Reviews by gingerninja155

Almost 300 albums in, and yep, still don’t understand Jazz in the slightest. This is fine at best and annoying at worst. Don’t really have much at all to say about this one other then I’m glad it was only 38 minutes long. There wasn’t much I’d say was cool about this Cool Jazz, it just sounded like more of the same to me. That is, underwhelming. Favorite song, if you can call it that, goes to “Take Five”, as it didn’t give me a headache. I really just don’t know man. If I was a Jazz major, I might think this is really good. Alas, I am not. Technically it’s all fine, but if you don’t really enjoy Jazz, this just sounds like every other Jazz album on the site. I’m never excited to roll these, I’m never going to say “Hell yes, I rolled some Jazz today!!”, and this is yet another prime example in many of that. There are times, specifically during the first time, where the lack of uniformity truly does give me a headache. For that reason and so many more, it’s going to be a 3 star for me. I just don’t get Jazz, and it’s always consistently the hardest to write reviews for. How would you even?? Oh yeah, this one sure is good with it’s lack of organization and musical structure. The way the notes come out sure happens alright. I don’t know man. It was fine, but much like every other Jazz album, I’ll forget it by tomorrow. Is that the point of Jazz, to forget it, or is it supposed to actually stick with you?? Not sure. Don’t really care enough either to find out. This is borderline classical music, and it has its place in history, but should stay there in the past, forever, where it belongs. Until the next Jazz review, which will be even harder to write a unique review for. Goodie.

Were it not for the singer, I think this would be in strong consideration for a 4, or perhaps even a 5. I’ve come to a quick and sudden realization during my time participating on this awesome bot. That realization is that I really do not like Punk singers a good majority of the time, but god damn do I love Punk guitarists. Imagine the coolest song you’ve ever heard, any good song will do. Now imagine some absolute wanker is singing in a rather annoying and nonsensical manner over it. That would suck, right?? That’s this album for me. I’ve never heard of The Saints before, who are coming straight out of Australia, and on first impression I can’t say I’m very impressed. Not outright upset or disappointed, but far from impressed. Not liking someone’s voice for me is always going to instantly start an album at the baseline of a 2, so congratulations I guess for having amazing guitar and drum players on the squad. Seriously though, apologies to the singer. I just can not take him seriously, and he ruins legitimately every song on this album. If it wasn’t for him, picking my favorite song would be easy. The riffs in “(I'm) Misunderstood” are awesome, but I wouldn’t return to it just for the riffs. Instead, now I have to judge my favorite based on the song where he’s the least intrusive. I believe that a grand majority of my favorite songs from this project have been the first song on the album, and I’m going to continue that tradition now. My pick for favorite is going to be going to the opener, “Know Your Product”. With a better singer, or better yet, no singer at all, I think this album might be something truly special. Instead, it’s just yet another barely middle of the road 3 star Punk album that I’ll forget about before my head hits the pillow tonight. I’m only disappointed I couldn’t hear those sick guitar riffs uninterrupted, there’s some pretty good material here. If only I liked Punk singing, but alas, I do not. Still a 3 though, so far from being a terrible album.

Ambient 1/Music For Airports does what it sets out to accomplish perfectly, and that’s why I don’t really like it. Listen, when I want to relax with an album, I’m going to play something like Metal or Grunge. I get the people who can work with this on, but to me it’s just boring and has no substance, which also ends up making it distracting, ironically. I’m just not into it at all. This was a critically important album for the birth of Ambient music, but I don’t really like a lot of Ambient music in general, so this was always personally going to be a hard sell. The crazy thing is, this is the second Brian Eno album I’ve rolled within a week. This is my second of 5 Brian Eno solo albums for this project, following “Here Come The Warm Jets”. That album was surprising in that it featured Brian Eno, who has a very peculiar voice, performing all manner of different genres of Rock, Pop and even a little bit of Jazz. I ended up giving it a 5 and mentioned being excited to check out the rest of his stuff. I’m aware now that Brian Eno was known for pioneering this genre, and now I don’t know what to expect from his 3 other solo albums on the site. Again, I understand that this album is meant to be unobtrusive and fade into the background. And again I say, unfortunately, it succeeds in doing so. 279 albums in and I’ve come to my very first “Controversial” artist. I didn’t think it was going to happen, but here we are. I can see why someone would like this, but I’m never going to be caught dead vibing to most ambient or Lo-Fi music. It’s just never been my thing and unfortunately, this album only enforced that belief. Even when I’m sleeping I’d rather listen to something else. Sorry Brian. Still curious to listen to your other albums, but now I’m also a little cautious as well. Didn’t love this one, but it succeeds perfectly with what it’s trying to do and it’s historically relevant. I’m not mad that I listened to it, but I very quickly needed to turn it off and absolutely will never return to it. I liked the last song, “2/2” the best because it felt very space-y. In yet another fun instance of immediately hearing an artist I’d only just learned about from this bot out in the wild, the animated show Invincible prominently featured a Brian Eno song in Season 4. Always very cool hearing an artist like that, I hope that trend continues. Anyway, yeah. Didn’t like this one, sorry about that.

