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: 6 hours ago).
"Chico Buarque is a genius. "Construction" is exactly what he does in this album, through his words and sounds he builds whole cities only to destroy them all and start again. It leaves you helpless, small and oddly strong after being able to connect to everything he says."Reply
"This double album was released after Live at Fillmore East had propelled the band to stardom in the USA. It has three components. Firstly studio tracks featuring Duane Allman, secondly tracks recorded following his untimely demise and lastly live tracks from the Filmore East performances. More by...""This double album was released after Live at Fillmore East had propelled the band to stardom in the USA. It has three components. Firstly studio tracks featuring Duane Allman, secondly tracks recorded following his untimely demise and lastly live tracks from the Filmore East performances. More by accident than design the album works really well with the more laid back style of the studio material complementing the raw power of the best live tracks. Either way it showcases a great band at their very best despite having to deal with a huge tragedy.
The fact that this double album only contains nine tracks is due to some of the tracks being greatly extended jams. This is never more apparent than on the 33 minute version of Mountain Jam which is extended way beyond the listener’s interest and undermines the whole album. The beautiful Betts track Melissa is one of the bands finest ever moments and Little Martha is a great track featuring Duane at his very best. The album reached # 4 on the US chart and is a fitting memorial to Duane Allman
"[+]Reply
"Drake is just so bad. It’s unbelievable. I don’t see what people see in him. There are so many other great rappers out there, people who are incredibly talented, and this is who people go nuts over? This album is even worse than his first album, and his first album only had like one or two good s...""Drake is just so bad. It’s unbelievable. I don’t see what people see in him. There are so many other great rappers out there, people who are incredibly talented, and this is who people go nuts over? This album is even worse than his first album, and his first album only had like one or two good songs on it. The beats are decent, and about 90% of the lyrics are Drake talking about how awesome he is. It’s self-indulgent, it’s egotistical and it’s horrible. I can’t even look past the terrible lyrics to enjoy the music behind them because A. the music isn’t that great and B. the lyrics are just THAT BAD. It’s terrible. "[+]Reply
"It's funny that most of the comments here allude to this being below par for Bob, and not on the same level as some of his other recordings. Personally I think that's absolute hogwash - this is Dylan at his very best; Dylan the mythologiser, Dylan the storyteller, Dylan the philosopher. Beginning...""It's funny that most of the comments here allude to this being below par for Bob, and not on the same level as some of his other recordings. Personally I think that's absolute hogwash - this is Dylan at his very best; Dylan the mythologiser, Dylan the storyteller, Dylan the philosopher.
Beginning with the opener and title track, Dylan weaves a series of telling tales about his life and his career as told through the point of view of others. The title track is no more about John Wesley Hardin than it is about Dylan the protest-singer, or at least the one which the media chose to portray. It may seem like a simple tale of a Robin Hood-esque noble outlaw, but the song itself acts as a metaphor for Dylan's own exploits, or at least some exaggerated version of them as dreamed up by those raving, quasi-religious "followers" he was so reluctant to acknowledge in the first place. In the final verse he appears to switch to something more accurate, at least in terms of his opinion of himself and the way he could confound expectations and hopes others had of him ("no charge held against him could they prove"). And why, of all people, choose John Wesley Hardin anyway? The man was apparently so mean that he once killed a man for snoring (though this probably didn't actually happen), so why choose his name for a tale about a noble outlaw? My opinion is that Dylan chose Hardin for his reputation as a self-mythologiser, a man who would wilfully embellish his stories in order to make them more exciting, just as Dylan has been wont to do. (Anybody who seriously believes Chronicles to be a work of accurate autobiography needs their head checked.) Dylan even looks like a noble outlaw on the cover, enhancing the idea that he sees himself as Hardin, or at least the Harding of this song and this album. What people often dismiss as a series of cute folk tales and ditties, ones which I've been told pale in comparison to his apparently more focused and passionate paeans to love or justice, are arguably his most personal (or, perhaps more accurately, his most self-referencing) works, those in which he puts himself smack bang in the middle of the story, even as somebody else entirely.
