Reviews by guggmo

I’m at a 4.5, and I’m kind of conflicted about whether I should go down to a 4 or go up to a 5.

I’ve heard this album before – I think anyone who claims to know 90s music has at least heard one of “Juicy” or “Big Poppa” before, and in my case, I listened to the whole thing for the first time… gosh, maybe a decade ago, when I was 15. I liked it back then, but I never really gave a lot of thought to the lyricism, and this is obviously when people still liked Diddy, before… well, you know.

So, with several years removed from listening to this album in full, but with years of the songs coming up in my big playlist, I was really curious about how it would hold up as a complete front to back package. I’ve matured in spades since 2015, and as part of this whole 1,001 albums thing, I’ve learned to really & truly pay attention to music, and analyze it a lot more past “it sounds good”, for the most part. From the intro, though, this weirdly felt akin to riding a bike – once my brain locked in on “Things Done Changed”, a lot of it came right back to memory. From a purely musical standpoint (i.e., melodic flow, instrumentals/beats, mood-capturing energy, etc), this really is a masterclass on most of the tracks. Easy Mo Bee deserves a lot of fucking credit for the opening stretch of this album, because his stuff is an incredible tonesetter, and a bar for every other producer on here to meet, and they all got pretty close.

The lyrics need to be talked about, because they are mostly the reason I’m wavering between a 4 and a 5 – it’s not even necessarily in the fact that a lot of the deeply misogynistic stuff has aged so poorly (although that is a really big factor that should not be understated), and more so in the fact that when you really pay attention, a lot of these tracks end up circling the bases on flexing, bragging, self-hype, and threats of violence, with a touch of domestic abuse throughout. Granted, that’s probably a lot of Diddy’s influence striking through on this album (and I’ll get to him at some point), and from what I remember of “Life After Death”, his songwriting improves tremendously in those regards to make a more varied, thoughtful, introspective & arguably, a more fruitful & better album. On here, though, while those subject matters have legs for a while, by tracks 14 and onward, it just feels like retreading old water, and it does get sort of bland. The curse of a long album, I suppose.

However, I’m more inclined to lean towards a 5, if only because Biggie Smalls makes those lines, as poorly aged and repetitive as they might be, sound compelling and unique and mesmerizing every single time – yes, this is a 70 minute album, but it genuinely still flew by for me. Part of that is familiarity, but a lot of it comes in how charismatic and unique Biggie’s voice is, and how he’s able to pull you into the story he’s telling almost every time, without fail. It really didn’t hit me until I had headphones in just how smooth the man’s flow is – the ending of “Everyday Struggle” struck me as the key example, with the bass picking up, the percussion getting a little louder, and the clarity where you can hear just how on-beat he was the whole time becoming apparent. It’s that sort of mesmerizing appeal that’s pulling me towards a 5, and I think it’ll stay there.

I’ll be damned if old Puff Sean Diddy Daddy P. Combs didn’t do his damn best to drag this down to a 4 though – it’s not even that he does anything especially bad, but for the love of God, man, do you need to be doing hype-man adlibs on every single fucking track? It’s a side effect of getting this album after all the crimes really came to light, but I just don’t need to hear the man give an Ariana Grande-esque “yuh” after every single fucking line Biggie says. It happens so often that it feels like I’m listening to a man ride coattails in real time, and it is by far the worst side effect of The Notorious B.I.G.'s success.

Ultimately, though… I dunno, maybe I just have too much reverence for this album from my younger years, but I think I just have to give it a 5. I can see the case to go lower, and if I were going in with totally fresh ears, I’d probably be there. I cannot change the misogynistic parts of this album from existing, and they do genuinely drag it down on a modern relisten (and don’t even get me started on why the interlude had to be on this album), but on so many of the tracks, I’m just reminded of why Biggie felt special. Even in 2015, I just knew. Beyond the mythos of the Tupac rivalry & his own subsequent death, the man’s talent was on full display, and in 2025, I think his musicianship still speaks for itself. I could (& probably will) go down to a 4 in the future, when I have less of a starry-eyed glaze, but I feel OK about giving this a 5.

I’m at a 5.

Going into this one & seeing the line about “the best debut album since Oasis” on Wikipedia set the bar rather high. I’m not quite sure if they matched that bar, since I’ve never heard Oasis’ debut album, but they’ve created something here that I think justifies that statement, even if it’s tonally far different than what I was expecting.

I really cannot remember the last time an album won me over this much on account of just vibes & soundscapes – the vocals do a great job of gliding on the instrumentals & pulling out some of the emotion, but the buildup on each track, and the cinematic feel of the whole thing, opening up the mind to imagery beyond just the lyricism, is what’s making this album really work for me. Every single track here captures a mood, whether it’s melancholy, loneliness, hope, or anxiety, and the production does a great job of making each track feel unique, despite how much of a similar ground most of them tend to cover.

I can understand the idea of this album just being “ambient moody soundscapes” for one person’s ear, and if the cinematic buildup style they tried to capture doesn’t work for you, this album’s going to bounce off of you. I think that’s kind of a disservice, though – maybe it’s just because I listened to this with a full attentive mind & headphones in, but I found myself really captivated & enraptured by the world each soundscape brought me into. It’s not a direct 1:1 comparison, but my closest analog is “The Downward Spiral” in terms of effectively using sound design to convey a story – Trent Reznor does it better, don’t get me wrong, but this felt kind of similar to me.

