Reviews by guggmo

Ah, what the hell. I’m at a 4.5 that I'll bump up to a 5.

This is my first time hearing The Monkees, outside of “I’m A Believer” – I know about the TV show, but my (admittedly ignorant) reputation of them has always fallen under the same general lens I think most people have about the 1960s in pop music: there’s the Beatles, and then there’s everyone else trying to be the Beatles. It rings especially true for the Monkees; just look at the name, plus it’s a 4-person band that seemingly got thrown together on a whim. You can’t blame me for this.

My expectations were middling, and I’m very pleasantly surprised to be wrong – this is a really charming album. You have to be in the sort of mood for overly bubbly 60s pop like this, so I can understand why the average rating on this is lower… but like, come on, you can’t be that goddamn unhappy for an album like this, can you? I thought this was great – it’s not like, Beatles-level great, but who said it had to be? There’s a lot of unfair expectations levied here on account of being “The Monkees” but if you push past that, you end up with a really good album.

A decent number of these tracks feel like the natural conclusion of the 30s/40s “Great American Songbook” style, and they’re appropriately produced that way, but it doesn’t mean this album feels horribly out of date for 1967. It’s all intentional, but still brought up to the standards of the 60s, and I think they sound great and feel fun to listen to. It’s very weird to feel the fruits of that era coming to roost after listening to so many of those tracks, but it’s kind of cool at the same time. When this album escapes from that “Great American Songbook” box, and gets into its more experimental & Beatles-y stuff, it’s still just as good, with “Randy Scouse Git” being the prime example here. It’s really different from the rest of the album, but without straying too far, and it’s really memorable because it dares to be different enough, especially for a final track.

So, yeah, I’ll give my credit where credit is due to Dolenz, Tork, Nesmith, and Jones – the Monkees may just be a good band after all, or at the very least, their musicianship grew enough to make a genuinely compelling album that feels like it can at least sit at the same lunch table as some of its contemporaries. This sat right behind Sgt. Pepper at #2 for a while, so clearly audiences loved these guys. I thought it was just charming enough to really win me over – the lyricism is good, the vocals are good, the instrumentals are fun and varied, and as a whole, it’s just a really tight 31 minutes that kept me captivated most of the time. I enjoyed it a lot, and it’s worth giving a 5.

I wish I could hang this at a 3.5, but I’ll have to bump it down to a 3.

This is a weird album, in that I wasn’t too captivated in a lyrical or vocal sense (save for a few tracks), and it was sort of easy to lose track in the moment, but while I was listening to it, there was usually something oddly engaging in the soundscape and production that kept me hooked and attentive. I can’t really describe that paradox, but somehow that’s where I was with this – zoned out and attentive at the same time. Not necessarily hooked on vocals or lyrics, but hooked on hearing how it would all meld around the production and somehow find a melodic basis to work with.

The “problem” with the album then, which I’m sure is rather intentional and purposefully designed, is that it takes a long time to get to that melodic basis on a number of these already long tracks. When a track doesn’t find a melodic basis, it’s just sort of a flop, and this album has enough of those flops to feel disjointed and not as coherent as it could be. That’s not to say there are actively bad tracks (save for the dreadfully minimalistic “Bomb Yourself”, which truly goes nowhere in its 5 and a half minute runtime), but there is a lot of empty space here, and those empty spaces don’t quite do what I think the band wanted, which was a sort of eerie, artsy liminal feel. Instead, it just feels… kinda boring. When it picked up, it hooked me right back into it, but this album doesn’t do a great job of balancing its time between the “empty” and the “full” – if this were a roller coaster, it’d be too many upward hills and not enough drops.

However, with that roller coaster analogy, this album does have enough momentum to not feel like a total wash. I think when the soundscapes do get going, and the tempo and energy pick up, the band genuinely sounds good and all that buildup feels worth the release. There are some good tracks here, and ultimately, I did end up liking the album, just not as much as I think I could have. With a little more tweaking, I think this could’ve found a great balance on its execution, but in this state, it just feels a little undercooked. Someone else will get a bit more enjoyment out of this than I will, but for my tastes, it’s at a 3.5 that just doesn’t quite get up to a 4. Hence, the 3, but a 3 that’s worth giving a try at the very least.

Kinda wish I could hang this one right at a 4.5; solely because I think this is higher than a 4, I’m gonna begrudgingly bump this up to a 5, even if it’s not quite there for me.

I do have a lot of positive things to say about this album though; maybe my expectations were set a little low for a mid-90s Britpop album by a band not named Blur or Oasis, and certainly lowered even more because of Wikipedia labeling this as a partial “hip hop soul” album comparable to Neil Young, but like… damn, I really fucking enjoyed this.

