Here Are the Sonics

Some bangers in here, but the audio quality makes the singing often sound like ear piercing screaching...

Meh meh

Basically a collection of cover songs with a few originals sprinkled in. The originals were not that great, the covers were performed much better by different acts. Overall it was forgettable.

This is very much a product of the time where the main backing track is a very simple/barebones drum and guitar lick. It is like the epitome of classic rock. Grandpa's favorite rock band vibes. This is the type of music that would be used in the soundtrack of a movie probably directed by Edgar Wright. Really not a huge fan of this. It's not terrible but the random screaming of the lead singer is getting really grating after a few songs. This sounds like "Beach boys at home"

hey what if we just absolutely screamed into our shitty 1960s microphones like a dozen times every song? i bet the people would love that.

lots of screaming lead singer screams like he's being stuck with a hot poker every other line otherwise decent 60's garage rock gets a bit harsh/grating at times, especially with the screaming

Det bare sådan lidt førtids grunge agtigt, beach surfer vibes, det ok.

I like the guitar. but mostly it's music to repel grown ups. All the noise. Ok I get the history and influence of the sound. If you can get past being screamed at and the assault on our hearing .. . ( I hate distortion ) and the stupid screaming, then it's almost good. They were onto something... It's been copied so much it makes me think of "Wild Thing" by the whatever's ... I lost interest fast

Hmm. I can see how they were influential in the development of garage rock on some of the tracks, but others sounded remarkably like copies of the early Beatles to me

The singer's 'whooaaaaooowww' screams are bringing this rating down. Honestly otherwise I liked the music!

This proto-punk/garage band sounds suitably raw and the recording is pretty piss poor, but I guess their target audience wasn't too fussed about that. I lost count of how many times the lead singer went "Waaaah!!!" Most of their covers are pretty serviceable, but they would get more points from me if they wrote more than four out of 12 songs.

Just like when listening to The Byrds, I just wished this was The Beatles. But The Byrds were better than The Sonics so this gets a 2

Pari ihan hyvää biisiä ja loppu taustamelua. En edes tajunut levyn loppuneen, eikä jäänyt kyllä ikävä.

I like loud music, except when the loudness of the music messes up the audio quality. Good god the mics in these recordings sound scuffed. Aside from that, I'm not the biggest fan of blues either, so this was a total miss for me. The fact that most songs weren't even original songs didn't make it any better in my opinion

It's a bit boring innit? I suppose it's a somewhat interesting version of early punk

p74. 1965. 2 stars. Background noise for drunken 60s frat parties. This is an average garage band offering covers and a handful of barely adequate originals. Bonus point for putting the effort in though. Why is this on the list?

Not that good.

meh. fine.

Okay. So here's the thing -- I'm a big fan of garage band/grunge, and I'm glad to know where some of its origins were, but that's about the only thing this album has going for it. Only four out of twelve tracks on the album were actually written by the band, and one of them (Psycho) blatantly rips off "Do You Love Me" by the Contours, written by Berry Gordy, Jr. Ironically, that is one of the songs they cover on this album. I get that in the 60s it was a pretty common thing to have songs done by multiple artists, but this is a band of five white guys from Seattle dumbing down a lot of great music written and recorded by Black artists. Disappointing.

The album cover screams "Beatles copycats", but the music is much more generic 60s pop/rock fare, albeit with more rawness and less talent. It has been called proto-punk, but it's really too tame for that. However, not-being-punk as its only redeeming quality is not enough to make this a record worth enjoying. 1.5/5

OK, and good at times, but repetitive and the sound quality was pretty terrible.

Why he thought screaming in every song is a good idea? 2

Rough-edged garage rock covers of Chuck Berry isn't my jam, although I understand how many might like it.

Nothing special, probably ok in it's day

!!!Waaahhhhaaaa!!! Reckon they would of been awesome to watch in a pub on a Saturday night, but nearly 60 years later, listening to a poorly mixed lo-fi album with over half the songs being covers, you have to ask why! Of their originals, The Witch and Strychnine were alright.

En riktig rockrökare. Lite trist med så mycket covers dock. Lyssna på originalen istället.

Первый раз слушал эту группу, в 2022 слушать их впервые довольно сложно, в целом я не особо фанат этого около ramones жанра, при этом я слушал на колонках, в наушниках наверное больно слушать. Лучшая песня: Roll over Beethoven

Lot of hits covered on this album. It’s fun, but makes me wonder where the artistry and originality is.

Yes it's garage, but it just doensn't convince me.

Pioneering garage/grunge rock, just wished the audio was better quality. Half this album were cover songs of other artists which is hardly impressive. Anyone can cover a song but the real talent is writing original music and performing it. It's alright, just very raw sounding and the screaming into the mic gets tiresome with every song. In a unique way it somehow got a bit worse as I got further along into the album; you can thank the unoriginal songs and incessant screaming for that. Fortunately it was a super quick listen albeit disappointing. 4/10.

