Reviews by guggmo

I’m at a 5.

I don’t know that I’d call this a “rock opera”, at least not by the standards that something like “Tommy” or “The Wall” would set in the years to come, but this is a pretty damn good first crack at a concept album that at least resembles those albums. This is just a big character study about the life & death of one S.F. Sorrow, & how irrevocably his life changes for the lonelier and drearier following his wife’s death in a blimp accident (presumably the Hindenburg).

Admittedly, it’s very easy to go through this album without necessarily realizing there’s a plot here, because each track doesn’t flow into the next as gracefully as later concept albums would, but I like the general arc here; he’s born, he finds the beauty in everything as a kid, he meets his future wife, survives a war that kinda shatters his childlike wonder, gets married, and then has to watch his wife die. The funeral happens, and he goes on a sort of spiritual journey to try and find peace for himself, only to discover that he cannot get his wife out of his mind, and that this “well of destiny” truly is just emptiness. After that, his worldview is fully broken, and he becomes a bitter, sad, lonely old man. It’s a sad arc, but I think it makes for a compelling album.

So, how about the music itself then? I’ll give you a hint: it sounds a lot like another band who recorded at Abbey Road Studios. It is truly impossible to ignore any comparisons to the Beatles here, because there’s a multitude of production tricks pretty much taken wholesale from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Is that a bad thing? Honestly, I don’t think so – while the production is similar enough, it’s not close enough to say these guys are “ripping off” the Beatles, at least not to my ears. Mileage may vary on that, but I’m of the mind that “Sgt. Pepper’s” gave a lot of bands the greenlight to experiment as much as they wanted, & The Pretty Things simply took advantage of riding that wave. This album also leans far more into the psychedelic side of things on a number of tracks, & I generally just thought the whole album sounded great, especially in the guitar work. There’s a couple of panning quirks, but I chalk that up to the 60s more than anything.

Ultimately, I enjoyed it – it’s not as good as its later contemporaries would be, but this does feel like a pretty nice runway for a Tommy-sized plane to take off from. I don’t think there’s a bad track here, & it’s a pretty breezy 40 minutes. It’s a 5 for me, but I can see how it’s as low as a 3 for other people. If nothing else, “Old Man Going” kinda rules.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump down to a 4.

Admittedly, I don’t think I have a big soliloquy in me on this one. I think this is a great, great album that just doesn’t quite hit the same bloodrush of intensity as some of the other heavy metal albums we’ve gotten on the list so far. With bands like Black Sabbath, Metallica, Judas Priest, or AC/DC, I’ve found a really nice flow state where I’m in total sync with the band while listening, and I just never got there with this one.

Realistically, it’s a multitude of small things that add up. The mixing is awkward in a few spots, & in those moments, the guitar/drums don’t have the presence necessary to fill up the soundscape. The vocals are occasionally too homogeneous in their delivery to the point where the screaming tone totally blanks out the lyrics. Perhaps most egregiously, I think the level of repetition on a good chunk of the outros here makes each track overstay its welcome; not too badly, but just enough to feel annoying. It would be less of an issue if a few tracks didn’t also have intros that last way too long. Those give an immediate “first minute is the whole song” sort of impression that’s hard to shake off.

With all of that said, this is still kickass heavy metal, and I’d totally be at a 5 if these things were cleaned up. They’re just too persistently bothersome for me, but this is still a 4, bare minimum. The fact that this has an average below 3 on the site tells me that people either really hate 90s heavy metal, or those issues I mentioned are just amplified to a crazy degree for them. Regardless, I liked this a lot, but it’s just got too many little things for me to give it a 5, at least not on a first pass. It could totally go up though. It’s still a pretty recommended 4, though.

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

We haven’t gotten Bruce Springsteen since the second day of this entire experience (this is album #480 for me), but he’s done it once again: I really, REALLY liked this. That said, I don’t think I can give this album’s songwriting & storytelling the justice they deserve, in part because I think some of the cultural contexts of this album are simultaneously outdated & way too close to home at the same time. I don’t want to come across like an expert on something that I’m not, but I feel like I’m informed enough to point out that this album is kinda stuck in 1984, for better or for worse. It’s why it’s so frustrating that this album still feels close to home; so many of the struggles Bruce is writing about here haven’t changed, at least not that radically. Trust me, I’m not trying to drink the Reagan-era “it’s morning again in America” working class Kool-Aid – you could make a handful of tweaks to these tracks and they’d fit just as well in the current political/economic climate.

I think this album has aged really well with its criticisms, and I think it’s aged poorly in terms of some of the starry-eyed gaze at which Bruce Springsteen hoped we’d resolve those criticisms. This is the slice-of-life Americana I’ve preached about a few times, and Bruce Springsteen’s writing is stellar on a number of these tracks. This is, by & large, the most “baby boomer” album we’ve gotten so far, written by one, for them, and shining through to express the frustrations of a generation. There’s a reason this sold 30 million copies, & why it has the critical acclaim that it does. I’m just not a baby boomer. Granted, my dad was one, which is why some of these tracks feel like they’re hitting a bit closer for me: I can totally see him in every single one of these tracks. It makes each track feel even more full & vivid than it already is, & that enhances the album to a higher degree for me.