I truly don’t know where “hip hop soul” comes from at all when describing this album; if we’re calling the faster paced, almost rap-esque verses on here “hip hop soul”, then you may as well just call Blues Traveler a rap group at that point. This is Britpop through and through, and honestly, a really strong merging of the more distinct aspects of both Blur and Oasis at the time, namely in the more grungy production with the guitar work, reminiscent of Blur’s self-titled, and the slower, more deliberate vocal style of “What’s the Story, Morning Glory?”. Don’t get me wrong, this certainly isn’t big bombastic stadium rock, and there’s no Wonderwall here, but it feels like it could at least play pretty well in an arena.

There’s some seriously good tracks here; the big standouts are the singles, all of which have at least a million plays on Spotify apiece, but even the supplementary tracks have a few gems: With No Shoes is a pretty good opener, and “Only Teething” immediately comes to mind (even if the percussion there is pretty much from Freedom! ‘90). Really, the only reason I’m not quite at an actual 5 is because some of the supplementary tracks do fall a little short in the execution or the mix – the last 2 tracks in particular really dampen the momentum of the album. Get on It feels like a Bob Dylan track in the worst way; not that it’s a bad track, but that it clicks on all of the habits from Dylan’s work that sacrifice melodic content for slightly more verbose storytelling and a bit of repetition. However, the instrumental and the extended solo throughout really salvage that track from being too boring. Rob’s Theme, on the other hand, simply plays itself too safe, and doesn’t really lean enough into the buildup and execution of the more psychedelic style attempted in the guitars; the drum pattern in that track just kills the mood for me. It’s a sort of flat instrumental to end the album.

But, hey, I said I had a lot of positive things, and those positive things more than outweigh a flat ending – this is just damn good Britpop. It’s energetic, it’s catchy, and it just feels good for 1997. The only thing I can truly knock are the lyrics, for not feeling super coherent or memorable throughout, but when the melodies hit like this, and the overall tracks have such good mixing and instrumentation, it lifts the overall experience in a pretty coherent and fun way. I don’t think this is low enough to call a 4, nor do I think it’s quite at a 5. It really is at a 4.5 for me, but it’s a highly recommended one, so much so that I’ll give it a 5 on the website.

If nothing else, listen to One to Another – that shit’s a banger.

That’s a pretty damn good 5.

I mean, this album just has charisma in spades, language barrier be damned. It does exactly what it sets out to do – mix Brazilian standards driven by a bit of samba with influences from American pop, R&B, and a bit of Afrobeat in there too. It blends itself together beautifully, on both the slower tracks and the more upbeat ones. I think it might be impossible to listen to this whole album and not get up and move around at least once – whether it’s in the stellar guitar work, the super fun synth and production tricks, the bombastic brass sections, or even just the deeply impressive percussion, there is at least one aspect of this album that’s easy to just vibe to, and that’s not even mentioning his vocal work.

I think his vocals really are understated and perhaps underrated here; even though these instrumentals are great, it feels like there’s a distinct reason for this album to not have an instrumental track on it. Jorge Ben Jor’s vocals have a really good range to them, and the vocal tone of the track honestly makes or breaks the energy at times – I think this is best exemplified in “O Filosofo”, which was the only track that didn’t quite click for me, and it’s partially because his vocals don’t feel fully engaged with the song itself. On the flipside of that, when he gets into a deeply gritty tone on the last track, Africa Brasil, it evokes those moments of true zen and passion from a performer that feel rarely captured on albums or even on tape – Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” comes to mind, both in the album cut and that famous GRAMMYs performance.

Ultimately, this is just fun. It’s 40 minutes that zoom by, but it kept me really attentive to every little detail – what’s here is so deep and rich in its soundscape that it’s impossible to ignore, and frankly worth analyzing to really distill funk in such a pure form. It’s very rare to get international albums on the list, but they’ve usually been pretty damn good (save for that shit show “Haut de gamme”) – this sits right behind Clube Da Esquina as my second favorite international one we’ve gotten so far. It’s a super easy 5 for me.

Hell, just give us another Brazilian album. It can’t hurt at this point.

I’m at a very enjoyable 4.5 that I’ll once again drop back down to a 4.

I dunno, even though I liked most of this, I just don’t think it quite gets up to a 5 for me. I can’t even really explain why; maybe a few beats fell flat, or sometimes the mixing felt off, but as a whole, I never quite found myself fully in the zone with this album like I have with other rap albums, and even other albums by Wu-Tang members. That’s not to say this is bad; when this album does enter a flow state, it’s a really good flow state, but it only lasts temporarily.

There’s great bits of energy, wordplay, vocals and flow all over this album, & as an entire front to back album, it’s a relatively coherent project that breezes by. This didn’t feel like 43 minutes, in a very good way. Method Man’s pretty damn good at this, and the features throughout this album are super fun. I just don’t think that many tracks hit the plateau of “great” – I’m going by feel here, really. There’s definitely standouts, namely “Bring The Pain”, “All I Need”, “Release Yo’ Delf”, & “I Get My Thang In Action”. Those are my top 4 that I’d call “great”, but all 13 tracks here are pretty good.

