Reviews by ninexnineteen

I think I only made it all the way through two songs? This isn't really for me. It could be my current mood, I suppose. I'm sick today and feeling slow and beat up. I'll toss this on the pile to give it a second listen because I definitely see merit here.

What I did appreciate was the clear vocals at the top of the mix and that these guys are clearly all excellent musicians. I think they do a good job at what they do, and I can definitely see places other bands have drawn inspiration from Anthrax. I wouldn't blame anyone for liking this album.

2

Alright

Really solid album. Stipe's voice is awesome, great guitar tones and arrangements, well-recorded, and I'm a sucker for orchestral backing to rock songs. I couldn't ask for much more.

The album barely holds its ⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating because I feel like the back half of it had a miss or two. If everything was a good as the front half, it would have been a 5 for me

Metallica is one of my favorite bands, but I do hold them to account where it's due. For example: St Anger, Death Magnetic, and Lulu (I'm a Lou Reed hater). I can definitely acknowledge the first three of their albums as different and excellent, but not necessarily better in my opinion. They're great, but for different reasons.

This album, for me marks the beginning of my personal favorite era of Metallica: Black Album through S&M1. That's unpopular, but I don't give a fuck. I love earlier stuff and albums from 2016 to present too. Also, more unpopular opinions: I like Jason Newstead. He's a great bassist and it must have sucked to have felt like a stepchild in the shadow of the prodigal firstborn.

Anyway, this album is great, and there are no misses for me on this album. Great production, Newstead's parts are not only audible in the mix but also significantly contributive; heavy, dark, melodic, angry, sad, tender lyrics and instrumentation. I have a hard time finding fault with this album, but if I need to be picky, I'd say once The Struggle Within hits its stride after a solid intro, it becomes the weakest track on the album.

What I miss on this album compared to their previous albums (a HUGE instrumental track) is made up for by the middle passage of My Friend Of Misery. It's no Orion, but it's a beautiful fucking bit of music.

All in all, FUCK. YES. Great album 🤘

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I need to listen to Paul Simon more often. Every time I do, I remember how much I like his music.

4

Wow, "You Can't Fade Me" is fucking horrific. This is shit that would have appealed to 13 year old me, and I would have probably argued "oh, this was just for shock value." As an adult, it's just gross.

Stylistically and musically, this album hasn't aged well. I think the "fuck the police" and anti-black racism themes are unfortunately still relevant today. To give the benefit of the doubt, perhaps a good amount of the sexism on the album is either tongue in cheek or critical of people who behave that way, but it's still hard to stomach for me. If it hadn't been for the verse trading with Yo-Yo on It's A Man's World, I might not have been able to give any benefit of the doubt at all.

I don't regret listening to this, but I can't say I enjoyed it very much. I was definitely a lot more into it when I was an idiot. It's interesting how some albums lock themselves into a specific time period (this album, for example) while a person continues to age, and other albums even from 40-50 years ago seem like they could have been recorded yesterday because lyrics, music, and themes don't seem to have aged at all.

I haven't ever been much of a fan of David Bowie's music, and this album doesn't change my mind at all. If anything, it just provides more evidence that I don't much care his music.

This album wasn't hard to listen to, but hard to like. I feel relatively certain I won't be listening to this album again.

I'm 4 songs in and this album feels very much like just generic rock and all very samey-same to me. Perhaps this was a great show in 1970 in its own context and time.

Young Man Blues is pretty good and is the first song that sounds like its own song. All of the previous tracks sounded like one long song.

Moving into the stuff from Tommy makes the album more enjoyable for me

Overall, a pretty meh and disappointing album from a band I like

Like a lot of folks here, I first heard of this artist through Jeff Buckley's Live at Sin-é album. Unfortunately, I never investigated further, but I remember thinking if Jeff liked this artist, he must be something special. I was right to think that. This album is certainly in my top 5 of the albums on this list I had never heard before.

Normally, I'm not much of a fan of "world music," but I am very much enjoying listening to this. Cool depth, texture, instrumentation, vocals, and just the vibe in general. Super glad I listened to this

1. Complete waste of time

2. What?

3. What?

4. What? Why?

5. Ridiculous

I can't go one by one anymore. I read the Wikipedia article. I understand the joke, but I don't think it's a great joke. Or at least I'm so far removed in time or uneducated about the times/events being satirized, the joke isn't relevant to me. The music isn't very enjoyable by itself and because the joke is lost on me, I'm not enjoying this album at all.

I think even if I heard this when it was relevant, I wouldn't care for the music the messaging comes wrapped in. Too many backwards passages, weird hard left/right panning, strange noises, nonsensical spoken word passages for me to be able to enjoy this.

I haven't listened to anything from this album in probably 20 years. That was a dumb idea.

Pac has always been in my top three rappers. His flow is legendary, his lyrics poetic and significant, and I have always appreciated his ability to take a sample of some other song and breathe new life into it.

