Reviews by heavymetal

This really sounds like a heavier, noisier R.E.M. or a sanitized version of Husker Du. After a second listen, I’m hearing a lot of Nirvana influence too. Overall, it kind of comes together as a fairly generic 90s alt-rock sound, which isn’t at all bad, but it’s not exactly something I generally love listening to. Honestly, I’d probably just prefer to listen to Husker Du.

This album is a smooth, soulful, funky, groovy good time with lyrics that paint a vivid picture of what it was like being black in the 1970s. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, but it's probably not something I'll return to frequently. I don't know, there's nothing in particular I disliked about it, but I guess I'm just not really in the mood for this kind of music right now.

Immediate groans when this was generated, but after the first couple of tracks I was thinking, "huh, this actually isn't that bad". Honestly, I always thought she was more of a bubblegum pop star along with Britney Spears, but it seems this album was specifically trying to steer her career away from those allegations. To be fair, when this came out, I avoided pop music like the plague, so it's not surprising that I had no idea about it. That said, I'm only like 6 tracks in and I am starting to lose interest.

Overall, Christina Aguilera is a lot better than I expected. She's got a solid voice and there are some R&B and rock elements to this album that I did enjoy. However, this album is all over the place and some of the jumps from pop to R&B to rock can be a bit jarring (I thought Beautiful to Make Over was jarring, but Dirrty to Stripped Pt2 to The Voice Within is so much worse). On top of that, this album is way too long and the longer it goes on, the more I find myself wishing it would end. If this was edited down to a more cohesive package, I’d give this a better rating.

I also cannot stand the tracks Beautiful or Dirrty.

I wasn't sold on my first listen of Reign In Blood and I ended up giving it a 2/5 due to it being a lot heavier (more guitar chugging, more double bass drumming, less melody) and darker (themes of Satan, murder, dismemberment, and Josef Mengele) than the other metal albums I've come to enjoy from the list.

Well, I've been revisiting Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Metallica a lot lately and figured I should give this one another go. Not sure if I'm just in a better mood for it, but I enjoyed it enough to come and edit my previous review!

I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting. The whole album has a corny late 80s / early 90s vibe that is incredibly dated, and yet, I kind of find it endearing; like, this kind of sounds like a John Hughes movie or something. Also, Buffalo Stance is legitimately a great song, but the quality drops off a bit after and the album is definitely dragging on by the end.

This is an interesting coincidence as a couple days ago in my review of the Who’s Live at Leeds review I mentioned seeing them in 2006. Well, who opened for them at that concert? The Pretenders! At the time I had no idea who the Pretenders were; I didn’t even catch their name during the show, so it wasn’t until years later that I figured out who I had seen that day. I remember they put on a good show, but not much else from that time.

Listening to their debut album now and I really quite enjoy it. It's a solid pop-punk album. There's maybe a bit too much 80s pop flair for my tastes on a couple of the tracks, but not enough to turn me off the album.

When King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard started releasing metal albums I was a bit disappointed because I just wasn’t that into it and I wanted more microtonal bananas. Over time though, I’ve grown to love those albums just as much, if not more, than some of their other work. Seeing them play some of those tracks live absolutely helped.

Megadeth feels like a direct inspiration to Infest the Rats Nest all the way down to the themes of environmental awareness and nuclear Armageddon. It’s a bit corny, but it rocks and it’s fun! Heavy guitar riffs, solid drumming, decent singing.

I’m still not exactly a metal head, but I’m coming around to it for sure!

Before Dinosaur Jr, you got to choose between a Stratocaster, a Telecaster, or a cheap classical guitar when you wanted to learn guitar. After Dinosaur Jr, the Jazzmaster became one of the most popular choices for a first guitar. Maybe you’d even luck out and your parents could find you a J Mascis signature Squire Jazzmaster. Although, I doubt it because those things get flipped for way too much now.

Anyways, this album is just full of fuzzed out, jangly, noisy, early indie rock. Solid album through and through.

Seems that the only editions of this album available on streaming are incredibly long and include many, many extra tracks compared to the original 1970 track listing that was only 6 songs in 38 minutes.

I decided to start by editing down the 1995 edition (1 hour 23 minutes) to only the original 6 songs and it was absolutely amazing! I genuinely forgot how good the Who were and this album has me excited to dive into their work for the first time in at least a decade! I might give one of the longer editions of Live at Leeds a spin later, but I'm going to have to go re-learn My Generation on the bass first. We used to jam that song all the time and I forgot how fun it was to play!

I actually saw Roger and Pete perform as the Who in 2006 when they were touring for the Endless Wire. It was one of the first concerts I'd ever been to and I wasn't even that big a fan of the Who at the time, but it was probably one of the best shows I've ever attended. They somehow had so much energy and drive for a band that peaked decades earlier. I would have loved to see their original lineup with Entwistle and Keith Moon.

