Reviews by guggmo

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

It’s not necessarily a great album, but it’s a pretty damn fun one – where it lacks in some of the technical and compositional stuff, it more than makes up for in terms of vibes and enjoyment. There are lots of empty spots on this album that feels like they could be filled in by something more, but those patches of emptiness are simply a reminder that this is 1981, and the world’s not quite yet ready for a Daft Punk-esque synth solo that would break their brains.

Wordy Rappinghood is fun (if a little goofy), and Genius of Love surprised me once it revealed itself is THAT song that everyone (namely Mariah Carey) has sampled, but the album definitely hits a sort of stagnant point until Lorelei for me. Tom Tom Theme is rather short, L'éléphant was just too repetitive for me to really enjoy, especially without the vocal hook or storytelling (that I could understand) to break it up, and As Above, So Below really drags out its chorus despite the rather fun instrumental. After that though, Lorelei is sort of mesmerizing, hypnotic, and mysterious in a way that sucked me in and clicked really well. On, On, On, On, while a bit culty in its lyricism, just worked for me instrumentally and tonally. Booming and Zooming is sort of weird, but its story is captivating enough that I can look past the sort of droning instrumental in the back. Under the Boardwalk feels like the first breaths of 90s Eurodance trying to come to life, and a very good way to end the album.

All of that to say, I enjoyed about 2/3rds of what’s on here, but none of it was outright bad. It’s just not as concise and controlled as I think it could have been, but it’s not enough of a problem to make me think any less of the album. It’s a 3.5 that’ll go up to a 4, and a rather fun listen. I liked it.

I can finally give U2 a 5.

We’ve gotten two different U2 albums before this – 1983’s “War”, and 2000’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”, so this falls pretty much right in the middle of those two albums. Those averaged out to a 3.5, and I could never really give either album a 5 because I just didn’t think it hit on a consistent level of quality and thematics throughout the listening experience.

This album does that in spades and more – this is a fully coherent album from front to back, with not a single solitary miss (ok, maybe “Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World” is a little too hokey, but shh). The band is on fire, Bono’s vocals have genuinely never sounded better to me, and ultimately, this is just a joy to listen to and a kind of triumph for 1991.

I noted it several times while listening, but a lot of this sound felt like a more refined version of “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” to me – that’s a lot of praise, I think. This sort of soundscape is what traditional rock returned to in the late 90s after its collective grunge era brought on by Nirvana and Pearl Jam, so to hear it in 1991 just tells me that U2 were a bit ahead of the curve.

That’s not to say the influence of grunge and industrial rock isn’t felt all over this album, it just doesn’t dominate the entire thing, and for my ears, after the amount of 90s grunge we’ve gotten, is deeply refreshing. There is a middle ground somewhere in there, and I’d say this album strikes that middle ground perfectly.

I could keep going, and try to break down individual tracks, but I feel like whatever words I write couldn’t do them justice (although huge shoutout to “One”, that’s my first time hearing it and it was incredible to me). This is absolutely worth the listen, and beyond deserving to be on the list. Just a stellar album, and an easy 5.

I’m at a very fun 5.

I’ve known Cyndi Lauper was good – Girls Just Want to Have Fun & Time After Time are quintessential 80s tracks. I didn’t know she was this good. The first 6 tracks on this one may well be all-timers, even if 3 of them are covers. Money Changes Everything surprised me, mainly because I was fully expecting the tone of this album to follow the poppier synths of Girls Just Want to Have Fun, but she pulls off that Springsteen-esque style really fucking well. Her vocals get one hell of a showcase, and it sets the tone that this album doesn’t have to be all bubblegum and sunshine. Jumping ahead, the When You Were Mine cover is pretty damn good too. She Bop is pretty fun, but I couldn’t quite place why I liked it so much. Just catchy as hell. All Through the Night is the emotional peak of the album, and I’m genuinely stunned it wasn’t the last track on the album. Beautiful, beautiful track that I’d never heard until listening through this, but it stunned me.

