Reviews by lukazimir_

4/5. More like Sam Cooked with this live performance. Because he gives a fantastic studio-quality live performance here, extremely expressive with an infectious energy which is helped by the backing band. you get a mix of blues and soul here and in theory it’s quite a basic album but Sam just absolutely sells it and elevates it to something great.

4/5. More like Sam Cooked with this live performance. Because he gives a fantastic studio-quality live performance here, extremely expressive with an infectious energy which is helped by the backing band. you get a mix of blues and soul here and in theory it’s quite a basic album but Sam just absolutely sells it and elevates it to something great.

4/5. More like Sam Cooked with this live performance. Because he gives a fantastic studio-quality live performance here, extremely expressive with an infectious energy which is helped by the backing band. you get a mix of blues and soul here and in theory it’s quite a basic album but Sam just absolutely sells it and elevates it to something great.

4/5. My introduction to the Modern Lovers was through the song “Losing my Edge” by LCD Soundsystem where they get name-dropped. And they sit in a similar spot to artists like the Velvet Underground or Patti Smith where their music was very predictive of the punk music that would rise later in the decade. And you can sense that all over this self titled album from the energy in the playing to the loose sing-speak vocals. very much enjoyed my time with this one. My favorite song would probably be “Pablo Picasso.”

3.5/5. An interesting but pointless exercise I like to do is thinking “in what year did a decades music really ‘start’.” As an example I’d argue that the 90’s really began in 1991 with grunges mainstream explosion.
And the 70’s I would say began In 1969 thanks to albums such as In the Court of the Crimson King or this debut from Led Zeppelin which displays the heavier, bluesier style of rock that would go on to be massive in the 70’s. And for a debut album this is good stuff, especially on songs like “dazed and confused” which just have great guitar riffs. I do think Led Zeppelin will go on to make much better albums but this is still a good record that helped to shape how rock music would sound going forward.

3.5/5. My first Wutang-Adjacent album on the generator and it’s solid! I don’t like it as much as 36 chambers or some of the other Wutang solo albums, but there’s still a number of good songs on here and the production/beats are mostly great. it is maybe a bit overlong though and it suffers from the homophobia that was unfortunately very prevalent in rap music at this time. But when everything comes together it works really well and there’s no denying this albums influence over east-coast hip hop.

4/5. I’ve gotten this album as a very coincidental time, since as a personal project I’ve been listening through the Cure’s entire discography recently. And Pornography sees them when they reached their first peak in my opinion. This album is the culmination of the dark, gothic sound they were building with on albums like “17 seconds” or “Faith.” The opener “One Hundred Years” immediately sets the dark tone of this album, and it proceeds to fully envelop you for the rest of the records 43 minute runtime. My favorite song though might actually be the slow-burner in the middle “Siamese Twins.”

4/5. Despite being a music lover, I’ve actually never listened to the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill prior to this despite it making most publications “best albums of all time” lists. And after listening I can immediately understand its universal acclaim. First and most obvious, Lauryn Hill just has a great voice both as a singer and rapper. And she fits perfectly with the production of this album. Very good album though it doesn’t quite land as one of my personal all-timers and it’s a shame that she hasn’t put anything out since (outside of an MTV unplugged performance which from what I understand is very divisive.)

3/5. My least favorite white stripes album (which goes to show how consistent their discography is.) starts off with a the type of rocker you’d expect from the band (Blue Orchid) but after that the album shows its true hand, bringing in more piano and acoustic instrumentation. And the first half of this album is some good stuff whether it be the tense buildup of “the nurse”, the earworm “my doorbell” or the fun “little ghost.” but it begins to lose me a in the back half with a series of more meh stripes songs. Not bad by any means, but not my go-to stripes album.

4/5. Superfly serves as a soundtrack for the film of the same name. I have not seen the movie so I cannot speak to its quality, but this album is great and manages to be a compelling narrative on its own separate from the film. The instrumentation is great and the lyrics tackle social issues in a very compelling way. great listen.

1/5. These days when we think of 70’s music most people often go to either the rockers of the era (Zeppelin, Floyd, Glam/Berlin Bowie, etc.) or the rise of disco later in the decade. But if you look at what was topping the charts before the rise of disco, it wasn’t any of those bands, it was easy-listening soft rock. Some of it still holds up, like the best Carpenters songs, but a lot more of it is like this pre-disco Bee Gees album. And man this thing was insufferable to me, if I wasn’t listening to it for this project I would have shut it off a few tracks in. I already don’t particularly like Disco Bee Gees but this is even worse. It tries to be so dramatic and emotionally heavy, but it’s completely unearned and ends up feeling forced. The vocals are also quite annoying at points. might be my least favorite on the list so far.

3/5. The groups name and album title do not lie, this is an album with a lot of bongos. Though it is not only percussive, there’s a healthy serving of funk as well and a lot of instrumental covers. to me though the most interesting thing about this album is what a treasure trove of samples it is. There were several times where my ears perked up and I thought “oh, I recognize that.” And when it’s at its best there’s some really good grooves on here. However it is just about an hour long and the album starts to run out of steam a bit in the back half as the gimmick starts to wear thin. Still, glad I got to hear this, don’t know if I ever would have otherwise.

