hot take: it's quite good! ... but not much more than that. has some STELLAR moments, hell, i'd say "nude" is a 10/10 song. but there are also more than a few moments in this record's play-time that i borderline just DON'T like. sorry!~ (still a good album tho)!!!

"smile" exploded, and this album is the aftermath. it's kind of sad, really. brian self-sabotaged the entire project, and what is left is just a shadow. it's not bad, though, but it's certainly a 180° turn from pet sounds established and what smile was going for. the biggest flaw is how neutered "heroes and villains" and even "good vibrations" sound; brian removed entire sections of those songs (ever hear the "hum-be-da, humbeda ooo ... read more

gotta tell you... i was expecting worse.
yeah, it's far from their best... FAR, FAR from it... but i really don't think it deserves the hate it gets. there are some pretty decent songs in here! yeah, lots are covers, lots are throw-away, but man, at worst it's forgettable and boring, and i guess if you are following up your legacy of pet sounds and smile, that's understandable. but on its own terms, it's certainly a step up from their two previous efforts (in my ... read more

(PROBABLY) my favorite bob dylan record. some of, if not his best lyrics holistically, paired with what i'd consider the ideal dylan soundtrack, i mean... it's another one of those albums that are so flawlessly executed that it's difficult to mention any one song in particular... really just a landmark in contemporary folk and singer-songwriter, up there with highway and blonde, if not superior!

a safe but still very solid return.

i'll be honest, i don't get it. i just don't get it! but i am clearly the odd one out here, so maybe i am probably the crazy one here. to my ears, there is little to nothing novel in this, it's just... rap... legit, it sounds like a total universal distillation of the concept of rap into one continuous 40 minute long sound to me. am i going crazy? what do you guys hear in this that i don't??? it just sounds so incredibly normal to me.

rolling stone gave this a 100 and pink floyd's the wall a 60

i guess this whole thing is more about rejuvenating/updating the entire anthology project as a whole (including the tv documentary) rather than just this one new compilation, so if we consider that, then sure this isn't bad... but when you look at it in isolation, it is hard not to be disappointed. only a fraction of the tracks are new, and a fraction of those are at all interesting... not to mention the new version of "real love" (which WAS my favorite song of the three, and ... read more

weird, disjointed, creative, but at times also a little dull. i honestly only remember only a few stand out moments on this record, and the rest very much just felt like half-baked van der graaf generator demos. it's not bad, but certainly among the least necessary hammil and vdgg listens in my opinion. but the cover art is nice! and the song "child" is actually very good. "happy" is also decent!

fun as hell

nonstop absurd nonsense... if nothing else, you gotta admit it's fascinating(ly stupid). what other album can you say had a pipe-organ jam-session solo? if i had to choose between this, apostrophe, and one size fits all, i'd honestly probably say this is the best one; as i said earlier, it's an absolute ride of ridiculous chaos. if you don't like this, you just aren't listening to it correctly, listen to it how you would watch a comedy movie, let it do its thing and ... read more

it makes you wonder what else they (the beatles) could have done if they had just stuck together a little longer considering how strong their post-breakup material is. paul wrote some of the most melodic and complex crowd pleasers of them all, john became a cultural icon for a much larger movement ontop of his deeply meaningful music, george established himself as just as good a songwriter as lennon & mccartney (potentially even better than them for a moment!), and ringo... well... we love ... read more

people don't know what makes good, nor do they know what makes it bad! as an album, this thing is psychotic, the track listing is nonsensical, and (some of) the "horror" songs sprinkled within it are generally just dogshit to listen to... sure, it works in-game, but listening to them on their own requires a type of brain that i just do not have. but with all that being said, i'd still say the highlights are extremely strong, and really compliment the story. some more ... read more

i respect it more than i enjoy it... that is to say i do not enjoy myself almost at all listening to this. it is so deeply troubled that it's hard to listen to. but the songs themselves are beautiful despite being so intensely drenched with grief, and the lyrics are pure nocturne poetry. it is a rare spin, but a necessary one sometimes. shit's fucked, man.

there are some fairly addicting moments, but i gotta admit that quite a lot of it is just cheap beatles-esque/beach-boys-esque whimsy and prog-slop. the album cover is crazy though!

it is crazy how much better "discovery" is than this. there are some tracks so incomprehensibly unlistenable from this record that i seriously pose a threat to humans around me. i do NOT get what people see in this, it is just straight ASS to me, i'm sorry. not even "around the world" can save this, which itself is a terrible song; absolutely no melody, just an annoying ass loop that and never ends, it tests my patience better than any of the most extreme buddhist ... read more

a very unique concept album you'll never really forget listening to for your first time. an incredibly cold and lonely journey into what i can only describe as a depiction of hell, or at least some sort of purgatory or limbo where time stands still. no, it isn't the first of its type, nor is any one track a paradigm of its genre (with the possible exception of "how to disappear completely")... but as a whole, from beginning to end, it is very well made, and i believe ... read more

john zorn.

for me, this is the culmination (and possible perfection) of everything they've worked with and for since 2010, although there is nothing left-field at this point. as typical with swans, it is horrifying to an incomprehensible and apocalyptic degree, but in contrast to what you might expect, i find moments on this record to hold... some sort of happiness? reluctant, of course, hidden deep within its sound, but i feel it; in particular within the ending of "(rope) away" and the ... read more

obnoxious as fuck... but there's something to it.