Reviews by suspiciousnumber

It's pretty hard to disentangle the greatness of Missy Elliott as a rapper from the greatness of Timbaland as a producer. Luckily, we don't have to. This album is great. All the beats are on point, with lots of super-danceable stuff. Missy brings life to every song

4/5

Nick Cave albums don't generally "grab" me the way a lot of good albums do, but I will say that this one grew on me as it went. Lots of variation in the musical approach, but they do a good job of keeping it interesting

4/5

I struggle with reviews like this because folk is generally not my genre, so I always feel like I'm grading these albums on a curve. The strength of her voice is on full display on this album, though. Weirdly, her voice sounds sort of generic, but I think that's because every female folk artist who came after her took some influence from Joan Baez

4/5 It could have used some distorted guitar solos, and maybe an 808, but still it sounds real good

Here I was thinking that modern country was a desolate wasteland when this album was sitting around waiting to prove me wrong. I don't know that this is an album that I'm going to come back to, but it's cool to see someone doing something interesting with country while remaining true to the genre. Her voice is beautiful, and her lyrics have the kind of accessible emotional weight that I associate with the greats of country music past

4/5

Here I was, all set to express some minor annoyance that both of the Johnny Cash prison records were on here, but this album is so goddamned charming. I love listening to Cash banter with the audience. The songs are also amazing. Having June come up and sing songs was really cute too

4/5

It's sort of weird to rate a Beyonce album. Her albums feel like such massive productions, rather than being the work of one artist. It's great, however. Lots of depth to the album. The music is great, and her voice is incredibly powerful throughout

4/5

I don't think I'm a Nick Cave guy. There are plenty of things that I like about what he does and the albums that I have heard, but his albums also never leave me wanting more. This is an interesting post punk album, and I think it's likely that it influenced some artists that I really like. However, it's not a very pleasant listen, although that's not really what they were going for in the first place, so idunnoknow, 3/5 stars?

3/5

Well, this is definitely a lot different than the black metal genre, mainly because these guys seem to be having fun, while black metal dudes are so goddamned serious all the time. This has much more of a Judas Priest sound, with a little bit more edge to it. It's cool, obviously a hugely influential early metal album

4/5

Just a really cool album overall. Nico's voice took a long time to grow on me. I used to hate her songs on the first Velvet Underground album. However, she really is a talented artist. The music pairs well here, often being sad and sweet, but descending into the experimental at times. Well worth the listen

4/5

This is not my favorite Lana Del Rey album I've ever heard, but it has her characteristic style: beautiful voice over great music with lyrics that like to dip their toes into smuttiness.

4/5

It's really interesting to hear Frank Black in isolation from The Pixies. I certainly prefer his pixies material, since it feels much fuller in terms of the sound, as well as being more innovative, given the time when it was made. This is still good, it just doesn't feel revolutionary the way that something like Surfer Rosa does

3/5

I thought this album was okay, but it was hard for me to see why it was significant enough to make this list. It's cool that they use a sitar, though

3/5

This album was pretty good, but I liked Porcupine quite a bit more. I'm not even sure I could identify why I found this one less inspiring. It just didn't grab me the same way

3/5

Mid-90s hip-hop was so much cooler and weirder than I every knew at the time. This album is another one that shows the pervasive influence of comics on hip-hop in this period. The music is tremendous throughout, and is where this album really shines. Dr. Octagon's rhyme style is good and fits the music really well. It's often slow and smooth, but he heats it up occasionally on this album to great effect

4/5

It's a little weird that I hadn't heard of this dude a month ago, and now I've listened to two of his albums on this list. I liked the previous one (Rock Bottom) better than this. It felt more experimental, while this feels a bit more mundane. It's still good, but it doesn't really grab me

3/5

Really great early album by Wilco that fleshes out their sound a lot more than their debut, AM. Lots of great songs, many of which became staples of their live shows for decades after this. Not their best work, but some wonderful, classic alt-country style Wilco

4/5

I thought this album was really cool overall. Nice vibes with a lot of pleasant female vocals to go with it

4/5

I can't say that I've ever found Arcade Fire all that exciting as a band. I think, sadly, that the era when I could have gotten really into them might have passed me by. However, I will say that this album helped me understand their appeal much better. The songs are well written, and the production on the album is excellent. I've also heard that the lyrics are very good, though it was difficult for me to catch a lot of the words on the first pass

4/5

I really enjoyed the other Supergrass album that I got on this list, though it was one of the early albums that I got early on in the list. This album didn't grab me quite as much, but at least part of that is the sheer amount of music that I've heard and learned about since that time. Overall, this is a fun album that came at the tail end of the 90s alternative rock era. Worth a listen, even though I probably won't be coming back to this one

4/5

One of the things that this list has given me a lot more appreciation for is the incredible quality of some of the music coming out of Africa. This album is no exception. The songs are all well-crafted, with great instrumentals and vocals. It reminded me of Songhoy Blues in a lot of ways, and I would not be surprised to learn that Djam Leelii was a big influence on them

4/5