Reviews by uhhhellurr

tracy chapman is a great songwriter and has a terrific singing voice. what ultimately does this album a disservice most is the production, which sounds really dated and cliche at this point. there are moments of masterpiece on here, it's a shame it has to be weighed down by some crappy late 80s keyboard instruments.

what a dull album. it's not bad in terms of quality, but my god is it boring. ethereal and ambient in a not pleasant way. the vocals have that 2010s indie sheen that make them sound too polished in an unpleasant way. pass.

in a similar vein to nick drake in a lot of ways, especially on the solo acoustic numbers. his voice has a similar timbre and sound to nick drake's, so i suspect if you like nick drake's music, you'll probably like this. however, this one was a bit hit or miss for me. there's some nice stuff on here, but nothing i found particularly remarkable. his voice is pleasant and there are some nice songs on here, but a lot of stuff i could really take or leave too.

adele has a nice voice but i have never really been particularly fond of her music, having only heard it on the radio, in stores, etc. unfortunately i find her music to be very dull. i wish i liked it more, because i do like her voice. the production here is pretty bare bones and stark, but there are some production moments that have not aged so well - particularly the production on 'water under the bridge' sounds like royalty free music on a youtube pre-roll ad. i suspect this is not her fault and they are taking the sound from her, but it still sounds pretty awful in retrospect.

man, this album still sounds so damn good. the sampling, the beats. incredible stuff. the rapping here is a little dated, but goddamn, this album still holds up so well. super fun listen from front to back.

there are some pretty solid beats here but the rap performances here are pretty laughable at times.

i'm a fan of elvis costello but not a huge one. i know a lot of people on here love to complain about him and i don't really get it, but with this one it's hard to argue. i don't even think this album is that bad! i would consider it good! but let's be real here. i HAD to hear this before i died? mid-90s elvis costello? crazy.

it's not my favorite stones album, but it's pretty great. the highs are really high, i just think if they had trimmed some of the fat off of this one, it would truly be an all timer. there are some songs on here that definitely fall into the category of "good, not great." thankfully, they are outweighed by the stones at probably their peak. like i said, it's a great album. i just think that you get more bang for your buck with others from them.

leonard cohen goes synth pop. who asked for this? his voice clashes so badly with the clean and precise 80s production. it's laughably bad sounding. the songwriting is decent but a far cry from the days of 'suzanne'. 'jazz police' is genuinely one of the worst tracks I've heard in this entire project. feels like an equivalent misstep to dylan's 'empire burlesque' which is not the company you want to keep. why is this on the list exactly?

there's some decent stuff on here but i am too sober for this album, i think. could have done without the combined 30 minutes of feedback and slow ethereal "jams"

an album I have never understood the hype about and I don't think I ever will. starts off with three good songs (strictly good, not great) and the rest of the album is boring as sin. musicianship is good, but good lord is this a slog and a half.

really fun, really quirky album. obviously i know that tom waits gets even more off-kilter and quirky on subsequent albums, but this one threads a nice line between the craziness and the more conventional, while still being pretty listenable and accessible. this album does make me out to be a hypocrite, with the amount of times on here that i have complained about demented circus music, which this definitely is. but for some reason, it really works for me with tom waits. the sleazy, smoke filled cabaret vibe he likes to give off really really works well for him and his voice and it just makes more sense for me here.

i grew up with this album, so i am a bit biased. with CSNY, you get the terrific harmonies, you get the excellent songwriting (now with the inclusion of neil young, who is probably the best songwriter out of the four), and you get a slightly harder edge than CSN's debut. to me, this one is almost perfect. the heavier stuff is great, the softer stuff is a nice reprieve, and this has some of my favorite songs from all four members on here. and for a 55 year old album, it still sounds great. gosh i love this one.

didn't know what to expect from this one and was pleasantly surprised. the production is pretty cool and has an appealing lo-fi electronic style at points. kelela's voice is very nice. for me, my one complaint is that the album felt like it was a little bit front loaded, as it felt a little weaker and less interesting towards the end. but other than that, i love a nice surprise.

norah has a really pleasant voice and the album is not bad to listen to, but this album has really never done anything for me. this was in heavy rotation in my parents' car when i was a kid and outside of 'don't know why,' this album is so MOR that i can't help but feel apathetic about it. it's nice and pleasant, but that's about it. it's not mindblowing or innovative in any way. it's inoffensive. that's really all i can say.

i wasn't expecting a whole lot out of this one, but it's a surprisingly fun listen. the first three tracks on here go pretty stupid crazy. the rest of the album is pretty good as well. of course, beyonce is beyonce, but the other two have great voices too and the songs are fun and danceable. even the slow jams here are pretty nice. the production is really solid. i had a good time with this one!

i was looking forward to this one based on the descriptors i had seen for it, but ultimately found it to be a bit disappointing. second side of the album is stronger than the first side. tonally i don't find it dissimilar to television's 'marquee moon' or perhaps the modern lovers, but the songwriting just doesn't really grip me. obviously the vocals here are going to be the most controversial for people, but i didn't mind them. to me, they've got that post-punk-y apathy. it's not a bad album at all, but i don't know that i found it particularly compelling.

kind of the opposite of what you think of when you think nirvana, this album is acoustic, fragile, depressed. especially poignant because it was released after kurt's death, which i think gives it an added layer of melancholy. but it is a great performance, and it's nice to hear how versatile nirvana was as a band, as they take the "unplugged" format and really make it work with their music.

really middling retro pastiche that doesn't really go anywhere. has the veneer of a soundtrack for an early 2000s disney channel original movie. if you took the creativity from the great 1960s pop rock artists (beatles, beach boys, etc.) and distilled it to just its sound, and applied that to the most middle of the road music ever made, you'd get this. and yet somehow, it even feels less than the sum of its parts. not unlistenable, but not great.

as always, with funkadelic, the groove is front and center. this is a funky-ass album. it does not quit. fun listen. off kilter and corny, but that's the name of the game. the music is pure fun. if you are not grooving in your seat, listening to this, then you're doing something wrong. all that said, there was something about it that did not push it into my upper echelon. it's a party of a time, but not enough of a party? i kind of wanted it to be more energetic, more frenetic, more crazy. it feels kind of too subdued. don't get me wrong, i enjoyed it a lot, i just wish it felt more like a rager.