Reviews by thelofistorm

Now, listen. I’m not a monster, and I’m not an idiot either. I love “Come On, Eileen.” And this belongs on here. That’s what I know. It’s foundational Irish rock, foundational 80s pop rock, it has one of the best pop rock songs of all time on it, and yet…

Ehhh. It’s fine. The highlights are highlights but they’re few and far between in all honesty. I don’t care for most of the songs, other than the charming opener which I enjoy plenty, the main attraction, that being “Eileen,” and “Plan B/Show Me,” which by any measure is a pretty alright song.

I don’t really know what to say. I don’t love it, but I don’t dislike it. Maybe I don’t like it. Maybe I won’t think of it. What I know is it’s listenable, and you should hear its biggest song. That’s good enough for me.
6.2/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: foundational, fun, charming, has “Come On Eileen” on it.

I like Paul McCartney a lot. This album is no exception. I also think that this album, like plenty of other Paul stuff, is quite half-formed. Even on its best songs (“Maybe I’m Amazed” notwithstanding), it feels like something Paul came up on the spot. In a way I’m glad he put this out before Ram, it feels like a somewhat worthy precursor to that MASTERPIECE. That being said it doesn’t impress and doesn’t do much for me.

“Junk,” though hindered somewhat by its brevity, is charming at worst and enchanting at best, “Wasn’t We Lonely” is a sort of bright spot, though it’s obviously not a very formed song, much more of an idea in any case. Paul’s knack for rhythm and charm make this album more than bearable, though his lack of motivation to do anything other than flounder about makes it a disappointment.

“Maybe I’m Amazed” is not like any of these other songs, it is obviously an incredible outing of pop rock. It’s an incredible song, a classic of the McCartney Canon, and easily the high point of this album. It’s only a shame it lands on such an underwhelming album.
5.9/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: NAH
REASON: TOO HALF-BAKED; SEEK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF IF YOU MUST
WHAT WOULD I REPLACE IT WITH: Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band

The Wailers’ “Abbey Road.” Or their “The Stranger.” Whether it is truly their best, it is deservedly their most popular, vastly so. It has their most iconic songs on it, “Jamming,” “One Love,” and “Three Little Birds” to name a few, and it overall is a really pretty album. I greatly enjoy it.

It also spans across the two topics that Bob Marley sang best about: love and systemic injustice. Most of his albums, this included, eventually reach a sort of middle point between the two, with this one culminating in the complete merge of the two, in “One Love/People Get Ready,” one of the most beautiful songs ever and one of the best reggae songs of the 1970s.

I confess, I will always remain partial to The Wailers’ swan song, Uprising, over this outing, because of my personal attachment to it, and my preference for a number of songs it features over any other Wailers release; that being said this is obviously more important, arguably the most important reggae album ever made, and for that it deserves perhaps more dues than Uprising.
9.1/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: to some, the statement piece for not only one of the most important bands ever, but one of the most important genres ever.

Fela Kuti and the Cream drummer! Incredible stuff. Oh my. Fela is just absolutely electric onstage, and the instrumentalists all play so well. I’m astonished by this album’s quality frankly.

The best song is probably the last one, just because of the visceral nature of such a title, and the way Fela says it at the beginning: “Carry Me, I Want To Die.” He’s somber, and stony. It is a truly great performance.

Ginger does some good work here too. You can feel the rhythm, the funkiness, deep in here, and his experience adds something for sure. I like his willingness to collaborate out of the spotlight, many white men could learn from that. Great album.
9.2/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: landmark collaboration, great tunes

Oh, After the Gold Rush. You have one, maybe two incredible songs; everything else is unimpressive at best. Yet you remain one of the most celebrated folk outings of the last however many years. Why? Why is this the case? I don’t think I will ever understand.

“Tell Me Why” is beautiful. It is the album’s best song hands-down. It is the only unmistakably incredible song on the album, at least to me. From there, “Southern Man” and “When You Dance I Can Really Love” both also stand out as awesome, but the former feels as if it’s on autopilot, and the latter isn’t much more than a really fun, sweet little joint. I also really enjoy “Cripple Creek Ferry,” but it’s short! So short! It’s less than 2 minutes long! It’s very pretty though.

