I liked that they continued the psychedelic feel onto The Hindu Times after their previous album, and Stop Crying Your Heart Out is of course up there with their best material. But half the tracks are forgettable. Liam and Noel's new relationships produced lightweight material and marks the beginning of Oasis's "whimsical short acoustic love song" period, which I don't think is what the band were best at or anyone listens to them for. Born on a Different Cloud is a ... read more

You can hear that it's an attempt to do something different after Be Here Now. The effects and the psychedelic jam sounds. Go Let It Out and Who Feels Love? actually work pretty well, and I can see why they were chosen as singles. I found the quote the band used in the first track funny. Little James shows Liam's lyrical exercises were a bit naff, but I don't think Sunday Morning Call is as bad as Noel thinks it is. Patchy but an interesting experiment in expanding their sound.

It was a bounce back after Be Here Now, if only because it wasn't compiled solely from songs of the post-1995 era. Acquiesce, Going Nowhere, and the two B-sides of Cigarettes & Alcohol are as strong as the A-sides. The jam session Swamp Song and the Beatles cover aren't the best, but those are the two only real hiccups in what is a quality collection.

It's a step down from the band's first two albums, primarily because it sounds overstuffed, like they'd already given in to their own hype. Now Morning Glory was very loud too, but this is mastered so harshly there's barely room for the ballads to breathe. All Around the World might be good, but did it need to be that long? And then to have a reprise of it? Moments like My Big Mouth and Stand by Me have promise but are drowned out.

I think it's more immediate than Definitely Maybe and the band's ultimate statement. Even the four full tracks not released as singles are quality. But having six mint singles off of one album - Roll with It, Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger, Some Might Say, Morning Glory, and Champagne Supernova - speaks to how confident Oasis were after their debut and delivered on its promise.

An accomplished debut. The songs would turn out to be some of Oasis's best, and the aim of the music - to uplift rather than be a downer like American grunge - was an admirable statement that ended up defining Britpop. Live Forever is a classic for that reason as well. There were some great B-sides recorded around this time too, namely those for Cigarettes & Alcohol.

I get that it's a British country album, but why are there so many references to America? And so much paranoia amongst the regular working-class people it purports to represent? I'm not sure I see this as the successful character portrait masterpiece it's made out to be but it is still somewhat enjoyable and has its moments, like Skin and Bone.

I found this to be more memorable than Arthur, believe it or not, even if the music-business-is-soul-sucking-and-evil theme has been dialed up to 11 and songs like Lola and Apeman don't slot in very well but are there because they're successful singles.

It's probably a more clear execution of the concept Face to Face. It's at least a lot more cutting and direct, which makes its tone negative, but that's social commentary rock for you. I wouldn't say I find this to be as classic as it's made out to be but I appreciate its ambition and tracks like Victoria.

The baroque pop self-contained stories are endearing. It's storytelling galore from here on out for the Kinks and it's easy to see why, when this worked so well for them. You can hear practically hear the birth of Parklife and other later typically British albums here.

Standard '80s rock fare from... Kool & the Gang. Pop rock everything here, and the funk took a backseat. It's hard not to say they changed their sound to fit in with the prevailing sound of the day but the results are at least mostly interesting. That being said, by the time Misled is over, the title and the fact they're trying to make it "Miss Lead" has been repeated more than enough. Cherish is a nice falsetto moment.

I found this to be a cut above both Celebrate! and Ladies' Night (the albums) for its cute positive title track and the fact that Joanna is their first track to be classic '80s pop-rock fare. The Gang really began focusing the guitar here. There are a few weak tracks in the back half, namely Home Is Where the Heart Is, which just felt boring.

Some nice grooves but nothing as distinctive as Celebration or Ladies' Night - there just isn't as big of a pop moment here. The lyrics at this point are starting to rehash disco tropes even if the music no longer is. No Show is a highlight and an exception.

Eumir Deodato and the band really try to amp up the pop appeal here, and Celebration is at least as good as Ladies' Night, if not a more broadly appealing and jubilant moment all around. It's just a shame nothing else here is of the same quality. An album full of songs of that quality would've been a classic of the late disco era.

The point where Kool & the Gang started to make more cohesive pop-worthy albums. Ladies' Night is a hell of a jam with its mantra-like lyrics. The rest might be more forgettable but it's still damn sure a cut above the Open Sesame days. Closing out with Too Hot, the second best moment, is a good choice.

It's the more funk jam incarnation of Kool & the Gang before James Taylor joined. Honestly nothing stood out to me. The instrumentals blend into one another. The title track with its vocals is kind of cringeworthy, Saturday Night Fever inclusion or not.

A melodic tour-de-force. The impact the title track had over the '70s, how it was an answer to the '60s, and how it's stuck around to this day show its quality and that this was the best way for Simon and Garfunkel to go out. Incorporating and adding to Peruvian folk melodies in El Condor Pasa (If I Could), and still delivering stories with a twist like Why Don't You Write Me show the standard of the duo's output never diminished.

I generally enjoyed it, and I liked the suite feel that the two parts of the title track that bookend the album have. That being said, I enjoyed In the Court of the Crimson King better, and I feel like what's going on here is like the best of the new lineup's jam sessions, the group adjusting and working out their sound. It's a worthwhile stop just not the most noteworthy. As a side note, wrapping the three tracks with lyrics with the instrumentals around it was nice touch.

I didn't expect the talk-rapping as I wasn't very familiar with Enter Shikari's style, but I think they make it work with the style of music they have going on. They've matched the dubstep breakdowns and D&B to the mood fairly well, and they're firmly in the-world's up-shit-creek-without-a-paddle mode. That being said, I think their studio banter and moments like in Gandhi Mate, Gandhi undermine their valid points rather than show they can be jovial too.

Maybe I'm being too lenient, but I viewed this in the 2014 context in which it was made. The EDM boom was over, and synth-pop was being delivered more earnestly than with the jadedness the rest of the 2020s gave the world. I admire the poptimism, even if it's not altogether original, but they sell it because it's not a one-and-done. I think Walk the Moon would've had more sustained success if Avalanche and Portugal had've been serviced as singles, really.