Reviews by guggmo

That’s an extremely easy 5.

Sometimes, you just get really encapsulated in an album to the point where you’re about as in sync with the music as the band was when they recorded it, and I hit that point of sync incredibly early on and never once lost it through the rest of the album. Just incredibly captivating stuff here, at least for me; I thought the crowd was red hot and never really cooled down throughout the album, on either half. I thought the band was on fire throughout the whole thing. I’ve never heard B.B. King’s voice or guitar, but I knew about the status both of those instruments held, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t live up to the almost mythical things I’ve read.

I think that sums it up, really; it’s just an electric album, and the energy is incredibly easy to feel through the speakers or the headphones or whatever way someone might choose to listen to this. It’s a very fast 35 minutes, and I was hung on every last note, beat, vocal, and lyric throughout the whole thing. Absolutely worth the listen. Very, very easy 5.

I’m at a 4.5 that will just barely get the bump up to a 5.

I’ve never heard a full Elvis album until this point – obviously, I’d be a moron to not know the hits, which is why I’m very glad this is an album with maybe 4 of them at most, and only 2 if you count the fact that Ray Charles and Little Richard did “I Got A Woman” and “Tutti Frutti” way better than Elvis did here. I didn’t know a lot of the tracks on here, and I enjoyed most of them.

I’d be remiss to not acknowledge that yes, this entire album is basically a cover album of black music made more palatable to white people at a point where everything was too racist to give those black composers and musicians an inch of credit (unless you were an undeniable superstar, and even then…). With that said, huge credit to the backing band; a lot of these are really well adapted for a faster pace and a more rock-driven soundscape, and when they get a chance to shine on here, they knock it out of the park. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t say Elvis sang these songs pretty damn well.

Look, it’s 2024; people know Elvis’s voice by now, whether they’ve heard Elvis himself or someone imitate it. It makes this album a little tougher to digest in that sense, because sometimes, it really does feel like he’s overdoing the whole twangy shtick sometimes to the point of parody on a few tracks. However, when he’s on, he is on like a motherfucker – there’s some serious standout vocal performances here, and in those little moments where everything comes together, I can feel the charisma oozing out of his voice and I can see the appeal of the time take hold. There is something to it all that’s just undeniable unless you’re actively looking to hate it.

I just really enjoyed it – it’s cheesy as hell, and it’s extremely prototypical rock & roll by modern standards, but there’s just something appealing about it even with how much of a culture vulture Elvis was. It’s a great album, and even past its place in history as “the first Elvis album,” I think it holds up on a lot of its own merits. Just barely gets the bump to a 5. Certainly no lower than a 4, I think.

I’m right at a 3.

I really don’t have a lot of praise or critique either way for this album. It just exists, really. I’m sure it hit a little better in 1967, but by 2024, I’ve just heard so many other bands do these sort of styles while trying to effectively mix psychedelic rock with other genres, and a lot of those other bands have done this just as well or way better than what’s on this album.

Again, that’s not to say this is bad – I’d say it’s good. It’s just not really feeling like I have to hear this before I die. I liked a lot of the tracks here – some of them have odd mixing choices or emotionless vocals, but as a whole album, I’d say it succeeds more often than it fails. It’s just that the success is sort of equivalent to winning a 100cc race of Mario Kart in that it’s just not as satisfying as it could be.

So… yeah. It’s a 3. Fun listen, little long, a little odd at times, but never bad. It’s just kinda there, though.

I’m at a 5.

This is just unabashedly my type of music, and I will not apologize for it one bit. Very, very Stevie-esque stuff here, but without the same sort of emotional maturity or wisdom… but a lot of the funk. Sometimes, all you need is the funk.

That’s not to say this album is entirely stupid or anything – it’s a little stupid, but in the “go stupid and have fun” type of way, not in the “go drink bleach” type of way. I had a lot of fun with this – it’s sort of a final gasp of the late 70s disco era, but just contemporary enough for the early 80s that it kinda sneaks into that “sure, this sounds like it could go next to a Hall & Oates record” place on the record store shelf.