I do think “Darkness on the Edge of Town” has higher highs than this album, but this has a better consistency in terms of track quality, and my own personal feelings are too strong to ignore. There’s certainly a few lulls in the instrumentals at times, a few hokey lyrics by modern standards, & for as much as I love Bruce Springsteen’s vocals here, I wouldn’t mind if he took a lozenge. Overall, though, this is a great, great album. It’s definitely stuck in 1984, both lyrically & production-wise, but I don’t think it should sound any other way. I think it’s no less than a 4, and for me, a very easy bump up to a 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m gonna just barely bump up to a 5 because how well it stuck the landing on the last track.

Seriously, “Don’t Burn the Witch” is that fucking good. If it were even a little bit worse, I’d be at a 4 that I admire a lot, but it seriously nails it, and I think I have to go up. It’s very weird for me to give a 5 to an album with a sort of slower start, because the first 2 tracks here set a really awkward tone.

Literally, that first track starts off with a truly awful tone, with whatever that scratchy-ass sound is. The mixing is off, the lyricism is bland, the vocals feel a little sickly, and the reverb muzzles some of the bite it’s going for. There’s still something compelling there, though, & while the second track builds upon it nicely with some great guitar work, this album still doesn’t really break through until “Buried Alive” starts.

It is really a vibe shift once that slower, grungier guitar comes in – the album finds a brand new level of confidence that it never really lets go of; the production feels better, the grit in the vocals gets a really nice presence, the reverb is used more effectively, & the lyricism expands to provide way more imagery, in a way that makes each track feel more vivid, for better or for worse (especially for ‘worse’ on “Teacher’s Pet”). It really makes the album feel better for the rest of its run time, and it hits a pretty damn good stride.

I have to acknowledge it – “Teacher’s Pet” is an insanely awkward song. It sticks out here for how different it is from the rest of the album, lyrically, & it’s just an insane thing to write a song about to begin with. There’s a clear difference from something like “Hot for Teacher” by Van Halen & this, and one’s enjoyment of the track really depends on the tolerance for the lyrics. I don’t think I have the tolerance for the lyrics, but obnoxiously enough, I think the track might have either the best or second-best production on the album. At its very, very worst, it’s got some consensually awkward shaming involved that feels far too intimate for my tastes, even in a comically exaggerated way. It’s not a bad listen at all, though, which is why it’s not knocking this album down to a 4. Sure as hell not a playlist track, though.

Really, the most impressive thing here is that this is from 1982 – it’s not the craziest heavy metal in the world, but all of the proper tones for the faster advancements of heavy metal throughout the 80s are here, especially in terms of setting the stage for a band like Metallica to take it to another level. I would even argue this is a pretty handy prototype for some of the 90s grunge to come as well. I don’t think this sounds quite the same as what modern “black metal” is considered to be, but it all has to start somewhere. Objectively, this is probably a 4, but between its historical significance, & the way it just nails the finish so well, that I feel safe about bumping it up to a 5. At the very, very least, I don’t think it’s deserving of a 2.46 average on the site. That’s criminally wrong.

P.S.: I’ve never really heard an album end with a teaser for the next one. That’s pretty fucking cool.

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

Realistically, if it weren’t for the instrumental confidence and swagger this album has in spades, I’d be at a 4, just for the storyline here making not a damn inch of sense. However, this album just sounds too fucking good to not bump it up to a 5 – I really, really do love the instrumentals here, and they’re the catalyst for the bump. If you’ve heard the album, you know, and I hope you’ve heard the album if you’re reading this. I do have to harp on the plot for a bit though. I really tried to pay attention to the lyrics, and I had a broad stroke outline of abandoned shipyards, countries at war, some dog-like creatures, an intentional suicide, and a forced amnesic revival, but I couldn’tan’t give you any names or motivations, save for maybe Cerpin Taxt.

It is an incredibly weird story, that the album itself only provides some broad strokes for, with a decent chunk of lyrical repetition that on a first pass, truly feels sort of detrimental to the whole thing, creating pockets of repetition that slowly drag each track down, though not enough to ruin anything. Again, the confidence this album displays itself with is what keeps it from falling apart. Upon further research, this album’s plotline is derived from a short story that the band wrote, indeed talking about a man named Cerpin Taxt who attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge, onto open traffic, in the midst of an overdose – everything we hear about in the album itself is apparently set during a comatose state that he’s in following the attempt & the mental state he’s in after surviving the first one. That second jump is the “intentional suicide” inferred during “Televators”, and that’s the one that gets him. “Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt” is just a brain-dead epilogue, perhaps acting as a funeral. There’s a chance I’ve interpreted some of this wrong, but I think I’ve got the general real strokes of the plot here. There’s a lot more (& I mean a LOT more) in the depths of the story, but I don’t really care to read about the societal implications of this man’s comatose civil war between life and death.

Now, do I necessarily like the idea of a companion story being needed to understand the plot of an album? Eh, not really, but I’m not sure that it necessarily matters – once again, I have to praise the confidence this album portrays itself with, because everything here is taken at face value, totally performed as if this is all normal, and if you just roll with it, you’ll enjoy it all the same. It does make the lyrical repetition feel less jarring, knowing that there are the remnants of a brain trying to activate itself, so even if it feels awkward from a musical standpoint, it makes more sense with the story.

