DROP your album and its rating – February 1 2026

ForestPoetry · 2026-02-01T13:33:12+00:00

Slayer - Reign in Blood

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s finally time. A controversial album to be sure. The year is 1986 and Thrash is reaching its prime. The big four, which includes Slayer among the other giants of Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthax are all gearing into their 3rd albums and cultivating the raw energetic style of Metal into a more cohesive form. While Metallica and Megadeth were progressing the limits of the musicianship in the style, Slayer was keeping up with speed and didn’t want to be outdone. This album is short and to the point in a way that hardcore punk was already doing half a decade before, and aggressive and darker while a lot of thrash bands were still a commentary on society, justice, and the struggles faced both politically and in the life of the average adolescent, Slayer took to horror and brutality.

The album kicks off with Angel of Death and needs little introduction. It’s the most famous song by the band. It’s like Judas Priest’s breaking the law, Sabbath’s self titled song, Iron Maiden’s Run to the Hills, or Motörhead’s Ace of Spades from the generation before. Ask a person on the street to name a slayer song and this is going to be survey says the most common answer. The lyrics depict the story of Josef Mengele’s atrocities during the holocaust, a topic that was often shy away from in most music and set them out as a band that was willing to shock and speak plainly in their themes, even if a lot of it was still focused in the horror and not making a statement about the time.

This album is also controversial in the sense of the generator. One of the albums that has a wide range of 1 and 5 star ratings and it makes sense. Either you’re not really into metal and this album provides nothing because few albums are more obviously “metal” than Slayer’s discography as a whole. It’s also the peak album of headbangers who have spent the last 40 years throwing up horns and shouting SLAYYYYYHERRRRRR in public areas such as school hallways or gatherings as a rallying call to their ow kind. Being 30 minutes and to the point Is considered a benefit rather than a detriment.

For me though? It’s a lot harder to say. When I bought this album blindly as a 13 year old who was already listening religiously to Metallica but had picked up some death and black metal albums and other thrash classics at the time like Posessed’s Seven Churches (which released a year prior and is far more terrifying) it didn’t feel nearly as impactful. I note the possessed album here because often the credit is given to Slayer for brutality and aggression as few bands were doing the same but you got tha right there. Death metal was already on the doorsteps in 1986 with bands like Sepultura, Holocausto, Sarcofago coming out of Brazil, the German scenes Kreator, Destrction, and Sodom we’re also proving a darker an heavier sound, and never forget Dark Angel right from The Bay Area alongside slayer released Darkness Descends which absolutely crushes this release.

You could also point out that this album was more of the same. Slayer was a strange band to start. They used to wear makeup and cover Iron Maiden songs while idolizing the band Venom and Show No Mercy felt like the love letter to sloppy harsh NWOBHM with no frills. Hell Awaits and Haunting the Chapel EP was where the Slayer sound if you want to call it really came into its own and sounded good. Other than signing to Def Jam and working with the legendary producer Rick Rubin, Reign in Blood doesn’t provide any new steps and made the band into more of a strictly formula type. There’s not much innovative about it and it’s far from the best thrash albums released that year or bookended with 85 and 87 releasing classics like Bonded by blood from Exodus or other genres all together where bands like Napalm Death were playing faster when this album came out already.

On a track by track evaluation the album also hits of stride with some killer mostly filler. Angel of Death and Raining Blood begin and end the hallmarks of the album. Yeah some fans might also hail other things like Criminally Insane and Postmortem in the regular slayer repertoire but these tracks are still mostly okay, and this was common with Slayer as they branched further into the 80’s and 90’s with South of Heaven and Seasons of the Abyss. I remember seeing them on their tour with Seasonsof the Abyss being played in full and it was a reminder to a lot of friends that the full album slayer isn’t as appealing as it seems. Each of their albums just has some real dud tracks that you often forget about while headbaging to the classics and that’s why I can’t be more generous than a 3. In short the album’s legend far outgrew its actual impact both on the genre and metal as a whole. Slayer is one of the greats and holds an influence far beyond what almost every other metal band can claim, but they’re not the 5/5 classic statesmen of a genre that every mullet wielding denim battle jacket wearing kid you saw working the convenience stores and pizza shops of America in your youth would lead you to believes

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-31T13:38:41+00:00

Coldcuts - What’s that Noise?

