Reviews by guggmo

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4.

I wasn’t expecting this to be a fully instrumental album, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – I liked the first 26 minutes and 24 seconds of this album a lot. If this album were just the first two tracks, I’d be at a 5. So, what exactly do the last 16 minutes and 36 seconds do to warrant bumping this down by a point & a half?

Well… nothing, really. That’s a positive & a negative – the last 4 tracks here are fully competent tracks that fit in decently enough with the rest of the album, maintain the mood, and they’re fine enough to listen to. They also do absolutely nothing for their runtimes, and as such, they’re very one-note compared to the bigger journeys present in the soundscapes of the first two tracks. Those first two tracks aren’t perfect, but they kept me on my toes by changing up the soundscape every minute or two, so it was easier to stay engaged with them. The last 4 tracks find their soundscape immediately, and just never really change, so the feeling of a journey is lost. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if they didn’t show they could competently & effectively do it so well on the first two tracks. The only one that comes close to finding that journey is the last track, “Along the Banks of Rivers”, but it’s still fundamentally just a percussive beat, a wall of sound, and some up/down guitar hits that feel like they’re from a SpongeBob track.

I do feel like I’m being just a little unfair towards this – perhaps my overt attention on the first 2 tracks gave me a bad impression for the last 4, since those first 2 just felt more rich to me. I might need to listen to this in a pure zen state, just to see if the last tracks click better, or to see if they are just that “bland” comparatively. Overall, though, I did like this. It’s competently done ambient music with some high highs (great guitar, expressive percussion, fun synth work) and some flat lows (droning one-note walls, a few blatant drum loops, less engaging guitar) that feels sort of like a prototype for what Radiohead would more successfully commercially blend on Kid-A. It’s an inoffensive 43 minutes, and while I can see how that inoffensive style makes it easy to ignore and give a 2 or something, I think it’s at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4 because it really did engage me for those first 2 tracks. If over half the album’s runtime is that good, who am I to bump it all the way down?

I’m at a 5.

Just like “Something/Anything?” by Todd Rundgren, this album also has 4 individually titled sides, each with their own particular vibe, and just like that album, I split this into 4 miniature albums. Once again, it really worked.

Side 1, taking up the first 5 tracks, is titled “The Eagle”, and it’s rad as hell – sort of an “Americana bossa nova” vibe to the whole thing, blending the 70s rock sensibilities of bands like Chicago or Boston with a little bit of Afro-Cuban percussion and riffs. Not a single miss there – just 17 minutes of pure jams that clicked really, really nicely for me. It’s a stellar start to the album.

Side 2, taking up tracks 6-11, is titled “The Wilderness”. It’s a REALLY nice set of country music tracks, with a bluegrass lean that really appeals to my sensibilities. Great fiddle solos, excellent use of the steel guitar, some lovely texturing by the piano, & some really nice lyrics throughout to create some vivid midwestern imagery. The only vague knock I have is that Stephen Stills doesn’t have the full country twang that some of his contemporaries have, but he sounds great regardless. I deeply enjoyed it; special shoutout to “Don’t Look at My Shadow”, which has a perfect finish to the entire side / first half of the album.

Side 3, tracks 12-17, is titled “Consider”, which doesn’t really have a specific theme, but it’s just a great variety set. I really liked it – lots of bouncing around between genres & styles of rock, jumping around from influence to influence. “It Doesn’t Matter” feels a lot like a Byrds track, “Bound to Fall” feels like a Beatles cut (sort of White Album-y?), “How Far” feels a lot like Simon & Garfunkel, “Move Around” feels sort of like a David Bowie track, & “The Love Gangster” has a bit of Jimi Hendrix in it that really pulls the funk together. It’s a super fun set of tracks, and it might be my highlight of the whole album.

Side 4, tracks 18-21, is titled “Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay” – I was in the zen state for a lot of it, so my analysis won’t be as fruitful, but I liked it a lot. Certainly a rock-driven side, & even though there’s a bit of a homogeneity that emerges after leaving the zen state, it’s really enjoyable in the moment. There’s some great percussion patterns, some really smooth guitar melodies, vocals that glide kinda like silk, and some really nice solos that carry a good chunk of each track. “Blues Man” is a lovely tribute to Jimi Hendrix, Al Wilson & Duane Allman, who all happened to die in 1970 & 1971, all in their 20s. It’s a strong way to end a side called “Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay,” and a solid way to end the entire album. In a weird way, this might be my least favorite side, but only because I didn’t feel like I was as engaged by the content of the tracks, and more so mesmerized & sucked in by their soundscapes and vibes. It’s still a really good set of tracks, though.

As a whole album, there’s really not a single miss here. This is weighed down a bit by its length, so I understand why this has a 3, but for my money’s worth, Stephen Stills has proven himself a very, very, very capable artist outside of the vague mythos of CSNY. Obviously, this is “Manassas”, but it’s a band Stephen Stills put together to act as a backing band to perform tracks he wrote entirely by himself. It’s listed on Spotify as a solo Stephen Stills album, & that’s honestly kind of fair. I’d be remiss not to give an incredible amount of credit to that backing band though – they killed the instrumentals on almost every track here. The songwriting isn’t as sharp as the sharpest stuff on the CSN/Y albums we’ve gotten, but it’s certainly not dull. When it clicks in the most vivid ways, it really clicks, especially so on Side 3.

It’s a shorter double album, thankfully sitting at just 74 minutes, but if you treat it like 4 mini-albums of around 18 minutes each, it’s a really fruitful set of tracks with a wide variety of styles & soundscapes that never really manages to miss. As a whole, this feels like it’s gone underappreciated in the larger canon of 1970s rock, & that’s kind of a shame. I really, really liked it, & I think it’s worth giving a 5. I’m very glad it’s on the list. Good on you, Stephen Stills (& all the other people you credited on the cover that I’m too lazy to type out).

I’m at a 5.

First time I’ve given Bjork a 5, though Vulnicura would’ve probably gotten the nod had it ended after Track 7. It’s a hell of a solo debut – we haven’t gotten any of her work with The Sugarcubes yet, but I know they’ve got an album on the list. I’ll be really interested to see how different this is when that album comes around, because of all the Bjork albums we’ve gotten so far, this is the most… “normal”. Certainly the most commercially accessible, at the very least.