And we see this happen throughout the record. Dylan is the lonesome hobo who has served his time for everything except begging on the street (or is he? Would he really admit to not trusting his brother?), who in turn is the accused drifter. He is both the joker (whose wine is drunk by businessmen and whose earth is dug by ploughmen, without gratitude or recognition of his worth) and the thief (who understands that life is but a joke). Whilst he is defiant in the face of accusations (he is no martyr), he feels the pressure of expectation, the guilt that perhaps he played along and performed his role, even going so far as to bowing his head and crying in the (imagined) presence of St. Augustine (who wasn't, in fact, martyred - perhaps more mythologising on Dylan's part).
Perhaps the album's two most striking moments, the parable 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest' and the piano-driven 'Dear Landlord', appear to be about Dylan's relationship with his management. Judas Priest tries to force Frankie to accept his offer "before (it) all disappears"; Frankie, in his attempts to join Judas in his beautiful home, dies of thirst. Did Dylan sell his soul? Is that what he's admitting to? Or is it just a precursory warning about the trappings of fame, about mistaking paradise for that home across the road? But later, on 'Dear Landlord' (frequently thought to refer to God, but that reading doesn't wash with me, it seems far too confrontational for that), he warns that he's "not about to move to no other place". Perhaps he likes the home after all. "If you don't underestimate me", he states to the Landlord, "I won't underestimate you" - perhaps a grudging respect, or just a necessary compromise.
Not all of the album's songs are so dense with cryptic tales and biblical imagery (in fact, on first inspection, not many of them seem remotely cryptic at all, but that's another story). Album closer 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight' is a simple love song, much more in line with the stuff he'd record on Nashville Skyline, often regarded as this album's sister. That may be true musically (both definitely take their cues from roots and country music), but thematically the two couldn't be more different. Here we have Dylan the shapeshifter, the defiant myth-buster, the mischievous myth-maker, whereas on Nashville Skyline we see Dylan the hopeless romantic. And the music here is much more sparse, darker, naked. On Nashville Skyline there's a certain decadence musically, Dylan basking in the Nashville sound, with all its twangs and rhinestones. Here Dylan lays his soul bare, over fittingly austere accompaniments, often nothing more than a few shuffling guitar chords. Where The Band - whose Music from Big Pink I see as more of a sister album to John Wesley Harding than anything else - used roots music as something expansive and out-of-time (sounding at once centuries old and yet of the present, as though it has no time of reference at all, the musical equivalent of a tree that stands for hundreds of years), Dylan here uses roots music as something small and insular, music to share stories around the campfire to.
Which is, essentially, what this album is. It's Dylan sharing his stories around the campfire, his fears and his guilt, and his pride in forever confounding expectation. This is Dylan the man, and Dylan the myth. This is Dylan the honest, sharing his thoughts as nakedly as he ever would, so long as you're willing to dig a little.
Or maybe - just maybe - this is Dylan the deceiver, singing simple folk tales for his followers to dig into forever more, in futile search of some deeper meaning that simply isn't there. Maybe - just maybe - I've been duped, and this album does, in fact, pale in comparison to his earlier works. And maybe - just maybe - the little neighbour boy was right; "nothing is revealed"."[+]Reply
"This year has been so shitty. And while an album like Fetch the Bolt Cutters recognizes our turmoil and frustration, Shore is a great complement. This is a work of love, joy, and hope that has come at not a moment too soon. But even musically, it's making a strong claim as the best Fleet Foxes al...""This year has been so shitty. And while an album like Fetch the Bolt Cutters recognizes our turmoil and frustration, Shore is a great complement. This is a work of love, joy, and hope that has come at not a moment too soon.
But even musically, it's making a strong claim as the best Fleet Foxes album. It encapsulates the excitement and accessibility of their self-titled, matches the scope and consistency of Helplessness Blues, while pushing the sound and songwriting with similar adventurousness as Crack-Up.
It remains to be seen whether it captures thee same adoration for me as those first two records, given that I've had a decade with them, and at such a formative age. But I gotta say, Shore does not disappoint. "[+]Reply
"(Warning: this comment is kinda long.) I'll be honest, this album took some time to grow on me, as I had some expectations about it before listening. But eventually, I came to appreciate it and thought that it was pretty solid. Around the end of 2018, I was a bit surprised to see this record very...""(Warning: this comment is kinda long.)
