Reviews by guggmo

That is a smooth as silk 5.

I only knew the title track going into this one – obviously, we’ve heard “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart”, but I didn’t realize Al Green ever did a cover of it. Past those two tracks, the other 7 were all mysteries to me, and my hope going in was that they would all be good enough to come together coherently and make a really strong album.

It succeeded and more – just banger after banger after banger throughout this one, in 34 minutes of the smoothest soul music I’ve ever heard. I’ve only ever really known Al Green for “Let’s Stay Together”, but the vocal range and delivery exceeded what I was expecting. I knew he had a damn good voice, but he was channeling guys like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder & Ray Charles without a hitch, while still sounding totally unique to all 3 of them. His voice is the instrument that really carries the emotional weight of this album, and the overall church-y vibe to the whole thing gives it an intimacy that’s hard to replicate.

If I had to knock the album anywhere, it’s that a few songs do sort of stagnate, and his vocals alone, as good as they are, can’t always carry some of these tracks to the finish line without my ears noticing a bit of repetition or padding. With that said, when this album manages to find that pure state of zen, it is *perfectly* executed. “Old Time Lovin’” & “I've Never Found a Girl (Who Loves Me Like You Do)” are great tracks that do a great job of setting the tone leading up to it, but his version of “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” is the shining example that hits the real emotional climax of the album for me. When it gets to that point, and the emotions simply take over, with his instincts going into auto-pilot, it’s a harmony felt by both Al & the listener, and it’s one of those indescribable things that just can’t be captured in words.

I loved it, plain & simple – it’s the type of soul music I’ve been waiting to get from the generator for a while, and I can only hope we get more stuff like this sooner than later. Just an extremely easy 5 for my tastes.

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

I dunno, I don’t have too much to say – it sure is house / electronica. I’ve heard this sort of style before, and this album does it pretty well. It’s an album that’s very easy to pay attention to in the moment, and get a good feel for the individual tracks, but it’s one of those albums that’s hard to describe the feeling afterwards, and that’s where I’m sort of stumped. I think the production here is mostly good, but I can’t really recall why – there’s lots of trance-inducing drums, synths, and samples that create great harmonies that feel encapsulating for minutes at a time, before moving onto the next one. I suppose this album “fails” when the trance becomes escapable, and it happens enough times where I think this album falls down to a 3.5.

It also slowly loses a bit of luster over time – at a certain point, the production tricks feel more common, the tracks go a bit too long, the melodies and patterns get a little repetitive, and it’s just easier to notice the cracks the longer the album lingers on. 55 minutes is a bit long here, and while most of this is still enjoyable, it’s very clear that some of the fat could have been trimmed, and more importantly, more of these tracks could’ve had a little more time to cook. There are points where this album feels like it can explode into a Daft Punk-esque second gear, but it never really reaches that deeper point. A lot of these songs find their rhythm & groove and then just settle, which sort of sterilizes each track to my ears, which just end up thinking about ways the tracks could keep growing and getting more bombast. It feels like there’s a lot of missed potential here. I’m complaining a bit here, but it’s just because I’ve heard better in the genre, and I feel like this is really close to cracking through into an all-timer.

Ultimately, I did enjoy it, but if I can’t really linger on it in a deeper sense besides “it sounded pretty good, but it could have sounded even better”, I do sort of question whether or not it’s really in a “listen to this before you die” tier of music. It’s still a solid album, and it lines up with my more VGM-adjacent tendencies, but there’s probably better examples of this genre that are already in the list, or ones that could have replaced it. I did like it though, hence the bump up to a 4.

It’s a 5.

I suppose Christmas is as good of a day as any to learn that Phil Spector committed murder in 2003 and died alone in a jail cell, rotting for his crimes 18 years later. That shadow will now loom over this, and the rest of the stuff he produced, and it only gives me even more disdain for the fucking wall of sound. However, because it’s the holiday season, I feel no desire to shit on the man, at least not yet – I get the feeling I’ll have plenty of opportunities to do that on some of the more prominent records of the 1960s soon to come.

For now, I think this is as good of a time as any to explain that I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas music; when it’s good, it’s so fucking good, but you have to be in the season, in the mood, and most of all, you have to avoid oversaturating yourself. Too much Christmas music, and suddenly, that inner Scrooge takes over and you’ll never want to hear another refrain of any of these tracks for at least a year.

Thankfully, it’s the season, I’m in the mood, and the only Christmas music I’ve really indulged in so far is George Michael, Mariah against my will, and oddly, Jschlatt. There’s not a lot of overlap, thankfully, so a lot of these compositions felt pretty fresh to my ears – I have to imagine some of the performances here became the standards over time, at least in a more pop-driven atmosphere for the 6 decades since this dropped.

Although I have to give a huge credit to the standout vocal performances and extra flair added on each track because of these singers, I think the orchestral compositions and big-band feel of this whole thing really make this album. It’s a combined harmony for sure, but I know most of these tracks by their more “basic” forms. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, for example, doesn’t normally sound like a 1970s Western film, but to hear it in that style on this album really shakes it up a bit, and stops this from being a traditional, paint-by-numbers Christmas album. Those shake-ups and Beatles-esque moments are here in spades, and it’s a rather enjoyable 34 minutes because of it.