This is a much prettier, nicer, & happier album than either Vulnicura & Medulla – lots of house/club tracks, some lovely vocals throughout that are gliding on some smooth trip-hop / ambience-driven instrumentals, & some great sound design / production throughout to create an atmosphere of Bjork just taking a long trip in the city. It makes for a breezy 48 minutes, and I don’t think there’s a bad track here; maybe a few dull moments spurred on by long outros, but nothing overwhelmingly distracting from how good this tends to be.

For 1993, I don’t know how much this was necessarily rocking the boat, but it does feel like the seeds for something bigger for pop music were being planted here. Trip-hop was in full effect, sure, but this feels like the most it’s been sort of commercially blended with pop music’s sensibilities to this point in 1993. It’s also showcasing a variety of styles that could be explored within the soundscape of trip-hop itself. A track like “The Anchor Song” is wildly different from “Like Someone In Love”, & “Like Someone In Love” couldn’t be more different from “There’s More to Life Than This”, but their instrumental bases make them fit like a glove in the full album experience.

Bjork’s vocals certainly help – still a little ragged and loose, as they have been on her other albums, but they’re a bit stronger here, used as a complimentary instrument to enhance the instrumentals, as opposed to a primary lead relying on the emotional pull. All the vocal approaches she’s taken so far have been valid, but they clicked really nicely on this one, just because this album feels simpler & more straightforward than the other ones we’ve gotten. The lyricism being streamlined, yet still vivid, also helps a lot; everything feels pretty grounded in terms of how one might deal with a lot of the situations presented on this album, but Bjork’s imagery gives it just enough of a grandiose scale to give each track a gravitas it might not have earned otherwise.

I really liked this – Bjork has certainly won me over on account of her ambition, and the earliest pieces of that ambition seem to be rooted here. I wouldn’t say this does anything particularly crazy, but Bjork is radical in just being herself on this album. It’s a welcome style at a point in time musically dominated by the bombastic, larger than life attitude portrayed by a lot of rock/grunge stars, or the pop stars carrying themselves with the poise of an untouchable superstar. Bjork is… just a lady, going around the city, partying at the club, gazing at the stars, and feeling a little lovey-dovey at times. A quaint enough journey, elevated by the gravitas she naturally & effortlessly infuses into each track. It makes for a damn good album, and a 5 for me.

I’m at a 5.

Not quite what I was expecting as a follow-up to “Selling England by the Pound” – that’s a pretty straightforward prog rock album. This is… certainly something, though I think its wild eccentricities are right down my alley. Peter Gabriel should probably be tested for drugs.

This is a science fiction journey that starts in New York City with a graffiti artist named Rael, who becomes abandoned by his brother & entrapped in a cave, before dealing with humanoid factories & weird insectoids that can’t decide how society should work. He then finds 32 doors that seemingly only have one way out, before escaping to face his fears. He then dies of anesthesia, gets revived as a humanoid blob of gelatinous flesh, meets some mythological temptresses, but because he’s so goddamn boring, he literally kills & eats them. Afterwards, he canoes his way to a society of “Slippermen” (and by all means, please Google “Slippermen”), who rip his dick off in an attempt to make him fully human again… before a fucking raven takes his ripped off dick and flies away with it. He finds a portal back to New York City, but before going through it, sees his brother drowning in river rapids near a ravine, and decides to save him… before it turns out, he was his own brother all along. He has saved “himself”. From what? I have no earthly idea.

That is, at the very least, my rough interpretation of whatever this story is, which is a maddening concept album that feels like a Star Trek parody on drugs. I truly cannot imagine writing this at all. And yet, for whatever god damn reason, because it’s Peter Gabriel, his maddening vision somehow fruitfully comes to life in one of the coolest prog rock soundscapes I’ve heard from a 70s album. Even if you ignore the batshit insane plot from a lyrical standpoint, the instrumentals, vocal performances & song titles do a decent enough job of getting a framework across.

I don’t think this is as good as Selling England by the Pound, if only because it’s 40 minutes longer & is significantly more confusing due to the concept album plotline, but in terms of pure musicality, this feels kind of even. There’s some fantastic melodies throughout this thing, some excellent guitar work, and some absolutely mental drum patterns from Phil Collins. Honestly, the whole album feels pretty captivating throughout; even at 94 minutes, I never found myself in too much of a lull, but it certainly helps that each side of this album is sort of its own act in this overarching story. Combine that with the number of ambient instrumentals that work as transitions, and the pacing of this album keeps it feeling fresh.

I liked it, but I totally get why someone else might hate it – it’s a weird fucking album, for sure, and following this plot might take away from some of the more musical moments scattered throughout. It’s definitely not the straight-forward, easy, mesmerizingly good album that “Selling England By The Pound” was, but it’s not trying to be at all. For Peter Gabriel’s final album as a member of Genesis, he sure went out with… it. I still truly don’t know what “it” is, but he sure seemed happy to find it.

Ultimately, this is a goofy science fiction album that plays itself totally straight, and which has no right to work as well as it does. I’m a sucker for that sort of campy B-movie bullshit, sue me. At worst, I think it’s a 3 if you hate the presence of a plot, or if the album is just too long to hold one’s attention – for me, it’s a 5. God bless the other members of Genesis for indulging Peter in this wacky plot. How that same man wrote “Melt” & “So”, I’ll never truly know. What a guy.

I’m at a 3.

Honestly? Not that much to write home about. Perhaps it’s some distractions from the Switch 2 Direct lingering in my brain, but this album never quite found the hook to pull me in – Tracks 3-6 really worked for me, and the last track hit pretty nicely, but the rest of them (1, 2, 7-9) sort of felt flat. There’s not an expressly bad track here, just a lot of vague mediocrity, or at the very least, some uncompelling listens.

