Stream of Consciousness & Music Reviews

    The Yes Album is Yes' third album, the predecessor to Fragile, and where the band found their footing and took off. It's pretty good, sharing some of Fragile's DNA while still being an obvious stepping stone for the band to get there. The sound is a little more blues-y overall and more traditionally prog and I think that the band does it really well. Composition is great, melody and harmonies are still excellent, and the performance is fully realized. I don't like comparing it to Fragile so much but it's my only point of reference for Yes' other work, but the encapsulating totality-ish feeling that I got from Fragile isn't here, if you get what I mean. Where Fragile was able to grab onto my brain with it's music and melody and complexities, The Yes Album merely pokes my brain, encourages that engagement and then leaves. Still very good but not as gripping as its follow up would prove to be. Additionally I think that the structure of the album is a go...

      Prince's second album follows in the footsteps of his first and is almost as good as it. The self titled Prince continues Prince's mixing of pop, funk, and various other genres for his unique sound that's still great. The overall sound and feel remains largely the same, but maybe a little less acoustic and a little more 'electric' than For You was, although it's not a very noticeable shift. His singing and performances are still top notch, and his near solo production of the entire album is still exceptionally impressive given how great its quality is. An odd thing here is that the more up tempo songs that were my favorite part of For You aren't as good here as they were there (they're still great, just overall not as much as they were previously) and the slower more sentimental songs are much better here and engaged me a lot more. I think that For You had a better mix of  songs and was structured better, but this is another strong showing from Pri...

    Uh oh. Guess who doesn't like another one of the best albums of all time? Rubber Soul just didn't do it for me unfortunately. The main thing that I liked about A Hard Day's Night was the melodies that were catchy and simple, which are almost completely absent from RS. This leans into a problem that I had with Help! that carries over here, being that a lot of the songs feel empty. The instrumentation is too light, with sections containing maybe 2 different parts before going to another section that adds 1 new instrument, exciting! This thinner timbre and lack of really memorable melody just bored me throughout a large chunk of the album. Although the album is lacking in melodies, it sure does try its best, having a lot of the songs repeat their choruses like 5-6 times, which only compounds my disinterest. Thankfully the classic Beatles harmonies that I've liked are still here and still good (for the most part), and there are hints of their future works here that I ho...

      I've been wanting to review this album for a while because of a couple of the tracks that I heard a while back that just absolutely grabbed me; and boy am I glad that I finally am, this albums pretty damn good. Partners in Crime is Rupert Holmes' 5th album and his most popular, holding a few of his most popular songs (I know for a fact that you can't count the amount of times you've heard Escape on the radio). I think that this album earns its relative popularity because of how well crafted the music is. From my cursory knowledge of Holmes I've heard that he's praised for his storytelling ability in his songs and I'm going to join that crowd. The scenarios and situations that he creates in the songs are near-unrivaled in my listening experience, creating such a vivid world in each track that just captures the listeners mind. It's astounding how good he is at telling unique little tales in such short time. And this is backed up by the excellent soft...