I’ve harped on all of this storyline shit, but what about the actual music itself? Well, that’s where this album gets the easy bump up to a 5 – this is heavy metal with progressive rock sensibilities, & it is fucking eclectic at its highest points on this album. Manic percussion is the underlining piece of the soundscape here, and while the vocals do a great job of gliding on them, the drums just have an overbearing presence that makes them stick out in an already full soundscape, with heavy guitar riffs and synths abound. It does feel like a natural mesh of 60s/70s prog rock stylings with the nu-metal / grunge trends of the 90s, coming together in a way that allows the best aspects of both to shine. There are a few lull spots on some tracks, brought on by those pockets of repetition I mentioned earlier, but they’re quickly overridden by a new vibe coming in just as fast to keep each track moving. The only really extended one is the 3 minutes of ambience on “Cicatriz ESP”, but I still liked that a lot.

So, yeah, color me pretty impressed. I do wish more of the story was made clearer within the music itself, & the broad strokes are what’s got this at a 4.5 for me as opposed to a flat 5. Make no mistake, though – this whole thing is interesting enough despite its vagueness, & to even pique the curiosity is a good enough goal here, especially if it leads to discovering the proper story. Musically, it’s a stellar 60 minutes that really does fly by, for the most part. I enjoyed this a lot, and while it’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, I really, really think it’s worth a listen. For me, it’s a very easy bump up to a 5.

I’m at a 4.

Been a while since we got anything from a member of A Tribe Called Quest, but Q-Tip delivers pretty damn well here. So much so that I’m really not sure I have that much to say; it’s a pretty solid 44 minutes, with some great production work, some great verses, some eclectic flow, & it’s just a really smooth listen with transitions that keep the album experience on its toes. I enjoyed a lot of this.

So, why a 4 then? Realistically, some of my gripes with this album just boil down to “my brain got a little bored sometimes”. Just because I enjoyed a lot of this doesn’t mean I enjoyed every aspect of every track, and there’s just a lot of aspects that pile up over time that keep this from feeling like a totally clean album experience – some beats get stale after enough time, some of the lines on some of the verses are a little awkward, there’s an occasional repetition in the flow that isn’t as compelling to listen to the second time around, & the big one for me is that Q-Tip’s voice feels just a little too sterile at points here. His rapping voice stays around the same register on a number of tracks, and once the ear picks up on that, it sort of creates the perception that each track feels too similar, even if that’s not necessarily true.

If the brain is sort of popping in and out like that, then you’ve made a pretty good rap album, but not a classic rap album. If there was just one or two more knockout tracks here, I might be compelled to go up to a 5, but I just think there’s too many little micro-issues that pile up to get there. Still, though, even if it’s not a classic, it’s a pretty good one. As a solo artist, Q-Tip retains a lot of the shine that makes A Tribe Called Quest incredibly compelling to listen to. It’s just not all there, but for 2008, enough of it is there to give this a pretty good 4.

I’m at a 5.

The randomizer giving us this album one day after Brian Eno & David Byrne’s collab “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” is one of the more remarkable things that’s happened. Somehow, I still don’t really have an answer to if Eno influenced Byrne more on that album or vice-versa, but I’m not mad about that – this might be one of the more remarkable production jobs I’ve heard yet from Brian Eno, and he’s worked on a lot of stuff so far on this list.

For a second album, I think it’s interesting that this feels so different from Talking Heads ‘77. A lot of that album’s DNA is still very present here, as it should be, but most of David Byrne’s eccentricities feel more purposefully controlled here. His “weirdness” on ‘77 felt sort of abrasive, at least back when we got that album on day 38 of this whole thing. On this album, while it’s all still there, it feels far more endearing. I could chalk that up to listening to many, many weirder albums since then, as well as “Fear of Music”, but I really do think something about the structure of each track has been simplified here, in a way that’s more commercially appealing without sacrificing David Byrne’s vision. It feels like a natural evolution, while still feeling uniquely different.

That entire commercial appeal is thanks to Brian Eno, but his contributions compensate for the slight sterilization of David Byrne – the instrumentals on this album more than add the “weird” factor that Byrne’s missing, but that weirdness is channeled into innovation for 1978 that’s too damn electric to ignore. While this might not seem as strange now, I have to imagine the heavier emphasis from the band on guitar riffs, basslines, drums breaks, all textured by some ambient Eno strings & synth work made for an especially unique blend back then, punctuated by David Byrne’s more controlled vocals gliding on these tracks. I really feel like I can hear a lot of 80s new wave / synthpop tricks here, and while it would be more refined in the decade to come, this is a pretty good swing.

Seriously, I’m just impressed by how well Brian Eno embedded himself into David Byrne & the band’s sensibilities like this; maybe I just haven’t given him enough credit as a more malleable producer, given how much I associate him with ambient music, but this sounds fantastic for the time, especially from “Artists Only” onward. That is a great 5-track stretch, though I might’ve flipped around the last two tracks. I really liked this, what can I say? I’m glad the first 3 albums by Talking Heads are on the list, because it does feel like a proper rise in quality from album to album. This isn’t as good as “Fear of Music” to me, but it’s right behind it, and equally as enjoyable. It’s a rather good 5.

I’m at a 4.

