Reviews by lukazimir_

3/5. Blur’s self titled in the context of the bands discography is a transitional record. It saw them moving away from Brit pop and more to a 90’s indie rock influenced alt-rock sound. The results of that shift are best showcased on this albums follow-up (and IMO blurs best album) “13.” As for the self titled, it is an album of peaks and valleys for me. “Song 2” is a banger even if a bit overplayed, I love the energy of “MOR” as well as the intro “Beetlebum” and “On your Own.” But there’s also a number of songs on here that feel like the growing pains of Blur trying to change their sound.

5/5. Easiest 5 on the list for me so far, this is one of the best folk albums of all time in my opinion. The name translates to “Corner Club” which is in reference to the fact that the collective who is responsible for this album began by playing on a street corner in Belo Horizonte. As for the two vocalists, the story goes that a 10 year old Lo Borges met Milton Nascimeto while walking to buy eggs for his mother, and over the next decade Milton would take Lo under his wing and teach him to play guitar. The album itself blends together folk, psychedelia, MBP, jazz and other influences together into a beautiful storm of music. This album is bursting at the seams with ideas and great small moments like the dramatic build of “Dos Cruces” or the beautiful guitar line of “Clube De Esquina No2.” This is one of those double albums that just flies by, an absolute joy to listen to. Also as a fun fact, the two children on the cover are not Lo Borges and Milton Nascimento. For a long time it was not known who they were, though I believe it was discovered who it was in the past 20 years or so.

4/5. Im personally more of a White Blood Cells guy when it comes to the White Stripes (spoilers that will almost surely be a 5/5 for me when it pops up), but elephant is also a damn good album. You of course have Seven Nation Army which has become one of the biggest songs ever and a staple at sporting events. But beyond that, this album is packed with bangers like “black math”, “I just don’t know what to do with myself” or “the hardest button to button. My favorite song however is “Ball and Biscuit” which is a 7 minute long blues jam with some of jack whites best guitar solos. only thing going against this album for me is that I think the final 3 songs are weaker than the rest of the album. But this is still a great one and the White Stripes are one of the best bands to come from that late 90’s/2000’s garage rock revival.

4/5. One of those albums that jusy sounds like the future. Listening to it I can hear how it influenced so many groups that I love from Daft Punk to LCD Soundsystem to Stereolab and so on. It fuses together krautrock and synthesizers to create an album that is just hypnotizing, I felt like I was in a groovy trance the whole way through. Also “Metropolis”, “the model” and “neon lights” is an especially great three track run.

A below average 60’s psych-rock album. It starts off quite promising with “I had too much to dream (last night)” which is easily the best song here, but then quickly spirals out into a series of songs that are either forgettable or somewhat annoying (the closing track especially is annoying.) this one just didn’t do a lot for me and there’s a lot of other, better 60’s psych rock I could listen to instead.

1/5. There’s a review I read a long time ago (I forget for which album) which described the record it was reviewing as a “paper mache album.” In that it is pretty when you look at it from a distance but caves-in and dissolves with any closer analysis. That is this Eagles album to a T. It is competently played but has no soul. The vocals and lyrics feel like they’re delivering strong emotions, but it all rings completely hollow. It is an album that feels like it was churned out of the 70’s easy listening factory and it has nothing of worth, nothing of note to say.

2/5. There are a lot of moments across this album that are almost super interesting/brilliant but then it just never fully delivers. As an example I love the idea of the more chaotic, jazzier passages of the album but in my opinion it doesn’t go far enough with them. And that’s really the whole album, a scattershot of interesting ideas that never get fully realized.

3/5. Had Simon and Garfunkel yesterday and today I get solo Paul Simon. Anyway, as the story goes, after Bridge over Troubled Water Simon and Garfunkel followed in the footsteps of their greatest influence (the Everly Brothers) and started absolutely hating each other. So they went their separate ways and this self titled was one of Paul Simon’s early solo records. And it’s alright, you get the expected folk music but also some bluesier songs and some Latin American influence in the percussion. At its high points there’s some great songs on the level of some Simon and Garfunkel stuff such as “me and Julio down by the school yard” but there’s also a few songs that are just kinda okay.

