Reviews by john

Yeah it’s Bad alright.

Ok so it’s Off The Wall > Thriller > this album. And I think each album has more hype and cultural buzz around it, while each album also has less substance in it (yes Off The Wall has more substance than Thriller).
To further go on about comparisons, Purple Rain just kinda does everything on here but better?
As far as this album goes on its own…I wish for so much more edge. So much more soul. It seems like Michael is being pulled between the desire to be his own unique voice and the need for this album to have a universal commercial appeal. Smooth Criminal is a beautiful Thriller holdover that CLEARS everything else on this album. What a fun song. I don’t get much enjoyment out of the rest of this album

A whole week+ with no albums from before 1980 let’s go.
This was alright. If you’re into ska I could see this going crazy. Some nice moments, some that blended all together. Another song about fearing the bomb in 1980’s, just a few days after another 80’s album with a fear of the bomb song on it

OOOooooh baby OOOH! On a hot streak right now of like four albums in a row from the mid-80’s or later. A lot of people with my listening habits give this one an instant 5 and point out the similarities to Daft Punk’s Discovery (which again, is better than this album and not on this list somehow).
I think this album’s shining moments are the dreamy, blissful waves of samples that come together to create a sound collage. Extra points to this record for creating one of my favorite feelings you can get from music: sample-based ecstasy. Very much worth listening to their most recent album, We Will Always Love You. It tightens up the song structure, and has a handful of INCREDIBLE additive guest features on it. & specifically an 11/10 song built entirely around a Carpenters sample.

This record is a little shy of a 5 for me, with the only detractor being sometimes it gets a little too lost in a fugue state with the sampling starting to all blend together a little toooo much. Everything else though? Beautiful.

For what this is, it’s solid. There’s another ‘fear of the bomb’ 80’s song in here and it made me notice an interesting split in music and how it represents different perspectives on life. I don’t think too many black artists were making songs about fearing the bomb during the Cold War, and instead were making songs about the struggles of day to day life. Interesting to see how that split has evolved over the years

This is a sprawling masterpiece that’s surprisingly mostly about genuine affection. There’s a ton of clear-eyed love ballads and entertaining skits especially on the Love Below. The DNA for Kendrick’s to Pimp a Butterfly can be found all over this record. Much like Kendrick, Andre3000 has more unique thoughts on this album than I feel like Ive had in my whole life. And this is SO ahead of its time. The intro alone could have been released today, it’s so modern. Most of the first album is this way!
Lastly, while I know this is a double album made by two different people with two different visions, I think it flows together very well. Nearly a 5

Great 100th album to have for this list. Shout out to Emma, this is one of her favorite Gorillaz records and we’ve gone back and forth on this vs. Plastic Beach for a while.
I think the best thing about this album is how it sets a good listening atmosphere. Some of the lyrics aren’t immediately intelligible, there’s a lot of lofi sounds, classic drumloop samples (like to a DJ Shadow extent), and there’s a bit of a punk/postpunk influence (literally the song Punk on here).
This isn’t nearly as clean or tight as almost every mainline Gorillaz album after it, but that doesn’t detract from it! It’s a good easy listen with some HITS sprinkled in

Ok so I was like “who tf is this guy I should know him” and it turns out yeah I do but not for this project. He has some really good stuff later on as the Thin White Duke (Four To The Floor Remix) and then as Jacques Lu Cont (remixed tons of pop songs). And he produced Madonna’s best album imo. So this guy has chops, no doubt about it.

BUT,

I consider myself someone who has his ear to the ground for all things dance music from the mid-90’s onward, and I cannot in good faith figure out why this record is on here, and Daft Punks Discovery is not (and a whole list of other edm records tbh). Discovery is one of the most influential, perfect dance records, and this one from just a few years earlier…is kinda not even noteable? This album has not held its own in the past two decades, nobody talks about this album. In fact, this album is a spineless nothing-burger in the context of this list and in the context of its respective genre. This album can’t make up its mind if it wants to be something for your headphones or something for the dance floor. It uses a lot of dated sounds even for its time of release. The grooves and loops are sometimes grading on the ears. What are we doing here? This album feels like such a disconnected music nerd’s token pick of what they think good electronic music maybe could sound like.

Do yourself a favor - instead of listening to this album, listen to Chicane’s “Far From The Maddening Crowds”.
It came out at a similar time and actually commits to its melodies and ideas. It scratches the same itch that this album SHOULD be scratching. It is actually danceable AND more sonically layered.
I’m so mad this took up a spot on the list.

So good. A beautiful blend of country, lounge, ballads, & singer-songwriter stuff. She’s so good at expressing love & longing. Engaging and personal, lots of textured instrumentals, unique compositions. One minute it sounds like I’m in the hills of rural Italy, the next it sounds like I’m in the dustbowls of Nebraska, the next it sounds like a pacific island beach. Close to a 5, will get many relistens outta me. Enough listens over time could turn this into a real 5, actually.

