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Thu May 06 2021
You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
3
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Fri May 07 2021
The Wildest!
Louis Prima
3
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Sun May 09 2021
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure
3
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Mon May 10 2021
Madman Across The Water
Elton John
3
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Tue May 11 2021
Modern Life Is Rubbish
Blur
2
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Wed May 12 2021
Electric Warrior
T. Rex
3
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Thu May 13 2021
All That You Can't Leave Behind
U2
1
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Fri May 14 2021
american dream
LCD Soundsystem
4
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Sat May 15 2021
Sheet Music
10cc
3
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Sun May 16 2021
The Specials
The Specials
3
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Mon May 17 2021
Among The Living
Anthrax
2
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Tue May 18 2021
The Slider
T. Rex
3
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Wed May 19 2021
Heavy Weather
Weather Report
2
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Thu May 20 2021
Bayou Country
Creedence Clearwater Revival
3
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Fri May 21 2021
Peace Sells...But Who's Buying
Megadeth
3
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Sat May 22 2021
Central Reservation
Beth Orton
3
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Sun May 23 2021
Good Old Boys
Randy Newman
2
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Mon May 24 2021
The Real Thing
Faith No More
3
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Tue May 25 2021
Time Out
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
5
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Wed May 26 2021
Darklands
The Jesus And Mary Chain
2
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Thu May 27 2021
Physical Graffiti
Led Zeppelin
2
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Fri May 28 2021
Actually
Pet Shop Boys
3
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Sat May 29 2021
The Sounds Of India
Ravi Shankar
3
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Sun May 30 2021
Oracular Spectacular
MGMT
1
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Mon May 31 2021
Ray Of Light
Madonna
3
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Tue Jun 01 2021
Foxbase Alpha
Saint Etienne
3
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Wed Jun 02 2021
Abbey Road
Beatles
4
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Thu Jun 03 2021
Penance Soiree
The Icarus Line
3
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Fri Jun 04 2021
Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury
The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
3
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Sat Jun 05 2021
Pacific Ocean Blue
Dennis Wilson
4
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Sun Jun 06 2021
Jack Takes the Floor
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3
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Mon Jun 07 2021
Rubber Soul
Beatles
3
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Tue Jun 08 2021
At Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash
5
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Wed Jun 09 2021
69 Love Songs
The Magnetic Fields
3
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Thu Jun 10 2021
Hysteria
Def Leppard
1
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Fri Jun 11 2021
Pretenders
Pretenders
2
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Sat Jun 12 2021
Moby Grape
Moby Grape
3
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Sun Jun 13 2021
MTV Unplugged In New York
Nirvana
4
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Mon Jun 14 2021
New Boots And Panties
Ian Dury
2
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Tue Jun 15 2021
Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
4
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Wed Jun 16 2021
Vol. 4
Black Sabbath
3
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Thu Jun 17 2021
Face to Face
The Kinks
3
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Fri Jun 18 2021
Crocodiles
Echo And The Bunnymen
3
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Sat Jun 19 2021
...And Justice For All
Metallica
2
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Sun Jun 20 2021
Go Girl Crazy
The Dictators
3
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Mon Jun 21 2021
Here Are the Sonics
The Sonics
3
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Tue Jun 22 2021
Deja Vu
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
3
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Wed Jun 23 2021
The Band
The Band
3
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Thu Jun 24 2021
Step In The Arena
Gang Starr
4
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Fri Jun 25 2021
The Scream
Siouxsie And The Banshees
2
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Sat Jun 26 2021
Ten
Pearl Jam
2
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Sun Jun 27 2021
Bubble And Scrape
Sebadoh
2
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Mon Jun 28 2021
Haunted Dancehall
The Sabres Of Paradise
3
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Tue Jun 29 2021
Let's Stay Together
Al Green
4
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Wed Jun 30 2021
Kimono My House
Sparks
4
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Thu Jul 01 2021
Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room
Dwight Yoakam
1
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Fri Jul 02 2021
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
A Tribe Called Quest
4
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Sat Jul 03 2021
Live!
Fela Kuti
4
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Sun Jul 04 2021
Live At The Harlem Square Club
Sam Cooke
3
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Mon Jul 05 2021
Debut
Björk
2
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Tue Jul 06 2021
NEU! 75
Neu!
4
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Wed Jul 07 2021
Blood On The Tracks
Bob Dylan
5
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Thu Jul 08 2021
Private Dancer
Tina Turner
1
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Fri Jul 09 2021
There's No Place Like America Today
Curtis Mayfield
4
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Sat Jul 10 2021
Da Capo
Love
3
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Sun Jul 11 2021
Queen Of Denmark
John Grant
3
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Mon Jul 12 2021
Maverick A Strike
Finley Quaye
This is the first 1 I've encountered where I was completely unfamiliar with the subject matter. The vocals feels completely divorced from the music and both are absolutely inane. This is directionless and passionless and reflective of bad 90s reggae in general. I have no idea how this made the list.
1
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Tue Jul 13 2021
Tusk
Fleetwood Mac
3
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Wed Jul 14 2021
Younger Than Yesterday
The Byrds
3
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Thu Jul 15 2021
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill
3
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Fri Jul 16 2021
Gasoline Alley
Rod Stewart
1
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Sat Jul 17 2021
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Derek & The Dominos
3
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Sun Jul 18 2021
Manassas
Stephen Stills
3
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Mon Jul 19 2021
Nixon
Lambchop
2
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Tue Jul 20 2021
The Visitors
ABBA
3
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Wed Jul 21 2021
The Grand Tour
George Jones
3
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Thu Jul 22 2021
Bongo Rock
Incredible Bongo Band
4
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Fri Jul 23 2021
The Renaissance
Q-Tip
3
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Sat Jul 24 2021
A Grand Don't Come For Free
The Streets
2
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Sun Jul 25 2021
Roxy Music
Roxy Music
4
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Mon Jul 26 2021
On The Beach
Neil Young
3
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Tue Jul 27 2021
Eli And The Thirteenth Confession
Laura Nyro
3
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Wed Jul 28 2021
This Year's Model
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3
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Thu Jul 29 2021
All Directions
The Temptations
4
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Fri Jul 30 2021
Raising Hell
Run-D.M.C.
3
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Sat Jul 31 2021
Merriweather Post Pavilion
Animal Collective
2
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Sun Aug 01 2021
Grace
Jeff Buckley
I've often had a problem with singer-songwriters where a lack of emotive performance will cause my eyes to glaze over in reaction to some otherwise excellently written songs, and I've previously written off Jeff Buckley on cursory listens as having that problem, but this album is fantastic. This is one of a select few albums that I've completely come around on as a result of this listening exercise. Good show.
4
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Mon Aug 02 2021
Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
3
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Tue Aug 03 2021
Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
I'm a huge Nick Cave fan, and I've listened to Abattoir Blues quite a bit, but I haven't given The Lyre of Orpheus its due in close to a decade as the slower of the two companion pieces. Revisiting it now that Cave has released albums like Ghosteen and Carnage puts it in a very different light. Orpheus is still the weaker half, but it has a warmth not present in some of his more recent somber outings. While I overall prefer the Blixa era of the Bad Seeds, this is still a great album.
4
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Wed Aug 04 2021
Me Against The World
2Pac
3
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Thu Aug 05 2021
Eternally Yours
The Saints
3
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Fri Aug 06 2021
Triangle
The Beau Brummels
3
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Sat Aug 07 2021
Too Rye Ay
Dexys Midnight Runners
3
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Sun Aug 08 2021
Here, My Dear
Marvin Gaye
3
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Mon Aug 09 2021
Home Is Where The Music Is
Hugh Masekela
3
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Tue Aug 10 2021
More Songs About Buildings And Food
Talking Heads
3
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Wed Aug 11 2021
British Steel
Judas Priest
3
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Thu Aug 12 2021
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
4
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Fri Aug 13 2021
First Band On The Moon
The Cardigans
3
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Sat Aug 14 2021
Another Green World
Brian Eno
4
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Sun Aug 15 2021
Hunting High And Low
a-ha
3
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Mon Aug 16 2021
Woodface
Crowded House
2
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Tue Aug 17 2021
1999
Prince
This would be a five star album if it weren't so bloated. Still a fantastic, classic album, but it really starts to drag as it goes on...
4
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Wed Aug 18 2021
Low-Life
New Order
3
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Thu Aug 19 2021
Sincere
Mj Cole
2
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Fri Aug 20 2021
Swordfishtrombones
Tom Waits
Truly amazing album, only overshadowed by being released just prior to Rain Dogs, one of the greatest albums of all time.
4
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Sat Aug 21 2021
Brown Sugar
D'Angelo
A really good album in a genre I practically never want to listen to
3
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Sun Aug 22 2021
Architecture And Morality
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
The New Stone Age is such a banger but the rest of the album just drags after that.
2
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Mon Aug 23 2021
Disintegration
The Cure
Having long hated The Cure's radio singles, I have been pleasantly surprised by each Cure album I've listened to, with this being the best I've heard so far.
4
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Tue Aug 24 2021
Parklife
Blur
With each new Blur album I hear, the more I become convinced that they are the epitome of a singles band.
3
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Wed Aug 25 2021
The Boatman's Call
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
I'm a huge Nick Cave fan, but this is one of his most boring albums.
2
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Thu Aug 26 2021
Billion Dollar Babies
Alice Cooper
4
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Fri Aug 27 2021
Buffalo Springfield Again
Buffalo Springfield
3
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Sat Aug 28 2021
Graceland
Paul Simon
4
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Sun Aug 29 2021
Ill Communication
Beastie Boys
4
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Mon Aug 30 2021
Broken English
Marianne Faithfull
3
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Tue Aug 31 2021
Blackstar
David Bowie
5
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Wed Sep 01 2021
Dummy
Portishead
4
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Thu Sep 02 2021
Suede
Suede
3
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Fri Sep 03 2021
A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse
Faces
I really don't understand this list. I feel like the authors haven't done a very good job of living up to the title they chose. Why must I hear these boring-ass Rod Stewart albums that keep getting generated before I die? For every one of these bland, forgettable snoozefests, they could have populated the list with more cutting edge jazz, fascinating avant garde, challenging heavy music, or statement-laden singer-songwriter pieces. This is music for your aunt. It sounds the an ashtray full of Parliament light cigarette butts smells. This album has no legacy, it has influenced nothing noteworthy. It's stale white bread in a cabinet that smells faintly of mildew and is lined with a tacky layer of faded orange and green plastic sheeting. This is an album that was meant to take up space at a Goodwill or a Salvation Army in between Barry Manilow and a six volume Christian music box set that's missing two records and the vinyl is warped. Once you have heard Neu! you never have to hear this album. It offers nothing. Throw in that punch bowl, tupperware, and Garfield mug you found a few aisles over and maybe you'll break $5.
1
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Sat Sep 04 2021
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips
Now here's an album that I'm intimately familiar with, but have cooled off to over time, putting me in an interesting spot. How do you rank something like that? Ultimately, it's not a bad album. Some of my change of opinion is based around outside factors - my overall opinion on the band, their musical output since then, Wayne Coyne's ego and behavior. This probably ranks somewhere in the middle for me... a pretty solid indie/alternative rock album, but not revolutionary by any means.
3
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Sun Sep 05 2021
Trafalgar
Bee Gees
2
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Mon Sep 06 2021
Sound of Silver
LCD Soundsystem
This list made me re-evaluate LCD Soundsystem when it generated American Dream. Prior to hearing that album, I had written this band off based on multiple listens. Sound of Silver isn't nearly as good as American Dream - and I don't think anything else in their discography is going to measure up to that album for me - but it is pretty good.
3
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Tue Sep 07 2021
John Barleycorn Must Die
Traffic
A mild surprise.
3
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Wed Sep 08 2021
Made In Japan
Deep Purple
Pretty good album, but I feel like the bar should be considerably higher for a live album to make this list. Outside of Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, I'd be hard pressed to think of one that has the significance to be on here. The Quintet's Jazz At Massey Hall?
3
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Thu Sep 09 2021
Hounds Of Love
Kate Bush
Easy five stars.
5
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Fri Sep 10 2021
Loveless
My Bloody Valentine
I've never understood the appeal of this album. It has its moments, but it also has a really ponderous pace that never makes the album feel way longer than it actually is.
2
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Sat Sep 11 2021
Steve McQueen
Prefab Sprout
I don't hate this album, but this is pretty antithetical to my musical tastes. I guess I would call this album... inconsequential? Odd inclusion.
2
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Sun Sep 12 2021
Mama Said Knock You Out
LL Cool J
Having just gotten to Mr. Good Bar, I have to ask... how can anyone find this anything but incredibly cringey? Some hip-hop acts from this era have aged pretty well... Rakim, Run-DMC... but the punchiest moments on this album feel like Will Smith trying to be Ice Cube.
2
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Mon Sep 13 2021
Dry
PJ Harvey
This is a tough album for me to rate. PJ Harvey is an artist that I have tons of respect for, but I never want to listen to her music. I recognize it as good, but it just doesn't speak to me personally. It almost certainly is in the upper 50% of albums on this list, though.
3
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Tue Sep 14 2021
Blur
Blur
All right, this is the third Blur album in 131 albums. This is some serious over-representation on the part of this band and Brit-pop in general, a genre that was only a factor for a small handful of years in the 90s and barely a blip on the overall landscape of music, making me thing that there is a bit too strong of an Anglocentric slant on this list. As far as the album itself, it's probably the best of the three Blur albums on the list (so far... I wouldn't put it past the authors to include the band's entire damn discography), but that isn't saying too much. As I previously noted, Blur feels more and more like a singles band with each new album I hear with not much to say in regards to the deep cuts. Still, the band is better than their contemporaries and rivals, Oasis, so there's that.
3
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Wed Sep 15 2021
La Revancha Del Tango
Gotan Project
This is so close to something great, but it falls short. There is a spark of something really interesting here, but it flies a little too close to background music. Still, not unpleasant. Just... not living up to its full potential. This is music for people who hear something like Budos Band or Dub Trio and think, "this would be great if it was toned down even further."
3
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Thu Sep 16 2021
Pictures At An Exhibition
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Now this is good. Not great necessarily, but a very solid good. And it made me realize that I really like ELP. I think I spent like two hours after I listened to this album listening to random ELP songs. So that's a strong feat.
3
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Fri Sep 17 2021
Aladdin Sane
David Bowie
4
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Sat Sep 18 2021
Modern Kosmology
Jane Weaver
It's a fine album if inconsequential, but the entry in the book reaffirms my beliefs of the Anglocentrism of the list.
3
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Sun Sep 19 2021
American Pie
Don McLean
A one hit wonder with a bunch of meandering ballads for deep cuts. Wannabe Donovan.
2
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Mon Sep 20 2021
Deep Purple In Rock
Deep Purple
3
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Tue Sep 21 2021
Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
2
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Wed Sep 22 2021
The Dreaming
Kate Bush
Another easy five.
5
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Thu Sep 23 2021
Bandwagonesque
Teenage Fanclub
Meh.
2
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Fri Sep 24 2021
Snivilisation
Orbital
3
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Sat Sep 25 2021
Transformer
Lou Reed
4
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Sun Sep 26 2021
Illinois
Sufjan Stevens
3
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Mon Sep 27 2021
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill
3
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Tue Sep 28 2021
Roger the Engineer
The Yardbirds
Love, Moby Grape, now this. I'm sure this is heresy to some who can pick apart the subtle nuances of these bands, but I find a lot of rock from this era to be very samey and redundant. This is probably the best album generated from this style/era so far, but this all feels like dress rehearsal. These musicians would need a few years still to break through to something actually interesting.
3
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Wed Sep 29 2021
Club Classics Vol. One
Soul II Soul
Another album strengthening my argument that this list is way to Anglocentric. That being said, while this album is incredibly dated, it has a certain simple charm as an early 90s dance/r&b hybrid sort of thing. Generally inoffensive and fairly pleasant but it gets old fast.
2
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Thu Sep 30 2021
Bookends
Simon & Garfunkel
3
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Fri Oct 01 2021
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel
Weirdly I got this album and Bookends back to back, forcing a comparison between two albums by the same artist. I rank them - and Graceland, the other Paul Simon album that's been generated so far - about the same. I like Paul Simon as a songwriter quite a bit, but to me he never cracks the ceiling into greatness. All of these albums hover around 3.75 for me, with Graceland probably being the best overall, but I do like the echoey, doomy drums on the title track of this album and The Boxer. They always felt weirdly industrial, an odd backdrop for folksy 60s music, almost like a precursor for some of Swans' 90s albums like White Light From the Mouth of Infinity or The Great Annihilator. That's a pretty left field association to make, and the average Simon and Garfunkel fan isn't probably going to find much tonal similarity to latch onto the majestic but joyless music of Swans, but these are my observations.