This is definitely 1981 post-punk, but beyond that, nothing here really caught my ears as doing anything particularly special. A few Bowie-esque vocal patterns, some funky basslines here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary that makes me want to say “wow, I had to listen to this before I die”. I liked half of the songs, and I was less impressed by the other half. I don’t feel like I gotta expand on that too much, so… yeah, take it or leave it. I’m sure there are better Bauhaus albums, as I’ve heard the name before, but this one just didn’t click for me. It's not bad, but I'm not itching to recommend it or anything. Hence, the 3.

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

Going into this, I only knew the title track, so imagine my surprise when this album kicked off with a sort of Jackson 5-esque R&B/soul cut. It’s hard to classify this as a rap album, because it does feel like more of a R&B album where Grandmaster Flash & friends happen to rap on some of the tracks, some of the time. It is definitely old-school hip-hop though, and I’m very glad the album does enough to stay fresh & energetic; I really did expect this to be 35 minutes of stuff similar to “The Message”, with some rather minimal production & less of the established blending of funk & rap that would come to define the genre.

Hell, the “Genius of Love” sample on “It’s Nasty” immediately threw me for a loop – that might be one of the earliest examples of sampling in hip-hop ever, given that the original track only came out a year earlier. Super fun track, too. Scorpio is cool as shit; a bit long, sure, and a little bit of “human” presence would’ve done wonders to break up the monotony of the modulation, but it’s a remarkably unique blend of electronica and talkbox work for 1982. “It’s a Shame” has a few awkward production tricks, and the vocal intensity feels a little high compared to the lyrical content, to the point where it almost feels a little condescending, but I’ll give it a pass for 1982.

Dreamin’ is a little awkward, given that we’re not THAT far removed from “Songs in The Key of Life” at this point in time, & “Hotter Than July” had come out 2 years before. He was (& still very much is) alive, so the tribute feels a bit strange. In a way, I’m almost reminded of all the LeBron parody songs trending online right now, but this is far more earnest. Is it glazing? Yeah, probably – you don’t write the lyric “I dream about you Stevie, you make me wonder” unless you’re going for remarkably cheesy praise. I think it’s a bit long for what it is, but I adore Stevie Wonder, so I think it’s fair enough to shoot your shot on wanting to meet the guy like this. I do think though, that if you’re gonna do a Stevie Wonder tribute, you have to have a harmonica solo. Sort of criminal that there wasn’t one; felt more like an Earth, Wind & Fire cut at the end of all that.

“You Are” is painfully fine – for my ears, lots of vocal & instrumental flash instead of lyrical substance for a gospel track like that, though that opening piano is beautiful. I might be a bit hypocritical given that one track on the Christina Aguilera album we got recently, I do think it just sort of circles the platitudinal bases, with the spoken word interlude there as a sort of anchor. “The Message” solidified its place as a rap classic for me here – I’ve never fully given the lyrics their due on that track, but they’re excellent, & the skit at the end is a very direct snowball trail to get to “Fuck Tha Police” just 6 years later.

I now have a way better understanding of this album’s place as an influence on hip-hop, & there is a pretty direct throughline to get from this album to the rest of 80s rap to come. There’s also a lot of R&B standards that would come into vogue the more the genres overlapped; it wouldn’t surprise me if the usage of “Genius of Love” here inspired Mariah Carey’s usage of it on “Fantasy”. Overall, it’s a pretty good 37 minutes, and any shortcomings I have with it can be sort of wiped away by “it’s 1982” – at worst, I think this is a 3, bare minimum. It’s a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5 because I sort of admire it for what it is, and some of the cheesier stuff on this sort of won me over.

I’m at a 5.

Sixth time around for David Bowie, by far the most we’ve gotten of any singular artist. Fourth time in a row he’s getting a 5 from me – this goes right behind Station to Station as my second favorite Bowie album so far. Again, I’d probably have to relisten to “Low” or “Aladdin Sane” to really give a proper ranking of my favorites so far, but it’s a testament to the man that he could release an album like this in 2013 and still feel so damn compelling around 40 years after his prime.

As far as the production goes, this does feel like what a “modern” David Bowie album should sound like; enhanced and refined from his 70s/80s work, with new production tricks abound. There’s a lot of influence from late 2000s indie rock here, and while it’s a little jarring at first to hear David Bowie seem so contemporary, the combination of his more withered (yet still powerfully present) vocals & the classic production tricks strewn throughout keep everything grounded in a way that still distinctly feels like a David Bowie album, and not just him jumping on the trends of the era. The only real tracks that sort of feel flat like that are “Boss of Me”, which felt rather broad & a little too plain, & “Valentine’s Day”, but that one makes up for it decently well with the lyricism and storytelling.

This album really does shine well lyrically – a few broader tracks than others, but so much of this album feels like a sort of meta-commentary on the time David Bowie spent away from the industry, as well as a commentary on his older status. I still haven’t listened to Blackstar, because I know it’s on the list, but if that album is the grandiose swan song in musical form that it seems to be, he certainly planted the seeds for it here. When he’s not wistfully looking back on his Berlin period, and how radically the landscape has changed, he’s just jamming out, in ways that are less cerebral than I’m used to from Bowie, but certainly welcome enough, especially on the stadium rock-esque “(You Will) Set the World on Fire”.

I really want to point at the last track, “Heat”, in particular. I could be wrong, but I really think the track is about his father controlling the prisons of his mind, long after his death. Him saying “I can only love you” is likely referring to himself, and the amount of identities he went through just to try and find one that he felt could mentally appease his dad. I can see why that track would end the album, even if I preferred “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die” from a musical standpoint. “Heat” seems deeply personal, and I think it’s worth ending on, assuming my interpretation is right. It’s a hell of a track either way.

So, yeah, I really enjoyed this – it’s probably a little jarring to people who hold his older stuff in mythical regard, and I imagine that once we actually get Ziggy Stardust, I’ll understand exactly why. For my younger, more contemporary tastes, this felt like a really nice blend of Bowie’s older sensibilities with modern, updated production. It’s not perfect, but given that the 53 minutes of this flew by in a heartbeat, it felt captivating all the way through, and it was certainly worth the listen. Hence, the 5.

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

I don’t think I quite fully caught the vibe of the album as intended, but I think I picked up on most of it – if this is as improvised as it’s all claimed to be, then the intention of this album feels like closing your eyes, trying to find the sort of mental imagery & setting of each track, and then letting Van Morrison’s voice & his stream of consciousness train of thought paint the broad strokes for your brain to fill in the story, enhanced by some fabulous instrumentation throughout.