It doesn’t always work – I think a few tracks sort of settled when they could’ve gone into a higher gear, I think a few of the lyrics fall flat on some tracks and leave more questions than answers, and occasionally, the instrumentals or vocals get a bit drab or repetitive. However, when it does work, I think it’s one of those things that’s very easy to feel and hard to describe, and this album never once committed that cardinal sin of making me feel nothing.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this, and while I can totally see why someone might give it a 2 or a 3, I just felt so impressed by it, and I think it’s pretty deserving of a 5. I’m glad it’s on the list, and I’m glad that the 2000 Mercury Prize nominees haven’t given us a bad album yet. It’ll be really awkward if I don’t like Parachutes by Coldplay though.

I’m at a 5.

Thankfully, C, S, & N are still pretty damn good without Y. I don’t think I have much to wax poetic about here – this is just a great album. Sure, a good chunk of it is mired in relationship issues, and the variety of styles on each track isn’t as strong as what was on Deja Vu (lots of acoustic tracks here, little less pure rock than I was expecting), but the quality of the songwriting, and the emotion their voices are able to pull out of those lyrics, especially in the harmonizations, is really, really strong, and really enjoyable to listen to. Even though some of the more personal context of each track is kind of lost to time (I don’t think anyone’s really itching to read about Judy Collins & Stephen Stills anymore), the imagery in the lyricism is so good that it really can apply to any kind of relationship.

I truly don’t think there’s a single bad track here, and even its weakest one (You Don’t Have to Cry, just for the repeated lyrics) is still pretty good. It’s not a flawless album by any means, but for 3 people to come together, each members of their own bands, and drop an album with this much cohesion & quality, on a first try, is pretty damn remarkable. It’s the type of chemistry you can’t really teach, and arguably the blueprint for other “supergroups” that followed throughout the 70s. While I imagine Neil Young’s inclusion muddled that chemistry for a bit for years afterward, this album is a great showcase of why Neil Young wanted to join these 3 in the first place. I think it’s no less than a 4, and for my tastes, a very easy 5.

I’m at a 5.

This is the second time we’ve gotten a Dusty Springfield album – after “Dusty in Memphis”, I thought of her as more of a rock girl, with a little bit of soul influence. Going into this one, I was sort of expecting more of the same, even with a decade gap. Obviously, I was a bit wrong – this is much more doo-wop / R&B oriented than “Dusty in Memphis” was, and it’s a style that I honestly think worked better here, at least for my tastes. Once again, it should be quickly noted to say “give black artists their due”, as this is an album entirely comprised of covers. It’s not all from black artists, but a good chunk of it is. The parts that aren’t lean a little closer to that fabled “Great American Songbook” style, which I think works really well with her vocals.

If anything, my biggest compliment I can give to this album is that despite this being a 60s album, so much of this, at least production-wise & in the structure of each track, feels pretty modern. Sure, not everyone nowadays is crooning R&B to grand bombastic orchestration, but the core of the album, in her vocals, the choruses & the melodies, feels like a blueprint for what would become the pop music of the 70s & 80s. Not all of that credit can go to Dusty, obviously, but her voice really opens up a lot of the tracks for me. The power in her vocals, which was already present on “Dusty in Memphis”, simply feels bigger here, in part because of the instrumentals, which do a much better job of working in conjunction with her as opposed to sort of stealing her shine like they did on “Dusty in Memphis”.

That improved harmony is why I’m at a 5 – this album just glides to a really smooth 32 minutes, and while it’s not quite the same feeling as hearing Aretha Franklin absolutely belt out a track, there is something in the air when her voice & the instrumentation blend wonderfully, which happens enough times for me to feel like I'm justified in giving this a 5. It’s a fun album, and I don’t think there’s a single dud (well, maybe Mockingbird). It might hit a little less if I had heard most of the original versions of these tracks, but I think Dusty Springfield & the band performed them with pretty good justice. I think it’s no less than a 4 (or a 2, if you really hate cover albums being on the list), and for my tastes, I have no problems giving it a 5. I liked it a lot, what can I say?

I’m at a 3.

I dunno, I just sort of bounced off of this album, not for a lack of trying. I think the instrumentation does a fabulous job of finding & maintaining a mood on this album on every track, and I consider that the highlight. If nothing else, this is a really nice 41 minutes of easy listening, and it’s probably really easy to get entranced by the soundscapes to the point of enjoyment. They’re genuinely a few years ahead of schedule, and give a good preview of some of the more contemporary / indie stylings of the 90s to come.

However, for my ears, which are just too attentive to the vocals & lyrics, I simply bounced off of this because they do kill the mood / vibe on some of the tracks for me. It’s not because they’re outright bad – they never really dip lower than “painfully unimpressive”. The reason I bounced off of this album is because the lead singer’s vocals, combined with the usually mediocre lyrics, make the entire thing feel like it’s a cover band of another artist trying to do original material, and while I absolutely know it’s not the case, there’s just something about it, when it all combines, that creates that weird anachronistic effect. This is an album from 1988, that sounds like the mid-90s, but evokes other bands in such a way that it feels like the tribute bands & rip-off acts of those more popular ones, and it’s a stigma that my brain could never really shake off.

