Elephant - The White Stripes
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Listen Party: 4/30/25
Released: 2003
Genres: Garage Rock Revival, Alternative Rock, Blues Rock, Punk Blues
Tags: energetic, raw, male vocalist, playful, minimalistic, rebellious, love, melodic, female vocalist, romantic, passionate, anthemic, noisy, aggressive, introspective
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
What is your history with The White Stripes? The singles. Seven Nation Army, The Hardest Button to Button, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, Fell in Love With a Girl, We’re Going to Be Friends, Blue Orchid, Icky Thump
Is this your first listen-through of Elephant? Yes
What songs did you know going in? Seven Nation Army, The Hardest Button to Button
Which track(s) stand out to you after this listen? Seven Nation Army, Black Math, The Hardest Button to Button, Little Acorns, Hypnotize, The Air Near My Fingers
Which track(s) were challenging for you during this listen? You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket is a fine song for its position as the presumable A-side closer, but I started to miss the energy of the first six tracks. Maybe that’s the point. The album closer, It’s True That We Love One Another, is the other stripped down track on “Elephant”, but it’s got the same twee charm as We’re Going to Be Friends.
“Elephant” sounds like a mix between The Strokes and The Black Keys
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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When The White Stripes were making their hits, I was definitely in my phase where anything played on the radio was automatically uncool. So despite knowing the singles because they were inescapable, the rest of this record had eluded me until today, which is a shame because it’s really good.
“Seven Nation Army” is, of course, the mega anthem that seemingly everyone in the world can sing the “duh, duh duh duh duh duh, duh” from. No surprises here from that track, but things get better from there.
“There’s No Home for You Here” opens with a great Beatles-esque harmony. I’ve always wondered how The White Stripes play these songs live. Four Jack Whites harmonizing with one another raises that question even more. This song is really cool.
I didn’t realize Meg ever sang, so it’s a nice surprise to hear her featured on “In the Cold Cold Night.”
“I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart” is a piano-driven song rather than one led by heavy guitar, which is what I usually associate with The White Stripes. This one stands out as a highlight on the album.
“You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket” is probably my favorite track. It’s a soft, acoustic piece that feels reminiscent of “We’re Going to Be Friends” from the previous album. It also feels like early foreshadowing of bands like The Black Keys and their song “Little Black Submarines,” which came almost a decade later.
“Ball and Biscuit” is a great bluesy track that shows off Jack White’s signature guitar style as he riffs in and out of the verses.
“The Hardest Button to Button” is the other song I knew going in. Surprisingly, I found the songs I already knew to be the least interesting. This one is okay and probably the most stylistically similar to “Seven Nation Army.”
The album finishes with a few songs that, while solid, didn’t move me as much as the first two-thirds. That’s really the only thing keeping this from being a five-star review. This was a great album, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I missed out on The White Stripes at their peak, but I’m glad I’m finding them now.
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You Want It Darker - Leonard Cohen
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Listen Party: 4/29/25
Released: 2016
Genres: Singer-Songwriter, Chamber Folk, Contemporary Folk, Spoken Word, Poetry
Tags: death, male vocalist, sombre, poetic, dark, introspective, existential, love, calm, breakup, nocturnal, religious, funereal, lonely, spiritual, minimalistic, mysterious, Judaic
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
What is your history with Leonard Cohen? Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah
Is this your first listen-through of You Want It Darker? Yes
What songs did you know going in? None
Which track(s) stand out to you after this listen? The whole album has the same haunting poetry of a gravel-voiced man who seems to be aware that he only has a few months to live. But I suppose the title track does it best.
Which track(s) were challenging for you during this listen? It’s a very consistent album, but if I had to pick, If I Didn’t Have Your Love
“You Want It Darker” sounds like a mix between Tom Waits and Bob Dylan
Any other thoughts? Leonard Cohen died just a few weeks after the release of “You Want It Darker”. Through the lyricism and tone of this record, he seems to be acutely aware of just how little time he has left. I looked it up, and he died from a fall, not some terminal illness. But I guess that at 82 years old and through a voice that sounds to have been further aged by cigarettes and whiskey, the timing of his death is not some enormous coincidence.
Drawing “You Want It Darker” immediately after “Remain in Light” IS a mildly amusing coincidence though.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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I didn’t realize Leonard Cohen was releasing music up until 2016. You Want it Darker opens the album with a spooky minor organ chords, choral oohs and ahhs, and a deep gravelly voice narrating the journey.
The songs sound like they could score the television show DARK - they’re so moody and his voice is perfect for it. Even the sweeter, more uplifting songs still take on this dark quality with Cohen’s haunting vocals.
Traveling Light brings a bit of a world music sound to the album; Cohen’s delivery though, stays the same here. I’m guessing he was fairly limited in what he could or couldn’t sing at this age. Much of this album is more like spoken poetry over music.
I have to question this inclusion on the list though. I was excited to see a recent album on the list, but it’s from an artist who had his heyday 30 years before. In fact, there are only four albums from 2016 on the list and one of the others is David Bowie! I like Cohen and I like Bowie, but can we clear some room for new artists too?
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Remain in Light - Talking Heads
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Listen Party: 4/28/25
Released: 1980
Genres: New Wave, Post-Punk, Funk, Afrobeat, Experimental Rock, Dance-Punk, Mutant Disco
Tags: rhythmic, anxious, energetic, male vocalist, playful, abstract, cryptic, repetitive, quirky, philosophical, existential, manic, complex, hypnotic, dense, political, tribal, urban, sarcastic, eclectic, surreal, progressive, avant-garde, technical, introspective, passionate, futuristic, polyrhythmic, bouncy, alienation
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
What is your history with Talking Heads? I know their singles. Psycho Killer, Take Me to the River, Once in a Lifetime, Burning Down the House, And She Was
Is this your first listen-through of Remain in Light? Yes.
What songs did you know going in? Only Once in a Lifetime. I expected to recognize more, given that I know a handful of their songs and that “Remain in Light” is their most well-known and best reviewed album.
Which track or tracks stand out to you after this listen? Once in a Lifetime is still my favorite track here, but the entire A-side is gold, as is most of the B-side. Houses in Motion sounds quite a bit like the Talking Heads I know from the radio with the addition of I’m-not-sure-what-instrument (it’s credited just as “horn”) with a Middle Eastern flair.
Which track or tracks were challenging for you during this listen? Closing track, The Overload is pretty boring. If you’re going to put an ambient track on a pop album, do the decent thing and keep it under two minutes. 7:26 is far too long.
“Remain in Light” sounds like a mix between Blondie and Peter Gabriel
Any other thoughts? Reading up on “Remain in Light”, it seems that the main story about its creation was a tug-of-war conflict for frontman David Byrne’s attention between Producer Brian Eno and Byrne’s bandmates.
By 1980, Eno was already heavily into musical experimentation, particularly in ambient music spaces. In 1977, he famously released Ambient 1: Music For Airports. The title pretty much describes his intentions for that record. Based on that background, I think it’s fair to blame him for ambient snoozefest, “The Overload”. He probably also deserves the credit for the world instruments that appear on “Remain in Light”, though I could take or leave those.
The non-Byrnes band members were championing a more “traditional” sound, for whatever that meant to the 1980 Talking Heads. This set up a conflict between them and David Byrnes that lasted for the band’s remaining decade in existence.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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My first thought is that there are more funk and disco influences than I was expecting from The Talking Heads. But everything else is where I’d expect it - Avant Garde pop music (is that a thing?) with a chaotic, frenetic energy, and David Byrne’s signature talk-singing.
Once in a Lifetime is a beautiful song. Listening to this with focus (as opposed to having it play in the background of a movie or while I’m driving, etc.) reveals a lot of soft and nifty guitar work I’d never noticed before.
I tend to associate this song with driving around with my sister doing our best David Byrne impressions saying “same as it ever was”. It’s a natural highlight on the album.
Seen and not Seen was also a highlight for me - it’s quite different from the rest of the album and is about a dark topic - colonialism and terrorist attacks. It’s a somber, dark song, but it was my second favorite track on the album.
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3+3 - The Isley Brothers
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Listen Party: 4/25/25
Released: 1973
Genres: Funk, Psychedelic Soul, Progressive Soul, Funk Rock, Smooth Soul, Pop Soul
Tags: male vocalist, melodic, romantic, nocturnal, rhythmic, happy, uplifting, ballad, sensual, psychedelic, technical, warm, summer, mellow
FYI:
Tidal only has the deluxe version of “3+3”. Officially, we’re only reviewing the first nine tracks of the album, ending with “The Highways of My Life”.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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With the opening track “That Lady,” I think of shampoo commercials from the 1990s. I’m not sure that’s what The Isley Brothers were going for, but that’s the spot this occupies in my mind. Also, the guitar solo on this track is way more badass than it has any business being. Why didn’t they put that part in the shampoo commercials?
The vocal work on this album is outstanding and a welcome change after Randy Newman. The vocals are buttery smooth and sit nicely within the overall mix.
The cover of The Doobie Brothers’ “Listen to the Music” was a highlight. I like contemporary covers by peers, and here’s a funk group taking on a song released just a year earlier. It’s a fun take on the original.
It’s surprising to find at least two more contemporary covers on this album with “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” and “Summer Breeze.” These weren’t as enjoyable as “Listen to the Music.” And at some point, if a quarter of your songs are covers, it stops feeling like a fully original album. I’m deducting points for that.
“That Lady” was the only original track I recognized. Usually that’s the song that earns the highest marks from me on albums like this, but here I actually think it’s one of the weaker tracks. I enjoyed discovering the rest of the album more.
Claire 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
What is your history with The Isley Brothers? I knew Twist and Shout, but I’m unclear if I knew their version or just The Beatles’ cover of it. I also knew Shout. I wouldn’t have guessed the band that performed those two hits was the same group as in 3+3. It’s a very different sound. I knew so little going in, I had to look up if the Isley Brothers’ name was pronounced “EYEZ-lee”, “IZ-lee”, or “ISS-lee”. It’s the first one, apparently.