Other songs on here, the title track is cute, yet Young’s vocals can grate, and it’s much too simplistic. “Birds” has a similar problem, it’s very forgettable. The entire album can tend to be actually. “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” is very pretty, though I don’t love love love the hook. I don’t know. The album is pretty and it’s cute. That’s kind of it…

This album is a pretty necessary listen. That much is obvious. It is not very great though. That is what I will say.
6.8/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: place in history

I sit here writing this, saying what may very well be true: this album may be the best album ever made. Whether it’s Amos’s excellent knack for writing about relationships, the way she brazenly sings of sexuality with no shame and plenty of pride, the way she sings with such conviction and passion, the way she plays piano as if it’s an extension of herself, comparable to the likes of Cecil Taylor and Nina Simone, this album does virtually everything at a level higher than most others in this lane can ever hope to do.

The opening five-track run, from the anthemically devastating “Crucify” to the softly beautiful “Winter,” is the best part of the album, though every song is incredible. Biblical imagery combines with a shame about sex instilled by a culture that doesn’t care about women, to form one of the most empoweringly defiant songs ever. Going into “Girl,” the double entendre of “she’s been everybody else’s girl / maybe someday she’ll be her own” (she’s been who everyone else wants her to be, or she’s slept with everyone else; both hit deeply). “Silent All These Years,” a song that my dear mom introduced to me long ago, is a personal favorite for that alone, but also the biting language she uses, combined with the healing she seems to go through as the song progresses. It’s beautiful; it’s enough to make one cry. The next song is too, that being “Precious Things,” a song that yells, that hurts, hurts you, hurts him, hurts her. It’s was the one that made me cry the most back when I first heard this album. “Winter” makes me cry too, with its incredible chorus, and chord progression, and musicality.

From there, highlights are less obvious, but no less incredible. “Happy Phantom” is a song about the desire for death, and darkly musing about what it will be like once the speaker is freed from her mortal body. “China” is a slower, soft pop song about a lack of connection in a relationship, illustrated with a metaphor of being in “different countries,” having a “Great Wall” around the speaker’s partner.

“Mother” is easily the best song on the second half of the album, a 7 minute odyssey about a young girl’s relationship with her mother, Mother Earth, and femininity as she grows up. It’s a heartbreaking song, and Amos sings it with such emotion that you feel as if she’s going to break out crying any second, and she’d have a good reason to.

“Tear in Your Hand” is one of the greatest pop-rock songs I’ve ever heard, with an addicting guitar and vocal line, and great songwriting and singing. “Me and a Gun” is the most confrontational song on the album, just Amos’s voice singing flatly about being followed by a man, presumably who wants to rape her. It is a harrowing song is what it is.

This album is one of the greatest albums ever made, and it is a must-listen. I adore every song, even the ones I didn’t mention. Go listen NOW.
10/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: QUALITY, IMPACT

One of the greatest albums of all time; at least one of the greatest glam albums ever, and one of the greatest transitional albums. As this is Reed's moment of pivot from being frontman of The Velvet Underground, a band whose recordings laid the foundation of experimental rock. This is not that, but it is perhaps much better.

Lou Reed is a man with little singing chops, but great emotion, and that comes through on the album's opener. "Vicious" is a perfect opener for this. Its weird, silly lyrics seem like they were written in 15 minutes flat, and are uncharacteristically juvenile for someone as prolific as Reed. However, the song is more than just that: it is a menacing, cool, crazed song. The guitar solo alone proves that. It's mean, perhaps unnecessarily, and also childish in a way. What it is not is forgettable, truly. "Andy's Chest" was always a song that I found interesting, if a bit repellant. Its more funny and surreal lines can prove tiring to me, but its constant focus on praising Andy Warhol, and trying to make him feel better (of course, after being shot), also proves interesting.

