Playing With Fire

Very early/experimental shoegaze/noise rock. Cool but weird

I guess I appreciate this band/album because they influenced later shoegaze artists I like, as MBV toured with them. However this wasn’t really shoegaze. I hated the drone/trance feel. Songs would build up to nothing, lyrics were mostly spoken word and fairly corny, and the mixing was super weird.

2.3 nothing offensive or memorable. listened to extended 2cd 1h59m

Never heard, poor really, not sure why they are on this list.

Heyrðu, þetta er líka svona leiðinlegt bara. Döll döll döll. Það er ekkert að gerast. - Það þarf ekki að slökkva á þessu, þetta er veldur engri vanlíðan, en... æi. Döll.

Yeah it's ok, kind of forgot about it as soon as it finished.

One or two songs, but that's about it really. Immediately forgot about it until it came to the review.

Wasn't a fan. I liked revolution but it feels like a child got hold of a delay pedal and decided it's the 60s again and did copious amounts of acid and then hit record.

so experimental im wondering what im listening to, kinda dull it essence

Ymmärrän, että oli merkittävä ilmestyessään, mutta onhan tää nyt aika alkeellisen kuuloista. Pierce onnistui myöhemmin Spiritualizedina paljon paremmin avaruusmeiningissä.

I didn't love this music.

Some cool spacey stuff in this one, but it usually went on too long and never had any satisfying conclusion to it

I appreciate the sound design

I love Spiritualized, and the songs that sound the most like Jason Pierce’s other band are the ones I like best here. The ones that drone on grate a little.

Decent music but it mostly just sounds like their playing with all the knobs and filters on their guitar pedals and synthesizers.

1.5/5

didnt finish. not for me

I liked some of the songs on here quite a bit and would listen to one or two again, but the majority of it was long and annoying, it’s a shame though because if they had just cut down on some of it, i think i would have loved this album cause it’s weird and synthy and cool and conceptual. but they weren’t humble enough.

I'd have fun playing this but not so much listening to it. It seemed like the main melody in the back half of the first disk was the same in every song.

Lo he sentido como si pusieras en una IA "música psicodélica del chill" y te saliera esto. Muy genérico y con algo de agravante teniendo en cuenta que es del 89, no de los 70. Un sin más total.

lite väl spaceat för min del

why is this on this list

För skränigt och för monotont.

1.5/5

Spacey

You can listen to each song for only a minute and get the picture. It feels like every song is repetitive and way longer than it needs to be, and not in a good way. The instrumentals were alright but the vocals were boring. DNF.

Interesting. Background tunes good but annoying otherwise. Why is this on the list?

Didn’t mind it, it helped to kill some time, but I don’t think it is something that I would go back to to listen again.

Don't quite know where yo start with this one, it's not exactly my cup of tea. I've been told it's minimalist, you can say that again. There were a couple of tracks that had the hawkwindesk guitar throb about them. Others that were quite musical. The two different vocal styles both worked. There were tracks that I would skip past if it came on in my car, and others that I most certainly would not. It's an album of severe contrasts without sounding like it. Would I buy it ?......No. Would I listen to it again probably not, but can't say for sure. 2 seems too low for it, but is it worth a 3? No not really. 2.8-2.9 but I just can't bring myself to give it a 3

Very interesting. The dude makes some interesting noises, but… It’s almost like he comes across something in a little jam session that sounds nice, doesn’t know how to drop it into a song and build it out so he just gets stuck. Perfect example of what I mean is on ‘Revolution’. The opening bars were awesome but a great song didn’t emerge. I think I liked it, but just when I thought I might give it a second chance, 11 minutes of ‘suicide’ killed off that chance.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness. - Oscar Wilde

Not unpleasant exactly but not to my taste. 2*

Playing With Fire by Spacemen 3 is listed on Apple Music as Alternative - Wikipedia calls it Psychedelic rock, and space rock. Other reviewers label it Synth Prog. Talk about throwing everything the wall and nothing sticking. I don't get this album, but then again - a UK pop album that had no traction and is compared to other albums that are not on the list? Dimery's biases become more blatant the deeper I get into this list. 2.5/5

Sounds like you're about to catch that dragon

Largely very boring tracks.

Когда пришел в церковь под кислотой 4/10

Hated it.

I thought that after the first few minutes of this, I was going to love it. Boy was I wrong. Started out hot and just became artsy noise for the remaining time.

This album is straight out of the shoegaze / psychedelic rock phase of the 80s. Full of distortion and reverb, this album would probably be more enjoyable if the listener was as high as the artists. The inclusion of this album may have been influenced by the British bias seen with several other strange albums in this compilation.

Spacey shite a teenager could probably improvise on a Casio.