My biggest compliment that I can give, other than the instrumentals being fantastic, is that his voice is absolutely perfect for this style and sound – the only Bobby Womack I’ve heard before this is Across 110th Street (significantly more of a socially serious 60s-style track), and his two features of Plastic Beach, but his voice especially pops on these more funky instrumentals, especially when he’s doing his best Stevie Wonder impression. It’s truly impossible for me to not make the comparison here, sorry.

I just really, really liked this. I could keep going, but I’ll boil it down to this: it’s funky, he’s got a gritty voice, it’s a great combo, and it makes for a great album. Super fun 5.

I’m at a 10.

I’ve never heard Janis Joplin’s voice until today – her name is pretty damn well known, but finally listening to her… god, what a voice. Extremely unique for its era – Ella Fitzgerald she sure as shit is not. One of the grittiest, harshest, and yet most empowering voices I think I’ve ever heard, and the range of her voice is on full display throughout this album.

Really, the only thing I could complain about is that the band behind her is so fucking good that it’s incredibly easy to zone out and be mesmerized by their guitars and percussion. Combine that with Janis’s voice and you have a deadly weapon of “being so into it you literally forget what the best parts are,” and that’s where I’m at – I would normally wax poetic about individual pieces of an album, but this all blended together to make 37 of the most entertaining minutes I’ve heard yet.

The one thing I can wax poetic about though is the absolutely stunning “Piece of My Heart” – just a bombastic track. Janis is on fire, the band’s on fire, the whole thing is a masterpiece on wax, and a truly flawless song. It’s worthy of a 5 by itself, but this whole album feels like it deserves far higher; just a masterclass to me. Absolutely fantastic stuff.

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

Gotta tell you – not used to an album without proper lyrics. I just don’t know that I could personally give a 5 to an album with vocals, but without lyrics, simply because I’m a sucker for storytelling… but I think a 4 means the album was pretty damn good regardless. And this was pretty damn good.

Sometimes, soundscapes do make an album, and even though this is a 1990 album, it’s very much the dying gasp of the 1980s in full effect – everything here is a sort of pastiche on every 80s trope and style you could think of musically, and it comes together really well. Vocally, I think she’s got a mesmerizing tone to her voice that usually meshes pretty well with the instrumentals, but occasionally, I think the production blends them together too harshly on some tracks where it just kinda negates the positives of both.

That’s not to say there’s any bad tracks here, just some suspect mixing – this is even more of a car album than the last one was, but it’s honestly more of a dreaming album to me (I guess that’s why it’s “dream pop”). I could easily see myself falling asleep to these, or even dreaming up something close to these – good soundscapes with lyrics just out of reach, but the occasionally clear word or two to keep you a little grounded to reality.

I just had fun with it – I can’t wax too much about it because the extent of my criticism is “that sounded really good, but sometimes it didn’t,” and that’s kindergarten-level criticism. It’s a very nice listen; it sounds great, it’s relaxing as hell, and while it does go a little bit too long, I think it doesn’t overstay its welcome long enough to be actively annoying. I’m fine with bumping it up to a 4.

I’m right at a 3.

I don’t really know what to say – it’s definitely early 2010s indie rock. I’m not that willing to give it glowing praise, but it’s not a bad album at all, it’s just not my thing.

To expound on this a little, it’s got great instrumentals across the board here – an incredibly relaxing album to listen to, and I appreciate the sort of minimalism and free-flowing vibe it has going for it. I think the vocals are pretty good, if a little too… I don’t wanna say “unmotivated,” but they don’t feel as emotionally driven as they could be, but with these lyrics, it does run the risk of sounding too cheesy if you overdo it, so I’m probably just being nitpicky towards my tastes.

Honestly, I guess I don’t really have any flaws with this. There’s not a bad song here, and everything’s good. It just never captivated me that much. To put it bluntly, it’s a car album. It’s the type of album you put on during a long drive and you just calm your spirits to it. It’s not the type of album you intently listen to and try to break down the meaning of, because with too much focus, this album kind of crumbles on some of its more relaxing and hypnotic moments in the soundscape. We’ve had a few albums before that qualify as “car albums” to me, but this is probably the most blatant example of one thus far.

Again, though, it’s not bad, it’s just not my thing. It’s certainly no less than a 3, I’ll say that. For my tastes, it is a 3, but this could easily be a 4 or a 5 for someone else. Maybe I’ll listen to it on a drive and see if it gets the bump.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll just barely bump up to a 5 just because I liked this a lot.