Highlights are: Miss Chatelaine, Wash Me Clean, and DEFINITELY Season of Hollow Soul

I knew we were in for a long one when they busted out the keys and started noodling on the first song. And much like this album, I have nothing else to say

We’ve said goodbye to the beatles of old, say hello to the influence of fame and drugs kids! Paul is starting to test out all sorts of genres, John is starting to get a little pretentious, George is finding his sense of self in India, Ringo is letting the psychedelics manifest in yet another whimsical song about being underwater.

After having not listened for a while, I notice how Eleanor Rigby and Got to Get You Into My Life are a precursor to some of Paul’s most ambitious Wings stuff, namely Band on the Run. But honestly this album has a lot of snoozers at least by late Beatles standards.

Also is Tomorrow Never Knows the first DnB/breaks song ever??? :eyes:

Was ho-humming this album as another quirky alt British rock joint but then Caught By The Fuzz played and I remembered the Oasis album from a few days ago, which was made around the same time. I would’ve killed for Oasis to make anything this explosive and raw. This album seems like a precursor to the blog rock and tumblr rock sound that lasted for a good 20 years after. Solid stuff I may give this a relisten

Look at their past members list on wikipedia. Maybe slightly better than most surf/psych rock if it’s time. It nothing crazy

This shit slapped front to back. This is tight, colorful, memorable pop + r&b. Stellar.

The ultimate compliment i can give an album is the honor of going to its Wikipedia page to see who has production credits on it. They produced the hell out of this album. It’s obviously a Y2K pop album (rimshot snare, the use of a triangle/bell shake, synthetic strings everywhere). But the lead on Perfect Man? That intro to Independant Woman II? Cmoooon this is masterful.

Man. A whole can of worms with Oasis. It helps being a gen z American, to view this band outside of the social context they existed with in the UK in the 90’s.
So there is some positives to this album and oasis in general. I think this was probably the baby boomers last time they ‘got’ the sound of pop radio music. Because this album definitely has some Beatles, classic rocknroll structure to it.
And the songwriting at its core is really solid - it’s fleshed out pop and rock.

But maaaaan. Did this really push pop music forward in any significant way? Does oasis even function as a gateway to anything else besides a look back at the rock that influenced them? Is that important? The sonic choices are so plain and polished to the extent that it washes away a lot of the impressive songwriting aspects about it. It makes you appreciate the Billie Eilish’s or Lady Gaga’s of the world that pushed their way into pop radio with great songwriting AND unique, forward thinking artistic/musical aesthetics (at least for pop standards).

Really torn on oasis, always. Hard to separate how huge they were from a social standpoint, with how down the middle their music was

She’s had an interesting musical arc and I’ve liked Dirty Computer since it came out about 5 years ago. Much like her other stuff, this is a very nice easy listen that falls just short of absolutely great. Solid and unique but not wildly amazing.

This is one of many musical works to be largely inspired by the movie metropolis from like 100 years ago. Another musical trilogy that shares the name and inspiration is the metropolis EP series by the M Machine. A must listen

It seems like he kinda has creative control as one of the figureheads of this bluesy sound

Very safe solo debut. Just some mostly stripped back songs with basic but interesting stories, until Maybe Im Amazed comes on and blows everything else out of the water

Ok there’s no way this thing is random. I give Tom Waits a 5 yesterday on my first time listening to him then I pull this?????? No way.

This wasn’t as memorable as Heartattack and Vine. I likened him to a scuzzy cartoon alligator on that last album. He sounds more like a slimy river eel on this one. A little more devilish and doomer-pilled, dropping the sense of sincerity from Heartattack in favor of more lofi experimentation

Picture a scuzzy cartoon alligator in a rocking chair on the porch of a house in the swamp. Bottle of bourbon in hand, belting out these songs while his tattered fedora falls over his eyes.

The first song had me a little unsure of how this would go, some interesting lyrics, and his singing voice made me wonder if I was supposed to take him seriously or not. But Tom manages to execute both sides of an interesting coin here: Half the songs are gritty, southeastern honkeytonk blues with some sort of loose storyline. Then the other half are somehow the most beautiful piano-and-string love ballads I’ve maybe ever heard, where genuine sincerity shines through his weathered voice. I can’t believe I’m giving this album a five outta five but I have to. Masterful songwriting. Insane vocal commitment. Clear sonic theme.

Rob Dougans “Drinking Song” is a clear homage to this style of ballad too, and I highly recommend the album it’s on, “Furious Angels”

TWO CSN ALBUMS WITHIN A WEEK? 🤔🤔🤔🤔 this time without Young, and these guys sound more cohesive without him tbh. Neil Young’s incredible but his voice was its own thing that stuck out a bit in the other record.

That being said, these honkeys were COOKING with a few songs on here - Helplessly Hoping (S+ tier song), Teach Your Children, Judy Blue Eyes. If I could sum up this album, I’d say it’s like Simon & Garfunkel for people who grew up near the appalachians. Graham Nash isn’t even American too, that’s insane