Reviews by uhhhellurr

as expected with tom waits, this album is a bit bonkers. i would venture to say most people would probably hate this. but there is something about this quirky music that does something for me. even though they are draped in ugly and off-kilter sounds and tom waits' growly wailing, the melodies here are pretty great and if you can get into the vibe, it's a really solid album. it's easy to listen to this album and think "wow this sounds like shit i hate this" but if you are willing to crack past the ugly exterior, there is some cool shit in this nut.

not a huge fan of aerosmith so i wasn't thrilled to get this one, but i was actually pleasantly surprised! this is a fun hard rock album. it's got some teeth but not overly so. steven tyler gets a little screamy and screechy and his vocals almost border on some sort of metal vocal. the instrumentation is pretty good as well. solid album!

my second pulp album and, if i can be quite honest, i don't know if i quite get the appeal. there's some pretty decent stuff on here but nothing really blows me away. i was generally not a huge fan of the vocals and a lot of the songs didn't do a lot for me. not sure what i'm missing, but i am very clearly missing it.

it's not a bad album, it's actually pretty nice to listen to. but it also feels like the trope-iest of tropey rock music. it is really derivative of a lot of hard rock and it is really samey in a not so satisfying way. if you've heard 'hard to handle' on classic rock radio, you've heard the whole album, basically. but all that said, it's not bad, it's quite listenable. i just don't know if i appreciate it greatly.

i am an unabashed beatles lover and i've listened to this album probably a million times over so, yeah. i love it. that being said, there are other albums of theirs that i think are ultimately more influential and more important and other albums that, quite frankly, i enjoy listening to more. that's not to say i don't love this album (i do) but i just don't think it's their best and i don't agree with the common boomer sentiment that this is the greatest album ever. i think a lot of it has to do with the context in which it was released, which very much predates my birth, so unfortunately greatness based on "you had to be there" is going to be infinitely increasingly rare.

but all that being said, i do think this album has some great songwriting on here, songs that have held the test of time as "all timers" ('with a little help from my friends,' 'lucy in the sky with diamonds,' 'when i'm sixty four,' and 'a day in the life') and has some really interesting dabbling in sonic textures (i particularly love 'being for the benefit of mr kite' for this, but also the expansion of their classical-influenced side with 'she's leaving home' and george harrison's continued dabbling with indian classical music). ultimately, it's an all timer for a reason, and i do love it a lot.

really cool album. it's noisey in all the right ways and catchy in a way that is really referential to a lot of rock that came before it. super fun listen and i would love to come back to this!

this album kinda slaps (literally). this album is also pretty ubiquitous (especially the big tracks), so much so that this was the first time I've listened to this album and yet I feel like I've listened to it before. this album also is, unfortunately, kind of annoying lmao. like it's good. it's fairly high quality. it also makes me cringe out of my mind at points. I liked it but not everything was for me here.

really surprised by this one! really fun britpop. the influence here is pretty laid bare, very beatle-y at points. it feels like a disservice to compare every britpop album to the two big britpop bands, and I wouldn't say this gets to that level, but it's only a half step below.

this album just oozes cool. the guitar, the swagger. it just chugs along and pretty much every song on here rips. top tier stuff

pretty solid album. obviously, it opens with an all-timer and i am also very fond of 'levon' and the title track. the rest of the album is good, not great. not to the same level as those three tracks. there's nothing here that's bad, just not anything that's overly impressive. still, it's fun, it's not boring. it's elton john really finding his footing for a pretty great album streatch.

interesting music that i found to be a little reminiscent of bjork. i don't think it ends up being as compelling, but there are some interesting sonic passages here. mostly i found it to be somewhere in the middle, not weird enough to be interesting, but not dull enough to be unlistenable.

there's some really interesting and unique stuff here - indie rock with a bit of a south of the border flair, but unfortunately is it marred down by, quite frankly, a lot of kind of boring stuff. there's potential here, but i don't think it meets it.

when this album is at it's best, it's pretty great. the production is fun and the performances are engaging. for me, this one is solidly in the 'good, not great' camp. it's a fun listen, but never gets to the level of an all-timer.

i am not really electronic music predisposed, but man this one really surprised me! a lot of the tracks here are fun, danceable, and groovy. i was genuinely floored listening to the first handful of tracks because it does feel unlike most electronic music i have heard. this album does run into a common problem i have with a lot of electronic music, where it does fall back on some repetitive and more boring motifs, but when this album is really cooking, it is a blast to listen to.

honestly i was a little blown away by this one! i didn't know what to expect from this one, never having heard of the album or the band. but this is a really neat indie album! it's proggy, it's bluesy, it's indie-y. to me, at times it feels like if the black keys could play in a time signature other than 4. but that's not doing this album justice. there are some really cool odd-metered passages here, really fascinating stuff. in fact, the parts of this album i was not so hot on are the more conventional stuff on here. but when this album is at its most unique, that's when it's at its best.

really fun post punk record. really rough around the edges and ugly at times. fairly aggressive. sounds great. i really appreciated the attitude and the message here. i think given time, i could grow to love this one.

my gut reaction here was sort of like "holy shit this album is kind of annoying" but it's also pretty cool. the beats are a bit out of left field and unconventional, but they are pretty cool. m.i.a.'s flow is fun and very sing-song-y. it does kind of get annoying sometimes. but it is a super unique album and sound. i kind of like it, i kind of hate it. but the one thing you can't say is that it's boring!

i was a bit surprised by this one. obviously i am aware of pharrell and his production and was kind of expecting more of a rap style album. this is what i would say is more of a funk-pop album? it's kind of fun and, obviously, the neptunes' production is pretty much always great. i felt like the songs on here were a little lacking, though. there was not a lot that really kept me hooked.

it's a fun and an interesting album to listen to, but i can't really say i enjoyed it a whole lot. it's kinda goofy, but kinda artsy. i can't tell if i actually think it's cool or if i really think i just ought to think it's cool. feels like i should either be a pretentious asshole about it or a stick in the mud. i don't feel like being either about it.

really solid album. the title track is the most fun here, but there's a lot of pretty decent stuff here. edwyn collins' voice is very reminiscent of david bowie and a lot of the music here doesn't feel out of place in that way - particularly 'rip it up' which feels like an early 80s funk-new wave bowie song. nothing particularly mindblowing here, but all in all, a fun enough time.