It certainly doesn’t help that the guy’s vocals reminded me the most of Morrissey, which is “hit and miss” at best, and “pathetically whiny” at worst. Past that, I wrote down “a guy at the bar who’s convinced he can do a great Michael Stipe impression,” and I fear I’m starting to get a little mean. I suppose I’ll end my mean streak by saying that “The laughing stock proves that the world is made of rock” sounds like a poorly translated quote from a foreign philosopher that this guy desperately thought sounded cool. It feels like a Morrissey line. My sincerest apologies to this guy – I simply think Morrissey is a tool.

I’ll give this album credit where credit is due though – it does break the stigma of “cover band doing original material” a few times, namely on “Blue & Grey Shirt” and “Western Sky”, both of which I really liked, the latter especially so. This truly isn’t a bad album, it’s just painfully unimpressive to my ears. It’s not that compelling lyrically or vocally, but for 1988, I’m impressed by how much these guys had their finger on the pulse in terms of the instrumentation. I don’t know how many other “slowcore” albums are on the list, but I feel like it’s a genre I could enjoy. I just don’t think this one, with American Morrissey and a lot of strange lyrics in tow, is the one that’s gonna break through for me. It’s a 3 for me, but I can understand how it could be a 4 or even a 5 for someone else.

I’m at a 4.5, and I think I’ll have to bump it down to a 4, even though I liked it a lot.

I’m a sucker for country music from this era, and this is just an album of great country music. The instrumentation (and that steel guitar) is great, his vocals are lovely, and the lyricism evokes imagery and emotion about as well as most country albums of the time do. I really feel like George Jones simply doesn’t get the same acclaim or credit as his contemporaries from this time, despite his rather prolific output. It might be an indictment of some of his songs feeling very one-note & sad and mostly driven by relationship woes, and that’s my biggest indictment on this album.

When this album steps out of the box of “oh, my poor relationship is over”, the songs have a really fun energy, as “The Weatherman” & “Our Private Life” are both uptempo standouts to me. It is, however, just a bit too one note when it comes to relationships as the main topic over the course of the album. Hell, I really do like all of the love songs on this album regardless, but they’re just a collection of songs that slowly start to feel too similar the more they pop up, and some of them directly disagree with each other (“Pass Me By” & “Borrowed Angel” comes to mind as the clearest example).

Let me put it this way – if this had even one or two more uptempo tracks that weren’t about the sorrow of a lost relationship (or fawning over a new one), I think I’d be at a 5 without a question. I’m probably being a bit harsh, but I think I’ve been really, really kind to country albums from this era as they come up, and this one, while still great to my ears, needs to get a little bit of a knockdown because of the lack of variety. In my brain, it’s like a 9/10, and I really did like it a lot, but for the site, I think I simply have to give it a 4. I still really recommend it though, if only because we simply need more country music like this.

I’m at a 10.

I’ll keep this short – I’m not gonna write a whole soliloquy & I’m not gonna use every adjective in the book, because there’s only 3 words I need to describe this album: it’s Aretha Franklin.

When we got I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You a while back, I mentioned that the only other Aretha Franklin track I really knew about was “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” and I didn’t realize that track was on this album until I peeked at the track list. I also realized that I’m a liar, because Chain of Fools is also on here, and I adore that track. Going into this, I figured those songs, by themselves, would carry this to a 4, bare minimum – the rest of this album is just unbelievably good, and an even better showcase of her vocal power. Every single track is stellar.

This album is simply driven by her ability to pull the most emotion out of her material, in a way that makes the listener feel it in the same way that she’s delivering it, and she does it perfectly, beautifully, and brilliantly. It is a feeling that simply cannot be understood unless you listen to her voice & the instrumentation that anchors it. Even at just 29 minutes, this is such a rich & fulfilling album, and I’m simply left stunned & wanting more. Go listen to it -- it's a 10.

It’s a rather strange 4, and I think I admire it because it’s so strange. For the record, I only listened to the first 10 tracks, like the original release.

I dunno, I just found myself really mesmerized by this album – the vocal effects, the vague electronica work, the early synths, and the innovation that comes as a result of all this new tech that nobody’s really had time to play with yet, creates a super ethereal experience unlike any of the other 60s psychedelic rock albums we’ve gotten so far. It’s immediate from the vocal filter on “The American Metaphysical Circus” that this is way beyond the scope of casual listening, and I suspect that’s partially why this has such a low rating on the site. It’s not for everyone, and the true entry points into the album don’t come until much later.

This album starts weird, asks you to trust where it’s going, and then eases into a better blend of familiarity, normalcy, and this album’s specific brand of avant garde. “Hard Coming Love” has the first real sense of normalcy after the 90 seconds of harsh guitar noise (the worst part on the album by far), but it immediately sort of eschews it – the production tricks from 3:20 onward are the real tipping point of this album’s production, because if you dig that part, and how it all sort of melts around and falls apart, you’ll dig the rest of the album. If you think it’s just noise, the rest of this album is going to rub you the wrong way.

“Cloud Song” is kind of sweet, though it has a bit of a “first minute = whole song” thing to my ears. “The Garden of Earthly Delights” has a sort of electronica sitar feel to it, with some nonsensical lyrics and average vocals, but remarkably cool production tricks that create an interesting vibe. “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife” has an oddly space-y / transmission feel to it, which culminates in a sort of old-timey radio broadcast effect that swaps between the vocals and instrumentation that clicked really well for me. It’s also just kind of a weird track overall, because the production really has no rhyme or reason to it, but I kind of like the manic feel of it all.

