Reviews by uhhhellurr

kinda funky at points, kinda classic rock-y at points. a little sly and the family stone, a little beatles. does it feel kind of like a knock-off of prince at points? yeah, kinda. does that make it a bad album? no, not really. it's pretty enjoyable and there are some fun moments on here. still, there's nothing that totally blew me away - the best thing here is probably the title track and, although good, nothing particularly mind blowing. still, it was a fun listen.

i'm still a bit new to metal as a whole and still finding my footing in an appreciation for the genre. i am finding i like metallica (hot take, i know) but i think between this album and my previous listens, this one ends up more in the middle. the musicianship is great and i like the vocals well enough, but the songs here did not grip me as much as others. i still enjoyed it to a certain extent, but it didn't wow me as much as 'master of puppets' did, for example. not bad! just not my favorite either.

in some ways i wish i liked this one better than i did. the instrumentals are nice and can be pretty good sometimes. i'm used to unique, unconventional voices, but i am really not a fan of perry farrell's voice and that makes it a pretty mixed bag for me to listen to. but i think the worst sin of all is that, quite frankly, the back half of this album is pretty overloaded and boring. the first half i liked, the second half was a slog.

a band i can't really be unbiased about. i grew up on the beach boys and brian wilson's music and i will always have a soft spot for the pre-pet sounds era of the beach boys, and this album in particular. for me, this is really the first big step towards the complexity of pet sounds in terms of songwriting and production for brian and the beach boys. the added complexities here over songs like "fun fun fun" are great, but still below where brian wilson would take the group in the upcoming years. that's not to say that there aren't more "poppy" pop songs here - "do you wanna dance" and "dance, dance, dance" are beach boys classics in their own right - but what i always come to this album for are tracks like "when i grow up to be a man," "she knows me too well," "in the back of my mind," and especially the constantly criminally underrated "please let me wonder." the only dings i will give this album are the inferior version of "help me, r(h)onda" and "bull session with the big daddy" which is a skit track that is sort of an expected "feature" of their previous albums. but the harmonies here are as good as ever and the production is, of course, fantastic. to me, this is the pinnacle of the first "era" of the beach boys. better things to come, for sure, but a great album in its own right.

really great rap album. snoop's flow is iconic and here there are no misses. just great track after great track. the production on here is pretty great too, employing that classic g-funk sound. i really thoroughly enjoyed my time with this one!

decent album. in some respects, it reminds me of other 80s college rock staples like the smiths or the replacements, but feels like ultimately it is rather toothless in comparison. there's nothing bad here - at worst, just dull - but i think some of their contemporaries are more thrilling to listen to. still, it's a pleasant listen and there are most certainly some highlights here.

look, there's a reason this album is held in such high esteem. not only was it a groundbreaking album for rock music that shifted the genre, but man, every song on here is really great. obviously cobain had more talent in his pinky than most people on this planet ever have and had such a way of crafting great music intertwined with pain, but i also have to shout out both krist novoselic and dave grohl both for their excellence on this album too. i feel like often they become footnotes to their bandmate on this one and they are integral to this album. i mean what can i say about this one that hasn't already been said?

really fun punk record. this one is nearly all attitude. it's maybe not the most pleasant record to listen to but man it fuckin sounds cool. and you can trace a direct line to several bands that would come immediately after and until today. i liked it! i will definitely come back to it.

really fun stuff. obviously the title track is a classic and is terrific. the rest of the album is also pretty great too, but does fall prey to being a bit same-y throughout. there's not a bad song in the bunch, but it does come off a bit one note. still, al green is a great vocalist and his smooth and sultry delivery is what you're here for. i would be remiss in not mentioning the arrangement and production of the album is so classic and still sounds great. the horns on here are iconic!

sincerely one of my favorite albums of all time. this album came at a really fascinating period of john lennon's life - he just got married to yoko ono, his band just broke up, he's going through experimental therapy to deal with the tragic passing of his mother when he was younger. you get all of that here: a raw, bluesy romp with biting passages, as well as sweet and introspective. to me, this album encapsulates one of music's most famous and sometimes controversial musicians. he is a screwed up mess and complex and this album is him baring all. it's such a great listen and truly it is one of my favorite albums of all time.

i do really love this album. i was introduced to it as a teenager and i think it really is a great fusion of late 60s-ish rock and jazz. especially the middle of the album is my favorite with 'spinning wheel,' 'and when i die,' and 'god bless the child' but you can't really go wrong with any of this, even the more classical stuff. the band is pretty tight and although this feels pretty mundane by modern standards, this album was a fairly big trailblazer. i especially love david clayton-thomas' gruff and strong vocals. one of the most underrated singers in rock history.

