Reviews by linkyboy

One of my all-time favorite albums, and I truly believe one of the greatest. Some of the most inventive songwriting there has ever been, creative production, beautifully sung. When people say the The Beach Boys suck, I imagine they only have heard their surf rock era, and have never really sat down with Pet Sounds. The harmonic writing is wild. The melodic writing so distinctive and winding. "God Only Knows" is one of the most elegant pieces of pop music ever made.

Every time I listen to Pet Sounds, I feel like I'm discovering it for the first time again. In fact, I can't think of a single other album that so consistently elicits this sense of wonder in me. Some things that really stood out to me this time: the bass harmonica solo on "I Know There's An Answer," the bike horn on "You Still Believe In Me," the plucky bass on "Here Today" that plays in a different key in the instrumental bridge from the rest of the band.

If I had to change one thing about the album, it would be its terrible album cover. Other than that, pure perfection. Key tracks: "God Only Knows," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "Caroline, No".

It’s not bad, but “Come On Eileen” is the only truly great moment. The lead singer’s downward squeak thing Is so weird. I also just feel like Dexy’s Midnight Runners act like they’re better than you, and I find that off putting.

Somehow both nostalgic and ahead of its time, Back to Black is a triumph of performance and songwriting. I remember when Amy Winehouse died. The same day Borders went out of business. My dad’s coworker was laughing about how she’d written the song “Rehab,” and then died from an overdose. I felt sad, even though I want all that familiar with her. I found her both alluring and frightening. I’m working on “Valerie” with a voice student now.

A lot of disparate thoughts, but I think that speaks to something in her legacy. She paved the way for artists like Adele and Florence + The Machine. Her death was tragic, and an incredible loss to culture.

Goofy album cover aside, this is great. Old school country was so fun—solid songwriting craft, bouncy energy, well-sung. Weird to see people call it a parody of country music. Where do they think those stereotypes came from?

Bjork certainly is never at a loss for creativity. I'll admit that on this particular album, I grew to find her breathy whisper-singing grating, so Debut loses some points there. But when this album shines (usually in its instrumentation), it is spectacular. The saxophones on the final track, "The Anchor Song," were inspired.

I take issue with the idea that challenging music needs to be torturous, both to create and to consume. There's this fucked up notion that Captain Beefheart was a misunderstood genius because he made an impenetrable record that requires 7 listens to "get" and did it by physically and emotionally abusing his band. Fuck that. No art is worth that kind of torment. There is clear talent within this group, and Captain Beefheart himself—it's not easy to make music that sucks this hard. But there are all these assholes who romanticize the REAL suffering of the band, and have decided to suffer alongside them to enjoy art that they are uniquely troubled enough to understand. It's stupid and self-centered.

I can't say I had low expectations for this—I actually had NO expectations for this. I'd never heard of this group, or this album, and the wikipedia article about it did little to convince me this would be required listening.

But boy, am I glad it was on this list! This was great! The delivery from each member of the group was distinctive and phenomenal. Kind of reminds me of A Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul, but with slightly more contemporary cadences. Excellent beats, creative wordplay. It doesn't really fit the zeitgeist of 2002, and I think that's kind of what makes it so special. This is the kind of stuff I do this list for!

This was excellent! It's funky, vibey, poppy, and new wave all in one. Solid songwriting, excellent playing from the band, and groovy throughout. I love receiving albums from artists I've never heard of—that is, in my mind, the point of this project.

Now for the bad: the fucking whiners on this damn website. If colonial Americans from the late 1700s somehow gained access to this website, I think they STILL would have a higher opinion of the British than the average reviewer here.

(Btw, this is NOT Britpop. I can't believe the highest rated review says it is. It's off by roughly a decade.)

I wouldn’t say that I had low expectations, but after being disappointed by Deep Purple In Rock, I wasn’t particularly amped to get Machine Head. Yes, “Smoke On The Water” might have the most iconic riff of all time, if only because of its easiness, and “Highway Star” was fun to play on Guitar Hero back in the day. But what about the rest of the album?

I think “Pictures of Home” kind of sold me. Very cool melody. It’s a solid hard rock album, and was a pioneer in the genre (though with LED Zeppelin and Black Sabbath active at the same time, Deep Purple will never quite measure up).

