Reviews by mikey_nc

Well it’s very bluesy. Some good guitar, as you’d expect. Not particularly inspiring or weighty, but certainly not bad and probably influential.

Best song: What’d I Say

When this album sits down and focuses on the music, the songs are actually quite strong. The problem is it doesn’t do that a ton. I get that for a lot of people the artwork of this album is the story it tries to tell, but I found it confusing and distracting rather than contributing any kind of cohesion to the final product. Roger Waters certainly has his vision, but I wasn’t much for it.

Best song: Comfortably Numb

The Stones at their sharpest, nastiest, sweetest, heaviest, and best. Let’s just try to forget the words to that first song.

Best song: Wild Horses

Bigger and more atmospheric than the last Smiths album, though I don’t feel too differently about it. This is succeeding at what it wants to do, I think I’ve just learned I’m not the world’s biggest fan of what the Smiths want to do.

Best song: Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

It sucks that most people only know this album (and this band) for being the source of that one sports arena song, because this is a cold stone classic. The White Stripes have a dead-simple blueprint: blues-ily flail around on guitar and drums (and ONLY guitar and drums) for a few minutes at a time, throw in some quiet-loud and stop-start dynamics, and pivot to acoustic guitar once in a while. Sounds like there's not much room to grow there, but that formula has somehow progressed and elevated here in a way that doesn't betray its principles while still evolving into new frontiers. The band kind of peaked here and then just gave up two albums later, which implies Elephant might be the limit of what two blues-punk wackos (only one of whom actually knows how to play their instrument) can accomplish. I'm cool with that, though, as this is a pretty awesome peak.

Best song: Little Acorns

Considering it's the namesake of one of the most extreme musical genres out there, and that its cover is literally just Satan's face, this is a surprisingly sludgy and unexciting album. The singer's deadpan grunt drags the tone down more often than not, and the guitar solos are pretty good but they're few and far between. All that said, I would have liked this less if it was actual black metal, so there weren't many ways to win me over here.

Best song: Buried Alive

I may have spoken too soon when I accused Aqualung of being the lamest album I’d ever heard.

Best song: Slightly All the Time

Zeppelin's magnum opus. A statement so massive that it came out in only the second year of the 1970s and yet it loomed over the whole decade. Big, brash, stupid, stupendous, overplayed as all hell, and, yes, a wonderful album.

Best song: Rock and Roll

Lots of interesting sounds and vibes here. A little self-absorbed in that way only indie rock can be, but it has some good melodies, some nice bass, and some cool ideas.

Best song: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1

Well that has to be one of the most thoroughly lame albums I’ve ever heard. Jethro Tull enjoyers please keep enjoying them. I will pass.

Best song: Aqualung

I was not excited when I saw this come up but I can’t lie, that was pretty sick. Great guitar, great melodies, and great energy.

Best song: Show Me the Way

The contradiction of Pearl Jam is that their arrival, along with Nirvana and Alice in Chains and all the brothers-in-arms in grunge, was supposed to herald a new and raw and more authentic brand of rock—and yet this album, even more so than the hordes of hair metal slop being churned out in the late 80s, sounds tailor-made to be blasted over the PA system in your local Home Depot or beer garden. The formula for most of these songs is simple: enough heavy guitar to appeal to the average American macho man, but mild and hook-y enough to serve as inoffensive background music. I would argue Pearl Jam's music, and Ten specifically, became the blueprint for two whole decades of mainstream radio rock, the two decades that completely and utterly killed the format... yes, Pearl Jam fans must confront the uncomfortable reality that there is probably no Nickelback, no Creed, no Hoobastank without this album. Without those bands and their overpoweringly muddy and divisive sound, rock radio stations may never have fallen apart. Based on all this information, you might comfortably assume that the album is trash and it killed an entire genre of music’s mainstream relevance and so it should be hated for generations to come.

But the contradiction spreads further and deeper, because you know what? This album really IS good. Like, all-hits-no-misses levels of good. This album's formula works. Pearl Jam knows how to write some melodies, and Eddie Vedder's unconventional wailing and moaning feels like it should be a huge miscue, but instead it suits those melodies perfectly. There really is realness, rawness, and edge here: a song like Jeremy would never have hit the radio before this album dropped, but these guys sell it perfectly. So what do you do with Ten? I would say you can't really blame a band for what record executives and hack imitators choose to do with their style; it would be foolish to blame the Beatles for every two-bit boy band that came in their wake, after all. Still, I don't blame anyone for passing on this one just for how overdone its sound became, and for all it represents. I find it fascinating how you could point to it as the root of rock radio’s demise, but I'm happy to enjoy it for what it is.

Best song: Jeremy

Unexpectedly edgy in the first half and more of what I was anticipating in the second half. Neither is better than the other: a strong blend of tradition and experimentation, built on a foundation of powerful vocals and hypnotic rhythms.

Best song: Hey Girl

Swing music is one of those genres I have plenty of appreciation but little excitement for. This album doesn’t really contradict that opinion, but it’s certainly worthy and well-performed.

It fits the bill as pretty evil- and gross-sounding music (by a pretty evil and gross dude, at that). This is definitely not something I would seek out on my own, but I do have to give it some credit for its vision, plus a few good guitar riffs.

Best song: The Beautiful People

I want to like this, and there are a few strong songs, but honestly this is not fun to listen to. It’s somehow a little too experimental yet also pretty boring? Something’s just not clicking.

Best song: Rhymes and Ammo

This is an interesting case where I don’t find this particular set of tracks super exciting (except for a couple genuinely great ones), but I have a huge appreciation for this album’s aesthetics, innovation, and place in music history. So in a vacuum it’s merely decent, particularly by today’s standards, but all the surrounding context is enough to elevate the score for me.

Best song: Europe Endless

A pretty solid album with a lot of welcome 60s homage to the sound. That being said there’s something that screams hipster about this album that I can’t put my finger on but it definitely annoyed me. That’s kinda irrational though.

Best song: Pretty Mary Kay

I get that Metallica got a lot of criticism for going “mainstream,” but this sounds more like a streamlined album than a compromised one. A little too long, but really heavy, tight, and memorable.

Best song: Nothing Else Matters

Very stately and well-arranged. Boring in places, but quite original and often interesting.

Best song: Train Song