The album sort of falls down after that – Witness & I’ll Kiss You are both really fun with their own neat production tricks and stylization quirks, but after All Through The Night, they just sort of pale by comparison. The last two tracks are where it just sort of stumbles to a finish line – the Betty Boop stuff didn’t click as well with me for a sort of feminist-driven album and just felt backwards, and Yeah Yeah has a great transition, but the rest feels like it was produced super early on in the album, and Cyndi just didn’t want it to go to waste.

Either way, those first 6 tracks are so fucking good they deserve a 5 on their own, and the album doesn’t collapse so badly as to drop it any lower. When I think of 80s pop and 80s synthwork, this sort of soundscape is exactly what my brain thinks of. To hear it fully encapsulated and properly executed throughout an entire album of the era feels super satisfying, and it certainly helps that most of the tracks are about as catchy and fun as I was hoping for. It’s an incredibly easy 5 for me, even if it does sort of stumble down towards the end. I really, really enjoyed that.

Just a plain 3.

I got nothing. It’s not that good. It’s not that bad. It’s competent. A few baffling production choices, and a rather strange track order (why the fuck did Toonerville Trolley close out the album?), but ultimately it sure felt like a 1967 album trying to capitalize on Beatlemania. I don’t think it’s so bad as to be a 1, and I think it shows enough effort and care to be higher than a 2. No chance in hell it’s higher than a 3 though.

Just for comparison’s sake, by the way, a few other albums we’ve gotten from 1967: Younger Than Yesterday (by The Byrds), Surrealistic Pillow (by Jefferson Airplane), I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (by Aretha Franklin), and The Velvet Underground & Nico (by… you know). We’ve had 10 albums from 1967 before this, so it’s a good year for music, I guess; so far, before this one, I’d given four albums a 3, five albums a 4, and one album a 5 from this year. Add this to the pile of 3s then. It’s totally, utterly fine. A few good ones, a few mediocre ones, but nothing outright bad. Just not the most captivating or the most special. I don’t know if it needed to be on the list.

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

I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever been more disappointed in an album after listening to it like I was with this one, but it’s not because it’s outright bad. I think it’s good, but it’s in desperate need of several tweaks that, with a bit of time and a bit more outside input, could catapult this into great. I really wanted to give this a 4, but I just can’t.

Let me just give some positives first: there are some great tracks on here. When he’s flowing, and the instrumentals are rolling, this album hits really well, and I can see exactly how it captivated British audiences in 2003 – it’s incredibly risky, rather unique, and taking a swing like this is pretty cool. When it hits, it hits, and it does hit kinda often. There’s one tiny little problem.

I did not like most of the instrumentals on this album. I loved a lot of the lyrics and flow, and I honestly love what it’s trying to do with this bass-heavy, scratchier, synth-driven minimalist style. It just needed more time to cook in the oven. I can recognize that part of it is my musical sensibilities not agreeing with Dizzee Rascal’s, but like… there were 7 tracks out of 15 where I said “the lyrics are great, the flow is great, but the beat needed more to it” or something similar to that. It just felt like a few more instruments would’ve given some tracks some more depth in a way that would’ve made them click more.

The most egregious example to me is the last track, “Do It!”, which has some genuinely great and honest lyricism, arguably the most introspective stuff on the album, and worthy of being the closer… with a really obnoxiously bad beat on top of it. It doesn’t fit at all, and that sort of incompatibility between the lyrics and the instrumentals permeates too much of this album for me to give it a 4. I don’t think this is bad, and I certainly think someone else will enjoy these beats more, but for as much as I really want to give this the benefit of the doubt, I just have to bump it down to a 3. It’s only disappointing because it’s so damn close to being so goddamn good. Just a shame. Very solid 3, though.

One of the easiest 5’s yet. Arguably a 10.