3
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Sat Oct 02 2021
Elephant
The White Stripes
A great album, to be clear, but I feel like it's both overplayed and overrated in the White Stripes' discography off the back of Seven Nation Army. At this point in my life, I'd rather listen to any of their first three albums or Icky Thump (which I feel is extremely underrated in their discography). Not that I'd rank it as fifth overall - it's better than their debut and arguments can be made for how it fares against the others - but (much like OutKast's Stankonia), it drops down in my personal ranking just based on how ubiquitous it's become. There is a certain charm to being an earlier album by a band that exploded in popularity and having just as strong of songwriting but having some grit over polish. De Stijl (and in OutKast's case, since I'm using them as a comparison, Aquemini) are those albums for me. But White Stripes are one of those rare bands with almost no duds - outside of Get Behind Me Satan, I feel like they have a perfect discography. It's a shame Jack White hasn't released a single good album since they disbanded.
4
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Sun Oct 03 2021
Darkdancer
Les Rythmes Digitales
Is that Andy Samberg? Anyway, pretty meh album. I've never been that big of a fan of this style of electronic music - overly clean production with a thin, wiffly soundscape. None of the rhythms are interesting or compelling, none of the textures are evocative of anything at all to me. This is dance music with all the personality of the paint on the walls of hospital hallway.
1
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Mon Oct 04 2021
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
What can I say? An absolute classic. The only question is whether this is a 4.75 or a straight 5 for me. I find this album more personally enjoyable than Dark Side or Animals, which are the consensus and music nerd picks for the best late era Pink Floyd album respectively. All three are great. (The Wall doesn't belong in this discussion, IMO. There's a number of great songs on it, but it's one of the most blatantly bloated albums of all time.)
5
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Tue Oct 05 2021
Birth Of The Cool
Miles Davis
Not my favorite Miles Davis album, but that doesn't really mean much. I'm ranking this a three, but it's a pretty high three. If I rounded up my scores, it would be a four, but I don't.
3
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Wed Oct 06 2021
Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
Probably the most influential album on the music of the last four decades, super easy five stars.
5
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Thu Oct 07 2021
Gold
Ryan Adams
Well, this is devoid of personality.
1
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Fri Oct 08 2021
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Public Enemy
An incredibly important album... that hasn't aged incredibly well sonically. It's not a bad album at all... but while this might have been a four or five star album upon release on many metrics, time has not been kind to it and now it ranks... three? A high three? Yeah, a high three.
3
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Sat Oct 09 2021
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Pavement
Ah yes, the godfathers of incredibly boring indie rock. I've tried so many times to get into these guys, and now, upon this most recent listen, I can safely say it's never going to happen.
2
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Sun Oct 10 2021
Water From An Ancient Well
Abdullah Ibrahim
3
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Mon Oct 11 2021
Arise
Sepultura
What an odd choice to include this album - which is pretty by-the-numbers thrash metal - when the following Sepultura album, Chaos A.D., would see them making a genre-defining groove metal album incorporating elements of traditional Brazilian tribal music. At least Roots made the list... but Arise over Chaos A.D.? Weird. Very weird. Still good... but not the album that should be on the list.
3
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Tue Oct 12 2021
Dookie
Green Day
Weird, I was just thinking today that sooner or later I would have to deal with this album on this list. How do I rate this? I used to love it (well, like it a lot) and since cooled off on it quite a bit as I have developed a pretty negative opinion on pop punk and California punk in general. Green Day's downward trajectory as a band haven't helped things... although my opinion of this album hasn't gone downhill as much as my opinion of the Sublime discography since my adolescence. Do I hate this album? No, not really. But when you evaluate an album for its role as an influential album - which this certainly was - shouldn't you take into account what it influenced? What Green Day influenced was garbage. Much like Nirvana, the music that took after it was a musical dead end. Should the parent be punished for the sins of the child? No, not necessarily, but Green Day also isn't anywhere near as good of a band as Nirvana (and I wouldn't exactly call myself a Nirvana fanboy). I suppose all this hemming and hawing is just navel-gazing while I decide if this deserves a 2 (probably a 2.75) or a 3 (no higher than a 3.5). Either way, it falls somewhere in the middle - not U2 terrible, not Kate Bush great.
3
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Wed Oct 13 2021
Pretzel Logic
Steely Dan
I don't know how a band so talented at arrangement can make such utterly boring music. This is artisan ear oatmeal.
2
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Thu Oct 14 2021
Punishing Kiss
Ute Lemper
I feel like I *should* like this... I like Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Elvis Costello quite a bit, I like this style of cinematic 60s belter... it just doesn't connect for me. Maybe it's the darker modern production and the heavy leaning on strings over brass in the arrangements... this needs some big ol' Henry Mancini swells or something. This style of music is self-aware enough to wink at the audience but it's being blended with songwriting so self-serious that it keeps its winking behind closed doors. However, I could see this album being a grower worth revisiting.
3
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Fri Oct 15 2021
Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
The Byrds
I had written off The Byrds as by-the-numbers psyche-pop, but this an incredibly solid country album. I'm dubious that the need a whole five albums on the list, but this album sounds like what Wilco is trying to sound like on any given day.
4
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Sat Oct 16 2021
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple
I love Fiona Apple, but I feel like this album is more than a little overrated and the buzz around it overshadows the superior previous album, Idler Wheel. That being said, it's not a bad album at all. For Her is an amazing song.
3
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Sun Oct 17 2021
Very
Pet Shop Boys
2
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Mon Oct 18 2021
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Oh god. Foo Fighters are not a good band. Foo Fighters are a band with zero personality, just like Dave Grohl himself. It's lowest common denominator, paint-by-numbers rock that fits together elements of every style of alt rock around it so that it can function as the perfect segue between any two songs on a radio station, and that's exactly what they've been doing for 25 years. I used to lump Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam in together, but having been forced to listen to a Pearl Jam album during this project, I can conclude that Pearl Jam have a level of production, songwriting, and dynamics not present whatsoever in Foo Fighters. I still don't like Pearl Jam, but they are significantly better than this. Foo Fighters are muzak with crunchy guitars. If the 90s alternative scene was the crisper drawer in your refrigerator and the many talented, original bands were the variety of vegetables you have, Foo Fighters would be the pooling liquid at the bottom from the various bits of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and mushrooms that have gone bad in the back. Ugh. This isn't the worst album generated by the list so far... but it's probably in the bottom five.
1
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Tue Oct 19 2021
Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black
Public Enemy
Huh, I had not heard this before, but this might actually be better than It Takes a Nation and Fear of a Black Planet. Maybe those are more widely acclaimed because they have iconic album covers and this cover looks like a high school stage adaptation of Anansi Boys.
4
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Wed Oct 20 2021
Reign In Blood
Slayer
I guess I've never really "gotten" Slayer. To me, it always just sounds sloppy. Thrash is pretty far from my preferred style of metal, but even in thrash, they never really struck a chord with me. They're better than Metallica, I can say that at least.
3
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Thu Oct 21 2021
Take Me Apart
Kelela
I skipped over this when it came out because Kelela featured on one of the few mediocre tracks on Danny Brown's Atrocity Exhibition (an album that should really be on the list), but this is starting out extremely strong - and I'm not a fan of R&B in general. Interestingly, this album is not in my version of the book, which is the most recent update, so I have to assume it was cut despite only being four years old. I would think the editor would cull older albums, many of which are redundant or dated instead of cycling through new additions. Seriously, we don't need the full Byrds discography, especially at the expense of pivotal newer albums. Music is a living organism, constantly evolving, and the list has a terrible track record when it comes to 21st century releases, omitting important releases from Swans, Death Grips, Run the Jewels, Danny Brown, Sophie, Mastodon, and, well, basically anything remotely heavy. I don't think there's any metal on this list after nu-metal collapsed in on itself. Hell, it looks like they cut Fever Ray's self-titled too, and that is one of the best albums of the 21st century. This list is atrocious. Goddam embarrassing.
3
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Fri Oct 22 2021
Duck Rock
Malcolm McLaren
The entry in the book made this album sound like a joke, but it's not bad... a variety of styles of world music interspersed with dated 80s hip-hop interludes. The book said this "facilitated the birth of world music as we know it," which is kind of absurd - world music is just an umbrella term for folk music from around the globe so it could be easily marketed to Westerners. If the implication is that this is what started the trend of popularizing those styles of music, it probably does deserve some credit, but as much as David Byrne, Joe Strummer, or Paul Simon? This is certainly more forgotten to history than those other artists and their experiments, probably because of their higher pedigree. I don't really have any intent to return to this... it wasn't bad, but this is one of those albums on the list more for its role as a historical footnote than its timelessness.
3
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Sat Oct 23 2021
Highway to Hell
AC/DC
Oof, okay. So AC/DC aren't *terrible*, they have a degree of self-awareness that other big dumb rock bands like Metallica and Aerosmith are completely lacking. Their riffs and grooves were simple and effective for what they were, but I'm not going to pretend to like them. I made a comparison a few months back that AC/DC were to rock what Lil' Jon was to hip-hop, and I stand by that. I can drunkenly shout along to both if I'm in the right headspace. But I'm going to apply the same metric to AC/DC that I did to Green Day: If we give influential albums credit for the good music that was inspired by them, we have to also apply the blame when they inspire absolute garbage, and AC/DC has inspired some of the most garbage. Alongside Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and a few others, they deserve a lot of blame for the universally terrible hair metal genre to follow them in the 80s. This is probably going to place this album in the low 3's for me. We'll see, I haven't listened to it in like a decade outside of the singles that I'm forced to hear literally every day on the butt rock radio station at work.
3
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Sun Oct 24 2021
At Budokan
Cheap Trick
Why?
2
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Mon Oct 25 2021
Penthouse And Pavement
Heaven 17
Well, this is an awkward album to review since like half of it isn't available on Spotify. I could switch over to youtube, but I'm not particularly motivated. The first track is some decent dance punk, kind of feels like something LCD Soundsystem would do three decades later... but after that it feels pretty dated. There's one track from the second half that is on Spotify that feels somehow dated and ahead of its time simultaneously.
3
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Tue Oct 26 2021
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Aretha Franklin
This is just a meat-and-potatoes great album. Not flashy, not exciting, just a classic. 4/5
4
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Wed Oct 27 2021
Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
One of the best Stones albums. Easy 5.
5
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Thu Oct 28 2021
Welcome to the Afterfuture
Mike Ladd
Not bad. I'm a little surprised I haven't heard of this rapper before, I've explored a lot of underground hip-hop from this era. This wouldn't be one of my first choices to represent the genre/era... My one big complaint about this album is that none of the beats really hit hard enough. The whole album has a frustratingly ethereal quality, like aural blue balls.
3
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Fri Oct 29 2021
A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Coldplay
I couldn't even make it two full tracks in. I wanted to give it a more thorough listen and lay out all the reasons why Coldplay is boring music for boring people, but life is too short to waste listening to Coldplay.
1
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Sat Oct 30 2021
Ghosteen
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Tough one to rank. I prefer Cave's rockers to his more somber work, but this is easily his best somber album. Haunting and beautiful.
4
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Sun Oct 31 2021
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Frank Sinatra
I've never been able to take Sinatra seriously and I still can't. Jobim is great, but this album would have been better as an instrumental.
3
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Mon Nov 01 2021
Hms Fable
Shack
The entry in the book for this album made it sound really gritty and interesting, but this is the blandest Britpop album yet from this list. You know, I didn't really have a problem with Britpop before starting this project, but I'm really growing to dislike it now.
2
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Tue Nov 02 2021
Achtung Baby
U2
There isn't a single U2 album you must hear before you die, certainly not one released after the 80s. This album is definitely better than All That You Can't Leave Behind, the other album I've gotten from the list so far, but that's not saying much, since that's one of the worst albums I've ever heard. I can't believe I used to own this tripe.
2
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Wed Nov 03 2021
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
George Michael
Not a terrible album, but this album absolutely does not belong on this list. This is essential to nothing.
3
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Thu Nov 04 2021
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
After a brief flirtation with liking Queens of the Stone Age in my late teens, I quickly grew tired of Josh Homme's songwriting, guitar tone, and personality. There are a ton of genre adjacent bands like Melvins or Sleep or Clutch or Mastodon who I would take over QotSA. I guess QotSA are a little catchier, a little more radio friendly, but I'm just not impressed. This album isn't terrible, it worked fine as background music while I played video games, but it's just kind of blah to me. Low three.
3
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Fri Nov 05 2021
All Hail the Queen
Queen Latifah
Not bad, but it hasn't aged super well. There's a lot of early hip-hop on this list that feels very dated. Some of it is important from a historic perspective, but compared to the amount of more recent hip-hop inclusions, it's pretty overloaded.
3
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Sat Nov 06 2021
At San Quentin
Johnny Cash
Hard album to evaluate since the only available version is greatly expanded from the original release and features a number of other musicians. Normally you ignore expanded versions... but the added material is the rest of the original concert. I guess at the end of the day, it's a great concert, just not as tight or iconic as Folsom.
4
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Sun Nov 07 2021
Bummed
Happy Mondays
I know that with the country stats recently tallied that Britain came in second to the US as far as overall albums on the list, but so many British albums stand out simply because they don't stand out. A lot of British bands aren't that distinct from one another so you just wind up with a wash of whatever genre it is, whether it's punk, post-punk, Britpop, or whatever. There are some incredibly vital British albums, but the list needs to be pruned. This is a perfectly average British post-punk album that is a fine 3 and nothing more. It isn't necessary to have this much representation on the list when the music scene isn't that diverse.
3
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Mon Nov 08 2021
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
It's been quite a while since I've given this a listen, probably since my early 20s. From what I remember, it was a pretty big departure from TVU&N and WL/WH, and as I revisit it, I can see why I put it down and never returned. There are moments of songwriting beauty, but for the most part this is pretty lifeless. John Cale is sorely missed from this.
3
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Tue Nov 09 2021
C'est Chic
CHIC
It's... okay? I know there is a disco revival currently going on, and disco had a huge stigma for a long time, but I find it hard to really feel one way or another about it. For me, disco is to funk and soul what yacht rock is to prog rock. There are some cool bass lines here, but the songs just kind of drag on without much in the way of a climax. I've heard a lot worse (including on this list), but I'm not running out to buy a pair of roller skates anytime soon.
3
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Wed Nov 10 2021
Kala
M.I.A.
M.I.A. is one of those artists where I like all the elements of the music, but I can't really get into it.
3
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Thu Nov 11 2021
Brothers In Arms
Dire Straits
Dire Straits are such an odd band to me - a lot of talent, but inconsistent. Their good stuff sounds like Gordon Lightfoot mixed with blue eyed soul and their bad stuff sounds like cheesy solo John Fogerty. And then there's Money for Nothing, one of the most overplayed songs in classic rock radio history. It might have been good at one point, but it winds up really throwing the tone of this album all out of whack. Once you get to the deep cuts, though, this album really gets good. Your Latest Trick sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack to Law & Order... it's a great arrangement... until you get to that cheesy saxophone. Some mixing changes might have saved it, but it winds up sounding very 80s in a bad way. Why Worry? has some nice little synth licks that hint at the band's proggier Telegraph Road. Ride Across the River is a straight banger. It kind of sounds like the soundtrack to some 16 bit video game's jungle night level in the best way possible. The Man's Too Strong has a strong Western vibe with a hint of apocalyptic folk a la Great Annihilator-era Swans. One World's not bad either, although the slap bass dates it a bit. The guitar does some heavy lifting here. The album ends with the moody synth swell of the title track, a song that was destined to be played during a pivotal scene in The Americans.
This was one of my mother's favorite albums, and it has a lot of emotional pull for me - both negative and positive, nostalgia and rebellion. Listening through it, if it didn't have Money for Nothing and Walk of Life, it would be almost a five star album for me. As it stands, with those two tracks on it, it will wind up a three or (more likely) a four. Before I relistened to it, I wouldn't have ranked it quite that high, but like I said, the deep cuts on this album have a lot of fantastic elements, many of which I forgot.
4
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Fri Nov 12 2021
Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
Meh. The story behind this album is more interesting than the actual music. Not terrible, but not great.
2
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Sat Nov 13 2021
Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert)
Bob Dylan
An important concert from a historical context, but this begs the question: should a recording of a concert that took pace in 1966 be included on this list as a release in 1998? Should it be included at all? The cultural impact it had was as a concert, not an album. And, to be honest, they aren't the best performances of these songs. This loses quite a bit of the impact of the actual concert because you aren't there, experiencing the event live. The atmosphere is completely lost in the translation.
3
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Sun Nov 14 2021
Kenza
Khaled
Starts off pretty good, but after the ill-advised cover of Imagine, it never really recovers.
2
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Mon Nov 15 2021
The Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
Well, I'm not the Nine Inch Nails fan I was when I was 16, but it would be disingenuous to not give this album a 5. Trent's output after The Fragile has been largely terrible outside of Ghosts and some soundtrack work, but in the mid 90s, he was riding a creative high. Downward Spiral was more in tune with industrial's roots than a lot of his contemporaries like Skinny Puppy and Ministry but also comfortably couched in the alternative rock of the era. This was a great entry point and also a strong display of songwriting and cohesive theme and storytelling. It's not without its flaws, but it's a classic.
5
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Tue Nov 16 2021
The Clash
The Clash
It's not as good as Combat Rock, but I'm going to take the controversial position of saying that this is better than London Calling. More immediate, more visceral, no sappy filler. Just a great punk album.