So, yeah, I’m at a 5. Realistically, more of a 4.5 that goes up to a 5, but I’m in the holiday spirit, and this scratched a real itch – great singers, great compositions, great melodies, and yes, solid production, even if that murderous motherfucker tainted some of it with his stupid wall of sound. It’s just a damn good Christmas album, and I’m glad the site owner rigged it just for this occasion (or did they?). Really fun stuff.

That last track could’ve been skipped, though. Put the vocals in the bag, or whatever the kids say.

Easy, easy 5 – probably a 10, really.

I knew this was the one with the big 3 hits of “You Give Love a Bad Name”, “Livin’ on a Prayer”, and “Wanted Dead or Alive” – it was always going to get a 3, bare minimum because of those 3 tracks. The real question, for me, was simply if the rest of the album would live up to the remarkably high bar of those tracks. It did that, and more – I’m really annoyed at myself for not digging deeper into this album; everything on here just fucking kicks ass.

Say what you will about 80s rock like this – yes, it’s been overplayed to hell & parodied to the point where some of these tracks have lost some of the same impact they had 38 years ago… but I just don’t fucking care, man. When it rips, it rips, and this album rips in the fastest 44 minutes I can remember. Let It Rock is a fantastic opener where the charisma of the album oozes in spades immediately, followed by the starstudded 1-2 punch of You Give Love a Bad Name & Livin’ on a Prayer – I am genuinely hard pressed to think of any other 80s rock album that has a 2-track stretch comparable to that. Social Disease is fun; bit of a Phil Collins vibe in the percussion, and it’s baked in a lot of 80s production tricks that just fit my tastes. Wanted Dead or Alive is the other of the big 3 here, and this is my first time realizing that he’s been singing about the band the whole time (“steel horse” should’ve been obvious, I know). The first half of this album is just banger after banger.

Past that, the entire second half of the album was blind to me, but man, it fucking rocks – Raise Your Hands has a Britpop structure with an American edge that elevates the track for me, and feels like a great stadium cut. Without Love is drenched in a pop song structure, and reminds me a lot of Jefferson Starship, but that’s part of why I liked it a lot. I’d Die For You feels like this hybrid of The Police & Journey that clicked really well for me, if a little cheesy in the chorus. If I have any complaint, it’s that Wild in the Streets & Never Say Goodbye should’ve flipped their track order – they both rock, with Wild in the Streets feeling like a very Springsteen-esque cut, but Never Say Goodbye is like, custom made to end concerts, and it should’ve ended this album.

Ultimately, this is just pure 80s heavy glam metal at one of its finest points, and I’m a pure sucker for it. Perhaps it just struck me really well on a first listen, but I think I'll be coming back to this one for a while. I really do wish I had heard some of these tracks before now, but better late than never – it’s a very easy 5 for my tastes, and it just fucking rules.

We gotta get more tracks with key changes in these 1,001 albums.

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

Hell of a rebound from Rust Never Sleeps, huh? In the three albums we’ve gotten since that involve Neil Young, they’ve all been a 5 to my ears. This isn’t quite as good as Harvest or Deja Vu, but this is still really fucking good.

I think I’m learning that I like Neil Young the best when his lyricism matches the power of his instrumentals – his voice still feels like it’s punching a little bit above his range, but when he’s managing to pull every bit of emotion from his guitar or piano to compensate, and when the lyrics match that, it all somehow finds a harmony that’s difficult to explain, but easy to feel. I really like feeling that harmony, and that harmony is present throughout most of the tracks on this album. There’s a few tracks that don’t quite find that harmony, namely “I Believe In You”, which just feels… weird for a Neil Young song, I dunno. It needed a little more time to cook, I think. When that harmony is there though, this album just glides really smoothly.

There’s some great tracks on this album – the obvious standout here is Southern Man, which just unapologetically rules, and I feel bad that Neil Young felt like he had to apologize for writing it. That man was correct in every single thing he said there, and he did it while rocking out. Past that, between “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”, “Don’t Let It Bring You Down”, “Birds”, and “When You Dance, I Can Really Love”, this just finds a really sweet spot between folk music and rock music. While I think it’s showcased at a bigger and better scale on Deja Vu, this still really worked for me at a smaller, more intimate, and less bombastic level. I do wish that “When You Dance” had a little more going in the back, though.

Ultimately, this is just a damn good album – it’s a little bit heavy on the “woe is me” type of track, which sort of skews the album’s balance, which is why I’m at a 4.5, but the album as a whole is just too enjoyable to not give a 5. It really is that good, and I hope people can feel that same harmony that I felt while listening to this. I really hope the rest of Neil Young’s stuff on this list stays at the same quality as these last 3 we’ve gotten.

Well, that’s a 5.

This is my first full Genesis album – I’m very aware of the whole Peter Gabriel to Phil Collins switch, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything from either era of the band, save for Misunderstanding (which is basically a Phil Collins solo track, let’s be real). To put it more blatantly, the fact that this is a full blown prog rock album (and by extension, Genesis being a full blown prog rock band at this time) kinda hit me out of nowhere, but I am not complaining one fucking bit – this is spectacular.

