Reviews by gingerninja155

It’s not often I start one of these reviews by talking about the album art. In fact, I think this is actually a first for me. My God, that is something. It’s terrifying to be completely honest. That really does just immediately reach out and tell you that you’re about to go on a hell of a trip. Are you on drugs?? I think Janis would prefer you were before turning this one on. Anyway, that was all an assessment of the album art before I’d even started listening to the album itself. Real review starts now. Yeah. It’s good. Vibes match the album art, it’s Psychedelic Rock with a twinge of Blues. Lot of understated gems, but I wouldn’t skip any of them. In fact, the actual hardest part of listening to this album for me is trying to figure out which one is my favorite. If I’m being completely honest here, I didn’t know that Janice Joplin was ever in a band. I thought she was always a solo career, and even then I couldn’t pull any of her songs out of my head. Not sure I’d actually heard any until now. The best thing I can say about her is that her voice is extraordinarily unique, and extraordinary in general. Her range is quite impressive, especially the high notes, and I could listen to her singing for hours. Now that I mention it, let’s change “could listen” to “did listen”. I couldn’t get enough of this one. I still do think there are some forgettable tracks here, but even they’re bangers themselves. Damn, if I’m forced to pick a favorite song, I’ll go with “Ball and Chain” because the intro starts off with a mind melting solo, continues into a great Janice performance, and has a few more killer bouts of guitar magic throughout. It’s also over 9 minutes long, so I get to spend some more time with this band when I’m jamming out to the “Best song on the album” playlist I’ve set up for this project. Very silly band name, but legendary performance by both the singer and guitarist. Psychedelic Rock is pretty hard to mess up, and when done right, it’s pretty damn hard to beat. This is a clear exemplification of the second option. It sounds amazing, and you can bet your ass I’m going to be returning to it!! Another mark of a great album. This concludes what very well might have been the most consistently good week of music I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying for this project so far. Keep it up bot, more of this please.

I’m a bit biased because Progressive Rock is my all time favorite genre, so I was very close of ranking this a 5 during the entirety of my first listen through of the album. I spent literally all day trying to decide what my favorite song was, and whether or not my bias was affecting my judgment a bit. I ultimately decided that it was, and even though this is still a really really good album, I’m going to give it a 4 instead of a 5. The first 2 songs are incredible, but the next several minutes up until “Rudy” are just okay. My favorites on this album are “School”, “Bloody Well Right”, “Rudy” and “Crime Of The Century”. “Rudy” has a little riff towards the middle of the song that sealed it as my favorite. The 2 opening songs have the best vocal performances and almost got picked as my favorite, and “Crime Of The Century” is borderline Jazz at times mixed with Prog, which is a very good way to end off the album. I could listen to any of these songs all day, and even the other ones I wouldn’t end up skipping, another point in favor of the album. 4/8 songs kind of blew me away, but the other 4 are just ok. Ultimately, that’s half of the album that gets a 5 from me. That might be enough to warrant a 5 in general… Been that kind of a week so far. I don’t know. Damn, I’m still conflicted on this after spending an entire day with Crime Of The Century. I’ve never even actually heard of this band or any of these songs before, so to call this a surprise would be a hell of an understatement. I am an absolute sucker when it comes to Prog music, and this is pure art, so to waver at what the ranking should be, and even consider ranking this anything other than a 5 ultimately makes me think it deserves to be a 4. I’ve got to draw a line somewhere and not just blanket make them all a 5. So, as tough as it is for me to admit, this is not a perfect album. But it’s close. So I’m going to give it a 4.85/5. For now at least. We’ll see if I’m satisfied with that, or if I decided to come back and give this a 5 later. Add this to the list of god knows how many I’ve mentioned adjusting to a 5. Fantastic album!!

Another album that came out the year I was born, so I’m always going to be a bit biased when it comes to that. I’ve never heard of Tricky before, but he’s fine at best. I greatly enjoyed listening to Martina Topley-Bird over him though, and that’s a fact. She does the whole breathy thing where after every couple of words you can hear her exhale. For a ton of singers I’ve heard so far, it never really sounds great. But, and I don’t know why, I think it’s actually pretty cool when she does it here. Nothing to add to the daily playlist here, but by far my favorite song on this one was “Black Steel”. Cool steel drums, great singing, killer hook, and a few sections where the song breaks off into actual Rock. This album is listed as experimental, and that’s for sure an apt depiction. The way they blend Hip Hop with Electronica is pretty interesting, and there’s some added Rock/Pop aspects that work for the most part. Some of the reviews are comparing this to the Gorillaz, and I actually disagree with that. Gorillaz is substantially more oriented on the Hip Hop aspect. While this has that as well, it’s not really the focus. Unfortunately, I think that’s for good reason. While I love Martina and could listen to her all day, Tricky is my least favorite part of his own album. He’s fine, but not exactly my cup of tea. I just don’t like his voice at all. Would give this a 2 if it wasn’t for Martina. Luckily, she’s the lead singer on a good bit of these songs, making the nearly hour long album much more bearable. Coincidentally, the big hit on this one, “Hell Is Round The Corner”, is my least favorite song on the album and it’s not even close. Tricky leads the singing on that one, doesn’t sound great, uses a filter to make himself sound fuzzy, and edits in a series of intentional crackling noises that last the entire duration of the song that I actually hate. I’m sure that song is his most popular for a reason, I just can’t figure out why though. This is another album that just kind of fades into the background for better and for worse. It works best when I’m not really paying attention to it. That’s both a positive and a negative. Songs like “You Don’t” are great when I’m trying to work and I can just vibe. On pure vibes alone this album is a 5. In general though, it’s on the lower end of 3.

