Reviews by mark-bionix

This isn't the most unpleasant listening experience I've had, but there's absolutely zero creative spark in it. Why's it here?

Kind of hated this at first then I started to vibe with it a little. Needs more Bahamadia. Disclosure: I listened to the single disc "cassette version." It's an hour and goddamn twenty minutes already, I'm not doubling that.

I've never really gravitated towards Aretha. I tend to prefer the Motown and Stax aesthetics over Atlantic. But it was really great to have a concentrated dose of the Queen here. Let's call this a 4.49.

The sound of my childhood (and teens and twenties and thirties and forties and...)

So this is a guy I felt like I always slept on and would probably like. Well, he's no longer slept on, but I don't think I missed much.

What you think I'm a basic bitch for giving Pet Sounds five stars? Whatever, I'm not afraid of you, fight me.

Brian Ferry doesn't just make naughty album covers, he's good at music too.

Ok so I'm not a prog rock guy, but I kind of thought this would be cool. It's not. Granted this is probably not the ideal way to hear ELP at length for the first time, but it's one of those things where they were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should (Insert Jeff Goldblum gif here).

Easy five stars. To me this album canonically contains "New York City Cops" because it was included on the copy shipped to my college radio station in (hmm) August 2001.

I really don't care much for straight blues, which I do understand is kind of heretical for a rock fan. But I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Hot take: Muddy Waters is a good bluesman.

The absolute prototype for what a rap album should be.

My impression of this record (based on the lore) was that it was kind of a low effort. It's definitely not, but it is just as loaded with spite as I imagined. I think it's really solid and it has the entire Motown hit machine at its disposal. But I don't see myself going back to it when there are a million other great Marvin Gaye tunes out there.

This album has a ton of singles on it, and they're mostly very good (despite the 90s guitars not aging very well). Unfortunately it still has album tracks, some of which are just woof. "Perfect" is, lets say, less than perfect. "Right Through You?" Yikes. I'm not immune to the Alanissance, and maybe I'm just in a bad mood today, but this is mid.

This is an old favorite of mine. Why does this direct to the censored version of the album? I want to hear "Good Shit" not "Good Ships." Anyways, it's a really good album that I enjoyed revisiting.

I've got a lot of respect for Pharrell, but none of this is memorable and some if it is outright bad.

I like it fine. Not one of my favorite punk bands from that era. Also today I learned that Jello Biafra is still alive. Who knew?

The Verve or sort of unfairly regarded in the U.S. They're more than a one hit wonder. I've never listened to this all the way through before, but Richard Ashcroft is a good songwriter and this is a good record. "The Drugs Don't Work" is a phenomenal track. Let's call this a 3.49.

So I'm just about the biggest Wilco guy you're ever gonna meet, and up until a couple of weeks ago I'd have given this album like three stars. But that was before Billy and the band finally got together after 28 years to play this music live for the first time. I didn't go to Solid Sound this year, but I streamed the Mermaid Avenue set live, and it was an incredibly moving experience. So I'm hearing these songs with new ears now. And it's shocking how relevant almost all of Woody Guthrie's words are to this day. Gotta give a fresh listen to Volume II now as well. All you fascists bound to lose.

On the spectrum of 90s electronica between Fatboy Slim (good!) and Moby (fucking horrendous!), this falls somewhere in the middle. I especially liked the back half of the record, and the vocal contributions from Noel Gallagher (which I'd heard before because it was a single at the time) and Beth Orton (which I hadn't).

I try to be understanding of Kanye and his mental health issues, but even if you give him grace it's still hard to ignore all the, erm... unpleasantness. There are some great songs on here (and the guy is a hell of a producer), but some stuff hasn't aged well and even the stuff that has is just hard to listen to the same way in 2026.