Call me dumb if you want, it might be a bit deserved. I’ve just always assumed, based on both Peter & Phil’s 80s work, that Genesis leaned more into rock with a bit more blues involved (i.e. Chicago, Boston, Toto, etc), and not big booming Yes or King Crimson-esque stuff. This is proper prog rock, and it’s treated with the full slate of respect; there are melodies upon melodies upon melodies throughout this album, and it somehow keeps an incredibly tight rhythm while somehow finding room within each sandbox to keep expanding far beyond the imagined scope at the start of each track. The shining example here is “Firth of Fifth”’s extended instrumental break, but I simply have to give a huge shout to all of the longer tracks on this album, especially the instrumental outro of “The Cinema Show”. It’s very rare to have that many long tracks be *that* captivating.

When this album does lean back from its prog rock sensibilities, it still sounds great; “I Know What I Like” has some killer melodies with a Beatles-y flair, & “More Fool Me” is a really nice bit of foreshadowing for Phil’s solo success to come – stellar vocals & harmonies on that track, seriously. “Aisle of Plenty” is fine, with some decently layered guitar riffs, but it is a bit of an odd ending to the album to pun on UK supermarkets and whatnot.

It does require a bit more attention lyrically than I would’ve figured on a first pass; it certainly feels like there’s a lot of sociopolitical commentary scattered throughout this album, most of which is probably UK-based. The only one I *think* I picked up on was “The Battle of Epping Forest”, which I sort of took as a 60s/70s culture war allegory, replete with greedy CEOs and executives simply making money while enjoying watching the warhawks and the hippies fight. I’m probably way off in that analysis, but there’s certainly something close to that. The rest of it, if it is UK-based, will probably just remain a bit of a mystery to me.

Regardless of all that, I’m still just a bit stunned; it’s clearly on me for never really listening to Genesis before now, but for this to exist, and have gone under my radar for years upon years is rather annoying. Better late than never – it’s just a spectacular prog rock album, and I feel like I really need to dive deeper into Genesis. I’ve probably been missing out. Very easy 5.

I… um… I dunno, a 3?

This is Pink Floyd’s studio debut – I gave a lot of love to The Wall, and it’s a brilliant album deserving of its acclaim. I figured this wouldn’t be like The Wall, simply because that’s a gargantuan album, and this is only a 41 minute debut. I was fully expecting some good, solid rock, and that’s what I got through the first 5 tracks. Side 1 of this album is a really strong basis for the melodies and soundscapes they’d choose to explore in the future, without Syd Barrett in the group.

Side 2 of this album is a journey that I don’t think I can fully put into words. I don’t know if it’s my brain being slightly tired, or my expectations being sent into a different dimension, but once the brakes go off the rails and Syd Barrett’s LSD-inspired brain takes over this album during “Interstellar Overdrive”, it is… certainly a fucking experience. I can’t tell what the prerogative of the album became over the course of its final 20 or so minutes, but from the ‘18 different Classic Doctor Who episodes playing at the same time’ experience of the final 5 minutes of “Interstellar Overdrive”, to the strange strange epiphanies of Grimble Grumble on “The Gnome”, the invasion of Syd’s meditation space during “Chapter 24”, the awkwardly morbid fate of “The Scarecrow”, and the complete breakdown of a nice happy bicycle-based love story in “Bike” (which ends in what I can only describe as ‘the first time seeing Sid’s toys from Toy Story, but in audio form’ (i.e., mildly terrifying).

I truly do not know what to make of the back half of the album. It pretty much erased my memory of the first 5 tracks, all of which are really good, but… sometimes it’s about how you finish, and this album finishes in such a way that I feel like *I’ve* somehow done LSD for the first time. If the intention was that sort of feeling, then they nailed it, to a degree perhaps only matched by “Locust Abortion Technician”. It’s just not at all what I was expecting from a Pink Floyd album – it doesn’t make it bad at all, but it’s just so far removed from my expectations that I’m not sure WHAT to rate it. I guess I’m at a 3, if only because I don’t really feel like I enjoyed the second half of the album as much as I was an unwilling participant on Syd’s version of the Willy Wonka boat ride. Perhaps it’ll click for me another day, but I do admire this album for being… whatever the hell it is. An enigma, perhaps, but for my current mindset, a 3. It could totally go up, though.

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

I don’t have that much to wax poetic about, honestly – this is just really good music, that finds itself right between the crossroads of late 60s folk/Americana & 70s dad rock, and somehow finds a really nice blend of the two that evokes the best of both, with a pretty strong variety of subjects & soundscapes to keep it all a pretty breezy, enjoyable and coherent 37 minutes. A few songs are a little stale at points (namely “Helpless” choosing to reprise most of the track), but it never lingers long enough to cause any issues with the album itself.

I guess the main reason I’m at a 4.5 is just because Neil Young’s solo (or at least, what feels like solo) tracks on this album feel really detached from Crosby, Stills & Nash – they’re not bad at all, and they’re a great showcase of his own talent, but they make the album feel just a little disconnected. There’s also a few tracks that feel a little too open lyrically, in a way that leaves them slightly too broad for my tastes. Still though, what’s here is too good to not bump up to a 5; the guitar riffs are on point, the vocal harmonies sound spectacular, and if nothing else, the feelings this album evokes from its instrumentals just have a timeless vibe. I really liked it, and I have zero shame in bumping it up to a 5. Pretty strong pick for my first CSNY album.

I’m at a 3.