Yesterday, to start a stressful week off right, I requested that the website give me 5 continuous 5 star albums in a row. Today, insanely enough, I’m 2/2. Carlos Santana is on the Mount Rushmore of Hispanic Guitarists, and just outside of the overall Mount Rushmore. I feel like every successful artist has a song that features him, and if you don’t, you just haven’t made it yet. Anyway, it’s rare to hear him on a solo album. Of course I knew “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” and “Oye Como Va”, the ladder of which being my favorite song on the album going into this, but this entire album is just insanely good from top to bottom. It fades into the background at some point and helps me lock in to my work when I need to. The guitar playing, as previously mentioned, is phenomenal. But, it’s not just 40 minutes of guitar playing. It’s so much deeper than that. The entire album as a whole just flows into itself and is actually better as a whole. The 2 hits play right after each other, and to hear them both in the full context of the album is freaking awesome. Something immensely humorous I find about Santana from his Wikipedia page is that he was ranked as Rolling Stone Magazine’s 20th best guitarist in 2015, but then in 2023 they corrected this to number 11. Curious as to what changed in that time to lift him to a much more accurate position. Fan outrage?? Or did they just realize how much of a mistake they made. Anyway, the album art makes me think I’m about to dive into some Heavy Metal or something. It still kinda fits, but it’s pretty crazy looking. Definitely has undertones of an LSD induced trip. Love this album, love Santana, wish he had more albums on here. We’re off to a good start to the week. Let’s see if we can get 3 5’s in a row for the first time ever. I’m feeling pretty good about it.

Part Prog masterclass, part Rock Opera, part Pop, all bangers. This album did so much more than just surprise me. It started strong right off the bat, only took its foot off the gas for a select few songs that I didn’t love, and demanded I give it a 5. I’m going to do so without hesitation. Everyone’s favorite gay knighted icon Elton John knocked it out of the park with this one. It may surprise you to know that I didn’t actually know any of these songs, but a few of the hits sounded familiar enough where I’m sure that I’ve heard them before, but not positive. Even the softer songs which I wouldn’t necessarily always want to rehear, like “Candle In The Wind” and “Harmony” are fantastic. Elton John has a great voice. I’d listen to him doing taxes for all I care, and I’d do it with a smile. I’ve got a tough week ahead, and this man just made me forget all about it. That’s talent. For an album that’s over an hour and 16 minutes long, I’m glad there’s so much variety. My favorite of the bunch being the long Prograstic opener, “Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”. What can I say?? I’m a sucker when it comes to that kind of music, and this is no exception. My other favorites include the title track “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Grey Seal”, and “Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock'n' Roll)”, the ladder of which has actual clown music but incredibly makes it work and then goes off on a crazy solo. This is the first of 2 albums I’ve rolled from Elton John, and he may just get a set of 5 star reviews if the other album is half as good as this one. I’m ashamed of myself for not really knowing anything about his music going in to this album, because I’m very familiar with his life. What a cool guy. What a great album. This has a little bit of everything for everyone, I really don’t know how anybody could hate it. The little tiny piano on the album art kills me as well. Great art. There’s even a few Country adjacent songs on here that aren’t terrible. The only thing I’d skip is “Jamaica Jerk-Off”, which I find more obnoxious than entertaining. I’m sure if I listened to this album for a second day in a row I’d probably find another favorite or 2, and I will in fact do that later, because I’m not done with this album. Those are just the ones I immediately committed to memory. Other classics like “Bennie And The Jets” are worth talking about, but what more could I even say about it you haven’t already heard before?? 5/5 album, the few skips are drowned out largely by the length of the album, and the otherwise flawless consistency of banger after banger. There’s a good reason why this one’s so highly rated on the site. Rightfully so. Gimme some more of this, I’m going to have to seek out more from Elton John, the ultimate success the site can give me is seeking more music from my daily artist. So, yeah, good job. Raucous applause for this one. I’m hoping for an all 5 star week, and this is a great start.