4
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Wed Nov 17 2021
Scott 4
Scott Walker
3
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Thu Nov 18 2021
Live At The Witch Trials
The Fall
I've struggled with The Fall over the years and only a couple of months ago developed an appreciation for them. There's a certain style of early post punk that kind of blurs together for me - The Fall, Gang of Four, Wire, Mission of Burma... some of it is good, but it lacks some of the personality that set apart some of the better examples of the genre for me (Talking Heads, Joy Division, The Pop Group, Pere Ubu, This Heat).
3
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Fri Nov 19 2021
S.F. Sorrow
The Pretty Things
Reading the entry for this, the book gives this album a lot of credit for being the first (or at least an early example of a) concept album. It may have been a huge inspiration on Tommy, but as far as standing on its own as an album... it's okay. It's fine.
3
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Sat Nov 20 2021
Exile On Main Street
The Rolling Stones
Exile On Main St. marked a point of decline for the Rolling Stones, but it was a decline from a trilogy of albums so great that it would take a decade before the Stones would truly settle into mediocrity. There were a number of 70s albums still amazing, but nothing would come close to touching Beggars/Bleed/Sticky. I would say it's a shame, but the Stones had more great albums than most bands. The fact that only three are perfect five stars is still a great accomplishment.
4
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Sun Nov 21 2021
Channel Orange
Frank Ocean
3
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Mon Nov 22 2021
Paul's Boutique
Beastie Boys
Five star classic. Both an incredibly fun album and also an incredibly important album in the history of sampling, hip hop, plunderphonics, intellectual property law, etc.
5
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Tue Nov 23 2021
Either Or
Elliott Smith
2
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Wed Nov 24 2021
Nighthawks At The Diner
Tom Waits
4
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Thu Nov 25 2021
Songs In The Key Of Life
Stevie Wonder
4
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Fri Nov 26 2021
James Brown Live At The Apollo
James Brown
3
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Sat Nov 27 2021
Siamese Dream
The Smashing Pumpkins
I don't rank Smashing Pumpkins as low as Foo Fighters or RHCP when it comes to arbitrarily beloved but overplayed and overrated 90s bands that have made this list, but they're in that category. This album holds up a bit better than the overlong, overblown Mellon Collie and its headache-inducing compression, but it's still just kind of... meh. A sacred cow of 90s alt rock that really should be skewered and laid to rest. Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's great - the Pumpkins sit in this weird spot in between the grunge scene, shoegaze, and the slightly gothy industrial rock of NIN and Manson, making them a bit of a lowest common denominator of 90s alternative rock. Maybe the should have committed more to a distinctive sound that didn't rely on Billy Corgan's signature nasal delivery?
3
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Sun Nov 28 2021
Second Toughest In The Infants
Underworld
The problem with frontloading your album with the biggest, most epic-length tracks is that you're going to burn out the listener right off the bat. Unless you're, I don't know, Kraftwerk, you shouldn't do it. Even Rush couldn't really pull it off... I find myself shutting off 2112 after I make through the title track, and that's a much better album than this. This album starts with two tracks that each clock in at over 15 minutes, making it a tedious exercise to grind through while checking this album out for the first time. There are some interesting ideas here amidst some dated textures, but the structure of the album has killed its forward momentum for some auditory dick-wagging.
2
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Mon Nov 29 2021
Ready To Die
The Notorious B.I.G.
4
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Tue Nov 30 2021
Dear Science
TV On The Radio
This album began TV On the Radio's descent into blandness that eventually swallowed them up. There are a few decent tracks on here, but nothing that really lived up to Return to Cookie Mountain.
3
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Wed Dec 01 2021
Machine Head
Deep Purple
4
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Thu Dec 02 2021
Eliminator
ZZ Top
2
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Fri Dec 03 2021
Everything Must Go
Manic Street Preachers
Another band that I've tried to get into at various points and never really jived with. There are a handful of really good songs on here but the overall album is too sonically samey. More stylistic and vocal variation and this would be a great album. As it stands, it gets kind of tiresome in the second half and would work better as an EP.
3
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Sat Dec 04 2021
Run-D.M.C.
Run-D.M.C.
2
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Sun Dec 05 2021
It's Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3
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Mon Dec 06 2021
The Number Of The Beast
Iron Maiden
3
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Tue Dec 07 2021
S&M
Metallica
I've never really been a Metallica fan... I gave them their time of day when I was a teenager, but I soured on them awfully fast. There's a weird sneer to Hetfield's vocals, and they always seemed too well off for their heaviness to be grounded in anything. There was too much pageantry to it. Not always, I guess. ....And Justice for All was stripped down to the point of sounding amateurish. But S&M is super representative of that pageantry problem - if anything, it's the worst offender. It feels less like a concert album and more like a ride at Universal or Disney World. I feel like my chair should be vibrating and I should be wearing some special eyewear. None of this feels like what I want from heavy metal. It's too rehearsed for there to be any danger, any improvisation. There is no audience participation. I doubt beer was served at this concert. It's all of the big and stupid and none of the human.
2
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Wed Dec 08 2021
Wild Wood
Paul Weller
2
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Thu Dec 09 2021
I’m a Lonesome Fugitive
Merle Haggard
3
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Fri Dec 10 2021
Repeater
Fugazi
3
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Sat Dec 11 2021
Born To Run
Bruce Springsteen
I am not a fan of Bruce Springsteen, and I don't understand the appeal. There are some moments of good songwriting on here, but the arrangements are so incredibly hokey. This album is drenched with just the cheesiest saxophone... in fact, I'd argue that this album is probably responsible for the saturation of cheesy sax that would happen in the 80s. This is a huge step up from the Rod Stewart albums this dumb list has generated for me, but it's the same genre of bad.
2
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Sun Dec 12 2021
Led Zeppelin II
Led Zeppelin
Oh, good. More Zep. A good rhythm section, a solid guitarist, but it doesn't add up to a sum of its parts. It winds up being a mess of plagiarism, pedophilia, and horrible, shrieked vocals and masturbation sounds. Zep were the most self-indulgent band that people still (somehow) look upon positively despite the fact that it's just proto-hair metal. Outside of a smattering of good moments like Immigrant Song and Kashmir, this band's discography is disposable pulp on a pedestal made of statutory rape charges.
2
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Mon Dec 13 2021
Your New Favourite Band
The Hives
This isn't in my version of the list, but I have to wonder why it's on the list at all. Aside from my own negative feelings towards the early 2000s garage rock revival, this is a compilation. Why is (was) this on the list over an actual album by the band?
2
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Tue Dec 14 2021
Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin
When the Levee Breaks is a good track, the rest of this album is pretty bad. Stairway to Heaven is one of the worst songs to get constant air play on classic rock radio.
2
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Wed Dec 15 2021
Savane
Ali Farka Touré
Not my favorite Toure album, but I haven't heard a bad album from the man.
3
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Thu Dec 16 2021
Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo
MC Solaar
3
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Fri Dec 17 2021
Is This It
The Strokes
I'd say that I never liked this album, but I owned it at one point, so something about it inspired me to buy it. I'm definitely not a fan now. I can't give it a 1 in good conscience, but it is a very low 2.
2
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Sat Dec 18 2021
Meat Is Murder
The Smiths
Morrissey is so shit that Henry Rollins' hatred of him made me like Henry Rollins more. Also, The Smiths were always shit.
2
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Sun Dec 19 2021
Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman
John Zorn
Nice. Not my favorite Zorn album - I would have rather seen the incredibly fun Morricone deconstruction The Big Gundown or the somber and poignant Kristallnacht on this list, or if you're going for the hyperactive cartoon jazz specifically, the first Naked City album, or the jazz/grindcore crossover, Painkiller's Guts of a Virgin. With all that being said, this is still a great Zorn album, and I'd rather have this on here than nothing at all.
3
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Mon Dec 20 2021
Sunday At The Village Vanguard
Bill Evans Trio
One of the best albums on the list that I hadn't heard before I began this project. Solid four stars.
4
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Tue Dec 21 2021
Garbage
Garbage
Why? This album and band have always been painfully average.
2
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Wed Dec 22 2021
Pills 'n' Thrills And Bellyaches
Happy Mondays
I've never experienced an album so forgettable that I would forget what it sounded like while I was listening to it before.
2
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Thu Dec 23 2021
Fragile
Yes
It's amazing just how many great prog albums Bill Bruford has touched.
4
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Fri Dec 24 2021
Armed Forces
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
I'm not super familiar with this particular Costello album, I mostly know it as the one with (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding and that song where Costello drops the N bomb.
It's pretty good. I would call it mid-tier Costello. A little too smooth to be the top of the barrel for his early work, but it's got some serious highlights.
3
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Sat Dec 25 2021
At Newport 1960
Muddy Waters
This is better than the other Muddy Waters I've heard, but the problem with Chicago blues is that it all basically sounds the same. There hasn't been any innovation in the genre since it left the Delta almost a hundred years ago, and that's painfully obvious here.
3
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Sun Dec 26 2021
A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
Various Artists
Was it deliberately seeded that this would be generated on Christmas Eve? Anyway. These are some of the best renditions of these classic Christmas songs ever recorded... but they're still just Christmas songs. Hard album to rank.
3
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Mon Dec 27 2021
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco
Time to give this album ANOTHER try. The first track is pretty good, but the rest of this album is pretty meandering and dull. It's ambitious for Wilco, but Wilco are a boring band to begin with, and their best work is when they are just trying to make simple, poppy country rock. Their entire career sits in the shadow of The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
2
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Tue Dec 28 2021
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Charles Mingus
Not Mingus's best album, but still an easy five stars.
5
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Wed Dec 29 2021
Playing With Fire
Spacemen 3
Pretty good, but this feels like another example of the people writing the list skipping over the obvious classic for a second or third best choice. Why this album over Perfect Prescription? Why Warehouse by Husker Du over Zen Arcade? Why Blue Lines and Protection by Massive Attack over Mezzanine? Head scratchers, the lot of 'em.
3
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Thu Dec 30 2021
Yeezus
Kanye West
Delving into one of the two most overrated figures in hip-hop of the last twenty years, we get Yeezus, an album inexplicably on this list when Death Grips doesn't even get a footnote. Death Grips are the most influential act of the 2010s - indisputably. The barriers they lowered between bedroom acts and professional musicians, the relationship they cultivated with the internet, the approach to abrasive textures that led to a resurgence of interest in industrial and noise influences on everything from metal to pop. Death Grips changed the game, and Kanye casually cribbed their notes three years later in a messy facsimile. Is this a bad album? No. But it isn't original and it has some of Kanye's worst lyrics on it. So why is it on here?
2
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Fri Dec 31 2021
Here Come The Warm Jets
Brian Eno
Classic. One of the best and most important 70s glam/art rock albums.
4
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Sat Jan 01 2022
Live At The Regal
B.B. King
Meh. I've said it before, but Chicago blues is so samey and boring. It's such a shame that a genre as interesting and diverse as the Delta blues evolved into it.
3
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Sun Jan 02 2022
Fishscale
Ghostface Killah
This album was removed from my version. Another example of a newer album added and then tossed out instead of pruning the moldy old sacred cows.
I don't love this album. I'm a Wu-Tang fan, but I take the unpopular opinion that Ghostface albums aren't that great. He is an undisputed master of storytelling, but I don't find his albums compelling as someone listening to a piece of music. Fishscale is a concept album about coke dealing, so more than most even, it's a thick narrative with the songs themselves de-emphasized. On top of that, it is 24 tracks with far too many skits. As an adult in their 30s, I want my hip-hop albums to be about 14 tracks with zero skits. I'm a firm believer that each genre has its own optimal album length - it's not a hard rule, but on average, I want my punk albums about 25-30 minutes, my hip-hop albums to be about 45-50 minutes, my rock albums to be about 50-60 minutes, and my drone albums to be about 100 minutes. At 65 minutes with 7 skits, this album drags.
Still, it's not terrible. There are plenty of forgettable Moby Grape and Love albums on this list that deserve to be on it way less.
3
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Mon Jan 03 2022
The Rising
Bruce Springsteen
This is a little better than the other Springsteen album I've had generated. At least this one isn't completely smothered in cheesy saxophones.
2
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Tue Jan 04 2022
Time Out Of Mind
Bob Dylan
As much as I love Bob Dylan, I feel like this era of Dylan (Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, Modern Times) is pretty overrated as critics were desperate for something to latch onto with Dylan after a string of duds following Oh Mercy. These late-era albums aren't bad per se, but if they are the highlights, his career was definitely in decline at this point. Still, after dozen or so actually great albums Dylan has released, he's earned quite a bit of leeway.
3
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Wed Jan 05 2022
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
I listened to this for the first time about four or five months ago. It's not exactly my style, and it's kind of uneven, but I respect it for being one of those albums that was clearly an important stepping stone in music's evolution.
3
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Thu Jan 06 2022
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash
3
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Fri Jan 07 2022
Siembra
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades
3
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Sat Jan 08 2022
The Köln Concert
Keith Jarrett
3
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Sun Jan 09 2022
Lazer Guided Melodies
Spiritualized
3
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Mon Jan 10 2022
Exile In Guyville
Liz Phair
Kind of a boring, overlong album, innit?
3
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Tue Jan 11 2022
Hot Rats
Frank Zappa
Finally, a good album. It's been almost two weeks since this thing has generated anything that's cracked a 4. It isn't Zappa's best, but at least there's some representation on this infernal list. Why is this the only Zappa album on here? Boring-ass REM and U2 have four albums apiece on this thing, and they couldn't spare a second slot for a guy whose discography is over twice the size of both of those mundane bands combined?
4
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Wed Jan 12 2022
The Cars
The Cars
I've never liked the singles from this album, so I'm basically evaluating how much the deep cuts redeem it. I'm in Touch With Your World is better, but definitely a more lowkey track, not something to bank on as a salvation. Don't Cha Stop is pretty obnoxious, like the big hits. Moving in Stereo is the best song on here, sounding like if Brian Eno had never left Roxy Music. All Mixed Up continues in this vein but also adds some Queen-like vocal harmonies.
So there are three tracks on here that move this from a low 2 to a high 2. Not a statistical change, but it makes me dislike them less, I guess.
2
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Thu Jan 13 2022
Honky Tonk Heroes
Waylon Jennings
This album is fantastic. Every time I hear a new Waylon album, the more I like him.
4
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Fri Jan 14 2022
(What's The Story) Morning Glory
Oasis
I have NOT been looking forward to this. Hopefully this garbage doesn't jack up my youtube algorithm too much.
1
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Sat Jan 15 2022
High Violet
The National
This album is not in my copy of the book. It's also not bad. Not something I'd seek out outside of this project - I'd say the production is too clean, it would benefit from being a little more lo-fi, a little more grungy - but it's much better than the inexplicably highly rated garbage album from Oasis I had to listen to yesterday.
3
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Sun Jan 16 2022
The Bends
Radiohead
Radiohead are an overrated band. Not a bad band, those don't mean the same thing, but an overrated band. Their morose forays into depression and alienation lacked the passion to give punch to their themes. Much like Sonic Youth's bored rich kid noodling, it largely makes me ask, if you're not excited about the music you're making, why should I be?
The Bends is a good album. It's one of their albums that suffers from this problem the least. There is a greater sense of urgency than on OK Computer or Kid A, which are the only other two albums that I would consider worth any amount of attention. Outside of that, too much of Radiohead is mumbling over skittering electronic beats.
4
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Mon Jan 17 2022
Definitely Maybe
Oasis
Goddammit, not another one. I guess the question is, is this album worse than (What's the Story) Morning Glory? It doesn't have any songs as obnoxiously overplayed as Wonderwall or the other hits off that album, but I feel like outside of being driven into my brain over and over again by the dull trepanation blade that is commercial rock radio, the songwriting on that album is, overall, slightly better. Not Wonderwall, that song is like the Chernobyl of pop music, but outside of that, it strives for something better than the blandness that is this album. If you inspire hatred, at least you're inspiring an emotion.
1
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Tue Jan 18 2022
The Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest
4
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Wed Jan 19 2022
Street Signs
Ozomatli
Another album not in my copy of the book. There's an awful lot of divergence between different versions and (as I've noted before) a lot of more contemporary releases added and then quickly removed. It's almost like the people who curate this don't know how to evaluate modern music for its lasting impact.
Anyway, I had never listened to Ozomatli before, but I knew of them as Cut Chemist's other group. In addition to Cut Chemist, Chali 2na has also collaborated with them, further cementing their connection to Jurassic 5. Ozomatli also share some of Jurassic 5's issues - namely, their lack of depth. They're fine, there's nothing wrong with them, but like a meal lacking much caloric content, you're going to be hungry again in an hour. There's a wiffliness to them, a lack of edge, a lack of bite. It's frustratingly clean and safe and, well, kind of boring. It shouldn't be. It's blending elements of a lot of genres, but it never feels like more than the sum of its parts. Why? How can you combine disparate elements and sound somehow formulaic?
Better than Oasis though.