In fact, this album's magic is twofold: it is the magic of the Lou Reed persona, which comes through loud, clear, and strikingly solemn in lyrics like this one from "Make Up:" "it'd be so nice to fall in love," or this one from closer "Goodnight Ladies:" "Something tells me that you're really gone / You said we could be friends, but that's not what I want." He's this weird dude who is also a FUCKING ASSHOLE. You like him, especially with how good of a songwriter he is, but he is also an empty guy, who makes everyone around him who knows anything about people pissed off, because he's obviously kind of a fuckface. The other part of the album's magic is the people in it. Almost every single song here is addressed to some "You." Sometimes these "Yous" are known, such as "Andy's Chest" being about Andy Warhol, or "Perfect Day" likely being about Shelley Albin, and some are more ideas of people, unnamed, in the case of "Vicious," or "Hangin' Round," or "Satellite of Love." Either way, more or less every single song can be attributed to a feeling brought by a person, completely and totally. This culminates in what is probably the album's best song, or least its most well known, "Walk on the Wild Side," which name-checks several icons of the Warhol scene, most notably my favorite one, Candy Darling.

"Perfect Day" is to many this album's crown jewel, an absolutely gorgeous piano-pop ballad, whose simple and happy lyrics but melancholic musicality are evocative enough to spur interpretations of the song being about heroin, a popular interpretation that Reed vigorously denied during his lifetime, though I must say that the song absolutely feels like it has a deeper sadness to it than its lyrics mostly suggest (especially the last line; it's incredibly bittersweet). My other favorite songs on the album are the greatly underrated “Goodnight Ladies,” a bittersweet and incredibly somber little vaudeville-style song that I adore.

David Bowie also did a great job with this album: it’s awesomely recorded, and his frequent vocal moments on the album help instill a sense of familiarity. I adore him and his work here.

This album is important, beautiful, awesome. A masterpiece of persona and story. Must-listen for anyone who claims to enjoy the 70s canon.
9.8/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: OBVIOUSLY
REASON: quality, production, lyrics, significance, impact

At once, incredibly pleasant and perhaps just as impactful. Trust me, I do not know Portuguese and it does not matter. This album contains some of the prettier songs to be released in 1972, and some of the more important moments in the history of recorded Brazilian music.

The best songs here are as follows: "O Trem Azul" with its whimsical and evocative lyrics (I translated), its bright instrumentation, its beautiful vocals. The greatest song here by far is "Um girassol da cor de seu cabelo," the best written song here too, with its wistful, poetic, and nostalgic essence. I adore it with my whole heart. A song I was surprised to love was the 28-second long "Estrelas," a perfectly ephemeral piece of pure breathtaking beauty.

Though it's a bit tiring at times for me, I enjoy this album greatly. Perhaps I will revisit it. Perhaps not. It should be listened to for sure though, that I can say definitively.
8.6/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: SIGNIFICANCE AND QUALITY

This obviously is not needed. We do not need a "this is the first real punk album!" that isn't Ramones. The Stooges, New York Dolls, even The Velvet Underground (though for different reasons) deserve to be on here instead of this (thankfully all of those albums are on here, deservedly). This... is good enough as far as music, but necessary listening? Even for a punk fan I wouldn't say so.

As for quality, it’s decently scant on that too. Boring riffs. Sufficient vocals. Early drum tones. Everything good on this album was done way better two years prior on the aforementioned eponymous New York Dolls outing. Everything bad on this album was worked out a year later into the rougher edges of the eponymous Ramones outing. Everything not punk on this album are the likes of things that both bands either brutalized (in the case of Ramones) or sleazified (in the case of New York Dolls), and what is left is something that is decidedly much worse than both of those albums.

The distinct characteristics of this album are its hedonism and its lack of seriousness. Both of these are heels. The best punk music is angry, hard, and if it’s silly at all, it’s often combated by being heavy to the point of being near-unlistenable to the mainstream. This is not that. Consequently, I do not like it much at all, and it is of no importance to me.
3.9/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: NO
REASON: NOT SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH
WHAT WOULD I REPLACE IT WITH: IDK THROW HOUSES OF THE HOLY ON THIS BITCH

I’ve been getting back into death note lately, so when I heard the first song I was pleasantly reminded of L’s theme. Anyway this is a good album. There’s an interesting semblance of a polymeter in the building moments of the first track, and it’s really interesting and mesmerizing. The proggy instrumental and surreal album cover both help to invoke some strange sense of nature filtered through the weirdness of life. It kind of makes every single passing moment feel like it ties into the album, the color of the sky, the sun on your skin, the wind as it pushes against your body.