I’m a tad bit conflicted on this one. The frontman, Johnny Rotten’s story is so fascinating and messed up that it alone makes the album almost a 4. On top of that, this is actually culturally relevant. It impacted the Punk scene so immensely that it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call this one of the more important albums of all time. The only problem is that I’m not the biggest fan of Punk music. And this is the most Punk Punk music you could possibly be, with Johnny wailing about abortions and anarchy and what not. I’ve rolled plenty of Punk so far. Some of it surprised me, some of it was borderline unlistenable, but they’re fairly consistently hard to listen to for extended periods of time as a whole. Even my favorite Punk albums so far haven’t hit the 5 mark, I believe. So yeah, unfortunately it’s not really my genre, but I can still enjoy and appreciate the hell out of it. And this album is legendary. When this was released I think the entire UK was in a state of panic, which is both Punk but also Metal as hell. “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen” are 2 classic songs that I’ve heard many times before. They’re legendary in their own rights. But somehow, I liked “Sub-Mission” the most out of any song on this album. Bit of a deep cut, but I don’t know. It was just good. A little goofier than the other songs, but it’s just very high energy and fun. Another reason I think I’ve convinced myself to give this a 3 is that I for sure could not always listen to Johnny’s voice. It does everything it needs to do here, but I didn’t really want to spend the entire day listening to it over and over again. 38 minutes of an absolutely seminal performance. If I was going to be objective, this is a 5. If I’m being subjective and personal, it’s a very high 3. Not necessarily a point against the album, it’s just a lot for one guy. This is the only album that the Sex Pistols ever made, which is perhaps the most Punk thing about the band in general. Got in, got out, died young, and possibly killed some people. Now that’s the real anarchy, and tragically ironic. For real though, go see what kind of messed up stuff Rotten was caught up in before he died. Bro had an insane life.

“The Boss” is back again. Gracing me with his presence for a third time out of a total of 5 comes The Rising by Bruce Springsteen. This is album number 3/5 after previously rolling Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. The general consensus I’m seeing online and in a lot of these reviews about Bruce is that he fell off pretty spectacularly after the mid 80’s. Not necessarily a fall from grace, just wasn’t making all that culturally relevant or popular music anymore like he used to. I enjoyed his first 2 albums on the list well enough. A lot of the songs straight up rocked with an occasional lighter ballad here and there. Nothing I’ve heard so far has absolutely amazed me, but it’s all been good enough that I’d be happy to hear more of it. It’s Dad Rock. I enjoy Dad Rock, so it’s good enough for me. This album in particular was still alright, but man was every single song pretty bleak and depressing. Substantially more light songs than the previous albums, and it’s mostly filler that I don’t dislike but wouldn’t say is anything special or worth coming back to. That is, except for my 2 favorite songs on the album that I love equally, “Further On (Up the Road)” and “Worlds Apart” are freaking awesome. Both of those songs come out of nowhere and are up to the quality I expect of someone who identifies as The Boss. First time 2 of his songs have genuinely impressed me. If those songs didn’t exist, I may have just rated this album a 2. Probably not actually. It’s fine as a whole, I just wouldn’t return to anything besides those 2 songs, both of which are now going to be in my frequent rotation. I don’t know man, an entire hour and twelve minutes of depressing songs is a lot to ask of someone. Now to address the enormous elephant in the room. This is the 9/11 album. It’s not a coincidence that his albums on here jump from 1984 to 2002. 9/11 was a tragedy that had everyone reacting pretty similarly as far as music is concerned. Very patriotic, very sad and moody yet hopeful. There are a lot of songs that feel very reactionary, and I totally get it. This album revitalized his career pretty substantially, and with the context of the tragedy, I can see why it gets to be on the list. However, it’s my least favorite of the three I’ve heard so far. Not bad, but certainly dated by today’s standards. We’re going to need much more hope as a country if any of us want a better future nowadays… Sorry, that got a little dark, kinda like this album. Anyway, yeah. It’s alright. Not his best but far from terrible. A good product of its time but not something I’d come back to personally in the present.

Another day, another Country album that I expected not to like, and was mostly correct. It was bearable, it’s at least a 3, but I’m not the biggest fan of this type of accent, and in some songs it’s insufferable. However, this album has 2 shining moments that are actually quite good. Those being “Can’t Let Go” and “Joy”. They rocked surprisingly hard. So, for how much I’m not a fan of the accent, the album really isn’t that bad as a whole. Sometimes it’s actually pretty good, especially the instrumentation. It’s Country, so there’s not a lot I can even really say about it. Over 30 Country albums on here, only 4 of them have a decent rating, and this one doesn’t even make the top 30 according to the ratings. Pretty rough when not even the general reviews don’t love it. A lot of them said this was boring, which is the one thing I don’t necessarily agree with. It had enough going for it where I was never actively in misery. Didn’t manage to listen to it for the entire day, but I also didn’t hate it, and I actually ended up adding “Joy” to my frequent rotation. So, 2 great songs, a few ok and a lot of skippable filler. As far as Country goes, this wasn’t terrible. Will I be returning to it? God no. Give it a 3.25/5 and move on to the next one. Oddly enough though, I think I might remember this one after the fact. So it’s got that going for it at least.

