Enjoyable, occasionally prescient ramble through the high desert. Ruminative as a sunrise over Monument Valley.
Man, just wall to wall excellence.
I imagine this probably sounds great if you’re out of your gourd on molly. But that’s not really my thing, so this isn’t really my thing.
Headbanging in places, surprisingly catchy in others. Mostly it just dirged out. Look, I get why it’s here, and you can hear the seeds of whole genres decades before they became fully fledged... but it’s a bit of a drag to actually listen to.
Smooth like butter, rolls from one track to the next seemingly never breaking its stride. This constant flow, whilst pleasant listening, meant I couldn’t get my teeth into the constant so smoothly did it slip on by.
Sure, every song sounds like either a faster or slower version of the last, but OH! Little Richard rocks harder than Black Sabbath.
This album puts me in mind of a party where you only know one person and you suspect it might be a bad party, but the host actually turns out to be really charismatic, and the other guests are all pretty interesting actually, and the conversation flows easily and you come away thinking what a great night you had, and you basically never talk to anyone you met at that party ever again, but you treasure the memory of that party. An extra half star (rounded up) for Rock Lobster.
Man they really took themselves serious back in the day huh? 8 songs in 54 minutes attests as much. There’s a certain churning pleasure to be found here, and when it gets chunky it gets good. But I don’t know if long and repetitive necessarily equals masterful. And this from a man who actually likes Tool.
I’m giving it 3 stars because I gave Black Sabbath the same and I like this better. From henceforth let’s imagine I gave Black Sabbath 2 stars, okay?
Missed this album on Monday, and I know I love it.
Yes I dug it. Have not really listened too much to it before and would certainly require more listens to mine its full depths, but there’s some early punk in there, right? Bags of tonal variety. I enjoyed it.
It turns out I’d never listened to a Queen album before, having assumed they were nothing but a greatest hits band with some great hits, but this really thrilled me. Freddie’s voice is always a charm. It’s just as mental and hops hither and yon like a greatest hits album, but it’s also tighter, less polished and frankly more fun. Big digs.
Flows seamlessly. You can hear what a consummate entertainer your man was. I was of course privileged enough to see him live, supporting the Chilli Peppers(!) And oh! Could he get a crowd on up.
This really rolls by, and I feel bad giving it the same grade as Black Sabbath, but hopefully by now we’re all aware I made an error in that grade that I'm paying for now.
About as smart as you’d expect from a band called Iron Maiden with a singer called Bruce. And yet, there’s room in this world for big dumb fun, and a band with a zombie mascot. I enjoyed it.
Maybe I just don’t like country music as much as I aspire to. This lost me some of the way through. Odd moments of transcendence and beauty for sure, but mostly faded into the background because I’m incapable of enjoying listening to old craggy men tell gorgeous tales in cracked voices over their melancholy guitars.
Smooth grooves and vibes for days. What does that mean? I don’t know, but I really dug this. It sounds like people having a great time together, and I am here for that.
Songs as delicate as a gossamer spider’s web. But wait, spider silk is tougher than kevlar and stronger than steel. And so we come to the artless metaphor of my review. Sufjan’s finely crafted songs appear whispy and delicate, ephemeral things - but a closer listen reveals the rock solid songcraft, astonishing lyrics, transcendent beauty and strength.
Confession time: I've never knowingly listened to a full album by Nick Cave with or without his Bad Seeds. Why is that? Have I been put off by the fanatical devotion him and his Seeds seem to elicit? Maybe. Either way I was wrong and stupid not to.
Last listened on Friday. Don’t remember a great deal from it other than a sense of Great Fun. The 70s really was a mental time for music eh? Seems like you could do anything. And that includes giving albums very bad titles.
Haven’t really listened to it too much because I WAS IN HOSPITAL, GUYS. But what I have it sounds much as I expected. There was a period post-Nirvana and pre-nu-metal where it seems like everything sounded like this. Everything built on grooves and wailing vocals and so much bass. And it’s not really my thing.
I’m kind of annoyed to have listened to this in this context. I MUST have listened to this album before I died? Why?! It’s... fine. Actually, to be more specific, it’s completely unremarkable. I can’t remember a single song. Is this really the standard for albums I MUST listen to before I die? An album I LITERALLY do not remember a detail of the following day?
More perfectly adequate mush for the white man mill.
What is music for? What is art for? Part of what it’s for is creating little windows into other worlds, and letting others peer into those worlds. And when it works, we peer into marvellous, fully constructed worlds that adhere to their own internal logic - that build something from nothing. That transmit the world you see directly into my head. Point being, this album creates such a world better than most any album I’ve heard in a long time. A totally internally consistent world of heroic boozehounds and defeated champions, spinning yarns and raising glasses. I was transported.
This somehow had more going on through its repetitive beats and samples than LCD Soundsystem (my only other real point of reference for this; it’s not my thing, really). I couldn’t tell you why - it felt a little more handcrafted perhaps? A little more longing darkness? But still, this kind of fare does nothing much for me. Giving it 2 because I think that’s what I gave LCD Soundsystem and I preferred this.
Excited to listen to this, my youth being largely defined by listening to emo - Pavement and Far - were bands I read about in magazines as the forefathers of my beloved genre. And yeah, for sure, I get that here in spades - the scream-singing, the speak-singing, the sloppy then tight rhythms, the gnomic titles (Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era); the pretty on the nose, but also kind of fun lyrics (“I’m trying! I’m trying!”). This is the seed that bore my youth. And as such, the recipe wasn’t quite as honed, and had a lot of raw edges. I admire this for what it brought forth, but I don’t know if I’d listen again, too too much.
I found this album pretty pleasant and inoffensive. There may be questions as to whether that is enough to qualify it for a list such as x amount of albums you must listen to before you die. I certainly could have died blissfully ignorant of this album’s existence and I don’t think my life would have been materially impacted. But still. It was too pleasant for me to be too angry with it.
Come on. How many more albums 70s lads from Birmingham with long hair and a love for overblown organ solos must we listen to before we get some albums by some other genre of musician up in this junket?
