#471: Run-DMC - Raising Hell (1986)

Zack: I’m pretty well versed in hip-hop history, so I know the incredible role that Run-DMC played in its development, popularization, and commercialization. And yet while I can recognize the significance, I also have trouble appreciating the music. It’s just so one-note and dated. I feel bad saying that because Run-DMC have a very similar sound to the Beastie Boys, whom I love, but I just don’t feel the same energy that radiates off Licensed to Ill (the Beastie Boys debut album that came out 6 months after Raising Hell, Run-DMC’s third). I feel like I should probably be more laudatory to the band that influenced the Beastie Boys (and who were more….authentic to hip-hop at the time), but I just have a hard time getting excited for songs like Perfection and Dumb Girl. For me, listening to Raising Hell is a strictly academic enterprise. I wish I liked the music more, but it just doesn’t hit me with enough force.

Favorite Tracks: Raising Hell; It’s Tricky; Walk This Way

Emily: Run-DMC helped to both create modern hip-hop and to bring it into the mainstream with this album. This is particularly true for the Aerosmith collaboration Walk This Way (which has been preserved by the Library of Congress!), which I think is the song that best holds up after 30+ years. They may not have been the first to merge rap with rock, and they certainly weren't the last, but they may have done it best. Something about the thumping beat, the rhythmic rhymes, and Steven Tyler's signature screech-singing just harmoniously works together. Though Run-DMC's popularity waned by the '90s until their breakup, after which Run became a pastor and had a slew of reality shows about his family and DMC appeared on a bunch of Vh1 nostalgia shows with his trademark wide-brimmed hat (yes, of course this is how I best know both of them), their influence lives on in any rock verse on a rap song and every pair of Stan Smiths on a hip-hop artist's feet. 

Favorite Tracks: Walk This Way; It's Tricky; You Be Illin'

#470: The Go-Go's - Beauty and the Beat (1981)

Zack: Emily kept insisting that this album would actually be good, and I am shocked to announce that she was right. I was dubious because, while I do know the song We Got the Beat and think it’s catchy, we’ve been burned a lot by New Wave albums that we picked because that one song is good (see: Cell, Soft). But the entire album is just poppy songs with great hooks. It kind of sounds like the feeling of jumping on a trampoline. It’s an album made almost entirely of songs to set movie montages to. As a result, while this certainly will not go down as my favorite album from this batch of 100, it definitely won’t be making the least favorite list, and for a New Wave album that’s about all that you can ask.

Favorite Tracks: Our Lips Are Sealed; We Got the Beat; How Much More

Emily: After a long hiatus (and two months of nearly non-stop work on one case), I'm back on my album-listening grind. And what a lovely way to jump back in with The Go-Go's. It's a super fun, positive jaunt that, as Zack described, feels like it would fit perfectly in any prom-night-getting-ready or windows-down-car-singalong montage in a teen movie from 1981 to today. That's particularly true for the iconic singles We Got the Beat, featured on the Jimmy Neutron soundtrack, the staple of my childhood that I've mentioned here many times before, and Our Lips Are Sealed, which for my '90s-'00s generation had both an eponymous Mary-Kate and Ashley movie and a Hilary and Haylie Duff cover. I'm pretty sure anyone alive since 1981 knows both of those songs, and most of them probably know the words well enough to bust them out at karaoke. Sometimes you just need a burst of fun from your music, and Beauty and the Beat certainly has delivered that for almost 40 years and counting.

Favorite Tracks: Our Lips Are Sealed; We Got the Beat; Tonite

#469: Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet (1986)

Zack: As a New Jerseyian, I am supposed to like Bon Jovi. I do not. Bon Jovi is trash. Slippery When Wet is the most famous bag of trash this trash band has ever dumped out. It has trash songs like Livin’ on a Prayer and You Give Love a Bad Name. These trash songs are almost all the same type of trash: loud and cheesy, like moldy Stilton. Occasionally, there is a slower, still cheesy, ballad piece of trash, more like fresh mozzarella that’s sat in the fridge a little too long and has dried out, but isn’t necessarily poisonous. I am losing the thread of this metaphor. Point is, this band and this album are trash, I do not like it, and that is it.