Man… This album is just a rollercoaster of emotions. Not good emotions unfortunately. Pretty bad overall I’d say. So, I hadn’t heard of Small Faces before, but looking at the band members, every one of them went on to be pretty successful, and I recognize most of them as well. Pre listen, I’m seeing that the genre is Psychedelic Rock and wondering how it can go so catastrophically wrong for a 60’s album in that genre to warrant falling below a 3 star review on the site. After the first song, what would ultimately end up being by FAR my favorite on the album, “Ogden's Nut Gone Flake”, I’m actually a bit pissed off at the reviewers. That song was incredible. What a classic, great, killer psychedelic intro. No lyrics, but spoiler alert, it helps the song out immensely knowing what’s to come later. Next song, also pretty good. What’s up?? Why is the album rated so low?? Something must go unbelievably wrong later. From here on, they really start the songs with lyrics and never ending filler. They start to lose me, and then they start to actually make me mad. I’ll save you the long winded breakdown of each song, but it’s not until well through the middle point of the album when you start to understand why this is a concept album. There are songs like “Happiness Stan” that have moments of greatness in them but are overwhelmingly overshadowed by the concept, which is essentially a British guy telling us some inane story about Stan getting food or finding the moon or something. I don’t know and I’m not even going to bother googling it to find out. I don’t care. When the narrator starts talking, it ruins the song. I don’t care if the rest of the song is good, I never want to hear someone this stereotypically British again in my life. I would assume they’re taking the piss, but that doesn’t excuse how much I dislike every song talking about Stan and his yummy wummy treato wheeto’s going down his tum tum tummy. Water torture. At first I didn’t understand the hatred for this album, but now I do. And it’s frustrating. It has moments where it could be a 4 star album, but SEVERAL moments where it’s a 1. For that reason, I’m gonna put it dead in the middle and give it a 3.3/5. The instrumentation is so good. I love this genre. If this wasn’t a concept album, I can’t help but wonder if it would be better. Whatever. I’m not going to find out. This is the only album Small Faces has on here, and may very well be the last I bother checking out. This was not it. Their own bio on Spotify states they’re like the biggest band to not be successful in the USA. After these insanity breeding lyrics, I don’t see how they possibly could be popular here. What a disappointment this was. Still not the worst thing I’ve ever heard, far from it in fact. Not even bad enough to warrant a 2, but that just makes it ever the more disappointing. Surely you could have picked something better than this. It’s their only concept album, and I’d imagine the others can’t possibly be as insufferable as this was at times. Don’t know, but I digress. Next album please. Get me out of this demented story time pronto.

Another album that came out the year I was born. Always a pleasant surprise. Only bangers so far from 1995 and this is no exception. British Rock/Pop is a very mixed bag with this project, because it seems like every other day on here I inevitably roll some forgettable album that ended up being pretty big in the UK but nowhere else. They’re not all bad, but I’ve been pretty disappointed with a lot of them. Some of them were even pretty highly rated on this site. While I Should Coco by Supergrass, the debut album by a bunch of actual children, 2 of them literally being 18 years old when this was being created, didn’t chart in the USA, the song “Alright” certainly left its mark. I’ve heard that song in various shows and commercials up to the point that I recognized it pretty instantly when it played for the first time. The funny part about it is that, although it’s still a certified banger, I actually like 3 of the songs I’d never heard before better. All that is to say that this album is really, really good. Historically, it caught on overseas because it gave UK kids a very powerful voice, and man does it ever. This album is filled with freedom, youth, hope, and various other positive feelings that I think we’d all like to feel more of in the big 2026. As unlikely as that is, this album really made me happy, and I almost want to give it a 5. Love the singer, love the guitar playing, and to create this album at such a young age is such an impressive feat that helps push this album even further in a great direction. You could tell me this came out today and I’d believe you. It hasn’t really aged a day, if anything it’s better than what’s currently coming out. Now I simply have to hear these guys live today and see what they’re currently up to, it looks like they still tour occasionally. Good for them. My favorite songs on this album, all of which were added to my usual rotation are “I’d Like to Know”, “Strange Ones”, and my favorite of the bunch, “Lose It”. My only criticism with this album is one that is very common. The bottom half kind of loses me a bit. First half is a 10/10, second half is like an 8/10. Still good but not 5 worthy. But man is it close. It was really difficult picking a rating this time. I Should Coco, which is apparently slang for “I should think so”, not entirely sure how, really surprised me. This is one of those albums that I started this project to hear. Will certainly return to this album, and there’s a second one on here that I’m going to wait until rolling to enjoy for the first time, as I usually do. Add this to the ever growing list of albums I might adjust to a 5 later. That’s how much I enjoyed it. Fantastic stuff here!!