Well then, a Stephen Stills solo album. One of two in the book even. This is my first experience with Stephen Stills outside of the context of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Based on the low score, I really had no idea what I was going to be in for, and having listened to it, I can say it’s pretty damn close to a 4 star album. Not quite there yet, but I don’t get why it’s rated so low. Sure, some of these songs are pretty boring. He’s not Neil Young, not many people can be. But as a solo artist, he’s still got a lot to bring to the table. Notably, guest musicians. I’d really love to know how my 2 favorite songs on this album came to be. “Old Times Good Times” has Jimi Hendrix come out of nowhere to play guitar, and “Go Back Home” has Eric Clapton playing guitar. These are the only songs each respective guitarist plays on, and they’re right after each other on this album. What the hell???? Not only does that feel very random, but it’s specifically what pushes this album to almost be a 4. It’s actually quite jarring when you come to the realization that yes, you did just hear those 2 back to back on an album, and yes, the album did just continue on like normal, as if it didn’t just hit you with some of the coolest shit imaginable. The rest is just alright at best and boring at worst, but it’s way too slow for my personal liking. Some great chords come through occasionally, but this album is mostly just pretty as a whole. It’s got great features by Crosby and Nash, but not much that I’d personally return to. “Black Queen” is a pretty neat song, as it exemplifies how good of a singer and a guitarist Stills is by himself. I actually did enjoy that song a lot as well. “Cherokee” feels like an acid trip and is also kind of neat. Having a running time of 38 minutes is actually the perfect length for this album, as it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Going on to my favorite song on the album, it’s genuinely hilarious that I’d have to pick between 2 of the best guitarists in human history as my favorite song on someone else’s album, but I’ve gotta give the edge to Jimi here. I’d actually heard “Old Times Good Times” previously, but his immaculate guitar playing mixed in tandem with the cool singing truly elevates this one to goated status. This song particularly works better as a tandem in my opinion, and it just ROCKS as a whole. That isn’t to say that “Go Back Home” doesn’t absolutely rock itself though. Eric Clapton can do no wrong, and this song proves it. There was a point in the day where I considered giving this a 4, but I came to my senses when I realized I only really loved those 2 songs, and not even strictly because of Stills. Again, it’s a fine album as a whole. He’s a great singer, but besides the classic “Love the One You're With” and my 2 favorite songs on the album, you can kind of take or leave the rest. Nevertheless, this album was an enjoyable time, and my first taste of Stills music has me wanting more. Fun album if not just a little teeny tiny bit too slow at times. Immensely front loaded, and then a whole lot of filler. Not necessarily bad filler, just kind of unmemorable as a whole. But when I tell you those 2 guitar solos are worth the price of admission, you best freaking believe it. This was a really neat album to check out, and I’m very glad I listened to it today.

Now here’s an album I can really start the week to!! I am very familiar with this band, but not really this album. I don’t actually recognize any of these songs besides “Roadhouse Blues”. Could be the reason this is the lowest rated of the 3 The Doors albums on the site. I think that’s a strong possibility. Speaking of, this is also the first of 3 The Doors albums that I’ve listened to for this project so far. I have 6 of the Top 10 Popular The Doors songs saved to my Spotify already, and I’m looking to add some more soon. The big hit on this one is the opener, the previously mentioned “Roadhouse Blues”. What did I think of it?? It’s peak, obviously. You’re never going to find me saying a single bad thing about Jim Morrison. In fact, I would argue he’s one of the best singers of all time. I don’t know what it is about these guys, they’re just a special level of iconic that most other bands strive to be. You can tell them apart easily from everyone else even if you don’t know you’re listening to a song by them just by listening to the lead vocalist. If it’s still not clear, perhaps the organ, drums, or unique guitar riffs will job your memory. I don’t know, it’s just so freaking cool. I love these guys. I can’t name many bands where I’d just put the genre as the band name itself, but this genre is simply “The Doors”, and that’s the highest compliment I can give a band. The fact that this is the lowest rated album by these guys makes sense. It doesn’t have many of the hits. However, it’s still pretty god damn good, and I’d never be upset listening to it. It’s a 4, almost a 5, and I really really REALLY want to give it a 5. Few songs I would maybe pass over here, but they’re still great. It was agonizing having to give this one a 4, but the only song I added to my frequent rotation was “Peace Frog” and “Maggie M’Gill”. That’s what this band means to me personally. They're really good and I want to give all 3 a 5 star rating. But yeah, I’ll agree with the masses on this one and give my favorite to the opener, “Roadhouse Blues”. It’s also really good and has all the signatures of a good The Doors song. Very excited to roll the other 2 albums, as I loved this one enough to just barely scrape under a 5, and that’s without a good majority of the hits. Fantastic album, would always return to this one at any time!!

