Rock Bottom

I’ve rated 1024 albums to date out of 1089. I’m almost to the finish line. This album seems intent on making the final mile a very painful one.

challenging to listen to.

1/5

5/10

It’s not completely absolutely rock bottom, but it did really suck to listen to.

According to Wikipedia this guy is a drummer. So why is he trying to sing? And WHAT are these nonsense lyrics? There are some instrumental interludes which are interesting. Maybe all instrumental would have been the way to go. Honestly the only reason I can think that I should have heard this is to know to be grateful for every minute I don’t have to hear it again.

RATING: 8/10 HIGHLIGHT: Sea Song LOWLIGHT: A Last Straw

Every so often theres an album on this list that is put on there as some sort of test. This is one of those, its can't be real, nobody can convince me this is real. Didn't hate it tho...

Really not my thing, but could understand why its on the list. Definitely experimental. So for that 3 stars.

Starts off very weak but by Alifib it had progressed really nicely. Interesting project; good overall

Mostly instrumental album with a lot of synths. It’s interesting and good for background music. Mostly enjoyed the listen.

Erm, no. No thank you.

This might be the strangest album of all time. I mean what the hell is even happening 2.5/5

Somewhat abstract at points, but I like it. There's definitely people that are gonna hate this, but I would argue that there's a case to be made for it. It's not something I would picture myself putting on. But it's something that really creates a moment when you're listening to it, and something about it is almost ethereal I think. That being said, I'm not huge on the vocal tracks. I think the acoustic ones work much better. I think I like it to a certain point. It's quite a peaceful album and I like the musical ideas throughout it. What I listen to It again. I'm not sure to be honest. But I have to say listening to it right now. I would have to say that I like this album and it's pretty good. I'm glad I gave it a try. Fav Track: Sea Song

I enjoyed the weirdness but it felt like every song overstayed its welcome by about 2 minutes.

It's kind of good, and then he'll add some guy exhaling in your ear for 2 minutes, an out-of-tune piano, or some mentally disabled man talking about fighting for a crust of bread.

What an album... This one suit perfectly the dark and mystical day I had yesterday. But as dark as the landscape it paint is, it isn't cold at all. It's dark and warm, and familiar,  like a dark fantasy movie from the early 80's. It begins with a perfect song, sea song . And continues in a jurney between spacy keyboards, brass and percussion in long and meditative pieces. I was going to give it a high four, but listening to it yesterday I have no other choice. It's another 5 in my book.

✅️ STILL BANGS beautiful album. haunting, silly. some times raw, other times layered and complex fav track: little red riding hood hit the road

Wildly inventive, imaginative and emotional. Probably been one of the best albums I'm not familiar with before starting the project. Give it a chance.

No private session used for Spotify. I don't remember much about this album, maybe a lot of mumbling by a Scottish dude?

**An ok album

Another album that is full of talent but with a lead singer who grates on me.

I hate it. I like it. I hate it. I don’t know, man. What is music, anyway?

This sounds like Peter Gabriel with ELP as the backing band and John Zorn recording in the next studio over with the door open (complimentary). Some of these songs were really good like Little Red Riding Hood... and some struggled along a bit too ambient for my taste. This is the kind of album though that will increase in rating for me the more I listen to it, for now it's a solid 3-4.

Well, this was interesting. If all tracks were instrumental, this would be a very solid 3 stars for me. But I find the vocals a bit annoying (especially in "Alifib" and "Alife"). I enjoyed "Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road" or "Alifib" (but only the first half, which is instrumental). So, in the end, this is between 2 and 3 stars.

2.5★/5 10.04.2026

So intense and depressing and mysterious and weird. The story behind it is tragic. I want to understand it more but I don't think I'm plugged into the prog/art rock consciousness. Haunting and overall good

No thank you

I don’t want to be one of those people who says “if that’s art then I could be an artist.” But. There were some sounds in here that made me think even I could make it as a musician.

Not my cup of tea

Tears for Fears cover of "Sea Song" is a huge upgrade over the original. He can't sing worth a damn.

What a great adventure of proggy goodness.

Was always sick until he started singing again

I get that he went through a tough time with the accident, and the album is aptly titled, but that is all I can say about this rambling array of noise. Should I be on drugs to enjoy this? 2 stars

When it started I thought it was gonna be an album of singer songwriter ballads. Boy was I wrong, this is a wonderfully weird album that I will definitely be checking out again.

not for me

Not really for me.

bah! experimentell oder furchtbar?

Mir zu experimentel

Look full admiration to Mr Wyatt for getting his life back on track, and for then making the music he wants. No problem there and for the people who like this good for you. But why the book has me listen to this, is other album was just about palatable and ok it’s on the list, but this is prog overkill. My idea of almost unlistenable music, and took me 2 days to actually finish. 1 Star.