Confession time: I’ve never listened to a Bob Dylan album before. Couldn’t tell you why. He seemed, I suppose, too much of a Goliath to tackle; I’d missed my window, surely - where would I start? But here we are. My window opened, and I leapt through. I listened to this album three times yesterday, and will surely have to listen more, and more intimately to unravel all the rambling tales and hidden crooked melodies, and its deceptively simple-not-easy instrumentation. I will always feel like I’m not getting something when it comes to Dylan, and like I’m playing catch up, such is the weight of mythology that comes with such an artist. But I’m pleased to have finally broken the seal.
I think it’s easy to see why this would be popular, as it gives off a confident air and sounds daring and innovative, but upon closer inspection it’s all a veneer. Some fun beats and some squiggly bass make for appealing background music, but nothing leaps forwards and demands further unpicking. It all ends up a morass of loose ideas thrown together without any shape or discernible identity. So: we find behind that veneer of glossy novelty, a gelatinous mass claiming to be the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz. Too harsh? I did enjoy it as background music.
Spare, waifish, and sheer as a silk stocking. This is music to evoke an atmosphere; a blurred photograph; the hazy memory of a holiday past; a long-forgotten contact whose number is still in your phone. I suppose from that list you might ascertain that this speaks to me of the ephemeral nature of remembrance, how it drifts and reshapes itself, ultimately leaving behind a residue of the actual experience. But also, it’s probably not that deep.
Man, them boys just sound like they’re having the time of their lives. Infectious joy and contagious enthusiasm, with gleefully rough edges. I noticed here that despite the Beasties(?) rapping to the same pattern, more or less, regardless of the beat, it never gets tired because of (1) that infectious delight in what they’re doing and (2) their actual rhymes are never staid or predictable, indicating a good deal of craft. Also, they win Best Egg Man in Music. There, I said it.
I knew this day would come. Where I would listen to an album by a 70s white ‘my car and my guitar’ dude and not want to solder my ears closed. And so it came to pass that the plaintive face on the cover, the awful album title and the hackneyed journey-across-America lyrics inspired not anger, but a kind of beatific wonder. There is enough variety in here that I can believe Taylor cares more about crafting tight songs and exploring a range of modes than he is appearing weather-beaten and road-worn. The tropes are just because that’s the voice he was exploring. Don’t like it? Stick around, he’ll find another mode. Perhaps you’ll like that. Maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe my ankle hurt too much yesterday for me to concentrate, but I felt this as part of a long lineage of genuinely talented songsmiths.
Björk grabs your hand and says “Follow me”. She leads you through The City (which city? Any city. All cities), pausing here and there, at house parties, city gardens, rooftops, office blocks, to show you the essence of that place. She takes you into a closet and whispers into your ear, there’s more to life than this. Every place she shows you has its own unique sound, but the guide is always indisputably Björk; writhing and shapeshifting and impossible to pin down, but in the act of taking you on this tour of The City, you realise through the sights she’s shown you, the things she’s pointed out, that she’s revealed more of herself than any direct confessional would give you.
I had a fun time listening to this. Mike Patton is one of proto-nu-metal’s great vocal entertainers, and he just sounds like he’s having a really fun time squidging and contorting his vocals. The instruments are pleasingly overblown; a riposte, of sorts, to hair-metal - using plenty of its trappings, but turning them in on themselves. But it never really gets beyond “wow, this is kinda fun”.
Luckily this album was recorded before we knew Morrissey was A Bad Man. In 1985 he was merely a pompous man with a compelling turn of phrase quite unlike anything that’s cropped up in music before or since. No-one sings about bottoms quite like your man Stephen Morrissey. And yet, the star of The Smiths’ music always has and will be Johnny Marr’s arrangements. The glistening, shimmering, bright counterpoint to Morrissey’s turgid melancholy. The tension between woe and glory as Marr and Morrissey tussle for supremacy is what they are all about. And Marr wins, every time.
It feels almost sacrilegious to admit, but I don’t think I've ever listened to a full Bowie album. Put him up there in TBTLT (Too Big To Listen To) with Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones et al. There is clearly a lot to like. The title track is an all time great, and well worth the full length listen. I found it odd that for a man with so much to express, he gave over two and a half of ten to weird, kind of directionless atmospheric noodling. I did like Moss Garden, that said. I’m not convinced it was pulling its weight. All told, I liked it - plenty of pep, and clearly excellent songwriting chops. But I come away wanting more.
Rhymes within rhymes within rhymes. All the shlocky, edgelord premises are there so Em can play with sounds. “I smacked him in his FACE with an ERASer, CHASed him with a STAPler and told him to CHANGE the GRADE on the PAPer.” It’s not overstating it (it is?) to say that Mr Mathers has a Shakespearian ability to quibble on the sounds of words, taking endless delight in embedding sounds and concepts that come back and slide away and return to tie it all together. Here, he is hiding his light (incredible ability to quibble endlessly on sounds) under a bushel (his obnoxious, hostile personas).
We get it. You’re good at playing your instruments. We literally get it.
Listened to this twice through, and both times it became good and enjoyable background music. The element that pushes it over the top, and potentially justifies its place here are those J-Dilla beats, chopped up, bouncy, flowing like water following the natural lines of the earth. The whole thing feels very well constructed and probably warrants further attentive listening.
Come on, man. I’m sure even by The Boss’ own admission this is lower tier stuff. It lacks the zip of his Blue Jeans and Construction Work earlier stuff, and the gravity of his Craggly Old Timer Who’s Seen It All latter-day era. It falls midway between the two, zipless and gravityless. I found myself thinking that this album was probably what Coldplay would have ended up sounding like if they’d listened to more Springsteen. Truth is, it’s probably what Springsteen ended up sounding like after he’d listened to too much Coldplay.
The sound of the end of the world. Smiling sweetly, Portishead stuff this album full of a claustrophobic sense of impending doom. And yet there were flickering rays of sunshine, largely through the vocals contrasting the soundscapes of oblivion. It’s a compelling combination, and one worth further delves.
How are we supposed to review these albums? If I put myself in the mindset of a 70s, long-haired rocker (say, my dad) I can bang my head along to the bouncy bits, and gaze with sparkle-eyed wonder at the flute solos; but if I’m listening to it from my own body in my own time, this sounds beyond parody. This is how prog-rock sounds in goofy comedies. Ultimately it gets an extra star because my dad likes it.
