Reviews by jboles

Amazing accomplishment for its time, but it's not really my cup of tea. Much of it sounds like the song or two on a Led Zeppelin album I would skip 9 times out of 10.

Incredibly popular album with staying power. It would help if the vocals / lyrics weren’t mostly intolerable. I liked about half the songs at the time, can stand to listen to maybe 2 of the tracks 27 years later.

All-time fave

Makes you really appreciate why so many loved (and cribbed) from him

Highlight: Black Mountain Side and great musicianship throughout. This had to be such a breath of fresh air at the time.

Enjoyable listen. Feels very of its time -- I listened to the "freak folk" bands at the time, but hadn't listened to this one in full. Not something I'd probably listen to in full. but a few songs definitely stand up.

Gimme Shelter - still a good song
Love in Vain - don't care about white boy blues
Country Honk - more appropriation / cosplaying
You Got the Silver - first non-classic song that captured my attention -- it sounds like they were doing more than aping another style.

General: Mostly appropriation / cosplaying at blues / country / Americana. There are classics here, of course. But mostly this feels stale and schlocky. Where I continually go back to the Beatles, I can't imagine ever wanting to listen to most of these songs again.

Exceptional singing, but the songwriting and instrumentation haven't quite caught up.

Good first: many of the instrumental parts are very good. “Cowboy Like Me” was a highlight for me. The last four tracks were the most successful by a longshot. If the last four songs were released as an EP, this would have probably been a four star EP.

Other than CLM and a couple of others, the lyrics and vocals all seem mismatched to the songs and are very pedestrian. The more the songs lean into the pop end of things (“long story short”), the less this feels like a cheap imitation of Phoebe Bridgers or other indie-ish folk/country. The track featuring The National was particularly bad, with Matt Beringer singing badly-metered, trite lyrics, it really underlines how lacking the vocal parts are throughout. Beringer can deliver vocal lines with the best of them, but this falls flat. Justin Vernon does a good job on his songs and I get the impression that he has a big hand in the composition of the last couple of songs — they sounded much fuller and more natural.

A real "Meh" of an album. At the time, this was the album that made me check out on The Black Keys. And I checked out about two songs into this listen. A once-unique sound that they drove into the ground

Like 70s Dylan with trite lyrics. So still quite good. 3.5/5

All time favorite. Inspired me to plunk around on the piano in high school. FA doesn’t miss.

Wonderful bridge between punk, alternative, indie and post-punk. Had heard some of it before, but not listened to the album in one sitting before this.

Filler. Appropriately named band

Microphone check one two what is this?
The five foot assassin with the roughneck business
I float like gravity,
Never had a cavity

Real classics on this one. Young Busta to close it out. Some of my all-time favorites in "Excursions", "Buggin' Out" and "Scenario".

Some of the middle tracks feel dated, but overall a great one.

A couple of good songs (Stan Real Slim Shady) and better production than Slim Shady LP (eg Bitch Please 2). But mostly, this suffers from the same lack of direction that the Slim Shady LP had. It only has a couple of things to say. Stan is a standout song with something unique to say and done in an interesting way. The rest of it is basically "you can't shut me up!"

I’ve owned this one for a long time. Captures lightning in a bottle: both the crowd and the performers.

Great album with shades of all the influences of mid 70s NYC music: John Cale / VU, Bowie, and John Lennon — and shades of nascent Talking Heads. A few of the experiments didn’t land, but many were excellent. 4.5/5

3/5 for the most iconic bass line of all time.

Really feels dated. Some fun verses. Interesting combo at points of live instrumentals + beats. That said, it’s pretty hokey and repetitive.