| AC/DC Back In Black | 3.5 |
| Adele 19 | 3.0 |
| Aerosmith Toys in the Attic | 3.5 |
| Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion | 4.0 |
I listened to and bought this album after I read all the incredible hype from music critics. Although I don't think Merriweather is the second coming of Christ, it certainly is an achievement from and obscure band of I had rarely ever heard of.
For me, Animal Collective is hard to connect with because the vocals are often buried within the song. It's difficult to get attached to something if you can't even make out the words. Merriweather suffers in this area, although only a couple songs.
Despite my couple criticisms, there is a lot great stuff going on. Merriweather Post Pavilion is essentially an album filled with grand, sweeping electronic sounds that can be quite beautiful with headphones if you listen closely. There's a lot of attention to detail, and a lot of beautiful, soaring harmonies that remind me of a modern, funky, psychedelic version of the Beach Boys.
This could be one of the better albums of the year, we'll just have to wait and see what else is in store for us. |
| Audioslave Revelations | 3.5 |
| Beyonce I Am... Sasha Fierce | 3.0 |
| This album has a couple cool songs on it, I actually think "If I Were a Boy" is a pretty damn good song with a great message. Overall though, there is a lot of filler here that you won't remember after several listens. About 3 good songs, and a bunch of blah is all you'll find here. |
| Bob Dylan Modern Times | 4.0 |
| Bob Dylan Together Through Life | 3.0 |
| Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago | 3.0 |
| What is the big fuss about? Granted I have only listened to this once, so my rating is subject to change -- but my first impression was "For Emma" is the only really jump out song on this album. Other than that it is mostly dull and uninteresting. |
| Bon Jovi Lost Highway | 4.0 |
| Bon Jovi Have a Nice Day | 4.0 |
| Bon Jovi Crush | 3.5 |
| Bon Jovi Keep The Faith | 3.0 |
| Bon Jovi Bounce | 3.5 |
| Bon Jovi The Circle | 4.0 |
| Brian Eno Another Day On Earth | 4.0 |
I listen almost exclusively to rock music so at first Another Day On Earth was difficult. But now I've heard it several
times and when you really listen with headphones, you find some pretty mesmerizing songs! I'm not a fan of the
warped vocals, but it all works on its own terms. Upon first listen some of the songs sounded mostly like airy, dry
computer noises but if you are paying attention you really pick up on some outstanding hidden melodies. "This" is
the clear standout track. It's mesmerizing. |
| Brian Eno and David Byrne Everything that Happens Will Happen Today | 5.0 |
I bought "Everything That Happens" after listening to some of the song samples on iTunes and thinking they had
potential. This album didn't hit me right away. After my first and second listen, I picked a couple tracks ("Strange
Overtones", "Everything That Happens", "One Fine Day") that I liked the most and regularly skipped the rest. Later, I
gave the entire CD a couple more listens and finally got into each track. This is an album full of addicting melodies.
Eno's beats, noises, and layers mean it takes a while to grasp all of the sounds, but the payoff is great. Once you get
used to David Byrne's voice, you won't be able to set this down. |
| Bruce Springsteen Magic | 5.0 |
"Devils and Dust" was good. "The Seeger Sessions" was good. But after both of those releases from Bruce
Springsteen, I yearned for some rock n' roll. My wish came true in October of 2007 with the release of "Magic". This
album is not only one of my two favorite Springsteen albums, but is one of my favorite albums of all time. "Magic"
has a strange, well...magic; a way of uniting past and present with a nostalgic tone that seems so fresh, powerful,
and that clearly rocks. This album was probably the best of 2007 and can stand up to any of Bruce's previous work. |
| Bruce Springsteen Devils & Dust | 3.5 |
| Bruce Springsteen The Rising | 5.0 |
| Bruce Springsteen Working on a Dream | 4.0 |
Working On A Dream is a return to optimism for Bruce Springsteen after a fiery political protest album (think "We
don't measure the blood we draw anymore/We just stack the bodies outside the door" from "Last To Die" on Magic).