This album doesn’t find an identity in terms of what it wants to talk about, and in terms of how it wants to approach its subject matter. This is meant to sound like a coming of age album, glorifying the freedom of youth, romance and companionship, as well as some of the dread that comes with that. It sort of succeeds, but it’s done with a very male-skewed view that simply hasn’t aged well as of 2024 going into 2025 – I think the biggest offenders of all the tracks here are the 1-2 punch of “This Is Our Lot” & “Underbelly”, both of which just sort of gave me an ick that left a bad taste in my mouth, and made me rethink a bit while looking back at the whole album.

The lyrics on “This Is Our Lot” start nice, being out on the town with the boys in the bar, but it quickly shifts into this idea of ‘we’re using ourselves as bait for the ladies, please come and bite, I beg of you.’ I think “Underbelly” doubles down on it with the line of “How Lothario leers at slut”, and while I get the historical reference, and the overall tone of both tracks, it strikes me as desperate, and almost makes it sound like they’re entitled to it. While I’m sure it’s intended in a way that feels more juvenile, there are so many other ways you can express lust and carnal desire without feeling like you’re entitled to it.

A lot of the love tracks on this album ultimately then feel rooted in the idea of entitlement – Hooting & Howling has the lines “any rival who goes for our girls will be left thumb-sucking in terror and bereft of all coffin bearers.” Those lines read fine on a first listen as a sort of funny & over-the-top idle threat, but after the other tracks sort of reveal an implied entitlement, they just seem controlling and awkward. There’s only one track that really involves comeuppance of this idea, which is the tail end of “All The King’s Men”, but it’s literally too late by the time those realizations come in.

I may be reading this with a little too much of a skew against them, but it’s hard not to read these lyrics in the romance-driven tracks without that perceived entitlement to a relationship, and while it might’ve played better in 2009, I just don’t think it’s aged well at all. There are definitely ways to read this that look more positive, with an implied chivalry aspect to the whole thing, but I just can’t make a real conclusion one way or the other, because this album really does struggle with its own identity. I’ll give it some benefit of the doubt, but… man, I just don’t know.

I also think this album just can’t really decide if it wants to be instrumentally driven or vocally driven and as such, this album never really settles into a good balance of the 2. Don’t get me wrong; there’s definitely a musical identity in terms of the soundscape and production – what’s here is a modernized 80s sound, certainly driven with a bit of Peter Gabriel-esque influence. It usually sounds pretty good, and it’s an album that I suspect would sound pretty good while going for a drive. There are really catchy guitar riffs, percussion, and vocal melodies in this album, but there’s also a lot of repetition that drags it down musically.

Ultimately, I don’t think this is THAT bad, and I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt for good reason, but all things aside, it’s just an album that can’t figure out what it wants to say, how it wants to say it, or even WHY it wants to say it. The instrumentals, vocals, and production do a good enough job at keeping things steady that I think I can give this a 3 on the strength of its sound alone, but it could drop down to a 2 the moment it starts to feel too boring or repetitive.

If anything, I wish this entire album were more like its bonus track, “Through the Iron Gate”. That shit was rad.

I’m at a 5.

Hard to find anything to wax poetic about when it comes to 50 minutes of mostly instrumental music, but it’s a real testament that two tracks, coming in at over 23 minutes apiece, can be that captivating when given the time and space to really breathe, as well as giving each instrument their own chance to shine. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but for my tastes, this hit right down the line of “good prog rock meets VGM sensibilities”, and the ever evolving and growing soundscape on both tracks, each with their own individual segments before some good resets, really made it feel like less of a slog that it could’ve been.

One of my biggest pet peeves in music is when a song ends up lingering for too long; I’m not saying I need constant stimulation, but I’m too attentive as a listener to not notice when a drum pattern is stuck in limbo, or a guitar riff gets repeated a few too many times, or if the vocals / lyrics get stuck in a holding pattern. This album works because it’s constantly finding new innovations within the big sandbox that it has room to operate in – pretty much every minute in Part 1 finds a new instrument to add to the mix, or a new tone or soundscape to experiment with. It’s ever changing, but it’s slow, subtle changes that kept me engaged, and felt like a natural evolution throughout. Part 2 does this pretty well – it doesn’t do it *as* well, but it knows when to change up the soundscape to stop it from getting too stuck.

It is really a miracle that this felt like it flew by – we’ve had albums that are less than 30 minutes that feel slower than this did, but I guess that’s more of a knock on pacing as a whole than it is to the quality of those albums, most of which have still been good. I’m just glad this had such room to breathe in; not everyone can pull off 26 minute songs and keep it captivating. These are, by far, the longest ones we’ve gotten as a group, and I guess it’s a real testament to my own musical growth that I could endure it, analyze it, and appreciate it. Sure, there’s a Metal Gear Solid 5-adjacent boost in the name here that helps a lot, but if we had gotten this in February or March, there’s a real chance I could’ve just ignored it. Either way, this was really fucking good. It’s a real music journey that lasts for 50 minutes, and even past its Exorcist-based popularity, the rest of the album is an absolute treat. Pop some headphones in, sit down, relax, and just let Mike Oldfield take you as far as you can go. It’s a very, very easy 5 for me.

Well, it’s a 10 – let’s just establish that immediately. Just a trailblazer of an album.

