Reviews by syrinx

Ok so I know Joni Mitchell is like one of the classic musicians of all time but I just think this is kind of boring. I mean it's not bad, I just would never listen to this on my own. I can't really point out anything that stands out to me, good or bad. It's boring at best but a little irritating at worst. Also, is that a penis coming out of the road on the cover? What the hell is up with that? This is my first album from her on this list, I would imagine that Blue is probably on here too, but it would be weird if this was the one album of hers that they picked for this... 2/5.

Shout has to be one of the most iconic songs of the 80s. Instantly recognizable for anyone who has heard music before. And then Everybody Wants To Rule The World comes along and it's probably only slightly less iconic. It falls off a little after that but is a great album nonetheless. Perfectly encapsulates the pop music of 1985. I find it hard to rate this one too, 4 seems a little high but 3 isn't enough. We'll call it 3.75/5 and round up.

I love The Cure. They were always one of those bands that I never really listened to intentionally but any time I heard them at random I really loved their music. I'm glad to have heard this album today, I think I had heard it before but it's been ages. It's kind of a vibe album - put it on when you're in a certain mood and it's exactly what you need. It's very dark and depressing. I don't know if there are really any standout tracks on it for me. And I do think it is a little monotonous but as short as it is it doesn't get boring. I think there are better albums from The Cure, giving this one a 3.5/5 but rounding down because there isn't a reason to round up.

There isn't a whole lot of world music on this list but what there is has been pretty great. This one is no exception. I had never heard of this artist or album before but I really enjoyed it. No clue what he's saying but that doesn't really matter. The music is great. It's got a kind of funky samba feel to it. It is pretty dated, like I can hear the 70s all over this thing. It also seems like something that would be used in the soundtrack for an old movie where they went to Brazil and needed 'something that sounds like going to a nightclub in Brazil in the 70s'. Maybe a little stereotypical but the music is good at least. 3.25/5

It's hard to rate this album. I don't like hip hop at all but I'm not sure that's how I would categorize this one. Sure there are hip hop elements to it but compared to Paul's Boutique they have diverged from that quite a bit. The vocals for most of this record are the only thing that are really hip hop about it. Well the sampling too I guess. I think maybe it's also because you know that the Beastie Boys are sort of doing the hip hop stereotypes half in jest.
But then Sabotage comes on. I could listen to that song all day. As simple as it is, one of the best bass lines ever recorded and super fun to play. I feel like if Sabotage had been written by someone else it would be hailed as one of the best rock songs of all time. It is a little bit out of place on this album for sure.
After Sabotage Sabrosa is great, super funky and I love the double bass. Name another hip hop record to feature a real double bass. Sure Shot is decent as well.
I think what I appreciate about this album most is how it changes genres but still all fits together. The handful of (mostly) instrumental tracks are great, really liked all of them. I hate to say that you can see actual musicianship that is absent in other hip hop records but that's kind of true. The more straightforward hip hop tracks are my least favorite from the album but I still enjoy those more that almost all the hip hop I've heard up to this point.
But how to rate it? I don't know. I mean Sabotage is probably one of my top 20 (top 50 maybe?) favorite songs of all time and there are a few other songs on this record that I really like. Although I think I like the songs that most people would call the throwaway/filler songs. I think I'd give this like a 3.5 and will round up pretty much just because of Sabotage and the use of a double bass.

Nope, another hip hop album that does absolutely nothing for me. This one maybe has a little more production value than most others I've heard on this list so far but it's still just bad music. Repetitive to the point of droning. Another album that sounds like a 12-year-old kid trying to sound cool for an older crowd. This record seemed to go on forever and after looking to see how much was left all I could think was "oh god I'm only halfway through". I thought it was funny that someone else complained about the last track being 12 minutes long, but I mean this is really just like one track that's an hour and 15 minutes. It's maybe not as bad as most of the other hip hop albums I've heard so far, but still only going to be like a 1.5/5. I suppose I'll round up because, although present, this album wasn't stereotypically laden with misogyny like most hip hop records.