Is this your first listen-through of “3+3”? Yes.
What songs did you know going in? That Lady, from the Salon Selectives ad in the 1990s. I remember thinking that was a jingle written for the commercial, so when I heard the full version on the radio sometime after that, I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t cooked up in an ad agency.
I hadn’t heard the covers of The Doobie Brothers’ Listen to the Music, Jonathan Edwards’ Sunshine (Go Away Today), or Seals and Crofts’ Summer Breeze, but I know the originals.
Which track or tracks stand out to you after this listen? I prefer the funk revision of “Listen to the Music” to the original. I’m happy to have discovered that today.
The occasional whispery, falsetto tremolos on Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight, You Walk Your Way, and What It Comes Down To is a feature of soul music that I enjoy. It reminds me of the modern classic Redbone by Childish Gambino.
Which track or tracks were challenging for you during this listen? “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” added a dark funk sound to Jonathan Edwards’ version, which I suppose was interesting, but I prefer the original.
“3+3” sounds like a mix between Parliament and Jimi Hendrix
Any other thoughts? I found the history of The Isley Brothers interesting. Prior to this album, they were a Motown three-piece. And at that time, Jimi Hendrix was the guitarist in their backing band. They reinvented themselves by doubling the size of the band, playing their own instruments, and changing genres entirely. You can hear Hendrix’s influence in the soloing on 3+3.
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Good Old Boys - Randy Newman
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Listen Party: 4/24/25
Released: 1974
Genres: Singer-Songwriter, Satire, Piano Rock, New Orleans R&B, Baroque Pop, Traditional Pop
Tags: satirical, concept album, conscious, political, sarcastic, male vocalist, history, love, melodic, self-hatred, hateful, bittersweet, humorous, poetic, longing, alcohol
Heads Up:
There’s some pretty shocking language on this album. Most notably, in the song “Rednecks”, Newman, a white man, uses the N-word repeatedly. He also opens the song by referring to Jews in a derogatory way. We discussed at length, about whether an album like this deserves a spot on Strange New Places. After listening to the song, and reading up on Newman’s intent, we discovered the satirical nature of the lyrics, and decided that censoring something like this would be akin to censoring Huck Finn. There is an important message here, and we think it will prompt an important discussion. That said, we’re a couple of white gentiles who are not directly impacted by the language on Good Old Boys. The album’s inclusion was done with a great deal of thoughtfulness, but of course, we are not infallible.
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
What is your history with Randy Newman? Toy Story mostly. And he did a song about how much he loves LA. It’s fucking surreal to hear the Toy Story voice dropping the N-word repeatedly. The music sounds identical too. Just wild stuff.
Is this your first listen-through of Good Old Boys? Yes, and it’s easy to see why this content wouldn’t be on the easy-listening stations growing up.
What songs did you know going in? None of them.
Which track or tracks stand out to you after this listen? Rednecks is hands-down the most memorable thing here. That satire is razor-sharp.
Lester Maddox was the segregationist governor of Georgia from 1967-1971 (notably after the Civil Rights Act of 1964), and Lt. Governor from 1971-1975, under then Governor, Jimmy Carter. In 1976, he ran for President. The song is written from the perspective of an outraged Georgian fed up with being made fun of by liberal northerners after a Lester Maddox TV appearance.
The first half lists a number of stereotypes about white southerners including “no-necked oil men from Texas”, “good ol’ boys from Tennessee” and “college men from LSU [who] went in dumb, [and came] out dumb too”, and most importantly, the repeating refrain, “we’re rednecks, we’re rednecks, we’re keeping the n*****s down”.
The second half makes a point of the incarceration rates in Black communities in northern cities like New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Boston, followed by that same refrain: “we’re rednecks, we’re rednecks, we’re keeping the n*****s down”. That bait and switch of enticing a northern, white liberal like myself into laughing at the backwards rednecks of the south, only to realize it’s an indictment on all of white America as rednecks is so expertly crafted. 50+ years later, segregation is mostly read about in history books. Black incarceration however remains an enormous problem, nation-wide.
I recently read a thread online about when it became socially uncouth for white people to use the N-word around other white people. If random strangers on the internet are to be believed, it’s my understanding that it was commonplace all throughout the 1960s, but by 1975, anyone who was still using that word was deemed a redneck. That makes the timing of 1974’s “Rednecks” all the more interesting. Newman must have witnessed that transition in how the N-word was used, the same way people of my generation have witnessed the transition in how the words “fag” and “faggot” were used to denigrate queer people. It’s not all that unlike Billy Joe Armstrong’s use in American Idiot. “Well, maybe I’m the faggot America, I’m not a part of a redneck agenda”. It’s the use of a slur just as its popularity is wearing off, to maximize social impact with its shock value.
Which track or tracks were challenging for you during this listen? Also, “Rednecks”. It’s an important song, and I’m glad that I’ve listened to it. But it’s also catchy, and I don’t really want the refrain bouncing around in my head as an earworm. I’ll add that Randy Newman’s voice sounds like a cartoon character’s. In 1974, his voice wasn’t associated with a Disney movie of course. But today, it sounds so strange that of all voices, it’s his delivering that message.
“Good Old Boys” sounds like a mix between Bob Dylan and Billy Joel
Any other thoughts? From the album title, to songs like “Rednecks”, Birmingham, Louisiana 1927, Kingfish, and A Wedding in Cherokee County, “Good Old Boys” seems to be a concept album about the American South. It’s my understanding that Newman is a lifelong Los Angeleno, so I’m not sure what’s fueling his inspiration here. It’s certainly an interesting album though.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Ooof I understand the first song “Rednecks” is satire but it’s a bit too jaunty for the themes. It’s so weird to hear the sounds and voice I associate with Toy Story in this context. I would have put this song a bit deeper into the album so I could adjust to the album a bit before diving right in as this song does.
In my opinion, changing Alabama to Alabam’ so it rhymes with Birmingham is a bit of a lazy rhyme.
Randy Newman is many things, but subtle is not one of them. His more political songs, “Mr. President” and “Louisiana” are a couple examples of this. He is also not a poet, as exemplified by such lines as “it rained real hard and it rained for a real long time” in the song Louisiana.
So what did I learn about Randy Newman from this exercise? He’s a populist champion of the working man with an affinity for the south - that was a bit of a surprise.
Randy Newman is an easy target, and I wish I found more positive things to say about his music. His melodies are pleasant enough, and the songs are packaged in a way that they’re accessible and catchy. But I just have trouble getting into it or taking it too seriously.
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Discovery - Daft Punk
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Listen Party: 4/23/25
Released: 2001
Genres: French House, Electro-Disco, Funky House, Dance-Pop, Synth Funk, Nu-Disco
Tags: party, sampling, futuristic, energetic, rhythmic, repetitive, playful, happy, male vocalist, uplifting, optimistic, melodic, space, love, nocturnal, atmospheric, lush, romantic, androgynous vocals, concept album, eclectic, sentimental, warm, summer, bouncy, bright, progressive
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
What is your history with Daft Punk? Not much. They’re of “my era”, so I knew the singles, but didn't pay much attention, because their music was largely outside of the genres I listened to.
Is this your first listen-through of Discovery? No! I listened to Daft Punk's entire catalog in preparation for a laser dome show with friends a few months back. This is only the second album from this project I've heard all the way through.
What songs did you know going in? All of them, but especially One More Time and Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.
Which track or tracks stand out to you after this listen? Crescendolls doesn’t have lyrics beyond “ah, hey!” but in its simplicity it manages a fun, party tone.
Which track or tracks were challenging for you during this listen? The ambient Nightvision is fairly forgettable in my opinion. At 1:44, it’s also the shortest song on the album, so it’s over before you realize it’s even started.
“Discovery” sounds like a mix between _____ and _____: LCD Soundsystem and Deee-Lite
Any other thoughts? Someone cleverer than me pointed out the following on Album of the Year: Veridis Quo -> Ve-ri-dis-quo -> Very disco -> Disco very -> Discovery
Ron 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
I love Daft Punk and I love this album.
In my opinion, almost every song on this album could be a single. Their big hits are proven but some of the underrated songs are High Life, for its incredible sampling, and Too Long, for Romanthony's great vocals leading into an amazing mashup of itself.
There is only one song I'm not a huge fan of: Nightvision. It really doesn't fit the vibe of the rest of the album (maybe this was on purpose?) and I usually skip it because its boring.
So much nostalgia is in this album. I'll always be jammin out with a smile if One More Time or Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger pop on the radio.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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One more time is instantly recognizable. This hit was everywhere. It was a bit overplayed; I can appreciate it but I know it a little too well. I really liked Digital Love - I recognized small elements of this song, I must know it from somewhere but maybe I recognize a sample or this song itself was sampled?
I have similar notes on Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. I know this one a little better, but primarily from the Kanye collaboration. I’m sure I’ve heard the full Daft Punk version before but it’s less familiar to me.
Crescendolls keeps the party going with an upbeat energetic track, before things slow down significantly with Nightvision - which feels like a big change of pace on the album from what is otherwise a high energy, festival like atmosphere.
Veridis Quo was a song that was a little too stripped down for me - it felt like it would make a good backing track in a video game, but left me wanting more from a song.
The two closing tracks on this album feel very much of their era - almost like they’re off an N-Sync / Backstreet Boys album. Definitely a different vibe than the rest of the album. Overall though, this was a fun album to run through.
Liz 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
This album discovered my heart
Did you know that robots were making music even as far back as 2001? AI hasn't come THAT far in 24 years.
Jokes aside, this album does bring me back to a time of techno optimism. I first heard this album while I was doing my first internship, surrounded by other software nerds in training. Young and silly and trying to figure out our lives and excited about the possibilities of the future as we geared up towards graduation.
But I really feel like there WAS this optimism that I just don't feel now. Would robots be as well received now? Or are we craving something more human in our art?