60s white boys doing black rock 2.5

I enjoy the genre and the lo-fi, fuzzy production a lot. The Witch is a classic. Still, I didn't find this album especially compelling... I guess the covers were interesting. But the repetitive vocal inflections were what really turned me off!

Protopunk eða bílskúrsrokk. Kannski merkilegt í sögulegu samhengi, en ég er þó ekki sannfærður um skýr tengsl við síðari pönk bönd. Og ekki mjög merkilegt eitt og sér. Eitt lag í einu er kannski í lagi, en þetta voru frekar langar 29 mínútur í heild sinni.

I enjoyed this but probably won't be back. The covers have been done better by many other artists and the mix is truly dreadful which detracts from the fun of listening to it. If I'd had 7 beers I probably would have enjoyed it more.

Bit naff

A loud and unpolished stepping stone in between rock n roll and punk rock. A solid foundation for what came after, but all in all a rather flat experience.

Rock des années 50 un peu agaçant

Pretty meh.

A load of covers that aren't as good as the original? Fun but not great.

Grungier voice than I expected from a boy band. Gritty sounding audio sometimes. Elvis influences?

Loud, screamy rock/punk music from the 60s..not really my cup of tea I have to be honest.. BUT.. made me realised listening to this album that I actually know a lot of their tracks simply from being used in so much other media like covers, adverts, TV + movies.."Do you Love Me".."Roll Over Beethoven", "Have Love Will Travel, "Money". Good thing, none of the tracks overstay their welcome, just all kinda merge into one sound from one track to the next!

I’ve never heard of this band, and seeing that they were a 60s garage rock band just makes me more interested. The first track does definitely blend garage rock and 60s rock, but it’s not mixed well and is pretty simple. It doesn’t bode well for the rest of the album. And looking at the rest of the tracks, these are mostly covers. And to add insult to injury, they completely bungle Roll Over Beethoven, which hurts me even more as I’m a huge Chuck Berry fan. I honestly can’t recommend this album to anyone: it’s too disappointing. Fav Track: Have Love Will Travel 2/5

Not for me.

I can see why this was influential in the past, but it did not age too well.

WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! It was very interesting to think about how far rock has come over the years. I recognized nearly every song on the album, mostly from 80’s and 90’s movies. Unfortunately that didn’t keep each song from feeling like pretty much the same song with slight differences. Also I got really tired of all of the screaming after like two songs hahahahha.

Niektóre chwytliwe, ale muzycznie mega powtarzalne i nieinspirujące tak naprawdę (za to zainspirowane wieloma innymi, bo jak Tisek mówi - nawet ciężko zorientować się, co jest coverem, a co po prostu tak nieoryginalne)

It was fine, just didn’t click with this 60 garage rock. I can see how’d they be influential encial

I could definitely hear the punk inspiration here, along with some very heavy garage rock and hints of surf rock. I thought the production was pretty poor, even by 60s standards. Everything was way more muddled than it needed to be. I didn't hate this, but I far from loved it. The sheer number of "WHOOOOOA" and "WOOOOOW" screams on this album got really old, really fast, to the point that it probably significantly contributed to my not loving it. This album was okay, I guess, but it didn't do a whole lot for me.

Kind of loud and poorly produced covers of songs done better by other artists. I don't get it.

Lead singer yells too much! Abrasive sounds.

Er jo historisk sound, men synes ikkje det er noe som eg nødvendigvis ville hørt så mye på i dag. En del av sangene er litt vel mye "pop rock n' roll" og kjedelige.

Greit. Generisk. 2/5

Hadde visst hørt ein del av da før uten at eg visste da. Litt kjedelig

Very similar to that early Beatles album we heard, in that it's a band of boys doing mostly rock and roll covers. The difference between this and that album (which came out two years prior) is that these guys have an edge, a fire to their sound that's really necessary for this style of rock and roll. The Beatles were a bit too posh for it. In other words, I like this more than that Beatles album (admittedly a very low bar). But it's still not anything challenging or impressive. Decent, but that's about it. Favorite tracks: Have Love Will Travel, Do You Love Me, Roll Over Beethoven. Album art: Band photo. Nothing else to say. Framing seems a little '80s. 2.5/5

Not really reinventing the wheel. Not a fan

For those who can't afford the Beatles or the Stones, or a stereo.

I’m afraid they’re just too darn loud.

They all start the same and then they all sound the same, boring.

Way too many WOAAAZVXBZHHHHS!!!! for my liking.

50’s rock meets 80’s punk….strange

A ton of energy here, but they do not sound better than The Contours on 'Do You Love Me' and that hobbles them right off the top. This kind of carries through. I'm bringing a lot of baggage into this, but these look like they're, maybe - maaaaaaybe - some rich kids who have some better than average talent? I don't know. I was not won over by any of these tracks.