Very interesting music, but wasn’t very fun to listen to. I could see enjoying this music live and experiencing the “show gaze” style but listening while driving found my mind wandering to other things and not focusing. May try another album of these guys.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: This could be interesting; ambient sort of a shoegaze / lo-fi precursor maybe, but could also be awful and pretentious/unlistenable after a while. AFTER LISTENING: I have had to return to this album multiple times because I kept forgetting what it sounded like. But I think it's sort of a...if goth music from this era were less dark vibe. I am anticipating that the commentary will refer to this album as groundbreaking for its recording techniques or something that doesn't really translate well into listening without context. AFTER LEARNING MORE: Sorry, I'm not reading all that. I guess for a list that loves Spiritualized and that whole vibe so much, this pick makes sense. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia authors for the Spaceman 3 page lost me at "neo-psychedelia" and "drug band." RECCOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Spiritualized, Suicide (the band,) taking edibles and zoning out

i miss adele.

Drone. Occasionally melodic. Suicide was an inspired title - I considered it after listening to the album.

Not good, not bad, but quite repetitive and forgettable. I guess the worst thing you can be in art is boring.

I really did want to like this one but this album mostly annoyed me. The stand out track for me was So Hot - (Wash Away All Of My Tears). I really love the sound of this song and unfortunately it's found nowhere else on the album. Based on the first track, I really was hoping that I was in for something special but it ended up being mostly a disappointment. Giving this album, sadly and as much as I wanted to enjoy it, a 2/5. It hurts.

Psychedelic, ambient noise rock. Simplistic one-note drones and reverb-soaked, blasé vocals. Competent shoegaze, but I am not moved.

Trop expérimental, on dirait que les pièces ne démarrent jamais vraiment.

Por la canción Suicide, que es insoportable, le pongo un 2. Si no, sería un 3.

Flip flops between being way to minimalist space rock and way to dull and brute-forced noise rock, and no melodies to be found whatsoever. 4/10

Super super psychadelic

Very boring to listen to.

Are we fr

This is like the terrible 60s/early 70s Psychelic music combined with fun bleeps and spacy stuff. So how to rate this. Feeling says 2 stars

I generally like alternative stuff, but this was just so self indulgent!

As I'm listening to this, I can't help but feel like it's taking forever to get somewhere but maybe this is already the destination. "Somewhere" is a concept that I'm expecting but won't be getting, and the sound is what it is. For a 2 hour long double-CD record, I don't really often want a 3 minute intro song that doesn't really do much besides get me excited for something coming next (and then not GIVE me that thing?). Am I making sense? I feel like there's a lot of building up but no climaxing. Track 1 is an overly long buildup Track 2 is boring, (possibly biased because I didn't get the climax from the buildup from the intro?) Track 3 is ... boring.. Track 4 is boring, OK maybe this is what their sound is and I need to accept that and not expect more? Track 5.. oh ok. Some distorted guitar. Is this the change I was expecting? Yea, it was. The album started roughly 18 minutes prior to this. Where was this 15 minutes ago? Where was this 5 minutes ago? This is a cool song. I like the affect in the vocal performance. Vocals were admittedly a little low energy for the context of the track though. Track 6 and 7 are right back to the spacey-ness. Now I'm having conflicting thoughts and wondering that maybe this should be the WHOLE sound of the album, and that Track 5 is now just some random song placed in the middle of the first disc. "Lord Can You Help Me" was a nice respite. I liked the odd guitar playing, and the song overall was nice. It did feel a little cliche and "done before" though. Sometimes I come across some art that I don't love or even like, but it makes me think and I gain appreciation for it because it made me think. This is obviously a really obvious and common goal for visual artists. This isn't the case with this album though. It made me think about the concept of defined sounds and what it means to push past your conventions. But it wasn't done in a way that provoked any new thoughts or discussion. It left me frustrated with the layout of the album, and ultimately led me to just be a little annoyed and a lot of bored.

Spacig

Best Song: So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears). The only song that's been edited down to include just the good parts. Worst Song: How Does It Feel. Even if it does get to an interesting place by the end of the track, is it work having to sit through such an annoying introduction? Overall: It's just altogether too wispy, isn't it? It never feels like it settles into anything crunchy enough to wrap your ears around, and mostly just floats along in this liminal "jam" space. Meh.

Having not heard this group before, I was not surprised that one of the members founded Spiritualized. Some more languid, spacy electronica, but with some weird detours. "Revolution" just kind of jars one out of the trance. "Suicide" is a ten minute torture. Torture. I skipped ahead before it ended. Couldn't take it. I've only done that maybe 3 times with the last 732 albums. So it's sometimes interesting, and probably somewhat pioneering, given its 1989 origins, but I don't really like it and I'm a bit tired of getting more and more of this genre at the expense of others.

Por la canción Suicide, que es insoportable, le pongo un 2. Si no, sería un 3.

I don't know what they were going for with this, I'm sure if I did it might deserve to be on this list but right now I just feel like I've wasted my time.

This did no nothing for me, but I never saw Spacemen 1 or Spacemen 2 so I was probably just lost.

I don't mind their sound, but the repetition and slowness was not exactly holding my attention.

Baffling. Tried to dig it without being on an acid trip but it was not too easy. My head hurt listening to it and then they would throw in a song that actually had what could be called a melody - kind of. Not a waste of time but the sort of thing you are never going to revisit again.