Now this is a hell of a good Blues album. Love me some B.B. King. It being a live album isn't even remotely an issue. Someone mentioned you could draw a straight line to popular music from today from this album to now and they're absolutely correct. I can't believe this album is from the 60's. Some of the guitar solos are sick. B.B. King has all the swagger and charm of Elvis, and his band freaking rocks. Some of these songs have killer riffs. My favorite of the bunch is "Worry, Worry”. It’s something about the way he talks to the audience that just makes it special. I seriously love his stage presence more so than any other live album so far. It actually makes me love the album more for once. Blues music is pretty consistently good on this list, and this is no exception. The way B.B. comes off is charming, and the way he thanks the audience after every song is also pretty cool. Even though this is a Blues album, I can't help but be very charmed by it. I will for sure be returning to this, and I'll likely be returning to check out some more of his discography. At the time of this review, Live At The Regal is the third highest rated Blues album on the site, and it shows. The music, singer, rest of the band, ambience, and especially the vibes are just immaculate. A near perfect album. It's easy to tell the songs apart, and I added at least my favorite one to the usual rotation. Also, at 35 minutes long and 10 songs, it starts over so quickly that by the time you realize it, you've already listened to the entire album like 5 times completely through. The only reason I'm not giving it a 5 is personal taste. I love it, but I would not always listen to it. For that reason and many more positive ones, it's getting as close to a 5 as it possibly can. I'm rating it a 4.9 out of 5, and wish the website gave us an option for half stars. A sentiment I've shared a few times and will likely continue to do going forward as needed. Great album. Blues music kind of kicks ass. Killer weekend album and just a super good album in general. Can’t wait to see what the other highly rated Blues albums have in store for me. It’s going to be pretty hard to top this!!

The album summary for White Light by Gene Clark states that “It only achieved commercial success in the Netherlands, where rock critics also voted it album of the year. Like all of his post-Byrds records, it did very poorly on the US charts.” Ok, so, it didn’t chart so great, and no one bought it. I’ve often guessed that the point of this book is not to present you with the 1001 best albums of all time, but albums that are at least from prominent artists that you might not have heard before. After rolling this album today and being greeted by that wonderfully depressing header for the album, I did some barebones research and checked what Wikipedia had to say about the book. My initial assessment was incredibly wrong. Literally the second sentence for this book on Wikipedia states that “It compiles writings and information on albums chosen by a panel of music critics to be the most important, influential, and best in popular music between the 1950s and the date of publication.” Ok, so now it needs to be asked. What in all honesty is this album doing here on the list?? Honestly, I’m being serious here. They don’t follow their own criteria!! Unless you’re counting the Netherlands, this album is not important in the slightest, wasn’t influential for anyone, and certainly wasn’t popular. Hell, just going back to Wikipedia and searching for “White Light (Album)” puts this as the 6th result in the search results. I repeat, it’s the SIXTH RESULT when you SPECIFY that it’s also an album. What are we doing here guys?? We can do better than this. To make matters even worse if you can believe it, including this one, the book has 7 The Byrds related albums altogether. I guess the entire panel are just really big fans. There is absolutely no reason on Earth there should be more than 1 of these albums. But no, we must listen to all 7 apparently. Maddening. Anyway, all that being said, and regardless of why it’s here, I did like this album. It’s listed as Country on the site but I’d say it’s much closer to Singer Songwriter. The aspect that’s going to make me remember it is the harmonica. I won’t lie to you, I’m a sucker for a good harmonica, and this album’s got it pretty good. The singing is alright. Fine most of the time, just ok at others. Nothing special. The music is a little boring, I could for sure fall asleep to this. It’s not terribly impressive or amazing, it certainly shouldn’t be on this list, but I actually kind of liked it as a whole. It’s peaceful, kind of upbeat, his voice is ok, and the harmonica really brings it home and ties it together nicely. I don’t think it needs to be 51 minutes long, that certainly doesn’t help its case at all, but whatever. It was fine actually. I don’t think this album deserves to be under 3 stars, personally. Unless the reviews are mostly just raging over the fact that 7 The Byrds albums made the cut over something like Demon Days by Gorillaz, any single MF DOOM or Tool albums. Then I would completely understand the frustration and would agree it’s warranted. My favorite song was “For A Spanish Guitar”. Some good harmonica solos, pretty goated. Easy dub. 3.45 out of 5 as a whole. Better than I expected, but truly shouldn’t be here at all.

