Reviews by thelofistorm

I recognize this band from their song "feel-like-I'm-fixin-to-die rag." A titan of Vietnam War protest songs, that alone makes them worthy of being on this list. I suppose. Though that song isn't even on here, so... I guess they're just a vaguely seminal acid rock band? I don't even know why I ask anymore. So, how is it? The guitar tones are basic but also annoying. Drums are also really basic but their bigger problem is that they don't leave enough of an impression. It's panned and mixed really badly. All I can really hear are the vocals, drums, and guitar lead, with the latter two sounding, frankly, fucking awful. I have to really try hard to hear the bass and rhythm guitar, which is irritating. Also, the organ is FUCKING GRATING. It sounds awful. This album is in fact one of the more unpleasant albums I've had to listen to when it comes to the production. However, the vocals are great! Country Joe is real good as a vocalist, and is kind of an anchor for this album. Which by the way is just okay at best. The biggest problems other than the production are how derivative it is. Because obviously it's going to be too bluesy for guys this white, but it's also just straight up doors worship. Doors and Jimi worship that is. There is worth here, but it's not enough to like, or even enjoy without any drawbacks.
5.9/10

Is it kinda annoying that I gotta listen to the sequel before the original? Yes. I know this band though, my friend really fucked with their song "Gangsters" back in the day, and wanted to play it in our school's guitar club. Now I was a fucking buzzkill, so that didn't end up happening. I'm much cooler now and I love "Gangsters." I will also be using that song as a general comparison point for this album, and in that, it can be quickly seen that this is MUCH more eclectic than their previous work. More straight-up reggae/dub, and some weird-ass lounge influence going on here too. The album's also very satirical, but with a sorta sincere edge at times, most notably on a song like "Do Nothing," a personal favorite off here for me. Now, is it incredible? Not by any stretch. If you want incredible punk-influenced ska, go to... I mean probably their debut album. I'm waiting for this site to give me it so that I don't have to relisten to it. Other than that maybe bomb the music industry? Catch 22? That's another one the guy who liked "Gangsters" liked, and I always thought they were real good. But yeah this album's pretty good!
7.8/10

This album is great. It was absolutely the wrong day to get this album, as I had a huge headache in the back half of the day, and this is just an album chock-full of bombast, but that's completely fine. So, where should I start? Chuck D's flow and lyricism are both insane. Not just for its time, but just in general. "Bring the Noise," despite repping Louis Farrakhan, who is a nasty-ass bitch, is a perfect example of this. The way he raps is ridiculous, and makes it completely clear that he is a master of the craft. Even the admittedly outdated production doesn't take away from how much of a genius Chuck is. You see this in other songs such as "Don't Believe The Hype" (which is also notable for being interpolated in The Roots' "False Media"), "Louder Than A Bomb," "Rebel Without A Pause,"et cetera, et cetera. Another thing this album does surprisingly well is the beats, which are relentless and aggressive, and often hammer down on you for the song's entire duration, a real nice touch. An album this old, for today it's still incredible. For its time, hell, it's astronomical. Is it long? Yes. Is it beautiful? No. Is it incredible? Absolutely.
9.6/10

This is... really boring, right? I don't wanna be like that, but this is kinda like "Tea for the Tillerman" in that it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring. I love Simon and Garfunkel, more than any of you know, but none of these songs are even remotely their best. Like, come on!!! We've all heard "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," or "Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water," or "Sound of Silence" for goodness sakes! These are watershed moments in 20th century singer-songwriter music! But these Jewish boys with the beautiful voices are unfortunately short of incredible songs here. "Scarborough Fair/Canticle," "Homeward Bound," "The Dangling Conversation," and especially "Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall" are all very good, but there are so many songs that just don't make an impression, and some, such as "Desultory Philippic" that are just outright bad. Is it unenjoyable? No. Is it great? No. Is it impressive? Absolutely not, not for a duo as prolific as this. But is it good? Sure, dawg. Sure.
7.2/10