Words cannot describe how much I wanted this to end

I got too irritated to finish it.

A bit dull

Long repetitive spacey guitar driven rock songs. Not for me.

What is it with people who continuously uphold the drab melodic ramblings of British men when it comes to music? It's bothersome

I kept waiting for it to get better…it didn’t.

No thanks. It sounds like they did the minimum amount of work to create a "psychedelic rock" album. I'm not even sure this can be categorized as that, though.

IMO pass this for the Jesus and Mary chain album and spiritualized album later on

I don’t like it but I get why it’s here. Very much bridges the gap from psychedelic rock to 90s grunge/shoegaze type stuff but doesn’t fit well into any of the categories.

Ranges from soft ballads to full on rock out. A fascinating album, but not really for me.

Shoegaze hasn't been my favourite genre on this 1001 albums odyssey so far. However, since recently seeing The Brian Jonestown Massacre, I'm warming to it. This is quite reminiscent of BJM. Textural songs which get into a vibe and sit there for the duration without doing very much. For the most part, I could happily sit in the vibe that's created. Pleasingly, there is little distortion here, which means that the tunes are discernable, unlike other shoegaze artists such as My Bloody Valentine. Finally, I can't let the album cover go without comment. Possibly the worst so far? It looks like something I could have made in junior school on their Windows 3.1 computers. Also, the word 'accuracy' looks oddly out of place amongst 'revolution', 'purity', and 'love'. Rating: 2.5/5 Playlist track: Lord Can You Hear Me Date listened: 30/07/23

Droning, almost white noise. Great music to completely ignore. Not bad but not something to actively listen to.

Interesting

noodly and not compelling

Someone else here summarized it perfectly, "Like a garage band of college dropouts tried to make an album inspired by the generic new-age music playlist they heard in the waiting room of the 'discount massage parlor' they frequent." Holy hell really? 2 hours of... this? 3/10.

I listened to this a bit when it came out and was considered hipster music. I never really connected with it, but points for being the spawning ground for Spiritualized (and Sonic Boom).

Not a fan of this genre/style

Mais uma dose de psicodelia experimentada. Não me impressionou.

Interesting experimental styles, but felt too slow

I believe the culturally sensitive term is "astronaut?" Though spaceman was often used to refer to an extra-terrestrial arriving on an unidentified flying object. Or Spaceman Spiff, an icon of interplanetary investigation. Spaceman is the leader in soft serve and frozen beverage machine technology and design. But don't go calling Buzz Aldrin a "spaceman," or he'll punch you in the face. There weren't even 3 spacemen in Spacemen 3. There were 2. And some other, either Earthling or spacemen, who played with them. Some of Spacemen 3 is 3-worthy. Some is 1 worthy. Their lack of 3 actual spacemen cements the 2.

I only ever noticed it when it was annoying, not for anything that I liked.

Some of this is actually not bad, but most of it is just droning noise. The bad far outweighs the good.

I’m not interested in weird space juice today. Spotify only has the reissued double album of this crap. I hate that. I need to hear the originally released recording, it’s a much more palatable ask. If I’ve never heard of you or your band, I’m not listening to 2 hours of it.

Some interesting ideas here musically, a few sounds that I wish would be explored more. But so much of it elsewhere is bland. I dig the weird echo-y effects that were used in a few places, but that gag can only take us so far. The curse of this list is not the awful, 1 or 1.5/5 star hair-pulling, head-scratching enigmas, but these milquetoast, limp handshake, silent fart 2.5 or 3/5 albums that have just enough interesting tracks to scratch you behind the ear before they breeze by you inauspiciously, leaving you utterly unmoved and wondering "It's over? That was it?" I have to give it up to acts like The Divine Comedy, which at least have the guts to annoy me by fully committing to a sound and style (that I happen to hate). This is purgatory music. Favorite tracks: Honey, How Does It Feel, So Hot. Album art: So it's the name of the band, the name of the album, and a circle of what I thought were track names, but only two are. Budget must have been low for this one. The colors are mildly interesting, as is the flame font. But woof, this is forgettable. 2.5/5

Forgettable and I quickly zoned out and struggled to focus on this. I barely remember any of the songs.

I wanted to like this album. It has some shining moments (the shorter tracks in particular), but overall it lacks motion and feels directionless. 2

Too experimental for my ears.

Meh

Very dull. Not for me.

It's overly long and repetitive.

At first listen, the alternative sound of grungy guitar riffs, moderate tempo, and clean production was inviting. Nice sound... but pretty boring. Nothing really to keep me listening.

Occasionally threatened to be interesting, but overall, just a bit too out there for me.

I don't know that shit was weird

No more shoe-gaze albums that have Wikipedia pages where the only note is that it is on this list

Most of the album sounds like early David Bowie which would be cool if this album didn't come 25 years *after* early David Bowie. The track "Suicide" sounds a lot like the band Suicide, which doule be cool if this album didn't come 12 years *after* Suicide. Spacemen 3? More like Derivative 3

Hard to get through this whole album

Fav Tracks: Honey, Che too slow and quiet (except for Suicide)

Slow and boring

Songs that give you anxiety!

too psychadelic for my liking

Didn’t enjoy much

kind of boring, not totally without merit, but boring

I want to say this was alright but I really can’t. It was pretty dull. I guess they tried hard.