Bruce is happy we've got a new President, and it shows. All of these good feelings about love, life, and the future are
all put into some high quality songs, some of which feel completely new and some of which feel like they'd be at
home on some of his 70's records. Working On A Dream is probably going to be one of the top several albums of
the year, and that's saying something for an artist who is now into his 37th year of putting out music. It's not higher
than a 4 star album for me, however, because despite the excellent quality of the songs, they simply lack the
inspiration and intensity of purpose that drove his last two great E Street albums. While the lyrics are fine overall
(highlights in the 3rd verse of "Life Itself" and lowlights in the 1st verse of "Queen Of The Supermarket"), they simply
don't stand up to what he has done since 2002. So while Dream is no classic record, it's solid, pure, optimistic, high
quality Springsteen that all fans should be sure to pick up. Check out the infectious "My Lucky Day" for one of the
most joyous and fun songs Bruce has ever written. |
| Bruce Springsteen Born to Run | 4.5 |
| Bryan Adams Room Service | 4.0 |
| You can trash on Bryan Adams all you want for failing to branch out or "be experimental" but you can't deny that he's a master at what he does. This album is full of upbeat, rocking, catchy songs that will have you singing out loud in the car. The topics are familiar and the lyrics aren't always the greatest - but Room Service contains some amazing tracks, highlights are "Open Road," "She's A Little Too Good For Me," and "Room Service." I highly recommend this great album to anyone who has ever liked a Bryan Adams song. Very impressive material from a veteran rocker. |
| Chris Cornell Carry On | 3.0 |
| Coldplay Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends | 4.5 |
| Coldplay X&Y | 4.0 |
| Coldplay Prospekt's March | 3.5 |
| Dave Matthews Band Stand Up | 4.0 |
| Dave Matthews Band Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King | 4.0 |
| David Gilmour On An Island | 3.5 |
| David Gray A New Day At Midnight | 4.5 |
| David Gray Life In Slow Motion | 3.5 |
| David Gray White Ladder | 4.0 |
| David Gray Draw the Line | 4.0 |
| Death Cab for Cutie Narrow Stairs | 4.0 |
| Don Henley Inside Job | 3.0 |
| Eagles Long Road Out Of Eden | 3.5 |
"Long Road Out of Eden" is a good album with a couple great songs. "How Long" is classic Eagles, with a catchy
twangy chorus and sounds a lot like "Take it Easy". "Waiting in the Weeds" is another standout track beautifully
written and sung by Don Henley. The main problem with "Eden" is that there's a lot of unnecessary filler and a lot of
uninspired mediocrity. Songs like "Guilty of the Crime", "Last Good Time in Town", and "Somebody" shouldn't have
ever been recorded. There is good music here, it just isn't sustained throughout the full hour and a half. If the band
had focused more on quality than quantity, this record could have been great overall but instead is a decent album
with several classic Eagles standouts. It probably satisfies most fans but won't win over too many new converts.
|
| Eddie Vedder Into the Wild | 4.0 |
| Enya A Day Without Rain | 3.5 |
| Fergie The Dutchess | 1.0 |
| Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes | 4.0 |
| Fleetwood Mac The Dance | 4.5 |
| Fleetwood Mac Say You Will | 4.0 |
This is definitely a solid album from Fleetwood Mac. The only problems are that it's too long and there are a lot of
unnecessary tracks that make it feel a bit stuck together and muddled. If they had cut 5 or 6 songs, this would have
been an incredible album. Highlights are "Murrow Turning Over In His Grave", "Thrown Down", "Miranda", "Say You
Will", "Steal Your Heart Away", Bleed To Love Her", and "Good Bye Baby". These are all excellent songs. At first I gave
this album a 3.5, but with all those great songs it just felt wrong! This is a 4 star album that's flaw is clearly its
length.
