Reviews by uhhhellurr

really not for me. a lot of the beats felt stale and disjointed to me. the songs were fine at best. just really not my thing.

i'm a decently big stones fan and love their output after a certain point, but aftermath is sort of that vague certain point. i find a lot of the first couple of years of their output to be pretty hit or miss and very rough around the edges in not a charming or nice way. a lot of it sounds like they haven't quite found their footing yet. aftermath is no exception (for the record, i listened to the UK version as from a tiny bit of research, this was the version referenced in the 1001 albums books. so no paint it black, which would honestly help this album a lot). there are some great early stones tracks on here, such as 'mothers little helper' and 'under my thumb' but the rest of the album is really just a lot of decent to middling blues tracks that aren't bad, but aren't really interesting or mindblowing. ultimately, i like this album, but it's clear listening to the album that the band had a lot more growing to do in the coming years.

decent album. the production and arrangements are nice enough. you can tell ms. holiday has the vocal chops, even though her voice had seen better days at this point. but ultimately, this is another (maybe the first?) example of what i am finding is one of my least favorite genres of album: "musical artist makes a sad album when they are dying"

i'm familiar enough with billie's other work to know there's a big difference between her heyday and this album and much like other similar "last album" entries on this list, it doesn't mean anything profound to me that a gruff sounding singer is singing sad songs. not my thing. it's not bad, but i'm just disinterested in this type of album at this point.

boy, i really don't know what to make of this one. parts of it are pretty fun! parts of it are dreadful to listen to. this album is a little all over the place. clearly the attitude is the number one thing here, so it makes it a little hard to criticize, since i reckon the point wasn't to make beautiful music. they clearly don't give a shit. that doesn't mean that the rough-around-the-edges are great to listen to.

i appreciated the sampling and it was a decent time to listen to, but ultimately, i found this to be a bit dull. i wish it was more exciting. i saw a lot of people raving about this one online, about how it's one of the best electronic music albums of all time, but i couldn't help but feel like it was lacking a lot for me to enjoy it.

i try not to be overly negative when it comes to modern pop music because i do know it's a 'it's not you, it's me' sort of thing. i just find a lot of it to be toothless and not fun to listen to. this album kinda falls into that category for me. adele has a great voice! do not get it twisted. i'm not really a fan of the songs here. maybe it's partially because of how pervasive a lot of these songs were when this album came out, maybe it's because the music just isn't for me, maybe it's because i do genuinely find the songwriting to be lackluster. the arrangement and production is fine enough. but ultimately, i think this one isn't for me.

i'm pretty new to peter gabriel outside of the big hits they play on the radio all the time, and i enjoyed his solo debut earlier on in this project, so i was excited to get to listen to this one. this album feels a little more subdued than his first, but a little more pop oriented. don't get me wrong, it's not sledgehammer-era peter gabriel, but there is some (admittedly great) hooky stuff on here like kate bush's contribution on 'games without frontiers' and i really enjoyed the album closer 'biko' as well, a song that feels specifically cemented to a point and time in history, but the message is still very relevant today. all that said, i just wish it had a little more oomph for me. it's a nice album and i could see myself falling in love with it upon multiple listens, but as it stands right now, i feel like it doesn't quite reach that upper echelon.

two opposites about the carpenters that can be true at the same time:

1) they are vastly overhated for what the music is. of course, karen carpenter's voice is terrific, they have some of the best studio musicians playing on their records, their music is well produced. it's not everyone's bag, but for years and years, this was regarded as some of the worst of the worst pop music to ever be released and it just simply is not even close to that.
2) i feel like there is a cultural correction on the carpenters going on recently and i do feel like it is a vast overcorrection. yeah, their music isn't bad and is over-hated! listen to this album and genuinely tell me this is a great album. there are some great tracks on here, don't get me wrong! 'we've only just begun' and '(they long to be) close to you' are terrific early 70s pop songs! let's not pretend that the rest of this album is mind-blowing! the soft, sleek covers of bacharach and beatles are fine but i wouldn't say an album of soft, toothless wonder bread makes this a terrific listening experience either.

i love this album a lot. it's maybe not my favorite replacements album, but it's close. it was the first one i ever listened to, and so for that it has perhaps some added esteem in my view. but this album has it all, a snarling attitude, witty lyrics, and great songwriting. paul westerberg is vastly underrated in the music scene and on here are some of my favorite songs of his. of course, the classic 'i will dare' is great, but my favorite on here are the very ahead of its time 'androgynous' and the longing 'unsatisfied' which may sneakily be one of my favorite songs of all time. yeah there's some less serious stuff here ('tommy gets his tonsils out' and 'gary's got a boner') and their cover of kiss' 'black diamond' leaves a little to be desired, but i think all of that adds to the charm.