This is a masterclass of sound design, but not in the Nine Inch Nails sense, where the production is used as a harsher tool to express unstable emotions. It’s more so sound design in the classical orchestration sense, a la Beethoven or other composers of his time. I’m not foolish enough to say Van Morrison or his team are actually Beethoven or anything, but what makes classical music work well enough & feel sort of timeless is the intention of each track. This album thrives on trying to create an atmosphere, and letting Van Morrison guide you through that atmosphere. It succeeds more often than not, & while I might be hyping it up a bit much in terms of Van Morrison’s intention vs the actual outcome, I do think they sort of work hand-in-hand; this was designed to be as different from something like “Brown Eyed Girl” as possible, and it certainly is. It’s also different from anything on Moondance, which took a more measured & traditional approach. It’s a testament to Van Morrison’s fluidity as an artist, honestly. I really liked this.

The thing is, for my brain, I think I only caught the general mood of the track on about 6 of the tracks – specifically, “Beside You” & “Ballerina” didn’t quite click the way that I think they could have, but that’s less of a fault of Van Morrison’s approach, and more so my inability to catch their vibe. When this album clicks, my goodness, does it click. Cyprus Avenue & Madame George in particular felt brilliantly produced, and the mood brought on by that soundscape felt ethereal for 1968. Those two tracks alone are worth the listen.

I understand why this has a 3, because approaching this like a typical album will leave the mind with a lot of confusion – lots of repetition, weird broad lyrics, some instrumentation that’s nice to listen to but makes no sense… all things I might say if I treated this like Moondance. It’s an impossible feeling to describe once that zen state really truly clicks, but it’s something that I think is worth chasing on every track. Hence, the 4.5 bumped up to a 5.

I’m at a 5.

I entered a big long zen state for that one, so my analysis isn’t going to be as fruitful as it might normally be, but that felt like a more accessible, commercially friendly take on the avantgarde sound design & manic instrumentation from “Tago Mago”; the residue of that album is still kind of in my ear, so perhaps I’m a little biased in giving this a 5, but I think it earned it.

There’s some really neat soundscapes on this, including a Funkadelic meets David Bowie vibe on “Cool in the Pool”, the vaguely biblical panic of “Oh Lord, Give Us More Money” with the car horns, destroyed buildings, loud guitars, and oddly, a sort of Kraftwerk meets Queen vibe. “Persian Love” is, well, lovely – sort of a calypso vibe mixed with 70s disco & rock, and it works surprisingly well. “Hollywood Symphony” returns to the same kind of Kraftwerk meets Queen vibe, but with more of a prog rock bend reminiscent of Yes, and synth work that feels adjacent to Van Halen’s “Jump”.

I enjoyed it a lot – obviously, the shadow of “Tago Mago” & how innovative and beyond its time it felt looms large on this, but the safer approach works really nice here, and this album being like, 30 minutes shorter certainly helps quite a bit. It’s got a good solid variety, a great core base of instruments to work from, & the sampling on this gives a sort of pseudo-plunderphonics vibe that feels unique for 1979 all its own. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, & it does occasionally get a little lost in the weight of its own ambition, but I think it’s a pretty successful solo work. Hence, the 5. At worst, a 3.

I’m at a 5.

I took an interesting approach to this; Todd Rundgren himself gave a little title to each side of the album, and they do feel relatively self-contained in scope, so I approached this as 4 miniature albums, as opposed to one long big one. Is that the right way to approach an album like this? Normally, probably not, but in this case, I think it really worked.

Side 1, titled “A Bouquet of Ear-Catching Melodies”, comprises the first 6 tracks, and they’re a pretty damn good tonesetter. Couple of Beatles-y instrumentals / structures, lots of great vocal melodies, & ultimately, just a really fun set of tracks. Good variety too; the sadder tracks hit the sort of emotional notes they were supposed to, and for the most part, the lyricism was on point for each track. A few had broader strokes than others, but they all worked well for me. It was a good start, and probably my second favorite set on the album.

Side 2 takes up tracks 7 through 13, titled “The Cerebral Side”, and I don’t think he was lying about it – a lot of those tracks required a bit more attention to the lyrics & soundscapes to properly paint the picture, but the instrumental / vocal quality was still on par with everything from the first side. I especially liked “The Night the Carousel Burned Down”, because of how effectively it used the production and sound design to get the sort of eerie mood across, while retaining the faux cheerful attitude of the carousel & midway. It’s a really nice set of tracks, though I’m not sure I liked it as much as Side 1.

Side 3 is my favorite one here; only 5 tracks, 14-18, but they’re filled with some really strong guitar solos and some energetic instrumentation across the board. It’s titled “The Kid Gets Heavy”, but it was actually THAT much heavier? In the guitar sense, sure, but I’d say from a lyrical standpoint, it was more so a continuation of “The Cerebral Side”, itself already a solid continuation of the Ear-Catching Melodies. I do appreciate that this album builds on itself so nicely, though. It’s a pretty good set of tracks, & I really enjoyed them – “Couldn’t I Just Tell You” in particular feels like a slight precursor to the big power pop / power rock anthems of the 80s.

Side 4, tracks 19-25, is my least favorite one here, but it’s not bad, just a little flat compared to expectations. It’s titled “Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Boots (A Pop Operetta)”, but apparently, the plot of this little operetta is stuck within the liner notes of the album, which just aren’t online from a first search, so maybe the plot was flimsy and imagined at best. I sort of see a vague line through each track, but nothing really concrete. As far as the music itself goes, it sure feels like 70s rock. The live opener to this side was a little harsh on the ears, and a few of the lyrics just felt sort of juvenile and awkward, but the musicality from the first 3 sides are intact & there is something genuinely enjoyable here.

