In 1982, Laura Branigan had been making music, unnoticed, for about 10 years. She’d been part of the unsuccessful folk rock band "Meadow", briefly been a backup singer for Leonard Cohen, and even, around 1981, recorded her first solo album for Atlantic Records, though it went unreleased. She did however get a second try with 1982’s "Branigan", her actual debut studio album, which achieved moderate success, with its second single "Gloria" pushing her to ... read more

In 2018, Claire Cottrill, better known as Clairo, had been making songs for quite some time. She had started doing music when she was 13, first covering a Maroon 5 song in 2012, before releasing her own song demos online over the following years. But it’s in 2017, when she released the music video for "Pretty Girl", that her career truly broke out. The video garnered over 17M views on Youtube by the following year, being noticed by music listeners, and by music labels, including ... read more

Beats are pretty generic, if not dated. Still, with this being Taylor's first collaboration with Shellback and Max Martin since 2017’s Reputation, away from Jack Antonoff, I liked them better than a lot of Taylor's output these last few years. They range from mid to good enough, which, while I'm still not going to remember them much, is better than 2 hours of bore.

Lyrics-wise, this would be your average Taylor Swift record, swinging between "barely ... read more

While listening to Alessandra Mussolini's "Tokio Fantasy", as one does, I was transported from one Italian rabbit-hole to another, as I got recommended Moana Pozzi's "Nuda", a song so bad I HAD to look further into it.

So, looking at a few Wikipedia articles, here's what I got about Moana:
- She was a very prominent 1980s Italian pornstar, doing a major number of movies, selling a major amount of tapes, appearing on the covers of many magazines (porn or not), ... read more

In 1996, Lil' Kim was one of few big female names in rap, perhaps even the biggest, and her hypersexual "gangsta bitch" persona highly influenced many female rappers after her, from Nicki Minaj to Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B.

This album is not necessarily really notable for its conscious lyrics, more so for Kim trying to sound as filthy as possible, but she is a great rapper and some beats are really cool, whether they are kind of funky, cold, sensual, or a mix of those. I ... read more

I can't think of any rap record this angry before it. Love Ice Cube's rapping, and there are a lot of really cool beats here, too. Good album, though not one I'm going to come back to too often.

Best : "The Nigga Ya Love To Hate", "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted", "A Gangsta's Fairytale", "What They Hittin' Foe?", "The Bomb", "Once Upon a Time in the Projects"
Worst : "Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch To ... read more

Energetic beats with folk instrumentation, and vocals and lyrics reminescent of 90s/2000s French chanson or indie rock. Really cool stuff! Don't know anything quite like it, AND it's extremely consistent. Especially cool to listen to while driving.

Best : "Savoir", "Les nuits parisiennes", "Ton invitation", "J't'emmène au vent", "L'imposture", "Toute cette histoire"
Worst : "Arrache-moi", ... read more

France Gall's second album was a better re-do of the first one, with 4 additional tracks, better cover art, and as a 12" record instead of a 10". This album is the exact same thing, but with her third record. Which unfortunately means a lot of this album are still children's music. But fortunately, there are new songs which are genuinely worthy of your time, most of all "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", one of the best French songs of the 1960s, if not ... read more

"Sacré Charlemagne", despite being one of the most famous songs from one of my favorite French singers, I'm no fan of. It's cheesy, and not necessarily in a good way. A lot of songs on this album, like the former, seem to be targeted at children. Or at least I hope they are? "Laisse tomber les filles", though, is really good, and one of her most notable 60s songs, but it's really the only song on the whole album I genuinely care about.

Best : ... read more

Pretty much the same as France Gall's debut LP, but with 4 additional songs, a new track order, a new cover, and as a 12" instead of a 10" record. I'd call this the superior version.