It’s very hard to not think about Nirvana (and more specifically Kurt Cobain) when listening to this, but it’s just because they’re so tightly linked. Obviously, Dave Grohl has stepped far beyond the overwhelming lingering impact that Kurt left behind to become a star in his own right, but since this album comprises so much of material Dave wrote while he was still in Nirvana, it’s just hard to avoid making the comparison.

It is, however, very easy to listen to this and realize that Dave Grohl is absolutely not Kurt Cobain – even though a number of songs on here feel like they’re directly linked to Nirvana (X-Static absolutely has to be a Nevermind tribute in its vocal style and instrumentation, come on), there’s a pretty strong number that show Dave’s own musical styles well, whether it’s the acoustically laden cheesy “Big Me.” the heavy metal of “Weenie Beenie,” or the hard punk of “Wattershed,” it’s a really good showcase of just how varied the Foo Fighters would come to be once Dave got an actual full band together.

It’s seriously impressive to me that this is all Dave Grohl – obviously, with the benefit of an entire world-class discography later, we know he had this in him all along, but for 1995, it’s a really ballsy shot to take. “The drummer from Nirvana made an album? After Kurt died? What a cash grab, am I right?” It could’ve totally flopped if people didn’t give the music a genuine chance, and I’m so very glad they did – this is a pretty good album.

It’s got a few flaws – I think the lyrics aren’t as tight as they could be (and as Dave would later prove, would be), and some of the instrumental/production choices are a little off putting and screechy at times, but considering how much of this was written long before it was recorded, and that Dave Grohl did it all by himself, I can look over those as nitpicks. It’s just a damn good listen, and a really strong debut – 4.5 barely bumped up to a 5, but very, very good regardless.

I’m at a 5. I would go much higher if I could.

I hold Michael Jackson in a lot of reverence, and maybe that’s a character flaw, for a multitude of reasons I could write about whenever we get Thriller or Bad or Off The Wall. To segue into my point, I’ve never really given Janet a fair shake for whatever reason – I’m genuinely not sure why. I think Scream is one of the best tracks on HIStory, and I know some of her bigger hits. I’ve just never really had an excuse to tackle this album other than laziness.

Once again, I have proven myself to be a fucking moron – this album is fantastic, from top to almost bottom (sorry to “Someday Is Tonight”, it’s just a very awkward fit on this album to me – still a good track though!). While it's definitely stuck in the late 80s, this is New Jack Swing at some of its earliest and its finest; the entire stretch of Rhythm Nation to Livin' in a World (They Didn't Make) is off the charts in terms of production, instrumentals, lyricism, social messaging, and vocals.

Even as the back half of the album transitions into more of a love-driven record, I don’t think anything changes that much other than the atmosphere and mood – obviously, it climaxes at Someday Is Tonight, but there’s still great production and a big variety of styles to keep the album feeling fresh, even if its subject matter grows narrower and narrower.

Regardless of anything else, what I’m most impressed by is that she wrote this at the ages of 22 and 23. Singers nowadays at that age would dream to have something like Rhythm Nation in their catalog, let alone the seven Top 5 singles she had on this album. That’s about as old as Billie Eilish is now, and she's probably the only other artist I can think of with similar critical acclaim at the same age. Hell, it would be a real miracle if Olivia Rodrigo’s next album after GUTS somehow has the cultural impact and acclaim of this.

Ultimately, I truly think Janet broke out an album that could genuinely rival some of Michael’s best (ok, maybe not Thriller, but possibly Bad, and probably Off The Wall). What’s here is nothing short of fantastic, and I don’t think there’s a single miss. A few tracks go a little long, and some production quirks are a little overused, but those are nitpicky in relation to how much I just deeply enjoyed this. It’s so easily deserving of a 5, and I’m very glad I finally listened to it.

There better be more Janet on this list.

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

I dunno, I just wasn’t super impressed, nor was I ever really disappointed. It’s supposed to be the soundtrack for a fictional movie, and I think it does a good job of showing some pretty strong diversity in its instrumentals, and providing the outline of some vague story.