I guess it’s odd to say “it never stays great long enough to get up to a 5”, but I guess that’s where I’m at with it; just the intangibles that didn’t quite click with me the way they could have. It might be a mood thing, and this could probably easily bump itself up at a later point, but for now, I’m fine bumping it down to a 4. Still pretty recommended though; Wu-Tang Clan still ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

Oh, sue me, I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5.

I just really enjoyed that, what can I say? I feel firmly established in saying that synthpop will simply win me over every time if it’s done well, and this is done pretty damn well. Obviously, Karma Chameleon is like, the super duper all-timer hit here, forever established in the 80s musical canon, but like… almost all of the other tracks here are pretty good.

There’s not a bad one, just a few that felt either a little long, or a little repetitive, or a little half-baked; a number of tracks lyrically suffer from the “first minute is the whole track” syndrome that really bites at a lot of 80s synthpop. With that said, as long as the instrumentals and the general vocals can overcome that, to evoke some sort of bigger, grandiose feeling that just feels dance-y and fun, it’s enough for me. This album does it in spades; when the lyrics falter, or things get a little stale, a sax solo is always there to save it and bring the mood right back up. Either that, or just some super catchy vocal melody – the layering on the background vocals throughout this album is a real highlight to me. I’d also be entirely remiss to not point out that Boy George sounds strikingly and scarily like George Michael.

I now have a lot more appreciation for Culture Club than I had going into this. Karma Chameleon (and by extension, Do You Really Want To Hurt Me) felt like maybe a one or two-hit wonder sort of thing, but what’s here is *good.* It’s a fast 38 minutes, it’s catchy as hell, it’s tightly produced, and looking at the chart data, no wonder the only thing stopping this album from going to #1 was Thriller. That’s just some damn good synthpop to my ears – I can see how it’d be jarring to some people, and maybe if I were in a grumpier mood, the faltering moments would drag this thing down more for me. Right now, though, I don’t really care. I liked it a lot, and it’s very easy for me to bump it up to a 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump back down to a 4, but it was pretty close to going up to a 5,

This is my second time hearing anything Wu-Tang related, after Liquid Swords – Ghostface Killah is pretty damn good, man. His verses and storytelling on this album are really good, and the obvious highlight. When he passes it off to the features, they’ve got high bars to reach, and only a handful of them do on this album; all the Wu-Tang members get there pretty easily, and the big surprise, for me, is Ne-Yo absolutely killing it on “Back Like That”.

The reason for this getting a 4 is simply in the skits; there’s so many of them that just kill the pacing of the album for me at times. Even a few tracks without the (skit) moniker are sort of just glorified ones, in a way, getting in one short verse. Those tracks sort of ruin the cohesiveness of the album, even if a number of them do flow pretty well into the main tracks.

Past that, the production on this album, despite the absolutely loaded contributions from MF DOOM, J. Dilla, Pete Rock, and others, is… a little suspect at times. It feels like some of the flows on some of the tracks didn’t quite mesh well, and the overall vision of the album, sort of driven by the storytelling device of the kilo of cocaine set so early on, feels a bit lost and muddled over the course of the whole thing. It feels like there was meant to be a more cohesive plot here, given the amount of skits and setups for future tracks, but a lot of them feel unanswered and sort of left me… befuddled, I guess.

With that said, what’s here is still really good – when this album is rolling, it’s fucking *rolling*, and it succeeds in spite of my perceived flaws and nitpicks. I do think there are ways to improve upon what’s here, namely trimming down some of the “fat” of the album to cut down the runtime, and to more cohesively flow the whole together without the minor comic book, DOOM-esque narrative transitions (which are cool, but just feel a little out of place here with how short they are), but as a whole, this is just a great hour of good beats, good flows, and for 2006, it’s got pretty damn fun wordplay and some great verses. Certainly stands up there with some of its contemporaries for the time. It's a very good 4.5 that just barely doesn't get up to a 5.

I was at a 4. Then, “I’ve Got My Mojo Working” happened and I jumped right up to a 5.

I won’t discount the other tracks on this album, because they all act as a grand buildup to that moment, but like… what a show-stopper of a number that is. I can’t even complain that he played it twice. Muddy let out every ounce of energy he had left for that, with himself, his band, and that crowd hitting an absolute fever pitch. It’s one of the most stunning live performances I think I’ve ever heard.