Definitely the least ambient soundscapes I’ve heard from Brian Eno yet, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – what a remarkably strange journey through sound that was. We’ve had earlier examples of sampling before this, namely in 1979’s “Movies” by Holger Czukay, but this feels like the first real mainstream use of the technique by an artist popular enough to bring it to a forefront. Granted, this sort of sampling of full radio / TV recordings hasn’t really stayed in vogue, but I do think you don’t get to some of the more vocal-heavy samples of 1980s rap without Brian Eno sort of giving the OK here.

I do have one question here – how much influence did David Byrne truly have on this album? He’s listed as playing a multitude of instruments on here, but I’d love to know just how much of this album’s direction is his vision. It certainly feels like Brian Eno wouldn’t dip his toes into this sort of thing without David Byrne’s influence looming larger, but there’s some part of me that thinks Brian Eno sort of concocted this concept on his own, & just had Byrne there since he’d understand the eccentricities of it all. I probably just need to read more articles about this – it’s a really fascinating project to me.

It’s not the most compelling album experience though, which is why I’m at a 4. A few tracks go too long, & a few tracks have really short instrumental loops that really start to nag once the track’s felt like it’s gone too long. Even though this is only a 40 minute album, the sampled vocals present feels rather scattered throughout, so the pacing of the album makes it feel a bit longer than 40 minutes. These are all small things that don’t necessarily ruin any one individual track, but they build up over the course of the album. There are also a few tracks that just didn’t click with me.

I did like a lot of this though, and if nothing else, I admire just how strange it is. Brian Eno certainly had the credibility to release something like this, but it’s just so far out of his established ambient wheelhouse for me that I’m surprised he actually did it. The amount of variety in this album is really cool, and I do hear a lot of influence on not just rap, but a lot of 80s pop music as well, in terms of just letting loose & letting the experimental freak flag fly. I really think it’s worth a listen – it might not be the most palatable album by modern standards, but the DNA of a lot of the decade to come is in here. It’s only a 4 for me, but it’s a pretty recommended one.

I… feel weird giving this a number. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good 5, but there’s something awkward about rating a man’s ability to air out his grievances.

It’s especially awkward because this is my first full Marvin Gaye album – obviously, I know some of the bigger hits, but for my first one, getting a long open letter recapping a failed, chaotic, vindictive, messy & dysfunctional marriage ending in a nasty divorce period is certainly a first impression. I almost feel like I’ve been trauma dumped on, & that’s a lot to take in; I’m just not sure I really want to take it in.

With that said, the blend of the raw, honest lyricism & the excellent production here go hand in hand – I truly have no complaints about the musical content itself. Marvin Gaye’s voice glides like silk on a lot of these tracks, & when he means a line, there’s just a hint of extra vitriol, or grief, or whatever emotion each track calls for that makes the delivery feel all the more emphatic. Instrumentally, this thing is funky as hell – lots of great synth work & syncopation that feels heavily influenced by George Clinton & Stevie Wonder. Even with a lot of these tracks going a bit long, there’s something intoxicatingly captivating about the delivery, & it never really feels annoying to listen to. Really, my only knock on the album experience is the entire instrumental reprise of “When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You” taking up 6 minutes of runtime – that was unnecessary.

Is it a boring album? It depends – I think if you fully ignore the lyricism here, then a lot of these tracks do end up following a similar archetype & structure that could easily feel like a 74 minute drag “woe is me” album. If you dive into the lyricism, then there’s some really biting lines in here that enhance each track in a very compelling way. To my brain, I see this album as if this is a live look at Marvin Gaye’s psyche over the course of this big divorce trial, hopping in & out of live testimony, sad reminiscing, some daydreaming to ignore some pain, & ultimately, the resolution that there is the ability to love, even after all he’s gone through.

Outside of the lyricism, I entered a zen state for a lot of this, so I can’t speak to the extent of musical repetition on the album (save for “Time to Get It Together” being extra with it), but my ears caught it a handful of times. I still managed to ignore a lot of it, just because I found this to be such an interesting album. It’s a great listen, however awkward & messy it feels to listen to it, but much like a guilty pleasure movie, there’s something satisfying about it that’s hard to quantify. It’s why I feel weird giving this a number, because I’d love to just sort of admire it as the open & honest art piece it is. Since I have to give it a number though, it’s a 5, and a highly recommended one.

I am finally at a 5 for Elvis Costello.

The fourth time is indeed the charm – my big thing holding me back with “My Aim Is True” was a repetition in the structure of each track that nagged at me too much, & while that was solved by “Imperial Bedroom”, that album has a few too many tracks that I just considered mediocre. “Brutal Youth” is just weird; maybe I’d bounce off of it less now that I’ve listened to 3 other albums by him, but I thought it was horribly out of date for 1994.

This, though? This came out swinging from the top & just kept rolling – the album never once hit a point of stagnation for me, the song structures are way more flexible, even with an overreliance on the chorus on a number of tracks, & the variety in the soundscapes are even better than they were on both “My Aim Is True” & “Imperial Bedroom”, showcasing even more depth from The Attractions in a way that really lets them feel like a co-artist here, and not just Elvis Costello’s band.

