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Finisher #367 to complete the list
1090
Albums Rated
3.68
Average Rating
100%
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Kind Of Blue
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1950s
Favorite Decade
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Favorite Genre
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Top Origin
Cheerleader
Rater Style ?
95
5-Star Albums
3
1-Star Albums
Breakdown
By Genre
By Decade
By Origin
Albums
You Love More Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Locust Abortion Technician | 5 | 2.38 | +2.62 |
| Suicide | 5 | 2.46 | +2.54 |
| Tago Mago | 5 | 2.79 | +2.21 |
| Only Built 4 Cuban Linx | 5 | 2.86 | +2.14 |
| Kollaps | 4 | 1.9 | +2.1 |
| Spiderland | 5 | 2.97 | +2.03 |
| Savane | 5 | 3.02 | +1.98 |
| Slanted And Enchanted | 5 | 3.03 | +1.97 |
| Fishscale | 5 | 3.06 | +1.94 |
| Ambient 1/Music For Airports | 5 | 3.07 | +1.93 |
You Love Less Than Most
| Album | You | Global | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good Old Boys | 1 | 2.86 | -1.86 |
| Konnichiwa | 1 | 2.74 | -1.74 |
| Pearl | 2 | 3.73 | -1.73 |
| Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not | 2 | 3.73 | -1.73 |
| Hotel California | 2 | 3.6 | -1.6 |
| Machine Head | 2 | 3.59 | -1.59 |
| Franz Ferdinand | 2 | 3.57 | -1.57 |
| Rust Never Sleeps | 2 | 3.53 | -1.53 |
| Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water | 1 | 2.47 | -1.47 |
| A Rush Of Blood To The Head | 2 | 3.44 | -1.44 |
Artists
Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Radiohead | 6 | 4.67 |
| Beatles | 7 | 4.57 |
| Miles Davis | 4 | 4.75 |
| Nirvana | 3 | 5 |
| Led Zeppelin | 5 | 4.4 |
| Stevie Wonder | 4 | 4.5 |
| Michael Jackson | 3 | 4.67 |
| The Velvet Underground | 3 | 4.67 |
| The Flaming Lips | 2 | 5 |
| Kendrick Lamar | 2 | 5 |
| Brian Eno | 5 | 4.2 |
| Talking Heads | 4 | 4.25 |
| R.E.M. | 4 | 4.25 |
| David Bowie | 9 | 3.89 |
| Kanye West | 3 | 4.33 |
| Marvin Gaye | 3 | 4.33 |
| My Bloody Valentine | 3 | 4.33 |
| The Stooges | 3 | 4.33 |
Least Favorites
| Artist | Albums | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Randy Newman | 2 | 1.5 |
5-Star Albums (95)
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Popular Reviews
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
Back when I was in college, there was this dude who would come into the bar I worked at on a Friday night and play fucking 10 Neil Young songs in a row. He would also hit on girls by doing magic tricks. I remember how angry I got every time he made me listen to an hour of Neil Young because I was just trying to have a good time, and he fucking made me listen to this sad, soppy fuck who writes nothing but songs that sound indistinguishable from each other and never seemed to enjoy a happy moment in his entire like. Fuck that guy, and fuck Neil Young.
2/5
162 likes
Shack
2/5
Another British pop album so important that the only sentence under the Legacy tab in Wikipedia is the one noting that it is on the 1001 albums list. I understand that sometimes you need a bit of distance between an album and the review to gain perspective on it, but that's exactly why it shouldn't be on this list.
It's a late 90s pop album that sounds like a late 90s pop album. It's fine, but indistinguishable from a hundred other albums that came out in the same era. It's not special or groundbreaking or technically outstanding in any way. Why not throw a couple of Days of the New or Stabbing Westward albums on here while we're wasting everyone's time?
2/5
63 likes
Eric Clapton
2/5
There are a lot of ways in which I detest Eric Clapton as a person, since he has the audacity to be a racist while ripping his entire career off of Black American blues musicians. Listening to this album provided a unique opportunity to see how empty his skill set really is. He is an excellent guitar player. This is a cover album that rarely features his skills as an instrumentalist because I guess he wanted to show off his skills as doing uninspired cover versions of popular songs. His version of Hand Jive is most appropriate for a funeral, since I don't see how anyone could enjoy dancing to it. I Shot The Sheriff is a cover I had to hear constantly in my youth, and now I spend hours trying to explain to my therapist why I harbor so much anger towards an over-rated artist being covered badly by an even more over-rated artist. Listening to Clapton try and fail to do anything interesting with a song that already didn't have much going for it is the audio equivalent of watching a scrambled porn channel back in the 90s only to realize that the show you were trying to watch was a scrambled cooking show the whole time.
Eric Clapton is proof that heroin doesn't turn every musician into a brilliant artist.
48 likes
Randy Newman
2/5
How? How is there more than one Randy Newman album on this list? I haven't gotten a single John Coltrane album, not a single Charles Mingus album, but I have now gotten two Randy Newman albums.
Fuck Randy Newman. His voice sounds like an inflatable bear with a slow leak. It sounds like Satan talking after inhaling helium. It is the auditory version of sitting down too long until your sciatic nerve falls asleep.
The worst part of any Randy Newman song is all of the fucking Randy Newman.
2/5. The only reason this is not a 1 is because I kinda like You Can Leave Your Hat On. Fuck Randy Newman
44 likes
Sinead O'Connor
4/5
It's pretty hard to think of an artist who was done dirtier in their time that Sinead O'Connor. Her career was destroyed because she ripped up a picture of the pope to protest the Catholic Church protecting pedophiles, and yet she herself was a victim of the church, as were thousands and thousands of other people world wide. She was 100% right and had so much shit talked about her.
So anyway, the album. It's good. Not particularly my style of music, but her voice is great, and there's a lot of gravity to her songs. Nothing Compares 2 U is a fucking banger for such a depressing song. It's also nice that she can mix things up with more upbeat songs like Jump in the River. Using a loop from James Brown's Funky Drummer was a nice touch (I also hadn't realized before this that the same loop was used in Scarlett Begonias by Sublime). Overall a really good listen from an artists who should have had a much bigger career
4/5
38 likes
1-Star Albums (3)
All Ratings
Jethro Tull
3/5
I really like the guitar tone on this album. The distortion is really crisp and it's mixed well. My least favorite parts of the album seem to be the lyrics and the flute.
Aqualung and Up to Me have this really creepy feel that makes the album distinct
Overall the album sounds a bit dated, definitely a product of its time. It drags in places, but when its good, it's really good.
Van Morrison
4/5
It's a sweet album with a lot of nice instrumentals. A lot of surprising little instrumental moments that fit really well in the overall context of the album. I can't say that it really grabbed me, but there's also nothing to take issue with. A great album to play in the background. Very summery feel. It drags a bit at the end, though it is overall a very pleasant listen. I might be even more fond of it if Van Morrison wasn't a COVID-denying dick.
Tom Waits
3/5
This album is undeniably strange and undeniably charming. It's split pretty evenly between standup comedy and Wait's crooning, and he excels in both of these tasks. The album is an anachronism, set in an analog world that no longer exists and could never exist in the computer age. The jazz band backing Waits stitches the entire work together. Waits slides evenly between smutty, sweet, and insightful. It's not the type of album that I would normally listen to, but it has a lot of charm and helped me understand much better why people are so fond of Waits.
The album is a bit long, though. I don't know that it needed to be a double album. I suppose that it gives more of a nightclub performance feel, but I felt like the album would have finished strong after the end of the first disc. There is some excellent stuff on the second half, though, so I'm not sure what I would cut. The album is an experience that I want to come back to at some point, despite the fact that this style of album is not my particular cup of tea. Great artists know how to make things work.
3/5
This is one of those albums that I try with every few years but never seem to get. Despite its chronological proximity to Hunky Dory, an album I absolutely love, this one has never really grabbed me. There is nothing wrong with this album, but it sounds dated compared to Hunky Dory, which has a really timeless feel. Part of the issue, I think, is the lack of classic songs. This album has a very coherent feel, it sounds good, but when I listen to it, I keep waiting for a song to really draw me in, but I don't think this really occurs until Suffragette City, which is nearly 2/3 of the way through the album.
The album is consistently good, and I feel like I "got" it better than I have in the past, I just don't understand why this album gets held up as THE early Bowie album. It's good but not great.
Leonard Cohen
4/5
Fuck, this was good right from the first line. "I step into an avalanche. It covered up my soul" Leonard Cohen is what I feel like I should be hearing when I put on a Bob Dylan record. I honestly don't have much to say about this album. It goes by in a blur, but every song is good. No one knows how to pick the bit of diamond out of a fist-sized lump of coal the way that Cohen does. Every song is dark, imperious, but beauty always shines through. I will definitely come back to this one (4/5).
The Black Crowes
3/5
I legitimately forgot this album and band existed. It's weird how some bands stick around in the Zeitgeist while others fade completely despite having similar track records. The album starts out really strong, but then the songs start to sound a bit samey. It's good, but it fades into the background because there's not a lot of tempo variation. There are some slower songs, but I can't say that I'm terribly impressed with songs like Seeing Things. Some of the other songs are good but start to feel like cultural appropriation (lookin at you, Hard to Handle. Talks to Angels is a good song that feels more original. 3/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
It's weird reviewing this album directly after the Black Crows album, because they are both white-boy blues albums. This, however, feels much more authentic. CCR seem much more like they are playing their version of the blues rather than doing an impression of the blues.
This album starts out really strong with some songs that I wasn't familiar with, and then proceeds to get into a string of songs released as singles that I really enjoy, like Lookin' Out My Back Door, Run Though the Jungle, Up Around The Bend, and Who'll Stop The Rain.
Honestly, the cover art may be the worst thing about this album. What in the hell were they thinking? 4/5
U2
3/5
Lost my Achtung Baby review, but the album is just okay
Sonic Youth
3/5
God the 1980s were a weird decade for music. It's like everything was happening all at once, and for all the amazing things that were happening in the foreground, you also have bands like Sonic Youth. The first thing this reminded me of was Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement, which came out 6 years after this album. This album is more introspective and darker, though.
I feel like there is something about Sonic Youth that never quite translates from their live shows to their albums, though. I feel like I should like these albums more, but it ultimately feels like there isn't anything for me to sink my teeth into. I think what I really need is an instrumental Sonic Youth album. I feel like that is where they really shine, and the vocals kind of distract from their instrumentals on a lot of songs.
3/5
The Yardbirds
4/5
This is the third blues-rock album that I've had chosen in the last week, and provides an interesting contrast with the other two (Shake Your Money Maker and Cosmo's Factory). This album has a very 60s feel to it, but not in a way that is confined to any specific genre. There is a definite psychedelic influence, but there's also rockabilly and early 60s pop influences. This album at once sounds like more authentic blues than the other two but at the same time strays further away from the blues. Jeff Beck's guitar does a lot to pull this album together and make it an interesting listen. It's cool, groovy, and it goes by quickly. 4/5
Supertramp
3/5
What a weird little album. Very 1970s. I'm struggling to find much to say about it, despite the fact that I'm enjoying it. The pianos are excellent and always mixed in well. It's very cinematic, but for that reason this album also sort of fades into the background. At times it sounds like a more poppy Pink Floyd.
3/5
Slint
5/5
I had never heard of this album before today, though the album cover looks vaguely familiar. It has that strange "more than the sum of its parts" feeling that a lot of great albums that come out of nowhere have. It certainly presages a lot of the music that will come after it. A lot of what made Slanted and Enchanted feel unique is also present here. It develops so slowly, appropriately like a spider crawling across the wall. The lyrics are dark, but not maudlin. Nothing feels overdone. There's this tension that hangs over the album that, like most aspects of this album, is very hard to define. Halfway through, it feels like the album is just getting started. When it ends, I feel like there should be so much more, but I'm not disappointed. Timeless. 5/5
A Tribe Called Quest
4/5
Jazz and hip-hop were meant to be together. Just good fun, old school hip-hop. The fact that this album ends with Scenerio just shows how full of solid tracts this album is. 4/5
The Band
2/5
This just isn't for me. It's fine, there's nothing bad about it, but I don't see myself ever coming back to this album.
2/5
Blondie
4/5
I don't have a lot to say about his album either, but it's just really solid. Just when I start to feel like it's bogging down, they drop Heart of Glass, and it's amazing. This album doesn't really feel that dated either. If I didn't know who it was and you told me it was from the 80s or 90s, I would completely believe it.
Supergrass
4/5
It's just a fun album. Distinctly of its era in the 90s. I surprised this one has passed my by until now. Lots of variation in the songs. Lots of energy in the first half of the album, and then it slows down in the latter half and has some more noticeable instrumentation. There's a little bit of Beatles in this album. Fun pop music that you can still take seriously. I imagine this band would have been awesome to see live during this era
4/5
Fleetwood Mac
3/5
Fleetwood Mac just isn't for me. This is a good album, but I don't see myself coming back to listen to it in the future. I've been waiting for one of those iconic FM tracks to come on and make me take interest in this album, but I don't think it's coming. On the plus side, Rumors autoplayed right after this album, and I really like Rumors
3/5
Ice T
4/5
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
This is another album that I don't have much to say about. It's solid all the way through. There weren't any songs that particularly stood out to me, but it didn't fade into the background while I was listening to it either. I really dig his style
4/5
The Prodigy
4/5
My first electronica album, and one that I've been meaning to revisit as a result of the trip-hop albums from this era that I've been listening to lately. Starts off really strong with two huge hits. The whole album is super high energy. Great sounds all the way through. It lags a bit in the middle, but that's partially a result of the fact that it starts off so strong. Perhaps the peak of angry dance music.
4/5
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
This album feels more like it was made in the mid 80s than the mid 90s. It becomes a little more modern as it develops, but the throbbing heart of this album seems stuck in the 1980s. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's fun dance music.
3/5
Mott The Hoople
2/5
This is the first album I've gotten so far that I don't understand why it made this list. I understand that 1,001 albums is a lot and is going to include a lot of albums from every year, but I just don't get this one. Their cover of Sweet Jane is an abomination, and it certainly shouldn't have been used to lead off the album. All the Young Dudes is a notable high point on the album, but at the same time I understand why Bowie sold it to them instead of keeping it for himself. The mix on the album is muddy. Everything picks up toward the middle of the album, but by that point I was already pretty mad
2/5
3/5
Elastica
4/5
A super solid album all the way through. Thoroughly 90s, but with a lot of 70s punk elements also mixed with some electronica.
4/5
The Band
2/5
Same reaction as the last The Band album I listened to. It's fine. I understand why people like this, but this is not for me. The Weight is a great song, but it sags a bit when placed in the middle of a bunch of songs that sound a lot like it, but aren't as good. This is like the mopey version of the Grateful Dead, and I don't really care for the normal version of the Grateful Dead. There were times when I felt like I was starting to enjoy this album, but kept finding ways to wear out its welcome. At 55 minutes in I was starting to do the math in my head for how long it would take to finish. Still 16 goddamn minutes left.
2/5
The Who
2/5
This is fine musically, but who in gods name thought it would be a good idea to mix a bunch of jingles into the songs, and who decided that they should half ass it so hard instead of committing to the bit. I get what they were trying to do, but I feel like they could have just made a good album instead.
2/5
Buck Owens
4/5
Very simple, though the music is deceptively complex. Just a solid album that flies by at a clip
4/5
Quicksilver Messenger Service
3/5
I had never heard of this album before it was recommended. It starts out so strong, but the second half of the album is less interesting. Part of me thinks that this album would be better if it was all instrumental. Every time the vocals come in I sort of tune out.
3/5
The Flaming Lips
5/5
This is the first album that I've been suggested that I'm intimately familiar with. There a several titanic songs on this album, including Fight Test, Yoshimi part 1, and Do You Realize. In between these songs is a psychedelic soundscape that guides you dreamily through the album. The instrumentals on this album are incredible. No two songs sound alike, and yet the album has a cohesive feel.
5/5
Pere Ubu
3/5
It's tough to know what exactly to think about this album. It's weird and cool. There are certainly moment where I get into it. It's not something I see myself going back to because there's not much about the album that I find really engrossing. Caligari's Mirror is a notable highlight. I can definitely see how it is influential in what came after it. 3/5
Spiritualized
3/5
This is an interesting album. Usually I like heavily produced psychedelia, but this one feels a bit overbearing at times. I like it, but intermittently. It starts to hit it's stride 4-5 songs in. I think if the first two songs were stronger then this might be an album I really like. Also this album feels like it's crecendoing to the end a couple of times, and then it just picks back up and keeps going.
3/5
The Clash
5/5
I just listened to this album last week, so it's pretty fresh for me, but I'm always happy to listen to it again. It's hot shit from the first notes of London Calling. So many classic songs. In between the classics are a pile of fun songs that span a massive array of different genre influences. It always amazes me the extent to which every song on this album is at least good, and then you have true brilliance like Lost in the Supermarket or Guns of Brixton or Train in Vain. What must it have been like to be part of the punk scene in the late 1970s and have revolutionary albums raining down every few weeks?
5/5
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
5/5
There are only so many albums that I get three tracks into and think \"Wow, I need this album in my life.\" It's so peaceful and beautiful. The fact that I went through the whole album and never missed instruments is a tribute to the incredible brilliance of the arrangements. The whole album has the same feeling, but it never feels boring or like it's dragging.
5/5
AC/DC
4/5
Finally, the unification of Satan and sophomoric innuendo that the people were clamoring for! A solid album all the way through, despite the fact that I find the lyrics to "Give the Dog a Bone" personally distasteful. I can also picture Richard Ramirez really feeling the lyrics to "Let Me Put My Love Into You." Apart from those issues, the album is insanely high energy with some really high points. So many rock n' roll classics in one album
4/5
The Jam
3/5
This album has a fun sound to it, with some nice harmonies. Ultimately it leaves me feeling a bit flat. Like I feel like I should be more into it, but I'm not. It's not bad, it's just okay
3/5
The Police
3/5
Well the album is okay up until Mother, which is an absolute chore of a song. The album picks up again with Synchronicity II and Every Breath You Take. Wrapped around your finger is another great some. Why did they bury all of the best songs on this album in the latter half? I really think that I might actually like this album if the songs were rearranged a bit and Mother was dropped entirely.
3/5
Brian Eno
4/5
What an interesting album. So filled with noise, but purposeful at the same time. There's a clear influence of the later Beatles, but without sounding like he's trying to be the Beatles.
4/5
Miles Davis
4/5
It's neat to come back to this album after listening to more of Miles's middle and later career stuff. It has a more traditional sound (not that folks would have said that at the time), but you can hear how much flavor Miles brings.
4/5
Nine Inch Nails
5/5
Well shit. This is the album that I've listened to more than any other over the last year. That means that I know it really well, but it's tough to rate because I'm kind of at the end of my love affair with this album (also the world is less depressing so it doesn't fit my mood as well).
After relistening to it, fuck it. This is an outstanding album from beginning to end. Easily my favorite NIN album.
5/5
The Temptations
4/5
The funky version of the Temptation works for me. There were times when I thought the mix could have been a bit better. Sometimes the falsetto stands out a bit too much from the rest of the arrangement. The songs, though, are top notch
4/5
Talking Heads
4/5
Alanis Morissette
4/5
I've listened to a bunch of songs off of this album over the last year, but I haven't listened to the whole thing in nearly 25 years. The first half of this album is full of great songs. Her voice is powerful, and despite the fact that it hits some sour notes from time to time, it kind of fits with the passion of the album
4/5
Crowded House
3/5
I felt like this album got better as it went along. It's not something that I will probably seek out in the future, but I would be super excited if this was playing in a grocery store while I was shopping
3/5
R.E.M.
5/5
Eminem
4/5
Not everything from the early 2000s has aged well, and I would argue that this album falls into that category. Eminem's persona sounds a bit Trumpian 20 years on. So, I choose to evaluate the album based on the time in which it was made. In that view, the album is very solid, packed with hit songs
4/5
Traffic
3/5
I can see why people like this album, but it feels really dated to me.
3/5
Isaac Hayes
4/5
It's a little strange to see a soundtrack on this list, but fuck it starts out strong. After that it just kind of chills out and fades into the background the way a soundtrack is supposed to. It's really good though.
4/5
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
There's a lot in this album. So many soft, sweet, sad songs interspersed with upbeat toe-tappers. Some of the best S&G songs are on this album, along with a few songs that easily could have been singles
4/5
Incubus
4/5
I was kinda surprised that this album was on the list, since Incubus doesn't get talked about much anymore and the late 90s/early 00s genre of rock that they belonged to isn't well regarded 20 years on. However, this is a really solid album. Incubus has a really interesting sound, and the lead singer's voice is incredible
4/5
Cocteau Twins
4/5
This is an album I find very tough to rate. It sounds very of its time, but has some very modern elements as well. It faded into the background a bit for me (the album was over surprisingly quickly), but I was always into it when I became aware of it. Ultimately, I think I like this album, though it is not something I'm likely to come back to very often
4/5
Haircut 100
4/5
This album, like the last one, is very tough to rate. I enjoyed parts of it, but sometimes it didn't hold my interest that well. I could envision a situation in which I would come back to this album and really like it. There are a lot of cool elements to it. They clearly have some of the same influences as The Clash (or else were heavily influenced by The Clash themselves)
4/5 Second listen better than the first
Elton John
4/5
I wasn't sure if I was going to be into this album, since I'm often hot and cold with Elton John, but this album starts off strong with Tiny Dancer and keeps going from there.
4/5
Belle & Sebastian
4/5
What a cool little album. I'd heard of Belle and Sebastian for a long time (I think starting with High Fidelity), but I don't know that I'd ever actually listened to them. It was certainly different, but very fun to listened to. Solid alternative pop music
4/5
Nick Drake
4/5
Beautiful and sad
4/5
Steely Dan
4/5
I knew more songs on this album than I thought I was going to, and they are all songs that I like. The album is really consistent throughout
4/5
Beastie Boys
4/5
This was an album that I haven't listened to in more than 20 years, so it's a strange experience coming back to it after all these years. It's interesting to see the different samples they were using on this album. Lots of jazz and funk influence. There's a lot more instrumentals in this than I remember. It's also pretty fun when they break out the hardcore punk for a song or two. It's a little strange listening to a rap album where my least favorite thing about it is the lyrics and still liking it, but the instrumentalism and diversity of sounds in this album really saves it
4/5
Grateful Dead
3/5
It's got its moments, but there there are lots of other moments when I wonder when this album is going to finally end
3/5
R.E.M.
4/5
Booker T. & The MG's
3/5
I really thought I was going to like this album more than I did. The first song is incredible, but the rest of the album doesn't have much to offer. Most of the covers are a bit uninspired, and the songs tend to all sound the same
3/5
Tim Buckley
2/5
It's always a bad sign when I'm already waiting for an album to end shortly after it begins. I'm not sure why I clashed with this one so hard, but I'm just not into it at all. It's simultaneously boring and exhausting
2/5
The Rolling Stones
3/5
This was a really tough one for me to rate. This album has some songs that I really like on it, but it also has some that I found pretty boring. The attitude towards women in the album is definitely not great, but I've tried to set that aside when rating other albums. I also feel like this album would sound a lot better if it was recorded today. As it is, it doesn't sound great, but there are later Stones albums that have a lot of similar sounds in them that pop a lot more on the recording. This whole recording sounds flat and muffled, and I don't know how to account for that in my grade.
3/5
Stevie Wonder
5/5
This is an even better album than I remember it being. Even without the hits, it's solid all the way through. Stevie captures so many emotions so well
5/5
The Shamen
2/5
I find it very difficult to put this album into context. It certainly sounds like an early 90s techno album, but it's hard for me to know if it is groundbreaking in some way that makes all the similar sounding music that I've heard derivative rather than merely similar. Some of the lyrics are very cheezy, but again, I don't know how they would have been perceived at the time. Some of the songs are good (Make it Mine), but I've also never delayed finishing an album for this long before. At certain points, this album becomes the embodiment of toxic hippie positivity.
2/5
Neil Young
3/5
I understand why people like Neil Young, but I don't particularly enjoy him, and listening to a full album of his music is a bit of a chore for me. There are certainly some things to like about this album, but, but, but
3/5
The Stranglers
4/5
I understand why people like Neil Young, but I don't particularly enjoy him, and listening to a full album of his music is a bit of a chore for me. There are certainly some things to like about this album, but, but, but
3/5
Eagles
2/5
I don't think I've ever been more disappointed when seeing a new album pop up. How can a 43 minute album feel this long?
2/5
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions
3/5
It starts out pretty strong, but every song kinda sounds the same
3/5
Scott Walker
3/5
I don't think I've ever listened to a full album produced by Phil Spector before, which provides an interesting experience. The instrumentals do really fill up the record, which helps a lot in an album like this that I might not ordinarily like. It's another one of those times that I wish the rating was out of 10 rather than out of 5. This album is somewhere between a 3 and a 4 for me. The music is really cool, the words are mostly very uninteresting to me. I like his voice, though.
3/5
Paul Revere & The Raiders
3/5
It starts off really strong, but it falls off pretty hard the last few songs, especially the last two.
3/5
The Soft Boys
4/5
Another really neat album that just kind of came out of nowhere for me. Almost all of the songs are really catchy, and all of them are good
4/5
Jurassic 5
4/5
This album reminds me of Ill Communication by Beastie Boys more than I thought it would. The emphasis on samples that feel like real music and the interplay between the different members of the groups are weirdly similar. When I think about the rap style of Jurassic 5, I always imagine it as sort of hokey, but it's better than I remember. In retrospect, they were a lot more interesting than a lot of the other stuff that was happening in rap in this era
4/5
Mott The Hoople
2/5
How are there two fucking Mott the Hoople albums on this list? What is it about this album that I'm supposed to be enriched by? There are some nice instrumentals on this album, I'll give it that, but every song sounds the same.
2/5
Les Rythmes Digitales
4/5
Like other electronic albums, I have a difficulty putting this one into context. However, every track is good pop music, if perhaps a little generic (though they may not have been for the time). It seems like sort of a weird choice for this list because I don't see it as being a groundbreaking album, but it's also hard to argue with because it's well-produced
4/5
Guns N' Roses
4/5
Really solid all the way through. Several huge hits that don't feel dated. This album must have seemed revolutionary when it first appeared
4/5
Scott Walker
3/5
Another Scott Walker album, huh?
Well, at least it's short. It's not bad, but it does feel a bit unnecessary for this list
3/5
Suzanne Vega
3/5
This is pleasant enough, but it isn't really my thing. It was clearly influential on a bunch of 90s music, so I think it's reasonable to say that this album was ahead of its time. It just doesn't do it for me.
3/5
Suede
3/5
This is pleasant enough, but it isn't really my thing. It was clearly influential on a bunch of 90s music, so I think it's reasonable to say that this album was ahead of its time. It just doesn't do it for me.
3/5
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
I was just watching some videos about this era in alternate rock history yesterday, so this feels very appropriate. There's just something about the energy of this album that I really like. The vocals don't blow me away, but I love the guitars and drums.
4/5
The Replacements
4/5
Another cool post-punk pre-alternative album. I thought this one was interesting. There are times when it sounds like Bruce Springsteen, albeit with much different subject matter. It's easy to see the seeds of a lot of the music I grew up with in the 90s in this album. It goes by really fast, but every song is solid
4/5
4/5
Another cool post-punk pre-alternative album. I thought this one was interesting. There are times when it sounds like Bruce Springsteen, albeit with much different subject matter. It's easy to see the seeds of a lot of the music I grew up with in the 90s in this album. It goes by really fast, but every song is solid
4/5
The Smiths
4/5
I honestly liked this album a lot more than I thought I was going to. There's lots neat little instrumental choices that fit the songs very well. Morrisey is not my favorite person on the Earth, but his voice sounds really good here and the lyrics are good
Mercury Rev
4/5
Another cool post-punk pre-alternative album. I thought this one was interesting. There are times when it sounds like Bruce Springsteen, albeit with much different subject matter. It's easy to see the seeds of a lot of the music I grew up with in the 90s in this album. It goes by really fast, but every song is solid
4/5
Janelle Monáe
3/5
Another cool post-punk pre-alternative album. I thought this one was interesting. There are times when it sounds like Bruce Springsteen, albeit with much different subject matter. It's easy to see the seeds of a lot of the music I grew up with in the 90s in this album. It goes by really fast, but every song is solid
4/5
Bruce Springsteen
3/5
Compared to the last Bruce Springsteen album I listened to, this one was much less notable. I like the title track, but other than that the songs just sort of faded into the background. Also, boy that last song drags on for a while
3/5
The Byrds
4/5
Randy Newman
1/5
Are you fucking kidding me with this shit? Randy Newman? It's fine, but why is it on this list? What is special or innovative or interesting about this album?
Every single one of his songs sounds the same, and there are soooo many songs on this album. I just don't understand what it is about this album that I'm supposed to give a shit about.
1/5. Fuck you, Randy Newman
Lauryn Hill
4/5
Still on my first listen through, but this album is an interesting counterpiece to the world of Bone Thugs. I've always wanted to hear hip-hop with more harmonies. This has that, and an interesting through line with the teacher talking to the students about love. I wish the songs were a little stronger some times (more produced in some cases), but overall it is a really good album
4/5
The Sonics
4/5
There are definite flaws with this album. The sound quality is terrible and there are far too many standard covers on the album. However, it's easy to hear how this album influenced the punk bands that came after it. It just has that energy that comes with listening to punk music. The original songs are far better than the covers. It's clear just from listening to this that this band would have been amazing live. I wish a good recording of them existed
4/5
Björk
4/5
What a powerhouse of a debut album! Every song is good, and there's such a wide range of sounds and styles. Some songs have a disco feel to them, like Big Time Sensuality.
4/5
The Pharcyde
4/5
Another really cool album. It's certainly a departure from what was popular in hip-hop at the time. Some aspects of the album sound dated, but overall the production is really good. Lots of fun songs
4/5
Sister Sledge
3/5
This is another album that I think is generally good, but I don't understand why it's on this list. It's a disco album, so far as I can tell it's not a groundbreaking disco album. It has some big hits on it, but I'm left wondering why I should listen to this album in particular out of the disco genre. Not a fault of this album, more of an issue with the list itself
3/5
Beatles
4/5
I guess I can understand why this album is on the list because it was the first Beatles record released in North America, but it's like half cover songs, and a lot of the originals aren't particularly groundbreaking relative to what they would be doing in a couple years after this. I will say that the recording quality is excellent. Very clear instrumentals and vocals. You can also hear them starting to make good use of stereo.
4/5
Sisters Of Mercy
4/5
I can't say that I've ever really listened to a goth album before, so I don't have a lot of genre context for this. I'll say having listened to most of the album that while this is not particularly my kind of music, it is well done. I like the vocal production and how male and female voices get blended together over squealing metal guitars.
4/5
Ice Cube
4/5
Interesting to think that this album could have been produced by Dre. I think this album benefits a lot from the East Coast style production combined with Ice Cube's West Coast rap style. Every song is good, with Cube alternating between Cube attacking the beat and smoothly following behind it. The pervasive funk samples on this album really make it a breeze to listen to
4/5
Van Halen
4/5
This is just a solid fucking rock album. So much energy, lots of raw power in the songs.
4/5
LCD Soundsystem
3/5
Coldplay
3/5
This album feels mediocre, and it's hard to understand why it made this list other than a severe recency bias. This album also definitely suffers from having been released the same year as Kid A, which makes Coldplay seem like a version of Radiohead that's safe for Boomers to listen to. It's not bad, it's just not an album that I could imagine telling someone that it's important for them to listen to
3/5
The Charlatans
2/5
This sounds like a cheerier version of Oasis. This just feels like another random British band that made it because they were relatively popular when the original list was made. I've still only gotten 1 jazz album on this list, but there seems to be an endless supply of late 90s to early 00s British rock bands that I have to slog through to get to good albums.
2/5
Tricky
4/5
Finally, an album from the golden age of trip-hop. This album pales in comparison to Mezzanine by Massive Attack, but in isolation it has a lot to recommend it. The music is relaxed, but complex. The vocals blend in well, standing in front without obscuring the music.
4/5
Bebel Gilberto
4/5
Miles Davis
5/5
Finally, another jazz album, and one that I dearly love. Miles Davis never ceases to amaze me with the diversity of approaches to jazz that he was able to master
5/5
Milton Nascimento
3/5
This album was good, but it didn't really stand out in any way to me. I think it would have benefited from being shorter
3/5
Michael Jackson
5/5
Fuck dude, how do you rank an album like this? It's so hard to isolate this album from everything that came out afterwards about Michael Jackson. There's no question that Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson were an absolute force when recording together. The first song is incredible; the album starts out at a sprint. The second song is a classic as well. From there it has a very consistent feel without being repetitive. A classic party album. It feels weird giving a known pedophile 5 stars, but here we are
5/5
Astrud Gilberto
3/5
There's been a weird influx of latinx music in the past week after not getting any previous to that. Overall it was pretty cool, though I really hated the parade song (perhaps because I don't really enjoy actual parades either). Some of the other songs were a bit cloying as well. This works really good as a kids album, but I don't think that's how it was intended. It's fine, but I don't ever see myself coming back to it
3/5
Soundgarden
5/5
There's been a weird influx of latinx music in the past week after not getting any previous to that. Overall it was pretty cool, though I really hated the parade song (perhaps because I don't really enjoy actual parades either). Some of the other songs were a bit cloying as well. This works really good as a kids album, but I don't think that's how it was intended. It's fine, but I don't ever see myself coming back to it
3/5
Gary Numan
4/5
4/5
Radiohead
4/5
4/5
Muddy Waters
4/5
I'm not usually a blues guy, but this album brings such incredible energy. It's undeniable. The production is also great, every instrument feels like it's at just the right level. You can hear each part without any of them standing out too much
4/5
Curtis Mayfield
5/5
I love getting funk albums on this list. Much like the soundtrack to Shaft, this album is just wall to wall funky jams. Not a single dull moment on the album
5/5
Buffalo Springfield
3/5
This album definitely has some cool elements in terms of the instrument effects and some of the production work, but overall it leaves me feeling a bit flat. Not bad, but not really enjoyable either. I feel like this is my experience with every Neil Young album. Also, is Neil Young still alive? I could easily look it up, but I really don't care that much
3/5
Cream
3/5
This album has some really great moments, but they tend to be interspersed with a lot of mundane psychedelic music. It could be that this album sounded a lot different when it first came out, but a lot of it sounds a bit dull. The vocals tend to be the least interesting part on a lot of these songs, and I think the album could have been improved with some instrumental tracks, or at least longer instrumental sections.
3/5
The Doors
4/5
Okay, I went into this album expecting to dislike it because of my general disdain for Jim Morrison. Honestly, I thought it was a pretty fun album. Morrison's attempts at poetry bog it down at times, but the music is great throughout.
4/5
Anita Baker
3/5
Okay, I went into this album expecting to dislike it because of my general disdain for Jim Morrison. Honestly, I thought it was a pretty fun album. Morrison's attempts at poetry bog it down at times, but the music is great throughout.
4/5
The Cars
5/5
One of my favorite albums of all time, perhaps my favorite pop album of all time. Just an absolute titan from beginning to end
5/5
David Gray
2/5
It feels like this album list has a particular fetish for mediocre British pop music. This album is fine, but there's not anything particularly interesting or noteworthy about it that I can see. It's like having a Jack Johnson album on here. It's fine, but there are so many great albums that are not represented on this list, I can't understand why this one is. This album also gets more mediocre as it goes. I though it might have some interesting elements at first, but there's really nothing here
2/5
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Joni Mitchell isn't really my thing. The album absolutely has its moments, but ultimately it didn't hold my interest well
3/5
Randy Newman
2/5
How? How is there more than one Randy Newman album on this list? I haven't gotten a single John Coltrane album, not a single Charles Mingus album, but I have now gotten two Randy Newman albums.
Fuck Randy Newman. His voice sounds like an inflatable bear with a slow leak. It sounds like Satan talking after inhaling helium. It is the auditory version of sitting down too long until your sciatic nerve falls asleep.
The worst part of any Randy Newman song is all of the fucking Randy Newman.
2/5. The only reason this is not a 1 is because I kinda like You Can Leave Your Hat On. Fuck Randy Newman
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
Back when I was in college, there was this dude who would come into the bar I worked at on a Friday night and play fucking 10 Neil Young songs in a row. He would also hit on girls by doing magic tricks. I remember how angry I got every time he made me listen to an hour of Neil Young because I was just trying to have a good time, and he fucking made me listen to this sad, soppy fuck who writes nothing but songs that sound indistinguishable from each other and never seemed to enjoy a happy moment in his entire like. Fuck that guy, and fuck Neil Young.
2/5
Everything But The Girl
3/5
Back when I was in college, there was this dude who would come into the bar I worked at on a Friday night and play fucking 10 Neil Young songs in a row. He would also hit on girls by doing magic tricks. I remember how angry I got every time he made me listen to an hour of Neil Young because I was just trying to have a good time, and he fucking made me listen to this sad, soppy fuck who writes nothing but songs that sound indistinguishable from each other and never seemed to enjoy a happy moment in his entire like. Fuck that guy, and fuck Neil Young.
2/5
Bob Dylan
4/5
I guess now is the time to confess that I don't really get Bob Dylan. I like several of his songs, I've seen him live, I've listened to multiple albums multiple times; it's not as if I hate Bob Dylan. I just don't really get him. Like, why do people revere him so much? He's good, but I've never understood why he's great.
That being said, this was probably the most I've ever liked a Bob Dylan album. It's got a nice feel to it, and it's consistent without being too samey. Starts out very strong with Tangled Up in Blue, and finishes strong as well. His poetry is great throughout and is highly accessible as well.
Maybe I just hate harmonicas?
4/5
Tom Waits
3/5
I guess now is the time to confess that I don't really get Bob Dylan. I like several of his songs, I've seen him live, I've listened to multiple albums multiple times; it's not as if I hate Bob Dylan. I just don't really get him. Like, why do people revere him so much? He's good, but I've never understood why he's great.
That being said, this was probably the most I've ever liked a Bob Dylan album. It's got a nice feel to it, and it's consistent without being too samey. Starts out very strong with Tangled Up in Blue, and finishes strong as well. His poetry is great throughout and is highly accessible as well.
Maybe I just hate harmonicas?
4/5
The Jesus And Mary Chain
3/5
I've liked some of the other music that I've heard from Jesus and Mary Chain, but this left me a little flat. I'm not sure what it was, but it didn't really grab me this time
3/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
I've liked some of the other music that I've heard from Jesus and Mary Chain, but this left me a little flat. I'm not sure what it was, but it didn't really grab me this time
3/5
Sepultura
4/5
Well, I've never really been a fan of the atonal screaming metal vocals. I just don't feel like they add anything to the music. Apart from that, this is a pretty cool album. It has a lot of the elements of nu metal instrumentals without feeling completely shitty and soulless like so much of that music does. The traditional Brazilian influence does a lot for this album in terms of adding substance. It slowly seems to stop being a metal album and becomes a Brazilian folk music album
4/5
Paul Simon
4/5
Paul Simon is not generally someone I listen to on my own, but I always enjoy his albums. He does every mood well, which provides a real richness to all of his albums
4/5
Alice In Chains
3/5
I really thought I was going to have more of a nostalgic feeling for this album than I did. There are some songs I really like. A lot of the other songs sort of run together. I will say that this album finishes very strong, with two classic Alice in Chains songs, though I think the album would flow better if they were located sooner rather than at the very end
3/5
Bob Dylan
3/5
I feel similar to this album that I feel with a lot of Dylan albums. It's fine, good even, but I feel like it drags on a bit. I like it and I recognize that it is well done, but when I listen to it, I'm never really all that into it.
3/5
The The
3/5
I was really excited to listen to this album after reading the description, since I'm generally a fan of both postpunk and synthpop. This album never really grabbed me, though. It was fine throughout, and very consistent, but most of the album passed by without me taking much notice. It felt somewhat generic, though I'm sure that would not have been true at the time of its release. Guess you had to be there
3/5
Shack
2/5
Another British pop album so important that the only sentence under the Legacy tab in Wikipedia is the one noting that it is on the 1001 albums list. I understand that sometimes you need a bit of distance between an album and the review to gain perspective on it, but that's exactly why it shouldn't be on this list.
It's a late 90s pop album that sounds like a late 90s pop album. It's fine, but indistinguishable from a hundred other albums that came out in the same era. It's not special or groundbreaking or technically outstanding in any way. Why not throw a couple of Days of the New or Stabbing Westward albums on here while we're wasting everyone's time?
2/5
Fats Domino
4/5
Finally, an album whose significance I can immediately understand. Some of the finest work of early rock n' roll. It would be nice if the recordings were a little better, but there's not much that can be done with that. Very upbeat album, even when he's singing the blues
4/5
Moby Grape
3/5
I can't say that I find this album particularly interesting or engrossing. It's good, but has a sound that is very much of its time and doesn't really work for me. I will say that the production on the album is excellent and makes this album work better for me than it ordinarily would.
3/5
Queen
4/5
Queen has such a diverse sound, and they don't really sound like anyone else either. A lot of the songs on this album presage what would come on their next album, A Night at the Opera.
4/5
Oasis
3/5
I liked this album okay, but in the context of this list, it suffers from the same problem that a lot of recent albums do. The list is absolutely saturated with Brit pop, and after a while it's hard (for me at least) to discern the merits of individual albums. In isolation, I think this album is pretty good. The production is excellent and a lot of the songs were likable. I can see why this would have proved to be a nice counterpoint to grunge/alternative in the mid-90s. However, this list gives me a new 90s/00s Brit pop album to listen to every week, and they're all starting to blend together
3/5
Justice
4/5
Crazy that I just listened to this album for the first time like a week ago and now I got it again. I'm not sure that it's particularly groundbreaking, though after reading up on it, it seems like this album is composed of a massive amount of samples in a way that is not particularly noticeable. Really fun and solid the whole way through
4/5
Gillian Welch
3/5
I feel like I should have liked this album more than I did. Country music has never really done it for me, and that is evident in my reaction to this album. I love her voice, I think the musicianship is good throughout, and I really like the production of the album. Still, it leaves me a bit cold. A good album, but not my thing
3/5
The Velvet Underground
4/5
It's always strange to me that I enjoy the Velvet Underground so much but have not spent much time diving into their different albums. This one is a bit tough for me to rate. I love the title track and Here She Comes Now. The Gift and Lady Godiva's Operation drag on a bit for me. It's strange how sometimes the lofi quality of the recording really seems to work for the band, while other times it really seems to hurt the quality of the music. Regardless, when Lou Reed brings the energy, he can make a track all by himself.
Sister Ray makes this album, which makes sense as it is nearly half of the running time by itself. Ultimately a difficult album to rate because of its inconsistencies, but the innovative aspects of this album outweigh the negatives
4/5
LCD Soundsystem
4/5
I liked this album more than the previous LCD Soundsystem album that I got through this list. This one felt like the Talking Heads at times, both in terms of the vocal performances and especially the polyrhythms
4/5
Ash
4/5
I've been complaining a lot in my reviews about all of the 90s-00s britpop albums, but I've got to say, I like this. It definitely sounds of its time, but the production is excellent, and the sound is poppy without sounding cheesey. I can see why they got comparisons to the Buzzcocks. The first track on the album is an absolute scorcher, and they keep going from there. I absolutely love the chunky distortion of the guitars
4/5
4/5
I'm not generally a huge fan of prog rock, but this is a fun album. It's a much happier and bouncier vibe than I'm used to from prog rock, which I generally associate with dour music. The last song really helped make the album for me
4/5
Jane's Addiction
4/5
Jane's Addiction is an interesting band, if a little uninspiring. I enjoyed listening to this album, though I would not probably have put it on this list. It does have a very distinctive sound. I would have pegged this album coming out in the mid 90s rather than in 1990 based on the style, so it's certainly a bit ahead of its time
4/5
Cyndi Lauper
4/5
I like Cyndi Lauper, but I've never listened to this album before. I can see why she was so popular after the release of this album. It's absolutely full of great songs. It shows a tremendous diversity of styles as well.
4/5
Nina Simone
4/5
This is my first time ever listening to Nina Simone. Her voice was certainly not what I was expecting, though it is compelling. This is not particularly my thing (I'm not enamored with jazz vocalists overall), but I think it's good. There's something ineffable about her voice and the lyrics she conveys. I also felt like the album got stronger as it went
4/5
David Bowie
5/5
Fuck, I listen to this album all the time. Every single song is great, with some absolute classics among the first few songs on the album. Grabs you from the first song and takes you on an incredibly journey. The only bad thing about it is that the album is over before you know it
5/5
John Lee Hooker
4/5
I'm not generally much for blues albums, but this one was really interesting. It incorporated a lot of elements of other musical styles into it. It's also nice to hear a blues album with good production, since so many albums from earlier eras suffer from a lack of production value
4/5
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
3/5
This album is has a cool sound, and the openness through which it deals with gay male sexuality in the brutality of the 1980s is interesting from a historical standpoint. However, there is no reason for this album to be a double album and contain this many covers. They did some fun things with the covers, but it feels like a waste to make this album so long and include so little original material (especially since Relax was already a huge single prior to the release of this album)
3/5
Sigur Rós
5/5
Love this album to death.
5/5
David Crosby
3/5
I think this album is fine, but it really dragged on for me. Every song kinda sounded the same, and after every song I would check to see how many more there were. Definitely good music for playing in the background, but it didn't grab me in any meaningful way
3/5
Alice Cooper
3/5
This album was not really my thing, but it breezed by pretty quickly. I can see why people would have thought that this was a big deal in 1972
3/5
Megadeth
4/5
Like every Megadeth (is that really how they spell it?) album I've checked out, it has awesome artwork and incredibly intricate music. I'm not in love with Mustaine's voice or lyrics, but that's a minor complaint. Overall a really fun metal album
4/5
The Beach Boys
4/5
I've always liked this album, but never loved it. It's unquestionably the height of Brian Wilson's song writing before his mental health issues overcame him. It was inspired by Rubber Soul, which is a much funner album to listen to, and it doesn't reach the heights that the Beatles would reach with their subsequent albums. In isolation, all of the songs are good and the harmonies are excellent. It just is not an album that inspires me when I listen to it. Great, but not that interesting
4/5
Ramones
5/5
I fucking love this album. It took me a while to get into the Ramones, but every song on this album is fun. It must have been so awesome to live in New York in the late 70s, apart from the insane levels of senseless violence
5/5
Adam & The Ants
4/5
I thought this was a cool album. It was interesting getting two post-punk albums in a row. I really like the production on this album, it always feels like there's a lot going on
Public Image Ltd.
4/5
I've really found that I enjoy post-punk, and that remains true with this album. I think that PiL's work has aged better than that of the Sex Pistols, and there is certainly a lot more of it to appreciate. I like this album much better than Metal Box, which I got on this list a few months ago.
4/5
Paul Weller
3/5
This album was okay, but ultimately didn't hold my interest. Weirdly, if I hadn't known when it was recorded, I would have assumed it was from the 70s.
3/5
Fiona Apple
4/5
I felt like this album went by really fast, but mostly in the background. I like it overall, and I can see myself listening to it again in the future
4/5
Pantera
4/5
I never really got into Pantera when I was younger, or most metal for that matter. However, there is just something about this album that I think I would have really liked if I had given it more of a chance when I was younger. Just the tone on the guitar is great; it resonates somewhere deep inside your skull. I'm not in love with the lyrical portion of it, but that's generally true of this type of metal for me.
4/5, but I might be talked into 5/5 on repeated listenings
Public Enemy
4/5
I think if I was judging this album according to its lyrical content alone, I might have a less favorable impression than I do. Rap lyricism has changed so much since this album was released that it can't help but sound dated. It's good, but it sounds very much of its time. The music, however, still feels revolutionary. It's dated in certain ways because of the technology, but they made so many cool, bold choices in making this album. A true classic
4/5
FKA twigs
4/5
One of the things I find commonly about most of the more recent albums on this list is that they are often here more because they were/are popular than because they are meaningful artistic expressions. Not so with this album. FKA twigs feels like she's really using the technological capabilities of the moment to produce a truly innovative album. Beautiful and haunting, sexy, deliberate, deep. This album has so much going for it, and I think that it will stand the test of time
4/5
Led Zeppelin
4/5
I'd never listened to this Zep album before, though I knew several of the songs on it. I feel like the album really gets going around Houses of the Holy and Trampled Under Foot. Kashmir following those two makes side B of the record really strong.
I'm not in love with double albums, since I usually end up feeling like there's some fluff to fill out that much record time. This record felt really solid all the way through, though. One of the few double albums that I can think of that includes this much quality material
4/5
Ali Farka Touré
5/5
This album was a really cool change of pace. It's sound is both familiar and novel at the same time. I wouldn't have envisioned the mixture of American blues and African music to be so seamless, but this feels like it was meant to be. The intricacy of the guitar adds a lot to this album
5/5
OutKast
5/5
This album starts out on an absolute tear, with Snappin & Trappin being the first song that I don't think of as an absolute classic. Honestly, though, every song on this album is good. For the most part, you could drop this album today and it would be just as impactful as it was when it was release. It's aged much better than most early 00s hip-hop
5/5
Fugees
5/5
Hip-hop is a lot easier to listen to now that each rap album doesn't come with 15 minutes of bizarre skits interspersed throughout the songs. The Chinese restaurant skit brings this album to a full stop.
Setting that aside, this is a great album. Filled with classics. The music is diverse and interesting throughout, and each member of the group brings a lot of lyrical strength to the album, though Lauren Hill is the clear leader of the group.
This album is dense. Killing Me Softly doesn't come until halfway through the album, as if it was an afterthought among all the other great songs on the album. It's good straight through to the last song
5/5
Roxy Music
4/5
This album is really astonishing for the time when it was made. It sounds like a post-punk album but was made before anything but the earliest punk albums had been released. The music can be a bit much at times, but overall it's a really fun listen and sounds way ahead of its time
4/5
Madness
4/5
I haven't listened to a lot of early British ska, so this was a pleasant surprise. The music fades into the background a bit while I'm listening to it, but it's consistently good.
4/5
Carpenters
3/5
This album started out okay. We've Only Just Begun is a more interesting song than I remember it being. I was surprised by how many of these songs I knew, though I didn't care enough to look up how many of the songs are covers. After a while, though, it just starts to feel very samey and very very saccharine. The cover of The Beatles's Help is insipid.
It's not bad, and I understand why people like this album so much, but I found it cloying. A little bit of human misery would have gone a long way toward improving this album
3/5
4/5
I was honestly really surprised by this album. I'd never heard of it, which was surprising because I'm pretty familiar with 80s stuff. This is really cool. It's dramatic, like the soundtrack to an 80s movie. The music is all really fun, with great hooks.
4/5
Black Flag
4/5
I think this album, and having listened to some Dead Kennedys earlier in the year, has given me more appreciation for hardcore punk. I've always found it a hard genre to listen to because there's often not much to latch onto except for the speed and anger. Obviously the speed and anger are the point, but that doesn't always make for an enjoyable listening experience.
