Reviews by ninexnineteen

Infectious beats. I love his lyrical cadence too

⭐⭐⭐⭐½

At three tracks in, everything I have heard so far sounds pretty deeply nested within the country/rock/hippie genre that was in fashion at the time.

Dropout Boogie is pretty bad, and apparently starts a shift in the album to "weird and not really good"

Electricity has a lot of really annoying shit in it

Abba Zaba: ridiculous. Couldn't finish

Grown So Ugly: bluesy and not bad at all

Safe as Milk Take 5: needed at least a 6th take

Big Black Baby Shoes: disclaimer: I am not a guitarist. These guitars are out of tune and terrible sounding

Flower Pot: WILL IT EVER BE OVER?

Trust Us: I almost didn't make through the intro. The song actually wound up to be maybe my favorite on the album so far. Pretty low bar there though. Oops, wrote that before the 3 hour outro. No thanks

Korn Ring Finger: Absolutely fucking not. Terrible

Final thoughts: Not great, overall. Weird, atonal, and uninspiring. Also, perhaps the squeakiest drum pedal in all of recorded music history

The intro to Can't You Hear Me Knocking gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. The crunchy guitar by itself, then later the bass coming in to accompany is one of my favorite passages of music. Not much gives me the stank face so fast.

Sister Morphine has slick guitar playing. Really enjoyed this track

Moonlight Mile is gorgeous

4.5

This was fantastic. Their cover of No Woman No Cry has always been a favorite.

4.5

Tiresome and without lasting power. Simplistic, boring lyrics, and same ol' boom bap beat style without a speck of innovation.

Just so everyone knows, in case Ice-T didn't REALLY hammer this message home, he's a tough guy who gets ladies.

⭐⭐

This is another album by a band I like, but have only heard a few select songs off the album.

Born Under Punches: Excellent and funky. It was a little slow, but in a way I like

Crosseyed and Painless: Reading about the album's Fela Kuti/Afrobeat influence, I can hear it plain as day in this song. Fortunately, I have had a Fela Kuti AND a Fema Kuti album in this list so far, so I had a point of reference for that. And THAT, is exactly why I'm doing this list

The Great Curve: Cool. No specific comments

Once in a Lifetime: I have always loved the spacey feeling of this song. This is probably the first Talking Heads songs I can remember hearing, and I have always liked the band since then.

Houses in Motion: Cool funky bass. I probably could have done without the extended flute(?) solo, but still good

Seen and Not Seen: maybe one of the only tolerable spoken word tracks I've ever heard

Listening Wind: Good track. No specific commentary

The Overload: Weird, though strangely enjoyable

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Killer song to open the album

Starlight: I love this

Regrettably, I haven't ever listened to this entire album before. I have missed a lot of time that I could have been listening to more than the 3 or 4 singles on it. The deeper cuts are fantastic as well.

Map of the Problematic has a a really cool feel. Great vocal pairings between the lead and accompanying voices. The choir effect is very befitting of the song

Invincible reminds me a lot of a U2 song

Assassin has a great fast-paced opening, leading into Muse's signature style, which I quite like

In City of Delusion, the transition to a sort of Middle Eastern/ mariachi interlude was a really cool contrast with the rest of the song

The intro to Hoodoo is very reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, and after reading Bellamy's Wikipedia page, that seems to track pretty well

Knights of Cydonia is awesome. If you're not banging your head and tapping your feet to this song, I don't think you liked anything on this album. This is such a cool surf guitar/western movie-themed song. There's even some Daft Punk/Tron sounding stuff in there

It's albums like this that make me glad I'm going through this list. I liked Muse. I knew a few tracks on this album. Now, having heard the entire thing, I'm going to intentionally listen to these guys a lot more, and I'm going to look for shows of theirs I can attend. This album made me a Muse fan, rather than someone who had heard a few of their songs .

