Listed below are the overall rankings for the best albums in history as determined by their aggregate positions in over 58,000 different greatest album charts on BestEverAlbums.com! (Chart last updated: 22 minutes ago).
"For better or worse, the most definitive, genre-identifying "acid rock" album ever made. Very different sound (less folkish) than Surrealistic Pillow due to writing credits shifting from Balin to Kantner. And as a final note, Jack Casady's bass playing here is some of the best in all of rock music.""For better or worse, the most definitive, genre-identifying "acid rock" album ever made.
Very different sound (less folkish) than Surrealistic Pillow due to writing credits shifting from Balin to Kantner.
And as a final note, Jack Casady's bass playing here is some of the best in all of rock music."[+]Reply
"In my opinion, Wilco lost its experimenting creative edge and slid a bit towards adult contemporary fare on albums "sky blue sky" and "wilco (the album)". There were a couple songs like "bull black nova" and "impossible germany" that stretched the new, adult wilco sound, but for the most part, th...""In my opinion, Wilco lost its experimenting creative edge and slid a bit towards adult contemporary fare on albums "sky blue sky" and "wilco (the album)". There were a couple songs like "bull black nova" and "impossible germany" that stretched the new, adult wilco sound, but for the most part, they sounded more like a band fine in where it was at, ready to put out solid rock shows and nothing more. i long for "summerteeth", "yankee hotel foxtrot" and "a ghost is born" (despite its overreaching guitar feedback).
Enter "the whole love" which pushes at their current boundaries a little more, and is all the better for it, nicely summed up on opening track "art of almost". Nels Cline brings the shredder too, which augments a bunch of the songs, like on "standing o"."[+]Reply
"HOMEGROWN You're a poem of mystery You're the prayer inside me Spoken words like moonlight You're the voice that I like (Faded From The Winter) Sub Pop almost didn’t make it. No. I don’t mean the grunge years. That was a given. No matter how improbable it seemed at the time. You just couldn’t kee...""HOMEGROWN
You're a poem of mystery
You're the prayer inside me
Spoken words like moonlight
You're the voice that I like (Faded From The Winter)
Sub Pop almost didn’t make it. No. I don’t mean the grunge years. That was a given. No matter how improbable it seemed at the time. You just couldn’t keep that much talent - Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains in particular - from going big. Seattle was going to blow. It was just a matter of time. Hair metal beckoned a correction. Metal had gone adrift way too far into the seas of cheese. A hard tack was in the cards.
No. I’m taking about the rebirth. In the late 90s. Sub Pop was on its knees. Internal mutinies were plotted. Hell, even co-founder Bruce Pavitt wanted to call it quits.
But not Jonathan Poneman. Poneman’s a lot like us. A music junkie. Addicted to the process of discovery. Finding that next musical high. That next big thing. That new sound. That’s right. Poneman of Sub Pop fame is a music addict just like us. And in the late 90s, he was desperately trying to jumpstart his once proud grunge behemoth Sub Pop. And by being a super music geek, Poneman pulled off one of the most successful rebrands of a record label in rock history. First came the The Shins Oh Inverted World. But no industry rests and Poneman needed to prove that Sub Pop was no longer just a grunge label. After all, with the Nicklebacks splashing in Puddles of Mudd 3 Doors Down, grunge or Sub Pop was hardly hip anymore. Quite the opposite.
And he found it. After countless hours of listening to demo after demo after demo. He got that rush all over again. Finding Sam Beam baring his soul on an old demo tape. And there was magic there. No studio trickery. No band. Just Beam channeling Appalachalia into his bedroom. Channeling a campfire that never was. And this is the power of imagination. He made an a lo-fi Appalachian album. Call it lo fi indie if you want. The setting tell us to do so. The record label tells us to do so. Hell Allmusic compares it to Sebadoh. But the songs. The voice. The slide guitar. That banjo. They tell us differently.
Reality check: I am NOT like Poneman. AT ALL. I just think I am. I let other people do my dirty work. You won’t catch me going through random demos looking for gold. EVER. It’s never happened. It never will happen. Shit, I didn’t even have any patience with those CMJ comps that would get mailed to my door back in the day. There’s tons of undiscovered gems out there. I just let other people find them for me. Thanks, BEA! Thanks, Spin! Thanks, Pitchfork! Thanks, Trouser Press and all the other countless lists I've scoured for the next fix. (Luckily, for all of us, I possess something called INSIGHT. That means I’m aware of my own shortcomings. I can see and more importantly smell my own pile of bullshit. Some people do not have this! They do not even realize that they shit! But more on this at another date.)
Allmusic tries to connect this album to Sebadoh/Sentridoh and the lo-fi indie rock of the early 90s. But that’s bullshit. Sebadoh always felt neatly nestled in the indie rock universe. A logical and necessary part of it. This doesn’t. This is all its own. Even more so than Oh Inverted World.
