Reviews by therealab

Two Pulp albums out of 1,001 and I get them both within six albums of each other. They call Pulp glam rock, which I did not understand when reviewing This is Hardcore but I get now. Disco 2000 is a great song. This album has a much more upbeat feeling than This is Hardcore. I know they were super popular but I don't remember it at all. This is like pop Nine Inch Nails. Much better than expected, I was pleasantly urprised by this album.

Fred Durst has the worst voice. Every Limp Bizkit song sounds like 1998. Hot Dog is an excuse to say fuck over and over again. To save time they should have just replaced all the lyrics of one of their old songs with the word fuck. Ice Cube and DAS EFX should have sued over him even saying the words "check yourself before you wreck yourself". The music sucks, the lyrics suck, by 2000 this would have sounded dated. They are like a joke band. Fred Durst saying he'd knock someone out is hilarious. They're like an ICP that takes themselves seriously. That's it, he mentions Fight Club...this went from bad to insulting. Xzibit sullied his good name doing this and he is definitely the highlight so far. Mission: Impossible too. It's hard to listen to this. People actually like Limp Bizkit, this is a band that sold millions of albums. I have to buy this book and read the batshit crazy justification of whatever critic picked this. Redman, Method Man and DMX...why? I guess people will do a lot of things for money. Having guest artists that are legitimate really showcases how awful Fred Durst is. The robot voice is stupid but is an improvement over Fred Durst. He is the fakest hard ass ever. He make Steve Seagal look like Bruce Lee. This outro skit is just the perfect ending to a truly terrible ending. Come on Ben Stiller, you too? This is awful, Ben Stiller has a truly annoying laugh and he is chuckling like a moron for almost ten minutes. This is a loop, he's not laughing like this at his own dumb Limp Bizkit burns for five minutes. I respect everyone associated with this album less now. I am literally revisiting in my mind how funny I find Ben Stiller's movies listening to this. This is such a stupid ending to a remarkably terrible album. Thank god they recorded their stupid phone calls to put at the end of the album.

If Jim Morrison had lived, The Doors could have been this band. The lead singer sounds like the guy from the New Zealand band OMC that did How Bizarre. The saxophone is weirdly overrepresented in so many of these experimental bands songs. It's like they all went to a conference and decided to add jazz sax to everything. Talking Heads does this kind of music much better. Why do all these "experimental" bands insist on using strange singing voices? More found sound! I just found Black Francis' favorite band, validated by the fact that apparently The Pixies and Pere Ubu went on tour together. Again, post punk can mean a lot of things because the music has similarities to the Pretenders even if it's light years away from them stylistically, both post punk bands though. The talking through the background on so many albums is distracting.

The Smiths (and Morrissey) remind me of high school girls. It was the first time I saw band t-shirts of bands that I was unaware of and had disbanded prior to the people who wore them were old enough to buy a band t-shirt. So far so good. Clearly these guys are Beatles fans. It feels like The Smiths and The Cure either would have loved each other or hated each other. After listening to Nowhere Fast, I get why the Morrissey shirt wearers also seemed to always like rockabilly. Barbarism Begins at Home is the first song that I get being called post punk. Maybe this list is helping me understand pop music better. There's a The Clash vibe about it. If The Clash covered this it wouldn't be out of place on one of their albums. I now have one clue as to why vegetarianism was popular with women of a certain age at a certain period. Man, this guy "FEELS" things. I like the bluntness of the lyrics from the title track, no symbolism, just violent imagery and animal sounds.

Heaps of Sheep has a kind of U2 Pop (underrated U2 album) feel to the music. His voice has a Saturday morning cartoons feel to it. I won't say that I loved the first song, but The Duchess is horrible, it's like a children's song about his terrible, whorish wife. I bet Daniel Johnston loved this album. This is not the best representation of anything. This is only being saved from the very worst albums by some truly inspired garbage that was included in this list. I am losing respect for music critics the further I get into the list. Add prog rock to the list of genres I don't like. My god this is terrible. The Flaming Lips' lead singer must have taken notes on singing with a silly voice. This is like adding jazz to psychedelic rock...and it is magically way less than the sum of its parts. Blues in Bob Minor is Robert Wyatt's Subterranean Homesick Blues, and it is one of the better tracks on the album and is still a terrible homage to the original. That is a song format that is oft repeated and this was one of the worst I've heard.

Post New Wave The Cure? This is like if The Cure and The Velvet Underground/Lou Reed had a baby. Every song reminds me of some other band, Urge Overkill is coming to mind. Nine Inch Nails Light? Bowie, U2, maybe I'm not listening closely enough. It's not super compelling but it is also listenable. Ten minutes of fade noise with Jarvis Cocker saying "bye-bye" in the middle on the last song is inexcusable artiness with no real payoff.

