Nimrod was Green Day's 5th studio album, released on October 14th 1997. It was written amist a European tour cancellation following their previous album, Insomniac's, release. After listening through the album it's no surprise to find out that the band's intention on this LP was to have a set of standalone songs rather than a coheasive album. Nevertheless it has been praised for its experimentation and diversity, as observed in songs on the album such as "Walking Alone" which has a very folk/blues-y sound, or songs such as "Take Back" which has a stronger, hard-rock vibe.
However it's impossible to talk about Nimrod without also talking about the most successful single ever released in the bands history: "Good Riddance (Time of your Life)". The song peaked at number 11 on the US billboard hot 100, sold over 5 million copies, and is Certifed QUINTUPLE platinum in the United States, sextuple platinum in Canada, triple platinum in New Zealand, and double platinum in both Australia and the United Kingdom.
When it comes to LPs, the common sentiment is that it's the individual pieces that make up the whole, ie - if your album consists of good songs then the album must be good. Contradictary I'd say thats Nimrod's biggest complaint. What makes this album stand out at points is when the band includes songs that change the pace and tempo. For every "Hitchin' a Ride", and "King for a Day", theres 3 or 4 songs that on thier own do well, but back to back listening drown eachother out. Paradoxically this album is listened to best when you have your playlist on shuffle in the car and a random song from the LP comes on.
Ballads 1 was the first studio album released by singer-songwriter Joji. Ballads 1 released October 2018 and debuted number 3 on the US billboard 200 and number 1 on the US Top Hip Hop/RnB albums chart. The album was certified Platinum in 2021.
As the name suggests, Ballads 1 consists of mainly intraspective songs composed primarily by Joji and features himself as the main vocals. The album self identifies with "The Reality of Love, Life, and Everything in between".
When it comes to Album coheasion, Ballads 1 does exceptionally good in my opinion, having a nice overall sound and direction while keeping with the themes of love and love-lost. At the same time theres enough distiction between tracks where listening through completly doesn't get boring. The quintessential song on the LP is without a doubt "SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK", which in my opinion there are many songs that get overlooked due to the popularity of Slow dancing in the Dark such as "CANT GET OVER YOU" which has a much more upbeat and Pop feel, or "NO FUN" which has a simmilar feeling.
Ballads 1 is a hard album to critisize because most of the complaints stem less from what it is, and rather what it isn't. I could say I wish the album was longer (which I do, for having 12 tracks it only sports a 35 minute runtime), or I could say I'm more of a fan of the faster tempo, more "pop" sounding tracks over the solemn and heartfelt songs.
At the end of the day, Ballads 1 remains a solid LP, with very little fat, it doesn't get out of its comfort zone much, so you could say it plays it safe with having a distinct sound and vision from joji..for better or for worse.
"AM" is the Artic Monkeys 5th studio album released in 2013 and thier most succesful one to date. Drawing inspirations from a wide genres such as psychedelic Rock, Blues Rock, Hard Rock, R&B, Soul, and Funk. According to frontman Alex Turner the groups effort went into more emphasis into creating a "Studio Album" by incorporating new instruments such as Piano, Organ, and a vintage drum machine. The Album mainly focuses around a certral theme of frustration in relation to love, sex, and lonliness.
Critics praised AM for its darker, groovier sound compared to the bands previous albums. Rolling Stones included AM in thier "200 greatest Albums of all time" and it can be hard to disagree. AM (to me) falls under the rare category of: "No Skip Album". What happens more often than not is I'll play one song from the album, then the next song will come on, and I'll think to myself "Well, I HAVE to play this one next its too good to skip". Wash. Rinse. Repeat until I go through the enire album. Again. It's very hard to undersell how well produced the album is, each song playing well with one another seemingly to fit like pieces in a puzzle.
On another note, as anyone who's every played guitar can tell you -TO BE CONTINUED- dk
To Preamble - This band is one of my personal favorite bands of all time and this album is my favorite album by this band. All this to say I am absolutely biased.
Discovery is the 2nd studio album released by electronic duo Daft Punk released in 2001. The album marked a noticable shift from the band's first album "Homework" which mainly consisted of Chicago House to a House style that incorperated inspirations from Disco, Post-Disco,Garage-House, and R&B.Daft Punk self describes the Discovery Album as "An exploration of song structure, musical forms, and childhood nostalgia."
There's alot to say about this album, and even restating the fact I'm biased there is not much critisism to be said. Most if not all complaints I could bring up would border on nip-picking, such as the last track on the album "Too Long" ironically goes on..too long.
