Reviews by guggmo

I’m at a 5.

Just a ball of energy really; not as consistently manic as some of the other fastpaced, rapidfire albums we’ve gotten, but it is as consistently good throughout the whole thing. It’s another strong example of an album where “every song sounds the same” is used to an advantage – granted, not EVERY song sounds the same, and there’s just enough variety to not feel super pigeonholed into a style. It is, at its core though, post-punk with a slightly faster BPM, and the pacing of this album lends itself to one where you don’t have a lot of room to breathe, in a good way. Because so many of these are shorter tracks, even for the tracks that might feel just a bit stale by comparison to others, it’s not really felt since you’re just onto the next one immediately.

Lyrically, I don’t think there’s many tracks that actually really care to tell a story; hell, there’s a track on here where they just challenged themselves to write a song with 100 syllables, so when they sort of threw the lyrics out and just used it as a path for a vocal structure, then I threw them out too. I like the vocals here; a little bit flatter or more nasally at times, but it fits with the tone of the album, and they’re not bad at all. There’s some catchy structures too, and for tracks this short, I’m surprised at how earworm-y some of these get in the moment.

Is 35 minutes and 21 tracks too long here? Maybe a little bit, but I don’t think it actively subtracts from the album at all. At worst, the minor bloat makes the more mediocre ones stick out a bit more, but like I said, they just fly by. Honestly, for 1977, I think the overall style of these tracks feels just a little ahead of pace, with a few tracks feeling much more like the early 2000s rock bands who would kind of bite this tone. I had a lot of fun with it, and for my tastes, I feel pretty safe giving this a 5. At worst, a 3 if the pacing / tone of these tracks bounces off of you that badly.

I’m at a 4; maybe more of a 3.5 bumped up to a 4, but still.

There’s not a bad track here, and I did enjoy the album, but while I was listening to this, something just felt a little bit off, and I couldn’t exactly place what it was. Trust me, I don’t think it’s any remnants of “Songs in the Key of Life” making me hyper-nitpicky or anything, but I can get a general sense of when something feels off in an album. It finally clicked by “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” – for lack of better verbiage, I think this album is not as “effortlessly smooth” as it presents itself. When you listen to an album like “Hot Buttered Soul”, it’s effortlessly smooth, and you can actively feel it, hitting a zen state without even really trying. While I was listening to this, even though all of the technical aspects to the production are correct, I found myself struggling to hit the sort of zen state each track was trying to induce.

That’s sort of where I’m at for the whole 34 minute runtime; I think this album tries to glide upon “vibes” alone to a degree, but the instrumentation isn’t quite as fulfilling & rich as it needs to be to get there, and the vocals aren’t as clear to be able to fully subconsciously get there. When the “vibes” require a little extra focus, something doesn’t feel quite right, and I never felt like I truly hit the full zen state while listening to the album. Even from the very top of the album, with the pseudo-live recording of “Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On”, the muddled mix makes the energy feel a little off. Sure, the “crowd” is having fun, but the energy is not as infectious as it wants to be.

Notice, however, that I said the “full” zen state; this album is still strong enough in terms of carrying a mood & an energy that a sort of zen state is achievable. It’s just not as fulfilling as it wants to be, at least to my ears. Part of that is just the structures & progression on a lot of the tracks not feeling as apparent or satisfying as they could be. “Do Your Thing” might be the prime example for me here; it’s a track trying to glide on the vibes, but 2:30 in is where the outro starts, and there’s just no real indication of it whatsoever. The fadeout to mark the end just sort of sidles in, without the instrumentation & vocal energy really acknowledging it. It makes the ending of the album feel flat.

That’s not to say it ruins all of the tracks or anything; “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” is still great in spite of the length & the tension from the instrumental never fully having a payoff, and the vast majority of the tracks still overcome the struggle of not being as “effortlessly smooth” on account of being shorter, snappier & still ultimately being nice to listen to.

All of this is vast preamble to say that I think the production needed a little more time to cook so that these tracks COULD hit their highest potential, because it’s all there. Hell, I wouldn’t be at a 4 if I didn’t think they hit some of that potential. It’s also entirely possible that I was just in the wrong frame of mind for this, caught slightly off guard by the more orchestral tone of the album, clearly inspired by what Isaac Hayes & others were doing. Regardless, it’s a solid, solid album, and even the Temptations on a slightly off day are still the sort of soul / R&B music that my tastes are aligned to, hence a 4, albeit a slightly shaky 4.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m bumping up to a 5, simply because of my past history with this album & because I think the dichotomy between “Slim” & “Marshall” on this album is incredibly fascinating.

I heard this for the first time in like, 2013 or 2014, and I appreciated it as a sort of "pinnacle" to Dr. Dre’s production style back then, without really gathering the lyricism to the degree I was able to on this listen. Eminem’s frustrations about the media & politicians misinterpreting his intent with the Slim Shady LP throughout this album, especially on the issue of Columbine, are honestly really valid. It does come across as a little bit “woe is me” at times, as well as a little bit of an overcorrection at points to turn up the most controversial parts of Slim Shady in ways that TRULY have aged badly, even by the character’s standards. There are some horrid lines here, especially apparent from Bizarre’s guest verse on “Amityville”. When this album is rolling though, it’s an undeniably good rap album with Eminem flowing like water, even with the instrumentation & production work coming across as a lot more dry / simplistic than I remembered it being.

I already gave my two cents on the character of Slim Shady from when we got “The Slim Shady LP” in June – he’s a psychopathic misogynistic bully, a pathological liar, and just a slimy little shitbag asshole who you’d never really want to give the time of day to. This album explores what happens when THAT guy gets the eyes of the world upon him, newfound overnight fame, and how to cope with that. And honestly, as far as Slim goes… he handles it pretty well here, on the tracks where “Slim” takes the lead. Yeah, he’s pissed off, grumpy, wants to be left alone & all that, but with all the public pressure, he doesn’t go to anything too extreme. Hell, he embraces the fact that the world sees him as a shitbag that’s inspired some of the other little shitbags of the world to be themselves so proudly, whilst wholly denouncing the worst elements that come with that pride. It’s not a redemption arc for Slim as much as it is him finding his people & acknowledging that a community, even in its own fucked up way, can be a positive.