This is my second full Beatles album – my image of these guys is still based around their earlier 60s stuff (Hard Day’s Night, Can’t Buy Me Love, etc) mixed with the brilliance featured on Abbey Road. We’ve had some solo albums, but those are more indicative of their individual styles. Honestly though, this album does feel like they all kind of just made miniature solo albums and mashed them all together into a 30-song showcase. In that sense, this album has a lot less cohesion than I was expecting going into it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – it doesn’t fully align with my tastes for an album experience, but what’s here is so fucking good for 1968 in particular that the quality of almost every track simply overwhelms any complaints I could have about album cohesion.

Back in the U.S.S.R. is an absolutely brilliant opener, and one of my favorite Beatles tracks ever. It’s a hard bar to top, and I’m a little biased, because I’m not sure if it ever really does top it. It does stay around that level for most of the album though – a few tracks didn’t click with me as well (namely Lennon’s stuff, which might be a bad omen for whenever his solo albums pop up here), but it’s a true testament to the quality of the band that they can kinda just fuck around, go write a shit ton of songs while they’re off getting stoned (or sorry, “spiritually rejuvenated”) in India, both at a group level and an individual level, and then whittle them down into something that’s this damn good. It’s really an enigma to try and describe this album, because so much of what’s on here feels like the blueprint for the deconstruction of rock & roll into several different genres, subsets, and styles for decades to come.

It’s extremely avant-garde for its time, and in a way that benefits any current-day listener. It’s really easy to say “oh, this sounds like [x]” when it should be the other way around. I can hear everything from Muddy Waters, to Ray Charles, to Ella Fitzgerald, to Led Zeppelin, to Gorillaz, to Nirvana, to the White Stripes, and far far more scattered musically throughout this record – it’s all there, but all the credit in the world needs to go to Paul, John, George, Ringo, & George Martin as well. I hesitate to say they “pioneered” these soundscapes, but I can’t imagine a lot of this would be so heavily in the modern mainstream for the decades after without this album making it all feel commercially viable, and allowing the room for even further refinement & experimentation.

There are parts of my brain that do wish this had been trimmed down to the very best of the very best – it’s the Beatles, so they could get away with a 30-song album in 1968, but there is definitely a bit of filler here that does pull down the record a bit. Abbey Road is a better album, in part because they knew exactly where to trim the fat down, and make a more cohesive experience… but I have to imagine Abbey Road doesn’t get that cohesion without this album throwing everything at the wall and making most of it stick. For what it’s worth, a lot of this is still too good to throw away, and I hesitate to imagine a world where nobody gets mildly tortured by the (actually catchy, sue me) Ob-La Di, Ob-La-Da, or truly tortured by the (extremely, extremely out there) Revolution 9, which simply didn’t click for me at all.

Ultimately… it’s the Beatles. What else can I say? They had the star power to make this work, and they absolutely made it work. It’s a landmark album in its own right, and I really, really enjoyed it. It’s a pretty damn good 10.

I’m at a really nice 5.

Took a few tracks to get going, but once this thing hit its stride, there was no fucking stopping it – that is 56 minutes of stellar rapping. There’s a lot of underground influence here, and it certainly shows in the sample-heavy production style. Once they really get their flows in motion, this becomes catchy as a motherfucker; “A Day at the Races” is the point at which this album finds an unstoppable groove, and a rising tide really does lift all ships in this case. The beats feel more free, their voices blend even better, and the lyricism takes a step up to another level, all while continuing to sound extremely hypnotic, and pretty easy to follow along to. It flows all the way until the last track. I did like it, with the sort of avant-garde sample work, but it threw me for a loop in terms of being the closer. It’s more of a bonus than anything, so I don’t have any real complaints.

Really, the biggest compliment I can give to the album is that it’s just really fun to listen to; at its very core, this is extremely catchy & melodic rap that harkens back to the origins of the genre, in a way that I think might’ve been lost in some of late 80s-90s gangsta rap, and was thankfully revived throughout the early 2000s (perhaps culminating in the mainstream with Eminem’s 2002-2003 stuff). That doesn’t mean this album doesn’t go hard at times, but there’s a real focus on soundscapes and enjoyability rather than heavier lyricism. Yes, the braggadocious aspect of rap is in full force here, but it’s presented with a lot of unity that feels like I, as the listener, get to be a part of the team. Their group flow really does do it for me.

So, yeah, it’s a pretty fast 56 minutes, it kept me extremely captivated, and with the lyrics in front of me, I felt like I could find their flows pretty fast. It might be a little too old-school at times, but for my tastes, I really liked it. Once it found its rhythm, it was just undeniably cool. Feels like a hidden gem on the list, and it’s a pretty easy 5 for me.

I’m at a 3.5. This is the part where I try to talk myself into either direction.

There’s definitely a good number of positives – this is a really energetic album, and that part is undeniable. Most of the instrumentals here are pretty good, if a little bit homogeneous by the end of the 32 minutes that this album takes up. I can hear the blended genres throughout, and the inspiration that this album gave to a few bands is pretty apparent. When the vocals and lyrics click, the album really rolls, in a good way. I think it only really rolls about 60% of the time, though. The other 40% of the time isn’t bad at all, but it just sort of suffers from not feeling as captivating.

