Music

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Album Titles that end with a Gold Star★ have achieved NoSkip status.

Score-- /10	Album Name	Artist Name	Initial Thoughts (click to sort by date)
11.0	Best to Worst	Best to Worst	(0008/==/=D): My ranking of every album I have finished in order of how worthy of your time it is, based on my opinion. If you are looking for recommendations then go from top to bottom until you find something you haven't heard before. This should be the default order, unless you pressed a button or if I fucked something up (likely). The rating is the number of songs that I liked divided by the total number of songs.
10.0	Geogaddi★ (2002)	Boards of Canada	(2025/10/29): Go for the japanese version if you can, it has a nice bonus track. Not a dull moment or track. Dark-Psychedelic, ambient, electronic. This is an album that works best as an album, if you break it down into tracks there's only like 2 or 3 tracks that I think work as standalone piece, Sunshine Recorder, 1969, You could feel the sky and From one source all things depend could go on a shuffle playlist, but you should definitely listen to this from start to finish in 1 go for your first time.
9.99	Homogenic★ (1997)	Björk/Bjork	(2025/11/28): Blends classical strings with Techno 909 beats and IDM production. This is a post-genre work that can only be categorized as Björk. This release conveys emotions with direct and intense imagery, no pretense.
9.9	F#A#∞★ (2002)	Godspeed You Black Emperor!	(2025/11/22): This album is like waking up after a bomb was dropped on your house. Pure atmosphere. Lots of melody. Every part of this had something interesting to say.
9.89	Dopethrone★ (2000)	Electric Wizard	(2025/12/06): This release, like any good release does not adhere blindly to one genre. Equal parts Doom, Stoner and Drone metal, this release is loud, slow and heavy. The sound, the lyrics, every part of this is dreary, dark, foreboding and also really fucking cool. Not in some juvenile way like marilyn manson or whatever safe-edgy crap, this album comes across as genuinely nihilistic. The album cover is the devil taking a fat bong rip, and they meant that shit
9.82	Wish You Were Here★ (1975)	Pink Floyd	(2025/12/03): This album is one of the darkest albums I have ever heard, the whole thing sounds like a funeral.
9.81	Sunbather ★(2013)	Deafheaven	(2025/12/13): The saddest songs are written in major keys. Even if you think you don't like metal, you owe it to yourself to check out this album. If the first song ends and you aren't into it, then at least you gave it a shot.
9.8	Undertow★ (1993)	Tool	(2025/11/26): Sonically, this has the best production of any album I have ever heard. The Rickenbacker and Les Paul dance at 200mph with half an inch between them but never step on eachothers' toes. The songwriting here is their strongest, with every song having a strong and unique melody. I don't mind over the top darkness or brightness in art, as long as it feels genuine and it does feel genuine on this release. This album could only have come out in the 90s.
9.71	No Love Deep Web★ (2012)	Death Grips	(2025/12/19): The first album of their golden 3. Probably the closest to a traditional hip hop release that they have come. I would describe the sound and lyrics of this album as apocalyptic and industrial.
9.7	The Dark Side of the Moon★ (1973)	Pink Floyd	(2025/11/25): If anyone is out there who hasn't heard this album then just go listen to it. Who would think that a dark, psychedelic, artsy, prog-rock album would be the one of the most popular albums of all time. I guess that's a relic of when people were still doing LSD before cocaine took over. This is the perfect kind of progressive music, that displays talent without turning into "wank" that a lot of prog ends up being.
9.6	In the Aeroplane Over the Sea★ (1998)	Neutral Milk Hotel	(2025/11/30): This was the first album that I heard that really got me to look deeper into music than what was being played on the radio. I didn't listen to this type of music back then, and I still don't really. My closest point of comparison to this release is something like Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, just because they both use primarily acoustic guitars. The first thing that stands out on this album is the vocals, I have never heard a single track vocal that sounds as complete as this album. The slow, expressive melodies are some of the best as well. If you don't sing along to this album, you may not have a soul, I am sorry to tell you.
9.5	I Have a Special Plan for This World★ (2000)	Current 93	(2025/12/09): An excellent drone/dark ambient/dark psychedelic release. Short enough that you can listen to the whole thing to decide if you like it or not.
9.49	The Money Store★ (2012)	Death Grips	(2025/12/14): Just from the first 2 songs alone you could tell they had found their sound. Depressive, irate, introspective. If you like mostly metal or other abrasive sounding music, then give this album a chance.