Really, the reason I can’t bump this up to a 4 is because I simply have no idea what the fuck that story is. This album tries to set up a general plotline on “The Vibes Ain't Nothin' but the Vibes”, before really nailing the urgency of the dialogue in “It’s Business As Usual” but I really can’t follow the plot after that.

Seriously, why is there a Miles Davis tribute after that eerie-ass dialogue full of stalker stuff? It sounds excellent, but where is it in the plot? Why is “Vermillion Kisses” a medieval style storytelling moment of a sucker being born every minute to get killed by this princess? Is “State of Contraction” supposed to be about pregnancy and giving birth? After the stalker shit earlier and the literal dream of killing her husband or her lover or whatever? Are they ever actually in love by the end? Why do I care this much about a movie that will never exist and be a flimsy straight-to-DVD thriller at best?

It is a good album though; I did like it, and I think it’s relatively inventive while nailing down the noir movie soundtrack it’s going for. A little long on a few tracks, and certainly not as atmospheric as an actual movie soundtrack would be, but pretty solid stuff here. Only a 3 for the utterly confusing “plot”, though.

I’m honestly at a 3.

Look, it’s very clear to me that this is not “music” in the traditional sense at all, and to categorize this as industrial music ala Nine Inch Nails or Slipknot or the rest is the equivalent of calling the first Gramophone recordings a podcast and then being offended when you can’t understand anything.

It’s a narrative album, and it just happens to be a very loud and very bold one, with really ballsy choices for 1981 and the understanding of “music” as we both knew it then and as we know it today. Does that mean it’s one of the 1001 albums you should listen to before you die? No, not by a long shot. Does that mean I’m mad I listened to it? No, not really. I’m honestly impressed by what’s here – yes, the first few tracks are loud as hell, and the choice to drill directly in my face while yelling at me is about as dejected as I’ve ever felt in this album experience… but then I just sort of got over it and it started to click.

Seriously – I did end up liking this. It’s not an album you add to a playlist, not by a fucking long shot, but it is sort of a journey in sound and a genuine attempt at a story, I think. I have no idea what the story is because of my stubbornness to look it up and the language barrier, but I think it’s genuinely effectively communicated through the soundscape alone. I knew the English titles of these tracks because they’re listed on Wikipedia, so that gave me some level of context to work with, but besides that, this was all up to the soundscape to tell those stories, and I really think it worked.

It’s not that good of an album by any means, but for my money’s worth, it’s a genuinely enjoyable listen, if a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but I think it’s supposed to be. I don’t think it’s worthy of being the worst album by ranking on the site – it’s disingenuous and an overreaction from people who gave up after the first few tracks. For me, it’s enjoyable enough to earn a 3. This is probably a miracle, and a little bit of a pity bump up from a 2.5, but I don’t care – I did like it.

It’s a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5.

It’s just funky as hell – the only reason I’m at a 4.5 instead of a flat 5 is because there’s a few tracks that are really fucking repetitive to the point of feeling stretched out to pad time, and I really don’t like the lyrics on Handcuffs. Besides that though, what a nice funky album.

The first album we got as a group was One Nation Under A Groove, which came out after this – that album is funky as hell, but it relies a little more on a psychedelic sort of soundscape meant to hypnotize and zone out the brain a bit more than this does. What’s on this album has a lot more of a traditional feel, far more echoed in what was to come from say, Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall or Stevie Wonder’s Songs in The Key Of Life, and in that sense, I kinda like this album just a little more than One Nation Under A Groove, but they’re both great albums. This one is just more attuned to the soundscapes and styles that I love, and thus, it kept my attention for longer.

I also didn’t realize just how damn much Dre took from this album for The Chronic (& Doggystyle, which I kinda hope is on the list), which was a nice happy surprise to my ears. I could keep going, but I just think this is funky as hell – I should’ve given One Nation Under A Groove a 5, but I’ll remedy that by giving this one a 5; it’s pretty deserved and pretty damn good. Certainly no less than a 4.

It’s a 3.

