Reviews by uhhhellurr

i was a big led zeppelin fan in my formative years and this one was my favorite album of theirs, so unfortunately, i am going to be a bit biased here. i think this album is great. it probably still is my favorite of theirs. the songs here are top notch. the playing is, as always with led zeppelin, great. robert plant's vocals are iconic. but what sets this album apart for me is the production. this album has such a low-end oomph that i do not get on other led zeppelin albums. the bass and drums sound SO good and punchy. everything here is great, but to me, that's my favorite part.

i try to go into every album with an open mind, but i find a lot of electronic music, particularly ambient electronic music, doesn't do much for me. but still, i've heard a lot of people rave about aphex twin so i was optimistic that maybe this would be the album that would make it all click for me.

i can't say i disliked this one. i also can't say i greatly enjoyed it either. for me, at best, a lot of the music was interesting but didn't grip me. at worst, it was boring. nothing here was bad, by any stretch. i did think that a lot of the music was interesting and the soundscape crafted here was very well made. it's a great sounding album, when a lot of electronic albums of 25+ years ago may sound a bit dated. but even so, still not totally my thing. i can appreciate the artistry here, but it didn't do much for me.

solid album. it's a little bit too noisey and ugly sounding for my tastes but i enjoyed how bombastic and aggressive the sound was. i found this album much more appealing than other contemporaries in its space. not really my type of music, but i appreciate that it uses the aggressiveness and rough-around-the-edges sound as a compliment to the music and not the focus.

a pretty cool combination of psychedelic rock and grunge. sometimes it works really well and sometimes it's a little towards middling. i still appreciated its ability to thread between the loud and the ornate. not my favorite in terms of execution, but overall a neat sound concept that i really enjoyed at points.

this one was a bit rough for me. ordinarily, my interest in dance music almost entirely hinges on the beat, and unfortunately here I felt like most of the beats and production were pretty middling. this meant that a lot of the songs for me hinged on the vocals, which unfortunately for the most part were not good. what saved this album for me was the final two tracks, ' back to life' into, 'jazzie's groove' which had the album's best vocals into the album's best production. but as a whole, sorry, really not a huge fan.

such a fun album. it really is a dance party from front to back. every song is danceable and catchy and you can definitely feel the joy involved in the music making. I had heard of Tito puente before listening to this, but I don't know if I had ever actually listened to any of his music, but I can definitively say this was one of my favorite surprises I've encountered in this entire project. classic fun, front to back.

a pretty great album that is sadly still relevant today. a lot of important subjects covered here. and ice-t's flow is great - sometimes it's hard to remember he was even a rapper and not just some fresh-mouthed actor. my only gripe here is that there are a handful of songs here that are not as energetic as the others and they aren't as fun. and the rock song is ... interesting. but as a whole, I enjoyed it!

dusty springfield has one of my favorite voices of all time. and here, it is employed at its best. gone are her days of banal pop music and given a more sophisticated avenue. this album is soulful, jazzy, catchy. of course, 'son of a preacher man' is the big tune off of this one, but to me there are several other highlights, including 'just a little lovin,' and her version of the french song 'the windmills of your mind.' just a really great album with a classic sound that i really enjoy.

***DISCLAIMER***: i hate eric clapton as a person as much as everyone else and i do not endorse nor condone his personal beliefs and statements

that being said, this album was extremely formative for me. while everyone else was listening to angsty numetal at school, i was listening to this. so from that respect, i will always have a soft spot in my heart for this album. on the other hand, i'm not 14 anymore and i'm years removed from that, so this album has become a lot less important to me, and due to the transgressions of a band member named above, it's put a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth here. and yeah, it's a bunch of white dudes from england co-opting a historically black form of music, which, you know, clapton made an entire legacy off of.

all that aside, it's a great blues-psych album that has a huge importance in the evolution of rock and roll music in the 1960s, bridging the gap between the rock and roll boy bands of the early 60s to the advent of hard rock and heavy metal later in the decade. 'blue condition' and 'mother's lament' are detriments to an otherwise strong album. 'tales of brave ulysses' and 'SWLABR' are all-timers for me.

a fairly interesting album. it was an unexpected combination of 90s psychedelic rock revival and 90s house music. i thought it was a pretty novel combination of sounds that i hadn't really heard much of. that being said, the songs here were a bit hit or miss, some of which were neat and some of which were a bit dreadful. but nevertheless, an interesting listen.

i will give this one credit where credit's due:

i'm not the biggest electronic/dance music guy out there, but i try to go into every album with an open mind. most of the time it's too ambient or too trance-y for my taste. going into this album, i was expecting a little bit more of the same, but this album is pretty fun to listen to. in my experience, it's a little hit or miss, flip-flopping between 'fun' and 'annoying' but i would rather bounce between those two options than consistently boring.