By the end of the album, I got pretty bored of the singer shout Wow every 20 seconds.

Meh 2

Kyllä tää varmaan 50-luvulla pisti Sukat pyörimään jaloissa. Tänä päivänä, not so much.

Dit zou volgens de docu van Dave Grohl de oer grungeband moeten zijn geweest. Dat hoor je er wel in terug, maar vind het toch minder spannend klinken dan de jaren negentig evenknieen.

Het rockt en schuurt wel, maar zijn allemaal covers waarvan de originelen veelal beter zijn dan de uitvoering van the Sonics.

Best aardig maar schreeuwerig.

Mostly sub-par covers?

This album is chock full of late night infomercials selling a catalog of music from the 60s. It is likely that nearly every song is recognized as being a hit for its time, but the viewer has no idea of who the band is, The Sonics. If Applebee's is a known eatery in your region, you may recognize their jingle as being as a play off "Do You Love Me" or if you ever watched the movie "Beethoven" of the early 90s canine sweetheart St. Bernard, "Roll over Beethoven" features heavily. Album-wise, the recording leaves much to be desired. The quality of AM radio in a digital age is a bit difficult to sit through even at just under a half an hour of music. The drums do seem to stand out quite a bit, rock elements popularized by Elvis exist, and the high energy of gospel/soul also make appearances. The Sonics definitely seemed to have put their heart into the performances and that is something to respect. The evolution of rock from this era to present certainly makes it sensical that The Sonics were likely a part of that, especially as an American band.

covers

Sounds like proto punk, loud, aggressive and not massively complex, and not especially good either, being the forerunner of a genre does not I feel qualify as an album you MUST listen to

Their covers and original Strychnine is good. 2

Not bad, but it shouldn't be on this list.

This is the debut rock & roll album from the Sonics. Released in 1965, this album was influential to future punk rock music due to the energy of the band. It was a fun album to listen to, if only to get an idea of what rock music was like 57 years ago. I wouldn't normally listen to this album though, because rock music has evolved on from this early iteration.

No idea why this is one of ’best albums ever’ - lo-fi garage rock. Fine, but all very similar.

Meh

Noise that all sounded the same. At least it was a short album.

Classic rock and roll with lots of energy, but apparently recorded using tin cans and strings, or maybe they just used the original masters as Frisbees. This is, without question, the worst-quality recording I've had on this list so far.

Lo más interesante de este álbum es escuchar algo del estilo “the knak”, pero como 10 años antes de que surgiera The Knak. Otras canciones me sonaron al estilo de Lost Acapulco (surf), y veo cómo este álbum pudo ser una influencia o inspiración para otros grupos que vinieron después , pero en sí no se me hizo particularmente interesante. Los covers de Money y Popotitos no están mal, pero no tienen mucho que hacer contra las versiones en vivo de Jerry Lee.

Haven't heard of these guys before. Haven't missed much because of this. I felt like they were a "wanna start a rock band cuz" kinda ensemble.

A bit dull

It was alright but considering most of the songs were covers, I feel like it's cheating.

Meh. A bunch of covers is not my idea of a must-listen album no matter how much wailing or energy they bring. Loved the first song The Witch (an original) and it made me think how that sound has come around again in the last 10 years with some of the heavy folk rock piano bands (Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats). Didn't love their other originals (they were okay) and couldn't give a rat's ass about their covers.

A functional if uninspiring 60's garage band delivering a stream of standard covers and a few originals. What set these types of bands apart from the crowd was their ability to write better songs than the standards e.g.The Rolling Stones and Them. The originals here don't do much.

A fun listen but I just can't give any real credibility to an album of (mostly) covers.

There is just a hint of the beginning of punk rock in here I guess, but the rest of it is pretty middle of the road - exactly what I expected based on looking at the album cover. The screaming got real old after a bit. Still, some good songs.

Pretty interesting. Super poor sound quality though, esp in the vocals.

Not a banger for me

unremarkable

nah

Older garage rock sort of thing. Think Louie Louie. Simple. Apparently influential on punk/grunge stuff. Seattle band

Marks for influencing, marks for own compositions but otherwise messy.

Funky throwbacks, not a whole lot of depth to it though.

Initially I thought three stars but reality is I’m unlikely to revisit or relisten however it was really decent garage rock n roll highlighting how 50s rock n roll was still being bastardised in the early 60s and not much had really moved on

Weirdly familiar, guess that's because this inspired so much later garage rock and faster punk. Not always the most enjoyable thing to listen to, but can appreciate the influence.

Pretty cool, but unsure about why _this_ particular album is one of 1000 I have to hear before I die. There's a lot of covers that don't do anything particularly inventive.

