Reviews by nirutam2

I have a story for this album and presumably many folks out there have the same story. It was the heyday of Napster (though possibly Limewire by then) and there was a rumor that a new Weezer album would be out soon. Then one day it appeared in my downloads, except it was a fake -- it was actually Slanted and Enchanted, which I had never heard before. Weezer eventually released the Green Album, falling far short of what we had all been hoping for. But it was okay, because I had discovered Pavement. I know every word and it is pretty much the standard for what an indie album should be.

Never quite got into these guys and I'm not sure why. A three that might become a four if I come back to it.

One of my favorite kinds of albums is the synth-driven record that oscillates between musical abstraction and hooky hits. Songs from the Big Chair is the type specimen for me, but there's an alternate universe where I fell in love with Disintegration instead. The Cure were much more of a scene than Tears for Fears... a scene some people roll their eyes at. But it's irrelevant to me. I'm just happy to lose myself in an album that has "Pictures of You" on it but also tracks where I forget there is a singer in the group at all.

aaaaI've been listening to the hits from this album for half my life, to the point where I take them for granted and they can sound a little corny to me, but when I step back there is definitely a grandeur to them. This time through I liked the lesser-known tracks better, helped me focus more on their sound apart from Dylan and the whole scene.

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So much to admire in the sound, but as with some other hip hop albums of the era, the lyrics prevent me from fully enjoying it. I have no need for diss tracks and it's crazy to me that an album from 2001 has the word "squaw" in it. Left me feeling sad.

ain't nothin to fuck with

Can ya dig it? Epic and fun and makes you feel like you're in the movie. Nothing deeply profound about it but plenty of fun.

The “old school hip hop” category confuses me. I like the overall sounds and themes and beats, but I am in the wrong musical generational niche to have nostalgia for it, so the actual rapping and skits always feel a little dated to me. And I don’t know the history well enough to be able to say “Okay X is so important because it led to Y” the way I could with someone like Buddy Holly. Anyway this might be more of a 3.5 to me, hard to say.

I hate the feeling when a band has all the elements of what I say I like, but the album just doesn’t connect with me. This is the sort of thing I wouldn’t mind in the background but can’t imagine playing again.

I won't do this justice by any means. Maybe the best album in the list so far that I hadn't already heard. Actually accomplishes what I wanted so many albums in the psychedelic/trippy/prog mash-mash to do, in part by not taking itself too seriously, by remembering that an album is made up of songs and not just grooves. Veers between the extremes of so abstract and so catchy with no pauses between to catch your breath. I'd give it a six if I could because it was on a whole other plane... made it hard for me to listen to anything else for a while. Looking forward to returning, discovering more, figuring it out.

Like a lot of albums I ultimately loved, this one challenged me at first. A few songs in I texted my friend and said, "I think I've wandered into an album-length version of Fingertips by They Might Be Giants... no idea if it will work or not." But it got even weirder than that with excursions into things like the Cool Jerk. Anyway, still reeling, looking forward to what others have to say.

One of my favorite albums of all time. Usually ends up in the top ten when I put together a list. Yes, it’s ridiculously 80s. Yes, it’s emotionally overwrought. But for this 80s kid it’s like a pure prism of emotions emanating from our infant selves.

The hits were background music for my childhood, but I didn’t actually pick up the album until my 30s. It was in a transitional time of life when I was driving around a lot listening to Jack-FM hoping for a few favorite songs to come on. And eventually I realized that all I wanted to hear was “Head Over Heels” and it was time to get the record.

Now the hits and the other tracks blend together into an organic whole to me. I have the strongest feelings in the quietest parts, as if they were purposefully written for reflection. For me it contains just about every emotion and experience.

Other random note: in my top albums, this is probably the poppiest and most popular

The Police are a bit of a mystery to me. I love all their hits and feel how the sound bleeds into the rest of the album, but also sometimes get this feeling that I've been tricked into thinking they are deeper than they are. Similar for U2. I found myself entirely surprised and impressed by Synchronicity earlier in the project and gave it a 5, but never felt sure about it. This is a 3.5 or 4 for similar reasons.

