Listed below are the overall rankings for the best albums in history as determined by their aggregate positions in over 59,000 different greatest album charts on BestEverAlbums.com! (Chart last updated: 7 hours ago).
"(This is an awe-inspiring return by this duo after 16 years of no LPs released. Perhaps the darkest and most hopeless album I've heard this year - I suppose it helps that I can't understand the words in the new Knoll and Ad Nauseam and other death/grind albums - and also one of the better and mor...""(This is an awe-inspiring return by this duo after 16 years of no LPs released. Perhaps the darkest and most hopeless album I've heard this year - I suppose it helps that I can't understand the words in the new Knoll and Ad Nauseam and other death/grind albums - and also one of the better and more lovingly produced and detailed pop albums of the year as well.)
This is one of the darkest and most hopeless and nihilistic albums I've heard in a long time, maybe ever. I wasn't expecting this level of brutal verbal destruction. It is amazing if you are in the mood for an album that strips away all the false covers and veneers of life to reveal the disgusting underbelly. When I first heard the album I wasn't in the mood for such a gloomy listen. Still respected the hell out of the spoken word poetry and the detailed electronic arrangements and tracks. But yeah it put me off how unrelenting the mood was. Today I listened a couple more times and I was way more invested. Maybe that has to do with my somewhat more dark mood, maybe its just a nice change of pace from the more level-headed, stoic messages of recent albums I've heard. Anyway, the point is, this album is a dark and harsh listen thematically and lush and beautiful musically.
All throughout the album behind the captivating performances of Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, there are gorgeous, detailed and lush touches musically, melodies and excellent guitar lines and heartfelt indietronica tracks, and these swelling chamber pop moments and all kinds of beautiful musical moments. These well executed sounds and tracks make the vocals and the lyrics all the more ear-catching and intense. There is a very nice way they play off each other.
There isn't a bad track, I almost hate saying that cuz it sounds so basic. But yeah, fuck it, there aren't any tracks that I wanted to skip or felt was half baked. The consistency of the album is impressive. The way the album kicks off is awesome, with "The Turning of our Bones" being one of the most inspired and impressive opening tracks I've heard in awhile. That opening blast of desperate, poetic, hopelessness, is followed up by equally engaging "Another Clockwork Day", "Compersion Pt 1" and "Bluebird". The middle of the album keeps it strong, goes down little byways of musical expression. Then the last 3 tracks are all just as excellent and brutal with the 1-2-3 punch of ""I Was Once A Weak Man", "Sleeper", and the closer "Just Enough".
This is a hard album to rank. I think this is one of the better produced and executed albums this year. But it makes me feel, at times, a bit empty and hopeless. Quality-wise its tops, I probably will rank it a little lower than the quality would suggest, but not too much. And I suspect this will be one of those albums that I look at and I see its placement throughout the year and I move up incrementally. Not sure. All I know is it is indeed an excellent album and an amazing way to come back after 15 years away."[+]Reply
"Yo La Tengo is one of the most consistent bands of their generation, releasing album after album of catchy indie rock that always sounds recognizably like Yo La Tengo without being overly repetitive. The subtly adventurous Fade rates as an above-average Yo La Tengo album, highlighted by the opene...""Yo La Tengo is one of the most consistent bands of their generation, releasing album after album of catchy indie rock that always sounds recognizably like Yo La Tengo without being overly repetitive. The subtly adventurous Fade rates as an above-average Yo La Tengo album, highlighted by the opener "Ohm," which combines many of the elements that make the band so successful at what they do: affable, jangly guitars that gradually gain in noise and intensity, while the vocal harmonies blend into a kind of mantra embodying the song's title. The result is just about as good as anything the band has ever recorded, and that's saying something."[+]Reply
"It's nearly perfect from the sheer prospect of that in its short 30 minute run time, there isnt a weak point. Golden Chords is my favorite track of 2016 thus far. This LP will find a place in my top 5 at the end of this year, and if not- that will be a testament to the year itself."Reply
"The people who dismiss the Monkees without ever having listened to them, and who refer to them derisively as a "band" (never without quotation marks), can never really be convinced of their merits. I don't have ill feelings toward these people because they had the whole media telling a story abou...""The people who dismiss the Monkees without ever having listened to them, and who refer to them derisively as a "band" (never without quotation marks), can never really be convinced of their merits. I don't have ill feelings toward these people because they had the whole media telling a story about the Monkees that wasn't really true.