It’s the tracks that involve “Marshall” here (who definitely blurs the line between himself and the real Eminem) that are the most striking to me. He blends in pretty well with Slim, so much so that I think it’s hard to really figure out who's got what track at times. The big hint is that Slim always announces himself to the world, because he’s too much of an attention hog to not do it. Whenever he doesn’t, you’re dealing with Marshall, who’s slowly battered and beaten down throughout the album. “Stan” (all-timer track) is definitely Marshall; he’s empathetic towards Stan’s situation, and he’s just shocked that people would take the Slim Shady LP as seriously as they did. That shock becomes more of a total frustration by “Who Knew”, with him being blamed for everything under the sun, including Columbine, which is utterly ridiculous if you really think about it. His frustrations on that track boil over to “The Way I Am” (all-timer track, by the way), where he fully lets loose and just accepts the blame, leaning into it and letting the stress wash over him like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That self-fulfilling prophecy comes back to bite him by “Marshall Mathers”, where he’s fed up by the media attention that comes with accepting the blame, all the beefs that come with it, and all of the family stress & consequences as a result of the fame hitting a boiling point. You go from there to “Drug Ballad”, which has all the makings of a Slim Shady track in terms of the humor & style, but… he never shows up. This is Marshall getting horribly, horribly drunk, causing a car wreck & getting deep into alcohol to a toxic degree. You see where this is going? Yeah, it’s a buildup to “Kim.” “Kim” is tremendously visceral; the sound design is striking, Eminem’s performance is arguably Oscar-worthy, and it’s one of the most uncomfortable, spine-chilling tracks ever put to tape. It’s torture porn, in a way, but it’s the culmination of the stress, alcohol & drugs wrought upon Marshall through the album, acting as a realization of “‘97 Bonnie & Clyde” come to life. It is the end of Marshall’s tracks on the album, since “Under the Influence” & “Criminal” are both Slim.

Now, did Eminem realize he had accidentally made a Greek tragedy while writing this shit? No, probably not. Does my writing fall apart a bit when you realize “Amityville” is probably also Marshall under my rules? Yeah, maybe. Does this Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde-esque “story” enhance MY enjoyment of the album all the same? Absolutely. I think it’s enough for me to get past some of the more minimal aspects of the production that feel less “enjoyable”, some of the more harsh lyrics as a man under extreme pressure saying things purely out of stress & anger, and it reframes the album in a way that feels far more narratively fulfilling as a front to back project. At the very worst, I think this album is a 3, especially if its length & partial bloat are a big enough issue. I think it’s a 4.5 on account of what I said above, but I feel pretty safe bumping this up to a 5. It’s a more fleshed out album than the Slim Shady LP was, and while it’s arguably not as “fun”, it gave Eminem the street cred to prove he would be far more than a one-album wonder. Pretty good stuff.

I’m at a 4.

I mean… yeah, that sure sounds like Brazilian music after “cannibalizing” a bunch of genres for itself. AKA, “American-izing” it. It’s just a 60s rock album with a Brazilian flair, and as such, I don’t really know how to rate it other than “I had a pretty good time listening to it.” This album’s never bad, just occasionally a little flat in a way that didn’t make me move or groove as much as the majority of the album did, hence the 4 as opposed to a 5. It’s a fun listen, and a breezy 34 minutes. His vocals are smooth, and the Portuguese language sometimes lends itself to getting him into a slightly rap-adjacent flow state that’s groovy.

Only two tracks really fell THAT flat for me (including the closer, sadly), but even then, they’ve still got groovy moments within. As a whole, this is a pretty good album. I’m not sure that it’s one I had to listen to before I died, but I didn’t mind listening to it. It should have a higher average than 2.85, that’s for sure. The floor for this is a 3, and if you didn’t bop your head at least once, I think that speaks a little more about you than the music does. I like it enough to give it a 4, and maybe it’d be a 5 if I got really into the groove on these tracks another day. It’s certainly got the potential. It might be the shadow of “Songs in the Key of Life” looming over this one, I dunno.

It’s the greatest album of all time.

I knew it was going into it, and even with the last 597 albums I’ve listened to occasionally leaving me mesmerized beyond belief, it only took one more listen of this piece of art to remember that it is, indeed, the greatest album of all time.

The first time I heard this album in full was around 2013. My musical journey, in many ways, begins around that year. Sure, I’d heard music all my life, but I wanted to really, truly dive into it and finally figure out what my tastes were really aligned towards. I did that the way any absolute moron would at the age of 13: I made a Pandora account and let the radio station play, liking whatever I liked and disliking whatever I didn’t. I let the algorithm send me along, even back then. Obviously, that strategy’s a little loose, but I’d honestly recommend it; I think it’s much easier for a younger brain to digest individual tracks for a while, to let the seeds plant in and really figure out what constitutes “good” music to them. I figured out that I really liked pop music, but along the way, a lot of 70s & 80s stuff popped up. Obviously, this “Stevie Wonder” guy showed up eventually, and while I knew him by name as that blind guy who makes music, I think the chemicals in my brain fundamentally changed the second I heard “Sir Duke” for the first time.

“Sir Duke” is a perfect pop song. No ifs, ands or buts about it – if you want to study any singular track in history to figure out pop structure, you have to listen to “Sir Duke”. I’m fairly certain that was the catalyst for me to sit down and listen to “Songs in the Key of Life” for the first time, but not before getting through the vast discography of this other guy called Michael Jackson, of whom we happened to get “Off the Wall” from just yesterday. Unbelievable back to back pulls. Whenever I got around to “Just Good Friends” off of Bad, I figured I was in for a real treat by the time I’d loop around to Stevie.

So, after looping around, I chose to go straight into this one. Gotta tell you; maybe not the greatest move to have your first Stevie Wonder album be this one. I felt overwhelmed back then by the size & scope of it, and with my brain much more attuned to poppier stuff, I remember really getting into the first side of the album, but just feeling drained by the second half, since it all just felt so long. Michael’s stuff is usually snappy, constantly hitting you musically, and while this album occasionally did that, its artistry was lost on me, due to a general lack of just worldly experience & a brain not ready for it. I still liked a lot of the album, but I don’t think I truly got it.

Fast forward to… I want to say 2017 – I’m not sure exactly why I wanted to listen to the album again, but with a LOT more experience with music (especially with more of Stevie’s singles prior to this album) & a bit more worldly experience to pull from, I fucking got it. Everything about the first side of the album clicked in full, from an instrumental, vocal & lyrical standpoint, and I felt HOOKED to it. And yet, for whatever reason, a lot of the second side still didn’t click with me as easily. I’ve checked my playlist on this; the only songs I had from the second side were “Isn’t She Lovely”, “As”, & “Saturn”, with “Another Star” not getting added until *2023*, BY ITSELF, without the rest of the second half in tow. I’m guessing I heard it from Spotify’s radio feature and added it to a playlist, but I can’t believe I left so much of the second side untouched until now. What the hell was wrong with me, man?

So, that brings us here. August 20th, 2025, with 597 albums done in this project, a UNIVERSE of musical influence brought into my stratosphere that’s expanded my tastes to the fullest point they’ve ever been, and another crack at an album that I had already proclaimed, on several occasions, to be the greatest album of all time from the greatest recording artist of all time. I made a post on social media years ago saying it’s an album that needed to be taught in schools. I stand by that, by the way. Trust me, I got through the first half the same as I always did, with a newfound appreciation for the second half of “Ordinary Pain”, which I had always been a little bit iffy on, and “Isn’t She Lovely” was as lovely as it’s always been.

