Polyrythms! African music hues all throughout! Remain in Light is often lauded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and it fully deserves all the praise it gets. This isn’t just a regular album—it’s a tapestry of funk, layered rhythms, and brilliant production that pushes the boundaries of genres.

Side 1 kicks off with Born Under the Punches, a funky, chaotic opener that sets the tone for everything to come. Layered sounds, Tina Weymouth’s slappy and funky bass, ... read more

Elton John meets cocaine! What's the result? Caribou, a weaker album compared to its predecessor, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. While Caribou is one of the weakest entries of Elton’s golden period, it’s still a fun pop album and deserves some respect, even if it isn’t quite #1 chart material.

Opening with the hit single The Bitch Is Back, Caribou immediately sets the tone as a pop-rock album that’ll get your head bopping. But after the opener, Elton starts to make it ... read more

Rest In Peace Andy Fletcher, it's been two years but I still haven't been able to accept the fact that you've passed on.

For the first time in the band's history, Depeche Mode are a duo. Soon after losing founding member and keyboard player Andy Fletcher, they went into the studio contemplating death after the tragic and untimely loss, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic that was ravaging the world for much of the lyric-writing process. The result, Memento Mori is Depeche ... read more

Long John Baldry may have saved Elton John’s life, but Thom Bell saved his voice, enabling him to become the powerhouse live vocalist he was during his “prime live” era from 1979–85. Though their collaboration didn’t result in a fully fleshed-out album, the EP we got is a real treat, blending Elton’s interest in Philadelphia soul with Bell’s masterful production.

The opening track, Nice and Slow, is a fun listen and our first real introduction to ... read more

Well, here’s a biter. Elton John hops on the disco bandwagon—though this was late 1979, when disco was already out of fashion and widely hated. Timing issues aside, this album is far from the finest he has to offer.

An eight-minute-long, disco-oriented cover of Johnny B. Goode by Elton John sounds like something out of a fever dream, but it… it exists. One redeeming quality? There’s a shorter, four-minute single version (if memory serves me right), which is slightly ... read more

The album that kick-started Elton John’s golden run of six albums to chart #1 on the US Billboard 200. But does Honky Château still hold up after five decades? The short answer is: yes, yes it does.

Showcasing his true talents as a vocalist while continuing his springy piano playing, Elton comes alive with the hit singles Honky Cat, Rocket Man, and Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters (a song that would get a sequel 15 years later on 1988’s Reg Strikes Back). All the other non-single ... read more

I liken this album to a car wreck on fire that you'd drive by and can't stop looking at. Seriously, what was going in that studio?? After re-uniting with Gus Dudgeon, the producer for his golden commercial era, one would expect Elton to go back to his glam rock style that made him one of the most famous men alive on the planet the decade prior. Instead, we get an album with terrible cheesy synths that scream mid-80s and lyrics that are less than stellar (I mean, what's the deal ... read more

After a string of six consecutive #1 albums in the US, Elton John hit a period of stagnation in the late 70s, with albums that failed to match his earlier chart-topping success. After this stagnation period, Elton proved he still has what it takes to produce a well-rounded album that can be successful in the charts with 1983's Too Low For Zero, after re-uniting with his classic band from the early 70s, whom we last got to listen to in 1975's Captain Fantastic, as well as re-uniting ... read more

Having taken the world by storm with The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd are back with Animals, an album with long songs, lyrics that are socially critical and with Gilmour's best guitar work of his esteemed career. After a decent start to the album with Pigs On The Wing 1, we're thrust straight into Dogs, a 17 minute masterpiece that is, in my humble opinion, the greatest song ever created, with it's amazing guitar solos, sharp lyrics taking jabs at the ... read more

Following his previous effort Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player from the same year, Elton John returned several months later with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, an album that truly cemented his place as one of the leading figures in 1970's pop. The opening track(s) Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding takes the listener on an 11 minute long journey of pure artistic skill showcase. Side 1 has no intent of giving the listener a break as it jumps straight into Candle In The ... read more

If there was an album I could call perfect, it would surely be Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. The first album where Elton and his band were given all the time they needed to produce and they absolutely delivered. From the scathing criticism of the music industry in Tower of Babel to Elton's passionate vocals during Someone Saved My Life Tonight (he was actually crying in the studio when producing that song), side 1 is an absolute lyrical journey, with it both focusing on ... read more

At this point in time, I believe everything that can be said about this album has been said. A band that started the decade as your average synthpop band influenced by the "newest thing" have gone above and beyond to create an album that never gets boring even after countless of re-listens.
Every track from start to finish is a fun listen, and I just can't get enough of Violator.

The first album that really introduced Depeche Mode to an audience outside of Europe, Music For The Masses is one of the greatest albums of the decade, and the first real incorporation of real instruments like the guitar were foreshadowing their ability to masterfully blend synths with real instruments.

After truly finding their sound, the band have produced the well celebrated Black Celebration, which I consider to be the first in their "golden years" in my eyes (in my opinion, their golden years differ from what the mainstream opinion is).
Every track, including the bonuses, work well and the production has also improved slightly since the previous effort, Some Great Reward.

It truly feels like Depeche Mode hit their stride with Some Great Reward. Martin Gore leans fully into his darker-toned lyricism, while Alan Wilder has mastered the art of using samplers, synthesizers and musical layering to create memorable tracks that are instant earworms. For the first time on a Depeche Mode record, every single track feels essential—I never find myself skipping any of them when shuffling my Depeche Mode playlist.

The explosive energy of tracks like Something to Do ... read more

With the addition of Alan Wilder's musical efforts, this album was Depeche Mode really starting to come into that sampler-driven industrial sound they've come to be known for. While the best is yet to come as the band were still trying to get the balance right, this is a really good improvement from the previous album. Highlights include Love,In Itself , More Than a Party, Everything Counts and Told You So.

After Vince Clarke's departure, the now three-piece Depeche Mode (Alan Wilder wouldn't join them in the studio until the follow-up album) entered the studio determined to prove that losing their primary songwriter wouldn’t spell the end of the band. While later albums would solidify this resilience, A Broken Frame falls short of that goal. Much of the album consists of forgettable pop tracks that lack the refinement and depth we’d come to expect from Depeche Mode in the ... read more

Speak and Spell, the debut album of the band, and also the only album they made under the leadership of founding member Vince Clarke. It also holds a special place in my heart as it was the first Mode album I ever listened to when I was 8, after my dad set up his sound system and put this on, and I subsequently became a life-long Mode fan and to this day, I still consider the track Photographic from side 2 as my favourite Depeche Mode song. And I also think it would be blasphemy for me to write ... read more