Reviews by pops

I feel like it's not a coincidence that the track I enjoyed most on this album (I Talk to the Wind) was also the shortest. That reminded me of Air, which I was not expecting. The plinky, plonky cod-medieval stuff though? Honestly, that kind of is what I was expecting this to be.

Black Sabbath are one of those bands that I always feel like I should have listened to but haven't really - my knowledge of them begins and ends with Paranoid (which I do love). So, I would have been pleased to get this, even without the added poignancy of Ozzy Osbourne passing away yesterday. I can see why they were influential - some tracks were more bluesy than I was expecting, but you can definitely see the birth of heavy metal here.

It was only yesterday that I had The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and today I get The Grapplin' With His Mortality Bob Dylan. That might have worked in Time Out of Mind’s favour - hearing how much his voice has aged made it more poignant. And he still managed to knock out another standard with Make You Feel My Love. It makes you glad that the grizzled, contrary old git cheated death and went on to tour for another 28 years and counting.

What I love about this album is that along with the classic 'voice of a generation' songs, there are some tracks where he's clearly having fun, and I find that infectious. With the benefit of hindsight, people probably didn't need to wait for Dylan to go electric to know that he was too freewheelin' to be pigeon-holed as an earnest political folkie.

I knew their cover of Dear Prudence but didn’t know they covered Helter Skelter too - were they working through The White Album? That was one of the tracks that stood out - a lot of the others ran together.

I’m not keen on the Grateful Dead, so I was probably never going to enjoy their non-union Mexican equivalent.

We all know it’s influential and that everyone who bought it in 1967 formed their own band, yada yada yada, so I'll just say that the thing that most surprised me about this album the first time I heard it is how pretty some of the tracks are. I'll Be Your Mirror is so genuinely lovely, even Nico softens her imperious honking.

The track Come on Feel the Illinoise started off reminding me of Badly Drawn Boy, then I had pause it to work out where I knew the hook from because it was bugging me (eventually realised it was Close to Me by The Cure), and by the time it ended, I was thinking how gorgeous it was. That encapsulates my experience with this album - a meandering journey of unexpected twists and turns that ended up somewhere rather lovely.

Dusty Springfield had such a great voice, and these songs and arrangements suit her perfectly. Is the "being good isn't always easy, no matter how hard I try" verse in Son of a Preacher Man the sexiest delivery in pop?

As well as introducing me to some new artists, this project has been a welcome reminder of how much I bloody love PJ Harvey. I’ve already given five stars to Dry and Let England Shake, and this isn’t going to break the streak. At the risk of sounding like her mum, it's nice to hear her sounding happy.

Never let anyone tell you this generator isn’t educational - I thought I Believe sounded a bit like Robert Wyatt and then discovered Tears for Fears actually dedicated the song to him. Not sure I would have made that connection 180 albums ago. But despite I Believe giving me a chance to feel a bit smug, I have to say I preferred the poppier tracks, so I’m still a basic bitch at heart.

I read a memoir by a woman who started her career in the music industry working for the Beatles at Apple, and ended it at what she considered her rock bottom - being a tour manager for Echo and the Bunnymen. She honestly writes about it like it’s the ultimate humiliation. I thought about that book while listening to Crocodiles because while they’re no Beatles (who is?) , they are pretty good. Certainly not a mortifying stain on anyone’s CV.

I preferred the songs where she’s telling some no-good, cheating drunk to buck his ideas up to the more sentimental tracks like There Goes My Everything and I Can’t Keep Away From You.

My second Doors album, and I definitely preferred it to Morrison Hotel. I'm still a bit on the fence about the Doors (love Break On Through, think The End is a pretentious dirge, reckon Light My Fire gets covered so often because people realised it was a great pop song struggling to break free of the unnecessarily long organ solo), but I can at least understand what other people see in them based on this one.

It's easy to forget when I'm merrily giving five stars to every album by the Beatles, but I started this project because I wanted to hear something new. Getting an album I would probably never have listened to under my own steam but really enjoyed like Shalimar was definitely a reminder. It's so much genre-hopping fun.

The opening track, Release the Pressure, started and I thought 'ooh, this is good', then seven minutes later I thought 'is this still going?' Essentially, if this album was shorter, it would have got an extra star.

This felt like it was trying too hard to be serious. Break out more pop bangers like Souvenir - you know you want to.

My hot music take is that despite the success of Blur and Gorillaz, Damon Albarn doesn't get enough credit for being one of Britain's best songwriters. Blur weren't a one-man band though, and they all get to share the praise for realising they'd hit a dead end with The Great Escape and massively course correcting with this album.

It’s a bit too prog-y for me but I do appreciate that they kept it relatively short.

Everything about this carbon dates it to 1989 (including the reference to Tiananmen Square, which sounds so jarring amid the “children are our future” level of social commentary in the lyrics). That being said, it’s a lot of fun, and if Janet did bite off slightly more than she could chew, I respect the ambition.