As I noted before, I've been working through the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, as presented though the 1001 album generator web site. My goal is to present a week (or so) of reviews, once every week (or so).
So here's the next few albums I listened to,
# - Year - Album - Artist - My Rating - Global Rating
31 - 2020 - Fetch The Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple - 3 - 3.21
32 - 1994 Smash - The Offspring - 3 - 3.4
33 - 2007 Kala M.I.A. - 2 - 2.99
34 - 2000 - Music - Madonna - 2 - 2.71
35 - 1988 - Green - R.E.M. - 3 - 3.46
36 - 1969 - Five Leaves Left - Nick Drake - 3 - 3.5
37 - 1984 - Welcome To The Pleasuredome - Frankie Goes To Hollywood - 3 - 3.06
38 - 11/26/2023 - 1972 - Superfly - Curtis Mayfield - 4 - 3.68
39 - 1971 - Hunky Dory - David Bowie - 4 - 4.04
39 - Hunky Dory - David Bowie - 4
Hunky Dory has several iconic Bowie songs, including my favorite Bowie song (Queen Bitch). And several really solid songs. But also a couple songs I can’t rate above 3. I really like the overall package, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It’s the kind of album I can back to all along. But not quite essential, so I can’t pull the trigger on a 5 rating. Very close, but 4/5
38 - Superfly - Curtis Mayfield - 4
A great soul/funk album. I remember when the title track and Freddy’s Dead were on on the radio. Those are 5 star songs. I’d also heard Pusherman, but the rest of this album was new to me. The sound is great, the groove even better. I wish I could give this 4.5 stars, but we’ll have to go 4/5
37 - Welcome To The Pleasuredome - Frankie Goes To Hollywood - 3
Meh. As mid-80’s UK synth-pop goes, it’s pretty decent. That said, it doesn’t really hold up for a double album length (64 minutes +). They could’ve scrapped the uninspiring covers, and a couple of other songs and had a tight, concise album that would’ve been better. And covering an iconic song like Springsteen’s “Born to Run” is almost as bad as Madonna covering “American Pie”, which I was subjected to just 3 days ago. Still, a few good songs, and a testament to a time period. 3/5
36 - Five Leaves Left - Nick Drake - 3
I suppose this was pleasant enough…. Voice and guitar, occasional strings. But it is forgettable, not a single song stuck in my head. This would be decent background music, I suppose. Bland and blasé, but not enough that I couldn’t slog through. So that works out to a 3/5
35 - Green - R.E.M. - 3
I discovered REM back in early 1983 when Murmur was fresh and new. And exciting and different. I saw them live in October 1983, one of the top 5 shows I’ve seen. And I was a huge fan of their first 4.5 albums (including the Chronic Town EP). But I never really latched on to Document and the subsequent albums, perhaps because I became a father and refocused. And perhaps because they shifted their style, and got really popular. I know (and own) the “hits” from this album, and they’re certainly worthy, so I was happy when this came up on the generator. Overall it’s a good album, though I still prefer the earlier sound when the vocals were unintelligible (and often incomprehensible) and the band seemed less political. The fact that they planned the album release for the same day as the US presidential election doesn’t impress me. Stick to music guys. The 4x singles are really good, the rest of it is just OK. I went into this expecting at least 3.5, probably rounding to 4. But I just can’t get that high, this is below all the other REM albums I own. A kind of disappointing 3/5
34 - Music - Madonna - 2
Another 2000’s era dance-pop and electronica album. Madonna here is almost 20 years into her career as a “queen of pop”, it seems a little tired, and not particularly creative. The dance beats here are incessant which I guess is the point. But they’re also very generic sounding to me, and entirely mechanical. Whatever effort is made to be original is provided by various synthesized beeps and boops and such…. and vocal effects. All of which can be interesting in small doses, but these aren’t small doses. I find it all irritating. Cher did the Auto-Tune thing 2 years earlier, and better. It also spotlights that Madonna doesn’t really have a great voice. This is probably great background music for an early 2000’s dance club…. It is very well put together, it is very professional. But it’s not essential, or even especially interesting. Oh yeah, the bonus track cover of “American Pie” is somewhere between embarrassing and offensive. I almost docked the rating a point, but decided to let it slide as it’s not part of the official track list. But, man, that remake SUCKS. It takes some gumption to cover a massive classic and make it your own by sucking out all of the emotion/soul of it. 2/5
33 - Kala - M.I.A. - 2
When I saw this album tagged as Hip-Hop and electronica, I was worried. I One comment in the Wikipedia article called it “both a party album and a progressive aural assault”. Yay? It seems more electronica/pop than hip hop, though. Each song is repetitive. Very, VERY repetitive. Musically and lyrically. Which makes some sense as dance music, but doesn’t keep my interest. The more hip-hoppy parts still have that dance feel, and the lyrics aren’t angry and “explicit”…. Just repetitive and dumb. It seems to pick up and hint at several world musical styles, hints of Bollywood stylings, African rhythms, etc. This actually works pretty well, and provides interest where lyrics and soundscape don’t. Nothing I’ll want to hear again, but I can kinda get where it is coming from. I’ll go 2/5, but just barely.
32 - Smash - The Offspring - 3
Solid enough pop-punk from the 1st half of the 90’s. I hear a good bit of Green Day influence, a bit of Nirvana…. And the singing style sort of reminds me of Weird Al. It all adds up to good enough, if not especially memorable. a solid 3/5.
31 - Fetch The Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple - 3
I went back and forth on this album. A couple of songs were pretty decent, a few were just ok, and a few didn’t really resonate with me. But none of it was compelling. It also lacked any real sense of coherence or overriding message. I saw that the album was recorded over a 5 year span, maybe that’s the reason. It felt more like a collection of leftovers from a series of albums, leftovers. Overall 3/5
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