A lot of these early '64 and '65 records from groups that would eventually become legends are in the one or two famous songs and a bunch of other stuff camp, but this one is definitely toward the upper end of that scale with way more really good stuff than just Sound of Silence. It does outshine everything else, of course, that's just what happens when you have one of the best songs ever written on your hands (even without the electric instrumentation--if your band isn't ... read more

It's still a pretty nice listen most of the time just by virtue of it being a Beach Boys record, but calling I Get Around this record at 99% strength would honestly be an understatement. Their best pre-Pet Sounds track (and one of the best and most endlessly fun early rock songs generally) being the opener here grants the rest of this so much good will, though the title track and a couple others are quite good in their own right as well. I can definitely see myself considering this another ... read more

The Rolling Stones' debut is nowhere near outright bad--I can definitely see why they were huge pretty much immediately in the UK and on the US top forty just two months later when the appetite for this sort of rock music was as massive as it was in '64. That said, unfortunately nothing here is that amazing or even seriously great either. It's about as blatant as blues worship gets when talking about early albums from the British Invasion bands, and while that's not ... read more

This might not seem super mind-blowing to most of today's listeners--maybe most just think of it as a regular good mid-sixties rock album--but there's no denying the influence of the Byrds' debut on their contemporaries to more confidently combine folk and rock, as well as its obvious link to later subgenres like jangle pop and even heartland rock. I mean, if you can't hear Tom Petty and R.E.M. all over this thing, you might need to listen again. But far from just an ... read more

Absolutely great entry in the annals of one-off singer-songwriter records here--so glad to see sites like aoty are finally pushing it harder, as I might not have thought to check it out otherwise. And produced by Paul Simon! Who knew? This had me hooked from the downright beautiful opening track Blues Run the Game, but really it is just fantastic the entire time. Years before Nick Drake or many other of the super stripped-down folk singers like him, here's someone proving you don't ... read more

Nine times out of ten, a band as serious as The Beach Boys were becoming by 1965 doesn't release an album four months after their previous one without a label breathing down their neck to do so, so I wasn't expecting anything flooring or even as good as Beach Boys Today here. And while that's certainly the case, this releasing so soon due to Today not selling as well as Capitol would've liked and seeing the band largely return to the teen beach romance well for song topics, ... read more

It might've taken them spamming out five records in under sixteen months, but The Rolling Stones finally managed to announce their presence in the British Invasion scene with the track Satisfaction and its accompanying album Out of Our Heads. Like The Who's debut, this has the aforementioned all-time classic you've heard a million times regardless of how into early rock you are, a secondarily great track in Play With Fire, and a bunch of other stuff that ranges from also really ... read more

The obvious star of the show here is the title track and its first rumblings of what would eventually become punk rock a decade later, but the rest of this is still for the most part a great classic garage rock record in its own right. Out in the Street and La-La-La Lies are great early tracks you might not have heard, and The Kids Are Alright is always an absolute joy to listen to as well. Deeper into the second half things get a tiny bit spotty--Please, Please, Please, I'm a Man, and A ... read more

You could probably curate something like an album and a half of really fantastic material out of the first nine or ten records The Beach Boys released pre-Pet Sounds, but as the supposed best of that crop this is certainly no slouch. Similar to The Beatles' 1965, this album sees the band starting to move away from only teen boy-girl romance for song topics, and that artistic evolution is certainly borne out in the music as well. Genuine classics like Help Me, Rhonda and Please Let Me ... read more

My tenth album of 1959, this one with a cover notably featuring quotes from Bill Evans's contemporary jazz greats proclaiming their love for him as an artist. A recommendation from the likes of Miles Davis, Ahmad Jamal, and Cannonball Adderley is all you should need to be convinced to check this one out, the music on here only serving to outright confirm the praise they gave him.

