include him in my “Favorite Artists” section for the profile, where he rightfully deserves to be. Anyway, this one is a 3. Later Tom, and thanks for the fun jams here!!