I have no earthly idea how I managed to ever bounce off of the stretch from “Joy Inside My Tears” to “If It’s Magic”. Sure, you could call it a little long, but I got deeply lost in the rhythm of “Joy Inside My Tears” in a way that felt like listening to “Hot Buttered Soul”. “Black Man” feels so culturally relevant with the 250th coming up, and with so much more history in my brain, the references finally clicked on this track, making the whole thing feel so much more fulfilling. Because of all the worldly albums we’ve been getting, the samba grooves of “Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing” felt far more grand to me than before. “If It’s Magic” has such lovely lyrics & one of the prettiest harps I’ve ever heard, and the way it thematically links to “As” is something I’ve never appreciated until this listen. I finally appreciate “Another Star” within the context of the album, and how it just blasts that fucking Latin disco groove for its final 4 minutes in a way that feels utterly infectious… ugh. What a bow on the album, if you choose to end it there.

However, I do think this album would be incomplete without the “A Something’s Extra” part. I fucking adore “Saturn” – one of my favorite Stevie Wonder tracks of all time, and arguably more relevant than ever. I had entirely forgotten about the next two tracks though. “Ebony Eyes” is groovy as hell, with a lot of Beatles-y DNA, and it feels like a leftover Innervisions-era cut because of the talkbox being used. “All Day Sucker” is a really good track; it feels like one of Stevie’s ‘80s tracks (specifically the style he would take by “In Square Circle”), due to the bass & synth work. Ironically, a lot of the DNA of that track feels like it was used for “Just Good Friends”, so maybe Michael REALLY liked that one. I did remember the overall harmonica-driven lo-fi tone of “Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)”, but hearing it as the true album closer here… man, it just evoked a whole world of imagery to my brain that my 13-year-old self would’ve never once come up with. It is a perfect way to end an album titled “Songs in the Key of Life”. Life is tiring & exhausting, as Stevie’s been singing about the whole time. Sometimes, you really appreciate it in the moments where you can just sit there and soak it all in. That’s what the track is trying to represent, and it clicked beautifully this time.

So, yes, my 12-year odyssey with this album finally feels complete, and I can indeed confirm it’s the greatest album of all time. I can’t possibly put a number to it; obviously, it’s a 5 for the site, but in terms of a rating… you can’t rate this. You can only sit back, listen, and get lost in it. I still think it can be taught in schools, the same way we teach books, and if we all took the lessons of this album to heart, we’d be living in the utopia that Stevie seemed so hopeful we could achieve at the age of 26. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: he was *26* here. He wrote the greatest album of all time, as a culmination to an already incredible stretch of albums that could singularly define anyone’s career by themselves, at the age of *26*. Unbelievable. Even with his output slowing down by the ‘90s, I really think there’s a case to be made for Stevie Wonder to be the GOAT. It’s been 20 years since his last album, and while he’s still performing, I feel like he can give us at least one more album. We need his insight now more than ever. As far as this goes, we are coming up on the 50th anniversary of this album next year, and I can only hope it receives a rose parade’s worth of flowers when the time calls for it. It’s a masterpiece, and to my ears, the pinnacle of an entire art form.

I cannot wait for our next album to be just the worst thing ever. Or, hell, I dunno, maybe we’ll get Thriller & I can write another essay’s worth of words.

I’m obviously at a 5. I love this damn album, man.

It’s not 10 material like Thriller will almost certainly end up being, but I’m honestly just glad to finally get a damn MJ album here. This is Day 597 of the whole thing, and the odds of not getting a single one through the first 596 were about 9%. It was worth the wait; this album is as good as I remember it, and I caught a lot of new intricacies to it on this listen. It is harder for me to write about albums I’m far more intimately familiar with, since I’m gonna be biased as hell, so I’ll just say the obvious stuff that everyone else has written about: “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” is an all-time intro track that sets the tone for the whole album, “Rock with You” is arguably genre defining, “Off the Wall” is groovy as hell as a title track, “She’s Out of My Life” is a perfect ballad, the whole album is the last great record of the Disco era, and “did you know ‘Girlfriend’ is actually a Paul McCartney cover?”

OK, maybe people don’t really write the last part, but regardless, this is an album that’s been dissected to hell and back. There are video essays out there about nothing but the drum fill that starts “Rock with You”, so I don’t know if I can really add much with my own two cents to the galaxy of opinions & think pieces that exist about this album, and the opening catalyst for a run of albums that quickly turned Michael Jackson into the single most famous man in the known universe, after already becoming a superstar as big as the sun with his brothers.

So, why the 5 and not an all-timer super duper 10? For me, the album just loses some steam after “Off the Wall”, really. “Girlfriend” is fun, and I have a soft spot for it, but it sticks out here quite a bit, especially after the stellar run of the first 5 tracks. “I Can’t Help It” is great, but there is a sense of that Stevie Wonder repetition that comes in at the end that’s just a little hard to ignore. “It’s the Falling in Love” is a good track, but it’s one where I constantly forget it’s a part of the album, and while Michael’s vocals & the key change at the end bring it all together, it just feels off. “Burn This Disco Out” is a really underrated closing track; it’s super fun and it’s groovy as hell, but I can’t help but feel like the tempo could’ve been punched up a little bit to match the same energy as the first 5 tracks. Go to YouTube and set it to 1.10 speed, because I think it kind of proves my point.

Regardless, it’s obviously a 5. It’s a genre-defining album, and if someone wants to make a case for it as Michael’s best record, I’d be willing to hear them out. It’s probably his most impactful, in terms of starting the ascent of his career to the plateau that would be reached only 3 years later on Thriller. We’ll get there when we get there, and hopefully it won’t take too long to get there. Hell, hopefully we get it first, and not “Bad”, but I won’t mind either way.

P.S.: Since this is the first MJ album we've gotten, I'll acknowledge the elephant in the room. Yes, Michael Jackson was weird as hell around children in terribly awkward, uncomfortable & insensitive ways at best & a genuine serial sexual predator at worst, but for better or worse, his work as an artist is so monumentally crucial to both my own journey for truly enjoying music when I was younger & the entire landscape of the industry at large that I feel like I can separate the art from the artist in a historical sense. Does that say something about me? I dunno, probably. I just cannot see myself taking some of the most influential music of all time out of my diet, especially when I’ve been digesting it for at least 16 years. I know I’m not the only person still listening to his music even in light of what’s come out, and I see praise for the guy’s music nearly every day on social media, so I can only shrug. Extreme heavy side-eye to the “Michael did nothing wrong” crowd, though.

How could you not fucking give that a 5?

Seriously, just go fucking listen to it. I don’t wanna type up a whole soliloquy about it; it’s 42 minutes of just incredibly fun proto-punk rock & roll that feels ahead of schedule for 1973, with great guitar work, really strong percussion, and a whole variety of instruments. Todd Rundgren did a hell of a job producing these guys to get the most of them & to capture the full energy of their sound & style, but consider me really fucking impressed by the New York Dolls themselves. These guys are innovators, and you can hear just about everyone they influenced (it's a LAUNDRY list on Wikipedia, seriously) at some point throughout this album.

It’s obviously a 5, and to give it anything less tells me you’re either a curmudgeonly fool or someone who’s been burned too many times by actually shitty 70s rock to not appreciate this for what it is. OK, fine, you can give it a 4 if you thought the overuse of the choruses was just too big of an issue or something. Either way, just loosen up and have fun with this thing – it flew by in a heartbeat, and I was rocking out the whole time. Easy, easy 5. Arguably a 10.

