Reviews by lukazimir_

4/5. The first four Bjork albums are pretty untouchable if you ask me (which is why it’s bizarre to me that Post and Homogenic aren’t on the genrator but Medulla and Vulnicura are.) But of those first four debut is definitely the weakest, as the three albums after built upon what this one was doing. And there’s still a lot of great tracks on here like the groovy “Human Behavior” or “Violently Happy.” Bjork is also such a fascinating vocalist and she is already pretty much at full force as a singer here. Debut is in fact a pretty great debut.

5/5. Up there with Talking Heads “Remain in Light” as my favorite album of the 1980’s. It’s split into two halves, with the first five tracks of the album being massive pop bangers. Even with its overexposure due to stranger things a few years back, “Running Up That Hill” will always be one of the best pop songs of all time. But the amazing hooks just keep coming with tracks like “Big Sky” and the title track.

Then comes the back half of the album which is a seven track conceptual suite about a person trapped at sea in the cold darkness after a shipwreck and their hallucinations/nightmares/grapples with mortality and their life. And the production/performances in this back half get very weird like the demonic shouting on “Walking the Witch.” But that’s the beauty of Kate Bush as an artist, she brought both the pop bangers and the genuine experimentation/adventurous production. You can feel her influence all over so many artists that came after such as Bjork or more modern indie darlings like Magdalena Bay. Amazing album, can’t recommend it enough.

5/5. There is a good reason why when any new shoegaze-adjascent album gets released, it is immediately compared to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, and that’s because this album is just that good. To the point where it is and will likely always be THE shoegaze album.

The intro “Only Shallow” is an immediate blast of power with a guitar so loud it could probably register as seismic activity and vocals that are beautiful and melodic yet buried under all the instrumentation which gives them a very ethereal quality. And the hits just keep on piling from there, my favorites being the two track run of “When you sleep” and “I only said” as well as “sometimes.” one of those albums that’s just an absolute marvel of production and soundscape from front to back, that makes you wanna buy 500 guitar pedals and try to make some weird crap yourself.

3/5. This thing is very well produced, whether that be the great groove on “Tinseltown in Rain” or the beautiful sounding “Heatwave.” As someone who’s usually not a fan of 80’s pop production that is really saying something. That being said, the album is a bit one-note, there’s not much variety in the track-list which is fine but makes it so there aren’t as many strong individual standouts outside of the two I previously mentioned. Though it is at least only 38 minutes so it doesn’t overstay its welcome too long.

3/5. This album starts off very strong with tracks like “Cloud Nine” and the longer “runaway child, running wild” but from there it mostly just becomes a very standard late 60’s/early 70’s soul album. Though I do also really like the track “don’t let him take your love from me” later in the track list. A number of highlights, but I wasn’t in love with the whole album.

5/5. This is the album often credited as being the big bang of all progressive rock, and what an album to launch a genre with as this thing is basically perfect (and somehow not even the bands best record IMO, I’m more of a Red (1974) kinda guy.)

The whole thing starts off on an amazing foot with “21st Century Schizoid man” which begins with a massive lumbering instrumental with vocals drenched in these strange, crunchy effects. But then it transitions into an insane section where the band trades solos and have back-and-forths with each other. The following “I talk to the wind” calms things down with some beautiful lead vocals and great flute soloing which leads into “Epitaph” which is probably the most emotional song on the record.

The moment this album likely loses some people is “Moonchild” with its meandering noodling, but I personally love it, there’s a sense of spontaneity to it that just plays super well in my opinion. And it also serves in a way as the calm before the storm of the epic closer “Court of the Crimson King” which has one of the most triumphant choruses in all of Prog rock and some great instrumental sections.

This album is one of the best debuts all the time, King Crimson doesn’t feel like a band finding their sound at all here, they feel completely formed and it shows in the tight five song tracklist that doesn’t waste any time. Easily one of the best albums of the 1960’s.