I don’t know what to say, really – that sure was an album. Decent vocals, if a bit shaky at times. Pretty fun instrumentals, if a little repetitive in energy and style over the course of the album. Some strange lyricism, but sometimes it’s pretty good. I’ve really got nothing super special to say about it, but I don’t have any negatives either. That’s 37 minutes of solid rock music that never really hits *that* high of a high, but it’s a solid listen. A few tracks get a little boring at points, but the tempo switches do a good job of keeping things from getting too stale.

It’s a rock album from 1986 that sometimes sounds like it’s from 1990 at certain points. It has some good tracks, some mediocre tracks, but not really any bad tracks. It… sure exists. Not sure why it had to be on the list, but I’m not complaining that much. It’s the extreme definition of a 3.

I’m at a 2.5 that will just barely get bumped up to a 3 out of pure bias.

I was really expecting a bit more slop out of this album, but listening to it in full, it’s really not that bad, it’s just painfully bland more often than it is truly entertaining. When this album hits though, I genuinely think it hits – I am kind of a sucker for some of these early 2000s nu-metal production tricks and soundscapes, and nobody was doing it like Limp Bizkit was, probably, for better or for worse. There are genuinely great instrumentals here, and Fred Durst's voice drags them down more often than not.

I think Fred Durst’s goofy-ass voice is a gift from God – it is just silly enough to never once be taken seriously, it is just bad enough to hate whenever he's trying to be serious, and it is just good enough that when he’s in full-blown yell mode with guitars blaring behind him, there is an undeniable energy that fills up whatever room it’s heard in. Granted, sometimes that energy is incredible pain and suffering, but when the tracks are good, which happens maybe a grand total of 5 times, (and yes, this genuinely includes the cheesiest fucking song ever, “Rollin’”) it’s a genuinely good energy.

Like I said though, this is usually more painfully bland than it is entertaining, and I think the album takes a steep drop after Track 10 in terms of actually holding my attention. It retreads a lot of the same instrumental production tricks, and they just don’t work that deep into the album – they even fucking reuse Rollin’, which is like, a cardinal sin, probably. You really shouldn’t have the remix be part of the main tracklist. Don’t even get me started on the lyrics.

All of that said, I truly don’t think this is THAT bad – it’s certainly not so bad as to drop it to a 1, but it is relatively bad. I can see the appeal though; sometimes, people just want to fucking rock out without giving a shit about the actual lyrics or vocals and just go with the vibes. This could be someone else's 4 or even somehow a 5 (though if anyone thinks it's a 5, they almost certainly need to get a detox).

For me, it’s truly no higher than a 3, and I’m being extremely generous to give it the bump if only because I think Limp Bizkit is a perfect encapsulation of just how over the top and silly the early 2000s were. It’s a way better Beastie Boys album than Devil Without A Cause was, that’s for sure. Hence, the 2.5 that barely gets bumped up to a 3.

Please don’t give us any more Limp Bizkit albums.

It’s a 10. I knew it was gonna be a 10 before I listened to it again, but I just had to be completely sure.

Too many people have written too many words about this album for me to add anything truly meaningful to the praise it gets – hell, I even wrote a paper about “How Much a Dollar Cost” once, so I’m worn out on writing things about this album already. I can’t wait to read all of the thinkpieces when this album hits its 10th anniversary next year to reflect on just how special of a piece of art this is – people with bigger vocabularies and more introspection than I will be able to write some beautiful one-liners about its impact and its legacy in ways that I’ll only be able to appreciate and agree with.

For my money’s worth, I truly have nothing but praise for it, and it’s praise that everyone else will regurgitate – brilliant lyricism, incredible flow, fantastic features, genre-bending instrumentals, great vocal work, and ultimately, just one of the more clear and concise visions ever laid out for a single album with damn near flawless execution, especially via the framing of the album provided by the poem and the payoff with the 2pac “interview” at the end.

This is the easiest 10 I could possibly give. I’m sure there are better rap albums out there, I’m sure there are albums with bigger impacts out there, and I’m willing to admit that I know it so well inside and outside from the amount of times I’ve listened to it that I can’t really look at it with a deeply critical eye… but I just don’t care. I truly think it’s the best album of the 21st century, regardless of genre, a top 10 album of all time, and it cemented Kendrick Lamar’s legacy by just his third studio album. Everything since this has been a bonus, and they’ve been incredible bonuses in their own right. I hope this guy drops again soon.