WOW!! This is a big one. So, what I can gather from this album is that it's kind of like a dark, immersive experience. "World In My Eyes" is evidence enough of that, with its dark synths, and its invitational mantra of "let me show you the world in my eyes." It's a really good song. I don't love how "The Sweetest Perfection" opens, but it builds really nicely into a great song, and the way it progresses in like a vaguely, almost through-composed way, while still being super repetitive is really interesting. The general vibe I get from this album, weirdly, is like some sort of like futuristic upper-class society or something. Idk if that makes any sense. At the very least it feels like a very polished and pristine, yet very, very dark world. Ya know. Anyway "Personal Jesus" is an obvious home run. Incredible, iconic, and catchy. "Halo" is next, and I really love how the synths begin to build throughout the song, eventually enveloping you in this darkness. It's wonderful. The refrain at the end, "when our worlds, they fall apart, when the walls come tumbling in, though we may deserve it, it will be worth it" is beautiful and insane. "Waiting For The Night," though minimal, is really great, especially for building and furthering the atmosphere of the album. "Enjoy the Silence" is the supposed apex of the album, and I like it. I prefer a lot of the other songs on here, but it's a really great, really interesting song, especially with its strange outro. I adore this album so far. "Policy of Truth" is just a good old, catchy, easy to listen to "you lied to me" anthem. Incredible, impeccable production and vocals, and a really enjoyable chord progression. "Blue Dress" is basically a ballad, but like dark and weird. It's alright. I don't like how much it talks about happiness, a lot of this album feels too apathetic or emotionless to be talking about happiness. It's great though. "Clean" is just short of incredible, but is still a nice song, and a somewhat appropriate closer. Overall a really impressive album that I'll probably return to a lot.
9.8/10

“Zep time 4: led zep fury road”

So I took February and March off from thinking about Led Zeppelin at all, because I wasn’t going to be listening to ROBERT PLANT’S voice during BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MONTH. Then in April I wrote a really great review of this album but it was deleted because the site reloaded before I could save it. Discouraged, I took a month and a half off from any Led Zeppelin related stuff. And then I got this album for the “1001 Albums You Must Listen To Before You Die” album generator, and I, not wanting to break the run of Zep time reviews, rushed to the RYM review box to review this project. And lemme just say, this is their first genuinely great album, hands down.

“Black Dog” is a great opener. Though I prefer “2122,” which is the opener off of Geese’s 3D Country and is directly derived from “Black Dog,” it’s still an incredible opener and a great way to start off this album. I mean, Plant’s vocals are the best they’ve ever been!! And I mean that! Then we have “Rock and Roll,” which, obviously, slaps SO hard. The rawness of the guitars and the vocals is great, and it’s just a driving song that really provides some serious momentum. After that is “The Battle of Evermore” which is a pretty underrated song that actually has some awesome melodies and vocal passages. I love the end of that song too, it’s super intense in a really great way. And then comes what’s arguably the best song on this album the legendary “Stairway to Heaven.” Iconic, every second. The intro, the vocals, the strummy riff, when the drums come in, everything is insanely good. It’s a simply unbelievable song and it takes the A-side to the next fucking level.

Opening up the B-side is “Misty Mountain Hop,” which while being one of the less favorable songs on the album, is still respectable and great. Just kinda basic and not at all memorable and uhh… worst vocals on the album. But then we have “Four Sticks,”which is also kinda memorable except for IT’S IN MY FAVORITE TIME SIGNATURE!!! Ily 5/4 you make everything okay 🥰 then is “Going to California” which is a really pretty, sweet little folksong that Plant sings bearably, which is impressive for him. It’s pretty. It fills time well. And then is “When The Levee Breaks,” which is the best “cover” zep ever, EVER did. When you hear those drums… it’s like everything stops, and the song washes over you. It’s genuinely a transcendental experience of a song. And seven whole minutes! It’s ridiculous. Ridiculous and incredible and the perfect end to this album.