2.5/5. Mudhoney were in many ways the band that ushered in the sound of the 90’s. Before Nirvana or any of the other Grubge acts, Seattle had Mudhoney. They never reached the levels of success that the bands they influenced after the grunge explosion would, but they were one of the first to do it, even bringing a pre-Nevermind nirvana on tour with them. so their legacy is undeniable and they definitely deserve to be on a list like this. That being said, I was left feeling pretty indifferent on this album. There’s nothing bad on here but also nothing that really stuck out to me as particularly great. definitely a case where they walked so other bands could take a similar sound and run.

3/5. Muse gets a bit too much hate these days I think, which to be fair the band is not helping as they have been a parody of themselves for the past 15 or so years. But some of the early albums like Origin of Symmetry or Absolution are still great.
As for Black Holes and Revelations, it starts really strong. The run from “Take a Bow” to “Map of the Problematique” is some good, dramatic stuff. But then it goes into a pretty flabby middle section. It slowly picks back up towards the end till “Knights of Cydonia” which is one of Muse’s best songs and super fun to play on guitar. On this listen I found myself also not being the biggest fan of the lyrics on here, often they’re okay but there’s some moments like on “city of delusion” that sound like they’re from the first draft of a Y.A. Dystopia novel. I never really buy into the dystopian future that is trying to be portrayed. but the strong start and finish on this album make it a good, worthwhile listen.

2/5. Though I agree that Brit-Pop is a bit over-represented on the 1,001 albums list, I do also believe that people tend to be way too harsh on the Brit-Pop albums on here as a result of that. A lot of great albums did come from that movement. This Charlatans album is not one of them. It feels like a Brit-pop album designed through a paint by the numbers book. Also not helping things is the vocals which are at the best of times just okay and at the worst actively grating. I didn’t hate it enough for a 1 star, but there really isn’t anything here I’d see myself returning to.

3/5. The 11 minute opener “Street Life” is an absolute banger and what elevates this up to a 3 for me, love the vocals on it, love the solos, just an overall killer start. Then the rest of the album is unfortunately just kinda okay. Mostly a series of jazz-funk jams that you won’t have a bad time with, but that also don’t end up leaving much of a lasting impression.

3.5/5. I’ve always viewed Queen as more of a singles band throughout my years of music listening. Which there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when you have as many all-timer singles as Queen. Which is to say, this is my first time diving into a Queen album in its entirety, and it was a good time. The album has a very good flow to it, many songs transition into each-other which is a trick I always love to see. I am admittedly not the biggest fan of the Show-tune-esque songs on here like “lazing on a Sunday afternoon” or the few songs not sung by Freddie like “I’m in love with my car, but past those personal gripes, the rest of this album has some great songs. Like the opener “Death on Two Legs” where Freddie Mercury tells the managers of their former record deal to kill themselves, or the great guitar playing and drumming on “Sweet Lady”, or the extended A Cappella segment on “the prophets song.” Then there is of course Bohemian Rhapsody which is one of the most iconic songs of all time. It’s always reminded me of “happiness is a warm gun” by the Beatles in how it stitches together a ton of smaller song fragments in order to make something super interesting. There are a decent handful of songs here I didn’t love, but when this album is firing on all cylinders there is some great stuff to be found.

3.5/5. My third Costello album so far, and this is honestly the best one yet. there’s a lot of fun little riffs and bass grooves on here where it almost starts feeling a little post-punky. Highlights would probably be “pump it up”, “little triggers” and “I don’t want to go to Chelsea.” Elvis Costello also shows himself as a solid lyricist here. A good album overall, there’s a decent handful of songs I could see myself coming back to. I agree with the critique that Costello is over-represented on the 1,001 albums list, but if any of them belong, this one is probably it.

3/5. Liked this one more than I thought I would honestly. I’ve always had a mostly negetive perception of all the 90’s boy-bands/girl-bands and this album does occasionally fall into that 90’s pop/RNB cheesiness, but the production is mostly very good and there are some high highs here like the albums biggest hit “Waterfalls.” I also liked the closer with Andre 3000 “Sumthin’ Wicked this way Comes.” Doubt I’ll revisit this one in full, but there’s a handful of tracks here that I’ll definitely be coming back to. And as a side the interludes are mostly meh but I don’t let interludes affect my rating too much unless they are particularly egregious, which none of the ones here are.

4/5. I somehow only today put the pieces together that the Mars Volta shares a band member with at the Drive In. For a debut album, this thing is firing on all cylinders, it is a non-stop barrage of constantly shifting prog rock. I do prefer Frances the Mute, but this one is still great (and more accessible, Frances songs are even longer and even proggier.)
I really love how the short intro Son Et Lumière builds up tension which releases right when Inertiatic ESP starts and the album keeps up the pace of that first burst of sound for essentially the whole album.