Reviews by nirutam2

Didn't hate it but can't really say I liked it. I am just lost with these older electronica albums. With most of the popular genres I can fit the records into a story of subcultures and influences that helps me appreciate them even if they aren't exactly my thing. But to me this just sounds like an alternate fan soundtrack to the Matrix. Yes I know the Matrix hadn't come out yet, no I don't care. I didn't dislike listening to it so it isn't a 1, but I can't rate it a 3 because I don't think I can make a coherent statement about any of the tracks, except there was something about mountains...

My brain is just jelly before the Talking Heads. I know I don't like this one as much as Buildings and Food, but I can also see why it is a favorite of so many people. This project has definitely confirmed me as a fan.

A great slide of psychedelia. I'm not into drugs myself, but I appreciate psychedelic rock in the same way I appreciate decisions by the Beatles and The Beach Boys to attempt something more than love songs. You can go in just about any direction as long as you go far out. I can't say I loved every track but I liked most of them. The first track would be a banger in any era... it almost feels like it could have been a track by the Decemberists or The Shins or other recent indie artists with a bit of a psychedelic sensibility.

Lovely and unexpected. I love music that feels not just "retro" but outside of time entirely. You feel like this was what Bob Dylan was hoping to achieve with "Love and Theft" -- there are plenty of other equivalent examples. Anyway, this really works, and I could imagine it becoming a five after repeat listens, which I'm looking forward to.

I always fit a bit intimidated by the blues no matter how many times I try to get into it. Like reggae, it represents something beyond the music itself, and I feel like I can only partially understand it as a white kid from the suburbs. On this album, though, what transcends genre is the guitar. Like Santana, you immediately know who is playing, and you can feel a whole generation of people listening and saying, "Yes, I want to sounds like that too, forever..."

DNF. I was prepared for it to be bad, but it was honestly so much worse than I imagined.

I'll admit that the hits from the albums have some punch to them both musically and lyrically. And I think that it makes sense as a snapshot of things that were going on in America in 1998.

People were figuring out new ways to combine rap, rock, country, and metal -- but by now we have so many more effective examples than this. The filler tracks truly feel like a high school student doing a "rap" skit for a class project.

In the long term, I think the only real significance of this album is that it was a preview of the kind of white male resentment that became MAGA. And maybe the couple of fun moments on the album show that resentment could have become something less nasty. I wish I heard more of that.

But I hate to say that even setting aside the kind of interesting political and cultural aspects... it's just dreadful. Couldn't make it to the end.

Bob Marley is one of those artists whose influence goes so far outside the limits of an LP that assessing the record is difficult. Giving this one a four because I already know it doesn’t move me as much as Exodus… but damn I’m glad the man and his music existed.

Hello again Rod. I don't hate this but also don't quite get why it's considered significant enough to show up in a list like this.

Up there with Jimi in the "What could have been?" category. And kind of similar in the degree of virtuosity and strangeness. A sound and a message that has never quite been matched in any subgenere of hip-hop, yet they influenced all of them. I'm way out of my depth pronouncing anything a "best of" in the hip hop category, but I'm quite sure this is the best of something.

Essential influence for so much of the music I love today, yet still so peculiar and quirky that it still stands on its own today. One of the weirdo classics. I have to confess that even though I knew it was in French and I can understand a bit of it, I thought that one of the tracks included the phrase "Klaatu barada nikto" from "The Day The Earth Stood Still." Nope, just more French.

My first reaction was "Enjoy this reasonably well but also heard enough of it in the 90s, three starts."

But to be honest as I listened more I enjoyed it less. Each track reaches a degree of repetition where I have to hit skip for my own sanity, even though I like most of the elements.

I'm pretty sure it's not just the genre... I enjoy other ambient and electronic stuff with much more repetition. But I have had similar responses to other 90s electronica in the list, so my guess is that it's something about the sounds of this period specifically that turn me off. Anyway, two stars, sorry funk soul brotha.

I really have trouble assessing The Smiths critically. They wrote and recorded many of my favorite songs and I love their sound overall. Yet almost any time I put on one of their albums I end up with a kind of mental numbness where all the tracks run together, even though I enjoy them. Anyway, parking this at a 4 even though I think it could be anywhere between 3.5 and 5.