If 3 stars exemplified anything, it would certainly be this album right here. Add this to the ever growing list of albums that I enjoyed more than I didn't, but really can't say much for or against because of how by the books and generic it all was. Maybe not when it came out, but by today's standards, this album really did not do anything new or interesting for me. Again, I enjoyed every song just fine. I liked how it mixed both Post Punk and Rock elements together, and I like the lead singer's voice. But, every song sounded the exact same, and Siouxsie Sioux has such a familiar voice, even though I've never heard of her in my life until listening to this album, so it's not going to be very memorable in a day or 2, and I'll likely mistake this band for the million others on this list that sound just like it. Post Punk isn't necessarily the deepest genre of music, and a lot of it sounds pretty similar, especially around the 70's and 80's when it was actually relevant. All that being said, I easily managed to listen to it all day, so it's going to get a 3.5 stars. My favorite song was, funnily enough, the cover, "Helter Skelter", because I liked how fun and goofy it was. Pretty lively, and they did a good job singing it. It's the only song on the 12 song album I've put to memory. Damn, I can't tell any of them apart by looking at the song names. That's pretty telling. I'm already running out of anything good or bad to say about this album. It's just one of those, you know? I enjoyed listening to it, spent the entire day vibing with the cool vocals, and then absolutely blanked when it came to being creative with the review. Oh well, at least it was good. Bit of a shorter review today. The creative juices aren't flowing with this one. Next album please.

You know what?? I really dig this. This is the 4th movie soundtrack I’ve rolled for this project out of a total of 6, and yet again it’s making me want to watch the movie it was made for. Helping immensely, of course, is French Electronica band Air. The French without a shadow of a doubt continuing to prove that instead of singing, they should stick instead to doing more of this kind of thing. Between Air, Justice, Carpenter Brut, David Guetta, Daft Punk, and many more, they absolutely knock it out of the park with Electronica music in a way that just hits different. This is no exception, and it’s not even the only Air album on the list. First, of all, it’s really cool how the first and last songs set up the overarching story and conclusion of this film. Without even heard of it, I feel like I can summarize the plot pretty well off of that alone. Given the context of the setlist, I think the names and general vibes of the music itself also give away a lot just based off of what I’m listening to. Really want to watch the movie itself now to see if I was correct. Favorite songs on this one were “Playground Love”, “Highschool Lover”, and “Dead Bodies”, the last of those 3 being my favorite. It’s so hectic, fast paced, and panic inducing, it tells me that something very serious and dire is happening. I absolutely love it. “Highschool Lover” feels like a reprise of the opener with no vocals, and the somber, dreary tone just makes it super interesting. In fact, this entire album is rather dreary and interesting in general. Nothing I would want to skip, and a few songs saved to the usual rotation. I repeat, the French Electronica albums are goated, and this is no exception. Only 2 Movie Soundtracks left to go with this project and another Air album. It was only after a day of listening to this passed that I realized just how cool I thought it really was, after reviewing it here and now. I had a lot of good things to say about it, especially for being the soundtrack for a movie I’ve never heard of before. For that reason, yeah, I feel pretty good about giving this one a 4.

Oh, Meat Loaf made the cut?? Interesting. Admittedly, I only know him from his acting. Specifically from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and as Robert Paulson in Fight Club, one of my all time favorite movies. The dude could really act well. As a singer though, this is a little too silly, too light, and has way too much filler for my liking. The first song, “Bat Out of Hell” is pretty good. Not amazing, but he’s got a hell of a set of pipes on him and can hit those high notes spectacularly. It’s my favorite song on the album. Everything else is either a slow ballad that I don’t care for, or filler that just drags on for longer than I really want or need it to. “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” has a pretty neat sax solo that I thought was worth mentioning, I loved that. I still enjoyed this album, but I’ve got a lot of nitpicks with it and things that didn’t really vibe with me. It’s immensely theatrical and to that degree I conclude it must be a theater kids wet dream. I am not, nor have I ever been or ever will be a theater kid, so the charm doesn’t really register with me. It’s 46 minutes long, which is always a good length for an album, but I can only say I only really enjoyed a single song. Nothing was unbearable, but nothing was objectively great either to me. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is fine, it has moments of greatness, but it just goes on and on and I lose interest about halfway through. This album is fine, but I for sure won’t be returning to it. The few and far between moments when it’s over the top and fast paced, it’s also generally a bit repetitive and drags, but those are my favorite parts of the album. The rest is just a bunch of filler and heavily filled with lighter ballads that I just do not care for. I almost want to give this a 2, but in the rare moments it’s good, it’s more than worthy of a 3. We’ll call this one a 3.2 and move on to the next one. At the bare minimum, it was actually really cool to finally hear the late, great Meat Loaf sing. Now I can say truthfully and wholeheartedly that I preferred him much more as an actor and really mean that.