Favorite Tracks: Wanted Dead or Alive; Never Say Goodbye; Livin’ on a Prayer

Emily: There is definitely a time and place for Bon Jovi. Karaoke? Bust out that Wanted Dead or Alive. Last song at a wedding/bar mitzvah/prom? Perfect time for Livin' on a Prayer. Small children doing a lip-sync dance wearing denim jackets and bandannas? Gotta do It's My Life (Note: this is a thing that actually happened. My brother, age 7, was one of those adorable children wearing a bandanna in a summer camp performance many years ago.). In any of those scenarios, I'm on board with a small dose of Bon Jovi - I'll sing off-key and jump/dance around with the best of them. But a whole album of Bon Jovi at 10 AM on a Sunday? Eh, not quite the right vibe. The cheese and sleaze is amplified when it's all you hear for 45 minutes, and the fun of the singles gets drained out by the filler surrounding them. So I think I'll stick with small doses of Bon Jovi from here on out - but, based on Zack's comments above, almost definitely not at my own wedding.
Favorite Tracks: Livin' on a Prayer; Wanted Dead or Alive; You Give Love a Bad Name

#468: Supergrass - I Should Coco (1995)

Zack: As we’ve said many times before, there are way too many Britpop albums on this damn list. I Should Coco is yet another one, but it is one that I actually enjoyed. It actually bounced around in terms of tempo and sound. Some songs were almost punkish while others were all jingly and kind of modernized Kinks-esque. Many of the other Britpop bands just kind of made the same song over and over again, so it was great to get something that took the best parts of that genre and incorporated them into a broader array of sounds.

Favorite Tracks: Strange Ones; I’d Like to Know; Sofa (Of My Lethargy)

Emily: As I was listening to this album, I figured it would be another Britpop album that never made its way over the States. Perfectly pleasant, an opening act you'd be happy to see but not a band you'd ever go out of your way to hear. But then, a few songs in, a familiar tune started playing - the song Alright, which I instantly recognized from a commercial (though I couldn't remember which one - turns out it was for Frosted Mini-Wheats). It's a bouncy track, seemingly tailor-made for selling cereal. So it turns out that Supergrass is a fairly anonymous, pretty good '90s Britpop band getting that Kellogg's money. Good for them.
Favorite Tracks: I'd Like to Know; Strange Ones; Sofa (Of My Lethargy)

#467: The Band - The Band (1969)

Zack: Once again, I really need to re-listen to this album. It’s for the opposite reason that I applied for The Undertones, though. While for that album I was worried that I didn’t get it, here I’m worried I got it too much. I listened to this album from about 12:45-1:30 a.m. while drunk and watching an Ali-Frasier fight on YouTube (The Rumble in The Jungle to be specific). It was such a particular environment, but I’m worried that it’s the reason that I loved this album so much. Seriously, I adored The Band from start to finish. But hold back my affection out of fear that part of my adoration is really owed to the strategic beauty of the rope-a-dope. In the event that my feelings are not misplaced, however, what jumped out to me on this album was the cohesiveness of the music and lyrics. It was all one. That may sound simple, but I’ve encountered plenty of songs that disconnect the atmospheric mood of the song from the lyrics of the song. Here, it all flowed as one. Each song felt absolutely complete. And it’s just a bonus how well they matched up against the first 4 rounds.

Favorite Tracks: Whispering Pines; The Unfaithful Servant; The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Emily: I'm not sure if calling your band The Band is incredibly stupid or incredibly audacious. It's probably a little bit of both. You make your claim that your band is not just A band, but THE band, the band of bands as it were. But also when you tell people that your band is called The Band they'll just say "Yeah, I know that it's a band, but what's it called?" I think I'm on the side of stupid for this one. This self-titled album is perfectly fine - it didn't really grab me, probably because it was a bit too country for my tastes. But as far as band names go, The Band might be one of the all-time worst.

Favorite Tracks: Whispering Pines; Across the Great Divide; The Unfaithful Servant

#466: The Undertones - The Undertones (1979)

Zack: I think I need to listen to this album again. On a first listen, I thought it was pretty good. It sounded like an early progenitor of pop punk, which was kind of interesting given the year it came out. But musically, I thought it was pretty good. Yet this album has garnered a not insignificant number of awards and accolades, and this isn’t one of those cases where I’m just flabbergasted to hear that. I’m just, like, wait really? I feel like I’m missing something. Maybe this album grows on you, but I’ll have to report back in to let you know if that’s the case.

Favorite Tracks: She’s a Run Around; Jump Boys; Jimmy Jimmy

Emily: This album sounded like so much music I listened to in high school. Local bands of other pimply-faced high-schoolers trying their hand at punk rock, random no-name bands on Myspace trying to be the next Fall Out Boy - somehow The Undertones sounded like all of that, except British. They have the snottiness down, and the everyman young person lyrics. Overall it worked, but definitely didn't seem too special. But then you have to consider that it's from 1979 - maybe they were just innovators, bringing forth several decades of amateurish three-chord punk to come.