Life is a river, and you can either yield to the currents or kick against it. Miles knows that, and finds that by yielding to the currents you wind up down all manner of tributaries you never expected to go down, and drift past sights you’d never have the time to notice if you’re kicking. And anyway, you all end up at the same place downriver anyway. It’s the journey isn’t it? Suffice to say, I loved it.
I’ve always found this kind of white man plays blues guitar vehicle, of which Eric Clapton is the chief architect, a little confusing. Boiling down music forged in oppression to little more than a technical exercise. But then, I guess that’s what we (white people) do, isn’t it? That said, there’s clearly a good deal of technical proficiency here, and I didn’t have a terrible time listening to it. Which is the other thing we’re good at - setting aside complex moral issues because we are having a fine time. Dammit.
It’s not even that I had a bad time listening to that. I love me some synth and bass heavy 80s sounds. It’s just WHY should I have listened to this before I die? Literally what am I discovering by listening to this? What impossible sound did they bring into existence? Why?
What did I think of this? It kind of washed over me, to be honest. I can only assume it's so clasically country as to sound like a pastiche to my post-modern, 21st century, hyper pop-culture literate ears. Besides, as we know, I don't actually like country music that much, despite my best efforts (cf. my Willie Nelson review).
The further this album went on the more I found myself willing it to produce one song that would justify its inclusion on this list. Imagine my heartbreak when fifty pointless minutes later, not a single nugget had emerged. Even the scooby snacks song is a lacklustre affair. Goddammit.
I’m a little stumped figuring out how to rate this. Did I enjoy it? Yes, most of it. It’s how to do romantic songs, and I’m a true sucker for booming 80s drums. I will explore more of her back catalogue (so to speak!!!). Do I think it’s an album I need to have listened to before I die? Well, probably not, frankly. I can’t see what sets it above other similar mid-tempo soft rock of the 80s. It definitely stood out in contrast to the dreck we’ve been served up for the last four days. But not enough for me.
Not superior Costello, by any stretch, but there’s always enough variety, texture, idiosyncratic turns of phrase and weird vocal flexion in any of his songs to last the day, let alone his albums.
I've got a horse right here / his name is Paul Revere / and he's amply supported by The Raiiiiiiiders / They're gonna sing some songs / in as many 60s styles as possible / and some of them are going to be fiiiiiiiiiine.
The thing that hit me whilst listening to this is just how overblown and dramatic, histrionic even, Queen sound - and how varied their sound. How do they do this without seeming like they’re showing off (Deep Purple), or oppressively hostile towards anyone who doesn’t “get it” (Jethro Tull). I can’t fully expound on what I think makes them sound so good here, but I’ll try some of it. Firstly, I think they’d have made this album and made these songs regardless of who was listening - so the songs sound completely unselfconscious, and alligned with who they are as a band. And then there’s the tension between Mercury’s style (flamboyant, theatrical, pop-leaning), May’s style (just wants to solo basically. He barely plays unless it’s a really cool riff or a solo), Taylor’s style (to pound the drums as bigly as possible) - and we’ll just assume Deacon was, as all bassists are, just happy to be there. Each member so totally embodies their preferred mode, that the disparate elements suddenly snap and cohere into a totally unique sound. It’s alchemy, and it’s great.
I really liked this. Actually, reflecting on it, I really, really liked it. Every song had something that caught my ear by way of darkness, tenderness, beauty, despair - usually all of the above in some transfixing you constellation. Then came the one-two of Murder Mystery and After Hours, which really sealed the deal. Murder Mystery staggered me - so many of the (emo) songs of my youth lifted wholesale the double-voices murmuring gnomic, dark lyrics - it was truly surprising to hear this approach on a record 45 years older than those songs. Then After Hours acts as a gorgeous counterpoint to all that fevered intensity, and sealed the deal - the deal being that I really, really liked this.
Had a fine time listening to this, going back to my school days when I wondered why everyone was so into the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Pleased to report nothing has changed.
How does something sound simultaneously so excessive and so uncluttered all at once? That crisp, clean, joyfully exuberant sound with not a note out of place speaks of an artist working expertly in the easy-to-espouse-difficult-to-achieve mode of Serious Play. And so the entire album is suffused with a sense of delight and playfulness, whilst not-quite holding at bay the melancholic void that sits at the centre of all hedonistic partying. In short: tremendous.
Lite jazz dusted pop with none of the free flowing “where next?” of jazz, and none of the emotive oomph of pop. To be fair, two bits did jump out to me - the chorus of the title track (though I can’t now remember how it went), and the song about going between(?) the raindrops - that latter seemed like a pleasant memory, reconstituted into music. Anyway, what I’m saying is, it wasn’t for me.
You wanna talk 80s as pejorative? How about 80s as performative? I think what’s missed by the received wisdom that Hair Metal was an aberration is the fact that they actually embodied the fun that they had physically in their music. And just because something’s fun, doesn’t strip it of merit. Quite the opposite. Fun is essential. That being said, it has to be paired with at least one memorable song. This felt like musical candy floss without the aftertaste. Which is to say I remember snaffling down on it and getting a kick at the time. I couldn’t hum you a single snatch of a single song now, though.
I actually don’t hate this. I go through phases of liking some electronic music with no words, and I give myself niche-music knowledge credentials by actually having heard of them thanks to their remix of a Clouddead song. The question remains though - why is this on this list? What does it add? Who listens to it? Who has it influenced (apart from a series of even more niche Scottish electronic music artists, creating ever more minimalist tracks until the sound is distilled to 564 tracks of the same single blip)? Why?
Did listen, and quite liked. If you were into this go see Camille O’Sullivan if ever things open up enough for gigs to be played.
This was a real treat to come back to from a brief holiday-enforced hiatus (would you believe there are other things than listening to old albums on a list someone made up?). The Pogues have such a singular sound in popular music; lyrical, filthy, raucous, tender and always always stories stories stories. Reaching into the past for comment on the present, and into the present for comment on the past. Compared to Rum, Sodomy and the Lash (it’s only fair that we compare them, right?) I feel like the expanded musical palette on show here didn’t quite allow for the same eternal quality that the earlier album has. Still hella good though. God I can’t remember how these review things work. Is this thing on??
