List of pivotal and/or terrific albums NOT listed in Dimery's book that would put the slot taken by David Ackles to FAR better use: Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue Nina Simone - I Put A Spell On You Nina Simone - Pastel Blues John Coltrane - Blue Train John Coltrane - Giant Steps John Coltrane - Africa / Brass or My Favorite Things Ornette Coleman - The Shape Of Jazz To Come Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn Adolescents - Adolescents Laurie Anderson - Big Science Dead Boys - Loud Young And Snotty The Wipers - IsThis Real? The Wipers - Youth Of America Beastie Boys - Check Your Head Vangelis - Blade Runner NOFX - Punk In Drublic Tori Amos - Under The Pink Björk - Homogenic Björk - Post Fugazi - The Argument Fugazi - Red Medicine Fugazi - In On The Kill Taker The Breeders - Last Splash Mogwai - Young Team Shellac - At Action Park Weezer - Weezer (blue album) The Posies - Frosting On the Beater (and maybe Amazing Disgrace?) Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F♯ A♯ ∞ Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui UXO Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump Grandaddy- Sumday Grandaddy - Under The Western Freeway Sonic Youth - Washing Machine Refused - The Shaped Of Punk To Come Low - Things We Lost In The Fire mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas Converge - Jane Doe Mogwai - Happy Songs For Happy People Sigur Rós - Kveikur - Jay Reatard - Blood Visions Women - Public Strains Vietcong - Vietcong IDLES - Brutalism - IDLES - Joy As An Act Of Resistance Lana Del Rey - Norman F*cking Rockwell Low - Double Negative Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away Big Thief - Capacity Big Thief - Masterpiece Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You Fontaines DC - Dogrel Fontaines DC - Romance Wet Leg - Wet Leg Radioactivity - Radioactivity Nick Wheeldon's Demon Hosts - Gift Charli XCX – Brat Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us Coilguns -Odd Love Chat Pile – God’s Country or Cool World Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee Ty Segall - Twins Jamie xx - In Colours Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go IDLES - Crawler Low - Hey What Black Country New Road - Ants From Up There Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar Lankum – False Lankum Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today or The Agent Intellect or Relatives In Descent Run The Jewels - RTJ 4 Father John Misty - Mahashmashana Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics Lana Del Rey - Uktraviolence Shame - Songs Of Devotion That's around 75 albums. Pretty sure there are many more of them that could deserve that slot as well. And here's the main thing to remember: there's more soul and vital energy in *a single second* taken from each one of those records than in the hackneyed music-hall borefest of Ackles' *American Gothic* taken as a whole. This album indeed painfully tries to follow the footsteps of Jacques Brel, Scott Walker and Tim Hardin, yet in his wordy endeavors, Ackles forgot that even narrative-driven singer-songwriters as the ones mentioned here never left aside genuine musicality and enticing harmonies in their songs. Musically speaking, *American Gothic* sounds incredibly flat. And given that David Ackles was not a stellar singer anyway... 1/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 6/10 for more general purposes (5 + 1) Number of albums left to review: around a hundred, as I've gone over the 1000 line and this generator is including albums from all editions of the book Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 435 Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 258 Albums from the list I won't include in mine: 320 (including this one)