I know Daft Punk has stood the test of time and is still going with recent hits like "Get Lucky." That song always struck me as feeling a bit out of place with how disco inspired it is. It really hit me listening to Discovery that there was a LOT of disco inspiration even back on that album. Yeah we know the vocoded voices on the hits, but there is quite a bit more than that.
Ultimately though, Daft Punk is a "sometimes" group for me. Listening to a song or two here and there is fine, but by the end of listening to a full album I was just waiting for it to be over. I got bored.
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Here’s Little Richard - Little Richard
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Listen Party: 4/22/25
Released: 1957
Genres: Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues, New Orleans R&B
Tags: energetic, playful, passionate, party, male vocalist, happy, uplifting, raw, rhythmic, melodic, rebellious, sexual, hedonistic, love, anthemic, longing
FYI:
Tidal only lists the deluxe edition of “Here’s Little Richard”. We’ll only be reviewing the first 12 tracks, ending with “She’s Got It”.
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
In 1957, Little Richard was the loudest motherfucker on the planet. Maybe all the songs on Here's Little Richard sound the same. Maybe he yells so loud that the audio clips. But it's fun music, so I don't really care. This might be the very best of early rock'n'roll.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Wow what an opening. I know the song Tutti Frutti of course, and opening the album with the ‘whop bop a loo wop’ is a bold move - I think it works really well. This thing is instantly turned up to 10 and there is no build up or payoff - just an immediately danceable track.
The recording on the album is of course a little rough, but it’s right where I would expect for 1957 and it gives a vintage texture to the album. I’m guessing this was recorded with the full band at once and you can hear the energy come through.
Most of the songs are straightforward early rock and roll, it there is some diversity here like the bluesy “Oh, Why?”
Jenny Jenny is a rough recording - it sounds out of place on the album, like it was an earlier demo or something.
Overall this was a fun album. It’s a shame I can’t time travel back to the late 50s and see Little Richard live. I’m sure that was quite an experience.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Little Richard, here is my heart!
Bop bop a dooaah! this album rocks. I love this kind of music from this time period. It's so full of energy and joy and fun. Even though I only really knew Tutti Frutti, all the songs feel so family and like coming home.
I especially like the part where the keys go "junn jun junnn deedley deedly deee" and the sax goes "bwa bwwaa bwaaaaaaeeeeeee" and Little Richard goes "Whoo!"
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Figure 8 - Elliott Smith
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Listen Party: 4/21/25
Released: 2000
Genres: Singer-Songwriter, Indie Pop, Chamber Pop, Indie Rock, Indie Folk
Tags: melancholic, melodic, bittersweet, male vocalist, lush, introspective, poetic, love, breakup, alienation, lonely, pessimistic, warm, eclectic, longing, self-hatred, sentimental, depressive, sad, urban, abstract, psychedelic, serious
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
I wasn't cool enough to know about Elliott Smith while he was still alive, so I was surprised to learn that Somebody That I Used To Know wasn’t a Gotye cover that came 11 years before the orignal.
Everything Means Nothing To Me comes directly after Everything Reminds Me Of Her. Ipso facto, she means nothing to Elliott Smooth and nothing reminds him of her.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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I know a handful of Elliott Smith songs, and I know he’s basically the god of emo singer songwriters everywhere. A career cut tragically short, in very dramatic fashion.
What I expect from Elliott Smith: chorus vocals with no reverb, easy acoustic picking, poetic and melodramatic lyrics.
Son of Sam opens the album a bit rockier than I expected, but Somebody that I used to know (not the Gotye song, mind you) finds Smith in the vintage form I know.
Everything means nothing to me was a highlight, as was LA. In the Lost and Found shows off some more range from Elliott Smith, with some jaunty piano riffs driving the song forward, even though the subject matter (like most of Smith’s songs) can be quite dark.
You can really hear the influence Smith had on artists like Bright Eyes, Phoebe Bridgers, etc. In that respect, he was absolutely ahead of his time considering when this album came out. This is probably the first album I’ve heard in this project that could have come out in 2025 and I wouldn’t have felt like it was a quarter of a century old.
I like Elliott Smith, I should listen to his work more.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
This album made a figure 8 around my heart
I'm a fan of Elliot Smith and this album is fire. I'm much more familiar with his self titled release which is ever in rotation.
Figure 8 is super interesting comparatively. Given that it came out several years after the self titled album, like the trajectory of many discographies, the songs have gotten more produced and almost streamlined. Smith's signature vocals, guitar playing, and impeccable lyrics remain front and center however. Thankfully. I think this could easily be 'too much' and lose the soul at the core of Elliot Smith's work.
And goddamned the songwriting on this album is top tier. It feels like every song you can just keep sinking deeper and deeper into on each listen.
I really don't know why this album kind of passed me by, but I'm glad to have had a chance to dig in. For sure this will be in my rotation from now on.
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It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
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Listen Party: 4/18/25
Released: 1986
Genres: Political Hip Hop, Hardcore Hip Hop, Conscious Hip Hop, Turntablism, Experimental Hip Hop
Scene: East Coast Hip Hop
Tags: political, angry, protest, sampling, raw, male vocalist, urban, conscious, dense, energetic, rebellious, noisy, rhythmic, violence, playful, boastful, passionate, anxious, aggressive, progressive, anthemic, hypnotic
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Yeeeeeahhhhh boyeeeeeee!
I didn’t know much about Public Enemy, save for Chuck D does most of the rapping and Flavor Flav is the hype man. Given Flavor Flav’s later career endeavors like Flavor of Love, I was surprised to learn that Public Enemy was such a political, serious band when I first dug into them maybe 8 or 10 years ago. I haven’t really returned to them since and I don’t think I know any songs on this album.
Pretty much the entire album is chaotic and energetic. I like Chuck D.’s flow, but I can mostly take or leave what Flavor Flav adds to the mix, particularly on his solo track.
I want to like Public Enemy, but I just couldn’t find my groove here. The beats just completely turned me off the entire album. The formula seemed almost the same for the entire album - a 4 to 8 second loop of a drum beat and some shrill sound that repeated itself over and over and over. And over. Which is a shame, because I really do like Chuck D’s style. I also like how they added live elements to the album without it being a live album. It makes you feel like you’re part of it.
But overall, this was a miss for my musical tastes.
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
I appreciate Chuck D's flow and voice. Flavor Flav is a little harder to take seriously. I get the sense that his role is mostly that of a hypeman. But it feels like everything that's classic about Public Enemy stuck to Chuck and everything that's dated stuck to Flav.
Flavor Flav is the frontman on Cold Lampin' with Flavor, in which he says the word "flavor" 28 times, though it feels like more than that.
This is 1988, a year before N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton. NYC hip hop's dominance remained unchallenged. There is a moment of straight-up wholesomeness in Bring the Noise, with Chuck and Flav name-dropping other Queens-based artists, Run-DMC, Eric B, LL Cool J, and even Anthrax.
Anthrax, of course would later join Public Enemy, to do a metal version of Bring the Noise. Its feature in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 was my main exposure to Public Enemy. Well that and random Flavor Flav appearances on reality TV in the 2000s.
Party for Your Right to Fight cleverly samples the classic Beastie Boys track, while reminding the listener about the prioritization of social action over socialization. I also heard a moment of Get Up, Stand Up in there. The doubling of Chuck's and Flav's rapping doesn't really work imo.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
It takes a nation of millions to hold onto my heart
I am pretty ignorant about most hiphop but this album felt like the Platonic Ideal of a rap album to me. I liked a lot of this album, especially when Chuck D was rapping. Not so much Flavor Flav's parts. I liked the songs that were more politically motivated and had something to say and I found myself grooving along with the songs. This album certainly feels like a classic. Night Of The Living Baseheads was a standout track to me.
This album does fall into one of my pet peeves and that is when songs just fade out instead of having a more definitive ending. I just kind of hate it almost always.
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So - Peter Gabriel
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Listen Party: 4/17/25
Released: 1986
Genres: Art Pop, Pop Rock, New Wave, Ambient Pop, Sophisti-Pop
Tags: male vocalist, passionate, melodic, warm, lush, introspective, eclectic, bittersweet, poetic, sentimental, melancholic, rhythmic, atmospheric, nocturnal, soothing, conscious, longing, progressive, rain, ethereal, urban
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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“Red Rain” opens the album with a rich, textured, layered, big 80s style soundscape. The rest of the album follows much of the same formula.
“Sledgehammer” was a surprise. It starts with a calming Native American pan flute, then the funky horns come in with a hook I recognize. I know this horn hook much more than the rest of the song, but there is familiarity here. I’m not sure where I know it from. Maybe a movie? Sampled in another song? The song overall is very funky. I’m surprised that horn hook never comes back in a more prominent way since it feels so iconic.
At first I thought this sounded a lot like Phil Collins. Then I learned Peter Gabriel was the original frontman of Genesis. That explains the similarities. Clearly I don’t know much about Genesis or Peter Gabriel.
“Big Time” feels extremely 80s and very MTV. Like “Sledgehammer,” I know bits of it but not the whole song.
“In Your Eyes” is the track I know best. I really enjoy the verse and the pre-chorus, but the chorus has always felt like a bit of a letdown by comparison.
There were moments I enjoyed in this album, and nothing really felt like a challenge to listen to. But there were also some moments of boredom. At least now I know what image to conjure when I hear the name “Peter Gabriel”.
Claire 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
I won't question Peter Gabriel's influence on popular music. He and Phil Collins were early champions of the Prog Rock movement of the 1970s in their band, Genesis. And with his solo albums like So, Gabriel was helping to train Pop music listeners to pay attention to World Music. But I fail to understand his appeal to the MTV generation.
He just seems so dorky. I'm saying that as someone who's given Weezer's Blue Album a perfect score. But with Weezer, it's like "we're nerds and we know it". Maybe it's my 90s kid bias, but Peter Gabriel sounds like Adult Contemporary to me.
There’s a good chance I’m wrong about that. In Your Eyes was featured in the most famous scene of one of the most famous teen movies to come out of the 80s, Say Anything. It would be an odd choice for your teen protagonist to go digging through his parents' cassingles in order to get the girl.