So, I do indeed love this album. Easily the best Zep album so far, and one of the highest 9s I’ve ever given. Like, the sequencing? And the vocals? The guitar tones? The DRUM TONES???? Duuuuude don’t even play. This album is ridiculous and deserves pretty much all the praise it gets.
9.7/10

Another jack white album. That's not Lazaretto. Sisters, what is this world coming to? Whatever. Hopefully it's better than "Get Behind Me, Satan," though that album was so fantastically awful that this one should have no problem doing just that. So this album bumblerfluff has a couple of cool songs. The opener is better than most white stripes songs, though frankly that just means that it’s a decent enough rock song. The white stripes are not a good band. "Freedom at 21" is great, a mesmerizing little song, which has good enough lyrics. An interesting part of this album is the acoustic, folksy touches throughout. Sure, it's definitely a rock album, but it's got its fair share of stripped down, singer-songwriter jams, such as "Love Interruption" (phenomenal song by the way), or the title track (which kinda sucks, but that's fine). A lot of these songs ended up being more bearable than those on the other albums from the Stripes. Is it great? Not at all. Is it essential? Ehh. There aren't any songs on here I like as much as "Lazaretto" off of his next album, which was the Jack White song that I personally grew up on, even if there are some songs I like. Also, there are some UNDENIABLE duds here, such as the aforementioned title track, "I'm Shakin'," or "Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy," and the B-side is a MASSIVE falloff compared to the A-side. However it's still pretty good, especially compared to some of his OTHER work...
7.4/10

RUN-DMC. Originals right here. Some of the first genuinely good hip hop, and also, it was the first super commercially successful group, with this album in fact having the first sellout song, “My Adidas.” Essentially this is less of a worthwhile album experience than an essential text of hip-hop. It reps capitalism, but it also laid some serious groundwork for the greatness of the genre to come. Even though songs like "It's Tricky" and "You Be Illin" (one of the funniest and genuinely best first verses of any song ever probably) are honestly awesome, you can see at least one or two serious problems with each song, and honestly, if you hear one song you’ve heard most of them. That being said it’s still pretty nice.
6.5/10

Finally, some Kinks! I've always been interested in them but never got into them before I got into this website, so I've forced myself to hold off listening to them. Anyway it’s smack dab in the middle of May, which makes it a perfect time to listen to an album like this. Songs such as the cheeky "Party Line," the incredibly heartfelt "Rosy Won't You Please Come Home," the carefree "Dandy," "Little Miss Queen of Darkness," and "I'll Remember" all help to ground this album in a really beautiful sense of warmth and Britishness. While there's a couple of lulls, they aren't a huge issue, and they're also very much countered by the EXCELLENT "Sunny Afternoon." Much of the album sounds similar to one of the more lush cuts off of "Ram" by Paul and Linda McCartney, especially in the quality of Ray Davies' vocals: faraway, almost fragile at times, and frequently longing, boastful, and woeful. He brings a great bit of much appreciated personality to an already fantastic album.
8.7/10

It’s hard to describe how quickly my heart sank after I realized this was acid jazz. Because it looks more like some sort of weird, goth-rock post-punk joint, right? Not that that would be much better. This is pretty tight, other than the really annoying spoken word sections. I didn't really care for it but whatever.
6.3/10

One that I have already listened to, but am admittedly less familiar with that I would prefer. I’ve always been a bigger fan of her debut, which has simply one of the best rock/soul songs I’ve ever heard, that being “Kozmic Blues,” in which she hits one of the most impressive A5s I’ve ever heard. But this album is what she’s arguably known more for, for better or for worse. And it has some insane songs. “Me and Bobby McGee” is a complete classic, and songs like “Move Over,” “Cry Baby,” and “Get It While You Can” are also beautiful. In general the best parts about this are Joplin’s passionate, soulful vocals, the great production on the guitars and drums and pianos, and the general flow of the album. Very playful and lighthearted, very good, and very enjoyable.
8.6/10