The bitter sarcasm that drives this album is very interesting. The songs are a clear rejection of the world around the band, but the band is often focusing their songs around an (albeit very ungenerous) interpretation of the cultural perspectives they reject. The version of themselves that they present is one of emotional turmoil.
I like the energy of this album. I'm not sure how often I'm going to come back to it, but I can see why it was so influential to young punks in the 80s
4/5
Deep Purple
3/5
I thought this album was cool for roughly one minute. I can see why this would have blown people's minds in 1970, but it sounds a little self indulgent today, like when Dennis from It's Always Sunny pretends to be a rock star. Seriously, Flight of the Rat is at least a minute longer than it needs to be so that the drummer can fit in a song-ending solo. That's fine for a live show, but completely unnecessary for an album. I'm only halfway through this album, and I'm mad about the fact that I'm going to listen to the whole thing
3/5
The Undertones
4/5
This is kind of a weird album. The music is great and well-produced. Their voices are a bit grating, and their lyrics leave a lot to be desired. Overall it's a pretty interesting listen, but it kind of feels like the music is being wasted a bit by not having better vocal accompaniment
4/5, though very far on the low end of 4
M.I.A.
4/5
I'm usually not that excited when newer pop albums show up on this list because they often don't sound as interesting after even a few years have passed. This album still very much sounds like it's own thing, though. The music doesn't sound dated at all, it's such an interesting combination of different styles that wouldn't seem to fit together except for the existence of this album. There are times when the samples and sounds used in the album can be a bit grating, but the overall effect of what MIA put together here is really cool
4/5
T. Rex
3/5
I find this album a bit tough to rate. I liked it okay, but no part of it really stood out to me. I could certainly see how it would be significant for the time, but it doesn't sound particularly fresh or distinctive listening to it now. I want to give it a 4, but ultimately I feel like this album is sorta average for this list
3/5
Leonard Cohen
4/5
This is the second Leonard Cohen album I've gotten on this list. I will say I have have trouble distinguishing one Cohen album from another, since they tend to have a similar sound. However, I always enjoy the experience. He's both a gifted singer and a gifted songwriter
4/5
Pixies
4/5
I've heard most of the songs off of here, but I don't know that I've ever listened to this album before. So much of what would happen in rock in the 90s is presaged here, and yet this album doesn't sound dated. The sound quality could be a little better, as it sounds a bit lofi at times, but overall it's a really groundbreaking album with no obvious flaws
4/5
Pulp
2/5
I don't want to put more thought into this review than the band put into making this album, so I will just note that I do not think that it is very good. I look forward to next week when I will forget about its existence
2/5
Aretha Franklin
4/5
It never ceases to amaze me how one voice can be so powerful and yet so subtle. This album goes by really quick, but each song shows off Aretha's incredible voice and range
4/5
Belle & Sebastian
3/5
This is the second Belle and Sebastian album that I've gotten on this list, and I enjoyed Tiger Milk a lot better. There wasn't anything wrong with this album, but it also felt really short and wasn't as interesting as their other work
3/5
Digital Underground
4/5
What's interesting about this album is that so many of the samples sound familiar, but I can't tell if they originate here or are sampled from something famous. Certainly there is a huge P-Funk influence on this album, which fits into the context of what was happening elsewhere in West Coast hip-hop. A lot of the rap from this era doesn't age well because of the mysogeny, homophobia, and cartoonishly violent content, but this album still sounds good
4/5
Keith Jarrett
3/5
This album was fine, but it's not particularly my style of jazz
Charles Mingus
5/5
Holy shit, two jazz albums in a row! While I liked the Keith Jarrett album I got yesterday, I fucking love Mingus. His songs just pack so much furious energy into every measure. Captivating from beginning to end
5/5
Frank Sinatra
4/5
I can't say that I ever expected to hear a Frank Sinatra album like this, but it works really well.
4/5
Queen
5/5
What can you say about an album that makes you wait until the very end to hear Bohemian Rhapsody and yet you don't feel like skipping any of the tracks to get to that masterpiece? This album is great from the very first song. It features a tremendous diversity of songs and a wide range of emotions and tones, but each one flows effortlessly from the one before it. A true classic
5/5
Roni Size
3/5
In general, I find listening to double albums a chore, and this album is a good representation of that. I was ready to be done at the end of the first album, and then here is a full other album for me to listen to.
I thought I was going to like this more. I'm a fan of DnB in general, and I remember listening to some of these songs when I was younger, but it didn't really do anything for me this time around. Part of the problem may be that I prefer more modern DnB, and this is pretty true to the roots of the genre
3/5
PJ Harvey
4/5
I'd never listened to PJ Harvey before, and I thought this was pretty cool. I think that the mix of the album could have been better in places, since it was sometimes hard to separate out the different instruments/sounds. Overall, though, I liked it. It has that heavy early 90s sound without sounding derivative of the other stuff that was happening at the time
4/5
Yes
4/5
Yes is a cooler band than I think that I've previously given them credit for. This album is good from the opening and holds up to the end. It's big and dramatic as a lot of prog rock is, but it's also fun with solid riffs
4/5
4/5
As much as I haven't enjoyed a lot of the Britpop that shows up on this list, this album seems like a reasonable choice. There were lots of hits off this album, and the rest of the songs were all solid. It doesn't sound that dated either, which is always nice with albums from this era
4/5
Kanye West
5/5
I'm not in love with Kanye as a person, but goddamn if his peak as an artist wasn't absolutely incredible. This album is just song after song of incredible samples and production with excellent lyrics over it. Consistently good throughout the entire album, and often absolutely great
5/5
Jean-Michel Jarre
3/5
Boy, this album keeps going, doesn't it. I'm ordinarily a fan of early MOOG synthesizer stuff like this, but this album is so slow, it's hard to do anything with it but put in on in the background and ignore it. It works fine for that purpose, but it contrasts pretty sharply with, for instance, Plantasia by Mort Garson, which was released the same year and felt like it had much more of a concept to it. I can see why this album is highly regarded in the history of electronic music, but I don't think it holds up without its historical context
3/5
The Jam
4/5
I thought this album was pretty cool overall. Listening to it went fast, but I enjoyed the post-punk influence that influenced much of the album
4/5
Beatles
5/5
Certainly not an album that I need to listen to to rate, but I went ahead and listened anyway. Every single song is good. Run For Your Life is a bit of a strange song to end on, mostly given John's history of domestic abuse, but apart from the darkness of that moment the album is incredible. A huge step forward for a band trying to become something other than the simple pop stars they had mostly been up until that point
5/5
Frank Sinatra
3/5
Frank Sinatra is good, but very much not my thing. I prefer for the music to take more of a leading role and the singer to add emphasis to the music rather than being the driver of the song. It's a personal preference thing, and I acknowledge that. I did like the latin Sinatra album I got previously on this list, but these songs mostly sound the same to me. Not bad, just not for me
3/5
The Notorious B.I.G.
4/5
It's sort of crazy that the two biggest hits on this album come relatively late in the track list, but every song is so good that you don't really miss it. There is a bit of the acting interludes that infested albums of this era (and the surrounding decades), but it's not too obtrusive (except for the end of Respect, fuck that slurping noise). Biggie's rap style still feels modern, despite being recorded nearly 3 decades ago. A true classic from an artist who recorded far too few songs
4/5
The Cramps
4/5
I've been meaning to listen to the Cramps for a while after I was introduced to them by the No Dogs In Space podcast. I thought this was cool overall. They seem like a band that would be really fun live, though this album didn't particularly grab me at many points. It was consistently pretty good, but never really great
4/5, but on the low end of 4
The Chemical Brothers
5/5
Fucking love this album. Just great song after great song, with everything being something you can move your feet too. I rarely give an album 5/5 just for being fun, but here we are
5/5
Muddy Waters
4/5
When I get blues albums on this list, I always find that I tend to enjoy them, despite the fact that I don't think of myself as much of a blues guy. This sounds like it would have been a really fun concert, and reading about the historical context was interesting as well
4/5
Talking Heads
5/5
What a cool band the Talking Heads were. Their albums have this consistent sound that is definitively Talking Heads, but they are all different, and all great in their own ways. This album doesn't sound dated at all, despite being nearly 45 years old
5/5
The Prodigy
3/5
I was excited for this album because I really liked The Prodigy's first album. However, this album sounds much more generic in the present day, and lacks the cool hooks that populated the first album. It's not bad, but it doesn't really stand out from a lot of the techno mixes that are a dime a dozen on YouTube
3/5
Hawkwind
3/5
I quite enjoyed the first half of this album. It seems like it would have been a really cool concert to go to. After a while this album gets to be a bit much, though. Some of the lyrics/voice overs are really cheesey, which is expected for this era and this type of music, but it doesn't age well. I often find double albums frustrating to rate because they could often be reduced to a single album that is good, but as a double album they are often not worth the time commitment. I understand it more for a live album like this, but I also don't have all day to listen to Hawkwind talk about space
3/5
4/5
Honestly, this is just a fun album. It's innovative in certain ways, of its time in others, but it seems like this would have been a fucking awesome concert to go to. Just constant wailing guitars and rock 'n roll yelling
4/5
Morrissey
3/5
I liked this album okay. After a while every song starts to sound the same, though. Morrissey has a very specific style, and I don't mind it, but I do wish that he would have introduced more variation into this album. I think that's why I tend to enjoy Smiths albums a bit more than Morrissey's solo stuff
3/5
Metallica
4/5
I can't say that I've ever been a fan of the members of Metallica as people, but goddamn their early work is just stellar. Intense and loud while still remaining incredibly melodic and intricate, this may be their best album. I just wish that they could have gone the Slayer route more and just stick to their metal roots rather than following the course of popular rock 'n roll. At their peak, Metallica may have been the greatest metal band of all time, bar none.
4/5 (but very close to 5)
Funkadelic
4/5
Just a super cool album with a bunch of moods. It's a shame it wasn't more well-received at the time. It would have been really interesting to see this album have a larger effect on the direction of music in the 70s
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
3/5
This album was fine, but I honestly kept forgetting that I was listening to it. It didn't make me pay attention, nor did it annoy me in any way. I feel like this about a lot of 70s prog rock. It tends to just be...there. ELP are excellent musicians, and I think this would have been a super cool concert to go to, but as an album experience, it's forgettable
3/5
Bert Jansch
3/5
This album didn't really do much for me. He has a nice voice, and the tone on the guitar was captured well, but I'm not really into this style of folk music
3/5
Eminem
3/5
We are what we pretend to be. Eminem's skill as a rapper is undeniable, and his collaboration with Dre produced a lot of excellent work, but Jesus Christ has the lyrical content from this not aged well. I get the whole idea that Slim Shady is an alter ego and that the violence is meant to be cartoonish, but this shit is real hard to listen to in 2021. At the same time, I understand why Eminem rapping about his life on songs like Rock Bottom wouldn't sell while his more violent songs would.
Fatboy Slim
4/5
Honestly, this album was more consistently good than I thought it was going to be. It's got a distinctive style, but manages to pack a lot of different moods into the album
4/5
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
There's no real way for a rap album from the mid-80s not to sound dated, very similar to the rock of the 50s. There were so many technological and methodological innovations in the years after this album that changed the sound of hip-hop forever.
Despite being a time capsule, this album still has a lot going for it. The sparse 808-based samples work really well with the more aggressive lyrical style that Run-DMC brought to hip-hop. It's a nice compromise between the lighter rap style that was popular before this point and the ultra-violent content that existed during gangsta rap. I think of this album being a 4/5 mostly because of its importance as a turning point for hip-hop, but it still sounds good too, if not a bit limited by the sample set included in the 808
4/5
The Byrds
3/5
This album makes it clearer to me why the Byrds were pitched as America's answer to the Beatles. The instrumentation and production of this album bears a lot of similarities to Rubber Soul. It's all fine, but not particularly interesting.
3/5
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
4/5
I wasn't terribly excited about getting this album today, since I've been pretty lukewarm on previous albums by Crosby (The Byrds) and Neil Young that showed up on this list, but this is a really stellar album. It does a great job of showcasing the strengths of the group, including their harmonies and songwriting, and manages to remain both interesting and consistent all the way through
4/5
Wire
5/5
Why has no one told me to listen to this album before? It feels so ahead of its time, and it keeps getting better as the album goes. One of the early masterpieces of punk
5/5
Nick Drake
4/5
I've liked both of the Nick Drake albums (this one being the second) that I've heard, though I don't have a lot to say about them. He's a wonderful songwriter, both simple and subtle in his way
4/5
Gene Clark
4/5
When this album started, I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did. It's a little slow, but everything is put together well, and some of the music is really cool and unexpected. His voice is good, if unspectacular, but the overall effect of the album is pretty cool
4/5
The Streets
2/5
I could see why people like this album, but the combination of time and the fact that The Streets is not a very strong rapper makes this not work for me. The idea is cool, and I think this album could have been a classic in the hands of a better artist. The music is cool most of the time, though the spare style of the beats and the spare style of the rapping are not a good combination together. His rhyme schemes are pretty simple and outdated, even for 2004
2/5
Tim Buckley
3/5
Parts of this album were cool, but overall I found it a bit dull. It was a cool idea, and it was executed well, it's just not my thing
3/5
The Human League
4/5
Having learned recently about the evolution of electronic music and the early prominence of this album in the synthpop movement helped me appreciate this album. It definitely has that 80s synthpop sound, but I didn't realize previously how influential this album was in creating that sound. There are some aspects of this album that sound dated now, but given the technology that they were working with and the uncharted territory that they were moving into, this is a really cool album
4/5
Billie Holiday
4/5
Vocal jazz albums have never particularly been my thing, but you have to give credit where it's due. There is just something about Billie Holiday and her voice. There are many ways to be a great singer, and one of them is to have an angelic voice that carries an incredible burden of sadness without sagging under the weight
4/5
Fiona Apple
4/5
I'm not really sure how an album from 2020 is even on this list, since there's not really any way to put an album from last year into its historical context.
On the other hand, this is a really cool album. It's easy to see why it struck a chord with people who were locked down and scared during the early stages of the pandemic. It's cool, weird, and well executed
4/5
The Who
3/5
I feel about this live album the way that I generally do about live albums, which is that this concert probably would have been awesome to experience live, but that listening to it on a recording is a poor facsimile for that experience. All of the poor sound quality with none of the thrills. At least it isn't a double album
3/5
Lenny Kravitz
2/5
I should not be this combination of angry and bored two songs into an album. What is the point of this album? Lenny Kravitz seems to have mastered the art of making vacuous music that manages to convince people that it's deep despite all of the intellectual content of the album being spread thinner than a pat of butter on a 6 foot sub.
JUST REPEATING THE WORDS "FREEDOM TRAIN" OVER AND OVER AGAIN IS NOT A FUCKING SONG. Wait, nevermind, he said "Uh-huh" a couple times too, so I guess that it technically is a song
Every song is just him repeating the name of the song over and over again, which makes me wish that he had named one of these "I'm going to shut the fuck up and stop recording now"
2/5
Fleetwood Mac
5/5
What can you say about this album. It's the perfect storm in its conception, context, and execution. As everything is falling apart for the band, they produce this cocaine-fueled miracle. The album is a greatest hits collection interspersed with other songs that fit perfectly. The harmonies, the lyrics, the instruments, the arrangements, the production, everything just works on this album
5/5
Beatles
5/5
A day after getting Rumours by Fleetwood Mac I get Abbey Road. Two albums I didn't need to listen to again to rank as 5 star albums. Just what I needed to wash the taste of that shitty Lenny Kravitz album out of my mouth
This album captures a massive range of moods, but somehow makes them all fit. More importantly, just just keeps getting better as it goes.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. The Beatles always had an incredible way to state the profound with the simplest words
5/5
The Isley Brothers
3/5
I like this album a lot in terms of its composition and sound, but it's hard for me to give it the score I feel like it deserves because most of the songs on the album appear to be covers. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't covers of very popular songs. The Isley Brothers do a great job of making the songs sound good and fit into the context of the album (Sunshine is a good example of this), but either including more original work or highlighting less popular songs by other groups would have been better
3/5
Radiohead
5/5
Fuck. It's weird seeing one of the albums that actually changed me as a person here. Obviously this is a 5/5 album for me. It's one of the albums that I would have given as an example of what a 5/5 album looks like. For me, it felt like rock n' roll was on a linear path until this album, and then it could no longer go on that path, for better or for worse. While the radio was trying to shove Puddle of Mudd down my throat, I had this masterpiece to listen to.
It just feels special, right from those first notes. Then these alien samples start to accompany the tones. Then Thom's voice pierces through. "Everything in its right place"
This album manages to be so strange and so familiar at the same time. The only real problem I have with it is that I've listened to it so many times that it's hard to actively savor it. Every time I notice the album, another song has gone by. Still, every time I tune in, there are amazing things happening
5/5
Billy Bragg
4/5
This isn't particularly my style of music, but Bragg is certainly engaging as a performer. This isn't an album I see myself coming back to, but it's certainly much more of an interesting listen than it would be in the hands of a less charismatic performer
4/5
Emmylou Harris
4/5
Listening to this album, it hit me that there is a distinct lack of country music on this list. I can only really think of one other straight-up country album that I've gotten.
Regardless, this album is everything that's good about country. Harris has a beautiful voice full of emotion, and the accompanying music is good without distracting from from her as the focus. I'm not in love with her cover of For No One by the Beatles, but at least it's more tasteful than most Beatles covers
4/5
David Bowie
5/5
I haven't listened to the rest of the Berlin trilogy yet, but I really like it's first album, Low. The influence from the Krautrock artists was a perfect fit for Bowie's evolving style as he transitioned away from the fascist cocaine monster called the Thin White Duke.
The mythology around Bowie and his personas could only really be meaningful if he backed it up with his music, which he does in spades here. Working with Brian Eno and hanging out with Iggy Pop brought a feel to this album that's hard to describe. Just like Kid A, it seems to come out of no where and go back there after we are allowed to enjoy it.
The first half of this album is super cool, the second half is why its one of my favorite Bowie albums
5/5
Aretha Franklin
4/5
Me: I don't know if I'm going to be able to get into this Aretha Franklin album
Aretha: I'm going to start this album off at 1000 mph with Respect
And that's why she's the queen of soul and I'm just some schmuck at a keyboard. On the other hand, this album really has no where to go after the first song because it's one of the greatest songs of all time. The album is good the whole way through, but man it starts off hot
4/5
Madonna
4/5
Not much to say about this album, but it's pretty good. Starts off really strong, and while it slows down a bit after the first two songs, it's pretty consistent throughout
4/5
Lou Reed
4/5
Lou Reed certainly has an odd sensibility, but he manages to pull it off somehow. His desire to pull you into some of the darkest corners of the world and force you to look directly at it mixes in an interesting way with his desire to play beautiful music.
4/5
X-Ray Spex
4/5
I was really excited to get this album, since I became acquainted with the band through their song "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" earlier this year and really liked it.
This whole album is filled with a similar energy and approach to that song. There is something weirdly fun about the combination of punk and saxophones. It's really too bad that this band doesn't get more recognition as a pioneer. The title track stands out a lot as being a sort of proto-post-punk song (whatever that means)
4/5
Cheap Trick
3/5
I wanted to like this album, but like most live albums, this one falls a bit flat for me. I think the sound quality is better than a lot of live albums from preceding eras. However, a lot of the songs sound the same, and they have a very generic approach to rock. Outside of the two hit songs that Cheap Trick produced, every song on this album could be on a compilation called Generic Cock Rock.
I'm glad Japan liked this band, because I sure as hell don't give a shit about them
3/5
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
Elvis Costello is one of those musicians that I've never really listened to, but that I've always been curious about. This was certainly the right album for me to listen to to get into him. It's poppy, but still innovative. You can tell right away from listening to this album that it influenced a lot of music that came after it.
Solid 4/5, and I could see this being 5/5 with repeated listens
Beastie Boys
4/5
This is another album that I've always intended to listen to, based on it's reviews, but never quite managed to sit down with. The samples are transcendent, even when paired by bizarre lyrics. Egg man is a great example of this: a song all about throwing eggs is paired with samples from Pusher Man and Psycho in a way that completely works.
What's amazing about this album is how much you will recognize when you start to focus on the different sounds you hear. While I wish sometimes that their rapping was a bit more interesting, it's good enough, and it fits with a lot of the rap of the time. The samples, and their chemistry as a group, make this album work incredibly well. The fact that this was among the first hip-hop albums that could be considered as an album rather than a collection of individual songs packaged together adds to its significance (though I would give more credit to It Takes a Nation of Millions by Public Enemy on that front)
4/5
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
I don't love a lot of reggae albums, but I love this one. Lively Up Yourself is a perfect song to start the album with because it works so well on its own, but it also gives them somewhere to go. Them Belly Full might be my favorite Bob Marley song. I think I like the original version of No Woman, No Cry better than the more famous version on Legend. I don't love every song on this album, but it goes by really quick and keeps my interest pretty well
4/5
The Temptations
4/5
The temptations made the album that they wanted to make, even though they were sure that it would be a commercial failure. The process was right, but their expectation was wrong because this album was a huge success.
The funky version of the Temptations is the best version. Their earlier hits were great songs, but this album has so much going on in it. It's incredibly innovative and well-suited to the era in which it was made. This album is like a poppier version of Maggot Brain by Funkadelic
4/5
Sam Cooke
4/5
Well, I feel similarly to this album that I feel about the majority of live albums, in that listening to the live recording doesn't simulate the live experience for me. This album has more character than a lot of the live rock albums that I've heard because of the amount of character that Sam brings to the show and the audience participating in the show.
Given that the original songs weren't recorded in tremendous quality in the first place, it's hard to fault the live recording quality. Given that, this is a cool listening experience. The recording being done in a club rather than a stadium just feels more intimate. It adds a lot to this recording. Somehow I feel more like I'm there than a normal recording.
With that being said, some of Cooke's banter would be best left in the 60s, like the casual reference to domestic violence (though in his defense, he said not to hit your wife), and his odd reference to leukemia in the middle of Somebody have mercy
4/5
Led Zeppelin
5/5
Led Zeppelin provides crucial evidence in the age old debate about what would happen if the greatest cock rock band of all time was made up of a bunch of Tolkien nerds. Turns out it's pretty cool.
This album is excellent the whole way through, and it finishes even stronger than it starts. Stairway to Heaven gets a lot of the attention for this album, but When the Levee Breaks is my nomination for the best Zeppelin song of all time.
5/5
Bee Gees
2/5
Boy, I thought when I get a Bee Gees album that it was going to be a fun dancey romp, and I was 100% wrong. This is a dour album about endless sadness, and now I can't even remember what it feels like to dance. The music is pretty good, though, so if I still had the ability to experience joy, I would be happy about that
GOD, THIS ALBUM JUST KEEPS GOING, DOESN'T IT? This is the same band that wrote Stayin Alive, right? Did they accidentally take a bunch of ecstasy before recording that album? You know what, I was going to give this album a 3, but they talked me into a 2 by being absolutely crucifying for the entire runtime of the album
2/5
Moby
3/5
Honestly, this album is not as good as I remember it being. The first half is amazing, which is the half of this album that I remember. The second half is great sleepy-time music, but I kept checking to see if YouTube had switched to a different album, since nothing interesting was happening. It's not that I don't like Moby's ambient stuff. It's good. It just doesn't fit with what he was doing in the first half of the album
3/5
Doves
3/5
Musically, this album is good, but it just didn't make much of an impression on me. Any time I tuned it, it was pleasant enough, but then I would just tune out again because it didn't hold my interest. It's another one of those cases where this list contains a recent British album that doesn't seem particularly ground-breaking or influential to me
3/5
Pixies
3/5
I like the Pixies in general, but I didn't find much in this album that really grabbed me. Both Surfer Rosa and Doolittle had songs that I really liked, but none of the songs here really stood out to me. It sounds like the Pixies, it was really consistent without being boring, but it never really seemed to reach the heights of the other two albums for me
3/5
Miles Davis
5/5
It's tough to know what to say about this album, or about Miles Davis in general. In every era in which he played, he always seemed to have a different and exciting place to take Jazz. After he stopped, no one stepped up to take his place. In some ways, it feels like Jazz is frozen in time, right where Miles left it.
The album is a masterpiece. It's a swirling, groovy exhibition of both Davis's virtuosity and his brilliant composition. I can't think of a single other artist that was this bold and groundbreaking on his 27th album. I don't know what else to say about it. It's great, go listen to it
5/5
Sonic Youth
4/5
I thought this album was good. Usually I don't connect well with Sonic Youth's albums, despite the fact that I loved seeing them live. However, this album was very consistent all the way through, and it kept my attention
4/5
fIREHOSE
4/5
I thought this was an interesting album, though I feel like I'm going to have to listen to it a few more times before I give an informed opinion. It kept my interest, though (which is good because it's a short album). The sound quality could be better, but apart from that it's an album that feels ahead of its time based on when it was released
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
I had never listened to this band before, but I really liked this album. I love pop music that manages to be a bit challenging in terms of its lyrics. Musically, it works great and the production is excellent
4/5
Björk
4/5
Well, this is definitely a Bjork album. Like every other Bjork album I've ever heard, I enjoyed it. However, there's not a lot that I can say about this album that I wouldn't say about any other Bjork album. It's challenging at times, experimental in a way that often hits home, carried by her voice despite the fact that her voice isn't particularly incredible (it's good, just not super notable).
The layering of different voices in this album works really well and is the biggest strength of Medulla.
4/5
The Black Keys
3/5
Part of me wants to like the Black Keys, but I feel the same way about them that I felt about Cheap Trick. They do generic rock'n'roll. They do it well, but it feels too safe, like they are writing songs that they know that people will like because other people have already written these songs slightly differently
3/5
The National
4/5
This album was new by me. It's not really something I can see myself coming back to, but it was a good listen. The music faded into the background a bit, but it was still good
4/5
Lynyrd Skynyrd
4/5
This album has some really nice moments on it, and despite the fact that this type of music sounds stereotypically southern now, it only became that way because of this band
At the same time, the album sags in places. I've never been a huge fan of Free Bird, perhaps because I grew up in the Beavis and Butthead era when this song was already a meme. Trying to listen to it with fresh ears is hard as a result. I think that it's a pretty enough song, but not the all time great the way it tends to be portrayed by people who really like it.
Fuck it, 4/5 by the skin of it's teeth. Maybe I like Free Bird after all. Or at least, I like 4/5ths of Free Bird. That song could have been shut down a full minute earlier with no negative impact
Bob Dylan
4/5
One of the cool things about this list is that it has given me a greater appreciation for Bob Dylan. I liked him before, but never really understood why people regarded him so highly. While I still find his voice grating at times, listening to this album gave me a better appreciation for how innovative Dylan was. This album came out before all of the Beatles' most enduring works, and really stands out from what other artists were doing in 1965. The fact that he put so much work into experimenting with adding electric backing tracks to existing folk songs before recording it was neat to read about, and clearly it paid off in this album. That you could mix folk and electric rock was one of those things that I would have taken for granted, but someone had to be the first one to bring them together, and this represents Dylan's realization of that fusion.
The songs are uniformly good on this album, with some of them being all time greats. The album kept my interest the whole way through, even as he transitions to more acoustic stuff in the back half. This is one that I can see myself picking up on vinyl
4/5 (really wanted to give it 5, but that voice does not hold up all the way through. It's a shame that one of the greatest rock poets was restricted to singing entirely through his nose)
Various Artists
5/5
Well, clearly I made an error when I put this album off until after Christmas, since I sure as fuck don't want to listen to Christmas music in January. On the other hand, despite the fact that he is mentally unhinged murderer, Phil Spector could produce the hell out of an album. Even with slightly subpar recording quality, the strength of the music is undeniable. There's a reason why several songs off this album are among the most popular version
5/5
Eric Clapton
2/5
There are a lot of ways in which I detest Eric Clapton as a person, since he has the audacity to be a racist while ripping his entire career off of Black American blues musicians. Listening to this album provided a unique opportunity to see how empty his skill set really is. He is an excellent guitar player. This is a cover album that rarely features his skills as an instrumentalist because I guess he wanted to show off his skills as doing uninspired cover versions of popular songs. His version of Hand Jive is most appropriate for a funeral, since I don't see how anyone could enjoy dancing to it. I Shot The Sheriff is a cover I had to hear constantly in my youth, and now I spend hours trying to explain to my therapist why I harbor so much anger towards an over-rated artist being covered badly by an even more over-rated artist. Listening to Clapton try and fail to do anything interesting with a song that already didn't have much going for it is the audio equivalent of watching a scrambled porn channel back in the 90s only to realize that the show you were trying to watch was a scrambled cooking show the whole time.
Eric Clapton is proof that heroin doesn't turn every musician into a brilliant artist.
Deep Purple
3/5
I feel the same way about this Deep Purple album that I did about the other Deep Purple album I got on this list, which is that when the lead singer hits his high notes, all I hear is Dennis Reynolds from IASIP singing Day Man. Add to that that it's a double live album, and there isn't much for me to get into here. Their music is fine, but there's so much about this album that biased me against it going in. Not bad, but I was ready to be done after two songs. After the high water point of Smoke On The Water, every song is at least 9.5 minutes long.
3/5
Massive Attack
4/5
While this album isn't nearly so polished and forward thinking as what Massive Attack would accomplish with Mezzanine, Blue Lines works as its own thing. The soul/R&B influence shines through in a really cool way; very different from what I've heard in previous electronica movements. Not their best work, but still really worth the listen
4/5
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
I wasn't expecting much from this album. I've liked the Springsteen albums that I've listened to in the past, but a 2002 Springsteen album made as a response to 9/11 in light of everything that's happened since then sounds like the exact opposite of what I need right now.
This album, however, is solid all the way through. Bruce's music doesn't sound dated for 2002, and the lyrics aren't the type of heart-on-my-sleeve rah rah bullshit that I associate with this period. Every song on this album is good, if not spectacular. More importantly, he found a way to capture the feeling of hope really well with this album. Totally worth coming back to in the future
4/5
James Taylor
3/5
I wanted to like this album, I really did. However, the good about it doesn't outweigh the fact that basically every song sounds the same. Steamroller blues should never have been included, since it sounds like Taylor took a class class called "How to play white guy blues for dummies." Oh Suzanna is similarly bad.
Fire and Rain is a notable high point. The production is excellent as well. The character of his guitar really shines through. It just doesn't make up for the fact that this album is boring
Iggy Pop
4/5
This album was a super cool listen. It's crazy that Iggy was so far ahead of his time that he had already moved onto his second act as a musician the same year that punk was beginning to break in the US and UK. The title track on this album is a titanic way to kick the album off, but it doesn't disappoint from there. The Passenger is an awesome song, but really all of the songs on this album are good.
4/5
Richard Hawley
3/5
This album was fine. He has a good voice and the lyrics work well enough. It's not my thing, but I could see why people like it. For me, though, it was hard to understand how this album was innovative or significant. It seemed like another late era Brit Pop album that made it to this list because it was popular, not because it was particularly meaningful or groundbreaking. Also, this album just keeps fucking going without really changing or doing anything interesting
3/5
The Waterboys
4/5
This album was absolutely not what I was expecting, and I thought it was really cool to here. Mixing traditional Irish and Scottish folk music and instruments into a rock n roll sound actually worked really well. After listening to a few albums that didn't feel like anything special, this was a welcome change of pace
4/5
Arrested Development
4/5
This was one of the first albums I ever bought, which makes it really interesting to return to it after so long to try and fit it into the context of everything I've learned about music since that time. It certainly stands in stark contrast to the gangsta rap movement that was massively popular when this was released. Their use of funk samples in the big hits off of this album works really well. There are some nice harmonies on this album as well, and it would have been nice if they would have made more use of them
4/5
Miles Davis
5/5
This is my favorite album of all time. It's one that I listen to rarely because I'm worried that if I listen to it too many times, I won't be able to appreciate its stark beauty.
It's sad and sweet one moment, upbeat the next. What makes this album so great is that it is always absolutely painting a mood. You're meant to feel something with every song, and I always feel it. The instrumentation is exquisite. The compositions are sublime. Even the mistakes and imperfections, like the drummer hitting the cymbal a little too hard when Miles comes in on the first track just work.
Put this album on a rocket ship and send it out into space. That way, if it's ever encountered by intelligent life, the aliens will get to see us at our absolute best
5/5
Tom Waits
4/5
I want to like Tom Waits, I really do. I put him in the same category as Frank Zappa. They're both artists that I listen to and consistently feel like their music is almost good. Like, every song on this album is almost good, but they're all missing something. It's like cooking without butter or oil. Sure, all of the parts are there, but where's the fucking flavor?
At the same time, what he's trying to do is cool, and I think this album deserves 4/5. It's unquestionably ahead of its time and it influenced a lot of stuff that came after it. Also, it sounds like a throwback somehow too. Nothing makes sense for this album, but it isn't bad, despite the fact that I don't like it that much
4/5
The Smiths
3/5
Sometimes I feel like I'm close to liking Morrissey, but he's just so fucking maudlin all the time. He definitely works better with the Smiths than he does as a solo artist, at least from my perspective. Musically, this album is good and did a great job at keeping my interest. The lyrics are...Morrissey. We get it, you're sad and you hate everyone except your girlfriend, who's in a coma. What kills me is that I like his voice. If he would just sing about some other aspect of the human condition, it would be a good album. Instead we get Holden Caufield Sings the Blues. I don't hate it, but it's so close to being really good that it makes me mad
3/5
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
I really like getting to learn more about post-punk and all of the cool stuff that it spawned. I don't have a lot to say about this album, but it was a good listen. A much subtler touch than the Smiths album I got yesterday
4/5
Elvis Presley
4/5
I've never been a huge Elvis fan, but this album helps me understand his appeal a bit more. His voice is undeniable: rich and powerful, yet smooth as butter. The production on the album is excellent. The backup vocals are always clear without being overpowering. Great harmonies and fun music
4/5
Beck
4/5
Don't have much time to review, but I really liked this album. Beck does bittersweet really well. I like Morning Phase better as an album, but this one serves as a nice companion piece
Beck
5/5
Two Beck albums on consecutive days, what could be better? This album was one that I loved when I was younger, and it really holds up. The Dust Brothers were the perfect pairing for Beck. Everything on this album just works. There's not a single song that I don't enjoy or that doesn't fit
5/5
Tina Turner
3/5
I want to like this album, but there is not much carrying it other than Tina Turner's incredible voice. The cover of I Can't Stand the Rain is just a worse copy of the original. The Let's Stay Together and Help! covers add nothing to this album. A lot of the musical accompaniment is pretty uninspired. This album could have really been something if better music was matched up with Turner's vocals, but as it is this album is a couple of highlights without much to fill it in
3/5
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
4/5
There were times when I really enjoyed this album, and there were times when I wondered how I was going to make it through the entire thing. A double album seems like a bit much, as usual, though I understand it more in this case. This album was meant to be a union of two generations of country and bluegrass musicians. Overall it works, though I wish there was less banter between the songs. I don't see myself coming back to this album, nor, for that matter, finishing it (I'm currently on track 7 of 42).
4/5
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
4/5
This album was one that confused me a lot as to its importance until I looked it up. In a lot of ways it sounds like a typical 80s synthpop album. However, it was released in 1981, which puts it way ahead of its time. Reframing it that way helped me contextualize this work. It's not one that particularly grabbed my interest, but it's good and was clearly influential in the decade it helped usher in
Incredible Bongo Band
4/5
A super significant album in the history of both hip-hop and drum and bass. This album became something that it was never intended to be because of the desire to repackage existing music into new dance music. That alone would be enough to recommend this album as a historical document. However, the album kicks ass too. Well worth a listen
The Stone Roses
4/5
I thought this album was cool. It definitely mirrors a lot of what other alternative rock groups were doing in the 80s, and as a consequence it doesn't stand out as much as some of the other early alt-rock albums I've listened to, like Surfer Rosa. Still, they made a lot of cool choices on this album.
4/5
Morrissey
4/5
Oh great, another Morrissey album. I wonder if he's still sad all the time.
Okay, it turns out this album is actually pretty fun and not the absolutely crucifying experience I've come to associate with Morrissey. Lots of diversity in the music, and it works well with his voice. Does this mean that I like Morrissey?
4/5
Van Morrison
4/5
Morrissey and Van Morrison on consecutive days. What have I done to be saddled with these two bastions of COVID misinformation in such proximity?
With that being said, this album is pretty fun. He does white guy blues without it being too cringy. Much like the last Van Morrison album that I listened to, Astral Weeks, there are lots of instrumental additions to the composition that are unexpected and well executed.
I may be of the personal opinion that Van Morrison is a twat, but I guess I like his music
4/5
Japan
4/5
I'm really enjoying early synthpop as I learn more about it. This album seems really really well formed for the time it was made. The production of the album is excellent. Giorgio Moroder's influence on the album seems like it adds a lot, though I haven't heard the bands earlier works to compare it to. Super fun pop album that has a lot of elements of synth music that will come to prominence in the decades to follow. This album also features what might be my favorite Velvet Underground cover in All Tomorrow's Parties
4/5
2Pac
4/5
It's kind of crazy that it's taken me this long to sit down and listen to a Tupac album. His lyrical style really makes this album. The beats are good, but very subdued. His charisma is what makes this album a classic
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Immigrant song is a hell of a way to start off an album. After that, this becomes a more straight ahead blues album with hard rock layered over it. It works pretty well, and there are plenty of classic songs on this album. One thing that was hard to keep out of my mind while listening to this is that the next three albums that they are going to put out are going to be IV, Houses of the Holy, and Physical Graffiti. This album is not as strong as those, but on its own it's very good. It's clear that this album is previewing where the band is going, but it's not quite there yet
4/5
Bonnie Raitt
3/5
I was super uninspired to listen to this album today, but I was surprised by how many songs I knew off of here. It's all fine, but I have no real idea why it's on this list. This seems like a fairly traditional white boy blues album with the only twist being that the white boy in this case is a woman. It's like putting a Kenny G album on this list. The best compliment that I give to an album shouldn't be that it's inoffensive
3/5
Count Basie & His Orchestra
4/5
This album is a bit of an anacronism in 1958, especially with all of the landmark jazz albums that would come out the following year. It's a big band album made after the height of the big band era. However, it's a really fun album that somehow lives up to the boldness of its cover and title. I don't usually enjoy big band music, but I thought this one was well worth the listen
4/5
Pixies
5/5
I bought this album earlier this year, so it's an easy review for me. If you told me that this album was made a decade after it was released, I would believe you. I would also still think that the album was really good. It's so far ahead of its time that it's hard to talk about this album in isolation from all of the music in the 90s that it directly spawned. A lot of the formula for Nirvana's success is well developed already in Surfer Rosa. The songs are fun and well crafted. The combination of Frank Black and Kim Deal is excellent; they sound so good when they harmonize. It's actually a shame that Where Is My Mind will be forever associated with Fight Club, because this album has aged much better than that movie has
It's the quintessential 90s album released in 1988.
5/5
Little Richard
4/5
It's a much different experience listening to Little Richard once I found out the original lyrics to Tutti Frutti. Not a worse experience by any means, just much different. I like thinking about the role of dancing in the formation of early rock n roll. All the songs on this album are good, though they all sound a bit similar to each other. I think that's probably an artifact of approaching this album more than 60 years after its release. Regardless, the music is fun and Little Richard's voice brings so much flavor to this album. It's easy to see why this album was a stand out of early rock.
4/5
Deerhunter
4/5
What a weird and cool album. It's a bit slow-paced, but overall it was really interesting
4/5
Fugazi
4/5
This album seems so straightforward when you start listening to it, and then it keeps surprising you as it goes. It sounds like a normal punk album, right down to the starkly plain lyrics. Underneath that lies so much more. The songs are well-crafted and leave a lot of room for the instrumentals to shine. Intense, but subtle. This album is a powerhouse of a debut
4/5
Ride
4/5
I was introduced to shoegaze as a subgenre in the last year, and I really enjoy it. This album is one of my favorite examples. It's more lyrical than Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, which is my other favorite showgaze album (extremely obvious picks, I know). The lyrics blend into the music well. The instrumentals and production are excellent. This is also one of the few albums that I feel like listening to the songs added with the reissues benefited the album. A really solid album all the way through
4/5
Crosby, Stills & Nash
4/5
Suite Judy Blue Eyes is such a great way to start off an album. It's like multiple songs in one, each beautiful with brilliant harmonies. Marrakesh Express is a great song to follow up after an all time great. After that, the music starts to feel more generic. This is not any fault of CSN, but more the fact that many musicians aped this style after this album, and CSN had a pretty consistent style over their career. It's not bad, but it doesn't rise to the heights of the beginning of the album. It's all pleasant enough, and this album is well worth a listen.
Overall, this must have sounded revolutionary in 1969. The harmonies are a nice successor to what the Beach Boys had been doing, but with a much different musical approach
4/5
Neil Young
3/5
The world seems to want me to listen to Neil Young so badly, and I want just as badly to never listen to Neil Young ever again. It's not bad. In fact, in a lot of ways its good music. It's just that Neil Young is a fucking bummer, and I don't need it. Neil Young is the type of person who goes to the beach to complain about the sand.
3/5 (again, it's not bad, it just makes me feel like life is not worth living)
N.W.A.
4/5
I think I've heard every song on this album prior to this, but I'd never listened to it as an album. One of the things that stood out to me is that Dre's production style, which would emerge fully-formed when he started putting out solo records fro Death Row, is not well-developed here. It sounds more like an 808 with a bunch of samples layered over it. I think it's interesting because the addition of those samples makes this sound much less dated than Run DMC's work in the mid 80s.
The approach to rapping is much more full formed with this album, which I think accounts for a lot of its appeal. This album delivers lyrically, and all of the participants appear to be at the top of their game here, though several of the artists achieved greater heights as solo artists. A deserved classic that has aged really well, perhaps because the misogyny that would be so pervasive in later gangsta rap albums is much less prominent here
4/5
Orange Juice
4/5
This album started out really good, but it feels a bit samey by the end. Overall I think that it's worth a listen, hence 4 stars, but it's definitely on the low end of 4 stars for me. There are a lot of hidden gems in the postpunk genre, and I think this is one of them
Marilyn Manson
2/5
Great. This fucking asshole. Luckily I was already in a shitty mood, which is perfect for listening to this album.
Two years after The Downward Spiral, Marilyn Manson comes along and does essentially the same thing, except not as good. "I wasn't born with enough middle fingers" is exactly the type of on-the-nose bullshit that makes this album feel like a cheap ripoff of any good industrial album.
The album is not devoid of merit, though. The production is really good in parts. There are some good songs too, though I mostly have to ignore the lyrics, which largely seem like a teenager's impression of Trent Reznor lyrics. I honestly think I would really enjoy an instrumental version of this album. Musically it works pretty well. It somehow manages to sound both gritty and clean at the same time. The instruments are mixed really well with the vocals so that nothing feels like it is left out in the avalanche of sound that most songs build to.
After reading about the making of this album on Wikipedia 1) it makes sense that I hear so much Trent Reznor here, since he produced the album and wrote multiple songs along with other members of NIN, and 2) everyone involved in the production of this album sounds like a fucking asshole. Also, this is a concept album? Could have fooled me.
2/5 I was originally going to give this 3/5 because I do really enjoy the music, but this album becomes increasingly self-indulgent and crucifying to listen to as it goes. The lyrics are universally juvenile, and the neat musical moments are not enough to overcome the chore that this album becomes as it progresses.
Also fuck Marilyn Manson as a person. It takes a special kind of prick to take being a bad boyfriend to the level of criminal charges
UB40
3/5
Well, this was not what I was expecting. I grew up with the pop UB40 of the 90s. It's weird to hear them as an actual reggae band, not doing uninspired covers of Elvis songs. I've never disliked this band, but this album gave me newfound respect for them. There's much more authenticity about this album than the later stuff that I was aware of. I'm not much of a reggae fan, but it's enjoyable when it's done well, instead of being the same handful of Bob Marley songs being blasted out the window of some frat boy's car.
3/5 It's a fine listen, but ultimately uninspiring.
Badly Drawn Boy
4/5
I had heard the name of this artist but wasn't familiar with the music. Seeing that it was a British artist from the early 2000s didn't exactly fill me with hope, but I really liked it. Folky, but with a lot of variation in the instruments and musical styles. The production is very good. I could see myself buying this record
4/5
3/5
I don't like live albums and I don't like live Bob Dylan albums and I don't like double albums and I really don't like live Bob Dylan double albums. It's like he's trying to make his voice sound annoying on purpose. Like, he's a groundbreaking musician and an excellent poet, but when he's live he sounds like he's singing directly through his nose and blowing snot into my ears.
I like a lot of these songs, but even some of those are...strange. I'm all for artists reinterpreting their work, but it feels like this version of Mr. Tambourine Man is just him being weird on purpose, and then it lasts for 9 GODDAMNED MINUTES. What kills me is that there are some greats songs on here, but I keep finding myself pausing this album to listen to other things. Like, this was probably an amazing concert to attend, but I'm just sitting here at work.
The electric half of the set is a saving grace (I was going to give 2/5 stars for the acoustic part of the set). It brings of a lot of sorely needed energy to the performance. It's fucking hilarious that many people at the show felt the complete opposite about it and heckled Dylan between songs
3/5 stars
Primal Scream
3/5
This album was pleasant enough, but didn't really hold my interest. It was hard to understand why it was on this list, though perhaps there is some context that I am missing
3/5
The Louvin Brothers
4/5
Honestly, this is a cool album. I didn't know what to think of it at first, but for a country album from the mid-50s that I've never heard of, it's a fuckin toe-tapper.
4/5
A Tribe Called Quest
5/5
Listening to hip-hop albums that were part of the golden age of sampling is such an interesting experience. Hearing snippets from extremely famous songs melded into the idiosyncratic rap style of QTip is cool; this album could only have been made in this era.
I really enjoy Tribe, but I sort of forget about them when I'm not listening to them. It's nice to have their albums put in front of me through this list. Their style is so relaxed, which separates them from the more intense rap style and lyrical content that became more popular in this era. Q-Tip does great work throughout the album. The fact that this was their first album shows how quickly everything came together for this group.
It's also crazy that the aspect of this album that has aged most poorly is their stance on cholesterol in eggs
5/5
Air
4/5
I'm not 100% sure why this album is on the list, since it doesn't seem to be considered as even Air's best album, nor was it a particularly significant soundtrack at the time. However, it's a good listen. The production is excellent, there are lots of little sounds that come through well. The somewhat sparse style Air employs works great as a soundtrack, but works well as a standalone album too.
4/5
Ice Cube
4/5
What can you say about Ice Cube during this era? His lyrics were intense and on point. He's great both when he's attacking the beat and when he's following it. The samples he uses are definitely of their time, but are also uniformly excellent. The singles off of this album are all timers.
The misogyny and homophobia are a bit much at times, but certainly not as bad as some of his contemporaries and those that would follow him.
Overall, his is a can't miss album from the early gangsta rap era
4/5
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
This is a much more interesting band than I would have given them credit for based on Come On Eileen. I watched a YouTube video about their history, and it was pretty cool what they were trying to do. I liked the album after Too-Rye-Ay, so it's cool to get to hear the album before it
Overall it's a neat album. I didn't have a lot of time to make notes while I was listening, but the variety of instrumentation was great
4/5
Michael Jackson
5/5
What am I supposed to do with this shit? I try so hard not to let an artist's personal life effect how I review their albums, but it's so hard not to think about it with Michael Jackson. Similar to how I had to Marilyn Manson's many allegations of domestic abuse, I'll soldier on.
Obviously this album is incredible. It's not just that every song is good, virtually every song was a huge hit. This album begins with Wanna Be Startin Something, and that is one of the MINOR hits on this album. Any other album, that would be one of the most notable tracts, but by the time you get through Thriller, Beat It, and Billie Jean you forget all about it. This is unquestionably Quincy Jones's best work, and it's sad that so much of that is tainted by Micheal being a fucking pedophile
It's a 5/5 album. It would be a lot easier to enjoy this album if Michael hadn't been everything that he was. but what can you do?
Metallica
2/5
What the fuck is this shit? After all of the stellar work Metallica did in the 80s, and all of the completely forgettable work that they did afterwards, it's kind of surprising to see an album on here from the very tail end of the millennium. I like the idea of mixing classical and heavy metal music together, since I think the genres have more in common than they are generally given credit for.
This album feels mostly like a Metallica concert with a symphony mixed under it. The band's instruments aren't so much integrated into the symphony as they are yelling over it like a drunk guy at a party. James Hetfield's voice has lost a lot of its power, which is unfortunate because it is front and center when it could be strengthened by instruments that compliment his sound. It's hard to tell if this album is just poorly executed or a cynical attempt to make Metallica relevant again after their many poor decisions in the 90s. There's nothing that frustrates me more than a good idea that fails because of laziness on the part of content creators. Even the fucking name of the album is lazy. I'm on the third song and I already want this to be over so badly. There are 17 more songs on this fucking album. I honestly think it would work better to play a Slayer album at the same time as a Beethoven symphony. At least that way when it didn't work I could comfort myself with the fact that it was never intended to
2/5
Gil Scott-Heron
4/5
This was a cool album. I've been meaning to listen to Gil Scott Heron for a long time. The music is cool, if not a bit subdued in order to give more focus to his lyrics. My favorite track was the last one, which was pretty funny while also making a lot of good points. I'd like to come back to this album when I've got more time to focus on what he's saying
4/5
Eels
3/5
This album is a fun throwback to the 90s. The musical part of it is really good and contains a lot of interesting elements for the time in which it was made, especially the samples used on a few tracks. The lyrics are...I think too obvious is the word I'm looking for. There's very little craft to them, and it made the album hard to get into
3/5
Robbie Williams
2/5
We have arrived at yet another Brit Pop album from the 90s/00s that seems to have no other purpose on this list than the author's familiarity and affection for the genre. I always find these inclusions particularly galling because I've encountered so many incredible lesser-known albums through this list, yet I'm also being forced to listen to innocuous bullshit like this. It's not bad, but it's certainly not ground-breaking, genre-defining, finely-crafted, or, for that matter, enjoyable to listen to.
But at least I know that Robbie Williams is loving angels instead now. I can't think where my life would be without that bit of eternal wisdom, whatever the fuck it means
2/5
The Everly Brothers
3/5
There wasn't a huge amount to this one, but it's good enough. Cathy's Clown is a banger. The harmonies are excellent, but this comes from that tweener era of rock where the genre doesn't feel full developed in a lot of ways
3/5
Michael Kiwanuka
4/5
I always get excited when very recent albums show up on this list, since they have been universally good in my experience (the opposite of the phenomenon is when I see any Britpop album from the 90s or 00s).