I do have to rewind – this album does sort of start slowly, and you can feel everyone involved with this recording getting more comfortable, more confident, and more energetic as the set goes along. For the first two tracks, everything feels sort of modest and slow, and while it all technically sounded nice, the energy felt flat. My immediate suspicion was that this was a white crowd, and… yeah, this was a white crowd. Well, OK, an integrated crowd, but it sure looks like there were a lot more white people.

By tracks 3 & 4, the band’s energy starts to pick up, as does Muddy’s vocals. Track 5 is when they really let loose – Tiger in Your Tank is just catchy and fun, and that energy carries into “I Feel So Good”. Those opening piano notes, his deeper vocal twang, the crowd screaming… all of it is a buildup to Got My Mojo Working. I cannot stress enough how good this performance is; I can’t capture it in words. It’s worth sitting through both parts, because it’s that damn good. Hell, I looked up the video of the performance just to see how in the zone he was – he was deeply in the zone. How that crowd didn’t just stand up and dance their heart out is beyond me. There is a great shot of a guy doing the Charleston, though.

All this praise towards Got My Mojo Working aside, the album ends on a Langston Hughes-written track. Like, Harlem Renaissance poet, black icon Langston Hughes. The story goes that there was a big riot over a lack of tickets, so the city just shut down the whole festival. Apparently, he wrote the track soon after he learned it, and asked Muddy to perform it. The irony is, that’s not even him on the last track – it’s his pianist Otis Spann. When I said Muddy left every ounce of energy on Got My Mojo Working, I meant that shit. It’s Langston Hughes himself who gets the final words on this album, and that piece of history being so well captured here is kind of amazing.

So, yeah, this gets a big jump up right to a 5. Muddy Waters is indeed as good live as he is in-studio, and his consistency in quality, even up to the 1970s, when we got his album “Hard Again”, is kind of incredible. It makes me kind of mad that blues musicians like him feel sort of lost to time, understated in the modern music canon. This was a real delight, though.

Well, that’s obviously a 5.

Just an electric setlist, really – those 36 minutes flew by. I’ve heard of Sam Cooke, but I’ve never actually heard Sam Cooke until now, and that motherfucker can sing his heart out, my goodness. Combine his gritty soulful voice with a red hot band and a red hot crowd, and that’s a recipe for an awesome live album. How this went unreleased for 22 years, I simply don’t understand. How could you listen to that album, with that much crowd energy, and such an honest and soulful performance, and think it’s too edgy? I guess 1963 is still deep in the Civil Rights Movement, and it was more palatable to present him as a gospel star rather than an Elvis Presley-esque pop star, but come on, this would’ve sent Sam Cooke into absolute superstardom. I’ll go so far as to say he wouldn’t have been murdered if this had come out.

Truthfully, I got so swept up into the energy and charisma of the whole thing that I barely have any individual notes on tracks – my ears were attentive, but my brain was on autopilot. There’s a lot of love songs here, which makes some sense, but the energy with which both Sam and the band perform them with is so damn high, you could easily confuse it for a dance album. He’s got the crowd in the palm of his hands too – the amount of call/response parts on this album is kind of unbelievable. It’s really hard to explain how good this album is without listening to it; it is just 36 minutes of pure energy and a spectacular live set. I deeply enjoyed this, and it’s an extremely easy 5.

I’m at a pretty high 4.

I think after this and the Pogues album we got, I might just be a sucker for medieval-style music with modern instrumentation. I really did like this album; the only reason I’m at a 4 is because the choice to go mostly acoustic sort of creates a homogeneity that the album’s instrumentation never fully overcame for me. To be more specific, there’s just too many tracks that suffer from a “first minute is the whole song” syndrome for me, but those are still pretty good tracks. The ones that overcome it are great, and I think the last track in particular nails it really well. For the lyricism, I think my only real nag is that a few tracks feel sort of similar in subject matter, but otherwise, they completely nailed the feeling; some of these have to be actual old poems and songs brought into modern times.

It’s a relatively breezy 40 minutes, save for Hunting Song, which did feel like the track that dragged the longest; not just in its runtime, but in how slow the pacing of the story felt. Regardless, I enjoyed this a lot – it executes the sort of “folk jazz” thing it’s going for pretty well, the vocalists are both nice, the acoustics (which eventually lose their luster) sound great, and if nothing else, it’s a super easy listen. Pretty solid 4 for me.

I’m at a 5.

Bridge Over Troubled Water, as a title track, sets an incredible tone and sets a high bar for the rest of the album, and while I don’t think it ever quite touches that bar again, it’s never more than a few inches away. El Condor Pasa is incredibly efficient in its simplicity, Cecilia feels like late 2000s indie rock in the best way possible, Keep the Customer Satisfied is the best Beatles song that Simon & Garfunkel ever made, and once this album gets to side 2, it just keeps rolling from there. There’s maybe one or two stumbles on its way to the finish line (looking right at “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” & “Bye Bye Love”), but regardless of anything else, that’s a super breezy and really enjoyable 37 minutes.