A little bit of Elvis Costello goes a long way. This is the first of… *sighs* SIX??!! HE GETS SIX!!?? The first of 6 Elvis Costello albums I have rolled for this project. The thing about Elvis Costello on the site is that every single one of his albums have a below average rating. This is the first album in chronological order for him on the site, and the second highest rated. My God, if this is almost as good as it gets for him I’m going to be lighting this bot up with 1’s and 2’s. This is not the first time that I’ve railed on the authors of the book for including an artist multiple times. In fact, I don’t even think this is the first time I’ve done that this week, but it really REALLY needs to be said this time. There is no freaking shot you need to put this guy on here more than once. Unfortunately, I hate his voice. Just absolutely can not stand it. It’s better on some songs than others, but the way he sings just specifically annoys the hell out of me. The instruments also just don’t do much for me either, especially paired with having to carry the weight of that voice. I wanted to give this a 3, but the entire back half of this album is just bad. It starts off fine I guess, and “Pump It Up”, his biggest hit, is catchy enough. I mean, it’s not amazing but it’s pretty catchy. The only other song worth note, and my personal favorite on the album, is “(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea”, as I also found it catchy. I think what ultimately makes me give this a 2 is that not only would I never return to any of this, if it was on and I heard his voice I would actively try to turn it off. It bugs me to no end that Elvis freaking Costello gets an entire 6 albums on here. I mean seriously, that’s just ridiculous and should not be the case. 6 little poison pills that I’ll wake up to at one point or another and just know I’m in for a bad time. Top it off with the fact that this is considered perhaps his best work, and I’m rating it a 2. Not a good look, not a good first impression, and not a good first album. I gave it the day, but it was a struggle to even give it that.

Sisters Of Mercy. AKA Songs to suck blood to. Beats by Dracula. What if listening to Marilyn Manson in public was deemed socially acceptable?? This genuinely could not be more 80’s if it tried, and it does try!! The drums alone are hilarious. This entire album is hilarious. If it came out a few years later I'd have called it a parody, but in the context of the 80's, it fits right in. I won't lie either, I kind of love it. This is another album I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I enjoyed as much as I did. I also was not expecting to have heard of this band before, but straight off rip I recognized “Dominion/Mother Russia” from Liberty Rock Radio in GTA IV. It’s a certified bop. Between that and “This Corrosion”, I don’t know which is my favorite song on the album. The chorus and way they sing “Hey now, hey now now” is unbelievably catchy. High key kind of love this album way more than I think I realistically should, but I’m not complaining. Listened to it the entire day, only song I would skip is the much slower "1959". It's not terrible but I just don't love it as much. The final 3 songs on the album are also all pretty much filler, the top of the album is perfect though. That might warrant a 3 for this one. Also, it's quite necessary to bring up the album art here. It's so god damn funny. The dude wearing pitch black rim shades outside, the moon, the woman with half of her face obscured. That's probably enough to actually put this album back at a 4. It's not perfect, in fact it's far from that, but it was exactly what I was looking for today, and I love it for that. Ultimately, I'm going to go with the opener, “Dominion/Mother Russia”, as my favorite. Slight edge for having heard it before, it takes me back to the good old days of driving around in Liberty City. Goth Rock is hilarious in a good way, and I'm a pretty big fan of this, goofiness included. It's a low 4, but I'm going to go with my gut and unashamedly give it a 4 and move on. I have to go with what my heart tells me, and my ears also tell me that this one is a 4.

Yet another fantastic album where it’s genuinely difficult picking a favorite. For once, I’ve actually heard of this band before, and unsurprisingly it’s got some bangers. “Turn to Stone”, “Mr. Blue Sky”,
“Night in the City”, and “Steppin' Out” are my favorites here. It’s well over an hour long of vaguely Beatley sounding Prog music, which for someone who loves that is a blessing. It’s me, I’m that someone. I don’t think it resonated with me like other Prog albums have, but I’m a bit strict with that, as it’s my favorite genre. Would I return to this very long album?? Absolutely. Would I listen to every song again?? Depending on the day, but not always. It’s quite good all the way through, and I’ll even pick a dark horse as my favorite song on the album. I really enjoyed “Night in the City”. Even with how much of a banger “Mr. Blue Sky” is, I’ve just heard it 100 too many times. Don’t get me wrong though, it is a serious banger. This entire album is. You had me at Prog. I’m just surprised this one above all else is rated so high, plenty other albums like this are rated much lower. Is it the voice perhaps that people enjoy?? Probably. Another cool fun fact about this album was learning that some of the later songs all follow a mini story of the rain, ending with the previously mentioned “Mr. Blue Sky”, so to finally get the full context of why that song is extra fun to get to was interesting to me. This is a great album that I wish was rolled during my weekend so I could give it just a little more time to resonate with me. It is entirely likely that a 5 star album exists in this, I just didn’t have a lot of time today to find it. I did however love this album and at the bare minimum it doesn’t deserve anything less than a 4.