I really do love Johnny cash. This is the live joint he put out after Folsom Prison, which obviously is a classic in every sense of the word. This is shorter, and less storied, but still incredibly enjoyable. Classics such as “I Walk The Line,” “Wreck of the Old 97” “A Boy Named Sue,” and obviously “Folsom Prison Blues” are littered throughout the album, and it kind of has a similar vibe to “At Folsom Prison,” but like… less. Still has a June duet, still has a song about the prison, still has all the charm. I don’t love the fact that he plays “San Quentin” twice, but I think that it’s an incredible song, that really gets at a lot of problems with the prison system, even if it’s a bit inadvertent. The big problem is also that the rendition of Folsom prison blues, at least on this version, is like 2 seconds long. Which is very annoying. Also there’s only so much fake outlaw stuff you can take. I dunno. Still very great, but the B-side could be much better.
8.2/10

One of those ones I always knew I was gonna get in the back of my mind. Did NOT expect it to be so early though. The big problem with this album is that it’s easy listening. When “Doopee Time” by Doopees did easy listening it was awesome because it had depth. It had influences that made it apparent that it wasn’t marketable and wasn’t meant to be listened to in an easy listening context. This is incredibly well written frankly, but it is completely straightforward in its genre, and that is a problem to me. Take “Misty Roses,” which is very pretty, but the instrumentation is annoying, plainly so. Or “Parade,” which uses marching band aesthetics to make a song, and I just don’t like it. Or the song she does with her kid, which just simply does not work in my opinion. There’s some bad, some good, but not enough stands out sadly.
6.4/10

First of all, let me just say, I'm sorry about yesterday. I gave "Back in Black" by AC/DC a 1/10 and even though it deserved it I'm sorry I did that. I feel bad.

Anyway this album fucks. Literally. "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" are two songs that any person who's listened to the radio enough will know by heart, and I'm one of those people. At least the choruses. Classic songs, both of them, ESPECIALLY "1999," which is simply one of the best songs of all time. To compare Prince and MJ for a second, "1999" is kind of like Prince's version of "You Wanna Be Starting Something," basically a 6-minute long deep funk song disguised as a dancey synth-funk song. This entire album actually lines up with thriller a bit, what with its resounding classics (Purple Rain more aligns with it there but this album serves something similar imo), the synthy funk, the smooth, soulful comedown closer track... enough comparing these two guys though, this album deserves an individual evaluation. The first disc is one of the best sequences of music ever, opening with two of the best songs of Prince's career, and riding out the B-side with two back-to-back dance-sex-funk jams, those being "Let's Pretend We're Married" (one of the only songs that can say stuff like "I sincerely wanna fuck the taste out your mouth... can you relate?" and get a pass for it.) and "D.M.S.R.," a monolithic 8-minute banger. The second disc takes an obvious dip in quality, but it's still not bad; though "Free" is fretful at best compared to every song that's come before it, it's still a pretty good song on its own. "Something In The Water" is awesome, though much overstated by those who think it's some sort of artsy experimental ahead-of-the-curve masterpiece ("All The Critics Love U In New York" is way more artsy, experimental, and ahead of the curve in my opinion). It's pretty cool and that's it. "Lady Cab Driver" is a fabulous affair, synthy, energetic, and the spoken word section is insane, and almost intimidating. As I mentioned already, "All The Critics Love U In New York" is this album's actual experimental masterpiece, a strange, new wave, noisy track that's easily a highlight on here. And then we have the closer, this album's "The Lady In My Life," if you will. It works. It's nothing super special, and I'm more of a fan of Prince's lower register than his falsetto, but it's still a good closer. Overall this album is incredible, and I'm glad I got it today!
9.1/10

Oh…. Well…

You know, when the lead singer’s voice is the worst thing you’ve ever heard in your whole life, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to remember the fact that it isn’t original or interesting. Which this isn’t, by the way. This is bad. This is really bad. The riffs that are just okay can’t save the songs that are poorly written, awfully sung, and structured with about as much thought as a $2 Lego ripoff. The only great song here, the excellent title track, doesn’t do enough to even differentiate itself from the rest of the songs, so when you get to it, you’re just blown away by how unabashedly incredible it is, using a pretty similar formula to the rest of the songs, before being thrust into 4 more songs exactly like the rest, all of which that suck. Each song individually isn’t enough to hate, since the crimes are mostly blandness and annoyance, but when it stacks up… holy fuck. Please tell me this is the worst album I will listen to on this site, because I’m scared now.
1.6/10
(I swear to heaven above if people think I'm pretentious for this rating...)

