Reviews by linkyboy

I want to like Public Enemy. I find their image cool, and they have great energy. Flavor Flav is iconic. But their beats are so damn annoying. Repetitive irritating sounds.

This must have sounded absolutely crazy in 1970. There’s a reason they call Iggy Pop the “Godfather of Punk.” Overall, the songwriting itself doesn’t really capture me, but the energy and ethos of it is clear, and that’s really what it’s about.

For an album of vibey electronic music, I liked this more than I would have thought. Good for a party, but I accidentally listened to it twice and didn’t realize it started over. That is to say, nothing was distinct enough to lodge in my memory. Even now, a day after listening, I’m struggling to name anything concrete about it.

A solid entry—it just gets rather monotonous for me. The best element is all the backing vocals. The writer is how they rely on the same tricks over and over again.

Also: is “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” the song that appears the most throughout the entire list? I think I’ve heard it 3 times during this project.

I love this album, and I do think Belle & Sebastian is one of those artists who gets better with repeated listens. A few years back, A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers listed "The State I Am In" as one of his favorite songs. I gave it a listen, and didn't really get it, but because Newman is one of my favorite songwriters, I decided to listen to "The State I Am In" some more. I remember slowly coming to see the genius of the song—not just musically, but lyrically too! The lyrics seem strange and nonsensical, but as you study them, you realize they all connect into one story. So many interesting observations. One of my favorite lyrics of all time is "And so I gave myself to God / There was a pregnant pause before he said Okay." So good.

After falling in love with that song, I eventually fell in love with the whole record. There's an argument to be made that this is the first "Indie Rock" album, at least in the modern sense of Indie Rock as a genre. Like REM's Murmur, it sounds like it came one decade too early. I'm lucky to already know and love the album—if this was my first time hearing it, it might receive 3 stars. But I think it really does deserve the 5.

Hmm, this didn’t do it for me the way the previous Portishead album did. I’ve actually heard this before when walking through a dorm building on campus and found it interesting when I wasn’t listening—and rather grating when I was. Still, some interesting choices, but I gave it two listens and probably won’t choose to listen again.

Look, I’m all for an artist experimenting with form, genre, and style to create something more avant-garde. I tend to be more generous to artists who are clearly trying something different, even if it isn’t perfect. But, this just doesn’t do anything for me. The rapping might be okay, interesting lyrics at times (often obfuscated by a wash of reverb), but the beats are often dissonant and disjunct such that they sound weirdly amateurish. In contrast, I think of artists like Peter Gabriel or David Bowie who went pretty avant-garde, but still wrote great songs.

And then there’s the final track, which I genuinely found brilliant. How do I weigh that against the rest of the album? I think I need to consider the album as a whole.

This music sounds like the birthplace of frosted tips. It’s functional for sure, I could definitely rave to it. But for listening at home as I do chores, it didn’t amp me up or make me enjoy taking out the recycling. It’s repetitive and homogenous, which is fine in da club, but I didn't really enjoy it as an album.

Steely Dan sounds like a parody of Steely Dan. It’s nice, solid music, but rarely does it excite me. I know “audiophiles” go gaga over them, but I don’t listen to music to bask in the fidelity of it.

This album isn't an easy listen, I suppose, but damn, did I enjoy it! I'm surprised so many people here seem to have hated it—there's such a low tolerance for anything experimental or out of the ordinary. Bjork is a singular creative, and tried something ambitious and strange with Medulla, and I think she succeeded. The fact that the album is almost entirely made up of processed vocals is both apparent and surprising. Haunting, bizarre, driving, and one-of-a-kind.

Often, when I get an album in a style I'm not well-versed in, or in a language I don't speak, I don't feel like I can rate it fairly. But I thought this was great! So much energy, and excellent work from the brass section. Funky and fun salsa!

Solid blues rock, and great performances from Rod Stewart—"Stay with Me" hits. I've listened to it before, and while I like it, nothing blows me away. But still, seems like a great record to have on vinyl for a poker night.

In the Van Halen fan club (AKA, the Van Halen Fan Haven), there was some criticism over their newfound usage of synths—including, evidently, David Lee Roth. I like a good synth, and always found "Jump" to be a fun song, so I never cared much for those criticisms.

But then, listening today, I found that 1984 doesn't really hold up as well as I'd thought. And the biggest problem? The synths. Not because they exist, but because they're so... rudimentary. While Eddie Van Halen was without a doubt one of the most inventive, virtuosic guitarists of his generation, he played the synth like a fifteen year-old who just got a new toy. Goofy arpeggiations, basic chord structures, and worst of all (really, my biggest complaint), boring sounds. It kind of sounds like he got a synth on its initial patch, played a few notes and thought, "That's perfect!"

Look, "Jump" is still fun. "Panama" is good. "Hot for Teacher" is one of the best songs Van Halen ever put out. It's just not as good as their earlier stuff, and not as good as some of the other hair metal coming out around the same time (like Def Leppard's Pyromania).

Why does Dylan need to rev up into every syllable? It’s like someone taught a lawnmower to sing. He may be a great lyricist… it’s just a shame that his lyrics are trapped behind the paywall of his voice. I don’t find the music very compelling, which is another barrier to my appreciation. I can appreciate that this album was significant for its time. It was influential, which perhaps is going to buoy its rating, and I have no doubt it would have hit my ears differently had I been alive 60 years ago. I just don’t find myself liking it.

There’s a gentleness to Nick Drake’s guitar playing—the soft sound of finger pads picking strings, so much gentler than a pick. What’s incredible is that he sings with the vocal equivalent. His voice is gentle, he approaches every consonant as if caressing with his thumb pad, not striking with a pick.

“One of These Things First” was a revelation when my spouse first played it for me a few years back. He somehow sounds out of time. I prefer the sparser arrangements of Pink Moon, but Bryter Layter is an excellent collection of songs.

I'm always surprised by how much I enjoy old-school country. Emmylou Harris might be the best part of this album, but Gram Parsons has a particular sound that serves the music well, even if it's rather more nasal than I prefer. "$1000 Wedding" and "In My Hour of Darkness" were standouts for me.

Kind of sounds like an album of demos. I get the Woody Guthrie comparisons, but I don’t really think Bragg measures up lyrically or melodically. Some decent moments, but I wasn’t particularly impressed.

Anyone who says the Beatles are overrated has clearly never listened to Abbey Road front-to-back. I think we have a collective sense of what the Beatles sounded like—some sort of Beatles-y pastiche plays in our heads (after all, has any other artist been covered/copied/imitated/parodied nearly as much?). But when you listen to Abbey Road, you go on a journey from one idea to the next to the next to the next in such a seamless, fun, catchy way that by the time you've come to The End, you can't help but marvel at what the Beatles created... only to be thrust out of your marveling to hear a cute little ditty about Queen Elizabeth, which ends just as abruptly.

Look, I'm not saying Abbey Road is an underrated album. That would be ridiculous. It is rightfully considered (one of?) the greatest album(s) of all time by (one of?) the greatest band(s) of all time. What I am saying is that there is so much more to this record than I think the average person realizes, and anyone who walks away from it thinking the Beatles are a "mid" band is being contrarian.

Really smooth, a great listen. Actually sounds much more modern than you’d think, in a kind of “lo-fi jazz” way. “Girl From Ipanema” is a classic. Sometimes I feel unable to connect with jazz records, but I really liked this. The kind of record I want to get on vinyl to impress my house guests.

Like a discount XTC. I certainly didn't dislike it, but it didn't really do that much for me. Melodies a little forced, the mixing a little off.