Fun, will probably never listen again

It's ok, can see it was probably quite groundbreaking. But their own stuff is so much better than the covers I don't know why there are so many

Weissbrotiger Bürgerschreck, Avant-Punk aus der Garage, der einen Beat-Standard zu setzen wusste, den sich später u.a. The Hives zu eigen machen konnten. Es wird das Mikro gefressen und der Verstärker über seine Grenzen hinaus gepeitscht. Das zerrt mächtig am Tweed aber auch an den Nerven - knapp 30 Minuten fühlten sich selten so lang an. Erschöpfte 1.6

Tijdloze rock, ruwe opname. In vergelijking met meer werk uit die tijd zeker wel anders omdat het zo rauw is. Maar blijft toch te voorzichtig om helemaal weg van te zijn.

Thought this was pretty average even with my time and space context lens on. It's like a really shit version of everything that the Beatles and Kinks were already doing. Strychnine was kind of punk though. Also the cover photo makes them look like a bunch of college boy twats

Okay album.

The good: love the use of natural amp distortion on the guitars and the vocals. Some nice blues riffs, drums are cool, covers are good. The bad: basic lyrics on original songs, sound is pretty generic even for the time. Liked the beach boys vibe earlier on but any unique sounds were abandoned later on. I'd love a count on how many screams are on this album. Got tired of them by the 3rd song. Conclusion: average album even for the time. There are a ton of r&b albums before this that are much more original and exciting. A lot of rock albums around the time are also much better The very bad: does this guy have to scream in every fucking song???

Lots of old timey rock songs on this one... already forgot most

6/18 OG Punksters, very dated. Standout Tracks: Dirty Robber, Have Love Will Travel, Strychnine

is okay, nothing stuck except do you love me which is kinda familiar

This album might be influential on future punk and grunge bands from a sound perspective but I didn't enjoy it all. The songs are mostly bad covers of songs by Chuck Berry, Little Richard and others performed similarly. The "influential" screaming became annoying.

Ne mogu imati visoko mišljenje o albumu na kojem je 80% covera i to stvari koje teško mogu zvučati bolje nego u originalu. Dosta loše. 1/5, 2/10

Not for me

Respect the influence but very plainz and afterall this app is for rating music over influence

Hard to take this band seriously; pretty lame covers of early rock and roll from Chuck Berry and other trailblazers coopted by a white garage band. Apparently the only lasting effect of the album is the "garage band" sound, which I'm told was influential. Can't stand the harsh screams of the lead singer; made me laugh out loud.

Too many unoriginal covers to call this a great album.

One of the most interesting parts of this 1001 album challenge is being exposed to more music from the 60s, and understanding how much of the pop culture of the times was stolen from black artists. It's not even imitation being flattery, it's downright minstrelsy lol. There is no part of this album that couldn't have been done by Little Richard, or another Motown artist. One might say, listen to this music without bias! Without context! They didn't even make it without black context - half of these songs were literally written by black artists. It's actually very important for these types of albums to be on this list; so music fans hear how toothless and bland music can be when in the wrong hands. Just hootin and hollerin and performing for no real reason.

Far too many covers on this to be classed as their album. It's getting a 1

[wow intensifies]

Meh would never put this on

Why is this on the list? Mostly boring covers. The originals didn’t do anything for me. 1/5

FFS man... stop screaming about little girls! Also, too many covers. Heard before ❌️ Listened this time ✅️ Revisit ❌️ ★☆☆☆☆ (2/10) Total reviewed : 271 Already owned : 62 Purchased : 15 To buy : 1 Nope : 193

I was annoyed by the vocals on this one. I know what they were trying to do, but I didn't like how they were doing it. I usually try to avoid reading the reviews before I rate and write my own, but I really had to check and see if there was something I was missing with this album... Thankfully the top two comments were in line with exactly what I was thinking...So many of these songs are just covers with nothing special about them and if I have to hear "WOOOOOOW!!!" one more time, I'm gonna lose it.

I hated this, stop screeching

The witch sounds like farting and he sounds drunk and out of time???? wow this song is a poopy doo-doo worlds most pathetic cover of roll of beethoven ive ever heard the recording sounds so bad i thought that maybe it was made in 1960 but youre telling me this is 65? I feel like there is absolutely zero value in this album. Why would you ever want to listen to it. This is all on top of terrible mic peaking. They figured out how to not let that happen by this time. Thanks for the schreeches in my ear

Mijn overgrootouders zouden het geweldig hebben gevonden.

Won't listen to that again -

Uhh…. Early garage rock. Not good at all. Awful vocals. Awful production. Awful guitar playing. Awful covers of otherwise great songs. Awful. Did I mention that it’s awful? 1 awful star

i couldn't even get through 30 seconds of the first song. There is a reason we've improved the technology, and this is an excellent argument for spending at least a little time learning how to actively listen, and for crafting music that is pleasing in *any* way. .... These assholes couldn't bother to do any of that.

