Perhapss the most important Irish rock album of all time and certainly the album that turned U2 into the biggest band in the world. It is both a political and religious album and makes no apology for it; ground well covered by U2 prior to Joshua Tree. On this record however there is a power and conviction in the songs as well as a confidence in the presentation and imagery of Americana, despite most of the songs not being directly about America. ‘WTSHNN’, inspired by Belfast, is as good an opener as you’ll hear on any album whilst the soaring ‘Red Hill Mining Town’ is about the UK miners strike of 1984. Although the second half of the album cannot match its powerful opening run of anthems The Joshua Tree is a triumph.
This is an album I would consider part of a trilogy along with ‘What We Did On Our Holidays’ & ‘Unhalfbricking’. Outside of that my knowledge of Fairport Convention is nil. They are a great folk rock band of seriously talented musicians however it is Sandy Denny’s voice that makes Fairport unique. Standout track is Matty Groves but it is all enjoyable.
Some great songs but is quite relentless and becomes blurred very quickly and hard to distinguish from a lot of other 70’s rock albums.
A mini album of 7 songs recorded around Divine Comedy’s commercial peak (Casanova). My first listen to this album in a very long time, most familiar with the single Everybody Knows, a great pop song). Throughout the arrangements are sophisticated though at points lyrically over-baked but for what it is, it’s a great piece of work.
I’ve never heard Shuggie Otis but I’ve definitely heard his influence. Chilled out sounds for a sunny day, funky bass lines and superb rhythm section that bring to mind both Bill Withers & The Band.
Post punk / garage rock made to sound amateur on purpose, generally unauthentic and annoying. In context the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s released their debut album a couple of years later, may as well be light years! A couple of ok tunes but not for me!
In Manhatten’s desert twilight in the death of afternoon, we stepped hand in hand on Broadway, like the first man on the moon.
And a blackbird broke the silence as you whistled it so sweet, and in Brendan Behan’s footsteps I danced up and down the street.
Adios!
A really special record, in my opinion one of the best guitar records ever. Verlaine & Lloyd’s duelling guitars are particularly notable on Friction & Elevation but the epic title track is a thing of wonder. No filler at all here.
Ok for a couple of songs (green onions) but the one trick of organ & guitar becomes tired very quickly
Great album, great band. Cut Your Hair, Gold Soundz & Range Life are standout tracks but the album has a great flow and is eccentric and interesting. Up alongside Brighten The Corners as my favourite Pavement album.
Great stuff, hadn’t heard this before and really enjoyed it, Locomotive Breath & Wind-Up were favourites but great riffs all over the shop, will investigate further.
Great album and when you consider it’s a debut, even better. Not everyone’s cup of tea sure, but shoegaze was effectively soundscapes via guitar effects and it is done near perfectly here, particularly Vapour Trail & Unfamiliar. There is also a pop element to this album which they improved on ‘Going Blank Again’ but sonically Nowhere is a treat.
Feels a bit unfair to review this as I could have paid more attention to it but in the right mood it would probably gain more stars. Recognised ‘Treaty’ from the recent Your Honor tv series and caught various lyrical gems that other writers would murder for. Pretty dark.
Some classic tracks and some slightly deeper cuts, it’s about 70/30 on what works and what doesn’t, Metallica aren’t necessarily a band who need to improve songs by using orchestral bombast but as an experiment it’s mainly successful. The arrangements on No Leaf Clover & Outlaw Torn are worthy of praise.
Gimmick metal for psychotic teenagers.
Really liked Modern Life Is Rubbish when it was out and remembered being disappointed by Parklife but what do I know? It exploded and became a huge album. Would never think to give this album a spin nowadays, not many tracks stand out on their own and too many are poor versions of The Kinks. Very much of its time but I will always have time for This Is A Low which is fantastic.
Excellent debut which perfectly captures the essence of early Iron Maiden, a mix of punk rock energy and prog rock stylings without the over indulgence. The musicianship and writing is top notch whilst Di’Anno’s vocal range and quality is integral, so much more than a proto-Dickinson. A massively influential heavy metal album.
Not a big Van fan but there is no doubting he had a good run circa Astral Weeks through to St. Dom’s preview. Moon dance falls right in the middle of that period and is perhaps his most accessible album, it’s enjoyable when in the mood.
Without a doubt it’s a classic of the genre however drum & bass is now considered quite niche and has stepped in and out of fashion since its late 90’s heyday. New Forms is up there with Timeless & Modus Operandi and is maybe a bit more accessible, Heroes & Watching Windows being big singles. It’s the likes of Brown Paper Bag, Hot Stuff & Down where the surgically produced bass come to the fore. Hadn’t listened to this in a while and to be honest picked out a few tracks for the review. Still stands up!