I don’t think this lived up to like, the super duper universal acclaim that it has, but I can certainly see why people think that way, and maybe one day, it’ll click in that sense for me. Make no mistake about it, though; this is a stellar album. There’s a few tracks that didn’t hit as well for me, but from top to bottom, this thing is beautifully written, composed, and produced. It’s a great listen, and it fits perfectly as a final album for Simon & Garfunkel. Super easy 5.

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

I mean, look, of all the albums to get so soon after the 2024 Presidential election, to get this one is the equivalent of rolling a Nat 1 on a D700. It’s not even that it’s necessarily bad – I genuinely really did enjoy this, but the optics and timing are tremendously and uniquely awful. It feels like starting this project on January 1st led to this as a long, long, sick punchline.

But regardless of that, like I said – I genuinely enjoyed this. Call it sick irony given the consequences of the election and the incredibly militaristic sound here, but in terms of soundscape and vision, this really does feel like an awkward political rally. It’s discomfiting, uneasy, a little too real at times… and I think that’s the point. This is meant to create that sense of awkwardness, to confront it head on, to feel that way without ever explicitly agreeing to it. Given the social contexts of 1980s Cold War politics that deeply underline this album, it feels like a direct statement against the causes that were more present behind the Iron Curtain at the time. In that sense, I think the production and tone here are basically perfect as a form of satire. Really uncomfortable satire, but satire nonetheless.

Where this album falls flat then, for me, is simply in fully committing to its vision and execution – you wanna go down this pathway, and make people awkwardly feel the consequences of something they didn’t sign up for? Make it even less palatable. Make it a little bit screechier, make it a little less clean, make it feel like despair. I know I sound sadistic when I type all of that, but if that’s the point of the album here, I think committing even deeper to the “downfall” of this rally would’ve really nailed this as a home run of a concept album.

Because it plays itself relatively safe, I have to judge it a bit more on the musical execution, and in terms of the musical execution… yeah, this thing kinda falls into the “first minute is the whole song” trap a few too many times. The pulsating, militaristic drums and brass sections grow tiring after too long, and slowly start to lose their effect. The political speeches of despair are effective, but without a real shift in the instrumentation to add to the atmosphere, it comes across as kind of hokey.

Again, I get it – you can’t be too blatant, otherwise it goes from incredibly pointed and direct satire done in a perfectly uncomfortable way, to just straight up being the real thing, and that’s a truly hard balance to hit on. I think they did about as good as they could given the political environment of the time – they could’ve been in some serious shit if they went too far one way or the other, and the fact that they even crossed the tightrope is a miracle to begin with.

So… yeah, I really did like this. I wish it had the guts to be a little more loose, to really drive home how awkward it is, but it doesn’t take away from how oddly engaging those 37 minutes still are. By really leaning into itself, and making it feel so captivating and bombastic, I simply have to wonder… did people really think they were legit? Hell, am I misreading them? I guess I’ll never quite know – the band itself has stayed ambiguous about it for years upon years. Hell, apparently they played North Korea, and I truly don’t know what to make of that. I can only hope I’m right in calling it a deeply biting satire. Hence, the 3.5 that I’m cautiously bumping up to a 4 – heavy emphasis on “cautiously”.

I’m gonna need more time with this album, but at first pass, I’m at a 4.5 that I simply admire so much that I’m gonna bump it up to a 5.

Perhaps it’s the post-election inner fear talking, but this felt like the perfect album at the perfect time – just an inspired biographical reminder of what I hope this country is, what I hope it can continue to be, and what makes it truly great. I’ve never heard a Sufjan Stevens album for this; never even heard of the guy, really. I’m beyond impressed.

I’m a sucker for historical references in music; not because it’s necessarily great for songwriting, but because it tells me that I’m dealing with someone who knows and is embedded into history, at least to some degree. As a trivia guy, it just gives me a point of reference to really feel where a song is coming from. This album is jam-packed with them, up and down, and quite frankly, the balance between all the references and being able to actively blend them and weave them into such compelling narratives and melodies is one of the most impressive things I’ve heard in the 310 albums we’ve done so far.

Past that, my goodness, the music; what an absolute behemoth of a production this must’ve had. Occasionally, this album gets a little too cute with its vocal mixing at the expense of the listener, but more often than not, that orchestration and instrumentation so perfectly captures a mood that might be impossible to put into words. I say that knowing that his songwriting here is about as impressive as the instrumentation, if not moreso.

It’s a deeply bombastic album, fantastically structured, and its long-ass song titles provide the humor in places where it’s desperately needed. It definitely feels like he had fun making this, but he also knew exactly how much weight this thing was carrying. To find such a great balance between instrumentation, songwriting, vocals and production, while making sure this thing doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own ambition and honesty is nothing short of a miracle. Again, there are flaws here; a few tracks go on a bit long, some of the funny filler could’ve been cut instead of doing it to satiate a long song title or to keep the “musical” structure alive, but those “flaws” are more like production choices that just didn’t click with me.