|
| Goo Goo Dolls Let Love In | 3.5 |
| Guster Ganging Up on the Sun | 3.5 |
| Gwen Stefani Love. Angel. Music. Baby. | 2.5 |
| Hootie and The Blowfish Cracked Rear View | 4.0 |
| Iron And Wine Around the Well | 4.0 |
| Iron And Wine The Shepherd's Dog | 4.0 |
| John Legend Evolver | 3.5 |
| John Mellencamp Freedom's Road | 4.0 |
| John Mellencamp Life, Death, Love & Freedom | 2.5 |
| If you are looking for an upbeat, melodic album from Mellencamp like 2007's Freedom's Road, Life, Death, Love & Freedom is not for you. His latest effort consists of mainly gloomy folk songs that seem to put you to sleep more than entertain. There are couple bright spots, such as the excellent and hopeful final track, "A Brand New Song" but beyond that there's not a whole lot of interest here. It's not just the slow pace of the album, but the lack of memorable, compelling songs. Maybe I'll revisit this later and find it to be brilliant, but for now skip it buy Freedom's Road instead. |
| Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak | 3.5 |
| Keane Perfect Symmetry | 4.0 |
| Keane Under The Iron Sea | 4.5 |
| KT Tunstall Drastic Fantastic | 4.0 |
| KT Tunstall Eye To The Telescope | 3.5 |
| Lindsey Buckingham Gift of Screws | 4.5 |
| Madonna Confessions on a Dancefloor | 4.0 |
| Madonna Hard Candy | 2.5 |
Hard Candy for the most part feels manfactured, lifeless, cliched, derivative, and forced, especially when compared to
its excellent predecessor. There are undoubtedly a lot of decent ideas here and a couple good songs, mainly "Devil
Wouldn't Recognize You" and "4 Minutes". However, most of songs really go nowhere or simply lose their authenticiy
and soul when, for example, Kanye West comes in to rap about how "fresh" he is, or someone yelps "Get down on
the floor" for the millionth time. Haven't I heard this before, like in every song played on mainstream pop radio?
Hard Candy is listenable as long as you are doing something else and aren't paying attention, because you hear a
couple of the hooks and think it's not bad. But when you sit down to really focus on the music, you just want to
shake your head. Even Madonna's legendary voice can't make this album feel anything more than shockingly
average. It's not horrendous, but she can do so much better. |
| Melissa Etheridge The Awakening | 4.0 |
| "The Awakening" differs from "Lucky" in that it is a uniform concept album where the latter was more of a scattershot effort. Thus the album's strength is also it's weakness -- some of Melissa's signature belted fiery vocals are missing, but her strong songwriting and heartfelt lyrics are as strong as ever. Despite some tracks that seem unnecessary such as "Threesome", this album actually brings us some of Melissa's strongest work in years: "Imagine That", "Open Your Mind", and "Kingdom of Heaven" are some of her best rockers. Sadly, some of the most promising tracks, "All There Is", "God is in the People", and "All We Can Really Do" are cut short to under two minutes while less interesting efforts such as "An Unexpected Rain" are dragged out too long. A few different decisions about track arrangements and "The Awakening" could have been Melissa's classic album. Falling just short or greatness doesn't stop it from being darned good. |
| Melissa Etheridge Skin | 3.5 |
| Melissa Etheridge Lucky | 4.0 |
| Melissa Etheridge Yes I Am | 4.0 |
| Melissa Etheridge Never Enough | 3.0 |
| Melissa Etheridge Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled | 4.5 |
| Melissa Etheridge Fearless Love | 4.5 |
| Fearless Love is full of fantastic songs, especially the incredibly powerful title track and the beautiful, "Indiana." This could be my favorite Melissa Etheridge album! |
| Modest Mouse Good News for People Who Love Bad News | 3.0 |