3
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Thu Jan 20 2022
Songs For Swingin' Lovers!
Frank Sinatra
3
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Fri Jan 21 2022
Fifth Dimension
The Byrds
3
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Sat Jan 22 2022
Thriller
Michael Jackson
What's there to say about this? It's an almost perfect pop album.
4
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Sun Jan 23 2022
Boston
Boston
Oh, good. Irrelevant, overplayed 70s arena rock, one of the most tepid, unnecessary dalliances in the history of rock music. This album fails the "must hear before you die" test.
2
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Mon Jan 24 2022
Dance Mania
Tito Puente
3
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Tue Jan 25 2022
Blue Lines
Massive Attack
It's no Mezzanine (which is embarrassingly absent from the list), but it's still pretty good. A tad dated, but pretty good.
3
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Wed Jan 26 2022
Southern Rock Opera
Drive-By Truckers
What a pleasant surprise. This is a lot better than I expected and much better than Lynard Skynard deserve.
4
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Thu Jan 27 2022
Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine
Cee Lo Green
It's good, but it's an odd choice over either Gnarls Barkley album.
3
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Fri Jan 28 2022
Metallica
Metallica
In some ways I like this better than Metallica's thrash era, but in a lot of ways I don't. I honestly want to give this a 1, but just looking through my rankings, this slots in between some very low 2s. Just know that it's disliked. This album is the godfather of butt rock, and it really feels ugly to listen to. Sad But True always reminds me of the time it came on the modern rock radio station while I was sitting in the parking lot, waiting for a friend to get out his meeting with his parole officer while I was incredibly hungover so we could go score some meth afterwards. It might have been the perfect song to encapsulate that ugly moment in my life. I hate this album for the music it influenced and for the aura it exudes... but I suppose it is better than all of the albums I gave a 1 to and a small handful of the albums I gave a 2 to.
Maybe I just need to re-evaluate my scale and be a little bit more liberal with my 1s.
2
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Sat Jan 29 2022
Different Class
Pulp
I've never really listened to Pulp before (outside of that one song that was on the Venture Bros. - which I liked a lot), but this is pretty good. Better than Blur and significantly better than Oasis. I was starting to think there was no hope for Britpop.
3
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Sun Jan 30 2022
Berlin
Lou Reed
3
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Mon Jan 31 2022
Frank
Amy Winehouse
This album was cut from my version of the list, the only Winehouse album on it is Back to Black. Which is as it should be. This album is good, but it's not list-worthy.
3
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Tue Feb 01 2022
Lost In The Dream
The War On Drugs
Mark Kozelek is right. I don't even like Sun Kil Moon, but this is some pretty bland beer commercial rock right here. What an embarrassment for a list of supposedly essential music.
2
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Wed Feb 02 2022
Group Sex
Circle Jerks
While overall I don't consider myself - in the broad sense - a fan of punk, I am a huge fan of this album. Keith Morris really embodies the snarling 'fuck you' attitude of punk. There's a sense of irreverence to this album that doesn't swirl out of control like later California punk albums but keeps it from becoming overly sanctimonious like some of the more political-minded punk albums of the time. It's fast, blunt, primitive, and doesn't overstay its welcome. While the band's best track - the cleverly ordered medley Golden Shower of Hits - isn't on this album, this is the most focused burst of overall quality from the band.
4
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Thu Feb 03 2022
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Arctic Monkeys
This project is really starting to wear me down. Too many generic, uninspired rock albums, too few classic jazz albums and boundary-pushing avant garde albums. Every heavy metal album on this list is incredibly obvious and mainstream.
This album sounds like a bunch of songs written to be on commercials for cell phone companies. This is so polished and clean and antithetical to the rebellious spirit of rock. It's not clever, or unique, or original. I listen to this and all I can ask is "why?" Why does this exist.
I'm sure it will score in the high threes to mid fours too. Much like Metallica, Oasis, and Foo Fighters, this is the sort of basic shit that people on here really eat up. Downvote Pere Ubu and John Zorn and Laibach and upvote this generic garbage.
2
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Fri Feb 04 2022
Boy In Da Corner
Dizzee Rascal
Considered entry level by some grime fans, Boy in da Corner is one of the most consistently good albums in a genre more focused on singles. This is easily one of the most consistently good UK hip-hop albums in general. It's a shame none of Dizzee Rascal's subsequent albums were able to live up to it, but it set the bar pretty high.
4
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Sat Feb 05 2022
Cloud Nine
The Temptations
4
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Sun Feb 06 2022
Back In Black
AC/DC
As noted in my review of Highway to Hell, I'm not an AC/DC fan, but they aren't as terrible as their contemporaries despite being one of the forebearers of hair metal.
For the longest time, I was dismissive of Brian Johnson, and while I'm not overall a fan of his voice, I think this is a better album than Highway to Hell. It plays like a greatest hits album, and while I don't like all of these songs, Hells Bells is one of the better AC/DC songs, so it gets some credit for that.
This album is gross and dumb, but I don't hate it. I would never put it on of my own volition, and I don't think it should be on this list, but I don't hate it.
3
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Mon Feb 07 2022
Like A Prayer
Madonna
3
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Tue Feb 08 2022
Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós
Overall, I consider this band to be a little to ethereal for their own good, but I've always liked this album and would rank it with the best of post-rock.
4
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Wed Feb 09 2022
Vauxhall And I
Morrissey
God, I hate Morrissey. I hate his singing style, I hate his lyrics, I hate his personality. He doesn't make the worst music on this list, but he is one of the more unlikeable people making mediocre music on this list. I gave this album a listen and it's just so blah.
2
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Thu Feb 10 2022
Young Americans
David Bowie
Not my favorite Bowie album, but not a bad one either, and even mid-tier Bowie is better than most of the albums on this list.
3
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Fri Feb 11 2022
Parachutes
Coldplay
More boring garbage from Coldplay. This sounds like it has some better songwriting than A Rush of Blood to the Head, but it's still duller than dishwater.
1
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Sat Feb 12 2022
Bluesbreakers
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
It's fine, it's a bunch of British white guys playing blues rock. Maybe it was a stepping stone in rock's evolution, but now it's a culturally irrelevant relic. It might be noteworthy for huge Clapton fans, but as someone who feels like he didn't become relevant until Cream and had rapidly diminishing returns afterwards, it doesn't wow me.
3
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Sun Feb 13 2022
Coles Corner
Richard Hawley
It's just kinda Burt Bacharach-y schmaltz.
2
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Mon Feb 14 2022
Suicide
Suicide
Absolute classic that I'm sure will have a pretty low rating on here.
4
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Tue Feb 15 2022
Appetite For Destruction
Guns N' Roses
Ew, gross. I'm forced to hear this garbage every day on the butt rock radio station at work that a bitter old white trash coworker forces everyone to listen to. GnR is easily the worst of the hair metal bands, which is the worst genre of popular music of the last 70 years. This is worthless. This is one of the two worst albums I've had to listen to for this project so far.
1
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Wed Feb 16 2022
Apocalypse Dudes
Turbonegro
Eh... at some point, the reputation of over-the-top rock bands like Motley Crue and Kiss usurped the actual music and created this larger-than-life rock-n-roll monstrosity. It made for great comedy fodder in Wayne's World, but since then there have been a number of tongue-firmly-in-cheek bands like Steel Panther and Turbonegro who play some amped up version of the larger-than-life rockstar. Steel Panther lingers in the hair metal genre while Turbonegro is more of a sloppy blend of punk, hard rock, and metal. I suppose if that's your thing... you want something like The Sword or Queens of the Stone Age but more tongue-in-cheek. It's safer than Brainbombs and less charismatic than Queens of the Stone Age side project Eagles of Death Metal. As you can see, there's no lack of bands to compare them to, which is the problem. None of this is original. None of this stands out. It's not funny to see people behaving badly, there is nothing to distinguish the people making fun of the assholes from the actual assholes. There's no such thing as ironically being a dick. So what you're left with is pretty uninteresting music. It's probably fun to the people who like this sort of thing. But I'd rather listen to Grinderman and hear it from a top tier songwriter like Nick Cave.
2
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Thu Feb 17 2022
Mask
Bauhaus
High 3.
3
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Fri Feb 18 2022
AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted
Ice Cube
I have mixed feelings on this album - and on basically all releases from NWA and its former members really. It's an important album in the evolution of the genre and it certainly has its strong points, but there's also a lot about it that hasn't aged well at all. I'm not going to make a whole point-by-point dissertation... I think this ranks as a medium three and that's about it. It doesn't really need more said about it than that.
3
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Sat Feb 19 2022
It's A Shame About Ray
The Lemonheads
Having only been familiar with them from their famous cover of Mrs. Robinson, this band is essentially a one hit wonder to me. I always figured they were grunge-adjacent folky pop rock like Blind Melon, and this album pretty much confirms all my expectations. This is a bit more upbeat than Blind Melon but not nearly as interesting. It's perfectly listenable, if bland entry in 90s alternative rock.
3
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Sun Feb 20 2022
Music for the Masses
Depeche Mode
High three.
3
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Mon Feb 21 2022
Lady In Satin
Billie Holiday
3
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Tue Feb 22 2022
Solid Air
John Martyn
This is the first of almost 300 albums generated that I really don't know how to feel about it.
3
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Wed Feb 23 2022
Bad Company
Bad Company
What an incredibly boring album to come from a "supergroup." The title track is ok, but the only really good song off this is just a rerecorded Mott the Hoople track. This feels like a prototype for Bon Jovi - which is not a good thing.
2
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Thu Feb 24 2022
Fromohio
fIREHOSE
It's no Minutemen, but these guys still deserve some love.
3
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Fri Feb 25 2022
Here's Little Richard
Little Richard
3
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Sat Feb 26 2022
Fulfillingness' First Finale
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder had a string of albums that delicately balanced cheese with badassery before descending entirely into cheese. This was the end of the streak, and you're starting to see the tightrope walker wobble. There was still some decent soul, but the funk bangers were a thing of the past at this point.
3
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Sun Feb 27 2022
Psychocandy
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Better than Darklands and I would argue better than Loveless.
3
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Mon Feb 28 2022
I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen
I'm a bit cooler on Leonard Cohen than most, but I still think he has some amazing moments. This album, isn't one of them. The opening track starts out all right albeit with thin, weak production, but the instrumentation could be improved with some remastering. But once the back-up singers take center stage, it goes way downhill. The entry in the book says that some moments on this album are now dated, but that's selling things remarkably short. The sax opening on the second track is a sad little salvo for the 80s. That pretty much sums up the album - awkward, cringey production choices backing up otherwise good songs.
3
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Tue Mar 01 2022
Back At The Chicken Shack
Jimmy Smith
Well, that was boring.
2
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Wed Mar 02 2022
Dirt
Alice In Chains
Man, I hated AiC growing up, but as an adult, this album has got to be one of the high points for grunge. I've always been more of a Soundgarden man than a Nirvana man (and don't even think about bringing up Pearl Jam), but this ranks up there with some of Soundgarden's best.
4
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Thu Mar 03 2022
Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Wu-Tang Clan
Arguably the greatest hip-hop album ever recorded.
5
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Fri Mar 04 2022
Make Yourself
Incubus
Weird choice. This is a band and album that I'm intimately familiar with, having long since grown out of them. The entry on the list calls this nu-metal's "finest hour," a statement patently absurd in a world where System of a Down and Deftones exist - the latter of whom are conspicuously absent from the list. Maybe don't posture yourselves to be experts on something if you speak from a place of ignorance?
Anyway. Incubus are barely nu-metal. They began as more of a watered down Mr. Bungle, sacrificing the majority of its weirdness in favor of accessibility. They quickly began to morph into a 311-ish beach hippie baja hoodie sound. It's hippie music with distortion, but it lacks any real depth. All of its ponderings and naval gazings are just lay-in-the-grass far-outisms. It has a certain amount of charm that mostly comes from its calmer moments that can evoke a sort bittersweet yearning. That capture that emotional vibe very well. But the rest of the album feels utterly unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. Once you've heard Tub Ring's Drake Equation, there's no real need to listen to Incubus - outside of maybe Wish You Were Here, which is the song (not on this album) that distills that yearning vibe that I described above down to its essence and removes all the whiteboy dreadlock frills that fill out the rest of this band. The Warmth plays a similar role on this album, but the cheesy turntables (and boy are the turntables in Incubus cheesy) overall really lower the quality of the song.
I'm not 16 anymore. I'm now (painfully) aware of how shallow most of the music I listened to when I was 16 is. The authors of the list should as well.
The drummer's pretty good though.
3
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Sat Mar 05 2022
Abraxas
Santana
Pretty good (if overrated) moment in psyche-rock/jazz fusion. This wants to be a Latin-flavored intermediary between Axis (Bold As Love) and Bitches Brew. It doesn't really hit the highs of either Hendrix or Davis, but it does showcase some serious talent. It's like an unfocused but tighter studio album from a jam band - there's talent there, but not from anyone with a clear, concise vision.
3
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Sun Mar 06 2022
3 + 3
The Isley Brothers
This project has introduced me to a lot of great soul albums that I haven't previously heard. This one doesn't really click for me, unfortunately. I've never been a big fan of That Lady, and the rest of the album didn't do anything for me either.
3
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Mon Mar 07 2022
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
This starts off pretty strong with some Crosby, Stills, and Nash vibes. The vocal melodies remain impressive into the second track, but the band settles into the whoa-oh BS that ruined folksy indie rock. The third song is more of the same.
This is a band I've avoided for years because this is exactly what I've expected from them. The vocal harmonies are a pleasant surprise, but twee instrumentation that's just made for a commercial for some tech company that promises to bring people closer together is so, so, so cringey. I know this technically predates the 2010s, but this is the sound we will remember when we look back on the 2010s, and not in a good way. Much like how the entire decade of the 2000s will be summarized by ARE YOU GONNA BE MY GIRL and shutter sunglasses, the 2010s will be this sound and the lumbersexual look.
2
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Tue Mar 08 2022
The Blueprint
JAY Z
Weird choice. It's okay, but this being the sole Jay-Z album over Reasonable Doubt, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Black Album, or 4:44? I don't get it.
3
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Wed Mar 09 2022
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
4
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Thu Mar 10 2022
Rock 'N Soul
Solomon Burke
3
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Fri Mar 11 2022
Ritual De Lo Habitual
Jane's Addiction
3
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Sat Mar 12 2022
Inspiration Information
Shuggie Otis
3
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Sun Mar 13 2022
Green River
Creedence Clearwater Revival
CCR is the quintessential 'high 3' band. All of their albums are pretty solid swampy blues rock, but none of them are in any way transcendental. They're impossible to hate, but I find it really difficult to believe that anyone out there has ever had their mind blown by a CCR album.
Also, why is the best CCR album, Willy and the Poor Boys, not on the list? You have Bayou Country over WatPB? Wtf?
3
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Mon Mar 14 2022
Imperial Bedroom
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
I saw the entry for this on a different list that included it just for Beyond Belief, which is a pretty ridiculous reason to include an album on an essentials list - if you're including an album for a single, song, you're doing it wrong. Now Beyond Belief IS a damn near perfect pop song, and the standout of the album, but there is more here. I'm not a fan of the song Shabby Doll, but this album is a high point in Costello's career, and the Beatlesque pop polish Geoff Emerick brought is on point throughout.
This might be Costello's third best after Blood & Chocolate and When I Was Cruel.
4
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Tue Mar 15 2022
The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips
As I mentioned in my review of Yoshimi, I've grown to dislike The Flaming Lips over the years after having once been a fan. I think Wayne Coyne is an unlikeable asshole who crawled up his own ass at some point. I also think the music has lost any sort of bite or charm it may once have had. That being said, I can be objective and view their music through the lens that I once did. Yoshimi holds up as a pretty good indie/alt rock/neo-psyche album.
The Soft Bulletin doesn't hold up nearly as well. It's a good album, but I always got it confused with Clouds Taste Metallic, with my only point of reference being "one of them had This Here Giraffe, the most annoying song I've ever heard." Fortunately, that album is Clouds Taste Metallic.
For their early albums, I much prefer In a Priest Driven Ambulance, which continues to hold up as my favorite album of theirs - a little more punk grit, a little more krautrock weirdness, and a bit of a throughline on religion to make it cohesive.
I don't hate this album, but listening to it was more work than pleasure.
The big crunchy drums on A Spoonful Weighs a Ton sound pretty cool though.
3
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Wed Mar 16 2022
Heroes
David Bowie
Not as great as Low, still great.
4
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Thu Mar 17 2022
L'Eau Rouge
The Young Gods
Going into this listen through, there's a lot of baggage. I'm aware that it's one of the lowest rated albums on the list, but I tend to like most of the low rated albums quite a bit (outside of general garbage like the trailer trash magnum opus Devil Without a Cause). The Birthday Party, John Zorn, Laibach, and Pere Ubu currently reside there with some legitimate great albums. I've seen Butthole Surfers down there as well. Napalm Death, the lowest rated, isn't a favorite of mine, but it's much better than some of the garbage people on here seem to like for no discernable reason like Guns 'n' Roses and Oasis.