I'm road tripping today and I can definitely say this is not a great road trip album. it wouldn't be my thing really anyways. at best, the album is pretty mid and at worst it's pretty fuckin boring! thisv album had almost nothing for me. the only thing keeping this from the gutter for me is that it's at least listenable

what to do with this one in the year 2025, huh. in my past, i was a mild kanye fan and i think he can be brilliant. lately i want absolutely nothing to do with him, and if you're paying anywhere close to attention, you'll understand why. but when this album came out, i liked it. not as much as everyone else seemed to, as this is always in contention for "greatest album of all time." i've never been quite there. there is some good stuff on here but i am more of a fan of his earlier production and songs. there are definitely some high points here for me ('power,' 'all of the lights,' and 'runaway') but a lot of the album cuts don't do a whole lot for me. his rapping is generally pretty great on here. the jay-z verse on 'monster' is genuinely terrible. did we really have to listen to several minutes of chris rock talking about reupholstering pussies? i haven't listened to this album in well over a decade because i liked his earlier stuff better in general, so upon relistening, i'm still sort of in the same place. musically, this was never a 5/5 for me, and for the express purposes of this project, i try to remove the art from the artist, even though who he is currently is pretty deplorable.

second album from these folks and, man, i hate to say it. this really does nothing for me. the best songs on here are fine, i guess. the worst songs are pretty boring. the music is one part subdued techno, one part subdued pop, and is entirely subdued. i just wish one of the facets here was more interesting, it would have held my interest a lot longer. on a pure technical scale, there's nothing wrong here, i guess. it just feels like the music the clothing stores my mom would drag me to when i was a kid. i just don't really appreciate the vibe a whole lot.

i'm not a huge prince fan and i'm fairly new to listening to him as a whole (i know, i know, it's crazy). i'm kind of two minds about this one. it's a pretty fun album. it's a bit zany and very synth heavy. it's really horny (i don't really give a shit, plus it's prince, of course it's horny). i also felt like the album was too long. although i don't think there's much chaff here to separate from the wheat, it does feel like i would have liked it more if it had been streamlined a bit. i don't think it was bad but the length did end up diminishing my interest in it. especially since a lot of the synths can be a little grating at times (normally not an issue for me, but the more it goes on, the less i want to deal with it). overall, i still liked it, but it wasn't my favorite prince output i've heard.

this is maybe my favorite stevie album? is that crazy? extremely great from front to back. the singles ('you are the sunshine of my life' and 'superstition') of course are timeless, but the album cuts are really terrific too, from the subdued and sweet 'you and i' to the funkier cuts 'maybe your baby' and 'tuesday heartbreak' to the album closer 'i believe (when i fall in love it will be forever' which combines the two into a great ending. as with most everything stevie, the musicianship is great and the production sounds nice. and as always, with stevie, i feel it important to point out HE WAS 22 WHEN HE MADE THIS. crazy. incredible. think about what you were doing when you were 22. not this, i'll tell you.

really good album. i am not going to mention her significant other, because i think this album stands on its own without bringing him up. she's earned it, and i don't think she should consistently be in his shadow. as for the album, it's aggressive, biting, and a great listen. courtney love really came into her own here and you can tell that she really was putting all she had into this one. it's a pretty good effort!

man, sometimes you listen to an album and you are just blown away. this is one of them. i'm not a huge jazz guy but i have a light appreciation for the genre at large. this is unlike most jazz i've ever heard. obviously it's got a bit of a big band feel but it is off the rails and fun. it is chaotic, and yet, extremely organized in its chaos. if you're looking at the "machine" from afar, it may seem chaotic, but if you take a closer look, you can see all the pieces working together and executing perfectly. this thing never gets boring. it ebbs and flows in such a fascinating way. slow, fast, soft, loud. everything just works so fell. simply a well-crafted, incredibly interesting and fascinating piece. music is art, but this, to me, is art as music.

i so badly wanted to like this more than i did. the production is nice and clean. very straightforward, but nothing wrong with that. there is some pretty good stuff on here! 'yellow,' 'don't panic,' and 'trouble,' are all pretty great! unfortunately a lot of the album is mind-numbingly boring. unfortunately, i do think coldplay is often unfairly shit on, which ends up making their output a bit underrated, ultimately, but after listening to this album, i can kind of understand why they have the reputation they have in popular culture. nothing here is bad, but boy, can it be a bit dull.

pretty good album. i really enjoyed the production and the songwriting here. the best song for me was clearly 'the killing moon' but there were a handful of songs i also liked almost as much and nothing on here was even remotely bad. that being said, i wish that i liked the vocalist's voice a bit more. but overall, pretty good.