| Goods News is undoubtedly an overrated album in my opinion, and as the review states, it is definitely a mess. "Float On" is the only great track and it's followed by a handful of other good songs including "The World At Large," "Ocean Breathes Salty," "Satan In A Coffin," and "One Chance." The rest of the songs range from mediocre to downright horrible (see "Bury Me With It," "Dance Hall"). Despite what pulls this album down I think it does have a fresh feel to it and the band has definitely carved out its own unique sound. This is right on the line between a 3 and a 3.5 for me. Good News is very uneven but still has a lot of enjoyable moments. |
| Muse Black Holes & Revelations | 4.0 |
| Neko Case Middle Cyclone | 4.0 |
| Oasis Don't Believe the Truth | 4.0 |
| Oasis Dig Out Your Soul | 3.5 |
| Okkervil River The Stage Names | 3.0 |
| Panda Bear Person Pitch | 3.5 |
| Unfortunately when it comes to this album I have to agree both with the fanboys and the critics. Person Pitch is full of incredibly warm, Beach Boys inspired sounds that are incredibly pleasant on the ears and psychedelic. Sometimes, however, the songs also seem to to just "float around" for a while and then fizz out. Very little that actually grips and enthralls the listener ever takes place (with the clear exception of the opening track). So I feel a little torn between Panda Bear's brilliant tendencies and his tendencies to just make weird sounding noises and repeat them over and over again... |
| Panic! at the Disco A Fever You Can't Sweat Out | 1.0 |
| Paul McCartney Memory Almost Full | 4.0 |
| Paul McCartney Chaos and Creation in the Backyard | 4.5 |
| Paul Simon Surprise | 3.5 |
| Pearl Jam Pearl Jam | 3.5 |
| Pearl Jam Backspacer | 4.0 |
| Pet Shop Boys Yes | 3.5 |
| "Yes" is complete with plenty of catchy, stuck-in-your-head-all-day dance songs. It's a solid listen and a great album from a duo that's been around for almost 30 years. |
| Phil Collins Testify | 3.5 |
| Pink Floyd A Momentary Lapse of Reason | 3.0 |
| Portishead Third | 2.0 |
| R.E.M. Accelerate | 4.5 |
| After their 2004 release, "Around the Sun" met a cool response from critics and fans, their latest effort has marked a blistering return to form for R.E.M. "Accelerate" comes storming out of the gates with a loud and ultra fast paced rocker "Living Well is the Best Revenge" that immediately sets a sit down, shut up, and strap on your seat belts tone. Like with most albums, there are some missteps such as the annoying "I'm Gonna DJ" but the vast majority of the songs presented are great listens and are some of the best music out this year. |
| R.E.M. Murmur | 4.0 |
| R.E.M. Out of Time | 4.5 |
| R.E.M. Automatic for the People | 4.5 |
| R.E.M. New Adventures in Hi-Fi | 4.0 |
| R.E.M. Reveal | 4.0 |
| R.E.M. Collapse Into Now | 4.5 |
| Radiohead In Rainbows | 4.0 |
| Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Raising Sand | 4.5 |
| Rocco Deluca I Trust You to Kill Me | 3.5 |
| Santana All That I Am | 2.5 |
| Seal System | 4.0 |
| Seal Seal II | 3.5 |
| Sheryl Crow Detours | 3.0 |
| Sheryl Crow Wildflower | 4.0 |
| Soulja Boy iSouljaBoyTellEm | 1.0 |
| Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga | 3.5 |
| Sting Sacred Love | 3.5 |
| Sting Mercury Falling | 3.0 |
| Sting Brand New Day | 3.5 |
| This could be Sting's greatest album but its brought down by a couple bad tracks: "Perfect Love...Gone Wrong", "Tomorrow We'll See", and "Big Lie, Small World" really weigh down everything else, which is great. "A Thousand Years", "After The Rain Has Fallen", and "Brand New Day" are some of Sting's best songs. |
| Sting Songs From The Labyrinth | 2.0 |
| Styx Greatest Hits | 3.0 |
| Talking Heads Remain in Light | 4.0 |
| The Avett Brothers I and Love and You | 3.5 |