9.45	The Great Southern Trendkill★ (1996)	Pantera	(2025/12/10): The guitar tone just sounds so shrill and hollow for a lot of the songs, they had to make up for that by cranking the absolute fuck out of the levels, instead of fixing the EQ. I usually don't complain about specific technical shit like this, but it is just so apparent that I can't leave it out. 14 people worked on this album and none of them said anything? ok. Ignoring the timbre of the guitar, this is actually some of dimebag's finest work, floods, 10s, Sandblasted skin, all some of the finest guitar work put to wax. The vocals on this are also world class, the (relatively) clean sections on 10s showcasing Anselmo's harmonic talents, and for the harsh vocal sections they have Seth Putnam of Anal Cunt fame doing guest vocals all throughout this album.
9.4	Loveless★ (1991)	My Bloody Valentine	(2025/12/08): The slow and deliberate vibrato makes this record feel like it's melting whenever you listen to it. It's an often imitated technique in this genre that few really nail the way this album does. The vocals are layered, buried, and unintelligible, which suits this release very well. The drums sound like a drum machine/triggered samples on some tracks and actual drums on others, probably the only thing I didn't like about this album was the drums on some songs.
9.3	Hypnotize★ (2005)	System of a Down	(2025/12/03): This album is really part 2 of Mesmerize, nearly all of what I said about that album also applies to this one. This album has tracks like Holy Mountains and Soldier Side, System of a Down at their most poetic and somber. This album also has a lot of the irreverent tracks with surreal and comedic lyrics. Even with all of that, it still doesn't lose it's thrash metal roots.
9.2	The Piper at the Gates of Dawn★ (1967)	Pink Floyd	(2025/10/30): See I like happy sounding albums too, as long as the emotions conveyed come across as genuine. One of my favorite examples of psychedelic rock. This album proves that you can be mysterious and eccentric without needing to be dark all of the time. This album works great as an album from start to finish or broken up into individual songs. Any song on this album could have been the single, except the one where they make bird noises into the microphone for the entire song. Also the stereo mix only sounds good on speakers, if you are listening on headphones then make sure you are listening to the Mono version.
9.15	Toxicity★ (2001)	System of a Down	(2025/12/01): Their songwriting in terms of the structure of the song had definitely improved in the 3 years since their previous record. This record retains the extremely heavy Rick Rubin production, which people usually make fun of, but it works for this type of music. They tone down the chaos and punk song structure a little bit on this release, but I believe it was for the better in this case. This album is both fun and serious, sometimes on the same song. If this album had a movie equivalent it would be Starship Troopers, a critique of the US response to 9/11, that was made prior to 9/11.
9.1	The Fat of the Land (1997)	Prodigy	(2025/11/29): This album would be a no skip if not for Diesel Power, it's just too cheesy. I don't even know what genre to put this release in other than Late 90s, on one song it's metal, on the next it's industrial hip hop, but all of them have a strong techno beat underneath. This is the sonic equivalent of The Matrix, which is probably why they included a song from this album on The Matrix's soundtrack. I think the point of this album is to take drugs and jump along to the beat.
9.05	Exmilitary (2011)	Death Grips	(2025/12/11): Death Grips' weakest album is still better than a lot of other artists' best. They had not yet fully found their voice on this album, but they were about 75% of the way there. Featuring samples obtained at gunpoint and harsh almost metallic vocals, this album was like a nuke was dropped on my idea of what music was allowed to be. The samples, the diction, the vocal style, the production, everything about this absolutely broke the rules of what was acceptable in rap at the time, to the point that I am not even sure if it belongs in that genre. This is the only Death Grips release to not obtain NoSkip status, I can't stand the song I want it I need it.
9.01	Come to Daddy★ (1997)	Aphex Twin	(2025/12/06): Even when he is trolling the audience, the album is still good. I love the chaotic contrast from track to track. This is less a coherent album and more just a collection of tracks, but they are all worth listening to.
9.0	Paranoid (1970)	Black Sabbath	(2025/11/30): A foundational metal album, back from before everything got all political. The only aspect of this that sounds dated is the limits of the recording technology at the time. The only song I would skip on this album is that 3 minute drum solo, rat soup or whatever it was called.