Favorite Tracks: Jump Boys; She's a Run Around; I Gotta Getta

#465: Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970)

Zack: Black Sabbath are just as iconic now as they were when we last listened to an album by them back in 2011. But the interceding 7 years have not made me a convert. I have nothing against Black Sabbath, but I can’t say I’ve ever had a craving for Paranoid, and I’ll go on the record now as saying the odds I replay Black Sabbath (the album) from here on are low. The album was good, and the way that bass line just jumps out at you in impressive. Plus there is just a thrilling authenticity to it. Apparently the whole album was recorded in one day, and I believe it. It just sounds like it was all thrown together in the best way possible. But it’s just not a sound that I would seek out if not prompted.

Favorite Tracks: N.I.B.; Warning; Black Sabbath

Emily: As far as metal goes, I'll pick Black Sabbath over most other bands every day of the week. Since they're pioneers of the genre, their sound still has roots in the heavy rock and blues of the '60s without the screaming and squeaking and other antics that malign the genre in later decades. This eponymous album is Black Sabbath's debut, so therefore it's even more rooted in metal's forefathers than Paranoid (which only came a few months later). They're still figuring out their sound here, but there are certainly shades of classics to come.

Favorite Tracks: N.I.B.; Evil Woman; Sleeping Village

#464: Frank Zappa - Hot Rats (1969)

Zack: Last time I listened to a Frank Zappa album for this endeavor, I was getting very drunk on bourbon with a coworker and listening to Freak Out! I really liked that album, and I really liked Hot Rats as well. But while my fondness for Freak Out! stemmed from how impressed I was at the execution of a concept, I appreciated Hot Rats just as a piece of music. Only one track here had any vocals, but unlike Jazz Samba, I was sufficiently engrossed into the jazz-infused sounds at work here that I didn’t mind at all. The arrangements really are beautiful, and I can’t wait to relisten to it once I get a chance. It’s definitely a perfect in-the-background-while-I-work album.

Favorite Tracks: Willie the Pimp; Son of Mr. Green Genes; Peaches in Regalia

Emily: When we listened to Freak Out! way back in 2012, I wasn't sure where the next Frank Zappa album would go. My prediction was "blues, rock, noise, or something completely different?" Five and a half years later, we've returned to Zappa and the answer is (D) something completely different. Hot Rats is best described as an experimental jazz fusion album. The only words sung on the album are by our less-than-favorite guy, Captain Beefheart, but overall it's probably 90% instrumental. And it's really interesting instrumental music, not just background noise. Frankly, lyrics would have been a distraction from the unique and complex arrangements that flow beautifully throughout this album. Now I truly have no idea what other Zappa albums will entail - could be blues, could be jazz, could be Beefheart, or could be all of the above.

Favorite Tracks: Peaches in Regalia; Willie the Pimp; The Gumbo Variations

#463: Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba (1962)

Zack: I’m going to keep this one sort and sweet, just like this 33-minute gem. Jazz Samba was a good album, and reminded me a lot of the Sinatra and Jobim jawn we listened to forever ago. The main difference is that one had Sinatra’s crooning over the bossa nova jazz sounds, whereas this is all instrumental. Overall, the lack of vocals hurt my ability to focus in on the music, and I ultimately found this album good, but not as great as I had hoped it would be.

Favorite Tracks: Samba Triste; Desafinado; Ex Lux So

Emily: The bossa nova vibes of this album can transport you back to a tiny New York jazz club in the '60s. Everyone is dressed to the nines, drinking classic cocktails and smoking long cigarettes (hey, different times), and tapping their toes to the jazz musicians huddled together on a too-small stage. Definitely a far cry from how I listened this album today (on the couch, Sunday morning, drinking coffee and skimming the news) and how I would probably listen to it in the future (at my desk at work, writing briefs or reviewing documents). But the genre blending and vintage flair of this album has the power to transport you away from such mundanity, if only for 33 minutes at a time.