I’m just going to start this review by addressing the elephant in the room. I have never heard of Brian Eno before. For an artist that has 5 albums on here, 7 if you’re including the 2 he was in with Roxy Music, it blows my mind that I’ve never heard of either that band nor this artist before a day in my life, even just in passing this guy has eluded me completely. Roxy Music is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I guess they’re warranted to be here, but 5 solo albums for Brian Eno?? Every one of them is low rated on the site. What’s up with that?? The freaking Brits putting this book together have some wild additions I’d like to talk about, and the amount of Brian Eno on the list is certainly one of them. If you believe him having 5 is genuinely warranted, please feel free to call my American ass crazy, but I’ve never even heard of him before. Anyway, this is the first of 5 Brian Eno albums I’ve rolled so far, and coincidentally also the first album in his solo discography. He’s been a producer for artists like U2 and David Bowie as well, so he may just have the most albums on this list in general out of anyone. As a side note, it also really feels like Bowie’s name gets brought up for every single artist I’ve rolled so far. Dude had tons of connections for sure, and for very good reason obviously. Personal asides at the authors of the book be damned, what did I think of this album?? Well… God dammit, it’s actually perfect. I thought it was amazing from the very first listen and now I guess I’m a Brian Eno fan. For being from the early 70’s, this sound is so ahead of its time. I give tons of extra credit to albums that have different vibes from song to song, and this album has that in spades. It’s legitimately impressive how many different bands that name after this it sounds like. There’s the previously mentioned Bowie, but there’s also a lot of Talking Heads here. He’s also got the weirdness of Frank Zappa, but in a charming way that’s super listenable, where Zappa a lot of the times is more than often just weird. It takes some serious talent to sound this weird but make it cool somehow. There’s elements of psychedelic rock, glam and pop for sure, but occasionally he’ll just freaking SHRED out a solo, like during “Baby’s On Fire”. Other songs are ambient and pretty, like “On Some Faraway Beach”. I don’t know why it took me all day to decide this was a 5, but it is. Not only would I return to this, but picking a favorite song was immensely difficult. I actually can’t believe I’ve never heard of him before, but now I’ve got 6 more of his albums to enjoy!! I’m confused as to why every top review of this album has 5 stars, but on average the rating is less than average. Is it too inaccessible because of his voice?? If so, that’s a shame. I VERY quickly went from “What the hell am I listening to??”, to “Wait no this actually slaps, never mind.” Shame that they didn’t give this a chance if that’s the case. My favorite songs on this one are “Baby’s On Fire”, “Blank Frank” and “Dead Finks Don’t Talk”. Ultimately it was between the first 2, but I went with the first one because of the solo. It’s that good. I’d like to formally apologize to Brian Eno. I was unfamiliar with your game. It won’t happen again, unless the other albums aren’t as good. We’ll see. This is a hell of a start though. Looking forward to more from him.

Ok, listen. I don’t think I should have enjoyed this album as much as I thought I would. Knowing a surprising amount of songs going in, in and of itself was a surprise to me. I have been on a crazy streak for the entire last week of hearing albums that I know are goated, but haven’t personally been for me. This, however, this is different. First of all, Adele has an immaculate voice. The way she hits every high note on “Hello” is nothing short of spectacular. Bonus points for that being such a meme banger when it came out. The “Hello” meme lives rent free in my head. I’d heard of that and “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” before, but what really surprised me here were the deep cuts. Don’t get me wrong, those other 2 are great in and of themselves, but what really hooked me was “I Miss You”, and my favorite song on the album “River Lea”. I mean seriously, the pipes on her are breathtaking. Whenever she says “illuminates” on “I Miss You” it sounds amazing specifically. The background vocals are also a great touch. As for “River Lea”, it’s just so different. It’s almost kind of sad. I usually go for the songs that rock the most, but this one just feels so personal to her. So genuine, somber and REAL. Plus, she collaborated with Danger Mouse on it apparently. Did not for the life of me think I was going to get to mention him once during this project, but here we are. The entire album is mostly great, a little bit of filler here and there, but I’d return to it for sure. This is the first of 2 Adele albums I have rolled for this project, and I’m actually fairly excited about the next one as well. Add this to the list of albums that genuinely surprised the hell out of me. Again, I don’t think I was supposed to like this one as much as I did, but I’m certainly not complaining about it. “River Lea” is getting added to the frequent rotation, and I genuinely enjoyed a good bit of this album. Yeah, that sounds like a 4 to me. Let’s go with a 4.