Nothing special, nice straightforward singer songwriter acoustic folky album but Suzanne Vega has better stuff than this. The only song I knew before listening was Marlene On The Wall and a couple of minutes after rifling through this set that hasn’t changed.
The best thing about this album is the energy. Kick Out The Jams itself is a classic garage punk track which stands out but for the most part it melds into a haze of fuzz and feedback and impressively for a live album it captures the essence of a great show.
Over produced fashion rock, I can appreciate they’re good musicians but the showboating is not for me.
Wasn’t looking forward to this but wasn’t actually bad, inoffensive 70’s prog rock.
Finally a daily album from an artist who I have meant to give more attention. The only Rufus album I have listened to before is Want One, so I suppose Want Two is a good place to continue. I really enjoyed this album although the plethora of musical styles from opera to pop may be too much over the course of one album. He can play then all though, and what a voice! Very good stuff.
Less ‘pop’ Cure and maybe their most goth album, it is haunting, sparse and quite off kilter; best known track A Forest a good example of this disorientation. Play For Today, M & Seventeen Seconds are great standalone tracks but this is definitely a start to finish listen.
RATW introduced SFA to a wider audience with more of a polished sound that didn’t take away from their previous eccentricities. Great singles including Juxtaposed & End Of The World while the country tinged Run Christian Run was a mellow direction for them. Their run of albums including RATW is sublime, sensational band. SFA OK!
Hadn’t listened to this album before, familiar with Another Green World / Warm Jets and this is similar avant garde pop, before he went ambient. Definitely has a lot in common with Bowie’s finest album ‘Low’, produced by Eno and released in the same year. Interesting and enjoyable.
Good album with great playing, love the horn section. Dexy’s would have been class to see live around this time
Some good tracks but a bit overblown compared to their first 3 albums
Dreadful, can’t understand how this made the list. The music is horrible and dated, I’m sure he used all these tunes on Toy Story and just changed the words. The lyrics are brutal and lack the subtlety required for the social commentary comedy that this aspires to be.
2 obvious big tunes and loads of filler
Really good Wu solo album but not quite up there with the best off them,. Unmistakable RZA grainy sinister production, maybe a bit long.
Never heard of then and thought I’d missed out on a good 60’s band, but I haven’t. Wasn’t fussed on this at all
Nowhere near as good as it’s predecessor ‘Making Bones, ‘Our Aim Is To Satisfy...’. straddles late 90’s trip hop & acid jazz, good live drum production and slinky double bass (eg Don’t Go Nowhere) but it’s a hard album to judge as too much of it sounds familiar in 2021. This gets a 2 but Red Snapper made better, more defined albums than this.
Seen Elvis Costello live (acoustic) years ago, was pretty boring and it put me off him but he is no doubt a talented and clever songwriter who knows his way around a tune. More of a pop album than expected and some decent tracks but won’t listen again.
Actually revisited this album last summer and really enjoyed it. It’s long (maybe could have been distilled into 2 albums), despite this it’s a great album, full of ideas and maybe somewhere between Wire & Fugazi on the punk spectrum. Picks would be This Ain’t No Picnic, Corona, History Lesson.... but it’s pretty much all good.
Although I do like a few Tim Buckley tracks a full album of his is hard going. Pleasant Street was decent but too much introspective folky stuff on this for my liking.
Plenty of good tunes on here, What’s That Sound etc… Great production and I suppose on release Electro was not as ubiquitous as it is now in pop music. A lot of this was on heavy rotation, mainly Jacques Your Body, and it is definitely an influential album. I’d rarely want to listen to it but it is good.
Had its moments, started well with Mother & Child Reunion and Duncan but doesn’t live up to the promise (Me & Julio / Paranoia Blues aside). Interesting the difference in the tracks that were probably Simon & Garfunkel off-cuts and also the tracks where you can hear him branching out into new territory, maybe explains the inconsistency.
Still listen to this album to this day. So many good tracks, doesn’t get repetitive and one of the best paced albums of all time. Release The Pressure and Inspection are dub classics, Original & Open Up are perfectly cast vocal tracks, top notch. Amazing on the dance floor and through headphones. Leftfield could never have bettered this.
Despite its classic status it’s more of an important album than a classic in my opinion, although there are some great tunes on here (Speed King, Black Night). Child In Time is just mad though.
A really good album maybe let down by production, which on certain tracks sounds quite amateurish, it sounds like Crocodiles & Rescue were done in a different studio than the tracks before. I’ve no idea if they were but sounds like it. Anyway, great stuff mostly.
Good album, she is not afraid to take risks with her sound, it was experimental at the time and no doubt influential but for me it’s mainly background music.
Kraftwerk are incredibly important and have some great albums, the most influential electronic act of all time without a doubt. Autobahn however is not the reason for this legacy and does sound dated. It is nearly half a century old but in comparison to similarly aged Krautrock gems Tago Mago or Neu! 75, it is not up to the mark.