Favorite Tracks: Desafinado; Samba Triste; Bahia

#462: The Birthday Party - Junkyard (1982)

Zack: I fucking hated this album. Absolutely despised it. The first two tracks had this edgy hardness to them, and I thought I was in for a post-punk album that was heavier on the punk. And that was true, from a certain point of view. Unfortunately, it was a pretty shitty punkishness. Honestly, I think Wikipedia sums it up pretty well: Despite limited commercial success, The Birthday Party's influence has been far-reaching, and they have been called ‘one of the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s.’ The group's ‘bleak and noisy soundscapes’… provided the setting for vocalist Nick Cave’s disturbing tales of violence and perversion.” The Birthday Party are certainly…challenging. They seemed to be trying to create a sound where every element sounds like that moment where a motorcycle goes screeching past your window right at the moment where you’re getting frustrated that you are still awake and doing work at 2 a.m. It’s noise for the sake of being noise. What’s disappointing is that the vocalist Nick Cave mentioned above is that Nick Cave, whose album Henry’s Dream is one of the gems we’ve encountered and an album that I return to frequently. That album is also dark, but at least the music is, well, musical. From start to finish, this album was just the parts of Sonic Youth I dislike the most, amplified, and I am just glad it’s over.

Favorite Tracks: Blast Off; Dead Joe [2^nd Version]; She’s Hit

Emily: Birthday parties are supposed to be fun and festive. Friends gathered together, balloons and streamers, snacks and drinks. There should be cake! The Birthday Party, sadly, doesn't have any cake. It doesn't even have fake "birthday cake" flavor (which I don't like but would be appropriate). It's loud and mostly unpleasant, not even close to festive. So I guess it's more Junkyard than Birthday Party, and not exactly how I wanted to spend 45 minutes of my day off.

Favorite Tracks: Blast Off; Several Sins; She's Hit

#461: The Doors - The Doors (1967)

Zack: We last checked in with The Doors in February of 2013 which…man, I feel like I write about how long we’ve been at this in every post but that is just crazy. We were already more than 200 albums in then, and that was four years ago. Anyway, I had no memory of listening to that album so I went back and re-read my review, mostly just to look up how long ago it had been. In my review of L.A. Woman I wrote that I liked the album so much that I was planning on taking a deep dive into the rest of The Doors discography, going so far as to say, “So when either Morrison Hotel or The Doors rolls around, you can bet I’ll be a much more informed Doors fan.” Lol. What a sweet, naïve, person I was. If you made that bet, I’m sorry to inform you that it’s time to pay up. I have not delved into The Doors discography, and I don’t even think I’ve re-listened to L.A. Woman. So, this is The Doors’ second chance to thoroughly engross me, and maybe this one will stick. I am pretty impressed with the bluesy, heaviness that this album has. At points, the sheer weight of it feels palpable. The sound is more directly comparable to Black Sabbath than what I typically think of as psychedelic rock. But there are those tropes as well, and the mix of the heaviness and the swirling psychedlia make it a sound that stands out as its own thing. Maybe Iron Butterfly was similar, but otherwise The Doors sound like The Doors and no one else. It sounds simple, but a unique sound is one of the hardest things for any artist to cultivate. That they were able to do that here, on their very first album, is a testament to why the band is now considered so iconic.

Favorite Tracks: Break on Through; The End; Twentieth Century Fox

Emily: Fifty years ago, I bet Jim Morrison and The Doors had no idea that several of their songs would become mainstays in car commercials. That's really how I know many of the songs on this album - they've been repackaged as bouncy jaunts over visions of Hondas and Toyotas and probably a few Diet Cokes and replayed hundreds and hundreds of time in between Monday Night Football plays and Bachelor rose ceremonies. It's a blessing and a curse I suppose. On the one hand, this exposure means that millions more people know how awesome The Doors were. But on the other hand, it kind of bastardizes the whole heavy, psychedelic artistic expression that embodies this entire album. Jim Morrison was a one-of-a-kind talent, and that really shines through here on The Doors' debut. They have such a fully formed sound from that first song, Break on Through (one of the most prevalent Doors-in-commercials songs), and that coherent vision carries through throughout the album. It really shows that The Doors deserve to be explored in longer than 30-second snippets.

Favorite Tracks: Break on Through; Light My Fire; Soul Kitchen

#460: Mudhoney - Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (1991)

Zack: While Nirvana rightfully get credit for popularizing grunge, they were hardly alone in its innovation. One of their contemporaries, also from Seattle, were Mudhoney. They started releasing early projects at around the same time Nirvana released Bleach (except Mudhoney’s first EP and album are actually supposed to be pretty good) and both of their opuses came out within months of each other in 1991 (Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge came out about two months before Nevermind). Now that I’ve actually listened to a Mudhoney album, I’m starting to think that they don’t get enough attention. EGBDF was a very strong album. It’s certainly grunge, but softens some of the harsher edges with extra alternative rock and garage rock. The result is a very interesting album worth checking out for anyone who wants to broaden their appreciation of the grunge scene.