Confused that I didn't like this more than I did, since Janis's voice is perfect to me. I gave her album Pearl a five, but there were a lot of moments I felt lost here. One of the many albums I wonder if might turn into a five with more listening, though I also wonder if perhaps I was too enthusiastic about Pearl.

It wasn't a sure thing that punk would be political, much less that it would be the succor to a generation of progressives in the wilderness. The Sex Pistols' anarchism was mostly an act, the Ramones' politics were... something. But the Dead Kennedys' sounds and lyrics were so radical and unforgettable that they revealed the political potential for punk from now until the end of time.

In Green Room, a wonderful and weird movie about live music and white supremacy, a punk band suddenly realizes they are playing a skinhead club. Without much of a plan, they open their set with "Nazi Punks Fuck Off." Why doesn't this crowd lynch them? I thought, and I wonder if it is something in the power of this group to say, "No matter what sick shit you do with this music, we are never going away."

Anyway, the skinheads lose in the end. Nazi punks fuck off indeed.

Grateful for the ways in which this project is deepening my metal knowledge. Previously I would get in a Metallica or Sabbath mood every month or so and put on a mix. Or occasionally the Black Album. The project has made me appreciate the political and emotional statements of Paranoid and now this album too. I had thought of the title track as an anthem of defiance, but in the context of the whole album (and probably my own getting older) the humility before the power of addiction seems clearer. Yet as we know, these guys have fought on, and albums like this make me want to keep going too.

Also -- as I've said I'm far from an expert -- but it seems clearly superior to the Black Album to me. I gave that a somewhat reluctant five -- megahits and emotional connection put it over the top, I guess -- but this is more clearly an eternal metal record.

I knew the title track via Johnny Cash's American Recordings cover and like it a lot. Intrigued by the rest but my mind had trouble locking onto it. It's a persistent problem with these folky indie acts and me... see also Badly Drawn Boys, Bright Eyes, Elliot Smith.

A friend of mine who is on this journey with me recently observed to me that "weird" is an essential element of his musical taste. No surprise, this is the same guy that turned me on to They Might Be Giants when we were kids. They remain one of my favorite bands, but it's hard to imagine trying to get anyone to like them if they haven't had years to marinate in the weirdness. I get the same feeling with Captain Beefheart, except in a psychedelic classic rock palette rather than TMBG's art rock/New Wave sound. Anyway, I recognize the weirdness and enjoy it, but also wonder if this is something you need to listen to many times to get it -- see also fellow travelers Frank Zappa and Tom Waits. I'm into it, but also curious to see if I'll return or not.

Like some Beatles records on the list, I went in thinking I’d be iconoclastic and give it a 4, only to be blown away all over again.

I’m young enough that even though I was aware of Kurt Cobain’s death, it didn’t feel like something that happened to me personally. Perhaps that’s a way to define your micro-generation: tell me about Kurt Cobain. Anyway, by the time I was taking music more seriously Nirvana and their importance were simply assumed. That kind of annoyed me, so even though I knew all the songs, I think the only album I actually owned was Unplugged. Then I went back through it all again in the streaming era, but it never seemed to have the impact it was supposed to.

Hearing it in the context of this project changed that. I feel like I can finally hear what an explosive impact this had when it came out… how it suddenly reorganized the whole pop music universe around itself. Don’t have the energy at this moment to try to explain WHY that was, but grateful to finally feel like I got it.

I’m not sure I would give this album a 5 if I heard it for the first time today. But it was one of the my first 20 CDs… came into my life so early that I’m not sure I picked it myself or if my mom bought it for the household. Her voice was as sure a part of “alternative” for me as Kurt Cobain’s. And even more than that I feel like this album taught middle school me how to FEEL. I had never experienced any of the things she was singing about but I aspired to have those experiences and feelings. I wondered what it would be like to have a “Shadowboxer” love or a “Criminal” love. I don’t know that these songs describe my emotional life today all that well, but I’m attached to rhe memory of each of them so much.

I’m an unapologetic Doors fan. I’ll definitely go on a tear where they are all I will listen to for days. Everything people say they hate about them — the jazz, the psychedelia, the artistic pretensions — are things I actually think we need more of in rock and roll. But they did it all their own way. Plenty to love in every track on the album.