All of the things I gave praise to Elvis Costello for on those other two albums are here in spades, & for a second album, this is way, way up there. Most artists tend to stagnate a little with their second one, but he knocked it out of the park as far as I’m concerned. It’s a quicker, cleaner, more fun album that allows itself to stay loose & maintain an energy that’s infectious throughout. The shorter tracks here make it so nothing overstays its welcome, and the pacing of the album really knows how to spread itself out between its immediately high-tempo intros & slower buildups. It is a very, very quick 35 minutes, and that’s not even counting the bonus tracks on the remaster – Radio, Radio is a banger.

So, yeah, Elvis Costello finally has his 5 from me, and it’s a very well-earned one; this is my favorite album from him yet, and I’ll definitely give this a few more plays. This one’s a recommended listen for sure.

I’m at a 5.

This is my first time properly listening to Steely Dan – my hopes have been pretty high ever since we got “The Nightfly” by Donald Fagen back in September, and this experience was gladly worth the wait. Steely Dan has lived up to the acclaim & the hype; this is a great, great rock album that dips its toes into everything from 50s/60s style rock & roll, bossa nova, CSNY-style harmonics, Elton John-esque piano ballads, & a bit of prog rock. There’s not a single bad track here, save for *maybe* “Show Biz Kids”, but that’s just the refrain sort of nagging in my head; I still liked that one.

As far as the songs themselves go, I don’t have much to complain about, just a lot to praise in scattered tones that just boils down to “they all sounded really great”. “Bodhisattva”’s got the dueling guitars in its solo, “Razor Boy”’s got a good elevator music vibe, “The Boston Rag” has an excellent solo, “Your Gold Teeth” has a guitar filled with swagger, “Show Biz Kids” has a really nice building instrumental, “My Old School” has some great brass in its solo, “Pearl of the Quarter” has great steel guitar, & “King of the World” is a cool as hell prog rock track. Every track has something really captivating about it, which is a huge positive for an album experience.

I’d be remiss to not give a bit of love to Donald Fagen’s vocals, which do glide on a lot of these tracks really nicely. Lyrically, the storytelling is a bit scattered, but it sounds like vaguely full stories that intentionally don’t paint a full picture is part of the Steely Dan mythos, so I’m not too plussed about that. Overall, I just really enjoyed this. It’s a super breezy 41 minutes that never once misses a beat, & I really hope there’s even more Steely Dan on the list. Pretty easy 5 for me.

I’m at a 4.

This is my first time listening to Nick Cave, who I’ve heard *of*, but never *heard* until now. For a first impression, I think this is pretty good – lots of heavier but very intentionally designed soundscapes, some good grit in the vocals, and a nice progression throughout a lot of the tracks that keeps them as captivating listens. I don’t think there’s ever a bad song here, & for the most part, I enjoyed a lot of this album.

The big key issue I have with this album is about some of the storytelling on a handful of tracks on the back half, specifically Tracks 6, 8, & 9. It’s not that the songwriting is necessarily bad, but they each have their own issues that keep each track from feeling very satisfying, dragging out the 41 minute runtime of the album into something that feels longer. “When I First Came To Town” is a great listen, but the lack of a reveal for why exactly all these townsfolk have turned on the guy leaves it feeling empty for me, combined with the soundscape getting a bit sterile within the last minute or two, reaching the peak of intensity just early enough to overstay its welcome. “Loom of the Land” suffers from a lot of the same issues, enhanced further by the story in the track just not being very interesting. “Jack the Ripper” sort of suffers from these same things, but my issue there is more so that the big intense buildup in each instrumental just feels a bit overdone by that point in the album. It’s also just a bad vibe to end the album on, with the whole toxic relationship thing. They’re all good tracks to listen to, but they’re nowhere near as exciting as the instrumentals and vocals make them out to be, & that disconnect is just biting at me too much.

That excitement is thankfully present on the front half of the album – I think the first 4 tracks here click really nicely, & while “Christina the Astonishing” might feel like a similar sort of drag, the calmer nature of that track worked really nicely for me as a pace breaker to the intensity of the first 4. Mileage may vary, depending on how much you want to listen to a story of a woman so saintly she can smell sin. “John Finn’s Wife” is probably my standout track of the album – just a good old-fashioned duel over a lady, with a great blend of storytelling & vocal/instrumental intensity that feels befitting of the scope & scale it’s reaching for.

Overall, it’s a slightly mixed bag – if the storytelling is never captivating, this album will never really click, and it’ll probably be a 3 that’s in way over its head. If it is captivating, then it’ll click a lot of the time, and be a 4 or a 5, depending on your parameters for a good story. For my tastes, I’m at a 4, mainly because the album experience feels just a bit longer than it should on the back half, with the instrumentals / length of each track never quite matching the true scope of the storytelling. It’s still a pretty recommended listen, though, and I do hope there’s more Nick Cave on the list.

This is a very subjective 4 that I will bump up to a 5, solely out of spite for the people on this website giving this thing a 2 on average.

Listen, I’ve heard some BAD shit on this list. Like, really, really bad shit. This is not a bad album; it’s just a weird album. Even among weird albums, I’ve heard weirder, like Kollaps, Locust Abortion Technician or Trout Mask Replica. With a literal 2 average, I was expecting this to be loud, obnoxious, exponentially strange & so extremely avant-garde that it has no sense of commercial value & exists only as an extreme example of what music itself is.