I stick with my initial premise though, that my essential issue with Peter Gabriel the rock star, is that he lacks a cool factor, that even nerds like Weezer or Talking Heads have.
In conclusion, Sledgehammer is a song about Peter Gabriel's penis.
Jeffrey B. Fartford
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Where are we? At the dentist’s office?
Ah, I can still recall crying to Red Rain in 1986 during my first breakup. I was a mere 6 months old and my tender heart so young and naive.
I can appreciate Peter Gabriel’s position in the canon of 80s rock, but I don’t know what kind of staying power this album really has. Certainly anthems like Red Rain and In Your Eyes epitomize moody 80s power ballads, but I don’t know that I’d put them on a modern playlist meant for seducing a lover. And the experimental This is the Picture can stay back in 1986, imho.
This album was a tedious listen other than briefly perking up to recognize the hits you already know.
Liz 🌕🌑🌑🌑🌑
So... this album sledgehammered its way into my heart
Sledgehammer is the musical equivalent of a dick pic.
No one wants that.
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First Band on the Moon - The Cardigans
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Listen Party: 4/16/25
Released: 1996
Genres: Indie Pop, Pop Rock, Indie Rock, Twee Pop, Neo-Acoustic, Lounge, Art Pop, Cocktail Nation
Tags: female vocalist, playful, bittersweet, longing, melodic, sentimental, sarcastic, love, sensual, introspective, sexual, eclectic, dark, energetic, quirky
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Your New Cuckoo opens the album with a disco/rock fusion sound that feels retro-futuristic. Given the Swedish pedigree and the shadow of ABBA, this blend of slick grooves and pop rock isn’t a surprise—but it’s fun. It sets the tone for the album.
Been It feels like a sunny, radio-ready pop hit. Nina Persson’s light, airy, and sometimes coy vocals, usually not my go-to style, are surprisingly effective when paired with the grungy rock backdrop the Cardigans provide.
Then another theremin! That now makes at least three on this list.
Hearing Lovefool in the full context of the album is interesting. No surprise here - it’s still my favorite track. The disco beat, the sparse synth hooks, the longing in the vocals. I have vivid memories of the ultra-saturated Kodachrome music video, the dreamy fake sailing backdrop, and its placement in the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack with Leonardo DiCaprio. I’ll also take this chance to promote the New Found Glory feat. Adam Lazzara cover of the song, which I enjoy.
The surprise highlight for me might be their cover of Iron Man by Black Sabbath. It’s a bold and unexpected choice. On paper it doesn’t fit the Cardigans’ aesthetic at all, but they flip it completely. The result is soft, jazzy, whimsical, version capped off with some surprising scatting. I would love to know how that cover came about; who pitched it and how it got through the process.
Unfortunately, My Favourite Game isn’t on this album. I still queued it up afterwards and it’s my favorite track of theirs. But we’re not here to review that.
A few of the transitions on the album, especially from Great Divide into Choke, are pretty jarring. It felt like an intentional left-turn, but I’m not sure what the intent was.
Overall, I came in with pretty high hopes. The Cardigans’ hits I knew already gave me a lot of excitement to go deeper, and while First Band on the Moon is an easy, enjoyable listen, it didn’t blow me away like I hoped. Still, the highs like Lovefool, Iron Man, and the overall blend of disco-pop with rock made it a fun listen.
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
I was surprised to find The Cardigans' First Band on the Moon on this list. I've always thought of them as a two-hit wonder and not especially important in the history of popular music. But I was excited to draw this record nonetheless. Following a jazz and a prog album, I was hungry for something a little less academic.
First Band on the Moon feels like dessert. The Cardigans deliver bubble gum pop hooks and electronic disco beats fused with a smooth lounge act sound. They managed to make all of that cool in the 1990s by performing it with a layer of detached irony.
Nowhere is that clearer than their cover of Iron Man. The bassist and guitarist were in a metal band before they joined the Cardigans, and I imagine that has something to do with their choice of covering Black Sabbath. But The Cardigans version is hardly recognizable from the original. And to 90s youth, nothing was cooler than proving you held nothing sacred.
Then there's Lovefool of course. When I was a Freshman in high school, the cultural phenomenon that was the Romeo + Juliet remake was impossible to escape. And front and center in the soundtrack was Lovefool. There's no doubt in my mind that a heavy dose of nostalgia is tipping the scales for my 4.5 moon rating here. But it's a fun album made more fun by it being attached to old memories.
Jeffrey B. Fartford
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Setting aside that we all know that the first band on the moon was an inside job staged by the US government, I did find this album by the Cardigans easy to listen to. As it kicks off with Your New Cuckoo, you could’ve been forgiven for placing this album in the wrong decade, given its disco-esque initial feel. It’s certainly been a while since I’ve heard a good yazz flute as an accompanying instrument. But surely as the album progresses it begins to return to the decade from whence it came, with alt rock/grunge inspired tracks like Step on Me. For those of you who, like me, knew you had heard of the Cardigans but couldn’t name a song by them, the peak 90s nostalgia doesn’t kick in until track 7 with the ubiquitous, seductive, soft vocals pop rock hit Lovefool, which has to have graced almost every rom com soundtrack from that era. It was refreshing to give Lovefool a thorough relisten and savor some of the details like the spoken lyrics over the final chorus. Finally, Iron Man was a creative and unexpected take on Black Sabbath. Oh, Iron Man.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
This was the first band in my heart
Oh man what a blast from the past! I'd obviously heard "Lovefool" before since it was everywhere at the time, but never a full album. What a delightful pop showing!
I found this album fun and enjoyable. Nina Persson's vocals have a great and wispy quality to it that shines throughout the album. I love her delivery on the cover of "Ironman" that almost sounds flirty and sultry. I would've never imagined I needed a Swedish pop cover of that song, but here we are.
Yeah I'm here for this album.
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Crime of the Century - Supertramp
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Listen Party: 4/15/25
Released: 1974
Genres: Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Progressive Pop, Pop Rock, Progressive Pop
Tags: melodic, male vocalist, progressive, lush, existential, alienation, bittersweet, introspective, sarcastic, quirky, anxious, complex, playful, lonely, nocturnal, epic, melancholic, passionate, autumn, eclectic, rebellious
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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What’s that? Another prog rock group from the UK that was popular in the 1970s? Color me surprised!
At first listen, Crime of the Century feels a bit like a rock opera. The songs are grand in scale and a bit theatrical. They can stretch out a bit, but not in a way that is pushing my patience.
The album opens on dramatically in School with a whining harmonica and an eerie sound. It’s cinematic and moody.
Bloody Well Right tones things down a bit and settles into a groove that feels more a little more bluesy.
Hide in Your Shell brings the energy down even further, leaning into quieter moods before building again with layered vocals and a theremin. (That’s at least the second theremin on this list—maybe Brian Wilson wasn’t such a genius after all.)
Asylum takes things in a more emotional direction, with an anthemic, balladesque vibe.
I didn’t know any tracks on this album. I was curious if I knew ANY Supertramp songs at all, so I went to their top tracks and found songs like Breakfast in America and The Logical Song which I AM familiar with, but can’t say I’m a huge fan of.
These guys seem to be good at their thing. It’s just not my thing. And that’s okay.
Ron 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this album. It was good in the way that I liked listening to it but it didn't feel terribly memorable or special.
Bloody Well Right was the only song I've heard before (and it’s a good one!). Of the rest of the album, I really liked Hide In Your Shell and Rudy. Both songs did a good job of hitting that nostalgia-to-novelty ratio. I wanted to like more of the album but I just couldn't get into most of it. I really thought I'd like Crime Of The Century at the start of the song but it quickly felt drawn out and repetitive.
Claire 🌕🌗🌑🌑🌑
Somebody tell me why the hell I thought Supertramp was a funk band. I went into this album expecting something like The Commodores or Parliament Funkadelic. This is a misbelief I've been harboring probably since I was a teenager. There was immense disappointment when I found out we were getting served yet another 70s British prog rock band.
It's hard to know how close of a listening experience you’re getting to the original album, when streaming services only offer remastered versions. So I’m not sure who to blame for the mix on Crime of the Century. I like dynamic range as much as the next gal, but I found myself reaching for the volume knob multiple times per track throughout the album. I felt like I couldn't hear the quiet parts, and then the loud parts would come in, and be WAY TOO LOUD. That makes for a frustrating listening experience.
It was so much of a problem, that I felt I owed it to myself to try the album again on headphones. It's definitely the better experience when it's not competing with the furnace or the sound of traffic passing by.
I don't know if my musical horizons are in fact expanding, or if it's Supertramp's pop sensibilities, but this has been the most listenable prog album I've heard to date. The longer tracks do drag on, but Dreamer is excellent.
Finally, I know this is the 70s and all, but somehow the disco strings and palm-muted wah guitar are a real surprise on Rudy.
Liz 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
This album was the crime of my heart
I'm beginning to feel like the person that put together the album list has a strong bias towards 70's british prog rock.
Don't get me wrong, there is quite a bit in the genre I like, but is Supertramp really where it's at?
I mean, I don't hate it. Its got some fun songs. I even recognized a few. But whenever Supertramp came on the Classic Rock radio station it always felt like "oh yeah... one of those weird bands folks used to listen to." I never really thought of it as having staying power like other bands of the era.
I guess: I'm glad I've heard songs from the band... but is this really an album I need to listen to in full before I die? I don't feel like passes the bar of being "good enough" to make the cut, nor being "interesting/influential/unique" enough either.
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At Mister Kelly’s - Sarah Vaughan
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Listen Party: 4/14/25
Released: 1957
Genres: Vocal Jazz, Standards
Tags: female vocalist, melodic, urban, longing, humorous, mellow, ballad, sensual, improvisation, nocturnal
Brooke 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
It's.... something alright!