“Where Is Yesterday” feels like if The Who (in their Tommy era) did a track for The Shining with a hint of Pink Floyd, and that’s a blend that feels super cool to listen to. “Coming Down” starts off with the sickest intro to the weirdest ‘Yes’ song ever – it’s definitely got elements of prog rock in it, but the production tricks & soundscape carry it more than the vocals / lyrics do. “Love Song for the Dead Che” is an Eno-esque ambient cut with a really lovely feel because of the vocals / lyrics.

“Stranded in Time” is the most normal track on the album by far, with a very Beatles-y feel. “The American Way of Love” starts the same way, before going into an even harsher version of the meltiness featured on “Hard Coming Love”, and ending on a weird ethereal rewind / medley of the entire album. As an entire front to back project, its lack of coherency (save for the occasional smooth transitions between tracks) is oddly coherent, and in line with the general vibe the album is trying to give off. It doesn’t always succeed, and it’s certainly rough around the edges at points, but I think what’s here truly is admirable, especially for 1968 – some of the production tricks here are really innovative for the time, and would come into vogue much later.

From a pure musical standpoint, I’m at a 4; I don’t think this does enough to get up to a 5, nor does it quite come close, but I enjoyed it a lot. It’s a very strange album for its time, and I respect that they were willing to take big swings at stuff that would later feel much more commonplace. If nothing else, their innovations make each track feel compelling and worth listening to, and I never really got bored (save for Cloud Song kinda biting at me). It’s a unique experience that won’t appeal to everyone, and I can understand why people might give it a 2 or even a 1, but I think it’s a 4 that deserves no less than a 3.

I’m at a 4.

This album was fighting for its life for a while there – the first 2 tracks clicked really well for me, and then somewhere around tracks 3-6, it just wasn’t really hitting in the same way – the lyricism got a bit broad, the instrumentation not as compelling or energetic, and in a way, it felt like “Stevie Nicks doing 90s teen dramas for a cheap paycheck”. It just went for a bit too long, and while none of those tracks are bad, they all felt… I dunno, just not as genuine as they could be.

Every single track after that clicked for me – “Say Anything” is a really fun track that ironically channels Stevie Nicks in a good way. “Jacob Marley’s Chain” has some great lyricism that I simply loved, anchored by that titular reference to “A Christmas Carol”. “Mr. Harris” really clicked for me, despite the tricky-to-navigate subject matter, because it’s played up so genuinely and so lovingly, with a soundscape and vocal performance to match it. “I Could Hurt You Now” goes a little long (could’ve ended during the instrumental break), but also manages to channel Stevie Nicks in a compelling enough tale of silent revenge. “I Know There’s A Word” does a good job of making the mundane feel a bit compelling, and the super serious orchestration mixed with her vocal performance made the track work for me. “I’ve Had It” is a really nice track, explaining partially why she left her previous band Til Tuesday to go solo. “Way Back When” is fine – it really only won me over for being about as instrumentally goofy as a few Beatles tracks we’ve had, and her vocals simply sound nice on it.

So, yeah, 9 out of 13 is a pretty good mark to hit. It’s not an all-time album or anything, but I took to it once the teen drama-core songs stopped, and I think her vocals / lyricism on the rest of the tracks are really engaging, and kind of lovely. There is certainly a lot of Fleetwood Mac / Stevie Nicks influence throughout these tracks, tinged with a hit of 90s grunge & attitude, and it’s a soundscape I really like. Every instrumental here worked for me, and her storytelling on the latter half of the album clicked for me. It’s not enough to go up to a 5 (although, if those “teen drama” tracks hit nicer in the future, it could be), but I feel pretty good at a 4. At worst, a 3.

I’m genuinely at a 4.

Look, from the get-go, my expectations were a little low – 2000 trip-hop album, with a barebones Wikipedia page, a 2.7 rating on the website, and a Spotify page that includes the band’s name in the title of the album. With such little care or reverence, it felt like I shouldn’t give a shit.

And yet, for whatever reason, this aligned directly with a lot of my VGM sensibilities in a way that’s hard to describe – the first track on this album gave me “technopop Silent Hill” energy, and I think that soundscape carrying itself through a lot of this album, on a very slow buildup to a purely manic final track in “They’re Hanging Me Tonight” just really clicked for me. There’s not actually a cohesive narrative here at all; this is just 11 tracks with varying degrees of trip-hop and techno soundscapes meant to evoke the feeling of say, Y2K or The Matrix. And yet, I only really found myself annoyed by one track in “Shellback”.

From Track 5 onward, this album just found a groove for me that slides right into all of my VGM sensibilities – the awkward choppy rap samples & the helium-infused alien version of Donald Duck on “The Rake”, the completely out of left field explicit lyrics (which simply made me laugh) and MVC2 / fighting game vibes of “The Rough & The Quick”, the heavier bass & machinery feel of “Bussing”, the Plok!-esque SNES feel to “Alaska Street”, the dynamic ambience of “Belladonna”, and the eerie “church organ at a fucked up cult” vibes from “They’re Hanging Me Tonight”. Each track had something new to offer, and while I’m sure it’s easy to scrutinize the compositions themselves (there’s definitely some form of “the first minute is the whole song” to most of them that my ears didn’t catch), I was just in a zone that I really liked being in.