And yet, it’s not that at all. It’s truly just a weird album. It’s totally musically competent, with some genuinely enjoyable soundscapes & some fun production that feels ahead of the curve on a couple of tracks. It’s primarily a rock album, sure, but it dabbles in such a variety of styles that it’s hard to lock this down to any one specific genre. It’s incredibly experimental, & the only time it ever truly borders on obnoxious is the loudness of the electrocution at the very end of the album, but even that’s justified in its usage as a storytelling device, changing this person’s personality like it’s a fucked up psych ward. Lyrically, there’s a lot of nonsensical garbage (positive), but when this album wants to try and tell a story, it knows when to pull back on the oddities and let a bit of fun writing & imagery shine through. Hell, even vocally, I think the weird pitching effects give the whole album a sort of Looney Tunes vibe. It really does feel sort of like a comedy album, so approaching it with a way more fun lens that allows for this sort of experimentation made it all click better.

I genuinely am trying to justify why this has an average of 2 at all – maybe my brain can pull more from video game soundscapes & the eccentricities in them. At the very least, my experience with all of the other strange albums on this list lessens how awkward this might feel. For a lot of people, this is going to bounce off of them like a pinball to a bumper. Even then, the third-lowest rated album on the entire site? It’s not even remotely that bad, & at the very least, it’s captivatingly strange, which is more than I can say for a handful of truly dreadfully boring albums.

Honestly, it really is worth a listen before you die, because if this doesn’t feel that abrasive to you, then you’ve probably passed the test for the REALLY weird shit on this list, or just weirder shit in general. As far as my experience goes, I genuinely really liked it – it's a 3 at worst, but I’m at a 4 because a few too many tracks felt a bit repetitive & not as compelling as some of the other, weirder ones. However, for the sake of the site, I’m absolutely giving this a 5 to try and skew the ratings back upwards.

That’s a 5.

Color me pleasantly surprised at how damn nice French hip-hop feels to listen to; the amount of extra syllables & nuance in the language allows for some really mesmerizing flows to pop in & out without ever once breaking the rhythm of each track. MC Solaar runs through a myriad of styles here, hopping from Snoop Dogg to Phife Dawg to College Dropout-era Kanye to Shaggy, & he makes it work every time, & it’s really, really pleasing to listen to, even without understanding a single word of French.

Instrumentally, this album jumps all over the place: some mid-2000s soul sampling, a little trip-hop, some shit that sounds like Sonic Adventure 2, some Grandmaster Flash-style funk, some ‘90s West Coast, a little bit of Nas, some N.W.A.-esque record-scratching heavy stuff, a little bit of Jamaican / reggae influence… it’s a lot, but it all sounds great. That’s a rough overview of styles, but there’s really not a definitive production style this album ever goes for. It’s certainly limited by the technology of 1991, but it feels really fresh & really cool all the same. Honestly, I’m impressed that this is 1991, because it does feel like a general amalgamation of styles that would really define the decade. Is this ahead of its time? Hell, maybe.

Since I can’t exactly speak to the lyricism itself too much, save for translating a few songs just to get a better sense of the vibe, all I can really compliment is that the instrumentals tend to really match the lyrics. It’s truly an album that needs to be heard to understand, but it’s a very good rap album for 1991, and especially so for a French rap album. I liked it a lot, and I’ll absolutely bump this a few more times. It’s a pretty good 5.

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

It took a little bit for this album to really start registering in my brain, because it is SO wildly & radically different from what I’d expect a Kate Bush album to sound like at this point. Between “The Sensual World” & her features on Peter Gabriel’s albums, her style seemed pretty defined, so to get such an avant-garde & experimentally bold one like this threw me off guard. I think I liked this, though.

Admittedly, I’m still not even quite sure what the overall theme of the album is – “The Sensual World” was a look into the human condition & how human connection is a necessary thing, but this album feels like a more scattered look into pain, panic, plight & paranoia, whether it’s Vietnam-induced PTSD, a seance to summon the ghost of Harry Houdini, the struggles of Australian aborigines, or whatever the hell “Get Out of My House” was. It’s a much wider album, and that wideness comes with a variety of soundscapes & styles, all rooted in a little bit of chaos. Well, chaos & a myriad of synths, drum machines & MIDI instruments. For 1982, this feels almost like Kate Bush trying to do a Bjork album, and it really did work for me.

I don’t know that I can type too much more about this; it’s gonna vary wildly from person to person, and I’ll probably need another pass or two with this album to really dig deeper into its eccentricities. It’s an interesting listen, and I’m probably giving it the bump up to a 5 just because I found it captivating & fascinating; from a purely musical standpoint, it’s compositionally closer to a 4, but there’s something in the delivery & structure of the album, and how it ramps up the chaos even more from track to track, that commands attention. I liked it; it’s probably no less than a 3. Maybe a 2 if you’re THAT thrown off by how wildly different this is. For me, it’s a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5 – certainly a weird one, but it’s worth digging into.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump down to a 3.