That 40% suffers from one major issue, at least for my tastes – a few songs just kind of fizzle out. The instrumentals keep rolling, sure, and their energy sticks around, but you can really tell when they sort of ran out of ideas to go with a certain concept, but just said fuck it and recorded anyway. A guitar solo is usually there to try and really distract from the lack of lyricism / mildly repetitive vocal endings, but my brain is too attentive to lyrics and whatnot to let that sort of thing go. It’s a pretty flashy album, in terms of its soundscapes, and I really do love that aspect of it. I just wish the lyricism was there to go with it.

I guess I’m going down to a 3 then – it’s a pretty recommended 3, for the standout tracks at least, but this album just doesn’t have enough of a consistency past the first 4 tracks to justify bumping it up to a 4. I totally recognize that this could be a 4 or even a 5 for someone else, though, and I do think it has a place on the list. It just sort of lost the luster for me, and its cracks started to pop up soon after. I still liked it though -- this fucking rips. It sounds rad as hell, and it's a fun album, but it just doesn't overcome enough for my tastes. Hence, the 3. It could easily bump back up though.

I… might be at a 10. I’m serious.

I’ve never actually heard Joni Mitchell until today – her name was familiar, and I think I have a decent sense of her place in the 60s/70s folk canon, but she’s always been more of a trivia factoid to me than anything else. I’ve just never really had an excuse to interact with her music. I did think this would be good, but my expectations were a little more folk-y & a bit subdued.

Holy fucking shit, I was not expecting this though. I harped a lot on storytelling when it came to the Marty Robbins album we got the other day, and this is storytelling in spades. A little more complex, sure, but the imagery she provides throughout is vivid and full of life in a way that’s more relatable to modern times than gunfighter ballads – there are some lines that hit me like a fucking truck throughout this album, and that’s the mark of a fantastic *writer.* There are great songwriters, but she’s really flexing pure writing here. It also helps that she’s really fucking good at making these work as songs; there are catchy choruses and vocal patterns all over this album, but they’re still very easy to follow along to story-wise, save for maybe “Just Like This Train”, but even then, it’s still gettable.

That writing ability is just as matched by her vocals (seriously, what a voice – it got me plenty of times throughout the album), and the extremely jazzy/Americana-influenced band behind her. The instrumentals here are fantastic, and give each song room to breathe, their own distinct identity, and just perfectly compliment each other. When this album wants to go full rock, it can do it without blinking an eye – same thing applies to piano ballads, guitar ballads, nightclub tunes, et cetera. I don’t have a single complaint about the production here; everything feels perfectly mixed, and the transitions are seamless when they happen. It all feels totally coherent, and that’s a testament to the quality of every track here.

Everything about this album is right down my alley, and I’m really, truly stunned that none of this has ever entered my stratosphere until now. It’s a remarkably tight 37 minutes that kept me captivated on every single word, while still managing to leave room for attention on her vocals and the band behind her. I may simply be blindsided by lower expectations followed by such a strong album, but damn, this really got me good. It’s a hell of an introduction to Joni Mitchell, at the very very least. For my tastes… yeah, I’m at a 10. It was *that* good.

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

This is the third Beastie Boys album we’ve gotten, but we’ve gotten them in a sort of weird, reversed order; going from Ill Communication, to Paul’s Boutique, and THEN to their debut album makes for a weird expectation. I’m giving this 5 with a bit of grace – this is the weakest of the 3 albums we’ve gotten so far, so I’d consider Paul’s Boutique a retroactive 5, if I could go back to give it that.

With that said, it’s still really fucking good. Rick Rubin’s production, while much emptier compared to the other two albums we’ve gotten (and nowhere near as rich and full in its sampling) is still pretty cool here. It’s no surprise that the biggest hits on this album are the ones that blend rock sensibilities with rap’s flow, and while it’s a formula pretty directly copied from Run-DMC (and we’ll get to Run-DMC later in this write-up, trust me), I think it’s a much more successful blend here than on Raising Hell, because it’s not as entrenched in percussion-based beats, allowing the rock instrumentals to shine, and letting the vocals flow more naturally, especially with their adlibs, group flow, and call-and-response style.

This album does suffer to me when the percussion overtakes the flow, and I think that’s a lesson most rappers have learned from; I’m not saying you can’t structure a great rap song around a percussive beat (quite literally, just look at Sticky from CHROMAKOPIA), but when it comes to 80s rap, I find it just stilts everything a bit, and forces really basic rhyme schemes that don’t play well with my tastes. It stilted Raising Hell for me (which admittedly, maybe I was a little harsh on), and it stilted this album a bit, though not as much. Run-DMC’s influence on the Beastie Boys is obvious here, but it’s more so obvious through Rick Rubin himself, who had a hand in producing both albums. Hell, “Slow and Low” is literally a demo of a Run-DMC track repurposed for the Beastie Boys. It fits them well enough, but they didn’t do enough to really make it their own.

With my mild bitching out of the way (which really boils down to personal taste), allow me to fucking gush over how much personality and charisma these guys showed in spite of some emptier beats – the Beastie Boys themselves make this fucking album, and they stamp their mark pretty instantly. Rhymin and Stealin is drenched in percussion heavy reverb that could’ve really sunk the album on a potentially bad first impression, but their vocal style and their lyricism come out of the gate to make that track work. This album is at its very best when the Beastie Boys get to show off that personality, and it’s most apparent on “The New Style”, “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”, and “Paul Revere”. Their charisma just oozes off of this album, so whenever Rick Rubin has them doing their best Run-DMC impression, that’s when the album suffers, because it’s not their musical voice, and everyone knows it. (I promise that I do actually like Run-DMC.)