5/5. Simon and Garfunkel were my pandemic band. This will be another instance of my exposing myself as young, but I was a sophomore in high school when I really began to tap into S&G. My dad had always been a fan, so I heard a variety of their hits on car rides throughout my childhood, but this era is when I actually fully dove into their albums. And this one ended up being my favorite with its lush and beautiful arrangements and weary/dark storytelling. My high school band teacher had a wall of vinyl records in her classroom and she let students borrow them every now and then. She happened to have a copy of this Simon and Garfunkel album so I borrowed it and brought it home since I loved this record. Then the pandemic happened before I could return it so it technically went from borrowing to stealing.
All that’s to say, Simon and Garfunkel ended up being one of the groups that soundtracked the pandemic era for me whether it be this album, or bookends, or sounds of silence. But this one was my favorite of theirs back then and remains my favorite now. It’s kinda funny, Bridge over Troubled Water is probably their most famous and culturally significant album, but in my ranking of Simon and Garfunkels five main albums it would rank second to last (it’s still very good.)

3/5. I don’t have a ton to say about this one honestly. Solid enough early punk album. Better than the Sex Pistols, not as good as the Ramones.

3/5. “The black album” is the moment where Metallica went from being big for a metal band to being one of the biggest acts on earth. If you’ve ever tuned into rock radio post 1990, you likely have this albums singles burned into your mind. And with the first leg of the album, it’s easy to see how it was such a huge success. But as the tracklist goes on there is a number of lesser tracks in my opinion such as “don’t tread on me.” And just being blunt I vastly prefer thrash Metallica and the radio overplay of this albums singles has worn them down for me (even if that’s not the fault of the songs.)

2/5. The word of the day is “unremarkable.” Nothing on this album stands out to me whatsoever. Instrumentally it’s passable but uninteresting indietronica, and the lyrics/vocal performances are not good enough to cover for the boring instrumentation. I could imagine some of the songs from this playing in the background of a montage in some crappy straight-to-streaming film.

4/5. Great debut album, the bass playing on here is especially top notch. basically sets the blueprint that future Iron Maiden albums would run with and do better/crazier things with. favorite song is probably the multi-phased center piece of the album “phantom of the opera”.

2/5. To quote Jpegmafia “I cannot fucking wait until Morrissey dies.” Even divorced from him as a person I just get basically nothing from his solo career. I do like some of the Smiths albums, but solo Morrissey just puts me to sleep.

4/5. Though I am more of a “it takes a nation of millions to hold us back” kinda guy, Fear of a Black Planet is still a great rap album that mixes blunt and hard-hitting political lyricism with densely layered and aggressive production from the Bomb Squad. Also on a side note it is hilarious to me that there’s a line in Fight the Power that shit talks “Don’t Worry be Happy” by Bobby Mcferrin.

2/5. Adam Ant and his band Adam and the Ants were one of the early acts who blew up thanks to MTV. Listening to the first song “dog eat dog” I thought I was in for a very fun time with the new-wave mixed with some pulsing drums. but as the album went on I was just mostly left uninterested. There’s nothing truly awful or unlistenable, but I wasn’t left feeling much in the end.

4.5/5. An album I’ve heard before, but I didn’t actually know how stacked the lineup on here is. Robert Fripp does some guitar work, Phil Collin’s some drum work among other guests. And this albums got that freewheeling sense of fun experimentation/exploration that Berlin era Bowie has (which tracks since those albums were produced by Eno.) a great time and glad I got to revisit it here.

4/5. The best new discovery for me so far in this project. Love the production on this album and Michael Kiwanuka is a strong vocalists who is a perfect match for this sound.

3.5/5 (leaning more in the 4 direction.) the word of the day is “tension”, as that is what I felt most when listening to Suicides 1977 self titled album. From the light yet constantly pounding synths to the uneasy speak-sang vocals this album feels like it could burst or collapse at any moment. Only major thing holding back is the same thing that holds groups like Kraftwerk back a bit, which is that the technology for electronic/synthesizer music has just grown so much over the past few decades, but suicide still manages to do a lot with the little that they have.

3/5. To start, I do think Dan Auerbach is a great vocalist, especially for this style of indie blues rock. However even if it isn’t a fair comparison, every time I hear a black keys song I just think “Man, id rather be listening to the white stripes right now.” I just feel they do the garagey blues rock thing in a more raw and interesting way.
Brothers does start on a strong foot however. Next Girl, Tighten Up and Howlin’ for You are all great songs, but it does lead to the album feeling front loaded as nothing in the back half really did it for me as much.