The reason I love this album so much is that it embodies everything I enjoy about music. The flow between songs, the uniqueness between tracks, the way the album keeps an overall vibe and feeling it attempts to make you feel soley through audio alone. Discovery is a high energy album that reflects notions of an honest, playful, and open-mindfulness torwards listening to music. By design, the concept of Discovery is supposed to be an homage to the exploration of music through the rose-colored glasses of childhood. This is done via the instruments and samples used through-out the album using sounds from the 80s and 70s. Using these sounds while at the same time delivering something new through mixing and sampling and electronics gave that feeling of, dare I say, Discovering music as a child where everything was new and enticing. The release of the album also played an important role of its success and acclaim. At the turn of the millennium, people were curious on what the future was going to hold, that living in a new era of the 2000s brought new interest in the "new and now". Discovery releasing in 2001, incoprerating an almost nostalgic feel from its samples and mixes while still delivering a new experience made the electronic album much more palateable to the more general public as well as hardcore house/electronic fans, selling an "New Music from Old and Familiar Sounds".
I love this album. Great to run to. Fun to dance to. Catchy for car rides. Nice to listen to with friends while hanging out. Perfect album that gives me everything I want.
Wish you were Here is the 9th studio album by the English Rock band Pink Floyd released in 1975. The album's theme expresses a sense of alienation and critisism of the music industry. A large part of the album ("Shine on you Crazy Diamond" (Parts 1-9)) is a tribute to one of the band's founding members Syd Barrett who had left the band 7 years earlier due to declining mental health. By 2004, almost 20 years since its released, the album had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Although the commercial success is undeniable, at release the album was met with critisism for bieng "uninspired" and inferior compared to thier earlier works. Today fans of the band consider the album to be revered and an all time classic, not just for the band but the genre of experimental rock itself. Wish you were here had been cited by both Richard Wright - the band's keyboardist - and David Gilmour the bands guitarist as thier favorite of the band's albums.
Personally I have a warm place in my heart for the album, as to me it feels to be the quintisential Pink Floyd album. Depending on how familiar you are with Pink Floyd that statement may bring a quizzical expresseion, to consider WYWH to be above Dark Side of The Moon to be the imperical "PINK FLOYD" album. To address this I would say that while DSOTM may be as ubiquitous with Pink Floyd as much as Nintendo is to Mario, Wish you Were Here feels more inline with the sound of the band. To put it a different way: "Dark Side of the Moon is THE Pink Floyd album, but Wish You Were Here IS Pink Floyd". That may sound like just semantics but with music diferences like these can be subtle.
Fun Fact: My cat is named after this band :)
Brothers is the sixth studio album by American Rock duo The Black Keys released in 2010 and was thier commercial breakthrough, peaking at number 3 on the billboard 200. The lead single from the album, "Tighten up" managed to spend 10 weeks at number 1 on the Alternative Songs chart and was the bands first song to break into the billboard top 100, peaking at 87.
Tensions were high in the band, to say the least, in the early days of the albums conception. In 2009, gutarist and vocalist Dan Auerbach recorded a solo debut album in his home recording studio "keep it hid", which released to moderate commercial success and positive reviews. However, Patrick Carney who was the drummer for the band had not been informed of his bandmates solo intentions and was reportedly livid at the news. Feeling betrayed by his friend and bandmate Carney was afraid that Auerbach had moved on and was planning on leaving the band. Carney in later interviews confessed that a lot of his anger was misdirected due to going through a particulary messy divorce. From there the story goes that both band members later met up in person to reconnect both talked about how much the band meant to them. They later went on to immedietly get to work on several ideas, most notably recording "These Days" which would become the closing track for the album.
For most of the tracks on the album the band reportedly went with a "Rythum-first" approach, often only recording the drums and bass and dubbing over them with keyboards, guitar, and later vocals. I just want to take a second to discuss the Album's cover art - or lack thereof. According to the band themselves the album cover was devised by drummer Patrick Carney's brother, Micheal Carney, and took a minimalist and simplistic approach to the artwork. Personally...I hate it. While I can appreciate having the artwork not be so busy and let the music itself do the speaking, giving more interpretation to the overall thematics to the listener, I just really really really find it underwhelming. It is cool that they used heat-sensitive ink on the label on the disc itself, that is very neat and surprised me when I discovered it.
The album definetly has a southern soul influence, really brining out that gain-y, powerful guitar with strong deep drum and bass on almost all the tracks. While the definate favorite on the album is undoubtly "Tighten Up" followed by "Howlin' For You", I'd be doing a great disservice by not mentioning some of the other tracks on the album that caught my attention such as "Black Mud", "Ten Cent Pistol", "Never Gonna Give You Up", or "Next Girl".
Let it go on record that every album I'm reviewing on this page are all albums that I personally own on vinyl with the exception of Greatest Hits albums because quote: "Greatest Hit Albums are for Housewifes and little girls".