This album was cool, but didn't blow my mind. It was pleasant enough playing in the background, but it didn't come to my attention very often as it was playing. It's a well-crafted album, but it didn't seem particularly groundbreaking in any way that was clear to me. Definitely worth a listen, though I'm not terribly sure why it was included on this list
4/5
SAULT
3/5
I thought this album was cool, but it didn't ultimately keep my interest all that well
Genesis
3/5
So....I don't really like prog rock. There are definitely good things about the genre, but a lot of it, for me, feels like forgettable stretches broken up by the occasional bit of good music. There wasn't anything I specifically disliked about this album, but it was also hard to get too invested in it because of how slowly developing it is.
Also, Jesus Christ this album just keeps going, doesn't it? Like, I'm 37 minutes in and there is still one hell of a lot of album left.
3/5
Stevie Wonder
4/5
Funky Stevie Wonder is just the absolute best. He covers so much depth and harshness about the world while still managing to get you toes tapping. I don't like this album as much as Songs In the Key of Life, but it is still one of his best works from his most fruitful period
4/5
Leonard Cohen
3/5
I like Leonard Cohen more than I thought I would before I'd listened to him. However, this is not his best work. His voice sounds a bit thin here, and it hurts the overall feeling of the album. The beauty of his poetry is still here, but it just doesn't sound as good
3/5
Queen
3/5
I lost my reivew from yesterday. Queen II is good Queen, but their sound has not fully matured yet compared to where it will be on A Night at the Opera
3/5
Frank Zappa
3/5
I always feel like I should like Frank Zappa, and then I always just think he's kinda okay when I listen to him. He's a skilled musician and composer, and he surrounds himself will great people, but I always feel like he's just a bit...much.
3/5
Manic Street Preachers
2/5
For some reason I keep losing my notes that I make while actually listening to this album. However, if you've been listening to albums from this list for a while, you've already heard this album in one form or another. It's a Britpop album from the 90s-00s that is not interesting or original and has no business being on this list. Many albums on this list I don't like, but I understand why they were included. Other albums, like this, are clearly just here because the author of the list was a fan during their youth. It's something we would all fall victim to if we tried to compile a list of 1000 great albums, and yet I still choose to be shitty about it anyway because I am an anonymous stranger on the internet.
Fuck you, Manic Street Preachers
2/5
Korn
2/5
I was a bit skeptical about this album when it first popped up, but honestly sometimes I do feel like a freak on a leash
Much of what I said about Antichrist Superstar applies here. The music for this album is actually pretty cool, and I wonder what this album would sound like if you removed the sensitive boi lyrics and left just the instrumentals. I like Korn's lyrics far better than Manson's, but to be fair I like reading the ingredients in a shampoo bottle better than Marilyn Manson's lyrics.
The production on this album is really clean, which makes it easy to listen to. I understand better now why people liked it so much in the 90s than I did then. Honestly, I was kind of digging it minus the childishness of the lyrics. Then All in the Family brings the album to a grinding fucking halt. The combination of homophobia and bad rapping is absolutely crucifying. Traditionally, rappers make diss tracks about other rappers, rather than inviting those rappers on the album to diss them back, but I guess Korn's approach to shitting on themselves works too. Unfortunately, it also drops this album's rating to 2/5 because I had to sit through it
2/5
2/5
Iron Maiden
4/5
I really love listening to early metal, which I would not have predicted even a few years ago. This album has a lot of the elements of what will come in the future for metal embedded in it, but it also has a lot of elements of 70s rock in it. It feels like a very transitional album, one that clarifies the roots of the metal genre
4/5
Hole
3/5
This album is an okay listen. The production is good. The first few songs are really solid, but it starts to fall off after that. Moreover, it's hard to understand why this album is on the list. I haven't seen many alternative rock albums here, so it's always sort of baffling when I get an album that I would consider to be a minor work of that era. It's not bad, but there are so many more deserving albums that I'm not sure made this list
3/5
3/5
This album is okay. I'm not a big prog rock guy, though luckily this album is not as slow and ponderous as many prog rock albums (and I'm sure that plenty of folks would argue that this is not prog rock, and that is certainly a supportable position). Parts of this is really good, and other parts are trying to be epic in a way that I find really uninspiring. I like the approach that Muse employed for this album, I'm just not super into the execution
3/5
System Of A Down
3/5
I think that metal groups in the 90s and 00s had a harder challenge in front of them then is generally recognized. They had to produce music that definitively sounded like metal without continuing to works that were substantially similar to what came before. I like metal, but it's sound can be restrictive. Bands like System of a Down did a great job of walking that line. I don't like this album as much as Toxicity, but still, you can clearly hear the innovation of their sound here. In a genre where it can be hard to stand out even with very talented musicians, SoaD manages to be instantly recognizable.
That being said, this album still sags in places. Their song writing would improve in future works, but it's not quite there yet on this work
3/5
Marvin Gaye
4/5
This album is a bit tough for me to judge, and I think I'm going to have to come back to it for future listens to truly give a solid review on it. On this listen, it didn't feel like there was a huge amount going on here. I like each song, but they also kind of flow by without there being much for me to say specifically about them. What's Going On made much more of an impression on me at first listen.
I think this might be a case where lots of works that came after Let's Get It On incorporated this sound and approach, and as a consequence it doesn't sound as revolutionary as it is. I certainly can't say that it sounds like works that came before it, and the Wikipedia entry seems to confirm this. I feel like there's a lot here, but it's not something that I'm going to be able to articulate after a single listen
4/5
Talk Talk
3/5
I don't always know what to think about art pop bands. This album is good, and there's clearly a lot of craftsmanship involved, but it also leaves me feeling a little flat.
3/5
The Adverts
4/5
This is an interesting early British punk album. It came on the heels of the first slate of punk albums that were released in 1977. This album is more melodic and poppy than the Sex Pistols, though not quite as fun and strange as the Ramones. Overall, it's a really good early punk album. The Adverts share a lot of sonic similarities with the Buzzcocks, though the Advert's lyrics are a little more in the traditional punk mold. Overall a really fun album that slipped through the cracks of history while the Sex Pistols and Clash went on the become mega-famous
4/5
Def Leppard
4/5
Like the other Def Leppard album I got on this list, I'm honestly surprised by how good this is. It's not groundbreaking or anything, but it is an incredibly well-produced album with a lot of good songs. I never thought of Def Leppard as a hit factory, but just the number of songs that charted on this album alone is surprising, and Pyromania is similar.
It's also wild that this album came out after their drummer lost his goddamned arm. Like, drummers famously use their arms quite frequently, and generally they prefer to have two of them. The drumming sounds great too, especially on Pour Some Sugar On Me.
4/5 Another surprisingly good album from Def Leppard
CHIC
3/5
I liked parts of this, and I can definitely see why the bass from the album was sampled so frequently in early hip-hop, but ultimately I found it a bit dull. Also, I did not know that Good Times was 8 fucking minutes long. Perfect for the dance floor, but a bit strange for a single. Worth a listen, but not an album that I plan on coming back to
3/5
KISS
2/5
Honestly, fuck this album. They make you wait through like 2 minutes of bullshit before you get to hear Detroit Rock City, and after that fine song is done, it's just waiting for the album to wind through its length. I hate it when KISS tries to rock, I hate it when KISS tries to be sensitive.
Honestly, though, the production on this album is terrible. Everything sounds sludgy. At first I thought it might be a poor quality upload on YouTube, but no, it just sounds like that. Like mixing a KISS album was some dying child's last wish, and the band just let them do it, but then the kid got better so they couldn't go back and remaster it.
I'm not sure why someone thought I should listen to this album before I die. Maybe they have a strong hatred of me and think that subjecting me to this album will hasten my death by sapping my will to live. Jokes on them, because I'm determined to outlive every member of KISS so that I can dance on each and every one of their graves.
2/5 (Detroit Rock City is pulling a lot of weight on this album, and I guess Beth is fine too)
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
4/5
After finding out that this album was produced by Brian Eno, I'm not surprised that I liked it right away. What I am surprised about is that I've never heard of it before. It's really cool for a mostly instrumental album. Laid back, if not quite ambient, with a really cool sound to it. I think I'm going to try and pick up this album on vinyl based on my first listen. This was a great palette-cleanser after having to review a fucking KISS album yesterday
4/5
Can
4/5
There's been sort of a notable absence of Kraut rock on this list so far, as I've been doing this for over a year and this is the first such album that I've gotten. I liked this album. Like most in the genre it's good to just put on and listen to in the background. I'm a bigger fan of Neu than Can, but this is still really cool for the era in which it was made. Really influential stuff that doesn't get its due for its historical importance
4/5
Otis Redding
4/5
It's sad to think that more than half of the songs on this album were written by Otis Redding or Sam Cooke, and that within two years of the release of this album, both of them would be dead (Cooke died prior to the recording of the album). Both incredible tragedies for the world of music, both for the loss of their voices and their masterful songwriting.
Redding's massive talent is on full display here. What I wouldn't give for a higher quality of recording for this album. It's an issue that plagues a lot of these Stax recordings. Despite this, though, the beauty of these songs are undeniable. Even when he's covering famous songs, he always manages to make them his own
4/5
Joni Mitchell
3/5
Now I find myself in the weird position of reviewing an album that I've owned on vinyl for more than a decade but somehow never listened to. The reason why I've never listened to it is because Joni Mitchell has never "clicked" with me. The reason why I still have it is: 1) so people will think that I am smart and sensitive, and 2) because a lot of people who's musical opinions I respect really like Joni Mitchell.
This album continues that trend for me. This album also doesn't click for me, but I can see why people like it. It's interesting, no question. It does not sound like it's tied to one particular time period. I definitely wouldn't say that it's of its time. Mitchell has a well-developed style that sets her apart. It doesn't particularly work for me, but it's also hard for me to dislike it because she is doing something different here and executing her vision well.
3/5
Lou Reed
4/5
Say what you will about Lou Reed, he always puts together an interesting album. It's been a few years since I've revisited Transformer. For some reason I always think this album is going to be more intense than it is. Perhaps its the combination of the title and cover art. Regardless, this is a cool album. Relax, yet very engaging, like a lot of Reed's work. Perhaps his finest work outside of the Velvet Underground
4/5
The Mars Volta
4/5
Ah fuck, I don't want to listen to modern prog rock today. What frustrates me about this band is that they are clearly talented, and I can hear bits and pieces of what I loved so much about Relationship of Command. However, this band is not that band, and for all of the good elements of this album, it's never going to achieve the raw power of Relationship of Command.
On the other hand, this album is a good listen overall. I want it to be something that it is not, but that's on me. The vocals and the instrumentation are very good on this album. It's also less proggy than other stuff I've listened to from Mars Volta. Guess I got to give it 4 stars, especially since listening to this album improved my shitty mood moderately
4/5
4/5
Paul Simon
3/5
This was a tough one to rate. On the one hand, it's a Paul Simon album, and the man knows music and has a beautiful and distinctive voice. On the other hand, none of these songs are particularly memorable. They're just good because they're Paul Simon songs. However, none of these songs are in the top 20 Paul Simon songs in my opinion.
The issue, then, is whether I judge this album as it sounds or within the context of Paul Simon's career. If this was a band that I'd never heard of, I would certainly rank it as 4/5 stars. Within the context of his career, I'd consider this mediocre, 3/5 stars. Ultimately, I choose the later. I try not to bring prejudice into my reviews, but I also just don't get why this album is on here. I'm sure there are plenty of other Simon records on this list, so it's tough to see why this album deserves any special merit
3/5
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4/5
I didn't like this album as much as It's Blitz, which I first encountered with this list. Compared to that, this album didn't really have any songs that stuck out. However, I love the sound of this band, and I still thought that this was worth a listen. Poppy and gritty at the same time
4/5
Aerosmith
3/5
Aerosmith was the first band that I ever fell (briefly) in love with, so it's weird to reflect on their early career now that I've decidedly lost interest in the band that I was so infatuated with in the early-mid 90s. This is much more straightforward blues rock than I would have anticipated. Very much of its time and not showing many of the elements that would define their style in the 80s and 90s. Walk This Way is a notable exception, which is appropriate since that sound would kick start their success in the 80s. Sweet Emotion is another highlight of the album that sounds more like 80s Aerosmith. The rest of the album sucks ass and you can quote me on that (my name is Bill Gates)
3/5 and the two good songs on this album are pulling a lot of weight
Tom Waits
3/5
Boy, this list is really insistent that I give Tom Waits another chance after being more or less lukewarm on the last two albums of his that I listened to. This album continues that trend. It's strange, I like weird music, and I feel like I should like Tom Waits. I think the issue is that I like music that is weird like the Butthole Surfers, and Tom Waits makes music that's weird in the same way that clowns are weird. I fucking hate clowns. I don't hate Tom Waits, but when I saw one of his albums on this list this morning, I felt the same way that I feel when someone tells me that I'm going to the circus: "Oh great, now I'm about to get robbed by a carnie."
3/5
Elis Regina
3/5
I'm always excited to see an album that I've never heard of on here. There's nothing like the feeling of falling in love with an album that you didn't know existed just minutes before. I didn't fall in love with this album, but still the sentiment remains. Part of the problem with this album was that I don't have any context for why it's important. Wikipedia was no help, since this album isn't even listed on her Wikipedia page. It's pleasant enough, but there was nothing to really draw me in. Part of the problem was that the tone on the bass and guitar were sounds that I associate with muzak. Not bad, and perhaps not her fault, but still sounds that I associated with low effort music designed to fade into the background. Here vocals are good, but not sufficient to explain to me why this album is considered notable
3/5
Mudhoney
3/5
This is an interesting one to come back to after many years. I bought this album when I was young, but it didn't make much of an impact on my, and I didn't listen to it all that much. I think now that some of the reason that I didn't immediately like this album is that the vocals aren't mixed very well. They always feel like they're fading into the background a bit, and that leaves nothing out in front leading the band. I think a remastered version of this album could be really cool. As it is, there's certainly a lot of promise here, but it doesn't quite follow through
3/5
Neil Young
3/5
HOW MANY FUCKING NEIL YOUNG ALBUMS ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME LISTEN TO? Look, I don't like the guy, okay. He's a fine musician, he writes fine songs, and the issue here is that I don't like them and don't want to listen to them. He bums me the fuck out.
What I can say about this album is that it does have some of the Neil Young songs that I like. They're uniformly total bummers, but at least they're good bummers, so 3/5? I guess
David Bowie
4/5
One thing I think is important to note here is that David Bowie didn't owe us this album. After all of the great music he gave us, all of the great experiences he created for us, he didn't owe us one more album before he died. The fact that, as he was dying of cancer, he made this stellar album shows how incredible he truly was. Visionary is the word I would use to describe Bowie's career, and it feels that way here too. He's a man looking out into the abyss of death and preparing himself to take the final step.
This is not his best album, but it is a monumental achievement nonetheless. He didn't have to do it, but he did, and it's great
4/5
Slayer
4/5
Fuck yeah, Slayer. This album is one of the many examples of everything Rick Rubin touches turning to gold. While he was in the midst of building one of the most successful hip-hop albums, he was producing this album.
Slayer is one of those bands that really has done one thing for their entire career, and they do that one thing so well that they don't need to diversify. Slayer makes thrash metal. That's it. Metallica did it better during the 80s in my opinion, but they stopped making thrash towards the end of the decade, while Slayer kept making thrash well into the 2000s.
This album is one of their greats. It hits you like a brick to the face, yet manages to be so intricate that it stays fresh over several listens. I've come back to this album over and over throughout the years, and it doesn't disappoint.
4/5. Fuck yeah, Slayer
Elvis Presley
3/5
It seems really strange now that an artist could put out an album composed entirely of cover songs and use it as a platform to become one of the most famous people on the face of the earth. It's a testimony the Elvis's charisma that he is able to pull this off. This album doesn't feature many of what I would consider to be Elvis's best songs. Instead we're treated to a bunch of songs that had been released in the years before this album by other artists who did more definitive versions. There are some exceptions. I think Presley's versions of Blue Suede Shoes and Blue Moon may be better than the originals. However, he adds nothing to songs like I Got a Woman and Tutti Fruity. Presley gets a lot of credit for bringing the music of black artists to white audiences, but I'm not sure that that helped the black artists all that much.
This album sounds okay. Elvis's style is very distinctive and is already well-developed here. The lack of originality in the compositions works against him here. It's fine that he didn't write his own music, but I can't get over the fact that Elvis got famous doing cover songs that were substantially similar to artists who were still trying to be discovered by the world at large. This album did a disservice to people like Carl Perkins and Little Richard. It makes the album feel a bit shallow, since Elvis's looks seem to have a lot to do with why he was so successful where original artists weren't. He is a talented musician, there's no denying it, and his voice is heavenly. It just feels like he's stealing other people's glory with this album
3/5
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3/5
This is . . . not a very good hip-hop album. I was really excited to hear it after reading the Wikipedia entry. There are samples from a bunch of songs that I really like. It's from a cool era of hip-hop that has a bunch of hidden gem albums I haven't heard yet. It's politically conscious.
The execution is lacking, however. Michael Franti provides a very superficial analysis of the world. The lyrics just aren't good, and he doesn't rhyme very well. Rapping without rhyming is just talking in a weird cadence. This album leaves me feeling flat in much the same way I felt when I saw Michael Franti and Spearhead live. It feels like it could be good, but it's not. It feels lazy. Every song feels like he was inspired to try and make a Public Enemy song, but then he got tired halfway through and gave up.
3/5 The political content and music are pulling a lot of weight in this score. He is talking about a lot of issues that were not common points of discussion at the time. He's just talking about them without much insight
5/5
This was the album that got me into the Beatles. It was my favorite album of all time for a long while, until I'd listened to it too many times and I couldn't really "hear" it anymore when I put it on. It's something so different than what came before, and it had such a clear and incredible influence on what came after it. It's hard to find words to describe this album. Every song is good. Most of the songs are all time greats. It's hard to even compare it to other albums, because it's the standard that you compare other albums to.
As time goes by, I've started to think that Abbey Road is the superior album, but I'd still recommend that someone looking to get into the Beatles listen to this album first. It's so relatable and so alien at the same time.
5/5
Joni Mitchell
4/5
Joni Mitchell usually doesn't work for me. I think that she is good, but I don't generally enjoy her albums that much. Blue is a notable exception. It's so beautiful and painful all the way through. Both her songwriting and her voice are on full display on this album. It's a very accessible entry point for her music
4/5
The La's
4/5
Well I, for one, had no idea that There She Goes was a cover song. That's cool, and the original sounds good (though it makes me feel less kindly about the cover, since it's virtually the same as the original).
This album has a fun energy to it. A lot of the songs are upbeat. Other songs inexplicably sound as if The Who were fronted by the lead singer of Smashmouth. Those songs are less good. Still, this is a good album overall and one that I'd like to come back to
4/5
Kelela
4/5
I struggled with this album a bit. It sounds fine, both the music and the vocal are good and they blend well together. Listening to this album without context, I felt that it was a bit generic. Not bad at all, but it didn't sound particularly revolutionary for 2017. The Wikipedia entry shed a little more light on it, noting it's fusion of R&B and EDM, as well as other musical styles. I feel like EDM has been a part of R&B for a long time, but I don't know enough about the genre to say that definitively. In the end, I like this album, but I don't know that it's super groundbreaking. I think that the years since its release have altered my perception of it. At the same time, this album was released after FKA Twig's EP, which was much more experiemental in terms of electronic music in R&B. In the end I think it's good enough to give 4/5, but it's definitely close to 3/5
4/5
The Chemical Brothers
4/5
I fucking love this album. It's music that you can really dance to that somehow feels more meaningful. It's also an absolutely stellar debut album. I think that Dig Your Own Hole is better overall, but this is one not to be missed. Every song works in the context of the album. Big Beat is one of those musical movements that I would have loved to be able to be around when it was in its early days.
I'm not sure that Big Beat gets its due with regard to its influence on modern music. So much of what has happened in EDM and hip-hop is using this style as its skeleton. The Chemical Brothers are the best part of that, turning out banger after absolute banger
4/5
Tito Puente
4/5
I don't have a lot of notes about this album. It's great to put on and just let it play in the background. Very fun and upbeat, and it seems like it would be fun to dance to, as the title suggests.
4/5
Pretenders
4/5
It's very strange going from growing up thinking that the 1970s was a wasteland for music to it being perhaps my favorite decade for music bar none. There was just so much happening, and everything was changing so quickly. Case in point, this album is a nice pop and punk in the post-punk era that doesn't really get talked about much. I think the success that Blondie experienced just prior to this album's release. This album is a lot of fun, well worth a listen
4/5
Missy Elliott
4/5
I liked this album okay. I think that Missy Elliot makes excellent music with Timbaland. The features on the album are good. It makes for great dance music. I think, in some ways, not enough time has passed for me to critically evaluate this album, since it now sounds old, but not old enough that it's easy for me to place it in the history of hip-hop. It's at that in-between age when a lot of good albums feel like they have aged poorly, like a lot of early 2000s music. I felt the same way about 80s music when I was younger, but eventually came to really appreciate it.
4/5
Screaming Trees
4/5
This is one of those 90s bands that I never really got into when they were actually around. The sound of this album certainly takes me back. The Screaming Trees are definitely a gentler sort of alternative rock band than many of their more popular counterparts. It's a shame they didn't get more attention. The songs are well-composed, and the lyrics were good as of my first pass. Definitely worth a listen, particularly for those of us who came of age during the 90s
4/5
Grant Lee Buffalo
3/5
I think I might have liked this album a lot in the 90s, but I don't feel like it has aged well. It might be that there was a lot of music that was influenced by this album that mimicked the sound and style, but this album sounds a bit generic. It's fine, but it kinda just played through without making much of an impression on me
3/5
The Kinks
4/5
I thought this was a cool album for the time. I got a little more bored with it as it went, but the style if very distinctive. I've always heard good things about the Kinks, but I've never listened to one of their albums until now. The sound quality of the album isn't amazing, but that certainly happened sometimes in this period
4/5
Beatles
4/5
It's buck wild how much great music the Beatles put out in the 60s. This album is stellar, and it isn't even close to my top five Beatles albums. There's not much else to say about this album. It's good from the very first note. It would be nice if they wrote fewer love songs, but that's the early Beatles for you. Well worth a listen
4/5
Nirvana
5/5
It would be hard to put a number on just how many times I've listened to this album. When I was a teenager, I used to just play it on repeat, no need to hear anything else when I've got the perfect album already in the CD player.
This album is so much more than the sum of its parts. I think a lot of that comes down to Cobain's songwriting and Butch Vig's production. The songs thrash between quiet and full-throated explosions of anger. Vig's production brings coherence to the madness. I know Kurt disliked the way this album sounded and felt that it didn't represent the band, but it certainly represented something that the world needed.
This album rewrote all the rules. Music hasn't been the same since. In some ways that's good, in some ways that's bad. It's the culmination of decades of struggling indie and alternative bands trying to break through with Nirvana becoming the biggest band in the world. It's well deserved. This album is incredible. Every song is good. This album definitely has a sound, but it never begins to feel samey.
It feels weird reviewing an album that everyone already knows about, but if you haven't listened to Nevermind, go ahead and listen to it. It's amazing. Also, I was reading on the YouTube page about how this album came out 30 years ago, and all of my bones turned to dust.
5/5
Marvin Gaye
4/5
There's nothing quite like when a skilled songwriter and sensitive artist is blessed with a voice so warm and smooth that can melt butter. I don't listen to Marvin Gaye a lot, but every time I do there is this incredible richness evident in his music. This album portrays the struggle of a love that has failed beautifully, traipsing through the sadness, anger, rejection, defiance, reminiscence, and acceptance with a style of music that is probably best described as sad disco.
4/5 I'd prefer that this were not a double album, because I have shit to do, but they didn't have the internet in the 70s, so I can understand why artists placed less emphasis on valuing people's time
The Young Rascals
3/5
Well, I can say for sure that the song Find Somebody was not meant to be listened to on headphones, because the complete switch between left and right ear for the guitar is super unpleasant. Like, it feels like my headphones are breaking in time with the music
Setting that monstrosity aside, this is an interesting album. The famous songs don't really start until halfway through. The hits off of this album are great. Most of the rest of the songs are a bit dull. They are in the process of becoming a psychedelic band here, but it doesn't feel full formed yet. Perhaps that's appropriate since this is their last album as the Young Rascals before they dropped the "Young"
3/5 Fun at times, but also annoying at times and uninteresting at other times
Alice Cooper
3/5
This album was very difficult for me to rate. On one hand, it didn't keep my attention very well. On the other hand, it's clearly a landmark album in the history of what would become heavy metal, and it influenced a lot of other music that came after it as well. I think it's a decent album, but it didn't appeal to me all that much
3/5
Franz Ferdinand
2/5
This was never really a band that I got into when they were popular, and I think now that I understand why. I find them boring and every song sounds the same to me. Like, I'm 4 songs in and I just want to give up because its so dull
Also they have a terrible name. It's like the Dead Kennedys, except it's not funny. Same
2/5
Happy Mondays
4/5
Really cool alternative rock album from the late 80s. It presages a lot of musical ideas that will come to fruition in the 90s. Well worth a listen
4/5
Green Day
4/5
Honestly, I was way more impressed with this album than I thought I would be. I remember some of these songs being hits in 2004, but I wasn't terribly into pop music at that point, and a lot of these songs work much better in the context of this album. Green Day certainly came a long way in the 10 years between Dookie and American Idiot (though I still love the former). I would not have predicted that they had a concept album with emotional depth in them.
4/5
Nitin Sawhney
4/5
This album is pretty cool. I didn't love every part of it, but it certainly sounds advanced for its time. Some parts could be repetitive (Pilgrim is a pretty dull song), but the songs flow together well. The underlying theme of the atomic bomb is very interesting, especially since the fear of nuclear war was pretty low in 1999. The music has a diverse set of influences
4/5
Chicago
3/5
I wanted to like this album, I really did. Parts of it are good. However, the album grinds to a fucking halt during the 10 minute long Free Form Guitar song, and it had already been a while since the album had any notable highlights. It's fine for albums to do experimental stuff, but that song does not fit in with the rest of what they're doing, and it is absolutely crucifying to listen to
3/5
Motörhead
4/5
I would not have thought that I would enjoy this album, and having listened to it, I'm not exactly sure why I enjoy this album. I do enjoy it however. It has a very consistent sound without sounding repetitive. Ace of Spades is an all time banger. Well worth a listen
4/5
David Bowie
4/5
This album definitely falls close to the David Bowie sweet spot for me. Low is my favorite album, though I also have to admit my undying love for Hunky Dory. This album seems to be in the middle of those two. It's far less poppy than Hunky Dory, but far less dark than Low. Despite being something of an in between album, it's really enjoyable.
4/5
Stereolab
4/5
I thought this album was really neat. The French influence on the music and lyrics makes it very distinctive
4/5
The Monks
4/5
This is a very interesting album. I remember hearing about it a long time ago as one of the earliest examples of proto-punk music. I can certainly see how it's that, as well as how it fits in with a lot of the garage band music of the time. Overall it's a good album, far more pleasant and well-produced than I would have expected. There are even some songs that I think could have been released as singles.
4/5
Jimmy Smith
4/5
This is a cool jazz album that really hits the sweet spot between being good jazz and being easy to listen to and digest. I don't have much else to say about this one other than that it's great to listen to and I'm going to keep my eyes out for a vinyl copy of it to add to my collection
4/5
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
This marks the third Bruce Springsteen album that I've gotten on this list, and while I don't think that I'll ever consider myself a Springsteen fan, I must say that I've enjoyed all three albums. This album is classic Sprinsteen, straight-ahead rock with a working class message. It's good all the way through, though one song sort of blends into the next since they all have a similar feel. The song I'm on Fire helps break up the monotony, though. Overall, though, there's nothing bad about this album that I can point to. The man makes solid work
4/5
Suicide
5/5
I am very excited to read the reviews on this one. Somehow I'm guessing that there's not going to be a lot of middle ground between love and hate.
I'm one of the people that love this band, and this album in particular. Suicide was one of the bands that helped form the late 70s punk scene in New York. No one has ever sounded like them since. Suicide is a beautiful combination of idiosyncrasies that can never be replicated. The perfect people at the perfect time, with perfect ideas about music and perfectly shitty equipment
5/5
Mike Oldfield
3/5
This album is okay for what it is, but I found it a bit dull. The part where he is just announcing the instruments as they come in sounds like an old Disney documentary about sound. It's cool that he was so young when he did this, and that he played all the instruments. It's one of those examples of an album concept that was produced with a huge amount of talent and effort, but still doesn't work that well in the end. Also, I've never really understood why people like the movie The Exorcist so much. I just figured while I'm tossing out unpopular opinions related to this album I might as well air that one out as well
3/5
The Divine Comedy
2/5
There are some things about this album that are neat. I can't say that it sounds like anything else from its time. It's like a Tom Jones album made with 90s sensibilities. I think that it is possible to make a good album in with this approach, and Casanova has a nice voice that works with the musical arrangements
On the other hand, I found this album cloying from the very beginning. I kept waiting for it to turn into something that I could get into, but that eventually turned into me waiting for it to finally end. I think that the name of the album and artist are an attempt to be funny, but like with everything about this album, execution is lacking. My only hope at this point is that I can get drunk enough tonight that I forget that this album ever existed, since the odds of anyone in my life ever bringing it up at any point in the future are pretty small
2/5
JAY Z
5/5
It's been a long time since I came back to this album. Historically, I've always preferred Reasonable Doubt to this album. However, listening to this after getting a better understanding of the history of hip-hop, it's really hard to deny how incredible The Blueprint is. It has plenty of hits, but it also features a lot of the production styles that would be featured during the next decade of rap music. The name The Blueprint ended up being prophetic in that sense. I don't hand out 5 stars to many albums, and I wasn't anticipating doing it for this album, but I can't think of a single argument for why this album doesn't deserve it
5/5
Radiohead
5/5
What is there to say about this album. It's an absolute masterpiece from beginning to end. It's also the beginning of one of the greatest three album runs in the history of recorded music. What's more, the more I listen to this album, the more I like it. It just works on every level. Even songs that I would find annoying on a lesser album, like Fitter Happier manage to fit into this album. It's dark and beautiful, wounded yet resilient.
5/5
Bob Dylan
4/5
One of the more notable things that listening to an album a day from this list has done for me is to give me much more of an appreciation of Bob Dylan. He was always one of those musicians that I liked but didn't really "get." Now, having gotten to sample from a good portion of his career, I'm really starting to enjoy his music. I don't really see myself buying any of his albums, but I liked this one
It starts out with Like a Rolling Stone, an all-time banger, at least for folk music. Nothing after that is as good, but what are you going to do? The whole album is very consistent, both in terms of its musical quality and its lyrical depth. Certainly a ground-breaking album for 1965. Definitely worth a listen.
Hole
3/5
How are there two Hole albums on this list? This album isn't bad, but it also doesn't feel good enough to be on this list. There definitely seems to be a popularity bias with the material selected from the 90s. I haven't seen any Butthole Surfers albums on here, nor, for that matter, any Stooges albums. Hole is simply not as important in musical history as either of those bands (I would put the Stooges as one of the most important bands of the 20th century).
This album is fine. The lyrics feel a bit juvenile. The music is good overall. It's just not clear why this particular album was important enough to put on this list when so many other influential bands seem to be entirely left off. I can't imagine that this album would be here if Courtney Love was not married to Kurt Cobain. Weirdly, I've gotten more Hole albums on this list than Nirvana albums. It just seems like a popularity contest more than an critical examination of the most influential and technically-advanced albums.
3/5
Donald Fagen
3/5
This album sounds good, but it doesn't feel like there's a lot to it as far as groundbreaking music goes. It definitely has some of the Steely Dan sound that Fagen was instrumental in forming. Overall, it comes off more as an easy-listening album than an album that pushed the boundaries of music in its time. It's not bad at all, in fact it's quite pleasant, but I don't see much else here. I'm on the third song and I'm already bored (update: as of song 5 I am still bored and about to give up on this album). As always, it's a super bad sign when the coolest thing about an album is its cover
3/5
Billy Bragg
4/5
The concept behind putting together Billy Bragg and Wilco to record unreleased Woody Guthrie songs is a very interesting idea that is mercifully well-executed here. I'll confess that I'm much more a fan of Wilco than Bragg, but this album works really well. It features a lot of the straight-ahead alt-country sound of Wilco's earlier albums. Guthrie's songs work really well for both artists. Tweedy brings a more modern sound, while Bragg sounds like the specter of Guthrie himself risen out of the past. I think I'll have to look out for this one on vinyl
4/5
Ella Fitzgerald
4/5
It's hard to imagine Ella Fitzgerald putting out a bad album because of how exquisite her instrument was, and this album certainly meets her usual standard. I'm not a huge fan of this type of music, but she is undeniable as a vocalist. Well worth the listen
4/5
Grizzly Bear
4/5
I really liked this album. The vocals are beautiful and compliment the music very well. I felt like the style of the album got a bit repetitive toward the end
4/5
Depeche Mode
4/5
Lost my review for this one, but this album is a great touch stone for how far synth music had come by 1990 (when compared to earlier albums like Truth or Dare by Human League). It sounds much more mature than the works of the 80s which is probably a testament to the advance of technology more than anything else.
This album is very much worth a listen and features some of Depeche Mode's most famous songs
4/5
Jane's Addiction
4/5
Much like when I got Ritual De Lo Habitual on this list, I like this album, though I still don't see myself ever putting on a Janes Addiction album of my own volition. This album certainly feels more revolutionary than the works that came after it by this band. It definitely doesn't sound like an album from 1988, and was clearly highly influential in its time. I had no idea that Jane Says was made this early. I always thought it was mid-90s from the way it sounds
4/5
DJ Shadow
5/5
Love this album. Having just listened to Violator by Depeche Mode and thinking about how far synth pop came from 1980-1990, it's very interesting to think about the fact that this album was made only 6 years after Violator. It feels like all the rules changed in the intervening years. The mixture of hip-hop with electronic music creates the real power of this album. The drums bang hard on most of the tracks. The rest of the musical score feels like flavor added to the rhythm section. It's a much different approach to electronic music than was prominent before this time, but it really works and it had a massive impact on the future of electronic music and hip-hop
5/5
Pink Floyd
4/5
This album really brings into conflict all of the things that I like and hate about Pink Floyd. There are some great songs on here, especially Have a Cigar and Wish You Were Here. The songs are musically creative, well-executed, and have interesting lyrics. That's what I like about Pink Floyd.
Then there's the bad Pink Floyd. The one that disappears into interminable jams for half of the goddamn album. Shine on You Crazy Diamond could be a good song if it wasn't so unstructured for most of it. Pink Floyd has made several long songs that I like (like anything off of Animals), but on this album it just feels like filler. This album is great when it's good and deeply frustrating when it's not. I think overall the good outweighs the bad on this one, but it's close, and that's why I don't listen to this one often
4/5
Herbie Hancock
5/5
This album is absolutely iconic from the very first bass note. I would consider this the best marriage of jazz and funk ever put together. Headhunters would serve as a template for a lot of great improvised music to come after it, especially for jazz artists like Medeski, Martin, and Wood. It's so smooth and yet infinitely groovy and danceable. A song like Watermelon Man shouldn't work as well as it does, but that's the level of skill that Hancock brings to this album, and he makes it look easy.
There's lots of points in Herbie Hancock's career that you could point to as the pinnacle. The man played on some of Miles Davis's best albums for christ's sake, but for me this is the absolute best. It's a towering dance album that exists somewhere in the tension between the analogue and digital realms. It's not one to be missed
5/5
The Pogues
4/5
Folk-Punk is not a genre that I would have thought to be particularly fruitful in terms of good music. The Pogues certainly provide a nice counter-argument to that assumption. The music is fun, mixing traditional Irish instruments with a variety of musical styles. I would lump the Pogues in with Flogging Molly as music that is great to have playing in the background, even if it doesn't sound particularly outstanding in the foreground. I like each individual song, at least as far as I've gotten into the album, but it does get a bit repetitive after a while. Like I said, though, if you put this on in the background while you do something else, it'll keep your foot tapping while you work.
4/5
Circle Jerks
4/5
If there is a single word that I could pick to describe hardcore punk, it would be efficient. I've been listening to this album for 2 minutes and 45 seconds, and I'm already done with three songs. This album gets through 14 songs in less than 16 minutes. Like I said, efficient
This is a fun early example of hardcore and the style of the developing west coast punk scene. I feel like hardcore punk is a bit limited as a genre, but I also know that I would have fucking loved seeing this band when I was a teenager. As I get older, raw power in music appeals to me less and less, but when you're young and full of hormones and anger, it makes you feel like someone else gets it. This album is perfectly that. It's high energy everyday boredom and disaffection. And if you don't like it, it's over in 15 minutes
4/5
Earth, Wind & Fire
4/5
I've listened to this album a couple of times now, but I still don't have a lot to say about it. I like it, though. It has some genuine hits on it, and the rest of the album is diverse in terms of its style. It's sweet and mellow, sometimes, fun and funky other times. The album is also filled with great instrumentals
4/5
Television
5/5
Another album I own on vinyl. This album is fascinating for so many reasons. Television emerged in the same scene that gave rise to the Ramones, Blondie, the Talking Heads, and Suicide, among many others. Television doesn't sound like any of those bands (though to be fair, those bands don't sound anything like each other). This album feels both radical and yet very much of its time. It's absolutely stellar both musically and lyrically. Lots of musical energy to provide some grounding for the poetic lyrics.
It's another weight on the scale that has swung (very much to my surprise) to the conclusion that the 70s were the best musical decade.
5/5
The Beach Boys
4/5
I thought this was cool. I wasn't really aware of the Beach Boys post-Smile, pre-Kokamo career. This was better than I thought it would be given the reduced influence of Brian Wilson. I didn't really feel like there were any standout moments, but the album was pleasant overall
4/5
The The
4/5
This album seems to serve as a neat bridge between the post-punk and alternative music movements. The band they kept reminding me of while I was listening was Faith No More, though it's hard to describe why. Regardless, it's a very interesting album musically, as it leans heavily on digital instruments while still having a rock feel to it.
Hookworms
4/5
When I first started listening to this album, I would not have guessed that it was from 2018. I'm not sure that I could place when exactly it was from, but this album is a throw-back to earlier synth music in many ways. There are also many modern elements, and everything blends together seamlessly. Some parts of it compare favorably to Animal Collective's sound. Really cool synth pop with solid if not overwhelming lyrical content. Dope.
4/5
Bobby Womack
3/5
This album really hits the sweet spot of late 70s/early 80s muzak that I just completely hate. There's something about the tone on the bass especially that I just can't stand. It's not bad overall but there's nothing about it that I really like either
3/5
Leonard Cohen
4/5
This is sort of a tough one to rate. It's a Leonard Cohen album, no doubt about it. It's certainly not my favorite Cohen album. Like most of his works (at least the ones that I've listened to), the album is heavy on the poetry and light on the music. There's nothing wrong with that, since even in his waining days, Cohen could still carry an album on the strength of is poetry and his voice.
His albums always leave me wanting something more. I've not heard any that I didn't like, but this one especially feels a bit stripped down. It's good, but also not in the same galaxy as Blackstar by Bowie in terms of albums made during an artist's dying days. Setting that comparison aside, this album is worth a listen, though not one that I'm likely to come back to
4/5
Minutemen
5/5
I found this album fascinating. It really shows how fast punk was evolving during the 80s, as it sounds almost nothing like the punk albums of the late 70s. It has a lot of elements that make it sound like alt rock works of the 90s, though I'm finding hard to describe exactly what it is that makes this album sound like a 90s album. Lots of little things, I guess. The hardcore punk influence on the song lengths really shines through on this one. It's a weird structure for an album that isn't screamed out at 200 bpm, but it allows this album to cover a lot of sonic ground. Really cool work, and a nice companion piece to the other major punk double album from this year, Zen Arcade
5/5
k.d. lang
4/5
Well, to start off, I didn't know KD Lang was a country artist at her debut. I only knew her from the song "Constant Craving" and always thought she was more of a pop artists from the R&B side of the music world. That said, her voice grabs you from the beginning of the first track. She has the perfect female country voice: powerful yet subtle, soft and filled with emotion. This album has a real blast from the past feel. KD Lang isn't Patsy Cline, but she does a hell of an impression.
4/5
Iggy Pop
4/5
This album serves as a fascinating companion piece to David Bowie's Low, which was made around the same time. Both albums were a product of Bowie and Pop working together in Berlin and experiencing the Krautrock movement that was still underway at the time. At first listen, I still prefer Low to this album, but the consistency of the sound between the two albums is really striking. It's like two artists finishing the same half-painted canvas in two different ways. The similarities between the two serve to highlight the core differences between Pop and Bowie.
The Idiot is the more dark and gritty of the two. Even when it's upbeat it's a little off. The electronic elements on the album work very well with Iggy's lyrical style. This is one I think I'm going to seek out on vinyl
4/5
Kraftwerk
4/5
This is one of those albums that sounds okay on it's own, but whose real merit lies in its influence. You can here the synthpop sound clearly for the first time in this album. Artists like Gary Numan and the Human League were clearly listening to this. So much changed in electronic music after this album that it's hard to understate its important. It sounds good too
4/5
John Prine
4/5
It's really too bad that I live in such a dogshit era for country music. I've never really had much of an appreciation for it because I came of age after most of the greats of old country music were long passed their prime. I think I would have enjoyed the genre a lot more if I was present during eras like this where you had good musicians making earnest country music, rather than the completely manufactured generic rural word salad that modern country has become.
Earnest is certainly the word that I would use to describe John Prine. The album feels intimate, personal, like it's just you and him and he's really opening up to you. Then the album first started I thought it was good but not for me. As it played on, I started to enjoy it more and more. He wins you over.
"There's a hole in daddy's arm where the money goes, and Jesus died for nothing I suppose" God damn
4/5
CHIC
3/5
This album was fine, but didn't really grab me. I like disco, and definitely don't think it gets its due as a genre. However, much like the other Chic album that I reviewed, I just couldn't really get into this one
3/5
Jerry Lee Lewis
4/5
On the one hand, I think Jerry Lee Lewis is a gross human being, and no sane country would have allowed him to marry his 13 year old cousin (once removed). One the other hand, this concert would have been fucking ecstatic to attend. You can feel the electricity of Lewis's energy through the recording. The only real criticism that I have of it is that it features very little of his original songs (only Great Balls of Fire and Lewis Boogie). I like all of the covers he does though. I suppose that it's okay to like this one since the bad man died long ago (checks Wikipedia). HOLY FUCKING SHIT, DID YOU KNOW THAT JERRY LEE LEWIS IS STILL ALIVE?? DUDE RELEASED AN ALBUM IN 2014. What the fuck?
4/5
OutKast
4/5
This album was an interesting listen. I remember when it came out it was compared negatively to Stankonia, which is fair because it's not as good as Stankonia, but this album still contains tons of high quality Outkast material.
4/5
Jamiroquai
4/5
Please collect all of the electronic disco/funk music you can find and inject it directly into my veins. I don't get to listen to a lot of fun dance music on this list, and I fucking love this stuff. The fact that this album came out in 1993 is crazy. It sounds almost too advanced for that period, though electronic music was making rapid advancements during that period in particular.
Anyway, it's hard to type when my feet are tapping and my head is bopping, so I'm just going to give this 4 stars and get back to enjoying it
The Rolling Stones
3/5
I saw Love in Vain on the tracklist and prayed to the gods above that it was not yet another shitty Robert Johnson cover (see Eric Clapton's cover of They Are Red Hot if you want another example), but of course I was disappointed. Leave the man to his eternal sleep and stop robbing his grave for christssakes.
Overall, I would describe this album as a fairly forgettable collection of blues rock songs that are bookended by the stellar songs Gimme Shelter and You Can't Always Get What You Want. It's sort of a pain in the ass that I have to get through the entire album to hear the only two songs that I care about, but that's the way it goes sometimes
3/5
Beach House
4/5
I can't say that I've listened to much dream pop before this, but I found this album really pleasant. It doesn't particularly grab you and draw you in, but the music is all very pleasant and flows well from song to song. They work really well together as a duo and both members of the band have good voices. It's not an album that I would describe as spectacular, but its very pleasant to tap your foot to as you listen to it, and the world could use plenty of that at the moment
4/5
Raekwon
5/5
The peak of Wu-Tang shone brighter than the sun in the mid-90s. The fact that multiple albums were lost when Rza's studio flooded likely means that there were more albums of this level of quality that the world never got to hear. Can't spend your time thinking about might-have-beens, though.
Built for Cuban Linx is one of those albums that I had heard about for a long time before I listened to it. On it's face it seemed like a strange thing. Raekwon didn't go on to the level of success that other member of the clan did, so it was hard to believe that one of the best solo albums came from an artist who isn't in the top 5 most highly regarded members of the original Wu-Tang clan.
When you put this album on, it seems baffling that Raekwon didn't manage to break through to the main stream. So much of what made 36 Chambers great is here, the samples that only seem to work through a form of alchemy, the lyrical storytelling, tracks filled with different voices that come together in a powerful way. Cuban Linx is incredible, right from the first song. I'm not in love with the skits between the songs, but that's how things were back then, and it does work well with the cinematic approach to the lyrics.
5/5 An absolute classic
William Orbit
3/5
I can't say that this album made much of an impression on me either way. It was fine, but it was hard to understand why its significant. I don't know that the music is particularly advanced for 1993, though it definitely doesn't sound dated for the time either. The Indian influence on the album is cool. Overall there's not a lot that I can say. It works fine as background music, but there isn't a lot else to recommend it, and the Wikipedia page was not particularly enlightening either
3/5
Bob Marley & The Wailers
3/5
I feel about this album the way that I feel about essentially every Bob Marley album except Natty Dread (which is far and away my favorite). It's good but not ultimately that interesting. I think that this album is better than most, but it still feels like background music a lot of the time
3/5
Isaac Hayes
4/5
I liked this album a lot, though it doesn't feel nearly as coherent nor as striking as the Shaft OST album. Setting that comparison aside, this is quality Isaac Hayes. His compositions are big, filling up the speakers with both electric and orchestral instruments. He brings the funk on this album too. It also feels more personal than the Shaft OST as well, it's much more about emotion and struggle.
4/5
Johnny Cash
4/5
There's been a few times on this list when I encountered an album made at the end of an artist's life that serves as a kind of goodbye message to the people who loved their music. This album is a bit strange among those, since it's largely a cover album, but god damn what an exit. He did definitive versions of some of these songs, especially Hurt. Not every song on this album is amazing like that, but they're all good. His voice held up to the very end, and for that we can be grateful
4/5
Iron Butterfly
3/5
For the love of god, WHY? Why, out of all the great music made in the late 60s is this fucking album on this list
Okay kids, it's story time.
One time, when I was in high school, My friends and I got ahold of some weed from a dealer who was not esteemed either for his intelligence or for his scruples. A bunch of us gathered at my friend's house and got stoned. No big deal.
Except this weed was laced with PCP, and rather than getting stoned and sitting on the couch laughing, we went to the fucking moon. I don't have a lot of memories of that night, apart from the fact that I was involuntarily walking around with my arms in front of me like a T-rex, and I kept opening sodas, taking one drink, and setting them down and losing them forever.
Why does this story matter now?
Someone put on this album, side 2, and my friend Johnny and I did an interpretive dance to all of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. He was spinning in place and I was dancing around him in the opposite direction. At the time it was a beautiful expression of the power of the music that we transmuted into physical movements as we became the song.
Somehow I think it would have looked a lot stupider to an outside observer who wasn't on drugs. It's a funny memory, though, and I tend to forget all about it until I am reminded that this album exists.
Anyway, this album is really boring and people mostly remember it for the interminable song that takes up the entire second half of the album. It just keeps fucking going without much purpose other than to exists for as long as it can. In some ways it's a perfect metaphor for the perpetual struggle of living things to continue to exist, moment by moment, despite the fact that we will all eventually fail and be returned to the earth
Or anyway it would be a perfect metaphor if this album was less fucking boring
3/5
Suede
4/5
Generally, when an English band from the 90s-00s that I haven't heard of before shows up on this list, it turns out to be a baffling selection for this list, as most of these albums would better to have been saved until after I died. The living version of me certainly didn't enjoy them.
This album was a notable exception. It's distinctive, I can't think of anything else that sounds like this from the mid-90s. The music is cool, and the lead singer has a great voice. Definitely worth a listen while I yet live
4/5
Fela Kuti
4/5
Fela Kuti's brand of afrobeat music is interesting to me, in that all of the albums of his that I've heard sound very similar to my ears, but still I like what he produces. The background information about this album is fascinating, as it is likely one of the most politically significant albums of all time. Kuti treated his music as a force for social and political change, and this album was certainly received that way, both by his fans and his enemies in the Nigerian government.
4/5
George Michael
4/5
This album holds up pretty well. It has some great songs on it, all of which still work pretty well today. Some of the music is a bit dated because of the equipment that was used in the recording, but overall it's a charming record. I wouldn't put George Michael as one of the top acts of the 80s the way his album sales would suggest, but he was an excellent song writer. It's kind of crazy that some of his biggest hits were released as singles before this album came out and didn't appear on the album
4/5
Sonic Youth
4/5
As I noted in my review for Goo (weird that I got two Sonic Youth albums in the same week), I've loved seeing Sonic Youth live, but never really gotten into their albums. I think this album actually captures them pretty well compared to a lot of the other SY albums that I've heard. It makes sense why this album is so highly regarded within their catalogue. It feels a lot more like the energy that they bring to live shows than most of their albums, which feel a bit flat to me.
Eagles
2/5
I really dislike this band. People seem to love them for reasons that are entirely unclear to me. They are fine. Their music is fine. Their lyrics are fine. That's it. There are a thousand bands that deserved the radio airplay that the Eagles got more than the Eagles did, and that's what bothers me about this band.
This album starts off with Take It Easy, which is an okay song, and then it gets progressively stupider from there. Chug All Night sounds like a song I would write and play for my friends as a stupid joke. Most of Us Are Sad is so on-the-nose that it knocked my glasses off my face. Every song after that is essentially indistinguishable to me because the Eagles are hacks. Peaceful, Easy Feeling is an okay song, I guess because it's basically Take It Easy without the banjo. Fuck the Eagles, I'm out
2/5
Pink Floyd
4/5
This is one of those albums that everyone seems to love that, historically at least, I just don't "get." This listen gave me more of an appreciation for the album, as I got into more of a groove with it and was able to enjoy the overall structure of the album and the songs contained within.
It's still not my favorite Pink Floyd album (I'm partial to Animals). I think it would have been better as a single album, which is something I say about almost every double album. It sags in places, and often these sags occur just as I'm getting into the album. For instance, I really like Young Lust, and it feels like the album is building to something at that point, but then it comes to a total halt with One Of My Turns.
