As always, everything is rated on the Binary Scale.

• Synthesizer Greatest, Volume 2
  A compilation of new-age synthesizer music. Very spacey.

  Score: 1
  Top picks: Magnetic Fields

• Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape
  Roughly half bubblegum pop and half rapless-hiphop (the subject of another article I might write soon), not entirely dissimilar to her previous album.

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: The Sweet Escape, Early Winter, 4 in the Morning, U Started It, Wonderful Life

• Experience Hendrix - The Best of Jimi Hendrix
  My dad will surely disown me for this, but this album merely taught me that I don’t really like much of Hendrix’s music.

  Score: .5
  Top Picks: Fire, All Along the Watchtower, Foxy Lady

• Oystein Sevag - Global House
  Acoustic (mainly), mellow, worldly new-age music. My mom gave me this album some years ago, but I stupidly gave it back because I didn’t like it. Turns out I was a bit too quick to judge.

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: Global House

• Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
  This is one of Dire Straits’ best-of albums. I bought it thinking it was Brothers in Arms. There’s only one track on it that I really like that’s not on Brothers in Arms.

  Score: .5
  Top Picks: Sultans of Swing, Walk of Life, Money for Nothing, Brothers in Arms

• Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
  A week later, after realizing my mistake, I bought this album. Turns out the only songs I really like are already on Money for Nothing, though at least buying this album got me the full versions. (The ones on Money for Nothing are edited)

  Score: .5
  Top Picks: Money for Nothing, Walk of Life, The Man’s Too Strong, Brothers in Arms

• Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?
  The live recordings of The Wall from the original 1980-81 tour. It’s remarkably similar to the studio version, though the live shows had some extra material that were cut from the studio album for time.

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2, Mother, One Of My Turns, Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell

• Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits
  It’s Tom Petty. How far wrong can you go?

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: I Need To Know, Refugee, Runnin’ Down A Dream, Free Fallin’, Mary Jane’s Last Dance

• The Police - Every Breath You Take: The Classics
  Anyone following this blog may have noticed by now that I buy a lot of “best of” albums. I do this when there’s an artist that I’m interested in, but not sure of any particular album I want to get. In this case I bought it based on some of their songs that I’d heard before that I liked, and discovered a few more that I liked.

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: Can’t Stand Losing You, Message in a Bottle, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

• The Beatles - Past Masters
  The definitive collection of all the singles, EPs, and other tracks that didn’t see release on any of the ‘official’ albums.

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: Hey Jude, Let It Be

• The Beatles - Help!
  Probably my second favorite Beatles album (after Abbey Road), this is the album where they start to emerge from their ‘sappy love songs’ phase that dominated their earlier releases. I’ve liked this album since I first saw the movie in my teens, and subsequently raided my dad’s old reel-to-reel tapes (and machine) for more Beatles (and other) material.

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: Help!, The Night Before, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, Ticket to Ride, Yesterday

• Beatles For Sale
  More of their aforementioned ‘sappy love songs’ phase.

  Score: 0

• The Beatles — Let It Be
  The last Beatles record released (though the second-to-last recorded), this is the version originally produced by Phil Spector from the raw studio tapes (as opposed to the ‘Naked’ version released years later, remastered without Spector’s embellishments)

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: Let It Be, Get Back

• Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty
  Mostly hip-hop (from a trio of white boys no less), with some experimental, even downright jazzy tracks.

  Score: 1
  Top Picks: Body Movin’, Intergalactic

• The Beatles - Past Masters Volume I
• The Beatles - Past Masters Volume II
• Beatles For Sale
• The Police - Every Breath You Take - The Classics
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Greatest Hits

via Rasputin

• The Beatles - Help
• The Beatles - Let It Be
• Oystein Sevag - Global House
• Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
• Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81

(via Rasputin)

As always, everything is rated on the Binary Scale.

• The IT Crowd
  Taking the same old bullshit sitcom formula and throwing in a few geek in-jokes doesn’t make it a ‘geek sitcom.’ It just makes it shitty television. Utterly without merit.

  Score: -1

• Doctor Who
  The new series is good. But it’s missing something intangible that the old series had. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

  Score: 1

• Experience Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix
• Gwen Stefani: The Sweet Escape
• Dire Straits: Money for Nothing
• Synthesizer Greatest Vol. 2
• Beastie Boys: Hello Nasty

(via Rasputin)

As always, everything is rated on the Binary Scale.