I need another pass or two on this album without the misty-eyed dread of November 5th, 2024 looming long in my head, to more critically analyze it, and really take away its theming and lyricism more without clinging so deeply onto its messaging of hope and promise… but if the album’s already got me that hooked, in light of what just happened, it’s doing something right. If anything, I feel like I’ll appreciate it even more. It’s a 4.5 that I’m bumping up to a 5.

This whole thing is a 5.

I’ve always been a little scared to tackle this album; obviously, Hey Ya is the monster hit, but even past that, these are basically just two albums thrown together like a Sonic & Garfield pack for the Sega Genesis. They’re entirely unrelated, and they’re clearly put together just to keep the “OutKast” brand name alive. I wrote down two individual reviews for both Speakerboxx & The Love Below as I was listening; I’ll just copy/paste them both here, and then give a sort of epilogue to the whole thing.

For Speakerboxx, that half easily gets a 5.

Big Boi is flowing on this half of the record – this could’ve easily stood on its own without being attached to The Love Below, I think. Fantastic production across the board, great verses from everyone involved, and a really fun mix of like, Funkadelic-esque production stylizations with a bit of Outkast flair, naturally evolved from Stankonia, and still feeling extremely modern for 2003. A lot of these beats still go hard as hell in 2024, and any modern rapper could probably flow on a lot of them.

I’ve always liked Big Boi’s verses just a little more than Andre’s, and so far, this part of the album is confirming my bias – he is on fire on a lot of these tracks, with his faster flow just more attuned to the upbeat tempo and nature of this part of the album. A lot of these are really fun tracks in terms of subject matter. Of course, there’s not a lot of “serious” moments here, but he does know when to reel it in when the time comes.

I’ll say this; it’s a tough fucking act to follow. Andre’s got a lot to beat here – I think this perfectly lined up with my tastes. That’s a stellar album in its own right; I do wish it sort of landed its “ending” a little better, but this is a double package, so hopefully the last track on The Love Below satiates my thirst. When it comes to Speakerboxx, that’s a 5 by itself. I’ve got high, high hopes for Andre, and I hope he doesn’t let me down.

For The Love Below, I’m at a 4.5.

It’s oh so very close to being a 5 for me, but I just think this album doesn’t do quite enough to hit a fully authentic vibe that he’s trying to capture – he succeeds at hitting the vibe, but there’s a few tracks that go a bit long, a few tracks with some weird production choices, and honestly, just not enough features. If you’re gonna do this sort of Prince throwback style, or try to evoke old Bootsy Collins / Funkadelic type of production at times, bring in some of the people that made it work.

With that said, I loved it when he stepped out of that box and did some super unique stuff – there are production tricks on this album that I don’t think mainstream rap & hip-hop really caught up to for at least another 5 or 6 years, unless I’m just deeply ignorant to the early 2000s (and I probably am). Those tracks easily stood out the most to me.

Maybe I’m just a little salty because I wanted to hear Andre rap more, but his presence as a rapper is seriously underutilized on this album. That’s not to say his singing is bad; I think his voice contortions are really good, and he's pretty well trained. Sometimes the production covers up any perceived “flaws”, but if there are any, I barely caught them. I think this is a good front to back album, and it certainly has more of a plotline and a sort of A to Z structure than Speakerboxx did. I do think I enjoyed Speakerboxx more, just because Big Boi was flowing and it felt more fun, but this also could have stood on its own as a solo album. It’s a nice high 4.5.

So, what does that mean for the entire package? Well, obviously, it’s a 4.75 if you average those out, but it’s an easy, easy roundup to a 5. I don’t think that part was ever in question – what I’m most surprised by, in terms of this double album, is how oddly cohesive it feels even with the blatant split. They complement each other well, and they both bring an individual vibe; the usual ATL bounce from Speakerboxx, and the more thoughtful and introspective stuff from The Love Below. Those vibes together do evoke OutKast to me.

In a way, this feels better as a double album under the OutKast branding, if only because I think they would’ve been pigeonholed into these styles if these were released as solo albums. As a whole package though, it does feel like it’s OutKast, and a more individual showcase of the best of their own work. I do wish there was a bit more overlap between Andre and Big Boi across both albums, to keep that cohesion a bit more intact, but I’m just sort of nitpicking at this point. These are two very good solo albums; one gets a 5, the other gets a 4.5, but as a whole package, it’s very easily a 5.

Ghettomusick > Hey Ya!, by the way. Fight me.

I’m at a 4.