I’m at a 5; maybe a little higher.

This is a hard one to try and distill, because for the most part, I think you could get away with listening to this album with your eyes closed, just to catch the vibes & overall tone of it, and you’d still probably capture at least 70-80% of the essence of this thing. It’s an album where sound design tells most of the story, with the lyricism acting as texture to enhance and specify the mood, but not as something crucial, at least not until specific points in each of the songs. His Bob Dylan-y vocals add a bit as well, to portray some of the emotion, but you could just as easily blend it into the soundscape (and this album DOES do that a handful of times).

The 20 to 30% of this album where the lyricism feels more crucial (but again, not overly so) adds a lot of texture to my brain that just hammers the track home. Take a track like “An Ocean in Between the Waves”; it’s about losing sight of someone because of being buried down under a pile of stress, and being unable to fully recognize them because of it. It’s a little hard to parse from just listening, but I do think the instrumental provides so much of the necessary information to get there, and the lyricism is what hammers it down. The same applies to a track like “Eyes to the Wind”, where the lyricism expresses a sense of social dejection & self-inflicted loneliness, but the instrumental still tells so much of the story.

“Burning” is the point of the album where a sense of clarity is reached, and in many ways, it’s the climax point of the album, one where you could arguably just end it and have a satisfying 8-track narrative. The entire buildup, starting from “The Haunting Idle”, is REALLY well done, and once the tension releases itself, THAT’S the clarity point. Once again, the lyricism hammers home the track; it feels like being “released” from the clutches of this relationship has fully untethered him from some of his stress & tension. The clarity point hit for me as a listener too; while the framing of these songs have all made it seem like a relationship with a woman, it’s almost certainly been about his relationship with himself – his “release” here is an intentional choice to pick himself up and get past the demons in his life. The narrative is extremely obvious in retrospect, but it reframed so much of the album for me. The soundscape on this track, with the super triumphant tone, tells that story all the same, and they work hand-in-hand very nicely.

I *love* the choice to not end on “Burning”, though. The last two tracks are more of an epilogue based in introspection, and they cap off the album in a way that feels like well-needed therapy past the storm, to try and truly seal those inner demons away for good. The clarity that comes after “Burning” gives the last two tracks a bit more lyrical clarity as well, but they’re still very driven by their soundscapes.

“Lost in the Dream” is about self-love being a catalyst to open the windows to the soul, made specifically for the people who are most intimately in your life to see through. It’s done through the simple observance of a soldier lost in a daydream, and the curiosity of wanting to know his thoughts. It’s very lyrical, and it’s the most Bob Dylan-y song on the album, by far. However, there’s still something in the soundscape itself that aids the storytelling of the album. It’s that clarity popping up again. It’s just so much calmer. Even if you ignore the lyricism here, the difference from “Burning” to “Lost in the Dream” is still kinda striking from just an instrumental standpoint.

“In Reverse” is very Eno-y to start, and once it really drops, it reveals itself as a good blend of “Burning” & “Lost in the Dream” from an instrumental standpoint. Lyrically, while it’s a little hard to parse, there’s a simple framing that makes the entire track make sense: he’s still talking to himself. It’s his “darker” depressed self giving a sort of goodbye to his “brighter” happier self, as the darkness fades away, at least for now. That “war” in the first line is just the first 8 tracks. The vestiges of that “darker” soundscape fading out to end the album tells the story all the same, and it puts a great bow on the entire thing.

Of course, a lot of this is still interpretative, and I’ve sure made it sound like the lyrics give far more than they do, but I promise; this is an album where you can just listen and pick up on the overall mood swings, and that story from just the instrumentals & production alone is still extremely satisfying. To put it bluntly, I think you can get lost in the dream & still get most of this album. It’s a little artsy, perhaps, but it’s the type of artsy that’s right down my alley. I think it’s worth the acclaim, I think it’s worth being on the list, and I think it’s another example of the sort of stuff I missed out on in the 2010s. It’s a highly recommended album, and an easy 5 for me, if a little higher.

I’m at a 5.

When we got this, I went straight to Wikipedia to look at the genres, and I saw it said “downtempo, drum & bass”, and I immediately assumed we would be getting another 58 minute electronica piece driven mostly by video game-esque beats. I would like for someone to edit the damn Wikipedia article for this album, because it gives a *tremendously* wrong impression. This is a deeply enrichening 58 minutes that covers a wide variety of genres, using electronica as a sort of cover-all base to aid in the production, but this goes everywhere from pop to jazz to R&B to DnB, with a lo-fi lean and a lot of worldly Indian influence. The instrumentals are what aid the overarching theme of the album, which is ultimately how much humanity has been impacted & predisposed to self-defense instead of community ever since the dropping of the first atomic bomb, starting in present time for 1999, and going backwards to Oppenheimer’s realizations, quoted in a way that feels a bit chilling by the very end.

From a storytelling standpoint, it’s hard to point out any perceived “flaws” here; this takes a more intimate approach at times, so mileage will simply vary on being able to pick up the themes & political overtones of this album, and I do think there is a bit of correlation to picking up on them & being able to enjoy this album to its fullest extent. It does hit you over the head pretty hard with it though, so if you somehow manage to ignore it, that’s on you, I think.

From a musical standpoint, there are definitely some flaws in my brain, but they’re not overly bad, save for one. “Pilgrim” is fine, if entirely undercooked due to the way it was recorded; never ever record vocals first & then beat second, unless you’re Kendrick Lamar working with Pharrell Williams. It needed a rerecording & a lot more work. I think “Nadia” is a little too long; cutting it down to an essential 3 minutes would make that track pace itself way better. “Serpents” is… wholly unnecessary to the album. It’s the biggest glaring flaw here, and while it’s not an overly *horrible* track, I do think it’s a bad one, and it could have easily been cut. If you already weren’t enjoying the first 7 tracks of this album, it might be the breaking point to just give up on this album entirely. I’m very glad the first 7 tracks clicked as nicely as they did for me, because it really seems like it could be that bothersome.

“Anthem Without Nation” is an interesting case study in lyricism making or breaking an atmospheric song at times; Genius doesn’t have the lyrics, but Spotify does, and they’re very easy to translate if you Google them. Looking through the translation, it’s a very slow boiling anger relating to how indigenous peoples tend to get thrown away and ignored in favor of colonized history; it’s an anthem for those people who feel like they have no nation even though they’re the true natives of the land. Without a translation though, all of this is lost, and the track could easily feel like another 6-minute slog after “Serpents” took a swing at the vibe. I think it’s an admirable track, but musically it’s just far too slowly paced, and the building percussion creates a bigger sense of repetition. I would’ve done it with more traditional instrumentation, but perhaps the synthetic instrumentation is a metaphor for the “overtaking” of nations. I do like it from a storytelling perspective, but musically, it could just as easily have been cut, with “Immigrant” flowing into “Nostalgia” as a better 1-2 punch.

