Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #482

Overrated/Underrated?: Appropriately Rated

This is definitely one of the most fun hip hop records I've listened to in awhile. The Pharcyde play with absurdity, horror and a funky-jazzy style of production and they don't take themselves too seriously in the process. This album sounds like the platonic ideal of getting together with your friends to make an album where you just talk a bunch of shit.

That description does justice to ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #483

Overrated/Underrated?: Overrated

When the 2020 RS list dropped, the narrative I remember hearing was that Rolling Stone had caved to wokeness and tried to include all of these women and people of color (gasp!) in the list and downplayed a lot of the greatest albums as a result. This narrative was especially potent because everyone had heard that Marvin Gaye's social justice-y album supplanted the Beatles at the top of the ... read more

Disney Adult Core

But for real, this is my first time listening to this bad and I get the hate, but I definitely don't hate this as much as apparently the rest of the world does. Some of y'all roast this band lol.

I have a lot of respect for Chris Stapleton as an artist. I view him as one of the people who injected a much needed dose of honesty back into country music when it was in the depths of a Luke Bryan-Florida Georgia Line fuckboy hellscape. And obviously he's a talented vocalist and a pretty solid songwriter on top of all of that.

That said, I can't help but feel that he's been creating the same record over and over again with only minor variations since Traveller. To be fair, creating the same ... read more

One of the problems I generally run into with shoegaze records is the noise-y sound that they go for often winds up resulting in a formless sound which makes it hard to distinguish one song from the next and the whole thing winds up being one big boring blob.

But quannic (who are definitely at least heavily influenced by shoegaze) don't run into this issue. Listen to the guitar solo that opens 'South' if you want to dispel any of your worries that nothing on this record would stand out. ... read more

ALBUMS THAT I WOULD HAVE PLACED ON ROLLING STONE'S 500 LIST: #3

I read the 2012 Rolling Stone list when it came out and this is one of the albums I discovered (and fell in love with) off of that list. So I guess you could say this is the first of many criminal acts committed by Rolling Stone in the production of this list.

Shoot Out the Lights is undoubtedly the masterwork of Richard and Linda Thompson. Just when they were on the verge of everything falling apart, from their musical careers ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #484

Overrated/Underrated?: Overrated

Lady Gaga was one of those artists where, I hadn't really ever done a deep dive on her music but I always kind of thought that, if I did, I would enjoy her music. I enjoy some of her hits from this era, such as the title track of this record and I'm generally a poptimist so it seems like she could be right up my alley. In that regard, this album was a pretty significant disappointment.

As I said, ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #485

Overrated/Underrated?: Underrated

After Henry the Human Fly was rejected by critics and listeners alike, Richard Thompson formed a relationship and married Linda Peters, a vocalist who helped him on the record. They began recording together and became known for some of the most powerful, but dismal music to ever come out of English folk-rock.

Perhaps it was the fact that Thompson had realized that he abandoned his ... read more

One of the most eclectic records I've listened to in a long time. Mon Laferte transitions seamlessly between several different styles and genres and yet throughout the record manages to not sound schizophrenic. One minute, Mon Laferte is belting out dance pop anthems and the next she's singing bossa nova inspired acoustic ballads.

'Mew Shiny' is definitely a highlight. The production is explosive and every time I hear Mon Laferte screams "I'm heeeere" it sends chills down my spine. ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #486

Overrated/Underrated?: Overrated

From the moment the intro of "Waiting on the World to Change" kicked off, I thought to myself: "holy shit am I about to love a John Mayer album??" By midway through the song I was in the midst of a full blown musical-identity crisis. And I regret to inform you all that: this John Mayer album is really not bad. It's not great either but it's not bad.

The opening track is a ... read more

PinkPantheress' debut is pristine bubblegum pop at it's finest. But don't let the pretty, shimmering production and PinkPantheress' delicate vocals fool you, this album can get really fucking dark. In the opener she sings about trying to wake up her dead lover. I listened to this as I fumbled over my coffee machine this morning and was like WTF??

PinkPantheress explores standard themes of bubblegum pop but does so while filtered through her own dark edge. "I waste my life/ On looks that ... read more

Amor Muere (which means 'love dies') is a fitting name for this experimental piece. There's a dark and morose undertone in all of these tracks but not so much so that the listen becomes a slog. The music is simple, almost to the point of minimalism but it doesn't lack the formlessness that minimalism often does.

"Love Dies" (the track) is definitely a highlight here. It's here that the different members of the collective seem to come together most cohesively and create a beautiful, ... read more

Nostalgic lyrics with a sound that's reminiscent of emo. Definitely a good album if you want something that sounds liberating and will you remind you of being in irresponsible and in your teens. The lyrics and the storytelling are definitely the strong point on this record.

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #487

Overrated/Underrated?: Overrated

I guess I should start this out by saying that I used to be obsessed with this album. I discovered this album when I was in my teens and it was kind of the perfect album to speak to me at that point in my life.

It's a bit harder to appreciate as an adult. I still love "Rise Above" which is an awesome punk anthem. "TV Party" kind of sounds like a teenagers attempt to parody ... read more

ALBUMS THAT I WOULD HAVE PLACED ON ROLLING STONE'S 500 LIST: #2

Covering the Stooges for my Rolling Stone list made me think of another album that I feel should have been on that list. And that is, the *true* inventors of punk rock: the Sonics.

It's kind of amazing too that this band is really just a group of kids from Tacoma, Washington who played garage rock insanely fucking hard. Anyhow, they played it so hard that the likes of Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain simply had to take notice and model ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #488

Overrated/Underrated?: Underrated

So what do you do when "It's 1969 okay?...Another year with nothin' to do"? Well, apparently you invent punk rock and produce one of the genre's masterpieces.

The Stooges debut was panned at the time of it's release which isn't really surprising when you consider the fact that the second song on the album has some weird submissive sexual undertones and the third song is a ten minute ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #489

Overrated/Underrated?: Appropriately Rated

This is a weird one to review because Disc 4 is A Christmas Gift For You which appears later on this list (and is far and away the best part of this record). But I'll try to focus on the rest of the material since I plan to cover that at a later date.

It's tricky for another reason: Phil Spector is truly one of the most reprehensible people in the history of music but he was also one of ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #490

Overrated/Underrated?: Overrated

I'm not all that familiar with my country music history but as someone who grew up listening to a lot of country music growing up, this albums sounds incredibly fresh for having been released in the 70's. In fact, when I was listening to this one in the car, I was thinking of how I was going to compose this review, and I kind of just assumed it was a country album from the 80's and 90's. In it's ... read more

I always hate shitting on an artist for exploring a new genre/style. It feels like punishing behavior that I'd want to encourage. But, man, this new Kevin Abstract pivot was a misfire. The opening track is a perfect demonstration of this. When The Rope Post 2 Break is a song that sounds like it's building to something but it simply never gets there and it leaves you hanging (which I don't think is what the "Rope" in question is referencing). It's a baffling opening to the album from ... read more

Marnie Stern returns with an epic math rock album. Stern plays with such intensity and technical skill that it's almost an album of Stern showing off for 30 minutes (which would honestly be fine). But she brings an air of playfulness to the record that makes the listen really enjoyable. Fans of math rock or Marnie Stern will fine more than enough of what they're looking for on this album.

Highlights: Working Memory, Earth Eater