| The Beatles Love | 4.0 |
| The Beatles Rubber Soul | 4.0 |
| The Fireman Electric Arguments | 4.5 |
While I remain a huge fan of both "Chaos and Creation" as well as "Memory Almost Full", "Electric Arguments" has a
more experimental and atmospheric sound that makes for a much more intriguing listen. The album also is
surprisingly varied with hard rockers to much slower paced songs like "Two Magpies." Highlights include "Not Too
Much Just Out of Sight", "Sign the Changes", and "Sun is Shining". The echoing layers of sound and guitars that mark
this album and make it one of the best I've heard in the last couple years. Unfortunately the album goes a bit awry
during the last 3 tracks. They are most meandering trips into instrumental weirdness that are not bad but don't
seem to fit with the first 10 tracks which are all excellent. I would consider Electric Arguments a classic but I cannot
ignore the closing fifth of the album, so for me it's a solid 4.5. |
| The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | 4.0 |
| The Killers Day & Age | 4.0 |
| The Killers Sam's Town | 3.5 |
| The Rolling Stones A Bigger Bang | 4.0 |
| The Shins Wincing the Night Away | 4.0 |
| The Traveling Wilburys The Traveling Wilburys Collection | 4.5 |
| The Who Endless Wire | 3.5 |
| Tom Petty Highway Companion | 4.5 |
| Train For Me, It's You | 3.0 |
| Travis Ode To J. Smith | 3.5 |
| U2 The Best Of 1990-2000 | 4.0 |
| U2 How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb | 5.0 |
"How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" remains my first musical love and my all time favorite album. The peak
moments in this album -- when listened too loudly with very good speakers -- make you feel like you can fly: the
blazing guitars on "Vertigo", and the soaring sonic chorus of "City of Blinding Lights". Even at it's lowest points ("A
Man and a Woman", "Original of the Species"), HTDAAB is still a sturdy effort of solid songs from U2. The bottom
line with "Bomb" is that a band that has been around for over two decades is still putting out music that can kick
the crap out of everything else being played on the radio. Now that is a feat worth admiring.
It will be difficult to ever duplicate than the sense of exhilaration I felt while listening to this album the first several
times and I was struck by the revelation that there really is such a thing as great music. |
| U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind | 4.5 |
| U2 Achtung Baby | 5.0 |
| U2 The Joshua Tree | 4.5 |
| U2 The Unforgettable Fire | 4.0 |
| U2 Boy | 4.0 |
| U2 Zooropa | 3.5 |
| U2 Pop | 4.0 |
| U2 Rattle and Hum | 3.0 |
| U2 War | 4.5 |
| U2 No Line on the Horizon | 5.0 |
With time, No Line On The Horizon really soars. "Magnificent" and "Breathe" are two of the best songs I've heard in my life. I just can't believe that such an old band can still come out with such amazing material after all these years.
|
| U2 U218 Singles | 3.5 |
| U2 The Best Of 1980-1990 | 4.0 |
| U2 October | 4.0 |
| U2 Songs of Innocence | 4.5 |
| Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend | 4.0 |
| Vampire Weekend Contra | 4.0 |
| Wilco Wilco (The Album) | 3.0 |
| This is my first Wilco album and after seeing all the great reviews, I'm honestly a bit disappointed. I've had this CD on repeat in my car for several days and to me there are only several standout tracks, especially "One Wing." The rest often feels a bit bland and like the band was just going through the motions. There are fun moments and a couple great songs but this album probably does not deserve all the high praise it's getting. It's solid, but nothing special. |
| Yeah Yeah Yeahs Show Your Bones | 3.5 |
| Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz! | 4.5 |
