Reviews by uhhhellurr

i'm not a taylor swift hater by any means (ultimately, i think i am pretty agnostic) and although this is not near the worst album of hers (her recent albums have been particularly dull and miserable to listen to, in my opinion) this one doesn't really do a whole lot for me. there are some nicer moments ('willow,' 'no body, no crime,' and 'dorothea') but unfortunately this album is bogged down by 'aesthetic' middle of the road acoustic pop music masquerading as 'folk music.' i always contend, taylor has a knack for writing catchy tunes, especially hooks, but unfortunately the style and production here just dull this thing into oblivion.

I consider myself in general a Neil fan but I'd never really listened to this one. I skew more towards early Neil so I was excited to give this one a listen. it was a little bit of a mixed bag, but overall I enjoyed it. I tend to like the more aggressive Neil songs and the quieter stuff has to hit me just right. a lot of the songs here were on the quiet side but they didn't really grip me a while lot. it was still good, but not in my top tier of his albums.

when i first discovered jimi hendrix for myself in middle school, this was the album that really drew me in. i wasn't a fan of the long jams but was really fond of the wailing acid rock guitars. not only is jimi's guitar playing here incredible (of course), the songwriting is great too. songs like 'crosstown traffic,' 'little miss strange,' and 'house burning down' have incredible hooks and get stuck in your head. of course, the bass and drums here are incredible too. as i've gotten older, i've developed a greater appreciation for the longer jammier stuff on here (particularly '1983...'). and of course the big songs - his cover of bob dylan's 'all along the watchtower' is a classic, as well as the ever-present 'voodoo child (slight return)' are heavy hitters that get repeated ad nauseum for a good reason. not only is it one of the best albums of its era, it's just a blast to listen to from front to back.

so as a beatles fan and as a casual enjoyer of old country music i found this an interesting listen. the beatles were big fans of buck owens' music (they even covered one of his songs) and so it was interesting to listen to it from that perspective, but also because it's an interesting album for the evolution of country music.

buck owens' sound is very much his own and it is really highlighted here. it's all pretty pleasant and fun, but the tracklist is a bit hit or miss. the title track is probably the highlight here, but the big contrast, to me, bookends the album with his cover of chuck berry's 'memphis' which is fine but an unremarkable version. ultimately, it's pretty good, but a bit uneven.

surprisingly fun album. not shocking that it is very bongo forward. feels like a bit of a joke, but it's also fun as hell to listen to. it's not incredible and has a bizarre cover of 'in a gadda da vida'

i'm not huge on electronic music but this one was ok for me. it was pretty chill and i liked that about it. some songs were a little annoyingly repetitive, some were a little more subdued and interesting. it feels a lot like background music, not something that i think is particularly interesting to actively listen to, but something i wouldn't be offended if it was playing out in the world. just because it could be a bit dull at times, it feels a bit closer to a 2 than a 3 for me.

they combined discordant electronic music with bossa nova but no one asked if they really should.

in all seriousness, this takes the fun, calm, and smooth sounds of brazilian music and makes it feel like a panic attack. really really not my thing.

pretty ho hum album. the highlight for me was 'promised you a miracle' which was a pretty fun number. the rest of it was a bit boring and had not a lot going for it. the production was fine but unremarkable. it was fine.

wow, i was really blown away by the first side of this one. i love the way it sounds! really rough around the edges and quirky but in a really fun and unique way that i haven't really heard before. very uniquely him. really great. the second side is also pretty good but starkly different. very ambient and electronic. i found it pretty soothing and although not something i typically listen to, i enjoyed it. really great stuff!

i'm not the hugest van morrison fan (music and the person) but there is a handful of his stuff that i like, particularly the sort of horn-based blue eyed soul that he got into in the early 70s. there is a decent amount of that here - i particularly enjoyed the versions of 'domino' and 'caravan' here. the rest of the songs i could kind of take or leave, it wasn't bad but it wasn't really my taste or interested me particularly. the musicianship here is pretty great, especially the horns. but yeah, decent, but not totally my bag.