Oh, and uh, I guess “Nostalgia” is just a little repetitive. That’s my only thing on that one. The rest of the album flows great.

All of that aside, those are just things I would tweak about the album to give it stronger pacing for my tastes; at its core, this is still a very strong album, and a lot deeper & richer than I thought it would be at first glance. Hell, just look at that album cover. That album cover does not inspire confidence whatsoever. I’m very glad this is on the list, and even with a track like “Serpents” acting as a make or break battering ram for some people, I think the rest of this album is more than strong enough to earn a 5. It’s an album where you can draw a clear line between an active listener and someone treating this 1001 Albums project as just colorful noise to listen to. I really, really enjoyed it, and I’m very glad it’s on the list. Hence, the 5.

I’m at a 5.

Looking back at what I wrote about “Happy Sad”, my biggest issues with that album involved the pacing and the sense of progression, making the length of the album feel far longer than 44 minutes. This is thankfully a much better paced album, with a significantly better sense of progression, making this thing fly by in a way that doesn’t feel like 42 minutes. It also adds all of the “fun” that felt lacking from “Happy Sad”, but I suppose the title of that album should’ve been a giveaway back in January.

Lyrically, this thing is really dense, which might be my only proper knock on it; I’m big on lyricism, and this is a very well-written album, but I’m also big on letting the vocals flow, and I think this album has points where the structure & the lyrics just don’t mesh as smoothly as they could. This album remedies that through two things: great vocals from Tim Buckley, hitting far higher & more varied registers than I remember him hitting on “Happy Sad”, & by just having a precision strike of instrumentation sort of attacking it at all times, and at all angles; it’s a slightly loud album, but in a way that always fits & elevates the emotional bend that the tracks are going for.

A shining example of this is on “Pleasant Street”, which is about the feeling of being on drugs (heroin specifically) and how pleasing it can all feel despite the horror that emerges from a lack of true self-control. The storytelling still emerges from the slightly screechy tones of the electric guitar, the acoustics rolling, and the percussion finding a good groove, but it’s Tim’s vocals hitting the full range of emotion on the track that really sells the sense of “nightmarish ecstasy” that the lyricism is trying to portray. Put them all together, and you get something that really works as the sum of its parts, in a harmony that wouldn’t work otherwise.

There’s other standouts that work in a similar way for me, namely on “Hallucinations” (which has great sound design for 1967), “Once I Was” (just a wonderfully written track about paranoia over lost emotional connection, elevated by the wistfulness of the instrumental), and “Goodbye and Hello” (a grandiose instrumental with orchestral flair, with the lyricism elevated by how stoic his vocals feel). The whole album takes this sort of approach though, and it REALLY worked for me. It doesn’t always work, but those are only for brief sections of each track.

I enjoyed this a lot – it’s aligned to my tastes a lot more than “Happy Sad” was, it’s far better paced to stop it from feeling like a drag, and I think it just carries a pep in its step that makes it a more palatable album. It’s even in the cover; he’s smiling here, as opposed to the frown he had. Yes, the lyricism is still a bit more drab than it might feel like on a first pass, but I love a good “sad album that sounds happy” dichotomy when it’s done right, and this does it pretty well. I think it’s worth giving a 5, and I’m far more ready for the third Tim Buckley album to pop up, whenever it does.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5.

Little bit of a frontloaded album, especially through the first 4 tracks, but regardless, that’s a hell of a debut to make for 1984. This feels like it’s trying to single-handedly move soul music forward, and I think it probably did in a lot of ways. Even from just an instrumental standpoint, this thing just oozes with a type of smooth charisma that still feels fresh now, and probably felt REALLY fresh in 1984. This is expanding upon the DNA of 70s soul groups (especially Earth, Wind & Fire), and it’s doing it in a way that feels like a preview for the rest of the 1980s to come. Of course, those instrumentals wouldn’t quite hit the same without Sade’s smooth as silk voice gliding on top of them, and she knocks it out of the park here. She adds great depth to each track by herself, giving the lyrics a bit more gravitas, & her higher registers are stunning when they come in, given that she stays low for most of the album.

So, why the 4.5 and not a flat 5? A few tracks were a little too long (“Hang On to Your Love”), a little too simple, a little too repetitive (“I Will Be Your Friend” for both), a little too slowly paced (“Sally”)… nitpicks, again, but the sort of nitpicks that build up to make an album experience feel like just a little bit more of a drag to my ears. There’s also “Why Can’t We Live Together”, which is a solid track with a good message… but it feels wrong as the album closer, and it doesn’t feel like it meets the same quality as the rest of the album. Instrumentally, it sounds like it’s from 1977 as opposed to 1984, and it doesn’t really feel as unique as the preceding 39 minutes.

As I said before, this is a bit frontloaded, especially with “Smooth Operator”, and I think the album hits its peak at “Cherry Pie”, after already hitting what I thought might be a peak at “Frankie’s First Affair”. That slow falldown afterward is what’s putting this at a 4.5 as opposed to a flat 5, but regardless, it’s an incredibly easy bump up. This is neo-soul as we currently know it being born, with a hint of Japanese city pop standards thrown in, pulling influence from Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, some Hall & Oates, and hell, a little bit of Huey Lewis to my ears. It’s a great blend to have, and for my tastes, it fits perfectly. I was hoping a little more Sade would be on the list (especially the album with “Kiss of Life” on it), but I guess I’ll have to check those out in my own time. Great album, great pick, definitely glad I heard it before I died, and an easy bump up to a 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll easily bump up to a 5.

That’s the first time I’ve ever heard “Homework”; I’m far more aware of the other Daft Punk albums, but I just never went back to this one. It’s certainly different – Daft Punk would later expand its range into a little more of a soft pop blend with the electronica / EDM / house standards that are so clearly set up on this album, and I definitely prefer everything from “Discovery” onward, but even the “worst” Daft Punk album that my ears have heard is still a fucking banger.

“Around the World” is obviously the all-timer here, but most of the 74 minute runtime of this album is a treat. Really, the only reason I’m at a 4.5 and not a flat 5 is because a few tracks just felt a little long (“Rollin’ & Scratchin’” & “High Fidelity”), & “Rock’n Roll” in particular just kind of bounced off of me after about 5 minutes. Little too noisy, and the abrupt ending doesn’t help. Past those minor bumps though, what emerges is a very strong album that’s more instrumental / club-centric than its successors. Mileage will vary on how much one would like the straight instrumental approach, but as someone who already listens to a little too much video game music, it didn’t bother me as much here.

The thing that struck me the most about the production work / composition is how much this album tends to rely on its lower, bassier tones, using anything extra high as a point of contrast to make the progressions feel more fulfilling. When it works, it works, but there are points on this album where it doesn’t, and it’s pretty noticeable when it doesn’t. Those moments are generally fleeting, but it does show the slight messiness of this album compared to how tightly they would refine it down the line.