The other cool thing about this album is a 19 year old made it. Yep, dude couldn’t even drink and was making shit like this. He probably did drink though. This shit’s way too cool for him to have done it completely sober. Probably. I dunno. Anyway the instrumentation is great, and the lack of conventional structure makes the album feel a lot shorter, yet a lot bigger, than it actually is.

The album’s biggest weakness is its lack of consistency on the first track. It switches from idea to idea much too quickly for my taste, whereas on the second track it fleshes out the ideas much, much more. Either way though, this album is really great, and I recommend it.
7.5/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: sure
REASON: sets an example for other young and aspiring musicians

It’s not often that you hear an album that is so obviously a display of a force of greatness at its absolute peak. Radiohead’s “OK Computer” is an example of this; so is “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush. “Abbey Road” by The Beatles. “Songs in the Key of Life” by Stevie Wonder. This is one of the best and shining examples of that.

The first side is full of energy that is unparalleled by most moments in music. David Byrne’s unhinged yells and nearly blown-out voice by the end of the tracks is truly a fucking wonder. He’s one of the greatest vocalists ever, I love it. “Born Under Punches” in particular is a song that has always particularly caught my fancy: one of the two songs that differ the most from the album’s larger themes of isolation and alienation from larger society, themes that were absolutely birthed from Byrne’s autism, something he and I share. The song is manic, scary, scared. A crazed lunatic song, in which you can’t quite tell what is happening around the speaker, but you can tell that the speaker is deeply unstable, and probably in some position of power, a government man. The other song to depart from the album’s themes the most is “The Great Curve,” my other favorite here. Driving, dancey, rhythmic, and so involved. It’s all I can do not to be turned into a twitching mess on the sidewalk whenever I listen to it.

The rest of the album follows the themes previously stated, themes which the other two songs still hold on to in their own ways. The world has a load of questions. Lost my shape. What have I done. Other people’s faces. An overload. The world pressurizes the people who live in it until they cannot function. It’s deeply involved and incredible, and conceptually the implications of it slowly slowing down after the fantastic release of energy that is “Once In A Lifetime” are pretty devastating in a way. This is a fantastic album, and I really am going back and forth greatly on whether or not it’s a 10/10. I’ll give it a 9.9 for now.
9.9/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: the zenith of one of the greatest rock bands ever. Must-listen.

I’m not against listening to a soundtrack for this list, especially not one as good as this. There are some obvious highs on here, most notably the opener and lead single “Playground Love,” a fantastic song that walks a thin line between ominous and endearing. Pretty much everything else here, from the second song to the last song, is some sort of ambient type of track. That’s not a bad thing. But it brings it down, in a way.

I’ve never seen this movie by the way. I like the big song from this album but I don’t particularly love nothing else here. I like “Highschool Lover,” the song which “Playground Love” developed from. I like the ending of “The Word ‘Hurricane’” but it’s not long enough, and I don’t like the spoken word passage very much. I like some of the rockier cuts, even if they’re a bit short and the riffs can be a bit uninspired.

Overall it’s nice, it’s pleasant, I don’t know for sure if it deserves its place on this list, but I’d recommend it to a friend.
6.5/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: NO
REASON: NOT SUPER RELEVANT AND ALSO THERE’S A BETTER AIR ALBUM ALREADY ON HERE
WHAT WOULD I REPLACE IT WITH: Dots and Loops by Stereolab

Homework by Daft Punk. They’re an interesting one, that’s to be sure. I enjoy some songs, but others are less appreciated as far as songs go, or perhaps just overrated. “Discovery,” their album oft-acknowledged as their magnum opus, never has really roused a sense of great enjoyment in me. It’s real cool though, and so is this.

I enjoy a lot of songs on this album. “Around the World” is an obvious, immediate, and undeniable classic, and the highlight of the album, along with some lesser but still great moments. Contrary to what I would assume many feel, I greatly enjoy the album’s moments of abrasive dissonance toward the end of the album, themes that would be explored further in their controversial third album “Human After All.”

