Reviews by therealab

I love Born On The Bayou. CCR is an underrated band. Good Golly Miss Molly is better when Little Richard does it. Proud Mary, I think I like the Ike and Tina version better but this is good too. One of the rare instances where a cover is better than the original.

As a rule, I do not like bands that play dress up. I also hate found sound, this is not off to a great start. Although, I love Thin Lizzy and this is definitely of that same era and style. Detroit Rock City is a good song. I could do without the demons and evil lord lyrics. Heavy metal lyrics are to music what Flash Gordon scripts are to film. I prefer Thin Lizzy,

There is an 80s British band sound...you could tell me this is the English Beat and I would not think twice. Goofy lyrics. This album has something in common with every 80s English band, The Cure, The Smiths, New Order, all of them. 80s music is, without a doubt, the worst. Wrote for Luck is the best song so far, not surprisingly, it was the first single and biggest song from the album.

Peter Gabriel is Dave Matthews favorite singer. The video for Sledgehammer was awesome. Kate Bush...what can't she ruin? Just kidding, Don't Give Up is not very good before she sings a note. I always liked Big Time. It's a hard album to rate. There are a couple of enjoyable singles and a bunch of weird stuff outside that. In Your Eyes is a great song, and produced the super iconic moment with the trench coat and boombox.

They can call this punk all they want to, but this is New Wave and it sucks. These guys are one of those Brian Eno bands that heard The Velvet Underground and then started a band. This is the first 80s music album...from 1977. (Get A) Grip [on Yourself], aside from have a stupid title, is I guess the best song on the album. Ending with an eight minute instrumental is not a good choice.

As far as jazz goes, this is starting out very pleasantly. This is like the jazz that would be in an animated feature. This is like a Randy Newman album without the lyrics which is why it sounds like the Toy Story score. This is one of the better jazz albums on the list. It's super conventional though so that probably makes me a philistine. I wonder why the title track isn't available on Spotify. Once Vince Guaraldi died, this guy could have replaced him for Charlie Brown TV specials. The Mountain could be called Inspired by the Taxi Theme. Closes on a bit of a low note with Sameeda being the worst track. All in all though, not a bad jazz album.

This is not for me. This is a little too ballad-y for me. Although, George Strait should probably send him a check for all his success. I think I'd prefer George Strait. West Texas Waltz is the best song on the album, even with the silly ass lyrics. Of course a Hank song is the best song on the album...minus the synthesizer.

Two songs in and I am liking it. Lou Reed loves this album. Margaret-Tiger Rug is like his Maxwell's Silver Hammer...parallel thinking since Abbey road was recorded the same year. Leonard Cohen also has to be a fan of this album. Psychedelic Folk>Psychedelic Rock. Actually, Donovan was probably a big fan too, War In Peace has a similar vibe to Season of the Witch. I like the songs that lean into the really heavy psychedelic vocal effects less. The sound effects on Books of Moses are a nuisance. The songs get worse as the album goes on. Closing with an almost-10-minute song with vocals so manipulated they are almost incomprehensible. Opened stronger than it closed.

One song in and this might be my favorite metal album of all time...except for maybe all the Nazi lyrics. I generally like the music, I appreciate that the lyrics are intelligible. However, the content is ridiculous, Nazis, death, Satan, it's almost like a caricature of metal lyrics. This album is short though.

Space Rock? That is a stupid and weirdly specific genre. It also qualifies as Shoegaze...one of the worst genre's of music ever invented. This is not good, but much like I said about Echo and The Bunnymen, it's maybe the best of a terrible genre. No God Only Religion is the best song on the album, also the only one with no words, I don't think those facts are unrelated. Closing with a 17 minute song? That's a bold choice, Cotton. At least it has all been music so far...no stretches of silence or fake phone calls or Ben Stiller laughing on a loop. Two Spiritualized albums out of 1,001? That is a bad call.

This is the female equivalent of Teddy Pendergrass. I like it, it's not as good as Soul from the decades before it or Neosoul from the decade after. This is solidly in the Sade category. I might like this better than the Sade album on this list though. I am a sucker for slow jams. Maybe this was the first slow jam album? Sweet Love was the hit, but Caught Up In the Rapture is the best song so far. I almost hate to admit this, but I really like this album. This album does have a little bit of an 80s romantic comedy soundtrack vibe...that's not entirely negative. I'm done...I'm a fan. No One In the World is another great R&B jam. Same Ole Love is doing it for me too.

