A Look Back On Music

Hi, I’m Isaac, and welcome to A Look Back On Music! This is my new blog after I decided to leave ipod044reviews.blogspot.com  mostly because the name sucked, but you’ll see that I’ve reuploaded all of the reviews from there to here. Here I’ll be reviewing albums that I view as under-appreciated many years after their original release, some classic albums, and some new releases if they peak my interests. I’m also a drummer (YT:  www.youtube.com/channel/UCc4q4yf-9wlQIuCmpZ6GusA  | IG: www.instagram.com/isuccatdrumming ), and I play with the band Danker Zone (YT:  www.youtube.com/channel/UCqK0mm8v0wSmngJLf7sv65w  | IG: www.instagram.com/dankerzoneband ). I’m also learning how to make music and putting it up on SoundCloud and YouTube (SC: www.soundcloud.com/ipod044 | YT:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo2q2Rz5fooNyYroufWTYCA ), but I’m just doing it by ear right now so don’t expect much, I plan on learning piano soon. Anyway that’s about it, new 1975 review...

People is the new single released by the 1975 on August 22, 2019, off of their upcoming fourth studio album “Notes on a Conditional Form” The 1975 have subverted all expectations with their new single. The band breaks off of the electronic alternative pop direction of their last album, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships , by releasing “People,” a heavy, industrial-tinged dance-punk banger. The band always had some punk influence in their lyrics and spirit, but not much in their music, except for the post-punk inspired “Give Yourself a Try” from A Brief Inquiry , but with this they’ve gone head-first into the genre, and they’ve done it with one of their best songs they’ve ever released. The song wipes away any electronic influence. The guitars are heavy, bass is crunchy, and drums are driving. The lead guitar riff during the verse is bordering on noise-rock, and the production seems very industrial-influenced. All the vocal effects that covered, and at some points weigh...

Evil Empire (Evil Empire is the second studio album by American rap rock band Rage Against the Machine, released April 16, 1996)     Rage Against the Machine are one of the biggest bands to come out of the 90s. Even though their lyrics were extremely politically charged, they only released three studio albums (if you don't count the cover album Renegades ), and they were relatively short-lived band, making albums only from 1991 to 2000, and then having a touring reunion from 2007 to 2011, they still managed to basically create a new genre. They were definitely not the first band to meld rap and metal, but they were the first to break into the mainstream, and they helped set up the foundation for what would eventually become nu metal. Their debut self-titled album was critically acclaimed and put the group on the map, but it took them four years to put out a follow-up.     Both pre-album singles didn’t exceptionally well, especially when compared t...

STRENGTH IN NUMB333RS (STRENGTH IN NUMB333RS is the debut studio album by American rapcore supergroup Fever 333, released January 18, 2019)     Rage Against the Machine are one of my favorite bands of all time, but the last time they released original music was 1999’s The Battle of Los Angeles , being as their 2000 album Renegades is a covers album. So when I heard the Fever 333’s track “Made in America” and the EP of the same name, I got excited. Vocalist Jason Aalon Butler’s rapping is a dead ringer for Zack de la Rocha, and the instrumentals were like RATM style rock mixed with modern day trap music. But somehow I missed the release of their debut full length album, so I listened to it as soon as I got the chance, and I have a lot of thoughts.     The album doesn’t start off in the best way, as the opener has some of the worst writing and voice acting I’ve ever heard on an album. It picks back up on the next track, however, on the lead single ...

Them Crooked Vultures ( Them Crooked Vultures is the first, and so far only, album by rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, released on November 16, 2009)     If you were to ask rock fans who one of the best rock bands of the 70s were, the answer would probably be unanimous: Led Zeppelin. If you were to ask them who was one of the biggest artists to come out of the grunge scene, most would probably answer Nirvana. Finally, if you were to ask them who one of the most influential alt rock bands of the early 2000s were, many would probably answer Queens of the Stone Age. So when it came out that former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, along with Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame on drums and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on guitar and vocals, were working on an album, a lot of people had high hopes. Of course they did. Dave is one of the greatest musicians of the past twenty years, and he and Josh, an amazing artist in his own right, had alre...

The year 2018 was a very interesting one for music. From Kanye West producing and releasing five 7-track 20 minute albums, including Pusha T’s Daytona , Kids See Ghosts’ self-titled debut and his own album Ye , all in the timespan of five weeks, to the rise of trap in the mainstream, and many huge releases by famous artists. Because of this, there were a lot of good tracks and a lot of bad tracks, but because I don’t seek out bad music, I thought I’d talk about my favorite tracks of the year. Now, I want to say this before I start the list: I haven't listened to a lot of releases from this year. This was the first year I got really invested in music, so I went back and listened to a wide variety of stuff, mainly things from the grunge scene of the 90s and the alt rock scene of the 2000s. I’m also limiting this list to one song per artist, so I can include more artists and because if I didn’t, there would be a total of about three artists. Oh, and most importantly: this is my o...