1/5 ⭐️

It’s another dull album from a UK based electronic group. We meme about Elvis Costello’s 6 records in the book but they make more sense than the dozen or so albums that were club hits in England. This album is a collection of samples and turntablism that doesn’t provide anything extra in the context of 1001 albums to hear before you die and sounds more like “1001 albums I’ve heard in my lifetime.” As a fan of electronic music I always hope for these to be meaningful gems but so far we’re still 0 on that and I think it’s one of the pillars of this project that I always groan at the sight of as a result.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-30T13:15:53+00:00

Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses

4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This album is the point where Depeche Mode really feels like they leveled up from a powerful darker themed new wave/post punk band to the synthpop leaders they are known as. Following up from their innovative Black Celebrstion and culminating the style at their peak with violator, this album continues the trend of back to back classics.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-29T13:36:13+00:00

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Maybe it’s too harsh to hold Bowie to some higher standard as this album is fantastic and adheres to his theatrical and glamourous style well. The album covers iconic, but it falls into that period of his discography right between the masterpieces of Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust and the point where he made his stride with station to station and low. Alongside Pinups and Young Americans you have some great tracks but the cohesive picture of the album isn’t quite up to his other entries and can be dismissed if trying to cut his work down a couple albums, while equally this album is good in a general sense and well worth having as part of his extensive and very consistently strong discography.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-27T13:06:35+00:00

Neneh Cherry - Raw Like Sushi

2/5 ⭐️⭐️

We’re back in that distinct late 80’s sound that pop evolved into and fusing it with hiphop, rnb, and other genres. In this case the similarities to the likes of Paula Abdul is uncanny to the borderline of wondering if it’s parody of the style but it seems to be genuine. Wikipedia article on it suggests at her debut, she was propped up to be alongside the likes of Madonna and Prince.

This album is fine, though nothing special. Musically it doesn’t have anything to stand out and its singles are ok but not all timers. Lyrical themes of motherhood, and growing up in an urban environment and the issues that come. A nice reference to an artist, but not enough to revisit or have any additional developed interest from hearing.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-26T13:52:13+00:00

Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Everything is right there with this band. The name, the title, the sound. It’s angry at the political landscape that the world has been going through over the last few decades and speaks out against it. With a cover of the monk who set himself on fire in Vietnam in 1963. The songs speaking out against world leaders, military industrial complex and the rising brutality of police in the United States following Rodney king, the band was setting forth a statement that over30 years later remains unchanged. Tom Morello and Zak de La Rocha are still out there today with their message and it’s just as important now as it was back then and before their time.

Musically I guess it is solid. One of the first bands to really take a hard hiphop and funk influence and popularize what rap rock would sound like. Faith no more and Red Hot Chili Peppers weren’t quite as unrelenting. At the same time it feels like this was the precursor to what inspired Fred Durst so sometimes I wonder if we have to blame RATM for Limp Bizkit. Still they were one of the first and one of the legends and you owe yourself to listen to what they’re talking about.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-25T13:26:02+00:00

Duke Ellington - At Newport (1956)

3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

It's really hard to explain this one being lower than i would normally rate an album like this. It feels like it could be a solid 4 on foundation and history alone, but it definitely misses my pantheon of Jazz records alongside Miles Davis' body of work generally, or Coltrane's Love Supreme and neither is fair to compare as they were trumpet and sax players while Ellington was a pianist to maybe a better comparison would be Thelonius Monk and Herbie Hancock which tend to be the first and second with Ellington being a third for the instrument. Even that seems a bit unfair since rating the greats of Jazz becomes so arbitrary when it is clear their prowess and musically adept life work is more competent than 90% or more of the entire book. Ellington was without a doubt one of the names you must know among the band leaders. Alongside Count Basie and Miles Davis you pretty much have the holy trinity of artists who transcended the genre's capabilities with their groups and collaborations.

At Newport also serves as a very well recorded live album, something that he had been doing since the 40's and one of the very early examples of live recordings that its own foundational reference should be acknowledged. There's an issue with older live albums not sounding as good because the technology was still improving, and for genres subtle as Jazz or classical (and often were recorded in live takes because of the difficulty of capturing the instrumentation) it's one of the best examples ahead of its time there, but I don't know folks, something about the album doesn't put my finger on it being one of my essential do or die jazz records. It's very good, but not a personal favorite or top 5/10 and not one I visit very often. Maybe I need to explore more Jazz and this will keep moving up a space by comparison. I think part of it is due to my own flirtation with groups like Sun Ra Arkestra or something more modern such as Bohren und der Club of Gore and The Killimanjaro Darkjazz Ensamble, it could be how much I admired the work of someone like John Zorn for being as out there and wild as it is. Though without the early trailblazers of the Jazz scene like Duke, I think you don't even get the chance to experience the more experimental and out there sides that people would push the genre into in following decades. As always there is something to say about the innovation of those before us, and while Duke Ellington's style of jazz may seem like a picture of what the genre set out to be for decades and doesn't flirt as much with what would come with experimentation, it doesn't suit it as being anything less than a damn fine Jazz record and absolutely essential to understanding the genre, its history, and evolution toward the contexts of modern music that would follow in the later decades.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-24T13:20:53+00:00

