2025 in 2025: Day 182

The Very Best of Cool Jazz - Various Artists

So jazz really is not my thing. It is fine and dandy, but for me it mostly works as background music. Especially a compilation like this, that focuses on the more relaxed and chilled out numbers.

Highlights: I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face - Tony Bennett & Count Basie, She's on the Ball - Ray Charles, Round About Midnight - Wes Montgomery, Take Five - Quincy Jones

6/10

The Very Best of Eddie Cochran - Eddie Cochran

Another brutally tragic story of 50s rock'n roll. Wild to think what kind of music and influence this guy could have had if he made it to the 60s, because some of his wild rockabilly numbers are just all kinds of fun. 

Highlights: C'mon Everybody, Summertime Blues, Somethin' Else, Twenty Flight Rock

7.5/10

The Very Best of Elton John - Elton John

I may well be in the minority, but for as good as Elton John was in the 70s, I find some of his 80s output to actually be somewhat superior. The production is certainly better. I mean, has anyone actually sat down with headphones and paid attention to what is going on in Your Song? Because it is a mess. Meanwhile, songs like Nikita can be used as reference to demo your sound system!

Highlights: I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues, I'm Still Standing, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)

7.5/10

The Very Best of Kim Wilde - Kim Wilde

True to form, this is only the hit song You Keep Me Hangin' On. Which truly is the VERY best of Kim Wilde.

9/10

The Very Best of Play Bach - Jacques Loussier

More jazz, you say? At least this is the kind of jazz I can dig; phenomenal jazz renditions of classical pieces. 

Highlights: Siciliano In G Minor, Sleepers Awake

6.5/10

The Very Best of Rod Stewart - Rod Stewart

Hey, now! I already have a full "best of Rod Stewart"! But Forever Young is not included, so I had to get that elsewhere, I guess. Classic 80s drive. I really should just shoehorn this in to that other compilation...

9/10

The Very Best of Rose Royce - Rose Royce

I only have Car Wash. It is a bonafide funky jam!

9/10

VH1 Divas Live - Cher

This is purely Cher performing If I Could Turn Back Time - at what I can only assume was a VH1 Divas Live concert, because that is what the file says. I got this because Cher's performance at her Las Vegas concert rocked my world. This version does not!

5/10

View of the Rain - Urge Overkill

I got this EP free with Exit the Dragon and these are all live songs recorded in Australia. And they rock. Because Urge Overkill were legit. Still are, I guess!

Highlights: The Break (Live), Crack Babies (Live)

7/10

Vindicated - Dashboard Confessional

I know no other Dashboard Confessional songs. I once heard some being played in a music shop in Melbourne some 23 years ago, but that was about it. If they have anything else like this song, let me know. Because it is a gawdam brilliant track.

9/10

The Visitors - ABBA

Their last album for 40 years and some of this would have fit nicely in Chess. Less disco pop and more of a mature pop album - exceptionally done.

Highlights: When All Is Said and Done, Slipping Through My Fingers, The Visitors, Head Over Heels

7.5/10

Vitalogy - Pearl Jam

I feel like with this album they were caught up in their own hype and thought they were The Beatles or something - because this album sounds like a band trying to make their own Let It Be. Which is not a compliment. Probably the last Pearl Jam album to have any sort of teeth and before Eddie Vedder's voice got too annoying. But bah gawd the good songs here are just incredibly good.
Highlights: Nothingman, Corduroy, Immortality, Better Man

7.5/10

Viva Elvis: The Album - Elvis Presley

I only have one song from this and it is the incredible remix/reimagining of Suspicious Minds. I genuinely should check out the rest of this album, because turning this into a big emo arena rock song actually works. Helps to have an awesome vocal from The King to base it around.

10/10

Vivid - Living Colour

This album is like the most socially conscious hair metal album that will ever exist. And I am not using the hair metal term as any sort of insult, because these guys are awesome. Maybe more of a funk metal, really? 

Highlights: Cult of Personality, Open Letter (To a Landlord), Which Way to America?, Glamour Boys

8.5/10

Vivir - Enrique Iglesias

This sure is some corny late 90s Latin pop that sounds more like 80s pop, but it also still very much sounds like Enrique being Enrique. Which means I enjoy it. Absolutely nothing a Luchador would use as their entrance music, though.

Highlights: El Muro, Volveré, Miente, Lluvia Cae

7/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 1800

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2025 in 2025: Day 83

GOiNG TO DESTRUCTiON - BiSH

Bah gawd this album rules the schools. Very little idol nonsense and a whole lot of punk attitude, wrapped up in some pop stylings. The whole thing is full of great hooks and big beats and screaming vocals and just awesomeness. So good I had to buy it three different times...