Liked the psychedelic aspects. Probably would have liked it more about 25 years ago

- Never listened to a Spacemen 3 album before - When I saw who was in this band, I had high expectations - Disappointed, thought it was very forgettable and dull

Se ve que los ácidos o el espacio no son lo mío.

I did not like this music.

Pretty mellow, a little sleepy at times. Mostly instrumental, didn't really do anything for me 2/5

Eh

A bit boring, isn't it? The band sounds like they have been playing guitar for not-so-long and are on a - trip - to experimentation and self-discovery. Also, they obviously have just discovered digital delay effects, overusing them in almost every song. Put all of that under the moniker of "psychedelic" or "experimental", but this album fails to reach me like others from the same genres do. 2/5

A contender for the 1001 Albums You Should Avoid Hearing Because You’ll Die of Boredom book.

That was pretty hard to listen to.

Heel rustig en zweverig, maar ik heb er het geduld niet voor. **

Not my cuppa.

Heard it before?: No Enjoy it?: Not really, a bit too somber and slow for me but quite nice atmosphere for a few tracks Favourite song: Track 9 - Lord Can You Hear Me

Neo psiquedèlia amb tractament suposadament innovador i experimental, però com la majoria de casos semblants, la buscada suggestió emmascara un nivell de creativitat molt baix i la manca de cançons interessants a les quals agafar-se fa de l'àlbum un monument a l'avorriment

Forglemmelig

This one didn't do it for me. And I liked Perfect Prescription a fair bit...

Rating: 5/10

I tried. But 2 hours of this? Naaaa....

1/10, 10%

Not for me.

robert dimery be like including more than like 5 motown/blues/country albums: ❌ including 200 boring british alt-rock bands: ✅

Yeah. Peter frampton is like The Bee Gees an example of 70s excess. But damn it, they are wonderful. So well crafted. Stand outs are of course show me the way, baby I love your way, and do you feel like we do.

2.5 stars. Vocals more spoken than sung. Repetitive in build up, heavy distortion. First part of album slow and boring, takes a while to get going. Gets better with "Revolution" to end

Parts are pretty, parts are engaging and heavy. But the songs never seem to have a structure, the loops last too long to engage, I get bored by the heavy parts somehow. The vocals are all over the place and mixed very strangely. Maybe a revisit

Spacey

Un diamant (Lord Can You Hear Me) dans un immense étron (le reste de l'album)

du bruit

Maybe like 70s style psychedelic / experimental rock / noodling. Melancholic UK dudes. It's not my style, it grates my nerves lol

Por la canción Suicide, que es insoportable, le pongo un 2. Si no, sería un 3.

I get it, it's influential. Groundbreaking for the time. Not my jam.

No not for me. Semi melodic noise with faint vocals, didn’t listen to the whole album so could of been more ‘singing’ I think you’d have to be proper stoned to enjoy it fully.

I had high hopes for this, but it turns out that it's just pointless guitar loops drowned in delay. I try to avoid that term when I talk about music but I think this one's massively overrated.

"Hey, let's make an album where we play the same two chords over and over again and put some delay in it"

Better than I thought it would be, but still deeply annoying. Why is so many people fan of this is a mystery...

2 or 3 nice songs, but overall, it was as boring as the cover art. As it is described with words like "psych" or "shoegaze", I would have liked to like that so much, but sorry... I can't.

How does it feel? After eight minutes? Numbing. Advice: please keep your experiments under two minutes. I stopped at Suicide. Because can you really go beyond Suicide?

For a good portion of this i could only think of Tenacious D and their "one note song"... "see, i even did the bendy bit". The music is very basic/repetitive at times and isn't very engaging. Revolution and Suicide take that basic approach and make it a bit edgier, but the whole thing seemed pretty boring to me.

a variety of tunes

this really was, like, fine but rather boring and nondescript. i suppose i'm biased because my previous album was another neo-psychedelic album (by MGMT) and i happened to love that one, but spacemen 3's kind of music is rather dull to me.

I can appreciate what this album was going for, especially considering music had largely moved away from psychedelia by the late 80s. That said, I don't really feel like it pushed any envelopes or reshaped the psychedelia landscape. It felt like a conceptual demo rather than a complete album. Most of the tracks were numbingly repetitive, never really going anywhere, thus missing many opportunities to have some good highs and lows throughout the album. It was okay at best, but overall kind of boring and forgettable.

Kind of boring.

This album didn’t know what it wanted to be and I found it a struggle to get through. When the first song started I thought maybe it was going to be solid but then I kind of just let it play out with nothing standing out.

Not particularly interesting, but okay to get work done too.

I honestly just tuned this out so hard I don't even know what I listened to. Extremely unmemorable and unengaging.