So much unnecessary screaming. I did not need The Sonics Here.

Extremely unenjoyable to listen to

Didn’t enjoy this. Rubbish singing and the songs all sounded the same

Well that was shit! At least the Apple Music random played The Clash and New York Dolls afterwards.

I started listening to this a few weeks ago after seeing the album mentioned in a YouTube video about influential bands. I stopped listening after a couple of tracks as I found the covers to be pretty shit

3 numre inde er jeg ved at blive sindssyg over den konstante WOOOOOOW, og det blev aldrig rigtig bedre. De fleste numre har vi allerede hørt i bedre versioner på andre albums. Ved ikke om jeg synes jeg behøvede at høre den her for en eller anden akademisk baggrund for hvor garage eller punk eller whatever kommer fra

abrasive, in a bad way. bland, maybe not for its time, but at least to modern ears. that said, recording, mixing, and mastering as a garage rock band in the mid-1960s was likely no easy task, especially if you're just a group of musicians working on your debut album with no prior knowledge and experience on how to do all those thi... wait, they had two producers on this album? _and_ a sound engineer? surely it shouldn't sound THIS bad then??? come on dated and ultimately forgettable.

WAAAAH Waluigi would be proud

I can't with the screaming vocals in every song

Not for me. 1/5

i though this was one of that "you had to be there" and was also considering the year, but after checking other albums released at that time there's no excuse to be this much noise of a record

I don't mind bad production and often I think it adds to the music but it's this type of 60s abrasive production that I just can't stand. The Sonics here sound like the Beatles playing in a microwave. The covers, whilst I am not all too familiar with all of them, are much worse than their originals, and their own songs are really poor. I'll admit that this sort of music is not something I often enjoy, but this was particularly shit It's been just over two months since I've had a 5. Save me someone, save me

Never heard of these guys before. It looks like I have yet another 60s pop rock album on my hands. I'm gonna blow my head off, I swear. There can't be this many 60s pop rock albums that are worthy of my precious music-listening minutes, can there? "The Sonics" is also one of the blandest band names you could ever have for a musical act. Okay, okay. I'll stop bitching. Garage rock. Proto-punk. Hmm. Interesting genres, though I don't quite hear them. This just sounds like a regular rock and roll jig to me. I'm in awe at the twenty-eight minute runtime but I really, really did not like this one. The vocals are generally pretty obnoxious and the instrumentation regularly dips into being nauseating thanks to the poor production. "The Witch", "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Money" are decent, though that only comes down to the songwriting, really. My cheeks were clenched tightly throughout this album. At any time, without any warning, I would be assaulted by this band's unique methods of decimating my ears. Be it the hacky, rock-and-roll screeching, crunchy guitars or horrific sax numbers, I was genuinely in a flinched state while listening to most of this album. I normally listen to these albums through my laptop speakers, though I was punished greatly for the single, sordid occasion where I chose to listen to this album with my earbuds. Book time. A musical and cultural time capsule. First garage rock band to make a name for themselves. A regional act that left an impact in the Northwest America music scene. Wikipedia adds further credence to their influence over garage rock, though that's about it. I would snub this thing if I knew of 1001 albums that were more worthy than the ones on this list, but I'm kind of working with a deficit here. Being influential in any genre is a pretty good achievement, I suppose. I cosign this inclusion.

I went into this album with an open mind, but I got so much second hand embarrassment from the cover of Roll of Beethoven that I can only rate this a 1.

Why did white people love stripping the soul out of black music and putting out bad cover albums. Do the listmakers want to bring this to our attention or do they actually think this deserves praise.

60's not my time

категорическое нет, мне совсем не нравится плохое качество звука и непонятные вскрики вместо пения. вот этот вайб старого гаражного рока 60-х вообще не мое

I respect my time too much to finish this. When every fucking song starts with a horrendously executed snare roll followed by the most soulless “owww” a white man could muster, I’m doing my ears a favor and stopping at track 7. It’s not getting better. What was the angle to white washing Chuck Berry? Was it not enough to hear John Lennon do it? At least that man actually was a fan of Chuck Berry. These dudes sound like someone put a gun to their heads in the studio and said “record these songs, or else!” WOOF

This reminds me a lot of early Beatles music in that they're a band of mediocre White guys taking songs by Black American musicians, covering them, and making them sound significantly worse. At least when the Beatles did it, it would be half of the album, but the sonics went the extra mile and gave us nothing but bad versions of someone else's songs. So then, the blaring question is "why the eff is this one of the 1001 albums you MUST hear before you die?" Why can't i just listen to Chuck Barry and go on living in the bliss of not knowing this cover band from Tacoma Washington ever existed? I'm at the point where I'm pissed off at the very idea of this list and the fact that some babyboomer from England decided he had the best music taste in the world and he should publish a book about how much everyone should listen 1001 albums worth of it.