Look, if you hate this sort of soundscape, it’s an album that’s definitely a 2, or even a 1. For how much I managed to enjoy it, I’ll give it a pretty generous 4. Does it deserve to be on the list? Eh, no, probably not – there’s a number of albums that could’ve made it over this one, and I’m still stunned beyond belief that albums like No Jacket Required, Demon Days, and The Colour & The Shape aren’t on the list. However, I think I’m glad that it is, if only because it’s music that fits a niche that would be criminally unrecognized without being on here. There might be albums that do this better on the list, and for all I know, this genre & style could be criminally over-recognized on the list (as in, I will go to the author’s house and confront him in a criminal way (this is a joke)). Overall, I did like it, and I like it enough to give it a 4, even if I might regret it in the future.

I’m at a 5.

Before listening, the only tracks by The Offspring I really knew were “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)”, and their contributions to the Crazy Taxi soundtrack. I'm glad they've got more than that in their bag. In a weird way, I suppose I’m listening to the birth of the soundtrack of the late 90s at play here – not necessarily as impactful or as timeless as Nirvana, but just as important. Nirvana might’ve captured a post-Reagan anger across the entire U.S., but this feels like it’s capturing a more youthful side of that population – college kids, high schoolers & the like. It’s the sort of music that endured well into the mid-2000s, to match a sort of juvenile swagger of the time, tinged with just a hint of regret. I should know, because I sort of grew up on it.

It’s reflected in the music too – a little messier, a little more unpolished, a bit over-the-top at times, certainly a bit cheesier & really in your face. I don’t think I’d have it any other way. The ancestors of punk rock are all present here (The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, etc), but with a grunge-infused 90s flair that’s somehow both trapped within its time and nostalgic all the same. The guitar riffs are loud and booming, the percussion a little crazy and manic, and the energy is simply undeniable from track to track. Sure, a few of them suffer from the whole “first minute is the whole track” syndrome that will end up plaguing the “pop punk” era as a whole, but for the most part, I think a lot of these tracks miraculously avoid sounding too similar.

I dunno, perhaps I’m just a bit overstimulated and impressed by how much I enjoyed this (or how much of a throwback it is for me), but for my tastes, I think I have to give this a 5. It’s definitely not perfect, but it’s a pretty damn good 40+ minutes, and while it’s absolutely going to bounce off of other people, I’m more than willing to lean into this style and embrace it, however flawed it is. It’s my type of 90s cheesy punk rock, and I really, really liked it. No shame in a 5 – certainly no less than a 3.

I’m at a 5.

It just sounded really, really, really full for 1972, and I suspect that’s partially because of Brian Eno’s contributions to this album. I didn’t realize he was a part of this band until after I was done listening, and it truly explains a lot. This album has a super crisp mix, really deep percussion, and just a wonderful blend of genres and styles that feels innovative far beyond its years. A good number of these tracks truly sound modern to my ears, and while it’s partially in the audio quality being as good as it is, a lot of it is in the more manic production. This album is full of energetic drum fills and long instrumental sections that I can’t say I’ve ever really heard in stuff from 1972, and it’s just really, really cool.

I could point to obvious stuff like The Beatles & David Bowie as two of the major inspirations that this album might’ve taken, but I just hear a lot of stuff in here – little bit of ska (on Would You Believe?), a little bit of electronica (on Ladytron), a little bit of industrial / grunge (on Chance Meeting), a little bit of big band jazz (also on Would You Believe?), and I can’t even really describe all of the things I heard in “Virginia Plain”. It’s just a rich and varied soundscape that kept me captivated on almost every track – the only real “meh” here is 2HB, which is, oddly, a Humphrey Bogart tribute track. I guess they really fucking liked Casablanca.

Ultimately, it’s an album that I think deserves to be listened to, in order to really understand & truly *feel* the depth of the soundscape. I don’t think I can accurately capture it in words; it’s that good, and I’m deeply glad it’s on this list, because I don’t think I would’ve ever, EVER, stumbled upon it otherwise. It’s no lower than a 4 in my mind – maybe a 3 if you can’t stand the big bombastic feel on a few tracks, which this album tends to dip into quite a bit. For my tastes though, this just feels innovative beyond belief for its time, and I highly recommend it. Super easy 5 for me.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to an extremely generous 5, if only because I really liked it.

It’s a little harder to write about electronica / dance stuff like this, even for my VGM-pilled brain, because I’m just really locked into each track while listening, trying to get a feel for the composition, the intentions of the production, and trying to encase myself in the mood and atmosphere and vibe of each track. It makes it harder to judge the album as an entire front to back project, cause my brain treats it more like a YouTube playlist, and I can’t really tell which way is the best approach for an album like this. With that said, I did enjoy a lot of these tracks here – only two of them really fell flat for me (Disco II disco & Damaged people), but the other 11 all range from “totally fine” to “pretty good” to “great”. I do think this album tends to settle a bit, and doesn’t really pull out the most of its soundscapes and production on a number of tracks, but they’re usually still enjoyable enough to listen to that I can just ignore it.

Instead of any track to track analysis, I’ll just give some bits and pieces of what I wrote down while listening, and I think it should give a good sense of how diverse I thought this album was.