I’ll all for spaciness but these songs don’t go anywhere. Was probably a great record to trip to during the second summer of love...

To me, this sounds like they just made long versions of intros of songs, and then put those on an album. These songs never really get started, it's not a very interesting listen.

Rather uninspired late psych rock. The album started fine but really lost focus near the end, and I almost turned it off.

Ces petits rigolos nous montrent par intermittence qu'ils savent jouer de plusieurs instruments mais préfèrent nous faire subir une heure de bruitages téléchargés gratuitement sur le site universal-soundbank. Passez votre chemin.

This is a weird one. I read somewhere that this was inspired by the MC5 but I find that hard to believe. It’s more like spaced out psychedelia. The 4 hard rockers (if you include all 3 versions – and 36 minutes – of Suicide) seem out of place, as does the version of May the Circle be Unbroken (!) I reviewed the albums I gave a 1 and this is definitely not a 1.

I really enjoy psychadelic music, from its early origins with Pink Floyd to spacey ambient music and Jazz like Sun Ra which they cite as influences. But I find this to be neither here nor there, and quite boring. I think they get a bit better in their later incarnation as Spiritulized, but in this current state it’s just half baked.

I like psychedelic rock, I really do. But this left we wanting. And 3 different versions of "Suicide" on a single album. 2 cuts of "Che"; 2 cuts of " "I Believe It". Artists need to be more original if going to make a double-album. D+

Not my thing

The eleven-minute jam on Playing With Fire is pretty good. It would work well has a double-header with Viet Cong's Death, I think. But the rest of the tracks make the Spacemen feel like a markedly inferior band. (I let myself think I might like the closer better after hearing Suicide, but no: Just more of the same.) The instruments sound tinny, the voices squeezed. One track, in all its runtime-packing glory, saves this narrowly from being completely forgettable.

Pseudo-cosmic utterances under spacey guitars. If this band didn't have reverb / flange who knows what they would have done. I'm sure being on smack probably makes this album more interesting; however if you're not, all this album seems to be demonstrating how far up its own arse psychedelia is willing to crawl. Best Tracks: Honey; Revolution; Lord Can You Hear Me

Did not enjoy. Not a fan of slowcore it seems

Bit weird

Gets a star for maybe being good background noise

I didn't like it, and won't listen again, but I will say I see a very, very clear line here between Pink Floyd and Smashing Pumpkins.

Just sound effects.

Ну такое.

Always found spacemen 3 difficult enough and basically a precursor to Spiritualized, this album has all the main traits, a heavy influence of Velvet Underground and garage rock. Lord Can You Hear Me is pretty but much of the album is hard going.

It was alright. Not the sound that I personally will look out for. It got hard to listen to in the middle.

Not really my bag, was gonna rate 1 star but a couple of tracks were better than a 1. Couple good tunes and some good heartfelt lyrics. Seemed ahead of its time. Some sounded like something you'd hear on Earthed 1. 2 stars

Kwam er niet helemaal in, misschien had ik het vaker moeten luisteren...

Wat was dit nou eigenlijk? Ik heb het wel geluisterd, en het was niet vervelend, maar om nou te zeggen dat er iets van is blijven hangen...

Tsja, ik vind er niet zoveel aan eigenlijk :). Beetje zuigend.

4

did not listen

Some good stuff, but also some meandering unfocused noise.

Probably worth replaying if with the right crowd, but not doing much for me

Zzzzzz....

I'm bored...I'm restless. Need change in life...ruff!...like imported leather leash, ruff!

Das Album der Nachfolge-Band ('Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space‘ von Spiritualized) hat mir überhaupt nicht gefallen, daher war ich skeptisch. Und tatsächlich: auch das hier ist nicht gut, aber besser. Wie man früher zu Zeiten von Plattenspielern zu sagen pflegte: die Platte hat 'nen Sprung. Ach, das gehört so?

Holy fuk va trist

Mellow. Reminds me of Spirtualized, which I'm pretty sure is connected to this band. I enjoyed the Spiritualized album a bit more, this one was a little too much wallpaper. Favorite tracks: "Revolution", "Suicide"

Never heard of this band before. The YTM link doesn't work. The only version on YTM is a 2 hour version but the original is a mere 9 songs. First two songs are dull as dishwater. How does it Feel barely qualifies as music. Barely even qualifies as background noise. Album is awful. There is little artistic merit here.

Psykedeelistä ja kokeellista musiikkia, joka ei kuitenkaan tarjoa oikein mitään mielenkiintoista.

no me gustó mucho, no me gustan los sonidos en loop, me estresó y este álbum tiene mucho de eso. Y las canciones que me gustaron fueron por la letra. le doy un 4/10.

Why was this made

it was just noises.

Completely forgettable.

This has so many of the common tropes I hate the most about all the pointless slop on this list; random noise, awful production, songs that just keep on meandering without ever doing anything remotely interesting. I'll save us all some time and leave my complaining there, I can't be bothered to go into any more details, I've done that for plenty of albums already.

not great

Dull, boring, and agonizingly repetitive with scant ideas of melody throughout. The mixing is also terrible in that the vocals can’t be heard over the instruments. There’s nothing talented or interesting about this band that can’t also be created by listening to the average pitches of a city soundscape. It’s just droning noises.