I always preface these reviews by saying I know jack about hip hop. Musically these are definitely the types of beats I prefer. Lyrically I was a little more skeptical, though I was laughing out loud from the start. These guys sneak up on you though. There is something more subtle going on amidst all the Yo Mama jokes, an improvisational playfulness that shows you everything the genre can be. I can't say I deeply love it, but at the same time I feel like it's one of those albums you could hand to space aliens and say, "This is some of the amazing shit our species is capable of." I suspect I'll still reach for Outkast when I'm in this kind of mood, but glad I took the ride.

Another Beatles album I started by psyching myself to rate it a 4 and quickly discovered I had no chance. Five stars. 

My initial case for a four starts with the execrable lyrics to “Run For Your Life,” which is the one Beatles song I would obliterate from existence if forced to choose. Yet musically it is still a good example of the early era and I love its jangly country side. 

Weirdly, I also grew up thinking of "Rubber Soul" as a transitional or filler album even though it is a favorite album of many people. That shaped some of how I listen to it... in the wrong mood I can think of "Girl" and "Michele" as cheesy gimmicks, "The Word" and "Think For Yourself" as needlessly didactic, and "In My Life" as insincere. I still rank it below (at least) Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, White Album, Abbey Road, and Help!

And yet. "Drive My Car" is peak red album Beatles. "If I Needed Someone" reveals the beauty of George's soul to the world. "Norwegian Wood" shows where they were headed. "Wait" is vastly underappreciated. "What Goes On" is such a good Ringo song. "I'm Looking Through You" is a transition from more simple love songs to complex relationship dynamics. And and and. 

And when you look it through any ONE of the genius tracks, the whole thing seems brilliant. How could four people be so brilliant and also have so much casual fun? "Rubber Soul" isn't a highly intentional work of art like "Revolver" or "Sgt. Pepper" or even "A Hard Day's Night." In many ways it's as spontaneous and authentic as "Please Please Me." I'll take that any day, even with John's barely sublimated bloodlust.

Maybe possibly a 1.5. Imagine a whole band constructed from “State Trooper” from Springsteen’s “Nebraska,” except five years earlier with way more synth and screaming.

Now I love “State Trooper” and I am grateful for whatever this band had to do with it. But its power is in its subtlety and unresolved tension.

Contrast that with “Frankie Teardrop,” a ten minute screed about a factory worker killing his kid and then going to hell. Not subtle.

Anyway I’m glad this existed because it seems like it influenced some great music, but I’d be happy to never think about it again.

Could have sworn one of these songs was on the Garden State soundtrack. Kind of a 3.5 for me. I have the same issue here as I do with Bright Eyes and other similar artists, which is they even though I like the sound, I have trouble concentrating on it for extended periods of time, so it makes it less enjoyable as an album. Can’t quite explain it since these guys are probably a lot what I would sound like if I could write songs.

Perfect. Elegant. Transcendent. Her “Sea Change,” but I might like it more than “Sea Change.” I don’t get the accusation of sameness. I felt like it had an impact somewhat like “Give Up” by The Postal Service, defining an overall sound but also varying it track by track. Wish I could have listened to it 10 times today.

On some now defunct streaming service I had saved a playlist called "Sexy International Hotel Lounge" or something along those lines. A few of the generator albums I've encountered would have fit right in there. But it never really struck me as art created by people, just a kind of higher class muzak. As with those other albums I enjoyed this reasonable well but couldn't really interface with it as art.

I'm a bit behind on reviews and feel like I don't have the words for this masterpiece. I'm of the right age and background that for me 90s alt-rock was centered on the Pumpkins, not Nirvana. And for all my love of other genres, I was born in 1984 and 90s music is home. I'll never not love this, never get sick of it. Maybe I'll have something more profound to say when Mellon Collie comes around.

Got this album on the same day I read an essay decrying the whitewashing of MJ in his recent biopic. I have never looked into the accusations against him in detail, but as a rule, I believe victims, especially kid victims. I don’t think you can understand this music without paying attention to the fact that this was a very hurt human who also hurt other people very much.

And as when I got “Bad,” my attention goes back to: what exactly are the conflicts in MJ’s songs about? My son when in the car as I listened, and he asked me, “What kind of creature is Thriller about?” Heck if I know, but surely it’s some version of MJ itself. And: “Who does he want to beat it?” Same story. Even when you listen to a song like “Scream” — generally understood as a response to the scandals — it sounds like something more complex and self-directed is going on.

I used to love this music. Today I am more detached. I like that my son knows what “Thriller” is, but I don’t want him to even know who MJ is. I don’t want to offer even a hint of an apology. If I ever realize my long-imagined research project to understand his significance, it will have to be about who we all are that we let this happen among us, not about the man himself. I still can’t look him in the eye.