Perfectly good screaming - virtually the end of Meat is Murder. Ridiculous buzzing too. Terrible version of Roll Over Beethoven. I don't know why this is better received by listeners here than Junkyard by The Birthday Party is; that's just as sloppy, but more immersive. The gothics of Junkyward are truly grotesque, whereas The Witch is a tame effort. The Birthday Party is trying to get at something. The Sonics are just trying to get through the songs. The Sonics’ significance is supposed to be their influence: they were from Tacoma, and grunge came from the same postcode. Yes, Mark Arm liked the screaming. Yes, Cobain fancied the drum sound. But these were passing infatuations in a polyamorous marriage with Kiss, Aerosmith, and Black Sabbath - the actual gods of their adolescence. Grunge did not spring fully formed from this garage. And it would have formed anyway. 1 I have very little to say about this. The Sonics suck. The production would be commendably awful if it wasn’t mainly in the service of recording worthless covers of songs that were bate out by 1965. An attempted second listen was aborted after a few waoows. 1/5

To me this is just some white guys trying to sound like Little Richard.

overall a very underwhelming album, nothing stood out to me. i liked roll over beethoven, but that is not even their original composition, neither did they sing it better than the original. the vocals were mehh... at a certain point it was just noise

1. uuitch - 1 2. Love - 0 3. Roll - 0 4. Boss - 0 5. Dirty - 0 6. Travel - 0 7. Psycho - 0 8. Money - 0 9. Dog - 0 10. Time - 0 11. Nine - 0 12. Molly - 0 A BUNCH OF COVERS DOESN'T MAKE AN ALBUM WTF

Not good

Underpinned with too, too many mediocre covers to be on this list

Dreadful. Amateurish.

How can an album full of covers with just extra 'aaaaoooowwws' be worthy of inclusion on this list. Surely 'influence' alone shouldn't count that much.

While I can appreciate bands like this that paved the way for many bands I listen to today and the sound they helped create I can't get in to this at all. The recording sounds way to bad and the levels are all over the place.

With a name like The Sonics and an album released in 1965, I expected lush, spacious atmospheres of sound that would usher in Revolver and Pet Sounds. Here Are the Sonics is basically a raw recording of a garage band. I don't know their story. Did they meet in an orphanage and devote all their earnings to save homeless and starving children? Did they separate Pangea into separate continents? Did they teach Hendrix to play guitar, or introduce Elton John to Bernie Taupin? Whatever their value is in the annals of music, it can't be for the music itself. Regardless of my expectations and immediate letdown, I see no value in this album being in the 1001 Best Albums list. The album is mostly covers done more poorly than the versions you've come to know and love. This singer needs to add the moniker "Howlin'" in his name. He repeats this howl on the same note song after song, like a harmonica that had one really worn-in reed you can bend with enough breath in order to add character while the rest of the notes remain sterile. He's a one trick pony; his band bought Mick Jagger off Temu. Three songs in, I was ready to quit, but I wanted to honor this project and give it a respectful listen. I was never rewarded for this respect. Lather, rinse, repeat. All flash and little substance. The piano and horns were good, though.

Garbage. Unadulterated garbage. It was painful listening to crappy versions of Do You Love Me and Roll Over Beethoven. The final nail in the coffin was their flat version of Good Golly Miss Molly.

How many times can one hear a grown man yell “WAAAAOOOOOOWWWWW!” before it grates on their sanity? It seems to me that this is here more for being an influence and being name checked by later bands(notably Kurt Cobain of Nirvana) instead of standing on its own.

An uncreative covers band that you could find in many a music venue. Why are they on the list?

This is like having your family guilt trip you into going to see your cousins cover band at some bar you never heard of on a Tuesday night. The drinks are watered down, none of your family shows up so the entire place is empty except for you and a bartender who would rather be anywhere else. They play and you discover why no one else is there but your cousin thinks you must be a great fan of the music, gives you a CD, and insists on listening to it together. That CD is this.

Lowfi production. Mostly covers and the orginal compositions didn’t do anything for me. Way too many “Wwwooows” screams.

Who? Sounds so dated now. Unremarkable, includes some terrible covers, for example, "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Walking the Dog".

No. They're wrong. I don't have to hear this, ever. FFS, this is absolute sh*te. Four fourteen year olds in their dads shed with instruments they hadn't seen til yesterday. The only reason to listen to this is to show how much better the Beatles and all the rest of the "British Invasion" band could play.

It makes no sense having a cover band on this list.

this is some sort of punishment

Ich habe ja nichts gegen Rock'n'Roll, aber das hier war nicht gut. Der Gesang war eher Geschrei und die Instrumente klangen irgendwie rau und dumpf.

Not my cup of tea.