“90s arcade high score music that gets a little annoying after a bit”
“Vulfpeck-y bass guitar and some Phil Collins sounding drums”
“Huge ‘Sweet Dreams Are Made of This’ energy, while giving C64 keygen vibes and a bit of the Sonic Heroes Special Stage music”
“DDR / Beatmania adjacent vibes, a Ghostbusters feel to the guitar, with big ‘Whoa I’m In Space Cuba’ energy”
“Namco-esque synths and a big Eye of the Tiger style buildup”
“Wario learned how to use a talkbox”
“Sonic CD but not as funky”
“Face to Face drums with a grimey SEGA Genesis bassline sound”

I suppose if I really wanted to distill it down, it’s just 80s inspired electronica with a lot of VGM sensibilities.

Ultimately, this is a pretty good hour of synth-pop / electronica / whatever the fuck genre this is – I was sort of hoping for more UK house type stuff, but I’m not at all opposed to this. Is it an album I needed to listen to before I died? Eh, probably not. Am I glad I did? Yeah, absolutely. This album pulled from a lot of soundscapes and styles I really enjoy, and to hear it in this form, with this general production, really clicked for me. I’m certainly being a bit generous with a 5 here, but I was just locked in to every track, and I can’t say that for every album we’ve gotten so far. I just thought it was a really fun listen – It felt compelling, and each track felt unique in their own way, so it never got stale for me. Hence, the 4.5 bumped up to a generous 5. I can totally hear how someone might get a 2 out of this, though.

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

We haven’t really gotten too much 70s glam rock, but I hope they all sound kinda like this from here on out – I thought this album just *sounded* cool as hell, with the guitar seemingly jumping back and forth through time to deliver whatever vibe or mood Marc Bolan (another bane of my trivia existence) wanted to get, and he grabbed a whole lot of them. There’s a bit of the Beatles, a bit of Bowie, a bit of Hendrix, a bit of Ray Charles, a bit of the White Stripes & Cage The Elephant, et cetera – his guitar is, for the most part, what anchors the album and makes it feel really compelling. I’ll give big props to the percussion as well, though; when it had to step up and really deliver on any crazy rhythms, it did it without getting in the way of the guitar, and they work in a really good harmony.

His vocals are pretty good too, if a bit inconsistent – on some tracks, they have a really good impact, and really compliment the soundscapes (Lean Woman Blues comes to mind for me), but on a few tracks, they feel a bit paint-by-numbers (Jeepster & Planet Queen come to mind). Overall though, they don’t ever detract from the album; I just wish there was a bit more consistency to how much they truly added. I suppose that’s kind of why I’m at a 4.5 instead of a flat 5 – for as good as this is as a top to bottom package, and for as pioneering as it certainly sounds for 1971, I think there’s just a bit of fluff throughout the album. I’m not saying to delete any individual tracks, but a few of them go a bit long, or simply settle a bit.

Case in point: I really liked the last stretch, from tracks 8 to 11, but for my ears, it’s very easy to notice that they do settle into a “first verse is the whole song” trope, and while most of them are compelling enough to ignore it, it’s just kind of biting at me for whatever reason. It feels like they could’ve dragged a little more out, to tell a more coherent story in each track as opposed to just settling for capturing the mood again and coasting on that.

With that said, it’s just too good of an album to let my own little nitpicks get in the way of how much I enjoyed this – it’s a really good 40 minutes, it flies by, and even when it doesn’t feel like it’s flying by, it’s just got enough depth to stay captivating regardless, whether it’s in his vocals, his lyrics, or the instrumentation. It’s a bit rare for the album to hit on a consistent harmony with all 3, but even with just 2 of the 3, it’s still really strong glam rock. I liked it a lot, and I feel pretty good about bumping it up to a 5.

I’m at a 2.5 that I’ll bump down to a 2.

The Wikipedia article for this album cites someone as saying this is "one of the most harrowing documents of pain and confusion ever made". I will cite myself as saying this is “one of the documents of confusion ever made”. Don’t get me wrong, I read the backstory on Skip here, and his entire mental breakdown is a tragedy. I do think this music, to some degree, was created as a result of the entire ordeal. It’s not fully captured in song form here though, and I feel as if there’s areach being made to try and connect some of this music to his psyche. I do believe music can speak wonders to the condition of the heart and the soul, but this doesn’t do that – to my ears, on a good chunk of the tracks, this is just a slightly broken guy rambling on a guitar, and not a deeper inner look into his state of mind at the time, though it does come up on a few tracks.

That’s not to say there’s not musicality here – 4 of the 12 tracks here got me good, for one reason or another: “Cripple Creek’, “Weighted Down”, “War in Peace”, & “Broken Heart”. It’s mostly in the storytelling, though “War in Peace” got me on that really weird and ethereal soundscape for 1969. Most of the album, though, is simply unpolished, and while a lot of that is a side effect of this album being comprised entirely of demo tracks, I think most of the tracks themselves are just kind of unremarkable to begin with. Scattered hints of melodies, scattered thoughts in the lyrics, mumbled confusion of the vocals… I just don’t really see a pathway where this could’ve been salvaged into a “complete” album, even if it had the time and effort that Skip Spence wanted.

Hence, the 2. I gave it a long enough leash, but ultimately, if 8 of your 12 tracks are unremarkable at best or total duds at worst, it’s just not a compelling project. Honestly, based on the circumstances surrounding its release, this feels a bit exploitative, as if his producer was trying to make a quick buck with the best of intentions, but instead just aired some of his ramblings into the world in a way that likely shot his reputation down even further. It’s a really slow 44 minutes, and while it has a small gasp of breath from tracks 5 to 8, it’s just not enough to go to a 3, and a 3 is honestly the ceiling for this album anyway. I hope he found his peace when the time called for it, but I don't think this album should be cited in talking about this time period of his life.