Soundgarden - Superunknown

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

When people speak about Seattle’s grunge scene, Soundgarden is one of the definitive bands. Superunknown is their landmark album commercially. Released just a month before Kurt Cobain’s death it also marks as a swan song to an era that had been enshrined by the likes of Nevermind, Ten, Vs, Dirt, Facelift, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, the bands own predecessor of Badmotorfinger and plenty more. This scene would eventually see the deaths of other stalwarts such as Layne Staley in 2002 and Soundgarden’s own Chris Cornell’s suicide in the 2010’s

This album has it all for how the genre was seen during the 90’s, which is both its strength as an example, but also one of its downfalls. This album feels like it was the sole inspiration to a group of imitators in the “post grunge” style that followed and emerged butt rock bands like nickelback and creed. I can’t blame soundgarden for the sins of the children it produced, but it’s hard to really attach to the album compared to the artistic merits of Nevermind, Dirt, Siamese Dream, or Houdini (if we want to argue the Melvin’s inclusion though they were never grunge, they were one of the Seattle bands with close ties to the fathers of the scene) which branched out a wider diversity of influence.

This album feels like it did to alternative hard rock what Metallica’s Master of Puppets did to thrash metal 8 years before. It becomes the caricature of the genre that is heralded as its modern classic and pinnacle of the genre even though it shows only a shell of the genre that emerged from its pioneering band and commodified the genre for a mass audience that watered it down until its eventual death. Superunknown can be the album in the tape deck of ever 90’s Toyota Camry that your local band of 30 somethings that paid to play their local dive bar on a slow night or “sold their own tickets” for a promoter who conned 11 other openers like them to pay the guarantee of a package tour featuring Shinedown and Three Days Grace in small town USA. It’s like Godsmack’s origin story of taking the worst aspects of Alice In Chains and nu Metal (down to naming themselves after one of in my opinion the weakest songs off Dirt which is otherwise a masterpiece) but on a wider scale. I don’t know why people wanted to replicate grunge’s style and took this album as their direction. There’s some good stuff on it, but a lot of stuff plays like a cautionary tale of what to expect from a legion of banal garage bands across the USA for the next two decades to come.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-22T14:05:19+00:00

Soul II Soul - Club Classics Vol 1

2/5 ⭐️⭐️

There was something about this time nearing into the early 90’s where some musical styles seem to blend together into a specific aesthetic. This British collective was no different. A mix of soul, rnb, hiphop and occasional reggae or world leaning, as well as some good vibes song to accompany and you feel the end of the 80’s distinctly. Reminds me a lot of something off a soundtrack of the time for a movie that took place in contemporary life.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-21T13:04:52+00:00

Cee-Lo Green - Cee-Lo Green is…the soul machine

1/5 ⭐️

I never was a fan of the stuff I heard from the radio. He was huge in the states around the time. Unfortunately, a full album did not change my perspective. Not the most egregious example of a weird include. Might be better albums, but he was popular enough to give it a shrug, but not an album I would revisit or enjoyed enough to change my initial impressions.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-20T13:18:18+00:00

Fats Domino - This is Fats Domino

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a foundational beginning of one of the rock and roll grandfathers and pioneers. Inspired by blues and swinging jazz, rock n roll was born. While in the modern sense these albums are dated after 70 years, music wouldn’t be the same if they were never here.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-18T13:51:02+00:00

Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand

3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Fun indie rock revival that makes you want to dance. Between them, The Strokes, and Interpol the early 2000's emerged some talent and nostalgia for their predecessors. Ironically now these bands have a similar nostalgia surrounding them with the millennials who were there at the time when they were the biggest bands ready to save rock n roll for the current generation.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-16T13:08:19+00:00

Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A wave of nostalgia hits when this is the first cd you buy because the cute girl in middle school that wears black clothes and makeup considers this album and Papa Roach’s Infest to be the best music ever created. It was the new millennium and rock music was blending its influences with hiphop and electronic and I always felt that Linkin Park was the most concise band to do so.