Highlights: in case..., STACKiNG, I have no idea., WiTH YOU, 狂う狂う, BROKEN

9/10

Gold - Cher

While I do appreciate her 60s and 70s music - it is mostly good light-hearted pop, some of it strangely racially-charged - I feel like Cher really came into her own once she hooked up with Richie Sambora. The 80s style pop-rock thing really suited her voice. Especially the power ballads. I also enjoy her late 90s/early 00s resurgence doing disco. Because LOGMAN loves disco. And Cher. Only song missing from this is her cover of Walking in Memphis - her live cut of that is fantastic.

Highlights: We All Sleep Alone, After All, If I Could Turn Back Time, Just Like Jessie James, Song for the Lonely

7.5/10

Gold - Ryan Adams

It is crazy to think DRA wanted this as a double-album; the cut tracks are mostly average (but mostly not great) and half of the remaining tracks are also kinda there. But boy howdy that first half of the album is brilliant. It tries to get back to that level around Harder Now That It's Over, and it certainly gets close. 

Highlights: New York New York, Firecracker, Answering Bell, La Cienaga Just Smiled, The Rescue Blues

8/10

Gold: Greatest Hits - The Everly Brothers

The title does not lie; this is pure rock'n roll gold. These dudes had beautiful harmonies.

Highlights: Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, Rip It Up, Should We Tell Him, Poor Jenny

7/10

Gold Against the Soul - Manic Street Preachers

I forget how kickass this album is. Compared to their first album, there is nothing on the level of Stay Beautiful or Motorcycle Emptiness (I mean, that is a crazy high bar to set), but overall I enjoy this album more. Shorter, punchier, all great songs and a much better mix. James Dean Bradfield sounds very angry!

Highlights: From Despair to Where, Sleepflower, Yourself, Roses in the Hospital

8/10

Gold Cobra - Limp Bizkit

Ten years after their peak and ten years before they embraced being just a fun joke of a band. And Fred Durst was still "rapping" about bagging hawt women and fighting people. "So much ass in Los Angeles/It's definitely scandalous". Thought-provoking def jam poetry slam, to be sure.

Highlights: Gold Cobra, Shark Attack, Shotgun, 90.2.10

6/10

The Gold Experience - Prince

I mean, sure, he was actually the symbol at this point. But I just credit everything to Prince. And this album is one of his best. Or at least one of my favourites. Funk, rock, soul, ballads and awesomeness all wrapped in a nice gold bow. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World is just phemonenal and Endorphinmachine is the most fun rockin' Prince song on the planet. I am even willing to overlook the overt religious lyrics on songs like Dolphin and Gold. That is just how this all this.

Highlights: Endorphinmachine, Shhh, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, Gold

9/10

Gold Medal - The Donnas

I don't want to say this album is boring, because it is not quite that bad. But compared to the stellar Spend The Night, this is... 

Highlights: Don't Break Me Down, Fall Behind Me, It Takes One to Know One

6.5/10

The Golden Age of Wireless - Thomas Dolby

This is purely the song She Blinded Me with Science. It is classic 80s synth pop stuff.

7/10

Gone Troppo - George Harrison

Speaking of 80s synth pop stuff - George and his Moog are back having some summer fun.

Highlights: Dream Away, Wake Up My Love, Gone Troppo, That's the Way it Goes

7/10

Gonna Make You Sweat - C+C Music Factory

This is both super fun pop-rap dance stuff, and hard hitting 90s dancefloor jams. 90s dance stuff could super funky. This dude's raps are hilariously cringe at times. And surprisingly misogynistic!

Highlights: Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), Here We Go Let's Rock & Roll, Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...., Bang That Beat

8/10

Good Bye - M to M

K-Pop ballad. Idol group? Handsome actor? A combo of both??

7.5/10

Goodbye [Single] - Spice Girls

Saying goodbye to Geri, but not really. Smart marketing. I was actually unpacking a box the other day and found my poster book from their split with Geri. What a time to be a Spice Girls fan. A sad time. Anyways, this song is beautiful and the tracks from Live at Wembley are also very, very good. The Mels completely nail Sisters (Are Doing It For Themselves) . Smashing stuff!

Highlights: Goodbye, Sisters (Are Doing It For Themselves), We Are Family [Live]

10/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 695

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2025 in 2025: Day 31

Brothers Gonna Work it Out - The Chemical Brothers

Massive DJ mix from The Chemical Brothers. It's mostly pretty funky. Mostly. I just did a google on this and my tracklisting does not match wiki. Nor do the times. Weird, because mine is a direct rip of the CD. And it is impossible to properly rate or anything, because it's just one massive DJ mix, really.

7/10

Bryan Adams - Bryan Adams

When I was about 13 or 14, I bought Gold Signature Tour Editions of Bryan Adams' albums, from You Want It, You Got It to Waking Up the Neighbours. I foolishly passed on this album and Live! Live! Live! and have never been able to find said versions of them again, so almost 20 years later I had to settle for just a normal edition of this album. As an album, it is quite different to everything he released after; more light-hearted and poppy. And no Keith Scott.