Baby making music. Right from the top of the album, that intro riff from “Let’s Get It On” lives rent free in my head and likely always will. This is the second of 3 Marvin Gaye albums I have rolled for this project so far, following “What’s Going On”. I love how often I’ve been able to go in order with an artists discography for this project. The RNG gods have been good to me. First observation with this album is that I’m a tad surprised it’s not the highest rated of his albums simply based on including “Distant Lover” and the titular “Let's Get It On”. I’m going to repeat something I said from my last Marvin Gaye review, and largely feel the same about this one. His voice is the biggest draw here. This might be the album with the most amount of children conceived to per capita out of any of them. I mean seriously. God damn does this man’s voice have an effect on me. I mean, the instrumentation on “If I Should Die Tonight” paired with that voice is really something special. I mean quite literally this is just made to be listened to in the bedroom, the very next song is “Keep Gettin’ It On”, lol. Much like his previous album though, you really kind of get the point after a few seconds of listening. All of the songs are quite good, but they blend together in a way that makes it sound fairly samey. I think I actually like this one slightly more than the last one. Could really do without the moaning at the start of “You Sure Love To Ball” though. This album is almost comically short for how packed with bangers it is. 31 minutes and 8 songs. It’s very tight and focused, despite being very samey. That really kind of makes me want to give it a 4, but then I went back to the previous album and saw that it was almost the exact same length and thought better. The 2 are very comparable. Voice is a 5, but there are better Soul albums that have grabbed me more than they both collectively have. I like Marvin Gaye well enough, but I can’t say he really touches me as much as he has others on the site. This is the second album in a row where if I was a reviewer, I’d give it a perfect rating for being so tight, having a great voice, and a great instrumentation. However, personal enjoyment is a 3, and I bet his final album will be as well. To its credit, I did enjoy this more than “What’s Going On”. Both are great, just not always going to be my cup of tea. Favorite song on the album is obviously the titular opener, “Let’s Get It On”. That was never in question. This concludes my review of Sex: The Album.

I sincerely wish I enjoyed this album the same way that the majority of the website does. It was fine, and I can for sure see why it's considered one of the greatest albums of all time. But it's just not for me. It's too light, entirely too boring and repetitive, and only 2 of the songs really grabbed me in a meaningful way. Those songs are "I Feel the Earth Move" and "It's Too Late". I thought they were very catchy, and I wish the rest of the album was like that. I do love her voice, it's calm, motherly, and puts me at peace. If I was going to rank this on an objective level, it's a 5. However, I just can't listen to something like this all day. Noted, I know I'm not the targeted audience necessarily, but that isn't a valid reason to not enjoy something anyway. The voice is great, the compositions are all great, I love the 2 previously mentioned songs, but I don't love love anything, and the rest of the album is pretty much in one ear and out the other for me. Again, it's nice enough, and I recognize it's greatness, but for an album with this many accolades, I was expecting a bit more variety. Sure, she sounds great, but I can't really tell some of the songs apart. There's a lot of filler. To the albums credit, the bits of smooth Jazz and piano are pretty great. I think if I was on a bad streak of albums I might give this a 4, but I've rolled some absolute heat lately and unfortunately this one just didn't do it for me like I was hoping it would. Again, and I can not stress this enough, this is a 5 star album. It is excellently made, and Carole does a phenomenal job here. But, and this is a big but, I wouldn't personally want to return to it. My scale for judgement uses a personal rating, not an objective rating, so I'm going to give this one a 3.65/5 and call it a day. Going in circles at this point, but I'll wrap it up once again by saying it's a great album, and I love everything about it, I just don't love love it. Anyway, on to the weekend album. Wish I had more to say about this one other than "Good vocals, great and catchy instrumentation", but I really don't. I've done so many reviews like that at this point, and it's not always easy to be unique for these reviews. This is one of those times, it just didn't grab me and draw me in unfortunately. That's fine though, I see how good it is, even if it's not personally always going to be what I'd turn on. I'm still happy that I got the chance to appreciate this today. That's a lot more than I can say about plenty of the other albums I've rolled so far for this long project. Anyway, the journey continues with the weekend album. That's enough of this one for now.