I really don’t have that much to say – this is a fully competent hip-hop album from 1989. It’s definitely dated as one from how heavy the instrumentals use Roland synth patches, drum machines loops & MIDI instruments… but also, what other album is gonna give you a line like “cramp my freedom” nowadays? As far as Neneh Cherry herself goes, she’s got a good singing voice & a good rap flow. When she’s on, she’s on, and she sounds great to listen to. As far as the songs themselves go, I think this album finds a strong base for each track to start on, and then sort of coasts on that base for a while – almost every track here feels like it starts to spin the wheels about 70% of the way through, lyrically, instrumentally & vocally.

That sense of “spinning the wheels” is why I’m more inclined to bump down to a 3, though I’d love to leave it right at a 3.5. This is a fun album to listen to, but too many tracks feel a little too long, some of them feel a little lost lyrically, & ultimately, a decent number of tracks aren’t very compelling once they reach those points. It’s still a really enjoyable listen, at least for me, because this is 100% a product of 1989. A few tracks here are so lyrically dopey & preachy that they sort of won me over just for having big “song made for a fake boy band on a Disney Channel show” energy, and some of them won me over because the instrumentals feel like they would’ve fit right into a dance scene in a John Hughes coming of age movie.

So, yeah: fun album, fun listen, but not a very compelling one. If a few tracks clicked a little better, I’d be at a 4, and maybe they’ll click better in the future, but for now, I’ll bump it down to a 3. I still liked it, though. Not sure that I HAD to listen to it before I died, but I’m glad I did.

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

When we got “m b v”, I said that I thought I “got” shoegaze now, & that if “Loveless” was this absolutely seminal 90s record and the pinnacle of this style that people claim it to be, I thought it could be really good. I’m glad to say the critics were all correct, for the most part; I’m still not insanely high on this album, but I’m pretty damn pleased by it. Out of the 11 tracks here, only 2 or 3 felt like they couldn’t put me in a zen state, but that’s a pretty good mark to hit on.

As with “m b v”, this is a variety of shoegaze blended with more ethereal instrumentation & production to feel like the in-between phase of a lucid dream. Ironically, getting Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks just 11 days ago really helped me with figuring out how to approach listening to this album, but while Van Morrison supplements his stream of consciousness approach with some ear-pleasing instrumentals, this is supplemented by soundscapes that would make a pilgrim think you’ve captured the sounds of Hell itself. In this case, that’s a positive. Listening to this has made me realize that this is sort of a “Cocteau Twins does grunge” album – a lot of the tracks here do have a generalized structure, with a verse / chorus / bridge, but it’s all buried pretty heavily by a lot of reverb, quietly mixed vocals, & harsh guitar / synth work, with enough of each instrument poking out to acknowledge them, but not truly understand them.

So, where exactly does this album succeed to the point of a bumped 5? It’s not THAT tonally different from “m b v”, and compositionally, a lot of the tricks are generally the same. Well, it’s mainly in the fact that each track feels like it flows into the other in a much more cohesive way; while there’s only a handful of true transitions on the album, the way this is structured feels like it’s moving from scene to scene in some type of movie, with each track feeling different from the next, yet just tonally similar enough to work. Past that, “m b v” really suffers from a number of tracks having a “first minute is the whole song” syndrome, and while the same is occasionally true here, it’s covered up more nicely, and far less persistent. There are loops, yes, but they pulled me into the zen state long before I had a chance to care about those loops.

Honestly, it’s just a more enjoyable soundscape overall – “m b v” feels like it’s obligated to use noise based on the expectations & success of this album, but this album feels like it’s trying to innovate noise itself. It’s still not the most pleasing, and I’d definitely take, like, a Brian Eno ambience over a Shoegaze ambience a lot of the time… but this stands up pretty well. Hell, for 1991, I’d argue this is way ahead of the curve in terms of effectively “taming” harsh noise as an instrument. In a different sense, for something that came out only 9 years after Thriller, it defies all of the conventions of the 80s in a really cool way.

Is my opinion of this album a little skewed because we got “m b v” first? Perhaps, but I think going backwards like this is a positive. Seeing the band at a “lesser” point before getting their more critically acclaimed stuff is a natural curve, and I do think I would’ve bounced off of this way way more if we didn’t get “m b v” first. I really did like it; it might just be the pinnacle of what shoegaze is. At the very least, it’s set a new high bar for what the genre should sound like to my ears, even if that is simplified down to just “Cocteau Twins doing grunge”. It’s a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5, and at the very very worst, it’s a 3.

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

Right off the bat, I have to avoid the temptation to make any direct comparisons to Taylor Swift. This is my first time actually properly listening to Kacey Musgraves, and I don’t think it’s fair for me to use another artist in the same space as a sort of crutch – yes, this is a country pop album, but this leans into more of an indie rock direction with a yacht rock bend that usually evokes something like Tame Impala or Coldplay. When she sounds like Taylor, then those comparisons are fair, but I’d only say about 3 or 4 tracks here lean that direction at most. I actually do like Taylor Swift, by the way, but I’ll have to expound on that more once we get 1989.

As far as Kacey Musgraves goes, I’ve heard of her name, and so, so many of my friends have praised this album in particular. I know this album had massive acclaim, but that acclaim, combined with the sort of mythical status my friends gave this, led to me sort of avoiding it. Really, it’s just in the expectations – this isn’t a Janelle Monae thing where I just sort of lazily never bothered (large regret), but more of a “I really don’t want to let my friends down if I think it’s bad” sort of thing.