I really, really liked the first half of this album, and then the second half of the album gave me Ella Fitzgerald-adjacent PTSD of the Great American Songbook. That is to say, I think the first half of this album really clicks on a good middle ground between his contemporaries and the “classics” of his time, and the instrumentation that guides them feels like his own. He takes control of those songs in a way that feels good for 1978, and just as good in 2024. The second half of this album throws out that middle ground to focus entirely on the 30s and 40s, and while there’s not a single bad track on the album, it definitely felt like he was in less control of them, and just covering them mostly as they were, and the album sort of loses his touch.

I do think what’s here is good – the Georgia on My Mind cover especially blew me away, and when this album clicks, it really clicks. I just feel like it sort of got… boring near the end. Not like, “dear God, end the album already” boring, but a lot of the back half felt like it touched on topics already explored and covered in the first half, and that redundancy, mixed with the slower tempo of everything started to make me feel drowsy, for some reason. It’s not like I was literally getting bored to sleep or anything, but the instrumentation was so calming and serene, with his vocals so soft-spoken that it simply created the perfect environment to get to that point. When I say it’s “boring”, I simply mean that the energetic songs, or at least the more bombastic instrumentation and tempo go away, and their lack of presence throughout that second half creates a sort of homogeneity that drags the album down to a 4 for me.

It is Willie Nelson, though, and who am I to talk shit on his music taste? The band does a great job, his vocals are stellar, and the emotional pull of every song is left intact here; it is a good album, and a recommended one. If nothing else, that Georgia on My Mind cover gets this album to a 3 by itself, but for me, the entire package is worthy of a 4. It could totally go up to a 5 though.

It’s a 5. I don’t need to use any more than 2 paragraphs to explain why.

It’s a live jazz album, what did you think it was gonna get? The only way it could’ve been any lower than a 4 would be if someone had just been yelling into a microphone the whole time. I’m not super deep into music theory to tell someone why these are good, or to explain the deep complexities in the performance. I have an ear, and that’s about all I need, I think. My ear is telling me this was really fucking good.

This is my first time listening to anything by Duke Ellington. I now want to listen to even more of Duke Ellington – I know the name, I know his place in history, and I know his deep, deep importance to this specific era of big band jazz. There’s a reason Stevie Wonder made Sir Duke. He lived up to the hype and more – this is a spectacular 44 minutes; there's neither a wasted note nor a moment where the energy dies down. Mix that with a red-hot crowd hanging onto every single flourish & some stellar compositions, and you end up at an easy 5.

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

I just thought that was a damn good album; it’s definitely split into halves (Tracks 2-9 & Tracks 11-18), but it comes together as a pretty complete package. The biggest split in terms of the production here is how the instrumentals take more of a backseat to the lyricism in the first half, and how they find more of a balance in the second half. There’s some stellar beats here, and some stellar lyricism, and when this album finds that balance, it rolls really, really smoothly.

The only reason I’m at a 4.5 instead of a flat 5 is because I do think this album suffers from what I’m describing as “Harvard rap”. I’m sure that’s not the most concise way to put it, but a lot of this album touches on how braggadocious Guru can be about his verbose vocabulary, finding the perfect rhyme, and disparaging the lack of “intellectualism” in rap music. They would fucking hate today’s rap, I’ll tell you that much, but for 1991, this does feel a little too early to criticize the genre as a whole, unless there were some really fucking dogshit rappers getting radio airplay in 1990 just because hiphop was the new hot thing. Really, the issue isn’t the criticisms, but it’s how often they get touched on in this album – there’s just a few too many tracks that involve him bragging about his wordplay and his skill, and it sort of bogs down the album, even for as much as I liked them.

Regardless of that, DJ Premier is on fire for a lot of these beats, and too much of this album is too damn good to let a slight oversaturation ruin the whole thing. For as much as he bragged, Guru does back it up pretty damn well; there’s some great flow and lyricism throughout this album – the entirety of “Take A Rest” stands out as one of the prime examples to me, but there’s some gems thrown about here. This is a pretty cohesive album from front to back, and it’s worth paying attention to every line.

Ultimately, this is a super dense album, but a breezy and captivating 50 minutes. It’s a really good listen that gets sort of bogged down in its own “intellectualism” at times, but not enough to ruin the overall package. It’s a 4.5 that easily gets bumped up to a 5, and it kinda makes me wonder how this got lost in the 90s rap canon; I guess all the other heavy hitters of the era have drowned this out over the years. It’s a damn good thing it’s on this list, then.

The most three-y 3 to ever 3.

It’s not a bad album. It’s not a very captivating album, though. It’s an enjoyable listen, but other than La Grange, and maybe a few other tracks, it’s not a very memorable listen either. It just feels half-baked to me, but perhaps I’m holding this to a much higher standard than I should be.

