Reviews by ultraclear

Nostalgic for hearing a lot of these during the short span of years where I was actually listening to the radio quite a bit. I'd gotten sick of these songs back then, but with some distance & listening as an album experience, they've grown on me

I was excited to actually sit down with a full U2 album instead of picking up singles here, there, and on pandora. Unfortunately turns out a full album of U2 just still sounds like U2's hits the whole way through. Which is fine, I like them alright, but was hoping there were hidden gems out there instead of the ones everyone's heard of

Man Pandora used to love giving me the first track, "Intro", from this one, and never showed me the rest of the album. This last month I dropped my daily caffeine to a quarter of what it had been, which is a decision I credit with helping me enjoy mellow stuff like this more than I otherwise might have

Sitar-forward, tinny harmonizing, it's an English psychedelic band from the 60s ladies and germs! fuck outta here.

end credits stock music

O'Malley's Bar wears out its welcome so much it knocks this entire thing down a peg

Hey what the fuck, I never put together that "Brass Monkey" was from these guys. Beastie Boys are fun, kind of feel like a joke band a lot of the time, but they're clearly in on the bit

I think this was the first Beck album I'd ever heard way back in my youth. Doesn't top Odelay, but made for pretty good listening

English Folky > American Folky imo, this was nice

UK electronica has had more than its fair share of slots on this thing, gimme more acts from the continent pls.

The sheer number of this kind of thing really puts into sharp relief that not only were Daft Punk really good, they were specifically mopping the floor with most of the other acts out there

I didn't hate it, but not gonna set it aside to revisit. Feels like an attempt at going more extreme than specifically NiN, executed by someone much dumber than Trent Reznor.

Looking into the Wikipedia **Political reaction** section, I guess its interesting that this is probably the millennial equivalent of like Kiss or something, where most of the appeal was probably very tied up in kids wanting to piss off their parents. In that sense, that Onion "Going Door to Door to Shock People" headline probably did *way* more to knock MM down a peg than any amount of congressional hearings

ZZ Top I think might be top of the heap in terms of how well various dad rock groups hold up, and this is the album that brought us most of their mainstays on oldies radio, keeps solid momentum

Preacher Man elevates this a lot

Why come I like johnny cash and johnny cash music so much, but get bored out of my skull by most of his peers

Some kinda weird indie country? It's got some interesting sounds to it but tbh my biggest complaint is that it's mixed like shit

This shit right here! so goddamn obnoxious! such a great time! What's the secret sauce?! Whence their charm?!

christ these guys leveled up since Something Else

I felt bad about dismissing the last couple funks on the list as Weather Channel music, so it was really refreshing to draw this and be reminded that there's good stuff out there that is both unmistakably funk, and able to transcend that association. Still, I'm really itching for "Maggot Brain" to show up on the rotation, because so far no other group has matched how big and bold Funkadelic went with "One Nation Under A Groove"

Unjust that this has stayed in the book while Songhoy Blues got cut

Sneaky 5, jammy bluesey rock, very precisely targeted to what I like