I'm a little shocked this album is on this list. Live albums with lots of overdubs are cheating in my book. And the whole thing isn't available on Spotify, so that's strike 2.
The musicianship on this album is incredible, overdubs or not. Really great playing all around but particularly drums. Brian Downey was incredible and underrated as a drummer. But here's the thing - as great as the playing is, I still just don't really like Thin Lizzy. I don't know what it is. I hate The Boys Are Back In Town, always have, but other than that I don't have any strong feelings about any of their music one way or the other. I'm not wowed by it, but I'm not put off by it. If Thin Lizzy ever comes up randomly, I'll probably turn it off to find something better. It's beige. For this album, 3/5 I guess?

This album is super lame. But maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it today. The whole San Francisco folk/country/rock genre is not one that I've ever liked and this as an early example didn't exactly sway me the other way. If you were born in like 1950 you probably love this and would think 'yeah this is real music' while mixing your Metamucil in the morning. But it's weak, it's sappy, it's super dated. Not for me. Plus one star for a pretty cool album cover I guess. 2/5

These early rock albums are always interesting to me. I have trouble imagining what it would have been like to hear this kind of music for the first time. I don't think this record is really anything spectacular but I think it was a good idea to include it on this list because it really does kind of show where rock music was going at the time. Just a few years after this you had the first Zeppelin album and this is certainly tame compared to that. But this is a good example of when these bands were trying to make harder and more aggressive sounding music.
As for this record in isolation, it's just ok. The title track is obviously the standout. The rest really does just sound like standard British Invasion pop that is slightly leaning into the heavier realm. The Ox is great, though pretty much a Wipeout rip-off. I feel like I should like The Who more than I do but I just never really have. I think they are one of the bands where all of them are amazing at their respective instruments, but they just never really made a lot of music that wowed me. 2.5/5 but rounding up to 3 just for the title track.

Ok. So this sounds like a parody of 80s rap. I mean I guess that shows that it's super representative of the genre at the time, but it is really dated. That's not a bad thing though - I still contend that hip hop is pretty much all terrible and has just gotten progressively worse since the inception of the genre. So while this is not great music (to my ears) it's not as bad as almost any hip hop record that came after. Absolutely the best thing about this is Flavor Flav in the background making nonsensical and random rhymes or else throwing in the 'yeeeah boyyyee' at every opportunity, it's sort of endearing. Plus one star just for that. But don't get me wrong, this music is still bad. I appreciate the politics behind this, the social commentary, the perspective that they bring, but I just can't get on with hip hop at all. 2/5

I really liked this album. I do agree that this list is a little heavy on 80s British post punk/new wave but I enjoy most of it so it works out. For a first album I think this is a really strong record, especially in a genre that was so new at the time. I feel like they may have been trying a little too hard with the cover but I guess it fits with the whole theme of the album - dark and moody with a kind of hopelessness about the state of the world. Or maybe that's thinking about it too much. Anyway, I liked this album a lot and will definitely be coming back to it at some point. 4/5

Wondered how long it would take to get this one. There isn't anything new to say about this record. Is this the best Beatles album? Yeah I think so. It's got its share of 'why'd they even record this?' songs as all their albums do. Like what the hell did we really need Maxwell's Silver Hammer for? Though it does sound like classic Beatles now that I think of it. But this album has a handful of the best songs they did, which for the Beatles is saying a lot.
I don't agree that this is the best album ever recorded but it would probably be a top 10 for me. Maybe top 20. I also think it's funny that everyone rags on George Harrison for his songwriting but he wrote, according to plays on Spotify, the Beatles most popular song, Here Comes The Sun. By a huge margin. I was sort of surprised to see that. 5/5

I'm not sure why this album is rated so low. It's not bad at all, I enjoyed it. It's sort of reminiscent of Tom Waits. Maybe like dollar store Tom Waits. A lot of the reviews talk about how bad his voice is but I don't get that. I mean it's not fantastic but it's not off-putting at all. I feel like this record has got some interesting things going on, and I really like how most of it is arranged. The lyrics are sort of pseudo-pretentious, like if you weren't really listening you might think he was saying something profound. He's not. I feel like he based the whole record on a thought of "if I play a quiet, slow, and simple guitar part and sort of talk-sing in a deep voice it will sound better than it actually is." There's definitely something about this album that feels like it could be any singer/songwriter that's playing at a local brewery on a Tuesday night. Does that mean it's bad? No. But I can see why no one has ever heard of this before. Did I get a little bored with it by the end? Yes. 2.5/5 but I'll round up to 3.