Старина ног лишился(((

Man sings in Simlish over the sounds of a goose being strangled. This is an album I had to hear before I die? Are you sure?

Nope!

Oh. Second Robert Wyatt in as many months. I should probably listen again, but I think I enjoyed this one too.

An easy laid-back listen of prog and ambient songs.

Sounds like a precursor to Radiohead’s Kid A. Some parts of songs I really enjoyed, but for the vast majority of the album it sounds like garbage.

A tricky one. First half is pretty much perfect and an obvious influence on Radiohead post-OKC. Second half is tedious.

I was not a fan of this album, not because it’s avant-garde but because I feel that was the deliberate point and kind of feels forced and because of that it’s kind of boring and not really interesting, I can’t really see this as being something useful while with throbbing gristle at least that sounded like true sound experimentation and I could see the merit in it. This is just someone who sounds strangely like David Bowie trying to be weird but not fully leaning into it enough for it to be truely interesting

I kinda liked this album, Sea Song was an amazing song, but I found it more unsettling than pleasing at some points... I was wishing for alife to end at many points thoughout the song. I would give this a 2.5/5, but if I had to choose... this is more like a 2/5 than a 3/5.

Overall: 7/10 This was certainly very strange and out there, but honestly I'd rather listen to this than some more shitty britpop or repetitive electronic music. There's a clear vision here and an attempt to do something different that I really admire. It had some brilliant moments and some that fell flat, but the effort should be commended. This is one of those times that I think that most of the people reviewing these albums are kind of close minded. Fav Song: A Last Straw

1.5

2.5

Not at all a fan. Dull from start to finish.

Random. OK as background music but I’ll not be coming back to this. Critics will always highly rate music that’s weird but competent, this is an example of that. Doesn’t make it good though.

dnf

While I appreciate Robert Wyatt putting this album out going through what he was, it makes me wonder if there are actually 1,001 albums I must listen to.

Wow, what a weird and interesting album. The weirdness was a little off-putting but I think it would grow on me with repeated listens. Didn't mind the sea creature love story of "Sea Song" or the backwards vocals on a couple of songs...but the preciousness of the nonsense vocals on the "Alifib" songs was grating. So, a mixed bag, but I found this a lot more enjoyable than the Soft Machine album. It's dream-like and mind altering even as it's rather precious and just plain bizarre....like the best dreams.

I wanted to dismiss this as wanky Brit nonsense so bad but there's something about it. The fall-from-a-window origin story, the menacing free jazz, Mike Oldfield's guitar, the Twin Peaks style backwards vocals. A nightmare that is just too compelling to hate, i think I'll be revisiting

Someone else I hadn’t heard of; very strange.

No.

No thanks

This is a tough one. I really enjoyed a lot of aspects of it, but there's also definitely some annoying moments as well. The second track specifically is rather hard to sit through. Even still, I don't think this deserves to be in the bottom twenty albums. Could be worse though. At least it's not at the rock bottom amiright? Favorite track: Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road

was excited for this one as a prog appreciator and occasional contrarian and I was not disappointed! the opener Sea Song is particularly gorgeous, though the vocalising in the outro might have to grow on me; I did appreciate it more when Wyatt was pretending to be a trumpet in A Last Straw very proto-Radiohead as noted by other reviewers it did make me feel like I needed to listen to The Cars by The Cars again as a palate cleanser but I give it a musical palate-expanding & contrarian 3.5/5, rounded down as I didn't enjoy Alifib/Alife as much as the other songs

Well I don't think this is quite rock bottom but it's not really very good. Musically perhaps a C minus. Vocally according to his Spotify bio states "his frail tenor voice, capable of breaking hearts with it's falsetto range." Well I must have missed that bit. The frail tenor voice I give a D minus as it's frail and not captivating for me. Now lyrically where do we begin. I suggest a copious amount of drugs for both the writer and listener as to suggest that they are mainly naff is doing a discredit to other naff lyrics. Now having read the Wikipaedia entry I realise he was recently a paraplegic before recording this and so perhaps he was on medically good drugs and his battle with a broom is one of his struggles with his condition so I am perhaps a little hard. The monotone lyric track reminiscent of Kraftwerk was a little different but they did it before this. I did enjoy the music a bit more on this as a counterpoint to the monotone lyrics but still not enough to make it memorable. Fairly rated in the low 2's by the community for me.

да, это странно, но что-то цепляет, больше чувств вызывает чем некоторые другие альбомы. после первого трека думал поставлю 2, но в итоге 4.

I read about his fall, and this album afterwards, but it is really not very good, I tried to see something here, but I couldn’t.