Of course, I’m nitpicking apart the little things I didn’t like about this because the rest of it is just worth all the praise a Daft Punk album should get. It’s still a great, great debut album, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for preferring this sort of style more to their later work. If the biggest complaint I have is “a few tracks were a little long & the progression isn’t always perfect”, then you’ve still made a great electronica album, since I’ve definitely said the same stuff about other electronica albums that were far worse than this. It’s an extremely easy bump up to a 5, and a very recommended album. I wish “Discovery” or “Random Access Memories” were here on the list, but alas.

Yeah, that’s a 5.

Emmylou Harris’s voice is just such a conduit for emotion that it’s able to carry a whole track by itself, and it carries this entire album brilliantly. The instrumentation enhances it a lot, but… man, her vocals are just that good. I can’t describe them with any other word but “angelic”. It’s pretty variable too; while a lot of this album is comprised of sadder songs, the closing track “Queen of the Silver Dollar” ends with her just going “da da da” to the tune of the chorus, and it gives off a party vibe.

This is an album made of mostly covers, so I can’t quite give the songwriting all the credit in the world except to the original artists. It’s a loaded lineup by the way; Merle Haggard, Shel Silverstein, John & Paul, Dolly Parton herself, and more. Emmylou Harris at least knows how to pick them. However, she does have one track she penned on here: “Boulder to Birmingham”, a lamenting ballad about her inability to really cope with Gram Parsons’ death 2 years before. It’s a brilliantly written track, and it really does capture the feeling of being sort of an emotional powderkeg. It makes me wonder why she didn’t write more original material, especially with how good “Red Dirt Girl” turned out 25 years later.

I do think the music speaks for itself here; I can’t really write any more words praising “old country” like this, and Emmylou’s voice will portray far far more depth than what I can say about these tracks. This is a great 5; it’s worth a listen, it’s worth being on the list, and once again, Emmylou Harris has just blown me away. Not bad for someone who I’d never heard of before starting this whole 1001 Albums thing.

I’m unabashedly at a 5.

Haters gonna hate, hate, hate and all that. Here’s a quick story: the first time I ever heard “Shake It Off” was at a high school pep rally in 2014. I thought it was a little cheesy, & I didn’t know who was singing it. It was catchy as hell though, and the chorus got stuck in my ear. Once I got home, I googled it. Imagine my surprise to find out it was Taylor Swift, the country artist, and it was THE biggest song in the world at the time. As a 14-year-old boy, I fell victim to the classic “this is popular, so I’m going to hate it” trope, and I… was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

Someone wanting to demean the type of women who listen to & enjoy Taylor Swift might write something along the lines of the following: “these are songs made for the Grey’s Anatomy-loving / idealized love & empathy generation of women who grew up with The Notebook as their favorite movie, a pink DS to play Nintendogs on, and who would swear by scrolling through Pinterest & writing down every thought they have in the Notes app as self-therapy.” Of course, tell this to any woman who actually enjoys Taylor Swift and they’d probably take it as a massive compliment. That’s modern-day girlhood for you. I wouldn’t have written something like this in 2014, but as far as my mindset back then goes, I probably was doing some kind of subconscious celebrity-driven misogyny (or just the whole “eww cooties” thing taken to a natural, if really flawed conclusion).

I came to the realization that I was wrong in 2021, as a 21-year-old man, when Taylor Swift started to drop her re-recordings of all her albums in light of the ownership situation, giving me an excuse to actually listen to all of these tracks that I thought all of my girl friends (*please* note the space) had been overhyping for years, with a decently fresh mind, a good bit of empathy, and the realization that I was never going to stop the train, so I may as well take a ride on it, just for fun. Of course, I proved myself to be a moron, as one does with this sort of thing. They were all right, to some degree, and I found myself enjoying her stuff far more than I did from just hearing it in passing on nearly every commercial or radio station for years. Granted, I still think “Red” is a *really* mediocre (if not outright bad) album, but hey; I also think “Fearless” & “Speak Now” are *really* good, so it weighs out.

When the “1989” re-recording came out in late 2023 (66 days before starting this 1001 Albums project), I gave it a listen, and a weird wave of nostalgia came over me, with every song feeling familiar, but only just now coming into full focus. I had forgotten just how many monster hits were on this thing; you would think “Shake It Off” would obviously be the biggest one, but “Blank Space” has more plays than it on Spotify (2.1 billion), and 4 of the tracks have at least a billion plays. I haven’t heard the album in full since then, but hearing it again now, with 588 albums across several decades & styles inbetween to sharpen & hone my musical tastes… yeah, this one’s still really fucking good too. I listened to the original version this time, since she got her ownership back, and let me tell you; it blows the re-recording out of the water. Good to finally hear this thing as it was intended.

Taylor Swift is a good, if not great (albeit really self-indulgent to an annoying point as of late) songwriter, with her biggest strength being able to find one or two cutting lines that can immediately capture the modus operandi of a song through some striking imagery. Whether or not you agree or care about that modus operandi is another thing, but regardless, her lyricism comes out really well on this album, especially so on “Clean”, but every track has a gem of a line somewhere in it. Her production team on this (especially Max Martin, arguably hitting a peak) knock it out of the park with this sort of hybrid mix of an 80s new wave style with the production tricks & heavy synth work of the early 2010s, and while it’s certainly dated to 11 years ago, it’s the sort of soundscape where if you like it, you’ll really like it, and it clicked very nicely for me this time around.

Some people would call this album a pop Bible, and while I disagree (it’s “Thriller.” “Thriller” is the pop Bible.), I won’t dissuade people from having that take at all, since this is probably one of the most influential pop albums of the decade. Much like Frank Ocean’s “channel ORANGE”, this album’s success & all the artists it inspired has opened up a Pandora’s Box of sorts. However, I think that Pandora’s Box has finally started to pay off – the new “big 3” of Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan & Sabrina Carpenter (Billie Eilish is in there somewhere, trust me, she’s just not fully “pop music” to my ears) are a direct product of the wave that Taylor Swift started with this album, and they’re all expanding on it in a way that feels like a proper renaissance of radio pop music after it got really stagnant around mid 2019 into early 2021. I’m not saying we should thank Taylor Swift for their success, but I don’t know if we get to this point without this album.

I’ve done all this yapping without talking much about the album itself, but it should be obvious that I enjoyed the hell out of it. I’ve come away from this with arguably an even greater appreciation for it, now having a much better sense of the styles she & her team were pulling from throughout this album, and with how well-crafted of an homage it all is. Yes, its commercialism can be used as a knock against it, and you could just as easily call it “corporate, overproduced nonsense that loses the soul of what makes music music”. I wouldn’t hate on anybody for that take, but it’s probably just a cycle that’s been perpetuated for years. I’d bet a dollar someone called “Thriller” overproduced nonsense compared to the heart shown by the Rolling Stones, or “Abbey Road” as such compared to the “true” musicianship of Aretha Franklin, or hell, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony compared to the earliest attempts at orchestral work. Musical tastes are constant & ever evolving, much like mine were between 2014 and 2021, and especially so since I’ve started this whole 1001 Albums project.