4/5. Even more than most 90’s west coast hip-hop albums, this one feels like a response to the 1992 LA riots with its focused take-downs of police brutality and the systematic oppression of black Americans. There’s of course massive hits here like “Check Yo Self” or “It was a good day” which I still believe has one of the best hip-hop beats of all time though a lot of the deeper cuts here are also solid like “When will they shoot? or “Dirty Mack.” Only major issue I have with the album is the same that many 90’s rap albums suffer from which is the harsh misogyny of some tracks.

3/5. Very standard hard-rock fare, an album that’s fun enough while listening but that I probably won’t think of too often outside of this initial listen. Rick Ruben’s production does a solid job for this record as well, it all sounds very clear and crisp.

5/5. A solid argument could be made that outside of the Beatles, the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed are the most influential artist/group of all time. Punk, alternative, a lot of indie, etc. can all find their DNA somewhere in the Velvet Underground’s first four albums and Lou Reeds solo material. Transformer sees Reed at his most accessible, with songs that could easily be played along side other 70’s rock hits without anyone batting an eye like “walk on the wild side” or “perfect day” (the former being in part about a trans woman in the 1970’s without being horrifically transphobic which is genuinely cool!) Part of the equation was David Bowie who was on production duty, and you can really tell as there is Bowie-isms all over this thing especially on “Andy’s Chest” which sounds like it could be straight from Ziggy Stardust. You also get some songs near the end which kinda sound like showtunes like “New York telephone conversation” or the closer “Goodnight ladies.” Just a fantastic record fully deserving of its reputation as one of Lou Reeds best.

3/5. The production of this album was very fascinating to me, made the whole record feel very adventurous. Whether that be the bizarre horns of opener “River of Orchids” or my personal favorite on here “Greenman” which feels like it would fit right in a movie somewhere. my biggest complaint with this album is the lyrics, which are very clunky. The worst offender is “your dictionary” whose lyrics are hilariously bad. On the whole I’m glad I listened to this, though there’s enough misses in the tracklist to where I wasn’t fully in love with it.

2/5. The 2000’s saw a massive boom in indie rock, with acts actually rising to become household names. Whether that be the strong hooks of the Strokes or the stripped back and raw bluesy epics of the white stripes. So what did Kings of Leon bring to the table to separate themselves from all these other 2000’s rockers? The answer is simple, really god damn annoying vocals. As a key example look at the track “Trani” which ends with the vocalist doing what could only be described as a really bad impression of a fantasy goblin while he attempts to shout way beyond his limited vocal range. The music is also quite basic, there is just so many better artists and albums from this era, we can leave the Kings of Leon behind in the 2000’s.

3/5. Solid little record of 60’s country, I actually quite liked the opening title track. And though it’s a live cut it was still interesting to hear “Act Naturally” by its original artist as I’m primarily used to the Beatles cover. It didn’t blow my mind or anything but I had a fun enough time with this one.

4/5. An undeniable classic of rap music, that being said the minute and a half sex interlude was a bit unnecessary. I honestly forgot how insane some of Biggies bars are on this album, like on the track “me and my bitch” where he says “you look so good, huh, I’ll suck on your daddies dick.” besides the funny lines though, the production here is great and holds up well today and Biggie has a great sense of flow in his vocal delivery.

2/5. I respect the ambition of this album, being a rap-opera about a dude having a bad day, losing the $1000 he had saved up and getting broken up with and trying to get that money and love back before coming to acceptance on “Dry your eyes.” The Achilles heel of the album is that it is really annoying a lot of the time, which feels weird to say because I actually like the Streets debut album “original pirate material” well enough. The conversational speak-rapping really just doesn’t work for me at all, and the production feels noticeably weaker than Original Pirate Material as well. The one exception is the closer “Empty Cans” which I actually quite liked narratively.

4/5. Just a Great indie-rock/punk record, simple as that really. Sleater Kinney in their original run were masters of making simple but extremely fun guitar riffs, the type of stuff that you hear and then immediately want to go and learn. I also do really like Corin Tuckers vibrato-heavy and shouty vocal style, it works really well with their music. That being said it’s crazy to me that “The Woods” isn’t included in the 1001 albums list, that feels like the most essential Sleater-Kinney album to me.

4/5. A Tribe Called Quest have always been one of my favorite hip hop groups so I am absolutely going to be very biased when talking about their albums. That being said, this debut is great, it perfectly captures the personality of the group and their members with both its social commentary and sense of humor.