It is still the weakest of the 3 Beastie Boys albums we’ve gotten so far, but those albums wouldn’t exist without this one, and there’s some great fucking tracks here. It’s a breezy 44 minutes, with great lyricism (for the most part), smooth flows, and some unique production for 1986 – the beat switch in The New Style got me really fucking good. Some of it’s emptier, but that’s all personal taste; Rick Rubin’s beats click more often than not, and like I said, the Beastie Boys are too damn charismatic and too damn good on this album to let a few bum beats kill their vibe. It’s a damn good rap album, and I have no problem bumping it up from a 4.5 to a 5.

I’m at a 5.

It’s just great storytelling, man. Every track here just nails it. I know I harp on “old country” a lot, but this goes a bit beyond that – this is a fabulous showcase of music as a device for pure storytelling. I think sometimes it’s very easy to get caught up in neat instrumentation, melodies or vocals, and I’m as guilty of that as anyone, but this is just pure storytelling. Yes, his vocals are great throughout this album, and his higher registers are stunningly emphatic, but what makes this album work is in the simplicity of it all. Most of these have really easy vocal patterns in the verses & choruses, really basic instrumentation in the guitar, and all the strength is laid out in the lyrics, which have more of a poetic scheme to them. It’s very easy to follow along to, and it is a reminder that music, as an art form, was originally made for stuff that sounds like this, at its very core, because it was made to be easily digestible, teachable, and shared to the masses.

I really liked it – it just clicked wonderfully for me, and it does make me sort of yearn for music to be this “simple” again. OK, well, maybe not this simple, but I’d love to be able to just sing a song without having to feel like I need to hit a whistle note like Mariah Carey or anything. It is pure country music, plain and simple, and it should be up there within the standards of the genre itself. That’s just how you do it; easy 5.

I’m at a 5.

This album has a very unique balancing act to follow, and it rides that tightrope incredibly well. This is an album that deconstructs toxic confidence, yet still portrays a healthy confidence while lifting up female empowerment. It shows the honest struggle of a devil-may-care attitude, yet still shows the honesty of wanting to make an impact, both at a local and global level. It’s an album that attempts to find beauty in tragedy, and yet, no matter how hard she tries, she never quite succeeds at finding it. That last one’s not a diss at her; it’s a testament to her songwriting that she refuses to sugarcoat this stuff, but still manages to present it in such a captivating way.

It’s a very push-and-pull driven album, a lot of which feels based on her own personal experiences, and that honesty is what truly sells this album. I can’t think of many current rappers that could pull an album like this off – so much of modern mainstream rap culture, save for a handful of artists, places value within the material things, so to get an album like this, one that tries to lift up the soul itself as the core of all earthly possessions is such a welcome message & a breath of fresh air. It’s also a breath of fresh air to get an artist I’m familiar with – Little Simz is fantastic, and while I hadn’t listened to this album before today, I have heard her 2021 album “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert”, which genuinely deserves a spot on the 1,001 albums list as much as this one does.

This was great – really strong production throughout, the occasional showcase of some crazy flows, great storytelling & lyricism across the board, and it’s just a really tight 35 minutes that leaves no stone unturned. I do think “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert” is an even better album, but this one easily sets the framework in motion for that album to exist and thrive like it has. I really liked this; easy 5 for my tastes.

I’m at a 10.

From my own internal perception, in terms of enduring star power & legacy, the importance of the individual Beatles has usually gone in the order of McCartney, then Lennon, then George, then Ringo. Sorry, Ringo. I’ve never really reflected on why though. Obviously, Paul had the longest and most successful career, and John Lennon’s place in pop culture is only exacerbated by his murder. The extent of my knowledge on George’s solo stuff, before listening to this album, was “Got My Mind Set On You,” and even that, that’s just a cover. I truly genuinely can’t even tell you anything about Ringo’s solo stuff. He does some funny MS Paint art, though. Again, sorry, Ringo. All of this is preamble to say that going into this, based on the album title, and my general unfamiliarity with George’s work, my expectations weren’t that high, even with the acclaim this album has. I wanted it to be good, but I would’ve totally settled for “pretty solid”.

I deeply fucking underestimated this guy. I knew he had written hits as a part of the Beatles, but my brain has always associated those songs as just that – Beatles tracks. They’re not “George Harrison tracks”, and that feels like a bit of a cardinal sin now; I might be overreacting on a first pass, but what’s here is a remarkable showcase of his own talent, in a way that even now, feels understated and underappreciated. This is a rich album, with fantastic songwriting across the board, and I’m genuinely struggling to put my enjoyment of the album into words.

There’s really no analog comparison to make here, save for maybe Dave Grohl’s work with Foo Fighters after the death of Kurt Cobain, but even then, that first Foo Fighters album, where it’s basically all him, doesn’t reach the level of quality that this album immediately clicks on. Even from Track 1, the immediately smooth guitar subverts any expectation of coming out swinging with a big rock hit, only for My Sweet Lord to immediately satiate that taste, and the album genuinely never stops rolling from there, save for maybe one or two little snags across the way. It’s a truly mesmerizing experience, especially if you’re as unfamiliar with the quality of his work as I was. It feels like listening to a man truly free his soul and his creative spirit in real time, and it is truly pleasing.