I'm familiar with The Young Gods. Not intimately, but they are in a similar orbit to a lot of music I like. I've heard their music a bit, I've heard some remixes Franz Treichler has done, I have heard a number of Roli Mosimann projects. I don't believe I've heard this album specifically, but I've gone around the bend a few times, trying to get into this group. I like industrial music, including industrial metal. I like arty, pretentious stuff. The Young Gods have always felt like an industrial metal band with arty leanings. Despite my attempts though, they always felt maddeningly out of my grasp. They couldn't hook me.
I do respect them though. Quite a bit. And while I don't jive with them, I can say the music doesn't belong on the bottom of this list by any stretch of the imagination. It sounds pretty good, it's got some good grooves. It's better than a lot of the shit industrial that came out in the wake of Skinny Puppy and Ministry.
The pantheon for great industrial for me has always been Foetus, Einsturzende Neubauten, Coil, and Nurse With Wound. Only one of those artists is on the list along with the requisite genre founders Throbbing Gristle. The writers would do well to better represent a pretty important genre that has had its influence come back with explosive momentum in the 2010s. While they aren't my favorite band in the genre, at least The Young Gods provide a little bit of representation of this sound. I won't be returning to this album anytime soon, but I'll give it a high three. I'm tempted to give it a four for its role of token inclusion, but my rankings run straight. No grading on a curve, no bonus points.
3
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Fri Mar 18 2022
Virgin Suicides
Air
3
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Sat Mar 19 2022
The Stranger
Billy Joel
In the pantheon of adult contemporary singer-songwriters who meandered out of the 70s, Billy Joel sits somewhere in the middle with Springsteen. A touch better than the bland whiteness of Rod Stewart, John Mellencamp, and Bryan Adams, but no where near the quality of Warren Zevon or solo Paul Simon. It's not an awful album, but it shouldn't really be on a list of essential listening. This is an album to listen to while bonding with your aunt over herbal tea and zucchini bread while she busts out old 35mm pictures of bridges she took while on a bicycle tour of the US.
2
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Sun Mar 20 2022
I Against I
Bad Brains
3
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Mon Mar 21 2022
Olympia 64
Jacques Brel
2
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Tue Mar 22 2022
Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear
Another blink-and-you'll-miss-it addition that was removed from the current edition. I have vague memories of disliking the slow, twee single Two Weeks, but upon revisiting it, I kind of like the song now. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is a bland, meandering, dull mess. 2000s indie rock was a really tepid genre of music overall.
2
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Wed Mar 23 2022
Locust Abortion Technician
Butthole Surfers
One of the best albums from one of the bands most influential on 90s alternative rock. Although not currently in the lowest rated albums in this project, I've seen it down there before, and it's probably in the top 10% of albums on here.
4
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Thu Mar 24 2022
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
The Incredible String Band
I actually listened to this a week ago, having seen it among the lowest rated albums on the list for a while and been curious. It feels like a precursor to Richard Dawson's weird explorations of medieval music. Not as good, but not terrible. It's definitely a difficult listen, akin to Trout Mask Replica, but challenging isn't the same as bad. It is nowhere near as good as Trout Mask Replica (which I have a lot of thoughts on whenever we get around to that album), but it doesn't deserve to be rated lower than Kid Rock. I wouldn't put it on the list at all, but there's at least 500 albums on here that I wouldn't put on the list.
I'd call this album a 3, but it's also a litmus test. If you gave this album a 1 but Appetite for Destruction anything higher than a 2, we probably won't get along.
3
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Fri Mar 25 2022
Heartattack And Vine
Tom Waits
It's a little heavy on the ballads, but it's still a great album. It's Tom Waits, the man is a national treasure.
4
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Sat Mar 26 2022
You've Come a Long Way Baby
Fatboy Slim
Holy shit, I haven't listened to this in like twenty years. This album, more than The Prodigy, more than Basement Jaxx, more than Chemical Brothers or Crystal Method or anything else really made big beat blow up as a popular genre of music, and along with the popularity of trip-hop, Moby, and Aphex Twin made people realize electronic music was more than just cheesy techno.
But... is it good? There are songs on here that still get radio airplay, which is kind of mindblowing considering none of its contemporaries do. Maybe The Prodigy? I've personally gone back to The Prodigy a bit more, including in the last year. I feel like they might have aged a little worse in places, some of their samples being more dated and cheesy, with their image being more self-serious and edgy. That being said, there is a lot more depth to what they were doing. Music For the Jilted Generation was a reaction to British rave laws and had a real dark, sinewy sound compared to the overly bright memelord energy of Fatboy Slim and You've Come a Long Way Baby.
Expanding my focus, I have to compare this to other albums I listened to at the same time in my life that appear on the list and how they've held up. I guess this is comparable to Green Day's Dookie - inconsequential, irreverent, but ultimately harmless.
3
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Sun Mar 27 2022
Let Love Rule
Lenny Kravitz
Are you fucking kidding me?
1
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Mon Mar 28 2022
Jagged Little Pill
Alanis Morissette
3
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Tue Mar 29 2022
Out Of The Blue
Electric Light Orchestra
It's an album with one great song and a couple good songs. It's okay.
2
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Wed Mar 30 2022
Songs Of Love And Hate
Leonard Cohen
Not as good as Songs of Leonard Cohen, but it's aight.
3
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Thu Mar 31 2022
Like Water For Chocolate
Common
3
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Fri Apr 01 2022
Screamadelica
Primal Scream
I don't get the appeal of this album. Low rent Rolling Stones knockoff mixed with cheesy, dated early 90s house music. It probably sounded cutting edge at the time, but it hasn't aged well at all.
2
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Sat Apr 02 2022
Ocean Rain
Echo And The Bunnymen
Wait, there are two Echo & the Bunnymen albums on this list? Why? Seriously, why? I guess this one will be rated moderately higher for having The Killing Moon on it, but I don't even remember what the other one sounded like. Outside of their one hit, this band was an entirely forgettable new wave act. Not worthy of being on a list of essential albums.
3
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Sun Apr 03 2022
Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts
The Adverts
3
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Mon Apr 04 2022
Ambient 1/Music For Airports
Brian Eno
4
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Tue Apr 05 2022
Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4
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Wed Apr 06 2022
I Am a Bird Now
Antony and the Johnsons
Another album no longer on the list. I'm mostly familiar with Antony/Anohni from her guest vocals on Lou Reed's The Raven and her later solo album, I'm not super familiar with the Johnsons. It's not really my thing, but it is pretty.
3
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Thu Apr 07 2022
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen
Outside of Adam Raised a Cain, this album does NOT match the tone of the title at all. There's a deeply cheesy, saccharine sound to Springsteen's music that the guy just cannot escape.
2
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Fri Apr 08 2022
Tonight's The Night
Neil Young
4
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Sat Apr 09 2022
Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
The Pharcyde
4
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Sun Apr 10 2022
Rid Of Me
PJ Harvey
Better than Dry.
3
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Mon Apr 11 2022
Goodbye And Hello
Tim Buckley
3
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Tue Apr 12 2022
Clube Da Esquina
Milton Nascimento
2
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Wed Apr 13 2022
Endtroducing.....
DJ Shadow
Absolute classic.
5
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Thu Apr 14 2022
Rattus Norvegicus
The Stranglers
Oh hey, it's that band that did Golden Brown, that song kicks ass. Oh, but it it's not on here. The album is pretty good, though. Not great, but pretty good.
3
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Fri Apr 15 2022
16 Lovers Lane
The Go-Betweens
3
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Sat Apr 16 2022
Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Aphex Twin
It's good, but it shouldn't have been included on the list over SAW II. But after omitting Mezzanine, I'm convinced these people don't understand electronic music at all.
4
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Sun Apr 17 2022
Tical
Method Man
4
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Mon Apr 18 2022
Revolver
Beatles
The best Beatles album. The tightest of the psychedelic era.
5
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Tue Apr 19 2022
Stankonia
OutKast
This album suffers in my eyes simply because it's been so overplayed throughout my life. It's not as good as Aquemini, but it's an absolute classic and one of the best albums of the 2000s.
4
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Wed Apr 20 2022
Raw Power
The Stooges
The list is on a roll for once, it's been one 4 or 5 star classic after another this week.
4
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Thu Apr 21 2022
Wild Gift
X
3
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Fri Apr 22 2022
Superunknown
Soundgarden
The best Soundgarden album? The best grunge album? An argument could be made.
4
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Sat Apr 23 2022
Kenya
Machito
3
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Sun Apr 24 2022
Rio
Duran Duran
3
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Mon Apr 25 2022
Autobahn
Kraftwerk
Easy five. Kraftwerk's best album.
5
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Tue Apr 26 2022
Van Halen
Van Halen
Shit.
1
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Wed Apr 27 2022
For Your Pleasure
Roxy Music
I think this is generally regarded by Roxy Music fans as the band's best, but I find the album kind of uneven. It's good, but I prefer the self-titled personally.
3
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Thu Apr 28 2022
Aftermath
The Rolling Stones
4
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Fri Apr 29 2022
Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
What a ridiculous mess of an album. While more interesting than the typical 80s one hit wonder, this still doesn't belong on any sort of essential listening list. Someone really needs to curate the contributors of this list better, they're including some really absurd, pointless crap. This is an evolutionary dead end. There are no bands out there talking about the influence Frankie Goes to Hollywood had on them. The entry for this album made mention of the producer and his clean production style, but that's barely a historical footnote.
You can do better.
2
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Sat Apr 30 2022
Ramones
Ramones
4
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Sun May 01 2022
At Mister Kelly's
Sarah Vaughan
2
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Mon May 02 2022
Astral Weeks
Van Morrison
3
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Tue May 03 2022
The Last Broadcast
Doves
This is not in my copy of the list, so I'm assuming it's been scrubbed from musical history. There was one Doves album on there, but not this one. I gotta say though, this is kind of a thin, wiffly, watered-down Radiohead blended with some of the twinkle of their contemporaries who fell more under the Britpop umbrella.
It's quite boring, really. I actually forgot I had music on at one point.
2
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Wed May 04 2022
Tommy
The Who
3
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Thu May 05 2022
Chelsea Girl
Nico
4
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Fri May 06 2022
Black Monk Time
The Monks
4
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Sat May 07 2022
Murmur
R.E.M.
REM are a boring band with two good songs and neither one is on this album. REM basically sound like Husker Du if you stripped out all the punk and vitality and just left aborted scrapings.
2
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Sun May 08 2022
E.V.O.L.
Sonic Youth
I'm not a Sonic Youth fan. I listened to them a lot when I was younger, but after a while, they came to represent something I didn't like in rock music. They sounded like bored, disaffected rich kids. The noise in their noise rock wasn't visceral and energetic like that of contemporaries like Unsane or Big Black or Jesus Lizard. They didn't sound like the dirty underclass, they sounded like trustfund brats. Their music sounded like the soundtrack of waking up after three days of partying in a ritzy hotel with a nasty hangover and cigarette burns all over the carpet and wine stains on the drapes.
But if I were to pick an era of Sonic Youth I did like, it would be early Sonic Youth. It was *more* urgent. It was *more* visceral. There were moments didn't sound blase. It still isn't my favorite... it's an artsy fartsy sort of noise rock that took the Velvet Underground's blueprint and amped up the emotional coldness without replicating the tunefulness that gave Velvet Underground a sense of balance so they actually felt like potentially likeable human beings.
The biggest offender, though, is the production, There is a smothered, squashed sound to Sonic Youth's music while it would benefit from a lot more separation and dynamic range. If you're not going to commit to the heaviness of noise rock, don't compress it like you're making heavy music. The fuzziness of these recordings doesn't add anything to these songs and just feels like an artificial attempt to make the music sound warmer.
I don't know, it's better than the buttheaded heaviness of Metallica, but as far as rock critic sacred cows go, I find less redeemable qualities than Radiohead, who I also find to be pretty overrated. I guess they're better than The Smiths, though.
And Tom Violence slaps.
3
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Mon May 09 2022
Slanted And Enchanted
Pavement
So my last album was EVOL by Sonic Youth, and now I've got Pavement, a band that I largely consider to just be an inferior, rural version of Sonic Youth. They're less tuneful, the production is worse, and the Velvet Underground pedigree is just that much more watered down. Pavement exist in a shaky grey area where they aren't heavy enough or poppy enough to appeal to to me one way or the other. It's all just a sloppy grey mess with no dynamics. I have no idea why this band is so highly regarded, nothing stands out to me.
2
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Tue May 10 2022
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
3
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Wed May 11 2022
Innervisions
Stevie Wonder
4
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Thu May 12 2022
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
The Pogues
3
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Fri May 13 2022
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
OutKast
Hard album to evaluate. It's broadly speaking very good, but it's massively overlong. Even if you view it as two albums that just got bundled together, each disc of this loses momentum and meanders. Outkast were one of the best hip-hop acts of the 2000s, but this album should have been shaved down and tightened up. Rap double albums rarely, if ever work.
Also, if anyone didn't already know, The Love Below is the far superior of the two discs.
4
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Sat May 14 2022
Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Spiritualized
4
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Sun May 15 2022
The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett
I like Piper at the Gates of Dawn quite a bit, but this sounds like a Monty Python skit making fun of psychedelic folk. Barrett even sounds like Eric Idle on some songs.
2
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Mon May 16 2022
LP1
FKA twigs
It's okay, but Madelene should have been on the list in its place.
3
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Tue May 17 2022
The College Dropout
Kanye West
I get the influence Kanye has. His role in hip-hop history. How he created a new lane, one that wasn't gangsta or conscious/backpacker when that was really all there was. I just don't think it's that great. Kanye was always pretty averagely rated as a vocalist and extremely overrated as a producer. He has some great moments, there are a few great songs on here, but people act like everything he touches turns to gold. There have been a number of producers who have done it better. Being an important historic footnote isn't necessarily and indicator of quality. This album is just average. For every Jesus Walks or Spaceship, there's a mediocre track like Workout Plan or Slow Jamz.
3
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Wed May 18 2022
Deserter's Songs
Mercury Rev
The list described this as Neil Young fronting Pink Floyd, but to me it sounds more like sad, somber Flaming Lips. Dece.
3
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Thu May 19 2022
Kind Of Blue
Miles Davis
4
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Fri May 20 2022
Arrival
ABBA
3
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Sat May 21 2022
B-52's
The B-52's
Better than I expected. I've held onto a longstanding animosity towards this band because Love Shack is one of the most overplayed and annoying songs of the last forty years, but it's fortunately not on here. The one hit single on here that I'm familiar with is Rock Lobster, a song I actually do like. Maybe the band is better than I give them credit - my only real exposure has been Love Shack, Rock Lobster, and Roam, a song that always felt like a particularly weak Blondie track. I also can't say I'm a fan of their kitschy aesthetic, something that always felt like Devo/Talking Heads idiosyncrasy but lacking the level of social commentary and taking a detour to the 50s/early 60s by way of John Waters. And while I like Devo and John Waters and love the Talking Heads, something about what the B-52s were doing always felt a little toothless by comparison.
TLDR, I didn't hate it like I expected, but it didn't completely win me over.
3
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Sun May 22 2022
The La's
The La's
This is bad. Really bad. It's an early 90s one hit wonder (strike one), the hit is awful (strike two), and the rest of the album sounds like poppy, watered down Morrissey (strike three). This album is best left forgotten and its one stupid hit is best left to shitty direct-to-DVD romcom soundtracks.
1
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Mon May 23 2022
Midnight Ride
Paul Revere & The Raiders
It's okay. I want to highlight two laughably obtuse statements from the entry on the list, however. "In the period that remains the high-water mark of pop music..." No, just no. The 80s were easily the high-water mark for pop music, with artists like Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna towering over the genre while new wave gave us a cross-pollination of post-punk weirdness and radio friendly hooks. To think that pop peaked in the 60s is to live with your head in the sand. You shouldn't be writing about music.
And second, "Pop-punk just does not get any better." No. Just no. To call this album punk is an absurd stretch - the genre was embryonic at this point - you could make an argument that it's proto-punk, but that's still a stretch. There are a couple moments here and there on this album that share a clear lineage with the punk genre. But this most certainly isn't the best pop-punk. Beyond the absurdity of calling something the best of a genre it isn't even in, it's not even as good as a Ramones album. It's about on par with the best Green Day album, but Green Day isn't the peak of anything.
Fuck outta here with this jobber BS.
3
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Tue May 24 2022
Diamond Life
Sade
Better than expected. Smooth Operator is a banger
4
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Wed May 25 2022
The Modern Lovers
The Modern Lovers
Hard album to rate. In a vacuum, I would give it a 5 for being perfect at what it does, but when you compare it to other albums, I would say it rates below some of my high 4s. I suppose that makes it a 4 with the caveat that I don't think this album could have been made better. It is quintessential and perfect in its moment, but it is a "small" album. It doesn't have the ambition that would make it a 5 for me, great though it may be.
4
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Thu May 26 2022
Rapture
Anita Baker
It's okay. I can't really judge the album fully since Spotify omitted like three of the tracks, but I got the gist of it. After getting the Sade album two days ago, I realized that I kind of like this era of R&B before Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson ushered it into the 90s. This isn't on the level of the Sade album, but it's not bad.