The production isn’t as amazing as future tribe albums like “The Low end theory” or “We got it from here…” but there’s still some very fun samples here, like “footprints” which gets a lot of mileage out of the horn line from Stevie Wonders “Sir Duke.” I also love the weird almost slice-of-life story of “I left my wallet in El Segundo.” The group would go on to make a handful of even better albums than this, but as a first effort this is some great stuff.

4/5. Jagged Little Pill is such an odd album in many regards. A former Canadian teen pop-star and Nickelodeon actor makes a massive musical shift and creates one of the defining alternative rock albums of the 1990’s with genuinely great confrontational lyricism.

Instrumentally this album is solid, though fairly standard by 90’s rock terms. What really sells the whole thing is Morissette herself both vocally and lyrically. The album goes through many different themes from misogyny to control (or lack of control) to not knowing what irony is, etc. And she delivers the lyrics with such a strong sense of emotion that you can’t help but feel some of her anger or joy or sadness. And the whole thing holds up surprisingly well to this day despite sounding very 90’s.

2/5. An album of experiments in Psych and alternative rock that saw Julian Cope changing up his sound and adjusting to the 90’s (though it did come out before the grunge explosion of late 1991.) and like many albums that see an artist expanding their sound and experimenting, it’s a mixed bag. There’s some moments I enjoy like the strange but effective instrumental build near the end of “Hung up and Hanging Out to Dry” but most of it did basically nothing for me. He’s obviously pulling from a ton of different influences here but never really develops any single idea or style fully into something distinct. and at an hour and sixteen minutes it definitely runs too long for its own good.

3/5. Finding this album was part of today’s journey. Not on streaming and on YouTube it has a different name and album cover, but the same release year and track-list so I’m like 95% sure it’s the correct thing.

Rating non-jazz albums from before the 60’s always feels somewhat difficult, because it feels somewhat unfair to think of them the same way you would an album from that decade or later. As back then albums usually just vehicles for the hit singles to be placed on, with other songs thrown on as a bonus, the album as a cohesive whole wasn’t really as much of a thing yet outside of some jazz records. That being said, this Fats Domino album is a pretty solid collection of songs. You get the big hit right out the gate with “Blueberry Hill” and there’s some other highlights too such as “Blue Monday” which has a great instrumental moment about halfway through. The biggest issue for me here is that a lot of the songs are samey, a lot of 12-bar-blues backing instrumentals with songs of love and heartbreak sung over them. Solid songs individually but when put all together it doesn’t make for the best album experience.

4.5/5. It was 59 years and 98 days ago (not today). when Sgt. Pepper released this album for you to play. Considered an early example of a concept album. Which has always been a bit funny, the concept is just that the Beatles are another band, and they don’t really stick with that concept outside of the first few songs.

But none of that matters when your album is this great. The opening title track is a perfect tone setter and then you get “with a little help from my friends” which is probably the best Beatles song sung by Ringo, it uses his friendly, more plain vocals very well. Sgt. Peppers is also where the Beatles leaned fully into the psychedelia (and psychedelic drugs) that they were starting to experiment with on revolver which really shows on tracks like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (which abbreviated to L.S.D.) or “Being for the Benefit of Mr. kite.” I also love the sitar heavy George track “Within you without you.”

But all of that pales in comparison to the album closer “A Day in the Life” which is probably the single best song the band ever made. You get a great opening section from John before it goes into a chaotic orchestral swell which gives me chills every time before going into a great section with Paul, then back to John. it takes so many things that shouldn’t work together and forms it into a perfect song.

So with how much I’ve gushed over this album, what stops it from being a 5/5 from me. Which is two main things. First being the two tracks “Lovely Rita” and “Good Morning Good Morning” which to me have always been noticeably weaker than the rest of the tracks here. And second is just that I simply prefer a number of other Beatles records over this one whether that be Revolver, Abbey Road, or maybe my hottest beatles take, Magical Mystery Tour (yes it’s just an EP with a second side of singles tacked on, but damn that tracklist is pretty much bulletproof in my mind.)