As 4 mini-albums, I’d say at the absolute worst, these are all maybe a 3.5, bare minimum. I enjoyed each side a lot, and as an entire 90 minute package, I think it’s a pretty consistent 25 tracks. There’s not a single one that felt specifically “bad” to my ears, save for maybe “Slut”, but that’s just a lyrical thing. This is probably more of a slog if you treat this as one long album, but I don’t think it’s intended in that sense. Regardless, I really liked it – it’s a 5 for me, & a really interesting way to treat a double-album experience for the 70s, with a lot of innovations & some unique production for its time.

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

This is my first time properly listening to a Eurythmics album, and while everyone on the planet knows the title track, I’m surprised that some of the other ones on here weren’t big hits too; “Love Is a Stranger” is a really solid opener that has some catchy vocal structures, & “Wrap It Up” is energetic as hell, feeling like a direct precursor to stuff like Pump Up The Jam or Get Ready for This. Annie Lennox’s vocals, which I only really know from the title track and her other all-timer in “Walking on Broken Glass”, really shine here, and capture the mood of each track nicely. If she was the primary songwriter on a lot of these, then she knows how to make a pretty solid chorus / hook too.

This is obviously an extremely synth-driven album, which is sort of expected, but I was more surprised at how effectively some of the traditional instruments blended into these soundscapes, namely in the guitar, horns, & piano scattered throughout the album. They’re only used lightly, to compliment the lead synth melodies, but their presence feels important every time, so it works really well. This album also never really strays too far from its core of R&B / pop, which keeps everything just grounded enough to not feel overly futuristic or digital like a Kraftwerk album, or too reliant & gimmicky, ala “Temporary Secretary” (please don’t come at me, I don’t hate that song, but it *does* feel a bit gimmicky). Everything works together in a pretty strong harmony, and even though each track shares a general core of instruments, they all still feel decently distinct enough to not feel boring or homogeneous. I feel like this did pave the way for more experimental synth work over time, and there’s probably the earliest hints of Dubstep & EDM in here; maybe not in the most innovative or forward-thinking way, but with just enough of a spark to get the ball rolling.

Honestly, it’s only at a 4.5 instead of a flat 5 because everything after “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” sort of felt like it was padding for time; they’re not bad tracks, but they all go about 2 times as long as they need to, even if they’re filled up decently well. “This City Never Sleeps” was pretty effective, but again, could’ve been like, 4 or 5 minutes instead of 7. However, I liked it too damn much to not bump it up – it’s a breezy 42 minutes, it’s a really good album, and it does honestly hold up. At worst, it’s a 3 if the more “boring” parts of the album nag at you that badly.

Well, I’m pretty sure I’m at a 5 – I just need to figure out exactly why, because my brain hasn’t quite cracked it.

It’s definitely because of the lyricism; it’s both wonderfully & painfully vivid, even in its more flowery and verbose moments. It’s certainly from her vocals, which project the same confidence as someone like Kate Bush, and sound lovely throughout the whole thing. It’s… partially from the instrumentation, which is really nice, if a bit too attached to the piano on a few tracks, in a way that made the 57 minute runtime start to get a little homogeneous. Altogether, I think it’s a lovely album, beautiful through the honesty of its pain, and one of the finest examples of a singer-songwriter we’ve gotten so far. Everything about this screams a 5 to me, and I’m pretty damn sure it is one, because I certainly enjoyed it as if it were one.

Why, then, am I sort of struggling to justify giving it a 5? Is it because it’s sort of like an Oscar bait film, where you feel like you have almost no choice but to come to that conclusion, or is this actually standing on its own merits, and I’m just sort of paranoid about it? Is it because we just got “Exile in Guyville”, which is sort of an antithesis to this album in a lot of ways, or am I just burnt out on two albums with similar, yet different thematic views of femininity & portraying confidence as back to back, hour long experiences? Those are both sort of true, to some degree, but I think my brain has finally cracked why I’m struggling, & I’m not sure how valid it is.

I think I’m struggling to give this a 5 because I’m feeling woefully ignorant to a lot of the subject matter & themes this album tackles, due to a lack of personal experience. I’m empathetic towards an incredible amount of this album, especially so on “Me and a Gun”, which is horrifyingly portrayed, yet wonderfully performed, enhanced by the choice to go fully acapella on it. However, I’m just not able to feel a lot of these tracks, at least not with the emotional pain that Tori Amos used to write & perform them. That’s no fault of her own, and it shouldn’t play a factor into my rating at all (& it won’t!), but I can’t help but feel like I’m giving this a 5 more so out of an emotional connection to her strife, as opposed to a full appreciation for the actual musical qualities of the album. Whether or not that’s actually true is basically dependent on how I approach these tracks in the future, but I think this is an album that needs a few plays to fully grab the depth of, both vocally, instrumentally, lyrically, and tonally. I’ll certainly replay it a few times, because it’s a deeply touching album, and I’m sure that I missed a few things along the way.

I will give this a 5, because I did enjoy it a lot – it would be weird to drop it down to a 4 just on sole account of “did I actually like the musical parts of this album that much”, because I do think the emotional weight of this album goes hand in hand with the musical parts, in a way that’s oddly intertwined, yet separately impactful. It is easy to sort of ignore the instrumentals and focus on the stories, but the stories themselves are enhanced by the power of the instrumentals behind them. They work together brilliantly, but it is easy to get lost in one opposed to the other the longer the album goes, and that’s probably my only real “knock” on the album. If your big issue is reconciling the emotional impact with the musical impact though, then you’ve made one hell of an album. It’s worth a 5, and it’s worth a lot of listens. I’m very glad I finally listened to Tori Amos.

I also need a hug, probably.

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

Very early on, when I was sort of making mental comparisons, my brain went to Alanis Morrissette, and specifically, how she’s able to project her voice to get the emotional pull of a track across. Her vocals on “Jagged Little Pill” are sort of a benchmark for me, as far as 90s women-led rock goes, and while I don’t expect artists to match her, I think the way she uses her voice to really drag the most of out of the lyricism & instrumentals are sort of a standard to go by. This album slowly but surely challenges the idea of “power = emotion” as a benchmark, and it did eventually succeed.