It feels like great music to listen to live, in a club or venue. Her voice has a lot of emotion and it's full-bodied nature is something that carries a tune. I think overall I'd like to listen to this over a speaker as opposed to headphones as I feel like that would really help to give the album its proper space to flourish and fill the room with its ambiance. It's pretty okey-doke. Nothing invigorating but definitely something that's got a much bigger flourish for the room itself.
Claire 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
Jazz is a more challenging genre for me. I imagine that a vocal jazz album like Sarah Vaughan At Mister Kelly's is probably as accessible as it gets. It's not the kind of music I'd seek out, but Vaughan's buttery smooth voice is very easy to listen to. I can see putting the record on in the background to lend an air of sophistication.
I do find myself in disbelief at some of the stuff they let into the final recording. In Willow Weep For Me, we here something get knocked over, followed by the audience laughing. Without missing a beat, Vaughan ad libs, “I’ve really fouled up this song real well”. This is well executed and the recording does a good job at giving the at-home listener some of the thrill of live music.
But in the closing track, How High the Moon, after singing “How high the ocean, how high the moon”, an embarrassed Vaughan sings, “I don’t know the words to this song, but I’m going to sing them anyway,” before going into a sung explanation of how Ella Fitzgerald performs the song, and finally settling into a skat rendition. To be clear, I don’t mind the skatting, but the transition from failing to recall the lyrics to skatting is painfully awkward.
What makes this all the more baffling is that the album starts off with the MC explaining that because Sarah Vaughan’s recording an album, she’ll be singing off of a sheet of lyrics. Where was that lyric sheet by the time “How High the Moon” came around?
Maybe for the live-music-oriented jazz genre, a single take is sacrosanct. I don’t know. But in 2025 it just seems unbelievable to me that they’d release an album with SUCH a big flub. It’s even more shocking that that same album would make it onto a list of 1001 albums to hear before you die. Were audiences more easily impressed with Vaughan’s “ability to recover” than I am today? Or is this evidence of an “old-music-better” bias.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
This album is a mass in my heart
Oh man, this takes me back to living in the goth house, singing in to synths and gloomy vocals and over the topness. I love it. It makes me long for fall, and rainy nights, and candles, OH so many candles. And a little light blasphemy too.
This goth-y gooey new wave-y goodness always feels like it's so thick and lush but what kind of really blew my mind is how clear and transparent this album actually is giving what it feels like. I always expect this style of music to be ultra reverb-y and bass-y and layered such. And it has that character, but the mixing and arrangement are impeccable. You can hear every single instrument and ear candy synth flourish. In spite of the guitar and piano and synths and vocals and kick drum all being in similar frequency band. This is an incredible feat.
It's not solely mixing magic tho; Much is done in the arrangement. Vocals and synths often are in more of a call and response than a strict layering. When new percussive elements come in and built, often other drums will fall out. The sounds fit together in an elaborate sonic jigsaw puzzle.
With that as the foundation, and great mixing on top that doesn't push too far, and you are left with a fantastic sounding album.
Musically, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Ending with Pimpf is a fun choice to just go for a big sendoff. Time to hit repeat on this album and put on some dark eyeliner.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Another live record? I didn’t realize how many there might be. Then again, jazz might be the genre most suited for a live album to make the cut.
I like that the album opens with a little behind-the-scenes moment—someone announcing to the audience that they’re recording. It gives the whole thing a feeling of intimacy - a peek behind the curtain.
I’d never heard of Sarah Vaughan before this, but her voice is remarkable. She has incredible control, range, and texture. I also really like the mix on this album—Vaughan is front and center, but the drums, bass and piano still come through clearly, giving the performance a well rounded feel.
At the end of Willow Weep for Me, you can hear a mic fall, followed by the audience laughing. Then there’s a miscue between Vaughan and the band, which she handles with humor and grace, closing the song with a smile you can actually hear in her voice. It’s a great moment that captures the spontaneity of live jazz.
I was also surprised to hear the word lollapalooza in Thou Swell—I thought that was just a nonsense name made up for the festival. Show’s what I know.
There’s more vocal improvisation later, especially on How High the Moon, where she doesn’t seem to know all the lyrics. It was charming the first time, but by the second time, I found myself wishing she’d just learned the words. Probably a good idea to nail those down before pressing record on a live album, but maybe that’s just what the jazz is all about.
This is a really easy record to listen to - a great one to have on while eating a lazy Sunday breakfast or winding down at the end of a day. I’d also highly recommend this as an accessible Jazz record for people that don’t want to dive into instrumental jazz just yet - it still has some pop sensibilities with plenty of improvisation.
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Music for the Masses - Depeche Mode
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Listen Party: 4/11/25
Released: 1987
Genres: Synthpop, Darkwave, Electro-Industrial, Neoclassical Darkwave
Tags: male vocalist, atmospheric, cold, passionate, dark, melodic, rhythmic, sensual, romantic, nocturnal, sombre, melancholic, sexual, bittersweet, mechanical, longing, lush
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
Ah yes. Depeche Mode. One of those bands I’ve proclaimed to enjoy for a long time, but have only ever really known the hits. And scanning the tracks on Music for the Masses, I wasn’t sure if I’d find any of those here. There’s no Personal Jesus here.
But I was in luck, because as soon as the synth started off the opener, Never Let Me Down Again, I knew that I was rediscovering a familiar favorite. What a great track! Likewise, Strangelove’s synth hook was something I recognized.
The mechanical, rhythmic sexual grunting between partners on I Want You Now gives me an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism that I'd rather not be participating in. That song's a skip for me. And Pimpf is kind of a throwaway track in my opinion. It does have a hidden track though, which disproves my theory that Green Day's Dookie was the first album to do that. I had no actual reason to believe that, but just really wanted it to be true.
The dark, electronic sound of Music for the Masses, played enormously as if in an empty amphitheater, is such a hallmark for this era of music. They’re clearly contemporaries of The Cure. Depeche Mode is UK-based, however they were only ever considered a passing novelty in their home country, and were much more celebrated on this side of the Atlantic.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Never Let Me Down Again is the only track here I was familiar with going in, though not well enough to sing along. From the beginning, we’re hit with a wall of synths and immediately, and I feel like I’ve been dropped into a movie trying very hard to make sure I know it’s set in the late 1980s.
The album as a whole leans into heavy, melancholy darkness — layered synths, dramatic vocals, and not a lot of surprises from what I know Depeche Mode to be.
I Want You Now was a weird, uncomfortable standout. The whispered vocals/sexual grunting sound effects made me instinctively close the window so my neighbors wouldn’t hear. That said, it did stick out as the most distinct track on an album that otherwise stayed pretty much in its lane.
Pimpf is not my kind of closer. It feels like it belongs in a suspenseful film score, not wrapping up an album.
Depeche Mode still doesn’t do much for me. I get that they have a huge following and I respect what they’re going for, but their synth-driven gloom just isn’t my thing.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
This album found my heart at Mister Kelly's
I have mixed feelings about this album. Sarah Vaughan is one of the great jazz vocal legends, and for good reason, and that talent is clearly on display here throughout. Damn she can sing.
Where I am not sure how I feel is in some of the "screw ups" like in How High The Moon. On one hand it shows the playfulness and spontaneity of jazz, and shows that Vaughan can handle some chaos. On the other hand its a little cringe and a weird choice to include in an album. It makes me wonder if they recorded other days and could have slid a better take in. Or is that sacrilegious? Maybe I just really wanted to hear the tune.
That being said, there are a lot of good songs on here so I can't complain too much, but I don't think it's her best work.
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A Wizard, A True Star - Todd Rundgren
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Listen Party: 4/10/25
Released: 1973
Genres: Art Pop, Experimental Rock, Progressive Pop, Art Rock, Psychedelic Pop, Glam Rock, Blue-Eyed Soul, Psychedelic Rock, Electronic, Zolo, Progressive Rock, Space Age Pop
Tags: manic, eclectic, psychedelic, surreal, playful, dense, male vocalist, futuristic, progressive, love, quirky, satirical, melodic, chaotic, complex, suite, avant-garde, anxious, lush, ethereal, Wall of Sound, uplifting, optimistic, introspective, energetic, warm, technical, happy
Claire 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
Upon my initial listening to Todd Rundgren's A Wizard / A True Star, I was prepared to give it 0 moons, dismissing it as pretentious, proggy bullshit. But it was approaching bedtime and I was tired and probably a little cranky. So I turned it off, to give it a fresh listen in the morning. And yeah, it's pretentious, proggy bullshit, but it's also...kind of fun? I think the short runtimes of most of the tracks make their weirdness more digestible. It kind of feels like a Disneyland dark ride on acid. As soon as you're getting adjusted to whatever weirdness is going on, you're on to the next new weirdness. It also goes to show how much my current mood can affect my rating. 2 moons isn't exactly high praise, but it's a hell of a lot more than the 0 I was prepared to give this record.
The Cool Jerk section of the track 15 medley, sounded familiar, so I looked it up. It's a Capitols song from 1965. In fact, it appears that track is four covers in one. La-La Means I Love You is a Delfonics song, I'm So Proud is by The Impressions, and Ooh Baby Baby is a Smokey Robinson track.
"Is It My Name?" has some eyebrow raising lyrics. "There's a reason I'm so erect", followed a bit later by "My voice goes so high you would think I was gay, but I play my guitar in such a man-cock way". Cool, Todd. Cool.
Liz 🌗🌑🌑🌑🌑
Like a wizard, this album turned my heart into a star.
Fuck me, It's like the world conspired to engineer an album specifically designed to cause me pain. I mean this literally: I'm exceptionally sensitive to certain frequencies (thanks autism) and this album was basically unlistenable for me. I gave it a shot, but I just couldn't. And I wanted to! it sounds like an album I could really get into. I like weird shit. If only I could run this thru a notch filter.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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International Feel opens A Wizard, a True Star with lots of falsetto, video game-esque sound effects, and this wavy filter that runs through the entire mix that frankly, kind of gave me a headache. And there’s more!