Drake could fucking never.

I just don’t even want to write a review for this one. I’m so disappointed, man. Realistically, it’s actually a 1.5 bumped up to a 2, but because the white lead singer dropped the N word twice (hard R both times), I simply have to drop this down to a 1.

If you go to the Wikipedia page for this album, you’ll get words like “groundbreaking,” calling it innovative, and saying that several musicians have cited the album as an influence. To be completely fair to this album, the only reason why this was at a 1.5 bumped up to a 2 is because I do think this instrumental style works – it’s very early garage rock, but with the sort of blues style flair that really got refined and perfected in the early 2000s indie scene. This is a genuinely innovative album in that sense, and I really liked a lot of the instrumentals here. If this album were just the instrumentals, I’d probably be at a 3, bare minimum.

They are all wasted on some of the worst lyricism and vocals I’ve ever fucking heard in my life. I don’t even want to expand on that, but because I’m already giving this a 1, I may as well tear into them a little bit – they’re the fucking musical equivalent of Desert Bus. He can’t fucking shut up. Every time you play Desert Bus, you gotta nudge the bus a little bit to the right in order to keep it from going off the road, and that’s what his vocals are. Once you notice the “guitar riffs for 5 seconds, random ass lyric, guitar riffs for 5 seconds” pattern that permeates *so goddamn much of this album*, it is truly impossible to ignore. Those random ass lyrics are pushing the bus to the right. They’re annoying to listen to, and I genuinely believe they add almost nothing of substance to this album.

The real stress test of whether or not you’ll like this album is entirely dependent on Fire Spirit, which I think is a genuinely encapsulating track of the entire experience. It’s got a fantastic fucking instrumental, and it’s got what I consider to be the worst storytelling and vocal performance of the entire album. It’s got a story, sure, but it’s like listening to the worst D&D player at your table explain his quest in the most unimaginative way ever.

If you can handle that track without really wincing at either the vocals or the storytelling, there’s a chance you’ll genuinely like the album – I’m being harsh on it, but it’s not specifically bad, it’s just disappointingly mediocre compared to the expectations that were put on it – this thing got good reviews in 1981 and even got a 9.1/10 from Pitchfork in 2021, which is insane to me, because I did not fucking like this enough to even sniff a 3 on account of the vocals and lyrics alone.

I really do think that there’s a great soundscape here, and it did pave the way for a lot of 2000s rock standards that I do like, but they have easily eclipsed what this album did. It just didn’t work for me – I think it drags on like hell, I think it’s draining to listen to once you notice the obvious structural patterns throughout the tracks, and I just don’t think the vocals or lyrics stack up to any kind of modern standard. It’s a 1.5, that gets bumped to a 2, that goes back down to a 1 for the slurs. It’s a damn 4/10 in my heart, though.

Hm. I’m at a 3.5 that I think I’ll just barely bump down to a 3, even though I did like this.

Really, the only reason I can’t bump it up to a 4 is because I just don’t think it’s a particularly cohesive album experience. It’s a really strong playlist album, and what’s here brought back those mythical “summer of 2016” vibes that people are still desperately trying to catch, and in that sense, I really liked it. However, as a cohesive album with a vision from start to finish, I think it sort of loses itself by the 8th track and just goes into “here’s the ones with the banger beats” mode, and while it does work extremely well, it gets kinda grating after a bit.

It’s a good album, don’t get me wrong – there are great beats here, some good lyricism (though very slang-heavy for my Kansas brain), and some pretty strong flow (if a bit laggy or too disconnected from the beat at times). There’s a dud or two early on in the album, but after that, it goes into a really strong flow state, and there’s some good highlights here. It’s just not glued together enough as a 12-track album for me to be able to bump it up to a 4, but I do think it’s enjoyable as hell. A really strong 3.

I had to deeply resist writing a Big Shaq joke, so here’s the obligatory mention. Sue me.

I’m at a 3.

For a top 100 album of 1978, I’d say that was alright. Hold on, this is from 1994? Oh, jeez.

