Reviews by suspiciousnumber

As this album started, I didn't really think that I was going to like it, but it got more interesting as it went. Heavy psychedelic influence, while still remaining folk music Really cool example of someone who's not afraid to do something different with their genre

I'll confess that I'm not really sure what the musical significance of this album is. I don't know the history of country music very well, especially from this earlier period. It's a very pleasant album, though. The songs are nice and simple without being plain. His voice is beautiful

3/5

There were parts of this album that I really liked, but I also often felt like there was too much going on. There were a few songs where it felt like they just kept adding layers until there was too much to keep track of. It's not a bad album, and it's crazy that a band that formed in the 70s was still producing innovative music in 1999

3/5

I'm sure everyone has an album on this list that speaks to them in a way that just doesn't seem to happen for many people. This is one of those albums for me. It's so simple, just the same soft themes repeating over and over again. A little piano, a little synthesizer, and little bits of silence. And yet, I love this album and listen to it with some regularity. This album is incredibly influential as well. It showed many musicians that they could do more by doing less. I love Brian Eno, and I love this album

5/5

I hadn't really known much about Steve Winwood's history as a musician before listening to this album. It's interesting that he was a member of so many relatively important bands before launching his solo career.

The music is interesting as well. It's really embracing the synthesizer as an instrument, but still remains pretty rooted in guitar rock as well. I feel like most artists tended to go one way or the other. His voice is great and really matches the music well. The album goes by pretty fast, but it's consistently good, if not leaning a little far toward adult contemporary rock. I think that's more of a fault with how Steve Winwood influenced soft rock than it is a failing of his music, though

4/5

It's kinda wild that this album ends with it's biggest song. It feels like that's relatively rare in pop music.

I feel like this list has given me much more of an appreciation for KD Lang. I always thought that she had a great voice, but getting to hear her first album and understand that she came up as a country artist does a lot to color how I hear her later music. You can just hear the country in it, even though it wasn't evident before.

Her voice is beautiful and very well-trained. I didn't have a lot of thoughts while I was listening to the album. I just kinda let it wash over me. It's great, and really shows off her range as a musician

4/5

I thought this album was pretty good overall. It sounds a bit generic at times, but I think that's an artifact of the influence that his album had on electronic music. I think I enjoyed the other Pet Shop Boys albums more than this one, but this is still well worth the listen. Great late 80s synth pop

4/5

Much like how I've reached my limit with Britpop on this list, I've sort of reached my limit with late 60s folk. This album certainly has some nice aspects to it, the vocal harmonies are particularly enjoyable, but in general it sounds a bit generic. Not bad, just not very notable

3/5

This album sounds like a lot of other things (Elliot Smith comes to mind at certain points on the album because of the lead vocalist's voice), but it certainly doesn't sound like it came out in 1988. I would have put it at least 5 years later than that. I liked the album, but didn't love it, but it deserves a lot of credit for doing the folky alt-country thing much earlier than a lot of the other bands that ended up sounding like them in the decade after this

4/5

This album starts out really cool: heavily psychedelic with a bunch of guitar effects. If the rest of the album was as good as the first track, it would have blown my mind that I had never heard this album before. The album gets a little more normal after the first track. It's still good throughout, just less revolutionary. I'll say that I don't love this late 60s British style of concept album, but I found the music really good overall. They do a lot to keep it interesting

4/5

This album was really mixed for me. It's got all these cool elements mixed in, like disco and funk. Some of the lyrics are good too, but a lot of them are that cloying style of British humor where they expect you to laugh at them despite the fact that they aren't actually saying or doing anything funny. I feel like better vocals would make this an incredible album, but perhaps that would be messing with the alchemy. There's certainly plenty of musical significance to the album, which has a lot of early punk elements mixed in with the more danceable music elements

3/5 Important, but it could be more pleasant to listen to

Well, I can say that I've liked every Brian Eno album that I've gotten so far on this list. This is probably my least favorite of those albums, since I like his ambient stuff much more than his rock stuff. This was really cool overall, though, and I think that I would have liked it more if I didn't have so many other great Eno albums to compare it to. There's definitely an interesting feel to the album, as you can hear bits and pieces that sound like the Talking Heads or the Cars or Devo

4/5

Wow, it's been a little bit since I listened to an album this pointless on this list. There's some cool sounds in here, I guess, but for the most part it's just annoying background music. Any time it's not generic, it's cloying. I'd think of more ways to describe how uninteresting I find this album, but that would be putting more effort into this review than they put into making this shit

2/5

I've been looking forward to this album for a while, and not just because it has a fucking iconic album cover. I've been surprised by how much I enjoy glam music. I'd always thought of it as being superficial in nature before I'd actually listened to it. However, I've really enjoyed the glam that I've gotten on this list, especially the 70s stuff.

This album is no exception. It's more mellow than I thought it would be, but it's good throughout. The production is excellent. It really lets you hear the little details of the album. It feels very intimate. The vocal harmonies are a nice touch, though Marc Bolan's vocals always steal the show. It's really interesting that they were a folk band previously. You can definitely hear that influence on the album

4/5

I feel like I've been getting a lot of punk/postpunk from this era lately. It's not a bad thing, I've really liked getting more familiar with the development of the punk genre, but at the same time I was getting a bit weary of the genre before listening to this album.

I liked this album. The dual male/female vocalists adds a lot of versatility to the band. There are some sonic parallels between this band and the Pixies, which is really cool from such and early album. I think it's possible that I would have liked this album more if my ears were fresh, but it's still really good in my opinion

4/5

One thing I will say about this list: while I sometimes have to wade through a lot of crap to get to something I find interesting, I have definitely gotten a much better appreciation for the history of punk music by reviewing these albums. I was peripherally aware of this band previously as a result of their connections to other bands, like The Cramps, but I hadn't listened to one of their albums before. There's a lot of other stuff from this era that I like more than this, but it's also easy to see the significance of this album. Combining punk with more traditional American music forms like blues did a lot to help create the alternative and postpunk genres. I like this album overall, though it's not one that I'm ever likely to own

4/5

This album has some nice classic era alternative rock, but other than that, I don't really understand why it is on this list. There's some interesting stuff here and there, but, for the most part, it seems pretty standard for its time. Even the Wikipedia page has a quote describing this album as not being the band's best effort. It's not bad, but it doesn't stand out in any meaningful way that I can detect

3/5

This album is another one of those mysteries where I can't figure out while listening it it what makes it significant, and Wikipedia is no help either. It's not a bad album, and I actually enjoy the combination of reggae and electronica. However, besides this possibly being the first popular album to blend those two genres, it's hard to see why this album belongs here.

I will say that the album is well produced. I get a bit sick of his voice sometimes, since it often feels like he's talking without saying anything. The music is cool, though and the electronic portions have aged pretty well, which is not always true for music from this era

3/5

Had a review written but lost it. I don't truly "get" Steely Dan, but they come so highly recommended that I feel like it is something that I will come to eventually. And, I have to say, this is my favorite of the Steely Dan albums that I've heard so far. The vocal harmonies are great, and the album has really nice production. The songs are well crafted to

4/5

I blanched in horror at the sight that this is a triple album, since I usually struggle with double albums. And I'll just admit right now that I'm not going to listen to the entire album. I just don't have all fucking day for this.

However, I really enjoy this album. The songs each have their distinctive flavors, and there are lots of cool electronic sounds built in with the acoustic instruments. The album seems like a gimmick, but they sure executed the shit out of it. Having both male-led and female-led tracks also helps keep it interesting.

4/5, But I'm also going to turn it off after the first disc, and just assume that the rest of the album is as good as everything I've heard