Reviews by john

Maybe real Beckheads can get excited about this one, because I cannot. Does he always sing like this, or is this just really Chris Cornell inspired?

I was so sure tenement funster was done by The Who frontman. But I was wrong.

Maaaan so few bands were put together as well as Queen. Ironically, this might be the closest thing we ever got to an ELO record that isn’t actually ELO. Maybe classic rock was just starved for pianos not done in the honkeytonk style. This album is great, the transition from the theatrical melodrama of In The Lap Of The Gods right into the proto-metal, Deep-Purple-esque Stone Cold Crazy. So wonderful. What a performance. And then Leroy Brown?!? That pretty much did a better job every Panic At The Disco song tried to do.

Perhaps the coolest thing about this album is how it consistently escalates the theatrics and fun of everything with each new song.

Not for me, anyone younger than genX, or anyone else who can count on one hand the number of times they’ve smoked weed. With that in mind, I will give props to these guys for being this musically fluid while surely being cooked out of their brains

Just wanna start off by saying there are pictures of her in which she looks hauntingly like Clairo???
Anyways, I respect this record a lot, her performances are full of life. Sweet Blindness probably the favorite for me. Will I go back to this album often? Probably not, but I still respect it. I wonder why Laura never got the mass legacy appeal someone like Carol King did. These songs have a pretty similar standard quality

Refreshing sound in the greater context of this list. Suspenseful, unique, but not anything mind-blowing imo.
What are we calling this, dramatic lunge music? Chat is this dubstep?

A perfect summation of John Lennon’s persona; equal parts iconic and pretentious. How can you lead the album with the messaging on Imagine but then also have a diss track about your former bandmate on the same album? This record fluctuates from fantastic to grating on the ears far too often

Alright I must admit I was blown away on the first song, his voice is so aged and sinister. I do think that effect overstays it’s welcome. But I appreciate an album from someone who isn’t in the prime years of their life, even if there should be many albums from the mid-2010’s on this list instead

I know I’m getting old when the Steely Dan singles start sounding like harmonic gold to my ears. The lack of bombast can be forgiven and replaced with an appreciation for the unique composition and tight production. Which is all ironic this time around, because this album doesn’t contain any of those yacht rock classics I used to hear on my parents radio in my youth.
All that being said, should this album be on this list? Not if there’s two or more other steely Dan albums on it, which I’m sure is the case.
Begrudging 3/5.
Anyways happy 200 albums :)

Wow! Wow wow wow. I love it when baroque/art pop sticks the landing. I can’t believe this is from 1973. It’s just as unique as Eno’s Another Green World which came a few years later. The title track is one of the best chorus medleys and executions I’ve ever heard. Like, even when the next song started playing, the “you’re a ghost lalalalalalalalala” just kept on going in my head. It’s the end of the day, I listened to this album 3 times today at work, and still, I have that chorus stuck in my head.
Great concept, incredibly catchy from start to finish, succinct enough. Perfect.
This might be a softer 5/5 than some of my true longtime favorites, but I cannot deny this album what it truly deserves

I appreciate this a bit more than most Brit pop of it’s time. It felt like there was some serious thought given to the composition and instrumentation, especially on the title track. I got a sense of weight and movement that id normally hear in a Zedd song 🤌
Hard-earned 3, could come back to it and bump it up to a 4

I just knew that was Nile Rodgers the moment I heard the guitar. These ladies can sing and harmonize like crazy. While I think Chic came out with more bangers, this album follows the same enjoyable template that laid the ground for house music with its grip Iness and repetitive nature

Spunky very fun full of attitude, probably one of the last good unique rock albums that had some wider appeal. I will be going back to this!

I’d say this album aged poorly, but there’s just no way people didn’t see a ton of red flags with this album on release, both lyrically and sonically. When I can’t understand the lyrics, I just hear grating babble. When I can understand the lyrics, most of the time I end up wishing I didn’t. Multiple kings of Leon albums on this list are an affront to the dedicated listeners time

It’s unexplainable U2 to release this album on January 1, 2000, and have the opener be “Beautiful Day.”

I fear that the times are beginning to catch up to U2 on this album. They stuck to their guns, which are running out of ammo. This sound was so clean and cutting-edge on something like Joshua Tree in the late 80’s. But the Radioheads of the world have since taken the blueprint that U2 laid and expanded upon/experimented with it. So is this album bad? No. Is it unique, worth being your first U2 album listen, or a stand-out in the field of its early 2000’s contemporaries? Nope.

One more unrelated note, today is July 3rd, and I know this list has kicked out holiday themed albums in the past. I’m calling a Born In The USA pull for tomorrow.

It’s no Heart Attack and Vine (the GOAT) but it’s at its best still leaning even further into the scuzzy fictional characters that reek of old-timey New Orleans folklore

Never had there been an album cover more accurately depicting the contents and aesthetics of a record.

The song Gz And Hustlas has an unreal sample of a Bernard Wright song. Seriously this is such a find, it sounds like it could be on a Justice record just as easily

The advent of all things punk, the best to ever do it. Everyone else has already said everything else, I’d just like to point out two songs I particularly like on this record.
1. The Card Cheat - it’s practically a Bruce Springsteen song
2. Revolution Rock - is this early ska?

It did not transcend the time it was made in, unfortunately. There’s more unique and identifiable arena rock out there, if you ask me. Photograph on here even kinda just passes by as it’s hit song

Man I love Chic. They laid out the blueprint for house music 20 years before it became popular. Simply make an irresistible musical idea, loop it, and iterate on it throughout the course of 5+ minutes. Shout out to Nile Rodgers who has to be one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. Chics greatest hits go head to head with any greatest hits album.

The Beatles have broken up and now it’s the stones time to shine.

And they stick to their honkeytonk guns. It’s impressive how many British rock bands at this time wanted the American sound.

Please check out Susan Boyles version of Wild Horses from this album. She actually made a better song out of it