This album feels really self indulgent on the part of Roger Waters. When the album becomes less about his personal feelings and more universal, it gets really good. There's too many good songs on here to give it anything less than 4/5, but I also find it frustrating that this album could be among my favorite Pink Floyd albums if it had fewer songs and was more focused. This album with half of the songs would be amazing
4/5
4/5
Wilco
5/5
This is an easy one. This is one of my absolute favorite albums of all time, maybe even top 5. Every single song is good, and several of them are great. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart is the perfect first song for this album, and it just keeps going from there. The album is sad and sweet, but also revels in some happy moments, like War on War and Heavy Metal Drummer. I'd also recommend the documentary about the making of this album if you can find it (titled: I Am Trying to Break Your Heart)
5/5
Sarah Vaughan
4/5
In general, I'm not a huge fan of music that focuses around a single vocalist, but having said that I love Sarah Vaughn's voice. She has great control and range. I especially enjoyed How High the Moon, where she declares in the second line that she doesn't know the words, and then scats beautifully through the rest of the song. Who needs lyrics when you're the queen?
4/5
Sonic Youth
4/5
I tend to have the same issue with all Sonic Youth albums, which is that I enjoy them okay, but I never feel compelled to listen to them again. I've seen them live twice, and loved them both times, so the issue seems to be more with how their sound translates to a recorded medium. This album I liked a little more than the others I've listened to. It feels like it has a distinctive Pixies influence that works well with their style. The songs also feel more structured and less noise-based, which I think helps it translate to a recording better
4/5
Pulp
2/5
This album is what David Bowie would sound like if he was too lazy to make good music. It's fine for what it is, but it's also another britpop album that doesn't seem particularly suited for a list like this. It's an album from the tail end of the 90s that doesn't sound all that much different from a lot of other albums that came out in the 90s. The harmonies are good, but most of the music and the lyrics unimpressive. On the other hand, I'm really excited for this album to be over soon
2/5
Mj Cole
2/5
I genuinely find this album's inclusion on this list baffling. This album seems like super standard 90s techno released after the 90s had finally shuffled off. After reading a bit more about UK Garage techno, I understand a little bit more, but continue to be confused.
This is one of the few albums on this list that I won't make it even close to the whole way through. It's just uninspired and uninspiring.
2/5
Kate Bush
4/5
This is a somewhat strange album to be reviewing now after the resurgence of Running Up That Hill as a result of its use in Stranger Things. While I don't particularly get everyone's fascination with that song (it's good, but I don't think of it as a hidden gem from the past), this album is really cool. It's distinctively 80s in its musical composition and production, but the style of it is really cool. It doesn't feel as boxy and restricted as a lot of synth pop music is. The songs have a lot of life and organic elements to them. Bush's voice is a key component of the alchemy. It's hard to identify why this works so well with her voice in particular, but I don't think this album would sound as good with someone else in front of it
4/5
GZA
5/5
The last concert that I saw before the pandemic was Gza doing Liquid Swords. He was performing at a venue that is endearing, but far too shitty to host a hip-hop legend. Regardless of the circumstances, when Gza showed up, he brought the fucking energy.
This album is interesting. It's not my favorite of the Wu-Tang solo albums (Only 4 Cuban Linx has that honor), but it's an incredible work. Lyrically deep, with Rza's characteristic sampling style that never seems like it should work, and yet always sounds amazing. The cinematic approach to making albums worked so well for Wu-Tang, and this album may be the pinnacle of that
5/5
Elvis Presley
4/5
Now seems like a good time to point out that Elvis didn't write songs, so while he may have been the greatest cover artist of all time, he was a cover artist nonetheless. At least the songs on this album weren't huge hits like some of Elvis's earlier albums.
This album is pleasant enough. The production is great. It has a live feel while still sounding very clean. Elvis's voice was still holding up great at this point in his career, though it's a bit quiet on some of the songs. There aren't a lot of what I would consider to be standout tracks on this album, other than In The Ghetto, but all of the songs are good. It's a solid album to play in the background
4/5
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
This album fucking takes me back. I remember really liking it when I was younger, and then in my typical oppositional defiant disorder way, I became much less interested in it when I found out that a lot of other people liked it. As a result, I didn't listen to this album nearly so much as a lot of its contemporaries that were slightly less popular.
Now I get to listen to this album fresh after many years. One of the things that stands out now is the influence of the shoegaze genre on this band. I wasn't familiar with bands like My Bloody Valentine in the 90s, and it's cool to hear some of the influences of those works on the Smashing Pumpkins. It's also interesting to see little bits of Industrial and Electronica in the music, especially since those influences would become more prominent in their future works.
Overall I like the album, it feels a bit long as a double album, but at the same time it's not easy to pick out songs that I would cut from it to make it tighter. There's so many different flavors here, and the album wouldn't feel as complete if it focused more around fewer sonic ideas. Some of the lyrics are a bit on-the-nose, which I think also contributed to my abandoning the album as I got older in high school. Overall, it's a really good album
4/5
Pink Floyd
3/5
Well, what we can say is that Pink Floyd found it's sound eventually. This album isn't bad, but it is pretty uninteresting for a band that would put out so many iconic albums over the coming decades. It's also easy to see how the work being done here forms a bridge between the psychedelic movement of the 60s and the music that Pink Floyd would release in the 70s once Syd Barrett departed the band. It's a neat signpost in musical history, and the band was definitely experimenting with a lot here, but ultimately this album is not that interesting to listen to
3/5
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
2/5
We meet again, Neil Young. I've lost count of how many Neil Young albums I've been subjected to on this list, but it's at least 4 now, plus a couple of CSNY albums. It's hard to keep finding creative ways to describe how much I deeply dislike Neil Young's music, but here we go.
This album sounds like a fucking Neil Young cover band. It sounds like someone loved Neil Young but thought that his lyrics weren't obvious enough. "Should I develop an insightful metaphor for the kind of vulnerability needed to to truly allow a romantic relationship to thrive? No, people won't understand what I'm talking about. Better just say 'Take a chance on love' that way everyone will understand what I'm saying."
Neil Young has aged like a fine bottle of Boone's Farm, which is to say that he hasn't declined all that much, but that's because he was never that great to begin with. Everything about this fucking album is generic, right down to the name.
I still haven't gotten a John Coltrane album on this list, but here I am. listening to not only another Neil Young album, but the fucking sixth album with Neil Young on it (I counted). Did Neil Young blackmail the creator of this list? Is this some kind of performance art? A psychological experiment? I didn't consent to this. I just wanted to be introduced to new music, not be subjected to the endless Neil Young Experience.
Fuck Crazy Horse too. They're complicit in all this
2/5
Def Leppard
4/5
I find this album a bit tough to rate. It's a fun album to be sure, with several radio hits, and a collection of lesser songs that hold up pretty well. I think it's also possible that this album is culturally significant, in that it was one of the earliest works that made the metal genre palatable to the mainstream, though there were also many steps in that process. I don't know how actually groundbreaking this album is, in that it presented a more mainstream version of a genre that was already well on its way, but I also don't think that pop music should be scored more poorly just because it is easier for lots of people to enjoy. It's fun, it's worth a listen. You're probably not going to learn anything about the metal genre from listening to it, but that's also probably not why you are listening to Def Leppard in the first place
4/5
Ghostface Killah
5/5
Perhaps the craziest thing about Wu-Tang was the number of incredible rappers and producers who were part of the crew from it's outset. Ghostface is a great example of that. He's one of the greatest rappers of all time, and yet when you list of the members of Wu-Tang who were most important to rap history, Ghostface barely sneaks into the top 5 (I'd put Rza, Method Man, ODB, and perhaps Gza in over him). Despite that, Ghostface clearly shows how well his style ages here. More than 10 years after 36 chambers, Ghostface comes in hot with Fishscale.
It helps a lot that this album features some of the greatest producers of all time at the height of their careers. One of the coolest things about this album is getting to hear some of my favorite songs off of Donuts by J Dilla employed by a rapper whose style meshes well with Dilla's. I can't think of another rapper who can tell a story in verse the way that Ghostface can. His flow is incredible, but the way that he paints a picture while he does it is his true skill.
I can't believe that I'm going to give another Wu-Tang rapper a 5/5 album, but here we are. This album is undeniable
5/5
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
So, I did my best with this one. YouTube didn't have the full album, and the one thing I could find was several of the songs together with a bunch of other Rufus Wainwright songs that are not on the album. I simply don't care enough to seek out another version, so here we are.
This is not particularly my genre, as the music is driven entirely by Wainwright's voice, with little focus on anything else. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not to my taste. On the other hand, his voice is fucking spectacular. It's sort of like if Thom Yorke from Radiohead didn't want to make fucking weirdo music. It's incredibly beautiful and the songs are constructed well around his voice. Again, it's not my thing, but it's well worth a listen
4/5
Cee Lo Green
4/5
Here's another artist that I have to separate my feeling about them personally from my feelings about them as an artist. I really like Cee-Lo as an artist. I've seen him live, and he was really good (in Sioux City, Iowa no less. It's no small feet to get those people dancing). One the other hand, his sexual battery accusation and statements about consent are fucking reprehensible.
Setting all of that aside, this album is really cool. It's a lot of fun and featured more of Cee-Lo rapping than I was expecting. The music compliments perfectly. It's hard to call this a hidden gem, since Cee-Lo is so well known, but his work before Gnarls Barkley is well worth exploring
4/5
Bad Company
4/5
Honestly, this is just a cool album. I'm not sure if it was groundbreaking at the time because I lack a lot of context for what was happening in the sort of straightforward rock groups at this time. Certainly, this sound is present in a lot of 70s groups, but I'm not sure if it originated before Bad Company (it's blues rock, so...probably). However, it's a groovy album with a bunch of hits
4/5
R.E.M.
4/5
I didn't have a lot to say about this one, but it was consistently good
4/5
Ray Charles
3/5
This album is interesting in its construction, but for the most part it's not very fun, which is what I come to Ray Charles for. It's definitely not bad, and there's clear musical significance to the approach he took to this album, but it doesn't really make you tap your toes until you get to the last song
3/5
Iron Maiden
4/5
Iron Maiden fucking kicks ass, and there's not a lot else to say about it. If you like their style, then you will love this album
4/5
Fun Lovin' Criminals
2/5
I vaguely remember this band from when the song Scooby Snacks was popular in the 90s. Not only is that song not as good as I remember it being, I am completely baffled by why this album is on this list. As fun as it was getting to reminisce about 90s haircuts while watching the videos, I can see literally no other redeeming qualities about this music. It's not fun or interesting or groundbreaking. The rap-rock thing was still pretty new at that point, but it's hard to give them credit for it since they are such bad rappers. I'm struggling to get through a single song on this album because there is nothing about any of them that I enjoy. Also, the Wikipedia page for this album doesn't even mention being on this list.
It's like the most notable thing about this album is that it existed and there's nothing else to say about it
2/5
New Order
4/5
It is fucking baffling to me that this band began the decade as the dour post-punk band Joy Division and ended it with this album, which starts out like a fucking acid house album and then settles down into a very solid early alternative rock album. It's good that they continued on after Ian Curtis's death and the end of Joy Division, because having a band with punk rock bona fides helping to pioneer the origins of electronic music.
It's a very strange experience hearing an album that fits pretty well into the alternative rock of the late 80s but has little bursts of electronic dance music embedded in it. It's something that has the potential to be very cheesy, but the band executes it well. It's a really cool album that merges two genres that were on very different trajectories in the late 80s, but that were both about to come to the forefront in the 90s
4/5
King Crimson
3/5
I've tried with this album, I really have. I've owned it on vinyl since the since 2005, and every few years I hear people talking about how great it is, and I decide that this is the time that I'm finally going to "get" this album.
Except, I never do. I find this album boring, even for a prog rock album. It's not bad, the compositions can be quite intricate, but ultimately it doesn't inspire anything in me. I think the last song on the album is the best, though even that song has a fake ending that really takes the steam out of the track
3/5
Skunk Anansie
4/5
I experience a moment of dread every time a British band that I've never heard of from the 90s-00s comes up on this list, because the author of the list seems to have a particular weakness for dogshit of that vintage. This album was a nice surprise. I don't know that it's something I'm ever going to listen to again, but I can at least understand why someone would point me to this album and tell me that I should listen to it.
The music isn't unique, but it's a blend of a couple genres and it's well executed. There is also some kind of alchemy present when female vocalists front metal bands. It just works and I'm not sure why. There's a decent amount of variety in the album as well
4/5
John Coltrane
5/5
Fuck, finally.
I've been waiting for far too long for a John Coltrane album on this list, and this is my favorite John Coltrane album (at among his albums as a band leader). It's a masterpiece from beginning to end; the product of a truly beautiful soul. Coltrane's virtuosity is on display often on the album, but he's also restrained in service of making a more cohesive piece of music
Frankly, I don't know what else to say about this album. It gives me goosebumps when I hear it. Go experience it for yourself
5/5
Tracy Chapman
3/5
I'm not sure if I just wasn't in the mood for this album today, but this one didn't really strike me all that much. Chapman is a gifted songwriter and has a beautiful voice, and I like the social messaging of music with more personal songs mixed in. I think perhaps the issue is that her musical style is a bit stripped down for me. Many of the songs are just her and a guitar, and I like a bit more accompaniment than that. I think there's a lot that's good to this album, but I was also bored pretty fast.
3/5
Run-D.M.C.
4/5
It's really cool getting to see the albums that helped rap transition from what it was in its early days to what it had become by the time I started hearing it. Run DMC seems to be one of the axes around which rap history turned. This album feels more mature than the last Run DMC album I got on this list (I think their debut album). A lot of that comes from advances in the music production side, as their lyrical style was mature pretty early on.
Rick Rubin produced a lot of albums that I really like, and this is no exception. It's easy to see why this album was the first hip-hop album to break through to the mainstream. It's tough to overstate the influence of Run DMC on hip-hop, and this album is the clearest proof of that. The suburbs had to find out about hip-hop at some point, and we can be grateful that it was Run DMC that made that introduction
4/5
The Smiths
3/5
It's fine. Morrissey's fine. The Smiths are fine. It's all fine. I don't like it, I don't dislike it, I just want this review to stand once and for all so that I can stop writing down my opinions on Morrissey's sadness. Like, it's good, but it's a fucking bummer that I don't need right now. I also don't need it when I'm sad. Or when I'm happy. Or at all.
It's just that, every time I think I'm done being served albums by Morrissey, or Neil Young, or Randy fucking Newman for christsake, then here comes another one. I want to hear music by bands that I've never heard of and be transported to strange new sonic landscapes, not hear Morrissey whine about how he doesn't have a girlfriend, or doesn't like his girlfriend, or whatever his fucking problem is.
3/5 Like I said, it's fine. Everything's fine. Stop asking
Bob Dylan
4/5
This is an interesting album. On the one hand, it's not my favorite album in terms of the overall style of the music and lyrics. On the other hand, I recognize almost every one of these songs from either the radio or from appearances in movies and TV. I think it's good overall, though I'm not sure why this album gets so much praise relative to a lot of other Dylan albums made in this period. Blonde on Blonde is commonly held up as the pinnacle of Dylan. It's good, but I feel like it's substantially similar in terms of quality to a lot of his other albums. To be fair though, I've never been the biggest Dylan fan. He's good, but not really my thing
4/5
Billy Joel
4/5
I don't really want to like Billy Joel. Not for any particular reason, it just feels vaguely weird to like a musician that my mom is really into because she has terrible taste in music (sorry mom, but all Christian music is garbage). I don't want to like Billy Joel, but goddmanit if that man can't write a catchy song. There's a lot of variation in style in this album while still sounding coherent, and this album is wall to wall hits. It's an album full of bangers for people who like to sit down at concerts.
This may not have been the most interesting musical movement happening in New York in 1977, but it's pretty undeniable. Fuck. I guess I like Billy Joel
4/5
Slipknot
4/5
Welp, the time has finally come. I'm a native Iowan and have made it this far without ever listening to a Slipknot album, and that streak ends today.
One of the benefits of listening to albums on this list is that I can hear a lot of Slipknot's influences in their music. It's easy to see how this band was influenced by earlier metal bands like Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Nine Inch Nails, and Pantera.
Overall, the production really stands out on this album. While I don't always love the music and (especially) the lyrics, the album is undeniably well put together. Great production makes it a lot easier to appreciate a band that I've always thought of as deeply unserious because of the stupid mask thing. And honestly, as bad as a lot of metal was in the first decade of the 2000s, this album is worth listening to. Lots a variation in the style keeps it interesting
4/5
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
Living in the 60s must have been dope with all of these great vocal harmonies running around. Obviously this album is filed to the brim with them. Other than that I don't have a huge amount to say about it. It's a Simon and Garfunkel album. They didn't make a huge number of albums together, but all of them were good. This doesn't have the best production quality, at least on the version that I listened to. You can hear that it's a good album, but it's also evident that there is some loss of audio quality. Overall I liked Bridge Over Troubled Water better, but this is still a very beautiful album. I don't even like folk music, but it's hard for me to see how you wouldn't like this
4/5
a-ha
4/5
This is a cool album from what I would describe as the "mature" period of new wave/synth pop that followed the earlier work of bands like Gary Neuman and Human League. This is a great example of that style, and the lead singer of the band has an incredible voice that fits in great with the synthesizer sound. A really strong debut album, and it's incredible that this band had never played a concert before Take On Me reached #1 in the US
4/5
Blue Cheer
4/5
It's rare to hear an album that is so clearly the origin point for a genre of music, but this one seems pretty clear. I've never heard an earlier album that sounded like heavy metal, and later heavy metal albums don't have the 60s psychedelic sound wrapped into them the way this does. All of the elements of what would become heavy metal are here. Even the overly grandiose album title is present.
As far as the music goes, they put out a hell of a lot of sound for a trio. The production could be a bit better, and some of the songs could be a little more interesting, but at the same time they were clearly experimenting with something here they deserve a lot of credit for the innovation in their sound
4/5
Peter Gabriel
4/5
This album didn't make a huge impression on me, but it was consistently good. It's an interesting look at the interim period between the prog rock Peter Gabriel of Genesis and the pop start Peter Gabriel that I grew up with
4/5
Frank Ocean
4/5
This is a very good album. It's also an album that I find difficult to contextualize. I don't know what to compare it to, which may reveal more about my ignorance of R&B than it does about Frank Ocean. I don't usually go in for the R&B genre, but this album is endeniable. Great production, compelling songwriting and lyrics, and Ocean's beautiful voice to bring it all home
4/5
Aerosmith
3/5
So, fun fact, the first band that I ever really got into. This was during their Get a Grip era when they were suddenly all over the place again. After getting my money's worth out of Get a Grip, I decided to get Pump. Unfortunately for Aerosmith, I also got Dookie by Green Day and Nevermind by Nirvana. That last album would change my life in many ways, but the long and short of it is that I never really got into this album because it just seemed uninteresting next to the more modern rock I was being exposed to.
I find this album's inclusion on this list to be a bit strange, since I don't remember it as being particularly groundbreaking, either in terms of Aerosmith's development as a band or in terms of the larger patterns present in the world of popular music. Hearing Steven Tyler sing about Young Lust at 41 years old is not particularly the experience that I was looking for this morning either.
This album is not without its charms. The hits off of this record hold up decently well for white boy blues rock. Still, this album feels like a bunch of rockers that are getting to be over the hill pretending like they're still in their 20s. Also, Janie's Got a Gun would be a lot more powerful song if the rest of Aerosmith's catalogue wasn't creeping around young women. I really struggle to finish any of these songs because Aerosmith always feels like they're trying to filibuster their own albums. Little did we know at the time that we would have to listen to 25 more goddman years of this stuff. It's good that Nevermind came along 3 years after this album and put all of this nonsense to death
3/5
Radiohead
5/5
Imagine yourself in Radiohead's collective shoes as they worked on Amnesiac. They managed to follow up the titanic breakthrough of OK Computer with the otherworldly Kid A, and then here they are needing to find a way to follow up Kid A with an album that is neither a step backwards nor a facsimile of their previous work.
And they fucking did it.
Amnesiac is my least favorite out of the three albums, but it absolutely deserves its place on this list and among the greatest recorded albums of music history. It picks up where Kid A left off, but it does its own thing. While Kid A is ethereal, alien, and psychedelic, Amnesiac is far more ground. The Radiohead's anger and disillusionment show through more on this album. It's as if they thought releasing Kid A was going to change the course of the world in some way, and they created this album to tell everyone that they're disappointed that the world is still bullshit, but that that fact isn't going to stop them
"After years of waiting, nothing came. And you realize you're looking in the wrong place"
This album still gives me chills to this day. Easily a 5/5
5/5
Mariah Carey
4/5
I wasn't sure what to think about this album at first. This is after the era where I was aware of what Mariah Carey was doing and doesn't contain any of the songs I think of when her name is mentioned. However, at this point I'm three songs deep in the album and I recognize all of them. Moreover, each song has its own thing going on. Some sound more like her earlier work, some presage some of the movements in pop music that would happen in the early 2000s. The hip-hop tracks provide a good balance to the more straightforward R&B tracks. Her vocals are more subdued than a lot of the vocal acrobatics of her earlier work, though the angelic power of her voice is still evident in every track.
I do feel like the album bogs down a bit as it goes, but overall it's still a
4/5
Maxwell
3/5
I found this album really tough to rate. It started off cool, but then it faded into the background while I was listening to it. A lot of it seemed to be pretty straightforward R&B. The quality of the album overall is good, but it didn't stand out to me as particularly groundbreaking in the context of when it was made.
3/5
Pavement
5/5
I fucking love this album, and I loved it from the first time that I listened to it. It's the first album I think of when someone uses the term "Indie rock." It's lofi, but somehow that makes it work better. The low production quality never gets in the way of the music, but it lets the ingenuity and songwriting craft of the band shine through. I'd recommend listening to the extended version of this album (Luxe and Reduxe). 1992 was a seminal year in rock, and this album is easily one of the top 5 albums of that year
5/5
Dolly Parton
4/5
Usually when I talk about having to separate the artist from their personal activities, it's because of awful crimes that they've committed against humanity. With Dolly, it's the opposite. I have to separate all the the good that she's done for humanity from the music presented here. Luckily, this is a good album. I'm not a big country fan, but a lot of the older stuff has qualities that makes it very approachable. Parton has a great voice, she's an incredible songwriter, and the music that accompanies her covers a lot of dynamic range. It's also crazy that this is her 8th solo album.
In a better world, we would spend a lot more time listening to Dolly Parton and a lot less time listening to Henry Kissinger. Also, in that better world Kissinger would be long dead and we would all take turns peeing on his cursed bones. Long live Dolly Parton!
4/5
Elliott Smith
4/5
This is kind of a weird album, in the sense that I don't really see why it's significant in terms of it's role in music history or the era/movement that it was part of, but I still just enjoy it. There's something about the sound of his voice that I really enjoy. The production is very solid all the way through. There's also something that feels very personal about his writing
4/5
Gorillaz
4/5
I've listened to Demon Days before, and I though that album was fairly interesting, but I think I like this album more. There's a lot of various in the music, but it always seems to work really well with Damon's voice. This album also deserves a lot of credit for being the first album by a virtual band (at least that I know of, I'm sure someone attempted it before and no one cared). It's a cool idea but it would be meaningless if the music didn't grab you. Lots of credit to Gorillaz for making really fun music that also has a lot of substance to it
4/5
Curtis Mayfield
4/5
I love some Curtis Mayfield. I didn't find this album to be as fun as Superfly, but then again I don't think that it was supposed to be fun. Overall another great album by Curtis Mayfield
4/5
Brian Eno
4/5
David Byrne is a national treasure, and so are his big suits, and so is Brian Eno. It's easy to see how a collaboration from these two could go incredibly right or horribly wrong, since they are both incredible visionaries. This album isn't as pleasant to listen to as a lot of stuff made by these two in their previous solo/group work, but it is really cool. The use of heavy sampling to compose an album makes this album highly significant, but more than that, it's good. The music is as diverse, global, and polyrhythmic as you might expect from David Byrne, and not quite as ambient and electronic as you might expect from Brian Eno. Definitely well worth a listen
4/5
The Killers
4/5
This album was more interesting than I thought it would be. I was not very enamored of popular music in the early 2000s, so I never listened to a lot of bands like the Killers and the Strokes. While I don't think this is a band I'm going to be returning to often, it's cool to hear how postpunk influenced the generation that grew up listening to it. This all sounds a bit dated now, but it was also certainly different from what came before it
4/5
The xx
3/5
I'm not gonna lie, this album was hard to give a crap about. It's fine, but I didn't find anything interesting about it. I could see why people would like it, but I just kept waiting for it to be over so I could listen to something a bit more stimulating
3/5
Magazine
4/5
This album starts out really strong. It's a postpunk album with some electronic elements that were very surprising given when it was made. The album tends overall to get less interesting as it goes, which is a bit of a disappointment. It feels a bit like they started to run out of ideas. It's a bit of a bummer, but this album is worth it just for the first half
4/5
4/5
Starting out listening to this album, I really thought I was going to get bored of it as it went on, but it stayed really interesting. It mixes in a lot of different instrumental styles. This is one I could see myself buying
4/5
Dire Straits
4/5
This album starts out incredibly strong, with three great songs that were all hits to a greater or lesser extent. It slows down after that, but it's still pretty good overall, if a bit less toe-tapping. Very much an album of its time, and I'm not sure how ground-breaking it is, but its still a good album that is well worth a listen
4/5
PJ Harvey
4/5
I liked this album. I think I liked the other PJ Harvey album recommended on this list better, but this had a similar style
4/5
The Clash
4/5
It feels strange that I've never listened to this album before, but I've always stuck to London Calling with the Clash. Compared to that, this album feels much less mature, but a lot of the elements that make London Calling great are starting to emerge here.
This is a more straight-ahead punk album than LC, which drew on a broader array of influences. Still, these were the early years of punk, and this was a landmark album in that genre, even though it was overshadowed somewhat by the works of bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. I would certainly call this album better than Nevermind the Bollocks, which is a fun album but feels even less mature than this, though The Ramones self-titled album is the best of the three (despite the fact that this album has much more variation in song construction than The Ramones).
This is classic bored youth punk and was critical in helping define the genre
4/5
Deee-Lite
4/5
This album was somewhat less interesting than I hoped, but it also comes from that period when electronic music was just on the cusp of technological advances that would make it a lot more interesting. Overall the album is good, with a lot of fun disco-style beats matched to more modern electronic instruments. In some ways it reminds me of the Jamiroqaui album I got on this list, but less mature because of the earlier era. It seems like this album crawled so that Jamiroquai could walk on moving sidewalks. Worth a listen despite the fact that it is a bit dated
4/5
Madonna
4/5
I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but honestly this album was better than I thought it would be. For a pop album, it's very moody and introspective. The electronic music is not groundbreaking for the period, but it's also revolutionary compared to where pop was at when this album was released. The songs are consistently good, and I never felt like this album was pandering. The production is excellent and each song seems to flow into the next in a way that makes it really easy to put on and just listen to
4/5
Patti Smith
4/5
It's interesting that Patti Smith was among the first, if not the first person from the New York punk scene to put out a successful album. It's easy to see how her style was influenced by the other bands in the scene, despite the fact that it would be hard to label this album as punk now. It has a really cool stripped down style that compliments her lyrics and vocals well. Having John Cale from the Velvet Underground certainly helps the album, as the production is excellent. The album flies by pretty fast. It doesn't feel like there is any filler in the album.
4/5
Jeff Buckley
4/5
This is one of those albums that took me a long time to get to, despite the fact that it's cover is pretty iconic, and as a result I was aware of it for a long time. The first thing that's striking about this album is the absolute angelic quality of his voice. I think that he could have been a more successful artist if he didn't want to do interesting things with the music. Luckily for us, he was interested in putting effort into the music. He seems to always keep a light touch with the instrumentals; they come off as very quiet in the mix. This helps feature his voice, but it also gives the album a cool stripped-down quality
4/5
Femi Kuti
3/5
This album seemed like a bit of a weird one for this list. I understand the Fela Kuti albums on the list because they were groundbreaking, both politically and musically. This, on the other hand, sounds like pretty normal afrobeat. The Wikipedia page was not much help, as it just explained that this album introduced afrobeat to a wider audience, but doesn't explain how/why. Overall, I don't love the production of this album. The bass guitar has that muzak tone present on lots of albums in the late 70s/early 80s. Overall it's fine, but not particularly interesting, especially when contrasted with Zombie, the Fela Kuti album I got previously on this list
3/5
1/5
No.
I refuse.
You've made me listen to a Korn album and a Marilyn Manson album, and there were ways that I could reasonable criticize those albums, but I refuse to believe that any human being could be so brain damaged as to think that Limp Bizkit deserves to be represented on this list. What could I possibly be meant to take away from this other than the idea that rock music was a crucifying hellscape in the early 2000s?
Jesus.
I'm on the second song, and it's not just that I want to turn the album off, I'm losing the will to keep going. It's like Fred Durst just found out about NIN and the word fuck at the same time. Like, how did he think that anyone would find this interesting?
What is the point of any of this? Fred Durst might be the worst lyricist I've ever heard. All of his songs are just a word salad put together from South Park episodes. Every song has basically the same sound and structure. Most of his choruses seem to be lyrics stolen from other songs in a way that suggests that Durst doesn't really get any of the music that he likes.
I genuinely have nothing positive to say about this. This album should have been buried in the desert next to old copies of ET on Atari. It's really shocking the extent to which even the best elements of this album are mediocre. I'm genuinely angry that I wasted my time listening to this
1/5
Barry Adamson
4/5
This album is both fascinating in concept and very well executed. This is what I come to this list for, albums that I've never heard of that expose me to cool new musical ideas.
Yesterday, my album of the day was a Limp Bizkit album that I think was called "Buttholes and Hot Dog Water" and it was the worst goddamned thing I've ever heard in my life. This album was a tremendous palate cleanser after that, and it helped give me the will to go on living after hearing two different versions of the song Rollin' on the same album.
Lots of cool bits of music on this album interspersed with sound effects and ambient music. I think it would be easy to fuck up this concept, but Adamson did a great job with it. Considering that this was made in 1989, I would describe this as a real achievement, and I'm surprised that it's not more well-known. I guess everyone was too busy listening to Whitesnake to care
4/5
The Beach Boys
4/5
This is certainly not my favorite Beach Boys record, but it's got a lot of great songs on it. Adding more orchestral instruments definitely does a lot to make the Beach Boys' sound more interesting, and it did a lot to showcase what Brian Wilson could do as a songwriter
4/5
The Who
4/5
I was pretty predisposed to dislike this album, since I didn't like The Who Sells Out, the previous album by them that I got on this list. However, I feel like the charm of The Who is much more clearly on display here on their first album that was lost on some of their later albums after they started falling in love with the smell of their own farts (looking at you, Pete Townsend). In terms of early garage rock, this is certainly the most popular album that has that lofi sound. It brings a lot of charm to the album. The drums are never miked properly to show Keith Moons power as a drummer, but the slightly tinny distortion on them works with the rest of the style of the album. The vocal harmonies on songs like The Kids Are Alright shows their range as musicians, where a lot of other garage rock acts relied mostly on the lead singer and opted for simpler vocals. This album moves past very quickly, since it's only 36 minutes long. It begins to drag a bit in the second half when The Who inexplicably decide that they're a blues band, but by that point you've already got your money's worth
4/5
Bruce Springsteen
4/5
One of the most improbable things that I've learned while listening to albums from this list is that I am apparently a Bruce Springsteen fan. Don't get me wrong, he always seemed like a cool, hardworking guy, but knowing him from his hit songs provided me with a much different perspective on him. This is the fifth album (Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born in the USA, the Rising, Born to Run) of his that I've reviewed, and the only one I didn't really like was Born to Run. The others were fantastic.
This album is my favorite so far. It feels so personal and intimate, and I'm glad that he didn't go through with rerecording the songs with the E street band as he originally intended. It's an album so stark in terms of its outlook on the future that it, that it could have been released today. The song State Trooper shows a notable influence from the band Suicide, which was a cool nod (I know that Springsteen has covered their songs live) and also shows just how far-ranging Springsteens influences are
4/5
Kraftwerk
4/5
One of the things that listening to albums on this list has given me a better appreciation for is the history of electronic music. I think I would not have enjoyed this album nearly so much a year or two ago, but the significance of what Kraftwerk was doing in this period is much clearer to me now. I didn't like this album as much as Man-Machine, which leans a little more towards the pop music side of electronic music, but this album is really cool. It develops very slowly but methodically. The first song is the real treasure here, but the entire album is good. Absolutely iconic down to the cover art
4/5
Bee Gees
2/5
It's the craziest thing, but I woke up this morning hoping that I would get to listen to a dour Bee Gees album about the loss of a fictional ship in the 19th century. I am, of course, being sarcastic, as I could never want that, and I don't see how anyone else could want that either. '
The thing that has surprised me about the two Bee Gees albums that I've gotten on this list (both from their 60s albums) is the joylessness of the music put out by this group I always associated with upbeat disco music. I would describe their music as being similar to the feeling of standing at the jukebox at a bar on a busy night and reaching into your pocket looking for a few quarters so you can listen to your favorite song, but instead you find that your pocket is full of cold oatmeal. Like, sure it's disappointing, but in a very intriguing way.
Okay, I was kind of joking before, but this album really is very dull. On lots of songs I can hear the influences on the song, but I can't figure out why they wanted to make the song in the first place. It really feels like they're not trying very hard to make the album interesting. I'm only halfway through at this point, and I don't foresee a future in which I get all the way through all of these songs. I'm honestly glad that this ship was lost. The only problem is that the master tapes for this album weren't on it
2/5
Lorde
4/5
I found this album surprisingly tough to rate. In a vacuum it's a good album that features her distinctive vocal and musical styles well. I think that she's growing up as a lyricist and trying new things. However, I liked her first album a lot, and this feels like a step back from that. I could see a situation where, as time goes one, I grow to have a greater appreciation for this album relative to Pure Heroine, but as it stands this album feels a lot less fun and interesting. Still good, but definitely stuck in the shadow of it's older sibling
4/5
Steely Dan
3/5
Well, at least I can say now that I've given Steely Dan's catalogue the ol college try. They're fine. They have some good songs, but overall this album just sort of droned on in the background while I did other things. I'll confess that I don't get what it is about this band that fascinates people so much, but at the same time I could see why people enjoy it overall
3/5
Pink Floyd
5/5
Here's another album that it feels weird to rate. I spent so much goddamn time listening to this album while stoned in my dorm room during my sophomore year of college that it's hard to go back now and try to hear this album with fresh ears so that I can properly evaluate it. I've heard it so many times that it's too familiar for me to be objective about, but I suppose that's okay. The reason why I listened to it so much is because its a great album. Everything about it works and works together. The lyrics, the music, the samples, the flow from song to song. All of the ways in which The Wall feels a bit overwrought are smoothed out here. It's examining mental illness and other dark aspects of humanity without self pity, which is the thing that makes me dislike a lot of what Roger Waters produces. This album is a full-throated examination of the agony and the ecstasy of modern life without ever stopping to ask "Why me" and I think that's why its so enduring.
That and the music. Alan Parsons should have won a Nobel prize for his audio engineering on this album. It's mixed so exquisitely. It's like every single sound falls perfectly into the pocket where it belongs.
5/5
Elbow
3/5
This is another one of those albums that I think is totally fine, but I have no idea why its on this list. Like, if you played me this album blind and told me it was a Coldplay album or even a Sting solo album, I would believe you because it has a very generic sound. It's pleasant enough and I like it in the abstract, but I don't get what's special about it. I should not feel this bored 3 songs into my analysis of an album
3/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are one of those groups that I've heard about a lot but never actually heard. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was not expecting this. It's really good. It develops slowly, but has a lot of emotional weight to it. Everything fits together beautifully, and the vocal harmonies are a perfect compliment to the voice of Nick Cave, which always feels like it's on the verge of breaking, but it never does
4/5
Beth Orton
4/5
I would describe Beth Orton as being the least famous person with a famous voice (at least in music). This album is fairly difficult for me to describe, but it's excellent. It's mellow and folky a lot of the time, but it surprises you sometimes as well (Stars All Seem to Weep kinda comes out of nowhere). Overall a great listen
4/5
Portishead
4/5
This is one of those albums that I think is good, but I also don't think is as good as its reputation. I feel like they rely on Beth Gibbon's voice for a lot, and her voice is excellent, so that makes the album work. However, because they rely on her voice so much, it feels like they don't bother to make the music all that interesting a lot of time. This just feels like it could be a lot better if they brought more to it in terms of musical complexity. Compared to the other albums on the Mt. Rushmore of Trip-Hop, this feels like a step behind albums like Mezzanine and Endtroducing.
4/5
Jeff Beck
4/5
This album is a bit strange, since I was not expecting a Rod Stewart album when I started it. Stewart was a great choice as the vocalist for Beck's debut solo album, even though it feels a bit strange now, knowing that Stewart will be far more famous and recognizable than Beck in a few years after this.
Overall the album is good. It's atmospheric, and Beck does great work centering his guitar in the mix without making it overwhelm everything. Similarly, I like how he can do blues rock without it sounding like he's exploiting another culture for cash. Beck brings a lot of personality to his music
4/5
The Sabres Of Paradise
3/5
I'm told that this has been described as the first techno concept album (whoever said that should really get out more), but if that's the case, then I have no idea what the concept of this album is, since there are no words. It's pretty mediocre overall. Not bad by any means, but it builds very slowly and there was never really a moment that made me sit up and pay attention. By the time I was halfway through the album I was ready to be done with it
3/5
Roxy Music
2/5
Well, let me just say that I'm a huge fan of musicians putting tits on the cover of their albums. Except when I'm trying to listen to the album at work. Which I am right now.
This is my first opportunity to see what I think of Roxy Music without Brian Eno. I'm a huge fan of his work, whereas I would struggle to name a Brian Ferry song. I know that he's been influential on several artists that I like, but he doesn't really do it for me. Too much of an Elvis ripoff, and this album is interminable
2/5
Songhoy Blues
5/5
This is an absolutely stellar album. A while back on this list, I get Savane by Ali Farka Touré, and this album reminded me a lot of that, which makes sense as they were influenced by him. It's really cool to see people from all over the world pick up American Blues Rock and make it their own. The guitar work on the album is incredible, both intricate and filled with emotion.
I've been lamenting recently that I've been getting a lot of albums that are cool and significant, but aren't worthy of 5 stars on first listen. This album cured that. I loved the sound of it from the beginning of the first song, and every song after that was great, and then the album ended and I was sad
5/5
The Kinks
4/5
This is certainly an interesting album. It's not the sound that I've come to associate with the Kinks, but it helps me understand better why The Kinks are so highly regarded as a band as well. The definitely took a chance with this album. It cuts this weird little slice through British domestic life and dedicates itself to preserving it. It's not clear how sarcastic this is meant to be, but it is clear that it's not entirely sarcastic.
What results is a pretty pleasant album about the little things in life. It doesn't blow you away either ideologically or sonically, but it's a cool idea and they executed it well. Sometimes life isn't about moving forward, sometimes it's about stopping and smelling the roses
4/5
PJ Harvey
4/5
This is sort of a strange album for me to get on the heels of The Kinks's Preservation Society album. There, The Kinks were focused on the little aspects of British life that the liked and thought were worth saving. Here, Harvey focuses on the darkness of British history and violence that built the British empire. This album is deep and emotionally resonant. The music is all well executed despite the fact that Harvey departed from the style of her previous albums during this work.
4/5 Really cool work, and one of the seminal anti-war albums released during my lifetime
Parliament
4/5
This album provides an interesting contrast with Maggot Brain, the previous Parliament album that I got on this list. Whereas that album was ponderous and often dark (though also very fun once you get through the first track), this album is much more lighthearted. The addition of horns from James Brown's band really adds a lot to the group. It has some absolute classics on it, and even the songs that I didn't know were all good. It's also nice to see dance music that is able to build slowly over a long track rather than focusing on a more stereotypical formula.
The influence of this album is really hard to state. It provides so much of the sound for West Coast rap in the early 90s, but it's presence is everywhere in electronic music and modern dance music as well.
4/5
Pretty wild that this is my second album with Rod Stewart as the vocalist in a week, and neither one of them were his solo albums (the other was a Jeff Beck album). This album was fun to listen to, but didn't feel like it had a huge amount of substance to it. It has what I would consider to be a pretty generic 1970s sound. However, it was made in 1971, so it could be that this album was highly influential in forming the 70s rock sound and other artists were aping Faces. Having Ronnie Wood playing guitar on the album may be contributing to that feeling, since he has a pretty iconic style.
Everything about the album is pretty good, none of it is great, but it was still worth a listen
3/5
Dion
3/5
This album was more interesting than I thought it would be. I wouldn't necessarily say that I enjoyed listening to it all that much because it's not a style of music that I find all that enjoyable (nor did Dion, for that matter), but the production is interesting. Phil Spector may be a god damned murderous psychopath, but he knew how to make a compelling sound. The themes of redemption that run through the album make it very interesting. A pop star who has been through hell and is now trying to make good on the other side is an interesting theme for an album. Dion's story and his perspective on it is worth listening to, if only just once
3/5
Prince
4/5
This is an album that I've always been curious about. I've never listened to one of Prince's albums, but I have tremendous respect for his abilities as an artist. This album shows off those abilities well. The album is cinematic, which is certainly appropriate, and all of the songs are good. There's a good mix between upbeat poppy songs and more somber ones
4/5
Violent Femmes
5/5
What a stellar album! When I first heard this album, I thought it was from the early 90s because it felt like it fit in perfectly with the alternative scene at that time. The fact that it was made 10 years before I thought it was blew my mind. This album seems to come out of nowhere, drops a bunch of times alternative rock songs, and then it disappears just as mysteriously as it came. So many of the Midwestern punk/postpunk albums seem to have this quality where it seems like they're coming from the future to release their albums
Every single song is good, and there's no consistent musical style, yet the album feels like a coherent whole.
5/5 This album fucks
Destiny's Child
4/5
This album is certainly a time capsule. R&B has changed a lot since this album was popular, and it's neat to go back and listen to stuff from that era that helped define a sound that has long since passed. At least, it's neat to go back and listen to the good stuff from that era (I'm still angry that I had to listen to that Limp Bizkit album). This album really holds up, both in terms of its music and its messaging. It's packed full of monster hits, but there's also really no filler on the album
4/5
David Holmes
3/5
Well, seeing that this was from a British DJ that I've never heard of did not inspire a lot of confidence in me based on my previous experience with this list, but I can at least understand why this album is on here. The samples from NYC including a lot of conversations with people associated with New York's underbelly made for an interesting listen. Overall the music is uninspiring. Not bad, just not really breaking any ground for the time. I was looking for something else to listen to a couple of songs in, but still it's a cool idea for an album
3/5
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
4/5
I always think that I'm going to not enjoy prog rock albums, but then I when I actually listen to the album, I usually find them pretty palatable. I think maybe I just don't like King Crimson (I know, I'm a monster).
This album features a lot of great musicianship. It features some prominent use of synthesizers, though most of the songs feature a traditional piano. There's a big diversity of styles despite the fact that there aren't that many tracks on the album. The major focus is the first track, which took up a whole side of the vinyl release of the album.
It goes by pretty quick, but it's a very solid album
4/5
Solomon Burke
3/5
"I'm the king of rock 'n roll!" declares archduke Franz Ferdinand as his driver pulls into an alley by a sandwich shop in Sarajevo.
This album feels like an anachronism. It's good, certainly. Burke writes great songs that bring rock and soul together in a seamless fusion. However, this album feels like the end of a genre and not the beginning of it. A lot of this stuff sounds like Sam Cooke, but not as good. It's a fine album overall, but it's hard to understand why it makes the list. It's not particularly groundbreaking, nor is it a particularly iconic example of this type of music. This genre was buried by the British Invasion shortly after it was released, and that's fine by me, because listening to this album, it feels like it had run it's course
3/5
Siouxsie And The Banshees
5/5
Siouxsie and the Banshees is one of those bands that I've heard about forever, but have never actually knowingly listened to them. In some ways, I'm glad I waited as long as I did because I feel like it gave me a new appreciation for this album because I'm much more well versed in subgenres like post-punk, art-rock, and goth. I wouldn't say that this album sits comfortably in any of those genres, but it certainly influenced each of them after it was released.
It's a great album. Apparently it's more electronic than their previous work, but it feels completely natural in this album. This album feels really advanced for 1981. Songs like Monitor remind me of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Overall, a really stellar album that I'm surprised I haven't heard more about. It seems like a titanic achievement for the era in which it was made
5/5
Stevie Wonder
4/5
What can you say about Stevie Wonder during this period? He put out masterpiece after masterpiece, and this album is one of them. The way he manages to balance lyrics that delve deep into both emotional and sociopolitical territory while continuing to be a ground-breaking musician is truly outstanding.
I didn't like this album as much as Songs in the Key of Life, but you can kinda seem him building to that album here. Just an incredibly solid album filled with great songs, some that you can dance to and some that you can cry to
4/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival
4/5
Is there any major American songwriter more consistently overlooked than John Fogerty? All the man did was write hits, and once he stopped writing for the band, they put out an album so putrid that no one ever talks about it. This album has the same basic style of the other Creedence albums, with plenty of songs that you already know. I don't like it as much as Cosmo's factory, but it's solid all the way through
4/5
Julian Cope
3/5
This is a very interesting album. There were plenty of parts of it that I didn't enjoy all that much, but, for the time it was made, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on here. 1991 feels too early for a lot of the sounds on this album, which is indicative of the fact that Cope was ahead of his time when making it. It's not always enjoyable for me, but I can see why this album is on the list
3/5
The Last Shadow Puppets
4/5
This album has a very different sound than I was expecting from a 2008 album (for one thing, it has a good sound, so that was a huge shock). It's a pop album that has a clear 60s influence, without sounding like they're trying to be a 60s band. It works really well for them. This album kept fading into the background for me, but every time it caught my attention, it sounded really good. Overall it's really well executed with great production.
4/5
Primal Scream
3/5
This is an album that hasn't aged particularly well because it came out before a bunch of advances in electronic music equipment and technique were pioneered. However, I'm sure that this was a really cool album at the time, especially since it was coming from an indie rock band that was abandoning its roots to explore electronic music.
Overall it's a fun dance album. It can be a bit repetitive, but they were dealing with some technological limitations on that end. Integrating electronica into rock has become much less of a feat for an indie band than it was 30 years ago.
3/5 still worth a listen, but it sounds really dated now
Dead Kennedys
5/5
Always nice when I can play an album out of my own collection rather than streaming on YouTube! This album is a neat signpost for how fast punk started evolving after it's emergence in 1977 (not the true beginning of punk, but that's when the big albums started coming out). By 1980 we were already ready for subgenres (as well as post-punk).
This album shows the incipient hardcore punk style that would become popular in the years after this album. More than that, though, it was a truly political punk album that broke through to the mainstream in at least some meaningful sense, unlike the works of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. The fun part about this album is that it manages to tackle big subjects without taking itself too seriously. It's often funny, personal, and crass.
The music is what really makes this album. The guitar work is head and shoulders above what was present in most of the other major punk bands, and the rest of the band compliments that well. Jello's voice isn't amazing, but it's distinctive, and it works with this band
5/5 An absolute punk classic
Sufjan Stevens
4/5
Not much to say about this album, since it's been a while in between my listening and my review, but I've enjoyed this album every time I listened to it
4/5
Gene Clark
3/5
This album is an interesting combination of country and 60s folk music. Those genres are not ones that I particularly enjoy, but Gene Clark does a good job with it. The album features a backing band, but it's entirely focused on Clark and his vocals. It's well-executed, though it's not really my thing
3/5
Faith No More
4/5
What a weird album, what a weird band, what a weird period in musical history. This album certainly does not sound like it was from 1989, but I'm also not certain when it does sound like it's from. There's so many musical styles present here, and a lot of it presages what will be happening in music during the 90s as emerging styles start to blend together.
Bringing on Mike Patton as the vocalist was unquestionably the correct move. His incredible vocal range, his lyrical talent, and his odd sensibilities fit the band perfectly.
4/5
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3/5
I was honestly kind of disappointed in this album. Other than the two hit songs off this album, this album is just a bunch of paint-by-numbers blues rock songs. It left me feeling the same way I do when I listen to Cheap Trick or the Black Keys. They are doing generic rock, which is fine to listen to in the background, but it's not very interesting. Still, American Girl is a fucking banger
3/5
The Cardigans
3/5
I genuinely have no idea why this album is on this list. It's fine, but it's also pretty generic 90s alt rock with a female lead singer. I'm not sure that we would be talking about this album still if Lovefool hadn't been on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack.
3/5 It's an okay album, but not special in any way that I can discern
The Who
3/5
What could serve as a better harbinger of the coming of the 1970s than an overwrought concept album? Like nearly all double albums that I've encountered on this list, I think this would be better as a single album. However, I do have to admit that this does seem to be a genuine attempt at a rock opera, with overtures in the beginning that presage what will come later in the album. Overall the album is pretty good, though I found the first half of it a bit of a slog. Also the story for this concept album is pretty dumb. But hey, it's not the worst Who album that I've reviewed here (not the best either, though)
3/5
Bon Jovi
3/5
This album provides for an interesting comparison with Hysteria by Def Leppard, as both of the two albums were pop rock mega hits. I really enjoyed Hysteria, but this album left me a bit cold. I think that part of it is due to familiarity, since I've heard this album more than that one, and the hits have definitely been overplayed relative to Def Leppard.
Slippery When Wet also feels a bit generic, though. It reminds me of how I feel when I listen to the Black Keys. It just feels like generic rock, like they're just playing what they're supposed to play without trying to do anything interesting or personal. It's fine, there's a place in the world for stadium rock, and Bon Jovi does that well. It's just not that interesting to listen to a bunch of those songs back to back
Still, though, 3/5
MGMT
3/5
This album is about like I remember it. It has two great songs that became hits. The rest of it is fine, but it feels like paint-by-numbers psychedelic rock in the mold of the Flaming Lips
3/5
The Zombies
4/5
The story of the Zombies is a lot stranger than I would have ever anticipated. They essentially released two albums and then broke up, despite the fact that those albums produced hit songs and were each massively influential. It's a lot like the band Television, minus the radio hits. This album was very cool to hear. It's not mind-blowing or anything, but it doesn't sound like every other album that was being made during this early/middle psychedelic period.
4/5
4/5
The previous Kinks album that I've gotten on this list was Village Green Preservation Society, which provides a very interesting contrast with this album, since it was the album made directly before this one. On that album, I thought they were doing something cool, but it didn't exactly blow my mind. Here, it feels like their sound has matured in the intervening year and is much more a match for what they're trying to do lyrically. The music is a lot groovier and more interesting, which makes sense because the psychedelic movement was advancing rapidly in this period.
The beginning of the album is definitely stronger than the end of it, but it's relatively consistent throughout. Lots of good melodic songs that work together well in the context of the album
4/5
Teenage Fanclub
3/5
Well, the fact that the good people at Spin Magazine listened to both this album and Nevermind and somehow thought this album was better is a mystery that I would really like to see explained. This album is fine and groundbreaking in its own way, but it's not exactly an all time great.