I’m at a 4 if it’s not as autobiographical as it seems, and if the main protagonist here is intentionally meant to sound & feel really, really creepy. I’m at a 1 if it’s as autobiographical as it seems, and if the main protagonist here is intentionally meant to sound romantic & feel really, really seductive. I’m going to give the full benefit of the doubt, split the difference, and go with a 2.5 that I’ll bump up to a 3.

From a purely musical standpoint, this album nails the tone it’s going for, which is a cinematic runthrough of a relationship caused by chance (i.e., him hitting this 15-year-old with his Rolls Royce & immediately being smitten), and ending in a tragedy of sorts (a plane crash). The orchestration, the choir, the percussion, his vocal stylings, her spoken dialogue – the cinematic feel of it all is really well done, it feels around 30 years ahead of its time (some of this felt like late 90s / early 2000s movie trailer music to me) and it’s a decently engaging 28 minutes with really strong production, and I did like the core of the album.

The big difference maker comes in Serge Gainsbourg himself, and I really can’t get a read on the guy. He was out here having relationships with significant age differences, but never as young & as disgusting as a relationship with a 15-year-old would be – I want to say he was more of a DiCaprio type – girls in their twenties, and all that. Everything about this, at least musically, suggests to me that he knows this behavior, at least with THIS big of an age gap, is deeply inappropriate, and I don’t think our protagonist here is meant to be endearing to me as a listener. However, to engage in behavior that’s so close to it in real life, without the underaged stigma, makes this album a bit of a strange enigma, and I just don’t want to go down the rabbit hole even deeper into his own personal life.

So, I’m at a 3, because I just can’t tell (and don’t really want to tell) either way. I don’t think this is an album that romanticizes pedophilia, but I can’t say it explicitly condemns it either. I’m giving a rather heavy benefit of the doubt here, and it would not surprise me to see this go down to a 1 with further research. However, if he’s relatively cleared of my suspicions, it could go up to a 4. It’s not within the range of a 5 at all for me, just based on the subject matter in general. For now, based on the effectiveness of the music at hand, I’m going to stay at a 3. Certainly a strange pull for the first album of 2025.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump down to a 4, but it’s a pretty recommended 4.

I’ve really liked Gram Parsons. I’ve been sort of ambivalent towards The Byrds. This is a collaboration album, and my expectations were decent, but not super strong. I do think this album exceeded them, but not to the point of a 5. This is good country music, but there are two things that sort of pull this album down to a 4 for me.

The first is that this album (and I cannot believe I’m saying this as a bit of a knock) is that the soundscapes on these tracks lean too much towards country, and don’t find a great balance between the rock sensibilities of The Byrds, and Gram Parsons’ general style. I know it’s weird to say “the country album has too much country”, but Gram Parsons himself clearly learned from this experience, and really refined the blend I think he was searching for on both the Flying Burrito Brothers album we got (1969), and his last album, Grievous Angel (1974). In theory, this combination should work remarkably well (and it does, for the most part) but the blending of genres isn’t as effective here as it could be, and that’s slowly noticeable throughout the album. However, when it works, it works – the best execution of it is on “One Hundred Years from Now” with that steel guitar solo, & “Nothing Was Delivered”, with a more rock-heavy percussion style. Past that though, this is mostly just country, which left me a little disappointed.

My other knock is simply in the vocals, and I’m realizing, with this album, how much a distinctive vocal twang can really make or break the general feel of a country soundscape. When Gram Parsons takes lead vocals here, everything simply feels right – his vocals anchor everything perfectly, and he’s got the best tracks on the album. Whenever McGuinn or Hillman take lead, the tracks are still good, but there’s just something that feels a little off (save for You Don’t Miss Your Water & Blue Canadian Rockies) – I can’t really place what it is, and maybe it’s just a bit of bias involved, but they don’t fully anchor themselves as in sync as they could be with the instrumentation. The vocals across this album are still good, but they’re not as consistently strong as they could be, and they lean more towards the rock side of the instrumentation that simply isn’t quite there.

Hence, the 4, but make no mistake – it’s a pretty good 4. Those other albums I mentioned would not be as good or as strong without this one leading the way, and what’s here is still a really enjoyable listen, and a pretty breezy 32 minutes. It’s just not as good as it could be, and it falls a little short for even my country-biased ears, just because it doesn’t fully commit to a true blend of the genres. I still liked it, though, and I do recommend it. It could even go up to a 5 if a few tracks just hit better at a later point.

I’m at a 10.

It just fucking rocks. What else am I supposed to say? This is my first full Black Sabbath album, and my first full album of anything involving Ozzy Osbourne – I’ve heard singles before (War Pigs, Iron Man, Crazy Train, etc), but never a full album. I figured this one would be good, given the international success of everyone involved, but I wasn’t expecting it to be that good.

