Reviews by suspiciousnumber

I like the sound of this album, but it's hard to figure out why its on this list. Then I saw that it was Britpop, and everything fell into place for me. It's like how if I made this list, everyone would be saying, "Another fucking Butthole Surfers album??? How many of these are there on this list?" We all have our biases, and the person who curates this list has a fetish for Britpop that has descended into criminal deviancy. Hopefully they're able to get help before this situation escalates any further

Don't get me wrong, I like this album. It sounds good, and the music fits well with her voice. I just don't get why this album that came out in 2017 and could have been made 10 years before that and not been groundbreaking, is on this list. It's fine, it's just not special

3/5

It's really cool how much was going on in the world of hip-hop as the 80s ended and the 90s began. So many of the ground-breaking hip-hop albums on this list came out between 88-92. This is one that gets talked about less than some of the others, though I know it's highly regarded in the hip-hop world. The rap style is a little old fashioned, but the music is great and definitely part of the sea change that occurred during this era

4/5

Goddamnit, I just love Kraftwerk so much. This certainly isn't my favorite Kraftwerk album, as I like both Autobahn and Man-Machine better, but plenty of songs on this album are great early electronica songs. I will say that I find The Hall of Mirrors to be an absolutely crucifying song to listen to. The title track has the feel of the electro dance genre that would come about a few years later.

4/5

God this man has such a heavenly voice. I feel like it's hard to evaluate other aspects of his music because I love how his voice sounds so much. The music is very simple and stripped down, and it complements his voice well.

4/5

This list provides me with so much great music that I really treasure, and sometimes it provides me with stuff that I don't really care for, but I can see the significance of the album.

And then sometimes it provides me with stuff like this, where I have no earthly idea why I'm supposed to give a crap about this album. Sure, it's a fine album if you want to have some drinks and dance at the club, but I have no idea how to evaluate this seriously as an album. It's not technological mastery, it's not innovative musical structure, it's certainly not interesting lyrically, so why am I supposed to care?

I'm not, and I don't 2/5

I was honestly surprised at how many songs off of this album I recognized. I've listened to other Sabbath albums, but never this one before. This album definitely has an immature sound relative to Paranoid, but all of the elements are here. It's a cool landmark in the history of heavy metal, and it makes it easy to see how blues rock became the heavy metal of the 80s that I'm more familiar with

4/5

What's to say about this one. It's another Aerosmith album, which means that it both has some really good songs on it as well as a bunch of generic blues rock. It's not bad, but if someone put this record on a party I would listen for the first two songs and then spill beer all over the record player

3/5

I have the same complaints about this album that I have about all live albums, which is that the inferior sound quality makes it really hard for me to like them. This one doesn't sound too bad, and the crowd sounds really add to the ambiance without taking much away from the songs. The music is really good overall (it's James Brown, so it would be really weird if it wasn't), but this album is also sort of a tease, since you just know that Brown is doing a ton of visual stuff that the crowd is reacting to, but you can't know what he's doing.

It's a fascinating look at the early part of his career and clear evidence that the man oozed charisma from the very beginning. Fuck I would have loved to see this concert

4/5

Okay, look. I like Elvis Costello. He's got fun, punky energy in these early years without being what I would call punk. However, this is the second Elvis Costello album that I've gotten in the last two weeks, and it's too much for me. Please send me fewer Elvis Costello albums so that I can properly enjoy the ones I already have.

All silliness aside, I like this album, but I felt like This Year's Model was a better album from this early period. There's nothing wrong with the songs on this album, but they are both less catchy and less interesting than the ones on that album. This one still has the characteristic Elvis Costello style, both in terms of the music and his voice, but it feels less mature here than on Last Year's Model. Taken in isolation, though, this is a fun album that I still find unspectacular. It's a lot more of a blues rock album than I thought it would be, though he does blues rock far better than most white dudes

3/5

This is a really cool album. I don't think that I like it as much as It Takes a Nation of Millions, but this album is not far behind that one either. The chaotic samples chopped into great beats continues on this album, and Chuck D is as insightful and acid-tongued as ever

4/5

It's a tale as old as time. Band makes album intending to be humorous. Album ends up being groundbreaking debut of musical superstar. Band is forced to continue making albums.

