Reviews by slinky

Two absolute bangers and a third really good song make this an easy, no-brainer 5 stars. One of the best albums of the 90s, and those three songs alone are enough to carry it across the finish line. Is it fair to give an entire album 5 stars largely on the strength of three songs? Probably not, but I don't make the rules. Actually, I guess I do, since I'm the one handing out the stars. The rest of the album is perfectly enjoyable too, even if I couldn't name half the tracks with a gun to my head. Nostalgia is definitely doing some heavy lifting here, but when the songs are this good, I'm happy to let it.

Nowhere close to a 4 star album for me, but oddly mesmerizing enough that it isn't really close to a 2 either. I also don't know what style of music this is or who it is for, and yet it lands squarely on a 3 for its musicality. I'm as baffled as you.

The beats are great, the rapping style is just a little too harsh for me. I like the background vocals and when she slows down, but most of the album is Little Simz rapping quickly and I prefer the rap to breathe a bit more.

Paradise by the Dashboard Lights is the only song worth listening to on this one but it is so camp that I just can't go higher than a 2 for the album. Sorry meatloaf

Came out in 1978, sounds like a bad album from 1964. I'm baffled that this is well regarded. Nothing about it is a good listening experience and it ends with a terrible cover of a 50s song. 1 star

Look its just alright. I liked Starman and Suffrage City, but everything else just didn't grip me. 3/5

I think if they put this album out 2 years later it has more commercial success and hits. Everything sounded alright but the punk influence is still a little to strong on this one, so there's no tracks that really hook you. They are like the boring Bangles. 3 stars

His vocals are so turned up that the initial track scared me at first, then immediately thought I would hate it, but as that song went on, i dug it. Loved it. Second and third songs I realized that the vocals being so forward was not a bug, it was the feature but I still enjoyed the songs and I was thinking this was headed towards 4 ville. But then the album just kind of repeated itself, nothing to interesting happened on the back end. I enjoyed the instruments under the singing/talking for the most part. If there was even one banger on the back half this might have been a 4. 3 stars

I listen to these albums on my 46 year old hot dad walks around the neighborhood (ladies calm down, I'm married). If I find myself doing little two steps to the songs, it's closer to a 5. If I'm staring at my phone seeing how much longer I have to pound the pavement to the tracks, it's closer to a 1. This one I kind of just zoned out while Patti was speaking about God knows what but it went on forever. The whole album kind of felt like it was winged in the studio. Stream of consciousness style, especially with whatever "Land" is all about. There's enough musically that this got to a 2 but just barely.

I'm not generally a fan of the early 70s country twang, but I genuinely enjoyed this album from start to finish. "The Way I See You" was the standout for me. Great melody, beautiful vocals, excellent lyrics, and perfectly paced. "My Blue Tears" was another favorite, sounding like something Linda Ronstadt could have recorded 15 years later. I appreciated the beauty and message of "Coat of Many Colors," even if story songs aren't usually my thing. "Traveling Man" was catchy, but a little too theatrical, like a song from a perfectly adequate community theater production.

Not everything was my style, but unlike some albums on this list, I wasn't checking how many songs were left and wondering what I'd done to deserve this. I actually enjoyed the whole thing. Almost gave it 3 stars, but a second listen to "The Way I See You" pushed it to 4/5.

I went back and forth between 2 and 3 stars on this one. I enjoyed some of the more melodic songs, especially those with a surf rock or almost ska-like sound, but the album was all over the place. Screaming, talk-singing, slower songs, and a bunch of short tracks that felt more like starting concepts for songs than fully developed ones. I didn't necessarily dislike the experimentation, but most of it just bored me. Not enough memorable moments to make me want to revisit it. 2/5.

Easy 5 stars. One of the best rap albums of all time. What's My Name solidified Snoop as a talent after Aint Nothing But a G Thang but Gin and Juice is what made everyone know he was here to stay. Great album, the rapping is smooth, the rhymes are fun (though misogynistic, unfortunately part of the gangster rap genre at the time) and the beats are memorable. 5/5

The further I get into this journey, the more I realize there might only be about 290 albums I actually need to hear before I die. I'm sure there's someone out there who loves this album. That person is not me. I listened to the entire thing on my hot dad walk and didn't once feel compelled to check what song was playing. Just 18 tracks of slow rapping over beats that all started sounding the same. Nothing terrible, nothing memorable, and absolutely nothing I'll ever seek out again. 2/5.

The last song was alright, the rest of them sounded like they were trying to be older than they were? Maybe it would have been different if he wasn't named Elvis and wasn't trying to sound Elvis-ey. Who knows. 2 stars

Good lord this was awful. Sounds like five substitute teachers got locked in a RadioShack and decided to start a band. Just a bunch of weird noises and dudes aggressively refusing to sing. You know an album is going to be bad when the second song is a terrible Rolling Stones cover, and somehow it's all downhill from there.

Look I like talk rock as much as the next guy - as long as the next guy is fucking deaf. Who is this for? Regardless I was enjoying the melodies, at times, of the guitar and was wondering why they didn't just set the lead singer loose and let him belt some shit out. Well about 19 minutes into the album he started singing and a little light bulb smashed me over the head and I thought "oh that's why". His voice is weak and has no gravitas, and whomever came up with the lyrics must have been content to just submit the rough draft. I'm giving it 2 stars because I did enjoy some of the music (not the talking over it, not the singing over it) and it was only 38 minutes long, which I appreciated more than this band will ever know.

I'm less than 3 months into this journey of listening to an album per day and, interestingly enough, "dookie" is how I would describe about 1/3 of what I've been assigned so far. Sorry jazz fans and 60s psychadelic rock, I just can't get into you. Dookie is not how I would describe Dookie, though, since it has 4 absolute bangers on it and the rest of the album flows cohesively around them. 5 easy stars on this one.

Real close to a 2/5, there were just enough songs that I could sort of nod my head along with, even if they were a bit silly like Unhappy Girlfriend. 3/5 stars

From the movie Wayne's World:
Wayne Campbell: Shitty Beatles? Are they any good?
Tiny: They suck.
Wayne Campbell: Then it's not just a clever name

The Boo Radleys had to be the inspiration for this joke, except without the clever name. This album sounds like a band that wanted to restart a late 60s psychedelic rock vibe in the 90s. Nothing felt true to the time period of the album and it seemed forced. 1 star

Sometimes I wonder how it's possible that I've never heard an album that's on this list because I'm so blown away. Sometimes I wonder why an album on this list even exists. This is the latter. Feels like it was put on this list just to check a box. Shit box? I don't know.