The songs bleed into one another, creating a continuous stream of musical experimentation — most of which didn’t really land with me. The styles range wildly — from psychedelic to sentimental to downright cartoonish — but everything is wrapped in that same swirling production that bounces between your ears.
The closing track, Just One Victory, was easily the highlight for me. It’s the most straightforward song on the album.
Overall, though, this album was a disappointment. I admire the experimentation, but it rarely connected with me. It felt like a challenging listen.
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A Date with the Everly Brothers - The Everly Brothers
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Listen Party: 4/9/25
Released: 1960
Genres: Close Harmony, Teen Pop, Pop, Rock & Roll, Brill Building
Tags: male vocalist, love, melodic, vocal group, romantic, playful, bittersweet
Liz 🌕🌑🌑🌑🌑
This album dated my heart.
Jesus this album feels old time-y. I think I recognized 2 songs on it? But the LYRICS oh my god. Apparently women are not people, but merely objects that tease and torment men, but also are just for loving i guess. I know its supposed to be romantic, and that it was a "different time" and stuff but just...🤮
Claire 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
"A Date with the Everly Brothers" is such a funny concept for an album to me. I get to date BOTH of them? At the same time? And there's a picture of them at a phone booth, with the older Everly chiming in, "Ask if she's free on Friday. Oh! And tell her we'll get three straws for our milkshake and then we'll take turns smooching her!"
At 23 and 21 years old, I get the sense that the Everly Brothers are just a little too old for the songs they're singing here. The album starts with Made to Love, in which they relay the seemingly recent talk they got from their father about girls. Girls, girls, girls, as you see, were MADE to love. And apparently that's why some have eyes of blue, and why others stand five feet two. There's a gross feeling about a life lesson handed down from Papa Everly, that boils girls down to their physical attributes as evidence that their purpose in life is to be loved by men. And something about the older Everly being married at the time of this recording just makes it grosser to me.
But there's a pleasant nothingness of early rock'n'roll for me. It reminds me of listening to KOOL 105 with my dad, before he went full AM conservative talk radio. Cathy's Clown is a recognizable hit of course, but I wasn't expecting a version of Love Hurts that predates the Nazareth version by 13 years.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Listening to The Everly Brothers feels like dropping into the soundtrack of Leave It to Beaver. The harmonies are clean, the melodies are strong, and everything feels a little too wholesome with that dark 1950s edge lurking in the shadows. I have to remind myself that the expectations for songs in the late ’50s and early ’60s were very different — both in sound and subject matter.
That said, Made to Love definitely feels uncomfortable in 2025. It feels out of place in a way that’s hard to separate from modern sensibilities.
I expected wall-to-wall sweet, bubblegum pop love songs — and for the most part, that’s what the album delivers. But then they surprised me with Baby What You Want Me to Do, a blues number with some genuinely impressive piano and guitar solos. It was nice to hear them break out of the mold, even briefly.
The rest of the album moves through what feel like clichés of early rock and roll and doo-wop — though I’m guessing that’s kind of the point. Maybe the Everly Brothers created a lot of these tropes before they became clichés.
Lyrically, it’s love song after love song — love beginning, love ending, love lost, love found. Not a ton of variety there, but that was the formula.
The only song I knew going in was the closer, Cathy’s Clown.
This album felt very much of its time — sometimes in a nostalgic way, and sometimes in a cringey way,
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tHE sCORE - fUGEES
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Listen Party: 4/8/25
Released: 1996
Genres: Conscious Hip Hop, Boom Bap, Neo-Soul, Reggae, Hip Hop Soul
Scene: East Coast Hip Hop
Tags: female vocalist, male vocalist, political, crime, conscious, introspective, boastful, urban, nocturnal, sampling, lush, rhythmic, melodic, passionate, drugs, lethargic
FYI:
Tidal has two versions of “The Score” - a censored version (15 tracks), and an uncensored expanded version (17 tracks). We’re reviewing the first 16 tracks of the uncensored version.
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
As a casual listener, my recollection of Fugees was that it was the Lauryn Hill show featuring Wyclef and Pras. The singles, Ready or Not, Fu-Gee-La, and Killing Me Softly With His Song, as well as The Score’s album cover definitely fueled that misconception. While listening to the full album, I was surprised how much balance there was between the three artists. My guess is that the label identified Hill as the most marketable member and put her front and center in the media. But that's just speculation nearly 30 years later.
Those singles mentioned above are my standout songs from the album, but I enjoyed almost every track. Fugees are masterful at blending hip hop, soul and reggae for a sound that is uniquely theirs. There are a few exceptions though. I like Fu-Gee-La, but I don’t really need three versions of the song (the extended version has four!). The “No Woman, No Cry” cover doesn’t do much for me. And most regrettably, the inclusion of a racist skit following “The Beast”, severely reduces the likelihood that I’ll revisit this album as a whole again.
Ron 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
Oof, what a mixed bag!
I have a lot of nostalgia for the singles on this album but I have not listened to the whole album until now. Killing Me Softly with His Song is an absolute banger and I really think The Score is underrated, but what is up with the skit in the Beast? I guess it was a product of its time; I can think of a bunch of similar examples of how this type of racism was ok in the 90's.
I can really appreciate the different styles of hip-hop on the album. Zealots is surprisingly good, despite being a big departure from other songs on the album. The No Woman, No Cry cover was fine overall but is a nice example of their mix between hip-hop and reggae. This was also my first time hearing How Many Mics and I really liked the song; it felt like something between boom bap and gangsta rap.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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The Score by The Fugees feels like a movie from the very start. The spoken intro, the Godfather-esque album cover — it’s cinematic in both presentation and mood.
This is one of those albums where I know the big singles very well, but I wasn’t sure I’d heard many of the deeper cuts. Maybe I’ve listened all the way through once or twice before, but if I did, none of the non-singles stuck with me before.
How Many Mics was… okay. It had references to Tracy Chapman and constipation — not sure that combo has ever appeared in popular music before or since.
Ready or Not is still such a great song. It hits with so much emotion — it’s a perfect example of why this album became a classic.
Zealots stood out for me with its doo-wop and reggae influences — that genre-blending is exactly what makes The Fugees so interesting. They move in and out of hip hop, weaving in sounds and styles that challenge what you think this album is.
The sketch in the Chinese restaurant felt pretty weird, and honestly didn’t age particularly well. The exaggerated kung fu movie overdubs just don’t hold up like the music does.
Killing Me Softly is the mega-hit for a reason. It’s a stripped-back reimagining of the Roberta Flack classic, but The Fugees bring it to a new place. No disrespect to Roberta Flack — but Lauryn Hill owns this now.
Wyclef’s cover of No Woman No Cry was surprising - I could’ve sworn this was on one of his solo albums — I don’t really hear Pras or Lauryn Hill on it at all. Still a strong song, just felt a little separate from the rest of the record.
Throughout the album, the political themes were even more prevalent than I expected — race relations, police violence, systemic oppression — it’s all there. It’s much more pointed and political than the big radio singles let on.
And I have to mention Lauryn Hill’s New Jersey accent — it cuts through everything and I like it a lot.
Fittingly, the album closes the way it opens — with spoken credits. It really is structured like a film.
Listening to The Score now brings a bit “What could’ve been” feelings. We got a good solo album from Wyclef and a great solo album from Lauryn Hill, but the group never really got another chance to make music like this together.
liz 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
This album scored my heart
I think this is a great collection of songs but is a bit lacking as an "album"
First off: holyshit the MUSIC on this album is fantastic. Thru and thru. I was familiar with the hits going in, but the rest of the songs are pretty damned great too. The acclaim The Score has garnered is completely warranted.
The themes and lyrics were potent. The music floors me with a lot of the reggae influence. And Lauryn Hill's vocals, oh my god. No wonder Killing Me Softly was the hit it was and still stands up. Another of those rare cases where the cover surpasses the original.
Where the album falls flat to me are the skits. The Chinese restaurant one in particular feels pretty dated and uncomfortable. And then there is the multiple versions of Fu-Gee-La. I not opposed to having multiple versions of a song on an album... many jazz albums do it... heck I've released multiple versions of my own songs, but I always have to ask myself "what is this adding to the work as a whole?" Is it doing something like bookending a la Floyd's pigs on the wing? (tho that is a bit more of a 2 part rather than multiple versions) Is it an indication of indecisiveness where the artist cant pick what the "definitive" version is? Is it a showcase for their friends? Is it marketing so they can jam pack a CD full of extra shit? Is it re-contextualizing a song and showing it in different light? Is it "we just want more of the song we know is a hit?" Is it "Liz doesn't understand hip hop and is an ignorant twat?"
Could be.
Could be.
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Animals - Pink Floyd
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Listen Party: 4/7/25
Released: 1977
Genres: Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Hard Rock
Tags: political, philosophical, concept, album, pessimistic, sarcastic, progressive, satirical, male vocalist, angry, alienation, atmospheric, complex, passionate, misanthropic, protest, rebellious, conscious, urban, epic, existential, dark, psychedelic, anxious, bittersweet, dense
Claire 🌗🌑🌑🌑🌑
How many albums will it take for me to get Pink Floyd? This is number three for me after The Wall and The Dark Side of the Moon, and probably my least favorite so far from a band that just bores the hell out of me. But people love Pink Floyd. What don’t I get?
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Animals by Pink Floyd is a concept album that really leans hard into the concept. And with five tracks and clocking in at 41 minutes—right away, you know this is going to be something different. Yet two of the tracks are less than two minutes long!
The decision to make some of these songs so long is an interesting one, especially when they often feel like different unrelated songs strung together—sometimes a bit more loosely than you’d expect, kind of like a wedding DJ stringing I Wanna Dance with Somebody and Happy together at Brendan and Kayleigh’s elegant farmhouse wedding.
At around five minutes into Dogs (the second track), it settles into a nice groove that would’ve fit perfectly as the theme for a gritty police procedural from the late ’70s or early ’80s (yes I’m using that metaphor again). The electric piano gives it that extra texture. However, from there, we get long synth interludes with barking dogs—something that’s not really my style.