3
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Fri May 27 2022
Want Two
Rufus Wainwright
He sounds like a less depressed but even more boring Thom Yorke.
2
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Sat May 28 2022
Play
Moby
I used to like this album a lot when I was a teenager, but I haven't listened to it in about 20 years. I don't really care to listen to it now, so I perused the big hits from the album to remind myself of what it sounded like.
There are some catchy pieces on here, some clever uses of samples, but the production is kinda flat and the beats are pretty dated. This feels very locked into an era of the late 90s that doesn't do it any favors. I listened to this alongside Fatboy Slim and Aphex Twin and The Crystal Method and Basement Jaxx and Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy, but this album is closer to Enigma. It somehow slipped into popular culture, but it's essentially new age music with samples.
The problem with this is that it's groundbreaking, but it's groundbreaking in an area that proved to have no real depth for innovation. In only a couple years this trend of 80-year-old samples would go from cool and fresh to novelty when entirely too chipper people would market electro-swing to people with no social skills.
Hey, remember when that vaguely grunge band Primitive Radio Gods became one hit wonders by sampling BB King on a song that sounds like nothing else in their catalog? Want to hear an entire album of that? Boy, have I got the album for you. Here is That One CD In Your Collection You and Your Mom Can Agree On So You Don't Have to Argue the Entire Car Ride to the Mall!
I wonder which version is the version on the list, the original, or the re-released one with Gwen Stefani's vocals plastered onto Southside. I don't care enough to look up the entry in the book.
3
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Sun May 29 2022
Medúlla
Björk
My favorite Bjork album. I feel like it's severely underrated by her fans.
3
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Mon May 30 2022
Hot Buttered Soul
Isaac Hayes
Fantastic album. The one thing this project has taught me is that I like soul way more than I thought I did.
4
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Tue May 31 2022
The Atomic Mr Basie
Count Basie & His Orchestra
I like a chunk of jazz from the swing era - Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Raymond Scott, some Louis Armstrong, some Cab Calloway... but this in particular sounds like something you would hear in an old folk's home. Time has not been kind to this.
2
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Wed Jun 01 2022
Hunky Dory
David Bowie
One of my favorite Bowie albums, but by no means perfect. There are a few dud songs on here that hold this album back, but it's loaded with high points. Do the bad songs (Kooks is godawful) mar the album enough to lower it from a five to a four? I gave Fleetwood Mac's Rumours a four because Don't Stop is terrible and ruins the flow of the album. It's also one of the big singles off the album and poorly represents it. Kooks is a throwaway deep cut... but it is goofy as all get out. Does that do enough to lower the quality of an album that gave us Changes, Queen Bitch, Life On Mars, The Bewlay Brothers, Andy Warhol, and Song for Bob Dylan? That's a tough one. Overall, Bowie is a significantly better artist than Fleetwood Mac. His catalog runs circles around theirs. Is the bass line on The Chain as good as the string swells on Life On Mars? Tough call. Really tough call.
On the flip side, I gave Blood On the Tracks and Blackstar fives, and those are not perfect albums either.
If you're reading this, you already know the rating I gave it, but as I write this, I'm still pondering it. It's one of the toughest albums I've had to rate up to this point. Go figure it's one of my all time favorite albums.
4
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Thu Jun 02 2022
Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix
The best Hendrix album. Are You Experienced? is great too, but a little played out IMO. I've never been a fan of Axis: Bold as Love personally. But Electricladyland is still fresh.
4
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Fri Jun 03 2022
25
Adele
This is not on my copy of the list, once again putting on full display the absurd turn around time for new albums getting tossed on the list and then relegated to the dustbin.
The single is a banger, but Adelle is a talent for making bangers. I've never bothered to give an album of hers a deep dive. Momcore isn't exactly a go-to genre for me, although I guess I'm glad there's someone out there not bad carrying the torch for Cher and Melissa Ethridge.
I'm about halfway through at this point and, unfortunately, the singles are carrying this album pretty hard.
Final verdict: A few standout moments but overall not essential.
3
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Sat Jun 04 2022
Led Zeppelin III
Led Zeppelin
3
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Sun Jun 05 2022
Let It Be
The Replacements
High three.
3
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Mon Jun 06 2022
Natty Dread
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Bob Marley is far from the worst reggae I've ever heard, but it is the most boring reggae I've ever heard. There's a lot of standout reggae from Toots Hibbert to Jimmy Cliff to the dub guys like King Tubby and Augustus Pablo to modern stuff like Buju Banton and Marley's own son, Damien "Jr. Gong." But outside of popularizing the genre, I fail to see what Marley deserves credit for. This is painfully average.
3
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Tue Jun 07 2022
Queen II
Queen
3
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Wed Jun 08 2022
Ananda Shankar
Ananda Shankar
3
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Thu Jun 09 2022
Homework
Daft Punk
Boring and overrated, but not absolute trash. There are some solid grooves on here. Maybe I just need some molly to appreciate it.
3
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Fri Jun 10 2022
Junkyard
The Birthday Party
3
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Sat Jun 11 2022
Heaven Or Las Vegas
Cocteau Twins
3
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Sun Jun 12 2022
Truth And Soul
Fishbone
This is not worth anybody's time.
2
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Mon Jun 13 2022
Live And Dangerous
Thin Lizzy
3
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Tue Jun 14 2022
Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys
5
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Wed Jun 15 2022
Station To Station
David Bowie
4
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Thu Jun 16 2022
Liege And Lief
Fairport Convention
3
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Fri Jun 17 2022
Vanishing Point
Primal Scream
This band is so ludicrously inconsistent. Every so often you'll hear something badass, and then you'll get a really dated-sounding canned drum loop. It meanders from wiffly Britpop to big beat to electropop without any sort of flow to it.
This is a band that could have benefited from a much better producer.
2
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Sat Jun 18 2022
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John
3
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Sun Jun 19 2022
The Man Machine
Kraftwerk
The Model is a mediocre song that drags this otherwise excellent album down a little bit. The krautrock era in Germany in the 70s was one of the high points for music in the 20th century, and Kraftwerk were one of the bands at the forefront. While I don't rank this album nearly as high as Autobahn, it's still absolutely fantastic.
4
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Mon Jun 20 2022
Your Arsenal
Morrissey
Well, this is surprisingly up tempo and un-morose for Morrissey. I choose to give all the credit to Mick Ronson. But I don't hate this.
3
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Tue Jun 21 2022
White Ladder
David Gray
Well, I thought that Babylon song was by Harry Nilsson and recorded in the 70s, so I guess that says something about the timelessness of the sound of this album.
3
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Wed Jun 22 2022
Another Music In A Different Kitchen
Buzzcocks
3
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Thu Jun 23 2022
Wild Is The Wind
Nina Simone
4
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Fri Jun 24 2022
Follow The Leader
Korn
Oh lord. This is one of those albums that really speak to the low quality of this list - this has no place on any self-respecting list of essential music. I say this as someone who listened to Korn in general and this album in particular a lot when I was in my early teens. I am intimately familiar with everything about this album. What pivotal role does it play? I could see arguments for the first Korn album, which has redeeming qualities. It was highly influential on metal and drastically changed the direction of music in the 90s. This? This is Korn reaching commercial success. But choosing this album over the first, you're signifying that the purpose of the list is to reference popularity over historical significance.
But casting aside the list's failings, is this a good album? No, not really. It doesn't really hold up. It's better than any Korn album that came after it, but it really showcases the band fitting their sound into a cookie cutter to crank out. While the self-titled debut actually felt like Jonathan Davis had things to say about childhood trauma, this feels too glossy, too produced, too manufactured by comparison. It's got a couple catchy singles, but it's also got an abysmally cringey Fred Durst guest appearance.
It's not the worst album ever. It (probably) doesn't deserve a 1. But this is a relic of a bygone era when angsty teen edgelords were a huge marketing demographic. What does this say to anyone now? Your dad really thought no one understood him? I would expect that the people who grew up with this album (those that don't work in gas stations or sell meth for a living) would be really embarrassed by this. Lord knows I am.
2
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Sat Jun 25 2022
Mermaid Avenue
Billy Bragg
Probably the most consistently good project both Wilco and Billy Bragg have been involved with.
3
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Sun Jun 26 2022
Stand!
Sly & The Family Stone
4
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Mon Jun 27 2022
The Message
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
3
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Tue Jun 28 2022
Rum Sodomy & The Lash
The Pogues
3
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Wed Jun 29 2022
Songs From A Room
Leonard Cohen
3
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Thu Jun 30 2022
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
The Kinks
3
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Fri Jul 01 2022
My Generation
The Who
3
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Sat Jul 02 2022
Horses
Patti Smith
5
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Sun Jul 03 2022
Can't Buy A Thrill
Steely Dan
God, this band took any sort of bite out of jazz when they shoved it into their soft rock snoozefest, paving the way for all the Kenny Gs of the world. Do It Again is a good song, but the rest of this album can fuck right off.
2
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Mon Jul 04 2022
A Short Album About Love
The Divine Comedy
Why?
2
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Tue Jul 05 2022
The White Album
Beatles
4
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Wed Jul 06 2022
Life's Too Good
The Sugarcubes
3
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Thu Jul 07 2022
São Paulo Confessions
Suba
3
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Fri Jul 08 2022
Out of Step
Minor Threat
3
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Sat Jul 09 2022
Licensed To Ill
Beastie Boys
Another tough one to rate. While this album doesn't hit the creative highs of later albums or show off the ambition the band is capable of, it is one of their most consistent albums.
5
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Sun Jul 10 2022
Bright Flight
Silver Jews
This somehow sounds bored and drunk at the same time, like an overtired child just making noise with its mouth because it doesn't want to go to sleep.
2
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Mon Jul 11 2022
Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney
3
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Tue Jul 12 2022
Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Lana Del Rey
Have you ever had Pirate's Booty? The little puffed corn snack food? You eat a handful of it, and you start to feel the flavor coming on and then it's gone. Like biting into a Cheetoh only to have it turn into nothing more than air. That's what this album is the equivalent of. It sounds like it's going to be something but then it's just air. Nothing there. Gone.
I hated her mumbly, just-ate-a-handful-of-Ambien cover of Doin' Time, but that's the only song of hers I can even point to and identify as a Lana Del Rey song. This album might as well be a green room that Lorde was in the night before after stopping at Taco Bell - the lingering ghost of a thousand farts from someone more memorable.
2
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Wed Jul 13 2022
Sister
Sonic Youth
3
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Thu Jul 14 2022
Tapestry
Carole King
3
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Fri Jul 15 2022
Melodrama
Lorde
Another weird choice, this album was definitely a bit of a sophomore slump for Lorde as it didn't really live up to Pure Heroine... an album that was decent but carried mostly by the strength of its singles. Still, this is more memorable than Lana Del Rey, as I noted in a recent review of hers.
There are a lot of these not-quite-art-pop-but-more-serious-than-bubblegum-pop pop artists who came out in the last decade and they all kinda hit that "eh, it's all right" note for me. In the 90s these singers would all be filed away under the "adult contemporary" label, so it's weird to me that the majority of them are aimed at teenage girls these days - I think Adele is the only one aimed squarely at the white wine and ice cream crowd. Maybe I'm just a boomer, but it's weird to me that what the kids are into is comparable to the blandest music of my generation.
3
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Sat Jul 16 2022
Odessey And Oracle
The Zombies
3
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Sun Jul 17 2022
Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane
3
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Mon Jul 18 2022
Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite
Maxwell
3
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Tue Jul 19 2022
Elvis Is Back
Elvis Presley
2
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Wed Jul 20 2022
Exit Planet Dust
The Chemical Brothers
3
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Thu Jul 21 2022
The Stooges
The Stooges
4
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Fri Jul 22 2022
Dare!
The Human League
This list really loves low-stakes 70s and 80s one hit wonders that are all but forgotten outside of classic rock radio stations that play on an endless loop in the workplace as bland, inoffensive background noise. Not. Fucking. Essential.
2
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Sat Jul 23 2022
To Pimp A Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar
3
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Sun Jul 24 2022
Third/Sister Lovers
Big Star
3
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Mon Jul 25 2022
The Poet
Bobby Womack
2
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Tue Jul 26 2022
Amnesiac
Radiohead
Low three.
3
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Wed Jul 27 2022
Mr. Tambourine Man
The Byrds
3
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Thu Jul 28 2022
Dr. Octagonecologyst
Dr. Octagon
3
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Fri Jul 29 2022
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Ray Charles
3
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Sat Jul 30 2022
The Dark Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd
Not my favorite album (or even my favorite Pink Floyd album), but I can't rate it anything less than five. It's just one of those albums that's perfectly executed. There isn't a single moment out of place on here.
5
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Sun Jul 31 2022
1989
Taylor Swift
Nah.
2
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Mon Aug 01 2022
Tigermilk
Belle & Sebastian
2
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Tue Aug 02 2022
Dig Your Own Hole
The Chemical Brothers
3
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Wed Aug 03 2022
GREY Area
Little Simz
So it seems like with newer printings of the book, some versions include more additions than others. Mine only has one new album per year after 2017 (and barely more than that for the previous years in the 2010s) and doesn't include this particular album. It's frustrating evaluating albums without entries for them, because I have no idea what made the authors find these albums essential when listening to them in a vacuum. While I often find the entries laughable, appalling, or eye-rolling, it does provide a starting point or context for some of their choices.
This is a fine album. Pleasant, acceptable, but pretty ordinary to my ear. I wouldn't mind hearing it again - and I want to give it a few more listens before I evaluate it on its own merits, but the nature of this project makes that difficult. I can't really sit with this album and let it marinate to see if it's a grower with deeper significance if I'm rushing off to the next album in 24 hours while also listening to all the music I would normally be listening to in that time span. At best, I can probably squeeze one more listen in to see if something jumps out at me.
This project - this exercise - has really highlighted the bizarre publishing habits of the authors. I know there are localized versions for non-English speaking countries, are there two separate volumes printed, one for Americans and one for the British as well? Why do we have contemporaneous versions in the same language? Why include more updates in one than the other? It makes the whole thing feel like a mish-mash with little thought put into what is actually essential listening and more a localized marketing gimmick to sell books. The absurd choices and flippant reasoning had already lowered my overall opinion of the series, but my general enthusiasm has almost completely given way to frustration. I continue to stick this out because I'm stubborn (plus sunk cost fallacy) and I'm a huge music nerd, but I feel like my time would be better suited doing almost anything else.
3
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Thu Aug 04 2022
Vespertine
Björk
3
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Fri Aug 05 2022
Brutal Youth
Elvis Costello
High three.
3
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Sat Aug 06 2022
Doolittle
Pixies
5
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Sun Aug 07 2022
Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Tortoise
Barely a three. I've always found Tortoise to be the most boring of the first wave post-rock bands. I much prefer Slint or Talk Talk.
3
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Mon Aug 08 2022
Survivor
Destiny's Child
3
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Tue Aug 09 2022
The Score
Fugees
Ready or Not is a terrible song. The rest of the album is fairly average.
3
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Wed Aug 10 2022
The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell
3
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Thu Aug 11 2022
Smash
The Offspring
Considering how bad this band got pretty quickly after this album, I would put it in the guilty pleasure category (alongside White Zombie before Rob went solo and turned himself into a meme). It's a decent album for mainstream punk - better than Green Day's Dookie, which was its even more accessible contemporary - but I don't want to admit liking it.
3
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Fri Aug 12 2022
Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Stereolab
Stereolab has always just felt like bland, watered down krautrock to me. It's not bad per se, it just lacks the adventurous spirit of krautrock - rather than going on a journey, you're going on a theme park replica of that journey.
3
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Sat Aug 13 2022
The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monáe
Sometimes brilliant, sometimes awkward and dorky, this album just barely squeaks into the four star slot. When it's on, it's one of the best R&B albums of the last 40 years. When it's not, Monae still has enough charisma to stick the landing with only mild turbulence.
4
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Sun Aug 14 2022
Rock Bottom
Robert Wyatt
3
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Mon Aug 15 2022
If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
The Mamas & The Papas
3
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Tue Aug 16 2022
White Blood Cells
The White Stripes
4
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Wed Aug 17 2022
Pink Flag
Wire
4
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Thu Aug 18 2022
The Next Day
David Bowie
What the actual fuck. There are eight David Bowie albums currently on the list, and this isn't one of them, but why was it ever on the list? Even before it was put in context as a speed bump on the road to Blackstar, this was already being viewed as a middling effort from Bowie; an awkward, bumbling step back into music after over a decade absence. Furthermore, there are a number of Bowie albums not on the list that should have been on before considering this one - The Man Who Sold the World, Diamond Dogs, Lodger, Outside, Earthling, and Heathen are all significantly better albums than this. Hell, I'd say Space Oddity, Scary Monsters, and Reality were all better than this too, and those were all pretty hit or miss. I'm a huge Bowie fan, and this was a terrible inclusion and is a mediocre album.