Of course, I have proven myself to be a moron – I really, really liked this album. While I don’t think the songwriting is as sharp & witty as it was always made out to be, given the amount of broad lovey-dovey platitudes throughout this thing, it’s still pretty good. If nothing else, the way Kacey performs these tracks more than makes up for some of the flatter lines – her vocals are lovely, evoking more of an Alison Krauss vibe on her twangier parts, and Ariana Grande on her held notes. She glides on a lot of these instrumentals, with some really nice vocal melodies & structures. Every track is really nice to listen to from a technical standpoint; there’s a handful of tracks where the instrumentals don’t quite give back to her in the same way (i.e., no matching synth melodies or less energetic percussion), but it’s never enough to ruin a track.

As far as those instrumentals go, there’s a really nice variety that starts to emerge from Track 4 onward. Like I said, my brain went to Tame Impala quite a bit (ESPECIALLY on “High Horse”), but it’s just a general conglomeration of indie rock sensibilities from The White Stripes onwards, blended with pop sensibilities of the early 2010s, some 90s/00s Quiet Storm, a hint of Alanis Morrissette, & country similar to both Taylor Swift’s Fearless (I know, I know, but shh), the Emmylou Harris solo album we got a while back, & a lot of Shania Twain (we’ll get to Come on Over eventually).

I can’t really justify the bump up to a 5 other than my own personal enjoyment – objectively, it’s probably closer to a 4, but something about the last 3 tracks really got me good, especially with how lovely “Rainbow” is as a closing track. That one is fabulous. I think it’s just a catchy album, with a lot of nice choruses & hooks that brought a really warm energy. It’s not a nighttime album, so maybe I’ll have to listen to it outside, during the proper golden hour, to truly capture the vibes this album is going for. For now, it just clicked remarkably well with me, hence the bump to a 5. Not only do I feel like I need to listen to more of Kacey Musgraves, I feel like I need to text a few people about being this late to the party.

It’s a 5.

This is my first Aphex Twin album, and while I’m very aware of his status as an electronica legend of sorts, I’ve just never really gone out of my way to look up a track. I’m sure I’ve heard at least one of these before – his music is simply too ubiquitous for me to have never encountered it, but I didn’t recognize any during this listen. Is that a good thing? Well, maybe; I feel like this is the sort of music that’s meant to come & go, as opposed to other stuff that really sticks in your brain. The only ambient music I’ve ever really recognized off a few notes is stuff off of Kid-A. That’s not to undersell anything here though; they are remarkably well composed & produced tracks. With enough time spent with this album, I’m sure I could specifically point out each track on a case by case basis, and really be able to describe the intricacies of what makes it tick.

I didn’t want to do that on a first listen, though. I just wanted to feel the music itself, and… yeah, I felt it alright. This is remarkably good electronica for presumably 1985 to 1992, and it’s very easy to find a zen state for the vast majority of the 74 minute run time. My brain recognized a lot of intricacies in the production, especially in terms of shifting waveforms for all these synths & 808s that added depth to each track, but my brain wasn’t really *perceiving* those intricacies in the moment. In the moment, I just felt comforted by each soundscape, as a vaguely textured white noise that was really nice to read to. This is radically good studying music. I wrote a few things down on each track, just to stay attentive, but it was like writing notes for a lecture – write first, comprehend later.

Even then, my notes are really scattered, and nothing of too much substance; “big booming bassline”, “nice chiptune vibes”, “cool rapid percussion”, “sounds kinda like Earthbound”, “nice 808s”, etc. I don’t know that it would do much good, because describing these tracks will never replicate what it’s like to listen to these tracks, & the entire 74 minutes is worth listening to, whether it’s with headphones in, on plain speakers, on a nice soundbar, or in a car. It is a blissfully good album, and while the electronica can get a little grating at certain points (a few really high pitched synths or some extra heavy bass), it’s never enough to ruin a track. It’s a 5 for me, and I’ll gladly come back to this.

I’m at a 4.

Took a little bit for me to realize that this is more of a “country music meets 50s soul/swing music” album than a pure country album, but once that vibe fully rolled in by Tracks 3 & 4, the album really started to work for me. There’s not that much to say, outside of the obvious stuff: k.d. lang’s vocals are absolutely wonderful throughout this album, and have sort of a “Dusty Springfield meets Aretha Franklin” vibe to them, especially on her more operatic tones. The instrumentals are pretty good – great blend of saxophone, acoustic guitar, steel guitar, light percussion, & fiddle. Each track has an instrumental that fits the mood, and each track generally sounds pretty good because of it.

My only real knock is in the lyrics, because I do think they’re not as sharp as they could be on some tracks. At the very least, for a country music album, there are rather broad strokes that don’t evoke the same imagery on every track, or not as much imagery as the song titles would lead one to believe. They’re not ever bad, but they’re just sort of flat at times. That flatness leads to a few vocal performances that are technically sound, but don’t showcase the full range of emotion as other tracks do. When they click though, they click really nicely, especially on something like “I’m Down To My Last Cigarette”. Regardless, I liked this a lot – no bad tracks, just a few that didn’t click as well as others, hence a pretty solidly recommended 4. It’s a 3 at worst if you don’t like country music.