And so it begins. Let it be known that on this day, Friday March 6, 2026, album 246 (That’s 3 6’s btw, I didn’t plan that) is FINALLY my first Metallica album!!!! Bonus, it’s also my weekend album, so I get to listen to it longer. Let’s fucking go!!!! Full transparency, growing up as a little kid, my very first musical favorites happened to be Pearl Jam and Metallica. We played more of those 2 bands in the car than you could possibly imagine. I haven’t rolled Ten yet, but it’s going to get a 5, and has a high likelihood of being selected as my favorite album for this entire project. I’d kind of been planning this little blurb for when I finally rolled one of these albums, never cared which one it happened to be. In this case, it was Metallica’s …And Justice For All, which is the first of 4 Metallica albums I’ve rolled for this project, and naturally the first of 4 to get a free 5 star rating from me. I even thoroughly enjoyed 72 Seasons, which is their latest album at the time of this review. I’d give that a 5 as well if it was on here. They’ve still got it. Hell, the only time for their mainline albums they ever really missed was with St. Anger. Please don’t even get me started on Lulu either, that’s just astoundingly awful. Even though my musical repertoire has expanded heavily since childhood, Metallica is still likely always going to be my favorite band, and this album is no exception. As far as Metallica albums go, to me, this one is marked in my mind as being the first without bassist Cliff Burton, who tragically died in a vehicular accident while touring for the release of Metallica’s third album, Master of Puppets, which is also on this list. Replacing him, and doing an excellent job at that, was Jason Newsted, who would continue being their bassist for a total of 4 albums. Evidently, he picked a good time to jump ship. He missed out on St. Anger. Following that letdown of an album, current bassist Robert Trujillo would take his place, and he’d end up having plenty of time later to make up for St. Anger and its many shortcomings. After all these years being a fan, he’s still “The new guy” to me. That was without a shadow of a doubt the most amount of background info I’m ever going to provide for a bassist, but it’s a prevalent part of this album if you’re a Metallica fan. They’ve had the same core lineup, bassist excluded, since the very first album came out. Obligatory Dave Mustaine commentary goes here. Dave, the OG guitarist before the first album was recorded, ended up doing pretty well for himself after the fact. OG bassist Ron McGovney was not as successful, but is still worth a shoutout. So yeah, with 2 members departing before the first album was recorded, and more importantly Cliff’s tragic death, it’s fairly pivotal context and paints a picture of the terrible headspace James, Kirk and Lars were probably in while creating this masterpiece of an album. …And Justice For All features some of the best riffs of any Metallica album, the most iconic of which featured on this album belonging to “One”. I’m going to play it safe and list that as my favorite song on the album, but I also love “Blackened” and “Harvester of Sorrow” just as much. Metallica is my favorite band. To finally roll 1/4 of the albums they have on here brings me immense joy. Until the next one where I also give it a 5!!

If I’ve learned anything from this project, it’s that true random just straight up doesn’t seem to exist. I just rolled Self Titled by Paul Simon less than a week ago, and mentioned how I was eager to compare the remaining Simon & Garfunkel albums to the solo career of Paul Simon. So far, I have rolled Bridge Over Troubled Water, Paul Simon, and now this. Of the 3, I think this is actually my favorite so far. I enjoyed multiple songs to the extent that picking a favorite was difficult, which is always a sign of a good album. My favorites on this one are “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”, “Homeward Bound”, and the ultimate winner in my opinion, “A Simple Desultory Philippic”. Simon & Garfunkel, whether solo or together, are so goofy that it actually surprises me how much depth this album, which came out in 1966 has. It’s self deprecating in places, is full of social and political commentary, and does it all under the guise of a deceptively complex Folk album. It’s still not something I’d always want to listen to, but the charm and comedic aspects I think make a lot of the songs very memorable. Plus, there’s a fine mix of styles on this album, yet another plus. This is the closest I’ve come to giving a 4 to a Simon & Garfunkel album, but there are still plenty of skippable songs here, and with a playtime of 28 minutes, even a single skip is enough of an annoyance to dock a star. Still, I would probably give this one a 3.85 out of 5. I’ve determined it to be the best of the 3 so far, but I’ve still got 3 to go, so we’ll find out if any of them can break into 4 or even 5 star territory. To take it back to the top, if I’ve learned anything from this project, it’s that I’ve got a high likelihood of rolling another one soon. Am I a soothsayer?? God no, don’t be ridiculous. But I would find it very funny if it ends up happening. Here I am going off track again. I enjoyed this album a lot. This has been my review.