• Massive Attack - Mezzanine
  Sounds like the bastard child of Rock and Techno. There’s only one track on it that I really like, and I already had it on PureMoods II

  Score: 0
  Choice tracks: Teardrop

• Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene
  Early synth-ey new-age music. Very mellow and ambient in some sections, more upbeat in others.

  Score: 1
  Choice tracks: Part IV

• Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight
  Heavy metal, though somewhat of a departure from the metal-rap fusion of their previous albums. This is a little less heavy overall, and barely even metal on a few songs. The rap element is almost absent.

  Score: 1
  Choice tracks: Given Up, Leave Out All the Rest

• The Who Sings My Generation
  Their first album, as released in the US (with a slightly different track listing and a few minor edits.) Some early hard rock tunes, while others sound a lot like early Beatles tunes, and a couple are downright bluesy. Overall I liked it better than ‘Sells Out’ but it doesn’t really stand out.

  Score: 1
  Choice tracks: My Generation

• Massive Attack - Mezzanine
• Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene
• Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight
• The Who Sings My Generation

(via Rasputin’s)

As always, everything is rated on the Binary Scale.

• Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking
  Very similar in style to late-pre-breakup Pink Floyd, such as The Wall or The Final Cut. Actually, it’s what late-pre-breakup Pink Floyd would sound like if you replaced David Gilmour with Eric Clapton (who plays guitar on this album)

  Rating: 1
  Choice tracks: “Sexual Revolution”

• Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals
  Often billed as “industrial”, Manson just sounds like metal to me. Not constant, cover-to-cover goodness, but enough good songs to make it a worthwhile purchase

  Rating: 1
  Choice tracks: “Great Big White World”, “The Dope Show”, “Mechanical Animals”, “I Don’t Like The Drugs”, “The Last Day On Earth”

• The Who - Who’s Next
  It’s The Who. How far wrong can you go?

  Rating: 1
  Choice Tracks: “Baba O’Riley”, “Bargain”, “Behind Blue Eyes”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

• System of a Down - Toxicity
  More metal. I like it, but not as much as the other two SoaD albums (Mesmerize, Hypnotize) that I have.

  Rating: 1
  Choice Tracks: “Prison Song”, “Chop Suey!”

• No Doubt - Return of Saturn
  I’ve decided that I don’t really like No Doubt very much. There’s only a few songs, across several albums, that I even remotely like. There’s only one on this album, “Ex-girlfriend”, but I do really like it.

  Rating: 0
  Choice Tracks: “Ex-girlfriend”

• Cyndi Lauper - True Colors
  I’ve had this on tape since I was a kid, but I’ve long since lost the tape and have been looking for it on CD ever since. It finally showed up at Rasputin’s this week. I liked it then, and I still like it now.

  Rating: 1
  Choice Tracks: “Change of Heart”, “Calm Inside the Storm”, “One Track Mind”

• The Best of Santana
  The Latin-rock classics you’re all familiar with, plus some more 80s-rock style tracks.

  Rating: 1
  Choice Tracks: “Evil Ways”, “Black Magic Woman”, “Oye Como Va”

• Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits
  More classics, with their distinctive (yet not quite definable) style

  Rating: 1
  Choice Tracks: “Go Your Own Way”, “Little Lies”

• More Abba Gold
  I’ve discovered that I don’t really like Abba either. Between the first “Gold” compilation and this one, there’s only a handful of songs I like.

  Rating: 0
  Choice Tracks: “Eagle”, “Angeleyes”

• The Who Sell Out
  I recant what I said above. There’s only a couple tracks on this one that I really like. Rael, one of the bonus tracks on the remastered CD, features a passage that would eventually evolve into one of the recurring themes in “Tommy.”

  Rating: 0 (Much as it pains me)
  Choice Tracks: “I Can See for Miles”, “Rael 1”

• Kitaro - The Light of the Spirit
  Moody new-age music, a combination of synth, orchestra, and even a tinge of rock.

  Rating: 1
  Choice Tracks: “Sundance”, “Howling Thunder”

Albums:

• Cyndi Lauper - True Colors
• The Best of Santana
• Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits
• More Abba Gold
• The Who Sell Out

Songs:

• Good Charlotte - I Don’t Wanna Be In Love

(via Amazon MP3 Store)

• Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking
• Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals
• The Who - Who’s Next
• System of a Down - Toxicity
• No Doubt - Return of Saturn