Favorite Tracks: Broken Hands; Let It Slide; Something So Clear

Emily: Early '90s grunge is almost always up my alley. Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden are staples of alt-rock radio to this day (and I've heard that they've started sneaking on to classic rock radio as well - guess it's time for that). That's why I was pretty surprised that all of Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge was unfamiliar to me. Mudhoney hits many of the same beats as their Seattle contemporaries - fuzzy guitars, angsty lyrics, and DIY punk sensibilities - with somewhat softer and perhaps more radio-friendly sheen, but they didn't catch on with audiences in the same way. I guess there was too much out there at the time that kinda sounded like them, or the shine of Nirvana blinded listeners to other grunge records in 1991. It's a shame, because EGBDF is a really good grunge album. It's no Nevermind, but a few songs have definitely earned their place on a '90s alt-rock playlist (or, in a couple years, on a deep-dive classic rock station).

Favorite Tracks: Broken Hands; Thorn; Who You Drivin' Now

#459: The Shamen - En-Tact (1990)

Zack: That’s three consecutive albums that I really, really enjoyed, a streak which will end right now. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I did not like an electro-rave dance album from 1990. (Or, at the very least, I didn’t like the US/1991 edition…which seems to be radically different from the original version but this is the one that’s been sold since 1991 so I’m sticking with it.) I found it annoying and dull, despite the attempts to seemingly overstimulate the listener. That said, I’ll focus on the few tracks that I did kind of like and point out the elements that drew me to them. First, Possible Worlds and Evil Is Even had these interesting ambient/soundtrack qualities to them. Like, if they were slipped into the background of a TV show, they might kind of work. In a weird way, they kind of reminded me of Nujabes, whose albums and soundtrack work I absolutely adore. These tracks didn’t have the same delicate and ethereal quality than Nujabes songs typically have, but at least there was something sort of compelling about them other than the bouncing and beeping. Second, on Progen 91 and (to a lesser extent) Move Any Mountain, The Shamen embrace a little bit of hip-hop. I mean that beyond just an awkward rap verse shoehorned in there (although they both have them and they are terrible and I’m actually docking points for those). There’s something to those beats that are reminiscent of Afrika Bambaataa, for example. I didn’t totally mind that element as well. On the rest of the album, though, The Shamen eschew these elements in favor of a plainer ravish sound, and I thought it was pretty shitty. But at least there were a few things I could like.

Favorite Tracks: Possible Words; Evil Is Even [edit]; Progen 91 (I.R.P. in the Land of Oz)

Emily: I started listening to this album a couple weeks ago, and I only just returned to it tonight. A combination of things got in the way, including a friend visiting, a busy few weeks of work, traveling for the holidays, and getting a new dog(!!!). Mostly, though, I didn't really want to return to an early-'90s British rave album. Without much going on this evening (and with some prodding from Zack), I returned to En-Tact before settling in to watch basketball and/or Black Mirror. And, big surprise, I still wasn't much of a fan. I mean, it's fine background noise, nothing too clangy or untz-untz or earth-shatteringly loud. But nothing really grabbed my attention, and I was mostly just bored. So bored that this is all I have to say about it.

Favorite Tracks: Omega Amigo; Progen 91 (I.R.P. in the Land of Oz); 666 Edit

#458: Neil Young - After the Gold Rush (1970)

Zack: Yaaaaaaaaaaas!! My feelings about Neil Young have been well documented at this point. We’ve listened to two solo Neil Young albums before now, both of which I absolutely adored (I believe Rust Never Sleeps made my top 5 for the first 100 and Harvest was my favorite album from albums 201-300). And we’ve encountered Neil Young in a couple of bands, where I usually found his contributions to be the most striking. Plus, since this endeavor introduced me to Neil Young, I’ve gone through some of his more popular – but not included on the list – albums, and generally found them to be quite good (I haven’t yet dived into all the albums from the 80s and 90s that people straight up hate, but maybe one day.) I was looking forward to listening to this album so bad that I plowed through many of the last dozen or so in an effort to get to it sooner. And while After the Gold Rush didn’t transfix me quite as much as Harvest or Rust Never Sleeps, I still thought it delivered up to my expectations. It wasn’t as consistently excellent, and there were songs I just did not like, but the highs were just as lofty as on those other two. After the Gold Rush is definitely a great album, and although I’ll need to give it a few more listens before I decide if it’ll be a contender for the 500 album awards, I’m definitely looking forward to doing so.