I'll be honest, this album took some time to grow on me, as I had some expectations about it before listening. But eventually, I came to appreciate it and thought that it was pretty solid. Around the end of 2018, I was a bit surprised to see this record very high up in most "best of 2018" lists, sometimes getting a perfect rating, and even earning the title "album of the year" from many music sites. So I thought that I might have missed something, and decided to revisit the record.
While I still think that it's good, I still don't seem to enjoy the album to the extent that others do. Now, I'm not trying to be negative. I like Mitski and I'm super happy to see her do well! But I just think that there are things that hold this project back, the main culprit being the track lengths. At times, some songs seem like they could be really great, but their brevity results in them having little impact instead. Many songs seem to end abruptly, sometimes right when it feels like the music could be going somewhere interesting. It feels like running a race and you're making amazing time - but halfway through you just lose all of your energy and stop in your tracks. For me, one example of this is "Come Into the Water."
But basically, that's my only complaint. I don't mean to seem too harsh, because I do think that this album is good! There a good amount of genuinely moving moments on here, especially the closing track "Two Slow Dancers." Truly deep, gorgeous, and filled to the brim with emotion. And "Nobody" is a great track too, very fun to jam out to. In addition, there are some cases where I think that the short track length works well, such as with "Geyser." That track flows very nicely!
Overall, this is a good record, and is definitely worth a listen. It's not perfect, but maybe I'm still missing something. Let me know if I am! Either way, it shows an enormous amount of potential. If Mitski takes her ideas from this album and then really expands on them and fleshes them out, I think that she can come out with something absolutely amazing. Excited for what she puts out in the future!"[+]Reply
"While Doolittle and Surfer Rosa get a lot more attention from critics, I place Trompe le Monde right there alongside those two albums in my own Pixies pantheon. Probably the most important difference between Trompe le Monde and the Pixies' earlier work is the reduced role of Kim Deal, making this...""While Doolittle and Surfer Rosa get a lot more attention from critics, I place Trompe le Monde right there alongside those two albums in my own Pixies pantheon. Probably the most important difference between Trompe le Monde and the Pixies' earlier work is the reduced role of Kim Deal, making this record somewhat closer to a Frank Black solo album than any of their previous efforts. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The high points here are as good as anything else in the Pixies' catalog, especially the loud, indulgent, and bizarre "Space (I Believe In)," with its memorable if ponderous refrain, "Jefrey with one F, Jefrey." "[+]Reply
"Sky Blue Sky was the soundtrack for a long drive through the Nevada desert on the way back from a somewhat challenging journey to climb Middle Sister, one of Nevada's seventeen county highpoints. We got lost several times trying to find the trailhead, had to ford several fairly significant creeks...""Sky Blue Sky was the soundtrack for a long drive through the Nevada desert on the way back from a somewhat challenging journey to climb Middle Sister, one of Nevada's seventeen county highpoints. We got lost several times trying to find the trailhead, had to ford several fairly significant creeks in my Nissan Pathfinder, and had to bushwhack most of way to the summit and down to the county line marker. A long and challenging, but really fun, day. It was such a joy to listen to this album with friends--we were all tired and out of words for conversation, so we just hummed along the highway at twilight with the music turned up loud, and it was such a great way to appreciate the subtle beauty of "Impossible Germany," an understated song that builds toward a remarkably warm and intense guitar solo toward the end. As much as I love the album version, hearing the band play it live back in August of 2016 made me appreciate it even more, as the performance by their current lineup really showcases the amazing and unique guitar talents of Nels Cline."[+]Reply
"I picked up guitar when I first heard In A Little While, and I haven't looked back since. I've always had a special place in my heart for this album for that reason, and I hope one day I can thank the Edge for changing my life."Reply
"First impressions: 1.Really like how all over the place the album is it feels like little fragments of Earl's psyche. 2. Instrumentals are extremely unique. 3. Earl continues to have one of the most assured flows of any rapper of his generation. 4. It is the perfect length based on how short the ...""First impressions:
1.Really like how all over the place the album is it feels like little fragments of Earl's psyche.
2. Instrumentals are extremely unique.
3. Earl continues to have one of the most assured flows of any rapper of his generation.
4. It is the perfect length based on how short the tracks are. The songs are pretty dreary. If the length got to be any longer it would risk losing it's unique fleeting impact. I am going straight back to relisten to the album. Great job Earl!
"[+]Reply