If I have to hear one more YEOOOWWW I’m going to lose it. 29 mins and felt like a lifetime, not for me

I mean, I like the aesthetics of this. The screamed vocals, overdriven guitars and rhythms we will later call punk. It’s just that the songs aren’t all that good, I mean it’s either pretty bad covers of Chuck Berry or pretty bad original songs. I’m sure it inspired a lot of bands I like, but I don’t like the album as is. This only belongs on such a list for historical significance I guess. Right after this one Spotify gave me The Chocolate Watchband, this really drove the one star home. The Chocolate Watchband were an amazing example of how good garage rock can be, and The Sonics are not such an example.

Their covers are not that good

I like the Lo-Fi garage rock sound and DIY spirit - amping up the fuzz, shredding the vocal chords, direct raw performance, and pushing the recording into the red - but they have literally 0 ideas. They're even derivative in who they're ripping off! I'm sure this was a fun band to be in and to see live at the sock hop in 1966, but my god the mid 60s are the most over-represented era. It's as if the world would end if every micro step in the evolution of white guys learning how to play Chuck Berry and Little Richard songs wasn't represented in excruciating detail. Can't we just have the Nuggets compilation instead of all these mediocre 'proto-something interesting' albums with one ok song?

Total waste of time. Their obscurity is utterly justified. And wardrobe really should've done a better job for the album cover photo shoot.

was not into it

Really outdated and sounds like shit. It actually seemed to get worse as it went on, maybe from all the unnecessary screams into audio equipment that couldn't handle it

Some of the most obnoxious songs ever recorded

Marked down for every fucking scream. Whilst edgy on a 45 fucking annoying on an LP. Didn’t finish.

Even in 1965 this music couln't have been cutting edge. It plods, is bland and I had to turn it off after 3 or 4 songs. Its like being in an inescapable Dirty Dancing themed holiday camp. To think The Beatles were producing Rubber Soul and Revolver around the same time...

Ironic name, it sounds like it was played through blown out speakers

!!! Introducing Sonic the Hedgehog !!! Well this makes me appreciate some of the other albums from 1965 a lot more! Mostly covers, and I know one song from an advert (and their own 'Psycho' sounds almost identical). Not great on the ears. !!!Una Estrella!!!

Malogen, poorer covers of some great songs

!!!it’s shit!!!

Bad sound quality recording. Tracks are not really my taste either

It’s a decent garage band album……that’s it. The covers were not exceptional - just ok. They also live to wail…..too much.

Rockabilly music. Think “Johnny B Goode”. It would’ve been okay but the singer’s constant screaming really made me dislike this album.

Nope

YEOWWWWW!!! This sounds like it was recorded through a walkie talkie. I understand that it was the 60s and quality equipment wasn't as plentiful as it is today, but Jesus does it make it difficult to listen to. I wouldn't mind if it was just a poor recording as much if it wasn't for the repetitive and obnoxious songs. It's just a scream, basic rock jam, scream, repeat. I don't care how influential they are, they're not for me. 2/10 Would I listen again? It would be very difficult for someone to make me listen to this again.

Although I love 60’s music never heard of The Sonics before. Probably because as far as I can tell they never had any success in the UK. Listening through the album I don’t know how they made this list. Maybe because according to Wiki some quite influential musicians say that they themselves were influenced by them. The few original songs are just standard 60’s rock and roll. The remainder (and majority) are second rate covers which bring nothing new to the originals. The recording quality is chronically bad. I know it’s just 60’s tech but even allowing for that it sounds as if it was done on a low budget. The number of covers also indicates just one or two takes so the whole thing could be done it has little time has possible. I streamed this on Tidal and all I was getting was sound from one speaker. That could be Tidal’s fault but the whole listening experience was poor only helped by the fact that the album was less than 30 mins long. I think overall and not meaning to be rude to our American cousins, this album is very American centric and came in response to the real explosion of UK groups about that time and who put The Sonics week into their shadow. 1/5 28/4/24

This is a pretty rotten album. Production is terrible, vocals are awful, its almost all badly performed covers. 1/5

good lord the number of shit early/mid 60s albums on this list that were just nothing but rock & roll staple covers. It's bad! same goes for Rolling Stones' debut album!

Minimum of three “screams” per song. Best song was Strychnine (L was thinking about taking some and screaming by the end of the album.) Too many cover songs. Was that kazoo heard on a couple of songs? Or just out of tune instruments? Either way, it gets (0.3*s)

Not really my vibe. Interesting pick!

Guys, if it’s showing as red, you need to turn your instruments down or move back from the mic. I don’t understand why the fuck anyone would choose to listen to this. You could be listening to The Beach Boys or The Beatles or Chuck Berry or Rufus Thomas or literally anyone who didn’t record their album using a paint tin suspended from a light fitting.