Historical mockery aside, this album is interesting, though mired by low quality production. I'm not sure if there is a good version of this album out there, but every copy I found on YouTube was muddy and indistinct. I think a better quality copy may have given me a more positive opinion of this album. As it is, it's an alternative rock album from the period right before that subgenre became the biggest thing on the planet. It's more of a poppy, indie type of album than the grunge rock that came out of Seattle. It's good, but the recording quality makes it hard to appreciate
3/5
Röyksopp
4/5
I found this album very hard to rate. I really like it, especially the early tracks. I don't have a huge amount of context for what was happening in electronic music in 2001 to know how groundbreaking this album is, but it's great and I had no awareness of it before now
4/5
The Specials
3/5
The Specials are one of those bands that I've always been curious about, as I am a product of the 90s revival of ska and wanted to know if I have more appreciation for the originators of the style. I can now say with a lot of confidence that i do not fine the Specials interesting. That may be influenced by the fact that the production on this album is terrible, but even if that weren't the case, I find a lot of their songs dull. There are some good moments on the album, but overall it is not one that I will ever come back to
3/5
De La Soul
4/5
This is an album that I've been meaning to listen to for a while now. I really enjoy albums from this golden era of hip-hop sampling, before the law decided that DJs needed to pay for their samples. This is a cool album, though I had a tough time finding a definitive version on YouTube, since there seems to be automated copyright claims on a lot of these songs.
I wish that albums like this had been able to shine through a bit more during the era of gangsta rap, since there's not anything that makes gangsta rap inherently better than this style other than the intensity of its subject matter. The production, music, and lyrical content are all on par, but I guess people were less interested in positivity than they were in brutality.
Overall a really cool record that deserves it's place in rap history, even if it was overshadowed shortly after its release by west coast rap
4/5
Rage Against The Machine
5/5
One of the marks of a great album is that you could out it out a decade after it originally came out and it would still be impactful. You could put this album out today and it would still light the world on fire. The energy of this album, the raw power that must be constantly restrained to prevent it from boiling over, is perfectly matched by the lyrics built from equal parts rage and intellect.
I think this album may be more pertinent now than it was when it was released. It's that rare album that was ahead of its time, but also highly respected in its time.
5/5 Easily one of the top 5 albums of the 90s
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
This album provides an interesting contrast with the previous Costello album that I got on this list, This Year's Model. This album was made only 3 years later, but sounds a lot different as it is much less of a rock album and more of an album to feature Costello's lyrics and voice. The music is still really good on this album, just much less of a punk/new wave album. The production on the album is great and every song on the album is solid
4/5
Rush
4/5
Rush is one of those bands that I like even though I forget that I like them. They sound much bigger than a 3 piece, which I think results from the fact that they are absolute virtuosos on their instruments, particularly Neil Peart. Geddy Lee has a strange voice, but it cuts through the noise well, and his lyrics are consistently good. Alex Lifeson is also incredible, and is the member of the group with the most screen time in the Trailer Park Boys. It's wild that what is largely considered to be Rush's best album was the 8th one they released. There's a lot here, though. Lots of hits on this album, but all of the songs are good.
I wouldn't particularly describe this album as the type of rock that I enjoy, since they do a lot of prog rock which is definitively not my genre, but the product that they put out is undeniable
4/5
Thin Lizzy
3/5
Well, I don't generally like live albums, and I don't generally like double albums, so we're not off to a great start here. Overall, I feel the same way about this that I feel about most live albums. This sounds like a fucking kick ass concert to be at, and the recording of it doesn't really do it justice.
3/5 Please stop sending me double live albums, I have no use for them
Leonard Cohen
3/5
Well, this is a much different sounding Leonard Cohen than I'm used to, even though his voice and poetry are as rich as ever. I'm not sure that I like the addition of synthesizers and drum machines to his oeuvre as compared with his being accompanied by analog instruments. There's nothing wrong with this album, I just think that his voice is better complimented by folk and/or orchestral instruments than by synthesizers
3/5
Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart
3/5
This is an interesting album for what it is and especially for when it was made, but it's also one of those albums that I kept turning on and then finding reasons to turn it off and listen to something else. I think that this album does have merit in terms of the types of music that it brings together and the technology available at the time, but it also sounds a bit dull to my ears now
3/5
The Sugarcubes
4/5
It's a tale as old as time. Band makes album intending to be humorous. Album ends up being groundbreaking debut of musical superstar. Band is forced to continue making albums.
I'm not sure what there is to say about this album. It sounds very good, and Bjork is incredible as usual. Her voice is soaringly powerful, yet supple and idiosyncratic as well. The album gets a lot less interesting any time anyone else is doing vocals, but luckily that rarely happens. I was surprised that I already knew two songs off of this album. The music compliments everything that she does well. It's not terribly interesting or groundbreaking music, but it's good enough to sound great when paired with Bjork
4/5
Public Enemy
4/5
This is a really cool album. I don't think that I like it as much as It Takes a Nation of Millions, but this album is not far behind that one either. The chaotic samples chopped into great beats continues on this album, and Chuck D is as insightful and acid-tongued as ever
4/5
Elvis Costello
3/5
Okay, look. I like Elvis Costello. He's got fun, punky energy in these early years without being what I would call punk. However, this is the second Elvis Costello album that I've gotten in the last two weeks, and it's too much for me. Please send me fewer Elvis Costello albums so that I can properly enjoy the ones I already have.
All silliness aside, I like this album, but I felt like This Year's Model was a better album from this early period. There's nothing wrong with the songs on this album, but they are both less catchy and less interesting than the ones on that album. This one still has the characteristic Elvis Costello style, both in terms of the music and his voice, but it feels less mature here than on Last Year's Model. Taken in isolation, though, this is a fun album that I still find unspectacular. It's a lot more of a blues rock album than I thought it would be, though he does blues rock far better than most white dudes
3/5
James Brown
4/5
I have the same complaints about this album that I have about all live albums, which is that the inferior sound quality makes it really hard for me to like them. This one doesn't sound too bad, and the crowd sounds really add to the ambiance without taking much away from the songs. The music is really good overall (it's James Brown, so it would be really weird if it wasn't), but this album is also sort of a tease, since you just know that Brown is doing a ton of visual stuff that the crowd is reacting to, but you can't know what he's doing.
It's a fascinating look at the early part of his career and clear evidence that the man oozed charisma from the very beginning. Fuck I would have loved to see this concert
4/5
Aerosmith
3/5
What's to say about this one. It's another Aerosmith album, which means that it both has some really good songs on it as well as a bunch of generic blues rock. It's not bad, but if someone put this record on a party I would listen for the first two songs and then spill beer all over the record player
3/5
Black Sabbath
4/5
I was honestly surprised at how many songs off of this album I recognized. I've listened to other Sabbath albums, but never this one before. This album definitely has an immature sound relative to Paranoid, but all of the elements are here. It's a cool landmark in the history of heavy metal, and it makes it easy to see how blues rock became the heavy metal of the 80s that I'm more familiar with
4/5
Basement Jaxx
2/5
This list provides me with so much great music that I really treasure, and sometimes it provides me with stuff that I don't really care for, but I can see the significance of the album.
And then sometimes it provides me with stuff like this, where I have no earthly idea why I'm supposed to give a crap about this album. Sure, it's a fine album if you want to have some drinks and dance at the club, but I have no idea how to evaluate this seriously as an album. It's not technological mastery, it's not innovative musical structure, it's certainly not interesting lyrically, so why am I supposed to care?
I'm not, and I don't 2/5
Elliott Smith
4/5
God this man has such a heavenly voice. I feel like it's hard to evaluate other aspects of his music because I love how his voice sounds so much. The music is very simple and stripped down, and it complements his voice well.
4/5
Kraftwerk
4/5
Goddamnit, I just love Kraftwerk so much. This certainly isn't my favorite Kraftwerk album, as I like both Autobahn and Man-Machine better, but plenty of songs on this album are great early electronica songs. I will say that I find The Hall of Mirrors to be an absolutely crucifying song to listen to. The title track has the feel of the electro dance genre that would come about a few years later.
4/5
Gang Starr
4/5
It's really cool how much was going on in the world of hip-hop as the 80s ended and the 90s began. So many of the ground-breaking hip-hop albums on this list came out between 88-92. This is one that gets talked about less than some of the others, though I know it's highly regarded in the hip-hop world. The rap style is a little old fashioned, but the music is great and definitely part of the sea change that occurred during this era
4/5
Jane Weaver
3/5
I like the sound of this album, but it's hard to figure out why its on this list. Then I saw that it was Britpop, and everything fell into place for me. It's like how if I made this list, everyone would be saying, "Another fucking Butthole Surfers album??? How many of these are there on this list?" We all have our biases, and the person who curates this list has a fetish for Britpop that has descended into criminal deviancy. Hopefully they're able to get help before this situation escalates any further
Don't get me wrong, I like this album. It sounds good, and the music fits well with her voice. I just don't get why this album that came out in 2017 and could have been made 10 years before that and not been groundbreaking, is on this list. It's fine, it's just not special
3/5
Buena Vista Social Club
4/5
I don't know a lot about Cuban music, nor is it easy for me to put this album into context of other albums that I know, but I know that I like it. It's a much more contemplative version of cuban music that I am used to, as what I've heard before is really lively dance music.
4/5 I don't have much to say about it, but it's sure as hell worth a listen
Bill Evans Trio
4/5
Reading the backstory on this album makes it very poignant. The bassist died shortly after the recording, and the songs that made this album were chosen to feature him. The bass is certainly ever-present in this album, serving, as it always does in these trios, as the glue that holds the piano and the drums together while each of them pursue their own ends.
The album is beautiful. I like Bill Evans's work with Miles Davis better, but he put an incredible solo trio together, and the quality that they were able to produce is on full display here
4/5
Boston
4/5
This album is such a fucking powerhouse. The first 5 songs on this album were legitimate hits. They all have that characteristic Boston sound with the soaring guitars that drown out everything else at times. It's a really incredible testament to the vision of Tom Scholz who did the writing and most of the instruments on the album. The vocals on the album are stellar, with lots of great harmonies. Really an underrated band
4/5
Emmylou Harris
3/5
It's pretty wild that an artist in her 50s decides, on her 19th album, that she wants to start recording her own music rather than doing covers as she had for her entire career. I liked this album. Country is not particularly my genre, but she also does an idiosyncratic version of country that I find more interesting to listen to than most country music. It's not something that I see myself coming back to, but it's good overall
3/5
Slipknot
4/5
I never really look forward to listening to Slipknot, but I'll be damned if they are not interesting as a band. I do wish they would do more melodic stuff like Wait and Bleed rather than all of the atonal screaming. However, it's really neat to listen to their albums and pick out all of the different musical styles that influencing them. The second song on this album starts with a drum n' bass beat, then proceeds to show that this style of beat fits just fine in metal music. There's clearly a lot of different metal influences in their music, but hip-hop is also influencing their style. The prominence of percussion in their music also makes it compelling to listen to. It's one of those weird situations where, superficially this seems like music I shouldn't enjoy, but there's enough craftsmanship and cool stylistic choices that I find it really compelling as an album, even though there aren't many individual songs that I like on their own
4/5 Iowa represent
Peter Tosh
3/5
I don't particularly love reggae music, but I also don't mind it (what a useful sentence I just wrote). It tends to just fade into the background for me. This is certainly a provocative album because it was the first time I heard someone advocate for the legalization of cannabis. That sentiment makes up a small part of the album, but it's significant for its cultural impact. Apart from that, the music is good, but not great
3/5
Shuggie Otis
4/5
This is just a really cool album. Very chill and relaxed instrumentals on most songs, but with some nice vocals when they appear. It's a pretty quick listen as well. I'd never heard of this album previously. It's very interesting that it is an early album with regard to the use of drum machines. I didn't even notice. The drums fit into the music very well and don't sound too clunky the way a lot of early drum machine stuff does. It's very tasteful work
4/5
Nirvana
5/5
This is another album that had a massive impact on my life. It's far darker and grittier than Nevermind, but also still maintains that pop sheen that made Nirvana popular. I don't really know what to say about it other than that it's great, but also represents the high water mark for the music era that most shaped my taste in music
5/5
The Fall
2/5
I'm not sure what it is about this album, but I found it very dull. There were occasional parts that I liked, but most of the time it felt like there was nothing happening. It's the album equivalent of eating plain oatmeal much of the time. The sound quality on the album is also a bit poor, though that may result from the copy I was listening to on Youtube
2/5, but it's the best album I've given 2 stars to, if that helps
Fleet Foxes
5/5
This really is just an incredibly beautiful album. I'm not usually big on folk music, but some albums are just undeniable. It's soft and elegant, and suffused with exquisite vocals. The music is overall simple and driven by acoustic guitar, but it complements the vocals perfectly
5/5
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
4/5
You know, I don't know what they are saying in this music, nor do I really have much of an idea of how to describe it. It's really cool, though, how music can be so unfamiliar in terms of its language, structure, and instruments, and yet be so accessible. It's just a great listen, and Khan has an incredible voice
4/5
Radiohead
5/5
Don't need to listen to this one to rate it, but I will anyway because this album kicks ass. This album marks a clear transition point for the band where they ceased to be the band that they were on their first album and started becoming the band that would produce OK Computer. They definitely aren't quite there yet on this album, but it's stellar in its own right. It's cool hearing 90s style guitars with the more experimental music that Radiohead stated doing here. With nearly any other band, this album would be considered part of their run of great albums, but OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac all leave this album behind in the dust. That's sort of the tragedy of this album. It's incredible in its own right, and it should be talked about as one of the best rock albums of the 90s, but it's completely overshadowed by Radiohead's later work
5/5
The Rolling Stones
4/5
This is one of the better Rolling Stones albums that I've listened to, and I understand why people hold it up as their best album. However, from this era I like Sticky Fingers a lot more. It just feels so much more focused and concise than this album. On the other hand, it took the world a while to come around to this album, so maybe I just need to listen to it a bit more to really get it
4/5
Beatles
5/5
The Beetles, huh? Well, I guess you get into all kinds of obscure music on a list like this
I think I might like Rubber Soul better than this album, but this album definitely steps into a world of music that is beyond anything that they achieve on Rubber Soul. It feels like they're searching for something with this album that they ultimately find on Sgt Pepper's.
Looking at this album in isolation, it is a powerhouse of great songs. Even the songs that I don't love (like Love You To) are interesting and well executed.
5/5 I think these scruffy lads might just make it in the music industry
Erykah Badu
4/5
I do love the serendipity of moments like this. I just read Dilla Time by Dan Charnas, which gave a lot of background on the making of this album and the influence of J Dilla on the musicians and producers involved (Dilla produced or played bass on multiple tracks). It doesn't change my enjoyment of the music all that much, but it's neat to have gotten a peak behind the scenes before listening to the album
I don't go in for a lot of soul, but I enjoyed this album. The music is stellar, and Badu's voice is beautiful and supple. It's consistently good all the way through
4/5
Stephen Stills
4/5
It is wild that this album shared the top 5 with albums by Neil Young and David Crosby/Graham Nash. This album didn't make a huge impression on me, but I thought it was good overall. There's a lot of variety to the music, which keeps it really interesting. Some of it is more like CSNY, and some of it is more straightforward blues, but it's all really well done
4/5
The Lemonheads
4/5
I honestly wasn't expecting much from this album, but there is something about it. It's clearly an alternative rock album, but I would have guessed that it was made a few years later because there were a lot of albums that sound like this around 1995ish. For 1992, this album feels like it has a very mature style of alternative rock.
The album flies by pretty fast, with lots of short songs. They have a great pop feel to them, and the combination of acoustic and electric guitars gives the album a very rich sound. The production is also excellent. The album has a very clean feel
4/5, sort of an underrated gem from the early alternative rock era
Queens of the Stone Age
4/5
Musically, this album builds on the type of slow, churning guitar rock of the Melvins with a bit of Soundgarden mixed in to liven things up. It fuckin really works. I like this album a lot more than I thought I was going to
4/5
The Verve
3/5
My favorite part about this album is that it has Bittersweet Symphony on it. My least favorite part of the album was listening to the rest of the album afterwards. It's fine as an album, but it's another Brit pop album that feels like nothing special to me
3/5
Living Colour
4/5
This is one of those albums that feels like it's from a different time than the year that it was made, though I'm not sure exactly when that time was. The style of music on this album is pretty fascinating. You have songs that are very heavy metal influenced, then you have songs like Glamour Boys that are essentially new wave songs. I really wish that this album would have spawned more of a musical movement, though it's influence can definitely be seen in bands like RHCP and Faith No More. I knew the song Cult of Personality before listening to this, but I was really surprised how consistently good the album was after that opener. I think I might try and pick this one up
4/5
Brian Eno
4/5
Goddamn I love me some Brian Eno. That's been one of the real surprises as I've encountered the albums on this list is how often he shows up in various roles, and how much I like what he does. It helps that I really enjoy ambient music.
Another Green World is not my favorite Eno album, but it's great just like all of the others. He runs through a diverse set of styles, but it always sounds like him, and it's good throughout
It's so weird that there was so much great music made during the 1970s, and yet all I ever heard on the radio growing up was Zeppelin and Foghat. I'd file a class action lawsuit if anyone other than me seemed to care
4/5
The Damned
4/5
I was introduced to this band/album by the podcast No Dogs in Space, and if you liked this album, I'd really recommend their series on the Damned.
This is such a fun album. It's still full-on early punk in terms of the majority of its sound, but other influences are clearly creeping in, especially as the album goes on. In that sense, the album seems like a harbinger of the post punk movement. Overall, it just a lot of fun. Very high energy, pretty lighthearted songs that still manage to be subversive. It flies by too
4/5
The White Stripes
4/5
The White Stripes are one of those bands that I've always thought I should be into, but I've never really liked more than a select few of their songs. After listening to the full album, I think I understand them better. I really like the chunky guitar tones throughout the album, and they put out a lot of sound for just two musicians, and the lyrical style complements the music well. I wish that more of the songs on the album had the sort of bouncy feel of Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, but overall it's a good album
4/5
Don McLean
3/5
One year during high school, on the fourth of July, a bunch of my friends were hanging out. My friend Andy decided, for reasons that I have since forgotten, that we would listen to American Pie. On repeat. For hours. The funny thing about this song is that it's long enough that you can keep it going for a few hours without getting too sick of it. We continued on way past that point, to the point where I fucking hated this song and Don McLean. We kept listening. Eventually my loathing of the song gave way to pure affection, and that's where I've been ever since. I still know all the words.
Unfortunately, American Pie is the only thing that's really worth talking about on this album. It's fine, but uninteresting. Sort of like if they put that ChumbaWumba album on this list
3/5, with one song doing all of the work, just like every group project I did in school
The Teardrop Explodes
4/5
This is kind of a strange album, in that it's genre is somewhat hard to place. It bears some similarity to Pelican West by Haircut One Hundred, especially when the horns/sax are playing, but it also feels like a post-punk album at times. There are a lot of different moods here, but it's really good overall. Great music with interesting lyrics and a great voice. I would not be surprised to find out that this album influenced a lot of 80s artists because it feels like the sounds on this album are all over the place in the 80s, but I don't remember hearing a lot of stuff like this that came out earlier than this album
4/5
Talking Heads
4/5
Everywhere I look, I see Brian Eno helping to produce incredible albums. It's neat to find out that he had a big influence on the sound of the Talking Heads and their use of polyrhythms. This isn't my favorite Talking Heads album, but it's definitely great
4/5
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
This is an album that I owned when I was younger, but it's one that I remember skipping a lot of songs on so that I could get to the good tracks. Now I can remember why. This album is very repetitive. I don't know that I would say that it's a bad album. It certainly has its highlights. Unfortunately, listening to so many albums on this list has introduced me to a lot of music that sounds substantially similar to RHCP, which makes them feel much less revolutionary than I thought they were when I was younger. Now, this album feels very uninspired, and I still have 6 more songs to get through before I get to hear Give It Away.
I have been listening to this album for 5 hours, and I'm only on song number 7. Is this album the secret to time travel?
3/5, with a handful of songs doing all of the work, since most of the songs on this album are so boring that I can't be bothered to look up their names to talk about them
Metallica
3/5
I think it's safe to say that this album marks the end of the classic thrash metal era of Metallica albums. This album doesn't reach the heights of Master of Puppets in my opinion, but it's still pretty good overall. It would be better if you could hear the goddamn bass in the mix, but apparently Lars needed to place his mediocre drumming prominently in a way that obscured their new bassist's skill. It definitely leaves the album feeling kinda empty at times.
I'm not sure that people would remember this album nearly as fondly if One weren't on the album. That track sounds like the old Metallica. A lot of the others sound a bit generic to me.
3/5
Coldplay
2/5
I remember when people were pitching Coldplay to me as a lighter version of Radiohead. Those people are liars, and we are not longer friends. I think that they might have been confused by the fact that the singer is really handsome.
It is now day 2 of me trying to listen to this album. I got 2.5 songs in the first time before I turned it off. It's not even bad, it's just dull. Don't worry, I figured out that if I just bury myself in trying to sort my email inbox, I can sort of time travel through the rest of this album. It's not very good, so far as I can tell
2/5
Le Tigre
5/5
This is such a fun album. It manages to be upbeat and silly while also being subversive and politically relevant. For example. My Metro Card seems like a silly song about public transportation, but becomes a song about how Rudy Giuliani's policies were affecting New York. The harmonies are great and help make the album feel really dense with music without feeling suffocating. This is one of those albums that you could drop today and it would still feel fresh and relevant
5/5
The Boo Radleys
4/5
I honestly don't have a lot to say about this album, but it's very good, and feels very mature for 1993. I would have thought it was made a few years later. The album is very consistent and features a variety of different musical styles. Very much worth the listen
4/5
Joy Division
5/5
This is another album that I was introduced to by the No Dogs in Space podcast, and if you like this album, I would recommend checking out their series on Joy Division. This is one of those albums that seems weird at first, but gets more comfortable the more that you experience it, at least in my experience. It's an absolutely revolutionary album for 1979, and is one of the many great albums that marks the close of that decade. The slow fusion of punk rock and electronica that occurs through out this album is so interesting. The drumming sounds like a drum machine at so many points. The raw emotionality of the lyrics bring real depth to the album, and provide the perfect compliment to the music
5/5, an absolutely iconic album in so many ways
The Modern Lovers
4/5
This album seems like a nice bridge between the Velvet Underground and all of the alternative rock artists that came of age in the 1980s. This makes sense, given that a member of the Velvet Underground produced much of the album The Modern Lovers and especially Jonathan Richman, have a weird sensibility to them, but it works with their happy-go-lucky musical style. The first song, Road Runner, is an absolute classic.
4/5 The production could be a little cleaner, but I can't really hold that against them, since a lot of the album was recorded as demos
Stan Getz
5/5
Super solid album, and a great album for folks who are interested in jazz and looking for an easy entry point
My Bloody Valentine
5/5
This is one of those albums that I just loved as soon as I heard it. It starts with the avalanche of sound, and there's so much texture and richness to it. Usually I focus a lot on the vocals for rock music, but I have no idea what they're saying, and it doesn't feel like it matters. It just blends in with the wall of sound that you're constantly swimming through with this album. It's by far my favorite shoegaze album, and you can just hear the impact that this album had on tons of bands that came after them, especially groups like the Smashing Pumpkins
5/5 I wish that the low end of the audio was just a bit cleaner, but that's really the only thing that I have to criticize this album about
Skepta
1/5
You know, it had been a while since I'd gotten an album that was clearly only on this list because it was British, but I remedied that today. This album is the very definition of nothing special. The music is fine, if not a bit outdated. The lyrics are pedestrian. I haven't gotten a single Kendrick Lamar album on here, but somehow my bones could not be laid to rest without listening to this album. Crime Riddim legit has a minute and a half skit at the end of it, despite the fact that the song is 4.5 minutes to begin with.
Seriously, a lot of this is sonically indistinguishable from the songs put out by QAnon rappers. They're talking about different things, but it's equally bland, and the beats are exactly the same. I hate this. I hate everything about this. This is the worst album I've heard on here since I got that Limp Bizkit album. The history of hip-hop runs deep with great albums, but somehow I got stuck listening to this one. At least until I gave up and listened to something good
1/5
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
I have kind of a weird relationship with this album, since I've owned it on vinyl for more than 15 years, but I can't remember the last time I bothered to listen to it. I just never feel like I'm in the mood for Jimi Hendrix.
And yet, right from the first song, I remember why I bought this album. I just feels like Jimi has a different dimension to his guitar playing. It feels chaotic yet effortlessly controlled at the same time. This album runs deep with great songs too, with all but a couple of his biggest hits being represented here. Definitely a nice album to revisit once in a while
4/5
David Ackles
3/5
This album is really not my type of music, and I found it quite dull. I could see why people would like this. There are lots of other albums that it sounds like, but it also predates a lot of those albums, so it deserves credit for that. To me, this is basically what Leonard Cohen would sound like if he wasn't as good a poet and had less interesting backing music
3/5 I think he deserves some credit for taking some chances and experimenting in these songs, but at the same time I was bored the entire time I was listening to this album
Jimi Hendrix
3/5
Well, this album suffers a lot from appearing on this list less than a week since Are You Experienced. Whereas that album is a firecracker that really shows off what Jimi can do, this album feels much more subdued in a way that doesn't really benefit the album. Hendrix's real strength appears in the restrained chaos that is his guitar playing. This album just features far fewer moments that really feature his guitar playing. It definitely has some good songs, but it never reaches the heights of Are You Experienced?
3/5
The Slits
4/5
The Slits are one of the many, many cool female rock groups that slipped through the cracks while their more mediocre male counterparts got all the credit. I've had to hear about the Sex Pistols for my entire life, despite the fact that they were nothing special compared to a lot of their contemporaries, and yet I never hear about the Slits. Shout out to the No Dogs in Space podcast for introducing me to this group and their history
As far as the music goes, it's really cool to see how fast punk groups shifted to post-punk and started exploring other genres. The Reggae influence on this album is clear from the first song, but you can also hear psychedelic influences among others, on top of the punk music that the band coalesced around.
4/5
Paul McCartney and Wings
4/5
This album becomes kind of hard to follow as it progresses. It starts out with two absolutely classic rock songs, and then begins to explore outwards from there. It's Paul McCartney, though, so the songs are great. I was hoping for more of a rock album based on the songs that I knew, but at the same time it makes for a nice, relaxed album
4/5
Prince
4/5
I think this is only the second Prince album that I've listened to (I got Purple Rain on this list a while ago). This album is interesting. Very relaxed, yet the music still feels full. I do love the drum machine he uses throughout this album (and apparently most of his other albums
4/5
Deep Purple
2/5
I lost my review for this album, but it's okay because I didn't really like it very much
2/5
Beck
3/5
I think this is a fine album, but it's not one of my favorites by Beck. This, Odelay, and Sea Change are all on this list. I think that Odelay, Midnight Vultures, and Morning Phase would be the three Beck albums that I would pick. However, this is all a matter of opinion, and other folks are entitled to theirs
This album benefits by being produced by the Dust Brothers, who also worked on Odelay. What bothers me about this album is that it doesn't feel like he's doing anything new here. A lot of this album feels like Odelay II: Not as Good as Odelay. I guess you could say that this album focuses more on chill grooves from Beck, but I feel like I can get that anywhere. It makes me feel like commercial success is doing a lot of heavy lifting for this album, whereas there are multiple albums that are far more musically interesting that could be on this list
3/5
Super Furry Animals
4/5
This is a weird album. It's really interesting to hear a glam/psychedelic approach from a band that is firmly rooted in the 90s. It sounds good overall, though there were certainly times when it felt like they were trying to do Bowie, which I don't particularly enjoy (I love Bowie, but it's a big gamble to try and do a meaningful impression of him). Overall the album is really catchy and has enough diversity in the music to keep it interesting. It tapers off a bit toward the end, but overall it's really consistent
4/5
Killing Joke
4/5
Listening to this, I would not have predicted that it was made in 1980. It feels like it was made a few years after that, and the sound of this album was clearly influential in a lot of bands from the 80s and 90s. It's really cool that it was essentially recorded live with no overdubbing, and it's even cooler that it came out sounding good. Plenty of other punk bands have tried that approach and produced albums that would be classics if they didn't sound like complete garbage
4/5
Steely Dan
3/5
Look, if I just admit that I don't get Steely Dan and probably never will, will you guys stop making me listen to their albums? None of their albums have been bad, and I think this was the best one that I've heard so far, but two songs into the album they all just become muzak playing in the elevator of my mind
3/5 Again, it's not bad, I've just never owned a pair of New Balance sneakers, so I think I'm entirely the wrong demographic for this album
Daft Punk
4/5
This album is really cool a lot of the time, and is justifiably considered a landmark techno album. There are a lot of great songs on here, but there are also some songs (Rollin' and Scratchin' and Rock'n Roll, for example) that are really repetitive without much going on. The feel like filler, which is too bad because the album is otherwise pretty stellar
4/5, but a lower 4 than I would have anticipated
Tortoise
4/5
This was an album I found very interesting. I'm not terribly familiar with post-rock as a genre, though I like a lot of the major influences on that genre. There were multiple parts of this album that reminded me of the Krautrock band Neu, just with more noise included in the music. Really cool album, very relaxed. I would not have guessed that it was made in the mid 90s from the sound. It sounds like it was made a few years later than that
4/5
The Offspring
4/5
What a strange album to have to review for this list. I listened to this album all the time when I was younger, and to this day I love the sound of this album. However, I'm not sure why it's significant other than that it is a really good pop punk album that was part of punk breaking through to the mainstream in the 90s. I don't think it should be criticized for that fact, but it seems like a weird inclusion. Like, is there a Mighty Mighty Bosstones album on this list in recognition of ska's breakthrough in the late 90s?
All pedantry aside, this album fucking kicks ass and it's a real fun listen all the way through. I don't think it broke much new ground, but I suppose it fits on this list as a sign of times in which it was popular
4/5
Merle Haggard
4/5
Country is certainly not my preferred genre, but some music is just undeniably charming. Merle Haggard has a great voice and writes excellent songs. The backing music features his voice well while keeping your toes tapping
4/5
David Bowie
3/5
Well, I can definitively say now that whiteboy soul Bowie is not my favorite Bowie (getting off cocaine in Berlin Bowie is actually my favorite Bowie). This album isn't bad, but it feels pretty samey for a lot of it, and there are several albums of his that I like much better. I like that he goes for stuff like this, even though I don't always love the results
3/5
Little Simz
3/5
Well, I think this is the best British rapper that I've been served on this list. I can say that. I can also say that she at least sounds modern in the era that she's working in, unlike many of the other British rap entries on this list.
It's fine. I don't get why this album in particular was singled out (other than that it was British), but it's at least fine. I still haven't gotten a Kendrick album on this list yet, though, at that fact becomes more glaring every time that I get an album by a British rapper who I've never heard of
3/5
Kate Bush
4/5
This album provides a really interesting contrast with Hounds of Love, the other Kate Bush album that I've gotten on this list, and the album that comes after this one in her discography.
This album is just Kate Bush being weirdass Kate Bush, and I must say that I dig her style. It's far less melodic than Hounds of Love, and makes for a much more difficult listen, but the quality is still clearly here. It seems crazy to me that this album made it to #3 on the UK album chart because it's really out there, but perhaps the general British audience had more of a tolerance for weird stuff then (they've certainly always tolerated weird stuff better than Americans anyway).
I don't have a fucking clue how to describe this album. It can be a somewhat challenging listen at points, but it's always interesting, and she keeps finding ways to bring my attention back when it starts to wander
4/5
Lambchop
2/5
I don't get it. I just don't get what this is or why I should care. It all sounds okay, but it never makes me sit up and take interest. Beck did this style 10x better on Midnight Vultures, which was released before this album
2/5
Devendra Banhart
4/5
After getting a bunch of albums that were mediocre or worse, I have finally stumbled on an album that I think is really interesting. I not big on folk music, but there is something really compelling about this album. The production is great, bringing out the great qualities of his voice and fitting them perfectly with the guitar. The songs are consistently good, and they are variable enough in their structure that the album was able to keep my attention all the way through
4/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
I think it's interesting that both of the Nice Cave albums I've gotten on this list are from his later period, which, at least according to Wikipedia, is a significant departure from his earlier work. I'm interested in listening to more of his work to see how this stuff compares to his earlier work.
This album reminds me a lot of Leonard Cohen, especially Songs of Love and Hate (ironically from Cohen's earlier period). It's not a style of music that particularly appeals to me, but it's something that I can enjoy when it is well-executed as it is here. His voice and lyrics are both beautiful and moving, and the music backs this up well. I'm not sure that I'm ever going to be a Nick Cave fan, but I can't deny that he makes for a compelling listen whenever I've put his music on
4/5
Goldie
3/5
I found this album tough to rate. Taken on it's own, it sounds like generic drum n' bass with nothing that makes it particularly interesting. However, something can only sound generic once a trope has been established, and this album seems to have been critical in establishing many of the tropes of drum n' bass, especially the use of ethereal female vocals (though this had been done in other electronic genres previously). Overall, I don't find this album that interesting to listen to, but it's got clear significance in the development of the genre
3/5
The Darkness
3/5
Glam rock is never going to be one of my favorite genres, but I do appreciate the audacity of it and the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously (most of the time). This album seems to be from that weird era in the early 00s when bands were just trying to straight up copy 70s rock (looking at you, Wolfmother). It's overall a pretty fun album
3/5
The Dictators
3/5
Well, this album is certainly something. What it is I'm not sure, but it's something. It has much more of a 70s rock feel than most of the early punk stuff, which makes sense because those bands were organized around insular scenes, and those scenes were still forming while this was being recorded.
This album is as much a comedy album as it is a proto-punk album, which works both for and against it, since it makes it hard to take the album seriously, but then again you're not supposed to. The music is okay, nothing mindblowing, unlike a lot of the early punk albums that would come out of the NYC scene. Still, it marks a progression towards the idea of punk music, and was also clearly influential on those early punk bands
3/5
Santana
4/5
I figured going in that this would be an album that I like, but ultimately don't find that interesting. However, I found this album really engrossing. It was clearly influential on a lot of the jam bands that I was really into when I was younger, and yet this didn't feel generic. It also had a clearer jazz influence than I was expecting. Each song is distinct and well-conceived
4/5
Pet Shop Boys
3/5
I wasn't a huge fan of the last Pet Shop Boys album that I got, so I thought this would be more of the same. However, I quite enjoyed this album. I like that they put a big focus on analogue synths in the production of the album. It's not an album that I'm likely to come back to, but I think the songs are well crafted overall, and the production is excellent
3/5
Amy Winehouse
4/5
I don't have a lot to say about this album, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I feel like it does get a bit samey after a while, but the style of music on the album and her vocal performances are a breath of fresh air
4/5
Nas
5/5
Say what you will about Nas's career after this album, this album is an absolute landmark in hip-hop history. The samples, the lyrics, the features, everything about this album works together beautifully. The album is introspective and runs very deep
5/5
The Rolling Stones
4/5
I'm always hit or miss with Rolling Stones albums, but I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Lots of blues rock, but they manage to do some interesting things with it
4/5
The Jesus And Mary Chain
5/5
This is one of those bands that sounds really cool and interesting on their own, but starts to become really significant when you think about all the other bands that employed a similar sound after them. You can hear so many other songs on this album, and yet I can't think of many examples of hearing similar sounds that came before this album. It's a truly iconic album that doesn't often get the respect that it deserves
5/5
Shivkumar Sharma
4/5
I thought this was a really cool album. It's not as intense as some classical Indian music that I've listened to, it's a very relaxing album. The music is great all the way through. Really beautiful introduction to Indian music for anyone who is unfamiliar
4/5
Simple Minds
3/5
I really enjoyed this album at first, but it didn't hold my interest all that well. I generally like early synth pop, but this felt like it got a bit samey for me after a while. I'm not sure if that's because I've heard several early synth pop albums now, or because this album is repetitive. I still think it's worth a listen. but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would
3/5
Terence Trent D'Arby
3/5
I gotta say that the late 80s is really not my era for soul. I like this album well enough. He has a great voice, and the songwriting is always competent, but the music just leaves me feeling uninspired. I'm not sure exactly what it is, though I find the tone on the bass to be really grating. Wishing Well is my fucking jam, though, as is Sign Your Name. The highs are high with this album, but the lows taste like coconut, and I really don't care for the taste of coconut
3/5
The Specials
4/5
I'm usually pretty hit or miss on early ska albums. I like this one a lot better than the last album I got on this list, which was their debut album. The production is much better on this album, and I think it benefits a lot from the diverse set of rock influences that helped inspire its creation.
4/5
The Only Ones
4/5
I don't have a lot to say about this one, but I thought it was pretty interesting to listen to
4/5
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3/5
This is one of those cases where I wish the Wikipedia entry had more information about the significance of this album. Jack Elliot, and particularly this album seems to have been highly influential on a number of genres during the decades after its release. The recording quality is pretty poor, but the songs are good. It's not particularly my genre of music, but it's easy to see why people like it
3/5
Alexander 'Skip' Spence
3/5
I'm not a big folk guy, but this album is really cool, both in terms of its content and in terms of its story. The production on the album also works really well with the music. The sound quality dips at certain points in the album, but it still always sounds good. Very intimate folk album that has some surprising elements to it
3/5
The Pogues
3/5
The Pogues are a fun band, even if I never independently have the thought "I could really go for some fucking sea shanties right now." I thought it was interesting that this album is produced by Elvis Costello, since I didn't know that he did production work, but it sounds great. The album gets a bit repetitive after a while, but to be fair I'm also a land lubber
3/5
Happy Mondays
4/5
This album really does not sound like it was made in 1990. I don't know quite how to describe it, but it's cool. Having electronic producers on to make loops and effects for the songs fits really well with the bands style
4/5
ZZ Top
3/5
ZZ top always seems to put together a competent album, even if their style of rock doesn't particularly appeal to me. They do blues rock, but they have their own spin on it, which keeps it interesting
3/5
Soul II Soul
3/5
This is a pretty strange album, in that I found listening to a lot of it to be pretty dull, but it seems really obviously significant in terms of the shape of R&B and hip-hop during the early 90s. When I listen to this, I hear a lot of little elements that would show up in the club music of the 90s. Also Back II Life is a fucking jam
3/5
The Stooges
4/5
This is kind of a weird album because people are highly split on what the definitive version of the album is. It's a real testament to the genius of this album that it could be so influential and fully deserving of its place on this list despite the fact that it...doesn't sound very good. I listened to the 1997 Iggy remix of this album, since the original version of the album sounds too thin for me. The Iggy version also has its problems, but I feel like it's closer to what they were going for than the original. It's also a great reminder of why you probably shouldn't put a spiraling heroine addict in charge of recording your album.
Regardless, this is a titanic album in the history of rock. The Stooges represent this incredibly clear bridge between 70s rock and punk rock as well as having an influence on heavy metal. I prefer the two earlier Stooges albums to this one, but this album had an incalculable influence on so many pioneering rock musicians from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that it needed to be on this list. The podcast No Dogs in Space has a 5 part series on The Stooges that I would highly recommend if you find this album interesting
4/5
The Crusaders
2/5
I'm just going to assume that this album was playing the first time the author of this list had sex, and that's why its on here. It's fine jazz, but absolutely not significant or groundbreaking in any way. I'd be insulted on behalf of all the great jazz musicians that were snubbed from this, but frankly I'm just happy that my man had sex
2/5
Tom Waits
3/5
I have such a weird relationship to Tom Waits. I feel like I should like his music, and lots of people with great taste in music like his stuff, but it always leaves me wanting to listen to something else. I did really enjoy Nighthawks at the Diner, which I got on this list a few hundred albums ago. And the music that I make keeps getting compared to Tom Waits (generously, of course, I'm nowhere near his level of talent and skill).
Individually, I like some of these songs, and I find most of the others interesting. As a whole, they start to grate on me when put into the context of an album, since it feels like a lot of them are similar in weird ways. Or maybe I just don't like his voice, idk. Regardless, I continue to feel about Tom Waits the way that I've always felt about him, which is that I feel like I should like him, but there's just so much stuff that I actively enjoy listening to more than this
3/5 I can see the merit in it, so I don't think it deserves a sub-50% grade, but I also can't justify anything higher, since I'm feeling pretty glad right now that the album is over
The Young Gods
4/5
It's an odd coincidence that I was just watching a documentary about the history of industrial music the other day and get treated to an industrial album today.
This album has a lot of the elements that would be featured in the industrial music of the 90s. It develops a little bit slowly, which is fine, but I'm more used to industrial in the mold of NIN or Ministry. Overall, it's a really cool album that serves as a nice transition from the early industrial stuff that was pretty hard to listen to and the really popular industrial stuff from the 90s and 00s.
4/5
4/5
One of the great deficiencies in my knowledge of pop music is female rock artists. Part of this is because they tended to be pushed into the background by the music ecosystem, and part of it is because I wasn't seeking them out. One of the really cool things I've learned from this list is just how many ground breaking albums were produced by women and then largely ignored. PJ Harvey got a fair bit of attention for her work, but I'd never listened to her until I encountered a couple of her albums on this list.
This album definitely deserves its accolades. It's beautifully written, and her voice and lyrics are great throughout. Bringing in Thom Yorke for a song was a great move, and I love how his voice sounds when paired with a female vocalist
4/5
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
This album is cool, but I wish I would have heard it before Loveless, since I absolutely love that album, while this one pales in comparison a bit for me. It's still good, and goes in different directions than Loveless, it just would have been nice to hear how much I like this album if I didn't have Loveless as a standard of comparison
4/5
Willie Nelson
4/5
Willie Nelson is one of those artists that I keep meaning to see before he dies, just so I can say that I saw him. But then I keep not seeing him, which makes me feel bad. And he keeps on living and giving me more opportunities to see him, which makes me feel worse. Anyway, the reason that I'm not buying tickets is probably because I don't really like country all that much. I like this, though. The production is very good, featuring the guitar and bass very nicely at appropriate times. The songs are beautiful, and so is his voice, which cuts through everything else on the album to help you really feel it
4/5
Roxy Music
3/5
Roxy music is such a bizarre situation for me. I don't care for Bryan Ferry at all (nothing wrong with the guy, I just don't like his music), but I fucking love Brian Eno. On their albums, it seems like I half enjoy a lot of the songs, and this album is a great example of that. Unfortunately, this makes for a dull listening experience. I really thought I was going to like this album, but at least I can comfort myself with everything Brian Eno did after this
3/5
Love
3/5
Perhaps I'm missing a lot of nuance here, but this sounds a lot like the Moody Blues to me. I don't think it's bad at all, but it doesn't sound unique to my ear. This could be because folk isn't really my genre and I have the ears of a cretin. Or it could be because a lot of late 60s folks sounds the same because they were all zonked out of their minds on amazing acid, bad pot, and dirty speed. Perhaps we'll never know
3/5
Sinead O'Connor
4/5
It's pretty hard to think of an artist who was done dirtier in their time that Sinead O'Connor. Her career was destroyed because she ripped up a picture of the pope to protest the Catholic Church protecting pedophiles, and yet she herself was a victim of the church, as were thousands and thousands of other people world wide. She was 100% right and had so much shit talked about her.
So anyway, the album. It's good. Not particularly my style of music, but her voice is great, and there's a lot of gravity to her songs. Nothing Compares 2 U is a fucking banger for such a depressing song. It's also nice that she can mix things up with more upbeat songs like Jump in the River. Using a loop from James Brown's Funky Drummer was a nice touch (I also hadn't realized before this that the same loop was used in Scarlett Begonias by Sublime). Overall a really good listen from an artists who should have had a much bigger career
4/5
Amy Winehouse
4/5
I didn't like this album quite as much as Back to Black, but it's still a very good album. There's just something so undeniable about her voice. It feels timeless. There's a lot of variety in the music as well, with some songs sounding modern and others have more of a classic sound
4/5
Guided By Voices
4/5
Honestly, I wasn't super excited when I say this album, since I've given Bee Thousand a shot a couple of times and don't really find it to my taste. I like the lofi style, it's just that the songs go by so fast that it feels like you don't get any time to sit with them. This album felt a lot more digestible. It still gets through a wide variety of songs, and each song feels like it has a good amount of room to breathe
4/5
Pearl Jam
4/5
Pearl Jam was one of those bands that I didn't really "get" when I was younger. I was much more of a Nirvana fan, and it was easy to reject other bands that I viewed as lesser than. So, this is the first time that I've actually listened to this as an album. It's easy to see why it's had such an enduring legacy. Nearly half of the album is hit songs, some of them mega-hits, and the rest is consistently good. The second half of the album is not as good as the first, but it's solid all the way through
4/5
The Roots
4/5
I feel like The Roots are one of the groups that have never really received the credit that they deserved. Playing live music for hip-hop is an amazing idea, and they've always executed it incredibly. Especially in this era, they kept pushing the envelope of what they could do musically to keep up with the work of producers like Dilla who were creating music that was difficult to emulate with live instruments.
The incredible talent of Black Thought is on full display here. Again, he's one of the greatest rappers of all time, but never get sufficient credit. I think that The Roots are one of those groups that a lot of people find challenging, despite the fact that their music sounds great and isn't hard on the ears at all. They've always done their own thing and sought to push the boundaries of that genre, and Phrenology is another milestone in that journey. The fusion of hip-hop and neo-soul reaches what might be its apex here
4/5
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
2/5
God, I've been loathing this moment. This is one of those albums that I'm supposed to like because I'm weird and I like weird things, and this is a landmark album in the history of weirdness.
I've tried with this album, I really have. Multiple times .Every time I put it on, I want nothing so much as for it to end. This album is the equivalent to a person who confuses having an unusual pet for having a personality. "I'm glad you were able to buy a kimono dragon, Captain Beefheart. Can I get the fuck out of here now?"
If I'm being serious, I can see why people were influenced by this album. There's little bits and pieces of things that would become much more prominent in music in the decades to follow. That's my problem with it, though. It's all just bits and pieces of things, with no actual coherent expression of a whole idea. Every time I find something that I like, it ends quickly, and moves on to something else that is the musical analogy of someone putting their finger and inch from your face and saying "I'm not touching you"
Anyway, I've been dreading this moment. I'm going to give this album a bad grade because I don't like it, but I have to actually listen to it to see how bad of a grade it will be. And, of course, it's a double album because they couldn't shovel this much garbage onto just one disk.
I feel the same way about this album that I feel about all of David Lynch's movies. I know that I'm supposed to like it. Tons of people whose opinions I really respect love this album and think it's brilliant (also, it's David Lynch's favorite album because of course it is). However, when I listen to it, I don't enjoy it, and then I feel stupid because I'm supposed to enjoy it, and maybe I'm just too stupid to understand it. Fuck you, Captain Beefheart. I'm not stupid, you are. If you're so much smarter than me, how come I'm alive and you're dead?
2/5 This album has an incredible legacy, but so does Michael Jackson's dad. Legacy isn't everything
Queen Latifah
4/5
I think a lot of folks get down on this album for being dated, which it is, but so is a lot of the music on this list. I don't think that dated hip-hop is any worse inherently than dated rock or dated jazz. What's more, this album comes from a singular moment in hip-hop when sampling was wide open and DJs had the equipment to take large samples from popular music. Not all of the rapping on this album has aged well, but Queen Latifah has unquestionable skill on the mike, and its on full display here. The early synthesis of rap with house music is also really cool. This is certainly not the best rap album I've gotten on this list, but it has a case as the most underrated rap album that I've gotten.
4/5
Heaven 17
4/5
This album took me a little while to review, which was good because it grew on me a bit as I tried to sit down and listen to the whole thing. As an album, it's a bit more frenetic than a lot of early synth pop (e.g. stuff like Human League and Gary Numan). This both gives the album a very distinct style and makes it a bit more fun to dance to. I also like that political/social ideas were a little more at the fore than with other early synth groups. This band feels a lot more like a punk band that sold their guitars for magic synthsizers than a lot of their contemporaries
4/5
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
I've complained a lot of times on here about not getting any Kendrick Lamar albums. Well, we finally made it here
I love this album. It's perfect. It's so deeply personal, yet looking outward at all these social issues. His rapping and lyrics are sublime. The music is so far beyond what most of hip-hop was doing at the time, yet it still feels like hip-hop.
This is the greatest rap album of all time. It's everything I ever wanted in hip-hop. In a weird way, I didn't want to put this album on today because I knew it would eventually end, and then I would never get to review it for this list again.
This is one of the top 5 albums made since 2000
5/5
Thelonious Monk
5/5
This is my favorite Thelonious Monk album. It has his characteristic style of being elegant and beautiful while bringing weird tension when he chooses to. I love the exuberance of Bemsha Swing
5/5
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
This was an album that I didn't think I was going to like as I listened to the start of the first song. However, he really won me over as the album went on. I don't have a huge amount to say about it, other than that it's cool that he was able to keep putting out consistently good work for this many years
4/5
The Incredible String Band
2/5
You know, it's rare that I encounter an album that I instantly dislike as much as this album. I'm generally not a folk person, and I'm especially not a this-kind-of-folk person. A lot of these songs sound like Monty Python songs that were cut when they realized they forgot to put jokes in.
I will say that the album starts to pick up around A Very Cellular Song, though that only lasts for a few tracks, and then we're back in the doldrums
Reading about it, I guess I can understand why this album is significant, but listening to it, I just don't understand at all. Looking at the other reviews of this album, it seems like lots of other people felt the same. It's either 5 stars or 1.
2/5 There were moments that I thought this was okay, but otherwise this is the type of album that we should probably destroy every copy of for the advancement of the human species
Todd Rundgren
3/5
This is one of those albums that's fine, a fun listen even, but I don't understand why it's special enough to be on this list. I suppose that it represents a transitional album from the sound of the 60s to the sound of the 70s, but nothing on here feels all that groundbreaking. It just feels very straightforward. There's nothing wrong with that, and I enjoyed this album, but it's hard to analyze something that is competent but unspectacular. He does have some synthesizer stuff on here that is relatively early. Maybe it gets really good on the second disc of the album, but I'm definitely not going to make it there because I have things to do today
3/5
The Avalanches
5/5
Lots of times with electronic albums from this period, it's hard for me to evaluate the album because it's hard to know how groundbreaking something was without researching it. The novelty of the sounds fade over time and are lost in a wash of imitators.
This is not one of those albums. It's not just that it's obviously groundbreaking for the time, it's that it still sounds novel. It's just a great album all the way through. The execution is incredible, which is a real achievement given the technology it was made with and the number of samples involved. Just incredibly fun, innovative dance music from down under
5/5
The Rolling Stones
5/5
This is my favorite of the Rolling Stones albums, it's bluesy, yet they're doing a lot with it and exploring some interesting things. All the songs are solid on the album, with some all time greats on there as well. I think Can't You Hear Me Knockin would have been a huge hit if it wasn't so long. There's a lot of wistful emotion here as well. The fact that they packaged it with a genius bit of marketing is just the icing on the cake
5/5
Beastie Boys
4/5
Nothing quite like the audacity of beginning your debut album with the drums from When The Levee Breaks, but if you've got the chops to pull it off, you might as well go big.