All of this bullshit rambling preamble aside, I've grown to fucking love this album. If you can allow yourself to let loose and open up your mind for just 49 minutes (or 60 minutes via the deluxe), what emerges is a tightly crafted, well-written, well-composed & well-sung pop album that stands up with (and next to) some of the best of its genre, full of monster hits, which has probably shaped an entire generation, for better or for worse. It is probably the best Taylor Swift album, and it’s her at her pop peak. I know one of her COVID-era albums is on the list, and I’ve never heard that one before, so I’ll be ready when we get that one, but as far as "1989" goes, it’s an easy 5.

By the way, did I mention that I'm older now than Taylor Swift was when she recorded this album? Yeah, she did this album when she was 24. I'm cooked.

I’m at a 5. OK, a little higher, but not to the point of a 10.

That sure is Steely Dan. All my praise from “Countdown To Ecstasy” applies here (with a little more of a pure 70s rock lean), and this is an even better album to my ears. Not a single miss, and another track that gave me a “yep, this is THAT song” moment via “Reelin’ In The Years”. Genuinely, 41 minutes of near-perfect 70s soft/yacht-adjacent rock to my ears, foreshadowing a lot of the trends the genre would take in its sort of post-Beatles poppier form, while giving a lot of breathing room for bands like Boston, Chicago, Thin Lizzy & more to work with & help refine.

I mean, I just don’t have any complaints. I have a nitpick; I think “Change of the Guard” probably should’ve been the last track, with “Turn That Heartbeat Over Again” coming before “Only a Fool Would Say That” to pair the sort of faux-cynicism tracks together. It’s a total nitpick though; this is an album that is *deeply* rich in terms of instrumentation, gliding vocals (the other non-Fagen vocalists do great here), really strong musical structures, and smart enough lyricism that’s not too crucial to a listening experience, but just enhances it well enough if you can pick up on it. The only track where you kinda need the lyrics is “Fire in the Hole”, and even then, I think that’s the most straightforward one on the album.

Does this mean Steely Dan is a band where if you’ve heard them once, you’ve heard them all? I dunno, maybe. Elvis Costello got away with that to a pretty successful degree, and he’s got 6 albums on this damn list. Even if it does mean that, I wouldn’t complain about a formula that works. I love the entire tone of this thing, and I think I might really fucking like Steely Dan. They’ve got 2 more albums on the list, so the jury is still out on if they have 2 really good ones and then 2 really bad ones. As far as “Can’t Buy A Thrill” goes… yeah, that’s about as good as it gets. Absolutely deserving to be on the list, definitely one you should hear before you die, and just another bit of evidence to add onto the pile for 1972 being one of the greatest years for music ever. An easy 5, if a little higher.

I’m at a 4.5 that I think I will just *barely* bump up to a 5, though I’d prefer to leave it there.

Lot more on the “sonic” side of Sonic Youth for this album, and while a lot of it has now blended together in my brain after 49 minutes of a *lot* of overdriven guitar, percussion, and layered buildups & chords, it’s the sort of album where being present in the moment for each track enhances it much more than just listening to it for 49 minutes flat. These tracks are designed to work with their soundscapes as a storytelling tool, meaning if you do zone out, tracks won’t be quite as effective.

Yes, lyrics & vocals have an obvious presence here (and I’d be remiss to not point out that Kim Gordon’s tracks are the strongest ones on the album, especially “Kool Thing”), but for the most part, I think the strength of this album comes from how unique it feels for 1990. This doesn’t feel like a slight leftover from the metal of the 80s, nor does it feel like it fits into the same “grunge” box ala Nirvana or Pearl Jam. It feels like a hybrid of late-70s post-punk with the sort of late 90s pop-punk that would emerge after grunge’s peak period, with just a bit of shoegaze thrown in. It’s a weird hybrid, and one that feels a little incompatible at points on the album, but when it clicks, it REALLY clicks, and I think it clicks enough here to justify a bump up to a 5.

I will say this though: I think the album has a bit of a dropoff after “Disappearer”, and that’s not just because I got jumpscared by “Mildred Pierce”. I think the focused nature of the first 7 tracks of the album get lost somewhere in the final 4, and that’s why I’m really hesitant to actually bump this up to a 5. There’s nothing wrong with any of the last 4 tracks, but they’re either too long for what they are, or they just circle the bases a lot instrumentally, and when the first 7 tracks are already long enough to begin with, a fatigue can definitely set in that just pulls the album experience down. This is not a “fast” 49 minutes, not by a long shot, but I think it’s a rewarding one if you let yourself get immersed. If you can’t find yourself fully immersed into this sort of thing, it will feel so much longer. That immersion break happened for me around the last 4 tracks, but I can’t really tell if that’s just from the tracks actually getting less focused, general soundscape fatigue, or just listening to this at a sort of bad time.

Regardless, I think it does earn the bump up to a 5, but just barely. I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt because of the strength of the first 7 tracks here, and honestly, it can be extended out to the first 9. Yes, some tracks are obviously too long, and this whole thing could’ve been trimmed around the edges quite a bit, but I don’t think it ruins it as badly as it could have. At the absolute worst, I still think this is a 4 minimum, and a much tighter album than “Dirty” was, in terms of finding a sound and really committing to it. They explore that sound out to its edges, but it’s much more of a consistent soundscape to my ears. It’s a more abrasive sound at times, but that abrasion is used as a strength more often than not. When it’s good, it’s very good, and even at its “worst”, it’s still sonically compelling to some degree that keeps this from ever hitting a point that’s truly ever bad. Hence, the bump up to a 5.

I’m at a 5.

Not *quite* as grand as “Exile on Main Street” to my ears, but it’s like comparing two sports cars against each other; they’re both extremely rich & they both get the job done. It's hard to complain about 42 minutes that sound that good, especially once I found that zen state for something as bombastic as “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. That little sneak preview we got from the George Michael album a while back did wonders here; the more the ending kept expanding, the more my brain just fully melted into itself.

So, how about the rest of the album then? Honestly, just pure classic rock & roll with a bit of a country lean; about what I’ve expected out of the Rolling Stones, but there’s no need to shake anything up when it works as well as it does. “Gimme Shelter” is as good as advertised, and possibly a rare example to my ears of a track sounding better *without* headphones in, as the bassline & guitar got way more of a pop from my speakers, adding a bit more depth to the whole thing. Everything in between the start & finish is still very good, but it’s not as good as those two tracks are. That doesn’t make this a 2 track album, not by a long shot, but even on a first pass, I did find myself sort of bleeding tracks into each other. I might chalk that down to getting way too into the groove throughout the whole thing, though.

I’ve got some light notes written down: the dueling guitars approach on “Love in Vain” works really nicely, “Live With Me” might be the most Beatles-y the Stones have ever sounded to my ears, “Let It Bleed” is horny as hell but the energy is great, the tempo shifts on “Midnight Rambler” are super effective, and “Monkey Man” is just a pure ball of energy by its outro. Clearly, I liked this whole thing, and if there’s not a bad track here, why am I not at a 10 with it? I guess it just never really hits that same overall technical showcase fever pitch that I felt on a multitude of tracks for “Exile on Main Street”, but I did feel it here – just not as often. Without that sense of being fully in sync (save for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” & a lot of the outro for “Let It Bleed”), it just never hit that deep level of connection for me.

