Reviews by mikey_nc

Overplayed? Sure, but also super polished, classy, melodic, and delivered by a showstopper of a vocalist. Adele will age well.

Best song: When We Were Young

Abstract, jazzy, political, purposeful. Maybe a hair overhyped, as I don’t enjoy this as much as Good Kid Maad City or Damn, but it’s a great album with a clear vision.

Best song: King Kunta

Opening stretch wasn’t bad but I didn’t really enjoy this despite the jazzy stuff. Corny and kinda dull. Would be willing to try again.

Best song: Barrytown?

A dark, swirling world of crime reflected on over jazzy bassy boom-bap beats. Lyricism is crazy with the internal rhymes. The peak of gangster rap.

Best song: Life’s a Bitch

What a weird album. I still don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel about it, and it could probably use another listen that I’m not willing to commit to. There’s something there though. I think… I liked it.

Best song: Suspended in Gaffa?

Great beats, smooth delivery, impeccable old-school vibes.

Best song: Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?

A very pleasant and pretty lightweight album. Great melodies, not much variety, a little pretentious in the lyrics. Length is good.

Best song: Scarborough Fair

Seriously dark and heavy music; an unwell guy smearing his soul across an audio file. Maybe the weirdest thing about it is that beneath the abrasive layers it's kind of a groovy album, full of great rhythms and unique song structures. I come away from this thinking Reznor is an extremely legit musician who thankfully seems to have worked past his mid-90s issues that caused the subject matter here.

Best song: Closer

Lowkey and relaxing. Draws on African influences in ways that are generally interesting instead of distracting or distasteful. A strong listen.

Best song: Graceland

I used to think I liked punk but honestly maybe I don't. Or maybe punk has to be catchy for me to like it. There's nothing wrong with this album it's just kinda dull and the vocals aren't good and the sound fails to leave an impact. I'm sure it's good in some artsy way but I have no desire to hear it again.

A little bit sleazy and a lot of fun. My thing with glam rock is weird bc I'm honestly not even much a fan of the visual style, which I know was a big piece of the appeal at the time. I guess I feel like they were carrying forward the legacy of 60s pop moreso than the other "new" genres of the 70s: lots of attention to melody, simplicity, immediacy. Anyway it's good. Catchy songs, good guitars.

Best song: Rock On

Kinda creepy but kinda calming rock-electronic fusion. A unique sound that was worth experiencing, although there's not many individual tracks that I could say much about.

Kinda weird, kinda unsettling, and I lost focus multiple times. Still pretty captivating in a lot of ways. Some fascinating sounds and beautiful harmonies.

Best song: Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires

I’m too familiar with this album to really talk about it in any objective way so I’m not gonna try. I love it to death. Even if you hate it, 100% a must-listen. The Beatles at their greatest intersection of creative energy and unity as a group.

Best song: this time it was Tomorrow Never Knows

Definitely a big and expansive album. There are good songs here, but I’m not huge on the whole product. Some 70s fluff vibes with weaker rhythms and vocals. Impressive for the aspect of him doing (almost) all of it himself, if nothing else.

Best song: Couldn’t I Just Tell You or You Left Me Sore

Cool mix of styles, definitely rock but with a lot of funk and soul and folk influence. I like his voice, though a few of the lyrics were kind of, uh, dodgy, and some of the songs dragged on too long.

Best song: Let Love Rule

Lavish, tuneful, funky, fun. Disco executed about as perfectly as it can be.

Best song: I Want Your Love

Even as a massive Beatles fan I’ve never been especially attached to the White Album. I still liked it a lot, but in my mind it couldn’t hold a candle to the Beatles’ “true masterpieces” like Revolver or Abbey Road. My thinking was always influenced by the infamously fraught recording process, where a chaotic and disjointed set of sessions resulted in a pretty chaotic and disjointed album. I guess for me this album represented the beginning of the end for my favorite band, so it was hard to have too much affection for it.

All that being said, I’ve rarely done full listens of the White Album, and actually doing one for the first time in a long time helped me realize how much this album teems with creativity. The Beatles try any genre, any style, throw em all at the wall and see what sticks, and they all come out a bit of fun at the worst and masterful at the best. They might be tired and annoyed at each other, but they’re also utterly unserious and having fun at flower power culture’s expense, from tearing down their own mythos in Glass Onion to dismissing the hippies' all-bark-no-bite politics in Revolution 1. And of course John, Paul, and George are all pretty close to the top of their game as writers. When the first side alone features Back in the USSR and Dear Prudence and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, they all could have gone home and celebrated a hard day's work (night?) in my book.

Could this album still have been improved by cutting the obvious chaff like “Wild Honey Pie” and “Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" Yes. Is it still chaotic, disjointed, and overlong? Yes. None of that takes away from its magic and beauty. It is, warts and all, the Beatles.

Best song: Blackbird

Very atmospheric and emotionally heavy. Really impressed by the production job, I’ve heard some Joy Division before but had no idea their live style was much closer to “normal” punk. A great example of how production can wildly change your sound. It’s quite a downer and none of the songs really hit for me, so I probably won’t come back, but it’s a fascinating and well-constructed album.

Best song: She’s Lost Control

Marvin Gaye’s heavenly voice hits some sultry lows. I guess it’s overproduced from a certain perspective but it hits the lush vibe perfectly. Wouldn’t you rather make love children… as opposed to war ☮️

Best song: Let’s Get It On