Alright Marvin, let’s see what you’ve got. Oh wow, this is smooth. It all just sounds so easy, riding those grooves. Then listening to it with the above info (that this was recorded in the wake of a messy divorce) you can actually hear the heartbreak, the questions, the reflections in the lyrics. I liked it. Not so convinced by the artwork, though.
Yes, yes, yes. This is the way. Hardcore built on reggae grooves, vocals doing backflips, sparkling solos flying out of all the chug. It has it all. If you weren’t bouncing along to “She’s Calling You” do you even have a soul? Here is a band in total control of rhythm, dynamics and melody and using it to funnel their anger (and sense of a good time - remember “Edification first, then we can have some fun”) at a society falling apart around them. Show good taste: enjoy Bad Brains.
Terrible title. That’s the first thing off the checklist. I think there’s a fine line to be walked with this ‘atmospheric beats’ sort of music, and I can’t quite put my finger on when it does work and when it doesn’t, but… this wasn’t it.
Quite clearly a fantastic album. This time through I noticed the musical flourishes, that are a little tricky to pick up when you’re too busy being wowed by Hill’s seamless transitions between forceful rhyming and soulful singing. I’m talking about that feeling in Lost Ones that the whole song is about to blow up, but the firm hand on the production that prevents it from doing so; I’m talking about the background voices that make Doo Wop (That Thing) sound like a hmm-ing room full of girlfriends. My only gripe, and it’s a mild one, is that I don’t quite feel the album sustains it all the way through, but when it hits it hits hard.
I guess I can more or less definitively say I don’t really like prog? That’s one good thing to have come out of all of this, at least. I’m giving this two because they at least have an ear for a hook, and when it wasn’t interminable twiddling, there was some catchy, bouncy, and kind of fun-sounding stuff. At least these fellas seem to have a bit of a sense of humour about the whole venture. Gotta count for something.
Music doesn’t need words to tell a story. Coltrane leads you through darkened city streets in pursuit of a lost lover, his saxophone guiding your every step, as other instruments - mischievous drums, stolid, menacing double bass, alluring piano - try to steal your attention and your affection. Gorgeous. Melancholy. To be listened to again and again.
If playing the same song over and over again qualifies you for the 1001 list, then baby, I’m in!
Unfortunately this band named Metallica (repeat that to yourself a few times, really roll it around - Metal-lica, Metallica, Met-al-li-ca) take themselves too seriously to take seriously. They are really good at guitar solos, of that there can be no doubt. They are less good at… well most of the other things that make music music. Maybe that’s too harsh - but their lyrics, their delivery, the overblown length of their songs, the fun-void at the centre of it all… it all points to the same logic that propels the ever more serious, ever more gritty reboots of Batman: you cannot laugh at this thing, this is serious - look how serious it is, it’s actually making some really serious points about… serious things. Hella good solos though.
This album made very pleasant background listening as I was making dinner last night. It never insisted too too much on being more than background music, but there was enough to twist my ear that I figured - sure, maybe I could see what it’s going for.
Pretty okay as far as people showing off how good they are at instruments music goes. Probably because it comes with a sense of musicianship, danceability and songcraft that most prog (I’ve discovered, for me) seems to lack.
What a journey I went on with this album. I listened to it in two parts. The first portion on Friday, where my experience of it was as interesting enough background music, that didn’t wrassle for my attention too strongly with whatever else I was doing. Today, though, I picked up where I left off - with Canary - and something had shifted. Maybe it was that England lost the biggest game they’d played in my lifetime in the most painful way possible, but I heard what I think Ms Phair was selling. Her songs suddenly struck me from two angles - 1.) the stark, surprising lyrics: chock full of a certain kind of sexual ennui, oscillating occasionally into revelry and back again. 2.) The songs themselves, roughly hewn, simple-sounding but they have the same punch as anything by that other purveyor of rough-hewn, simple-sounding guitar-led songs from the 90s, Kurt Cobain; and honestly, I realised she is the first artist I think to ever draw comparison with Kurt in my mind as a peer and equal rather than an imitator. And I realise that possibly sounds like damning with faint praise, but it’s not intended as such. I’m so pleased I didn’t just settle on basing my review on my experience of the first half of the album. Well worth it.
Odd, living little nuggets that feel like they’ve tumbled directly from the head of a sapient racoon and skittered off into the shadows to start a new life of their own.
I awoke on this Wednesday morning, believing that perforce I had shaken off the sorrow and melancholy of witnessing the most talented and likeable set of England players in my lifetime lose on penalties (why did it have to be penalties? Why?). Reader, I had not. The cloud had not lifted, only temporarily allowed the sun (of optimism for the world cup, of appreciation for the incredible effort) to peep through. I needed something to get me out of my head and into my body, and the timeless grooves of Sly & The Family Stone did just that. They got me grooving such that I could forget the sickening feeling of watching penalties (!!!) from behind my hands and prevent my remembrances of the cruel, bittersweet hope of Jordan Pickford saving from Jorginho, that master trickster of the penalty spot. This was also timely, given the vicious, and sadly predictable racist abuse of the three exceptional players who missed by people who have no doubt spent the whole tournament cheering them. The title of track two tells you all you need to know about how long that senseless battle has been fought. It’s hard not to feel inspired by Sly’s groovable exhortations to action. Quite the tonic.
Lorde channels the feeling of not wanting to get out of bed because you’re still depressed about the heartbreaking finale to Euro 2020 and parlays that into sweeping, epic pop. The moody, melancholic stylings of her early work take on a grandeur and sweep here; you can’t help but be carried along by the flashes of light and the brooding in the dark - as England were carried all the way to the final on a wave of robust and flexible organisation, and were a matter of inches from winning the entire tournament. Listening to this now, four years later, one feels this is not yet the zenith of Lorde’s considerable powers, merely an exciting glimpse of what is yet to come, if she stays the course. Similar to Engla- etc etc.
Started off bopping along to Metal Guru and thinking “yeah, I could really get into this”; four songs later I was still bopping along to Metal Guru thinking “Wow, Metal Guru is a very long and repetitive song.” What I’m saying is this sounded exactly the same all the way through - just as those critics of Southgate’s so-called conservative tactics sounded the same all the way through Euro 2020, even as England rolled on to the final, and ended up just a matter of inches away from winning the thing on penalties.