Around 14:10, some beautiful harmonizing guitars play a sweet melody over strings. This sounds like the outro to a solid song, but in my opinion, it doesn’t quite fit with the rest of Dogs—and it’s not even the final payoff, as there’s another “song” after it.
Pigs (Three Different Ones) starts with a cool intro, and it has some fun beats. The guitars come in unexpectedly on offbeats (or halfbeats?), giving it a fun singalong and air guitar feel I could get down to. This song feels more cohesive than Dogs, probably because it’s a bit shorter. But don’t let that distract you from the pig oinks and snorts that echo throughout. After all, the album is called Animals.
Sheep carries a similar vibe to Pigs, with more coherence and some enjoyable moments. And, of course, there are bleating sheep, keeping with the theme.
Finally, Pigs on the Wing 2 wraps up the album in much the same way it started—with a quick, melancholy acoustic number, closing things out on a quiet note.
I honestly expected to hate this album, given its length, the fact that it’s Pink Floyd, and the way it stretches out over five tracks. But there were genuine moments of enjoyment. I don’t think I’ll return to this one, but in those moments, I could really appreciate the musicianship and find melodies and instrumentation that I thought were pretty good.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
This album flew pigs into my heart.
Goddamn I love this album. This is, by far, the most familiar I have been with an album in this project to date; I've probably listened to Animals hundreds of times.
It is kind of an underrated/lesser known Pink Floyd album, but folks who like it LOVE it. It's me, I'm one of those folks. That being said, it did take a bit to grown on me when I first heard it in my teens, unlike the more well known "Dark Side", "The Wall", or “Wish You Were Here" but having invested the time, there is a lot to love about these sprawling barnyard epics.
It's kind of hard to describe why I like Animals... it just puts me in a mood and gives me brain tinglies. I love the journey each song takes. I love the doubling of the guitar in Dogs that is a little off, or the weird off kilter synth in Pigs that sits in contrast to the straight ahead rhythm guitar. And Sheep! The intro is great and somehow pastoral in spite of the jazzy electric piano, but then once it gets going, I love how the vocals blend into the electric guitar.
It's weird listening again for this project and hearing how... monotone a lot of the vocals are, but the grooves are good, the sounds and textures and space are enveloping and I just sort of sink into this one.
All bookended perfectly with the two part Pigs on the Wing.
And who could forget that iconic album cover?
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Red Headed Stranger - Willie Nelson
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Listen Party: 4/4/25
Released: 1975
Genres: Outlaw Country, Singer-Songwriter, Contemporary Folk, Western, Old-Time
Tags: concept album, calm, mellow, melancholic, male vocalist, crime, acoustic, lonely, death, pastoral, bittersweet, soft, sombre, sad, passionate, love, minimalistic, introspective, sparse, melodic
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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Red Headed Stranger is exactly the kind of album I was hoping to find in this project. Willie Nelson is someone I’ve always respected as a songwriter, even if I haven’t spent too much time with his catalog. So I came into this one with high hopes.
Time of the Preacher opens the album like an old cowboy song—whining harmonica, hop-along guitar strumming, tambourine that sounds like spurs climbing up on a horse. It’s even more Western than I expected, which says something considering it’s Willie Nelson. The album keeps circling back to this Preacher motif, and I’m sure there’s a larger narrative at play if I spent more time digging into the story.
Willie is a born storyteller, spinning up the myths of the West—real or imagined. I didn’t love the title track, but I appreciated the use of waltz time, which pops up again and again throughout the record.
The instrumental Down Yonder picked up the energy and I enjoyed the old time piano-eey. And I found myself wishing the song about my hometown of Denver got more than 53 seconds of attention. Still, nothing on the album felt out of place.
The highlight for me was Hands on the Wheel—a slow waltz with an emotional pull that stuck with me. I know this song from somewhere, though I can’t say where, but the chorus hooked me. That one went straight into my favorites playlist on Tidal.
I do wish more of the album reached the same heights as Hands on the Wheel. Some of the other tracks blurred together a bit too easily. Still, this was a fun listen, and I’m hoping there’s at least one more Willie Nelson album on the list. If not, I’ll go looking on my own.
Claire 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
Red Headed Stranger is a concept album. I went in trying to piece together the pieces of the stories being told in each song, and came up with the following:
The Red Headed Stranger starts off as a Montana preacher who suspects his wife is cheating on him. He rides his horse into town and finds her with another man in a tavern. Upon discovering them, he shoots them both dead.
While he's mourning the death of his wife, another woman becomes enamored with the pony that the stranger's wife used to ride. She throws herself at the stranger in an attempt to steal the pony, and in his grief-stricken state, the stranger kills her too.
He ends up in a Denver tavern, suggesting he's running south from either the Montana law, his haunted memories, or both. In his mourning, he finds comfort with a new woman.
Then in Remember Me, Nelson sings a song about broken vows, and that he hopes his now ex-wife will remember him. So…is she dead or not? I may have read too much into a supposed plot here.
I was really ready to fall in love with this story about the fallibility in all of us, and that you can shoot your problems dead and skip town, but you can't outrun the consequences of your actions. I think that's more on me for dreaming up those expectations than on Willie for failing to deliver on a premise I conceived fifty years later. But still, how great would that album be?
As for the music itself, the sparse instrumentation really does help set the scene to tell these stories of loneliness and isolation. The musical quotation of "Home on the Range" in O'er the Waves is a nice wild west touch.
Speaking of the wild west, when Willie Nelson sings, "It was the time of the preacher in the year of 01", do you think he's talking about the year 2001? Because I have it on good authority that the graduating high school seniors of that year ruled.
Ron 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
I'm really not a fan of country/western music but I had to give this an honest shot... and I'm glad I did. This is a great album! It did feel a bit one-note in the way that a lot of songs had the same tempo, style, and dynamics (I think this is just what country sounded like back in the 60's and 70's), but every song felt well written and was very easy to listen to. The simplicity of the instruments backing Willie make this very digestible for most people but really its Willie's voice that elevates each song from good to great. I enjoy listening to him sing.
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain and O'er The Waves (this was surprising to me, since its an instrumental) were my standout songs but I honestly couldn't pick a stinker in the album. Honorable mention to Down Yonder because I felt like I was in a cartoon saloon, smoking a fake cigarette, and playing 5 card stud when listening to it. This is the sort of album that I think I'd rarely intentionally listen to but if any of the songs played randomly, I would be happy it did.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
This album invited a red headed stranger into my heart.
I liked this album quite a bit more than I expected. It was a filled with a lot of good folksy country storytelling-y songs. And low harmonica, which the world clearly needs more of.
I was kind of surprised at how SHORT some of the songs are. Like Denver, for example. It felt like, story wise, we get an intro where we find out that we are in Denver, in an establishment, and folks are dancing, and then... It just ends. I guess this is supposed to be more of a concept album where the story kind of runs throughout, but I didn't really pick up on that. Tho to be fair, I wasn't really listening all that closely, and a lot of the songs just kind of blended together.
All in all, it was enjoyable. Not an album I'll be reaching for on the regular as I don't think it's really my thing but I can see why Willie Nelson is an American legend for sure.
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MTV Unplugged in New York - Nirvana
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Listen Party: 4/3/25
Released: 1994
Genres: Acoustic Rock, Alternative Rock, Grunge, Folk Rock
Tags: acoustic, male vocalist, melodic, melancholic, passionate, introspective, sombre, lonely, pessimistic, alienation, depressive, raw, bittersweet, anxious, lethargic, longing, mellow, death, apathetic, nocturnal
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
My history with Nirvana is complicated. In middle school, after Kurt Cobain's death, and despite not knowing a single song of theirs, I wrote their name (and Green Day's) in white out on my backpack to make other kids think I’m cool. I had Weird Al's Off The Deep End, which parodies the Nevermind album art, as well as the song, Smells Like Teen Spirit, well before I knew either reference. But I began listening to alternative rock radio, and quickly became familiar with a number of Nirvana's hits. At some point, I also picked up "Nevermind", but never listened to it as much as I did "Off The Deep End".
Then, sometime in high school or college, I got sick of hearing the same Nirvana songs over and over again on the radio, and adopted the somewhat edgelord opinion that Nirvana was only as popular as they were because Cobain killed himself. I held that opinion well into adulthood. I was sick of Nirvana, and I was sick of grunge music as a whole.
Then I moved to Seattle. My opinion didn't change overnight, but my once-alternative-radio-listening ass was now a public-radio-listening ass. And I heard more than one panel discussion on the local public radio station about what it was like in Seattle during the hay day of grunge. It gave me a lot of food for thought about how this place shaped that music, and I'd imagine myself in the same place thirty years earlier, and what that would be like.
Today, my opinion is that Cobain was in fact, the voice of a generation, cut tragically short. But grunge music is still far from my favorite. It's simply too dark and depressing for me to enjoy regularly. I suspect that Unplugged will be my favorite album by Nirvana, for that reason. The songs are certainly still dark and depressing, but the acoustic nature seems to moderate the heaviness of their sound.
Back to those panels about Seattle in the grunge era. I remember one of the discussions being about what killed grunge, and the panel unanimously agreed that it was Green Day's Dookie. That is an album that I played on repeat from the time I got home from school until my parents got home. And I think that about sums up my experience as a Xillenial - on the cusp of the Nirvana generation and the Green Day generation, but apparently leaning Green Day.
All apologies. There's an album to review here. Like I said, it's probably my favorite Nirvana album. I'm also struck by how few of the songs performed were "hits". There's no "Smells Like Teen Spirit" here. And of the 14 tracks, six of those aren't even Nirvana songs. THREE of them are by the Meat Puppets. And that feels like a real rock-star moment for Cobain and Co. "We won't play what you expect us to play, and we're going to use our time in the spotlight to plug another band".