It's as much of a feast for the ears as many of the other great jazz records of the time with tracks ... read more

Another banger by one of the best to ever do it, this being (wildly enough) the third full-length record he released in 1959 as well as the direct follow-up to Kind of Blue. It's obviously not as amazing as that record, but you have the man himself on trumpet, John Coltrane on sax, and the always fantastic Paul Chambers on bass, so there's basically no way to not have a great time listening to this.

The compositions written by Davis himself are great as are the ones covering Dave ... read more

It's simultaneously wild and not at all surprising that Nina Simone's debut album is this great. The song selection here is basically a who's who of great early 20th century writers--Ellington, Rodgers, Hart, Hammerstein, Gershwin--but her voice feels perfect for all of them. Mood Indigo, the title track, Love Me or Leave Me--these all feel like instant classics even if you can't remember ever hearing them before. And even instrumental cuts like You'll Never Walk Alone ... read more

Absolutely wonderful stuff that it's taken me far too long to get to. So soft and quietly passionate, but what I really love here is how the vocals are never remotely showy or even really that technically proficient like they are with most of the other vocal jazz greats you hear talked about. When all the emotions are on display as well as they are here, Etta James-level belting is hardly a requirement.

I'll be keeping this in rotation for sure--sometimes a white boy reaching out ... read more

Joji has made some really good tracks in this modern, chill r&b lane before (see Slow Dancing in the Dark, Glimpse of Us), but you likely won’t find many of them here. This has already been described as an album of about two-thirds interlude and one third actual songs, and that’s basically accurate to the experience of listening to it through–more so than even his last record, it feels perfect for Spotify-curated vibes playlists and TikTok attention spans rather than ... read more

Almost any discography containing ten albums in as many years and half as many EPs isn’t going to be amazing across the board, even from someone as genuinely talented as Poppy has proven she is. To be sure, even on a record that’s been accurately labeled safe and predictable as mainstream metal goes, both her clean singing and harsh vocals are absolutely great–the best part of pretty much every track here, actually. Where this does falter, however, is in the ultra-clean ... read more

Mandy, Indiana’s second album is as wild and out there as you’d expect an industrial group named after the midwestern U.S. with a lead singer who performs almost entirely in French despite being British to be. On, URGH, screeching guitars and pounding drums combine with wonderfully hypnotic vocals to make something with more than a couple moments that seriously demand to be heard. It is an uneven record, with a very cool but imperfect front half and a back half that’s largely ... read more

Baby Keem’s half-decade awaited sophomore record has thus far been received positively overall by many fans, and that seems understandable enough. The title track–eccentrically-delivered with some cool beat switches–is intriguing, the creatively produced, well-performed, super lyrically personal stuff is just that, and the more head-empty stuff to satisfy casual repeat listens is there too. For someone coming in not as a massive fan of basically whatever’s new in popular ... read more

Dry Cleaning’s third album seems poised to cement the British post-punkers as one of these indie groups who somehow consistently manage way more critical attention and praise from major review sites than their actual music deserves. Rather than have very many new and interesting ideas to bring to the table here, they borrow stock angular guitars and minimal drumming from post-punk’s original underground and trade in the exciting weirdness of those groups for the logical endpoint of ... read more

The outright rejection by many of Bruno Mars’s return after a near-decade long break from the studio as a solo artist is a bit surprising, honestly. This has already been described as wedding reception-core by some, but his debut record is far more guilty of that while being relatively tolerated these days compared to what feels poised to be his worst-received release yet. Sure, The Romantic is far from a step up from Silk Sonic or even a confident doubling-down on its best aesthetics, ... read more

The debut full-length record from synthpop artist Hemlocke Springs already seems like it’ll remain a fairly polarizing one. From just the album artwork here and on her 2023 EP, you can glean that she’s cultivating a similar vibe to, like, a glittery Cartoon Network show–a choice apt to endear and turn off potential fans in equal measure–and the music certainly bears that out at times as well. And as for the other element often acting as the quickest non-starter for music ... read more