Favorite Tracks: Southern Man; After the Gold Rush; Don’t Let It Bring You Down

Emily: When I told Zack this morning that I was listening to Neil Young (he was in the other room and I had headphones in, so he had no idea), he bounced up and down and YAYed. That's how much he likes Neil Young. While I'm not quite as enthralled, I definitely appreciate the winding folk-country-rock road that Neil Young has taken and continues to take over the course of his 40+ year career. And I liked a lot about this album. The first song underwhelmed me, but then it was three songs straight that I absolutely loved. I went on to like the rest of it, but those three songs really got to me. There's something about the songwriting and the simplicity of the arrangements that make Neil Young's music really special. And what I think this means is that I have to revisit the albums we've listened to in the past, and perhaps expand my Neil Young horizons beyond this list.

Favorite Tracks: Only Love Can Break Your Heart; Southern Man; After the Gold Rush

#457: Ray Charles - The Genius of Ray Charles (1959)

Zack: How it has taken us almost 7 years to get to a Ray Charles album defies explanation, but here we are. Ray Charles is a titan of music, and it’s not hard to see…er…hear why. On this album, Ray Charles relies on a bigger sound than many of the singles he’s more well known for, utilizing big band and swing to create stronger horn and string sections underlying his always brilliant piano playing and singing. I thought they complimented him well, and I found something to like about every song on this album.

Favorite Tracks: It Had to Be You; Come Rain or Come Shine; Let the Good Times Roll

Emily: The other day I started watching the new Amazon show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I've watched four of the eight episodes in season one, and it is just delightful. It takes place in 1958 in New York City, where the titular Midge Maisel is starting out as a stand-up comedian after her husband leaves her for his secretary. The Genius of Ray Charles is of the same era, and listening to it I could just imagine Midge with her stand-up manager or a fellow comedian taking in a Ray Charles show at one of the smoky downtown jazz clubs that populate the show's imagination. Well, by that time I imagine Ray was playing much bigger (but still smoky) venues, but the classic-R&B-and-jazz sound that permeates this album would fit right in alongside Midge's quips and fabulous hats.

Favorite Tracks: It Had to Be You; Let the Good Times Roll; Just for a Thrill

#456: The Beach Boys - Surf's Up (1971)

Emily: For the uninitiated (i.e., me), one might think that Surf's Up is a classic Beach Boys album of the Surfin' Safari, going-to-the-beach-with-pretty-girls variety. The fact that the album is from 1971, though, should give you a heads-up that this isn't actually a frothy pop Americana album about surfing. It's nearly ten years after the group started, and a few years after they started to move into more complex and psychedelic sound. So, as the music and album art make abundantly clear, the title Surf's Up is an ironic nod to the band's surf-rock roots, while the music delves further into psychedelia while maintaining some pop roots. The result was the Beach Boys' strongest commercial success in several years, and it's easy to see why. The album combines lush harmonies and soundscapes with socially-conscious and inventive lyrics, creating a sound that is both innovative and approachable that leaves you wanting to know where the Beach Boys would take their sound next.
Favorite Tracks: Surf's Up; Long Promised Road; Student Demonstration Time

Zack: I would have liked to get nostalgic about the Beach Boys, but apparently I didn’t do a great job of remembering the time we listened to Pet Sounds. I thought it was summer 2011, but couldn’t remember if it was June or July. Turns out I was way off. We listened to Pet Sounds December of 2010, making it the 34^th album we reviewed (including the 9 to start). Whoops. My excuse is that Pet Sounds is such a perfect summer album that it temporarily transported me forward in time when I listened to it. I love Pet Sounds. It’s just such a great pop treat. And a result is that when I put it on again in the summer of 2012, I decided I wanted to broaden my Beach Boys horizons. So I totally legally went about totally legally obtaining the Beach Boys entire discography through totally legal means. I remember initiating this totally legal process and then going to get a sandwich from the Grilled Cheese truck on Norris St. in front of what I want to say was Boyer Hall. I made my way through a lot of that totally legal discography over the next few weeks, and I do remember doing that. I skipped over Surf’s Up and Today! because they were both on the list, but I was familiar with their positions in the discography and both of their legacies. So I knew that the title Surf’s Up is ironic, and I knew about the frankly awesome cover art. Still, Surf’s Up caught me a little off-guard. It’s just so far removed from the poppy sound of Pet Sounds. There are elements of psychedelic rock and prog rock and lots else blended in. And it’s all really good. I was, frankly, quite impressed that the same band that made Pet Sounds could make something equally good but so dramatically different. Surf’s Up is easily a classic album, and I’m glad I got to listen to it actually during the summer for a change (although this one will probably also get posted in December).

