Reviews by suspiciousnumber

No one sounded quite like these old country vocalists. There's just something about the music that just sets off their voice in the mix. Loretta Lynn sounds stellar on this album. I wish the production was just a bit better, but even so she sounds great. The songs are well-crafted too. I really wish modern country would ape this style a little more, so that it would sound less shitty and shallow

4/5 Keep a place in heaven warm for us, Loretta. And make sure that Fred Durst isn't allowed in when he dies

This is one of those bands that I never would have imagined being as good as they are before listening to their catalogue more deeply. Some bands are one hit wonders because they only had one great song in them, and some are one hit wonders because they get unlucky. I think of DMR as the latter type of band. This album is great, and so are the other two albums I've gotten on this list. Now, setting aside the fact that this band has more records on this list than John Coltrane, which is a whole other issue, this band fucking kicks ass. The music feels so full of sound, but it's all coherent. The singer's voice is great. The fact that Come On Eileen is more than halfway through this album, and I never felt like I was waiting for it while I listened to the songs before it says a lot. This band deserved better than we gave them as a global musical audience

4/5

This album was a fun listen. I'm not sure how innovative it was at the time, and it certainly sounds dated now, but I liked it overall as an album to put on and just listen to in the background while I work

4/5

This is an interesting album. I'd heard almost every song on it, but had never listened to them together. Overall, it's really solid. I'll never be a big fan of nu metal, since it is objectively the worst subgenre to ever become popular, but the music is good overall, the rapping is surprisingly good, and the whinyness of the lyrics is tolerable. This is one of those albums that I feel like I had to go on a long musical journey to really appreciate, since I rejected anything related to this genre when it was popular, so perhaps the real hero here is me

4/5

This album starts out really hot, cools down for a while, and then finishes at a torrid pace, and it fucking works. One of the things I was struck by while listening to this album is that Jimi had a pretty good voice, which he rarely gets credit for. I don't think I liked this album as much as Are You Experienced?, but it is still a stellar Hendrix album with some of his best songs

4/5

I'd heard of this group, but wasn't really familiar with their music before this. I like it a lot. The male and female voices sound great together, and they harmonize really well. The music tends to be a bit ambient, which makes for a pretty cool pop album

4/5

This is kinda a tough album to review. Her voice sounds amazing, and the album is reasonably well-produced. I like it overall. However, she's not doing original songs, and none of the songs on here are what I would consider to be a definitive version. Like, You Don't Own Me was released by Leslie Gore a year before this, and Springfield's version adds nothing to it. Each song is good, but I'm always left wanting to hear the better versions of these.

4/5 I can't fault her for not doing the best versions of these songs, but it would have been better with fewer songs that had been recently popular by other artists

I've become quite reasonably wary when a Britpop album shows up on this list, since that has been one of the main avenues the author of the list used to shovel garbage in my direction (though I have benefited immensely from his musical selections in other sub-genres). This album was a very pleasant surprise. I liked it better than the previous Verve album. It sounds great for a mid-90s album, both of it's time and yet very much its own thing. The song-writing and the production come together really well. You could have told me that this album came out 10 years after it did, and I still would have been impressed with it
4/5

This is a really underrated album from the golden age of sampling. Lots of little bits of other songs mixed in to make these tracks. The rapping straddles the gap between old school hip-hop and the more modern style that started to dominate in the 90s. The messaging is very positive as well

4/5

This album just kinda played in the background, and I never really thought about it. I barely noticed it was over. Pleasant overall, but like a lot of material from so-called super groups, it just didn't hit the sweet spot for me.

3/5

Weather Report has never been my brand of jazz. It just feels too clean and smooth somehow. However, the talent and chemistry of the musicians behind the group is undeniable. This album is a pleasant listen and it has a lot of great elements, even if it's never going to be what I turn to when I want to hear some jazz

4/5

Really? A fucking double album from Eric Clapton?

Setting my contempt for the man aside, this album is some good Eric Clapton. This album suffers from the same problem that most double albums suffer from, though, which is that it would be significantly better if it were a single album with all of the repetitive filler removed

3/5 Even when Eric Clapton is good, he's still annoying

This is a weird album, and I have no idea why it's on this list. The music is all fine, and her voice is really nice and she uses it very effectively. However, there are just too many covers of great, well-known songs that are a huge step back from the original. This album just makes me want to listen to Hank Williams and Velvet Underground so I can hear the songs that I like sound good rather than like muzak

2/5 There are nice elements, but this album was irritating overall

Man, I love a good hardcore punk album. Shit is just in and out so quickly. It saves me so much time in a day. I've been curious about Bad Brains for a while. I think this album showcases their range and skill as a band well, but I could also see how this would be a band that could only truly be experienced live because what they do can't be replicated in a studio. Regardless, this band has a really cool sound that seems to have influenced a lot of other bands

4/5

Well, this is about what I thought it would be. I like this early noise/industrial stuff, though the extent to which these groups liked to be shocking for their own sake rather than to achieve any goal really seems juvenile in the modern era. Like, they certainly did shock me by showing a little girl's panties on the cover of this album, but me being shocked achieved nothing, and I would argue that it did real harm to that girl.

It all distracts from the music, which I would say is genuinely interesting (not good particularly, but interesting).

3/5 Really close to 4, but I was too shocked by their edginess to go quite that far

This album was an interesting mix of psychedelia and more traditional Brazilian music. I wish the production was a bit better, but it's a fun listen overall

4/5

I thought Frank Zappa was cool when I was younger, but I always thought I would grow in my appreciation for him, and that hasn't really happened. I still like him, but I like him the same amount and in the same way that I liked him when I was younger.

This album is fine, and there are lots of cool things about it, but it's also hard to say that I like it. However, I like it a hell of a lot more than Capt Beefhart, which I find very comparable to this.

4/5, but I have no idea why

What a fucking crazy album, especially for 1998. You wouldn't think that a full album of electronica mixed with tabla drums would be meaningful, but this album has so much depth to it, especially for being largely instrumental. The album is consistently high BPM, but it never feels exhausting. Instead, it feels well-crafted and experimental. Really cool album that still feels relevant, even if the brand of electronica on it is a bit dated now

4/5

Having listened to this album, I'm really not sure how to describe it. There's a bunch of different moods and styles here. It's pretty relaxed overall, but it keeps surprising you with how it changes from song to song. The instrumentals are a nice touch

4/5

I was not particularly interested in sad-boy, early 80s synthy ballads, but these fuckers won me over. The music is good throughout. The lyrics can be a bit self-indultent at times, but it works overall. Just light, fun, dark, depressing music for the family

4/5