Reviews by heavymetal

One of several albums on the list that I don’t need to listen to before confidently rating it a 5/5. That said, I am more than happy to spin Dark Side of the Moon today!

Let’s add this to the list of artists whose importance and influence I acknowledge and respect, but who I just don’t really care to listen to.

The generator heard that I'm not a fan of Morrissey in my review a couple days ago, so it decided I must hear more! In all seriousness, I did actually enjoy this album more than the last one, but I'm still not exactly a fan. He does come off as a major prick a lot of the time.

I’ve been kind of dreading this one as I’ve always seen Kiss as the ultimate gimmick band and thus have always avoided them. Why sell your soul to the devil when you can sell your soul to capitalism instead?

In the end, this album wasn't terrible. The lyrics are almost entirely corny classic rock cliches and their musicianship is generic at best, but they’re competent musicians and the album is fun in a stupid kind of way. Honestly, it really felt like a satire of hard rock and metal, which has really made me want to watch This is Spinal Tap.

These guys really sound like Bob Dylan, but they have enough of their own thing going on that it doesn’t feel like they’re just straight up copying his style. I dug it, but honestly I’m much more likely to just reach for a Dylan record than I am to throw this one on again.

While I was a huge fan of In the Court of the Crimson King when I was a teen, I just couldn't get into any other King Crimson albums. Honestly, I really just liked the song 21st Century Schizoid Man; the rest of their discography just went right over my head.

I was disappointed in my teen self while listening to Larks’ Tongues in Aspic today because this is fantastic! It’s very experimental and avant-garde prog rock that incorporates elements of metal, jazz, and classical music. The opening and closing title tracks are the biggest stand outs, but Easy Money and the Talking Drum are also great tracks! I listened to this album three times today and I’m still itching to dig back in for more.

For all the talk of over-represented artists in this list, I'm surprised I don't see Morrissey mentioned all that much. I just checked and he has 4 solo albums and 3 albums with the Smiths in the book? That puts him up near the top for most entries from one artist. I think he's only beat out for that title by David Bowie, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney who all have 9 albums and George Harrison who has 8 albums. He's tied with Bob Dylan and Neil Young at 7 albums and even has more albums in the list than Nick Cave and Elvis Costello! I'll fully acknowledge that Morrissey is a great lyricist, but I don't think any of his work comes close to holding a candle to the others (except maybe Costello).

If you hadn't guessed, I don't really care for the Smiths and, unsurprisingly, I care for solo Morrissey even less. I didn't outright hate this album, but it didn't exactly hold my attention the whole time and I found myself checking multiple times how much was left.

I’m not sure the Beta Band really deserves a second spot on a list of 1001 albums to hear before you die, but I did enjoy this album more than Hot Shots II. I enjoyed it quite a bit actually. Feels kind of like a mix of Beck, the Flaming Lips, and Animal Collective. I guess if I were to pick one Beta Band album for this list with my very limited experience and knowledge of the band, it’d be this one.

I feel like I’ve mentioned this in a past review, but the only club I actually enjoyed going to when I was in university had indie music nights where they would play music like this. It was always on a Tuesday or something, so it was never all that busy. Just a handful of hipsters barely dancing while drinking PBR. Honestly, it still sounds better than going to an actual club today, but I don’t exactly miss those nights.

She's got a phenomenal voice and I loved learning about her history and her music. Very happy to have heard this album and it definitely deserves to be heard before you die, but it's just not something I can see myself coming back to.

This album is maybe a bit too soft rock for my tastes, but it's also just a pure shot of nostalgia for me. This is what both me and my sister call "camping music" because it's one of the albums that my dad would play when he took us camping. I can still picture the old, black boom box he'd play CDs on (based on a quick google, probably an early 2000s era Sony CD player Boombox). My sister's father-daughter dance at her wedding was a James Taylor song. So yeah, this is not quite my taste, but I have a lot of good memories associated with this album.

Should Elvis Costello have 6 albums on this list? Surely not!

Have I heard an Elvis Costello album on this list I've disliked? Not yet.

This album starts quite strong, but I think it loses something by the end, but maybe that was just my attention slipping.

I had their self-titled album generated a few months ago and was surprised I'd never listened to Traffic before because it's the exact type of music I would have loved growing up. That said, this album is less blues rock and has more of a prog rock and jazz fusion thing going on compared to the last one. The flute playing gives them a bit of a Jethro Tull vibe. Overall, I prefer this sound a little more and I can see myself returning to it for sure.