Yeah, this album really wears its target audience on its sleeve – it’s a Reagan administration album made right around the point of the Clinton administration, which is to say, for 1994, this just feels outdated and out of touch with its contemporary sounds, especially for a sort of pseudo-rock album. It’s not quite MTV Unplugged, but it sure as hell ain’t Nirvana either.

When trying to really figure out what this sounded like to me, I ended up writing down “a mismatched hybrid between Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, while capturing neither of what makes either of them so good, and just sort of getting the leftovers,” which… yeah, I’d call that accurate.

I’m sure Elvis Costello has better albums than this, but this just wasn’t super captivating to me – while there’s not a bad track here, and everything’s an enjoyable listen, you can only really coast on “that was alright” for so long. There’s not too many standouts; I’d say of the 15 tracks here, I only really liked about 6 of them, so that’s batting just under average.

It’s not certainly not a bad album, and I’d even recommend it. It’s simply not working for me, if only because it doesn’t feel like an album from 1994 should, and there’s just better albums that do this style and sound that have come out both long before and long after it. However, it could easily work for someone else; a 4 or a 5 on this album wouldn’t feel that unjustified to me. The framework of a truly great album is here, it’s just missing something for my tastes. Hence, the 3.

I’m at a 5.

This is my first Smashing Pumpkins album, and while I always knew there was acclaim, for some reason, I just never really went for it – it could genuinely all be in the name. Either way, I’m a fucking moron; this is a great fucking album. Lots of diversity within the soundscape, great lyricism (if a bit broad at times), and Billy Corgan’s vocals are strong as hell, almost chameleon-esque with how he can shift from soft and introspective to a classic rockstar voice on a dime.

I’m just really impressed with how honest this album seems to feel – Nirvana knew how to commercialize their style, and they did it remarkably successfully, even if it was kind of at Kurt Cobain’s detriment. Obviously, Nevermind is a fantastic album, but there’s something that feels just a little too clean about it after listening to this. I can’t explain how or why this feels more raw and honest, but it just does. Sometimes, that works against the album, and I think that honesty sort of collapses in on itself during “Silverfuck”.

Silverfuck’s a great track, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know that it works as one long 9 minute piece; it feels like an attempt to shove the soundscape of a mini rock opera into what would otherwise be a pretty normal song if you just look at the lyrics. I think the choice of the soundscape works well, and it’s a pretty quick 9 minutes, but in the back of my mind, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it would work better as 3 separate 3-minute tracks with their own titles to really give the song just a bit more structure and definition. It’s rather honest in what it tries to do, but I think it falls just a little short on its execution, especially with how self-serving the instrumental parts can feel the longer they go. Still a hell of a climax to the album, though, and really enjoyable.

That track is basically the only nitpick I have, but it’s such a minor blip – this album, for me, is like a 9.75/10 at the bare minimum if we’re going by 10. It’s just a remarkably strong rock album, and I can finally see the hype. I know there’s at least one other Smashing Pumpkins album on the list, so that should be exciting when it rolls around. Either way, for my first experience, this was nothing short of spectacular. Very, very easy 5.

I’m at a 5.

This is my first full George Michael album – obviously, I know the bigger hits and some of his Wham! stuff, but I knew this was the one that had Freedom! ‘90 on it, which is an all-timer track as far I’m concerned, so I was sort of expecting an album with that kind of tone.

Instead, I got something that feels deeply introspective and much more serious / matured than most of his 80s work, and I’m not complaining about it – I love the direction this album takes, and while some might categorize it as moody or whiny, I think it’s a strong separation from his more poppy stuff to show his bigger variety as an artist. Obviously, people are still gonna play Careless Whisper or Last Christmas (or even Freedom! ‘90) more than they will most of the tracks on this album, but I think what’s here is probably deeply underrated in his catalog.

I really don’t think there’s a bad track here – the only odd one out is Soul Free, which is a great fucking track that just feels like it’s on the wrong album, and doesn’t really mesh with the other tracks as cohesively. Regardless, I really loved this album; it’s sort of a shame that his career slowed down heavily after this, but it’s better that he slowed down to make music he was truly engaged with instead of trying to follow a sort of tour/release cycle that Sony was trying to box so many other artists into during the early 90s. This is an easy 5 for me to give, and it’s beyond deserving to be on the list.

I gotta hear this MTV Unplugged half.