what if the 1975 were good, knew how to pace an album and not overfill it and had an incredibly soulful singer as opposed to matt healy's on-and-off (now almost always off) charisma? well here we go! the mood is deeply enrapturing here, with the oh-so-typical 80s synths and synthesised instruments left perfectly bare (particularly the sharp, synthetic and crisp drums) alongside the guitar and bass adding rhythm, flavour and melody.

slint continue to be the most horrifying band of the 90s. an album to murder and be murdered to.

a broken woman heals herself with divine fury and screams with her god-given voice. enrapturing. i'll admit that i listen to woeful amounts of music made by women but hayter sits as my favourite female musician of all time.

there's so much i've heard in rock that is descended from this album. the protomen and frank turner couldn't have existed without the boss singing his heart about painfully. and it's not like these are sweet nothings as happens with a lot of rock lyrics; springsteen is singing his life in the mid-70s, which is about one or two bad days from destitution, and he's got the best mixture of literal storytelling and fantastical prose that would inspire turner and many others. also it just sounds ... read more

if the doors' self-titled is an intellectual, witty concept album about the last night out before the end of the world, funhouse spits in your fucking face and demands his money so he can get more blow to last him through the next 4 girls he'll have sex with. raw, dirty, disgusting, rough, transcendent; the apotheosis of the rocker.

ok so when i said most classic rock is superseded by ween's quebec i found one exception. it's pretentious in a way that only the late 60s could produce, where they believed the end was in sight for the world (and yknow, i wouldn't blame them lol). manzarek described this album as 'the last night before the end of civilisation' (i am paraphrasing) and honestly? dead right.

(here on trial basis)

how is this a live album. how does it all sound so good. how does it rock so hard while also being so chill. how was long season ever composed. how is melody so ascendant. how does this music contain so many EMOTIONS.

all questions i asked myself while listening to this album.

yea i think frank turner released multiple perfect works, and while this album has a much smaller scale compared to the giant concepts that england keep my bones deals with, it's just. SO emotional and SO sincere and no-bullshit. on a level i have literally never heard in my life. never have such frankly simple melodies been dealt with better writing, whether it's the joy of i knew prufrock, the gut punch of long live the queen, the anger of both the title track and imperfect tense, and the ... read more

one might argue that no other rock album from the golden age of rock is necessary given that every highlight of that era is outshone by at least one song on here. every hook sticks, every solo wrings emotion, every emotion is represented (because make no mistake, ween did get darker than ever here). the ultimate pastiche to the old rock albums of the 60s and 70s that just outdoes them all with ingenious songwriting and perfect vibes.

here on a trial basis but this is the premier bill of opn i want. hazy synths filled with emotion, hypnagogic compositions that are still assured and guided in their flow, catchy melodies, a pop song in here with the title track, but all of this has the honor of sitting alongside the incredible noise of nil admirari. it's also kind of thematically the entire thesis of vaporwave-esque electronics boiled down as far as it can be with all the reprises and the hazy journey that is not a journey ... read more

This one is very personal, as I listened to this constantly while battling with depression and alienation during my first year of college. Safe to say, this is Jesse Lacey taking in the legacy of the music he's written (AND the crimes he's committed, he is not getting off the hook for that and i absolutely disavow capitalistically supporting this band), confronting himself with the sum total, and realising that even if he may not have been all or even mostly good, that he still has to move on, ... read more

holy shit i did not expect to be punched this hard in the face

My introduction to hip-hop, Mike Skinner is effortlessly charismatic and perfectly plays the chav. If Frank Turner is your idealised 16-year-old English self, Skinner is your mate who gets by pretty well and probably has one or two issues but he's well-intentioned n always down for a pint. The beats are utterly distinctive as Skinner starts branching out slightly from his garage formula he pioneered on Original Pirate Material while matching the instrumentation perfectly to each story beat as ... read more

One of the only albums of its era to have aged perfectly, it is INSANELY well-made and while the lyrics are simplistic, Reznor was at least being interesting and making them conceptual. It is so perfectly uneasy, and its poppier moments do hit with some belter choruses and infectious hooks. A true testament to the 90s.

the lips go for pure horror and make the most underrated album in their discography. the sound palette is harsh and fiercely minimal while coyne's small vocal register enhances the fear that all these songs impart. an album that sounds entirely like its cover.

this may be recency bias but. my god. while i like and respect phil elverum's music, i wouldn't be a devoted fan. but this song absolutely wrecked me. and it absolutely is just one song, not really with movements, it just carries on for 44 full minutes. and i see this GROWING on me even more. it carries phil's fully formed sound into a record that is both his biggest and his smallest. truly unquantifiable to describe the feeling one gets with this record.

edit: yeah this isn't recency bias i ... read more

simply brilliant.

The Radiohead album where the paranoia finally took over the album. If ever an album felt actively hostile to the listener, it would be this. The genre shifts from song to song are held together only by their oppressive atmosphere and Yorke's vocals. The reprise of Hunting Bear and the illusory seeming reprise of Like Spinning Plates help give this thing cohesion and the mindfuck ending of Life in a Glasshouse feels like the end of an era, as if from here Radiohead would never be the same. And ... read more

ok hear me out but this megaman rock opera is actually fucking amazing

the recording is absolutely top notch and boasts the lush production value that would only be matched by ...like clockwork. The genre switch-up in the second half is genius, and the fade into Act I with Here Comes the Arm is one of the most inspired compositional choices i've ever heard. I have no hopes for Act III ever releasing or remotely matching this, but i'm glad we got this really far-too-well written opera that i ... read more

the 90s were an awkward period of fusion, as the digital increasingly became more integrated into our lives. and while the vision forward was rather pessimistic because... well, why wouldn't it be? - post is like the positive vision of the 90s fully realised. bjork's arrangements are insane throwing all kinds of instruments about, her delivery is perfectly pitched and hits the mood just right, and every one of these songs is catchy and enjoyable. i love.