I give up on trying to find a funny response to this album, it sapped all the energy in me

oh boy. this album is mostly... irritating. lame uninspired progs, songs that sound so similar you wonder if the player is skipping, ear-bleeding mastering. speaking of ear-bleeding this singer. whoever he is. he looooooves to just hold that microphone really close and SCREECH. like he's SCREAMING into that mic. every single song he does it. UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHH!! is it that necessary?

Not my cup of tea

Not my type.

The Sonics would be fantastic if you heard them in a bar in 1965 but on a list of must to albums?? No. The 4 original songs aren’t bad but we don’t need another bad quality recordings of Roll Over Beethoven and Good Golly Miss Molly. 3.8/10

Old, bad covers album.

ik rock standards are just part of the package with this era of recording but i'm not super into this being mostly covers. still can't believe how square this is to be considered early punk. 1.5

This sounds like a rock album made in the 60s. Not sure how to describe it in words, but I would be able to pick the era pretty easily on first listen. I was not a fan of this album at all. I will be glad to never hear another "woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow" screech again.

1965. 1 star for the kind of bearable track "Do you love me". This album is a drone of the same song over and over, very simple/uninteresting writing, riddled with annoying screams throughout songs. The three exclamation marks in the upper left corner of the album art is the most exciting thing about this album. Nope.

It’s not the Sonics’ fault, but this is extremely dated music. The loud, fuzzy punk sounds are reminiscent of the Kinks, but a year earlier they were putting out stone cold classics. This is a covers album. Apparently this influenced early punk acts like the Stooges. Good for them. I liked the 2 originals.

Hated it after just 2 songs and stopped listening.

WOOOWOOW 1/5

Early Pink Floyd meets early Beatles haha this is utter trash

Uitgezet na eerste twee nummers haha, klinkt als een dronken gast die mee aan het schreeuwen is

A lot of cover versions, not as good as the orginals,

this was so so so so terribly bad

Fun for one song, gets monotonous real fast.

Me aburrió. O sea, sí, supongo que hay que escucharlo para entender que influenciaron a otros grupos posteriores, pero no me gustaron

Eh not really my taste.

”Baby do you LHOOVE MHEE” ”RhYThm ÄND bLUEs” ”TAKE MY LOOVE AND RHAN AWAY WHAAAAAAAAAAA” ”TRY TY TYYY TYY TYY TRTY TY TYY TYYY TYYY” ”BEIBEE CREISEE….. PSAIKHOO” "WHOOOOOOOO-O-O-O" Paskaa Paskaa Paskaa

Not my style.

I couldn’t make it through this album. I tried but this music is just not for me. It sounds outdated and feels generic for the time. 2/10 Fav track: none Least fav: dirty robber

I’m not sure how important this album can be since every cover sounds way worse than the original. Get this off the list ASAP.

Puwing.

This is an album that has expired. I get that this is the basis of rock and roll, but it's just all bleached bones to me now to hear. My Dad would be tapping his foot!

Mixing is rather awful, I don’t care for listening to albums that “maybe” created a sub genre. unless it’s an album that’s actually doesn’t want to make me poke holes in my ear drums with a pin. There cover of good golly miss Molly is considered a hate crime in 38 states

Can’t tell an album by the cover, I suppose. I was expecting some harmonies, maybe some sweetness, but these guys sound like a completely unskilled and totally overexcited cover band from some region not known for its music or art scenes … oh, wait, that’s what they were.

More of the same american pie on cocaine crap. Lame.

this one can stay in the attic

I had to read some reviews to understand why this album might be included in a list of 1001 historically important albums. It seems that this is debatably a precursor to punk, a proposition that nonetheless seems to be disputed. Without this historical association I struggle to find any reason to elevate this album above the rest of the beatlesesque sounds of the mid 60s. If anything the shitty audio quality (which normally doesn't at all affect my judgement of an album) renders this album not only uninspiring, but almost unlistenable. 2/10

Somebody told this guy that he should do the James Brown "WAAAAOOOWW!!" scream as often as possible, and he took that advice to heart. At first it was mildly annoying, but by the end of the album (which feels much, much longer than 30 minutes), I was making a mental note to avoid this band in the future at all costs. Best track: Whichever one has the lowest WAAAOOOWW to time ratio. I'm not going to listen again to figure it out

First Listen: I hate bands that just have a bunch of other people's hits and don't do anything original with them. This is a 1/5 for me. This might have been great back in 1965, but now, it is just a compilation of other bands' hits. Nothing to see here folks. Next.

Not sure I understand the hype on this one. Pretty generic sounding bar band. I guess this came out around '65, sure doesn't sound innovative or forward looking. Sorry not drinking the Kool aid on this one. 1 🌟

blodige ører pga. lydkvalitet. De hyla kunne de vært foruten. Sonic weapon burde det hett. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon

Hated it

I understand that it’s a classic but could not vibe

The music is too loud for me

Classic rock and roll recognised some of the tracks generally very enjoyable

Not my style