I'm not sure what there is to say about this album. It sounds very good, and Bjork is incredible as usual. Her voice is soaringly powerful, yet supple and idiosyncratic as well. The album gets a lot less interesting any time anyone else is doing vocals, but luckily that rarely happens. I was surprised that I already knew two songs off of this album. The music compliments everything that she does well. It's not terribly interesting or groundbreaking music, but it's good enough to sound great when paired with Bjork

4/5

This is an interesting album for what it is and especially for when it was made, but it's also one of those albums that I kept turning on and then finding reasons to turn it off and listen to something else. I think that this album does have merit in terms of the types of music that it brings together and the technology available at the time, but it also sounds a bit dull to my ears now

3/5

Well, this is a much different sounding Leonard Cohen than I'm used to, even though his voice and poetry are as rich as ever. I'm not sure that I like the addition of synthesizers and drum machines to his oeuvre as compared with his being accompanied by analog instruments. There's nothing wrong with this album, I just think that his voice is better complimented by folk and/or orchestral instruments than by synthesizers

3/5

Well, I don't generally like live albums, and I don't generally like double albums, so we're not off to a great start here. Overall, I feel the same way about this that I feel about most live albums. This sounds like a fucking kick ass concert to be at, and the recording of it doesn't really do it justice.

3/5 Please stop sending me double live albums, I have no use for them

Rush is one of those bands that I like even though I forget that I like them. They sound much bigger than a 3 piece, which I think results from the fact that they are absolute virtuosos on their instruments, particularly Neil Peart. Geddy Lee has a strange voice, but it cuts through the noise well, and his lyrics are consistently good. Alex Lifeson is also incredible, and is the member of the group with the most screen time in the Trailer Park Boys. It's wild that what is largely considered to be Rush's best album was the 8th one they released. There's a lot here, though. Lots of hits on this album, but all of the songs are good.

I wouldn't particularly describe this album as the type of rock that I enjoy, since they do a lot of prog rock which is definitively not my genre, but the product that they put out is undeniable

4/5

This album provides an interesting contrast with the previous Costello album that I got on this list, This Year's Model. This album was made only 3 years later, but sounds a lot different as it is much less of a rock album and more of an album to feature Costello's lyrics and voice. The music is still really good on this album, just much less of a punk/new wave album. The production on the album is great and every song on the album is solid

4/5

One of the marks of a great album is that you could out it out a decade after it originally came out and it would still be impactful. You could put this album out today and it would still light the world on fire. The energy of this album, the raw power that must be constantly restrained to prevent it from boiling over, is perfectly matched by the lyrics built from equal parts rage and intellect.

I think this album may be more pertinent now than it was when it was released. It's that rare album that was ahead of its time, but also highly respected in its time.

5/5 Easily one of the top 5 albums of the 90s

This is an album that I've been meaning to listen to for a while now. I really enjoy albums from this golden era of hip-hop sampling, before the law decided that DJs needed to pay for their samples. This is a cool album, though I had a tough time finding a definitive version on YouTube, since there seems to be automated copyright claims on a lot of these songs.

I wish that albums like this had been able to shine through a bit more during the era of gangsta rap, since there's not anything that makes gangsta rap inherently better than this style other than the intensity of its subject matter. The production, music, and lyrical content are all on par, but I guess people were less interested in positivity than they were in brutality.

Overall a really cool record that deserves it's place in rap history, even if it was overshadowed shortly after its release by west coast rap

4/5

The Specials are one of those bands that I've always been curious about, as I am a product of the 90s revival of ska and wanted to know if I have more appreciation for the originators of the style. I can now say with a lot of confidence that i do not fine the Specials interesting. That may be influenced by the fact that the production on this album is terrible, but even if that weren't the case, I find a lot of their songs dull. There are some good moments on the album, but overall it is not one that I will ever come back to

3/5

I found this album very hard to rate. I really like it, especially the early tracks. I don't have a huge amount of context for what was happening in electronic music in 2001 to know how groundbreaking this album is, but it's great and I had no awareness of it before now

4/5