That said, I definitely need to draw a distinction between the man and his art. Nobody DESERVES to be murdered like he was, but it definitely shouldn't be a surprise when a person lives a life harming others or being directly responsible for the deaths of other people. It seems to me 2Pac was not a person trying to change the world for the better, but more trying to improve his own circumstances by whatever means he felt necessary. Perhaps if he would have lived into maturity, he would have become a better human. We'll never know

I remember watching this concert when it aired on MTV. I got this album for Christmas the year it came out. I remember spending an entire summer listening to this album on repeat and playing Donkey Kong Country. This album hit me right when my musical tastes were forming, and has been incredibly influential in what I listen to today. Nirvana also introduced me to other artists through their covers I had never heard of.

Playing pool in my grandparent's basement all summer with my friends listening to this, Pearl Jam's vs. and Ten, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, and Aerosmith is another important memory of mine.

My grandfather was a guitar player who loved country and bluegrass music, and it was great that his tastes and mine overlapped on this album. I remember listening to it several times on tape with him on a drive from Tennessee to Georgia.

This has always been an album I could turn to when I wasn't sure what I wanted to listen to, it was one of bring with me when I could only bring a few, and one that was always with me on road trips. I listened to it several times driving my first car across the country to get to another duty station when I was in the army. In fact, just last year, my wife and I sat in a hotel room looking out at Canada from Port Angeles Washington on another road trip. On that road trip, my wife and I stopped in Aberdeen and saw Kurt's old house and his memorial on the banks of the muddy Wishkah.

I am so grateful for this album, Nirvana, and their friends who came together to make one of the most revisited pieces of art in my life. I can't say enough about this album. It is a part of me.

This is the easiest 5 star rating so far.

Everything about this is great.

I could have done with a shorter version of See the Light, and without the weird synthesizer though

4

Everything on this could have been a single. Fantastic!

4.75

Tidal only has the "expanded edition" of this album with 15 tracks. The original album had 8. After making it more than halfway through this album, I'm sure I won't be listening to any of the "expanded" content.

1. Not much of a fan of this

2. This either

3. First listenable track

4. Couldn't take the droning anymore. I had to skip ⅔ of the way through

5. Meh

6. Listenable

7. Listenable. Didn't skip

8. I'm quite enjoying this track, actually

9. Alright, I'm into the expanded content now. I'm out at the first inkling of trouble!

11. See ya, Ride. I'm out

This is music in my taste profile from my era, amd somehow I have never listened to this whole album. Why?

I didn't like Sabotage when it came out; I thought it was over-hyped. I was just a "too cool for everything" teenager, and as I have grown older, I'm more of an "everything is so cool!" adult. Sabotage kicks ass.

Nice guest spot from Q-Tip here, which added an element of smooth to the normally brash and confrontational style of the Beasties. Very nicely complimentary.

WTF was Sabrosa?!? Super cool. A very nice break from the chaos that really shows the Beasties aren't one trick ponies.

Flute Loop?!? Fuck, this is badass! This is the highlight of the album for me so far. The back half of this album is incredible

Fun, though not particularly meaningful. Not that absent-minded and fun is a bad thing...

1. If this amelodic style of singing continues throughout the rest of this album, I won't be listening to much of it

2. Better, but not great

3. Alright, here comes The Question: why is this album on the list?

4. Not seeing what's special here

5. Nope

6. I like this traditional reggae style better than anything else so far. Still skipped halfway through

7. Made it all the way through this one!

8. Made it all the way through this one, but still pretty meh

9. Best track so far. Still not seeing a reason to listen again

10. Lol. Ok, now my favorite is the instrumental song

11. Skipped

12. Also skipped

13. Meh

Another album on this list here without justification by the Wikipedia article or other sources explaining why it's significant or special. In fact, the artist's Wikipedia article states "Three albums were made between 2019 and 2023 but also removed from distribution and outlets because of lack of recognition, interest or support in the United kingdom in terms of live agents, labels and publishers." I think that says a lot more than I could.

1. I'd hate to be the tech who has to clean this guy's microphone. Gross. I get the same feelings listening to this song as I get listening to something chewing with their mouth open

2. Not bad at all

3. Is he putting us on with this voice? Like this is serious?

4. Better vocals, for sure. Like not good or anything, but the bar is pretty low after the last song

5. Ok, so this guy would probably be alright as an instrumental act. Or would definitely benefit from someone who doesn't have such a distractingly tragic voice

6. Let's start a men's barbershop quartet with this guy, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan. If we're to pretend bad singing is what makes something like this album great, let's go all in

7. Badbadnotgood is a way to describe this using the name of a band that is good. "Fucking awful" is another way

8. I think his voice actually works quite well with this blues-style song. Enjoyable

9. This kind of reminds me of a bad Springsteen impersonator. And let's be real, Bruce doesn't have the best voice either

This is such beautiful music and messaging. I have been emotionally overcome multiple times while listening to this.

And GODFUCKINGDAMNIT we're almost 55 years after this album's release and we STILL can't be nice to each other and respect our planet.

4.5