Favorite Tracks: Surf’s Up; Student Demonstration Time; A Day in the Life of a Tree

#455: Ian Dury - New Boots and Panties!! (1977)

Zack: I have been nominating this album every time we have a punk album due for like a year and a half at this point. There are two reasons. One, the album title is great. Two, it’s one of the earliest albums in the punk section, which basically means it’s either a garage rock album (I merged those genres together some time ago since there were like 10 garage rock albums total) and I have loved like all of the garage rock albums we’ve listened to (shoutout The Sonics forevah) or an early punk album a la The Ramones, Sex Pistols, etc., which also have a history of being dope. All that had me really hyped to start listening to it…right until I hit play. The first 70% of this album was kind of slow and very British. I found Ian Dury’s voice to be pretty annoying and I was just not into it at all. The last 3 tracks are much more punkish, and they were easily my favorites. But they couldn’t quite make up for the 7 songs beforehand which frustrated me to no end.

Favorite Tracks: Blockheads; Blackmail Man; Plainstow Patricia

Emily: I do love the name of this album, as well as its cheeky origin story (that boots and underwear are the only articles of clothing that Ian Dury wouldn't buy secondhand). The music itself, though, was mostly just weird. Ian Dury is VERY British (from Essex specifically), and his accented voice snakes and snarls through his lyrics and the protopunk music that for some reason also sounds like funk and oompahs. There are glimmers of punk here and there (particularly in the last three tracks), but otherwise the sound is kind of disorienting and just not all that fun.

Favorite Tracks: Plainstow Patricia; Blackmail Man; Sweet Gene Vincent

#454: Dwight Yoakam - Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room (1988)

Zack: While I have learned to appreciate some aspects of country music, others just rub me the wrong way. Dwight Yoakam was in that category. Musically, Buenas Noches wasn’t overly twangy, but I wouldn’t describe it as overly appealing. But what really ruined this album for me was the lyrics and singing. Recently, there was an episode of the Malcolm Gladwell podcast Revisionist History were he talks about his “theory” (to the extent you could call it that) that country musicians are better songwriters than rock musicians (those are the only two genres of music apparently) because they are more emotional and open to discussing it directly and in vivid detail rather than vague allusion. I think that’s mostly bullshit, but there might be something about the directness aspect. Dwight Yoakam is very direct, but I didn’t like a lot of what I heard. The song What I Don’t Know is predicated on him threatening a lover, saying that if he finds out that he is being cheated on then he will murder her. Am I supposed to be moved by the threat of domestic violence? Am I supposed to find that relatable? The titular track, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room, was easily my favorite song on the album. And yet it too ends with him murdering a former lover (and the mother of his child) who ran away from him with another man. There are plenty of songs about heartbreak on here, and that’s fine of course, but it’s hard to rally behind many of the conclusions. Besides the murder fantasies, I noticed another theme going on: What we might refer to today as the rural-urban divide. On I Sang Dixie (my second favorite song, by the way, to show that I am trying to separate my more analytical thoughts from my evaluations of the songs) Yoakam tells a story of meeting a dying southern man in Los Angeles and trying to comfort him while everyone just goes on by. The man’s dying words are telling him to go back to the south and away from these California weirdos (my words, not his). Streets of Bakersfield was similar. There, it’s people in San Francisco though, and it’s mostly just about how he’s tired to being judged by a bunch of people who don’t know the first thing about where he’s from. The theme of these songs really rubbed me the wrong way. That is probably a specific temporal anomaly. I’m writing this a couple days out from the Charlottesville protests, where a bunch of white supremacists/Neo-Nazis were protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. I just watched a video of another Confederacy statue in North Carolina being torn down and kicked by anti-white supremacist protestors. There was a massive march in our adoptive city of D.C. last night protesting a statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate general. I’m pretty revved up on this issue at the moment. And I’m pretty fucking tired of hearing a bunch of southern, “Oh we’re such victims why don’t other people understand us.” Boo fucking hoo. Southern culture is distinct and has lots of really awesome elements to it that denizens of the region should absolutely be allowed to celebrate. The food, the culture of sports and competition, (some of) the music. There’s a lot of great stuff, for sure. But I’m from New Jersey. You don’t think that when I introduce myself to someone and they ask where I’m from, I catch a ton of shit? I have a good friend from Kansas. Flyover country. You don’t think we bust his balls about that every chance we get. People make fun of where other people are from. That’s a thing they do. Hell, both of these songs are predicated on stereotypes of Californians. But I am supposed to weep for the poor, misjudged southerner. Fuck you. Grow the fuck up. Think about another goddamn person for one fucking second. And with that, I’ll rage-quit this post/screed.