Here’s the thing with the Beasties: no matter how varied they try to be (and they throw a lot at the wall here - hardcore punk, freewheeling jazz flute, rollicking basslines), they always end up coming out the same way. In your face hollering to a groovy drum track. Big, fun and made for parties, even when they’re trying to go beyond that. As with all of us, their biggest strength is also their biggest weakness.
It would feel churlish to complain too hard about this; the whole thing has a sepia tinged, mid-tempo pleasantness about it that is hard to dislike. But at the same time, it’s hard to get too excited about. Does music need to set your pulse racing with every sound? Of course not, but it needs to make you feel something. This all feels so comfortably within this talented array of musicians’ wheelhouse, and I find it hard to connect with Competent Musicianship, where that Competent Musicianship is the only aspect in play.
Now this is how it’s done: tight, tidy harmonies; memorable tunes; and over before you get sick of their schtick.
The sort of atmosphere being evoked here (smoke filled club, moody lighting, disheveled raconteur-crooner, audience tittering as glasses chink) doesn’t actually exist in the real world. It exists only in fiction. In trying to recreate the natural rambling flow of a night in a no-good joint, Waits cannot escape the artifice of his creation. He gets so caught up in evoking the mood, and creating a “reality” that he forgets to imbue it with any actual songs.
Here’s what I know about Ministry: Chester Bennington of Linkin Park honed his vocal stylings as a teen by singing along to Ministry until he sounded like them. And that piece of possible-knowledge is more interesting than actually listening to Ministry.
Weather is the apt metaphor. Basslines whirl like winds, melodies build like clouds; cold fronts, warm air pockets. It’s all there. You just put it together.
There was a moment in time, about ten years ago, when just about every artist seemed to be a solo male, with an appealing baritone singing catty-confessional lyrics over a piano and some horns. This is fresh out of that era, and I started off wary. It didn’t take long for Grant’s own brand of snarky to shimmer through and break down my defences, with his references to Sigourney Weaver, and Winona Ryder (she couldn’t really do the accent/but neither could that other guy), and his teetering a tightrope between debauched and debonair. His music contains enough crunch and delicacy to keep you hooked, and though not every song will stick with you, enough will, and the strong songs are spread nicely through its substantial length.
Kate Bush isn’t really a songwriter. She’s an author of strange, literary fiction. Wisps of magic (the magic of nature, especially), bizarre imagery and metaphor entwine with the usual anxieties: love; motherhood; death; making deals with God. It just so happens that rather than write her baroque, gothic literature in text, she writes it in sound. These are not songs, they’re stories, and her lyrics tell the inner lives of her characters: Cloudbusting is the yearning, revolutionary youth marching through her life (“The sun coming out… I just know that something good is going to happen… Your sun’s coming out…”); The dreamer, pushing away modernity and their companions in Big Sky (“We pause for the jet… [jet noises] What was the question? I was looking at the big sky.”). But why does she not just write stories in text then? Bush’s genius is in making the music perform the other roles in her stories - antagonist, chorus, mood-generator, weather, scene-setter - it is the canvas (to further mix the mediums) on which she paints her characters. So it seems to me she’s not all that interested in what makes a song a song, rather what makes a song a story. Every element is put towards that purpose - what will best tell this story? Your mileage may vary on how much of that you can stomach, but to me I see genius in her particular brand of storytelling. There’s no-one like her.
Anger channeled, proof positive that this vital emotion leads to vital art when honed to a bleeding edge. It struck me how prescient it seems, then struck me again how it only seems prescient because it sees its present so clearly, and because so little has changed.
If you were to point me to this album and say “here is a pretty decent album” I would nod and say “yes, here is a pretty decent album. It has a semi-epic, sweeping melodic quality, which combats neatly its noise-rock leanings. Pretty decent. Thanks.” If, on the other hand, you were to point to this album and say “there are 1001 albums that you MUST listen to before you die, and this is one of them” I would cock an eyebrow and say “It’s a decent album, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t help feeling I’ve been goosed here. I now HAVE listened to it before I died, you got your wish, but I can’t help feeling you’ve somehow pulled a fast one on me with that.”
Sure, Mike, I get it. Tubular bells. Well done. I get why it’s on the list and all, I just… It’s fine. Okay? Let’s all just move on shall we? Alright? Good.
Let’s get it out of the way: Basket Case is an all time pop-punk classic, and one of the great rock songs of the late 20th century. I always felt like Green Day were a relic playing catch-up with the younger bands, by the time I was seriously getting into rock music, but turns out teenage me knew nothing. The fact is they are one of the most influential, pioneering bands of that 90s-00s era where punk rock went mainstream. Dookie is a great slice of pop-punk. It’s relentless and energetic, melodic, fun. But there’s still something that keeps me from ever truly going all in on Green Day. Can I say what it is? Do I know? Armstrong’s voice? They were just too damn popular? Or maybe it’s fundamentally that (much as I love it) pop-punk is an inherently limited sound? Either way: A.) it was fun to revisit this, and it still hold up incredibly well; B.) I assumed Green Day followed My Chem to The Black Parade (ie, playing punk whilst dressed as a goth), but it was the other way around. Time for me to put some respect back on Green Day’s name in my own head.
Could really have done without the sitar covers of Rolling Stones songs, but I guess that’s just what life was like in the 70s? Presumably this sounds great when polishing your noggin with low grade acid. The second side where it moves away from pandering to our soppy western palettes is better. It’s a stark reminder that most albums until the 90s (?) had to physically be turned over, if nothing else.
Already convinced it’s a total classic, I figured I’d better do my duty and listen through again so my review can be informed by a recent listen rather than the nitrous of nostalgia. As with The Slim Shady LP, Eminem plays with sounds like few others, but where in that former album he is a little too caught up in his agent-provocateurness and in later years he seems more preoccupied with hitting those densely packed rhymes with machine-like precision, here is Eminem’s perfect marriage of form and content. In each song he revels in playing characters - endless characters: particularly circling back around to the Slim Shady (offensive, gleefully so), Eminem (hostile, back up against the wall, firing back) and Marshall Mathers (introspective, self-effacing) but playing many more cameos in between. Hopping in and out of these roles lends a clarity and sharpness to a still quite long album. It allows playful juxtaposition of track listings (The Way I Am [Eminem, hostile, I won’t be who you want me to] to The Real Slim Shady [Slim Shady, here I am, you want Slim Shady, well here is ALL OF HIM] being a particular highlight). The album only drags when anyone other than Eminem guest stars, perhaps because Em is in such a creative place that he is essentially guest MCing his whole album, but also because the guests take it as licence to do the schtick of obscene and offensive stuff, only without the subtext Em provides of the whole thing being performance. That subtext only works in the context of the whole thing which constantly flips between provocation, meta-awareness of all of this as a show, showing off, gratuitous swearing, comedy skits, world-weary agents, and at the centre of it the question “who is Eminem?”. The album is so effective because it’s essentially a dare to the listener to try and pin it down: a virtuosic catch-me-if-you-can.