I genuinely don't even know where to begin with this one. First off, I'll start by just saying that this is a 5. I have rolled so many 5 star albums where I love ~4 songs the most, and picking a favorite is difficult. For this live performance, every single song is a banger. Like, genuinely every single song is outstanding here. This is the first of 3 Nirvana albums I have rolled, and it's very likely going to be the first of 3 5 star albums as well. Ultimately, I'm going to pick the closer, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" as my favorite, because the context makes it even more interesting. Shortly after this performance, he'd be dead. Murdered?? Probably, but that's a story for a different time. I'm also going to pick that one because to my knowledge, you can only find it on this album. That gives the other classic Nirvana songs a slightly better shot at being picked later as my favorite. I mean seriously, picking a favorite is so tough because I've heard these songs so much, and they truly never get old. As a fun little anecdote, let me tell you how dumb I was as a kid. My parents would only listen to Pearl Jam when I was a kid, which unsurprisingly is my all time favorite band because of it. At some point, I heard that they had a rivalry with Nirvana, so I forced myself into thinking Nirvana sucks and is overrated. As I got older and realized how freaking stupid that was, I VERY quickly came to find out just how good this band was. They don't just deliver here, they amaze spectacularly with every song. Another aspect that's really great about this album is just how truly FUNNY and human it is. Kurt talking about someone tuning a harp, how he'll surely mess up part of a Bowie song, and then remarks at the end "I didn't mess it up, but I might mess this next one up" is just so cool. God damn I wish I could have met that guy. He may truly have died being one of the coolest people in history. His stage performance and presence is LEGENDARY here. I could talk for hours about why and what I love about each individual song from this performance, but it's all been said before. So I'll leave this review a bit shorter than usual, otherwise I risk writing a novel. Just know that on the list of albums joining the 5 star club, this is a 6 star instead. God it's good, truly one of the best albums I've rolled so far and a majority of the site agrees.

Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is not exactly the kind of album name I was expecting for something this chill. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but I’ve never heard of this band before, and they have 2 albums on here. The biggest accolade they have on the Wikipedia summary for this album is that it was featured in this book. That’s always a not great start. The second not great start is that it’s got a low rating. So, yeah, this album happened. It’s got a ton of filler, but also a surprising amount to love. First and most important thing is that the singer sounds pretty cool. Like a chill dude I’d want to hang out with. He sings pretty well also. Not really unique, but for a debut album it shows progress. Going to be interested to hear what they followed this up with when I roll the other one. I could see why this has such a low rating. All these low energy, almost kind of listless, chill albums are a bit hard to get into for most people. Me, however, I kind of love them. Not enough to give it a 4, but it’s actually very enjoyable. My favorite song on this one was “Don’t Love You”. This album is, however, also very heavily Art Rock in many aspects, and it tries to do a lot of different things that all impact the album in different ways. Mostly positively, with one BIG exception. Some songs are very high energy and fun, filled with trumpets and loud, banging drums, like “The Wrong Way”, others are almost like they were meant to be listened to on acid, like “King Eternal”. However, I don’t normally criticize specific songs, but I need to talk about how much I hate “Ambulance”. The background singer in that song drives me absolutely crazy, and I just truly hate it. Luckily it’s just that one song, but man did I seriously skip that every time it was on after the second listen. This album is a dime a dozen, and sounds like a million other American indie bands before it. Luckily I’m into this kinda stuff though, so I dig it. Lot of filler with some gems sprinkled in. Am surprisingly interested in checking out the other one on the list. Until then.

Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison of Northern Ireland is back again. It looks like I'm going through his discography in order for this project, which is always fun. This is the second of 3 Van Morrison albums I have rolled, after Astral Weeks. His other 2 albums on the site have well below average ratings, and I can't really say the first one was all that good or even memorable personally. My pick for favorite was the only song I even remembered from it, "The Way Young Lovers Do". Everything else was forgettable and I mentioned I also did not care for his voice. Well well well, something over the course of the 2 years between that album and this one must have changed spectacularly, and I'm not entirely sure what it is, but this album is pretty substantially better than the last. Not only are these songs all mostly pretty memorable, but I actually love his voice as well for the most part. I don't think I vibed with it as much as most other people on the site have, but I managed to easily listen to it for the entire day, and I gotta say that despite how light it is, I was impressed. These lighter albums aren't always my bag, but I liked this one well enough. The only song on the album I would say absolutely blew me away was the titular "Moondance", which I loved comparably to how much I loved my favorite from his last album. "Brown Eyed Girl" is Van Morrison's top song on Spotify, and it has amassed almost 1.5 billion listens. Despite this particular albums high rating on the site, "Brown Eyed Girl" doesn't appear on Moondance however. Comparing this to the 500 million listens from his second most played song, which does appear on Moondance, "Into the Mystic", it's rather interesting that that album is not included in the book as well. This is especially true considering the other album that is included is a low rated live album that doesn't include it either. To make a very long story short, I didn't particularly fall in love with either song unfortunately. They're both fine, but neither grabbed me enough to remember past today. So, I wouldn't really call myself a new fan of Van Morrison's music personally, even though I still enjoyed it well enough. I just mentioned that I like it well enough, but it needs to be stated that this album really does blow Astral Weeks out of the water. I'd give that one a solid 3, and this one at least a 3.5 if I could. However, since only one song really resonated with me, and the fact that I'm not really going to remember the album as a whole past today, I'm still only going to rate it a 3. A much higher 3, but still a 3 nonetheless.