That was just blissful for me – what a stunning combination of Latin instrumentation, jazz standards, and rock music, all anchored by Carlos Santana’s fucking insane wizardry with the guitar. I knew he was good, but hearing him seemingly at his peak and his prime like this is fucking crazy – I don’t know that I’ve heard a guitar sound that good ever. Maybe on a Led Zeppelin album, or a Hendrix one, but besides those (which are already amazing in their own right), this feels like a golden standard.

There is not a single miss here, only a slightly lackluster ending (El Nicoya really feels like it could’ve been at the very start as opposed to the last track), but I could care less – this is packed to the brim, and it feels like I could listen to it 10 times and still miss stuff. Just a masterclass in composing, instrumentation, and production tricks; the occasional panning really sells a lot of the depth of these tracks, but much like Kind of Blue, everything is so perfectly mixed that you can still pick out just about every instrument, while giving them each time to breathe.

Seriously, I’m annoyed at myself for only giving Santana credit for the limited amount of stuff I’ve heard on Supernatural – this is excellent. One of the best albums we’ve gotten yet. Very easy 5, and a highly, highly recommended listen.

That’s a very very easy 5.

Much like with “Birth of the Cool”, I’m not gonna be verbose about it – it’s just fabulous, fabulous jazz. What’s here is incredibly rich in its soundscape, and extremely blissful once it gets into rhythm. There’s not a missed note here, and it’s timeless. Fantastic compositions, great melodies, and a perfect mix to give each instrumental room to breathe.

When we got Birth of the Cool, I said I’d be terrified once we got this album, because that one set the bar remarkably high – this is at that same bar. I can’t say for sure if it’s higher, but it’s certainly equal, even if the track count is much less. I enjoyed this just as much, I’ll come back to it as often, and it’s so very deserving of a 5.

I’m at a 1.5 that I’m going to very generously bump up to a 2, despite my better judgment, because I don’t think this is quite bad enough to deserve a 1. It’s pretty damn close, though.

I’ve made analogies to art in the classical sense before, and this album is art – it’s the type of art you walk up to, notice it’s just two colors painted next to each other, and you wonder how in the hell it ever made it into a damn museum. This is that type of album among the big 1,001 albums featured in the museum – whoever curated this had a damn soft spot for whatever the fuck this was. It’s just… nothingness. I feel nothing after listening to this. I don’t feel apathy, I don’t feel joy, and I don’t feel like it did anything to me. It’s not even white noise – you can focus on white noise and it can let your brain feel something. This truly gave me nothing.

I could go on an existential tangent about “nothing” doesn’t really apply given that I have something to say about it, but the truth is that I just don’t feel like it was worth my time at all. Does that mean it was egregiously awful? No. It is still art – there is some merit to having it be here, but it’s not the type of art that gives me any type of feeling. If Abbey Road is the Mona Lisa, this album strikes me as, say, a Rothko. I’ve seen Mark Rothko paintings before. They’re just squares to me. I find nothing in them, much like I found nothing out of this album. Does that mean a Rothko piece is devoid of artistic merit? No – someone will find a beauty in the slightly offtone shapes, or an appreciation in the individual brush strokes. I didn’t like most of this album, but I never found myself openly angry at it. I just didn’t find beauty in the compositions, nor an appreciation for the individual instruments or vocals. It was a dull album to me.

Why is it a 2 then, and not a 1? I dunno. I guess a few parts just sounded nice enough, and for better or for worse, there is some charm in the guitar riffs and percussion. I didn’t feel anything, and that’s a crime, but I recognize that someone else probably could and will. It’s just not my type of art piece. It’s a 1.5 that’ll go up to a 2, but I will likely never think about this ever again. Very strange for it to be on the list.

Still better than Haute de gamme, though.

I’m at a 5.

It’s just a raw fucking album, and I love that. Right from the album title, this thing sets a tone and an expectation that’s instantly met throughout the whole thing. Never mind the bollocks, forget the bullshit, forget the marketing, forget the catchy album titles – this isn’t “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, it’s the fucking Sex Pistols, and you’ll just have to deal with it.