It was okay!

Too experimental for me.

About half way through the second track I started wondering if I had hit rock bottom personally. By track three you hear some likenesses to Radiohead, but the sound just isn't refined. By track five you start questioning your decision making, and why you're still listening to this fever dream of a paraplegic. This is definitely ahead of it's time and some odd combination of experimental 60s psychedelic rock mixed with some jazz influence. There are some good ideas on this album, but I just don't think they were executed well.

Robert is clearly having a great time. This is where folk, prog rock and creative enhancements meet. I didn't quite get it.

#236 This artist needs more time on my radar than I am currently willing to give him. Reading another review where they said Robert Wyatt became paralyzed during the recording of this album does make me want to give it a sympathy point, but that's not fair to the album rating. I will give it another couple of listens though to see if I can get a better sense of him from his other stuff. For now this is what I rate it. It's not an easy listen, I do not like a lot of Art Rock, so if you like that this might be for you. Biggest Hit - Sea Song Biggest Miss - Alife Hidden Gem - Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road

Très enervant

The instrumentation was cool at times but the vocals were so annoying.

Nooooooope

ok

Honestly, this album is just a mess..

A little jazzy, prog rock, and very experimental. I never really gotten into Soft Machine. I enjoyed some of the instrumentation. 2.4/5 Favorite Songs: Sea Song A Last Straw

My drunk uncle yelling shit and banging on the piano while I'm in my room - ASMR

Enjoyment: 1/10 Replayability: 1/10 Cohesion: 2/10 Flow/Pacing: 2/10 Artistic Merit: 3/10 Weighted Average: 1.55/10 Review: I respect how experimental this album is - but sometimes experiments fail. The only thing redeemable about this album is that it's 39 minutes. It's incredibly sad what happened to Robert Wyatt, but a pity inclusion into this list makes it worse. Liked Song(s): (None) Disliked Song(s): Sea Song, Alife Recommend? No Heard Before? No

this is truly, rock bottom. there are parts here that i like, but some others sound like what a parody of bad music sounds like. truly horrible stuff, even for me that likes to listen some other off key, bad artists

A real journey this one; enjoyed much more on my second listen than the first. You’ve kind of got to let the currents of the music take you on this one, drifting between fragments of melody across a richly textured instrumental soundscape. It is certainly a bit weird but I think mostly reined in enough to not lose itself. It’s only on “Alife” that it went a bit too far for me, the strange gobbledygook lyrics didn’t do it for me. My favourite track was “Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road”. The kind of shuffly drums, the mellifluous bass line, the sort of constant susurrations of trumpets with occasional louder stings. It all kind of feels just in the edge of falling apart which maintains an interesting sense of tension. And I really like the cool reverse(?) effects that start happening later on.

The best bits sounds like the worst of Bowie. But most of it is just like if you tried to describe music to someone with no ears.

You can’t be serious

Alright, alright. Uncle!

Rock bottom, indeed. This is shite.

I only listened to this twice before rating, so I don’t fully understand what I heard. It’s deeply weird and disconcerting music. Every song had parts I liked and parts I didn’t. Despite the very strange structures and prog/jazz elements, it felt human. It made me feel something. The personal story behind it is remarkable, too. I would be shocked if Radiohead doesn’t count this as an influence.

Occasional moments of being tolerable are too brief.

1/5 - I’m pretty tolerant of unorthodox singing, but this is too rough even for me.

This is ridiculous. There are now at least 2 of these stupid Wyatt albums on here. I think the person putting them in is thinking this lost os 1001 albums that make you want to die. No redeeming qualities. I wish I could give negative stars. Fuck this album

Didn't care for this.

So this is one of those albums that reading about the history of the album, reading about the songs and lyrics, and hearing about Robert Wyatt and his paralysis shortly before making this album helped me like it better. I’m not always a huge fan of experimental psych stuff like this, but I enjoyed the Pink Floyd-esque and David Bowie-esque sounds, and one of the tracks sounded like Yes. The Alifib and Alife tracks scared the crap out of me for some reason. At various points, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but I would say it was interesting. Overall, not my thing, but I appreciate it

Not for me 1/5

8/10 – Very Good

To me, the point of experimentation in music is to take you somewhere new, and this album truly takes you to a special place. I find something new to love about it every time I hear it. 9.5/10

1. "Sea Song" 2. "Alifib" 3. "Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road"

Jag tycker inte att det är dåligt, men det är inget jag skulle lyssna om eller lägga i nån spellista. Det är lite väl experimentellt för min smak.

tiresome

70

robert wyatt's recording of Shipbuilding is one of my favourite singles ever, but this didn't do a whole lot for me

Too chaotic and uncoherent, I feel dizzy