Highlights: Hidin' From Love, Win Some Lose Some, Remember

6.5/10

Buddah Mix - Cypress Hill

This was a bonus disc that came with Temple of Boom; it's just one track - a 20 minute DJ mix of songs from the first two Cypress Hill albums. They're all great songs, so there are worse ways to spend 20 minutes. Obviously a morning for DJ mixes!

7/10

The Buddha of Suburbia - David Bowie

I can appreciate this album for being both adventurous and having some wonderful songs buried within the weirdness. The instrumentals are really more like soundscapes or interludes; they certainly aren't musical or something you would put on to jam to. But the songs are generally pretty darn great and fit somewhat with some of the songs from Black Tie White Noise, which was only released a few months beforehand.

Highlights: Buddha of Suburbia, Strangers When We Meet, Untitled No. 1

6/10

Buhloone Mindstate - De La Soul

De La Soul with James Brown's old horns section and sampling some Run-DMC? And Michael Jackson? And an appearance from a legit Japanese hip-hop trio? As you might imagine, all this adds up to make a genuinely fantastic groove.

Highlights: En Focus, Long Island Wildin', Area, Breakadawn

7/10

Burlesque: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - Christina Aguilera and Cher

This journey through Christina's catalogue has forced me to accept that I just don't like her doing big band songs. In fact, I may have to face the reality that... I actually... don't really like much of what she has put out in general. She has been a totally mixed bag since Stripped. Her vocals sound super processed on this album, and I can not imagine why. I really liked this movie, but there are two standout songs on this album - and only one is by Aguilera.

Highlights: Express - Christina Aguilera, You Haven't Seen the Last of Me - Cher

6/10

Burn in the Night [Single] - Ryan Adams

Another one of his singles from 2015. These are actually good; very 90s garage rock.

Highlights: Burn in the Night, Cop City

6/10

Bury the Hatchet - The Cranberries

Hmmm... I find this woman to be one of the absolute worst singers I have ever heard in my life. And their guitarist produces some of the worst guitar solos I have ever heard in my life. At some point, I actually found I had about four of their albums in my iTunes library. And they were all deluxe editions. Thankfully, I saw sense and deleted all of them bar this; I kept it because Promises is a very good song. Starting this album, I am not sure that song is worth 70 minutes of The Cranberries. Halfway through, I was ready to eat my words, because things didn't start off too badly - and there was even another song I thought was very good! But then it slowly trailed off and got to Copycat, which is not only utterly terrible, but hilariously ironic in that the lyrics are complaining about bands copying other bands - yet there is ZERO originality found in The Cranberries. Heck, most of their songs they are trying desperately to sound like The Cure. At least a really terrible version. The singer seemed to really hate women; most of her songs are complaining about bad Mothers and the like.  If I could skip the rest of this dreck and delete now, I wouldn't even hesitate. 

Highlights: Promises, Shattered

3.5/10

Business as Usual - Men at Work

This is purely Who Can It Be Now? and I think I needed some fun 80s to try and recover from that. I could go for more Men at Work - I don't have this whole album, but an entire album from The Cranberries? Make it make sense...

7/10

Butterfly - Mariah Carey

I remember all the hullabaloo around this album when it was released; Carey had been strictly R&B/pop and this album was supposed to be more of her getting a sexier image and trying to get in the hip-hop scene or something. Sure, that influence is definitely there on a few songs like Honey and Breakdown, which hilariously samples Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, but it is still mostly the middle of the road Mariah Carey of old with the songs about love and singing insanely high. Great background music.

Highlights: Butterfly, The Roof

6/10

BYE-BYE [Single] - Ayumi Hamasaki

I think this was Ayu's most recent single? It's... okay? My wife certainly wishes Ayu would say "Bye-bye" for a while...

7/10

Bye-Bye Show [Single] - BiSH

This was the culmination of a year-long BiSH is OVER campaign, where they released a single (2 songs) each month and would then disband. Of course, WACK realised the money they were making from this so milked it for an extra month... and then decided they would keep touring until their final concert in June - six months later. And of course, this would not be the final single...  Which is a shame, because ending things with a song called SPARK when their first song was called スパーク (Spark) seemed like a great full circle kind of idea. And also it is an awesome song.

8/10

The Byte is in My Blood - Robot Goes Here

This is some random punk dude that is also a scientist and makes solo electronic punk music. It's kind of fun; I'd almost be interested to hear how they could have ended up if not completely programmed, but I still admire his execution. This was one of those wonderful $1 CDs I bought back in the day. I miss getting fun surprises like this. Bahaha I forgot about his full electronic version of Back in Black - complete with computer generated vocals. I actually recall on his MySpace he had an EP that was just him covering other heavy metal classics, like Iron Maiden's The Trooper. Hilarious stuff.

Highlights: Back in Black

5/10

Finally finished with B albums!

"Albums" listened to so far: 262