Aerosmith - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone

Aerosmith by Aerosmith
Yet another Bostonian band shows up, and again, with a debut album. Aerosmith's eponymous album is kind of a marvel. It's rock solid from cover to cover, filled with heavy blues-rock riffs, pounding drums, and thumping basslines. It features "Dream On", which is certainly one of the greatest rock songs ever written. It's amazing to me to see how thoroughly excellent this album is, when so many albums today seem unable to cut the fat and make an album leaner and stronger.This is definitely a must have if you appreciate good "classic" rock. Top to bottom, a winner.


Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens
Man, what is this. There are moments, mostly in the early parts of the album, where this sounds like good old Sufjan Stevens. Then there are parts where he screams, auto-tunes himself, or says stuff like "I'm not fucking around", and I can't help but scratch my head. It's not "the worst thing ever", as some people have called it, but it's also not "the next Kid A", which some others have called it. It's just sort of a messy hodgepodge of things Sufjan probably needed to get out of his system.

The Airing of Grievances by Titus Andronicus
I cannot speak highly enough of Titus Andronicus. I have seen them three times, all in support of Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, and each time, they tore the roof off the place. And each time, they were better than the last. After the first show of theirs I saw, my friend Matt and I met them at their merch table. They hung out and just talked with us for like half an hour. During that half hour, it became very clear that they are every bit as intelligent as their music makes them sound, and no less brash. Their appreciation for lyricism and emotion mixed with their already well-honed punk chops shines through on every track they've ever made. The Airing of the Grievances is just phenomenal.

Alive and Amplified by The Mooney Suzuki
If you ignore the high schoolish lyrics, this is a pretty rad album. The riffs and licks are good, the songs all move along at the perfect pace. It's a solid little rock album, much in the way the typical AC/DC album is - you just have to tune out the lyrics. Though in this case, it's much easier to do, because the lead vocalist's voice is nowhere near as grating as either of AC/DC's.

All Day by Girl Talk
Gregg Gillis is a genius. I think after three albums of this caliber, we can agree on that much. He has a peerless ear when it comes to pop music. He can pull things from any genre, any decade, put them in a pot and stir, and whatever comes out is delicious. On All Day, he takes the tried and true formulas of his previous efforts and stretches them out, turning the individual movements into long-form mash-ups. Unsurprisingly, it works brilliantly. Whether it is Fugazi x Rhianna or Peter Gabriel x Foxy Brown x Nine Inch Nails, Gillis gets it right.



All Delighted People by Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan calls this an EP. At over 60 minutes, that's a bit of bullshit. It's pretty good. Not too crazy, like Age of Adz. Pretty standard Sufjan for the most part. The two versions of the title track are entirely unnecessary, and "Djohariah" is far far too long, much like Adz's "Impossible Soul". All told, it's a good album, better than Age of Adz, but nowhere near Sufjan's previous works. Worth a look if you like his brand of folk.

All Eyez on Me by 2Pac
Goddamn it 2Pac. One of these days you'll learn how to make an album. All Eyez on Me is too long, and there is a lot of filler. If someone had had the sense enough to tell him to make it a single album instead of a double album, it would probably be among the all-time great rap albums. As it is, it's still a solid 7.5-8.0 kind of album - it does still have "California Love" and "I Ain't Mad at Cha".

All Hail West Texas by The Mountain Goats
Lo-fi at its best. Humorous, but touching lyrics, simple but effective guitar. I don't have a lot to say about this, but if I were to give four concrete recommendations instead of three, this would be #4. Very good album.

All Mod Cons by The Jam
The Jam are a band everyone should have some appreciation of. This is almost certainly their best album, and it features their best song "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight", an excellent narrative about a man being brutally assaulted for petty cash in a tube station by three young ruffians. Great mod / punk album. A must for fans of those styles of music.

All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone by Explosions in the Sky
I don't really like post-rock, but, on occasion, I greatly enjoy this album. It's tense, but also calming, in some strange way. I absolutely adore the percussion. The guitar work is... nice. This album, to me, is sort of like listening to a good thunderstorm. Tumultuous but relaxing.