8.9	Panzerfaust (1995)	Darkthrone	(2025/12/13): I actually like the production on this quite a bit, I am always a fan of buried vocals. I have grown tired of overproduced music in most genres, but metal especially. This album has the appropriate level of production. Track 2 sounds like E1M1, although that Doom was first released right when this album was being recorded, so who knows. There were some surprising influences on this, I could clearly hear a Black Sabbath Doom inspired sound on some tracks and an 80s thrash inspiration on others, in addition to the obvious Black Metal influences.
8.8	Nonagon Infinity★ (2016)	King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard	(2025/11/29): The production and songwriting is impressive, with every song flowing into the next, almost like the whole thing was recorded in one take. This is like anti-metal, they play these dark psychedelic riffs on the cleanest guitars possible with the least amount of distortion. The runtime on this release is technically infinite.
8.71	Realms of Darkness (1995)	Syndicate	(2025/12/05): Dark techno music with meth-psychosis induced beats, ear piercing abrasive noise and extremely long run time. Diverse utilization of genres in terms of samples and track composition. This release goes from Gabber to Breakcore to club techno to some indecipherable dark psychedelic IDM shit, sometimes on the same track. Did I mention the runtime? because holy shit is this long, coming in at over 100 minutes.
8.7	Nespithe (1993)	Demilich	(2025/11/28): The vocals consistently sound like someone burping and farting into the microphone, genuinely the only reason this album didn't break 9.0 was because of the vocals. The instrumental sections were actually very interesting on this. Melodically there are a lot of dark and dissonant sections laden with chromaticism, that defy easily labeling the songs in a certain key. Rhythmically the whole album is composed in odd meter with about 2-3 abrupt meter and tempo changes per minute. A very technically competent album that avoids going into the wank category. The production is very grainy at times, like they recorded some of the guitar tracks on a consumer grade cassette or something.
8.6	Mezmerize (2005)	System of a Down	(2025/12/01): The playfulness of the previous releases is still present throughout parts of this album, but there is a noticeable melancholic tinge with lyrics such as "my cock is much bigger than yours" and "choking chicks and sodomy". No, but seriously, this album does have this a lot more of this downer, dystopian feel that was expressed as anger on the earlier albums. This album is more relevant now, than when it released.
8.5	System of a Down (1998)	System of a Down	(2025/12/01): If Suicidal Tendencies was produced by Rick Rubin this is what it would sound like. They came out of the womb swinging, this is definitely their heaviest and darkest release. They knew the sound they wanted from day 1, this album sounds as much like SOAD as any of their other releases. This album is as political and schizophrenic as the later work in their discography.
8.4	Leviathan (2004)	Mastodon	(2025/11/27): Signifies a movement away from what they were doing in Today is the Day, but you can still hear a lot of that in what they were doing here. Most of the punk influence is gone with this release, but it still retains a lot of the sludge metal sound that they brought to In The Eyes of God. This album does have a more stoner and bluesy vibe, which I am always a fan of. I never gave this band a chance because I confused them with Sabaton.
8.3	Opiate★ (1992)	Tool	(2025/12/15): Although edgier than their later work, it is less dark over all than those later releases. This is the most 90s and alternative of their releases, this almost sounds like a primus album with the song hush. The strengths on this album are the production, even the live tracks sound great. Their song writing is like 66% of the way there, they are all still good tracks though.
7.8	Stardust (2025)	Danny Brown	(2025/12/16): Danny Brown makes a hyperpop album. I love the usage of flamboyant instrumentals and backing vocals atypical to rap, he goes from rapping over an Elton John sounding instrumental to rapping over this bizarre IDM track before turning into a house track. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, this release has a couple of dud tracks. I liked the more personal tracks towards the end.
6.9	Hell III (2012)	Hell	(2025/12/07): An interesting release tries to blend too many disparate influences and fails. I was a fan of the clean melodic droning sections found throughout both songs, these parts reminded me a lot of the darker ambient sections from GSYBE. But the distorted tremolo picking sections and heavier doom parts just did not work together, it was like listening to bongripper covering a burzum song. The blending of these 2 styles comes across as contrived and the sound can only be described as incongruous.
6.7	Fear Inoculum (2019)	Tool	(2025/12/02): At the spry, young age of 100 their music just does not have the energy or effort put into it that it used to. I was wondering why they made an album that sounds like their heart is clearly not in it anymore, and the only thing I could think of was that one of the band members needed to pay for a kitchen remodeling. Pneuma just straight up sounds like that one Mom's Spaghetti Eminem song. The only positive and new aspect of this album is the track length, if a song is good I like to hear it breathe and have space.