Regardless, it’s an easy, easy 5. It’s a stellar Rolling Stones album, the second best one I think we’ve gotten so far, and a stellar album, period. This does end off that “classic” stretch for us, with the only other 2 Stones albums remaining being some of their earlier, pre-”Beggars Banquet” work. I can only hope they’re worth being on the list, but as far as this one goes, it’s an obvious recommendation. A stunner for 1969, and another big thumbs up for Mick, Keith & friends.

I’m at a 5.

Historically, there’s been a pretty good track record with singing-songwriting women on the list for my ears, and Suzanne Vega is thankfully no exception to that. The only track I knew from her before listening to this album was “Tom’s Diner”, but I’m not sure that really prepared me for this album like that. This is a bit of a lyrically-driven album (although the instrumentation & vocals are arguably strong enough on their own), but I think at its very core, a lot of the themes here are still rather straightforward, just expressed with a bit of poetic flourish to try and create more vivid & richer imagery. It’s most apparent to me on the tracks that take a more medieval tone, like “The Queen & The Soldier”, which is one of my top 2 tracks on the entire thing. At the very base level, that track is nothing more than a sad woman pushing a man out of her life who means well, but the imagery & verbiage of the track elevates it higher, swirling to the more bombastic climax of the soldier being killed on her order, while she still sits alone, anguished & depressed with a crown on her head, and his death solving nothing.

The other of my top 2 tracks is “Marlene on the Wall”, which is an acoustically-driven banger about the struggle of full commitment to love. It feels like an early 90s track in the best way, and it’s arguably the best showcase of Suzanne Vega’s narrative vocal style. She still carries a good sense of power in her vocals, but it’s underlined with a sense of clarity & observancy that adds both urgency & earnestness to the track. It’s present throughout the album, but “Marlene on the Wall” specifically blends it with more of the catchy 80s vocal hook style that’s usually not as apparent on this album.

Even though those are my top 2, there’s so many well-written tracks on this album that could easily get their own paragraphs. I love the double metaphors at play for “Freeze Tag”, blending childhood innocence with only being able to “act” out a relationship. I *really* love the sense of helplessness portrayed on “Small Blue Thing”, and the tone in her voice fully creates the sense of empathy present in that track. “Some Journey” is a super strong track that tackles something I’ve occasionally wondered: how different could some friendships be if you met outside of the confines of your hometown, without the baggage or history emerging from it?

If I have any minor knocks, it’s that “Cracking” is a bit of a bad tonesetter (without a second listen), “Knight Moves” is a little ambiguous & “Neighborhood Girls” isn’t as compelling of a closer as some of the other tracks might’ve been, but those are nitpicky at best. Any album that can get me this engaged in its storytelling while having great instrumentation has to be doing something right; this is a REALLY strong album for my tastes. It’s worth a 5 to me, and I’m kicking myself for not looking any further into Suzanne Vega past “Tom’s Diner”. Definitely worth being on the list, and a pretty recommended one at that.

I’m at a 5.

I never quite hit the same “fever pitch” status like I did whenever we got “Cheap Thrills” last year, but I feel like I got pretty damn close a few times. This is a more polished version of Janis Joplin, tapping a little more into her Aretha-adjacent bag while still keeping her blues-rock sensibilities intact, with just a bit of a country twang. Lyrically, this is pretty damn strong; straight-forward to understand (or at least feel emotionally), and Janis performs them brilliantly. Vocally, she’s still as stunning as she was, and I can’t imagine there’s any real complaints a person could have about her vocals here. If you think her grittier moments sound too much like Marge Simpson or something, I guess that’s fair, but I personally love how the grit in her vibrato comes across. I especially want to point at “Cry Baby” – the knockout track of the album for me, for sure, though they’ve all got great moments. The variety on this is strong enough that any track might be someone’s favorite.

Instrumentally, I feel like the more “polished” style works really well (literally no complaints other than “I really, REALLY wish there was a brass section in this album”), but it does lose part of the chaotic appeal that made Janis Joplin feel like the eye of the storm like she did with Big Brother & The Holding Company. This album never gets THAT crazy, so it does feel like she’s sort of overshadowing everything else with her vocals just a bit, but that’s more so on her backing band not matching her energy in quite the same way Big Brother did (or maybe, her matching their slightly lower energy?). They’re still really good throughout the 34 minutes here though (literally just listen to “Buried Alive in the Blues” or “My Baby”, they could go that hard if they wanted), so it’s basically like complaining about a pizza with a little less pepperoni than the other; not a huge difference, but noticeable enough if you really care.

Overall, this is a pretty easy 5. There’s not a single miss here, and while it didn’t quite get to the same heights as “Cheap Thrills” for me, it’s still a highly recommended album regardless. You can’t possibly listen to this and hate it unless you’re actively trying to, and if you are actively trying to, you’re kinda just lame, I think. I can only say “damn” that Janis Joplin left the world far, far too soon. She would’ve killed the rest of the 70s, I’m sure of it.

I’m at a 5.

Sometimes, you just have “it”, what can I say? At face value, someone else might hear this and recognize it as a wholly competent 70s album that hits on all the right rock tropes at a technical level, but they just can’t vibe with it for one reason or another, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for not being that impressed by this. However, Steve Winwood & friends here absolutely nail it for my tastes.

Admittedly, I didn’t really take many notes of substance for this one; just a lot of timestamps where I’m impressed by certain instruments (piano, flute, drums, guitar, etc) & a LOT of praise for Steve Winwood’s vocals. The man has some pipes. If I could sing like that, you bet I’d be singing anything & everything, including the seemingly “cheesier” stuff people rag on him about. I refuse to accept any slander of “Valerie” though. Lyrically, this album’s pretty straightforward, save for the mildly baffling “Freedom Rider” – the strength of the storytelling entirely comes in the delivery, and it’s most apparent on “John Barleycorn (Must Die)”. The slower, more deliberate approach to match the tone of the original track is really effective, while still giving Steve room to add some power.

Instrumentally, this album shines; not a single dull moment here, and with headphones in, this thing just has a ball of momentum that refuses to stop once it gets going. It’s especially strong on the eclectic closer that is “Every Mother’s Son”. When every instrument hits a sort of fever pitch around the chorus & Steve’s vocals are gliding on them, it’s one of those moments that just sort of elevates an album to a higher point for me.

So, yeah, no complaints at all, only praise here. For 1970, this feels a little ahead of schedule, and I’m just really impressed by it. A very strong 35 minutes that, if nothing else, is really enjoyable to listen to from start to finish. I just caught the momentum of this thing, and I think it’s easily worth a 5, if a bit higher. Not quite a 10, but a highly recommended album regardless.

P.S.: There’s two things I just need to point out; the flute solo on “Freedom Rider” is rad as hell, & someone NEEDS to sample the percussion of “Empty Pages” around the 3 minute mark.