The thing that I think makes REM special is that I never get the sense they're trying to impress me. They write great, catchy songs, with interesting arrangements and lyrics, but they don't want me to walk away going "Wow, they're so talented." I think impressiveness is often overrated, and great songwriting overlooked. It's why I'll always prefer passionate singers to excellent singers, or creative guitarists to virtuosic guitarists. It's what turns me off of bands like Rush or Van Halen.

My brain is telling me this album is probably a 4, but I love it so much. It's the earliest album in their discography that I know extremely well—I had a CD of it in my car throughout much of my senior year of high school. It reminds me of the good feelings I had that year. I went to college the next year and told my voice teacher I loved REM. He scoffed, said he couldn't stand them, that his roommate listened to Out of Time incessantly. I think I kind of stopped listening to them regularly around that time (though I still liked them), but this project is reminding me how great they really were.

Huh. It's certainly odd. I like the wobbly bass lines, and some of the drums are cool. It does sound like every member of the band wrote their own songs in the same tempo and played them simultaneously. I don't abhor this, but I can't say I like it, or really want to listen again. Interesting how John Lydon (née Rotten) sings on this—he sounds rather Buzzcocks-y at times (though without their pop songwriting chops). I can see the appeal if I lived in a certain time period and if I were a certain kind of person—but avant-garde music needs to straddle that line between challenging and enjoyable, and I think this is pretty squarely in the "challenging" camp.

Yesterday, I had "Southern Rock Opera" by Drive-By Truckers, which I criticized for looking back too far, for imitating over innovating. A more consistent person might criticize Grizzly Bear for its clear 1960s influences, reminiscent of The Zombies or CSNY. Lucky for Grizzly Bear, I really like that era of music, and I've always had a fondness for their sound. I don't think this album needed to be on this list, but I do like it, and there are plenty of sounds that modernize it. 4 stars is probably a bit generous, but it's what my heart wants, so I'm going with that.

Well, I think they successfully achieved what they set out to do. Personally, I don't see the appeal of a country-rock double-album homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd and southernness in general, but that probably says something about my interests more than anything else. I actually think my favorite track was "The Three Great Alabama Icons," but more as a history lesson than as a song. I don't know, it's a weird one, colored by my own tastes and enjoyment. It's a 2 or a 3... Usually, when I'm stuck between two numbers, I'll give another listen, but I really don't want to listen again, which probably means it's a 2. A high 2, for what it's worth (is that worth anything?).

Man, Bob Dylan is so hit or miss for me. I was so disappointed with Blonde on Blonde, but this album’s a hit! I think it’s because I’m a music guy first, not quite as interested in lyrics, and as a songwriter, Dylan is the opposite. His lyrical writing here is sharp, but the melodies, hooks, and arrangements on Blood On The Tracks are also solid and memorable.

I thought this was really solid, probably my favorite solo album from a member of Wu-Tang Clan that I've gotten so far. Ghostface Killah's delivery is great, and his storytelling is sharp. The beats were well constructed and added a lot to it too. Perhaps a bit too long, but that's all right.

Perhaps they were influential, early pioneers in punk rock… but this was such a sloppy set of mediocre songs, that I feel unable to really appreciate it… I do think the album cover negatively impacted my perception of the music, which is perhaps a bit unfair, but between the timing issues in the drums, the strange scales on the guitar, and the raspy, guttural vocals, I just couldn’t bring myself to like it.

King was certainly a master of blues guitar. My favorite parts of this record were actually his storytelling/banter between songs. It wasn’t much, but I felt like I was being ushered from one idea to another.

I've listened to this a few times through, and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. In some ways, I find it brilliant. Strange instrumentation, unique songwriting, incredibly varied throughout. But there are also times where I find it kind of bad for bad's sake, which I don't really think is the same as challenging. Ultimately, though, I think it's a valuable entry, and one that I've been thinking about off and on for the past month. It's kind of what I wanted "Trout Mask Replica" to be, and in a sense, I think that's what Tom Waits was going for.

An album that doesn’t know what it wants to be. At its best, mediocre Rolling Stones wannabes. At its worst, drag and drop dance music that sounds like the crap I was making on GarageBand in middle school.

This is a really good album. Practically a greatest hits album for Steely Dan. I’m not a huge Steely Dan fan (I find them to veer into unintentional self-parody at times), but I can’t deny the quality of this record. Great songwriting, great playing, great arrangements. The sax work on “Dirty Work” is perfect.