6.5	Boris at Last -Feedbacker- (2003)	Boris	(2025/11/23): Just listen to Alice by Sunn 0))) instead. This was listed as drone metal so I expected something like Amplifier worship or Sunn O))), but I think this has more in common with a post-metal band like Deafheaven or even a post-rock band like Godspeed you Black Emperor, than this does with their earlier releases. Mislabeling aside, this album sounds like it was recorded with the microphone physically distant from the instruments. It gives the album a really detached vibe and sound. Do they use that interesting sound to convey anything interesting melodically? No not really. The whole release sounds like one of the ambient sections from F#A#.
6.42	On Avery Island (1996)	Neutral Milk Hotel	(2025/12/14): I get the impression while listening to this that they were making the album they wanted to make, and didn't even consider what you though about that, so for that it gets points. This release blends a lot of influences, New Orleans Big Band, Rock, Blues, Country, Folk, Punk, and it sounds like the band members were genuine fans of these styles and genres. This release is a lot less refined and polished than the one they would become primarily known for, but it mostly works for what they were going for. The one thing that I think drags this release down quite a bit is the lack of song structure, conventional or otherwise. There are tons of beautiful harmonies, melodies and sounds found throughout this release, but they don't really connect to any broader point or expression, leading this release to be simply ok. That said, track 10, Naomi, is a really good track.
6.41	When the Kite String Pops (1994)	Acid Bath	(2025/11/25): Even if the song structure is not great, there are a couple of songs that have some interesting sections in them. I'm always a fan of blues riffs played on loud guitars, which are found on some of the songs on this album. The vocals are good in some of the clean sections, the thick Louisiana accent comes through clear as day, but the screaming parts are so bad. It sounds like a plantation owner trying to do a Wayne Static impression. Not bad, but overrated.
6.4	Alexander O'Neal (1985)	Alexander O'Neal	(2025/11/26): 1980s love songs. Listening to this made me want to put on some Zapp and Roger. There were some interesting parts with instruments atypical to this genre, but overall it was simply good, not great.
6.31	Steal This Album! (2002)	System of a Down	(2025/12/03): System of a Down's foray into punk, that still retains their signature sound. This album sounds like a collection of rejected songs from other albums, as in they don't really connect with each other. Not that they need to, but that is something that all of their other releases have in common, so it stands out for that. Only about half of these songs are even worth listening to, 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 16. Your Welcome.
6.3	Panopticon (2004)	Isis	(2025/11/21): When I was looking at the information on this album I saw that the genre was listed as sludge metal and thought I was going to get something like Today is the day or Eyehategod, but I think a more accurate label for this, would be something similar to alternative metal. The instrumentals on this album sound like they could have been pulled from a Deftones or A Perfect Circle album. That said, I do actually like the sound of the instrumentation on this album, but the song writing leaves a lot to be desired. I would use the word meandering to describe the overall song structure. The vocal style clashes heavily with the rest of the music, thankfully the vocals are very sparse on this release.
5.3	Blackwater Park (2001)	Opeth	(2025/11/20): The band members are all technically proficient on this album, and that's about the only nice thing I have to say about this release. I wasn't put off by the cookie monster death metal vocals, I like other albums that have that style of vocals, but they get repetitive rather quickly. The dynamic switching between loud death metal sections and a more quiet introspective section sounds good in theory, but in practice it's just one song stopping and another starting, there is very little cohesion between the different sections of each song. The primary thing that I could not get over was the deemphasis on melody and harmony, there was very little music in this album.
4.0	Crack the Skye (2009)	Mastodon	(2025/12/06): The strengths of the stoner genre are that it deprioritizes everything in favor of focusing almost exclusively on melody and timbre. This release takes some surface level cliches of what Stoner Metal sounds like, without understanding the deeper points about why it works in that context, and haphazardly tosses them into a progressive metal album, not a bad idea inherently, some of my favorite albums of all time do this. But in this case, the result is an album that would aspire to be considered mediocre, it's a parody of genuine artistic expression. Hang on a sec, did they just randomly start playing YYZ in the middle of their song? ok, I will bump this up half a point just for that.
2.1	OK Computer (1997)	Radiohead	(2025/11/24): Muse for people who hate women. Listen to Karma Police and No Surprises, then discard the rest of this album. There was nothing interesting happening on this album, harmonically, melodically, tonally, thematically or narratively.

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