The biggest problem is the length. Some songs don’t deserve how long they go on. Some are just annoying, and 3 minutes instead of 1. It’s undeniable influential and awesome though. I like this one.
7.5/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: INFLUENCE AND QUALITY

One of the few albums that manages to be overrated while still being a 8/10. I love this album deeply and dearly, even if it is much more of a transitional moment than the masterpiece many would have you believe. Its majesty, though existent, is dwarfed by the skull-crushing length and experimentation of 1972’s “Get Up With It,” the cool sleek stealth of “In A Silent Way,” and the jazzy rock sensation of “Jack Johnson.” That being said, it’s hard to be a Miles album before the 1980s and not rule.

The album centers around this sense of, I’ll call it simmering. It simmers. For the first 10-ish minutes of the album it really just dances, beats around the bush, burns slowly and coolly. The fire at the heart of “Pharoah’s Dance” is a hot one, burning with intensity and intent. By the time it’s grown to the song it eventually becomes, it is passionate, but deeply methodical. It grooves. It jams. It jives. Never does it rip, though. “Right Off” rips. “On The Corner” rips. Nothing on Bitches Brew rips, even remotely. As I have said, it simmers.

The rest of the album follows suit. The title track is even longer, and much more following suit with the “simmering, bubbling under the surface” vibe. It’s a strength of the album in a way, but more of a weakness a lot of the time. The greatest song, “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down,” is a departure from that, just a straight up banging jazz song. I love that song. It’s so incredible. And then “Sanctuary” is really underwhelming. I don’t really like it even. It’s just… it’s fine.

This is obviously one of the most important albums of all time. Greatest, even, to some, but sadly not to me. Probably the weakest of the great Miles joints. That being said, remember: it’s still great.
8.6/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: one of the most important jazz albums ever made, and it’s not too bad either.

I get the reproach. Believe me, I do. But… it’s not terrible, now is it? And it’s truly relevant to music. I also don’t want to call it bad, because so much of the hate it’s garnered has clearly come from some sort of misogynistic attitude.

The obvious high point- and the only moment in the entire album that is truly mind-blowing- is the eponymous opener. Rhythmic, hopeful, hints of suspense and stakes, it’s a really great song. Everything else is riding on the afterglow of that, and the only song that really reaches anywhere near the same peaks as that song is the driving, beautiful, incredible “I Will Not Be Denied.”

The great thing about this album, obviously, is Raitt’s voice. She isn’t a voice that is too far out of the ordinary, but DAMN can she sing. A hint of rasp in there, lots of soul, incredibly easy to listen to. The lyrics are also consistently pretty good, even though there’s more than a few corny lines sprinkled across the album’s pleasantly manageable 42-minute runtime.

The album’s biggest heels are, to put it simply, the ballads. I can take a good ballad or two, but this not only overdoes it, but it features a consistent supply of not-very-impressive adult contemporary ballads, whether the lack of enjoyment be in the underwhelming lyrics that they can tend to feature, or the cheesy to the point of saccharine instrumentation.

The album is patchy; patchy but good. Few highs that reach a true “height,” but no songs that stoop to a low that can be measured as unforgivable. Very pleasant personality all-around, and a couple of songs that really, truly hit.
6.8/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: a couple of incredible songs, paired with a large helping of accolades makes this a listen that is all but necessary.

I'm confused and feel like I have some right to be angry. What is this album? My best friend gave it a 5/10 so it must not be great (though she also gave Pure Guava by Ween a 5 and that album's a near-10). It's like, it's a fine album. It's like kind of intriguing and interesting, but in no way is it a significant album. Fuck, man. This is on here but no Ween albums? No Merzbow? Hell, there's no Rosalia, no Arca, no The Knife, no Crystal Castles, nothing that influenced this pretty lukewarm and insignificant album. If anything it's unfair to this album. It's fine, but oh my FUCK!