I didn't expect anything at all from this, but I'm having quite a good time listening. This sounds like Danny Elfman's score of a stop motion film by Tim Burton where the protagonist spends a lot of time running and hiding. Not in a bad way

⭐⭐⭐

I'm very much into 60s - 80s country, so an album like this is very much in my wheelhouse. That said, I liked this album, but there's nothing special here. Almost the entire album sounds like filler. This is totally inoffensive and easy to listen to, but I just keep waiting for it to get better and it never did. The especially frustrating part for me is I like this band AND I like this genre. I guess I just had expectations that weren't met.

I feel like giving this three stars is too generous, and two stars is too harsh. Whatever rating I end up giving to this album isn't one I'm going to be satisfied with.

At least it's a short listen, so I only had anxiety about its underperformance for about half an hour.

⭐⭐

Well, this is the best Sonic Youth album I have ever heard, but that would be a pretty low bar. It started off "not explicitly bad," but on the back halg moved into maybe something like "couldn't be this bad on purpose." I'm just not into their style. Or noise. Or droning, one-note vocals. 🤷

⭐⭐

This was a pleasure to listen to

I like pretty much everything this duo does, but this was a pretty weak album for me. Nothing offensive or hard to listen to (except maybe old people talking), but just not as high quality as I think other albums of theirs are. This was headed towards a 5 star rating until I got to the second half

⭐⭐⭐

I was a little young for the rave scene, as this came out when I was 14. This album certainly makes me nostalgic for something I never got to participate in.

I wasn't listening to this type of music in 1994, but these days, I'm always looking for a high electronic music without unnecessary lyrics. For that reason, this is a far better album than Fat of the Land for me.

This is definitely going into my personal collection

Curtis has one of the most instantly recognizable voices from this era. Great, funky tunes, plenty of conscious lyrics, an orchestra,.and a perfect rhythm section. It's hard not to bob your head and tap your feet to this. I loved this, having only heard two songs previously.

Side note: I recognized a sample of Freddie's Dead from a song by a rap duo I listened to quite a lot in the early 90s: Poison Clan

⭐⭐⭐⭐

These guys aren't doing anything that Suicidal Tendencies hadn't already done better 10 years earlier. I don't see the appeal at all

Layne and Jerry are my favorite post 1990 rock harmonists. So many great songs on this album, and I was really pleased this came up this morning and I "got to listen" to an album I really like.

"Am I wrong? Have I run too far to get home?" is one of my favorite lyrics.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

I really don't like this genre of rock that's characterized by singing/droning into a soup can and lo-fi guitars. This is especially frustrating to me because I know just how good of a voice Julian Casablancas has.

I never found myself tapping my foot during this album. For me, the best part of the album was the clean guitar in Trying Your Luck, but mostly because it reminded me of Weezer.

This was BAD bad, but I'm glad it was only 36 minutes long. I used the extra time to listen to Julian Casablancas sing something I like on Random Access Memories

This album brings me back to where and who I was when it came out, and it has been with me in some capacity all throughout my adulthood. Whether is was a breakup or times when I felt free and on top of the world driving with the windows down, or when I just wanted to listen to beautiful composition, this album has always been there.

I have never seen them live, but just last night, my wife told me they'd be in my town soon. I think I'll go.

I liked this a lot more than I wanted to. I don't like this genre, so I went in with a bias. They won me over

⭐⭐⭐

This album is getting a lot of (hilarious) hate in the reviews, and I think some of those points are easy to understand. This is a pretty schmaltzy record that's easily digestible for the masses; "mom rock*," I think I read. Doesn't matter to me though.

I love listening to James's finger-picking style, simple and impactful drums, and he's just got such a sweet, easy to listen to voice. He's always been a favorite artist of mine, even if he's not breaking ground. Not every album has to be the cornerstone of a genre; they can just be enjoyable. Art is supposed to make you feel, right? This makes me feel relaxed and happy.

Great album.

*BTW, my Mom also likes James Taylor

⭐⭐⭐⭐