This album is pretty strange to listen to now. It has the same thin 80s drum machines that a lot of rappers were using at the time, but combined with these massive guitar riffs and other famous samples. It's one of those albums that it's easy to understand why it hit so big (in a country that may have been afraid to bring Run DMC into their living rooms). There's a lot of attention to the production that makes for a really hard hitting sound.
Their rapping is...well it's good sometimes. It's an early rap album, so it's going to sound dated no matter what. They try a lot of things here, and some of them work really well. The lyrics are pretty shallow, but it's not like they get really deep later in their career.
This album is a touchstone, but it doesn't hold up nearly as well as their other albums, though there are precious few hip-hop albums from this era that do hold up
4/5 Legacy is pulling a lot of weight here, but there are also some hard-hitting songs on here that really work as well
Meat Puppets
4/5
This album is a strange one to actually sit down and listen to, since, like most people, I became familiar with the Meat Puppets through Nirvana's Unplugged album, which featured three of the songs on this album. It feels weird to hear those songs in their original context.
This album is really cool, though. It's funny how many hardcore punk bands were able to really find their niche after abandoning that fairly limited subgenre (see also: Boys, Beastie). This is a really cool early alternative album with a lot of country elements fused into it, with some psychedelic rock mixed in for good measure. The music is really great and feels innovative for 1984. The vocals are...not great, but that also doesn't feel like their goal. Overall, it's a really cool album
4/5
Louis Prima
4/5
I think the most surprising thing about this album is how many of the songs I recognized. A lot of them, I've heard this specific version before, but I've also heard covers of several of these songs. All of the music is very fun and lively, which matches Louis Prima's delivery very well. It's a fucking kick ass early rock record that forms a clearer bridge between the big band/swing era and the rock era than I've heard elsewhere
4/5
Tears For Fears
4/5
One of the great boons of this list is that it seems like the author was really into early synthpop, and I've gotten very interested in that genre. As a result, I've gotten a lot of context for how the genre developed. This album feels very mature compared to a lot of the other early synth pop albums. It feels like sort of a halfway point between Dare by Human League and Violator by Depesche Mode. It has all of Tears for Fears' biggest hits, as well as a bunch of other solid tracks. It seems like this was the last album to feature the original lineup (after this one, the two guys that aren't in this picture left the picture entirely), which is a shame because there's so much magic here
4/5
Spacemen 3
4/5
I was a bit worried when I saw that this was a British band that I've never heard of, since my history with similar bands on this list is not spectacular. However, I really enjoyed this album. I like ambient music, so space rock is pretty firmly up my alley, but this album is also very well executed. The songs flow nicely from one to the next, but each one is distinct. The vocals are a bit muffled on some of the songs, but that could also be intentional. Really cool album for relaxing whilst chemically altering your brain
4/5
Hugh Masekela
4/5
I don't have a huge frame of reference for afrobeat, but I like the genre in general, and this is a great fusion of 70s jazz with afrobeat. It's a long album (I'm somehow only on song 4, and it feels like I've been listening to it all day). It's not boring, however. There's lots of different moods and variation in the styles, with some songs swinging more toward jazz and others more on the afrobeat side of the fence. A great album to have playing in the background
4/5
808 State
3/5
This is kind of a weird one for me, since this album sounds super generic and dated, but I also know that this would have been pretty innovative when it came out, especially for the mainstream. It does seem a little weird to me that this list features British acid house, rather than American acid house, since the genre was developed in America. However, I don't know the genre well enough to know how many albums of this quality were produced by the Chicago acid house school.
Regardless, this is one of those albums where I'm able to recognize its importance, despite the fact that I don't find it all that interesting to listen to
3/5
U2
3/5
You know, I'm not sure that I like U2.
I like this album better than Joshua Tree, which was one of the first albums that I got on this list, but I still found my self pretty bored outside of the songs that I already knew. Even those don't do all that much for me, but they're still good songs. I like the political message of the album and the fact that it focuses on the human costs of war outside of the battlefield. However, I find a lot of the music pretty repetitive. I could see why people really like this album, and it's possible that some of my feelings about what U2 has become have colored my perception of their earlier work, but this left me feeling pretty flat
3/5
Siouxsie And The Banshees
4/5
Well, one of the things that I've learned through participating in this list is that I'm a fan of Siouxsie and the Banshees. The only thing that this album has working against it for me is that I heard it after I heard Juju, which is one of my favorite albums that I've encountered in the last year. This album isn't nearly as interesting nor as polished as Juju, but it's still groundbreaking on its own merit. I find it astonishing that by 1978, only one year after punk broke out and most of the classic early albums were released, there were already acts like Siouxsie and the Banshees that had already moved beyond the tropes of the punk genre to develop their own style in its wake.
There's so much in this album. The bass-driven songs, the Siouxsie's soaring, dark vocals, the guitar effects, the soaring drums focusing mostly on the toms. It's clear that a lot of other people were listening to this album shortly after it came out, because a few years later it's influence was everywhere and is still felt today
4/5
4/5
One of the things that has struck me with the albums that I've been getting lately is that I like music, but it has to be my kind of weird. Trout Mask Replica and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter are great examples of weird albums that I really detested. This, on the other hand, is my kind of weird. It helps that the music is really good, and the album is very self aware about what it is and what it's trying to accomplish.
Musically, the mix of rock instruments and synthesizers is great, and not something I've seen much elsewhere on this list. It seems like lots of bands become synthesizer bands when they start integrating the instruments, but Devo feels distinctly like a rock band, even on their synthesizer-heavy songs. The more I listen to it, the more this album feels distinct from nearly everything else that I've been listening to on here, despite the fact that I've been through nearly 650 albums at this point
The whole album is silly, yet very well executed. It's like it refused to take itself seriously, but is performed at such a high level that we must take it seriously. The fact that it came out in 1978 seems impossible to me. I would have pegged it in the mid-80s for sure
4/5
George Harrison
5/5
George Harrison released this as a triple album, and still had another double album worth of material left over that he just didn't release. I didn't know that Phil Spector produced this album (alongside Harrison), but it makes sense because it sounds amazing and incredibly full. The tone on his slide guitar, in particular, stands out as one of the most iconic sounds on this album. The songs are great, the lyrics are personal an accessible. The only real criticism I could make of this album is that it probably could have been a couple of albums, rather than just one huge one, but at the same time, he gave all that he had when he made this one. That goes a long way to explaining why this is the best solo album made by any Beatles member
5/5
Elton John
4/5
I never get excited to see that my task is to review a double album, since it just takes a lot longer to get a good slice of the album. That, however, is really my only criticism of this album. If this album was cut down to just the 10-15 best songs and released as a single, it would be an absolute force. As it is, it's still an incredible album. The hit songs on here are all incredible, some of his best work. The other songs are really consistently good as well. There's a big variety of different moods in this album as well, but the beauty of John's piano and voice carry all the way through. One of the things that I've learned through this list is that I'm far more of an Elton John fan than I would have thought. When he was at the top of his game in the 70s (i.e. when he was on top of a mountain of cocaine in the 70s.
4/5 I think we can all be grateful that Elton wasn't murdered at that Stooges show where he dressed up like a gorilla
Bauhaus
4/5
Back when I'd heard about goth music, but not actually listened to it, I always pictured it as being really mopey and morose. While it is definitely morose, goth music is so much more danceable than I would ever have imagined. This is an excellent example of that. It's a really fun listen, with catchy melodies combined with more experimental/spacey sounds.
4/5 Really cool early goth album. It shows a lot of the potential that the genre has. I understand a lot better why goth kids liked this music so much. I just don't understand why they were so sad
Blur
4/5
I think this is the third Blur album that I've gotten on this list, which didn't have me super excited when I got it this morning, but I think this is the best one that I've heard so far. This one feels a little grittier than the others, and has the obvious benefit of having their most well-known song. Overall I thought it was a really good listen
4/5
Wu-Tang Clan
5/5
"Shaolin shadowboxing...and the Wu-Tang sword style. If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang could be dangerous. Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?"
There are few albums on this list that I have a history with like this one. I bought it when I was 15 or so, and I couldn't even guess how many times I've listened to it since then. It's so rich in every way. When I was younger I was focused on the incredible rhymes, with so many different voices taking turns on the mic to spit out brutal lyrics with an incredible lexicon. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate just how insane the music is, with Rza's samples that never seem to quite fit the beat, but always work perfectly as he brings them in and out and overlays them.
It's exquisite. A true revolution in hip-hop and in music in general. It feels almost unfair to debate whether or not this is the greatest hip-hop album of all time. It's like if the 90s Bulls also had Hakeem, Barkley, and Malone playing for them. There are other hip-hop albums that achieve the level of craftsmanship of this album, but none of those albums had to be made in a world where this album didn't exist
5/5
Afrika Bambaataa
4/5
Here we come to yet another album with a complicated history. In terms of legacy, this album is titanic in hip-hop history, collecting a set of singles that were massively influential in developing the sound profile of early hip-hop and the electro subgenre. Afrika Bambaataa was huge in early hip-hop. Unfortunately, he was also a huge child molester, which is a sentiment that I wish I didn't have to express about so many artists on this list (seriously, what the fuck was wrong with rock stars in the 70s?).
The music on the album is actually really cool given the technology that they were working with. For as much as 808s are discussed lovingly today, they often sound a bit thin on the track, but they fit in really well here, especially on Looking For the Perfect Beat. The synthesizers are similarly really cool, and the mix is really powerful. The rapping is...well it's early rap. Luckily, groups like Run DMC were about to come along and teach folks how to rap with style. Luckily, they tend to employ a lot of repetition and call and response, so the rapping generally doesn't weigh down the songs too much
4/5
Cornershop
4/5
I first heard about Cornershop when I was in high school, and I've tried to listen to them a couple of times over the years. I always like Brimful of Asha, but couldn't really get into their other stuff. One of the things that I really enjoy about participating in this list is that I get historical context that helps me understand how a particular album fits into what was happening around it.
The fusion of alternative rock, electronica, and Indian music present on this album are truly unique in my experience. There are parts of this album that didn't age particularly well, which is true of a lot of 90s electronic music, but it's still a fascinating work that reaches some great heights. At every corner there is something new and unexpected
4/5
Orbital
4/5
I thought this album was surprisingly cool. A lot of the early to mid 90s electronica stuff doesn't age super well, especially the techno. This album is a lot more varied, and consequently has a much more modern feel than a lot of its contemporaries. Despite the complexity baked into the album, it still works great as a dance album too. This is definitely an album that I'm going to come back to
4/5
Frank Sinatra
3/5
I've gotten a couple of Frank Sinatra albums up to this point on the list. I'd been pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed them, since I don't really enjoy this style of crooning jazz relative to a lot of other genres. This album is a lot more like what I thought a Sinatra album would be like, which is to say a bit boring. He has a beautiful voice that suits the music very well, but it all leaves me feeling a bit flat. It's not bad, it's just not for me
3/5
Dizzee Rascal
3/5
Are there two words more fearsome and loathsome on this list than "British rapper?" Having been through the gauntlet of the Limp Bizkit album, I can certainly but the words "Chocolate Starfish" above it on the list
Anyway, this album is about what you would expect it to be. British people haven't quite gotten the hang of rap yet, but, to be fair to them, they've only had the last 45 years to figure it out. I like some of the beats on this album, and the first couple of songs made it seem like this album might be worthwhile. Then it kept going and got thinner and thinner and thinner.
3/5 I think the beats were actually pretty cool for 2003, and I like the fusion of hip-hop with electronica. However, Tech N9ne was doing the same thing in 2003, and doing it much better
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4/5
Well, we've done it. We've found the Neil Young album that I dislike the least. I never really realized how much resentment I'd built up towards Neil before this list started shoving his albums down my throat in a seemingly endless stream. As I've said before, it's fine. He's fine. I just don't like his music or his voice, or his personal sense of style, nor do I like the way that I imagine that he smells.
This album is pleasant enough, though. It's a pretty early album to be this distortion-heavy, which is cool. The songs are all pleasant enough. Fine. I'll give it a good score. Now leave me alone and stop making me listen to Neil Young
4/5
Simply Red
2/5
Kids, if you have one of the greatest male singing voices in the history of pop music, I beg you not to pair it with soulless song writing and vapid lyrics. This could be so much better than it is, and I'm a bit baffled as to why its on this list. It's basically just a Michael Bolton album, but with more early 80s flair. Is this album the birth of muzak? Is that why it's significant?
2/5
Jack White
4/5
I don't have a lot to say about this album, but it was really good overall. Lots of different musical influences coming together, but it works more like a soup than a salad
4/5
MC Solaar
4/5
I thought this album was really cool. It's fairly innovative, given the time period when it was made. It's a little harder to judge rhymes in a foreign language, but given that most rap styles in 1991 were garbage anyway, I'm going to just give him the credit
4/5
Turbonegro
3/5
This album is fun enough, but I don't really get why it's significant. It's one of those weird bands where I'm 100% sure that I would have fun at their live shows, but I'm not really sure why I would want to critically listen to one of their albums.
3/5 It's done well, it's just all been done before. Also, where are all the goddamned Butthole Surfers albums? If I can listen to Rendezvous with Anus, you all should have to listen to Dog Inside Your Body
The Youngbloods
4/5
This album was really interesting. It's very much of its time, and not particularly a genre that I tend to like, but it's really good overall. Just a good vibe to it. Good music, the lyrics fit well. The mix doesn't sound amazing, since it's a bit muddy (at least the version I listened to was), but it features every instrument well
4/5
Talking Heads
4/5
Well, I'm going to be grading this one on sort of an unusual curve. This is the 4th Talking Heads album that I've gotten on this list, and it's my least favorite. It's honestly astounding how fast the first four Talking Heads albums came out, and how different they all are. I like the style of Remain in Light more than this album. It's not bad at all, and a lot of the little things that make this band good are here, it just doesn't hold up the way their other albums do for me. But, just because it leaves me feeling a bit flat doesn't mean that it's not a good album, it just doesn't meet the ridiculously high expectations that the Talking Heads set with their other albums
4/5
The Cult
2/5
I just don't get it. Like, whatever it is that I'm supposed to hear in this album that makes it significant, I just don't hear it. Also, their cover of Born to Be Wild is just the normal song, but not as good.
2/5
New York Dolls
4/5
This is a band that I've been waiting for for a long time. I've known about how influential the Dolls were for a long time, but I've never had the impetus to listen to them for myself. This album has so much to it, it's easy to see how it influenced everyone from the Ramones to Kiss. I like glam rock a lot more than I thought I was going to.
I wish the vocals were a bit better, but I think the fact that the vocals were a bit rough is one of the things that inspired early NYC punks, so it's sort of a wash. That's really the only criticism that I have for the album. It has a lot of great songs built around a lot of different moods. There's lots of different stylistic choices here that were picked up by a lot of different bands over the next few generations
4/5
Grateful Dead
2/5
Listening to this live Grateful Dead album here in this year of our lord 2023, I'm reminded of the first time someone sat me down and had me listen to a live recording of this band more than 20 years ago, and the words that echoed in my head then as clearly as they do now:
"Why in the fuck is this jerk forcing me to listen to this garbage?"
It's fine if you like the Grateful Dead, I just don't get it and I'm pretty sure that I never will. I've given it a chance. I've given it 100 chances, it still sounds like a bunch of people with nothing meaningful to say noodling around a guitar for a half hour so that hippies have something to listen to while they do drugs and pretend to be more enlightened than the rest of us.
I'm already so sick to death of this, and I just finished the first song. It's 23 minutes long. I thought I'd listened to multiple tracks, but it's hard to tell, since all of their songs sound the same. It's like if you took prog rock, and stripped away everything interesting that they were doing musically and lyrically, leaving a miasma of pointless notes played over and over until the acid finally wears off and you realize that you're in your mid-40s with no vocational skills and a broken-down VW bus full of dirty children with names like Magnolia and Dew Drop and Camshaft
2/5 I will never forgive you for making me listen to this band again. Never.
My Bloody Valentine
4/5
It's kinda crazy that all three of My Bloody Valentine's albums are on this list. This album, much like their third album, suffers from the inevitable comparison with Loveless, which is my favorite MBV album (and it's not close, either). This album just feels a bit half-baked compared to Loveless. The elements that make that album great are here, but they're inconsistent, and some of the things that they're trying on this album don't work super well. It's good, it's definitely a groundbreaking album, it's just not quite the caliber of album that the Smashing Pumpkins can rip their entire career off of yet
4/5
Van Morrison
4/5
I was really dreading this one when I saw it. I've had a pretty good run with Van Morrison so far on this list, despite the fact that I find him to be problematic as a person, he makes music that I enjoy more than I thought I would. I was hoping that we could leave it at that, but no, today I got served up a live album. I don't like live albums, and I don't see how I could possibly like a Van Morrison live album
And yet, it's one of the best sounding live albums that I've ever heard. It's very clean-sounding, yet maintains the live energy. It's honestly kinda bullshit that that they did this to me and made me give another positive review to a Van Morrison album
4/5
Björk
4/5
This is probably my least favorite of the Bjork albums that I've gotten on this list. However, the other Bjork albums I got were absolute bangers, and this album is really good, so feel free to keep feeding me the worst Bjork albums that you have
4/5
4/5
Despite the fact that I like Ornette Coleman, I was set to not like this album, since it's difficult to reinterpret the work of such a distinctive artist. I think what makes this album really work is the drums, which help bring focus to the chaos of each song. The drums thunder throughout and it makes everything seem much more coherent. I will say that the tone on the bass can be a little muzak-y for my taste, but it doesn't do much to harm the overall sound of the album
4/5
The Byrds
3/5
I feel about this album the same way that I feel about the previous Byrds albums, which is to say that it's not bad, but I also don't like it very much, and I'm happy to have completed this review so that I can stop listening to it, though it's perfectly fine if you like it because, again, it's not bad, and it has artistic merit, it's just not for me
3/5 Please let this be the last Byrds album on this list (monkey paw curls and another Randy Newman album appears tomorrow)
Bob Dylan
4/5
One of the cool things about this list is how it's helped me appreciate Bob Dylan. I always liked a bunch of his songs, but struggled to get into his albums. Every time I get one of his albums on this list I think that surely it will be the one that I don't really get in any meaningful way. Then I listen to it, and it's really good and I start to see why people regard him as highly as they do.
This is another one. This dude released so many good albums, he wrote so much great poetry. I guess I actually like Bob Dylan
4/5
Faust
4/5
I'm always excited to get a kraut rock band on here, since that generally means I'm in for something cool and different. I've listened to Faust before and didn't get much out of it, but I really liked this album. Solid grooves throughout as I've come to expect from kraut rock, with great instrumentals over it. I generally don't find their vocals all that impressive, but they tend to be sparse anyway. Overall, it's an album that feels really advanced for the time when it came out. Well worth the listen
4/5
Spiritualized
4/5
I was not excited to see this album today, since I really did not enjoy the other Spiritualized album that I got on this list. However, this album proceeds a little more in the vein of the work that Spacemen 3 was doing prior to the breakup of that band. I liked Spacemen 3 a lot more, and I like this as well. I haven't gotten a lot of ambient music on this list, but I really like it, and it's well executed here.
4/5
Aimee Mann
4/5
I thought this was a really cool album. 1993 is sort of a tough year for me to contextualize for rock, since so much had happened in the previous few years with grunge coming into the mainstream and bringing the rest of alternative rock with it, but perhaps it doesn't matter. This album very much has a timeless quality about it. There's a lot of variety in the music of the album without it feeling incoherent, and her voice and lyrics fit the music perfectly. It feels very intimate
4/5
Dwight Yoakam
3/5
You know, one of the things that this list has given me a greater appreciation for is country, exposing me to artists like Buck Owens and early KD Lang. But they can't all be winners, and the way that I feel about this is much more about how I've felt about most country that I've heard, which is to say that I think the voices are nice, and pretty much every thing else is boring. I think that this album was pretty influential on modern country, so I can give it credit for its influence, despite the fact that if modern country music were one of my fingers, I'd cut my whole hand off and cauterize the stump so that it could never grow back
3/5, I guess. It's really not that bad, I just don't like country music, and I fucking hate hearing people talk about dixie
Fela Kuti
4/5
I never have much to say about afrobeat albums, but I have liked all of them that I've gotten on this list. This is a really great live album, which is the opposite of what I normally write about live albums.
4/5
Joe Ely
3/5
This is my second country album in a row, and much like that Dwight Yoakam opus, I find this reasonbly pleasant to listen to, but I don't really find myself able to appreciate its significance. Some of this is just not having the context for that was happening in country at the time. It's possible that a lot of country that I've listened to is aping this sound, and that's why it doesn't mean much to me. Either way, it's nice enough, but I'm never planning on coming back to this album
3/5
Mike Ladd
4/5
I saw that this was an early 2000s hip hop album that I'd never heard of, and I got a bit worried that it would be another shitty British rap album. I was wrong, and I was glad of that fact.
This album fucking kicks ass. Some of the lyrical delivery is a bit out dated, but then again so is this album. The synths on it are really cool (often sounds similar to the Moog used on Virgin Suicides by Air), and the samples are great too. Not overwhelming, not overdone, a light touch. A really solid album that I'm surprised I haven't heard more about
4/5
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
3/5
Well, the cover of this album gives us a very strong new candidate for the most unfuckable band ever. That unibrow could scrape the ice off of my windshield in a Minnesota winter, and that guy's the MOST handsome one here
Another thing that this album has working against it is that old villain, Eric Clapton. He's used well here, which is to say that he's keeping his mouth shut most of the time and not choosing any of the songs.
Overall, this album is okay. It's definitely got its moments, but other parts of it are just baffling. Who the fuck called for an extended drum solo in the middle of What I Say? It stops that song dead, and then it never really gets a chance to get going again. The same could be said for my level of interest in this album
3/5, leaning very close to 2
The Afghan Whigs
2/5
Wow, you know how sometimes you just immediately click with a band or a singer? This was the exact opposite of that. The opening riff of the album was cool, and I was starting to get excited, and then this dude started singing, and I just hated it immediately. I don't even know what it is. Yes, I do, it's everything. I hate his voice, I hate the way he chooses to use his voice, and I hate the words that he is singing. It just feels so weirdly generic. Blech.
Weirdly, I kinda like the music 2/5, though
The Byrds
3/5
Month after month, year after year, this list keeps serving me up Byrds albums and daring me not to like them, and I just keep rising to that challenge. This album is fine, just like all the others, but just like all the others, it leaves me feeling pretty flat. This is especially true after seeing what Bob Dylan had been doing with folk for years at this point.
I will say that this album takes on more of a country feel, which works for it, since it gives it more character than a lot of 60s folk albums. I can dig some slide guitar
3/5
Rod Stewart
4/5
Well, I'll confess myself surprised at the number of Rod Stewart albums that showed up on this list. I will also confess my surprise on how much I've enjoyed these albums overall. There are some moments on this one that could be better, especially his version of Amazing Grace, which is wildly unnecessary, but overall he won me over again. His voice is great; iconic might be a better word. The music is really cool throughout as well. The songs sound pretty different from one another and do a great job of sharing the limelight with him. I think the album could have had a bit more in the way of original compositions, especially for a 3rd album, but I can't fault him for the songs he chose either
4/5
Michael Jackson
4/5
Okay, before I even listen to this album, I'm going to toss down a plug for a YouTube account named Bobby Fingers. I don't even know how to describe it, but it's fucking incredible. He makes dioramas, but incredible ones. Here's the video for his diorama about Michael Jackson getting his hair lit on fire in 1984, an event that occurred between the release of Thriller and this album (there's your relevance if you've read this far and somehow still need me to tie this to the album I should be reviewing by now)
Well, like every Michael Jackson album, this one is pretty much wall to wall bangers. Except for Liberian Girl, of course, that song brings the album to a crashing halt. Every other song is really good, though, and several of them are great. It's really too bad Micheal Jackson ended up being such a fucking monster, cuz he sure could write a tune
4/5
The Rolling Stones
2/5
The experience of listening to this album was not worth the amount of effort I had to put in just to hear it, since it's a bit hard to search for a self titled album by a band that put out like 50 fucking albums over the course of human history. I went to all the trouble to download it, just to hear them doing a bunch of mediocre covers of popular songs.
This album isn't bad, but the Rolling Stones were pretty half-baked as a band at this point. You can see some little bits of what they would become here, and Mick's charisma has apparently always been securely in place. Rating this becomes a bit of a challenge, because I think this is a 2 star album if I don't know what this band is going to become, but it's a 3 star album if I think about the band getting the elements in place to become truly great.
2/5 I'm sorry, Rolling Stones, but your debut was not very good
The Icarus Line
4/5
This album took me until about halfway through to really start to get it, and at that point I started it again and listened with fresh ears. I think this one is easy to miss, since it sounds generic at first, like a less poppy version of The Strokes. However, there's a lot more progression in these songs than in Strokes songs (also, these songs are not blatantly ripped off of very famous songs the way most of the Stokes big hits were).
4/5 This album definitely sounds like it was made in the mid 00s, but there's a lot more depth to the music than I initially perceived. Sort of a hidden gem in an incredibly bleak period for rock
The Mamas & The Papas
4/5
Well, I'll admit that I'm a sucker for vocal harmonies, so this is an album that I'm predisposed to like. Listening to it, I feel like it's about what I expected. The hits are fucking spectacular songs that I love. The other songs are fine, though unspectacular. I feel like the mix is a bit off on these tracks (though that could be the combination of YouTube quality and my speakers), since the vocals feel a little less prominent than they should be. They are the only thing about this music that is truly interesting, and yet they feel buried in some of the songs when they should be leading the way.
On the other hand, this album sounds pretty advanced for 1966
4/5
TV On The Radio
4/5
I'm always deeply skeptical of music from the years 2001-2010, since it formed an unholy confluence of the tail end of popular music on the radio with the commercialization of everything in this goddamned world.
This album, however, this album kicks fucking ass. I don't even know how to describe it because there are so many styles employed. Sometimes this feels like a rock back, sometimes it feels like a hip-hop group, and yet somehow it never sounds the slightest bit like Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit. Just incredibly creative and well-crafted music. The production is also stellar
4/5
White Denim
4/5
I had never heard of this album before, but it's consistently great. At times it feels like straight-ahead rock, but they include so many other little elements that just blend together perfectly. It feels like they were influenced by the jam band movement, but managed to keep their sound from becoming generic
4/5
Liz Phair
4/5
This was an album I loved the first time I heard it. It just has something, I don't even know how to describe it. The production is incredible and really lets her voice shine while keeping it well supported by the music. The lyrics are great and they feel accessible without being trite
4/5
Germs
3/5
Hardcore punk is one of those weird genres that I don't particularly enjoy, but can still appreciate because it seems to have spawned so many great artists. This is an early hardcore album, which hasn't yet reached the fever pitch that most hardcore albums live in, and I appreciate that fact. This album has an important legacy, but it's also hard to give it a super high rating, since I don't really enjoy listening to it very much
3/5
The Cure
4/5
I got excited about this album when I heard that it was heavily influenced by Siouxsie and the Banshee's early career. I was all set to hate on some sad boy rock, but I really enjoyed this album, most likely because I really enjoy the early 80s work by Siouxsie. This album doesn't reach the heights of, say, Juju, which the Banshees released the year after this, but it's really solid all the way through. The production is also excellent and brings everything together with a really rich sound
4/5
CHVRCHES
4/5
I have a complex set of feelings about this album. I heard it around the time that it came out, and liked it but didn't love it. I still feel about the same, but my appreciation for synth pop has greatly increased during the intervening years. I think one of the reasons that I don't like this more is that I've heard lots of great synth albums since 2013, like Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast, that I like more than this. However, those albums benefit from the existence of this album.
Anyway, this is solid synth pop. It leaves me a bit uninspired at times, but overall it's really good
4/5
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
4/5
I wavered back and forth on this album a bit because I didn't like his voice at first, but it really grew on me. I can't think of anything else that this really sounds like. His poetry is beautiful, and the simplicity of the music really helps set it off. I think I'm going to have to buy this one
4/5
The Byrds
4/5
Just when I thought I had the Byrds pegged (in the sense that I think their music is fine but ultimately uninteresting to me), I get tossed yet another one of their albums (is every one of their albums on this list), and it turns out that it's actually good and I like it. What the hell, Byrds?
It's a bit weird to me that the two Byrds albums that I enjoyed the most were the ones without David Crosby, despite the fact that I like his work with CSNY. It just feels like they are more willing to experiment in these albums, rather than trying to be psychedelic Bob Dylan. There was apparently a ton of songwriting talent in this band just waiting to get out of it's folk rock cage and explore other styles
4/5
The Magnetic Fields
4/5
I blanched in horror at the sight that this is a triple album, since I usually struggle with double albums. And I'll just admit right now that I'm not going to listen to the entire album. I just don't have all fucking day for this.
However, I really enjoy this album. The songs each have their distinctive flavors, and there are lots of cool electronic sounds built in with the acoustic instruments. The album seems like a gimmick, but they sure executed the shit out of it. Having both male-led and female-led tracks also helps keep it interesting.
4/5, But I'm also going to turn it off after the first disc, and just assume that the rest of the album is as good as everything I've heard
The Allman Brothers Band
3/5
Steely Dan
4/5
Had a review written but lost it. I don't truly "get" Steely Dan, but they come so highly recommended that I feel like it is something that I will come to eventually. And, I have to say, this is my favorite of the Steely Dan albums that I've heard so far. The vocal harmonies are great, and the album has really nice production. The songs are well crafted to
4/5
Finley Quaye
3/5
This album is another one of those mysteries where I can't figure out while listening it it what makes it significant, and Wikipedia is no help either. It's not a bad album, and I actually enjoy the combination of reggae and electronica. However, besides this possibly being the first popular album to blend those two genres, it's hard to see why this album belongs here.
I will say that the album is well produced. I get a bit sick of his voice sometimes, since it often feels like he's talking without saying anything. The music is cool, though and the electronic portions have aged pretty well, which is not always true for music from this era
3/5
The Auteurs
3/5
This album has some nice classic era alternative rock, but other than that, I don't really understand why it is on this list. There's some interesting stuff here and there, but, for the most part, it seems pretty standard for its time. Even the Wikipedia page has a quote describing this album as not being the band's best effort. It's not bad, but it doesn't stand out in any meaningful way that I can detect
3/5
The Gun Club
4/5
One thing I will say about this list: while I sometimes have to wade through a lot of crap to get to something I find interesting, I have definitely gotten a much better appreciation for the history of punk music by reviewing these albums. I was peripherally aware of this band previously as a result of their connections to other bands, like The Cramps, but I hadn't listened to one of their albums before. There's a lot of other stuff from this era that I like more than this, but it's also easy to see the significance of this album. Combining punk with more traditional American music forms like blues did a lot to help create the alternative and postpunk genres. I like this album overall, though it's not one that I'm ever likely to own
4/5
4/5
I feel like I've been getting a lot of punk/postpunk from this era lately. It's not a bad thing, I've really liked getting more familiar with the development of the punk genre, but at the same time I was getting a bit weary of the genre before listening to this album.
I liked this album. The dual male/female vocalists adds a lot of versatility to the band. There are some sonic parallels between this band and the Pixies, which is really cool from such and early album. I think it's possible that I would have liked this album more if my ears were fresh, but it's still really good in my opinion
4/5
T. Rex
4/5
I've been looking forward to this album for a while, and not just because it has a fucking iconic album cover. I've been surprised by how much I enjoy glam music. I'd always thought of it as being superficial in nature before I'd actually listened to it. However, I've really enjoyed the glam that I've gotten on this list, especially the 70s stuff.
This album is no exception. It's more mellow than I thought it would be, but it's good throughout. The production is excellent. It really lets you hear the little details of the album. It feels very intimate. The vocal harmonies are a nice touch, though Marc Bolan's vocals always steal the show. It's really interesting that they were a folk band previously. You can definitely hear that influence on the album
4/5
Red Snapper
2/5
Wow, it's been a little bit since I listened to an album this pointless on this list. There's some cool sounds in here, I guess, but for the most part it's just annoying background music. Any time it's not generic, it's cloying. I'd think of more ways to describe how uninteresting I find this album, but that would be putting more effort into this review than they put into making this shit
2/5
Brian Eno
4/5
Well, I can say that I've liked every Brian Eno album that I've gotten so far on this list. This is probably my least favorite of those albums, since I like his ambient stuff much more than his rock stuff. This was really cool overall, though, and I think that I would have liked it more if I didn't have so many other great Eno albums to compare it to. There's definitely an interesting feel to the album, as you can hear bits and pieces that sound like the Talking Heads or the Cars or Devo
4/5
Ian Dury
3/5
This album was really mixed for me. It's got all these cool elements mixed in, like disco and funk. Some of the lyrics are good too, but a lot of them are that cloying style of British humor where they expect you to laugh at them despite the fact that they aren't actually saying or doing anything funny. I feel like better vocals would make this an incredible album, but perhaps that would be messing with the alchemy. There's certainly plenty of musical significance to the album, which has a lot of early punk elements mixed in with the more danceable music elements
3/5 Important, but it could be more pleasant to listen to
Small Faces
4/5
This album starts out really cool: heavily psychedelic with a bunch of guitar effects. If the rest of the album was as good as the first track, it would have blown my mind that I had never heard this album before. The album gets a little more normal after the first track. It's still good throughout, just less revolutionary. I'll say that I don't love this late 60s British style of concept album, but I found the music really good overall. They do a lot to keep it interesting
4/5
American Music Club
4/5
This album sounds like a lot of other things (Elliot Smith comes to mind at certain points on the album because of the lead vocalist's voice), but it certainly doesn't sound like it came out in 1988. I would have put it at least 5 years later than that. I liked the album, but didn't love it, but it deserves a lot of credit for doing the folky alt-country thing much earlier than a lot of the other bands that ended up sounding like them in the decade after this
4/5
The Beau Brummels
3/5
Much like how I've reached my limit with Britpop on this list, I've sort of reached my limit with late 60s folk. This album certainly has some nice aspects to it, the vocal harmonies are particularly enjoyable, but in general it sounds a bit generic. Not bad, just not very notable
3/5
Pet Shop Boys
4/5
I thought this album was pretty good overall. It sounds a bit generic at times, but I think that's an artifact of the influence that his album had on electronic music. I think I enjoyed the other Pet Shop Boys albums more than this one, but this is still well worth the listen. Great late 80s synth pop
4/5
k.d. lang
4/5
It's kinda wild that this album ends with it's biggest song. It feels like that's relatively rare in pop music.
I feel like this list has given me much more of an appreciation for KD Lang. I always thought that she had a great voice, but getting to hear her first album and understand that she came up as a country artist does a lot to color how I hear her later music. You can just hear the country in it, even though it wasn't evident before.
Her voice is beautiful and very well-trained. I didn't have a lot of thoughts while I was listening to the album. I just kinda let it wash over me. It's great, and really shows off her range as a musician
4/5
Steve Winwood
4/5
I hadn't really known much about Steve Winwood's history as a musician before listening to this album. It's interesting that he was a member of so many relatively important bands before launching his solo career.
The music is interesting as well. It's really embracing the synthesizer as an instrument, but still remains pretty rooted in guitar rock as well. I feel like most artists tended to go one way or the other. His voice is great and really matches the music well. The album goes by pretty fast, but it's consistently good, if not leaning a little far toward adult contemporary rock. I think that's more of a fault with how Steve Winwood influenced soft rock than it is a failing of his music, though
4/5
Brian Eno
5/5
I'm sure everyone has an album on this list that speaks to them in a way that just doesn't seem to happen for many people. This is one of those albums for me. It's so simple, just the same soft themes repeating over and over again. A little piano, a little synthesizer, and little bits of silence. And yet, I love this album and listen to it with some regularity. This album is incredibly influential as well. It showed many musicians that they could do more by doing less. I love Brian Eno, and I love this album
5/5
3/5
There were parts of this album that I really liked, but I also often felt like there was too much going on. There were a few songs where it felt like they just kept adding layers until there was too much to keep track of. It's not a bad album, and it's crazy that a band that formed in the 70s was still producing innovative music in 1999
3/5
Ray Price
3/5
I'll confess that I'm not really sure what the musical significance of this album is. I don't know the history of country music very well, especially from this earlier period. It's a very pleasant album, though. The songs are nice and simple without being plain. His voice is beautiful
3/5
John Martyn
4/5
As this album started, I didn't really think that I was going to like it, but it got more interesting as it went. Heavy psychedelic influence, while still remaining folk music Really cool example of someone who's not afraid to do something different with their genre
George Michael
2/5
I was a bit disappointed in this album relative to his debut album. It's still good, and Freedom 90 is a fucking banger with a great video (why yes, I am a heterosexual male, how did you know?), but it felt a bit dull, whereas I remember really liking his previous album
2/5
Thundercat
3/5
I was honestly hoping for a little more energy out of this album. Thundercat is a great musician, and he did significant work on To Pimp a Butterfly, which is one of my favorite albums of the 2010s. This music was all good, but it was also mostly really slow and mellow. Not necessarily bad, but generally when I listen to an album by a bassist, I expect more upbeat numbers.
3/5
Judas Priest
4/5
I feel like I always enjoy the metal albums on this list. I'm not really sure why that that is, though I suspect it's because (just like jazz) there are not a lot of metal albums on this list relative to, say, 90s alternative rock. The end result is that there is a much better crop of metal albums than genres that are more represented. This album really feels like an inflection point between the metal of the 70s and the metal of the 80s. Likely, that's because all of the 80s metal was influenced by this album. That makes sense, because this album kicks fucking ass. It's consistently good, with some absolutely classic metal songs
4/5
Norah Jones
4/5
I really don't know what to say about this album. Musically, there's not much here. However, the album isn't trying to do anything innovative musically, it's trying to feature her voice. That it does well. Her voice is ethereal on this album. The music compliments perfectly and gives it a timeless quality. I rarely give good ratings to albums just for being beautiful, but it would be dishonest to give this album a mediocre rating simply because it wasn't pushing the boundaries. I really enjoy listening to her
4/5
Janis Joplin
2/5
Y'all, I just don't fucking get Janis Joplin. I owned this album for like a decade and never actually listened to it. Now that I am in the process of listening to it, I see that I made the correct decision all those years. There are plenty of bands with singers whose voices I don't enjoy, but usually I'm interested in what they're saying. Not the case here. I actually enjoy the music, and her voice works on some of the songs where there are other voices present. However, too much of it relies only on her voice, and her voice just leaves me cold. What's sad is that I think this is at least partially a production issue. I think if her voice was EQed better, there would be some richness in her tone that would be easier to appreciate
2/5
Mylo
2/5
This album is okay, but means absolutely nothing musically because it came out in 2004. This is not breaking any new ground, and is frankly not very interesting to listen to after the first song. It's fine for pop electronica, but I absolutely could have live my entire life and died peacefully without ever hearing this album
2/5
B.B. King
4/5
As usual, it's hard to get too excited about live albums, since the inferior sound quality generally outstrips the gain in energy from the live performance. I would compare this to the James Brown live album that I got previously on this list, in the sense that the energy from the crowd and the intensity of the performance really do make a huge difference here. This seems like it would have been an incredible show to be at, and I'm not sure that a studio recording would sell the impact of these songs nearly so well. Really high energy, and you can just hear how much he feeds off the crowd
4/5
The Pretty Things
4/5
I'll say that I did not like this album at first, since the opening song is a bit grating. However, it won me over as it went. There's so many elements here that would be present in later rock operas and concept albums. It also has that 60s psychedelic sound, which makes it feel very much transitional as an album. Definitely of its time, but previewing some musical movements to come. Somewhere between the late Beatles period and the prog period of Pink Floyd sits this album
4/5
Blur
3/5
Well, I guess we're just going to review every Blur album on this list. This one was okay. It's getting hard to have anything to say about these Brit Pop albums, since they all start to blend together after a while. Still, the music is really solid throughout
3/5
Black Sabbath
5/5
What an incredible album. Black Sabbath came out hot with their first album, and this album takes them to the next level. It feels like so many great metal albums could not have been made if this album was not made first. It works well both as a standalone artwork and a harbinger of things to come. And it fucking kicks ass
5/5
Neneh Cherry
3/5
This album was cool overall, kind of a time capsule of the type of pop music that was en vogue when I was first starting to become aware of popular music. It's also a nice harbinger of how house music would increasingly become a part of pop music. However, I'm not really sure how significant this album is overall. It's pleasant enough to listen to, though
3/4
Justin Timberlake
3/5
Buried pretty far below the lede on the Wikipedia article for this album is the fact that most of these songs were intended for Michael Jackson and subsequently rejected by him. That makes this album make a hell of a lot of sense, since several of the songs sound very much like MJ songs, especially Rock Your Body. I don't think this is a bad thing in any way, since Timberlake did a great job with these songs and has the voice and charisma to pull them off, but it also undercuts the narrative that features more prominently in the Wikipedia article, which is that Timberlake was writing these songs while on hiatus from N'Sync. Both can be true, but it feels weird to emphasize one so much over the other
I wasn't excited to listen to this album, but the fact that it's produced by the Neptunes makes everything better. It's good that they are represented on this list, since they formed such an integral part of the sound of the early 2000s, along with Timbaland, who is also on this album. I don't know that there's much to say about the actual songs. They are all at least fine, with some of them being great. It's a pop album, but I think it would be fair to say that it was also THE pop album of this period
3/5
Elvis Costello
4/5
Lost my review, but Elvis Costello is always pretty cool
4/5
Echo And The Bunnymen
4/5
One of the things I've been struck by while going through this list is that there was this entire hidden world of music waiting just under the surface of pop music. I can understand how this album was made in 1983 (it shares some similarities with U2 albums from later in the decade), but I wouldn't have picked a date that early listening to this album.
This is another one of those bands that the bands I was listening to when I was young was listening to (what?). Just a really cool post-punk album that makes really good use of guitar effects on the music to create a really big sound. The production is excellent and really lets you hear all the different textures built into the music
4/5
Throwing Muses
4/5
This was an interesting album to get right after Porcupine by Echo and the Bunnymen. In some ways, more of the same, but also a much different approach to the post-punk genre (not that there is all that much that unites that genre together). Like Porcupine, I would not have pegged this album for being as early as it is. You could tell me that this was mid-90s, and I would have easily believed it. Throwing Muses were well ahead of their times with this album. Like a lot of female-led albums, it didn't get the recognition it deserved in its time (and continues not to). Clearly a very influential album, given how many artists would later incorporate its sound
4/5
Dennis Wilson
3/5
I'm not sure why I was surprised that an album from a former Beach Boy had such exquisite vocal harmonies. Maybe it's because the true crime-rot in my brain has me associating Dennis Wilson more with Charles Manson than with the Beach Boys. I will say that the vocal harmonies also start off strong, and then the album starts to feature his voice a lot more. Some parts of this album were really stunning in their beauty and soulfulness, though some of them sounded more like normal 70s soft rock.
3/5, though this one was very close to being a 4
Christina Aguilera
3/5
I feel like my review of this album suffers a bit from getting a Justin Timberlake album from the same era in the last week. While I enjoy this album overall, I don't think it's as good as the Timberlake album, and I find it impossible not to compare the two because they very much existed in the same musical space. This is a better pop album than I would have given it credit for at the time. I still hate the complete lack of self awareness that the song Beautiful shows, but it's a solid album overall that features her voice well. The music could have been better, but that's true for most of the albums that came from the graveyard of the early 2000s
3/5
Koffi Olomide
3/5
I don't really know what to think about this album. There's no Wikipedia page for the album to give it context, and I know very little about Congolese music. Given that, it's hard to know how to judge it. It's pleasant music to listen to, but I don't understand its significance. That's too bad, because I've enjoyed all of the African music that I've gotten previously on this list. Ultimately, I think this was okay, but it didn't seem revolutionary in the way that music like Songhoy Blues or Fela Kuti did
3/5
Simon & Garfunkel
4/5
I, for one, was fascinated to learn that the pointless inter-song hip-hop skit actually originates with this album and their pointless skit Voices of Old People. Fascinating!
This album starts off kinda slow, and then gets bogged down in the middle with that horrible skit or whatever you want to call it, but god damn does it finish strong. Mrs. Robinson, Hazy Shade of Winter, and At the Zoo are all bangers. That, along with the good songs scattered earlier in the album make this a very strong album overall. Not my favorite S&G album on this list, but well worth a listen
4/5
Sleater-Kinney
4/5
I enjoyed this album, like I've enjoyed all of the riot grrrl albums that I've gotten on this list. I wish I would have listened to more of this music when I was younger, since I was lamenting the death of all the alternative bands while there was a still a ton of great stuff out there if I would have been, you know, willing to listen to women making music.
Overall just a really fun, energetic album. Nice little vocal harmonies, though very much led by Carrie Brownstein. Lots of gritty distorted guitars. Really cool listen
4/5
The War On Drugs
4/5
If you'd told me that an album meant to sound like an 80s album was released in 2014, I would not have predicted that it would have sounded like this, nor that it would be this good. The album has a very Springstein vibe that really works. All the little 80s sounds are here, and integrated perfectly. It doesn't even make a lot of sense, yet it works really well
4/5
Hanoi Rocks
4/5
I think this is an album that I might have been less interested in if I hadn't read some of the background. Knowing that this band was highly influential on the hair metal bands of the 80s, especially Guns N Roses, provides a lot of useful context when listening to it. Sonically, the album is really good. It's wel-produced, and the songs are fun with a lot of energy. So much of what makes hair metal fun is found here, and I can't really think of anywhere else I heard a lot of these motifs before this album. I don't know that this is an album that I would have ever picked up on my own, but fitted into its proper context, it's an easy album to appreciate
4/5
David Bowie
4/5
Station to Station serves as a precursor to my favorite period in Bowie's period, the Berlin Trilogy. Low is my favorite Bowie album, and you can hear some of the sound of that album here and there on Station to Station. This album suffers a bit from the comparison, but considered on its own, it's a great album (sort of like comparing The Bends to OK Computer or Kid A).
Thematically, this album is dealing a lot with transition, which is always appropriate with Bowie. Really varied sound on the album, but every single song is great
4/5
D'Angelo
4/5
D'Angelo is one dude who's career is far more interesting than I had imagined. It's weird that he wanted to do all this interesting stuff with music as part of the neo-soul movement, but was essentially considered to be too sexy to be taken seriously. It's a bummer that he didn't put out more music as a result of his struggles for creative control, but I have a hell of a lot of respect for him. Anyway, this album is before all that, and I don't have a huge amount to say about it, but it's dope
4/5
Yes
3/5
I'm pretty lukewarm on prog rock overall, since I like the idea of it, but feel that it tends to be pretty self-indulgent in its execution (looking squarely at you, Roger Waters). I enjoy the more lightheared prog stuff, and this falls into that basket. I don't think this is one that I'll come back to, but it's pleasant overall. The music is interesting and well produced, but it also tends to fade into the background for me
3/5
The Stooges
4/5
This album must have sounded so fucking alien to the people that heard it in 1970. I can understand the elements present in this music, and how this group came to be, but it still feels so early for when it was made. I'd call it similar to Maggot Brain by Funkadelic in that way.
I think I like the first Stooges album better than this, but this is still a great album that helped to absolutely revolutionize rock music everywhere it landed. The production is gritty and blown out, but that's perfect for this band. Every piece of the band fits together to perfect to produce one of the most revolutionary albums of all time
4/5
The Fall
3/5
I really didn't enjoy the last The Fall album that I got on this list, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It was much more accessible than the other album. It was also easier for me to fit this album into what was happening in rock at the time, which helped me appreciate how interesting some of the musical choices they make on this album were. I don't think I'll ever be all that into this band, but this album helped me understand their appeal a lot more
3/5
The Psychedelic Furs
4/5
It's funny how some of the scenes emphasized on this list really annoy me (like 90s-00s Brit Pop), and some scenes I really enjoy. Post-punk is definitely one of the latter. I don't have a lot to say about this album that I haven't said about previous post-punk albums, but this album is really cool. More explicitly sexual subject matter than was often present in punk/post punk, which is neat. I don't love the singer's voice, but he makes it work
4/5
Jefferson Airplane
3/5
I thought this album was good overall, though it is definitely a bit uneven. The psychedelic stuff is where the band really shines, but their folky and blusey stuff is just okay. Those songs bog the album down, which is a bit of a bummer.
3/5 Worth a listen, but the only thing I really got out of it is that I like the songs that I already knew that I like
TV On The Radio
4/5
What's this? An album from the early 2000s that's good? I must be truly blessed this day.
The album is really interesting. They go through a lot of different sounds and styles while still keeping it coherent. The production is excellent and gets great texture out of the music. This is one that I might have to pick up on vinyl if I can find it
4/5
The Flaming Lips
5/5
What an album! It seems crazy that this album came out so long ago, when it still feels so relevant today. Every song is good, and several of them are great. Beautiful, heartfelt songs, some of which you can dance to, some of which you can cry to
5/5
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
4/5
I wasn't terribly excited to see that I got a salsa album today, but this shit is dope. Just solid grooves running throughout, with great production that makes it sound much more modern than I would have expected for 1978. There's greatly clarity for all of the minor percussion instruments that help establish the beat. The singing is great, though I have no early idea what they are saying
4/5
Ozomatli
3/5
This band is one of those weird blasts from the past that I sorta forgot about. I remember seeing them live some time in the 00s and really enjoying them. Then I just sorta forgot they existed over the next 15 years. I enjoy the music on this album a lot, that's where it really shines. The vocals on this album have not aged particularly well. There's nothing wrong with them, they just sound outdated now. If this album was entirely instrumental, I would have rated it higher, but the rapping especially weakens the experience for me
3/5
Sebadoh
3/5
This album was neat, but I feel like it suffers a bit to comparisons from other indie bands. I like what Pavement was doing with this era a lot more. Art has to be judged on its own, and this album certainly has some things to recommend it. It's just hard when this reminds me so much of other bands whose work I enjoy more than this
3/5
The Velvet Underground
5/5
It feels really weird that I've been listening to the Velvet Underground for more than 20 years, but there are still albums that I haven't listened to in their entirety. That might be because I'm lazy. Anyway, this album has a bunch of VU songs that I really like going back to when I was a kid and first picked up their greatest hits. This album really shows off how well the Velvet Underground did everything. There are conventional love songs, funky rock songs, experimental songs, and all of it very well executed
5/5
Machito
4/5
I liked this album overall, though I don't know a huge amount about the history of Afro-Cuban jazz, which limits my ability to judge its significance. It's pleasant to listen to. It sounds a bit generic to my ears, but given that it was made in 1957, it's likely because this is a genre-defining album. I would not have predicted it having been made so early. Other than that, it's all the snappy rhythms and brassy horns that you've come to know and love from Afro-Cuban jazz
4/5
Garbage
3/5
This album is essentially what I thought it would be. It's a nice look back at the past, but ultimately I don't feel like I came away from this album having absorbed much of it. The album certainly benefits from having multiple good producers in the band, and Shirley Manson's voice fits the grinding, distorted guitars well. It's not bad, but it leaves me feeling a bit flat
3/5
Neil Young
3/5
God. Fuck. Fine, I'll review another Neil Young album. I'm not sure why I need to keep going through this gauntlet. There's tons of amazing albums that I haven't gotten on this list. Notably, the jazz selection is really lacking. But here we are again, listening to Neil Young. I still don't like him. I just hate the sound of his voice. He sounds like Ben Shapiro's falsetto. The ironic thing is that his vocal harmonies sound fucking great. If he would just do more of a Beach Boys things (or, dare I say it, a CSNY type of thing), I might really like him. Instead, I get one of his albums, and I just put it off for weeks because I know it will take all day.
