If you thought that Young's mid '90s albums were his most divisive, then you clearly haven't heard of his 2000s output. I do think the more popular opinion is that this is one of his weakest periods, but you still get quite a lot of those fans who praise and defend these albums to the grave despite them not even being all that good. One of the main offenders, though, is an album that is known as one of Young's worst to most, but of course still has its defenders, that being Are You ... read more

The second entry into the Versus series is yet another good one. The songs themselves were all really good, and the intro and outro were also noteworthy. Both of them were really well produced and caught my attention just as much as the songs themselves. The intro in particular already had me invested, making me really interested in seeing what everyone would make, and everyone managed to make something worthwhile.

Elitimesfour: Pretty damn good drum and bass track. I would have liked it a bit ... read more

Deep Purple in 2020... Did anybody want this? I mean, I know that long-time and diehard Deep Purple fans are going to suck this up like they do with their undeniable atrocities in ABandOn, Bananas, and Rapture Of The Deep, and I do agree with the general consensus of their post-2000s releases being better than their '80s-'00s releases, but I don't think anyone wants new Deep Purple anymore. Deep Purple had their time in the '70s. Their Mark I lineup in the '60s was good, the Mark II lineup was ... read more

The best metal band called Poison.

Poison are perhaps one of the more underground first wave black metal artists who actually made an impact on the genre as a whole. The mid-to-late '80s in general was a time where extreme metal was starting to gain traction and actually become a solid genre, and is also arguably the best period of both of these extreme genres, with early death metal artists such as Death and Possessed still being cited as some of the best the genre had to offer, and black ... read more

Poison... When we're talking about the absolute worst of hair metal, there is definitely a lot to talk about. It is one of the most embarrassing genres, and it doesn't help that it was so damn mainstream at the time that a lot of these awful "musicians" somehow managed to make some of the most overplayed rock anthems you can think of. But if you ask me, there's only one that comes to mind as the absolute worst. Sure, KISS may be untalented and have never done anything that actually ... read more

For Neil's first release of the millenium and his first album in four years (his longest hiatus in his entire career), he decides to make... a very reminiscent and nostalgic album. Hooray?

Silver & Gold - and the rest of his 2000s output in general - is a very overlooked record, being one that isn't necessarily disliked but is very quickly waved away. Reading some reviews going into this, I was hoping to get an album that would stick out as a hidden gem in his long discography. Y'know, one ... read more

Young's final solo studio '90s release is, shock horror, another highly divisive album. I think most people can at least agree that this is his weakest release of the decade (barring that one CSNY album), or at the very least bottom two. But still, like literally every single album released from '94 to this point, it's one that you can find just as many fans as haters. And honestly, I can't even argue this time around. While I do like this album a lot more than Mirror Ball, which is definitely ... read more

Back to trying to get through Whitehouse's discography again, and hopefully this time 'round I actually manage to finish it. Was kind of excited to get into their later discography, seeing as their '90s and onwards releases are seen as more innovative and original when compared to their '80s output where they basically made the same album nine times in a row with very little change, but Thank Your Lucky Stars didn't end up giving me too much hope. While there is a clear change in sound between ... read more

I think this goes without saying at this point, but, as with all Neil Young albums released during this mid '90s period, this is yet another extremely polarizing record. Again, like the two before it, you can find just as many people heralding this as one of Young's greatest works as those who see it as one of his weakest. And again, like the previous two albums, it is perfectly understandable why there are two extremes. This period of Young's career was one of experimentation, completely ... read more

Miles In The Sky is an album that can and unfortunately should be seen as nothing more than a transitional record. As much as I want to be one of those people heralding this as one of Miles' hidden gems, a masterpiece that shows huge changes and Davis' willingness to expand on the sound he stuck with for multiple decades, all Miles In The Sky really proves to me is the latter. This album is a very obvious one, what you would expect when an artist who has stuck with an acoustic sound for over ... read more

One of the few '60s records that I can say was truly ahead of its time. This period of the decade, from 1966 through to 1969, was definitely one of, if not the most creative point in music history. There are so many examples of popular musicians completely changing their sound to a more relatively uncharacteristic sound, as well as many newcomers knocking down the bar and doing stuff that was previously unheard. Hell, if you just look at '66 alone, the amount of game-changers released during ... read more

Mirror Ball is another polarizing Neil Young album that some love and some hate. Personally, I don't really care about it one way or another. It's just a fine album if you ask me, with decent musicianship, but not much else.