This gon’ be fire, just wait. It's gon be... it's...

okay so it's just okay. The first two songs start us off REAL strong with some bangers that really give you some relaxation, but also some dancey vibes. And then this guy Jazzie starts talking... and rapping... and he just has no flow. No flow and no charisma. He's just TALKING! That is NOT what you want in an album that's flowing well! I don't dislike much of it but Caron's vocals are frankly subpar, the beats get repetitive, and most importantly, it's not really designed to be scored or evaluated critically. These are "CLUB CLASSICS." You're not supposed to really listen in. It's mid for sure, but only as a focused album experience. It's great as a collection of dance songs.
6.3/10

I’m vaguely aware of this album! Also I’m learning about orbitals right now in chemistry. Which are pretty cool! This album is pretty cool too. "Planet of the Shapes" is good, though slightly disappointing, but is thankfully followed up by the very pleasant "Lush 3-1," which I initially wasn't incredibly impressed by, but the persistent melody it employs is really pretty and nice. "Lush 3-2" is also really nice, with some great drums, and an awesome building melody. Though "Impact (The Earth is Burning)" does NOT sound like the Earth burning, it does sound very pleasant. So does "Remind," which adds a nice bit of dissonance and texture, which I like a lot. "Walk Now..." and "Monday" kinda blend into each other, but "Monday" is definitely the superior, and one of this album's standouts. Finally we get to "Halcyon + On + On," which is handily the best song on this album, a progressive, polyphonic techno masterpiece. Though I prefer house music over techno music (their similarities beg the comparison; I much prefer house because it's often more political, as well as originating from Black queer Chicagoans, who I am frequently aligned with), I still enjoy this greatly, appreciate its challenging moments, and I think it's pretty cool overall.
8.4/10

Well, we’ve already been through this once. I was wholly unimpressed by Elephant, the other White Stripes album here. Does that mean I’ll be wholly unimpressed by this one? Maybe. Yes. Definitely. There are maybe 3 good songs on this whole album. Everything else is kind of worthless. "Blue Orchid." Awesome. Great. Love it. "The Nurse." Interesting. Not great, but interesting. Then you're exposed to 5 whole songs of the most annoying, uninteresting, absolutely nothing music that you'll ever hear. It is just so wack."Instinct Blues" thankfully is incredible, and the songs following it are actually pretty bearable. Sadly the damage is already done, especially since the last two songs are trash. I don't know man. This album is really bad. I don't enjoy this much at all. There's no point, and even the good songs are pretty unimpressive. I wish it was good, but I genuinely don't know what I expected. Even the good is too formulaic to love. Even the great is too unimpressive to respect. Probably my least favorite album so far, other than MAYBE wild wood.
2.8/10

College-rock/rap. Happy Mother’s Day yawl. Anyway this album is pretty wack. I wish it wasn’t. It’s just that it’s this like really blasé, low effort bluesy alt-rock, and the vocalist is sooooooo uninteresting. Just this dubiously Ebonic white guy spitting nothing bars about nothing. Flow’s awful. Not much stands out. Sounds like Jack Johnson. Or Jason Mraz. Which is exactly what you don’t want to sound like, mid-aughts adult alternative. But hey, even though it kinda sucks, at least it’s not super long, right? RIIIIGHT? I can’t with this project man. I’m sorry.
4.7/10

Been waiting for this one. You pricks. Also, can I just say right now, I’ve been waiting just to listen to this album! As for the songs. Well, title track is incredible. So is The Wizard. NIB is kinda corny but I like it! And everything else is just there. Sadly not much really pops out. I mean like this is supposedly the 98th best album of all time. It doesn’t feel like it. That doesn’t mean it’s bad though. It’s just kinda rough around the edges. Not everything here does that much for me.
7.2/10