That’s the expectation, and it’s the core tenet of the album – Johnny Rotten couldn’t give less of a shit about your opinion on his opinion. He is brutally honest throughout this whole thing, and I respect most of that honesty -- the only song I can't really respect the "honesty" on is "Bodies". “Bodies” is probably the one that’s aged the very worst, and I didn’t like it one damn bit, but it’s not like I can debate the guy over it. It's a shame, because the instrumentation is pretty good, but I just can't agree with any part of the messaging. Regardless of how I feel on that track, his honesty in those moments spreads throughout the entire album, with perhaps the greatest prescience of all time in “God Save The Queen” – opinion of the royal family and the British monarchy has probably dipped as far as it has because of whatever avalanche that song probably started.

The instrumentation on here is just as much of a highlight as Johnny Rotten’s vocals and lyrics – this is great punk rock. It’s a little overblown and overdone at points on this album, but when it’s fucking rolling, and Johnny is throwing his nasally voice out there in perfect harmony and energy, there is nothing that hits more of a raw nerve. I could point to 90s grunge, but even that’s steeped within production standards, commercialism, and a more sensible form of storytelling as opposed to how often this album tends to punch down on a few people just for the hell of it. EMI probably fucking deserved it, though.

Anyway, I just really liked it – it is a brutally honest album for 1977, and I’m guessing it sort of snapped people out of this idea that everyone just had to try and be the Beatles. It’s raw as hell, it sounds great to this day, and its influence is likely immeasurable for the 1980s and beyond. Easy 5.

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

For a band formed in 1983, to be able to survive and adapt with the times and survive until 2002 is rather impressive. To make something that sounds this good, and arguably still modern and still totally befitting for 2024, both 19 years after your forming, and 22 years after it came out is downright miraculous – this is an unbelievably well produced album, and its soundscape somehow feels timeless. It blends so many genres and styles; I feel like 70s rock is somehow the foundation of the album, but it’s blended with some R.E.M.-esque vocal work, 90s rave & electronica, and early 2000s hip-hop tropes. In some strange way, it feels totally ahead of its time, oddly nostalgic, and a perfect encapsulation of 2002 rock all at once. I can’t really describe it – this thing defies any conventional logic to me. The only thing I can say is that it sounds fucking awesome.

I do wish it had stuck harder to the sci-fi vibe and the more lyrically driven stuff, and that’s really my only knock on the album – I know it’s not meant to be a concept album, but the first 4 tracks are so cohesive and so strong that the album loses its luster the farther it goes away from the initial tracks. Don’t get me wrong, there’s not a bad track on here, but it does feel like it loses cohesion and focuses more heavily on soundscape and vibes. Some people will like that more than others, but for my tastes, I really started to feel like it dragged just a bit too long by the very last track (again, rad as hell, but just doesn’t feel like it should’ve ended the album over All We Have Is Now).

That’s why I’m not at a flat 5, but make no mistake – this is too damn good to be anything other than a 5. It’s got a great energy, its production sounds timeless, and it is overwhelmingly cool. It has withstood the test of time in a very tangible way, and that’s apparent to me on my very first listen. I fuck with sci-fi stuff super hard, so this was right down my alley – it impressed me and went above and beyond. It’s a great, great album.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll generously bump up to a 5 – this is the second time I’ve given a 5 to a David Bowie album.

I was sort of wavering between a 4 and a 5, but I just enjoyed this enough to give it a bump – I do think it doesn’t quite get to a 5, but it’s certainly higher than a 4. This is David Bowie’s “American” album, and it’s rather obvious in the instrumental influence – gone are the days of ch-ch-ch-changes and all that. I’m exaggerating a bit, but this is really unlike his other albums we’ve gotten so far; we’re talking about watching porn at drive-in theaters, doing coke, and getting head in Hollywood. This guy’s a rockstar now, or at least Aladdin Sane is.