The Allman Brothers' big break. This is a bluesy album...Statesboro Blues and Done Somebody Wrong really drive it home. Gregg Allman doesn't get enough credit, love his organ playing. Two guitarists (one on the Mt. Rushmore of guitarists) and two drummers, how did this work so well? Maybe I like jam bands more than I thought or maybe the Allmans are the only ones to get it right. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed is the most "jam band" song on the album, not loving it. If my dad could go back and see one concert in all of human history, I'm guessing this is the one he'd pick. Even Allman Brothers' jams are not my cup of tea. And they have a lot of guys who need to have solos. I will state, without hesitation, that this is the best jam band album of all time. They launch into the start of Mountain Jam right at the end of Whipping Post (which is definitely the greatest jam song of all time) and wish they had included it on the album.

Help Me is the big song from the album, meh. This sounds like an album of Sesame Street Songs with grown up lyrics. I think folk music is not for me, Bob Dylan and folk rock maybe. This is mildly annoying. Her voice has a Carly Simonesque quality. Or maybe Carly Simon's voice sounds like Joni Mitchell. Every time the album seems to be improving, the next song makes me reconsider. Raised On Robbery has a different sound and is the best track on the album. The addition of Cheech and Chong to the last song is just the cherry on top of this terrible album.

I would have said the Pixies were a 90s band but today I learned they are an 80s band. They seem like the transition from 80s music to 90s music which is exactly the timeline. I cannot understand a word of Rock Music through the screaming. The Pixies should have been bigger than Nirvana. They are like pre-Grunge and Nirvana in particular has borrowed from their sound. First half of the album was better than the second.

This is hipster Muzak. It has now changed to a video game score. It's interesting to think that this album was potentially influenced by earlier video game scores and in turn has influenced later video game scores. EDM is another one of those genres that I think I just don't get. Guilty of Love could be music from the game soundtrack from Sugar Rush from Wreck-It Ralph. It sounds like he sampled MarioKart and put some base and Prince grunts from Kiss in the background. The title track is terrible, a list of bands from an old news clip over dance beats. This is like if LCD Soundsystem didn't make songs, just beats. All of the skipping on the tracks keeps making me think there's something wrong with Spotify. This is like crappy RJD2. Need You Tonite is by far the best song on the album. Emotion 98.6 sounds like the backing track for David Gray's Babylon remixed, still better than comedy cartoon video game music.

The style of jazz is great, but this is background music or the music a late night band plays or part of the score to a Blues Brothers movie. I love organ jazz though, I wonder if Booker T. and the MGs have any albums on the list because this is very similar. This is good music to work to, very productive morning, but super nondescript, mind elsewhere music.

Black Sabbath always seemed like one of those bands that was overrated. Three songs in, I'm starting to get it. Changes is a great song, love this version, love the Charles Bradley version, just a great song. You can hear the similarities between Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin...two sides of the same 70s coin, one more blues rock, one more heavy metal. This album is great, Ozzy Osborne is a more intelligible singer than he is a speaker. Maybe Black Sabbath is underrated? I haven't been familiar with a single song yet but this rocks. Maybe it's just their hits I don't love. There are a lot of metal bands that owe a huge debt of gratitude to Black Sabbath. Another plus, varying song lengths, but an average of about four and a half minutes. 10 songs, 42 minutes, that's right in the zone in terms of number of songs and average song length. There are a couple of songs that I'm not sure how they fit in, good songs, but just seem a little out of place on this album.

It's jazz. I generally like the sound of Jazz trios/quartets. However, this sounds a great deal like ever other combo I've ever heard and every song is almost undistinguishable to my ear. Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are sounds like the music from Cruella DeVil. This could be on in the background and it wouldn't bother me, but I couldn't see putting it on just to listen to it.

7 songs, 73 minutes. 6 and 72 if you don't count the last 37 second song...one 12 minutes song on an album is hard to pull off, a whole album averaging that is crazy. This feels like hippie elevator music. Another dreaded double album. The Allman Brothers mastered the jam when they put Mountain Jam on Eat a Peach, St. Stephen feels very similar. The band that spawned Phish, String Cheese Incident and Widespread Panic. Everything feels like an accident so that when there are parts that I like it never lasts and intensifies my dislike for the other parts. Where does one song end and another begin? Only The Dead know. The fake blues man/Jim Morrison vocals are ridiculous coming from a white hippie. It hard to know if it was The Dead influenced by everyone else or if they were doing the influencing but you can hear Big Brother and the Holding Company and later Janis Joplin and The Doors in this. Come on with the song made up of feedback. At least it's appropriately titled "Feedback". Drugged out weirdos going to drugged out weirdo. People sat and listened to this and swore that they loved it, I think they mainly loved drugs. Seven and a half minutes of this is ridiculous. This is one of those instances where a parent says their kid could create Jackson Pollack's work. My kids could make these noises with their karaoke machine, no one is lining up to drop acid and listen to it though. And the one thing resembling a normal song is less than a minute long to close the album out.