There are a few things I can point out – I do think this album goes back to the well of the Beatles split a few too many times, to the point of near exploitation, but he treats the subject with such a sincerity and an honesty that it does come across as a necessary exercise for himself and any lingering demons than a chance to capitalize on the band’s breakup. There’s also not as much variety in the subject matter throughout (mostly love, the Beatles split, and religion), even if his songwriting and the bombastic instrumentation supersedes it and makes something compelling out of almost every track here. There also really didn’t need to be two versions of “Isn’t It A Pity” on here; this is the only time I can ever compare Fred Durst and a member of the Beatles for committing a sort of album sin.

The Apple Jam tracks are pretty fun too; just 30 minutes of some really fun instrumentals – they are a bonus, but I can’t help but wonder if including them throughout the album as the last tracks on each of the 4 main sides would have worked. I think it could have created a cool variety throughout. At the very least, “Out of the Blue” by itself could’ve been cut up into 4 miniature parts on each side – that is 11 electric minutes.

I can keep trying to find the words to gush about this album, but I truly don’t have them right now. All I know is this: this immediately gets a seat at the table next to Band on the Run (also a 10) as far as solo Beatle albums go, and it already feels like a quintessential 70s album. I don’t know if it’ll personally match Band on the Run for me (mainly because of the runtime, and the fact that this explores a really wide variety of genres past just “rock”), but given time, it could get there. Just a spectacular effort across the board that’s truly mesmerizing to listen to on a first pass, and I think it’ll get better with any subsequent listens. It’s an incredibly easy 10.

I really gotta listen to more of the Beatles, man.

That’s a great 5.

I’ve heard of Garbage, but outside of the name, I barely knew anything about them. Perhaps most embarrassingly of all, I didn’t even realize the band had a female lead singer. My immediate apologies to Shirley Manson – her stage presence comes to life on this album, and she’s got it in spades here in an undeniably cool way. Hell, my apologies to the entire band; this feels like quintessential 90s stuff that should’ve been on my radar a long time ago, but better late than never.

It’s very weird to say “ahead of its time” for 1995, but in a weird way, this does feel a bit ahead of its time, in terms of the wide variety of soundscapes and genres tackled through this album – a lot of this is based in 90s UK & US rock, and it never strays too far from that core, but it touches on nearly every base within that core. There’s trip-hop influence, Britpop influence, the occasional 80s structure with a 90s edge, a bit of UK house & electronica, forays into grunge & industrial… if you can think of it, it’s on this album, and it usually succeeds really well at integrating those styles into their own sensibilities. I would argue this level of variety didn’t really come into vogue for another… 6 or 7 years, maybe? I could be entirely ignorant about the mid to late-90s, but people were really chasing the ghost of Kurt Cobain for a while.

Ultimately, this blew away any expectations I had for it. Supervixen is an interesting tone setter with great production. Queer is just a Billie Eilish song (in the best way possible). Only Happy When It Rains is a great meta track. As Heaven Is Wide is just a kickass song that could totally work as a video game track (and it literally was in Gran Turismo 1). Not My Idea feels like a blend of industrial rock with Alanis Morrissette’s sensibilities. A Stroke of Luck is a great trip-hop influenced track with some fun juxtaposition in the soundscape. Vow is the most catchy way to describe visceral revenge that I can remember. Stupid Girl has the structure of an 80s track with a 90s edge, and I really dug it. Dog New Tricks & My Lover’s Box are the only two tracks where I went “meh” on, but they’re still fine. Fix Me Now is admittedly generic as hell, but it just clicked for me. Milk feels like a James Bond title theme, in a really smooth way.

I loved it, what more can I say? Very easy 5, and I’m mad at myself for not listening to anything by Garbage earlier. I refuse to make the obvious joke.

I’m at a very happy 5.

My brain is obviously already predisposed to video game music, so the second I saw this was “acid house”, I got a little bit of hope for something around that general soundscape. The year though, 1989, gave me pause – acid house, this early, even for December 1989, still feels a few years behind when house as an entire genre really found and hit its commercial stride. The optimism was there, but much shakier. This could’ve been really, really bad.

Thank goodness that this is really, really good. This is CRAZY for 1989 – what’s here is so deeply entrenched in the Roland MIDI soundscapes that would define some of the prime Redbook CD audio quality of early 90s gaming, and most of it could easily pass as video game music. Pacific 202 is just a Sonic CD cut, and you can’t convince me otherwise. These are full compositions, mixed really well in the ear to give a lot of the instruments their shine & room to breathe (save, oddly, for the first track). There’s not a dull moment anywhere on this album, at least for my ears (save, oddly, for the last track, but that barely counts). The fact that it's a full setlist with transitions helps a lot to keep the flow of the album going too.

If you’re not into video game music (or house as a genre), this probably won’t click at all, and I find that a little disappointing. Obviously, taste is subjective, but to deny this from being in one’s musical diet is like refusing to watch game shows because they’re too happy-go-lucky. This is a fantastic example of acid house, house music in general, and a great showcase of the Roland soundscape (and presumably MIDI by extension) for 1989. This feels far ahead of its time, and I have to imagine this really did act as a point of inspiration for other artists in the genre moving forward. It’s perfectly attuned to my tastes, and genuinely one of the best discoveries I’ve had throughout this album experience. Super easy 5.