To be fair, this has made perfectly fine background listening. The guitars have an eagerness of sorts, and the whole sounds pretty urgent, more than mere technical show-offery (though plenty of that). I can see this existing as an important album of that white-guys-play-the-blues genre. It’s just not an especially compelling genre to me.
Am I going to give this 3 stars (because it’s Bowie)? Or 2 stars (because, bar the opening and the closing tracks, nothing caught my ears - whilst I have no doubts of Bowie’s genius for taste-making and breaking new ground, it’s hard to find anything compelling in that new ground being broken. Is that the lot of the forerunner? To create something that will inevitably be surpassed by those who follow in the scanty track you beat through the brush? Experimentation and marked departures are vital, of course, but the product will be just that: experimental and a marked departure. That doesn’t equal good. Fame is a great song, though. There is that to consider.)? I’ll give it two stars.
So far Tom Waits has accounted for 3% of the albums generated in this here group we’re in. Now I’m not saying he doesn’t warrant it - manifestly he’s a singular, extraordinary, influential voice in storytelling songs - it’s just *interesting* is all. Now: to the album. I enjoyed it. There’s more creativity and exploration in any single track than most artists manage in their whole careers. Here is an artist who gambles on weirdness like a man at the tracks where all the horses are called Weirdness. And it works: it’s inviting, obtuse, odd; the voices Waits conjures here are fantastic - a few featuring a high-pitched departure from his usual concrete-mixer grind. But (isn’t there always a but?) I didn’t feel this had enough to delineate it from Waits’ usual offerings to truly stand out. Perhaps if I’d heard this before Rain Dogs, or Swordfishtrombones I’d be talking about it differently. To me this just sounds like a fine Tom Waits album, rather than one of the 3% of albums that I absolutely must listen to before I die (or else!!!!).
Feels like it’s been a while since we’ve had an album this uninspiring, so that was at least one good thing to come out of this.
Safety first. There was some Competent Musicianship, and some Solid Songwriting, but nothing that stood out one way or the other, save the impossibly mawkish I Come and Stand at Every Door - and that for the wrong reasons. All told, it sounded like how I imagine 60s music to sound when I’m asked to imagine it (not that often, weirdly!) which either indicates influence or cliche. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Doing a protest review: I have not listened to this. I don’t believe live albums should have ANY PART OF THIS LIST. Especially not live albums that break the TWO HOUR BARRIER. It’s too much. It’s too too much. Please, think of the children. Have mercy.
This must have sounded pretty wild after 10 years of listening to The Byrds. Attitude, swagger, nutso energy; invigorating as a cold jet of water straight up your swanny.
Pretty okay, isn’t it? Lots of nice bits, lovely voices, pleasant instrumentation and melodies. A good example of its type. And therein lies the rub; its type can be a bit sort of fine unless it’s absolutely sublime (ie, Sufjan)
I cannot get enough of Mr Costello’s voice. It has an elasticity and a fragility, a tenderness and a boisterousness. Here it’s put to good effect rolling with the punkish punches of the attractions. It’s consistently good and consistently danceable. High quality stuff.
Much less grandma-pleasing than I had been led to believe (by literally no-one). There’s a real thump to Rod’s music, a driving energy, a sense that he has to get these tunes out. That he does so with one of the most satisfyingly impossible-to-mimic-because-you’ll-end-up-coughing voices in music is much to his credit.
A gorgeous stroll with people who make you smile and laugh through a bustling city in winter.
I’ve long wondered where this kind of sound came from - the sort of punky, speak singing, repetitive riffs and rhythms - I’m mainly thinking Idles and their ilk. And I’ve also long wondered what exactly it is The Fall do to be revered so. I guess now I know on both counts.
For the first three songs I thought this would be a nailed on five. There’s something stirring about the combination of a relentless marching beat and campy synths overseen by what can only be described as the voice of a coalmine turned animate. It’s surprisingly catchy and surprisingly playful and exactly the sort of album that should be here because it’s so cocobananas that you have to listen to it. It definitely loses some oomph as the doom/authoritarian cosplay wears thin. Still, worth the journey.
Dear Mr Sabbath,
Thank you for your entry into the 1001 albums you must listen to before you die. This is the second of your entries I have listened to. I found this one to be more focused, tighter, the riffs were more orientated to a singular purpose (rockin’ out, of course) than in your previous offering. I enjoy that thing you do where it sounds a little sloppy jaloppy then suddenly tightens like a corset cinched (if a little less sexy; maybe a tourniquet tightened would be more apt), and everything clicks into place. I hope you don’t mind me saying your lyrics could do with a little work (“Finished with my woman ‘cos she could not help me with my mind…”) but then, Mr Sabbath, I suppose it’s never been about the lyrics, has it? You’re just looking for a good time, and I’m pleased to report you’ve found one.
Sincerely,
B. Ears.
A victim of the mythmaking surrounding it in the 25 or so years since its release, because ultimately there are few albums that could ever stand up to the hero-worship that surrounds this. Mojo Pin, despite its terrible name, serves as a serpentine, undulating introduction to Buckley’s sound: taut, breathy vocals; explosions and constantly altering rhythms. But there are flaws. The main one being that it’s barely possible to know what Buckley is interested in beyond the sound of his own voice; his soaring/strangled vocals obscure any lyrics such that they become mere sound, devoid of any meaning. Until, of course, Hallelujah; delicately performed, cracked and beautiful - perhaps because despite Buckley’s protestations to the contrary his is a showman’s rather than a poet’s soul (just look at that album art…) and it takes a poet’s words to let him let us hear them.