over the past couple of years I have really fallen in love with Joni Mitchell's music and although this is the first time I've listened to this record, in particular, I can say this falls right in line with everything else. this album lives at the crossroads of folk, country, and jazz, and it is such a comfortable position there. this album is so cozy even though at the same time it feels like a road trip album. there's a longing that exists in a lot of Joni's music that is also ever present. here. her songwriting and her melodies are top notch as always, and I love the expanded jazziness exhibited here. just a great album through and through!

i try to go into every album with an open mind, but this is a real tough one for me. of course i know some of these tracks from their extensive play on classic rock radio, but the album in its entirety is new to me. i've liked other pink floyd i've gotten in this project despite for most of my life thinking i hated them so i was cautiously optimistic. that was until i realized i think the reason i was convinced i hated pink floyd is because of the tracks here that get play on the radio ('another brick in the wall pt. 2', 'mother', 'comfortably numb'), which i still am not fond of. the rest of the album is of varying quality, some decent, some really questionably bad, but still nothing i am really fond of or interested in at all. roger waters' songwriting is always a bit hit or miss for me (i find his singsong-y melodies to be a bit annoying and eye-roll-worthy a lot of the time) and the production here is really flat and uninteresting. the instrumentation here is in service of the plot of the concept album, but doesn't give me a lot there either. and the plot... it's pretty whiny and self-serving. if you don't wanna be a rock star, you can just go live on a farm or something. boo hoo. and the worst sin of all, quite frankly, it's long and boring. i don't know what people see in this one. guess it's just not my thing.

I'm pretty new to prog as a whole, but this one I really adore. there's tons of great stuff, but the first two tracks here are near and dear to me - especially 'dancing with the moonlit knight' which I have fallen in love with outside of this project. the thing I love about this album is how expertly it switches gears from one movement to the next. I really adore the rhythm section on this one, particularly the bass playing. just a great album that is becoming one of my favorites!

really not a fan of the whole trip-hop thing so the other portishead album i encountered on this journey really did not do anything for me. i groaned when i got this album because i was expecting the same. boy was i wrong. i really dig this one! it definitely has electronic aspects to it for sure, but what i really love is the dissonant, ethereal feel to this one, mixed with a lot of the indie-retro sound. in a lot of respects, it sounds like it was made in 2008, but a lot of spots on the record, you might think it was made in a different era. one of the highlights for me was how the track 'the rip' built into a cacophony of electronic noise. really cool, really interesting, really glad i listened to this one and gave it a shot!

yeah this one really wasn't for me. anita baker has a nice enough voice but the incredibly dated production here comes off ass beyond cheesy and the strength of the songs is not there to make up for it. without the dated production, this album is a pretty middling one anyways. yeah, not really exciting and not really my thing.

what I really love about this album is how it takes the funky sound of earlier sly and makes it more subdued. where "everyday people" had a sense of optimism, this album has an air of depression. the sound here is awesome and I love the employment if the early drum machine here. the grooves are as funky as ever, mixed with a bit of subdued darkness. I really love this album, even if the tracklist can be a bit uneven at times.

the "album tracks" here (read: not the title track) are fairly decent and fun deep cuts if you're into the realm of 60s psych but fairly inessential. what makes this album quintessential is the title track, which while mostly only famous for being obnoxiously long and repetitive, is a mainstay of the genre. I love it, but I suspect most people will find this superfluous.

a really fun straight rock album. it's raucous in all the right ways. the only thing I wish was that the production was a little more rough around the edges to match the energy, but otherwise a great surprise!

a decent enough album that was weighed down by a slew of bizarre covers. there's some decent stuff here otherwise, especially the big song 'relax' but nothing that takes it completely out of the very middling albums zone

what i really loved about this album is that it feels like the hip hop sequel to sly and the family stone - not just in the breadth of sly samples on this album, but in tone as well. the beats here are pretty fun and the flow is pretty decent. i generally have found i really like this era of conscious rap, but this isn't my favorite. it's good, not great. some of the production hasn't aged terribly well and it ends up feeling very middle of the road at times. i still liked it, but it did leave a little to be desired at the same time.