2025 in 2025: Day 50

Dangerous - Michael Jackson

Jam jam here comes the man! Never have truer words been spoken. MJ albums always open with an awesome song, and this may well be the most awesome. The whole first half is New Jack badassery, before it slows down with Heal the World, which feels a lot like 'We Are The World Part II'. I don't care what anyone says - Black or White is peak pop-rock-funk perfection. Damn Slash's guitar solo on Give In To Me is seriously great. I can totally picture some young MJ fans crying when they first heard his spoken word outro for Will You Be There. MJ fans were insane like kids these days have no idea. I cannot hear Gone Too Soon without thinking of Usher singing it at MJ's memorial... Vocals on Dangerous are awesome. Bah gawd this album is awesome.

Highlights: Jam, Black or White, Keep the Faith

9/10

Dare! - The Human League

This is only the hit song Don't You Want Me. Alexis Sayle throwing this in to his Dr. Martin's song on The Young Ones will always be iconic.

8/10

Dark Horse - George Harrison

Hari's On Tour sounds like it is from some sports program or something, like maybe a cricket show? This album gets a bad rap, but I always find it really consistent and super listenable. The wobble-board thing in It Is "He" is hilariously fun. If his voice had not been so destroyed, I think this album would have been quite different.

Highlights: So Sad, Dark Horse, Far East Man

7.5/10

Darkbreaker (Elizabethtown Sessions) - Ryan Adams

A whole bunch of unfinished songs? I was about to say that this version of Everyone Knows is quite good, but then it all fell apart. Two is not bad, either, though the studio version on Easy Tiger is definitely better. I was concerned that during my Ryan Adams marathon 10 years ago I may have bought in to the hype (and my own obsession with this dude) and pretended this 'album' was great, but NOPE! Even then I knew this was trash.

Highlights: Don't Get Sentimental on Me, Elizabeth

4/10

Darkest Days - Stabbing Westward

The kind of industrial metal that makes you want to dye your hair black, paint your fingernails, turn out the lights and do whatever goths do in the dark. I used to listen to this while playing the original Gran Turismo, so not totally dissimilar? This dude's voice was seriously unbeatable until Taka came along. Thing is, amongst the angry dark heavy goth metal are some fantastic hooks. And that coupled with Christopher Hall's awesome screaming has me sitting here enjoying this album immensely. 

Highlights: You Complete Me, Save Yourself, Sometime It Hurts, Desperate Now, Waking Up Beside You

8/10

David Live - David Bowie

My man Bowie had better performances, but this is still a pretty decent live album. The bluesy version of All The Young Dudes is pretty great. Earl Slick sure likes shredding up a storm all over this show.

Highlights: Moonage Daydream, All the Young Dudes, Big Brother, Time

6.5/10

Day and Age - The Killers

This was when I started losing interest in The Killers. They still had a big stack of goodwill with me for their debut album, but this album is definitely a bit of a drop-off point. Well, mostly the last half - the first half is quite fun, though very different to what they had released up to this point. Brandon Flowers is the opposite of Christopher Hall, in that his voice is weaker and just getting more annoying. And the lyrics are getting pretty naff, as well. Again, it is not all terrible, but this is certainly where they stopped living up to their name.

Highlights: Losing Touch, Human, Spaceman, Goodnight Travel Well

6.5/10

A Day at the Races - Queen

Let's end day 50 with my first proper Queen album! It's fun; some years ago I would have told you this was one of the best albums ever, but then in the lead up to listening now I was convinced it was kind of average (for a Queen album - which is still top tier). But listening now and it just owns. Seriously. It has everything: straight up rock classics (Tie Your Mother Down), beautiful ballads (You Take My Breath Away), poptastic fun (You and I), epic dark stuff (White Man), random Japanese (Teo Torriatte) and some of the best songs in the Queen catalogue (Somebody to Love). Is that solo in Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy just the funnest? Drowse is the worst Roger Taylor song, but otherwise this album is Queen at their best.

Highlights: All the songs I already mentioned and everything else too

9/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 392

2025 in 2025: Day 20

The Best of Dark Horse - George Harrison

A George Harrison compilation of his 80s output plus two new songs. What's not to like? Especially when the new songs are very good - it is a shame that they have not been released elsewhere, even with all the reissues. Otherwise this album would be 100% redundant in my collection. Now it's only 80% redundant. But it at least gives me a good indication of how much better the reissues sound.
Highlights: Got My Mind Set on You, Cheer Down

8/10

Best of Geto Boys & Scarface - Geto Boys & Scarface

As one would imagine, this is simply Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta. Damn It Feels Good to Listen to This Song.

9/10

The Best of Gloria Gaynor - Gloria Gaynor

This is purely I Will Survive. Stone cold disco anthem. 

9/10

The Best of Meco - Meco

Possibly the best collection of Meco's tunes. As it should be, I guess. But since I have every other Meco album, this should really be redundant. Hahaha like I care. I'll gladly have more disco movie themes. This Empire Strikes Back medley is about the coolest thing from Star Wars ever. Then there is the strangest departure from everything with Werewolf (Loose in London), which sounds like Queen. In every possible way (just with a worse singer).

Highlights: Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band, Empire Strikes Back (Medley), Star Wars (Medley), The Asteroid Field

8.5/10

The Best of Miami Vice - Jan Hammer

The 2004 remix of the Miami Vice theme is just terrible compared to the original version. Almost everything else sounds just like it did in the show. It doesn't quite compare to the songs used in the show, but this is generally a good little capsule from one of the greatest television shows of all time. And nobody does midi guitar like Jan Hammer.

Highlights: Lombard Trial, Airport Swap, Runaround

7/10

The Best of New Order - New Order

I've stuck with this for many years instead of getting the early albums, but I need to change that once I'm finished with this mission. Because when New Order were on, they were unbeatable. When they were bad, they were very very BAD. Like, Run Pt 2 just makes me laugh with that blatant rip-off of One Night Love Affair. And they were clearly hitting the E in Ibiza too hard when writing songs like Fine Time. 

Highlights: True Faith, Regret, Bizarre Love Triangle, Vanishing Point

8/10

The Best of Patrick Hernandez: Born to Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez

Okay, so this is only the song Born to Be Alive - which is another stone cold funky disco jam. I've never heard anything else from the man, which is odd to think about, considering disco is what fuels my heart.

9/10

The Best of The Trammps - The Trammps

Today is a disco day! Not only does this album feature a whole slew of disco good times, it even has the full 11 minute version of Disco Inferno - which I think features the smoothest disco strings and funky guitar solo and makes me want to get down and boogie. That's really the main groove of this entire album; LOGMAN wants to go back to wearing flares and burning up the dancefloor. This is one of those albums that I would just hit on repeat right now if I didn't have another 22,000 songs to listen to...

Highlights: Hold Back the Night, Disco Party, Disco Inferno

8/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 168