Let’s talk about flow, shall we? An astonishing river of sound, and DJ Shadow the river guide with a firm hand on the paddle so you see just the sights he wants you to see whilst you sit slack-jawed at the dramatic scenery and the vastness of the sky. You can’t predict what’s just around the riverbend and nor do you want to. You’re happy floating, guided, gawping. There are few rapids to be found here (he said, leaning far too heavily into his river-guide metaphor). The pace is never rushed, and could perhaps do with a little more variety - but then why crave variety with a sound as crisp and clear as a sun-scorched blue sky?
Every song I thought I’d finally got the measure of the music (not quite MJ, not quite Prince…) but then in would roll another irresistible hook, and, well, it all ended up being rather undeniably its own thing.
There is only one Korn album that should be anywhere near this list and buddy, this ain’t it. They are so sonically limited as to sound no different from song to song, album to album. The stuff they’re peddling now aged 50 is the same as they were peddling at the start of their careers, same as here. Whatever way you cut it, it’s all self-generated angst, pseudo-hip-hop stylings with zero comprehension or cohesion and (of course) bagpipes. There is a song on here called Cameltosis - these songs written by men in and around their 30s - which tells you all you need to know. Truly stupid.
Thought this might be a bit of sub-Beatles 60s dreck, but it turned out to have a voice all of its own. Who knew that other bands existed in them 60s?? I enjoyed it, so much so that I had to listen to it twice to be sure I had enjoyed it. There’s plenty of unexpected twists and turns. The one that sticks out is the semi-monastic chanting towards the end of The Red Telephone. Adventurous and surprising, and well worth its place.
Big dumb fun from grown adults who dress as schoolboys and almost exclusively want to rock. That is their mission statement, and it’s mission accomplished. I’m deducting a star (possibly two - if it had caught me in the right mood) for the troublingly predatory lyrics to Let Me Put My Love Into You.
Surprisingly enjoyable. I thought, upon hearing the first track “okay some more ephereal French flim flam - let’s see how this goes” but with a light hand on the tiller, Air guide us through the rivers of the world. Unusual, and quite unique sounding - there’s plenty of tonal variety and texture within the gestalt of waifish French flim flam. You know what? I’ve talked myself into a 4. In reality probably a 3.5, but I’m feeling good after that, so yeah. 4.
A party, a fun party with the most friendly, charming erudite host you've ever met.
Listen, they clearly know their way around a song or two. But it is truly all so... perfunctory. Where's the passion lads? Where's the unusual turns?
It's all very pleasant. Very competently crafted. Don't get me wrong, music needs its craftsmen - so actually maybe crafted is the wrong word - it's competently designed. Like an Ikea table. As an Ikea table will serve its purpose for people who understand a table is necessary and just want it to put their plates and vases on, so the Eagles serve a purpose as music for people who don't need their music to do anything more than be music.
Another in the long list of albums designed to be listened to whilst spamming your bonce with pills. Which means it makes passable background music but does absolutely nothing for the dendrites.
I don’t think Queen figuring out their sound really qualifies for a list like this, but I did have a not-unpleasant time with it. They’re just so irresistibly bombastic!
Daft Punk don't write songs, they create audio perpetual motion machines. Discuss.
What hit me upon this return to Revolver is the textural variety the Beatles aim for across the album as a whole. By this point their songcraft is rock solid, so it’s a case of seeing what else they can add, or how they can twist it: the pulsing strings of Eleanor Rigby, the swirling pseudo-Indian She Said She Said, the bursting sunshine horns of Got to Get you into my Life. These embellishments are thrown into sharp relief by reverting back to the guitar,guitar, bass, drums and harmonies of the classic sound, which underpins the whole record. In this context of experiment with sonic texture even the sore thumb of Yellow Submarine doesn’t stick out quite so much.
Would you believe me if I told you I've never listened to a Rolling Stones album before, nor have I even attempted to?
Why not? Let me tell you a story: I returned to my primary school a couple of years after leaving, with a few friends. We wanted to say hi to old teachers, revisit the old stomping ground. Our old music and RE teacher, Mr Watts, marched past. An eccentric man. We tried to stop him and say hi, but he simply said "Too tall, too tall," and marched on. That was the last ever interaction I had with him. He's dead now.
Point being, the Stones (and Dylan, and Bowie, and Nick Cave..., but especially the Stones) were always "too tall" for me. I couldn't bear to face up to the sheer volume of music I'd avoided. Better to march on blindly, and not engage.
Well, just as I think Mr Watts was completely wrong on that fateful day 20 or so years ago, I am pleased to report I too was completely wrong. Not only are the individual songs vibrant, catchy, fun and booty-shaking - the album as a whole feels like a real celebration of a band at the peak of their powers. It has an unerring sense of utter self-confidence that is completely intoxicating.
So. Why not 5 stars? Because I can't help feeling like a fraud of a Stones-listener; giving it 5 stars implies I've unpacked everything, and digested its meaning. Truth is, I got my groove on, found it so much more accessible than I'd ever have dreamed and am primed for this to grow into a 5 star. I just don't feel like I've earned it yet. After all, they are just too tall to take in on one listen.
A real RAY of sunshine. It’s just delightful, effortless, blissful, and makes me wonder why I’ve not given Ray Charles more than a cursory look before.
This is based on two half-listens
which adds up to a whole
and if you disagree with me,
then I say move along...
(oh well I)
I've got the Dylan rhythm
Coursing through my soul.
I said I've got that Dylan rhythm
Writing this thing now...
They seem like little nuggets,
Stories from the road
From travels through the sands of time
And small town Idaho
I said I've got that Dylan rhythm
Writhing through my soul... (etc)
It's quite fun and exciting
to hear such tales in song
I want to listen to it in its fullness
That's why I give it for
for now, I've got that Dylan rhythm
ooh boy, jangling through my soul...
Had a really good time of it listening to this, but ran out of steam before the end.
Talk about mood music. A mouthwatering combination of surly bass, rolling drums and Debbie-Downer vocals that coalesce into a dark and gnarly record of the very fact of existence. My FIANCÉE said from a distance it sounds like some Soviet anthem, which isn't a bad way to frame it, perhaps. This is the music of walking through cities with the same sets of soulless tower blocks, greyed out people being put through a machine, and the watching eyes of big brother, and feeling your own soul vibrating inside you. How do you reconcile the two? Through unknown pleasures.