I fully recognize this album for what it is; it’s for when you’re on the road, trucking along, and you need some rock music to listen to without giving a shit. It totally works in that sense; this is fully competent 70s rock to drink some beer to. It doesn’t challenge itself too much, nor does it ever really challenge the listener. It didn’t really wow me as the listener, either. The instrumentation, other than the usually more involved guitar solos, feels a bit neglected and basic. The percussion in particular sounds like I could play it on some of these tracks, and the extent of my rhythm/instrumental experience is like, playing Rhythm Heaven and slapping a desk.

I dunno, it’s just sort of disappointing compared to the last ZZ Top album we got – they definitely grew more as musicians, and got more comfortable exploring complexities, but the core of what made Eliminator work is here. It’s just not all there in terms of confidence, instrumentation, or bombast. It’s a solid 33 minutes though; I don’t hate it, and there’s not a single bad track here, but I just don’t think I can go any higher than a 3.

I’m at a 5.

I mean, listen; if we’re weighing 5’s next to each other, this is at the low end of the 5’s I’ve given. It’s not doing anything so deeply impressive to actually put it up next to, say, Nevermind by Nirvana or Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. It’s a 5 on its own merits, for its genre, and for my experience with it.

I just really fucking enjoyed this. Yes, one may disparage this as “beep boop music”, but I think it’s more than that – maybe it’s just because I’m a big sci-fi head, but I haven’t really heard an electronica soundscape so deeply capture the feeling of adventure, mystery, and ambience in this specific style so efficiently and effectively. I’m not saying this is easy to make, but it does a lot without really using up too much; a lot of what’s here is based in simple windy synths, panning tricks, volume tricks to add the illusion of depth, and the occasional Moog melody distorted to hell and back.

It’s a really fast 37 minutes, despite how slow it felt in the moment. I walked around while listening to this album, and even my walking just felt more deliberate, more focused; it could’ve been because of how attentive I was to the soundscape, but I’d like to imagine it’s because it just felt more like space to me, with that sense of adventure really getting into my brain and actively working.

It’s an album that’s deeply, deeply enhanced with headphones in, and it’s enhanced even further if you close your eyes – it’s an audio journey, and for me, about as effective as an ASMR video might be in terms of eliciting a specific feeling. Hell, ASMR just barely works for me, but this really fucking worked for me, so it might be even better for someone else. I thought it was a beautifully crafted set of compositions, and I can feel this album’s general influence on so much of modern ambient music. Not quite to the degree of, say, an Eno album, but something relatively close. It’s an enjoyable 5 if you let yourself melt into the soundscape – it’s certainly no less than a 3, at the very worst.

I’m at a 3.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad album – I think it’s a decent album bogged down by production choices that hinder the listening experience, but its charm manages to break through in spite of its self-sabotage.

The first and most obvious thing is the reverb effects and the wall of sound – not bad in theory, as long as it’s not overused, overblown in the mix, and doesn’t actively hide the full extent of the instrumentation. So, of course, it’s overused, overblown in the mix, and actively hides the full extent of the instrumentation. The levels of reverb vary throughout the album, but there’s never a good mix on them to have an effective use that adds to the experience – far too often, all of the instruments have the same amount of reverb, so it just feels like I’m sitting in a cave. The volume of the wall of sound that permeates a good chunk of the tracks here also varies, and when it doesn’t totally take away from the vocals or percussion, it’s alright. I just don’t think it ever adds anything to any track – if there were moments where it faded in to create an ambiance or whatever, it would be fine. It just sort of shows up and never goes away, though.

The second thing for me is how little of a presence the drums have, and I can’t help but feel like giving them more space to work with and turning them up a bit would’ve added so much energy to some of the tracks desperately searching for them. The same applies to the vocals at times, but my thing with the vocals is mainly that I wish the guy had a bit more emotion on a few tracks, and didn’t just sound like he was reading off a piece of paper – that’s most prevalent on “In a Hole”.

The third and final thing for me is the track order – I think “Just Like Honey” sets a wildly different expectation for the tone of the album, and it never really finds a natural progression throughout. I’m not really sure what else could have started the album, but “Just Like Honey” feels like such a natural closing track to me. There’s definitely a way to tweak the track order, though.

With all of that said, the album isn’t outright bad; if it were bad, I’d be presenting all of these as outright negatives as opposed to things that could be easily tweaked to create an overall better album experience. I think there’s something enjoyable here, and the framework of everything is in place. All of the charm is there, but I just feel like the production sort of kills it for me. When this album clicks, it clicks pretty well, but it only truly clicks a handful of times, in part because of that damn wall of sound diluting so much of the instrumentation. Of course, this is just my take as a “guy who likes radio-friendly production” sort of listener – I can see how this style as it is would totally click for someone all the way up to a 4 or even a 5, but for me, I’m at a 3. It’s a recommended 3, though.