Rhymin & Stealin, another legendary opening track from a debut. This is a very Def Jam recording. You can picture LL Cool J rapping over these beats. They were the clown princes of rap at this point, they leaned into it and it worked in the time before gangsta rap. She's Crafty really leans into the humor. Girls is goofy as hell, but I love it. Fight For Your Right is amazing, rap-rock at it's finest and way before it's heyday. Girls, Fight For Your Right, No Sleep Till Brooklyn and Paul Revere is one of the best four song streaks on any album ever. Hold It Now, Hit It is a miss for me and I don't love Brass Monkey but if those are the worst songs on an album that's pretty impressive.

I love this album. It's sad what U2 has become at this point. One is a great song, absolutely beautiful. So Cruel wasn't a single, but it's a great song as well. Mysterious Way is another great U2 song. I think this is an undoubtedly better album than The Joshua Tree. Better hits (One beat With or Without You for greatest U2 song) and much better album cuts. Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World is another great album cut. I like relationship U2 better than political U2.

Smooth Operator is another strong contender for best opening track off a debut album. She has a great voice, maybe the sexiest voice ever. Jazz, funk, R&B, this is a fusion of them all. She has one of those old school sultry voices, I’d listen to her order a sandwich. This has a very 80s sound…there’s a little bit of a porno music vibe to this, particularly all the saxophone. Early 80s Michael Jackson, Liberian Girl Michael Jackson shares a sound with this album. The 80s were truly a dark time for R&B. Giving this a more thorough listen at my desk, Hang On to Your Love is great and it blended in when I wasn't devoting my full attention to the album. When Am I Going to Make a Living, another one I missed when I wasn't paying attention.

Tuesday's Gone...underrated song, it's totally overshadowed by Free Bird. From the wistful melancholy of Tuesday's Gone to the goofy fun of Gimme Three Steps. Legendary Busch theme song, Simple Man. Gimme Three Steps feels really out of place. I'm wondering if they just reprinted this album with a different cover and called it their greatest hits. 4 of their biggest songs on their debut? That's a solid first album. Other than Sweet Home Alabama, I'd say the four songs on this album are pretty much everything you absolutely need to know about Lynyrd Skynyrd. Things Goin' On continues the kind of happy-sad back and forth between songs. This album feels like a collection of singles, it's not super coherent. And now, Free Bird...great song but it really sucks the air out of the second half of the album. I am shocked that Simple Man is the second most listened to track on the album by a mile and that Tuesday's Gone is fourth. The instrumental at the end of Free Bird vs. the instrumental at the end of Layla, tough choice.

Pharrell Williams' voice is all over the intro to the first track, but even if it wasn't, you'd be able to tell he produced this in the early 2000s after a few bars. It's got that Neptunes sound. This is 1000x better than N'Sync. This feels like the evolution of New Jack Swing. This music is a hollow imitation of a real artist. Timberlake is a performer and this feels very much like a performance for an audience without any real soul in either the lyrics or music. The Neptunes and Timbaland producing on one album makes this the most 2000s album of all time. Take it from here reminds me of something and I can't place it. I do tend to love white people signing R&B and Soul music. Cry Me a River is a jam and is maybe the pinnacle of Timbalake's style. Rock Your Body is another banger. I give more credit to the producers being at the top of their games though. Timberlake still feels like a product. "Gonna have you nekkid by the end of this song" is delivered like an entitled rich guy knowing that a bunch of gold diggers and fame whores will drop their panties at his command rather than him sounding like the one in charge. Nothin' Else is a little too Michael Jackson...if someone said it was a cover, I'd believe it. This is a Michael Jackson album. Could do without the overly sentimental Never Again to close the album out, it's not a great fit for the rest of the album and it's feeling.

Another heavy metal band, another "Cookie Monster Voice" lead singer. Credit where credit is due, I can at least understand most of the words. I don't know why but the murder/slasher/horror lyrics come off as needless in death metal whereas they seem almost essential in gangsta rap. I don't like horror movies so maybe that's part of the lack of appeal. If the references were pertinent to me, maybe I'd like it more? I know a lot of metal lyrics are very political but it's hard to take that seriously when I can't understand so many of the lyrics and it's some guy screaming it in a put on cartoon voice. The Portuguese lyrics in some of the songs aren't even a problem since most metal in English has lyrics I can't understand. Either the lead singer or someone else in the band has a "Gremlin Voice" to go along with the standard growl, equally annoying though. I'm not familiar with metal to understand the nuances between each song....after a while they all sound exactly the same. The songs inspired by the traditional music of Brazil are a radical departure from the rest of the album...it's a nice break from the heavy guitars and yelling. More found sound, this time gun shots. 13 minutes of gun shots over background music? I'm sure this "means" something. Canyon Jam is like listening to the audio of a Predator movie, some music behind the alien walking through the jungle and shooting.