Favorite Tracks: Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room (She Wore Red Dresses); I Sang Dixie; Floyd County

Emily: Zack had a lot to say, so I'll keep this brief. Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room is a very old-school country album. It has some twang, a lot of Southern pride, and several Jesus references. I had to do a double-take when I was writing in the date, because it honestly sounds like some of the country music we've listened to from the '50s and '60s. But nope, this is from 1988. I guess there was still a market for old-school country for some old-school people, and that market probably still exists now. But all I can say is that it's definitely not for this decidedly un-Southern girl.

Favorite Tracks: Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room (She Wore Red Dresses); I Got You; I Hear You Knockin'

#453: U2 - Achtung Baby (1991)

Zack: There are four U2 albums on the list, and this is the second one for us. I distinctly remembered listening to the first one on a train ride to see Emily, so I guessed summer of 2011. But I wasn’t super confident in that (it could just as easily have been 2012) and I couldn’t even remember which album it was. Turns out I was right about the time and it was The Joshua Tree. I know I didn’t like that album (and, after re-reading my review from back them, I’m not sure if I outright hated it that much or was just trying to be Edge-y and cool…see what I did there?), but that’s about it. Back then, I would take an hour-long train from rural NJ to Philly, wait for the next train, then take a 45-minute train from Philly to Emily’s hometown. I would normally try and knock out like three albums each way, and I’d inevitably be reading or playing Fire Emblem on my laptop while I did it. They’d all kind of blur together. Now, for Achtung Baby, I tried to give it a little more attention. I listened to it on a Saturday morning, other than the last few songs from Off the Wall that I had to finish up, it was the first thing I was doing that day, so I wasn’t super burned out when I got to it, and instead of playing video games I was just giving issue codes to speeches I’d already read before. I was in a little bit of a less divided headspace. And I think I appreciated the album more than I otherwise would as a result. I wouldn’t say that I had a “come to Jesus” moment or anything. In fact, my scores for this album were hyper polarized. I gave most songs either 5 stars (my equivalent of super good; if I’m just throwing on tracks and not listening to an album straight through, these are the ones I’ll play) or 3 stars (my equivalent of meh meh meh meh meh). But the songs that popped out, I really liked. They were alternative rock with a bit more complexity to it. I noticed traces of Bowie in the formula, which really perked me up. Overall, Achtung Baby showed me flashes of what real U2 fans adore, and those flashes were pretty impressive.

Favorite Tracks: One; Acrobat; Ultraviolet (Light My Way)

Emily: Based on the limited information I have (i.e. Phoebe Robinson from 2 Dope Queens and my friend's freshman year roommate), if you're a U2 person, then you are wholeheartedly a U2 person. I, however, am not a U2 person. I just don't get the appeal. I'm not opposed to alternative rock growing to stadium proportions as a general matter - the Foo Fighters are great! - but U2 always comes off more preachy and self-righteous than fun and freewheeling. To me, the result is just kinda boring. Achtung Baby fit right in to that impression. There were a few very good songs that made me take notice - the kind that you can definitely hear as a stadium sing-a-long, but otherwise I just found it dull. U2 just isn't my thing, and based on my impressions of this album I don't think it ever really will be.

Favorite Tracks: One; Ultraviolet (Light My Way); Until the End of the World

#452: Michael Jackson - Off the Wall (1979)

Zack: After a short, two-album detour, we are once again boarding the Nostalgia Express. This is the second Michael Jackson album we’ve listened to. The first was Thriller, which we listened to on vinyl in Emily’s parents’ basement, I want to say after a riveting game of Mario Kart (but don’t quote me on that last part.) That was super early on, and if we were at Emily’s parents’ house, it would probably be December 2010 or January 2011. So…I’m guessing like 6 and a half years ago. Thriller is unassailable, so of course Off the Wall doesn’t quite compare. But it’s still an excellent album filled with timeless goodies. Michael Jackson truly was a singular talent, and Off the Wall is just further proof of what we all already knew.

Favorite Tracks: Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough; I Can’t Help It; Rock With You

Emily: Off the Wall was Michael Jackson's first album post-Jackson 5 and post-Motown. It was the first time he had some modicum of creative freedom to develop his own sound, and he used that freedom to explore pop ballads, up-tempo funk and disco, and now-classic R&B and soul. The album succeeds across all of these genres, all of which are tied together by Michael's one-of-a-kind voice. Off the Wall has some classics in its own right, and even more importantly serves as a starting point for the even-greater pop excellence of Thriller and Bad.

Favorite Tracks: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough; Rock With You; She's Out of My Life