Queens of the Stone Age explore rhythm as a defining characteristic of rock music in greater depth than just about any band out there. In fact, there are times where it seems like rhythm is all they’re interested in. It makes for a whole host of riffs that get you bouncing, but songs that don’t live long in the memory.
I guess it makes sense why they call it “desert rock”: it’s as samey and featureless as a desert landscape.
I had a great time listening to this whilst cooking on Friday night, so I'll use cooking as an organising metaphor for this. The Avalanches take the raw ingredients of beats and samples, and boil, mascerate, broil, steam and fry them up into an intoxicating culinary ride. Flavours bloom and burst from song to song; as with that other Michelin-starred sampler, DJ Shadow, these tracks feel human and organic in a way a lot of electronic music fails to muster. Perhaps because so much attention is paid to the musical palette, the mis-en-place and the order of cooking the ingredients to achieve maximum depth of flavour.
If The Eagles are an IKEA table - assembled and available for people who simply want a table to put things on rather than anything else - then Belle & Sebastian are an artisan working out of their own woodshop, hewing tables out of trees they've felled themselves. Sure, you have to pay a bit more, and sure it won't be ready for at least 6 months, but when the table does arrive you'll want to show it off: imperfections, visible carving strokes, notches, resin stains and all. Because this table will carry stories with it, and it will lend itself to further stories, and it will surprise you with the joy you feel every time you come into your dining room and find a one of a kind table sitting there; your table.
Table.
If you want to hear the sound of Western capitalism cresting, listen no further. This has everything:
Bland optimism
Fat complacency
Self satisfaction
The ability to make loadsamoney
Your former rawness polished to a pleasantly marketable shine
The Edge
In its defence a.) those first three tracks are pretty good and b.) they had no idea re: the twin towers and subsequent slide of the West into late capitalism and all the grimness that involves. Ultimately it has some relevance as an aural-historical document, but limited relevance as an album.
Aloof but rarely distant, Tricky is a party guest who lets the party come to him; sitting sprawled on a sofa, never short of a guest to chat to - or if he's between guests, he doesn't mind, he's just as happy vibing on his own. Which of course, piques the interest of another party guest who sits down to hear what Tricky has to say. Never forceful, but impossible to ignore. A welcome addition to the party, in other words.
Drifts past like a gorgeous fluffy cloud, and is roughly as consequential.
An exceptional rock album. The Who are constantly in motion, driven by Moon's tripping-tumbling drums in large part, but also Entwhistle's rubberised bass lines, Townsend's whirlwind alternating between hard strums and high solos, all topped off with Daltry's stop-start-then-let-it-rip vocals. Very occasionaly this makes the tracks blend one into the other, across the middle section - but when it gives you your Baba O'Rileys and your (excellent) Won't Get Fooled Agains who can resist?
Float downriver on a boat of pure songcraft, expertly steered by yer man Yusuf/Cat.
Yah yah it's aptly named, because it is in a different class to those other Britpop one-word named bands of the time (Blur and Oasis). Less self-consciously adopting a character than Blur, and rock much harder than Oasis - despite the latter's protests to the contrary, I'm sure. Pulp are slugged in with them purely by dint of making music in Britain at the same time, but the truth is Pulp were never playing the same game as the other two - they were playing a different sport altogether. Wry societal observation intertwined with hyper-personal (seeming) stories plucked from Cocker's own life, all set to a heavier and darker than given credit for rhythmic background. It says far more about the state of Britain (then and now) than the other two ever have. And in amongst all that they have a whole host of sweeping choruses, and smart-but-not-too-too-smug lyrical flits. I thought it was... well... different class.
This is how Blues Rock should sound: hyperactive riffs and smoked-out vocals trading blows; guitar licks lapping up your thighs like the sea before you pluck up the courage to dunk your rude bits; lyrics lamenting loves lost. It's just a bit of a shame that Blues Rock isn't really my thing, or I'd be all over it.
Very, very good. I've listened to it roughly twice now. I feel like there's a lot going on in this cluster of little nuggets. No song outstays its welcome; in fact, some would be welcome to stay a little longer. But that's the point, I suppose. These are finely polished little gems - it takes a lot of buffing to make these gems sound so unpolished.
Completely forgot to write a review, but not because I didn’t enjoy it. Simply because I forgot. Like how I’ve forgotten any songs that were in here, but I know I had a good time, so let’s just call it a two - it earns its place - and be done with it.
There are few things more pleasurable in music than chaotic dissonance cohering into blissful melodic order, and then crumbling back. And that's what Sleater-Kinney do time and time again, and the trick never wears thin.
Rock solid country music. I liked it. Maybe I'm being changed by mere exposure to country. I should probably go back and see what I think of Willie Nelson, now.
Hey! I'm back! I didn't not enjoy this one, but, having just finished this I couldn't sing you back a single song or tell you a single defining feature of their style. I could be wrong, but I'm out.
Aside from being too long and too repetitive, this was okay.
It doesn't need me saying it, does it, but Elton has a genius for writing songs that goes beyond mere pop-artistry. His truest expression of himself is in the arrangement of chords in a satisfying sequence - which is why it's never mattered that he doesn't tend to write his own lyrics. They're part of the whole, but the whole is the song. Each one is a journey in its own right - John taking you down the Yellow Brick Road, showing you the sights - a laser display here, a drag queen there, all musically, mind - before dropping you back home, safe and sound. You've had such a journey you don't really want to say goodbye.
First time listening in anger to those Arcade Fire fellas. There's a grandeur and a sweep to their sound, that's for sure. I get the feeling I'll have to listen several more times to get beyond that grandeur and that sweep, but it's not something I'm opposed to. I'd always put them in a box marked "Kings of Leon et al", and left well enough alone. There is some interesting stuff going on (aforementioned grandeur and sweep aside) - the intermingling of lady-voice in there was a welcome surprise, for instance. Plus that grandeur. It feels like "visual music" in the a similar way to Eli, I suppose - the visual here being people driving across a sun-blasted desert, for me. Still not sure they don't belong in that box marked "Kings of Leon, The Killers etc", but I'll certainly give em a few more tries to find out.