This is Blondie's favorite album. The arcade noises on What in the World are not a welcome addition. They sound like sped up King Hippo noises. Just when I think I'm liking this album more, it has a track like Warszawa and I feel differently. I get the video game noises now. Art Decade could be the score for Final Fantasy VIII. These mostly instrumental sides on Heroes and Low just aren't great. The whole second side is like an emo video game soundtrack.

I bet Trent Reznor loves Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode, The Smiths, The Cure...times were dark in the UK. Interestingly, I recognize Strangelove and nothing else on the album but it isn't the most streamed track on the album, that doesn't happen often. Little 15 was one of the singles, it is not a great song. These guys watched too many Zamfir infomercials. The album is getting worse. Behind The Wheel feels like a knock-off Bond theme. The album is slowly descending into awfulness. I Want You Now has some weird tube breathing noises and some found sound of a radio broadcast that stretches into To Have And To Hold. Pimpf sounds like something a kid on his home computer in 1987 created for a MIDI file. This album might have gotten a little worse, song by song.

God do I hate New Wave music. I hope Henry Mancini got every dime they made off this album for stealing the Peter Gunn theme and turning it into New Wave crap. This is a novelty band, there is no way the belong on this list. Rock Lobster could be the theme for a cartoon, and even then it wouldn't be particularly good. Rock Lobster is the worst song on the album, certainly the most annoying. Every other song on the album is better than it is. That being said, this album is not good, but it is at least short. I bet Courtney Love is a huge fan of the female lead singer. She's 1,000 times better than Fred Schneider's talk-singing. Downtown is one of the worst covers I've ever heard.

What is with all the New Wave music? Good lord I hate this and I'm one minute in. No. This is a joke. The Lawrence of Arabia segment is the best part of the album. This is one of the worst albums on the list. The amount of limited Spanish on late 70s (I'm looking at you The Clash)/early 80s British music is appalling. I would rather be listening to almost anything at this point. If I have to pick a favorite so far, I guess the title track is it. You may not like it now, but you will...written in 1980, still waiting. It has intelligible lyrics, music and reasonable length songs...those are the three factors keeping this from being the worst album on the list. Awesome...shouting out some Native American tribe names after referencing Geronimo earlier...get your own history UK.

I'm going into this with high hopes. Pretty much being dashed right out of the gate. This is a far cry from The Velvet Underground. This album sucks. Lou Reed and John Cale clearly need each other desperately. This feels like a concept album where the concept sucks. A British artist with a ska influenced song? Who could ever have imagined? Why is he just dropping one place name after another in these songs? Not a great album after I went in with such high hopes.

All these early psychedelic albums sound the same. I guess because of the kinds of music it grew out of. Somebody to Love rocks though. And then back to the folk rock adjacent My Best Friend. The folk songs are awful. Band dynamics are strange. I'm guessing once they got famous, after this record, Grace Slick sang on a lot higher percentage of the songs because so far it's just Somebody to Love. 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds is doing it for me for some reason. Embryonic Journey is a good instrumental track. Throw it in the bathtub! White Rabbit is a jam. Plastic Fantastic Lover is like a psychedelic Primus song.

This is one of the best punk albums I've listened to so far. Liberal use of the word "retarded", probably wouldn't be ok these days. 13 short songs....that's a punk album. I like the more punk songs than whatever you'd call the other tracks.

Is this the first punk album? Down on the Street kicks ass! You can hear the influence on Rage Against the Machine. I'm really liking this so far. Fun House is another great song. Then they lose me on what amounts to a lot of noisy saxophone, random screaming and guitar distortion on L.A. Blues.

This is apparently the first Britpop album....so I know exactly who to blame. I don't love Britpop and this is not helping. You can hear what came after in this. I bet these guys hate Oasis. The Drowners is the best song so far. I wonder if the lead singer gets mad that Thom Yorke sounds like him. Not great.