However, with that bieng said the juxtaposition of including an OST does not escape me. On the other hand this is my review page so I can do whatever I want - DK.
Evangelion Finally was released by King Records on 7 October 2020 to coincide with the series' 25th anniversary. It includes 9 tracks and 6 bonus tracks. The album had a positive commericial success.
For Evangelion fans no introduction or explanation is needed for the themesong of the anime, "A Cruel Angel's Thesis", which (alongside the music video/show opening) encapsulate the show perfectly. What drove me to actually buy the album for myself to have in vinyl form was the theme song, as well as the outro song- "Fly me to the moon" as covered by Yoko Takahashi. These two songs are why I wanted the album. There are other songs that are worth mentioning such as "IF I CANT BE YOURS" or "KOMM, SUSSER TOD".
I'm not saying you need to be a fan of the show Neon Genesis Evangelion to enjoy the soundtrack...but I am saying that if you are a fan of the show you ARE a fan of the soundtrack. I'm not trying to convince you of anything in this review, but I do think it is important to take in something of note. As someone who personally isn't crazy about anime, and outright despises OSTs, when I say that this Anime OST is worth listening to I like to imagine that it holds a bit more weight.
Licensed to Ill was the debut album of American Hip Hop group Beastie Boys, instantly becoming a billboard top 200 hit and was certified diamond in 2015 aswell as making the album one of the fastest selling debut records from Def Jam records to date. The album to this day continues to recieve critical acclaim for its lyrical creativity and style, the chemistry between group memebers, and its unique musical style.
Interesting note: Kerry King of thrash metal band "Slayer" is featured guitar on the track and single "No Sleep Till Brooklyn", because producer Rick Ruben was producing both band's albums simultaneously at the time. The title of the track is a parody of Motorhead's album: "No sleep 'till Hammersmith".
While the album is fun to listen to, espically when listening to tracks that don't recieve as much attention as the popular singles on the album do (popular hits such as "No Sleep 'till Brooklyn", "Brass Monkey", or "(You gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)") it can be a bit dragging listening through the entire album. While each song is creative lyrically there is a sense of simmilarity between all the tracks. License to Ill is still a solid album today with many classic hits from the band that are still fun to listen to today and many more hidden hits that for fans of hip-hop are most welcome.
*Mexican radio intensifies*
Demon Days is the 2nd studio album from UK virtual band Gorillaz, at its released it topped #1 on the UK billboards and #6 on the US billboard 200. The Album also reached top 10 within 24 countries and was certified platinum 6x in the UK and twice in the US. Demon Days also spawned in the popular singles "Feel Good Inc", "Dare", "Dirty Harry", and "Kids with Guns" while also including a number of features on songs with artits such as: De La Soul, Neneh Cherry, Martina Topley-Bird, Roots Manuva, MF DOOM, Ike Turner, Bootie Brown of the Pharcyde, Shaun Ryder and Dennis Hopper.
Not only the album, but the band Gorillaz has been praised for thier genre-busting motif and blurring of lines between alt-rock, pop, hip-hop, and art rock. What I personally love about the band is this very reason. Too many times will a band be defined by the genre they inhabit, where if you listen long enough everything begins to blur together. I never get that feeling when listening to Gorillaz. Demon Days keep the listener engaged by thier wide range of songs on the album that seem to switch from pop, to rock, to borderline psychedelic, to then transition to hip-hop over the course of 5 songs. It creates a very fun listening experience with how well the band manages to flow into each sound with no issue.
If for some reason you've never listened to this album I highly reccomend giving it a listen, as you're bound to find at least a few songs to save into your playlists.
Hypnotize is American Heavy Metal band System of a Down's 5th studio album and released number 1 on the billboard top 200. Entertainment weekly in thier review of the album said: "Theyre flaunting a heretofor underexplored sensitive side, offsetting thier trademark stampedeing riffology with flashes of delicate lyricism." While it's hard to disagree with this review I do feel it undersells the album's nuance. SOAD's music has a tendency to be political, sometimes overtly while othertimes subtly. For example the albums namesake song "Hypnotize" is about consumerism, propaganda, and the complaceny of the masses via consumerism. It's not hard to understand those themes when paying attention to the lyrics of the song, but on the same LP on other tracks exsists songs that may not be so blatently obvious and more open to interpretation such as "Vicinity of Obscenity".
What I personally love about SOAD is that (in addition to the extremely talented band members) while they are a metal/hard rock band at heart, they are very good at tempering the rough, fast tempo'd loud sounds with more melancholic melodies and softer choruses that keep the listenr engaged.
Great album by an all time amazing band, even if you don't consider yourself a personal fan of hard rock or metal, SOAD can absolutly be an exception.