Liz Phair is not Alanis Morrissette, nor is she trying to be; the more apt comparison, perhaps, is like Joni Mitchell deciding to tackle Nirvana. Alanis Morrissette projected herself as more of an iron woman, ready to take on the struggles of the world with a “look at me now” demeanor that better fit the cultural imprint of 1995. Liz Phair, on this album, projects herself as sort of a battle-tested, scarred but still standing woman, coming from a place of confidence, yet projecting a light air of insecurity, adding a sincerity to the whole thing that feels unique compared to some of the other women-led rock albums we’ve gotten. These are more thoughtfully written tracks, and the introspection present on the lyrics overrides the need for a more powerful vocal performance. That’s not to say Liz Phair doesn’t have good vocals on this album, because she does; a little shakier, a little more nasal-y, not as pitch-perfect on the held notes as it could be, but that vulnerability lends itself to each track in a good way.

Instrumentally, I do think this album doesn’t quite find a set identity, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – there’s a lot of variety between piano-driven tracks, acoustic stuff, more Blues Traveler-y instrumentation, Sheryl Crow-esque stuff, and obviously, a lot of Nirvana. It jumps around a bit, but the core messaging of each track is what keeps the album afloat, and she can adjust really nicely to each style, still all guided within “rock” itself.

It is a bit long at 55 minutes, and I do think it treads water a couple of times in the subject matter, but it’s not enough for me to really bump it down to a 4. I would rather leave it at a 4.5, if only because for my own personal tastes, the vocal presence is still a little short for me, and occasionally, the lyricism is a bit too broad to paint the picture she’s going for, but it’s too good of an album to give it a 4. It’s a solid 5, and I do recommend it – you have to be in the right sort of frame to accept her brand / musical projection of femininity, but it’s a very rewarding album once you get deeper into it. I really liked it.

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

Honestly, I don’t really feel like I have that much to say in terms of fully justifying that rating – I’m a lot more prone to like this stuff than the average user of this site, and I’m unabashedly a sucker for late 90s / early 2000s pop like this, in all of its vaguely overproduced & self-important / self-indulgent glory. It’s what I grew up on, and it’s just my sort of style, I dunno. One of these days, I might absolutely tear into one of these types of albums, but only if it’s so aggressively bad or mediocre that it overrides any love I have for this stuff. It might be a toxic bias, but it is obnoxiously fun to me, and I won't apologize for it.

I do feel like I have to talk about the music, and I think there’s a bit of warranted praise in giving this the bump to a 5 – obviously, Beyonce steals the fucking show here in a way that foreshadows her superstardom (& by foreshadowing, I mean it’s about as subtle as a solar eclipse), but Kelly Rowland & Michelle Williams’ vocal harmonizations deserve some love too. When they take lead, they don’t really miss a step, and each track generally has a really nice flow to it that feels seamlessly smooth.

Instrumentally, this is my style of production, and while there’s not necessarily a lot of variety, each track does bring its own kind of mood that still feels sort of distinct. Lots of heavy melodies on the more ballad-y tracks; Brown Eyes, in particular, is from the same guy who did all of Mariah Carey’s big 90s hits, and his fingerprints are all over that – wouldn’t surprise me if that’s a reworked Mariah track. In terms of the hip-hop influence, this album sort of succeeds in its simplicity; Independent Women, Pt. 1 is the prime example here – it’s just a few orchestral-ish hits, strings & some drums, but it’s incredibly effective. By the way, shoutouts to the Edge of Seventeen sample on Bootylicious & the Tarzan Boy / Push It interpolations on Nasty Girl.

Lyrically, I think this album *really* hits on its choruses, which all noticeably feel really good when they come in the second time; I’m not sure what this phenomenon is, but every great pop artist has it, where the brain sort of subconsciously downloads the melody / flow of a good chorus the first time, and really vibes with it the second time. It’s in spades on this album, and that’s partially why I enjoyed it as much as I did. On the flipside, of course, is Independent Women Pt. 2, which is honestly pretty good save for the Tom & Jerry-sounding sample in the chorus, which just murders the vibe of the track in a bad way. As far as the verses go, they’re generally pretty good, though a few tracks are certainly a bit more basic & repetitive (or horny) than others, and a few of them feel a little overly petty by today’s standards.

That last track felt a little awkward knowing that Destiny’s Child basically went on hiatus right after this album’s promotional stuff, and it did rub me the wrong way, sort of like the self-indulgent track on Christina Aguilera’s album we got about a week ago, but at least it’s showing love to each other & not sort of proclaiming your presence forever while fans say your praises. As far as why I’m not at a flat 5, that sort of plays into it, but there are a few tracks that go a little too long, or overdo the production in a way that buries the vocals & lyrics in a way that didn’t click for me… but I enjoyed this a lot. It’s certainly not enough to bump it down to a 4, and I feel good about giving it a 5. As I said earlier, it might be a toxic bias for me; I can understand this getting a 3, or a 2 if it's THAT grating. I will, however, lament that some of the reviews on this site can’t find the same enjoyment that I can out of these turn of the century pop albums, but c’est la vie, I suppose.

I’m at a 5.

The last time we got Talking Heads was 38 albums into this whole thing, and I just don’t think I was prepared back then. I thought it was especially weird & avant garde, and took a million different directions lyrically in a way that distracted from the production. I gave it a 3.5 bumped down to a 3, and that’s probably “incorrect” in light of the 410 albums we’ve since gotten, some of which took exponentially weirder turns.

It feels good to remedy that with this album, which certainly feels more normal, stylized & consistent than Talking Heads: 77 did. Of course, bubbling underneath the surface of some excellent Brian Eno-infused production through a variety of styles & some really good guitar/percussion/synth melodies, is an album entirely based around fear & paranoia. Certainly a bit similar thematically to Peter Gabriel 3, but not quite in the same way – that album tended to focus more on individual stories and snapshots of melting minds, as opposed to this album, with a sort of chronic panic that exists in broader strokes, with the intent to capture a feeling as opposed to tell a specific story.

For the most part, this album REALLY succeeds in doing so – there are great lyrics abound on this thing, & the instrumentals do a great job of complimenting them, but David Byrne’s vocal performance enhances the panic in those lyrics & the instrumentation to an incredible degree, and he is an absolutely highlight of the album. The eccentricities of his voice that made Talking Heads: 77 feel captivating but inconsistent lyrically are channeled really nicely here as a way to fully capture the mood of each track, with “Cities” as probably the best example here.