This is undoubtedly one of Young's most overt grunge albums. I mean, obviously Ragged Glory was also very openly grunge, and his other '90s releases were clearly still within the genre, but for the first and only time on a studio release, Neil plays with Pearl Jam as his ... read more

This is without question the most polarizing Neil Young album there is. This album is one that has equal praise, claiming it's one of his all-time best efforts and likely a top ten or even five album of his, and negativity, with many going as far as to call this one of his absolute worst works. If you ask me, both of those opinions are highly exaggerated, as Sleeps With Angels is a good album, with good lyrics, commendable variety, and a sound that fits the theme well and gives it its own ... read more

Pike #278

It's probably mostly down to the fact that I'm just happy to hear new Buckethead content, but Unexpected Journeys unexpectedly ended up being one of my favourite Buckethead projects. Again, it is probably due to the fact that he hasn't released new content in... three months, which is way too long for Buckethead, making this (or whatever project it was he was going to release first) one of my most anticipated of the year. I mean, this and a ton of other projects were supposed to be ... read more

Nefertiti is Davis' final acoustic album in his entire career, and it surprisingly became one of my absolute favourites that I've heard from him thus far. After not loving Sorcerer that much, I did have a terrible feeling that this would be just as underwhelming, but thankfully it had the complete opposite effect of that album. Nefertiti is home to what I would call some of Miles' best works in his entire career up to this point, which is undoubtedly saying something.

In some ways, Nefertiti ... read more

Yeah, this is probably going to be my biggest unpopular opinion when it comes to Miles Davis. I like this album and actually think the performances are solid, but the songs themselves can be pretty fucking boring at times.

I was honestly really hoping to love Sorcerer. I mean, I had absolutely no reason going into it to think that this wouldn't be yet another strong outing from Miles' Second Great Quintet. In fact, from what I've read, this is often seen as being stronger than E.S.P. and on ... read more

When I was first getting into jazz, it was albums like these that I was gravitating more to. More avant-garde albums, with more unique instrumentation giving it that extra edge to make it an album that I would genuinely love to return to more. I only really discovered Max Roach's We Insist a couple of weeks ago, and have only really been listening to it for the past few days, but goddamn, I really wish this was an album that I discovered much earlier. This album leaves me absolutely floored ... read more

Yeah, I'm not feeling it.

Honestly, I just don't care about this album. I had a bad feeling going into it, especially considering a lot of the main criticisms I've seen being given to this album were ones that I had with last year's Charli, so I wasn't exactly going in with the highest of hopes. I do have to admit that, at first, I was pleasantly surprised. The first few tracks in particular are ones that I actually enjoy a lot, but it pretty quickly wears off of me.

As always with Charli's ... read more

The sequel that nobody knew they wanted, and one that probably nobody needed but is certainly welcome.

Harvest Moon is a very reminiscent album from Young. At this point in his career, he had already gone through so many styles. Whether that's psychedelic in the mid '60s, acoustic rock in the early '70s, some hard rock spread all throughout his career, a mish-mash of genres all throughout the '80s, and by 1992 he had already become known as the 'Godfather of Grunge' due to his heavily ... read more

And now we get onto the REALLY good shit!

After a fairly standard debut with his Second Great Quintet in E.S.P., the crew go all out, making some of the most grippingly energetic bop songs that he had made in his career thus far, with some nice, slower material which is just as good and captivating in its quality.

Miles Smiles is one of those albums that you just can't dislike. I mean, obviously if you don't enjoy Miles' music or jazz in general then this album won't change your mind, but if ... read more