2
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Fri Aug 19 2022
Shaka Zulu
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
3
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Sat Aug 20 2022
Closer
Joy Division
4
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Sun Aug 21 2022
Ace of Spades
Motörhead
4
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Mon Aug 22 2022
Giant Steps
The Boo Radleys
3
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Tue Aug 23 2022
Winter In America
Gil Scott-Heron
4
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Wed Aug 24 2022
Surfer Rosa
Pixies
5
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Thu Aug 25 2022
I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Sinead O'Connor
One hit wonder who didn't even write her one hit... not a great track record. Not a terrible album, though.
3
View Album
Fri Aug 26 2022
I Should Coco
Supergrass
2
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Sat Aug 27 2022
Eagles
Eagles
Over the last five decades, we've made a lot of societal progress. We've recognized human rights for marginalized groups, developed language to describe differing experiences, and expanded communication on a global scale. We've also come to realize that the Eagles suck ass. By blending the instrumentation of rock with the crossover country singer-songwriter stylings of guys like John Denver, Jim Croce, and Gordon Lightfoot, the Eagles watered down both genres to audio diarrhea. Lacking the punch of the former or the songwriting chops of the latter, these guys produced music with all the personality of a faded denim jacket. It's pretty sad, because a number of members of this band have produced much better music in their solo careers. I guess they brought out the worst in each other.
2
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Sun Aug 28 2022
Freak Out!
The Mothers Of Invention
Early Zappa/Mothers output was a hairy, drooling, lumbering beast. I guess to some extent, all of Zappa's discography was a meandering cacophony, but there was a more honed edge to all the silliness once the band abandoned its hippie freak mockery and doo-wop parodying for something more akin to progressive rock and jazz fusion. Whatever loose narrative threads this album has, it doesn't hold a candle to Joe's Garage.
That being said, this sloppy mess is still better than probably 90% of the albums on this list.
3
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Mon Aug 29 2022
That's The Way Of The World
Earth, Wind & Fire
One of the big positives of this project has been introducing me to a lot of soul that I was only vaguely aware of before and have discovered to be fantastic. This isn't one of those albums. This is bland, uninteresting, easy listening dreck.
2
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Tue Aug 30 2022
Marquee Moon
Television
4
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Wed Aug 31 2022
American IV: The Man Comes Around
Johnny Cash
5
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Thu Sep 01 2022
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Oh lord, I was just thinking earlier today that sooner or later I would have to listen to one of this band's awful albums. I was spared for so long, but I guess I jinxed myself.
RHCP started off even more aggressively mediocre than the Foo Fighters and while FF were content to waste away in banality, RHCP got worse and worse and worse until they made U2 look good by comparison. RHCP have been self-parody for several decades now, but let's take a look at the album that launched them into popularity in the early 90s.
This is a sound that did not age well. Even much better bands who were playing around in a similar vein at the time like Faith No More came away much better after abandoning this late 80s/early 90s rap-rock/funk metal marriage. The best moments on this album is when they get away from this dated pastiche - Breaking the Girl stands out both in lyricism and its unique groove.
Ultimately, this isn't a terrible album. It isn't a 1. All of the band members outside of Anthony Keides are actually quite good, but they are hampered by playing in a dated style that went no where and being led by an idiot manchild whose songwriting became more and more derivative as time went on. If this album was an instrumental, I would rate it significantly higher... it would still have its flaws, but the musicianship would shine through a lot more and not feel so aggressively stereotypically California. As it stands, this comes off as a white Lenny Kravitz blatantly thieving from Prince with milquetoast, Cypress Hill-adjacent raps over some solid grooves with dated production.
2
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Fri Sep 02 2022
Imagine
John Lennon
3
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Sat Sep 03 2022
Bad
Michael Jackson
4
View Album
Sun Sep 04 2022
Unhalfbricking
Fairport Convention
3
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Mon Sep 05 2022
Leftism
Leftfield
Well, this is a pleasant surprise.
4
View Album
Tue Sep 06 2022
The Healer
John Lee Hooker
3
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Wed Sep 07 2022
When I Was Born For The 7th Time
Cornershop
3
View Album
Thu Sep 08 2022
Red Headed Stranger
Willie Nelson
4
View Album
Fri Sep 09 2022
With The Beatles
Beatles
3
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Sat Sep 10 2022
The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths
First of all, ba-dum-tsch, funny.
Second, I'm getting really sick of all these Morrissey albums that are throwing off my Spotify algorithm. The drums on the title track are good, but the rest of the album is standard Morrissey namby-pamby fare. Blah.
2
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Sun Sep 11 2022
Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso
3
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Mon Sep 12 2022
Something/Anything?
Todd Rundgren
3
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Tue Sep 13 2022
In The Wee Small Hours
Frank Sinatra
I don't get the lionization of Sinatra at all. This is absolute drudgery. Good album cover I guess?
2
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Wed Sep 14 2022
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Dead Kennedys
This is an album I've cooled on since my teenage years, but upon relisten and reflection, it's still a perfect punk album. I don't turn to this album the way that I did when I was 18, and I'm never going to return to it like I did then ever again, but I can't help but acknowledge its greatness. I might not want to eat cheesecake every day, but I can still acknowledge that it's delicious.
5
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Thu Sep 15 2022
Remedy
Basement Jaxx
3
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Fri Sep 16 2022
Tres Hombres
ZZ Top
2
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Sat Sep 17 2022
Black Holes and Revelations
Muse
Another post-2000 album that didn't survive long enough to stay on the current version of the list, which is fine. This should never have been on the list. Muse is butt rock masquerading as prog, it's arena garbage for people who think they are smart, it's pseudo-intellectual pap, it's music for people who think they are smarter than the room but never bother to enter rooms they know will challenge them. It's music for people who think it's clever to talk shit about NIckelback. It's an evolutionary stepping stone to Imagine Dragons. Burn it and bury it in a shallow grave.
2
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Sun Sep 18 2022
John Prine
John Prine
4
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Mon Sep 19 2022
Live At Leeds
The Who
3
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Tue Sep 20 2022
Violator
Depeche Mode
The most overplayed Depeche Mode album. Still good, though.
4
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Wed Sep 21 2022
Mothership Connection
Parliament
4
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Thu Sep 22 2022
Peggy Suicide
Julian Cope
2
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Fri Sep 23 2022
evermore
Taylor Swift
2
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Sat Sep 24 2022
Dust
Screaming Trees
3
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Sun Sep 25 2022
Born To Be With You
Dion
2
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Mon Sep 26 2022
Palo Congo
Sabu
3
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Tue Sep 27 2022
Forever Changes
Love
2
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Wed Sep 28 2022
Rain Dogs
Tom Waits
Five stars. One of the absolute best albums on the list.
5
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Thu Sep 29 2022
Infected
The The
2
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Fri Sep 30 2022
Bitte Orca
Dirty Projectors
Used to be a fan of this album, but I feel like it's a bit of a chore to listen to now and David Longstreath is a self-righteous prick.
3
View Album
Sat Oct 01 2022
KIWANUKA
Michael Kiwanuka
Fantastic surprise.
4
View Album
Sun Oct 02 2022
Live Through This
Hole
Garbage fire of a human being, pretty decent album.
3
View Album
Mon Oct 03 2022
Street Life
The Crusaders
Cheesy, but still kinda not bad?
3
View Album
Tue Oct 04 2022
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Beatles
4
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Wed Oct 05 2022
Lam Toro
Baaba Maal
2
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Thu Oct 06 2022
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Devo
4
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Fri Oct 07 2022
The Last Of The True Believers
Nanci Griffith
3
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Sat Oct 08 2022
Africa Brasil
Jorge Ben Jor
After the first two tracks, I almost called this a snap four star album. The subsequent tracks dipped a bit, lowering the overall album to a high three, but they were still very good, and the album is overall still very enjoyable.
3
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Sun Oct 09 2022
Truth
Jeff Beck
Fuck, it's a Rod Stewart album in disguise. At least he isn't in the driver's seat, but you still have to put up with his "aunt with a two pack a day habit" vocals.
2
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Mon Oct 10 2022
Real Life
Magazine
3
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Tue Oct 11 2022
Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
The weakest of the three studio Hendrix albums. It's still good, but I don't know if it's a radical enough departure from the other two to require inclusion? This list suffers from an inability to kill its darlings, and while the three Hendrix albums aren't as egregious as the over-representation that some artists have on the list - Costello and Bowie are easy targets - there's more eclecticism in those discographies. Is this essential? I would argue no.
3
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Wed Oct 12 2022
Vulgar Display Of Power
Pantera
Sepultura were the superior groove metal band, and as an added bonus, their legacy wasn't tarnished with redneckery and cryptoracism.
2
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Thu Oct 13 2022
Head Hunters
Herbie Hancock
I've never been a huge fan of this album, but I have to admit that it's grown on me a bit. I used to find it dull and vaguely corny, whereas now I think it's all right, but head-scratchingly overrated. There are some decent grooves on here, but there's also some really obnoxious timbre choices. There are a lot of recordings from this era that come across livelier and more exciting. I'm assuming I lack the historical context to appreciate this album for what it was at the time, but I guess that means that it didn't hold up to the test of time as far as I'm concerned. It's all right, no great shakes. Moving on.
3
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Fri Oct 14 2022
Neon Bible
Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire fall at the center of a Venn diagram with many overlapping circles: "mediocre," "bland," "arrogant," "wearing their influences on their sleeves," "worshipping other mediocre artists." They really embodied a lot of the worst elements of mid-2000s indie rock scene. They didn't hit the lows of Foster the People or Mumford and Sons, but short of being industry plants like those garbage factories, they were pretty miserable. This is another album that has been scrubbed from my version of the list, so I don't know the authors' justification for including it, but judging from the entry they wrote about Funeral, it wouldn't be the sort of inspirational write-up that would make me reconsider my dismissal of this dreck. Listening to this is a chore.
2
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Sat Oct 15 2022
Bossanova
Pixies
It's really telling when the entry for this album on the list spends most of its time talking about how it doesn't live up to their earlier work and the cracks were forming.
3
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Sun Oct 16 2022
Something Else By The Kinks
The Kinks
3
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Mon Oct 17 2022
L.A. Woman
The Doors
The Doors are one of the dad rock bands whose legacy has aged the worst - while they share the blame for influenced hair metal with Led Zeppelin, they offer in place of muscular guitar riffs the cheesy timbre of electric organ, dunderheaded mysticism, and sweaty self-importance. Jim Morrison's mysterious death doesn't really hold sway the way it once dead since we've gone through whole generations of Kurt Cobains and Elliott Smiths since then. In a world of consequence, the bad boy swagger Morrison had is no longer really held in reverence. It's just Vegas lounge lizard chicanery speckled with dried flecks of peyote vomit.
2
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Tue Oct 18 2022
Lady Soul
Aretha Franklin
4
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Wed Oct 19 2022
Teenager Of The Year
Frank Black
3
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Thu Oct 20 2022
Raw Like Sushi
Neneh Cherry
This is a horribly dated album. On top of that, the list's entry for it namedrops her stepfather, Don Cherry, despite not having a single album by him or his bandleader, Ornette Coleman, on the list. What is this garbage? Why isn't there a single album from the founder of free jazz but there's this dated, obnoxious, late-80s rap album from one of his bandmembers' step daughter? Can we get someone who knows something about music to curate this stupid list?
2
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Fri Oct 21 2022
Crazysexycool
TLC
Some terrible skits hold back a pretty great pop/r&b album
3
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Sat Oct 22 2022
This Is Fats Domino
Fats Domino
3
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Sun Oct 23 2022
In Rainbows
Radiohead
Pretty middle of the road for Radiohead with a few standout moments.
3
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Mon Oct 24 2022
Safe As Milk
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Absolutely fantastic album. Five stars. Gets a pretty regular rotation from me.
5
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Tue Oct 25 2022
Morrison Hotel
The Doors
Overall a better album than L.A. Woman, but The Doors are still a heavily overrated band.
3
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Wed Oct 26 2022
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
While Nebraska eschews some of the cheesy trappings of later Springsteen - the horns, the over-production - it doesn't completely avoid all of the stylistic missteps of his sound. The characteristic dusty, breathy vocal style that would define a whole generation of singer-songwriters, not just Springsteen - but also Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, John Mellencamp, and even Tom Waits at some of his more saccharine moments and the overly serious small-town troubadour songwriting style are still there. As a standalone album, it's one of the strongest of Springsteen's career, but I can't get back the overall flaws of his sound to see him as anything more than bland momrock. While he's across the board a better songwriter than Bob Seger, he loses when it comes to production choices, hook writing, and general timbre - and Bob Seger is not a highwater mark.
2
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Thu Oct 27 2022
Little Earthquakes
Tori Amos
It's good, but From the Choirgirl Hotel is the album that should represent Tori Amos's discography on an essentials list.
3
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Fri Oct 28 2022
Kings Of The Wild Frontier
Adam & The Ants
I wasn't expecting the You're So Physical band to sound like analog Animal Collective.
3
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Sat Oct 29 2022
Halcyon Digest
Deerhunter
Please no more bland indie
2
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Sun Oct 30 2022
Headquarters
The Monkees
A perfect example of an older album that should be cut to make room for newer releases. The album The Monkees wrote themselves because they wanted to be taken seriously as musicians? So?
2
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Mon Oct 31 2022
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Mudhoney
4
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Tue Nov 01 2022
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
I just got generated Mudhoney's excellent Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge only to find its global ranking to be under three. I fully expect this album, like every Zep album, to be a high three or perhaps a four on the global ranking. I honestly find this absurd. I can't believe any thought goes into the lionization of Led Zeppelin's catalog. It really feels like an emperor's new clothes situation to me.
I haven't heard a single Zep album as good as Mudhoney's Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.
2
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Wed Nov 02 2022
Marcus Garvey
Burning Spear
3
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Thu Nov 03 2022
American Idiot
Green Day
Having heard this album plenty of times already, I'll pass on listening to it again... forever.
3
View Album
Fri Nov 04 2022
Cafe Bleu
The Style Council
What even is this? This sounds like Nurse With Wound's Huffin' Rag Blues, but minus all the experimentation and humor. It's just a cavalcade of jazz vomit. Nothing sounds terrible, but it's like AI-generated art. The closer you look at it, the more it just reveals itself to be nothing.
3
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Sat Nov 05 2022
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
4
View Album
Sun Nov 06 2022
Public Image: First Issue
Public Image Ltd.
4
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Mon Nov 07 2022
A Date With The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers
I got excited when I saw this album generated, but then I realized I got the Everly Brothers mixed up with the Righteous Brothers, and then my excitement faded.
2
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Tue Nov 08 2022
Kid A
Radiohead
4
View Album
Wed Nov 09 2022
Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
No one needs to hear this. This is just knockoff Robin Hitchcock.
2
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Thu Nov 10 2022
The Lexicon Of Love
ABC
3
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Fri Nov 11 2022
Heaux Tales
Jazmine Sullivan
3
View Album
Sat Nov 12 2022
A Girl Called Dusty
Dusty Springfield
4
View Album
Sun Nov 13 2022
Fisherman's Blues
The Waterboys
3
View Album
Mon Nov 14 2022
Liquid Swords
GZA
An album so good that I'm sure it won't crack 3.0.
4
View Album
Tue Nov 15 2022
Moon Safari
Air
3
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Wed Nov 16 2022
Music From Big Pink
The Band
3
View Album
Thu Nov 17 2022
Talking Heads 77
Talking Heads
Kind of a boring album from a band that would release three nearly perfect to perfect albums later in their career. This is pretty much carried by Psycho Killer, but it's still worthwhile to hear the origins of one of the best bands of the 80s.
2
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Fri Nov 18 2022
Fear and Whiskey
Mekons
2
View Album
Sat Nov 19 2022
All Mod Cons
The Jam
How many boring Paul Weller albums are on this damn thing?
2
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Sun Nov 20 2022
The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
Are you fucking kidding me? Arcade Fire is boring garbage. I'm so sick of getting generated two star albums.
2
View Album
Mon Nov 21 2022
A Walk Across The Rooftops
The Blue Nile
You cannot convince me that this isn't another Paul Weller project.
2
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Tue Nov 22 2022
Risque
CHIC
2
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Wed Nov 23 2022
From Elvis In Memphis
Elvis Presley
2
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Thu Nov 24 2022
The Gilded Palace Of Sin
The Flying Burrito Brothers
After the run of 2's this list has given me this past week, this low 3 sounds like a goddam masterpiece.
3
View Album
Fri Nov 25 2022
Emergency On Planet Earth
Jamiroquai
Do I really have to listen to a neo-funk album from that white band led by the lame guy in the cheesy hat? How is this one of the 1001 most essential albums of all time? Have these people listened to music? There is music out there. Music worth listening to. Music that isn't this. No one goes to a garbage dump and reviews the mounds of trash. This is absurd. No one passes off rotting meat as culinary greatness. Who compiled this? Who conceived of this? Who thought this garbage was noteworthy? Not music fans. Not people who spend time listening to music outside the top 40. Not people who have listened to thousands of artists and tens of thousands of albums. This is essential to people who think Dave Mathews is impressive.