The problem with a lot of projects on this scale - one man bands in a bedroom- is that the songs can start to sound a like. Which is understandable. I mean it’s just one guy after all. In his bedroom. But this album completely bucks that notion as each song sounds distinct. Unique. The whole album somehow growing stronger as it travels along. Beam sent Poneman two albums worth of demos, and Poneman chiseled them down to this one record. A good editor is so underrated!
Grade: A+. I really don’t know how Poneman did it back it the early 2000s. First the Shins and then this. He definitely deserves more credit since both albums sounded like nothing else at the time. Now we take the whole Indie Folk scene for granted. Plus they each came with their own identity. Their own mystique. Hell even the album title - The Creek Drank the Cradle - sounds like an old fable. Biblical in nature. It has this recorded in obscurity home vibe mystique to it. And neither The Shins nor Iron & Wine would ever quite capture that again despite continued success. Something other worldly. Like from an old radio station left behind by the Dharma Initiative. Something that would be playing down in that old hatch while Desmond waited around to push the button. To save the world. It was like you were being let in on this secret world. Something apart yet parallel to our own. And this album climbs out of that hatch an into the sunshine. No longer Lost on a desert island, a desert bedroom but rising high among the indie greats to number 16. "[+]Reply
"Working my way backwards through the manic catalog, i'm surprised to find a manic album with the soundtrack provided by a mid-80s hair metal band. The vocals are the only thing keeping me from thinking this is a motley crue cover band. Very odd. And as other reviews state, they attempt to make a ...""Working my way backwards through the manic catalog, i'm surprised to find a manic album with the soundtrack provided by a mid-80s hair metal band. The vocals are the only thing keeping me from thinking this is a motley crue cover band. Very odd. And as other reviews state, they attempt to make a grand statement, and hair metal guitar theatrics certainly support that desire, but the manic's grand sound would round more into form later. There's enough here to like for now, but don't kick yourself if you keep waiting for the "girls, girls, girls" encore."[+]Reply
"'The Three E.P.'s' is a compilation album of the first three releases by The Beta Band, comprising the EPs: (1) Champion Versions 1997 (2) The Patty Patty Sound 1998 (3) Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos 1998 Recalling loving The Beta Band from when these EP's first came out I recently went back and r...""'The Three E.P.'s' is a compilation album of the first three releases by The Beta Band, comprising the EPs:
(1) Champion Versions 1997
(2) The Patty Patty Sound 1998
(3) Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos 1998
Recalling loving The Beta Band from when these EP's first came out I recently went back and re-listened to this album and its aged really well sounding as cool and relevant today as it did 20 years ago
I was struck with how much this material reminded me of Alt-J in terms of song structure and harmony's - I've realised my love of Alt-J probably began with my love of The Beta Band
Simply awesome "[+]Reply
"A criminally underrated album, "One Hot Minute" is one of the strongest RHCP albums if you want my opinion. It is the proggiest album they've ever done, and I like that. I think the RHCP have a tendency to use a recipe when they're writing songs nowadays, but this is definitely not the case on th...""A criminally underrated album, "One Hot Minute" is one of the strongest RHCP albums if you want my opinion. It is the proggiest album they've ever done, and I like that. I think the RHCP have a tendency to use a recipe when they're writing songs nowadays, but this is definitely not the case on this one!
Three tracks particularly stand out when you consider how prog this album is: "Deep Kick", "One Big Mob" and "One Hot Minute". Those three tracks are all longer, made of multiple sections and they're full of surprises. I really like those tracks.
There are also the hits, "Aeroplane", "My Friends", "Warped" and "Coffee Shop". I think they're all equally good and on par with any RHCP hit from any other album. "Warped" and "Coffee Shop" are especially hard and maybe heavier than what we usually expect from these guys, but I really like it because it is well put together and produced.
Then, there's the amazing "Walkabout" and "Falling Into Grace" that are more on the funky side of the road and really fit well into the record. The last two songs, "Shallow Be Thy Game" and "Transcending" are really heavy and prove without a doubt that Dave Navarro truly had something great to offer to this band.
"Pea" and "Tearjerker" would be the only songs I didn't like as much as the rest, but they still fit well into the album.
All in all, a very heavy album, with a little bit of prog and funk, that will surely keep you interested for the entire listen. Give "One Hot Minute" a chance, it's definitely worth it."[+]Reply
"I've know the band and this album for a few years now - West Ryder was my entry point and love that. I also enjoyed this, their debut album, but after a 2020 re-listen I had forgotten how good it was - Club Foot, Reason is Treason and Processed Beats open the album and are all great along with L....""I've know the band and this album for a few years now - West Ryder was my entry point and love that. I also enjoyed this, their debut album, but after a 2020 re-listen I had forgotten how good it was - Club Foot, Reason is Treason and Processed Beats open the album and are all great along with L.S.F.
But I hadn't fully appreciated the last few songs on the album with Test Transmission, Cutt Off and Butcher Blues now all landing with me - I think my taste and appreciation has changed since 2016 when I joined this site and started to really open up what I was prepared to listen to. This has also helped me reappraise older albums as well."[+]Reply