All is Dream by Mercury Rev

All is Dream by Mercury Rev
Standout track: Nite and Fog
Personal Preference: 4 of 5
Blink: rock

I was very happy with this album as a whole. It's definitely has a rock feel to it, but that's only because of the drums play a prominent part. The drummer is only "directing traffic", and probably could have done some more to add to the songs. The score is quite nice overall.

Alexei and the Spring by Ryuichi Sakamoto

Alexei and the Spring by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Standout track:
Personal Preference: 2 of 5
Blink: Indio-classical

I am familiar with Sakamoto's 1995 album, which this does not even touch. The majority of the album is just a series of chromatic-scale-feeling sections of water drops or xylophone. I would guess that this is a score to a movie as all of the tracks have the feeling of background music. Nothing on the album grabbed me or moved me.

Aion by Dead Can Dance

Aion by Dead Can Dance
Standout track:
Personal Preference: 3 of 5
Blink: Druid Rock

If druids could have a rock group, this would be it. It's Gaelic-feeling music with a electric riffs that mimic the behavior of the tin whistle without the edge. All-in-all, it's fairly pleasant, but it's also repetitive. Melodic chanting is a fine thing if there's some variation in the background melody. You get the feeling that you could start at any point in this album and end up in the same place.

Ágætis byrjun by Sigur Rós

Ágætis byrjun by Sigur Rós
Standout track: Viðrar vel til loftárása
Personal Preference: 5 of 5
Blink: Ambient Dreampop

Classical music presented with a minimalist electric droning and falsetto vocals. The album has excellent assembly and production quality.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Standout track:
Personal Preference: 3 of 5
Blink: Disco

This is a compilation soundtrack for a movie, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Fun listen, but disco doesn't have much staying power for me.

Adventures in Lo-Fi by King Britt

Adventures in Lo-Fi by King Britt
Standout track:
Personal Preference: 1 of 5
Blink: Electronic Rap

This is a mixture of electronica and rap. This is one of those albums where someone is trying to deliver a message that is not moving to me, but most importantly, the message is delivered with lackluster musical medium. The tracks have some very jarring transitions, best described as a glottal stops, but that is obviously the signature of King Britt. I think you can summarize this album as a rap concept album.

Advance by Shur-I-Kan

Advance by Shur-I-Kan
Standout track: Cookies
Personal Preference: 4 of 5
Blink: Electronic Jazz

Electro-jazz, would be the best description that I can think of. The tracks are flowing electronic waves with a nice beat. The tracks are involved but not to the point where you couldn't use this as background music. The real short coming of this album is that many of the tracks have the same feel to them, but this fact does not significantly diminish the quality of the complete album.

Actual Sounds & Voices by Meat Beat Manifesto

Actual Sounds & Voices by Meat Beat Manifesto
Standout track: Prime Audio Soup
Personal Preference: 4 of 5
Blink: Electronica

A pleasant mixture of electronica and rock, which is very reminiscent of "The Chemical Brothers". The segues between songs are clips from 1950s sci-fi or science where we are asked: "What is the difference between a swish and whistler"?

Acadie by Daniel Lanois

Acadie by Daniel Lanois
Standout track: Under A Stormy Sky
Personal Preference: 3 of 5
Blink: folk rock

This is a pleasant mix of rock and folk, combined with a pleasant mix of English and French. I found some of the tracks to be uninspired; however, the production quality of the album is high. One can tell that the order of the tracks was carefully considered.

I have someone else's iPod.

What do you do when you have some one else's iPod? You listen to every album from A to Z! The iPod is a 80GiB device that has "Ironport 2007" inscribed on the back, and with that... I start listening.