Reviews by suspiciousnumber

It's really hard to nail down the style of this album. At times it's a wailing metal album, at times it's an 80s pop album. Each song is good however, so the album is not particularly harmed by it's lack of sonic coherence

4/5

This is just a neat, relaxing album. It plays in the background well, which is not the highest possible complement for an album that has a social consciousness baked into the lyrics, but it is a good album overall. Lots of cool funky and afrobeat stuff

4/5

Lost my review for this one, but it's really good. Gentle and sweet, but with a lot of energy

4/5

This album has a lot of different moods, and it's very well executed. I was a bit skeptical when I saw that it was a British album influenced by Jamaica, but it doesn't feel exploitative either. It's neat hearing Steve Winwood on an album before his solo career. The album really slows down towards the end, but in a very soothing way

4/5

I really enjoy the way ELO combines prog rock with pop. It's very satisfying. The musicianship is top notch, and their vocals work really well. I don't tend to love double albums, but this album plays well in the background without being dull

4/5

What a chill, dope album by Al Green. The subject matter is interesting too, since they are love songs, but several of them are about maintaining love, rather than the excitement of new love. The musical accompaniment is all bangers, and the production is excellent. It really brings the soul out of the instruments and sets it in the forefront of the album

4/5

Fuck man, this album holds up well for hip-hop from 1991. Both the music and the delivery still sound great. I don't normally think of Cypress Hill as being part of the golden age of sampling with bands like Tribe Called Quest and Beastie Boys, but the samples on this album feel similar to that. Just a fucking beast of a hip-hop album that came out of nowhere in a lot of ways

4/5

I feel like I should like prog rock more than I do. I don't dislike it, and there are some prog rock albums that I really like. Most of them leave me feeling a little flat, and here we are again. I like Peter Gabriel's solo stuff more than his stuff with Genesis, and frankly I feel the same way about Phil Collins. There's a lot of cool stuff going on here, it just doesn't feel like it comes together in a way that interests me

3/5

Imagine being fucking Radiohead and having six straight albums show up on the list of 1001 albums to hear before you die. Every one of them deserves it as well. This album tends to fall into the cracks of their career. For me, though, it was a huge deal because it was the first album released after I became a Radiohead fan. It doesn't reach the heights of Kid A or OK Computer, but every single song is good. This album would be a titanic achievement for any other band. For Radiohead, this album doesn't crack the top 5 for lots of people

4/5

I feel like I've gotten several electronic albums from this era that just made no impression on me whatsoever. This was another one. I don't have the strength of character to listen to it again, so...3/5? idk

3/5

Well, I like this album better than most of what I've heard from the Fall. It makes sense that their first album is more accessible than the later stuff that I've heard. I can't really think of what else to say about it, though

3/5

Things I'm not particularly excited about here
-French concept album
-French concept album about relationship with underage girl (I don't know what the age of consent is in France, but round here this shit is considered gross)

I don't know what they're saying, so I don't know exactly how much to dislike the subject matter, but I know that the cover is gross. I honestly wish I hadn't read the Wikipedia summary of this album, since I feel like there's no way I can give this a positive rating.

I like the music overall. I wish that the vocals trended more toward singing rather than narrating, but the instrumentals are varied and interesting. Sometimes you have an orchestra, sometimes it's stripped down to just a guitar and drums

2/5 too bad this album is about a barely post-pubescent girl being stripped down by a middle aged man. It would be cool if it wasn't so gross

Weirdly, the album that I have been thinking about most while listening to this one is Rage Against the Machine's first album. They aren't similar at all sonicly, but RATM's first album is one of those that I think could have been released at any point since it first dropped and it would have still been considered a mind-blwoing accomplishment. This album is another one. If Marvin Gaye released it this year, I still feel like this album would have a huge impact. It's so excuisite, meticulously produced, and yet it doesn't sound constrained at all. It's beautiful and thoughtful, sensitive yet confident in itself. It is a perfect album, the kind that you wait for it to finish so that you can start back at the beginning and experience it all over again

5/5

This is kind of a weird one because I want to give NERD a good rating because of their legacy and all of the hits that they make music for. On the other hand, this album is kinda boring. It's not bad, but for a group that was changing the sound of pop music during this period, their solo work tends to be a bit pedestrian

3/5

I was oddly excited when I saw that I got a German experimental album today. Say what you will about German music, but they are not afraid to take chances when trying to make cool music. This album is certainly abrasive, which makes it hard to give it a very positive review, but at the same time, it's easy to see how this album would have been a hugely influential for artists like Trent Reznor and Ministry.

Despite the fact that it is intentionally hard to listen to, it has that special something that sets good experimental music apart from dumb noise

4/5, though this might be the least pleasant 4 I've given out so far

I really don't know what to think about this album. It's a relatively early heavy rock album, but there were plenty of hard rock albums that paved the way for this one. In some ways, it sounds like a lesser version of Led Zeppelin. It's not a bad listen, since the songs are pretty fun, but it tends to fade into the background as the songs drag on

3/5

I think this is the 4th U2 album that I've gotten on this list. I feel like it's weirdly given me less of an appreciation for U2. None of the albums that I've gotten are bad, but none of them have been all that good either. The Joshua Tree is their masterpiece, or so I've been told.

This album starts off so good, but as soon as the big hits up front are done, it starts to feel very samey and a bit self indulgent. I really thought that this was the U2 album that I had to give begrudging respect to, but I like Actung Baby more than this

3/5

When I was younger, I never could have predicted that John Lennon would become my least favorite Beatle. This album isn't bad, but the songs sound like the filler songs on a Beatles album that help create ambiance, but aren't really what you come to a Beatles album for. There's nothing here like what George Harrison achieved on All Things Must Pass, and very little of it rises to the level of Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings. It sounds fucked up to say, but the best thing that ever happened to John Lennon's legacy was him getting shot by a crazed former fan. Otherwise, I think the public would have had to contend a lot more with the hypocrisy of his world view. Unfathomably wealthy John Lennon singing about how a "working class hero is something to be" comes off as very hollow.

3/5 I don't think this album is bad, but it's disappointing from a musician who is so highly regarded. It felt like he wasn't trying

Tom Tom Club is such a weirdly prominent one hit wonder, owing partially to their connection with the Talking Heads, and partially to the fact that Genius of Love is a colossal all time banger. The rest of the songs are good as well, though, with lots of Talking Heads flavor without quite sounding like the Talking Heads

4/5

This band is weird. I tend to enjoy their songs, but at the same time all of their songs sound like they were ripped off from more popular songs. Setting that aside, I find the singer's voice oddly compelling. They sound pretty good as a band. This album was hailed as a revitalization of rock when it came out, yet it ultimately ended up being more of a last hurrah. Regardless, this album has aged a lot better than much of the rock being made in the early 2000s. The production being excellent probably has something to do with that

4/5