My 1001 Albums Journey

Albums Rated

3.11

Average Rating

Complete

1043 albums remaining

Rating Distribution

Rating Timeline

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1960s

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Pop

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other

Top Origin

Wordsmith

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5-Star Albums

1-Star Albums

Breakdown

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By Decade

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Albums

You Love More Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector Various Artists	5	3.31	+1.69
Sign 'O' The Times Prince	5	3.45	+1.55
Graceland Paul Simon	5	3.74	+1.26
Off The Wall Michael Jackson	5	3.78	+1.22
Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul Otis Redding	5	3.93	+1.07

You Love Less Than Most

Album	You	Global	Diff
(What's The Story) Morning Glory Oasis	2	3.84	-1.84
Dire Straits Dire Straits	2	3.72	-1.72
Grace Jeff Buckley	2	3.72	-1.72
Definitely Maybe Oasis	2	3.53	-1.53
Frank Amy Winehouse	2	3.45	-1.45
Strangeways, Here We Come The Smiths	2	3.44	-1.44
Made In Japan Deep Purple	2	3.29	-1.29
S&M Metallica	2	3.26	-1.26
The Holy Bible Manic Street Preachers	2	3.14	-1.14
Street Life The Crusaders	2	3.09	-1.09

5-Star Albums (5)

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A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Popular Reviews

S&M

Metallica

2/5

A dumb thing done in an interesting way can still be a dumb thing.

66 likes

The Holy Bible

Manic Street Preachers

2/5

Welsh poli-punks hate Reagan and Thatcher as much as me, but they don’t share my fondness for melody or hooks.

25 likes

Closer

Joy Division

3/5

Released a few months after Ian Curtis hung himself. Impossible not to hear as a suicide note, although the grooves eventually worm their way to the surface.

7 likes

Dire Straits

2/5

Melodically muted, rhythmically stunted. They’re a guitar band, I get it. But then why aren’t the guitars more interesting?

6 likes

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

5/5

The performances are so cheerful and festive you'd swear Spector was holding everone at gunpoint in order to get the perfect take.

4 likes

All Ratings

Africa Brasil

Jorge Ben Jor

3/5

Afro-Brazilian-Samba record. Released in 1976. Joyful, no doubt. Probably means more if you were there in the first place.

S&M

Metallica

2/5

A dumb thing done in an interesting way can still be a dumb thing.

The Holy Bible

Manic Street Preachers

2/5

Welsh poli-punks hate Reagan and Thatcher as much as me, but they don’t share my fondness for melody or hooks.

Dire Straits

2/5

Melodically muted, rhythmically stunted. They’re a guitar band, I get it. But then why aren’t the guitars more interesting?

Closer

Joy Division

3/5

Released a few months after Ian Curtis hung himself. Impossible not to hear as a suicide note, although the grooves eventually worm their way to the surface.

Roots

Sepultura

2/5

Brazilian heavy metal. Loud, aggressive, precise, definitely virtuosic. But despite all their rage, I just don’t feel the music.

Street Life

The Crusaders

2/5

Jazz fusion as elevator music. Next.

Make Yourself

Incubus

2/5

Nu metal and/or prog band from an era when the dumbest rock groups hit pay dirt. These guys aren’t dumb. But Brandon Boyd is pretty pretentious — more ego than melody. Which is why “Drive” is such a welcome relief from their post-grunge squal

Hard Again

Muddy Waters

3/5

Blues icon at 66 with nothing left to prove makes an album full of shit-hot riffs and ebullient charisma.

(What's The Story) Morning Glory

Oasis

2/5

Brit-pop group loves The Beatles, but only “Revolver” era Beatles. Which ain’t bad, but they can’t even write a song as good as “Taxman.”

The xx

3/5

In The Wee Small Hours

Frank Sinatra

3/5

Sign 'O' The Times

Prince

5/5

Harvest

Neil Young

3/5

Like Water For Chocolate

Common

3/5

Strangeways, Here We Come

The Smiths

2/5

It's records like this that make me wish this list wasn't curated by a bunch of Brits.