"Broken" is a really pretty song. I enjoy it plenty, even if the lyrics are a little bit surface level, and the whole song isn't nearly as out there as it could be. "Idols" is a really annoying song. I don't enjoy it. The entire album just sounds like a less inspired, less interesting Arca, if she took more cues from poppier sensibility. The album is consistent, sure, but it's really not special at all. I feel so bad about this, but it's just not really interesting at all. I don't really know why it's on this list.
5.3/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: NO
REASON: FORGETTABLE, INSIGNIFICANT
WHAT WOULD I REPLACE IT WITH: LUX by Rosalia

I do not exaggerate when I say this may be one of the most objectively important albums ever released. Punk is probably the greatest rock movement in the history of recorded music (no bias whatsoever), and this is the apex point for punk’s breakthrough moment: in fact, this is what most people use as the point in which proto-punk wasn’t a thing anymore, and the era of punk-rock, and hardcore was entered.

Now, two things must be made obvious before the review continues. First of all, The Ramones are NOT the inventors of punk. That honor belongs, in my opinion, to legendary Black proto-punk band Death. Second of all, this is not hardcore. This is very primitive. It’s the first inklings of what would eventually caterwaul and grow into the likes of Hardcore, Crust, Grind, Beatdown, et cetera.

So, let’s get into it. “Blitzkrieg Bop” is one of the most well-known punk songs, and for good reason. Pretty much every single moment of it is as iconic as it can be. The opening chant, the singular verse, the chorus, it’s incredible. Another early standout, “Judy is a Punk,” is obviously great, but I especially love the blasé demeanor with which Joey Ramone sings “Perhaps they’ll die, oh yeah.” I also especially adore “Chain Saw” more than most of the songs here, with its jarring and abrasive opening, and weirdly catchy chorus. “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” is also a really cute little number that I enjoy.

Off the B-side, I like a LOT of the songs. “Loudmouth” is driving and tough, in a way that works really well to me. “Havana Affair” is crazy catchy, and both sarcastic and kind of wild narratively. “Listen to My Heart” is kind of adorable, in a weird way. I really love it. “53rd and 3rd” is one of the more political numbers that I was hoping to hear from this album, and I like it a whole lot. “Let’s Dance” is another really cute number, that I really enjoy a lot.

The album is interesting. If you can stand the repetition, and you understand the significance of it, then it’s one of the most incredible albums ever made. If the guitar tones, chord progressions, and vocals all staying pretty much the same all the way through is too much, I get that. I think this is one the greatest albums ever made, though.
10/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: PROBABLY MORE THAN ANY ALBUM ON HERE
REASON: the influence of this thing cannot be overstated. Also it’s really fucking good.

Dreamy. That’s what this so obviously is. Dream Pop, dreamy synths, dreamy vocals, dreamy guitar, it’s dreamy. It’s also REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT. In fact I’d say that most people who’ve heard this album think it’s one of the best albums ever made. Not on here of course, but I couldn’t imagine someone finding this music unbearable in any way.

Now, the obvious. It “Has Lyrics,” but really, the great Elizabeth Fraser does not sing words here, so much as she’s singing feelings with words vaguely attached to them; I think I read somewhere that she began to phase out actual lyrics and instead began improvising onstage, vague lyric-like words uttered. And this is something that works, at least partially, to the album’s great benefit. It makes the album more timeless, less caught up in the words of any specific time, more tied to the soundscapes that have in time become one of the greatest structures of any remotely psychedelic endeavor, musically.

Highs of the album, like “Cherry-Coloured Funk,” the excellent title track, or “Iceblink Luck” all establish this driving, deeply ethereal atmosphere. The album’s greatest heel, in fact, is how ethereal it can sometimes be. I don’t enjoy the synthier moments, such as “I Wear Your Ring,” or even the beloved closer “Frou-frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires,” nearly as much as anything else here.

That being said, this album is pivotal, and one of the most important rock albums ever made. Absolutely listen to it.
9.3/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: IMPACT, INFLUENCE, SIGNIFICANCE

To some, the apex of one of the most polarizing figures in the history of recorded music. And I truly see exactly why it’s seen that way; it has some classics on it: “In The Ghetto” is one of the greatest songs to ever hit the mainstream (the way it’s written alone: “Buys a gun, steals a car / Tries to run, but he don’t get far, and his mama cries.” It’s visceral, it’s implicit, subtle, and heartbreaking), and there are a few other songs on here that mark high points in the album, and in a career riddled with way too many releases of poor quality.