I'm sure I won't be the first review you've read discussing the backstory to this performance. But to summarize a long story, Keith Jarrett was to perform a live concert in Köln Germany with a luxurious Grand Piano. All the Germans had to do was provide one for him and he would be set for a great concert. He was partially injured at the time and wearing a back brace, so bending over must have hurt a ton. To make things worse, somehow the wrong piano was ordered. Instead of what he had requested, they ordered a tiny, broken, piece of garbage piano that wasn't even really meant to be played by anyone. He claims that the only reason he even performed at this concert was because the piano was fixed before he arrived, but I can only imagine how pissed off he must have been. What he delivered ended up being a hell of a performance, and resulted in the best selling solo album in Jazz history, as well as the best selling piano album of all time. Which really says a lot about Jazz when you think of it, but I won't go there this time. Regardless, this album is absolutely nothing without that story. I mean, sure, it probably would have been a pretty great performance if the piano was what he requested, but he'd likely done a ton already just like it, which would have been just another boring live Jazz performance. Instead, we got this. Pure talent and an amazing sounding record that sold like hotcakes due to a hilarious situation. It was lightning in a bottle for Keith, and I'm sure he's looked back on this concert and smiled about it for years now, even if it wasn't a good situation to be in while it was happening for him. I'm not a Jazz guy. I thought this album was just ok. I can recognize the talent, it's oozing from every note. But, I would never personally return to it. Without the backstory, I would probably give it a mid 2 or a low 3. It's not my taste in music at all, but the background heavily elevated my personal enjoyment with this one. Again, you don't have to be an expert to tell how impressive this is, and I can't honestly dislike a dude playing his freaking heart out on a bad piano like this. So I'm going to give it a 3, which seems very fair for this one. Picking a favorite song from the 4 is also going to be very difficult, especially since it's just a dude playing the piano for an hour, but I'm going to go with "Part II b". Not entirely sure why. I think I picked that one because a lot of the beginning notes just resonated positively with me. This was an alright album, but a remarkable story. Carry on Mr. Jarrett.

The best part about this album was making fun of how pretentious and self important one has to be to name his first 5 albums “Scott”, as well as his BBC TV Series. I mean seriously. He deleted this album after it released because he released it under his real name and not his stage name?? Even the background context of this album is boring. I think you can make the case that true indifference is worse than just being outright bad with this album. Sure, it’s fine. He sings fine. I don't particularly love his voice, so it was always going to be tough getting into this on a personal level, but my God am I bored to death with this album. I won’t be remembering anything from Scott 4 after today, what is often cited as his “best album”, and Scott 2 is also lurking somewhere on the bot and has an even lower rating. This is Day 2 in a row of criticizing the creators of this book for making terrible additions. When an albums biggest accolade on Wikipedia is that it’s featured in this book and that it was a commercial failure, you know you’ve likely rolled some Grade A traaaaaaaash. This is definitely one of those times. After a mound of exceptionally mid British albums, this is the representation America gets?? Quite frankly I feel cheated and somewhat offended even. I suppose I have to give a favorite out, so I'll give it to "The Old Man's Back Again", the chanting in the background of that one is kind of cool, I guess. Not much more to say about this album. It really just wasn't very good. Never been a big fan of the crooning type, but I wasn't in misery listening to this one, so it's at least a 2. I would never return to it though under any circumstance, so it's for sure not getting a 3 either. Sorry Scott, can't really say I'm a fan. Maybe next time, but I doubt it, especially if this is the best of what he had to offer. Oh well, after a long streak of fantastic albums, rolling something like this just makes me more critical as a whole. Maybe if I didn't just roll a bunch of heat I'd give this a 3. Hoping to break this new trend of mediocrity before I start another streak of bad albums. We're on 2 in a row now where I just didn't care for them. Let's see if the weekend album can fix that.

Never heard of Dexys Midnight Runners before, and not entirely convinced they deserve to have 3 albums on this list after listening to this album, but I’ll reserve judgement until after I listen to the other 2. This was the first of 3 I’ve rolled so far, and it was fine. Took a few listens to appreciate it, and I almost gave up after the first go around, but as most albums have, it kind of grew on me. Started as a 1 and evolved into a 3 the more I really paid attention to it. It's a low 3, but it's better than some other stuff I've rolled. I've been getting nothing but 4's and 5's lately, so hearing this after such a hot streak was also just very unfortunate. I still really don't like his voice, and believe I could sing better, but god damn it, it actually grew on me. This is a 1 hit wonder band with 3 albums on the list, once again proving that the authors have no idea what they're doing a lot of the time. This also isn't even the album with the hit on it. I was so excited when "Smoke on the Water" starts playing on the intro, I thought I was really going to be in for something special with this one. Unfortunately, it's just very average. Way too much emphasis on the horns, not good for concentrating or vibing. Don't know the origin of the band name and don't really care to. Maybe I'll look it up when I roll the other 2 albums to pad my review a bit for those. I almost want to say that my favorite song on the album is where he isn't singing, but I actually really enjoyed "Tell Me When My Light Turns Green" even with the incessant horns and singing. He hits the high note pretty satisfactorily, making the song catchy and pretty good overall. Not great, but good enough to be considered my favorite. Like I previously mentioned, this album really grew on me. Going to give it a 3, and somehow, I also think I'm going to remember it after this. So, yeah. I know I was pretty harsh talking about it this entire time, and believe me, it's got a lot of faults, but I think I actually gaslit myself into liking it, as I've done with many albums in this project before. So, I'm going to say it's a 3.3/5 and see how their other albums pan out. At the bare minimum I can say that for a debut album, it has a lot of potential. Interested to see where that potential went, and how it culminated into their biggest hit, "Come On Eileen." I guess I'll find out soon enough. Until then, I ended up enjoying this album more than I initially thought I would after the first couple of times through, so it's an alright start for the Dexys Midnight Runners. I don't think I would actively return to it, but it was alright. I'd listen to this if it was playing somewhere naturally, and that's good enough in my book for a 3 star.