I think the piano really stands out on this album – I’m a sucker for a good piano, but I can’t say I’ve ever really heard it used as a storytelling device for a sort of insanity meter. It’s present throughout almost every track, and it really decides the tone that Bowie just sort of follows. Obviously, there’s guitar, horns, some great percussion throughout, but the piano just cuts through like a knife on all of them. Aladdin Sane is the standout example of this – the smashing of the damn keyboard makes for a rather visceral tone rarely expressed around this time.

Ultimately, I think whatever he was going for here, he completely succeeded – if this is his “American” album like I think it is, then it’s rocking, it’s gritty, and it’s more American than Young Americans was. It’s a super fun listen, that does dive a bit into what I suspect is a genuine growing insanity from Bowie at the time, but he channels that energy into a really fun rock album. I do kinda wish there was a more bombastic Life on Mars-esque track here (unless you count "Time"), but regardless, I liked it. Totally fine with bumping it up to a 5.

I’m up to a 5.

I just really liked it – there’s a solid variety of styles here, from the opening track, traditional blues rock that sounds like it would play in a bar full of motorcycle gang members, to some funkier stuff (HUGE fan of Peace Frog), and even some nice calmer tracks like Indian Summer. Ultimately, this album never really punches up above its weight for 1970, but even if it’s not setting the world on fire by innovating and introducing new stuff, it does everything pretty close to perfectly. This is just a really strong album.

This is my first Doors album – I get the suspicion there’s gonna be worse ones along the way, but for now, I’ll ride this high. Jim Morrison’s voice has a pretty good tone to it, and I like how easily it can switch on a dime from really melodic to kinda scratchy – his vocals always meet the moment they call for, and it keeps this album from ever going too far off the rails. Really strong mixing and production here, by the way. I feel weird giving Blur a 4 and this a 5, but I just thought this never let off the gas. It feels really cohesive, and it’s just a super enjoyable listen. Very deserving to be on the list.

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

I just thought this was good music. It’s a very fun album, and a very good listen, but it also sort of feels like the beginning of the sunset for this era of 90s rock. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t remember many albums with this pseudo-grunge style from like, 1998 onward having this much success and acclaim. It feels like this is right at the split of say, Matchbox 20, the Goo Goo Dolls, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and others bringing the more acoustically-driven and poppier style of rock back into the forefront. Is it Blur’s best album? I dunno. I liked it more than Parklife though. There’s not a bad track here, though it does sort of dull out around the middle before rising back up near the end. Obviously, Song 2 is like, the big eternal hit of the album, but within the context of the entire thing and not just as a single, it just sort of blinks by as a burst of energy.

This album feels like an experiment in soundscapes and sonic tones more than any kind of solid messaging in the lyrics. I won’t go so far as to say it’s a secret Gorillaz record or anything, but my read on this album is that for as much as it’s inspired by American soundscapes and the sort of grunge rock that dominated the first half of the 90s, it deconstructs the genre. That is to say, Damon Albarn doesn’t take this anywhere near as seriously as Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, or Billy Corgan. He’s sort of taking the piss out of it, and Song 2 kinda proves that – it is entirely nonsensical from a lyrical standpoint, fully driven by the rock melodies and huge energy it brings, but it was a monster success. It sort of begs the question of “were people ever actually listening to those bands, or did they just hear the melodies and rock out?”

That’s not to say every track on here is nonsensical, or to imply that Damon Albarn doesn’t care on this record – there’s a few tracks that take themselves a bit more seriously (namely, Death of a Party & Strange News from Another Star), and they obviously gave a shit about making it sound as sonically complete and fulfilling as possible… but this isn’t that serious of a record in the long run. It’s got great writing, but it’s never the focus here. I know this all reads like I’m complaining, but if anything, I sort of admire this for being such an effective distillation of a genre and a time that feels so captivating to so many people, myself included.