I've heard the song Bohemian Like You dozens of time, but that's about the full extent of my experience with the Dandy Warhols. I had no idea the they were an American band; I would have put money down on them being from the UK as a lot of this kind of sounds like britpop, but more psychedelic. And I am sure that statement will piss someone off, either a britpop fan or a Dandy Warhols fan, both thinking "this sounds nothing like britpop! How dare you compare this to britpop!?"

I digress, I actually quite enjoyed this album. This is going to be a bit contradictory, but I absolutely love the psychedelic, droning breakdowns and I want them to go on forever, but that being said the whole album does go on a bit too long.

Metallica are one of the few metal bands I actually have some experience with before starting this project. Much to their dismay, I fondly remember waiting hours for my slow dial-up internet to download some of these songs off Limewire in middle school. However, metal never fully clicked for me back then and, when I started this project 548 days ago, I would have probably put metal in my bottom 3 preferred genres. I didn’t like the harsh, screaming vocals, the double bass drumming, and was a bit burnt out on guitar driven music in general. At the time of starting this project, I basically only listened to psychedelic rock, indie rock, and folk. Little did I know, even then metal had already been slowly seeping into my subconscious and this album, specifically the song Master of Puppets being featured so heavily in Stranger Things, was one of the main reasons for me to give metal another proper shot (other influences include King Gizzard’s metal albums, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s descriptions of black metal in the Morning Star series, and this list itself where I’ve enjoyed every metal album more than I expected). I still like all the music I did before, but now I think it’s fairly safe to say I am also a metalhead; I’m even going to my first metal show tonight.

Anyways, Master of Puppets is a great album! An absolute classic! I’m happy that after all these years I’ve finally come all the way around to enjoying this music. I also appreciate that they’re not afraid to play with more dynamics and melody than some of their contemporaries who basically just played a loud and fast as possible.

Another hip hop group I’ve never heard of, but really enjoyed. I tend to be a fan of hip hop from this era that sets out to be different than the all the gangsta rap that was popular at the time. It does come off a bit too preachy at times, but I’m still happy to have heard it.

One of the things I’ve learned through this project is that I have a soft spot for experimental glam rock. I just like weirdos being weird. This is no different. Kind of feels like a glammier version of The Velvet Underground. I dig it.

Right off the bat, my review has been impacted and biased by a truly awful listening experience. Shalimar isn’t available on Apple Music for some reason. Normally, that’s not a major issue as I can usually find the album on Bandcamp, YouTube, or the Internet Archive. That wasn’t the case today. Instead, the only place I could find it was Spotify. Now, I don’t like Spotify to begin with due to how shitty they are to artists and their support of AI, but I figured it won’t hurt to download the app to listen to this album. Boy was I wrong! Turns out in the free Spotify the “Smart” shuffle is permanently enabled, which meant I had to individually select each song, but you’re only allowed to individually select 5 songs before it disables this as well! You literally cannot select what music you want to listen to unless you pay them! What the fuck!? I had to then find the last couple songs individually on YouTube, which apparently I should have done in the first place. Fuck Spotify!

Ok, with all that out of the way, this album was alright. The quality seemed to jump from track to track, but it’s difficult to know if that was the album or my piecemeal listening method. Some of it felt a bit too Westernized and it didn’t feel too important or impactful overall, so it feels like a poor representation of Indian music and really weird selection for the list. I have little desire to listen to this again, but I’d be happy to give it another shot if someone has a way to listen to it properly.

The recording sessions for this album sound like they'd either be a nightmare or an absolute party. 16 musicians chosen specifically because it was thought that they were incompatible with each other and musical direction that was given through body language, dancing, and vague verbal suggestions. It's a wonder they managed to get anything to tape, but it's not surprising that what they did manage to get down is avant-garde, experimental, and weird. Luckily, that's right up my alley, and this is one of my all time favourite albums!

I am completing the 1001 project for albums like this. There is next to no reason for me to have stumbled across a Brazilian psychedelic folk and baroque pop album from the 1970s. I don't speak Portuguese or Spanish, so I have no idea what they're singing about, but their emotions are still conveyed well through their singing. Both the music and production on this are superb aside from a few odd choices here and there (like incredibly quick fade outs or panning entire sections of a track hard right; I literally thought my headphones stopped working for a minute). Overall, this was a very pleasant and enjoyable listen and I can see myself coming back to this album on a warm, lazy summer day.