3/5 The songs with harmonies are really great and have this timeless feel to them. Then Neil Young wanders off by himself, and I am filled with rage at his voice, which somehow combines the worst elements of Kermit the Frog and Alvin and the Chipmuinks
While Radiohead was putting out Kid A and Amnesiac, U2 was putting out this album. I guess it just goes to show you that some music is really good, and some music is fucking stupid. Did we learn anything with this comparison? No, but we didn't learn anything by listening to this album either, so in that sense, it's appropriate.
It's really hard not to see this album as vapid. I understand that U2 has to do something with it's albums if it wants to keep making them. But this feels like a weird statement from a band that was styling themselves as politically important during this period, and yet they seem to have nothing to say about the world. The fact that this album was listed on so many Top XXX albums of all time lists is truly baffling to me
3/5
Joan Armatrading
4/5
I really have no idea what to make of this album. The weirdest thing about it is that I've never heard of it, which is unusual for the rock albums that show up on this list (and I'm guessing that has a lot to do with the gender and race of Ms Armatrading). The album has a lot of range, with lots of elements of folk, blues, funk, and other related genres. Both music and lyrics are soulful, and she has a great voice with a lot of strength behind it
4/5
Johnny Cash
4/5
I'd listened to this album many years ago, but I forgot how funny Johnny Cash was. His musical performance is great, and deserves every bit of the reputation this album has as one of the great live albums of all time. His charisma on this album while entertaining the prisoners in between songs is incredible. Truly a great concept for a live album that was executed to perfection
4/5
Tangerine Dream
4/5
It's hard to have much to say about some of this early electronic work, but I certainly enjoy it. Tangerine Dream shares some similarities with Kraftwerk in terms of their use of synthesizers and sequencers, but this feels much more spacey and ambient than anything from Kraftwerk. It's progressive, but there's always something interesting happening. There's a lot of music that came after this album that was clearly influenced by it
4/5
Sugar
3/5
I was excited for this album when I read that Bob Mould of Husker Du was in this band, since Zen Arcade is a foundational album for me. You can definitely hear his guitar sound all over this album. However, I didn't find it interesting overall. It's an early 90s alternative album, but every time I tried to listen to it, it just kept fading into the background
3/5
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
3/5
Well, I don't hate this album, which is more than I can say for Trout Mask Replica. It feels a lot more like he's trying to do his thing here, and not trying to show everyone how weird he can be. This album may be less interesting than Trout Mask Replica, but it is definitely a lot easier on the ears
3/5
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
I'm not sure if I'm just not in the mood for Nick Cave this morning, or what, but I didn't like this album quite as much as the previous Nick Cave albums that I've gotten. It's not bad at all, but I really enjoyed his other works, while this left me a bit flat, though, to be fair, I am in a shitty mood
3/5
Lightning Bolt
4/5
In terms of noise rock, this album was actually really melodic. There was a lot to grab onto, while still being experimental. Definitely one that I'm planning on coming back to
4/5
Jeru The Damaja
3/5
Man, am I a sucker for 90s east coast hip-hop. The music is fucking great (having DJ Premier doesn't hurt a bit), and the rapping has aged relatively well. This album suffers a bit from comparison to other albums from the same city in the same era (very few albums hold up well against 36 Chambers and Illmatic), but it's good overall.
3/5, but very close to a 4
Nick Drake
4/5
This is the third Nick Drake album that I've gotten on this list, and like the others it's very good. He has a wonderful voice, and his songwriting is always striking for its beauty. There's so much subtlety in his voice. It's never overdone, but the emotions flood through anyway. The musical accompaniment fits him well too, and the production is excellent. The recording feels very intimate
4/5
Common
3/5
Common is one of those hip hop artists that I've never looked into too much, but I've been more curious about him since I learned about neo-soul and his connection to it. The music on this album is excellent. I haven't heard a bad track yet, and each one has its individual style. I don't find Common's rhymes to be terribly compelling. They aren't bad, but I would consider him a second tier rapper. However, this album is from 2000, which is not a particularly good era for rap in general
3/5 this was close to a 4, but the lyrical style (and several of the words he uses) haven't aged particularly well
Youssou N'Dour
3/5
This album didn't really make much of an impression on me. In general, I've been a big fan of the African music that I've gotten on this list, but perhaps I just lack the context for this album in a way that I didn't with bands like Fela Kuti or Songhoy Blues. This album is fine, it sounds good, but it leaves me feeling a bit bored
3/5
Public Enemy
4/5
Fuck. Public Enemy always goes so hard. Their beats are always on point, and always intense and gritty. Chuck D somehow manages to be underrated as a rapper despite being one of the most famous rappers in history. Flava Flav is also there. This isn't my favorite Public Enemy album, but it is a stellar piece of work
4/5
The B-52's
4/5
The B-52s have such an interesting style. I don't particularly like their sound, but at the same time, having a camp approach to music is very interesting. This is especially true relative to all their peers, since I can't think of another band working in that punk/alternative area of rock that was doing what they were doing. It's not a band I'm generally all that interested in listening to, but I have to admit that they put together a good and wholly original album here
4/5
Nanci Griffith
4/5
I don't have a huge amount to say about this album, but it's a really nice country album from an era where country music was much less shitty than it is now. She has a beautiful voice
4/5
Stevie Wonder
5/5
Fuck man, Stevie Wonder was such a visionary. He had the ability to write songs that were simple and beautiful, but he was also innovative in a million different ways. This album has incredible range, beginning and ending with love songs, but running through a bunch of other styles in between. Superstition is just one of the greatest pop songs of all time
5/5
Goldfrapp
4/5
This album went really fast. It kind of played in the background. It's very fun and pleasant, though. The vocalist has a beautiful voice that blends well with the music
4/5
The Beta Band
4/5
I've been curious about the Beta Band for a while, after being introduced to them in High Fidelity. I liked this album a lot. It's very eclectic, with a good mix of sweet, slow songs and upbeat numbers. Scottish folks really know how to make great experimental pop music for some reason. It's great to see a rock band embrace electronic music tech and techniques, and everything is very well executed
4/5
Air
4/5
I've really liked the Air albums that I've got on this list. I like Virgin Suicides better than this album, but this one works great as well. Their music is very atmospheric, and they play around a lot with the texture of the music to keep it from getting dull.
4/5
Caetano Veloso
3/5
I lost my reivew for this one, but I thought it was okay. I was excited to get an avant garde album from Brazil, but since I'm less familiar Brazilian music in general, it's harder for me to pick out the significance of it
3/5
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
This album was my first exposure to Frank Zappa, way back in the day. I liked it pretty well when I first listened to it, but I don't like Zappa's schtick as much as I used to since I've gotten to encounter lots of weird music that is more suited to my tastes.
Despite that fact, I think this is a good album overall. It's an early album that showed that popular music could be deliberately strange. It's also a lot more accessible than Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefhart. There are plenty of political and social messages in the album as well. What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body is the highlight of the album for me.
4/5
XTC
3/5
I listened to this album all the way through twice, and it somehow made no impression on me, either good or bad. The music is pleasant enough, but it has an unbelievable ability to fade into the background
3/5
The Strokes
4/5
This band is weird. I tend to enjoy their songs, but at the same time all of their songs sound like they were ripped off from more popular songs. Setting that aside, I find the singer's voice oddly compelling. They sound pretty good as a band. This album was hailed as a revitalization of rock when it came out, yet it ultimately ended up being more of a last hurrah. Regardless, this album has aged a lot better than much of the rock being made in the early 2000s. The production being excellent probably has something to do with that
4/5
Tom Tom Club
4/5
Tom Tom Club is such a weirdly prominent one hit wonder, owing partially to their connection with the Talking Heads, and partially to the fact that Genius of Love is a colossal all time banger. The rest of the songs are good as well, though, with lots of Talking Heads flavor without quite sounding like the Talking Heads
4/5
John Lennon
3/5
When I was younger, I never could have predicted that John Lennon would become my least favorite Beatle. This album isn't bad, but the songs sound like the filler songs on a Beatles album that help create ambiance, but aren't really what you come to a Beatles album for. There's nothing here like what George Harrison achieved on All Things Must Pass, and very little of it rises to the level of Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings. It sounds fucked up to say, but the best thing that ever happened to John Lennon's legacy was him getting shot by a crazed former fan. Otherwise, I think the public would have had to contend a lot more with the hypocrisy of his world view. Unfathomably wealthy John Lennon singing about how a "working class hero is something to be" comes off as very hollow.
3/5 I don't think this album is bad, but it's disappointing from a musician who is so highly regarded. It felt like he wasn't trying
3/5
I think this is the 4th U2 album that I've gotten on this list. I feel like it's weirdly given me less of an appreciation for U2. None of the albums that I've gotten are bad, but none of them have been all that good either. The Joshua Tree is their masterpiece, or so I've been told.
This album starts off so good, but as soon as the big hits up front are done, it starts to feel very samey and a bit self indulgent. I really thought that this was the U2 album that I had to give begrudging respect to, but I like Actung Baby more than this
3/5
Slade
3/5
I really don't know what to think about this album. It's a relatively early heavy rock album, but there were plenty of hard rock albums that paved the way for this one. In some ways, it sounds like a lesser version of Led Zeppelin. It's not a bad listen, since the songs are pretty fun, but it tends to fade into the background as the songs drag on
3/5
Einstürzende Neubauten
4/5
I was oddly excited when I saw that I got a German experimental album today. Say what you will about German music, but they are not afraid to take chances when trying to make cool music. This album is certainly abrasive, which makes it hard to give it a very positive review, but at the same time, it's easy to see how this album would have been a hugely influential for artists like Trent Reznor and Ministry.
Despite the fact that it is intentionally hard to listen to, it has that special something that sets good experimental music apart from dumb noise
4/5, though this might be the least pleasant 4 I've given out so far
N.E.R.D
3/5
This is kind of a weird one because I want to give NERD a good rating because of their legacy and all of the hits that they make music for. On the other hand, this album is kinda boring. It's not bad, but for a group that was changing the sound of pop music during this period, their solo work tends to be a bit pedestrian
3/5
Marvin Gaye
5/5
Weirdly, the album that I have been thinking about most while listening to this one is Rage Against the Machine's first album. They aren't similar at all sonicly, but RATM's first album is one of those that I think could have been released at any point since it first dropped and it would have still been considered a mind-blwoing accomplishment. This album is another one. If Marvin Gaye released it this year, I still feel like this album would have a huge impact. It's so excuisite, meticulously produced, and yet it doesn't sound constrained at all. It's beautiful and thoughtful, sensitive yet confident in itself. It is a perfect album, the kind that you wait for it to finish so that you can start back at the beginning and experience it all over again
5/5
Serge Gainsbourg
2/5
Things I'm not particularly excited about here
-French concept album
-French concept album about relationship with underage girl (I don't know what the age of consent is in France, but round here this shit is considered gross)
I don't know what they're saying, so I don't know exactly how much to dislike the subject matter, but I know that the cover is gross. I honestly wish I hadn't read the Wikipedia summary of this album, since I feel like there's no way I can give this a positive rating.
I like the music overall. I wish that the vocals trended more toward singing rather than narrating, but the instrumentals are varied and interesting. Sometimes you have an orchestra, sometimes it's stripped down to just a guitar and drums
2/5 too bad this album is about a barely post-pubescent girl being stripped down by a middle aged man. It would be cool if it wasn't so gross
The Fall
3/5
Well, I like this album better than most of what I've heard from the Fall. It makes sense that their first album is more accessible than the later stuff that I've heard. I can't really think of what else to say about it, though
3/5
Goldfrapp
3/5
I feel like I've gotten several electronic albums from this era that just made no impression on me whatsoever. This was another one. I don't have the strength of character to listen to it again, so...3/5? idk
3/5
Radiohead
4/5
Imagine being fucking Radiohead and having six straight albums show up on the list of 1001 albums to hear before you die. Every one of them deserves it as well. This album tends to fall into the cracks of their career. For me, though, it was a huge deal because it was the first album released after I became a Radiohead fan. It doesn't reach the heights of Kid A or OK Computer, but every single song is good. This album would be a titanic achievement for any other band. For Radiohead, this album doesn't crack the top 5 for lots of people
4/5
Genesis
3/5
I feel like I should like prog rock more than I do. I don't dislike it, and there are some prog rock albums that I really like. Most of them leave me feeling a little flat, and here we are again. I like Peter Gabriel's solo stuff more than his stuff with Genesis, and frankly I feel the same way about Phil Collins. There's a lot of cool stuff going on here, it just doesn't feel like it comes together in a way that interests me
3/5
Cypress Hill
4/5
Fuck man, this album holds up well for hip-hop from 1991. Both the music and the delivery still sound great. I don't normally think of Cypress Hill as being part of the golden age of sampling with bands like Tribe Called Quest and Beastie Boys, but the samples on this album feel similar to that. Just a fucking beast of a hip-hop album that came out of nowhere in a lot of ways
4/5
Al Green
4/5
What a chill, dope album by Al Green. The subject matter is interesting too, since they are love songs, but several of them are about maintaining love, rather than the excitement of new love. The musical accompaniment is all bangers, and the production is excellent. It really brings the soul out of the instruments and sets it in the forefront of the album
4/5
Electric Light Orchestra
4/5
I really enjoy the way ELO combines prog rock with pop. It's very satisfying. The musicianship is top notch, and their vocals work really well. I don't tend to love double albums, but this album plays well in the background without being dull
4/5
John Martyn
4/5
This album has a lot of different moods, and it's very well executed. I was a bit skeptical when I saw that it was a British album influenced by Jamaica, but it doesn't feel exploitative either. It's neat hearing Steve Winwood on an album before his solo career. The album really slows down towards the end, but in a very soothing way
4/5
Cat Stevens
4/5
Lost my review for this one, but it's really good. Gentle and sweet, but with a lot of energy
4/5
4/5
This is just a neat, relaxing album. It plays in the background well, which is not the highest possible complement for an album that has a social consciousness baked into the lyrics, but it is a good album overall. Lots of cool funky and afrobeat stuff
4/5
Fishbone
4/5
It's really hard to nail down the style of this album. At times it's a wailing metal album, at times it's an 80s pop album. Each song is good however, so the album is not particularly harmed by it's lack of sonic coherence
4/5
Kid Rock
2/5
Fuck this dude. Calling him a dollar store Eminem would be an insult both to Eminem and to dollar stores. I'm listening to this album at work, and I have to put my headphones in so that no one thinks that I'm doing so on purpose.
The funny thing is that I could return to this album with a bit of ironic enjoyment under different circumstances. His rhymes are passable (at least for a white dude). The music is good enough. He wrote some fun songs. Then he decided that everyone needed to hear his fucking political opinions. Being this generation's Ted Nugent is nothing to brag about, Kid, and neither is your career trajectory.
What surprised me most about this is that essentially every song I know by Kid Rock is on this album. Dude fell off HARD after this, although you have to give him credit for using up every last bit of his talent on this album. However, the quality of this album is far from enough to justify me having to watch a video of him shooting a bunch of cases of bud light with an AR to illustrate how much he hates trans women. I don't need to know what Kid Rock is up to. I deserve to know about what happened to Rednex after their hit Cotton Eye Joe (I paused this album to listen to Cotton Eye Joe, and I might just leave this song on repeat and pretend it's the rest of the kid rock album. It's a much more pleasant experience)
Edit: I take back what I said about this album being okay. Once you get a few songs it, it turns to garbage. He used up all of his good lines on the first couple of songs
2/5 Somehow still not as bad as that Limp Bizkit album that also inexplicably made it on this list.
Orbital
4/5
I don't have a lot to say about this, but much like the first Orbital album that I got on here, this is really good 90s techno. It manages to be repetitive dance music without feeling repetitive
4/5
King Crimson
3/5
I don't always understand prog rock, and the thing I don't understand most about prog rock is King Crimson, but this album is pretty cool most of the time
3/5
Sabu
4/5
This album is pretty cool. I don't have a ton of context for conga music, but it's neat to listen to. The polyrhythms and call-and-response are familiar from other types of Afro-cuban influenced genres. The sound production could be better, but that's not unusual for the time it was made
4/5
Foo Fighters
4/5
I remember the anticipation of this album well. After Kurt Cobain died, the fact that Dave Grohl put together this album by himself in relatively short order seemed like such a blessing. It ended up being a much more light-hearted album than I was imagining as a Nirvana fan. However, the album was great then, and it remains great today. Each song is good in it's own way, and there's a lot of variation in the album
4/5
Funkadelic
4/5
It's a funkadelic album. Not my favorite, but it still has that creamy funk sound that I keep coming back for
4/5
The Undertones
4/5
I was surprised that I was not more aware of this album upon hearing it. Just a super enjoyable early pop punk album from a bunch of weird-looking British dudes. Lots of great, late 70s punk fun
4/5
The Stooges
5/5
This album has been getting it's due much more over the past couple of decades, but I think it's a strong candidate for the most underrated album of all time. It's hard to overstate its importance on the history of rock n' roll starting in the 1970s. Every early punk band lists them as a major influence, and it's very likely that the punk music and all of its subsequent genres would look incredibly different without the Stooges
In terms of the music itself, this album fucking kicks ass. It's gritty and sexy and doesn't sound like anything that came before it. It's like what The Doors could have been if Jim Morrison was really into acid instead of the smell of his own farts
5/5
Robert Wyatt
4/5
This album was dull at times, weird and interesting at times. It also has an interesting background story, not that such things should be terribly important to my rating of the album. It was really hard to know what to think about this, but overall I think it's really good
4/5
The Saints
4/5
Well, I can certainly say that the production on this album sounds like absolute shit. That's not particularly unusual on early punk music albums, particularly ones that were produced by the band themselves. However, under the hood of this album is a lot of neat stuff. I love that they included horns in a lot of these tracks. That was a really innovative idea for early punk music. The vocals sound good, given the overall quality of the album. Really cool early punk album
4/5
Lucinda Williams
4/5
I don't have a lot of thoughts on this albums, but I like this album
4/5
Led Zeppelin
5/5
Having gotten several Led Zeppelin albums on this list, I'm getting more and more convinced that they never made a bad album. All of the albums I've gotten so far (Zep III, Zep IV, and Physical Graffiti) were great and each innovative in its own way. This album is a great example of white boys doing the blues and actually making something meaningful and interesting out of it. Every song is good, and they balance each other out well. The album starts out with a fairly traditional blues rock feel, but gets psychedelic with Dazed and Confused. From there, it keeps changing. Sometimes a slow, sweet song, sometimes a wailing guitar solo. The musicianship and production really shine through on this album. Also, the cover fucking kicks ass
5/5
Ryan Adams
2/5
One time I was hitting on a girl at a bar, and she told me that she like Ryan Adams, and I said that I also liked Ryan Adams. That was the only time I have ever spoken about or thought of Ryan Adams. Having now listened to Ryan Adams for the first time, I can say that I do not, in fact, like Ryan Adams. I don't particularly dislike this, I just don't find it very interesting or meaningful. It just feels like he's doing a Springsteen/Mellencamp type thing, but like 15 years too late. He has a nice voice, and everything is pleasant enough, but it doesn't belong on this list. Also, I've been listening to this album for what feels like two hours now, and I'm only on the fifth song
Also, I didn't end up going home with that girl. I think she could sense that I didn't really like Ryan Adams
2/5
Country Joe & The Fish
3/5
This album is fine, but it's also not for me. It just never really grabbed me and made me take interest in it
3/5
Nirvana
5/5
This is one of those albums that feels like it's always been with me. It really shows Nirvana's range as artists. It's just sad and beautiful and powerful the whole way through. Having the Meat Puppets do some of the songs off their second album was a stroke of genius (as well as being the best those songs have ever sounded). Finishing the set with Where Did You Sleep Last Night was perfect
5/5
The Cure
3/5
I didn't enjoy this as much as a lot of the goth music that I've gotten on this list. It wasn't unpleasant in anyway, but it was more subdued than a lot of the goth music I've enjoyed. I want to dance while I'm sad, goddamn it!
3/5
Taylor Swift
4/5
I've been interested in sitting down and listening to this album for a while. It's one of the most highly regarded pop albums of this era, but this is not a particularly good era for pop (or perhaps this is just what all crusty old guys start to think when they get older and the world of music has passed them by). The production on the album is excellent. It sounds great without being too clean. Her voice is great, and the songs are really good overall. I started to feel a bit bored of it by the end, but that's also pretty par for the course on pop albums.
4/5 I was really torn on this one, but I think it's actually a good album
Public Image Ltd.
3/5
This album feels really uneven to me, which has been true of the other Public Image albums that I've heard. Some songs are great, and some songs feel boring and self-indulgent. Much like Johnny Rotten himself, it's a real mixed bag
3/5
Syd Barrett
3/5
This is a strange album, which makes sense as it was made by someone who had lost his mind in the preceding years. It's an interesting album to be sure. It's somewhat uneven, but there's lots of neat stuff in here. I do not love his voice, which counts for some of the unevenness in my opinion.
3/5
Snoop Dogg
4/5
This is an album that I've been aware of since I was a child, but I've never actually sat down and listened to, despite it's reputation as one of the crowning achievements of West Coast hip-hop. Looking through the track list, it makes sense. I know almost all of these songs, and all the ones I know are bangers.
One of the most noticeable thing about this album is that the skits are short and integrated into the intro of the songs. I think this is before skits became the most obnoxious part of every rap album, but it's still nice to see it done tastefully. Dre's production on the album is stellar, just track after track of classic era G-funk. Snoop has a lot more narrative structure to his songs than most rap artists (e.g. Lodi Dodi, Murder Was the Case). He likes to tell a story with a chronology to it, which is cool
4/5 There are some times when this album starts to sag a little bit, partially because Dre's production style gets a little samey at times. It's always good, but listening to several tracks in a row causes them to start to blend together
Baaba Maal
4/5
One of the things that this list has given me a lot more appreciation for is the incredible quality of some of the music coming out of Africa. This album is no exception. The songs are all well-crafted, with great instrumentals and vocals. It reminded me of Songhoy Blues in a lot of ways, and I would not be surprised to learn that Djam Leelii was a big influence on them
4/5
Supergrass
4/5
I really enjoyed the other Supergrass album that I got on this list, though it was one of the early albums that I got early on in the list. This album didn't grab me quite as much, but at least part of that is the sheer amount of music that I've heard and learned about since that time. Overall, this is a fun album that came at the tail end of the 90s alternative rock era. Worth a listen, even though I probably won't be coming back to this one
4/5
Arcade Fire
4/5
I can't say that I've ever found Arcade Fire all that exciting as a band. I think, sadly, that the era when I could have gotten really into them might have passed me by. However, I will say that this album helped me understand their appeal much better. The songs are well written, and the production on the album is excellent. I've also heard that the lyrics are very good, though it was difficult for me to catch a lot of the words on the first pass
4/5
Saint Etienne
4/5
I thought this album was really cool overall. Nice vibes with a lot of pleasant female vocals to go with it
4/5
Wilco
4/5
Really great early album by Wilco that fleshes out their sound a lot more than their debut, AM. Lots of great songs, many of which became staples of their live shows for decades after this. Not their best work, but some wonderful, classic alt-country style Wilco
4/5
Robert Wyatt
3/5
It's a little weird that I hadn't heard of this dude a month ago, and now I've listened to two of his albums on this list. I liked the previous one (Rock Bottom) better than this. It felt more experimental, while this feels a bit more mundane. It's still good, but it doesn't really grab me
3/5
Dr. Octagon
4/5
Mid-90s hip-hop was so much cooler and weirder than I every knew at the time. This album is another one that shows the pervasive influence of comics on hip-hop in this period. The music is tremendous throughout, and is where this album really shines. Dr. Octagon's rhyme style is good and fits the music really well. It's often slow and smooth, but he heats it up occasionally on this album to great effect
4/5
Echo And The Bunnymen
3/5
This album was pretty good, but I liked Porcupine quite a bit more. I'm not even sure I could identify why I found this one less inspiring. It just didn't grab me the same way
3/5
Pentangle
3/5
I thought this album was okay, but it was hard for me to see why it was significant enough to make this list. It's cool that they use a sitar, though
3/5
Frank Black
3/5
It's really interesting to hear Frank Black in isolation from The Pixies. I certainly prefer his pixies material, since it feels much fuller in terms of the sound, as well as being more innovative, given the time when it was made. This is still good, it just doesn't feel revolutionary the way that something like Surfer Rosa does
3/5
Lana Del Rey
4/5
This is not my favorite Lana Del Rey album I've ever heard, but it has her characteristic style: beautiful voice over great music with lyrics that like to dip their toes into smuttiness.
4/5
Nico
4/5
Just a really cool album overall. Nico's voice took a long time to grow on me. I used to hate her songs on the first Velvet Underground album. However, she really is a talented artist. The music pairs well here, often being sad and sweet, but descending into the experimental at times. Well worth the listen
4/5
Venom
4/5
Well, this is definitely a lot different than the black metal genre, mainly because these guys seem to be having fun, while black metal dudes are so goddamned serious all the time. This has much more of a Judas Priest sound, with a little bit more edge to it. It's cool, obviously a hugely influential early metal album
4/5
The Birthday Party
3/5
I don't think I'm a Nick Cave guy. There are plenty of things that I like about what he does and the albums that I have heard, but his albums also never leave me wanting more. This is an interesting post punk album, and I think it's likely that it influenced some artists that I really like. However, it's not a very pleasant listen, although that's not really what they were going for in the first place, so idunnoknow, 3/5 stars?
3/5
Beyoncé
4/5
It's sort of weird to rate a Beyonce album. Her albums feel like such massive productions, rather than being the work of one artist. It's great, however. Lots of depth to the album. The music is great, and her voice is incredibly powerful throughout
4/5
Johnny Cash
4/5
Here I was, all set to express some minor annoyance that both of the Johnny Cash prison records were on here, but this album is so goddamned charming. I love listening to Cash banter with the audience. The songs are also amazing. Having June come up and sing songs was really cute too
4/5
Kacey Musgraves
4/5
Here I was thinking that modern country was a desolate wasteland when this album was sitting around waiting to prove me wrong. I don't know that this is an album that I'm going to come back to, but it's cool to see someone doing something interesting with country while remaining true to the genre. Her voice is beautiful, and her lyrics have the kind of accessible emotional weight that I associate with the greats of country music past
4/5
Joan Baez
4/5
I struggle with reviews like this because folk is generally not my genre, so I always feel like I'm grading these albums on a curve. The strength of her voice is on full display on this album, though. Weirdly, her voice sounds sort of generic, but I think that's because every female folk artist who came after her took some influence from Joan Baez
4/5 It could have used some distorted guitar solos, and maybe an 808, but still it sounds real good
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4/5
Nick Cave albums don't generally "grab" me the way a lot of good albums do, but I will say that this one grew on me as it went. Lots of variation in the musical approach, but they do a good job of keeping it interesting
4/5
Missy Elliott
4/5
It's pretty hard to disentangle the greatness of Missy Elliott as a rapper from the greatness of Timbaland as a producer. Luckily, we don't have to. This album is great. All the beats are on point, with lots of super-danceable stuff. Missy brings life to every song
4/5
Carole King
5/5
What can you say about this album that hasn't been said before. Every song is good at a minimum. They are all so sweet and soulful. The lyrics are simple, but not trite, and the music underscores them perfectly. This is not the type of album that I usually go for, but it's hard not to when an album is this perfectly executed
5/5
Richard Thompson
4/5
I had never heard of this album before listening to it, but I gotta say I really enjoyed it. It's not particularly my type of music, but the songs are excellent and varied, and the vocals are on point
4/5
Janet Jackson
4/5
It's sort of interesting that this album is pitched as a concept album about social issues, but all the hits are more traditional love songs. This isn't meant as a criticism, Jackson absolutely addresses the social issues she is interested in. It's just kinda funny that like ever single fun love song on this album was a fucking gigantic hit. I'm honestly surprised that this album doesn't get talked about more, given how well it's held up. I think that some of the negative attention to Michael Jackson stuck on Janet, and of course there was that time when she accidentally showed America her bare breast, and we all decided that we were furious about this for reasons that I've never understood. Hell, she's almost 58 years old, and I would still pay good money to see one of the girls again. I digress. This is a good album, and I will fight anyone who talks shit on Janet Jackson's breasts
4/5
Aphex Twin
5/5
I've been listening to this album for a while, but I watched a YouTube doc on Aphex Twin in the last year that did a lot to help me understand the significance of this album. It really is one of those foundational works that helps change the direction of a genre. I don't like the label Intelligent Dance Music, but I do like a lot of the music that has been released under that moniker. This album is the genesis of that movement, and an excellent work in its own right
5/5
Christina Aguilera
3/5
Look, I'll be honest. I don't want to listen to another Christina Aguilera album, nor do I want to listen to another pop icon album from the early 2000s. I just feel like this genre is over-represented on this list, and this was a particularly bad era for pop music.
This album is fine. It's a Christina Aguilera album, and she has an incredible voice and has the level of production and song crafting that you expect from this type of prominent pop album. I don't know that there is anything else to say about it
3/5
Paul Simon
5/5
Paul Simon is one of those musicians who always seems to come out looking well when I get his albums on this list. This album is certainly no exception, since some folks consider this to be his masterpiece. I won't weigh in on that issue, but this album is incredible. It treats its African influences so lovingly, and it introduced Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the world. Every song on this album is good, and it all fits together so well, despite bringing in a really diverse array of musicians and styles
5/5
Meat Loaf
4/5
This is an album I've been aware of for several decades, and I've heard most of the songs on this album, but I've never actually listened to it until now. I can understand why this album was so big in its heyday. It's a bunch of songs about young love, but written from the perspective of someone looking back on those days. The music is big and features a lot of instruments, which matches Meat Loaf's powerful voice well. The album really comes together as more than the sum of its parts. It's reputation is well deserved
4/5
Joanna Newsom
3/5
This album is cool, but it's hard for me to get over her voice. It just doesn't gel with me, and I found this album hard to get through as a result
3/5
Drive Like Jehu
4/5
This is a really cool album that was made much earlier than I would have expected, given the sound. It's noisy and abrasive, but all the songs have this incredible energy, and they flow from one to the next well. Really cool album that didn't get the recognition it deserved in its time
4/5
Pavement
4/5
This album is tough because I really want to like it, and at times I really do. However, I loved Pavement's first album so much, and this one just doesn't hit me the same, and it never has. It has some awesome Pavement songs, though, and that's worth something
4/5
Steve Earle
3/5
Despite the fact that I don't really enjoy country music (largely because of the horrors of modern pop country), I'm always happy to get a country album on here because they are usually pretty good. I didn't particularly vibe with this one, but still it's a good piece of country music history
3/5
Hot Chip
3/5
Hot Chip makes fun music, but I'm not sure that I would have put this album on this list. I don't know that this album was all that innovative for 2012. Perhaps that's because I spent the whole time I was listening to it writing emails to shitheads at work. Still, it's a toe-tapper
3/5
LTJ Bukem
2/5
This album is fine, but I don't understand why it's here. It's a compilation for one, which is fine in some instances, but there are tons of DnB albums, so it's not like this was bringing together music that you couldn't hear elsewhere. It's fine as an entry point into the genre, but that is not the purpose of this list
2/5
Green Day
4/5
I got this album the same Christmas that I got Nevermind by Nirvana. This album was my favorite at first, before Nirvana completely subsumed my adolescent mind. It's fun revisiting an album that I have such a long history with. This album holds up really well. The production is excellent, and you really have to give Green Day credit for knowing how to write a great pop song
4/5
The Go-Go's
4/5
This album was pretty cool, although I feel like I have far less of an idea of what New Wave music is than I did a couple of years ago. Still, regardless of the genre, the harmonies are great, and they have very fun songs. The album flew by really fast, and I was kinda sad when it was done
4/5
Adele
4/5
Adele has a hell of a voice, and she writes a great song too. This album starts off with a blast with Rolling In the Deep, but it keeps up the energy well
4/5
Portishead
3/5
God damn, if you want to sell me on an album before I even listen to it, tell me that the influences for the album were "krautrock, surf rock, doo wop and the film soundtracks of John Carpenter" because all of that shit is awesome. However, I wouldn't say that those influences were super obvious in this album, apart from perhaps Krautrock, and even that is really relying on the hugely varied nature of that genre. This isn't a bad album, but any means, it's just not the version of Marry, Fuck, Kill with Neu, the Ventures, and the Shangri-Las that I was hoping from the description.
Portishead has always been a bit dower for me, and I liked their trip-hop stuff better, but still this album deserves credit for trying to do something different and expand their horizons. Overall it is well-executed, but it could have really used a shit-load more doo-wop
3/5
The White Stripes
3/5
Look y'all, I don't know how to admit to the world that I don't really get The White Stripes. They have some songs that I like, and I can't say that I dislike their music, but every time I listen to them, I just don't understand why everyone has been telling me how great they are. That's not their fault, but it's also not mine, and I hope that this is the last of their albums on this list, and I'm sorry
3/5
Manic Street Preachers
4/5
This album was pretty cool overall. It sounds very much of its time, but it is also interesting relative to plenty of the alt-rock coming out in 1994. Nice and heavy guitars with tons of distortion, as was the style at the time
4/5
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
Dexys Midnight Runners is one of those bands that seems like a quirky one-hit wonder at first blush, but has a very interesting history. This album is the followup to the album that birthed their smash hit Come On Eileen. Most of the band had left, and this album ends up being a much more subdued synthy album. It's well worth the listen
4/5
Todd Rundgren
4/5
I got Something/Anything? previously on this list, and thought it was fine, but relatively uninspiring. This album I found much more interesting, because he was obviously using a lot more drugs when he made this album. It's much more experimental, but still features his voice and folky songwriting. Really cool early 70s rock album that is still pushing the psychedelic envelope
4/5
Miriam Makeba
4/5
This was a cool album from a musical tradition that I get very little exposure to. Her voice is great, the music is fun, and there's a lot of life in the songs
4/5
Ali Farka Touré
4/5
This album was really cool, though I enjoyed the other Ali Farka Toure album on this list more. This has more of a cool jam band-type sound, whereas the other album felt more straight-ahead bluesy. This is still good, just not the peak of the music that Toure made
4/5
Depeche Mode
3/5
This was some good Depeche Mode action, but I greatly preferred Violator to this album. There weren't any songs here that really grabbed me, but it was consistently good overall
3/5
Drive-By Truckers
3/5
The music for this album is pretty cool. The focus on the South is a bit hard for me to grab onto as a concept, which makes the song Three Great Alabama Icons a bit of a slog, since I don't give a shit about any of those people. Having so many songs about Lynard Skynard (or however you spell it) doesn't really work in their favor. This being a double album also really makes you feel the length as you listen to it. Overall, it's fun Southern rock, but I was hoping for a more focused album, or at least a differently focused album
3/5
Dinosaur Jr.
4/5
Some great late 80s alternative rock action here. I like the music more than the vocals with Dinosaur Jr, but the album is really good overall. Very heavy, but with well-written songs
4/5
ABBA
3/5
I was not particularly expecting an ABBA album on this list, and I certainly wasn't expecting one that I didn't know any of the songs from. This album is okay. It was a change of direction for ABBA, but I really enjoy their pop stuff.
3/5
Mekons
4/5
Just an overall cool album that some folks hold up as the first alt-country album. Much different from the 90s version of alt country, but it's easy to see how this album serves as a bridge between post punk and country. The songs are really fun, and they vary a lot from song to song
4/5
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
Sly and the Family Stone just has a consistently great sound. This album is deeply funky, and the lyrics float effortlessly between socially conscious material and slice of life material. Sly's bass glues it all together
4/5
Ministry
4/5
It's always nice when I get to review an album I already know and love. I never really understood that I liked industrial music before hearing this album, but it serves as an excellent entry point into the genre. The songs range from the political to the personal, but the music is always distorted and overwhelming and screaming three inches from your face. A very consistent album in terms of its overall sonic quality, but it never gets dull
4/5
Ananda Shankar
4/5
Whatever I was expecting when I got this album today, it was not the music that is actually on this album. It opens with an electric guitar. The sitar is ever present in the album, but it's often complimented by Moog synthesizers, which is an incredible combination. I wish that the album featured more original music, or at least less popular songs to cover, but the execution is tremendous
4/5
Manu Chao
4/5
After listening to a lot of this album, I still have a hard time knowing what to think about it. The music is all fun and very charming. He has a great voice. However, the production on the album always feels a bit thin, like it hasn't been properly mixed. This could be an issue with the version that I'm listening to, though. Either way, this is a fun, breezy album that it's easy to be in the mood for
4/5
Donovan
3/5
This album feels pretty uneven to me. There are a couple of really awesome songs, but I find most of them a bit dull. It's hard for the songs I enjoy like Sunshine Superman and Season of the Witch to overcome the sag I experience during Guinevere. The dumb face that he made on the cover of this album is the same dumb face I was making while listening to much of this album
3/5
Sonic Youth
4/5
I think this is my favorite Sonic Youth album that I've heard so far. I have seen them live twice and thought they were amazing both times, but their albums always leave me a little cold. I'm not sure why this one hit me different, but I really enjoyed it. The songs are melodic in the weirdest goddamn ways
4/5
Morrissey
4/5
Well, there are few things that I tend to feel less excited about than getting a Morrissey album on this list. However, much like how I felt about Your Arsenal, I found myself enjoying this quite a bit. He has a nice voice, the music is great. As long as he doesn't get too maudlin with the lyrics, I can actually kick back and enjoy a Morrissey album. Who knew?
4/5
Boards of Canada
4/5
This is one of those albums that I've listened to multiple times, but I never remember what it's like. It's like it lives in a black hole in my mind. It's good, though. Downtempo and ambient, but still groovy and engaging. All the little samples of children and people talking add a surprising amount of life to the album, despite the music being spare in a lot of places
4/5
R.E.M.
4/5
I really don't know what to say about this album. It's an REM album that sounds like an REM album, but isn't one of their albums that I find really spectacular, but at the same time it's REM is it's still good and I can't fault REM for sounding like REM
4/5? fuckidunno
David Bowie
4/5
Another really cool album from Bowie's Berlin period. I don't like this album as much as Low, which I think is my favorite Bowie album, but many of the features that make that album great are still here
4/5
Eurythmics
4/5
I like 80s synth pop, and this album beat my expectations. Annie Lennox's voice is heaven over a synthesizer. The songs are very well-crafted, and the album is consistently good
4/5
Jacques Brel
3/5
I really don't even know what I'm supposed to get out of this album, and Wikipedia didn't make it much clearer. I feel like this is the type of thing that wouldn't be for me even if I could understand the words. It's not bad, but it's also just hard for me to appreciate without a lot more context
3/5
Wild Beasts
3/5
I feel like I've gotten a bunch of albums that I don't really know what to think of lately, which could be an interesting coincidence, might be a sign that I'm slipping back into clinical depression, or it might indicate that, while the list has made it easier for me to contextualize a lot of albums, there are certain time periods and genres that I struggle with placing into meaningful context.
This is one such album. It sounds good, but very much of its time, and I don't particularly like its time when it comes to rock music. Is this another uninspiring Brit pop album crammed into this list at the insistence of the author? Should I go back on Prozac? The world may never know.
Anyway, this album is fine: 3/5 stars
Silver Jews
3/5
This music is okay, but it's not good enough to justify a band name that makes me feel antisemitic to say out loud. It's calm and pleasant, but there's not a huge amount here, given that this band has two members of Pavement in it
3/5
Solange
3/5
I've tried to listen to this album twice in two days, and I just keep getting distracted, and its fine, but I also need to move on with my life so let's just say 3 stars and forget all about it. It's fine
3/5
The Dandy Warhols
3/5
I thought this album was cool, but didn't really understand why it was significant relative to other albums that came out in this period/subgenre. Overall, a fun listen, though
3/5
Tim Buckley
3/5
I've tried to listen to this album twice in two days, and I just keep getting distracted, and its fine, but I also need to move on with my life so let's just say 3 stars and forget all about it. It's fine
3/5
Dagmar Krause
3/5
I don't know what the hell this is, and I don't really care for it, but I can't deny that she's doing the shit out of whatever it is
3/5
The Coral
4/5
It's interesting to me that this album gets labelled as folk rock, since it feels so much different than other folk music to me. It does, however, sound like songs that you would sing on a ship from time to time, so maybe that makes it folk. Really cool album overall with good production.
4/5
Dire Straits
3/5
This is a fun album overall, and Sultans of Swing is an all-timer. On the other hand, I don't really get what puts it on this list. There was so much more interesting stuff happening in 1978 than Dire Straits
3/5
Coldcut
4/5
This was a fun album overall. Lots of familiar samples in here, which is very reasonable for this period. It also clearly had an influence on the sample-based dance music that came after it
4/5
50 Cent
4/5
I enjoyed this album way more than I thought I was going to. Rap from this era doesn't often hold up well, but this album is really solid. Lots of club hits, but the rest of the songs don't fall off very hard. I did accidentally listen to a censored version of the album, but that honestly didn't end up impacting my enjoyment much. Really solid rhymes, and the music doesn't sound very dated either
4/5
The Who
4/5
I'm really up and down on The Who, based on the albums that I've gotten on this list. I really enjoyed this album overall, though, much more so than the previous albums that I've gotten here. Baba O'Riley is a kickass early synth song, and it keeps going from there. It's not one that you have to listen to super actively, but it's fun music with a lot of diversity of sound
4/5
Big Black
4/5
It's interesting to get this album so soon after Steve Albini's death. I enjoyed Songs About Fucking a lot, so it I was excited for this one, and it doesn't disappoint. This album does not sound like it was made in 1986. The production is really good overall, which is not a surprise for Steve Albini, but is a surprise for a mid-80s punk album. This is one that I want to pick up on vinyl
4/5
Björk
4/5
This isn't my favorite Bjork album, but like every Bjork album I've heard, it's great and singular and beautiful and weird
4/5
Motörhead
4/5
I generally don't like live albums, but there are exceptions and this is one of them. It captures the energy of Motorhead really well, and it sounds great. You'd think they would back themselves into a corner by starting off with Ace of Spades, but the album is so consistently good, I never worried about it
4/5
Prefab Sprout
3/5
The sound of this album reminded me a bit of Haircut 100, which was one of the early items that I got on this list. Unfortunately, this album feels a lot more generic than that one did. It's fine and fun in its way, but it was harmed by making me think of albums that I actually enjoyed
3/5
Napalm Death
3/5
I didn't know what grindcore was before this album, and I still don't, but this was pretty interesting overall. The weird setup for the album, with essentially different bands making the two sides of the album, is unique in my experience. Weirdly, I'm not sure that I heard a huge difference between the punk and metal halves of the album, but TBF I'm also a cretin
3/5
Big Star
4/5
This is a band I've been interested in listening to for a while. I know it has a huge cult following but never really pushed through into mainstream consciousness. I can see why people like it so much. The music is all well executed, the vocals are great, and the songs are varied enough. It definitely sounds like a 70s bluesy rock album, but it's pretty early in the 70s and feels like it influenced other bands
4/5
New Order
4/5
Guitars and synthesizers are a match made in heaven. The fact that New Order existed as a rock band for so long before becoming an electronic band really gives their sound a feeling that few other synthesizer groups have. This album gets pitched as their full transition into the electronic side, but the song Sunrise is still firmly a rock song, and I felt like a lot of the later half of the album was like that. Really well done with great production. It sounds like the year in which it was made, but that is one of those albums that helps explain why this era sounded like this 4/5
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
4/5
I'm not sure what I was expecting with this album, but it certainly wasn't what I got. I really enjoyed this album. It's so noisy and irreverent, which fits really well with the blues. It's fun the whole way through, but also well-constructed enough that you can take it seriously
4/5
Harry Nilsson
4/5
This is an album that I've heard was really good for a long time, but have never sat down and listened to. It's as good as advertised. He goes through a lot of different styles, but he's at his best when he's mellow and sweet. Without you is a notable highlight, but the whole album is great. Well crafted songs with great production and a lot of heart
4/5
Love
3/5
This album had some cool stuff on it, but much like the other Love album I got on this list, I ultimately found it uninspiring overall
3/5
Sepultura
4/5
I'm not sure what it is about thrash metal that I appreciate so much more than ever other type of metal, but every time I find a metal band that I like, they are almost inevitably a thrash metal band. Sepultura is one of the metal bands that I've been introduced to on this list that I've really enjoyed. I liked Roots better than this album, but I can also see how this album led to that one. They are definitely starting to incorporate influences from other genres here
4/5
David Bowie
3/5
It's a cool album, definitely a highlight from Bowie's later career. However, it's not as good as Blackstar, nor does it rise to the heights of his earlier career from the 70s and 80s. It's an issue that Bowie's lesser albums suffer from comparison with his incredible body of work, but I don't know how else to rate this except by comparing it to his other works
3/5
Sparks
4/5
God I was worried when I saw the album art. I'll say that it's still not great, but within the realm of 1974 media, it barely even rates as racist. The music, though, is really cool. It's a fun, fast-paced pop album with great female vocals (I'm sorry, I'm now being told that the vocals are done by a dude, and I don't even know what's going on anymore). Really enjoyable album that I might seek out on vinyl
4/5
Kings of Leon
3/5
I like this album fine, but I have no idea why it's here. It just doesn't seem significant in any way, other than that it is an album from the early 2000s that isn't terrible
3/5
Megadeth
4/5
This is one of those albums that I'm glad is great musically, because both the album title and the artwork are fucking awesome, and it would be a huge bummer if the music was mediocre. No worries here, this is a spectacular thrash metal album from soup to nuts
4/5
3/5
I liked this album, but I'll say that this is not the album to review for the first time while you have a migraine. The vocals aren't amazing, but the music is good overall, and they do a lot of different things, from noise rock to synth pop
3/5
Neu!
5/5
This might be my favorite Neu! album (Neu! 2 is the other potential option). It's pretty consistent with the other work that the band was doing during the first half of the 70s. It's fucking great. Just solid toe-tapping jams propelled forth by the driving drum beat. I think you could easily make a case that other Krautrock bands were better than Neu, but Neu remains a very accessible way to get into the genre and provides a ton of useful context for what other German bands were doing in this period
5/5
The Libertines
3/5
This was a pretty fun album, though I can't say that it grabbed my attention all that much. But, for the hellscape that was music in the early 2000s, it achieves the lofty heights of "pretty good"
3/5
Dusty Springfield
3/5
The sound quality on this album leaves a bit to be desired, but she has a beautiful voice, and it's showcased well here. Son of a Preacher Man doesn't sound like the other sounds on this album, since most of the songs have more of an orchestra sadness to them
3/5
Red Hot Chili Peppers
3/5
I think life might have been a bit better if I hadn't gone back and listened to this album in my mid-40s. I saw this band on the tour for this album, and it was incredible (the Foo Fighters were on the same tour). The older I get, the less I like RHCP. The lyrics are...I guess stupid is the word. The music is fun, but I've heard enough of RHCP's influences to know that their sound is not particularly original, nor were they the best to do it. With that being said, I do like Scar Tissue. I don't think this is a bad album, but it is the type of album whose flaws are obvious to me when I'm asked to review it critically. The crazy thing is that a ton of these songs were successful singles, but I don't want to listen to any of them
3/5 It's not bad, but Anthony Kiedis should feel bad about how stupid his lyrics are
Waylon Jennings
4/5
This is a beautiful album, and it really shows off the quality of Jennings's voice. It wasn't particularly what I was in the mood for this morning, and I would definitely say that this is the type of album that you need to be in the mood for, but it is undeniably a very good album
4/5
Super Furry Animals
4/5
What a strange and wonderful album. So far, I'm five songs in and have enjoyed each one so far, despite the fact that most of these songs seem to come from different genres. Everything is well executed despite the massive diversity in sounds. Love the music, love the harmonies, love how I can never seem to wrap my mind around exactly what this album is
4/5
The Beta Band
4/5
This is a much more subdued Beta Band album than the last one I got on this list. It's just as good in many ways, but less fun to listen to overall. Still, the band manages to produce a really original sound that really works for them
4/5
Scritti Politti
3/5
This album is a pretty fun listen overall, but I don't really get why it's on this list. It's a solid 80s pop album, but that's also exactly what it sounds like. Perhaps this was influential in its time, but to my ears it sound very much of its time without pushing music forward in any way I can detect. Still, its some solid 80s pop
3/5
Paul McCartney
3/5
Well, at least Maybe I'm Amazed is a pretty good song. Otherwise, this album is pretty unexceptional. However, he would go on to do much cooler things with Wings, so we can forgive the fact that I don't love this album
3/5
The Kinks
4/5
The Kinks really mastered the art of writing cutesy songs that ultimately end up working because they are well crafted and the music is fucking great. It's hard to know what to compare this album to from the same time period because the Kinks really had their own thing going, but I really like this album
4/5
Can
5/5
It's some kind of wild coincidence that I bought this album less than a week ago and now here I am reviewing it. For anyone who finds this album interesting, I'd recommend checking out the series on Can that the No Dogs In Space Podcast did, since I provides a LOT of interesting background to these songs. This band and the things they do make zero sense and yet it fucking works perfectly. The drumming is the absolute key to this band, even though ever member is great in their own right. The songs just keep driving and driving with the drums pulling them forward. The lyrics make no sense are and frequently inaudible and are perfect. The guitars are searing. There's a bass player not getting in anyone's way. This album fucking fucks
I wish the cover art was better, but at least I like the fonts that they used
5/5
3/5
This was kind of a fun, quirky album. The music is good overall. I don't know that I would consider it significant enough to put on this list, but it's a pleasant listen
3/5
Fairport Convention
3/5
Of the things that I really care about, folk music continues to not be one of them. This album is fine, like most of the folk albums on this list, but it's ultimately not for me
3/5
Death In Vegas
4/5
This album had me right off the bat. The opening track is great, and the album stays strong through the end. Very interesting combination of rock and EDM. This is definitely an album that I'm going to try to pick up on vinyl
4/5
Gram Parsons
4/5
This is a really nice country album. It benefits a lot from the presence of Emmylou Harris, since her vocals are a great complement for Parsons's. Very chill, pleasant country
4/5
Laura Nyro
4/5
This was definitely an album that won me over as it went along. The vocal harmonies are great, as is the music. It feels a bit like Tapestry by Carol King, but with a fuller sound. Really beautiful album that manages to be both big and forceful, but subtle at the same time
4/5
Joy Division
3/5
I'm a bit sad about this one, since I didn't like it as much as I thought it would. Unknown Pleasures grabbed me right away, but I don't feel like there's as much for me to latch onto here. It's not bad by any means, it just suffers by comparison. However, I could also see this being the type of album that starts to grow on me after a few listenings
3/5
The Smashing Pumpkins
4/5
Billy Corgan is one of those rock stars that I'm never going to love because he is a stupid dick that goes on InfoWars and seems to have nothing but contempt for the people around him. This album is hard to argue with, though. It takes the sonic intensity of shoegaze and tames it into a more stereotypical rock song structure. It really works. The sound is pretty consistent throughout, but doesn't get boring because the songs are well-crafted. Too bad Billy is such a stupid dick
4/5
Klaxons
3/5
This album was fine, but I'm also never going to think about it again
3/5
Arctic Monkeys
2/5
I don't fucking get it. To me, this album sounds as generic as it possibly can. Maybe this was really influential on a bunch of stuff that came later, and that's why it sounds generic to me, but to me it just sounds like shitty, overproduced, underwritten rock that isn't really adding anything to the music that came before it
2/5
Blood, Sweat & Tears
4/5
I didn't know if I was going to like this album at first, but the music is good overall, and I really like this dude's voice. My brain tends to confuse Blood, Sweat, and Tears with Earth, Wind, and Fire, which required a bit of adjustment from me once I started listening to the album, but its fun if not spectacular, and it's got some hits on it
4/5
Mudhoney
3/5
Mudhoney has always been one of those bands that I feel like I should enjoy more than I generally do. This album is a good example of that phenomenon. I think, though, that the more I listen to this band, the more I can hear their influence on other bands. Frankly, I think I would be way more into this band if they had a better lead singer
3/5
Rahul Dev Burman
4/5
The cover of this album got me hyped to listen to this record, and sometimes you can judge an album by its cover. This shit is awesome from the first track. It's highly versatile, with a lot of Indian music and elements, but fused with a lot of western music, particularly the soundtrack-style cinematic elements. Really cool album that I'm going to seek out on vinyl
4/5
Massive Attack
4/5
This isn't my favorite Massive Attack album, but it might be my second favorite. Just chock full of creamy trip hop goodness
4/5
ABBA
3/5
This album was fine. It's an ABBA album. It's not exactly the pinnacle of disco, but at the same time they wrote some great songs
3/4
Peter Frampton
3/5
Well, I've finally done it. I've finally listened to Frampton Comes Alive, the album that I've been hearing about both for good and ill my whole life.