To close out, I’m not at a 5, mainly because the album dips from Tracks 6-10 for me. Those tracks aren’t bad, but they just didn’t feel as captivating or as interesting to me. Track 11 and onward are a pretty good way to close out the album though. It’s a pretty good 4, though – the soundscapes are great, the melodies complex, and Damon Albarn’s voice cuts through like a knife. I liked it a lot.

I’m at a 4.5, and I enjoyed this enough that I’ll bump it up to a 5.

This is pretty good, but it does feel like two distinct albums sort of merged into one. That’s not a bad thing, but they’re so tonally different from each other and it makes for a really interesting experience. The first half is pretty traditional, and you won’t get many complaints for me – it’s pretty solid rock that leans into a bit of prog and does it rather well. The only track from the first half that I wasn’t feeling as much was “Rene,” and it’s partially in the lyrics. It’s not a bad track though, and it’s a fun listen with a really good instrumental to close out.

I’d say all the instrumentals on the first half are pretty good – the psychedelic intro title track, the 70s rock vibes of “Afterglow” (a little ahead of schedule for 1968), the sort of space-y feel to “Long Agos and Worlds Apart”, the electric guitar that drives “Song of a Baker”, and the rather goofy happy tone of “Lazy Sunday”. They all clicked for me, and they had a really nice variance. If I had to give the first half of the album a rating by itself, it’s a pretty strong 4.

The storybook portion of this album is gonna be what divides people – for my money though, I found it charming. I’ve been playing The Plucky Squire, so my brain is a little attuned towards “silly goofy storybook tale,” and I thought the instrumentation and lyrics throughout were rather nice. I loved the spoken monologues between certain songs – it gave it an audiobook feel, and his voice felt comforting during it. I could totally see this entire half being adapted into a real book, or some kind of made-for-TV 30 minute special. It’s charming, and while it’s rather obvious in its plot, for some reason, it just gave me a nostalgic kind of vibe. It may sound weird, but just on the strength of its execution, I’d give the back half a 5.

Obviously, that balances out to a 4.5, but if I enjoyed this much of the album, I’d be remiss to not give it the bump. This is a rather fast 38 minutes, and while it’s not for everyone (trust me, someone will find the back half immensely boring, or think some of the first half tracks drag a little), it hits just right for me. I’m happy this is on the list – these are the sorts of albums I like. Pretty nice 5.

I’m right at a 4, but it’s a very highly recommended 4.

I got really lost in the instrumentation of this one – for 1980, this is such a unique blend of electronica, industrial, and some of the standards of 70s rock. It comes together to make a sort of prototypical sound that 90s grunge bands would really utilize and make their own, but this is one hell of a prototype.

There’s some remarkably cool production decisions that underline this album, but it never feels like it’s overdoing anything. A lot of these tracks are still grounded in the basic principles of rock music, and it keeps the album from ever feeling too ambitious – it never once feels like it might collapse under its own weight. There is a sort of story throughout the tracks of anarchy and a revolution being suppressed into oblivion, but it’s never really explicit in its lyrics – it’s more of a thematic thing.

It’s hard to describe what makes this album click so well for me – sometimes, when you’re listening, you just know. I knew this was good throughout; the reason I’m at a 4 is because it does sort of stall out on a few longer tracks, sometimes the lyrics are a bit unclear, and it doesn’t quite stick the landing at the end. Those first 5 tracks are awesome, but the last 3 don’t hit quite as much. Regardless, what’s here is really, really good. It might go up to a 5 if I’m feeling it more another day, but for now, it’s a highly recommended 4.

I’m either at a 4 or a 5 – I’ll figure it out as I write this. I really fucking liked this, though.

Courtney Love is, in fact, really good at this. I had some doubt back on Celebrity Skin, but she shut me up back then, and she really solidified herself here for me. She carries herself like a fucking star throughout this album – her voice is confident, her writing unabashedly honest, and the band carries that energy in a way that creates a sort of perfect storm, fueled by anger (at the world, at people, at herself) that’s mostly underlined by an acknowledgement that it is what it is, and she can only really live through it.