there's not a lot here outside of the big track, and that's the opening song. it's fine, but really nothing mind-blowing here. the sound is fun and a bit of the time. but really it's kind of an unremarkable album.

it's not my favorite CCR album, but it's definitely not my least favorite. i am a big CCR fan, so, shocker, i do love this album anyways. for me, the tracklist is not as strong as some of their next few, but this is the first REAL CCR album. of course, there are some stone cold classics here that still get radio play. some of the album tracks here are a little forgettable, but still have that great sound. this is john fogerty and co. coming into their own. it's not the most consistent, but it is them becoming the rock staples that they are now.

oh boy. what a miss here. i'm a bit surprised because this album clearly lives in a relative zone of music that i would enjoy, but man it is really underwhelming. REALLY underwhelming. the songs here are not interesting in the slightest, the instrumentation is bland and lacking oomph. the vocals are pretty rough and wobbly in stretches! it mostly sounds like a local band who is not long for this world. an album i had to hear before i died? you could have fooled me.

definitely a bit punky but i especially like the more rockabilly moments on here. i just wish i liked the middle part of the album more. sometimes the album does feel a bit samey, but i don't think it's valid to complain about repetitiveness when an album is a half hour long. it does never get boring. but i do wish i liked it more. it feels like it has all the parts of an album i would love, but i just wasn't thrilled with a lot of the songs. i could see it as an album that would grow on me though

fats domino is one of the building blocks of modern music. he influenced countless artists, who influenced countless artists, who... you get the point. his smash hit "blueberry hill" is here, which is great. the rest of the album is a little bit more uneven. there's some good stuff, some decent stuff. nothing here is bad, in my opinion, but some stuff is just less interesting. it's still a nice enough listen, especially with the historical context.

i'm not huge on electronic music in general, but at the very least, fatboy slim seems to make some of the most fun to listen to stuff i've heard out of this project. the songs are upbeat and the beats here are enjoyable to listen to. the unfortunate thing is that i have a bit of a short fuse when it comes to electronic music, so the runtime for me was the real killer here. if it was 20 minutes shorter, i probably would have liked this a lot more.

this isn't terribly bad, but it also isn't a very remarkable album. in a way, it reminds me a lot of john lennon's 'rock n roll' album, but maybe that's because it's a spector-produced legacy act singing oldies tracks from the mid-70s. the production is a little all over the place on this one, even for one of the all time great producers (even if he is evil). dion's voice is nice but listening to this makes you feel like you'd rather listen to 'runaround sue' instead.

i really love led zeppelin. even though they are my parents' generation of music, my parents weren't the hugest fans of theirs, and so when i discovered them in middle school, they felt like my band. all that said, i've never really gotten the hype on this one. there's some great stuff on here! don't get me wrong. i think you could've cut a lot of this album and made a killer single disc and you probably wouldn't have missed a lot of the stuff. i just don't view this one as highly as other people do or as highly as other people rate it. and like, i get it. robert plant is a great as always, john paul jones, john bonham, and jimmy page all have terrific performances here. i just think it's a little bit uneven of a record. maybe led zeppelin's white album. i dunno. i like it, it's just not one of my favorites of theirs.

pretty good album. feels similar to 'low' in the sense that there is a more rock-ish half and then a more ambient half. the title track is great, and there are some other great tracks - really i like the entire first side of this one. the second side can be a bit dull in comparison. still interesting in its own right, but not something i would go out of my way for, unlike the first side. because of this dichotomy, it feels like it lives somewhere in-between a great first side and an alright second side.

i love (no pun intended) this era of music and adore a lot of Love's contemporaries, and yet somehow their appeal seems to allude me a bit. most of this is pretty good, but mostly feels like a good, but unremarkable late 60s garage album. half of the album is dedicated to an 18 minute jam (which i guess was truncated from a 45 minute jam) that kind of is what it is, but isn't very interesting ultimately. there are some nuggets (no pun intended) on here ('7 and 7 Is' and 'Stephanie Knows Who') but most of it, to me ends up firmly in the "good, not great" camp. there are some interesting instruments used here that I wish were used more, mainly the flute and saxophone. arthur lee's songwriting often leaves me wanting more, and not in a good way. once again, i liked it, but i just wish it appealed to me more.

i really love this album. it's a lot of the dna of modern indie music and you can really tell. there's some really great stuff on here. it's a little bit all over the place. there's some really noisy stuff, there's some kind of poppy stuff, but really most of it is great. it's a vibe album, for sure. i dunno, listening to it makes me feel so cool. it's a cool album. the coolest.