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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MTV Unplugged in New York was a surprise - I wasn’t expecting a live album on this list. I guess it’s probably one of the most (the most?) iconic live records of the ’90s. It’s also my first time listening to Nirvana after reading Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna. In the book, she shares many stories of the blossoming music scene in the Puget Sound, including many stories about Kurt and Nirvana, so I’m appreciating it with a bit more context of where they came from this time around.
Anyone who grew up in the ’90s is probably pretty familiar with Nirvana, so there’s that sense of nostalgia throughout. Some of the tracks, like About a Girl, are great and feel like a perfect fit for the unplugged format. Others, like Come As You Are, don’t quite hit the same mark for me - probably because this version has been played to death. I did enjoy the unexpected Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam cover, with its accordion and totally different feel.
I didn’t realize how many of these songs I didn’t recognize, though. It was a little surprising, especially since I thought I had this album at some point either through college intranet music “sharing”. Lake of Fire and Plateau definitely brought me back to some nostalgia I was harboring from somewhere, with Kurt’s voice pulling in that raw, rural twang that you don’t hear on many other Nirvana songs.
All Apologies was probably the standout for me. It translates so well to the unplugged setting.
Overall, it’s an enjoyable nostalgic listen with some surprises, but I was never a huge Nirvana fan to begin with so that’s holding them back here a bit. I’ve been, and will likely continue to be, a passive consumer of Nirvana music.
Liz 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
This album unplugged my heart.
I've been on and off again my entire life about whether or not I like Nirvana. When I was a young'n my brother had this album and Nevermind and being the younger sibling who looked up to her brother, I was a fan. Then I was a snobby kid and hated them because it wasn't Pink Floyd or something. Then I only thought they were famous because of Cobain's death. And then I respected them. And then I was kind of whatever. And then i felt pride in them after moving to Seattle.
This made me really want to go in with as open a mind as I could muster. And from the very first chords I was instantly back in my brothers room in our house in Michigan on a cd boombox listening to this album and singing along to Lake of Fire and being amazed at the weirdness of Polly and trying to figure out who Leadbelly was and why Cobain was giving it his all while singing Where Did You Sleep Last Night.
This album kind of rules. I kind of love how much of it is covers and I love just how raw it is for being grunge without (as many) electric guitars. It just cuts it down to that grit and emotion. I feel like it really demonstrates that grunge had a core identity to it that wasn't just loud trashy guitars and raucous drums. Like, yes, it's very much part of the sound, but strip that away and you are left with an amazing emotional album that still feels grunge at its core.
And the mix here is exactly what it needs to be: it balances everything well and lets Cobain's vocal delivery shine thru. It feels intimate but powerful. Great job.
Hot take: this is my favorite Nirvana album.
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Goodbye and Hello - Tim Buckley
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Listen Party: 4/2/25
Released: 1967
Genres: Singer-Songwriter, Folk Rock, Psychedelic Folk, Chamber Folk, Baroque Pop
Scene: Greenwich Village Scene
Tags: psychedelic, poetic, melancholic, male vocalist, melodic, passionate, cryptic, warm, romantic, spring, mellow, love, bittersweet, mysterious, autumn, political, rhythmic
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
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This album is a product of 1967, and listening to it immediately after The Who Sell Out (from the same year) makes for an interesting comparison. It makes me wonder how different this whole project would feel if I went through these albums chronologically, tracing the evolution of influences—though with 1,000 albums ahead, I don’t think I can do this two times.
Pleasant Street stood out early on, reminding me of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which wouldn’t be released until the following year. As expected from this era, the album is full of world instruments and psychedelic sounds, shifting between calm, manic, and meditative.
Once I Was was another high point, a heartbreaking ballad wrapped in a bittersweet melody - probably my favorite track on the album.
Some tracks, like Knight-Errant, leaned too heavily into medieval imagery for my taste, with talk of kings, queens, and castles feeling a bit much. I also found Buckley’s frequent use of his falsetto register a little grating at times.
Claire 🌕🌗🌑🌑🌑
I hadn’t heard of Tim Buckley before this listen of Goodbye and Hello. According to 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, the label expected big things for his second album, but it was a commercial flop. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to speculate why this was the case.
The musicality of “Goodbye and Hello” holds up well with Buckley’s 1967 contemporaries. It’s a well-produced, psychedelic and experimental LP with themes of the Vietnam War and free love. He is a gifted songwriter and singer as well.
Buckley’s command of the higher register is particularly impressive. But this is where the album also falls apart in my perspective. He often puts on a strange voice that is some mix of “the little lad” from the 90s Starburst ads and Tiny Tim.
<Wait a second…Tim Buckley…Tiny Tim. Are we sure that Buckley died of that heroin overdose in the 1970s?>
I suppose Buckley’s voice works thematically with the medieval imagery and instrumentation he seems to return to again and again. In “Knight-Errant”, he questions, “O whither has my lady wandered?”, before informing the listener that he loves his maiden upstairs and that he loves his maiden downstairs. Oh wait, is that an oral sex reference? That might be an oral sex reference.
If Buckley had a different singing voice, I think I’d enjoy the less “m’lady” songs on “Hello and Goodbye”. To close, I offer this conjecture - the 1960s listening public felt the same way.
Liz 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
This album said goodbye and not hello to my heart.
Well, I listened to this album. The music played into my ears. Why do i feel so bland? It's not like it was bad or unskilled or anything. It just kind of... was. I wanted to like this. Or even hate it. I wanted to have SOME reaction. But here we are.
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The Who Sell Out - The Who
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Listen Party: 4/1/25
Released: 1967
Genres: Freakbeat, Pop Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Psychedelic Pop, Jingles, Satire
Movements: Mod
Tags: concept album, satirical, humorous, playful, jingle, male vocalist, psychedelic, quirky, melodic, energetic, surreal, eclectic, sarcastic, progressive, conscious
FYI:
Tidal only has versions of “The Who Sell Out” that feature many bonus tracks. You’re free to listen to as many songs as you like, of course, but officially we are only reviewing the first 13 tracks, beginning with “Armenia City in the Sky” and ending with “Rael (Pt. 1 & 2)”.
Claire 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
Going in, I didn’t know a lot of music by The Who, but I had high hopes. Based on songs like My Generation [1964] and Baba O’Riley [1971], I really expected to like The Who. Maybe they would be a more counter-culture version of The Beatles? Or perhaps a less pretentious Pink Floyd?
The Who Sell Out was released in 1967, nearly half-way between those two cultural landmarks that had fed my preconceptions. Great! Maybe it shares similarities with both songs. Unfortunately, after listening, I’m mostly left with disappointment.
Pete Townshend’s concept for “The Who Sell Out” was that of a pirate radio station broadcast, complete with parody jingles. When I read that, I got very excited for the concept. On listening though, the jingles feel like a bunch of jokes that you had to be in the 1960s UK to get. At times, the silly voices delivered through British accents remind me of the video game, “Thank Goodness You’re Here”. That’s about the kindest thing I have to say about the jingle sections of this album.
As for the “real” music, there are a few good songs. Odorono, Our Love Was, Relax, and Sunrise all have pleasant melodies. And yeah, I get that at least one of those is still something of “an ad”. And then there’s, I Can See For Miles, the one song I recognized on “The Who Sell Out”, and probably my favorite track on the album.
But other tracks suffer from one or more of several issues. There’s poor recording quality that I know is beneath 1967-standards. Singer, Roger Daltrey often seems to be straining to reach his notes. And the mix is just really poorly done. Tell me why the tambourine is the loudest instrument on I Can’t Reach You.
Look, I’m not done with The Who. I know that this isn’t their most famous album. I’ll hold up my hopes that one of their others will live up to what I thought they were, but “The Who Sells Out” is just not what I wanted it to be.
Just John, That’s it, that’s the reviewer’s name™
🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
The album opens with an intriguing contrast—a big band sound mixed with a futuristic vocoder voice that immediately grabs my attention. Armenia City in the Sky is psychedelic, and given that it was released the same year as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds/Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it seems The Who were also immersed in the experimentation of the era.
The album’s concept, I suppose, is its use of fake radio jingles, like the absurd Heinz Baked Beans, which certainly makes the album memorable, but not necessarily in a way I like. I’m sure there is some smart commentary here about consumerism in post war Britain, but it’s mostly lost on me 60 years later.
Tracks like Odorono sneak pop radio sensibilities into the mix, while others, like Medac, Silas Stingy, and Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand, felt more like quirky little story-songs that didn’t really work for me.
The highlight for most, I suppose, is I Can See for Miles, the album’s best-known track, though my connection to it is more from recognizing the hook than truly knowing the song. The softer Sunrise stood out as a welcome change of pace, sounding almost like a lost Simon & Garfunkel tune.
It’s hard not to compare this to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—both albums are psychedelic, concept-driven collections put out by English mega stars in 1967. While I can appreciate them taking a big swing and making something interesting, I can’t say I’ll ever pick this album up again.
Liz 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
This album sold out my heart
The cover art of The Who Sell Out has been burned into my memory from the very first time I saw it back at Peter White Public Library in my hometown as we were scouring the CD rack for anything new they had gotten since our last visit. I remember checking it out and my dad saying he liked The Who but never heard that album before. I don't actually remember the music, but I remember my dad commenting he didn't really like it. Revisiting it felt like an uncovering of a long lost memory.
In this album we can clearly see the beginnings of the band's experimentation with overarching themes and concepts to tie an album together that would later be perfected in Tommy and Quadrophenia, I ultimately feel like it doesn't work here. At best it's just a humorous aside, but at it's worst I think it's ham-fisted detracts from otherwise good songs. I don't feel like the commercial ditties and radio broadcast framing actually add anything to the album aside from a mild bit of humor. They have an entire album contained in a setting, and yet that setting doesn't really elevate any themes or storytelling; it merely exists. And it makes me not want to listen to this work as an album which feels like the opposite of what it should do.
I don't hate this album by any means, and as I mentioned there are certainly some good songs that I enjoyed. I just wish they existed within a more interesting framing device. The Who must have thought so too as much of Rael was grafted wholesale into Tommy.