List of Reviewed Songs/Singles

Hello! These are all of the songs/singles reviewed here on the blog! Hopefully, this makes things easier to navigate rather than only by tags or search. Any songs I believe to be worth your time will be bolded.

Singles

1. Rag Mop / Sentimental Me - Ames Brothers
2. I Can Dream, Can't I? / The Wedding of Lili Marlene - Andrew Sisters
3. Stack-A-Lee - Archibald
4. If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake / When Love Happens to You - Eileen Barton
5. Mona Lisa / The Greatest Inventor (Of Them All) - Nat King Cole
6. The Fat Man / Detroit City Blues - Fats Domino
7. Dream a Little Dream of Me / Can Anyone Explain? (No, No, No!) - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
8. Foggy Mountain Breakdown / No Mother or Dad - Flatt & Scruggs
9. Goofus / The Thing - Phil Harris
10. Shotgun Blues / Rollin' Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins
11. Blue Light Boogie - Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five
12. The "Harry Lime" Theme / The Cafe Mozart Waltz - Anton Karas
13. Bad, Bad Whiskey / I'm Going To Tell My Mama - Amos Milburn
14. The Tennessee Waltz / Boogie Woogie Santa Claus - Patti Page
15. Rollin' and Tumblin' - Muddy Waters
16. Rollin' Stone / Walking Blues - Muddy Waters
17. Goodnight Irene / Tzena, Tzena, Tzena - The Weavers
18. Long Gone Lonesome Blues / My Son Calls Another Man Daddy - Hank Williams
19. Why Don't You Love Me / A House Without Love - Hank Williams
20. Moanin' the Blues / Nobody's Lonesome for Me -  Hank Williams

Songs

1. Then He Kissed Me - The Crystals
2. High - The Cure
3. Highway Star - Deep Purple
4. All I Have To Do Is Dream - The Everly Brothers
5. I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday - Fats Domino
6. Shake For Me - Howlin' Wolf
7. Goin' Down Slow - Howlin' Wolf
8. Dust My Broom - Elmore James
9. Shake Your Moneymaker - Elmore James
10. Mellow - Elton John
11. Bennie And The Jets - Elton John
12. This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie
13. Rock Island Line - Lead Belly
14. Marie - Randy Newman
15. My Love Will Never Die - Otis Rush
16. Double Trouble - Otis Rush
17. All Your Love - Otis Rush
18. 2 + 2 = ? - The Bob Seger System
19. You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon
20. Kathy's Song - Simon & Garfunkel
21. The 59th Street Bridge Song - Simon & Garfunkel
22. America - Simon & Garfunkel
23. My Wave - Soundgarden
24. Only A Fool Would Say That - Steely Dan
25. New Grass - Talk Talk
26. Old Shoes - Tom Waits
27. I Just Want To Make Love To You - Muddy Waters
28. I'm Ready - Muddy Waters
29. (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher - Jackie Wilson
30. After The Gold Rush - Neil Young
31. Love In Mind - Neil Young

List of Reviewed Albums

Hello! These are all of the albums reviewed here on the blog! Hopefully, this makes things easier to navigate rather than only by tags or search. I'll also explain briefly how the ratings work overall.

On each page, I'll be rating an album on a simple-to-understand 1-10 scale. What each one entails is explained below. To make the reviews more useful, I've also posted the tracklisting for the album reviewed where I provide YouTube links to all the songs from the record I consider "notable" and bold the highlights. Keep in mind all ratings and reviews are just my own opinions (which are always subject to change!). If you agree or disagree, let me know in the comments! I want to hear!

As for a quick guide, I consider records with a 9+/10 essential listening and 8+/10 of very high quality. I would say the records with ratings 6 or lower I find mostly inessential and to avoid unless you're a major fan of the artist/band who made the record.

10/10 (Immaculate Masterpiece): 

These are the albums I use as my standard by which to judge all music. In my eyes, they are not only perfect but astonishingly powerful, timeless, and unique as well. I see little to no flaws at all with these records.

1. Ramones - Ramones
2. Talking Book - Stevie Wonder

9/10 (Classic):

Truly excellent albums all around. I consider these records major achievements and highlights of their era. Very consistently enjoyable and intriguing records with substance. There might be small flaws that might impede it from getting higher, but these are awesome records that I urge everyone to hear.