Definitely not for me. I don't know whether they were taking too many drugs or if I need to, but it didn't work for me at all. I was going to give a 2 initially, but with the realisation that it's 2 discs and 2 hours long I decided a 1 is more appropriate. Turned it off after about 6 songs.

Like listening to 2 hours of diggeridoo.

I really couldn’t get into it.

Not for me. 1/5

bs

Horrible

I don't like how Spotify will force a rerelease of an album and not simply have the original. That annoyance aside, Suicide might be one of the worst songs I have ever forced myself to listen to.

Yep, that was hot garbage, I listened to the first one or two songs, and suicide. and decided I didn't want to ruin my day and turned off the album. I've said this plenty of times, but if 1001 has this album and none of Taylor Swift's... I'm going to riot.

Did I listen to disc 2… nope, I value my dignity and worth. I didn’t know music could be this bad. The middle school band that practices by the town square blows these guys out of the water.

That was a real struggle to get through. I've never been more bored in my life. Half of that album was the same 5 seconds of music on loop, and the other half was a different 5 seconds on loop. Horrible album id rather stick my cock in a vice than listen again.

Whiny, anemic music that I find incredibly annoying.

Is never, ever a good idea.

I've wondered why several albums are on this list, but this one I think is meant to be a joke. Right? Next, please.

It's not even music really, is it? I gave up about halfway through, when it started to feel like some prolonged torture. Pretty polite torture, but agonising nonetheless.

Nah

Boring imo but I can see how people could like it.

1. honey - 1 2. zoul - 1 3. feel - 2 4.believe - 0 5. revolution - 1 6. gently - 0 7.hot - 0 8. Suicide - 0 9. Lord - 1 10. Number two - 0 11. Repeater - 0 12. Che - 2 13. Circle - 2

The stereo effect on track three was vertiginous and unpleasant, so much so that I ripped my headphones off to avoid it; this robbed the rest of the album of any opportunities to win me over. I dropped it after a couple more songs.

long blegh

Groupe inconnu. Et qui aurait dû le rester : l'album génère un ennui profond, et ne présente absolument aucun intérêt. Ah si, la dilatation du temps : les morceaux les plus courts paraissent durer des heures ... et je ne parle pas des plus longs : un véritable exploit. =>1/5

an everage of 2.5 after 20k votes tells evrything. Something to forget.

Was ein scheiss

Bored Me, then got on my nerves. Not sure what is stand out about it. Other albums do whatever this is better. But il give it half a point for being early in on this typa thing. 1.5

1.4 I never really grasped onto anything I would listen to again

I do enjoy weird, brave, experimental music with something to say This ain't it

Just so very boring.

No. 184 This really isn’t for me.

Malardo

Kind of repetitive electric guitar stuff. Too psychedelic and not enough novelty

Trash

ouch my ears

Was initially excited at the beginning but quickly became one of the few albums that hurt listening to it.

Я решил, что я себе не враг, и ограничился оригинальной версией альбома без лайвов и демок. Было ужасно, местами отвратительно, кроме Lord You Can Hear Me.

Puro ruido! Solo para iniciados y muy fans... y sus abuelas

rarísimo todo. No me gustó nada

A couple of good songs, rest horrible.

Couldn't get through it. Not even the first 5 songs. I dont know who these guys are. But if they arent dead. They should be.

I kept waiting for it to get good because it sounded like it would until track 5 then stopped listening

I picked up on the psychedelic tones a few tracks in. It almost seemed weird seeing that this came out in the late 80s and not the late 60s. Whilst I appreciate that genre, I could not fathom what was done with it on here. Barely a melody or a hook to be heard and vocals so compressed it sounds like they were recorded with space helmets on. Occasionally, the guitars would be turned up like on Revolution, but it ultimately it just amounts to a cacophony of noise thats only memorable for the change in volume, nothing else.

This is pretty bad, lame

Not my thing

No

I kept thinking "I just have to be in the right mood for this one" but the right mood never came so I gotta go with my mood. Probably would be good music to have a mental breakdown to so will update my rating if that happens

Now I dont know whether I was in a really bad mood today but... I hated this. Thought it was so meh and annoying. Wall of fucking nightmare sound tbh. Truly could not wait for it to be over and did not suffer through the second disc. Tbf I didnt even finish the first disc lol

está bien, pero no me encantó. no es mi género favorito

Just not the music for me. Some of the tracks were nice but it just felt overly long.

Don’t piss me off.

Not my thing

Turned it off when it started repeating itself with 'live' versions. This was not my jam. Songs are too long.

Did not like it. Just about everything was either annoying, boring, or straight up bad

Got to the third song and couldn’t do it. Sounded to much like alarm songs the way they would repeat over and over.

Didn’t like it

Not even pleasant. I would rather play with fire. Space garbage.

Really annoying

Honestly, I can't find anything special about this album...