Pump

Aerosmith

3/5

I mean, it’s one of the better Aerosmith records. But I’m dubious as to whether it merits a spot on this list. Here’s hoping it’s for the song about a young woman killing her abuser and not the one about Steven Tyler getting his dick sucked in an elevator.

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Otis Redding

5/5

A transcendent soul record that doubles as one of the best pop albums of the twentieth century. The crowning achievement of Otis Redding’s all-too-brief lifetime. I can’t help but feel a tinge of sadness when I listen to these songs. I’m ever thankful for the music he made, but devastated at the thought of the possible music we were robbed of.

Raw Power

The Stooges

3/5

Listening with the proper historical context, it’s easy to understand why this record deserves attention. I’m sure it was one of the heaviest, ball-busting albums of its era. To these millennial ears, however, it sounds like the proto-punk record it is — big on sound and energy, less so on songs.

GREY Area

Little Simz

3/5

Third album from London rapper born of Nigerian immigrants. 10 songs in 35 minutes. Her dense flow makes her individualism known. Consider her a winner. Ditto producer Inflo's eclectic, sample-heavy beats.

Let England Shake

PJ Harvey

3/5

The last worthwhile record Polly Jean mustered. A melancholy rumination on the Great War and its long-term effect on her English homeland. The best songs focus on the human cost of violence.

Synchronicity

The Police

3/5

Feels like a quintessential Police record: one great song, some notable runner-ups, some filler masked as art-pop. In short, it only solidifies their status as a singles band -- which I don't mean as a pejorative. Stewart Copeland is a terrific drummer. I wish he had more to work with than Sting's pretentions.

Maggot Brain

Funkadelic

3/5

10 minutes of drugged-out guitar tricks followed by 26 minutes of the funk. Feeling counts for more here than formal song structure, but when the bass is this meaty and the groove is this unrelenting, let the good times roll.

Mr. Tambourine Man

The Byrds

3/5

Every piece of art is a product of its era, but these chiming folk-pop ditties are straight out of a time capsule. They may have been useful in 1965, but history has rendered them a mere musical artifact.

Is This It

The Strokes

3/5

Debut album from one of the quintessential garage-rock revivalist bands that bombarded MTV and alternative rock radio stations during the early '00s. This record means more for what it signifies as opposed to how the songs work (the lone exception being "Last Night"). I suspect this record receives a disproportionate amount of praise because it's their first one. But whenever I want to listen to a Strokes record, I play their much better follow-up, "Room on Fire."

Let It Bleed

The Rolling Stones

4/5

All Directions

The Temptations

3/5

MTV Unplugged In New York

Nirvana

4/5

good kid, m.A.A.d city

Kendrick Lamar

4/5

The Blueprint

JAY Z

4/5

The White Album

Beatles

4/5

In Utero

Nirvana

4/5

Hunky Dory

David Bowie

3/5

Talking Book

Stevie Wonder

3/5

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Elton John

3/5

Off The Wall

Michael Jackson

5/5

Grace

Jeff Buckley

2/5

Frank

Amy Winehouse

2/5

Elvis Presley

3/5

Catch A Fire

Bob Marley & The Wailers

4/5

A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

Various Artists

5/5

The performances are so cheerful and festive you'd swear Spector was holding everone at gunpoint in order to get the perfect take.

Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite

Maxwell

2/5

Not as sweaty or as horny as D’Angelo, not as articulate or manly as Babyface. At least he didn’t commit crimes like R. Kelly, or Michael Jackson for that matter. Nice guy finishes third.

Definitely Maybe

Oasis

2/5

“Oi. It’s Chewsday, innit?”

Made In Japan

Deep Purple

2/5

Their musicianship is through the roof, no doubt. But not for all the smoke on the proverbial water would I listen to this exhausting prog marathon again.

Graceland

Paul Simon

5/5

Sticky Fingers

The Rolling Stones

4/5