I'm gonna skip over the music for a minute and talk about the relationship between the band and the label/company. Somebody commented on here that the Monkees represented the end of musical integrity and the triumph of the love of money. The thing is, if the Monkees are not important for their music, they are important for being a group, perhaps the first, that stood up AGAINST this paradigm. The Monkees came around in the mid-to-late 60s. What do you think was going on before this? I'll tell you-- companies were putting together groups of men or women who could sing, and then they were choosing songs written by professional songwriters under contract, and they were recording those songs in the studio with session musicians. That's just the way it was done (with a few exceptions). It was rare that any groups would play their own instruments either on record or on stage. That's how the corporations liked it--Total Control. If it sounds familiar, it's because that's how the Monkees started out. Yes, they were prefabricated. Nobody's going to deny that. But, they because an extremely important band because they broke the mold. Somehow, they and a couple of allies they had in the company, waged a war in order to control their own musical destiny. They shouldn't be denigrated for having started out just the same as so many other groups; they should be celebrated for showing the music world that artists are not puppets to be controlled by corporations. They have to have free will.
As for the album Headquarters, they played every note, and it turns out they were talented guys. Does the album stand up with the greats? Well, no, but it is one of the better albums of the year. Moreover, it is better than just about any other talented band at the time that were playing their own instruments and writing their own songs. Much of this is due to the prodigious talents of Michael Nesmith, who's song "You Just May Be the One" is an extraordinary study in pop hooks, and is the best tune on the albums. His other songs, along with Micky's "Randy Scouse Git" are the album's other best songs. The album is weakest when it is borrowing corporate tunes, written for money, like those by Boyce and Hart, and Mann and Weil. Like most of the songs on the first two Monkees albums, these songs lack heart. Nesmith's were always the best because he was an artist recording his own tunes. So many of the songs that Don Kirshner selected were so flat because they were written for a paycheck. "[+]Reply
"Feeling meh about this album. This felt quite repetitive for me to listen and sometimes I feel like I've heard something like this before. All I just feel is just meh. I'm sure if you're a major fan you would like it, but someone else I don't know..."Reply
"Everything a black metal record should be. Life Eternal and Funeral Fog still give me the shivers. It's dark and incredibly eery. Some find Attila's vocals comedic compared to his predecessor Dead's but I disagree, the operatic's of Attila's style contrast well with the harshness of the guitar ri...""Everything a black metal record should be. Life Eternal and Funeral Fog still give me the shivers. It's dark and incredibly eery. Some find Attila's vocals comedic compared to his predecessor Dead's but I disagree, the operatic's of Attila's style contrast well with the harshness of the guitar riffs. "[+]Reply
"There needs to be a term for this kind of music that’s been gaining such popularity so quickly. Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, The Punch Brothers, Trampled By Turtles, and now The Lumineers. It’s like all of a sudden the public cares a little bit about bluegrass. But it’s not “true" bluegras...""There needs to be a term for this kind of music that’s been gaining such popularity so quickly. Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, The Punch Brothers, Trampled By Turtles, and now The Lumineers. It’s like all of a sudden the public cares a little bit about bluegrass. But it’s not “true" bluegrass, you see. It’s poppy bluegrass. It’s folk rock that has elements of bluegrass (tight harmonies, banjo, mandolin) mixed with elements of pop. There hasn’t been a good name for it yet. Some would say “progressive bluegrass" or “newgrass" but those have somewhat different meanings. I think the best way to describe it is this: it’s banjo pop. Pop music lead by a banjo and all those folk/bluegrass elements.
The Lumineers debut album is banjo pop at it’s best. The songs are incredibly well-written both lyrically and musically, and the album is a wonderful, coherent idea. These guys have a bright future in a world that is beginning to love banjo pop."[+]Reply