It was fine, but I'd already heard the best part, where his guitar starts talking about how it feels
3/5
SZA
3/5
I enjoyed a lot of the songs on this album individually. She has a great voice, and the music is good overall. The problem comes when I try to listen to it as an album, and every song starts to blend together because they all sound really similar
3/5
The Style Council
3/5
This is kinda a cool and weird album. I experienced it mainly as background music, but it's done in a neat style that I wouldn't have expected for a mid-80s album. Lots of orchestration that makes the sound feel really full. Still, though, it kinda played through without ever making me pay much attention to it
3/5
Kendrick Lamar
5/5
This is a pretty easy one to review, since I could play it from my personal collection. This album begins a run of rap albums that may be the greatest of all time. While I'd call this album the least of that run, it's an absolute masterpiece that really shows off what Kendrick can do. His ability to be so technically proficient at rapping, assemble great producers for the music, and then weave a series of stories into a coherent narrative is unparalled
5/5
Soft Machine
4/5
I don't even know how to describe this album, but I like it. It definitely feels like it's part of the transition from psychedelic rock to progressive rock. Lots of improvisation and long musical interludes. Really cool music that you can listen to actively or let play in the background
4/5
Animal Collective
4/5
This is a cool album. So much of the rock from this era sounds so stagnant now, but this album still feels fresh. Great mix of psychedelic rock infused with a lot of more modern elements, like sampling. The place where Animal Collective really shines is the vocal harmonies. The vocals are layered so beautifully, and they bring a lot of life to the lyrics that the wouldn't have if sung by a single vocalist
4/5
Dr. John
2/5
Well, this is one of those albums that just feels more and more racist as the years go by. The music is cool overall, though there is often not very much happening. However, this one is going to wind up with 2 stars because I refuse to give more than 50% credit to a minstrel show
2/5. Sorry Dr. John, I can see what you're going for here, but you leaned into this voodoo character a little too hard
The 13th Floor Elevators
3/5
This album is an interesting time capsule for the early days of the psychedelic rock movement. The music itself is okay. It's certainly not the height of psychedelic rock, but it has the elements. The production quality of the album isn't great, and, frankly, neither is the song writing. However, some things are more than the sum of their parts, and I think this album is a worthy inclusion on this list even if it's not all that engrossing to listen to. You've gotta walk before you can run
3/5
Lupe Fiasco
4/5
The production really shines through on this album. It's wild that he had such an incredible team of producers on his debut album. Lyrically, the album is really good as well. It's frankly too bad that this album came out during the 2000s music hellscape. If it had come out during an era where people had taste, it might have done much better
4/5
Cocteau Twins
4/5
I enjoyed this album. I got a different Cocteau Twins album early on in this list, and I've always wondered if I didn't give it a fair shake (I've heard several other people praise that album in the intervening years). This album is great. It very much has an 80s sound, but doesn't sound stereotypical. The vocals are consistently great and they are always doing interesting things. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this was heavily influenced by Kate Bush
4/5
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
4/5
This album is a bit different than I was expecting, mainly because of the soulful ballad You Are that comes toward the end of the album. It's a primitive version of hip-hop to be sure, but it's honestly more mature than I was expecting. Grandmaster Flash was already establishing advanced mixing techniques by this point, and the team of rappers he assembled was second to none at this point. Much of the sampling would not fly today, but it was how things were done at the time
4/5 A true early hip-hop masterpiece
TLC
4/5
It's really hard to separate this album as a work from my memories of how big it was when I was 14. The harmonies are beautiful, and the production on this album is great. I didn't feel bored during any of the songs, and the hits were definitely hits for a reason
4/5
The Monkees
3/5
Why have I been thinking that The Monkees were British this whole time?
This album has a lot of interesting stuff going on in the background, with the Monkees getting creative control over their music for the first time. The result is much slower and folkier than I would have expected. It's fun overall, and the songs go by quickly. It doesn't have the Monkees hits that I would have expected, but it's interesting on its own right
3/5
Kings of Leon
3/5
Much like the last Kings of Leon album I got on here, I don't really get it. This sounds like a mid-00s rock album, but so far as I know it's not the first album to sound like this. It feels like they're doing a Strokes impression. Other times, they're doing an impression of a band I like even less.
3/5 It's fine, but not impressive
Astor Piazzolla
3/5
Well, I can feel confident now that I am not the target audience for tango. I'm not sure if anyone in the tango world was concerned about that, but the issue is now settled. This album is fine, with lots of good musicianship, but I can make heads or tails about what I'm supposed to get from this album. It's just not for me
3/5
The Doors
3/5
I spend a lot of time shitting on Jim Morrison, mainly because he seems like an alcoholic moron pretending to be an intellectual that no one would give a shit about if he didn't look good in leather pants.
What I can say for this album is that it has several Doors songs that I really like. A lot of the other songs kinda drag on without much that I find interesting. This is much more of a blues album than I would have anticipated. The Doors have always been bluesy, but you can really hear the blues influence on the non-hit songs on this album
3/5 The songs that I like, I really like. However, the other songs are mostly dull, which makes the album drag on and feel uneven
Madonna
3/5
I remember this being the album where Madonna completely lost me. It just felt like she was trying to keep up with where popular music was going, but it didn't feel like there was much if any of her in the music. Actually sitting down to listen to the album didn't really change my opinion about that. It's fine, but I also can't justify this album making this list. Ray of Light I could understand, but this album feels far too pedestrian to be one of the 1001 albums I should listen to before my execution
3/5
Brian Wilson
4/5
Well, it's not every day that I get to review someone's mental breakdown like this, but that's certainly what this album was for Brian Wilson. It's a beautiful album, a worthy successor to Pet Sounds if not quite it's equal. The harmonies are everything you would expect from Brian Wilson. I don't particularly like this version of Good Vibrations with the changed lyrics, but it's hard to mess with perfection
4/5
The Doors
4/5
Well, this is kinda a weird one, since this is my second Doors album in less than a week. This album feels much much more coherent in terms of the quality of the songs, whereas the other album was much more uneven. This album feels like less straightforward blues and has more of a psychedelic influence. Jim Morrison is still a completely mediocre lyricist parading as a poet, but the music is still really good. Also, what is the fucking deal with the Doors and having 7 minute long singles. Brevity is the soul of wit, Jim
4/5
Prince
4/5
This album starts out HOT. 1999 is once of Prince's best songs, and then he follows it up with Little Red Corvette and Delirious. The rest of the album isn't quite as good, but it is really consistent. Great 80s synthpop by one of the masters
4/5
AC/DC
4/5
Well, this isn't my favorite ACDC album, since that's Back in Black, but this album still fucking kicks ass. ACDC has such a distinctive sound, and I've never really thought about it before. Incredibly heavy for the time period (or any time period), very cleanly produced, great vocals, lyrics that are as young, dumb, and full of cum as they were when they were first penned
4/5
Ute Lemper
3/5
This album is fine, but it is definitely not for me. There was just nothing for me to grab onto here. On the other hand, her voice is beautiful and she uses it well. The songs are well written, and the lyrics are generally good. I just also want the music to be completely different so that I can enjoy it
3/5
Kings of Leon
2/5
Not only is this the third Kings of Leon album that I've gotten on this list, it's the third one I've gotten in the last fucking month. I don't understand why you're doing this to me, but I beg you to stop. There are so many great musicians out there, and yet all I'm allowed to listen to is Kings of Leon. It makes my tummy sad.
2/5
The Flying Burrito Brothers
4/5
This album was pretty cool overall. I don't have much to say about it, but it's fun to listen to in the background
4/5
Jorge Ben Jor
4/5
I've been really consistently impressed with albums from the global south that take American musical genres and incorporate them with local musical traditions to make something new. This reminded me of how Ali Farka Toure and Songhoy Blues took American blues and mixed it with African Music. American funk and Brazilian music sound so naturally together. The musicianship and production on this album are excellent. This album went by really fast, but I want to hear it again sometime soon
4/5
Dirty Projectors
4/5
I don't really even know how to describe this album, but it's really beautiful. Great vocal harmonies, lots of music that feels a little unusual, but also feels like it makes sense. This is one that I'm going to come back to for repeated listenings
4/5
Fatboy Slim
4/5
Not a lot to say about this album, since I'm not sure how groundbreaking it is as an electronica album, but it was a fun listen. I'm never excited to get a Fatboy Slim album, but I gotta say that he puts the work in to make them worth listening to
4/5
Dr. Dre
4/5
Well, I can definitely say that Dre was never better than when he was with Snoop, and I think the converse is true as well. This album starts out hot, with some of Dre's greatest songs. After that, the songs aren't quite as good, but the beats are still cool, which helps the album feel even overall despite the fact that they lyrics are less fun and interesting Nuthin' But A G Thang
4/5
The Electric Prunes
3/5
I think I've reached the point where I'm ready to say that there is too much psychedelic rock on this list. I've really enjoyed most of it up to this point, but this feels very similar to other things that I've heard. It's not particularly early, having been made in 1967. None if it is bad, it's a fun listen overall, but it really doesn't feel terribly significant
3/5
Christine and the Queens
4/5
It is an ironclad fact of music that French people occasionally make great music. Chris/Christine falls into that pantheon. The vocals are beautiful, and the understated synth music gives it an 80s/early 90s feel while still being recognizably modern. Really fun listen
4/5
Led Zeppelin
4/5
Well, I've now reviewed the first 4 Led Zeppelin albums in addition to Physical Grafitti. I don't know that there's much to say here that I haven't covered elsewhere. It's a great album, big and powerful, but with well-crafted songs and reasonably good lyrics. It's not the best Zeppelin album, or even top 3 for me, but like all of the other albums I've gotten by them, it's its own thing and it's really well done
4/5
Khaled
4/5
Honestly, this is a really great album, with the exception of the cover of Imagine, which sounds nice enough, but I can never get over how vacuous that sound is. Overall, it's a really solid album. Great production. The dueling male/female voices sound great together. The music ranges a lot, but it all fits together well
4/5
Malcolm McLaren
3/5
Well, whatever I was expecting when Malcolm McLaren popped up on my album list today, it wasn't this.
Nevermind, this is exactly what I was expecting. It's a deeply cynical series of half-baked musical ideas that only manage to sound okay because Malcolm surrounded himself with talented artists. I guess I just thought it would be more of a punk album. The hip-hop DJ interstitials are a huge waste of time.
3/5 There were certainly parts of this album that I enjoyed, but this album is also really incoherent and feels like Malcolm got a bunch of artists to do his homework for him
Big Star
4/5
Big Star is a group that I've been looking to check out for a while. I'm actually glad that I came back to this one to listen to it again after yesterday, since I enjoyed the album more on the second listen. I really can't think of much that this album sounds like that came before it. There's lots of stuff that it resembles if you squint a bit, but it feels really fresh and new for 1978. It was certainly influential on a lot of the alt-country bands that would come along in the late 80s and 90s.
4/5 Definitely one of those albums that not a lot of people bought, but that really stuck with the musicians who heard it
George Jones
4/5
I've listened to this album twice, but still don't have anything to say about it. It's a nice country album, and Jones has a great voice. Both the songs and the lyrics are well done, but country really isn't my genre, and it's been a tough week, and I just don't know what else to say
4/5
G. Love & Special Sauce
3/5
I don't know, I can't seem to find enough interest in this album to actually review it. The music is fine, and it's well produced. I don't really care for the vocals, but they aren't horrible. I think my issue is that everything seems to develop slowly, so I just end up getting bored every time I put on a song.
Nevermind, the longer I listen to this, the more I dislike the vocals. Somewhere between crooning and rapping is crapping, and that's what he is doing with his vocals
3/5 This album would be better as an instrumental
Black Sabbath
3/5
This is a good album overall, but it suffers by comparison with the other Black Sabbath albums on this list. The production is much cleaner here, but in a way that doesn't really help their sound. They should be gritty, Black Sabbath is better when it sounds like they're crawling out of the grave. Still, there's very little else to criticize here. The elements that make their other albums great are here as well, it just doesn't feel as inspiring as on the other albums
3/5
Fred Neil
4/5
I'd never heard of this artist before, despite the fact that I knew at least one of the songs. It's a really solid folk album with great production. The songs are very well-crafted, and the lyrics are easy to digest without being simple or pandering
4/5
Sex Pistols
4/5
God, I have so much to say about this album. It's one that's hard to separate from its legacy, especially since the Sex Pistols did very little as a band other than this one album. It's certainly revolutionary as an album, being one of the first punk albums recorded. I don't think this holds up as well as the Ramones, but at the same time, my feelings about the Ramones are far less affected by what they did after their debut that my feelings about the Sex Pistols are.
Still, credit where credit is due: these little fuckers put together a hell of an influential album here
4/5
Bob Marley & The Wailers
4/5
I wasn't super excited to get a Bob Marley album this morning, but I gotta say that this album was a jam overall. There were times when I felt like they could show more restraint with the combination of wah pedals and delay effects, but this album went by in a flash and there wasn't a single song that felt like it wasn't contributing
4/5
Marianne Faithfull
3/5
The music and vocals for this album are good overall. I'm not sure that it would be on this list if the story of the album and how it fits into Faithfull's life weren't so compelling, but it's worth a listen. The production is really good. It feels weirdly influenced by the 70s NYC punk movement, though this is definitely not a punk album
3/5
Morrissey
3/5
This isn't my least favorite Morrissey album by any means, but it sounds a lot like most of his albums, which is to say that it's filled with whiny, self-indulgent, on-the-nose lyrics. Still, his voice sounds good and some of the music is interesting, so there's that, I guess
3/5
Anthrax
4/5
I've listened to this album like three times but not written a review, so let's just say that it's a very enjoyable metal album and move on
4/5
Culture Club
3/5
This album seems a lot less fun once you know that Boy George imprisoned and beat a male escort. If we focus just on the music, it's fun overall but it gets pretty samey fast. Like, really samey
However, the doo-wap influences are fun.
3/5
Dolly Parton
4/5
This album is fucking beautiful and delivers everything that you'd think it could, given the fact that it's three great artists coming together
4/5
ZZ Top
4/5
Fuck, I don't know what to say. It's a ZZ Top album, perhaps their best. You get exactly what you expect from a ZZ Top album, and if that's your jam then you are probably having a great time with this one
4/5
Kate Bush
4/5
I mean, it's a Kate Bush album. Not that all of her albums sound the same, but you know going in that it's going to be pretty and sweet and weird and epic. She does her thing and she's fucking great at it
4/5
Rush
4/5
Well, this isn't my favorite Rush album, but it's still a very good Rush album, which means that it's a good album overall. Really big sound for a three piece, with excellent production. Starts off slow, but I was into it by the end
4/5
Travis
4/5
What is it with the Scottish and making beautiful pop music? The lead singer of Travis has a very similar voice to Thom Yorke of Radiohead, and fortunately that voice is not wasted here. The music is beautiful. Just a great album to start of your morning
4/5
Duke Ellington
4/5
Don't have a lot to say about this because it's from an earlier era of jazz than I normally listen to, so it's harder for me to contextualize, but goddamn this cat could swing on the piano. Great music to put on and just go about your day
4/5
Peter Gabriel
4/5
Peter Gabriel is one of those artists who turned out to be so much different than what I thought he was growing up. I just thought that he made fun pop music with cool videos. His work runs much deeper than that, which is on full display here. This isn't his funnest album, since it's very serious overall, but the music and vocals are excellent. Phil Collins always gets a great sound out of his drums, and it really fits the mood of the album
4/5
Minor Threat
4/5
This is another band that I've heard about for a long time, but never really listened to. This is a really solid and really early hardcore album. It is very short, but that's also in keeping with the hardcore spirit. Overall it sounds good, and the production could be a lot worse. It's a fun album that definitely made its mark quickly in the punk scene of the 80s
4/5
Baaba Maal
4/5
I don't have a lot to say about this album, since I don't have a lot of context for Senegalese music from the early 90s, but the music is all solid and he has a nice voice
4/5
Joni Mitchell
4/5
On thing this list has given me an appreciation for is how varied Joni Mitchell's sound was throughout her career. This album has much more of a jazz/experimental feel. It fits her voice really well, and I found this more interesting that some of the later Joni Mitchell albums that I've listened to
4/5
Scissor Sisters
4/5
This is a fun album from a really shitty period for rock music. Glam rock seems to always deliver on this list
4/5
Van Halen
5/5
Van Halen is so much better than I gave them credit for when I was younger. Part of that is certainly due to the fact that I became aware of them during the Sammy Hagar era. This album is so tight. It fits together perfectly, has a ton of great songs, and it never starts to fee samey. Fuck it, 5 stars
5/5
Sade
3/5
Lost my review, but this album is fine despite not being for me
3/5
10cc
3/5
Well, the second song on this album certainly made me sit up and listen, since it supplies the samples for a J Dilla song off Donuts. The rest of the album was fine. It didn't blow me away, but it was interesting enough
3/5
The Vines
3/5
It's pretty appropriate that I get The Vines confused with like 5 other bands from this early 2000s era, because this sounded like roughly 5 other bands from this same era. It's fine, and there are some songs that I liked on this album, but it made no impression on me whatsoever when it was over
3/5
The Go-Betweens
3/5
Listening to this album for the second time, it continues to make no impression on me. I think that might be because it sounds like a lot of things that came after it, so I want to give this album credit for being ahead of its time. It's also just not really my flavor of alternative rock.
3/5
Everything But The Girl
3/5
This album isn't particularly for me, but the vocals are really beautiful. The music is soothing, but a bit too 80s muzak for my taste
3/5
John Grant
4/5
This album was really interesting, and had a really varied sound. I could have pinned individual songs as being from like 4 different decades. Everything is well-crafted. It's probably not an album that I'm going to come back to because its not particularly my genre, but it's really good for what it is
4/5
Soft Cell
3/5
Well, this really really sounds like an early synthpop album. It might be that I've heard too many of these on this list, but this one really didn't do it for me like some of the other early synthpop bands I've gotten on this list. Something about their energy and singing puts me off a bit
3/5
The Cure
4/5
This was a cool album. It's pretty intense for the Cure, which I think of as being a more sort of lilting, sadboy band (though perhaps I'm mistaken about them). Really solid early goth album
4/5
Arcade Fire
3/5
I don't know. They keep giving me Arcade Fire albums, and I keep finding them competent, but not spectacular. Maybe it's me, maybe it's Arcade Fire, but I must ask as I enter the endgame with this list, to respect my wishes and not make me review any more Arcade Fire albums at this time
3/5
Butthole Surfers
5/5
I could write all day about this band and my relationship with them. This is not the Butthole Surfers album I would have picked if I could put only one on the list, but it is still a fucking amazing album that showcases both how offputting and weird they can be, but also their alchemic ability to make something weird and upsetting be enjoyable to listen to. It starts off hot with Sweat Loaf, a song that occasionally explodes into noise and a guy yelling the word Satan over and over before sliding into gentle melodic guitar parts. That sums it up pretty well. You never know where this bus is going next, and you always have the feeling that it might drive straight off a cliff at any moment, and then every once in a while it opens up into a vista so beautiful that you see it in your bones, and then you look closer and see that said vista is actually just painted on the side of a dilapidated porno theater
5/5
Big Brother & The Holding Company
3/5
Look, I'm just not into Janis Joplin, and no amount of smutty cartoons on the album cover is going to change that for me. It's a fine album, and the music is enjoyable enough, but it's also just hard for me to understand why this album is a big deal
3/5
Marty Robbins
4/5
This album might more properly be called "Songs About My Own Violent Death" but you gotta give credit to Marty Robbins, he writes a hell of a tune. It's crazy that this album was recorded in 8 hours. His voice sounds great, and his ballads are all fun stories (that generally end in his violent death)
4/5
Flamin' Groovies
4/5
This is some fun blues rock. It's interesting that Mick Jagger compared it favorably to Sticky Fingers. I don't know that I would go that far, but it was a good time listening to it this morning
4/5
Hüsker Dü
4/5
When I got this album, I was pretty excited to hear another Husker Du album, since I've really enjoyed Zen Arcade. Boy, this was not what I was expecting based on their previous work. This album definitely showcases the evolution in their sound and songwriting. They veered away hardcore punk and made an album that sounds a lot like the post-grunge alternative movement. Definitely an influential album that was well ahead of its time
4/5
The Thrills
3/5
This band sounds like the Flaming Lips if they were sad all the time
3/5
Ravi Shankar
3/5
This album was good overall, and certainly was exactly what I was expecting out of a Ravi Shankar album, but I felt a little uninspired anyway. I think that the intro part where he's talking about and showing examples of the structure of Indian music for a long time kinda took the wind out of my sales
3/5
Ryan Adams
3/5
Wow, there really are two Ryan Adams albums on this list. Luckily, everything I said about the previous Ryan Adams album is basically true about this one. It's competent, but doesn't feel original, nor does it feel significant. But, hey, you gotta put some albums from the early 2000s on here, so why not this one?
3/5
Ray Charles
4/5
This album is cool, some good Ray Charles. It doesn't have any of my favorite songs on it, but it's a solid R&B album
4/5
Sheryl Crow
4/5
Okay, I'll admit that I rolled my eyes a little when I saw this album on the list, but this album holds up so much better than I thought it would. There's a variety of genres mixed in here while still staying true to its blues roots. The music is fun and takes you through a bunch of moods. Her voice sounds great.
4/5 This is a much better album than I remember it being. I think my perception of Sheryl Crow might have been colored by the fact that she tends to date douchebags like Eric Clapton and Lance Armstrong (no shade on you, Owen Wilson, you seem like a charming guy)
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
5/5
One of the greatest jazz albums released in the greatest year for jazz. This is one I've enjoyed for a long time, and listening to it again today, it still retains its magic. The cool jazz vibe mixed with unusual time signatures is a thing to behold in the hands of great jazz musicians
5/5
Abdullah Ibrahim
4/5
This was a cool jazz album. More traditional than I was expecting, given that the artist is South African, but it was a very pleasant listen
4/5
Giant Sand
3/5
I don't really know what to think about this album. It feels like it never starts, but I'm on the 11th song already. Luckily that means I only have (looks at track list) THERE'S 19 SONGS LEFT ON THIS FUCKING ALBUM? WHO HAS THE TIME FOR THIS SHIT?
3/5 The music isn't bad, but it's long and boring all the same
Laibach
4/5
Yo, I don't even know what this is, but I gotta say that it has a kind of charm to it. It helps that I tend to enjoy industrial music, and this album seems like it was influential in the advancement of the genre into the 90s. I don't love the weird military and nationalism stuff, but that was also common in industrial music in the 80s, and it all seems pretty tongue in cheek.
4/5 It's not the most pleasant listening experience, but it's certainly interesting
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3/5
Okay, I'm pretty sure that there's more Nick Cave albums on this list than Radiohead albums. While the construction of such a list is a matter of opinion, and all earnest assertions are valid, this is also objectively wrong because of my feelings.
So anyway, like all of the other Nick Cave albums, this one is fine, but I'm not coming back to it
3/5
Gang Of Four
4/5
I discovered this album a few years ago, and I've listened to it a ton since then. This band is everything that RHCP could have been, and they did it a generation earlier. The album is a bit uneven, as the first half is fucking amazing, while the second half just feels like it's kinda missing something. It's not bad by any means, just not the complete murderer's row of bangers that make up the first 6 or songs.
4/5
Leftfield
4/5
This is just a really fun techno album. It's solid the whole way through without getting boring. Just the right amount of beeps and boops
4/5
Jazmine Sullivan
4/5
This album is really interesting as a spiritual successor to The Miseducation of Lauren Hill. The album feels very personal and genuine, and the confessional-style spoken pieces between the songs really add something, which I think is something I've only ever said before with Lauren Hill's album. The music is great, and it really seems like it gets better as the album goes on and you start to get more of a feel for her personality and her history in relationships
4/5
The Associates
3/5
I don't really know what to think about this album, but I know that it really didn't interest me. Generally, I'm a big fan of early post-punk, especially the synthesizer variety. This just didn't speak to me, through, and I don't care enough to figure out why
3/5
Bill Callahan
4/5
This is honestly just a super pleasant album that has a sort of timeless quality to it. You could have told me that this was made in the 70s, and I wouldn't doubt it at all. His voice is a beautiful baritone that is very soothing when set to the music. He doesn't have the greatest vocal range, but he's not trying to do to much, so it works really well
4/5
John Cale
4/5
This album was cool. I don't know what I was expecting from a John Cale album, but it was different than I thought. Very relaxed
4/5
Pere Ubu
4/5
I liked this one better than Dub Housing. This one just feels a bit more coherent
4/5
M.I.A.
4/5
I think I liked the other album of MIAs that I got on this list better, but her debut is really solid. Just fun dance music with some hip-hop
4/5
The Triffids
4/5
I was not particularly interested in sad-boy, early 80s synthy ballads, but these fuckers won me over. The music is good throughout. The lyrics can be a bit self-indultent at times, but it works overall. Just light, fun, dark, depressing music for the family
4/5
Calexico
4/5
Having listened to this album, I'm really not sure how to describe it. There's a bunch of different moods and styles here. It's pretty relaxed overall, but it keeps surprising you with how it changes from song to song. The instrumentals are a nice touch
4/5
Talvin Singh
4/5
What a fucking crazy album, especially for 1998. You wouldn't think that a full album of electronica mixed with tabla drums would be meaningful, but this album has so much depth to it, especially for being largely instrumental. The album is consistently high BPM, but it never feels exhausting. Instead, it feels well-crafted and experimental. Really cool album that still feels relevant, even if the brand of electronica on it is a bit dated now
4/5
The Mothers Of Invention
4/5
I thought Frank Zappa was cool when I was younger, but I always thought I would grow in my appreciation for him, and that hasn't really happened. I still like him, but I like him the same amount and in the same way that I liked him when I was younger.
This album is fine, and there are lots of cool things about it, but it's also hard to say that I like it. However, I like it a hell of a lot more than Capt Beefhart, which I find very comparable to this.
4/5, but I have no idea why
Os Mutantes
4/5
This album was an interesting mix of psychedelia and more traditional Brazilian music. I wish the production was a bit better, but it's a fun listen overall
4/5
Throbbing Gristle
3/5
Well, this is about what I thought it would be. I like this early noise/industrial stuff, though the extent to which these groups liked to be shocking for their own sake rather than to achieve any goal really seems juvenile in the modern era. Like, they certainly did shock me by showing a little girl's panties on the cover of this album, but me being shocked achieved nothing, and I would argue that it did real harm to that girl.
It all distracts from the music, which I would say is genuinely interesting (not good particularly, but interesting).
3/5 Really close to 4, but I was too shocked by their edginess to go quite that far
Bad Brains
4/5
Man, I love a good hardcore punk album. Shit is just in and out so quickly. It saves me so much time in a day. I've been curious about Bad Brains for a while. I think this album showcases their range and skill as a band well, but I could also see how this would be a band that could only truly be experienced live because what they do can't be replicated in a studio. Regardless, this band has a really cool sound that seems to have influenced a lot of other bands
4/5
Cowboy Junkies
2/5
This is a weird album, and I have no idea why it's on this list. The music is all fine, and her voice is really nice and she uses it very effectively. However, there are just too many covers of great, well-known songs that are a huge step back from the original. This album just makes me want to listen to Hank Williams and Velvet Underground so I can hear the songs that I like sound good rather than like muzak
2/5 There are nice elements, but this album was irritating overall
Derek & The Dominos
3/5
Really? A fucking double album from Eric Clapton?
Setting my contempt for the man aside, this album is some good Eric Clapton. This album suffers from the same problem that most double albums suffer from, though, which is that it would be significantly better if it were a single album with all of the repetitive filler removed
3/5 Even when Eric Clapton is good, he's still annoying
Weather Report
4/5
Weather Report has never been my brand of jazz. It just feels too clean and smooth somehow. However, the talent and chemistry of the musicians behind the group is undeniable. This album is a pleasant listen and it has a lot of great elements, even if it's never going to be what I turn to when I want to hear some jazz
4/5
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3/5
This album just kinda played in the background, and I never really thought about it. I barely noticed it was over. Pleasant overall, but like a lot of material from so-called super groups, it just didn't hit the sweet spot for me.
3/5
Jungle Brothers
4/5
This is a really underrated album from the golden age of sampling. Lots of little bits of other songs mixed in to make these tracks. The rapping straddles the gap between old school hip-hop and the more modern style that started to dominate in the 90s. The messaging is very positive as well
4/5
The Verve
4/5
I've become quite reasonably wary when a Britpop album shows up on this list, since that has been one of the main avenues the author of the list used to shovel garbage in my direction (though I have benefited immensely from his musical selections in other sub-genres). This album was a very pleasant surprise. I liked it better than the previous Verve album. It sounds great for a mid-90s album, both of it's time and yet very much its own thing. The song-writing and the production come together really well. You could have told me that this album came out 10 years after it did, and I still would have been impressed with it
4/5
Dusty Springfield
4/5
This is kinda a tough album to review. Her voice sounds amazing, and the album is reasonably well-produced. I like it overall. However, she's not doing original songs, and none of the songs on here are what I would consider to be a definitive version. Like, You Don't Own Me was released by Leslie Gore a year before this, and Springfield's version adds nothing to it. Each song is good, but I'm always left wanting to hear the better versions of these.
4/5 I can't fault her for not doing the best versions of these songs, but it would have been better with fewer songs that had been recently popular by other artists
The xx
4/5
I'd heard of this group, but wasn't really familiar with their music before this. I like it a lot. The male and female voices sound great together, and they harmonize really well. The music tends to be a bit ambient, which makes for a pretty cool pop album
4/5
Jimi Hendrix
4/5
This album starts out really hot, cools down for a while, and then finishes at a torrid pace, and it fucking works. One of the things I was struck by while listening to this album is that Jimi had a pretty good voice, which he rarely gets credit for. I don't think I liked this album as much as Are You Experienced?, but it is still a stellar Hendrix album with some of his best songs
4/5
Linkin Park
4/5
This is an interesting album. I'd heard almost every song on it, but had never listened to them together. Overall, it's really solid. I'll never be a big fan of nu metal, since it is objectively the worst subgenre to ever become popular, but the music is good overall, the rapping is surprisingly good, and the whinyness of the lyrics is tolerable. This is one of those albums that I feel like I had to go on a long musical journey to really appreciate, since I rejected anything related to this genre when it was popular, so perhaps the real hero here is me
4/5
Nightmares On Wax
4/5
This album was a fun listen. I'm not sure how innovative it was at the time, and it certainly sounds dated now, but I liked it overall as an album to put on and just listen to in the background while I work
4/5
Dexys Midnight Runners
4/5
This is one of those bands that I never would have imagined being as good as they are before listening to their catalogue more deeply. Some bands are one hit wonders because they only had one great song in them, and some are one hit wonders because they get unlucky. I think of DMR as the latter type of band. This album is great, and so are the other two albums I've gotten on this list. Now, setting aside the fact that this band has more records on this list than John Coltrane, which is a whole other issue, this band fucking kicks ass. The music feels so full of sound, but it's all coherent. The singer's voice is great. The fact that Come On Eileen is more than halfway through this album, and I never felt like I was waiting for it while I listened to the songs before it says a lot. This band deserved better than we gave them as a global musical audience
4/5
4/5
No one sounded quite like these old country vocalists. There's just something about the music that just sets off their voice in the mix. Loretta Lynn sounds stellar on this album. I wish the production was just a bit better, but even so she sounds great. The songs are well-crafted too. I really wish modern country would ape this style a little more, so that it would sound less shitty and shallow
4/5 Keep a place in heaven warm for us, Loretta. And make sure that Fred Durst isn't allowed in when he dies
The Bees
4/5
This album is both cool and weird. The music is really variable, and the vocals, particularly the harmonies, make it work well
4/5
The Blue Nile
4/5
One of the facts that has come through loud and clear on this list is that Scottish music is awesome. This album sounds great and has so much cool music in it. I had to keep reminding myself that this is not a Bowie album because the guy's voice sounds just like Bowie on several songs. Truly a hidden gem
4/5
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
5/5
Honestly, the worst thing about this album is that the cover looks like the Mt Rushmore of pallid dorks. The music is fucking awesome, and Buddy Holly was a big swinging dick despite looking like he got kicked out of the chess club for being uncool. It's just wall to wall bangers, and the real tragedy is that Buddy Holly wasn't able to record this stuff just a bit later after production standards had increase. The album has strong country roots, but it doesn't feel like a country album, it feels completely fresh relative to almost everything I've heard from this time
5/5
Girls Against Boys
4/5
I don't have a huge amount to say about this album, but I've listened to it twice now, and it fucking kicks ass, so what else do you really need to know
4/5
Beatles
4/5
Poor, poor Beatles. You fell into the same trap that so many other bands have found themselves in. You though, "We've got enough material for two albums, so let's just record a double album!" Unfortunately, just like nearly every other band that tried it, you did not have enough material for two good albums, at least according to the standard you set for yourselves. If you took out the filler, this album would be fucking amazing, certainly in competition for the best Beatles album. Instead, I wouldn't put it in the top 5, despite having some of my favorite Beatles songs.
4/5 What hath man wrought?
John Lennon
3/5
Oh fuck you, you're going to give me The White Album and then Imagine back to back? I'm already having a shitty week. I don't deserve to be subjected to the most self-indulgent works of the Beatles. John Lennon needed to be with Paul McCartney to write a great song, but the converse was not true. This whole album just feels uninspired. It's hard to give it too bad a score, but, like, come on John Lennon
3/5
Peter Gabriel
4/5
Peter Gabriel's solo albums all seem to be really good, and this one in particular, absolutely fucks. It has most of the pop songs that he is known for, but the hole album is good. The fact that he doesn't get around to In Your Eyes until the last song is a testament to how good the whole album is
4/5
Rufus Wainwright
4/5
Much like the last Rufus Wainwright album I got on here, this album isn't particularly for me, but you really have to give him credit for his spectacular voice. It's just sublime. On the other hand, I've never seen another wainwright with so little skill at repairing wagon wheels. Truly an embarrassment to the skill of his forefathers
4/5
Fever Ray
4/5
This album was really cool. Very relaxed overall, but there's always a lot happening. Not a huge amount for me to say, but I've reviewed over 1000 albums at this point, so I don't have much to say in general
4/5
Holger Czukay
3/5
This shit is weird. To be fair, though, everything coming out of Germany in the 60s and 70s was weird as fuck. You can definitely hear some Can in this album, especially in the first song. This album doesn't live up to their standard, but it's still a cool listen.
3/5
Burning Spear
3/5
This album is cool, but I'm also not very good at distinguishing between different reggae albums in terms of their influence on the genre. That makes it tough for me to say much about it, but it's an enjoyable listen overall
3/5
Stan Getz
4/5
I do love the work of Stan Getz, and Byrd is a perfect pairing for his style. Getz's sax is so fluid and elegant throughout. This is a beautiful jazz album that flew by too fast while I was listening to it
4/5
The KLF
4/5
I watched a mini-documentary on this band that gave a lot of context for this album and how the band felt about it. It was really interesting, though I'm not sure if it helps my appreciation of the album. Anyway, this is some bangin ass 90s dance music, and every song is solid. It starts to sound a little samey after a while, but then again so does most dance music
4/5
Metallica
4/5
I really wasn't looking forward to this album, since I've always thought about this album as the point when Metallica stopped making good music and started making music that would make them money. Upon reflection, I think this album is better than that. It sounds good overall. The lyrics are kinda stupid, but I never really came to Metallica albums to hear their thoughts. Overall, this album doesn't reach the heights that Master of Puppets did, but it doesn't sound generic either. They moved in a different direction here, but I think that some of the albums that came after this were coloring my perception of this album
4/5
Rod Stewart
4/5
If there is one artist that this list has changed my opinion, it's Rod Stewart. I always thought he was this kind of nothing pop star. Every album I've heard of his on this list shows a different side of him, but it's astonished me how varied and deep his creative output was. This album is closer to what I always thought Rod Stewart was before I listened to his albums, but it's still a really cool album that features his voice perfectly. All the songs are good on here, and the album goes by really fast
4/5
The White Stripes
4/5
I think this is my favorite White Stripes album that I've heard so far. I was never all that into this bad when they were popular, but this album works for me. I love how heavy the distortion is on the guitar. Also, Jack White is a good songwriter. Fine, I guess I like the White Stripes
4/5
Q-Tip
4/5
Man, if you want me to get hyped up about an album, have the artist hold up an MPC on the cover. This is a solid Q-tip album. It's not at the level of the Tribe albums, but it's still really solid all the way through. Not a huge amount to say about it, the samples are really mellow
4/5
Stereo MC's
3/5
This album is fun at first, but it gets sorta samey after a while. I think just a little more variation in the music would have gone a long way here
3/5
Taylor Swift
4/5
I thought this album was really solid overall. I don't particularly want to like Taylor Swift, but I can't deny that she can write a hell of a song. I liked 1989 better, but that was also designed to be a funner album, so I'm once again stuck here liking Taylor Swift
4/5
Ms. Dynamite
4/5
Man, a British rap album from the early 2000s is a recipe for disaster if I've ever seen one. The dude who made this list has decent taste in American rappers, but has a real deaf ear for his side of the pond. A broken clock is right twice a day, though, and this dude occasionally stumbles upon a gem. This album sounds great the whole way through. She's really versatile as an artist because she can rap and sing without sounding stilted doing either
4/5 Nice work, England
Willie Nelson
4/5
I think I would have hated a cover album of pop songs if it were put out by most artists. However, Willie Nelson is not most artists, and his fucking voice makes this shit work so well that I never question it while listening. Just exquisite
4/5
Stephen Stills
4/5
This is a really cool album that shows what Still brought to CSNY. He creates a very distinctive sound that is present across the CSNY albums and is present in its unfiltered form here. Just a really solid album with great music and lyrics all the way through
4/5
Rocket From The Crypt
3/5
I didn't really get this album. It seemed fun at first, but then it just kept going, and I was left wondering why it needed to be on this list
3/5
The Velvet Underground
5/5
Fuck this is such a good album. I listen to it pretty often as I have for years, but it never gets old. There's a really perfect balance here to the chaos of VU's style and the restraint of the production that negatively impacted some of their later albums. Nico was someone that I had to learn to like, but I couldn't see this album without her now.
5/5 One of the most important albums of last century, and it fucking still kicks ass
Sly & The Family Stone
4/5
This is a fucking fun album. I don't have a huge amount to say about it, but Sly and the Family Stone brought some excellent early funk to the 70s scene
4/5
The United States Of America
4/5
I legit thought that this was the Presidents of the United States of America for a hot second, and I went through a weird mix of excitement and sadness as I prepared myself to critically listen to songs like Lump and Peaches. This is a different band from that.
My old man confusion set aside, this is a really cool experimental album. The music is really variable, but comes together really well with the vocals. Excellent harmonies in places. It's rare to hear an experimental album that is this pleasant to listen to. Also, if I didn't know when this album was made, I'm not sure I would have been able to guess within a decade, apart from some of the effects that they use that are pretty restricted to the late 60s/early 70s
4/5
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
4/5
This was a really cool album that seemed like it was way ahead of its time. I could see how folks see this as an early or proto-punk album, though I don't really see it that way, especially when you compare it to what the Stooges were doing. Judged on it's own merits, though, it's a really solid rock album that took a lot of chances and executed them well
4/5
Britney Spears
2/5
You know, usually I get one of these pop albums and I'm not too excited about it, but it ends up being much better than I thought it would be. Not so with this album. The hit songs are still good, but everything else feels super generic. Even the production of this album feels uninspired. In retrospect, I feel justified in not giving a crap about this album in 1999
2/5
The Zutons
3/5
This was a fun album. I'm not sure how significant it is, but it's pleasant dad rock for us dads that refuse to admit we're not cool and while away our days telling everyone how great Steeley Dan is
3/5
Buzzcocks
4/5
This is a solid-ass Buzzcocks album. There aren't too many of my favorite songs of theirs on here, but it's still the great smutty pop-punk that we've come to know from the Buzzcocks. It also shows that they weren't afraid to experiment a bit, as with the long instrumental section of the last track
4/5
Duran Duran
4/5
This is just a fun album, and it's earlier in the 80s than I always thought of Duran Duran being. It's easy to see why this album was such a success. It's such a perfect blend of synth pop and rock, and there's all these other fun elements that come together to make it work so well. If only pop music could always have been this good
4/5
The Residents
3/5
Well, it's certainly as weird as advertised. I didn't hate it, but I tend to find the experimental stuff more charming than this. This grates on me the same way that Captain Beefheart does. It's not bad, it's just not for me
3/5
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
4/5
I'm never excited to get an Elvis Costello album on this list, but then I always enjoy the albums I get from him. I don't know why I'm never excited to hear him, but he crafts a hell of a song, and I really like this era from him
4/5
Antony and the Johnsons
4/5
Today I learned about the chamber pop subgenre. I'm not sure that it's ever going to be one of my favorites, but I like the level of care that goes into the works of this genre, and this album is no exception. The music is beautiful the whole way through, and produced with a lot of attention to detail. Not one I'm probably going to come back to, but still very much worth listening to
4/5
Underworld
4/5
This is a super cool album, especially for the period in which it was made. They manage to bring a lot of the genres that were popular in EDM at the time together and make something that flows seamlessly. It's not easy to keep my attention all the way to the end of an album like this, but this one really is good to the last drop
4/5
Fairport Convention
3/5
This album is pleasant to listen to, but it's the older style of folk that I don't particularly care for. Her voice is nice, and I think they made some interesting decisions with their mix of older English folk songs and unreleased Bob Dylan songs. It's just ultimately not for me, and it was hard to get myself to listen to enough of it to rate it
3/5
Adele
3/5
Fuck, man, how is this album already 10 years old? Setting my suddenly impending mortality aside, I found this album kinda disappointing. Her voice sounds great, and the production on the album is good overall, but the songs really start to sound samey pretty fast. I think a little more variety in the songs would have gone a long way here. It's not bad overall, but it was hard to stay interested while the album went along
3/5
Tori Amos
4/5
This album really has a timeless quality about it. It could have been made in the last 10 years, and I wouldn't have thought it out of place. A lot of her lyrical subject matter feels more modern than 1992 as well. Just a really beautiful album that balances the soft moments and the intense ones really well.
4/5
Django Django
4/5
This album sounds good overall, though it also comes across as very heavily inspired by Animal Collective as well. Setting that aside, it's a really well-made album. The harmonies are excellent, and the music supports the vocals really well. The production brings everything together into an album that's easy to listen to without being forgetable
4/5
Kanye West
4/5
God fucking damn it, Kanye.
All you had to do was not become a nazi.
This album is another example of his magical touch as a producer. Kanye the producer is good enough that he makes Kanye the rapper seem passable. This album has tons of variation in the sound, but it always hits hard. However, it's hard to sit here and think of ways to praise this album because Kanye decided to go around telling everyone how much he loves Hitler. Honestly, fuck this dude. Great musician, but I wouldn't ever want to be seen buying one of his albums
4/5. Fucker.
Common
4/5
It's interesting getting this album directly after Yeezus by Kanye. I said it before, but I'll say it again: fuck Kanye for being a nazi. He made so much great music, this album included, but how it's hard to think about what he was doing on this album without thinking about what he would become.
That said, this album is really solid. It's a great example of the soul sample flipping that Kanye was doing in the early 00s, and it holds up. The addition of Dilla to this album changes the way it feels, and it's another reminder of what we lost when he died, less than a year after this album came out
Common is really solid as a rapper on this album, better than I remember him being, and he really takes advantage of having a well-produced album
4/5
Gotan Project
3/5
I've learned that I generally like French music when it pops up on this list. This album, however, I really don't know what to make of. It doesn't sound particularly inventive from a musical standpoint, since it feels more like they are trying to imitate an earlier style of popular french music. Mixing that with electronica is interesting, I suppose, but it starts to sound very samey after a while. It's pleasant enough, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get out of it
3/5
Doves
4/5
This album is a really cool listen, though I also had trouble listening to it actively. Taking it in a bit more passively, though, I found it really cool. The music is great. It all fits together, but with plenty of variation so it never gets boring. Lots of big, sprawling instrumentation that the vocals sit on top of
4/5
Traffic
4/5
It's too bad that the other Traffic album on this list was one of the early albums that I got, while this one is among the last. I feel like I like this album better than the John Barleycorn album, but it would be better if I could compare them more directly in my head. Regardless, this album is cool overall. It feels like part of that transition from the 60s to the 70s in rock and roll. This album also does a lot to showcase Steve Winwood's songwriting ability
4/5
Kanye West
4/5
I got Yeezus last week, so I'm going to skip over ranting about how Kanye being a nazi makes it really hard to evaluate his work. This album definitely feels a bit dated now, as a lot of early 2000s stuff does, I will also say that I prefer his more synthesize-heavy work that came after this. However, as a debut album for a rapper/producer, this is really good and deserves it's iconic position in hip-hop history. Kanye got better from here, and then he got a bit worse, and then he got a lot worse. It's best just to enjoy the music and not think about it too much
4/5
The Hives
3/5
I really like the first song on this album. After that, the album kept playing, and I would look up occasionally and be surprised that the track had changed because most of the songs on this album sound roughly the same. The early 2000s is a bit over-represented on this list, and this album is yet another example. It's not bad, but it doesn't belong here either
3/5
LL Cool J
4/5
Well, this is certainly an interesting album, even though I can't say that I find it all that engrossing. LL Cool J very much feels like he's caught between hip-hop's past and future here. At times he shows the intensity of gangsta rap, but the lyrical style often sounds more like the 80s than the 90s. The sampling is using a lot of well-known songs, much like groups like Tribe and De La Soul were using at the time.
It's a weird little time capsule that doesn't feel connected to any particular movement in hip-hop, but rather straddles several of them. I don't think I'll ever listen to this album again, but I have to admit that my initial skepticism that this doesn't belong on this list was unwarranted. It feels like it represents a true inflection point for hip-hop
4/5
Method Man
4/5
I think this album tends to get overshadowed by some of the other albums from the first round of Wu-Tang solo releases. I don't like it as much as Only 4 Cuban Linx or Liquid Swords, but at the same time it's a hell of an album. RZA's unbelievable string of hits continues with this album, and Method Man always sounds great. The tragic thing is that some of the tracks for this album were lost in RZA's basement flood, but despite that, this album is still a stellar addition to the Wu-Tang pantheon
4/5
The Police
3/5
This album is pretty fun, though I like Synchronicity better than this, despite the fact that I wasn't terribly charitable in my review of that album. It's cool getting to see how reggae and other music brought to the British Isles by immigrants influenced the rock that was coming out of the punk scene. I always thought that the Police got into reggae later, but it seems like it was a part of their sound from early on.
3/5 This album is fun overall, but The Police have a way of putting songs that are a chore to listen to on their albums that I don't understand.
Barry Adamson
4/5
Albums like this are why I love this fucking list. It's the last week of new albums for me, and after all this time I still get albums I've never heard of by artists I've never heard of, that I instantly love. This album is just so cool. Also, Atticus Ross (Trent Reznor collaborator) worked on the first 6 songs on this album.
It just has this seamless blending of modern sounds and classic instrumentation. Like one minute it's trip-hop, then suddenly it's Bitches Brew, but there's nothing startling about the transition between the two. Also, this album has the perfect amount of vibraphone on it, which is to say a shitload. It slows down a bit in the back half of the album, but by that point they've already got my money, so there's no point in complaining
4/5
The Divine Comedy
3/5
I think this is my last album on this list. I started doing this in January of 2021, and it is not March of 2025. It feels weirdly anticlimactic listening to this album just the same way I have 1088 other albums. I can't say that this album grabbed me the way some of the albums on this list have. It's fine, it's just not for me (a sentence I've written a few hundred times while reviewing albums for this list)
3/5
Arcade Fire
3/5
Well, this is a bit of an anticlimax for my last album on this list. I've never found Arcade Fire all that inspiring, and it was kind of a let down to go out on an album that I will almost certainly think is okay and not much more.
Anyway, onto my review. This album is okay and not much more. It's fun at times, but I've always found this group to be kinda bland. I'd say more, but I don't really want to, and I'm finally done with this list after more than 4 years of listening to an album every week day. I found lots of albums that I will cherish forever, and I also found out that I don't really care much for Arcade Fire. I looked back at my previous reviews for this band, and found my review for Neon Bible:
"I don't know. They keep giving me Arcade Fire albums, and I keep finding them competent, but not spectacular. Maybe it's me, maybe it's Arcade Fire, but I must ask as I enter the endgame with this list, to respect my wishes and not make me review any more Arcade Fire albums at this time"
This makes it kinda funny that I ended with this band, although it would have been a lot more cosmically funny to give me another Randy Newman album at the end of all this, given the terrible things I said about him in my previous review
3/5 or whatever, who cares?