I'm not sure if Ice Cube hates institutionalized racism or women more. I was actually enjoying this album despite it having a lot of the gangsta rap cliches that I can't stand (e.g. excessive violence, over use of the n-word, calling all women bitches, etc.), but Don't Trust 'Em pushed it too far for me. There are a couple good tracks and the content of the album addressing racism is sadly still very relevant, but overall, this album isn't for me.

I knew Hendrix was coming along from the generator eventually and I’ve honestly been a bit wary of this day. Not that I dislike Hendrix; quite the opposite actually. In high school my three favourite artists were Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix. They were pretty much all I listened to other than a few other classic rock staples, but since then I’ve become completely burnt out on classic rock and guitar heavy music in particular. Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd have returned to my listening rotation, but I haven’t listened to Jimi Hendrix in roughly 20 years now, so I was worried it wouldn’t hold up.

There’s definitely a ton of nostalgia listening to this album again, and fortunately, it mostly holds up in my books. I don’t think I’m ready to bring it back into my regular listening rotation, but it’s still a great album and I enjoyed listening to it again. I don’t think this is my favourite Hendrix album, but some of my favourite Hendrix tracks are on her like Little Wing, If 6 was 9, and Spanish Castle Magic.

I appreciate that this is a pivotal piece of early electronic music that helped revolutionize the use of synthesizers in popular music and I can appreciate the ambient atmosphere of this album, but if I'm being honest, it just feels a bit dated and boring. It's not bad, it's just not something I can see myself returning to in the future.

If this list was reduced to a single album for each genre, Exodus would be the album that remains for reggae. It perfectly typifies reggae music and is an all around great album.

Tears for Fears was a guilty pleasure for me back when I only listened to classic rock and despised anything from the 80s. Even back then I couldn’t deny that songs like Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World were great songs.

Now I can confidently say this is just an all around solid album that I need to listen to more often!

The only thing available on streaming is the “Director’s Cut”. I started listening to that, but saw the tracklist was completely different compared to the original, so I wondered how different the original album sounded. I found the full album on YouTube (https://youtu.be/kjqb9_OEySY?si=2pZpIZ561hcnIUeX) and they’re entirely different.

Anyways, this isn’t the worst electronica album I’ve heard on this list. It is at least a bit dynamic and varied. There’s even a slow slide guitar break in the middle of the album. That said, it’s still pretty close to the worst. The pulsing bass on several of the tracks literally evokes the same sensation behind my eyes as a migraine. I can’t imagine ever wanting to hear this music outside of a rave and I never want to attend another rave.

The Next Day feels like one of the more accessible Bowie albums. On most of his albums he's trying to explore new territory: krautrock on Low and Heros, soul on Young Americans, industrial on Earthling, pop on Let's Dance, etc. The Next Day doesn't really feel like it has the same direction; it's not Bowie trying to shapeshift into something else. It just feels like Bowie wanted to make an album for fun after his time away from music and I can't fault him for that. Knowing Bowie, he probably had a ton of material collected and written from his time out of the spotlight. All that said, there are some hints at what's to come on tracks like If You Can See Me, which honestly wouldn't feel too out of place on Blackstar.

The Next Day isn't my favourite Bowie album, but overall I do enjoy it and it's impressive how he was still firing on all cylinders so late into his career.

Other than enjoying some of the aggressive guitar tones at the start and finding some of the samples amusing, this album does nothing for me. It's kind of an interesting combination of indie, pop punk, and britpop, but overall the singing and composition is kind of just a bland flavour that's not to my taste.

What the hell have I been doing with my life? Why haven't I taken a serious deep dive into the Stooges music? I've known how influential and beloved they are by many other artists that I love. I've listened to and absolutely adore Iggy Pop's later work like the Idiot and Lust for Life, but for some reason I've never bothered to go back further than that.

I genuinely can't believe this album came out in 1969. It's just so much more noisy, aggressive, and savage than anything I expect coming out of the 60s.

I also gave Fun House a listen for good measure and absolutely loved it as well. They're both 5/5s!

My introduction to Gil Scott-Heron was through the song Me and the Devil off his more recent album I'm New Here. I had that album in my rotation for a long time, but it's been a while since I've given it a listen.

I absolutely love the jazzy electric piano riffing with Gil Scott-Heron's heavy soulful singing on Winter In America. The Bottle is a killer track; the flute soloing is amazing. The spoken word blues/jazz poetry of H2O Gate Blues is also phenomenal and is sadly incredibly relevant even with its outdated references.

Also, I don't want to diminish Winter In America, but I do have to say that I'm surprised Pieces of a Man isn't in the list as the track the Revolution Will Not Be Televised is absolutely amazing and rather important historically as it’s considered one of the predecessors to modern hip-hop.

I think Winter In America is going to lead to a bit of a deep dive into Gil Scott-Heron's work again today.

I am genuinely surprised that their label could fumble this album so bad that it wasn't well received when it was released. It sounds like a mix of the Beach Boys and the Beatles and there's not a bad track on here. It's just a solid psychedelic baroque pop album from front to back!