Much like Peter Gabriel 3, I think this does need a bit more attention to really get the album, but it feels equally as rewarding to me. There are a few tracks that didn’t land as well as they could / should have (namely “Electric Guitar”), but I really enjoyed a lot of this. It might just be the 400+ days since the last one talking, & the amount of music I’ve since heard that made this one feel better, but I do think they found a really nice balance between the eccentric captivating production & storytelling on this one, in a way that fully clicked for me. It’s a pretty good 5, and I’m glad it’s on the list.

That’s an easy 5. It might be a little higher.

Certainly a much different vibe from “So”, but I love the approach this album takes – extended looks into the melted minds of people, whether it’s intruders, assassins, racists & stalkers, or mental health crises ala the desperate need for attention, panicked amnesia, & schizophrenics with an impulse. For 1980, this feels decently ahead of the curve as far as using sound design & production to get these themes across, and the excellent lyrics & vocal performances on a lot of these tracks only help to enhance it.

In a weird way, I think this might be a more complete album than “So”, which I already considered one of the finest albums of the 1980s. Yes, it’s less commercially-driven, & the tracks are a little stripped back to tell more personalized stories, but the theming of this album feels more consistent, even with the variety of topics that are tackled. It feels a lot more deep and thoughtful, and I think I prefer that to some of the poppier stuff on “So”. It also helps that there’s not really that much filler to let the instrumentals have their shine like there was on “So” – when a track is done, this album lets it fade out, and then smashes right into the next one, to allow for just enough breathing room to self-reflect, but not too much as to feel sort of boring. That pacing issue might’ve been “So”’s only perceived flaw, but like I said on that review, it might’ve just been a quirk for radio play.

I don’t wanna write too much more about this album, since I think listening to it is more rewarding than reading about it, so here’s some quick rapidfire praise: Kate Bush’s vocals were great on a few tracks, Phil Collins’ drum work is impeccable as always, the guitar melodies felt really ethereal and complex at times, & when Peter Gabriel finds a cinematic mood, he nails it with a noir feel that lays the groundwork for some of the other big “cinematic” tracks of the 80s, ala Smooth Criminal. “Biko” is a fabulous closer, by the way.

It’s a testament to Peter Gabriel’s fluidity as an artist that he can pump out insanely good prog rock with Genesis, an all-time pop album with “So”, & something as moody & unique as this. It’s an excellent album, and while it requires a bit more attention than “So” did, I think it’s an incredibly rewarding album, made all the better for it. Not a single skip here for me, and a very easy 5. Probably a bit higher, honestly – I really, really enjoyed this.

I’m at a 4.

I’m just really impressed at where this is for 1979. It is electronica, but it’s electronica done in a way that feels like a direct throughline to the more club-oriented & dance-y rock stuff that Daft Punk and others would really define as their own. Even past that though, it’s just remarkable synth work, done in a way that clearly affected the rest of the 80s, and opened up a whole new Moog-driven world that everyone would take advantage of, especially hip-hop when the time came for it – every track here feels like it’s a few notes away from being “Push It”.

As far as the science fiction thematics, I think it works as an obvious framing device for this soundscape. Given the contexts of the time (i.e., Star Wars, Star Trek, Close Encounters, etc), it’s a bit stereotypical, but it’s the easiest way to connect to an audience. There’s some solid lyrical work here, but it never goes into anything deeper than vaguely thought-provoking broad strokes, and I do think that’s a bit of a missed opportunity. Lots of world-building, but never an actual real story, save for “Metal”, which I think really worked.

Musically… yeah, this is definitely outclassed by a lot of its peers, and there’s significant “first minute is the whole song” moments throughout this whole thing. Lots of repetitive melodies, and eventually, this synth work does lose a bit of its luster. It hit me by around Track 6 or 7, and then REALLY hit by Track 8 – you can only get away with long synth notes moving up and down while some cool percussion goes on for so long. It is definitely a long experience, even at 41 minutes, but these are all individually solid / good / great tracks, so I’ve got no real complaints, save for “Conversation” being endlessly long at 7 minutes.

With all of that said, I just admire this too much for it to drop any lower than a 3.5 for me, and I feel good about giving it a 4. Yes, it’s repetitive, but I haven’t heard anything from the late 70s using synthesizers this effectively, at least in this vaguely synthpop-esque / trance-y style. One could point to Kraftwerk, and that’s fair enough, but I think Kraftwerk used their synths to create a more calming soundscape reminiscent of a nice happy train ride or drive on a highway, not a mildly existential robot society seemingly devoid of humanity, save for a handful of people. I think it’s a good album, and it really clicked with a lot of my sensibilities. Hence, the 4.

I’m at a 4.5. I gotta talk myself into it one way or the other.

I loved around 80% of this album, and that 80% generally includes the instrumentals, the vocals, and a really nice chunk of the lyrics – this has fabulous production, really strong flows for most of the tracks, and I do love a lot of the messages here when they’re not overly preachy.

The 20% of this album I didn’t like is overly preachy, and it has me absolutely trapped – I feel really close to bumping this down to a 4 on the sole account of just how god damn preachy towards the gospel this ends up being the longer it goes – all this talk about purity, finding God, and returning to the soil with the amount of biblical references, allegories, and allusions… it just becomes too much. I tolerated it through the first 12 tracks or so because it’s done in a really clever way that doesn’t feel heavy-handed, and flows really nicely towards the ideas of unity that are usually presented well enough throughout this album.

Track 13 is what sort of finally made me put my foot down, though, because it strikes me as… fake feminism? Again, 1992 vs. 2025 and all that, but the lyricism on that track feels like it hasn’t aged as well, especially in comparison to how lovely “Natural” is right before it. I don’t think it’s possible to be too feminist, but it is possible to take it to the point where it feels vaguely creepy. Specifically, the use of “females” just gave me a sort of ick, because it hasn’t reflected well into how we talk about women nowadays.