Is this terrible? No. Is this noteworthy? Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, fuck no.
2
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Sat Nov 26 2022
Pornography
The Cure
4
View Album
Sun Nov 27 2022
The Who Sell Out
The Who
As great as The Who are, they have major a problem with filler, and this album is one of the worst examples of it.
2
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Mon Nov 28 2022
Golden Hour
Kacey Musgraves
Ha! No. Somewhat pleasant but forgettable low three.
3
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Tue Nov 29 2022
Country Life
Roxy Music
Probably the most iconic Roxy Music cover art, but as far as the music goes, it lacks the highlights many of the other albums have. It's good - Roxy Music has a certain level of quality - but it's not one of the band's best.
3
View Album
Wed Nov 30 2022
Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3
View Album
Thu Dec 01 2022
Sheer Heart Attack
Queen
3
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Fri Dec 02 2022
Protection
Massive Attack
3
View Album
Mon Dec 05 2022
Power In Numbers
Jurassic 5
Chali 2na has one of the best voices in hip-hop, but this is overall pretty unexciting.
3
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Tue Dec 06 2022
Ragged Glory
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3
View Album
Wed Dec 07 2022
Yank Crime
Drive Like Jehu
4
View Album
Thu Dec 08 2022
Slipknot
Slipknot
Slipknot blew up when I was already outgrowing my nu-metal phase, so my exposure to them was entirely through their radio singles and edgy imagery. Blending Korn's angst with Manson's shock rock and ratcheting up the white trash didn't do it for me then, and it doesn't do it for me now. It's not the worst album from this era on this list, but it doesn't deserve to be on this list over a Deftones album.
2
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Fri Dec 09 2022
Soul Mining
The The
2
View Album
Sat Dec 10 2022
Blue
Joni Mitchell
3
View Album
Sun Dec 11 2022
Copper Blue
Sugar
3
View Album
Mon Dec 12 2022
Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth
3
View Album
Tue Dec 13 2022
Let's Get It On
Marvin Gaye
3
View Album
Wed Dec 14 2022
Cross
Justice
3
View Album
Thu Dec 15 2022
Lust For Life
Iggy Pop
4
View Album
Fri Dec 16 2022
Black Metal
Venom
3
View Album
Sat Dec 17 2022
Low
David Bowie
One of the greatest albums ever recorded, period. (Be My Wife is a lame track, but otherwise... perfection.)
5
View Album
Sun Dec 18 2022
Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses
3
View Album
Mon Dec 19 2022
Pink Moon
Nick Drake
A little too sleepy IMO, but not unpleasant.
3
View Album
Tue Dec 20 2022
Sound Affects
The Jam
This is so far the best Paul Weller project this list has forced on me, and it's still pretty meh. It's like a mix of an Elvis Costello who is a worse songwriter with an XTC that has less interesting instrumentation.
2
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Wed Dec 21 2022
If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle & Sebastian
2
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Thu Dec 22 2022
Devil Without A Cause
Kid Rock
Arguably the worst album on the list. I've spent a lot of time questioning the legitimacy of this list based on some of the inclusions, omissions, and the general approach to updating the list, but this album goes beyond pretty much every other questionable choice to such a degree that it feels like self-parody. The cultural impact of this album is only negative.
1
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Fri Dec 23 2022
Elastica
Elastica
There's a couple solid riffs on this album, but it's mostly unmemorable, and I can't help but wonder if it's in part because of the production, which softens and muffles everything. This is an album that would benefit from sharp edges and crunchy textures, but there's this gentle reverb on everything that mushes everything together. It feels like they tried to hard to make it radio palatable and by doing so, made it sound like something that wouldn't stand out on the radio.
3
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Sat Dec 24 2022
Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
PJ Harvey
3
View Album
Sun Dec 25 2022
Rhythm Nation 1814
Janet Jackson
3
View Album
Mon Dec 26 2022
Tubular Bells
Mike Oldfield
4
View Album
Tue Dec 27 2022
Fun House
The Stooges
4
View Album
Wed Dec 28 2022
My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Brian Eno
3
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Thu Dec 29 2022
Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
Dexys Midnight Runners
What is up with this list giving multiple listings to one hit wonder bands? These guys should not have three slots when the only song by them anyone knows is Come On Eileen. Hell, that one song doesn't earn a whole slot by itself. This is pretty blah.
2
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Fri Dec 30 2022
Who's Next
The Who
4
View Album
Sat Dec 31 2022
Moondance
Van Morrison
3
View Album
Sun Jan 01 2023
Jazz Samba
Stan Getz
4
View Album
Mon Jan 02 2023
Tragic Songs of Life
The Louvin Brothers
3
View Album
Tue Jan 03 2023
Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart is awful, boomers.
1
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Wed Jan 04 2023
The Sensual World
Kate Bush
3
View Album
Thu Jan 05 2023
Pelican West
Haircut 100
3
View Album
Fri Jan 06 2023
All Things Must Pass
George Harrison
3
View Album
Sat Jan 07 2023
Odelay
Beck
5
View Album
Sun Jan 08 2023
Tago Mago
Can
4
View Album
Mon Jan 09 2023
The Slim Shady LP
Eminem
3
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Tue Jan 10 2023
(Pronounced 'Leh-'Nérd 'Skin-'Nérd)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
3
View Album
Wed Jan 11 2023
The Genius Of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
3
View Album
Thu Jan 12 2023
Greetings From L.A.
Tim Buckley
3
View Album
Fri Jan 13 2023
Ingenue
k.d. lang
3
View Album
Sat Jan 14 2023
Aqualung
Jethro Tull
5
View Album
Sun Jan 15 2023
Straight Outta Compton
N.W.A.
3
View Album
Mon Jan 16 2023
Maggot Brain
Funkadelic
4
View Album
Tue Jan 17 2023
Let England Shake
PJ Harvey
3
View Album
Wed Jan 18 2023
Shadowland
k.d. lang
3
View Album
Thu Jan 19 2023
Vento De Maio
Elis Regina
3
View Album
Fri Jan 20 2023
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Eurythmics
3
View Album
Sat Jan 21 2023
Slippery When Wet
Bon Jovi
2
View Album
Sun Jan 22 2023
Juju
Siouxsie And The Banshees
3
View Album
Mon Jan 23 2023
Warehouse: Songs And Stories
Hüsker Dü
Whoever put this in over Zen Arcade is a fucking idiot.
3
View Album
Tue Jan 24 2023
Figure 8
Elliott Smith
Much better than the other Elliott Smith album on here, but way too long.
3
View Album
Wed Jan 25 2023
Born In The U.S.A.
Bruce Springsteen
3
View Album
Thu Jan 26 2023
New Wave
The Auteurs
2
View Album
Fri Jan 27 2023
Whatever
Aimee Mann
2
View Album
Sat Jan 28 2023
Synchronicity
The Police
2
View Album
Sun Jan 29 2023
Rocks
Aerosmith
1
View Album
Mon Jan 30 2023
Paul Simon
Paul Simon
3
View Album
Tue Jan 31 2023
Machine Gun Etiquette
The Damned
3
View Album
Wed Feb 01 2023
Document
R.E.M.
I'm kind of shocked I didn't hate this. The singles are overplayed garbo, but there are a couple of decent deep cuts on here that make up for them.
3
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Thu Feb 02 2023
Arc Of A Diver
Steve Winwood
Traffic pleasantly surprised me. This... this is horrible. Tepid arrangements and ugly synth pads make this yet another embarrassing entry in this shoddy list.
1
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Fri Feb 03 2023
1984
Van Halen
The only thing worse than cheesy butt rock wankery is cheesy butt rock wankery with cheesier synths.
1
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Sat Feb 04 2023
Chirping Crickets
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
3
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Sun Feb 05 2023
Murder Ballads
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
I always found this album to be kind of overrated and unnecessarily vulgar compared to Tender Prey, Henry's Dream and Let Love In. It has some absolute bangers, that goes without saying, but I would put it slightly lower than some of the other greats from this era. It also reduced Cave's songwriting to be kind of one note with every song being about the same subject matter. Good album, but not top tier Cave.
3
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Mon Feb 06 2023
Odessa
Bee Gees
Why?
2
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Tue Feb 07 2023
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
4
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Wed Feb 08 2023
I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail
Buck Owens
3
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Thu Feb 09 2023
Beach Samba
Astrud Gilberto
3
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Fri Feb 10 2023
Beautiful Freak
Eels
Another bizarre choice - why this album over the far superior Electro-Shock Blues? It's not bad, but it's not the one.
3
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Sat Feb 11 2023
Faith
George Michael
George Michael is basically the low rent Prince, but even the low rent Prince isn't that bad. I wouldn't seek this album out, but I don't hate it.
3
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Sun Feb 12 2023
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
3
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Mon Feb 13 2023
Be
Common
3
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Tue Feb 14 2023
In A Silent Way
Miles Davis
4
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Wed Feb 15 2023
A Hard Day's Night
Beatles
3
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Thu Feb 16 2023
London Calling
The Clash
4
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Fri Feb 17 2023
System Of A Down
System Of A Down
4
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Sat Feb 18 2023
Court And Spark
Joni Mitchell
3
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Sun Feb 19 2023
Sex Packets
Digital Underground
This has aged painfully.
1
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Mon Feb 20 2023
461 Ocean Boulevard
Eric Clapton
Clapton's musical career was a steady decline from the highs of Cream. This album, like the rest of his solo discography, is tepid and boring.
2
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Tue Feb 21 2023
Bat Out Of Hell
Meat Loaf
Do the authors of this list feel that every random album to make a blip on the radar of pop culture deserves mention? This cheesed out dweeb rock is so bad.
2
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Wed Feb 22 2023
Kick Out The Jams (Live)
MC5
4
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Thu Feb 23 2023
Drunk
Thundercat
2
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Fri Feb 24 2023
Shalimar
Rahul Dev Burman
3
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Sat Feb 25 2023
Remain In Light
Talking Heads
5
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Sun Feb 26 2023
The Nightfly
Donald Fagen
1
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Mon Feb 27 2023
Tanto Tempo
Bebel Gilberto
3
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Tue Feb 28 2023
Automatic For The People
R.E.M.
2
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Wed Mar 01 2023
Music Has The Right To Children
Boards of Canada
3
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Thu Mar 02 2023
The Yes Album
Yes
4
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Fri Mar 03 2023
This Is Hardcore
Pulp
3
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Sat Mar 04 2023
Are You Experienced
Jimi Hendrix
5
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Sun Mar 05 2023
Blood And Chocolate
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Costello's best album.
5
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Mon Mar 06 2023
Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers
1
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Tue Mar 07 2023
Goo
Sonic Youth
3
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Wed Mar 08 2023
Smokers Delight
Nightmares On Wax
3
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Thu Mar 09 2023
Ellington at Newport
Duke Ellington
3
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Fri Mar 10 2023
One World
John Martyn
3
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Sat Mar 11 2023
Le Tigre
Le Tigre
3
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Sun Mar 12 2023
Vincebus Eruptum
Blue Cheer
3
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Mon Mar 13 2023
O.G. Original Gangster
Ice T
3
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Tue Mar 14 2023
Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson
4
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Wed Mar 15 2023
Ctrl
SZA
2
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Thu Mar 16 2023
Chris
Christine and the Queens
2
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Fri Mar 17 2023
Teen Dream
Beach House
2
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Sat Mar 18 2023
A Night At The Opera
Queen
How do you rate an album that has one incredibly great song and a series of painfully cheesy deep cuts emulating some sort of Vaudeville style that was never not a misstep?
3
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Sun Mar 19 2023
Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
Limp Bizkit
Ugh. Another album I haven't listened to since I was like 15, but unlike Kid Rock, I felt like I owed it a refresher since Wes Borland's Big Dumb Face side project has a really good album under its belt.
It's kind of amazing how little charisma Fred Durst has. "Aggressive bro whining" really shouldn't be a thing that exists. While Kid Rock swims in a cesspit that matches his tobacco spit personality, Durst lowers the quality of some mid-tier grooves that could have otherwise been saved with a better frontman and some better production.
1
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Mon Mar 20 2023
Fire Of Love
The Gun Club
3
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Tue Mar 21 2023
Close To The Edge
Yes
4
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Wed Mar 22 2023
The Man Who
Travis
So boring it makes Coldplay sound exciting.
1
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Thu Mar 23 2023
Dire Straits
Dire Straits
3
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Fri Mar 24 2023
Green Onions
Booker T. & The MG's
Is this the music they play during intermissions in AM radio broadcasts of baseball games?
2
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Sat Mar 25 2023
A Seat at the Table
Solange
3
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Sun Mar 26 2023
Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths
2
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Mon Mar 27 2023
Funeral
Arcade Fire
2
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Tue Mar 28 2023
The Fat Of The Land
The Prodigy
A little dated, and not as good overall as Jilted Generation but it's got some bops.
3
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Wed Mar 29 2023
Alien Lanes
Guided By Voices
3
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Thu Mar 30 2023
Roots
Sepultura
The metal choices on this list all feel like the contributors haven't listened to a metal album in 25 years. It has big "how do you do, fellow kids" energy.
This album, though, is one of the best metal albums to grace this list. Unlike the hordes of painfully obvious inclusions, dated choices, and household names, this album continues to hold up. Five stars.
5
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Fri Mar 31 2023
Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
Not bad, but I prefer Robyn Hitchcock's solo stuff.
3
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Sat Apr 01 2023
good kid, m.A.A.d city
Kendrick Lamar
3
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Sun Apr 02 2023
OK
Talvin Singh
2
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Mon Apr 03 2023
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Soft Cell
3
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Tue Apr 04 2023
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
David Bowie
5
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Wed Apr 05 2023
Quiet Life
Japan
3
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Thu Apr 06 2023
You're Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr.
3
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Fri Apr 07 2023
The Holy Bible
Manic Street Preachers
3
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Sat Apr 08 2023
Frampton Comes Alive
Peter Frampton
1
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Sun Apr 09 2023
Happy Sad
Tim Buckley
3
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Mon Apr 10 2023
The Seldom Seen Kid
Elbow
3
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Tue Apr 11 2023
3 Feet High and Rising
De La Soul
4
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Wed Apr 12 2023
Tarkus
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
3
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Thu Apr 13 2023
Microshift
Hookworms
3
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Fri Apr 14 2023
Moving Pictures
Rush
3
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Sat Apr 15 2023
The Joshua Tree
U2
3
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Sun Apr 16 2023
Purple Rain
Prince
5
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Mon Apr 17 2023
Scum
Napalm Death
3
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Tue Apr 18 2023
Crime Of The Century
Supertramp
3
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Wed Apr 19 2023
Paranoid
Black Sabbath
5
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Thu Apr 20 2023
They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Liars
3
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Fri Apr 21 2023
Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine
3
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Sat Apr 22 2023
Illmatic
Nas
5
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Sun Apr 23 2023
War
U2
3
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Mon Apr 24 2023
Seventh Tree
Goldfrapp
3
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Tue Apr 25 2023
Hearts And Bones
Paul Simon
2
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Wed Apr 26 2023
Germfree Adolescents
X-Ray Spex
4
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Thu Apr 27 2023
McCartney
Paul McCartney
3
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Fri Apr 28 2023
Reggatta De Blanc
The Police
2
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Sat Apr 29 2023
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
3
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Sun Apr 30 2023
Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Country Joe & The Fish
3
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Mon May 01 2023
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams
2
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Tue May 02 2023
We're Only In It For The Money
The Mothers Of Invention
3
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Wed May 03 2023
2112
Rush
4
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Thu May 04 2023
Clandestino
Manu Chao
3
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Fri May 05 2023
The Colour Of Spring
Talk Talk
4
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Sat May 06 2023
Oxygène
Jean-Michel Jarre
4
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Sun May 07 2023
Cut
The Slits
4
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Mon May 08 2023
Pyromania
Def Leppard
1
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Tue May 09 2023
The Hour Of Bewilderbeast
Badly Drawn Boy
2
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Wed May 10 2023
In Our Heads
Hot Chip
2
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Thu May 11 2023
21
Adele
3
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Fri May 12 2023
Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
50 Cent
2
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Sat May 13 2023
New York Dolls
New York Dolls
3
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Sun May 14 2023
Opus Dei
Laibach
4
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Mon May 15 2023
Live / Dead
Grateful Dead
2
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Tue May 16 2023
The Bones Of What You Believe
CHVRCHES
3
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Wed May 17 2023
Killing Joke
Killing Joke
4
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Thu May 18 2023
Before And After Science
Brian Eno
4
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Fri May 19 2023
American Beauty
Grateful Dead
3
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Sat May 20 2023
Cheap Thrills
Big Brother & The Holding Company
4
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Sun May 21 2023
New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Simple Minds
3
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Mon May 22 2023
1977
Ash
3
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Tue May 23 2023
Entertainment
Gang Of Four
3
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Wed May 24 2023
Talking Book
Stevie Wonder
4
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Thu May 25 2023
Floodland
Sisters Of Mercy
4
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Fri May 26 2023
A Love Supreme
John Coltrane
4
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Sat May 27 2023
Hotel California
Eagles
2