Reviews by lett_music

5 beats a day for 3 summers, it's the quintessential album of someone who proved themselves through grind and effort. To this day, still one of his best albums and is near top marks, but it is a bit bloated with some of the skits and 12 minute outro.

This is the old Kanye people miss, the Kanye before he lost his mother, before he went off the meds, before he lost Kanye and became Ye. His current abhorrent actions will continue to degrade and spoil his legacy and catalogue, but this is his most 'innocent' stage of his career like Jackson 5 was to Michael Jackson.

As with most Eminem albums, the quality ranges from very high to very low. Overall though, it's a classic album for what it did for its time, it just doesn't really hold up in production quality and consistency to MMLP or The Eminem Show.

For those who get offended at the lyrics or find them repulsive, that's often the point. Eminem has never truly held these viewpoints literally, they've always just been amplified through this made up persona Slim Shady. In the same way you can have characters in horror movies that do the unthinkable, or unreliable narrators in literature, Slim Shady is a horrific unreliable narrator that is strictly there for shock and entertainment. For some reason, people don't allow that same grace of character roleplay in the medium of music, but Eminem went there, because he just doesn't give a fuck. This album musically is closer to a 3/5, but I'll give it the extra 1 point as a middle finger to those who give this a 1.

Some great hits mixed with some duds. His confidence and production shines more on FutureSex/LoveSounds, while this album feels like they are still experimenting with what direction to take him as a solo artist.

A lot of people try so hard to be counterculture, that they ironically find themselves of the mainstream opinion on sites like this in just hating certain popular artists.

If you want to see why she's so praised or get a taste of the appeal to the beehive, check out her Coachella Homecoming performance, as it's one of the greatest live musical shows of all time.

This album on the other hand is just okay. Even the best songs often trail off with unnecessary interlude moments, which can often kill the moment. The production is overall solid, but this album doesn't really showcase how she's a powerhouse as a live performer, and so for that, I really recommend the naysayers explore how she excels there.

Unfortunately one of the less exciting Beatles albums out there to me regarding recording techniques and experimentation, aside from unconventional hard panning of vocals and drums in the stereo field (although summing very well to mono). It does make for a more interesting headphone/stereo listening experience. Eleanor Rigby is the standout above the rest.

Incredible display of production techniques from live recordings, and sampling to electronic sounds, especially for the 70s. The genre blending was really exciting. Persian Love had me feeling like Jimmy Buffett was Under the Sea off the coasts of India.

While I overall wished for a little more cohesion across the entire album and am not the biggest fan of 15 minute songs, the musicality is top notch and it's full of surprises in being able to transition from moment to moment seamlessly. Even if it feels like it doesn't fully land anywhere, the ride was enjoyable throughout.

One of the more exciting discoveries of this list so far.

Came in expecting chill trip hop, left with a funky Stevie Wonder-esque experience.

Hang Wire should be a much popular tune from this album.

As an American, not aware of any of this guy's controversies, I thought it was a pretty great album, so I'll judge it for that.

Incredible songs with a bunch of bloated filler that makes it drag on for too long.

Soliloquy is still one of the top moments in all of rock history. 2112 is an amazing concept track front to back, but unfortunately, have to rank the whole album and not just the 20 minute concept song.

Some of the reggae/ska moments are chill and groovy, but then it hits moments where it feels like it's Happy Birthday To You level music.

Very experimental and ahead of their time. Long before Kendrick Lamar or Tyler the Creator or anyone was making 'jazzier' hip hop albums, OutKast was going full into some very experimental territories for a hip hop album. I can hear clear inspirations from the likes of Bootsie Collins and Parliament Funkadelic on this.

Most will know tracks like So Fresh and So Clean, Ms. Jackson, and B.O.B, but the deeper cuts on this record go into vastly different directions in production and style. Unfortunately, I think some of these ideas did not age well, potentially as a result of the limitations of what they had to work with.

Snappin & Trappin and We Luv Deez Hoez are songs for example that sound like Animal Crossing K.K. Slider beats. Some of the sound selection is a bit funny in retrospect.

Gasoline Dreams, Spaghetti Junction, and Humble Mumble are all great tracks that were likely overlooked by the larger hits of this album.

The album is continuously full of surprises, but loses cohesion and direction as a result. Discovering J. Dilla's Workinonit sample was a great surprise, and "The Worst Band in the World" is probably the highlight record off the album in being exciting. Latter half of the album loses some steam.

Strong songwriting, raw vocals, and edgier lyrics than I remember from the trimmed clean segments that would often end up in every film and TV show of the 90s-2000s.