1. Here's Little Richard - Little Richard
2. Little Richard - Little Richard
3. Exciting Wilson Pickett - Wilson Pickett

8/10 (Very Good):

Very consistently enjoyable record with many great songs. They are impressive, minor achievements in their own right, just lacking in one major aspect to be considered truly great in my eyes. Nevertheless, I personally feel these records are worth getting into and are very satisfying listens.

1. Mr. Tambourine Man - Byrds
2. Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan
3. Never Mind The Bollocks - Sex Pistols
4. Complete Specialty Recordings - Soul Stirrers w/ Sam Cooke

7/10 (Solid):

Records that are generally nice and instill positive reactions in me. They seriously lack in some aspects to be a really smashing listen, and there are not enough great moments on the record to be absolutely indispensable listening. Still, these records have much more good to them than bad, and no fan of the artist/band making this record should be without it.

1. Turn! Turn! Turn! - Byrds

6/10 (Decent):

These are records where the flaws start to become difficult to ignore and impact enjoyability. Has enough strengths to not be a negative listen, but this is the first batch I never want to hear because of the inconsistent quality. Recommendable to fans of these artists/bands, but everyone else won't find much here to save.

1. Jazz Soul of Little Stevie - Stevie Wonder

5/10 (Mediocre):

These are records that I don't see what makes them outstanding in any way. They aren't terrible, but they have little to no good features either. Forgettable records in the long run, best to skip these.

1. Surfin' Safari - Beach Boys

4/10 (Below Average):

The flaws of these records are significant to the point where they cancel out most of the strengths. Not excruciating, but a very irritating set of records I do not recommend.

1. Tribute To Uncle Ray - Stevie Wonder

3/10 (Bad):

These records are very unpleasant, where the whole listening experience will be mostly negative. They are even worse than the above because the negative aspects are downright offensive. Stay away from these.

None reviewed...yet!

2/10 (Terrible):

These records are pretty much unlistenable as the flaws make the listening experience truly painful. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to listen to this.

None reviewed...yet!

1/10 (Atrocious):

I seriously cannot imagine listening experiences more excruciating than these records. If I forget that these records exist, I'll probably die a happier man.

None reviewed...yet!

About This Blog

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I suppose you're here to get some answers about what this mostly improvised blog is about. Well, I'm just some guy who has so many (good or terrible, you decide) ideas and thoughts that I cannot healthily keep them to myself. Instead of torturing everyone I know by constantly raving about this stuff, I decided I'll make a blog as a nice dumping ground for most of the ideas I have. I don't know whether anything I write will have value to anyone. This is mostly for my own sanity and enjoyment than really doing anything useful with it. It's probably not going to be terrible formal or well-crafted. I'm just going to dish out my ideas in their rawest form and leave them at that.

What will I talk about? Well, just about anything really. Currently, my two obsessions are popular music of the 20th century (so like rock, blues, pop, that sort of thing) and how society is affecting human psychological/spiritual welfare, and these two topics will be the main topics I write about. I have no formal education or professional experience in either of these two topics, so take what I write with heavy servings of salt. These topics are subject to change, and I have no idea what I will eventually do with this. Just roll with whatever you see.

As a disclaimer, I would like to say that this is NOT a professional blog. If I talk about a serious topic, I will just be writing based on what I think. I might do a tiny bit of research here and there, but most of this is just stuff that comes out of my head without much of a filter. Don't expect anything really fancy and nice: this is just to get my thoughts out in a constructive form. If I get a fact wrong or you have a different opinion based on more evidence than mine, please post in the comments! I want all kinds of comments, even if they disagree with me! Though a lot of what I'll be writing about will probably be more opinion-based, so we shouldn't have too many problems concerning "fake news." This is just to make clear that this is not a place for information: this is just a place where I keep a repository of things I think about. Don't overthink what you read here too much and we'll be fine.

Why the name? Well, it comes from the Kinks' album Muswell Hillbillies, which I feel captures much of the way I see the world. So, it felt appropriate to say I am a "muser" from that world of Muswell Hill envisioned by Ray Davies.

Anyways, this is going to be a lot of fun for me, and I hope you all enjoy these random essays as well!

Here is my RateYourMusic: https://rateyourmusic.com/~Mr_Muswell_Hillbilly

Here is my Spotify profile: https://open.spotify.com/user/315lvcjqxpotqs7vbmib4dnyoviy?si=258800103a244e06