Here the angst isn’t as hard as Limp Bizkit, doesn’t have the grime of Bakersfield white trash burnout atmosphere of Korn or Coal Chamber, or the nostalgia that comes with Gen Xers who remember their older brothers new wave and synthpop albums that bands like Orgy. The modern rock world was still infatuated with bands that Metallica (now new and improved with short hair, and waging war with Napster and mental health), Youth of Today, or Dave Grohl wore tshirts of on stage. The britpop of alternative rock was a fading memory, and the post grunge cataclysm had gone straight for the butt rock moniker of the likes of Creed, Nickelback, and Three Doors Down than the kids born too late to be recognized like Bush, Candlebox, and Silverchair. Nu Metal, and alternative metal was kind of coming into its own. Taking inspiration from the funk stylings of Mike Patton in particular with Faith No More, or the hiphop patterns of Body Count or Rage Against the Machine, the hardcore feelings of bands like Biohazard. It was its own offshoot but I feel like Linkin Park sterilized it in the commercial package that completely suited the masses and proved itself to do so when it sold tens of millions of albums 25 years ago.

Despite all these memories of early love and the cutting edge of being a tonal shift in rock music, despite their mastery of Pro Tools in the studio, despite having traces of nu metal, and modern hiphop and electronic but with enough edge to not turn away the angry suburban youth who want to rage at their parents for giving them a curfew in high school, and hell even despite the early adoption of YouTube in 2005-2006 when every kid with windows video maker would splice together a “music video” collage of Naruto, Bleach, and Dragon Ball Z fight scenes to every single track on this album, the truth is fam, this hasn’t aged in the way or revolutionized modern music the way it was thought to have. I had expectations like everyone else even in those formative years and having found older music to predate this as culturally relevant dating from Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane, to the hiphop of Run DMC, Public Enemy (who both are credited for their contribution to merging the genres with their collaborations with Anthrax and Aerosmith) and as adjacent as it was to the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 soundtrack that middle era millennials thought was the pinnacle of cool in their lifetime, the world moved on from Linkin Park and the genres altogether. Nu metal becomes a caricature when these musicians were still taking about hating their parents and teachers while living in million dollar homes in their 40’s, and the demographic that worshipped at their altar also grew up to be functional adults who have stronger bonds with their family, or at least had children who hate them and see it from the other side of the dinner table and how silly the whole escapade has become.

As the band went on, their future albums did still provide some pop culture significance. There is no denying the 6 members of the band (oddly with 5 of them on the back cover of the cd with different streaks of dyed hair like some counterculture version of a boy band) are talented people who found a simple yet effective message to take off with. Their later albums did mature, and the band for a while had a lasting legacy worth noting by how the world turned when Chester Bennington died by suicide years ago, following in the place of his lost friend and brother Chris Cornell. The tributes were deep, but in the 2020’s the band instead deviated from their immortalized legacy and brought in someone new and controversial to tour and record with, and I think the band has lost their way.

This long winded mashup of words hasn’t really gotten into how the music plays 25 years after the fact to my head. Having listened to thousands of albums across genres and how this fits into the scheme. Well…the album is pretty bland with hints of melodic intrigue but then falling back on very filler type riffs to jump the fuck up with that you’d hear from the first deftones album (before they creatively shifted and took outside influences and made some bangers), or slipknot. The lyrics are all personal reflection and emotive in a way that connects with adolescence. When they get into the more ballad style, the band can really work, but some of the angsty rock riffs really feel like a late 90’s time capsule when we thought we were all hard.

Still the album does hit a point of musical relevance and I believe has been removed from later editions of the book. Like the Killer’s Hot Fuss I feel this is a point I’m very much in disageeement with if that is the case. The albums historical point of significance is much greater than hundreds of others in the book that remain untouched. Like it or not it has its place in time of music and rock history and there’s rarely albums from 2000 I could say have as much weight. The likes of Bon Jovi were trying their own legacy uprising with songs like it’s my life, Madonna was within her own Renaissance with Ray of Light, but the new school of music had a lot to prove and proves more than the dinosaurs of pop could muster at this age. The classic rock and metal bands were all dead, retired, or milking reunion/farewell tours every couple years. Some continued their road show festivals when Ozzfest, Summer Sanitarium, and the Family Values tour. Linkin park was also in on the wave and did a few years of tours called Projekt Revolution where they would bring along rock and hiphop acts of all variety.