An hour of buildup with no payoff. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this bored and frustrated with an album.

wtf is this

Terrible garbage

My highschool band could produce better psychedelics than these guys.

this is not good

This is crap

I have never had enough drugs that could make me enjoy this, and that includes general anesthesia.

This was 2 hours I will never get back. Must be great under the influence, but sober? Insufferable and makes me consider wading in gator infested waters to be put out of my misery.

sorry i do not take drugs. what makes this album an album that one has to listen to i'd like to know though

This was an abomination of an album. It seems to be all over the place, with the only consistency is it being a dreadful listen.

< the Beatles How did they make 45 minutes feel like 5 hours?

Man, that was rough. I should've known off the bat when that Wikipedia page was among the shortest I've seen.

Alternative band,I’ve never heard of. Music kinda of boring, all songs same alike.

Kept waiting for the songs to start and then they were over. Not to my taste at all, and kind of baffled that this exists tbqh

p612. 1989. 1 star. Pretentious, tedious abstract guitar noodling with spoken/whispered "lyrics". Fuck me, this is awful. Who picked this shit for the list?

A Lofi disaster that uses lots of notes to say nothing. As a fan of Lofi music I agree that yes this is Lofi but me strumming a few notes on a guitar is Lofi but it doesn’t make it good. When you listen to an album and think, hmmm, I could do that, that’s not a good sign. The song Suicide is prime example, some guy holds his finger down on a synthesizer while the bassist plucks a one note drone. I can’t really think of any time or place that I would play something like this.

I was actually thinking “well, I can see what they’re trying to do, it just isn’t really for me, but I respect it,” and give it a good ol’ fashioned 2 stars. Then the 11-minute song “Suicide” hit. It actually started to piss me off as it went on. Just 11 entire minutes of fucking NOTHING happening. Which was especially egregious because it felt like some sort of interesting prog rock or something that was building to something. anything. But it didn’t!!!!! And two songs later they tried to hit me with a live version of Suicide. Absolutely not. Bunch of bullshit that did not respect my time. 1 star. Fuck you

This album literally gave me a headache.

I like this genre, and yet I thought it was shite

Honestly, this type of music feels so empty to me; endless melodies that appear to be coming to a culmination, but never actually culminate; whispering lyrics as well = zero impact... :/

- Initially I was going to look into the history of this band and try to build a little context .... then I thought about that and decided I had better use for my time. What''the saying: Here's three chords, noww go strat a band? That's great and true but the st of us don't NEED to hear EVERY band started with those three chords. This probably sums up what is the basic flaw of this list ..... -

An unenjoyable listening experience

1.5

Sorry

Genre: shoegaze, 3 star ceiling Album length: 2 hours, minus 1 star Listening experience: painful, minus 1 star

Kinda sounded like 3 high schoolers just got some gear

Spacemen 3 really is a very fitting name for this group because I think you must be an alien to genuinely enjoy the album👽(or really really high) I get some music can be an art and theres spiritual music out there, but this was a tough listen at points, I really did try to go in open minded but you know it's really not for me. An Interesting listen and a very unique sound but it's a 1 star from me. Usually I'll pick out standout songs for reviews but the only song I could sort of enjoy was 'May the circle be unbroken'

This really isn’t for me

Too many skips. Couldn't get through it. 1/5

There's no way this can be as bad as people are saying, right? Turns out yes, it can be! This sucks. It is just bad. It's not psychedelic or shoegazey or ethereal or epic or experimental or anything like that. It's just shite.

Did not enjoy this at all

Boring and wouldn’t listen to this again. 1/5

Honestly, this isn't it. Just a bunch of noises and it never got better. Almost every song overplays its welcome.

actually awful

‘A similar musical borrowing’ sounds close enough to plagiarism. No thanks.

Important to shoegazers, but since Spiritualized already appears on here twice, I feel like shoe gazing is more than represented. Honestly, this was boring AF. Another example of a mediocre British band that was included because of the author's bias and not because they actually need a 3rd album of shoe gazing on here. If this band were not from England the author would have looked right past this. This is the kind of jamming that ever dorm band did in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Nothing special here.

I don't have the patience for this.

Paso tío

Hadn't heard of this band. Probably won't listen to this again. Pretty average example of a certain strand of music from the time in a kind of stone roses vibe, but not enough concrete ideas really for me. It just feels quite directionless.

2 - TERRIBLE

There is nothing redeeming here to me. I find this so boring. Same sound droning on and on and on.