Wikipedia mentions that this is generally considered to be the first true heavy metal album, and I can hear it – that opening track feels unlike any other atmosphere from an opening track on any other 70s album. It’s cool as shit, and sets a perfect tone for the rest of the album. After that, this thing breezes by – the harmonica at the start of The Wizard clicked perfectly with my sensibilities, and the entire soundscape just ruled. Behind the Wall of Sleep & N.I.B. are both sick as hell; the guitar solos during N.I.B. in particular are some of the best I’ve ever heard. Wicked World is oddly jazzy, with a bit of a Ram Jam - Black Betty type of vibe. Sleeping Village is pretty cool, before closing out on the blues-driven standout that is Warning. I hesitate to say “Ozzy Osbourne sounds kinda like Muddy Waters”, but it was the first comparison that came to mind vocally, and the instrumentation throughout is just spectacular.

I could try to go deeper into the intricacies of what I liked about every track here, but it’s an experience much better served for the ears to hear, with headphones in, and full attention to the melodies being played. It’s surprisingly not as “heavy” as I thought it would be, at least for my modern standards of what’s considered heavy metal, but I’m not complaining at all. It’s a sick fucking album, I loved every single second of it front to back, and I’m a bit annoyed at myself for never listening to this until now. On a first pass, the charisma this album holds is simply undeniable (unless you REALLY fucking hate anything to do with Satan), and I have to imagine more of this album will reveal itself the more I come back to it. It already feels like a landmark album, and it’s just an easy, easy 10 for me.

I’m at a 3. It took a lot of rehab work, and the quality of the last 3 tracks to get there, but this album crawled its way up to a 3.

I’m really not sure what to make of this album, because I can’t quite figure out exactly what’s wrong with it. The biggest and most obvious flaw is the dichotomy between the vocals and the instrumentation – far too many tracks on this album deeply suffer from them never really being in sync. The best way I can describe it is like trying to play around in FL Studio with two songs that you know won’t make for a good mashup, but trying to make it work anyway. Individually, I think the vocals could’ve worked on a lot of the tracks I was indifferent towards if the instrumentation had been better adapted to suit the vocals. However, that same criticism applies to the instrumentals as well – I think a lot of the instrumentals here are really good, but the vocals should’ve been more adapted to them.

That’s where my biggest issue with this album lies – it’s got good vocals, and good instrumentation, but save for the final 3 tracks, they just don’t work together that well, and I’m not sure which adaptation would make the album more preferable to me. It really is a case by case basis, just based on the vibes of each track. I understand this sort of post-punk new wave experimental thing the production is going for, but it really doesn’t work as well as it could have. If anything, I’m frustrated that the last 3 tracks fully nailed it, because it just means Tracks 2 through 7 could’ve done it too. Nude Spoons was irredeemable, though.

I am giving this album a bit of a long leash, but it’s because I can sense the framework of a really, really good one in here, at least for my sensibilities. I fully understand the average rating this has on the site – it’s abrasive, unusual, and never really meshes together to make a cohesive album experience until those last 3 tracks… but I just didn’t hate the rest of the tracks enough to go down past a 3. It’s a strange album, and I’d personally only really recommend it for super niche circumstances, but I think it’s got a place on the list for all its oddities. Hence, the 3.

I’m not even sure how to rate this album – I’m either at a 3 or a 4, and I gotta talk myself into it one way or the other.

This is my first time listening to Tom Waits – for some reason, the name sounds familiar, but I genuinely haven’t been able to place it at all. I don’t have any songs from the guy in any of my playlists, so I have no idea what the hell my subconscious is trying to tell me here. If anything, after listening, I’m a bit more confused, with a hint of strange admiration – I have no idea if I’ve ever heard an album that’s this scattered in terms of genres, soundscapes, styles, vocals, or production. It’s not even scattered in a bad way, it’s just scattered in a way that’s really jarring, a bit incoherent, and throws any and all album tradition and structure out of the window. It’s very unique for 1985, especially because the formula for an album felt pretty set in stone at this point, especially post-Thriller.

I did like a lot of the tracks on this album, which is where I’m more inclined to give it a 4, but his vocals have such a weird consistent inconsistency that makes me want to go down to a 3, and I really can’t decide what should win out. His vocals have a really deep raspy grit to them, which sometimes works for the tracks, and sometimes doesn’t – I think it really distracts from the instrumentation and lyricism, most of which correctly nails a storytelling vibe. Beyond that, the fact that his vocals sound filtered, recorded away from the studio, while the instrumentation has a really crisp tone to it, makes each track feel weird to listen to with headphones in. Downtown Train is the clearcut example here to me – the mismatch between his vocal quality and the instrumentals is extremely apparent, so much so that when Rod Stewart covered the track, it became a huge hit for the guy.

And yet, for whatever reason, I just find myself sort of charmed by this album, in an inexplicable way. It’s not as commercially acceptable as it could be, but that’s still fine. It sets its expectations from Track 1 with how out there and unusual that instrumental is, and never really strays too far from that vision. Does it align with my tastes that much? No, not necessarily, but I really did end up liking a lot of the tracks here for their storytelling and their ability to capture a mood. It’s not the most melodic, but when the instrumentals want to find a groove that works, it really does work.

It’s a very strange album, and I’m not sure how much of it I can ever fully return to, but I think I admire its sort of dirty throwback style enough to bump it up to a 4 – you can only make something that sounds like this with a full intention to do so, and a deeper knowledge of exactly how to do it. It succeeds at that, and it does so in a way that doesn’t feel so far astray from the standards of 1985 to really harm the musicality of it all. I could totally go down, but I think I’m good with a 4.