Tennessee is a fantastic track, no complaints about that, but goddamn, that last track just struck a nerve in a way that makes all the preachiness of the earlier tracks feel worse. Earlier on, the album draws a distinct line in the sand between “brothers” and “gangsters” (sometimes with the N-word used in place of the latter). I can’t speak to racial makeup & stereotypes like that; it’s not my conversation to have as someone who isn’t a black person… but it does feel really, really awkward in 2025. It acts as such a strong pushback against the gangsta rap that came into effect in the late 80s and early 90s, and it hasn’t aged well. It doesn’t read quite as “unifying” as it probably should be. If it was unifying back then, then power to it, but given modern-day rhetoric about “the good ones” and “the bad ones” that racist people feel emboldened to speak on nowadays, it truly feels awkward & dated in a way that feels kind of uncomfortable.

So, yeah, that 20% of the album really stings for me. And yet, that 20% doesn’t feel like it should override the 80% of that which I did like – when this album isn’t being extremely overly heavy-handed with rhetoric that hasn’t aged well, it is a genuinely great showcase of some of the future flows, production, & general messaging that would better integrate more spiritual topics into the “heavier” rap as the decade went along. For 1992, I think this is a remarkably strong album for most of the tracks; again, the preachiness comes down to toleration & perspective, and for me, if only 2 or 3 tracks don’t click like that on a 15-track album, you’ve gotta be doing something right. It probably did have a lasting impact & impression on a lot of the more socially conscious rappers that would emerge in the years to come, and I think that deserves its flowers.

So, yes, it’s a 4.5 that I will bump up to a 5, but with the caveat that it hasn’t aged well in the approach to its messaging. Objectively, there is nothing wrong with using your platform to spread a message of unity like this, and I cannot imagine that the sort of differentiation between “brothers” and “gangsters” isn’t meant as more of a framing device for the members of the group to get their points across & set themselves apart from a musical standpoint. It is not *their* fault that the messaging has been co-opted by bad faith actors who have twisted it to this point, and I get the feeling that if they had another crack at an album like this, they’d be able to more carefully choose their words to avoid such a thing. The lyrics on this prove that to me, because they’re usually too damn good and too damn vivid to not evoke some type of really nice imagery.

Ultimately, it’s a funky album, with a lot of great beats, great flows, and great lyrics, dragged down a bit by the approach to its messaging, & the length of the album (57 minutes is crazy here, given how much it sort of spins the spiritual wheels). It is a 4.5, straight up, but I enjoyed enough of this that I think it gets the bump up to a 5 for the website. Certainly no less than a 3.

You know what? I think I’m at a 5.

The last time we got a Cocteau Twins album, I specifically wrote the following: “I just don’t know that I could personally give a 5 to an album with vocals, but without lyrics, simply because I’m a sucker for storytelling”. However, I think this album hits just the right type of vocal presence, where they’re used as an instrument and not as a guiding melody of each track, in a way that I can feel comfortable with giving this a 5.

“Heaven or Las Vegas” structured its songs in a way that was more of an homage to the 80s as a whole, and it used its vocal presence in a way that felt more poppy & familiar – the vocals felt like they could have real lyrics to them, and it was nice to listen to, but felt sort of awkward for my ears. This album leans fully into the ethereal & the dreamy – a lot of this is Eno-esque white noise, with the vocals used to just sort of flow each moment into the next. There’s not many moments where you can feel a general chorus open up, and as such, it’s a lot easier to zone out and let the rest of the instrumentation take you where it goes. Really good instrumentation too – lots of great percussion & guitar melodies are here, and each track does have a good structure to it, so the vocals still feel important, even if they’re used differently.

Much like the last Cocteau Twins album, I do think it’s hard to really find a way for me to analyze this any further other than just “it sounds really good”. It is, however, an improvement over my grand analysis from last time, which was “that sounded really good, but sometimes it didn’t” – there is not a single bad track here, only brief moments where it’s a little loud, or just a hint repetitive enough to get out of the zen state. It is on a lower end of the 5 scale, but I think it’s a 5 nonetheless – a really enjoyable 41 minutes, and if nothing else, fabulous studying music.

I’m at a 2.5 that I will barely bump up to a 3 for its competence.

This was really damn close to being a 2, though. Obviously, it’s overly horny, it hasn’t aged that well, the instrumentals are sort of one-note, and the flows & rhythm pale in comparison to some of their peers of the time. I can look past all of that for 1990, partially because it’s sort of experimental in its own way, and for as awkward & uncomfortable as the lyrics & delivery are here, I truly cannot say there is a full-on “bad” track, save for “Freaks of the Industry”, which is a really, really egregiously horny track. I did *not* like that one. Besides that, there is some bad (& truly awkwardly explicit) content, sure, but this is a fully competent 65 minutes.

It is the fucking longest 65 minutes I have ever heard in my life, compounded by the fact that this so blatantly could’ve been cut down to maybe half of the runtime – dear fucking god, who let them make 8 out of the 14 tracks here last over 5 and a half minutes!? Hell, if you consider 4 of them miniature skits / interludes, there’s only 10 tracks here, and the other 2 go at least 4:24 long, so like… shit, man, this is just a long fucking album. It would be one thing if these were all compelling for the lengths of their tracks, but only a handful of them are – so many of these circle the bases for so long that they lose any and all appeal they had for the first half of their run time. I can’t tell how much of that is trying to fill up CD space, or ego & hubris, considering that the version of this album that was released on cassette is a mind-numbing 81 minutes with 3 extra tracks, and an even longer (and probably even more explicit) version of Gutfest ‘89. How the fuck can you find space for 16 more minutes here?!

With all of that said… I think it’s competent enough to remain at a 3, but just barely. If anything, the miniature 5-track arc about the sex packets at the end is what saved this from being a 2; really solid world-building there, and the tracks felt compelling enough throughout (namely “Packet Man”, because “Sex Packets” goes on for like 3 minutes too long). Make no mistake, though; I’m giving this a long, long leash that it probably doesn’t deserve. This will almost certainly fall down to a 2 over time, and I fully expect a barrage of 1s from future people discovering this site. It may or may not deserve it – I do think there’s a lot of solid stuff here, even despite the extremely horny lyrics. It really is just too goddamn long, but when it clicked, it clicked well enough for me, hence the barely bumped 3.