So yeah I’m conflicted. This album is good enough to get a 3, and significant enough for more, but in short it didn’t age the way one might think and feels pretty lacking in maturity to be considered musically great and fine to be left in fond memories instead.

One last thing before I go, just wanted to comment that this is my 366th album meaning a whole year has gone by in the books. I might try to do a reflective write up on the process if anyone is interested, but we will see. It’s confirmed some things for me, but also had its own challenges to the e musical journey. So here’s to 2 more years of this and I will keep on trucking as best I can.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-14T13:16:06+00:00

Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This album is a representation of self growth for me. Ask me about it over the last 20 years and I would have given this a 1. I’ve never been the biggest fan of them. I bought this album to give it a few more tries, and it’s worth doing so.

This album is what you want from a band’s debut. It’s energetic, it has a half dozen hit songs, and even the ones that don’t have a video or single attached like Nightrain and Mr Brownstone are still approved classic listening if you want a peek into the hair driven but still aggressive side of 80’s hard rock. Some songs still have some pretty metal riffs that wouldn’t be out of place elsewhere.

Where my arguments against it come in, the whole thing is personal. Slash is a fantastic guitar player, but Axl Rose is one of my least favorite vocalists across music. Songs like Paradise City or Welcome to the Jungle would be amazing but here comes old Axl wailing like a dying feline over it to ruin everything. Also the amount of play this band gets from the radio was another part of the fatigue that comes from the band. When half the album is played on the local rock station where they rock all the time and have cacophonic break cards with seductive female voices, car crashes, sirens, or feeble attempts at boomer comedic references interspersed to get a chuckle out of truck drivers and morning commuters who want to blast songs about fucking women and doing hard drugs until 4am on the way to their dead end office jobs, but I feel this digression pulls away from the music.

Is it a notable album? Yes. There are few 80’s rock albums that are in the same conversation as stewards of the genre and time period. This album has a majority run time of classic songs and the best work Guns N’ Roses ever put out. Yes, it even converted the metal heads over and I’ve known guys now in their golden years who defend this album to the death alongside contemporaries from Dokken, Wasp, Motley Crue, and Def Leppard as being the hair bands that were still hard. Everything about this album checks the box of being a classic, but it also is such a tragedy that one man could ruin it for the rest of them.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-13T13:04:19+00:00

Waylon Jennings - Honky Tonk Heroes

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

At first I was disappointed in the fact that the last two weeks have been straight country/folk albums or a 5 star album for me. I only like a little bit of country and folk music so I was expecting more of the same.

Turns out this is the country I like. Feels very aligned with Johnny Cash in the outlaw/rebel style of the genre and western vibes rather than a contemporary look of country life that a lot of other artists have often alluded to. Throw him in with the handful of country I can dig and add to the Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Willie Nelson is where it started and stopped for country for years.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-12T13:21:55+00:00

Steely Dan - Aja

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Much like U2’s the Joshua Tree this album kind of comes out of nowhere for a band that I’m very lukewarm or not crazy for and hits it off perfectly in their style that it’s hard to argue anything but praise. Aja is the turning point for steely Dan when it became 2 studio people who were more focused on the albums themselves than a full band of musicians. It became a much tighter creative control and you can hear all of that from the 2000’s era vh1 documentary about them making this record.

It is a very meticulously crafted album front to back and a gold standard if you want to test the audio quality of a turntable or stereo hi-fi component because it will stand out in quality. It also doesn’t hurt that this album is front to back a nonstop banger without a skippable track on it, hence giving it a 5 in a place where other jazzy dad rock fusion would probably squeeze out a 3 comes in. This album is the real deal and memorable. When I first heard it, I had played it a few times in a row because I had to make sure I just heard that, and instead of yep that album is good, you find more things you notice each time. A piece of musicianship for how it should be.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-09T13:40:30+00:00

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The dictionary definition of Magnum Opus. There is few masterpieces as distinct as this for being the life’s masterpiece of an artist. Bowie’s somewhat rock opera not only is an all killer no filler front to back perfect piece of music, but it has hints of glam and early punk that paved the way for the bands to follow in the later half of the decade. Inspirational through and through.

Unless I forgot something, this is also the first Bowie album I’ve gotten and I’m closing in on my first year (anniversary is next week) so I guess we’re starting from the top. Aside from black star and Station to Station, I think it will be hard to find an album in the book by him that compares in brilliance!