and boring this album is not. it's not totally my cup of tea, but i at least appreciated it for the slightly out-of-left-field party that it brought. it's not generic, it's not boring, it is definitely its own thing, and i appreciated it for that.

not a bad album. fairly nice to listen to. i am a fan of this era of r&b and disco, but had never heard of this album or group before. while it's not bad, it's not really my cup of tea. it's definitely a "fusion" album insofar as it's a pleasant combination of jazz and r&b/disco. but because of that, it is a little bit more smooth than i tend to like my r&b. at times it feels like the music from the smooth jazz radio station that played in my childhood dentist's office. i think it's better than waiting room music, but it does have that feel to it. the musicianship displayed here is very good and extremely competent. overall, it was decent, but it's just not quite my taste.

going into this project, i was not a big fan of pink floyd, but i had never really gotten the chance. early on on this journey, i was given 'wish you were here' and was a little bit blown away. this album, however, is one that i was already a little familiar with - and how could you not be? it's one of the most famous albums of all time. but because of its notoriety, i had written it off and was always annoyed by the songs from it as they came up on the radio. well, what did i think about it this go-around?

i liked it. i don't know that i think it is as good as it's always made out to be, but it's good. it gets a little proggy (like, Yes proggy) at points, but is a pretty fun, straightforward album. hands down my favorite moment of the album is the closing combo of 'brain damage' into 'eclipse' but there's nothing truly bad here either. one thing i will say is that i'm not entirely fond of roger waters' melody style and that's true here too. a lot of times his melodies are sort of sing-songy in a way that i find a little incessant. but yeah, good, solid album.

solid album. leonard cohen's songwriting is pretty great (not a hot take) and in general, this album has a very purist folk production style. i liked the songs and the production, but i felt like the mostly bare bones production didn't do much for me. it adds to the vibe and focuses on the songwriting but i don't know if i enjoyed this crop of songs enough for me to fully appreciate the focus on them. i'm fairly new to leonard cohen in general and do like what i've heard so far. i could see this one growing on me with time.

from the beginning of track one, i felt like i was going to be in for a miserable time. over the course of the first track, this really turned around on me. no longer did i feel like someone was cleaning out my ears, but more was intrigued about the cool soundscape that was being crafted here. usually ambient music is not really my jam, but this one grew on me a bit. i don't know if i would go out of my way to listen to it again, but i did find what was created here to be interesting and calming, in a way. i appreciate this album in the context of this list because it is decently different from a lot of what is on the list - instrumental and not totally cookie cutter, yet very listenable.

really cool album. part of my journey in this project is being exposed to bjork, whom i had only heard of beforehand. i had no idea she was even in a band before her solo career, so this was a terrific surprise. she is a great singer and has a quality to her voice that i am finding i adore. this album is less avant-garde than her solo output, but that doesn't mean i like it less. really great late 80s alternative album with great vocals on top. it really is the best of both worlds for me - a singer i am finding i like a lot singing a genre of music i find i adore a lot.

what i'm finding i really like about public enemy is that their production is always bombastic and frenetic. between the beats, chuck d's strong voice and flavor flav's hypeman energy, there's just something about the music that there's nothing like it. i also especially appreciate how focused on social commentary their music is, especially when so much of it still feels relevant today. this one surprised me a little, because it's not one of theirs that i had heard of going into it, so i wasn't sure what to expect. but the entire album is a good listen. and i did love the anthrax cover/remix of 'bring tha noize.' solid album.

not a mind blowing 00s indie rock album, but a fun one nevertheless. very referential to a lot of 60s and 70s pop rock. the songs here are upbeat and catchy. in a lot of respects, it feels in the same vein as the flaming lips, neutral milk hotel, stuff akin to that, but i think those contemporaries have more compelling and essential music. the album comes off as a little bland but this is not anywhere near bad. pleasant.

neat little album. you can tell that this is just the beginning for them. some really solid garage rock here, the highlight being the classic 'i wanna be your dog.' the two lowlights here for me were the unremarkable 'ann' and the incessant 'we will fall.' it definitely has the beginnings of the punk attitude, but doesn't totally bash you over the head with it. it's good, not great.

i will say that going into this, i'm not the hugest fan of elvis, but i don't hate his music either. generally speaking, i think there are better and more interesting artists that were his contemporaries, but still, you cannot argue his influence and importance in 20th century music.

i haven't listened to this album in particular in a long, long time, so it was a nice refresher. it starts off with a bang with what may be his most iconic song. the rest of the album is solid enough, but in my opinion, the rockers are better than the ballads. nothing here is bad, but most of the album ranges from pretty good to somewhat dull. i do enjoy early elvis the most because of his raw energy, and this album is a pretty good example of that.