Pre Listen: This better be worth the pain it caused me to download the actual album, rather than the very incorrect version Spotify has. It took me forever to get this stupid thing on my phone. There are so many different versions and loopholes I had to go through to even find the thing. Thank God for the top review saying the Spotify version is wrong though. I don't think this album would be as low rated as it is on the site if people could just find it more easily.
Post Listen: Alright, I’m back. Heard the entire thing. What are my thoughts on this one? First things first, a compilation feels like cheating to even have on this list at all. Kind of weird to have multiple artists being listed as the same artist. Don’t really love that. Second of all, my GOD was this long. Took like half of my shift to get through it, and I barely realized I was even done, as the entire album is just very similar Drum and Bass samples that, while fundamental, are far beyond dated. This was a fun album to go back and explore because without something like this, we wouldn't have some of the best Electronica out today. It's basic now, sure, but back when this came out it was new and exciting. Unfortunately, it's so dated it really does lessen my interest as a whole, especially because of how long it is. I only managed to get through it once and can't say I'd want to again, but for what it is at the bare minimum it makes for some excellent background noise while I'm working. Favorite song? Brother, I can't even tell you a single thing I remember about any of them. None of them were bad, I can confidently say that. But they're so basic that all I remember is the rhythm that most every single song on the album collectively shared. I guess this album is on the list solely for being a big progenitor in the history of Drum and Bass, but I can't say that with the length, and ease of access to even find the bloody thing, that it was worth hunting it down at the end of the day JUST to listen to the whole thing. But, that is my goal for all of these albums, and I've stuck to it so far. At least it was good music this time and very easy to zone out to. Props for that. As for the music itself, I can't really say I had to listen to it before I died. It's a product of it's time and wasn't very interesting to listen to, but again, I get it. It's important to the progression of an entire genre of music, which is likely why it was added to begin with.

The fact that this is one of the best things I've heard on this site lately should tell you what kind of luck I'm having with the bot recently. World Music is always interesting to me for a few reasons. The first reason, and I'm sure I've written this verbatim in another review, is that I have no idea what World Music is. Yes, I understand. It's a term for "Anything not made in the USA or UK", essentially, which is honestly kind of hilarious. I've never understood that though, because some of the World Music I've heard so far has just blatantly been Rock, Rap, etc. This is not one of those examples, but surely there's something better we can call it than just "World Music". If this was close enough to anything, I would maybe say Singer Songwriter. Don't know. This was a long tangent. I don't have a lot to say about this album. My favorite song was "Pitche Mi". I found this album surprisingly easy to listen to, and the fact that it's as good as it is in retrospect should make all the albums I've given low 3's, 2's and even a 1 recently feel incredibly bad about being as shit as they are. This was an incredibly African sounding album, and even though I don't speak whatever language this was, I was vibing with it. Loved all the drums and super smooth guitar playing. My least favorite aspect was the singer himself sadly. Wasn't obsessed with that, but I'm going to give it a bit of a pass, because, again, I don't speak the language and it really didn't bother me all that much. I was too busy focusing on the sick ass drum beats, which were honestly the highlight of the album. Despite "Pitche Mi" being my favorite, I thought that all 4 songs on this album were pretty good and easy to distinguish from each other. I really liked this one actually. A 3.4 out of 5.

If there is one thing I have learned over the course of this project, it’s that the Brit’s putting the book together are actually dead on at picking a lot of these Gangsta Rap albums. Not only was I not expecting OutKast to have 2 albums on here, but I wasn’t expecting this one to also be so heavy on the P Funk. Last time I heard P Funk was with Funkadelic, and I gave that a 5 star rating. When you mix the 2 genres together here, you end up with a very uneven, but still pretty goated album. It’s uneven because over the course of its 1 hour and 13 minute runtime, I kind of got the point about 30 minutes in. They blow their load early with “Gasoline Dreams”, “So Fresh, So Clean” and the all time classic that most people probably recognize, “Ms. Jackson”. You then have to wait all the way until the middle of the album to hit my favorite song on the album, “B.O.B. - Bombs Over Baghdad”, which has just an insanely good hook to it and a good rhythm that makes you want to dance. This album has, not including the skits or the intro, about 16/24 songs. I only really love the hits, you can take or leave the rest. Notably, they’re still really good, but the hits actually do blow me away for once with how good they are. I’m generally a bit of an outlier when it comes to picking my favorite songs on these albums, but yeah, the hits are the best here. This is my first of 2 OutKast albums I have rolled for this project, and after consistently hearing some great Hip Hop over the course of my journey, gotta say that I’m super excited to roll the second album from these guys as well. I didn’t love every song on the album, I end up skipping quite a few actually, but as a whole, and considering how good the hits are, I’m going to give this one a low 4, probably somewhere around a 4.2. It’s great, if not a little flawed, and when it’s good, it’s very good. The flows these guys both put out when on top of their game are some of the best I’ve heard so far, but they don’t land as often as I’d like them to. Good stuff as always. Carry on.