There are multiple ways to reduce substance abuse. There is the "scare the shit out of 'em" method, think Requiem for a Dream. You could also try creating an environment where there's more to live for, like the Icelandic prevention model. Another option to consider is to have people listen to the drivel these English drug-hound dorks made. I wanted to like the album, my inner contrarian and all, and honestly I was wondering why the album was so loathed at the beginning. The first two tracks weren't that bad! But it did get worse. "How does it feel" was the tipping point into an endless cascade of uninspiring droning music. Remember: don't do drugs, lest you become an embarrassing "dude drugs lmao" band. Be like anti-drug artist Frank Zappa and consume five cartons of cigarettes and a gallon of coffee every day instead.

when i was ten i got my first digital keyboard in my bedroom and played with a lot of the presaved sounds. i'm fairly certain i recorded "How Does It Feel" on my tape recorder in 2005. like several of the albums we've gotten, this one is not horrible but suffers from a lack of impression. it's almost completely forgettable. aside from a wacky album cover (purity/ love/ suicide/ accuracy/ revolution, wtf) that is at least fun to look at, there's nothing meaningful here. i'm a big big fan of the hymn "Will the Circle be Unbroken?" from 1907, so it's a shame that their "May the Circle be Unbroken" sucks so goddamn much. maybe if i was on acid i'd appreciate this more, but i kind of doubt it.

This one was an absolute struggle to get through. Every song was another mountain for my ears to overcome. I'd love to give highlights, but I genuinely think my brain actively tried to block out the sound coming from my speakers. I thought Revolution might've been the saving grace, but after like a minute I was already done with it. Good thing there's another 5 of them in the song.

This was honestly a baffling inclusion on this list. Looking into this group’s background, they gained some notoriety as a “drug band” and later released an album called “Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To.” This did get a chuckle out of me, but by that metric Playing With Fire is the music that you have made when you no longer have a grasp on how many drugs you've taken. Weirdly enough, it was one of their first releases. 1.5

I wish I had not wasted part of my morning listening to this. The only reason I know about Spacemen 3 is thanks to Vinyl Me, Please’s (RIP) record of the month version of a Spiritualized album. That release featured some liner notes bragging about how the frontman of Spiritualized was in a group called Spacemen three, then spent the majority of those liner notes talking about Spacemen 3 instead of the boring album I had just bought and was listening to. I remember thinking “maybe Spacemen 3 is better than Spiritualized,” and the answer is “no, it’s equally boring.” I’m already upset because I’m sure that will be on this list, too. I honestly couldn’t tell music was playing at some points, this album was just such a quiet, unimportant drone in the background. My review ends here, because enough of my day was wasted thinking about this album. I want me time back, Mr 1001 Albums To Listen To Before You Die Man.

Trash. So many great albums lost their spot to this.

The short version: I don't like this album at all. The long version: What I’ve learned today is that I would much rather listen to music in a genre I hate that is done well than music in a genre I like that is done poorly. I went into this with pretty high hopes (the genres and the influences ticked the boxes for me AND it's a band I've never heard of) and in return received an album that goes for “deep and mysterious” and sticks the landing hard on “teenager in a Che Guevara shirt who always talks about “neoliberalism” and does his damnedest to pivot every conversation to ‘yeah I do weed now.’” Listening to this, in between bouts of wincing at the lyrics, I was transported back in time to a particularly dreadful night in college that I spent in the company of a poor misshapen soul I dubbed “The Revolutionary.” I’ll bet that guy loves this album, wherever he is now. Based on these lyrics, whoever wrote this shit (apparently his name is Sonic Boom) seems to think he’s the first person to ever conflate drugs and religion. So profound. Oh wow a song about starting a “revolution” because… he’s mad that drugs are illegal. I said surely there’s more to this. So I went to Genius and saw the following explanation, written by some neckbeard who thinks this album is in any way intelligent: "Sonic Boom is upset and disapproves of having those in power determine if specific drugs are acceptable in today’s society, leaving those who use illegal substances feeling like outsiders, and being looked down upon by others. Even in a society where drugs like alcohol is socially accepted with similar if not worse effects to other popular illegal drugs." Fuuuuuuuuuuuck off. Knowing nothing else about this group aside from what's on this record, I’m comfortable with saying I hate them irredeemably. I always try to listen to these albums at least 2-3 times (hence my disdain for the longer ones), and way more if we count the times I let them play in the background while I’m doing other stuff, but I gave this one spin and got what I needed to get out of it. When coming up with ratings, I always try to consider “what does this do better than other albums?” and the answer in this case is “irritate me.” I almost rated this as “did not listen” in a desperate and vain attempt to try and manifest a world in which I did not.

I made it 9 out 22 songs into this album before calling it quits. This guy sings with his inside voice on every song and it’s honestly mind numbing. I started to actually loose touch with reality and couldn’t tell if I was inside or outside. I was ripped back to my elementary school days when I was told by my teachers that my voice was too loud and I needed to use my INSIDE VOICE. Maybe if his school teachers didn’t hold him back this album wouldn’t have been such dog shit. 1/10

I'd rather eat a shit sandwich

Warmed over new age bullcrap backed by droning synthesizer notes. Sounds like they a middle schooler that got a Casio keyboard for Christmas and this was their first recording trying out the sound effects. I cannot fathom a single reason for this album to be included on the list. 1⭐️

Weird. Boring. Uninteresting.

This shouldn’t be here. That’s what I thought until I heard the guitars on “Revolution” then I started paying attention. .. by “Suicide” i’m thinking this is cool, but boring. 1 or 2 stars

I’m not making it through a double album of this

Synthy elevator music