Reviews by jaileer5

I'm not the biggest Chili Peppers fan. I think BloodSugarSexMagic was amazing, but after that I think they're just fine. This album, though, has to be considered a classic. Although I've never listened to this album all the way through, it's one of those that you kind of *feel* like you've listened to the whole thing because there were so many major hits released.

I'll give it 4 stars, well deserved.

Like, what? Apple Music says this is punk, so I was prepared to be annoyed by nasal yelling, bad instrumentation and cliched riffs. What I got was…not that. The musicality is shockingly good (maybe only “shockingly” because of my own personal punk rock biases), and overall quite catchy.

Make no mistake - it’s a mess. At points it sounds like a mic check, or a pre-show warmup. But then they morph into something fun, energetic, and downright catchy.

The vocals are fuzzy and mixed back quite low, so there aren’t really any lyrics to speak of. I was so intrigued that I googled them, and Wikipedia has them listed as “noise rock,” which sound about right.

I’m going to give this a 3.5. I’m sure it’s partly influenced by it being better than I anticipated - i.e. not punk - but I also think it’s pretty good, and it’s very different, and I’d totally listen to it again.

It’s a classic, but like most 80s rap, it sounds pretty dated. 3.5 stars because the message and the lyrics are timeless.

Really good album from the “conscious rap” catalog. One of the best of the era along with Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Nas. Minus one star because my wife won’t stop telling me how hot Common is.

I cannot overstate how absolutely fantastic this album is. I haven’t listened in many, many years, but holy shit. Not only does it hold up, it is definitively on the Mount Rushmore of hip hop albums.

The beats, the lyrics, the wordplay, the interplay between the MCs - It’s all flawless. I often complain that we don’t have half stars in this, and for good reason. Even some of the other 5 star albums I’ve rated don’t hold up to this masterpiece.

I feel like this project is a little too heavily skewed to old music. Out of 270 albums, I’ve gotten 78 albums from the 70s (the most of any decade) and 46 from the 50s/60s - nearly half - and only 10 from the 2010s.

Now, I do not, as a rule, like old music from the 70s and before. There are outliers, to be sure, and it's always fun when I discover the occasional BB King, or David Bowie, or Nick Drake. This album is not that. From the first song, it almost sounds like parody. Like a British comedian's version of what American disco sounds like. It's awful, is what I'm saying. It gets better after that...which is to say that while it still sounds like a British comedian's version of American music, it doesn't sound like disco anymore. So...better? It still sucks though. Bad.

It's embarrassingly bad. I can only think of a few albums worse than this. Country music, shit like Gene Clark, Gram Parsons and The Byrds which claims to be rock music but is really country music in disguise, and Throbbing Gristle. That's it. This album is *that* bad. It's irredeemable.

Weird album, kind of disco-y, didn't really love it, but Couldn't Love You More is the outlier stand out track. 2.5 stars.

It's not bad, but I didn't like it as much as I had hoped I would. I think his voice is pretty basic, and the music itself sounds really dated. I'm not sure if he's known for being a lyricist, but the lyrics didn't really connect to me; I'm not sure if it's a generational thing or something else.

I've heard the name for so long but never got around to listening to him. I have to say, again, I don't dislike the album, but I don't at all understand why it or he is so influential.

This was a lot of fun. I wish I had known of this when it came out. It’s very reminiscent of Massive Attack.

Quite good, actually. It sounds pretty dated, but it doesn’t sound like 80s music at all. I can see why it’s so influential. 3.5 stars.

This is dirty, low down,stinking, nasty blues.

Hell yeah.

It sounds like the dude from the strokes woke up and decided to play with GarageBand on his iPad. I don't love it. I will say it's unique-ish, so that's something. I'd give it a 2.5 if I could. I'm going to give it a 3 because even though I don't *like* it, per se, I don't think it's *bad*, it's just not for me.

This is kind of tough for me to rate, because I'm not in the mood. I don't know exactly what it is, but I'm not in the mood for it.

Damn good album. 3.5

I’ve never understood the Beatles hype. They undeniably have a few good songs, but to be treated with such reverence and considered one of the best bands ever? I don’t get it.

This album is kind of like that. Imagine is undeniably a good song. The rest are fine, I guess. Nothing really sets them apart from any of the other 60s pop songs. My album yesterday was The Monkees, and if I didn’t know the names attached to each album, there’s just not a lot between them.

I'll give it 2.5 stars. Imagine is a good song, How Do You Sleep is pretty good as well.

I can't take the Monkees seriously. I'll say it's not nearly as band as I thought it was going to be. That's not to say that it's good, mind you. It's sort of stereotypical sappy 60s pop.

I like Bowie, for the most part, but how many goddamned Bowie albums do we need? There are lots of really great bands that haven’t popped up yet, but this is my 4th or 5th Bowie. I’m adjusting my view of Bowie from “I like Bowie” to “Bowie has some good stuff”

This album was fine. I’ve never heard the full Changes song, just the chorus in movie trailers and such. It’s not that great.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a bit burned out on Bowie, but this does not feel like one of the greats.

I wasn't excited about seeing this album. I remember this album because it was everywhere you turned - tv shows, commercials - EVERYWHERE, and Moby kind of became a bit of an over-exposed joke. I was even less excited when I saw that the album is 2.5 hours long, which, no.

Turns out the album was combined with a B-sides, so I found out where the original album stopped and committed to that - a still long but much more manageable 63 minutes.

And it's terrific. Like, it's very, very, VERY good. The mixes, the vocals, the samples are all perfect and give this album an incredibly upbeat yet still chill vibe that is outstanding. I think it's aged awesomely well, and to be honest, I probably like it more now, 24 years later, with fresh ears.

If you like electronica, especially downtempo, you're gonna like this. I'm not sure it's *quite* the rarified air of a 5 star as I think a song or two could have been trimmed, but it's a 4.5 for sure.

So, I'm not nearly old enough to have listened to a lot of Sinatra. That said, for the last 15 years, as we've set up the xmas tree with my kids, we throw xmas songs on the Alexa as background ambiance. Today I learned that Sinatra has, in my brain, just become the sound of xmas.

Past that...I don't know how to rate this. I'm not a lounge-y type guy, so this doesn't really grab me. On the other hand, the voice is iconic, and no one can deny that it's excellent, but it sounds so, so dated that it's kind of boring.

It's not bad, so it seems harsh and unfair to give it 2 stars. But I don't necessarily "like" it, and I wouldn't listen to it again on purpose, so giving it 3 stars seems like more of a reputation ranking. I'm going to go 2 star, because I think it's too long. I can stand it for a couple songs, but it starts to drone after a while.

I just don’t know what separates good jazz from bad jazz. I can tell you I liked this album more than the last miles Davis album I listened to. This was much more interesting, lots of electronic, computer-ish sounds. Still, at its core, it’s jazz. Is it good? Who know! But I’ll never listen to it on purpose.