Unlike Celebrity Skin, this album doesn’t carry Kurt Cobain’s shadow all over it, at least from a lyrical standpoint. It came out right after his death, so in that sense, a lot of this can be read with the context of Kurt, but it’s not as latent and as sorrowful as it was on Celebrity Skin. Instead, it almost feels like a harmonious anger – part of why her lyrics feel so honest to me is because so much of it is channeled from how much she and Kurt must’ve been under a constant microscope, especially when it comes to their kid. She references her kid several times on this album, and the references to “milk” (almost certainly a drug allegory) don’t go unnoticed.

Granted, all of that’s about the writing and the surrounding context of the album – when it comes to the actual music, I think every single one of these songs are good, but not many of them are outright great, and that’s where I’m sort of flipping between a 4 and a 5. It’s an awesome album, don’t get me wrong – I think it does a great job of slowly building up the anger in each track over time, going from a sort of annoyed indifference, to contempt, to outright hatred by the end. However, there’s something within each track that sort of holds the album back from really hitting a full blown stride for me. I don’t think it’s the instrumentation, though a few songs do hit on the “first minute is the whole song” trope. I don’t think it’s the lyrics, but sometimes, it does feel like once Courtney’s said all she has to say, a few tracks lose their direction and sort of repeat their way to the finish line. It’s definitely not in her vocal performance – as far as I’m concerned, she’s rather flawless throughout most of this.

Really, the only thing I can think of is that the album doesn’t touch on a super diverse number of themes, and that a few tracks tend to dip into a similar well from an instrumental and lyrical standpoint, but that undermines just how good all of the tracks still are, and how well this album is constructed. It’s not a perfect album, but I think I’m gaslighting myself to try and find some sort of overarching flaw here, and there really isn't one. It’s a damn good album, and I enjoyed this a lot. I’m at a 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5, simply because I enjoyed it a lot.

This is great jazz, and it’s as simple as that. I’m not a jazz expert, so I can’t speak to the complexities of the compositions or the music theory that went into these tracks. I simply have ears and can tell when my brain is getting a dopamine kick, and I got a pretty good kick out of this one. A few tracks gave me more of a kick than others – specifically, the stuff with the booming shotgun percussion that just added a bit of depth and a more bombastic feel. The piano is great too, and the saxophone is usually on fire. I wish modern bass had the same plunk as there is on this album. I enjoyed a lot of this.

The only minor thing I can throw at it is that I wish more tracks had the bite of the first track, “Blue Rondo à la Turk” – it sets such a unique tone for a jazz album of the era, but it never really gets a follow up like that. Other than that, I guess a few tracks just didn’t click as well for me, but I’m nitpicking – what’s here is a great listen, and is absolutely no less than a 4. I’m up to a 5, and it’s a highly recommended one, if only for studying music at the very least. Pretty damn good stuff.

I’m at a 3.5 that I just can’t bump up to a 4, but the covers by themselves would get a 4 from me.

Before this, I’d never heard a Rod Stewart album in full – hell, I don’t even know if I’ve heard a Rod Stewart song before now. The extent of my knowledge of Rod Stewart is that he was the older looking guy on TV commercials with great hair and a gritty voice who looked a little hokey. Just go Google “Rod Stewart 2005” or something – that’s my enduring image of the guy.

This isn’t a bad album at all, but it says something that of the 9 tracks here, the ones I enjoyed the most were 5 of the covers. It’s only his second studio album, so I’ll cut him a bit of slack for not really finding his own voice as a songwriter yet. However, I can’t really cut him much slack for his compositional skills – when he’s doing covers of other people’s songs, he sounds confident and the band behind him is rocking. When it’s his own original material, the structure of each track just feels off, and falls deeply into the “first minute is the whole song” trap. I enjoyed the covers on here a lot, but they’re a great showcase of other people’s songwriting and compositional abilities, which just makes the wide gap between those covers and the original material here stand out a lot.