Elvis is a strange person, occupying a space that is attacked and adored by pretty much all walks of life. When you live where I do, in Chicago, as in a big big city, you could drive around and get 50 different opinions on Elvis Presley and they would probably be split completely down the middle. Some people love him because of his music! Some because of his influence! Some hate him because of his character! Some because of the fact that he profited off the art of Black artists who never got the amount of recognition that he ultimately did get! Opinions, opinions. But his music has undeniable moments of quality. His voice, not unlike Johnny Cash’s, just smoother and perhaps more youthful and energetic at times, lends itself to the good days of a certain kind of life, a certain time, decades ago. His songs, not to my taste, but they can err on the side of good, and even great.

The songs themselves? More than passable. Standouts like “True Love Travels on a Gravel Road” (an undeniable predecessor to Cameron Winter’s 2024 number “Love Takes Miles”) and the soulful and instantly iconic “Power of My Love” sound awesome, and are well-performed. Songs like “It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’” on the other hand lend a much sourer element to the album, one of definite staleness rather than undisputed nostalgia.

The album, however, maintains a good standing in my mind. Good sequencing, ends on a beautiful high note, and absolutely important.
7.8/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: Relevance, impact, place in discography

Something about Kendrick Lamar is that even though he’s not my favorite rapper of all time, he’s probably the best rapper of the last 15 years. He’s human, but talented beyond what most humans are capable of making. He’s kind of like Kanye West in the way he makes music that defines generations and “the times,” while also being pivotal and earth-shaking, in a way that is felt by everyone who interacts with music.

This has been a double-edged sword for some of my enjoyment of Lamar’s work; it’s caught up in the interest of so many other people that it can’t stay personal really. Also, it’s west coast. I respect the west coast, but music that centers California like that can’t ever really penetrate deeper than a basic appreciation for the music. That being said, when the album gets more universal it hits me hard. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The album’s wonderfully sequenced; “Sherane” is a great song because it’s obviously juvenile, but it’s a menacing song. You’re unsettled by it, even as he’s talking about being a kid who wants to be fucking this girl he met. And then it pivots to these two incredibly fun songs that I adore to this day. “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” is still a strange juxtaposition between beautiful and pretty funny, and “Backseat Freestyle,” though a bit too long, is awesome and so entertaining.

Then there’s a pivot that shows the audience who Kendrick Lamar really is. He’s a kid we’ve all met. All kids are good, but many do bad actions; some mean to do it, but some, like the speaker, just do it with their friends. I mean, the song is called “The Art Of Peer Pressure.”

“Money Trees,” the next song, is one of the best songs ever made. It’s probably my favorite hip-hop song ever. The line “Everybody gon’ respect the shooter- but the one in front of the gun lives for ever” is some Wu-Tang shit. Tell that shit to your kids, play that shit for your friends, put it on your playlists. And then the song’s larger themes of poverty are communicated so interestingly; the dollar as an entity that upends someone’s life, the deeply visceral imagery that resonates deeper than any other song here. Every verse is perfect, Jay Rock’s feature is crazy good.

“Poetic Justice” is another one of my favorites off the album, a poppier number with a CRAZY Drake feature that still blows me away, especially after how far Drake’s fallen. “Good kid” and “m.A.A.d. City” are the next two, and they work together to create this pretty devastating breakdown of someone’s life as they turn from innocence to lack thereof, even unwillingly.

Then the final stretch starts, starting with “Swimming Pools,” a song that’s not only great, detailing the dysfunction that alcohol brings to the lives of those who use it, but also the fact that it became such a huge hit even through that, often times AT PARTIES. Damn, that shit still blows me the fuck away. Then you have “Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst,” handily one of the most crushing songs in Kendrick’s discography, and a 12-minute long masterclass in music. The first half has one of the saddest choruses in modern music, and the second half is driving, desperate, despairing.

And then the last leg of the album, isn’t the best. “Real” is annoying and way too long, and “Compton” is fine but not much more.

It’s a great album. Incredibly pivotal. I love it. Could it be better? Yes. But not that much. Pretty much every song, save for a couple, is mind-blowing one way or another, and it has maybe the best hip hop song ever. Definitely needs to be listened by anyone and everyone.
8.9/10
DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES
REASON: pivotal, impactful, incredible