Remember being disappointed by this after Original Pirate Material but to be fair it was a brave move to do a concept album (kind of) and it did bring Skinner a mass audience. Hadn’t listened to this in years and it is still just ok. OPM does get the odd run out and will always be a 5 in my book. Blinded By The Lights is a great track though.
1967 was a phenomenal year for classic and influential albums, with the Beatles, Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, Love etc… all releasing some of their best work. It’s a bit of a myth to say Pink Floyd were a major influence on psychedelic rock, loads of bands were doing it before them and doing it a lot better. It’s a debut album though that bears no similarity to their seminal 70’s output. This is a mainly forgettable album aside from Interstellar Overdrive. And the album cover is dreadful.
Melodic and very Beatlesy at times but not an album I’d go back to. Recognised about 3 or 4 songs, had no idea they were Nilsson. He definitely wouldn’t get away with Coconut today.
Was led to this album originally due to Pat Smear being involved but it’s a world away from Nirvana let alone Foo Fighters. It’s not bad but not brilliant, and it is appropriately chaotic. Only learned it was produced by Joan Jett who obviously liked to end songs really abruptly. Energetic hardcore punk, Lexicon Devil being the pick of the bunch.
Excellent debut, great singles (Animal Nitrate, Metal Mickey etc…) and the 25th anniversary edition features b-sides that are some of Suede’s best work and somehow didn’t make the album. Definitely not Brit Pop, this is art rock of high quality. A great band.
Enjoyable album, chilled out Americana, great harmonies.
Had this album on and it really passed me by, while it was easy on the ear really nothing stood out. A bit bland.
New Order couldn’t do much wrong around this time, High Life is surrounded by other class albums and there isn’t much wrong here. Driving beats, lush synths & hooky’s basslines, so so good!
Not an Elvis fan, it’s good music but he is very over rated and to my ears plundered the material of true Mavericks of the era.
Not my favourite Dylan album but enough to warrant a great review, there are 5 or 6 absolute masterpieces on this album but a couple in the second half that I can easily avoid. A Hard Rains Gonna Fall & Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright are always welcome.
Has its moments (title track, Albuquerque) but too much of it is a reaction to his previous album and commercial peak, Harvest. Listenable but not overly enjoyable.
Excellent debut released in the midst of Big Beat, a genre which produced a lot of brilliant records but was also quite one dimensional. Chemical Brothers did use this a template but added elements of techno and acid house on the likes of Somg To The Siren & Chemical Beats. The chilled Chico’s Groove brings some respite and the Beth Orten collab on closer Alive Alone is my favourite of the Chem Bros slower vocal tracks.
What a voice and though it’s something I would never think to listen to, there are plenty of tracks I liked.
At times visceral (Tame, Gouge Away) and at times pure pop (Here Comes Your Man, Debaser), Doolittle is an indie guitar masterpiece with hooks galore. Their loud quiet loud aesthetic has often been copied and maybe dulls the impact of listening to this album today but no band has done it better and on this album the Pixies nailed it.
Classy album full of colour, one of the few ‘crooners’ who I enjoy listening to, lyrically and musically engaging all the way through. And the baseline on ‘’The Old Man’s Back Again’ is something else!
Probably the album that kick-started the post-punk revival, influential in its own right, and it is brilliant. The Modern Age, Someday, Hard TonExplain etc… tunes everywhere. It’s hard to imagine the Arctic Monkeys and countless others, good or bad, without this album. Clever guitar licks and lyrics at every turn!
There were loads of acoustic folk albums released in 1979 that I much prefer to Sweet Baby James. I have tried (not very hard) with this album before but it is just too sickly sweet for my taste. Nice but dim.
Used to think some of this was alright but after about 20 minutes of this I found it dull as dishwater
Always found spacemen 3 difficult enough and basically a precursor to Spiritualized, this album has all the main traits, a heavy influence of Velvet Underground and garage rock. Lord Can You Hear Me is pretty but much of the album is hard going.
Great pop music featuring perhaps the greatest pop song of all time.
A more disco direction, it’s a big job for this album to deliver after the opening salvo of Zero / Heads Will Roll. There are moments where the enthusiasm dips but overall it is quality.
Art rock with a sense of dread but full of catchy hooks and a smart pop element, loved this album when it was out and it still sounds good. Halfway Home & DLZ are superb but it’s a great, maybe forgotten, album.
Obviously a few classics on this album, but maybe a lack of quality control on 2 or 3 later tracks stop this from being a masterpiece.
Great stuff, enjoyable new wave pop, particularly on classics like My Best Friends Girl & Just What I Needed.
McCartney’s intention to show he could do it himself without The Beatles or Lennon, BOTR is full of invention and despite what had gone before, plenty of ambition. Classic rock, pop, whatever; there are moments of genius all over this album.