His original material on this album isn’t bad, but it’s just painfully drab, like he’s trying to mimic what makes the people he’s covering so effective, but without really nailing the secret sauce that makes it work. Of the 3 original songs on this album, Gasoline Alley is probably the best one, but even it suffers from the “first minute is the whole song” syndrome from a compositional standpoint. Pretty good lyrically, though. The other two are fine enough. It’s just kind of annoying, if only because he’s close to finding his voice here. I’m sure he’ll have his breakthrough on some later album that may or may not be on this list, but it just drags the album back down when you realize its best material isn’t his own stuff.

I do think this is a good album, though – maybe someone will get more out of his original material than I did. I do think the floor here is a 3 though – people giving this a 1 or 2 were already bored of the guy. I just can’t give it a 4, hence the 3. It’s a pretty solid 3, though.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4 because I just admire the hell out of this.

This is an extremely raw album for 1965 – it feels poorly recorded, poorly mixed, overtly loud, and doesn’t feel like it has as much professionalism as it’s trying to get across. I love every single thing about that – this is raw in a beautiful way, because it’s clearly made with a lot of love and respect to most of the songs they covered here, as well as their original ones. It’s not poorly recorded or poorly mixed – it’s recorded exactly how they want it to sound, because this is their style. It’s so deeply rooted in what would come to fruition roughly a decade later with harsher metal tones and punkier sounds – “The Witch” in particular feels like a damn Motorhead song, and this is 12 years before their debut album.

Honestly, as much as I hated the loudness at the start of the album, in some kind of oddly charming way, it just grew on me – there are points where the screaming becomes too often and a bit obnoxious, but once this album settles in, what feels like ear-bleeding harshness tends to normalize itself and become kinda cool. The sax solo on Have Love Will Travel is a great example of this – it has a sort of scratchy effect because of how much the mic is being distorted, and it’s such a unique effect that I don’t really know if it can be replicated on modern day equipment. In that sense, this album is both desperately of its time and rather ahead of it.

Does that mean it knocks it out of the park on every track? No, not really – there’s definitely a number of these tracks where the effects are still really overdone, and just makes me wish they had toned it down a little bit for a better listening experience. However, I think it gets it right on about 7 of the 12 tracks. There’s not really a bad track here. I think it’s a good album – I can see how people might give it a 1 or 2, but for my tastes, I admire the hell out of this for trying something so bold and loud. It’s probably closer to a 3, but I’m gonna go up to a 4. It’s worth listening to. Probably with loud-ass speakers in a garage somewhere, but it’s definitely worth it.

I’m at a 5.

I’ve been sitting here for the past 15 minutes, and much like I was after Leonard Cohen’s “You Want It Darker,” I’m struggling to find the words to say about this album.

It does evoke art in the classical sense to me, much in the same way that album did, but not in terms of a life long lived that I can’t carry the weight of, nor does it feel like I’m staring at the Mona Lisa in a museum or anything. Instead, this feels more like a family portrait in a living room, and all the stories that can be told about the individual members. This album is rich with variance in its soundscape, its storytelling, and its vocal stylings, and it just evokes the same feeling of a family reunion to me, being regaled by stories of places I’ve never been and people I’ve never met, but making them sound grandiose in their own way, whether it’s from a bright point of happiness or making it sound deeply sad. I can carry those stories with me, much like I can digest this album far easier than Leonard Cohen's.

I’m smart enough to recognize that not everyone will feel this way – I can easily see someone giving this a 2 or a 3 for being “overplayed 2000s indie rock” and being deathly bored of this general style, which is entirely fair. For my tastes, however, this just clicked beautifully for me – I think every track was great, the vocals were fabulous (especially when layered), and even if a few tracks aren’t “lyrically interesting,” there’s still something to the instrumentation that gave them such depth and charm in a way that can really only be captured and felt while listening to it. I deeply, deeply enjoyed this. It’s an incredibly easy 5 for me.