Best : "Pense à moi", "N'écoute pas les idoles", "Ne dis pas aux copains", "Jazz à gogo", "Mes premières vraies vacances"
Worst : "Si j'étais garçon", "La cloche"

France Gall is one of my favorite French singers, but I never paid much attention to her first albums, until now. And I am pleasantly surprised by this first effort. "Yé-yé" pop, some fine ballads, and even some songs with rocky or jazzy instrumentation. Most are pretty average, but I liked one or two tracks. Plus, her singing wasn't always perfect back then, but she was only 16 so it's okay.

Best : "Pense à moi", "N'écoute ... read more

Competent rock 'n roll covers.

Best : "Le pénitencier", "Je te reverrai", "Toujours plus loin"
Worst : "Mais je reviens", "Les mauvais garçons"

Johnny Hallyday introduced France to rock 'n roll in 1960. He kept on doing rock 'n roll almost to the end of the 1960s while the world moved on to beat music, then psychedelic rock, blues rock and hard rock. And up to this day, he might be the face of French rock, despite having been a popstar for most of his career. Yeah, France was not kind to rock music. This one album is fine, though, plus Johnny seemed like a nice bloke, and he did some pretty cool stuff in the late 1960s and ... read more

I love Parliament, I love George Clinton, and I love P-Funk. Every song in here is really groovy, instrumentation is perfect (the bass, the brass section...), and a lot of this album feels like background music to the start of a pretty classy party. Good vibes. I just wish there were a bit more bops, you know? That would have made me move a bit more? Just for the sake of variety. The alien invasion plot present throughout the album is cool, though.

Best : "Mothership Connection (Star ... read more

I had never heard any Nickelback song from beginning to end before today, and yet I knew they were one of the most hated bands of all time. Do many songs on this album sound alike? Sure. Are lyrics really mediocre? Yeah. Are Kroeger's vocals grating? Well, not to me, but I understand that they can be to some. Can the same not be said about 80% of 2000s rock albums, none of which have such a bad rap? Probably. So why does this one get the short hand of the stick? Because they were ... read more

One of those Les Charlots records I can actually find pleasure in listening to. Hated "Gustine oh ! Gustine" at first, but I've really come around to it, and title track "Je m'énerve" is pretty entertaining, its contrasting lyrics (a song about being angry) and jazzy, almost lounge-like sound. "Le clown" is one of their rare more serious songs, and I quite like it. Wish they did more. Good effort by a band that very rarely exhibit their full ... read more

"Je suis trop beau", a parody of singer Jacques Dutronc (you can even catch a hint of "J'aime les filles", especially in the vocal delivery), is really funny even if you don't know who it refers to, with how egocentric the narrator of the song seems to be. Probably one of their best parodies, a style of comedy they often tried their hand at, and often failed at spectacularly (think "Si tous les hippies avaient des clochettes", "Toot toot ... read more

Some songs are arguably even more cheesy than their 1980s output, and not necessarily in a way that appeals to me, but I did appreciate some deep cuts. Still, not an album I see myself coming back to very often.

Best : "Starrider", "Fool for You Anyway", "I Need You", "The Damage Is Done"
Worst : "Feels Like the First Time", "Headknocker"

Cheesy, poppy, and very distinctly 80s rock. And yet, one of the first albums I ever became infatuated with. And listening to it again years later... well, it's fun. Sure, it's no Pink Floyd, but it does the job it's supposed to. "Juke Box Hero" is still a bop, I still love romantic ballad "Waiting for a Girl Like You" (which is rare enough to be mentioned), "Urgent" still sounds great, and I even like songs now that I didn't really care for ... read more

Not being much of a metalhead myself, I nonetheless always saw Black Sabbath as being the Godfathers of Metal, and had a great respect for Ozzy Osbourne, who I just learned past away today. This felt like an appropriate time to actually give Black Sabbath's first album a listen.

This doesn't seem to be Black Sabbath's, or Ozzy Osbourne's, hardest sounding album, but it was their first effort, and most-likely the first metal album ever (though not all songs on it can be ... read more