TheBenz | Sputnikmusic

	U2 The Joshua Tree One of the albums I don't listen to tremendously often, but every time I do it is simply amazing and makes me kick myself that I don't play it as much as I do. While the 3 huge hits the kick the album off are all brilliant, it's the later album tracks like the 'Bullet the Blue Sky'/'Running to Stand Still' double whammy and the totally underrated 'Trip Through Your Wires' and the panicing, pulsing 'Exit' that turn it into a deserved classic.	4.5 07.16.12
	U2 Achtung Baby The best U2 album. Whenever an annoying self-righteous douchebag knocks on U2 (since it's cool to hate them) being a stupid blustery monotonous stadium rock dinosaur I put this one on to silence all the undeserved hatred that comes from people that probably listen to bands that would never sound like they did if not for U2. Anyway, despite being 2 decades old, it simply does not feel as dated as it should. The tense dance rhythms, and twisting, fluid layers of guitarwork still sound remarkably fresh and Bono does a great job of providing the songs with some of his catchiest pop hooks and most cutting, consersational lyrics that he often semi-	5.0 07.16.12
	U2 No Line on the Horizon I find this album a lot better than most people find it. Yes, it isn't perfection, the lyrics could have been sharper and 'Get On Your Boots' was an embarrasing flop on a single (it's not that bad though and is far better than Stand Up Comedy, which is awful). But when this album is good it is brilliant. 'Breathe' would've made a great first single, 'Magnificent' is very good, too, the title track is awesome and if you ignore the lyrics 'Unknown Caller' is breathtaking musically. So while it is wildly uneven, the parts where it succeed are some of the finest stuff in the band's history.	3.5 07.16.12
	Radiohead Hail to the Thief A notable case of a Radiohead album that was enjoyed in its time, can still be enjoyed now but hasn't really been loved (by me, at least) as much as their acknowledged classics. There are a few indispensible classic moments with the three singles (particularly 'There There') still ranking among their best work, as well as a few others like 'Sail to the Moon'. But there's simply more pretty good moments than great ones, and 'We Suck Young Blood' and 'The Gloaming' are horrible songs that break the album's flow in the middle, it also suffers from lack of uniform strength. It's still worth a listen but is a bit of a letdown by their standards.	3.0 07.16.12
	Marilyn Manson Mechanical Animals It isn't overly hailed as a classic or masterpiece in most people's books, but I really really love this album. There are few sub-par moments and plenty of insanely infectious, engaging, moving, thrilling electro-glam-industrial-rock tunes that are gold. 'The Dope Show' is one of his well deserved signature hits, 'Dissasociative' is an underrated gem that is so stunningly overdramatic (a good thing in this case) 'Drugs' is a sleazy funk rocker etc. It's not quite an 'Antichrist'-style thrilling aural frenzy and there's no 'Beautiful People' here, but it's easily his most consistently enjoyable album.	5.0 07.16.12
	Outkast Stankonia This one is a current faveourite album of mine. I must say rediscovering their makes me realise how special Outkast are. A hip-hop group with an appeal and ambition beyond any pop group, let alone rap group of their day, things like that are very rare in the it-is-cool-to-bash-pop-music world we have. Anyway, while the 2 songs I was familiar with ('Ms Jackson' and 'B.O.B' of course) are absolutely fantastic, I am slightly dissapointed that the remaining 14 songs aren't quite as ber-brilliant as them, but none are bad (except maybe for 'Hoez') and plenty of songs like 'Humble Mumble' 'Gasoline Dreams' and 'Gangsta Shit' come close to those two	4.0 07.10.12
	Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy The first hip hop album I really got into. I remember the moments when 'Power' 'Runaway' we released to the public and from the moment I heard them I thought they were astonishing, a world of ideas in a pop song. After seeing the immense acclaim of this album that usually comes once a decade I got it and while it took a while to digest the feat this album's feast which includes the delightfully uneven lyrics (Kanye seems to always be able to make rubbish lyrics great, and great lyrics even greater) and the enormous range of instrumentation (I really don't like calling it 'production' when regarding hip-hop) and the uniform vision of how exces	5.0 07.10.12