This album is decent. It's not as good as The Queen Is Dead. But it's pretty middle of the road Smiths. A fantastic album lyrically, like all Smiths records. I do really like how big this album sounds - there are a lot of things going on but it never sounds busy or out of control. It's also a very clear sounding album, like you can focus in easily on each individual instrument and follow along with just that the whole time. It's maybe not as cohesive as The Queen Is Dead, each song seems more of a standalone effort towards a whole if that makes sense. I don't know that I would really seek this album out to listen to again. I probably wouldn't even pick it up at the record shop if I saw it there. It's good, but it's not one I feel I need to own and play frequently. 3/5

I've really gotten to like Neil Young over the last few years. I've always liked his voice but never gave him too much of a chance outside a few songs. I'm not sure why. I guess maybe because I hate the sort of Crosby Stills and Nash kind of genre and he's certainly done a lot of that. I really liked this album though. It's super chill, the instrumentation is fantastic, vocals are great (if you like Neil Young's voice anyway...), and it's great lyrically. Absolutely stupid and contrived cover. Maybe more than any of his other records this is one that I would throw on, make a cocktail, and just kind of hang out with it. Overall, I'd rate this one at about 3.75/5 maybe approaching 4. Nothing really stood out but it's all solid.

I seem to get hip hop albums in waves. This one isn't as bad as some of the others. Coming from the super early days of the genre, it's not so much glorification of drugs, misogyny, guns, sexual assault, violence, hating women, using women, that the genre has turned into. It is pretty monotonous still but in sort of a different way than hip hop is now. The lyrics are still dumb but not as bad as more recent hip hop I guess. It's actually kind of funny to see how tame this genre was in its infancy compared to what it's grown into. All in all, I'd give this album like a 1.5, I'll round up because it's mercifully short at about 40 minutes.

This is a pretty basic album. Instrumentation is simple, production is simple, mixing is rudimentary. But I think that's the point of this one. It sounds like an album that was recorded in someone's garage. The use of a drum machine instead of an actual drummer kind of irks me a little. Typically I'm a sucker for female rock bands but while I like this, I don't think I would really play it again. I find myself thinking that this was sort of a missed opportunity and that the songs would be so much better with a little step up in production. I love the message, I love the sentiment, but the music is just lacking a little for me. I would be very interested to hear some other things they did after this album; I feel like they were a band that could have grown into something great. I wanted to like this record more than I did and I think I'd rate it like a 2.75/5.

Nope. Sorry. This is just more stereotypical, self-aggrandizing, misogynistic hip hop that all sounds the same. The lyrics are stupid, the music is bad and monotonous, mixing is uneven. There are no redeeming qualities in this at all. I don't connect with this kind of music whatsoever. A waste of an hour and 13 minutes. 0/5

I'm not really sure how much to say about this one. It's Otis Redding so it's great. But as great as it is, I just don't connect with this music much. Or maybe it's not that I don't connect with it, it might be that it just sounds so dated to me. Not just this album but the whole soul and early R&B genres in general. I think this kind of music, though great for the time, just doesn't play as well anymore.
I don't know. It's a great album but would I ever seek it out again? Probably not. 3/5

I don't think I'd ever heard any of this before. Just have heard various covers of it before. It's hard to tell though because it sounds a lot like any of the 50s/60s soul/R&B. I guess maybe it was a little behind the time? It's good for what it is, just not exactly to my taste. He's got a great voice, though, that's for sure. I can definitely see how this was a major influence on a lot of music to come, so I am happy to have heard it and would agree that it belongs on this list. It's just not one that I would really play again. 2.5/5 rounding up because it seems like the right thing to do.