While I more than understand, and to an extent agree with the sentiment of people not wanting Live albums on this list, I’ve never understood the sheer amount of comments that just say things like “Live albums suck”. Some of my favorite bands ever, both past and present like Pearl Jam and King Gizzard have some of their absolute best material from the Live stuff. In fact, I’d rather listen to Pearl Jam live than on a studio album. To that extent, Live At Leeds is great. It came out right after Tommy, which was a pretty big departure from The Who’s earlier albums. This tour specifically was more about seeing what stuck, what was good, and what they could improve on as a band. Let me tell you, they certainly found it here. The live aspects are also just genuinely hilarious. I loved hearing them bantering before and after songs. One of the band members keeps joyously heckling, and I think it was Entwistle, the bassist, making it even funnier to have him interject between songs. Anyway, the album isn’t perfect. The double edged sword of it being a Live album is that some of the set list doesn’t flow together, and the songs don’t always seemingly have a rhyme or reason to where they are placed. A few of them are Medley’s, and those ended up being my favorite songs on the album. Speaking of which, my favorites for this one are “My Generation”, “Amazing Journey/Sparks”, “Young Man Blues”, and “Heaven And Hell”. “My Generation” in and of itself is one of my favorite The Who songs, so it’s got to be my pick for favorite. All of those are good enough to add to my usual rotation, making a strong case for a high 4 approaching 5 for this album. Would I always come back to it? Yeah. Would I jump around and prioritize my favorites? Also yeah, but this is a great live album in general. Speaking of The Who, this is the third of five albums of theirs I’ve rolled, following the outstanding Tommy and the rather disappointing The Who Sell Out. They’re a very special band to me, and I think a 4 is more than warranted for this one. Good showing gents.

Spent the entire day going back and forth on whether or not this was a 3 or a 4. I definitely love it, and would absolutely go back to it, but comparing it to the other Electronica albums I've rated so far, I think a 3 is fine for this. I'm sure that when it came out, it must have sounded like the future. It actually reminds me a lot of some bands I listen to today. This is yet another fundamental Electronica that I'm sure was directly influenced by virtually everything that came after it. To that degree, it's also extremely easy to listen to. I didn't think I was going to manage to have just this on for the whole day, as it's pretty short for an Electronica album. Usually they're like an hour long, but this one is only 6 songs, and 36 minutes long. Of course this is freaking German as well. The funniest part about this album is that even with the voice modulators, you can frame 1 instantly tell the singer is German. It gets a pass for being basic, but I don't know whether to let that dictate my rating of the album or not. Yes, it's repetitive, yes it's samey, but it's never boring and for coming out in 1978 it's pretty incredible. Then again, look at some of the other albums that came out that year. I don't know, I do love this, but I think it's a 3. A very, very high 3. Like a 3.95/5, but I don't round up. I've been very consistent with that. Favorite song on this one is the intro, "The Robots". Sounded vaguely familiar to me, regardless of whether or not I've heard it before. It's just such a good start, and tells you exactly what to expect from this album. I would not skip a single song on this album and also loved the biggest hit "The Model" as well. Hilariously enough, as of a few years ago, Kraftwerk is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so they're actually more important of a band than most people will realize. For just a bunch of German goobers making beep boop sounds, it's phenomenally impressive it still sounds so damn good today. This is the 1st of 3 Kraftwerk albums I have rolled for this project, as well as the last chronologically, so I'm very interested to hear what they sounded like before this. Considering how much higher this is rated than the other 2, if this is them at their best, I kind of want to give it a 4, and expect what came before it to be a 3. Otherwise all 3 albums are likely to get a 3 from me. Even after talking myself through it and writing this review, I still don't know if this is really a 3 or a 4. Good job with this one though. It's simple and repetitive by today's standards but it still absolutely slaps, and I love it for that. Fine, it's a 4. I've decided.