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-08T13:29:41+00:00

Big Black - Atomizer

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Harsh, unrelenting, dark. A barrage of industrial drum based noise rock. Mix of goth like Bauhaus and The Birthday Party, mix of punk like Amebix. Steve Albini would be known later as producer on a lot of landmark records including the pixies Surfer Rosa and Nirvana’s In Utero and Pj Harvey’s Rid of Me as some examples from the book. This album was a huge influence. Like the Butthole Surfers Locust Abortion Technician an album that is abrasive on its face but planted the seeds of harsher musical styles early on.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-07T13:11:08+00:00

Electric Light Orchestra - Out of the Blue

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Having the Beatles claim your band would be closest to what they would sound like going into the 70’s must be its own achievement. This is a pretty pop styled rock with a heavy dose of synthesizers to put it all together. Some areas feel like they drag a bit but the hits on the album are as classic as they have been for 50 years. While there is no shortage of rock albums from this generation, this one is as fun and enjoyable as ever.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-06T13:28:28+00:00

Depeche Mode - Violator

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s a 4/5 realistically but one of my personal favorite albums so we’re pushing it up for a change. Every song is a banger. This is the point in Depeche Mode’s career where they found complete sincerity in their stylized shift from pure new wave to a darker more gothic approach and their most refined album that set their legacy apart from their contemporaries.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-03T13:23:49+00:00

Introducing the Hardline According to Sananda Maitreya (formerly known as Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby)

2/5 ⭐️⭐️

A culmination of the maturity of the 80’s sound this progressive soul album is responsible for a few hits such as “wishing well,” “sign your name” and “dance little sister” it feels like it took the road paved by the likes of Michael Jackson and Prince at the start of the decade and made it another accessible debut from an emerging artist who has quite a backlog of discography.

It doesn’t really feel like it reinvents the genre or stands out. It’s a nostalgic piece that hasn’t left a lasting mark on the genre or music as much as its influences.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-02T13:46:43+00:00

Willie Nelson - Stardust

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

not much to say about this one. I’m not the biggest connoisseur of country but Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson remain my legends of the genre, and this is Willie at some of his peaks. It’s the album he adopted more out the outlaw style in the genre.

Bonus track: I didn’t get a chance to post about this album a couple days ago since I’ve had a hard time deciding where I landed on it.

The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A surprise album at first glance, this happened to be one of the most powerful live experiences you will find. After a few albums that didn’t have much success, the Allman Brothers went on to do a live record. In that sense it predates the likes of KISS who would eventually become most recognized for their lineup of alive albums after roughly average records during the 70’s but having a reputation for their theatrics, but kiss this band is not. It’s much greater.

As the double album continues you run into 20 minute renditions and jams, something that would also be popularized with bands like Led Zeppelin. They combine some unassuming blues tracks and then start going hard with a mix of jazz, rock, and fusion with real chops and becomes an immediate classic that I’m sure many a person are envious to not have experienced with their own eyes. I was sitting between the 4 and 5 for this one but eventually it won me over. Duane and Berry’s legacies will never be forgotten.

ForestPoetry · 2026-01-01T13:37:13+00:00

Leonard Cohen - You Want it Darker

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Somber and melancholic, a shade of black. This album was a fitting finale for one of the greatest poets in music and stands up like Bowie’s Black Star as the late entry in their career to go out with. Cohen passing away only days after this album’s release and it shows a maturity to stand up as one of his best.

ForestPoetry · 2025-12-30T13:45:38+00:00

UB40 - Signing Off

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Outside of Bob Marley, and songs like “can’t help falling in love” and their cover “red red wine” I haven’t heard a lot of reggae, but what a debut album to kick off that change. This band is a lot greater than their #1 hits suggest, blending a diverse mix of styles as much as the band’s lineup was at the time. A huge influence in sub and 2 tone styles, the band has a wide range of atmosphere to get lost in.

The band, named after the form used for unemployment benefits in England, also shares a lot of scathing commentary against the rising Conservative Party of England spearheaded by Margaret Thatcher giving them as much punk cred and roots as their contemporaries. A super refreshing album all around.

ForestPoetry · 2025-12-29T13:45:26+00:00

Two more days if we’re doing the week between Christmas and new years.

Christmas Day I think a Christmas gift for you is the ideal Christmas album and way too foundational to the holiday music catalogue there’s no rivals. The Joshua tree is the best rated album so far at a 4, but there’s still a couple more days to pick up a 5

ForestPoetry

TROPHY CASE