Reviews by ultraclear

I spent about half this album wondering why I recognized his name until I got to the lime & coconunt song (simply called “Coconut”, apparently!), which was like somebody slapped me. What’s crazy is the rest of the thing sounds nothing like that! Most of the rest of the album sounds like the halfway point between Beatles and Elton John, it’s great!

Seriously, I wish I could explain better what it is about this that’s like, similar to Beatles and other late-60s brit acts like Kinks, Monkees etc, but different in a way that I liked way more. Like it incorporates blues a lot more, maybe?

Stupid

The kind of music I could pretty easily spend all day with, but on the scale of things, I kind of wish it had more texture to it

Bit too slow for my taste, most of the songs felt dull

Really interesting kinda pre-punk thing, lots of the reception to this seems to indicate it was very influential to genres I’m not otherwise super checked into

Hard Rock Cafe

This one kicks ass! Some research reveals Brian Eno was involved in making this, which makes a ton of sense in hindsight.

Band/album name & especially album cover had me nervous this was going to bore me, but instead it kind of re-sold me on the 1k1 albums project after what had kind of felt like some doldrums

On paper, live metallica + full backing orchestra is a hilarious idea, but also symphonic metal is absolutely a guilty pleasure of mine, so I was excited to hit play on this.

Even though the runtime on this one’s over 2 hours, it’s pretty fun overall. I stand by my original complaint with Metallica, though--every individual song overstays its welcome by half

I’ve liked all the Joy Division that’s come across my radar for this project, but haven’t been able to access, like, true enthusiasm for them yet. They are a definite, definite influence point for a lot of great acts that came after

I’ve grown to appreciate ABBA over the years, even if they’re often not my taste. Arrival has some classics on it, but overall I kinda found it less interesting than The Visitors had been

I think I really like how distinctive Cohen’s voice is, but that alone didn’t really sell me on this. Honestly has me reconsidering the reasons I like Tom Waits so much, like it’s clearly not just about being won over by interesting vocals. The music backing Cohen’s voice was just kind of boring to me

Blues w/ Jazz organ doesn’t impress me the same way it might’ve before I started this albums project, found this kind of grating after a full album of it

It’s Jimi Hendrix, you know his stuff! I liked this less than “Are You Experienced”, but still a great time

There’s interesting drumming on some of the songs, and a couple tracks on here feel like a direct antecedent to something like Vampire Weekend. Goofball music for sure

Alright, this is country-adjacent music I like: Really pleasant voice singing about old west & cowboy things

Folky Indy like this tends to leave me cold. Not all the time, but this one did in any case. I think the make/break quality for me is I prefer duets and/or solo woman singer over solo man singer

Dang, this was like Fleetwood Mac levels of not realizing how much I recognized the songs on here. Also The Doors are surprising me with how much psych/prog they have going on, I had always thought of them as just kind of a rock band

The Money For Nothing riff is the main attraction here, and while it is a very very good riff (all-time Great, even), the song’s still scuffed up by how badly the slurs aged. The rest of the album’s pretty mellow, contextually good listening

album opens incredibly strong! Started to blend together as it went, but since I like what it’s up to, everything’s good!

There’s a lot of Elvis songs that I like a lot, but none of the ones I knew beforehand were on this album. He’s definitely one of those where it’s nicer for me to put his music on in the background, or work him into a mixed playlist rather than sitting & focusing on a whole album of him